Apple Silicon Mac Pro Reportedly Not Coming at WWDC, Mac Studio Refresh Likely Delayed Until M3

Between the M2 Ultra Mac Pro being delayed again and claims the Mac Studio will not see a refresh with M2 Max and M2 Ultra in favor of waiting until the M3 Max and Ultra are ready makes me wonder if there is an issue with the M2 Ultra and/or it's fabrication/yields.
 
Hey Tim, how about we give those Mac sales a little nudge while you continue to figure out what to do with the Mac Pro? Let's stick that M2 Max chip onto the Mac Studio, upgrade a few of its ports to match the new MacBook Pro, and voila! You will make loads of pro customers very happy, and they will also momentarily forget that we're still waiting for that big cheese grater.
 
Andres Cantu said:
They made such a big deal with the 2019 Mac Pro about how they care about their most demanding pro customers and now it’s back to square one.

They need to either dedicate their efforts to it fully and not half-baked or just end the line. The lack of communication must not be pleasing to professionals.
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Everyone bought into apple making a "big deal with the 2019 Mac Pro"... but the reality still has to be: That was marketing. I'm sure it is somewhat true... but still: marketing :)
 
prefuse07 said:
Yup, this is the world they want us to live in. Now imagine 20 people doing that in a subway car, or at the office 🤣
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Angry iMessaging:

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CWallace said:
Between the M2 Ultra Mac Pro being delayed again and claims the Mac Studio will not see a refresh with M2 Max and M2 Ultra in favor of waiting until the M3 Max and Ultra are ready makes me wonder if there is an issue with the M2 Ultra and/or it's fabrication/yields.
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Or... Apple doesn't feel any need to rush its product development cycle..

Why would Apple bother to release a new Mac Studio right away? Unless it bumps sales enough to cover the RoI on cycling the product, why do it?

Everyone seemed to think that moving to ARM would mean Apple would annually ship new everything, and I just see no reason why that would ever be the case. Apple has always loved to let stuff rot on the vine if its a low priority. Apple now just has more controller over what it lets rot.
 
ThisBougieLife said:
Seeming more and more true that Apple really hit a roadblock and backed themselves into a corner with making an Apple Silicon machine truly "modular" and offering something beyond what the Mac Studio offers.

What doesn't make sense to me is how they couldn't have seen this coming.

"Let's put everything onto the SOC!"
"But we're still going to have a super modular, upgradeable Mac Pro!"
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No kidding. I suppose you could pull out the graphics and put in a PCI-e interface, then make nice with Nvidia to get their latest supercard in the machine. But then what? A built in NVME raid array for a second drive? Or maybe DRAM slots for a Ramdisk for swap? That would save wear and tear on the built-in storage, but would it be faster?

I'm definitely scratching my head here.
 
MacRumors said:
Gurman also said that the new 15-inch MacBook Air, which will contain an M2 chip, was originally supposed to launch last year.
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ThisBougieLife said:
Gurman keeps saying this, that the 15" Air is coming at WWDC with M2, followed a few months later by the 13" Air with M3. That just makes no sense. Why would they not just wait until the fall to launch them both with M3? Why make it so the larger Air is "behind" the smaller one?
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If Gurman's comments about the 15" MBA supposed to launch in 2022 are true, it is possible Apple has already manufactured a significant number of systemboards for the 15" MacBook Air with the M2 SoC so they would have to scrap them all for a switch to M3. Apple is not going to eat that cost, instead passing it on to consumers via a higher MSRP, which would push the 15" MBA that much closer in price to the more capable MacBook Pro 14/16 family.

As others have noted, Apple can launch the 15" with M2 now, launch the 13" refresh with M3 in late 2023 or early 2024, and then update the both of them to M4 in 2024/2025.

Or Apple might also not want to have the 15" on the same generation as the 13" for competition reasons with the MacBook Pro 14" and 16" as there is some speculation that the base M3 will be more powerful in multi-core CPU and GPU than the "binned" M2 Pro in the MacBook Pro 14" and close to the "full" M2 Pro in the 14" and 16". If this ends up being true, I could see Apple wanting the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros on M3 Pro before they put the M3 in the 15" MacBook Air to ensure there is a clear performance differential between the two models.
 
blazerunner said:
Just release an Intel 13900k Mac Pro and call it a day. That CPU runs circles around anything and everything Apple has to offer. Jesus christ, it's NOT that hard. A company worth 3 trillion dollars cant sell a good computer? That's embarrassing.
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I agree but what message would it send to those who embraced the Apple Silicon transition ? It's not just a question of feasibility, it's also a question of decision integrity.
 
