Apple 2017 year in review: The 'Pro' desktop market is revisited with the iMac Pro, with m...

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  • Reply 21 of 68
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    macxpress said:
     If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 
    You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

    HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:



    Up to the Z8:



    edited December 2017 williamlondonxzu
  • Reply 22 of 68
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    Marvin said:

    It would be nice if Apple offered NVidia options but NVidia workstation GPUs are really expensive. They've been neutering compute features in their consumer cards, including Titans so they can push Teslas and Quadros on the high-end. The worthwhile models of those GPUs cost thousands each. Gaming cards like the 1080/ti aren't ideal for workstations. Titans are the only realistic option from NVidia and still ~$1200 each.
    NVIDIA cards are definitely expensive, but not necessarily neutered. Take the new $3000 TITAN V for example. It's not cheap, but it's essentially a Tesla V100. It offers 110 TFLOPS of performance through its tensor cores for deep learning applications. In comparison, the Vega 64 in the iMac Pro can only output ~22 TFLOPS (FP16).

    You touched on quite a few interesting ideas in your post, particularly a service for offloading work.
    bb-15williamlondon
  • Reply 23 of 68
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    VRing said:
    macxpress said:
     If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 
    You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

    HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:



    Up to the Z8:



    All of which will fail prematurely....

    And I'll ask you again, what is your purpose for being here other than to piss all over every single thing Apple does? 
    edited December 2017 williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 24 of 68
    I use an iMac Amateur for newspaper production. I’d feel like a Pro if InDesign wasn’t such a buggy, crap-riddled turdiscle. Most times when it crashes and I opt to send the report to Apple, I add, “Adobe sucks” to the comment section.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 68
    wozwozwozwoz Posts: 263member
    Why after designing the R2D2 Coke can Mac Pro with some modularity ... did Apple never offer any upgrades for it??? Why can't we buy new graphics cards for it ... on par or exceeding the performance of the graphics cards in the iMac Pro?  That should be easy to do!   I wouldn't turn up my nose at 20 teraflops of GPU.
    king editor the gratewatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 68
    Maxter said:
    Looking forward for the TRUE Pro: Mac Pro with Thunderbolt MATTE Display. Support for nVidia 3D Vision. Replace Mac when required, keeping display until desired. Ecological. Truly easily upgradable by user in seconds. Mini, midi and maxi models. No soldered parts. No proprietary connectors for SSD or GPU. No forced RAID inside. No paired SSD to main board. Wired keyboard and mouse. Forget obnoxious batteries to protect environment and avoid inconvenient and unnecessary recharges. Always ready to work. Workflow ready! The Mac way! We need thousands of them.
    Oh look, Appex is back. Still using your twenty year old monitor, right?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 68

    blastdoor said:
    My take is that Apple basically came out last year in a very courageous and forthright way to say “we goofed, and we are going to fix it.” They basically cut the legs out from under that subset of Apple fans who tie themselves in knots to defend everything Apple does, and who attack every criticism of Apple, even when that criticism is delivered thoughtfully and constructively by people who have been using Apple products professionally for decades. Simultaneously, Apple validated the points being made by many Pro users. 

    I suspect that really sticks in the craw of the types of people who mindlessly defend Apple. They now have to admit Apple was wrong, because Apple has admitted it. And in so doing, they have to admit that they were wrong in their mindless defense of Apple’s past pro screwups. 

    And so this leads me to wonder — is it just me, or is there a really snotty, sour grapes tone to this article? 
    Who are these people, specifically?

    Beautiful straw man you’ve constructed there. Excellent craftsmanship. 
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 28 of 68
    VRing said:
    macxpress said:
     If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 
    You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

    HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:



    Up to the Z8:



    Is that supposed to be impressive? The old Mac Pro cheese grater cases were more impressive and they’re over 12 years old. 
    bb-15williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 68

    macxpress said:
    VRing said:
    macxpress said:
     If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 
    You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

    HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:



    Up to the Z8:



    All of which will fail prematurely....

