Apple Pulls Mac Pro Stocks from Most Retail Stores Ahead of WWDC

[scottwaugh]

She's dead, Jim.

Thanks for that, I was laughing hard....gotta know Trek from the 60's to really appreciate that quote.

That said, it looks like new Mac Pro part numbers have leaked out and I've been waiting, hoping so long for a new one.

So the current Mac Pro is on its way to the pasture, but with a tweaking of the dilithium crystals and a refit of the warp core she'll be good as new by the time Tuesday the 12th rolls around.

 

[MacinDoc]

The biggest problem with the current Mac Pro is the price - that's the biggest change they need to make to it IMO.
I've owned Apple Towers since the charcoal G4's and this is by far the most expensive Towers there have ever been.

As others have mentioned, it's nothing like the price of a Mac II or Mac IIFx when they came out.

 

[scottwaugh]

I've got my credit card ready, its in my hand

Excuses ready for wife...


Take it!

Right, can't update old model we have to latest OS X Mountain Lion that is coming and it will stop getting security updates honey (never mind that doesn't happen for another OS release)...we need this to be safe...

Gotcha, I'm all ready too (boy what an upgrade in performance this is going to be from the old ones).

 

[JazzyGB1]

As others have mentioned, it's nothing like the price of a Mac II or Mac IIFx when they came out.

That's totally irrelevant.
The current Mac Pro uses 2010 technology.
Computers usually get cheaper, not more expensive.
The current base model Mac Pro is £700 more than the Mac Pro model introduced in 2006 - that's despite the design of the computer only being slightly amended over the last 4 years.

If Apple can do a Quad core i7 3.4Ghz 27" iMac for £1800, then surely they can do a Mac Pro, that does not have the cost of 27" hi resolution display, iSight, a built in Mic or Thundebolt for less than its current price of £2041.

By keeping the price of the Mac Pro so high, it creates a self fulfilling prophecy of 'no one wants a tower anymore' which is of course complete nonsense.
I want one and I'm prepared to pay a little more for it, but the current price of £2041 for a quad core with less RAM (3GB) than on the cheapest iMac is ridiculous.

A new entry level Mac Pro needs a £500 price drop to be a success, otherwise Apple really are limiting their sales to the 'pros'.

MacBook Pro's are purchased by EVERYONE, not just the 'pros' and until the price hikes, so were Mac Pro's too.

 

[AntonWebern]

Right, can't update old model we have to latest OS X Mountain Lion that is coming and it will stop getting security updates honey (never mind that doesn't happen for another OS release)...we need this to be safe...

Gotcha, I'm all ready too (boy what an upgrade in performance this is going to be from the old ones).

I like my excuse better, "honey we need this because I will kick and scream like child until I have it." It's best not to get too technical about the details.

 

[IamMarcoPolo]

so let me get this straight, i guess its only going to be a mac pro we see at WWDC no imacs or mac book pro's?

this is very dissapointing for the remaining 99% of us

 

[Blue Sun]

so let me get this straight, i guess its only going to be a mac pro we see at WWDC no imacs or mac book pro's?

this is very dissapointing for the remaining 99% of us

The Mac Pro hasn't been updated for almost 2 years (680 days). I'm pretty sure the iMac and MBP saw updates last year, try not to feel too disappointed.

Besides, who's to say Apple won't update them all?

 

[MacinDoc]

That's totally irrelevant.
The current Mac Pro uses 2010 technology.
Computers usually get cheaper, not more expensive.
The current base model Mac Pro is £700 more than the Mac Pro model introduced in 2006 - that's despite the design of the computer only being slightly amended over the last 4 years.

If Apple can do a Quad core i7 3.4Ghz 27" iMac for £1800, then surely they can do a Mac Pro, that does not have the cost of 27" hi resolution display, iSight, a built in Mic or Thundebolt for less than its current price of £2041.

By keeping the price of the Mac Pro so high, it creates a self fulfilling prophecy of 'no one wants a tower anymore' which is of course complete nonsense.
I want one and I'm prepared to pay a little more for it, but the current price of £2041 for a quad core with less RAM (3GB) than on the cheapest iMac is ridiculous.

A new entry level Mac Pro needs a £500 price drop to be a success, otherwise Apple really are limiting their sales to the 'pros'.

MacBook Pro's are purchased by EVERYONE, not just the 'pros' and until the price hikes, so were Mac Pro's too.

