Mac Pro teardown finds easy disassembly, great potential for repairs & upgrades

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 81
    solipsismx wrote: »
    inkling wrote: »
    An iFixtt score of 8. That is impressive. It confirms my hunch that Apple has designers smart enough to design modular, easy to repair or upgrade hardware. All they need is an incentive. If they'd do the same for the MacBook Air, I might finally upgrade--and so would many others.

    It wouldn't be that hard to create a MBA whose back is held on by Torx screws. Remove them and everything likely to need repair or upgrading would be visible. Even the battery could be held in place by Velcro rather than glue. I hate glue.

    The Mac Pro can be made larger and heavier with this sort of design without affecting usability. I don't think it's possible with a notebook, especially not the MBA. On top of the customers are very different, which isn't to say that Mac Pro buyers don't use notebooks but that the reasons one would buy a Mac Pro is not the same as one would buy a notebook. I really doubt you're going to see Mac notebooks become module designs that will get anywhere near an 8/10 repair rating.

    Expandable vs expendable!
  • Reply 62 of 81
    mac_128 wrote: »
    pmz wrote: »
    They have no reason to design products to be upgradeable or repairable. They have one goal: to make the best product. Not to make the best erector set.
    Of course they do.

    But setting aside that debate for the moment, can you think of one reason why the Pro might be the only current Apple product that appears to be so easily upgradable?

    How about this: the Pro was on its deathbead, Apple almost dropping the platform completely. Who knows, if Jobs were still with us, that might have been the net result. Instead, years after it was already long in the tooth the Pro gets a highly upgradeable new design, one that will allow Apple to ignore it for several more years by allowing third parties to keep it relatively current until Apple is forced to deal with it again.

    The Pro is perhaps the most niche and expensive product in their offerings based on demand. What better strategy than create a design that will keep them free to focus on their core business of consumer products.

    I think you underestimate how well the Mac Pro will be accepted by business and enterprise.
  • Reply 63 of 81
    digitclips, be sure and post your user review of the nMP. In fact, why not start a new thread "I received my nMP'. I have to wait until February for mine.

    What day did you receive yours?  On another site there were numerous horror stories of how UPS messed up nMP deliveries.

    I retrieved mine Monday morning, several days late. I posted my UPS horror story on MacRumors, I didn't think the gentlefolk of AI would want to hear such stuff ;) Bottom line use FedEx.

    OK some chit chat of the goings on. The fancy reports are all over the web but here is the dirty stuff we all need to do ... Mine is a 6 Core just so you know, for comparison. I am still transferring data from several other Macs on to my Mac Pro's new external 6 GIG TB RAID. I used CCC for the system SSD copy rather than migration assistant as I always get ACL screw ups with that. I also have the dev version of 10.9.2 on a Mac mini I wanted to try and as both only 256 GIG SSDs CCC did this in 15 minutes using TB to TB (as opposed to nearly two hours via FW 800).

    Sucking data from a 2009 MacBook Pro's 1 TB 5400 RPM HD via FW 800 with a TB converter is painful, especially a 350 GIG Aperture Library and several VMWare VMs. Those two things are the worst to copy I have ever come across. I tried various methods, in the end deciding on Target Mode. Target Mode with Thunderbolt is a whole new world to me. I twice ended up with the targeted Mac, in this case a 2013 Mac mini, on the screen because I'd put the cables in too soon. Can't do that over FW even if you wanted to!

    Tips ... remember to buy a Thunderbolt 2 M cable and a FW to TB converter to get all the stuff off your old Macs. Also set up old mice on older machines you are stealing the Magic Mouse from for the new nMP... you can paint yourself into an annoying corner if you forget as I did ... LOL. I also have put control from nMP using ADR on 2 MBPs and 1 Mac mini running 10.9 Server, it is amazingly responsive on the nMP.

    While all this transferring is going on I have tried PS CS6 which is like lightning and HD 1080p in FCP X, which is silly fast. I stress, all while copying massive files at the same time. I also tried FCPro 7 out of curiosity, which works, but no filters or effects show up and it can't use a second TB monitor. I will look into the filters when I get time. I also have been having a tough time with Logic Pro X which has all the loops etc. copied over to avoid re downloading 30 GIGs however, it won't start without downloading everything again so no opportunity to relink the loops. This seems silly. Worse it says 8 days to download! I have FiOS 75 Mb/s. I tried on my Mac mini and it said 2 hours to download so something wacky going on there. The only other thing I've tried is Compressor 4.1 and hit it with a nasty test, converting NTSC to HD 1080p with all the stops on quality pulled out. Something that would have taken days for me before, took half an hour, and still copying VMWare VMs at same time. Once over VMware running Wincrap 7, and 8.1 extremely fast and responsively. Only game I tried so far is a very complex Trainz set up with 8 locos running and every option setting at max quality with snow falling. Smooth as silk on full 27" screen. Zero stutter.

