2019 Mac Pro

It is disappointing, but looking at the current situation: and Mac Pro that came out today would only be marginally better than an iMac Pro anyway, what else would it be other than a i9 and a Vega 64? In a pinch right now the iMac Pro is a fine choice for a machine that'll run macOS.
 
I don’t understand what Apple is doing, given that the rumor is true that they’ll be dumping Intel for their own in-house designed CPUs by 2020.

Where does that place software developers, like Adobe? They have a hard time managing the new features & reliability balance as it is. Rewriting code for a CPU that doesn’t use X86 architecture sounds far above their ability, unless they halted new feature development for a year.

But what about backward capability? And where does that leave the Mac Pro? Can anyone explain some of this to me?
 
BarryLichtner said:
I don’t understand what Apple is doing, given that the rumor is true that they’ll be dumping Intel for their own in-house designed CPUs by 2020.

Where does that place software developers, like Adobe? They have a hard time managing the new features & reliability balance as it is. Rewriting code for a CPU that doesn’t use X86 architecture sounds far above their ability, unless they halted new feature development for a year.

But what about backward capability? And where does that leave the Mac Pro? Can anyone explain some of this to me?
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macOS might end up being their workstation OS, while an ARM iOS laptop comes out and starts replacing the bottom end.
 
Will Apple continue with their dongle workflow mentality or can we expect a few ports and jacks to make it back onto their MacBooks?

:undecided
 
Hopefully it's not too little, too late. The article seems encouraging but then again, since Cook took over, Apple is a hot mess overall.
 
IanTheM said:
macOS might end up being their workstation OS, while an ARM iOS laptop comes out and starts replacing the bottom end.
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They've been moving towards a "unified" OS for a few years now. If you read some of the tech articles, they say that's why the desktop/laptop OS's(macOS, now) seem to be developing at a crawl now.
 
The big motherboard and video card manufacturers practically reinvent their product line every 12 months or so with many incremental updates and variants in between. I'm talking bleeding-edge stuff every year or sooner.

What Apple, with it's vast amount of money and human capital, could easily do...and choose not to...speaks volumes on where their priorities lie.

My most painful Apple episode was buying a fully-loaded Mac Pro a year before they switched to Intel. It became a very expensive doorstop almost overnight. It still resides in dusty corner of my basement. Now they're going to do it again? Fool me once...
 
JCummings said:
The big motherboard and video card manufacturers practically reinvent their product line every 12 months or so with many incremental updates and variants in between. I'm talking bleeding-edge stuff every year or sooner.

What Apple, with it's vast amount of money and human capital, could easily do...and choose not to...speaks volumes on where their priorities lie.

My most painful Apple episode was buying a fully-loaded Mac Pro a year before they switched to Intel. It became a very expensive doorstop almost overnight. It still resides in dusty corner of my basement. Now they're going to do it again? Fool me once...
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You are in the minority when it comes to viewing the switch to Intel negatively. Most people were very glad for the switch and has been known as one of the decisions that put Apple back on the map in the computer world. We all face this sort of thing when we buy computers. Its a constantly changing world and we all take big risks when we invest in a workstation.
 
With all of apples resources I’d be thrilled if they doubled or tripled the size of their pro department.

I hope the new Mac Pro reinvents modular desktops. Would be great to see a universal cartridge standard invented where you could change and update traditionally internal components like RAM and even CPU with a tool-less slide. Imagine a new intel processor coming out. Install it in cartridge, slide in, CPU upgraded. Or changing your internal ram from 32gb to 128gb without ever opening a case.

I think the tech is there and Apple could really shake things up if they execute right.

I also wish, tangent, that a new FCP X update would come along with the option to navigate the timeline in a more traditional manner. If Apple pressed here FCP X could truly be something very special but I think their update pace in terms of features and improvements would need to get a lot more aggressive.
 
I always liked the way the Apple rack unit server looked.
What if they did a Mac Pro as a rack unit?
You have the base unit with CPU, RAM, System SSD and integrated graphics etc... Need graphics card? Get a rack unit that fits two GPUs... Need more hard drives? Get the unit that has lot of space for drives... etc etc...
I would believe that most people that want/need a mac pro live in an environment where there's other rack units so would be easy to fit in... and they could design their own rack case that makes it look like an apple computer...
 
I hope Apple comes through with something revolutionary for the Pro market, but I remember how great it was when Apple moved from RISC to x86. I still love the tool-less, cable-less sliding daughter card designs of the cheese graters, but returning to that level of elegance in hardware modularity isn’t going to go smoothly. As Bob Zelin recently pointed out, Apple’s success in the pro market is highly dependent on third party manufacturers. And moving away from x86 is going to slow third party software support of hardware. I applaud Apple’s support of OpenCL, but it feels like it’s support has lagged behind CUDA like OpenGL did compared to DirectX. Apple has lost their dominance in the video hardware space, and they will lose their dominance in the pro audio market if this transition doesn’t go well and DAW developers write more solid drivers for Windows.

Here’s to hoping that Apple has enough foresight to create something revolutionary enough to transform the pro market in a way that draws innovation and support from third party hardware and software manufacturers.
 
Saddler said:
I hope Apple comes through with something revolutionary for the Pro market, but I remember how great it was when Apple moved from RISC to x86. I still love the tool-less, cable-less sliding daughter card designs of the cheese graters, but returning to that level of elegance in hardware modularity isn’t going to go smoothly. As Bob Zelin recently pointed out, Apple’s success in the pro market is highly dependent on third party manufacturers. And moving away from x86 is going to slow third party software support of hardware. I applaud Apple’s support of OpenCL, but it feels like it’s support has lagged behind CUDA like OpenGL did compared to DirectX. Apple has lost their dominance in the video hardware space, and they will lose their dominance in the pro audio market if this transition doesn’t go well and DAW developers write more solid drivers for Windows.

Here’s to hoping that Apple has enough foresight to create something revolutionary enough to transform the pro market in a way that draws innovation and support from third party hardware and software manufacturers.
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Large part of them supporting OpenCL is that they only use AMD cards, so investing CUDA wouldn't make sense unless they used those cards. CUDA works in programs like Resolve though, if you have a Nvidia card in your computer/eGPU. For their own software though, they've moved on to Metal, which is their equivalent of DX12/Vulkan.
 
IanTheM said:
Large part of them supporting OpenCL is that they only use AMD cards, so investing CUDA wouldn't make sense unless they used those cards. CUDA works in programs like Resolve though, if you have a Nvidia card in your computer/eGPU. For their own software though, they've moved on to Metal, which is their equivalent of DX12/Vulkan.
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The CUDA dependency shrinks every year and eventually there will be no software left that must use CUDA. In the end it makes much more sense to have a universal standard to develop around GPU hardware.
 
JCummings said:
My most painful Apple episode was buying a fully-loaded Mac Pro a year before they switched to Intel. It became a very expensive doorstop almost overnight. It still resides in dusty corner of my basement. Now they're going to do it again? Fool me once...
Click to expand...

I'll one-up you, I bought my 2x2.7 G5 Power Mac about 3 weeks before the intel announcement. . .
 
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