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Still Waiting for Mac Pro Updates, Suitable Intel Processors Due in Q4
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I think most of those features will be back in FCP X. They re-wrote the entire system for scratch and like with OS X, which if you remember was slow, buggy, and practically featureless at first, it will evolve. Like with OS X and classic you can still use FCP 7 on your machine, you just can't use it inside FCP X. The main difference is that Apple sold OS X originally as a transition product - noting that it still came with classic - but told people the FCP X was going to be the greatest thing ever right off the bat instead of: "this is a transition product missing features, but we'll put them back. We want you to use this to get used to the new work flow ideas." They essentially released it too soon telling people it could do things it couldn't do - like what Microsoft did with Vista. The actual practical differences between Vista and 7 is not really as great as the gulf between their respective reputations. 7 is simply what Vista should've been on release and many the computers which said "Vista ready" should have said the opposite since they were not spec'd accordingly. So I'd hang in there. I feel like if Apple had been upfront about what they were missing but would put in later, people would've been a lot more forgiving. Again, Apple has problems with communication other than saying something coming out in two weeks is "magical". After all, most of the hate is for features Final Cut is missing, not for features it added.
Xserve may be replaced by new rack-mountable Pros - not perfect 1U replacement, but still good.
The Mac Pro is the only option for someone who wants a better display than the iMac, who wants drive bays and a powerful graphics card and who wants to connect a really good monitor.
You mean it only cares about the uncreative professionals?
Yup..... Apple does NOT care about creative professionals.
You mean it only cares about the uncreative professionals?
ONE APP????? DVD Studio Pro - gone. SOUNDTRACK - gone. COLOR!!!!!!!! Gone. Color was THE industry leading color grading application. Motion - features removed. Compressor - features removed. Optical drives being removed across the board with each new computer announced. FCP supports opening iMovie projects but not FCP 7 projects. No video out for FCP (and the FCP list is a mile long). This leaving of the Pro market was calculated to have as small an impact as possible right up to the very moment they announced they're leaving the pro market. Some still refuse to believe it. Sometimes I wonder if the people making the software believe it. I'm fairly sure the FCP X team doesn't actually know where the software they built fits into Apple's large plan. What they built is a highly consumer product, with 3 or 4 definitively Pro features and a price that is too high for consumers pretty much satisfied with iMovie or free apps, and an app called Final Cut PRO that is unusable by pros. The name was strictly taken just for legacy purposes. There's no upgrade path. There's no connection whatsoever to ANY part or one single line of code from FCP 1-7. They didn't just screw up FCP. No no no. They precisely dismantled an entire professional ecosystem in such a way to continue selling maximum product until the day before it was discontented and EOL'd. If they had simply announced support for FCP 7 and continued selling it for another 1-2 years then a more gradual transition could take place. There will be no support for FCP 7 in a year or so. Especially with the next OS upgrade. Possibly sooner. It doesn't support versioning, full screen, etc. It's old school for Apple. Done. They cut the cord. Game over man.
ONE APP????? DVD Studio Pro - gone. SOUNDTRACK - gone. COLOR!!!!!!!! Gone. Color was THE industry leading color grading application. Motion - features removed. Compressor - features removed. Optical drives being removed across the board with each new computer announced. FCP supports opening iMovie projects but not FCP 7 projects. No video out for FCP (and the FCP list is a mile long). This leaving of the Pro market was calculated to have as small an impact as possible right up to the very moment they announced they're leaving the pro market. Some still refuse to believe it. Sometimes I wonder if the people making the software believe it. I'm fairly sure the FCP X team doesn't actually know where the software they built fits into Apple's large plan. What they built is a highly consumer product, with 3 or 4 definitively Pro features and a price that is too high for consumers pretty much satisfied with iMovie or free apps, and an app called Final Cut PRO that is unusable by pros. The name was strictly taken just for legacy purposes. There's no upgrade path. There's no connection whatsoever to ANY part or one single line of code from FCP 1-7. They didn't just screw up FCP. No no no. They precisely dismantled an entire professional ecosystem in such a way to continue selling maximum product until the day before it was discontented and EOL'd. If they had simply announced support for FCP 7 and continued selling it for another 1-2 years then a more gradual transition could take place. There will be no support for FCP 7 in a year or so. Especially with the next OS upgrade. Possibly sooner. It doesn't support versioning, full screen, etc. It's old school for Apple. Done. They cut the cord. Game over man.
