MP 7,1 Apple has lost the plot on the pro market

[brofkand]

I just got a quote back from Lenovo for 10 P620 workstations. 3945WX (12 core) CPU, 128GB of ECC RAM, 1TB PCIe4 NVMe with plenty of room for SATA drives, RTX Quadro A5000 with 24GB of VRAM, wired keyboard and mouse. Each unit came to $4150 with a three year next business day onsite service warranty. And just like the Mac Pro, they will be "Assembled in the USA".

I cannot configure anything remotely similar to this from Apple for anywhere near the same price. For every one Mac Pro, I can buy almost three Lenovos. They're not even in the same ballpark. Used to the Mac Pro was more expensive but you could see where the premium was justified and it wasn't this laughable of a difference. Nowadays the Mac Pro is just a way for YouTubers to flex since normal people are starting to buy Teslas.

 

[startergo]

Right, I got a similar quote for one unit, but look at the price before the discount:

 

[brofkand]

Right, I got a similar quote for one unit, but look at the price before the discount:
View attachment 1788010

Much like mattresses or clothes at Kohl's, nobody ever pays list for a Lenovo machine. They are always on some sort of special.

Even if you did pay list for it, it's still about $5k cheaper than Apple's quote. For whatever reason, Apple feels like they don't have to compete. They can price the Mac Pro wherever they want and people will pay it I suppose.

Apple can compete quite well when they need to - look at the base iPad model, the iPhone SE, etc. But Macs here lately the pricing has just been silly.

 

[chabig]

Wait until there is an M-series Mac Pro.

 

[Juicy Box]

I had a PowerMac G5, and then got the Mac Pro 1,1 when they first appeared on Apple's Refurbished Store.

The Mac Pro 1,1 was a great purchase, and it is still in use to this day with many upgrades over the years and slightly hackintoshing it to run new OS versions.

As Apple dropped OS support for it early, I was looking to replace the Mac Pro 1,1 in 2012, but after the disappointing rebadging of the 2010 Mac Pro for the 2012 Mac Pro and no idea when the replacement was coming, I decided to replace my Mac Pro 1,1 with a BTO Late 2012 iMac, with the i7 and 680MX GPU.

That ended up being a great purchase as well. I couldn't do the same upgrades like my Mac Pro, but the performance for the Late 2012 iMac wasn't really met with the mid-range iMacs until the 2017 models.

The Late 2013 Mac Pro ended up being a disappointment in design (at least for me), so I was very happy I went with the Late 2012 iMac.

With the 2019 Mac Pro, I was considering picking one up to replace my Late 2012 iMac, but the prices seemed much higher for what it provided compared to the Mac Pro 1,1 - 5,1 models.

And now with the many problems people are having with them and lack of upgrades, I am happy I passed on the 2019 Mac Pro.

Apple can compete quite well when they need to - look at the base iPad model, the iPhone SE, etc. But Macs here lately the pricing has just been silly.

I agree when referring to the 2019 Mac Pro, but I think most of the M1 Macs are priced decently when compared to the competition and Macs in the past.

The higher end M1 iMac is a really decent deal when considering the quality of the display.

The M1 Mac Mini might be the best Mac for the value ever, imo. It currently has the best single-core Geekbench score of any Mac ever, and is the cheapest Mac currently sold. That may never happen again.

 

[patrick.a]

Worst part of the Mac Pro is not the price when buying. It's the service. It took Apple four weeks to repair my 7.1 and in the end they didn't even find the problem. I did with hours of troubleshooting and the help of this forum. No onsite service means I had to organize a transport to and back from the Apple Store. And that's with Apple Care Plus and a machine that's not even a year old.

 

[eicca]

Worst part of the Mac Pro is not the price when buying. It's the service. It took Apple four weeks to repair my 7.1 and in the end they didn't even find the problem. I did with hours of troubleshooting and the help of this forum. No onsite service means I had to organize a transport to and back from the Apple Store. And that's with Apple Care Plus and a machine that's not even a year old.

I’m curious what the problem was.

 

[Mike Richardson]

The Mac Pro died with Steve Jobs. He actually got it. Mac Pro is the big truck. Trucks cost a bit more, you know, but not 3x more.

I think Jobs groomed the wrong successor, but, you know, there was sort of a time crunch there I'd imagine.

 

[patrick.a]

I’m curious what the problem was.

Security Update 002 for Catalina introduced a problem with FileVault where the Mac wouldn't start up properly and show a prohibition sign instead. A reinstall of the whole system didn't help. It got resolved with the Security Update 003 a couple of weeks later.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/prohibitory-sign-on-mac-pro-7-1-after-security-update.2295893/

 

[Marshall73]

Much like mattresses or clothes at Kohl's, nobody ever pays list for a Lenovo machine. They are always on some sort of special.

