
Mac Pro gets half-assed “update” - iand
http://www.marco.org/2012/06/11/half-assed-mac-pro
======
robomartin
This illustrates the issue I highlighted in another thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4097141>

The fact that Apple keeps hardware and, increasingly, software, so tightly
controlled leads to a situation like that of this "new" Mac Pro. If the Apple
hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies
all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways. Performance would
go up and prices would come down.

There are lots of use cases where the user couldn't give a crap about a nice
and polished enclosure. You are paying dearly for design you don't need. If
you want to pay for design, fine, do so, but to a lot of us it means nothing.

Case in point: We have several workstations setup for Finite Element Analysis
of heat and fluid flow. They are dual quad core i965 Extremes. They run
overclocked at 4.0GHz with memory overclocked to 2.0GHz. They have 64GB of
DDR3. All fluid cooled. Tons of storage as well. They also have dual NVidia
graphics cards and sport three 24 inch 1920 x 1200 LCD monitors. Total cost,
about $3,500. Including the three monitors and the OS hard drive.

These are monster machines in terms of performance and they still cost less
than a Mac Pro. We have three Mac Pro's as well.

I would really like to see Apple open it up. A lot of interesting things could
come of it.

Because their hardware is not subject to competitive forces, we will now be
stuck with a less-than-desirable incremental update for probably three years,
if not more.

~~~
alaskamiller
The irony of this post is so hilarious to me, this is Apple coming full circle
from its clone wars days.

Man, those were some shitty experiences.

Apple is an hardware company. They make money off the nuts and bolts pieced
together with premium markup, software is but icing on top. They practically
give away the results of their development costs on OSX.

You're encountering the cognitive dissonance as experienced in the 90's. Why,
oh, why is Apple not courting customers that don't care about shiny enclosures
and slick packaging?

Because that's not the Apple way.

I'm just waiting for Mac Pros to go the way of Xserves (which the group was
ran for years just to break-even for the sake of pretension)

~~~
robomartin
The problem with the early attempt Apple made at inviting the clone market is
that they didn't give it time to evolve. The first wave or two of IBM clones
were a mess. A disaster. Compatibility problems galore. People who buy crap
don't continue to buy it and they sure as hell don't recommend it. The crap PC
clones died a quick death.

It didn't take long for the market to evolve and "grow up". Companies like
Compaq surfaced. Very soon you had a million hardware ideas iterating from
every angle trying to do it better and for less.

Today you can buy a PC notebook for a fraction of the cost of a Mac notebook
--maybe a third or less. And, frankly, quality is excellent. Today you can
walk into a place like Walmart and quite-literally grab almost any notebook
computer and walk out with a quality product.

That's what Apple missed out on. Everyone got spooked as they watched the
evolution begin and they pulled the plug.

Also, evolutionary forces are interesting. They naturally select product that
people want. Perhaps Apple was afraid that they'd loose a lot more than the
hardware war if they let go of the hardware. I don't know.

Barring a few details, today a PC and Mac notebook are basically the same
machine. Same processor, memory, graphics, etc. Yet Apple isn't iterating the
hardware as quickly and efficiently as the PC market continues to.

It'll be interesting to read what will be written in business books about this
in twenty years.

~~~
alaskamiller
You're not remembering silicon history well.

The 90's Apple clones didn't collapse itself because they were bad, Steve Jobs
tried negotiating software licensing with manufacturers and Apple opted not to
renew.

You're also rehashing some old point about Apple missing the boat on low end
devices. Why does that matter? Apple sells millions of computers every quarter
year over year. They have excessive cash holdings. What would be the point of
chasing after some mythical unicorn low end cheap device that has no margins?

Evolutionary forces are indeed interesting. They do silly things like
insisting on floppy disks, VGA ports, CD-ROMs, and other vestigial residues
that hinders progress.

~~~
robomartin
Where did I say that Apple clones where bad? All I said was that the model was
not allowed to evolve and gave, as an example, the crap-to-good evolution of
PC's.

There is nothing wrong with floppy disks, VGA ports and CD-ROMs. These and
other technologies still have a place in the right context and they tend to
die off in an organic manner as industry can justify transitions.

Progress? A quick Google search finds estimates that say that there will be
about two billion PC's world-wide by 2015. That's progress, not coming up with
a new port that nobody really cares for outside markets that can afford
expensive new hardware on a regular diet. I think you are confusing progress
with innovation. Testing new ideas is commendable. Apple has always been on
the forefront of that in some ways.

Progress is a different story altogether. One measure, as I am suggesting
above, might be just how accessible a technology is to the masses (not just
wealthy countries). World-wide Macs only represent 5 to 10% of the installed
base. By this measure Apple has failed to deliver progress.

