Apple Apologizes About Mac Pro's Lack of Upgradability, Ensures It's Still Committed to Pros

[CWallace]

Yep...but really? More than a year from now?

They have to design the new chassis and then validate it. And if they're adding / switching to nVidia, they also need to validate macOS and Final Cut Pro and Logic X (plus they're designed around AMD GPUs so performance would drop without additional optimization for nVidia).

 

[rodgersmc]

It isn't often that Apple pre-announces new products in its pipeline, but there were growing concerns that Apple no longer cared about professional users, and this is Apple's way of proving claiming otherwise.

 

[Macist]

Okay, so it was a good few years late but Apple listening to pro customers like a normal business listens to pro customers? Have I woken up in a parallel universe?

 

[TMRJIJ]

I emailed Phil Schiller once and got a reply 2 hours later.

Really? What did you tell him?

 

[kingjames1970]

I think this is a great day for Mac users. Despite the lack of proper attention over the last few years, the fear of having no choice but to switch has gone. They're admitted they took they eye off the ball and are reassuring their market. Despite all the grumbling about what Apple have done, we can concentrate on what they will do.

 

[Minxy]

Apple needed to talk to their customers. I was waiting for the new MacBook Pro and then I saw a mid-range machine with 16GB for a super-premium price. I learnt that my industry requires (basic) Premiere Pro skills which meant I don't need Final Cut therefore I don't need a Mac - therefore there is the new Dell XPS laptop which I think i'm going to buy because it is much cheaper, has a Kaby Lake processor and 32GB RAM. It's one thing to pay a premium for the best product on the market, it's something else for Apple to ask people to pay a premium for mid range power. They alienated a lot of people and the lack of yearly updates with the Apple Mac Pro shows they had effectively abandoned it.

These statements from Apple are a positive and a sign they are going to give the Mac range and Apple customers the respect they deserve. The feeling I'm getting though is that they have just started work on the new Mac Pro. But the modular comments is very encouraging because it means user upgradability, the sign of a real Pro machine. I will get my XPS soon and look out for a powerful home machine from Apple.

 

[beaker7]

"Claims" would be a better word than "Ensures" for that title.

 

[CWallace]

It's one thing to pay a premium for the best product on the market, it's something else for Apple to ask people to pay a premium for mid range power.

That's been Apple's modus operandi for decades. And it's been very successful for them.

They alienated a lot of people and the lack of yearly updates with the Apple Mac Pro shows they had effectively abandoned it.

An odd comment to make in a thread about a new Mac Pro coming.

 

[macduke]

If it comes with uprated version of the current Mac Pro specs in the G5 cheese grater chassis (what Kayne would call "the best computer case of all time"), I'd pony up the dough.

It will probably be an upgraded version of that case, probably smaller since we don't need a bunch of large optical drives or 3.5" spinning drives. They'll probably go with user replaceable SSD blades, and it will be able to take full size graphics cards. As for the design, it would be interesting if they made the internal components actually modular in the sense that they're just like boxes you pop in and out of slots, but that could make things proprietary at worst, and more expensive at best if they license it to third parties. I hope it comes in Jet Black. Maybe they'll bring back the cube design? If it's black that would be going way back to the NeXT boxes, which would be pretty sick.

 

[boast]

Not so much hate, but doesnt it make you wonder what the hell they were doing when they 'designed themselves into a corner'?
You mean to tell me the bright minds at the worlds most valuable tech company didnt forsee that?

No, they didn't. As the AnandTech article explained:

However what Apple didn’t see coming, it would seem, is that the GPU market would settle on 250W or so as the sweet spot for high-end GPUs.

 

[EnderBeta]

Step 2: Upgrade the PSU to meet new requirements and Ooommpppphhhh to drive dual Nvidia top of the line graphics cards
Step 3: Design a Motherboard that is not constrained with PCI-E Lanes. Needs to take Dual NVidia cards + 2TB of M2 storage
and at least 64Gb of RAM

Don't forget bring back dual xeons.

 

[groove-agent]

So for all the MR people who were complaining about everyone complaining - looks like it pays to be vocal about being dissatisfied even if you don't want to hear it. Squeaky wheel gets the oil.

In the end, the comparatively small but vocal community of pro users was loud enough that Apple likely felt it needed to respond now, rather than keep its plans for new products under wraps until later. It's exciting news for Apple's pro customers, even if some patience is still required until Apple's roadmap materializes.

 

[macduke]

You're more generous than I am. The 2013 Mac Pro was a mistake and a disappointment the minute it was unveiled, and almost everyone knew it immediately. So is it good that they finally acknowledge it? Sure. Am I going to give them much credit for it 3.5 years later (3.5 years in which they've literally not touched it but continued to sell it at the exact same price as that ill fated day in 2013)? No, not particularly. This would have been a good acknowledgment in 2014. And we're STILL probably a year away from a proper replacement!

