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Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?
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The imac isn't really a great replacement or a suitable successor to the mac pro. The display really isn't so great, and it's too problematic of a machine. You can't even replace the hard drive with that stupid temperature sensor issue. What makes the Mac Pro great as a desktop is that it's an uncompromising solution. You can handle a huge amount of stuff within that single box. I wonder what imac growth looks like relative to laptops at the moment. It can't be that pretty. A few years ago they were incredibly popular, but now if you own a macbook pro, it doesn't always make sense to also own an imac.
With a mac pro or similar tower, you can add in any additional specialized hardware you need, extra drives, updated gpu, tons of ram, and if anything aside from a logic board goes bad, you can simply replace it yourself and be back up and running with minimal downtime.
Yeah, but bashing the iMac is not called for. It is a very popular machine serves a large and diverse audience. Me, included. The real issue is whether Apple will continue the long-in-the-tooth MP, revolutionize it; or, give it a final farewell. What gets me in the MP threads is how few posters talked about what will be new in both hardware and software technology in the future. Too many folks are fixated on the MP as it is and was. They do not sound like Steve Jobs devotees, Bill Gates devotees, maybe. Sigh ... Sorry, hit those negative icons at will.
iMacs are great for many, many people. Personally, I don't like the glossy screen or the fact that you can't get any airflow through it. My mother has the newest one in Hawai'i next to her old one. The old one was only four years old, and the screen took a dirtnap, forcing her to buy a new one. It makes me wonder if the humidity there is life-shortening for an iMac.
Anyway, I brought some hard drives over and did some of my work on her new iMac a month ago. I'm glad there was a beach nearby, because rendering HD video on it meant spending the rest of the day surfing. It was a great excuse, anyway.
I love the Mac Pro as it is because it gets the job done very fast and very quietly.
I hope that whatever Apple has up its sleeve includes a machine that if powerful enough for applications like video rendering. Anyway, beaches are nice. Interesting, there is a recent thread in the iMac section about possible humidity damage posted by someone who lives in Hong Kong.
Looks like Apple is working on the next gen of MP...
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/04/mac-os-x-10-7-3-beta-drivers-reveal-evidence-of-new-mac-pros/
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/04/mac-os-x-10-7-3-beta-drivers-reveal-evidence-of-new-mac-pros/
Comments from macperformanceguide.com on this:
No New Mac Pro Yet, Which Means What?
Saturday, December 03, 2011 - SEND FEEDBACK - PERMALINK
Mac Pro
Deadware?
I wrote previously End of Life for the Apple Mac Pro? Still no word from Apple.
We still don’t know whether Apple will release a new Mac Pro (though this article hints at a new video card), which pretty much sums up as follows— a company with so much contempt for its traditional professional base that it cannot be bothered to state whether it will or will not produce an updated Mac Pro, upon which many professionals depend, including me.
Not to pre-announce features or anything specific, but just an intent that would would allow its loyal customers to make some future plans, even if that is only to purchase an existing Mac Pro model for those needing the expansion capabilities. Reprehensible business conduct if you ask me.
So what can we Mac Pro users do? Wait and see.
Would I switch to a PC if there is no new Mac Pro? Certainly not in the next few years, Apple has me on the hook not for its hardware, but for its software (Mac OS X), at least if it’s not bastardized any further than the puerile designs and features we saw introduced with Lion.
Windows: not at this time! Investing in a virus-prone operating system like Windows, investing 40-80 hours of relearning just makes no sense— I’d rather deal with an iMac, which isn’t terrible, and would be serviceable with 32GB memory and Thunderbolt (well, I might need two of them).
In the meantime, existing Mac Pro users can go as powerful as dual 3.46 GHz 6-core processors outfitted as an MPG Pro Workstation also, so I really don’t see that there is a lack of processing power for those who must have it, along with up to 96gb memory
No New Mac Pro Yet, Which Means What?
Saturday, December 03, 2011 - SEND FEEDBACK - PERMALINK
Mac Pro
Deadware?
I wrote previously End of Life for the Apple Mac Pro? Still no word from Apple.
We still don’t know whether Apple will release a new Mac Pro (though this article hints at a new video card), which pretty much sums up as follows— a company with so much contempt for its traditional professional base that it cannot be bothered to state whether it will or will not produce an updated Mac Pro, upon which many professionals depend, including me.
