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

[CWallace]

If it was about prestige, then apple would still have kept the tcMP prominent on its site ( never mind its shortcomings because it was still the most ‘powerful Mac’ until recently )

Or continued to invest in upgrades, even if minor, until they had a replacement ready.

Well they said they designed themselves into a corner on the thing so at best it would have had slightly better Xeon CPUs and FirePro GPUs, both of which would have been far behind what PC OEMs were offering.

This is what i find confusing about the Homepod - "Homepod" should have been the Apple home / homekit server - a device with multiple video and audio in, that sends video to to AppleTV, audio to a dumber version of the homepod speaker, that has synology-like bulk storage bays so all those laptops at home with tiny ssds can get access to large local photo libraries, that acts as a local meshnet for all iCloud connections for all devices within its range - basically a consolidator for everything Apple's server and network enabled functions do while you're in the home, and using it's iCloud connection to provide remote access back to that data when outside the home.

Apple's philosophy is that everything should be in the cloud at all times in all places. The idea of a traditional centralized media server in the home would run directly counter to this.

The days of "the Digital Hub" are well over in Apple's mind.

 

[mattspace]

Apple's philosophy is that everything should be in the cloud at all times in all places. The idea of a traditional centralized media server in the home would run directly counter to this.

The days of "the Digital Hub" are well over in Apple's mind.

Remember when Steve held a company meeting to ask what MobileMe was for, and when someone said it's purpose, his response was "well why the **** doesn't it do that?" MobileMe was axed soon after.

What's the point of filling a house with dozens of devices who all communicate back to Apple's servers independently, all have access to siri, if they can't even coordinate amongst themselves about who takes responsibility for doing things? Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater was commenting recently about setting reminders on his apple watch to notify him with a timer for when he finished meditating. The watch notifies you with a gentle, calm tap on the wrist, but instead his homepod decides it can handle it better, and starts blaring out a timer alarm. Really messing up his zen thing.

Imagine that centralised media / function hub is paired to a virtual duplicate in Apple's datacentre (so you also get time machine in the cloud) - when you're at home, all your devices sync to it, it pipes up to the cloud. leave the house, your device syncs to the cloud version, it syncs down to the home. It means that your calendars still sync from device to device when your internet connection is down, for example.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Hope there are at least 2 Mac Pros, a mini-MP (or a single GPU TrashCan Update) and a Big Rig (multi-gpu, modular, multi CPU, etc), about it to use Industry Standard Components... I don't buy this possible beyond Apple want it to be, Apple loves proprietary and hardware/warranty/upgrades control, only thing not proprietary in macs are those related to Peripherals (GPU do not account as peripheral for this): Capture Cards, Storage, communications, things beyond Apple's realm.

Another different possibility was the Macintosh-nizer Card, an Card Sold by Apple that Includes NVME storage, macOS, Thunderbolt 3 and Ax chip to allow certain server motherboard to boot macOS and work as an Apple-blessed Hackintosh.

storage and TB3 + CO CPU on the same card that will also need an TB loopback? and why lock server motherboard boards to apple storage?? Just put the CO CPU on a card that unlocks mac os.

 

[singhs.apps]

Apple's philosophy is that everything should be in the cloud at all times in all places. The idea of a traditional centralized media server in the home would run directly counter to this.

The days of "the Digital Hub" are well over in Apple's mind.

iCloud is more of a streaming/syncing strategy than as the main storage system. If not, Apple would be shrinking the storage capacities of iPhones and iPads, not increasing them. Nor would it enable services like Air* to share content between devices running off local WiFi and Bluetooth. Apple wants us to buy as many hardware as it can induce us to, because hardware is its main business. The software is the other part of the experience. it’s approach is as holistic as possible ( one of the very few companies that puts a lot of emphasis on both software and hardware. It’s rivals excel only in one of the two )

There are a host of cloud based services that offer a superior experience than iCloud ( until recently ) and if Apple isn’t keeping local media hub relevant than it risks losing out to these competitors ( unless it buys them out ... but some whales are too big to buy) Rival cloud based services have better cross platform compatibility as well which is another incentive to invest in them. Tommorow if users want to shift out of Apple’s garden, they will fare better if they haven’t invested wholly into its eco system.

