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MP All Models The Mac Pro is Dead, This is the End?
- Thread starter MoonCakeTropics
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Yes, but the Mac Studio would be one of those "increasingly capable small form factor" systems I referred to. It's hugely capable for its size and more than enough for many applications, but doesn't really touch the power and expandability of a high-end PC workstation.
The Mac Studio probably is the future of the "Mac Pro" - it's also the spiritual successor to the 2013 Trashcan, i.e. CPU, GPU, and system drive in a small unit that relies on external Thunderbolt for any other expansion. It just has the advantage of cooler, all-in-one Apple Silicon chips & not having a dead-end "triangular" thermal design.
You clearly don't remember the "classic" Mac Pro Cheesegraters with their lovely tool-free design. Hard drives (which could be replaced by SSDs) and PCIe cards were a doddle to swap in and out, and everything went into the main uinit with no trailing wires or multiple mains cables.
Nah, I think they just enjoy getting paid $200 for $50 worth of extra RAM or SSD. Their prices have little to do with the actual bill-of-materials.
Certainly as far as the M4 Mini goes they don't do enough processor variations to really offer the traditional 3 "good/better/best" versions of each Mac, so they're relying on RAM and storage to make artificial distinctions. ...which looks bad because, ultimately, rather than paying to upgrade the "magical" Apple processor technology for which Apple could "name their price" it's very clear that your paying 4x over the odds for perfectly mundane, commodity RAM and SSD chips.
russell_314
Suspended
Even so if you count over the lifetime of a computer comparing a Mac mini to a Windows PC I bet the power used by that Windows PC would be much more than the power used to make the Mac mini. Yes you’re right a PC isn’t always going to be pegged at power consumption, but neither is the Mac mini. Browsing Macrumors on a Mac mini is going to be considerably more efficient than browsing Macrumors on the average Windows PC.
The weekly repasting thing was sort of a joke. I know people that do it yearly though.
Clues like this would get me banned from the forums because they could hurt someone’s feelings. I have to play nice 😂
russell_314
Suspended
Unfortunately, signatures by default don’t show up on a mobile browser. There might be a way to turn it on in the settings.
So you just use it to run Windows? Wouldn’t a similarly priced Windows workstation perform better?
Eventually they will come out
By and large the workloads that truly need Mac Pro levels of compute do not exist on macOS anymore, since Apple gave up on that market in 2013 with the trashcan Mac Pro.
The current Mac Pro exists to look cool behind MKBHD and iJustine in videos. I don't think Apple really expects to sell many of them. It wouldn't shock me if it goes away permanently now. The company's new halo product is the iPad Pro and iPhone Pro Max, not the Macintosh.
It's actually shocking how many models of Mac Apple makes when it's such a small slice of their revenue, as compared to iPhone.
The current Mac Pro exists to look cool behind MKBHD and iJustine in videos. I don't think Apple really expects to sell many of them. It wouldn't shock me if it goes away permanently now. The company's new halo product is the iPad Pro and iPhone Pro Max, not the Macintosh.
It's actually shocking how many models of Mac Apple makes when it's such a small slice of their revenue, as compared to iPhone.
mattspace
macrumors 68040
Yeah, the one that was an utter failure both from a sales, and from an engineering perspective, and did more to drive the target market for Apple pro gear away, than System 7.1.2 and waiting for Copland combined.
To an extent - but a few people still need PCIe slots for specialist I/O, audio/visual and networking cards or to add large quantities of internal storage. That's the only reason for buying a Mac Pro post-Apple Silicon. The PCIe bandwidth/number of lanes/number of slots supplied by the Mac Pro still greatly exceeds what you can get from a Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe enclosure. Thunderbolt 5 might help a bit, there esp. for PCIe 4 capable cards once suitable enclosures appear.
If you submit to Apple's "integrated GPUs rule" theory then 16 lanes is a fairly generous provision for specialist A/V cards, network cards and SSDs - which is all you can plug in to the Mac Pro.
Your typical x86 system will need at least one discrete GPU which will eat 16 lanes. High-end ThreadRipper Pro machines (...and even the old 2019 Mac Pro) will often have multiple GPUs each sitting on 16 lanes which is the main reason that Threadripper, Xeon-W etc. need so many lanes.
I've got two Mac Pros, three 27" screens here - there isn't enough room to put another computer. The Mac Pros are both 28 core Xeon W, one with a 32GB W6800X and the other with dual W6800X Duo 64GB cards.
The 2019 Mac Pro does easily windows and MacOS 15.3 without needing another computer - I just restart the same machine in whichever OS I need to use. Why would I spend even more money (which could be AUD$20,000) on a PC workstation as well, which I don't have room to fit anyway.
The two Mac Pros are going to keep going - they do their job well and when they are up for replacement, then they will be replaced with a Lenovo PX (or whatever is similar at that point). And that machine will have multiple GPUs.
