Totally get what you are saying but actually for serious pro audio you need more RAM than the iMac can provide due to the use of RAM intensive sample libraries and also lots of Hard Drives - it will be interesting to see reports as more people try and build studios around Thunderbolt and what experience they have with daisy chaining and the bandwidth available for multiple drives and devices across 1 connection to an iMac - that is key. However this doesn't get over the RAM issue - you would have to create a slave computer with all your samples on and control it via ethernet which, while possible, ends up costing you more than 1 MAC Pro maxed out if you are clever about where you get your RAM from (ie not apple!!).
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Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?
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Totally get what you are saying but actually for serious pro audio you need more RAM than the iMac can provide due to the use of RAM intensive sample libraries and also lots of Hard Drives - it will be interesting to see reports as more people try and build studios around Thunderbolt and what experience they have with daisy chaining and the bandwidth available for multiple drives and devices across 1 connection to an iMac - that is key. However this doesn't get over the RAM issue - you would have to create a slave computer with all your samples on and control it via ethernet which, while possible, ends up costing you more than 1 MAC Pro maxed out if you are clever about where you get your RAM from (ie not apple!!).
Same ... I'm really tempted to just get that same thing now than risk not being able to get one...
Hence the use of the word "parallele". It used to be these "high performance computing" clusters were simply mainframe computers. They dominated the landscape. Then PCs came and took a bunch of the tasks we used these hulking beasts for. Then clusters of these PCs came and took another bunch of tasks the mainframes were used for, while laptops came and took a bunch of tasks the PCs were used for. Then mobile "smartphones" (which are just computers in disguise!) came and took a bunch of tasks these laptops were used for.
As these devices come and replace older devices, the older devices either move up the food chain or get stuck into niches.
There's your parallele.
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Considering Apple still lists refurbished Xserves from time to time, I wouldn't hurry too much. There's no rush, Apple will probably give a heads up of a couple of months and then sell refurbished models for some time after they've stopped selling Mac Pros.
And let's face it, I really doubt the 2010 Mac Pro is the last. There will be a model next year that uses the new Intel stuff in all probability. But there's no denying Apple won't keep it up forever.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing.
While many seem quite certain this is a lifeless rumor, I no longer trust Apple (sadly). And although they've not said a word yet, the way they've changed over the last few years I don't need to hear from them. All signs seem to point to complete abandonment. If they do decide to kill it, the action will be silent & swift. Care about customers? Surely you jest...
Too bad
But it make business sense, and in the long run they will also end iMacs and OSX. And do Tv's and toys, a company like sony or samsung. Without Steve I doubt that it is mush hope for Apple. Killing Mac Pro will be the first step if they dont replace it with some thing other that can be used by pros. A Mac midi have I wanted for many years but thing. Mac Pro is expensive for a prosumer.
But it make business sense, and in the long run they will also end iMacs and OSX. And do Tv's and toys, a company like sony or samsung. Without Steve I doubt that it is mush hope for Apple. Killing Mac Pro will be the first step if they dont replace it with some thing other that can be used by pros. A Mac midi have I wanted for many years but thing. Mac Pro is expensive for a prosumer.
Me and the other audioguys and people from other creative arts have explained in vivid detail MANY times during this tread why a ****ing iMac, Mac Mini or MacBooks can't get the job done!
So why do people still try to tell me and others that we don't need this line of computers...
Apple hasn't produced a cheap (internally) expandable Mac since the days of MacOS 9; and the only expandable Mac they've sold since has been relatively expensive, infrequently upgraded, poorly marketed and virtually ignored in keynotes.
Computers aren't sold by letting them gather dust until the public takes an interest; they have to be proactively updated, and marketed. If new CPUs aren't available, innovate in other ways. I think Apple could spur on a lot of sales just by introducing an expandable desktop Mac, with a case redesign (how old is it now? 8 years?) Thunderbolt and aggressive pricing. Maybe spend some of their cash pile getting graphics card makers to bring their higher-end cards - and the required support - to the platform?
You can't really say a new desktop Mac isn't a good idea because of how poorly the Mac Pro is doing - when you consider how little attention it has received.
I dunno about OS X. iMacs, I can see in the long run (maybe even before the decade's out), the mini also. But OS X ? Maybe in a very distant future. As long as they have Macs really.
Springboard will never work on Macs. The UI/Controls and input paradigms are just too different from what laptops do. And iOS and OS X are already sharing all the infrastructure they can to the point that the only difference is in the UI layer. Both will always be seperate so long as Apple doesn't stop making Macs.
Not sure if it has been mentioned, however if the MacMini gets rid of the conventional SDD 2.5" size and replaces it with the MacBook Air Blade SSD option does that leave additional room for added Ram Slots and the possibility of a mSATA Graphic Card upgrade option. Thoughts?
