Transition Time = Time for a new Cube...?

[Boil]

I feel there could be a market for a desktop that is more than the Mac mini, but less than the Mac Pro (and NOT an iMac Pro)...

A modern take on the G4 Cube,

Mac Pro Cube

48 P cores / 6 E cores / 96 GPU cores - CPU & GPU Chiplets on interposer / System in Package (SiP) design
HBMnext Unified Memory Architecture - 64GB / 128GB / 256GB / 512GB
NVMe SSDs (dual NAND blades) 2TB / 4TB / 8TB / 16TB
Eight USB4 / TB4 ports (plenty of expansion ports for external drives, displays, a/v interfaces, control surfaces, etc.)
Two 10Gb Ethernet ports
One HDMI 2.1 port
Four MPX-C slots (for use with asst. MPX-C expansion modules)


Apple MPX-C Expansion Modules

NVMe RAID Storage Module (Quad NAND blades) 4TB / 8TB / 16TB / 32TB
GPGPU Module
FPGA Module
Neural Engine Module

The perfect personal workstation for a wide variety of tasks...!

 

[Mayo86]

I have some serious doubts that the next iteration of the Mac Pro will be (physically) much different than the 2019 Mac Pro. They spent a considerable amount of time in researching and designing the 2019 Mac Pro, albeit still a cheese grater, that one would wonder why they would introduce it in the first place only to have it superseded approximately 2 years later.

You could argue the reason they released it was to placate professionals that would require a new workstation but that seems dubious at best to spend a significant amount of resources on producing and introducing a widely praised workstation that would be replaced by an experimental design that may or may not meet the demands of professionals.

 

[Daoi]

The cube is dead, bro.

You'll just have to cope with it.

For what it's worth, I think the cube is cool, too; but it's kitsch. It's hard to deny that.

 

[Boil]

I have some serious doubts that the next iteration of the Mac Pro will be (physically) much different than the 2019 Mac Pro. They spent a considerable amount of time in researching and designing the 2019 Mac Pro, albeit still a cheese grater, that one would wonder why they would introduce it in the first place only to have it superseded approximately 2 years later.

You could argue the reason they released it was to placate professionals that would require a new workstation but that seems dubious at best to spend a significant amount of resources on producing and introducing a widely praised workstation that would be replaced by an experimental design that may or may not meet the demands of professionals.

Never said anything about a Mac Pro Cube replacing the current Mac Pro, audio folks still need their PCIe slots for their Pro Tools cards...?

Full-size MPX cards that are basically two of the MPX-C cards I outline could also be implemented in the larger Mac Pro CG2.0 chassis...

 

[Jorbanead]

I don’t see this happening for various reasons but the main one being desktops are just not as lucrative for Apple as notebooks. I forget the actual numbers but somewhere like 70% of all mac sales are notebooks.

If they added a cube, their desktop lineup would be:

iMac 21.5
iMac 27
iMac Pro
Mac Mini
Mac Cube
Mac Pro

That’s a lot of desktops. I think your cube customer base would be served by the iMac Pro, or a beefed up Mac mini. With the move to apple silicon I could see something more like this:

iMac 24”
iMac Pro 27”
Mac mini
Mac Pro

 

[Mayo86]

Never said anything about a Mac Pro Cube replacing the current Mac Pro, audio folks still need their PCIe slots for their Pro Tools cards...?

Full-size MPX cards that are basically two of the MPX-C cards I outline could also be implemented in the larger Mac Pro CG2.0 chassis...

Apologies, I misinterpreted because you said “Mac Pro Cube” in bold letters. My mistake.

I feel there could be a market for a desktop that is more than the Mac mini, but less than the Mac Pro (and NOT an iMac Pro)...