Yeah, but I want to do everything I can to reward any sort of positive behavior coming from them when it comes to the Mac. The Mac cannot die. I can't go back to Windows. I just can't. I will go crazy. Stockholm syndrome. Apple loves me.

Seriously though, it's a change of behavior for Apple, and that alone is worth applauding because it's not something they're known for. I'm hoping for more acknowledgements like this going forward, and more listening to their best customers (we do spend the most). It's not the best sign that they have to be more reactive like this, but it's better than the path we were on previously.

 

[weup togo]

If any of the lightweights Apple invited in to spin this tale were actual journalists, someone would've asked Ternus if the Mac hasn't been abandoned, what the **** has his entire team been doing the last three years.

The TouchBar work was the only non-trivial engineering they've done since 2014. Today's Mac Pro change is literally nothing more than a tweak to ordering options. There was zero engineering qualification involved in rearranging options and lowering the price a bit.

Here's a reminder of how often Apple has updated each line during this decade. Don't tell me there's still a vibrant fully staffed Mac team hard at work on anything.

 

[macduke]

Too little too late. Pro's have moved on. Any professional work place that still uses Mac Pro's or is even considering purchasing it needs to have a sanity check on their management. Why in the world would you pay for outdated over priced hardware? What in the world does a mac pro have that a windows based desktop can't do faster and better with same software or equivalent?

Apple and the professional industry is an abusive relationship. If you choose to stay, you're insane.

Yeah but some studios use FCPX or Logic exclusively and it's what their whole workflow revolves around and what their employees are trained to use. Those are used fairly extensively in the industry.

The professional industry also includes design and photography, which don't always need the craziest specs, but still need regular updates as camera MP counts head into the stratosphere. I'm in the weird place in the middle where I don't need the fastest machine but I need something with some serious disk speed, a large display, and a lot of RAM for multitasking. High end iMacs usually work well, but I'm interested in something modular so I don't have to do a full upgrade as often—especially for my home machine where I do some freelance. I often have dozens of apps open at a time as I go through my workflows doing design, web development and photo editing. I work in higher ed so there are a lot of hats I have to wear, especially with all the republicans cutting our funding because they apparently hate education, so I'm always dealing with a lot of random requests coming through while I'm in the middle of bigger projects that are difficult to drop and close out of. And it's only getting busier over time. I use spaces like crazy, and use some specialized utilities that I've only seen on the Mac to manage my windows, toolbars, etc. Even all the gestures on my Magic Mouse are customized to do things constantly as I blow through multitasking. Then there is the integration with my iPhone, like continuity and iMessages that I frequently use. The Mac works really well with the way my mind works, and that is a real reason why creatives tend to gravitate towards it.

 

[Kabeyun]

The magic is gone at this company.

Rather than surprise and delight, they've disappointed so many times that they feel guilty enough to come out and tell people what's in the product pipeline.

Imagine the product introductions years ago... not a single thing mentioned before the curtain was lifted. Now we have a circus sideshow.

Schiller really didn't spill that much, certainly not details about the new Pro's design or specs. The unveil will still have the desired effect. And it's not as if we didn't know the sort of thing they were going to reveal when prior curtains lifted. This was really a hang-in-there statement because they realized that a real pro desktop would need a radical redesign, which takes the kind of time we've seen.

Having said that, knowing a great, modular, scalable Mac Pro is coming next year isn't much of an enticement for a costumer to jump in now with a spec bumped Mac soon to be outdated. In fact, if they don't meaningfully refresh the Mini (my 2010 quad core i7 is still very good), an "old" Pro, at an undoubtedly dropped price, may become my new Mini when the new Pro arrives.

 

[petsounds]

It will probably be an upgraded version of that case, probably smaller since we don't need a bunch of large optical drives or 3.5" spinning drives. They'll probably go with user replaceable SSD blades, and it will be able to take full size graphics cards. As for the design, it would be interesting if they made the internal components actually modular in the sense that they're just like boxes you pop in and out of slots, but that could make things proprietary at worst, and more expensive at best if they license it to third parties. I hope it comes in Jet Black. Maybe they'll bring back the cube design? If it's black that would be going way back to the NeXT boxes, which would be pretty sick.

This is probably unworkable, but I'd like a hybrid solution that starts as a normal Mac Pro tower design, but also allows you to slide out a slim portable unit that is basically reduced performance Mac that can use an iPad Pro as an external display and keyboard. Sort of like a weird Apple version of the Nintendo Switch. This is mainly because though I often need the horsepower of a dedicated desktop, the portability of the MBP is great and sometimes necessary for meetings, etc. The only solution to that dual-use work environment right now is to own two pro-level Macs. I'm not sure if that kind of hybrid solution would be feasible or elegant, but if I'm blue-skying I'd love to have the option of both portability and performance depending on the need.

