Professionals tend to view their workstations a bit more sensitively than your average consumer electronics.
Because someone wants Intel in their workstation it means that Apple designing their own chips for well over a decade is just an immature experiment. Got it!
Well I for one am hoping sooner than later for the MBP. It is seeming and hope to get more clarification early next month from the oncologist’s office that something is spreading quicker than they thought it would. That is one laptop I’d love to get my hands on before it’s time for me to go.
The highest end Mac Pro can address 1.5TB of main memory. The M1 max is 16GB? Even with a tenfold increase in the number of cores to 40 would it be able to make up a 94 times ratio of main memory.
I don't think a promise to transition and the introduction of a model with Intel processors are mutually exclusive. Nothing saying they won't also introduce a version with Apple silicon. It was a promise to transition to their own processors. Apple never said they would cease to do business with Intel ever again.
More like a threat many people did not respond well to.
If x86, why still not the AMD devices?
I don’t think AMD has anything that can access as much max main memory as the Intel Xeon.
HPC runs on Intel. Software vendors are slow to move in this field as it isn’t a simple recompile to run on Apple silicon. Apple would need to show a massive performance advantage…
What proportion of Macs are sold into this market?
It used to be surprisingly high. A large proportion of scientific software runs on Macs. That it until Apple essentially abandoned HPC users with the trash can, plus the 7 year gap between Mac Pro updates. Bit like the abandonment of Macs when Apple tried to force FCPX on editors, and then dropped Shake. Apple’s unreliability and penchant for dropping software titles isn’t something businesses can rely on with long term investments in hardware and staff. So they have gone elsewhere. The BBC’s editing was almost all on Macs until the FCP fiasco. Now it’s Avid on PC.
HPC runs on Intel. Software vendors are slow to move in this field as it isn’t a simple recompile to run on Apple silicon. Apple would need to show a massive performance advantage…
What proportion of Macs are sold into this market?
It used to be surprisingly high. A large proportion of scientific software runs on Macs. That it until Apple essentially abandoned HPC users with the trash can, plus the 7 year gap between Mac Pro updates. Bit like the abandonment of Macs when Apple tried to force FCPX on editors, and then dropped Shake. Apple’s unreliability and penchant for dropping software titles isn’t something businesses can rely on with long term investments in hardware and staff. So they have gone elsewhere. The BBC’s editing was almost all on Macs until the FCP fiasco. Now it’s Avid on PC.
I wanted to believe Xserve was a big seller but I don’t think anything backs that up. Not sure how many of the current Mac Pro rack mounted units have sold but I’m pretty sure it has limited market share. I don’t think the iMac Pro was a stop-gap, I really think that’s where Apple saw their pro desktop form-factor. When the M2X (because the Apple Silicon flagship won’t be a phone chip) iMac Pro & Mac Mini ship, that’ll be it.
Can’t see them doing a shrunken version of the current case. Those individually milled spherical holes contribute to an insanely priced chunk of alloy that won’t offer much of anything for the performance of the MnZ when it shows.
The highest end Mac Pro can address 1.5TB of main memory. The M1 max is 16GB? Even with a tenfold increase in the number of cores to 40 would it be able to make up a 94 times ratio of main memory.
And what proportion of the Mac installed base has 1TB+ of RAM? Even current software rarely needs the entire file to be loaded as, in the case of video-processing, there are few data dependencies across the whole file. Stream processing software architecture requires little RAM. We look forward to the new dyld memory management killing the myth that more RAM = more speed.
What they need to figure out is blending x86 and ARM architectures together so you get the best of both worlds in one computer.
EDIT: Maximara has the same idea.
If I understand how they worked the old Mac286 and Mac86 NuBus coprocessor cards may be closer to what I am thinking of. "The Mac86 was an i8086-based card for the Mac SE, while the Mac286 was a higher performance i80286-based card for the Mac II." That may seem primitive as all get out but remember it was the late 1980s and you were effectively putting a whole PC into your Mac. The tech and license was sold to Orange Micro who could go on to make more powerful cards such as the OrangePC 440 5x86-120, 16MB PCI (PCI slots in a mac appeared with the Power Macintosh 9500 in June 1996) Orange Micro stopped making such cards in 2001 and stopped existing in 2004.
High end silicon Mac not to come until late 2022. Intel Macs to come in 2002.
In other news, iPad to have LED in 2002 right after they don't have LED in 2002 -- both from VERY reliable sources.
Conclusion1, it is earning times for Intel and Apple and others. Stories (and I do mean stories) get extra play and earnings news bump can be achieved Conclusion 2, what will happen with 2022 Macs will not be known in July of 2021.
Professionals tend to view their workstations a bit more sensitively than your average consumer electronics.
Because someone wants Intel in their workstation it means that Apple designing their own chips for well over a decade is just an immature experiment. Got it!
Apple hasn't shipped a single workstation with their own silicon. They've only been shipping Macs with their own CPUs for 6 months. I'm sure it'll probably be fine, but it'll definitely be an experiment. The trash can Mac Pro was also an experiment, because that form factor hadn't been done before, so I imagine there's a few people still feeling a little sore from that.
Professionals tend to view their workstations a bit more sensitively than your average consumer electronics.
Because someone wants Intel in their workstation it means that Apple designing their own chips for well over a decade is just an immature experiment. Got it!
Apple hasn't shipped a single workstation with their own silicon. They've only been shipping Macs with their own CPUs for 6 months. I'm sure it'll probably be fine, but it'll definitely be an experiment. The trash can Mac Pro was also an experiment, because that form factor hadn't been done before, so I imagine there's a few people still feeling a little sore from that.
