Apple to Halt Mac Pro Sales in Europe Effective March 1 Over Regulatory Requirements

[apple-win]

Originally Posted by chrisd1974

Try this: http://nofilmschool.com/build-a-hackintosh/

Hackintosh is for hobbyist. I don't think it's a good idea to use Hackintosh for doing business.

[thekev]

Originally Posted by iRCL

Sure hasn't hampered their profitability

Sorry, but nobody cares about Mac Pro. It makes no sense. Maybe it used to. things change

Mac mini is way higher value proposition. If you need 32 cores, whatever you're doing shouldn't be done under OS X.

When they redo Mac Pro lets all hope that they switch it to desktop class top spec i7. You know, the processor that anyone spec'ing a strong machine gets. Unless you are a Mac person, since that option isn't on the table

What is your familiarity with hardware design? You're ignoring several key things. One is that the "top" i7s use the same socket as the E/EP Xeons Apple typically uses. In Sandy and Ivy Bridge, that means LGA2011. Ivy variants aren't out in that socket until later this year, but the i7 parts cost the same amount as the Xeons. This is merely confusion as you're looking at completely different parts or assuming that Xeon must mean it's expensive. The only other parts are those that are already found in the imac line and Xeon E3s. When you said i7, which did you mean? They don't use the same boards. As for the mini, if you must run OSX it's not a bad option if you aren't too tied to gpu performance. It's something that works out if gpu performance is a nice to have feature rather than an essential one. The HD 4000 is still way behind desktop gpus that came out years ago, but some things really don't stress the gpu or sometimes people are using gpu intensive programs but with small projects..

Originally Posted by pertusis1

Rather unfair price comparison, eh. Four 512 GB drives to drive up the Mac price...

Your complaints of bias are due to lack of knowledge. The T7600 has the highest internal expansion of their line, beyond that of the Mac Pro. The mac pro is more like a T5600 if you're trying to make a direct comparison. The T7600 doesn't address entry level workstation gpu options, so the Quadro 5000 is only around $1000 to upgrade to. Normally it's much more expensive, even after price drops. It goes up and down a bit, but it started over $2k into last year. The cpus used in the Dell are considerably more expensive than the mac pro choice. It's not intentionally biased. They probably went with what they had. If I was configuring one of them, I'd install my own ram and work out the best performance per dollar that meets certain performance criteria. In either case the final numbers would be different, so you can't just say they're trying to make Apple look more expensive.

[Rocketman]

These MacPro threads seem endless. Does everyone who ever owned a Mac Pro post to them? MP is a product of a company with a consumer device focus and a stated goal of replacing PCs with tablets. MP is a PC.

I for one would like to see a new MacPro when or if Intel releases a chip sufficiently differentiated from the current one to bother. I would especially like Apple to make a Mac-Mini style device with a top line Intel chip(s) and of course a Mac-Midi which is partially expandable ala MacII si to shut people up regarding non-expandable low priced Macs.

Not holding my breath.

[Macist]

Of course you can still do masses of professional work on powerful MacBooks and iMacs.

But the Mac Pro made Apple a complete platform.

When I worked in educational publishing you might, say, have a series of 10 books. The first three might sell in huge numbers and book 10 very few. But if you were selling a complete series it needed to be, well, complete.

What's the point of switching to Apple if you end up having to go to another platform when you need a workstation?

[K42]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

These MacPro threads seem endless. Does everyone who ever owned a Mac Pro post to them? MP is a product of a company with a consumer device focus and a stated goal of replacing PCs with tablets. MP is a PC.

I think that what you see here is just the tip of the iceberg. MP is NOT the product of a company with a consumer device focus. Apple used to have a pro device focus you know, and that's where it came from.

Many who have bought Mac Pros in the past have moved on to PC's. The professionals that are waiting for an update might post here, but generally they probably have better things to do.

I have a MBP 17" for work, and that's fine, but I recently bought an HP laptop for home use. I could no longer justify buying a Mac. Not with the bad expandibility and the glossy screens. So if I start to post less here, well you know why.

You need a real PC in order to do real work. A tablet does not cut it. And non-expandable devices are also troublesome.

