“As if the 80 or so minutes he spent showing off the iPhone weren’t enough, Steve Jobs concluded his 2007 Macworld Expo keynote in San Francisco with one final bombshell unveiling,” Michael Simon writes for Macworld. “It wasn’t a piece of hardware or an OS update, but it was just as significant: As he was summing up Apple’s increasingly diverse product line, Jobs announced a change that signaled a new direction for the company, one perhaps even more telling than the revolutionary mobile phone unveiled moments earlier.”
“‘The Mac, iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer. So we’re changing the name,’ said Jobs,” Simon writes. “Apple Computer became Apple Inc. And thus began the post-PC revolution, a conscious cultural shift that demoted the Mac to a device and gradually pushed it into the background. Over the years since, Apple’s innovations have been largely relegated to the mobile space, only appearing on the Mac after they’ve emerged as established, dependent technologies.”
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, Steve was being duplicitous; hiding perceived complexity for marketing purposes. All four are plainly computers, as he well knew. And as Apple obviously still knows full well today.
Simon writes, “No one knows for sure what Apple’s long-term plans are for the Mac, but it’s pretty clear that there isn’t a whole lot of attention being devoted to its longest running product.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There will be new Macs, including MacBook Pro models, for the foreseeable future. Desktop “Mac Pro?” The jury is still out, but Apple’s silence so far is deafening.
SEE ALSO:
Apple debuts new iPad Pro TV ad: ‘What’s a Computer?’ – August 1, 2016
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 9, 2007
Not a chance.
I would say it’s dead except new code for a new Mac Pro seems to have been uncovered recently in El Capitan..
El Capitan code hint
This code uncovered in OS X El Capitan offers an evident clue that the 2016 edition Mac Pro may be coming out for retail soon. Seen on the reference found within El Capitan code, the codenamed “AAPLJ95,1” which is a very familiar signal for those who has been keeping up with the Apple flagship releases for this year, Pike’s Universum said.
Here is the catch, the current Mac Pro bears the similar codename AAPLJ90,1. Therefore, the similarity claims and rumors have a plausible theory that the code may be referring Apple’s new version of the professional-level workstation which is kept for fans.
But the clue droppings do not end there, there is yet another clue whereas saying that this rumored Mac Pro is really a fact. And we can assume that the code hints that there will be 10 USB 3.0 ports on the new flagship since only Mac Pros have in any ways have many ports.
“The jury is still out, but Apple’s silence so far is deafening…”
Just like it ever was before the ‘leaks’ that greatly diminished the essential element of surprise. Welcome the silence.
Really nice isn’t it.
You’re right. Apple never says anything. It’s the vast peanut gallery that usually uncovers all the clues. And it would seem that if there were a new Mac Pro we’d have heard some thing by now, some hints, in the same way you’ve got a pretty good idea what the next iPhone will be like and what the next MacBook Pro will be like. All there has been is an inference from a plist in El Capitan.
Still one can hope.
One more slim filament of hope: Mac Pros are made by robots in the U.S. — two points that bolster secrecy and reduce the potential for spying and prototype leaks.
Good point.
Its good to see US companies bringing robot jobs back from China to the US.
The flood of human US jobs going to China will soon be viewed as a only a one-time temporary effect of China’s economic rise.
That transition is already ending due to the growing flood of human jobs being taken over by machines in China, the US, and everywhere else.
As I have posted in the past, the transition to robotic manufacturing will hit China and other low-cost labor nations particularly hard. Where will those people go and what will they do? Many of them came from difficult rural backgrounds in China and have no wish to return. What do you do with the flood of workers displaced by robots?? The result will be massive civil unrest in China and other nations.
That would be stupid. The Mac Pro needs to go back to a hardware expandable platform. The power-user’s/nerd’s computer. Sales will pickup again.
Or at least offer up two models that appease different aspects of the pro market. But I bet Ives 2013 redesigned Mac Pro model, if given a choice over a proper tower expandable one, would become an orphan.
Yeah, the current “pro” offering is a joke. Not just because it’s 3 years old, but because of the form factor and lack of expandability for things like video cards, etc. Apple either completely doesn’t understand the Pro market or it just doesn’t care.
Yes the current “Mac Pro” should be rebranded as “Mac”. It is a nice machine for what it does.
Then a new expandable/highly upgradable Mac Pro should be released. It sucks that a large part of my job must be done on Windows because Apple doesn’t sell a machine capable enough any more.
20+ 5 star votes
are you listening Apple?
—
and give me my MID TOWER between the Mini and the PRO:
– One workstation class multicore processor
– upgradable GPU, RAM , HD
– (maybe) one spare slot
– Thunderbolt 3 or equivalent.
build towers, cost practically nothing in R&D as Hackintosh guys can build faster macs than the cylinder.
lots of us want to spend $$$ on the right mac.
