Mac Pro gets half-assed “update”(marco.org)
marco.org
Mac Pro gets half-assed “update”
http://www.marco.org/2012/06/11/half-assed-mac-pro
308 comments
Our sound guy is PISSED at the lack of update. Seriously, incredibly pissed. I've honestly never seen him this angry before. He'd been counting down the days till WWDC and a long overdue update. There are three major pieces of software he uses on his Mac that he swears by. It sounds like they have all just released or are about to release Windows versions.
I'm beginning to wonder if this is a trend? Apple is clearly focused on iOS and consumer/prosumer and not professional. I certainly don't blame them. Is the future of professionals going to be Windows? Even for lifelong Mac die hards? It seems plausible imo.
I'm beginning to wonder if this is a trend? Apple is clearly focused on iOS and consumer/prosumer and not professional. I certainly don't blame them. Is the future of professionals going to be Windows? Even for lifelong Mac die hards? It seems plausible imo.
My Dad, who is really into video editing and 3D animation, swears by the Mac Pro line. I have been suggesting that he get a fast MacBook Pro, use Thunderbolt with the nice raid box Apple sells, and move on. After the new MacBook Pro hotness and the minor Mac Pro update, I bet he will make the switch.
My world is Linux servers and a MacBook Air (and a good SSH shell on my iPad if I am travelling light) work fine; some local develop using IntelliJ/RubyMine, etc., and good access to servers == happiness. I could personally care less if Apple wants to concentrate on what makes them money.
For people who do professional video, sound, etc., maybe the Windows world is looking better, especially with Adobe's neat Creative Cloud stuff. I am a rank amateur when it comes to video and digital photo post production, and even I am thinking of dropping Final Cut Pro 7 and paying Adobe $50/month for Creative Cloud. I think that Apple has made their intentions clear.
My world is Linux servers and a MacBook Air (and a good SSH shell on my iPad if I am travelling light) work fine; some local develop using IntelliJ/RubyMine, etc., and good access to servers == happiness. I could personally care less if Apple wants to concentrate on what makes them money.
For people who do professional video, sound, etc., maybe the Windows world is looking better, especially with Adobe's neat Creative Cloud stuff. I am a rank amateur when it comes to video and digital photo post production, and even I am thinking of dropping Final Cut Pro 7 and paying Adobe $50/month for Creative Cloud. I think that Apple has made their intentions clear.
I think there are two possible explanations:
1. Marco's pessimistic take that they are clearing through existing inventory in slightly reconfigured and cheaper machines.
2. grecy's comment here that they needed to keep people hooked while they get the real bump out the door.
If the answer is 2, then they really can't wait too long. A few people will be satisfied that they can get 12 cores for $3800, but it's only a stop gap.
My pessimistic gut says Marco is right (see FCPx/exFCP fiasco), but I keep hoping he's wrong. Right now I have too much invested in PCIe in my studio (audio hardware) and might get one of these new 12 core boxes and nurse it along for as long as I can.
Geof
1. Marco's pessimistic take that they are clearing through existing inventory in slightly reconfigured and cheaper machines.
2. grecy's comment here that they needed to keep people hooked while they get the real bump out the door.
If the answer is 2, then they really can't wait too long. A few people will be satisfied that they can get 12 cores for $3800, but it's only a stop gap.
My pessimistic gut says Marco is right (see FCPx/exFCP fiasco), but I keep hoping he's wrong. Right now I have too much invested in PCIe in my studio (audio hardware) and might get one of these new 12 core boxes and nurse it along for as long as I can.
Geof
If I used your logic last year when they did soft bumps to the MacBook Pro after not having a major upgrade since 2010, I would've been shitting my pants thinking they would be dropping the MacBook Pro and only going consumer... which, as we learned today, is not the case.
The Mac Pro is a necessary part of their line for professionals and aren't going anywhere. My guess is next upgrade will be a big overhaul. It will also probably come with Mac Mini upgrades & a complete thunderbolt display selection (which I am waiting for).
