Who is the Mac Pro going to be for?

[k2focus]

Who is the (forthcoming 2019 modular) Mac Pro going to be for...?

Simplest answer is any Mac power user who does not want a laptop, does not want an all-in-one, and does not want the piss poor integrated graphics of the new 2018 Space Grey Mac mini, but also does not want the added expense of an eGPU box nor the performance hit that TB3 imposes on the GPU...

A power user can be defined as anyone who uses a computer for needs beyond the general email / web browsing / media consumption that the vast majority of computer users actually use their computers for...

And in regards to the whole "a Mac Pro is not worth the money over a bespoke PC"...

Let us use the automobile analogy...

I need a daily driver to go from home to work & back, with occasional stops at the grocery...

A Toyota Prius would do those tasks just fine, but a Tesla Roadster would do the same with more panache...

Your argument falls apart though because cars and computers are different. A Tesla might do everything better. A Mac will actually run worse in many cases - especially without Nvidia support.

I get wanting OSX for your daily computer, but when you need power you are probably going to get what runs the best for that specific purpose. I'm not sure that a Mac Pro will ever be able to do that regardless of price.
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I would like a space grey cheese grater, 85% the height of the 2012 cMP with one internal blu-ray burner, 4 TB3 ports and 4 USB A 3.1 ports on the back , 2 of each and a headphone socket on the front. Minimum dual 6 core xenons , 1000W power supply and PCIe 3 slots , 4 of them, with support for both nvidia and AMD GPUs, DDR4 Ram standard 32GB up to 256GB, 10GB ethernet x2. ... did I leave anything out ? Yes, Yes I know why they won't do it but that does not stop me .... oh and ergonomic pads on the handles that dont cut into my hands...

What type of stuff are you doing where you need that?!?!?

 

[macguru9999]

I was thinking of the wider pro market. If you look below you will see what I have, which is fine for me so far, and I would be happy with more of the same, namely one decent graphics card, a large, expandable amount of storage and ram; and the ability to run OS 10.15-10.20 without slow downs. But I am not a video editor, I am a consultant who keeps a large file library and does some data recovery and copying. Video people might need 2 x 2080 video cards and some very fast internal and external storage etc.

 

[Boil]

Who is the (forthcoming 2019 modular) Mac Pro going to be for...?

Simplest answer is any Mac power user who does not want a laptop, does not want an all-in-one, and does not want the piss poor integrated graphics of the new 2018 Space Grey Mac mini, but also does not want the added expense of an eGPU box nor the performance hit that TB3 imposes on the GPU...

A power user can be defined as anyone who uses a computer for needs beyond the general email / web browsing / media consumption that the vast majority of computer users actually use their computers for...

And in regards to the whole "a Mac Pro is not worth the money over a bespoke PC"...

Let us use the automobile analogy...

I need a daily driver to go from home to work & back, with occasional stops at the grocery...

A Toyota Prius would do those tasks just fine, but a Tesla Roadster would do the same with more panache...

Your argument falls apart though because cars and computers are different. A Tesla might do everything better. A Mac will actually run worse in many cases - especially without Nvidia support.

I get wanting OSX for your daily computer, but when you need power you are probably going to get what runs the best for that specific purpose. I'm not sure that a Mac Pro will ever be able to do that regardless of price.

So from reading thru this thread, it really seems like the only answer you will accept is that nobody needs a Mac Pro, because that is your opinion and no other opinions matter...

I would like a space grey cheese grater, 85% the height of the 2012 cMP with one internal blu-ray burner, 4 TB3 ports and 4 USB A 3.1 ports on the back , 2 of each and a headphone socket on the front. Minimum dual 6 core xenons , 1000W power supply and PCIe 3 slots , 4 of them, with support for both nvidia and AMD GPUs, DDR4 Ram standard 32GB up to 256GB, 10GB ethernet x2. ... did I leave anything out ? Yes, Yes I know why they won't do it but that does not stop me .... oh and ergonomic pads on the handles that dont cut into my hands...

What type of stuff are you doing where you need that?!?!?

Aside from the dual CPU sockets (an extra cost to those who only need a single 8C/16T CPU), this is pretty spot on with what a vast majority of Mac Pro users actually want and/or need...[/QUOTE]

 

[k2focus]

So from reading thru this thread, it really seems like the only answer you will accept is that nobody needs a Mac Pro, because that is your opinion and no other opinions matter...

not at all. it also doesn't matter whether i think someone needs one or not. my question is more about who is apple targeting. lots of answers are people saying they want one for their hobby. they can and probably will get one, but there has to be an intended market for apple. i don't see the hobbyist market as who apple is targeting.

