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MacPro-where next?
- Thread starter woodbine
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Newspeak? Less is More. 1984? Didn't Apple do a famous commercial once about limited choice?
I dont understand it either, but i believe similarly, some didnt want the MPs to be updated until next year according to older posts.
The atom is not a MP style processor, not everyone realizes that as is obvious on the poster a few above. MPs are updated yearly, and with processors that are better than atoms. Sometimes people (esp the 'experts' here) look at the intel proc maps and think that limits apple's upgrades, but they are wrong - several on this thread in fact.
Atoms are not for the MP
The atom is not a MP style processor, not everyone realizes that as is obvious on the poster a few above. MPs are updated yearly, and with processors that are better than atoms. Sometimes people (esp the 'experts' here) look at the intel proc maps and think that limits apple's upgrades, but they are wrong - several on this thread in fact.
Atoms are not for the MP
Just to chime in on the discussion from pages 2 and 3: I work in physics and--to some extent--mathematics at a university in the Boston area and most people around here have 27 iMacs (if they use Mac hardware). I've never seen anyone use a Mac Pro.
For power, we have access to a supercomputer. We do not bother with Mac Pros.
I was hesitant to post this because I am unsure if this means anything in general.
For power, we have access to a supercomputer. We do not bother with Mac Pros.
I was hesitant to post this because I am unsure if this means anything in general.
Honestly, the sort of people who need Mac Pros would never be able to use iMacs. I have a 2k8 model, and I can max out all 8 cores. If I had 16 cores I could max them out with some tasks.
For a lot of people, there isn't "fast enough" yet, and certainly not on an iMac. I work in an industry where, yes, I could wait for a task and go make some coffee, but each core I add still makes that task even faster.
That's always been the hidden elephant in the corner with all of these "mobile devices keep getting more powerful" - "the iPad 6 is being used to animate Avatar 3 - The Search for even More Money" - "the iMac can now do everything the Mac Pro can do" arguments.
There will never be fast enough. As those devices get more powerful so do the desktop "trucks". As computers become more powerful developers create more powerful applications to utilize all of the newfound ability, and on and on the cycle will go.
Apple can stop making "trucks" of course...but someone will always be making them...and someone is always going to need that power. Or maybe "640kb ought to be enough for anybody."
Not everyone is in this sort of situation though, and for those that are, the limits may not be the hardware.
For example, I recall all the hopes for CS5 before it released, but users discovered that though there were improvements, it may not have been possible to saturate their systems when running it (core counts may have been limited in some sections).
The areas that truly can hit hardware limits, is rare overall (i.e. not everyone is trying to do Paleoclimatological modeling or something else that requires that level of number crunching). And for these sorts of situations, a cluster is required to provide more power than any workstation.
It depends on the specific usage. Even when what we have is fast enough, users usually want more.
Sadly however, software is generally behind the hardware, even for professional applications.
If you're curious (can get an idea of why some of the things that happen do), take a look at the Laws Of Software Development (you might even get a kick out of a couple of them
).Never said the Mac Pro was the machine for everyone. And I certainly have a lot of software that can max this machine.
Not that I'm not willing to put up with slower in some cases, that's why I have a Macbook Pro. But if I'm going to be sitting at my desk, the faster I run my software the better.
(Also, being a software engineer who does some work in parallel computing, my job is to actually solve the problems you're talking about.)
Mostly because Adobe is on crack. And again, I have software that can max all the cores.
Again, I never said the Mac Pro was the machine for everyone.
I never interpreted your posts that way.
That's fine, and glad you can actually push the machine to it's limits (make it beg for mercy
!).Unfortunately, that's not usually the case. Particularly if it's commercially available, even if it could benefit from true n core multi-threading. Such developers are farther behind than users could actually benefit from.
Most of what I'm aware of that can actually benefit, was written in-house, as there wasn't a commercially available product, or it wasn't sufficient if there was (likely more than just performance, such as not directly designed for the specific need and wasn't able to be customized well enough).
