I've been supporting your point of view that the Mac Pro will not be discontinued and will be updated, but I don't think I can keep beating the drums any more. The writing is on the wall. I am not going to wail or jump everything to Windows as if that's going to spite Apple in some way. I am going to buy the new high res MBP, because it looks pretty damn good and re-evaluate my workflow and computing requirements to see what I can do.
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Email From Tim Cook
- Thread starter shastapete
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I've been supporting your point of view that the Mac Pro will not be discontinued and will be updated, but I don't think I can keep beating the drums any more. The writing is on the wall. I am not going to wail or jump everything to Windows as if that's going to spite Apple in some way. I am going to buy the new high res MBP, because it looks pretty damn good and re-evaluate my workflow and computing requirements to see what I can do.
Has it been confirmed that was a genuine email?
I got one today too
Dear Mac Users
We aware that you are upset with our Mac Pro update, if you buy one, we will give you a free Mac Pro in 2013 to make up for it.
Sorry
Tim Cook
Where is that quote from? The email quote that starts this thread doesn't say that.
Those are lame excuses. First, the easiest solution to a Thunderbolt problem would be to just leave it off. Nuke it for this revision. There is no same reason to block the Mac Pro update solely on Thunderboard. None.
The XServe is junk also. Apple probably decided to kill the XServe 6-10 months before it was announced. That is almost 2009 when they would have needed to revise future Mac Pro case design criteria. This is 2012. No way it takes 2 years to do that redesign work if actually working on it. It isn't that hard. I understand there is probably a 18-30 month lead time to getting products out the door. However, given what folks internally would have known back in early 2010, they already had the information.
Sane is not trying to view this as a huge product development blunder. Apple screwed up. Big time. That should make anyone highly cautious and at the very least evaluate alternatives.
E5's being late; not their fault. Maybe some screen tech is late; again perhaps externally driven.
Socket 1155 is primarily desktop targeted. Not Workstation sever class. Yes there is the E3 variant which needs can leverage the C616 but that is on a different product update cycle as than the Server/Workstation. Intel could take the Ivy Bridge support chipset and put in slight mods for the matched E3. The primarily server oriented C600 variants :
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/server-chipsets/server-chipset-c600.html
are on a different update cycle. If look at the "Server Chipset" listings here (toward the bottom of the page) :
http://ark.intel.com/
There is no Intel 5600 chipset ( only the 5500 for the microarchtecture "tock" ). Simarly, there is no X59 to bump the X58 with slightly better high speed I/O.
If Ivy Bridge Xeon E5 do slide to late 2013 as rumor in another thread points at then maybe. Only because the cycle is so hugely extended and the synergies of needing an update for the i7 39xx series. But that's not what Intel did in the past couple of cycles. But those cycles weren't spread so far apart.
Perhaps that is what is contributing to the slide. Part of the E5/Patsburg delay was screwed up Patsburg defects in the SAS/SATA implementation. Just seems not the conservative server design approach to roll-the-dice again and perhaps get another screwed up chipset that blows up the planned product timeline again.
Discrete USB 3.0 chips aren't that bad to deal with and are actually more mature than the integrated ones. If design maturity is an issue they are a better choice. For workstation boards with space headroom ( not blade like server boards or small form factor enclosures ) that is actually the more stable choice.
In contrast, one of the reasons for the E3 is to fit performance Xeon solutions into smaller cases and tighter thermal constraints (e.g., the TDP are lower). That has been done before with the larger Xeon dies by just setting the clock rate at almost humorously low clock rates. If there is tighter board space constraints integrated USB 3.0 makes much more sense to roll out faster.
Laziness is a better motivation match if Apple only solely wants to deal with just a single USB 3.0 controller implementation (Intel's embedded version) with system software. Given this product update .... Lazy wouldn't be surprising.
Everyone who comes up for these excuses why apple may not have been able to do a REAL update are reaching, grasping at straws.
It comes down to sheer laziness, nothing more. There are NO technical reasons why it couldn't be done.
Just look at the pathetic GPU offerings! A 5770 ? REALLY ?? Again, pure laziness. That GPU is TWO generations old. There is no technical hurdle for them to overcome to get newer GPUs in there other than writing the drivers and EFI firmware for it.
There are motherboards out there that support the SB Xeons and have, wait for it, USB 3.0. There are motherboards out there that have TB on board and also support discrete graphics cards.
There is no plausible technical excuse for what just happened. And I wholeheartedly agree with the posters who said apple should change the word "New" on the Mac Pro page to "Clearance".
