Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Desktops (Apple) Apple Hardware

The Mac Pro Is Getting a Major Do-Over (mashable.com) 240

Posted by msmash from the things-to-come dept.
Apple is moving away from the current, cylinder-shaped design used on its Mac Pro desktop, but that replacement will take until next year to hit shelves. From a report: "The Mac Pro, the current vintage that we introduced, we wanted to do something bold and different. In retrospect, it didn't well suit some of the people we wanted to reach," admitted Apple SVP Craig Federighi. "So many of our customers were moving to iMac that we saw a path to address to many, many more of those people," he added. "With the current generation Mac Pro, which some customers love, others may not, one of the things that's certainly clear and true about that is the team tried to do something different, something bold and we always want to encourage the Mac team that whatever products you make, that make customers happy, that we do bold work. Because the Mac's always been about that. It's been about not being conventional thinking, not me-too-stuff," said Phil Schiller. [...] While we'll have to wait until 2018 for the Mac Pro rebirth ("Want to do something great... that will take longer than this year to do," said Schiller), iMac fans can expect a significant update this year, including some new configurations designed specifically for Pro users who already fans of the all-in-one design. [...] Schiller was somewhat less emphatic when I asked if he was willing to make any "courageous" decisions about Mac Pro ports. I thought I saw a little discomfort flicker across Schiller's face as he reacted to that word and he told me that Apple wasn't making promises about ports on the Mac Pro. Port decisions, he said, are made at a product level. "Just because on one product we removed something, doesn't mean we're going to remove it elsewhere," he told me. More on this here.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Mac Pro Is Getting a Major Do-Over More

The Mac Pro Is Getting a Major Do-Over

Comments Filter:

  • Frosty (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:20AM (#54170221) Homepage Journal

    The new one is a cylinder with rounded corners.

    • I'm glad they have the "courage" to admit they screwed up that last design. I'd guess what people want is a return of the practical cheese-grater design of previous to last gen. Simple, upgradeable. Oh, and make something rack-mountable, while you're at it. You wouldn't believe how impractical it is to try to rack mount a cylindrical computer. I feel dirty just saying that.

      "Will take more time than this year"? Seriously, half a decade to come up with a new desktop computer? If you're not going to des

      • You wouldn't believe how impractical it is to try to rack mount a cylindrical computer.

        You can rack them — for a price.

        https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/RACKPRO2X/ [macsales.com]

      • Back in 1995, Compaq had a desktop, the Compaq Pro, which could be placed either horizontally or vertically, and if need be, rack ears could be attached so it could be tossed into a frame and used that way.

        If a PC maker can do this with a machine, then why can't Apple design a Mac Pro that would function as a tower, plopped horizontally as a place for a monitor, or have a way to flip out some eyelets for some rack rails? Done right, this would mean Apple wouldn't need to worry about an XServe form factor,

        • Back in 1989, Acer introduced a powerful 386 computer, and offered it as a (huge, yes) desktop/tower combo. Both placements were supported. And how did they say they supported your favorite placement? Becuase the square Acer logo in the big bulky box could be rotated 90 degrees. Yay for user-configurability! *That* is what Apple needs.

        • If a PC maker can do this with a machine, then why can't Apple design a Mac Pro that would function as a tower, plopped horizontally as a place for a monitor, or have a way to flip out some eyelets for some rack rails?

          Because then it would need to have seams or screw holes or something, marring the perfect smooth surface of the case.

          (I wish I were joking, but I have no doubt some industrial designer at Apple is really thinking that.)

          I, too would love for a new XServe to exist, especially if there were a ver

      • what about a server again or at least OSX server VM rights on any base hardware?

      • "Will take more time than this year"? Seriously, half a decade to come up with a new desktop computer? If you're not going to design something that's user-upgradeable, then you need to take more responsibility for refreshing the hardware at decent intervals.

        No, not half a decade to come up with a new desktop.

