The word “Pro” has lost all its meaning, and Apple knows it

Apple has a “Pro” problem – while some products with the label are clearly meant for it forefrontProfessional use (like Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Mac Pro), and years of Apple and competitors putting the name on wireless earbuds and more luxurious phones have made it hard to tell what “Pro” means. Which is why my ears rebound when I used an Apple file Different word to describe her new computer And the observer Which clearly targeted its audience of creative professionals: “Studio”. I wondered if I was witnessing the start of a new Apple brand.

From the jump, Apple explained who the Mac Studio and Studio Display are. Show them the use of musicians, 3D artists, and developers in her showAnd the message was clear: These are products for creative professionals or people who aspire to be creative professionals. you know the Exactly the same crowd It’s a target MacBook Pro commercials for years.

Jonathan Balck, co-founder and managing director of advertising agency Colossus, said in an interview with the edge. “Pro was exclusive, and it was about one way of doing things, but the whole culture is geared towards creativity,” he adds as he ponders whether we can see the Apple brand turning Pro into the Studio brand instead.

I can hear people asking, “Isn’t it too early to speculate, given that we’ve only seen two producers?” It’s a very fair question. But it definitely seems like a first step – to me, the Mac Studio line is a clear successor to iMac Pro from Apple. Both devices are powered by monster CPUs and come standard with 10 Gigabit Ethernet and a healthy crop of Thunderbolt and USB ports. I’m convinced that if Apple released the new studio even two years ago, they would have put “Pro” in the name. (Though, to play the devil’s advocate, I’m not sure she would have done that for him studio view.)

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Some marketing experts tell me that the word “Pro” is getting old, and not just from overuse. “The former term Pro, in my opinion, is old and dry,” says Keith Dorsey, founder and CEO of creative marketing group and management company YoungGuns Entertainment.

agree with you; “If you look at the word Pro, it is limiting in many ways,” he says in an interview, explaining that when you say a product is “professional,” it conjures up ideas like job interviews, portfolios, and attitude. He says professional products are only shown to those who use creativity to get paid.

In contrast, I’ve heard a lot about the word “Studio” which is great considering Apple’s target audience. “Apple has always been about empowering the creative class, and the studio invokes that and has only positive connotations. Music studio. Design studio. Photography studio. It’s an idea we’re giving away,” says Matt Talbot, chief creative officer of ad agency WorkInProgress, in an email. Romanticism.” “Apple has always been a club you wanted to be part of.” Buying a product called “Studio” can help you feel part of the Apple club and the creators club that many people aspire to join, he suggests.

Michael Janic, co-founder of the agency Pattern Design, puts it another way — “It definitely evokes a certain kind of vibe and environment in which creative work takes place,” he says in an email. “To me, the intent of using the term seems to be to send a cultural signal to current and potential customers.” Balck says he conjures up the image of a studio where people can come together and collaborate on projects, not necessarily for money but for a creative impulse. (It’s not that far off from how Apple is presented Its stores are in Town Square..)

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Microsoft 2018 Surface Studio 2.
Photography by James Parham/The Verge

Which, of course, is why this isn’t the first time we’ve seen companies use the word “studio” to market similar products. Apple actually reused the Studio Display name from a handful of monitors sold in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but just about every Windows PC manufacturer has recently tapped into that word: Scanner And the Lenovo It created “studio” versions of some laptop models, and HP has its own ZBook Studio fontAsus has an incredible name ProArt StudioBook. So that Nvidia has all “Studio” program who – which Authenticates computers From the likes of Dell, HP, Maingear, MSI, and just about every PC maker that wants to attract creators who have a little money to spend.

The real elephant in the studio might be Microsoft – it’s Surface Studio desktop Marketed directly to artists, it folds into a giant drawing tablet. has now Surface Laptop studio, is very. Not all of these products were successful, but what is important is that Apple is a famous record.

