Just saw the nMP in person today

[JustinePaula]

Once you see the new Mac Pro in use, having the power and the inputs on the same side, all sorts of problems become obvious.

At some point, one or more cords will have to be bent around the arc of the cylinder, to reach to the back of the imac or monitor, as on most monitors inputs are to the rear. Power is a "input" that cannot be disconnected during the use of the device, so that is why since the invention of the 1st desktop. power has always been to the rear of the device.

With the new Mac Pro, this creates a user problem, fatigue of cords is a real possibility, I do not have a crystal ball, but I have a brain, and it works, most of the time I do not trust it, but in this case, mark my words, the next update to the Mac Pro hardware will be changed with the power cord, either to the rear, or on a separate base. Apple will not make any announcement "We stuffed up the design of V1 of Mac Pro", moving the cord is mandatory, just waiting for news of the 1st lawsuit for damages as a result of poor design.

 

[JustinePaula]

The apple logo has a portion missing, that is the problem, the missing bit.
Sir Mr Jony Ive, aka Tin Hat Jony, has a habit of 99.9% design. He leaves the crucial 0.1% out of the final design.

I suspect this is to allow for updates, which I guess if that is the reason, it is a really poor reason. When it came to the Mac Pro, the design of the cylinder, using a round shape worked for 99.8% of the design brief.

The 2 issues that become very obvious, is HDMI/SDI/T-Bolt to an external monitor, and power. As I previously stated, power has always been placed at the back of the tower, for great reason. If power worked in the front of the device, then all towers from the 1950's to 2014 would have had front power points. All the computers I have used, at the back is where I find the power.

On more recent towers, I noticed that the cd then DVD player/burner, as well as mic input, USB 1 then USB 2 was placed on the front of the tower. This made things easy.

No matter how you slice or dice it, it is a really insane decision to have the power on the same plane as the inputs, it simply from a technical aspect makes no logical sense, Apple ran into a problem. Designed the device and at the last moment, "****-What about power?" An Apple minion observed..."We will put it on the front, with a terrible Chinese Handcuff.." Replies Tin Hat Jony... And we all bow to his superior intellect... After all THJ has won design awards...from a long forgotten design..

 

[hakuryuu]

Where is the front of the Mac Pro? For me, power is at the back, inputs are on the front, with the Mac Pro it is both front and back...

Anyone notice the obvious design flaw in the new Mac Pro?? When it was launched I was surprised that the lack of comment on the position and design of the power cord.

I visited my local Apple store, they have a Mac Pro on display, so I got to really study it, and OMG, how could the power cord be so badly placed on a $3000 device?

My $29.99 JobLot kettle has a circular power base that prevents the cord from moving, with the Mac Pro, as the power is on the same plane as the inputs, you need to keep moving it.

Why not put the power on a separate power base, so that you can rotate the device on the base, without putting strain on the "Chinese handcuff" at the very end of the power cord, just before it attaches to the tower? Any one older than 18 months knows that is where cords break, at the very end of the stiff black cable holder.

How much do you plan on moving it? I so very rarely need to move it or turn it. Frankly if your concern is whether you can turn it without moving the power cord you neither understand why that wouldn't work without compromising the design or why this device is different than a kettle.

 

[JustinePaula]

Look at the cylinder, follow the power cord..from the Mac Pro to the wall, tell me in all honesty, it is not a source of mild annoyance to see this black wall wart on the front of the sleek black cylinder, the cord has to wrap around the edge of the cylinder, or if you have the cord sticking out over the front of the desk, then it becomes a pull hazard.

A $2 design modification, which would translate to $200 in Apple currency... But no...If you think it is great, yay for you... For me it is an example of lazy design, get to 99.9% and think job done.... Maybe it is just me, but I see flaws for what they are, dangerous, and badly considered.

I would love to have a sit down with THJ, to ask him about the design of the ipads, Macbook Pro laptops, the reasons for no 17inch MBP, and the obvious error of design in the $3000 Mac Pro...

