They cut the mac pro down to single socket only. Why would they repeat cpu options with different monickers over the imac line?
Just seems like the iMac is going to end up stuck at 4 cores across the whole lineup for an awfully long time. Apple has a minimalist, resource strategic approach, that's for sure. Could the fact that the Mac Pro now uses a single socket board in a small form factor equate to a shared component between the two? Could they be planning to share laptop boards with the so called 'budget' iMacs for use with integrated graphics CPUs and share Mac Pro boards with the high end iMacs for the dedicated graphics options? I'm just musing. Would they need different monickers over the iMac line? It's just the CPU type, not unlike the different branding of i5s verses i7s now, standard / premium.
Now that I think of it, wasn't it odd that the last iMac update didn't include, or hold off to include TB2? Another 12 months without TB2 seems to put the iMac strangely out of sync, unless they're just extending the life of the existing boards until?
Phil Schiller did make much of how they'd managed to keep the cost of the new Mac Pro down. Maybe the timing of the new Mac Pro's form factor was ripe, when it could share a board with the iMac's evolution as a way of making it more affordable.
Now that I think of it, wasn't it odd that the last iMac update didn't include, or hold off to include TB2? Another 12 months without TB2 seems to put the iMac strangely out of sync, unless they're just extending the life of the existing boards until?
Phil Schiller did make much of how they'd managed to keep the cost of the new Mac Pro down. Maybe the timing of the new Mac Pro's form factor was ripe, when it could share a board with the iMac's evolution as a way to make it more affordable.
You're really reaching on this one. The mac pro uses the cheapest parts in its class. I suspect the PCI ssd is going to be at least similar to what they use in the rmbp, which is fine. It's starting at the same capacity in spite of the price difference. The cpus cost less than those that make it into many of the notebooks. They have nowhere to go to make it cheaper. If they want to make it cheaper, they adjust the price accordingly. I could have seen $200 less for a single gpu configuration if they didn't need two cards for three thunderbolt chips. As for thunderbolt itself, the chips are probably $10 or so each. Make of that what you will. It's not a big deal on a machine that costs that much, especially when the other cheap parts they dumped would make up for that. Note that they no longer even ship with a keyboard and mouse standard. You are just grasping on this one. As of right now the cheapest 6 core is going to be $4000. The cpu being used in that one retails for $600. They won't dump the brain from their $4000 machine into a $2000 one. I don't think Haswell E/EP will even be out next year. As for sharing a board, not with those design constraints. Imo this seems like a poor use of a good imagination.
I was just reflecting on board duplication being the factor limiting Apple from bringing Xeons to the iMac down the road. HP put Xeons in their Z1s and I was hoping this might be where they could take the iMac to keep its processing power on an upward trajectory.
I'll probably end up moving back to the Mac Pro again and update less frequently, now that it comes in a small and quiet form factor.
I was just reflecting on board duplication being the factor limiting Apple from bringing Xeons to the iMac down the road. HP put Xeons in their Z1s and I was hoping this might be where they could take the iMac to keep it's processing power on an upward trajectory.
I'll probably end up moving back to the Mac Pro again and update less frequently, now that it comes in a small and quiet form factor.
Those are different Xeons. I think you should review ark.intel at some point. The "Xeons" in the Z1 are LGA1155 types. Xeon is just workstation/server branding. They are currently preceded by E3 rather than E5. Even among E5 you have further disambiguation. Those appropriate for dual socket use are labeled 26xx rather than 16xx. The new mac pro uses both, as 8-12 cores only come in 26xx variants at the higher markup. The ones in the Z1 are the same type used in the imacs with different branding. They might go one higher in the lineup, but several hundred dollars for .1 ghz isn't really worthwhile. The Z1 is nice, but it's really quite expensive.
Those are different Xeons. I think you should review ark.intel at some point.
I had a look at intel's xeon comparison page, but the socket details eluded me. None the less, without drowning myself in technical detail, it's clear from what you're saying we're not going to see the iMac increase its core count via xeons or other chips for years. It isn't exactly bad news, sad maybe, but it clarifies that the Mac Pro is now "it" again. Knowing that much at least, resolves hesitation around shifting back to the Pro.
I was in the Apple store yesterday to swap out a broken iPad, nothing has changed, desktops are hidden away out of sight.
By the way they gave me an iPad that doesn't take a charge. ????????????????????. Not happy I have to make another run to the Apple store today.
Oh, that’s hilarious. You sure we’re not talking about laptops? That’s the dying market. The future is tablets and multitouch desktops.
