MP All Models Is the Mac Pro still relevant in 2025

[theluggage]

Then it appears a SoC does not belong in a workstation in the first place.

If "Workstation" means something like the 2019 Mac Pro, that's more or less what I was saying.

The Mac Pro should probably have been axed as a product completely at this point.

It has been in all but name.
The current "Mac Pro" is effectively "Studio Ultra: PCIe edition". It's for people who need non-GPU PCIe.

PCI expansion is greatly needed by many for flash storage, video ports, 10-25GbE Ethernet ports, extra USB expansion cards, FireWire cards, audio cards etc. The list is almost endless.

All of those can be done up to a point via Thunderbolt - either with a TB-to-PCIe enclosure or as Thunderbolt devices. The Studio already has 10GB Ethernet. Firewire sounds like it's due to be depreciated. Audio cards - lots of USB and Thunderbolt alternatives. TB-to-PCIe enclosures should be improving with TB5. To warrant the Mac Pro you have to need multiple non-GPU PCIe cards - or one that needs all 16 lanes. Unfortunately - with Apple Silicon - that means you also have to get an expensive Ultra processor - possibly with more CPU/GPU cores, neural engines etc. than you need - because the only source of those extra PCIe4 lanes is the unused SSD interface on the Ultra's second die...


I'm not really applauding Apple here - or trying to gaslight people who really do need PCIe expansion - I just suspect that there aren't enough potential customers for a Mac PCIe tower - and too many "legacy" users meaning little prospect for future growth - to get Apple to invest in tackling the problems of adapting Apple Silicon to a job that it doesn't really excel at.

I'd love an M4 Pro or Max Mac with a couple of PCIe slots that I could fill with USB interfaces and flash storage - but the M4 Max doesn't have the PCIe lanes...

 

[avro707]

The Mac Pro 2019 with two Radeon Pro W6800x Duos gave the same speed in DaVinci Resolve benchmark test, as one Radeon 7900 XTX. And barely faster than the Mac Studio M1 Ultra. (Not many benchmarks that test multi-GPUs)

I suppose that is why Apple has not even released drivers for next generations AMD cards. That would prevent them from claiming the latest macs are the fastest ever in GPU related workflows.

edit:
24-core Intel Xeon W-3265M, two Radeon Pro W6800x Duo - test A 296 seconds
Ryzen 9 5900X 64GB RAM Radeon RX 7900 XTX - test A 296 seconds
M2 Ultra (24CPU 76GPU 128GB) - test A 232 seconds
M3 Ultra (32CPU 80 GPU 96GB) - test A 180 seconds

A pair of Radeon Pro W7900s would be very fast. Even a pair of 4090 Nvidias for that matter.

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

I would never plan a workflow to rely on the many overpriced and underperforming Thunderbolt enclosures out there. I dislike even the powered USB hubs because most of them are junk. At one time, the MacPro could be a hedge against the Disposable Electronics business model. But now the only hedge is OCLP.

 

[Happy_John]

I would never plan a workflow to rely on the many overpriced and underperforming Thunderbolt enclosures out there. I dislike even the powered USB hubs because most of them are junk. At one time, the MacPro could be a hedge against the Disposable Electronics business model. But now the only hedge is OCLP.

That hedge has an end-date though, and a real one, not a hypothetical one. Tahoe will be the last Intel-supporting macOS, and both security updates and software support will set up at some point. Not yet, but realistically you probably won’t be able to use any intel-based Mac online from around 2030.

The issue with older machines is not that they get worse, but that they get left behind. A working 100 year old bicycle is still fully functional because roads haven’t changed that much, but an analog mobile phone is useless because there are no analogue cell networks you can connect to.

A Macintosh SE is still absolutely fine for word processing but Ił you can’t feasibly browse the web with it.

To out it bluntly, the problem with older machines isn’t the machines themselves, it’s the rest of the world.

So the best option after that is to keep using the machines you have and love indefinitely for local work, using the most recent compatible versions of the applications you need, but make it local only - keep it off the internet. Then buy an entry level Apple Silicon Mac for all online tasks.

 

[grad]

The tower Mac Pro was never relevant for me and I was coming from PowerMacs. The cylindrical Mac Pro was truly innovative, the execution was not as bad as Apple's decision to use AMD instead of NVidia and expensive Xeons and those were not as bad as Apple listening to feedback from the wrong people who were crying for internal storage and being let down from Apple regarding support and development. It was an era where Apple had already been downscaling their "pro" solutions for years.

