What would you do if apple discontinued the Mac Pro?

[Fesco]

What would you do if Apple discontinued the Mac Pro?

Would you forsake apple forever and change sides or would you just make do with an iMac? Or get a PC for your workstation needs while purchasing an apple laptop on the side? Or none of the above?

 

[r00ky]

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1-Hackintosh

2-Id pay big money for someone to install eSATA capabilities on the iMac.

In that order...

 

[cjoy]

thats a very abstract scenario...

if it happened, it would be a clear signal that apple abandonds its pro grade customers.
I guess I'd go look somewhere else and help revert the dozens of clients and friends I brought to the mac, back to a ecosystem that still values quality and reliability.

the consumers may be better cash cows than demanding prosumers, but it's the tech savvy people and their stance that accounts for a lot of buying choices arround them.

 

[BertyBoy]

I'd buy every Mac Pro I could lay my hands on while the stocks last, the re-sell them over the following 9-12 months. Maybe keep my existing one and a new 12-core.

It could be a moot question - like what would I do if Apple stopped making the PMG5, or PMG4, or Quadra 800, or IIfx. Keep the one you've got and use it for as long as possible. And any software that needs a Mac Pro would go out of development, so we'd be forced onto PCs, or Linux, or real Unix. or iOS, or Android.

 

[goMac]

This is extremely unlikely to happen. It was very unlikely to begin with, but now with the XServe gone, I'd put it into the "nearly impossible" category.

 

[jouster]

[snip]

...the consumers may be better cash cows than demanding prosumers, but it's the tech savvy people and their stance that accounts for a lot of buying choices arround them.

In Apple's case, much better cash cows. Mac Pros are tiny part of Apple's bottom line these days.

Not that I think the Pro is going to disappear.

 

[chrismacguy]

Id buy as many as possible but unlike the OP above, Id use them for the following decade until Apple realised their mistake (They better not go anywhere... I love my FCP 7 rig (MP5,1) - and in 5 years I want to be able to get another one....or six)

 

[WardC]

I think I'm set for the time being with my current machine for at least a few years (unless I decide to upgrade to a 12-core model eventually). But, my 6-core does everything and handles everything I need it to just fine now, and I am not complaining about the speed. I am sure the current Mac Pros will be able to run all Apple operating systems for at least the next 10 years or so, and by then it will be time to upgrade to something better like a 15GHz 64-core quad processor model with 32TB of Solid-State Disk storage....and it will be affordable too!

...and if there is still an iMac by that time it will be like a half-inch thin and have an integrated Retina display and LightPeak 4 Fiber-optic running at 100 gigabits.

 

[dimme]

I would have to find a new forum to read when I get bored at work.

 

[wonderspark]

I'd just build a PC next time around. Now that I've had top-of-the-line in both flavors, I know better than to think one is really better than the other. Each can be outstanding machines.

 

[gglockner]

Good question.

In my case, I'd hold onto my Mac Pro until it was obsolete. At that point, I'd replace it by an iMac + 1-2 cheap Linux servers to use for computation. It would probably cost about the same.

 

[nerdo]

If my Mac Pro starts to die and no more PC parts can keep it alive perhaps switch to windows unless FCP is smoking on the iMacs. Trying to move to Premiere already so why not move back to Windows as well? I don't care really, whatever works.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

That would be lame.

Nothing says "******* you" to the developers that empower Apple's platform, like discontinuing the primary powerhouse they use to create wonderful applications for both OS X and iOS.

-SC

 

[chrismacguy]

If my Mac Pro starts to die and no more PC parts can keep it alive perhaps switch to windows unless FCP is smoking on the iMacs. Trying to move to Premiere already so why not move back to Windows as well? I don't care really, whatever works.

heh - how come your moving to Premiere? (Im a FCP nut... I cant imagine using everything else, and id only switch out of being forced - mainly as I have got far too many Compressor Droplets and FCP addins to migrate across to anything else).. also to the post above about top of the line PCs vs Macs - your right, especially since its what you do with your machine over what you run that matters (Despite OS X being best for Multimedia and UNIX operations over PCs, PCs definitely have the edge in gaming and hardware upgradeability - (Im talking CPUs etc and I know my Pro can go all the way to 12 cores... but you cant do that with an iMac... yet.)

 

[xlii]

Why would Apple abandon the Mac Pro line? They won't unless it no longer is making a profit for them.

 

[Vylen]

Why would Apple abandon the Mac Pro line? They won't unless it no longer is making a profit for them.

It's not like this needs to be asked in this thread... it's a darn hypothetical if... if Apple were to drop the Mac Pro line, what would you do...

Dunno what I'd do though... probably Hackintosh.

