Nope apple have confirmed a Mac Pro is still in the works.
Which kills all sales of the Mac Pro until Q4 2018 (if the thing even does come out), causing them to lose their entire base and the bean counters to stop the development entirely. One of the biggest fucking things that defined Apple's culture as a corporation for 30 years and they just throw it out the window. There are guys at Apple old enough to remember the Osborne Effect; why the hell did they do this?
The iMac Pro is the future of high end computing from Apple: You'd better know the future, because you'll have to buy another one if you're wrong.™
Nope apple have confirmed a Mac Pro is still in the works.
Which kills all sales of the Mac Pro until Q4 2018 (if the thing even does come out), causing them to lose their entire base and the bean counters to stop the development entirely. One of the biggest fucking things that defined Apple's culture as a corporation for 30 years and they just throw it out the window. There are guys at Apple old enough to remember the Osborne Effect; why the hell did they do this?
The iMac Pro is the future of high end computing from Apple: You'd better know the future, because you'll have to buy another one if you're wrong.™
I agree with you that Apple should have a Mac they can show off, like the G3, G4 and G5s back in the day. People buy into power. Even if the market for workstations is smaller these days it's still good for the company to have a product with teeth that leverages macOS.
Apple said it would be awhile until the Mac Pro would be released. It could be Q4 2018. They needed a powerful desktop now. I wouldn't buy the 6,1 Mac Pro. In fact I bought two used 2009 Mac Pros and swapped CPUs (12-core Westmere) and maxed it out with PCIe m.2 SSDs.
The only way I buy anything from Apple is if it has power, a lot of power. I agree they shouldn't canabalize product but this was a good move.
In time I may buy both an 18-core iMac Pro and the highest end Mac Pro. I always cluster two Macs and I need lots of cores. I like it.
So the Lenovo mentioned in this has a NVIDIA Quadro, which is almost a $5000 card. Not comparable to the iMac Pro at ALL! We do not know the pricing of AMD's Vega cards but I doubt they will be over $1000 if even half that. The NVIDIA Quadro cards are for industrial purposes like weather tracking which is why they carry such a heavy price tag.
So the Lenovo mentioned in this has a NVIDIA Quadro, which is almost a $5000 card. Not comparable to the iMac Pro at ALL! We do not know the pricing of AMD's Vega cards but I doubt they will be over $1000 if even half that. The NVIDIA Quadro cards are for industrial purposes like weather tracking which is why they carry such a heavy price tag.
The M5000 included in the Lenovo build is a $1789 card, not even close to $5000. That's not even the lowest price that I could find for it, with a temporary sale right now on one for $1550.
Apple said it would be awhile until the Mac Pro would be released. It could be Q4 2018. They needed a powerful desktop now. I wouldn't buy the 6,1 Mac Pro. In fact I bought two used 2009 Mac Pros and swapped CPUs (12-core Westmere) and maxed it out with PCIe m.2 SSDs.
The only way I buy anything from Apple is if it has power, a lot of power. I agree they shouldn't canabalize product but this was a good move.
In time I may buy both an 18-core iMac Pro and the highest end Mac Pro. I always cluster two Macs and I need lots of cores. I like it.
The specific quote from Apple is "not this year." That doesn't mean 2018 either, it just means not 2017.
For all the whining about the non-expandabilty of the iMac I bought my first car in college in part based on the money made turning Macs into 512K Fat Macs.
With the new kit from ifixit I'm sure a few engineering students can make a side hustle out of upgrading iMacs.
Folks claiming that Macs have always intended to be or always has been expandable talk out their asses.
Nope apple have confirmed a Mac Pro is still in the works.
Which kills all sales of the Mac Pro until Q4 2018 (if the thing even does come out), causing them to lose their entire base and the bean counters to stop the development entirely. One of the biggest fucking things that defined Apple's culture as a corporation for 30 years and they just throw it out the window. There are guys at Apple old enough to remember the Osborne Effect; why the hell did they do this?
The iMac Pro is the future of high end computing from Apple: You'd better know the future, because you'll have to buy another one if you're wrong.™
That's simply a stupid assertion. These are complementary product lines for different folks.
If the Mac Pro goes dual socket that's a clear delineation in product lines and Apple can drop the lowest end Mac Pro and still serve a wide gamut of Pro users.
These are complementary product lines for different folks.
If we assume that Apple hasn’t changed strategies, then they’re not cannibalizing anything that matters by announcing the iMac Pro. But the iMac Pro completely replaces the current Mac Pro in both its use case and upgradability. That implies, of course, that the next Mac Pro will return to a tower/socketed format. But they’ve lost all of that business until that day, and probably most after.