Not to pre-announce features or anything specific, but just an intent that would would allow its loyal customers to make some future plans, even if that is only to purchase an existing Mac Pro model for those needing the expansion capabilities. Reprehensible business conduct if you ask me.
So what can we Mac Pro users do? Wait and see.
Would I switch to a PC if there is no new Mac Pro? Certainly not in the next few years, Apple has me on the hook not for its hardware, but for its software (Mac OS X), at least if it’s not bastardized any further than the puerile designs and features we saw introduced with Lion.
Windows: not at this time! Investing in a virus-prone operating system like Windows, investing 40-80 hours of relearning just makes no sense— I’d rather deal with an iMac, which isn’t terrible, and would be serviceable with 32GB memory and Thunderbolt (well, I might need two of them).
In the meantime, existing Mac Pro users can go as powerful as dual 3.46 GHz 6-core processors outfitted as an MPG Pro Workstation also, so I really don’t see that there is a lack of processing power for those who must have it, along with up to 96gb memory
That the CPU/GPU combo to be sold as standard configuration aren't shipping yet. We now know both are due early 2012 and suspect the MacPro will release then. End of January is pretty typical date for the flag ship Mac to be unveiled and pre-orders start.
If we hear nothing by Valentines Day then you can get all doom and gloom about the future of the MacPro.
Mac Pro future
re the comments that sales had dropped, in my experience it is because the current specs are so out-dated. I have been waiting for over 9 months for a new-spec machine to be released, so I can have a machine where I can upgrade the components when required (as I have done on my Windows machine).
I have finally given up, purchased a bare-bones Intel box with an I7 & 16Gb of RAM & installed Win 7. Into this I have installed VMWare & a Mac Lion image, resulting in the best of both Win7 & Mac - I can run Lion as a window under Windows.
Sorry Apple, but you dragged on for too long - I was willing to buy, but not the old specs you have dragged on with.
re the comments that sales had dropped, in my experience it is because the current specs are so out-dated. I have been waiting for over 9 months for a new-spec machine to be released, so I can have a machine where I can upgrade the components when required (as I have done on my Windows machine).
I have finally given up, purchased a bare-bones Intel box with an I7 & 16Gb of RAM & installed Win 7. Into this I have installed VMWare & a Mac Lion image, resulting in the best of both Win7 & Mac - I can run Lion as a window under Windows.
Sorry Apple, but you dragged on for too long - I was willing to buy, but not the old specs you have dragged on with.
I'm not that fixated on its current form. I just don't think people consistently understand the issues inherent with the current imac design. It's not terribly reliable, and even swapping a hard drive requires a trip to the Apple store. I'm not a devotee of anyone really. I like things that work, and like I've said too many things can cause downtime with an imac.
Did you know the cpus used in the imac don't support dual socket configurations? On thunderbolt it's got too little bandwidth for your suggested use. It also hasn't seen any "good products" with that kind of functionality. I can't tell if you're trolling, so I'm going to cut my response a bit short.
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Give ME New MAc Pro
Anyone who have balls to even think that the line will discontinued is fired.
Anyone who does not believe anymore into high end macs is fired.
Any move of Apple executives from hard core pro user market will result into immediate execution of share loss of all involved in the move.
Any resistance and opposition from economists will be suppressed and all involved will be fired.
Everyone caught spreading rumors to our loyal customers who depends on the high end models will be persecuted or punished.
etc etc etc.
So where the **** is my new Mac Pro?
Is it rack mountable?People have been asking for it!!!!
So what the **** u are doing down here?
Haven't out loyal customers pumped enough money into us?
We do owe it to them,even if it would have to loose money.
I will invest all my personal fortune to make sure that this is going forward rapidly.
I don't give a **** what all those corporate rats who rule the company right now doing.
They even had the balls to pronounce me dead.
"My dead was only mystification"-so I could see where those *******s would take it.
And as usually-all they could come up with was one big ****en spreadsheet.
Your Steve
Anyone who have balls to even think that the line will discontinued is fired.
Anyone who does not believe anymore into high end macs is fired.
