Yeah I have zero interest in an HDMI port, nor USB-A.
Stop living in the past, a do-everything port like Thunderbolt 3/4 is so much more useful and versatile than legacy ports.
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MP 7,1 Apple has lost the plot on the pro market
- Thread starter brofkand
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Stop living in the past, a do-everything port like Thunderbolt 3/4 is so much more useful and versatile than legacy ports.
Look on a laptop HDMI makes sense. All tvs have HDMI and all projectors have HDMI. Teachers, business people and students and most others use HDMI. Stop saying its legacy when its used everywhere and will be for a long time.
...but what will be the max RAM limit on the AS Mac Pro 8,1 be? So long as it can compete with the 'power' of the 7,1 (CPU and GPU) then Apple may hope customers will accept a non-upgradable (locked down) version of the Mac Pro. If it comes with its own After Burner Card, then mid-level film production houses might be fine with the AS version especially if cheaper. Ditto for music production. College students don't care if it is upgradable. Just cheaper than the 7,1.
Fair enough, since I can see how you interpreted what I wrote. It wasn't quite what I meant, but that is more on me.
I meant it more in the sense that people look at the Mac Pro and say "it's too expensive".
Since there is only one Mac Pro (in various configurations), and only Apple makes them, the price is what it is. There is no competition and no one makes an alternative Mac Pro.
So what I mean is that people who say it's expensive are not interested in the Mac Pro, at that price. But there is only that price, so the price can be removed from the argument, leaving us with: they are not interested in it.
There is no argument like: "I'd like it if it was cheaper". Yes, most people have limited financial resources and like to get as much for them as possible. While the reasoning won't hold up in the long run, the knee jerk reaction is that cheaper is better.
Anyway, I'm fine with your verdict of my post and happy to let this rest.
Jobs was letting the Mac Pro wither when he was alive; people were talking about the Mac Pro getting canned and whether Apple was committed to the machine in 2010. Jobs was alive and involved in the FCPX debacle. This really isn't a Tim Cook problem, it's an Apple problem.
(As for who besides Cook would have been a better CEO, I'm curious what legitimate options there were to you.)
Yeah, this is the key.
As with Apple's usual new-version Mac Pro, the machine is pretty price-competitive—for what it's aiming at, which is a high-end expandable workstation. It's not really a replacement for the midrange cheesegrater, and that means people who don't need that flexibility or high-end capacity basically have a $3K premium to spec the machine up.
While this is definitely true, that's partially why I don't get Apple's pivot with the 7,1. If you squint, I guess I can see "oh a ton of high-end hardware needs are now solved by Thunderbolt and iMacs", which is definitely true, but since they don't have anything like the xMac and they created the iMac Pro not producing the midrange tower left a giant gulf in what could be considered pro options. Considering Apple's understandable move with consumer products, it's odd to me that they'd veer in the opposite direction with a tighter niche for their pro options.
Maybe if this half-height Mac Pro appears or once the entire line has transitioned to Silicon things will make more sense, but I don't quite understand at this point what they see the Mac lineup looking like.
That fact probably saved me the money I'd have spent on it, haha. Too much legacy software I'd still want to run, so I went ahead and got a Mac mini + eGPU. Not as fast, not as nice, but I can go through three of these setups and still come out ahead on price.
Indeed. The problem is that many people here are interested in running MacOS but that none of the very limited range of hardware that Apple makes to run it on fits their needs.
It's probably true that the people complaining about the Mac Pro aren't interested in buying a $10k, 28-core Xeon workstation with the expansion potential for quad GPUs, dual afterburners and 1.5TB of RAM. The problem is that Apple offers nothing between that and a tricked-out 5k iMac all-in-one (better like that 5k screen, because it's glued on).
OK, I left out the lower-end $6k model - but the actual spec is worse than an iMac and what you're paying for is the potential ability to add $10k+ of bucks worth of expansion... and, yeah, if you do a "like for like" compare with those $4k systems from Lenovo, Dell etc. they won't have 2 PCIe x16 + 8 PCIe x8 + enough slots for 1.5TB of RAM (although you'll need to replace the base CPU with a $7k M-suffix model for that...) What they will have is the ability to put in a half-decent, mid-range GPU or two, maybe a specialist I/O card, and a decent amount of internal storage.
I'm certainly not in the market for a 2019 Mac Pro... I'd absolutely have been in the market for a $2-$4k tower Mac, and did buy a $3k MP 1.1 in 2006, and would probably have bought a Trashcan in 2017 (I ended up getting an iMac instead) if they'd been kept up to date.
