I read somewhere that, under Mavericks, you can interconnect 2 (or more) Thunderbolt Macs using: System Preferences--->Network--->Thunderbolt Bridge.
If this works as I understand it, you could use your 2011 iMac as a interim display for the New Mac Pro -- until Apple releases new displays.
I only have 1 Thunderbolt Mac (a 2011 iMac) so I can't test it.
I already have 2 Pegasus 12 TB Raids & Planed to buy a New Mac Pro and TB Display... but I think I will try to use the iMac, as above, until I can buy an Apple 4K display.
As an alternative, I have an old 23" Cinema Display that works fine connected to the TB port with a MiniDisplay Adapter.
That sounds indeed like an interesting proposition - but how would the iMac itself behave while the display is being used by the nMP? Sort of like in Firewire target mode (i.e., inactive otherwise)?
[quote name="alienzed" url="/t/161237/apples-new-cylindrical-mac-pro-desktop-arrives-thursday-starting-at-2-999/80#post_2447698"]-To explain the picture a little bit more, it tries to show two equivalent systems, one using the old Mac Pro as a base and the other a new. The old Mac pro had a DVD drive, as well as an expansion bay that you could add a second one (blurry, whatever) two. Without which these would not be equivalent. I agree though, for the most part physical media like CDs and DVDs are dead. -Why would they buy a new mac pro if they had all that equipment? Ummm... to upgrade? But that's not the point of this image, it is just comparing equivalently 'expanded' systems in terms of capability, not specs.[/QUOTE]
How is it fair if you use a bunch of equipment that isn't relevant for today's average Mac Pro buyer? I could do the same thing with an old Power Mac since the old tower Mac Pro doesn't support a lot of the old interconnects and I doubt there are many PCIe cards that will support them and if they do likely not have Mac drivers.
[QUOTE]-Why doesn't the old mac pro show any cables? Because all that stuff is INSIDE of it. You don't see the power cable behind the new one either, this comparison seems perfectly fair to me. -"Why would you have all those cable coiled up on the desk next to the new Mac Pro?" On the desk, under the desk, whatever, you need cables to plug all that stuff in. Remember the original bondi blue iMac commercial where they who making fun of PC's because of how many cables you needed? yeah....[/QUOTE]
If that isn't a surge protecter and power cables all bundled together then what are they? Why are the cables are coiled up next to each other anyway except to make it looks like crap? How about putting that old Mac Pro on a desk next to a display, wireless mouse and keyboard and comparing it to the new Mac Pro? It would be comparatively loud and look really silly as it's not designed for that, just like it's silly to buy to notebooks and rack mount them or carry a rack mounted server in a bag to plug in at Starbucks.
[QUOTE]Finally, tablets vs laptops vs desktops... Consumers are snapping up tablets and laptops, professionals need powerful machines that can be upgraded and expanded. Having to upgrade and expand using external components has NEVER been an advantage. Sure it's possible, and with thunderbolt it's going to be a lot less detrimental to performance, but that's not the point. People who need the most power and abilities possible are not well served by machines that have soldiered components that are used to be user replaceable.[/QUOTE]
I had no intention in buying a Mac Pro with internal SATA HDDs and pointless expansion that very few buyers ever seem to utilize but this new one piques my interest. Is it my interests that you think are invalid or are you saying Apple doesn't know what people are doing with their Mac Pros when they decided to make one with PCIe SSDs and versatile, almost endless expansion as opposed to limited, internal expansion in a large, heavy case? Do you think it will be a failure?
That's incredible when you think about it. You really tricked out your system. Things are so cheap these days because the dollar has shrunk in value over the decades. It no longer means as much as it used to.
Also maybe on Thursday they silently update the Mac mini : D
I was doing commercial photo imaging work. It was some of the overflow from my company.
Things were even more amazing on the high end color part of our business. We had four Barco studio graphics monitors: $16,000....each! Also six Barco Personal monitors at $4,000 each. For lessor work we used 21" Apple studio monitors. They used to be called the poor mans' Barco.
