The Mac is not going anywhere. Imagine an alternative history where Apple had never made computers and had started with the iPod, then the iPhone and iPad. What would the endless chorus from the media be? "When will they make a laptop"
At that time it would be to risky to find a market for it(price would be at least triple and phones wernt mobile, so if they did the company would have gone bankrupt.
Well this might be the direction they go will be like this: Best Mac design(would be):tablet, .8 inches thick, 15 inch screen(retina), .2 inches bezel around screen(or edge to edge) 11 megapixel iSight, 3 megapixel FaceTime, 4 microphones, 4 GHz 4 core processor(perfurably a Apple custom-A series) running windows, IOS, and Mac-OS(double click home and then hold down to switch) 11 hour battery (for safari on IOS and Mac-OS) featuring 2 thunderbolt, 2 USB 3.1, MagSafe, 2 Audio I/O, for ports, switches include: home, S/W, silent(/screen orientation on IOS) audio up/down, brightness up/down, F keys(for Mac OS and can be set in settings on IOS[F1-10,N]) and Other ports are sd-xc, and micro sim(for cellular version) in the box:IMacTab, MagSafe adapters, thunderbolt to lighting, apple earpods, instruction Manuel, price in today's market would easily reach $3K for a minimum model with 16GB ram, and 512 GB SSD, and a highest price model with 5Ghz 8 core processor, 32 GB Ram, and 3TB SSD(or two 1.5 TB for each OS) could be at minimum of $5k but more feasible $8k. Works with all current Mac/IOS accesorys.(plus new Bluetooth tablet keyboard for iPad and this) Took along time to write this so please reply with your thoughts.
Disney started with animated films and now they make much more money from theme parks, live action films and resorts. They still make animated films because they are the identity and soul of the company. They also synergize with the other businesses. Apple started making flexible, expandable computers from its beginnings and have continued to make them throughout their existence. They are still the soul of the company. They synergize with the other businesses in unexpected ways. The fact that Macs are so heavily used in research labs carries a message for us all---smart people use Macs. When your kid looks at DVD special features and they see the creative people using Macs, they know that Macs and Apple products superior. They will carry this belief with them for the rest of their lives---unless some thin-lipped, bottom-line executive decides that the numbers on the balance sheet don't add up. The positive impact of Pro Macs cannot be measured on a balance sheet but it is enormous. Besides, the technology in an up to date Pro Mac will be the technology of our iPhones and iPads in a few years. Apple, hold on to your soul!
Ive been waiting for someone to write about the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Nice analysis. But I do think there's an issue Apple will need to address more important that the Mac Pro. Mac sales are dropping year over year.
My belief is that retina pricing is responsible. There is a psychological boundary in pricing, where basically the customer has a mental alarm go off in their head that says,
"If I pay this much I am a total idiot" and they walk out of the store.
Retina Macbook pricing has crossed this boundary into Alienware territory (Not that anyone would buy one of those things)
Look I dont care how well off you are, I used to build my own PCs for 800-1000, as things got more commoditized they were only lasting about 8 months.
Buying a mac for 1500 and having it last 3-5 years is fine by me. Add Apple care add tax, now were near 2K depending on where you live.
That was NON-retina. Apple had the best selling notebook in the industry in the 15 inch macbook, it had slow sales of the 17 inch - WHY? Because the 17 inch was priced at 2,500 dollars.
Now including tax and apple care you cant buy a retina macbook for much less than 2K (if at all)
This is pushing people past the psychological boundary I mentioned. Ive even see non retina macbooks pushed off into a corner of an Apple store as if they were undesirable. The best selling notebook in the US undesirable...yeah right.
Retina macbook pricing is crazy and the sticker shock or drop in sales is going to teach Apple a lesson it already learned with the 17 inch macbook. If the lesson is learned too late the mac as a product line will be finished.
PS I just bought a 17 inch macbook a month ago and its is AMAZING.
Why can't it be as thin as it is now? I don't imagine they'll make a 15" iPad until it can weigh 1.5 lbs. and be only as thick as the first-gen.
.2 inches bezel around screen(or edge to edge)
The larger the screen, the larger the bezel you'd want. I'd say the iPad's bezel is about right for a 15". Really wish they weren't changing that on the 5th gen. It makes me not want to upgrade.
Ooh! A worse restarting mechanic than Windows 8's! That's difficult to achieve.
2 thunderbolt, 2 USB 3.1, MagSafe, 2 Audio I/O… …sd-xc…
Nope. Lightning. And 3.5mm headphone.
Took along time to write this so please reply with your thoughts.
I definitely see what you're trying to do, but I don't see it as the way they want to go.