EDIT: the upgrade I'm referring to is April 2010 when the MacBook Pro's started using the Intel Core i5 and i7 processers, removed the express slot, etc. That's 2 years and 2 months between major updates AND you could say the 2009 was really the last time it was upgraded THIS much. So 3 years? and you're complaining about 2 which is not abnormal by any means.
The Mac Pro is a necessary part of their line for professionals and aren't going anywhere. My guess is next upgrade will be a big overhaul. It will also probably come with Mac Mini upgrades & a complete thunderbolt display selection (which I am waiting for).
EDIT: the upgrade I'm referring to is April 2010 when the MacBook Pro's started using the Intel Core i5 and i7 processers, removed the express slot, etc. That's 2 years and 2 months between major updates AND you could say the 2009 was really the last time it was upgraded THIS much. So 3 years? and you're complaining about 2 which is not abnormal by any means.
If you're into home recording (who isn't, these days?), this is a huge blow. When your Pro Tools/Cubase/Logic project has 40+ tracks of high resolution audio files and several high quality real-time plugins processing each one of them you really need a lot of CPU power.
I purchased a Thunderbolt display just a couple of months ago. I wanted to use it with my Macbook Air while waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated, feeling that not even Apple could get away with a $1000 display that was not supported by its super expensive high end computer.
I was wrong, apparently. Now I know what it must have felt like to have bought NeXT computers or Betamax VCRs.
I purchased a Thunderbolt display just a couple of months ago. I wanted to use it with my Macbook Air while waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated, feeling that not even Apple could get away with a $1000 display that was not supported by its super expensive high end computer.
I was wrong, apparently. Now I know what it must have felt like to have bought NeXT computers or Betamax VCRs.
Well, if you are banking on OS X as your platform for scientific computing, it seems you have chosen very poorly. I still don't understand why an organization would choose Mac Pros for workstations. That seems to me to be a class of machines where price/performance is very important, and Apple hasn't been very competitive in that area.
I think Apple has done a pretty good thing today. They've politely signaled to the market that they want you to f' off and buy someone else's product in this segment, because you aren't worth the effort anymore.
The money is in iOS and the laptops. And you don't need more than an iMac to develop for iOS or the laptops, so they just can't be bothered to make a workstation anymore. If you are pissed off about this you should investigate Linux or Windows.
I think Apple has done a pretty good thing today. They've politely signaled to the market that they want you to f' off and buy someone else's product in this segment, because you aren't worth the effort anymore.
The money is in iOS and the laptops. And you don't need more than an iMac to develop for iOS or the laptops, so they just can't be bothered to make a workstation anymore. If you are pissed off about this you should investigate Linux or Windows.
At the moment, this feels very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Well, sales are down" or "Sales are such a small percentage of revenue"... that they question keeping the product line around. Given that there haven't been any major updates, yes, sales are down.
I suspect if they hadn't put out a new model of the iPhone since the 3GS, sales of the iPhone would probably decline over the last 2-3 years.
I suspect if they hadn't put out a new model of the iPhone since the 3GS, sales of the iPhone would probably decline over the last 2-3 years.
A souped-up iMac and some sort of thunderbolt 'bay' for expansion cards would serve the pro market, one would think. A large-scale touch display would be on the wish-list as well. That's my complete guess as to where they might be headed. I can't really imagine that Apple is unaware of how important the pro market is to their image, if not the bottom line. Consider the strong ties with Pixar – they must get constant feedback into what a pro setup needs. I'm betting on a big iMac/Pro update in the fall.
I agree this is a lame "update"
But I don't think that means it's dead for certain. Maybe they are having a hard time figuring out if Thunderbolt will go on the gfx card or the motherboard...maybe they are still waiting for a usb 3.0/thunderbolt/ivy bridge chipset from inel?