As compute machines, Intel-based Mac Pros were never powerful or cheap or supported enough to compete with HP, Dell, etc multiprocessor offerings. Apple Silicon Mac Pros didn't make any sense vs Mac Studio when memory is not upgradeable and PCIe cards can not be used for GPUs.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

The Mac Pro 2019 with two Radeon Pro W6800x Duos gave the same speed in DaVinci Resolve benchmark test, as one Radeon 7900 XTX. And barely faster than the Mac Studio M1 Ultra. (Not many benchmarks that test multi-GPUs)

I suppose that is why Apple has not even released drivers for next generations AMD cards. That would prevent them from claiming the latest macs are the fastest ever in GPU related workflows.

edit:
24-core Intel Xeon W-3265M, two Radeon Pro W6800x Duo - test A 296 seconds
Ryzen 9 5900X 64GB RAM Radeon RX 7900 XTX - test A 296 seconds
M2 Ultra (24CPU 76GPU 128GB) - test A 232 seconds
M3 Ultra (32CPU 80 GPU 96GB) - test A 180 seconds

Please remind me to run this benchmark once I get my dual W6800X duos coupled to 4 Radeon Pro VII (hopefully with IF bridges).

 

[madebybela]

I used to dream of owning even the trash can Mac Pro back in the day but the M4 Mac mini handles everything I need to do very well. I'm just a humble digital illustrator/animator though, hardware caught up to those demands over a decade ago.

 

[mattspace]

Sure, ARM might be lower power, but who cares if you're going to plug in a pair of power-guzzling GPUs the size of Manhattan...? Power efficiency counts for a lot in the laptop/small-form-factor market (where Apple is successful), it counts for a lot in the high-density computing/server market (where Apple doesn't have a dog in the race, which has already started). The Mac Pro is neither of those - it's where ARM has the least to offer.

When it's at idle, Apple Silicon is very efficient.

When you pin Apple Silicon to the wall with a 100% workload, it eats just as much power as everything else.

Sure, until it very quickly throttled itself due to heat.

Yes, enlarged capacities includes the cooling system.

But the truth remains, Apple ported macOS to the iPad, and then replaced the Mac with iPads in Mac form-factors.

Aside from flash storage everything else (except, maybe video ports because I don't know what that is) is easily handled via Thunderbolt / USB. In fact David Plumber (of Daves Garage) gave internal storage as the justification for buying his 2023 Mac Pro.

Ironic then, given the Sonoma (primarily) NVME debacle, that Apple is apparently not even testing internal storage to any significant extent, so much so that they introduced a whole new loading protocol based upon an assumption that storage was over Thunderbolt / USB.

Understandable though - no iPad has PCI slots, and iPad storage is only over USB / Thunderbolt.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

They really screwed up with the 2013 Mac Pro.

It turns out that it was the ideal form factor, after all, and that it was ahead of its time. It would have been an amazing form factor for Apple Silicon chips, far cooler than the Mac mini block design of the Studio. If they had just dropped in newer Intel chips over the years, it's reputation wouldn't have been stained as badly as it was toward the end.

Like are you really telling me that they couldn't have stuffed newer and more efficient i9 chips in that thing, just to not embarrass themselves?

I have a 2013 MP (second-hand) in my collection. It's an awesome computer.

Anyway, if that form factor was still around, there wouldn't be this identity crisis.

 

[mattspace]

I'm sorry, but all the posthumous lionisation in this thread of the 2013 Mac Pro is just historical revisionism, which seems to be coming almost entirely from people who are not regulars in this forum, and are seemingly fanboying it as an object (not the first time that's happened here). It was a crap design (as opposed to being a "pretty" decorative object), and crap for everything it was, every idea it represented, and every aspect of its implementation. Not a good design let down by neglect, or bad technologies.

Fixing on dual cheap and nasty video cards was stupid. Apple was never going to set a graphics agenda with its long history of playing cheap on GPU, and proprietary form factors guaranteed the product was going to cost a multiple of the equivalent parts in standard form factors, come with unique problems, and have no unique advantages.