You sound like an FCP user who's looked at FCP-X.
You're drinking the kool aid and they'e not even selling it. If they're planning ANY of the above. Why don't they simply say so? Because even if they are planning it, they want to be able to change their mind. They only thing they have stated is OMF is available now with automatic duck's plugin $400+. Tape support is GONE forever and they're leaving support for that to the card manufacturers (but that sorta leaves batch digitizing a sequence out eh?) and I can live with dropping tape actually, but many can't for a few years yet. They've stated right on their X page that color and soundtrack are built into X - but that isn't professional and the audio support is quite lacking of professional waveforms even. So color is gone. Soundtrack is gone. DVD Studio Pro is gone. How long with my DVD SP continue to work? It's a 6 year old app anyway. They're shown how much they care for DVDs and Blu-Ray. DVD and Blue Ray sales cut into their cloud ecosystem. It's not that Apple is cutting edge, it's that they can drop support for discs, and boost their bottom line in music sales, movie rentals, cloud services, etc. They whole time they play it off as being bleeding edge or making laptops thinner. They sure aren't making them cheaper by losing the drives.
My whole point is quit making excuses. Apple has made no promises and you can ONLY judge a company by what it does, not what it says. And they're not even saying anything. Kinda like taking the fifth ya know? FCP 7 was barely an upgrade 2 years ago. People were ready for change a year before that. And with pro apps like Avid and Premiere continuting forward making better what isn't broken (they have the cutting edge features of X a year ago) a Pro has to move on. If Apple decides to get it together so be it. But they didn't change the App from February to June 21. Instead, they stopped Adobe and Avid from showing their new Pro stuff at the super meet and knowingly hyped a no pro product to a pro group. This was no screwup. It was calculated since before FCS 3.
You sound like an FCP user who's looked at FCP-X.
Yes. I make a living with Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator. I'm currently thinking of going back to Avid Media Composer, or working on my chops more with my Premiere Pro CS5 system.
I'm just ranting. You want to see some real ranting from the true pros in the business go to http://forums.creativecow.net/finalcutprox
There you'll find the highest paid users and newbies all discussing it in anything but a laid back fashion. To put it mildly, the Pro Community is P.O.'ed and hasn't shut up about it for a month and a half. It's not an Apple brain fart. They had a minor news release about their future plans that was on the surface slightly appealing until you really read it and realized they didn't promise anything or announce any dead set future plans for the product.
It's a mess. The best analogy so far has been new coke. But you're probably too young to remember that screwup. Exactly the same. Hey, we're the number one soft drink manufacturer in the world. Let's change it. Here's hoping they release Final Cut Pro "Classic"
The Mac Pro is the only option for someone who wants a better display than the iMac, who wants drive bays and a powerful graphics card and who wants to connect a really good monitor.
You mean it only cares about the uncreative professionals?
And wants powerful processing that comes with heaps of RAM and Processing cores. You can't really get better than an iMac/Apple monitor. You get a Mac Pro because you can't afford an Apple Monitor and want a good monitor for a third the cost. Better graphics cards too.
It's all been said. Apple doesn't care about the Pro market anymore. Design was a niche (along with education) that sustained them when they were a bit player.
They are not a niche company anymore - they are a monopoly in the tablet space and a market maker in the smartphone space, either of which on their own are larger than any pro market they ever had.
In 5 years, there won't be a desktop Mac product at all. In 10 years, they'll be leasing dev workstations to licensed developers (like game console manufacturers do now) but even if they're using the mac name, they won't be selling general-purpose computers where any schmoe can run (or write) whatever they want. You'll have to use Apple's App Store (or, maybe if there's an antitrust case, one or two less popular alternative - but still signed - app stores.)
Mark my words. Apple is Microsoft plus Sony minus enterprise software and the music/movie studios.
They are not a niche company anymore - they are a monopoly in the tablet space and a market maker in the smartphone space, either of which on their own are larger than any pro market they ever had.
In 5 years, there won't be a desktop Mac product at all. In 10 years, they'll be leasing dev workstations to licensed developers (like game console manufacturers do now) but even if they're using the mac name, they won't be selling general-purpose computers where any schmoe can run (or write) whatever they want. You'll have to use Apple's App Store (or, maybe if there's an antitrust case, one or two less popular alternative - but still signed - app stores.)
