Maybe they should just stop trying to bring something "new" to the market every 6 months or so. One way of trying to rise over the competitors is also show some confidence that their product is still doing well and don't need a fake update. Customers tend to notice that, not everybody is being blinded by easy marketing schemes. In the long run it tends to pay out.
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Apple Admits 'New' Mac Pro Isn't All That New
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Not really... for me its more being disappointed. Thunderbolt is pretty new and there isn't much using it now I have nothing using USB 3. eSata external drives and FW for video..... mostly
A MacBook Pro or at the very most an iMac is so powerful that it is only for the most extreme processing that I would want a Mac Pro. Ultra heavy video processing, animation rendering, server farm in a box? For these applications the Mac Pro just isn't enough extra machine to make me want to get one and lose the portability and space saving of the MacBook and the iMac. If the Mac Pro is to be viable it needs to be stuffed to the gills with processors, memory and hard drive storage at a level that is 10 to 100 times higher than it currently is. Not there. Not interesting.
Good luck trying to convince the rest of MacRumors to go along with that. If these guys had their way, they'd have new generations of hardware every month or so...
I'd be happy with a yearly update, but Apple doesn't need to make a show of it each time. Just give them a spec bump, maybe a small press release, and move on. There doesn't need to be a big song and dance, the Apple store doesn't need to go down for hours (c'mon, in this day and age, does anyone really think Apple hasn't figured out how to update the store without taking the whole thing down?) They can save the fancy announcements for new products and major model changes.
Then why bother saying anything? If Apple wants to kill it, keeping quiet is the best way to do so.
That they didn't just put a new motherboard in the existing case implies (to me, at least) that they are looking at a new form factor and that is still in development.
This is plain stupid, Apple looks like one of those companies that never released a product and would make a mistake like this (unless they didn't think the public would consider this a non-update)
In my country (Portugal), all the (cough) "updated" Mac Pros are now 200 EUR more expensive, but I've been reading that in the US and other countries it is cheaper?
Can anyone confirm this?
Same here in Ireland. Base model was 2,499, now 2,699.
That's a crazy price for an 'cheapest' Mac with upgradable graphics, and a monitor is extra again. And people wonder why the MacPro isn't selling.
It tells me Apple didn't expect all the backlash that came with no update. they weren't prepared for it so they spewed forth some PR crap.
You can tell because they had "new" on the Mac Pro then removed the label after all the publicity.
I'm pretty sure the only reason there's any chance of the MacPro existing is because of Tim Cook. They're so far behind because SJ had all but killed it. It was taken out of the stores a year ago.
Steve was completely against the idea of a user upgradeable computer his entire career. The iPad and the iMac are what he's been working on forever.
You guys should definitely change it back to 600+ days in the Buyer's Guide. Apple better have something revolutionary planned. The small update makes sense if an incredible update is coming soon!
I look at what Apple has done to the Macbook Pro Retina (the future of the laptop - its become a disposable consumer device...the battery is glued to the inside of the chasis), the refocus of Final Cut Pro as Final Cut Pro X and I'm a little concerned of what a revolutionary redesign of the Mac Pro could be like....
If Apple goes with the current seeming focus of their higher end products, individual professional users / power users as their target (and little user upgradability) a much smaller, much less expandable Mac Pro could easily come out of this (i.e. a beautiful, small super Mac Mini of high end iMac internals)...and say its the best Mac Pro yet..
Give me updated internals to the existing chassis and let Apple have their totally new design next year all to themselves...they're great and brilliant but as a company they haven't been going in the direction the Power Mac G5 / Mac Pro was designed towards for many years now....
I'd love to hear people's thoughts as to whether they think the Mac Pro redesign will be a full tower or not. I'd say the odds, based on what Apple has done for the last 4 years (particularly the last 2), are significantly against that.
I don't think the logic makes sense, though. It is possible for a company to work on two generations in parallel. Apple spent almost nothing on engineering for this trivial update, just a small tweak to a single module, and there is no reason they would need to wait 6 months or more to see a payback. I am a product manager for computer systems products and it easy for me to imagine my counterparts at Apple pushing for a new model within 6 months or less. This looks like a 3-4 month gap filler to me, not necessarily any more.
LOL.
Steve Jobs totally started ignoring the Mac Pro in his late years, completely obsessing over iOS in his typical focusing style (which also led Apple to great success, but it can't be denied that Mac Pro was completely ignored by him). Conversely, in his FIRST WWDC keynote, Tim Cook & Co provides a minor update to the Mac Pro. Minor yes, but an update, unlike what we saw from Steve Jobs. You can look at it as "Yeah, we know it's there" from them. And then DAYS after he hints at a major update forthcoming in 2013.
