Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?

[orbital]

As an avid MacPro user and a realist I can see why the would make this move. Unfortunately for me if they did I would need to switch to a PC. Its been really great working on Macs but I create 2D and 3D animations and I can't work on an iMac. If the MacPro line ended within a year I will start saying "Yep I'm PC"

 

[MacintoshMan]

Why not just add a 2nd 2560x1440 display to it?
What's the problem of having a higher resolution than "the industry standard"?
Or just add two "industry standard" monitors to an iMac.
Whether you just its internal display or not - an iMac will in many case offer the same performance at a lesser price.


So you're calling me an "iTard" while stating professionals buy their displays by their looks?

I'll try to keep that in mind the next time I will be looking at NEC, EIZO, Quato displays (please don't tell me these are purchased because of their looks)

Why else buy a display if it doesn't look how you want it to? The sole purpose of a display is how the image looks...

From your previous post, I know you're a apple reseller, which mean yous don't need a mac pro, so I understand how you couldn't comprehend why others might need it to continue working.

1. What industry standard - don't talk bollocks. We use 2 x 2560x1600's and every single industry is different.

Oh ya? what industry is this? We have 30 stations here in post production VFX all with 24" dell studio displays. 27" 2560x1600 for each station would be over kill unless you're sitting very far back. Theres actually a formula if you want to look and see what the proper distance and angle is.

 

[scottsjack]

This news shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone really.

Ever since Steve Jobs came back to Apple, a principle of minimalism has ruled the product line. The fact is that for the last few years, the Mac Pro's value proposition has been getting more and more difficult to argue. It's not all Apple's fault, and Intel's Xeon pricing structure has a lot to do with it but even so, Apple has been clearly pushing into the mainstream consumer market for which an iMac or Macbook has been sufficient.

It's the Mac Pro users who need to adjust. We need to accept that Apple no longer sees the pro market as worth chasing after, painful as that may be to deal with.

Time to stop acting like an abused spouse in denial.

Exactly. While it's sometimes a kind of PITA Windows 7 works great and allows for more flexible hardware.

 

[Mobster1983]

I really hope they do not cancel the Mac Pro Line. Since I got my iPad the need for a laptop is minimal. I have been waiting for the new Mac Pros to be released to buy my first desktop in 10 years. I currently have 3 2 Tb drives hooked up (2 are almost full and one is backups). Would really like to get these off USB 2.0/Firewire and be able to edit videos/pictures/etc quickly on internal drives.

 

[orbital]

If they can come up with an iMac where we can add external processor cores or GPU's or RAM through Thunderbolt, I wouldn't mind.

Except if you are a PRO, need a Studio color correct monitor, a video card better than what apple offers, a BlackMagic Card or eSATA/fibre channel connections the iMac leaves you out of luck.

 

[Blue Sun]

It does seem to be a vicious cycle.

Apple neglects the Mac Pro line (mainly due to the availability of new Xeon CPU's) which means consumers neglect it.

It needs more frequent updates and a slightly more affordable price.

I know its been mentioned previously, but everyone that is in the market for a Mac Pro isn't going to pay full price for old tech. Sales will pickup when they offer updated hardware.

 

[bearcatrp]

It looks like Thunderbolt equipped Mac Minis may be the Mac Pro replacements.

http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/attack-of-the-minis/

This could work IF the mini's had 3Ghz quad core processors. Ivy bridge could make this happen. Should find out soon enough.

 

[apolloa]

... and what tangible steps has Apple taken so far, to address their concerns?

Besides continuing to sell the obsolete prior version in a limited form, I mean.

I guess that depends on who you ask, looking at the App Store reviews, some are happy, some are not as it still lacks functionality that it had before.
And it will be the same if they ditch the Pro and make a 30" iMac, it will impact sales from professionals as you have no hope in hell of squeezing two Xeons in there! Plus the lack of a GPU comparable to what a Pro can have.

 

[435713]

Dell, Hp, Sony (still makes server towers) BOXX, Lenovo,..... eh, why bother. I'll just say "record breaking profits"! and pump my fist. One day Apple, One day karma will bite you in the arse.

 

[iBug2]

Except if you are a PRO, need a Studio color correct monitor, a video card better than what apple offers, a BlackMagic Card or eSATA/fibre channel connections the iMac leaves you out of luck.

Maybe read before you reply.

I already said that I'd be ok if they allowed me to add GPU's through TB, so the video card argument is nonsense. The rest of the extensions can be done through TB in theory as well. That's what TB is about in the first place.

