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John Siracusa perspective on Mac Pro Successor
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[Walter Soyka] “I respectfully disagree.
No amount of PR could have papered over the unexpected workflow-shattering product cancellations and discontinuities we’ve seen in the last couple years.
Apple had been establishing trust from about 2000 to about 2010, and then they broke it — now they have to establish it again — with products, not PR. “
Products first- but I think PR is important. I think FCPX was a PR disaster more than anything else. I’ve stated my case before that if Apple had approached the FCP7 to FCPX transition more like the one from OS9 to OSX,I don’t think you would have seen nearly as chilly a reception. I’m sure some would still have knee-jerked at the iMovie-esque interface; but a delineated transition period from one to the other, rather than an abrupt EOLing of FCP7 would I think have jangled a lot less nerves.
Thanks for the DF link. That’s good reading.
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[Andrew Kimery] “I don’t think they were ever in the ‘big iron’ market like SGI but I can’t look back at Apple’s history and agree that they’ve never wanted to have fastest off-the-shelf towers around (fastest in class, if you will). “
I think what is getting misinterpreted is that when I say Apple doesn’t offer the fastest computers is that somehow translates to Apple offers slow computers. That is not my intention and not what I am saying at all.
What I am trying to convey is that Apple does not and have not offered the fastest, biggest, loudest, most expandable computers in their history, so I can’t imagine that is suddenly going to change if history can predict the future.
Have they offered a competitive product over the years? Certainly.
But even today, while the current crop of Retina MacBook Pros are fantastic machines, they aren’t customizable, they don’t have the fastest GPU, they don’t have every single connection including 56k modem and 9 pin serial, they don’t have as much RAM as you can stuff in a laptop these days, they don’t have an extra internal hard drive slot, therefore they don’t have the fastest, loudest, heaviest i7 available because you can easily out spec a MacBook Pro in something like an HP. They are the fastest Apple laptops ever created, but they aren’t as fast as you can go. Doesn’t this mean that Apple can say, marketing wise, that they are releasing the fastest PC* on the planet?
The MacBook Pros are amazing for the power that you do get in such an efficient machine, but they aren’t looking to win the sky rocket mach test; you can still run really fast even if you aren’t looking to have the fastest time.
There was a moment during the Mac Clone Years when the MacOS was licensed out and you could purchase more than what the equivalent Apple manufactured box was offering. I am sure there are some that would like to see those days return.
If I had to predict what is coming, I’d imagine a Xeon workstation with Phi. In my mind, Phi makes so much sense for Apple to offer.
And thus begins the next round of Walter S commentary about parallel vs co-processing vs GPGPU, vs Jeremy’s Crazy Ramblings, etc and so forth. 😉
Jeremy
*Designed by Apple Inc in California
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[Jeremy Garchow] “And thus begins the next round of Walter S commentary about parallel vs co-processing vs GPGPU, vs Jeremy’s Crazy Ramblings, etc and so forth. ;)”
No crazy ramblings here — that’d be awesome! It would take a little time for the software to really catch up and take advantage of that system, but putting the hardware out there would break the chicken-and-egg problem.
This workstation would make me happy:
Dual Xeons
Lots of RAM
Discrete NVIDIA GPU
Phi co-processor
PCIe slotsThis “workstation” would make me sad:
Single i7/Xeon
Limited RAM
Integrated GPU
Phi co-processor
Small caseThunderbolt — honestly, with the current version, I could take it or leave it. The next revision might change that.
And thus begins the next round of Craig S commentary about power vs form factor vs peripheral expansion, vs Walter’s Crazy Ramblings, etc and so forth 😉
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] “And thus begins the next round of Craig S commentary about power vs form factor vs peripheral expansion, vs Walter’s Crazy Ramblings, etc and so forth ;)”
Ha! It is good to have you back.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Ha! It is good to have you back.”
Thanks, mate — much appreciated!
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 -
Chris, what you say certainly could be true about the initial copper implementation of 10Gbps Thunderbolt but the vision from day one has been to move to optical 100Gbps Thunderbolt. That has to be for a different audience.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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[Rick Lang] “Chris, what you say certainly could be true about the initial copper implementation of 10Gbps Thunderbolt but the vision from day one has been to move to optical 100Gbps Thunderbolt. That has to be for a different audience.
“Yes, they want the technology to be robust and have plenty of future potential. How long do you think it will be until you see that 100G TBolt? 100Gps isn’t a goal to reach, like getting to the moon; it’s room to grow, like expanding a Fwy.
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I don’t want to rehash all of this stuff again. I’ve already had all of these arguments, seemingly several times, and seem to continue to have them anytime we draw near an even vaguely potential Mac Pro announce date. This conversation will die down when nothing is announced at NAB and then flare up again towards June. My guess is that something probably will be announced in June, that you can probably buy, or at least order, in Aug. or Oct. My guess is that it will not be in its current form factor, but will look something like what people were speculating about back in 2010.
People tend to anthropomorphize Apple more than any other company I know, probably because of Steve Jobs’ once tight control and his mesmerizing PR talks. Unfortunately, I think that illusion clouds the vision of far too many onlookers.
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Chris, I can remember reading that when the optical Thunderbolt cables are introduced the difference is only in the cables. In other words the copper and the optical cables can both be plugged into the same Thunderbolt ports. Now reading it and believing it aren’t quite the same but if Apple does manage to introduce Xeon with Thunderbolt “later in 2013” via the updated Mac Pro, then I’m hopeful it will accept both copper and optical cables. It may be that the new machines use optical but not at 100Gbps. When will it reach 100Gbps is a great question If only I was qualified as an engineer like some of those incredibly knowledgeable “heavyweights” who post here!
But speaking from the sidelines, if Apple has decided to make a splash with the updated Mac Pro (rather than the merely incremental step up from the existing Mac Pros and high-end iMacs), then there is bound to be an attention-grabbing feature in there that sets the direction for their future development. I think, alone it appears in this discussion, that a Thunderbolt revision will be one of those features that is a jump up, not a step up. So who says Apple wants to make a splash? I am sure they are equally aware of the attention that the HP Z8xx and ProMax computers are getting among the creative community. It seems to most people that Apple did abandon the advancement of the Mac Pro and perhaps this was due in part to the focus on the iPhone and the iPad which has certainly proven justified from a business perspective. But Apple is a big company and there are no doubt those who were pulled from their normal workstation and desktop roles to focus on the mobile devices who have now been allowed to resume their normal programming. They’ll want to make splash and finally Tim Cook made that historic pronouncement in that e-mail (to a Creative Cow member I think) to wait until “later in 2013.”
So the hungry workstation crew has been hard at work to make good on Tim’s word. More than the iPhones and iPads that are now being developed without input from Steve Jobs, the next workstation will belong to Tim’s legacy. I don’t care if Tim’s background is only in the production chain, he is a tough cookie to negotiate with and you aren’t likely to win any concessions from him if you say you can’t fulfill his promise to the creatives. It will be a matter of personal satisfaction to him to see this product shaken up on his watch. When the full vision materialize in 2013? Perhaps not for another year or two, but the new foundation will be there this year, the direction set for the next five to ten years of Apple workstations. I just think Thunderbolt will be important, but there will be more to it than that.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Pardon the odd typo or word that doesn’t seem right in my post from the iPad. Auto-correction isn’t my favourite feature on iOS! And Bessie won’t let me edit a post on the iPad to correct the typos. But I still love working from the iPad for this sort of thing. Peace and love on this beautiful day!
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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