What you describe there, wouldn't that most likely become a trashcan 2.0 ?
No.
Optical drives not coming back is a Mac product line baseline. There is nothing particularly special about the Mac Pro 2013 that was unique on this specific design objective. The laptops don't have them. The mini doesn't have them. The iMac doesn't have them. Any notion that Apple is bringing them back is largely self delusion. Apple never was a big player in 5.25" tape drive even back when there was a possible bin for them. No Firewire either.
The default Apple SSD boot drive is basically the same trend line. If Apple is building their own SSD controllers and a more secure boot infrastructure now why wouldn't they use them in all the Mac products? If the out of the box boot drive was the
only drive there would be a match to "Mac Pro 2013" design choices.... and yet my next point was about secondary drives being M.2 ( PCI-e) SSD far more likely than SATA HDDs. The maximum number of storage drives in the MP 2013? One. How many in my outline? More than one. So where is the design objective overlap? There isn't one.
Back in the 2005-2008 timeframe you pragmatically needed multiple drives on some RAID variant to get fast, "low latency" storage. In 2018, a very large range of folks don't. Capacity constraints of a single HDD have also dropped. ( 6-10 TB drives now which is larger ). Affordable 10GbE covers a wide range of use cases for network bulk storage ( bulk meaning a couple multiples of largest current single drives. )
A single CPU package gets you to MP 2013 case design constraints how? It doesn't. It just means there isn't quite the need for a box as tall as the old 2006-2012 era case. Which is fine because that case was tall enough to be rack hostile ( which I covered in the snipped out material.). pure out most of the 5.25" and 3.5" bays and the total volume needed goes does down and but not down to MP 2013 levels.
"trashcan 2.0" is for the most part the iMac Pro. It is a "pro" computer that is specifically targeted to the desktop that is already done and released. Approximately the same power window 400-480W. Comfortably, fits on a desktop without adding much noise. Faster than "trashcan 1.0" at a very wide range of tasks.
If Apple is doing a Mac Pro in addition to that it probably won't cover the same territory physically. If literal desktop is covered then going back to desk-side probably makes more sense. Do they necessarily need circular holes drilled into a sheet of aluminum as a front plate? Nope. Did the 10 year ancestor of the Mac Pro 2006-2012 case have circular holes drilled in aluminum? No. Did that ancestor's 10 year precedent look almost exactly the same from the outside front ? No.
From what I outlined Apple could easily do the following [ MP 2013 ~450w ]
Power supply 800-900W [ ~ 450W ] ( go back previous power range )
Number of Fans 4-6 [ 1 ] ( larger number with more zoned coverage)
Height 15-17.5 inches [ ~ 10 inches ] ( narrower than 19" rack. not rack hostile. ***)
Front to back cooling [ bottom to top ]
Workstation CPU [ same ]
8 DIMMs sockets [ 4 DIMM sockets ] ( different )
embedded primary video GPU [ embedded GPU ] ( **)
empty secondary x16 slot [ embedded Compute GPU ] ( different )
Apple SSD in apple socket [ Apple SSD ]
empty M.2 x4 PCI-e v3 slot [ none. ] (different )
empty M.2 x4 PCI-e v3 slot [ none ] (different; depend upon space/cooling could be a std x4 slot )
4 TB v3 sockets [ 6 TB v2 sockets ] ( different. e.g., two HDMI 2.0+ sockets is still 6 video out paths total. )
There are far more differences there than similarities there. Adding in 1-2 3.5" SATA drives wouldn't particularly be a tipping point for differences either (probably would peg the height closer to 17.5 inches).
Even with single CPU the Mac Pro would be differentiated from iMac Pro with more thermal headroom, more internal flexibility with easier access, more storage capacity (both RAM and data-at-rest) , and a form-over-function "box" shape that some folks are attached to. So no, it wouldn't resemble or be "trashcan 2.0" inside or out.
