I read that my 2012 iMac 27" does not have a flawless & fast experence with 2022 macOS Ventura. Rather just buy a new iMac instead and enjoy the quality of life improvements of Apple Silicon.
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Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro
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An enough production capacity to produce many tiers of chips in parallel.
Because that works well for Samsung where tons of hardware ends up as e-waste or heavily discounted.
Not a great business decision. Try to buy a laptop/desktop from HP/Dell I dare ya. Too many options, hard to distinguish what is good or best.
When Apple launches a product, it has to be prepared to sell millions of units.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I own Studio and whether it's a one-off Mac or not, I'm quite happy with it and will use it for many years even if it goes extinct in the product lineup.
Reading through this thread, it feels like many of our imaginations are constrained when thinking about a Mac Pro...
Is a Mac Pro only about the CPU (and thus if ULTRA is maximum, reserving ULTRA for it is the only option)? Of course not! Mac Pro has many points of differentiation and a new one could easily distinguish itself from Studio by bringing those with it.
But if we want imagine ULTRA will be all there is, how about 2 ULTRAs... not as the rumored EXTREME... but as 2 distinct boards, each basically a Mac Studio inside? Let an updated Mac Pro leverage dual ULTRAs much like we users could now if we own TWO Mac Studios: run some stuff on one and other stuff on the other. macOS could simply allocate the tasks much more efficiently than we could with 2 separate Macs. Yes, this would not be as fast as what the rumored Extreme would be likely to deliver, but it could be quite fast and bring options to double the RAM and SSD inside too.
Go there in your imagination and another upgrade could DOUBLE that setup (four ultra boards inside equivalent to four Mac Studio Ultras in one case). That might be your "starting at $15K-$25K" Mac Pro alone).
However, if we mentally set all that aside, only the equivalent of a Mac Studio but with PCI-e slots would be enough to distinguish Mac Pro too. Slots mean a very different form factor and the implied promise of endless flexibility. This Mac would look completely different from Studio and imply much greater flexibility to buyers. An approach that only Mac Pro works with slotted cards means those who need cards consider/buy Mac Pro.
I am 0% convinced that enabling slots would block the option to have a new tier of RAM (expansion):
Same with SSD. Slots open up SSD storage on cards. Those who need much more storage than Apple's MAX could have 3 speeds of storage: Fastest (Apples), Fast (card m.2), Slower (internal or external third party SSD/HDD).
The latter two (traditional RAM and SSD expansion) ONLY being applicable to Mac Pro would protect the cash cow of basically pressing buyers of all other Macs to pay the hefty premiums to buy whatever RAM and SSD they think they will ever need right up front.
To me, this Mac Pro easily fits into the Mac product mix, is very easily distinguishable with unique selling points, can justify its higher price even if it leans on the same ULTRA that is available in a Studio, and scratches the unique itches that makes people justify Mac Pro now.
Reading through this thread, it feels like many of our imaginations are constrained when thinking about a Mac Pro...
Is a Mac Pro only about the CPU (and thus if ULTRA is maximum, reserving ULTRA for it is the only option)? Of course not! Mac Pro has many points of differentiation and a new one could easily distinguish itself from Studio by bringing those with it.
But if we want imagine ULTRA will be all there is, how about 2 ULTRAs... not as the rumored EXTREME... but as 2 distinct boards, each basically a Mac Studio inside? Let an updated Mac Pro leverage dual ULTRAs much like we users could now if we own TWO Mac Studios: run some stuff on one and other stuff on the other. macOS could simply allocate the tasks much more efficiently than we could with 2 separate Macs. Yes, this would not be as fast as what the rumored Extreme would be likely to deliver, but it could be quite fast and bring options to double the RAM and SSD inside too.
Go there in your imagination and another upgrade could DOUBLE that setup (four ultra boards inside equivalent to four Mac Studio Ultras in one case). That might be your "starting at $15K-$25K" Mac Pro alone).
However, if we mentally set all that aside, only the equivalent of a Mac Studio but with PCI-e slots would be enough to distinguish Mac Pro too. Slots mean a very different form factor and the implied promise of endless flexibility. This Mac would look completely different from Studio and imply much greater flexibility to buyers. An approach that only Mac Pro works with slotted cards means those who need cards consider/buy Mac Pro.
I am 0% convinced that enabling slots would block the option to have a new tier of RAM (expansion):
- fastest (Apple RAM as is),
- fast (traditional RAM in a slot),
- slow (swaps with SSD)...
