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

[Prodo123]

Explain. Because as far as I can tell, if a product line is no longer profitable or worth a companies' time, it's going to get axed. I'm not saying I agree with all of Apple's decisions in fact I'm becoming concerned that they're taking a step back but tell me, please.

It's pretty clear that Apple only cares about iToys, iMac, and MBA, but they're making money hand over fist with those unlike the ones I mentioned in my other post.

Yes, because obviously Apple has not ever cared about the Mac line. @.@
Also, why would Apple give up the prestige of :
1. The best selling laptop in the world
2. One of the most powerful workstations
3. The music player that revolutionized the industry and is still loved by those who need more than 64GB of music (such as me)
4. One of the most compact and good-looking mini-desktops in existence
Macs are making more money than ever. It's just shadowed by the gigantic market that wants iPod Touches and iPhones.

 

[Gomff]

Yes, because obviously Apple has not ever cared about the Mac line. @.@
Also, why would Apple give up the prestige of :
1. The best selling laptop in the world
2. One of the most powerful workstations
3. The music player that revolutionized the industry and is still loved by those who need more than 64GB of music (such as me)
4. One of the most compact and good-looking mini-desktops in existence
Macs are making more money than ever. It's just shadowed by the gigantic market that wants iPod Touches and iPhones.

To be honest, I don't think Apple really places much value in prestige. In recent years their business model has been 100% about profitability.

With the combined perfect storm of *massive* iGadget sales, increasing ratio of laptop to desktop sales and the establishment of the iMac as a sealed, works out of the box product that Apple seems to prefer these days, I think Apple's attention is elsewhere these days.

 

[AidenShaw]

...

- Apple have defined a Thunderbolt standard that includes display data as well as standard TBolt data

...

So until Thunderbolt implementation issues are resolved, we'll be waiting.

And so easy to resolve - just make the display port channel optional.

 

[Eidorian]

Intel updates or no Intel updates, there was plenty of "meat" for a 2011 upgrade that never came :

- new GPUs
- new expansion ports (USB 3.0/Thunderbolt)
- updated storage/memory capacities to reflect discounted industry prices
- CPU frequency bumps to adjust to lower pricing of actual chips.

All to keep the Mac Pro fresh and competitive. I don't know why people focus so much on "There were no new Intel CPUs!" like it's the only reason to upgrade your computer. It hasn't been so since the late 90s.

How about bumping the entry single socket Mac Pro to a hex-core? There are plenty of Xeon options compared to what is available in the Core i7 channel.

 

[Prodo123]

To be honest, I don't think Apple really places much value in prestige. In recent years their business model has been 100% about profitability.

With the combined perfect storm of *massive* iGadget sales, increasing ratio of laptop to desktop sales and the establishment of the iMac as a sealed, works out of the box product that Apple seems to prefer these days, I think Apple's attention is elsewhere these days.

Please elaborate why:
MacBook Air was not cut
iPod Classic was not cut
Mac Mini was not cut
Mac Pro was not cut

 

[Rodimus Prime]

He means that if a Mac Pro was used by someone that that person is also likely to have another few pieces of Apple stuff.

Remove the Mac Pro and then all the other stuff goes as well. Content creators then go to the PC and develop for PC, etc, etc, etc.

Like I have a Mac Pro, and then a MacBook Pro and then an iPhone.
A few mates have bought MacBook Pros and iPhones now too.
Remove my Mac Pro and all of those sales could disappear.

Not that is not what I meant at all.

Could you give an example of this? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

An example of what I mean is in things like photo editing. It used to be color balancing was only in the high end stuff. Weaker verison of it have trickled down into consumer grade stuff over the years. Red eye removal.

Or you can look at video editing software over the years and look at consumer grade stuff. If you noticed that stuff has gotten better and it trickles down from the pro level stuff.

