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[citysnaps]

As I previously commented, the 2003 thru 2012 models large full size towers (G5 and intel models) were not that expensive. I owned a couple. They were 1/2 the price.

Right. And as I said previously, there will be many uses/applications where price is not that critical when wanting to stay in the Apple camp with a rack-mount Apple Silicon MacPro.

It's that way in general considering PCs vs Macs. Always has been, going back decades.

"I owned a couple."

Same here.

 

[Realityck]

Right. And as I said previously, there will be many uses/applications where price is not that critical when wanting to stay in the Apple camp with a rack-mount Apple Silicon MacPro.

It's that way in general considering PCs vs Macs. Always has been, going back decades.

So you elect to be content with its only for special needs, while I elect to suggest that Apple needs to expand their marketplace across the business enterprises.

Gotta have a updated products (not vaporware) to tackle this of course, not novelty whims because its already addressed on lower performance mainstream laptops and desktops that Apple provides.

Also should add this should be a direction Apple goes toward to be another backup to their services and iPhone ecosystem.

 

[citysnaps]

So you elect to be content with its only for special needs, while I elect to suggest that Apple needs to expand their marketplace across the business enterprises. Gotta have a updated products to tackle this, not novelty whims because its already addressed on lower performance mainstream laptops and desktops,

I'm not "electing" anything. Certainly not regarding being content with respect to another company's needs.

Apple has a business model that works well for Apple, as evidenced by their massive success, keeping 160,000+ people employed, and with enough sales/revenue that suits the company's needs.

Who am I, or you, telling Apple what they should be doing? That would be like me telling Mercedes they should expand their marketplace and come out with an affordable car for people earning less than $50K/year.

 

[Realityck]

I'm not "electing" anything.

Apple has a business model that works well for Apple, as evidenced by their massive success, keeping 160,000+ people employed, and with enough sales/revenue that suits the company's needs.

Who am I, or you, telling Apple what they should be doing? That would be like me telling Mercedes they should expand their marketplace and come out with an affordable car for people earning less than $50K/year.

Mercedes already does that. Thats how you get customers to know your brand and come back as repeat customers.
Its also a good example of providing products for all needs. 😉

 

[citysnaps]

Mercedes already does that. Thats how you get customers to know your brand and come back as repeat customers.
Its also a good example of providing products for all needs. 😉

News to me. What model and how much is that car?

Again... It's not my place to tell one of the most successful companies in the world what their business strategy should be and how to get there.

However, I'm not opposed for you to write a letter to Apple's CEO and Board, giving them a piece of your mind, with strategies on how the company can significantly expand their base and revenue.

 

[Mr Rib]

I think the current pricing is fine, and that the upcoming MacPro will be similar (with a small increase due to inflation).

In the end, the MacPro is for people and businesses that need slots and high performance bus for various kinds of high performance cards (data acquisition, accelerators, etc). And most importantly, a robust rack mount version, similar to the current MacPro (I suspect Apple would use the same chassis for the upcoming rack mount MacPro).

For those kinds of customers, MacPro prices are not a huge driver, as they are with other Macs.

Can you name "pro" applications / businesses that would be happy to pay current Apple markup on Mac Pro to buy one with M silicon in it's current form? Sorry but slots aren't really a feature. "High performance bus" - not sure what you mean by that. Racks? Racks run on Unix or Linux, the only reason someone would consider changing the whole infrastructure / data center architecture to incorporate rack mount Macs would be if they are so power efficient they save HUGE money on bills. Not sure if that's the case, since system and infrastructure is still king. Oh yeah, I said "would", I don't think anyone really has a datacenter running with rack mount Macs - maybe Apple HQ does as a PR stunt although I wouldn't be surprised if even they didn't use it 😀 If you are familiar with ANY known, serious implementation example of rack mount Macs I'm listening.

I still hope they pivot and do *something* to make Mac Pro attractive or I believe they won't announce it altogether (they can wait 2-3 more years with it, they are already very late). Sorry but a pro machine with no ray tracing hardware support AND no fast GPU for AI stuff won't be a pro machine. It needs to be at least a bit versatile. I am still hoping they'll accept a 3rd party GPU - this is truly only sensible way to solve this, and easiest one. If they do it, I will over-pay and buy one. Otherwise it will go to some weird, random places that need to blow their budget or won't get funding next year. Oh and tech youtubers so that they can run their generic/moronic tests.

