I'm outsider looking on. I recall apple stating a modular Mac Pro is coming, I thought they said 2019. I think many people were hoping for 2018, but apple takes there time. The issue is many people who resisted the trash can Mac Pro need something sooner then later. Its my opinion that Apple is in a self made bind right now
Consider the lay of the land for Macs.
Mac mini 1,337 days since its last refresh
MacBook Air 337 days, but that was a minor spec bump. It needs so much more, that machine is woefully behind other laptops, i.e., no retina
MacBook Pro 374 days but in this case the keyboard has an extremely poor reputation, there's three class action lawsuits, the TouchBar is much derided.
Macbook 374 days, its probably the most stable of Macs at this point.
iMac 374 days - People are waiting for a redesign, current model does not have current ports
iMac Pro 182 days
So Apple's Macintosh line is in rough shape, every model (with the exception of the MacBook and iMac Pro). While some of that work isn't rocket surgery, i.e., update the Mini, I think line up is in such bad shape and require so much attention its impacting Apple's timeline with the Mac Pro.
Are people sitting on the sidelines or moving on and buying windows based products? I'd say as weeks turned into months, that turn into years, they're moving on to other products. I myself am considering a windows based laptop. Apple didn't update the MBP and given the keyboard issues and high price of the MBP it appears I'll be better off with a windows machine. Just consider the budget. I can spend 3,000 on a MacBook Pro that has a suspect keyboard, and its on last year's chipset, or I can spend 2,000 dollars (plus tax) on a Coffee Lake hex core machine and I'll not have to worry about the keyboard. I raise that issue because its a microcosm of what people are facing with Macs, whether its the MBA, Mini or the Mac Pro.
The Modular Mac Pro is
slated for 2019. As we are seeing with Air Power, though, specifying a year for Apple means that they have until December 31 to have it show up. The 2013 Mac Pro did that too.
In the Tech Crunch article Tom Boger, senior director of Mac Hardware Product Marketing, says:
“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community, so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.” In addition to transparency for pro customers, there’s also a larger fiscal reason behind it.
“We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro,” says Boger.
And Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch adds:
This is why Apple wants to be as explicit as possible now, so that if institutional buyers or other large customers are waiting to spend budget on, say iMac Pros or other machines, they should pull the trigger without worry that a Mac Pro might appear late in the purchasing year.
But there have been some other very interesting things going on at Apple since our last Mac Pro update, and they’re shaping the future of all of its pro products.
This is Apple asking professionals who know Apple well enough too understand what's been going on to hold on till 2019, perhaps the end of 2019 at that. But in asking this favour of those folks who will wait Apple are making an almighty gamble. They are promising jam tomorrow without making specific claims about the hardware. Some professionals won't wait - they will be gone - but Apple are hoping that enough stick around to buy the modular Mac Pro. They know that by making even a vague promise and messing that up, they could well be burning their business as far as many professionals are concerned.
Now to the existing hardware:
I would say that the current 2017 iMac has Thunderbolt 3 ports and up to date (for 2017) hardware. I don't think there's anything new that an update would add and, besides, the updated design is here - it's the iMac Pro - with better cooling system but sealed in RAM.
Let's not forget that the Mac Pro from 2013 is still on sale and looking like a liability compared to current iMacs and the iMac Pro. I'm not sure if keeping it offered like that remains a good idea.
The Retina MacBook has only one port which you would use to charge it but then couldn't insert a memory stick or card reader if you needed to work also - that's a massive downfall for the MacBook which currently doesn't look like it's getting a CPU update any time soon from Intel.
The fact that developers are now being so vocal in denouncing the quality of the MBP keyboard/lack of ports or lack of updates to the Mini or Pro (or a proper update to the MBA) is becoming a PR problem for Apple aside from anything else. There's now several threads linking to articles from respected journalists as well as the developers regarding the lack of decent updates and Apple have delayed over a year since the last update in 2017.
Coffee Lake updates for extra cores will make updates, when they come, very good value. But will Apple update everything or will the MBA, Mini, and Retina MacBook get overlooked?
I myself am curious about where the modular Mac Pro fits into this scheme. I'm not desperate to buy at the moment but another professional misstep by Apple could mean the safer place to put money is back in the Windows ecosystem in the long run.