Here is hoping. IMO, this will be the first "Big" test between Steve as CEO and Tim.
I can see Tim going either direction.
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Mac Pro Build-to-Order Ship Dates Slip as Future Remains Uncertain
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Here is hoping. IMO, this will be the first "Big" test between Steve as CEO and Tim.
I can see Tim going either direction.
It's very hard to accidentally unplug an internal disk on a Mac Pro....
Not sure what your point is. Someone could accidentally unplug/switch off from mains the power supply which would be even worse.
It should be noted that the reason stores don't stock MacPro is MacPro users want customization. That is better done at a well equipped central location. Playing with a MacPro in a store while fun and cute is hard to really see the true speed or capacity benefits. It is existing computer users of all flavors that gravitate to a Pro because they already know they need more compute power or specific software and hardware compatibility.
A MacPro is not an all-in-one so I see no reason why one would object to an external RAID solution or PCI card box, or goodness, some 3rd party solution that puts those all in one.
Now I wish the Next MacPro is in effect a pizza box form factor with stackable modules to add functionality as needed, or side by side equivalent, or both. Colos use Mac-Mini's by the hundreds, so a base MacPro that would facilitate that for that market and science and local intranet would be fine.
Grids can be good, but blades would be even better.
But for the folks complaining about an external box because of the cables are missing the point. One can have a solution where the Powerbook is the Thin client and the MacPro and its attached TB/PCI stuff is the monster I/O and processing stuff.
Putting TB on portables facilitate that and once TB is on the Pro side too you will have a solution suitable for both stationary workstation applications and field ingest, fixed processing applications. We have already seen the seeds of it with SCSI, FW800, and Ethernet. TB will simply make the transfer times be lower and make practical real time activities for a far wider range of applications.
There will still be applications which are so resource intensive even TB is the equivalent of a modem line, but for those folks they will have to use the same ingest many, process central as videographers now use and photographers recently had to use and pretty much everyone had to do 5 years ago.
Computers are still complicated tools with compromises and we are a ways off from getting past that, and the better things get, the more stuff we used to skip as too difficult will become possible and even popular.
Like dual 1080p signals to two different rooms from a notebook or Mini for example.
For years I have been posting to this site that Macs lack even reasonable I/O. With the arrival of TB I have been able to become silent on that issue. It took several years.
Rocketman
A MacPro is not an all-in-one so I see no reason why one would object to an external RAID solution or PCI card box, or goodness, some 3rd party solution that puts those all in one.
Now I wish the Next MacPro is in effect a pizza box form factor with stackable modules to add functionality as needed, or side by side equivalent, or both. Colos use Mac-Mini's by the hundreds, so a base MacPro that would facilitate that for that market and science and local intranet would be fine.
Grids can be good, but blades would be even better.
But for the folks complaining about an external box because of the cables are missing the point. One can have a solution where the Powerbook is the Thin client and the MacPro and its attached TB/PCI stuff is the monster I/O and processing stuff.
Putting TB on portables facilitate that and once TB is on the Pro side too you will have a solution suitable for both stationary workstation applications and field ingest, fixed processing applications. We have already seen the seeds of it with SCSI, FW800, and Ethernet. TB will simply make the transfer times be lower and make practical real time activities for a far wider range of applications.
There will still be applications which are so resource intensive even TB is the equivalent of a modem line, but for those folks they will have to use the same ingest many, process central as videographers now use and photographers recently had to use and pretty much everyone had to do 5 years ago.
Computers are still complicated tools with compromises and we are a ways off from getting past that, and the better things get, the more stuff we used to skip as too difficult will become possible and even popular.
Like dual 1080p signals to two different rooms from a notebook or Mini for example.
For years I have been posting to this site that Macs lack even reasonable I/O. With the arrival of TB I have been able to become silent on that issue. It took several years.
Rocketman
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I'm afraid not actually, since other Mac models will likely have mobile versions of the 7xxx series, so the support could be for them. I really hope Apple doesn't discontinue it though! I don't think they would.
Apple exists as a corporation for one reason and that is to make money and increase value for their shareholders. If a product is not paying it's way and not providing to the bottom line then get rid of it. If they are making enough money on the Mac Pro then keep it. If not dump it.
The future is in the iDevices and other portable products. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that soon the iMac might be the only desktop product. I'm not sure if it will happen this year, but it's coming.
The future is in the iDevices and other portable products. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that soon the iMac might be the only desktop product. I'm not sure if it will happen this year, but it's coming.