    And I'll ask you again, what is your purpose for being here other than to piss all over every single thing Apple does? 
    To tell us how much he likes PC clones over Macs. Wow, fascinating perspective man. 
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 68

    wozwoz said:
    Why after designing the R2D2 Coke can Mac Pro with some modularity ... did Apple never offer any upgrades for it??? Why can't we buy new graphics cards for it ... on par or exceeding the performance of the graphics cards in the iMac Pro?  That should be easy to do!   I wouldn't turn up my nose at 20 teraflops of GPU.
    Yes it’s easy when you’re engineering 100% in your own mind. 

    Read the very long interview Craig and others did on the problems of the last MP. 
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 68
    blastdoor said:
    My take is that Apple basically came out last year in a very courageous and forthright way to say “we goofed, and we are going to fix it.” They basically cut the legs out from under that subset of Apple fans who tie themselves in knots to defend everything Apple does, and who attack every criticism of Apple, even when that criticism is delivered thoughtfully and constructively by people who have been using Apple products professionally for decades. Simultaneously, Apple validated the points being made by many Pro users. 

    I suspect that really sticks in the craw of the types of people who mindlessly defend Apple. They now have to admit Apple was wrong, because Apple has admitted it. And in so doing, they have to admit that they were wrong in their mindless defense of Apple’s past pro screwups. 

    And so this leads me to wonder — is it just me, or is there a really snotty, sour grapes tone to this article? 
    What... Apple invalidated again "the points made by many [self-acclaimed] Pro users" with iMac Pro. Apple has only validated again its tradition by proving that a pro machine still can be all-in-one.
    edited December 2017 williamlondonStrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 32 of 68
    VRing said:
    macxpress said:
     If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 
    You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

    HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:



    Up to the Z8:


    Sure, and while we're at it, let's remember that if you try to match the iMac Pro 8-Core spec to the HP Z4 G4 with Xeon W-2145, 32 GB ECC RAM, 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and Radeon Pro WX 7100 8 GB, you end up at $5974 with no display. [Yes, the regular desktop Xeon W-2145 is faster than the all-in-one Xeon W-2140B, but we're comparing an all-in-one to a regular desktop, so that's just that.] It's not like HP is giving these things away.
    williamlondonStrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 34 of 68
    thttht Posts: 5,420member
    Marvin said:

    That report spells out the main issue. The revenue and unit volume there shows the average workstation price to be $1888, which is a lot lower than where Apple's pro desktops start. That average means a significant amount of workstation class devices are being sold below $1888, some of which get used as dedicated servers. HP actually notes 1 million mini workstations (< 3 litres volume, Mac mini/Cube size) are sold per year when they make the claim that their Z2 Mini is the first mini workstation designed for CAD users. Solidworks is Windows-only and has over 2 million users so Apple misses some of this market by not having the software compatibility.

    If we assume half of workstations are premium workstations (>$2k) and Apple gets 1/3 of the market like HP/Dell, they are aiming for a best-case of ~200k units per quarter. Apple used to sell this many in 2004 when the PowerMac started at $1800 and the PowerMac line was 20% of Mac sales. Once the price is near doubled, the unit volume drops more than half. These prices are largely due to Intel. AMD's latest chips currently offer much better value, maybe they will help drive Intel prices down if they gain some traction in servers.
    An ASP of 1800? And a 10% per year are Z2 minis?

