Apple has abandoned any users who need real power. They have abandoned enterprise. They have abandoned video, 3D, DAW. My company, which would love to maintain our Mac fileservers and OpenDirectory, but we are being forced, kicking and screaming into the open arms of Windows Server, Active Directory, and ExtremeZ-IP. We don't need "desktop-lite". We need server-grade multi-core workhorses to run CPU-intensive workflow automation services (graphic arts, print production, high-end color stuff), but can't get them.<p>And their iMacs and Mac Mini's? Yeah, we use them as servers because we have no choice. We actually need Thunderbolt now. But they are buggy as hell. The built-in network interfaces on them drop for no apparent reason, and need to be re-started. Three separate boxes do this: 2 iMacs and one Mini. We have actually resorted to putting SmallTree PCIe gigabit ethernet cards (Intel Pro chipsets) into Thunderbolt PCI express chassis, in order to get a stable ethernet stack. Those never drop on us. How can Apple get something as basic as a stable Ethernet port so wrong? No load testing. No desire to fix their drivers or firmware, whichever is responsible.
Well I dont think that a retina iMac will suffice. I had a mac pro for my home music studio. The point of it was to be a beefy machine that was plenty expandable had lots of disk space and was quiet for the horsepower it provided. Mac pros fit that bill perfectly. it was easy to load them up with fast server class hard disks plug in your audio interface, any DSP boards, dongles or whatever else was required and then you forget about it (that is, until you see your electric bill the next month...)<p>I got the 2008 octocore Mac Pro and did just that and ran both mac os and windows on it until I finally sold it last year(regrettably to help pay for personal circumstances as well as a lack of time for music production) and never had a single issue with it.<p>THAT is what I spend the extra money on, I want a beefy computer that will last me 5 years. That is what the PRO audio crowd wants them for. I would imagine its not much different in the graphics/video arena either.
A Xeon class CPU is quite a bit different than the mobile/desktop class CPU Apple puts in their other systems.<p>I think Macro is being a bit dramatic in that a stagnant Mac Pro means the end of an era and I call bullocks!<p>Intel's Xeon chips do not advance at the same pace and have themselves stood still. Look at what Dell and HP are selling, they're basically the same CPUs (albeit you can buy one generation newer).<p>What the Xeon workstation/server architecture provides is a fat I/O pipe that's still extremely important to music and video professionals who rely on near zero latency. Even photoshop cringes when working in print media scale designs that take up a couple gigabytes in a document.<p>Besides, Apple tends to move slowly when a product isn't front and center, usually milking a design for all it's worth. Tim Cook said they're working on a pro device that will be out this year and I believe him.
The iMac isn't a developer machine. It looks on paper like a developer machine, but when put to the test of compiling large C/C++ projects day in day out it fails. We see more failures in iMacs than any other desktop we have at work. Way more hdd failure and gpu failure than our dells or other mac machines.
The one reason people (like me) still want to keep the Pro alive, the one thing that no other Mac can do, is support for more than two screens.<p>Now, Apple already made it abundantly clear what they think of multi-screen desktops when they designed, and then failed to fix, the native full screen feature of OS X.<p>I love my Mac Pro mainly for this one reason, but honestly, like many other Pro customers at this point I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm not going to have different platforms as my laptop and desktop, so if the Pro goes that's it for me and Apple - if by that time there is no real alternative to achieve the same thing. This is a hugely depressing thought. I hopped on board when OS X came out and never looked back to the Linux desktop since. For me, it has never been about the hardware, but OS X which always felt like home.
It's kind of ironic that Apple seems to be leaving the graphics professionals, which are about the only group to never abandon them during the tough times.
I couldn't agree less. A retina iMac wouldn't do it.<p>We'll probably see a new mid-size form factor aimed at professionals, slightly larger than the Mac Mini but with more horsepower and expandability. It'll be called "Mac" straight up. It'll be a throwback to the old Mac G4 Cube that designers and graphic artists loved, with marketing to match.<p>No reason to have a retina display integrated iMac—it's just not that exciting. What you'll see is the Mac Pro re-imagined for the modern world; one in which the existing Mac Pro makes no sense.<p>At least, we can hope.
"A few power users will complain, but most won’t care: by that time, most former Mac Pro customers will have already switched away."<p>This is a statement that is general and without any basis at all. Where does the OP come off writing "most former Mac Pro customers" I can almost guarantee that this is simply pure conjecture with nothing to back it up.<p>"There’s even less of a reason to buy the Mac Pro today than I expected."<p>I run 3 monitors off a Mac Pro (24/30/24). I don't believe there is any way to do that on anything but a Mac Pro. I could run six with the two video cards I have now but can't fit them on my desktop. And I'm not using it for video editing or anything like that. I just like to work with as much screen space as possible.
