My wild guess is iPad3, Apple TV3, iPod Shuffle, iOS6, and Mountain Lion.
This.
Unless there is a radical redesign of the Mac Pro, I would not think that anything other than the usual new web page update release that we have seen in recent years. I don't think it will be the same day that ipad 3's go up, but it might. If we don't get some sort of at least pre announcement in March, then I think we can start getting nervous as time goes on.
With a new case re-design, it might even get that. Apple does need to do *
something* during the next 2 Qs, even if that something it to announce Mac Pro is EOL'd. I personally do not think this will happen, I strongly believe that at least one last update will make it out the door.
@decontruct60: I agree with your well-articulated thoughts, and would wish for this to happen. Even a minute of, "Here's the new Mac Pro with a new case, we love and adore and will always support our professional content creators! Shipping in 2 months!" would be a nice re-affirmation of some level of commitment from Apple.
The foundation for my reasoning, all rumors aside, is the fact that Apple itself relies heavily on the Mac Pro internally. Apple still needs it. Every Apple engineer I know, is using a Mac Pro. The reason the Xserve is dead, is because nobody at Apple actually used the boxes for anything. The Apple Store & iTunes store run on Suns, Solaris & Oracle, all tied together with WebObjects (long live NeXTSTEP), the parts of iCloud that live on Apple's server farm, are mostly running HPs & Red Hat Linux enterprise, with a bunch of stuff offloaded to Amazon (yes, really).
Another few years, and Apple won't need the Mac Pro internally anymore. Of course the reasoning is, by the time Apple no longer needs it, neither will we, because throughput/bandwidth on Thunderbolt will have attained some sort of reasonable level, providing an actual alternative (the specs and where it's heading, are excellent. It's ... just not there yet. Another coupla years).
Whether or not there is a new one waiting, nobody except for a small handful of people at the top of food chain, and those involved in the actual design of the new system, know. There *
was* a new Mac Pro ready in 2011, it *
does* have a new case. But then there were no chips from Intel. The incredibly slow/delayed Intel release of the needed Xeons, is pushing the timeline so far out, that at the point the new Mac Pro is released on Sandy Bridge, consumer gear is about a minute away from Ivy Bridge. The "new" high-end systems, are an entire generation behind the consumer gear, basically from launch date. "And... the brand new, entry-level Mac Pro! It's, slower than an iMac." That whole cycle where it took the iMac 12-18 months, to catch up/surpass the low-end MPs, is gone now. <sound of potential market shrinking even more.>
It's reached the point that not only is the Mac Pro a high-end workstation, whose entry-level configs are incredibly overpriced; but it depends on Xeons, which Intel is releasing slower and later, with every iteration. Realistically, this shrinks the potential market even more. When is a Mac Pro cost-effective/competitive with anything else out there? When you buy a high-end version, sometime shortly after the initial release.
Yes, every other workstation manufacturer is in the same Intel boat. It's just that, Apple is a consumer-oriented electronics company with a near-total focus on mobile & portable gear. They don't want to compete in that sector. The only reason the MP is still on life-support loops back to: because Apple needs it internally for their own use.
The single
FACT that I am 100% sure of: if/when the new Mac Pro gets released, it has a case redesign. <-- forward looking statement. No religious wars necessary about how the old case is perfect, I love it too, it's a beautiful piece of industrial art. However, it's gone, and has been gone for a year+ There just aren't any new CPUs to put inside the case quite yet, and shipping it empty, as industrial art, would result in even lower sales. "
NoooOoooOooz, ewe are RONG! The Mac Pro needs a case the size of a house in order to cool it! They can't change it!" Okay, well, they did.
Pardon my ramble, I only ever seem to post here when drunk
tl;dr version: "One more thing... The NEW Mac Pro with a brand new case!" <wiping tears from eyes.> Let's all drink the Koolaid, hold hands, and set the wayback machine to 2006 for at least 60-120 seconds.
