Apple's updated Mac Pro, iMac rumored to have USB 3.0, faster FireWire - Page 2

These days if you want power, you better build your own machine from proven OSX compatible parts.

Well, you have to wonder if it would really cost Apple all that much to offer a BR drive as a BTO option for the MacPro. In reality, I think the reason they don't offer it is because you can buy one from OWC for somewhere between $164.99-$219.99 depending on which model you selected. At those prices, it definitely not worth their trouble. This is pure speculation, but if they did have a hypothetical BTO option for a BR drive, it would probably be at least $300 if not more.

And OWC's drives are reliable. Something Lacie has never been able to claim.

What's not true? The previous base model was 8 core and it went to four cores so for most things, it is absolutely true that it is outperformed by the previous model for many things. Also true that the i7 imac outperforms it on a number of things as well as PC's that are even cheaper.


Totally agree that they should make a midrange headless machine. But while the MP is priced like a Workstation, the quad model absolutely does NOT perform like one, same goes for only having 4 ram slots.

Depends.

If your business depends on it, you're probably going to buy a high quality name brand system. If you're a gamer looking for a few extra fps at the lowest possible cost, then I'd agree with you.


What's your purpose in being here if you can't even get your basic facts right? The Xeon Mac pro has always had a 4 core base configuration.

As for the iMac i7 being faster at some things, that's undoubtedly true. So? If you looked hard enough, you could probably find one test that shows a base mustang to be faster than a Corvette Z1. That doesn't mean that it's a better choice. OTOH, a pickup is always slower than a Z1 - yet it can be a better choice for some things. The point is that they're different computers with different purposes.

Meh. The systems I work with, work like they should and run for an average of 5 years before they are retired or repurposed. What's with the crazy upgrade cycle? Don't you have to upgrade the cards, the decks, the cameras, the I/o's etc etc? Not a huge gain for the expense. Personally that's not how I like to see money spent. I'd rather give out a bonus at the end of the year, than giving crew the latest and greatest just because. It's a little like buying your wife a bowling ball. Personally. if it does what it's supposed to and does it without fail then why replace it? For a speed bump? Honestly I've never upgraded a machine less than 3 years old and said "oh my god I wish I had upgraded sooner!. This machine just saved me hours of work".

Still waiting for Mac Pro refresh. I was also waiting on Blu-Ray authoring support in FC Studio, but I've all but given up on that production stack. Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5 includes Blu-Ray authoring and you can always add a Blu-Ray burner to any Mac.

I'm not a fan of Blu-Ray, but it does offer really good picture quality (1080p not 720p), and I don't think Apple supporting it will somehow make a difference if its days are in fact numbered. I do think that it will likely be the last of the widespread optical formats used for mass content distribution. If broadband adoption really picks up in North America, it could be the tipping point needed for cloud-based content distribution to take over. Cable companies have already been pushing video-on-demand systems. I'm sure Apple wants in.

Because it's not generally needed. Remember that Apple sells to more than the folks that work at Pixar etc.


Not really. The imacs aren't even a year old. And until just recently there have been nothing of great note to improve the Mac Pro with. Now we are seeing the release of new processors, bigger hard drives, better graphics, and even things like USB 3.0 are reaching 'ready for prime time'. So now there's something with what to improve the machines. And we could see updated pro apps at the same time.

Oh and someone should really tell Hardmac that Apple's "Back to School" sales start in May. Getting that detail wrong, repeatedly, really dings their credibility


No they don't. Not because a handful of folks are screaming its a huge issue.

They don't block the use of an external drive for data storage or movie burning. They don't block the use of 3rd party software for set up of the disks. They include support in their pro apps for making videos of the right quality.

So just because you can't put a blu-ray in your machine and play it doesn't mean they don't support them. Heck you can't really appreciate a blu ray even on the 27 inch. they were made for twice that. So very few folks will bother.

You really should check your facts before calling people wrong.

Previous generation - base model is eight core, four core version was a BTO downgrade.
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/08/...os-and-xserve/


So if a user is going to pay a "high end" price they better get high end performance. Or at least performance that beats machines that are half the price. And no, it's not just some obscure funky test, there are plenty of real world mainstream uses where the MP is slower.

We're talking about price and performance, and the quad MP fails that in a big way.


I never said anything about a crazy upgrade cycle, and see no connection between my post and your reply.

I'm talking about people who are in the market for a new machine because they ARE at the end of a reasonable upgrade cycle. Those people are better off waiting and getting a 6 or 12 core machine in a month or two instead of 4/8 that are shipping today. Plus hopefully more ram slots and other improvements, as well as the possibility of a lower price. AND even if you don't need that much power, it STILL makes sense to wait because once the new machines are announced, they put the previous generation on sale.

