Boy did they drop the football in this area. I always thought the advantage to making the switch to more common PC architectures was the ability to keep pace and support a wider array of components and technologies.
Instead, they over-designed the enclosure and froze the high-end range of the platform. Creating a simple, but reliable tower design (optimized for speed rather than size) would have been extremely well received, would be nearly free money, and would have done wonders for the brand and their connection to creative pros.
Most of the pros I work with in the industry have gone from loving the mac to tolerating the mac. They are certainly looking around. I don't love Windows, but I have to admit that the Adobe Creative Suite now sings on a modern Windows machine.
It wasn't always this way though. The early mac pro had case accessibility and ventilation improvements that predated Lian Li and their copycats. Today we have tower cases where the screwdriver and bandaids no longer required equipment to replace something in your computer, but it wasn't always that way.
It seems like the same group that made the new Mac Pro made the top-loading Mac Mini that kids put coins in, destroying the CDROM drive in the process. All form, no function.
> Most of the pros I work with in the industry have gone from loving the mac to tolerating the mac.
This is true of myself (UX Designer with 10+ years in the biz pushing code and design) and ALL of the creative types I associate with. I know Apple is something like 90% an iPhone company now, but I'd love to see some long term analysis on the damage they've done to themselves, and even the iPhone, by alienating ALL of the creative content creators of the world. I know I'm painting in broad strokes, but it's hard to overstate the positive mindshare and goodwill Apple used to enjoy in this community. Now they're just the new Microsoft-a necessary annoyance.
When did CS not sing on Windows machines? To my knowledge Apple has never had a performance advantage over Windows.
I thought the Apple advantage has been workflow. For example, OS X is color-managed at the OS level. You can easily create a custom profile for your display without expensive 3rd party equipment.
And OS X uses the same language as PDF to composite the display, so it's easy to produce (color managed) PDFs from any application.
People overestimate how a modern Mac Pro tower would work. A Mac Pro tower is not going to permit hackintosh-style hardware builds. They will force the use of whitelisted "supported" hardware, and sell it all themselves with their standard high markups.
Without proprietary hardware, there is not enough money in the market for them to bother with a tower in the first place. It would also put the "it just works" aspect of the Apple brand at risk, should customers use 3rd-party hardware components that wind up not functioning properly due to unofficial drivers. Apple has a public image to maintain, and they will not expose themselves to having customers claim that their Mac Pro "isn't working", blaming Apple instead of looking to the 3rd-party hardware manufacturer.
Seems like there is symmetry in everything: Apple enjoys doing badass engineering, that ends up totally not meeting the usability expectations of the customer. The gloating is only just baredly overshadowed by the sheer hubris.
Deleted this comment because it's apparently rubbing people the wrong way that I experienced poor performance using Adobe programs on a Windows machine and decided to share that experience.
The problem isn't that the Mac Pro isn't upgradeable. That is a symptom and a potential solution, but not necessarily the best one.
The real problem here is that Apple itself hasn't been able to keep up with demands. If they were able to enhance and sell a "new model" of Mac pro every 6-12 months, the problem would go away. Nobody wants a hackintosh, barring the long tail of people who like building PC's anyway. (And that's an enthusiast market, not worth catering to.) A vast majority of pros would just buy a new machine every couple years. So the problem, then, is that there's no "new machine" for them to buy.
Positing that the solution is to offer an upgradeable tower implies that Apple can't keep up with demand. Which, let's be honest, they can't. But the better solution here is to build a Mac Pro that Apple can upgrade in the form of a new model. That enthusiasts can upgrade it as well is a moot point (or an additional benefit).
Hell, they could even have a Genius-led support model that swaps out the guts of your machine every 12-24 months. Apple-Hardware-As-A-Service?
The real problem here is that Apple itself hasn't been able to keep up with demands.
I think the problem is they chosen not to update the Mac Pro, not that they haven't been able to. Resources should not be an issue given their cash reserves.
