“One well-connected insider has given Mac users hope that Apple will release a new Mac Pro with a comment that there is no chance Apple will discontinue the line,” Josh Ong reports for AppleInsider.
“Jim Dalrymple of The Loop made the remarks on Wednesday during his ‘Amplified’ podcast with Dan Benjamin, as noted by Marco Arment. Dalrymple has a proven track record with Apple predictions,” Ong reports. “When asked by Benjamin if there is ‘any chance’ that Apple will get rid of the Mac Pro, Dalrymple simply replied, ‘No.'”
Ong reports, “Arment compared the exchange to a blog post by Dalrymple from February that succinctly confirmed a rumor of a March 7 iPad launch with the word ‘Yep.’ That report turned out to be accurate, as Apple did in fact hold its 2012 iPad launch on March 7.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: When Dalrymple speaks, we listen (lest we miss his one-word answers).
Related articles:
‘We Want a New Mac Pro’ petition nears 13,000 users – May 29, 2012
Don’t buy a new Mac without an SSD or you’ll regret it – April 9, 2012
If Apple wants them, new Mac Pro models now possible with Intel’s new Xeon E5 chips next week – March 1, 2012
Apple may integrate NVIDIA’s Kepler video in next-gen Mac Pro – February 14, 2012
Agreed.
You betcha!
I just couldn’t believe would go to the trouble of creating Final Cut Pro X with all its 64-bit goodness and then turn around and not provide Mac Pros upon which to run it.
And, yes, when Dalrymple talks, I listen.
It runs with 64bit goodness just fine on iMacs and Mac Book Pros. All I hear is old timers complaining about FC PRO X anyway. The new kids are editing on the go, and seem to be the new professional Apple is targeting.
Yes, FCP X does indeed run in 64bit goodness on Macs other than the MP. My point was there are still folks who prefer MPs because of the ease of adding storage and memory, plus the overall robustness of the MP.
Agreed. Actually though, FCP X is probably meant more for those doing event type edits on iMacs and MBPs.
What would be a real win-win would be a new Mac Pro, and development/continuation of a 64 bit, FCP 8.
FCP 8 would be for those needing more in depth, video manipulation and effects… and the rest can have their light “editing” with cheesy text effects… with the ability to upload to YouTube and CNN iReport. (does anyone really upload footage to CNN… let alone watch it anymore?)
I was just talking to a “new kid” working at an electronics store, who excited when he found out I do video production. He is taking editing classes. When the subject of FCP X came up, he just shook his head. Seems dissatisfaction cuts across all age groups.
There’s a place for both. Perhaps with an “FCP 8” some will return from their desertion to Avid… and Adobe… and Autodesk… and….
There’s no need to discontinue the macpro. Although MBs and MBPs outsell them 30 to 1 I’m sure apple make a profit and the segment will be something Apple does not want to leave to PC makers.
The question should have been how long till the next update? And how much effort will Apple spend on the new machine? Some R&D time will be require if they want to upgrade the motherboard to include thunderbolt as well as the new chipset.
They’ve had, of course, two years to work on the motherboard to add Thunderbolt and prepare for the latest Intel chipset. Hopefully they were just waiting for the release of Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge server chips to begin final integration tests.
At the moment, Ivy Bridge only has server CPUs up to 4 cores though, unlike Apple’s current build options for dual Westmere Xeons with 6 cores each.
Sweet.
Good. The Mac Pro is a valuable part of the Mac user market.
And hopefully this is a good sign that they aren’t going to follow the rumors of eliminating the HDD option on the MBP at the expense of internal storage space, because they respect the prosumer market. 🙂
OK, guys, you can stop the petition now.
Nah, let them keep it up to drive the point home. Just for good measure. 😉
I looked online for instructions on how to replace the HD on a Core Duo iMac (White 20″) I gave a nephew and remembered anew one of the reasons I own a Mac Pro. OMFG.