And a small remark regarding what you said: "who we are to criticise Apple (...)". Remember that these are the bright minds that brought you a trashcan Mac, a monitor with un-detatchable power cable, Mouse that is being charged from underneath (and is an atrocity in every possible way), introduced a LED strip in laptops just to change *something*, the list goes on... I don't feel out of line saying they did something stupid if that's the case.

 

[citysnaps]

Can you name "pro" applications / businesses that would be happy to pay current Apple markup on Mac Pro to buy one with M silicon in it's current form? Sorry but slots aren't really a feature. "High performance bus" - not sure what you mean by that. Racks? Racks run on Unix or Linux, the only reason someone would consider changing the whole infrastructure / data center architecture to incorporate rack mount Macs would be if they are so power efficient they save HUGE money on bills. Not sure if that's the case, since system and infrastructure is still king. Oh yeah, I said "would", I don't think anyone really has a datacenter running with rack mount Macs - maybe Apple HQ does as a PR stunt although I wouldn't be surprised if even they didn't use it 😀 If you are familiar with ANY known, serious implementation example of rack mount Macs I'm listening.

I still hope they pivot and do *something* to make Mac Pro attractive or I believe they won't announce it altogether (they can wait 2-3 more years with it, they are already very late). Sorry but a pro machine with no ray tracing hardware support AND no fast GPU for AI stuff won't be a pro machine. It needs to be at least a bit versatile. I am still hoping they'll accept a 3rd party GPU - this is truly only sensible way to solve this, and easiest one. If they do it, I will over-pay and buy one. Otherwise it will go to some weird, random places that need to blow their budget or won't get funding next year. Oh and tech youtubers so that they can run their generic/moronic tests.

And a small remark regarding what you said: "who we are to criticise Apple (...)". Remember that these are the bright minds that brought you a trashcan Mac, a monitor with un-detatchable power cable, Mouse that is being charged from underneath (and is an atrocity in every possible way), introduced a LED strip in laptops just to change *something*, the list goes on... I don't feel out of line saying they did something stupid if that's the case.

Huh? I'm not limiting, or even thinking about using MacPros in data centers. They usually employ custom silicon designed for that purpose and a MacPro would not be a good solution.

There are many professional disciplines that use rack-mount computers, or run on Unix/Linux. That's why the current MacPro has a rack-mount option that's a completely different chassis. Defense/military/aerospace, industrial data acquisition and control, various kinds of research such as medical, music production and sound design, video processing using special accelerators, special signal processing (FFTs, correlators, etc) accelerators for certain applications, and other commercial applications.

"Sorry but slots aren't really a feature."

Slots are a HUGE feature, which is why people purchase rack-mount MacPros and take advantage of them.

Here's just one example:

 

[Mr Rib]

Huh? I'm not limiting, or even thinking about using MacPros in data centers. They usually employ custom silicon designed for that purpose and a MacPro would not be a good solution.

There are many professional disciplines that use rack-mount computers, or run on Unix/Linux. That's why the current MacPro has a rack-mount option that's a completely different chassis. Defense/military/aerospace, industrial data acquisition and control, various kinds of research such as medical, music production and sound design, video processing using special accelerators, special signal processing (FFTs, correlators, etc) accelerators for certain applications, and other commercial applications.

"Sorry but slots aren't really a feature."

Slots are a HUGE feature, which is why people purchase rack-mount MacPros and take advantage of them.

Here's just one example:

I was referring to using rack-mount Mac Pros in datacenters obviously.. not regular chassis Mac Pros. Or any actual, real life server application - with rack mounted Macs. I'm NOT talking about using Mac Pros at datacenters, Jesus...😀 I don't understand how could you misinterpret my message like that. I dont think they have their own name, Macracks comes into mind 😛

I've never seen anyone actually using these rack mount Mac Pros - hence the question from my original post - if you know any examples that they've actually been used somewhere, not just for show / as Apple's PR stunt. To me it's a dead product, I've never heard of anyone buying it, using it, etc. So I don't know why you brought it up 🙂 Remember that applications you've listed, like military, scientific ones etc won't EVER come even close to a Mac - for safety reasons. They run proprietary UNIX / LINUX builds. Especially military. Would you imagine USAF servers running on Mac OS? That would be hilarious.