Apple wants you to buy as much media as possible ( hunting with the hounds) because that way it can tie the user down with their sunk costs (while still running with the foxes by offering streaming services )

 

[telequest]

As a video guy, got hooked on Macs for video back in the dual-G5 tower days and the heyday of FCP7 (which was of course exclusive to the Mac). While Apple drove a lot of us away from FCP when they came out with FCPX, I've hung in there (with Adobe software) with my upgraded 5,1 MP. I would think video creators would still be a big potential market for the 7,1 ... and sure hoping it has features friendly to our needs.

NAB is just over a month away. Yeah, I know, Apple announces stuff on its own schedule ... but it was right around NAB time last year that Apple broke the news that a new modular MP was in the works.

So I'm hoping we at least get some kind of update from Apple on what to expect around the same time this year.

 

[Michael Scrip]

People keep talking about the 2013 Mac Pro being a Steve Jobs design, but I'm pretty sure he would have liked it until he actually used one and saw all the wire mess, and then he would have hated it.

Steve would have hated PCIe slots until he had someone show him the setup for what a Thunderbolt PCIe box connected to a capture card looked like and then he would have lost his mind and the PCIe slots would be put back in.

Yes... the old Mac Pro towers had internal PCI slots and drive bays. But there could still be a ton of wires... especially in a professional environment.

Even if you have an internal PCI capture card... there's still a wire going from the back of the tower to whatever you're capturing. That's in addition to the power cable, a monitor cable or two, card reader, audio interface/mixer, speaker cables, ethernet cable, perhaps keyboard and mouse cables, etc.

And there's a good chance you had an external hard drive or two attached to the old Mac Pro tower.

I understand your point... but the old cheesegrater Mac Pro wasn't exactly a "wire-free" zone...

 

[CWallace]

What's the point of filling a house with dozens of devices who all communicate back to Apple's servers independently, all have access to siri, if they can't even coordinate amongst themselves about who takes responsibility for doing things?

There is no point, but things are this messed up because Siri is woefully behind in terms of capabilities and the HomePod was launched before the software was ready so the combination of the two resulted in such a mess. And the resolution is to make Siri more capable and address the software integration issues (AirPlay 2, etc.) so that these devices work together better within the cloud environment.

iCloud is more of a streaming/syncing strategy than as the main storage system. If not, Apple would be shrinking the storage capacities of iPhones and iPads, not increasing them.

And that is because Apple has historically been stingy with consumer cloud storage compared to other providers, though I believe they are now the most generous with 2TB at $9.99 a month whereas everyone else seems to offer only 1TB for that price based on the online comparisons I have seen. And I accept that 2TB might very well not be enough for many folks (my audio library is almost 512GB and my iTunes library is 3.5TB).

There are a host of cloud based services that offer a superior experience than iCloud ( until recently ) and if Apple isn’t keeping local media hub relevant than it risks losing out to these competitors ( unless it buys them out ... but some whales are too big to buy) Rival cloud based services have better cross platform compatibility as well which is another incentive to invest in them. Tomorrow if users want to shift out of Apple’s garden, they will fare better if they haven’t invested wholly into its eco system.

But how long has it been since Apple was "media hub relevant"? They scrapped Front Row in 2011 which forced folks to go to third-party applications like Plex and Infuse and Apple has never been in the home NAS market which is where folks store their large media libraries. Hell, Apple even dumped CD and DVD drives so digitizing owned physical content now requires third-party hardware in addition to third-party software.

 

[singhs.apps]

But how long has it been since Apple was "media hub relevant"? They scrapped Front Row in 2011 which forced folks to go to third-party applications like Plex and Infuse and Apple has never been in the home NAS market which is where folks store their large media libraries. Hell, Apple even dumped CD and DVD drives so digitizing owned physical content now requires third-party hardware in addition to third-party software.

Because Apple would rather you buy those media from its iTunes Store. It cannot force a user to buy off only iTunes ofcourse, esp when viable alternatives exist (and cross platform to boot. Plex runs on my nvidia shield as well my mac and iOS devices ... and while I never tried front row (entered Apple ecosystem a few years after it was discontinued) I suppose it makes no diff to Apple what media streaming or NAS drives you use so long as you prefer to buy off iTunes and store them on your drives.( No idea if plex works with iTunes content though since I stopped buying from iTunes two years ago, faced with the reality that I might go off the Apple grid. Edit : apparently it does.)

