Mac Pro presence in retail stores

[Sin]

I popped into the Regent Street store at lunch time, and I noticed an almost complete lack of Pro machines. There were a couple lurking at the back, upstairs, where they do the 1-to-1 things for new users.

I haven't been in for a while, so I don't know how long it's been like that, but they used to have some fairly prominently set up, with all the pro Apps, etc.

I guess they've just cleared the space for the iPhone, but there were still plenty of laptops and iMacs around.

Are they hidden away somewhere and I just missed them, or are they gone?

Is this the same story for other stores?

[Sneakz]

Many of the Apple stores here in Toronto simply have one Mac Pro attached to a 30" ACD.

[mBox]

Many of the Apple stores here in Toronto simply have one Mac Pro attached to a 30" ACD.Yep same here in Mid-West Canada :P
Sadly the writings on the wall.
Maybe just maybe Apple will surprise us...maybe...

[G4DP]

Seems to be the norm. I macs and MacBooks get the ideal placing. In the few store in the UK i've been too the one Mac Pro is shoved into a corner with a 30" ACD. Sometimes they even have a Wacom Tablet plugged in as well.

[ValSalva]

Yep same here in Mid-West Canada :P
Sadly the writings on the wall.
Maybe just maybe Apple will surprise us...maybe...

Same at my local Apple store. One Mac Pro attached to a 30" ACD. It's been that way for a while and I don't think it has anything to do with Apple's focus or support for the Mac Pro.

I think most pros and enthusiasts who would purchase a Mac Pro detest going into an Apple store with geniuses who know less than them and the hordes of people looking at iPods and iPhones.

Apple probably hardly sells any Mac Pros from Apple stores. It's not worth the low return to give them display space. It's just a retail thing.

[jwire4]

Same here in SoCal. 1 Mac Pro connected to a 30" ADC. But when you think about it, it does make sense. How many people actually go to an Apple Store to buy their Mac Pro? Also, most consumers don't know and don't a care about the Mac Pro. In all my experiences and people who I have talked to, they all say they order it on the Apple Website just because they can configure it. If the Apple stores didn't just sell the baseline Mac Pros, maybe it would be different. But right now, Apple is really focusing on the mobile age. The iPad, iPhone, iPod, are really the main 3 things in the store. The Macbook and Macbook Pros are also highly featured. All the desktops really get pushed aside to the back of the store.

[reel2reel]

This isn't surprising, though, is it??

First, I'm guessing a "pro" buyer already knows what he/she wants, especially if they're shopping in an Apple Store.

Second, the towers don't make for great displays against iMac's and shiny MacBook Pros.

[slughead]

This isn't surprising, though, is it??

First, I'm guessing a "pro" buyer already knows what he/she wants, especially if they're shopping in an Apple Store.

Second, the towers don't make for great displays against iMac's and shiny MacBook Pros.

Exactly. I'm not optimistic about new mac pro updates, but it'd be dumb to have a line of mac pros on the wall even it was Apple's flagship product.. There's no freakin reason

The only people who need to use the demo boxes are ones who don't know what OS X is or are totally new to computers. The Mac pro doesn't exactly market to those people--and the potential mac pro buyers who haven't used OS X before would know that it'd be the same no matter which comp they used.

Not to mention the fact that there's not a huge draw for the Mac Pro--it's probably their worst-selling product, especially at the retail stores. The fact that they have even 1 setup is impressive, and is probably just so pro users can see how big a 30" screen really is.

[Sin]

Even though I know Macs and OS X fairly well, if I were going to invest in several thousand pounds worth of new kit, I'd want to check it out.

Also, while the hardware might essentially just be a more powerful version of everything else in store, it's the best platform to show off the high end apps.

Certainly I remember seeing them more prominently in store in the past.

I wouldn't expect to see them dominate - I think its clear why most of the setups should be iMacs and MacBooks. But I'd expect maybe 4-5 proper pro setups with a variety of peripherals and high-end monitors. In a big store that still wouldn't take up a lot of space.