    This really begs the question of what workstation is and what components are in them. If half the units are less than $1800, that implies these machines have Core chips, Intel processor graphics and lower end GPU compute cards. Looking at the HP Z4 G4 middle SKU for $2079:

    Z4 G4 Workstation 
    Intel® Xeon® W-2102 Processor (2.9 GHz, 8 MB cache, 4 core) 
    USB Premium Wired Keyboard
    HP Z4 G4 90 465W Chassis 
    USB Wired Mouse 
    Base - 4 x USB 3.0 Type A 
    AMD FirePro™ W2100 (2 GB; 2 DisplayPort 1.2, PCIe) Graphics 
    9.5mm DVD Writer Optical Disc Drive 
    Windows 10 Pro 64 - HP recommends Windows 10 Pro. 
    8 GB (1x8 GB) DDR4-2666 ECC Memory 
    1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.5" HDD 
    3/3/3-year warranty

    I only chose this because HP calls it a workstation. Performance wise, it’s nothing to write home about for $2000, but it really factors in HP’s service for it I’m sure. So, what is a user of this machine doing? And there are about half the units at less cost than this, implying even lower specs? What are people doing on these machines, and why is it called a workstation?

    There’s going to be a rather arbitrary feature that would lump a generic PC into a workstation category, like Windows “Pro” OS or corporate service. Just a brief survey of the stock models from Dell and HP and an ASP of $1800 would indicate it’s not performance. 

    The cylinder Mac Pro has the processing boards plugged into a circular daughterboard at the bottom:



    Those boards are made by Apple. If they had a system that allowed for 4 modules containing boards to be connected like this and more easily removed, they can not only offer more options but easier upgrades.

    The 3 compute boards were fine (1 CPU socket and 2 GPU). If we believe Apple (Federighi) at their word of being thermally limited, it implies the triangular heat sink could only accept about 135 W per side, someone made a very bad bet at GPU perf/Watt at Apple. Apple could have done 8, 10, 14, 18 core Xeon configs a couple of years ago if they wanted, but if the triangular heatsink could only take 135 W per side, they were sunk on the GPU side as GPUs basically skipped the 20/22 nm node and spent 4 years at 28 nm. And they couldn’t redesign the heatsink for a 250 W GPU? Just don’t get it.

    The cylinder Mac Pro has been obsoleted by the iMac Pro as it has the same thermal capacity and the iMac Pro is even more compact. There's no point in Apple selling both options so they have no choice but to make the Mac Pro more powerful in order to avoid the overlap. This will have to be around double the performance of the iMac Pro to be worthwhile making at all but it also means more expensive. If the Mac Pro wasn't selling at $3k, it's not going to sell better at $5k regardless of the options it has. By the time the Mac Pro comes out, the iMac Pro will be on its second revision. GPUs will be at the point where nobody cares about upgrades, same with RAM. People get stuck thinking that they've needed to upgrade before so this need will come again but this isn't going to be true forever. Every computer user will reach a comfortable RAM/storage/GPU limit and for 99.99% of people this will be no more than 64GB/4TB/10TFLOPs. There are laptops that have this now but it will be in sensibly designed laptops in about 5 years.

    I think this is the same line of thinking that got Apple caught with the 2013 Mac Pro. Apple has a significant number, 5% (?), of buyers who want the fastest possible components for whatever they are doing. The iMac Pro is sitting at 500 W, and that won’t be enough. There will be enough customers who will be willing to pay $10k for top line performance, be it YouTubers, video production houses, programmers, engineers, etc. The lesson learned from the 2013 Mac Pro is that you can’t foresee where the components are going to go and how much power they’ll need. That necessarily means having a modular box that is capable of being configured for some future component or daughterboard that might need 500 W by itself, letting them adjust quickly. Integrated machines take time and resources and Apple doesn’t seem to give these Macs much time and effort.

    And yeah, the upcoming Mac Pro should be a 2 socket, 2 GPU, 512 GB RAM, 10 to 20 TB SSD/Optane machine. 
  • Reply 35 of 68
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    blastdoor said:
    Regarding “modularity” — Craig talked about modularity in the context of thermal/physical constraints. So I think what they meant is that it will be easier for them — Apple — to upgrade the new Mac Pro on a regular basis without the need to do a total redesign. It will be easier for them to swap out old Xeons for new Xeons, old GPUs for new GPUs. They will give themselves more thermal headroom and physical space inside the case so that they can adapt as technology changes, and perhaps to offer more BTO configurations. 