(I have 2 upgraded Mac Pros, a 12.9 iPad Pro, Macbook Pro etc. C’mon apple build them and see mac sales go up! see apple stock rise ! ).
Apple has become a consumer company. Not a computer company anymore. Just look at the numbers. They don’t lie.
I’m doing all the work I used to do with my Mac Pro on an iMac.
The latest iMac is an awesome machine and I cut 4k video like it’s DV footage. I decided there was no need to replace my 2010 Mac Pro with another Mac Pro because the iMac does everything I need for a fraction of the price and with a stunning display to boot. I suspect more and more content producers like myself are making the same decision and the market for the Mac Pro is diminishing rapidly.
It’s just not the same thing. Too many compromises in too many areas for much pro work. Not enough ports. And you don’t have that extra “oomph” for when you need it.
I am not a pro-user but am curious if you have examples of why and when you need the oomph. Is it to save a few seconds or is it more significant than that and what kind of things are you doing?
Switched says he does 4K just fine.
I run software simulations that sometimes use all cores for days straight. And, believe it or not, I’m only processing audio.
4K comes in many flavors. I daresay 4K RED RAW would drive a iMac 5K to a stop. Plus 3D animation needs all the speed and GPU acceleration it can get. iMac is not upgradeable. For many tasks it’s great but just not the truly top high end uses.
It also does not fully support Adobe Suite stuff like Premiere Pro not having an Nvidia solution and CUDA processing. Mac model selection is based on need. The iMac 5K could cut 4K UHD video fine but that doesn’t make it a top performer or the be all and end all by a long shot. Mac Pro’s are still needed and will always be needed for truly high end media production where there is a never ending quest for speed. And where 8K looms around the corner.
Sierra supports e-GPU through Thunderbolt, so yes, the iMac is upgradable as much as a Mac Pro.
Does this also give life to Display rumors?
Don’t think so. TB2 is not in the same class as a PCIe 3.0 slot as far as bandwidth, only a fraction. Even Thunderbolt 3, though certainly a lot closer. Thunderbolt is the actual bottleneck. Though for most people’s purposes is fine. It’s just those tasks that require everything out of a Mac Pro that would need the extra bandwidth.
TBH the 5k iMac is so good the real world difference between the iMac and MP 2013 is only a couple of fps in realtime playback performance.
The Mac Pro 2013 can stretch its legs in highly threaded CPU intensive tasks but you’ll need an 8 core mac Pro to really see a huge difference as the 4 core i7 iMac competes very well with a 6 core Mac Pro in most real world tasks often beating it as many applications are still unable to make use of highly parallel code.
The iMac renders my video work plenty quick enough and I’ve never once wished I bought the MP 2013 instead or waited for an updated one. The iMac was fully loaded and was less than half the price of the Mac Pro I was going to order.
A lot depends on your specific use case.
For example, merely having a big digital photo library will make the image database management software (iPhoto / Photos / etc) crawl based on disk I/O performance …
… and while it is easy to say “Fusion Drive!”, the reality is that their SSD buffer is woefully too small to handle such bandwidth.
That means nothing less than an SSD, and the Apple Tax on those for an iMac is pretty rude (+$700 for 1TB). For larger than 1TB sized collections, you’re SOL because Apple doesn’t offer any larger BTO’s, so now you’re looking at aftermarket & trying to crack open the iMac’s case, or going to an ungainly external and paying extra for the “Thunderbolt Tax”. Both are extra headaches and degraded product value.
In contrast, the old classic Mac Pro could accommodate a pair of internal drives on a RAID0 and get respectable performance, which represented a good value. Sure, its bandwidth was only ~230MB/sec, but back in 2010 for only $200 it’s still a better value than a Fusion Drive today – – which illustrates how Apple’s current Mac solutions are moving BACKWARDS in terms of ‘Bang for the Buck’ for these sorts of creator customer use cases.
The same holds true too for the trash can: unless you’re using software that its GPUs like *and* you have a wicked fast (FibreChannel 8 or better) file server for your data, it is a poor value product for the customer’s use case requirements.
The net result is that Apple has “Innovated” their power user customer base to go use a competitor’s products to get their jobs done:
http://store.despair.com/customer-care.html
I must admit I did wonder if I would miss the extra ‘oomph’ but in 6 months of flat out work I’ve never found the iMac lacking in any regard. If I had bought the Mac Pro 2013 I would be paying for a lot of ‘oomph’ to be sat on the desk doing nothing.
I can appreciate that for your uses. As always your uses or mine are not everyone’s though. There are also things missing like much faster than Thunderbolt 2 PCIe3 16X slots for multiple video cards and other PCIe cards. Glad you saved some money and were still able to satisfy your needs though.
