MP 7,1 Is the new 7,1 Mac Pro a failure on arrival

[ApfelKuchen]

Failure or success is not measured by popularity in an online forum, it's measured by sales. Either Apple judges the potential market for a new product accurately (and finds it profitable to pursue), or they under-estimate the market and earn more than projected, or they are overly-optimistic and sales fail to match expectations.

Online polls of this sort are not proper market research. To be valid, they need to ask far more questions in a far less biased manner than they do, and they need to be distributed in a way that reaches the target audience; that is, the intended audience for the design. Truck manufacturers don't ask sedan owners what they want in a tractor. The opinions of those outside of the target audience may be strong, but they will undoubtedly skew the results in ways that are not helpful to business decision-makers. Apple hires professional market researchers to find these answers.

I think there's an underlying assumption among some Mac users that if Apple manages to bring out the right design, PC users will flock to Apple in droves. It just doesn't happen that way. For now, it's 90%/10%. If a large, mature, entrenched market like desktop PCs is going to shift loyalties, it's by fractional percentage points per year (I do remember when Apple was 2% of desktops, but that was a long time ago). That means PC-makers can profitably cater to niches that Apple would find unprofitable, or simply not worth the bother.

As to "worth the bother," from a purely social/emotional standpoint the "we're never satisfied" group are high maintenance, like Meg Ryan placing a restaurant order in "When Harry Met Sally." High maintenance partners need to offer other attractions to compensate for their demanding natures. So from a business standpoint, high maintenance customers need to be especially profitable or they will just not be worth the bother.

Yet the, "I want an affordable tower design" crowd is the opposite - they want to buy their displays, RAM, SSDs, and GPUs cheaply from someone else. They want an easy-to-tinker design that helps them extend the life of their gear for as long as possible. Apple is not interested in selling marginally-profitable products in mass quantities. Especially when they're incredibly good at selling far more profitable products in mass quantities.

Plus, tower designs are not selling in the kind of mass quantities their fans believe. Far larger numbers are really happy with the simplicity of all-in-one, whether it's the size of a smart watch, smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. If you can fit the entire computer into the display module, simplicity and space-efficiency will win the argument in most cases. When I was doing corporate IT back in the 90s, one of the biggest deployment challenges was finding desk space for a bulky CRT and the large CPU case that went with it. Today, the vast majority of free-standing CPUs I see in office environments resemble the Mac mini in size, tucked away in the shadow of a slim, flat panel display. No, the tower ain't making a comeback. It's suitable for a niche audience, not the masses. So again, that niche better be worth the bother.

 

[avkills]

It's this subset that I'm interested in. The 2019 Mac Pro appears to focus on the same market as the G4s, G5s, and cMP.

It appears that way but really doesn't. The new Mac Pro is competing against workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo, which I might add cost the same or more.

The G3, G4, G5s, Cheesegrator Intel Towers, the Trashcan were all weak sauce compared to the same workstations from the above vendors at their time of release. Actually the G5 was pretty good; except for having a super weak GPU line up.

 

[defjam]

Plus, tower designs are not selling in the kind of mass quantities their fans believe. Far larger numbers are really happy with the simplicity of all-in-one, whether it's the size of a smart watch, smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. If you can fit the entire computer into the display module, simplicity and space-efficiency will win the argument in most cases. When I was doing corporate IT back in the 90s, one of the biggest deployment challenges was finding desk space for a bulky CRT and the large CPU case that went with it. Today, the vast majority of free-standing CPUs I see in office environments resemble the Mac mini in size, tucked away in the shadow of a slim, flat panel display. No, the tower ain't making a comeback. It's suitable for a niche audience, not the masses. So again, that niche better be worth the bother.

How do you know this? Apple stopped selling them in 2013 and only recently began offering one once again. The starting price isn't helping to increase sales either.
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It appears that way but really doesn't. The new Mac Pro is competing against workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo, which I might add cost the same or more.