And frankly, even if the Mac Pro were not a profitable machine for Apple overall, they would be better served by choosing to keep it up to date, and to keep is desirable, in order to keep their developers happy.
The situation today in completely different than 1995-1996, when Apple briefly allowed Macintosh clones, before Jobs killed the project because they were cannibalizing Apple's high-end desktop sales. Now high-end desktop sales are such a small part of Apple's line that they let the products stagnate for years. Are Mac Pro motherboards really going to compete with notebook sales?
Apple likes the control over the hardware and software, and packages all of the drivers needed to run macOS on any blessed instance of Apple hardware currently supported (and maybe even ever created, since Intel). If you wanted, and I have done this before, you can clone a Mac made HDD and boot it from any other Mac you can get your hands on, and other than the hardware swap it's basically a reboot. If Apple let me build a tower and drop anything I wanted in to it, they can't guarantee that anymore, and even if it's just amongst developers, it hurts their brand experience.
The core business model of Apple is to sell hardware.
That simple.
That's why macOS, etc are free now. That's why they're ramping up their enterprise partnerships behind the scenes to ensure big apps run best or even first on iOS and macOS.
IBM, SAP and especially Cisco (the latter has special hooks in the networking stack in iOS, giving Cisco routers an edge).
You can argue if that is the correct approach or not, but it is Apple's DNA now - and all the issues in the pro segment stem from it. Not enough hardware to be sold, why bother, etc.
Because Apple is about as done as it can be with general purpose computing. I think it's safe to say they will make no more significant investments in it. Closed ecosystem computing is their golden goose now, they have zero interest in anything else. The margins for what they're doing now are too high for them to give that up.
Why doesnt McDonald's let you build a big mac at home - it's not like people don't have access to lettuce, tomatoes, hamburger buns, meat, cheese, mayonnaise, pickles, etc. The only thing we really need is the sauce that makes it a big mac.
hey before I answer you wanna take a stab at that question?
EDIT: I don't know why I was downvoted, it's a fairly close analogy.
For people wed to commercial design apps, I can totally understand the draw of running macOS on commodity hardware. But as someone who skews more to the hacker end of the spectrum and doesn't depend on commercial software, the day-to-day qualitative experience of Linux is head and shoulders above macOS these days. Ditto OpenBSD, etc. I'll never go back.
At least it does if you've already come around to using a desktop formfactor. For me I get lots of physical RAM (R / Pandas) a mechanical keyboard, and one of those straight-out-of-the-90s Logitech marble mouses that you'll pry from my cold dead fingers. Hardware support in Linux/*BSD for any Intel graphics based system is a total non-issue.
Uhhhh. I put my time in with a Linux desktop for nearly a decade until a job bought me a Mac and there's no way I'd go back. And I think my "hacker end of the spectrum" bona fides are pretty good--but those bona fides aren't incompatible with a preference for a pleasing UX that has been considered with users in mind, which for my money no open-source desktop environment has even approached (and I have my beefs with OS X but they're small fry compared to even just "why is there no terminal emulator on par with iTerm2 in 2017?"). Wanting to enjoy using the thing you spend much of your waking life in front of is a pretty reasonable ask, and the indicative give-a-damn of well-thought-out polished experiences is worth it to me to the point where I don't even bother to boot the way faster desktop with way more RAM that sits under my desk when I can just plug in my MacBook Pro and everything just works. (Also that the window system doesn't randomly lose heads, which still happens on my dual-boot desktop, in 2017, to the point where I don't even bother with it. I'll probably Hackintosh that next time I'm bored.)
Casting your own preferences as implicitly "hacker" and pulling out some "qualitative experience" (which among nerds is best read as "subjective preferences") stuff is pretty silly.
> the day-to-day qualitative experience of Linux is head and shoulders above macOS these days.
For you, perhaps. But given your preamble it strongly suggests your conditions make this boil down to "for someone who wants to use Linux, Linux is better."
