does that include REAL PRO LEVEL desktops?
where the real concern about Apple is... abandoining of the PRO and POWER Users..... and in the process destroying the brands/platforms computing credibility !
"Great desktops"? I'm getting very skeptical about that. Apple is flirting with losing professional and creative users whose influence goes far beyond direct sales to them. The Pro and its "can't innovate, my ass" intro has been a complete letdown. If that's the kind of thing Cook has in mind, Apple might just as well cede this market to others and move desktop employees to the car.
My wife's iMac from 2010 needed replacement. I waited and waited for an Xmas update. When I gave up and bought the latest and greatest last month it was shown to be an October 2015 model in the About This Mac menu. Pathetic. Apple, the new Phone Company.
You do realize thats the latest hardware intel can offer, right?
More "modern" hardware won't be on the market until 2017.
I don't think people realize that Apple is kinda held back by Intel in some aspects. They were already kinda screwed with the MacBook Pro release. I don't believe there's a real upgrade in CPU for the iMac as it stands right now. I am hoping that in the mean time while they were waiting on Intel they were redesigning all of their desktops. If they know whats coming down the pipeline they can design around that. I'd really like to see a brand new iMac.
Yes, something to genuinely compete with Microsoft's quite impressive latest offering.
macxpress said: I don't think people realize that Apple is kinda held back by Intel in some aspects. They were already kinda screwed with the MacBook Pro release. I don't believe there's a real upgrade in CPU for the iMac as it stands right now. I am hoping that in the mean time while they were waiting on Intel they were redesigning all of their desktops. If they know whats coming down the pipeline they can design around that. I'd really like to see a brand new iMac.
Yes, something to genuinely compete with Microsoft's quite impressive latest offering.
Note that "Microsoft's quite impressive latest offering" doesn't even a release date, unless you count a time period of somewhere up through 30 April 2017 as a date. And let's consider when we first heard about Surface Studio. I don't Apple products to be announced 6–12 months ahead of time their release.
I know this sort of thing goes against the Apple way, but they really need to go out and talk to people about what they need in a desktop or tower computer. With the old Mac Pros they had a computer that was dominant in video post proudction (with FCP) and in graphic design. Then they started ignoring that segment of their business and we went years with no update. This was under Jobs BTW. Maybe Steve had decided that workhorse computers didn't fit the Apple future, but Steve is gone and I think this is one example of where he was wrong. It's not a big market, but it is one that is pretty steady. It might even be one that could grow if they committed to it with engineering and marketing resources. In the film and video effects world Apple now has practically zero presence because they don't make machines that kare comparable with the powerful HP and Boxx hardware that is used in this industry. Boxx has built it's entire business around making super fast tower computers. I see no reason why Apple couldn't do the same with their superior OS, but again only if they had the willingness to do so. A lot of people would say "take my money" if Apple released a bleeding edge tower computer. A lot.
I have heard a lot about the cheese grater version of the Mac being far superior to the trashcan Mac as far as expandability. I still have my Mac Pro 2008 (8 core) [with upgraded graphics] and I can tell you that it was less expandable than people seem to pretend. You had a PCIe bus but no thunderbolt and USB-2. First thing I did was put in 2x graphics cards.... which left 1 (yes 1 1 only) PCIe slot with lower bandwidth for anything else - in my case I put in a SAS controller (hobbled a bit by the fact that it PCIe bandwidth.... is less than what I could get from Thunderbolt). Yes - I can put hard drives in it but however many they give you there will never be enough internally... and I know the PC market has been all about putting hard drives in the same case but .... that is not a great design either. Hard drives are old mechanical beasts that whirl and vibrate and shake and give off lots of heat.... this is best dealt with in a case that is designed for that thing rather than in the same case as your computer. I have 4 HD slots and 13 HDs..... I could not give a crap about any new machine having slots for hard drives .... it would be a waste. Yes, it would be useful to be able to upgrade the graphics.... but then if there are better options in the future and I had a Mac Pro from a few years ago.... guess what... I can just disconnect the hard drive array, mirror the SSD drives .... then sell it and buy a newer model with newer graphics capabilities (assuming an upgraded Mac Pro exists).... not really much of a hinderance give that Apple hardware retains better resell values than other companies... and there seems to always be someone out there willing to buy it. Really with the way thunderbolt the way it is the only thing that really is useful for upgrading is the memory onboard..... Trashcan is not that bad of a design.... However I would not be surprised if the new Mac Pro gets a new case again this year (maybe revert to a certain extent). I get the feeling that the US manufacturing of the current Mac Pro had some issues, and given they have not "nudged" the specs.... I get the feeling they did not nudge them because there may be some issue with the current design and they felt that nudging it was not the best solution.... and there is a new design in the works. They should have never moved the manufacturing back to the US
The sad thing is the current trash can Mac Pro could have been great but was a flop due to Apple's choice of a custom dual GPU architecture which not surprisingly almost no developers have bothered to optimise for, high pricing, lack of storage and more recently, lack of refreshes, port and ram upgrades etc. im not sure Apple can save the Mac Pro now.