    If you listen to what they said, instead of projecting your own BS onto it, I think that’s the most reasonable interpretation. 

    In other words, I don’t think they meant “you can attach TB peripherals to it” — that’s what the 2013 Mac Pro was. (Although of course it will support peripherals — I just mean that’s not what they have in mind when they say “modular”) 

    Nor do I think they mean “user-upgradable” in the sense that DIY PCs are user upgradable. It’s not like it will now be easy for users to swap out old Xeons for new. 


    Honestly I think Craig is full of crap!   

    In regards to upgrades for the current  Mac Pro (trashcan) there are plenty of upgrade vectors with respect to GPU's and CPU's that would dramatically increase performance while either lowering the thermals or keeping them the same.   IMac Pro pretty much validates this thought.   Any talk from Apple about thermal capacity is total nonsense in my mind due to the fact that all potential replacement chips actually run cooler.

    As for the Trashcan I never thought of it as a bad design however the delivery to the public was terrible   For one thing you can't expect to be taken seriously if you don't have a storage solution for the platform.   In other words if you don't have a storage solution ,either internal or external you don't have a pro solution and frankly that covers a wide array of what could be called pro users.   The lack of a corresponding display is even more perplexing and makes you wonder what the hell Apple was thinking.   The thing here is that there are a huge number of professionals that just needs a quality display and want the Apple logo on it.   Apple doens't need to offer a studio monitor which frankly is a specialist product, they just need to offer a high quality monitor.   In a nut shell the way the trashcan debuted had more to do with its lack of acceptance than the machine itself.

    AS for upgradability I really think that many of the people demanding such are living way way in the past.   Certainly we need Apple to avoid some of the stupid things it has been doing for the last couple of years with strange SSD ports and other proprietary nonsense.   The reality is that parts for high performance machines will get smaller and more tightly packed, the reason is simple, it is the time of flight of electrical signals that require parts to be close together to increase performance.   This is why high performance GPU's have RAM being integrated into the GPU chip housing and why Intel has high speed RAM integrated into some of their APU style chips.    In a nut shell it will get harder and harder to do some of the simple upgrades that people are use too.   And no, for the idiots out there, this isn't Apple or anybody else being a dick.  

    Now this doens't mean that upgradability isn't important it is for some things.    Secondary storage is ALWAYS something it need of upgrading or replacement.   However the forward looking approach here is not to offer spinning rust drive bays but rather to offer industry standard slots for SSD expansion.   Note industry standard here.   Any desktop machine worth a damn will have at least four SSD slots.

    Frankly I see Apple as failing its Mac line up so badly that I went out and bought an HP laptop to replace a stolen MBP.   We are talking a machine that has AMD's latest Ryzen APU that offers plenty of performance in a machine that compares well to anything Apple has and only costs $750.   It has speakers I can actually hear which is a big deal for some of us.   It also has enough ports that it will be able to support some of my interests without a bunch of crap handing off the machine, this is unlike Apples machines which seem to be designed for idiots that don't even know how to use a USB or HDMI port.   Once I have Linux running on the machine not much will be different user wise from the current Apple hardware.    I have need for a desktop in the near future and frankly I'm hoping that Apple gets its crap together in that respect as a Mac does have some advantages for a home PC.   In a nut shell Apple has lost credibility with me as a supplier of computing hardware, at times they just can't seem to grasp that different users have different ways of working.   Can they pull out a few wins to regain some credibility, maybe but it will take considerable innovation and reasonable pricing to do so.
    entropys
  • Reply 36 of 68
    wizard69 said:
    blastdoor said:
    Regarding “modularity” — Craig talked about modularity in the context of thermal/physical constraints. So I think what they meant is that it will be easier for them — Apple — to upgrade the new Mac Pro on a regular basis without the need to do a total redesign. It will be easier for them to swap out old Xeons for new Xeons, old GPUs for new GPUs. They will give themselves more thermal headroom and physical space inside the case so that they can adapt as technology changes, and perhaps to offer more BTO configurations. 

