It doesn't come with a mouse because real pros use wacoms.
I reckon there will be a new keyboard / mouse / trackpad coming too. Same black and please let it be backlit!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mac Pro Launch Nears as Apple Business Staff Begin Offering Price Quotes
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It doesn't come with a mouse because real pros use wacoms.
I reckon there will be a new keyboard / mouse / trackpad coming too. Same black and please let it be backlit!
Saving 50% is worth that
Still, in reality, it is no Mac Pro. Updating the OS you could end up losing some function or simply crashing. It's more maintenance IMO.
The base models of these will compare to windows Workstations of similar quality. Such as BOXX - They always have in the past. Apple historically makes a lot of Markup in the RAM / Drives and ancillaries.
The GPUs and CPU if you bought them alone at retail alone almost make up the the base prices of the 2 models announced. And you still need a case and PSU - motherboard Ram, Drive ( not that you can get that main drive in anything else yet )
Somethings will happen no matter how long you take or how much you test it. When it comes down to it, you will always have undiscovered bugs in software. Eventually you will have to release a product.
Consumers may use these products in ways that was never thought about that in turn may discover these bugs. Its how fast they are fixed once they are discovered.
Tim Cook made a wise decision. We don't have the manpower, factories, logistics to supply the world the large demand for Apple products. Its hard enough for Foxconn, who has a million employees, quite often can't keep up the demand fast enough with new releases. You think we can in America?
Logistically, China is in a much, much better position for the manufacture of Apple products. The suppliers for the majority of parts are right next to the Foxconn. Fabrication changes can be taken almost immediately since they are literally right down the street. If it were in America, it would be much slower as a majority of part would have to be shipped in.
Delays, slowdowns and problems can be fixed much faster that way.
You think thats slow, how slow do you think it would be if everything was not located in the same place?
Quite from the truth. It relies on the pro market extensively. All the third party developers for its applications, the content makers who write the books, music, tv ,movies. Much of which have to rely on Macs to develop its content.
Getting rid of its Pro market would have a big effect on its consumer devices.
I don't think its dumbed down. Its making it easier for people to use so that they can concentrate/spend more time on creating their content, rather then being slowed down by their software.
So what? As long as its productive and does what you need it to do your job.
If we always relied on what people think they want: We would still use a slide out keyboard...Blackberry phones would still be popular...tablets would still be a very niche market...all that changed because Apple wanted to do things their way. Not what people think they wanted or needed.
Last edited:
Ok had Steve thought he was going to die what team would he have put in place to take over? Or would have left it to the board to decide?
Storing your files in the cloud is only one part of Creative Cloud. It would be fine for some small project files or maybe some Photoshop files. Maybe.
But when high-end camcorders generate one gigabyte files for a minute of video... the cloud is not a feasible storage medium. It's certainly not a replacement for fast local storage.
You would probably be about the same, speaking of which, gpu isn't that important for either of those. It contributes literally nothing to lightroom. Photoshop uses it for some functions. It's just that most people will never notice a real difference. They're not the kinds of things that would make up the bulk of the time spent editing an image, mockup, or whatever else. I'm curious why one would outperform the other. An i7 quad is going to be pretty much in line with an E5-1620.
No idea. He might have left it to the board seeing as he hand picked every one of them but I suspect he would have had a more hands on role. I know you probably think I'm not with it but how else would you explain how the handover happened. I don't see any obvious leaders or rising stars in Steve's management team. I haven't seen any evidence that Tim Cook is the next Steve Jobs. Have you? I can understand the rationale for appointing a safe pair of hands in what must have been a difficult time for everyone but they have to look to the future now. This new lady heading up their retail side looks promising. She's very well thought of in the business world.
Please don't think I'm in any way criticising Steve Jobs over this. He must have been to hell and back when they sacked him in the 80's. I don't blame him for wanting to run things his way second time around. It wasn't Steve's job to line up or pick a successor. That's what the board is there for. They're there to oversee things and look after the interests of the shareholders. Finding a successor should have been down to them not Steve.
maybe.. depends on how you look at it.. sure, every day there are 5 people here talking about "i'm switching to windows #"
but then i also see many pro applications which were previously windows only moving over to mac.. and not just some cheesy porting either. real mac programs (or whatever)..
i don't know- i'll see comments such as yours in the same forums which devs are reading so your voice has been heard by them.. and apparently, they're ignoring such voices.. who should an on-the-fencer believe?
likewise, i know this forum likes to hype up some sort of mass fcp exodus but i think that's sort of opposite too.. the nmp along with more pro application offerings are probably going to lure more pros in.. especially the creative pros.. and in personal computer land, being the 'computer for creatives' is pretty much the best image you can have.. and i think apple would be wise to sort of re-solidify that image if they can.
