MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[zephonic]

There's no such thing as 'ecosystem', anymore, between mobile devices and computers. By the time mobile devices went on separate ways (and apple followed that route as well as all the others, and rightly so), this 'tight integration' just passed away. Who is masochist enough to uses iTunes to sync iPhones and iPads anymore ?

Contacts, bookmarks etc is not enough to consist an ecosystem. Besides, these features are integrated in competitive platforms as well.

I haven't synced my iOS devices to iTunes in forever, but with all due respect, your view of what comprises an ecosystem seems myopic.

It is not just Contacts/Calendar/Notes/Reminders/Bookmarks, although I think those in and of themselves are enough of an ecosystem to be inconvenient to switch away from. I also have Photos appear across all devices. I have an Apple Music family subscription and I rent movies on Apple TV. I may be a minority, but I use Pages on both my Macs and iPad.

Now, I am aware there are non-Apple alternatives for everything I just mentioned, but nothing else offers a similarly integrated and cohesive user experience.
That is not to say Apple has got this perfectly right, there is much to complain about. I still have iMessage deactivated because it was such a hot mess for me. Among my devices, Airdrop has a less than 50% success rate, which makes it essentially useless. But the over-all experience is still a predominantly positive one.

 

[goMac]

What I see is Apple its just aware the big NAS market, it cheapest-quick weapon to get into this market its macOS Server along the right hardware current mini its a joke, also macOS server lacks tons of features and services (which could be quickly added) readily available on NAS, an mac OS server Overhaul needs to follow this MacMini-NAS.

Apple’s replacement is Windows and Exchange server.

No joke. They have zero interest in bringing macOS Server back to it’s glory days. There is no plan to get back into the server market.

For NAS there are also plenty of options where Apple doesn’t need to involve themselves.

In both cases it’s a well served market Apple feels they have nothing to add to.

And I say this as someone who loved Xserve.

Don’t know who DNG’s sources on but either he’s not as well connected as he seems or someone is playing a prank on him.

 

[Mago]

Apple’s replacement is Windows and Exchange server.

No joke. They have zero interest in bringing macOS Server back to it’s glory days. There is no plan to get back into the server market.

For NAS there are also plenty of options where Apple doesn’t need to involve themselves.

In both cases it’s a well served market Apple feels they have nothing to add to.

And I say this as someone who loved Xserve.

Don’t know who DNG’s sources on but either he’s not as well connected as he seems or someone is playing a prank on him.

Thats the problem, Apple its missing an opportunity to earn money supporting its own ecosystem by themselves instead allowing 3rd parties to earn money on a market that naturally belongs to apple.

About DNGs I don't know who is and where he picks the leaks, but its funny and sometimes hits something.

 

[goMac]

Thats the problem, Apple its missing an opportunity to earn money supporting its own ecosystem by themselves instead allowing 3rd parties to earn money on a market that naturally belongs to apple.

About DNGs I don't know who is and where he picks the leaks, but its funny and sometimes hits something.

Yes, I bet everyone at Apple remembers the time they brought in all those large piles of Xserve money and are so eager to get back to that.

 

[Mago]

money and are so eager to get back to that.

Money is money, large piles are made a grain at time. you still think Apple behave predictively like an animal or strictly ruled by jobs commandments, Apple is more like an army, where mac division also have companies all of them looking for a mission.

 

[beaker7]

Ahhh Xserve. I just decommissioned the last of those here. It was a 2009 model.

 

[Peace]

Thats the problem, Apple its missing an opportunity to earn money supporting its own ecosystem by themselves instead allowing 3rd parties to earn money on a market that naturally belongs to apple.

About DNGs I don't know who is and where he picks the leaks, but its funny and sometimes hits something.

See : LG Displays sold by Apple.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...75c8b66d66f22c7f5a54a2ddd51ebfac72b22c6ddf234

 

[antonis]

I haven't synced my iOS devices to iTunes in forever, but with all due respect, your view of what comprises an ecosystem seems myopic.

It is not just Contacts/Calendar/Notes/Reminders/Bookmarks, although I think those in and of themselves are enough of an ecosystem to be inconvenient to switch away from. I also have Photos appear across all devices. I have an Apple Music family subscription and I rent movies on Apple TV. I may be a minority, but I use Pages on both my Macs and iPad.

Now, I am aware there are non-Apple alternatives for everything I just mentioned, but nothing else offers a similarly integrated and cohesive user experience.
That is not to say Apple has got this perfectly right, there is much to complain about. I still have iMessage deactivated because it was such a hot mess for me. Among my devices, Airdrop has a less than 50% success rate, which makes it essentially useless. But the over-all experience is still a predominantly positive one.