For a start: Linux is not a monolithic ecosystem. The sheer number of qualifiers that are needed (what flavor? What window manager? What hardware? because driver hell is still a thing) make this statement meaningless.
At best you can say "I've found a combination of hardware and many pieces of software that work better for me."
Good! Happy for you. Seriously.
For a developer like myself I can do anything I want to in MacOS and I don't have to fight it to get it working right - it "just works".
In a way this mirrors the iOS and Android debate: for those who like hyper-customization of their OS then of course Android/Linux is better. It's better due to a fundamental precondition of the requirements.
For the rest of us - those who don't find that as important - the other system is superior because you don't have to do that.
I love Linux and use it every day, but this kind of statement is the same thing the Linux crowd has been saying since the early 2000s (is it the year of Linux on the desktop yet?) and while it is more true now than ever it still masks it's very real issues to mass adoption as a primary OS
It's not just design, there's also a heavy reliance on Mac only (or at least Mac and Windows only) pro video and audio programs. I will say though, I've always loved running Linux on desktops where this isn't the use case.
May be it's just me, but I don't really care about design at all. I'm perfectly fine with huge tower or some reasonable fan noise. What I care is price, durability, extendability, repairability, and, of course, performance. I'm not really into macOS, I can use Linux or Windows just fine, but macOS is not that bad.
I'm actually opposed to thin things or design aberrations like trash can mac. I'm paying for that after all, with money or engineering trade-offs.
The best of both worlds would be officially supported hackintosh (that is, curated list of hardware parts, which are guaranteed to work for some reasonable period (15 years or something like that). But I don't think that would happen, Apple is greedy corporation and wants piece of pie from everything.
It is. I don't care a lot about design either (although I care a lot about user experience), but many people /do/ care for design, and are willing to pay a premium to get that design.
You don't care about design, size, or noise, you want something cheap, you want repairability, you don't like the designs Apple favours like thinness and the Pro design, you aren't into macOS…
Why do you want a Hackintosh? It sounds like you want the exact opposite of a Mac.
Apple could literally just release the new Mac Pro in the old case, with updated hardware and ports, and if it was priced closer to reality, it would make a lot of their pro users happy. I doubt it would cost them much to do so too. I'd start it off at around $1500 for an entry level 4 core Xeon with an mid-level graphics card (GTX 1060 or Radeon 480).
I think that it'll be a cut-down version of the old tower, not the entire huge thing. My prediction:
2 16x PCIe card slots: YES
2 4x PCIe card slots: NO, use Thunderbolt 3 instead. Every time Apple can push a device maker to switch from slow PCIe to Thunderbolt, that's another device that's usable with a MacBook Pro.
4 3.5" hard disk bays: NO
1 3.5" hard disk bay: MAYBE
2–4 PCIe Flash storage bays: YES
2 optical/Zip/floppy drive bays: HELL NO. Most users rarely use optical discs, and almost no one uses both bays. An external drive is actually more convenient, because you can put it somewhere on your desk when you need it, and put it away when you're done. Then you can place the tower wherever you like, because you won't be stuffing discs into it. In addition, ever since the Blue and White G3, Apple has had to rig up some doors to hide the off-white plastic of the optical drives. Never again!
The starting price will go back to $2499, like it was in 2012. The B&W G3 started at $1599, $2340 in today's dollars.
Absolutely. I have a 2008 Mac Pro and it is still going strong, an absolute workhorse of a machine with 4 hard drives; incredibly reliable. At least, it was incredibly reliable with Snow Leopard, but MacOS X has been a bit downhill from there as far as reliability of the audio subsystem. The only real downsides to this machine have been that it is loud, which is problematic when using it for recording. But I would happily buy a modernized version of the same machine, and I'd be _especially_ happy to do so if it was much quieter.
