Insider preview of the 2013 Mac Pro design principles.

[MiJuConcept]

Years ago at the beginning of color television there were two competing approaches, one from RCA and one from CBS. The RCA approach was backward compatible with existing black and white sets, but the CBS approach was technically superior. The FCC told CBS they would go with the CBS approach if CBS would buy up all the existing black and white sets. CBS said no way and the FCC went with the RCA approach. Years later someone at CBS did a study and found they would have made a huge profit if they had accepted the FCC offer. Large corporations tend to be very risk adverse when faced with an unknown market.

As I recall the FedEx idea started as a term paper. The concept couldn't start piecemeal. It needed a sorting hub, a small fleet of Falcon jets and destination sites and all major cities. Getting the start-up funds was very difficult because it was an unknown market and investors were very reluctant to put up money.

All of this is true and double in this market. But as I suggested many times in conversation. The corporate giants need to allow 5% of their budget to fritter away on things which could strike corporate oil. All of the companies which have no day-dreaming fund are in serious danger of becoming victims of their own paralysis. Just to put that into context, Siemens can raise 5 Billion by cutting all of the salaries by 1%. Which they did once to fill a fiscal hole in one division.

These difficult times only serve to lower the floor level and make bold statements in design appear to stand taller. It is almost as though Apple is in denial - as though it can hold back the tide. Apple has trust in its team and customers.

 

[flat five]

Whether the nMP is a design triumph or not is a matter of opinion.

fwiw, there's already been a hint of it being a large scale design triumph..

look at the million dollar mac pro..

that's maybe $20 thousand for the computer.. $80 thousand towards charity..
and nine hundred thousand in art world money.

the red version allows it to be the 1of1 piece capable of fetching the collector dollars while still being based off the actual design which is available to everyone.

(it's basically an exercise in futility to try to quantify 'design' with 'dollars' but there you have it anyway )

 

[Rich.Cohen]

All of this is true and double in this market. But as I suggested many times in conversation. The corporate giants need to allow 5% of their budget to fritter away on things which could strike corporate oil. All of the companies which have no day-dreaming fund are in serious danger of becoming victims of their own paralysis. Just to put that into context, Siemens can raise 5 Billion by cutting all of the salaries by 1%. Which they did once to fill a fiscal hole in one division.

You might enjoy Slack by Tom Demarco. Its available as an ebook from Amazon. He argues that people's time is a much more important resource than money and that all our downsizing has eliminated the ability of employees to find the time to think about the future. He feels this is like eating your seed corn.

 

[flat five]

It's free on the internet. Only about 20 pages as I recall. Really worth reading. I'd love to learn what you think of it.

read it, and yeah.. completely agree with most of what's being said in there.

the problem (for me at least) is that it left me uninspired.. i just wish there was a book out there which could inspire design ideas (in writing instead of photographs) but, unfortunately, i think i'll just have to continue relying on the random 2x/year events in which i might see a potato chip which was cracked in such a way to open up an new line of thought which will excite me.

at the point in my work these days, the single most important factor is inspiration..
if i have a sweet idea, i'll figure it out.. i feel i've proven that to myself.
if i don't have a sweet idea stirring around in my head, no amount of studying design process is going to help.. (unless, of course, i find something random/seemingly unrelated in the book which leads to inspiration)

do you see where i'm coming from? maybe you know of something to read which is along these lines? i'm sure there are some things out there on the topic which aren't complete retrospectives and instead deal with moving forward in one's designs.

 

[flat five]

oh.. and btw.. i already do have a design whose main backbone coalesced while sitting window seat on a jetblue flight a few years back.. so using the thread's basis might not be much help for me.

unfortunately, the client in this case told me "i don't like anything about it" .. ha! go figure.. so if you know of anybody with some backing, let me know because i still want to build this one..

[edit]-- (pulled pictures @12hrs.. imagine an egg on it's side with the two ends chopped off.. smthng like that)


.

