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They simply are unable to make an enclosure and put some stuff in it like all the other companies do once or twice a year. It's mind boggling.
Because like those other companies, you have absolutely no "vision".

Why oh why would Apple choose to try to compete with a form-factor that has already been perfected and cost-reduced to within an inch of its life by those Other Companies?
 
Really?
..... I think towers are a sad, default design, that stuck because it was easy to design and build.

Yes, really. Modularity doesn't have to be plugging a bunch of stuff in with USB-C wires and having bits here and there all over the desk. Towers are extremely modular, and designed to have nearly all the modularity hidden away on the inside. I think the cheese grater Mac Pros up to 5,1 are some of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen. I don't think anyone looks at the 5,1 Mac Pros and thinks "yuck, towers are ugly". Those Mac Pros were massively modular, had fantastic thermals and looked amazing.
 
No. For the most part the iMac Pro is the replacement for the vast majority of folks who bought the MP 2013. Apple is only keeping the MP 2013 around now primarily as a placeholder for the next Mac Pro. They probably don't have huge inventory and don't have any new production queued up to make more. Apple reduced the prices ( well really moved the better specs to lower price points) last year. There were some fire sales by 3rd parties during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday holiday sales windows.

For folks getting off the MP 2013 has a solution so there is no "major wildfire" crisis. the folks on super old 2009-2010 era stuff have waited pretty long anyway. ( yes some will stomp off in disgust , but also not a huge group either. ) .

I suspect that this is really early 2019, not mid or late 2019. That something that could have arrived in Dec 2018 is there were zero bumps in the road will show up on the conservatively predicated time of early 2019 (because there are always bumps in the road in new development projects ).
What you said makes no sense at all.

All-in-ones are the exact opposite of workstations.

Workstations are bought by people who need expandability, upgradeability, cooling, and modularity. AIO's have none of those things, while also being not portable. They are literally the worst of all worlds.

Keeping an overpriced 5-year-old product on your website as a "placeholder" is not a sentence that makes sense.

Imagine if you could buy a Dodge Neon on Chrysler's website for full price....people would think they were being predatory. Which they are.

Apple has not shipped a workstation since 2012. Let that sink in. Do you have any idea how long six years is in the computer industry?

They literally chose to stop servicing the workstation market and then have the nerve to call gimmicky ultrabooks with bad keyboards and 16GB of soldered RAM "pro".
 
All of these years, all of the people's comments over those years. Admitting that they've blown it with the Mac. And now the "thing" is not going to be ready until sometime in 2019 because they are still deciding on what to do. What a disappointment. Apple grows and grows but delivers less and less. The pro side and the mini side continues to get not Apple's best. I can't think of an Apple product that I want to buy right now. I looked at the speaker, no stereo, no buy. The iMac, while an improvement, still doesn't give us what we need and if it wasn't for Final Cut Pro, we would be gone. Apple is finding more and more ways for us to save money.
 
There is one last thing to keep an eye out for:
Xcode for iOS (or even Windows). The day Apple releases that product, you know for sure that the mac line of computers is inevitably dead, no matter what anyone at Apple says.

The main reason for Apple to keep macs are that you cannot make great iOS apps on any other platform and no apps means it will hurt iPhone sales badly.

Nah, they have a huge market in music production, video editing and such.. It is possible to be in both markets- and advertise for both markets. Again, people also spelled doom for apple, when Steve introduced the iPod.

I almost only use the iPad in the couch, bed, and on the go - but when I produce music or develop, I use the Mac.
 
Because like those other companies, you have absolutely no "vision".

Why oh why would Apple choose to try to compete with a form-factor that has already been perfected and cost-reduced to within an inch of its life by those Other Companies?

Ssoooo your complaining about the competition having perfected and, utterly destroying Apple, with their perfected pro machines? Your arguing why should Apple do the same? Not sure if your being serious here?
 
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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!

You’re glad they’ve got the balls to not upgrade a computer for six years? That’s not courageous. That’s bad management.
 