If Apple offered me a dead-silent Mac Mini, even one with not much CPU capability, I would use it for tracking -- that is, right in the room where I'm recording. Also for Skype stuff for podcast recording, and streaming; probably two of them. These machines don't need to have a lot of CPU to record; they only have to do a modest amount of live audio processing. They don't have to run dozens to hundreds of instances of plug-ins like when I'm mixing.
Then the Mac Pro can go in the room where I'm mixing and mastering. So quiet is important but dead silence in the Pro is not really a requirement for me.
How about Apple create a "Custom Hardware" program ala their Developer program and basically charge $99+ a year for a legal install usb image. Then they can skip building a Pro and concentrate on the portables and iMac they like.
That's a great idea, unfortunately, the shape the company is in is that it would be too greedy (and it's too healthy financially, at least) - to be bothered with doing really cool hacker stuff.
HP has stepped up to compete with the sealed Mac Mini. Their "Z2 Mini Workstation" is small, has user upgradeable RAM/disk, optional Xeon and Nvidia GPU, and can drive six monitors, http://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/z2mini.html
If that's the problem, then why not create a subsidiary firm and call it, I don't know, Pear, Gala, McIntire, Darwin or something. Let this firm build hackintoshes from off-the-shelf components. The trick is then to remove any reference to Apple and every logo from the OS. People "in the know" would be able to buy a Pear and use it just like a Mac.
This would be really cheap to pull off, just give some people a factory and a few million dollars, and would put next to no strain on Apple proper. It's really just buying a few blessed components, putting them together, and creating a boot disk with the needed kexts. Any mom and pop computer shop can do that if it weren't for legal issues. In the next year's iteration you can talk about custom hardware / buying at scale.
There is a lot of opportunity for Apple to still make a design statement with a tower. One that people willingly display. The key is that is not only does it need to look good but cooling fans need to be deathly quiet. Then offer it up in aluminum or black enclosure.
Dimensions are pretty much locked down by what types of video card technology they wish to support, really would love a new solution that doesn't use the typical slots we still have today.
With regards to the mini, my only beef was when I wanted to integrate with my home theater white boxes just don't fit. It had to hide.
I already linked it, and I don't want to make it feel like I'm hammering the link, but as the subject come up often lately. I wrote a small serie of article sharing my moving experience away from macOS.
Apple is a Software company, You just have to buy their Hardware first to use it.
Apple lately has been too focused, or too worried about the Design of the product and lost sight of its main direction.
To more accurately phase it, Apple is an Ecosystem company. You use its Software, Hardware and Services across all ( most ) segment.
I'd argue Mac Pro should be the one of those segment, ( representing 1% of the total Mac Sales, and more like 0.1% of Apple's total revenue ) where they should make it impossible for average consumer to come up with a similar spec Machine with similar price. It doesn't mean Apple is making a loss, it is more likely Apple is just making very little profits on it.
The Apple now, or the Mac Ecosystem now is very different to 20 years ago. iPhone manage to pull in Lots of new developers and Pros.
Windows? Where Microsoft is collecting every bit of data possible while pushing ads.
Linux? I'm a geek and Linux is annoying, I've been a Unix guy since 1984. I run it on my daily laptop only because I'm not willing to spend $2,000 extra for a Macbook Pro with the same specs as a $750 Dell Laptop because it weighs 9oz less
MacOS is the only real game in town.
Apple knows they are in the drivers seat and they are skull fucking the public to the best of their ability. If you doubt it, see their quarter of a Trillion in cash. If they release just a Mac tower it might just break the spell and convince people they are getting skull fucked.
This is what they used to do with the venerable Mac Pro tower, built as recently as Mid 2012. The heavy gauge aluminum construction was a work of art. People pick up Mac Pro G5 shells and use them to build tables, benches, etc.
I am hoping that Apple returns to this sort of design philosophy. It's quite frustrating that many of their iMacs are not (easily) user upgradable. Upgrading an HDD to an SSD requires cutting adhesive, suction cups to remove the display, disconnecting not-meant-to-be-disconnected cables from comically delicate sockets, and similar feats of delicacy.
