Apple Silicon Mac Pro Said to Feature Same Design as 2019 Model, No User-Upgradable RAM

[JazzyGB1]

It's widely agreed that the 2013 Mac Pro was a flop.
You know by where it isn't seen that that's the case.
How the 2019 model has sold in relation to it isn't really relevant, as the 2019 model has only had half the time available for sale and costs almost double the price (and nearly three times the cost of the previous Apple tower).
If the 'All in one' model worked for pro users there wouldn't be a Mac Tower or a PC tower for that matter.
That towers are still there and that they are mainly found in pro environments would suggest you assertion that 'pros don't expand' is without merit.

 

[chucker23n1]

It's widely agreed that the 2013 Mac Pro was a flop.
You know by where it isn't seen that that's the case.
How the 2019 model has sold in relation to it isn't really relevant, as the 2019 model has only had half the time available for sale

OK, so ask “how has each of them sold within the first 12 months”.

and costs almost double the price (and nearly three times the cost of the previous Apple tower).

That’s irrelevant, because the old pricing isn’t coming back, especially now that the Mac Studio exists.

 

[R2DHue]

I'm going to wager a guess that the people cheering aren't the ones that were made millionaires because of Forstall's influence. They were the ones who actually put in the overtime, did the actual work to build Forstall's vision, and got barely anything more than a pat on the back and a meagre Christmas bonus for their efforts.

You must be privy to some inside info that I am not.

Reports at the time said “the place” erupted in cheers when it was announced he’d been fired and those cheers included senior executives, some of whom, reportedly, refused to work with him.

Forstall joined Apple (from Next) when Apple was broke, and when Steve Jobs “bet the farm” on the success of the original iMac (which didn’t run OS X yet). He was instrumental at Next; he was instrumental in NextStep/OpenStep; he was among the people at Apple who convinced a reluctant Steve Jobs to even DO a phone — and then there’s his convincing Jobs to have it run OS X; opening it up as a platform for ISVs; developing an iOS SDK; creating the App Store…

Those things, in large part, took Apple to a Trillion dollars, and 2 Trillion, and 3…

An article from businessinsider quotes former Apple software engineer Mike Lee as saying that Forstall was:

“Apple's chief ******," but he means it as a “compliment.” Lee says, “you could say the same thing about Steve Jobs.”

And in a piece on The Verge about the origins of the iPhone:

“…few dispute the caliber of his intellect and work ethic. “I don’t know what other people have said about Scott,” Henri Lamiraux says, “but he was a pleasure to work with.”

He was much younger than Jobs and didn’t have Jobs’ legendary status, so if he was a jerk like Jobs, he was 1.) younger (the youngest member of Apple’s Senior Executive team at the time), and older Senior employees probably didn’t appreciate taking direction from him, and 2.) lacked Steve Jobs’ status as a legend.

A piece on NBC News .com says Forstall pushed Apple to buy Siri, and pushed Apple to get over their reluctance (at the time) to acquire outside technology/companies.

Look, I don’t know Forstall “from Adam,” and I’m not his “cheerleader,” I just want to decipher the mystery of why a person so instrumental in Apple’s lasting marketplace success and so instrumental in Apple’s lasting financial success — and instrumental in so many people at Apple making fortunes as a direct consequence of Forstall’s influence at Apple and on Steve Jobs — was so despised and was forced out not long after Jobs’ death. 🤷‍♂️

 

[R2DHue]

All you need to know about how much Scott Forstall was like Steve Jobs is to look at the history of the computer company that Scott founded after he left Apple.

I was unable to find any “computer company” founded by Scott Forstall after he left Apple — unless that’s your point.

(Does the world need “Yet Another” computer company?)

Since departing Apple, he became involved in VC and consulting for an unknown number of tech startups (and consulted for Snap Inc. in return for 0.11% of Snap’s stock).

He has mentored young software engineers and done tons of philanthropic work in the U.S. and around the world.

