MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[Biped]

How Apple has gotten to the molasses product update state on the Mac product line in general is problem. It isn't all 100% Apple though. Slower updates from customers is a contributing factor. As the number of folks buying Mac Pro every years goes down, the priority is probably going to go down too at Apple. It is a basic feedback loop that Jobs set up and is firmly woven into most of the basic approach Apple follows.

This puts the cart before the horse. I hope Apple would look at the workstation segment as a whole, see that competitors seem to be able to do just fine, and realize their sales stagnation is not due to market disinterest, but their own failure to satisfy the needs of it.

 

[Peace]

Actually with the huge amount of money at Apple's disposal it wouldnt hurt them to make a good desktop computer. Even if it had low sales..
Combine that with a new focus on Pro apps and Apple could be the really good computer maker it was once known for.

I mean what's it gonna hurt ? Apple won't lose any money making it.
Unless of course the Mac Pro would eat into the iMac / iMac Pro sales.

 

[mattspace]

Actually with the huge amount of money at Apple's disposal it wouldnt hurt them to make a good desktop computer. Even if it had low sales..
Combine that with a new focus on Pro apps and Apple could be the really good computer maker it was once known for.

I mean what's it gonna hurt ? Apple won't lose any money making it.
Unless of course the Mac Pro would eat into the iMac / iMac Pro sales.

Anything that provides an option to an iMac, has to account for the increase in iMac component prices due to falling display volumes. That's why you don't see "an iMac without the (cost of the) display".

Lose 30% of your iMac sales to a similarly priced desktop machine, the profit margin on the 70% which remain will drop as well.

 

[Peace]

I think Apple has a solution to possible decrease in iMac display component costs.
They are supposed to be making a standalone display.

 

[mattspace]

I think Apple has a solution to possible decrease in iMac display component costs.
They are supposed to be making a standalone display.

it (probably) won't be the same panel as the iMac, and you can't guarantee people will buy one.

 

[nerdynerdynerdy]

Are you suggesting that Apple won’t make an iMac without a screen because the profit margin on the screen component is so large that they’ll lose money?

I don’t think they would make such a machine (mini and pro will cover the screenless options) but I doubt there’s massive profiteering going on with the 5k panel.

 

[mattspace]

Are you suggesting that Apple won’t make an iMac without a screen because the profit margin on the screen component is so large that they’ll lose money?

I don’t think they would make such a machine (mini and pro will cover the screenless options) but I doubt there’s massive profiteering going on with the 5k panel.

the screen is probably the most expensive component in it, and given Apple is the only customer for 5k screens (LG's own branded 5k displays are just a rounding error soaking up production overflows), I'd suspect any dramatic drop in iMac sales would make them radically more expensive, given what else LG could be using the production capacity to make.

 

[nerdynerdynerdy]

The Mac mini is evidence that there isn't going to be a big drop in iMac purchases.

If Apple suddenly added a GPU to the mini, would iMac sales drop to the point that LG wouldn't be able to make the panels any more? Doubt it.

Apple customers love the iMac. Nerds on here may no, but the average punters who buy these things love the fact that it's an all in one.

I don't think that Apple would make an iMac sans monitor. But not because it would harm profits, because it makes no sense as a product. The mini and forthcoming Pro cover those options.

 

[Aldaris]

This puts the cart before the horse. I hope Apple would look at the workstation segment as a whole, see that competitors seem to be able to do just fine, and realize their sales stagnation is not due to market disinterest, but their own failure to satisfy the needs of it.

Agreed

 

[vailr]

Apple customers love the iMac. Nerds on here may no, but the average punters who buy these things love the fact that it's an all in one.

Those "iMac lovers" would likely still prefer that access doors were provided, for the end user to at least be able to upgrade memory & SSD storage options, without being locked into paying the extra Apple Tax at the time of initial purchase.

 

[CWallace]

it (probably) won't be the same panel as the iMac, and you can't guarantee people will buy one.

I think it might very well be.

The Apple 24" Cinema Display and 27" Thunderbolt Display used identical panels as those in the iMacs.

As such, I would not be surprised if this rumored 31.5" 6K standalone display is also used in a 2019 "iMac 6K" and 2019 iMac Pro (both replacing the 2017 iMac 5K and 2017 iMac Pro, respectively).