If you look at smart phones, then, yes, Apple hit it out of the park.

------
forrestthewoods
Our sound guy is PISSED at the lack of update. Seriously, incredibly pissed.
I've honestly never seen him this angry before. He'd been counting down the
days till WWDC and a long overdue update. There are three major pieces of
software he uses on his Mac that he swears by. It sounds like they have all
just released or are about to release Windows versions.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is a trend? Apple is clearly focused on iOS
and consumer/prosumer and not professional. I certainly don't blame them. Is
the future of professionals going to be Windows? Even for lifelong Mac die
hards? It seems plausible imo.

~~~
blueprint
To confirm, what kind of professionals are you talking about for whom a new
Macbook Pro isn't going to be fast enough?

~~~
forrestthewoods
Video game audio. He does all of our audio work. Sound effects, voice over,
music composition, etc. I asked him what audio he used and his answer was Pro
Tools, Digital Performer, and Peak. He's got a super top of the line Mac Pro
that's only 2 years old and he's been salivating at the prospect of an upgrade
for a long time.

He was extra pissed that the new machines don't even have Thunderbolt. He has
many hundreds of gigabytes of audio libraries on a variety of external storage
devices and just having Thunderbolt would be a pretty decent productivity
improvement.

~~~
anigbrowl
Funnily enough, Peak has just become a dead product as BIAS are out of
business: [http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/bias-makers-of-peak-
ce...](http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/bias-makers-of-peak-cease-
operations-mac-audio-editor-alternatives/)

------
mark_l_watson
My Dad, who is really into video editing and 3D animation, swears by the Mac
Pro line. I have been suggesting that he get a fast MacBook Pro, use
Thunderbolt with the nice raid box Apple sells, and move on. After the new
MacBook Pro hotness and the minor Mac Pro update, I bet he will make the
switch.

My world is Linux servers and a MacBook Air (and a good SSH shell on my iPad
if I am travelling light) work fine; some local develop using
IntelliJ/RubyMine, etc., and good access to servers == happiness. I could
personally care less if Apple wants to concentrate on what makes them money.

For people who do professional video, sound, etc., maybe the Windows world is
looking better, especially with Adobe's neat Creative Cloud stuff. I am a rank
amateur when it comes to video and digital photo post production, and even I
am thinking of dropping Final Cut Pro 7 and paying Adobe $50/month for
Creative Cloud. I think that Apple has made their intentions clear.

------
abruzzi
I think there are two possible explanations:

1\. Marco's pessimistic take that they are clearing through existing inventory
in slightly reconfigured and cheaper machines.

2\. grecy's comment here that they needed to keep people hooked while they get
the real bump out the door.

If the answer is 2, then they really can't wait too long. A few people will be
satisfied that they can get 12 cores for $3800, but it's only a stop gap.

My pessimistic gut says Marco is right (see FCPx/exFCP fiasco), but I keep
hoping he's wrong. Right now I have too much invested in PCIe in my studio
(audio hardware) and might get one of these new 12 core boxes and nurse it
along for as long as I can.

Geof

~~~
nym
If #2 is correct, wouldn't they tease a new release instead of introducing a
new model? No sense making customers buy something only to release a new model
out of schedule.

~~~
cbsmith
You don't want to Osborne your existing line.

~~~
justindocanto
Osborne? Never heard this term. What's this from?

~~~
ben1040
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect>

Osborne Computer announced a future product that would outperform the current
line. People waited, rather than buying what was currently being offered. In
the meantime, with the drop in sales they ran out of cash and went bankrupt.

------
justindocanto
If I used your logic last year when they did soft bumps to the MacBook Pro
after not having a major upgrade since 2010, I would've been shitting my pants
thinking they would be dropping the MacBook Pro and only going consumer...
which, as we learned today, is not the case.

The Mac Pro is a necessary part of their line for professionals and aren't
going anywhere. My guess is next upgrade will be a big overhaul. It will also
probably come with Mac Mini upgrades & a complete thunderbolt display
selection (which I am waiting for).

EDIT: the upgrade I'm referring to is April 2010 when the MacBook Pro's
started using the Intel Core i5 and i7 processers, removed the express slot,
etc. That's 2 years and 2 months between major updates AND you could say the
2009 was really the last time it was upgraded THIS much. So 3 years? and
you're complaining about 2 which is not abnormal by any means.

