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What would you do if apple discontinued the Mac Pro?

wonderspark said:
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.
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Brilliantly put. I'm on the same page with you.

Frankly as big of a smartphone advocate / enthusiast as I am, Apple has me quite disappointed that they've chosen to be so hyper focused on iOS. After all the company is deep enough to place near equal focus on OS X _and_ iOS.

However Apples become this extremely narcisscistic entity that places a higher priority on grabbing headlines and money. They used to be reasonably well balanced.

I use a computer as a tool for accomplishing the work I do, therefore it's a high priority. I prefer a Mac, have been a long time Mac computer user, and sense it's all slipping away needlessly.
 
Aatos.1 said:
Brilliantly put. I'm on the same page with you.

Frankly as big of a smartphone advocate / enthusiast as I am, Apple has me quite disappointed that they've chosen to be so hyper focused on iOS. After all the company is deep enough to place near equal focus on OS X _and_ iOS.

However Apples become this extremely narcisscistic entity that places a higher priority on grabbing headlines and money. They used to be reasonably well balanced.

I use a computer as a tool for accomplishing the work I do, therefore it's a high priority. I prefer a Mac, have been a long time Mac computer user, and sense it's all slipping away needlessly.
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I don't feel that way at all. I am very happy with both iOS gadgets and OS X machines. I honestly believe that Apple has just been marketing the iOS devices so heavily so that they can grab the new categories while they are still new. I foresee a more balanced approach within the next year or two.
 
If discontinued I would try to sell my 2008 and pick up a 2010 quad or hex, depending on prices.

I don't see them doing this though.
 
Aatos.1 said:
Brilliantly put. I'm on the same page with you.

Frankly as big of a smartphone advocate / enthusiast as I am, Apple has me quite disappointed that they've chosen to be so hyper focused on iOS. After all the company is deep enough to place near equal focus on OS X _and_ iOS.

However Apples become this extremely narcisscistic entity that places a higher priority on grabbing headlines and money. They used to be reasonably well balanced.

I use a computer as a tool for accomplishing the work I do, therefore it's a high priority. I prefer a Mac, have been a long time Mac computer user, and sense it's all slipping away needlessly.
Click to expand...

I don't feel that way at all. The Mac is a product that has been polished over the years, and has reached a pretty stable point. If anything, 10.7 seems to me to be Apple starting to throw the kitchen sink at OS X. Pretty much we have everything we need in 10.6, there isn't much more that needs to be added.

The lack of development on the Mac is a reflection of how stable and polished it is, and how relatively less stable and less polished iOS is.

(Yes, I know this doesn't account for things like the GPU drivers, which are being worked on, but aren't exactly Stevenote worthy or anything.)
 
reopen the thread 'what would you do if apple discontinued the mac pro'?

A few things have happened in the months since this thread was started -
  • Final Cut Pro X has been released, abandoning pro users in favour of consumers
  • OSX Lion has been released, adding several new features to make life simpler for new users
  • dramatically faster mac mini's have been released

I have growing sense of unease that Apple will ditch the mac pro line and try and push the mini as an alternative. I wanted to reopen this thread to see if anyone could come up with any ideas why this wouldn't happen.
 
the mac pro dual hex with 96gb ram can't be replaced by any current mac product.


the mac pro single quad can just about be replaced by the server mini. not quite but almost.


seems to me they may just make hi end mac pros in 2012 .
 
I really like my Mac, but I disagree that the lack of attention on OSX is because it's stable and polished. To reach that label, it would need to play Blu-ray movies and have better GPU options. I can appreciate hyping up "tomorrowland" an all in the name of grabbing those dollars, but I need to live in the present with an eye on the future, not vice versa.

If Apple never made another Mac Pro, I'd use some other tool when my current Mac becomes obsolete. I switched to Mac in 2009, and I can just as easily switch back to PC or whatever else works best for me when I need it.

I guess I just haven't been brainwashed into thinking that Apple is the only choice.
 
