"The Mac Pro Lives"

Pretty easy to speculate why they didn’t have a Thunderbolt case for an eGPU — they bet on dual GPUs being the way forward, and that turned out the wrong decision.

As for additional storage, I think third-parties already had that covered. If Apple already exited the pro-level storage market, why would they have jumped right back in with a Thunderbolt enclosure?

For you perhaps but I always prefer local storage on a machine as opposed to NAS or server based storage.

I just can’t see the point of having a neat and compact machine, if you’ve then got to hook up endless peripherals.

Ideally the new Mac Pro would be like Lego expansion - a module for storage for example, but with a base machine for those who don’t need any more. I guess thermal and power issues would be difficult to work around. If Apple was doing that I would understand the wait.

I still think in the mean time they should resurrect the cheese greater to sell alongside the trashcan.

A couple of discussions on the what would be good from a number of perspectives (sourced from John Gruber)

A software developers Mac pro

And
Marco Arment: the audacity to say “yes” in a design culture of “no”

[quote=“Oldmacs, post:50, topic:3281, full:true”]
I just can’t see the point of having a neat and compact machine, if you’ve then got to hook up endless peripherals. [/quote]

Yeah, I seem to recall this being the argument when the 2013 Mac Pro was first announced.

No way, there would be riots. The processors in them are close to a decade old, and updating them would draw from Apple’s already strained resources.

Oh don’t worry I 100 percent agree, but whoever I suggest anything of the sort on here, I usually get a grilling.

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I actually laughed out loud at this, Apple is the richest corporation on the planet - if they need resources they can easiliy obtain them.

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I feel you, but I can’t image one day I use PC parts build Macintosh and purchase Apple macOS license sticker just like Microsoft does. I would still prefer to use Apple build Apple made Apple Brand products and not paying “license fee”…

Truth is, I don’t care. At all.

I wanted a 2008 Mac Pro in 2008. I found the old forum posts elsewhere, where I hackintoshed and kept saying I was going to replace it with a legit Pro. Instead I bought a MacBook White and an Intel Mac Mini, which I could afford, and then replaced the Mini with a MBP that I could afford. Two years ago, I did it again, selling that MBP and getting my current one. Because the Mac Pro was just out of reach, too expensive for its lack of portability.

It’s now 2017, and I just bought a 2008 Mac Pro, just like I said I would… and it runs better than my MBP for my editing workflow. And with all the internal storage space I could even, no kidding, go back to 10.6 Snow Leopard and install Premiere 6.x and my various codecs (I use the same ones), and even edit in 720p or 1080p (no source I have is higher than that) on spare drive and just dual boot between them, with specs I could have only dreamt about in 2008. This is going to last me years…

…and then I could just get a 4,1 or a 5,1. Why the hell would I care about the 2018 Mac Pro? I’m a prosumer, sure, but there’s no new Mac Pro for me. I need the expandability, I need to ease of open and repair of a nice tower (I LOVED the flip side case of the G3/G4 towers), I need more power than the average user, and want a dedicated editing rig that isn’t my facegramtwitcord dropcloudmegatube mobile device (my iPhone and my MBP do that) but not the extremes of the professional.

Apple doesn’t currently make a hardware product for my editing life. And if it did, well, it would look a lot like the Mac Pro 2008 I just got. Specs included. Except new. Screw your iMacs. It’s not mobile enough to replace my MBP/iPhone, and it’s not open enough to replace my 2008 Mac Pro.

I’m good, thanks.

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I’m sorry, bennyling… are we talking about the same company? TEll me, please, how Apple’s resources are so strained.

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So you think you pay nothing for the OS now? Given Apple’s astronomical hardware prices you can be assured that it’s well and truly built in to the price you pay.

Cause they’ve got important things like ‘Carpool Karaoke’ and ‘Planet of the Apps’ to make :wink:

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Wait, people don’t think Apple is strained for resources?

No we don’t they have more than enough money to throw at anything they wish but would rather spend it on things that to many of us seem like a total waste of time and money like the aforementioned ‘Carpool Karaoke’ and ‘Planet of the Apps’.

They seem to have forgotten about (or simply don’t care about) many of those in their core user base that want to be able to buy products in which they can expand memory and disk storage to grow with their needs over time and not be forced to waste time (and contribute huge amounts to environmental destruction) by being forced to buy entire new machines rather then breath life into those that they already have.