        3 years to realize they need to come up with a new computer.
        6 months to scramble and replace the actual engineers that retired, were pushed out because of age, or were locked in the mobile dungeon.
        6 months for them to get up to speed on the latest standards and features everyone else is selling.
        6 months for contracting with Intel, AMD/Nvidia, Foxconn, and whoever else for memory and flash (can they afford to ignore Samsung here?) and an updated display (ag

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        They seem worried that MacOS isn't enough of a draw any more. Outside of a few apps that are Mac only, and the fact that the pro laptops are actually okay for stuff like video editing and have the same Thunderbolt for expandability as the current Pro, there isn't much reason to buy one. You could get a better spec PC for 1/4 the price or less.

    • I was thinking more along the lines of a dodecahedron, with rounded corners. Lock up the gaming community,

  • Hardware doesn't matter so much. Software does. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    For most users these days, even those using higher-end systems, the exact hardware doesn't matter. It'll be more than sufficient for most tasks, and in the rare cases when it isn't, such a user will likely need far, far more computing power than a single system can deliver (a workstation that's twice as capable won't help when you need a 4000-machine render farm).

    What does matter is the software.

    What direction is macOS going to take?

    Will it ever get proper virtual desktop support, like X11 desktops have had

    • APFS is definitely in production now, especially with the last iOS update which pushed it out to every recent device. Of course, my biggest beef about it is that it has no checksumming to detect bit rot, but it might be that Apple didn't add that functionality for performance reasons.

      • The reasoning is that SSD storage has a better checksum system already in the hardware. I've not heard of bit rot problems with SSD-- just the things up and dying instantly and completely failing. SSD by design levels out the usage over the whole storage space while checking which seems to be a good thing.

        Encrypted or compressed files amplify the damage done... APFS's heavy encryption support makes me feel better in that single bit errors will be better noticed.

        I've experienced bit rot on HDs; detected and

    • There are tons of applications where performance matters, and the differences between one desktop and another even at similar price points can be drastic depending on where the money is spent. Video editing, animation, rendering, engineering... just to name a few. Even if the difference is only 20-30%, saving that much time throughout a workday can make a huge difference in a user's overall productivity.

    • For most users these days, even those using higher-end systems, the exact hardware doesn't matter. It'll be more than sufficient for most tasks, and in the rare cases when it isn't, such a user will likely need far, far more computing power than a single system can deliver (a workstation that's twice as capable won't help when you need a 4000-machine render farm).

      I have to disagree here. Hardware matters on a workstation if that is how it is used. If it is a glorified email machine then hardware doesn't matter. In your exact example, animators don't do final render on a workstation, but they do their daily work on a workstation then send it to the render farm for final render. So things like GPU performance matters.

      What's happening with Swift? Now that Chris Lattner has left Apple, does it have a real future?

      Swift seems to be progressing. Currently on version 3.1. Will it stagnate without Lattner? Don't know yet.

  • So the trash-can Mac Pro is "vintage" now?

    • Vintage is older than five years. When I took my 2006 black MacBook into the Apple Store in 2012, they replaced the CPU fan and battery even though it was a "vintage" Apple product. When the tech broke the cable between the keyboard top and motherboard, they replaced the keyboard top. All the parts were in stock for a six-year-old laptop.

      • So the trash-can Mac Pro is "vintage" now?

        Vintage is older than five years. When I took my 2006 black MacBook into the Apple Store in 2012, they replaced the CPU fan and battery even though it was a "vintage" Apple product. When the tech broke the cable between the keyboard top and motherboard, they replaced the keyboard top. All the parts were in stock for a six-year-old laptop.

        Yup, what our friend Misagon failed to take into account is that things tend to move fast in the computer business. Five years old is vintage, ten year old is ancient and fifteen years old is palaeolithic.

        • Five years old is vintage, ten year old is ancient and fifteen years old is palaeolithic.

          Last year I replaced the "vintage" 320GB hard drives with 1TB hard dives in my file server, replaced the "ancient" Vista-compatible motherboard with a Win7-compatible motherboard, and tossed out a "palaeolithic" AT-to-PS2 keyboard adapter. ;)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Misagon ( 1135 )

          I wrote that as a joke. I'm sorry if that did not come across.
          Federighi did not use the word in the same was as I did in my comment.

    • Trash cans are useful.

  • iPhone - courage, Mac Pro - Bold (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Grim Reefer ( 1162755 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:33AM (#54170281)

    ...we wanted to do something bold

    ...tried to do something different, something bold

    ...that we do bold work.

