Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

[mode11]

At this point, if by comparable you mean $ for $, it absolutely does

Apple is given a lot of benefit there from the recent GPU / RAM /SSD price-hikes in the PC market, due to AI data centre build outs.

Apple may be OK at the moment due to their huge advance orders of RAM and flash. But they won’t escape market forces forever - there’s already long lead times for / cancellation of higher RAM configurations of their products.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

either laptops or headless laptops, have plentiful PCIe lanes or use dGPUs

Some weeks ago this discussion came up, and, from what I read, Apple Silicon would have no problem exposing plentiful PCIe lanes if the engineers needed to. Software-wise, though, dGPUs are out of the picture at this point, and, that is the use that most requests for massive PCIe have in mind. We see a few people post here that have 12 slots worth of A/V boards, but, it seems to be a pretty small market. Still, I would like to see Apple support that audience better. But, the latest 350-500W GPUs from Nvidia or AMD are probably not going to be a happening thing.

 

[mode11]

Apple Silicon would have no problem exposing plentiful PCIe lanes if the engineers needed to

I have no doubt this is the case. The problem is that it would be a massive waste of die edge area on regular, volume-selling Max laptop / Studio chips. So in practice, chips for a Mac Pro would need their own dedicated die design.

Plus, as you mention, it’s all moot anyway as the OS doesn’t support dGPUs. And without support for them, there’s little need for extensive PCIe lanes, outside some pretty niche use cases.

I have no experience with AV cards, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of them could be housed in a dedicated expansion case with its own PSU, and connected adequately over TB5.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

Apple is given a lot of benefit there from the recent GPU / RAM /SSD price-hikes in the PC market, due to AI data centre build outs.

Apple may be OK at the moment due to their huge advance orders of RAM and flash. But they won’t escape market forces forever - there’s already long lead times for / cancellation of higher RAM configurations of their products.

None of that negates the point

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

Probably talking at cross purposes a bit here. I was saying that making a tower workstation is non-trivial for Apple, since to do it properly would require a dedicated chip design. None of their other products, which are either laptops or headless laptops, have plentiful PCIe lanes or use dGPUs. I understand why Apple don’t bother - I wouldn’t either.

I was pushing back against the idea that Apple doesn’t make such a machine because no one wants one. Obviously they do, as the PC workstation market demonstrates. It just doesn’t suit their mobile-focussed system architecture, or ‘whole widget’ business model.

Insisting that a workstation needs to accommodate dGPU is kind of missing the point

The way Apple silicon works there’s nothing to gain from dGPU as it would perform much worse

 

[Dreamail]

I was pushing back against the idea that Apple doesn’t make such a machine because no one wants one. Obviously they do, as the PC workstation market demonstrates. It just doesn’t suit their mobile-focussed system architecture, or ‘whole widget’ business model.

The "inconvenient truth" is that Apple changed into the "iPhone company".
Everything they do has to be in some shape or form in relation to that.
If not, it will fall away.
Like the Mac Pro.

While mobile phones become more and more powerful, they are still far from what a true high-end workstation can do.
But those customers are no longer a concern to Apple. They don't fit with an "iPhone company".
The Mac Pro was doomed to die out.

I think Apple tried to apply that same idea to their MacBook Pro line as well.
The previous generation was more mobile, had fewer ports...
That did not work.
And Apple was forced to course correct. And that time they did course correct.
But I am sure they will try to do that once again. Maybe with the rumored "MacBook Ultra" product line.
If that fails to sell, high-end MacBook Pros will likely also go the way of the Mac Pro.
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.

Apple's future is "Neo" not "Pro".

 

[Dreamail]

But obviously there weren’t enough of you actually buying Mac pros to make it worthwhile for Apple to keep selling them

At this point where Apple is becoming "the iPhone company", I understand that a full-featured Mac Pro no longer fits their business model.

But I am not asking for that.

It would be nice to offer a "Mac Studio Tower" that has room for two internal 3.5" HDs to allow for internal Time Machine backups and one or two PCI expansion slots for non-GPU-type cards. No need to support fancy stuff like Afterburner Cards.

Currently the whole Mac eco system feels a bit lopsided in my opinion.
And Time Machine is a great example.

