'Constant Negativity' From Pro Users Led Apple to Develop Modular Mac Pro, Which May Not Ship Until 2019

[Urban Joe]

I would like to think that Apple has the resources to hire top engineers, but whoever designed the nMP was apparently unable to assess that an asymmetrically configured triangular assembly would generate heat asymmetrically; and it took them three years to figure that out?

Two years may seem short, but the market doesn't wait for anybody.

Did they just put marketing schlubs in the lab, who insisted on as many geometric primitives in any given design as possible?

If Apple had such lofty goals, they should have cranked out another sensibly upgraded cheese grater, while they concurrently figured out the right way to do a completely different configuration, that nobody asked for.

Yep. And I would like to remind everybody that Schiller used the design as prima facie evidence that Apple can innovate it's ass off. Well, I guess he's right. By the time these clowns are done Apple won't have an ASS. Sorry, but if Steve were alive, he would probably throw a chair at these over bloated egos running his company now.

 

[DevNull0]

Lmaooo . So blunt, but so true.

You're right. But at this point, I'd settle for the old keyboard, magsafe, a USB-A port, and an SD reader.

The boot chime and lighted logo would be big pluses. A few years ago, I took an Enterprise Dev training program. I was in a crowded classroom full of windows laptops, I booted up my MBP (with bootcamp), and when the chime sounded a voice from the room shouted how much he misses that sound (since he's living in a windows world) and he got some applause from the room.

The current management just doesn't get what makes Apple magical.

 

[ssgbryan]

See here's the thing, you don't edit 4K video...but the iPhones record 4K video. If you wanted to, could you edit 4K video on your 2016 MacBook Pro with ease? Could you clean up parts that are over exposed, reprocess copies that are easily distributed to friends and family?

That is what I need to do with a 90 minute 4K video I took of my daughter's concert. I haven't tried it yet. I don't know where to begin, yet. My husband hasn't had much time but tried fiddling around a little with a copy of the video on his three year old iMac and said only it was going to be a bear and he didn't have time to mess with it anytime soon.

And you couldn't send that 4K video to your Apple TV.

 

[DevNull0]

I thought the new MacBook Pro broke sales records when it was released? Don't tell me that now it's not true.

iirc, they said it broke online sales records. And it was the first MBP they preordered online like an iPhone, there was much more push to order it rather than go to an Apple store.

A lot of people at the time said Apple is probably using the preorder technicality to give a BS statistic and cover for abysmal sales.
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There is a name for this: vapourware

Never would have thought Apple would sink so low as to move from only talking about shipping products to the Microsoft-90's style of promising the coolest world imaginable without actually shipping something real. Apple must feel the pressure of alternative platforms if they resort to this kind of tactic.

Agreed. At this point I'm hoping that either Apple crashes and burns badly enough that Timmy and the band of stooges get ousted or they just get their act together and start selling real computers again. I don't really care which right now.

 

[Royksöpp]

Things Apple added in 2016:

Emoji Bar
Dongles
Watch Bands


Things Apple killed in 2016:

Airport
Cinema Displays
Headphone Jacks
USB Ports
MagSafe
Thunderbolt Ports
SD Card Readers

Things that haven't been updated as of April 2017

Mac Mini
iMac
iPad Mini
iPad Pro
iPod
Mac Pro (That pitiful "update" doesn't count)

 

[Naimfan]

iirc, they said it broke online sales records. And it was the first MBP they preordered online like an iPhone, there was much more push to order it rather than go to an Apple store.

A lot of people at the time said Apple is probably using the preorder technicality to give a BS statistic and cover for abysmal sales.

Exactly correct.

Every previous 15" rMBP had been available in stores and online the day it was announced (per MacRumors coverage). Apple was disingenuous at best with that claim.

 

[DevNull0]

See here's the thing, you don't edit 4K video...but the iPhones record 4K video. If you wanted to, could you edit 4K video on your 2016 MacBook Pro with ease? Could you clean up parts that are over exposed, reprocess copies that are easily distributed to friends and family?

I played with a Sony AX55 4k camcorder for a while. The files absolutely choked every mac I tried them on. My $1500 PC handled the files beautifully.