    If you listen to what they said, instead of projecting your own BS onto it, I think that’s the most reasonable interpretation. 

    In other words, I don’t think they meant “you can attach TB peripherals to it” — that’s what the 2013 Mac Pro was. (Although of course it will support peripherals — I just mean that’s not what they have in mind when they say “modular”) 

    Nor do I think they mean “user-upgradable” in the sense that DIY PCs are user upgradable. It’s not like it will now be easy for users to swap out old Xeons for new. 


    Honestly I think Craig is full of crap!   
    Yeah well, that’s why you’re “Wizard69” on a rumors website, and he’s one of the most successful and celebrated engineers to have walked earth... Sorry but I’ll take his take on Mac engineering over yours every single time. “But I’m the wizard!”
    williamlondonmacxpresswatto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 68
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    blastdoor said:
    Regarding “modularity” — Craig talked about modularity in the context of thermal/physical constraints. So I think what they meant is that it will be easier for them — Apple — to upgrade the new Mac Pro on a regular basis without the need to do a total redesign. It will be easier for them to swap out old Xeons for new Xeons, old GPUs for new GPUs. They will give themselves more thermal headroom and physical space inside the case so that they can adapt as technology changes, and perhaps to offer more BTO configurations. 

    If you listen to what they said, instead of projecting your own BS onto it, I think that’s the most reasonable interpretation. 

    In other words, I don’t think they meant “you can attach TB peripherals to it” — that’s what the 2013 Mac Pro was. (Although of course it will support peripherals — I just mean that’s not what they have in mind when they say “modular”) 

    Nor do I think they mean “user-upgradable” in the sense that DIY PCs are user upgradable. It’s not like it will now be easy for users to swap out old Xeons for new. 

    s
    I'm puzzled, now. That's what I said and have been saying about "upgradeability," and precisely what I said about the CPUs in this articlTe -- not modular for the user, but easier for Apple itself to keep the specs up to date.
    The problem with this perspective is that there was nothing to keep Apple form upgrading the trash can.   If You ignore the crap coming out of Craigs mouth and look at what is available chip wise you would see that there are plenty of potential chips for a trash can update.    The new GPU's from both AMD and NVidia offer plenty of performance upgrades in similar power profiles.   Likewise CPU chips from both AMD and Intel offer significant performance upgrades for a given amount of power.   Frankly I have a huge problem with Craig as anybody that follows the industry knows that he is full of crap in that regard.  There might not be upgrades suitable for annual updates but lets face it we are talking the XEON line here.

    At this point I have no idea what modular means to Apple.   I do know one thing, if they don't bring out a platform that has a far lower entry point the line will have terrible sales just like the trash can.   The overwhelming problem for the Mac Pro as a desktop computer is the lack of a reasonably priced machine for the workstation market.   That doens't mean that the avoid making a high performance machine, just that they need a machine that can support a range of performance options and price points to move enough product to pay for the tooling to build the machine.   Lets face it there are not enough media pros out there to justify Apple making any sort of pro machine tailored for their needs.   However there is a massive market for workstation class machines that start at $1200 and can easily run into the $10,000 mark.   This can easily be done in one box these days.   A low end workstation suitable for a programmer might have one multicore CPU and a low end video card, maybe even a high end APU type chip (think a step or two above today's Mini).    Swap in a high end video card and you have a machine for web development and minor game development.   From there it is a simple matter to scale performance as the user needs.   In the end there is no rational reason why Apple can't have a pro machine starting at $1200 and going as high as the professionals are willing to pay.

    The thing is that these days all of this can be had in a platform much smaller than a cheese grater type tower.  The people demanding a tower just are not living in todays technology world.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 38 of 68
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    macxpress said:
    jkichline said:
    Let me make this really easy... Apple needs a rack mountable solution that is equally as sexy and useful on the desktop. The trouble is that “pro” can be graphic designers and photographers which the iMac Pro is perfect for. but for musicians, professional sound and video engineers, 3D artists and those with server farm needs, Apple has no entry.