 

[handsome pete]

No matter how you slice or dice it, it is a really insane decision to have the power on the same plane as the inputs, it simply from a technical aspect makes no logical sense, Apple ran into a problem. Designed the device and at the last moment, "****-What about power?" An Apple minion observed..."We will put it on the front, with a terrible Chinese Handcuff.." Replies Tin Hat Jony... And we all bow to his superior intellect... After all THJ has won design awards...from a long forgotten design..

Yes, I think that's exactly how it went down.

But seriously, I think you're severely exaggerating this "issue." And I put that in quotes because little to no noise has been made of it aside from what you've said. Most of the I/O has been on the back of workstations for the longest time. Sure, a couple of ports on the front would be nice, but considering the footprint of the device as well as accessibility due to the odds of it being placed on top of the desk, it doesn't seem like much of an issue at all.

 

[Riwam]

Look at the cylinder, follow the power cord..from the Mac Pro to the wall, tell me in all honesty, it is not a source of mild annoyance to see this black wall wart on the front of the sleek black cylinder, the cord has to wrap around the edge of the cylinder, or if you have the cord sticking out over the front of the desk, then it becomes a pull hazard.

A $2 design modification, which would translate to $200 in Apple currency... But no...If you think it is great, yay for you... For me it is an example of lazy design, get to 99.9% and think job done.... Maybe it is just me, but I see flaws for what they are, dangerous, and badly considered.

I would love to have a sit down with THJ, to ask him about the design of the ipads, Macbook Pro laptops, the reasons for no 17inch MBP, and the obvious error of design in the $3000 Mac Pro...

...............
Funny.
A few days ago someone complained why the on/off button was on the back and not in the front.
Now this complain about the power cord.
I believe it is much easier to criticize any product made by other people than to understand the constraints under which the designers had to make it in such a way.
Pity they did not ask ME. I would certainly make it MUCH better

 

[JustinePaula]

...............
I believe it is much easier to criticize any product made by other people than to understand the constraints under which the designers had to make it in such a way.

I am not criticizing the design, I am trying to understand the rationale behind the design, from an engineering point of view it is a poor design. Design for looks, whilst maintaining a high standard of safe end user engineering concerns is a very hard thing to do.

The Mac Pro design scores high in the looks department, apart from the ugly black power cord where it plugs into the device, low mark there, and then added to that, the way it has to run in an arc to the back of a monitor, when you want easy access to the various inputs, such as HDMI and thunderbolt or lightining bolt ort, or whatever Tin Hat Jony called it...

Having seen it in use, I simply cannot get my head around how that final design was approved, it simply makes no logical design sense, as I say, I would love to interview Tin Hat Jony on this and other strange design decisions in the past 10 years of Apple Inc products...

 

[reco2011]

I am not criticizing the design, I am trying to understand the rationale behind the design, from an engineering point of view it is a poor design. Design for looks, whilst maintaining a high standard of safe end user engineering concerns is a very hard thing to do.

The Mac Pro design scores high in the looks department, apart from the ugly black power cord where it plugs into the device, low mark there, and then added to that, the way it has to run in an arc to the back of a monitor, when you want easy access to the various inputs, such as HDMI and thunderbolt or lightining bolt ort, or whatever Tin Hat Jony called it...

Having seen it in use, I simply cannot get my head around how that final design was approved, it simply makes no logical design sense, as I say, I would love to interview Tin Hat Jony on this and other strange design decisions in the past 10 years of Apple Inc products...

It's my opinion Apple does not intend people to be plugging and unplugging things from these ports on a regular basis. Thus the placement of all the ports, along with the power cord, on the back.

 

[JustinePaula]

I know it sounds crazy, hello this is addressed to Tin Hat Sir Mr Jony Ive... Hello, you not so genius designer of products for Apple Inc... Have you not heard of the term "Break-Out-Box". This is a design of genius where you get to extend the inputs of a device away from the tower. Long ago a certain brand of video editing hardware/software had such a thing, a break-out box. OMG what a brilliant use of brains...It allowed for the computer tower sit remotely, under the desk, and still be accessible through the break out box.