(**) custom edge connector(s) could be on long edge along with embedded cooler; similar in a generic sense (embedded ) but not same. The market for full secure boot context GPU cards wasn't really healthy and sustainable back in pre 2013 era. It will be an even smaller market afterwards.
(***) Primary target is the floor so can have 'feet'/raiser of 1-2" inches. whether this is symmetrical handles or not is up to industry design OCD. Since multiple fans there is no constraint to width and depth be the same. Mini and/or iMac pedestal desktop footprint not a constraint.
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Well said .
As for the macOS part ( I shall continue to call it OS X ), that really is the heart of the matter .
We can discuss fancy future computing as much as we want to, but the question is wether or not Apple is going to provide hardware that justifies maintaining a propriatery OS .
Apple primarily sells systems as opposed to "just hardware with some software" or "software with some hardware". it is the holistic combination that is their primary objective. Really that is what most of the "Mac Pro" drama tension is. Apple wanting to sell a completed system and some folks primarily wanting controls over component ( Apple primarily as a barebones and spare parts supplier ... which they aren't and never were. ).
The Mac Pro 2013 is a step too far by Apple. From the macOS side of the equation it is sort of like if they turned on SIP ( system integrity protection) and dropped all kernel extensions except graphics drivers. Apple should take steps to protect the OS kernel and their basic system services code, but banning everything is a bit too simplistic.
A clean, pragmatic Thunderbolt needs an embedded GPU. The standard PCI-e socket does not solve the engineering problem present. Throw on top the limited full, complete, boot enable GPU card issue and that is just something Apple should do themselves. It is a holistic systems problem and they are pretty good at those.
Opening the door to eGPU ( which Thunderbolt is now driving as a standard option ) means keeping up with the Jones even from a "software" skewed viewpoint. Windows does it so it is a competitive checkbook now. That the macOS graphics driver stack is far behind the curve here is a problem. But it is a system problem because it is software in conjunction with hardware.
So Apple has both the primary video GPU and secondary ones to cover even if look outside the Mac Pro space. ( TB goes across all of the Mac systems except Macbook which is likely just a temporary corner case. )
The trashcan answered that question with a reveberating NO , the iMacPro continued that failed approach years later .
a whole lot of handwaving here. The MP 2013 and iMac Pro are basically covering about the same space for Apple. A quiet, pro desktop targeted with a reasonably non intrusive desktop footprint. That says diddly poo about the entirety of the Mac ecosystem. That is just one some, (low single digit) component to the Mac ecosystem. Whether macOS continues or not is driven by the
whole ecosystem; not one narrow product inside it. Myopic viewpoints aren't going to grasp what Apple's objectives are, because they don't make moves in a highly myopic, non-holistic fashion.
Revolutionary design in computers is not Apple's forte ,
[it's always been about the OS .
Arguably, the cMP is the only proper workstation they ever made .
Quadra 900-650 , PowerMac , ..... not really.
Right now there is not a single piece of Apple hardware or software that would be competitive in any market, if it wasn't for a massive marketing budget .
Chuckles. Like Apple runs any major market Mac print or TV ads in the last 5-6 years. Whatever you are smoking you need to cut down.
If want to count Apple's stores are marketing budget (which they are not) then ad campaign is large, but marketing isn't massive. they do targeted placement and some vertical but it isn't huge.
As for not being competitive at all, anywhere .....
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/02/12/macbooks-vs-notebooks-shipments-2017/
what are you smoking?
P.S. Technically marketing is figuring out a good match between what you make/provide and what people want/need. Not some selection few elite people, but that market as a total. Part of marketing is picking a reasonable subset of the total market to target. Budget there is usually dominated by cost of gathering intelligence and people-time interfaces with R&D ( design requirements ) , customers, exec/strategic management , etc.
Sales is often folding into "marketing". That is pitch. supporting the sale of goods/services. etc. Pitching stuff that you already made is something substantively different. That's advertising budgets.
