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Desktops (Apple) Portables (Apple) Apple Hardware

Apple's Redesigned Mac Pro is Coming in 2019 (theverge.com) 183

Apple's long-awaited update to the 2013 Mac Pro won't be released until sometime next year, the company told TechCrunch. From a report: We've known since a press roundtable in April 2017 that Apple was "completely rethinking" the Mac Pro, in the words of marketing chief Phil Schiller. Now, we have confirmation that the product is arriving next year after some speculation that it could make an appearance this year at a fall hardware event typically reserved for MacBook announcements.

"We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It's not something for this year," Tom Boger, Apple's senior director of Mac hardware product marketing, told TechCrunch. "In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there's also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it."

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Apple's Redesigned Mac Pro is Coming in 2019

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  • by jsepeta ( 412566 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @11:49AM (#56387657) Homepage

    My 2009 2x 6 core Xeon 3.4ghz system is faster than Apple's 2013 tubular 6 core Mac Pro that sells for $3000. Apple won't repair my Mac Pro's heat sensors but I'll be damned if I'll buy a new computer that costs a ton of money and runs slower. So I'm stuck with loud fans for the time being. It's frustrating as hell.

    • There's an easy solution for the fans. Connect the 12V fans to 5V.

      I've been using that trick for years since we have a bunch of Dell servers that after a BIOS update broke the software that based the fan speed on a reading from a temperature sensor. Also, I unplugged half of the fans since they run cool enough without them.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

        There's an easy solution for the fans. Connect the 12V fans to 5V.

        There's an even easier solution. Buy a quality product from a company who's motto is "It just works". Shame that no longer exists.

    • by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @12:07PM (#56387843) Homepage

      There are great apps for fan control on the Mac that bypass the normal sensor info. I would be a lot more helpful if I could remember any of them. It might be Fan Control, but I'm not sure: https://www.lifewire.com/macs-... [lifewire.com]

      • There are great apps for fan control on the Mac that bypass the normal sensor info.

        So buy a premium quality fancy machine just so you have to bypass and screw around with something that shouldn't be broken in the first place?

        • by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:24PM (#56389015) Homepage

          Considering they're just dealing with loud fans, it's a better situation already. The fact is, you can buy heat sensors on eBay for under $5 if it's really worth it to you.

          you have to bypass and screw around with something that shouldn't be broken in the first place?

          Because other brands of computer never have failing components out of warranty? Because this computer has heat sensors beyond what typical PCs have, so there's more to fail? I'm not a huge Mac fan, but that's a bit of a stretch of an argument.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I too am running an equivalent era factory water-cooled HP z800 with 2x X5687 quad 3.6ghz.
      I have a stack of dead power supplies I will eventually repair myself... the gods of planned obsolescence will have to wait.

    • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:17PM (#56388247) Homepage Journal

      I'm still using my 2008 Mac Pro as my main game system (dual boot Windows 7), with a 1070 Ti it still runs the games I play pretty nicely (MMOs mainly) and doesn't have nearly as much fan noise of my wife's Dell.

      I think the era where your computer was obsolete every 2 years is over.

  • Translation (Score:5, Informative)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @11:51AM (#56387675)

    We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It's not something for this year,

    Translation: We couldn't be bothered to get off our ass and work on this before now because we make all our money from iPhones these days.

    In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there's also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it.

    If Apple wants to be transparent it might help if they didn't say things that only have meaning if you work at Apple. "Larger fiscal reasoning" could mean almost anything.

    • Translation: We couldn't be bothered to get off our ass and work on this before now because we make all our money from iPhones these days.

      Not only that but they are still selling the 2013 model at full price despite the fact that it is 5 years old. Jobs' reality distortion field still seems to live on even though Jobs himself is no longer with us.

    • Translation: We couldn't be bothered to get off our ass and work on this before now because we make all our money from iPhones these days.

      The Mac Pro is just a computer to build iPhone apps with.

  • Fiscal Reasoning? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sl3xd ( 111641 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @12:09PM (#56387849) Journal

    Seriously... "Fiscal Reasoning?!?" That's like saying Bill Gates needs to save for a few days to buy himself a Big Mac.

    • by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @12:27PM (#56387969) Homepage Journal

      I doubt they could do much better than simply going back to the 2012 cheesegrater hardware, with a new motherboard that offers the same expansion capabilities but newer, faster/more CPU and RAM and so forth. Pluggable gfx cards, hard drives, absolutely no non-replaceable flash storage, optical drives, lots of standard USB I/O, ethernet, optical and analog audio, etc.

      I also highly doubt they'll do it. They'll almost certainly just screw up again. Look at the mini and so on; just one more screwup after another last few iterations. There's no sign of sanity over there at all. And the iMac "Pro" is outright ridiculous.

      That's okay, though. The cheesegraters will probably last for many years yet. I feel no burning need to give them money for yet another design fail.

      OTOH, I'd be happy to give them money if they actually improved the mac pro beyond the cheesegrater. Or went back to the cheesegrater. Or actually improved the mini beyond its peak (which is not the current mini.) Or put out a decent mid-tower.