Not all users have the same needs, as you know.
Some really do need the portability, and have to compromise on performance as a result. Others, though need a workstation, don't need 12 cores as their specific software can't utilize them all (nor anything else they may have open at any given moment). And yet others can get away with either the Mini or iMac (desktop consumer users).
Nice. They drag their heels, that's for sure. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones (for example, I suspect that AutoDesk might come to some members' minds). And I'm sure there are other members in various industries that have software that's not what it could be either, and are well aware of it.
Blaming Adobe or developers in general is not realistic. It's down to economics. If you are a developer and 90% of your customers are on Windows, how much of your resources are you going to dedicate to making the other 10% happy?
Just 10 years ago Apple was a moribund company that sold outdated hardware with an equally outdated OS. It was the iPod that turned the tide, not computers. It took Panther for OSX to come off age, and it took Intel to make the hardware competitive. That was in '06.
So from a commercial POV, Apple computers have only just started to be a viable platform again, which is perfectly illustrated by the fact that Autodesk waited until now to make a native OSX version of AutoCAD.
Just 10 years ago Apple was a moribund company that sold outdated hardware with an equally outdated OS. It was the iPod that turned the tide, not computers. It took Panther for OSX to come off age, and it took Intel to make the hardware competitive. That was in '06.
So from a commercial POV, Apple computers have only just started to be a viable platform again, which is perfectly illustrated by the fact that Autodesk waited until now to make a native OSX version of AutoCAD.
What? So a monopoly company that bought up all the competition and fails to perform leaving the masses with jacked up software is not to blame? In my life I ONLY blame Adobe. It is always their fault.
Of course it's down to economics.
But software companies have control of what they produce (what they determine will be done based on costing for each product, which takes market share into account). So if they've made decisions that don't provide a sufficient value for what they're charging (i.e. too greedy = didn't invest enough hours to produce a good product, and were in zero danger of running in the red for the development costs), then they made bad decisions. Thus the final product will suffer, and customers tend to have valid complaints about it.
Again, I never said the Mac Pro was the machine for everyone.
If you're working in sound, video, development or scientific fields, however, you are guaranteed to be running an app that can use all the cores. These are multicore problems that have been solved.
Can multicore make your email faster? No, but that's not who buys Mac Pros.
XCode, Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Compressor, Logic... The list goes on.
Saying that there isn't enough commercial apps that can tap the power of the Mac Pro is disingenuous at best. Those are just off the very top of my head and I didn't even hit scientific apps. Again, video, audio, development, and science applications are areas where multicore has been pretty much solved and you can tap all cores.
(There will be issues later as we approach 100 cores, but that's an entirely different issue...)
Again, I'm pretty gosh darn sure I said the Mac Pro isn't for everyone.
mmmhmmmm. Again, I already said this...
Adobe consistently causes problems. The software quality is extremely poor. Unfortunately, they have the market share to hold the industry captive. They're pretty much the Microsoft of the creative sphere.
It depends. Whatever software being used, needs to be investigated. Photoshop is just one such example where it cannot utilize all of the cores.
But it's not the only one out there.
And in terms of commercial, that includes consumer oriented software, which is accurate when you look at the statistics. Professional brings those numbers up (excludes all of the consumer-ware), but I've not seen sufficient evidence that entire suites are true n core multi-threaded in many cases. There's usually at least one application in the suite that's not, which is the case of Photoshop within CS5.
I've given you plenty of examples of software that is extremely multithreaded. Citing one application (Photoshop) doesn't make the Mac Pro any less useful. Perhaps only to a full time Photoshop user. Multithreading is not new. It's been around since the early 90s. Consumer multithreading is new. It's just a matter of taking multithreaded concepts we've been doing reliably for 20 years and putting them in software, which has been done already in video and audio to a high degree.