    So iPhones are all about courage, while Mac Pro is all about being Bold. I'm sensing a theme here. Perhaps their iMacs should have valor, iPad tenacity, and earpods should have balls.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

      So iPhones are all about courage, while Mac Pro is all about being Bold. I'm sensing a theme here. Perhaps their iMacs should have valor, iPad tenacity, and earpods should have balls.

      The new Mac Pro will grab users by the pussy.

  • About fucking time they came to their senses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:35AM (#54170301)

    Hooray! Maybe next year there will be a Mac that I can consider worth buying again! Also, they should be using the current most recent generation Intel chips by then. But nah, they'll probably just fucking solder everything down again. Because to the post-Jobs Apple, "Pro" apparently means a fancy-pants artist who wants curvy thin stuff with no seams that can impress people, not an engineer or architect, or even someone in the music or film production business, who wants to get shit done.

    Meanwhile, I will stick to my accumulated pile of MacBook Pros and Mac Minis from the 2010-2012 era. And also the corresponding stack of Magsafe 1 chargers and Thunderbolt adapters. I even bought a USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter yesterday.

    • There is one advantage of the USB-C connector over MagSafe. When the wire starts fraying, you just buy a new cable, as opposed to a new charger.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Or you could just not buy Apple hardware, I've never seen any other laptop power system fray or have as many issues as magsafe.

        • Apple has become the computer version of anorexic.

          I have fixed many Magsafe problems. It is mostly the lousy CABLE they use which can't handle normal long term use... it's like they designed it to not last over 5 years which was a long time for a computer over a decade ago. The adapters before that time often were weak as well but we didn't heavily use a macbook from 2000 to 2010.

          The magsafe connector itself has some minor issues with age but I still feel it is worth it and not that difficult to clean.

          I t

      • The bigger advantage is that you don't have to buy an entire laptop when the puppy charges through the unfrayed cable and thus launching the machine to the floor.

        No solution is perfect.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        While I do have some problem with wire fraying, I was not one of the mouth-breathing fools who wrapped the wire around the pop-out legs. The problem I've had was with the later right-angle connector versions. Apparently that kitchen-appliance-tier rubber insulation doesn't take well to bending when left plugged in all day, every day, while you have the computer in your lap and move around, and it eventually cracks open due to bending angles that "normal" insulation wouldn't care about. When I get some free

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

          It's not the rubber. PVC frays just as easily when you throw away 60 years of engineering experience with stress relief on cabling because shit's supposed to look good and not last.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by slazzy ( 864185 )
        Personally I'd like a laptop that has both MagSafe and USB-C charging. Cleaning lady tripped on my Macbook air power cable last week, It would been a $1,500 accident had I been charging via USB-C, instead I just plugged it back in.

      • I honestly don't know what people do with their power adapters to make them fray. I have 3 of them for spares, but I have yet to have a problem with a single one. I'm still using the original power supply I got with my MBP in 2011.

        I personally *hate* the switch to USB-C, because having the magsafe jack pop out has saved me on more than one occasion. And yes, I know I can buy replacements like that doohicky griffin puts out, but it really bothers me that I even have to resort to such a measure when they h

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aaden42 ( 198257 )

      You know the CPU & RAM in the trashcans are all socketed, right? MacOS doesn't support the very latest Intel dies right now, but you *can* pop out the CPU and go up a few levels in the current hardware. Lots of server-pull Xeon's on eBay right now will fit in it & work fine.

      They're still WAY overdue for a true upgrade (not just a "refresh"), and it would be nice if they offer truly latest generation options for a change, but the situation isn't quite as dire in the current cans as you make it out

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        Yes, but then I'd have to get one of those Edison Cylinders in the first place. At least they're not full of empty space like most tower computers, so they take up less space. And I'm pretty sure you still can't get them for $600 or less yet.
    • I agree, there is nothing pedantic about a tool. Tools get used, get dirty, and when parts of the tool need upgrading, they get upgraded. Why do I need to spend $2000, for a $200 part? That's stupid.
    • Yeah, while the Mac Pro was different and had some interesting ideas in terms of cooling and design, it should have incorporated more upgradeability for Pro users.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slazzy ( 864185 )
      Very well said.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by wjcofkc ( 964165 )

      Meanwhile, I will stick to my accumulated pile of MacBook Pros and Mac Minis from the 2010-2012 era.