And yet these are not available exclusively in Apple land. The “it’s just works” is proving to be more of a myth rather than not lately. The mobile devices are moving fast towards being completely autonomous - arguably they already are. Contacts, bookmarks etc work on other platforms as well, if not better. Apple’s office apps are the most incompatible with the rest of the similar products out there - alternatives already exist on Mac. The ecosystem myth is mostly in our minds now, but we often confuse it with old habits.

The future is not coming closer by making laptops without ports or releasing phones with nonsensical design choices that leave developers banging their heads on the wall. Everything is moving towards a more ecosystem-free philosophy, without locked-up devices that need to “talk” to each other.

 

[zephonic]

@antonis: your response leaves me with the impression that you didn't read my post beyond the first paragraph.

I'll frame-by-frame it:

And yet these are not available exclusively in Apple land.

Nobody says so. In fact, in my previous post (the one you replied to) I said:

Now, I am aware there are non-Apple alternatives for everything I just mentioned, but nothing else offers a similarly integrated and cohesive user experience.

And in this post I suggest I could probably replace all my Apple services and apps with cross-platform alternatives.

Then you go on:

The “it’s just works” is proving to be more of a myth rather than not lately.

Indeed. In my previous post (the one you replied to) I said:

That is not to say Apple has got this perfectly right, there is much to complain about. I still have iMessage deactivated because it was such a hot mess for me. Among my devices, Airdrop has a less than 50% success rate, which makes it essentially useless. But the over-all experience is still a predominantly positive one.

As for this:

Apple’s office apps are the most incompatible with the rest of the similar products out there - alternatives already exist on Mac. The ecosystem myth is mostly in our minds now, but we often confuse it with old habits.

I won't disagree about Apple's "Office" apps, they are not as mature and solid as MS Office stuff. Even Google Docs is better at certain things, but in many cases I find its online-only/browser-only nature a limiting factor. For me personally, Pages is easy to use and good enough, and it works well across devices. For spreadsheets, I use Google or even Open Office (lol, remember that?)

I disagree about eco-system being about old habits. In fact, the ever-advancing cross-device integration is enabling me in new ways every year.

The future is not coming closer by making laptops without ports or releasing phones with nonsensical design choices that leave developers banging their heads on the wall. Everything is moving towards a more ecosystem-free philosophy, without locked-up devices that need to “talk” to each other.

I was waiting for new MBP's last year, and when they finally came out in November 2016, I bought a 2015 model; 'nuff said.

As for ecosystem-free philosophy, if you mean platform-agnostic, I'm with you in principle. But in practice, Apple's "walled-garden" approach does have some tangible benefits.

 

[goMac]

Money is money, large piles are made a grain at time. you still think Apple behave predictively like an animal or strictly ruled by jobs commandments, Apple is more like an army, where mac division also have companies all of them looking for a mission.

If there has been one lesson from Apple over the last five years, it is definitely the opposite of "money is money."

Besides, even if "money is money", macOS Server has fallen too far behind. The cost of rebooting the server software and hardware teams, and retooling AppleCare and Apple support is likely not going to be enough to recoup costs.

Apple wasn't even recouping costs at the time they had the server hardware, which is why they dropped it.

And unlike the Mac Pro, there is no serious forcing function. Macs can be administered just fine from a Windows server. There is no gap in the ecosystem.

And I'm the one who's usually called overly-optimistic about Apple.

People used to have a need for small/medium grade email, file serving and web serving solutions. That was the target market for the Xserve but the cloud has pretty much ended that. Even scientific computing is being eaten up by cloud providers. Beyond Apple never making a profit in the first place, and strongly signaling they have no interest in the server market, it doesn't even make sense strategically, and they know that.

FWIW on the Mac Pro rumors - I still think it's too early for Apple to have a near finished pre-production model or case design. Could be wrong. But fun to see all the speculation. Remember the can took about two years.

 

[antonis]

@antonis: your response leaves me with the impression that you didn't read my post beyond the first paragraph.

I'll frame-by-frame it:



Nobody says so. In fact, in my previous post (the one you replied to) I said:



And in this post I suggest I could probably replace all my Apple services and apps with cross-platform alternatives.

Then you go on:



Indeed. In my previous post (the one you replied to) I said:



As for this:



I won't disagree about Apple's "Office" apps, they are not as mature and solid as MS Office stuff. Even Google Docs is better at certain things, but in many cases I find its online-only/browser-only nature a limiting factor. For me personally, Pages is easy to use and good enough, and it works well across devices. For spreadsheets, I use Google or even Open Office (lol, remember that?)

I disagree about eco-system being about old habits. In fact, the ever-advancing cross-device integration is enabling me in new ways every year.



I was waiting for new MBP's last year, and when they finally came out in November 2016, I bought a 2015 model; 'nuff said.