Have to go now, bye.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by bjeadeh

Popelife, I am right there with you on the failings of the Mac Pro. I, like you, have been waiting for a decade to update my G-4's. .... And I can't believe that there is not one thunderbolt or USB 3 audio interface on the market today. What is up with that?

Three large motivators to that question.

First, is that G4 and overall likely relatively high representation of older equipment in the target market for these new interfaces. If a very large fraction of the target customer market only has USB 2.0 and maybe FW400 interfaces on their computers then they are generally not going to buy a new computer and the incompatible box.

[ While USB 3.0 isn't necessarily incompatible if the highly enhanced data capture requires USB 3.0 level of performance it pragmatically they aren't compatible. For example, if release something that only does 4 channels of audio when plugged in via USB 2.0 and 8+ on USB 3.0 then folks on older boxes don't see it so they generally won't buy it. ]


Second, to get max benefits Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 require new software drivers. Most of the vendors have spent years optimizing drivers to the point that they are brittle. To maximize effectiveness on USB 3.0 requires xHCI drivers and Thunderbolt requires tweaks to any PCI-e card drivers may have (e.g., hot power plug-and-play , etc. )

For example:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/0...t-cooperating/

As the deployed and used population of USB 3.0 only computers grow the vendors will be motivated to do the major software upgrade. Until then though they are little to just "fund the software driver effort just enough" to move forward slowly.

Even larger lack of critical mass deployed on the Thunderbolt market if looking across the whole personal computer market.

Critical mass is growing for both. There is largely an expectation mismatch between how fast the real deployed growth normalized against the market is and what the vendors are seeing. Shipping in 2013-2014 probably won't generate significantly different revenues than shipping earlier.


3. There are lots of opportunities with faster yet lower powered DSPs to do more with USB 2.0. For example:

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/quartet.php

The audio "horsepower" is in the device. All the computer primarily needs to do is display the graphics that correspond to the controls. Even an iPad can do that.

Sure the much more expensive capture boxes go past USB 2.0 limits but the boxes' higher price means the products generally evolve slower. Higher price generally leads to lower demand. Low demand leads to longer product lifecycles. The customers generally go to a "buy and squat" which over time will lead to vendors slowing down to match that pace.

Do all these companies think that Apple will decide to go back to FW800 or finally do the FW1600 one of these days?

No. Far more so that a significant number of music Mac customers are going to squat on their current Mac; just like your G4.

And why won't Apple update the Mac Pro? Sure it's a shrinking market, but there is no competition out there.

LOL. You are kidding right?

"... With 41.4% of units sold, HP maintained unquestioned control over the workstation market, clearly separating itself from Dell at 30.7%, down from the previous quarter's 32.5%. Lenovo continued its record of steady, rising to 13.3%, while Fujitsu rounded out the Tier 1 rankings with 3.9%. Herrera estimates that non-Tier 1 suppliers were responsible for the remaining 10.8%. ... "
http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...12-Reports-Jon

Apple isn't even a Tier 1 workstation vendor. Let alone distanced itself from the competition.

And, is Apple just trying to insult everybody by putting all the connectors on the back of the Imac? The side if the new Imac can easily house the SD card slot. But what is wrong with the front.

Primarily because it complicates the internal design, doesn't fit with the new edges , and most folks can find the sockets anyway (e.g., simply stand up and look over the top of the iMac).

All the sockets are pragmatically mounted to the circuit board which is placed where it is due to numerous constraints. Placed on the edge or front would require a second smaller board and running cables between the two. If look at internal pictures of an old iMac and the new ones it a major effort went into cleaning it up. The inside is as cleanly laid out and structured as the outside.

[Dudical]

Originally Posted by AZREOSpecialist

...should be ashamed of themselves for not updating their flagship product.

The iPhone is Apple's flagship product. The Mac Pro is a niche product which lags in sales behind practically every SKU in their catalogue.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by Dudical

The iPhone is Apple's flagship product. The Mac Pro is a niche product which lags in sales behind practically every SKU in their catalogue.