 

[flat five]

fwiw, that same base idea, the one which more/less started from sitting next to a jet engine for 5hrs, found it's way into a different project i did last year..

that bowl wouldn't have happened that way if i never saw a turbine.. is that crazy? am i lying?

the reasons for posting these examples is that there are quite a few people ridiculing the idea that the nmp is modeled after an sr71.

the reality is that it's more preposterous to argue that it isn't.. especially when you're failing to provide reasoning as to why the two designs aren't related, it goes a step further because you imply the OP is an idiot for even thinking that way (as well as ignoring the chance that he might truly know it's that way)

(unless, of course, you're suggesting the design principles of the nmp happened from some dude living in isolation his entire life then suddenly thinking up the nmp completely on his own.. because then, yes, i might have an argument against it being 10000% completely original)

 

[Rich.Cohen]

read it, and yeah.. completely agree with most of what's being said in there.

the problem (for me at least) is that it left me uninspired.. i just wish there was a book out there which could inspire design ideas (in writing instead of photographs) but, unfortunately, i think i'll just have to continue relying on the random 2x/year events in which i might see a potato chip which was cracked in such a way to open up an new line of thought which will excite me.

at the point in my work these days, the single most important factor is inspiration..
if i have a sweet idea, i'll figure it out.. i feel i've proven that to myself.
if i don't have a sweet idea stirring around in my head, no amount of studying design process is going to help.. (unless, of course, i find something random/seemingly unrelated in the book which leads to inspiration)

do you see where i'm coming from? maybe you know of something to read which is along these lines? i'm sure there are some things out there on the topic which aren't complete retrospectives and instead deal with moving forward in one's designs.

Exploring Requirements may help you. It has some interesting techniques that help stir up your thinking. Don Gause is a master designer and Weinberg knows a lot about how programmers think.

 

[MiJuConcept]

You might enjoy Slack by Tom Demarco. Its available as an ebook from Amazon. He argues that people's time is a much more important resource than money and that all our downsizing has eliminated the ability of employees to find the time to think about the future. He feels this is like eating your seed corn.

My reply was slightly more expendable and not repeatable. I determined that they are now cranking the workload factor from 120% to 150%. In many corporations you now get between 10 hours and 12 hours of allocation for an 8 hour shift.

All you see are peoples nostrils above the waterline in many cases, and they wonder why morale is low and staff find escapism in jamming the printer and crashing the database.

On a brighter note. I believe the curse on very large televisions with very fast computers will finally be broken in 2014. The antagonism can not longer be sustained. And with that comes new ideas and new interactions.

 

[DJenkins]

fwiw, that same base idea, the one which more/less started from sitting next to a jet engine for 5hrs, found it's way into a different project i did last year..

My comment has nothing to do with the mac pro but that ramp is incredible
Definitely a very tidy way of ribbing the bowl end, so many times I see it done terribly

 

[flat five]

My comment has nothing to do with the mac pro but that ramp is incredible
Definitely a very tidy way of ribbing the bowl end, so many times I see it done terribly

thank you

it's neat seeing other people's approaches and i've been able to see a lot of them over the years.
in an effort to avoid a drawn out description as to why (i felt) it was best to rib the section this way.. i won't

a maybe more interesting part (if you're a building nerd) is that the ribs were made by laminating 16sheets of ply to form one really big piece at 1.5" thick-- 16' x 16'.. then cut the 2by10s out of that..

 

[Woyzeck]

The concept can have a very eclectic origin. These moments almost never get published in forums. But somewhere out there is a girl or a boy that dreams of one day designing a better technology and may want some ideas on the simplicity and complexity of starting from scratch and going in a whole new direction. John Ive said he will change the world at a very young age - why discourage that type of thinking.

Another reason why we seldom hear of concepts is that the military is the largest consumer of innovation. We all agree on that and that has been the case since records were kept.

Fast forward ten years and imagine how Apple has taken account of what will change in the lifespan of the nMP. There is no denying that people who perform specialised roles with enormous storage may feel constrained. But the era of the furniture sized, energy guzzling computer appears to have its place in the past. It is almost a contradiction but not quite.

Similarly in small markets like the UK and Australia and Singapore, the Internet comes to your house via optic cable (under construction in US and AU - so networking and data are changing radically too. Not enough to change the behaviour of the top 20% of users but enough to change the vast majority and put significant pressure on inane things such as high end NAS prices.

So that 12 year old who sees a Mac Pro for the first time this XMas will be old enough to design its replacement by the time it needs replacing. We felt inclined to share the story knowing that it would get lampooned by die-hard fans. Think Different.

