Apple's Revamped Mac Pro to Launch in 2019

[jimothyGator]

No, he’s making an observation (correct) that a large number of people who wouldn’t even be in the market for a Mac Pro will still complain about all its supposed flaws.

Some of those people would buy a Mac Pro if it weren’t for those flaws, the biggest one being that it’ll be six years since it was last update. That’s a pretty legitimate complaint, and a legitimate reason not to buy one, don’t you think?

The problem isn’t that there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t be a Mac Pro customer. The problem is that Apple has offered would-be Mac Pro customers little in the last several years.

 

[dfs]

Apple's redesigned, modular Mac Pro aimed at professionals is set to launch in 2019, according to an update Apple recently provided to TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino, who took a trip to the company's Cupertino campus.

The team responsible for revamping Apple's pro product efforts was there to provide updated details both on the Mac Pro and how Apple is shaping it to meet the needs of real professional users.

Apple's current Mac Pro​

Employees in the meeting included John Ternus, VP of Hardware Engineering, Tom Boger, Senior Director of Mac Hardware Marketing, Jud Coplan, Director of video Apps Product Marketing, and Xander Soren, Director of Music Apps Product Marketing.

Panzarino was told in no uncertain terms that the Mac Pro will not be arriving before 2019 as the product is still in development. From Tom Boger:Apple wants customers to know that the Mac Pro isn't coming in 2018 so those who are planning to make a purchase decision for a pro machine like the iMac Pro won't hold off in the hopes of a Mac Pro materializing later in the year.

In the time since Apple announced major changes for the next-generation Mac Pro last year, it has put together a "Pro Workflow Team" led by John Ternus, where employees who focus on pro-level products all work together.

Apple has also been hiring award-winning artists and technicians in an effort to understand the real workflows that creative professionals use to better tailor its products to them. The individuals shoot real projects and then use Apple's hardware and software to find "sticking points that could cause frustration and friction" for pro users.

Apple's Pro Workflow Team finds and addresses the issues that come up, even down to tiny details like tweaking a graphics driver, and it's not just Apple's products that benefit - the company's employees are also working with third-party apps. From Tom Bogar, senior Mac marketing director:The Pro Workflow team, in addition to improving current Apple products, is also an essential part of Mac Pro development. Their work is "definitely influencing" what Apple's planning for, with Apple achieving a "much much much deeper understanding" of pro customers, their workflows, and their needs. This understanding is "really informing" the work Apple is doing on the Mac Pro," according to Bogar.

No details were provided on the shape of the Mac Pro or the internal components that it might include, but Apple is still planning on a modular machine, as announced last year, so plans have not changed. Apple back then said that it was "completely rethinking" the Mac Pro, and that it is "by definition" a modular system. Apple at the time also said a pro display was in development alongside the new machine.

A modular Mac Pro concept from Curved.de​

Panzarino says we're not likely to hear any additional detail about the Mac Pro at WWDC in June, and that he expects Apple will keep quiet about the machine until next year.

Panzarino's full piece on Apple's efforts to tailor the Mac Pro and other pro-level products to meet professional needs, which goes into much greater detail, can be read over at TechCrunch.

Article Link: Apple's Revamped Mac Pro to Launch in 2019

The natural home for a device like this is in some kind of studio or laboratory. A common denominator between these two kinds of place is a strong preference for rack-mountable gear. This is why putting out a cylindrical MacPro was a serious mistake that probably cost the company Big Bucks. I hope Apple won't repeat it next time around.

 

[SteveW928]

What about the Mac Mini though?

No doubt, as at least that could make due for some people (if they include the new Intel i5 4-core to i9 6-core line), enough RAM, and TB3 (for eGPU support).

Also, I was strongly considering a 2013 Mac Pro for now, but now the latest macOS pulled support for eGPUs on TB2!

The MBP line is a mess, aside from the 2015 models, which also got eGPU support pulled now.

 

[H. Flower]

This is apple we're talking about, it'll be Dec 31 2019.

Most of their recent releases have been late, so why would it be unreasonable to expect 2020?

