Was (is) the Mac Pro a misstep for Apple?

[goMac]

What you say just goes completely against human nature.

Given the millions of people who bought a Wii, I'm not sure it does.

People are inclined to buy new things, but not necessarily better things.

That would be true for what today's mainstream cameras can provide, but within 5-10 years, those cameras will have been advanced more too.

For example, we can probably consider where the edge is today with a ~48MP image (IIRC, where Medium Format backs are at today) but which then very well may have gotten bumped up from 12 to 32 bits per channel, and even before we're starting to push the system through multiple images to stitch together, or a stack of adjustment layers, we're already at roughly ~10x the data processing demands of what we typically would expect to see from a mainstream 12-14MP digital camera.

I'm sure there will be some advancement, but again, with a lot of technology we're bumping up against the limits of human vision. An iPad in 5-10 years is arguably going to be way more powerful than any Mac Pro today, in the same way that a Mac Mini can wallop any Power Mac G4.

Industries that have bounds we're reaching, liking video editing and photography, will eventually be gobbled up by the iPad. I don't necessarily mean the iPad form factor, but more like the iPad could be connected to a display or two and drive the same activity.

I'm pretty sure there will come a day in which camera resolution and color depth advancements will halt because it simply isn't necessary.

Sure, and this is the same issue that's also driving Mac Pro sales down: computer performance continues to improve, and most customer's needs are more than adequately satified with an i5 CPU with 4GB RAM. As such, a larger and larger segment of what we used to call our "Power Users" can now be satisfied with an iMac...heck, even the current Mac mini has more horsepower (by benchmarks) than my current (and ancient) Mac at home right now.

And substitute "Mac Pro" in this paragraph for "DLSR camera" or "video quality" and you'll see what I'm getting at for the Pro markets.

And on the other hand, I can also see this too: an exploitation of technologies to basically "Grand Central Dispatch" (remember that?) farm out the work packages to anonymous boxes somewhere (home .. cloud) to perform the heavy lifting. A big challenges here isn't necessarily going to be the rendering part, but rather the communication & bandwidth part: we're still at the stage where the fastest I/O is still "through" PCI/motherboard to a fast SATA-x Disk/SSD/Array, without passing the data externally, be it either wirelessly to the local "Box in the Closet" or across the Ether to a Cloud host.

And to clarify again, I don't think Thunderbolt is there yet, which is why I'm against the Mac Pro being cut right now. I think everyone over in the Macbook Pro forum talking about Thunderbolt driving a gaming card is a few french fries short of a happy meal. That said, it's not hard to see how Thunderbolt could catch up within 5-10 years.

I'm not sure I see the cloud catching on for a long while. I think pro shops will have dedicated NAS and other network boxes in house to do most of the heavy lifting and storage.

This latter has a particuarly thorny issue in that the bandwidth consumption, bandwidth transfer rates and bandwidth latency all have strong influences on the quality of the user experience...and within the USA, the ISPs haven't driven down the cost of a fast & fat pipe to anywhere within reach of a generic home consumer...more than a full order of magnitude of "value" improvement (cost for bandwidth) is required here before even considering giving it a more serious look. During this period, the solution will remain the pragmatic 'high performance localized system' ... otherwise known as a Mac Pro or PC Workstation.

I totally agree about now not being the time for cloud. I'm not sure there will ever be a "Pro Cloud" in the foreseeable future. Again, I see pro shops mostly adopting network based big iron hardware in house.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Today, 2011, the Thunderbolt connectors have made the Pro line close to useless

Hardly, TB helps to solve the PROBLEM with the iMac & MacBook Pro's & Airs: expandability. TB just increases useability and it was not designed to replace the Mac Pro.

Plus TB is not as fast as compared to PCIe, even though TB speeds will increase, so will the data rate of the PCIe as well with new revisions.

2015: the MacPro will be an antiquated curiosity. Towers will be passe technology. Kids will laugh at what their parents used to get on the internet or organize music in 2005. iPads will be as fast and capable as a 2006 MacPro tower. Mechanical devices within computers will be almost history. Laptops will be rare, and they will look clumsy to the average person. Most all computers will be tablets.

With consumer users, yes. With professionals, no, their needs are much different the what the consumer use or will use in the future.

Just don't see the Pro's using the ipad as their main developing platform, only in a supporting role.

 

[goMac]

Plus TB is not as fast as compared to PCIe, even though TB speeds will increase, so will the data rate of the PCIe as well with new revisions.

Thunderbolt needs to increase in speed to be useful to Pros, no doubt. And let's assume pros can actually make use of PCIe 32x or 64x... But past that? Again, if the content we're working with is reaching limits, the bandwidth we need will reach a limit as well.