 

[bladerunner2000]

"We'll talk about what's going on and frankly be a little more transparent with some of the things we're doing, some of the places we're going, because our pro users desire that and we care deeply about them and we're dedicated to communicating well with them and helping them understand what we're doing and what we're up to. We want to be as transparent as we can, for our pro users, and help them as they make their buying decisions. They invest so much in the Mac, we want to support them, and we care deeply about them. So that's why we're here."

And did anyone bother to ask them specifically what they're going to do about the changes to the Mac Pro since they're willing to be soooooo transparent?

 

[groove-agent]

Apple being this transparent about what they're planning likely means these new pro macs are still a ways off unfortunately.

 

[smacrumon]

WTF is Schiller talking about??? Marketing BS laced hollow words. Apple already had established, simple and successful systems in place for regular updates before Jobs' death. Good Pro products, good displays that worked without interference, easy to upgrade products, no long term neglect like seen in today's Apple.

Post Jobs passing, bit by bit, Apple has been undoing, aka, f---ing up each established line. The fact that MacOS has had little growth in market share since Jobs passing is due to sh-t management. My vision is of a MacOS market share that truly rivals Windows. Wouldn't the world be a much better place if millions more were using MacOS? Why the F hasn't Apple pursued this goal alongside iOS? I can walk and chew gum, why the F can't Apple?

Now we are likely to see underpowered iMacs later in the year and a new Pro iMac??? Simplicity it completely shot. Whoever is advocating complexity at Apple needs to resign and apply to work at DELL.

Schiller needs to go, he's forgotten what Apple is all about-- Apple is simple, quiet, confident, secretive, magical. Instead everything about today's release is the complete opposite-- complex, loud, insecure, revealing, lame.

 

[theluggage]

They made three assumptions, none of which panned out, but took years to become clear:

There was a more fundamental problem: they completely and unnecessarily bet the entire "Pro" farm on the assumptions you mentioned. They let the preceding Cheesegrater stagnate without significant updates for years and completely discontinued it the moment the new Pro came out (on this side of the pond, the grater was dropped before the nMP was even announced, for want of a cheap plastic fan guard to meet an EU reg that had been signalled well in advance). Users who had been waiting to update their cheesegraters were expected to instantly drop what they were doing and embrace a radical new paradigm, whether or not it actually fit their needs.

They've just done exactly the same thing with the MacBook Pro - the new MBP is clearly what some people want, and may be brilliant as USB-C/TB3 gains traction, but everybody else is stiffed with the option of a 2-year-old base model with most of the options discontinued and no reduction in price (in many countries, the price went up).

Contrast this with: (1) the launch of the 2012 Retina MBP - with the controversial loss of optical drive, ethernet and firewire. At the same time, they updated the classic MBP to the same CPU as the Retina + USB 3 so if the Retina wasn't for you, just yet, you had a viable alternative. (2) the MacBook Air, which ran alongside the rest of the range until it had been around for a year or so and been through a major revamp. Even the famous demise of the floppy happened over a longer time scale than people seem to remember today, and had been optional extras on PowerBooks for a while before the iMac.

If your magical new concept really is that magical, have the confidence people will buy it in preference to the old concept when they're ready to change their workflow. Don't force your vision on people by suddenly taking away the alternatives, and certainly don't let your old models become a laughing stock while you work on your new shiny thing.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Step 2: Upgrade the PSU to meet new requirements and Ooommpppphhhh to drive dual Nvidia top of the line graphics cards
Step 3: Design a Motherboard that is not constrained with PCI-E Lanes. Needs to take Dual NVidia cards + 2TB of M2 storage
and at least 64Gb of RAM

I mean it had a 960W power supply......
(Obviously, upgraded MoBo design/components. You got the drift of it)

 

[its93rc]

I guess all the mac rumors forum crying worked

Don't encourage them, lol.

 

[groove-agent]

I think the trashcan would've mad a fantastic Mac mini.

Agreed, but would it really be a *mini*? I think they're going to bring back the original Mac Pro concept with memory and disk space you can upgrade.

 

[phrehdd]

Agreed, but would it really be a *mini*? I think they're going to bring back the original Mac Pro concept with memory and disk space you can upgrade.

Mac Pro - Apple, take your best designers and have them get on the web, go to Youtube and look at the HP Z workstations so they can see what is more Mac Pro than your toilet roll inspired mess you put out today.

Mac Mini - with so many small PCs around, make sure the Mac Mini is competitive as those more familiar know that the Mini following was more than people first starting with Mac after PC, as there were banks of servers based on Minis, HTPC systems and so much more. Apple just do it right and stop the spin blather as trust on your words have been worn out already.