No talking about low end desktops such as the Mini or even the iMac. It is painfully obvious no matter if it is an Apple store or one oriented to selling PC's. Many laptops are on display but you are lucky to find more than 4 desktops on display. I'm not even sure why you argue about this, it is pretty obvious.
You sure we’re not talking about laptops? That’s the dying market. The future is tablets and multitouch desktops.
Apple noted in their latest filing that desktops are down again and laptops up. I'd guess they are below 20% now with laptops above 80% and the same goes for the revenue split.
The desktops will continue to wind down over time. I think they'll keep making them until there's no point making some models. The mini may be in the process of being shipped back to the US.
I'm not even sure why you argue about this, it is pretty obvious.
Because I’m able to look at more than the present. Yeah, they’re ignoring desktops now. They haven’t always. And they won’t always.
Originally Posted by Marvin
Apple noted in their latest filing that desktops are down again and laptops up. I'd guess they are below 20% now with laptops above 80% and the same goes for the revenue split.
Right, and at one time the iPod had 80% of… what’s the word I’m after…
The point is, trends change. I’m not sure how we as a community still aren’t in agreement that the iPad will kill off Apple’s laptop line. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me. You can’t have two mobile product lines and think that they’ll both stick around forever. Apple is moving to a lineup of products that is entirely touchscreen. As a touchscreen physically cannot work on a laptop, the writing’s on the wall for that product category. The future is powerful iPads for mobile computing and beautiful, convertible multitouch desktops for when you need something more powerful than your mobile solution, just like when laptops existed. There will always be desktops.
trends change. I’m not sure how we as a community still aren’t in agreement that the iPad will kill off Apple’s laptop line. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me. You can’t have two mobile product lines and think that they’ll both stick around forever. Apple is moving to a lineup of products that is entirely touchscreen. As a touchscreen physically cannot work on a laptop, the writing’s on the wall for that product category. The future is powerful iPads for mobile computing and beautiful, convertible multitouch desktops for when you need something more powerful than your mobile solution, just like when laptops existed. There will always be desktops.
iPads won't kill off laptops unless they can work like laptops. People need productive mobile computers and the iPad isn't good enough for this yet.
I think an iPad can be made to be as productive as a Macbook Pro with the right UI but the one they have now doesn't allow it. They'd also need to figure out where to put the ports. Mobile workstations need to connect to mass storage, high-end peripherals, be able to capture video, even connect to other iOS devices to use for testing code.
I don't think the desktop trend is going to reverse. A student studying music, art, computer science, photography etc can't replace a laptop with an iPad if they are going to use a device productively in classes.
A student studying music, art, computer science, photography etc can't replace a laptop with an iPad if they are going to use a device productively in classes.
Today.
Though why not? You’ve seen the apps it has, yeah?
Apple noted in their latest filing that desktops are down again and laptops up. I'd guess they are below 20% now with laptops above 80% and the same goes for the revenue split.
I was under the impression that laptops where above 80% for a few years now. Part of that is due to Apples pathetic desktop line up that has been stagnate for year and partly due to the market in general dying.
The desktops will continue to wind down over time. I think they'll keep making them until there's no point making some models. The mini may be in the process of being shipped back to the US.
I can see the potential for desktop sales to be good for years forward. However that won't happen with Apples current desktop line. The entry point on the Mac Pro just sucks and the Mini isn't the machine to inspire those that really need a desktop machine. Personally I can't understand why management at Apple is so dense in this respect. Neither the current Mini nor the new Mac Pro is what most desktop users are looking for.
Because I’m able to look at more than the present. Yeah, they’re ignoring desktops now. They haven’t always. And they won’t always.
Maybe a decade ago but it has been at least ten years since they have given a damn about the desktop.
Right, and at one time the iPod had 80% of… what’s the word I’m after…
The point is, trends change. I’m not sure how we as a community still aren’t in agreement that the iPad will kill off Apple’s laptop line. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me.
The problem here is the two product lines serve entirely different customer bases. I might be able to get buy with an iPad for my portable needs in the future but a lot of people won't be able to.
You can’t have two mobile product lines and think that they’ll both stick around forever. Apple is moving to a lineup of products that is entirely touchscreen. As a touchscreen physically cannot work on a laptop, the writing’s on the wall for that product category.
If Apple killed the laptops they might as well hose the entire "Mac" product line.
The future is powerful iPads for mobile computing and beautiful, convertible multitouch desktops for when you need something more powerful than your mobile solution, just like when laptops existed. There will always be desktops.