 

[tdar]

1. When all you can get is the same form-factor, then it tends to eventually become a "standard", even if it has issues/deficiencies for some Applications (e.g., big towers have big power supplies with big, noisy fans and hard drives. This is totally unsuitable for use in locations like studio control-rooms, editing suites, animation stations, and really anyplace where creative types do their work. Also, "Pros" often need much more raw compute-power than can fit into one machine's enclosure/architecture. But the only way to solve that for a "tower" (or rackmount) design is to gang them together. This causes unnecessary duplication of resources, plus even more noisy power supplies, etc., and is sub-optimal if that compute-power is working on the same dataset. Then there's the issue of Ports: You can only stuff so many cards in a Tower of ANY size. This severely limits the number of Ports that can be included in any one box. "Pros" often would like to use tools that are spread among differing Platforms. But the amount of resources needed for each of these "Pro-Level" tasks (and their Pro-Sized Datasets!) makes the classic Virtualization model somewhat impractical. Etc. etc.). But, depending on exactly WHAT "Modular" means, Apple could be solving some or all of those problems

2. People make money every single day with the 2013 Mac Pro, too. Now what?

3. It really does sound like Apple is starting with a clean sheet of paper, REALLY trying to address Pro Users' needs, rather than just making another "Me too" tower, which has long been nothing more than a race to the bottom. Something that Apple (wisely) stays far away from.

You need to spend some time on the HP website or the Dell Professional website. You will see that they have already thought of everything that you said there and have had answers for all of it for years now. They also have ISV certification's that back up their designs. Might the real problem for Apple be that they no longer have enough real pro's left to make a product around that can be profitable?

 

[wigby]

That we know of.

Who knows what they have sitting in the lab?

If we're going to speculate that much then we can also speculate on what Intel has sitting in their lab too.

No ARM processor has ever been demonstrated to come close to server class Intel CPU performance. I suppose you could cluster together a few dozen ARM processors but then all of your developers would have to re-write for such a cluster anyway. There's no easy way around basic physics and development time.

 

[H. Flower]

Hell yeah. But make it smaller...about 1/4 the size of the Cheese Grater.

I'd gladly buy a machine double the size of the old cheese grater and most other professionals would, too, if they would just pull their heads out of their a***es and release something reasonable and soon.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Those aren't self canceling at all. I don't know how to rebuild my car's engine, but if it took my mechanic years to do so, I'm completely right if I say something is amiss.

Show me a truly new Apple Mac Pro design…you've got to go all the way back to 2013. That's half of my point. It shouldn't take six years to upgrade a computer!

The other half of my point is that maybe what customers need isn't a "truly new" design, but just a new, upgraded computer! This is especially the case if that truly new design turns out to be a dead end like the current Mac Pro. Apple could give customers a better, faster, and probably less expensive computer now (or better yet, last year, or the year before, or the year before that…).

If you think it should take one of the world's leading electronic companies six years to upgrade a computer, and that there's nothing wrong with that, then you and I have different expectations for what Apple is capable of. Apple is capable of much more than this, and the fact that they haven't delivered is evidence that they are doing something wrong. It's not my foot that's been shot.

But it MIGHT take your mechanic a LOOOOOONG time to DESIGN a NEW Engine. You don't seem to get the difference in scale between the two tasks.

It DOESN'T take 6 years to REDESIGN a new Computer. What takes the time is: Realizing the sales just aren't taking-off; then running around trying to find out what the REAL issue(s) is/are; then getting Management (who just finished spending MILLIONS to Design/Develop a radically-new system, that was proposed by the LAST breathless Engineering Team), to "buy into" ANOTHER multimillion dollar REDESIGN (rather than just trying to Update the existing one!); and THEN, assembling a Team and actually DOING it. I also think that the timing had something to do with moving into the new Apple HQ. They may simply not had the space at their old HQ to house another R&D team doing parallel product development in absolute secrecy, even from the other R&D teams.

Apple OBVIOUSLY isn't satisfied with designing another computer that, other than the logo on the side, is indistinguishable from all the race-to-the-bottom tower computers out there. But name me ONE of those tower computer "design" companies who are actually willing to start with a clean-sheet-of-paper, and build a "Dream System" ENTIRELY FROM THE WISHES OF THE INTENDED AUDIENCE.

I'll wait.

THAT's the difference between what Apple is doing, and what YOU think they SHOULD be doing. And quite frankly, I'm glad they have the balls to do it!

 

[Mr. Dee]

Its quite obvious I don't need this. Will pick up a 15 inch MBP 2019 and Mac Mini 2019 instead.

 

[H. Flower]

Dream System

 

[9081094]

Mac Pro with Quad Apple A14X processors configurable up to 8, Mac iOS 12...

You heard it from me, first here...

You're welcome...

It seems like there is only one engineer left at Apple. The rest are marketeers or so called “visionares”. Lots of talk but not delivering. Then we have minimalistic Ive. He just finished the carpets and wall decorations in Apple park. Now he’s busy with a reprint of his Apple book to bolster his ego. They can only focus at one product at a time. iPhones are most profitable so they upped the price a bit to make it seem more special.

