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

[iBug2]

Originally Posted by farmermac

i think some of their high end software sales will suffer as well if they drop the mac pro. Im not sure many studios will want to do their movie edits on an imac.

You can do movie edits on an iMac as long as you have storage through TB. You can easily cut a 4K movie on an iMac, the processing power is more than enough.

If you notice, people have been cutting movies on Macs for a long time, when the most powerful Mac Pro or G5 was 1/4 the speed of the current iMac.

[Speedy2]

Inevitable. Workstations are dying off as a category, and Apple prefers a lean product lineup rather than occupying many small niches.
They haven't updated the Mac Pro very often in the past 5 years anyway, it's clearly on its way out.

[alent1234]

Originally Posted by mysticalos

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.

that's 3-5 iMac's for all that money you just "invested" in an expensive computer

just buy a new iMac every year, sell it and buy new instead of buying one monster pro and upgrading it over many years

[Zwhaler]

Bringing Thunderbolt to other Macs does not even come close to filling the need for a Mac Pro. I'm really happy with mine. If they discontinue it that will not be taken well by high end users. Hopefully they update it with Sandy Bridge and life goes on....

[Umbongo]

Originally Posted by iBug2

Well the current iMac 27" and the Apple Cinema Display 27" use the exact same IPS panel from LG.

The panel is just part of what makes a high-quality display. The glossy glass is also a no go for many users.

[KnightWRX]

Let's face it, there's tons they could have done to make a 2011 refresh if they had any illusion that this was a worthwhile product line. The fact alone that it's been sitting there for close to 1 and a half year shows a bit how they have abandonned it.

New GPUs, bumped RAM/Hard drive storage, bumped CPU frequencies using the same CPUs, basically at least keep the boxes up to date with what's on the market. I think Apple focuses too much on raw CPU power for these, refreshing only when there's new processor architectures does not really serve the consumer. The CPU hasn't been the main source of performance in computing for quite a while.

[maflynn]

I saw the writing on the wall for some time, and posted as much in the Mac Pro forum from time to time.

The iMac provides a lot of processing power and there is a lot of overlap between the iMac and Mac Pro. Now I understand the MacPro provides some benefits like xenon processors, and plenty of expansion bays but in reality how many of us need that.

Based on the sales charts less and less

[HiRez]

Originally Posted by mysticalos

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'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're part of a very, very, very small niche. How many people out there are buying ~$3,000 MacPros to use as hardcore gaming machines? Not many, I think.

[Chupa Chupa]

Originally Posted by farmermac

i think some of their high end software sales will suffer as well if they drop the mac pro. Im not sure many studios will want to do their movie edits on an imac.

Very true. What Apple should do is make the MP a true pro machine and dump the lower end single chip models. Make ever MP a BTO machine, which guarantees higher margins. But then make a higher spec QC i7 Mini for those of us low end MP buyers.

[iBug2]

Originally Posted by Zwhaler

Bringing Thunderbolt to other Macs does not even come close to filling the need for a Mac Pro.

Actually it does, if there are enough TB accessories, such as external GPU's, or RAM boxes. Don't forget that TB is a PCI-e expansion.

[Speedy2]

Originally Posted by iBug2

Well the current iMac 27" and the Apple Cinema Display 27" use the exact same IPS panel from LG.

But, but...
you're bursting his pro bubble!
With facts!

[Shaun, UK]

Originally Posted by ipedro

Here's a straightforward solution:

Make the Mac Mini scaleable in stacks. Use the Thunderbolt port to make it simple to build anything from a FinalCutPro station, to a server, to a super computer by simply daisy chaining Mac Minis.

This would enable Apple to continue to serve the Pro market all the while only having to continue to build a Mac Mini which is enough for most people. Power users could add another Mac Mini or several to meet the needs they would find in the Mac Pro.

The required change is in OSX enabling the stacking, no need for Apple to design, build and maintain a separate hardware line. To address the only remaining shortcoming: expansion slots. These could be added in the chain as external components. Either Apple could build and sell an expansion stack shaped like the Mac Mini with Thunderbolt I/O or leave it to third party manufacturers to build their expansion chips into these shapes.

The Mac Pro will be missed, but its place is in the history books.

I seem to remember reading about a University that did this not so long ago and almost built themselves a super computer. Maybe I'm wrong but if you're right this seems like a clever solution. The more power you need the bigger the Mac Mini stack. Presumably this also works as a server solution.

[azentropy]

Over the years Apple kept pushing the Mac Pro to higher and higher price points as the rest of the market has lowered price points. You used to be able to get an entry level "tower" for under $1500. Now the entry point for a "tower" is $2500. They have minimized their market.

On top of that the current entry level MacPro at $2499 is a horrible value, and was a horrible value when released. I don't care how expandable and great the case, MB and power supply are. A $2500 system should have better than a $250 CPU, a $70 GPU, a $50 HD, a $20 optical drive and $50 worth of memory.

And they wonder why it isn't the seller it used to be...

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by weqtor

It's not like no one wants a Mac Pro. Hell, who wouldn't want one.

I haven't wanted a desktop computer for the longest time. I moved on to laptops about 7 years ago. For my needs (Unix hacking/coding), the performance in computing has been more than enough for close to 15 years now.

[cube]

Originally Posted by alent1234

only xeon CPU's can be used in dual processor configs

You can use Opteron in upto 4-processor configs. They are less expensive, and if they are only the 8-core 2GHz versions they are really cheap. The more expensive ones go upto 12 full cores since a long time.

The new Opterons coming soon will have upto 16 cores (but with 8 shared floating point units).

