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Heard a rumor about new Mac Pro
- Thread starter mafpolo
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This rumour has existed since last spring. If you deep searched posts on here I'm sure you'd find suggestions dating back many years.
http://9to5mac.com/2011/04/21/prototype-next-gen-mac-pro-detailed-redesigned-rackable-stackable/
There is no evidence for it. It's just another of those rumours that come from wishes and forum brainstorming that gets credibility because some analyst or website claims they are aware of it.
http://9to5mac.com/2011/04/21/prototype-next-gen-mac-pro-detailed-redesigned-rackable-stackable/
There is no evidence for it. It's just another of those rumours that come from wishes and forum brainstorming that gets credibility because some analyst or website claims they are aware of it.
As Umbongo said, the rack able rumours have been going since they killed the Xserve.
As for Apples "own" hard drives. Have Apple suddenly built a huge fabrication facility? They wouldn't waste the money, they happily take any crap from the main manufacturers.
I've also heard that every component will be reduced to micro size and put behind a touchscreen, and the new Mac Pro will be called "iPad 3" -- then, of course, the tower-size Macs we know will be taken out of production and Apple will cease to produce them. iOS/Mobility and Micro-sized computing is the direction Apple is headed, I seriously doubt that in 2 more years the Mac Pro will even exist.
I really do believe this.
I really do believe this.
What about the software that fuels the iOS platform? I think it is fair to assume that a great part of developers do their work on a Mac Pro. If Apple were to discontinue the Mac Pro, a chunk of their developers would get impacted. In plenty of cases, iMacs just aren't capable.
I'm sure Apple has thought this through. Professionals are a small group of Apple's customers, however it is them who have fueled the Apple ecosystem.
I will replace my Mac pro with an ipad, when I can achieve on an ipad what I achieve on my Mac pro.
I suspect I will be dead by then!
What do you mean by hard drive will be Mac?
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That just indicates that you were using a Mac Pro for web browsing and minor things.
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I will replace my Mac pro with an ipad, when I can achieve on an ipad what I achieve on my Mac pro.
I suspect I will be dead by then!
That just indicates that you were using a Mac Pro for web browsing and minor things.
I will replace my Mac pro with an ipad, when I can achieve on an ipad what I achieve on my Mac pro.
I suspect I will be dead by then!
Don't laugh... if the iPad gets Thunderbolt and mouse support in a few years it might be able to.
What do you mean by hard drive will be Mac?
Maybe like old XRAID chassis. $400+ for a 250GB drive with special firmware. Same drive w/o firmware, less than $50.00. Ah, those were the days.
What did the firmware do?
Make the HD more expensive.
Any benefit?
Nope.
Maybe like old XRAID chassis. $400+ for a 250GB drive with special firmware. Same drive w/o firmware, less than $50.00. Ah, those were the days.
What did the firmware do?
Make the HD more expensive.
Any benefit?
Nope.
I don't believe Apple even used their own servers (for anything).
People said the same thing five years ago. We can all speculate, but most people do not know enough to predict the real rate of change in things. We see a big speed increase, and it looks like things are shifting. Right now Xeon hardware is behind. To keep sales up, Intel and the others would need to maintain measurable gains years over year with software capable of putting the raw computing power to good use. The reality is that Apple will never be that great of an option for such hardware, because they're unpredictable. You never know when or if they will add support for a given feature. You don't know when they'll drop something. Building a complex network of hardware that depends on Apple's desire to build machines is really quite dangerous. It's entirely possible that we'll see another year that combines a minor price increase with a slight hardware bump.
Do you believe that Apple's ecosystem will continue to grow the way it has, if it lost a huge chunk of it's developers?
Is it possible for apple to brand HDDs with thunderbolt connectivity?
What benefits can we get if Apples does do this?
If this occurred, then there would be no difference in performance between internal and external HDDs.
Do we want or need HDDs with thunderbolt connectivity?
What benefits can we get if Apples does do this?
If this occurred, then there would be no difference in performance between internal and external HDDs.
Do we want or need HDDs with thunderbolt connectivity?
Basically what I was saying is the Mac Pro's days are numbered, which I have said in several posts on these boards. If Apple doesn't drop them this year, then we may only see one more Mac Pro from Apple before the end-of-line.
I firmly believe this is the direction Apple is headed. The Mac Pro is their least sold, least emphasized, and least important machine (from a marketing standpoint). They may sell 10 of them for every 1000 MacBooks they sell or every 5,000 iOS devices they sell. The numbers on Mac Pro sales are really, really low. Apple really doesn't think the Mac Pro is that important right now -- heck if they did we would have already seen a Thunderbolt capable model months ago!!! And look how they dropped XServe, and what they did with FCP?!? Does Apple really care for their Pro/Media/Authoring community THAT much? They will push a developer to get a 27" iMac or a 17" MacBook Pro anyway and they aren't discontinuing those models anytime soon.