 

[mattspace]

not at all. it also doesn't matter whether i think someone needs one or not. my question is more about who is apple targeting. lots of answers are people saying they want one for their hobby. they can and probably will get one, but there has to be an intended market for apple. i don't see the hobbyist market as who apple is targeting.

You have been told clearly and unambiguously - Apple is targeting anyone whose needs or wants are not met by an existing Mac - anyone wanting a machine without a built-in monitor, that has more power than a mac mini.

High performance, and "modular" design.

Thats the intended market. That's it.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Your argument falls apart though because cars and computers are different. A Tesla might do everything better. A Mac will actually run worse in many cases - especially without Nvidia support.

I get wanting OSX for your daily computer, but when you need power you are probably going to get what runs the best for that specific purpose. I'm not sure that a Mac Pro will ever be able to do that regardless of price.
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What type of stuff are you doing where you need that?!?!?

Could be anything. Those are modest requirements for a contemporary workstation.

 

[Nabru50]

How about just 1 PCIe port inside the box for any size GPU, upgradable RAM, internal storage, lots of USB A and USB C/TB3 ports? I'd say that could be the bare minimum to satisfy a lot of people. Anything else (other PCIe cards, optical drives, IO) would just have to be external.

There isn’t some low-hanging fruit first-gen iPhone-like revolution just waiting for Apple to be in the right place at the right time, unfortunately.

I have some low hanging fruit for you. Window 7 is going to stop getting security updates in January of 2020. There are a lot of people still using it, and a large amount of them pledge to never upgrade to Windows 10. This is all anecdotal, but if Apple realizes this and plays their cards right, they could market this thing to Windows 7 users.

IMO Apple really just needs to use the 2019 Mac Pro as a way to lure people to the Apple ecosystem for the first time, and lure BACK the people who have already left. Give them an offer they can't refuse, or else people will skip it.

 

[mattspace]

IMO Apple really just needs to use the 2019 Mac Pro as a way to lure people to the Apple ecosystem for the first time, and lure BACK the people who have already left. Give them an offer they can't refuse, or else people will skip it.

By low hanging fruit, I mean in terms of VR, that Apple wont just magic out some glasses, and graphics hardware to drive them (as a lot of Mac Bloggarati seem to think is inevitable), that will be radically better than the state of the art headsets everywhere else, or will be free of the same scale and power requirement constraints that everyone else needs.

I've previously stated my thoughts that the Mac Pro should be a range - effectively a subbrand within the Mac line - the Macbook (Pro) comes in several physical sizes, as does the iMac - A mini-itx single-slot (core processor), triple slot Single Xeon, as-many-as-possible slot (single or) Dual Xeon range would be amazing, even if it's all in the same case design, the way the Z6 does it...

...but I think that would eat into the iMac's volumes sufficiently that it would mess with component volume discounts, and Tim's favourite product is good numbers on a spreadsheet, which means no matter how much market they could pick up from Windows users, I doubt they'd build lower end towers to do it :/

 

[InuNacho]

IMO Apple really just needs to use the 2019 Mac Pro as a way to lure people to the Apple ecosystem for the first time, and lure BACK the people who have already left. Give them an offer they can't refuse, or else people will skip it.

What, 16 new emojis and new FaceTime Filters in MacOS Cabrillo isn't good enough for you?

 

[Nabru50]

.but I think that would eat into the iMac's volumes sufficiently that it would mess with component volume discounts, and Tim's favourite product is good numbers on a spreadsheet, which means no matter how much market they could pick up from Windows users, I doubt they'd build lower end towers to do it :/

That is really disappointing. It seems more and more evident to me that the form factor is what steer people on the fence into the Windows PC direction. Most Windows users aren't buying AIOs or mini PCs, after all. I'm no analyst, but I feel like the amount of people that Apple can scoop up from the Windows camp with a solid upgradable Mac Pro would be much higher than the people they would lose from the Mac mini and iMac camps.

 

[k2focus]

You have been told clearly and unambiguously - Apple is targeting anyone whose needs or wants are not met by an existing Mac - anyone wanting a machine without a built-in monitor, that has more power than a mac mini.

High performance, and "modular" design.

Thats the intended market. That's it.

I'm really sorry that I hurt your feelings. I truly am, but what you're saying is that it is for people who want to buy it. Ok. Thanks for that insight. You should get a job at a fortune 500s marketing department. Hey guys this product is intended towards those who will buy it. Brilliant.