In fact, I think a "lame" update is a good sign that Apple wants to keep it around, and for whatever reason doesn't have the tech yet to make it much better.
But I don't think that means it's dead for certain. Maybe they are having a hard time figuring out if Thunderbolt will go on the gfx card or the motherboard...maybe they are still waiting for a usb 3.0/thunderbolt/ivy bridge chipset from inel?
In fact, I think a "lame" update is a good sign that Apple wants to keep it around, and for whatever reason doesn't have the tech yet to make it much better.
Has it come to the point that the only way to build a serious Mac rig is a high end hackintosh? I had high hopes as I need a very serious rig for work related stuff, I put off doing soe RMA and other nonsense waiting for this thing... and ... this is it?
Speaking of which, has anyone built a monster hackintosh?
Speaking of which, has anyone built a monster hackintosh?
The Mac Pro clearly isn't on their radar.
That said, a Hackintosh can save you a lot of money if you're looking at the Mac Pro line. It's a crappy solution, for sure. Apple would never bless such a thing, but they don't seem to try and stop it.
That said, a Hackintosh can save you a lot of money if you're looking at the Mac Pro line. It's a crappy solution, for sure. Apple would never bless such a thing, but they don't seem to try and stop it.
The fact is Mac Pro's aren't as profitable as iPads or iPhones. If you were CEO you'd de-prioritise the line as well.
They're not killing off the line altogether probably because it's a less risky market. iPads and iPhones are new, and tomorrow a new phone could kill off iPhone sales over night.
It is pretty shitty to see Apple do this however. I'd love for them to put in the bleeding edge hardware on the line.
They're not killing off the line altogether probably because it's a less risky market. iPads and iPhones are new, and tomorrow a new phone could kill off iPhone sales over night.
It is pretty shitty to see Apple do this however. I'd love for them to put in the bleeding edge hardware on the line.
I suspect that Apple has delayed significant changes to the Mac Pro until desktop Retina displays are ready. Likely there was some snag, and the whole kit (including a Retina capable video subsystem) wasn't ready when originally planned. In that case, a small incremental update is the only option.
I wonder if this is a tacit acceptance of the DIY hackintosh. Has anyone seen hacintoshes used by audio/video pros for production work?
Everything I've read over the last year seems to imply that Apple is losing interest in the pro A/V market in favor of the profitable portable market, instead of keeping both going.
Everything I've read over the last year seems to imply that Apple is losing interest in the pro A/V market in favor of the profitable portable market, instead of keeping both going.
Apple don't update their line, obviously dead. Hmm? Weird conclusion. Tim Cook has come out and said there'll be an update next year: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/11/david-pogue-new-imacs-an...
But the truth is, this is really self-entitled. There's huge iPhone updates on the go (iOS6 and hopefully iPhone 5 later this year), big MacBook Pro updates but that wasn't good enough. Nope, because they didn't cover Marco's chosen line of computers… they're playing a half-assed game.
Buying a computer is a 1:1 deal. You give money, they give computer (and support for a year.) That's it. That's the deal. There is no "we'll forever be in your debt" by Apple. Just because you want something, and you kick and stomp doesn't mean they should do it.
We also don't know why. There could have been a hardware issue holding them up, or a software. We've got no idea on this.
Apple are doing a pretty good job at the moment if you ask me.
But the truth is, this is really self-entitled. There's huge iPhone updates on the go (iOS6 and hopefully iPhone 5 later this year), big MacBook Pro updates but that wasn't good enough. Nope, because they didn't cover Marco's chosen line of computers… they're playing a half-assed game.
Buying a computer is a 1:1 deal. You give money, they give computer (and support for a year.) That's it. That's the deal. There is no "we'll forever be in your debt" by Apple. Just because you want something, and you kick and stomp doesn't mean they should do it.
We also don't know why. There could have been a hardware issue holding them up, or a software. We've got no idea on this.