~~~
MBlume
You and OP have made clear, concrete, differing predictions about the future,
predictions which can be checked within the next 6-12 months. This is
epistemically virtuous -- congratulations! If you want to be _even more_
epistemically virtuous, you could arrange a bet. How much would you be willing
to bet that there will be a new Mac Pro within the next year?

~~~
justindocanto
Like I said:
[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/12/tim_cook_confi...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/12/tim_cook_confirms_updated_mac_pro_coming_in_2013.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackernewsyc+%28Hacker+News+YC%29)

------
brunorsini
If you're into home recording (who isn't, these days?), this is a huge blow.
When your Pro Tools/Cubase/Logic project has 40+ tracks of high resolution
audio files and several high quality real-time plugins processing each one of
them you really need a lot of CPU power.

I purchased a Thunderbolt display just a couple of months ago. I wanted to use
it with my Macbook Air while waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated, feeling
that not even Apple could get away with a $1000 display that was not supported
by its super expensive high end computer.

I was wrong, apparently. Now I know what it must have felt like to have bought
NeXT computers or Betamax VCRs.

~~~
petercooper
I might be wrong, but you can still use the display with a current Mac Pro
using DisplayPort, right? (You just won't get to use the other connectors.)

I have a 2008 Mac Pro and was looking into doing this, but I'd need to buy a
graphics card with DP first.

UPDATE: Thanks! Yes, I was wrong ;-) Another source:
[http://store.apple.com/us/question/answers/product/MC007LL/A...](http://store.apple.com/us/question/answers/product/MC007LL/A?pqid=Q4XK7XPHFAH9XP4PT49UUX4YYYJ4TDTJFKTTJHFAK27FT97KP)

~~~
brunorsini
I wouldn't count on that, because I actually had to update my macbook air just
to get the Almighty Thunderbolt Display to work. In fact, my previous MBA
(2010 generation, display port)didn't even power the thing up (it's powered
exclusively over thunderbolt).

~~~
sneak
I don't think that's accurate. The thunderbolt displays include a power supply
with a magsafe power OUTPUT for charging a mac laptop plugged in to the
thunderbolt cable, so it logically follows that they must have their own AC
input.

~~~
brunorsini
You are right, the monitor does have AC input. Still, it won't even power up
unless it's connected to a Thunderbolt port. Believe me, I've learned this the
hard way.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Well, if you are banking on OS X as your platform for scientific computing, it
seems you have chosen very poorly. I still don't understand why an
organization would choose Mac Pros for workstations. That seems to me to be a
class of machines where price/performance is very important, and Apple hasn't
been very competitive in that area.

I think Apple has done a pretty good thing today. They've politely signaled to
the market that they want you to f' off and buy someone else's product in this
segment, because you aren't worth the effort anymore.

The money is in iOS and the laptops. And you don't need more than an iMac to
develop for iOS or the laptops, so they just can't be bothered to make a
workstation anymore. If you are pissed off about this you should investigate
Linux or Windows.

------
mgkimsal
At the moment, this feels very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Well,
sales are down" or "Sales are such a small percentage of revenue"... that they
question keeping the product line around. Given that there haven't been any
major updates, yes, sales are down.

I suspect if they hadn't put out a new model of the iPhone since the 3GS,
sales of the iPhone would probably decline over the last 2-3 years.

------
gdubs
A souped-up iMac and some sort of thunderbolt 'bay' for expansion cards would
serve the pro market, one would think. A large-scale touch display would be on
the wish-list as well. That's my complete guess as to where they might be
headed. I can't really imagine that Apple is unaware of how important the pro
market is to their image, if not the bottom line. Consider the strong ties
with Pixar – they must get constant feedback into what a pro setup needs. I'm
betting on a big iMac/Pro update in the fall.

~~~
astrodust
A touch screen display? Are you proposing everyone get gorilla arm
(<http://catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html>)?

There's nothing wrong with the Mac Pro but the whiny ones who can't afford it
or prefer to scoff at the price rather than recognize the value. Yes, we all
want a smaller "Pro" system you can upgrade, but there's no market for it.

The sad truth is Apple sells only "thousands" of Mac Pro systems compared to
"millions" of their more mainstream products. That they make them at all is
interesting considering the expense that must go into designing them.

It's possible as Apple makes an increasing proportion of their revenue from
iOS and are less threatened by the possibility of losing control of a portion
of their OS X market that they might allow a few select manufacturers to
produce and support a true workstation-class system. For Apple it'd be checks
in the mail for licensing fees and an almost imperceptible loss of market
share.

~~~
gdubs
I'm aware of gorilla arm, and sure, that's an issue with an upright display...
but I see no reason why you couldn't have the display on a swivel – like a
drafting table. Swivel down, and the display becomes a table-top. Swivel up
for traditional computer interaction.

As far as Apple licensing OS X, that seems highly unlikely given how things
went during the 1990s with Apple clones.

~~~
astrodust
What's important to remember is in the 1990s the Mac business was the vast
majority of the then "Apple Computer" company's revenue. Today it's a small
and shrinking percentage.