No, we can say a new desktop Mac isn't a good idea based on market realities where high-end desktops are not really that common place outside of the Workstation arena (or gaming) and the lower-end is saturated with low-cost, low-margin options, something Apple doesn't want to compete in.
Most consumers have no need for 32 GB of RAM and 16 core machines, so laptops are where most sales are nowadays as people find the added portability doesn't come with a sacrifice in usuability anymore for the tasks they perform, with Apple controlling the premium end of that market in some ways.
That is why a desktop Mac is not a good idea.
Again guys, because Washboards aren't being actively marketed and promoted to the users doesn't mean there's a large untapped market there :
Because they don't own one. And/or can't conceive anyone spending so much on a computer. Most of them are PC converts trying to adapt the anemic "cheapest" is best policy that dominate the consumer goods market. They moved to the Mac platform to escape it and now they try to re-create it. So sad. Switchers be gone and please take your failed ideologies with you.
If anything, I'd bet there are more laptops per capita than ever, as smartphones have enabled new tasks for them (including, for example, managing the info and applications that go on your smartphone, not to mention programming for them). Just as mainframe capacity keeps growing, as they've kept some of their old tasks and lost others, but their power has added new ones to compensate.
Har har!
I ran footage on the newest top-of-the-line iMac, and while it works, it's about twenty times slower than on a Mac Pro. That's unacceptable.
If Apple doesn't care about these people, someone else will. I understand there's so much money on the table for Apple to grab that they have a hard time noticing the "loose change" attributed to Mac Pro users, but it's still leaving money on the table.
Actually, we're now getting rid of our mainframe, as it is frankly costly and useless to us. We're moving to Blade systems and higher-end clustering solutions and systems instead. Mainframes are still useful, just to less organisations and for more and more specialized tasks rather than all-around computation.
Same for laptops, see how many people suddenly just use their MBP at home and their iPhone/iPad on the go. Laptops will become the @home computer, the thing that's "portable" accross the house, and the smartphone/tablet/ultrabook will increasingly take over the mobile role, until such a time as those devices completely dethrone the laptop (after it itself will have relegated the desktop to a niche).
It's just how evolution goes. Stuff gets smaller, faster, compromises melt away as technology advances.
The Mac Pro is not immune.
With the move to final cut 10 it makes sense that the mac pro is no longer needed to run apple software. final cut pro 10 is better suited for laptops. professional editing softwares to complicatedand apple is targeting prosumer. Even the mac laptops Don't have expansion slots the option of multiple hard drives. thunderbolt take care of that but no ones really been b******* about just firewire for a long time and have done quite well.
The Mac Pro is essentially a keystone product, while it might not be the best selling computer in the line up, it forms a very import link in the Apple ecosystem as a whole.
True TB can provide some expansion possibilities via an expansion chassis similar to those from Sonnet, that still leaves GPU, Multiple GPU's and higher end processors uncatered for, increases the cost of, and loses the profit from external solutions, which are also in my experience prone to higher operating costs and reduced reliability.
The reality in my Apple ecosystem is that my use of a Mac Pro, translates down through the chain with the use of iMacs, Mac Mini's, iPhones, etc. none of which are a necessity if the primary but less numerous Mac Pro's in the company don't use OSX and perform the needs of the Job. Further, the very act of supporting the Apple ecosystem at all is hinged around development on that Mac Pro.
Moreover, if we remove the option of flexibility in the pairing of GPU and CPU that this ecosystem relies upon, we will also potentially see the demise of peripheral support from companies that service the Mac Pro users, which leads us down that very long road again of OSX and Apple diminishing in the justifiable target market for developers and device manufactures to support.
It doesn't stop there either, wives, children, relatives, friends, multiplied by all the employees react to platform choices made in the pro environment. Like it or not, the people at the sharp end influence the choices of those around them in both psyche and reality, and you can't force choice by design oo people who don't appreciate it over cost, making the creative pro who does, even more of an asset well worth pandering too.
The headless Mac might not be cool or high profile, but Both the Pro (as a Keystone), and the Mini (as a cheap device), fulfil crucial rolls in the overall health of Apple as a company by keeping its ecosystem relevant. Drop it at your peril Apple.
Where would Sony be now if they had cut all relevance with markets other than the all profitable Walkman?
I don't buy the rumour, but if true it had better stay just that, a rumour.
True TB can provide some expansion possibilities via an expansion chassis similar to those from Sonnet, that still leaves GPU, Multiple GPU's and higher end processors uncatered for, increases the cost of, and loses the profit from external solutions, which are also in my experience prone to higher operating costs and reduced reliability.