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When I was in school, this was the type of guy who, in Week 1, would declare how he was saving his money to buy the latest XYZ card for his PC so he could play the latest Wolfenstein in 3D. By Friday, Week 20, he’d be bragging at having finally saved enough money for said card, and although it was now superceded, he was going to buy it anyway and install it that night. On the following Monday he would declare his intent to buy PQR card, because after installing the XYZ card, his machine melted and he had to spend the whole weekend problem solving what was wrong with it… and it involved upgrading something else…

Meanwhile I spent the entire weekend working on my HyperCard Doctor Who Database because I had no friends.

(This anecdote would have worked much better, and reflected the above public opinion had I been able to say - Meanwhile I just upgraded the RAM and HDD, maybe added a PDS card or something, thus extending the Mac’s capabilities… But the fact is, I’ve ultimately performed very few upgrades of that nature in my time owning a computer. Replaced dead parts occasionally… not a lot of actual “upgrades”. I do however lament the loss of the option!)

I just did this. And can I just say, at this stage, I’m happy with the machine, but once I upgrade my quad core Xeon to a six core tomorrow I’ll be even happier! :wink:

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My 24" Early 09 iMac is getting flakier… I’m thinking about going back to a tower! Looks like my budget would only be a 3,1 though… Oh - and hopefully my egads 17" Studio Display would hook up ok… Nah, couldn’t go that small again.

this is what a mildly updated MBA would look like available for sale on gear beast . Updated ports, specs, more compact size, etc. Otherwise it would be a blatent knockoff if Apple had bothered to keep the MBA up to date. Its even available in gold.
it’s AUD$659. Apple could have done exactly this, sold it for $1000, and ruled the world.


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So, it looks like it’s still coming, but not this year, alas!

Some interesting take aways from the article:

  • They are working on a monitor too.

  • There is a group within Apple who coordinate all pro products so they work optimally together.

  • There is now a Pro Workflow group, whose job it is to actually run through pro workflows and find out where the problem areas lie.

  • They’re being upfront about it and are saying that they’re committed to being more transparent about their pro products.

As frustrating as they are - I am seriously sick of waiting for something that can replace my Mac Pro 3,1 FFS - it really does look like they’re continuing to do what they do better than everyone else. It just takes a terribly long time!

While I want to give Apple kudos for all the work they are doing now, I could use a little more humility from them. So what, they’ve finally figured out they should listen to their Pro customers instead of building a non-upgradable, thermally limited (seriously, we all knew that when it launched :man_facepalming:) trash can…

RE: The article - I hope they don’t make the Mac Pro too creative industry specific. I did note in the Panzarino article they said they won’t, so that gives me hope. But I’m starting to feel that it’ll be an integrated GPU (plus eGPU support) which makes me nervous. I don’t see the point in that either, to be honest, as the eGPU enclosure is just using a PCIe card. I’ll hold out hope they don’t ditch PCIe slots entirely - even if it’s a single GPU slot they leave I’ll be happy.

All that said, the admission that Apple hasn’t been able to predict what their pro customers want for the past few years is a startling admission. Apple used to famously never ask people what they want, “as people don’t know what they want until you show them” (to quote Jobs), and they had hit product after hit product (and indeed their consumer teams still do in many areas). Did it literally take 5 years for that arrogance/hubris to be broken about the 2013 Mac Pro?

I did get a degree of optimism from the article that Apple are finally rethinking their entire Pro range including laptops (as they should be!). :crossed_fingers:Clearly the 2016/17 MacBook Pros are a product of the same thinking as the 2013 Mac Pro. Hopefully they revisit the concept there asap too! Hopefully they are asking Pro users if they actually use the touch bar and not just hiring yes men/women creatives to say “yes sir, we love it”… :grimacing:

On a completely different note, the Mac Pro 5,1 I bought last year after the Mac Pro round table is looking like a better buy every day. :man_shrugging: 12-core 3.3Ghz Xeons, lots of RAM, GTX 680, SSDs, PCIe USB-C… what can Apple honestly offer me in a new Mac Pro at this stage? And when they do, will I need to mortgage my house to be able to afford one? :grimacing: Guess it’s good they aren’t coming until next year - gives me time to save up! :open_mouth:

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