The downside of the "equally matched" PC is you're stuck with Windows.
One of my customers have been working in huge projects with Autodesk Revit in Windows and Dell Precision for years, with no issues at all. And I'm sure many other users have the same experience. Can you give details on why using Windows is a downside?
To me you are a Pro user if you make something with your computer and sell it for a profit. There are a lot of Pro users who don't work for big companies with IT departments that replace hardware every three years. These users appreciate computers that have some sort of upgrade path so they can keep the system longer, thus increasing the long term value of the computer. Video post is often like this, with small operators and small budgets. They use their computers until the system becomes too slow to get the work done efficiently. Or until the client complains about how long it takes. And then that old computer gets moved into a workflow where a slower speed is tolerable, like ingest or clip compression, FTP server etc.
I'm sure there are other fields where the situation is the same. To these people a pro computer should have user upgradable features. It's somewhat of a necessity.
To me you are a Pro user if you make something with your computer and sell it for a profit. There are a lot of Pro users who don't work for big companies with IT departments that replace hardware every three years. These users appreciate computers that have some sort of upgrade path so they can keep the system longer, thus increasing the long term value of the computer. Video post is often like this, with small operators and small budgets. They use their computers until the system becomes too slow to get the work done efficiently. Or until the client complains about how long it takes. And then that old computer gets moved into a workflow where a slower speed is tolerable, like ingest or clip compression, FTP server etc.
I'm sure there are other fields where the situation is the same. To these people a pro computer should have user upgradable features. It's somewhat of a necessity.
I'm not in disagreement with your assessment of what the sole proprietors and small businesses want. But, I think Apple's got a different view.
So, these pro users that don't work for big companies. How many are they going to buy? Compare that to how many Deloitte and IBM will buy, and be the mid-size and big-business IT departments for. The former will get 80% of what they want, and probably span 10-15 percent of the "low single digit" market for Apple that will buy the iMac Pro in the first place.
You're right. It's a necessity for who you're talking about -- it's just not for Apple.
Related, I'm concerned what "modular" means, in regards to the future Mac Pro -- but we'll see about that in time.
I posted a correction about the PSU rating, and the article was changed and my comment was deleted?
Couldn't you have just just fixed the article then replied to my comment saying "Hey, you're right, the article has been updated, thanks for pointing out the error?" Oh well.
BTW, the part where the PSU on the second build is said to maybe not be up to the task might not be correct either if that was based on the incorrect assumptions about the PSU on the first build.
I posted a correction about the PSU rating, and the article was changed and my comment was deleted?
Couldn't you have just just fixed the article then replied to my comment saying "Hey, you're right, the article has been updated, thanks for pointing out the error?" Oh well.
BTW, the part where the PSU on the second build is said to maybe not be up to the task might not be correct either if that was based on the incorrect assumptions about the PSU on the first build.
While I appreciate your correction, I can't speak to the deletion. No matter, though. The calculations were independent, no assumptions were made.
All the parts in the second build. the DIY one, come up to 1100W when full-out. It seems bad to have a 1000W power supply there.
The parts in the Lenovo build are at about 1200W, which is 91.6 percent of the power supply's capacity, oddly enough. So, with a 92 percent efficient power supply, that's cutting it awfully fine.
The cylinder Mac Pro averages (in a test I read) in use at 450W (I guess the PSU would be 600W for some overhead). The tower Mac Pro had a 980W PSU at 88%. That's obviously to account for the full range of potential customization that all the slots (RAM, PCIe, SATA) can provide. The discrepancy in total power shows…
Fuck's sake, I forgot what I was trying to say. I have to go lie down.
Nope apple have confirmed a Mac Pro is still in the works.
Which kills all sales of the Mac Pro until Q4 2018 (if the thing even does come out), causing them to lose their entire base and the bean counters to stop the development entirely. One of the biggest fucking things that defined Apple's culture as a corporation for 30 years and they just throw it out the window. There are guys at Apple old enough to remember the Osborne Effect; why the hell did they do this?
The iMac Pro is the future of high end computing from Apple: You'd better know the future, because you'll have to buy another one if you're wrong.™
Mac computers hold their value well. Here's a 2 year old iMac $1699, original price was $2299:
Add in some selling fees and the cost of ownership over 2 years was ~$700. When it comes to a $5.5k iMac with a top GPU, with the same rate of depreciation, that would be $4065 so cost of ~$1535.
Upgrading makes more sense for expensive machines that people hold onto for a long time because if someone has held onto a machine for 6 years, it would be worth ~1/3 of what it was new so buying a new one is expensive (>$3.5k) but buying a GPU upgrade would always be ~$500 no matter how long you keep a machine.
