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

[Zwhaler]

Apparently, the negative response to the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which many complained was not oriented towards pro users, was a major factor. Apple saw a surge of orders for older MacBook Pros instead of the new model, and that, combined with the reaction to the LG 5K display and the "constant negativity" from professional users, led Apple to "double down on professional users."

Oh my gosh, complaining actually worked.

They say vote with your dollars, and it looks like that worked too.

I'm impressed.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

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?

The 2013 Mac Pro is an Intel Reference Design. Yeahrightsure.

Apple has custom silicon all OVER its "Intel Reference Designs". That makes sense. NOT. Hell, even the SSD Controller is Apple-Custom on the new MBPs.

The ONLY Mac Pros that were "Intel Reference Designs" were the original, you-have-to-give-these-back 2005 "Preview" units. THOSE were Intel Mobos in a Mac Pro case.

The Acers, HPs (maybe) and Dells of the world might roll that way; but Apple generally rolls their own Designs. They certainly get some help with certain subsections from time to time; but they don't just change a couple of connectors and slap an Apple logo on stuff.

 

[Cole Slaw]

Two years to design this is insane. I've seen Kickstarter projects to design very elaborate and intricate PC cases completed in less time, and usually with just a dude or two working after-hours and weekends.

You'd thing a dozen engineers working full-time, with basically essentially limitless resources could bang out an design in a few weeks followed by a few rounds of prototyping and testing over a few months, meanwhile other engineers could retool manufacturing for the new design in a month or two after that. Even with Apple's polish and rigerous testing, this shouldn't take more than 10 months tops.

Agreed.
Designing a desktop computer isn't exactly the Manhattan Project.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

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.

Well, I wish them all luck trying to get people to PAY for all those Android Apps they Develop. It's not in their User-base's mindset.

 

[MallardDuck]

I don't think the touch bar was the issue. Had they kept ports, a bigger battery, and seriously improved the processing, graphics, memory, etc., it wouldn't have mattered. I thought the touch bar was a fantastic hardware innovation. To pro users, they dropped the ball in other ways and then charged way too much for it. That made the touch bar "the" innovation of the machine, which was a letdown. It should have had it all!

And not raised the price for a meh upgrade on top of the rest.

For the pro - I missed one point in my earlier list. Rack-mountable. Trying to put trash cans on shelve in a rack in a data center wastes a ton of space.

 

[tongxinshe]

I'm going to be so pissed if they remove the Touch Bar. Way to ruin other people's workflows, MR members.

Dude, did you really read the comments before you fire out your piss against them? The negativity was mostly towards the abrupt port change and price hike, not the touch bar!

 

[sfwalter]

I'm curious what apple means when they say it will be modular. Is it modular for them or the end user.

I could see Apple creating a small box where a user couldn't add drives or update the graphics card. However the design would easily allows them to offer upgrades on a yearly basis

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Just a wait a second, now. Recall Tim Berners-Lee developed the initial incarnation of the very World Wide Web into existence on a NeXT Cube.

Hey, hey, hey, don't you mean Al Gore? (ducks)

I'm not saying great things weren't done with any of those things. They just weren't "commercially successful".

 

[Bacillus]

Well, an Apple that listens to customers could be the start of a new era for Apple, most likely will help to improve a lot of their under performing divisions. If you are not selling much of product X, and customer don't like product X, then stop releasing incremental minor changes to product X and calling it a day. Seems obvious Apple can't keep assuming the status quo for their entire Mac division is going to endear them to customers that have been complaining for years that Apple is being left behind for performance and innovation compared to their competition.
Apple may have had the ability to know what customers wanted before customers knew what they wanted and stave off customer demand of features that other competition had for good reasons, but that era is over once Steve Jobs passed away. NOBODY at Apple today can claim to have the kind of skill Steve Jobs had of being able to predict what customers would covet a few years in the future and come out with a product that might not be well received at first, but helped to define an industry a year later.
Today, Apple has to start listening to their customer base and make important decisions to move product lines forward with innovations customers expect and demand rather then keep selling a 5+ year old product with a few new parts in them.
It is obvious Apple woke up this past few weeks and realized that outside of iPhone, Apple is trailing in every other market segment, things like Apple Watch are moot for company growth, and the mind share of consumers are drifting away and largely that has come at the cost of ignoring customer demands and arrogantly assuming that a product that is 5+ years old is still what customers want and need today. I am not saying they have to cave in to everything customers want, but obvious attempting to sell a soda can as a professional product that can't actually fit in the state of the art equipment driving professional desktops today is not going to succeed for them anymore.
It will be interesting to see what Apple defines as "modular", but I think if they do it right they could re surge back into the mind share of professionals demanding uncompromising performance, features and upgrade potential. The worst thing that Apple could do is to try and shoehorn PC components into a fancy glossy tiny box and consider "modular" meaning to select one or two limited options from Apple.com when you add it to the cart; that will alienate professionals and they will lose in that market completely.