In those days money was nothing for a commercial photo lab. Our clients expected the best. Nowadays, lots of those doing color work have no idea as what they need to be doing. Often, they find spending more than a thousand bucks for a monitor to be too much. And they work in a bright room with the sun to their backs!
The Mac Pros have never been a success story, and I'm not saying this one is crap. I am just saying I wish it could store more than 256GB of data without breaking the bank; it maxes out at 1TB which is not sufficient for anyone dealing with HD video, certainly not 4K. What this means is that this machine, as is, is NOT enough for a serious professional, they will absolutely have to buy more stuff just to make it useable, and that is why it will never gain much traction. Apple is great at providing the whole package, but the Mac Pro falls short of that.
Regarding onboard storage, I said the same thing about the new Macbook Pros and to be perfectly honest, that is why I finally decided against buying one. 256GB isn't enough to do anything serious and for a portable system, the whole point is to not need external devices.
The Mac Pro is not exactly supposed to be portable, but then why make it so damn tiny, add an inch and we could have had 4TB internally...
I hope the new Mac Pro goes one to become a huge success... but am I not allowed to express my opinion regarding it's standard and then maximum storage capacity? Sheesh...
My first reaction was: where is he going to get a minicomputer?
Ha!
Then I remembered a talk by Guy Kawasaki where he described the dilemma facing a customer choosing between a microcomputer and a minicomputer.. He said the guy just sat there -- in one hand was his Apple and in the other hand was his Wang.
I'm not sure if I should reprimand or congratulate you for that statement. ???
Just quoting (paraphrasing) Guy...
My wife, Lucy, who managed our computer stores called him Kawabunga... to his face... Guy was a fun person to deal with...
Ha! I used to own a NeXTStation Turbo Color.......cost me over $15,000 back then.
Funny you should mention it. I was considering the neXT. But when I went to look at it I was told that it came in three configurations. greyscale, for $8,000. 16 bit color for $16,000, and 24 bit color for $24,000, I asked if a lower model was upgradable to the higher one, but was told no. What you bought was what you had. I decided to pass.
That sounds indeed like an interesting proposition - but how would the iMac itself behave while the display is being used by the nMP? Sort of like in Firewire target mode (i.e., inactive otherwise)?
That link describes TB TDM -- I think that the TB Bridge is different. I got the impression that the iMac acts as an iMac and as a display for the mMP through the magic of Mavericks.
If someone has 2 TB Macs they could check it out -- a TB iMac connected to a TB Mini (as proxy for the nMP). Whew!
Why no fusion drive? 1TB is way too little. I'm not complaining, but this really marks the end of the expandable Mac.
Most workstations for animation, video, and even high end Photoshop work use network storage of some sort. Often, even the software is on the network. So significant local storage isn't required. But fast network communications is, which is why the Mac Pro has always had two Ethernet network connections. With so many Thunderbolt 2 connectors (6), you can really max out your drive speed.
The same for most scientific research. Non local storage has been the way to go. Given that, it's much better having a small powerful device on the workstation with the storage elsewhere.
If you want it all in one unit, then you're not a potential customer for this.
That's a good option! I've seen the 27" iMac in an Apple Store, and the reflection is too much for my taste, even though they got better, less glossy, over time.
Heh heh! Get two suction cups and remove the glass. I just did that to replace the HDD in my wife's iMac. Removing the glass takes five seconds. Doesn't look as nice, but what the heck, we're men, right?
That link describes TB TDM -- I think that the TB Bridge is different. I got the impression that the iMac acts as an iMac and as a display for the mMP through the magic of Mavericks.
If someone has 2 TB Macs they could check it out -- a TB iMac connected to a TB Mini (as proxy for the nMP). Whew!
But TBB has nothing to do with what we're talking about here - my only goal would be to use the iMac as an external display under TDM...or am I missing something?
A negative point about TDM: you can't use the iMac's built-in camera with the nMP.
"Its theoretical performance was thus 160 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second" style="background-image:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);" target="_blank" title="Instructions per second">MIPS</a> (80 MHz x 2 instructions), although there were a few limitations that made <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point" style="background-image:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);" target="_blank" title="Floating point">floating point</a> performance generally about 136 MFLOPS. However, by using vector instructions carefully and building useful chains, the system could peak at 250 MFLOPS."