Companies with far less in the way of resources and expertise manage to release products that evolve with changing standards and improving technology. EVERY YEAR COMPANIES DO THIS. This includes releasing products with interface, processor, memory, storage and GPU technology that is available RIGHT NOW, but leaving options open where feasible for upgrades. The implication is that Apple can't design a platform that could use current technologies, but yet still be adaptable to periodically releasing an updated machine built on that platform design.

Being able to adapt incrementally to improvements is the whole point of a "modular" design. If I have to buy a machine with today's technology in it, and live with that even if a ThunderBusExtreme 4 LE capable machine might be available next year, I'll deal with it, or hope there's a PCI or TB solution if I truly need it later. That's the same "problem" every other workstation manufacturer and their consumers are forced to grapple with continuously. It doesn't stop other companies from releasing products; in fact most other companies I'm sure look at it as a sales opportunity or a chance to get in front of their competitors.

Apple is capable of this. They choose not to. If we're condoning Apple's mistreatment of the pro segment of their marketplace by suggesting it's sensible to wait for whatever is on deck for next year's technology to become available, we're going to be sitting in this same position for a very VERY long time, perhaps indefinitely if you adopt this philosophy in total.

Still, I appreciate the clarity, even if it's wrapped in some ridiculous and disingenuous guise of being customer focused. It looks like I'll be doing some research to upgrade the video cards in my aging 4,1 box since that's clearly where I'm going to be staying for quite a while.

I don't think you are getting what I'm saying it all. Of course Apple is technically capable of doing all of this, just as they have been since before the trashcan MP and chose not to. They've had people waiting and waiting...

When they finally do launch it, after all that wait, its not enough for it to launch late into TB3/PCIe3 as the type of users who would want an MP would likely just delay their purchases with a "well, TB4 is right around the corner, I'll just hold out on my 4,1 or 5,1 until then". I'm not condoning any of the long ass time its taken for them to focus on Pros in the way that they should -- I'm just estimating what path Apple will take to position the MP at the top of the power/performance spectrum of Macs and what kind of value proposition they will pitch it with.

They won't want to launch it after all this time as an equivalent to the iMac Pro -- they will want to position it above that, and TB4 & PCIe 4 are logical options for part of how they can do that
 
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!

It would be more spectacularly impressive. But the Mac Pro 2013 was spectacular. Apple (and the vast majority of users don't need a stunt or impressive) need a tool that has a sustainable business model. Period.

Too high power and the niche is so small it isn't sustainable. Many folks are sitting on these systems longer so the number of folks coming up for upgrades is shrinking. Increasing that shrink by jumping even higher is just as likely to put the product on a death spiral as anything else. ( less people so charge more so less people so charge more .... death spiral )


It isn't about bragging rights on CPU. The CPU on the Mac Pro and the iMac can be the same because they systems as a whole offer substantively different things. There are very few users who are just solely focus solely on CPUs.

Those who need their own screen(s), add-in cards, a GPU vendor different from the one Apple picked for the default GPU , etc. can buy the Mac Pro even though the same CPU could be in an iMac Pro.

If the CPU is the only factor and want to just pull the machine out of the box, plug it in and use it then the iMac Pro is better. If already have screen and replacing a tower/module box and that is it then the Mac Pro would be better. Different people have different needs even if have a single primary criteria there area always secondary ones to do the product discrimination on.

There are more dimension to these systems that just CPU. The same is true for GPUs. Solely wrapping the systems around a specific GPU is myopic also.


The iMac Pro has other rather significant limitations.

1. It has a singular storage drive. Just one.

Folks who like to put 8-10TB of storage inside the computer the iMac is a non option.
Even with just 1-3 HDD SATA drives the Mac Pro would pull away from the iMac Pro.
Even if Apple stuck to their path of "SATA is dead long live PCI-e SSDs" 1-2 M.2 SSD empty slots would be a substantive improvement over the iMac Pro's limitation of just one proprietary SSD.


2. a Thunderbolt v3 eGPU PCI-e card enclosure can't solve some problems.