 

[WardC]

Seriously? When is a 12-Core Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM going obsolete? That machine could last you ten years if you take care of it and still have enough juice to get through anything you throw at it, even if we are running Mac OS 12 by then.

Until Apple completely drops support for EFI64 you are still OK with that machine.

 

[chrismacguy]

Seriously? When is a 12-Core Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM going obsolete? That machine could last you ten years if you take care of it and still have enough juice to get through anything you throw at it, even if we are running Mac OS 12 by then.

Until Apple completely drops support for EFI64 you are still OK with that machine.

Id be careful - a decade ago it seemed like a G4/450 with 1GB RAM would last that long, and fair enough, with some hacks it can run 10.5.8, but its far from a pleasant experience (This is based on my personal G4/450/1GB with upgrades that isnt a brilliant 10.5 performer).

 

[WardC]

Id be careful - a decade ago it seemed like a G4/450 with 1GB RAM would last that long, and fair enough, with some hacks it can run 10.5.8, but its far from a pleasant experience (This is based on my personal G4/450/1GB with upgrades that isnt a brilliant 10.5 performer).

My G4 Sawtooth which I purchased in 2000 lasted me until 2006 when I purchased a Mac Pro 2.66GHz (6 years), given, I had to upgrade the processor to a 1GHz G4 and I had 1.25GB of RAM installed, and upgraded the hard drive to a 20GB drive.

So ten year may be stretching it. You could still use a G4 even today with 10.5.8 and still be able to surf the web and run Photoshop and iTunes, you see....but the Intel Macs all basically made the G4s obsolete, and the G5s are pretty obsolete by now too, and they are almost ten years old. A five-year-old Intel Mac is not obsolete now, but Apple will eventually drop support for anything but EFI64 and then it will only be Core2Duo or better that will be supported anymore. We are then talking 2007 or later (4 years old or newer)

It might be 2017 or 2018 before some new EFI standard comes around, EFI128, and then all support for EFI64 Macs will eventually be dropped. But we are now speaking Post-Ivy Bridge Haswell and Rockwell processors here...that is probably at least 5 or 6 years off.

 

[lPHONE]

buy stock in Microsoft.

 

[Cynicalone]

I suppose when my current Mac Pro went out of warranty I would begin making plans to move over to a Windows workstation.

Right now there is no way I could move to an iMac.

Windows 7 is not a bad OS but most of my software was purchased for the Mac. And re-buying thousands of dollars in software would be the worst part of the move back to Windows.

 

[toxic]

I'd build a hackintosh and start looking into Linux options. I can't stand to use Windows as my regular OS.

 

[chrismacguy]

My G4 Sawtooth which I purchased in 2000 lasted me until 2006 when I purchased a Mac Pro 2.66GHz (6 years), given, I had to upgrade the processor to a 1GHz G4 and I had 1.25GB of RAM installed, and upgraded the hard drive to a 20GB drive.

So ten year may be stretching it. You could still use a G4 even today with 10.5.8 and still be able to surf the web and run Photoshop and iTunes, you see....but the Intel Macs all basically made the G4s obsolete, and the G5s are pretty obsolete by now too, and they are almost ten years old. A five-year-old Intel Mac is not obsolete now, but Apple will eventually drop support for anything but EFI64 and then it will only be Core2Duo or better that will be supported anymore. We are then talking 2007 or later (4 years old or newer)

It might be 2017 or 2018 before some new EFI standard comes around, EFI128, and then all support for EFI64 Macs will eventually be dropped. But we are now speaking Post-Ivy Bridge Haswell and Rockwell processors here...that is probably at least 5 or 6 years off.

Heh, I know 10years is pushing it, I was just pointing out they will eventually be obsolete. And I have my Sawtooth running 10.5.8 (a 1999 Original), and it really really isnt useable for browsing in 10.5.8 (The only reason I havent upgraded its CPU is I have lots of newer machines so it wasnt necessary) - 10.4.11 or 10.3.9 (iCab) is useable, but I still wouldnt go below a G5 these days. I do hope my Mac Pro will last me until 2016/2017 though as its certainly a dream machine at the moment (Sure its the lowest end model, but still one heck of a jump from my C2D MacBook).

 

[AlphaDogg]

If Apple discontinued the only true "Pro" product remaining, they would be severely chastised by the entire Mac community. They would get terrible emails, a bad reputation on forum sites, etc...

 

[chrismacguy]

If Apple discontinued the only true "Pro" product remaining, they would be severely chastised by the entire Mac community. They would get terrible emails, a bad reputation on forum sites, etc...

And theyd notice a miraculous drop in macbook pro 17" purchases, and possibly 15" as well, as we'd all protest buying a new Mac for a revision or 2.