 

[decafjava]

What, 16 new emojis and new FaceTime Filters in MacOS Cabrillo isn't good enough for you?

I wish people drop this trope already. Every OS update (not just Apple) brings at the very least security updates and a lot of behind the scenes functionality improvements that are not visible to the end user right away.

 

[InuNacho]

I wish people drop this trope already. Every OS update (not just Apple) brings at the very least security updates and a lot of behind the scenes functionality improvements that are not visible to the end user right away.

The joke was more about Apple's updates favoring meaningless junk than actual substance geared for creatives and professional users.

 

[09872738]

I wish people drop this trope already. Every OS update (not just Apple) brings at the very least security updates and a lot of behind the scenes functionality improvements that are not visible to the end user right away.

The ridicule of Apple's "innovations" is more than warranted. Emojis actually MADE it into the change log, which is so incredible laughable.
Pretty much all of what makes Mac OS the best OS has been introduced with Tiger or Leopard. It has actually developed backwards (dull graphics, for example. "Flat Design". Just yikes...).
"Screen Time" and other stuff are rumored to be introduced in the next OS revision. Couldn't be more bored with useless gimmicks like that.

Apple's got a crazy good OS/API and developer toolchain (Cocoa, Swift. Really great stuff). And all what they accomplish with this is dull graphics and "cool" Emojis? Come on... Apple - the new home of heavily underwhelming high achievers....

 

[deconstruct60]

The joke was more about Apple's updates favoring meaningless junk than actual substance geared for creatives and professional users.

...
[doublepost=1556905759][/doublepost]

The ridicule of Apple's "innovations" is more than warranted. Emojis actually MADE it into the change log, which is so incredible laughable.
Pretty much all of what makes Mac OS the best OS has been introduced with Tiger or Leopard.
... .

Here are the videos and summary text from last years WWDC 2018.

Emoji doesn't appear at all.

There is a substantive difference between Apple's Cirque de Soleli "dog and pony" shows and the WWDC State of the Platform talk. Most of what you see in the tech press , the front of Macrumors , and fodder driving the "sky is falling Apple only interested in emoji" threads is primarily driven by the former not the latter. ( the more wide target press/media sites are looking for stuff go generate adveiws and click revenue .... hence talk about things that are at the more superficial user level ... since there are far more of those folks. )

P.S. and the "real pros" that are clinging to Adobe CS6 and other pieces of older, trailing API using software won't see any changes. That is another group that tends to pile on these side threads.

 

[09872738]

...
Emojii doesn't appear at all.

It does, in the official change log: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT209149 (I believe its also in the dev log, if you got a developer account. Notice: I nowhere referred to WWDC...)

 

[mattspace]

I'm really sorry that I hurt your feelings. I truly am, but what you're saying is that it is for people who want to buy it. Ok. Thanks for that insight. You should get a job at a fortune 500s marketing department. Hey guys this product is intended towards those who will buy it. Brilliant.

They’re selling a form-factor. That form factor enables work-capabilities in any number of fields, and component choices, that their existing products and their form factors don’t.

Why is this simple concept such a problem for you?

The “we goofed” meeting was clear that the point of the Mac Pro was to be a machine which was a different form factor to the iMac Pro, for people who needed that - specifically that it was “modular” and upgradable, whatever that will mean.
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That is really disappointing. It seems more and more evident to me that the form factor is what steer people on the fence into the Windows PC direction. Most Windows users aren't buying AIOs or mini PCs, after all. I'm no analyst, but I feel like the amount of people that Apple can scoop up from the Windows camp with a solid upgradable Mac Pro would be much higher than the people they would lose from the Mac mini and iMac camps.

The people they could get, would certainly be from the higher end of the consumer pc market, a reasonable proportion of them will be folks whose primary machine is both their content workstation, and a gaming box. Whether Apple would be happy with a dual-booting customer base (cause no one’s going to seriously game in macOS if they’ve previously been in Windows).

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Here is, IMO, THE most important type of user that apple has completely forgotten about and gets drown out in the thread wars this forum:

ENTHUSIASTS.

We always get drawn into these moronic debates on what is a pro. Half the people think it's some pixar wonk that has a super fast network connection for whom basically a dumb terminal version of a Mac Pro "suffices", and then another faction that states pro's include a far wider array of users (which is the right view BTW).

But it ignores a the more important segment. ENTHUSIASTS.

People do not buy an acura NSX or a Corvette because they are "pro" drivers, they buy the halo because they are ENTHUSIASTS.