    OK back to trying to figure out WTF is up with Logic Pro X! :)

    Happy (and Healthy) New Year everybody.

    Really jealous here...

    It would be interesting if you could install OSX Server on that beautiful beast -- to see what advantages/disadvantages, if any.
  • Reply 64 of 81
    Duplicate
  • Reply 65 of 81
    Duplicate.
  • Reply 66 of 81
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Eriamjh View Post



    One look at the final pic of all the parts should show why this machine is truly a work of design and packaging magic. One truly is paying for style to cram all of these beautiful, custom-designed PCBs into a tiny package. How can anyone compare it to an ugly PC box?

    You don't quite understand how the rest of the computer industry thinks. Why do think Apple is always being disrespected by the computer industry?  It's because the industry claims Apple wastes too much time and effort on things like aesthetics and finish.  They reason that true professionals don't care if it's in an ugly, unfinished box as long as it's 20% to 30% cheaper.  Put that design cost into faster processors or cheaper memory.  The whole computer industry is ruled by cost, not looks.  The industry despises Apple for making a computer like this and I'm sure so does Wall Street.  Everyone wants Apple to cut costs and the best way to do it is to make products as dull and unexciting as everyone else.  Have you seen the way Apple polishes the case to a near mirror finish?  Do you think the computer industry is happy with that sort of effort that Apple puts into finishing its products.  Don't polish the case and sell the computer for $100 cheaper is what they want Apple to do.  Why do you think every workstation computer looks about the same?  Because no one gives a damn about how it looks on the outside.  They just want things like compatibility, plenty of space to stuff things in and the cheaper the better.  Cheap, cheaper, cheapest is always the best.

     

    The rest of the computer industry sees the new Mac Pro as a pain in their asses and as some pretty toy that's not really meant for real professional users.  Everyone, everywhere says Apple products are seen as too damn expensive.  Only for Apple products do people constantly claim they can build a better product for less money because Apple is always seen to be cheating honest consumers out of their hard-earned money.

  • Reply 67 of 81
    virtuavirtua Posts: 209member
    inkling wrote: »
    You're assuming some nasty motives at Apple--products that are intentionally unfixable so users have to buy another sooner than otherwise. I prefer to assume that they're open to their customers's needs. My now aging white MacBook is certainly easy to upgrade, and I happen to think it's a better product for that. And I think that keeping Macs alive longer means they'll be used by more people and create more Mac customers in the long run. A kid who gets given his mom's old MBA when he's in school is likely to want a new one when he goes off to college.

    I also don't believe that the "best product" means it can't be upgradable. In fact, I believe the opposite. Would a Mercedes or a BMW be better cars if it were impossible to repair them? No, a product as sophisticated as a car or a laptop that can't be easily fixed can't be the best by definition. It can be disabled by the failure of a ten-cent part.

    I've worked in electronics and I understand there are tradeoffs. Plugged-in RAM is more reliable in a desktop that sits on a table that it is in a laptop that gets bounced around. Maybe Apple should use soldered in RAM in a MBA. But maybe it should ship with some RAM soldered in and some upgradable with a slot. After all, if there's a problem with easily accessed RAM, it can be reseated.

    Upgradability also makes for more customers. One reason I've not upgraded to a MBA is the limited, pricey, and non-upgradable RAM options. As soon as I bought my Mac mini, I upgraded it to 16 Gig of RAM, and I did so for less than I could add a mere 4 Gig more to a MBA. Apple can certainly do better than that. Gross overpricing doesn't make something better.

    I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I try to be open-minded. I suspect that, if some of my suggestions are taken seriously by Apple and become part of the next generation of laptops, these people criticizing me now would quickly adopt repairability as yet another reason why Apple products are better.

    And keep in mind that I'm a writer. For me, computers are not collectables to be admired. They're tools to be used. A broken tool is useless. A tool I can't upgrade and improve is almost useless.

    --Michael W. Perry, Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

    Is upgrade ability needed so much these days on something like an MBA - the hardware is more powerful than the software likely to be used on it and with things like mavericks improving battery life and ram usage the upgrade bit becomes less relevant.

    Batteries can be changed at the apple store so you don't have to worry about that glue.

    I don't think the problem your referring to is about upgrade ability or having to throw a machine away when the battery dies.

    It's really about cost and what your prepared to pay for - ie you could order a lower config and build on it for less.