Apple gets a lot of praise for it’s industrial design, but the inside of an iMac- any of them- is an absolute mess.
Really not as bad as it looks. Do it all the time. Nowhere near as child capable as Mac Pro though.
yeah, opening the iMac is not for the faint of heart. Oh wait. Did I say “open”? I meant “dismantle”.
I replaced the HD on my 24″ 2.4 Ghz core 2 Duo iMac last year. I know its no Mac Pro as far as the insides are concerned but it really wasn’t that bad; and I don’t consider myself mechanically inclined.
I can replace the HD (Hot swap with no shutdown with a PH00 (4 screws for the sled) in less than 2 minutes without trying hard. If you have a drive to hot swap already mounted in a sled you are talking under 30 seconds.
Opening the iMac is a nightmare.
I’ll breathe easier when Tim Cook confirms it. Good news all the same.
As I stated earlier, whatever the financial calculations, it would be a heroic gesture for Apple to satisfy this (likely oldest) user base. A win/win situation for Apple at no fiscal damage to them that would rise above business motives and have reverberations throughout their brand of A++++.
No fiscal damage to them? The “oldest user base” is pretty much gone. Designing and producing a machine that will sell in the thousands is highly unprofitable.
Not to mention that every time they release a Mac Pro, all you hear from this oldest base is whining about cost, how it’s not fast enough, how they have no video card choices, how it’s only x% faster than this Mac or that Mac…
I don’t know if heroic is the word I’d use.
Remarkably ignorant in your comments. I work in a building, that despite the protestations of the IT staff, there are hundreds of Mac Pros running. No, an iMac will not do. No, modern editors still need big iron. No, the Mac Pro is not unprofitable. No, the Mac Pro is not overpriced and underpowered. You cannot create significant media content in a timely fashion with a laptop or an iMac.
It’s just a rumour – let’s wait and see shall we.
…HOPE
I really want this to be true.
Fingers crossed that Tim Cook announces it at WWDC2012
Well, hate to burst your bubble there, but he only said they weren’t going to kill it off. There was nothing about a refresh.
…REFRESH
I reckon we’ll get the Sandy Bridge Xeon refresh as a minimum.
But I do wonder about some nice 4K capable monitors for movie editing.
Why didn’t someone ask Tim Cook if the Mac Pro would be discontinued? He should have certainly been able to answer yes or no without revealing any advance plans. I wish all the Mac Pro users the best of luck in seeing a new Mac Pro although I’m sure the price will be rather steep.
As most professional tools are.
The price of the Mac Pro is already steep – it’s the most expensive computer option that Apple offers. I suspect a refresh wouldn’t become _more_ expensive, because that’s not how Apple rolls, but it will still be the priciest Apple product out there.
For those current MacPro users, is the current configuration not good enough for your needs? I understand that new processors and graphic cards are now available and connectivity like Thunderbolt would be good.
The question is are the lack of those improvements preventing you from upgrading to the current machine? Also how old are you current MacPro and what is your typically life cycle for Macs?
In a word. Yes.
Yes, the latest version of MacPro is fine for what we’re doing.
Yes, I need a new one, and am happy to pay for one.
But
Yes I’m waiting ’til the new ones are announced. It’s been over 2 years since a refresh of this line. If the iMac hadn’t been refreshed in 2 years, where do you think sales would be?
You should be able to make an iMac as good as any supercomputer by using Thunderbolt to daisy chain many Mac Minis to it. This kind of ad-hoc distributed computing has many advantages, such as a relatively low price starting point, and unlimited potential for expansion. You should also have the option to upgrade a GPU on any computer with Thunderbolt just by plugging in an external GPU. I’m sure there are many people would love to buy and plug in the newest GPU as soon as it’s released, easily resell a used external GPU or move it to another computer, and the option to leave a power-hungry GPU at home when all you need is a light computer with long battery life.