 

[ssgbryan]

2019??!? Anything beyond spring 2018 is unacceptable. Technically we're already in unacceptable territory. 2019 is absolutely insane. What pro user is going to wait that long? Maybe they'll keep bleeding users, see the crap sales numbers, and then justify not releasing it or releasing any more after the new one based on the poor sales numbers that they are artificially creating! Circular logic is fun.

I don't get what would take them so long. Design constraints for a big desktop are easy compared to the iPhone or Watch. Can't imagine why it would take longer than a few months. Just base it mostly on the old tower design, but smaller since we don't need all the optical drives and large 3.5" internal drives. Make it Jet Black. If it's truly modular and will take two years, then they must be designing some kind of proprietary system where you buy little component boxes that slide into a frame or something, and that's not what pros want either!

Speak for yourself - I need that optical drive and 5 internal 3.5" drive bays.

 

[DevNull0]

Things Apple added in 2016:

Emoji Bar
Dongles

You forgot about watchbands. That makes it all worthwhile.

 

[1madman1]

If announced I'd preorder a new Mac Pro tower the moment they are listed on the store. I love my 5,1 and even purchased a spare a few months back just in case anything goes wrong with it.

On a related note, I'd also have purchased a new MacBook Pro if they had an SD card slot. I don't care about *any* other ports on my portable - it could have zero USB support for all I care.

 

[Royksöpp]

My read (between the lines... subjectively) on this is:

• This meant a compromise in product performance at the high-end, affecting serious Pro users
• Therefore, most people (like me, honestly) have been pleased with the current line of Mac/Macbook products, but high end Pro users have not

Hopefully, this will result in a long-term improvement overall, bringing the Mac ethos back into line with its historical success.

What?

So what your saying is that your perfectly content with paying a premium for a pretty computer thats underpowered? I'm what world does that make any sense? Perhaps the Emoji Bar was too good not to give in.

 

[Jack Burton]

Umm no. There's already solid workhorse workstations for VR and AR. Apple simply painted themselves into corner and bet on the wrong horse. They thought (in 2013) that multi-GPUs per machine is going to be the way to go forward. Instead it was the single powerful GPU that became the go to card.

I wish Apple never said this so the Apple blogs didn't feel the need to echo it. It points out that their existing hardware isn't powerful enough and paints them as extremely uninformed about the pro market and gpu computing. It's embarrassing to witness.

 

[Royksöpp]

You forgot about watchbands. That makes it all worthwhile.

How could I forget such an innovation? Edited!

 

[DevNull0]

Two to three years for product-development for something as complex as a Mac Pro is not at all out-of-line.

It really is just an intel reference motherboard with a modified bios (meaning Intel does 95% of the work, and historically Apple has added very little not in the reference design). There's a little more to it and Apple shouldn't rush it out the door half-baked but 2-3 years for a company with a $10B+ annual R&D budget?

 

[borgusio]

Nope, they have been busy making a bigger iPad, and two laptops... and endless countless ridiculously high numbers of different style watch bands.....

I think it's a clear sign their own sheer arrogance has blinded them and all the money they've been making..

EDIT:: oh I forgot about the new Apple TV which is cool to be honest.

This is exactly what is happening in my companies. I build startups for myself and my corporate clients.

Until end of 2015 the best software developers would beg me to help them bend the rules and bring their private Mac at work. We had an iOS first approach when it comes to apps development.

Then, mid 2016 they started asking the company to pay for Lenovos on Linux and end of last year all of a sudden all our android apps were fitter than the iOS ones.

The reasons are easy to understand:
- too high entry price for decent new hardware specifications
- no leasing program for students and startups (vs. Grenke leasing for any pc within hours)
- no high end configurations to play around with the hardware

So, students are leaving iOS development.

And now comes the most dangerous part: corporates with windows 7 which were thinking to go with Apple, are reconsidering right now, due to the serviceability. Since most corporates are embracing the path of digitalization, more and more companies are doing software now. And since they cannot develop for iOS with a windows PC.. go figure what happens to iOS development.

Corporates will be leaving iOS development.