So really the iPhone 5 is the proper comparison clocking in at around 365 MFlops on linpack. CPU only I think…the GPU numbers are of course much higher and perhaps more in line with the peak numbers for the Cray 1 using vector instructions.
Slower than I remember. Which one did a gigaflops?
I had no intention in buying a Mac Pro with internal SATA HDDs and pointless expansion that very few buyers ever seem to utilize but this new one piques my interest. Is it my interests that you think are invalid or are you saying Apple doesn't know what people are doing with their Mac Pros when they decided to make one with PCIe SSDs and versatile, almost endless expansion as opposed to limited, internal expansion in a large, heavy case? Do you think it will be a failure?
Right on!
I think that in today's market Apple realizes that building an empty box with a lot of expansion capability is of little benefit to Apple. Customers would populate the box with non-apple drives, adapters, etc.
Better, IMO, to go with the new philosophy of external expansion -- with advantages of modularity, configuration flexibility, interchangeability, portability.
I think the TB Bridge supports IP over TB so, shared external devices may be possible too...
You have flying squirrels attaching your chimney? Cool, I only get pidgeons, have to get myself an upgrade!
Nah, they jump from the trees. But you hear the pigeons through the fireplace (which my wife refuses to allow me to light a fire in.) so I keep an extra subwoofer in.
One 5 bay Thunderbolt enclosure doesn't add that much mess. There's no reason they spec'd out individual enclosures for every damn thing in that picture.
"Directly attached storage", that's a nice way to say external hard drive...
I'll let an image make my point for me:
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
You have flying squirrels attaching your chimney? Cool, I only get pidgeons, have to get myself an upgrade!
Nah, they jump from the trees. But you hear the pigeons through the fireplace (which my wife refuses to allow me to light a fire in.) so I keep an extra subwoofer in.
All this bird talk...
When we lived in Tucson, we had a built-in metal fireplace. The whole thing was metal from the firebox all the way up to the roof vent.
Then, one day, a woodpecker landed on the fireplace roof vent...
The Mac Pros have never been a success story, and I'm not saying this one is crap. I am just saying I wish it could store more than 256GB of data without breaking the bank; it maxes out at 1TB which is not sufficient for anyone dealing with HD video, certainly not 4K. What this means is that this machine, as is, is NOT enough for a serious professional, they will absolutely have to buy more stuff just to make it useable, and that is why it will never gain much traction. Apple is great at providing the whole package, but the Mac Pro falls short of that.
Regarding onboard storage, I said the same thing about the new Macbook Pros and to be perfectly honest, that is why I finally decided against buying one. 256GB isn't enough to do anything serious and for a portable system, the whole point is to not need external devices.
The Mac Pro is not exactly supposed to be portable, but then why make it so damn tiny, add an inch and we could have had 4TB internally...
I hope the new Mac Pro goes one to become a huge success... but am I not allowed to express my opinion regarding it's standard and then maximum storage capacity? Sheesh...
You can express any opinion you want to. It doesn't mean that others will agree with you. But as for success, well, I don't know. How do you measur success in an expensive high end pro product? Apple used to sell between 250 thousand and a million PowerMac G5's and Mac Pro's a year. Is that a failure?
Every hundred thousand in sales at an average price of $5,000 would be a half a billion a year of a highly profitable sale. That seems like a success. Well known competitors such as Boxx sell about a $billion in workstations a year. It's their entire business.
You girls really need to calm down...
The Mac Pros have never been a success story, and I'm not saying this one is crap. I am just saying I wish it could store more than 256GB of data without breaking the bank; it maxes out at 1TB which is not sufficient for anyone dealing with HD video, certainly not 4K. What this means is that this machine, as is, is NOT enough for a serious professional, they will absolutely have to buy more stuff just to make it useable, and that is why it will never gain much traction. Apple is great at providing the whole package, but the Mac Pro falls short of that.
Regarding onboard storage, I said the same thing about the new Macbook Pros and to be perfectly honest, that is why I finally decided against buying one. 256GB isn't enough to do anything serious and for a portable system, the whole point is to not need external devices.