The program you run into is with the Mac Pro no longer being on the market the pros are forced to leave. This means the pro level software is no longer going to be produced which in turn means that stuff stop trickling down to the consumer grade. It starts really hurting a few years down the road.

 

[vitzr]

In 1991 a very close friend who worked at Apple & headed up the System 7 project, introduced me to the Macintosh Quadra 900. In the market for a replacement for my tired IBM, I was both impressed & excited to purchase this freshly released model.

Within just three days of using this exciting new platform my computing experience was changed in the most positive of ways. The potential I saw in this machine, as a computer scientist, changed the direction of my career forever.

So impressed & enthused, a few months later upon release, I bought a PowerBook 170. One of Apples very first "Notebook" sized portables.

My point, and the reason I share this is to illustrate just how much Apple means to me.

How much passion I have, and why conversely, I speak out frankly when I witness and experience some of the moves Apple makes that impact us negatively. "Us" being Apple's long time professionals. The ones who've backed them for years. The ones who've spread the word, helping Apple grow so large. The ones that stood by them in the darks days when the pundits said Apple was dead, give up now.

The ones that have bought tens of thousands of dollars in Apple computers for their families. We've spread more goodwill than many can even imagine.

We're still here, still backing Apple, and looking for them to do the next right thing. I for one, hope they think through this very carefully.

Cheers...

 

[nanofrog]

I've always wondered, how would they implement thunderbolt. Aren't the Mini Display Ports attached to the GFX cards in the current set up

It can be done one of three ways;

1. Separate card.
2. Place it on the logic board.
3. Place it on the graphics card (not ideal this way, as it makes the PCB even harder to do trace layouts for more powerful GPU's, and then there's the heat to dissipate).

If there's no connection to the GPU's DisplayPort output, it's data only (relevant to both a logic board and separate card implementation). Otherwise, they'll have to run a cable/flexible PCB connector between the GPU card and the TB card/logic board (separate card and logic board methods respectively) in order to get DisplayPort data over the TB connection.

It won't be *that* difficult to pull off.

Companies rev motherboards all the time - it's no big deal.

Look at all of the motherboard selections from Asus, MSI, etc... How can they afford to make all those variations if Apple can't afford to make a single revision?

There's a few things that differ between board makers and Apple.

1. Board makers sell more boards than Apple, so the R&D per board is cheaper.
2. Board makers don't invest as much funds in validation testing, as they're not creating an entire system.
3. The various boards share R&D due to systems engineering (share a lot of components = reduce hardware verification testing costs).

All of these things add up to the fact it's cheaper for board makers to produce a new board than Apple Foxconn.

 

[macsmurf]

An example of what I mean is in things like photo editing. It used to be color balancing was only in the high end stuff. Weaker verison of it have trickled down into consumer grade stuff over the years. Red eye removal.

Or you can look at video editing software over the years and look at consumer grade stuff. If you noticed that stuff has gotten better and it trickles down from the pro level stuff.

The program you run into is with the Mac Pro no longer being on the market the pros are forced to leave. This means the pro level software is no longer going to be produced which in turn means that stuff stop trickling down to the consumer grade. It starts really hurting a few years down the road.

I agree that features that only existed in very expensive professional grade software and hardware years ago can now be found in some form or another in consumer software. I don't think there's any basis for the belief that this is because Apple sells a workstation. As long as millions of consumers buy Apple there will be a market for consumer software and consumer software will evolve with inspiration from many sources - up, down, left, and right.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I agree that features that only existed in very expensive professional grade software and hardware years ago can now be found in some form or another in consumer software. I don't think there's any basis for the belief that this is because Apple sells a workstation. As long as millions of consumers buy Apple there will be a market for consumer software and consumer software will evolve with inspiration from many sources - up, down, left, and right.

you are forgetting that many of the suppliers for the consumer grade stuff also are the makers of the high end stuff as well. They will not have a code base nor the programmmers on had for the filter down.

I can add to it many times consumers want what the pros use maybe not as high end but same manufacture and OS. If the pros leave OSX for windows that group will follow suit as well.