Fair point but you can buy a USB 3 2TB external hard drive for a hundred quid now. Ok it's not SSD but those prices are finally starting to come down. If Apple had stuck with the current design you would still have to go out and buy a bigger hard drive either from Apple or someone else. Ok you can't store it in the case anymore but most of these external hard drives are really small now. Not exactly going to take up much desk space.
I know I'm probably in a minority here but I really do prefer the new design. I like the idea of having it on my desk rather than standing on the floor. The old design was huge and a pain. Every time you wanted to plug something in you had to get on your hands and knees under the desk. I hated that. I also prefer the modular nature of it as it makes it easier to swap out peripherals as new devices come out.
I don't think that's why Apple has done it this way. They don't want you upgrade, they want you to go out and buy a new model so they have a shorter upgrade cycle and therefore sell more units.
If you read the forums you won't see a lot of love for FCPX amongst pro users. I can't really blame them, they rely on long term stability and commitment and Apple seems to be unsure as to whether or not they really want to be in this marketplace. If I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on hardware and software that would seriously worry me as it's not easy to migrate from one platform or application to another.
I don't think Apple has necessarily abandoned the pro market but I do think they have redefined it. I think they are not really interested in the corporate side of things. I think they have built their pro hardware and software to focus more on small pro businesses. People like small design or photographic studios who probably value the Mac Pro design as much as the spec.
A few years ago FCP and Logic both cost around £500. Now they're less than half that price so maybe they are just trying to open up their pro machines to a wider audience to increase sales.
I like the new design too... even though I have no immediate need for it
Anyone who is considering buying a new Mac Pro that starts at $3,000 probably has a reason for buying such a powerful machine... namely high-end video production and other tasks that require large storage capability.
They probably already have some sort of external storage device which will plug into their new Mac Pro.
On a side note... I wish there was a survey that polled existing Mac Pro users to see how many PCIe slots and/or internal drive bays they currently use.
A reoccuring theme in all Mac Pro discussions is "OMG no slots or bays"
I'm curious how this lack of internal expandability will affect most Mac Pro users.
idk.. i haven't been around super long but i've been around long enough to say this fairly strongly- that's what they've always done. that's their thing.
the mp1 was never sold as a corporate machine.. neither were the g5 or g4.
and it's not as if it's all marketing.. they really are catering to particular needs.
Maybe, except ....
The original Mac Pro (first generation 2006 model) turned out to be a pretty reliable, worthy machine. I believe the first generation of the PowerMac G5 tower was also generally regarded as a hit.
True, in both of those cases (as is true with almost ALL Mac products), waiting for a second or third revision meant getting a number of incremental improvements. But for the type of users who'd normally want a system of this sort in the first place, I would think the advantage of owning and being able to use it for the year or so you'd otherwise wait for the next revision would outweigh the negatives?
Nothing says you can't resell it after a year or two and move up to the newer revision anyway?
Now, whether it's "overpriced" is a different story. It definitely will be if it turns out not to be rock solid reliable! Otherwise, I don't know that you can avoid a large part of the pricing, given the components used? Xeon class CPUs from Intel are always sold at huge premiums over regular Pentium 4 counterparts..... The graphics cards are arguably overpriced, but more as an "across the board" statement than anything that's Apple's fault. (A case can be made that these "workstation class" video cards fetching $800+ each are a ripoff, whether for Mac or Windows PC, when they're almost identical to the 3D gaming card counterparts selling for a third of their asking price.)
The original Mac Pro (first generation 2006 model) turned out to be a pretty reliable, worthy machine. I believe the first generation of the PowerMac G5 tower was also generally regarded as a hit.
