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1. Marook

   Forum Regular

   Joined: May 1999

   +26
   10/31, 04:11pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Damn...

   They REALLY try hard to f*** the pro market that kept them alive while they were down...
   Thanks a lot Apple!
   I guess this puts the final nail in the FCP box then... now to be known as Final Consumer X...

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1. WiseWeasel

   Junior Member

   Joined: Apr 1999

   +6
   10/31, 04:14pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Meh

   As far as I'm concerned, they've priced themselves out of the market for expandable desktops. When Mac Pro prices start around $2k, while I can build myself a Windows or Hackintosh desktop that does all I need for gaming and media creation for less than half that, no amount of user experience nirvana will get me to shell out for the former. I'm still hosting all my LAN's media and a small personal website on a 10-year-old PowerMac G5 that's still chugging along just fine, while I do my real media work and gaming on a cheap PC rig I built. When my G5 tower finally bites the dust, it surely will NOT be replaced by a Mac Pro. It's a darned shame Apple won't offer an expandable desktop priced for mere mortals.

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1. OldMacGeek

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2010

   +13
   10/31, 04:15pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Well, duh!

   Gee, the sales of Mac Pros are down? Maybe - just maybe - it's because Apple hasn't updated the thing substantially since the days of the G5? I'm on the bleeding edge, and need the fastest machine I can get. I would love Thunderbolt and all the latest technological goodies on a Mac Pro so I can update my 8-core to the latest one. I can't really see myself using an iMac to run my Final Cut Studio setup (No. I haven't upgraded to X and doubt I will).

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1. SierraDragon

   Mac Elite

   Joined: Mar 2004

   +21
   10/31, 04:24pm | report spam | close reply

   Wait and see.

   Just because some web page prints something do not per se believe it is true. And note that having strong towers in the line does have a halo effect on other Apple products.
   
   That said, I am a high end graphics user who did switch to the top Thunderbolt laptop. With such strong laptops the market for towers is shrinking a lot.

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1. panjandrum

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Dec 2004

   +5
   10/31, 04:50pm | report spam | close reply

   don't doubt it

   I wish I could doubt this, but I don't. Look at the Xserve... Well, at least now the Mac OS can be virtualized easily. I had already considered building a Windows PC next time around, because support for the MacPro from Apple has been so poor (graphics cards, for example), and running Mac OS virtualized for all my production work but use Windows as the base OS for excellent hardware flexibility. This is just another one of those decisions that screams "Apple only cares about the money", regardless of what their supposed "great product" mission is... It's just sad that the more popular Apple becomes the further they slip towards that lowest common denominator.

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1. MyRightEye

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Apr 2008

   +10
   10/31, 04:54pm | report spam | close reply

   Total and utter nonsense

   It is being reinvented, not canned.

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1. facebook_Eric

   Via Facebook

   Joined: Oct 2011

   -6
   10/31, 05:14pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   comment title

   After pulling the 30" screen I knew this would follow. If you can't stick it your pocket of if AAPL can't sell a designer sleeve ($39.99) for it they're not interested. They're the new Polaroid, selling devices to enable you to pay for downloads now.

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1. facebook_Charlie

   Via Facebook

   Joined: Oct 2011

   -4
   10/31, 05:34pm | report spam | close reply

   Oh Oh

   Here come the bean counters

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1. chefpastry

   Mac Enthusiast

   Joined: Nov 2005

   +7
   10/31, 05:46pm | report spam | close reply

   Nothing but a rumor

   Everyone seems to think it's a fact and it's going to happen. Save the doom and gloom comment for if/when it does.

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1. bdmarsh

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2006

   +7
   10/31, 05:57pm | report spam | close reply

   maybe non-Xeon model

   with improvements in number of cores and such in the consumer market, maybe there will be a Non-Xeon Mac Pro(-ish?) tower ... which should also drop the price of it.
   The Xeons are the most expensive component in the Mac Pro towers currently, and any comparable workstation class system from Dell/HP/whoever with the same parts are the same price or more (especially in the dual processor configs Apple tends to be cheaper)
   
   I've been a big fan of the Mac Pro's and make use of 4+ cores on 2 processors, but a single processor that can do at least 4 cores plus hyperthreading (6 available & 8 cores coming) does meet my CPU needs, but I also upgrade most other components frequently, so a tower is still needed.