I feel the 2019 Mac Pro is being offered as a headless, internally expandable tower. Just like the G3s, G4s, G5s, and cMP were. The fact it can be configured with high end specs is icing on the cake.

 

[avkills]

How do you know this? Apple stopped selling them in 2013 and only recently began offering one once again. The starting price isn't helping to increase sales either.
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I feel the 2019 Mac Pro is being offered as a headless, internally expandable tower. Just like the G3s, G4s, G5s, and cMP were. The fact it can be configured with high end specs is icing on the cake.

Sure but none of the previous towers had this many PCI slots or power capability. The GPU in my hackintosh still smokes anything pre Mac Pro 2019; but also smokes the stock 580; and is probably on par with the single VegaII.

 

[fuchsdh]

It appears that way but really doesn't. The new Mac Pro is competing against workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo, which I might add cost the same or more.

The G3, G4, G5s, Cheesegrator Intel Towers, the Trashcan were all weak sauce compared to the same workstations from the above vendors at their time of release. Actually the G5 was pretty good; except for having a super weak GPU line up.

Eh, this isn't really true either.

There's a problem with comparing Apple's pro offerings to other competitors, in that Apple is offering a relatively narrow gamut of what "pro hardware" means as an all-encompassing term (in this way, Apple's insistence that "pro" just equals expensive and high-end is a bit simpler.) Some pros need tons of power, some pros need tons of expandability, some pros need some esoteric feature. It's true that the "modern" Jobs era on until now never made a high-end workstation, but as mid-level workstations the G5s and Mac Pros did directly compete with similar products in the class.

As it presently stands, that situation has not changed; Apple has just produced a higher-end workstation instead of a mid-range one.

(The tricky bit about comparisons remains, as the big difference between the Mac Pro and a lot of similar high-end workstations is that the mac Pro is a 1S system. I understand why they did that, especially since Intel's prices for decent clocks on higher-core-count Xeon -SP processors is crazy, but it does make it a bit more apples and oranges than it often was. In terms of expandability, the Mac Pro is comparable to a Z6 or Z8 from HP, while from a processor selection standpoint it's more like a Z4 to Z6.)

 

[avkills]

Except that none of the towers Apple made after the G5 really impressed me. For me the Blue & White G3 was a breakthrough product as it was the first tower to include FW400, which was hot **** at the time.

The cheesegrater Intel systems actually were decent, but they didn't have enough PCI slots. The cMP (trashcan) looked like it could be promising, but it basically had zero slots, and the GPU situation was terrible. I rented a trashcan not long ago with D700s and it was total weak sauce.

I've been waiting a long time for a machine like this from Apple.

 

[defjam]

Sure but none of the previous towers had this many PCI slots or power capability. The GPU in my hackintosh still smokes anything pre Mac Pro 2019; but also smokes the stock 580; and is probably on par with the single VegaII.

Yep, that's how progress happens. Personally I do not feel the 2019 Mac Pro is trying to compete with other workstations. It's my thought Apple just made a really capable Macintosh.
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The cheesegrater Intel systems actually were decent, but they didn't have enough PCI slots. The cMP (trashcan) looked like it could be promising, but it basically had zero slots, and the GPU situation was terrible. I rented a trashcan not long ago with D700s and it was total weak sauce.

No surprise there given the 2013 Mac Pro was released, well, in 2013...six years ago. I believe the technology contained within was even older than that by a year or two. It's no surprise that, seven to eight years later, that technology was looking tired (because it was).

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

There's a subset of "Apple users" who just want Apple's software, not Apple's hardware. The desire for a headless expandable tower is rooted in wanting to buy hardware from someone else, almost always on the cheap. But Apple is primarily a hardware company, the software is just a means to sell that hardware. So, those who want a headless (so they can buy a monitor elsewhere), expandable (so they can stuff it full of memory and cards bought elsewhere) computer are not the customers that Apple wants. Apple wants customers who want to buy its hardware and could care less how many xMacs that would get stuffed with non-Apple hardware they could sell. No matter how many, it isn't worth it to sell such a thing.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

How do you know this? Apple stopped selling them in 2013 and only recently began offering one once again. The starting price isn't helping to increase sales either.