I think the Mac Pro was once touted as the flagship Mac, but that was when Apple was still Apple COMPUTER and the iPhone didn't yet exist. If you wanted a professional Mac you got a PowerMac and then a Mac Pro or in some cases the Macbook Pro if you needed portability. The iMac was never a serious computer (consumer all-in-one desktop saver). Of course Apple still had a rack-mount server back then too so there was this idea that Apple was a serious professional platform. They even used to be known for good graphics once upon a time, but now they're just known for making phones and tablets.

[K42]

Originally Posted by Dudical

The iPhone is Apple's flagship product. The Mac Pro is a niche product which lags in sales behind practically every SKU in their catalogue.

Yes, but how surprising is that lag considering the age of the pro?

Rather than a niche, it is a self-fullfulling prophecy.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by deeter

Dude, You Gettin' a Dell? Former Apple Editors Choose 'Yes, Bro' over Mac Pro for Performance

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/01/edit...apple-mac-pro/

First, after Dell hired the evaluators they really aren't neutral anymore. They know that repeat business from Dell means reports coming out in Dell's favor. It is more a question of just how skewed the results are going to be.

Second, there aren't 95% to 2500% differences between Westmere and Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 class options. Most likely this huge rendering differences are far more driven by the AMD graphics card in the Mac Pro and a Nvidia CUDA card in the Dell along with an Adobe option to leverage the CUDA card.

That gap can be narrowed if just buy a never Nvidia GPU card and switch to the latest version of OS X. Yes the Mac Pro needs an update with default, or at least optional, Nvidia cards if targeting Adobe video processing software.

Likewise if using FCPX the gap isn't as narrow either since that software isn't as proprietary CUDA dependent.

The Mac Pro design does need to be tweaked to support a wider range of higher powered GPGPU cards. The very large jumps in number crunching power are not primarily CPU based anymore. Ten years ago, where some of the design constraints the Mac Pro core chassis is designed around, that was not the case.

[Larry-K]

Originally Posted by dragje

I don't think it will go that far. And since America one of the world poorest countries but still standing it's in the eye of the beholder which label you put on a country don't you think?
http://media.economist.com/sites/def...110_FBC408.png

I can't figure out how we beat Mexico.

Please notice Japan is right in front of us, I don't think they're going out of business anytime soon.

If you define poverty as "percentage of population with disposable income under 40 percent of median income" (quick, what's that number?) we're not looking good, but I don't think I'm going to go panhandle in Budapest anytime soon.

The brunt of the people suffering this lack of discretionary income are already complaining we're "Socialists", so you'll have to take this issue up with them.

As long as somebody will buy your debt (at Zero Percent!), you're not broke.

Now, can I have my New Mac Pro please? I'll even take one with lead solder joints.

[Neodym]

Originally Posted by basesloaded190

You realize this is something Apple has no control over right? This is a government regulation.

This regulation has been published in March 2007 and revised in December 2011 - more than enough time for Apple to not be surprised and not let the market run dry... (if they wanted to, that is).

[dreamora]

Originally Posted by Dudical

The iPhone is Apple's flagship product. The Mac Pro is a niche product which lags in sales behind practically every SKU in their catalogue.

At the same time though its also the only Apple flagship product where apple, despite the serious price tag, gives nothing about staying up to the state of the art.

The CPU is one point in that equation but the GPU options are simply hilarious and an insult to any thinking being.
The last 'silent upgrades' made to the mac pro replaces the previous gpu offering with new ones which were 'only' 2 years old at the time of the update instead of 4 years old.
Also Apple still fails to get the relevance of SLI / CrossFire for GPGPU. They are as a matter of fact the only company offering workstation aimed at artists that are incapable of properly leveraging GPGPU capabilities of the gpu.

This combined with the fact that the GPU performance has grown by a factor of over 7 over the past 4 years on such high end high price cards makes whole situation hilarious and more than a mere 'ashaming situation' for a global 'gold ******** donkey' company like Apple.

And yes Mac Pros are still heavily used. Our company only uses them as doing movie work and heavy movie + graphics work is dependent on it as too much data is unluckily passed around in FCP format. Yet I can sit with my 2011 MBP next to them with their 2009 MPs and make them cry cause my graphics card stomps their 300W+ energy sucker flat out in the ground at 70W energy consumption, so its pretty obvious that Apple MUST do something about the MP, its no longer an acceptable graphics workstation of any kind, even less at its unrealistic price tag for its stone age technology.

