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Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro

neilw said:
I agree with this. An M2 Studio is more valuable than a half-assed Mac Pro.
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Apple delaying the Mac Pro may be an indicator of how many units Apple expects it can sell.

Year 2000-onward was when laptops to desktop shipments became 80/20 because laptops became powerful enough.

With 5nm and 3nm makes you wonder how many units of workstation-class desktops with expandability will be bought with a fiscal year.

Odds are Mac Studios sell more and cheaper to make. You don't have to ship a box of air that will never be filled with PCIe cards by majority of pre-Mac Studio Mac Pro owners.
 
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I think it would be a big mistake to not update the Studio as it sits in a nice slot for power users. I’ll use mine for years to come but when the time does come I may have to consider alternatives for the first time in years if there isn’t a good comparable product available when I’m ready.
 
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nwcs said:
I think it would be a big mistake to not update the Studio as it sits in a nice slot for power users. I’ll use mine for years to come but when the time does come I may have to consider alternatives for the first time in years if there isn’t a good comparable product available when I’m ready.
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I agree with you.

As far as I am concerned the Mac Studio is much more important product than the Mac Pro.

Majority of Mac users, that I would not be surprised at ~99% worldwide, would not even be impacted that the Mac Pro would be abandoned.
 
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ThisBougieLife said:
These rumors/speculations really seem to suggest Apple backed itself into a corner, essentially realizing the Studio is as good as it’s going to get with Apple Silicon. Now they have to find a way to make a Mac Pro and somehow lessen the appeal of the Studio.
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Apple saw data that a majority of Mac Pro users have zero use for the PCIe slots that many here keep salivating over.

Odds are it was more than 50% of all users with that sort of use case.

Then they released the Mac Studio that eliminated the parts and space that majority of users do not need or want.

In terms of shipping pallet space the Mac Studio increased the density of how many units can be shipped at he same time. That's shipping savings right there.

In the 1990s before I bought my 2000 iMac G3 SE I had a PC ATX tower... I never used any of the daughter board slots. Come 2002 I fin myself with a Power Mac G4... I never used the PCI slots either.

2013 Mac Pro trash can came in... people were shocked that it had no PCIe slots... but odds are it was the vocal minority with that problem.

Mac Studio's glorious... I wish I had a use case.
 
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maflynn said:
We're talking about an unreleased product, so keep that in mind, with that said the architecture of the M1/M2 series does not support PCIe.
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Better tell that to Apple then since they claim otherwise.

77C1D845-ADDA-4C95-8D74-2E8434FA493C.jpeg
 
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iZac said:
kind of interesting if the Mac Studio was just like the iMac Pro - a stop gap using an existing form factor (in this case a mac mini with an enormous fan on top) until Apple's pro team can pull its finger out.
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This has been my take on it.

And damnit, Apple, make this year a better one because it’s WAY past time for me to have a NEW and RELIABLE machine, and not the stopgap used and defective ones I’ve been using for the last decade+.
 
Well with the dozens of things going on in the world causing shortages in one way or another, this makes sense. People have been waiting for the Mac Pro, and they missed their 2 year target. So it makes sense for them to focus on the Mac Pro during these crises. Things should stabilize soon, we just have to be patient.
 
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NT1440 said:
So this isn’t even masked behind “sources”, this is Gurman just speculating freely. That’s fine, but it’s not news or rumors, just ad revenue for MR on clicks…
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Well, the lack of "sourced" information about Apple preparing Mac Studio update in itself may indicate that update is not coming.
 
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Ethosik said:
Well with the dozens of things going on in the world causing shortages in one way or another, this makes sense. People have been waiting for the Mac Pro, and they missed their 2 year target. So it makes sense for them to focus on the Mac Pro during these crises. Things should stabilize soon, we just have to be patient.
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The whole history of Apple is a history of world "shortages".
 