I think 5 years from now we're going to start seeing more of an emphasis on portability and energy usage instead of raw horsepower. Again, we're not yet there today. I still do tasks I couldn't do on an iPad. But you can easily see where the industry is going.

If you have heavy rendering tasks, you'll have something like Avid brand hardware on a Thunderbolt or LAN connection doing rendering for you.

 

[sigmadog]

I'm not sure there will ever be a "Pro Cloud" in the foreseeable future. Again, I see pro shops mostly adopting network based big iron hardware in house.

I agree. It's hard to imagine any professional shop that creates proprietary content (whether entertainment based or other) trusting an outside source for processing. The security risks are too high.

I'm just a small fry designer, but I have grave doubts on the wisdom of sending my piddly secret information beyond these office walls. Multiply that anxiety by a hundredfold and you have some sense of the mistrust that many product developers possess. And it's not unjustified paranoia - there are very real reasons to keep product development under heavy lock. This is antithetical to the concept of Cloud.

Edited to add: Can you imagine a company as secretive as Apple trusting outside processing Cloud services in their product development? If they won't do it, why should they expect other pros to do so?

 

[nanofrog]

This latter has a particularly thorny issue in that the bandwidth consumption, bandwidth transfer rates and bandwidth latency all have strong influences on the quality of the user experience...and within the USA, the ISPs haven't driven down the cost of a fast & fat pipe to anywhere within reach of a generic home consumer...more than a full order of magnitude of "value" improvement (cost for bandwidth) is required here before even considering giving it a more serious look. During this period, the solution will remain the pragmatic 'high performance localized system' ... otherwise known as a Mac Pro or PC Workstation.

This is how I see it as well.

Even if ISP band reaches a sufficient level of bandwidth at a price consumers would flock to pay for, there's security issues that would make it a difficult proposition to accept for business users if they would suffer damage if data were to leak publicly.

I totally agree about now not being the time for cloud. I'm not sure there will ever be a "Pro Cloud" in the foreseeable future. Again, I see pro shops mostly adopting network based big iron hardware in house.

For professionals, I don't see it based on two primary factors:

1. ISP bandwidth is too slow and expensive in the US right now (applicable to consumer users as well).
2. Security, particularly as it pertains to Intellectual Property.

I agree. It's hard to imagine any professional shop that creates proprietary content (whether entertainment based or other) trusting an outside source for processing. The security risks are too high.

I'm just a small fry designer, but I have grave doubts on the wisdom of sending my piddly secret information beyond these office walls. Multiply that anxiety by a hundredfold and you have some sense of the mistrust that many product developers possess. And it's not unjustified paranoia - there are very real reasons to keep product development under heavy lock. This is antithetical to the concept of Cloud.

There are definitely security risks, and anyone that gives it some thought would refuse to use the cloud if it involves their Intellectual Property during its creation (may not have even filed Patents/Copyright documents at the time cloud access begins as a means of shortening the development cycle).

Edited to add: Can you imagine a company as secretive as Apple trusting outside processing Cloud services in their product development? If they won't do it, why should they expect other pros to do so?

In Apple's case internally, they would own all of the equipment and have the control to prevent internal data from passing over any unauthorized network (particularly if those running the processes are at the same location as the cloud system - really just a cluster at this point, as it would eliminate outside networking equipment such as an ISP exchange facility).

For outside clients, I'm not sure as they've had some very effective marketing campaigns in the past (could gain independents and SMB users that don't realize the security risks, or worse, convince them that their cloud security is somehow impenetrable, and Apple won't look at it <i.e. those that never read the fine print>).

 

[goMac]

For professionals, I don't see it based on two primary factors:

1. ISP bandwidth is too slow and expensive in the US right now (applicable to consumer users as well).
2. Security, particularly as it pertains to Intellectual Property.

Security is a big one people don't think about. If I delete a file from the cloud, is it really gone? Does Apple have it in a backup somewhere? Is the file backed up at all?

A lot of companies and institutions require being able to delete a file permanently for privacy reasons. Having control of all copies in house is the only way of determining that a file is either alive (and safe) or dead.

 

[damir00]

There are still, and always will be, professionals that need the fastest processing power available...

Those people aren't using Mac Pros.

Mac Pros are nowhere close to "the fastest processing power available".

Those people are using grids and clusters, either in a public cloud in Amazon's closet, or a private cloud in their own institution's closet.

 

[Snowshiro]

I really think you guys are looking at this wrong. Jobs was probably the biggest Mac user at Apple. He invented the machine after all. And what did he have on his desk?

