“The tech media is assuming there will be no hardware announcements [at WWDC 2016 on June 13th],” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “The reason? Well, because the WWDC is rarely the venue for a new Mac, although it happens sometimes. The Late 2013 Mac Pro made its debut at a WWDC keynote, although it didn’t actually ship until the end of that year. Other Macs have been announced, but you shouldn’t expect a new iPhone, Apple TV or even an Apple Watch.”
“This year, Mac updates are, so far, limited to only one model, the MacBook. Some of the speculation is that major upgrades remain in the pipeline. But Apple would want to get into the back-to-school action, so pushing new Macs into the channel would have to occur in the next few weeks,” Steinberg writes. “With a WWDC imminent, it’s very possible there will be announcements about the next MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Just introducing them with a simple press release a week or two later wouldn’t hardly have as much impact.”
“The future of the Mac Pro is again uncertain, just three years after the small, lightweight cylindrical box was introduced,” Steinberg writes. “Some suggest the Mac Pro is doomed, that you are expected to do all your math and 3D rendering on a top-of-the-line 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display. But I don’t see why Apple would discontinue the Mac Pro. It wouldn’t cost all that much to swap out the guts with up-to-date hardware. It doesn’t even have to change physically other than expected connection port updates that include Thunderbolt 3. I suppose Apple could also add a couple of USB-C ports.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re hearing that there will be hardware, more than usual, at this year’s WWDC.
SEE ALSO:
Apple preps external 5K display for WWDC reveal, may feature dedicated GPU – June 2, 2016
Apple, how about a little love for pro Mac users? – June 1, 2016
I love the casualness of those describing Mac Pro improvements that are vital to pro’s – “I suppose Apple could also add a couple of USB-C ports.”
Uh yeah, and I “suppose” CUDA accelerated GPU cards, PCIe3 16X slots, Thunderbolt 3, etc., etc., etc.. would be nice. Did I mention improved expandability & upgradeability? Maybe a larger form factor for hard drives & SSD’s? One size simply does not fit all needs.
You betcha! 🙂
It ain’t rocket surgery is it JWW? Sheesh!
I love your consistent dedication posts to prod Apple into making the Mac line BETTER than anything out there.
Fingers crossed they are listening and acting on fulfilling a long neglected need … 👍
Hope springs eternal. Maybe someone is listening. Tim, Phil, Eddy, Jonny, I know you’re out there. I can hear you breathing. Pay attention to your customers and not dazingly staring at moonbeams and unicorns!
Amen! 🙉🙉🙉🙉📢📢📢📢
Diversifying the Mac Pro, as you suggest, is a very smart move for Apple. They resurrected the iPhone 5 enclosure without shame — I can imagine them just as readily bringing back the MP aluminum enclosure, whilst keeping the cylinder (but more upgradeable, please Apple)
I guess the point being the pro market is multifaceted and one size does not fit all. God only knows the unexpected places Apple could go with more diverse pro market offerings.
Thanks for the optimistic view One Note Doofus Joe mere days before we might actually know. I’ll bet you’re a real scream at your annual Doom ‘N Gloom We-Hate-Tim Party.
So…. You can build a hackintosh that’s equivalent performance wise with the base Mac Pro that’s ¼ of the cost? Really? Do tell… Keep in mind ¼ means $749 or less…. If there was a $749 computer that performed like a $3k workstation it would fly off the shelves and hp, fell, lenovo, and Apple would be out of business….
Please show us your ¼ equivalent build.
Actually I’ll add on to that. If you can do that? I’ll buy the computer you build. I will give you $749, and my company will purchase 22 of them to replace our Mac Pro’s that we’ve spent years upgrading.
You stand to bring in at least $16,000.00, so go ahead and show us that build and we will buy it from you.
Keep this in mind, we need a good math processor, good floating point, and it will have to be equivalent to our current set up:
2 quad core 3.7 ghz MacPro systems with 32 GB of ram, and 512GB pci-e storage.
18 8 core 3.0 ghz MacPro systems with 64 GB of ram and 1 TB of pci-e storage
2 12 – core 2.7 ghz MacPro systems with 128 GB of ram and 4 TB of pic-e storage with dual D700 cards with 12GB of graphic card memory.
Build systems that are ¼ of what we spent on those and we will buy them from you. We will also give you the support contract.
You guys sure had a lot of money waste.. bet the office looks super slick though.
You really are one sick little shit, One Note Joe. What a pathetic life you must have… that coming here and spouting this incessant vacuous negativity is how you get off.
Don’t you get tired of your own repetition Joe?
Apple might as well give on on education. They did away with Xserve and loosing to Chromebooks. Unless they make some serious changes they lost that battle.
Sad but true. My schools, which all used Macs, have dumped them all for Chrome.
Apple used to be such a strong advocate for education. That’s just one of many core values that have not survived under Tim Cook’s “leadership”.
A lower level short term thinking school.
Apple was never going to compete with a $200 Chromebook. Not even under Steve Jobs.
The article noted “MacPro”, but people I know are all talking about MacBook Pro!
There had better be! Every single thing except the 12″ MacBook is WAY overdue for an upgrade, and I’ve needed an upgrade ALL YEAR, and am WAITING to see IF Apple releases anything new at WWDC, and if not, then it’s PC this time around for the first time in a decade.