The Mac Pro redesign applied the same sort of anti-consumer bullshit.
I'm not sure why everyone is so gung-ho for a big tower. I want expandability, but with Thunderbolt3, you can add now external GPUs, fast external drives, and (almost) anything else. And you then don't have to worry about the thing heating up.
I owned a late 2013 Mac Pro for several years and it had the vision right. It was just too early and they gave up on it too quickly. I want v2 with a similar design, slightly upgraded CPU, thunderbolt 3 ports, and integrated graphics. Then pair it with an eGPU enclosure (like razer core), and get OSX to support this feature natively.
I also own a Razer Stealth along with the Core, and it's a great setup. Only downside is they have to work with some shit software (Windows and terrible drivers). Apple would have the ability to own this experience from top to bottom.
I don't think trying to stuff everything into a box makes sense anymore. Apple has paved the way with connectivity options, fast graphic switching, and fast bus speeds. Continue forward instead of going backwards.
Can anyone tell me their experiences running a virtual hackintosh?
In my current job I don't need a mac anymore, so I'm switching to a NUC which I'm thinking it'll be best to run Qubes on. But I do have existing mac/ios projects that I'd like to support, thus the need for a virtual hackintosh.
I've tried running OS/X in VMWare on Windows. Technically it works fine but there's no video acceleration and that's annoying enough to not make it a viable option for me.
I've had great success running kvm as a host and macOS as a client and passing through hardware to get good performance. That said, this is on a dual socket xeon board and not a NUC, so ymmv.
It's better to dual boot. As mentioned graphics acceleration doesn't work which breaks a surprising amount of things. There's a good chance it will work on a NUC.
I wonder what the OS and software guys at Apple think about the lack of options in their own hardware department. It must be a little frustrating to be invested into the software as a developer but know that a lot of pro users (people like themselves) are moving away from the platform.
You dont need a hackintosh to run a great mac for cheap(er).
I picked up a 2012 mac mini off CL with 2.5 i5 and dropped in a SSD and maxed RAM to 16GB. Runs silent in a small package. Also added a 28" 4K off craigslist (although it'll only drive up to 2k). All for under $900
[+] [-] toddmorey|9 years ago|reply
Instead, they over-designed the enclosure and froze the high-end range of the platform. Creating a simple, but reliable tower design (optimized for speed rather than size) would have been extremely well received, would be nearly free money, and would have done wonders for the brand and their connection to creative pros.
Most of the pros I work with in the industry have gone from loving the mac to tolerating the mac. They are certainly looking around. I don't love Windows, but I have to admit that the Adobe Creative Suite now sings on a modern Windows machine.
[+] [-] hinkley|9 years ago|reply
It seems like the same group that made the new Mac Pro made the top-loading Mac Mini that kids put coins in, destroying the CDROM drive in the process. All form, no function.
[+] [-] wmeredith|9 years ago|reply
This is true of myself (UX Designer with 10+ years in the biz pushing code and design) and ALL of the creative types I associate with. I know Apple is something like 90% an iPhone company now, but I'd love to see some long term analysis on the damage they've done to themselves, and even the iPhone, by alienating ALL of the creative content creators of the world. I know I'm painting in broad strokes, but it's hard to overstate the positive mindshare and goodwill Apple used to enjoy in this community. Now they're just the new Microsoft-a necessary annoyance.
[+] [-] snowwrestler|9 years ago|reply
I thought the Apple advantage has been workflow. For example, OS X is color-managed at the OS level. You can easily create a custom profile for your display without expensive 3rd party equipment.
And OS X uses the same language as PDF to composite the display, so it's easy to produce (color managed) PDFs from any application.
[+] [-] raverbashing|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] developer2|9 years ago|reply
Without proprietary hardware, there is not enough money in the market for them to bother with a tower in the first place. It would also put the "it just works" aspect of the Apple brand at risk, should customers use 3rd-party hardware components that wind up not functioning properly due to unofficial drivers. Apple has a public image to maintain, and they will not expose themselves to having customers claim that their Mac Pro "isn't working", blaming Apple instead of looking to the 3rd-party hardware manufacturer.