Anyone who’s put trust in their hardware on a professional level has already left. So I’m very curious what audience will be the next target. When looking into Tim’s infinite pipeline I can only hear an echo from the same 6 year old mantra: it’s coming, it’s coming, great things, you can only see this coming from Apple.

They’ve proven these last six years that they aren’t capable of being competitive on any front any more. Siri, maps, FCP, routers, servers, monitors, ergonomic disaster touch bar pro, Mac mini, Mac Pro and even the 6+ years old design of the iMac.

What Apple needs to do with those billions is house cleaning and becoming nimblecompany with a vision again for the long haul.

Enough talk! Deliver! Put those billions to work by making reliable software and competitive hardware.

Stop being a fashion brand. Even for a fashion company you need to introduce a new collection once in a while.

 

[Zwhaler]

Probably won't happen.

Lots of folks wanted "dual xeons" to get to 8 DIMM slots . Apple can just do that with just one Intel W. Mac Pro 8 DIMMs and iMac Pro 4 DIMMs is a useful to keep the two differentiated.

The number of dual xeons never where the majority of Mac Pro sales. That's why the 2009-2012 model went through efforts to use same base system to cover both single and dual with the CPU card. Individually neither of them had critical mass to support separate development. ( other folks do different models but the both neither have have Apple's margins nor other design constraints).

The iMac Pro and the Mac Pro together might have critical mass. ( e..g., reach something close to a 100K per year run rate). They'd need to ahare major components but not the exact same physical logic board.

The iMac Pro has approximately the same thermal envelope as the MP 2013 did. The a new Mac Pro could simply just go back to 800-900W and do more. ( implementation of lesson learned. )

Both AMD and Intel have forked off the single CPU package workstation product SKU from the 2 (or more ) SKUs. And jacked up the prices for higher base clocks. They "data center" products are deoptimize for single user systems. They are tweaked toward many concurrent user workloads.

18 relatively fast cores covers a huge amount of workloads. Yes there are a few left over but how many folks in that few group. When Intel/AMD go to next round of fab process then probably will get an increase in core count. Basically getting going forward NUMA / multiple chip packages in these top end designs going forward. It is two CPU dies packaged in a single chip container.

What the "dual CPU package" is going forward is some multiple of two dies in two slots. That is going to drift farther and farther away from a single user looking at the screen selecting what to do next.

I agree with you..
If the new Mac Pro doesn't have better CPU options than the iMac Pro, I'm going to be pretty disappointed. Granted, the top end iMac Pro covers all my computing needs. If Apple makes the new Mac Pro as much more powerful than the iMac Pro than the iMac Pro is from the iMac, that would be impressive!

 

[jetjaguar]

mac pro and 3 x 8k apple monitors

 

[kwikdeth]

There are design-decisions that would have to be made that would either make the base Mac mini too expensive and/or the Mac Pro too low-powered for true "Pro" work.

Maybe a new mini will fall-out of this research; but I don't think that an "infinitely-expanding mini" is in the cards this time around.

Apple has shown with the iMac Pro they can stuff a larger TDP CPU into that kind of packaging, and have no problems with having a separate motherboard design for a low-margin product. they could design a small chassis with appropriate TDP for both kinds of CPUs, they're already doing it with the imac/imac pro.

the fact they just added official eGPU support in the latest OSX update, the writing is on the wall as far as im concerned.

 

[now i see it]

Too late. The ship has sailed. People that have work to do have moved on. Nobody in their right mind pins their financial success on a tool made by a company that abandoned them. Every ex Mac Pro user who's moved on to professional modern PCs ain't coming back.

 

[wigby]

I got it from guessing as I said in the sentence

Fair point but your wording seemed to indicate that your guessing was based upon something specific in the story. Mac Pro and Mac mini are on the opposite ends of Apple's desktop product spectrum so I see no connection between them whatsoever.

 

[Mousse]

Apple - please go back to the previous form factor or something similar, where there is loads of room for customisation, add-ins and extra cards. The fan layout of the previous format was excellent as well and even when working really hard, everything stayed cool.

The fact that the machine ran cooler with the case closed is a testament to damn fine design and engineering: function over form.

I'd gladly buy a machine double the size of the old cheese grater and most other professionals would, too, if they would just pull their heads out of their a***es and release something reasonable and soon.