Lying about what the GPUs were - calling them Fire Pros when they were consumer tech Radeons was stupid. Their lies were found out in no time flat and that contributed to pros and pro workflows abandoning the platform. The 2013 Mac Pro is almost certainly one of the biggest reasons Davinci Resolve now owns the editing space.

The thermal chimney was stupid. It was Apple's second attempt at this premise, and in both cases it cooked its components and made it (without a stupid dedicated rack that cost half as much as the machine) incompatible with the front-to-back thermal flow every other piece of equipment is built around.

Making it round was stupid - manufactured objects, especially work tools, are rectilinear for a reason (and see above). The 2013 is going to age about as well as an SGI 02 - like fine milk on the counter.

Putting heaps of external cabled IO on a small tall device that has to be turned around to plug / unplug is stupid. It means the combined stiffness of all the cables exert a pushing / toppling / torquing force on the device, and you have constant wear and strain on the ports, and everything plugged in to it.

The chromed surface finish is stupid. It doesn't have a colour, and it picks up fingerprints when it's being constantly turned around.

The 2013 Mac Pro was a cynical exercise in turning a modular, user-upgradable, durable piece of plant and equipment into a disposable, controlled-obsolescence piece of consumer electronics, to raise prices, increase Apple's take of the Mac Pro total hardware spend, and speed up replacement cycles. It was bad at everything it was supposed to do, uncompetitive on price and performance, and famous within industry for burning itself out within weeks, or even days in a heavy throughput work environment. Multile people from multiple companies published articles about burning out machine, after machine, and it was normal to see these companies with multiple new boxed machines being kept in reserve.

Design is how it works, and the 2013 Mac Pro didn't. On objective criteria, it is a bad design, not a heroic failure, not a noble attempt to advance the state of the art. It is an exercise in cynicism, in packaging cheap consumer parts as if they're professional equipment, in lying to the customer, and then in abandoning the userbase in a hissyfit (how many years were wasted on the iMac Pro, which was going to be the Mac Pro's replacement entirely as a product?) because the customers dared tell Apple they wanted something different.

People need to stop engaging in memoryholing, using comforting fantasies about what they wish the 2013 was, and acknowledge what the 2013 actually was - a bad product.

 

[maflynn]

When you pin Apple Silicon to the wall with a 100% workload, it eats just as much power as everything else.

Are you saying that a M4 Max Studio will draw as much as a I9-1400k (253watts) with a 4090 (450watts)?

According to Apple my M4 Max will pull in only 145 watts and the 2023 Mac Pro will pull in 300+ watts. The intel Mac will pull up to 900 watts (max config). Source

 

[mattspace]

Are you saying that a M4 Max Studio will draw as much as a I9-1400k (253watts) with a 4090 (450watts)?

According to Apple my M4 Max will pull in only 145 watts. That's a far cry from 700 watts of the PC.

Yeah, but your M4 literally can't do things the 4090 equipped machine can do, so it's not really an equivalent comparison.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah, but your M4 literally can't do things the 4090 equipped machine can do, so it's not really an equivalent comparison.

No question but you didn't say that. You stated that as much power as everything else.

The major hallmark of Apple Silicon is how little power it consumes, even under load compared to the PCs. You stated that its the same as PCs

 

[mattspace]

No question but you didn't say that. You stated that as much power as everything else.

The major hallmark of Apple Silicon is how little power it consumes, even under load compared to the PCs. You stated that its the same as PCs

Right, and if there was a theoretical M4 capable of doing the level of work the 4090 equipped machine could do, it would use just as much power doing it. At idle, AS is very low draw. But I'll also suggest you're quoting peak draw for the Intel system, as if it actually consumes that under most circumstances.

The consistent reporting on Apple Silicon laptops was that they burn through their batteries just as fast as the intel models they replaced, when people were actually doing serious work on them.

 

[Happy_John]

I'm sorry, but all the posthumous lionisation in this thread of the 2013 Mac Pro is just historical revisionism, which seems to be coming almost entirely from people who are not regulars in this forum, and are seemingly fanboying it as an object (not the first time that's happened here). It was a crap design (as opposed to being a "pretty" decorative object), and crap for everything it was, every idea it represented, and every aspect of its implementation. Not a good design let down by neglect, or bad technologies.