I truly believe Jony needs to give us a FrankenMac or WozoMac. A piece that combines industrial design art with maximum upgrade, modification, customization ability. A totally off the wall, nuts functional design.
Perhaps this in not feasible, due to the way macOS has evolved. I'd buy such a desktop machine, as much for the novelty as for the functionality.
I truly believe Jony needs to give us a FrankenMac or WozoMac. A piece that combines industrial design art with maximum upgrade, modification, customization ability. A totally off the wall, nuts functional design.
Perhaps this in not feasible, due to the way macOS has evolved. I'd buy such a desktop machine, as much for the novelty as for the functionality.
Why do people say this as if it's only his decision? Apple has a SVP of hardware engineering. Does he not have any say over the Mac lineup?
You use a 5K iMac and a Mac Pro to do software development? LOL. Okay.
Thats too much for your average developer for anything but bragging rights and too little for anyone actually needing heavy metal.
My work covers a few different disciplines so I have my reasons for using those larger desktop machines. I guess I'm just spoiled now. I find working on a small laptop screen very tedious, especially when I have to remotely log in to the office private network while on the road. Plus when on the road the laptop ergonomics are usually awful which makes the experience even worse.
You use a 5K iMac and a Mac Pro to do software development? LOL. Okay.
Thats too much for your average developer for anything but bragging rights and too little for anyone actually needing heavy metal.
My work covers a few different disciplines so I have my reasons for using those larger desktop machines. I guess I'm just spoiled now. I find working on a small laptop screen very tedious, especially when I have to remotely log in to the office private network while on the road. Plus when on the road the laptop ergonomics are usually awful which makes the experience even worse.
You know you can drive 2 large screens with a MBP right?
On the road I usually move the TV or desk and try to use that (50/50 if it works) if I don't have a monitor shipped/available to me. I carry a mouse and keyboard in the suitcase when I bother to check a bag or just a mouse when I don't.
I may elect to get the iMac at my next refresh. I have a current SurfaceBook for the road. The MBP is older but still good enough for development.
Those who keep on blaming Intel for Apple's excuses, I have two words for you: Surface Studio
What are the sales figures of the Studio? That's the real indicator of success, is it not?
If the Surface Studio was that great you wouldn't be able to get a discount - in the UK the TV regularly shows ads offering a discount, with a tiny minority of users who can gain some benefit - 'You can't do that on a Mac' - why would you, if you want a Touch UI, get an iPad!
Anybody who thinks a vertical touchscreen is a good idea should take a look at using one in a car - its impossible and is far more dangerous than using a phone with physical buttons like an old Nokia.
Anyone who thinks Microsoft's Office UI with white on white on platinum white is good needs a lesson in ergonomics and optics - something that Apple excel in - Apple don't change the UI every time they release a new OS, something that MS have done at least three times, and the latest just sucks. IMHO.
So think about this... if you have a new hardware platform released year after year, what does it do to the value of the machine you are using right now? - that's right, it devalues faster. If you give away a new laptop for £250 as HP do in the UK, how much is it worth next week?, that's right, nothing, zip, nada, so I ask you, is that good for the planet? think before you answer. A slow product lifecycle is better for you, as an Apple customer, as the products have a longer useful life, retain their value so if you upgrade you can resell it for more than that HP laptop. A slower lifecycle is better for the planet. Period. Use, reuse, recycle. NOT USE, dump.
Most of my Macs have come off eBay [at least three], I am using a 20inch Cinema HD display to write this on, still gorgeous and still working, as is the Mac Cube under my desk, still doing useful work.
I think this "leak" combined with the macOS having code in there for the Vega 10 and Polaris 10 gives us a very good indication of part of what is coming down the line (and that it is likely in the springtime this year -- once stuff starts getting out like this it usually indicates it is coming sooner rather than later).
I expect the Polaris 10 (5.7TFlops reportedly) to be the one going into the iMac
And the Vega 10 (12.5Tflops reportedly) to be in the Mac Pro line..... If they had 2 of them in there that would be interesting to see what it would do in production.