Oh no....no Mac Pro?

Won't happen. Apple has "created" the need for speed and performance. Why would they abandon that? Many people will buy a Mac Pro just because they can afford to buy one and have, at least in their own minds, the belief that even if it's more than they need, they want to have it. Never mind the many people that demand high speed and performance for, let's say, video work. I could, however, see Apple changing the overall size/form-factor of the MP, but, only if they can continually increase speed and performance as many applications (and people) require.
 
philipma1957 said:
the mac pro single quad can just about be replaced by the server mini. not quite but almost.


seems to me they may just make hi end mac pros in 2012 .
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Photographers and designers have a requirement for lots of ram and screen surface. I don't see, yet, how the mini would live up to that.
 
thanks guys,

The large amounts of ram and multiple physical processors are the things that the Pro does that other macs don't that I hadn't considered (now that you can daisy chain displays and external drive arrays via thunderbolt). I hope there is enough of a market for these features to warrant the mac pro line, and I think there probably is, although since fcpx I would be surprised at nothing.
 
Having used both a 2010 hex-core Mac Pro and a 2011 2.3 MHz i5 Mac Mini, I agree with the idea that Apple should replace the low-end Mac Pros with Mac Minis, keeping only high-end Mac Pros for the time being and eliminating the whole Mac Pro line in the near future.

As the most powerful CPUs become consuming less and less power, Apple may be able to change the form factor of high-end Mac Pros into that of Mac Minis with the vast storage provided through daisy-chained thunderbolt storage devices. Therefore, the future headless desktop computers are ONLY Mac Mini-like?! All of this becomes possible because SSDs have been becoming cheaper and cheaper and the external data transfer has been becoming faster and faster. If Apple uses SSDs in Minis as it currently does in Airs, then the internal storage expansion of a Mini can be compared with a current Mac Pro since SSDs occupy so little space.

Also, the MacBook Pros will also be eventually replaced by MacBook Airs.

It appears that, in the near future, the Apple computer line-up is: iPad --> MacBook Air --> iMac --> Mac Mini.
 
if Apple abandons the Mac Pro?

Many lesser mac owners are crossovers who USED to be cheap pc owners. they couldn't just jump into a Mac Pro right away without having experience with it.
They just knew somebody who edited a commercial or burned some tracks on one and wanted a taste of that "Apple" experience.

If Apple dumps the Mac Pro, I think it would prove to me why I think it is so hard to get information about new releases out of Apple and I might have to switch software suites accross the board and switch to a pc.

I believe if you are strong and have the best product, you can be open with it.. I mean, I don't see any real threats with the Microsoft platform as far as OS goes. so why keep secrets? Is it to protect the plans which are so great that pc manufacturers could never copy them anyways???
OR is it to manipulate the customers so they can't see how they are being herded into a "consumer level" box... so they blindly walk into a consumer cage which has a Pro-Level gate??????

Is that about where the thinking is on this????

I don't know if I can let FCX convince me of that. Not when I know so much about FCX.... Many Final Cut users also use AE already. Some use AE and Motion. Apple knows the awareness level of its customers. I don't think they are going to abandon the Mac Pro. I do believe they are stuck because the hardware is holding them there. Mac Pros come with great graphics cards and 4 PCI card slots! iMacs with Thunderbolt do not come with PCI slots. I think that Apple has just done a power move by upgrading the rest of the line to really make their platform much more attractive to pc users. They aren't really threatening Adobe or Avid.... they may be helping Adobe, Avid, AND FCP users?