How is it irrelevant? I was responding to the claim that the current Mac Pros were "the most expensive towers ever". They aren't even the most expensive towers available today (for example, this one), and far from the most expensive ever. Even before inflation. Yes, computers on the whole have come down in price over time, but this is generally not the case with Apple computers, which usually get upgraded performance instead of price cuts.

Now this is not to say that the current Mac Pros are well priced for what they are. When they were introduced, they were priced fairly competitively, but in spite of not having hardware updates for nearly two years, the only price change was a small drop in the price of RAM upgrades (which are still way more than third party offerings).

Keep in mind that Mac Pros are built with server grade components, so you must compare them with other server-grade computers, not with consumer-grade computers.

I think what you're looking for is a consumer-grade minitower. Unfortunately, Apple currently makes no such product, though many of us would be lining up to buy them if Apple ever decided to pursue this form factor again.

 

[Michael Scrip]

so let me get this straight, i guess its only going to be a mac pro we see at WWDC no imacs or mac book pro's?

this is very dissapointing for the remaining 99% of us

We just found out about this Mac Pro rumor today.

There have been other rumors that say Apple will announce MacBook Pros with Ivy Bridge and other updates.

I'd sit tight and wait.

 

[sn1p3r845]

Keep in mind that Mac Pros are built with server grade components, so you must compare them with other server-grade computers, not with consumer-grade computers.

Exactly.

Intel Xeon =/= Intel i7

Server grade components are much better parts than consumer, because they are meant to handle large stress loads.

----------

so let me get this straight, i guess its only going to be a mac pro we see at WWDC no imacs or mac book pro's?

this is very dissapointing for the remaining 99% of us

We are the 1%.

 

[barkmonster]

The biggest problem with the current Mac Pro is the price - that's the biggest change they need to make to it IMO.
I've owned Apple Towers since the charcoal G4's and this is by far the most expensive Towers there have ever been.
It used to be that even the 'non pro' could afford a tower if they wanted the expandability and flexibility a tower offered, but that simply isn't the case now. An entry entry level unit was circa £1300 and even a Quad core Mac Pro was only £1399 in 2006.
Now they start from £2041 and that's simply too much money for many.
By pricing it so high Apple have effectively made the desktop a 'niche' product, which it never used to be.
I'm not a 'pro' but I love my Mac Pro and am a 'serious hobbyist' who does music and video and love that I have 8TB of storage in it and a Blu ray writer without any external kit attached to it.
In music, earth hum is a pain in the arse, so the less power supplies there are to contend with the better!
The Mac Pro is perfect for me even as a 'non pro'. it's very quiet, easy to upgrade and allows me to attached TWO screens of my choice.
The Apple tower used to be the choice of the professional and aspiring pro/serious hobbyist (like me), or those who simply wanted the extra grunt.
Now however many potential purchasers are being forced by the price to go for an iMac instead, which is a real shame.
I hope as much as anyone that New Mac pro's are announced, but they need to reduce the cost of the entry level model, otherwise their days will really be numbered and it wont be because people don't want them, it'll be simply that they can't afford them. Make them the right price and even the 'non pro' can become a customer again.
come on Apple!

I couldn't agree more. I use my G4 for Pro Tools LE and have almost every PCI slot filled with expansion cards, every drive bay full with an external USB drives for backup. My next Mac will be a used Mac Mini simply because it gives me more power than I have now and I can use it as a media centre while I save for something more suitable which will likely be a used Mac Pro if those prices don't come down at the low end. They could continue offering a lower end CPU model with a new motherboard design, lower end graphics and limited RAM and quite easily get a system down to £1299 or less at the low end. It's all down to how much profit they want to gouge their customers for. I'd love a system with 1 SSD for recording to, a 6Gb/s SSD for streaming software synth libraries, a large RAID 1 config of regular 3.5" drives for general storage/internal backup and 120gb+ 6Gb/s SSD for the system drive.

 

[mabaker]

Unbelievable. Now that it's confirmed that it's not being canceled people are ARGUING abut the PRICE!

 

[rmwebs]

That doesn't solve the problem of there being no Blu-Ray playback support in the OS.

Still dont see the point in adding it myself. I'd much rather have digital copies, optical media is dead as far as I'm concerned, there's simply no reason to have it anymore.

 

[24Frames]

so let me get this straight, i guess its only going to be a mac pro we see at WWDC no imacs or mac book pro's?

this is very dissapointing for the remaining 99% of us

Sorry where did you get that idea from?

 

[\-V-/]

Unbelievable. Now that it's confirmed that it's not being canceled people are ARGUING abut the PRICE!