A 15" tablet is going to be WAY more like an iPad than a Mac, but I don't believe they'll make one that runs OS X. Nor iOS. Well, not iOS' current incarnation, at least. And they won't make it until the physical experience isn't compromised in its use. That's the problem with the Surface; it's a laptop shoehorned into the tablet form factor. It didn't work ten years ago, and it won't fly now, particularly since people know what a tablet CAN be like. It'll have to be as easy to hold and use as an iPad is today.
You're right that they won't compromise on the battery life, but I don't see upgradability to it at all, beyond local capacity. I think those days are coming to a close. Not that computers will become more "disposable", but that the same hardware will last you longer/as long thanks to the forced optimization that comes with standardized hardware.
Ive been waiting for someone to write about the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Nice analysis. But I do think there's an issue Apple will need to address more important that the Mac Pro. Mac sales are dropping year over year.
My belief is that retina pricing is responsible. There is a psychological boundary in pricing, where basically the customer has a mental alarm go off in their head that says,
"If I pay this much I am a total idiot" and they walk out of the store.
Retina Macbook pricing has crossed this boundary into Alienware territory (Not that anyone would buy one of those things)
Look I dont care how well off you are, I used to build my own PCs for 800-1000, as things got more commoditized they were only lasting about 8 months.
Buying a mac for 1500 and having it last 3-5 years is fine by me. Add Apple care add tax, now were near 2K depending on where you live.
That was NON-retina. Apple had the best selling notebook in the industry in the 15 inch macbook, it had slow sales of the 17 inch - WHY? Because the 17 inch was priced at 2,500 dollars.
Now including tax and apple care you cant buy a retina macbook for much less than 2K (if at all)
This is pushing people past the psychological boundary I mentioned. Ive even see non retina macbooks pushed off into a corner of an Apple store as if they were undesirable. The best selling notebook in the US undesirable...yeah right.
Retina macbook pricing is crazy and the sticker shock or drop in sales is going to teach Apple a lesson it already learned with the 17 inch macbook. If the lesson is learned too late the mac as a product line will be finished.
PS I just bought a 17 inch macbook a month ago and its is AMAZING.
With the exception of the last year Mac Sales have been expanding year over year, not dropping. The last 12 months have seen nothing but supply line constraints across all of Apple's market segments.
Their sales drops are 1/12th the rates of those of the entire PC sector. In fact, the biggest contributing factor to the miniscule drops of 1.5% in Mac Sales were panel issues with the iMac, Macbook AIR/Macbook Pro.
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
In fact, if they don't get their crap together you can bet a new consortium of companies will create a new set of manufacturers that will produce new channels of materials. The money is available along with the expertise.
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
How many times since the turn of the century have various LCD manufacturers been caught colluding? Five, was it?
You get to wondering why the people responsible aren't jailed… Fines seem to do squat.
I think the Mac Pro is the most likely product to have its manufacturing moved to the US. Cook stated last year they had planned to move a whole product line to the US for manufacturing, a comment that seems to have been forgotten by the tech press in the rush to proclaim the doom of the company.
I think you are right. For instance: a highly automated assembly plant combined with a highly customizable Mac Pro design would make a lot of sense. Order placed online, machine assembled by robots as you ordered, machine delivered in a couple of days. Cool.
I've made the point before that games aren't the only benchmark, but for other applications the general consensus isn't typically the hottest gaming gpu. In some cases workstation variants are a better idea. "Expansion cards work fine over thunderbolt" is a pretty bold statement. You are more limited than you would be with PCI cards, not that it matters for everyone. You may have to reboot any time it's plugged in or if the connection is dropped. Even the proof of concept videos admit it's not really perfect. Personally I would stick to the ones where whatever company oems the device makes a usb3 or thunderbolt version rather than relying on card + enclosure. Thunderbolt isn't a plug and play PCIe unless you're dealing with certified devices.
I can't think of any workstations that actually do that. Typically on the Windows variants, they encourage the use of workstation cards, which seem to carry lower tdp than some of the top gaming cards. I don't think Apple was using 200W cards back when they designed the case used for the Mac Pro today. Regardless of oem brand, you would need power connectors on them. The PCI lanes don't have enough direct power to deal with several of those. Without over-subscribing the slots, you would also be limited to the dual cpu machines for such a configuration. The lanes originate on the cpus as of Sandy Bridge, so you would need 2 at x40 each to get the 48 lanes required for your configuration aside from lanes allocated to other on board ports. I'm not sure how they would implement thunderbolt there. It might not be a huge engineering issue. I just don't know how it would be done.