I could be completely blind but Apple will probably come out with a machine which decisively shreds the other machines in performance. As to FCX? who knows. Maybe they are going for a name change and have a competitive pro suite in the pipeline? I don't think the increase in consumer focus should take away from their dedication to the pro-line necessarily. After all, There really isn't a chip that makes sense. Or a chip + motherboard combo which makes sense. It might make much more sense to ramp up for a more impressive delayed release on something better. Just in reading blogs and forums, I get the feeling that many new Mac Pro customers are holding out for their very first Mac Pro. If I can see this, Apple can see this. Apple might know that they really need to change something about the Mac Pro to make it more attractive than a used 2008 dual 2-core. After all, they have had plenty of complaints about thier updates over the past 7 years. Maybe Apple is better at technology than they are at communicating with the public. Maybe they are like that quiet super nerd you get no response from who sits in the corner listening to everyone all day while he works on his secret project at night. Maybe Apple feels it is more effective to drop the curtains and reveail "Tada! We heard all of your sob stories and we listened to each one but if we spent time replying to each of you with words, we wouldn't have had time to get you the XJ9000 Deluxe before 2024 but instead ITS HERE NOW!!!!"

All that said, if they drop the Mac Pro--- I can tell you right now, I'm not going to be working on a laptop or a glorified monitor in the future.
 
Hmmm. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using the Mac-mini form factor for the top-end Mac line. i.e. the top-end Mac would be a mini, but with a high end processor and fast bus. If you need expansion you add it via mini-shaped externals which stack up on top of it, attached via Thunderbolt.

I think that's a possibility that would actually appeal to Apple:
- reduces the complexity of Apple's product line
- makes excellent use of their new Thunderbolt technology.
- it means any expansion (storage, input devices, external GPUs) which can be used with the pro line can also be used with any other Thunderbolt Mac, unlike internal expansion cards; so less market fragmentation.

If you wanted to be completely zany, you could buy a second Mac-mini as an external CPU expansion, for CPU intensive tasks.
 
whooleytoo said:
Hmmm. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using the Mac-mini form factor for the top-end Mac line. i.e. the top-end Mac would be a mini, but with a high end processor and fast bus. If you need expansion you add it via mini-shaped externals which stack up on top of it, attached via Thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

With the right amount of configurable ram, decent graphics and processor speed, it would then be up to the bus speed for external drives and the cost thereof. Seems like this scenario is at least a couple years out to be viable.
 
whooleytoo said:
Hmmm. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using the Mac-mini form factor for the top-end Mac line. i.e. the top-end Mac would be a mini, but with a high end processor and fast bus. If you need expansion you add it via mini-shaped externals which stack up on top of it, attached via Thunderbolt.

I think that's a possibility that would actually appeal to Apple:
- reduces the complexity of Apple's product line
- makes excellent use of their new Thunderbolt technology.
- it means any expansion (storage, input devices, external GPUs) which can be used with the pro line can also be used with any other Thunderbolt Mac, unlike internal expansion cards; so less market fragmentation.

If you wanted to be completely zany, you could buy a second Mac-mini as an external CPU expansion, for CPU intensive tasks.
Click to expand...

Oh come on now. The truth is that a Mac Pro isn't for everybody. That in no way makes a person who wants/needs/appreciates a MP any better or even any more professional than one who doens't want/need/appreciate a MP.

If a more powerful mini would do the job for you then you're not a user who would appreciate a MP. It's as simple as that.

As much as is like my late 2009 mini to have a 2011 top-of-the-line model would in no way offer the advantages that my MP does, even if TBolt externals were added. Put a 2.3GHz cuad and the big video card from a MBP in a mini and you'd have one spectacular mini, but still not close to the functionality of a MP.
 
Tutor1 said:
Throughout history necessity has proved to be the mother of invention. + Maybe, but I doubt it could shred the performance of the world's most underclocked Mac Pro 5,1, when it's turbo boost ratio is DDDDEE or a similarly configured 6,1 Mac Pro.
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I could almost be happy with an iMac or Mini if there were such devices for Thunderbolt to add multiple firewire ports both 400 and 800 as well as SATA or even PCI card slots.

"Pro" does get tossed around sort of wrecklessly and I do it all the time. The entry level Mac Mini is a sick machine.. and you can definitely do pro work on it.