    Glueing the battery in is probably more about combination of slim design and cost - which will no doubt continue. Look at the guts of an MBA - it's mostly battery inside.
  • Reply 68 of 81
    eriamjh wrote: »
    One look at the final pic of all the parts should show why this machine is truly a work of design and packaging magic. One truly is paying for style to cram all of these beautiful, custom-designed PCBs into a tiny package. How can anyone compare it to an ugly PC box?
    You don't quite understand how the rest of the computer industry thinks. Why do think Apple is always being disrespected by the computer industry?  It's because the industry claims Apple wastes too much time and effort on things like aesthetics and finish.  They reason that true professionals don't care if it's in an ugly, unfinished box as long as it's 20% to 30% cheaper.  Put that design cost into faster processors or cheaper memory.  The whole computer industry is ruled by cost, not looks.  The industry despises Apple for making a computer like this and I'm sure so does Wall Street.  Everyone wants Apple to cut costs and the best way to do it is to make products as dull and unexciting as everyone else.  Have you seen the way Apple polishes the case to a near mirror finish?  Do you think the computer industry is happy with that sort of effort that Apple puts into finishing its products.  Don't polish the case and sell the computer for $100 cheaper is what they want Apple to do.  Why do you think every workstation computer looks about the same?  Because no one gives a damn about how it looks on the outside.  They just want things like compatibility, plenty of space to stuff things in and the cheaper the better.  Cheap, cheaper, cheapest is always the best.

    The rest of the computer industry sees the new Mac Pro as a pain in their asses and as some pretty toy that's not really meant for real professional users.  Everyone, everywhere says Apple products are seen as too damn expensive.  Only for Apple products do people constantly claim they can build a better product for less money because Apple is always seen to be cheating honest consumers out of their hard-earned money.

    Except, what really pisses off competitors and DIY box-builders, alike -- is that they can't build an equivalent box -- even spending hundreds of dollars more...

    They can rag on Apple all they want, but the truth is that no one can come close to equal capability for the $... Beautiful or Butt-ugly, aside!
  • Reply 69 of 81
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    What annoys me are those who claim the nMP is just a vanity exercise to satisfy Apple designers egos. If that was the case I highly doubt they'd use the Mac Pro as their product to "show off". I think it's more in line with the anandtech review - for the desktop workstation to survive it needs to evolve. And this is Apple's take on the future of the desktop workstation. It's not a case of form over function. It's Apple showing once again that functional can also be beautiful. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
  • Reply 70 of 81
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Btw this is what you get when you're a company with no taste. And I see there's no number pad so you either have to use voice to change the channel or arrow keys with an on screen number pad. Dumb. And I thought my DirecTV remote was bad.

    [img]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/36784/[/img]
  • Reply 71 of 81
    In the early days of microcomputers, most of them were enclosed in boxes made of bent, stamped and painted metal.

    Why?

    Because these cases could be built in small quantities with a little commitment of manufacturing dollars.

    Then along came Apple, Tandy and a few others that built computers enclosed in cases made from extruded/molded plastics. While thought to be cheaper this manufacturing process is actually more expensive -- at least, at first. The molds for these plastic cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and required a commitment to a large manufacturing quantity to amortize their costs. Once amortized, the cost of making additional cases is infinitely cheaper then making a high-volume of bent/stamped metal cases.

    Apple was investing in the manufacturing process as well as investing in the product.

    To those who understand, this is a very savvy commitment to the product. In essence, Apple is saying we intend to make enough of this product to benefit from the investments in the manufacturing process.

    I believe similar thinking was used in the design of the new Mac Pro. In addition, there are benefits on several other levels – including manufacturing and assembly in the United States.

    Dictated, almost flawlessly, on my iPad 4.
  • Reply 72 of 81
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post





    I think you underestimate how well the Mac Pro will be accepted by business and enterprise.

    I don't think so at all. I'm looking at historical purchases and Apple's previously rumored plans. Show me that the same business and enterprise customers were clamoring for the previous Mac Pro models, and I might agree. But businesses have no need for the MacPro. The iMac and mini does the job just fine for them. The Pro isn't even necessary for server use, as the mini can also handle most of those needs as well. 

     

    Bottom line, Apple was thinking of discontinuing it, because they don't want to compete in that well addressed market. The Pro exists as a marketing tool, for creative professionals which make up the tiniest fraction of professional desktop computing, a market which in of itself is rapidly declining into oblivion. Bottom line, Apple offers it for media and entertainment related businesses, and few others, since they are the movers and shakers who influence the masses of consumers Apple counts as its core business.

     

    As such, I maintain that the Pro's expandable design is strictly to allow Apple to forget about it until another major redesign is required to accommodate new technologies yet to be devised. A smart move that counts on third parties to offer incremental upgrades, rather than forcing Apple to devote resources for similar annual upgrades, a practice which in the past has garnered them only bad press for delays in addressing them, and failure to meet expectations. 

