Show me the trashcan replicant, please. I beg you. So I can antagonize someone else's idiocy rather than just apple's.
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MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)
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Show me the trashcan replicant, please. I beg you. So I can antagonize someone else's idiocy rather than just apple's.
If you ask me the problem is they are trying too hard to innovate... just take what worked and update it already. Give us back the 2012 mac pro but with modern internals. Sure you can make it a little smaller by getting rid of the optical bays... maybe offer it in Space gray... and call it a day... I would buy one immediately as so would many others I know.
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https://us.msi.com/product/vortex/Vortex-G65-GTX-980-SLI.html
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Explicitly built and sold with advertised user-upgradable graphics. That's not a trashcan imitator, that's a different shape for a structurally standard windows pc.
Remember, Jony's claim that design is how it functions (nonstandard, non-upgradable graphics (that self destruct)).
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I don't think they're going to talk about it at all - it's an iPad Pro event. They'll talk about how much you can do on an iPad, how it's the "best computer for artists", and barely mention the Mac in any way.
I have a feeling that Apple will not release or announce any future Mac desktops at special events except for the Mac Pro possibly being announced at Apple’s 2019 WWDC. Apple wants to put their best foot forward and the desktop isn’t it anymore.
Count me in, I would love that to happen too.
They certainly are the red-headed step child, but all of those iOS apps are created on a mac*
(Except of course those that are on a more gray system)
I agree that they won’t talk about Mac Pro at all. But there are several posters here insisting that they MUST, and that if they don’t then it’s game over, which I think is nonsense.
I do think they may use the event for other Mac updates though.
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I think that’s ridiculous. Apple’s Mac business generates roughly $20billion a year in revenue, and they want to grow it, not shut it down.
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Yes, but such a product conflicts fundamentally with Apple’s product design and business principles. I can imagine the new Mac Pro is a source of some considerable tension inside Apple for that reason.
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As well as the MSI product already posted, here’s another:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1035...case-for-gaming-pcs-ultraslim-desktop-chassis
And this is somewhat similar:
https://www.amazon.com/CORSAIR-Comp...7532YYmYwnb2hi4dthixs6zdvmnvwi5ldnntw6ltdn5wq
And there was a (failed) Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dunecase/dune-case
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
It was even starker watching the MacBook Pro introduction during the same 2006 keynote. MagSafe as a sidekick feature got barely a full minute of mention, just casually being one of the dozens of useful excitements. Compared to the 2016 one, the touch bar probably got like a full hour of chore, with that Adobe rep and the cyber DJ rocking their "pro-workflows" with 2 index fingers.This video made me really sad. It's deeply disheartening to see Apple's passion and excitement about the Mac Pro back in 2006 vs. Apple's complete lack of interest in professional hardware today.
Only recent ones .
For the most part, Mac products were totally fine until the tcMP and touchbar MBPs .
Even though that's been years ago, nothing has changed since their introduction , so that's just one single product cycle in the history of Macs .
Certainly those mistakes can be remedied, can they not ?
In 2012 Apple removed user upgradeability from the 21” iMac. In 2013 they removed it from the MacBook Pro. In 2014 they removed it from the Mac mini. And so forth. And the MacBook Air, which also had no upgradeability, predated all of those.
There is a clear and increasing trend going back some years for Apple to treat their products as closed boxes that you configure at time of purchase only.
Not generally for workstations.
Agreed, but I think it's more a fundamental part of Apple's design ethos than it is for other manufacturers.
If Apple is ready to ship in Feb/March about something they talked about on October 30th ( defacto November ) there is exceedingly little risk. The risk isn't October per se. It is whether they are ready or not. At some point they have to ship and probably won't ship an update for at least 12-18 months. For the majority of the life span of the product, the competitors will have a window to respond.
If Apple has no substantive, coherent system done at this point then yes there is a higher substantive risk. They probably shouldn't show anything. The competitors may have more competent R&D teams that can finish off a new design in 9-10 rather Apple's sloth-like 14-16 months. They are screwed and there isn't much point in illuminating just how screwed they are at a major event. Major events is not where you go to talk about your major screw ups.
The competitive risk issue for Apple is that under staffing/resourcing their product R&D puts them at a disadvantage. From mid 2017 to now Apple should be at some level of "engineering design validation" stage. There could be substantive quirks to be worked out, but what the product "is" is primarily fixed. Their competitors have designs in the pipeline(s) and are working on completing those stages. Other folks take some stuff from Apple but they in no way take all of it.