8K RAW video capture. Nope ( does most pros need it, no? but some do)
lowest possible latency audo capture. Nope. (does most pros need it, no? but some do )
.....

also if folks have a PCI-e card that hooks them to some > $10K system they get kind of twisted about sunk costs. If that is more than what they paying for the Mac Pro (or iMac Pro ) then have a tail wagging the dog effect. They want a slot in the system to put the card into to turn the whole thing back on. That's mostly it.

Just giving folks a single x16 slot to stick a card into would be a major separator from the iMac Pro.


3. some folks want to put the Mac into a rack because there is a set of equipment that provides the solution. (e.g. mobile video capture system that take to locations bolted to a rack with wheels. ). The iMac Pro llkely isn't going to work. If new Mac Pro was standard rack friendly it would be easy to bolt in. The CPU and GPUs differences between the to may not matter much in that context.



This whole mindset that the Mac Pro needs to be some tech spec porn dominator over every other possible Mac is alot of the junk that got to the Mac Pro 2013 designed into a corner. It doesn't.

Primarily it needs to solve a substantively different set of problems for a different set of users who are happy with the iMac Pro. That's it. Do that and the iMac Pro and Mac Pro can share components to offset the too low volume to be viable for Apple market constraints. Mac Pro doesn't need to beat up on the iMac Pro ... it just have to be different enough so there is limited fratricide sales between the products. Two fraternal twins that are different. Same parents but look different.

Dual Xeons is a dubious "look different" metric when there are so many others.
 
...or lots of Research, Prototyping, More Research, More Prototyping, until it is RIGHT.

They get it right with hardware that is a few gens old by the time they’ve finished ‘perfecting’ it..
Meanwhile the competition has had several gens of machinists nes using newer faster more capable hardware.

You are defending Apple very hard on this topic, got to admire your persistence here as you certainly are the only person doing so... that should be telling you something..
 
I still don't understand why literally everyone else in the industry can figure out how to put a motherboard in a box and sell it. Apple has to do all manner of mental gymnastics to come up with something different and "cutting edge," when all their pro users want is a powerful box with internal expandability capable of natively running OS X.

My long held belief is that Apple created the late 2013 Mac Pro for two reasons - 1) To cut down on the cost of the raw aluminum that was necessary to build such a large tower and increase their overall profit margins and 2) To increase the number of Mac Pros that could be packed into a FedEx plane to cut down on shipping costs...oh and 3) To shift the support of certain configurations to third party vendors like Promise, Sonnet Technology and Other World Computing when it came to storage and PCIe expansion, but I digress.

Personally, I do want Apple to do a bit more than figure out how to put a motherboard in a box and sell it. I don't think the mental gymnastics are unwarranted, but the proof will be in the pudding when the Mac Pro finally ships. Is it simply a proprietary $h*tst0rm with modules plugging into modules that make what should be a fully decked out system for $4999 end up costing 2x-3x as much with no discernible advantage other than to lock me into Apple's view of a Pro computer AGAIN, or does this approach truly give me a way to mix and match the modules I need now (fast CPU with 8-12 cores, lots or RAM, not so much GPU and no PCIe slots) and expand later (dual CPU and more storage)? If Apple can create something like that and it has some longevity, I am there and I think it will be compelling. If this is something that is half-baked and ends up about as modular as an Apple Watch, then Pros are going to have a field day. Either way, it taking six years to get to this point is exhausting for most of us and justifiably so. Apple can do better.
 
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For Apple to first talk about ANY sort of timeline and second for them to admit that they were on the wrong path is a massive change and something that is very welcomed.

They talk about timelines and being wrong because they don't have any products to talk about and iPhone sales have maxed out. They should have been supporting Pro users since the beginning, as Pro users sales don't max out. But they got in bed with only teenagers and now teenager's toys are all Apple has.
 
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Ssoooo your complaining about the competition having perfected and, utterly destroying Apple, with their perfected pro machines? Your arguing why should Apple do the same? Not sure if your being serious here?
It figures that would be your "takeaway" from that comment.

