the big question is, does Apple have any plans to make the Mac Pro a viable alternative?
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MP All Models Is the Mac Pro still relevant in 2025
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An interesting point to make is that, if Apple retired the Mac Pro, there would be some naming discrepancy between their highest-end portable (MacBook Pro) and desktop (Mac Studio) devices.
I don't believe there's an argument that the desktop is any more 'studio-qualified' than a notebook these days, as even Apple itself positions their MacBook Pro as a portable powerhouse - which it most certainly is.
So perhaps another direction is that Apple replaces both the Mac Studio and Mac Pro with a system that takes advantage of both worlds. Yes it would be Mac Pro in name, but if Apple were to do this they would need a good reason to; and I think the reason is that the Mac mini has quickly caught up in the professional space by serving many demographics even on its (more modest) 'Pro' chip. This chip is ridiculously good today: now imagine what it will be like come two, even three years time. It will likely serve the majority of Pro users well, leaving the Max and Ultra as a niche for the highest-end.
This leaves the Studio in something of a strange position, because although it aims to be a compact desktop computer, it is neither as small as the Mini nor as expandable (by internal means) as the Pro. It is also means that the current Pro must be priced significantly more to justify the enclosure.
I think a new replacement system would likely find a compromise, starting somewhere around $2,999 for the Max chip with perhaps as few as 4 x PCIe slots, and that's it. A much more compact and simpler-engineered system than the current Pro, more expandable than the Studio, and a fairer price relative to the Mac mini.
I don't believe there's an argument that the desktop is any more 'studio-qualified' than a notebook these days, as even Apple itself positions their MacBook Pro as a portable powerhouse - which it most certainly is.
So perhaps another direction is that Apple replaces both the Mac Studio and Mac Pro with a system that takes advantage of both worlds. Yes it would be Mac Pro in name, but if Apple were to do this they would need a good reason to; and I think the reason is that the Mac mini has quickly caught up in the professional space by serving many demographics even on its (more modest) 'Pro' chip. This chip is ridiculously good today: now imagine what it will be like come two, even three years time. It will likely serve the majority of Pro users well, leaving the Max and Ultra as a niche for the highest-end.
This leaves the Studio in something of a strange position, because although it aims to be a compact desktop computer, it is neither as small as the Mini nor as expandable (by internal means) as the Pro. It is also means that the current Pro must be priced significantly more to justify the enclosure.
I think a new replacement system would likely find a compromise, starting somewhere around $2,999 for the Max chip with perhaps as few as 4 x PCIe slots, and that's it. A much more compact and simpler-engineered system than the current Pro, more expandable than the Studio, and a fairer price relative to the Mac mini.
The problem there is that the Mx Max only supplies a handful of PCIe lanes (4?) which are needed for "built-in" interfaces like Ethernet and SD readers. You could maybe use a PCIe switch to get a couple of internal PCIe cards, but the bandwidth would probably be worse than you'd get in a TB-to-PCIe enclosure. Or they could "steal" one of the 4 TB ports for internal use but, again, that;s going to be no better than an external PCIe enclosure.
The 2023 Pro uses the Ultra chip - effectively two interconnected Max dies - and, as I understand it, 16 of the PCIe lanes come from the unused SSD controller on the second Max. So even a "smaller" PCIe Mac Pro would need the expensive Ultra chip to support even 4 PCIe slots with respectable bandwidth - which is going to push up the price point.
I don't see the problem with the Studio vs. the Mini - the prices only overlap the Studio if you pick all of the BTO CPU/GPU options on a M4 Pro Mini - and even the binned 14 core CPU Studio Max beats out the M4 Pro in other respects. Worst case - don't bother with the $2000 binned 14 core Studio and go straight to the $2500 16/40 core/48G RAM one.
I think you can read too much into names. I mean, we're already in a world where neither 2/3 of "MacBook Pro" models nor the "Mac Pro" actually have a "M4 Pro" processor...
If Apple dropped the Mac Pro then the field would be clear for both the Studios - or just the Studio Ultra - to be renamed "Mac Pro" - if the market research showed that would be popular.
I have no idea nor am I going to take a guess. I'd be more likely to predict a jury verdict than predict what Apple is going to do with the Mac Pro.