You are correct about the monitor, but not every pro need a studio color correct monitor. For most, Apple's ACD series were enough, which the 27" iMac matches in quality.

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This could work IF the mini's had 3Ghz quad core processors. Ivy bridge could make this happen. Should find out soon enough.

Or simply use 10 minis. 10 minis cost as much as top end Mac Pro. The only thing we need is 100mbit Dual Channel TB.

 

[wiz329]

Professional isn't really a term which needs a redefining here. If you use your computer in your work to make money, you are in the professional market segment of computers.

So the journalist who uses an 11" MBA is a pro user? I think not.

Who says it needs cables? If Apple replaces the Mac Pro with stackable Mac Minis, they could put an optical Thunderbolt port at the bottom of each Mac Mini with a female port under a removable Apple logo. You stack them neatly, adding as many Mac Minis as you need to give you the power you're looking for.

I'm not 100% certain on this, but I don't think this would be realistically possible, at least not now. For example, I don't think you could actually harness all the individual RAM installed as a single unit, simply because of the bandwidth limitations (1.6 GB/s right now in both directions).

Maybe read before you reply.

I already said that I'd be ok if they allowed me to add GPU's through TB, so the video card argument is nonsense. The rest of the extensions can be done through TB in theory as well. That's what TB is about in the first place.

I repeat, what pro user wants to have 5 different boxes on his desk when he can just use one? External storage and graphics via TB just gets unwieldy. Sure it can be done, but WHY? Why axe a perfectly good Mac Pro system that can already do all this? Its like you want to strip the MP down completely, then rebuild the functionality it from all these different components!

 

[iBug2]

So the journalist who uses an 11" MBA is a pro user? I think not.

You may think not, but for any company which sells computers, that guy is in the pro segment.

 

[jackrv]

I'm not 100% certain on this, but I don't think this would be realistically possible, at least not now. For example, I don't think you could actually harness all the individual RAM installed as a single unit, simply because of the bandwidth limitations (1.6 GB/s right now in both directions).

You wouldn't need to consolidate the RAM. It would be a compute cluster. XGrid and GCD (or a 3rd party dispatch, say for a rendering farm) would break down the job, and each server would only need the memory that the local CPU needed.

 

[wiz329]

You may think not, but for any company which sells computers, that guy is in the pro segment.

'

Sure ... I'm not saying Apple isn't catering to them. And in that case, the Mac Pro user base is definitely in the minority. But I don't think many people would agree with you that they should be considered a "pro" user. A "pro" machine, like the Mac Pro, is definitely not for them.

You wouldn't need to consolidate the RAM. It would be a compute cluster. XGrid and GCD (or a 3rd party dispatch, say for a rendering farm) would break down the job, and each server would only need the memory that the local CPU needed.

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification! I still don't think at this point a mac mini cluster would be a suitable replacement the mac pro -- especially since it lacks drive access and expandability.

 

[scottsjack]

Maybe read before you reply.

I already said that I'd be ok if they allowed me to add GPU's through TB, so the video card argument is nonsense. The rest of the extensions can be done through TB in theory as well. That's what TB is about in the first place.

You are correct about the monitor, but not every pro need a studio color correct monitor. For most, Apple's ACD series were enough, which the 27" iMac matches in quality.

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Or simply use 10 minis. 10 minis cost as much as top end Mac Pro. The only thing we need is 100mbit Dual Channel TB.

An iMac with a bunch of TB devices plugged into it, 10 minis? Why not just buy a self contained machine like a Mac Pro or an HP Z series and be done with it? You're trying to compensate for Apple's minimalist approach.

 

[adder7712]

Welcome to Current Market Realities 101.

In particular, internal discussions were said to focus around the fact that sales of the high-end workstations to both consumers and enterprises have dropped off so considerably that the Mac Pro is no longer a particularly profitable operation for Apple.

Hardly surprising.

Massive workstations are a little redundant in today's market, which is being driven increasingly by the growing population of Pro-sumers.

In a market where smaller and more efficient can often outperform massive and high-powered (or render the purchase of the latter uneconomical from a bang-for-your buck perspective), we're seeing the inevitable results.

Get rid of the Mac Pro, optimize the hell out of your software, drive innovation in the small form-factor area. Done.

Don't swallow everything Apple throws at you.

Apple, why not introduce a tower that has comparable specs and price to the iMac but allow user CPU and GPU upgrades? I'm pretty sure there's a market for it.