Will these new MPs have good antennas?

Millions of students, actually. When your average tuition and fees, plus room and board is surpassing 20k/yr then yeah, that drop into your education fund is not massive.

Hell, we students were paying > $3k for an IBM PC 386 when it came out in 1988.

Seriously, don't give me a sob story about poor college students when they drive around in luxury cars, trucks or motorcycles, or dress down in fashion current torn jeans that are $500 a pair.

Apple isn't targeting the Mac Pro for back to school. It's targeting it at a time that coincides with both Back to School and the first Quarter of Business near Labor Day.

Now that is an idea I can support. Even if it's just a custom build option to replace one of your usb ports with esata on a 27 inch (which is what most folks will likely get if they want to 'pro' an imac) or swap the SD slot for a blank PCI and use an esata card.

in fact I wish they had left the high end 15 inch laptops as blank PCI. My company has a couple of 15 inch laptops (17 is too cumbersome) that we'd like to replace. But we need that esata option.

I'm not an IT expert by any means and we have all macs in the studio, so I had been using remote tap on my phone before my ipad, still do. Something is going on with remote tap though; It's not on the store and the devs say an iphone OS 4 issue needs to be resolved. Too bad it was a good program. Hope they come back with ipad support. Anyway, I've started using jump desktop on my ipad. The interface isn't as smooth or as much fun, but it has worked well.

Fair enough, but this has always been a problem. We aren't psychics after all. My point is what are you replacing? If it's 3-5 years old, what you buy today will kill the old machine. What might be available the very next day will only be a slight improvement over what you purchased yesterday.

I got the "crazy upgrade cycle" from the assumption that the only reason you'd be upset if you bought a 4 core machine today and it was replaced by a 6 core machine tomorrow would be if you weren't replacing a single core machine. Otherwise you'd say to yourself "Meh, this machine is still allot better than my old system and wither will still last me 3-5 years. I don't know. That's how I look at it. Otherwise my head would explode every time I needed to replace hardware. Apple's development cycle has always been this way. It's not perfectionist, bleeding edge, crazy newest friendly at all. You will go mad thinking about it.

Yes. But that's hardly what you wrote. You made a statement that suggested that the update, whatever it will be, is underpowered and overpriced.

Or did you forget what you wrote already?

September/October - Apple upgrades the iMac with USB 3.0 and slightly faster CPU, GPU.

November - Intel releases their next generation chipset and desktop processors

Sorry Steve, but Intel publishes these things months, if not years, in advance. Anyone who cares to know can find out when new stuff is coming. For Apple to drag its feet and then pop out an update just before Intel makes a big jump forward tells me that, contrary to what you said on stage today, you don't love your Mac users.

I don't really *need* a new Mac so I'm going to adopt Apple's strategy of milking as much time out of old hardware as possible. If Apple ever figures out how to release computers more than 2 months before they're superseded be sure to get in touch with me. In the meantime I'm spending my new iMac money on golf clubs and lessons. See you on the links!

"handful of folks", really, thats cute! I guess that's why so many people always complains about it. Watching movies on a notebook may seem trivial to some but as someone in the military, it's important to me. Also Blu-rays don't need to be watched in full resolution to enjoy. Blu-ray movies would fill the monitor, a dvd doesn't even fill half. Thats only looking at it from a resolution perspective yet alone... Point is, you're moronic if you think there isn't a difference!

Complaining that an unreleased, unspecified update is "underpowered and overpriced" makes you a troll, and not very smart, no matter how long you have supposedly used a Mac.

Well, there are not so many USB3 devices yet, so there's no need to want it so badly. Maybe year past you'll think "oh, all flash pendrives are USB3 now it's time to upgrade" but not now.

I really agree! I've had 2 La Cie drives fail within the warranty period and never had a OWC drive fail after buying 4 La Cie enclosures and at least 10 OWC drives.

Offer matte as BTO, and Apple will sell three iMacs here right off.

I can live with whatever ports are offered. Just give us a choice in screens.

It's going to be a hard choice for me also for several reasons, positive & negative for each.

iMac all in one has had better speed boosts and adding USB3 will be very convenient which I believe will be faster that eSata which I also use to external backup drives. It would also be great if they add HDMI as they have with the Mac Mini. It does have the ability to be used as an extra display with the video input but that has a display limit. With the use of HDMI to Mini Display Port adapters the maximum display shown is 720p as read in their support information from Belkin. This limit is being looked into ( see Apple Support Forum for iMac ). I was going to buy an external Blu-ray player and use the iMac to display the movies but now won't. Maybe the new version will have this resolved.