[J the Ninja]

Even though I know Macs and OS X fairly well, if I were going to invest in several thousand pounds worth of new kit, I'd want to check it out.

Also, while the hardware might essentially just be a more powerful version of everything else in store, it's the best platform to show off the high end apps.

Certainly I remember seeing them more prominently in store in the past.

I wouldn't expect to see them dominate - I think its clear why most of the setups should be iMacs and MacBooks. But I'd expect maybe 4-5 proper pro setups with a variety of peripherals and high-end monitors. In a big store that still wouldn't take up a lot of space.

FCP and Logic run more than well enough on iMacs and MBPs to get a feel for them and the platform. I don't run rendering and compression jobs at the Apple store. Do you? :P

As I usually post in MP and Apple Store threads: Seriously, who the hell buys any kind of workstation from any kind of retail store? These are almost always a custom-order thing. I'm sure almost all MPs are sold from either the Apple online store or from resellers who do custom orders. (Value-added or just calling in a BTO to Apple for you.)

[Aldaris]

I agree with the thought that it probably means nothing. The average consumer would crap his pants to see the price. The average consumer with his small iTunes library, browsing and emailing needs, does not need a Pro.

So why have it?

I was at best buy in Murray Ut. and they had were 4 iMacs, each MacBook/pro flavor and the three iPad flavors, no pro's around.

And then at the Apple specialist expercom, the last time I was there, they had kne out with a 30' and then all the other flavors...

The last point id like to make is, how many of these apple stores are in large shopping complexes, who wants to lug a 2.5k+ box around... At least the iMac and MacBook/pros have handles on the boxes :D

[Sin]

I would absolutely run an encoding job, or try out some slower image processing process, or whatever else I'm looking to buy a workstation to do.

I wouldn't buy it from the store, and I wouldn't expect them to keep a lot of stock, but I would want to be able to try it out. Apple stores are as much showrooms as the are shops.

[RubbishBBspeed]

I wonder if it has anything to do with people bulking at the price of a good MP set-up. It seems most people think £500 is a lot for a home computer, so to have them looking at a machine potentially costing six to eight times that is going to make them run.

Certainly from my days of selling, the general casual customer knows bugger all about what they are buying or what they need. Generally it's highlight a few buz terms, make the odd comparison but ultimately it's which ever is cheapest gets bought.

Slightly off topic and for example I've had people calling me a prat for wanting the Leica V Lux 20 camera over a Panasonic ZS7/TZ10.

The Leica is £495 from Leica Mayfair a dedicated Leica store it includes adobe software which would have cost £200 and a one hour 1 to 1 tutorial.

The Panasonic is £295 but without adobe which I was advised to buy but not essential to buy as it is "known" to work best with adobe unless using some other dedicated photo editing package and there's no tutorial nor was it a dedicated store.

So they actually cost the same but the panasonic is cheaper on the sticker. or is that sucker...............

[SnowLeopard2008]

Most people don't appreciate/don't know/can't afford/don't care about/don't need the power of the Mac Pro. However, everyone loves the iMac/MacBook Pro and especially the iPhone 4.

[WardC]

I went to my Apple Store and installed Geekbench on the Mac Pro and the 27" i7 iMac, and the iMac actually BEAT the Mac Pro. Sad, right? Mac Pro scored like 8659 while the iMac scored 9957. Mac Pro was also a baseline 2.66GHz while the i7 was a 2.8GHz model.

[reel2reel]

Most people don't appreciate/don't know/can't afford/don't care about/don't need the power the Mac Pro. However, everyone loves the iMac/MacBook Pro and especially the iPhone 4.

Who are "most people?" We've got 10 Mac Pro's at work right now. Our receptionist is the only one with an iMac.

I think we're talking about two different markets here.

[reel2reel]

I went to my Apple Store and installed Geekbench on the Mac Pro and the 27" i7 iMac, and the iMac actually BEAT the Mac Pro. Sad, right? Mac Pro scored like 8659 while the iMac scored 9957. Mac Pro was also a baseline 2.66GHz while the i7 was a 2.8GHz model.