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lococroco said:
This “prediction” or rumor makes zero sense to me. Apple definitely saw a place for the Mac Studio to exist in between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro, otherwise they wouldn’t have released it. Whenever they release the Mac Pro, I am sure that they will have figured out how to differentiate it from a Mac Studio that costs a fraction of the Mac Pro.
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And it took Apple 20+ years to finally see it (with people constantly asking for such model)? Hardly a high conviction vision.
 
falainber said:
The whole history of Apple is a history of world "shortages".
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Have you went outside the last two years? We had a world wide event that caused supply chain issues. We had Ukraine, more China drama, chip shortages, employee shortages and many more things. I don't know what you are talking about.

The fact that supply shortages got so bad, I got put on a several month waiting list to fix a broken window because "supply issues". It got to security and comfortability of our homes with how bad things got.
 
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UMHurricanes34 said:
Why is this so difficult?

M2 / M2 Pro Mac Mini
M2 Pro / M2 Max Mac Studio
M2 Max / M2 Ultra Mac Pro

Why does Apple struggle with such *basic* product positioning these days?
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It is clear the original goal was this:

M2 / M2 Pro Mac Mini
M2 Max / M2 Ultra Mac Studio
M2 Ultra / M2 Extreme Mac Pro

But with what, reports have said that Apple had problems with the M2 Extreme and ditched it, which left them in a difficult position with the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.
 
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falainber said:
Well, the lack of "sourced" information about Apple preparing Mac Studio update in itself may indicate that update is not coming.
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That’s true, but there’s no meat in this “story”. The Kuo’s, Gurman’s, etc seem to have been pumping out words to just say words lately.
 
An indicator of how important a product is to Apple is how often it gets refreshed.

By that metric the Mac Pro is the least important to Apple. For a decade and counting it does not sell at volumes that would merit a 12-18-24 month refresh cycle.

Mac Pro Timeline

- 2022 Mac Studio that is an indirect Mac Pro caters to Mac Pro buyers with zero need for PCIe slots
- 2019 Mac Pro has no refresh until today in the year 2023... over 3 years
- 2017 iMac Pro that is an indirect Mac Pro ceased in 2020... over 3 years is an indirect Mac Pro caters to Mac Pro buyers with zero need for PCIe slots
- 2013 Mac Pro was refreshed in 2017 or 2019... 4 or 6 years later caters to Mac Pro buyers with zero need for PCIe slots
- 2006 to 2012 Mac Pro was refreshed annually or biannually due to high demand

This tells me that

- PCIe expansion's not as big a deal in terms of units bought worldwide as many are implying
- Raw performance of other Macs have come to a point that it is "good enough"
- Workstation desktop market shrank because MBP 14"/16" have become powerful enough
 
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petvas said:
I agree. I hope Apple sees it also like that and that they will not abandon the Mac Studio. I would like them though to update the Mac Studio with the M2 Max & Ultra chips. German doesn't really know anything. He ist just suggesting the obvious. I wonder why people tend to listen to this guy..
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Name recognition, probably.
 
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Ethosik said:
Have you went outside the last two years? We had a world wide event that caused supply chain issues. We had Ukraine, more China drama, chip shortages, employee shortages and many more things. I don't know what you are talking about.

The fact that supply shortages got so bad, I got put on a several month waiting list to fix a broken window because "supply issues". It got to security and comfortability of our homes with how bad things got.
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Do you know anything about Apple? How long did it take for Apple to redesign disastrous MacPro 6,1? 6 years! No covid. No Ukraine war or anything.
 
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sam_dean said:
I think he meant the PCIe expansion slots found inside a Mac Pro.

Not the bus that is accesiible via USB 4 ports
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The point I was making is that Apple has supported PCIe on Apple silicon Mac SoCs since day one. There is no reason to believe that Apple silicon architecture limits the use of PCIe in any way. It’s just a question of how many PCIe lanes they need on a Mac Pro CPU.
 
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SpotOnT said:
I don’t know. If I were Apple I would update the Mac Studio with M2 and just keep holding back the Mac Pro until I got that actually sorted out.
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But talk to people about what they’re doing, rather than leaving everyone in the dark and continuing to lose any morsel of interest in persisting in professional/prosumer workflows with Apple hardware.

You know, something Apple isn’t unheard of doing, but is exceptionally rare when they actually do.
 
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