Apple are doing a pretty good job at the moment if you ask me.
The Mac Pro isn't just for those in the A/V industry. It's for anyone who wants a Mac with more than four cores. No other Mac can do 6+ cores.
The Mac Pro hasn't seen a case update in at least six years. What other Apple product has been neglected like this?
The Mac Pro hasn't seen a case update in at least six years. What other Apple product has been neglected like this?
I do not understand. What is the appropriate use case for a Mac Pro where something equivalent and much cheaper cannot be used?
I don't get it. Why don't they just discontinue the Mac Pro?
Only tangentially related, but what's the consensus on which "ultrabooks" look best to compete with MBP/MBA? I was hoping that Apple would make my choice for me, but I'm underwhelmed.
I'm personally surprised that the Lenovo X1 Carbon hasn't gotten more notice: 14 inch screen, 1600x900, made of carbon fiber, beautiful body, less than 3 lbs, embedded 3G connectivity.
Question marks seem to be battery (I've heard numbers ranging from 3.5 hours to 10 hours) and price (I'd wager around $1200ish?).
Skepticism around the claims of improved sound.
The Samsung Series 9 (also 1600x900, but 13.3 inch screen) also looks solid. Any others out or on the horizon worth noting?
I'm personally surprised that the Lenovo X1 Carbon hasn't gotten more notice: 14 inch screen, 1600x900, made of carbon fiber, beautiful body, less than 3 lbs, embedded 3G connectivity.
Question marks seem to be battery (I've heard numbers ranging from 3.5 hours to 10 hours) and price (I'd wager around $1200ish?).
Skepticism around the claims of improved sound.
The Samsung Series 9 (also 1600x900, but 13.3 inch screen) also looks solid. Any others out or on the horizon worth noting?
It occurs to me that the single biggest complaint about the current update is the lack of processing power in the current MacPro. Why not rig together a box the size of an external drive that contains a dozen core Xeon processor and 64GB of DDR3 RAM? Then you could attatch it to whatever Mac product you were using via Thunderbolt and have all the horsepower you needed. Has any company done this?
I'm curious, why is it not possible to buy pre-configured, off-the-shelf dual or quad CPU PC systems?
I know that you can get dual CPU server motherboards and build your own system, but as far as I know no one sells a pre-built desktop system that looks anything like the Mac Pro (spec-wise).
EDIT: Looks like I was mistaken. You can get high-end PC workstations.
I know that you can get dual CPU server motherboards and build your own system, but as far as I know no one sells a pre-built desktop system that looks anything like the Mac Pro (spec-wise).
EDIT: Looks like I was mistaken. You can get high-end PC workstations.
I was bummed, too, but I can also see why Apple doesn't put as much effort in to the Pros anymore. First off, those machines are meant to have longer lifecycles given their bumped hardware. So when you take that in to account, the biggest piece of tech I can see missing is Thunderbolt, but the Pros are meant to be hooked to bigger things with fibre cards and other Ethernet connected SANs. As for video, being the expandable machine means it will probably have extra GPUs with their own, non-Thunderbolt video cards in, so it's completely erroneous. As for the software updates, Mountain Lion will run just fine, as will the updated versions of the pro apps.
I'd love an update as much as the next guy, but I take solace in the fact that my machine is a little less outdated than it can be, and understand that Apple is smart enough to know where their bread is buttered these days, even if it sucks.
I'd love an update as much as the next guy, but I take solace in the fact that my machine is a little less outdated than it can be, and understand that Apple is smart enough to know where their bread is buttered these days, even if it sucks.
It would be a huge mistake for Apple not to keep the Mac Pro and the core of content creators/developers happy. We want/need a big machine to run OSX and Windows via Parallels, we need 16-32MB+ RAM minimum, We need many cores and lots of memory to do that with minimal problems. We want to run OSX. Where else can you run OSX on powerful hardware that isn't a Mac Pro? Apple better keep this in focus and see it as an investment.
