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Looks like the end of the road for mac pro

ixxx69 said:
...
The reason why a lot of folks were (and still are) so frustrated with the pricing and think it represents a poor value is that if you start with the configuration you want, and that doesn't happen to align with the available configurations on the Mac Pro, then it can feel like a poor value. And it's further frustrating because the MP is the only choice in Apple's lineup if you want a stand alone desktop computer with more than an iGPU and a CPU/GPU that can run full throttle 24x7.

Let's say I have a choice between getting a PC or Mac workstation, and I determine the best hardware specs for my usage would be:
Xeon E3-1271 v3 (quad 3.5-4GHz); single Quadro K2200 GPU; 16GB RAM; 500GB SSD
Click to expand...


This is pragmatically far more a desire for a different product than a different configuration. Built in here is a presumption that there is a general box that stuff different motherboards into to crank out a number of product variations with lower container changes.

The better "I want an xMac" value in the Mac ecosystem has historically in the 2nd Jobs era largely been the "Mac Pro" 1-2 models back. Given the shift in the targeted market ( really desktop versus deskside ) and the 2 (or more ) year spacing gaps between upgrades that is breaking down.

More focused feedback to Apple about iMac "full throttle 24x7" failings will likely have more traction than getting Apple to do an xMac. It is doubtful Apple is going to be convinced to expand the desktop line up at this point. Where and what users are shifting to buying will drive what new Mac products they may/may not bring to market. Just pointing at the other classic PC vendors and saying "do what they are doing" is likely going to have very little influence. None of the major players there are doing better than Apple is doing Macs with the "make every product possible" approach. So I'm not sure why that would lead to frustration. You can ask them to get on a different path. Whether they "switch paths" depends upon the value they see, not the value you see.

The xMac has serious iMac fratricide problems. Folks hand wave those away as "Apple's problem" or as much smaller than they are. Apple sees it as their problem to solve and so they do... from their perspective.

Apple is even more a systems ( hardware + software ) company than there were. Their major value add is integrating all the "stuff". They aren't a contract design firm; "you pick the parts and we'll build it". Nor are they a "bare bones" vendor; sell me a starter kit and I'll add the rest with my trusty screwdriver. If Apple advertised themselves as being a contract firm then there would be a frustration disconnect. They don't. More than a few folks here spend time wishing Apple was a different company then they have been and are even more so now.
 
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dmylrea said:
Sorry, but as I watch the commercial (you can find it on Youtube, of course), .... Their "ecosystem" is definitely "controlled" and they dictate what you buy and what you can or cannot do with it. You most certainly can no longer "change" it. "You get ONE PORT. Make of it what you will."

That's not the Apple company of old.
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Revisionist history. While you have your 'Way Back' machine set to 1984 go and look at the 1984-1986 Macintoshes. Slots , tons of user modifiable internals , cards, etc ?

The original Apple computer was a prebuilt with Apple making many of the choices response to the "build it yourself parts" that dominated what was then the status quo. Woz wasn't the core direction.

PCs have to be boxes with slots or else it isn't a "real" PC. Marching solely inside of that solution space is far more what they commercial is about then some ultimate of hardware freedom of choice notion.
 
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Apple has done the xMac at different points in time. It always sells poorly. The masses that are just waiting for an xMac that are always promised never actually show.

Soon the Mini will have Thunderbolt 3, and eventually hopefully external GPU support. That's going to be your xMac.
 
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deconstruct60 said:
Revisionist history. While you have your 'Way Back' machine set to 1984 go and look at the 1984-1986 Macintoshes. Slots , tons of user modifiable internals , cards, etc ?

The original Apple computer was a prebuilt with Apple making many of the choices response to the "build it yourself parts" that dominated what was then the status quo. Woz wasn't the core direction.

PCs have to be boxes with slots or else it isn't a "real" PC. Marching solely inside of that solution space is far more what they commercial is about then some ultimate of hardware freedom of choice notion.
Click to expand...
The original Macs were pretty sad little things, I remember my friend swapping floppy disks every thirty seconds.