 

[dawindmg08]

*NEW MAC PRO UPDATE*
Stopped by my favorite Apple reseller this week and a little birdie told me to expect new Mac Pros in Q3 this year. Look for a May announcement (which means a one-off press release/announcement, unless they delay it until WWDC in June) with shipments around October. They originally were going to ship in June but there's been a delay. I trust their intel as they sell a lot of product and they're advised in advance about inventory.

No new details other than it's still "modular" and is being positioned as a serious Pro machine, with base model starting at $5k and configs up to $20k fully loaded.

There's also a new Pro monitor coming out, with a 6K display and professional features like calibration, compatible to panels like Boland or FSI.

Also: I made a joke as I was leaving about Apple and Nvidia playing nice again, and they said, "nope. That relationship is dead. And Apple wants to make it's own GPUs."

 

[fuchsdh]

I don't think this is true at all. My bet is that since the Mac Pro is manufactured in the USA by Apple, it's much less likely to get leaked. The reason iPhones get leaked so often is because they're manufactured by a variety of third party companies all across the world.

Not to mention way more people care about iOS products.

Anyhow, given that it seems unlikely the March event will be Mac Pro day, my guess is 60:40 split between WWDC or April round table. So maximum 80 days and counting...

 

[deconstruct60]

it (probably) won't be the same panel as the iMac, and you can't guarantee people will buy one.

iMac maybe not. iMac Pro there is a decent chance. Going with a Ultra Wide panel would allow them more latitude on where to place the CPU and GPU. 3-4 inches to the right ( from rear perspective) and they may be able to squeeze a 'hidden' RAM door back onto it. With some replacement gyrations they might be able to get the soDIMM slots under a door in the middle again.

If they don't care about the RAM door, then can more the CPU and GPU farther apart (which should let them run a bit warmer of increase the overall airflow with bigger inlets. ) . And probably slide in a second 10GbE port if they want. Since left a lot of bandwidth on the floor unused, that's higher utilization of what they are paying for in components anyway ( again spend out thermal load possible with more latitude). If sticking to the "one and only one internal drive" then a second "SAN/NAS" port separate from generic internet port would be useful in more than a few deployments. Or put a "hidden" M.2 drive door so could at least add a working drive. moving the T2 and NAND cards would be easier with more board space (and M.2 would be a smaller door with the bigger output air vent. ) .

If the iMac Pro moves up then they can repurpose the current iMac Pro case for the iMac. Upcoming 'Comet lake' processors are suppose to top out at 10 cores. ( AMD Rzyen is suppose to shoot for 16). Both will probably put the system into the over 100W range when cranking all of the cores hard ... which is the nominal TDP range for the iMac Pro design. iMac Pro's "even bigger" screen helps position it as a more expensive option.

If the iMac is going to jump up into the 6-8 core space, Apple is likely to push the iMac Pro to starting off with 10 cores. ( the price is going up anyway ... at least if stick with Intel. ).

A bit less likely would be for the larger panel to show up at the "big" iMac level with just a bit less. ( less gamut and/or adjustable gamut. Promotion , whatever else they throw on top of the 6k3k panel to tag it with 'Pro'. ), If Apple has volume pricing leverage to push the panel very close to the original 5K panel prices then they could. ( going primarily discrete they have about zero pricing leverage. )

If sold as a typical Apple monitor ( one and only one input and no buttons with software controls in macOS system panel ) the reach is only going to be limited as purely a discrete monitor. On few on non Mac systems are going to buy it. The Mac Pro probably can't drive it by itself either.
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...
Anyhow, given that it seems unlikely the March event will be Mac Pro day, my guess is 60:40 split between WWDC or April round table. So maximum 80 days and counting...

Given nothing in macOS drops in Dec-Janurary (and even Intel not shooting for March) ... March wasn't likely anyway. Those odds are probably at least backwards. 40:60 and probably closer to 25:75 (WWDC:April).

Even if above (#11362) "May" thing is right, they'd still probably say 'something' in April if not a full reveal.

 

[thevault]

*NEW MAC PRO UPDATE*
Stopped by my favorite Apple reseller this week and a little birdie told me to expect new Mac Pros in Q3 this year. Look for a May announcement (which means a one-off press release/announcement, unless they delay it until WWDC in June) with shipments around October. They originally were going to ship in June but there's been a delay. I trust their intel as they sell a lot of product and they're advised in advance about inventory.

Maybe your little birdie is stringing you along until 2020 or 12/1/2019....