I love my Mac Pro. It is the best desktop I've ever had and what actually got me into Apple products. I can also develop all my Mac/iOS, Android and Windows apps on it, without it I'd need a windows machine again.
The Mac Pro is still key to getting Windows people to switch so they can run it in parallels.
I love my Mac Pro. It is the best desktop I've ever had and what actually got me into Apple products. I can also develop all my Mac/iOS, Android and Windows apps on it, without it I'd need a windows machine again.
The Mac Pro is still key to getting Windows people to switch so they can run it in parallels.
Gonna play devil's advocate for a moment. Disclaimer: I don't work for Apple. I love their products (4 iPhones, 1 iPad, more 3 laptops in the last year, 1 Hackintosh that was an old gaming tower I built 3 years ago and never used till I put OS X on it, which I purchased).
Apple's core revenue sources have changed significantly over the years. Used to be towers were a primary source of revenue. That's most likely no longer true, and hasn't been for a while.
Take into account how much money Apple has to spend on R&D internally for their products. That's not only hardware, its also software support. One thing I've learned in the Hackintosh community is that while there's a lot of hardware that works really well, its a subset of all the hardware out there (chips, mobos, graphics cards, etc). You have to pay special attention to your hardware or getting OS X running is a huge pain in the ass, if impossible. It costs a lot of money to have good programmers to support hardware.
I have to choose to believe that the people at Apple know what they're doing for the benefit of their company. If the internal folks responsible for weighing the scales have found that the amount of revenue earned for cost of development and all for Mac Pros is too narrow, or even negative, then its entirely responsible for them to be phasing out the availability of this product line.
Yeah, lots of people want Mac Pro towers. That includes me. I'd still love to switch out my Hackintosh for a Mac Pro if just for the freedom to freely do software updates without worry. I develop about 50/50 between it and my laptop.
But for Apple, who have proven over and over again that they know where their markets are going, they may be finding little to no value in continuing the Mac Pro line.
A lot of people will counter with the argument that since Apple has so many billions of dollars, its just a drop in the bucket for them to continue Mac Pros. That may be true, but Apple isn't a company like Microsoft. They don't tend to waste billions of dollars on products that go nowhere or have little chance of success. Its true that Apple has had failures (Ping anyone?), but they are very small in comparison to their successes.
Many people reading this may be too young to remember Apple from the late 80's and 90's. They were lost and wandering in the woods. They almost died a few times. I remember going with my mom to get our first Mac in the early 90's and having to pick between 3-4 different models of the same Performa series. They had multiple types of desktops available, including the Performa, Quadra, and others. Their product skews were all over the place.
It wasn't until Jobs came back and brought a laser focus to their product lines that they turned around. He spent the last decade imprinting that way of thought on the entire company. Its vital to their future success, and our enjoyment and the productivity that comes from their products, that it continues. I would like to hope that there is an endemic fear in the company of losing that focus and going back to the Apple of old.
So if Apple has found that the Mac Pro line is no longer worth it, its entirely reasonable that they begin phasing it out. I'm choosing to look forward and see what they're doing next, and how I can use what they're building to make cool, amazing new stuff. Not looking back and complaining that old things I thought were valuable are being taken away.
Apple's core revenue sources have changed significantly over the years. Used to be towers were a primary source of revenue. That's most likely no longer true, and hasn't been for a while.
Take into account how much money Apple has to spend on R&D internally for their products. That's not only hardware, its also software support. One thing I've learned in the Hackintosh community is that while there's a lot of hardware that works really well, its a subset of all the hardware out there (chips, mobos, graphics cards, etc). You have to pay special attention to your hardware or getting OS X running is a huge pain in the ass, if impossible. It costs a lot of money to have good programmers to support hardware.