However, the reason Apple may need it is that it has led the industry to overuse the word “Pro” to the point where it has lost all of its meaning. It’s hard to say exactly where this started (although in my opinion it was with MacBook Pro Dual Port Model), but now the word is slapped on everything. Do you want to sell your wireless earbuds for more money? These are the Pro earbuds now. Would you like to have a regular and a luxury version of your phone? All right, let’s call the professional.

Quote from my colleague Chaim Gartenberg in His article on what it means to be a phone professional:

For the most part, for both Apple and the rest of the world, the label “pro” doesn’t mean the devices are meant to focus “professional.” It’s a marketing shorthand for “better,” just in the same way that “plus” has apparently become the term for streaming service of choice or “lite” refers to a less feature-packed version of an app or device.

But since Apple also makes quite a few truly professional products, there’s always a bit of confusion. Seeing the word Pro on an Apple product could mean it’s an expandable PC It can accommodate 1.5 TB of RAM. Or it could just mean that it has an extra camera — and a coil glamorous advertising campaign To try and convince you that no, really, this phone will make you the next Rian Johnson).

But it looks like Apple’s new word, “studio,” is ready to impress the company’s target audience.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the “studio” brand has been widely used to make computers look more capable than they actually are. And that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case with Mac Studio, which seems to be very much capable of creative work. This means less “Apple’s new Pro is not really for professionals” Headlines for Apple to deal with.

Though, talk to some members the edgeIts design and video team, I didn’t get the impression it was an absolute opportunity for creative work. Although it has the most powerful processor from Apple to date, this is not necessarily what all designers are looking for. Grayson Blackmon, our Chief Designer (who also Help us review Mac Pro), says he’s not sure if the risks of working on a computer with a new CPU are worth the extra performance, which may not make much of a difference to much of his work.

He told me, “I don’t care about Mac studio,” but he said he could imagine the kinds of people who would. “Big studios, which are at the end of their life cycle for their machines, will take care of them. They can just buy a whole bunch of them, and it’s good to go for a while. On the other hand, this thing might like freelancers or very small studios. It’s priced within their budget. “.

Chief Video Director Peca Varsas says she might be interested in the studio as an upgrade for her personal device — but only after she’s seen tests that prove it can make long edits with 4K video. It is not the brand that sold it. “I don’t care too much about the name…but I’m glad to see them describe it correctly. The Pro is very arbitrary, but I can totally see this in the studios,” she says, adding a shrugged emoji.

For the most part, the word “Studio” appears to be used for products that could actually belong to a creative studio. But what about two or three years from now? If Apple is trying, as Talbot puts it, to “build equity into the Studio line,” will it be inclined to repeat the mistakes you made with “pro?” We’ve already seen a little bit of this – Apple has some Consumer products for sure Which have a liberal use of the word “studio” in Beats . assortmentalthough I’m sure Somebody Master a song with those headphones.

Apple’s Mac Studio product page is filled with photos of people who meticulously do their craft, which we hope you’ll see for yourself.
Photo: Apple

Apple understands that not everyone with a creative passion project has the same needs as professional filmmakers or musicians. I made quite a few videos in my day, and none of them were too much for something like a $1,300 Mac Mini to handle — but just imagine how cool and lively I would have been if I were editing in a Mac studio (which, by the way, Starts at $2000). And what if Apple could take that sentiment and use it to sell a set of AirPods? AirPods Pro may look old and unoriginal compared to a new batch of AirPods Studio.

However, Apple has already been claiming For a few years That the microphones in the MacBook Pro are “studio-level” — while most designs, in fact, will leave you with a need for a dedicated microphone setup. In this case, the studio score is meant to evoke a feeling rather than describe the actual quality of something. Recording with MacBook microphones may make you feel like your favorite streaming player, but it probably won’t make you sound like them. This is the same trap that Apple fell into with the “Pro”.

“There is always the danger of a word being overused and eventually detached from its original meaning,” Janek says. Right now, Apple seems to be getting a lot of attention from the studio’s creators — if it wants to keep it, it’s going to have to make sure it doesn’t waste that brand ownership on products that don’t deserve it.

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