 

[vitzr]

you are forgetting that many of the suppliers for the consumer grade stuff also are the makers of the high end stuff as well. They will not have a code base nor the programmmers on had for the filter down.

I can add to it many times consumers want what the pros use maybe not as high end but same manufacture and OS. If the pros leave OSX for windows that group will follow suit as well.

Well said, this is so very true.

To coin an expression used surrounding Apple "it's the halo effect". There will quite possibly be shock waves larger than many expect if Apple abandons the Mac Pro. An iconic machine in a product line that supposedly prides itself in building expensive, premium products.

 

[AidenShaw]

If there's no connection to the GPU's DisplayPort output, it's data only (relevant to both a logic board and separate card implementation).

Hence my comment about making the display port connection *optional* in the TBolt spec.

Perhaps it is - but I haven't seen the spec available publicly.

- Board makers sell more boards than Apple, so the R&D per board is cheaper.

Asus has eleven different Z68 boards, and 26 other models just for socket 1155.

What proof do you have that each of these 37 boards sells more than the Mac Pro?

- Board makers don't invest as much funds in validation testing, as they're not creating an entire system.

Any proof, and why would it be any different for Apple making a minor revision to the Mac Pro?

- The various boards share R&D due to systems engineering (share a lot of components = reduce hardware verification testing costs).

And a minor revision to the Mac Pro would als share lots of components with the current rev.

- All of these things add up to the fact it's cheaper for board makers to produce a new board than Apple Foxconn.

Fact? No - just a guess. The "fact" is that most of your points would also justify a conclusion that a revised Mac Pro board wouldn't be that expensive.

 

[Yebubbleman]

The reasons for killing off Xserve is secondary - the way they did it was not indicative of a company that wants to have a presence in the professional market. You just don't EOL something without warning or a migration path of some sort.

Apple can defuse the speculation about the Mac Pro by publicly announcing that they have no plans for discontinuing it and that if they do at some point, they will tell us about it at least a year in advance. They could announce a road map for the Mac Pro. They choose not to. The secrecy is great for consumer products but companies like to be able to plan ahead. If they use OS X in a way that requires a significant investment to switch, they have a problem.

I think Apple makes great products but I would never trust them. The reason is simply that they aren't trustworthy.

Apple announced that they would be discontinuing the Xserve two and a half months prior to the final date of sale. I don't know how much more warning you can really get here within reason. As for a migration path, they unveiled a server model Mac Pro to go with the Mac mini Server. Is it the same? Was it acceptable to a lot of Xserve users? No, but it was still an offered migration path.

Essentially what we all want here is the old Powermac G4 model on the current Mac Pros.

The base quad at $1,499
The lower mid tier hex at $2,199
The higher mid tier 8 core system at $2,799
And the big monster 12 core at $3,499

While that'd be fantastic, I think that'd cannibalize the iMac line (which would also be fantastic), and I think Apple values it more in that price segment than they do a proper desktop. A sentiment, I don't agree with or like very much, but so it goes.

Microsoft is watching, and already working on a Switcher Campaign.

I'm still confident that Apple wants to keep its status as a serious computer company - which it would lose without the Mac Pro.

It doesn't matter how great OS X is - if there's no great computer to run it.

The Mac Pro isn't the only great Mac that Apple makes. It just happens to be the only beefy Mac capable of the kind of expansion you can only find in a proper desktop. And really, let's be real here, while the hardware is important, would we be spending anywhere near the $200-600 more on the Apple hardware (than any of the other brands) if it didn't run the Apple software? If Apple discontinued the MacBook Pro line in favor of the MacBook Air and that was my only option for a Mac laptop, I'd get really pissed off and then I'd begrudgingly buy one because I'd know that I have no other option if I want a Mac laptop (Hackintoshing a laptop is nowhere near as sure-fire of a thing as simply building a Hackintosh desktop) and I get the feeling many others would follow suit in a similar begrudging fashion.