All of the big studios i know, would use a Mac pro too. Its got the slots and everything making it super easy to plug in expansion audio i/o cards and get 96 audio channels going... Cant do that on a iMac. Even if you edit on the road n such like. Ya still need to record the audio in the first place!
I don't think Apple can afford to cede this market at this point. There's still a lot of money in it
!~
If I could wave a magic wand I would ask Apple to spin off less profitable lines which would take it off the balance sheet but not out of control or ownership. It would assure they live on.
It's a financial gimmick a Fanboy would love!
Rocketman
The real problem is smart people all know Apple SHOULD cede this market simply because the growth is not 40% like its other markets and the margins are not 40% like its other sectors. It is bringing the numbers down. The only good news is MacPro sales are now such a small fraction of sales they can afford an effective loss leader product line. Whatever they do next will bump the margins to put off the day they have to truncate the line just like X-serve.
If I could wave a magic wand I would ask Apple to spin off less profitable lines which would take it off the balance sheet but not out of control or ownership. It would assure they live on.
It's a financial gimmick a Fanboy would love!
Rocketman
Personally, I think the Mac Pros are too good of a product to fit into Apple's current business model. Let's face it: a 2010 souped up Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM will perform for many years to come and therefore presents too good of a value for customers. It seems Apple wants to push on us products that we will upgrade every year or other year like the iPad 2, 3 etc.
Just because people want to upgrade thier iDevices every year doesn't mean they have to upgrade every year. Many people were leaving the iPhone 3G for the 4s, which was over 3 years old, the liberal lifespan of a PC. In some cases, I think MacPros have a shorter lifespan than most macs as the users generally feel like nothing is ever enough. Solving their problems is measured in hours to days and their profits allow for the newest, fastest possible.
Apple needs to keep MacPros around, even if most software dev has moved to laptops. even for me, 32 gigs of ram would be great for the VMs I run for normalized deployment environments.
Nope. The mobile versions inside the iMacs will not be based on Tahiti. They'll be based on the 7870/7850 desktop cards at most.
Ah, you're right. Mmm, that is significant then... unless we'll see redesigned iMacs with support for desktop cards... lol... I can dream can't I?
Same here, just upgraded all the hard drives in it to 2TB each (8TB total now), plus upgraded the video card, and already running 12GB ram, not much more I can upgrade. Time for a new box
I'm going to have to politely disagree with some of the points made here:
Pros simply are not going to buy Mac Pros from an Apple Store. They're going to buy them CTO from Apple's store, or from a VAR, but only on the rarest occasion would a pro buy from a retail Apple store. The stores are aimed at consumer electronics nowadays. Plain and simple.
Yep, FCPX was a botched release in many ways. However, the jury's still out on this one. I personally have (perhaps temporarily) abandoned ship from FCP to Premiere. (Still using 'Legacy FCP' too.) But there's simply no way for Apple to try to write EVERYTHING that legacy FCP was into a v.01 release (what FCPX is) and ship it in a timely manner. They had to release something, then tweak it along the way. What it get's "tweaked into" has obviously yet to be seen. It's going to be a long road, and potentially they'll never get back to where they were with FCP. But the fact is we simply can't say: FCPX is lame - no more Mac Pros now. We need to see what happens to Logic and Aperture to see how widespread this "dumbing down" is going to be.
This was a technicality of timing. Just because a new technology hits the scene doesn't mean a certain line is going to immediately adopt it. It doesn't make sense to release a "new" MacPro if the ONLY thing being updated is a single I/O connection.
Yes, the writing's been on the wall for a while. Apple seems to be caring less and less about extreme niches nowadays. But we can't ring the death knell (on the MacPro) just yet. And even if so, definitely not based on the things that you've cited in the above arguments.
...from earlier:
The "value" comes in the form of word-of-mouth. Sure, we can (and must) talk about ROI's and margins and blah, blah, blah... but there are 2 crucial things to note:
- You've got to admit, Apple doesn't necessarily always do things like "most profitable companies". If they did, they wouldn't be where they are today.
- I think you're overlooking the fact that companies can't always be 100% driven by sales. Of course, it's all about money and businesses aren't around to be our buddies. But the other side to that story is that it's completely possible to inflict much more than just financial damage if you do something that's too radical for even a fraction of your customers. Basically, it would equate to a TON of bad PR for Apple!
