“So Apple summoned several tech journalists to corporate headquarters this week, and let them in on plans for the Mac, and it’s clear that the 2013 Mac Pro was a big fail,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “Apple evidently totally misjudged the market.”
“This seems strange, considering the original cheese grater model, which offered plentiful space for extra drives, expansion cards, RAM and a pair of CPU slots. In slimming it down, and making all expansion external, did Apple really believe the same user base would be happy with the end result?” Steinberg writes. “If there was ever a case of form smothering function, this was it.”
“Apple Marketing VP Philip Schiller says that Apple has a team working on the next Mac Pro, but it won’t arrive this year. That assumes it’s slated for release next year, but certainly he was buying time to help mollify customers who are feeling abandoned by the company,” Steinberg writes. “In the meantime, if you must have a powerful headless Mac, Apple has cut thousands of dollars off the purchase price of the current Mac Pro, but these are all 2013 parts. There is no support for USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. Apple made it a dead-end machine that will promptly vanish when its replacement arrives.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on Tuesday:
Apple’s Mac Pro. Form over function.
Furthermore:
Time for our “theoretical ‘mini tower’ Mac Pro?” – MacDailyNews, December 20, 2016
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s desperate Mac Pro damage control message hints at a confused, divided company – April 6, 2017
Who has taken over at Apple? – April 5, 2017
Apple’s embarrassing Mac Pro mea culpa – April 4, 2017
Who’s going to buy a Mac Pro now? – April 4, 2017
Mac Pro: Why did it take Apple so long to wake up? – April 4, 2017
Apple sorry for what happened with the Mac Pro over the last 3+ years – namely, nothing – 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
But it looked really really cool. And shiny.
It looked completely different from marketing pictures. All the nice shots on Apple’s website show a jet black machine, but it’s actually mirror-like streaky silver like the garbage they used to back their old iPods in. I hate the Mac Pro’s look, even if the shape is somewhat interesting. I’ve also found Thunderbolt 2 cables to be extremely fragile for how expensive they are. Sticking 6 of them into something designed to be turned around so much is ridiculous and asks for problems. This thing was a disaster and I’m glad it’s on its way out.
RIP Mac Pro “Cube 2” Trashcan Cylinder. We barely knew ye but should never have known ye at al!
Cube 2.0, only the original Cube was discontinued in LESS than a year, and Apple didn’t try to pass it off as a “pro” machine.
There would be quite a mix of reactions if they just brought back the old Mac Pro form factor (aluminum tower) with modern components, but there would overall be a collective sigh of relief and cheering from the pro market, who’d buy them in droves.
I think it still needs a bay capable of holding an optical drive because there’s a good chance that something will be used in that space in the next 5 years, even if it’s just another swapaple memory storage device (for example, a slide-in SSD drive or two). And there are still people who prefer to access their old optical media on their computer – especially if there’s a fancy new display coming out.
“Mac Pro Classic” with new internals… oh yeah!
Cant innovate my arse!!!
An idiot could have told them what a mistake it was.
Apparently there are only clumsy clueless buffoons available at Apple.
“At Apple we look for “The Homer” style overwrought solutions no one wants or asked for in high end gear. Alienation of aghast pro users is our new mission.”
Take one, bronze it, and give it to Jony as another design award.
LOL. Damn right. They should make a ten foot high bronzed statue of it and place it in the center of their new spaceship as a reminder of the fine line between genius and corporate ass-kissing folly.
When you look around at some of the very innovative PC cases, I’m thinking the DAN case and one other, both Mini-ITX but of very small volume, it’s clear Apple could do something that would sell in volume to the pro crowd. Even if a lot of the old pro crowd have moved away from Mac OS, there will be more coming up behind who would buy.
“That assumes it’s slated for release next year…”
more great products in the pipeline.
The only thing in the Mac Pro pipeline now is 3 plus year old cobweb.
Don’t know for sure of course, but I think Ive wasn’t at the meeting because he had more involvement with the design than they (he) are letting on, and he’s miffed that pro users actually want to do pro things, not just look like they do.
The trashcan Pro was a good conversation piece and maybe even impressive to anyone who didn’t know better, but what Ive and many others at Apple fail to realize, I think, is all those pro users usually need to connect to a server and/or have a station on-hand for rendering, etc, and they want it on site so it’s fast & accessible, and expandable so it’s relevant & a good investment depreciation-wise. And, of course Mac, because … well, Mac.
Yeah, I noticed Ive’s absence too. Unfortunately, the mark of a great designer includes the ability to admit to mistakes….
-hh
Apple’s ears have been totally plugged with wax for 4+ years concerning the Mac Pro debacle.
They should have listened to the Pro community.
They listened more to the consumers of products that gave them the most money, instead of listening to each major product’s customers equally.
Which means that they’ve been overrun by beancounters who don’t think past next quarter’s bottom line, and only care about a customer’s very next purchase, not their subsequent ones a few years down the line.
A rack mountable Mac, or 12X12X12 Cube Mac, And standalone Apple monitors very very simple…
“We don’t make junk.” Right. Then who made this Trash Can® piece of mess.
Upgradable, expandable, standard parts, modular and really Pro doesn’t go much with the Apple of today and I don’t know how Apple is going to manage a product so “retro” or simply different to their current line. But I guess it could be treated as this last small tech meeting. Will the Mac Pro be a back door project for Apple? I don’t care as long as it serves its purpose and it will receive all the support it needs. Let the Pro be different.
So I hope the “new” 2018 Mac Pro and even a top 2017 iMac will really have a chance to please and full fill the needs of its audience.
But a workstation type machines are needed for the developers, unless Apple wants all development for the Mac, iPad, Apple watch and iPhone to be done on a Microsoft PC.
Let’s face it, Tim loves the trash can because it’s a phallic symbol.
A big, black, thick phallic symbol.