It's all about markets. iPad's market is HUGE. Mac Pro is nothing compared to their post-PC devices.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What is the date of release? When going on sale?
- Thread starter WardC
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's all about markets. iPad's market is HUGE. Mac Pro is nothing compared to their post-PC devices.
FINALLY!!! We find out $$$ on 10/22. ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT!!!
Fingers crossed on price.....
Yep, about time.
I hope the price specs are alongside the current line. Sure cheaper will be nicer BUT, I just hope it's not too far out on the other extreme.
FINALLY!!! We find out $$$ on 10/22. ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT!!!
Fingers crossed on price.....
At the iPad event?
Mari on Mac currently requires nvidia card.
The announce on Mari website clearly states that in mavericks you can run also AMD card and according to real pro customers it will run great. The new os is coming in a couple weeks.
Last edited:
Wonder if we'll be going back to the days of the $3000 Cinema Display, what with the 4K theories.....
Actually in part this is how pro products get treated. Only you are at the wrong end of the lifecycle. When Apple announced the discontinuation of the XServe that was several months in advance. XRaid got dumped without grace period but that caused a ruckus. Implied discontinuation of Final Cut Pro "status quo" was also telegraphed several months before the release. It probably would helped that one if has stated early on that the file/project formats were at an inflection point.
The announce is June is just as much about the discontinuation of the current Mac Pro as it was about the arrival new one. Anyone who absolutely requires several internal SATA bays , legacy PCIe card slots , etc. has had time to get their ducks in a row and buy a Mac Pro in the "old" form factor.
Certainly, Apple had nothing visually new to show for the Mac line up at WWDC ( no iOS devices either. The year up to that point had be particularly devoid of anything innovative). Actually particularly still don't as the iMacs are largely cosmetically the same. At this point, it wouldn't be surprising if the entire 2013 Mac line up was cosmetically the same except for the Mac Pro. Haswell and PCIe SSD bumps all around for everything else (perhaps excluding the classic MBP 13" and 15" if they are allowed to stick around. Just Haswell bumps for them.).
It certainly isn't "vaporware" in the context of them intending to continue to sell new models of the current Mac Pro form factor. Refurbs certainly but new is on its way out.
----------
The Mac Pro needs as $300-500 display option far more than a $4000 option if trying to sell it in significant numbers. For the relatively small volume of $4K for $K market out there now, there are more than enough 3rd parties to fill that for the next year.
Unless Apple completely breaks away from "displays come in iMac sizes" mentality, 4K isn't coming any time soon with an Apple logo. It isn't like folks doing high end reference monitor work now don't commonly attach monitors from non Apple vendors.
Actually hilarious. BMD got their arms twisted into offering AMD support too. Good old Apple, demanding that others use open standards while jamming their own proprietary bandwidth limiting ones down everyone's throats.
Call me when there's computer monitor (or TV even) that isn't multi-stream/multi-link. That is, a 4k monitor that is true 4k in a single stream. And no, current 4k TVs are not single stream at the panel level. They're single stream at the input level, but are using multiple scaled independent streams for the final presentation. For TV viewing this isn't too much of an issue. For computer use, there are definite downsides (not the least of which is latency).
This is news? Apple's been doing things like that on and off since the good ol' days where it had a proprietary connector for monitors. This will continue with them until the sky falls or they actually sell a viable mid-tower to those of us with good monitors that don't need or want thermally constrained (and hardware crippled) iMac or actual workstations, but merely expandability with good speed and reliability.
My money is on the sky falling first.
HD video isn't even single stream so why would there be an expectation that 4K would be? At the wire level both HDMI and DisplayPort have multiple channels being used to move data ( 3 and 4 respectively ) . The single "stream" / "link" you are talking about is a virtual layer not a physical one.
Latency isn't a problem with the parallel data transfers now so not sure what major latency difference 4K brings (other than just poor specific implementations). If the data is dropped onto the network in parallel and pulled off that way latency isn't going to be an issue.
There are no Apple proprietary monitor connect issues involved here at all.
How Apple hooks Apple custom boards to each other is inherentially proprietary. That has very liitle to do with hooking devices from multiple vendors together with open standards or using open standards at API to general purpose functionality.