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I suppose we can always come back to this in 5 years and see what happened.

You sound like some kind of Jony Ive turing test.

 

[MiJuConcept]

fwiw, that same base idea, the one which more/less started from sitting next to a jet engine for 5hrs, found it's way into a different project i did last year..


that bowl wouldn't have happened that way if i never saw a turbine.. is that crazy? am i lying?

the reasons for posting these examples is that there are quite a few people ridiculing the idea that the nmp is modeled after an sr71.

the reality is that it's more preposterous to argue that it isn't.. especially when you're failing to provide reasoning as to why the two designs aren't related, it goes a step further because you imply the OP is an idiot for even thinking that way (as well as ignoring the chance that he might truly know it's that way)

(unless, of course, you're suggesting the design principles of the nmp happened from some dude living in isolation his entire life then suddenly thinking up the nmp completely on his own.. because then, yes, i might have an argument against it being 10000% completely original)

That's really beautiful.

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Has anyone noticed that no person has honoured the Newton with an emulation app in the App Store. It's like an prodigal that we dare not speak of.

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You sound like some kind of Jony Ive turing test.

You are just taunting the Internet now.

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You might enjoy Slack by Tom Demarco. Its available as an ebook from Amazon. He argues that people's time is a much more important resource than money and that all our downsizing has eliminated the ability of employees to find the time to think about the future. He feels this is like eating your seed corn.

Will add this book to my Xmas reading list alongside a few other sweet topics.

----------

fwiw, there's already been a hint of it being a large scale design triumph..

look at the million dollar mac pro..

that's maybe $20 thousand for the computer.. $80 thousand towards charity..
and nine hundred thousand in art world money.

the red version allows it to be the 1of1 piece capable of fetching the collector dollars while still being based off the actual design which is available to everyone.

(it's basically an exercise in futility to try to quantify 'design' with 'dollars' but there you have it anyway )

Just had a flashback to the Nikon F3 Gold / Leather edition. Aluminium is easier to anodise than cameras are to gold plate. I suspect before long there will be all kinds of people offering different colours.

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Like most of your other hyperboles, I think you're being way too dramatic here.

In many ways, this isn't the first time Apple has tried this -- you could argue its spiritual predecessor is the PowerMac G4 Cube. Apple has been know to be ahead of its time, and when those products fail, they compartmentalize the good ideas and iterate on them to improve their shortcomings in the future. Another example might be the Newton.

I want a newton emulator app for my ipad. Just for sh#ts and giggles.

 

[flat five]

Just had a flashback to the Nikon F3 Gold / Leather edition. Aluminium is easier to anodise than cameras are to gold plate. I suspect before long there will be all kinds of people offering different colours.

yeah, i think we'll see some interesting shell mods over the next few years.. not just colors as obviously r2d2 will be one of them.. if 3d printing finally pushes into the "yay! 3d printing for everyone" realm within the lifespan of the new mac-- then we'll really start seeing some variety

personally, i like the black one as is and can currently think of no scenario where i'd want it to look different.

i might like a raw steel one if i had to customize.. not sure how that may affect anything (heat etc) but it seems like it should work.

 

[MiJuConcept]

yeah, i think we'll see some interesting shell mods over the next few years.. not just colors as obviously r2d2 will be one of them.. if 3d printing finally pushes into the "yay! 3d printing for everyone" realm within the lifespan of the new mac-- then we'll really start seeing some variety

personally, i like the black one as is and can currently think of no scenario where i'd want it to look different.

i might like a raw steel one if i had to customize.. not sure how that may affect anything (heat etc) but it seems like it should work.

Carbon fiber springs to mind embedded with optical fiber strands, metal extrusion with very subtle low profile ribs, clear version like the static display, Wood turning, steampunk, Hermes leather, velvet, suede, crystal glass, solid silver, jewel cut with perforations ...... Faberge, paper mâché .....

I think of as many tacky variants as there are iPhone covers. LOL

 

[Cubemmal]

yeah, i think we'll see some interesting shell mods over the next few years.. not just colors as obviously r2d2 will be one of them.. if 3d printing finally pushes into the "yay! 3d printing for everyone" realm within the lifespan of the new mac-- then we'll really start seeing some variety

personally, i like the black one as is and can currently think of no scenario where i'd want it to look different.

i might like a raw steel one if i had to customize.. not sure how that may affect anything (heat etc) but it seems like it should work.