I admire your positivity, but my feelings are way different.
I really wonder: was this the Apple board?
Everything they say seems part of a "cover up plan" made up some days ago only to get rid of all the negativity they called upon themselves after 4/5 years of pure neglect.
All that time they did't care about the product, customer, brand, platform.
But now suddenly...well forget it. Note that there hasn't been a single real commitment around the modular MacPro. Just a vague sign at the "horizon" (which, other than the pipeline, is looming forever to keep the perspective in place)
I am so disappointed. People that leave their customers with 4/5 year old models/refurbs/retrogrades you shouldn't be in the IT industry (or either car-, tourist-, food/leisure, maybe in bricks and mortar)
People that work in the IT-industry normally live by customer demand, of customers that made investments to fund their R&D. If that demand gets interpreted/develops into "constant negativity", it is time for them to say goodbye and look for another job.
I'd better leave it here, trying to forget these guys...

 

[LordVic]

I'm curious what apple means when they say it will be modular. Is it modular for them or the end user.

I could see Apple creating a small box where a user couldn't add drives or update the graphics card. However the design would easily allows them to offer upgrades on a yearly basis

the Current Mac Pro was supposed to be that. The internals of the device themselves weren't to be upgraded, But because it came with a lot of PCI-E lanes and tonnes of Thunderbolt ports, the expectations was that everything would become modular and just add on via Thunderbolt.

it failed. People don't mind the occasional external accessory. But relying exclusively on external boxes for all upgrade/expansion si a messy thing that doesn't work in a lot of workspaces.

So the question still remains about what Apple considers modular

 

[jwdsail]

Apple needs to 'come back home' to the prosumer, professional crowd. This crowd is what catapulted them into the mainstream in the first place. Once that prosumer appeal turned into mainstream consumer appeal, it seems Apple never maintained their niche products in ways that attracted prosumers to them in the first place.

- Upgradable Mac Pro.

- End to end product similarity, like the Mac Mini being hooked up to an Apple Display, not some asymmetric, ugly, out of place 3rd party monitor.

- Taking away functional features like the function row on the 'Pro' laptops when no one really asked for it.

- Worse battery life at the expense of thinness with their laptops.

- Using lesser DDR3 due to thinness and reduced battery size in their laptops, when DDR4 has been out and has been the norm now for years (DDR5 is coming next year). Also, more RAM capacity.

- Or for that matter, not updating products like the Mac Pro or Mac Mini for years.

I'm glad the appropriate people at the top at Apple are waking up and realizing that there's other customers out there besides those who want phones, tablets, and laptops.

Don't forget the crappy keyboard in the "Pro" laptop, again, all in the name of thin.. It's the most uncomfortable POS KB I've ever used. So little key travel, may as well be an iPad! They damn well better fix that too..

 

[Rustus Maximus]

the Current Mac Pro was supposed to be that...

The design team seems to have forgotten or been overridden on many of Rams commandments for good industrial design on The Can™. Compare the previous generation Mac Pro to The Can™ and see how they stack up following those theories. Overdesigned and not long lasting due to it's lack of upgradeability.

 

[macduke]

Or, or...leave that 'outdated' technology in a model for those who need it and make a new 'midrange' model for those users, like yourself, who don't want to be saddled with annoying outdated concepts like better ventilation, multiple powerful modern GPUs and tons and tons of internal storage. Then when and if you and the rest of the 90% want to add those things you can buy Apple's nice and always inexpensive expansion modules. Perhaps that is where they are headed.

Uhhh, you can still have good ventilation, powerful GPUs and plenty of internal storage with a mid-sized tower. Spinning drives are outdated, as are optical media. There's no denying that unless you're a luddite. This machine is being built for 2018/2019, not 1998. Maybe they should include a backup 56K modem too? Maybe include a Creative Sound Blaster card? VGA and P2/2 ports? What you need is a PC. I'm not saying they should go full trashcan because obviously that was a stupid mistake. But it should still be designed for the future where people will be editing 8K movies on these things. Four slots for blade SSDs directly attached to the bus at full speed that can be upgraded would be adequate. It takes a single cable to attach to an external drive array. You could buy one that houses 8 drives at 8TB apiece for a total storage of 64TB with a single TB cable to set up RAID 0/1/5 or whatever strikes your fancy.

 

[jwdsail]

??? The MacBook Pro is pretty practical. I wonder how much of the negativity could have been avoided if they provided a dock in the box that included a USB-A port and Thunderbolt 2. TB3/USB-C are clearly the future.