      Those old Mac Minis can be pretty useful. They can found used for pretty cheap, are stackable, and run Linux\BSD.

      I am not trying to be snarky here. Along time ago I was a Mac user. Now, used Mac minis are about all I find useful about the platform.

  • Apple ostensibly was trying to target the pro market, but was trying to spearhead it with aesthetics and novelty like you'd use to target the consumer market with.

    Consumers didn't want a super expensive box. Pro users are like "THAT is definitely not going in the rack". So they missed out on both markets. I don't see how this took anyone by surprise.

    Now I see they're going to push the iMac into the pro market. Clearly they're still trying to keep themselves on the desktop and out of the data center, but

    • Can't speak to the current generation, but on my 2009 iMac, pulling the screen and upgrading the drive isn't really a big deal; they could make it a little more accessible, but you don't necessarily need hatches on the back/bottom.

      I wish they would go back to offering a server form factor, but I get that the economics of it would be even worse today than when they discontinued the Xserve.

      • On the later ones, if your replacement drive didn't have an Apple-specified temperature sensor built-in the fans would run at full blast. If you add your own SSD, it doesn't support TRIM if it wasn't the Apple SSD.

    • I would not be surprised if Apple would never make a "Mac Pro Mini", just because they know that such a machine is -exactly- what buyers want. They want people to either buy cheaper Macs and toss them every few years, or go buy the top tier machines.

  • Interesting. I've seen posts about emerging technologies labeled as spam on Slashdot, but not anything about upcoming Apple products. In fact, you've got two posts in a row on the FP of Slashdot about Apple products. Curious.
  • In the computer word a lot happens in a year. Are they seriously just starting now?

  • Make Customers Happy (Score:3)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:44AM (#54170373)

    I never really knew that I wanted un-replaceable RAM and Harddrive/Flash until I went to upgrade my Macbook Pro.
    Now I know that is these features that really make me happy, and screw that idea of me having a choice.

  • I'm still waiting for a worthy successor to my 2006 black MacBook (yes, I paid the extra $200 for black version). Still a conversation piece when I bring it into the Apple Store. Not many Apple Store employees have ever seen a legendary black MacBook.

    • Not many Apple Store employees have ever seen a legendary black MacBook.

      So the question becomes how much would Apple fans pay to have someone anodize and dye their case, which is relatively easy and inexpensive.

  • Oops - time for one more Slashdot History talking about the amazing and brilliant bew Apple products. Who cares if it is the 4th or 5th history about Apple products in a row??

  • Brave and bold is fine... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dracolytch ( 714699 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:48AM (#54170399) Homepage

    ... but how about starting with the adjectives "functional, useful, reasonable"?

  • Cheese grater and/or XServe hybrid, please (Score:5, Interesting)

    by enjar ( 249223 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @10:56AM (#54170461) Homepage

    As part of my day job we have to support a lot of Macs in server rooms and/or lab spaces. The current product lineup falls flat and makes us do a lot of stupid workarounds and hassle that we don't have to deal with with Linux/Windows/ESX/OpenStack, all of which run happily on standard rackmount hardware.

    "Pro" options I'd like to see:
    - IPMI/out of band management tools. No Apple proprietary crap. Give me an tool that plays nice with the rest of my machines that speak IPMI.
    - Expansion bays for drives, easily accessible from the front.
    - Support for modern nVidia GPUs / CUDA. OpenCL doesn't cut the mustard. I should be able to use GeForce, Quadro or Tesla GPUs. Support for two at a minimum, four would be better. Use standard power connections, too.
    - Dual 10 GB drops, options for more.
    - Dual power supplies, also hot swappable.
    - Rack mountable form factor. Look at what Lenovo is doing with their P500/700/900 lines. Host will be happy as a desktop or in a rack. Sure, it's 4U but at least if you need to rack it, you can. I get that Macs in a server room is weird.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 )

      Support for modern nVidia GPUs / CUDA. OpenCL doesn't cut the mustard.