I still believe that Blu-ray will be here for a long time and will not fade away over downloads. If Blu-Ray Player Sales Set To Reach 62.5 Million in 2011 which is increasing 18% over this year, then I will be settling with Blu-ray for a long time. If Steve Jobs still has his blinders on for this then he won't be getting me as a natural customer for this even though I would have bought a new desktop with BR without hesitation. Mac would still have to make a new software player or upgrade the DVD player to be used with BR. BR as storage will be more convenient now that they have upgraded them to 100GB.

720p DLs have DRM which I can't edit and so are only a way for me to temporarily view a TV program in the near term on my 15" MBP which I consider my subjective limit. Those don't look good enough on my 23" Cinema display-even standard DVD looks better. The viewing quality is very good but still doesn't match BR quality. I can then get the Season's whole set on DVD for editing to put part of a show/movie on my iTouch (or future iPad) to save space, not have the whole episode transfered over. I will never download a movie for disk storage. 1 TV episode is 1.4GB and still takes 30 min. to DL with cable for iTunes. Thinking globally, cable and high speed video DLs don't have much of the market at this time. Maybe, in 10 years it will grow large enough in use and be faster to justify maybe 1080p but I'm not going to wait for that! So as far as I can see SJs is protecting his iTunes sales more than helping out the customer by not having BTO BR. Having an actual physical DVD or BR disk on the shelf is not only better but I don't need to use even more disk drive space on a different disk backing up the original.

Mac Pro will have more cores and threads and those internal drive bays have lots of storage among many other technical advantages. Since I work with thousands of photos and a smaller amount of video this may be the way I will go. I can still get the Blu-ray player and since I don't like glossy displays to edit my photos, I will get an Eizo matte display that has an HDMI interface (they have 3 versions available as I have seen so far) which I can then use to edit my photos and watch my BR movies. Having 2 displays ( I sill use a 23" Cinema display with my MBP ) is useful when editing photos with Aperture. But, to have to make a purchase of a video display for just one use seems not justified in today's multi-use world of technology. I should qualify that by saying I am not interested in getting a 50" display for my living room or any other room

I had better stop here because this thing just keep growing.

Having worked on iMacs with the new 'mini' sized / laptop sized keyboard, I agree that it was a horrible decision on Apple's part. My right hand and fingers are constantly falling off the right side of the mini keyboard as their muscle memory searches for the dedicated arrows and numeric keypad!

One of my clients sadly discovered that change when she bought her iMac in standard configuration and has struggled with the small keyboard for months. As she continues to say to me (and herself) "I'm sure I'll adjust to it..."
But her adjustment hasn't happened, and it shouldn't have to.

The small keyboard should be the option, with full size keyboard as standard issue, not the current other way around.

(Plus, it looks kind of bizarre to have a huge iMac screen and a tiny cramped keyboard...)

Anyway, point being, I have posted suggestion direct to Apple Feedback to Bring Back Full Size Keyboard.
And I urge you to send your request for full size keyboard to them at the Apple feedback site. I don't think Stevo or Apple designers are reading this list to get their next big inspiration

http://www.apple.com/feedback/imac.html

I saw the keyboard option with the numeric keypad ( USB connected ) which is what I would get with any new Mac. I just don't want to deal with changing even more batteries. Although, I read that Apple is looking into recharging accessories in a similar way as our toothbrushes get recharged. So, laying down the keyboard or a magic mouse on a pad to charge when not in use would be much preferred.

You would want a wireless keyboard, that must be placed on a wired pad to charge it? Why?

"Wireless charging" is gimmicky. I doubt you'll see anything like that from Apple.

(Not to be confused with a true wireless charging concept - one that uses the energy from cellular transmissions to supply tiny amounts of charging current. I seem to recall Nokia was working on something like that.)

Well, Apple applied for a patent for it as I read here a few months ago. They didn't give specifics as to whether they would use a pad or some other type of linkup for closeness to the battery using device. But, since I am not a electro technician, using a dock of some kind somewhere in the house or office to keep it fully charged for the next use seems very convenient. The iPhone or iPad has it's own dock but has a connector. The wireless keyboard and mouse don't have any kind on connector built-in and being able to charge the batteries on them so they don't have to changed out works for me. The charging station for them could be kept anywhere but I would think that it would be near the display for simplicity. It might even have a USB link to it. So, I can't see how you feel that an extra convenience to a product that makes it easier to use is "gimmicky" if it works well.

This would also add to the "greenness" of a product so batteries don't have to be thrown out if that is the type of battery being used. I couldn't find any tech specs on rechargeable batteries to see if they can be used. Since their voltage is lower, I don't know if they would work as well for bluetooth connection signal strength.

