Apple Surveying iMac Pro Buyers About Key Features

[usarioclave]

I think a better survey would have been:

• What do you use your Mac Pro for?
• What do you feel needs upgrading?
• Do you need more internal storage?
• Would you like more storage options? ie: slower but cheaper storage vs faster but more expensive storage?
• Do you want more add-in cards?
• What do you use your slots for today (if anything)
• Would you prefer more graphics card options?
• Would you prefer fast external storage?
• Would you prefer a bigger or smaller enclosure?
• What kind of performance are you looking for that isn't reached by the current model?

As an example of why this is better, my 2009 has a USB 3.1 card into which I plug my SSD into, because that is now way faster than my internal bus. It has literally extended the life of my mac for another few years. Would I care for a faster processor? Not so much, because most of the time I'm writing code, not waiting for my stuff to compile. What I do isn't time sensitive.

That said, someone doing a lot of photo or video work would would have a completely different set of requirements, because they really need the work to be closer to realtime. That means fast high-speed internal busses, lots of RAM, caching, and extra cards for some extra cores.

Asking someone about whether they want a T2 chip is pointless. You might as well ask them if they want a T7A88 chip.

 

[mevans7]

They are about 5 years late on this.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Yeah. that lack of an SD card slot was a real deal killer for me.

What lack of SD card?

But But but it’s so much better as a dongle!

Nope, no adapter necessary lol.

FYI, the iMac Pro has an SD card slot, supporting most formats including UHS‑II. Up to 2TB in capacity. It’s fast, too.

But if this is one of those features that iMac Pro buyers don’t care about, it could certainly go away in the refresh Apple is currently speccing.

 

[YaBe]

They used to tell people what they wanted / needed, guess this is how Apple is changing, it might be a good thing, but to me it just shows they do not know where to go.

We might just get “faster horses” this way.

 

[BvizioN]

Apple didn't get to where it is by asking its customers what they want. This is worrying.

I logged in just to upvote and second this.
I think asking customers what they want indicates you have lost your vision.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of them would ask for DVD drive and around 30 various ports from the top and bottom to make it look like a honeycomb. Customers know ****.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I logged in just to upvote and second this.
Asking customers what they want indicates you have lost your vision.

Why would Apple want to ignore their current customer base during the process of speccing a model’s refresh? That really doesn’t make any sense at all. iMac Pro is a new product, and Apple is obviously trying to understand how people are using it and what’s important to them. Seeking feedback from your customers is not a bad thing!

The question becomes how much weight to give that feedback. In the past, unfortunately the answer has sometimes been “not enough”.

 

[BvizioN]

Apple is obviously trying to understand how people are using it and what’s important to them

A trillion dollar company with a huge success of creating products that people would want to buy, without asking them (AKA, having a vision) all the sudden doesn't know know what is important for customers and ask for their opinion? Hmmmm! Smells trouble to me.

 

[ipponrg]

Why would Apple want to ignore their current customer base during the process of speccing a model’s refresh? That really doesn’t make any sense at all. iMac Pro is a new product, and Apple is obviously trying to understand how people are using it and what’s important to them. Seeking feedback from your customers is not a bad thing!

The question becomes how much weight to give that feedback. In the past, unfortunately the answer has sometimes been “not enough”.

Usually when a company is actively seeking feedback beyond normal means, they have identified a discrepancy that they need to address.

When a company is doing well, they don’t usually actively seek feedback from outsiders because that means their internal focus group is sufficient

Apple historically hasn’t been an aggressive pursuant of product feedback from its consumers until recently. I’ve been asked for feedback a few months ago on Final Cut Pro X after owning it since its original release after they canned FC7.

My first thought was “now you want feedback?!?”

 

[341328]

New Mac Pro... at least another 12 months away. What a joke.

 

[PickUrPoison]

A trillion dollar company with a huge success of creating products that people would want to buy, without asking them (AKA, having a vision) all the sudden doesn't know know what is important for customers and ask for their opinion? Hmmmm! Smells trouble to me.