But Mac Pro -- I am guessing if it's not this year then for sure by 2013 Apple will stop making them for certain. Again, Mac Pro is just not "that important" to Apple, and Apple is about consumers right now, and sales numbers, and Mac Pro fits into neither of those categories.
I firmly believe this is the direction Apple is headed. The Mac Pro is their least sold, least emphasized, and least important machine (from a marketing standpoint). They may sell 10 of them for every 1000 MacBooks they sell or every 5,000 iOS devices they sell. The numbers on Mac Pro sales are really, really low. Apple really doesn't think the Mac Pro is that important right now -- heck if they did we would have already seen a Thunderbolt capable model months ago!!! And look how they dropped XServe, and what they did with FCP?!? Does Apple really care for their Pro/Media/Authoring community THAT much? They will push a developer to get a 27" iMac or a 17" MacBook Pro anyway and they aren't discontinuing those models anytime soon.
But Mac Pro -- I am guessing if it's not this year then for sure by 2013 Apple will stop making them for certain. Again, Mac Pro is just not "that important" to Apple, and Apple is about consumers right now, and sales numbers, and Mac Pro fits into neither of those categories.
Nope. Not possible unless the circuit board footprint shrinks by 1000% or we allow for 5.25" HDD's. The size of a CD/DVD drive. And no use as HDD's can't break 1.5Gb/s which is SATAI. TB is perfect as a chassis connection to multiple SATAII and SATAIII HDD's. Each drive works independently on their respective links so until HDD's get to be faster than 600MB/s+, makes no sense. Faster speed is mechanically held back by the HD itself not by link speeds.
What do you mean by hard drive will be Mac?
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It will be an Apple manufactured hard drive that will plug into a new proprietary buss that is Mac only. It will be shiny aluminum solid state 5GB drive selling for $500. You'll be able to upgrade to to the 8GB model for an additional $300. It's going to be expensive, but at least it will have the Apple logo on it.
What do you mean by hard drive will be Mac?
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That just indicates that you were using a Mac Pro for web browsing and minor things.
No it dosent. And no I don't!
Don't you mean the 5GB drive will be $5000 and the upgrade to 8GB will be $50,000? That's more typical of Apples pricing for slight Upgrades.
Oh, and they'll be sealed inside and only replaceable by Apple technicians.
Just because they make the bulk of their profits selling consumer products, doesn't mean that Apple doesn't see the value in it. For example, how do you know that Mac Pro's are not the machine of choice amongst the creative teams at Apple? Do you think Jony Ive is doing 3D modelling on a Hackintosh? An iMac? What about the team that publishes all the Apple promo videos? Are they doing those on a MacBook Air? Not likely! My guess... When Jony Ive and the rest of Apple no longer see any value in the Mac Pro, then you may see them killed. But something tells me they need them as much, if not more, than we do. And when they stop needing them, then you won't need one either.
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They actually use specialty Windows machines for the case prototyping. You can see them in tours of Apple's product labs.
Not that you don't have a good point, just sayin.
Wait a minute....
Many photographers and video people still use the Mac Pro tower. The big iMac gives me a glare screen, which is lousy for photography - need a matte screen, so I am not looking at myself in the screen - just the image.
Video guys and gals want to crank up the ram as high as possible.
If Mac is going all consumer, and moving away from the pro market, then the tower will probably be gone. They still need the tower for their servers.
Can they replicate the Mac Pro abilities with a Mac Mini on steroids?
It's also nice to be able to open the big side door and do what you need to do.
Many photographers and video people still use the Mac Pro tower. The big iMac gives me a glare screen, which is lousy for photography - need a matte screen, so I am not looking at myself in the screen - just the image.
Video guys and gals want to crank up the ram as high as possible.
If Mac is going all consumer, and moving away from the pro market, then the tower will probably be gone. They still need the tower for their servers.
Can they replicate the Mac Pro abilities with a Mac Mini on steroids?
It's also nice to be able to open the big side door and do what you need to do.
A guy at the pub told me yesterday that Apple got tired of waiting for Intel's CPUs and will be placing 40 x A6 quad core chips into the new mac pro. He then went on, in much detail, about how the A6 chips will be on specially designed boards and each one holds 20 x A6 quad core chips. So when you need more processing power, you can just buy a couple of these boards and slot them in. Grand Central Dispatch will also be updated in Lion 10.7.4 to handle splitting the work across so many cores efficiently and seamlessly so existing software can take full advantage.
In addition, he also confirmed what you're saying about a "Mac hard drive". But he said the drives will be based on totally new technology that uses cold depleted uranium to store information. Research has shown that when depleted uranium is kept at cold temperatures, the atoms show magnetic properties and can therefore be used to store 1s and 0s. Ahh, here is a link from earlier this year... this is what Apple is planning to use:
This is all part of Apple's initiative in recycling for a cleaner planet.