As for real "pro" users (whatever that means to people) - I think the only ones left are the ones that are completely tied to MacOS by existing workflows and simply can't contemplate switching (...and I'm not dismissing those as valid reasons). I don't see what other permutation of misconceptions would make people build their business around Apple stuff after they (a) dropped the Xserve like hot garbage, with no credible alternative (b) let the original Mac Pro wither on the vine for a couple of years (it was actually discontinued in Europe, for want of a plastic fan guard to meet regs, a year or so before the Trashcan launched) (c) completely replaced it with the radically different, workflow-changing Trashcan (d) Dumped FCP in favour of the not0then-quite-complete FCPx, (e) never upgraded the trashcan in 6 years (f - most likely) planned to replace it with the all-in-one iMac Pro... Anybody who didn't take the hint and did hang around for the 2019 MP was rewarded when, 6 months later, Apple announce the Apple Silicon transition without any hint of a roadmap for how Apple Silicon is going to work for those who do need the power of a higher-end MP setup.
Which, I suspect is the problem: in the short term Apple can make more money selling hyper-expensive kit to a shrinking pool of pro users. You can see this from the Mac Pro marketing which was all comparing it to trashcans and iMac Pro - no attempt to compare it with other options to maybe attract new customers (...just the inconsequential, but ridiculous and un-forced announcements of $700 wheels and $1000 display stands which have helped make Apple a laughing stock amongst PC users).
Otherwise, sticking MacOS in a ~$2-3k mini-tower system (especially during the Intel era) and putting it in a nicer-than-average box and selling it at a modest premium over comparable PCs, would have been so easy to do and totally solved the problem for many people... Back in the day when mini-towers were the go-to choice for most consumers, it might have cannibalised sales of iMacs and laptops, but today it's only people who want a pick-up truck who will buy them and, if the market is limited, so what? The R&D would be much less than the current Mac Pro, let alone a MacBook or tablet. Apple is something like the #4 largest maker of personal computers - and even your friendly local OEM manages to offer a more diverse range of PCs.
I did not dispute stability just user experience. It feels the same as any old Windows to use - with a really dumbed down explorer. And if you somehow manage to locate the TCP/IP settings panel those NT4 skillz still come in handy.
Some engineer was paid to put a feature in Monterey which shows the user's 3D memoji, whose face tracks the cursor on the login screen. Apple has the resources to make and support an enthusiast machine.
HDMI doesn't have to be "taller" (thicker) than USB A . There is a mini version.
" ... Type A ..plug (male) connector outside dimensions are 13.9 mm × 4.45 mm and the receptacle (female) connector inside dimensions are 14 mm × 4.55 mm...
... This Micro connector shrinks the connector size to something resembling a micro-USB connector,[62][63][64] measuring only 5.83 mm × 2.20 mm[65](fig. 4.1.9.8) For comparison, a micro-USB connector is 6.85 mm × 1.8 mm and a USB Type-A connector is 11.5 mm × 4.5 mm. It keeps the standard 19 pins of types A and C, but the pin assignment is different from both..."
HDMI - Wikipedia
If Apple is pressed for height they can go to the Mini cable that has the same wires as type A . (e.g. miniDisplayPort instead of DisPlayPort ). So it may not solve the "dongle" issue attaching to " a projector at a convention in a hotel " problem.
The Mini connector is typically used on DSLR/Larger-mirrorless cameras and dedicated video camera. They with a Type A so that can do HDMI 2.0 or 2.1 ( I don't think squeezing 2.1 over Mini cables is worked out yet for mainstream cables. ). If they are shooting mainly for 4K TV/projector hook ups then could go with Mini.
It is pretty much in the negligible zone on height differential with USB-A. The "A type" plugs are just as tall. The MBP would have the receptacle but that is only 0.10 mm bigger. That is a pretty small amount. The MBP 16" is 16.2 mm thick. Splitting that in half 8mm . 0.10/8 --> 1.25% . the shift to mini-LED might drive a bigger bump to the thickness than that. 4.55/8 --> 57% . There is room. [ The MBP 13" is 15.6 mm so half is 7.8 . So again room. 4.55/7.8 --> 58% ]
Apple won't do a USB Type A for two likely reasons. First they are out of port space. Between the speakers and battery needing internal space on the wall of the edge.. it is done. They a swapping out one TB port for on HDMI port. Second, even if there was more space, it presents uniformity. USB/Thunderbolt .. same shape to look for on both sides. The tiny, complicated USB label hieroglyphics. ( what flavor of speed/power/etc/etc/ is this port) they are likely not going to want to participate in. Thunderbolt symbol is simpler and means it does things you can expected it to do.