I don't think USB-C is/was the main issue people were truly pissed about?

The worst KB I've ever used... in a $4000 laptop?

No upgradable ram or storage (and BTO max on both what I already have in my 2012?) in a $4000 laptop?

Marginally useful touchbar, and no BTO option to go w/o and keep function keys, in a $4000 laptop?

Worse battery life than the previous model, again in a $4000 laptop?

And the kicker, the majority of these problems come from a weird fetish for thin over any other possible feature? Thin being possibly the LEAST important feature of all in a $4000 Pro laptop.

EDIT - Can't believe I forgot the death of MagSafe. Like, WTAF? Perhaps the most useful innovation Apple had in the laptop market, and a true real world advantage Apple had over all competitors in the laptop market. A major downgrade to again, a $4000 laptop...

I think most of the negativity re: the 2016 MBP came from real issues, that actually affected a majority of Pro users trying to use these for work. The USB-C/TB3 issue was an annoyance in comparison. I'm sure that annoyance was magnified if the person affected was also affected by even one of the above issues as well.

Shrug.


apple.com/feedback

 

[kazmac]

My fave MPro concept is still this one ....which seems like a no-brainer for them...

(from http://www.macsessed.com/posts/will-apples-next-mac-pro-look-like-any-of-these-concepts/)

Interesting. That pre-dates the HP elite slice by a few years (a concept I like BTW except for the internals.)

 

[davidb367]

I don't see it as contempt. Companies don't have some obligation to produce products that don't sell well enough to affect the bottom line. They are in this to increase shareholder value. The Mac Pro is an odd duck because there is an argument to be made that it's important to the ecosystem. I sorta buy that, and I definitely want a new Mac Pro.. but I might see it differently if I was running Apple.

I think that the Apple management started looking at revenue projections in the future and realized that they were going to be in big trouble. The iPad and iPhone are pretty much mature with little or no growth. The music player sector is flatlining. Microsoft hardware was starting to bite into their creative professional sector ( desktop and portable ), and the content creation sector told them that Macs were to no longer suitable or viable long term to keep pace with newer graphics hardware.

The only place left to increase revenue was from the Mac division which they had ignored for 3+ years.

 

[jriskin]

It's not really even about the Touch bar. It's about having the ports pros need (no usb, no hdmi, no ethernet, no sd card slot), it's about having the expansion pros need (16GB max *AND* not upgradable?), and it's about having the nice touches that lower end laptops lack (mag safe, backlit keyboard, etc).

 

[Janichsan]

The Thread of the Beast.

 

[nia820]

Legitimate criticism is now negativity ?

 

[peter2]

Spinning drives are outdated, as are optical media. There's no denying that unless you're a luddite. .... Four slots for blade SSDs directly attached to the bus at full speed that can be upgraded would be adequate. It takes a single cable to attach to an external drive array. You could buy one that houses 8 drives at 8TB apiece for a total storage of 64TB with a single TB cable to set up RAID 0/1/5 or whatever strikes your fancy.

Why the hell should I buy a RAID storage enclosure, if I could simply pop in 4x12TB 3.5" HDD in the computer directly (think the old Mac Pro, where actually you can put 6 without adding a SATA controller, if you don't need the optical drive). On top of that, your celebrated RAID enclosure most likely will not have copy on write... so I would be much better off just running the drives in a Mac Pro with ZFS... And I could have done it natively, if Apple bought Sun instead of the hipster headphone company.

BTW, try buying a 72TB storage without using the "outdated" spinning drives, and without committing a bank robbery first to be able to afford it ;-)

 

[mogga71]

Apple executives this week made an unusual and surprising announcement, detailing the company's work on an entirely revamped high-end modular Mac Pro that's set to be released sometime after 2017.

No specific information on a potential release date was shared, but OSnews' Thom Holwerda has shared some tidbits heard from "people and sources who know their stuff," giving a little insight into just when we might see the revamped Mac Pro and why Apple decided to renew its focus on professional users.

Ahead of Apple's announcement, Holwerda says the Mac Pro was in limbo, and Apple wasn't sure what was going to happen to the machine.

Apparently, the negative response to the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which many complained was not oriented towards pro users, was a major factor. Apple saw a surge of orders for older MacBook Pros instead of the new model, and that, combined with the reaction to the LG 5K display and the "constant negativity" from professional users, led Apple to "double down on professional users."

The decision to move ahead with a modular Mac Pro replacement was made "in recent months" with development starting "only a few weeks ago," suggesting it's going to be a long wait.