While Time Machine is a very important part of macOS, Apple has literally no official support for it anymore.
No more WiFi routers with Time Machine abilities.
No more HD bays inside any Mac to fit a large backup HD internally anymore.

iCloud backups make sense for iPhones, but they do not for higher end Macs.
Every Mac user who wants to use (and should use!) Time Machine is now doomed to attaching clunky, messy, ugly external box solutions. Did Apple even think this through?

Apple's whole Mac "eco system" feels kind of lopsided now.
Perhaps this is simply another proof that Apple became "the iPhone company" - and everything else is an after thought.

My Time Machine HD uses a 16TB disk and I am considering upgrading it to 24TB. Both capacities that Apple does not even offer for iCloud!
External 12TB HDs cost around US$ 350-400, something the current Apple 12TB iCloud tier would cost for just 5-7 months! After just 5-7 months you are off cheaper buying an external HD for Time Machine backups. Or in other words iCloud is an order of magnitude too expensive to really replace large local Time Machine backups, they don't work well for higher-end Macs.
If you have other uses for iCloud it can still make sense, but not just for Time Machine backups.

How does Apple assume higher end Macs use Time Machine?
The "inconvenient truth" is that Apple doesn't care anymore - as they are now the "iPhone company".

 

[zephonic]

It would be nice to offer a "Mac Studio Tower" that has room for two internal 3.5" HDs to allow for internal Time Machine backups and one or two PCI expansion slots for non-GPU-type cards. No need to support fancy stuff like Afterburner Cards.

Pretty sure 3.5" is obsolete tech in Apple's view. Best we could hope for is a Mac Studio "Ultra" with a few M.2 slots for storage expansion. That could keep the chassis roughly the same size.

I think four slots would go a long way in appeasing some subsection of Mac Pro users. It would make me consider replacing my MBP.

As it is now, I find the Mac Studio not enough of an upgrade over the MBP.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

At this point where Apple is becoming "the iPhone company", I understand that a full-featured Mac Pro no longer fits their business model.

But I am not asking for that.

It would be nice to offer a "Mac Studio Tower" that has room for two internal 3.5" HDs to allow for internal Time Machine backups and one or two PCI expansion slots for non-GPU-type cards. No need to support fancy stuff like Afterburner Cards.

Currently the whole Mac eco system feels a bit lopsided in my opinion.
And Time Machine is a great example.

While Time Machine is a very important part of macOS, Apple has literally no official support for it anymore.
No more WiFi routers with Time Machine abilities.
No more HD bays inside any Mac to fit a large backup HD internally anymore.

iCloud backups make sense for iPhones, but they do not for higher end Macs.
Every Mac user who wants to use (and should use!) Time Machine is now doomed to attaching clunky, messy, ugly external box solutions. Did Apple even think this through?

Apple's whole Mac "eco system" feels kind of lopsided now.
Perhaps this is simply another proof that Apple became "the iPhone company" - and everything else is an after thought.

My Time Machine HD uses a 16TB disk and I am considering upgrading it to 24TB. Both capacities that Apple does not even offer for iCloud!
External 12TB HDs cost around US$ 350-400, something the current Apple 12TB iCloud tier would cost for just 5-7 months! After just 5-7 months you are off cheaper buying an external HD for Time Machine backups. Or in other words iCloud is an order of magnitude too expensive to really replace large local Time Machine backups, they don't work well for higher-end Macs.
If you have other uses for iCloud it can still make sense, but not just for Time Machine backups.

How does Apple assume higher end Macs use Time Machine?
The "inconvenient truth" is that Apple doesn't care anymore - as they are now the "iPhone company".

Aside from your entire rant being completely off topic,

Keeping your backups internally on the same machine isn’t much of a backup solution

And there’s no need to attach anything. You can still backup wirelessly over your network

 

[mode11]

Insisting that a workstation needs to accommodate dGPU is kind of missing the point

The way Apple silicon works there’s nothing to gain from dGPU as it would perform much worse

I think we're talking at cross purposes too. I completely agree with you regarding the Apple Silicon architecture. Extending it to allow for dGPUs makes little business sense - as I said, I wouldn't bother if I were Apple. On a technical level, it would be a major upheaval of both hardware and software - all for one low-selling product. With enough investment it could be done, but the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze.

But that doesn't mean dGPUs are worthless more generally. What if you need a more performant GPU than can fit into the largest SoC? What if you want two or three of them? What if you need support for specialised features e.g. genlock?