Much the same way Apple didn’t release a blu ray drive ( I think the dvd ‘super’ drive is available) because Apple didn’t see them as a better solution than its own initiative - HDDs for storage ( 3rd party ) + iTunes media. Besides it might result in people buying Blu-ray media rather than the impulse purchase off iTunes.

Apple Music itself seems to be an attempt to keep its flock together when challenged by cheap music subscription services rather than something it may have wanted to do. It hasn’t stopped selling music though. And allows you to use iTunes Match (thereby hooking you deeper in its garden ) if you add 3rd party purchased audio.

 

[AidenShaw]

Non DIY upgradeable unless you void Warranty.

Failure - Cube 3.0. User upgradeability (even if just for CTO options) is widely seen as a main problem for the trash can.

Storage to use iMacPro's proprietary PCIe-NVMe (encrypted), maybe same SSD options upto 4TB.

Failure - Cube 3.0. Standard M.2 form factor for NVMe disks. Should have at least three 3.5" slots that can be easily configured to hold two 2.5" spinners per slot, or four M.2 disks.

You don't need proprietary form factor SSDs to have encryption.

About GPU number, the only safe number is: 1. unlikely to see 3/4 GPU options

Failure - Cube 3.0. While one GPU is a safe prediction, it would mark a failure. Two to three to sixteen GPUs are needed by some in this segment.

Chipset, some cues (others than me do not acknowledges) likely to use AMD's Epyc 8 upto 32 Cores, AMD system requires less Motherboard Updates to hold the latest CPU, this is consistent with an Mac Pro Apple do not likes to update too often, at low end (epyc low end's) AMD CPUs price is close to Intel Counterpart but at HCC AMD Beats Intel, so do not expet Base mMP to be cheaper than TrashCanMP, but a 32 core sytem shoud cost the same or less than iMac Pro's 18 core option.

NBase-t Ethernet its safe, at least single port, as well 4-6 Thunderbolt 3 with DP-1.4 Alt Mode for upto 8K displays, USB type A its safe by now.

What is "N"? 10GbE is a safe bet due to the iMP, but 25GbE and 50GbE are gaining traction, and could be mainstream within a few years.

Whatever happened to the Apple that led the pack?

Great Improvements About Cooling over tcMP, Key Word: Flexibility, latest Technologies Apple may consider: Passive Phase Change liquid cooling (2 phase cooling), classic thermal Pipes, Unlikely to see mainstream-like Liquid Cooling, neither a ThermalCore re-introduction.

KISS.

Since almost all non-entry systems use passive phase change coolers, that's a given.

Just hope that Apple doesn't create another "tour-de-force" cooling system that boxes them into another corner.

 

[OldMike]

Apple should publish an IT whitepaper using their own data centers as a case study. What brands of server hardware and server OS does Apple, the maker of Macs and Mac OS, use for their own data center operations: Application servers, database servers, file servers, etc? What does Apple use to authenticate and manage Macs in their corporate buildings and retail stores? Does Apple use an ERP solution, and which OS does it run on? How about their HR and accounting software? What OS does Apple use to control their lab instruments? What does Apple have to fear by releasing this information?

I always thought this was a pretty accurate picture of what was going on when Apple decided to kill off their server line:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-apple-had-to-kill-the-xserve/

 

[AidenShaw]

I always thought this was a pretty accurate picture of what was going on when Apple decided to kill off their server line:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-apple-had-to-kill-the-xserve/

Yes, good article.

I'm surprised by the picture, though, as I never realized that Jobs was less than 39cm tall.

 

[singhs.apps]

Well it seems Microsoft made better enterprise dog food then.
[doublepost=1519942491][/doublepost]

Yes, good article.

I'm surprised by the picture, though, as I never realized that Jobs was less than 39cm tall.

The perspective seems off. Looks like a cut paste Job.

 

[AidenShaw]

Well it seems Microsoft made better enterprise dog food then.

Microsoft hasn't made servers - although many of the servers that they buy run Windows Server.

The Azure cloud doesn't run Windows Server on the hardware (it's something similar to ESXi as a thin hypervisor layer on the hardware). The VMs are usually Windows.

However, you can build out an enterprise data center using Windows Server - whereas OSX server's sweet spot is a single MiniMac.