CWallace said:
Between the M2 Ultra Mac Pro being delayed again and claims the Mac Studio will not see a refresh with M2 Max and M2 Ultra in favor of waiting until the M3 Max and Ultra are ready makes me wonder if there is an issue with the M2 Ultra and/or it's fabrication/yields.
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I just don't buy his opinions now after seeing him on the MacRumors show, is his only thought is it needs to be delayed again Why? The Mac Pro should be able to be updated as each new M family of relevant SoCs is available to sell with. Same for the Mac Studio. This should be no different then 14"/16" MBP updates.
But he says the New Mac Pro is at least unlikely to be at June's developer conference. Related to this, Gurman expects that Apple has pushed back the Mac Studio both until an M3 version is possible, to avoid it taking sales away from the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
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I believe that Grid computing needs to be resurrected. Why is Apple not working on this, with the broad distribution of Appel hardware now in use? Its the perfect opportunity to leverage idle processors.
 
Siliconguy said:
No kidding. I suppose you could pull out the graphics and put in a PCI-e interface, then make nice with Nvidia to get their latest supercard in the machine. But then what? A built in NVME raid array for a second drive? Or maybe DRAM slots for a Ramdisk for swap? That would save wear and tear on the built-in storage, but would it be faster?

I'm definitely scratching my head here.
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Modular could just mean: add PCIe bridge chip and a bunch of slots... and that is enough to warrant a Mac Pro.

I did these doodles, and it feels like one will probably be right:

mstdn.social

DavidSchaub (@dschaub@mstdn.social)

Attached: 2 images One question I haven't heard asked: If the next ARM Mac Pro is approximately in a Mac Pro (2019) chassis, where do all the ports come from? Would they have PCIe slots as well as a new rear chassis with the Mac Studio ports like this 1st drawing, or would most of the ports...
mstdn.social mstdn.social
 
DavidSchaub said:
Or... Apple doesn't feel any need to rush its product development cycle..

Why would Apple bother to release a new Mac Studio right away? Unless it bumps sales enough to cover the RoI on cycling the product, why do it?

Everyone seemed to think that moving to ARM would mean Apple would annually ship new everything, and I just see no reason why that would ever be the case. Apple has always loved to let stuff rot on the vine if its a low priority. Apple now just has more controller over what it lets rot.
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*nods in agreement*

I am on record as believing Apple could put the desktops on a "every other generation" refresh cycle since their sales are so much lower than the portables. So it makes sense for the Mac Pro (when it finally ships) Mac Studio, iMac and Mac mini to skip a generation of M series SoC whereas the portables always get each generation.

But Mac Pro should by now be ready to go considering it is re-using the same chassis as the Intel model. And Apple has had at least a year to work on it, and probably more. Apple's decision to not go forward with an "Extreme" version of the M1/M2 in favor of just using the Ultra SoC means they should be ready to ship, and yet they are now said to still not be ready.

To me, the two most-likely reasons for this are:
  1. the M2 Ultra is not ready, or
  2. Apple still has not been able to create a compelling reason to market this model of Mac Pro
While I find both reasons odd, #2 seems more odd to me than #1. But then again, we're all just guessing here. :)
 
I still think M2 Ultra Mac Pro will come at WWDC 2023, if not before. The fanfare around the headset will help distract from the fact that the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be somewhat of a disappointment compared to how cool the 2019 model was in its day. But nonetheless, it will be "the most powerful Mac for creating compelling mixed reality experiences!"

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Mac Pro Believe t-shirt from Accidental Tech Podcast store
 
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Apple still really struggling on a unified mac product line. Too many variables. I understood the slow roll out the first year but now everything should come out at once....then it becomes clear what you need.
 
blazerunner said:
Just release an Intel 13900k Mac Pro and call it a day. That CPU runs circles around anything and everything Apple has to offer. Jesus christ, it's NOT that hard. A company worth 3 trillion dollars cant sell a good computer? That's embarrassing.
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253W max power consumption? LOL Not laptop material. Good space heater for the winter though. How much power does the hottest (in both senses of the word) state of the art GPU draw?

And it's "limited" to 128 GB RAM, but I seem to remember that people here claimed they needed more than that. It is less than the current Mac Pro. It also has only 20 PCI lanes so either the super graphics card, OR the NVME raid card, not both.

That CPU may be fast, but it doesn't seem to be Pro material.
 
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How about you take some of your insane focus from AR/VR and put more attention to the Mac. You ignored the macs in 2013 with the pro segment and in 2016 with the laptop segment. Your M1 products were amazing, where did the focus go? Why won’t Mac Studio get M2? Why is an M2 Pro Mac Mini better than a M1 Max Mac Studio? What happened to the two year transition? Why haven’t you said a word about missing it?
 
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