------
grecy
I agree this is a lame "update"

But I don't think that means it's dead for certain. Maybe they are having a
hard time figuring out if Thunderbolt will go on the gfx card or the
motherboard...maybe they are still waiting for a usb 3.0/thunderbolt/ivy
bridge chipset from inel?

In fact, I think a "lame" update is a good sign that Apple wants to keep it
around, and for whatever reason doesn't have the tech yet to make it much
better.

~~~
wmf
They've had years to figure out the Thunderbolt thing. Xeon E5 was delayed 9
months, so the new Mac Pro actually should have been ready in September.

------
MetaCosm
Has it come to the point that the only way to build a serious Mac rig is a
high end hackintosh? I had high hopes as I need a very serious rig for work
related stuff, I put off doing soe RMA and other nonsense waiting for this
thing... and ... this is it?

Speaking of which, has anyone built a monster hackintosh?

~~~
sneak
I was thinking about it, but then I just bit the bullet and got the top iMac,
ordered 4GB with it, then ripped out the 2x2GB from Apple and put in 4x8GB.
It's acceptable, though sometimes when I am churning data I wish I had more
than 8 threads.

Having to deal with opening up one's computer and also occasionally losing a
half a day to tracking down proper kexts is not my idea of cost savings. (I'm
not afraid of it, it just sucks and absorbs my only non-renewable resource.)

~~~
MetaCosm
My current rig is a last gen Mac Pro 12 core with 128GB of memory from OWC and
4x2TB in raid.

I was hoping to upgrade to a box that could support more memory (the 128GB is
already over the official spec, but well tested) ... but just meh. I am
disappointed.

But, it gets me off my butt to research how to build out a decent hackintosh.

------
mattgreenrocks
The Mac Pro clearly isn't on their radar.

That said, a Hackintosh can save you a lot of money if you're looking at the
Mac Pro line. It's a crappy solution, for sure. Apple would never bless such a
thing, but they don't seem to try and stop it.

~~~
AndrewNoNumbers
Ditto to Hackintosh. The Mac Pro never was a good buy.

Half the reason one buys an Apple product is because of the terrific build
quality and design. That's extremely important in a notebook computer,
something you'll carry around day in day out and have to depend on to not fail
when you're in the field.

There's far less incentive in buying a terrifically sturdy and pretty machine
that will sit under your desk and not be moved for years on end.

~~~
bengl3rt
I dunno about you guys, but as a college student that frequently takes
internships, I move every 4-6 months.

Having a really powerful desktop that can be thrown back into its (incredibly
well designed) original box and shipped here, there, and everywhere while
continuing to work perfectly and housing all my disks has been awesome.

~~~
kcbanner
Any desktop case can be put back into its box and shipped in the same fashion.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Actually, it's annoying to need a box for a desktop nowadays. But the trend
towards ventilated cases makes it a necessity - there's no protection against
the elements.

Heck, I have problem with mine sitting near the door after I come in from the
snow.

------
pippy
The fact is Mac Pro's aren't as profitable as iPads or iPhones. If you were
CEO you'd de-prioritise the line as well.

They're not killing off the line altogether probably because it's a less risky
market. iPads and iPhones are new, and tomorrow a new phone could kill off
iPhone sales over night.

It is pretty shitty to see Apple do this however. I'd love for them to put in
the bleeding edge hardware on the line.

~~~
Osiris
My problem with that line of reasoning is that the company has (had) over $100
billion in the bank. They have no reason to de-prioritize any area of the
business that's making a profit. They have enough resources to pump into all
their profitable lines of business and more.

Is the potential of pissing off dedicated customers worth the money they'll
save? What will they do with the money they save? Add it to their unimaginably
large mountain of cash?

~~~
ams6110
Who says the Mac Pro line is profitable?

~~~
wmf
How could it not be? The engineering is all sunk and the margin is ~35%.

~~~
brianpan
There's profit and there's _profit_. The margins are there but the units sold
are not.

~~~
moe
That could easily be fixed by bringing the price back down into reality (i.e.
30-50% more expensive than equivalent x86-hardware, but not 300% more
expensive).

Currently you'd have to be lobotomized to buy a MacPro at this price point.
You can buy literally 2-3 "beige boxes" with similar specs for that money.

The shiny case and OSX make up for a lot, but there's a limit to what people
will bear.

~~~
brianpan
Really? iPhones alone brought in $22 billion in revenue last quarter.

[http://www.macworld.com/article/1166533/apple_nearly_doubles...](http://www.macworld.com/article/1166533/apple_nearly_doubles_its_profits_in_ipad_driven_quarter.html)

The _entirety_ of worldwide PC shipments for a quarter is less than 100
million units. So, no, cutting prices is not going to help catch up to iOS
revenues.

