Apple Continues to Work on All-New Mac Pro With Upgradeable Design

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Given all the recent (read post-2012) hardware releases, Apple WILL fork this up.

Us Mac enthusiasts WILL NOT get what we want.

Steve's gone, folks, and he took that Apple with it.

Tim's Apple is not my Apple, so I'm slowly starting to let go.

But like the married man headed towards divorce, the hold-out for hope remains while watching the wife move on without you.

There's a saying in the tech-world: "Innovate or Die".

You all just want Apple to keep playing the same old tune, JUST because they released a product THIRTEEN YEARS AGO (the G5 Tower), that you liked.

And if you think the Cylindrical Mac Pro wasn't already WELL in the works when Steve exited this plane of existence, you have NO idea how long product design lifecycles are, ESPECIALLY for something like THAT!!! In fact, the cylindrical Mac Pro has "Steve" written ALL over it...

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

my 2016 mac book pro is despret for that 5k external display

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Just think of somebody going into a meeting and pitching Steve Jobs on a $13,000 computer that can't be upgraded. They would be fired before they finished the sentence.

Oh, you are SOOOOO wrong about that assessment!

Steve has ALWAYS wanted to "Appliance-ize" Apple's Computers. All the way back to the 128k "Toaster" Mac.

 

[melendezest]

There's a saying in the tech-world: "Innovate or Die".

You all just want Apple to keep playing the same old tune, JUST because they released a product THIRTEEN YEARS AGO (the G5 Tower), that you liked.

And if you think the Cylindrical Mac Pro wasn't already WELL in the works when Steve exited this plane of existence, you have NO idea how long product design lifecycles are, ESPECIALLY for something like THAT!!! In fact, the cylindrical Mac Pro has "Steve" written ALL over it...

Innovate well. The 2013 Mac pro was innovative, no question. It was also a resounding gaffe when marketed as a replacement for the 2012 Mac Pro, which is why we're talking about a modular Mac today.

And yes, I'm sure Steve had his hand on it's design back then, but I believe he certainly would've noticed the repeated history sooner and corrected ship.

He wasn't all-gold, but he had better taste and vision than anyone at Apple today.

EDIT: Also, It's not just wanting the "same old thing". A computer is a tool. So doing something proprietary (like the tube) is STUPID, especially when leaving no other choice to mitigate it's adventurousness.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

I wouldn't mind seeing the Mac Pro "round recycling bin" tower re-used for a newer Mac mini. I'm just hoping it would be a bit shorter.

It would be neat if Apple designed their Macs motherboards as modular components, so that when designing a new motherboard it would fit the Mac mini, MacBook Pro and iMac. One motherboard, three computers. It would lower their R&D costs, their manufacturing costs, simplify inventory for both manufacturing and Apple stores (for repairs) and would always keep all three Macs up-to-date.

For an example, look at the 2015 MacBook Pro motherboard, it's a rectangle. Just put anything related to batteries on a separate motherboard which could then be shared by all Apple laptops and you've simplified a lot of other things. Make three types of motherboards: basic, good, better. You instantly get three Mac mini models, three iMacs models and three laptops models.

Unfortunately, Intel's penchant for a new CPU "socket" design every whipstitch makes the "one motherboard" COMPLETELY impractical.

And the cylindrical Mac Pro's design makes it somewhat of a b**** to manufacture; so the idea of using it for a highly cost-reduced product like the 'mini is right-out.

And since, unlike Dell and HP, who have a zillion overlapping and nearly-identical faceless towers, Apple tends to have highly-targeted product designs. So, the idea of using the same boards in multiple products is completely antithetical to Apple's product-line.

 

[wizard]

I have to disagree to an extent. Pro class hardware use to come in all sorts of shapes. Back in the day Suns pizza box sized machines where very popular. Further todays much smaller hardware cries out for new form factors. The massive towers of the past simply aren't needed to deliver Pro like features. It is very possible these days to put a high performance machine into a half rack width in a 2-3U high box. That box might only be 18" deep. Things like storage expansion can be taken care of by an array of sockets for SSD cards along one edge of the housing. 4-6 storage expansion slots would take up very little space so artainged.

A GPU card is also easy as they can be extremely small these days. You can easily fit one of AMDs HBM based chips on a motherboard and still have room for a PCI Express slot.

In many ways the focus on towers of the past is misguided. The current Mac Pro implemented a lot of good concepts, that it came up shirt for some users is no surprise as no machine is perfect. The short comings are however easy to address without resorting to a massive tower.


