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englishman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 6, 2006
730
10
Anyone know why the Mac Pro is unavailable to buy now in UK on website?
 
It's unclear when the next mac pro will be released though this year the next iteration of mac pros is expected.

They did what most businesses do and stopped sales prior to the deadline to ensure substantial compliance with the EU's newest silly regulation.
 
I think WWDC is the next "Apple Event"..

I;m not in the biz but I do seem to remember some pod casts from a TV/Movie production event last year when it was cold.
 
They did what most businesses do and stopped sales prior to the deadline

Stopped sales or stopped importing? Initial stories here seem to imply that vendor could sell the rest of their inventory, they just can't restock it post deadline. It isn't like Mac Pros fly off the shelf every day.
 
Stopped sales or stopped importing? Initial stories here seem to imply that vendor could sell the rest of their inventory, they just can't restock it post deadline. It isn't like Mac Pros fly off the shelf every day.

The European website for the Apple store lists them as unavailable.

Easy to say but maybe the regulation will save someone's finger or something, even if not when applied to a Mac Pro.

Uh-oh, not this debate again.

Silly, Europe, fingers, it's not a ban, USA, it's a ban, Kindereggs, it's not a ban, USA, Europe, raw milk, it's a ban, militant police. Can we stop now?
 
Wow, fan guards and plastic port protectors holding up an entire manufacturing line? Folks on that brit-committee must be pretty anal! :confused:

It's the Europrats actually, the UK just has to obey because of EU membership.

This sort of thing is why we shouldn't be in the EU to start with.
 
The European website for the Apple store lists them as unavailable.

That is because the online store like imports everything ordered. So in order to meet the deadline they weave in the max expected ship time. That has no impact on a physical Apple store or on distributors who are holding inventory.

Any distributor that thought they were looking at a greater than 3 month window to a new Mac Pro could double up on restocks prior to the import window closing if wanted to gamble on holding onto higher than normal inventory levels for a while.
 
Personally I couldn't agree less. I'm happy that I can live and work anywhere in the EU.

And everyone who's out of work in the UK is unhappy that Johnny Foreigner from an EU country is employed while there isn't enough jobs for them to be working too in the country they were born in!

That NEVER WILL be racism/nationalism, it's REALISM in the post-credit crunch world of major corporations closing shop left and right, private sector wages well below the level of the public sector in the same roles while pampered civil servants continue to claim they're victims, living costs going up and the government massaging unemployment figures by targeting people for benefit withdrawl who need it to live off, then citing the resulting reduction in benefit claimants as proof of an increase in the number of people in employment. If there wasn't a cancerous influx of EU citizens, the whole country would be in a better state to cope.
 
My feeling is the economic arguments for free labour movement in the EU is generally +ve.

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/fiscal-impact-immigration-uk

There are also social and cultural benefits.

There's also a moral and human argument.

Its worth bearing in mind that the increase in demand for goods and services eg school places etc will actually create jobs.

That's not to say the EU doesn't need reform - it clearly does.

UK housing policy is poor though and we need to build more houses.

Maybe the time to bring back rent controls.
 
It's unclear when the next mac pro will be released though this year the next iteration of mac pros is expected.

They did what most businesses do and stopped sales prior to the deadline to ensure substantial compliance with the EU's newest silly regulation.

You mean a regulation that has been coming for over 3 years now? Something they new about back in 2010? They have had plenty of time to sort something out.

To think they didn't because they new exact release date of a computer 3 years down the line is wishful thinking.
 
You mean a regulation that has been coming for over 3 years now? Something they new about back in 2010? They have had plenty of time to sort something out.

It dates from 2009. So anything designed from ground-up in mid 2010 or after has likely dealt with the problem. It isn't worth for vast majority of devices to tweak an old design into compliance.

The 2010 Mac Pro is largely the same infrastructure as the 2009 model. The 2009 model was designed in 2008 which predates the law. So no, it doesn't take into account the law since even the law says it didn't have to.

Either a significant revised later Mac Pro or retirement of the product line would take care of the future. It is likely that Apple first had to decide whether the whole product would exist or not. This fan and power issue was a very minor sideshow.
 
It dates from 2009. So anything designed from ground-up in mid 2010 or after has likely dealt with the problem. It isn't worth for vast majority of devices to tweak an old design into compliance.

The 2010 Mac Pro is largely the same infrastructure as the 2009 model. The 2009 model was designed in 2008 which predates the law. So no, it doesn't take into account the law since even the law says it didn't have to.

Either a significant revised later Mac Pro or retirement of the product line would take care of the future. It is likely that Apple first had to decide whether the whole product would exist or not. This fan and power issue was a very minor sideshow.

The main problem with the Mac Pro is that it's in fact a 7 year old design, assuming they designed it in 2006 and didn't simply release it then and it's actually a 2005 design!