Even if you did pay list for it, it's still about $5k cheaper than Apple's quote. For whatever reason, Apple feels like they don't have to compete. They can price the Mac Pro wherever they want and people will pay it I suppose.

Apple can compete quite well when they need to - look at the base iPad model, the iPhone SE, etc. But Macs here lately the pricing has just been silly.

The Mac Pro’s of recent have been odd beasts and left to languish with no real spec bumps or discounts. I would hope to see that change with the move to Apple silicon as they will no longer be tied to intel or AMD. Maybe a larger range of specifications and pricing, but who knows.

 

[Duckyduckbumps]

I think Apple lost the plot on the pro market looooong ago...but nostalgia and habit are powerful things.

 

[brofkand]

The higher end M1 iMac is a really decent deal when considering the quality of the display.

The M1 Mac Mini might be the best Mac for the value ever, imo. It currently has the best single-core Geekbench score of any Mac ever, and is the cheapest Mac currently sold. That may never happen again.

I do agree that the laptops, especially the new M1 laptops, and the Mac mini are very competitive. The MacBook Air in particular is similarly priced to or even a little cheaper than an equivalent XPS 13 and of course benchmarks much faster.

 

[Weisswurstsepp]

Much like mattresses or clothes at Kohl's, nobody ever pays list for a Lenovo machine. They are always on some sort of special.

Not just Lenovo. That's true for Dell and HP as well. You can often find deals for one of the many standard configs, and BTO is often even cheaper. And then there's stuff like HP RENEW which is refurbished, comes with full warranty and is often 30% or more cheaper than list price.

Apple squeezes it simply because they can, and they can because they own the platform (hardware + OS). I would never use Apple desktop and laptop hardware if macOS was officially available on HP hardware, I only put up with Apple's overpriced kit it because it isn't.

 

[Weisswurstsepp]

I do agree that the laptops, especially the new M1 laptops, and the Mac mini are very competitive. The MacBook Air in particular is similarly priced to or even a little cheaper than an equivalent XPS 13 and of course benchmarks much faster.

True, however I still prefer a laptop that doesn't have a shell made from soft aluminum which dents so quickly that there is a whole industry selling cases for it.

I'd also really like to see a bit more connectivity than just two USB-C ports.

 

[Schismz]

The Mac Pro died with Steve Jobs. He actually got it. Mac Pro is the big truck. Trucks cost a bit more, you know, but not 3x more.

I think Jobs groomed the wrong successor, but, you know, there was sort of a time crunch there I'd imagine.

I think Steve Jobs got it, because he sat in front of a Mac Pro (or Power Mac) and used that as his own workstation. Ancient pics of his really messy home office show that ;-)

Ya know... as a shareholder in Apple I have nothing to say about Tim Cook that's bad. The money printer has continued printing money <shrug>, thanks for the cash. p.s., plz defrost one of Steve Jobs' clones soon 'cuz Apple run by the bean counters is profitable but boring.

 

[bsbeamer]

Talk to those who bought into the Xserve and Xserve RAID. Many of the same businesses that bought into FCP studio before they abandoned everything for FCPX back in the day. The PRO business cycle focus seems to come back every 4-5 years for a brief period of time, then all of the technology and focus gets pushed back towards consumer products. Labeling a MacBook as "PRO" does not mean Apple has a PRO business market focus.

 

[infohou]

"Worst part of the Mac Pro is not the price when buying. It's the service. It took Apple four weeks to repair my 7.1 and in the end they didn't even find the problem."

Took them 3 weeks for mine. They knew it was the screw holding the SSD module, but could not find a replacement screw in Apple land. Odd, considering they are supposedly assembled here in TX.

I was extremely unhappy as one of the reasons I bought a refurb was because refurbs are checked extensively. Or should be. It booted once and crashed and then never fully booted again. We 7,1 owners have the most expensive machine Apple makes and yet are treated like second class citizens. I plan on relaying the whole sorted affair to Mr. Cook.

BTW, I have MANY Apple products.

Y'all be cool,
Robert

 

[mattspace]

Talk to those who bought into the Xserve and Xserve RAID. Many of the same businesses that bought into FCP studio before they abandoned everything for FCPX back in the day. The PRO business cycle focus seems to come back every 4-5 years for a brief period of time, then all of the technology and focus gets pushed back towards consumer products. Labeling a MacBook as "PRO" does not mean Apple has a PRO business market focus.