True, in both of those cases (as is true with almost ALL Mac products), waiting for a second or third revision meant getting a number of incremental improvements. But for the type of users who'd normally want a system of this sort in the first place, I would think the advantage of owning and being able to use it for the year or so you'd otherwise wait for the next revision would outweigh the negatives?
Nothing says you can't resell it after a year or two and move up to the newer revision anyway?
Now, whether it's "overpriced" is a different story. It definitely will be if it turns out not to be rock solid reliable! Otherwise, I don't know that you can avoid a large part of the pricing, given the components used? Xeon class CPUs from Intel are always sold at huge premiums over regular Pentium 4 counterparts..... The graphics cards are arguably overpriced, but more as an "across the board" statement than anything that's Apple's fault. (A case can be made that these "workstation class" video cards fetching $800+ each are a ripoff, whether for Mac or Windows PC, when they're almost identical to the 3D gaming card counterparts selling for a third of their asking price.)
The target audience didn't want this form factor nonsense. Sure the old mac pro was a little too big, but this trash can shaped case is too small. A compact/mid size tower would have been a much better compromise between the old and new.
Thankfully for the 1% of us who need a machine like this to do our jobs, Apple determined it was worth it.
No slots? No issues....
I get why people dislike a machine with a lack of expansion slots in it. But it's probably time to let go of that whole concept for system expansion. (Internal cards handling audio have LONG suffered from potential interference problems when installed in the electrically noisy environment of the inside of a computer, for example.)
Thunderbolt is plenty fast enough so it's not a speed decrease either, vs. a slot on a motherboard.
I haven't put a single card (other than graphics card) in one of the slots of any of the last 3 PowerMac systems I've owned (2008 Mac Pro, 2006 Mac Pro and G5 tower).
I suspect the most common expansion card that gets used is a RAID controller card, which ties in with the drive bay expansions.... If you're going to make all your disk arrays external in boxes, then you don't need a RAID card in the machine itself either.
Biggest downside now is just having more cables running out of the back of the new Mac Pro and to these external boxes/devices. I think much of that can be mitigated, depending on who comes up with clever 3rd. party enclosures. I've said for months now, someone should do a drive expansion bay that's a box with a circular indent on top to sit the Mac Pro itself in. It would look like the cylinder on a square pedestal of some sort and make it appear like one unit!
I get why people dislike a machine with a lack of expansion slots in it. But it's probably time to let go of that whole concept for system expansion. (Internal cards handling audio have LONG suffered from potential interference problems when installed in the electrically noisy environment of the inside of a computer, for example.)
Thunderbolt is plenty fast enough so it's not a speed decrease either, vs. a slot on a motherboard.
I haven't put a single card (other than graphics card) in one of the slots of any of the last 3 PowerMac systems I've owned (2008 Mac Pro, 2006 Mac Pro and G5 tower).
I suspect the most common expansion card that gets used is a RAID controller card, which ties in with the drive bay expansions.... If you're going to make all your disk arrays external in boxes, then you don't need a RAID card in the machine itself either.
Biggest downside now is just having more cables running out of the back of the new Mac Pro and to these external boxes/devices. I think much of that can be mitigated, depending on who comes up with clever 3rd. party enclosures. I've said for months now, someone should do a drive expansion bay that's a box with a circular indent on top to sit the Mac Pro itself in. It would look like the cylinder on a square pedestal of some sort and make it appear like one unit!
I like the new design too... even though I have no immediate need for it
Anyone who is considering buying a new Mac Pro that starts at $3,000 probably has a reason for buying such a powerful machine... namely high-end video production and other tasks that require large storage capability.
They probably already have some sort of external storage device which will plug into their new Mac Pro.
On a side note... I wish there was a survey that polled existing Mac Pro users to see how many PCIe slots and/or internal drive bays they currently use.
A reoccuring theme in all Mac Pro discussions is "OMG no slots or bays"
I'm curious how this lack of internal expandability will affect most Mac Pro users.
Sorry but it will perform in photoshop about as good as a mid range desktop. The 4 core xeon is actually slower than the haswell i7's.
it would have been a notsogood compromise then..
I don't think they could of done the original idea in a 'mid tower' size
Yeah the 4-core is truly pointless; Apple should have eaten the $300 premium the 6-core chip costs, and put that in the $2,999 model.