      Don't be ridiculous. Why would the originators of OpenCL suddenly push for CUDA instead of improving OpenCL? Especially now that Vulkan is going to push SPIR-V down the throat of graphics card manufacturers anyway.

  • Yeah, too late Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by huskerdoo ( 186982 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @11:09AM (#54170531) Homepage

    I became a Mac convert (from Windows XP) in the mid 2000s, especially since I use several Linux machines throughout the day also. I did a lot of video editing on my MacBook Pro but by 2013 it was a bit sluggish so I thought I would pay the large chunk of money and get a nice machine to edit video on. Lo and behold what did they have?...a stupid cylinder that I couldn't put my five hard drives of video files into.

    Yes it looked cool and sleek, unless you actually wanted to use the thing. The last thing I wanted on my desk was a rat's nest of external enclosures for hard drives, cables, and power supplies. I had enough of that in dealing with my laptop setup. Bump a cable, oops, there goes the whole chain.

    The most obnoxious part was people actually defending this "radical new design" and that people like me who didn't like it were "afraid of change". Or even, "Who needs so many hard drives, just use the cloud, that is the future!" (yeah, try and edit HD video files that are being served off the cloud, heh).

    So for about $1500 I bought a PC with Windows 7 and haven't looked back. Bye bye Apple.

  • My suggestion... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @11:12AM (#54170545) Homepage

    My personal view is (and has been for a few years now) that Apple needs to rejigger their entire lineup. I'm not saying that they need to make drastically different products, but their current marketing is out of whack, which is weird for Apple. My general suggestion would be to make three levels across most of their product line, and name them similarly.

    For example, make 3 different phones:

    • * iPhone mini: Basically the iPhone SE line. Small. Lacking some features.
    • * iPhone: the current normal iPhone.
    • * iPhone Pro: the iPhone Plus, decked out with features

    Make 3 different Mac models:

    • * Mac mini: the current Mac mini
    • * Mac: Take the current Mac pro, swap out all the workstation-grade hardware (Xeon, Fire Pro, ECC RAM) for consumer grade (Core i5/i7, Nvidia gaming card, non-ECC RAM). Drop the price $1200. Or something like that
    • * Mac Pro: Make a new upgradable/expandable machine.

    Then 3 laptop models:

    • * MacBook mini: the current Macbook
    • * MacBook: the current Macbook Pro 13"
    • * MacBook Pro: a 15" MacBook, perhaps a little thicker to include more battery and some legacy ports, more akin to the old tower Mac pro.

    and 3 iPads:

    • * iPad mini: The current iPad mini
    • * iPad: The current iPad Pro 9.7"
    • * iPad Pro: The current 12.9" iPad, perhaps with some additional ports and features to bring it closer to feature-parity with the Macbook Mini.

    and finally, if I had to figure out 3 iMac models to keep the trend (which I'm not sure makes sense):

    • * iMac mini: The sleekest 21" iMac they can make using Intel GPUs and notebook-grade processors. Cheaper, fairly weak performance, but good enough for normal office work.
    • * iMac: A 24" iMac using Core i5/i7 processors and discrete Nvidia GPUs
    • * iMac Pro: a 27" iMac with Core i7 (optional Xeon) processor and workstation-grade GPU.

    And to be clear, it's not that I'm specifically fixated on particular features going into particular models, but I think apple would be smart to do something like this. Having a breakdown like this would provide more consistency among their product lines and a clearer differentiation between the tiers within each product line. I also think it would also fill in some of the gaps in their lineup, while still providing reasons to spring for the more expensive pro models.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The problem is they don't have any features to deck the "pro" versions out with. Look at the last few iPhones, slowly catching up with where all the other flagships were a few years ago. They would actually have to cripple the mid and low end devices for them to make any sense.

      At the moment they offer a few gimmicks like the OLED bar, a useful number of USB ports and "courage" (no headphone jack), and they get a lot of criticism even from Apple fans over those policies.

      All that's left is screen size, but pe

    • Be the best PC tower (people used to buy MacBook Pros to run windows because they were good laptops.)

