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 ) 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!). 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”…
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. 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? Guess it’s good they aren’t coming until next year - gives me time to save up!