Same with SSD. Slots open up SSD storage on cards. Those who need much more storage than Apple's MAX could have 3 speeds of storage: Fastest (Apples), Fast (card m.2), Slower (internal or external third party SSD/HDD).
The latter two (traditional RAM and SSD expansion) ONLY being applicable to Mac Pro would protect the cash cow of basically pressing buyers of all other Macs to pay the hefty premiums to buy whatever RAM and SSD they think they will ever need right up front.
To me, this Mac Pro easily fits into the Mac product mix, is very easily distinguishable with unique selling points, can justify its higher price even if it leans on the same ULTRA that is available in a Studio, and scratches the unique itches that makes people justify Mac Pro now.
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The problem is when Apple's product lines get too similar, they don't want to cut prices to clearly delineate between them - that's why whenever component refreshes come down the pipe, rumors about randomly dropping a product surface.
The easiest way to solve this IMO is to go all-out with the Mac Pro. Whatever M-series CPU is used, it should be the only thing in common with lesser Macs. Offer up a plethora of HD/SSD, Memory, Networking, Expandability etc options while keeping those for the Mini & Studio the same more or less. If that means tweaking the prices for these model lines a bit one way or another, so be it.
The easiest way to solve this IMO is to go all-out with the Mac Pro. Whatever M-series CPU is used, it should be the only thing in common with lesser Macs. Offer up a plethora of HD/SSD, Memory, Networking, Expandability etc options while keeping those for the Mini & Studio the same more or less. If that means tweaking the prices for these model lines a bit one way or another, so be it.
Apple uses die on die approach. It's more like a 2.5D than a true 3D stacking. By this I mean, The main die has the usual layout and they use the metal layers mostly for signaling. Then on the other side of the substrate they attach another thin die, with no logic. There they put most of the capacitors and they use the metal layers for power routing, which is fed through vertically into the other die (the one with the actual logic layout).
Intel is trying to do the capacitance on an extra layer on top of the metal layers for their dies.
Basically Apple gets to do away with most of the capacitors on their package, by putting them straight onto the other side of their die. This makes for a better PDN (their cores use, ironically a lot of power but for short bursts) and reduces system cost.
Intel is trying to do the capacitance on an extra layer on top of the metal layers for their dies.
Basically Apple gets to do away with most of the capacitors on their package, by putting them straight onto the other side of their die. This makes for a better PDN (their cores use, ironically a lot of power but for short bursts) and reduces system cost.
Such a lot of criticism about Apple Silicon, but where for me the M1 iMac was a really nice computer. Admittedly not a workhorse, but useful.
The Mac mini m1 again a really decent bit of kit.
The Studio in my opinion will get dropped, especially if a Mac Pro does eventually hit the market.
So many comments about buying PC's because of performance/price, but often these are not born out when you calculate the true costs of the PC kit.
There are also a few ego trips being had about power.
I started out on Quantel Paintbox, which ruled its sphere of operation for decades based on the Motorolab 68000 yet how much did it cost?
When Chuck Geschke introduced Photoshop it brought the Quantel potential to Apple Mac via Mac System 6.0.3 priced at $895!
At the time I was systems director with Wintel and Apple kit, and the reason we did away with the Wintel platform was because Apple outperformed it in real work tasks. Designers adapted to Mac quicker, so even if a more powerful PC may have been introduced, it was about productivity, and that is still the case today.
How far have we gone from the Motorola 68000 series?
The M2 range I've kept clear of, as I don't believe it was what Apple first intended, and even the SSD issue, albeit not affecting most people in real life use, doesn't do the brand a lot of good.
So many though comment about power and cost ratio of PC versus Apple, yet missing out the most important aspect in business: PRODUCTIVITY
The Mac mini m1 again a really decent bit of kit.
The Studio in my opinion will get dropped, especially if a Mac Pro does eventually hit the market.
So many comments about buying PC's because of performance/price, but often these are not born out when you calculate the true costs of the PC kit.
There are also a few ego trips being had about power.
I started out on Quantel Paintbox, which ruled its sphere of operation for decades based on the Motorolab 68000 yet how much did it cost?
When Chuck Geschke introduced Photoshop it brought the Quantel potential to Apple Mac via Mac System 6.0.3 priced at $895!
At the time I was systems director with Wintel and Apple kit, and the reason we did away with the Wintel platform was because Apple outperformed it in real work tasks. Designers adapted to Mac quicker, so even if a more powerful PC may have been introduced, it was about productivity, and that is still the case today.
How far have we gone from the Motorola 68000 series?
