Analysis: The real reasons behind Apple's Mac Pro delay.

PowerPCMacMan said:

Even Nano told me how these things work.. Someone passes information to another person without any proof or sources and says, its true!

At this point unless we can get TRUE, verifiable sources stating that the 2013 Mac Pro will indeed be coming out at such and such date, and it will be a totally revamped machine unlike what we have seen before + stolen prototype images, then there would be some credible proof..

So far from Forbes, and others.. Its all vapor at this point.

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Yup, this is exactly what is known as "vaporware". However in this case we are talking about Apple, Forbes, and the NY Times... So I have to think there is actually something to it. It's just not useful to go off and get all spaced out with crazy and/or incorrect specifications regarding what it might be like, why it took so long, and so on and so forth. How many threads were there doing this? One, could be fun I guess - others said the same thing - but 17... goodness gracious how confusing for anyone seeking information and what a waste of their and our time. There was even an official Apple Rag publishing make-believe specs of a modular MacPro. OK, sure... if that's leaked information then let's have it. If it's not then WTH? That guy should be writing SciFi instead of confusing people and causing such a ruckus.

Err, wait... maybe he was writing SciFi.

theSeb said:

Of course. I totally see it now. Please pass me one of your foil hats.

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I'll Pass on the foil hat, I have a Mac Pro case to wear on my head

TheEasterBunny said:

I'll Pass on the foil hat, I have a Mac Pro case to wear on my head

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Hehehe... theSeb does love his tinfoil hats tho! He'll believe anything ya tell him without question apparently.

This thread is no longer "educational".

Being new to the forum I always glean some information from most of the threads. It was interesting to learn why the new Mac Pro was not dependent on the rollout of various new components. Seems to have gone downhill though.

Tesselator said:

Hehehe... theSeb does love his tinfoil hats tho! He'll believe anything ya tell him without question apparently.

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There is a fine line between questioning the world in front of us and being a looney.

theSeb said:

There is a fine line between questioning the world in front of us and being a looney.

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And when exactly did you cross it? But we're probably just making work for the mods to clean up now.

The rule has always been that it's vaporware until it actually ships. So either the entire consumer body of the world is looney or you have bitten off too much Apple pie...

Tesselator said:

And when exactly did you cross it? But we're probably just making work for the mods to clean up now.

The rule has always been that it's vaporware until it actually ships. So either the entire consumer body of the world is looney or you have bitten off too much Apple pie...

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Your pre-edit post made me laugh so I won't bother coming up with a witty retort. I believe we have stayed mostly on topic.

theSeb said:

Your pre-edit post made me laugh so I won't bother coming up with a witty retort. I believe we have stayed mostly on topic.

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Oh man... But it's cool/witty remarks I live for on here. So much better than "I know for sure the new MacPro was late cuz they were waiting for the new 72-core iCore Xeon Sandy Beach chip - cuz I heard it on a webcast in 3D".

This seems relevant somehow:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3766fd30dc/kiss-my-a-with-denis-leary?rel=player&playlist=313868

deconstruct60 said:

Highly doubtful.

" ... AirPlay Mirroring in OS X Mountain Lion takes advantage of the hardware video encoding capabilities of 2nd and 3rd Generation Intel Core processors ..."
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5404

Unless Apple is about to take a dramatic left turn on processors assigned to the Mac Pro, there aren't any hardware video encoding facilities in the Xeon E5 class of CPU offerings.

Perhaps Apple has worked out a more general purpose solution ( again a bit sketiptical since that involves work across different video encoding hardware.)

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Broadcom has the necessary chips. I have only fish™.

I hate to even post but

I feel like Apple is debating. It's such a power play right now if they release a Mac Pro, if they do they are saying the Desktop is not Dead, and we still believe in Pro-sumer...

Here is my stance: They must release a Mac Pro-ish Desktop to KEEP that Intellectual Pie Wedge or Mind Share alive. So in my eyes they have to keep that part alive and they will, if I had to bet.

But I think it's possible they could be just debating right now. Like saying "Full on iOS everything drop older OS strategies" "Merge iOS and OSX." Focus Focus Focus Narrow up, Close everything up, Launch the Spaceship campus, close out the rest of the world keep everything internal, give only dedicated 3rd party's like Adobe-ish companies, development groups and design firms that pay the big money the tools. AND DITCH older Desktop thinking for your Average Consumer. iPads for everybody for life, PC's as we know it are DEAD and DONE, Facebook forever...