I get why Apple have made the choices they have. I don't think they're stupid. But I disagree with the mentality that works backwards from whatever Apple offers, and reasons that it must be the optimal solution (for everyone, not just Apple). If Apple had completely revamped the Mac Pro, announcing AMD and Nvidia GPU support for it, would you be disappointed? Or would you think it's a great move for those that need it, whilst still considering the Studio a good solution for everyone else?

 

[mode11]

The "inconvenient truth" is that Apple changed into the "iPhone company".
Everything they do has to be in some shape or form in relation to that.
If not, it will fall away.
Like the Mac Pro.

This is an architectural issue. Apple Silicon is exclusively SoC / unified memory based. A (meaningful) Mac Pro doesn't fit this paradigm. Their other products do.

I think Apple tried to apply that same idea to their MacBook Pro line as well.
The previous generation was more mobile, had fewer ports...
That did not work.
And Apple was forced to course correct.

But this has nothing to do with being a 'phone company'. MBPs were Intel based in that era. It's a drive for simplicity that's surfaced time and again with Apple. Sometimes they take it too far, and need to acknowledge the reality their tools are used in.

But I am sure they will try to do that once again. Maybe with the rumored "MacBook Ultra" product line.
If that fails to sell, high-end MacBook Pros will likely also go the way of the Mac Pro.

I very much doubt that. The MBP is a massive seller and also forms the basis of the Studio. It's appropriate that their high-performance laptop also includes ports, since professional use often requires connecting to projectors for presentations, using SD cards to ingest files and so on, and needing to use a dongle every time is a faff. Whereas for casual use, thin / light takes priority, as occasional dongle use isn't an issue.

Apple generally keeps their ranges simple and straightforward. If they did create a MacBook Ultra, with e.g. an Mx Pro and a Air-like chassis, it would be in addition to the existing ranges. Given this is a similar approach to the iPhone Air, though, which hasn't sold very well, I doubt Apple would pin all their hopes on it. More likely, they'd give it a try and discontinue it if it wasn't well received.

 

[mode11]

None of that negates the point

No, but it's a temporary blip on the long term trend of PCs being better value and more powerful for 3D work. Which in turn means PCs are much better supported by professional 3D and game engine software.

 

[theluggage]

If Apple had completely revamped the Mac Pro, announcing AMD and Nvidia GPU support for it, would you be disappointed?

Personally - I'd expect disappointment (and lousy value for money) unless I was hopelessly devoted to MacOS. I like MacOS, but Windows and Linux can still get the job done and if I had a high-end application I'd choose the best hardware and application software for that job & deal with whatever OS it needed.

It would only be a "good solution" if you absolutely needed to use AMD/NVIDIA GPUs with a MacOS-only app. I think that is a rapidly shrinking pool - there's a greater choice of software for Windows and - increasingly - Linux (...its quite likely that your AI tools are going to run on Linux).

For GPU-bound applications, an AMD/NVIDA Mac is only going to be as fast as the AMD/NVIDIA chipsets it uses - and then, only if the Mac drivers are up to snuff. You can get the same, if not better, performance from a Xeon/i9/Ryzen/Threadripper box, plus a wider range of software.

 

[theluggage]

While Time Machine is a very important part of macOS, Apple has literally no official support for it anymore.

I think you mean that they dropped Time Capsule support - as a result of dropping AFP from the upcoming MacOS 27. I can't say that's a good thing (esp. since adding SMB support to the Time Capsule wouldn't exactly have been rocket surgery) - but an at-least-8 year old HD is probably due for retirement now.

Since Apple switched from AFP to SMB and Samba added Time Machine support, pretty much every NAS product supports Time Machine, usually with a point-and-drool web interface.

 

[mode11]

Since Apple switched from AFP to SMB and Samba added Time Machine support, pretty much every NAS product supports Time Machine, usually with a point-and-drool web interface.

Yeah, I've got a couple of Mac laptops backing up via Time Machine to my Synology. Works great - can set quotas etc. Only takes a few minutes to set up.

I had the original Time Capsule years ago. They had no ventilation and ran pretty hot. Very slow too - I can't imagine how long it would take to restore multiple TB from it.

Still, Apple made great routers and I'd buy another in a heartbeat. My ASUS performs well, but the interface has too many options (though I guess you can ignore most of them). It actually supports Time Machine too.

 

[Dreamail]

Pretty sure 3.5" is obsolete tech in Apple's view.