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To be fair, that will probably shift enough MacBook Airs to teenagers to pay for itself a few times over. Apple are good at selling to that market.
Not completely true. The T2 also controlled the speakers , microphone , fans , touchID sensor, and Facetime camera if present. It is also handles some higher level System Management Controller (SMC) issues [ deeply involved in the early boot process ] . It was "in the loop" with the Power Management Controller (PMC). [ the PMCs are moving to being internal Apple custom also. apple bought out a subset of Dialog that did that work for them. ]
Also drives the touchbar ( but that didn't have much impact on desktop systems. )
It was also a subsystem to frameworks could had video compress/decompress tasks too ( i.e.., leveraged the image processing subsystem there).
Apple handed a ' kitchen sink ' worth of tasks to the T2. macOS dispatching several specialized task off to Apple specific hardware subsystems, it was a large scale field test of that.
If there is a W-3300 (ice lake) Intel version then the AS Mac Pro won't have to cover the Max RAM use case as much. It also wouldn't be an 8,1 .. perhaps an 8,2 or 8,3 for the "half sized" form factor, but the _,1 would likely remain the taller more complete version. The suffix after the comma would be different if a different form factor.
If they get to the point they drop the taller Intel version then maybe AS (M-series) will take over the _,1 sequence.
Right now the leaks indicate the at the "half size" model would cap out around 128GB RAM. Apple probably knows how many folks actually flush out the Mac Pro past 128GB. The crowd grumbling about the loss of the $2.5K-4.2K price points probably don't have high overlap with the folks that stuff 512+ GB RAM into a system.
[ Intel and AMD also have limited ranges of RAM Max on their desktops which again probably substantively influnced by what a large set of users are actually deploying. ]
A substantively large group of people accepted locked down RAM in the iMac Pro. Apple has already tried that experiment with the Intel products. Probably also had some folks complaining about the iMac Pro more so that they had to take the monitor (they didn't want) with the rest of the system ( which was good enough for their workload). Apple toss 1-2 PCI-e x3 slots in for additional SSD internal storage and they could pull in an even larger group who ranked RAM lock in lower on their "grumble" list. similarly if can mount same J2 3.5" drive chassis to frame then get uptick from "spinning rust is nice" crowd.
Folks running InDesign , mainstream Photoshop, video editing 2K-4K H.265 4:2:0/4:2:2 in 1-2 camera set ups , non super symphony audio work , etc. etc. are probably not pushing past 128GB active working set size.
To get to 512GB RAM that is all horizontally soldered down will actually be volume inefficient. There is a pragmatic limit to capacity where wasting horizontally space starts to have downsides. There are also limits of just how many RAM dies can stack inside of a RAM package ( 4-10 is one thing but going 15-30 has more problems. ). The SoC package is perimeter also only to so big. There is a limit to just how high the number of chips can put onto a package of a fixed size.
The real problem for "what is Apple going to do" is the missing hard core demand for the Mini and iMac to have more than 128GB. Again Apple probably tested that again with the iMac Pro . 2017-2019 iMac Pro maxed out at 128GB. 2019-2021 it maxed out at 256GB. If upping the cap to 256GB generated a noticeable uptick then it is a feature worth adding. If it didn't then not adding it won't miss much. ( yes if the 256GB was sold cheaper that could have had impact also , but if measuring for soldered on baseline that would just generation 'noise'. )
the Afterburner card cost too much to make "everybody" buy one. There will be some graphics designer , audio, data researchers , etc. buy this that have zero ProRes RAW data to process. Another $2K to the sticker price to do nothing is probably too much ( like making folks buy a 2nd Compute GPU when not even fully leveraging the primary GPU ).
But yes, if the Afterburner covers ProRes RAW and the M-series SoC handles H.264 , H.265 compression/decompression then there is a decently wide range of camera video capture from the camera (or external recorder) that this system could cover. Not every RAW format but lots of "original capture" footage.
What the "half sized" Mac Pro needs is some standard slots. One of which could be Afterburner. It doesn't make much sense for Apple to make yet another Afterburner card with some different edge connector and form factor. The run rate isn't that large now.
Apple isn't out to sell everything to everybody. They have expressed this multiple times over decades now.
Their primary approach is to pick a subset of profitable products and put more effort into fewer things with more attention to detail.
Apple doesn't do printers (anymore) . Apple doesn't do external floppy drives (anymore). Apple doesn't do 1U rack servers (anymore). Apple doesn't sell frozen TV dinner. They don't own an aluminum factory . etc. etc. etc. The list of what Apple doesn't do a very, very , very long.