There's been bus speed improvements but overall, same case, same 4 or 8 RAM slots even when that means redundant slots to obtain full triple channel speeds, SATA 3Gb/s motherboard, same case, same everything accept the GPU/CPUs. It can't justify it's price tag either.

The original 2.66Ghz Mac Pro was £1699, there was an even cheaper build to order model with 2Ghz CPUs at the time too, now it's £2049 for a system that's just over twice as powerful as the 2006 model, but it's actually bested in purely CPU performance by the current Quad i7 based Mac Mini systems that cost around a third of the price!

They could end up pleasing a lot of people if they just start been a bit fairer with pricing, even if that means a cheaper model as a BTO option. Component prices have gone down signficantly over the past 7 years or so, just the RAM alone is about a fifth of the price comparing a 2006 to 2010 Mac Pro (Current model simply being a 2010 Mac Pro with a minor speed bump).
 
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The main problem with the Mac Pro is that it's in fact a 7 year old design, assuming they designed it in 2006 and didn't simply release it then and it's actually a 2005 design!

It isn't. Earliest some of the design parameters were locked into place in 2007 but likely most of the work went in during 2008.

This isn't just Apple. All the major workstation vendors Xeon workstation design stay stable for an entire Intel Tick/tock cycle. In the enterprise space few if any are looking to churn all of the computers on a 12 month pace.

There's been bus speed improvements but

But? It isn't just speed improvements. At Nehalem ( the 2009 model ) Intel ditched their whole "front side bus" design finally. It did not scale well past 4 cores. The current Mac Pros are significantly different at a architectural level than the 2006-2008 era models.


overall, same case,

If the functional requirements of the case are the same why should it change. That limited change is also a superficial observation. Internals changed substantially. If have a well designed exterior modifying the internals shouldn't cause many large changes.


same 4 or 8 RAM slots even when that means redundant slots to obtain full triple channel speeds,

Eh? The fact that the slot are connectted to three different controllers is different than the single ones in the 2006-8 era means they are not the same. Again superficial observation of generic DIMM slots is the only thing driving "sameness" here.


SATA 3Gb/s motherboard,

The SATA III (6Gb/s) standard was not even presented in draft form until July 2008 and ratified later that year. The 2009 Mac Pro probably had frozen specs at that point. The 2010 reuses 2009 infrastructure, just like all other vendors in this class. There were other workstations with more SATA connectors but not necessarily faster ones.

SATA III being the default connectivity showed up only 2012 workstation models. Yes Apple is late but the pace being implied here as way behind the curve doesn't really mesh.

same case, same everything accept the GPU/CPUs. It can't justify it's price tag either.

It isn't the same. The value, not the price point is the primary problem. They are a very overdue for a refresh. Given Apple's uncharacteristic forward looking comments likely indicates that they know it.

They could end up pleasing a lot of people if they just start been a bit fairer with pricing, even if that means a cheaper model as a BTO option.

They just need to update. An Xeon E5 1620 4 core model would not have a problem putting a small amount of distance between the upper end iMac and the entry Mac Pro.

The problem has been in part Intel. They are ones who didn't update the full range of options for the 3600 series from the 3500 series. ( initially only one and never were any quad core updates ).

If get off the edges of the Mac Pro line up (entry and extreme top end) the value isn't that far off what it has been versus the competitors. If the user has workload in the wheelhouse of those machines they make sense.

The Mac Pro never was a please everybody with everything product offering.


Component prices have gone down signficantly over the past 7 years or so,
just the RAM alone is about a fifth of the price comparing a 2006 to 2010 Mac Pro (Current model simply being a 2010 Mac Pro with a minor speed bump).

Well if you wanted Mac Pro' to come standard with just 1GB of RAM I suspect you'd find most prospective Mac Pro users at issue with that configuration. The offset to lower component prices is to provide more. Instead of 1GB standard RAM in 2006 the 2012 Models come with 6GB. That is a 6x increase for your 5x decrease. That is indicative of providing value not the lack of it.

Likewise the 2006 Mac Pro came with 250GB HDD and the 2012 models come with 1TB ones ( a 4x improvement). You could downgrade the 2006 Model with just a 160GB HDD. That is a 6x improvement in capacity. HDD prices are not cratering right now.

The power supply is larger in 2012. The PCI-e slot bandwidth is much higher than 2006. It should be higher still if had already moved to new Xeon E5 class offerings and PCI-e v3.0.

In short, if get more than can pay just as much instead of the overall price going down. That is basically Apple's strategy across the Mac line up. As component prices go down, put in "more" of the component. Or move to a more modern more expensive component ( SSDs vs HDDs in the laptop line up).

Going "down" in price points means changing Mac models. If want to follow more affordable components then user needs to transition to a another model.

The Mac Pro has drifted. Apple should try to an entry (or BTO downgrade) back into the $2100-2300 range (before taxes ) but haven't so far.
 
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