I'm specifically implying that the Intel C228 chipset replacing the C216 chipset will have 3 8-lane PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots instead of just 2 leaving today's systems stuck at x16,x16,x8 at most.
The concept of external stackable box(es) for PCI extension cards, additional hard drives etc operating via Thunderbolt is superb. I buy the Mac Pro because I need the processing grunt and like to use my own monitor set-up... not the big box.
I also dislike the noise the Mac Pro puts out via its many fans ... and if it didn't need to cool 4 hard drives and multiple PCI cards in the one box, presumably the noise from fans could be reduced too.
Starting with the MacBook Air, of course. It's absolutely inevitable.
Apple will avoid the Intel Tax, and will undercut Intel-based "Ultrabook" pricing.
And it would more strongly differentiate the consumer MacBooks from the MacBook Pros.
(If the MacBook Pros continue to use legacy Intel chips.)
Agree. Eventually, the Mac Pro could be composed of snap-together modules with Thunderbolt connectors. The basic Mac Pro would have one CPU module, one storage module, a power module, a Display Adapter module, plus an Apple Thunderbolt Display. (And maybe that would be the Mac mini configuration, come to think of it.) You want a hard core number cruncher? Snap together 10 CPU modules. You want a video editing system? Snap together 4 CPU modules and 20 storage modules.
The modules would be held together with magnets a la iPad Smart Cover, with near-flush Thunderbolt and power connectors. If you want more security, Apple could sell you lockable enclosures in different sizes. And, if you're feeling really retro, there might be 3rd party FireWire / USB / serial / parallel / SCSI modules too.
There's one big problem with these theories...They can't co-exist. Thunderbolt is an Intel licensed technology and is part of the PCIe controller built into the CPU. So if you switch to ARM on some models, but still want Thunderbolt connected MacPro "modules", it will have to be Intel and will not be able to connect to ARM based MacBooks, nor will these MacBooks be able to connect to Thunderbolt displays with anything more than a regular mini display port. Going to ARM would mean dropping Thunderbolt, period.
I honestly think of people who use Desktop Computers as construction companies. The devices themselves are the CAT Trucks, Back Hoes, the Excavators.
So yeah, think about all this, all the kids under 18 got iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Hey that's their generation and what they may need. But that's the freaking 100 million devices.
In the work world and such you need your TOOLS...
So, yeah I think they (Desktops/Towers) will be around. And a funny thing is for some guys their work is PC Gaming, getting paid MONEYS...
Get over it. I mean if the drop towers, guys will build hackintosh and even put iOS on Hackintosh if they ever dropped Mac OS X. So I mean it just doesn't matter.
Does Apple want to supply "Construction Companies" is the question
I know Tim sent out that mail saying that there's new Mac Pro on the way, but I seriously doubt it's a "new" product line. I forsee a "pro" version of the iMac with a high-end mobile graphics card, an extra Thunderbolt bus, and then a new "pro" thunderbolt hub for PCI/Firewire/Thunderbolt etc. The limited, online-only ad campaign will of course tout the fact that it's 8 times faster than the "old" Mac Pro, and that the thunderbolt solution is better/faster than any alternative on the market.
It hasn't been Apples MO for 3-4 years now to release a product that won't turn a giant profit. The classic Mac Pro is so far away from any of their current products in terms of product design and internals that I just don't see them doing it; a "power" version of an existing product is more likely. Spending the required resources, factory space and developers to develop a product that might make up 0.05% of Apple revenues just doesn't make much sense.
So far the only real argument I've seen for why Apple will release a Mac Pro is "because pros like me need one!!!", which isn't much to hold out hope for.
With the exception of the last year Mac Sales have been expanding year over year, not dropping. The last 12 months have seen nothing but supply line constraints across all of Apple's market segments.
Their sales drops are 1/12th the rates of those of the entire PC sector. In fact, the biggest contributing factor to the miniscule drops of 1.5% in Mac Sales were panel issues with the iMac, Macbook AIR/Macbook Pro.
I would add that the person you responded to didn't look at the macbook pro pricing prior to the retina models. They always had a $2200 model, and they still have an $1800 model with the old version. It may not seem as compelling, but it's there.
Quote:
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
In fact, if they don't get their crap together you can bet a new consortium of companies will create a new set of manufacturers that will produce new channels of materials. The money is available along with the expertise.
The problem is the margins on display panels aren't that great. I suspect that is why Hitachi got out of it when they basically pioneered IPS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
I'm specifically implying that the Intel C228 chipset replacing the C216 chipset will have 3 8-lane PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots instead of just 2 leaving today's systems stuck at x16,x16,x8 at most.