I listened to John Gruber and Dan Benjamin talking about the cost of a Mac Pro vs an iMac, each maxed out, as an example of how expensive a Mac Pro is, $12000 vs $3800. But this isn't at all a good comparison or point. So I made a better comparison- configure a Mac Pro to as close as possible the same machine you'd get with a maxed out iMac, ignoring for a moment any of it's added features and benefits.

Here's the comparison:

iMac 27-inch

2560 x 1440 resolution
3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x4GB
2TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
$3049.00


Mac Pro

One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
16GB (4x4GB)
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
$4,823.00

So, is the rest of the Mac Pro worth $1800? Internal RAID storage, PCI expansion, 64GB RAM sleds? Depends on whether you need it or not. So that's the big question. Oh, also, I consider the iMac display like a kit lens on an SLR. I know I would need another monitor, so maybe add another $999, and not having a good redundant storage system is a bad idea, so is $800 enough to cover that? Seems like at least a wash for anybody.

Yeah, the Mac Pro is pretty dated. Apple really ought to quietly lower the price a bit if they're not going to update it. While the Xeon and the EEC RAM is pricey, the Radeon HD 5770 card has got to be dirt cheap being almost two generations old at this point. Though to be fair, if those were my only two options, I'd opt for the Mac Pro over the iMac given just how inflexible the latter is over the former...not to mention how much delicate the internals of the latter are over the former due to how needlessly thin it is.

Because as I said, all they care about is iOS. Period. I don't want to hear "but they have computers!!!" Lion might as well be the evolution of iOS. They're forcing people into that direction.

They don't make big sweeping announcements about Macs and iPods because there isn't much to show off anymore. They can only make the MacBook Pro faster, have more/different ports, or (not like users really need it) thinner, same with the iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Air; not a whole lot of exciting stuff to see with the Mac hardware anymore. Same with the iPod line; especially if things like the iPod shuffle or iPod classic don't change over time. The iOS Devices are the newest machines that Apple has made, and thusly there's more to talk about when a new one is released. I'm sure that when they release something else newer than iOS and the devices it runs on, that'll steal the spotlight.

As for Lion, on the surface, it's Snow Leopard with a few stupid facelifts, reorganizations, more bloat, and the inability to run PowerPC apps. Under the hood, it's the same Mac OS X we've known and loved over the years with a slew of good improvements. The only unwelcome iOS-ification comes in the form of Launchpad, which I imagine is seldom used by anyone who knows how to use a Mac anyway.

You don't know that.

Uh...yeah I do. It's published on multiple articles on the topic. It's also pretty obvious even without that kind of research given that they don't cost THAT much more and are bought THAT much less frequently by WAY fewer of a target audience. Maths. It works.

I think Apple should split into two companies, mac and istuff, and let each run independently. Or even license the pro line out to a select proprietary single 3rd party, and let the R&D continue on the pro lines without interfering with the grand igadget plans.

I'm starting to think maybe Apple should simply license/outsource the true "Pro" lines of computers to someone else to handle since they seem to have little interest in them (I mean the Mac Pro and business servers and perhaps even a consumer tower since all Apple seems to care about are all-in-ones and thin thin notebooks and pads.) This would allow true Pro equipment to continue the Mac traditions in those areas yet relieve Apple of any stress of not making enough freaking profits from them.

Would certainly be rad. They could license a PCIe card and require that it only run on a Xeon system (to control the cannibalization of the rest of the Macs). Though I doubt they'll ever actually do this.

An interesting proposition, to be sure, and one that I've also proposed (such as suggesting that Apple should have announced a partnership with HP and VMware to support Apple OSX server in select models of ProLiants with ESX when the XServe was killed).

However, with the castration of Final Cut Pro and other anti-profressional moves - does it really make any sense to license OSX on third party hardware.