Apple puts some 'value add' on these workstation major components, but by and large they are available to all. The current Mac Pro being stuck on 2013 era parts is a problem. The 2009-2012 ones being stuck on 2010 era designs on the verge of Obsolete status is an even bigger one. Their competitors in no way have that boat anchor problem. There is no advantage in workstation market for doing next to nothing for 5-10 years. Doing more "nothing" isn't going to help them at all. It is more so about whether the hole they are digging isn't too deep to get out of.
If Apple has something that is approximately a Quarter ( maybe two) from release there is exceedingly little risk there versus the level of damage they are doing to their trust factor.
The Mac business/ecosystem can survive long term without the Mac Pro just fine. It could easily expand in future years (presuming Apple does a better job with the rest of the product line. For example, for more regular upgrades to the iMac Pro ). However, a new Mac Pro product probably won't survive long term as a viable product the longer they stretch out the Rip van Winkle act.
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The laptops that is far more driven by "thinness" and having 2D space of required keyboard to play with.
The iMac is in trying to hide the ram door in case shell behind the pedestal arm along with the exit fan vent. The mini is trying to hide it in a bottom placed fan ( which is its own problem.) The iMac Pro compromised on narrow slits at the bottom back for airflow but door got dropped as soon as folks would be able to see it.
The Mac Pro doesn't necessarily have those problems. As a deskside unit, it does not all. The older design did a relatively good job of lining up the lid seal with a sight line the device already had. From a reasonable distance folks couldn't see the line and frankly stored below/beside/under a desk the whole system is largely out of sight in most places too. However, even relegated to being a literal desktop the Mac Pro 2013 case also completely came off without any huge "door' disruption of the case design.
That Mac Pro is probably going to be big enough that a large door/lid that comes off in one whole large piece won't be disruptive. The MP 2013 was designed after/during 2012-12 era for the laptop Mini. The 2013 Mi A couple of standard slot "doors" really should be either unless Apple got hugely anal about what the bck of the machine looked like. ( if it were to stay tagged as being a literal desktop then that's possible. ).
The 21.5" iMac in most cases just "hard to get at" upgradability. Not whether it is upgradable or not. There are so-DIMMs slots there; it is just hard to get to them. Same with iMac Pro. If the screen came off easy it would be a hassle. If there was a visible door cut in the case it wouldn't be hard at all. The Mini 2014 was a shift following the Mac Laptops. We'll see next week if the Mini is slavishly following the Mac laptops for design still. But the Mini has always been largely a headless laptop.
Trying to do 64+ GB soldered onto the motherboard is actually grossly volume/space inefficient the higher you go in capacity. It is extremely unlikely the next Mac Pro won't be upgradable once you get the case off. The real question is why would Apple lock up the case on a new Mac Pro? IMHO, there are only extremely hand waving justifications for that.
The "not upgradable enough" issue could be a problem. If Apple saddled the new Mac Pro with just four DIMM slots that would be a small problem. It should be eight with at least 4 empty. Same thing with the primary display GPU. It isn't whether that is a customer design or not. The primarily problem will be if there is no 2nd empty slot. Same for boot SSD versus 2nd (through maybe 4th) SSD.... empty slots. The case/lid itself is highly likely going to come off.
Much of the hype on both sides is Apple or users grabbing 100% control. The next Mac Pro should be something more balanced in the middle. Apple gets some stuff that is relatively fixed and users get some option. Control to remove almost everything Apple did or vice versa is just an unproductive pissing match (for both sides) for this particular product segment.
Laptops are extremely different where weight and battery capacity are far more intertwined. Phones and tablets even more so. But decoupled from the keyboard , display, most laptop oriented parts , and from literally placed on the desktop there is no reason why the even Apple's design trends for those other products the Mac Pro should fall under those constraints.
( the SSD being T-series derived is probably coming but that is more secure operational issues which crosses any form factor. )
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Agreed, and spot on. There effectively has to be some sort of statement, and that statement can't be just more vaporware.
Also a good observation. As mattspace noted, one example is to announce use of open standards. However, as you point out, simply having milestone dates would be helpful too (and even more beneficial would be both). And a third broad topic that's not been mentioned is price.
In a perfect world, Apple would say, "here's the hardware specs, here's the delivery schedule and here's the price list".
Literally anything that Apple says will be examined & reverse-engineered against all relevant Industry news within ~48 hours, which also means that 99% of what they might say is information that the rest of the industry already knows about their own state-of-the-shelf and upcoming Intel products, etc.
As such, the only 'secret sauce' that Apple has left remaining is the Apple unique stuff .. but even this is limited because things like the T1 & T2 chips are already in other shipping products. For other OEMs that may be motivated to copy them, that horse has already left the barn.
About the only real consideration that's left is if Apple says something that their customers don't want (such as only Apple proprietary modules), then they were never going to be a buyer regardless of it they bailed based on an October pre-announcement or a 2019 roll-out: it was a lost sale under either.