Many have been wanting this xMac for quite some time. It would be nice if Apple would release such a thing but I wouldn't recommend getting ones hopes up.
xMac would have been easy with Intel (just an "official" Hackintosh) but Apple Silicon chips just aren't the best tools for making a PCIe tower. See discussion above.
Was just laughing the other day that this was veering dangerously close to xMac territory. Great times. 😂
But where does the apples server plans fit into all of this?
an server with the locked in storage that is raid 0 with needing DFU mode to replace storage may not be them. (Maybe have an IPMI that can do DFU mode)
Will they add some kind of raid 1 mode? raid 5/6?
ram on cards?
cpu / ram on an card that slots into an MB?
they will need to have some pci-e for networking (NOT TB) / or replace build in networking with some kind of SFP.
maybe pci-e m.2 based storage with apples on build in storage just for boot? or have no build in storage at all and just netboot?
They really need to bring back a quiet, power sipping, home friendly Xserve and Time Capsule and all the networking gear. Make it one stop shopping again. This is a no-brainer.
Yup, a macOS variant, APFS-native, APFS-over-network NAS / home server, that allows for off-the-shelf hard drives (an Apple-aesthetic Synology) would sell almost 1:1 for households that have Apple gear already, but it would compete with iCloud services revenue (and Mac / iOS device storage spec upsells), which is a Tim's Apple thing.
Apple could, if they wanted to put the resources towards it, make something like Transporter (acquired to death by Drobo), which did ad-hoc home to wide-internet serving, so you could always get your files remotely without a fixed IP address.
But again, that would compete with the logic and business case of iCloud Drive.
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Agreed. The world has shifted around us and the definition of power user and what constitutes a powerful machine has radically changed.
20 years ago you needed a dual G5 to do any kind of serious creative work. The mobile chips at the time, whether G4s or Intel Core Duos, were good enough for Word or Powerpoint, but throw serious Photoshop work at them and you'd be staring at the beachball of death for minutes at a time.
10 years ago things were shifting. You could get a Core i7 in a Mac Mini. It couldn't keep up with a dual Xeon MP when editing big .psb files, but it was more than usable. And the range of jobs which formerly required a dual Xeon, but could be done with a Mini, had expanded considerably.
Today I can edit 4K video on my phone and my M4 MBP makes my 5800x3D/3080 PC feel a little pokey at times. Now I am not doing any sort of video or 3D modeling work, so I don't need enormous amounts of RAM or a million PCI lanes. But the number of jobs which require that kind of machine has shrunk to a tiny sliver of the overall PC market. The last figures I could find for 2024 show shipments of about 6 million workstations, globally, compared to 256 million total computer sales worldwide, or about 2.3%. Unless you are in a few very specialized fields, you simply don't need that much computing power. And, if you want, you can now live your entire digital life on your phone without a desktop or laptop of any kind.
Obviously that is cold comfort to the people here who are in those fields and who need real workstation power. They're faced with either making their older Macs last or switching over to Windows. But I don't see it so much as 'Is the Mac Pro still relevant' but the fact that a big machine which can hold hundreds of GB of RAM and lots of GPUs has become a specialized device and not a general purpose computer. Apple made big boxes with lots of expansion because the tech of the day required that to work. They no longer need to do that because 99% of the creative work out there can now be done on a laptop or a Mac Studio.
But only if you edit it in the very specific format Apple has built the hardware to do; a format owned by Apple.
But only the life Apple allows you to live.
The problem isn't that slotboxes aren't "general purpose computers" any more, the problem is that Apple has indoctrinated, in the truest meaning of that word, its customers to accept a life without general purpose computers, even to think that their narrowly defined appliances are general purpose devices. Which if you work at Apple high enough to make these sort of strategic decisions, you don't need because you have people to do work for you.
The plantation owner has no care about the ergonomics of the scythe's handle.
Apple hasn't indoctrinated anyone. The mass of the general public has shown they've never seen computers as anything other than appliances, like a TV or a microwave, which are used for a purpose then ignored until needed the next time. The idea that most people want something other than ease of use is the kind of thing which keeps some members of the OSS world breathlessly waiting for The Year of Linux on the Desktop, when the masses will awaken, throw off their shackles and realize the joys of compiling their own kernels. This is true across all operating systems, ecosystems, and companies. Most people never wanted to worry about specs or RAM or anything like that. They just want the thing to work.