I would tend to agree, there will always be desktops. Honestly though if Apple doesn't get their act together they won't be making them
Though why not? You’ve seen the apps it has, yeah?
The hardware will improve so the Flash memory in the iPad not being nearly as fast as an SSD and the 1GB of RAM not being enough can work out over time. There's not enough control though like being able to install fonts that are shared between apps for design work, being able to install media codecs, being able to zip a file or folder up to send by email, being able to plug in a hard drive.
For the iPad to replace the laptop, they'd need to go through a productive workflow and offer features to allow every necessary action to have a counterpart. IMO, this requires a shared filespace. Apps can have their own sandboxed area too but I think there needs to be a space to be able to install fonts and shared files. There doesn't have to be a Finder app, this shared space can be managed using the iTunes or settings app on iOS and have a section called documents, with a font and codec folder. You'd be able to save web pages or other documents to it. The items that weren't fonts and codecs would be in a single physical folder that used metadata tagging to create projects and other collections of files. Only collections would be listed and files not belonging to one would be under a special collection. To move something, you'd just replace its collection tag so no drag/drop needed. Swipe to delete collections and files.
I still don't think that can replace a laptop entirely though because you can't run servers on it like SQL servers or Apache. Anything that uses non-Apple code interpreters are not allowed. Productive machines can't have those restrictions. Apple knows this because most of them use Macbook Pros. If they planned for the iPad to replace the MBP, they know they have to build them to do everything they do on a laptop, otherwise it's only good enough for the people who didn't need a laptop in the first place.
Oh, that’s hilarious. You sure we’re not talking about laptops? That’s the dying market. The future is tablets and multitouch desktops.
This seems like an attempt to paint esoteric descriptions of a "someday" future rather than what might actually happen over the next few years. Without limiting time frame, I can say that we're likely to see an eventual increase in the use of sophisticated embedded devices. Even today your coffee maker has a chip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mode 5
I had a look at intel's xeon comparison page, but the socket details eluded me. None the less, without drowning myself in technical detail, it's clear from what you're saying we're not going to see the iMac increase its core count via xeons or other chips for years. It isn't exactly bad news, sad maybe, but it clarifies that the Mac Pro is now "it" again. Knowing that much at least, resolves hesitation around shifting back to the Pro.
You are concerning yourself with the wrong things. E3 Xeons like those used in the Z1 are comparable to what is in the imac, which is why I suggested their page. You can get as far as 6 cores with some oems without getting so far into quadratic price scaling. Beyond 6 cores, they're all expensive. There is absolutely no way you'll see that on an imac when the mac pro still starts at 4. You already have that overlap at the low end of the mac pro line. I suspect the imac will gain it a year after the mac pro goes to 6 cores standard, but that has more to do with Intel than Apple. Intel tends to trickle these things down over 1-2 years, and Appe just goes by cpu price. Note that while I'm a little disappointed on the price, it's not that surprising. They have built in moderate price increases over the last 3 refreshes. There was one in 2009, one in 2010, and sort of one in the 2012 reshuffling.
Comments
Of course they have; what nonsense is this?
Oh, that’s hilarious. You sure we’re not talking about laptops? That’s the dying market. The future is tablets and multitouch desktops.
They cut the mac pro down to single socket only. Why would they repeat cpu options with different monickers over the imac line?
Just seems like the iMac is going to end up stuck at 4 cores across the whole lineup for an awfully long time. Apple has a minimalist, resource strategic approach, that's for sure. Could the fact that the Mac Pro now uses a single socket board in a small form factor equate to a shared component between the two? Could they be planning to share laptop boards with the so called 'budget' iMacs for use with integrated graphics CPUs and share Mac Pro boards with the high end iMacs for the dedicated graphics options? I'm just musing. Would they need different monickers over the iMac line? It's just the CPU type, not unlike the different branding of i5s verses i7s now, standard / premium.
After the post-U.S. Thanksgiving/Black Friday hoopla, I guess we'll go straight into the Pro debut.
I can't imagine that Apple would want its new Pro lost in the shuffle around Christmas.
Absolutely no rumours so far on a Mini upgrade. That doesn't inspire confidence.
Now that I think of it, wasn't it odd that the last iMac update didn't include, or hold off to include TB2? Another 12 months without TB2 seems to put the iMac strangely out of sync, unless they're just extending the life of the existing boards until?