This is not all of a sudden. It only seems that way because of a Twitter post. Otherwise you’d have never have known this was even happening; a relatively small number of users for a given product are actually surveyed. Maybe 1,500-5,000 or so, depending on how they intend to slice and dice the data.

Apple has conducted market research for decades. Surveying users regarding features that are important to them is standard practice at Apple, and is one of the ways they achieve and retain such high degrees of customer satisfaction.

Despite what the article says, my guess is this survey has little to do with a new Mac Pro and everything to do with next year’s iMac pro refresh.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Can’t win huh. Ask the customers what they want or their favourite features of the iMac Pro and Apple are clueless with what direction to go.

Take a different direction and get criticised and Apple are accused of being arrogant and don’t listen to customers.

Look, Apple ****ed up badly on the Pro market. They admitted it. They’re looking to rectify it. Why does everybody have to be some damn negative about every bit of news. If Pros (pretty much everybody here, evidently), are so invested in Apple products and its ecosystem, can’t you be happy they’re genuinely looking to resolve your criticisms?

My friend, those are nice words from you!
What seems to be important to us is the way things are achieved, not the result. That might seperate the PRO from the ordinary customer. What a PRO needs is so obvisiouly to US that alone to make a survey is an offense to all its PRO customers.

I hope I could have helped you with that!

 

[partsofspeech]

Apple didn't get to where it is by asking its customers what they want. This is worrying.

Apple is becoming Ford becoming a commodity business.
[doublepost=1536647567][/doublepost]

They used to tell people what they wanted / needed, guess this is how Apple is changing, it might be a good thing, but to me it just shows they do not know where to go.

We might just get “faster horses” this way.

Love of money makes the current executives lose the vision.
[doublepost=1536647749][/doublepost]

Why would Apple want to ignore their current customer base during the process of speccing a model’s refresh? That really doesn’t make any sense at all. iMac Pro is a new product, and Apple is obviously trying to understand how people are using it and what’s important to them. Seeking feedback from your customers is not a bad thing!

The question becomes how much weight to give that feedback. In the past, unfortunately the answer has sometimes been “not enough”.

The trouble is that the current Apple does not really want to listen but only pretends to. The flat desin customers have not wanted; the flat design stays.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

For video production, motion graphics, 3D animation and VFX Nvidia GPUs are a MUST because of CUDA and how many programs, especially 3D render engines, need it. Metal or AMD just doesn't come close.

Talk about ignoring details and talking to us like we are five years old here. All those apps also support OpenCL.

Metal is in an early phase but by depreciating GL and CL, Apple is pushing developers towards Metal and that will accelerate performance improvements.

AMD’s compute does very well, especially per clock. It usually takes a 1700Mhz GeForce card to perform better than a 1200Mhz Radeon.

But without 10 bit color support the GeForce is useless for HDR video edit and VFX. Spend thousands more on Quadro just because Nvidia won’t enable 10 bit on GeForce? Cheeky. Scammy.

AMD’s Navi is already proported to hit 20 teraflops on the high end and on the low end will match the RTX 2070 for half the price.

 

[JamesMay82]

I’m just astonished that the Mac Pro has been in development over a year with a team of people!! A team of people can’t be working 8 hrs a day on upgrading an existing product.

I wish they would just do their original tower Mac Pro with modern ports and parts.. most would be happy with that right? Maybe shrink it down a bit more if anything.

 

[partsofspeech]

Usually when a company is actively seeking feedback beyond normal means, they have identified a discrepancy that they need to address.

When a company is doing well, they don’t usually actively seek feedback from outsiders because that means their internal focus group is sufficient

Apple historically hasn’t been an aggressive pursuant of product feedback from its consumers until recently. I’ve been asked for feedback a few months ago on Final Cut Pro X after owning it since its original release after they canned FC7.

My first thought was “now you want feedback?!?”

Simply put, Apple has lost lots of talents. The original iOS chief is one. Or it is the syndrome of sheep leading lions.