He co-produced a Broadway play that won 5 Tony Awards.

Then he produced a Broadway play that won 8 Tony Awards.

(As a “college kid” he was co-creator alongside Apple engineer Nat Brown of the popular classic “WordArt” app, while interning for Microsoft in 1991.)

From what little I’ve been able to uncover, he keeps a pretty low profile — and he’s probably so set financially that he doesn’t need to do anything, unless it’s to fight boredom.

 

[HDFan]

It's widely agreed that the 2013 Mac Pro was a flop.

"widely agreed" is not fact unless there is a reliable data source. I had a 2013 and it was great.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I was unable to find any “computer company” founded by Scott Forstall after he left Apple — unless that’s your point.

Yes, that’s the realization I came to as well. I was surprised.

From what little I’ve been able to uncover, he keeps a pretty low profile — and he’s probably so set financially that he doesn’t need to do anything, unless it’s to fight boredom.

Right, which is all one needs to know to understand how unlike Steve Jobs he was.

 

[Asbow]

"widely agreed" is not fact unless there is a reliable data source. I had a 2013 and it was great.

I would have said ‘the general consensus’.

 

[R2DHue]

Yes, that’s the realization I came to as well. I was surprised.


Right, which is all one needs to know to understand how unlike Steve Jobs he was.

He’d been described as the person at Apple who was most like Steve Jobs — not a human clone (which is A Good Thing®).

Among the things that others at Apple found annoying about him was that he was perpetually in awe of Steve Jobs — so maybe — MAYBE — his admiration of Jobs included knowing that he didn’t have what it took to startup a new computer company from nothing (but IDK). I also noted that, Did the world really need Yet Another “computer company”? More Be Inc’s.?

Plus, I think I may have shortchanged him on what he’s done since his departure. He hasn’t exactly been gathering moss.

I was saying, philosophically speaking, he’s “set” and doesn’t need to do anything. But his portfolio of post-Apple work includes mentoring young engineers, VC, consulting for startups and small businesses, consulting for Snap Inc., his award-winning work on Broadway (five Tony Awards, then eight) — plus his disparate philanthropic work in the U.S. and globally, which is pretty remarkable. He‘s unlike Steve Jobs in countless ways — he’s a different person! (He graduated college!)

He has kept a low profile throughout, which suggests he’s not in it for the credit/recognition. (He’s certainly not getting a lot! I had to dig!)

I just think it’s a shame that despite all he did for Apple, he was unceremoniously booted but then had his life and reputation “cancelled” (before that word was even used that way — was he “Patient 0”?!).

By many accounts he was a jerk; he clashed with others at Apple (as one does); people didn’t like him. But, at a young age (he was hired by Steve Jobs for Next straight out of Stanford), he was instrumental in NextOS/OpenStep/OS X, he supervised Safari (and, contrary to those who didn’t like working with him, was credited by senior engineer on the Safari team, Don Melton, “for being willing to trust the instincts of his team and respecting their ability to develop the browser in secret”), he is reported to have been behind Apple’s purchase of Siri. (His unpopularity at Apple is beginning to sound more like a clash between others at Apple with big egos! Not the non-exec employees and engineers he worked with or supervised.)

He was among the several people inside Apple who convinced Steve Jobs to even do a phone (after the Motorola Rokr debacle); he convinced Jobs to have it run OS X, and when Steve Jobs wanted the iPhone to run just a few key apps by Apple (like a cell phone + PDA), Forstall convinced him to open it up as a platform for ISVs, convinced Jobs to create an SDK, and convinced Jobs to create The App Store. Those things counted for a lot in Apple’s exploding success — and continue to.

Last January, Apple hit $3 Trillion in Market Cap. Much of Apple’s unprecedented global marketplace success and financial success has to do with the iPhone, running OS X, with an App Store — all things Scott Forstall persuaded Steve Jobs to do and who was also instrumental in leading the teams that made them all a reality.