A modern take on the G4 Cube,

Mac Pro Cube

48 P cores / 6 E cores / 96 GPU cores - CPU & GPU Chiplets on interposer / System in Package (SiP) design

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Many here, including me, would like to have an expandable (slots!), midi-tower-like desktop Mac, just between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro 😃
For me, it would not be necessary to have a cube - a cuboid would also do well...
The main advantage of this wishful thinking is IMO that the joy, if such a device would materialize, would be gigantic as very few people really expect it happening

 

[dmccloud]

For the purposes of discussion, I feel that if Apple were to create another small form factor (SFF) cube, it would probably replace the iMac Pro instead of adding yet another product line to the matrix. I think that if such a system was created, it would take its design cues from the Mac Mini and perhaps be the size of four Minis stacked on top of each other (maybe five, depending on the specific hardware configuration). I can see two reasons for this. First, it would be a familiar look for prospective buyers, and second (this may be more important) it would allow these devices to go into the same racks that Mac Minis already go into in data centers.

The cube is dead, bro.

You'll just have to cope with it.

For what it's worth, I think the cube is cool, too; but it's kitsch. It's hard to deny that.

If you're referring to Apple bringing back the G4 Cube, you have a point. However, Apple is utilizing a much different design mindset in 2020, and as a result would design a cube that looks nothing like the G4, not in color, materials, or overall design. A new cube would not have the acrylic shroud that also serves as legs for the device, nor would it have the CD/DVD slot. In fact, you would be trading this design:



For a design more like this:



Apple's design language and approach has changed so much from the days of the G4 Cube that trying to use that as a basis for what an Apple Silicon - based Cube may look like is a red herring.

 

[pmiles]

I think it's more likely that they will stick to systems in which they have total control over what goes inside them rather than allowing for user modifications internally. The idea that you can easily swap out components in a Mac goes against every fiber of their being. If you think about it, pro users make up the smallest portion of their market and yet also cost them the most money to develop for. I expect to see less upgradeability in the future Macs, not more.

I personally believe the iMac Pro is going to be mothballed outright in the transition or end up replacing the Mac Pro desktop entirely.

 

[MysticCow]

The Mac mini is the successor to Da Cube. It's been a fairly good one too. I'd expect future ASMac minis to get even smaller...like AppleTV size smaller.

You might get a chance to see a ASMac mini "pro" model with an extra AS graphics chip like in the iMac thread in News. It'd likely use the same form factor a current mini is housed in, so that might be the best rumor for the mini I'd be willing to throw out.

I personally believe the iMac Pro is going to be mothballed outright in the transition or end up replacing the Mac Pro desktop entirely.

It won't replace the Mac Pro. Apple has to figure out how to throw expansion bays into a tower powered by an ASMac chip or lose the few pro users they have.

AKA, "There's a reason why the trash can Pro failed massively."

 

[pmiles]

The Mac mini is the successor to Da Cube. It's been a fairly good one too. I'd expect future ASMac minis to get even smaller...like AppleTV size smaller.

You might get a chance to see a ASMac mini "pro" model with an extra AS graphics chip like in the iMac thread in News. It'd likely use the same form factor a current mini is housed in, so that might be the best rumor for the mini I'd be willing to throw out.


It won't replace the Mac Pro. Apple has to figure out how to throw expansion bays into a tower powered by an ASMac chip or lose the few pro users they have.

AKA, "There's a reason why the trash can Pro failed massively."

Like I said, Apple is moving away from the Pro user market... they might not like it, but Apple hasn't exactly embraced that sector a whole hell of a lot since the early cheese graters. The latest model was not exactly a big seller for them either. They might just say, if you want a CRAY computer on your desk, buy one... we're not going to make one for the 5 people out there that want it.

 

[mr_roboto]

I think it's more likely that they will stick to systems in which they have total control over what goes inside them rather than allowing for user modifications internally. The idea that you can easily swap out components in a Mac goes against every fiber of their being. If you think about it, pro users make up the smallest portion of their market and yet also cost them the most money to develop for. I expect to see less upgradeability in the future Macs, not more.

I personally believe the iMac Pro is going to be mothballed outright in the transition or end up replacing the Mac Pro desktop entirely.