Any move of Apple executives from hard core pro user market will result into immediate execution of share loss of all involved in the move.
Any resistance and opposition from economists will be suppressed and all involved will be fired.
Everyone caught spreading rumors to our loyal customers who depends on the high end models will be persecuted or punished.
etc etc etc.
So where the **** is my new Mac Pro?
Is it rack mountable?People have been asking for it!!!!
So what the **** u are doing down here?
Haven't out loyal customers pumped enough money into us?
We do owe it to them,even if it would have to loose money.
I will invest all my personal fortune to make sure that this is going forward rapidly.
I don't give a **** what all those corporate rats who rule the company right now doing.
They even had the balls to pronounce me dead.
"My dead was only mystification"-so I could see where those *******s would take it.
And as usually-all they could come up with was one big ****en spreadsheet.
Your Steve
I just passed the point in the Bio where Steve draws a horizontal and vertical line on a whiteboard to form 4 quadrants, labels them:
consumer
pro
desktop
portable
And says Apple should concentrate on a product for each quadrant. So, shouldn't the Mac Pro continue, since the iMac would be the consumer desktop?
consumer
pro
desktop
portable
And says Apple should concentrate on a product for each quadrant. So, shouldn't the Mac Pro continue, since the iMac would be the consumer desktop?
What about scientists?
I am a science dude, and I need TRILLIONS of ops done real fast.
If the Mac Pro is dead, I am gone to linux (ubuntu, scientific linux, whatever's adequate).
I'm with the Mac because of ease of use & OpenCL. Kill that, and me & my students are moving the next day. It will open up a huge new space for some garbage PC company to move in. While I will probably have an iPad & some macbook for keynote, I, and all my students, will be gone.
I hope some of those retarded PC companies move into this space asap. We need cheap x86-64 hardware, we need python, opencl, matlab, C, C++, now. Yet anyone apart from Apple (& asus, perhaps) is simply a brain-dead slave to windows.
I can see Apple doing this move years down the line, if iCloud gets 10x faster than it is now, and we can use it just as Amazon CComputing. Onlive is an example of high-bandwidth computation over the internet. Even iOS could do massive work someday!
But not now, not in 2012, and not in 2013. Get icloud supercomputing first, let us move there, and change the line. Do it now and lose scientific work for good (to Amazon EC2 GPU instances).
If someone @Apple is hearing, please forward to Cook. There is a scientific community counting on you. Please don't let us down.
I am a science dude, and I need TRILLIONS of ops done real fast.
If the Mac Pro is dead, I am gone to linux (ubuntu, scientific linux, whatever's adequate).
I'm with the Mac because of ease of use & OpenCL. Kill that, and me & my students are moving the next day. It will open up a huge new space for some garbage PC company to move in. While I will probably have an iPad & some macbook for keynote, I, and all my students, will be gone.
I hope some of those retarded PC companies move into this space asap. We need cheap x86-64 hardware, we need python, opencl, matlab, C, C++, now. Yet anyone apart from Apple (& asus, perhaps) is simply a brain-dead slave to windows.
I can see Apple doing this move years down the line, if iCloud gets 10x faster than it is now, and we can use it just as Amazon CComputing. Onlive is an example of high-bandwidth computation over the internet. Even iOS could do massive work someday!
But not now, not in 2012, and not in 2013. Get icloud supercomputing first, let us move there, and change the line. Do it now and lose scientific work for good (to Amazon EC2 GPU instances).
If someone @Apple is hearing, please forward to Cook. There is a scientific community counting on you. Please don't let us down.
Well then why are you using Mac OSX and Mac Pros instead of GPGPU clusters?
Right - everything he needs is most likely available on CUDA with Nvidia hardware already. (OpenCL is a distant 4th in the 2 man race for GPGPU computing.)
Professor "science dude" should have dumped Apple a year or two ago - it's possible that he could have won the Nobel prize by now if he'd been using state-of-the-art hardware instead of Apples.
Hopefully implicitly parallel programming languages (Eg, JStar) will be in a state where they can be used commercially and scientifically soon.
Would make CUDA and OpenCL redundant.
...but if it's not easily accessible from Fortran - it's irrelevant for much scientific programming.