You may find it convenient to have a charging device attached to a wall receptacle all the time, but I find it more convenient to have a keyboard attached to the computer all the time. Neither component is useful without the other. You even said the charger would rest near the display anyway. Isn't that where you keep the keyboard? Besides, when the computer is "off", so is the keyboard, and I have no ancillary charging devices or batteries to maintain.

Batteries... a USB keyboard doesn't require batteries. The electrical losses involved in recharging batteries, combined with their limited life and less than clean manufacturing processes using toxic materials that have to be mined from the earth casts doubt upon any perceived environmental benefit. Most batteries are built in China, using materials that had to be transported from all over the world, then they have to be packaged, stored, and delivered to the end user. I don't imagine they get there by sailboat. Three or four years later, they're junk in a landfill, next to millions of three or four year old Dell computers.

The charging device requires electrical induction to transfer its energy to the device, a less than ideal method that introduces losses in the charging system. Add the energy lost by the charging device while it's not in use, unless you were to unplug it every time it's not in use, and the energy transported over transmission lines and distribution networks that are only about 20% efficient themselves.

So much for "green-ness". Of course I understand most "greenies" prefer the self-deception that they're doing something beneficial when in fact they're only producing more waste and inefficiency. Why think when ignorance feels so good?

Huh? I have a Touchstone with my Pre Plus, and it's one of the greatest accessories ever. It's probably the only accessory I've considered a 'must-have' for one of my devices.

The only ones that are gimmicky, are the ones that are added on after the fact. If it's integrated into the device, it's just drop and charge.

Blue Ray won. It will never die unless we get several hundered MB per second over the net.

Blue Ray movies look fantastic and they sure beat the pants off of iTunes pay for free TV shows, ala ABC Lost.

True andcwha many do not know is over at osx86 there is a script/ bootloader that now allows you to install a retail disk as well as any updates. You can build a $800 machine that competes well with any mac pro let alone an iMac.

These wishlists for a macPro are ridiculous. Some of you are looking for accessories more than a professional machine. Back lit keyboard? Blu-ray? C'mon. You can buy all that stuff from a 3rd party- doesn't need to be internally packaged.

And who says the last run of Mac Pro's weren't up to par? Most professional software is only now catching up with the hardware tech that the Mac Pro uses. Not too mention how expandable it is. Someone wanted 2 HD's to be raided together? do it yourself then. With the expansion possibilities between the hard disk space and the ram, i doubt that most of you could recognize the difference between a 12 core machine and an 8 core machine.

I want a BD drive in my PC/mac pretty much exclusively for ripping movies. I rip discs I buy so I can watch them on the go on my iPhone 4 and/or iPad. As I only buy BDs now (and have done for years now) and very few come with digital copies and/or DVDs I need the abort to ripp them. With a win 7 box that's not an issue, but with an iMac it obviously is...

As for getting sick of windows/viruses etc, I haven't had a virus on my windows desktop for at least 5 years, probably more. All I do is install microsoft's free security suite and don't download anything dodgy. No problems to report, it's still running perfectly and I like Win 7 a lot. It's as good as snow leopard in my opinion, sorry to not be a fanboy and say one of them sucks.

Then go by a PC and have a nice life, it won't upset anybody here. Adios!

Can't have both eh? Ah, how it must suck to be a fanboy.

I'm not sure why the stupidity with respect to USB 3 is constantly repeated in these forums, but it is Intel that is the problem here. USB 3 isn't in any of its current shipping chipsets. You can't have what isn't there.

As to Blu-Ray please get a life. It is a corrupt technology.

Good for you! Enjoy your Windows 7 and everything that comes with it.

Dave

At least here you recognize the type of hardware Apple is using. There is little justification for rapid updates that many seem to think are in order for the Mac Pro.

But then you loose it with disk drives. Considering Mac Pros volume sales wise and it's target market micro updates to try to tweak sales would do nothing. The thing here is that professionals will likely replace whatever Apple installs anyways. Those that don't don't need the tweaks anyway.

What do you expect Apple to do? They can't run over to Intel and demand something they don't have to sell. The fact of the matter is that the world is going to SmP hardware and core speeds have dropped. At least in the short term though we now have chips capable of clearing the 3GHz cieling. The fact is many don't care about GHz anymore because multithreading apps is the way to go.


The Mac Pro is not cheap but it is inexpensive for what you get. I'm not sure why people are so dense in this regard. The Mac Pro isn't even trying to be a desktop tower in the mold if a generic Dell box. It is rather a high performance workstation computer, with hardware and construction to support professional use. It is not a computer for a manager nor a secratary. That is what iMacs are for.