The whole thing happened within the last 6 months (!!!) under my own eyes. It is not a theory: it is happening. When I started working in my Web agency back in 2004, the Mac Pro was the machine tu have in the Office to show that you were the guy to work with. All my competitors had at least one of those machines. Today? I still did not see ONE Mac Pro around (yes I did not see or touch a nMP since 2013).
Waiting unti 2019 will be very risky for Apple.

 

[Theophil1971]

What?

So what your saying is that your perfectly content with paying a premium for a pretty computer thats underpowered? I'm what world does that make any sense? Perhaps the Emoji Bar was too good not to give in.

The cool-aid diet is unwise. The very phrase, "Emoji bar" is evidence enough that you don't own one of these machines, or understand the functionality of the touch bar. Just another glory-seeking troll. God, I'm sick of the pretentious, condescending, judgmental trolls. Go back to Microsoft or Linux or whatever self righteous platform strokes your ego.

I'm not a high-end Pro user. It's not underpowered for my needs and professional usage. I use MacOS, not Windows in my work environment, and so YES, the current MacBook pros are wonderful for my (and many other people's) useage scanarios.

I know that you assume that everyone in the world operates according to your paradigm. But step back from the narcissistic perspective for just a second and realize - not everyone is just like you.

I'm not someone who does 4K video editing on the go for a living. People in high-end professions need a Pro machine that exceeds the capabilities of the current Apple "Pro" lineup. But these people are not the majority of users. The majority are folks like me, who need mid-level power on a well-constructed machine with good battery life. The current lineup supplies that well, and so provides ample power for what we need. We're plenty happy with Apple's current offerings.

Those in the genuinely Pro professions need more.

That's it. For many, myself included, the current offerings are more than adequate. For those who need more, Apple is finally recognizing the need to step up.

No need to be pretentious. Buy a Windows machine if you're convinced that Apple is a bad value for *anyone* and *everyone*. Why are you wasting your time on a Mac forum when you see no value in Macs? Whatever. Get a life.

 

[MH01]

I'm surprised they were willing to admit it. They always try to spin it off in some marketing way like "many people bought the MBP", or "we still think it's great".

They did that in the beginning, when they announced it was the most successful MacBook Pro ever to be preordered - it was the first , therefore most successful

 

[borgusio]

Things Apple added in 2016:

Emoji Bar
Dongles
Watch Bands


Things Apple killed in 2016:

Airport
Cinema Displays
Headphone Jacks
USB Ports
MagSafe
Thunderbolt Ports
SD Card Readers

Things that haven't been updated as of April 2017

Mac Mini
iMac
iPad Mini
iPad Pro
iPod
Mac Pro (That pitiful "update" doesn't count)

They wasted the last four years with these things:
- set agreements for an Apple TV with screen (product idea left from jobs to cook), FAILED (that would never have happened with Jobs) and said "oh we did not mean it seriously, it is just an hobby"
- try to buy Tesla and FAILED, try to build own iCar (again product idea from jobs) and FAILED (that would never have happened with Jobs) and thought "oh we did not mean it seriously, it is just an hobby"
- choose decorations for the new Apple campus (again idea from jobs)
- redesign the alarm clock of the iPhone which after forstall's leave was changed into two text buttons where you could not choose if snooze or not and I had to buy a separate alarm clock to travel cause my phone was not able to wake me up properly anymore (thanks god they solved now).

Oh, did I forget that the last Mac I bought is a Mac mini 2011 i7 and dedicated AMD card, a power beast, the last one presented by Steve? And did I mention that there is no replacement for that?

 

[mcbeenb]

2 years? Are you kidding me? I could have one built next week if there were proper drivers for pascal out. We don't need "new modular designs". They just need to grab any decent PC motherboard, ,install OS X, and put it in a serviceable case. Done. How do I know this? I'm typing on one!!! I just wish I didn't have to boot into windows to use my 1080.

Ooooo... Maybe their new one can move the power plug to the underside of the case so you can't plug it in while using it!

 

[Ladybug]

Says someone who obviously knows nothing about the quality and reliability of Dell Precision Workstations...unless you are still regurgitating 10 year old myths about Dell, MOST name-brand equipment (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) is all very reliable nowadays. Unless, of course, you choose bottom-of-the-line crap in which case you deserve what you get.