Just hope they come out with a new Mac Mini with the same guts as what is in the MacBook Pro (15") line.... it would have more than enough power for me going forward. It would have a quad-core more powerful than my 8-core 2008 Mac Pro with enough juice to power 4 4K monitors (along with Thunderbolt which I would really like to have for external disk arrays). I originally went with the Mac Pro -- one because I hate all in one computers and nothing else could drive 4+ monitors.... don't need all the GPU power that the high end graphics cards have... just enough to drive lots of monitors with "normal" stuff.
We are absolutely committed to the desktop. We intend to release a new Mac Pro every single 5 yr period!
It is definitely not going to come yearly -- I expect every 3 years (with minor bumps if plant retooling is not needed). The market for the Mac Pro is shrinking as less powerful machines can fill the needs of more people - eating away at an already small niche.... and any major changes requires a substantial investment at retooling the manufacturing line (which I am guessing may be needed this time around if the current Mac Pro has some issues that cannot be solved as I suspect).
That's been a pretty long road map for the Mac Pro...
Intel's roadmap has been quite long as well...which doesn't help things.
I still want to see Apple go back to a mini tower for the Mac Pro. It doesn't have to be as large as the old Mac Pro, but maybe the size of the PowerMac G4. Put a couple of PCIe slots, couple of flash storage slots, etc. It would also be cool I think to keep it the same black aluminum.
An honest question:
Because they make both the hardware and the software, couldn't Apple mitigate the long Intel roadmap by including A10X chips to offload some of the work from the Intel and 3rd-party graphic chips?
That would be interesting....Not sure how they'd handle the x86 instruction set and offload it to ARM which is an entirely different instruction set. I'm sure its possible, but is it worth the time and effort? In the back of my mind I still think Apple is working to beef up its processors the best it can while keeping power consumption low so in certain Macs they can just use their own processors. It can't be easy to do but I think its something Apple can pull off. They've done an outstanding job with the A Series processors in their iOS devices.
Comments
im not sure Apple can save the Mac Pro now.
Perhaps this in not feasible, due to the way macOS has evolved. I'd buy such a desktop machine, as much for the novelty as for the functionality.
On the road I usually move the TV or desk and try to use that (50/50 if it works) if I don't have a monitor shipped/available to me. I carry a mouse and keyboard in the suitcase when I bother to check a bag or just a mouse when I don't.
I may elect to get the iMac at my next refresh. I have a current SurfaceBook for the road. The MBP is older but still good enough for development.
So the bag of dongles is no big deal then right?
Anybody who thinks a vertical touchscreen is a good idea should take a look at using one in a car - its impossible and is far more dangerous than using a phone with physical buttons like an old Nokia.
Anyone who thinks Microsoft's Office UI with white on white on platinum white is good needs a lesson in ergonomics and optics - something that Apple excel in - Apple don't change the UI every time they release a new OS, something that MS have done at least three times, and the latest just sucks. IMHO.
So think about this... if you have a new hardware platform released year after year, what does it do to the value of the machine you are using right now? - that's right, it devalues faster. If you give away a new laptop for £250 as HP do in the UK, how much is it worth next week?, that's right, nothing, zip, nada, so I ask you, is that good for the planet? think before you answer.
A slow product lifecycle is better for you, as an Apple customer, as the products have a longer useful life, retain their value so if you upgrade you can resell it for more than that HP laptop. A slower lifecycle is better for the planet. Period. Use, reuse, recycle. NOT USE, dump.
Most of my Macs have come off eBay [at least three], I am using a 20inch Cinema HD display to write this on, still gorgeous and still working, as is the Mac Cube under my desk, still doing useful work.
N.B. There will never be an xmac separate from Mac Pro development. The request pops up from time to time on various boards and it's totally fanciful.
I expect the Polaris 10 (5.7TFlops reportedly) to be the one going into the iMac
And the Vega 10 (12.5Tflops reportedly) to be in the Mac Pro line..... If they had 2 of them in there that would be interesting to see what it would do in production.
Just hope they come out with a new Mac Mini with the same guts as what is in the MacBook Pro (15") line.... it would have more than enough power for me going forward. It would have a quad-core more powerful than my 8-core 2008 Mac Pro with enough juice to power 4 4K monitors (along with Thunderbolt which I would really like to have for external disk arrays). I originally went with the Mac Pro -- one because I hate all in one computers and nothing else could drive 4+ monitors.... don't need all the GPU power that the high end graphics cards have... just enough to drive lots of monitors with "normal" stuff.
It is definitely not going to come yearly -- I expect every 3 years (with minor bumps if plant retooling is not needed). The market for the Mac Pro is shrinking as less powerful machines can fill the needs of more people - eating away at an already small niche.... and any major changes requires a substantial investment at retooling the manufacturing line (which I am guessing may be needed this time around if the current Mac Pro has some issues that cannot be solved as I suspect).