By that measure than any change becomes an experiement. Are you saying that professionals never buy new Macs? Are you saying that no one who uses their Mac for work bought a trashcan Mac Pro? How about professionals who focus on video and photos? Did no one buy the Pro Display XDR because it was an "experiment," as you put it, despite being superior in its abilities?
The simple fact is that Apple is transitioning from Intel to ARM, and when they have all the parts ready and in place to make the transition for a Mac type they're going to fucking do it despite your foolish, anti-Apple, "professionals want real processors", derp derp argument.
But who would buy this? By release time the Apple pro developer market would have decided to stay or leave the platform. Users should have made their minds up likewise. If anyone was dependent on x86 they would be better to invest the money in the transition to Windows or Linux. Apple could provide a hybrid product but what proportion of Mac sales do 18-core+ Mac Pros account for anyway?
Studios that need to get work done without any software trouble. A tiny, tiny sliver of the total Apple market, sure. It's more a marketing vehicle than anything else.
This is actually a benefit to other owners of Intel Macs (all of them) that have not bought the newer M1 Macs yet.... If Apple releases a new Intel Mac Pro in addition to lets say a Mac Pro Mini or Mac Pro M... then it is going to bode well to continued support of macOS for a few more years than would have been based on history (I was guessing Big Sur, Montery and one or two more releases - this would likely be extended to maybe 5 to 6 more releases to support this Mac Pro.
I don't think you should be reading 'experiment' in a literal sense in this case.
His other comments qualify what he means very clearly.
He is saying that professionals prefer to sit back and wait for hardware/software to mature before moving to a new platform. In fact, you could also read 'experiment' as referring to pro users themselves.
I'm sure many do wait and get by on very old yet stable setups.
Being able to purchase a modern intel based system will surely appeal to many professionals for the reasons he indicated.
It is yet to be seen if an M series pro line will even be a commercial success for professional users. In an unprecedented move Apple had to apologise for what happened with the cyclinder line and pre-announce that a new design was in the works.
Apple hasn't been exactly up front with its pro plans - ever. It has pulled rugs out from under feet, backtracked and left products to die or stagnate at almost every turn. Radically altered pricing, file formats etc.
'Commitment' has always been an issue for Apple. It's quite easy to drop or vastly alter product direction in the consumer electronics market and Apple is constantly pushing consumers to upgrade. Even resulting in 'stealth' upgrades for major systems updates. Unless you read the system update dialog carefully, choosing to 'not update now' could result in the system being 'automatically' updated in the middle of the night. You only have to look at the way that dialog is presented to the user, to see the intent behind it. Also, there is no simple click option to permanently put off an upgrade. It has never been clear about what product features are dropped either.
That's a lot of reasons for pro users to wait for platform stability and maturity before switching.
Comments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon
I can see a refreshed Mac Pro with Intel this fall as the last update to satisfy existing users and a brand-new Apple Silicon Mac Pro in 2022.
Avid is still on Macs. So is Adobe and others.
I don’t think the iMac Pro was a stop-gap, I really think that’s where Apple saw their pro desktop form-factor.
When the M2X (because the Apple Silicon flagship won’t be a phone chip) iMac Pro & Mac Mini ship, that’ll be it.
The new Intel Pros, if Ice lake will support PCIe4 slots.
If I understand how they worked the old Mac286 and Mac86 NuBus coprocessor cards may be closer to what I am thinking of. "The Mac86 was an i8086-based card for the Mac SE, while the Mac286 was a higher performance i80286-based card for the Mac II." That may seem primitive as all get out but remember it was the late 1980s and you were effectively putting a whole PC into your Mac. The tech and license was sold to Orange Micro who could go on to make more powerful cards such as the OrangePC 440 5x86-120, 16MB PCI (PCI slots in a mac appeared with the Power Macintosh 9500 in June 1996) Orange Micro stopped making such cards in 2001 and stopped existing in 2004.
Intel Macs to come in 2002.
In other news, iPad to have LED in 2002 right after they don't have LED in 2002 -- both from VERY reliable sources.
Conclusion1, it is earning times for Intel and Apple and others. Stories (and I do mean stories) get extra play and earnings news bump can be achieved
Conclusion 2, what will happen with 2022 Macs will not be known in July of 2021.
The simple fact is that Apple is transitioning from Intel to ARM, and when they have all the parts ready and in place to make the transition for a Mac type they're going to fucking do it despite your foolish, anti-Apple, "professionals want real processors", derp derp argument.
His other comments qualify what he means very clearly.
He is saying that professionals prefer to sit back and wait for hardware/software to mature before moving to a new platform. In fact, you could also read 'experiment' as referring to pro users themselves.
I'm sure many do wait and get by on very old yet stable setups.
Being able to purchase a modern intel based system will surely appeal to many professionals for the reasons he indicated.
It is yet to be seen if an M series pro line will even be a commercial success for professional users. In an unprecedented move Apple had to apologise for what happened with the cyclinder line and pre-announce that a new design was in the works.
Apple hasn't been exactly up front with its pro plans - ever. It has pulled rugs out from under feet, backtracked and left products to die or stagnate at almost every turn. Radically altered pricing, file formats etc.
'Commitment' has always been an issue for Apple. It's quite easy to drop or vastly alter product direction in the consumer electronics market and Apple is constantly pushing consumers to upgrade. Even resulting in 'stealth' upgrades for major systems updates. Unless you read the system update dialog carefully, choosing to 'not update now' could result in the system being 'automatically' updated in the middle of the night. You only have to look at the way that dialog is presented to the user, to see the intent behind it. Also, there is no simple click option to permanently put off an upgrade. It has never been clear about what product features are dropped either.
That's a lot of reasons for pro users to wait for platform stability and maturity before switching.