I waited till the Mac II, that's when they became practical as far as I was concerned, that's also when there were lots of options, albeit very expensive ones.
 
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Larry-K said:
The original Macs were pretty sad little things, I remember my friend swapping floppy disks every thirty seconds.
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Macintosh Plus 1986 added external SCSI port and ability for external high capacity drives and the disk swap shuffle was no where near acute. The HDD was left out of initial systems largely more expensive more so than couldn't do it ( Mac SE arrived in 1997 and the Lisa had one but was too expensive to buy for most. ).


I waited till the Mac II, that's when they became practical as far as I was concerned, that's also when there were lots of options, albeit very expensive ones.
Click to expand...

Here is the reality disconnect. There is a faction that point to the Macintosh II as being the core imprint of the Macintosh and the Macintosh core DNA. There isn't what actually happened. The Mac II was far more so a compromise because of three factors. More immature technology that was mutating in different directions faster. Second, the core Mac objectives being ahead of what technology could deliver at the time. Finally, Form ( it looks like the other computers ) over function is a factor that a decent set of folks cling to ( often while misdirecting form over function on the alternative views).

The iMac directly lines up with the first two years. The Mac laptops also. The mini is largely a headless Mac laptop for a subgroup. The Mac Pro has moved to be more in line with the original core "DNA".
 
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deconstruct60 said:
Macintosh Plus 1986 added external SCSI port and ability for external high capacity drives and the disk swap shuffle was no where near acute. The HDD was left out of initial systems largely more expensive more so than couldn't do it ( Mac SE arrived in 1997 and the Lisa had one but was too expensive to buy for most. ).
Click to expand...

I had a Mac Plus back then, and yep I bought an external Conner 100MB (that's MB not GB) HDD. Cost me $800 1986 dollars. I also upgraded the RAM from 1MB to 4MBs. With all that space I thought I had the world. My next mac was an SE/30, and then IMHO, my first real Mac, a Mac IIci.

Lou
 
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deconstruct60 said:
Macintosh Plus 1986 added external SCSI port and ability for external high capacity drives and the disk swap shuffle was no where near acute. The HDD was left out of initial systems largely more expensive more so than couldn't do it ( Mac SE arrived in 1997 and the Lisa had one but was too expensive to buy for most. ). Here is the reality disconnect. There is a faction that point to the Macintosh II as being the core imprint of the Macintosh and the Macintosh core DNA. There isn't what actually happened. The Mac II was far more so a compromise because of three factors. More immature technology that was mutating in different directions faster. Second, the core Mac objectives being ahead of what technology could deliver at the time. Finally, Form ( it looks like the other computers ) over function is a factor that a decent set of folks cling to ( often while misdirecting form over function on the alternative views).

The iMac directly lines up with the first two years. The Mac laptops also. The mini is largely a headless Mac laptop for a subgroup. The Mac Pro has moved to be more in line with the original core "DNA".
Click to expand...
You forgot to mention that the Mac II was a much better machine for actually doing something (or anything). You want to work on a nine inch B&W screen? Knock yourself out.

If by "Mac DNA" you mean impractical implementation, then you're right about the nMP.
 
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flowrider said:
I had a Mac Plus back then, and yep I bought an external Conner 100MB (that's MB not GB) HDD. Cost me $800 1986 dollars. I also upgraded the RAM from 1MB to 4MBs. With all that space I thought I had the world. My next mac was an SE/30, and then IMHO, my first real Mac, a Mac IIci.

Lou
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I think the original 10MB HD for the Mac cost around $3K, but feel free to correct me.
 
updated nMP will be out by the end of December, it will have thunderbolt 3 and updated GPU. Apple did not build an entire US manufacturing center just to scrap it after one release. Apple betted on GPU compute. Pro apps have said their upcoming releases will support Metal (Autodesk, Foundry, others). Intel finally gave external GPUs their blessing with Thunderbolt 3. the nMP is Apple's GPU compute system for design/video/audio/medical. All areas where they still have a strong presence. with the nMP they are on a slower 2 year cycle.