FilthyMuppetInnuendo
macrumors regular
Yeah, what the heck is up with no one being able to hack native Windows boot support into M-series chips yet? Screw the Qualcomm exclusivity deal; you’d think there would be *one* person able to figure out how to native boot ARM windows by now.
Hmm. Just carted my old Shuttle-style (not an actual Shuttle but similar form factor) PC to the
The Shuttle-style systems were never really pitched at the "serious workstation" market, though. In the 90s and early 00s the mainstream "go to" PC for home/office was still a full-sized tower or mini-tower - really a hangover from the days when your GPU, modem, audio interface, etherent, HD controller, SCSI card (for your flatbed scanner) etc. were all on separate ISA, PCI or AGP (remember that?) cards. By the 00s, most motherboards had audio, networking, modem and a ton of USB built in - so a "cube" system with just 1 or 2 slots big enough for a modest GPU was practical for "mainstream" use.
A huge chunk of the "mainstream PC" market has now been taken over by laptops - my impression is that small-form-factor PCs are also becoming popular. Of course, gamers and people doing media creation or AI still need/want a GPU (or two) the size of Manhattan and a small electricity substation to power it, so towers still rule there.
russell_314
Suspended
In reality, the majority of the mainstream PC market has been taken over by what we call a “phone” but in reality, it’s a small tablet computer.
The laptop has taken over productivity tasks. It doesn’t take much processing power to edit a spreadsheet or go through a different websites.
Then you have desktop gamers where they spend a few thousand dollars on a gaming PC. Sometimes they build them or sometimes they buy them. These are more specialized devices rather than just a general purpose computer.
mattspace
macrumors 68040
Why are there no alternative operating systems for iPads?
The Mac is just an iPad with different amounts of specifications. At its core, it's architecturally the same device.
russell_314
Suspended
Because macOS is not designed for a touch interface. It’s possible in the future this could change because macOS has been looking more and more like it could be touchscreen ready
mattspace
macrumors 68040
I've been using macOS as a touch device since I bought my first Wacom tablet around 1995. Tablet even had multitouch, you could use a Wacom mouse AND a pen on screen and have two cursors, and grab objects by multiple dragpoints simultaneously.
The idea macOS needs redesigning for touch is something purchased useful idiots like Gruber trade in. macOS touch targets are significantly larger than iOS alternatives - hell the iOS Podcasts app skip forward and backward buttons don't work for me, because their touch targets are so small you hit the timeline when you try to tap skip with your thumb, and it cancels out the touch event.
But to go back to the original point, the reason there are no alternative operating systems for the iPad, is because it's cryptographically locked to prevent it. That's where to cast one's gaze as to why there's no native Windows on M series Macs - both from Apple's, and Microsoft's end.
FilthyMuppetInnuendo
macrumors regular
russell_314
Suspended
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean Apple is going to sell the product with that functionality. Apple is all about the user experience so if a product doesn’t function in 100% to what they feel it should then they’re not going to have that feature going. You can use a touch interface with any OS. That doesn’t mean you’ll have a good experience. You don’t think Apple has tested macOS out on the iPad?
I thought you were asking why doesn’t Apple put macOS on the iPad? Yes the little answer of your question is because the iPad is locked down as an iPadOS device. You can install another OS on it. It’s just like an iPhone in that sense. Microsoft has an exclusive contract with QUALCOMM, which I thought was supposed to end soon, but I’m not sure.
Lots of things I disagree with so I will pick two. You state
"Apple are primarily a smartphone company anyway; the Mac brings in similar revenue to AirPods."
Apple is the 4th largest personal computer maker in the world. The fact that they own the flagship smartphone space does not somehow make them less relevant in the personal computer space.
You also state
"Better to just cede that part of the market to PCs."
The computer world is evolving. Banks of hot expensive GPUs are becoming less relevant. Now is the time to use Apple's in-house efficient SoC approach [and TSMC's SoIC] to attack market segments, not "...cede that part of the market to PCs." Although we know the unfortunate [hopefully temporary] lack of a modern Mac Pro, dissing Apple's potential relevance at providing high end products is just wrong.
My personal guess/hope is that Apple chip engineers will do very good things with M5 and the Mac Pro. The whoop-de-whoops they achieved with the M3 Ultra's T5 and 500 GB RAM suggests that they are increasingly dialing in the ability to address different needs within a single chip process.
mattspace
macrumors 68040
You asked why there is no Windows for Apple Silicon Macs, the answer is because it's cryptographically locked out. That's the answer. Same as the reason no one's done alternative OS' for iPads, or iPhones.
mattspace
macrumors 68040
Apple isn't all about the user experience, and hasn't been for a long time. Apple is all about the extracting revenue from captive customers.
