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MP 7,1 Is the new 7,1 Mac Pro a failure on arrival
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
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Not true. There are plenty of people buying components to build or upgrade the desktop. How come a lot of people lining up to get 3950X near Micro Center?
The overall market percentage for PC desktops is still high and profitable.
Few people buy complete desktops at retail locations. They configure and order a prebuilt from a vendor online - or just build (or have a friend build) a system from parts purchased online.
I think equating retail shelf space to market size for this segment is very misleading. Outside of the Apple ecosystem consumers haven’t been buying boxed desktops at a brick and mortar for home use for probably 15+ years now; that segment just order from Dell or HP or whatever.
I think equating retail shelf space to market size for this segment is very misleading. Outside of the Apple ecosystem consumers haven’t been buying boxed desktops at a brick and mortar for home use for probably 15+ years now; that segment just order from Dell or HP or whatever.
If you want data on the shrinking PC market, here's some:
www.zdnet.com
And this interesting quote from their article:
"Meanwhile, the consumer market for PCs has all but vanished, with the exception of two groups: gamers and high-income professionals that still need the unique capabilities that a PC or Mac provides."
Eliminate the gamer segment from that for Apple...and you're not left with much.
As the PC market continues to shrink slowly, guess which OEMs are still thriving?
The worldwide PC market has been flat for the past few years, but that hasn't been true for every OEM. A closer look at two years' worth of statistics from IDC shows that three companies have been doing significantly better than the rest.
www.zdnet.com
And this interesting quote from their article:
"Meanwhile, the consumer market for PCs has all but vanished, with the exception of two groups: gamers and high-income professionals that still need the unique capabilities that a PC or Mac provides."
Eliminate the gamer segment from that for Apple...and you're not left with much.
I fail to see how this supports or disproves anything being discussed here.If you want data on the shrinking PC market, here's some:
As the PC market continues to shrink slowly, guess which OEMs are still thriving?
The worldwide PC market has been flat for the past few years, but that hasn't been true for every OEM. A closer look at two years' worth of statistics from IDC shows that three companies have been doing significantly better than the rest.
And this interesting quote from their article:
"Meanwhile, the consumer market for PCs has all but vanished, with the exception of two groups: gamers and high-income professionals that still need the unique capabilities that a PC or Mac provides."
Eliminate the gamer segment from that for Apple...and you're not left with much.
That you're asking Apple to jump into a market that it wouldn't make much money from.
Your entire argument that the masses are clamoring for an xMac is not supported by any evidence.
How does that article support this?
I don't recall saying anything to this effect. What I have said is I think there's a market for an xMac and it's of sufficient size where it would be profitable. I have yet to see any data in opposition to that. All I've heard are things to the effect of "Apple doesn't make it therefore it wouldn't be profitable".
My argument is that it is a relatively small market segment, not that it couldn't be popular among those who want it, not that it couldn't be sold at a profitable price.
Let's assume for a moment that, like the rest of the PC business, laptops are 2/3 of Apple's unit sales. If the tower could account for 50% of the remaining 1/3, that's 1/6th (16.65%). I'd consider that to be a very respectable slice of the market - no argument that Apple could find a way to sell those successfully.
Our disagreement, which cannot be resolved here, involves our beliefs as to whether 16.65% is an attainable figure. Based on my experience, I believe the percentage would be substantially lower than that. You are far more optimistic than I in this matter.
As a business proposition, a company like Apple will also ask, "Will this increase our overall sales, or simply shift sales from one product to another?" Apple has no problems cannibalizing sales of one product (say, iPod) in favor of a product with much greater prospects (iPhone). I don't see how xMac qualifies as a product with "much greater prospects" - at best, a whole lot of cannibalization, an itty bit of platform-switching.
As a customer, you don't have to care about that. If Apple creates the model you want, that's the model you'll happily buy. Since we all like to believe that there are other people just like ourselves, we all like to believe that the model we want will be successful for the company selling it.
But based on all the debates I've seen here at MR, and my decades of experience in a variety of businesses (including many years of IT work)... Even if Apple does bring out an xMac, it will be declared to be something other than what "the people" really desired. The design will be wrong, the specs will be wrong, the number of slots/ports/drive bays will be wrong, it will not have been refreshed often enough, the price will most definitely be wrong... We'll have more threads like this one, "Is the New xMac a Failure on Arrival?"
If it isn't designed exactly to your desires, at exactly the price you're hoping to pay, it won't be a "fair test," and if it fails/is withdrawn from the product line, people will (again) claim that it proves nothing about the popularity or profitability of the tower form factor. The demise of the CMP hasn't been accepted as "proof," so the demise of xMac would bring similar denials.
A lot of these arguments against an xMac would also apply to the Mac Mini and yet the Mac Mini exists. Personally I'd love an xMac.
OK, let's assume. If you feel that 50% of the remaining 1/3 isn't worthwhile then how do you explain the iMac, iMac Pro, and Mac Mini comprising the remaining 50% of the 1/3? Assuming equal distribution of those models each sells even less than an xMac would. If each, with an even smaller share, is worthwhile why wouldn't an xMac be more attractive?
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As well as the iMac and iMac Pro. The argument appears to be that laptops are preferable to desktops. Assuming that argument valid (I believe it to be) then how is it the Mini, iMac, and iMac Pro exist and there is no room for an xMac? Or that an xMac couldn't replace one (or more) of those models? I have yet to see an explanation for this.
