“‘If we’ve had a pause in upgrades and updates, we’re sorry for that — what happened with the Mac Pro — and we’re going to come out with something great to replace it.’ Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller is talking to a small group of reporters in a white stucco building near its headquarters in Cupertino,” Matthew Panzarino reports for TechCrunch. “The purpose of the discussion, while somewhat unclear initially, reveals itself a few minutes in.”
MacDailyNews Take: “If,” our collective ass. No “ifs” about it, Philly.
“The news, if you want it straight: Apple is acknowledging that the Mac Pro they introduced in 2013 has run aground on the cleverness of its own design, and they’re re-thinking the entire machine,” Panzarino reports. “In addition, they’ll be releasing a new external display — something it had previously opted out of. But none of that is coming this year. Today, we’ll see a performance bump on the old design of Mac Pro, which will remain on sale for now. And later this year we’ll see improved iMacs that Apple feels will appeal to a segment of Pro users as well.”
MacDailyNews Take: Clearly, by holding such a rare roundtable with reporters, Apple is now seeing some loss of pro customers, feeling some heat from the media (even from the normally “friendly” Apple-centric media), naturally seeing a drop or pause in Mac Pro sales or some combination of said issues. Apple must now be feeling considerable pain in and from the professional Mac market as they’d normally rather remove their own fingernails with pliers than peel back the curtain to talk with reporters about future Macs while admitting to making major mistakes.
“How it got to this point with the Mac Pro is worth exploring, and in an uncharacteristically (at least on the record) open and frank manner, Schiller, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi and Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus do just that,” Panzarino reports. “The context, of course, is that Apple’s dedication to the Mac has taken a bit of a philosophical beating lately among its core professional customers. The narrative is that Apple has not put the resources needed into making the Mac work for pros, has neglected updates…”
“It was the unique triangular design of the Mac Pro’s thermal core that proved to be the limiting factor. Because it was designed to carry roughly balanced loads of heat on all three sides, it just wasn’t equipped to take on the task of supporting the now incredibly popular single massively powerful GPU configuration. Simply put, it wasn’t built for one of the three sides of the triangle to get super hot,” Panzarino reports. “Instead, Apple had placed its bet on the future right smack in the middle of the dual GPU camp — it even designed specific frameworks for developers to handle those twin graphics processors. But that leap to parallel GPUs running in tandem simply never happened en masse.”
Tons more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: (Big) mistake made.
We were boxed by a circle. – Craig Federighi
Lesson learned (finally).
No, let’s get on with it!
On a sobering note, here’s just one recent missive of many we’ve received lately:
Our company moved from old Mac Pros to Windows boxes a year and a half ago. Got tired of waiting and having no roadmap for the future.
Apple has their work cut out trying to woo back all of the pros they stupidly drove off over the last 2-3 years due to their own silence and inaction.
SEE ALSO:
Mac Pro: Why did it take Apple so long to wake up? – April 4, 2017
Apple to unveil ‘iMac Pro’ later this year; rethought, modular Mac Pro and Apple pro displays in the pipeline – April 4, 2017
Apple’s apparent antipathy towards the Mac prompts calls for macOS licensing – March 27, 2017
Why Apple’s new Mac Pro might never arrive – March 10, 2017
Dare we hold out hope for the Mac Pro? – March 1, 2017
Apple CEO Cook pledges support to pro users, says ‘we don’t like politics’ at Apple’s annual shareholders meeting – February 28, 2017
Yes, I just bought a ‘new’ Mac Pro (released on December 19, 2013 and never updated) – January 4, 2017
Attention, Tim Cook! Apple isn’t firing on all cylinders and you need to fix it – January 4, 2017
No, Apple, do not simplify, get better – December 23, 2016
Rare video shows Steve Jobs warning Apple to focus less on profits and more on great products – December 23, 2016
Marco Arment: Apple’s Mac Pro is ‘very likely dead’ – December 20, 2016
How Tim Cook’s Apple alienated Mac loyalists – December 20, 2016
Apple’s not very good, really quite poor 2016 – December 19, 2016
Apple’s software has been anything but ‘magical’ lately – December 19, 2016
Lazy Apple. It’s not hard to imagine Steve Jobs asking, ‘What have you been doing for the last four years?’ – December 9, 2016
Rush Limbaugh: Is Apple losing their edge? – December 9, 2016
AirPods: MIA for the holidays; delayed product damages Apple’s credibility, stokes customer frustration – December 9, 2016
Apple may have finally gotten too big for its unusual corporate structure – November 28, 2016
Apple has no idea what they’re doing in the TV space, and it’s embarrassing – November 3, 2016
Apple’s disgracefully outdated, utterly mismanaged Mac lineup is killing sales – October 13, 2016
Apple takes its eye off the ball: Why users are complaining about Apple’s software – February 9, 2016
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