      Rack mountable (pro desks have rack mounts) + angle brackets so it could be screwed to the bottom of a normal desk.
      Two standard 5.25" bays which could be rotated 90 (try using a DVD drive sideways, it's a pain)
      Keep the wind tunnel of fans which keeps it more quiet than any PC tower.
      Lose HD bays. Have MANY SSD slots instead.
      HD: Use the two 5.25 bays if it matters to you... put some screw mounts in clever ways

    • I'm not saying that they need to make drastically different products, but their current marketing is out of whack, which is weird for Apple.

      Is it? This isn't the first time they've been totally bananas in this area. Remember the era of the Performa? Or should I say, the millions of different Performa models?

  • How many drive bays, how many ports, and how many card slots? I've owned every top end Mac Since the Macintosh II; this one I skipped.

  • Computers are dead (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mhollis ( 727905 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @11:44AM (#54170793) Journal

    I have a Mac Pro; it is my production machine and it's an early 2009 "Cheese Grater." It has 32GB of system RAM and, I am told can go higher (though Apple says it can only pack 32GB) and I have definitely upgraded the standard disk drive that it came with (I have all four trays full). I will probably get an SSD drive for its startup drive fairly soon.

    But Apple has become an appliance-maker with a limited "shelf life." They make way more from their tablets and smartphones than they do with their computers and I believe that adding the word "pro" to their tablet is an indication of something. There are no user-serviceable parts inside their phones and tablets, even though iFixit regularly takes them apart. But they're pretty clear that you cannot upgrade the insides and all you can do (if they offer parts) is replace what is there.

    This means that the lifecycle of the phone or tablet is one to two years, which is a real moneymaker for Apple. I kept my last Mac for ten years and plan to keep my current Mac Pro for ten, as well. As to the cost of their computers, I really don't care as long as I can expand it—their trashcan model is definitely not expandable and one cannot change out the graphics card, so I have not been tempted to look into purchasing it in the slightest.

    As to ports, I have what I really need on my Cheese Grater, though it does not feature the faster Thunderbolt port that the newer Macs have. It does, however, have plenty of USB ports and it has an internal bus that I can swap out cards on. I can also change my GPU and I note that Apple tends to have a love-hate relationship with GPU makers, generally switching companies every one to two years. This means that if you purchase a computer with a built-in GPU, Apple will change their software and their OS to not be optimized for it in a couple of years. Want to use your computer as a main production machine with the latest software? Sorry, your investment is now obsolete.

    Apple will be transitioning you to a tablet soon. They do not care about computers any more. Their hardware will be designed to be replaced in one to two years.

  • Thank god (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @11:58AM (#54170873) Homepage

    I had an original Mac Pro that I got for a song so it became my primary machine. Over the years I added a big screen, drives, GPUs, memory, etc. It was not until 2014 that I considered an "upgraded" because I needed to move to 64bit in order to keep running Xcode. That left me with the decision of buying the top of the line iMac, or a Mac Pro. I went the later because I could keep my monitor, which I love. The price difference if you ignored the monitor was a couple of hundred bucks, so why not?

    But quite frankly, the machine sucks. Oh, it's fast, and small, and very very quiet. And it looks good. But really, those are it's only good points. And there are lots of bad points...

    1) You get two GPUs, one for rendering and one for calculations. However, I never (?) do GPU-hosted calculations, so that GPU is idle. I am certainly not alone in needing a single GPU. I would be happy if the second GPU could be used for rendering in a CrossFire-like way, but no one is bothering with that. So I have an expensive GPU doing nothing. Worse, it can't be used as a backup, as I understand it, so if the display GPU fails, my machine is dead.

    2) There is a single "drive slot". It is non-standard (although such a standard did not really exist at the time). It also sprouts from one of the two GPUs, which is ridiculous. So Apple has to make two different GPU cards, one with and one without the SSD slot.

    3) You may say it needs only one drive slot because you'll use external drives... right? Well here's the problem with that: most external drives are so much slower than the internal SSD that the machine is fully booted before the external is up and running (its FAST). Since you'll probably put your user account on that drive... odd things happen. Like your account is read-only. Or you get a sort of guest-like account. The only solution is to reboot.