That's the last thing I care about, personally. What I want is the ability to get HD video out to a pro deck and monitor and lots of internal storage. And a non-mirror display.

The numbers game means nothing to me. If a render takes a second longer on my Mac Pro than it does on an iMac, it's irrelevant to me considering everything else I can do with it. In fact, I tried doing some relatively light video work on a brand new iMac last week and got nothing but spinning wheels. So all those spec's are meaningless when everything is actually taking longer.

[SnowLeopard2008]

Who are "most people?" We've got 10 Mac Pro's at work right now. Our receptionist is the only one with an iMac.

I think we're talking about two different markets here.

Most people are consumers? I don't see many businesses going directly to an Apple Store. I see families, couples, kids, etc. Those are the consumers. Apple isn't only catering to the business/creative professional market anymore. Since this thread is about the presence of Mac Pros in retail stores, consumer market is what they're going after.

[SayWord]

Who are "most people?" We've got 10 Mac Pro's at work right now. Our receptionist is the only one with an iMac.

I think we're talking about two different markets here.

Most people as in those who don't need it for professional uses...

I think he is aware that there are two different markets, those who use the apple products for consumer/trend uses...and those who use the apple computer for professional/career uses...

What is your company doing that it needs 10 mac pros?

[SayWord]

Most people are consumers? I don't see many businesses going directly to an Apple Store. I see families, couples, kids, etc. Those are the consumers. Apple isn't only catering to the business/creative professional market anymore.

I think businesses shop differently than families, couples, kids, and everyone else...

A company isn't going to come into the apple store with their board of directors and seek 100 orders of mac pros....>_> lol

[Tali]

I think businesses shop differently than families, couples, kids, and everyone else...

A company isn't going to come into the apple store with their board of directors and seek 100 orders of mac pros....>_> lol

Just call, make an appointment, someone will come to your company and work out a plan with you.

[hugodrax]

I never stepped into an Apple store, Someone from Apple sent me a "Seed" Mac pro to eval, and then they had a hard time getting it back from me until I got my Mac Pro from the order. :) I ordered 5 total.

I do not think Mac Pros are consumer devices, its more of a professional workstation.

[skiltrip]

The majority of Mac Pro buyers are either Audio or Video professionals, and would just as well get their computer from a musical instrument retailer loaded up with their DAW software and plugins, all nice and pre-installed and pre-configured. No Apple 'Genius' is going to have the slightest clue what to do with any of that, nor could they even answer any questions about using a Pro as an audio workstation. Like someone mentioned above, chances are, Mac Pro buyers walk in there knowing way more than any of the 'geniuses' working in the store.

[advres]

In fact, I tried doing some relatively light video work on a brand new iMac last week and got nothing but spinning wheels.

Come on dude, lets be honest... You didn't get "nothing but spinning wheels" doing "light video work". If you did, than you have a bad iMac. I have been editing broadcast HD television on 6 year old G5's for chrissakes. I have a new mini setup for assistants and interns to do HD assembly edits on.

See this timeline?
http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=237990&stc=1&d=1278732006
It is a half-hour broadcast television show and it was edited entirely on a mac mini with 8GB RAM in 3 days and it is full res 1080p footage transcoded Apple ProRes. All the graphics were done and rendered on it too. Yes it is a very cookie cutter show but having 6 layers of animation alpha graphics over 2 layers of 1080p video and only getting the orange render bar on a new mac mini...

I can agree on needing a tower for capture cards, raid controllers, fiber cards etc, but saying an iMac can't handle "light" video work is not only being disingenuous, it makes you look like a retard.

[Full of Win]

The MacPro in the store reminds me of the kid on the playground that no one likes. As others have said.... its the writing on the wall that we are looking at here gentlemen.