Here is the thing, if Apple does make a massively huge machine and expensive, it will only be of interest to a few people world wide. Apple can't sustain a platform that is only of interest to media professoonals. The volume simply isn't there to push development. The old Macs of the past pretty much prove this and have put us into the current situation. In the end a platform that starts at $5000 shuts out to many pro users. For a Mac Pro redesign to be successful the platform must cover a far wider array of users than it has over the last ten years. Otherwise history will Repeat itself. We will see a debut surge from people with more cents than brains and then a rapid decline in sales because most people see the Mac Pros as very poor values.

In the end it is about product breadth because there simply isn't enough top end sales to move a Mac Pro.

Maybe they will remember that pro users care way more about scaleability and compatibility than they do about 'revolutionary' design features. The tower was always the best form factor for a pro machine.

 

[melendezest]

I loved mine at the time. But it was freakishly loud. And the dual G5 cooling system took up all the internal space. It only had room for 2 hard drives because of that.

Yep, I remember.

There was a company that provided a kit to add more drives to it, which I used to add 3 more drives to my G5. It then got obviated by the Mac Pro and its "still-better-than-almost-anything-else-out-there" hardware design.

Ah, the good old days.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

why just the pro? can you at least give me accessible processor, memory and hard drive on the iMac and mac mini?

Because YOU don't understand industrial design and what they call "packaging".

 

[ssgbryan]

Apple has always had a premium price, commodity hardware is Dell's game.

No they haven't - the first few generations of Mac Pros were price comparable to the competition from Dell & HP.

 

[violst]

Now this is what a lot of us have been waiting for! I am ready for a new mac pro upgrade!!

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Agreed. The whole point of a pro machine is you pay a relatively small amount for a shell (circa $1500 like the old G5, Mac Pro etc) and THEN the sky is the limit with upgrades. $5000 is not a realistic starting point for any machine.

It is when it starts with high-end components.

Start comparing it to equivalent Dell and HP workstations. You'll find the iMac Pro is a STEAL, ESPECIALLY since it INCLUDES 27", 5K P3-Gamut Display...

 

[Ewen Cameron]

Peter Paul Chato

I love Peter Paul Chato - only just started watching his vids a couple of months ago.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Well as I said, they DID do that with the Power Macs. This time they failed to see that one device DID NOT replace the other. They do sell different Macs based on config, so there was no reason why they couldn't do it. But hindsight is always 20/20. The modular Mac has the potential for addressing everything, but given this iMac Pro I highly doubt it.

BTW, thanks for pointing out the RAM in the iMac Pro is (kinda) upgradeable, although IDK if the cost of doing so negates the "ability". Then again, that machine has too many deal-breakers for me to consider..I find it absolutely ridiculous.

So wait for the Modular Mac Pro. I've been wanting something like that for about 30 years.

 

[FrankeeD]

I think I'm a fair representation of a group of Mac users who aren't pros, but who were willing to spend a bit more on pro hardware because it was generally more capable and expandable than the non-pro versions. We could get 5 years out of our hardware before having to worry about upgrading. That's why I'm typing this on a 2012 MBP with 16GB of RAM and 2TB of internal storage (SSD and spinning HD), but wondering what I'll get when this one dies. It was about 2012 that Apple threw the true pros under the bus and started selling hyper-thin, glued-together machines that were really disposable appliances with a "pro" label. I'm interested in seeing if Apple is truly going to support pros, or if this is just another marketing attempt.

 

[jjjoseph]

The one off designs are what are truly frustrating and killing the whole MacPro Future.. The cheese grader MacPro lasted so long because they designed a pro machine that could fit, without major hardware modification, standard motherboard and video card and drive expansion through 5 some generations... These re-designs are truly silly. If the new MacPro isn't something that can last multiple generations of hardware, we will be back to square one every few years.. It is just silly. Silly..

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Innovate well. The 2013 Mac pro was innovative, no question. It was also a resounding gaffe when marketed as a replacement for the 2012 Mac Pro, which is why we're talking about a modular Mac today.

And yes, I'm sure Steve had his hand on it's design back then, but I believe he certainly would've noticed the repeated history sooner and corrected ship.

He wasn't all-gold, but he had better taste and vision than anyone at Apple today.

EDIT: Also, It's not just wanting the "same old thing". A computer is a tool. So doing something proprietary (like the tube) is STUPID, especially when leaving no other choice to mitigate it's adventurousness.

Innovation ALWAYS has its hits and misses. And when someone like Apple goes FAR outside of the safe-zone, like with the G4 Cube and the Cylinder, then the "misses" become even more apparent.