[+] [-] cmurf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamatworknow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basseq|9 years ago|reply
The real problem here is that Apple itself hasn't been able to keep up with demands. If they were able to enhance and sell a "new model" of Mac pro every 6-12 months, the problem would go away. Nobody wants a hackintosh, barring the long tail of people who like building PC's anyway. (And that's an enthusiast market, not worth catering to.) A vast majority of pros would just buy a new machine every couple years. So the problem, then, is that there's no "new machine" for them to buy.
Positing that the solution is to offer an upgradeable tower implies that Apple can't keep up with demand. Which, let's be honest, they can't. But the better solution here is to build a Mac Pro that Apple can upgrade in the form of a new model. That enthusiasts can upgrade it as well is a moot point (or an additional benefit).
Hell, they could even have a Genius-led support model that swaps out the guts of your machine every 12-24 months. Apple-Hardware-As-A-Service?
[+] [-] paublyrne|9 years ago|reply
I think the problem is they chosen not to update the Mac Pro, not that they haven't been able to. Resources should not be an issue given their cash reserves.
And frankly, even if the Mac Pro were not a profitable machine for Apple overall, they would be better served by choosing to keep it up to date, and to keep is desirable, in order to keep their developers happy.
[+] [-] panglott|9 years ago|reply
The situation today in completely different than 1995-1996, when Apple briefly allowed Macintosh clones, before Jobs killed the project because they were cannibalizing Apple's high-end desktop sales. Now high-end desktop sales are such a small part of Apple's line that they let the products stagnate for years. Are Mac Pro motherboards really going to compete with notebook sales?
[+] [-] eddieroger|9 years ago|reply
Apple likes the control over the hardware and software, and packages all of the drivers needed to run macOS on any blessed instance of Apple hardware currently supported (and maybe even ever created, since Intel). If you wanted, and I have done this before, you can clone a Mac made HDD and boot it from any other Mac you can get your hands on, and other than the hardware swap it's basically a reboot. If Apple let me build a tower and drop anything I wanted in to it, they can't guarantee that anymore, and even if it's just amongst developers, it hurts their brand experience.
[+] [-] pinaceae|9 years ago|reply
That simple.
That's why macOS, etc are free now. That's why they're ramping up their enterprise partnerships behind the scenes to ensure big apps run best or even first on iOS and macOS.
IBM, SAP and especially Cisco (the latter has special hooks in the networking stack in iOS, giving Cisco routers an edge).
You can argue if that is the correct approach or not, but it is Apple's DNA now - and all the issues in the pro segment stem from it. Not enough hardware to be sold, why bother, etc.
[+] [-] 1_2__3|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1_2__3|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] logicallee|9 years ago|reply
hey before I answer you wanna take a stab at that question?
EDIT: I don't know why I was downvoted, it's a fairly close analogy.
[+] [-] peatmoss|9 years ago|reply
At least it does if you've already come around to using a desktop formfactor. For me I get lots of physical RAM (R / Pandas) a mechanical keyboard, and one of those straight-out-of-the-90s Logitech marble mouses that you'll pry from my cold dead fingers. Hardware support in Linux/*BSD for any Intel graphics based system is a total non-issue.
[+] [-] eropple|9 years ago|reply
Casting your own preferences as implicitly "hacker" and pulling out some "qualitative experience" (which among nerds is best read as "subjective preferences") stuff is pretty silly.
[+] [-] abritinthebay|9 years ago|reply
For you, perhaps. But given your preamble it strongly suggests your conditions make this boil down to "for someone who wants to use Linux, Linux is better."
For a start: Linux is not a monolithic ecosystem. The sheer number of qualifiers that are needed (what flavor? What window manager? What hardware? because driver hell is still a thing) make this statement meaningless.