Fixing on dual cheap and nasty video cards was stupid. Apple was never going to set a graphics agenda with its long history of playing cheap on GPU, and proprietary form factors guaranteed the product was going to cost a multiple of the equivalent parts in standard form factors, come with unique problems, and have no unique advantages.

Lying about what the GPUs were - calling them Fire Pros when they were consumer tech Radeons was stupid. Their lies were found out in no time flat and that contributed to pros and pro workflows abandoning the platform. The 2013 Mac Pro is almost certainly one of the biggest reasons Davinci Resolve now owns the editing space.

The thermal chimney was stupid. It was Apple's second attempt at this premise, and in both cases it cooked its components and made it (without a stupid dedicated rack that cost half as much as the machine) incompatible with the front-to-back thermal flow every other piece of equipment is built around.

Making it round was stupid - manufactured objects, especially work tools, are rectilinear for a reason (and see above). The 2013 is going to age about as well as an SGI 02 - like fine milk on the counter.

Putting heaps of external cabled IO on a small tall device that has to be turned around to plug / unplug is stupid. It means the combined stiffness of all the cables exert a pushing / toppling / torquing force on the device, and you have constant wear and strain on the ports, and everything plugged in to it.

The chromed surface finish is stupid. It doesn't have a colour, and it picks up fingerprints when it's being constantly turned around.

The 2013 Mac Pro was a cynical exercise in turning a modular, user-upgradable, durable piece of plant and equipment into a disposable, controlled-obsolescence piece of consumer electronics, to raise prices, increase Apple's take of the Mac Pro total hardware spend, and speed up replacement cycles. It was bad at everything it was supposed to do, uncompetitive on price and performance, and famous within industry for burning itself out within weeks, or even days in a heavy throughput work environment. Multile people from multiple companies published articles about burning out machine, after machine, and it was normal to see these companies with multiple new boxed machines being kept in reserve.

Design is how it works, and the 2013 Mac Pro didn't. On objective criteria, it is a bad design, not a heroic failure, not a noble attempt to advance the state of the art. It is an exercise in cynicism, in packaging cheap consumer parts as if they're professional equipment, in lying to the customer, and then in abandoning the userbase in a hissyfit (how many years were wasted on the iMac Pro, which was going to be the Mac Pro's replacement entirely as a product?) because the customers dared tell Apple they wanted something different.

People need to stop engaging in memoryholing, using comforting fantasies about what they wish the 2013 was, and acknowledge what the 2013 actually was - a bad product.

Break-ups can leave people so bitter sometimes.

 

[maflynn]

But I'll also suggest you're quoting peak draw for the Intel system, as if it actually consumes that under most circumstances.

I also quoted peak draw on the apple silicon, so I'm consistent.

You're bending over backwards trying to assert that Apple Silicon consumes the same amount of power as PCs, and the evidence just doesn't support your thesis. One of the biggest marketing points Apple does, is how much more efficient Apple Silicon is, compared to Intel/nvidia.

• Laptops: PC Laptop makers are rolling out ARM based laptops, apple silicon shows that you can have an all day battery without sacrificing performance.
• Desktop: PCs draw a ton of power, in my case where I valued low power and cool running, yet my setup draws about 360 watts for CPU/GPU under load.
• Data Centers: Data Centers like AWS are embracing ARM processors to replace their intel servers due to the lower power demands

As for comparisons; here's a more applicable one. If you google and/or use chatgpt, we find that the M4 Max is applicable to a I9300k, and RTX 4070/4070TI. To give the Pc even more of a chance, we'll ignore the more power hungry 4070 ti.

Intel i9300k = 250 watts
Nvidia 4070 = 200 watts
Total = 450 watts.

M4 Max studio = 145 watts (max)

 

[ignatius345]

But the truth remains, Apple ported macOS to the iPad, and then replaced the Mac with iPads in Mac form-factors.

Not so much "the truth" as a dramatic oversimplification. But ok.

 

[Rian Gray]

Coming from 2019 Mac Pro, I'd say the next Mac Pro would need at least dGPU support, otherwise I would go for Mac Studio. In fact, if next Mac Pro gets M5 Extreme or a bigger chip than Ultra, that might have its own merits.

As for the power question, I'm more frustrated with the trend how PCs are becoming electricity-guzzling trucks more than anything. It's not just a workstation drawing 1kw I need to consider, it's the heat.