[oldwatery]

Originally Posted by a.gomez

not surprising - nothing "pro" about Apple anymore - just another part of the iOS dumbing down of apple

Couldn't agree more.
This has been on the cards for a couple of years so no real surprise.

Apple can blame the "market" all they want but in the end it is entirely their fault. They chose not to improve and innovate in this sector leaving many pros no option but to stay with what they have or move to Linux/Windows.

Apple is a consumer electronics company now and it is very sad that thy have abandoned the people that supported them for decades.

If this market is too small and insignificant for mighty Apple then they should licence the OS to top shelf third party manufacturers.

But we all know they won't....

[MovieCutter]

Originally Posted by Concorde Rules

And what happens when you come to replace that 2010 MP of yours?

I drive it until it dies or sell it at a premium given the apparently high demand from said 100 customers for the fastest Mac Pro available under $5k...

...

[esquared]

Very simply this would kill any chance (slim as that may already be) that FCPX had of being adopted to a pro workflow. Yet Apple said over and over that they are committed to the pro video market, so if you believe them then the rumor is false. And nobody wants to watch video on an iPod either. Oops.

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Let's face it, there's tons they could have done to make a 2011 refresh if they had any illusion that this was a worthwhile product line. The fact alone that it's been sitting there for close to 1 and a half year shows a bit how they have abandonned it.

New GPUs, bumped RAM/Hard drive storage, bumped CPU frequencies using the same CPUs, basically at least keep the boxes up to date with what's on the market. I think Apple focuses too much on raw CPU power for these, refreshing only when there's new processor architectures does not really serve the consumer. The CPU hasn't been the main source of performance in computing for quite a while.

So is it worth spending ££££ doing that for 6 months or wait for 6 months and revamp the whole lot?

However it boils down to:

Until the competition have had their own SB-E X79 workstations shipping for a good month or more these rumours can't be taken seriously.

You never know, they might surprise us and have it come with a SSD as standard, a HD7000 series card and double the standard memory...

Originally Posted by MovieCutter

I drive it until it dies or sell it at a premium given the apparently high demand from said 100 customers for the fastest Mac Pro available under k...

...

Hah. I just looked at prices for the W3680, 16GB of 1333Mhz RAM and a 6870... tempting isn't the word

[iBug2]

Originally Posted by Umbongo

The panel is just part of what makes a high-quality display. The glossy glass is also a no go for many users.

The glossy glass exists on the 27" Thunderbolt display as well. What are you on about?

Not to mention, there are pro's that actually prefer glossy. It's not set in stone that for professional work one needs non-glossy.

[MovieCutter]

Originally Posted by esquared

Very simply this would kill any chance (slim as that may already be) that FCPX had of being adopted to a pro workflow. Yet Apple said over and over that they are committed to the pro video market, so if you believe them then the rumor is false. And nobody wants to watch video on an iPod either. Oops.

Um, in case you haven't been paying attention, there's NEVER been a chance that FCP X would be adopted into a truly professional workflow...

[*LTD*]

Originally Posted by Speedy2

Inevitable. Workstations are dying off as a category, and Apple prefers a lean product lineup rather than occupying many small niches.
They haven't updated the Mac Pro very often in the past 5 years anyway, it's clearly on its way out.

This. Let's just face facts. Which, by the way, are neither lost on the industry, nor on Apple (and especially not lost on retailers.)

The "Pro" niche that uses these workstations is dying out. As more and more power is fit into smaller and smaller form factors, there is less need for these aluminum monstrosities. They can (and are) gradually being replaced by more cost-effective, smaller and more compact devices that are slowly (and already are) taking over the tasks formerly the specialty of these big boxes.

This was an inevitability. All you need to do is keep an eye on the long-term trends.

[Ryth]

Originally Posted by bpd115

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.

They definitely don't need the size of the old MacPro anymore.

I think many of us want that mid form factor size that isn't locked into a monitor like the iMac or MBPro. I want a machine with 2 drive slots, 2 video card slots and 2 expansion slots with 4-8 RM slots. I could care less about the optical drive honestly...I barely write discs anymore and we are even in the Blu-Ray/DVD business.

In the end though, if Thunderbolt allows us to say buy a MBPro and upgrade the video card through an expansion bay you buy, then the upgradability of a Mac Pro machine becomes less and less needed.

Inevitable. Workstations are dying off as a category, and Apple prefers a lean product lineup rather than occupying many small niches.
They haven't updated the Mac Pro very often in the past 5 years anyway, it's clearly on its way out.

Agreed. The only issue again with the SMF is the upgradable video card or expansion. If Thunderbolt allows this in some way, then really there is no need for a Mac Pro anymore.
dd

[guzhogi]

Originally Posted by *LTD*

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.

So the only thing that's important is profit? Hmm… I'd love to see Apple's NC data center run on only iPads.

If only Apple would update the Mac Pro more often. Not necessarily everything every year, but maybe bump the graphics cards when new ones become available, CPUs, bigger hard/faster hard drives, etc.

Plus, I wonder how much Apple pays/has paid for all the servers, networking equipment, and support for its data center. Sure this kind of stuff may not be that profitable or used by that many people, but it's important.

[michaeldorian]

Originally Posted by G-Force

Offer a cheaper version with a single Core i7, it will sell like crazy... But still offer an 8-/12-core for the professionals who need one.

I own a 2009 8-core now, but it's overkill for me. A Core i7 version would be perfect.

Exactly. They just don't have the right machine right now. There is a major gap between an iMac and a Mac Pro for those who have displays. I want an expandable headless mac pro i7.