Like I said, Apple is moving away from the Pro user market... they might not like it, but Apple hasn't exactly embraced that sector a whole hell of a lot since the early cheese graters. The latest model was not exactly a big seller for them either. They might just say, if you want a CRAY computer on your desk, buy one... we're not going to make one for the 5 people out there that want it.

They tried designing a Mac Pro where they had near-total control over what goes inside. That was the 2013 trash can Mac Pro. It failed, and tanked their pro market sales to some degree. (*)

Despite that, they regrouped and spent a tremendous amount of money researching what users disappointed by the 2013 model wanted, and delivering it to them. Why do you think that just because ARM they're going to reverse course again? They already know that design concept doesn't work.

Also how do you know sales of the new cheesegrater are bad? What would qualify as bad? To Apple management, in particular?


* - In those humble pie media sessions where Apple execs essentially apologized for the 2013 Mac Pro, they mentioned that some customers were happy with the trash can, and seemed to position the iMac Pro as a computer which they thought could serve that segment of the pro market. It will be interesting to see if they maintain a "pro" tier iMac going forward.

 

[iPadified]

The cube was passively cooled as I remember. Complete silence and yet powerful sound ideal for music production. I doubt your "Cube" can be passively cooled but perhaps I am wrong.

mr_roboto is right the trashcan morphed onto iMac Pro as they share the same idea: compact with external expansions only. A cube would be following the same idea in my thinking. None were/are a replacement for the cheese grater 1.0 and 2.0 (2019) but the current cheese grater is not a replacement of the iMac Pro/Trachcan/cube either.

 

[richinaus]

An aluminium cube with basic upgradeability that sat between the imac and Mac pro in power, is my perfect machine.
Probably wont happen though, as Apple are a consumer company now and dont really bother to cater for this market.

 

[thenewperson]

as Apple are a consumer company now and dont really bother to cater for this market

Did they ever cater to the 'I need something between an iMac and Mac Pro' market? I guess technically the iMac Pro is that, but I'm assuming you mean a tower (likely with non-Xeon-level CPUs and not workstation graphics).

 

[richinaus]

Did they ever cater to the 'I need something between an iMac and Mac Pro' market? I guess technically the iMac Pro is that, but I'm assuming you mean a tower (likely with non-Xeon-level CPUs and not workstation graphics).

Not really, except for the original Cube, which is what we are talking about?

I may be wrong but wasn’t there the imac, cube and Mac Pro lineup?

 

[theSeb]

Did they ever cater to the 'I need something between an iMac and Mac Pro' market? I guess technically the iMac Pro is that, but I'm assuming you mean a tower (likely with non-Xeon-level CPUs and not workstation graphics).

In current Apple's eyes that role is served by the Mac Mini

 

[Lammers]

Wishful thinking. This is just not how Apple operates. There is no way they would have the mini, and the Pro, and a third model in between.

 

[playtech1]

Although the Mac Mini is the modern Cube in many ways, I can see there is a gap (a chasm really) for a headless Mac that sits between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. Something with decent desktop class (but not Xeon class) processors, a PCIe slot for discrete graphics and another for expansion, upgradeable storage and RAM.

Basically like any PC...

Will Apple Silicon herald this market segment being addressed? I doubt it - it's existed for so long now that Apple has consciously chose not to fill it and views the iMac as being the answer. I think you have to go back to the 90s to find a consumer level desktop mac with expansion slots.

 

[theSeb]

I would love such a machine, but with at least one standard NVME port and one 2.5" drive bay with a SATA connection and with the horsepower of AMD Threadripper. Asking for a 3.5" drive bay would probably be too cheeky. The thing is, Apple has no interest in such a machine and they are directed by the market. The majority of machines bought in the PC world are laptops. The same goes for Mac world.

I bought a Mac Mini in 2012 and I loved it, but it wasn't powerful enough for my needs. So in 2013 I bought trash can Mac Pro and gave the Mini to my dad. It was fine for the most part, except the lack of storage and expandability.

I am sorry, Apple, but how it looked in the slick WWDC reveal and on your marketing pages and how it looks in the real world with a bunch of wires is simply worlds apart. Never mind the fact that I am running short on the power sockets to power all these stupid other boxes.

