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OT: Apple to drop Mac Pro?
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[Michael Gissing] “Why should I pay Mac premium prices for hardware with limited choices.”
AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox all have Thunderbolt video I/O with HD-SDI. I guess you’d add Osprey if you went PC. I don’t see a limited choice here. The big ones are represented and obviously they think it’s going to be a viable market. This is especially so since, unlike a PCIe card, their boxes can be sold to anyone with a MacMini or Air on up.
[Michael Gissing] “So I junk all my 2 year old PCI based cards, and buy a whole new set of Mac hardware and 3rd party cards.”
Or you buy a PC. That’s still going to cost. While those PCI cards will run on your desktop, the Thunderbolt boxes will run on whatever replaces the MacPro, my MacBookPro when I have to go mobile, my wife’s MacMini if she needs to use Video I/O. Of course I’ll be able to do the same with the Pegasus RAID.
If you own multiple computers the Thunderbolt allow me to move things around to different computers. If you only own one computer then the cost of buying a new PC might be worth it to you at least in the short term.
The thing is a computer manufacturer like Apple has to weigh what serves the market best and certainly Video I/O and high speed RAID are Pro needs and they’ve just expanded the ability to use such devices to their entire computer line rather than limit themselves to a technology thats for Desktop Tower use only.
It’s ironic that people were complaining how the Express port was dropped from the 15″ MBP (only on the 17″ MBP) so Apple now uses a technology they will include on their entire line and some people complain about their PCI cards. Yes there’s a short term loss involved but a major long term and, more importantly, a wider market gain.
One might say Apple “commodified” a professional interface by using it on all their models so that everyone can use them and developers themselves had a broader market. It makes good business sense for Apple to replace the MacPro with a Thunderbolt based computer that can have broader appeal because you can use the same professional devices with it (whatever it is called) as well as with your smaller systems as needed.
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craig, there is no mac mini pro. nobody on any in the know site has ever spoken seriously about what you’re referring to there have they? i stand to be corrected but – can we please stop talking about the amazing things they’re going to do once they’re finished gutting the professional hardware/software base of the company that we’re all so invested in?
let’s all just take a moment and enjoy the view as apple eviscerate the professional hardware/software base we’re heavily invested in.
they’re just going to discontinue the tower. they’re not going to go hogwarts and pull something out of the hat.
they’re just going to discontinue the tower.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Apple could choose to offer a new high-end iMac or beefed up Mac mini that packs enough power to approach the performance current Mac Pro, greatly simplifying its product lineup while having a very limited impact on sales. That would save the company the efforts of having to design and maintain a tower system.
The same rumor mill that speculates about the demise of the MacPro talk about a beefed up Mini. To me that makes more sense than then the beefed up iMac because Apple sells more of there $1000 Thunderbolt equipped monitors.
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Not sure if I mentioned this in another thread, but I was shooting at a BioTech conference a few weeks ago and they had Watson (the computer that won Jeopardy) on display.
Looking backstage it was nothing but a bunch of racks of processor boxes. Each packed with cores – running in massively parallel arrays. The point is that this planetary class computer didn’t use a “big iron” monolithic approach. It was computing build around an array of processors modules each doing what they do best – with the simplest possible power distribution and IO necessary to enable them to do their job of crunching data fast.
The old “everything in one big tower” mode is dying out across the industry. The computer will increasingly be a string of task specific smaller modules – the sum of it’s parts rather than a big massive central “all in one” unit – all connected by fast I/O pipes.
Thunderbolt I/O enables that.
Today’s “laptop” is tomorrows “control surface.” The power will reside in what you hang off the busses – not what’s in any one big box.
It’s computer as “collection of things” – rather than the computer as A thing.
That’s my bet anyway.
We’ll see.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “The old “everything in one big tower” mode is dying out across the industry.”
Will wonders never cease! I think we finally agree on something Bill.
I would say that the form factor of whatever computers we’ll be using in the very near future is simply going to be determined by whatever they can build directly onto the main-board. Much like that new super-thin MacBook that we all saw a few days ago on the rumor sites.
T-Bolt is just an I/O connection from a chip or chipset on the main-board, and you’ll be able to hang anything on them. PCIe cards will be history almost immediately, and will probably all be gone by the time NAB rolls around in April or within a year or so tops.
As you say Bill, every module will connect via T-bolt, and we’ll all be happy campers with a lot fewer fans, a lot fewer cables, and the entire footprint of a highest-end digital editing system will be lots of tiny boxes connected to some big beautiful monitors that all be plug and play and color managed.
RAIDs will continue be the biggest and noisiest boxes in the setup, at least for a while until SSDs are cheaper and totally ubiquitous. Then, we’ll start seeing RAIDs get downsized too, and we’ll soon see 100Tb in little boxes the size of a pack of Marlboros.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
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yup…and about time to…i’ve been saying for awhile that a mac mini server with an iPad is pointing the way to how we are gonna be working in the not too distant future and i for one can’t wait. who needs the big old towers and damn fans and graphics cards and all the other crap when a simpler way is available. good riddance to the expense and hello new streamlined workflow!
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[David Roth Weiss] “As you say Bill, every module will connect via T-bolt, and we’ll all be happy campers with a lot fewer fans, a lot fewer cables, and the entire footprint of a highest-end digital editing system will be lots of tiny boxes connected to some big beautiful monitors that all be plug and play and color managed.”
Oh the future looks great. It is a given fact that an external GPU can be connected thru thunderbolt. So all these woes about raw power can be put to rest. Apple just made the tower obsolete.
Quobetah
New=Better -
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Well, the writing’s been on the wall for some time.
The current Macpro isn’t selling because it is essentially the type of machine Apple said they’d never build. High-powered CPUs in an otherwise unbalanced system that has been neglected and abandoned just like the rest of the non-consumer aspects of their business. We’ve been holding out to upgrade for over a year now and have considered moving away from the Mac altogether after FCPX.
Frankly, I don’t want to wait any longer so after 20 years it’s farewell Apple. We placed an order for two HP z800 this morning.
Media Composer is cross platform, we have Adobe licenses for Win, FCPX is utterly useless to us.
Moving to Windows puts us in a much better and much more flexible position with tons of options to choose from.Using an iMac or a Mini type of machine is just crazy. Bye-bye Cuda, video io obsolete, fibre cards obsolete, esata cards obsolete, raid cards obsolete. Would have to buy everything again for TB if and when it will be available and then Thunderbolt storage doesn’t work under Bootcamp (plus tons of other issues as well). If the internal drive craps out or something else break… off goes the entire machine for repairs for weeks and you cannot even get the drive out to access your local data.
And, just as a side note, what has become almost as annoying as Apple’s attitude in recent years is the ever-increasing number of Mac users who whitewash everything this company does. I’d be curious to learn what on earth Apple has to do to get on the bad side of some of these people. -
i think you missing the point….by simplifying we can get of all that crap and those stupid cards and extra shit you have to buy…which by the way you still gonna need on a p.c. so whats the point of changing to p.c. ? you’re gonna end up with exactly the same crap. streamlining is the future and a mac mini or 2 and thunderbolt displays are an awesome combo. unlimited hi speed storage (unless you prefer to access media off the cloud) toss in an iPad 3 for controlling the whole thing and you are looking at the suite of the future. i was reading in a newspaper article today about all the traditional jobs being lost in hollywood, especially the film side….. the writing is on the wall and it says ” get ready for the future”
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