If the iMac is the new path for all heavy professional work then we need a stronger CPU and GPU options on the iMac (An iMac Pro). A more powerful machine, probably heavier, expandable or with an optional expansion box via TB 3.0 and easy to open and service.
All this is for a mid size workstation iMac. If you research a bit you will find top workstations from HP, Dell or Boxx have dual socket CPUs and at least dual graphic processors capabilities. So at least we need a top single CPU and GPU iMac.
iMac will heat much too much for a long heavy rendering, for instance. Few jobs just won’t be done if not enough air gets driven through enough CPUs an big Graphic cards.
the iMac 5k has a 4 GB GPU max
I have a 27 inch Cintiq pen monitor for work.
if i connect it to the iMac, the GPU has to run both the iMac Screen and the Cintiq i.e roughly 2 GB for each (which is joke as you can get way more powerful PC video cards).
If I did 3 D on it , it will be slow. Almost all 2 D artist pros have Cintiqs, many 3D as well.
Barefeats.com shows an iMac 5k vs a 2010 Mac pro with UPGRADED video card doing a GPU intensive game:
the iMac 70+ fps
the 6 year old Mac Pro with upgrade card: 181 fps.
(the game test just shows GPU power. You need GPU power if you want to run several large monitors or things like rotate complex high polygon 3D objects. Note the 2010 MP is using old subsystems and processors . Imagine a full fledged current top line PC… ).
I’m very concerned about the lack of a new Mac Pro. I’ve been waiting for some time for a new one. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. There are a lot of us that have been concerned about Apple abandoning the professional space. We became worried when they dropped the price of FCS more than two thirds. That’s usually a sign a company is moving to the amateur space.
I’ve been waiting too long, too. I bought a new HP to try to hold me over but I would still prefer a *real* Mac Pro.
For some particular activity to be a sign of something, it has to have occurred many times before in similar circumstances.
Got any examples of that?
Could it be that construction of a new HQ and move planning is disruptive to the company, and that once they are settled in the new building we will be treated once again to a new era of innovative products?
Obviously Apple does more to please the shareholders than the pro users of Mac!
Is Apple becoming just some fun and entertainment company or something?
Please, Apple, if you want to turn your back to serious computing, allow, at least, other companies to create clones of the “trucks” some NEED to work!
So what will the professionals at Apple use to design their products and services, or make their weird TV shows? Or build their Apple Car? Will they resort to Windows?
Still waiting for a new desktop. I have no interest in a laptop and never will.
Not sure Apple is committed to the Mac Pro but hopefully they at least see the value in the iMac.
The headline seems to be compliant with the “Betteridge’s Law of Headlines” (which states that when headline asks a yes/no type question, the answer is always No).
However, the article itself is a bit less reassuring, and I can see both outcomes as plausible. Mac is clearly a very profitable line, and still has the potential for modest growth (grabbing market share away). The question is if Mac (hardware and software) profits cover the effort invested in the research and development. This isn’t that easy to determine, since Apple is (from what we hear) a very horisontal company, with engineers being moved between projects and divisions based on the demand. Unlike Microsoft, which has always been hobbled with unbreakable silos that compete against each other for the love of Steve Ballmer (or Gates before him), Apple mostly has people working together and across product lines (with the possible exception of development of new paradigm-shifting products that go in secret).
In other words, we can’t know if Mac is worth the effort for Apple, when all things are taken into account (revenue, ecosystem, fan base, etc). Based on the lack of attention over the past years, indicators are that the answer may be no, it’s not quite worth the effort. This is quite unfortunate, as desktop computing is still a mainstream sport, and one in ten people prefer to practice it on Apple hardware.
I’ve been waiting years for an updated Mac Pro and when it came it wasn’t what I wanted. I ended up building a hackintosh, not because I didn’t want to buy a Mac, but because they didn’t have the Mac I wanted. Apparently, a lot of other people do the same. Unfortunately, you can’t use hackintoshes at work and I make do with the trashcan.
Still more questions than answers.
I don’t think so. Why would they integrate e-GPU I/O through Thunderbolt on MacOS Sierra? Nope, Apple is not abandoning anything that can make them money.
More fear and loathing. Apple is not about to bail on the Pro line equipment and have to … choke, choke … start using Dell & Microsoft laptops and desktops.
Give me a break.
AV content creators need state of the art Macs. I get a sickening feeling in my stomach when pros contemplate switching to Windows or even Hackintoshes. I don’t want to work in a field where I once again become a ridiculed, maligned, sloppy second (in terms of software) minority Mac user.
Then get used to being a first-class, celebrated, fully IT-supported user. Who however is strangely less productive than when he once used a Mac. At least you won’t be ridiculed or shunned, only sympathised with. Hey, who cares if any meaningful work gets done, as long as you can commiserate with the fellow next cubicle over, right?