My little iBin is still running fine after Apple replaced the SSD a few years ago, which is another story, but it's clear that it's getting long in the tooth now. A Windows PC has become my daily workstation. I have thought a lot about the Mac Pro, but AS has thrown a bit of a spanner into the equation. I can get a really good AMD machine and "something" from Apple with AS for the same price as a Mac Pro and that just makes more sense to me.

 

[Takuro]

Like others said, I think they have their bases covered pretty well with their current product line. Things are very different from when the Cube launched.

In terms of small form-factor, after the switch to ARM, the Mac Mini can be taken into interesting places performance-wise if it becomes fully solid-state with no fans.

In terms of expansion, Apple has already established their business model under the current Macs, and I don't see I changing. Their answer boils down to: Use Thunderbolt. If you want actual expansion slots in a chassis, then get a Mac Pro.

Honestly, it's a miracle in my mind that the Mac Pro even exists, but it's an awfully steep price for entry. I can't see them introducing a cheaper product that fills the same niche.

 

[theluggage]

A modern take on the G4 Cube,

...would be the Mac Mini (unless Apple want to re-introduce the optical drive). Also, the Mac Cube is largely remembered (rightly or wrongly) as an Epic Fail so I doubt that the branding will resurface.

I suspect the window for the "xMac" affordable desktop "Mac midi" has passed - when Macs were using generic Intel PC components it would have been relatively easy for Apple to have produced a small, desktop Mac with 1-2 PCIe slots based on Mini-ITX or some minor proprietary/cosmetic variation thereof. Apple Silicon doesn't make that impossible but they can no longer just take Foxconn's finest Mini-ITX offering and stencil an Apple logo on it (OK, it was never quite that simple, but if the Hackintosh community could do it with zero support, it's would be an easy job for Apple).

Also, a major reason why people wanted an xMac was so that they could choose their own GPU - I'm not sure whether it has been officially declared that MacOS for ASi won't support third-party GPUs or eGPUs full stop, but Apple's initial position seems to be that you won't need them with ASi graphics.

I personally believe the iMac Pro is going to be mothballed outright in the transition or end up replacing the Mac Pro desktop entirely.

Once Apple move to an all-ASi lineup, any distinction between an iMac and an iMac Pro will be whatever Apple define it to be. Since the iMac Pro is already a more modern design (improved cooling, no need to support spinning rust and, for better or worse, no RAM access hatch) it could be moot whether the "iMac" or the "iMac Pro" is the one that has been dropped.

The Core-i/Xeon distinction may or may not have a direct analog in Apple silicon. ECC is something a Mac Pro will need but an Air won't - but making that an exclusive "xeon" feature is Intel's artifice. It will be interesting to see how Apple presents the processor choices in the new range (it seems unlikely that there will be a "one size fits all" ASi processor for everything from a MacBook Air to a Mac Pro - even with "binning" or disabling cores) - they may invent some analog of Intel's "i3/5/7/9" notation and/or "Apple Silicon" vs. "Apple Silicon Pro" but that is all, ultimately, branding who's relation to actual features changes with each generation.

It won't replace the Mac Pro. Apple has to figure out how to throw expansion bays into a tower powered by an ASMac chip or lose the few pro users they have.

The issue is not adding expansion bays per se - PCIe on ASi won't be an issue, and some PCIe support will be needed to implement Thunderbolt - but that the current Mac Pro has such a huge number of PCIe slots, enabled by the Xeon W3000 series having 64 PCIe lanes. Similarly with RAM capacity - one reason the 24-28 core version is so expensive is down to using the super-pricey version of the Xeon W300 that supports 2TB RAM.

To directly replace the Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, Apple would need the economic justification to make an ASi SoC with a huge number of PCIe lanes and 2TB RAM support that was massive overkill for everything except the Mac Pro. Intel have other customers for the Xeon W3000 - Apple only have the Mac Pro - and only Apple know if they're shifting enough Mac Pros to make that worthwhile.