I get you now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Superbass
I just don't see them doing it; a "power" version of an existing product is more likely. Spending the required resources, factory space and developers to develop a product that might make up 0.05% of Apple revenues just doesn't make much sense.
That's even less likely if you examine the options. People were predicting a 6 core "imac pro" last year, and I pointed out that it would require a different logic board just to support 1-2 cpu options as nothing would be available without jumping to LGA2011. The imac has gone the route of higher end cpu and gpu options than it previously used since 2010 or so, and that is all you are likely to see. It's that way because they can't reuse most of the logic board. You're also unlikely to go any higher with gpu options. HP uses mobile quadro gpus in the Z1. The mini isn't much of a candidate because again you can't reuse much. I guess it could happen, but you would likely see a large cost increase for minimal gain. With the mac pro they're at least able to tap a fairly wide range from the $2500 model up to the 12 core.
Not even necessary. Most pros I know have settled on the iMac. They are quite powerful these days, though not ideal for heavy-duty rendering tasks.
True, but there are ways to use a network of iMacs to do offline rendering jobs (global illumination, ray tracing). Personally, I'd prefer the many-core solution and would love to have a 16-core Pro option in a single box as I don't have a lab full of iMacs to network.
The new Mac Pro will be the hardware counterpart to Final Cut Pro X. Stylish, more compact, and be completely drool-worthly on the surface. But when you start looking at the specifics, it will fall short. The second release will patch a few holes, causing people who will never buy one to declare that all of the critics were just whiners and Apple knocked another one out of the park.
There was a long thread back a while that discussed the MacPro and suggested the modular form might not work, but the concept is cool.
The modular idea doesn't work for a number of reasons (power/data connections) but the door is a big problem. They'd have to have variable sized doors. It also leaves uneven seams everywhere, Ive would not approve of that.
that was posted by Marvin a while back. I just found it and was going to link.
That's a mockup of the older model too. The newer one was this one:
No optical makes more sense. That was also before finding out about the Sandia CPU cooler. Right now Apple uses massive heatsinks, which are quite expensive. The following block of metal doesn't really do anything actively, fans just blow on it to keep it cold and the copper draws the heat away from the processor - that little white square is where the processor sits:
The Sandia cooler is a part Apple can machine out of aluminium very cheaply and is a fraction of the size:
That's what led to this:
I left some PCI slots on that one because it's not clear how they can make Thunderbolt work without an IGP, the slots are just half-length. They'd allow full-length outside but again, that would be the exception.
Apple started making flexible, expandable computers from its beginnings and have continued to make them throughout their existence. They are still the soul of the company.
There's a difference with your disney example and also the car examples that crop up. What people often forget is that the chips inside the Mac Pro that do all the work (even the ones on the GPU cards) are actually incredibly small. They are not much larger than the chips you get in a laptop or iMac. The main difference is they get hotter so a significant portion of the Mac Pro design is for cooling. Using advanced cooling methods means those chips can fit into a smaller space.
You can see that today - the super slim iMac performs at the level of a 2009 Mac Pro, significantly outperforms its GPU - and yet the iMac is whisper quiet at full load. Intel and NVidia just improved performance per watt.
The bulk of the Mac Pro doesn't represent high performance but cooling inefficiency just like the mainframes that preceded it. The size of the storage represents the lack of areal density.
Some people see the Mac Pro as highlighting the best of computing but it really showcases the worst of it. The iMac and iPad represent the best of it because they hide the inefficiency to the point that you can't tell there is any. The iPad especially because it's passively cooled and everything is designed around real-time interaction.
Right now, some people are still in the phase of 'you can't do xyz with anything less than a Mac pro' and the scenarios get ever more elaborate but the fact is that people are doing the highest-end workflows without them on the workstation side and hundreds of server blades doing the processing:
[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]
When I saw those films (Flight and Looper), I didn't know the visual effects were designed with iMacs. While some people will continue to suggest that iMacs are not for professional/high-end/intensive/tight-deadline/color-accurate work, people are using them for it. A Mac Pro will do the same job but it wouldn't necessarily improve the workflow. When it comes to local real-time workflows, the difference is not that great.
I come from a domain (small architecture office) that was dominated by MacPros until some years ago. Nowadays we use iMacs which allow us to do everything that is needed at a fraction of the previous cost. And the longevity of the machines is still guaranteed (I mean I don't have a computer that is unable to run the latest software only a year after purchase).
That said, I understand the need for, in some specific instances, of a lot of horsepower.
But the market for MacPro users is such a small niche market that, in my opinion Apple should:
- FIRST NOT QUIT THE MARKET, that I totally agree with
- NOT OFFER A "MAC PRO".