     

    This is the only reason I can think of that Apple would not put more restrictions on the design in order to control upgrade purchases and ensure they continue to profit from that niche segment, if there were any real profits to be made there -- and Apple realizes there aren't.

  • Reply 73 of 81
    Yes, but does it blend?! Hehe
  • Reply 74 of 81
    mac_128 wrote: »
    I think you underestimate how well the Mac Pro will be accepted by business and enterprise.
    I don't think so at all. I'm looking at historical purchases and Apple's previously rumored plans. Show me that the same business and enterprise customers were clamoring for the previous Mac Pro models, and I might agree. But businesses have no need for the MacPro. The iMac and mini does the job just fine for them. The Pro isn't even necessary for server use, as the mini can also handle most of those needs as well.

    Bottom line, Apple was thinking of discontinuing it, because they don't want to compete in that well addressed market. The Pro exists as a marketing tool, for creative professionals which make up the tiniest fraction of professional desktop computing, a market which in of itself is rapidly declining into oblivion. Bottom line, Apple offers it for media and entertainment related businesses, and few others, since they are the movers and shakers who influence the masses of consumers Apple counts as its core business.

    As such, I maintain that the Pro's expandable design is strictly to allow Apple to forget about it until another major redesign is required to accommodate new technologies yet to be devised. A smart move that counts on third parties to offer incremental upgrades, rather than forcing Apple to devote resources for similar annual upgrades, a practice which in the past has garnered them only bad press for delays in addressing them, and failure to meet expectations.

    This is the only reason I can think of that Apple would not put more restrictions on the design in order to control upgrade purchases and ensure they continue to profit from that niche segment, if there were any real profits to be made there -- and Apple realizes there aren't.


    Consider this:
    jakephish wrote: »
    So I am a dentist who runs a dental office, and I'm kinda a Do It Yourself person when it comes to tech. This machine is being run as a shitty windows 2008 server for one of the few decent dental programs on any OS. Its server function works better than any PC server I ever owned. It backs up to a HIPAA secure site after hours, and to a backup I keep offsite at my house. During the day it easily handles huge radiograph and dental patient electronic medical record, and backs up to my 'to go' drive fast.

    We only use macs in my office because, well, they Apple makes better PCs than PC makers can. They look good in an office. Their hardware never complains or conflicts, and makes my day easier with all the other stuff I need to do. I think there are more PC users than people realize that wish they could go to mac at work, but the software is sparse on the mac for health specialties, as i would think is true for many other big as well as small industry settings.

    There is plenty of room for this computer out here. Not everyone wants the same things in a computer. But for those who still want consistent professional grade equipment, these do not fail nearly as often and hard like the ones they sell at Staples, or even Dell.

    And this thread at MacRumors:

    http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-638649.html


    Mavericks Server costs $20. Macs are excellent and competitive machines to run Windows. If I were active in selling/installing "computer solutions" I'd consider this a great opportunity to sell Mac Pro-based solutions into SMB.
  • Reply 75 of 81
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Maybe that's their goal here. It's finally only hit the market and Apple is notorious for starting small with manageable chunks an then building into more options and features after they have a solid foundation. I don't think it's unreasonable to think they could expand their card options in 2014.

     

    Now I'm going to suffer if they don't do that.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by bloggerblog View Post

     

    Those components, are so 80's 


     

    Those are for the power supply. They always are that big. The Mac Pro sports the same kind of components.

  • Reply 76 of 81
    clemynx wrote: »
     
    Those components, are so 80's 

    Those are for the power supply. They always are that big. The Mac Pro sports the same kind of components.

    Link/Citation?
  • Reply 77 of 81
    virtuavirtua Posts: 209member
    That m
    bemacbe wrote: »
    Yes, but does it blend?! Hehe

    That made me chuckle....that guys marketing campaign is awesome, but id hate to see one of these blended. I can see it now "were going to need a bigger blender" lol
  • Reply 78 of 81
    bloggerblogbloggerblog Posts: 2,462member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ClemyNX View Post

     

    Those are for the power supply. They always are that big. The Mac Pro sports the same kind of components.


     

    Oh I understand, but compare that to this:

    http://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/sWXVkhhsjyY2KANn.huge

  • Reply 79 of 81
    marubenimarubeni Posts: 334member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    Anandtech's review is up:



    http://anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013

     

    An actual useful post!

  • Reply 80 of 81
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Stef View Post



    After a month of tech bloggers whining, whining, whining about how closed the Pro will be, it isn't. Surprise. Cue Leo Laporte.

     

    They'll go back to complaining how much it costs.

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