It’s enough for people inside Apple to want him fired — and he’s gone! But the effort afterward to destroy his reputation utterly is sleazy in my opinion. There was an Apple Event after he was fired where presenters showed off UI changes that made fun of the ones they replaced — and Scott Forstall was trashed over and over without his name being used. Apple Execs had never before used Apple Events to trash fired employees on stage. Unnecessary. Totally unnecessary.

And unless it’s because you really hate the work of a fired employee, it’s not very good marketing or PR to make fun of old product features yourself during a public presentation! That’s a job for your competitors and a critical media!

I hope I’m done talking about Scott Forstall. I’m starting to feel like his PR agent…

I just think history should be fair and accurate and not leave out due credit to people — despite internal politics of the time and despite whether or not they were particularly liked by certain people.

 

[R2DHue]

For most workloads, ECC RAM does absolutely nothing. The only reason the Mac Pro ever came with ECC RAM was because Apple wanted to differentiate their "workstation" line from run-of-the-mill consumer computers by selling them with Xeon processors (even though, again, most professional workloads do not actually benefit from a Xeon).

I fundamentally disagree.

“…server-grade error-correcting memory (ECC RAM) solves the problem of cosmic ray interference.”

“BIT FLIP!”

It changed the outcome of an election in Belgium!

It took a Super Mario 64 player to a level that didn’t exist! (And we can’t have that!)

IMHO, error-correcting memory is critical! If it hasn’t already, Apple should make ECC RAM standard on every device it makes.

(And, yes, Apple should do it for the right reasons, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t also take advantage of it in Marketing — during the brief period between when Apple standardizes on ECC and when everyone else in the industry copies Apple and neutralizes this Marketing advantage.)

See: The Universe is Hostile To Computers

 

[Velli]

"widely agreed" is not fact unless there is a reliable data source. I had a 2013 and it was great.

That you were happy with it is also not “data”… The 2013 Mac Pro is the only computer, possibly even the only product, that Apple has publicly acknowledged was a misstep, while it was still selling even. That should be enough data to qualify as a “flop”.

 

[Boil]

It was a cool machine, but had severe growing pains, mostly because it could not grow...

Released in 2013, mea culpa in 2017, yet still for sale until 2019...

I still want to see an ASi Mac Pro Cube with a M3 Extreme SoC...! ;^p

 

[HDFan]

The 2013 Mac Pro is the only computer, possibly even the only product, that Apple has publicly acknowledged was a misstep, while it was still selling even. That should be enough data to qualify as a “flop”.

Don't disagree from the Apple perspective. There are some people like myself who loved the aesthetics of the cylinder. My irritation was showing in my post probably because people call it a trashcan. It might not meet their needs, but it was nothing like a trashcan - it was a thing of beauty.

 

[Velli]

Don't disagree from the Apple perspective. There are some people like myself who loved the aesthetics of the cylinder. My irritation was showing in my post probably because people call it a trashcan. It might not meet their needs, but it was nothing like a trashcan - it was a thing of beauty.

I agree with you, it was one of those products that I felt in my body that I wanted to own, but have absolutely no use for. But that shouldn’t cloud the judgement of the product being a flop. Great products can flop, and ****** products can succeed (and do, all the time).

 

[jakey rolling]

it was nothing like a trashcan

Well sure - but that's only because trash cans actually do something.

 

[Flight Plan]

So what I'm hearing is you don't do the kind of pro work that most people in the market for these machines do and are happy to proclaim this isn't a problem for you who likely doesn't even need this machine....

In other news, the people who are editing pro video and rendering special effects and would be the folks shelling out $10-$50K for a set up probably really do need more RAM than what Apple is going to be capable of offering.

You would think Apple could engineer a means of letting a user put additional RAM into a slot and MacOS would be able to use that ram in conjunction with the soldered ram on the SoC. You'd think..... sounds like they found a way to do it for graphics cards unless that is BS

Well, you're not wrong. Yet. I just have this thing called a job, for which none of my Apple devices can help. Yet.