That is the puzzling thing...

So how does Apple suppose users install and use Time Machine?
Seriously, I would like to hear that!
They won't suggest to back up a 4TB internal SSD onto a 2TB M.2 drive, for sure...

Even Apple recommends that the Time Machine backup HD is at least 4 times as large as the HD to back up.
So if your Mac comes with a 4TB SSD how does Apple suggest one create a 16TB Time Machine backup?

16TB M.2 drives exist, but cost 15,000 US$ (!!). Not kidding.
Apple is hopefully not suggesting we use those just because they think 3.5" drives are "obsolete technology"...

Apple does not even offer 16TB iCloud storage either.

My point is:
Time Machine is a key macOS component that is now seemingly 100% reliant on third party products and (according to Apple) "obsolete technology". Does this make sense? To leave such important components completely out of Apple's hand?
A macOS element as important as Time Machine should at least get some direct Apple support, I find. In some shape or form.
So how about a "Mac Studio Tower" with two 3.5" swappable bays one of which designed so it could be used for Time Machine backups? Just buy any standard 3.5" SATA HD of your choice.
And no, M.2 slots will not work as a substitute due to their insane prices for larger capacities...

 

[Dreamail]

Aside from your entire rant being completely off topic,

Keeping your backups internally on the same machine isn’t much of a backup solution

And there’s no need to attach anything. You can still backup wirelessly over your network

Most external drive boxes have swappable HD mechanisms these days.
Some are even hot-swappable.

It would be easy to create swappable internal 3.5" bays to allow for easy rotating backups.

No need to use expensive NAS hardware for Time Machine. That' s a bit overkill.

 

[mode11]

It would be easy to create swappable internal 3.5" bays to allow for easy rotating backups.

Even easier to use USB 3.0. A HDD wouldn't stress its bandwidth, and you'd be able to plug it into any other computer to retrieve files in an emergency. Drives sold inside enclosures are also often cheaper than bare drives (hence 'shucking').

I wouldn't necessarily buy a NAS just for TM, but if you have one for storing media, projects etc. on anyway, it's a way of extracting even more value from it. Besides, you'll need the HDD anyway, and a basic 1 bay NAS just for TM doesn't cost much.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

Extending it to allow for dGPUs makes little business sens

If you understand how Apple silicon works, you understand that it doesn’t just make little business sense

They would have to completely change how Apple silicon works

 

[mode11]

If you understand how Apple silicon works, you understand that it doesn’t just make little business sense

They would have to completely change how Apple silicon works

Yes, as I said in the following sentence.

 

[zephonic]

My point is:
Time Machine is a key macOS component that is now seemingly 100% reliant on third party products and (according to Apple) "obsolete technology". Does this make sense? To leave such important components completely out of Apple's hand?

That is nothing new or out of character for Apple.

AirPlay and HandOff rely on WiFi, yet they discontinued their excellent AirPort router ~10 years ago. They once had the dedicated Time Capsule HDD for your Time Machine, but also discontinued after poor sales. They made Xserve, discontinued. I don’t think they ever made printers/scanners, at least not in the OSX/MacOS era, possible they did so in the 80’s or 90’s.

If the product doesn’t move, they chuck it.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

Time Machine is a key macOS component that is now seemingly 100% reliant on third party products

Printing is a key macOS component that is now seemingly reliant on third party products

 

[triptolemus]

I don’t think they ever made printers/scanners,

Some of us can hear this picture.

 

[zephonic]

Some of us can hear this picture.

View attachment 2628727

Nothing says 1980's quite like the screech of a dot matrix printer!

Like I said:

I don’t think they ever made printers/scanners, at least not in the OSX/MacOS era, possible they did so in the 80’s or 90’s.

edit:

I got curious and looked it up, according to this wikipedia entry, their last printer (LaserWriter 8500) was discontinued in January 1999.

 

[Frixo Cool]

Am I the only one in the world who hates noisy external boxes that do not even (color) match the Mac anymore, let alone add tons of cables and power bricks everywhere?

Exactly! I'm thinking the same thing, I tried that time with external hardware with a Mac Pro 6.1, but it looked like the Borg had assimilated my desk. The Mac Pro tower is the best solution for me, but not just for neatness and aesthetics - but also for speed, the Mac Studio can't have a RAID 0 array with 4 SSDs inside, and on the Mac Pro it's easy-peasy.