The Z range looks pretty impressive, and compared with what I shelled out for my old G5, not all that expensive.
Maybe Apple will produce something similar ...
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Apple's Revamped Mac Pro to Launch in 2019
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The Z range looks pretty impressive, and compared with what I shelled out for my old G5, not all that expensive.
Maybe Apple will produce something similar ...
It's what Apple SHOULD do; therefore, it won't.
Part of it is they don't have or want the support infrastructure in place. Apple is set up to answer questions about simple consumer issues, not anything near the requirements for on site support of a Z system that can be maxed out at over US$100K.
Very true, however Apple desperately want's that kudos and Halo effect so it can make it's predominantly base consumers feel like "Pro's when they purchase their expensive notebooks etc. Apple very much abandoned it's dwindling professional audience years ago.
Only real pity is that no other has stepped into the void. Apple will just continue to present the occasional showpiece and continue with the business of churning out ever more mass consumer product, that in general are designed to serve Apple more than it's customers...
Q-6
I kind of agree. Many power users got tired of waiting and got hackintoshes or switched.
THough the problem is a catch 22. The main reason they are not selling is because the design of the Mac Pro is so bad and was a complete failure and way overpriced. God only knows how many computers would Apple have sold if they would have come up with a good, upgradable, not overpriced Mac Pro.
The MBP is a bit tricky, though, as I think that has always been the case. So, I suppose it fits the newer 'Pro' designation better (as a marketing term) than the 'power user' or older 'quality of the device' designation of pro.
When you talk about the tcMP, is that based on a bad set of them, though, or universally? I was under the impression that they could take 24/7 serious use. I was under the impression the GPU failure thing was isolated, but maybe not. (I'm partly asking, as I'm waiting to see what Apple does with the Mini, but have been considering a base tcMP to get a headless machine that is quiet, but can also do some heavy crunching at times.)
I'm curious if you're talking about the regular iMacs, or are including the iMac Pro here. My understanding is that the iMac Pro does have an adequate cooling system.
I think the confusion here comes down to what we mean by 'pro' and how it is being applied to products. A Pro designation used to typically mean a product was designed to withstand the rigors of professional use. That usually included some of the more extreme levels within the professions being covered.
For example, a professional handheld radio might differ in the ruggedness and water-resistant nature, but otherwise be a similar product to the non-pro version, because the 'professionals' it is intended for might be firefighters, etc.
The new marketing 'Pro' designation seems more targeted at someone like you... i.e.: I use my computer for my work... I'm a professional. This in contrast to a home user or hobbyist. But, in this sense, is a lawyer who bills $200 an hour using a Chromebook make it a pro computer?
In terms of Macs, professional used to refer to a quality of the machine, in context of creative/science professionals who did things like 3D animation, CAD, or some kind of heavier work, often involving graphics, video, etc. This meant that the machine could be expanded to support the kinds of hardware they used, as well as could handle the heavy CPU/GPU use, and support data IO speeds adequate to the job.
The laptop is a bit tricky here, as it is a compromise device. But, even there, I think it could be argued that Apple has been making trade-off decisions that aren't in favor of the more traditional definition of professional use. But in terms of desktops, they clearly made a swing away from that traditional definition.
I wouldn't call it adequate by any stretch of the imagination.
After one year the screen was yellowed and a large 'water stain' mark was permanently scorched into the screen. The top of it would become so hot that you couldn't even touch it without burning yourself.
As a graphics company owner, I can't afford to have my desktop render itself incapable of displaying true white, making accurate printing of products impossible.
You simply can't cram that many high heat generating components in a thin tin box like that.
Apple doesn't have to talk to HP....from an R&D perspective it would be stupidly easy for Apple to release something similar. Apple is making a decision to not release something like that for many of their internal reasons on product strategy.
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The trashcan Mac put them in a bad spot because it ended up being a design failure long term but trying to come up with something to follow up the trashcan is apparently pretty difficult. If we know how Apple works they are not going to go backwards and slap together a standard workstation that runs MacOS(Even thought thats exactly what everyone wants). They need to come up with something that is going to top the trashcan from a design perspective and thats little bit tricky.
A lot of people here seem to think that a somewhat standard workstation with an Apple touch would be a step *forward*.
Not that such a box is very likely to happen. The current MP wasn't such a bad concept, except that GPU power draw (and therefore heat) started increasing much faster than Apple had anticipated. So this modular design that could be upgraded with new graphics, actually couldn't be for thermal reasons. And this is where Apple repeatedly goes wrong. They seem to think they have an accurate crystal ball that allows them to design to a very tight operational envelope. But the thing is, they don't, they're no better (nor worse) than anyone else in the industry. So instead of having designs that lasts through a whole product cycle under varying conditions, they end up with designs that can easily be invalidated by market trends or parts vendor choices.
Oh wow, I had not heard that (though I'm not really in the market for an all-in-one anyway). Interesting.