 

[Jethro!]

No user serviceable or upgradeable RAM effectively spells the end of the "Pro" computers for Apple. Apple has made some boneheaded moves before. Really, REALLY hope Apple doesn't make this misstep.

 

[Jethro!]

No user serviceable or upgradeable RAM effectively spells the end of the "Pro" computers for Apple. Apple has made some boneheaded moves before. Really, REALLY hope Apple doesn't make this misstep.

Downvotes = we found the Apple employees/fanboys.

 

[JazzyGB1]

Don't disagree from the Apple perspective. There are some people like myself who loved the aesthetics of the cylinder. My irritation was showing in my post probably because people call it a trashcan. It might not meet their needs, but it was nothing like a trashcan - it was a thing of beauty.

Loving the aesthetics is irrelevant - it was never going to be a successful replacement for a Mac tower and that's why it bombed.
Once expansion is only possible externally it has no USP - the USP of the Mac Pro was that it was an expandable Mac tower.
Indeed there was no external expansion possible on a 2013 Mac Pro Trashcan that couldn't really be done on the £499 2013 Mini that had been available since 2012.
That's why the trashcan Mac Pro flopped.
The 'innovative' cylindrical design meant prior Mac Pro users who used PCIe cards and internal storage in their existing towers couldn't simply 'port' them across to the new Mac - that reason alone is why it was never going to be fit for purpose.
It's so blindingly obvious but Apple seem intent on ignoring it.
They are using their control of software to try and manipulate people down a pathway of hardware that many do not want to go.
Cube - Rejected
Mac Pro Trashcan - Rejected.
Apple Studio - too early to say, but I'd guess it'll largely flop too because most Mac Users don't want to spend £2k to have a closed system.
Even the original Mac Mini's could have their hard drives and RAM replaced, so this lack of user expansion is a deliberate step by Apple.
Having to 'future proof' at the point of purchase significantly increases the cost of the purchase price too.
It wouldn't matter so much if the Mac Studio's insultingly low 512GB of internal storage on a £2000 computer could be replaced by the users at a later date by slotting in a replacement £120 2TB NVME drive in but you cannot.
If you wish to have 2TB internal storage on a Mac Studio it increases the overall cost of the computer by a whopping 30%!
So a £2000 computer that may become a £2120 purchase later becomes a £2600 purchase straight away.
It's all totally unnecessary.
I want Apple to make lots of money, but they used to do this by offering value.
Now they do it by software coercion and almost forcing those who rely on their software to use their ever more expensive and unexpandable systems to run it and it's alienating many of their customers - indeed lots of them jumped platforms because of this.
That Apple do not appear to care about this is as insulting as it is avoidable.

 

[DavidSchaub]

Downvotes = we found the Apple employees/fanboys.

No, I just disagreed with the limited view of what "pros" need. Beyond the reality that lots (but not all) professionals can easily do their work on an M1 Ultra Mac Studio, I just don't see "upgradable" as a super high priority for lots of professionals, and definitely not ones who use company-purchased Macs.

I see three primary holes in Apple's current pro line-up:

1) An expandable machine allowing 3rd party hardware of various kinds to be internally installed (I expect the M2 Ultra Mac Pro with some kind of UltraFusion/PCIe bridge chip will cover that).

2) Machines with > 512 GB of RAM... Apple seems to have given up on this market, but the market is pretty puny, so that is probably the right call.

3) Be approximately competitive with the high-end prosumer level hardware. Apple clearly keeps planning on making a 4xMax "M* Quadra" package, they just haven't been able to ship it yet.

(1) and (3) are likely still in progress, which will help the Pro lineup. (2) is likely a group Apple will just give up on. Nowhere on that list is "I need to swap out and replace the CPU".

 

[Jethro!]