As to performance the Pro is Apples high performance machine. You can certainly find bench marks that will show an iMac to be faster in some regards but that should not be surprise at all. Doing what it is designed to do though it is a hard machine to beat in the Mac lineup. It is all about leveraging all those cores in professional apps.


Dave

Wanting/complaining about USB 3.0/eSATA/SATA 6.0 is as valid people always going on and on about Lightpeak, except that USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 drives (albeit expensive) actually exist. I'm not sure if I quite understand the aversion to eSATA, as most often, it's implemented as a combo USB/eSATA port.

Like you mentioned, Intel does have a poor implementation of USB 3.0/SATA 6.0, although it works with the P55 chipset, at the cost of cutting the PCIe x16 bandwidth in half (which in reality doesn't affect anything). AMD still wins hands down.

Blu-ray is another kettle of fish, but price shouldn't be the limiting factor. I think people just want the option, but whatever Steve wants, everyone gets. I have a BR drive in my PC, and it and the player SW cost about $70 US. Apple could charge $200-300 for a slot-loading drive, and probably still make money on it as a BTO, but probably never will as it will hurt iTunes.

So Apple tried to find a lower cost solution fo people wanting a Mac Pro. No big deal here. More so because many people buying the machine consider other factors more important than the number of cores built in.

That is exactly what they get. It is just that they aren't simpletons judging performance solely on what the cores do.

Who really gives a hoot about your tests as there are as many where the Pro is faster. Beside people buying the Pro have more concerns than core speeds.

So what are we doing here comparing a bottom end Pro with a top end iMac. Nice!

Let me highlight something for you, a lot of iMac users or potential users have rode Apple hard over the years about iMac performance. Thankfully Apple finally responded because there was no sound reason fir artificial limits on iMac performance. The markets the two machines are so different that there is little overlap in users or potential buyers so why shouldn't the iMac have good performance?

Yes the iMac is cheaper but you are giving up a lot to get that lower price. The mistake you make here is believing the Mac Pros value is in it's performance, it seldom is a singular parameter resulting in a Pro purchase. This is even more so in the low end Pro which serves different users again.

Well yeah that is often the case. That is why the common wisdom is to buy when needed and if you don't need it buy right after a new product release. That however applies to just about every new piece of computing hardware.

Heck I purchased an early 2008 MPB, which I still use, that was replaced by a much better Unibody design in the fall. Do I cry in my soup over that, no because it was the right time to buy for my needs. Besides the machine has been very pleasing and usable for my needs.

Now almost 2.5 years later I wonder if a laptop makes sense in light of the IMac or Mini working inncombo with an iPad. The point is times change and how you value your needs change.

This may be true but if you really need a Mac Pro right now there is nothing wrong with the current one. That is the point I think you are missing, focusing on performance just side tracks the discussion. The Mac Pro has never been a pure CPU performance play. The fact that it has outstripped other Apple hardware in the past is more a function of the limited chip selections available for the iMac.


Dave

The problem with eSATA is that it is a single function port. Especially of concern when I see demands for such ports on the Mini or laptops. If a machine is already thin on ports, swapping in a single function port is less that groovy.

Last I knew Intel wasn't shipping chipsets with USB 3. You are indicating otherwise but then it is apparently a compromised chipset. In the end they might as well skip USB 3 at least until Intel gets its act together.

Of course if Apple has an AMD Fusion product up it's sleeves I'm all for it. I'm actually a little tired of all the people that think Intel is the best thing since sliced bread.

As to Blu-Ray my problems there have nothing to do with the quality of the movies. I simply cannot support what they have done to the concept of copyright, fair use. The price gouging doesn't help either.

I'll grant you Blu-Ray would be nice, less likely in a iMac than in a Mac Pro. What about USB 3.0 is worth having? The faster theoretical max burst speed has little effect on real world performance of any device so far shown and the higher CPU overhead that any USB transfer requires, will still make it a poor choice compared to FireWire 800 or eSATA. Medium performance hard drive arrays will use FireWire 800. Serious arrays are not for the iMac and require a hardware RAID PCIe card.

I'd welcome SATA III's 6Gbps interface for the newest high performance hard drives and SSDs. I also welcome eSATA to avoid the current bug in FireWire 800 and volumes larger than 1TB. I'd welcome SSD options on the iMac and Mac Pro lines. As these are 2.5" formats, and option of mirrored or striped internal drives, whether they be regular 7200 rpm hard drives or SSDs. If they could be user installed, that would be a huge benefit as the iMac is rather closed to basic hard drive replacement.