Yeah, and that's just silly Apple-ego getting in the way of success (of the product line... clearly they can be successful for now with consumer products). They really don't need to top anything from the design perspective (i.e.: some other attempt at 'innovation') but they need a product that works and serves the the intended purpose properly. If that means an 2019 cheese-grater, so be it.
However, I think they actually could now build a 'trashcan' properly, given TB3 (or maybe TB4?) and seeing the Blackmagic eGPU, etc. If there were enough channels with good eGPU options, something like that might actually be viable now (whereas it wasn't in 2013 with TB2).
Yes but those people are not in charge of Apple's strategy which would clearly see a standard workstation as a step backwards after they already came out with the trashcan MP 5 years ago. Never forget Phil's comment and replay this video over and over if you have any doubt on how Apple releases products.
I'm not here to argue if this is good or bad....I'm just stating the fact on how Apple's strategy for products has been for many years now. Remember they are now a trillion dollar company who primarily focuses on mobile devices. They are not going to showcase a standard workstation. It goes against how Apple has been moving directionally for years now. This is reason why a follow up to the Mac Pro is taking so long. They are not going to release anything unless they can showcase something about it design wise and it's a bit difficult doing that when you had to scrap your last innovative design.
All the more reason why I went hackintosh. There's only so long you can wait for a company to get off it's tail.
This video is bizarre for various reasons, not least because some dude is on stage in pajamas and tries to be witty about innovation. But whether his foot is in his mouth or his ass, it's in wrong place either way.
I think Apple are very clearly showing that they have no idea what innovation really is, and they have instead confused it with having a polished design. Which, to be fair, they are far and beyond best at in the computer industry. We can like or dislike their design language, that's subjective of course. What's clear to me though, is that this has been an extremely successful strategy for Apple, and I would credit their massive market cap much to the way that they work with product design.
I happen to like many of their designs. However, as much as I do, I care even more for products with substance and clear value for the money. And this is why the $$'s I had earmarked for Apple products, are now going to other companies. They're just not offering enough value for the money for me right now, and no matter how many notches or trashcans they "innovate", they won't be deceiving me.
I agree they won't be showing a standard workstation. I think people who expect a 2019 Mac Pro to have PCIe cards, DRAM slots, replaceable CPU etc, are going to be very disappointed. It's effectively going to be a Mac Mini "Pro" with everything soldered on, and if you want a GPU you get an external.
I've strongly considered that, but I'm worried it will end up negating some of the reasons I've stayed with Apple. One of my friends has one, and he has to be careful about updates and then spend a half-day or day every so often making it work again after he does.
Plus, I wonder how much longer it will even be possible to do so? (Given integration of A-series special functions and such.)
I agree, and I don't think this has always been the case. But, the general public is often confused about this as well, so it will take a while for Apple to damage their reputation... and even if they do, they can run for a long, long time given their cash and market position.
They are starting to remind me more and more of those silly car designs you see coming out of industrial design student competitions.
Well said. And, again, they used to deliver both. Now that they have cracked the consumer market, I think they've found they can neglect the substance aspect more, and pop-culture will still buy. Unfortunately, they've become the status symbol that all we long-time Apple users fought so hard against when defending our choice. They are now the fashion tech-flavor of the decade.
I agree here too... though your comment makes me think I hadn't considered that maybe the new 'pro' Mini might actually be the core of the upcoming Mac Pro redesign. I'm OK with that, so long as that core isn't priced too far into crazy range. But, I'm hoping the new Mac Mini is maybe something like a quad/hex core i5/i7 and the Mac Pro would probably go Xeon. Maybe they will be extremely similar products otherwise.
That's correct. My Threadripper 16c gets just under 3,000 for that benchmark. Plus a tower machine has multiple HDD bays. My old Mac Pro 5,1 has 6 internal drives by using the CDROM bays. The PC has about 11 internal bays. An all-in-one just does not cut it. If the imac monitor dies, the whole machine is away for service. There are so many reasons the imac is not suitable for production. Mark
Serious question... do most pros these days care about drive bays? While I'm not exactly the target market, there once was a time when drive bays were really important to me too. But, I'm thinking I don't care much about them any longer.
I think the big thing would be the PCI slots, which means it would have to be more of a tower setup, but I doubt it would need to be quite as big as the 'cheese grater' was to make people happy either.
What's the alternative? I'm still holding out hope that Apple will eventually give us something, but if I needed a machine today, I'd probably also have to get a 2013 Mac Pro. Also, just because it is 5 years old, doesn't necessarily make it a bad deal, depending on the config. It is still a pretty powerful machine.
Because they don’t sell a comparable desktop for that price?
The current base Mac Pro is exactly the same as what I bought, and it starts at $3k. And the base new iMac Pro is $5k.
And a maxed out Mac Mini would still be less powerful. Same with a $2k new MacBook Pro (and I didn’t need laptop).
So what other choice did I have other than a Windows machine?
