If Apple had included a nice little brochure of all the cool macs they made with every iPod they sold from 2003 onwards (just like lego does) they would have hit these numbers a long time ago.
To quote Yoda, "A brochure does not a Mac sell." It's just a little, one-time customer pitch that's likely to be tossed in the trash with the rest of the packaging. When someone opens up and puts content on an iPod, they're not likely to divert their attention to a pitch for a computer that costs hundreds more. For selling Macs, this would be fragmentary, ineffective marketing that would only step in the way of the user experience and pleasure of putting a new iPod to use.
Legos are a horse of a different color, Lego customers want to know what they can buy to build stuff beyond the box of plastic parts they've already purchased. It's the same product basically - just additive.
There's an Apple Retail Store in Perth. Head over there and watch the customers for 30 minutes. It'll give you a much better understanding about what sells Macs.
You are saying 'the market that needs dual processors' is un-limited?
Quote:
Unfortunately they are not lazy. They are doing what they believe is best for their business, which is to focus on consumer computers and gadgets, all throw away. We've yet to see if there will be a trickle down effect to the way consumers feel about their devices if they abandon the pro market... Hollywood has a far and wide reach.
I am not sure Hollywood's reach is a great as you imagine. I am not sure stars, directors and art designers and producers in Hollywood would abandon the Mac just because it vanished from the edit suites and other professional areas. I hope that won't happen but I think you overestimate the power of creative pros (meaning the few that actually use the seriously 'pro' equipment) over popular culture.
The Mac Pro serves little to no purpose currently, and it is clear Apple's future direction with the Mac Pro will be a Mac Mini with a powerful processor, and expansions provided through Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, that places the Pro in a transition phase where we are at the cusp of, but haven't yet reached, a world where this is possible.
The Mac Pro allows memory expansion well beyond what is possible with a Mini or iMac. Yes, the slots have become less important with Thunderbolt, but memory expansion is still a good reason for getting a Mac Pro.
You missed the part where he mentioned that the expansion would be w/Thunderbolt. There are companies releasing external breakout boxes in q12012 that allow for 3PCIe slots to be hooked up via TB. Those would go in that just fine and the price of the iMac+that or MIni+that would still be cheaper than a Mac Pro. The dual proc systems support up to 64GB, so if you mean for that 96GB to be on a PCI-e RAM drive, that would work as I mentioned. If you mean for system memory, you're SOL.
Apple thrives in a competitive market. It is riding a halo effect as people who buy iPhones and iPads finally realize how bad they have had it in the Microsoft cloner world. Apples products are far ahead of Windows Phone, Android, Blackberry, Samesung, Asus..... the more iClones that come out in the phone and tablet space all the better. All those cloner devices which are horrible to use drive people into Apples waiting arms. Apple has the far superior product catalog so it is no suprise to see record sales every quarter. I hope someone else brings out a Kindle Fire or another garbage iClone.
Time to bring back the Cube. The Mac Pro's design has been with us for almost 8 years, time for an update. With Thunderbolt a Mac Pro Cube could be a valid replacement. If Apple makes a Cube with 4 Thunderbolt ports with external accelerators like the nVidia Tesla or Intel MIC connected via Thunderbolt, who will need a Mac Pro?
I'm very curious to see how high Mac marketshare can eventually go. If the "truck vs cars" analogy holds, Apple's share could go surprisingly high. I'll bet more Mac users (relative to PC users) really do want/need a "truck".
The upper bound on Apple's share of the PC/Mac market might be Apple's current share of the >$1,000 PC market in the US. Anybody know what that number is?
You missed the part where he mentioned that the expansion would be w/Thunderbolt. There are companies releasing external breakout boxes in q12012 that allow for 3PCIe slots to be hooked up via TB. Those would go in that just fine and the price of the iMac+that or MIni+that would still be cheaper than a Mac Pro. The dual proc systems support up to 64GB, so if you mean for that 96GB to be on a PCI-e RAM drive, that would work as I mentioned. If you mean for system memory, you're SOL.
Just 2 lanes of a single PCI-Express 2.0 card could saturate a Thunderbolt channel.
iMac and Mac mini RAM is not ECC.
Current, aging Mac Pros support up to 96 GB RAM, as indicated above. (Never mind what Apple says about their ridiculously expensive RAM). If they ever see the light of day, I would expect next generation Mac Pros to support up to 256 GB with a quad channel memory architecture.
