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

[powerbook911]

We all remember the many deaths the Mac Mini was said to face.

Anything is possible, but I'll be pulling for the Mac Pro.

[ciociosan]

The shunning of all things professional continues at apple, it seems. It's just your friendly iProvider of consumer electronics now, that will, in all likelihood, replace the Mac Pro with the Mac Bro.

[Cinch]

The Cube is going to make a comeback to displace both Mac Mini and Mac Pro? A flexible cube that can upgrade three things, graphics/RAM/storage, easily?

Hell, if the high end iMac can handle Adobe CS and CAD well, then there is little need for a Mac Pro. Of course I could be totally wrong.

[topmounter]

They should license OS X to a third party and let them continue the Mac Pro line

[tatonka]

With the current lineup of "desktop" computers Apple is certainly not appealing to a lot of people. The Pro is a real Professional Computer with rather expensive parts, that are overpowered for most people. With the iMac and the mini you have to pay premium for mostly laptop components.

I am quite sure, if Apple brought out a well balanced desktop with i7 processors and a decent graphics card, that thing would fly of the shelfs.

Then again .. I myself am very happy with my MBP.

T.

[maflynn]

Originally Posted by powerbook911

We all remember the many deaths the Mac Mini was said to face. .

The difference there is that the mini sales were always very good and required less resources to design and update

Originally Posted by Cinch

The Cube is going to make a comeback to displace both Mac Mini and Mac Pro? A flexible cube that can upgrade three things, graphics/RAM/storage, easily?

Apple already released the cube - its called the mini

[smulji]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

This could be the unlikely and unforseen path to an upgradable mini (midi) form factor device. There has been clamoring for a replacement to the cube (Steve's fav) in the form of an upgradable mid-priced unit with exceptional graphics capabilities.

The PC is not entirely dead yet and an Intel chip is over $500 itself in a world where an A5 is about $25 bucks.

Apple can release a product in the PowerMac arena but cannot make demand out of nothing.

What they can do is increase the expandability features with "device boxes" that attach via Thunderbolt and accept graphics cards, pci cards, drives, and even add value such as GPU ganging as coprocessors. Perhaps even a blade server scheme. All BTO and all set to safety stocks among the lowest at Apple.

Rocketman

"What they can do is increase the expandability features with "device boxes" that attach via Thunderbolt and accept graphics cards, pci cards, drives, and even add value such as GPU ganging as coprocessors. "

You've hit the nail on the head here. This is what I think Apple intends to do. The future of computing is mobile & modular. Only those that really need the extra horsepower will buy the attachments needed to upgrade their units. The days of big towers will dwindle.

[iStudentUK]

Originally Posted by guzhogi

So the only thing that's important is profit?

If you are a big company then yes. It's their purpose- make profit and maintain profit in the future. It's naive to tink otherwise.

If Apple believe they can increase their profits by ditching their Pro line then that's what they'll do.

[Speedy2]

Originally Posted by HiRez

The iMac's monitor is "good enough" for many, and it's not really bad, but:

Then attach a monitor that is good enough and use the built-in monitor for auxiliary purposes. Photoshop pros have 2 or more monitors anway.

[Prodo123]

Originally Posted by topmounter

They should license OS X to a third party and let them continue the Mac Pro line

Remember Psystar?

[nubero]

Originally Posted by rellimie

Back in the day the main benefits to the MacPro were the expansion slots, dual processor, extra hard drives, and dual processors.

Now days with iMacs coming with quad cores, 16 GB of ram, and terrabytes of hard drive space, and thunderbolts ability to add external storage, and an expansion slot chassis; I think this is an obvious move. Add a duel processor option to the iMac and there you go. The only people this will hurt is the people that use Mac OSX Server as the MacPro and MacMini is the only server hardware they currently offer.

It will also hurt people like me who don't want 3 Hard Drives on their desk, need a good screen and expansion cards.

[cube]

Originally Posted by maflynn

Apple already released the cube - its called the mini

The mini is not a Cube replacement. That's why I only got a new Mac when Apple killed ExpressCard on the 15" (and removable batteries).

[vmachiel]

Damn! I can't say i knew it, but i'm not that surprised..
Shame..

[wikus]

Originally Posted by tigres

If put a stamp on poop, you'd back em' up here.

They did. It was called the ipod hifi.

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by michaeldorian

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.

Look at the price difference between the Core i7 and the equivalent Xeon.

Hint: There isn't one.

ECC memory is a tad more expensive.

Unfortunately there is no cost cutting by using i7s instead of Xeons, and due to that I'd rather have Xeons!

[OperatorAce]

Originally Posted by rellimie

Back in the day the main benefits to the MacPro were the expansion slots, dual processor, extra hard drives, and dual processors.

Now days with iMacs coming with quad cores, 16 GB of ram, and terrabytes of hard drive space, and thunderbolts ability to add external storage, and an expansion slot chassis; I think this is an obvious move. Add a duel processor option to the iMac and there you go. The only people this will hurt is the people that use Mac OSX Server as the MacPro and MacMini is the only server hardware they currently offer.