I'm waiting until June of 2019...... this is taking way to long for a computer that should of been released already. Apple needs to release something MP in the drab March event.

 

[deconstruct60]

*NEW MAC PRO UPDATE*
Stopped by my favorite Apple reseller this week and a little birdie told me to expect new Mac Pros in Q3 this year. Look for a May announcement (which means a one-off press release/announcement, unless they delay it until WWDC in June) with shipments around October. They originally were going to ship in June but there's been a delay. I trust their intel as they sell a lot of product and they're advised in advance about inventory.

If they were targeting June then the 10.14.xx release that would drop for June to "wrap things up" for 10.14 probably would have hints of Mac Pro buried in them. ( unless the huge slide come a long time ago.)

In terms of a solid production system, releasing the Mac Pro in October probably means would get saddled with the newly minted macOS which isn't good.

Apple has a multimillion dollar auditorium. they could do a 'one ring' Cirque du Soleil show for a Mac Pro , monitor , and perhaps an iMac/iMac Pro for a hard core tech press audience. It wouldn't be that hard.

No new details other than it's still "modular" and is being positioned as a serious Pro machine, with base model starting at $5k and configs up to $20k fully loaded.

Starting at $5K could indicate that they are going to start the base core count high. (e.g., 10 cores ). I think that misses the boat (depends upon what they are doing with the mainstream iMac... if it is going to cover 8 maybe 10 then can see a kneejerk move to count inflation. It isn't necessary but Apple has missed more than few boats along the way over last 4 years. ) . Hopefully, that is the "entry" for what the store wants to stock as oppose to the actual entry point.

There's also a new Pro monitor coming out, with a 6K display and professional features like calibration, compatible to panels like Boland or FSI.

If the scope is being narrowed down to primarily just being a FCPX/LogicX system they should just move to another name. Again hopefully the context of the specific store skewing the feature set here more so than
( some folks here calibration and completely equate with the with programmable LUT. I wouldn't bet on that here. )

Also: I made a joke as I was leaving about Apple and Nvidia playing nice again, and they said, "nope. That relationship is dead. And Apple wants to make it's own GPUs."

To a large extent they do.... 10's of millions per year. Don't want to, actually do. aLthough that is outside the Mac Pro space for the immediate future.
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....

I'm waiting until June of 2019...... this is taking way to long for a computer that should of been released already. Apple needs to release something MP in the drab March event.

The March event is about Web services .... which is way, way, way disconnted from the Mac Pro. For the last two years Apple has done Mac Pro related "pow wows" in April. Most likely it would be April again. Even if the larger Cirque du Soleil show is in May. THey'd use April to " set the stage" for scope what they were going to talk about (and not ship then at that point either. April or May. ) .

 

[Michael Scrip]

This puts the cart before the horse. I hope Apple would look at the workstation segment as a whole, see that competitors seem to be able to do just fine, and realize their sales stagnation is not due to market disinterest, but their own failure to satisfy the needs of it.

Exactly.

Imagine if Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others hadn't updated their workstations since 2013. That would be crazy, right?

And then there's Apple...

 

[thevault]

Apple is a phone, service, Apple TV, Apple Music, ... company. The odd thing is Apple needs content that was created by many MP in the past but the trend since 2012 has been PC's. You would think Tim Crook would have a clue on the Apple ecosystem. Not

 

[wallysb01]

Apple is a phone, service, Apple TV, Apple Music, ... company. The odd thing is Apple needs content that was created by many MP in the past but the trend since 2012 has been PC's. You would think Tim Crook would have a clue on the Apple ecosystem. Not

Its a consumption ecosystem now, not an A -> Z creation to consumption ecosystem. To a degree that's fine. Most cloud computing means steps J -> S are going to be off site no matter what brand computer you use.

 

[dawindmg08]

To a large extent they do.... 10's of millions per year. Don't want to, actually do. aLthough that is outside the Mac Pro space for the immediate future.
.

Are you referring to the graphics chips in iPhones and iPads? If so then yes, obviously they're doing their own thing in that regard. But that's a far cry from producing desktop-grade graphics performance. Still, lots of tech is slowly making it's way from their consumer products into their computers (like the T2 chip) so this isn't a stretch. My guess is that they'll start with the lower-end laptops and work their way up to iMacs with their own Apple desktop GPUs, while keeping the new Pro an open system to allow standard PCIe cards. Making custom GPUs (and limiting upgradability) was one thing that really torpedoed the last Pro model.