Weight is the issue for me. I'm not young anymore, so lugging around a 40lbs computer + monitor is not my idea of a good time. Besides, it would be maybe 90% empty space inside the old Cheese Grater using today's computer parts.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

It's been 6 years since Apple updated the Mac Pro. When did they stop selling their large screens? Forgot, too long ago. At least 3 years for the Mac mini. The iMac hasn't changed in its design form for at least 6 years. Virtually the same since it was launched. Not as though you could change it too much, but still. I can't be optimistic when Apple has continued to disappoint veteran Mac Users. The user upgrades was targeted at Mac Pro, iMac models. I accept with laptops it may be a bit harder. But why can't Apple try to be different, compared to PC manufacturers, by offering clever designs that allow user upgrades? I remember being able to replace the large battery on a 17" MacBook Pro when they expanded due to a faulty battery component. I bought three 17" MacBook pros, best laptop ever in my opinion. And yes, the Micro LED displays look promising. If Apple can launch new iPhones every year or two, why can't they do the same for their computers? Sadly, Apple is a phone company now, not a computer company. I can't be positive or optimistic, until Apple make good macs, liked they did once.

"Not as though you could change it that much..."

You just said it all.

Microprocessor speeds have hit a brick wall. GPUs are the only things getting faster.

Displays are stuck at 4 or 5k, and have been for a few years now.

Intel STILL hasn't done anything to break-through the 16 GB practical RAM "barrier" for laptops.

So, what's left to TRULY innovate when it comes to traditional computer form-factors?

Phones are different. It all pretty much comes down to the capabilities of the SoC and the Display. And Apple has been pushing the Soc side of things and so far, getting worthwhile gains, year-over-year. The same can't be said for Desktop systems. So, you get the Dells and HPs of the world, touting "this year's new and improved", when at best it is just a minor speed bump (if at all), with VERY little else changed/improved over last year's model. Yawn. If you call THAT "innovation", the real definition of that word obviously escapes you...

 

[sjbayguy]

Great.

Now do the Mac Mini.

I waited over a year for an update and finally bought a PC for my media server. Apple could have easily had my money if they would just update their lineup more often.

 

[thekeyring]

why so long????

I wonder, too.

I'm not trying to have a go at Apple, but as people have said before: Why can't Apple just take iMac Pro-level specs and put them in a pretty-looking box?

It makes me really excited for what they're working on.

 

[9081094]

It's amazing what Apple's customers will put up with. The device they are designing now should have been started years ago. Telling folks there is still a very long way to go? I'm not so sure anymore if MacOS is worth the trouble of their hardware decisions and timelines.

I hope this is an incredible setup. And I hope they also release a great monitor with it. And I'm thinking with Apple addressing the education sector, and overhauling (hopefully) Mac pro's design, they are trying to return to their roots for the hardware.

But boy do they beat up on their loyal customers.

They’ve lost the education market, they’ve lost the printing/publishing market, and they definitely lost big ground in the movie industry... what’s left besides consumers?

If they re-enter the pro market again: they won’t sell big numbers in the beginning because they’ve lost trust which is hard to regain. They would have to invest by selling competitive hardware at a reasonable price. Apple has proven these last 6 years its not willing to do that. So I put my bets on HP or Dell to come up with better solution the time the new Mac Pro arrives. I hope Apple will surprise me, but I already know that it will be wishful thinking.

 

[Wags]

So, sometime between 7 to 19 month window? Geez. Thanks for the teaser.

 

[Polymorphic]

Cue the complaints from people that won't be putting down the money to buy a Mac Pro regardless.

Only because we've already moved on.

 

[BurgDog]

Apple could quickly meet most pro needs by partnering with HP on some select workstation configurations and selling them with MacOS support. Apple likely doesn't have the hardware expertise to get to market quickly on this given the constraints on who Apple wants to hire and the limited number of people who would meet those constraints who are not already working for other companies.

 

[MrBat]

Too late. The ship has sailed. People that have work to do have moved on. Nobody in their right mind pins their financial success on a tool made by a company that abandoned them. Every ex Mac Pro user who's moved on to professional modern PCs ain't coming back.

Those that left already, it's going to be hard to lure them back. Win10, more or less, "works" and gets the job done. Also, "cheap" hardware parts are aplenty and easily available on the PC market. Need more internal Storage? slap a new 12 TB hard drive. More RAM? No problem. More PCIe lines or cores? Threadripper or EPYC, on the cheap. and this goes on and on.

For those professionals still tied up to macOS, if not yet on hackingtosh, maybe the new Mac Pro will get them back on board to fully Apple made hardware.

Apple did play with fire on this one.