It's a physical layer. Current 4k monitors divide the screen into four independent imagages which are synchronized. It is not a single image stream. Multiple channels (which is what you are describing) can form a single stream. That is how HDMI works. 4k monitors utilize four independent streams brought together as a single final image by processing at the monitor end.
The latency has nothing to do with parallel data, it has to do with the amount of data and the way it is handled and must be processed by the monitor. As mentioned above, you're processing four times the amount of data compared to a 1920x1080 signal which itself is already a four channel ARGB8888 (8-bit R/G/B/Alpha), meaning you're processing sixteen channels worth of data at the monitor end. That's where the latency comes from.
Thunderbolt didn't become a "standard" right away. It was effectively proprietary as only Apple devices had it at first. USB started the same way (ironically both were created by Intel). Apple's old monitor connector was proprietary as well and required adapters that didn't always work if you wanted to use third party displays years ago. It wasn't until they were forced to finally adhere to VESA standards that those connections went away.
Then there's Apple's iPad/iPod docking connector and the current "Lightning" connector, both proprietary (and yes other tablet manufacturers are guilty of this and Samsung is really guilty of this since their micro USB connectors on their phones are wired differently than that of most others).
You can't make a thunderbolt anything without an Intel chip. Then it needs to get intel certified.
So even if some clever party figured out a way to make a PCIE card that offered TB to existing Mac Pros it would get blocked by Intel during certification and Apple by driver issues. (Like the OpenCl 2gb limit to keep better cards from outperforming 5870 & q4000)
THAT is what I mean by proprietary. To push future sales, those 2 companies are going to make damn sure there isn't a cheap and easy retrofit.
Apple owned the name "Thunderbolt" but licensed it back to Intel. Kissing cousins.
So even if some clever party figured out a way to make a PCIE card that offered TB to existing Mac Pros it would get blocked by Intel during certification and Apple by driver issues. (Like the OpenCl 2gb limit to keep better cards from outperforming 5870 & q4000)
THAT is what I mean by proprietary. To push future sales, those 2 companies are going to make damn sure there isn't a cheap and easy retrofit.
Apple owned the name "Thunderbolt" but licensed it back to Intel. Kissing cousins.
So lack of synchronization can be a problem but that is not latency. What I'm pointing out is that the current delivery systems chop data into subsets now and deliver now without latency problems. 4K doesn't particular change any of that into requiring a removing that synchronizing aspect of part of the solution.
Right now there is more "glue" required in the targeted displays in that they have to able to walk and chew gum at the same time to get all 4 subsets up and synchronized... but even if the abstraction will eventually be a bit more uniform above the abstraction line the implementions are just as likely to be chopped up into multiple subsets are they are now. Simply because it is more effective to implement because synchronization isn't all that hard and latency isn't an issue.
Latency is measured in time ( seconds , microseconds, nanoseconds). The amount of data is measured in bytes ( MB , GB , TB ). The units are not correct. It isn't about bytes.
Which you may be confusing is bandwidth ( MB/s , GB/s ) or cycle/refresh time ( Hz GHz, ). Those aren't time/seconds either.
Latency the gap between the request and that time start to get data going though. You can decrease latency by sending back multiple streams of answers. The arrival of the first of every one of those "substreams" does arrive quicker.
If you are on about that some 4K display are stuck 30Hz refresh rates. That is bandwidth/refresh issue not latency. And frankly, yes more channels are part of the typical solution for that . DisplayPort v1.2 with 4 channels can do 60Hz 4K now while HDMI is impeded from 60Hz 4K in part due to only having 3 data channels. Sure you can crank up the bandwidth of the 3 to match the what the 4 can do now .... but both of them are in the more than one channel zone. So the notion that the data is broken up into subsets as being some root cause latency issue doesn't make any sense.
It had a specification and compliance test process to navigate. Broad acceptance right away? No. Something to be implemented and compiled with? Yes.
It is proprietary because Intel is sole implementer and specifier. Apple doesn't particularly have much to do with that characterization. One adopter/customer doesn't make something proprietary. That says alot more about the design cycles and decision making processes of the adopter/customers than anything about the standard.
I've seen lots of hand waving about Apple "made" everyone else wait. There is little hard evidence that is true.
There wasn't anything particular about VESA electrical/transmission standards that Apple was stepping on. It was bundling non VESA data/function into a single connector that was different. This time they didn't unilaterally do that. Intel did the implementation. They picked an existing socket implementation to derive an alternative electrical signalling protocol from.