In my case, because the computations, while parallel, aren't terribly well suited for GPU-based computing. Believe it or not, not all parallel applications are, and while GPU clusters are *amazing*, they are not the silver bullet.
In my case, part of this is also that even if I am interfacing with a GPU-cluster, or one of the Linux clusters I have access to, I still need a desktop for everyday work. And I'd like it to be high-powered, as some projects I work on are particularly poorly suited to parallel processing.
I find OS X to be infinitely more productive than a Linux solution, while still being fairly painless to hop between the two. But, like the poster you're responding to, if Apple drops support for the Mac Pro, I'll be forced to move on. An iMac simply does not meet my needs.
----------
...but if it's not easily accessible from Fortran - it's irrelevant for much scientific programming.
Truth.
...but if it's not easily accessible from Fortran - it's irrelevant for much scientific programming.
The measures people will go too to avoid learning new things, Sadly.
That being said, the programming paradigms JStar and its ilk use still confuse me slightly and I even did my Degree project on it.
Funnily enough, computers are better at deciding what is better suited for sequential or parallel computing than humans are.
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Or how much people go "Someone's already got a well-documented, reliable tool that does what I need it to do so I can get back to my actual job".
And yet even my feeble wet-brain can go "Hrm, this particular problem goes back and forth between processor and memory a whole lot, which slams right into the major GPU computing bottleneck".
GPU units, and parallel processing generally, are awesome. But there's some problem that are just serial. And an even larger number that are serial until someone not-me creates the tools to use them in parallel, because that's not my job or expertise.
I wouldn't read too much into it, as far as the graph shows Desktop Vs Laptop percentage of whole sales in the beginning apple was all about high end production and design markets, which meant they sold more high end machines as a percentage of total sales. Now they've commercialised and cashed in on a great history and beautiful design. I would still say that the desktop market is still worth a fair chunk of change, just not in relation to laptops that are spiking with parents buying their kids apple laptops for school or backpacking which was pretty unheard of 10 yrs ago.
I would however say they certainly moving away from the high end markets and have 'some would say' completely sold out. Everything is manufactured in China, laptops are shipped bent and with screens broken. They have destroyed their long and great legacy with video production software, buying shake then discontinuing, the lastest catastrophe that is FCPX and lesser moves like dropping their license for DVD algorithm compression several years ago for an in house poorer quality version.
They have a business plan and who can blame them, in the dumbing down of the consumer their charging the same amount for a lesser quality good based on history and glossy design. But they are not the boutique, high quality, high end manufacturer they once were.
I would say apples days are numbered in the high end production workflow and it's time for a new player to come in.
I would however say they certainly moving away from the high end markets and have 'some would say' completely sold out. Everything is manufactured in China, laptops are shipped bent and with screens broken. They have destroyed their long and great legacy with video production software, buying shake then discontinuing, the lastest catastrophe that is FCPX and lesser moves like dropping their license for DVD algorithm compression several years ago for an in house poorer quality version.
They have a business plan and who can blame them, in the dumbing down of the consumer their charging the same amount for a lesser quality good based on history and glossy design. But they are not the boutique, high quality, high end manufacturer they once were.
I would say apples days are numbered in the high end production workflow and it's time for a new player to come in.
Ferrari doesn't make money on the hugely costly Formula 1 team. It does however make a fortune on the cars it sells BECAUSE it is in Formula 1.
Sigh
I think the biggest problem is the delays in production on the latest chips from Intel. Arguably Ivy Bridge would make a bigger splash (justifying larger prices and more bragging rights in terms of power consumption and computing power) if a new form factor was introduced and since we're still about a month out or so it's going to take some time.
It bums me out too. I've been enjoying my Corei7 iMac but with my recent repair and the general lack of fast I/O I'm tasked with saying "where's the beef?"
I need a Pro one way or the other.
I think the biggest problem is the delays in production on the latest chips from Intel. Arguably Ivy Bridge would make a bigger splash (justifying larger prices and more bragging rights in terms of power consumption and computing power) if a new form factor was introduced and since we're still about a month out or so it's going to take some time.
It bums me out too. I've been enjoying my Corei7 iMac but with my recent repair and the general lack of fast I/O I'm tasked with saying "where's the beef?"
I need a Pro one way or the other.