I know a lot of boutique studios using them in production and freelancers who love them as WAY easier to take along as kits than the old systems. I have also started seeing our video assist carts switch over. It is still a heck of a lot easier to dangle a bunch of video gear off a nMP than Apple's other systems. They are very popular at commercial facilities as well.

While we have switched some of our art department systems over to iMacs our digital department could not do it even if we wanted to. Working on multiple 4-8k plates in Nuke, or working in Maya and Modo would be painful, let alone trying to use Mari. I expect most of the line to get updated late October then the nMP by end of December.

We actually switched back to using FCPX for some of our work. We still do film projects in either Avid or Lightworks, but for VR we use FCPX. We are doing realtime 6K multi-stream with FCPX that no other editor could touch. We were actually surprised when we were evaluating NLEs (Premiere was originally a top pick since we used that for the Fast 7 ride at Universal) nothing else could match it for speed and Apple had addressed all of our gripes that made us abandon it after FCP7.

Going back to the other posters comment on Shake (I actually know some of the Pro Apps team from Santa Monica). Apple never bought it to keep Shake alive. Shake's code base was already dated when they took it over. Apple wanted the Chalice optical flow tech (Which is still the best and still in FCPX and Motion) and they wanted to gut what they could for Motion and FCPX. Yes Ron Brinkmann took the team over to The Foundry and made Nuke the go to compositing app for VFX. But just so you know Apple still licenses Shake after all these years. Large facilities license the code from Apple so it isn't 100% gone, although it should be. Shake was really really weak at 2.5D and 3D compositing compared to Nuke, even back when DD Software was selling it.
 
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krazygoat said:
updated nMP will be out by the end of December, it will have thunderbolt 3 and updated GPU. Apple did not build an entire US manufacturing center...
Click to expand...

Just. Stop. There.

The MP6,1 is being manufactured around the world. It's being "assembled" in Texas.

applewwdc2013-0137-1370887449.jpg


And it's not even being assembled by Apple - the assembly is done by Flextronics, one of Apple's worldwide assembly partners.

So just stop before making an argument that's based on multiple falsehoods....
 
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You don't think Apple played a large role in the design and use of the Mac Pro assembly line which is not a bunch of people with screwdrivers slapping cheap PC parts together but I highly automated and high-tech assembly line. That is like saying car manufacturers don't make their cars because they use parts from vendors all over the world and just assemble them.

and I quote
"Flextronics' Mac Pro facility is roughly a mile from Apple's new Austin campus, which is actually an expansion of the company's long-standing operations campus in the city. The campus expansion is major effort that will see Apple investing $300 million to add at least 3,600 workers at the site by 2021. The overall project will encompass roughly one million square feet of space, with the just-opened first phase including two out of a planned six buildings on the site."

Even if it was made by trolls living under bridges on a secret island only Apple knows about using parts from aliens from space does not change the fact that Apple is not going to design, set up tooling and manufacturing, and build a system for only one release. Especially a system that still has mindshare with their professional community (especially all those professional musicians Apple loves so much).

This is exhausting, went through these same silly arguments back with the old Mac Pro when Apple was dragging their feet getting a new system out.
 
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deconstruct60 said:
This is pragmatically far more a desire for a different product than a different configuration. Built in here is a presumption that there is a general box that stuff different motherboards into to crank out a number of product variations with lower container changes.

The better "I want an xMac" value in the Mac ecosystem has historically in the 2nd Jobs era largely been the "Mac Pro" 1-2 models back. Given the shift in the targeted market ( really desktop versus deskside ) and the 2 (or more ) year spacing gaps between upgrades that is breaking down.

More focused feedback to Apple about iMac "full throttle 24x7" failings will likely have more traction than getting Apple to do an xMac. It is doubtful Apple is going to be convinced to expand the desktop line up at this point. Where and what users are shifting to buying will drive what new Mac products they may/may not bring to market. Just pointing at the other classic PC vendors and saying "do what they are doing" is likely going to have very little influence. None of the major players there are doing better than Apple is doing Macs with the "make every product possible" approach. So I'm not sure why that would lead to frustration. You can ask them to get on a different path. Whether they "switch paths" depends upon the value they see, not the value you see.

