The End of Apple's Professional Presence Is Here

[JoeG4]

Well, if MR is what comes to mind, it seems reasonable that creative professionals dominate the market.

But when I think about the marketing approach (helped along by software vendors), I still recall MP's aimed mostly at creative professionals rather than say engineering or science (they made a few stabs in the scientific market, but it seemed half-baked and didn't do well).

Oh no no no no.

Science and engineering are very creative fields.

 

[nanofrog]

Oh no no no no.

Science and engineering are very creative fields.

I'm not saying they aren't creative (I know the engineering aspects first hand; creative, but based in science, not pure imagination, where the laws of physics don't need apply), but that's not what creative meant in that post (things like video editing, photography, animation, and audio for example).

I figured the Wiki quote would have given that away... Guess not.

 

[thekev]

Oh no no no no.

Science and engineering are very creative fields.

Creative thinking and creative markets are totally different concepts. I doubt things like Xflow (it deals with fluid simulation) or cad software will ever have a truly strong following on OSX.

 

[MJL]

Well, well, starts to look like the Mac Pro fan boys are not going to be lucky and that the OP had the finger on the pulse.

 

[vitzr]

Well, well, starts to look like the Mac Pro fan boys are not going to be lucky and that the OP had the finger on the pulse.

And your point is?

 

[velo]

And your point is?

I'm guessing cheapshot pointscoring.

As for the OP he is spot on, at least in the field he mentioned. The future will be, which incidentally is much like the present, Avid workstations and Adobe on Windows.

 

[Sharpey76]

Damn if we dont get a new mac pro that will be the end of my apple computers... be moving back to windows

 

[anim8or]

Its a sad time for all those who have put a lot of faith and money into Apple to produce professional products.

For someone who has also enjoyed the iToy era, owning an iPod Touch, all generations of iPhone to date and both generations of iPad... i kind of regret supporting Apple's iToys with these purchases.... i would much rather a computer that i am comfortable trusting to get me through my working day than a bunch of gimmicky phones... that of which have been copied the world over.

I would much rather use an Android phone and have apple still seeing the Mac Pro as viable than to see it die among the flurry of toys the company now produces.

To be honest, i think i lost faith when they took 'Computer' from the company name.

The King is dead, Long live the King.

 

[highdefw]

sad to consider, but a workstation is a must, regardless of what OS in the end...

 

[derbothaus]

Everyone needs to calm down. The PC era has been pronounced dead but only for investors. It takes a while to trickle down and for tech to catch up to the hype. And it may never even come to fruition. Same with the cloud over-investment. Yes, it is maybe the future. Do you see 1Gb pipes all over the world yet? I don't. Still unfeasible just wishful thinking. Not even sure the motivation. "We love having slower equipment" just flies in the face of the last 20 years of development. Once you effectively take a user out of the creation aspect of computers (the ability to create new content, add to content, remix it, or share it) the drive for this technology will wane. There will not be a community anymore just consumers buying things built by the big bad company as they are the only ones with the tools. The big tech growth came about partially by users feeling included and anyone with a computer can contribute. Without that and machines to do that on it is just like a TV set.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

...Everyone needs to calm down. The PC era has been pronounced dead but only for investors. It takes a while to trickle down and for tech to catch up to the hype...

Yeah, I'm still waiting for my flying car...


Damn George Jetson...look at him...so smug puttering along in the smog free air over Orbit City.

 

[Adamantoise]

Apple makes the equivalent of a dozen iPhones with every pro computer sale. Furthermore my would any company on the planet just dismiss millions of high profit products and customers. That doesn't even make sense.

Really how hard is it for Apple to drop in a new chip add some bells and whistles and voilà - millions of dollars in profit.

Right because there's no inventory tracking, supply chain logistics, vendors (and the availability of their supply), manufacturing processes to update etc.

Some of you have absolutely no idea what goes into manufacturing items, there's a lot of things to figure out behind the scenes.

I cannot tell you if Apple will drop the Mac Pro or not, but I just wanted to let you know it's not as simple as "drop in a new chip add some bells and whistles and voilà - millions of dollars in profit"

Personally though, I don't think the Mac Pro makes any significant amount of profit for Apple. It's a very low volume item and profit margins on computers are almost razor thin these days.

 

[goMac]

I cannot tell you if Apple will drop the Mac Pro or not, but I just wanted to let you know it's not as simple as "drop in a new chip add some bells and whistles and voilà - millions of dollars in profit"

I don't think that's the issue... Sadly, while I'm watching this thread, I can't really participate as I had a few privileged conversations about the Mac Pro yesterday.

I will point out that the same source, AppleInsider, also said that the Mini was dead about 3 years ago.

 

[derbothaus]

I don't think that's the issue... Sadly, while I'm watching this thread, I can't really participate as I had a few privileged conversations about the Mac Pro yesterday.

I will point out that the same source, AppleInsider, also said that the Mini was dead about 3 years ago.

Thanks for the heads up goMac.

 

[Adamantoise]

I don't think that's the issue... Sadly, while I'm watching this thread, I can't really participate as I had a few privileged conversations about the Mac Pro yesterday.

I will point out that the same source, AppleInsider, also said that the Mini was dead about 3 years ago.

Well hopefully.

I've always wanted a Mac Pro, but I could never afford them as I was just a student.

Now I've got the means but it wouldn't make sense to buy an outdated machine. In any event, most posters here are simplifying the challenge of keeping a low volume product alive.

