A new Mac Pro is coming, confirms Apple exec
Apple hinting around the release of a Mac Pro continues, with marketing chief Bob Borchers saying that bringing Apple Silicon to the whole Mac product line is "a clear goal."
Rumors continue to come about a New Mac Pro, but it's now eight months since the end of Apple's self-imposed schedule to move all Macs to Apple Silicon.
While the rest of the range has moved to Apple Silicon, and the company launched an entirely new model with the Mac Studio, we've otherwise only had hints about the new Mac Pro.
Now the hinting continues in a new interview with Apple Vice President Worldwide Product Marketing, Bob Borchers, who is continuing to speak about the benefits of Apple Silicon. Talking to India Today, he reaffirmed the company's ambitions.
"We have a clear goal to transition fully to Apple Silicon," he said. "We believe strongly that Apple silicon can power and transform experiences from the MacBook Air to all the way up to the Mac Studio."
It's curious that here he appears to place the Mac Studio at the top of the lineup, but for the rest of the interview, he repeats that every Mac will be on the new processors.
"We've been very clear from the beginning that our goal is to take our entire product line to Apple Silicon," he continued. "And that's something we intend to do."
"It's important to reiterate that customers buy products, not chips," he said. "One of the core advantages we have in developing Apple Silicon is that we're not thinking about anybody, but our customers... and we don't have to think about who else we're going to sell that chip to."
"So we don't dedicate silicon real estate to things that we might not need to use," he continued. "Instead, we make our decisions based on what we can meaningfully deliver to a customer."
As for specific benefits of Apple Silicon compared to the rest of the processor industry, Borchers says he believes Apple's move into chip design came alongside a drive to be more efficient in every sense.
"I think for the longest time, the broader industry was focused on performance," he said. "And we've introduced this idea that you need to think about how you can do that efficiently."
"And part of that focus on performance per watt has allowed us and kind of pushed us to integrate some core technologies into silicon," he continued, "so we can deliver them as efficiently as possible."
While Borchers did not discuss this directly, integrating certain core technologies right into the Apple Silicon processors also had a downside. It ultimately meant that Apple abandoned the ability to address GPUs that aren't in the Apple Silicon die -- though it's possible that may change in the new Mac Pro.
Read on AppleInsider
Rumors continue to come about a New Mac Pro, but it's now eight months since the end of Apple's self-imposed schedule to move all Macs to Apple Silicon.
While the rest of the range has moved to Apple Silicon, and the company launched an entirely new model with the Mac Studio, we've otherwise only had hints about the new Mac Pro.
Now the hinting continues in a new interview with Apple Vice President Worldwide Product Marketing, Bob Borchers, who is continuing to speak about the benefits of Apple Silicon. Talking to India Today, he reaffirmed the company's ambitions.
"We have a clear goal to transition fully to Apple Silicon," he said. "We believe strongly that Apple silicon can power and transform experiences from the MacBook Air to all the way up to the Mac Studio."
It's curious that here he appears to place the Mac Studio at the top of the lineup, but for the rest of the interview, he repeats that every Mac will be on the new processors.
"We've been very clear from the beginning that our goal is to take our entire product line to Apple Silicon," he continued. "And that's something we intend to do."
Apple's ambition
Borchers says that Apple is focused on the whole Mac, rather than the processor -- and yet also that making its own processors is a huge advantage."It's important to reiterate that customers buy products, not chips," he said. "One of the core advantages we have in developing Apple Silicon is that we're not thinking about anybody, but our customers... and we don't have to think about who else we're going to sell that chip to."
"So we don't dedicate silicon real estate to things that we might not need to use," he continued. "Instead, we make our decisions based on what we can meaningfully deliver to a customer."
As for specific benefits of Apple Silicon compared to the rest of the processor industry, Borchers says he believes Apple's move into chip design came alongside a drive to be more efficient in every sense.
"I think for the longest time, the broader industry was focused on performance," he said. "And we've introduced this idea that you need to think about how you can do that efficiently."
"And part of that focus on performance per watt has allowed us and kind of pushed us to integrate some core technologies into silicon," he continued, "so we can deliver them as efficiently as possible."