Given a rough estimate of the length of time it normally takes to develop a project, it could be late 2018 or even 2019 before we see the machine.Aside from the Mac Pro, Holwerda also believes Apple is working on additional MacBook Pro models sans Touch Bar, and developing other features aimed at professionals, such as pairing the iPad Pro with a Mac so that it can be used as a Cintiq-style drawing tablet.

Apple hasn't shared a lot of detail on the new Mac Pro, but the promised modular design will allow professional users to keep it up to date with new hardware on a regular basis. Apple executives have said the machine will also be able to handle virtual reality software and high-end cinema editing, pointing towards support for higher-end single GPUs, and Apple also plans to ship the machine with an Apple-branded professional display.

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

Just how stupid does poor Phil feel right now (despite his many millions)? .... 'Can't innovate my ass'.

Well Phil, it turned out it was your ass. Maybe he should be forced to do a 'moony' when the new one is eventually announced.

Dear God ...

In all seriousness, they should give anybody who currently has the waste paper bin a big discount when the new one finally arrives.

And, for Christ sakes Apple, why does it take you an absolute eternity to bring new models out? Its not as if you are strapped for cash. It's like the tag line to every years big horror movie ..... 'COMING......THIS FALL .... ACTUALLY HALLOWEEN'

 

[jasonv1]

The question is will they give you what you want (artful design, special sauce, etc), what you need (expansion, speed, capacity, etc.), or both?

I say this because we all know where the revenue comes from these days, and even when/if this box drops that revenue share pie won't really change, especially when a single iPhone 9/10/whatever brings in $1000 in revenue by itself. And they sell a lot of those phones....

If the 2019 rumor is true I'm assuming they are shooting for more than just "top end 201X hardware", because it can't take that long to design a high end "what you need" config.

 

[idunn]

Tim Cook could impress professionals by releasing the previous cheese-grater Mac Pro with updated internals this year, at a discounted price.

Followed by a thoroughly updated, upgradeable, and expensive Mac Pro in 2018, worth every penny of it. Throw in a righteous external monitor as well.

— AND not only professional software to match same, but, most importantly, a believable roadmap into the future of regular updates. As in Apple understands and will meet one's needs. Something one could base sound business decisions upon.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Uhhh, you can still have good ventilation, powerful GPUs and plenty of internal storage with a mid-sized tower. Spinning drives are outdated, as are optical media. There's no denying that unless you're a luddite. This machine is being built for 2018/2019, not 1998.

You're being disingenuous about the limitations of a smaller form factor and you know it. A larger system, should one's work require it, will provide better options for all of those things, air or liquid cooling, larger GPUs, more GPUs, more RAM slots, etc. We can also pretend that spinning drives are 'horrible tech from 1998 that no serious techie would want to use' but that also would be disingenuous. Until storage costs come down for larger SSDs then spinning disks are with us for the foreseeable future. Not as a system or scratch drive but as storage? You won't beat it's cost ratio at this point in history.

Maybe they should include a backup 56K modem too? Maybe include a Creative Sound Blaster card? VGA and P2/2 ports? What you need is a PC.

All of your examples are strawman examples that were not in the previous generation Mac Pro, or any Mac for many many years for that matter. Nowhere did anyone who was against The Can™ say they wanted those things, but you know that. Oh, and we don't want a PC, we want a Mac. We just want a different kind of Mac than you.

But the 56k modem might be fun to have just for the old bing bong sounds it used to make when connecting to AOL.

I'm not saying they should go full trashcan because obviously that was a stupid mistake. But it should still be designed for the future where people will be editing 8K movies on these things. Four slots for blade SSDs directly attached to the bus at full speed that can be upgraded would be adequate. It takes a single cable to attach to an external drive array. You could buy one that houses 8 drives at 8TB apiece for a total storage of 64TB with a single TB cable to set up RAID 0/1/5 or whatever strikes your fancy.

All good ideas. I agree with you here. I am for them. I want to see them in the next Mac Pro. TB3 (or 4 by then), USB 3.1 Gen 2, M.2, U.2, Isolinear Chips, a warp drive. None of those things are precluded by granting the requests of people like myself. If anything more of that tech can go into a larger form factor.

 

[jwdsail]

I thought the new MacBook Pro broke sales records when it was released? Don't tell me that now it's not true. And why on earth did they spend all that time on the trash can, non upgradeable design for the Mac Pro? And now they are saying, hey guys, we goofed, just hang in there for a couple of more years while we get our act together. In the meantime, you can keep buying the outdated model knowing we never should have made it in the first place. We care about our pro customers!!

I suspect that perhaps, just maybe, "MacBook Pro" sales in the period following the 2016 release broke records, because the 2015 refurbs were included in the "MacBook Pro" sales figures?

Shrug?