Driving a Mac with a Wacom tablet is no different to driving it with a mouse.
There's no touchscreen Mac, and no macOS on the iPad, despite the hardware being literally identical for some Macs and iPad Pros, because Apple would like you to buy two devices, pure and simple.
What is shocking is that some folks make statements like "It's actually shocking how many models of Mac Apple makes" when Apple is the 4th largest personal computer maker in the world. Referencing iPhone sales successes to suggest less Mac relevance is absurd; 4th largest personal computer maker in the world.
russell_314
Suspended
I think this is a very cynical way to look at it. I rate my user experience with Apple and their products as very high. Maybe you don’t have the same user experience but I think most people have a good experience with Apple products.
Again, I think a very cynical way to look at it. I don’t think it’s an accurate way to look at it either for most people. In this world are yours where I could get macOS on my iPad and iPadOS on my Mac, I would still own both.
I wouldn’t want to use macOS without a keyboard and trackpad. I’ve used touchscreen tablets with a keyboard and no trackpad, and the experience was not great for me. I would take the feature if they gave it to me, but my usage would be limited. It would not replace a MacBook for me. Even if I bought their fancy keyboard was touchpad it’s still not great compared to the MacBook Air. No way would I give up my MacBook Air just because I get macOS on my iPad.
Having this feature might cause me to buy a smart folio keyboard from Apple so they probably end up making more money from me.
I really couldn’t see a reason why I would want iPadOS on my Mac. It might be cool for the first two times I looked at it, but after that I don’t think I would ever mess with it.
I got it tech nerds want to do crazy things just because they can do them, but most people aren’t like this. As a semi tech nerd I wouldn’t mind doing some of these things, but they wouldn’t be part of my routine
I believe you can run alternate OS on a Apple Silicon Mac but it's not supported by Apple. The box comes locked but can be unlocked. Asahi Linux is working on several models of Apple Silicon Mac and they claim the platform is about as open as most similar systems (and doesn't require jailbreaking):
About - Asahi Linux
asahilinux.org
However, from Microsoft's perspective (and any similar vendor's), reverse engineering a platform that is undocumented because its maker doesn't support 3rd-party OS is not a recipe for a product.
I agree however the iPad (iPhone, etc) is cryptographically locked out.
The computer market is a lot smaller than the phone market. For some reason though, there are many more models of computer than there are phone (at least from Apple). I'm not sure why that is. At least Apple has made all of their computers basically the same by using the same chips and manufacturing techniques for them. Apple is now sort of like Taco Bell - just mixing the same ingredients in slightly different ways to fill out their product line.
And yes, Apple is the 4th largest computer maker in the world - but they are far behind the first three, especially the first two. So they have a very small slice of a small pie, comparatively speaking. In particular their enterprise penetration is basically zero compared to the first three.
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Every time Apple doesn’t update a product for a while, everyone starts claiming it’s dead.
For years, as Apple was planning the Apple Silicon transition, there was a chorus of people crying that Apple no longer cared about the Mac and was abandoning it in favor of iOS. During this time, Apple stated over and over than they were committed to the Mac and had no plans to merge it with iOS, but the skeptics continued to claim the Mac was dead and that a transition to ARM was impossible. Fast forward a few years, and now we’re in a golden age of the Mac.
The point is, Apple doesn’t do updates for updates’ sake. They wait until a true successor is ready, while many people can’t see past the short term. Is the Mac Pro a niche product for a small subset of users? Yes. Does that mean it won’t get updated as often as more mainstream products? Yes. Does that mean it will never get updated? Probably not. Does that mean that Apple doesn’t care about making high performance workstations? Definitely not. Apple is just waiting until there is a material update to make and will continue to push the high end of performance. The complaints that Apple is abandoning “pro” users in favor of mainstream products are as old as time and always prove to be wrong.
TDLR; relax, ye of little faith.
For years, as Apple was planning the Apple Silicon transition, there was a chorus of people crying that Apple no longer cared about the Mac and was abandoning it in favor of iOS. During this time, Apple stated over and over than they were committed to the Mac and had no plans to merge it with iOS, but the skeptics continued to claim the Mac was dead and that a transition to ARM was impossible. Fast forward a few years, and now we’re in a golden age of the Mac.
The point is, Apple doesn’t do updates for updates’ sake. They wait until a true successor is ready, while many people can’t see past the short term. Is the Mac Pro a niche product for a small subset of users? Yes. Does that mean it won’t get updated as often as more mainstream products? Yes. Does that mean it will never get updated? Probably not. Does that mean that Apple doesn’t care about making high performance workstations? Definitely not. Apple is just waiting until there is a material update to make and will continue to push the high end of performance. The complaints that Apple is abandoning “pro” users in favor of mainstream products are as old as time and always prove to be wrong.
TDLR; relax, ye of little faith.