    4) It has FOUR USB ports. That isn't enough for anyone. Ever. All of them are on the back. So every time you want to plug in a USB key, you have to spin the machine. I gave up and left it back-to-front, so everyone gets to see my cable spaghetti.

    5) It has SIX Thunderbolt. I have exactly one TB device, the screen.

    6) All the ports are at the top of the machine, so the cables hang down and bend at the strain relief. If anything heavy ever falls on the cables, they're going to break. This is just bad design.

    The good news is we can fix it all, easily:

    1) put in at least two M2/U2 ports, preferably four. I shouldn't HAVE to use an external drive, and I shouldn't have to throw away the drive it came with if I want a larger option.

    2) alternately, add a bay for a single (or two) conventional SATA laptop drives. You can get 1.5TBs for reasonable prices. It would make the case *slightly* larger, but who cares?

    3) 10 USB-C, two of them on the front.

    4) either move the ports down, or angle them downward to release the strain on the cables.

    5) allow the system to run with a single GPU. And allow us to swap them! There's a number of small-form-factor GPU slots out there, and surely one of the companies you deal will with make one that can be mounted to the cooling block somehow.

    Its shocking its taken this long.

  • Dear Apple,

    Here are some tips for making your next MacBook Pro more successful:

    1.) Stop fucking taking away necessary ports. If your laptop doesn't have at east 2 USB ports (preferably 2 side by side), that shit can fuck off.
    2.) Stop replacing the necessary ports with proprietary ports. We don't need 2+ Thunderbolt ports. they can fuck right off too.
    3.) Why the fuck can't you stick with industry standard goddamn parts for SSD's?

    If you could do these three things I would have purchased another mac

    • ...
      If you could do these three things I would have purchased another macbook pro when my last laptop died. But no, you had to make that piece of shit...

      They still sell new MBPs from the prior generation, before they ditched all of the useful ports. I saw one right next to the new, dumb MBP in the Apple Store just last week. Barring that, go for a refurbished MBP 11,5.

      As an engineer, I can tell you that refurbished is almost always better than new––the parts have been 'burned in' already, so no factory-new parts will be dying on you.

  • My Mac Pro is turning into the Ship of Theseus. I've changed so many parts on the darn thing waiting and waiting for Apple to upgrade the workstations.

    I think it's great that Apple tried something but people who need Mac Pros need to change parts to upgrade video cards, PCI cards and storage volumes. This is the whole point of a Mac Pro. The Trash Can mac was really a super Mac Mini. Changing parts is a factor and fact of life for a pro machine. There were too many custom parts in the Mac Pro 6 for it to b

  • Pro users would be happy with a voodoo like loopback cable for DP data that other pro workstations with TB have. Also nice to have video out that is just video and not video that uses the same bus as TB data.

  • amd Naples based?? 128 pci-e lanes can give them a 1 or 2 cpu system with 2 video cards, 4 pci-e X4 storage cards + 10 TB 3 buses + 2 X16 slots and dual 10-gig-e.

  • It took them four years to discover they screwed the pooch? Really? How much of their pro market share did they lose before they realized they stepped in dog crap with the 2013 model? I know I've left Apple behind.

  • The day the Mac Pro was announced haters all over the internet were complaining that the thermals were too tight and that it would be too hard to upgrade the components and that Apple being Apple would never offer an upgrade for the video card or processor. They were proven right on all counts. Hopefully Apple listens to the users this time and puts out something that can live comfortably under the desk and has headroom to grow. Also, using commodity parts so people can do their own upgrades since Apple

  • Dear Apple (Score:4)

    by dmgxmichael ( 1219692 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @02:03PM (#54171911) Homepage
    I'm not paying $3500 for $1500 worth of PC.

  • BlueTooth for mouse and keyboard.
    Miracast for display. (WiFi Display)
    WiFi only, no Ethernet
    Storage is built-in and can be extended through the cloud. No USB-C for external harddrives.
    A wind turbine for wireless power.

    This new design is brave and courageous and innovative.

  • I spec'd a Mac Pro the other day. There is an option for 12 cores, not the max-of-8 mentioned in the article.

    And pricing for what you get has come way, way down. Max out everything and it's not $8000 any more, but rather much more affordable.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Close