Are you really that deluded?

Firstly, Jobs has never invented anything. Wozniak designed and built all of Apples early gear, and teams of engineers have done so since. Jobs was, right up to the end of his career a salesman. Presumably you haven't read the part in his life story where the young Wozniak's dad wants him to cut Jobs out of Apple because he has no function and does very little. Standing on a stage waving a gadget at the audience and telling them how magic and revolutionary it is, is sales. Pure and simple. Brilliant businessman yes, but he's no techie.

Under Jobs' reign Apple turned its direction squarely towards the casual consumer and non-hardcore Mac user. They continued to crap on the Mac Pro by releasing increasingly lackluster updates, graphics cards that were a generation or two behind current (which for a cutting edge workstation was ridiculous) and at the time of writing now haven't updated it in eons. Now they're even doing it with established industry software such as Final Cut.

Make no mistake, Jobs was interested in profit and consumer gadgets was where he saw it coming from. Nothing shameful in that aside from the fact that he turned his focus away from the Mac just at the time when Microsoft was foundering with Windows Vista. In the Mac's history there was never a better chance to capitalize on their main rivals misjudgment and Jobs never took it. I think, despite all the amazing things he has done for the company, that to me will be the one great regret I have about his time at the top.

As for the idea that "he had a Mac on his desk" so therefore must somehow be dedicated to it. What the heck else do you think he'd have? A PC?

 

[goMac]

Are you really that deluded?

Firstly, Jobs has never invented anything. Wozniak designed and built all of Apples early gear, and teams of engineers have done so since. Jobs was, right up to the end of his career a salesman. Presumably you haven't read the part in his life story where the young Wozniak's dad wants him to cut Jobs out of Apple because he has no function and does very little. Standing on a stage waving a gadget at the audience and telling them how magic and revolutionary it is, is sales. Pure and simple. Brilliant businessman yes, but he's no techie.

Wozniak was never on the Mac team. (Not that he wasn't brilliant.)

Under Jobs' reign Apple turned its direction squarely towards the casual consumer and non-hardcore Mac user. They continued to crap on the Mac Pro by releasing increasingly lackluster updates, graphics cards that were a generation or two behind current (which for a cutting edge workstation was ridiculous) and at the time of writing now haven't updated it in eons. Now they're even doing it with established industry software such as Final Cut.

Steve Jobs was responsible for Apple buying Final Cut in the first place back around the beginning of the decade. If it wasn't for Steve Jobs, FCP7 wouldn't exist.

The Mac Pro, Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, and Power Mac G3 were all introduced by Jobs. Along with Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio and Logic (with Jobs making the buyout decisions where applicable.) Jobs is also responsible for Mac OS X, which was probably the best thing that happened to Pros.

Had Jobs not cared about Pros, he could have continued making Mac OS 9, which was better for consumers than OS X at the time.

Make no mistake, Jobs was interested in profit and consumer gadgets was where he saw it coming from. Nothing shameful in that aside from the fact that he turned his focus away from the Mac just at the time when Microsoft was foundering with Windows Vista. In the Mac's history there was never a better chance to capitalize on their main rivals misjudgment and Jobs never took it. I think, despite all the amazing things he has done for the company, that to me will be the one great regret I have about his time at the top.

I think you're misinformed. All the products you're bemoaning where introduced by Jobs to begin with.

As for the idea that "he had a Mac on his desk" so therefore must somehow be dedicated to it. What the heck else do you think he'd have? A PC?

An iPad?

 

[TennisandMusic]

Wozniak was never on the Mac team. (Not that he wasn't brilliant.)



Steve Jobs was responsible for Apple buying Final Cut in the first place back around the beginning of the decade. If it wasn't for Steve Jobs, FCP7 wouldn't exist.

The Mac Pro, Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, and Power Mac G3 were all introduced by Jobs. Along with Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio and Logic (with Jobs making the buyout decisions where applicable.) Jobs is also responsible for Mac OS X, which was probably the best thing that happened to Pros.

Had Jobs not cared about Pros, he could have continued making Mac OS 9, which was better for consumers than OS X at the time.



I think you're misinformed. All the products you're bemoaning where introduced by Jobs to begin with.



An iPad?

Dude...the guy never said Woz made the Mac. He said he created Apple's "early gear" and "teams of engineers" have made the rest. Those teams of engineers made the mac.

And Jobs never made ANY of the products you are describing. The poster you responded too was correct. Jobs is not an engineer, or even technically minded. He was just a salesperson with good taste. If you don't believe it, go watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsKKQNZG3rE

At 1:54 he talks about a cpu with branch prediction, then states he has no idea what branch prediction is. Here is a guy who has been in the industry at the top of the heap for decades and he doesn't know what branch prediction is? I'll tell you who does know...teenagers in beginning computer engineering courses in college. It's pretty shocking actually. It would be like a purported top chemist not knowing what a bunsen burner is.