While Borchers did not discuss this directly, integrating certain core technologies right into the Apple Silicon processors also had a downside. It ultimately meant that Apple abandoned the ability to address GPUs that aren't in the Apple Silicon die -- though it's possible that may change in the new Mac Pro.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
"Taking the entire product line to Apple Silicon" might mean that any Mac model with an Intel processor will be discontinued. This doesn't seem to be a statement that every Mac model will survive the transition.
Borchers emphasized the point, "We have a clear goal to transition fully to Apple Silicon. ... And that's something we intend to do." If the Mac Pro were dead, I don't think he would be talking that way. It's been less than a year (March 8) since John Ternus explicitly mentioned the Mac Pro: "... making our transition nearly complete with just one more product to go, Mac Pro, but that is for another day."
Borcher's remit was to talk about Apple Silicon, to reinforce the message about how Apple isn't a chip company, they are a device company. This is the same message Anand Shimpi was talking about a few weeks ago. He probably wasn't allowed to say "Mac Pro." Shimpi didn't say it either. Because that opens up questions about what they are doing with the M2 Ultra+, questions Apple obviously doesn't want to answer.
BUT -- it's also true that at the introduction of the Mac Studio last year they specifically said the Mac Pro would come later. Of course they can change their mind and cancel it, but I think the cumulation of statements suggests an Apple Silicon Mac Pro is more likely than not.
Rather than the Mac Pro, the thing that I find interesting is his reference to the Mac Studio. I've been wondering if the Mac Studio might be a one-and-done model that would disappear when the Mac Pro arrives (kind of like the iMac Pro was). But his name-checking the Mac Studio makes me think it might survive.
This simply isn't true. I'm getting very high GB6 Metal numbers (194703) with my eGPU on a 6 year-old iMac Pro, connected through a Thunderbolt 3 connection. The M2 Ultra MAY be faster than this with the on chip GPUs, but so far, the M1 Ultra is not.
3. Indecision about keeping or abandoning the tower PC form factor, especially whether or not to allow third-party GPUs to play nice with Apple Silicon. Apple is heading in a more vertically integrated direction, and the current Mac Pro form factor muddies the waters of that ambition.
4. Indecision about whether or not there is a need for a Mac Pro at all... especially with the Mac Studio outperforming any current Mac Pro configuration in every regard except for expanded GPU compute performance. It's a very niche market that needs the highest local compute performance possible, and Apple may be judging that they don't need a "halo" product at the top of their product line to keep the staple products moving.
https://www.macworld.com/article/1528303/mac-pro-apple-silicon-transition-release.html
A larger screen TV isn’t in the cards but a larger screen iMac 32 inches or above would definitely be in the picture if Apple would get off of the marketing department influencing product releases? The hold up isn’t technical.
They stopped innovating and designing great computers to make customer's lives better first - and instead innovate and design with the first priority being on financials. Needlessly locking down their products with firmware, glue, solder and proprietary screws.
Without the handheld side feeding the company - the Mac side of the business would not even exist.
So 'rounding error' sales of their flagship computer can easily be viewed as a failure.
I personally don't have high hopes for the Mac Pro. There will be some completely ridiculous catch that alienates 99% of the professional market. That's pretty much a guarantee at this point. It won't change until Tim is gone. Similar to how the dongle disaster didn't end until Ives left.
It's been 10 years since Apple had a true Mac Pro tower. Where users could upgrade and customize ram, video cards, HDD's, PCI cards, and even chipsets. Those were Apple's highest selling Mac's. The flood of 'Professionals' out of the Mac environment since has been constant. I don't know any studio's who still use Mac's for production - except ours and a few youtube'ers only doing it for reviews - and we are most likely going to jump out after 28 years ourselves.
The typical response to 'most users never upgraded that stuff' is laughably not true - most if not all did. However, the statement may ring true today, as most of the users who would have upgraded their computers, jumped ship log ago.
A few weeks from now - Apple will introduce their 'brain-module' plug and play Mac Pro... which will essentially be the same as how components work on the PC side now - except those 'modules' will be proprietary and absurdly expensive. Book it.
I think it’s the wrong perspective, as even if the Mac Pro doesn’t have a lot of sales, it is certainly an important halo device with the bragging rights driving sales of the rest of the line up. The only conclusion I can reach is it is all too hard to actually build a high end workstation with Apple Silicon that will function as potential buyers want.
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