Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I wish apple would abandon the mac pro and instead partner with a hardware vendor that understands the requirements of workstation customers. if they'd certify and license macOS for use with hp z workstations, my next "mac" would be this: https://zworkstations.com/configurations/60666/

I have the pleasure of using a z820 at work and while my Mac Pro 5,1 is the prettier box, the hp workstation is lightyears ahead in terms of raw performance by now.
 
Just ordered a HP Omen 870-090nz myself. Was a third off offer, that ended up being cheaper than the sum of the individual parts. Too good to refuse and I'm pretty sure it will be another 4 years minimum before Apple can and will offer similar bang for the buck.

Hard to believe I finally had to jump ship after 22 years of faithful Mac only use.
 
Just ordered a HP Omen 870-090nz myself. Was a third off offer, that ended up being cheaper than the sum of the individual parts. Too good to refuse and I'm pretty sure it will be another 4 years minimum before Apple can and will offer similar bang for the buck.

Hard to believe I finally had to jump ship after 22 years of faithful Mac only use.
I'm really eyeing the new HP Z2 CAD unit that just came out.
 
Not everyone codes and creates on a MacBook. This is where Tims understanding comes into question.

No they do not, which is why we're going to be seeing a new iMac now that the appropriate CPUs are shipping from Intel and the appropriate GPUs from AMD.


As for the Mac Mini, I don't see it as being something an iOS developer would use. Maybe back in the early days of iOS and the App Store as it was an inexpensive way for Windows developers to get into Apple development ecosystem, but today they're almost certainly using MacBook Pros and iMacs. Which is why I believe the Mac Mini is a dead product line.



The Mac Pro is a bit more complicated, IMO. I think the machine is probably overkill for most iOS developers, but I know there are large and successful iOS developers who do use Mac Pros for that work (though I expect not exclusively and they bought the Mac Pro for it's prowess at other tasks first and are leveraging it for iOS development second).

I more and more believe the current Mac Pro design was a major failure from a technical and/or sales standpoint - much like the Mac Cube was. Such an opinion is pure speculation with no evidence, but that it has sat still for so long makes me think that something is "wrong" with it.

Because you have to buy it with two GPUs whether you need them or not, it's very expensive. So many who bought the old Mac Pro are instead buying the iMac (especially the 5K iMac). We know you can upgrade the CPUs to newer generations of Xeons that use the same socket, but perhaps the GPUs are much more difficult to design upgrades for (and you have to buy two of them, which would make such upgrades very expensive).

There have been rumors that Apple has been looking into moving production from the USA to China and you do that either to improve production scale (which is likely not an issue) or reduce production cost (which likely is an issue). So maybe the current design is too expensive to make, even with what Apple charges for it.

Apple crams a lot of high-temperature components into a compact case with the Mac Pro, so perhaps it has a high failure rate which results in a very high repair cost (higher than what AppleCare and it's own margins can support).


If Apple has lost significant money on this Mac Pro (in the hundreds of millions of dollars), they're not going to be very interested in spending even more on it. And Apple is loathe to admit design mistakes, so the chances of them going back to the old "cheesegrater" design is not going to happen.

Which means if Apple is planning a new Mac Pro, it may very well be a new design and that could be taking years to engineer - especially if they still want it "compact" but more upgradeable and reliable than the current design.

Or it might also mean Apple is done with the Mac Pro after this failed and expensive experiment.
 
@CWallace

Good points. Many of us are in the same boat. The Pro is a wild card because there are those who use it for coding as well as other "career" uses. Even those coding high end/power apps will have Pros around for the heavy coding and compiling as well as testing. I totally agree with you that the Mac is paramount to the success of iOS, unfortunately I am of the mindset that Tim has put the cart (ios and fashion accessories) before the horse (Mac Pro and Mac in general, just look at the historical updates/product cycles, clearly there is an issue and it's not all those engineers packing boxes to move to the new campus).

Additionally, the Mac Pro's 'lineage' goes back decades, it'll be a shame if Apple dumps it for an "iMac Pro"
 
An iMac doesn't help with anyone that has a workflow that needs either cores or ram.