Apple should offer a "MacPro" PLATFORM, upon which tech savvy power users can customize everything in their computer. Up to the tiniest details from a choice of modules.
This would cater that customer base best because they could really tailor the machine to their needs.
It is, in my opinion, pointless to offer "ready made" choices.
Comments
F keys(for Mac OS and can be set in settings on IOS[F1-10,N]) and
Other ports are sd-xc, and micro sim(for cellular version) in the box:IMacTab, MagSafe adapters, thunderbolt to lighting, apple earpods, instruction Manuel, price in today's market would easily reach $3K for a minimum model with 16GB ram, and 512 GB SSD, and a highest price model with 5Ghz 8 core processor, 32 GB Ram, and 3TB SSD(or two 1.5 TB for each OS) could be at minimum of $5k but more feasible $8k. Works with all current Mac/IOS accesorys.(plus new Bluetooth tablet keyboard for iPad and this)
Took along time to write this so please reply with your thoughts.
Apple started making flexible, expandable computers from its beginnings and have continued to make them throughout their existence. They are still the soul of the company. They synergize with the other businesses in unexpected ways. The fact that Macs are so heavily used in research labs carries a message for us all---smart people use Macs. When your kid looks at DVD special features and they see the creative people using Macs, they know that Macs and Apple products superior. They will carry this belief with them for the rest of their lives---unless some thin-lipped, bottom-line executive decides that the numbers on the balance sheet don't add up. The positive impact of Pro Macs cannot be measured on a balance sheet but it is enormous. Besides, the technology in an up to date Pro Mac will be the technology of our iPhones and iPads in a few years. Apple, hold on to your soul!
My belief is that retina pricing is responsible. There is a psychological boundary in pricing, where basically the customer has a mental alarm go off in their head that says,
"If I pay this much I am a total idiot" and they walk out of the store.
Retina Macbook pricing has crossed this boundary into Alienware territory (Not that anyone would buy one of those things)
Look I dont care how well off you are, I used to build my own PCs for 800-1000, as things got more commoditized they were only lasting about 8 months.
Buying a mac for 1500 and having it last 3-5 years is fine by me. Add Apple care add tax, now were near 2K depending on where you live.
That was NON-retina. Apple had the best selling notebook in the industry in the 15 inch macbook, it had slow sales of the 17 inch - WHY? Because the 17 inch was priced at 2,500 dollars.
Now including tax and apple care you cant buy a retina macbook for much less than 2K (if at all)
This is pushing people past the psychological boundary I mentioned. Ive even see non retina macbooks pushed off into a corner of an Apple store as if they were undesirable. The best selling notebook in the US undesirable...yeah right.
Retina macbook pricing is crazy and the sticker shock or drop in sales is going to teach Apple a lesson it already learned with the 17 inch macbook. If the lesson is learned too late the mac as a product line will be finished.
PS I just bought a 17 inch macbook a month ago and its is AMAZING.
Originally Posted by Curtis Hannah
tablet, .8 inches thick, 15 inch screen(retina)
Why can't it be as thin as it is now? I don't imagine they'll make a 15" iPad until it can weigh 1.5 lbs. and be only as thick as the first-gen.
.2 inches bezel around screen(or edge to edge)
The larger the screen, the larger the bezel you'd want. I'd say the iPad's bezel is about right for a 15". Really wish they weren't changing that on the 5th gen. It makes me not want to upgrade.
…4 microphones…
Gotta have that quadraphonic sound!¡
…4 GHz…
It's not all about the Pentiums, baby.
…running windows…
*sounds of car wreck*
…IOS, and Mac-OS…
Never ever ever ever ever ever.
(double click home and then hold down to switch)
Ooh! A worse restarting mechanic than Windows 8's! That's difficult to achieve.
2 thunderbolt, 2 USB 3.1, MagSafe, 2 Audio I/O… …sd-xc…
Nope. Lightning. And 3.5mm headphone.
Took along time to write this so please reply with your thoughts.
I definitely see what you're trying to do, but I don't see it as the way they want to go.
A 15" tablet is going to be WAY more like an iPad than a Mac, but I don't believe they'll make one that runs OS X. Nor iOS. Well, not iOS' current incarnation, at least. And they won't make it until the physical experience isn't compromised in its use. That's the problem with the Surface; it's a laptop shoehorned into the tablet form factor. It didn't work ten years ago, and it won't fly now, particularly since people know what a tablet CAN be like. It'll have to be as easy to hold and use as an iPad is today.