 

[avro707]

Coming from 2019 Mac Pro, I'd say the next Mac Pro would need at least dGPU support, otherwise I would go for Mac Studio. In fact, if next Mac Pro gets M5 Extreme or a bigger chip than Ultra, that might have its own merits.

As for the power question, I'm more frustrated with the trend how PCs are becoming electricity-guzzling trucks more than anything. It's not just a workstation drawing 1kw I need to consider, it's the heat.

I’d say Apple will never provide any GPU support for Radeon Pro or other GPUs going forward.

Or if they did, they will make it bespoke to Apple Silicon only.

The 2019 Mac Pro does consume a bit of power, I can see what my 28 core W6800X machine does powered by the batteries I have. I thought it would be worse to be honest.

 

[theluggage]

But the truth remains, Apple ported macOS to the iPad, and then replaced the Mac with iPads in Mac form-factors.

...which worked really, really well for almost their entire product range, except for that one, shrinking, 1% niche that needed a big box'o'slots. Turns out, the iPad and iPhone were already doing tasks like image processing and video handling that would have been Mac Pro territory a few years back.

It turns out that it was the ideal form factor, after all, and that it was ahead of its time.

Depends what you mean by "form factor" - the "small non-expandable system relyng on Thunderbolt for i/o" does seem to have come of age with the Mac Mini/Studio. Maybe it would have worked better if they'd run it alongside an updated tower Mac Pro for a while - instead of letting the previous Mac Pro wither for a couple of years (it had been discontinued in Europe for want of a plastic fan guard).

However, the actual design of the trashcan "form factor" included the "CPU and two GPUs around a triangular chimney" concept (which led to the cylindrical shape) turned out to be a complete stinker. The market stuck with big, single-chip GPU cards that were 90% heatsink. Also, the elephant in the room at the time was that a lot of potential customers wanted NVIDIA and CUDA rather than AMD and OpenCL - which was ruled out by Politics rather than any technical issue.

OK, so the Mac Studio has somewhat redeemed the "small, sealed system" concept, but it rather depends on the low-power, system-on-a-chip (including a half-decent, power efficient GPU) design of Apple Silicon - which doesn't suit the traingular-core Trashcan concept.

Like are you really telling me that they couldn't have stuffed newer and more efficient i9 chips in that thing, just to not embarrass themselves?

No, because the problem wouldn't have just been the i9, but the single huge GPU that the i9 would have needed to make the system a contender. The trashcan design bet the farm on the CPU + 2 small/medium GPU formula.

Obviously, given that they managed to fit the i9 plus an OK GPU into the iMac - and a Xeon W + half-decent GPU into the iMac Pro they could have made a small, headless desktop i9 or Xeon Mac, but the trashcan design wouldn't have cut it.

Real problam is, though, the "Mac Pro" market seems like a very low priority for Apple (probably because it is small and shrinking). They keep releasing a model, neglecting it for years, then completely change course and target a new market. Vis:

1. 2006 Original "cheesegrater" Mac Pro - entry level was relatively affordable (for what you got) Xeon/PCIe towern "pickup truck" for anybody who needed a powerful, versatile Mac. Top-end options were pretty high-powered (and pricey). Became abandonware after ~2010 (plus, there's a whole story about the original 32 bit firmware models getting obsoleted pretty quickly).

2. Trashcan - a non-expandable "appliance" for FCP and other OpenCL-optimised workflows. Interesting idea but - certainly at the time - not really a replacement for the cheesegrater. Never got a significant update (beyond dropping the original entry model and shifting the others down a price notch).

3. 2017 iMac Pro. Now, apparently all "Pros" obviously want an all-in-one and never have more specialised display requirements. Right. I strongly suspect this was originally meant to be the replacement for the trashcan - the famous Apple U-turn press conference came a just the time when they might have been sharing iMac Pro designs with key developers/customers. Pretty clear that - at that stage - the iMP would have been in advanced development while the "mythical modular Mac Pro" was completely undefined. Of course, this also turned out to be a one-and-done (may have been some GPU updates?) and was overtaken CPU-wise by regular i9 iMacs.