Do they have a large pots of money and numerous employees isn't particularly relevant. And it is not what *you* would do with Apple's money. It is what they want to do with they money/resources.
Apple isn't out for maximum market share in computers ( or phones). They are getting drama enough on antitrust with sub monopoly triggers for antitrust. It isn't really going to "buy" Apple much to soak up a market larger segment of the PC market if it bring even more negative headaches. They are making money with just a subset. They don't have to make "loss leader' products so they can be the "do everything for everybody" vendor.
Apple said at WWDC 2020 that they were looking to put historically "desktop performance " into laptops. And to bring better performance/power to desktops. They have down that with the M1 which is being used from iPad Pro to iMac 24". They will likely do it again at a higher level with the MBP 16". The SoC will probably dropped into other desktops. At very least an "upper" Mini (that still has a easily visible Intel alternative).
Since the iMac 24" is cover there is a high chance the iMac 27" will see this SoC also. If this is a scalable ( either chiplet or by 'copy and paste on monolithic larger wafer) then even more likely will apply this to the iMac 27".
The iPad Pro + MBA are driving one SoC design focus. Since that smaller one encasulated ( entry Mini, MBP 13/14 , and iMac 24") , the MBP 16" is extremely probably driving the the major design choices for the second.
[ Apple sells 75+ % laptops versus desktops. Mobile/Laptops first ... the rest they get to eventually ]
The notion they "only applied to strategy to the M1 ... we don't know" is a farce. That have been applying this same general strategy to the iPhone/iPads for over a decade now. Apple builds a leading edge SoC primarily for the top of the line iPhone and then trickles the same SoC out to other products. " Build one and use in many systems" has been their standard approach for decades now. And it has be quite successful at it. ( so not like it is a money loosing strategy).
There are indications that M1 somewhat overshoot where they originally hoped it would cover. But when it did overshoot Apple applied it as far "up" the product line as they could. The next one is probably going to be applied "up" as far as it can competitively go also. That direction part is a bit different than the iPhone/iPad which has generall been more of a "hand me down". It is indicative that Apple is not priorities topmost first and then dribbling down approach here. It is much broader performance area to cover and probably much safer to go bottom up as the baseline core design is down at the iPhone level.
Qualcomm does 6-9 different SoC so they can be an "almost everything for every phone systems vendor" . AMD has a over a dozen CPU package products. Intel has an even bigger pile. Apple does fewer CPU packages better. Same thing they told folks was there strategic objective for years. Apple has a lead in part because they jumped on ARM64 early while most others were snoozing on it. No 8GB RAM in smartphones so why bother. Apple looked at it as "hey can get rid of this ARM32 stuff clogging up the design if go full throttle on 64-bit. Not going to use 8GB of RAM.. it is a clean up instruction set problem". They make those kinds of moves because focused on smaller set of product and not calcified on legacy design choices and software support.
Rosetta skipping 32ibt, AVX and virtualization features of x86_64 meant again that they had something that worked for most and left some niche level edges behind. Not an everything for everybody solution but works for 98+% of the user base.
On prices: I’m convinced that prices of “pro-level” stuff stays high because of tax write offs.
USB-A IS a bad design, but it's also a 30 year old design that's still in the vast majority of everything. It's great that Apple wants to spearhead its removal in favor of USB-C, but this is the wrong approach. How they did it on the iMacs up until the M1 (and how they're still doing it on the M1 Mac mini) is the right approach. Hybridize it until enough people are comfortable and then cut over.
Furthermore, USB-A has had a much longer run than the 3.5" Floppy disks ever did.
Again, I quantified that as such.
You're actually wrong. The T2 did do all of those things, but it was also the audio processor, the image signal processor, a kill switch on the webcam, and a ton of other things.
It sounds like you have enough money to be able to afford enough Apple $70 USB-C MultiPort Adapters to truly enjoy this "versatility". Would you like to buy me some? I have one Mac with two Thunderbolt 3 ports and between two other Macs I'm needing to acquire, I'll have six more Thunderbolt 3 ports that will require said versatility. Would you like to buy them for me? It sounds like that kind of an expenditure is less annoying for you than it is for me. I can give you my Venmo information if you'd like. ?
The problem is: does Mac OS still aspire to being a powerful, general-purpose operating system, with a rich ecosystem of third-party applications and support for specialist hardware? Because, if you drive away enthusiasts, power users, developers etc. then you're eroding the market for more specialist software and reducing the incentive for hardware makers to support Mac. Plus, of course, those groups include the evangelists that might persuade friends, family, colleagues etc. to buy Mac, who provide unofficial Mac support in PC-friendly workplaces etc.