This video

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/hands-on-apples-new-mac-pro-is-an-insanely-quiet-thermal-wizard/

Makes it clear that the nMP gets quite warm on the outside.

I personally don't get the obsession with the case, by Apple or anybody else. It's just a stupid punched cylinder that will be not be noticed most of the time. But I guess it makes for good marketing copy as we watch slo-mo video of chips flying off the milling machine.

 

[flat five]

This video

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/hands-on-apples-new-mac-pro-is-an-insanely-quiet-thermal-wizard/

Makes it clear that the nMP gets quite warm on the outside.

well there goes the steel shell idea then

I personally don't get the obsession with the case, by Apple or anybody else. It's just a stupid punched cylinder that will be not be noticed most of the time. But I guess it makes for good marketing copy as we watch slo-mo video of chips flying off the milling machine.

the case has more importance than many are willing to notice.. the whole "it's an iTrash Can" thing is based on the shell alone.. so the obsession or whatever is happening even from the people trying to paint it in a negative light.

calling it a garbage can isn't really an insult in&of itself.. personally, i'll take inspiration from a garbage can if it shows me something.. i mean, i'll happily take inspiration from ## if it offers a good idea..

the insult, or the reason why people seem to obsess with calling it a trash can, is that it implies the design itself is garbage..
dunno, it's really disrespectful or more likely, simple unawareness.

 

[Cubemmal]

the case has more importance than many are willing to notice.. the whole "it's an iTrash Can" thing is based on the shell alone.. so the obsession or whatever is happening even from the people trying to paint it in a negative light.

Sure, I get it.

Well it is unusual. I use macs because they're the best machine to develop on, being UNIX and running all three major operating systems. But I nearly threw up when I first saw the nMP last summer, after waiting for so long for an update. But I've slowly come along, realizing that the old Mac Pro doesn't really support PCIe anyhow. It pretends to, and there's a handful of cards out there, but my experience has been that more often than not, even for the cards it does support they don't work well. I have a few cards sitting around (e.g. USB3) that caused kernel panics.

So, bring on the trash can! I'm going to put $4k into one. At least now when I go on vacation I can lock it up in a drawer or take it with me

 

[MiJuConcept]

This video

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/hands-on-apples-new-mac-pro-is-an-insanely-quiet-thermal-wizard/

Makes it clear that the nMP gets quite warm on the outside.

I personally don't get the obsession with the case, by Apple or anybody else. It's just a stupid punched cylinder that will be not be noticed most of the time. But I guess it makes for good marketing copy as we watch slo-mo video of chips flying off the milling machine.

I wonder which CPU is in the thermal sweet spot.

 

[Cubemmal]

I wonder which CPU is in the thermal sweet spot.

They all have the same TDP so none is better than the others.

http://www.marco.org/2013/11/26/new-mac-pro-cpus

You scale the CPU simply on your use case for how you work. Most people should stay with lower cores, I think hex is the sweet spot for general use (development, etc). For modeling or other CPU intensive work then octo is probably the sweet spot.

 

[-hh]

(Catching up on the thread after being away)

...We are engineers trying to explain to you why your proclamations and assumptions on topics within the engineering domain are in fact factually incorrect. Many of these contentious topics are not matters of differences of opinion; you guys are actually spreading misinformation.

Well said.

Plus, the nMP is NOT even that novel. There is nothing groundbreaking about it from a technological standpoint, just its form factor is unique. The way the central thermal core works is fundamentally no different than a water cooling system with blocks that cool the CPU, GPU, etc through a central reservoir.

Frankly, I don't really think that I'd even consider the 'central thermal core' to be all that particularly innovative either: it is still just a plain old heat sink, merely bent to a non-typical angle, and arranged vertically to exploit natural "Heat Rises" convection currents.

And while it still may eventually come out after the tear-downs, I've not noticed any mention of any modern advanced materials as a design alternative to liquid cooling technology, such as something like Thermal Pyrolytic Graphite (TPG), or carbon nanotubes (which tend to be fragile (brittle) and more prone to requiring HEPA-level air filters to minimize clogging...more trade-offs).