That is a big leap having not seen the next iPad Pro.
If it has a USB Type-C port the recent rumors indicate, it won't be that far from being what the MacBook currently is only running iOS. It wouldn't be hard for Apple in 2020 to put a next gen A-series chip in the MacBook frame and call it "iBook". The next thing you'll tell us is that almost nobody using "real" Photoshop on a highly portable laptop. Which is a chuckle.
If Apple keeps the MacBook hobbled on a USB Type-C long term ( just to hit minimal weight specs) then some follow on to the UltraFine 4K docking station monitor will probably work just fine as a external presentation display ( although something less would probably work better is want to balance storage I/O with display) with at least a future iPad Pro ( if not the 2018 ones ... which is a decent chance). Displays aren't probably aren't a huge issue.
Bluetooth is sufficient for keyboard , mouse, trackpads.
Adobe has talked more about this new Photoshop for iOS. It won't match up 100% feature for feature with the macOS on this first iteration. But it is likely to be enough for a sizable group of folks. All Apple and Adobe have to do is iterate on that over time. Short term pointing at corner cases it doesn't does little to outline the value proposition for most of the overall market.
There is a fair amount of focused work done on Pen Displays (e.g., Wacom Cintiqs ). Some of them are already USB Type-C oriented. At first the next iPad Pro could be a replacement. But they aren't that far from using them as an adjunct. (apple's 'Pro' tagged systems aren't absolutely necessary for usage. )
The absolutely exclusive space that the Mac Pro type product from 10-15 years ago is substantively smaller than it is now. That's part of the issue with Apple's priority on a new Mac Pro.
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More statements doesn't do much substantive to remove 'vaporware' status around something. 'Vaporware' is largely status is largely motivated but all you have is talk and "power point"/"Keynote" slide decks. Intel has 2-3 years of 10nm chips coming real soon now slide decks. Anyone who 'bet the farm' on them 1-2 years ago is screwed right now.
Last Fall Apple got up and talked about how they were going to finish the AirPower "pretty soon now". And then proceeded not to. They can't afford that kind of SNAFU with the next Mac Pro. They really don't need to talk about something they aren't seriously prepared to roll out.
Apple needs to do not talk. That could be "we are going to do a physical specs reveal in December". Or "we are going ship in February". The core problem is that their corporate policy is that they can talk about what they "do". The don't talk about what is coming long term down the road.
These April meeting have not been talking about the product in detail. Apple is extremely unlikely to shift they major corporate policy for this one specific product. All that does is set folks up in the forum for expectation failure.
Milestones on poorly scoped out products don't really add lots of value. Pulling SWAG dates out of the air and slapping those on a project gnatt chart is probably how AirPower got into SNAFU status. Just throwing dates on a table isn't high value to planning just in and of themselves. Accurate dates have value. If Apple doesn't have reasonably accurate dates they shouldn't share them. Period.
You folks really aren't talking about open functional standard. It is more form over function. The GPU will be connected by PCI-e. The narrow subset of the PCI-e standards that has to do with a physical slot is far more form than function. Apple is highly unlikely to spend lots of time talk about putting a priority of form over function. Especially to a crowd who screams for form over function but claims they are doing otherwise.
That would largely mean that they were practically done. I don't think there is any creditable evidence that Apple is going to spend any long time squatting on a finished Mac Pro system to wait for some arbitrary linked date in the future. If Apple was done in Dec-Jan time frame and the manufacturing was ready what possible rational reason would they have to wait for June 2019 or October 2019 to release the new Mac Pro ? For products that have been relatively recently updated they could squat for a couple months or so, but for a product that is at least 5 years late where is the value in that at all? There zero value in that. None.
If they aren't done. Then the schedule is partial smoke (if don't know how to make it scale then don't have a delivery schedule ) . The price list is also partial smoke (prices change).
They announced iMac Pro on WWDC in June 2017 and started shipping in Jan 2018 so a Mac Pro preview/announcement on the 30th isn't so far fetched.
The whole deal with the invitations an NYC location makes me think this is a bit more than a "standard" event with just new iPad Pro and iMacs, maybe we are in for a surprise THIS time
The whole deal with the invitations an NYC location makes me think this is a bit more than a "standard" event with just new iPad Pro and iMacs, maybe we are in for a surprise THIS time
Orders started in Dec 2017 . Did major demos in Oct 2017. Home pod was another June , October , and then slide 'new' product last year. It isn't unusual for a 'never before' product for Apple. For just a regular upgrade it is highly unusual though. Major shift in design could be treated as a new category type product.
Apple is also probably keen to kill of the MP 2013. ( like in 2013 when keen to kill off manufacturing of 2012 model ).