 

[CWallace]

The Azure cloud doesn't run Windows Server on the hardware (it's something similar to ESXi as a thin hypervisor layer on the hardware). The VMs are usually Windows.

I used to support a fair bit of Azure, Exchange and Dynamic CRM installations at Microsoft and they were predominately Server 2012 VMs with Hyper-V as the hypervisor layer.

 

[AidenShaw]

I used to support a fair bit of Azure, Exchange and Dynamic CRM installations at Microsoft and they were predominately Server 2012 VMs with Hyper-V as the hypervisor layer.

I work in Azure Engineering, and can provide a more authoritative answer without disclosing too many details.

Azure runs on a customized version of Hyper-V. It’s fairly close to Hyper-V core in construct or theory, but that’s where all the similarities end. It’s super hardened and stripped down to ensure only signed and authorized components run on top of it. More commonly called as the Fabric.

The management layer atop is ARM (Azure Resource Manager), that is the control plane for customers and users to design, deploy and manage workloads. If you would rather use a developer tool to deploy, you can call the ARM API’s and work.

https://www.quora.com/What-technolo...-some-other-kind-of-virtualization-technology

So, it looks and acts like Hyper-V, but it's a different animal.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2...windows-azure-s-hypervisor-isn-t-hyper-v.html

 

[JesterJJZ]

I understand your point... but the old cheesegrater Mac Pro wasn't exactly a "wire-free" zone...

But at least it was a brick-free zone!

 

[deconstruct60]

....

What is "N"?

NBase-T is pragmatically IEEE 802.3bz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T#IEEE_802.3bz

It is useful in a nominal 10GbE end user machine that is likely hooked to a edge, non "datacenter only/internal" switch. Being able to do 5GbE on old Cat 5e infrastructure helps.

https://www.netgear.com/landings/multi-gig/?cid=gwmng

For example Netgear has a new XS512EM swtich that is about $900 retail ( 12 ports , $900 ==> $75 which isn't too bad. ). So folks who were previously using two link bounded 1GbE ( 2GbE) could get 10GbE ( 2 x 5GbE) out of the same old crufty cat 5e cables.

Put one of these switches one one side of current network and 1-2 iMac Pro at just two of the points and a two port storage server similarly quipped for 3bz have a net boost in remote storage while the legacy stuff putters along at 1GbE until they get upgrades.

10GbE is a safe bet due to the iMP, but 25GbE and 50GbE are gaining traction, and could be mainstream within a few years.

Not with folks with copper wires.

Mainstream switches cost a couple hundred dollars. 25GbE is not going mainstream for at least another decade ( giving the length of the transition to 10GbE from creation. )

Whatever happened to the Apple that led the pack?

In term of built in, soldered to the motherboard and large volume they are. Who else is shipping a substantial volume, 10GbE workstation as a built-in , required standard feature workstation/PC ?
The rest of the PC market is largely just as lame here. it has taken too long to get to this point

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1206...g-network-cards-for-59-and-69-on-black-friday

[ And no cards lacking SPF receivers don't count as low, afford cost options. ]

 

[VictorTango777]

Well it seems Microsoft made better enterprise dog food then.
[doublepost=1519942491][/doublepost]

The perspective seems off. Looks like a cut paste Job.

This was the WWDC 2011 keynote. He was standing in front of the large projection screen and introducing iCloud. He made no mention of the hardware or OS manufacturer of those servers, so many people were still thinking it was some new Apple rack server hardware running OS X Server.
[doublepost=1519955069][/doublepost]

I always thought this was a pretty accurate picture of what was going on when Apple decided to kill off their server line:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-apple-had-to-kill-the-xserve/

The article was a good start, but it still lacks the impact of Tim Cook coming out and publicly admitting that Apple don't use their own server hardware and server OS in their data centers. This is needed because apparently there are still a lot of Apple worshipping home users with no IT experience, who continue to think that Apple's data centers are filled with Mac Minis running macOS Server. They boast about their purity in using only Apple hardware, Apple software, and Apple online services because they think that Apple themselves use only their own hardware and software. These are also the same people who like to rationalize Apple's non-support for enterprise customers while at the same time complaining that their employer won't buy Macs only, won't run only macOS Server, and their IT department won't bend over backwards to support the 2 Macs in their company. Can't have it both ways.

 

[singhs.apps]

He was standing in front of the large projection screen and introducing iCloud.