And enthusiasts need/want (for them need/want are the same thing, that is key for enthusiasts, no one NEEDs this, it's all WANT) (1) PCI slots. They need/want (2) expandable storage. They need/want (3) expandable memory.

This is the group that has an outsized effect on many others around them. They are influencers. They tinker, or not. They ENTHUSE.

If apple gives enthusiasts those 3 things in a single box, they've got a hit. If they don't, the last remains of that group will be going bye-bye (and a large portion has already hit the road).

 

[Jack Burton]

That would be a successor to the tcmp, and they have already declared that a failure.

It's weird they are still selling the tcmp. At full price, even! Given Apple's moves with Open CL, Open GL, and Nvidia in the past couple of years, I'm a little too skeptical to have hope.

I also feel in my bones that Apple has another great failure left in them. My expectations are at the very bottom of the barrel. If they don't turn out the overpriced, over engineered monstrosity that my pessimist side expects, I will be shocked.

I switched back a few months ago, and I'm really liking it. Took a week or two of getting used to it, but it's just so much faster that I can't see myself going back to Mac any time soon.

I still can't grow to like it. I've bought PCs. I've built them. I've repaired them. I own them now. I still kinda hate them despite the obvious benefits.

 

[AidenShaw]

(and a large portion has already hit the road)

For sure. More than two years since the mea culpa, and *nothing* has happened.

Tim Apple should have locked Phil Schiller, Dan Riccio, and Jony Ive in a room with a Z4, a Z6, and a Z8 - and told them that he'd unlock the door when they came up with a design "like that, but better".

Instead, we're watching a train wreck.

​

 

[DaveP]

Your argument falls apart though because cars and computers are different. A Tesla might do everything better. A Mac will actually run worse in many cases - especially without Nvidia support.

I get wanting OSX for your daily computer, but when you need power you are probably going to get what runs the best for that specific purpose. I'm not sure that a Mac Pro will ever be able to do that regardless of price.

The car analogy is pretty good. A Tesla will actually run worse in many cases, such as when you need repair work done and there is a two month wait. Then it isn't running at all. But regardless it comes down to how an individual is defining better and worse.

It seems that you are unable to get over your own assumptions and needs. For example, you mention Nvidia support. Sure, many potential Mac Pro users care about this, but many don't. You mention that when you "need power" you will likely get what "runs the best". I would agree that is mostly correct. However, these are terms that each individual user will define differently. We all get it, for your specific use cases and opinions you see no need for a Mac Pro. That's fine. But everyone is different.

My wants/needs are a few fast cores and fast IO. GPU is only a small factor and 24 or 32 GB RAM should be plenty. I could go for an iMac, but I'd much prefer two 24" monitors and a little bit of upgradeability would be nice. I'm guessing I'll end up with a mini with an eGPU and an external T3 NVME SSD or two. However, depending on what it is, the new Mac Pro could be an option. If the base model is some 24 core, 64GB RAM, dual GPU powerhouse, then no, I'm not a customer. But if it starts more modestly, then yes, I would likely strongly consider it. My guess is that the base model will start pretty high end, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

And as a Mac developer, another OS is not an option. Neither is a Hackintosh. New releases of Xcode typically require the latest OS updates and the latest Xcode version is typically required to work with the latest iOS releases and devices. So I often need to do macOS updates right away and can't fuss with potentially troublesome updates on a Hackintosh.

So I would say that I "need power" and will likely get what "runs the best" (with some cost consideration), and depending on the Mac Pro offering, that may or may not be a Mac Pro.

 

[09872738]

(...) apple has completely forgotten about and gets drown out in the thread wars this forum:
ENTHUSIASTS.
(..)

Very true.

And let me add another large group: students or, rather, the whole education market. Once Apple's stronghold, now literally not a single product in the lineup any more. Products like the venerable iBook G3 (a.k.a. Clamshell) back in the day.

 

[deconstruct60]

It's weird they are still selling the tcmp. At full price, even!

Not weird for Apple. Two core standard corporate policies are:

1. Don't talk about future products. ( Yes they have deviated from that a bit. Got burnt bad on Air Power , and less so with Home Pod. jury out on Mac Pro )

2. Consistent lifecycle pricing ( no official sales , no "end of yaar" fire sales, no coupon of the week )

The current one is there more so as a placeholder than anything to generate large substatantive revenue. If they took the current on away there would be no Mac Pro to "talk to" (make talking points about ). it would also be extremely likely to be taken as a signal that they have abandoned the Mac Pro. (and/or the iMac Pro the total 'solution' ).