(Also suggesting the "iMac was to be the new Mac Pro" theory: Apple nerfed the 2014 Mac Mini with a low-powered CPU and graphics, leaving the field clear for iMac to become the only viable medium-to-powerful Mac desktop system. Then - no upgrade/replacement for the Thunderbolt display, although the 2016 LG Ultrafine looks suspiciously like the innards of a new Apple-designed display abandoned and shoved in a plastic enclosure. All-in-one was obviously the preferred route ).

4. 2019 Mac Pro. The "Steampunk" design may be a reference to the late, lamented Cheesegrater but it's really aimed at a different market that wants multiple high-end GPUs and biblical amounts of memory. Spend $20k and you'll get something competitive with equivalently-specced PC hardware (if you compare like-for-like) - but the $6000 entry level is twice the price of the Trashcan and the base performance worse than a much cheaper iMac - only makes sense if you're going to spend another $10k on GPUs, RAM and storage.

5. 2023 Mac Pro. May look like a 2019 Mac Pro - but it's really just a Studio Ultra with (non-GPU) PCIe slots and a lot of fresh air in a hand-me-down Mac Pro case. There's a market, but its only a subset of the 2019 Mac Pro market. It's already overdue a processor bump and I suspect it's not a product for the ages.

 

[theluggage]

I’d say Apple will never provide any GPU support for Radeon Pro or other GPUs.

No, because its in Apple's (and, probably, Apple users') best interest if developers optimise software for Metal and other MacOS frameworks that make the most of Apple Silicon features like unified RAM - which is what allows MacBook Pros, Minis and Studios to punch above their weight.

Otherwise, when it comes to GPU-centric workflows, Apple are just making glorified enclosures for whatever GPUs AMD decide to produce (and, unless they can bury the hatchet with NVIDIA, still missing out on a big chunk of the market).

Apple Silicon GPUs might not be able to compete head-to-head with AMDs latest and greatest fan-studded aluminium bricks - but what they can do - with properly written software - is thrash other integrated or mobile-class GPUs that will fit into an ultrabook or quiet small-form-factor system.

 

[leifp]

If you’re referring solely to the present M2 models, there will indeed be few buyers. And there should be few. And a few, anyhow. Audio pros, those with internal storage needs (or wants), etc. For the future models, assuming Apple isn’t finally abandoning a group it hasn’t spent much time respecting (2019 model aside), there is hope.

The rumours around next generation M chips, where functions are again more discrete than they have ever been on Apple Silicon, bodes well for a Mac Pro for more pros. Read: supporting GPU upgrades. Possibly allowing for RAM upgrades as well. I’m quietly optimistic even if it’s probably not for me…

 

[mBox]

For 99,9% of users this thing isn't relevant nowadays.

Well since Im the 1% that requires it, I guess Im lucky its still an option.
Avid MC, Pro Tools, and a slew of basic apps that require PCIe cards as well as internal storage option tends to help me these days

 

[iPadified]

However, the actual design of the trashcan "form factor" included the "CPU and two GPUs around a triangular chimney" concept (which led to the cylindrical shape) turned out to be a complete stinker. The market stuck with big, single-chip GPU cards that were 90% heatsink. Also, the elephant in the room at the time was that a lot of potential customers wanted NVIDIA and CUDA rather than AMD and OpenCL - which was ruled out by Politics rather than any technical issue.

Not so sure. You assume equal thermal dissipation to function well and is does not need it. That it could (almost) cool 500W+ without any chip heatsinks(!), and rather silently suggest a quite good design. In 2013, Apple was not the only one working with dual GPU setup. NVIDA and AMD did as well.

Who says an Mx Trachcan would have a triangular thermal heat dissipation unit for an Mx ultra? There is plenty of room in that sleek cabinet to host an Mx Ultra chip with good cooling.

A "MacStudio" in 2013 with i7/i9 and one or two NVIDIA would have sold well. Many lines of discussion about what is a Mac Pro would have been avoided

 

[mattspace]

...which worked really, really well for almost their entire product range, except for that one, shrinking, 1% niche that needed a big box'o'slots. Turns out, the iPad and iPhone were already doing tasks like image processing and video handling that would have been Mac Pro territory a few years back.

And because of that, the Mac hasn't gone anywhere in more than a decade - it's ambitions for what a computer can, and should do are as narrow as an iPad. In fact, there's a whole bunch of tasks I literally can't do on modern macOS, with the modern tools Apple provides that used to be easy, and easy in the default tools the OS provided.