tenthousandthings

9secondkox2 said:

crowley said:

9secondkox2 said:

Fidonet127 said:

Due to the timeline of how long Apple said they will replace Macs with ASi versions, I don’t think M1 Pro version was really designed. The mini will stay as the consumer computer, the Studio will stay as the prosumer low to medium pro computer, and the Pro will be the high end. The Studio will not cut it for someone who needs 1.5tb of memory and lots of processing power. Yes the Sudio beats some configurations of the Mac Pro. The Studio wasn’t designed in a short time. The Studio took awhile to design and announced when they were ready.  

I’m skeptical of this. 

The Studio is basically a stretch Mini. They just had to take the Mini CAD files, edit the vertical dimensions, add perforations and port cutouts, and attach a simple tapered and perforated cylinder to the bottom. 

The whole thing could have been designed, tested, and machined in a very short period of time, including the big honking fan assembly - which probably explains the numerous fan issues in the first run. 

It's a completely different logic board, completely different cooling, completely different port construction.  There's no reason to think it went through any less of a design process than any other new Apple product, which would not be "a very short period of time".  No way.

Of course those items needed to be laid out and built but it’s a known quantity. Apple was developing the Mac pro and testing likely indicated the m1 ultra or adoubled up version of that wasn’t what they wanted to share a awe as the best they could do. Somewhere in the testing process, the decision was made to not launch at wwdc. And since wwdc I planned far in advance, this gave more than enough time - in a relatively short period of time - to build a stretch Mac mini and have it ready shortly thereafter. It’s not some new avant-garde industrial design and the motherboard isn’t some feat of engineering. 

As Gurkan noted, apple planned to launch the Mac Pro at wwdc but then decided against it. 

There is no way they would have launched the studio and the pro at the same time. They just needed to buy time with a product that doesn’t have a legacy to live up to and can perform for those who need/want the power. 

It’s not bad that it’s a bit of a bridge. It’s just that apple needed to get some serious performance clout but it’s lauded machine is not ready. 

In addition to the various points others have made, your theory ignores another aspect of the Mac Studio decision, arguably the most important element—abandoning the larger iMac and/or iMac Pro. That was not something done lightly or in response to hypothetical engineering issues with the M1 Mac Pro.

Most likely, the situation was precisely the opposite of what you describe—the existence of the Mac Studio allowed Apple to put the Mac Pro on hold (for whatever reason).

When did the supply-chain rumors of a “Mini Pro” begin? The Mac Studio was already in development for production when those rumors surfaced. Also the 27" iMac rumor. My understanding is the authors of both these rumors have said everything they were seeing is accounted for by the Mac Studio and the Studio Display.

techconc said:

The "Ultra" is and will still likely be the low end of the Pro configuration.  The higher end will effectively be 2 Ultra modules or maybe "extreme" as Gurman calls it.  I think the real question is whether Apple is able to make it user scalable with something like Apple branded video cards, etc.  To your point, the GPU in the M1 Ultra didn't scale to its potential.  Looks like a hardware / engineering problem.  That's likely why they scrapped the M1 based Mac Pro machine.  Hopefully, this will be corrected for the M2 series of Ultra / Extreme chips. 

Also, no the Studio is not a stop gap.  It's more like a "mini Pro" in lieu of a 27" iMac. 

Interesting point, that the M1 Ultra GPU "didn't scale to its potential" and problems related to that might have ended the M1 Mac Pro. That makes a lot of sense.

It seems likely that one thing that will carry over from M1 is the M1 Max as a building block. The M1 Ultra was two M1 Max fused together. The M2 Ultra will be two M2 Max fused together, and the M2 "Extreme" will be four M2 Max fused together. 

On the other hand, the relationship of the M1 Pro to the M1 Max was never clear to me. I remember speculation that it was a sort of byproduct, a cut-down M1 Max that had failed somehow, but could still be salvaged. I don't know enough about the fabrication process to judge that claim. It didn't seem quite right to me.

I hold out hope that the M2 Pro will find its way into the iMac and the new Mac Mini (6x6") as an option, along with the M2.

Then the MacBook Pro would be M2 Pro and M2 Max. The Mac Studio would be M2 Max and M2 Ultra. The Mac Pro would be M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme.

If this comes to pass and Apple refreshes its flagship Pro laptops after only a year, it’s really kind of hard to overstate how big a change this is in how Apple does things. 

toddzrx said:

“And while the MacBook Air looks quite different from the MacBook Pro, Hankey said that neither device was designed in a vacuum. She said that this "was the first time we ever set out to do a family of products together."”

Seriously?

I’ll guess that statement will make more sense after forthcoming revelations from the Apple Silicon roadmap. Thus is absolutely the first time Apple has put together a family of products from the ground up, starting with the family of SoCs and building the family of devices from that. 

bulk001 said:

A decade and a half about late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air out of a manilla envelope, Hankey explained how the Cupertino 

Should be something like:

A decade and a half later, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air out of a manilla envelope, Hankey explained how the Cupertino 

or even

About a decade and a half later, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air out of a manilla envelope, Hankey explained how the Cupertino 

Probably was meant to be: “A decade and a half after late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air out of a manilla envelope, Hankey explained how the Cupertino…”