Australia's national boadcaster built their entire editing, storage, archive & broadcast system on Xserve / Xserve raid and Mac editing bays, and it only lasted a few years before everything was switched to Windows / Linux, due to lack of support, updates, roadmap etc.

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

Apple squeezes it simply because they can, and they can because they own the platform (hardware + OS). I would never use Apple desktop and laptop hardware if macOS was officially available on HP hardware, I only put up with Apple's overpriced kit it because it isn't.

But if macOS *was* available on other hardware, the entire platform would be worse. Tight integration between hardware and software is the precise reason macOS is such a great user experience, and the diversity of hardware Windows has to be compatible with is exactly why it's such a messy, compromised experience.

 

[mattspace]

But if macOS *was* available on other hardware, the entire platform would be worse. Tight integration between hardware and software is the precise reason macOS is such a great user experience, and the diversity of hardware Windows has to be compatible with is exactly why it's such a messy, compromised experience.

Is 6 years waiting for a contemporary workstation a "great" experience? Is 4 years of not having a single option for a laptop with a keyboard that isn't going to self-destruct every 10 months a "great" experience?

 

[th0masp]

But if macOS *was* available on other hardware, the entire platform would be worse. Tight integration between hardware and software is the precise reason macOS is such a great user experience, and the diversity of hardware Windows has to be compatible with is exactly why it's such a messy, compromised experience.

To me the great user experience lies more in the fine tuning of the user interface. Streamlined preferences, Quicklook, the right kind of thresholds for stuff like double-click-to-rename, drag & drop, rubber-band scrolling behaviour, that sort of thing. Just feels nice to use.

Windows is still Windows NT4 underneath a coat of badly chosen paint with gaudy modern extensions and the recent trend of obfuscating preference settings to (apparently?) prevent the user from finding the right switches. Serviceable but annoying. I'm always glad when I can put the box to sleep.

I don't see better stability on my Macs than the PC however. I'd also jump at the chance of running MacOS on an HP or the like.

 

[cosmichobo]

I don't know if anyone's graphed the prices of Mac Pros (and their predecessors) against some kind of economic index... But yes, I have no doubt that the newest Mac Pro is way over priced.

I'm currently using a 2010 MacPro, and have previously used a Quadra and PowerMac G5 - all second hand, because there's no way I could afford new. But now, given the RRP of these new machines, I can't foresee a suitable intersection between when the 7,1 will be affordable second hand, and still have enough life in it to consider buying one.

Unless the transition to the M chips means the original 7,1 falls DRASTICALLY in price... (and thus - keeping me out of the M series for years...)

I'm holding off on the idea of a M Mac Mini + some kind of multi HDD bay.... though it may well be what I'll be forced into.

 

[AlexMaximus]

I think at Apple it was a crystal clear decision for the mainstream market. Energy and resources are poured into segments with a high potential of multiplication and a large target group of potential buyers.
This Pro Group you are talking about is a tiny minority with a market share of less than 1%.
Guys, we need to get real here. Apple is a shareholder driven, numbers driven company that has one goal and one goal only, - To make money for its share holders. I am actually surprised that the Pro segment got a new cheese grater in 2019. Because that Pro market is so tiny and in itself fractured, they had to increase the price. And as a industrial design enthusiast, I am very thrilled to get a Mac Pro 2019 one day. And I can’t believe how good this mac pro 5.1 is, till this very day.

 

[th0masp]

I don't know if anyone's graphed the prices of Mac Pros (and their predecessors) against some kind of economic index... But yes, I have no doubt that the newest Mac Pro is way over priced.

I'm currently using a 2010 MacPro, and have previously used a Quadra and PowerMac G5 - all second hand, because there's no way I could afford new. But now, given the RRP of these new machines, I can't foresee a suitable intersection between when the 7,1 will be affordable second hand, and still have enough life in it to consider buying one.

Unless the transition to the M chips means the original 7,1 falls DRASTICALLY in price... (and thus - keeping me out of the M series for years...)

I'm holding off on the idea of a M Mac Mini + some kind of multi HDD bay.... though it may well be what I'll be forced into.

It'll never be 'cheap' enough to get anywhere similar, price-wise. They probably sold few enough of these that prices will move into collector territory as soon as they become ancient.

Previously the Mac Pro was a souped up PC for the power user and priced as such. Then it became a design mini tower still intend for a broad audience and priced as such. Now its a workstation for corporations with features an average user will not be able to make use of or care little for - like terabytes of RAM and proprietary dual-GPU modules. You're still paying for that though.

 

[KeesMacPro]

I am very thrilled to get a Mac Pro 2019 one day.

If only...... one could install Mojave....