Really? tho? nah Just don't see it YET... give it 5-10 years tho and watch out

Trends and Technology are dangerous things and that sucks, there are dudes (and I am one of them) still playing Atari 2600 and Nintendo, but the world doesn't care

They must sell 100 million UNITS (or whatever number) and if it doesn't sell a billion units, the Wall Streets and New York Times call Apple a loser, and this PC company and that manufacturer is a Winner. They will say they are loosing marketshare in that area and somebody else is winning blah blah blah

It's sad but they say things like this: "Such and Such company could end up like SONY" Like that is a bad thing? Geesh I mean to these stock f#@ks, to them the best company in the world has 1 product, and it sells 6 billion units, 2 units for 3 billion people. Then in 6 months they ditch that product, and then and make the world forget about it, and come out with a NEW product narrow down there supply chain, and get back to just one product, and then sell 8 billion units, 2 each for 4 billion people. Then in 6 months call that OLD, and wash rinse repeat. NEWHORES NEW NEW NEW... sick sick sick

It just gets old, when people can't just be happy with what they have. I mean this crap, every 3 years a brand new lease on a SUV or Crossover. Like a car couldn't make 10 years now HAH what a joke...

it's just NEWHORES, with no New shores...

the Mac Pro is Old... it's a bummer, I LOVE IT LOVE IT, I could live with Mac Pros till I am dead in the ground with 4 SSDs 128 GB of ram UNIX UNIX UNIX ugh, I have viruses to kill and diseases to stop...

Mark my words tho MiniTouchScreenPadTabs for everyone 2028, babies babies babies everywhere non stop.

Gotta educate them and books are expensive.

now back to this the new facebook HAH:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3766fd30dc/kiss-my-a-with-denis-leary?rel=player&playlist=313868

THis is great love Dennis

Mr. Retrofire said:

Broadcom has the necessary chips. I have only fish™.

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Broadcom doesn't implement Quick Sync. Apple's solution so far is hard coded to a Intel specific hardware functionality unit.

Any reasonable GPU that would be inserted into a Mac Pro would also have a video encoder. Just not an the Intel specific one. The boardcom unit brings nothing unique to the table besides their specific hardware implementation. For example the new AMD 7950 card that recently appeared on the market for the Mac. From the 7950's specs page:


" ... Video Codec Engine (VCE)

Multi-stream hardware H.264 encoder
Full-fixed mode: 1080p @ 60 FPS encoding
Hybrid mode: Stream Processor-assisted encoding
"
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7950/Pages/radeon-7950.aspx#3

It just isn't Quick Sync.

This "feature" of OS X is restricted to Intel specific hardware. If it is actually hardware independent code why did Apple do that? Why are all the other video ecoders embedded in millions of other Macs left out right now?

deconstruct60 said:

It just isn't Quick Sync.

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;-)

anandtech.com said:

...
From:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/9

Fundamentally VCE is very similar to Quick Sync – it’s based on what you can accomplish with the addition of a fixed function encoder – but AMD takes the concept much further to take full advantage of what the compute side of GCN can do. In “Full Mode” VCE behaves exactly like Quick Sync, in which virtually every step of the H.264 encoding process is handled by fixed function hardware. Just like Quick Sync Full Mode is fast and energy efficient.
...

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deconstruct60 said:

This "feature" of OS X is restricted to Intel specific hardware.

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The realtime encoding to a H.264 standard compliant stream is not “restricted to Intel specific hardware”. Why do you insist on Quick Sync, if other (low cost) solutions exist!?

Mr. Retrofire said:

The realtime encoding to a H.264 standard compliant stream is not “restricted to Intel specific hardware”.

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I never said it was. What relevant is that Apple's code is.

Why do you insist on Quick Sync, if other (low cost) solutions exist!?

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While these are several hardware function unit implementations, they are all driven by software. No software, no solution. The hardware by itself is not a solution.

Could Apple add some software to enable this stuff. Sure, it is possible. However, what is far more relevant is that they did not do it. There is lots of software that Apple doesn't do. There are multible USB 3.0 controllers on the market. Does Apple do drivers for most of them? No.