Man I love the Apple stuff, but there is no reason to be defensive about Steve Jobs role in the creation of these products. He knew what he wanted to see, but he had no ability to make it. That's why these things are made by large groups of people, and giving one person credit for all of it is silly.

 

[goMac]

Dude...the guy never said Woz made the Mac. He said he created Apple's "early gear" and "teams of engineers" have made the rest. Those teams of engineers made the mac.

And Jobs never made ANY of the products you are describing. The poster you responded too was correct. Jobs is not an engineer, or even technically minded. He was just a salesperson with good taste. If you don't believe it, go watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsKKQNZG3rE

At 1:54 he talks about a cpu with branch prediction, then states he has no idea what branch prediction is. Here is a guy who has been in the industry at the top of the heap for decades and he doesn't know what branch prediction is? I'll tell you who does know...teenagers in beginning computer engineering courses in college. It's pretty shocking actually. It would be like a purported top chemist not knowing what a bunsen burner is.

Man I love the Apple stuff, but there is no reason to be defensive about Steve Jobs role in the creation of these products. He knew what he wanted to see, but he had no ability to make it. That's why these things are made by large groups of people, and giving one person credit for all of it is silly.

I don't understand this entire tangent. As a business man, he had to be responsible for the strategy of both buying out or designing the products, and then marketing, and selling them, right?

I mean, what's the alternative? That Apple marketed and sold Final Cut Studio for 10 years without Steve Jobs knowing, despite him making the decision to buy those products, market those products, and build hardware for those products?

The video you linked me to is of Jobs demoing a Power Mac G5. Did that one slip under his consumer only radar too? He must have been furious when he was told by his staff he had to demo a pro product. Simply furious.

There is this idea that Steve Jobs never cared about Pros or the Mac. People suggesting it either have short memories, or don't really know what's going on. Jobs protected the Mac and Pros for the last 10 years.

If anything, the professional groups at Apple are likely falling victim to infighting with the iOS group. If I had to make a informed guess, I'd say Steve Jobs was probably one of the last defenders of the Mac at Apple, and with him now gone, it gives the iOS execs free reign.

 

[nanofrog]

I don't understand this entire tangent. As a business man, he had to be responsible for the strategy of both buying out or designing the products, and then marketing, and selling them, right?

From a financial POV, sure. For example, FCP was purchased and offered at a lower price than competing software as a means of selling more systems.

From a technical sense (how it actually worked), No. He had an idea of what he wanted in terms of a non-existing product, and had to get others to figure out how to actually create it (delegation), assuming the underlying technology was available.

There is this idea that Steve Jobs never cared about Pros or the Mac. People suggesting it either have short memories, or don't really know what's going on. Jobs protected the Mac and Pros for the last 10 years.

If anything, the professional groups at Apple are likely falling victim to infighting with the iOS group. If I had to make a informed guess, I'd say Steve Jobs was probably one of the last defenders of the Mac at Apple, and with him now gone, it gives the iOS execs free reign.

Ultimately, he answered to the shareholders, so what actually happened in this regard would be moot if it's not in Apple's interest to continue with a particular product.

It was mentioned earlier in another thread that money is like a drug (here), and shareholders can't get enough... Since Apple has been a consistently good performer, they've come to expect that performance to continue like clockwork. So the company will do what they think will generate that income in order to deliver.

 

[goMac]

From a financial POV, sure. For example, FCP was purchased and offered at a lower price than competing software as a means of selling more systems.

From a technical sense (how it actually worked), No. He had an idea of what he wanted in terms of a non-existing product, and had to get others to figure out how to actually create it (delegation), assuming the underlying technology was available.

I don't know if Jobs' technical understanding really mattered as much as people seem to think. Jobs sees a business opportunity, and Jobs hires smart engineers to pursue it.

I'm assuming all the discontent over FCP has been over FCPX. FCP1-7 all seemed to be very good releases, all were presided over by Jobs.

Again, I'm not seeing the "Jobs is anti pro" line of reasoning here. If Jobs was anti pro, Apple would have never bought out FCP, and Apple would have never assigned engineers to it.

Also, if Jobs was anti pro, OS X likely would not exist. Yet OS X's roots come from NeXTStep, which was an operating system targeted only at pros (and was Jobs' brainchild.)

Ultimately, he answered to the shareholders, so what actually happened in this regard would be moot if it's not in Apple's interest to continue with a particular product.