The Mac Pro is not exactly supposed to be portable, but then why make it so damn tiny, add an inch and we could have had 4TB internally...
I hope the new Mac Pro goes one to become a huge success... but am I not allowed to express my opinion regarding it's standard and then maximum storage capacity? Sheesh...
1) Calling us girls for disagreeing with you doesn't help your argument.
2) Why haven't they been a success? It's a long running product that has used pretty much the same case design since the PowerPC days. It's now it's been reimagined for today's market and technology. Not outselling iDevices does not a failure make.
3) Why would you think Apple expects you to "deal with HD video" on that internal SSD? Would any true video professional working in HD and wanting redundancy really have enough with 4 internal disks?
4) So editing HD video is the only way a professional is serious? Don't limit your scope to such a myopic video of the Mac Pro market.
5) Are you really saying "serious professionals" never had to "buy more stuff" with the old style Mac Pro? You're the one that showed an image that had a Forte A/V interface!
6) I only wanted 128GB of storage on my 15" MBP but I wanted the dGPU so I had to get the 512GB SSD. C'est la vie. I don't need it but I had the option to not buy it. I do have lots of video stored, but I keep that on a separate RAID. It's FW400 and connected to a 10 year old iMac. The first iMac flatscreen; you know. the round base wi the swivel heads. Just yesterday I was finally able to get OS X Leopard Server on it so now I can use that FW attached RAID for Time Machine backups in my house. I could have bought a used Mac mini and it would have been so much easier but I wanted to find a use for this older HW and so I did. Perhaps you should consider what you have with your Mac Pro instead of complaining Apple didn't continue going down a dead-end path to suit your specific needs.
7) There are plenty of reasons why smaller, lighter, and lower-power non-mobile devices can save money for buyers and earn money for vendors.
8) Again, you have your opinion but please state it as such. I clearly said the MBP I bought was exactly what was ideal for my specific needs but I found the solution available and moved on. Remember, it's Apple's choice to make what they think will benefit their bottom line best, not yours or mine.
I think that in today's market Apple realizes that building an empty box with a lot of expansion capability is of little benefit to Apple. Customers would populate the box with non-apple drives, adapters, etc.
Better, IMO, to go with the new philosophy of external expansion -- with advantages of modularity, configuration flexibility, interchangeability, portability.
I think the TB Bridge supports IP over TB so, shared external devices may be possible too...
It would be nice if Apple made a PCI expansion box available themselves, as well as a Thunderbolt 2 drive bay.
Comments
I read somewhere that, under Mavericks, you can interconnect 2 (or more) Thunderbolt Macs using: System Preferences--->Network--->Thunderbolt Bridge.
If this works as I understand it, you could use your 2011 iMac as a interim display for the New Mac Pro -- until Apple releases new displays.
I only have 1 Thunderbolt Mac (a 2011 iMac) so I can't test it.
I already have 2 Pegasus 12 TB Raids & Planed to buy a New Mac Pro and TB Display... but I think I will try to use the iMac, as above, until I can buy an Apple 4K display.
As an alternative, I have an old 23" Cinema Display that works fine connected to the TB port with a MiniDisplay Adapter.
That sounds indeed like an interesting proposition - but how would the iMac itself behave while the display is being used by the nMP? Sort of like in Firewire target mode (i.e., inactive otherwise)?
Edit: this link seems to have all the answers:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US#1
-Why would they buy a new mac pro if they had all that equipment? Ummm... to upgrade? But that's not the point of this image, it is just comparing equivalently 'expanded' systems in terms of capability, not specs.[/QUOTE]
How is it fair if you use a bunch of equipment that isn't relevant for today's average Mac Pro buyer? I could do the same thing with an old Power Mac since the old tower Mac Pro doesn't support a lot of the old interconnects and I doubt there are many PCIe cards that will support them and if they do likely not have Mac drivers.
[QUOTE]-Why doesn't the old mac pro show any cables? Because all that stuff is INSIDE of it. You don't see the power cable behind the new one either, this comparison seems perfectly fair to me.