Consider the levity of the FCPX debacle. It was all over mainstream news. Everywhere! Conan O'Brien spoofed it. It was all over the web. My mom was forwarding me articles about how Apple screwed up. Well take that, and add all the graphic designs firms, all the scientist, all the recording studios in LA (i.e. every on of them), every photography studio, all the post houses across the globe and all these other "niches". If you turn your back on ALL of those parties, at once, it's going to be FCPX-gate x 1,000. That would be a MAJOR PR hit to Apple. Of course, they'd recover. But do they really want to endure that kind of bad-mouthing? Yeah, it's numbers game, we get it: MacPro users are but a sliver of the aggregate global computer population. But that sliver could still be very, very loud! And that is certainly potential for damage.
...All we can do is wait and see what's going to happen. I personally think there is at least one more Mac Pro update in the queue.
Pros simply are not going to buy Mac Pros from an Apple Store. They're going to buy them CTO from Apple's store, or from a VAR, but only on the rarest occasion would a pro buy from a retail Apple store. The stores are aimed at consumer electronics nowadays. Plain and simple.
Yep, FCPX was a botched release in many ways. However, the jury's still out on this one. I personally have (perhaps temporarily) abandoned ship from FCP to Premiere. (Still using 'Legacy FCP' too.) But there's simply no way for Apple to try to write EVERYTHING that legacy FCP was into a v.01 release (what FCPX is) and ship it in a timely manner. They had to release something, then tweak it along the way. What it get's "tweaked into" has obviously yet to be seen. It's going to be a long road, and potentially they'll never get back to where they were with FCP. But the fact is we simply can't say: FCPX is lame - no more Mac Pros now. We need to see what happens to Logic and Aperture to see how widespread this "dumbing down" is going to be.
This was a technicality of timing. Just because a new technology hits the scene doesn't mean a certain line is going to immediately adopt it. It doesn't make sense to release a "new" MacPro if the ONLY thing being updated is a single I/O connection.
Yes, the writing's been on the wall for a while. Apple seems to be caring less and less about extreme niches nowadays. But we can't ring the death knell (on the MacPro) just yet. And even if so, definitely not based on the things that you've cited in the above arguments.
...from earlier:
The "value" comes in the form of word-of-mouth. Sure, we can (and must) talk about ROI's and margins and blah, blah, blah... but there are 2 crucial things to note:
- You've got to admit, Apple doesn't necessarily always do things like "most profitable companies". If they did, they wouldn't be where they are today.
- I think you're overlooking the fact that companies can't always be 100% driven by sales. Of course, it's all about money and businesses aren't around to be our buddies. But the other side to that story is that it's completely possible to inflict much more than just financial damage if you do something that's too radical for even a fraction of your customers. Basically, it would equate to a TON of bad PR for Apple!
Consider the levity of the FCPX debacle. It was all over mainstream news. Everywhere! Conan O'Brien spoofed it. It was all over the web. My mom was forwarding me articles about how Apple screwed up. Well take that, and add all the graphic designs firms, all the scientist, all the recording studios in LA (i.e. every on of them), every photography studio, all the post houses across the globe and all these other "niches". If you turn your back on ALL of those parties, at once, it's going to be FCPX-gate x 1,000. That would be a MAJOR PR hit to Apple. Of course, they'd recover. But do they really want to endure that kind of bad-mouthing? Yeah, it's numbers game, we get it: MacPro users are but a sliver of the aggregate global computer population. But that sliver could still be very, very loud! And that is certainly potential for damage.
...All we can do is wait and see what's going to happen. I personally think there is at least one more Mac Pro update in the queue.
Same here, just upgraded all the hard drives in it to 2TB each (8TB total now), plus upgraded the video card, and already running 12GB ram, not much more I can upgrade. Time for a new box
Actually, there is more
Get a Drive Caddy 2 & add 2 SSDs in a RAID. - Then go for maxing out the ram. I saw a real difference once I went over 16Gb.
Apples predictability when it comes to product cycles has been changing. Given the recent trends I wouldn't be surprised if Apple "upgraded the Mac Pro" with the inevitable iPad Pro... Heh!
Using a bit of reverse psychology is my attempt at staving off obsolescence... Oh how I hope I'm wrong. The thought of my current Mac Pro being the last is excruciating.
Those of you that are so certain they will be continued, are the ones I hope are right
Using a bit of reverse psychology is my attempt at staving off obsolescence... Oh how I hope I'm wrong. The thought of my current Mac Pro being the last is excruciating.
Those of you that are so certain they will be continued, are the ones I hope are right
Apples predictability when it comes to product cycles has been changing. Given the recent trends I wouldn't be surprised if Apple "upgraded the Mac Pro" with the inevitable iPad Pro... Heh!
Using a bit of reverse psychology is my attempt at staving off obsolescence... Oh how I hope I'm wrong. The thought of my current Mac Pro being the last is excruciating.