It was mentioned earlier in another thread that money is like a drug (here), and shareholders can't get enough... Since Apple has been a consistently good performer, they've come to expect that performance to continue like clockwork. So the company will do what they think will generate that income in order to deliver.

I'm not sure I understand this either. My response to your first paragraph would be your second paragraph. Apple must answer to the shareholders, yes, but the shareholders don't care as Apple's performance has been so good.

Regardless, shareholders don't determine internal infighting and egos.

 

[malch]

There always have been inventors, and proselytizers... and frankly, as much as we love the former, we'd never hear about 99% of them if the the latter didn't do what they do. There's no point in putting Steve Jobs down just because he couldn't do what Wosniak and others like him were able to do (and it should mean something to Steve-Jobs-haters that Wosniak himself has never felt the need to denigrate what Jobs brought to the table).
Steve Jobs had other skills, very uncanny and uncommon skills, when it came to recognizing what could really make a difference if only it could be done a certain way, marketed a certain way and used a certain way. Surely we can worry about where the Mac Pro is going without putting all the blame on Steve Jobs!

 

[nanofrog]

I don't know if Jobs' technical understanding really mattered as much as people seem to think. Jobs sees a business opportunity, and Jobs hires smart engineers to pursue it.

This was my point; he delegated the actual work to others that had the skills to accomplish the end result. So his personal skills in this regard didn't matter that much IMO either.

His ability to communicate his ideas could cause issues, and I suspect played a role in how he treated various departments/personnel over the years.

I'm not sure I understand this either. My response to your first paragraph would be your second paragraph. Apple must answer to the shareholders, yes, but the shareholders don't care as Apple's performance has been so good.

Regardless, shareholders don't determine internal infighting and egos.

In regards to SJ's responsibility to shareholders, his decisions would be based on that. And since their concern is financial, his decisions would be based on the financial data regardless of how he felt about a product line personally (i.e. if it's in Apple's best interest to dump a product that he had an emotional attachment, he'd dump it).

My previous post had nothing to do with the ego aspect of yours, though that has merit IMO as well, particularly as in-fighting between development groups at Apple has occurred before IIRC.

 

[janstett]

Firstly, Jobs has never invented anything. Wozniak designed and built all of Apples early gear, and teams of engineers have done so since. Jobs was, right up to the end of his career a salesman.

The biography says Jobs was forced out of the Lisa team when the sales disappointed. This was the beginning of the power struggle that would see him ousted by Scully. The Lisa team were a lot of former HP grown ups, as opposed to the team of pirates Jobs would assemble around the Mac.

They exiled him to another building, where work was already underway on the Macintosh -- which at the time was meant to be a very portable, cheap, basic computer for the masses -- nothing at all like the Mac as it was released. He ran the person responsible for the original Mac project out of town and turned the Mac into Lisa 2.0.

 

[zephonic]

Man I love the Apple stuff, but there is no reason to be defensive about Steve Jobs role in the creation of these products. He knew what he wanted to see, but he had no ability to make it. That's why these things are made by large groups of people, and giving one person credit for all of it is silly.

I think SJ's role in ALL of Apple's products of the last 10+ years is very clear.

His unique quality is his sense of aesthetics, and frankly, that is what has made Apple stand out more than anything else. Their technology isn't all that extraordinary, but how they design and implement it makes all the difference.

As for the MacPro, I'm fully prepared to let it go. I can say without any doubt that my '07 iMac is a much better computer than my '09 MacPro. I'll hold on to my iDevices, but unless Apple pulls a rabbit out of the hat I can see a bespoke PC workstation in my future. Hopefully with Linux, but if it has to be Windows, no problem.

 

[Nostromo]

Steve Jobs' sales talent and feel for products that sell is a fact.

But his marketing for the masses went a bit overboard in the end by neglecting the very products that were once his focus: the Mac workstation and professional quality software.

The basic question of the thread makes no sense to me: the Mac Pro/Power Mac was the Mac for many, many years, particularly during the time when the iMac was a poor performer and its screen very bad.

The Mac Pro and the high end has a place in the Mac line-up. Abandoning or neglecting it would not save money for Apple, but threatening its future. Maybe not tomorrow or next year, but 5 to 10 years from now.

Remember, a bit more than ten years ago Apple was close to bankruptcy, and Mac sales were not even considered statistic noise in comparison to PC sales.

OS X is one of the corner stones of the Mac world, and there needs to be a high end machine that shows what OS X can do.

Without a Mac Pro, many of the most ardent users will leave Apple.

So, no, the Mac Pro was not a misstep, it was the step, but letting go of the Pro would be an ultra misstep.