[dragje]

Originally Posted by larry-k

i can't figure out how we beat mexico.

Please notice japan is right in front of us, i don't think they're going out of business anytime soon.

If you define poverty as "percentage of population with disposable income under 40 percent of median income" (quick, what's that number?) we're not looking good, but i don't think i'm going to go panhandle in budapest anytime soon.

The brunt of the people suffering this lack of discretionary income are already complaining we're "socialists", so you'll have to take this issue up with them.

As long as somebody will buy your debt (at zero percent!), you're not broke.

Now, can i have my new mac pro please? I'll even take one with lead solder joints.

lol

Well, sorry if I offended your pride there. I agree, the economy will go on as long your country will raise it's amount of dept restriction. But even a four years old can tell that this wont last forever. It's not a national thing by the way, the Americans did't invented the red numbers and they have not patten it either; no country has (for once) .

But let's go back on the subject. The Mac Pro.

[violst]

Apple complains that Mac Pro sales are bad. But the reason for the poor sales is because apple has an outdated system. Its a catch 22. If they gave us an updated Mac Pro every 18 months or so people would buy them.

My cycle for upgrading my system was about every 2 years. I'm still on a 2008 because apple hasn't provided a good enough update. The Westmere's weren't bad at the time but the GPUs were a slap in the face, the internal SATA is outdated and the price point wasn't quite right for some of the shortcomings and so on.

If the Mac Pro was kept current then it would compete in the workstation arena, sales would be better, and the end user would be much, much happier.

We would all win.

Apple if you are listening please help us help you so we can all win

[toke lahti]

Originally Posted by Sean4000

The decision took .....0.68 seconds. For an IT guy, that's almost an eternity.

Pure 64-bit debian over here. We're running Houdini Master and Nuke. If there was an open-source NLE, Cinelerra doesn't count, Mac would be history at my studio.

How about Lightworks?

Originally Posted by Chupa Chupa

BTW the EU rules have nothing to do with the hardware being out of date, but with the fan not being covered per the new reg.

But the hardware being out of date is the reason why they can't sell MP in EU anymore. Regulations were announced 2009 and because present model of MP is older than that, Apple couldn't have made it to comply these regulations.

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

Folks keep trying to find a solution to a problem that doesnt' exist.

And those mobo makers of Taiwan have also found solutions to this problem that doesn't exist:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...20Extreme6/TB4
http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/P8Z77V_PROTHUNDERBOLT/
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4279#ov
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z77A-G45-Thunderbolt.html

I have no problem understanding, that when TB is marketed as having dp signal in it, user should be able to connect their TB-display to TB-socket and use discreet GPU with it. Otherwise there should be 2 TB standards (one with dp and other without it).

I'd guess that most people who have been waiting for a new (at least last years GPUs etc.) MP, are really waiting for a good workstation with OsX, not a good workstation from Apple. And when it's pretty damn clear that Apple don't want to sell pro workstations (maybe supporting pro's is just too expensive) or even affordably expandable desktops anymore, everybody would be happy if Apple just leases or sell OsX away. Macs are not getting so popular, that Apple would have to separate operating system from hardware because of anti-trust laws.

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

Second, there aren't 95% to 2500% differences between Westmere and Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 class options. Most likely this huge rendering differences are far more driven by the AMD graphics card in the Mac Pro and a Nvidia CUDA card in the Dell along with an Adobe option to leverage the CUDA card.

Why do you defend Apple here?

The Apple Pro is supported with a limited number of mostly out-of-date graphics cards.

If the Dell supports newer, faster, more GPGPU-capable cards - then the Dell is faster for the fairly common GPGPU-enabled apps.

Dell can do it - Apple can't. Excuses don't matter.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Why do you defend Apple here?

I defend the truth far more than Apple. When folks try reselling Apple kool-aid as facts I'm equally on top of top. (e.g., the whole "pro users saved Apple" is largely narcissist nonsense. )

The Apple Pro is supported with a limited number of mostly out-of-date graphics cards.