Figures. Perspective + Ambient light seemed to be off.

 

[Chancha]

Nothing in Apple’s recent initiatives suggest a Mac Pro has to have a place in its lineup and I suspect technology will already shrink the form factors without sacrificing power ( in areas that macs operate ) in its current lineup, so it has even lesser incentive to make one.

The window to come up with an answer already seems to have passed ( a revamped Mac Pro in 2016 might have been better received and kept the migrators in the eco system and by now we would have a viable eco system nurtured by a Mac Pro ) but it is something Apple was already aware and perhaps didn’t care. It has already tried to woo back the Mac Pro segment with the iMac pro. It remains to be seen how well it does and Apple might have delayed the Mac Pro enough to give an iMac pro a substantial lead to cannibalize its Mac Pro users.

Even with a nMP, what will Apple bring in terms of innovation ( considering it already burnt it fingers once with the tcMP) except its ‘oooo shhiiny’ potential ? It will be mostly dealing with regular hardware anyway so performance isn’t a viable metric when compared to the rest of the PC industry.

P.S. I think Apple is looking for its Next big hit before fading out of the pc industry as a serious player. We are already looking at rumblings of a post smartphone era. Smartphones may act as a hub for future consumer/business technologies but it likely won’t be the final client interface as it is now.

Having a wireless mesh of devices in a living room or even a workplace, with integration to the cloud is an obvious vision that not only Apple but most of the tech world has. To have a cohesive hardware lineup that's shaped around this idea, it is pretty logical to ditch most of the deskbound products unless necessary. The iMac is probably what's left of it - the upper end of tasks that are suitable to be done on desk, and need the extra power and bandwidth. I guess this was why the iMac Pro idea was conceived, it is by extension just a more powerful kiosk PC, the fact that it scaled so high as to include "server grade components" is just to consume the market that used to belong to tcMP.

The problem is that this approach undermines a scenarios that need more performances and cooperation, traditional workshop or studio or what have you. I am not sure if it is accurate to say Apple "needs to come up with an answer", it looked like they thought they already got the answer, but the rest of the world didn't go the way they wanted. With Moore's law plateauing, they probably thought it was time for industries to stop speeding up one race car (a single powerful workstation), and start deploying multiple sedans to spread the load (disposable MBPs). They didn't anticipate a clear alternative of using semi-trucks, which you can add cargos (mobos directly attaching multiple GPUs). And pretty much watched the whole market swim away with the best product being just an SUV towing a trailer (tcMP with dangling TB devices). I think their success in iPhone/iOS has given them a pretty wrong perception as to how influential they actually are, particularly in more demanding market segments.

That's why it is such an embarrassing situation Apple finds itself in. If the mMP is any more "innovative" than the tcMP, it will further depart from immediate needs of a losing market. If it is just a Cheese Grater rebooted, then like you said it has passed the best timing for it to make significant impact. If it is anything in between, the compromises in hardware choices will fail to please either or both ends of the spectrum. But hey, we never know if Apple may actually have a Tesla Semi up its sleeve, where it approaches performance envelop in a completely different manner. Surely they got something of that calibre in their labs, it is just if they are willing to materialise it and ship it. In time.

 

[CWallace]

The article was a good start, but it still lacks the impact of Tim Cook coming out and publicly admitting that Apple don't use their own server hardware and server OS in their data centers. This is needed because apparently there are still a lot of Apple worshipping home users with no IT experience, who continue to think that Apple's data centers are filled with Mac Minis running macOS Server. They boast about their purity in using only Apple hardware, Apple software, and Apple online services because they think that Apple themselves use only their own hardware and software. These are also the same people who like to rationalize Apple's non-support for enterprise customers while at the same time complaining that their employer won't buy Macs only, won't run only macOS Server, and their IT department won't bend over backwards to support the 2 Macs in their company. Can't have it both ways.

If they are that wedded to Apple, I doubt they would suddenly switch to Android and Windows 10 on a Dell if they found out.

 

[nigelbb]

There is no "cheesegrater Mac Pro" in this picture. The picture was taken in 2004. The "cheesegrater" didn't exist unitil 2006. Soo..... Jobs is using the technology available at the time; not necessarily what he wanted, but what he could get. You see the big iSight Camera perched on top ( before Jobs oversaw the integration of cameras inside of all Apple monitors by 2010. ) doesn't mean he was a fan of the solution, just that it was the available solution. The Apple store doesn't even sell any discrete desktop cameras anymore. So not only does Apple not make discrete iSight anymore they don't even sell 3rd party solutions wither. That is what happened in the 13=14 years since this picture was taken.