And Tim Cook is the ass here?
Just be happy he's not following the path paved by Steve Jobs if it's a new Mac Pro you're looking for...
This mac pro is not new. They just ran out of stock of the base level cpu as its no longer produced.
I do want to give an acknowledgement to Apple on pulling the "New" from the Mac Pro in the store (I know its not gone everywhere), removing that is the right thing to do, thank you.
I also want to acknowledge the leaking of information regarding the later in 2013 update to the Mac Pro - considering the situation that was the right thing to do (giving that info out) - thank you Tim for doing that.
The processor bump and price decrease was horrendous considering what was expected and where we are with the Mac Pro...but I'm glad Apple heard and responded on these things. I don't have high expectations for the 2013 Pro redesign (expecting a not full tower Final Cut Pro X - focused on the single power user - type of redesign) - god help us on that, but I'll bet it'll look great.
I'm a Mac Pro 1,1 user who was waiting for a real update so I'm seriously let down with all this, but felt it important to acknowledge that Apple (Tim I'm guessing) listened and got the information out so we'd know we weren't cast off for good.
I also want to acknowledge the leaking of information regarding the later in 2013 update to the Mac Pro - considering the situation that was the right thing to do (giving that info out) - thank you Tim for doing that.
The processor bump and price decrease was horrendous considering what was expected and where we are with the Mac Pro...but I'm glad Apple heard and responded on these things. I don't have high expectations for the 2013 Pro redesign (expecting a not full tower Final Cut Pro X - focused on the single power user - type of redesign) - god help us on that, but I'll bet it'll look great.
I'm a Mac Pro 1,1 user who was waiting for a real update so I'm seriously let down with all this, but felt it important to acknowledge that Apple (Tim I'm guessing) listened and got the information out so we'd know we weren't cast off for good.
Considering the fact that the 2010 Update barely maintained parity with competing workstations, this wee speed bump hardly qualifies, and the Graphic Cards are the same 2010 ones, which at the time were mediocre to begin with. I am pretty sure that Apple would like to put Thunderbolt, USB3 and other tech goodies into the Mac Pro for a proper update, but the Sandy Bridge E5 Series Xeon processors that they'd likely would use were just released in March - over a year delayed - thanks Intel! And the machines would need an entirely new motherboard and graphics card design to solve the issue of Thunderbolt being a motherboard level protocol and the Xeon chips DON'T have on board graphics processors.
As they say on Facebook... "It's complicated."
I kind of hope there still IS a Pro user market by "later next year"... we're talking Fall of 2013, people. Possibly as much as another 18 months, a relative computing eternity by Moore's Law measure. Plenty of time for Many pros to "down-cross-grade" to an Ivy Bridge Imac, the spiffy wee Retina Macbook Pro (a.k.a. "Macbook Air Pro") or bail - or be dragged kicking and screaming - to Windows and Linux.
And gods only know what Apple's opinion of what "something really great" might be, we all remember the new Final Cut Pro X... *cringe*.. their opinion might veer radically from what ours might be.
As they say on Facebook... "It's complicated."
I kind of hope there still IS a Pro user market by "later next year"... we're talking Fall of 2013, people. Possibly as much as another 18 months, a relative computing eternity by Moore's Law measure. Plenty of time for Many pros to "down-cross-grade" to an Ivy Bridge Imac, the spiffy wee Retina Macbook Pro (a.k.a. "Macbook Air Pro") or bail - or be dragged kicking and screaming - to Windows and Linux.
And gods only know what Apple's opinion of what "something really great" might be, we all remember the new Final Cut Pro X... *cringe*.. their opinion might veer radically from what ours might be.
Philosophically Speaking...
I look at this as phenomenological evidence that Mac Pro is not dead, and will get a decent upgrade, probably sooner than 2013. The fact that Apple felt at least some pain in the backlash is itself meaningful.
Additionally, Apple is rather at the mercy of Nvidia and AMD/ATI to make a video card with a Thunderbolt port. The industry is just settling in to Mini-Display-Port. Apple likes to lead, and in this case they may have dangled themselves a bit.
I look at this as phenomenological evidence that Mac Pro is not dead, and will get a decent upgrade, probably sooner than 2013. The fact that Apple felt at least some pain in the backlash is itself meaningful.
Additionally, Apple is rather at the mercy of Nvidia and AMD/ATI to make a video card with a Thunderbolt port. The industry is just settling in to Mini-Display-Port. Apple likes to lead, and in this case they may have dangled themselves a bit.
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