 

[codehead1]

Late last week, we noted that with pricing information on Intel's upcoming Sandy Bride E Xeon processors...

Surely someone else must have noticed "Sandy Bride" (she walks, I suppose, the Sandy Bridge)...

 

[Hrududu]

I miss the days when Apple would strive to introduce "the world's fastest personal computer" at MacWorld and WWDC. Seems like its been a long time since the days of bragging about how a G3 was up to twice as fast as the Pentium II, the gigaflops a G4 could sustain and how the G5 was the first 64 bit PC smoking Xeon and P4 chips. Now Apple has moved on. Trying to create superior computer equipment is the last thing on their minds. The Intel switch may have been a great deal for laptops, but it basically killed Apple's drive to produce the best desktop systems.

 

[iBug2]

The point is, soon when we get dual channel 100mbit TB, daisy chaining minis will give the same CPU power as Mac Pro, so as long as we can add GPU's, it'll actually kill any need of a Mac Pro.

Not to mention we'll get gigabit TB after that as well. As long as the option exists to connect minis through PCI-e, nobody needs a Mac Pro. Any internal PCI-e card can be replaced by their external TB versions when manufacturers release them.

Considering this, even if Apple doesn't kill Mac Pro this year, it makes perfect sense for them to kill it a few years later because chaining will finally become an option. And everyone can purchase as many minis as they require, it actually gives even more control over the processor count than today.

 

[David Lazaro]

If Apple do seriously think this is the way forward then, as they say it, this would be "the last straw." I'm going full-on with new HP Z800 workstations or Dell T7500. At least they know how to make a good workstation, with NVIDIA Quadro graphics and such.

 

[adder7712]

This could work IF the mini's had 3Ghz quad core processors. Ivy bridge could make this happen. Should find out soon enough.

...and non-mobile GPUs.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Why else buy a display if it doesn't look how you want it to? The sole purpose of a display is how the image looks

I thought you meant its exterior "look", as opposed to the image it provides.
But yeah... you can hook up one or even two "good" professional-capable displays to an iMac. It'll look a bit weird on the desktop, but it's often not more but rather less expensive than an iMac - for comparable performance.

From your previous post, I know you're a apple reseller, which mean yous don't need a mac pro, so I understand how you couldn't comprehend why others might need it to continue working.

I better do comprehend my customers' needs.

But if I 1. look at sales figures for Mac Pros compared to iMacs and then 2. subtract purchases that could estimatedly be substituted (even if grudgingly so) with an iMac or even high-end Mac mini from these numbers ... remaining unit sales are probably just a minuscule number compared to all Mac sales. Apple's numbers might look slightly different but I'd guess somewhat similar overall.

And there's no reason to assume Apple incurs considerably less R&D costs for the Mac Pro than the iMac. If you factor in support costs and look at everything on a per unit base, the Mac Pro should be very expensive and high-maintenance for them (even if some things are going to trickle down to lesser desktops). And I feel that Apple has become even more picky and rigorous in allocating its resources and focusing on a few crucial products (see iOS and Lion...).

 

[iBug2]

An iMac with a bunch of TB devices plugged into it, 10 minis? Why not just buy a self contained machine like a Mac Pro or an HP Z series and be done with it? You're trying to compensate for Apple's minimalist approach.

If two computers do the same job, it makes no sense to keep manufacturing both. When chaining becomes an option in the future, Apple would have to be dumb to not kill Mac Pro.

 

[Chaos123x]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

If they can come up with an iMac where we can add external processor cores or GPU's or RAM through Thunderbolt, I wouldn't mind.

Except if you are a PRO, need a Studio color correct monitor, a video card better than what apple offers, a BlackMagic Card or eSATA/fibre channel connections the iMac leaves you out of luck.

Wrong!

Thunderbolt is faster than e-sata.

There are already fibre channel thunderbolt adapters.


Aja and Blackmagic already have or will have input and output boxes using thinderbolt.

 

[jackrv]

'
Gotcha, thanks for the clarification! I still don't think at this point a mac mini cluster would be a suitable replacement the mac pro -- especially since it lacks drive access and expandability.

I agree with you there. Though it could replace 'some' uses, mainly raw calculations/rendering/etc. But you still lose too much. Unless a Mac Mini had multiple discrete TB ports that did NOT share bandwidth, You would be limited to either consolidating CPUs, adding external PCIe devices, but no combination of the two.

Plus the software would have to be written with XGrid in mind, unless Apple completely revamps it.