The Mac Pro's design has been with us for almost 8 years, time for an update.
Have you ever looked inside a Mac Pro? Where exactly are you going to put those giant heat sinks, fans, 8 sticks of ram and the multiple hard drives? Certainly not in a revised mini or cube.
People say with thunderbolt you can use external drives. But what exactly is the advantage? Personally I like the drives either inside the box or racked RAIDs. We also need a PCI card slot or two for high end video.
The Mac Pro case design is still exactly what is needed for pros. Unfortunately there just aren't very many of us left. Now days most people can get by with an iMac for intermediate level graphic design.
People who do not have a Mac Pro should not offer advice on what Mac Pro users need.
Locally we have a bunch of stores that sell computers (plus CD's DVD's Blu-Ray, games, etc) called JB Hi Fi. It has been interesting to go in there in the last year. Everybody is crowded around the table with the Macs on it and the PC laptops are ignored ? despite fire sale price drops. This change, which has been happening for two years now, is repeated across the city. The Apple store in the city is so crowded it is hard to get in to look at anything. PC shops are empty.
All of this seems to ride on the back of the iPad, the smartest move Apple has ever made.
Steve is gone, Tim is already making changes. Who's to say Apple won't license out the "small amount" of pro towers to be made by another? It would be so nice to have someone offer a COMPLETE build to order tower with ALL options as BTO. Apple would have complete control of the look but not have to mess with making them.
No need for a brochure. How many times have you opened the fingertips packet?
The on screen part would be smart if it wasn't marketed as "look at our other products"- as much as a "get more out of your iPhone" approach. I think the majority of the population is very ignorant to what iCloud gives you with a Mac running lion vs windows pc. They just aren't educated. And I never see iMac or MacBook commercials. Not that apple is doing anything wrong, but as a marketing guy, some education might be nice to get more integration.
Thanks for better enunciating what I was imagining as, "brief, tasteful, and not too obtrusive."
And the answer to the first question is, once, max, but again we are talking about targeting people not yet familiar with Apple-developed features...
Too, I think the original person was commenting on what might have been done years ago, when 'the cloud' was a gleam in only a very few eyes, to introduce more people to Mac, thereby hitting these projected sales figures quite some time past.
So you are saying the market that needs dual processors is unlimited, then? No, then he is correct.
I'm not saying I agree the Mac Pro is going away, but I do know the number of those that need one is diminishing over time. Sure, some need the superior bandwidth of internal expansion of a Mac Pro, and the extra RAM capacity, but those numbers are diminishing.
No, the numbers of those needing a Mac Pro are INCREASING not decreasing! The whole point of Apple itself is to unleash the creative genius of the next generation by giving it the better tools it needs to get started. So many new applications for video in marketing, education, information, medicine, etc etc. The future is super HD rez content everywhere. There's more content that will need to be made than there will ever be people to do it all. Maybe not just yet, but soon.
You simply cannot put together today's complex video collages with an iMac. You can work it at half Rez and render it out later, but later needs a machine with horsepower.
I hope Apple realizes that Final Cut Pro is/was a feather in their cap. So many students started out with it , it became a standard. I don't get the OVER-simplification of the video process. I can't pretend to know their-- I hope well considered-- plans for Final Cut, but I agree that the Mac Pro machines should stay. Probably have to custom order only and wait for the buildout, but don't abandon them.
The whole middle tier of video making uses Mac Pros. I hope Apple doesn't send them to Linux, they may never become a film genius with that, only a puzzle solver!
Apple thrives in a competitive market. It is riding a halo effect as people who buy iPhones and iPads finally realize how bad they have had it in the Microsoft cloner world.
Just the reverse for me. Apple's halo is the Mac. But there is a gap in that halo in regards to the desktop line. And my needs and wants fit in that gap. If I can't get the desktop I want where is the incentive to buy iPods, iPhones or iPads?
Apple will sell a record number of Macs. Great. How many of them are compromises? How many people that want to use OSX are settling for a mini or an iMac because Apple doesn't have a mid range headless product? Some people that want to use OSX have refused to settle and build Hackintosh. Others like me are considering giving up using OSX at all.
Toyota just came out with a new Camry. Reviews say that it isn't as good as the old one. But it will sell well regardless because people want to buy a Toyota and will accept compromises in order to buy a Toyota. But there will be a few Toyota faithful that will be unwilling to settle and will move on.