[OatmealRocks]

The numbers game means nothing to me. If a render takes a second longer on my Mac Pro than it does on an iMac, it's irrelevant to me considering everything else I can do with it. In fact, I tried doing some relatively light video work on a brand new iMac last week and got nothing but spinning wheels. So all those spec's are meaningless when everything is actually taking longer.

Huh? There IS a correlation between the two. It can't be meaningless.

[underblu]

It seems Apple is far more profitable as a consumer mobile devices provider and media content distributor than they ever were as a PC company.

Just look at the Apples market cap. It was the iPod not the G5 (as good as that machine was) that started the complete transformation of the company. Apple like any publicly traded company is going to go where the money is. Ultimately how profitable is the Mac Pro to the company in comparison to iPod iPad iPhone Apps downloads etc.

[CmdrLaForge]

Not sure if you can read a lot into this. Who is walking into an Apple Store and carrying a Mac Pro home? I would always BTO and get it delivered home. I really believe they move way more "i" stuff and Laptops in the Stores.

[ValSalva]

Just look at the Apples market cap. It was the iPod not the G5 (as good as that machine was) that started the complete transformation of the company. Apple like any publicly traded company is going to go where the money is. Ultimately how profitable is the Mac Pro to the company in comparison to iPod iPad iPhone Apps downloads etc.

The Mac Pro was never going to be the product that directly brought in huge profits. But Apple needs the pro developer community and killing the Mac Pro would eventually harm the iToy market.

[deconstruct60]

Huh? There IS a correlation between the two. It can't be meaningless.

There is a bunch of implicit content in "meaningless numbers". It isn't the numbers, but the content of the benchmark. User specific workload apps are always the optimal benchmark. However, their results are not generally useful. The trick in coming up with a good benchmark is trying to come up with results that are more broadly useful but specific enough. Loading a long timeline of very HD video may be meaningful to reeltoreel, but isn't so much to folks who aren't engaged in commercial broadcast work. So "being meaningful" is contextual.

Small, synthetic benchmarks which only sit in cache and primarily test CPUs will be faster as the GHz gets cranked up. If your business is moving 100's of GBs of data on/off disks quickly then it isn't a very informative benchmark. Likewise, if folks have an application that hits the network hard (some kind of NAS/SAN) they're not going to get a deep look at how well the machine does on their workload.

Geekbench measures integer, float , memory, stream performance with apparently some specifically target code fragments (opposed to SPEC which uses real world programs). For apps that load everything going to work on into memory and then mutate it, this is a reasonably informative benchmark.

If you throw more data than can comfortably be held inside of an iMac as your benchmark it isn't too hard to make it tail an Mac Pro with lots more money thrown at adding external I/O bandwidth (or internal capacity so it is all internal.)

[deconstruct60]

It seems Apple is far more profitable as a consumer mobile devices provider and media content distributor than they ever were as a PC company.

Apple is far more profitable because have multiple major product categories that make money. IBM and GE make about 2 and 4 times (respectively) as much money as Apple does largely because they have more things that make money.

One problem that Apple had in the 90's was that they had a "one trick pony" major product line up. Any hiccup with that line and the amount of "gloom and doom" buzz around the company will swell up and make things worse ( just ask Dell at this point with the recent product quality flap they are going through. ) The "halo" effect is far more driven by having a giant stack of money in the bank, no debt, and profitable than cross product buying. Many people buy from successful companies just because they are successful. It is a herd effect.

The more historical iPods are shrinking right now and almost nobody cares because Apple has other product lines offsetting that drop. Likewise if Mac Pro sales temporarily drop for 3-5 months ... nobody cares because it has no significant impact on the balance sheet.

[Roman23]

Is it possible that Apple might not even update it this year?

What are the long term life expectancies for the Mac Pro? Is it doomed for future eol?



Apple is far more profitable because have multiple major product categories that make money. IBM and GE make about 2 and 4 times (respectively) as much money as Apple does largely because they have more things that make money.