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1. Tjp

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2010

   +1
   10/31, 06:24pm | report spam | close reply

   There (should be) another ...

   One issue is the Mac Pro lags in processor technology. Another issue is that given Thunderbolt you can buy a PCIe expansion chassis for your iMAc or Mac Mini. So what I'd like to see is a raw compute node that supports 5 2.5 inch SATA drives. And dual processors. Sort of a mac mini on steroids. But desktop chipsets for performance. 2 quad core or hex core i7-ish processors and basic 1000BT network, 2 firewire 800, 2 (or 4 maybe) thunderbolt ports and 2 USB ports (or 4 USB ports depending on the chipset) a hardware esata raid daughterboard for 4 of the 5 2.5 inch drive slots, and the basic esata drive with a BTO of solid state across the board. And an SDXC slot. Put it in a package with the current mac mini foot print but 3.25 inches tall. Market a companion PCIe expansion chassis for aftermarket boards... support 8 memory slots ... No more Mac Pro needed, and you have a nice Enterprise power house that would still be under 100 watts likely under 75 watts. And they would fit 2 side by side on a 2U rack shelf with room for airflow. Our ISP is based on Mac Mini systems primarily, as are a few more that came later to the conclusion that the Mac Mini form factor is awesome for collocated facilities... This would expand our market, and would keep the artist side Apple users happy. And would be "greener" than the Mac Pro for that crowd. And keep me personally happy with something twice as powerful or more than the current best Mac Pro. The old style tower has less need to exist and the form factor was driven by archaic technology. 3.5 inch drives are being bested in storage density and soon performance by 2.5 inch drives and power requirements are less so power supplies are smaller, and optical drives are being obsoleted by use of flash drives. So the form factor constraints can come off. Mac Midi needs to be born ...

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1. donmontalvo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Oct 2009

   -6
   10/31, 07:50pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Stop yapping and just kill it!

   I'm so TIRED of Apple posing as an enterprise company. Kill the friggin Mac Pro already. The iMac is twice the computer the Mac Pro was just a couple years ago. Just give us a way to migrate NetBoot and Apple SUS over to an alternative SUPPORTED platform (like Windows Server).
   
   Apple Enterprise...die already!!!
   
   Don Montalvo, TX

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1. Chriz555

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2007

   0
   10/31, 11:56pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   comment title

   MacPro sales are going downhill? Seriously?
   
   Well, maybe that could change it Apple would finally come up with an updated version. Oh, and what if they could stop making sh*** like FCP X, and support all their other high-end softwares like Aperture and others instead of selling lazy-made software versions of what once where great products?
   
   If the MacPro dies, then I'm out of this market. Why should I keep developing customer on a platform with no future in sight? Nobody needs a MacPro? Riiiiiigggggghhhhhtt.... I'll pile up all my hard drives, my graphic cards, my extension cards, and so on on my desk with a non-upgradable, non-self-fixable MacMini. A lot of cables crossing my desk. An iMac? Yeah, right. The display breaks down and so long the whole computer. Try changing a Hard Drive into an iMac.
   
   Does Toyota/Ford/GM... canceled the pickup truck, saying that we should be fine with a car and a couple of trailers hooked onto it? Same goes for the MacPro.
   
   iPhones/iPads/i..... are not a replacement for the computer. iCloud is not a replacement for a Hard Drive. They are only additional tools!!

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1. facebook_Geir

   Via Facebook

   Joined: Nov 2011

   0
   11/01, 03:55am | report spam | close reply

   The only thing that they ought to drop the mac pro

   is a mac pro -alike model with the same (or better) expandibility but with i7 instead of xeon. Cheaper components, lower price - higher sale. I work with three large screens attached and my mac pro has four disks installed plus four external disks for 1:1 backup (probably not the best solution, but). As much as you can do with thunderbolt, it isn't so widespread and frankly I don't like the idea of tying a computer with the monitor and espesially not being able to replace the main harddrive myself if it screws up in the middle of a working day. in the mac pro I could replace the disk with a spare and have os x running with only a couple of hours of lost time. on an imac I would be looking at a day or two. I know, one coworkers imac lost its main disk the other day.

