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MacPro Discontinued in Europe on Mar 1st – Beating the pessimists to the punch!
While this will likely be widely reported as further proof that Apple is ending the MacPro line- to me this reads as, “We’re not going to bother updating to be complaint cause the new one isn’t far away.”
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19 Replies
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Marcus, I agree with you, but I hope they find a way to really differentiate it from the other items in the lineup. iMacs are faster than current MacPros and Mac minis are very nice for the price. Just having some internal slots for expansion doesn’t justify the added cost. Hopefully, they won’t continue to lock down the other products (as far as user upgrades) to make the MacPro “different”.
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I’m not sure why anybody would expect anything less than Dual Proc Xeon (still Sandy Bridge… they are one generation behind). They have no business reason to come out with another variation on an Ivy Bridge Quad i7.
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Agreed. The more time that goes on, and the more that I think about it- the less I think Apple has any radical new concept in mind, but rather that the delay was simply a matter of timing and proper components for a useful update.
Larry Jordan’s blog post on the MacPro from a few days ago included some info I think most people had forgotten about- that Apple PR had clarified and confirmed the content of Tim Cook’s email with NYT reporter David Pogue. Apple PR basically told Pogue – a new MacPro in 2013.
I expect the form factor will change a bit- but I’m no longer expecting earth-shattering- it will still be a tower of some description. And it will still be called the MacPro. Because that name makes sense with the rest of the lineup. MacBookAir/MacBookPro. iMac/MacMini/MacPro.
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“Our Pro customers like you are really important to us,” reads part of Cook’s e-mail. “Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year.”
“Something really great…” might be a tower with revamped internals or it might be Apple’s take on what they think pro customers need (or more importantly don’t need). I mean, after FCP Legend languished for a few years Steve Jobs tried to placate the rumbling masses that the next FCP was going to be “awesome”. For some people it is, for some people it isn’t but I’m pretty sure it caught everyone off guard.
There will always be a need for speed but Apple doesn’t want to play that game anymore (if they did the MacPros wouldn’t be so pitiful, IMO). Off-the-shelf desktops are the new ‘big iron’ rigs, laptops are the new desktop and tablets are the new laptops. I mean, 10yrs ago or so if you wanted to run Smoke, for example, you needed a beefy SGI rig to go with it. Now Smoke will run on laptops. It will run faster on towers (and even faster on tricked out towers) but a beefy tower is no longer a requirement. Users have more freedom to pick hardware that suits there needs and the majority of users don’t need/can’t afford monster towers.
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[Andrew Kimery] “”Something really great…” might be a tower with revamped internals or it might be Apple’s take on what they think pro customers need (or more importantly don’t need).”
It’s MacBook Pro Retina 2.0!
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What about something radical, like Quantum computing?
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[Gary Huff] “It’s MacBook Pro Retina 2.0!”
It will compete with HP’s $6,400 workstation lappie:
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[Marcus Moore] “I expect the form factor will change a bit- but I’m no longer expecting earth-shattering”
I guess it depends on how one defines earth shattering. Given the potential simple fix for compliance one of the reasons Apple may not want to bother is because the change in case design is significant enough to dissuade them from dealing with even minor supply chain changes.
In other words if the case were similar there’d be no big deal making a change they’d have to make anyway. If the case were significantly different there’s no reason to make a change when the parts supply chain is about to change in a major way.
Even if all Apple does is add Thunderbolt and USB3 (which would be significant changes by using Xeon motherboard and GPU integration) and drop optical drive slots and maybe the 4x PCIe slots (replaced by Thunderbolt) that’s going to be a very significant case design change and probably some changes in the internal cooling.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “It will compete with HP’s $6,400 workstation lappie:”
And people complain about the “Apple Tax.”
Major GPU beast for sure though.It does make me wonder if putting that on the motherboard of the Mac Pro replacement might be their Thunderbolt answer.
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There will be a case change, of that I’m pretty darn sure.
I think by “major” I mean a change in the philosophy of the design. I still see a box of given dimensions with PCIe card slots, internal storage options, and upgradable RAM. The box could be smaller, shorter, oriented differently… but it won’t be a radical new configuration.
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