At best you can say "I've found a combination of hardware and many pieces of software that work better for me."
Good! Happy for you. Seriously.
For a developer like myself I can do anything I want to in MacOS and I don't have to fight it to get it working right - it "just works".
In a way this mirrors the iOS and Android debate: for those who like hyper-customization of their OS then of course Android/Linux is better. It's better due to a fundamental precondition of the requirements.
For the rest of us - those who don't find that as important - the other system is superior because you don't have to do that.
I love Linux and use it every day, but this kind of statement is the same thing the Linux crowd has been saying since the early 2000s (is it the year of Linux on the desktop yet?) and while it is more true now than ever it still masks it's very real issues to mass adoption as a primary OS
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] accountyaccount|9 years ago|reply
I'm a developer and I don't want to waste another second of my life configuring boot or managing drivers on linux.
[+] [-] Xyzodiac|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vbezhenar|9 years ago|reply
I'm actually opposed to thin things or design aberrations like trash can mac. I'm paying for that after all, with money or engineering trade-offs.
The best of both worlds would be officially supported hackintosh (that is, curated list of hardware parts, which are guaranteed to work for some reasonable period (15 years or something like that). But I don't think that would happen, Apple is greedy corporation and wants piece of pie from everything.
[+] [-] sp0rk|9 years ago|reply
> I'm not really into macOS, I can use Linux or Windows just fine, but macOS is not that bad.
I think it's safe to say that you fall outside of Apple's target demographic.
[+] [-] azeirah|9 years ago|reply
It is. I don't care a lot about design either (although I care a lot about user experience), but many people /do/ care for design, and are willing to pay a premium to get that design.
[+] [-] abtinf|9 years ago|reply
I'm curious how you came up with that number? Are you currently still using anything PC related from 2002?
[+] [-] JimDabell|9 years ago|reply
Why do you want a Hackintosh? It sounds like you want the exact opposite of a Mac.
[+] [-] vondur|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DerekL|9 years ago|reply
2 16x PCIe card slots: YES
2 4x PCIe card slots: NO, use Thunderbolt 3 instead. Every time Apple can push a device maker to switch from slow PCIe to Thunderbolt, that's another device that's usable with a MacBook Pro.
4 3.5" hard disk bays: NO
1 3.5" hard disk bay: MAYBE
2–4 PCIe Flash storage bays: YES
2 optical/Zip/floppy drive bays: HELL NO. Most users rarely use optical discs, and almost no one uses both bays. An external drive is actually more convenient, because you can put it somewhere on your desk when you need it, and put it away when you're done. Then you can place the tower wherever you like, because you won't be stuffing discs into it. In addition, ever since the Blue and White G3, Apple has had to rig up some doors to hide the off-white plastic of the optical drives. Never again!
The starting price will go back to $2499, like it was in 2012. The B&W G3 started at $1599, $2340 in today's dollars.
[+] [-] Synaesthesia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewmcwatters|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulrpotts|9 years ago|reply
If Apple offered me a dead-silent Mac Mini, even one with not much CPU capability, I would use it for tracking -- that is, right in the room where I'm recording. Also for Skype stuff for podcast recording, and streaming; probably two of them. These machines don't need to have a lot of CPU to record; they only have to do a modest amount of live audio processing. They don't have to run dozens to hundreds of instances of plug-ins like when I'm mixing.
Then the Mac Pro can go in the room where I'm mixing and mastering. So quiet is important but dead silence in the Pro is not really a requirement for me.
[+] [-] protomyth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imron|9 years ago|reply
Not to mention Apple doesn't seem to care about the developer and/or professional consumer anymore.
[+] [-] 5_minutes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walterbell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captainmuon|9 years ago|reply
If that's the problem, then why not create a subsidiary firm and call it, I don't know, Pear, Gala, McIntire, Darwin or something. Let this firm build hackintoshes from off-the-shelf components. The trick is then to remove any reference to Apple and every logo from the OS. People "in the know" would be able to buy a Pear and use it just like a Mac.