One problem that Apple had in the 90's was that they had a "one trick pony" major product line up. Any hiccup with that line and the amount of "gloom and doom" buzz around the company will swell up and make things worse ( just ask Dell at this point with the recent product quality flap they are going through. ) The "halo" effect is far more driven by having a giant stack of money in the bank, no debt, and profitable than cross product buying. Many people buy from successful companies just because they are successful. It is a herd effect.

The more historical iPods are shrinking right now and almost nobody cares because Apple has other product lines offsetting that drop. Likewise if Mac Pro sales temporarily drop for 3-5 months ... nobody cares because it has no significant impact on the balance sheet.

[jqc]

I am not a pro but do a fair amount of aperture/photoshop work, VM Fusion for work, processing 7D files, some imovie editing and everyone once in awhile Garage Band. Im on a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and its really starting to show its age. I would love to get a Mac Pro for the power and the expandability.

i WOULD buy a Mac Pro from the apple store....have you seen the Fedex and UPS guys handle packages??

[rajbonham]

i WOULD buy a Mac Pro from the apple store....have you seen the Fedex and UPS guys handle packages??

Yeah, they throw packages around like they're garbage. Have you seen how baggage handlers at the airport handle your luggage? My stuff generally arrives in okay condition, so I don't worry too much.

[mlts22]

The Mac Pro was never going to be the product that directly brought in huge profits. But Apple needs the pro developer community and killing the Mac Pro would eventually harm the iToy market.

Apple knows that for businesses, the Mac Pro is the only game in town, unless someone is crazy enough to buy an XServe, drop a video card in that and use that for a workstation. A rack form factor is a tad awkward for the desktop, but it would be adequate if someone had a musicians desk.

There are only two mainstream Apple products that don't get revised just to shave a couple millimeters off a side, and those are the Mac Pro, and the XServe. These machines are high dollar, and I'm sure Apple makes a healthy profit from them, even with the server grade components.

This is one of my fears -- Apple losing sight of its roots, and becoming "just" a toy maker. Businesses buy lots of Mac Pros, and making them more attractive in the enterprise just might add a healthy chunk of change to Apple's revenue books.

[advres]

I am not a pro but do a fair amount of aperture/photoshop work, VM Fusion for work, processing 7D files, some imovie editing and everyone once in awhile Garage Band. Im on a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and its really starting to show its age. I would love to get a Mac Pro for the power and the expandability.

i WOULD buy a Mac Pro from the apple store....have you seen the Fedex and UPS guys handle packages??

I do things 5 times more intensive than what you are describing with an older mbp and it works fine. How much RAM you have in it? Are you working off your 5200RPM drive your OS is on? There is no reason your machine couldnt smoke anything you are describing. Either something is wrong with your machine or you are exaggerating.

[underblu]

The Mac Pro was never going to be the product that directly brought in huge profits. But Apple needs the pro developer community and killing the Mac Pro would eventually harm the iToy market.

Well I don't know if I completely agree but you could be right. The bottom line though is that Apple has completely transformed their business model.

Before the whole idevice media content distribution model unfolded I never understood why Apple didn't just sell the Mac OS ala Microsoft and let other people make hardware. Apple could still offer a premium hardware package with integrated support that I'm sure many professionals would still utilize but Power users and companies that have IT personnel could develop their own custom OSX rigs to suit their needs.

Didn't MS make a ton of money with that business model; and in the late 80s Apple was far ahead of MS in providing a competent GUI platform for the PC.

Why not rethink their whole OSX offering and use the idevice market to further leverage Apple Computer. I mean as things are now OSX seems to be playing second fiddle to IOS 4. How it all pans out remains to be seen.

[300D]

Sadly the writings on the wall.

Yep, the writing says that nobody here understands who MacPro customers really are. As the MacPro name suggests, professionals don't usually need/want to visit a fancy store with lots of bright colors, simple words and cheerful salesmen. They know what they want and they buy it.

[mlts22]

Yep, the writing says that nobody here understands who MacPro customers really are. As the MacPro name suggests, professionals don't usually need/want to visit a fancy store with lots of bright colors, simple words and cheerful salesmen. They know what they want and they buy it.