Multi-processor aware software hasn't been esoteric for a while now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aldaris
Or it might also mean Apple is done with the Mac Pro after this failed and expensive experiment.

My estimation of the Apple desktop roadmap is similar but I think Apple won't just kill the Mac Pro without offering an alternative ( e.g. officially supported LG displays in lieu of the discontinued TB displays)

It might be a beefy iMac 'pro' running xeons and dual gpus, though it's not feasible in the current iMac form factor. So maybe some thicker version like the HP Z1 G2 AIOs with lots of TB3 ports.

Or it could be another smaller version of the cMP. Again unlikely because the Apple of late isn't big on user replaceable parts. But then it might acknowledge one of the shortcomings of the nMP and offer some flexibility on that front. This would be ideal.

Continue with the nMP with current gen innards if Apple intends to continues with the Mac Pro as an offering to the professionals. It certainly won't satisfy some of us here, considering the nMP's lack of user upgrades and the peripheral mess would still be a factor but seems the most likely scenario.

Or - most unlikely - allow macOS on PC systems ( we can continue to split hairs but mac hardware is essentially PC after the move to intel ) Apple may possibly tie up with some big PC vendor - dell, HP or Lenovo and specify a lineup of workstations certified to run macOS. Many of us would gripe but take it I suppose since it would mean users of Apple Mac pros can acsess the latest workstation hardware. This seems highly unlikely since it might open a can of worms but then stranger things have happened. Also, Apple is a hardware company. Their softwares are a means to sell the hardware. Why give it to another hardware manufacturer ? This would be an outlier as a way for Apple to get out of the desktop space. Though I am not sure it will happen so soon.

Whatever it maybe, it doesn't make sense for Apple to keep the Mac Pro lineup stagnant for 3 years... The long delay between the 2010 cMP and the nMP was 3 years and Apple introduced the nMP.

A similar timespan between the last Mac Pro and today points to something cooking. Either a new design is in the works, or Apple is waiting for significant performance improvements before releasing another iteration of the nMP. Or Apple is simply waiting to offer alternatives... All speculation of course.

What is interesting though is that one leak of a possible Mac system with 10 USB ports appeared in a beta of El Capitan but didn't reappear after that in sierra. Any word on the next version of macOS ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aldaris
An iMac doesn't help with anyone that has a workflow that needs either cores or ram.

Intel has new Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X i7s coming with 6, 8 or 10 cores. The new X299 chipset also supports loads of DDR4-2667 RAM.

So Apple could replace the Mac Pro with an "iMac Pro" for the top end of the macOS market if they want to simplify their desktop line to just the iMac family.
 
Last edited:
I wish apple would abandon the mac pro and instead partner with a hardware vendor that understands the requirements of workstation customers. if they'd certify and license macOS for use with hp z workstations, my next "mac" would be this: https://zworkstations.com/configurations/60666/

I have the pleasure of using a z820 at work and while my Mac Pro 5,1 is the prettier box, the hp workstation is lightyears ahead in terms of raw performance by now.

Whilst I think a lot of folks would like to see this, I think Apple's experience from the last time they did this means they'll never touch it again (licensing the OS to use on 3rd party hardware).
 
CWallace, X299 does not have 46 PCIe lanes (maybe you mean 44 on the CPU?). Try 20/24 with FlexIO. Apple can drop whatever is not used (SATA, maybe some USB3) and get the full amount of available lanes.
But the MacPro will use Skylake-W instead, not -X, with up to 48 lanes on the CPU, and the KBL PCH.
[doublepost=1485819373][/doublepost]holly $h!t:
https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/30/lg-ultrafine-5k-display-router-disconnecting/
It seems it's a known issue, by LG.
How could they let this one slip?
And Apple endorsing it?!

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17...y-wi-fi-interference-from-nearby-wi-fi-router
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Aldaris
If we're talking about the strategic rational for the Mac line being iOS software development, why not just make the development tools available on Linux & Windows?
 
Intel has new Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X i7s coming with 6, 8 or 10 cores. The new X299 chipset also supports loads of DDR4-2667 RAM.