Those of you that are so certain they will be continued, are the ones I hope are right
If that happens I'm either looking Boxx or one of the Dell Precision line rather than dragging it out. There isn't another machine with decent gpu options that is made for a high duty cycle. If I leave it on to render overnight, I do not wish to come back to a kernel panic screen. I know someone will make a Windows comment, but anything I buy is getting stress tested for a day or so before I use Also FWIW if thunderbolt was somehow a magical solution to all of the problems, I'd consider one of the other machines. I just don't think they were designed to be pushed hard.
Apple is really a bad company to rely on for anything work related, as they aren't reliable. I realize the Apple fans will take whatever they're given, but the FCP thing was just a larger, more visible issue than others. Part of it was that they temporarily cut off users from new licenses of the older software. They cannot just expect everyone to immediately drop what they are doing and migrate to a .1 version software with a dramatically adjusted interface. Anytime you use a complex piece of software for work, when a major release comes out, you test it before migrating, and you make a decision on when to migrate based on when it is stable. Even then a lot of these guys will probably archive older versions for things that don't open correctly on the newest version, and that happens all the time.
Apple still has a terrible OpenGL implementation which is used in a number of programs including Adobe and Autodesk products. Adobe has been asked before why 10 bit out isn't supported within photoshop and other applications. Their response was that Apple had no drivers for it. 10 bit displayport and panel implementations have been available for some time now, yet this was something that did not make it into Lion. It's not that they prioritize mass markets at this point. They simply don't care about anyone outside of a limited user paradigm. The rest just pick from what is available to avoid disruption in their work, speaking of which I'm posting way too much today to avoid something annoying.
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Missing a key factor: 10.7 RAID boot
It is currently difficult (nearly impossible in my findings) to run 10.7 from a RAID 0/1 volume due to Lion's incessant desire to create a recovery partition. Until a 4-disk SSD boot option is available in 10.7, I don't see the tower form factor embracing Lion. I'd love to see a new Mac Pro introduce an 8GB flash right on the logic board with an updatable recovery image (firmware-esque). That way Lion 10.7.4? .5? could cope with inability to partition a RAID. Plus it would allow OWC's data doubler to add a dual disk SSD RAID to the MacBook Pro line, making it even more impressive. What good is Thunderbolt (theoretical 20Gbits/second) on a MacBook Pro (or even a Mac Pro for that matter) when a typical spinning hard disk maxes out around 1030Mbits/second (typical 7200RPM) and you can't take advantage of the speed benefits of RAID?!? (am I missing something?)
It is currently difficult (nearly impossible in my findings) to run 10.7 from a RAID 0/1 volume due to Lion's incessant desire to create a recovery partition. Until a 4-disk SSD boot option is available in 10.7, I don't see the tower form factor embracing Lion. I'd love to see a new Mac Pro introduce an 8GB flash right on the logic board with an updatable recovery image (firmware-esque). That way Lion 10.7.4? .5? could cope with inability to partition a RAID. Plus it would allow OWC's data doubler to add a dual disk SSD RAID to the MacBook Pro line, making it even more impressive. What good is Thunderbolt (theoretical 20Gbits/second) on a MacBook Pro (or even a Mac Pro for that matter) when a typical spinning hard disk maxes out around 1030Mbits/second (typical 7200RPM) and you can't take advantage of the speed benefits of RAID?!? (am I missing something?)
On-Line Store Update
i just now ran a check of various combinations of bto's and the longest delivery time was 4-6 business days...most were 1-3 business days...seems the recurring "storm" has abated once again...best to all...
i just now ran a check of various combinations of bto's and the longest delivery time was 4-6 business days...most were 1-3 business days...seems the recurring "storm" has abated once again...best to all...
Okay so I've been responding perhaps too frequently on this thread, but I had to respond to this. I like your idea about the motherboard, but you truly do not need to make one gigantic boot volume for the drive bays to be useful. With 2-3TB drives, that's a lot of storage in one nice silent box. An NAS (not sure if "an" is appropriate there, but I'm using it based on that the phonetics match a vowel sound) is much noisier.
But why boot from a RAID anyway? Do a RAID with 3 slots of 2-3 TB HDs, then boot from an SSD. Or put the boot SSD in the optical bay and use the 4 regular slots in RAID.
Yes it was, and I still don't think it was a smart idea, nor do I believe it would be a smart idea to kill off the Mac Pro. FCP X is a good program but should have been released as an alternative to FCP 7 instead of a replacement.