The Mac Pro has only be very rarely linked to WWDC ( June) announcements. There is no good reason to think it will be highly coupled to this one. The 'clock' on the time to next update for the Mac Pro late 2013 started in late 2013 ... not mid 2013. In June-Sept of 2013 Apple wasn't done with the 2013 model. It is extremely unlikely they started on the next one on or before they shipped.
Yeah, given this stuff won't be shipping for 6 months, the possibility for WWDC is that either:
- Apple announces an update that doesn't support any of this stuff, which confuses everyone.
Not necessarily. If they just speed bumped the GPUs and starting offering "return to the mothership" GPU upgrades for a price. I suspect there would be a decent number of folks who would buy. Especially if the 'wait until 2016" is really toward the end of the first Quarter as opposed to the very beginning.
2Introduces some sort of custom silicon that lets them support this on existing chipsets, which Apple would like because it beats everyone else by more than 6 months but wouldn't like because it's a big custom R&D expenses
Not likely at all. Despite the "can't innovate may ass" declaration about the Mac Pro it is pretty conservative in terms of the internal components. The composition of the components is novel but the actual component choice is hardly bleeding edge. Apple went with 2nd half of tick-tock cycle CPU with more than well known chipset. More than well known GPUs. Mainstream USB controller. Reasonably mature PCIe switch.... etc etc.
Pre-announces a new system, which stalls a lot of sales of current machines, but they value the PR value over the lost revenues.
This makes absolutely no sense at all. None. PR value is something that will increase sales now if not later.
The WWDC 2013 "technology preview" was far more about the end of life for the 2009-2012 design far more than something new. Apple typically stops selling the old model when the new one shipped. Apple was giving notice to those who absolutely needed a "box with slots" that they only had several months to go to get their purchase orders in. The old and new didn't 100% overlap in targeted customer coverage. There was probably a increase bump in 2012 model sales after the announcement before dying back down to whatever deeply repressed levels they were already at. Short term that announcement probably did not hurt sales, it helped them.
A "very late 2015" or "early 2016" update has about the same targeted market as the "late 2013" one. To invoke extra early is only to invoke the Osborne Effect of lost sales. Folks who need a workstation now to get work done who are used to "box with slots" approach as about as likely to bolt to Dell , HP, Lenovo as to wait.
There would be some marginal PR value is were stalling folks from moving to a competitor because they were going to announce something new. I don't see it. If HP , Dell , etc announce have new GPUs now and Apple says ... it will be around 6 months... there is not much upside to that. HP , Dell, etc. have already moved
past Apple on CPU ( Xeon E5 v3 ) and GPUs (newer Pro GPUs last summer and all the mainstream consumer updates that have come since late 2013). What is coming in the next 1-2 months is just how much further behind Apple is if they don't move.
A marginal PR win Apple could do would be a speed bump. A "We are still working on Mac Pro" signal. Where Apple is loosing in PR is that they wonder off and do nothing for 2, 3, 4 years at a time. Is there a full time team working on the Mac Pro at all anymore? Or is it some hobby they do in their spare time? This is a 600+ post thread that is filled with doubts Apple is doing anything. That is a problem.
There is a weak gimmick where Apple in that represses the Mac Pro demand so much that they generate another demand bubble at the next upgrade when then factory output is significantly lower than initial demand. There is another round of folks up late ordering at 3 a.m. (or worse) when the store flips open and months long waits for backorders when order at a normal hour or a day or two later when can test drive the models.