 

[goMac]

This was my point; he delegated the actual work to others that had the skills to accomplish the end result. So his personal skills in this regard didn't matter that much IMO either.

His ability to communicate his ideas could cause issues, and I suspect played a role in how he treated various departments/personnel over the years.

I don't think delegating implies a hands off role. That's why I'm not sure why it's relevant. He's not an engineer, no.

In regards to SJ's responsibility to shareholders, his decisions would be based on that. And since their concern is financial, his decisions would be based on the financial data regardless of how he felt about a product line personally (i.e. if it's in Apple's best interest to dump a product that he had an emotional attachment, he'd dump it).

Legally, yes. In practice? No.

My previous post had nothing to do with the ego aspect of yours, though that has merit IMO as well, particularly as in-fighting between development groups at Apple has occurred before IIRC.

And according to reports, is occurring now between the iOS and Mac groups. But with Jobs gone the balance of power would be shifting.

 

[kendall69]

Is Apple really this stupid?

If Apple dumps the Desktop people will be forced to go to a PC for the hard drives, ram, speed etc. Now if people go to a PC they will have to cross platform all their software. Once that is done there is no going back if Apple calls a mulligan and scream OOOOPS.

Once we go we take or laptop business along with us. So what Apple saved on no desktops, they will lose with us not buying laptops.

Nope sorry Charlie, we ain't gonna buy a boatload of software all over again.

This happened to MYOB, who told Mac people to kiss off and leaving them holding the bag for an accounting program. Everyone went to Accounting Inc, and a few years later MYOB begged mac people to come back crying OOOPS. Well no mac people came back after being left high and dry.

And once again MYOB is getting out of the MAC end of accounting software.

How's that saying go...fool me once......

Come on Apple learn from MYOB.

 

[-hh]

(in response to my comments)

I'm sure there will be some advancement, but again, with a lot of technology we're bumping up against the limits of human vision. An iPad in 5-10 years is arguably going to be way more powerful than any Mac Pro today, in the same way that a Mac Mini can wallop any Power Mac G4.

Sure, but let's consider a 'Retina Display' for the limits of human vision and then apply it to a 27"-30" desktop monitor ... how many megapixels are needed to fill it? The current TB 27" is 2560 by 1440, which is <4MP, and with the display width of 25.7" (including bevel), this is a dpi dot pitch of less than 100dpi. If we run it up to 300dpi, we're now over 30MP on our screen resolution...and very roughly a full order of magnitude increase in demand for GPUs to drive the screen.

Industries that have bounds we're reaching, liking video editing and photography, will eventually be gobbled up by the iPad. I don't necessarily mean the iPad form factor, but more like the iPad could be connected to a display or two and drive the same activity.

I'm pretty sure there will come a day in which camera resolution and color depth advancements will halt because it simply isn't necessary.

Sure, but we're not already there. The current trend is basically being enabled because the level of power that "most people use" (need) is able to be satisfied with tiny mobile systems. What's been interesting is that we've not really seen the new 'killer App' emerge that drives us to new & more powerful iron in awhile. It is IMO unlikely that this is the new normal and not just a lull.

And substitute "Mac Pro" in this paragraph for "DLSR camera" or "video quality" and you'll see what I'm getting at for the Pro markets.

Sure...and that's because there's not been the emergence of the new "Killer" whatever which is what drives demand for higher performance systems.

And to clarify again, I don't think Thunderbolt is there yet, which is why I'm against the Mac Pro being cut right now. I think everyone over in the Macbook Pro forum talking about Thunderbolt driving a gaming card is a few french fries short of a happy meal. That said, it's not hard to see how Thunderbolt could catch up within 5-10 years.

TB does have potential, but its current price point is prohibitive to broader adoption. Why should I buy an iMac for $1500 and a TB array for $1000 when I could just get a Mac Pro (where the array goes internally) for $2500?

Given that the TB chip was incorporated into the rest of the Mac product lines without incurring +$500 (or even +$300) price bumps illustrates that there's ample room for the current prices to come down...hopefully by the 50% or so that it needs for more mainstream adoption.

...oh, and some of us still recall the "External NuBus" adaptor boxes

I'm not sure I see the cloud catching on for a long while. I think pro shops will have dedicated NAS and other network boxes in house to do most of the heavy lifting and storage.

Exactly. The Pros in particular know that the ISPs are holding everyone hostage for bandwidth. Localizing is the appropriate counter-strategy. Personally, I'd watch for a wireless ISP solution to emerge, perhaps using the old VHF television frequencies as a "longer range" WiFi tech.