-hh

 

[Namjins]

it's so incredibly absurd to suggest the nmp drew design inspiration from an sr71 but makes complete sense to say it's modeled after a garbage can :/

I would say both are equally absurd. We're very quick to tell each other the how and why, without knowing anything.

 

[MiJuConcept]

(Catching up on the thread after being away)

Frankly, I don't really think that I'd even consider the 'central thermal core' to be all that particularly innovative either: it is still just a plain old heat sink, merely bent to a non-typical angle, and arranged vertically to exploit natural "Heat Rises" convection currents.

I take it that you are not a subscriber to simplicity being the hard part.

And while it still may eventually come out after the tear-downs, I've not noticed any mention of any modern advanced materials as a design alternative to liquid cooling technology, such as something like Thermal Pyrolytic Graphite (TPG), or carbon nanotubes (which tend to be fragile (brittle) and more prone to requiring HEPA-level air filters to minimize clogging...more trade-offs).
-hh

I think the obvious omission is aerogel blankets in critical locations.

 

[LordVic]

If the thread says insider, then it means insider. It doesn't mean Apple approved this thread.

"insider" in your thread implies that the information in your post is coming directly from someone with inside to apple information about the design process.

we have already narrowed out that you do not work for Apple and are not an insider. therefor,e without citations, or lets even say, a legit answer as to WHY you think this is "insider information",

it is nothing but your own opinion and conjecture. And you've been quite rude with your wishy washy answers to anyone asking for it.

-=--------------

Do i think the casing might have been inspired by what a jet engine looks like? sure. looks like one to me.

based on that alone, can we go onto the sheer amount of rhetoric, hyperbole and buzzwords that you've used in your posts as a legitimate decription of events?

No.

you're talking out your rear here

 

[LordVic]

The amount of complaining about the hard drive bays blows my mind. I'm not crazy enough to claim it's a "feature", because it's not, but it's a relatively easily solvable "problem", and a limit of 4 internal bays does not make for lots of expansion anyway.

There are a lot of external solutions that are way better than the 4 internal bays in a Mac Pro. And the number of people who can't figure out where to put a second box somewhere also boggles my mind.

Mac Pro users are supposed to be the creative ones, right?

I have a small house, and my home office is equally small. my Current desk, which is the only one that will fit in it, has room for 3 monitors. a keyboard. A mousepad and a dinner plate.

currently my very large desktop based computer, which has 4 mechanical internal drives, 2 SSDs. an internal Memory card reader. 2 optical disk drives,
a PCI-E tuner card. Based on the new "design". This computer sits behind my desk and is completely unobtrusive, all in one, and even makes for an excellent warm footrest in winter!

based on the nMP "features".... how does it fit into my situation? external expandibility is wonderful if you have the resources. But as is, If i wanted to take everything that is internal to my computer, and move it to a nMP, not only am I going to be buying the nMP, but at least a 4 bay firewire expansion. geeze, another what? $600+ right now JUST to use hard drives? I'll need an expansion bay for PCI-E devices for my PCI-E cards.. thats another what? $300? 400?. I'll need 2 external optical drive bays... I'll need a new USB based memory card reader.

And I STILL dont know where I'm expected to put all that? Cause now, the nMP, by using an open top thermal design must sit unobstructred, usually on a desk. Alongside now, at least 6 different wires coming from the nMP to those external boxes. Each of which will have additional power cables going from those boxes to the power outlet. And I still haven't solved the issue of having a lack of space for all that desktop required devices.

I'm not saying this is a bad machine. if you're looking for a small, all in one device that will be an OpenCL based powerhouse, This machine is absolutely going to be dynamite!

if you're looking for a standard computer? with some mediocre expandibility? This is not the choice for you.

Apple by going to this overall design, has had to make so many compromises to the actual usability fo the machine that it really isn't the "pro" machine it used to be. its a niche product that will find itself usefull for a smaller margin of people than the old product.

 

[-hh]

I take it that you are not a subscriber to simplicity being the hard part.

Utterly incorrect.

Furthermore, your speculation is so utterly unfounded that it borders on being a purposeful TOS violation. First Warning.


-hh