Mark my words. Apple is Microsoft plus Sony minus enterprise software and the music/movie studios.
should seriously consider buying AMD. At a current market cap of only $4.5 Billion for AMD it wouldn't even be a blip on the radar for Apple.
It would be like giving the middle finger to Intel. It would force all those Windoze boxes and laptops from Sony, Samsung and Dell to use more expensive Intel chips at Intel's release rate. All those companies that are suing Apple will instantly lose a major supplier. Meanwhile, Apple would gain full control over price, features and release dates on their chips.
If Intel can't meet the low power requirements that Apple wants, I'm sure the AMD purchase would be more appealing.
Yesssss, I can see it now...(cue dream harp music)
Get a grip.
Many of your criticisms could've been leveled at OS X. It was a truly awful OS when 10.0 was first released. OS 9 had it beat on every single feature - those features that OS X actually even had. There wasn't a single thing OS X did better or even did as well as Classic at 10.0. However, Apple handled that transition much better than this one and allowed it to take place gradually.
I agree that stopping selling FCP7 and overhyping FCPX were horrible mistakes, but if I remember right Apple has put forth a (very) short (and hopefully incomplete) roadmap for some of the features they're going to add back in. Maybe they won't ever make it as fully functional as the FC7 suite was and if so, that'll be a huge mistake and they should indeed be taken to task for an overhyped release. But to me this smacks of a transition product, nothing more nothing less.
Look I'm not going to argue that you should stick with FCP7 or laughably use FCPX for your work. Of course not. You need this for your work and you've got to have the best tool for the job. Clearly right now it isn't FCPX and it may not be FCP7. If there are better editors right now, then maybe switch to those if you feel that it's worth it to do so. What I am arguing against is that this is necessarily the final product for FCPX. I argue it's just a transition product much the same way OS X 10.0 was for Mac OS.
The reason Apple hasn't said anything about what they are going to do is because Apple never does. Even the short (like 3 month) roadmap for Final Cut Pro they put out is anomalous for them. They never put out a roadmap for any their products - consumer nor professional. While this may be fine for their consumer lines, I agree that for professional and enterprise products that this is not really acceptable. But it has been their MO for the last decade at least and one could argue almost since Apple's inception. The silence on Apple's part is expected if insanely aggravating.
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The original article talks as if i-series cpu's are going into the Mac Pro. That'll never happen. More bad reporting from Mac-Rumors.
We are after an Intel Xeon roadmap. And when the next server class cpu's are coming from intel.
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And all the people basing FCPX are totally full of themselves. FCPX is a great product. And most of the pros know this. The few that don't realise/see this left Apple.
Apple left no one. Just a few pros left Apple.
I'm sick of people bashing a perfectly good product.
We are after an Intel Xeon roadmap. And when the next server class cpu's are coming from intel.
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And all the people basing FCPX are totally full of themselves. FCPX is a great product. And most of the pros know this. The few that don't realise/see this left Apple.
Apple left no one. Just a few pros left Apple.
I'm sick of people bashing a perfectly good product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon#Sandy-Bridge-based_Xeon
Sandy-Bridge-based Xeon
Main article: Sandy Bridge
[edit]E3-12xx-series "Sandy Bridge"
List: List of Intel Xeon microprocessors#"Sandy Bridge" (32 nm)
The Xeon E3-12xx line of processors corresponds to the Desktop processors known as Core i3/i5/i7-2xxx and Pentium Gxxx.
[edit]Future versions
Further information: List of future Intel microprocessors and Sandy Bridge
Future Xeon processors based on the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge microarchitectures will show up throughout 2011 and 2012 to replace the Nehalem/Westmere based products.
Unfortunately .. Apple does not need the true pros anymore .. they just don't care.
Iconic Monolith
The mac pro has almost become iconic.I can't see apple ever dropping it, but i don't think it's an easy job to improve it especially the case. I moved from a 7 year old dual G5 2.0 power mac. It served me well & is still running perfectly, it went from Panther to Leopard. Some people keep on the edge and hustle it with yearly upgrades others make a commitment for longer. My new flagship machine (see signature) is beyond night & day with it's predecessor. I can only hope for the next upgrade in about 6 years ! So is sandy bridge tick or tock ? We are looking at a 20% speed gain ? Isn't ivy bridge the tock ? Which is the better tick or tock ?