As for ecosystem-free philosophy, if you mean platform-agnostic, I'm with you in principle. But in practice, Apple's "walled-garden" approach does have some tangible benefits.

I assure you I've read your post carefully. I'm aware of all your points, and - to be honest - I do not disagree with most of them. My last post was not so much as a reply against your points, but as a sum up of what I receive as the direction where things are going (sometimes I need to write something more than one times as English is not my native language, so I realise I could express my points better).

As I said before, this walled garden is becoming more and more a prison as mobile devices becoming more and more autonomous. The benefits from apple's locked-up system are decreasing year over year, to a point where this whole "it's just works" thing we used to brag about (including myself) is dead. Everything else is just semantics. That was just my 2 cents.

Being in a locked up system for too long can become a habit (in lack of a better word). I just took a look in the MR article regarding the 0-day vulnerability in High Sierra. Some people in there actually were asking from apple to completely disallow the ability to open apps outside App Store. How sad is that. And yet they do believe in this walled garden - certainly more than they should.

 

[Mago]

Remember the can took about two years.

You'll get a surprise very soon. I bet on this.

PD I have no skate in DNG leaks/predictions or whatever he does, neither I recommend anybody to consider it for purchase plans, my plans now are an iMac Pro early next year unless Apple Announces a Mac Pro and its not crazy expensive and not too far,

 

[singhs.apps]

Here’s wishing for a truck !

 

[Mago]

Here is the Mac Pro I see feasible Apple to introduce the coming weeks, considering whats plausible from KGI, DNG even WCFtech etc.

• GPUs: 2 while DNG stand on three, I dont think Apple to jump that far. GPU sure will be in some proprietary form factor likely the same on the tcMP but updated for a twice TDP (350W each), and independent cooling solution, it may consist on heat pipes filled with some cooling gas or even closed loop liquid coolerd for high TDP solutions.
• GPU vendors: may sound crazy but I think for first time Apple will allow to BTO mac with either nVidia or AMD gpu choices, from GTX1070 to 1080Ti and all the Vegas plus a RX570 for option baseline configuration.
• CPU, Latest Xeon-W offers 48+20 PCIe (cpu+pch C422) lines but cues suggest AMD either ThreadRipper (60+4 PCIe) or Epyc,(128PCie) both good for 2 GPU (32lines) + 2 NVMe (8 lines) + 4 TB3 (16lines) + 2 10GbE (4 lines) plus a line for WiFi+Bluetooth total 61 lines, available cores from 8 to 18/32, also I think Apple wont offer a 2P solution again, its real demand its negligible.
• RAM 4 slot BTO upto 256GB, while aftermarket kits could increase to 512GB.
• Form Factor, It will be modular as modular in assembly line no as modular in DIY upgrades, sorry I seriously doubt Apple to allow DIY upgrades other than RAM and SSD, I'd like to see it liken an modernized NeXT cube all space gray just aluminum plus a big silver Apple at each cube side, giant vent on top and a single giant fan moving air to each independent radiator.
• Storage: SSD only
• Expansion: TB3 only, Unlikely to see again a std PCIe slot in a mac.
• Size/TDP: not much bigger that the tcMP but having a total TDP close to 1000W.
• Q1/Q2 available

Next Apple Display, sorry but I still dont buy Apple selling a 40" 8K display, even a 32" display at least with Apple brand.

Likely to see a Thunderbolt 3 display in 5K 27" quite similar to the iMac, I still not convinced it will have eGPU, but at least have market since LG's 5K TB3 display din't lived for the expectations, People want Apple name and quality in a 5K TB3 Display not matter if it is just an LG 5K display disguised as iMac.

Other rumors I buy:

• a revised MBP with AMD Vega 11 GPU (even APU) and upto 32 GB ram.
• I buy the Mac mini/Mini NAS rumor either in intel or AMD flavors.

 

[CWallace]

Well the prototype Ph.D describes sounds logical to me as a Mac Pro - it has a design aesthetic I could see Apple adopting, making RAM and SSDs user-replaceable would cover most of the end-user concerns about field-repairability/upgradability and putting the CPU and GPU on removable cards would allow Apple to more easily and rapidly provide upgrades as well as making field/AppleStore replacements much easier and quicker.

As for the rumored 8K display, if it's 40 inches, might it be curved, as well? The unit Ph.D saw was not, but curved OLED 4K panels are a thing so why not a curved 8K OLED panel? Especially one that would likely be produced in low volumes so it would be a way for LG or Samsung to test production.

 

[vailr]

• GPU vendors: may sound crazy but I think for first time Apple will allow to BTO mac with either nVidia or AMD gpu choices, from GTX1070 to 1080Ti and all the Vegas plus a RX570 for option baseline configuration.

