Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?

You should have seen my jaw drop, in a disappointing way.

If only Intel didn't have such overpriced Xeons, a lot more people would own Mac Pros today and this article would never have been written. It's not like no one wants a Mac Pro. Hell, who wouldn't want one.

bpd115 said:

I have a 30" DVI Cinema Display and a 23" DVI Cinema Display...how am I supposed to hook these up to an iMac?

Also, my 2006 Pro which I've been waiting patiently to replace has 5 internal HDs. I don't want to move them to some JBOD external box.

The iMac also now has the annoying feature of the hard drive temp sensor built in to the drive of the computer making it impossible to replace.

Apple needs to have Pro Level hardware for customers who require Pro features.

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Who said that you have to hook these up to an iMac? They will work with Dells just fine (even faster)

What's with these articles dooming perfectly good products for completely irrational reasons?

This would be awful if it ever became true. I adore my Mac Pro. No other system out there can match its power and stability.

Common Mac Pro mini (ok I know most make Pro users won't like this but it's something I want)
under $1500
-Standard quad core i7
-One optical drive
-2 hard drive slots
-4 ram slots
-1 double wide PCI Express slot with 2 other PCI Express slots (or something)

Though I don't want to see the Mac Pros go, I just want to see this in addition to the Mac Pros as I want an upgradable powerful desktop mac without spending tons on a Mac Pro I don't need, building a hackintosh or being stuck with an iMac.

kromekat said:

So will I have to settle for their currently 18 month old 12 core or are they going to stop ******** about and release a newer, up to date pro machine??

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Tell Intel to release new Xeon chips, the Mac Pros are pretty much as up to date as they can be.

Really bad timing for me.

If I knew the rumour was true I'd pick up a refurb unit in the next week or so. I'm using a 2008 Octocore. Still got a year or two left, at least.... but I figure remaining stocks are going to get harder to find and more expensive, so buy one now and sell the Octo. Makes a new one relatively affordable.

However, if the rumour is not true - then I've bought too soon. I'd much rather wait a year or so, and get something more current. Like with TB. I'd hate to buy the model that came just before the TB model..... sigh.....

Bad timing for me.....

(same as other thread)

This discussion has been lively for the past few years now...

50 - 50 IMHO.
Yes, we understand the need for Pro-Machines but we also get the fact that Apple discontinues a lot of Pure-Pro stuff.

The iMac is getting more and more Pro-'like" and the Apps are getting less and less Pro-"only".
A Core i7 with a decent (mobile)grfx card is good enough today. A few years ago the portable Macs and iMacs had hardware really only good enough for the most casual of users.
Now we get i7's in MacBook Pro's, Mac mini's and iMacs. Even the grfx is pretty good in MacBook Pro's and iMacs.

The iMac and MacBook Pro's running today's software is truly Pro-sumer.

The hardcore 3D, audio, etc. specialist still want the power of Xeons and real grfx cards, but I can imaging Apple seeing that market as a niche within a niche...

Must admit.... if Apple were to discontinue the Mac Pro line, I'll be getting a Westmere 6 Core 3.33 GHz with Radeon 5870 quickly.

weqtor said:

You should have seen my jaw drop, in a disappointing way.

If only Intel didn't have such overpriced Xeons, a lot more people would own Mac Pros today and this article would never have been written. It's not like no one wants a Mac Pro. Hell, who wouldn't want one.

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Apple doesnt need to sell Mac Pros with overpriced xeons, they could just make a headless iMac and please everyone.

Choice however, is a word and philosophy that made steve jobs very uncomfortable. Its one of the few things I hate about apple.

This would be one of worst moves apple can do. Mac pros fit a minority but they still fit a customer base of a certain type of people. High performance work stations, gamers etc. We don't want some crap imac that lacks the expansion and future proofing of a good long term investment. My 2008 mac pro still runs the latest games with ease, cause i was able to upgrade to 10 gigs of ram, SSD, newest video card, all with ease. Say that about any other mac product line. Heck the mac pros are the only macs that even use a desktop GPU, they shove mobile gpus in their imacs and minis and obviously laptops. That just doesn't cut it for me. Desktop performance is everything to me and i wil never have anything but a tower. If they take the mac option away then i will be stuck with a PC plain and simple and install an unofficial OS X on it.

I was keeping my hopes up for an Ivy bridge mac pro next year as a great uprade path, as sandry bridge is at end of it's line now. Personally it'd be dumb at this point to refresh mac pros this late in game with sandy bridge, because that would be a loss to apple with ivy bridge slated to go live in 2-3 months. If anything they need to kill the current mac pro refresh and focus on that. Being the next first high end computer to sport ivy bridge with their buddy intel hooking em up as they did in the past.

pssst... Apple, here's a hint. The reason the Mac Pro's are not selling well is because you need to update them.

If Apple does indeed discontinue the Mac Pro line, my next "Mac" WILL be a Hackintosh, no if's, and's, or but's. My needs have outgrown what the Mini and iMac provide and I refuse to have 5000 drives and a graphics card daisy-chained to a Mac Mini. I need a tower, and if Apple won't provide one I'll build my own.

snberk103 said:

Really bad timing for me.

If I knew the rumour was true I'd pick up a refurb unit in the next week or so. I'm using a 2008 Octocore. Still got a year or two left, at least.... but I figure remaining stocks are going to get harder to find and more expensive, so buy one now and sell the Octo. Makes a new one relatively affordable.

However, if the rumour is not true - then I've bought too soon. I'd much rather wait a year or so, and get something more current. Like with TB. I'd hate to buy the model that came just before the TB model..... sigh.....

Bad timing for me.....

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If it is true, the sooner you learn this news/rumor the better. Because your next purchase then should be anything by Mac.