    My recommendation is for Apple to develop a half a 1U unit with basic high core count and optional high end graphics. Keep a smaller high speed SSD in that for boot and enough room to do basic needs (256 GB). Then sell other 1/2 rack units for RAID SSD storage. Interconnect it all with high-speed TB3 and 10Gb Ethernet. Great thermal management front to back and a sexy face (dark anodized aluminum with a glowing logo). Heck throw an OLED on the front with configurable display (CPU, RAM, Net, etc)

    You ship it with rails and mounts. The 1/2 unit should be able to stand/lay on a desk or be mounted in a rack by itself or coupled with another one to make a full unit.

    That’s it! It’s really simple. Make blocks. Make lots of them. Make the blocks work together seamlessly. Add hardware-level security like in the iMac Pro. Open up developer kits for PCI hardware developers. It’s pretty simple!
    Everything seems simple on paper. We're not engineers so we don't realize the issues that come along with these thoughts on how something should be designed. This is just more armchair executive talk. 
    It really isn't that difficult to design a machine that is compatible with the desktop yet can be rack mounted properly.    I wouldn't do 1U myself, preferring a deeper chassis but if you look at the Mini you can see that doing a 1U half wide or even 1/3 rd width PC is extremely doable and given that one dimension can be added to considerably you can put a lot of computational  capacity into a 1/2 wide or even a 1/3 wide platform.  

    Oh by the way if you had a clue about what is already on the market you would know that this isn't an engineering problem at all.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 39 of 68
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    macxpress said:

    CobraGuy said:
    I doubt we see a new Mac Pro in 2018.

    Heck, Apple could not ship a Siri Speaker before Christmas.

    And Apple was once rumored to be building a car?

    LMAO
    I doubt we'll see a MacPro in 2018 either, but only because it does take time to totally redesign a computer from the ground up. It seems that it takes a good 2-3yrs to totally redesign a product. If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 

    I'd rather Apple get it right than just rush a product to market to appease people like you. So if it takes a few extra months to get a product to market then so be it. 
    it really isn't that hard to designing a computer using somebody else parts.   This especially  if you assemble a team of experienced designers and engineers.   It is far more complicated if you are designing in your own electronics which wouldn't surprise me one bit.

    At this point though I really don't know what to think of Apple and the Mac line.   It is clear that they have ignored the desktop completely for years and have totally lost touch with their users.   I'm not convinced that they can turn things around in 2018 with compelling hardware at rational price points.    I stress price points here because ;the high entry price on many of Apples desktops has more to do with killing sales and impacting product viability than anything.
    williamlondonentropys
  • Reply 40 of 68
    wizard69 said:
    macxpress said:

    CobraGuy said:
    I doubt we see a new Mac Pro in 2018.

    Heck, Apple could not ship a Siri Speaker before Christmas.

    And Apple was once rumored to be building a car?

    LMAO
    I doubt we'll see a MacPro in 2018 either, but only because it does take time to totally redesign a computer from the ground up. It seems that it takes a good 2-3yrs to totally redesign a product. If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do. 

    I'd rather Apple get it right than just rush a product to market to appease people like you. So if it takes a few extra months to get a product to market then so be it. 
    it really isn't that hard to designing a computer using somebody else parts.   This especially  if you assemble a team of experienced designers and engineers.   It is far more complicated if you are designing in your own electronics which wouldn't surprise me one bit.

    At this point though I really don't know what to think of Apple and the Mac line.   It is clear that they have ignored the desktop completely for years and have totally lost touch with their users.   I'm not convinced that they can turn things around in 2018 with compelling hardware at rational price points.    I stress price points here because ;the high entry price on many of Apples desktops has more to do with killing sales and impacting product viability than anything.
    OK u r right u r unfalsifiable and...

    Apple is DOOOOMED !!!
    ... again.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
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