<http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1981717>

------
codex
I suspect that Apple has delayed significant changes to the Mac Pro until
desktop Retina displays are ready. Likely there was some snag, and the whole
kit (including a Retina capable video subsystem) wasn't ready when originally
planned. In that case, a small incremental update is the only option.

------
AndrewNCarr
I wonder if this is a tacit acceptance of the DIY hackintosh. Has anyone seen
hacintoshes used by audio/video pros for production work?

Everything I've read over the last year seems to imply that Apple is losing
interest in the pro A/V market in favor of the profitable portable market,
instead of keeping both going.

------
zachinglis
Apple don't update their line, obviously dead. Hmm? Weird conclusion. Tim Cook
has come out and said there'll be an update next year:
[http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/11/david-pogue-new-imacs-
an...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/11/david-pogue-new-imacs-and-mac-pros-
coming-probably-in-2013/)

But the truth is, this is really self-entitled. There's huge iPhone updates on
the go (iOS6 and hopefully iPhone 5 later this year), big MacBook Pro updates
but that wasn't good enough. Nope, because they didn't cover Marco's chosen
line of computers… they're playing a half-assed game.

Buying a computer is a 1:1 deal. You give money, they give computer (and
support for a year.) That's it. That's the deal. There is no "we'll forever be
in your debt" by Apple. Just because you want something, and you kick and
stomp doesn't mean they should do it.

We also don't know why. There could have been a hardware issue holding them
up, or a software. We've got no idea on this.

Apple are doing a pretty good job at the moment if you ask me.

------
chrissnell
The Mac Pro isn't just for those in the A/V industry. It's for anyone who
wants a Mac with more than four cores. No other Mac can do 6+ cores.

The Mac Pro hasn't seen a case update in at least six years. What other Apple
product has been neglected like this?

~~~
AndrewNoNumbers
I'd politely like to ask..

What, besides A/V work, is a 6+ core OS X machine necessary for?

~~~
aphyr
Scientific computing, system modeling, numerics, CAD/CAM, visualization,
developing highly concurrent software, event processors, rendering, machine
learning (esp vision/video/spatial stuff), genetic algorithms, databases, GIS,
crypto, traffic processing, theorem proving, compiling stuff, exploratory data
mining. Gaming, maybe. I routinely saturate my MBP's 4 HT cores. It's also
nice to develop on the same architecture you'll deploy to; helps with
concurrency tuning.

Not that you can't run these on smaller devices; these are just easy ways to
use up a lot of CPU.

~~~
jsz0
Good reasons but I wonder is the current/new generation 12-core Mac Pro
inadequate for this? It could be better but it still seems to serve its
purpose.

~~~
aphyr
Depends on what you're doing. I'd be satisfied with a 12-core Mac Pro for
everyday development--but if a 128-core Xeon were available I'd take it
gladly.

When I was working on quantum state diffusion, it took many hours on a 24-node
cluster for a single run. In many of these tasks, the problem will expand to
consume all reasonably available resources; more cores allow greater
precision, wider sampling of parameters, higher fidelity, etc.

------
tar
I do not understand. What is the appropriate use case for a Mac Pro where
something equivalent and much cheaper cannot be used?

~~~
wmf
PCIe cards. Multiple matte 30" monitors. Anything really CPU intensive.

~~~
joshAg
I think he meant, why wouldn't a windows/unix/linux machine with similar
hardware work just as well?

~~~
nikatwork
Most creative pro apps are only available on Windows or OSX. I don't hate
Windows7 but I find OSX superior (integration, stability, decent shell etc).
If you want OSX, you generally need a Mac.

I'd switch to Linux if the apps were there, but it's not even close. And I'm
an edge case, I suspect most creative types would rather not mess with
xorg.conf.

~~~
cheatercheater
That's why I wish, over and over, for a Wine equivalent that runs OSX apps.

I have ran some windows audio applications on Ubuntu 10.04 and the timing
accuracy (tested by specialist software) was several orders of magnitude
higher. In addition, I can achieve higher workloads. This is all with software
that wasn't even compiled for my OS.

------
robert_nsu
I don't get it. Why don't they just discontinue the Mac Pro?

~~~
marquis
Mac OSX is still solidly used in many industries, such as media and
publishing. Recording studios need the Pro to install expansion cards, video
production houses the same. I've seen close to riots because a production
house wanted to move all their staff to Windows, and as much as you think it
might save costs, you don't have to worry about Anti-Virus and Firewall
software management, admin permissions etc on top of all that, Windows Pro
licenses etc. Integration with iPad and iPhone is also important given that a
lot of media development for these goes on in this studios.