I can still see however the need for a Mac Pro.. I had to really think about this for about a week but when I think of just for audio applications and studios who really have been recording bands for a long time and they've worked their way up building relationships for years and they want to charge people by the hour and deliver emaculate recordings----

Software is amazing these days. Some people probably can and have mastered a hit song using core audio.. maybe many people have..
but I can still see where some people are really going for a very particular sound and they may need proprietary hardware with a lot of bandwidth.. like a single product which uses a pci-card interface and cables from that card to say a rack-mount device.. Some studios have several of these because one wasn't enough..

Now if Thunderbolt can support a box with multiple PCI slots and multiple external drives and extra displays and multiple firewire ports simultaneously.... yeah, I can definitely see the need for Mac Pro disintegrated right before our eyes.
 
I'm sure Apple will keep the Mac Pro even if it wasn't profitable… (which it is)

It's like assuming a luxury car company like Mercedes or BMW will discontinue their S-class and 7-series, respectively, due to poor sales.

The Mac Pro is the flagship product of the Apple lineup; it represents the best in Apple computing performance. Therefore it won't be discontinued.

I'd seriously look at the Mac mini for a case study; between mid 2007 and late 2009 there was one update, a very small one at best. Even the late 2009 update was very minor. Everyone thought, it will be discontinued soon; Apple doesn't care about the Mac mini. Look at where we are now; people are considered it a possible replacement for the formidable Mac Pro!
 
whooleytoo said:
Hmmm. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using the Mac-mini form factor for the top-end Mac line. i.e. the top-end Mac would be a mini, but with a high end processor and fast bus. If you need expansion you add it via mini-shaped externals which stack up on top of it, attached via Thunderbolt.

I think that's a possibility that would actually appeal to Apple:
- reduces the complexity of Apple's product line
- makes excellent use of their new Thunderbolt technology.
- it means any expansion (storage, input devices, external GPUs) which can be used with the pro line can also be used with any other Thunderbolt Mac, unlike internal expansion cards; so less market fragmentation.

If you wanted to be completely zany, you could buy a second Mac-mini as an external CPU expansion, for CPU intensive tasks.
Click to expand...

Except current thunderbolt speeds are limited to the equivalent of 4x PCIe. Powerful components like video cards require 16x PCIe. Thunderbolt isn't fast enough yet to do anything like what you suggest.
 
If the Mac Pro were gone would Cinema displays still have a market? How many spend $599.00 on a Mac mini and then drop $1000.00 on a monitor? Do enough Macbook Pro and Air users buy Cinema monitors to keep Apple making them? I think the loss of Mac Pros would have to many adverse effects throughout Apple's entire line (displays, software, educational sales, etc) to happen anytime soon. Mac Pros make Apple more money than just the sale of the computer itself.
 
No Apple product offers the same level of performance and expandability set by the Mac Pro. It's here to stay
 
I have a older Mac Pro, and really, the biggest reason that I keep it is the 4 disks inside. (And the Blu-Ray burner...) So lots of storage is a big deal to me.

Assuming that ThunderBolt gets a lot of peripherals, I could live with a Mac Mini and a external TB Raid box. And probably an external Blu-ray drive.

Dammit Apple, why do you only offer a quad-core Mini CPU with the Server model, and the graphics card only with the non-server? If I could get a quad-core CPU in a Mini with that graphics card, I would be all over that. That would be a sweet Mac Pro replacement.
 
dont understand people saying that MP need expandability. for me a SSD and a 3TB disc would do fine, if I needed tons of more I would get a thunderbolt external drive.

as a happy MP owner looking to upgrade I wouldnt mind a smaller form factor for next MP. I can see the need for many pcie ports but not for discs.

I say bring Mac Pro Midi and Mac Pro Maxi. :D
 
Keep buying used Macs such as the 6 or 12 core with SSD for several years.

Eventually could transfer to Dell workstations or go back to building my own.

I wouldn't be surprised though if some bright entrepreneur started building something similar.

The question then would then become an OSX licensing issue and Apple's stance on that.
 
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