Phil Schiller did make much of how they'd managed to keep the cost of the new Mac Pro down. Maybe the timing of the new Mac Pro's form factor was ripe, when it could share a board with the iMac's evolution as a way of making it more affordable.
Now that I think of it, wasn't it odd that the last iMac update didn't include, or hold off to include TB2? Another 12 months without TB2 seems to put the iMac strangely out of sync, unless they're just extending the life of the existing boards until?
Phil Schiller did make much of how they'd managed to keep the cost of the new Mac Pro down. Maybe the timing of the new Mac Pro's form factor was ripe, when it could share a board with the iMac's evolution as a way to make it more affordable.
You're really reaching on this one. The mac pro uses the cheapest parts in its class. I suspect the PCI ssd is going to be at least similar to what they use in the rmbp, which is fine. It's starting at the same capacity in spite of the price difference. The cpus cost less than those that make it into many of the notebooks. They have nowhere to go to make it cheaper. If they want to make it cheaper, they adjust the price accordingly. I could have seen $200 less for a single gpu configuration if they didn't need two cards for three thunderbolt chips. As for thunderbolt itself, the chips are probably $10 or so each. Make of that what you will. It's not a big deal on a machine that costs that much, especially when the other cheap parts they dumped would make up for that. Note that they no longer even ship with a keyboard and mouse standard. You are just grasping on this one. As of right now the cheapest 6 core is going to be $4000. The cpu being used in that one retails for $600. They won't dump the brain from their $4000 machine into a $2000 one. I don't think Haswell E/EP will even be out next year. As for sharing a board, not with those design constraints. Imo this seems like a poor use of a good imagination.
You're really reaching on this one.
LoL. Yep, probably.
I was just reflecting on board duplication being the factor limiting Apple from bringing Xeons to the iMac down the road. HP put Xeons in their Z1s and I was hoping this might be where they could take the iMac to keep its processing power on an upward trajectory.
I'll probably end up moving back to the Mac Pro again and update less frequently, now that it comes in a small and quiet form factor.
LoL. Yep, probably.
I was just reflecting on board duplication being the factor limiting Apple from bringing Xeons to the iMac down the road. HP put Xeons in their Z1s and I was hoping this might be where they could take the iMac to keep it's processing power on an upward trajectory.
I'll probably end up moving back to the Mac Pro again and update less frequently, now that it comes in a small and quiet form factor.
Those are different Xeons. I think you should review ark.intel at some point. The "Xeons" in the Z1 are LGA1155 types. Xeon is just workstation/server branding. They are currently preceded by E3 rather than E5. Even among E5 you have further disambiguation. Those appropriate for dual socket use are labeled 26xx rather than 16xx. The new mac pro uses both, as 8-12 cores only come in 26xx variants at the higher markup. The ones in the Z1 are the same type used in the imacs with different branding. They might go one higher in the lineup, but several hundred dollars for .1 ghz isn't really worthwhile. The Z1 is nice, but it's really quite expensive.
Those are different Xeons. I think you should review ark.intel at some point.
I had a look at intel's xeon comparison page, but the socket details eluded me. None the less, without drowning myself in technical detail, it's clear from what you're saying we're not going to see the iMac increase its core count via xeons or other chips for years. It isn't exactly bad news, sad maybe, but it clarifies that the Mac Pro is now "it" again. Knowing that much at least, resolves hesitation around shifting back to the Pro.
By the way they gave me an iPad that doesn't take a charge. ????????????????????. Not happy I have to make another run to the Apple store today.
No talking about low end desktops such as the Mini or even the iMac. It is painfully obvious no matter if it is an Apple store or one oriented to selling PC's. Many laptops are on display but you are lucky to find more than 4 desktops on display. I'm not even sure why you argue about this, it is pretty obvious.
Apple noted in their latest filing that desktops are down again and laptops up. I'd guess they are below 20% now with laptops above 80% and the same goes for the revenue split.
The desktops will continue to wind down over time. I think they'll keep making them until there's no point making some models. The mini may be in the process of being shipped back to the US.
Because I’m able to look at more than the present. Yeah, they’re ignoring desktops now. They haven’t always. And they won’t always.
Right, and at one time the iPod had 80% of… what’s the word I’m after…
The point is, trends change. I’m not sure how we as a community still aren’t in agreement that the iPad will kill off Apple’s laptop line. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me. You can’t have two mobile product lines and think that they’ll both stick around forever. Apple is moving to a lineup of products that is entirely touchscreen. As a touchscreen physically cannot work on a laptop, the writing’s on the wall for that product category. The future is powerful iPads for mobile computing and beautiful, convertible multitouch desktops for when you need something more powerful than your mobile solution, just like when laptops existed. There will always be desktops.