What I mean is that Apple needs to do what Apple does, and everyone else follows: INNOVATE.
 
Lol, I find it so funny trying to find apologies for Apple not to update their hardware for 6+ years. It should’ve made them very little efforts to update their machines with the latest technologies. Every self respecting hardware manufacturer is doing this to stay relevant in business.

There is simply no excuse for Apple not doing this. And to say technology has plateaued as an excuse for Apple?... how come that every Dell or HP workstation runs circles around a more expensive 6 year old MacPro? It’s a shame they didn’t even reduce the prices of a 6 years old Mac mini or Mac Pro.

Every computer manufacturer knows that technology keeps evolving at a rapid speed. To stay competitive and relevant in this market you have to keep renewing and evolving. Apple knows this but has chosen not to. They’ve deliberately neglected the Mac market and I’m afraid that if they’re not willing to lose money on the Mac Pro in the beginning by pricing it comparable to HP or Dell’s latest offerings, they won’t regain again. It’s a long term investment. No money for the short run. Not something that make Cook or his shareholders happy.
What do you call switching to all SSD and USB-C/TB3 and building All-In-Ones with 5K displays, but "Adopting new technologies"?

And then, they get excoriated for it.

It may come as a surprise to someone as visionless as you; but "Adopting new technologies" does NOT mean "Putting the next iteration of the same old Intel CPU into a new plastic enclosure and calling it "New".
 
""completely rethinking" the Mac Pro"

completely overthinking like the MP 2013, trying to work out how thin it should be.

I'm sure it'll be great but will be paying for lots of things that aren't necessary
 
What do you call switching to all SSD and USB-C/TB3 and building All-In-Ones with 5K displays, but "Adopting new technologies"?

And then, they get excoriated for it.

It may come as a surprise to someone as visionless as you; but "Adopting new technologies" does NOT mean "Putting the next iteration of the same old Intel CPU into a new plastic enclosure and calling it "New".
You don’t know what’s already out there. Apple is the laggard here and the competition is setting the standards in markets once belonged to Apple. Yes their iMacs are okay. I recently bought the 5K i7 iMac myself. I could have better hardware for far less from HP or Dell though.
 
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You’re glad they’ve got the balls to not upgrade a computer for six years? That’s not courageous. That’s bad management.
Nope. That's non-spastic Management.

They took a flyer on a radical new design back in 2010 or 2011, when the Mac Pro redesign probably started internally at Apple. Didn't think some things through quite far enough (like the Thermal Budget), and some predictions, such as them OBVIOUSLY predicting that TB would become "The Next Big Thing" (mostly Intel's fault for being too greedy/controlling) simply didn't pan out.

Because of the OBVIOUSLY huge R&D investment in the 2013 Mac Pro, and because it was projected to not be a "fly off the shelves" consumer-grade product, they gave it some time to see if it would "grow" on people. For some, it did; but for others (too many others!), not so much.

The rest of the time was just convincing Upper Management to spend ANOTHER multimillions-of-dollars to specifically-design a high-end (and thus expensive) Product to address a Market that, quite frankly, is actually pretty small.
 
That last MacPro was released spring 2014, it's a little over 4 years old - stop that lying with over 6 years.
What update, lol
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Yeah, go hire an industrial designer from HP or Dell. That would be SOOOOO much better...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
At least we would get state of the art tech for reasonable prices. Oh wait... Tim Cook will do the pricing :eek:
 
They get it right with hardware that is a few gens old by the time they’ve finished ‘perfecting’ it..
Meanwhile the competition has had several gens of machinists nes using newer faster more capable hardware.

You are defending Apple very hard on this topic, got to admire your persistence here as you certainly are the only person doing so... that should be telling you something..
Thanks for the "props"; and genuinely sorry to read your sig-line about "Jasper" (whoever that was); but I am not at ALL the only person "Defending Apple" on this. And even if I am, that's only because MR seems to be infested by more Apple HATERS than ANYTHING.

Wonder why? Since most of those "people" (I use the term loosely!) wouldn't buy an Apple product if it only cost a Penny...
 
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