People in forums inevitably want to find something to argue about. Some people also can't ever be pleased.

 

[vmachiel]

Just got up and read this Happy

 

[24Frames]

Prices are likely to go up, although not by a huge amount. Both the likely CPUs candidates from Intel and the GPUs from NVidia / AMD are more expensive than those found in the 2010 Mac Pros.

In the workstation market Apples main competitors are HP and Dell. The new Dell Precision workstations look very interesting. The price points are quite high once configured.

 

[AppliedMicro]

If it was dead they'd have pulled the floor models people.

Why not replace/pull of their updated models at the same time (next week?)?

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple stopped showcasing the Mac Pro altogether. They already did so in their recent store designs for European Premium Reseller locations.

 

[barkmonster]

Unbelievable. Now that it's confirmed that it's not being canceled people are ARGUING abut the PRICE!

Sorry money bags but not everyone has £2000 to drop on a computer and the Mac Pro range has steadily increased in price throughout it's life time, despite the lowering cost of all it's components and the 6 year old motherboard and case design!

For example, from a third party such as Crucial, 8Gb for the 2006 Mac Pro is over £240, 12Gb for the current range is £96 and bearing in mind Apple are still using the old motherboard design leaving 1 out of every 4 RAM slots redundant on certain CPU configurations that need triple channel RAM and they ship these beasts with a pitiful 1Gb per RAM slot for over £2000!

Also, it's not unreasonable that when they moved to the Intel platform, they maintained a low end, expandable system for hobbyists and budget conscious companies. There was a build to order 2Ghz Mac Pro at £1399 for just this reason.

I know people looking for a Mac Pro can always buy a used system but the addition of Thunderbolt and Core i5/i7 CPUs on their Mac Mini range has given people faster, far cheaper options in certain circumstances.

Even going the used route has it's failings because any pre 2010 Mac Pro with only 4 cores is slower than even the entry level Mac Mini from a raw CPU power point of view and when it can be expanded to 16Gb for £120 and a lightning fast 6Gb/s SSD can be fitted internally for around that too including the cost of a tool kit to work inside the system, you're still spending under £800 for a system with better I/O.

Sure, if you needed PCIe expansion, it comes close to £1700 if you add the Sonnet Xmac but then you've still got faster I/O for your drives, a lot more RAM for your applications and nearly £350 left over and given the fact the Mac Mini could work out of the box without adding all the extra RAM and drives etc... and still be over 2 3rds the speed of the 2.8Ghz Mac Pro, it's not surprising that people are wanting a Mac Pro at a lower price point because it's a false economy at it's present spec.

 

[669532]

They might want to use the same cases with updated board, processor, etc.

what? so you think they would take apart old computers?

 

[Tailpike1153]

You know the funny thing. I was trying to play R.E.M.'s "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" my old iPod. I started reading the thread and then my iPod died. Then I read the thread and recharged my iPod. Looks like things could be getting better.

 

[Thunderhawks]

That sucks. More waiting. New models should be up after wwdc keynote . Nt days or weeks more. Wtf

How old are you that you can't wait for something that you lived your entire life without?

 

[devinci99]

If Apple stop making the Mac Pro's what are their engineers going to use to design, develop MacOS, iOS, and other software?

I know Macbook Pro's are pretty powerful, but come on!

I don't see Tim Cook telling his staff of engineers to use Hackintosh, Dells, HPs, or Linux!

Regardless of whether or not they market and sell such systems, Apple still needs something in the likes of Mac Pro or more powerful to power their own servers, data centers, etc. so they can eat their own cooking.

Windows, Linux, and other platforms exist in labs where they test interoperability.

 

[sn1p3r845]

Sorry money bags but not everyone has £2000 to drop on a computer and the Mac Pro range has steadily increased in price throughout it's life time, despite the lowering cost of all it's components and the 6 year old motherboard and case design!

if you can't afford the mac pro, then you're probably not a pro and making money with it...

The mac pro can be easily paid off with a month of work. I'm not saying you're not a "pro" but most of the guys here rely on the machine to do their tasks everyday. It's worth it.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Yep...

I was just at the Lincoln Road Apple Store (Miami Beach, FL) this past weekend, and they had a Mac Pro there.

And this is Miami Beach, which is tourist-central, the last place you'd expect to find a good market for a professional level workstation that you ain't gonna be carrying onto the plane home!

I've been in that store numerous times since my bro-in-law and his wife have a place like 2 blocks away. It's always packed and I've seen that Mac Pro. So yeah.....