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

[prowlmedia]

I think it's staying. I think you'll see something vastly different in design from them...with the advances in technology the last 4 years, and how the MacPro hasn't been updated in look in ages, something major is coming in design changes for it...most likely smaller, slimmer and sleeker along with some serious weight drop and probably more affordable.

Towers all still look the same.

Why would it need to be slimmer/sleeker - The design is still very functional.

Weight... Mines mover about 3 times in 4years. They are workstations... they tend to stay in the same place.

Affordable... don't count on it... BUT as always the entry prices are always very similar to a Dell / HP workstation. ( much as gamers protest they can build a PC version that will smoke a mac pro - it can't in pro apps... )

And well my 2008 Macpro is incredibly fast with SSD's 48gb memory and a 2gb hacked PC 285GTX. and stil worth over £1200 with a basic spec - a similar DELL on ebay... £400 ( but that's a good render machine )

 

[JazzyGB1]

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.

Apologies for not making myself clear, but I was referring only to APPLE towers!
The Mac IIFx was made 22 years ago when most professional computers were niche and expensive and they were desktops...not towers.
22 years is a lifetime in technology. Even the internet was in its infancy back then and that's what I mean about it being irrelevant - you simply cannot compare then to now.
The current Mac Pro's ARE the most expensive Apple Towers to date - certainly since the Apple tower started becoming main stream (circa G3's).
I've owned every Apple tower since the G4, but unless they drop the price significantly, my current Mac Pro is likely to be my last (new) one.
The first quad core 2.66 Mac Pro introduced in 2006 used server grade components too and that was available from £1349.00 - £700 less than the current entry level quad core Mac Pro. That's more than a 50% price increase in 4 years which is absolutely scandalous IMO!
The claim often made now is that 'people don't want or need a tower anymore', but the truth is Apple have made them prohibitively expensive to many potential purchasers.
So for some it's not a question of not wanting one, it's a question of not affording one.
When I bought my wife a Bondi blue G3 iMac 400 in 1999 it cost £999, the same price as the current entry level iMac.
My G4 tower (350mhz) Purchased around the same time cost £1199.
The cost of the entry level tower now is £2041, so it's price has almost doubled, but the price of the entry level iMac has remained almost the same.
That's what I mean about it being the most expensive Tower ever.
Apple seem to have purposely marginalised the Mac Pro by making it the preserve only of the business buyer or the very wealthy.
This was not the case with previous tower Macs - not even with the original Mac Pro.
I accept that it is their flagship and aimed at 'Pro's' but Apple towers were often used by the 'non pro' too.
Its current price point forces many who wish to use Apple product to an iMac, when some (like me) would much rather have the desktop.
I don't mind paying a little more for that (I always have), but the current premium is just too much IMO.
If the next Mac Pro is over £2000, it's simply beyond the purchasing abilities of many (like me) who wish to own one.

 

[ogh]

If the price and performance is similar to that of HP Z820, a new Mac Pro is a good alternative. A new design would be fine, but the most important thing for me is the number of memory slots. It should be able to handle at least 256GB RAM, preferably more.

 

[nuckinfutz]

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.

Because they're huge and take up a lot of warehouse space

 

[JazzyGB1]

Well the good news is it looks almost certain that we're getting a new range of Mac Pro's
Some part numbers have been leaked (see macrumors front page), the bad news is the price looks the same
Be interesting to see if it's a radical new design or just a processor bump.
Roll on WWDC!

 

[barkmonster]

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.

The "You're not a Pro. Buy something you can afford" arguement is invalid because Apple USED to have distinct entry level price points for their fully expandable systems in the G3 to G5 days.

Even when the Mac Pro came out, hobbyists who NEED to be able to upgrade their system to get several years use out of it were only catered for if they had nearly £1400.

It's not unreasonable to expect 4 or 5 years out of a system between upgrades if you're on a budget but it is unreasonable to expect someone to save £400 a year between upgrades when all the while component capacity and CPU power increases while price points simply fluctuate around the cost of the highest capacity/performance in the range of each component.

I could wait till the used prices of 6 and 8 core Mac Pros come down and buy one at a price point that suits me but it's the fact I have to buy used not new that's the issue.

I'd lose any advantage of having an emerging standard like Thunderbolt, I'd be limited to SATA 3Gb/s or a combination of that limitation with an expensive PCIe based SSD in place of a single 6Gb/s. Not to mention the increased power efficiency with each model.

A 2006 Mac Pro with a 4 core/4 thread CPU and 32bit EFI uses 950watts, only offers SATA 3Gb/s, RAM costs a fortune and it only offers around 4800 geekbench points of power.