In 2004 the Intel Macs didn't exist so there could be no Mac Pro but the PowerMac G5 was launched in 2003 & that is all but indistinguishable from the Mac Pro externally.

 

[iPadified]

[/QUOTE]
That will open a real sh*t storm for Apple. ..Not happening.
Adobe will lose a gargantuan market share on the PC side of things. What would be the point ? Apple buying out Adobe is essentially killing Adobe as we know it without any benefit to itself.
Would have been a viable strategy 10 years ago when Apple was still visibly competing in the x86/traditional computer space.[/QUOTE]
I know that and it would probably be illegal. Just took it as an example to illustrate that win software is now at least as capable as Mac software ( think mac version are now trailing behind win versions). Hence the edge for running Mac is not on the application side. MacOS is more pleasant to work with than windows in my opinion. As IBM has pointed out, Macs seem to be cheaper to maintain compared to win machines, which is an argument for using Macs. It will be an uphill struggle with a Mac Pro even if it meet all expectation from this forum and will require and entirely new mid set from Apple not the least on supporting software. If they want high performing software on Mac pro, they need to invest in software companies so they quickly support e.g. metal.

 

[Chancha]

I know that and it would probably be illegal. Just took it as an example to illustrate that win software is now at least as capable as Mac software ( think mac version are now trailing behind win versions). Hence the edge for running Mac is not on the application side. MacOS is more pleasant to work with than windows in my opinion. As IBM has pointed out, Macs seem to be cheaper to maintain compared to win machines, which is an argument for using Macs. It will be an uphill struggle with a Mac Pro even if it meet all expectation from this forum and will require and entirely new mid set from Apple not the least on supporting software. If they want high performing software on Mac pro, they need to invest in software companies so they quickly support e.g. metal.

With hardware it is already hard for them to shift gears and refocus (towards pros), but then with software it is even harder. Pulling the plug on Aperture and Shake etc didn't just leave bad taste in users' mouth, but it signified deep rooting policies and direction within the corporation. I am unsure if you can just buy out technologies like that, with the case of Adobe, it is true that they often buy entire competitors, turned into its own product and actually managed to succeed (InDesign for instance). But Adobe has already got a solid foundation in professional software that they have never stopped. Apple on the other hand pretty much always looked like their pro software were just nice attempts to see if it stick. What's worse is they have a track record of letting marketing and hardware design choices dictate over software needs, rightfully so as it primarily is still a hardware seller. Just look at iTunes, it wouldn't have needed to be as bloated as it is now, if the corresponding iDevice ecosystem didn't evolve that much more than the original intent of the software, which was just a database GUI for mp3s.

 

[barmann]

Having a wireless mesh of devices in a living room or even a workplace, with integration to the cloud is an obvious vision that not only Apple but most of the tech world has. To have a cohesive hardware lineup that's shaped around this idea, it is pretty logical to ditch most of the deskbound products unless necessary. The iMac is probably what's left of it - the upper end of tasks that are suitable to be done on desk, and need the extra power and bandwidth. I guess this was why the iMac Pro idea was conceived, it is by extension just a more powerful kiosk PC, the fact that it scaled so high as to include "server grade components" is just to consume the market that used to belong to tcMP.

The problem is that this approach undermines a scenarios that need more performances and cooperation, traditional workshop or studio or what have you. I am not sure if it is accurate to say Apple "needs to come up with an answer", it looked like they thought they already got the answer, but the rest of the world didn't go the way they wanted. With Moore's law plateauing, they probably thought it was time for industries to stop speeding up one race car (a single powerful workstation), and start deploying multiple sedans to spread the load (disposable MBPs). They didn't anticipate a clear alternative of using semi-trucks, which you can add cargos (mobos directly attaching multiple GPUs). And pretty much watched the whole market swim away with the best product being just an SUV towing a trailer (tcMP with dangling TB devices). I think their success in iPhone/iOS has given them a pretty wrong perception as to how influential they actually are, particularly in more demanding market segments.

- snip -

Good stuff .