Dell XPS, Dell Latitude and Optiplex and Dell Precision are all great quality. The latter models are backed by standard 3 year warranties...your precious Apple won't even stand behind their hardware with that.

Agreed! My last XPS was still going after 7 years. It was upgraded several times throughout and it would still be functioning well today however my home took on a foot of water this past August. I left it to dry out over a month and it continued to work for two more months before it bit the dust.

 

[borgusio]

The cool-aid diet is unwise.

I'm not a high-end Pro user. It's not underpowered for my needs and professional usage. I use MacOS, not Windows in my work environment, and so YES, the current MacBook pros are wonderful for my (and many other people's) useage scanarios.

I know that you assume that everyone in the world operates according to your paradigm. But step back from the narcissistic perspective for just a second and realize - not everyone is just like you.

I'm not someone who does 4K video editing on the go for a living. People in high-end professions need a Pro machine that exceeds the capabilities of the current Apple "Pro" lineup. But these people are not the majority of users. The majority are folks like me, who need mid-level power on a well-constructed machine with good battery life. The current lineup supplies that well, and so provides ample power for what we need. We're plenty happy with Apple's current offerings.

Those in the genuinely Pro professions need more.

That's it. For many, myself included, the current offerings are more than adequate. For those who need more, Apple is finally reconfigured zing the need to step up.

No need to be pretentious. Buy a Windows machine if you're convinced that Apple is a bad value for *anyone* and *everyone*. Whatever.

you are absolutely right. Unfortunately the guys like me do the videos, software and apps that move iPhones and iPads. If we leave, Apple may still sell a lot of beautiful machines to customers like you, but iOS will go down.

 

[dampfnudel]

I think Apple might update the MacBook Pro sooner than later.

There's nothing holding them back with their resources. Admitting their mistakes and more importantly, fixing them as promptly as possible is ultimately in their best economic interest. It's glaringly obvious to them that they need a good follow up to their less than stellar MBP release that resulted in the "negativity" or as most of us would like to call it, "constructive criticism" that followed. Better sooner than later (significant price break, at least one USB-A port, 32GB RAM option, Kaby Lake, form-fitting battery with more capacity, etc.)

 

[cfurlin]

It is courageous to call feedback from users "negativity"

Not really. Most people think their incessant whining constitutes "feedback".

 

[MH01]

The cool-aid diet is unwise.

I'm not a high-end Pro user. I'm not someone who does 4K video editing on the go for a living. People in high-end professions need a Pro machine that exceeds the capabilities of the current Apple "Pro" lineup. But these people are not the majority of users. The majority are folks like me, who need mid-level power on a well-constructed machine with good battery life. The current lineup supplies that well, and so provides ample power for what we need. We're plenty happy with Apple's current offerings.

Those in the genuinely Pro professions need more.

That's it. For many, myself included, the current offerings are more than adequate. For those who need more, Apple is finally reconfigured zing the need to step up.

No need to be pretentious. Buy a Windows machine if you're convinced that Apple is a bad value for *anyone* and *everyone*. Whatever.

You are spot on. For the average user, the current line up is great, heaps of power etc. It's a great laptop, a MacBook Air pro, just not a MacBook Pro.

 

[Theophil1971]

You are spot on. For the average user, the current line up is great, heaps of power etc. It's a great laptop, a MacBook Air pro, just not a MacBook Pro.

Exactly. More than great for average users like me. But the real power users need more, and Apple needs to provide it. Hopefully this means they will (again), because providing for high-end graphic/video/business pros is a huge part of what made them great.
Catering solely to average users like me makes us happy - but makes Apple no better than Dell or Gateway (ugh) in the end
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you are absolutely right. Unfortunately the guys like me do the videos, software and apps that move iPhones and iPads. If we leave, Apple may still sell a lot of beautiful machines to customers like you, but iOS will go down.

Yep. Guys like you are the market and users that made Apple great in the late 90s, and distinguished Apple from Dell, Gateway, and all the other PC cookie-cutters.
I'm praying that Apple recovers that ethos. For the sake of the Pro users like you, and for their own sake.