A 2011 Mac Mini is cheaper brand new than a used Mac Pro, has a 2 core/4 thread CPU, a future-proof 64bit EFI, uses only 85watts, offers SATA 6Gb/s, RAM is so cheap, it's £120 vs over £480 for the equivalent Mac Pro RAM and it's faster too with a geekbench score of around 5800!

 

[TallManNY]

My vote is dead, at least in it's current form. They haven't pulled stock like this before that I remember.

I'm hoping we get a mac Mini + in it's place, as I hate the thought of an iMac as my main rig.

It will be an ironic sad day when all my consumer devices are Apple, and my desktop computer is a PC.

Not a chance. Apple dominates the high end PC segment. They aren't just walking away from it because they are bored. And Apple isn't going to shrink itself into just consumer devices even though those sell in higher volumes. They will continue to make the Mac Pro if only so that Ivy and the other high level geeks in the company can continue to use a smoking hot machine when at work. The Mini and the Mac Pro will live on. And so will at least two flavors of laptop.

 

[cvaldes]

Correct.

Apple owns something like 90% of the >$1000 PC marketplace.

 

[Cristian123]

This is great, though when I did a test order in the DC area I saw that most of the stores still had them stock while a few said June 12. Anyway...

It would make sense to get some hype on the Mac Pro ahead of the iMac because they could pick up some more consumers on Mac Pro hype but its doubtful that pros will move over to iMac. Surely there will be an entry level MP in the 2k range for the people who can't yet afford to go full hog for a new tower, box, hub, whatever you want to call it, but still want high end performance and expandability.

As for me, I will spend 8k on the suped up version of this thing the second it comes out, plus sign me up for all the new gadgets, and a new airport base station to create my home cloud, and I will continue to tell all my friends how cool Apple is. Apple will be better off as a result, because I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one like me, and I'm pretty sure that's how Apple got where it is. So why not continue a winning formula?

To think I was within days of switching everything to Windows.

 

[TallManNY]

I read this on Daring Fireball:
Gartner Report: Apple Turns Over Its Inventory Once Every Five Days ★
Alexis Madrigal:

So a typical company in manufacturing might do 8 inventory turns. Samsung does 17. Dell, which practically invented hardcore electronics supply chain management, does 36. Apple is doing 74!

Tim Cook is doing OK

So with Apple turning over its inventory every five days, it wouldn't have much in the way of stockpile to make the switch to the new Macs. That is why the shortfalls are so close to the release date of the new devices.

I don't know if I will ever go Pro. The closest I get to needing that kind of power is in gaming. When I do a little video encoding, which is rare, I can just walk away from the computer for a little while. It is no big deal since we are talking about a home movie from a vacation and nothing time critical. But speed is nice for everything so I sometimes think about it.

But not this year or next year. My iMac is doing just fine.

 

[zorinlynx]

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.....

Damn, they're lucky. I'd love to live in that neighborhood, but the commute would destroy my sanity in short order, no matter how many awesome days at the beach result!

 

[iSayuSay]

I dont mind a basic MacPro with i7 and standard RAM for $2000. Yeah .. the long dreamed xMac. Please no more iMac as the only consumer desktop (Mac Mini is not a real performing desktop). I had terrible times with it.

 

[Sean4000]

Confirmed pulled at the Lakeside Shopping center store in Metairie Louisiana.

Come on monday, It's time for me to upgrade a few of my MacPro 1,1's.

there is life all over the computer world. New releases coming from ubuntu, sidefx, blender, gimp, microsoft, apple, oracle, and even sgi!

 

[amorya]

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!

iMacs. They make pretty sweet development machines. I have one on my desk right now, fitted out with lots of RAM and an extra SSD.

Software developers aren't the target audience for Mac Pros really. They don't need the expansion capabilities, and the powerful processors are only useful if you're constantly building on your own machine rather than using a build server. It's graphics and video professionals that need the Pro, along with some scientific applications.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Finally, all these ridiculous "the Mac Pro is DEAD" rumors will be put to rest.

Or rather see you next year with the same "They don't care about Pro's / The Mac Pro is dead" threads.

 

[twoodcc]

looking forward to that redesigned mac pro, even if i can't afford it right now

 

[kindaobsessed]

Best Buy

I purchased a MBA 2 weeks ago at best buy, as a silver rewards member I have 45 day to return, I am wanting to go back to MBP as i cannot stand the aluminum framing around the screen, I like the black glass better. I plan on returning MBA for MBP new line, in the past how long before Best Buys see these on the inventory?