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Apple Says All-New Modular Mac Pro With Apple-Branded High-End Pro Display Coming After 2017
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you'd be thinking wrong. Those of us that buy these machines see them as tools, not art pieces. My house is littered with older Macs I've 'discarded' to service work in favor of a quicker box.
Exactly. The fact that the project is more than 12 months out is concerning, this probably means they are trying too hard on some weird concept. It wouldn't take millions or years to design a relatively standard Apple rectangular case, and they could probably do it in 6 months. Even if Apple wants to lock down peripherals and hardware, fine - let nvidia brand an apple only Titan, and Apple can take a cut. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of an ATX standard tower Mac Pro. If they design some oddball chasis using non-standard hardware they may as well keep the trash can.
Like I've said many times, Pros are a really important, albeit small segment for Apple. But the Pros are what support continued development for iOS and more. It's essential that Apple continue pushing forward the capabilities of Pro machines if they want their other platforms to continue to thrive.
For the sake of Pros, I hope they make commitments going forward. If this thing is going to be truly modular, they'll need multiple levels for each part that drop in price over time with regularly added new parts coming to market. They could, for instance, release new modular parts yearly and upgrade the main board every 2-3 years. They could rotate down the line, making the old top-end components the new mid-range, old mid-range low-end, etc. Put the flagship new graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD at the top. Same with Intel CPUs.
Even better, they could just update the kexts in the system and say "Hey, we support these CPUs and GPUs now." and let users order them from wherever they want, including Apple. Just use standard connectors. But that might be a bit much for Apple? I mean, RAM works that way, and hopefully they'll go back to allowing standard 2.5" SSDs, or whichever blade SSD format is most popular, and then we can just update as we go. Apple makes so much freaking money on everything else, and as they said in the interview the Pro users are a smaller segment, and like I said they're really important to supporting Apple's other devices. So I hope they go a little more loose with allowing certain upgrades, but I won't hold my breath.
For the sake of Pros, I hope they make commitments going forward. If this thing is going to be truly modular, they'll need multiple levels for each part that drop in price over time with regularly added new parts coming to market. They could, for instance, release new modular parts yearly and upgrade the main board every 2-3 years. They could rotate down the line, making the old top-end components the new mid-range, old mid-range low-end, etc. Put the flagship new graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD at the top. Same with Intel CPUs.
Even better, they could just update the kexts in the system and say "Hey, we support these CPUs and GPUs now." and let users order them from wherever they want, including Apple. Just use standard connectors. But that might be a bit much for Apple? I mean, RAM works that way, and hopefully they'll go back to allowing standard 2.5" SSDs, or whichever blade SSD format is most popular, and then we can just update as we go. Apple makes so much freaking money on everything else, and as they said in the interview the Pro users are a smaller segment, and like I said they're really important to supporting Apple's other devices. So I hope they go a little more loose with allowing certain upgrades, but I won't hold my breath.
I think I'm more excited about that they acknowledged the Mac mini exists at all. There is about zero chance I'll buy another $3K Mac again, but a nice new mini <$1500 would be tempting.
I don't need/want an iMac. But a 4K Apple-branded display with a variety of input ports would be just fine
Signed,
Late 2013 Mac Pro owner
I don't need/want an iMac. But a 4K Apple-branded display with a variety of input ports would be just fine
Signed,
Late 2013 Mac Pro owner
It was only the talking heads that said that Apple was "getting out" of the display business, not Apple themselves. And if I read this news correctly, they will release a "pro" display, not just any display. It sounds like they will be positioning it as a pro product.
They did this for that very reason — to assure customers that it's safe to "buy Mac, stay Mac"... that there's a future path to look forward to. It had reached a point where many pro customers were considering alternative platforms due to the uncertainty of Apple's commitment.
This announcement today was pretty much because of your letter, I'm near 100% sure. Can't thank you enough. I have money waiting...
This here is wonderful to read ... "To do something that can be supported for a long time with customers with updates and upgrades throughout the years. We’ll take the time it takes to do that. The current Mac Pro, as we’ve said a few times, was constrained thermally and it restricted our ability to upgrade it. And for that, we’re sorry to disappoint customers who wanted that, and we’ve asked the team to go and re-architect and design something great for the future that those Mac Pro customers who want more expandability, more upgradability in the future. It’ll meet more of those needs."
I can hear the birds chirping again and a new dawn is breaking!
Let's wait til we see the pricing before jumping off the profit bandwagon. If it's anything like the mac book pro debacle I am skeptical.
Looks like there is some hope...."To do something that can be supported for a long time with customers with updates and upgrades throughout the years. We’ll take the time it takes to do that. The current Mac Pro, as we’ve said a few times, was constrained thermally and it restricted our ability to upgrade it. And for that, we’re sorry to disappoint customers who wanted that, and we’ve asked the team to go and re-architect and design something great for the future that those Mac Pro customers who want more expandability, more upgradability in the future. It’ll meet more of those needs."
It's pretty easy reaching into the file cabinet and dusting off the MacPro plans from 2012 actually.
Obviously it was enough to get their attention, eh?
But come now...I'm sure you're a person who cares about the concerns of any group. No matter how small of a percentage they might be in the scheme of it all. Oh, and concerning that small group...
As you know the article stated, Apple won't reveal what the percentage of Mac Pro sales are. Let's assume, using your insider knowledge, that the Mac Pro is say...only 1% of sales of Macs sold. Apple sold 5.374 million Macs at an average price of $1347.97 for 7.244 billion in revenue Q1 2017.
If the Mac Pros are 1% of those sales, that's 53,740 Mac Pros sold. Usually this small, meaningless, demographic you're talking about macks out their Macs, so we'll figure a conservative average price of $7,000.
That would put the revenue of this insignificant group at $376,180,000 Q1 2017.
Or 5.19% of Mac sales revenue Q1 2017, .048% Worldwide Company sales of 78.351 billion Q1 2017.
You're right, I guess they shouldn't worry about them.