Like it or not, Apple needs Mac Pro.

[maflynn]

Macs account for less than 10% of Apple's revenue - and that's including all Macs, i.e. MacBooks, iMacs, Mac minis etc.

I found this graph, and the percentage appears to be lower then 10%

You raise a good point regarding where the Mac sits within Apple's revenue

Macs account for such a small percentage of revenue, one could make the argument that it may not mke financial sense to invest in 10s or 100s of millions on a chip design dedicated to the Mac Pro (or a dedicated desktop chip). What is sad, and disconcerting is that wearables have surpassed the Mac and the iPad is nipping at its heels.

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but there was supposed to be an Extreme version of the M series chip that was supposed to go into the Mac Pro (rumored to be two Ultra chips lashed together) but apple scrapped that, as there were technical challenges they could not over come.

Source

 

[RedWeasel]

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but there was supposed to be an Extreme version of the M series chip that was supposed to go into the Mac Pro (rumored to be two Ultra chips lashed together) but apple scrapped that, as there were technical challenges they could not over come.

Or did not want to invest enough money to overcome.

 

[ForkHandles]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-reportedly-on-back-burner-and-largely-written-off-at-apple.2471279/

Despite that Mac Pro is being on the back burner, Apple will need to develop high-end and/or workstation grade Apple Silicon chips for their own future. I would skip the performance and specs of Macs cause it's gonna be a long conversation despite the fact that Mac's max performance is poor but the most important fact is, they need workstation grade chips to make their own servers for AI.

Take a look at Gemini 3.0. Google trained their own AI with their own chips, TPU. Which means, Apple can also do it as long as they can make their own powerful chips. M3 Ultra? It's extremely slow compared to others especially Nvidia. Furthermore, since Apple Silicon is SoC based, it's too expensive to mass produce especially with ultra-fusion due to the die size. Dont forget that Apple does NOT make chips to sell so they'll need to use chips from Mac, not custom chips just for servers.

Tho Apple is planning to make new chips with a whole new design thanks to TSMC's SoIC, they will need Mac Pro grade Apple Silicon chips one way or another cause in order to compete and improve their Apple Intelligence.

So what Apple is doing with Mac Pro is totally unacceptable.

You’re whole argument ignores Apples market share.

Apple is a predominantly a phone company. Kids want iPhones over android.
Kids want MacBooks over PCs laptop cause they’re cooler.

Most Content creators can do everything they need on a Studio Mac or less.

Look at the sales figures for the company. No one is buying Mac Pros, not for the last fifteen years. How do we know? Because they only get updated once every blue moon.

Uber nerds that need extreme set ups for their work already have a solution, that slice of the market is tiny compared to every other one.

Apple don’t need a Mac Pro. It astonishes me that you can still buy one.

 

[1d1otic]

You’re whole argument ignores Apples market share.

Apple is a predominantly a phone company. Kids want iPhones over android.
Kids want MacBooks over PCs laptop cause they’re cooler.

Most Content creators can do everything they need on a Studio Mac or less.

Look at the sales figures for the company. No one is buying Mac Pros, not for the last fifteen years. How do we know? Because they only get updated once every blue moon.

Uber nerds that need extreme set ups for their work already have a solution, that slice of the market is tiny compared to every other one.

Apple don’t need a Mac Pro. It astonishes me that you can still buy one.

Professionals markets were always niche and same for others. The reason why nobody wants Mac Pro is because Apple keeps killing their own markets. Take a look at Mac Pro 2013, the worst Mac Pro which killed their own markets for a long time. Now, they are doing the same thing again.

Claiming that most people dont need it only proves they know nothing.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

Professionals markets were always niche and same for others. The reason why nobody wants Mac Pro is because Apple keeps killing their own markets. Take a look at Mac Pro 2013, the worst Mac Pro which killed their own markets for a long time. Now, they are doing the same thing again.

Claiming that most people dont need it only proves they know nothing.

I guess they'll be nitwits all the way to the bank then...

 

[ForkHandles]

Professionals markets were always niche and same for others. The reason why nobody wants Mac Pro is because Apple keeps killing their own markets. Take a look at Mac Pro 2013, the worst Mac Pro which killed their own markets for a long time. Now, they are doing the same thing again.

Claiming that most people dont need it only proves they know nothing.

They literally have their sales figures for the product over the last 40 years.

All you have is “I think they must have one!”

My money is on Apple every day

 

[RedWeasel]

The reason why nobody wants Mac Pro is because Apple keeps killing their own markets.

Many markets have also changed, some of them drastically. A lot of data science stuff for example happens in the cloud anyway nowadays. So users rather have a lightweight laptop and then connect to wherever their compute is actually happening.

One area where you still want local is music production for example, because it’s very latency sensitive. And that’s an area where Mac is also still doing well. But a Mac Studio with a M4 Max is more than enough in most cases, a M3 Ultra most often overkill.

And other niches where you’d want a lot of power locally, for example medical imaging or scientific stuff are mostly occupied by Linux and Windows. Why build a Mac Pro for those markets - users probably wouldn’t switch over anyway.

 

[1d1otic]

They literally have their sales figures for the product over the last 40 years.