The M2 range I've kept clear of, as I don't believe it was what Apple first intended, and even the SSD issue, albeit not affecting most people in real life use, doesn't do the brand a lot of good.
So many though comment about power and cost ratio of PC versus Apple, yet missing out the most important aspect in business: PRODUCTIVITY
no so some kind of apple raid 0 with DFU mode needed to change an m.2 or sata disk.
pros want added disks to be there own disk with no locked to the MB system.
also the build in storage needs to have an price cut as well.
I DO understand that the website is called MacRUMORS but the rumors do go a bit overboard from time to time...
I cannot see, at this point, the Studio being replaced so soon.
It would appear to me, that there are (or is going to be) two mac lines.
one is the iMac 24" -> iMac 27"
the other is: Mac mini -> Mac Studio -> Mac Pro
..which makes sense IMHO.
You have a line for the home users, from the casual to the power users and you have a more "professional / business" line where you get the mac separate from the screens; which is good for business as they can spread the upgrade cycles of the machines and monitors separate. (IT loves that) In that line you have the entry level Mac mini, the power / creative user Studio and the super power user Mac Pro for film makers, audio studio workers etc.
What I see Apple has a tenancy to do, is to create too much overlap between its lines, where the high end of the low model is stronger than the entry level of the model that is supposed to be above it.
I think that will the new M1/M2 architecture, the various models will have longer live which will mean that the overlaps will get funny on that fact as well.
I cannot see, at this point, the Studio being replaced so soon.
It would appear to me, that there are (or is going to be) two mac lines.
one is the iMac 24" -> iMac 27"
the other is: Mac mini -> Mac Studio -> Mac Pro
..which makes sense IMHO.
You have a line for the home users, from the casual to the power users and you have a more "professional / business" line where you get the mac separate from the screens; which is good for business as they can spread the upgrade cycles of the machines and monitors separate. (IT loves that) In that line you have the entry level Mac mini, the power / creative user Studio and the super power user Mac Pro for film makers, audio studio workers etc.
What I see Apple has a tenancy to do, is to create too much overlap between its lines, where the high end of the low model is stronger than the entry level of the model that is supposed to be above it.
I think that will the new M1/M2 architecture, the various models will have longer live which will mean that the overlaps will get funny on that fact as well.
As soon as Apple delivers a iMac 27" replacement.
Yeah, under current tech with very fast thunderbolt external drives and even external GPUs only a small group of folks really need PCIe slots. I think the Mac Studio will outsell the Mac Pro more like 4 or 5 to 1. Of course that is just a guess and Apple won't tell.
I guess there will be another 27" iMac. But there also might not be. That screen is just too useful and long lasting to weld it to the rest of the machine. iMacs might remain limited to 24" screens. With the release of mini, Studio and soon the Pro, Apple is making it very clear that they think the future of desktop is not going to be an All-in-One form factor. So yeah they want you to buy their monitor, use for a decade or longer, and get a desktop machine that maybe you use for five years and then replace. That is the path I'm on and I'm happy with it. Since you are a photographer, I think you would be fine with a M2 Pro Mini instead of a Mac Studio, if you wanted to get on the separate path. The initial investment is larger, but you get more flexibility for the long run. (Side note, I'm using old keyboard and track pad from an iMac with my current Mac mini set up. These parts are probably a decade old. And when I replace my 2018 mini, with a new mini I expect to keep using these pieces.)
Are you only looking at this article and totally ignoring their history.
Apple have shown us pretty clearly several times they had no real idea what they were doing with their line ups or certain models.
With letting them languish or oddly quick updates. Sometimes being forced to change paths because of certain things.
Unless you think they're doing that on purpose?
Could be I guess.. If it somehow lead to higher gross income and margins I wouldn't put anything past them.
What you outline makes sense, droplink; however, without knowing the capabilities of a new Mac Pro, we cannot define the differentiation. What makes the Pro a pro? Expandability is the common answer, but we don't know what that looks like under Apple Silicon. Classically, "pro" meant expansion cards, upgraded GPUs, and memory - not likely with what we know now about silicon on a chip. Until Apple announces how the Pro differentiates, the Studio may go the way of the iMac Pro (my current Mac!). But I expect Apple will surprise us with a new Mac Pro and its capabilities. It's fun to speculate.
The Pro is a Pro because of expandability. We know this, we just don't know what it will look like. Apple is probably still figuring it out, which is why the Studio with Ultra exists.
Very true.
The market seems to be telling us so.