A 2GB GTX 570 likely would have turned in much better numbers and those do run on the current Mac Pro. Those came in later 10.7 releases.

When OS X 10.8.3 is released soon, it will bring some AMD 6000 cards online soon also.

If the Dell supports newer, faster, more GPGPU-capable cards - then the Dell is faster for the fairly common GPGPU-enabled apps.

At no point did I say that the gap would close to nothing. The triple and quad digit percentage gaps are due to skewed experiential design though plain and simple. That "study" is an exercise in composing a skewed experiment.

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

A 2GB GTX 570 likely would have turned in much better numbers and those do run on the current Mac Pro. Those came in later 10.7 releases.

I don't see those in the BTO options for an Apple Pro.



Point is that when comparing BTO configs, the numbers listed in the review are accurate.

"Do run" and "supported" are worlds apart. Apple has a hate on for Nvidia - which only makes Apple users suffer.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by dreamora

Also Apple still fails to get the relevance of SLI / CrossFire for GPGPU. They are as a matter of fact the only company offering workstation aimed at artists that are incapable of properly leveraging GPGPU capabilities of the gpu.

No. They do probably get it. SLI / Crossfire are not the crux of a GPGPU solution in a OpenCL/CUDA context. Where the computation is a shared effort between the CPU and GPU many intermediate results are going to travel back and forth between the those two grouping of memory. SLI/Crossfire is nice for transferring a "half" of a video buffer for output. It is not a solid foundation for cross computational grid computing.

The Mac Pro needs to be modified so that higher power ( 250-290W ) cards fit more comfortably inside the Mac Pro. Likewise bigger VRAM buffers 2-6GB range. All of that requires more power and cooling loads than the current PCI-e card thermal zone is designed for. If Apple corrects for that then they will be in good shape with an updated Mac Pro.

The other aspect is the rest of the GPU card market catching up with EFI booting. That is mainstream on the Windows side of the "house" now also. This should result in more cards coming sooner.

Apples (+ NVidia/AMD) drivers don't arrive on a timely basis now. Adding the additional complexity of SLI/Crossfire would not make them appear sooner. There are corner case games where there would be a benefits but optimizing in that direction is not what Apple is interested in. Apple has a huge gaming market... almost by accident, but the Mac Pro has little to do with it.

Yet I can sit with my 2011 MBP next to them with their 2009 MPs and make them cry cause my graphics card stomps their 300W+ energy sucker flat out in the ground at 70W energy consumption, so its pretty obvious that Apple MUST do something about the MP, its no longer an acceptable graphics workstation of any kind, even less at its unrealistic price tag for its stone age technology.

Those 2009 MPs can be bumped up to GTX 570 level and the difference isn't that much if any at all between the MBP. Updating graphics card doesn't really require moving to a new CPU design with the Mac Pro. In fact, that is suppose to be one of the value you get for paying more.
[with 10.8.3 there will be AMD 6000 series cards that will work. There is no well grounded reason a 2009 should be treatened by a 2011 MBP if allowed to upgrade the video card. ]

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

I don't see those in the BTO options for an Apple Pro.

Just because you can't buy it at the Apple online store the solution doesn't exist? Who is the "Apple fanatic" here ?

If people's problem solving abilities are limited to BTO configurations then yeah.... Apple can't hold your hand and figure everything out for you.

The lack of a 3rd party video card market is as much about Apple's actions as the video card vendors (including Nvidia and AMD ).

[thekev]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Why do you defend Apple here?

The Apple Pro is supported with a limited number of mostly out-of-date graphics cards.

If the Dell supports newer, faster, more GPGPU-capable cards - then the Dell is faster for the fairly common GPGPU-enabled apps.

Dell can do it - Apple can't. Excuses don't matter.

You can buy a PNY Quadro 4000 mac edition for $753 at this point. They're still offered in Windows cto configurations as well. The K5000 adds 4k support, but I'm not sure if they have a working OSX configuration yet. It's also $1800.

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

The lack of a 3rd party video card market is as much about Apple's actions as the video card vendors (including Nvidia and AMD ).