Let me put it this way. You're suggesting that people who race the Indy 500 would be perfectly fine with Honda Civics because it would get them to the finish line eventually. And you're right, I could run my apps on an iMac. But would it be efficient? No, it's laughable. If it was do-able, I'd gladly save the money and buy an iMac today. So why haven't I?
I can max out the highest end Mac Pro today. Give me more power and I'll use that too. And if you're in video, audio, or development, there is a good change you're in the same boat.
If you're an actual creative pro, your software budget is typically between $2k-$4k a year. A Mac Pro is not the biggest expensive you have. And for a machine that can boost your productivity 2x-4x? Totally worth it. Apple could double their margins and I'd still buy Mac Pros. Does that sound at all like a machine Apple would want to cut, or does that sounds like icing on the cake for their Mac division profits?
Is the Mac Pro a good choice for someone doing some prosumer iMovie? Probably not. And it's not supposed to be.
I'm sitting here with software running on my machine that is true n core threaded (and it sells for $5 on the Mac App Store), and all the software I named is n core threaded. If that's not going to be accepted, this discussion isn't going very far.
Apple isn't running significant Mac ads at all. Mac Pro doesn't have much to do with it.
This is similar thing Apple did when iPods first starting taking off big. The "new category" of products gets the national ad budget. There was practically no Mac adverts and yet 4-5 years later the Mac market is bigger.
With the Apple stores they don't need as much advertising. Folks wonder in and use them to look up stuff on the internet and play around. 100's of thousands of people per day. Some fraction of them will be back and buy something.
If Microsoft had an OS that was beating down the Mac market share significantly perhaps they'd start a new campagin. For now the "beat up on Vista" is played out. Win7 isn't as bad and Win8 will be better (even with the wierdo mode ).
This is where you are loosing sight of the issue. There aren't that many folks dropping $4K/year on software. The bigger issue for the long term Mac Pro is whether there is a large enough group of folks who problems keep getting larger to consume the horsepower. Yes there are some people. There are lots of folks using Photoshop and getting paid who may have needed a Mac Pro 3-4 years ago, but who could get away with a high end iMac now. If they doing the same things now ( tweaking photos the same way) as they were 3-4 years ago then those folks may drop out of the MacPro market.
Just because there are some subset of folks dropping that kind of money on hardware/software combos is not enough. There needs to be a growing number of those folks. Mac Pro sales have to increase like the other Mac models. If the MP growth goes flat or negative over an extended period of time and the other segments are increasing at 5% per year then the Mac Pro is in trouble.
Apple doesn't require a "Cadillac" product line. There are folks buying $50K 128GB servers to stuff with OS instances using VMWare Sphere with total system costs close to $80K . Apple isn't chasing after those folks either even though they have lots of money.
Pros are. CS Master Suite is what... 1.4k alone? And that's released yearly.
Um. Why? Again, if the Mac Pro is making a profit, it's fine.
Stable market share is perfectly fine for the Mac Pro. It can even be marginalized as long as it's pulling a profit. Not to mention, I'd actually bet on Mac Pro sales going up. The Mac Pro is a good development machine, and the number of Mac/iOS developers is skyrocketing. I'd be willing to bet Mac Pro sales are higher than they used to be.
Again, a profit is a profit. With the margins on the Mac Pro, it's likely making a nice chunk of change.
And Apple has a willing user base of people like myself who need the power and are willing to pay out the nose for it.
Again, for quite a few of us the Mac Pro is a critical machine. And sure there are people who say "But I run Photoshop! I don't need a Mac Pro." Yeah. Great. Doesn't change that there is still a significant market for the Mac Pro.
If you don't need a Mac Pro, don't buy one. Stop being doomsayers when there are still plenty of other people for whom the iMac is a joke, and are willing to pay Apple a premium for a Mac Pro line. If you edit video, edit audio, do development work, or do scientific work, the Mac Pro is a very strong machine and worth the premium. If you're a Photoshop user... why does that even matter?
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Or, if you just feel like it for no particular reason. Who is anyone else to poo poo your choices.