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1. e0feldgg

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 1999

   0
   11/01, 09:19am | report spam | close reply

   Licensing the platform?

   Since there is clearly some kind of (niche) market for Mac Pro towers (like myself, where I am running dual kona cards, esata, and an upgraded graphics card for professional 3rd party software that is currently only available on the Mac and requires an 8 core CPU as a minimum) maybe Apple could license it out to another company, in a much more restricted set of rules than simply allowing clones.
   
   Perhaps even an apple approved hardware configuration that would be allowed to install OS X.
   
   I'm thinking that Xeon processors- not i7 (or whatever next generation enterprise cpu) would be the minimum to keep the price point a bit outside of the consumer realm to protect Apple's other interests.
   

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1. robban

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2006

   0
   11/01, 09:26am | report spam | close reply

   comment title

   They just have difficulties nailing thunderbolt so the Mac Pro will be compatible with their displays. I guess we'll see MP's with onboard gfx to solve the bus problem and perhaps it'll ship in two flavours of gpu chips - one to fill the gap down to the iMac and the server industry and the other to please the professionals. Also, that would solve another problem since they can cut the cabinet by 1.5" or whatever the gfx slot took and so be able to squeeze it into a 19" rack. Replaceble handles to rack ears? Handles that doesn't cut our hands this time, please!

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1. myramoki

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2004

   0
   11/01, 11:24am | report spam | close reply

   Outsource it!

   I've been living on a MacPro of one form or another for years, but for at least the last 3 years I'd say the idea of buying another MacPro has very little appeal to me. Its not because I don't want the latest GPU card, I do. Its not because I don't want lots of expansion, I do, my machine is loaded with drives. Its not because I don't want tons of memory, I very much do.
   
   But Apple is targetting this machine at very high-end people with cash to spare. I don't need Xeon processors. A non-Xeon i7 would do just fine. I don't need 2 CPUs, just give me the best single CPU you can get. I don't need lots of drive bays, eSATA & Thunderbolt would serve me just fine for expansion. I do want a great GPU so it needs a real slot. I don't need a case that could break my foot if I dropped it on it. And I don't need to spend $2500 to have the most basic unit.
   
   I can get a compact Shuttle computer specced out better than the base model MacPro for about the same price. And it won't be a massive block of aluminum.
   
   Apple doesn't care about this area of the market, and I would say, fine, let them not care. Selling few of an expensive thing that doesn't yield much profit, that's not good business. But license the building of specific machine types to someone else. Let them pick up the slack in areas of the market that Apple doesn't want to concentrate on (workstations, rack servers, etc). Give people that want some crazy speced out machine the option to buy it. Make sure the vendors will provide all the support that is needed to insure it works proper with OS X.
   
   Letting someone else sell workstations or rack servers won't cut into Apple's business, but would help expand it. Its time for Clones pt 2.

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1. facebook_Randy

   Via Facebook

   Joined: Nov 2011

   0
   11/02, 01:24pm | report spam | close reply

   Nah

   Makes no since. They want to control content and if the content is all made on other computers then it leaves them vulnerable. And you can't build your own dual proc PC for much less then with the same features. an HP workstation with the same specs is nearly $1000 more then the Mac. They just added Gran central and openCL to Lion. Both things that are really suited to workstations. Sales are off because of no updates and bad economy in the ad world. I work in a Linux Mac world and I would smash my fingers to switch to windows. as for final cut. well final cut 1 sucked horrible it lacked so many features and didn't work very well. FCP X will mature.

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1. ScottG

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2005

   0
   11/02, 05:07pm | report spam | close reply

   I Really Hope they DON'T

   I just spent over $14,800.00 on a new Mac Pro with Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with a Total of 12 cores. Added 64GB RAM from OWC, a 512GB SSD boot drive, and 3 internal WD 600GB 10,000K Drives. I do a ton of video and high end photography work. If they were to kill this line off, there would be a lot of angry production people out there.
   
   -> ARTICLE CORRECTION: There is a Server available other then that stupid Mac Mini. The Mac Pro line has it listing for a SERVER with a base of One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon and Mac OS X Server unlimited-client license