You're right that they won't compromise on the battery life, but I don't see upgradability to it at all, beyond local capacity. I think those days are coming to a close. Not that computers will become more "disposable", but that the same hardware will last you longer/as long thanks to the forced optimization that comes with standardized hardware.
Quote:
Originally Posted by appmonster
Ive been waiting for someone to write about the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Nice analysis. But I do think there's an issue Apple will need to address more important that the Mac Pro. Mac sales are dropping year over year.
My belief is that retina pricing is responsible. There is a psychological boundary in pricing, where basically the customer has a mental alarm go off in their head that says,
"If I pay this much I am a total idiot" and they walk out of the store.
Retina Macbook pricing has crossed this boundary into Alienware territory (Not that anyone would buy one of those things)
Look I dont care how well off you are, I used to build my own PCs for 800-1000, as things got more commoditized they were only lasting about 8 months.
Buying a mac for 1500 and having it last 3-5 years is fine by me. Add Apple care add tax, now were near 2K depending on where you live.
That was NON-retina. Apple had the best selling notebook in the industry in the 15 inch macbook, it had slow sales of the 17 inch - WHY? Because the 17 inch was priced at 2,500 dollars.
Now including tax and apple care you cant buy a retina macbook for much less than 2K (if at all)
This is pushing people past the psychological boundary I mentioned. Ive even see non retina macbooks pushed off into a corner of an Apple store as if they were undesirable. The best selling notebook in the US undesirable...yeah right.
Retina macbook pricing is crazy and the sticker shock or drop in sales is going to teach Apple a lesson it already learned with the 17 inch macbook. If the lesson is learned too late the mac as a product line will be finished.
PS I just bought a 17 inch macbook a month ago and its is AMAZING.
With the exception of the last year Mac Sales have been expanding year over year, not dropping. The last 12 months have seen nothing but supply line constraints across all of Apple's market segments.
Their sales drops are 1/12th the rates of those of the entire PC sector. In fact, the biggest contributing factor to the miniscule drops of 1.5% in Mac Sales were panel issues with the iMac, Macbook AIR/Macbook Pro.
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
In fact, if they don't get their crap together you can bet a new consortium of companies will create a new set of manufacturers that will produce new channels of materials. The money is available along with the expertise.
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
How many times since the turn of the century have various LCD manufacturers been caught colluding? Five, was it?
You get to wondering why the people responsible aren't jailed… Fines seem to do squat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sessamoid
I think the Mac Pro is the most likely product to have its manufacturing moved to the US. Cook stated last year they had planned to move a whole product line to the US for manufacturing, a comment that seems to have been forgotten by the tech press in the rush to proclaim the doom of the company.
I think you are right. For instance: a highly automated assembly plant combined with a highly customizable Mac Pro design would make a lot of sense. Order placed online, machine assembled by robots as you ordered, machine delivered in a couple of days. Cool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
I've made the point before that games aren't the only benchmark, but for other applications the general consensus isn't typically the hottest gaming gpu. In some cases workstation variants are a better idea. "Expansion cards work fine over thunderbolt" is a pretty bold statement. You are more limited than you would be with PCI cards, not that it matters for everyone. You may have to reboot any time it's plugged in or if the connection is dropped. Even the proof of concept videos admit it's not really perfect. Personally I would stick to the ones where whatever company oems the device makes a usb3 or thunderbolt version rather than relying on card + enclosure. Thunderbolt isn't a plug and play PCIe unless you're dealing with certified devices.
I can't think of any workstations that actually do that. Typically on the Windows variants, they encourage the use of workstation cards, which seem to carry lower tdp than some of the top gaming cards. I don't think Apple was using 200W cards back when they designed the case used for the Mac Pro today. Regardless of oem brand, you would need power connectors on them. The PCI lanes don't have enough direct power to deal with several of those. Without over-subscribing the slots, you would also be limited to the dual cpu machines for such a configuration. The lanes originate on the cpus as of Sandy Bridge, so you would need 2 at x40 each to get the 48 lanes required for your configuration aside from lanes allocated to other on board ports. I'm not sure how they would implement thunderbolt there. It might not be a huge engineering issue. I just don't know how it would be done.
I'm specifically implying that the Intel C228 chipset replacing the C216 chipset will have 3 8-lane PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots instead of just 2 leaving today's systems stuck at x16,x16,x8 at most.
I also dislike the noise the Mac Pro puts out via its many fans ... and if it didn't need to cool 4 hard drives and multiple PCI cards in the one box, presumably the noise from fans could be reduced too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SockRolid
Starting with the MacBook Air, of course. It's absolutely inevitable.