I have to choose to believe that the people at Apple know what they're doing for the benefit of their company. If the internal folks responsible for weighing the scales have found that the amount of revenue earned for cost of development and all for Mac Pros is too narrow, or even negative, then its entirely responsible for them to be phasing out the availability of this product line.
Yeah, lots of people want Mac Pro towers. That includes me. I'd still love to switch out my Hackintosh for a Mac Pro if just for the freedom to freely do software updates without worry. I develop about 50/50 between it and my laptop.
But for Apple, who have proven over and over again that they know where their markets are going, they may be finding little to no value in continuing the Mac Pro line.
A lot of people will counter with the argument that since Apple has so many billions of dollars, its just a drop in the bucket for them to continue Mac Pros. That may be true, but Apple isn't a company like Microsoft. They don't tend to waste billions of dollars on products that go nowhere or have little chance of success. Its true that Apple has had failures (Ping anyone?), but they are very small in comparison to their successes.
Many people reading this may be too young to remember Apple from the late 80's and 90's. They were lost and wandering in the woods. They almost died a few times. I remember going with my mom to get our first Mac in the early 90's and having to pick between 3-4 different models of the same Performa series. They had multiple types of desktops available, including the Performa, Quadra, and others. Their product skews were all over the place.
It wasn't until Jobs came back and brought a laser focus to their product lines that they turned around. He spent the last decade imprinting that way of thought on the entire company. Its vital to their future success, and our enjoyment and the productivity that comes from their products, that it continues. I would like to hope that there is an endemic fear in the company of losing that focus and going back to the Apple of old.
So if Apple has found that the Mac Pro line is no longer worth it, its entirely reasonable that they begin phasing it out. I'm choosing to look forward and see what they're doing next, and how I can use what they're building to make cool, amazing new stuff. Not looking back and complaining that old things I thought were valuable are being taken away.
Let's say I'm running a post shop and I want to render from After Effects as fast as possible. In normal use, just how much faster will one of these dated Xeons render my comps than the quad-core i7 in a top-of-the-line iMac?
There might be some hope, after all, at least according to David Pogue: "Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013."
2013, really?
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-...
2013, really?
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-...
This isn't surprising. Look at the product wikis and see the comparison of all the hardware. From the mac pro all the way down to the phone. They have been selling overpriced hardware for a very long time.
To be fair.. before the intel switch the hardware was theirs. Now, after the intel switch they're still selling over priced hardware except now it's cheaper for them because they're not using powerpc's anymore, and are now able to reap the benefits of using PC hardware.
To be fair.. before the intel switch the hardware was theirs. Now, after the intel switch they're still selling over priced hardware except now it's cheaper for them because they're not using powerpc's anymore, and are now able to reap the benefits of using PC hardware.
According to David Pogue, "Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013."
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-...
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-...
The upgrade path from a Mac Pro is to a MacBook Pro with external monitor, and external Thunderbolt disk array if you need it.
The fact that Apple keeps hardware and, increasingly, software, so tightly controlled leads to a situation like that of this "new" Mac Pro. If the Apple hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways. Performance would go up and prices would come down.
There are lots of use cases where the user couldn't give a crap about a nice and polished enclosure. You are paying dearly for design you don't need. If you want to pay for design, fine, do so, but to a lot of us it means nothing.
Case in point: We have several workstations setup for Finite Element Analysis of heat and fluid flow. They are dual quad core i965 Extremes. They run overclocked at 4.0GHz with memory overclocked to 2.0GHz. They have 64GB of DDR3. All fluid cooled. Tons of storage as well. They also have dual NVidia graphics cards and sport three 24 inch 1920 x 1200 LCD monitors. Total cost, about $3,500. Including the three monitors and the OS hard drive.
These are monster machines in terms of performance and they still cost less than a Mac Pro. We have three Mac Pro's as well.
I would really like to see Apple open it up. A lot of interesting things could come of it.
Because their hardware is not subject to competitive forces, we will now be stuck with a less-than-desirable incremental update for probably three years, if not more.