 

[chfilm]

So guys, I'm currently sporting a nMP 8core with 64gb and dual D700s. If there'll be a new monster this year I think I'll jump on it. In general I have to say I'm still quite happy with the performance of the trashcan, especially since Adobe Apps which are my daily bread, are still so poorly optimized, especially after effects.
What the system is struggeling with a bit though are the two dell 5k displays that I have hooked up to it. Sometimes, for example in Lightroom, the interface is super sluggish. I'm reading the same about owners of the imac pro though, very little improvement there on the software side, even with superior hardware, so....

The question is, what kind of performance improvements over my current machine do you guys expect? 50%? 100%? I'm kinda unaware how much gpus and cpus have improved over the last 5 years especially in relation to software if you're not into 3d rendering for example.

And what kind of pricetag should I be saving for? I'm mentally preparing for something around 8000-9000 euros... an awful lot of money, but I guess it's what we'll be looking at, right?

 

[barmann]

Its a consumption ecosystem now, not an A -> Z creation to consumption ecosystem.

Well said .

Apple ecosystem , that's not even a thing , it's just a business strategy .
It went from 'It just works' ( Mac ) to 'It only works if you go through us for every little thing' ( iOS, services, App store ) .

 

[thevault]

it's just a business strategy

Brilliant ....

It went from 'It just works' ( Mac ) to 'It only works if you go through us for every little thing' ( iOS, services, App store ) .

Sounds like a closed ecosystem to me....

 

[fuchsdh]

So guys, I'm currently sporting a nMP 8core with 64gb and dual D700s. If there'll be a new monster this year I think I'll jump on it. In general I have to say I'm still quite happy with the performance of the trashcan, especially since Adobe Apps which are my daily bread, are still so poorly optimized, especially after effects.
What the system is struggeling with a bit though are the two dell 5k displays that I have hooked up to it. Sometimes, for example in Lightroom, the interface is super sluggish. I'm reading the same about owners of the imac pro though, very little improvement there on the software side, even with superior hardware, so....

The question is, what kind of performance improvements over my current machine do you guys expect? 50%? 100%? I'm kinda unaware how much gpus and cpus have improved over the last 5 years especially in relation to software if you're not into 3d rendering for example.

And what kind of pricetag should I be saving for? I'm mentally preparing for something around 8000-9000 euros... an awful lot of money, but I guess it's what we'll be looking at, right?

I feel like you should be able to get a system that bests yours decently for less than that sum, especially considering the cumulative updates since the nMP came out. Especially since I imagine the displays and peripherals will just be migrated to the new system.

And yeah, I have the same sentiments about Creative Cloud. It's still hilarious to run into After Effects effects that kill rendering performance randomly, or how the iMacs at my work would demolish renders faster than comparatively beefier rigs just because it wasn't well multithreaded. Or how Premiere and After Effects still freak out and refuse to replace footage if you happen to have it selected somewhere. I guess the best I can say is that it's much better than it once was. After Effects can (mostly!) play audio without buffering to RAM first now!

Apple and companies like Blackmagic that actually work to maxing out hardware performance put Adobe's anemic efforts to shame. And with Creative Cloud subscriptions that's removed a lot of incentive for Adobe to do the necessary overhauls the apps need.

 

[barmann]

The feedback from the folks who were entrenched in not wanting an iMac Pro was probably pretty bad, but highly doubtful that with folks who are not predisposed to be viscerally against the iMac form factor that it was huge failure. The iMac Pro continues to sell at a relatively good clip. In no way is it some huge failure sales wise so as long as Apple was talking to an accurate customer group it extremely was not probably "pretty bad". Most folks don't go out and buy "pretty bad" stuff.

The iMac concept is NOT in any way a choice of form factor .
A form factor is big, small, round , rectangular etc .
The Mac Mini is a possible form factor choice , the iMac is not .

Taking a display and gluing a computer of sorts to its back is a concept which works for some and not at all for others .

I've owned iMacs, worked with them a lot, and I think they are a truely brilliant solution for many uses, and arguably have saved Apple's butt back then .

But they are limited in capabilities and are severely limiting to their users .
Many of which might not care at the time of purchase - because people do buy pretty bad stuff all the time - but quite a few might have regrets when they hit that pretty low ceiling when they start looking for upgrades .