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John Siracusa perspective on Mac Pro Successor
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[Michael Hancock] “They had advertisements about their G5 workstations claiming they were the fasted personal computers in the world. “
I will have to try and find the thread from a couple of years ago. We have talked about all these examples including this one.
Can Apple say the same today? There are many unsubstantiated claims made in marketing.
If we are going to use history as an example, I will ask you these questions:
Do you remember when Apple introduced their version of intel CPU machines?
Do you remember which computers came first and what came later?
What do you think Apple was waiting for back then?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “They do not deliver the fastEST work stations nor do they care about having the fastest clock speeds, number of cores, number of PCI slots, number of RAM compartments, etc. Look at the current i7 offerings for proof.”
One factor here is changing demand, and an unchanging Mac Pro design. The 2006-2010 Mac Pros didn’t have the most slots, but they had enough for most of us. GPGPU wasn’t around yet. It wasn’t until 2011 or so that 4 slots started feeling really restrictive.
But I’ll agree with your point: Apple’s current lineup demonstrates that they are not in the performance/expansion game. So I’ll ask again: what is the point of a Mac Pro successor if not to get back into that game?
I guess my mixed-metaphor point is this: in the moon race, Apple is the hare, but the tortoises have their running sneakers on.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “So I’ll ask again: what is the point of a Mac Pro successor if not to get back into that game?”
So, you think that when a new MacPro comes out, it will be the cream of the crop of personal computers beating out the HP Z800 series, or something like a ProMax One on features? They won’t be in the speed game, they will be in the, “We have a new product for our customers” game.
If Apple did release a MacPro with Thunderbolt, you think that it wouldn’t sell?
Jeremy
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[Walter Soyka] “That said, I do understand your thinking here. I’ll assume you’re correct. The thing is — I don’t care what’s good for Apple. I care what’s good for me (an Apple customer). I also like to think that Apple cares what’s good for me (an Apple customer).”
Apple knows that you care about Thunderbolt and USB3 in your MacPro.
Apple knows that you care about being frugal and wouldn’t dream of selling you a computer without the above only to have to replace it as you buy all these peripherals to use with your other Macs.
😉[Walter Soyka] “There is always something newer and better around the corner. Why not wait until optical Thunderbolt comes out? If you’re going to wait that long, why not optical Thunderbolt 2.0?”
Apple knows you care very much about Thunderbolt 2.0 and that you will care enough to buy another MacPro in two years to get it. Apple knows you will care so much that you will update your MacPro like you update your iPhone every two years. Apple knows you will no longer care about being frugal at that point.
😉[Walter Soyka] “For the embarrassment of riches from Apple in the consumer space and professional portable space, the gaping hole in their professional lineup — and looking at recent history, the specter of holes like this appearing again and again — is hugely unsettling for a business built on high-powered Apple hardware.”
Apple knows you care about having to buy only one Pegasus Raid and AJA IO XT and use it with all your computers including your MacPro. Apple knows you care about not having to buy one set of devices for their laptops and all-in-ones and another big expense just for your MacPro devices. Apple knows you care about peripheral usability across their ecosystem.
Apple knows what you care about as they have told what is important. Apple knows care not for waiting so they give you baubles like iPad Mini while you wait patiently for the MacPro you care about.
😉The funny thing about it is that they might actually be right or many more of us would be buying HP Z series workstations.
Apple even knows that you care so much about Thunderbolt some of you went out and built Hackintoshes with Asus motherboards or might even be using Windows and that you will care very much that you can use those devices with Macs when Apple comes out with the only Xeon based computer with Thunderbolt.
😉 -
Apple could release a rounded glass box full of air, and as long as it had a finely etched Apple on it, thousands of suckers (I mean seekers) would buy it…
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Joseph W. Bourke] “Apple could release a rounded glass box full of air,”
It worked for the G4 cube. Makes a fine fish tank. 😉
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joseph W. Bourke] “Apple could release a rounded glass box full of air, and as long as it had a finely etched Apple on it, thousands of suckers (I mean seekers) would buy it…”
Did you just break your NDA with Apple?
Hey I like my pet rock! It costs nothing to feed, uses no electricity, has outlasted anything I ever bought made by Apple. 😉
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Look at Apple’s current i7 offerings, then look at intel’s i7 offerings. There are faster i7s available, there are 6 core i7s available. Are they in Apple hardware? No, they are not. They would be if Apple really wanted to play the speed game.”
The 6-core i7s are Socket 2011 — as has been extensively discussed, there’s no solution for Thunderbolt with Socket 2011 so far. iMacs are configurable with up to an i7 3770, which is in fact the fastest i7 Intel sells excluding the ‘K’ model of the same chip. (The ‘K’ series processors are targeted at overclockers and aren’t generally offered by mainstream OEMs. And in any event the 3770K has a base clock only 3% higher, an irrelevant difference.)
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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I think the really big flaw with Siracusa’s analysis here is that he’s analogizing the Mac Pro to a sports car. This is all wrong in the context of the current computer industry. Sports cars are sexy, prestigious, appealing even to people for whom the expense would be irrational. Back when the average consumer used a low-end or mid-range tower, a high end tower might have been all of those things. But the average consumer now uses a laptop — a 40 pound tower is irrelevant. The ‘prestige’ sports car in Apple’s current lineup is the 15″ Retina MacBook Pro.
The Mac Pro is more analogous to a truck — an actual truck, not a ‘luxury’ pickup truck or SUV or whatever. It’s a business tool purchased by people with specific requirements that mainstream users don’t have. It’s possible there’s some halo effect with, perhaps, pro users being more likely to buy Apple notebooks as personal systems if they can do their high-end work on a machine running the same OS. But in general, it’s very unlikely that the vast majority of average current or potential Apple customers notice or care what’s going on with the Mac Pro.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “So, you think that when a new MacPro comes out, it will be the cream of the crop of personal computers beating out the HP Z800 series, or something like a ProMax One on features? They won’t be in the speed game, they will be in the, “We have a new product for our customers” game.”
I don’t know what it will be, but I’d assume it will offer some serious power in order to differentiate from the rest of the line. If it doesn’t, what’s the point?
[Jeremy Garchow] “If Apple did release a MacPro with Thunderbolt, you think that it wouldn’t sell?”
I do think it would sell. That’d be useful to quite a few of us here, I’m sure.
I know that my needs are a little different, but I care way more about CPU/RAM/GPU than Thunderbolt right now.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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