You can't please everyone....so much of it involved Apple giving people what they want."
Well, yes and no. They certainly seem to have produced a great machine for the high-end A/V community (the issue of NVIDIA/CUDA support notwithstanding), and kudos to them for that.
My one criticism (and this is something I anticipated would be an issue, prior to the announcement) is that most companies that produce workstations for pro users understand that they're not a monolithic user group (i.e., there's a wide range of needs there) and thus, sensibly, produce more than one form factor (essentially, a larger box and a smaller box) to accommodate that range of requirements. Optimally, then, Apple would have offered two form factors as well.
Given this machine's high capabilities, an obvious second form factor would be a smaller (but still modular/upgradeable) box that accommodated a maximum of two (instead of four) high-TDP GPU's (this by itself would reduce the TDP requirement by 500W), along with sensible corresponding reductions in other max specs, at a correspondingly lower base price. This would accommodate those prosumers who have waited years for an upgradeable stand-alone headless box roughly similar in price to the 1st gen Mac Pro.
And it's not as if Apple doesn't understand this concept. After all, they produce each of the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad Pro in two form factors, realizing that "one size doesn't fit all". The same principle applies here. Two boxes would have gone a lot further towards pleasing their overall power user base.
Perhaps they'll produce a smaller form factor in the future. I suspect much of the design work (and thus design cost) done for this machine could be used to engineer a smaller box.
The 2 form factors in iMac and Macbook are to accommodate screen sizes.
You should know Apple hates fragmentation and supporting too many models.
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The 2 form factors in iMac and Macbook are to accommodate screen sizes.
You should know Apple hates fragmentation and supporting too many models.