Why run Apple OSX just to run Premiere or Avid? It makes more sense to run the Windows versions of the apps on Win7 x64 than to try to run Apple OSX and run the OSX versions of the same apps.

If Apple isn't doing top notch pro apps, why bother running Apple OSX?

It's true; if you have apps that run just as well on Windows as they do on Mac OS X and that's all you're using, then provided you have your anti-malware situation covered, you might as well just use a Windows machine instead, especially if it's in a work environment and not your personal home machine (because I know that's much more of an issue of personal taste and preference).

And since the Mac Pro is only selling few units, then that's just another few units lost.

Meanwhile, people that were deploying the Xserve to manage Apple laptop/desktop installations were probably doing so for infrastructures of over hundreds of Mac clients.

Again people, Apple does what Apple wants. When Apple decides it's time to stop investing in the Mac Pro, they will do it, whining or no.

This would explain why, after a large public outcry, they decided to put Final Cut Studio 3 (FCP 7) back on the market. Apple will listen to whining, it just has to be a metric crap-ton of it...like to the point of it causing bad PR like Antennae-gate and FCP X clearly caused. If Apple ever pulls a Vista move, they'll be quick to rectify it as PR is important to them.

 

[KnightWRX]

Apple announced that they would be discontinuing the Xserve two and a half months prior to the final date of sale. I don't know how much more warning you can really get here within reason.

In enterprise, EOL and EOS announcements are known years in advance. Heck, Microsoft has already announced their end of support for Vista as 2017 :

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows/products/lifecycle

 

[PeteJames]

I'm not surprised. The way technology has gotten my 3 year old macbook pro will handle anything even as the hub of my music studio so why would the vast majority even bother with a bulky desktop? Maybe top of the line video editing studios might want or ridiculously expansive music studios but there's really not much call for it until software catches up and becomes more demanding

 

[subsonix]

Intel updates or no Intel updates, there was plenty of "meat" for a 2011 upgrade that never came :

- new GPUs
- new expansion ports (USB 3.0/Thunderbolt)
- updated storage/memory capacities to reflect discounted industry prices
- CPU frequency bumps to adjust to lower pricing of actual chips.

The GPU is not part of the actual computer it's a third party card. Hard disk prices are through the roof at the moment, so perhaps we should be glad that this is not reflected in industry prices. This is the way Apple always does their updates if you have been paying any attention to earlier Mac Pro updates. Usually they also get the new CPUs ahead of public release.

 

[KnightWRX]

The GPU is not part of the actual computer it's a third party card.

The GPU is as much a part or not a part of the Mac Pro as the Intel CPU. Sorry.

Hard disk prices are through the roof at the moment, so perhaps we should be glad that this is not reflected in industry prices.

What does the last 2 weeks have to do with the last 6 months ?

 

[subsonix]

The GPU is as much a part or not a part of the Mac Pro as the Intel CPU. Sorry.

What I am trying to tell you is that, individual components such as memory modules, hard drives graphics cards does not really constitute an update of the computer that Apple offers since the base model (that which you can not configure) remains the same. I would not be a "meaty" update but a lame update.

What does the last 2 weeks have to do with the last 6 months ?

It is what it is, but most people don't buy memory or hard drives from Apple anyway. At the moment you can get it shipped with 64 gigs of ram and 4 x 2Tb hard drives.

 

[KnightWRX]

What I am trying to tell you is that, individual components such as memory modules, hard drives graphics cards, CPUs does not really constitute an update of the computer that Apple offers since the base model (that which you can not configure) remains the same. I would not be a "meaty" update but a lame update.

Fixed. Either a single component warrants an "update" or it doesn't. Can't have it both ways.

And while an individual component might not warrant a "meaty" update, a bunch of them thrown together does, which was my point. Plenty of "meat" Apple could've upgraded/added to the Mac Pro without even changing the CPU generation.