Logic/Aperture/FCP X, and Garageband, require vast amounts of data, on various drives, sd cards, USB 2/3, t-bolt, HDMI, SDI, and so on... The Mac Pro as a device is 99.8% perfect, it is not rack mountable, the power cord and the various input and outputs makes it hard to use...What we need is more access points that connect to the tower remotely...job done!!!

Use common sense...Jony, here is a wonderful website, full of users that comment read it once in a while, instead of talking to yourself in the tin hat..

 

[MacProCard]

Cough. I've been running the box for about a week and love the design. Front/Back? Nope. Try side and it works fine for me. I don't anticipate any problems.

FWIW, my old HD 7970 card is taller than the new CAN.

 

[monokakata]

I think he means if you want it to come off the mdp/tb2 port you need that adapter (and you shouldn't need it). The HDMI port is different.

Right. You shouldn't need it. The poster who said you did is wrong. When I want to use my Dell U2711 with my rMBP (I think the tb2/md port is physically and electrically the same as on the nMP), I just plug in a miniDP-->full size DP cable that I got from Monoprice for only a few bucks, and it works perfectly.

As a demo I did 2 x U2711 that way, and a 24" HP via HDMI. All worked properly, simultaneously.

 

[pstrudl]

Break-Out-Box

I know it sounds crazy, hello this is addressed to Tin Hat Sir Mr Jony Ive... Hello, you not so genius designer of products for Apple Inc... Have you not heard of the term "Break-Out-Box". This is a design of genius where you get to extend the inputs of a device away from the tower. Long ago a certain brand of video editing hardware/software had such a thing, a break-out box. OMG what a brilliant use of brains...It allowed for the computer tower sit remotely, under the desk, and still be accessible through the break out box.

Logic/Aperture/FCP X, and Garageband, require vast amounts of data, on various drives, sd cards, USB 2/3, t-bolt, HDMI, SDI, and so on... The Mac Pro as a device is 99.8% perfect, it is not rack mountable, the power cord and the various input and outputs makes it hard to use...What we need is more access points that connect to the tower remotely...job done!!!

Use common sense...Jony, here is a wonderful website, full of users that comment read it once in a while, instead of talking to yourself in the tin hat..

There are a lot of such break-out-boxes on the market. Depends on what you want to do with it:

http://www.elgato.com/en/thunderbolt/thunderbolt-dock
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/intensity
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Thunde...id=1402470104&sr=8-1&keywords=thunderbolt+hub

 

[Riwam]

Having seen it in use, I simply cannot get my head around how that final design was approved, it simply makes no logical design sense, as I say, I would love to interview Tin Hat Jony on this and other strange design decisions in the past 10 years of Apple Inc products...

Nothing human is perfect and no human made product will please and satisfy everyone in the world to 100%.
When The Lord begins to make computers they will no doubt be divinely perfect machines.
Unfortunately I assume that He has much more urgent matters to deal with (and hope He does it!).
If the main fault of the nMP is a fixed back electricity cable instead of a more comfortable swiveling base connection (or the lack of a on/off front button), I assume that most owners can live with that.
Maybe in the future in a next generation of nMP there will be such improvements but I am still happy with my one in spite of such minor concerns.
As long as it works as it should, is silent as it should and doesn't show any serious malfunction (always a sad possibility in any computer, even more in a first generation model) I accept the lack of absolute perfection and assume most owners do.
Once you swallow the fact that it is NOT PERFECT, then you think of other more important things.

 

[AidenShaw]

They (Sonnet) were saying back in January, that at that time Windows could only support a maximum of two PCIe controllers in one Thunderbolt device, while their Echo Docks were going to have five controllers.

It can be found in the 'Shipping Status Update' section of their 'Thunderbolt 2 Docking Station' webpage, last indented paragraph.

Thanks. I wonder if it's peculiar to the PCIe bridge in that Sonnet device....