If the GPU form-factor is NOT standard PCIe, as with the tcMP, then the GPU choices will remain severely limited.
Choice of maybe 2 or 3 workstation class (expensive) AMD GPU's, and that's it.
There's a new GTX 1070Ti announced for PC's, but that won't translate to also being available in a non-PCIe form-factor.

All opinions here stating that Apple won't include standard PCIe slots: those opinions are certainly not set in stone. If Apple's "mea culpa" meeting last April really meant anything, then a better regard for MacPro end user's cost containment would necessarily include PCIe slots for (user upgradable) standard form-factor video cards.

 

[JesterJJZ]

Chances are that I'll get the iMacPro at launch. I don't see a new MacPro coming within a year of the iMacPro. So to hold me over, I think the iMacPro will have to do. On the plus side, all my TB3 accessories will migrate just fine.

 

[goMac]

Well the prototype Ph.D describes sounds logical to me as a Mac Pro - it has a design aesthetic I could see Apple adopting, making RAM and SSDs user-replaceable would cover most of the end-user concerns about field-repairability/upgradability and putting the CPU and GPU on removable cards would allow Apple to more easily and rapidly provide upgrades as well as making field/AppleStore replacements much easier and quicker.

As for the rumored 8K display, if it's 40 inches, might it be curved, as well? The unit Ph.D saw was not, but curved OLED 4K panels are a thing so why not a curved 8K OLED panel? Especially one that would likely be produced in low volumes so it would be a way for LG or Samsung to test production.

I don't have anything to corroborate Ph.D's rumor, so I have no idea if it's true or not, but it's at least closer to where Apple would be in production right now.

I don't think the public will see any concrete Mac Pro designs until WWDC. It might get a mention at an iMac Pro event but I think they really don't want to steal the thunder from the iMac Pro.

Another possibility is that Apple includes both it's own GPU slot type and ships with empty PCI-E slots giving the user a bit of flexibility. But that will require more PCI-E lanes.
[doublepost=1506459856][/doublepost]

Here is the Mac Pro I see feasible Apple to introduce the coming weeks, considering whats plausible from KGI, DNG even WCFtech etc.

Apple already said nothing until next year. And when they say that I hear "December 2018".

On the server stuff, just saw in this thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apfs-support-enabled-in-high-sierra-for-cmp.2060505/page-13

That Apple has gutted High Sierra Server. More info here:
http://krypted.com/mac-os-x/upgrade-macos-server-5-4-high-sierra-macos-10-13/

Doesn't seem like a server relaunch is coming at all.

 

[CWallace]

If the GPU form-factor is NOT standard PCIe, as with the tcMP, then the GPU choices will remain severely limited. Choice of maybe 2 or 3 workstation class (expensive) AMD GPU's, and that's it.

Per Ph.D, the GPU card will be a customized design, but it will be electrically-compatible with PCIe.

Which may mean it uses a standard PCIe connector, but rather then being in a "horizontal" orientation like normal cards, it would be in a "vertical" orientation to support what he described (a card that can be slid in and out). So we could in theory see third-party OEM video cards because they would not need a proprietary (and patented) connector that would need to be licensed from Apple, but instead could leverage existing PCIe designs (just in a form factor unique to the Mac Pro) which should reduce the design costs, at least, and possibly make them more palatable to a third-party OEM to offer.

 

[fendersrule]

Damn, just give us regular friggin' PCIe slots.

 

[CWallace]

Damn, just give us regular friggin' PCIe slots.

That would require we get a Boring Black Box ala Dell and HP and "Apple don't play that".

 

[vailr]

That would require we get a Boring Black Box ala Dell and HP and "Apple don't play that".

Fail. You're trying to ignore the history of previous MacPro models that did include PCIe slots, so that's not really an effective argument.
Then you'll probably reply that those MacPro cases had this lovely & artistic "cheese cutter" design.
And I'll say: "So what?"

 

[CWallace]

Fail. You're trying to ignore the history of previous MacPro models that did include PCIe slots, so that's not really an effective argument.

That design was over a decade ago. Apple could have kept it going forward, but they didn't and I expect the cylindrical Mac Pro was a post-Jobs design along with the current iMac and Mac Mini (as well as all the portables).

Jonathan Ive has free reign now and he's not going to go back to something that looks like a PC. The "monolith on a slab" design Ph.D describes sounds very much like something Ive would think up and I expect the other prototype looks nothing like an HP Z8 or a Dell Precision 7000, either.

 

[Peace]

The problem I see is there isn't a graphics card with a Thunderbolt 3 port.

That. To Apple is a BIG problem.

 

[vailr]

Jonathan Ive has free reign now and he's not going to go back to something that looks like a PC.

Can you provide any evidence supporting your theory?
I would think that marketability would be a major, major factor in firming up the new design.
Not: how lovely and artistic it may look to one Mr. Ive.