This is brilliant. Give it a larger screen, and we could see dual processor iMacs with multiple HDD options and actual graphics cards; however, I really like Mac Pros the way they are.

PS: Since when did MacRumors turn into reddit?

[Mr. Retrofire]

.
Here are Apples main problems with the "old" Mac Pros:
- The costs of the components are too high.
- The marketing strategy for the Mac Pro is non-existent.
- The concept of the Mac Pro comes from the G5 PowerPC era.

[Wicked1]

I guess this is because sales are getting worse, these desktops are very expensive and are only used by a small percentage of end users. I would love to get one, but a base unit is over $2,000.00 and for what I would like it for, it would be overkill, I think if they dropped the price they would see sales of these kick off a little higher, but I know price is a concern to a lot of folks.

I am not sure a super up Mini could replace the MP, but we will see what will happen in the next 6 months I imagine. It will be interesting to see what Apple does with all their new models and existing lines though.

[MisterK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I would be surprised to see the Mac Pro disappear. My 27" i7 iMac handles Photoshop, After Effects, and Maya pretty well. The attached 30" cinema display also helps.

If Apple does choose to update the Mac Pro, they need to have a massive push where they champion real world uses of these machines. They have to make people feel they need them. Maybe they buy up Mathematica or develop some super high end DNA sequencing software.

I know that Apple has been getting away from the high end hardware because they feel that their other popular machines can handle it, but what if they help redefine what high end is? This would be like car companies having a race car. A prestige line of showpiece science and data focused machines. They sell very few, but it could be a testing ground for their new ideas.

[bilbo--baggins]

With the arrival of Thunderbolt I guess there has never been a better time to abandon the Mac Pro.

However - they would FIRST need to bring out a souped up Mac Mini with dual Xeon processors, high end graphics card, at least 2 thunderbolt ports, user replaceable hard drive. Plus they would need a greater range of Apple and third party Thunderbolt devices, such as external hard drive enclosures.

I have been waiting for the next Mac Pro - and had rule out the 27" maxed out iMac or Mac Mini because in their current forms they simply aren't up to Mac Pro specs.

I also wonder if part of the reason for reduced sales of the Mac Pro is the reason why I've delayed upgrading - the early 2008 2 x 4 core Xeon's were far better performance/cost ratio than the subsequent models. I paid about £1880 for the Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Xeon with upgraded graphics card which gives a benchmark of 9201 (http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/). More than 3 and a half years later Apple are selling the entry level Mac Pro (One Quad-Core Nehalem) for £2041 which benchmarks at 8665. Even if the cost hasn't gone up a great deal (inflation/changes in exchange rate/VAT) - for the entry level model to have reduced in performance after 3 and a half years is bound to put people off buying. Who wants to replace their ageing Mac Pro with something that is LESS powerful? After this amount of time I'm wanting something significantly MORE powerful - but to get that is going to cost a huge amount more, eg. £2859 for the Two x 4 core benchmarking at 12749.

So while the trend may be away from Mac Pros (especially in future with the arrival of Thunderbolt) I think the steep rise in cost of the Mac Pro (for the expected performance gains) must be a major factor.

[smulji]

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 still has a high sale potential well into the future in the mass consumer market as a standalone unit. 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.

New Mac Pro:

Image

They might just do what you're talking about.

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

Agreed.

[AlvinNguyen]

I doubt this is true - they might have considered this but think about how many people are using Mac Pros in design and film studios. As processors gets more powerful, so does the higher demands of processing power from new DSLRs and other devices. You have to consider that as well!

[Dae]

No demand? Tell that to RED camera professionals.

But I would agree that the Mac Pro's are positioned questionably, because only a fraction of its users really need a $500 server CPU and expensive memory.

I think there are people who simply need a powerful Mac, with a decent GPU and without a monitor, and there are other people who need a super-powerful workstation with two processors and such. The entrance level Mac Pro is overly expensive for the former kind of customers.

Letting geeks down is not going to serve you well, Apple. There are those obvious costs, but then there is a tremendous influence to your ecosystem which is worth much more.

I switched to Mac because there was a Mac Pro. Then I converted (if thats the right word) at least five people to the Mac platform. None of them chose Mac Pros.

It happens all the time. Companies which work with video, graphics and design tend to buy Macs even for day-to-day office work. People who have to work with Macs, buy them for home use.

[Speedy2]

Originally Posted by tatonka

With the current lineup of "desktop" computers Apple is certainly not appealing to a lot of people.

Hm, that's probably the reason why they've been growing WAY faster than the entire PC market for many years now. Admittedly, most of that was due to the notebooks, but desktops are becoming irrelevant as we speak.

[AZREOSpecialist]

We are going to see an evolution of the Mac Pro, not its discontinuation. It would make sense for Apple to streamline this product into something half the size, but for Apple I think the Mac Pro remains a "prestige" item that it won't get rid of.