My thought was that for $2k, it’s “good enough” before the new model comes out in hopefully 2019..... in which case I’ll be ready to spend more.
It shouldn't be quite as bad as that. With carefully chosen hardware and being a bit mindful around updates, it's a fairly smooth ride in my experience. You do have to learn a bit about EFI, kexts and the bootloader, which is a bit annoying but also not all that hard. On the plus side, you can choose your hardware quite freely, never have to wait for Apple to actually release the product you want to buy, and you can get normal sized RAM and SSD without paying 2x or 3x for it.
I did a complete rethink of my system at the beginning of the year, and decided to "downgrade" to an 8700K system, and instead build the smallest, quietest little front end desktop system that I can. At 5.2GHz, 1TB 960 EVO and 32G 3400 MHz RAM it's just about the best you can do for few-core workloads. It fits in a shoe box, and I can't hear it even if I try. In a month I can drop an 8-core chip in there, and with Apple I'd have to drop to half the specs and at least double the price.
Apple has nothing even close to the value and fit of this system for me.
Has to be a portable solution for my needs. Apple has simply put itself out the picture for many by only offering hardware that caters to a specific audience. Although Apple desperately wants to be perceived as a provider of professional hardware for the halo effect, in actuality the very opposite is occurring. I have never seen so many drop the Mac for their professional needs, even diehard's. The performance and value gap is simply extending year on year, W10 is now more stable than OS X and moving in a good direction, while the Mac seems stuck in a time warp...
Some 2018 MBP users are trying to limit their CPU's to restrain the temperature, the very opposite is possible even with the base 8750H as long as the notebook has a solid design philosophy:
Holding a full 3.9GHz across all six cores, if Apple want professional's onboard that have demanding workflows this is the level of performance it needs to be offering with the same applying to it's desktops, not just high prices, slick sales & marketing, dongles and mediocre performance...
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i'm actually scared to get news about the new mac pro...
most likely it will be a desaster and the point in time
where i decide to switch over to windows pcs
either it will a closed system again without being able to use standard components (ie. gpu)
or it will be way, way more expensive than a windows machine with the same specs
for a production machine, where the windows apps are exactly the same as the macos versions,
both is not acceptable anymore in 2018
most likely it will be a desaster and the point in time
where i decide to switch over to windows pcs
either it will a closed system again without being able to use standard components (ie. gpu)
or it will be way, way more expensive than a windows machine with the same specs
for a production machine, where the windows apps are exactly the same as the macos versions,
both is not acceptable anymore in 2018
It's a lot easier to do now and with less headaches. Plus you don't lose any of the functions you're used to.
As for the updates, I've already made it a habit to never download the updates until a few days after they come out, just in case Apple messed up something. Better to wait and see what other catch before rushing ahead.
As long as you watch the communities and their updates on what mac os updates are kosher, you'll be good.
Plus, keeping a backup of your system to fall back to is standard practice for any computer user, in case of a mishap.
Yeah, I have an IT background, so it wouldn't technically be a problem (aside from not wanting to). But, the hardware flexibility would be great, for sure (and the cost is a plus too).
If you happen to have a hardware list for that build you can point to, I'd love to see it.
That's an interesting statement. When you talk about stability, do you even mean stuff like how good/reliable audio/video work, or eliminating malware, viruses, etc.? Those are the things I'd be most concerned with. I'm sure both W10 and macOS are pretty stable in terms of not crashing/blue-screening, freezing, etc.
I'm more likely than not to stick with macOS a bit longer, but I have been considering a platform jump at some point if Apple can't get their act together.
Hehe, that's a good idea even with Apple's software and OSs!
Do any of you think Apple's integration of the A-series hardware and such will become an issue for macOS compatibility with a hackintosh down the road? I suppose it won't be for another release or two, but I would think it could eventually be an issue (once that kind of hardware becomes the standard and the rest start falling off the supported list).
I'm in engineering, so not easily answered on the AV side of life. Never had any Malware, Viruses, just use Windows Defender and occasionally double check with a 3rd party standalone scanner. I'm using the systems for a living so all the SW is licensed and from known sources.
Stability for my needs has definitely swung to W10 and a deciding factor to switch. Apple I find is lagging in too many respects bar the aesthetic which for me simply doesn't cut it any more, given the trade offs. The performance differential alone is now significant, nor do I see Apple realistically answering many professionals concerns anytime soon if ever.
I didn't particularly enjoy the transition, however it paid off as although I've tried multiple W10 systems they have all been trouble free. When I have a high computational demand my current primary notebook delivers without any drama, under basic productivity silent. There are aspects of the Mac I miss and I still retain one (rMB) although it's days are numbered, unfortunately Apple decided to pander to a specific audience, mostly ignoring it's professional's needs.
TBH it's no surprise that so few are opting for the Mac professionally, nor is Apple going to revert the trend easily if at all, especially in the desktop arena.
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