I totally agree about now not being the time for cloud. I'm not sure there will ever be a "Pro Cloud" in the foreseeable future. Again, I see pro shops mostly adopting network based big iron hardware in house.

Most of these shops probably already have that iron in place. The question is more going to be if TB will be sufficiently compelling ... and competitive ... to be a viable replacement for it during its next upgrade/replacement cycle.


BTW, a slight tangent. I happened to be reading Apple's SEC filing and had an interesting data tidbit fall in my lap:

Bottom of page 30, in the charts that start with "Net Sales by Operating Segment" ... look at "Unit Sales by Product":

Desktops (a)
4,669 M in 2011
and
4,627 M in 2010

...key take-away: that's only a 1% YoY growth rate


-hh

 

[goMac]

Sure, but let's consider a 'Retina Display' for the limits of human vision and then apply it to a 27"-30" desktop monitor ... how many megapixels are needed to fill it? The current TB 27" is 2560 by 1440, which is <4MP, and with the display width of 25.7" (including bevel), this is a dpi dot pitch of less than 100dpi. If we run it up to 300dpi, we're now over 30MP on our screen resolution...and very roughly a full order of magnitude increase in demand for GPUs to drive the screen.

I don't think that's necessarily unreasonable. A card that can support three displays can probably support a single display with three times the density.

Again, I don't think we're quite there yet with iPad hardware (iOS hardware is at dual displays, one 1080p, and one 720p currently), but it's not hard to see within 5 years that wouldn't be difficult.

Sure, but we're not already there. The current trend is basically being enabled because the level of power that "most people use" (need) is able to be satisfied with tiny mobile systems. What's been interesting is that we've not really seen the new 'killer App' emerge that drives us to new & more powerful iron in awhile. It is IMO unlikely that this is the new normal and not just a lull.

There are plenty of big iron apps in audio and video that can soak up all CPU on a 12 core Mac Pro. I don't think that will change, but it's not unreasonable to think that eventually you might have a 36 core helper box you hook to your iPad or have available to you over your network. Kind of like a local cloud. It wouldn't be a Mac, but something specific to your industry.

Again, until these things exist, it's not time to cut the Mac Pro.

Sure...and that's because there's not been the emergence of the new "Killer" whatever which is what drives demand for higher performance systems.

Again, video editing and audio editing take advantage of these high end systems. I really don't think the Mac Pro sales numbers are far off of what the G5 numbers were. It doesn't seem to me that the sales numbers or demand has really changed.

TB does have potential, but its current price point is prohibitive to broader adoption. Why should I buy an iMac for $1500 and a TB array for $1000 when I could just get a Mac Pro (where the array goes internally) for $2500?

Given that the TB chip was incorporated into the rest of the Mac product lines without incurring +$500 (or even +$300) price bumps illustrates that there's ample room for the current prices to come down...hopefully by the 50% or so that it needs for more mainstream adoption.

Price always comes down, and pros care less about it. For me, the bigger deal is that Thunderbolt is just too slow right now.

Bottom of page 30, in the charts that start with "Net Sales by Operating Segment" ... look at "Unit Sales by Product":

Desktops (a)
4,669 M in 2011
and
4,627 M in 2010

...key take-away: that's only a 1% YoY growth rate


-hh

It's interesting... But workstations aren't really a high growth industry. They are a high profit industry though.

(It's more interesting to me that iMacs aren't higher growth.)

 

[-hh]

I don't think that's necessarily unreasonable. A card that can support three displays can probably support a single display with three times the density.

Except the math doesn't work that way: the density operates off of the square of the value. For example, 3 x (4MP displays) = 12MP worth of "graphics demand", whereas (one 4MP * 3^2) = 36MP.

Again, I don't think we're quite there yet with iPad hardware (iOS hardware is at dual displays, one 1080p, and one 720p currently), but it's not hard to see within 5 years that wouldn't be difficult.

Oh, I agree that it will probably be within the realm of the possible, although I wouldn't necessarily call it easy or cheap (or same battery life, etc). While there will continue to be technology improvements, the "No Free Lunch" rule does also have to still apply somewhere too.

There are plenty of big iron apps in audio and video that can soak up all CPU on a 12 core Mac Pro. I don't think that will change, but it's not unreasonable to think that eventually you might have a 36 core helper box you hook to your iPad or have available to you over your network. Kind of like a local cloud. It wouldn't be a Mac, but something specific to your industry.

Again, until these things exist, it's not time to cut the Mac Pro.

Agreed. My hunch is that some enhancements to OS X and TB which would allow the easy building of localized collaborative clusters ... this could facilitate a slimmed down and rackmount Mac Pro as a major change in form factor.