-"Why would you have all those cable coiled up on the desk next to the new Mac Pro?" On the desk, under the desk, whatever, you need cables to plug all that stuff in. Remember the original bondi blue iMac commercial where they who making fun of PC's because of how many cables you needed? yeah....[/QUOTE]
If that isn't a surge protecter and power cables all bundled together then what are they? Why are the cables are coiled up next to each other anyway except to make it looks like crap? How about putting that old Mac Pro on a desk next to a display, wireless mouse and keyboard and comparing it to the new Mac Pro? It would be comparatively loud and look really silly as it's not designed for that, just like it's silly to buy to notebooks and rack mount them or carry a rack mounted server in a bag to plug in at Starbucks.
[QUOTE]Finally, tablets vs laptops vs desktops... Consumers are snapping up tablets and laptops, professionals need powerful machines that can be upgraded and expanded. Having to upgrade and expand using external components has NEVER been an advantage. Sure it's possible, and with thunderbolt it's going to be a lot less detrimental to performance, but that's not the point. People who need the most power and abilities possible are not well served by machines that have soldiered components that are used to be user replaceable.[/QUOTE]
I had no intention in buying a Mac Pro with internal SATA HDDs and pointless expansion that very few buyers ever seem to utilize but this new one piques my interest. Is it my interests that you think are invalid or are you saying Apple doesn't know what people are doing with their Mac Pros when they decided to make one with PCIe SSDs and versatile, almost endless expansion as opposed to limited, internal expansion in a large, heavy case? Do you think it will be a failure?
I was doing commercial photo imaging work. It was some of the overflow from my company.
Things were even more amazing on the high end color part of our business. We had four Barco studio graphics monitors: $16,000....each! Also six Barco Personal monitors at $4,000 each. For lessor work we used 21" Apple studio monitors. They used to be called the poor mans' Barco.
In those days money was nothing for a commercial photo lab. Our clients expected the best. Nowadays, lots of those doing color work have no idea as what they need to be doing. Often, they find spending more than a thousand bucks for a monitor to be too much. And they work in a bright room with the sun to their backs!
I can't even imagine it.
You girls really need to calm down...
The Mac Pros have never been a success story, and I'm not saying this one is crap. I am just saying I wish it could store more than 256GB of data without breaking the bank; it maxes out at 1TB which is not sufficient for anyone dealing with HD video, certainly not 4K. What this means is that this machine, as is, is NOT enough for a serious professional, they will absolutely have to buy more stuff just to make it useable, and that is why it will never gain much traction. Apple is great at providing the whole package, but the Mac Pro falls short of that.
Regarding onboard storage, I said the same thing about the new Macbook Pros and to be perfectly honest, that is why I finally decided against buying one. 256GB isn't enough to do anything serious and for a portable system, the whole point is to not need external devices.
The Mac Pro is not exactly supposed to be portable, but then why make it so damn tiny, add an inch and we could have had 4TB internally...
I hope the new Mac Pro goes one to become a huge success... but am I not allowed to express my opinion regarding it's standard and then maximum storage capacity? Sheesh...
Just quoting (paraphrasing) Guy...
My wife, Lucy, who managed our computer stores called him Kawabunga... to his face... Guy was a fun person to deal with...
Funny you should mention it. I was considering the neXT. But when I went to look at it I was told that it came in three configurations. greyscale, for $8,000. 16 bit color for $16,000, and 24 bit color for $24,000, I asked if a lower model was upgradable to the higher one, but was told no. What you bought was what you had. I decided to pass.
That link describes TB TDM -- I think that the TB Bridge is different. I got the impression that the iMac acts as an iMac and as a display for the mMP through the magic of Mavericks.
If someone has 2 TB Macs they could check it out -- a TB iMac connected to a TB Mini (as proxy for the nMP). Whew!
Most workstations for animation, video, and even high end Photoshop work use network storage of some sort. Often, even the software is on the network. So significant local storage isn't required. But fast network communications is, which is why the Mac Pro has always had two Ethernet network connections. With so many Thunderbolt 2 connectors (6), you can really max out your drive speed.