      But again... breath-holding is not called for here. The evidence shows they're thoroughly lost in stupidland.

      • Fuck, they could just OEM the whole thing to Asus and rebrand it and still come away with a fuckton of profit.

        https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/X99PROUSB_31/
        Older Model, probably $300 new when it came out...

        Or this http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EP2C602

        $350 from Newegg. Convert one of the PCI x16 slots into a Thunderbolt port... Update to DDR4, maybe.

        XEONs pack a hell of a wallop in cores.

        Do that, at half the price you're charging for the Current ash-can.

        And give me an upgrad
        • by sl3xd ( 111641 )

          You realzie OEM’ing to Asus is the root cause of the whole “AMD Secure Processor” bug from a couple weeks back, right? (AMD OEM’d that “non-critical” part of the design to an Asus Subsidiary)

          I’d think twice about partnering with Asus.

          • No.

            But contract with someone with volume - get them to make you a mostly identical version of a wide-production motherboard that apple can put their special license ROMs on (or a special TPM the add in a seperate step).

            Pick any manufcaturer who has decent volume - Supermicro would probably be a good choice for the Mac Pro. ASrock, ASUS, both make great home user motherboards.

            Walk back away from the 2 year upgrade cycle - give people something they can get 10 years out of, because at this point YOU CAN. I
      • I agree 100% that Apple has completely lost their way W.R.T. computer hardware.

        When they:

        * put out a new computer that is slower the previous model (the Mac Mini fiasco)
        * make it impossible to upgrade RAM and SSD because they are soldered in (WTF!?), etc.

        you quickly realize Apple is all about streamlining their products at the expense of versatility.

        Seriously, who the fuck would buy an Mac Pro [apple.com] -- when the hardware is so over-priced and out-dated it isn't even funny -- so why even continue selling it?

        They ar

        • They are out of touch with what geeks want.

          Probably due to lack of desire/effort. A business can get by just fine without targeting a specific audience in order to have strategic focus on their core customers.

          This is like saying that Budweiser is out of touch with craft beer consumers, even though microbrew is clearly better than mass produced.

          • by H3lldr0p ( 40304 )

            The difference is that Budweiser knows they're being outmoded which is how and why they're part of the single largest brewer in the world [wikipedia.org]. Craft beer has eaten so much of their market, the most regulators didn't blink at the purchase since they've been losing market share for years. Budweiser reacted to the changes in their market in order to stay in business.

            Apple actively tries to keep the market from changing instead of adapting. The MacPro is evidence of that. Once the darling of the graphics and music

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • If they made a decent machine, and charged a premium say 10% of what I could get for a hard-core ASRock or ASUS and let me put in CPU and memory upgrades and gave me ports like NVDIMM and lots of PCI x16 slots (for workstation), and something straightforward on the desktop, like just replacable CPU and memory for the Mini, then they'd have a Windows killer everywhere.

        Not twice the price, 3 times the price, but 10-20% premium.

        I'd replace almost all my Linux boxes in a heartbeat. Bring back the MBP 17, or at
      • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

        Pretty much. High-end systems like the Pro should be thought of as tools and not fashion.
        A nice sized case with slots, sata, m2 and space for lots of drives.
        They could do a reference design and add an advanced heatsink and fans to keep the noise down.

  • If the remaining good older/affordable apple hardware dies, this is my prediction

    "Server"
    xserve -> mac pro -> mac mini -> linux pc

    Photo/Video content creators
    mac pro -> mac pro -> imac/pc

    "home users"
    imac -> imac -> mac book air -> ipad

    students
    macbook air -> ipad/chrome book

    programmers/mobile content creators
    mackbook pro -> macbook pro -> macbook air like macbook

    Iphone users
    iphone -> iphone -> iphone

    iPod touch users
    ipod -> iphone

    Apple used to have software manufactur

  • I predict a 12-core A12 based Mac Pro. Why else would it take so long to release?

  • The way they've been neglecting the Mac for years, you'd expect all their pro users to have jumped ship. But then again, the alternatives are all flawed.

    • Many may have begrudgingly gotten the iMac 5K as it comes with a 5K display and updated hardware.
    • by JackAxe ( 689361 )
      I jumped ship a couple of years ago, because the alternatives had all surpassed Apple's offerings for a price that I couldn't argue. To say the alternatives are all flawed comes off as very dishonest. I can argues Apple's offerings are flawed, which is why after decades of using Macs I had to go elsewhere.
    • The way they've been neglecting the Mac for years, you'd expect all their pro users to have jumped ship. But then again, the alternatives are all flawed.

      I suspect they have plenty of pro users. Just understand that by "Pro" these days, they mean people catching planes to give some Powerpoint show in a nice suit. That's why we still get laptops while desktops flounder.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The way color is supported by the OS and over apps.
      • Yes, I know Colorsync was a big deal back then, but Windows includes an equivalent solution now, right?

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          MS supports an app using color in a good way.
          Apple has the OS and other apps able to all use the same color details in much better way.
    • The way they've been neglecting the Mac for years, you'd expect all their pro users to have jumped ship.