Because... the key defining feature that makes the Mac more than a slightly luxurious and good-looking PC clone is MacOS. You can use 3rd-party printers, 3rd party WiFi routers, use Linux as a server OS for Mac clients etc. so maybe Apple doesn't need to make those things - but if you want MacOS you have to buy a Mac... and if Apple doesn't make a Mac you like - you won't consider MacOS.
The only way to get the market to move forward is through radical changes like the removal of the HDMI, if apple never removed hdmi when they added USB-C, would future companies transition to usb-c as quickly as they are today? I don't think so.
I don't want to get political here, but for example, the US Government is switching their fleet of cars to all electric in the near future. The thought process is that they are setting the stage to get the US market to transition to electric vehicles, and we are already seeing it. If the US government wasn't going to do that, how fast would the market transition to electric vehicles? Probably not as quick.
While I like HDMI and wish my macbook had it at times, we need to look foward. I love USBC
I don't know that I agree with that logic. And honestly, the lack of port variety is STILL a complaint with all current MacBooks. It's not like I'm not still having to shell out for a $70 dongle if I still want to have any utility to the Thunderbolt port at all. All you're doing is making it more annoying for me to use your product. Plus USB-A isn't going quietly into the night, nor is it going overnight. The notion that Apple is going to make it do that in the same way that they popularized dropping optical disc and floppy drives falls short when you consider how much more utilitarian USB-A is and how much longer it's been in service compared to those other discontinued features.
You're not innovating by removing features for the sake of weening people off of them and with unnecessary thinness being the only gain. You're just pissing those people off.
Apple had 6 years to make third party and other laptop companies to switch over to USB-C. To this day people still use and will continue to for a VERY long time HDMI.
There is NO replacement for HDMI on tvs, projectors and consoles.
However, USB-A can slow be replaced with USB-C, just don't expect the same in the above mentioned categories.
Sure, Apple called it right a few times, but some of those things (e.g. floppy drives) were clearly becoming obsolete. it’s also true the PC market tends to keep ports around forever, just in case someone needs them, whereas Apple has traditionally been more decisive at pulling the plug. But it feels like Apple over-uses this strategy, dropping ports very prematurely just for the sake of appearing / being forward-looking. It’s almost like they’re paranoid about a competitor dropping an interface first and making them look out of touch. So they run around discontinuing stuff like HDMI and SD, despite both being widely used and current.
You see the same thing with the drive to replace laptops with an iPad + keyboard, which essentially just moves weight from the base to the screen and forces awkward restrictions to workflows. It’s probably part pushing for a utopian future, part trying to grow new markets, and part trying to eat their own lunch before a competitor gets there first. As a company whose brand revolves around innovation, they also have an image to maintain.
You see the same thing with the drive to replace laptops with an iPad + keyboard, which essentially just moves weight from the base to the screen and forces awkward restrictions to workflows. It’s probably part pushing for a utopian future, part trying to grow new markets, and part trying to eat their own lunch before a competitor gets there first. As a company whose brand revolves around innovation, they also have an image to maintain.
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Yes!!!
I think, with Apple's closed architecture, either reducing the number of ports, or keeping the numbers of ports so small is going a little past the idea of being 'user abusive'.
If we can't add more storage, we need more ports to support what we can't do to our systems. Like my new 16" lagging MBP has two ports already taken over by an external SSD and a 5G drive to use as a work, and large storage drive. Add the power supply, and I have ONE SINGLE PORT open. Only one! And I've had all 4 ports filled several times, and have had to dismount devices to free up ports.
'So, why not use a hub?'
I have a hub on my IMP, and it hasn't been quite a totally perfect life. Either BS, or something in the BIOS, or other primitive, seems to occasionally have issues with the hub. Unless Apple gets into the manufacture of 'certified' hubs, it's going to be a potential stressful issue if you pick a hub that has issues...
*shrug*
Then those people who Apple are pissing off should fill out the surveys that Apple sends out or fill out feedback voicing that to Apple, because quite frankly, they aren't and are the minority of Apple users.
The average person who buys Macbooks are not on Macrumors believe it or not, nor do they care about HDMI or usb-a. I'm willing to bet my life savings that more than 50% of Macbook users care about portability than having ports. Just because its inconvenient for you and the minority of hardcore Apple users doesn't mean that its a terrible design/decision when for the majority of macbook users, its a great design/decision.
These designs and decisions cater to the majority of Apple users.
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