NVidia has at least made a slight effort. They've brought over workstation cards, likely because it requires fewer cards to justify the extra expense.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by toke lahti

And those mobo makers of Taiwan have also found solutions to this problem that doesn't exist:

Mainstream PC boards don't have the problem largely because the CPU package has a GPU in it.

To date, the Mac Pro has used CPU packages that lack a GPU. The transistor budget is spent on the "x86 core count" war. That brings pressure to the Mac Pro that the rest of the Mac line up does not face.

Pragmatically Apple needs to embedded a GPU into the Mac Pro design so that it will pass the Thunderbolt qualification tests that require a computer to output a DisplayPort signal.

Otherwise there should be 2 TB standards (one with dp and other without it).

TB adoption rate as been slow enough with just one standard to follow. If there were 2 (and presumably two diferent connectors to differentiate) it would be even slower.

And when it's pretty damn clear that Apple don't want to sell pro workstations (maybe supporting pro's is just too expensive) or even affordably expandable desktops anymore,

This isn't a one sided issue. Fewer folks are buying workstations in the 2008-2011 timeframe. That was not an Apple specific issue. The whole workstation market was largely either stagnant or shrinking. Even those "other guys" who are supposedly doing a much better job.

That overall collapsing market is one of the factor that likely lead to Apple at the very least back-burner if not putting the Mac Pro R&D into hibernation.

everybody would be happy if Apple just leases or sell OsX away. Macs are not getting so popular, that Apple would have to separate operating system from hardware because of anti-trust laws.

OS X's value completely decoupled from the rest of Apple is marginal at beast. Pragmatically that means a fork between iOS and OS X. Apple is not going to hand over iOS intellectual property to some external organization that owns OS X. If forced to choose between Windows and OS X as a priority given both as external entities, it should be obvious which one will get the more heavy integration effort.

Right now Apple does little to no advertising for OS X almost purely relying on the "halo" effect to do OS X advertising for free. A seperate company would have no such luxury.

Largely the same issues with decoupling OS X from hardware. Hardware would be pushed into dealing increasing more with Windows/Linux and other OS vendors to the determent of more attention to OS X.

[pertusis1]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Why weren't you "forced to move to Windows on real professional grade hardware"?

You have some faith that a "real upgrade" is coming to the Apple Pro - but that seems less likely than Apple killing the Apple Pro product line.

OK, so maybe 'forced' wasn't the right word, and for what it's worth, I like my mini quite nicely. I am not a professional user, but I use a 1080p AVCHD video camera. I edit the video casually, and my daughter is learning to edit video on FCPX. She taxes my computer much harder than I do After she does about 10 minutes of editing, it takes the mini about 30 minutes with maxed out processor cores to catch up.

I can answer the question as to why I didn't get a PC workstation. I would have to use windows. Of late, I had been a bit annoyed at the way Apple is turning OSX into iOSX. Everything is getting sufficiently automated that I feel that they are wrestling too much control away from the user. I was exploring switching to windows, but I find that with Windows 8, Microsoft is doubling down on Apple's move away from user control. Sometimes it makes me long for MS-DOS, but I digress...

I have switched to Microsoft products three times over the last 20 years, and it never lasted more than a year before I came back to Mac. In the end, I want my computer to serve me, not me serve my computer. This does not fit well with the Windows way of doing business.

As for killing the Pro line, it is possible that this is the plan, but I doubt that you are right about that. It would be awfully odd for the CEO to go out of his way to announce that an update is coming this year, then renege on that promise. Although the Mac Pro does not generate a lot of revenue for Apple at this point, it's not like they have to invent anything to come out with a significant update. Heck, they don't even have to innovate. Sadly, most Mac Pro users would be satisfied with immitation (of the high end PCs) at this point! Just give me a high end unit that will run MacOS and can load a decent video card.

[toke lahti]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

Mainstream PC boards don't have the problem largely because the CPU package has a GPU in it.

Pragmatically Apple needs to embedded a GPU into the Mac Pro design so that it will pass the Thunderbolt qualification tests that require a computer to output a DisplayPort signal.

You did notice that some of those mobos handle routing of discreet GPU back to TB controller with a pretty simple solution: external cable?
Too un-elegant for Apple? Not enough form-over-function in "professional" workstation?