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Yeah, 6 grand US and only tossing in a single 3 year old Polaris based mid-range GPU (in 2016-2017), $150 worth of RAM and a $100 worth of SSD is a total rort. That spec should not even exist.
That would imply that the rest of the machine is "worth" over $5000 USD, and it just simply isn't.
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If you can find a retail product sold with ATI branding from the last 8 years, we'll give you a pass. Otherwise you're just being silly.
You say this isn't a computer for the masses but your hypothetical computer is somehow going to be 100% of Apple's desktop computer share. This is nonsense. Even before the current Mac Pro, the line was in the low single digits of Apple's desktop sales. You argue people are pulling numbers out of their asses, but every single statement you make is based on magic ******** like the bolded.
I don't know why I bother arguing with a person who has a sense of reality unmoored from the plane the rest of us inhabit, so I'm going to stop at this point. Keep being delusional and assuming Apple just hates money for some reason. Christ.
Mac Pro 1.1. 21. 3.1 4.1 5.1 I wonder what the 7.2 will be like.
I held back on the power hungry 1,1 'til the 2,1 ( still power hungry ) but jumped at the 4,1 dual Quad.- nice power management; currently looking around for a clean, loved 5,1 Dual Quad.
You couldn't give me a 1,1 now.
. . . still, if I were depending on my livelihood via Mac OS I would be tempted mainly for the obvious modularity . . . I'd be tempted . . but .. . not in 2020 more like 2022.
Surely Apple can come out with a toned down 7.2 . . a big chance to reel in the likes of many of the Macrumors/MacPro Faithful I can only hope. Got two kids still in Uni.
I held back on the power hungry 1,1 'til the 2,1 ( still power hungry ) but jumped at the 4,1 dual Quad.- nice power management; currently looking around for a clean, loved 5,1 Dual Quad.
You couldn't give me a 1,1 now.
. . . still, if I were depending on my livelihood via Mac OS I would be tempted mainly for the obvious modularity . . . I'd be tempted . . but .. . not in 2020 more like 2022.
Surely Apple can come out with a toned down 7.2 . . a big chance to reel in the likes of many of the Macrumors/MacPro Faithful I can only hope. Got two kids still in Uni.
How did you arrive at that? I used numbers provided by ApfelKuchen. Those numbers break down as follows:
- Laptops: 66.5%
- xMac: 16.5%
- iMac: 5.5%
- iMac Pro: 5.5%
- Mini: 5.5%
Good idea because you seem unable to follow the discussion. You are arguing points which I haven't made.
Based on the sheer number of Hackintosh users; I believe a xMac would be widely popular. It could only have 1 x16 slot for an interchange of GPU and still be popular although the idea of 1 MPX slot plus maybe a standard x16 and a couple more x8 and x4 slots would be smart.
The design could be the same but maybe 2/3 height with only 2 front fans.
The design could be the same but maybe 2/3 height with only 2 front fans.
But it wouldn't, at Apple's usual retail pricing. This mythical xMac would probably cost considerably more than an identically-assembled system based on the components used. The motherboard would be a custom unit, as would the case and likely power supply. And then the SSDs they're using combined with the T2 chip that everyone (supposedly) hates.
There's no "win" here for Apple.
Even assuming Apple produced it more with basic commodity parts (no T2, etc) it's still going to be substantially more expensive than building a machine yourself. Which will always be the case, and hence is a huge obstacle to it ever being a viable strategy. The idea that 100% of Hackintosh users are Hackintosh users solely because Apple doesn't make a machine for them ignores the reality that everyone's "machine for them" is different, and everyone has different price sensitivities.
You can't definitively say this. I and others think there would be. What's puzzling is why so many people are arguing so vehemently against it. Their arguments are reminiscent of those who were arguing against a Mac Pro tower when the 6,1 Mac Pro was released.
Apple didn't bet the farm on the Power Mac G3 back in 1998, they bet it on the iMac, a unique form factor that didn't exist at the time. This has been the essence of Apple's desktop strategy, for better or worse, since then...they don't want to be compared with Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo slotboxes or with DIYers as it always, always ends up becoming a line item price comparison. Look at what happened with the Mac Pro. That's the "no win here for Apple" that @jasonmvp is talking about.
If Apple makes an Intel Core i-Series slotbox that is too expensive, too limited, too whatever, for this forum's taste, it will be dissected six ways from Sunday. If Apple makes an Intel Xeon slotbox, the same thing occurs. The 2019 Mac Pro has proven that already. The loudest, most vocal minority imaginable has been telling us how bad it is, how out of date it is, how overpriced it is, how overbuilt it is, et al for the past 6 months, without having ever touched one, seen one, or used one. Apple decided a long time ago that the amount of return on the investment for the loudest, most vocal minority imaginable is simply not worth it. The MVMI want to pay the bare minimum amount for this xMac and then fill it with bargain shopper upgrades that they buy and install themselves. Apple watched A, D, HP and L do this, especially Dell and its simply not worth the time, money or trouble to them anymore. The size of the MVMI market is so small compared to iPhone, iPad, Services, Wearables and Mac that Apple is at peace with itself if they lose MVMI to Windows. MVMI just hasn't reconciled it in their minds yet.
With this I reiterate my earlier statement:
What's puzzling is why so many people are arguing so vehemently against it. Their arguments are reminiscent of those who were arguing against a Mac Pro tower when the 6,1 Mac Pro was released.
People aren't vehemently against it. It's just that there are in this thread a bunch of people trying to explain to you why fetch won't happen, and you keep failing to get the message.