Apple improves Mac Pro ship times to 3-5 weeks
In a change to the Online Apple Store on Thursday, Apple is now quoting Mac Pro shipping availability at three to five weeks for all configurations, suggesting supply of the flagship Mac is finally catching up to demand.
Since launching the redesigned Mac Pro in December, Apple has struggled to keep up with demand and as recently as February was quoting nearly two-month delays in estimated ship times on new orders.
The situation appears to be improving, however, as current Online Apple Store estimates show new orders will be shipped out in three to five weeks for all configurations. When shipments were at their worst, Apple was quoting month ranges instead of weeks.
Ship-by dates have been slowly improving over April, with checks earlier in the month showing estimates pegged at 5-6 weeks, which moved up to 4-6 weeks on Apr. 11 and finally 4-5 weeks on Apr. 18.
Customers interested in the most powerful Mac ever will still need to place orders through Apple's online storefront, however, as in-store supplies are non-existent.
While Apple is still building up inventory, authorized resellers like MacMall and Adorama have limited supply of certain configurations as seen in AppleInsider's live Price Guides.
Since launching the redesigned Mac Pro in December, Apple has struggled to keep up with demand and as recently as February was quoting nearly two-month delays in estimated ship times on new orders.
The situation appears to be improving, however, as current Online Apple Store estimates show new orders will be shipped out in three to five weeks for all configurations. When shipments were at their worst, Apple was quoting month ranges instead of weeks.
Ship-by dates have been slowly improving over April, with checks earlier in the month showing estimates pegged at 5-6 weeks, which moved up to 4-6 weeks on Apr. 11 and finally 4-5 weeks on Apr. 18.
Customers interested in the most powerful Mac ever will still need to place orders through Apple's online storefront, however, as in-store supplies are non-existent.
While Apple is still building up inventory, authorized resellers like MacMall and Adorama have limited supply of certain configurations as seen in AppleInsider's live Price Guides.
Comments
Que the ever argued memes. Is this the result of lower demand or increased availability? For the glass-half-empty crowd it’s always lower demand of course, just like the hand wringing over Q2’s iPad numbers. Life’s a bitch and then you die for some people (Constable Odo.)
My personal uninformed opinion is that power users have figured out this machine is a real beast and appealingly priced for the monster it is. Apple has increased production to meet growing demand.
My uninformed personal observation:
Apple hadn't seriously updated this machine in a loooong time, and then they dropped this snarling sexy uber powerful beast of a computer.
There is huge pent-up demand.
I'd even risk adding a "duh" after that. I'd bet $1000 it's in high demand.
By Geekbench standards (which closely approximate the relative performance in my usage), the top-end Late 2013 Mac Pro is 21% faster than the top-end Mac Pro of 4 years ago.
Am I impressed? Nope.
There is so much more to performance than some Geekbench results. AnandTech has an excellent review of the new Mac Pro.
But even if the performance gain for all tasks you require for your professional business is only 21% would that $3,000 (minus the resale value of your 2009 Mac Pro) pay for itself by being able process 21% more work in the same time frame as before. I know some people who work with video that would say that the Mac Pro would easily pay for itself within a couple weeks.
Wow, Apple's photo budget is getting trimmed.
"Chuck, just shoot the promo material photo in your office on your iPhone. Marketing needs it yesterday! No need to Photoshop yourself out, takes too long!"
Manufacturing capacity is always designed to meet ongoing demand rather than an initial surge in demand. If a company has the luxury to build ahead before introducing a product then it can minimize delays during the initial surge, but that comes at the expense of delaying introduction when the product could have been introduced earlier. I think Apple likely does a good job at balancing it's build-ahead inventory against delaying availability in order to create that initial inventory. And this tells me that Apple is able to smooth out the delays introduced by the initial surge. Trouble is, once the product gets out, new Demand is created faster than the initial surge can be satisfied. That's because people gain experience with the product and brag about it and that brings others into the market for the product. I think this happens with all Apple products and it means that demand is not so much waning but finally leveling out to a steady state.
Just so worried about their innovation, the thing needed a bigger screen.
Totally agree. I'm waiting for the matching Apple 4K monitor.
I have read the reviews of the Sharp unit and they are not great, although better than the similarly priced Asus and Samsung 4K models which are worse. 4K is not quite ready for primetime apparently. Probably with Displayport 1.3 things start to shape up. I think 60 Hz is really the minimum. I would rather have 75+.
Too bad. It would have been nice to get a feel for how well they are selling.
There is so much more to performance than some Geekbench results. AnandTech has an excellent review of the new Mac Pro.
But even if the performance gain for all tasks you require for your professional business is only 21% would that $3,000 (minus the resale value of your 2009 Mac Pro) pay for itself by being able process 21% more work in the same time frame as before. I know some people who work with video that would say that the Mac Pro would easily pay for itself within a couple weeks.
As I wrote, Geekbench is a good, relative indicator of performance for my computational needs and I believe my needs are rather common. My bread and butter isn't video, though, which is the area Apple has tailored the 2013 Mac Pro for.
I'm much better off buying a dual-Xeon Linux system (for less money) that's 2-3X faster than the new Mac Pro and with more memory expansion capability. I believe Apple has turned away from general purpose computing because they can't compete with Linux. Tying Mac Pro hardware to their video apps is a way to maintain a high profit margin. I would have much preferred Apple continue to provide dual-processor systems, though, because every PowerMac and Mac Pro I've ever purchased has been a solid workhorse.
Did I miss something, was the Mac Pro even mentioned during the earning call?
I was just about to ask the same Q. I think... No.
Too bad. It would have been nice to get a feel for how well they are selling.
Do they ever break out the Macs by individual models in these reports?
I seem to recall them mentioning how specific models are doing from time to time.
edit: From AppleInsider's Notes of Interest articles:
What application are you going run on the Linux box, if you don't mind me asking?
Do they ever break out the Macs by individual models in these reports?
I seem to recall them mentioning how specific models are doing from time to time.
I can't recall ever hearing hard numbers for any specific Mac, iPhone or iPad model. They generally only talk about segments. They do mention numbers of Apple TV but it is the only model in the segment.
Ordered mine on March 17 and it arrived on April 23.
If you are a pro and work in Aperture, it is more than well worth it. It is flat out amazing.
Ah, you meant break out hard numbers. I thought you meant just mention them at all instead of just referring to the Mac line in its entirety. .
Ah, well they could have easily said Mac Pro showed considerable increase in sales. ;-) They may not have sold any in the previous quarter.
Did I miss something, was the Mac Pro even mentioned during the earning call?
I was just about to ask the same Q. I think... No.
Too bad. It would have been nice to get a feel for how well they are selling.
Glad they skipped over it for now.
I'd rather wait till this thing is shipping to every science lab, university, and creative studio, in huge palleted orders. Then let them report the numbers. At this point it's still in the "ramp-up" phase.
Hey I love my new Mac Pro and FCPro X screams but Aperture? For me it is no faster than it was on my MBP i7 which I fitted with an SSD. Where are you seeing a speed increase and what are you comparing it to? I am really hoping many more apps are upgraded to take advantage of the new dual GPUs but so far Aperture, which I use every day with RAW and HD video, certainly isn't one of them ... unless you know something I don't.