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Lets wait…
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[Frank Gothmann] “So you’ve essentially moved from “waiting/hoping for potential Mac Pro update” to “waiting/hoping for potential iMac update”.”
Actually hope is fading. I would have settled for an iMac update as an interim less expensive solution but that’s not happening until 2013. Now the entire Mac desktop line is aging.
I was hoping for a new MacPro, willing to settle for an iMac as an interim solution and now will have nothing for 2012 and who know how far into 2013.
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Yes that too could have been an interim solution but Apple doesn’t design their own motherboards. Of course one could argue that they should. They may well be working on their own solution . . . to arrive in 2013 unfortunately.
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[Tim Wilson] “‘m usually missing something — what am I missing here?”
Being able to buy devices that can be used on an entire line from portable to workstation without redundancy.
It adds PCIe connectivity for computers that previously had limited expansion. Obviously it’s not mission critical for a workstation but it would be a nice convenience. Apple could have changed other aspects of the MacPro without a major redesign in the interim. They could have updated the iMac as an inexpensive interim as well.
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[Craig Seeman] “I’ll take that in a slightly different direction. Let’s say David Pogue’s comment’s about 2013 are accurate and both MacPro and iMac (we now have to include that given his article) are still alive.”
Here’s the quote:
“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.”
The line with iMacs and Mac Pros sets up the desktop question; the second sentence which answers it — “new models and designs are under way” — says nothing about the Mac Pro per se.
There may be a new Mac Pro. You may get your SuperMini. We may get an iMac-looking screen/dock you can slide your MBP:TNG into. All that we know is that something is coming. We don’t know what.
Tim Wilson was right on. He said there’d be a new Mac Pro, and I guess there is. He also said Apple has a way of embarrassing everyone who tries to predict them. I don’t think anyone saw this coming.
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
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Looking at it, it’s not Xeon based. Not a workstation. Not something that would fit in Apple’s product line at the moment. Apple probably has their own solution in the works (or Intel) given the 2013 date given by Pogue. Apple still could have moved MacPro to Sandy Bridge Xeons and skipped Thunderbolt for the time being.
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[Craig Seeman] “oking at it, it’s not Xeon based. Not a workstation. Not something that would fit in Apple’s product line at the moment. Apple probably has their own solution in the works (or Intel) given the 2013 date given by Pogue. Apple still could have moved MacPro to Sandy Bridge Xeons and skipped Thunderbolt for the time being.”
No, it’s not Xeon based. But that wasn’t my point, it was to illustrate that it’s perfectly possible to integrate TB with dedicated GPUs via PCIe3. I have also very little doubt that Xeon based MBs will show up in the not too distant future.
In the same way as USB3 has been part of virtually all PC motherboards for years although not directly supported by previous Intel chipsets, the same is possible for TB and dedicated GPUs. Apple just couldn’t be bothered.
And yes, they could have just moved to E3s, USB3, PCIe3 etc. without TB and without much engineering involved and it would have been a decent upgrade a lot of people would have been very happy with. Certainly a lot happier than with the “new” they got now.——
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[Craig Seeman] “Looking at it, it’s not Xeon based. Not a workstation. Not something that would fit in Apple’s product line at the moment. Apple probably has their own solution in the works (or Intel) given the 2013 date given by Pogue. Apple still could have moved MacPro to Sandy Bridge Xeons and skipped Thunderbolt for the time being.”
And that I think this is the problem, the upgrade was so lame that it cannot be construed as anything but a diss. If nothing else they could have offered a drop in price across the board. Instead it’s as if Apple is forcing those locked into Mac hardware to pay a premium for 2-year-old technology.
I can’t see anybody else paying Mac prices for what the “updated” Mac Pro offers. It seems like greedy price gouging aimed at those that need new machines but aren’t able to make the change to PC as of yet.
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[Frank Gothmann] “No, it’s not Xeon based. But that wasn’t my point, it was to illustrate that it’s perfectly possible to integrate TB with dedicated GPUs via PCIe3. I have also very little doubt that Xeon based MBs will show up in the not too distant future.”
This may be what Apple is waiting for. Intel may be working on a solution (maybe even with Apple as partner). I suspect Apple knows a roadmap assuming (yes an assumption) Pogue’s quoting his Apple source accurately.
[Frank Gothmann] “And yes, they could have just moved to E3s, USB3, PCIe3 etc. without TB and without much engineering involved and it would have been a decent upgrade a lot of people would have been very happy with. Certainly a lot happier than with the “new” they got now.”
I couldn’t agree more. If anything, Apple’s decisions seems to mean they have no interest in interim updates for their desktop line (both MacPro and iMac).
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[Gary Huff] “I don’t need USB3.0 built-on. As soon as an OSX update comes out that widely supports it, I can easily put in an add-on card”
And waste what precious little PCIe slots there are on something that should have been built in?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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[Ben Holmes] “Not sure why anyone should care about Thunderbolt or USB3 on a computer that can use Fibre or 10GbE via a PCI card – except as a means of plugging in portable drives.”
You say that as though it’s a meaningless thing. I’m constantly sending out portable drives with 500 gigs of data to other editors and finishing houses. The time difference between using FW800 and USB3 for that is huge.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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