And drifting far away from the new Mac Pro at this point. The iPod at 70% ( formerly even higher than that) of the "mp3 player" industry is a defacto industry. x86 isn't an open standard either. Dominating the market this even brought up as an issue much anymore.
Anybody seen anything official beyond the rumored 10/22 date?
I have seen the blog article. But if the date is 10/22 for the new iPad's with everybody thinking the new MacPro's will be announced at the same time, you think with 10 days to go, there would be an official invite sent out by Apple by now.
I have seen the blog article. But if the date is 10/22 for the new iPad's with everybody thinking the new MacPro's will be announced at the same time, you think with 10 days to go, there would be an official invite sent out by Apple by now.
Official? No. Official isn't going to come before the invite to talk about official does.
Not really. Recently, Sept 3. invite for Sept. 10 dog and pony show.
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/03/apple-issues-invitations-for-september-10-media-event/
The reality there is Apple has likely whispered in the ear of the press that they want to come that may/may not have issues with buying short term advance plane tickets. The rest, they don't care..... it isn't like there are going to be empty press seats or less TV satellite trucks rolling up. Quite likely doing this at either Apple's "town hall" (with limited space) or have drummed up enough whisper campaign demand to fill something else (theater in San Jose again? ).
Most major media/news orgs have either reporters or stringers based in the SF Bay Area or a reasonable plane flight away from the Bay Area. 7 day heads up they can fill the seats. If Apple does a streaming broadcast the coverage is actually quite high also. A longer ramp doesn't really increase coverage in any significant way.
Last edited:
Not sure how I missed this editorial last year, but it predicts everything that has happened up to this point, with remarkable dexterity:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/27/editorial-what-will-apple-do-with-the-macintosh
The PC market is shrinking and many of those who were buying the Mac Pro, switched over to smaller devices years ago. It appears this is apples attempt to win them back over to desktop land. If this group bites and is larger than the 'I need slots' group, Mac Pro sales may indeed go up.
OK...I am back again.
I think we won't know anything until October 22nd. I believe that Apple will be announcing the Mac Pro's release on October 22nd at their media event. I am pretty sure about this. By then, and after the event we should know the exact release date and the pricing model for the new Mac Pro.
There was a story on MacRumors about the October 22nd event mentioning a showcase of the new Mac Pro. I believe that Apple will be officially announcing the release date (May be going on sale immediately), along with the pricing.
FOR SURE, we will know more, come OCT. 22ND,
Until then...hold tight and pray.
I think we won't know anything until October 22nd. I believe that Apple will be announcing the Mac Pro's release on October 22nd at their media event. I am pretty sure about this. By then, and after the event we should know the exact release date and the pricing model for the new Mac Pro.
There was a story on MacRumors about the October 22nd event mentioning a showcase of the new Mac Pro. I believe that Apple will be officially announcing the release date (May be going on sale immediately), along with the pricing.
FOR SURE, we will know more, come OCT. 22ND,
Until then...hold tight and pray.
Everyone missed this editorial last year. it only came out this year
" .. Saturday, April 27, 2013, 11:18 am PT (02:18 pm ET) ... "
part of the dexterity is only being about 6 months old.
Other parts are just still highly questionable.
" Apple had little chance wooing its way into many enterprise or government environments. Today, thanks to rapid adoption of iOS devices, Apple now has the ability to enter doors that were once locked up tight for anything other than Windows machines. ..."
BYOD is wooing its way into enterprise and government environments. Apple rides that wave but a dramatically smaller number of employees are going to do BYOD in the PC context. The expectation is still primarily that the company buys/provision that.
Desktop land in Mac space is owned (like over 70% ) by the iMac.
Apple shifting the iMac price zone down a couple hundred so that Mac Pro could eventually operate closer to the $2K border would do more to stop the "bleed" that Apple is caught in right now than to charge higher into desktop market penetration.
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/0...ter-as-tablets-continue-to-eat-into-pc-sales/
Apple's numbers in Q4 will probably bounce up but that is primarily because the Q4 2012 numbers were so bad with the iMac effectively withdrawn from the market for almost 2/3 of that period. Won't be surprised if Apple spins the Osborne Effect depressed Mac Pro numbers to spin a bloated sales jump for the upcoming new Mac Pros also.