If one wants a BMW compact (internationally sized) sedan, then one?s out of luck: the 1-Series only comes as hatchback.
For a sedan this size one could go for a Mazda3, a Ford Focus, or a Volkswagen Jetta if one still wants to go Teutonic (well, the Focus is mostly German-designed and engineered but never mind).
The same thing goes for the headless Mac or xMac as one chooses to call it.
Comments
If Apple had included a nice little brochure of all the cool macs they made with every iPod they sold from 2003 onwards (just like lego does) they would have hit these numbers a long time ago.
To quote Yoda, "A brochure does not a Mac sell." It's just a little, one-time customer pitch that's likely to be tossed in the trash with the rest of the packaging. When someone opens up and puts content on an iPod, they're not likely to divert their attention to a pitch for a computer that costs hundreds more. For selling Macs, this would be fragmentary, ineffective marketing that would only step in the way of the user experience and pleasure of putting a new iPod to use.
Legos are a horse of a different color, Lego customers want to know what they can buy to build stuff beyond the box of plastic parts they've already purchased. It's the same product basically - just additive.
There's an Apple Retail Store in Perth. Head over there and watch the customers for 30 minutes. It'll give you a much better understanding about what sells Macs.
Incorrect Sir.
You are saying 'the market that needs dual processors' is un-limited?
Unfortunately they are not lazy. They are doing what they believe is best for their business, which is to focus on consumer computers and gadgets, all throw away. We've yet to see if there will be a trickle down effect to the way consumers feel about their devices if they abandon the pro market... Hollywood has a far and wide reach.
I am not sure Hollywood's reach is a great as you imagine. I am not sure stars, directors and art designers and producers in Hollywood would abandon the Mac just because it vanished from the edit suites and other professional areas. I hope that won't happen but I think you overestimate the power of creative pros (meaning the few that actually use the seriously 'pro' equipment) over popular culture.
Sure, some need the superior bandwidth of internal expansion of a Mac Pro, and the extra RAM capacity, but those numbers are diminishing.
Don't forget the speed, reliability (even bonded ethernet) and ease of servicing.
Sure, some need an iPhone, too.
The Mac Pro serves little to no purpose currently, and it is clear Apple's future direction with the Mac Pro will be a Mac Mini with a powerful processor, and expansions provided through Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, that places the Pro in a transition phase where we are at the cusp of, but haven't yet reached, a world where this is possible.
The Mac Pro allows memory expansion well beyond what is possible with a Mini or iMac. Yes, the slots have become less important with Thunderbolt, but memory expansion is still a good reason for getting a Mac Pro.
How many Mac Pros?
Nobody cares
Please advise on how to fit this:
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/1882.htm
and this (N.B. with ECC):
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/8566D3Q16M96/
into a Mac mini.
Use a Heisenberg compensator?
Please advise on how to fit this:
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/1882.htm
and this (N.B. with ECC):
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/8566D3Q16M96/
into a Mac mini.
You missed the part where he mentioned that the expansion would be w/Thunderbolt. There are companies releasing external breakout boxes in q12012 that allow for 3PCIe slots to be hooked up via TB. Those would go in that just fine and the price of the iMac+that or MIni+that would still be cheaper than a Mac Pro. The dual proc systems support up to 64GB, so if you mean for that 96GB to be on a PCI-e RAM drive, that would work as I mentioned. If you mean for system memory, you're SOL.
The upper bound on Apple's share of the PC/Mac market might be Apple's current share of the >$1,000 PC market in the US. Anybody know what that number is?
You missed the part where he mentioned that the expansion would be w/Thunderbolt. There are companies releasing external breakout boxes in q12012 that allow for 3PCIe slots to be hooked up via TB. Those would go in that just fine and the price of the iMac+that or MIni+that would still be cheaper than a Mac Pro. The dual proc systems support up to 64GB, so if you mean for that 96GB to be on a PCI-e RAM drive, that would work as I mentioned. If you mean for system memory, you're SOL.
Just 2 lanes of a single PCI-Express 2.0 card could saturate a Thunderbolt channel.
iMac and Mac mini RAM is not ECC.
Current, aging Mac Pros support up to 96 GB RAM, as indicated above. (Never mind what Apple says about their ridiculously expensive RAM). If they ever see the light of day, I would expect next generation Mac Pros to support up to 256 GB with a quad channel memory architecture.