KCMichaelB said:

Ditto.

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You guys aren't going to have much of a choice.

blizaine said:

pssst... Apple, here's a hint. The reason the Mac Pro's are not selling well is because you need to update them.

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Pssst, blizaine...they have nothing to update them WITH Chief...

mysticalos said:

This would be one of worst moves apple can do. Mac pros fit a minority but they still fit a customer base of a certain type of people. High performance work stations, gamers etc.

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Gamers don't buy Mac Pros...guys like me do. And even so, we could get by with iMacs no problem.

Peace said:

Where's Aiden Shaw when ya need him ??

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Right here....

firewood said:

Apple stopped licensing Mac OS out to prevent these vendors from taking all the high profit high-end sales. If high-end sales are no longer interesting or profitable for Apple, maybe it's time for them to reconsider licensing Mac OS X to select high-end system vendors. Maybe IBM for blades or racks? What other potential licensee makes systems that wouldn't degrade the Mac OS experience?

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Licensing (and allowing virtualization on non-Apple hardware) would definitely be a good step. (I argued when the XServe was killed that Apple should have announced an agreement with VMware and one of the top tier server vendors to support OSX Server virtualized on a limited set of other hardware.)

And, I don't think that "degrading the experience" is really an issue - IBM/HP/Dell/SuperMicro all have higher end systems that are definitely in the same league build-quality-wise as the Mac Pro.

Just because the $300 Dells at Best Buy are cheaply made plastic systems does not mean that the $3000 Dell workstations are crap.

"PCs will be like trucks".

iindigo said:

If Apple does indeed discontinue the Mac Pro line, my next "Mac" WILL be a Hackintosh, no if's, and's, or but's. My needs have outgrown what the Mini and iMac provide and I refuse to have 5000 drives and a graphics card daisy-chained to a Mac Mini. I need a tower, and if Apple won't provide one I'll build my own.

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Look on the bright side:

You'll save a ton of cash and youll have a REAL choice in video cards too.

I'm not surprised by this rumor coming now.

1. Mac Pros have never been that popular, and are waning in popularity
2. Thunderbolt looks like it could replace EVERY advantage the Mac Pro has currently
3. Mac Pros are questionably aligned, at best, with Apple's current strategy

Without a Mac Pro I would have to return to Windows. I might even decide to switch to an Android or Windows Phone, for the sake of having a consistent ecosystem and user experience.

It would make me sad.

MovieCutter said:

a second monitor?

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Well sure, you could technically, but that's awkward. You're going to shove the iMac off to the side and have it sitting there next to the TBolt display you're actually going to use? Basically you're paying for 2 monitors and using 1, and making a mess of your desk in the process (and good luck trying to reach the power button and DVD slot wherever you pushed the iMac aside).

That's why I say either offer a TBolt-level ("pro") display option built in to an iMac chassis, or go with a Mini chassis instead that allows the user to choose the display separately.

People may not like it but an iMac could if it did not get thinner be as powerful as a Pro if it keeps to one video card a quad core or even dual could be done with a little bit of modification to a 30 inch monitor.

Not saying its how the should go, but it can be done and the question is how are they selling Pro. Every time I go to an Apple store people don't really look at the pro not since the 27" iMac came out.

The Intel chips were just announced and will be shipping in volume in a matter of weeks. Apple will release another round of Mac Pros. These rumors are always a year or two down the pipeline, so third parties should hurry up and make external Thunderbolt expansion boxes right now so power users can expand MacPros and MacBooks and even Minis with external stackable solutions.

Even the lowly Mac Plus had a SCSI plug which allowed daisy chaining a wide range of things and when run in Ramdisc mode was actually fast.

Rocketman

I would not care if the Mac Pro died IF Apple would put a decent chip in the Mini and make it more user upgradable. In fact I'd prefer a modular type computer where I could stack my HDs on top of the head unit. It would save a lot of floor space.

I'm not a pro though -- I just don't like how the iMac is completely non-user serviceable, save a RAM upgrade. The MP is the ultimate "truck," and Jobs was getting more negative towards them, so if Apple does phase the MP out it's no surprise.

Please though, give us a decent headless box if you are going to take our MPs away.

jacobo007 said:

"PC's will be like trucks".

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I always thought lots of people on this forum misunderstood that remark by Jobs.

I insisted: compared to an iPad the iMac (or maybe even a MBPro) is a truck.

It's sad, but this has been easy to see coming, save for the human tendency towards denial.

It's the economy, duh!

Well, maybe not directly for many, but everyone is watching expenses, and it is likely if they feel they can get what they need out of an iMac or MacMini and save a few $$$, they would.

Another obvious reason is over 18 months old design and still same price? At this point people are waiting for the next model, of course the old MP will not sell.
Now if Apple was to knock off a few hundred $, sales will go up again.

Apple needs to get more flexible with pricing again, the world economy is crap, and while the iOS is doing great they should be creative with OS X. For example, reuse the case design for next MP, retain as many parts as possible, save a lot in R&D and service, pass savings to customers, get demand back up (but not "cheapen" the product)

$0.02

Welcome to Current Market Realities 101.

In particular, internal discussions were said to focus around the fact that sales of the high-end workstations to both consumers and enterprises have dropped off so considerably that the Mac Pro is no longer a particularly profitable operation for Apple.

Hardly surprising.

Massive workstations are a little redundant in today's market, which is being driven increasingly by the growing population of Pro-sumers.

In a market where smaller and more efficient can often outperform massive and high-powered (or render the purchase of the latter uneconomical from a bang-for-your buck perspective), we're seeing the inevitable results.

Get rid of the Mac Pro, optimize the hell out of your software, drive innovation in the small form-factor area. Done.