The same for most scientific research. Non local storage has been the way to go. Given that, it's much better having a small powerful device on the workstation with the storage elsewhere.
If you want it all in one unit, then you're not a potential customer for this.
Heh heh! Get two suction cups and remove the glass. I just did that to replace the HDD in my wife's iMac. Removing the glass takes five seconds. Doesn't look as nice, but what the heck, we're men, right?
That link describes TB TDM -- I think that the TB Bridge is different. I got the impression that the iMac acts as an iMac and as a display for the mMP through the magic of Mavericks.
If someone has 2 TB Macs they could check it out -- a TB iMac connected to a TB Mini (as proxy for the nMP). Whew!
But TBB has nothing to do with what we're talking about here - my only goal would be to use the iMac as an external display under TDM...or am I missing something?
A negative point about TDM: you can't use the iMac's built-in camera with the nMP.
Slower than I remember. Which one did a gigaflops?
Right on!
I think that in today's market Apple realizes that building an empty box with a lot of expansion capability is of little benefit to Apple. Customers would populate the box with non-apple drives, adapters, etc.
Better, IMO, to go with the new philosophy of external expansion -- with advantages of modularity, configuration flexibility, interchangeability, portability.
I think the TB Bridge supports IP over TB so, shared external devices may be possible too...
Nah, they jump from the trees. But you hear the pigeons through the fireplace (which my wife refuses to allow me to light a fire in.) so I keep an extra subwoofer in.
You've got admit though, it's funny.
"Directly attached storage", that's a nice way to say external hard drive...
I'll let an image make my point for me:
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
All this bird talk...
When we lived in Tucson, we had a built-in metal fireplace. The whole thing was metal from the firebox all the way up to the roof vent.
Then, one day, a woodpecker landed on the fireplace roof vent...
You can express any opinion you want to. It doesn't mean that others will agree with you. But as for success, well, I don't know. How do you measur success in an expensive high end pro product? Apple used to sell between 250 thousand and a million PowerMac G5's and Mac Pro's a year. Is that a failure?
Every hundred thousand in sales at an average price of $5,000 would be a half a billion a year of a highly profitable sale. That seems like a success. Well known competitors such as Boxx sell about a $billion in workstations a year. It's their entire business.
1) Calling us girls for disagreeing with you doesn't help your argument.
2) Why haven't they been a success? It's a long running product that has used pretty much the same case design since the PowerPC days. It's now it's been reimagined for today's market and technology. Not outselling iDevices does not a failure make.
3) Why would you think Apple expects you to "deal with HD video" on that internal SSD? Would any true video professional working in HD and wanting redundancy really have enough with 4 internal disks?
4) So editing HD video is the only way a professional is serious? Don't limit your scope to such a myopic video of the Mac Pro market.
5) Are you really saying "serious professionals" never had to "buy more stuff" with the old style Mac Pro? You're the one that showed an image that had a Forte A/V interface!
6) I only wanted 128GB of storage on my 15" MBP but I wanted the dGPU so I had to get the 512GB SSD. C'est la vie. I don't need it but I had the option to not buy it. I do have lots of video stored, but I keep that on a separate RAID. It's FW400 and connected to a 10 year old iMac. The first iMac flatscreen; you know. the round base wi the swivel heads. Just yesterday I was finally able to get OS X Leopard Server on it so now I can use that FW attached RAID for Time Machine backups in my house. I could have bought a used Mac mini and it would have been so much easier but I wanted to find a use for this older HW and so I did. Perhaps you should consider what you have with your Mac Pro instead of complaining Apple didn't continue going down a dead-end path to suit your specific needs.
7) There are plenty of reasons why smaller, lighter, and lower-power non-mobile devices can save money for buyers and earn money for vendors.
8) Again, you have your opinion but please state it as such. I clearly said the MBP I bought was exactly what was ideal for my specific needs but I found the solution available and moved on. Remember, it's Apple's choice to make what they think will benefit their bottom line best, not yours or mine.
It would be nice if Apple made a PCI expansion box available themselves, as well as a Thunderbolt 2 drive bay.