The reality in my Apple ecosystem is that my use of a Mac Pro, translates down through the chain with the use of iMacs, Mac Mini's, iPhones, etc. none of which are a necessity if the primary but less numerous Mac Pro's in the company don't use OSX and perform the needs of the Job. Further, the very act of supporting the Apple ecosystem at all is hinged around development on that Mac Pro.
Moreover, if we remove the option of flexibility in the pairing of GPU and CPU that this ecosystem relies upon, we will also potentially see the demise of peripheral support from companies that service the Mac Pro users, which leads us down that very long road again of OSX and Apple diminishing in the justifiable target market for developers and device manufactures to support.
It doesn't stop there either, wives, children, relatives, friends, multiplied by all the employees react to platform choices made in the pro environment. Like it or not, the people at the sharp end influence the choices of those around them in both psyche and reality, and you can't force choice by design oo people who don't appreciate it over cost, making the creative pro who does, even more of an asset well worth pandering too.
The headless Mac might not be cool or high profile, but Both the Pro (as a Keystone), and the Mini (as a cheap device), fulfil crucial rolls in the overall health of Apple as a company by keeping its ecosystem relevant. Drop it at your peril Apple.
Where would Sony be now if they had cut all relevance with markets other than the all profitable Walkman?
I don't buy the rumour, but if true it had better stay just that, a rumour.
Too Soon.
The top end Mac Pro will accept:
Show me another Mac that can provide that level of power, expansion and flexibility, and I'll stop arguing the Pro should stick around. There are tasks my G5 tower does better than the 3.4GHz quad 2011 iMac I use at work because it can house two internal hard drives and reduce the disk bottleneck. These things matter.
The top end Mac Pro will accept:
- Two 6-core processors
- 96Gb RAM
- Six SSD drives (if you lose the optical drive)
- Two graphics cards powering six 30" displays
- ESATA controller cards to power dozens of SSDs or large disks in external enclosures
- Custom sound processing cards
- Extra network adapters
Show me another Mac that can provide that level of power, expansion and flexibility, and I'll stop arguing the Pro should stick around. There are tasks my G5 tower does better than the 3.4GHz quad 2011 iMac I use at work because it can house two internal hard drives and reduce the disk bottleneck. These things matter.
That may be your situation, but IBM fairly persistently reports increased (cyclically-adjusted) mainframe shipments.
Perhaps it's the fact that I live in the middle of a few college campuses, but this is not at all my experience. People seem to me to be more and more inseparable from their laptops, with smartphones/tablets enabling them to do additional things they couldn't have dreamed of with their laptops ten years ago.
Meanwhile, the larger stuff gets more capable, allowing it to accomplish even more tasks, or enabling the same tasks to be performed at grander scale. We still have plenty of bulky desktops, and we still will if Apple cedes the market. Whether still in the same numbers remains to be seen, but I don't think it's as clear a progression as you imagine.
I don't know why you bring up the history of computing here, it's unrelated. Yes things get smaller and new product categories replaces older ones, but that was not what happened in the case of Xserve was is? It's not like data centers and super computers of today consists of iPhones right?. If anything, the emergence of small mobile devices, the growth of internet and webb apps and so on makes that a booming market. It's never been a market Apple was big in however, Xserve was an attempt to break in to that market.
Now to the Mac Pro, the use case for that computer is a market Apple traditionally always been big in, it's not an attempt to break into a new market, it's an existing market. To your previous point, yes there will come a time when it will be replaced, but it's more likely to replaced with something new that better fits what the market needs at the moment than just leaving an empty hole, in their products.
Not to mention the same people devaluating the Mac Pro from a consumers point of view. "Uhm..uh..everbody uses laptops at home and iStuff on the go. The desktop computer isn't important in peoples homes anymore".
The Mac Pro have never played this role or been intended to.
I'm telling you, when I bought an 8-core Mac Pro last night, the sales rep said that they were letting their stock of 8-core machines deplete. Intentionally. This is an online store that has the word "Mac" in their name. Why would they do this? Unless they knew something was coming along to replace it and didn't want to get stuck with old stock...? The rep told me it would be wise for me to not open the box when I got it, so that I could return it for a new machine with no restocking fee. The strong implication was that a new machine was imminent.
I personally suspect the "end of Mac Pro" rumor was designed to create a rush on existing Mac Pro stock before the new machines hit the market. My 2 cents.
I personally suspect the "end of Mac Pro" rumor was designed to create a rush on existing Mac Pro stock before the new machines hit the market. My 2 cents.
Well, I didn't mean I was going to run right out and get one today, but I am going to watch the various news sources etc _very carefully_ and see where this goes.
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If true this would be the best news from the Apple camp in some time.