No, I just disagreed with the limited view of what "pros" need. Beyond the reality that lots (but not all) professionals can easily do their work on an M1 Ultra Mac Studio, I just don't see "upgradable" as a super high priority for lots of professionals, and definitely not ones who use company-purchased Macs.

They can do their work on an M1 -- for now. But when new software or user needs inevitably surpasses the machine's capabilities you have but one option: throw it away.
Same for a non-upgradable Mac "Pro". Hit the ceiling for your config? In the past you'd just upgrade it. Now... Awww, too bad so sad. Throw it away.
Considering that many/most MP configs will top $10k, it is absolutely unacceptable for a machine at that price to be disposable. So yeah, upgradability is absolutely a high priority for lots of professionals.

So dear Apple: If you make the new Mac "Pro" non-upgradable, you've got a NO SALE right here. It's insulting.

 

[Jethro!]

Nowhere on that list is "I need to swap out and replace the CPU".

Totally wrong. I've swapped out and replaced the CPU's on my 2009 MP that I write this on. That's why they're such great machines. You think you'll get 13-14 years out of a throw-away Mac "Pro"? Not on your life.

 

[Boil]

"Obsolete" machines can always find new life; use by another staff member who does not have as high a performance need as the "latest & greatest", added as a node to a compute/render farm, donated for tax credit, and for the smaller "pro business" moved on to friends & family who might need a capable (yet not the "latest & greatest") machine...

It's only disposable if one makes it so...

 

[innerproduct]

In the real world outside of supermega corps, we buy stuff to get work done and perf per dollar matters. Perf is also human-with-computer perf so OS matters. If a person is happy and effective on a platform then that is the platform that person should be allowed to use. When it comes to laptops this is a non issue. M* laptops are great for those who want one. When it comes to desktop the situation is not similar in any way. Pc desktops these days are a lot faster for compute in general at a much better price. And “pro” gpus are almost not relevant any more. Just get a few extra non pro variants to switch with if they brake. Sometimes the form factor (blower style) makes the pro cards the only option though for 4-8 gpu cores compute nodes.
In a way, apple cannot compete in this market since all frameworks work so much better /reliable on cuda. Why would anyone buy a mac in this market? Not sure tbh from a rational standpoint.
The only market that is somewhat sensable is vfx/design/graphics since part of the workflow is great on mac.
Super low end 3d like single stills etc might be acceptable already. For animation perf need to be a lot better to be relevant. An m2 ultra mp, 192 gb ram/vram and two extra apple gpus would probably satisfy this market right now. A m2 ultra without extra gpus is just a joke for this segment and simple not a relevant solution. Apple surely know this.

 

[Jethro!]

"Obsolete" machines can always find new life; use by another staff member who does not have as high a performance need as the "latest & greatest", added as a node to a compute/render farm, donated for tax credit, and for the smaller "pro business" moved on to friends & family who might need a capable (yet not the "latest & greatest") machine...

It's only disposable if one makes it so...

"Obsolete" is a matter of design -- is it built-in planned or accommodated for?
Apple's philosophy (mostly Jobs era) was upgradability. Obsolescence could be delayed, sometimes for a very long time. That's what we want.
Now it's built-in. Throw it away. If non-upgradability comes to the next Mac Pro, their transformation into the iToy company will be complete. It's also a NO SALE.
CAN YOU HEAR THIS FROM YOUR ECHO CHAMBER, APPLE?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple's philosophy (mostly Jobs era) was upgradability

Not really Jobs era, though. The first upgradable machine to approach the upgradability of the Apple II was the Mac II, and that came after Jobs left. Jobs was generally against ideas about upgradability.

CAN YOU HEAR THIS FROM YOUR ECHO CHAMBER, APPLE?

Not likely. For every person that wants an upgradable Mac, there are probably 5 that, within the last couple years, bought an MBA. If the day comes with the MAJORITY wants the ability to upgrade, maybe Apple will change. However, as long as the size of Apple’s echo chamber provides for the sale of 20-30 million non-upgradable Macs, they’ll continue to serve that market.