~~~
seanica
"you don't have to worry about Anti-Virus and Firewall software management,
admin permissions"

Are you sure about that? "Flashback" is just one example. Apple has also
approached an av vendor to help harden OSX.

~~~
ghshephard
Flashback is the exception that proves the rule. As much as I like to disagree
with people who suggest that the OS X is "fundamentally more secure than
windows" (it really, really isn't) - it does tend to have many fewer active
exploits than Windows Platforms do - and your average OS X system is much less
likely to be loaded up with malware than your average Windows XP system.

~~~
creamyhorror
Perhaps, but I find it unlikely that professional companies would let their
workstations - Windows or OSX - get loaded with malware. In fact, I hardly
encounter exploits or malware on PCs nowadays, and never at all in the few
corporate environments I've been in.

------
scarmig
Only tangentially related, but what's the consensus on which "ultrabooks" look
best to compete with MBP/MBA? I was hoping that Apple would make my choice for
me, but I'm underwhelmed.

I'm personally surprised that the Lenovo X1 Carbon hasn't gotten more notice:
14 inch screen, 1600x900, made of carbon fiber, beautiful body, less than 3
lbs, embedded 3G connectivity.

Question marks seem to be battery (I've heard numbers ranging from 3.5 hours
to 10 hours) and price (I'd wager around $1200ish?).

Skepticism around the claims of improved sound.

The Samsung Series 9 (also 1600x900, but 13.3 inch screen) also looks solid.
Any others out or on the horizon worth noting?

~~~
there
The new ASUS Zenbook Prime (UX21A 11"/UX31A 13") models that were announced
last month have similar specs to the new MBA (Ivy Bridge, up to 256Gb SSD,
etc.) but are both available with 1920x1080 IPS screens. I had the original
UX21 and sold it because the keyboard was not so great, but from the reviews
of the new models, they have improved the keyboard and trackpad.

------
daimyoyo
It occurs to me that the single biggest complaint about the current update is
the lack of processing power in the current MacPro. Why not rig together a box
the size of an external drive that contains a dozen core Xeon processor and
64GB of DDR3 RAM? Then you could attatch it to whatever Mac product you were
using via Thunderbolt and have all the horsepower you needed. Has any company
done this?

------
Osiris
I'm curious, why is it not possible to buy pre-configured, off-the-shelf dual
or quad CPU PC systems?

I know that you can get dual CPU server motherboards and build your own
system, but as far as I know no one sells a pre-built desktop system that
looks anything like the Mac Pro (spec-wise).

 _EDIT_ : Looks like I was mistaken. You can get high-end PC workstations.

~~~
petercooper
Take the Dell Precision T5500. Google it (to get the crazy long Dell
configuration page URL) and you can configure it with dual six-core Xeons, for
example.

~~~
Osiris
Thanks, I learned something today. Oh, and the Dell is less than half the
price of the Mac Pro.