The mac pro has almost become iconic.I can't see apple ever dropping it, but i don't think it's an easy job to improve it especially the case. I moved from a 7 year old dual G5 2.0 power mac. It served me well & is still running perfectly, it went from Panther to Leopard. Some people keep on the edge and hustle it with yearly upgrades others make a commitment for longer. My new flagship machine (see signature) is beyond night & day with it's predecessor. I can only hope for the next upgrade in about 6 years ! So is sandy bridge tick or tock ? We are looking at a 20% speed gain ? Isn't ivy bridge the tock ? Which is the better tick or tock ?
For people that don't believe the Mac Pro will be axed next:
- Apple killed the Xserve raid
- Apple killed the Xserve
- Apple f'ed up Final Cut.
- Shake was killed
- Final Cut Server is dead
- Easy way to kill the CD / DVD-drive, iMac / MBP will probably lose that one soon, following MBA and Mac Mini.
- Steve Jobs thinks for you: "You don't need expansion bays anyway".
- I see Apple offering PCI-expansion via Thunderbolt for the iMac.
- Steve Jobs thinks for you: "A Mac Mini is a good server, the Mac Pro server isn't selling anyway".
- iMac is already faster in 9/10 tests. Only very specific tasks that fully use >4 cores see a Mac Pro lead.
- The Mac Pro would already be the last Mac to get Thunderbolt, it should be the first.
- With the introduction of the iPhone, resources at Apple have been shift from the Mac, Apple engineers are not happy with that either, but it is pushed.
- Except for the super Mac Pro (12 cores @ 2.93 GHz with 64 GB RAM), the current line of Mac Pros are quite a joke compared to what other vendors can offer at the moment.
I also hope that Apple won't axe the Mac Pro, it's actually the evolution from what started in 1984 as the Macintosh that Steve was so happy to introduce back then. More and more things point to a grate hate from Steve Jobs towards anything 'pro' or 'prosumer' and I just think the Mac Pro is next and it could be a very bad business decision even though Apple will try to bs it's way out of as they did with the Xserve.
- Apple killed the Xserve raid
- Apple killed the Xserve
- Apple f'ed up Final Cut.
- Shake was killed
- Final Cut Server is dead
- Easy way to kill the CD / DVD-drive, iMac / MBP will probably lose that one soon, following MBA and Mac Mini.
- Steve Jobs thinks for you: "You don't need expansion bays anyway".
- I see Apple offering PCI-expansion via Thunderbolt for the iMac.
- Steve Jobs thinks for you: "A Mac Mini is a good server, the Mac Pro server isn't selling anyway".
- iMac is already faster in 9/10 tests. Only very specific tasks that fully use >4 cores see a Mac Pro lead.
- The Mac Pro would already be the last Mac to get Thunderbolt, it should be the first.
- With the introduction of the iPhone, resources at Apple have been shift from the Mac, Apple engineers are not happy with that either, but it is pushed.
- Except for the super Mac Pro (12 cores @ 2.93 GHz with 64 GB RAM), the current line of Mac Pros are quite a joke compared to what other vendors can offer at the moment.
I also hope that Apple won't axe the Mac Pro, it's actually the evolution from what started in 1984 as the Macintosh that Steve was so happy to introduce back then. More and more things point to a grate hate from Steve Jobs towards anything 'pro' or 'prosumer' and I just think the Mac Pro is next and it could be a very bad business decision even though Apple will try to bs it's way out of as they did with the Xserve.
I am legitimately confused here
Why is everyone attacking Apple for potentially alienating the pro market by not updating the Mac Pros. It's been a long time, but isn't Apple waiting for Intel to release its pro-level Sandy Bridge CPUs? Therefore, it's not like those CPUs are out and Apple is just being lazy/negligent. Isn't Intel the bottleneck here, and not Apple.
I understand all the other reasons people are worried about Apple's attitudes towards professionals, but I don't understand the anger. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
Why is everyone attacking Apple for potentially alienating the pro market by not updating the Mac Pros. It's been a long time, but isn't Apple waiting for Intel to release its pro-level Sandy Bridge CPUs? Therefore, it's not like those CPUs are out and Apple is just being lazy/negligent. Isn't Intel the bottleneck here, and not Apple.