This would be really cheap to pull off, just give some people a factory and a few million dollars, and would put next to no strain on Apple proper. It's really just buying a few blessed components, putting them together, and creating a boot disk with the needed kexts. Any mom and pop computer shop can do that if it weren't for legal issues. In the next year's iteration you can talk about custom hardware / buying at scale.
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
Dimensions are pretty much locked down by what types of video card technology they wish to support, really would love a new solution that doesn't use the typical slots we still have today.
With regards to the mini, my only beef was when I wanted to integrate with my home theater white boxes just don't fit. It had to hide.
[+] [-] itomato|9 years ago|reply
They adopt industry standards when convenient, but would be perfectly content to make a Pro machine locked to Moore's Law and 3-year turnovers.
Dongles. Dongles are your Pro future.
Apple don't want to be associated with the "Gamer".
[+] [-] kuon|9 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/the-missing-bit/leaving-macos-part-1-moti...
[+] [-] ksec|9 years ago|reply
Apple is a Software company, You just have to buy their Hardware first to use it.
Apple lately has been too focused, or too worried about the Design of the product and lost sight of its main direction.
To more accurately phase it, Apple is an Ecosystem company. You use its Software, Hardware and Services across all ( most ) segment.
I'd argue Mac Pro should be the one of those segment, ( representing 1% of the total Mac Sales, and more like 0.1% of Apple's total revenue ) where they should make it impossible for average consumer to come up with a similar spec Machine with similar price. It doesn't mean Apple is making a loss, it is more likely Apple is just making very little profits on it.
The Apple now, or the Mac Ecosystem now is very different to 20 years ago. iPhone manage to pull in Lots of new developers and Pros.
[+] [-] watertom|9 years ago|reply
What are our options?
Windows? Where Microsoft is collecting every bit of data possible while pushing ads.
Linux? I'm a geek and Linux is annoying, I've been a Unix guy since 1984. I run it on my daily laptop only because I'm not willing to spend $2,000 extra for a Macbook Pro with the same specs as a $750 Dell Laptop because it weighs 9oz less
MacOS is the only real game in town.
Apple knows they are in the drivers seat and they are skull fucking the public to the best of their ability. If you doubt it, see their quarter of a Trillion in cash. If they release just a Mac tower it might just break the spell and convince people they are getting skull fucked.
[+] [-] iplaw|9 years ago|reply
I am hoping that Apple returns to this sort of design philosophy. It's quite frustrating that many of their iMacs are not (easily) user upgradable. Upgrading an HDD to an SSD requires cutting adhesive, suction cups to remove the display, disconnecting not-meant-to-be-disconnected cables from comically delicate sockets, and similar feats of delicacy.
The Mac Pro redesign applied the same sort of anti-consumer bullshit.
[+] [-] jacquesc|9 years ago|reply
I owned a late 2013 Mac Pro for several years and it had the vision right. It was just too early and they gave up on it too quickly. I want v2 with a similar design, slightly upgraded CPU, thunderbolt 3 ports, and integrated graphics. Then pair it with an eGPU enclosure (like razer core), and get OSX to support this feature natively.
I also own a Razer Stealth along with the Core, and it's a great setup. Only downside is they have to work with some shit software (Windows and terrible drivers). Apple would have the ability to own this experience from top to bottom.
I don't think trying to stuff everything into a box makes sense anymore. Apple has paved the way with connectivity options, fast graphic switching, and fast bus speeds. Continue forward instead of going backwards.
[+] [-] kstenerud|9 years ago|reply
In my current job I don't need a mac anymore, so I'm switching to a NUC which I'm thinking it'll be best to run Qubes on. But I do have existing mac/ios projects that I'd like to support, thus the need for a virtual hackintosh.
[+] [-] marceldegraaf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tengbretson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Synaesthesia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bischofs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kirykl|9 years ago|reply