This is all that matters to me whether it is in the form of a mini or something more powerful.
iPads won't kill off laptops unless they can work like laptops. People need productive mobile computers and the iPad isn't good enough for this yet.
I think an iPad can be made to be as productive as a Macbook Pro with the right UI but the one they have now doesn't allow it. They'd also need to figure out where to put the ports. Mobile workstations need to connect to mass storage, high-end peripherals, be able to capture video, even connect to other iOS devices to use for testing code.
I don't think the desktop trend is going to reverse. A student studying music, art, computer science, photography etc can't replace a laptop with an iPad if they are going to use a device productively in classes.
There you go.
Today.
Though why not? You’ve seen the apps it has, yeah?
I can see the potential for desktop sales to be good for years forward. However that won't happen with Apples current desktop line. The entry point on the Mac Pro just sucks and the Mini isn't the machine to inspire those that really need a desktop machine. Personally I can't understand why management at Apple is so dense in this respect. Neither the current Mini nor the new Mac Pro is what most desktop users are looking for.
I would tend to agree, there will always be desktops. Honestly though if Apple doesn't get their act together they won't be making them
The hardware will improve so the Flash memory in the iPad not being nearly as fast as an SSD and the 1GB of RAM not being enough can work out over time. There's not enough control though like being able to install fonts that are shared between apps for design work, being able to install media codecs, being able to zip a file or folder up to send by email, being able to plug in a hard drive.
For the iPad to replace the laptop, they'd need to go through a productive workflow and offer features to allow every necessary action to have a counterpart. IMO, this requires a shared filespace. Apps can have their own sandboxed area too but I think there needs to be a space to be able to install fonts and shared files. There doesn't have to be a Finder app, this shared space can be managed using the iTunes or settings app on iOS and have a section called documents, with a font and codec folder. You'd be able to save web pages or other documents to it. The items that weren't fonts and codecs would be in a single physical folder that used metadata tagging to create projects and other collections of files. Only collections would be listed and files not belonging to one would be under a special collection. To move something, you'd just replace its collection tag so no drag/drop needed. Swipe to delete collections and files.
I still don't think that can replace a laptop entirely though because you can't run servers on it like SQL servers or Apache. Anything that uses non-Apple code interpreters are not allowed. Productive machines can't have those restrictions. Apple knows this because most of them use Macbook Pros. If they planned for the iPad to replace the MBP, they know they have to build them to do everything they do on a laptop, otherwise it's only good enough for the people who didn't need a laptop in the first place.
Hey. What do you know. That’s exactly what they’ll do.
The multitouch desktop computer won’t be a Mac. Nothing running OS XI will be a Mac. Just like nothing with a mouse+keyboard+GUI was an “Apple”.
In before Dick reminds us that the ][gs got a retroactive mouse and an update to Mac OS 1. I know; I have one.
Of course they have; what nonsense is this?
Oh, that’s hilarious. You sure we’re not talking about laptops? That’s the dying market. The future is tablets and multitouch desktops.
This seems like an attempt to paint esoteric descriptions of a "someday" future rather than what might actually happen over the next few years. Without limiting time frame, I can say that we're likely to see an eventual increase in the use of sophisticated embedded devices. Even today your coffee maker has a chip.
I had a look at intel's xeon comparison page, but the socket details eluded me. None the less, without drowning myself in technical detail, it's clear from what you're saying we're not going to see the iMac increase its core count via xeons or other chips for years. It isn't exactly bad news, sad maybe, but it clarifies that the Mac Pro is now "it" again. Knowing that much at least, resolves hesitation around shifting back to the Pro.
You are concerning yourself with the wrong things. E3 Xeons like those used in the Z1 are comparable to what is in the imac, which is why I suggested their page. You can get as far as 6 cores with some oems without getting so far into quadratic price scaling. Beyond 6 cores, they're all expensive. There is absolutely no way you'll see that on an imac when the mac pro still starts at 4. You already have that overlap at the low end of the mac pro line. I suspect the imac will gain it a year after the mac pro goes to 6 cores standard, but that has more to do with Intel than Apple. Intel tends to trickle these things down over 1-2 years, and Appe just goes by cpu price. Note that while I'm a little disappointed on the price, it's not that surprising. They have built in moderate price increases over the last 3 refreshes. There was one in 2009, one in 2010, and sort of one in the 2012 reshuffling.