Happy now?
The Mac Pro's design has been with us for almost 8 years, time for an update.
Have you ever looked inside a Mac Pro? Where exactly are you going to put those giant heat sinks, fans, 8 sticks of ram and the multiple hard drives? Certainly not in a revised mini or cube.
People say with thunderbolt you can use external drives. But what exactly is the advantage? Personally I like the drives either inside the box or racked RAIDs. We also need a PCI card slot or two for high end video.
The Mac Pro case design is still exactly what is needed for pros. Unfortunately there just aren't very many of us left. Now days most people can get by with an iMac for intermediate level graphic design.
People who do not have a Mac Pro should not offer advice on what Mac Pro users need.
All of this seems to ride on the back of the iPad, the smartest move Apple has ever made.
Who's to say Apple won't license out the "small amount" of pro towers to be made by another?
Common sense.
It would be so nice to have someone offer a COMPLETE build to order tower with ALL options as BTO.
Buy a PC. That's not Apple's business model for hardware, software, firmware, or integration.
No need for a brochure. How many times have you opened the fingertips packet?
The on screen part would be smart if it wasn't marketed as "look at our other products"- as much as a "get more out of your iPhone" approach. I think the majority of the population is very ignorant to what iCloud gives you with a Mac running lion vs windows pc. They just aren't educated. And I never see iMac or MacBook commercials. Not that apple is doing anything wrong, but as a marketing guy, some education might be nice to get more integration.
Thanks for better enunciating what I was imagining as, "brief, tasteful, and not too obtrusive."
And the answer to the first question is, once, max, but again we are talking about targeting people not yet familiar with Apple-developed features...
Too, I think the original person was commenting on what might have been done years ago, when 'the cloud' was a gleam in only a very few eyes, to introduce more people to Mac, thereby hitting these projected sales figures quite some time past.
Incorrect Sir.
/QUOTE]
So you are saying the market that needs dual processors is unlimited, then? No, then he is correct.
I'm not saying I agree the Mac Pro is going away, but I do know the number of those that need one is diminishing over time. Sure, some need the superior bandwidth of internal expansion of a Mac Pro, and the extra RAM capacity, but those numbers are diminishing.
No, the numbers of those needing a Mac Pro are INCREASING not decreasing! The whole point of Apple itself is to unleash the creative genius of the next generation by giving it the better tools it needs to get started. So many new applications for video in marketing, education, information, medicine, etc etc. The future is super HD rez content everywhere. There's more content that will need to be made than there will ever be people to do it all. Maybe not just yet, but soon.
You simply cannot put together today's complex video collages with an iMac. You can work it at half Rez and render it out later, but later needs a machine with horsepower.
I hope Apple realizes that Final Cut Pro is/was a feather in their cap. So many students started out with it , it became a standard. I don't get the OVER-simplification of the video process. I can't pretend to know their-- I hope well considered-- plans for Final Cut, but I agree that the Mac Pro machines should stay. Probably have to custom order only and wait for the buildout, but don't abandon them.
The whole middle tier of video making uses Mac Pros. I hope Apple doesn't send them to Linux, they may never become a film genius with that, only a puzzle solver!
Apple thrives in a competitive market. It is riding a halo effect as people who buy iPhones and iPads finally realize how bad they have had it in the Microsoft cloner world.
Just the reverse for me. Apple's halo is the Mac. But there is a gap in that halo in regards to the desktop line. And my needs and wants fit in that gap. If I can't get the desktop I want where is the incentive to buy iPods, iPhones or iPads?
Apple will sell a record number of Macs. Great. How many of them are compromises? How many people that want to use OSX are settling for a mini or an iMac because Apple doesn't have a mid range headless product? Some people that want to use OSX have refused to settle and build Hackintosh. Others like me are considering giving up using OSX at all.
Toyota just came out with a new Camry. Reviews say that it isn't as good as the old one. But it will sell well regardless because people want to buy a Toyota and will accept compromises in order to buy a Toyota. But there will be a few Toyota faithful that will be unwilling to settle and will move on.
For a sedan this size one could go for a Mazda3, a Ford Focus, or a Volkswagen Jetta if one still wants to go Teutonic (well, the Focus is mostly German-designed and engineered but never mind).
The same thing goes for the headless Mac or xMac as one chooses to call it.