But the BIGGEST reason that the Mac Pro DIDN'T mark another industrial-design era, with the usual Me-too companies like Dell, HP, Acer rushing to spit-out their own "Cylinders", was for ONE reason: Industry's refusal to adopt Thunderbolt. THAT alone made the Cylinder, which, if you think about it, WAS supposed to be a "Modular" Mac, into somewhat of a lonely island.

 

[ssgbryan]

It would be a VERY non-Apple move to leave the G5-tower version of the Mac Pro along side of the Cylindrical Mac Pro. It's like Chevy continuing to sell last-year's Impala next to the new one. It really doesn't happen very often. And yes, I know they do it with iPads and iPhones; but those are FAR less "different" year-over-year.

I don't know if you saw the article; but the RAM in the iMac Pro IS Upgrade-able; but only by an Apple Service Center. But it IS upgrade-able.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/14/imac-pro-ram-upgrade-apple/

Good luck for all of you that don't live near an Apple Service Center.....

 

[jtrenthacker]

With the new iMac Pro starting at $4,995, I can't imagine how expensive a new modular MacPro will be. Time to take out a second mortgage.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

With the new iMac Pro starting at $4,995, I can't imagine how expensive a new modular MacPro will be. Time to take out a second mortgage.

... cheaper, because it has no screen?

 

[ssgbryan]

Unfortunately, Intel's penchant for a new CPU "socket" design every whipstitch makes the "one motherboard" COMPLETELY impractical.

And the cylindrical Mac Pro's design makes it somewhat of a b**** to manufacture; so the idea of using it for a highly cost-reduced product like the 'mini is right-out.

And since, unlike Dell and HP, who have a zillion overlapping and nearly-identical faceless towers, Apple tends to have highly-targeted product designs. So, the idea of using the same boards in multiple products is completely antithetical to Apple's product-line.

So go with AMD. The Ryzen line seems to be designed for the (multicore) future, where as Intel seems to be living in the (single core) past.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

I have to disagree to an extent. Pro class hardware use to come in all sorts of shapes. Back in the day Suns pizza box sized machines where very popular. Further todays much smaller hardware cries out for new form factors. The massive towers of the past simply aren't needed to deliver Pro like features. It is very possible these days to put a high performance machine into a half rack width in a 2-3U high box. That box might only be 18" deep. Things like storage expansion can be taken care of by an array of sockets for SSD cards along one edge of the housing. 4-6 storage expansion slots would take up very little space so artainged.

A GPU card is also easy as they can be extremely small these days. You can easily fit one of AMDs HBM based chips on a motherboard and still have room for a PCI Express slot.

In many ways the focus on towers of the past is misguided. The current Mac Pro implemented a lot of good concepts, that it came up shirt for some users is no surprise as no machine is perfect. The short comings are however easy to address without resorting to a massive tower.

I agree with every word of that. Some of the details I can quibble about; but your overarching premise, and the one that the Cylinder TRIED to bring forth, is that we have grown past the tower, is spot-on.

But, just like with music, people just want to repeat the same things they liked when they were teenagers...

 

[Jussayin]

So what do I do with the $13,000 iMac Pro that I just bought?

You can donate it to me and that problem will be resolved!

 

[JosephAW]

I love opening my thick first gen iMac G5. Everything is user replaceable and opens so easily. I'd happy take thickness to have that feature again.

 

[fairuz]

My guess, given Apple’s interest in machine learning, is that the new Mac Pro’s will be optimized to support multiples of the new GPGPU cards popular in ML research. That’s a fairly high thermal envelope.

Why not just make those external? Makes things easier, especially with cooling. Too bad Apple seems to hate Nvidia. Dunno if it's only where I am, but everyone I know doing ML research uses CUDA exclusively. Also too bad the open source libs like PyTorch and Tensorflow are not totally portable and only work with CUDA without hassle in Linux. So, the build I always see is custom Linux PC w/ 1-4 GTX 1080Ti cards.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

So go with AMD. The Ryzen line seems to be designed for the (multicore) future, where as Intel seems to be living in the (single core) past.

The problem with ALL AMD CPUs is that they want you to have a nuclear power-plant attached to your computer. That doesn't fit in well with modern industrial design.
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I still remember picking up a G4 Tower for about $2500.
You have full access with a quick release latch on the side.

Modularity shouldn’t have to be expensive...but we know it will.

Ah, the famous "works in a drawer" El Capitan Case!

It WAS cool, no doubt!