~~~
tedunangst
A quad core Dell is half the price of a 12-core Mac. Once you put the same
CPU, RAM, and hard drive in the Dell, the difference is about $200. It's
cheaper, but not _that_ much cheaper. The bulk of a Mac Pro's cost is really
just passing along Intel's price for Xeon processors.

~~~
fredsted
Of course, the Mac Pro uses 2 year old hardware while the Dell is using the
latest Xeons.

------
eddieroger
I was bummed, too, but I can also see why Apple doesn't put as much effort in
to the Pros anymore. First off, those machines are meant to have longer
lifecycles given their bumped hardware. So when you take that in to account,
the biggest piece of tech I can see missing is Thunderbolt, but the Pros are
meant to be hooked to bigger things with fibre cards and other Ethernet
connected SANs. As for video, being the expandable machine means it will
probably have extra GPUs with their own, non-Thunderbolt video cards in, so
it's completely erroneous. As for the software updates, Mountain Lion will run
just fine, as will the updated versions of the pro apps.

I'd love an update as much as the next guy, but I take solace in the fact that
my machine is a little less outdated than it can be, and understand that Apple
is smart enough to know where their bread is buttered these days, even if it
sucks.

------
drawkbox
It would be a huge mistake for Apple not to keep the Mac Pro and the core of
content creators/developers happy. We want/need a big machine to run OSX and
Windows via Parallels, we need 16-32MB+ RAM minimum, We need many cores and
lots of memory to do that with minimal problems. We want to run OSX. Where
else can you run OSX on powerful hardware that isn't a Mac Pro? Apple better
keep this in focus and see it as an investment.

I love my Mac Pro. It is the best desktop I've ever had and what actually got
me into Apple products. I can also develop all my Mac/iOS, Android and Windows
apps on it, without it I'd need a windows machine again.

The Mac Pro is still key to getting Windows people to switch so they can run
it in parallels.

------
geuis
Gonna play devil's advocate for a moment. Disclaimer: I don't work for Apple.
I love their products (4 iPhones, 1 iPad, more 3 laptops in the last year, 1
Hackintosh that was an old gaming tower I built 3 years ago and never used
till I put OS X on it, which I purchased).

Apple's core revenue sources have changed significantly over the years. Used
to be towers were a primary source of revenue. That's most likely no longer
true, and hasn't been for a while.

Take into account how much money Apple has to spend on R&D internally for
their products. That's not only hardware, its also software support. One thing
I've learned in the Hackintosh community is that while there's a lot of
hardware that works really well, its a subset of all the hardware out there
(chips, mobos, graphics cards, etc). You have to pay special attention to your
hardware or getting OS X running is a huge pain in the ass, if impossible. It
costs a lot of money to have good programmers to support hardware.

I have to choose to believe that the people at Apple know what they're doing
for the benefit of their company. If the internal folks responsible for
weighing the scales have found that the amount of revenue earned for cost of
development and all for Mac Pros is too narrow, or even negative, then its
entirely responsible for them to be phasing out the availability of this
product line.

Yeah, _lots_ of people want Mac Pro towers. That includes me. I'd still love
to switch out my Hackintosh for a Mac Pro if just for the freedom to freely do
software updates without worry. I develop about 50/50 between it and my
laptop.

But for Apple, who have proven over and over again that they know where their
markets are going, they may be finding little to no value in continuing the
Mac Pro line.

A lot of people will counter with the argument that since Apple has so many
billions of dollars, its just a drop in the bucket for them to continue Mac
Pros. That may be true, but Apple isn't a company like Microsoft. They don't
tend to waste billions of dollars on products that go nowhere or have little
chance of success. Its true that Apple has had failures (Ping anyone?), but
they are very small in comparison to their successes.

Many people reading this may be too young to remember Apple from the late 80's
and 90's. They were lost and wandering in the woods. They almost died a few
times. I remember going with my mom to get our first Mac in the early 90's and
having to pick between 3-4 different models of the same Performa series. They
had multiple types of desktops available, including the Performa, Quadra, and
others. Their product skews were all over the place.

It wasn't until Jobs came back and brought a laser focus to their product
lines that they turned around. He spent the last decade imprinting that way of
thought on the entire company. Its vital to their future success, and our
enjoyment and the productivity that comes from their products, that it
continues. I would like to hope that there is an endemic fear in the company
of losing that focus and going back to the Apple of old.

So if Apple has found that the Mac Pro line is no longer worth it, its
entirely reasonable that they begin phasing it out. I'm choosing to look
forward and see what they're doing next, and how I can use what they're
building to make cool, amazing new stuff. Not looking back and complaining
that old things I thought were valuable are being taken away.

~~~
cheatercheater
> Gonna play devil's advocate for a moment

ITYM fan, because "devil's advocate" means arguing for the sake of something
you dislike a lot, in order to bring better criticism.

You're playing bait and switch. Can it be you have learnt this from AAPL?

------
mortenjorck
Let's say I'm running a post shop and I want to render from After Effects as
fast as possible. In normal use, just how much faster will one of these dated
Xeons render my comps than the quad-core i7 in a top-of-the-line iMac?

~~~
reitzensteinm
Here is a relevent benchmark. The top of the line iMac has a Sandy Bridge
2600, and the 980X is the desktop version of the equivilant server part.

980X vs 2600 video transcoding: 24s vs 29.1s (lower is better)

But there are still 2 CPUs in the Mac Pro, so you can double performance; it
should be 2.5x faster still.

Ivy Bridge, which features in the new MacBook Pros, and likely iMacs soon,
nets another 10% or so for the same clock speed over Sandy Bridge.

Haswell will likely be the point at which a quad core Haswell chip roughly
equals a 6 core Westmere chip (not bad for a 3 generation gap).

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-
review-i...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-
core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/16)

Edit: Another commenter pointed out that AE has CUDA acceleration. In that
case, even a mid range graphics card would be faster than two high end CPUs.

------
brunorsini
There might be some hope, after all, at least according to David Pogue: "Many
Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead,
since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure
me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for
release in 2013."

2013, really?

[http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-
of-...](http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-the-news-
from-apple/)

------
millzlane
This isn't surprising. Look at the product wikis and see the comparison of all
the hardware. From the mac pro all the way down to the phone. They have been
selling overpriced hardware for a very long time.

To be fair.. before the intel switch the hardware was theirs. Now, after the
intel switch they're still selling over priced hardware except now it's
cheaper for them because they're not using powerpc's anymore, and are now able
to reap the benefits of using PC hardware.

~~~
Terretta
Not overpriced. Nobody could come close to the price of the Macbook Air with
fully equivalent hardware, for example, and today's MBP release is the same.
When competitors try to meet the specs across the board, without any major
compromises, they cost 20% more.