I understand all the other reasons people are worried about Apple's attitudes towards professionals, but I don't understand the anger. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
An iMac/Apple monitor is not a good monitor. Some people already have mirrors in the bathroom.
Professional Eizo & Nec screens are much more expensive than the 27" Apple mirror.
The top 2 listed items were half-baked attempts at a middle tier when Steve knows from NeXT you only hit the 3-tier Enterprise Markets or not at all.
Final Cut X will mature and your remark will look flacid by comparison.
Shake? Apple wanted the IP, not the product.
The Mac Pro is not going anywhere, but extended onwards to be the solution for the Medical, BioMed, Engineering, Mathematics and Pro Graphics/Music/Video Industries.
You may not like their time tables and the sparse nature of the high end workstation, but Apple doesn't live and die by the Pro Market anymore. They will continue to offer this tier and as the Mac line continues to grow in total sales they will continue to see actual Mac Pro sales continue to grow year over year.
They just never had a rational chance at being the life blood of a Consumer driven Corporation.
The upgrades in the consumer lines only seem to be faster. There's usually just one real update, and one incremental update.
Even the MBP has this cycle.
It doesn't make any sense for a workstation.
If you'd need to update it twice a year would mean that those updates were sloppy.
Even the MBP has this cycle.
It doesn't make any sense for a workstation.
If you'd need to update it twice a year would mean that those updates were sloppy.
Just over a year ago I bought my first Mac purely because I wanted to have a go at creating a couple of apps for iOS. I've never been a huge Apple fan and even though the Mac has replaced the PC I built myself and I own iPhones and iPads for testing I still use Windows in my day job and I don't have a preference to either OS, in the end they're just tools for doing things and I'll use the best one for the job. Like the FCP X saga, I've never used it, probably never will but if it's no longer the best tool for the job, those that need something else specifically to do their job will move on and find something that will meet their needs.
Does this mean Apple are completely abandoning the Pro market? I can't see how they could possibly do that, take my situation. I wanted to develop an iOS app, that means I had no choice but to buy a Mac, I could have used solutions like Corona to develop on a PC, but in the end I'd still need Xcode to build the final package. Can you run OSX legitimately via a virtual machine on a PC, the answer is no (not for any technical reason, just because Apple don't want you too), do Apple provide Xcode for Windows, again no. So, if Apple were to remove all their Pro offerings, switch to low powered iOS like laptops and tablets only, what am I going to use to develop all those fancy apps? If I don't have a development environment, I can't create apps, if people can't create apps then why would anyone buy an iDevice? Do you really think Apple would be that short sighted?
Yes, as an individual you probably can develop on a macbook air, but that's not possible for major development houses, they need serious hardware to create all these feature rich games and apps you're buying.
So, I can see Apple moving away from producing 'professional' grade applications, they probably don't make enough money from it to justify the effort and if they don't produce them, someone else will. But unless they allow you to run OSX or Xcode on Windows, it's simply not possible for them to abandon all of their high end hardware.
Does this mean Apple are completely abandoning the Pro market? I can't see how they could possibly do that, take my situation. I wanted to develop an iOS app, that means I had no choice but to buy a Mac, I could have used solutions like Corona to develop on a PC, but in the end I'd still need Xcode to build the final package. Can you run OSX legitimately via a virtual machine on a PC, the answer is no (not for any technical reason, just because Apple don't want you too), do Apple provide Xcode for Windows, again no. So, if Apple were to remove all their Pro offerings, switch to low powered iOS like laptops and tablets only, what am I going to use to develop all those fancy apps? If I don't have a development environment, I can't create apps, if people can't create apps then why would anyone buy an iDevice? Do you really think Apple would be that short sighted?
Yes, as an individual you probably can develop on a macbook air, but that's not possible for major development houses, they need serious hardware to create all these feature rich games and apps you're buying.
So, I can see Apple moving away from producing 'professional' grade applications, they probably don't make enough money from it to justify the effort and if they don't produce them, someone else will. But unless they allow you to run OSX or Xcode on Windows, it's simply not possible for them to abandon all of their high end hardware.