However, Apple didn't start planning the ARM transition yesterday, it was likely already in motion when they specced out the Mac Pro and decided to pitch it at such a high spec. So, presumably, They Have A Plan.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Intel Mac Pro hangs around for a long time (the "true Pro" types who can justify buying it tend to like long-term stability anyway and have already shown that they're prepared/obliged to wait 7 years for an upgrade) and the ASi answer turns out to be something a bit more leftfield that doesn't rely on a single processor supporting shedloads of RAM and PCIe lanes. Maybe some sort of ASi-based "blade computing" system? In 5+ years time, maybe some of the people who currently need 8 PCIe slots etc. will be ready to move on.

...I always wondered if the trashcan would have been more successful if it had launched alongside a more up-to date conventional tower, rather than the already obsolescent (and discontinued in Europe) 5,1. The concept had some merit - but not as a one-size-fits-all solution for every "pro" user.

 

[Andropov]

I feel there could be a market for a desktop that is more than the Mac mini, but less than the Mac Pro (and NOT an iMac Pro)...

As much as I would like you to be right (I still own a Cube, and absolutely LOVE it), I don't think you are. A Mac along those lines has been asked for in forums for more than a decade now. They're not doing it.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Intel Mac Pro hangs around for a long time (the "true Pro" types who can justify buying it tend to like long-term stability anyway and have already shown that they're prepared/obliged to wait 7 years for an upgrade) and the ASi answer turns out to be something a bit more leftfield that doesn't rely on a single processor supporting shedloads of RAM and PCIe lanes.

It will be hard to justify the Mac Pro being stuck on Intel for too long if the Apple Silicon Macs are running circles around it performance-wise. And it looks like they will.

Still, I agree with what you say. The Mac Pro AS will need a custom SoC just for it, and I don't know how they're going to pull it off if no other Mac uses that chip. But as you say, they knew this was coming, and they still released the 2019 Mac Pro...

 

[theluggage]

It will be hard to justify the Mac Pro being stuck on Intel for too long if the Apple Silicon Macs are running circles around it performance-wise. And it looks like they will.

Likely for the lower half of the Mac range. Beating the higher-end 16" MBP, iMac and Mac Pro models where ASi/ARM's low power consumption isn't such an advantage might be a bit more of a challenge. We'll see if Apple are right about their unified memory architecture making their integrated GPUs better than discrete GPUs.

Also - part of the reason people are paying Mac Pro prices is that it's cheaper than switching to new software, so how successful the software migration is will be a big deal - especially for some of the darker corners of 4th-party plugins and drivers for specialised hardware... although Apple have partly pre-empted that by forcing Catalina on the Mac Pro, which will have killed off a lot of abandonware.

Still, I'm not sure that the "real" pro market will be the first people clamouring for Apple Silicon - and the new modular Mac Pro design allows Apple to keep it "fresh" for a few years with new CPUs and GPUs - unlike the trashcan which was stuck with particular CPU and GPU models from day ones.

We'll know more when we see what the actual Mac-bound ASi chips perform in realistic like-for-like tests, particularly when it comes to GPU performance.

 

[JMacHack]

Not really, except for the original Cube, which is what we are talking about?

I may be wrong but wasn’t there the imac, cube and Mac Pro lineup?

The cube was more expensive than the tower G4.

I am sorry, Apple, but how it looked in the slick WWDC reveal and on your marketing pages and how it looks in the real world with a bunch of wires is simply worlds apart. Never mind the fact that I am running short on the power sockets to power all these stupid other boxes.

I would understand this point if the back of my cMP wasn't a rats nest of wires itself.

On topic, the one guy who brought the G4 Cube to life in the first place died in 2011. While the cube was a marvel of engineering and great looking as well, let's not forget that it was more expensive for the same specs as the comparable tower. OP's "xMac" idea doesn't even fit with the old cube.

And for the xMac that people have been asking for (for about 20 years now), it's not gonna happen. The best anyone can hope for is that the ASi Mac pro comes down in price to $4k and the iMac Pro get **********.