The xMac has serious iMac fratricide problems. Folks hand wave those away as "Apple's problem" or as much smaller than they are. Apple sees it as their problem to solve and so they do... from their perspective.

Apple is even more a systems ( hardware + software ) company than there were. Their major value add is integrating all the "stuff". They aren't a contract design firm; "you pick the parts and we'll build it". Nor are they a "bare bones" vendor; sell me a starter kit and I'll add the rest with my trusty screwdriver. If Apple advertised themselves as being a contract firm then there would be a frustration disconnect. They don't. More than a few folks here spend time wishing Apple was a different company then they have been and are even more so now.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm taking these replies the wrong way (they kind of seems intended as rebuttal to what I wrote), so I apologize if I'm just misunderstanding, but again, I don't know why people keep using my post as a launching pad for this point about "choice", except that they're reading into it what they want.

Someone here repeated the line about the nMP being a good hardware value (i.e. the parts that make up the nMP) because if you configure a similar Dell/HP to align with the available nMP configuration, the nMP comes out favorably.

I was pointing out that the flaw in this logic is that it generally only works that way when you start with the nMP configuration. However, if you start with a Dell configuration, it can easily make the nMP look like a poor hardware value. That was my only point writing the post. There was literally no other point being made in my post beyond suggesting to look at it from a different perspective.

As far as frustration goes, it's very easy for people to get pulled into being frustrated about that kind of stuff - it's just human nature, and if someone can't empathize with that, that's their loss.

In the MacBook forum, there's a three page thread about an extension cord not being included in the package like the one included with most MacBooks. People can get really weird about what they perceive as a good value. Personally, I'm fortunate in that I can afford all this gear without getting too worked up pricing. Would I like something like an xMac. Yes. But since one doesn't exist, I got the next best thing - a nMP - and I'm quite happy with it.

goMac said:
Apple has done the xMac at different points in time. It always sells poorly. The masses that are just waiting for an xMac that are always promised never actually show.
Click to expand...
And what Macs would those be?

(and FTR, I do think the "masses" are greatly exaggerated, but that doesn't mean Apple has ever actually given the xMac a fair shot... and there are reasons for that that D60 has already eloquently explained)
 
Nice pic!

I bought a Mac Plus similar to Flowrider's in 1986 to do my mba thesis. The C code for the scenario analysis I was doing would run overnight, but the whole thing worked like a charm.

Changed departments at work and used Mac II CIs on a trading floor to price and trade FX options. The entire floor (200 desks) used them for sales and trading which was a novelty at the time.
 
ixxx69 said:
I was pointing out that the flaw in this logic is that it generally only works that way when you start with the nMP configuration. However, if you start with a Dell configuration, it can easily make the nMP look like a poor hardware value. That was my only point writing the post. There was literally no other point being made in my post beyond suggesting to look at it from a different perspective.
Click to expand...

It works just fine if start on "Windows" side and map back to the MP ..... just as long as the objective is to do an "Apples to Apples" comparison. "Apples to Oranges" doesn't work. It doesn't work if compare "Apples to Oranges" just using Mac Products either. For example there are wide value/preferences for colas that come in a bottle Coke vs, Pepsi vs RC. But if throw a bottle of vintage Red Wine or Champagne into that that mix it something different. Also drinkable liquid in a bottle? Yes. Same? not really. going to a cola forum and dragging in champagne is at best tangential.

It isn't about "value"/"valuation". it is about being honest about there being categories of products. If throw targeted product-consumer groupings out the window then things devolve quite quickly.
 
I used to have quite a collection of old computers (which I threw out when I was moving – half of me regrets it, half reminds me they used to be in the basement catching dust bunnies) but I never had an old Mac... well, except iBook G4 ;)
 
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