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Apple Envisioned New Mac Pro's 'Cheese Grater' Design Years Ago
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Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
If I were Apple I would have tried to pilfer employees from Fractal and/or Phanteks. People that actually know good computer case design.
Now that's a well-designed case for air flow, water cooling, and accessibility.
Those cases are amazing, they're loaded with practical features. I've got a Fractal Design R4 for my Hackintosh and it's great; plenty of expansion space, removable and washable mesh dust filters, rubber grommets and holes to keep vibrations down to a minimum, padding for sound deadening to keep the case quiet, etc. I could go on.
Apple just has zero respect for prosumers. That $6,000 price tag is evidence of that.
I own a Define S, and couldn't agree more. Thoughtful, quality Swedish design. Fractal is one of the best out there.
Good find. I just skipped the MacRumors Buyer's Guide and it labeled it as a price drop instead of an update, so I didn't realize it did get a minor spec bump. That said, it looks like it was once in the lifetime of the "trash can"-design Mac Pro and three and a half years in. Bad look by Apple in my opinion.
I'm on the fence, I see the original was the inspiration and they wanted better thermals. I would honestly prefer a water cooled machine in that category so I can have a somewhat sleeker case design that is a little bit more quiet. If I had a machine like this you would betcha I would be displaying it with pride, pro or not, people love their work machines (especially if you are buying an Apple Product versus the many offerings in the PC world).
I don't think there was any pretense that the previous MacPro was designed for internal expandability. GPU modules and the SSD all used proprietary connectors. Only the RAM was user expandable. Anything else had to be external; it had six Thunderbolt 2 ports.
There may have been speculation that third parties could/would come out with purpose built aftermarket video and SSD cards, but anyone counting on that being likely, much less affordable, was exceedingly optimistic. Instead it appeared that it was designed and priced to be replaced every few years, but then the necessary upgrades never came, probably largely due to the extreme thermal limits imposed by the enclosure design combined with the slowing in progress of cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication.
As for this new MacPro's upgradeability, The "MPX boards" are composed of a double-width PCIe x16 slot next to a double-width PCIe x8 slot + an added connector for power and display-port lanes. According to Apple, each MPX bay can hold one, standard, double (or single) width PCIe x16 and one, standard, double (or single) width PCIe x8 board. Also, addition power for standard boards is available through wired connectors.
What they are "so dearly paying for," relative to a capable Xeon workstation from HP or Dell, isn't specifically MDX, it's a well integrated and supported Mac. Same as always. Most of us here are fine with that, that's why we are here.
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Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I know this is merely opinion, but the iMac G4 is the single most beautiful computer I have ever seen (with the G4 Cube being in REALLY close second). It instantly drew mw to it, and when I saw OSX in action I was mesmerized with the little, beautiful Aqua details.
In my mind it hearkens back to the days when Apple was a lot less snooty, and a LOT more fun.
Don't think that's ever coming, because Touch ID can't function safely without the Secure Enclave in a T1- or 2-chip. Don't think you'd want that working and sending clearance or biometrlc data over bluetooth.
Where did you know Steve from?
Kind of true but you can still see what's under the table. Expecially from far away. I agree it is not a machine i would put in sight or on a table. Many people care about how their products look like. Even if they don't know. This company is said to be design driven. And lets not forget the same holes on the back of the monitor. Those will be visible in many cases. Especially if you have a monitor arm. You will touch the structure as well. For dust it doesn't look very good too. My feeling (!) is, that it kind of looks a little bit too aggressive and not very subtle. What i'm really curious about designwise, are those diameters and shape of those holes. I mean there are other ways to get that much open holes to get air through. If i were a designer at that team i would look at the proportions of the product and how it is used to define a product language and generate a few version with similar cutout space but different hole size. It feels like they didn't do that. Those holes are too big for that case size. Which is actually a factor for very poor design in my opinion.
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6000 USD for years old graphics card and less storage than a phone. And the monitor??? If you want to stand it... 1000$. That is truly mocking.
Yeah, it was fun for a while. The skeuomorphism did a get a little much though. I prefer the flatter, simpler look.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I'm with you on everything 100%, except for the gold/rose gold stuff.
Apple used to be the ONLY fun one, so I say bring on MORE color choices (and a legit BLACK for their devices)! I remember they released a product red MP Tube that was AWESOME-looking.
They love the rainbow so much, why not give us everything in every color? (Just not all at once--I hate rainbows)
Remember when PCs were variations on beige boxes? How things have changed!
"teasing developers that are struggling to make ends meet." Wut?
This is so silly, it's hard to know where to start...
I think it's pretty safe to say that, in general, MacOS and iOS developers are not "struggling to make ends meet," not compared to the average world citizen, not compared to the average American citizen. I am sure that some are truly struggling. I have no doubt that some indie app developers are struggling. If so, most of them have options, though it may mean moving the indie apps to a side-hustle and taking more corporate projects, or even a full-time job.
As for any struggling indie MacOS developers who can't bring themselves to taking a "real job," the new MacPro isn't a cruel tease, it's a shining beacon of light, a ray of hope. It's a reminder that there are people who will pay big money for a Mac because it is central to their professional workflow. They'll pay a premium for products that speed up and streamline their work. There may not be many of them, but they are loyal, and they'll pay more than $0.99, or $9.99, or even $99 for software that helps them. Go find some of them and figure out what they want/need!
If it's in a rack, you're not going to open up the side very easily. Not sure what's so tough about moving it out from under a desk. I used to do that anyway on the side-door G4's. Not good to service a computer w/ all the cords plugged in.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I agree with you on the "leather", but I LOVED flipping and ripping pages off in Calendar and clicking on buttons that I didn't have to figure out that they were buttons, among other things.
A nice happy medium would've been perfect; I like the glass panes in iOS but not the plaintext, too-2D stuff. Dark mode mitigates this somewhat though.
Interestingly, Apple's "dark mode" reminds me of older OS versions.
Maybe, but are the new ports, grill, and other aesthetics worth paying an extra $2000ish?
Besides, the ports could have been moved to the top on a refreshed version of the old design. Optical drive bays are gone anyway.
The old design could have contained the same internals and achieved a more affordable price point.
And even the new tower is needlessly expensive. For example, stainless is an idiotic choice for the "space frame" tubing because it is brittle compared to other materials - which makes it more expensive to manufacture. Chromoly (or even aluminum) tubing would have worked.
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