I think Thunderbolt has the potential to make the Mac Pro and PCI expansion slots obsolete. But Apple should definitely wait – Thunderbolt has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential.
Why bother making an iMac at all, then, or a Mac mini? Just have a barebones CPU/RAM box, and Thunderbolt-chain together a GPU box, external storage, and monitor.
Well, the target audience wouldn’t go for that.
Just as a pro audience wouldn’t like an iMac with too many external boxes and cables cluttering up their desk or floor. iMacs and minis also don’t come with server-grade CPUs or RAM, and many tasks aren’t suitable for distributed processing. Bottlenecking, latency, and overhead are a couple of issues. Might not be an issue for large companies with dedicated IT departments to set things up and maintain, but for small pro shops this has none of the “it just works” that buying Apple should bring.
The appeal over barebones parts is that an iMac and a Mac Mini are each self-contained functioning computer in their own right. Connecting them is optional, and only makes sense for computationally intensive jobs.
iMacs, especially with 16 gigs of RAM, SSD drive, and Quad-Core i7s are beasts in their own right. There are only a few tasks I can imagine a single iMac wouldn’t be “good enough” for – 3d rendering, video filtering, genetic simulations, forced decryption. And all these tasks are fit for distributed computing.
I’m not sure where the bottleneck would be, given Thunderbolt’s 10-100 Gbps throughput going more or less straight into the motherboard. It seems like the bottlenecks would be inside the each computer – a places where Apple engineers would responsible for minimizing bottlenecks, not the end user. It really should be as simple as plugging it just working.
…TIDYINESS
Why would I want to have a bunch of boxes on my desk, such as a serious GPU, on my desk instead of all inside one box.
Also, if you’re running an all in one computer such as iMac, what’s the point of plugging an external GPU into it? What would that plug into?
How’s a Mac Pro tidy? A stack of a dozen Mac Minis would probably still take up less space than a single Mac Pro. Not that you even need a dozen, unless you are coding genomes or something heavy like that. And why would it have to be right on your desk? Find a small space to stash them and have a single cable go from there to your desk, and you’ld have yourself a tidy workspace.
An external GPU would just increase the graphics capabilities of any computer with Thunderbolt, without opening the case or using a PCI slot. The target audience would be anyone not satisfied with the GPU included with a computer, such as gamers, video editors, and 3d animators.
A whopping 13000 people have gone to that FaceBook Page, that’s about what, $50,000 worth of machines? It will be interesting to see what Apple does for these people.
13,000 x $2500 (the entry level MacPro cost) = $32,500,000.
Nice math skills, glad you’re not the one doing the bean-counting at Apple.
Maybe not all of these 13,000 people will actually buy one. But to get your $50,000 worth of machines, you’re saying only 20 people would buy one. Even if you meant $500,000, you’re still claiming only 200 people would buy one. All of them entry-level. And all of them just one each.
All I can say is…. DOH!
(Coffee first, don’t do math on the toilet.)
Apple would be shooting itself in the foot if they got rid of the pro, 90% of movies are made on Mac pros. Apple would killing it’s own market that they own
repeatedly we hear on this and other forums that the Mac Pro is “overpriced”. Baloney. Price an equivalent Dell and the cost difference will be in the small triple digits, which is completely reasonable for Apple’s superior operating system and significantly superior aluminum case.
If the Mac Pro is too expensive to you, then you’re too cheap!
It may not be overpriced compared to similarly powered computers in the Windows/Linux markets, but it is still the most expensive Apple product. Even the least expensive Mac Pro is more expensive than the most expensive iMac. Now, obviously there are people who are willing to pay that premium for the power that they’re getting from the Mac Pro. So the existence of the Mac Pro is indeed justified for the market which it serves, which is clearly not the same market served by the iMac or the Mac Mini.
Jim “The Beard” is now my favorite tech writer. It used to be Pogue, but I fear he’s become a bit opportunistic and bends too far backwards in his insecurity about being labelled an “Apple fanboy.”