So Apple could replace the Mac Pro with an "iMac Pro" for the top end of the macOS market if they want to simplify their desktop line to just the iMac family.

These will be 140 W processors and probably too hot to it in the existing iMac's chassis. If AMD's Zen lives up to the hype it could offer 8 cores in something that could conceivably fit in the iMac and have a decent GPU to go with it.
 
Already discussed several pages back. Fun concept but in actually reality has several flaws that others have point ed out earlier in the thread.

Still would welcome any elevator image crumb from Cupertino.

Didn't realized there were couple of threads... oops! I thought it was brand new concept just released and just saw it today, first time ever.
 
No worries :) I think its a great concept, or at least welcome the discussion of other form factors. Apple could easily turn the nMP into the future "mini" with "mini" specs and chips and go with a new form factor for the Pro to save face. I personally believe Apple is constantly trying to "idiot proof" their machines and without having control over the thunderbolt/GPU compatibility doubt we will ever see upgradable graphics cards in future machines, but really like having other card interfaces to plug in. Early in my G4 days I had several video interfaces and cards to crunch video projects, granted much SD projects can be easily handled through USB these days, but more HD and 4K need some serious bandwidth. I have since changed fields and am in the market for GPU's for architecture rendering power, and am really headed to an HP Z Workstation, I have been using bootcamp to run what I can't run natively in MacOS, but unfortunately the hardware apple is content in pushing is ancient in technology standards. *Yes it is great components-the same greatness it was three years ago, two processor generations ago and how many graphics iterations ago... I don't mean to bash it, as much as I am looking to invest into a machine that has my confidence that it will be supported in the future. Apple's silence, really makes me feel this is the end of the road for the pro :(. And can't justify paying that much for an end of cycle product (the buyers guide and historical releases is pretty cut and dry, even if Apple continues to sell the current Mac Pro for another 1139 days).
 
Am i the only one with the impression that Apple decided to "steer away" from real pro users and target the mass (that obviously bring more cash) with something built for them and attaching the word "PRO" to make everybody feel like one?

Apologies if it was already pointed out this way!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aldaris
The Mac Pro is a bit more complicated,

Rigth, even more than you details.

I think the machine is probably overkill for most iOS developers, but I know there are large and successful iOS developers who do use Mac Pros for that work (though I expect not exclusively and they bought the Mac Pro for it's prowess at other tasks first and are leveraging it for iOS development second).

Depends on what you develop for iOS, if you develop eCommerce apps you are rigth, but if you develop games/3D/VR/AR then the Mac Pro actually is underpowered.

I more and more believe the current Mac Pro design was a major failure from a technical and/or sales standpoint - much like the Mac Cube was.

No the first 18months on sale, Yes from there onwards.

Because you have to buy it with two GPUs whether you need them or not, it's very expensive.

Yes, also its deceptive since most macOS apps only can use a single GPU, most mac pro user rarely tandem GPU for rendering even if they want, only can tandem for compute .

There have been rumors that Apple has been looking into moving production from the USA to China and you do that either to improve production scale (which is likely not an issue) or reduce production cost (which likely is an issue).

None sense, the Mac Pro its just assembled in USA, maybe with CPU exception all its component comes from Asia, the local assembly impact its minimal, and mostly automated, its not more expensive than to run an Apple Store at some big city.

Apple crams a lot of high-temperature components into a compact case with the Mac Pro, so perhaps it has a high failure rate which results in a very high repair cost (higher than what AppleCare and it's own margins can support).

Maybe the tc Mac Pro thermal envelope flexibility have been a topic since 1st year. with the same TDP components apple should care to add 100W extra cooling and PSU power, but what we the users actually want is at least a 600W nTcMP that doesn't need to throttle on long rendering/compute sessions (a typical weekend 3x24).

Or it might also mean Apple is done with the Mac Pro after this failed and expensive experiment.

Apple has some serious general issues with Mac Computers division, lack enough personnel, lacks vision, AMD partnership also is negative, and most important quality control had seen better days all this its so evident there is no pro-Apple 'analyst' that could apologize or justify.

Apple needs a new CEO or someone should give some kicks to Cook's ass to wake up him.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Aldaris and -hh
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.