It's honestly a serious challenge. Hopefully their operations management team can figure it out.

 

[goMac]

Well hopefully.

I've always wanted a Mac Pro, but I could never afford them as I was just a student.

Now I've got the means but it wouldn't make sense to buy an outdated machine. In any event, most posters here are simplifying the challenge of keeping a low volume product alive.

It's honestly a serious challenge. Hopefully their operations management team can figure it out.

Yeah, while AppleInsider's track record hasn't been great, dropping an email to Tim Cook wouldn't hurt anything. It might be helpful to let Apple's new management know that the Mac continues to be important.

 

[DisMyMac]

I don't think they would drop the Pro and not replace it with something... The only hope for an xMac is by dropping the Pro. The hype would be huge, which is just what Apple loves.

 

[Adamantoise]

I don't think they would drop the Pro and not replace it with something... The only hope for an xMac is by dropping the Pro. The hype would be huge, which is just what Apple loves.

Apple doesn't hype anything, it's the media outlets like Engadget and CNET that create hype out of nothing.

 

[slughead]

Personally, I will never buy a mac mini or imac. In a few months I plan to upgrade from my mac pro 1,1. If there isn't a new mp available, I will hold my nose and buy a pc. I've been an apple customer for 17 years.

 

[Consultant]

My Mac Pro is in my bag, as a 17" MBP with SSD.

 

[khollister]

While I am a MP owner and really want the high-end Mac market to grow, I have mixed feelings on the current MP. In my opinion, we are very close to having the single processor MP unnecessary. Current SB quad core i7's in the MBP and Mini are basically equal in CPU horsepower to the quad Westmere's. The extra 2 cores of the hex Westmere will likely be taken care of in Ivy Bridge as mobile parts become much more power efficient and a Mini or MBP with a 6 or even 8 core CPU becomes possible. Thunderbolt solves the HDD expansion/performance issue (The Promise RAID boxes are very nice - they just need some competition to get the prices down & we need some JBOD low cost stuff). One of the few remaining PCIe dependencies, the UAD audio DSP cards, are now available as a FW outboard with Thunderbolt likely on the way in the next 12-18 months.

I realized if I was starting over today, I would probably get a 15" MBP, 16GB RAM, TBD, Promise R4/6 & UAD Satellite and call it good. The cost of the Promise would more than be offset by not needing a MBP in addition to the MP.

The folks left holding the bag in the near future are the guys/gals depending on large numbers of cores (dual CPU) and very large amounts of RAM. I could see the RAM gap being closed with either denser DIMM's or support for 4 sockets in some sort of super-Mini. The support for 8+ cores is the tricky part. I can envision some version of Grand Central using optical TB to support "CPU expansion" modules, but it would seem that's a ways off. That might have the advantage too of breaking the dependency on the Xeon parts to support multi-processor architectures. However, given Intel's rather sedate pace of innovation on the server-class chips lately, it's not like we are going to get Ivy Bridge 2X8core MP's until way into 2013 anyway from all indications.

So, I'm not sure what I think Apple should do, frankly. The low to mid market pro's can be taken care of with either MBP's or Mini's that are likely already in the roadmap/pipeline, but thanks to Intel (PPC dejavu), I'm not sure Apple can really leapfrog the high-end MP's to where everyone expects them to be . Of course, the PC folks have exactly the same problem, except their stuff is cheaper due to the packaging being not too stellar.

I think this is quite a bit more complex than a simple "Apple doesn't care about pro's anymore" The fact that the SB-e parts are over a year behind the mobile parts isn't Apple's fault.

All the threats to jump ship to Windows don't solve the hardware gap - Dell has the exact same Xeon's to sell as Apple. FCPX vs Avid aside, Windows doesn't solve anything.

 

[scottsjack]

Damn if we dont get a new mac pro that will be the end of my apple computers... be moving back to windows

I worked on my Mac Pro last night for about four hours, never got out of Windows 7. It's mainly the apps that cause me to choose either W7 or SL but certain aspects of the UI are also important.

 

[vitzr]

Apple doesn't hype anything, it's the media outlets like Engadget and CNET that create hype out of nothing.

What a fantasy.

Apple, always innocent and never one to hype.

Heck they can't even spell it, much less understand what it means.

Nothing "Magical & Revolutionary" here.

 

[khollister]

Personally, I will never buy a mac mini or imac. In a few months I plan to upgrade from my mac pro 1,1. If there isn't a new mp available, I will hold my nose and buy a pc. I've been an apple customer for 17 years.

If there isn't a new MP available due to the SB-e parts not being available yet, buying a Dell or some other PC workstation isn't going to result in anything faster. Apple, Dell and everyone else are waiting on Intel. Depending on how you define "a few months", the lack of a new MP is going to be driven by Intel, not Apple's lack of committment to the MP platform. Short of Thunderbolt (which I doubt you are going to see in most PC's soon), you won't get anything in a PC you can't get in a MP.

 

[Adamantoise]

What a fantasy.

Apple, always innocent and never one to hype.

Heck they can't even spell it, much less understand what it means.

Nothing "Magical & Revolutionary" here.

Oh please, spare me the attempts at humor.

I'm by no means an Apple apologetic. Apple goes about their business and call a conference whenever they're ready to announce a product. You don't see them giving 'Hands On' interviews or 'Exclusive First Looks' ... It's sites (like this one) that report every damn thing that Apple does (every patent they file, every off-hand statement they make) and come to ill-conceived conclusions on the company's next move.

Apple doesn't hype anything.