 

[Hater]

I’m just astonished that the Mac Pro has been in development over a year with a team of people!! A team of people can’t be working 8 hrs a day on upgrading an existing product.

I wish they would just do their original tower Mac Pro with modern ports and parts.. most would be happy with that right? Maybe shrink it down a bit more if anything.

Have you ever tried designing a product from scratch? They're moving away from the Trash Can. 12 months for a ground up redesign would deliver another failure. They need to get this right.

 

[Rockadile]

Have you ever tried designing a product from scratch? They're moving away from the Trash Can. 12 months for a ground up redesign would deliver another failure. They need to get this right.

They already got it right...the cMP but it seems like they're trying to reinvent the wheel once again, sigh.

 

[upthetoffees]

VR and high end cinema?

What about musicians Apple? We want major power in an OSX Apple computer and we don't care about graphics cards that are for 3D, cinema, VR whatever the current thing is. Is that too much to ask? CPU/SSD/MEM/CONNECTIVITY

 

[crsh1976]

The most obvious features of a computer of that grade and price : upgradeable everything. And CUDA.

The all-in-one design is a bad idea, the hardware sure justifies the price but the lack of long-term options does not.

Sounds like we're not going to see that fabled Mac Pro in 2018 after all, despite all of Apple's promises.

 

[dragje]

I'm "afraid" that Apple will come up with such an expensive MacPro with a starting price of $7999,- while using the iMac Pro as the "payable" model for video enthusiasts.. But as a video enthusiast, I pretty much prefer an upgradeable model any time above the iMac Pro model. Especially since I already have got a professional separate monitor.

 

[Bacillus]

They are about 5 years late on this.

Better ask those who LEFT the platform (and gave their feedback a zillion times to the Cupertino quails)
And sell the whole venture off to Dell or Acer who understand “Whats a computer ?”

 

[ROGmaster]

The AMD cards generally have had better compute performance per watt and 10 bit color output. For pro apps that’s what users need.

Nvidia won’t enable 10 bit color on their GeForce line (on Windows or Mac) so they can upsell users to Quadro.

Besides the state of Nvidia’s web drivers are not good enough and don’t come with support. The beta Maxwell/Pascal drivers they dish out to Mac Pro towers are full of bugs and no GPU decode/encode either. There’s a couple of people on these boards who will refute that but that’s because they are selling ****.

If Apple scaled up the iPad’s GPU to a full blown desktop card it would outperform AMD and Nvidia’s offerings (per watt, which is important)

What he's saying is that Nvidia has better GPU's(faster and more efficient). That's why every other laptop OEM is using Nvidia cards.
Also Nvidia cards generally have better performance and driver support for professional applications.
And CUDA.

If Apple scaled up the iPad’s GPU to a full blown desktop card it would outperform AMD and Nvidia’s offerings (per watt, which is important)

Performance per watt? I highly doubt that's generally possible. But overall efficiency? maybe.
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I logged in just to upvote and second this.
I think asking customers what they want indicates you have lost your vision.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of them would ask for DVD drive and around 30 various ports from the top and bottom to make it look like a honeycomb. Customers know ****.

Yeah the trash can worked great for them.

 

[Substance90]

Drop the silly Xeons and EEC RAM, it's a fricking workstation, not an enterprise server. Make the normal iMac user upgradeable / modular and call it Pro. There you go.

 

[Peace]

I don’t know . It’s possible a lot of people have this backwards.

Apple could be trying to figure out if the iMac Pro is a viable option in the future.

 

[Marekul]

Have you ever tried designing a product from scratch? They're moving away from the Trash Can. 12 months for a ground up redesign would deliver another failure. They need to get this right.

That is the whole issue, no one wants them to design a computer from scratch. That would be really a stupid thing to do.
No one cares for special cooling solutions, proprietary connectors or specially cut motherboards either. The long wait time is an indicator to me they are thinking really hard how to design obsolescence into the pro and ensure they get maximum profit from upgrades.