Anyone who posts here is, by definition, a minority of a minority. I've done tech support on and off for decades and, honestly, I wouldn't trust most people with anything more complicated than an iPhone.
That’s literally what advertising does.
"The bicycle for the mind" was Apple's credo at one stage. Apple never made "appliances", that is a revisionist back-projection by people who fundamentally misunderstand what Apple was about prior to Tim Cook, or are being paid through access to push an agenda that the Cook era is pursuing.
A device can't simultaneously be "the hub of your digital life" and also be an "appliance". The "appliance" angle serves only to minimise the Mac, so that it can be supplanted with minimised, limited devices.
These things are not either / or.
Removing expandability, and reconfigurability didn’t make the Mac easier to use, it didn’t give it any capabilities it didn’t have before, and it didn’t make it cheaper, more reliable or more accessible. It just made it less useful.
All it did, is make Macs more expensive, and more able to have their useful lives arbitrarily ended.
And when I say Apple's user base are indoctrinated, arguing that a cynical financial decision enabled by coercive control and limited choices is about "ease of use" is literally the indoctrination I'm describing.
I've been using Apple's machines since the Apple //, and Macs since the original 128K. I've used a bewildering array of machines, and a wide range of operating systems, for a lot of different tasks. I've got more inside stories of what Apple and NeXT were like under Jobs to be immune to any hagiography of some lost, pure Apple of yore.
Computers aren't your friends. They're tools. And, as the jobs change, so do the tools. It's as simple as that.
Computing now, the jobs done by computers are no different to those of 10, 15 or 20 years ago. The tools however have been changed, to force changes in how those jobs are done. It's all supply side.
No one wants their podcasts kept in ~/Library/obscure_folder/you-do-not-have-permission-to-view-this-folders-contents/ with episodes renamed as random strings of characters.
No one wants to be unable to access the contents of their photo library, or have the files renamed to long random strings of characters, as the price of being able to import them directly into the photo editor from their phone.
No one wants AI in their spreadsheet when doing their budget for the month.
This is all tools being changed to be more user-hostile, for reasons that are entirely about making it harder to use any other tool in the future.
I think you need to add a '4)' to your last line. The Mac Pro has the best thermal design of any Mac and when it gets dusty in a few years, it's easy to open up and keep clean. No messing about with iFixit tools or risk of getting electrocuted by an exposed power supply.
Even working on the 2019 Mac Pro is easy. Online folks wrote horror stories about CPU changes and tightening the heatsink had to be done “just so”.
I did that with appropriate tools and it was so easy. They really designed it well.
Besides that, it is slightly smaller than the 2010 Mac Pro as well. They made clever use of space.
They are effective at gathering dust however, although mine aren’t as bad as some of seen online. I keep mine fairly clean in comparison, and outside they are both pristine.
Have you asked anybody? Because my experience, based on the available evidence from years of supporting computer users, is that they want them all saved to their desktop as "Untitled Document 23" (or "Dear Sir.docx" if they let Word auto-name them). Doesn't sound like you've ever encountered someone who's only way of copying a file was opening it in Office and then doing "Save as..." (what if it's an office document, you may ask? Ans: call me and complain that I've sent you a bad file!)
Anyway, if Jobs had asked people what they wanted in the Macintosh they'd have said "faster Apple IIs" (...and that's probably more genuine than the "Henry Ford" version).
There are plenty of debatable issues about the way iOS is "locked down" (and whether Music or Photos actually work as well as they could), but this isn't one of them - you're just looking at an activity-centred paradigm as popularised by mobile devices rather than the document-centred one previously used on personal computers.
(Use Finder/whatever to locate the document you're going to work on, open it and have the appropriate app fire up vs start your Word processor/photo editor/music player and use its browsing tools to choose your document).