I highly doubt they are deluding themselves that system is holding some folks with current time needs from bolting where the iMac Pro isn't a creditable option. The flurry of band-aids thrown at the 2010-2012 models are probably doing more to keep folks circling the airport than any retention that the current Mac Pro is doing.

Apple generally hates inventory and they probably don't have a huge inventory of Mac Pro around. To keep run rates at factory "high enough" to run a contract though they probably do have higher inventory than they'd like to have lying around. ( there is only so slow can run the factory for base configurations. ). The price isn't dropping because Apple largely passing along inventory costs. ( low demand ... lower supply ... price stays about the same).

Mac sales and revenues have increased every single year since 2014. The folks who are/were baulking at the Mac Pro from then to now aren't bending the balance sheet for the Mac products ( let alone Apple overall). So Apple is not in a time panic to get a course correction out. ( the rest of the Mac line up isn't moving very fast either. So yet again..... slow pace and comatose minor player .... basically status quo over last 4 or so years. )

Given Apple's moves with Open CL, Open GL, and Nvidia in the past couple of years, I'm a little too skeptical to have hope.

OpenCL/OpenGL is a bit of the same "slow motion upgrade" boat. Metal covers those two partially but not completely. What Apple intends for the non-interection parts is danling in the wind ( they could help clean it up at WWDC next month or once again undervalue the software portion of the stack in this Mac Pro space. )

I also feel in my bones that Apple has another great failure left in them.

A premature , rushed attempt to transition the whole Mac product line up to ARM would probably top anything they are about to do with the Mac Pro this year.

 

[Boil]

...and/or the iMac Pro the total 'solution'...

The iMac Pro could very well be the "total solution" for a huge chunk of "pro" users, if a few things were changed...

No attached display, integrated speakers/mic/facetime camera; sell us a new Cinema Display for all that Apple...

Re-engineer the rest into a mini tower with upgradable CPU / RAM / GPU & the ability to add two to four 2.5" SSDs...

That should cover a vast majority of the prosumers / hobbyists / power users / enthusiasts out there...

The xMac that a metric ton butt load of Mac users have wanted forever...?

 

[danwells]

The xMac that a lot of enthusiasts have wanted forever, but that Apple has pledged never to build?

Average profit margins in the PC industry are around 3%! Nobody makes a decent business out of commodity PCs - ask Gateway 2000, Packard Bell, NEC or Zeos - even Dell and HP only make it work by selling servers with 50%+ margins. They need the PCs for companies to hook up to them. Once they have the parts to build the corporate PCs they have to make to sell their servers, they might as well make home PCs as well to get better discounts on shared parts - their profit is on the servers (and expensive workstation lines as well, but the workstations are not a huge market).

There are two other kinds of PC makers, besides companies who are really selling servers. One is (mostly Asian) companies who are content to exist on the tiny margins and huge volume, and make it "work" by building many of their own parts. Asus and Acer make motherboards and probably other internal parts, and sell them to themselves, capturing a little bit of extra profit. Even Lenovo, who has a high-end business with a lot of ThinkPads and a few ThinkStation workstations, has never had a quarter (since becoming a major player in the PC business) with a profit margin over 5%.

Then there are the tiny companies that build a few thousand premium-priced PCs a year, mostly for gamers (Falcon Northwest. They charge sustainable margins and offer fantastic support. Razer is huge by these companies' standards, and sells significantly under 100,000 laptops per year (plus a bunch of peripherals). Puget Systems does the same thing, largely for creative professionals. I'd be amazed if the high-end shops together plus HP's and Dell's high-end workstation business (the real Zs and Precisions, not corporate PCs with a "workstation" label on them) sell a million computers a year combined.

Oh, there's also one company that sells 18 million computers every year at 30%+ margins. They'd be a hundred-billion dollar company by market capitalization on the strength of those computers alone. This computer company would have revenue close to if not in the Fortune 100, yet it makes a profit per system in the range of tiny companies like Puget Systems or Falcon Northwest. This company ships around 10% of personal and business computers sold in the US (closer to 6-7% worldwide), and is usually around the 4th or 5th largest system builder on Earth, yet they make between 50 and 70% of all the profit in the entire personal computer industry. These numbers are rarely seen broken out because this massively overperforming computer company is part of a much larger cell phone manufacturer with a trillion-dollar market cap. They succeed by having a unique operating system that people choose over Windows, and by having nicely designed non-commodity computers that you plug in and they work. Why would that company want to build commodity PCs?