Exactly this. To me this says "the Mac Pro still isn't coming any time soon but here's a nod to the Pro market to show that we still have you in mind". Nice one - so initially, for those in the market for one, but who don't actually 'need' the extra 128GB or the upper level graphics offered from this morning, they're all still sitting in the exact same boat that they were in last night.
Looking more carefully at the iMac 27" updates they kind of needed the "extra 128GB". Apple's tech specs for the new 27" models is still pegging max RAM at 64GB but the new CPUs being used have a limit of 128GB. They need to show there is a "max" capacity gap on the iMac Pro. But yes, still mostly it is more a placeholder than a real update. [ even Apple isn't marking it as 'New" on their website. ]
The iMac Pro/Mac Pro relationship will no doubt echo that of the iMac/Mac Mini - ie both pretty much the same, only one is an all-in-one version of the other, although in the case of the latter, neither are particularly expandable anyway!
I wouldn't bet on that. I don't think Apple is going to build the ultimate container as the primary objective for the next Mac Pro, but there is about zero good reason even they would limit the next Mac Pro in volume and footprint to the levels the Mini is. That's primarily what got them into trouble the
last time with the Mac Pro 2013 ( desktop footprint smaller than a Mini. ). I extremely doubt they are out to repeat that same miss step as close to completely as possible.
The Mac Pro will probably get a T2 (probably like the iMac Pros implementation) because Apple isn't going to care about holding the standard configuration prices rigidly ( like this iteration of the iMacs ). And if go down to just one standard GPU then have bill of material (BOM) trade-off money to make on going to a bigger standard SSD.
The Mac Pro 2013 had a cover that was easy to take off. That probably isn't going away.
The standard boot display GPU has a good chance of being Apple specific, but that too was removable in last Mac Pro ... that probably won't change.
So when this Modularly Expandable Mac Pro DOES finally come to fruition and people have already jumped in now to purchase £15k's-worth of iMac Pro because they can't wait, just how disappointed are they going to be?
If the iMac Pro does the current workload they need to make a living right now..... probably not very disappointed at all. If use it for 1-3 years and sell it and buy a then current (or what passes for current) Mac Pro it won't be a huge issue. At 1-2 years old they could probably get at least most of the money back out of the system.
As a "nice to have... don't actually need it" purchase there probably be some regret, but if they are at the point of loosing revenue opportunities without something new then sitting still is even worse that being on an iMac. Pro (or something else new) no matter what the future move is.
But I think that it's safe to say that the new Mac Pro, when it arrives, is going to make the iMac Pro look like the bargain of the century!
I won't bet on that one either. The current Mac Pro is purely financial "dominate" over the iMac Pro in pricing. There is little rational reason to push the Mac Pro into the "has to b way more than iMac Pro" at the base price level.
The new iMacs topping at 8 cores probably means Mac Pro will probably start at 8 ( instead of 6). I think the top end build to order (BTO) options for the iMac Pro will run into problems. Maxing out a Mac Pro with 3rd party memory will probably be more affordable than doing at the Apple online store for both the Mac Pro and iMac Pro.
Apple could also fix that by doing a deep update to the iMac Pro to put a RAM door back in. (e.g., go to super wide screen and move the CPU so can place the DIMMs back into the middle. Or just put a door where they are. ). Just like he iMac Pro updated here to adjust to the new feature set of the iMacs, there is a very good chance that the iMac Pro will adjust with the Mac Pro also. ( Especially since they did next to nothing as new work on this update. They have had time to work on something better. )