The overpriced thing is a decade old, and used to be justified as a brand
positioning (pay more for quality build).

Now, Apple's supply chain lets them offer even higher build quality but at a
_discount_ to inferior products.

~~~
vacri
Nonsense. Comparing a Lenovo X220 with equivalent specs, it comes out slightly
cheaper on the Lenovo side. There are minor differences on both sides (eg
thunderbolt versus replaceable battery) but going for SSD, same RAM, same CPU,
similar screen size, the Lenovo comes out at $1216 and the Mac Air at $1349
(in Australia).

~~~
xiaoma
I don't think they're really equivalent specs, though. Notably, the 11" Levovo
X220 weighs 2.9 lbs vs 2.38 lbs for the MacBook Air.

That's more than a 20% difference on the defining characteristic of the MBAir
line.

Edit: Is this data wrong? Is it an inappropriate comment? I've been on HN for
nearly 5 years and it seems like there's more downvoting by the month.

~~~
vacri
You're probably being downmodded because half a pound of weight is not a major
feature, but you're trying to shoehorn it into a trump card. For me, the
trackpoint mouse is a _major_ feature which leaves the Air dead in the water,
but it's really a minor feature between the two.

Same as all the extras that the X220 has over the Air, like card slots,
swappable batteries, and a perimeter that doesn't cut into your hand. And vice
versa. These things are all minor differences. The Thinkpad laptops are also
as tough as the Apple laptops, if not tougher - despite looking like a normal
laptop, they survive more military tests than 'hardened' brand laptops.

The short version is simply that the Lenovo X-series and the Apple Airs are
equivalent laptops at the same price point - the Air is not 'better' for
'less' than the 'inferior' product.

~~~
xiaoma
It may sound odd, but last year I had a 13" MBP (4.5 lbs), and its weight
really bothered me. I actually swapped it for a mac mini that I carried to and
from work each day, hooking it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse at each
place just because it was a bit lighter.

The only I'd want an air over a pro is the weight. As far as the X220 is
concerned, weight would be my number #2 complaint after the OS. The lack of an
Apple-level quality trackpad might be #3. The hundred bucks does matter, but
honestly when you consider how many hours you, or at least I, spend on a
computer, the price is almost negligible compared to improvements in user-
experience or efficiency.

------
kevinpacheco
According to David Pogue, "Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks
that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and
Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs
are under way, probably for release in 2013."

[http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-
of-...](http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/an-explanation-of-the-news-
from-apple/)

------
tlb
The upgrade path from a Mac Pro is to a MacBook Pro with external monitor, and
external Thunderbolt disk array if you need it.

------
dpres
> I bet this is the last Mac Pro. If you wanted to kill a product line, an
> “update” like today’s would be a good way to clear out parts and keep
> selling to a few desperate buyers for a bit longer without any real
> investment.

Apple's products build off one another. Apple is not going to kill the Mac Pro
line because the iPad and iPhone would suffer.

------
mahyarm
I guess it's going to a thin client approach. iMac workstations with
thunderbolt expansion and processing farms for rendering or what have you. I
bet someone would make a killing with the pro market if they sold an easy to
integrate and expandable render farm, or something that uses amazon services.

~~~
burrokeet
Except that you would have to pipe giga/terabytes of data to/from the cloud -
that is why lots of in house rendering and catalogue systems use Fibre Channel
and similar technologies - one of the bottlenecks is I/O from the workstation

~~~
mahyarm
It wouldn't be the cloud, it would be local gigabit ethernet and thunderbolt
interconnects.

~~~
burrokeet
I was referring to using something like Amazon services for rendering

------
leeskye
Am I the only one who is stoked it comes with a third USB, standard SSD, and
HDMI port?

------
fyolnish
How is a 12 core 3.06ghz xeon not sufficient to develop Instapaper?

------
cheez
The only reason I use OSX is because it's on a Macbook. I would never use this
OS anywhere else.

Please, someone give me a replacement for this damn hardware already.

------
T_S_
Did my 17" MBP just become a collectors item?

------
nvartolomei
<http://www.apple.com/macpro/index.html>

------
hybrid11
What are you going to do with a Xeon processor, run a server on there?

------
planetguy
_"No Xeon E5 CPUs"_

I must admit I've lost track of what the latest and greatest CPU is at any
given time, so I googled for "Xeon E5" and found this article:

[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/11/apple_quietly_...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/11/apple_quietly_updates_mac_pro_with_intel_xeon_e5_cpu.html)

So what is it? Have they stuck in an Intel Xeon E5 or not?

~~~
wmf
AppleInsider is confused. Xeon E5645 is two years old. Xeon E5-26xx is the new
hotness.

~~~
blueprint
That's quite a mistake to make!