Mac Pros are release yearly. Does that mean people are not "pros" if they don't yearly buy a new one.
Large segments of folks who buy CS Master Suite don't update every year. Every two years is likely just as large group a group as the yearlies and now we have drifted from $4K/year down to $700/yr.
The notion someone is a "Pro" primarily because they spend lots of money get year is goofy. Some capital goods are relatively expensive and need to be amortized over periods longer than just 12 months.
Because Apple has opportunity costs and a relative fixed set of engineers. They aren't running a "full employment" program for silicon valley.
if the Mac product line manager has to choose between spending his fixed set of resource on products that are static and those that can be made to move at or above the overall market rate, it is a pretty easy decision to go with the ones that are going to exhibit growth. All he has to do is look at the stock price. Static is only going to make that go down.
It was not surprising to see a Mac product get dropped when another one popped up in the line-up last Fall ( XServe -> MBA 11"). The folks working on XServe didn't necessarily get applied to the MBA ( they could be tweaking the Mac Pro in new ways too).
marginalized products like Laser Printers (gone), XRaid (gone) ,
The vast majority of iOS apps don't make much money. App sales of $10K/year aren't going to sell many Mac Pros. This article put the average at about $8.5K so 10K is rounding up. (http://gigaom.com/apple/the-average-ios-app-publisher-isnt-making-much-money/ ).
But yes there are some winnings in the iOS gold rush. Some of them are buying Mac Pros and the sales are going put. That's why it sticks around.
However, it does it take a Mac Pro to churn out some "iFart-23" app. There are some developers doing some complicated applications. However, there are lots of developers with a MBP churning out iOS apps. I've been to shops that have successful, non-iFart iOS apps. No Mac Pros in sight.
The flaw is exposed more if that opposite were true. If iOS developers were stampeding to the iMac then the thesis is that Apple would keep the Mac Pro because the stampeded had not turned the device completely unprofitable. That is flawed. "profitable" isn't the criteria. There is a certain level of profit margin there also. If the MBA 11" has 35% margins and the Mac Pro has 2% margins it would be on the 'terminate' list too. Apple isn't going to wait till the decline impacts their overall corporate margins before they cut the cord.
Apple knows they charge higher than average for their products. When a market is shrinking the usual knee-jerk response is just launch a death sprial. Vendor raises prices higher , more customers leave , price hikes , more customers leave. Increasing the customers left are those who are stuck in attitude (e.g., this is the only viable solution) or circumstances (e.g., can't afford to move). Neither one of those are good Apple customers.
Sure Apple could pimp them out for a couple of years but it is a losing game long term. Apple works better when they are focused on adding value. Some people may not put the same number on it, but it is not purely a "pick customer up and shake money out of their pockets" relationship.
Which is why it will stay around. However, it is unlikely Apple is going to play "let's ride this down into the ground" game if units numbers head down, Apple tries some reasonable tweaks , and they still head down. At that point Apple is going
significant is a relative metric. When the Apple top execs are looking at the monthly pie chart of Mac sales and the Mac Pro slice effectively disappears over time..... they will cancel it. If they can't see it without higher magnification it isn't significant.
It doesn't have to dominate the chart just not fall into the the invisible or "other" category in order to be visible.
That's one of the big differences between Apple and alot of PC vendors. Every Apple product is held responsible for profits and growth. Don't do both, cut for something that will. Apple doesn't need super higher profit margin $30K servers to make up for "loss leader" low end products.
There are a large number of people who have money to spend who Apple does not make products for. Being willing to cut a check for Apple is not enough for Apple to engage on a product line. Anyone who thinks that isn't paying attention to how Apple works. They are making up some alternative universe Apple.. and that theory may work there, but it doesn't work in this one.
While iOS apps only make about 1% of Apples revenue, you have to look at the big picture. iOS apps drive iPhone/iPod sales. So this ends up trickling down to developers who make these apps ( Along with Mac computer apps ) Same with the music in the iTune store.