All you have is “I think they must have one!”

My money is on Apple every day

And yet, Apple made a lot of mistakes which proves that they are not always right.

 

[Siliconguy]

And other niches where you’d want a lot of power locally, for example medical imaging or scientific stuff are mostly occupied by Linux and Windows. Why build a Mac Pro for those markets - users probably wouldn’t switch over anyway.

Those niches are defined by the software and the vendors of that software will go for the PC marketshare. Even Windows 11 isn't bad enough to change that. If Windows 11 does start driving the vendors away it won't be to the Mac as MacOS is full of undeletable cruft that would only interfere with the pricey software. And yes I'm thinking of the newly discovered security hole in the Podcasts app. Why is Podcasts undeletable?

Microsoft already has a stripped down version (no ads!) of Windows for enterprise use. They can strip it down more if they start losing customers due to bloat. And if that is still not enough there is Linux. For what it's worth the Barracuda CFD software used at work was available in Linux and Windows even in 2010. Aspen is another one only available on Windows at least for now.

 

[Abazigal]

Professionals markets were always niche and same for others. The reason why nobody wants Mac Pro is because Apple keeps killing their own markets. Take a look at Mac Pro 2013, the worst Mac Pro which killed their own markets for a long time. Now, they are doing the same thing again.

Claiming that most people dont need it only proves they know nothing.

I feel that throughout Apple's history, people have always wanted modularity in a Mac more than they wanted a Mac Pro. It's a common way to conflate the two, but when you dig deeper, I feel like it's always been an indirect way of hinting that they don't want to pay Apple's asking prices for ram and storage. They just want a workstation that runs macOS and which allows them to upgrade the internals for as long as possible.

I don't know. Maybe there is some strategic advantage that Apple is losing out on by not having a high-end apple silicon chip that can stand toe to toe with what the competition has to offer, and maybe it's a market that Apple is prepared to sit out. They are okay with losing their top 2-3% of customers to Windows maybe.

 

[avro707]

Performance/watt isn't really an issue for high powered workstations. Yes, they need to know overheat, that's a given but it just needs to be very, very powerful.

Just building a Mac Studio in a bigger box with some expansion slots won't do, a Mac Pro has to be something more than that.

My two have been brilliant - being able to run Windows 11 Pro for Workstations and MacOS 26 on the same machine without needing to mess with virtual machines, excellent. They continue to serve very well.

 

[Siliconguy]

Maybe there is some strategic advantage that Apple is losing out on by not having a high-end apple silicon chip that can stand toe to toe with what the competition has to offer, and maybe it's a market that Apple is prepared to sit out.

The cost to benefit ratio isn't there. The very expensive M5 Extreme you want them to build wouldn't sell enough to pay back the cost. The Big Iron guys won't trust Apple given the silly overpricing of the last few Mac Pros along with their habit of dropping support for the the new shiny whatever, and their seven years at best support is not viable if you have the machine hooked up some really expensive hardware.

Then developers won't port the specialty software to the new Mac Pro for the above reasons. This whole argument is basically the AAA Games problem. The gamers want a 200 Watt Threadripper and a 500 Watt 5090 graphics card, and even the NVME needs a heat sink. But how big is that market really? And Apple has to break into it with no street credibility given all the other times they lost interest in gaming. Not happening.

Apple went the road less travelled, all day on a single battery charge and as light as possible given best in class durability. The desktops are a sideshow for those who need more ports and will keep the CPU running hard for prolonged times.

I say that as someone who has just installed an M2 mini in the stereo cabinet for music and video. The 2014 mini was still working but won't do 4k, Monterey is out of date, and who knows how much longer that HDD will keep spinning.

 

[maflynn]

I feel that throughout Apple's history, people have always wanted modularity in a Mac

The personal computer industry was built on moularity, the altair 8800, Apple's own apple I used expansion cards. the IBM PC/Clones all were modular, expandable, and upgradeable. Its only the last 10 years (or so) where Apple has pushed the idea of a closed/sealed system, sadly other computer makers have followed.

I feel like it's always been an indirect way of hinting that they don't want to pay Apple's asking prices for ram and storage.

Of course, and this is where compertition is at its best, where one company over charges, you have the freedom to find another that offers similar products for less. For years the conventional wisdom was to buy a mac with the least amount of ram/storage and upgrade them - this predates intel, and was around the PPC time (maybe even earlier).

They just want a workstation that runs macOS and which allows them to upgrade the internals for as long as possible.

Yep, and doing so means apple sells less computers - apple is in the computer sales business, not the computer upgrade business.

Maybe there is some strategic advantage that Apple is losing out on by not having a high-end apple silicon chip

The strategic advantage is profits, if apple isn't (or doesn't think) making enough money off the sale of the a given product they'll discontinue it.

 

[maflynn]

Microsoft already has a stripped down version (no ads!) of Windows for enterprise use. They can strip it down more if they start losing customers due to bloat.

The erosion has started, but so far MS has been clueless. They're adding more AI, more ways of collecting your data (recall), and forcing people to online accounts, closing the loop holes for local accounts (when installing windows)