      Not after the iMac Pro. That is a seriously good system and really takes the pressure off Apple to deliver a Mac Pro, which is why they are pushing back the schedule to make it better.

  • by Zorro ( 15797 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:16PM (#56388239)

    They will Solder the Mouse and Keyboard in directly.

    Too prevent counterfeit Mice and Keyboards, or something.

    This will be called 'Courage".

    • by hipp5 ( 1635263 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:49PM (#56388399)
      Funny enough, my coworker just got the iMac as her work computer. The most recent version of the mouse that comes with it has a rechargeable battery instead of using AAs. Okay cool... except Apple didn't want to blemish the sleek design of the mouse, so the charge port is ON THE BOTTOM. I.e. if your mouse battery dies, you can't use it at the same time you're charging it up.
      • Funny enough, my coworker just got the iMac as her work computer. The most recent version of the mouse that comes with it has a rechargeable battery instead of using AAs. Okay cool... except Apple didn't want to blemish the sleek design of the mouse, so the charge port is ON THE BOTTOM. I.e. if your mouse battery dies, you can't use it at the same time you're charging it up.

        Well,let's be serious. I'm much more of a Mac addict than most of you lot, and one of the first things I'll admit is that Apple hasn't had a usable mouse since before the puck style appeared in '98.

      • I don't think it was a matter of blemish, it was a matter of making sure the battery life isn't unnecessarily shortened by keeping the mouse plugged in all the time.

        THAT SAID

        I'm not a big fan of wireless keyboards and mice in general except in specific circumstances. The keyboard that's at my desk day in and day out doesn't need to be wireless. I'm not lounging on the couch with it. Same with my trackball. Apple doesn't want you to use the mouse like a wired mouse, so they came up with a weirdo design to en

        • by thogard ( 43403 )

          Wireless keyboards are major issue if you work in an industry where security compliance is a requirement. Wireless keyboards are a security fail for PCI-DSS and HIPAA.

      • I hate two things about the new version of the mouse. It wouldn't be so bad to have the port on the bottom except that you don't get the warning to charge the mouse until it's almost dead (as in it doesn't make it through the rest of the day for me). If the warning came with 25% charge left or something higher than what it currently does then I'd have more time to charge it. I'm terrible at checking how much charge is remaining. The older version with two AA batteries wasn't that bad because I used recharge

  • Why!? (Score:4, Informative)

    by 0101000001001010 ( 466440 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:40PM (#56388367)

    Apple, come on! Just give us a tower with good cooling and standard expansion slots. That's what the pros want. This shouldn't take long to design, even if you want to make it all shiny.

    If you can't handle designing a tower anymore, just give us a "blessed" motherboard that we can assemble our own computer out of. No support, etc. For pros only.

    • TB with it's need to route video over it is why the mac pro has been MIA and that 2013 has shit.

      Apple Dell / HP and others looked at the past and PUT IN A LOOP BACK CABLE like the old voodoo cards.

    • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I predict it will be shaped like a fireplug.

    • Apple, come on! Just give us a tower with good cooling and standard expansion slots

      Congrats, you can by one today. It's called the iMac Pro. It has amazing cooling and really quiet fans.

      For the nostalgic that still need "standard expansion slots", just get an external chassis for that connected via thunderbolt 3. You could wind up with way more slots than any PC if you so desired.

  • But smaller, with datacenter specs, so lots of 2.5" SAS drives, no optical, lots of GFX cards, with datacenter sizes (half height, half length, 2 slots).

    Put a couple Cavium (Marvell) ThunderX2 chips inside (instead of intel) so that you start the transition to ARM in earnest, and with a Bang.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    If is Good enough for a FUCKING CRAY XC50 SUPERCOMPUTES, shall be good enough for Mac "Pro" users.

    For the tiem being, leave the Apple designed ARM stuff for low end laptops.

  • Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac hardware product marketing, told TechCrunch. “In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there’s also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it...We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro..."

    Sounds to me like they want to force people waiting on the sidelines to consider the shitty iMac Pro or the eve
  • there's also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it.

    It will be an additional $500 more expensive and the case will be sealed shut to absolutely prevent anyone from even attempting to see if any part can be pried off the motherboard to be replaced.

    If something goes bad, oh well. You'll have to buy another one. That's the fiscal reasoning behind the delay.
    • there's also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it.

      It will be an additional $500 more expensive and the case will be sealed shut to absolutely prevent anyone from even attempting to see if any part can be pried off the motherboard to be replaced.

      If something goes bad, oh well. You'll have to buy another one. That's the fiscal reasoning behind the delay.

      Joking aside, this is exactly what Apple will do.

  • So the Mac Pro is going to go 6 years without a refresh?

    Yes, Apple very clearly cares about professional users.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Whatever the revamped Mac Pro will be you can guarantee that it will still be massively overpriced (more so than Apple's usual pricing) and won't go anywhere near having the upgradeability that one would usually expect from a "pro" machine.

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