The highest end iMac is pretty close to being a desktop Mac Pro.
That speaks more to how poor value the 3-year old Mac Pro is, than a statement of how good the latest and greatest iMac is.
It’s like saying the latest A-processors are desktop-class. Sure they are–except that “desktop” they match is a Macbook from half a decade ago. Which to be fair is more than enough for many people, but just as potential Mac Pro users won’t settle for performance of a modern iMac, potential Macbook Pro users will not settle for the performance of a modern phone or tablet.
You are right but at the same time this is all wrong. Many including myself know this is the wrong way and we maybe working on iMacs just waiting for something more productive and valuable from Apple. The Top iMac from today is close to the entry Mac Pro from 2013. That’s it.
Today and in the past there are desktop platforms like LGA 2011 that will outperform a desktop platform like the 1150-51 on the iMac. Today there are 10-core processors with quad memory systems that allow for even quad GPU options and 128 memory. But the point is there are more powerful platforms not being still workstations Xeons that are more suitable for a demanding professional work.
I guess it’s time to build a Hackintosh once the Kaby Lake processors are out. I’m getting completely fed up with Apple lately to give me an expandable Mac Pro where I can put my own video card in and SSDs/HDDs. This is sickening already!
Seems like they are trying to kill the whole Mac business with lack of updates!
If Apple killed off the Mac Pro a robust Hackintosh market would sprout faster than weeds in July.
Without showing off their prowess at the pro level..
All of Apples products and Apples image will lose luster..
Luster that says “we are the best in the computing world….”
(And Apple is every bit as much a Computing company today as it was at its inception )
Without that image Apple will have a hard time charging the premiums they do …
IMO
Apple had just bought out the Beetles’s Apple Music trademark and wanted to make their own trademark as wide as possible.
I”ve said it before…. and don’t mind saying it again. Apple is only interested in content CONSUMPTION, not CREATION. This should be extremely obvious to anyone paying attention. While casual content creation is easily possible on anything from an iPhone iPad up to an iMac, that content is only fit for posting on the web, like Facebook. For major motion picture use, something more “industrial” is needed. I have a MacPro, the round kind, and I use it for Pro-Tools, but I have absolutely no doubt that an iMac would work just as well. We are in the “post-computer” era…. both hardware and software are both very mature, with not a ton of room for improvement. Sure, more strides will be taken, but not a pace we’ve become used to. The difference between the newest release of Apple hardware seem much more modest these days, and will probably remain that way for the short- to medium term.
I applaud all the very intelligent posts today asking Apple to fix the fans beloved Mac line.
Smart, back by facts and personal experience about their needs for Pro level computing, powerful GPUs , expandable options etc.
I applaud and agree.
Remember the days when Jobs used to put Macs side by side with PCs and run Photoshop etc and blow the socks off them?
We want those days back ! (today’s tests might be for high res video or Maya or Lighwave work… )
(Yes I understand in CYCLES the PC might beat macs occasionally but in the PAST the Mac would soon be competitive again — just like today Next generation rival phones might have a few features better than the iPhone in Spring but get beaten by the next iPhone in the Fall but the Mac pro is THREE years late !)
So are you LISTENING APPLE to your fans? We have MONEY to SPEND if you build what we want (like the Big iPhone and then the iPhone SE… )
——-
BTW I keep reading Apple top management joining social groups like Cook just joined the Kennedy Center, attending social events, fashion shows, award ceremonies (not connected with Apple products), taking part in social work (Diversity, political, AIDS campaigns — they’ve got Ive designing FURNITURE for AIDS charities etc), , ETC
— all of which might be laudable (like helping charities) …
BUT I DON’T READ OF ANY TOP MANAGEMENT VISITING MAC USER GROUPS, TOP GAMES CONVENTIONS (thousands of users who have powerful PCs) , MEDIA STUDIOS, SCIENCE LABS OR OTHER HIGH END PC USING BUSINESSES ETC.
(maybe I missed the news items but i honestly haven’t seen any news bits related to this… do you see Ive visiting a Graphics 3D studio and asking “how do you like my Cylinder?” or Eddy Cue “how do you like Cloud for Pro work ?” )
SO HOW DOES APPLE MANAGEMENT KEEP TOUCH WITH the HEARTBEAT OF HIGH END MAC USERS?
—-
and my usual (last 5 years cry) of “Where the Mac Advertising?” in April Macs made more money than iPads so where the ads?
The Mac, iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer.
Sorry, but NO St. Steve. They are ALL computers. However, people in marketing live in a world that spins in ways unrelated to reality. Thereby they mangle anything they like into their own distorted pseudo ‘reality’. 3G LTE is pretend ‘4G’. The iPod, AppleTV and iPhone are pretend NOT computers. We pretend they know what they’re talking about.
But reality knows best.