"Slots aren't >>REALLY<< a feature" - because they are something soooo obvious, it can't be considered anything other than an obvious necessity. And no - adding slots to current Mac silicon won't cut it for pros.. That would be too many shortcomings for what, twice the price? Also that's the exact reason why we haven't seen a Mac Pro yet - because Apple knows this and agrees with this statement. And if Apple doesn't figure out how to deal with this situation, we won't see a Mac Pro yet. Not until they do something with GPU - as they need to step up their GPU game anyway, because that's where the tech market is heading - high amounts of parallel mathematical operations in AI / VR / AR.

Also my question stands - who exactly a "Studio Mac Pro with slots for double the price" would be a viable, good option?

 

[citysnaps]

I was referring to using rack-mount Mac Pros in datacenters obviously.. not regular chassis Mac Pros. Or any actual, real life server application - with rack mounted Macs. I'm NOT talking about using Mac Pros at datacenters, Jesus...😀 I don't understand how could you misinterpret my message like that. I dont think they have their own name, Macracks comes into mind 😛

I've never seen anyone actually using these rack mount Mac Pros - hence the question from my original post - if you know any examples that they've actually been used somewhere, not just for show / as Apple's PR stunt. To me it's a dead product, I've never heard of anyone buying it, using it, etc. So I don't know why you brought it up 🙂 Remember that applications you've listed, like military, scientific ones etc won't EVER come even close to a Mac - for safety reasons. They run proprietary UNIX / LINUX builds. Especially military. Would you imagine USAF servers running on Mac OS? That would be hilarious.

"Slots aren't >>REALLY<< a feature" - because they are something soooo obvious, it can't be considered anything other than an obvious necessity. And no - adding slots to current Mac silicon won't cut it for pros.. That would be too many shortcomings for what, twice the price? Also that's the exact reason why we haven't seen a Mac Pro yet - because Apple knows this and agrees with this statement. And if Apple doesn't figure out how to deal with this situation, we won't see a Mac Pro yet. Not until they do something with GPU - as they need to step up their GPU game anyway, because that's where the tech market is heading - high amounts of parallel mathematical operations in AI / VR / AR.

Also my question stands - who exactly a "Studio Mac Pro with slots for double the price" would be a viable, good option?

"I was referring to using rack-mount Mac Pros in datacenters obviously.. "

Once more... MacPro computers would not be used in datacenters for the reasons I pointed out previously.


"To me it's a dead product, I've never heard of anyone buying it, using it, etc. "

Of course not. That's because in your world, rack-mount computers are only used in datacenters. That's a very limited view.

And therefore, you've never been exposed to uses and applications of rack-mount computers used in non-datacenter environments. And that's because you've never worked in such environments (medical research, defense/aerospace, industrial control, music composing/production/sound design, signal processing and analysis accelerators, etc., and have never developed products for those markets.


"Remember that applications you've listed, like military, scientific ones etc won't EVER come even close to a Mac - for safety reasons. They run proprietary UNIX / LINUX builds. Especially military. Would you imagine USAF servers running on Mac OS? That would be hilarious."

It appears your world view of computers with respect to industrial/military/medical/defense usage revolves around and is limited to servers in datacenters. And that's OK. However there's a far wider range of applications for rack-mount computers with slots that can handle special use signal acquisition and processing cards.

 

[Mr Rib]

It's not limited to it but yeah the rack-mount computing unit is in a form factor of a rack mount so that you can most likely create an array of them and use multiple units. I think that's the main use case scenario (though I just realised rack mount Mac has no control port so now I'm even more baffled - considering this, I think it's a niche product NOT for any type of data center / big computing array, rather I dont know.. musicians maybe?).

Rack mount computers aside, I still dont get it how a "stronger Mac Studio with ports" for a hefty price would be a compelling option for pros out there. I am dreading this may actually happen if Apple decides it's not beneficial to pivot just for a tiny pro niche, and in my opinion this will mean it's game over for pros wanting to own a Mac OS workstation. Laptops will still be cool though - but that's not a workhorse if you want to do anything other than basic Adobe CS stuff.