Very true. However, a Mac Pro may be what a lot of home users may be needing. I've pitched Mac Pros over iMacs in some cases because they have the following features:

1: Server grade components -- yes, the machine is expensive, but it should last 5-10 years without issue.

2: Upgradable -- RAM, video, hard disks, hard disk interfaces, essentially everything but the CPU.

3: Reliable -- Hardware RAID turns what could be a disastrous loss of information into a dialog box that pops up saying that you need to replace one of the hard disks ASAP.

4: Adaptable -- if someone wanted to, they can just disconnect a PC they have sitting nearby, connect the Mac Pro via a VGA adapter, and continue working. Same with the keyboard and mouse (provided they are USB).

For a home user, yes, a Mac Pro is overkill. However for someone who is going to be using the machine on a daily basis for years on end, having something made to be sturdy and reliable (as opposed to cool looking) is important.

[reel2reel]

Huh? There IS a correlation between the two. It can't be meaningless.

Explain that one to me. The spinning wheels were from the i/o bottleneck, not the processor speed.

So, yes, to me, those numbers are meaningless.

[reel2reel]

Loading a long timeline of very HD video may be meaningful to reeltoreel, but isn't so much to folks who aren't engaged in commercial broadcast work. So "being meaningful" is contextual.

I see exactly what you're saying, but just a note: I'm guessing by "commercial broadcast work" you mean shorter durations, as in ad's? In my experience, these can be far more intense than long-form because there's so much going on. You might have 50 layers of media for the finished piece if there's a lot of fx work, blending, etc. So I still wouldn't want to try any of that on an iMac.

Short-films for film fests or online? The iMac would be more than enough, I'm sure.

I see your point, though, and am not disagreeing. Just clarifying my point of view.

[WardC]

Do they have any other single processor configs in the retail Apple Store other than the 2.66GHz that you could just walk-in and buy? Like the 2.93GHz or the 3.33GHz? Or do you have to get these configured from the Apple Store online and have them shipped to you?

[Roman23]

2. Upgradable -- Ram, video, hard disk interfaces, essentially BUT THE CPU

I beg to differ.. the cpus are indeed upgradable.. they are intel parts.. now, the duals are a special basketcase since Apple decided to use lidless processors thus making upgrading those cpus hard(anandtech), however the 5-600 dollar w3580 I just bought was an easy upgrade for my single-quad core mac pro and also an i7-975 can also be used as well, though one needs non-ecc memory to be installed.. so, the processor is easy to upgrade.. if one has done pc processor upgrades, then that one in the single-quad cores shouldn't pose any problem.. I can't vouch for the 2008-2007-2006 models as I wouldn't touch those with a 10 foot pole with so much to remove just to get to the sockets!

But, the quad-core single 2009 is easy to upgrade. SO THERE IS SOME FALACY TO YOUR ARGUMENT THERE.


Very true. However, a Mac Pro may be what a lot of home users may be needing. I've pitched Mac Pros over iMacs in some cases because they have the following features:

1: Server grade components -- yes, the machine is expensive, but it should last 5-10 years without issue.

2: Upgradable -- RAM, video, hard disks, hard disk interfaces, essentially everything but the CPU.

3: Reliable -- Hardware RAID turns what could be a disastrous loss of information into a dialog box that pops up saying that you need to replace one of the hard disks ASAP.

4: Adaptable -- if someone wanted to, they can just disconnect a PC they have sitting nearby, connect the Mac Pro via a VGA adapter, and continue working. Same with the keyboard and mouse (provided they are USB).

For a home user, yes, a Mac Pro is overkill. However for someone who is going to be using the machine on a daily basis for years on end, having something made to be sturdy and reliable (as opposed to cool looking) is important.