FWIW, if it could even simplify all the way down to a Mac mini as a cluster building block, Apple could address the Mac Pro market with a scaleable system while also reducing their product line from 4 systems (Pro, mini, & two iMacs) to 3 ("clusterable" mini & two iMacs), which is more profitable for them (fewer production lines with increased volume).

But this assumes that Apple is staying in the game. With them opening up OS X Server to virtualization, letting it romp in a non-Apple high performance cluster is less out-of-the-question today.

Again, video editing and audio editing take advantage of these high end systems. I really don't think the Mac Pro sales numbers are far off of what the G5 numbers were. It doesn't seem to me that the sales numbers or demand has really changed.

True, but the rest of the company and market has grown, which makes it a far smaller piece. And when we look at the real high end of the video rendering market, they're already using server farms ... non-Apple hardware based server farms.

Price always comes down, and pros care less about it. For me, the bigger deal is that Thunderbolt is just too slow right now.

Interesting...perhaps what we should be then focusing on for rumors on Mac Pro updates isn't necessarily just the Intel Xeon chips, but perhaps also how the development of a full-optical Thunderbolt is progressing? I'm speculating here, but a lot of the customer angst over the Mac Pro would probably melt away if its next refresh also included a higher performance TB which I'll just arbitrarily label as "TB 2.0".

Given that Intel has been holding the bag on the TB developer's kit, I could be that said bag has a cat in it that Apple doesn't want let loose quite yet.

Maybe Grand Central Dispatch also plays a part ... and OS X 10.8 is code-named Zeller Schwartze Katz (and bad luck for Apple's competitors)

It's interesting... But workstations aren't really a high growth industry. They are a high profit industry though.

(It's more interesting to me that iMacs aren't higher growth.)

True, and what I find interesting is that that flat (1%) growth isn't just the Mac Pro, but includes both the iMac as well as the mini.


-hh

 

[Schismz]

Dude...the guy never said Woz made the Mac. He said he created Apple's "early gear" and "teams of engineers" have made the rest. Those teams of engineers made the mac.

They sure did and Steve Jobs' made the rest of the world give a s*it. I don't know if anybody here remembers the Amiga line of computers, but back in the mid-late 80s they were using some advanced tech for the day, a lot of custom chips and produced highly excellent hardware and a *nix-like (later *nix-based) OS. The Amiga was the basis for the Video Toaster, which was a reasonable low-cost alternative to a Chyron (among many other high-end, very expensive video gear).

Nobody really cared and Commodore died. The joke back in that time was that if Commodore sold fried chicken, their marketing department would've called it "warm dead birds in a paper bag."

In regards to sj's responsibility to shareholders, his decisions would be based on that.

Maybe in theory, but not really. Apple's entire board of directors was comprised of individuals who wouldn't "annoy" Jobs', and would go ahead and green-light whatever he felt like doing. This is itemized out in the 21st century version of Apple, in Isaackson's Jobs' bio. Year by year, as his power grew, anybody who was too annoying to him, was dumped from the BOD.

And since their concern is financial, his decisions would be based on the financial data regardless of how he felt about a product line personally.

You're thinking of Tim Cook maybe, but nothing Steve Jobs ever did was based on a financial bottom line. Products that didn't sell, got axed, but he spent a lot of money and most of his time thinking up cool things that he liked and then doing the work to turn them into products.

Steve Jobs' decision-making process was probably based a lot more on the quality of the acid he did that weekend, rather than any concern for what anybody else wanted. His particular gift was that in addition to having enough hubris to absolutely believe that he knew better than customers did, what they'd want, and had better taste than they did... He usually turned out to be right (except with his cubical obsession that doesn't seem to have panned out to the mass market. He thought cubic, he was wisest).

I'm not very happy with Apple as someone who uses their "professional" products for making a living. As a shareholder in AAPL, I'm pretty thrilled. Apple has paid for my house, a few cars, a lot of toys, and is the reason I can choose interesting things I want to work on, instead of needing to make a living. Go iCrap!!! Yay!

The problem with the Mac Pro is, no matter how poorly its' selling, nevermind all the industries that need a Mac Pro ... Apple itself needs a Mac Pro. Probably 95% of its' technical people are using that machine to make everything else that Apple sells, which does generate a lot of money.

The minute they can kill it, the Mac Pro is gone. But that time isn't right now and probably not for another 2-3 years.

Steve Jobs' wasn't Einstein, or Edison, but he was much more than a glorified salesperson.

 

[xgman]

Maybe Apple should spin the entire "Mac" side of Apple off to a sub company so it can get more attention at the root level.