It is what it is, but most people don't buy memory or hard drives from Apple anyway. At the moment you can get it shipped with 64 gigs of ram and 4 x 2Tb hard drives.

Sure, but it would have been nice to get industry adjusted quantities for the pricing Apple is asking for. As it stands, they now make more money off the storage/memory they put in than they did 18 months ago. A refresh 6 months ago with an update GPU, bumped clock rates, storage/memory adjustments and new industry standards would have been a great 2011 Mac Pro. Now we won't get one at all.

I'm sorry you have your "Intel" blinders on and only consider the CPU.

 

[subsonix]

Fixed. Either a single component warrants an "update" or it doesn't. Can't have it both ways.

And while an individual component might not warrant a "meaty" update, a bunch of them thrown together does, which was my point. Plenty of "meat" Apple could've upgraded/added to the Mac Pro without even changing the CPU generation.

Yeah but all the things you mention are extra parts that you can add to the base configuration when you buy the computer. I'm not only considering the CPU but changes to the mother board or architectural changes to the base configuration such as Thunderbolt and so on. If you look at how the Mac Pro updates are usually done, they come with new Intel changes, not in between.

Also, remember what it is we are discussing here. It's not how Apple handles updates of the Mac Pro but if the update frequency is in any way an indication that Apple will drop it. Again, if you look how it is normally updated then you'll see that this is not unusual at all, it's the norm.

 

[KnightWRX]

Yeah but all the things you mention are extra parts that you can add to the base configuration when you buy the computer. I'm not only considering the CPU but changes to the mother board or architectural changes to the base configuration such as Thunderbolt and so on. If you look at how the Mac Pro updates are usually done, they come with new Intel changes, not in between.

Keep dancing around it. All the things I mentionned are as important and sold in the same way as the CPU is. If a new Intel CPU generation warrants an upgrade, so does a new AMD GPU generation.

You're not convincing me your opinion of it is better than mine.

 

[vitzr]

Yeah but all the things you mention are extra parts that you can add to the base configuration when you buy the computer. I'm not only considering the CPU but changes to the mother board or architectural changes to the base configuration such as Thunderbolt and so on. If you look at how the Mac Pro updates are usually done, they come with new Intel changes, not in between.

Also, remember what it is we are discussing here. It's not how Apple handles updates of the Mac Pro but if the update frequency is in any way an indication that Apple will drop it. Again, if you look how it is normally updated then you'll see that this is not unusual at all, it's the norm.

I'm looking for clarification.

As I follow along, the points KnightWRX is making tend to mirror my thinking, yet I'm unclear as to what your position is.

Respectfully, just what _is_ your point?

 

[Rodimus Prime]

It is what it is, but most people don't buy memory or hard drives from Apple anyway. At the moment you can get it shipped with 64 gigs of ram and 4 x 2Tb hard drives.

Minus the fact that the shortage has not hit Apple or any of the big OEM's yet. They still have a fair amount of stock they can go threw before they have to start worrying about it.
None of the big OEM have raised prices yet and are not going to until there stocks get low.

 

[AidenShaw]

Minus the fact that the shortage has not hit Apple or any of the big OEM's yet. They still have a fair amount of stock they can go threw before they have to start worrying about it.
None of the big OEM have raised prices yet and are not going to until there stocks get low.

One of the main tenets of "supply chain management" is to avoid "stocks".

The goal is "just in time delivery", so that components go directly from the loading dock to the assembly line.

The idea that any manufacturer has warehouses of components to supply the lines for weeks or months is very old-fashioned.

 

[subsonix]

I'm looking for clarification.

As I follow along, the points KnightWRX is making tend to mirror my thinking, yet I'm unclear as to what your position is.

Respectfully, just what _is_ your point?

My point is that the lack of recent updates of the Mac Pro is in line with how it's usually updated. When Intel adds new CPUs. Adding 3rd party components to the base configuration does not usually warrant an update from Apple. Thus it's no indication of an abandonment of the model.