[Roman23]

All they sell there is the 2.66 - the 2.93 and 3.33 need to be custom ordered.. however, if one has 500 dollars, just skip the w3540 and get the processor w3580 - voila! your upgrade is done!! and you did it less than what it would cost for you to have gotten it from Apple!

from 2.66 to 2.93 - add about 500 for that.
from 2.66 to 3.33 - add 1200-1500 for that
from 2.93 to 3.33 - possibly a 1000 or a little less..

As you can see.. the single w3580 processor I have in my system only cost 603 - 599 with shipping of 3 bucks.. Thats a far better deal than buying the system at 12-1500 dollars from 2.66, don't u think?

However, with the duals, the price is not the same as the dual processors alone you can't get from anywhere other than apple service providers and they won't sell them separate at all.. make matters worse, you can't get them anywhere.. all the processors intel make have IHS on them.


Do they have any other single processor configs in the retail Apple Store other than the 2.66GHz that you could just walk-in and buy? Like the 2.93GHz or the 3.33GHz? Or do you have to get these configured from the Apple Store online and have them shipped to you?

[Block]

There are plenty at my local store(s). They usually have 2-3 on display. But then again they have significantly more of every other device. :cool:

[akadmon]

Not sure if you can read a lot into this. Who is walking into an Apple Store and carrying a Mac Pro home? I would always BTO and get it delivered home. I really believe they move way more "i" stuff and Laptops in the Stores.

Um, I'm one such person (who bought a Mac Pro from an Apple retails store). Why on earth would anyone pay Apple's inflated prices for HDs and RAM? Even high end video cards can be had for a lot less than Apple's BTO "discount" if you are willing/able to tinker with ones made for PC.

[slughead]

Um, I'm one such person (who bought a Mac Pro from an Apple retails store). Why on earth would anyone pay Apple's inflated prices for HDs and RAM? Even high end video cards can be had for a lot less than Apple's BTO "discount" if you are willing/able to tinker with ones made for PC.

Yeah, me too.. It used to be that you had to purchase your mac from a retail store if you wanted to get it serviced there for free (!!). Plus you get it TODAY (with educational discount, if you want).

Plus, like akadmon said: Who pays Apple's prices for RAM/HDs?

[ValSalva]

Yeah, me too.. It used to be that you had to purchase your mac from a retail store if you wanted to get it serviced there for free (!!). Plus you get it TODAY (with educational discount, if you want).

Plus, like akadmon said: Who pays Apple's prices for RAM/HDs?

So true that Apple's prices for HDDs and RAM are outrageous. One big reason to order a BTO Mac Pro is to get an upgraded processor though.

[Whaditis]

I am not a pro but do a fair amount of aperture/photoshop work, VM Fusion for work, processing 7D files, some imovie editing and everyone once in awhile Garage Band. Im on a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and its really starting to show its age. I would love to get a Mac Pro for the power and the expandability.

i WOULD buy a Mac Pro from the apple store....have you seen the Fedex and UPS guys handle packages??


True ^^^

I purchased my Mac Pro as a walk in at one of their retail stores which was quite a funny experience in itself as all the i-people (90% of the people in the store) were gawking at this huge box on a dolley being rolled through from the back to the front.

One thing I can say my the exterior of the box looked untouched or handled as it had no dirt marks on it all, it was clean and white. Looks like when retail stores receive them they come in skids carefully wrapped with lots of plastic. Apple probably demands that the goods they receive are in perfect condition and they get them without these boxes being randomly thrown around.

Yeah I am glad I went to a retail store to buy my Mac Pro.

[blackmtn]

I would absolutely run an encoding job, or try out some slower image processing process, or whatever else I'm looking to buy a workstation to do.

I wouldn't buy it from the store, and I wouldn't expect them to keep a lot of stock, but I would want to be able to try it out. Apple stores are as much showrooms as the are shops.

This is exactly what I've been doing the last few times I've been in Vancouver - playing with the same Aperture 3 file on each of the MBP 17", iMac i7 and MP trying to get a feel for how each of them run AP3. You can't tell that online! It's been a large help to me and I now realize I won't be happy with any of the laptops or lower end iMacs.