If you want to be able to flexibly sort your photos by date, reel, subject, event or various other metadata (a fairly reasonable need) and build albums; if you want multiple versions of photos with different adjustments, or to store non-destructive adjustments as separate layers then you really need them stored in something closer to a relational database with systematic, unique keys (hence the "random strings of characters") that you can't accidentally break (hence the locked folders). Likewise, a flat list (with some folders if you can be bothered) of inconsistently-named files is not a good way to file and browse your music and podcasts. If you sync your photos/music you want to do it intelligently, not copy over everything. Also, on a mobile device, it makes enormous sense to keep everything synced with the cloud, so having the app/OS ensure consistency makes that far more reliable.
Sure, you can be OCD about file naming and organisation - but nobody is 100% consistent and why not have the computer organise the tedious stuff for you?
Sure, you can have something like Spotlight continually scanning your files and maintaining indices... or an rsync-type copy which has to do file comparisons becuase it can't trust the 'modified' dates... but that is a massive kludge.
Essentially, the "play this audio file"/"open this JPEG in an editor" functionality of Photos, Music is now almost subsidiary to the sorting, searching, browsing and syncing functionality of these apps.
The problem is that the iPhone had the benefit of a clean slate: everything had to be re-thought to make it usable on a tiny touchscreen. One of the many reasons that Microsoft failed to penetrate the mobile market was that it couldn't just port its near-monopoly Office products to a phone and have them usable. So, they started from scratch with an activity-based model rather than a document-based model.
The problem is that desktop/laptop operating systems were already a bit of a hodge-podge of document- and activity-based ideas and - with Appls migrating from mobile & the need for close integration between desktop & mobile - it's getting worse. Apple did try changing the file/app paradigm with its own Apps to something a bit more iOS-like, but on a Mac where you're also using 3rd party apps with document-centric designs that has just made things confusing with 'Save' working in different ways.
Yup, I'll give you that one. It's what happens when big business invests eye-watering amounts of money and massively inflates stock prices to develop a solution looking for a problem (unless the "problem" was a desperate need to swamp the internet with AI-generated slop).
However, Apple are one of the lesser offenders in this category.
Big business would prefer AI does the entire budget and the humans that would have done the hard work are put through an "operations model consolidation phase whatever" (aka let go).
I don't mind a bit of AI, but I'm not a fan of it barging in to everything. Sometimes I just want to get rid of it.
I've actually seen in a CMS system somehow users managed to upload not just assets (eg, PDFs) with massive long file names, but even special characters(!).
I hit the proverbial roof and made sure they didn't do it again and put rewrite rules in place that strip out anything that isn't standard characters. Letters, numbers and dash or underscore is fine, but nothing else. Spaces get converted to underscore. Those are silly, nuisance tasks to fix up and they take time that can be better spent elsewhere.
Of course some of these special characters actually make it impossible to do anything with the file unless you go into the admin backend of the system and then you can remove the offending characters in the file name.
This kind of thing happens when you do distributed publishing model and have web-publishing being done by people who aren't web savvy. Even despite your best efforts of training them (with learning modules that they must do), you still end up being surprised and shocked at what they sometimes manage to do - "how the heck did they manage that".
I hate how some OS platforms put brackets and a number in file names that are duplicates:
Policy_-_finalNovember_-_2023_reduced(1).pdf
Plenty of bad stuff in that little file name.
I hit the proverbial roof and made sure they didn't do it again and put rewrite rules in place that strip out anything that isn't standard characters. Letters, numbers and dash or underscore is fine, but nothing else. Spaces get converted to underscore. Those are silly, nuisance tasks to fix up and they take time that can be better spent elsewhere.
Of course some of these special characters actually make it impossible to do anything with the file unless you go into the admin backend of the system and then you can remove the offending characters in the file name.
This kind of thing happens when you do distributed publishing model and have web-publishing being done by people who aren't web savvy. Even despite your best efforts of training them (with learning modules that they must do), you still end up being surprised and shocked at what they sometimes manage to do - "how the heck did they manage that".
I hate how some OS platforms put brackets and a number in file names that are duplicates:
Policy_-_finalNovember_-_2023_reduced(1).pdf
Plenty of bad stuff in that little file name.
At work we've transitioned from servers to cloud storage with both a web portal and a Finder plugin to make it look like a mounted server. But similar things happen with names. As you can upload any stupidly named file to cloud storage, people often do: spaces, parens, bangs and special characters which render as garbage. I do my best to rename stuff, but I'm not going to make myself responsible for everyone's work.