It comes down to sheer laziness, nothing more. There are NO technical reasons why it couldn't be done.
Just look at the pathetic GPU offerings! A 5770 ? REALLY ?? Again, pure laziness. That GPU is TWO generations old. There is no technical hurdle for them to overcome to get newer GPUs in there other than writing the drivers and EFI firmware for it.
There are motherboards out there that support the SB Xeons and have, wait for it, USB 3.0. There are motherboards out there that have TB on board and also support discrete graphics cards.
There is no plausible technical excuse for what just happened. And I wholeheartedly agree with the posters who said apple should change the word "New" on the Mac Pro page to "Clearance".
Agreed, except it may be planned obsolescence rather than laziness. I'm more surprised at the imac deferral quite frankly. I think that is even more telling.
What do you think it signifies? I am pretty confident that you're going to see a rather massive update on the iMac.
Later in the thread.
Me either. Probably plan on taking a break from this forum and come back next year. Apple's said when the update (whatever it consists of) is. If people feel it's dead when the CEO of Apple says otherwise, not much you can do about it.
I was confident that the Mac Pro would get a big update this week and see where that got me. I would sure hope the iMac gets updated soon. If not, that is bigger news than the MP issue. However, if the iMac doesn't receive an update till 2013, then Apple has done more than hint that they want out of the desktop business. That is a big deal.
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It helps me to vent a bit in the forum and hear what others think, but I am contemplating new plans. The writing is on the wall. It is a dead end at the end of the day.
This is my plan as well. Just need a new GPU prior to a few games later in the year. Hopefully GPU community is able to leverage something better than GTX 570 soon.
A quote from some random person on facebook. No email headers nothing.. just copy and pasted text buried inside of comment on a thread.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/240001800
Color me highly skeptical that the CEO of Apple who announced a week or so ago that they were going to "double down" on secrecy would peg a specific product to some future specific date that must appear after year end. Typically more companies don't talk about products more than quarter out without qualifiers around them about projections.
I would believe the part up to "we are working on something" .... but the part of "We are planning a new Mac Pro for later next year. " Smells of a made up Apple statement.
In contrast the Pogue quote is typical Zen Koan Apple fashion "that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013. "
Which models? Which designs? All the desktops or just the Mac Pro? What about models you started earlier... are then coming in 2012 and these are just the follow up to those?
Give Timmy a piece of your mind here:
http://www.facebook.com/TimothyCookCEO
I did and let him have it, BUT GOOD.
http://www.facebook.com/TimothyCookCEO
I did and let him have it, BUT GOOD.
That's a fake site, it's not actually Tim Cook.
It's not uncharacteristic of Apple at all. Jobs was known to send out many "stay tuned" emails. Jobs even said that Apple had a 1U Apple server it was going to release "next year" before the XServe came out. So far nothing unusual.
He was also known to send out many "we aren't serious about that product" emails. Given that, Cook's email is a good sign.
Look, we can discuss all day what Apple is planning on releasing next year all day. But as far as I'm concerned, until late next year, this topic is dead. We know Apple is working on something and they haven't forgotten about pros. Beyond that, nothing to do except wait.
And here is the same thing again from official Apple PR:
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/1...c-pro-and-imac-designs-likely-coming-in-2013/
The iMac has been thrown in the same boat.
Really it comes down to if you believe Apple or not. If you don't, you can move on. Otherwise, there isn't anything to do until next year. Straight from the horse's mouth.
So by the time an iPad is as fast as my hex we can upgrade? Just skip TB and get us X79. ****, I'd just buy a flat pack kit and do it myself if Apple is so lazy
Really, they can't break off a few driver devs and throw something out? That's all that's needed. Maybe iCloud does not play nice with SB-E?
Really, they can't break off a few driver devs and throw something out? That's all that's needed. Maybe iCloud does not play nice with SB-E?So by the time an iPad is as fast as my hex we can upgrade? Just skip TB and get us X79. ****, I'd just buy a flat pack kit and do it myself if Apple is so lazy
Not saying at all it wasn't a crappy update. It almost would have been better to explain their Mac Pro plans first.
It's not just the Mac Pro though. Keeping the iMac/Mac Mini/Mac Pro at the current specs for another year is bizarre. Makes me wonder if they have a total desktop line re-org in mind.
If you take a trip over to either the Mac Mini or iMac forum, you can see a lot of the same WTF reaction. So if there is any silverlining to this, Apple's issue doesn't seem to be with pros as much as desktops.