Apple will avoid the Intel Tax, and will undercut Intel-based "Ultrabook" pricing.
And it would more strongly differentiate the consumer MacBooks from the MacBook Pros.
(If the MacBook Pros continue to use legacy Intel chips.)
Agree. Eventually, the Mac Pro could be composed of snap-together modules with Thunderbolt connectors. The basic Mac Pro would have one CPU module, one storage module, a power module, a Display Adapter module, plus an Apple Thunderbolt Display. (And maybe that would be the Mac mini configuration, come to think of it.) You want a hard core number cruncher? Snap together 10 CPU modules. You want a video editing system? Snap together 4 CPU modules and 20 storage modules.
The modules would be held together with magnets a la iPad Smart Cover, with near-flush Thunderbolt and power connectors. If you want more security, Apple could sell you lockable enclosures in different sizes. And, if you're feeling really retro, there might be 3rd party FireWire / USB / serial / parallel / SCSI modules too.
There's one big problem with these theories...They can't co-exist. Thunderbolt is an Intel licensed technology and is part of the PCIe controller built into the CPU. So if you switch to ARM on some models, but still want Thunderbolt connected MacPro "modules", it will have to be Intel and will not be able to connect to ARM based MacBooks, nor will these MacBooks be able to connect to Thunderbolt displays with anything more than a regular mini display port. Going to ARM would mean dropping Thunderbolt, period.
So yeah, think about all this, all the kids under 18 got iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Hey that's their generation and what they may need. But that's the freaking 100 million devices.
In the work world and such you need your TOOLS...
So, yeah I think they (Desktops/Towers) will be around. And a funny thing is for some guys their work is PC Gaming, getting paid MONEYS...
Get over it. I mean if the drop towers, guys will build hackintosh and even put iOS on Hackintosh if they ever dropped Mac OS X. So I mean it just doesn't matter.
Does Apple want to supply "Construction Companies" is the question
Late
I know Tim sent out that mail saying that there's new Mac Pro on the way, but I seriously doubt it's a "new" product line. I forsee a "pro" version of the iMac with a high-end mobile graphics card, an extra Thunderbolt bus, and then a new "pro" thunderbolt hub for PCI/Firewire/Thunderbolt etc. The limited, online-only ad campaign will of course tout the fact that it's 8 times faster than the "old" Mac Pro, and that the thunderbolt solution is better/faster than any alternative on the market.
It hasn't been Apples MO for 3-4 years now to release a product that won't turn a giant profit. The classic Mac Pro is so far away from any of their current products in terms of product design and internals that I just don't see them doing it; a "power" version of an existing product is more likely. Spending the required resources, factory space and developers to develop a product that might make up 0.05% of Apple revenues just doesn't make much sense.
So far the only real argument I've seen for why Apple will release a Mac Pro is "because pros like me need one!!!", which isn't much to hold out hope for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
With the exception of the last year Mac Sales have been expanding year over year, not dropping. The last 12 months have seen nothing but supply line constraints across all of Apple's market segments.
Their sales drops are 1/12th the rates of those of the entire PC sector. In fact, the biggest contributing factor to the miniscule drops of 1.5% in Mac Sales were panel issues with the iMac, Macbook AIR/Macbook Pro.
I would add that the person you responded to didn't look at the macbook pro pricing prior to the retina models. They always had a $2200 model, and they still have an $1800 model with the old version. It may not seem as compelling, but it's there.
Quote:
The world is waiting on Samsung, LG, SHARP and whatever other IPS/LED panel manufacturers to get their crap together and stop constraining supplies to drive up the rates in an attempt to compensate for their own mishandling of business and collusion fees that Samsung/LG were guilty of on more than one occasion.
In fact, if they don't get their crap together you can bet a new consortium of companies will create a new set of manufacturers that will produce new channels of materials. The money is available along with the expertise.
The problem is the margins on display panels aren't that great. I suspect that is why Hitachi got out of it when they basically pioneered IPS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
I'm specifically implying that the Intel C228 chipset replacing the C216 chipset will have 3 8-lane PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots instead of just 2 leaving today's systems stuck at x16,x16,x8 at most.
I get you now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Superbass
I just don't see them doing it; a "power" version of an existing product is more likely. Spending the required resources, factory space and developers to develop a product that might make up 0.05% of Apple revenues just doesn't make much sense.