November - April is about 6 months. (Oct 30 is practically November.) April would save them from another "dog ate my homework" session.
However, if their target is Q4 2019 then probably nothing.
The whole deal with the invitations an NYC location makes me think this is a bit more than a "standard" event with just new iPad Pro and iMacs, maybe we are in for a surprise THIS time
Surprised Apple did 300+ logos for the event. Hopefully most of that was commissioned work and weren't soaking up valuable internal resources doing that.
NYC makes it easy for Apple to stop by CNBC, Bloomberg , and other major TV newsrooms after the show rather easily. Apple is going to be doing their 4th Quarterly report on November 1st ( just two days later). It is a quiet period but they also could be chatting up some Wall St. folks also. If there is other stuff for Apple to do the execs could do the Quarterly call from in NYC on the 1st. Doing a major product release during quiet period is a slick way of tap dancing around quiet period restrictions.
10 a.m. EST ( 2-4 p.m in some Euro timezones , 7 p.m New Delhi ) worldwide they pick up a different live viewing audience then if they wait 3 hours later and it deeper into the evening in other parts of the world. Easier time shift for Cook also since he is spending time in Europe at the moment. (Apple slid their quarterly report date back to fit that conference and some other logistics in. )
Apple is also looking looking for a new major US Campus ( and some rumors has the pegged for PA , NY (not the city) , or "NorthEast" ). NYC makes sense a place to scout some cities from. ( "Oh we came to NYC early to practice for dog and pony show ...." cover for doing some in person scouting. ) . Apple is running their search 100% opposite of Amazon's spectacle contest search process. On the not so sneaky side, this Bloomberg article puts a chunk of Apple's advertising biz operations in NYC (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-apple-new-campus/ ) . [ similar suspicion scouting Chicago area at March Education / iPad event. ]
Finance and advertising tie-ins in a NYC context aren't a stretch at all. ( Microsoft Oct 2nd and Samsung did an event folks didn't pay much attention to on the 11th. )
None of that is particularly Mac specific.
And actually there is a growing chorus of how their dog and pony shows are boring/scripted/etc. A significant change of venue won't hurt.
I think Apple may mention the Mac Pro during their October event, like they've mentioned it before, but I doubt they'll reveal anything. I'm still interested to see what they have in store for the Mac mini. Those things make great media centers and secondary computers.
It’ll be interesting all around-I’m pretty sure this event will wrap up the product line for 2018, leading into the holiday quarter. Competitive products are going to be vying for dollars (remember when Apple had HomePod for a December launch... to fight for dollars over Alexa and google home). Consumer wise it’ll be exciting to see the holiday lineup, prosumer wise, I’d love a tease of the Mac Pro.
Aren't the NY state corporate and personal income tax rates still pretty high?
Maybe those tax rates would factor into any final location decision.
I believe Apple should/would go for Cascade Lake, not SKL. If not for the Spectre and Meltdown issues. But Intel's woes on 10nm might have compromised the design. Are there any ES for Apple to test? If not, the design might even be more or less locked but with no hardware for testing they might be on hold.
Or... as one would say, one more thing... and it's EPYC!!
That would be a good line to wrap things up, maybe on October 30th.
Maybe this would be a good time for Apple to move to AMD (never thought I'd say this) and Rome is already in Apple's hands.
I don't think we'll have any info on mMP in a couple of days, though.
Or... as one would say, one more thing... and it's EPYC!!
That would be a good line to wrap things up, maybe on October 30th.
Maybe this would be a good time for Apple to move to AMD (never thought I'd say this) and Rome is already in Apple's hands.
I don't think we'll have any info on mMP in a couple of days, though.
I believe Apple should/would go for Cascade Lake, not SKL. If not for the Spectre and Meltdown issues. But Intel's woes on 10nm might have compromised the design. Are there any ES for Apple to test? If not, the design might even be more or less locked but with no hardware for testing they might be on hold.
Or... as one would say, one more thing... and it's EPYC!!
That would be a good line to wrap things up, maybe on October 30th.
Maybe this would be a good time for Apple to move to AMD (never thought I'd say this) and Rome is already in Apple's hands.
I don't think we'll have any info on mMP in a couple of days, though.
Any kind of move to AMD would be at WWDC since there are programming differences.
You are correct, the trend started earlier regarding upgradability .
Personally , I don't consider it a major issue for an iMac or MBA - still an issue though - but it certainly has had an impact on the long term usability of the Retina MBPs and later ones .
The touchbar MBPs just broke the camel's back with their lack of ports, the keyboard, lack of magsafe and ports, especially for non tb touchbar .
MacPros of course don't have possible design constraints that benefit from limited user upgradability .