I was speaking far more broadly than the specifics of Apple's product line. As we know, Apple's product line does not try to hit all product niches, while the Windows PC makers taken as a whole, do. Go into any computer retailer and see how many compact machines go out the door (laptops as well as desktops) relative to towers. There are huge numbers of people who use laptops as their only PC, so those numbers are legitimately part of desktop sales.

For quite a while, unit sales of laptops have been roughly double that of desktops. I haven't found a source that further breaks sales of desktops into smaller categories - all-in-one, compact, tower, workstation, etc. However, when you start with desktops as 1/3 of unit sales, the percentages for niches like gaming, workstation, etc., have to be pretty small.

Workstations (or supercomputers, for that matter) are high cost/high profit because their commercial users can justify the higher cost of a product produced in relatively small quantities (high engineering/design, tooling, etc. costs are spread across a smaller number of units). Cheap towers are far harder to justify - "cheap" requires mass-market quantities, and most people do not want a huge tower.

People who love towers tend to assume that Apple forced people to abandon towers/pizza boxes; that everyone, deep down, prefers towers. It's just not a good assumption. People aren't buying laptops as their primary machines because they have no choice in the matter - they're buying them because they prefer the form factor. 2/3 of the "desktop" market, by choice.

I prefer iMac for my desktop needs, despite decades of experience using, configuring, and maintaining towers. I didn't settle on an iMac because it was all that was available. For me, space is an everyday consideration - small bedroom, small office. Compact computers mean smaller desks and no legroom lost to an under-desk tower. Upgradability only arises every few years.

I feel the 2019 Mac Pro is being offered as a headless, internally expandable tower. Just like the G3s, G4s, G5s, and cMP were. The fact it can be configured with high end specs is icing on the cake.

It's not so much icing on the cake as it is the entire cake. Again, there's far less money to be made on an "affordable" Mac tower. It would still be "over-priced" compared to Windows towers, so it's unlikely long-time Windows users would be seduced into switching. It might bring back some Mac users who reluctantly moved to Windows, but I doubt those numbers are large enough to sustain a mass-market product. It might attract some iMac and Mini users, but that simply cannibalizes existing sales... So the question would be, from a corporate standpoint, "How does this product enhance our business?"

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

As an anecdotal data point, when attending a big family reunion this summer, out of over 100 people, I was the only person who had a tower that wasn't primarily for gaming (and the only tower that was a Mac rather than Windows, because of the aforementioned gaming). About 15-20% had other desktops (iMacs were the most frequent). Well over half had no "desktop" but did have a laptop. Most of the rest their "desktop" was a tablet, and then there was about 5% (mostly the older folx) who had no computer other than their phone.

Many of these people do use desktops, including towers, at work, but this represents what they choose as their personal computer at home. Towers as personal computers, except for gaming, are dead.

 

[defjam]

People who love towers tend to assume that Apple forced people to abandon towers/pizza boxes; that everyone, deep down, prefers towers. It's just not a good assumption. People aren't buying laptops as their primary machines because they have no choice in the matter - they're buying them because they prefer the form factor. 2/3 of the "desktop" market, by choice.

In a sense they have. Apple hasn't offered an expandable tower since 2012 and the replacement, the 2019 Mac Pro, is generally outside of many users budgets. So they have no choice but to purchase alternatives (like a Mini with an eGPU). Therefore you cannot say "people aren't buying them" because there are factors which are preventing people from doing so. Thankfully Apple saw the light and finally offered a modern tower system, even if it's more expensive than some would like. The fact it's available is, IMO, a win.

 

[Tesla1856]

There's a subset of "Apple users" who just want Apple's software, not Apple's hardware.

I'm sure there is, but Wanting and getting are two different things. So, we start at Apple=10%, and your subset it like, what ... 1% ? I bet not even that.

