Power hungry creative professionals must drink from “Coffee Lake.” That watering hole is the name for the Intel i9 processor which was introduced earlier this month. Apple has not been publicly open about what’s under the hood of their new high-end 15” MacBook Pro model. We have a long list of things to press our Apple colleagues about, but the people who back wire technology say the i9 is at the heart of the new best-of-brand Apple laptop. Why does a creative professional need to know the technical specifics of what Apple is selling and HP has announced that they have in the works? For the most part, he/she just needs to do great work. However, knowledge will always be power. And, unless you know what’s happening with your hardware needs, you’re somewhat powerless: a bad (and often irresponsible) place to be. We tend to think of Apple, Canon, Cisco, Epson, HP, Nikon, Sony, Wacom, Yamaha, etc. as these big suppliers of cool creative hardware essentials, which drive the foundation of the tools we need. However, they are dependent on their suppliers, just as we are. So far, our laptops have been stuck with a lousy 16 GB of RAM. It’s like being 6 feet tall and working in an office with a ceiling height of 4’ 11”. You’re always bumping your head. (“OUCH!”) This new Intel processor permits 32 GB of RAM. Now your office’s ceiling height is 9’ 0”. Stand tall. Be confident. Who needs an Apple laptop with a lake full of coffee? You’re editing a film in Adobe Premier Pro, while on a plane. The Monitor panels now run smoothly, for a change. How about creating a massive Adobe Photoshop mural for the lobby of a hotel, while sitting in the hotel, which is under construction? You have the power to swiftly scroll through a big visual and see how it will hang in a space. Then there’s working on a huge landscape technical drawing, in Adobe Illustrator, while being the passenger in a car in between meetings about that project. If you’re painting with the bristle brush tool, Ai doesn’t hang like it does with less power. All of the above also supports the need for 4 terabytes of maximum solid state storage. And, yes, we can name many, many other needs. The important point is that the new MacBook Pro is a battery-based, high-end professional workstation, that you can take pretty much anywhere. Even if you have big power, back at the studio, now you have big mobile power, too. As with the iMac Pro, Apple has once again done away with the contention that, “Apple doesn’t care about the creative professional.” when it comes to the laptop. And, Adobe Creative Cloud power subscribers know they can take their biggest projects with them, wherever they go. Plus, when Apple has accomplished something for macOS users, we know HP will not be far behind in doing something similar, for their Windows 10 users, on a low profile, light-weight, metal encased, high resolution platform.
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