However, Apple can always offer internal GPU board upgrades if they wanted and/or external ones. They could even have a trade-in program like for iPhones. After 2 years, they can offer to trade your iMac Pro in and get 70% of its original value off a new iMac Pro. Apple would sell the one you traded as a refurb for a much lower cost than the new ones but with a full warranty.
Consider a full purchase at around $5500, Apple make $1375 net. After 2 years, the customer gets $3850 off a new iMac by trading in the old one and pays $1650 (latest GPU, CPU, all brand new components). In doing this, Apple makes a net loss of $2475 on this unit and $1100 overall until they sell the refurb. But if they sell it for $3850 (which they should be able to easily as it's a 30% discount), they get another $1375 net. They could sell it for a bit more and make profit off the refurb buyer.
They could do this sort of thing with all their Macs and keep a steady supply of lower priced hardware to expand their userbase. It doesn't drive people to buy older hardware as it's supply-limited by purchases of new models. Limiting it to 2 year old hardware keeps people upgrading and means they don't end up with a huge amount of unsold inventory. They are selling the 2015 model MBP at the same price as 2 years ago so they can do this no problem. Education buyers would probably love to buy up older model Macs at a steep discount.
Comments
The iMac Pro is the future of high end computing from Apple: You'd better know the future, because you'll have to buy another one if you're wrong.™
Apple said it would be awhile until the Mac Pro would be released. It could be Q4 2018. They needed a powerful desktop now. I wouldn't buy the 6,1 Mac Pro. In fact I bought two used 2009 Mac Pros and swapped CPUs (12-core Westmere) and maxed it out with PCIe m.2 SSDs.
The only way I buy anything from Apple is if it has power, a lot of power. I agree they shouldn't canabalize product but this was a good move.
In time I may buy both an 18-core iMac Pro and the highest end Mac Pro. I always cluster two Macs and I need lots of cores. I like it.
The specific quote from Apple is "not this year." That doesn't mean 2018 either, it just means not 2017.
With the new kit from ifixit I'm sure a few engineering students can make a side hustle out of upgrading iMacs.
Folks claiming that Macs have always intended to be or always has been expandable talk out their asses.
If the Mac Pro goes dual socket that's a clear delineation in product lines and Apple can drop the lowest end Mac Pro and still serve a wide gamut of Pro users.
I'm sure there are other fields where the situation is the same. To these people a pro computer should have user upgradable features. It's somewhat of a necessity.
Couldn't you have just just fixed the article then replied to my comment saying "Hey, you're right, the article has been updated, thanks for pointing out the error?" Oh well.
BTW, the part where the PSU on the second build is said to maybe not be up to the task might not be correct either if that was based on the incorrect assumptions about the PSU on the first build.
Fuck's sake, I forgot what I was trying to say. I have to go lie down.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Late-2015-Retina-5K-iMac-27-3-3GHz-i5-8GB-2TB-Fusion-R9-M395-MK482LL-A-Warranty-/252715456954
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-3.3-27-inch-aluminum-retina-5k-late-2015-specs.html
Add in some selling fees and the cost of ownership over 2 years was ~$700. When it comes to a $5.5k iMac with a top GPU, with the same rate of depreciation, that would be $4065 so cost of ~$1535.
Upgrading makes more sense for expensive machines that people hold onto for a long time because if someone has held onto a machine for 6 years, it would be worth ~1/3 of what it was new so buying a new one is expensive (>$3.5k) but buying a GPU upgrade would always be ~$500 no matter how long you keep a machine.
However, Apple can always offer internal GPU board upgrades if they wanted and/or external ones. They could even have a trade-in program like for iPhones. After 2 years, they can offer to trade your iMac Pro in and get 70% of its original value off a new iMac Pro. Apple would sell the one you traded as a refurb for a much lower cost than the new ones but with a full warranty.
Consider a full purchase at around $5500, Apple make $1375 net. After 2 years, the customer gets $3850 off a new iMac by trading in the old one and pays $1650 (latest GPU, CPU, all brand new components). In doing this, Apple makes a net loss of $2475 on this unit and $1100 overall until they sell the refurb. But if they sell it for $3850 (which they should be able to easily as it's a 30% discount), they get another $1375 net. They could sell it for a bit more and make profit off the refurb buyer.
They could do this sort of thing with all their Macs and keep a steady supply of lower priced hardware to expand their userbase. It doesn't drive people to buy older hardware as it's supply-limited by purchases of new models. Limiting it to 2 year old hardware keeps people upgrading and means they don't end up with a huge amount of unsold inventory. They are selling the 2015 model MBP at the same price as 2 years ago so they can do this no problem. Education buyers would probably love to buy up older model Macs at a steep discount.