Isn't that like saying "I want iOS, but not an iPhone" . Apple operating systems have always been tied to their hardware.

Apple Developers and Apple users (who do real-work and run legit macOS software) just buy the authentic Apple computers and Apple hardware they can afford. While not rich, we have some money and like to buy nice computers.

Basically, if you don't want to run macOS apps, then (I say) don't by an Apple computer. You might as well buy a Windows computer. Most popular apps (or something comparable) have a "Windows version".

And while Hackintosh is an "emulation wonder", I think it is un-wize to depend on a hacked-OS. What is next, going back to trying to bootleg Windows ?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

In a sense they have. Apple hasn't offered an expandable tower since 2012 and the replacement, the 2019 Mac Pro, is generally outside of many users budgets. So they have no choice but to purchase alternatives (like a Mini with an eGPU). Therefore you cannot say "people aren't buying them" because there are factors which are preventing people from doing so. Thankfully Apple saw the light and finally offered a modern tower system, even if it's more expensive than some would like. The fact it's available is, IMO, a win.

Again, I am speaking to the PC market as a whole, not the specific of Apple's product line. Windows PC users have certainly been free to buy towers every year since 2012. Is there a reason Mac users would have a stronger preference for towers than Windows users (other than a brief burst of pent-up demand)?

Explain why 2/3 of all PCs sold are laptops, the very antithesis of a tower - no card slots, no extra drive bays, too few ports...? If all those people really wanted a tower, 90% of them (Windows and Linux users), could have purchased a tower.

What percentage of iMac buyers would buy iMacs even if an affordable tower was available? I don't have the answer to that question. I only know my personal preference (iMac). You can truly know only your personal preference (tower). From that, you cannot assume 50% of all iMac buyers would prefer a tower - we are a too-small, imperfect statistical sample.

I understand the reasons "tower people" love their towers. I certainly would not say, "You don't need a tower" to someone who needs the card slots, drive bays, etc. that come with a tower.

Again, judging by the types of desktop Windows and Linux PCs sold in the big box stores, where there's no problem finding an affordable tower, "tower" is nothing close to 50% of that non-laptop 33%. Judging by the systems I see in place in a wide range of workplaces, again, it's nowhere close to 50%. (Sure, there are certainly workplaces where towers make sense, but they are far from the majority of workplaces, and even in those workplaces, there are likely to be lots of compact systems as well.)

In my experience, the vast majority of computer users did not take advantage of a tower's capabilities, even when towers and large, card-slotted pizza boxes were the dominant form factors. Then, as now, they did not plan to upgrade or modify their systems on a constant basis - they generally bought what they'd need for the foreseeable future, with a minimum of maintenance. The corporate IT leadership I worked beneath (as a local operating unit IT chief) insisted on specifying configurations that would not require upgrade/modification for at least three years. They didn't want to see an explosion in "parts and supplies" expenditures (an operating expense) a year after a major capital budget expenditure. Capital budget = buy for the long term.

Oh, sure, back in the '80s, when printer and serial ports were optional, sound cards were optional, and driving a color VGA display was optional, everyone needed card slots. Those functions moved to the motherboard, but slots were still needed in the '90s for LAN cards... and then those migrated to the motherboard. Eventually, "motherboard" was useless to the typical user, so most systems now have card slot-free "main logic boards." What's left of the Windows PC tower market has been whittled down to users who actually need one. I'm sure Apple knows to a certainty how many of its users/potential users really need a tower, and their product decisions reflect that knowledge. Just the usual "We know best" Apple attitude.

 

[high heaven]

Maybe the pro display does...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Again, I am speaking to the PC market as a whole, not the specific of Apple's product line. Windows PC users have certainly been free to buy towers every year since 2012. Is there a reason Mac users would have a stronger preference for towers than Windows users (other than a brief burst of pent-up demand)?