That's even less likely if you examine the options. People were predicting a 6 core "imac pro" last year, and I pointed out that it would require a different logic board just to support 1-2 cpu options as nothing would be available without jumping to LGA2011. The imac has gone the route of higher end cpu and gpu options than it previously used since 2010 or so, and that is all you are likely to see. It's that way because they can't reuse most of the logic board. You're also unlikely to go any higher with gpu options. HP uses mobile quadro gpus in the Z1. The mini isn't much of a candidate because again you can't reuse much. I guess it could happen, but you would likely see a large cost increase for minimal gain. With the mac pro they're at least able to tap a fairly wide range from the $2500 model up to the 12 core.
True, but there are ways to use a network of iMacs to do offline rendering jobs (global illumination, ray tracing). Personally, I'd prefer the many-core solution and would love to have a 16-core Pro option in a single box as I don't have a lab full of iMacs to network.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tribalogical
iMac Pro?
Done in one.
The new Mac Pro will be the hardware counterpart to Final Cut Pro X. Stylish, more compact, and be completely drool-worthly on the surface. But when you start looking at the specifics, it will fall short. The second release will patch a few holes, causing people who will never buy one to declare that all of the critics were just whiners and Apple knocked another one out of the park.
The modular idea doesn't work for a number of reasons (power/data connections) but the door is a big problem. They'd have to have variable sized doors. It also leaves uneven seams everywhere, Ive would not approve of that.
That's a mockup of the older model too. The newer one was this one:
No optical makes more sense. That was also before finding out about the Sandia CPU cooler. Right now Apple uses massive heatsinks, which are quite expensive. The following block of metal doesn't really do anything actively, fans just blow on it to keep it cold and the copper draws the heat away from the processor - that little white square is where the processor sits:
The Sandia cooler is a part Apple can machine out of aluminium very cheaply and is a fraction of the size:
That's what led to this:
I left some PCI slots on that one because it's not clear how they can make Thunderbolt work without an IGP, the slots are just half-length. They'd allow full-length outside but again, that would be the exception.
There's a difference with your disney example and also the car examples that crop up. What people often forget is that the chips inside the Mac Pro that do all the work (even the ones on the GPU cards) are actually incredibly small. They are not much larger than the chips you get in a laptop or iMac. The main difference is they get hotter so a significant portion of the Mac Pro design is for cooling. Using advanced cooling methods means those chips can fit into a smaller space.
You can see that today - the super slim iMac performs at the level of a 2009 Mac Pro, significantly outperforms its GPU - and yet the iMac is whisper quiet at full load. Intel and NVidia just improved performance per watt.
The bulk of the Mac Pro doesn't represent high performance but cooling inefficiency just like the mainframes that preceded it. The size of the storage represents the lack of areal density.
Some people see the Mac Pro as highlighting the best of computing but it really showcases the worst of it. The iMac and iPad represent the best of it because they hide the inefficiency to the point that you can't tell there is any. The iPad especially because it's passively cooled and everything is designed around real-time interaction.
Right now, some people are still in the phase of 'you can't do xyz with anything less than a Mac pro' and the scenarios get ever more elaborate but the fact is that people are doing the highest-end workflows without them on the workstation side and hundreds of server blades doing the processing:
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When I saw those films (Flight and Looper), I didn't know the visual effects were designed with iMacs. While some people will continue to suggest that iMacs are not for professional/high-end/intensive/tight-deadline/color-accurate work, people are using them for it. A Mac Pro will do the same job but it wouldn't necessarily improve the workflow. When it comes to local real-time workflows, the difference is not that great.
That's designed for Haswell though. The Mac Pro will be Ivy Bridge. It would be nice if it was Haswell though.
Every year Apple should release a new Mac Pro, a single, top of the line model.
Apple should then continue to sell the previous years models as a lower priced option.
This would would make them much more enterprise friendly.
Enterprise customers love predictable upgrade cycles and standardized configurations.
They also love being able to buy the same machine they bought 2 years ago and having fewer varying models.
2015 Mac Pro $3000
2014 Mac Pro $2500
2013 Mac Pro $2000
I come from a domain (small architecture office) that was dominated by MacPros until some years ago. Nowadays we use iMacs which allow us to do everything that is needed at a fraction of the previous cost. And the longevity of the machines is still guaranteed (I mean I don't have a computer that is unable to run the latest software only a year after purchase).
That said, I understand the need for, in some specific instances, of a lot of horsepower.
But the market for MacPro users is such a small niche market that, in my opinion Apple should:
- FIRST NOT QUIT THE MARKET, that I totally agree with
- NOT OFFER A "MAC PRO".
Apple should offer a "MacPro" PLATFORM, upon which tech savvy power users can customize everything in their computer. Up to the tiniest details from a choice of modules.
This would cater that customer base best because they could really tailor the machine to their needs.
It is, in my opinion, pointless to offer "ready made" choices.