For 3D/VFX work you get so much more bang for the buck with a PC and Win/Linux these days. We're a mixed environment shop, but the Mac Pros lag so far behind the new PCs bought recently, for a fracture of the price. It's not even funny any more. Then there's the network - I don't know what it is, but all PCs in our network are about 50% faster than all the Macs.
Personally I just use my MBP these days for some developing and personal stuff, that's it. Everything else has moved to PC entirely, and I can't complain. Apple would have to come out with an insanely compelling product to sway me back.
And why not just by a Mac mini and thunderbolt expansion chasis? achieves the same goal doesn't it?<p>e.g. <a href="http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios" rel="nofollow">http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Merc...</a> , <a href="http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t" rel="nofollow">http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t</a> , <a href="http://www.sonnettech.com/product//thunderbolt/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.sonnettech.com/product//thunderbolt/index.html</a>
To put a needle fine point on what market is not being served here: content producers and editors who need all of the CPU, GPU, disk space, pixels, and I/O they can possibly get in a relatively price-insensitive business environment.<p>Homebrews, file serving, enterprise, SOHO, and those with nostalgia for DIY home desktop are non-factors now. The creators need a no-compromise beast with a flawless Adobe and Avid story.<p>If Apple won't provide it, they're throwing their crown jewel customers in the trash.
I see there being basically three types of person in this market niche:<p>- Those who want more storage without external latency<p>- Those who want more than one or two monitors<p>- Those who want addon cards.<p>Thunderbolt is capable of solving all of these problems, and in fact there's already market solutions for them. The problem is that the enclosures cost more than the Mac itself, and that's not including the hardware you want to put into them.<p>Thunderbolt drive enclosures and RAID systems are already starting to fall in price and will continue to fall as TB gains marketshare, but the PCIe cages are still STUPID expensive. If Apple were to release their own bus cage for people to add PCIe cards to their macs at a sane price point, suddenly the MacPro stops being the only Mac with that capability.<p>A chain-able TB display adapter would also go a LONG way to expanding the Mac's capabilities. One DisplayPort output per bus just doesn't cut it for some power users, and the only alternative is significantly slower USB adapters.
I just want a dual or quad socket mac pro with haswell processors. I'm forced to use a Mac for iOS development, and large compile times just get annoying. Hackintoshes are not quite right at times and can screw up builds.
If someone were to design a Mac Pro Mini, then it really needs both the memory and hard drives easily replaceable. I can even handle all flash if it mSATA and not some funky connector. It needs two (4 would be awesome) thunderbolts, usb3, and two (working, solid) ethernet connectors (one for network, one for storage). HDMI is nice (I would like an added input). I need 32GB of RAM on the minimum side. Core i7 and NVIDIA GPU would be fine. Include an iSCSI initiator.<p>If the next Mac Pro is any good, I predict a huge buy on its first day due to two years of pent up demand.
I wonder, since Apple is obviously abandoning this market, why is Microsoft trying so hard to alienate the power desktop user market with Windows 8 instead of aggressively trying to bring this group of Mac Pro users over to them. Of course they would have to improve Windows into a high-quality OS that works for them and find OEM's to partner with who are willing to find out what hardware these users want and provide it. Maybe it's a forlorn hope, but it's better than flailing after the tablet ship that sailed past them two years ago.
I have the rMBP with 16GB RAM and a giant SSD. Add the 27" Thunderbolt monitor and I think I have the new Mac Pro.<p>The power consumption is great and the performance is top-notch too.
I see it going the other way. Apple needs a bridge product between the iPad and the iMac. They are also getting clobbered by PCs in the business market. I suspect the big announcement will be a mid-range line of macs aimed for large scale roll-outs to corporations and governments. I read an article backing up this viewpoint in Business Week a while back, but alas it was only in the print edition.
I wanted, MacPro in Cube Shape. Dual CPU ( Not Xeon Only, ) and up to 64GB of Memory, Dual Geforce GTX Titan, Dual Thunderbolt, SSD in Raid.<p>Because the Margin of SSD and Geforce GTX is much larger, Apple could make their own SSD and Buying Geforce GTX Titan at discount price. Making the New MacPro as similar pricing if you have built it up yourself.