The amount of people I've been seeing selling studios to trade for the new mini is not insignificant.
More listing volume on eBay and prices have instantly dropped a couple hundred (Which is rare for an Apple product.)
One way to extend the useful life of an iMac is the return of Target Display Mode.
Apple can return that feature. So say a iMac 27" replacement came out in 2023 then you can use it as a display with a Mac 4, 5, 6 or even 10 years from now.
I'd probably buy a 2033 Mac mini or Mac Studio 5Angstrom to match it with that 2023 iMac 5nm. Hopefully Apple will offer the 2033 Mac mini at 32GB RAM & 1TB SSD for $599. ;-)
If I do not buy any new camera gear in the next decade then why upgrade within that period of time other than for the purpose of preventive maintenance.
Apple did release a iMac 24" in 2021 but I do suspect a iMac 27" replacement was not offered when the 2022 Mac Studio was released as to redirect people like me holding out to spend on a $2k Mac Studio and $1.7k Studio Display rather than a $2.7k iMac 27" replacement.
With the release of the $1.3k 2023 Mac mini M2 Pro also coincided with Amazon lowering pricing of the Studio Dispaly to $1.3k. Nice value for that combination sans keyboard and trackpad.
I'm still holding out for a iMac 27" replacement.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Apple will probably never cut margins, so I foresee no built-in storage price cuts.
But yes, that's what I meant about adding storage above Apples: third party m.2 in those PCI-e slots, resulting in there being Apple fastest SSD + (next tier of) third party SSD + any external storage via Thunderbolt too.
A modular expandable Mac Pro has no future in today's Apple, but...maybe they'll surprise us down the road.
Unfortunately, Apple has literally become what they so much derided in their underdog years--a company that is concerned only with power and money (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). When was the last time something was truly revolutionary like iPhone? That was 2007. They follow the majority consumer instead of leading them as in years past.
Then, when they switched to an in-house SOC, I actually had my hopes up that they would innovate considering abundant financial resources and now tighter control. BUT now, it is more than obvious that goal is not to innovate, but to only boost their income and tighten their stranglehold on others' innovation. I'll continue to follow the Apple journey, but the path (or lack thereof) doesn't look good.
Unfortunately, Apple has literally become what they so much derided in their underdog years--a company that is concerned only with power and money (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). When was the last time something was truly revolutionary like iPhone? That was 2007. They follow the majority consumer instead of leading them as in years past.
Then, when they switched to an in-house SOC, I actually had my hopes up that they would innovate considering abundant financial resources and now tighter control. BUT now, it is more than obvious that goal is not to innovate, but to only boost their income and tighten their stranglehold on others' innovation. I'll continue to follow the Apple journey, but the path (or lack thereof) doesn't look good.
Really? It's clear they don't know what they're doing? And you base this off what Mark Gurman "thinks"? The only thing that's blatantly clear, is that some people let themselves get bent out of shape over rumors.
How about you try thinking about it before all the whining? This is what Mark thinks...
1. What would be the MAJOR difference between a Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra and a Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra? Do you honestly think a system with 8 PCI slots, capable of dissipating over a thousand watts of heat would NOT appeal to a different set of users than a Mac Studio? Even if they both offered an M2 Ultra? So the word should not be "functionality", but rather "performance".
2. It is really stupid to think Apple is worried about which system of theirs you buy. Apple already knows the Mac Pro is a low volume system. They don't care if you buy a Mac Studio instead of a Mac Pro. Seriously, why would Apple release an updated, more powerful MacBook Pro w/M2 Max, while the Studio is stuck with M1 Max? This flies directly in the face of Gurman's logic.
3. The Mac Studio was released less than a year ago. If the Mac Pro is released this Spring with an M2 Ultra, there's really no reason to upgrade the Studio right away, it can wait until late Summer or Fall to get the M2 Max/Ultra.
Intel used to produce just two or three different CPU plates, and then when testing the plates (of CPUs), depending on what the plate could withstand in terms of hertz, slap different lables on CPUs. In effect you were buying the same CPU whether you bought the 2.00GHz or the 2.60GHz.
The trashcan Mac Pro died because it did not have PCI-e. It was very fast, it even had the ability to expand memory. People did not want it because, you could not add cards. The lack of bays for added internal storage was a factor. Mostly, it was no slot for cards.
That's why Apple came out with the 2017 iMac Pro then the 2022 Mac Studio because the 2013 Mac Pro died in 2017 because it did not have PCIe expansion slots.
Pretty absurd news if true, Apple is hurting their brand with moves like this...