Explain why 2/3 of all PCs sold are laptops, the very antithesis of a tower - no card slots, no extra drive bays, too few ports...? If all those people really wanted a tower, 90% of them (Windows and Linux users), could have purchased a tower.

What percentage of iMac buyers would buy iMacs even if an affordable tower was available? I don't have the answer to that question. I only know my personal preference (iMac). You can truly know only your personal preference (tower). From that, you cannot assume 50% of all iMac buyers would prefer a tower - we are a too-small, imperfect statistical sample.

I understand the reasons "tower people" love their towers. I certainly would not say, "You don't need a tower" to someone who needs the card slots, drive bays, etc. that come with a tower.

Again, judging by the types of desktop Windows and Linux PCs sold in the big box stores, where there's no problem finding an affordable tower, "tower" is nothing close to 50% of that non-laptop 33%. Judging by the systems I see in place in a wide range of workplaces, again, it's nowhere close to 50%. (Sure, there are certainly workplaces where towers make sense, but they are far from the majority of workplaces, and even in those workplaces, there are likely to be lots of compact systems as well.)

In my experience, the vast majority of computer users did not take advantage of a tower's capabilities, even when towers and large, card-slotted pizza boxes were the dominant form factors. Then, as now, they did not plan to upgrade or modify their systems on a constant basis - they generally bought what they'd need for the foreseeable future, with a minimum of maintenance. The corporate IT leadership I worked beneath (as a local operating unit IT chief) insisted on specifying configurations that would not require upgrade/modification for at least three years. They didn't want to see an explosion in "parts and supplies" expenditures (an operating expense) a year after a major capital budget expenditure. Capital budget = buy for the long term.

Oh, sure, back in the '80s, when printer and serial ports were optional, sound cards were optional, and driving a color VGA display was optional, everyone needed card slots. Those functions moved to the motherboard, but slots were still needed in the '90s for LAN cards... and then those migrated to the motherboard. Eventually, "motherboard" was useless to the typical user, so most systems now have card slot-free "main logic boards." What's left of the Windows PC tower market has been whittled down to users who actually need one. I'm sure Apple knows to a certainty how many of its users/potential users really need a tower, and their product decisions reflect that knowledge. Just the usual "We know best" Apple attitude.

This is somewhat of a straw man. I don't think anyone is arguing that the vast majority of the market doesn't need/want a tower.

The entire sub Mac Pro forum with it's many users, crazy and whacky uses, for the 5,1 Mac Pro alone, speaks to there being a very intense, and IMO, influential group of enthusiasts for whom such a format is the most desirable form factor. You do not supply them product because it will be a profit center. You supply them 'halo' product because they are influencers and will help the rest of your products grow.

 

[defjam]

Explain why 2/3 of all PCs sold are laptops, the very antithesis of a tower - no card slots, no extra drive bays, too few ports...? If all those people really wanted a tower, 90% of them (Windows and Linux users), could have purchased a tower.

1/3 is still a large number of systems.

 

[ssgbryan]

It's this subset that I'm interested in. The 2019 Mac Pro appears to focus on the same market as the G4s, G5s, and cMP.

Errhhh..... No.

Let us know if it can out perform a $1,500 Ryzen system - benchmarks say no.

 

[throAU]

It's over-priced and massively late. The only thing it offers that has not been available in the PC market for about 2 years now is the afterburner card (i'm not even joking, high core count Xeons and Vega GPUs have been available for years). Which they could have released as an add-on when it was ready, and had the other hardware out there years ago.

Apple need to stop trying to be revolutionary with design for what is essentially a workstation box and build things that work. Apple Pros could have had something with Mac Pro 7.1 performance *2 years ago* if Apple actually focused on getting pro hardware out the door rather than making it pretty.

We've been building workstation PCs with effective cooling for decades. It is a solved problem. Stop re-inventing the wheel and ship the hardware your customers need to do their jobs.

 

[avkills]

It's over-priced and massively late. The only thing it offers that has not been available in the PC market for about 2 years now is the afterburner card (i'm not even joking, high core count Xeons and Vega GPUs have been available for years). Which they could have released as an add-on when it was ready, and had the other hardware out there years ago.

Apple need to stop trying to be revolutionary with design for what is essentially a workstation box and build things that work. Apple Pros could have had something with Mac Pro 7.1 performance *2 years ago* if Apple actually focused on getting pro hardware out the door rather than making it pretty.

We've been building workstation PCs with effective cooling for decades. It is a solved problem. Stop re-inventing the wheel and ship the hardware your customers need to do their jobs.

Effective cooling and near silent effective cooling are 2 different things.

But you are correct, Apple could have easily had something like this anytime between 2014-2018.

 

[throAU]

Effective cooling and near silent effective cooling are 2 different things.

But you are correct, Apple could have easily had something like this anytime between 2014-2018.

Sure.

And silent cooling has been something that you can do in PCs for years.

And.... i'm not sure that a lot of Apple's Pro customers would make the trade off of say, 40db and out 2-3 years ago vs. 30db and 2-3 years late. Especially for something you can put under a desk. Unlike the iMac line... which you can't.

And if silence is so important to apple for their Pro hardware, please explain why every macbook they've put out in the past decade has screamed like a banshee if you put it under any sustained load?


edit:
Except for the 12". But that was fanless and not really aimed at Pro use...

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

The entire sub Mac Pro forum with it's many users, crazy and whacky uses, for the 5,1 Mac Pro alone, speaks to there being a very intense, and IMO, influential group of enthusiasts for whom such a format is the most desirable form factor. You do not supply them product because it will be a profit center. You supply them 'halo' product because they are influencers and will help the rest of your products grow.

I'm skeptical that most of the xMac luster-afters are all that influential.

 

[blackadde]

I really think most of the xMac crowd have long since moved onto PC towers or given up and accepted the MBP life by now. I sure did. The people valiantly keeping their 5,1s on life support for the last 7 years are few and far between.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I really think most of the xMac crowd have long since moved onto PC towers or given up and accepted the MBP life by now. I sure did. The people valiantly keeping their 5,1s on life support for the last 7 years are few and far between.

Sadly I agree.

What we are really waiting on is the 7,2 or the 8,1 whatever the successor is. There is NOOOOOO reason why the entry model couldn't come down in price to $2500 next year for a machine equivalent to say the 12core model this year in specs, with PCI 4, thunderbolt 4 etc.

If that happens, it *might* attract some of them back, but it would be a slow motion slog to get them back.

But if people keep listening to the idiot pundits that "this Mac aint for you" and not bitching about Apple releasing a lower price entry model for enthusiasts, it will take too many years for apple to act.

The ONLY reason they finally acted on dumping the trashcan is that the creshendo of people complaining about the trashcan being a failure finally reached a high enough pitch for them to hear. More people need to bitch that apple needs to offer a lower price of entry for enthusiasts. If you don't ask, you won't get.

 

[high heaven]

I really think most of the xMac crowd have long since moved onto PC towers or given up and accepted the MBP life by now. I sure did. The people valiantly keeping their 5,1s on life support for the last 7 years are few and far between.

I'm one of those users who still have a Mac Pro 5,1 cause I don't see any options to have from Mac desktop that Apple has.

It is hard to understand that Apple is ignoring one of the large markets: PC desktop. If Apple makes a modular desktop with non-Xeon and severs parts, it would be profitable.

 

[Adult80HD]

I suspect I represent a classic target Mac for the 7,1: I'm a business user with the budget that has a need for as high a horsepower Mac as I can get. The trashcan was just not for me, and in the last year I came close to finally enduring a Windows PC for some of my work, until the 7,1 was announced. Sure, a less-capable expandable Mac would have worked, or I could have gotten a iMac Pro, but I prefer being able to use my own monitor and add in some limited cards. So I'm happy, but I can see why folks who wanted a lower-priced replacement to the previous models would be disappointed.