“I’ve spent the last week with Apple’s new iMac Pro, and in most ways it’s just a faster Mac. It’s the first pro Mac desktop in over three years and the fastest Mac yet made, granted, but still entirely familiar,” Jason Snell writes for Macworld. “And yet in many ways—some noticeable, some entirely invisible—this new Mac is completely different from all past Mac models.”
“The iMac Pro may be an outlier today, but in the future we’ll probably look back on it as the start of a new era for the Mac, all because of the Apple-built T2 chip it carries inside,” Snell writes. “The T2 processor isn’t doing the heavy lifting in the iMac Pro — that’s the Intel Xeon processor with between 8 and 14 processor cores. The T2 is the brain behind that brain, running the subsystems of the iMac Pro from a single piece of Apple-built silicon.”
“The result,” Snell writes, “is a simplified internal design that doesn’t require multiple components from multiple manufacturers… The disk controller is built into the T2 itself. This gives the T2 complete control over internal storage on the iMac Pro. This has some major benefits in terms of speed and security. Every bit of data stored on an iMac Pro’s SSD is encrypted on the fly by the T2… All this encryption happens invisibly, so the SSDs in the iMac Pro still operate at full speed—approximately 3GB per second.”
Much more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: With the advent of the T2-equipped iMac Pro, Apple is smartly taking ownership of the primary technologies, as Steve Jobs intended.
I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. — Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004
*THIS* is the Apple I fell in love with over 30 years ago. Thanks, Apple.
Still no reason why the professional (or consumer) shouldn’t be able to swap out the RAM or replace the HD without a visit to a certified Apple technician.
When I choose a phone, laptop, or iPad, then weight, thickness, rigidity, size, and power management are all at an absolute premium.
When I choose a desktop, all those things take a back seat to raw power and basic user maintenance. It doesn’t matter if my desktop is 1/4 inch thin, I’m not carrying it from room to room or using it on my next flight. There is simply NO compelling reason why a desktop (pro or otherwise) shouldn’t have easily replaceable RAM, HD(s), and power supply. RAM and HDS are constantly getting cheaper/bigger, and they are also most likely to fail. Shouldn’t have to waste time going to an Apple store to fix those kind of issues.
I have a strong suspicion you will like the coming new Mac Pro.
Apple is leveraging its great advantage which is it designs the hardware and also the OS.
PC OEMs like Lenovo don’t have this advantage, dependent on OS from Msft or Google. Msft. itself has tried to do the same as Apple with it’s Surface products but it doesn’t have the long term hardware expertise like Apple which has made both OS and hardware together for decades.
Specs (MHz, number of cores etc) as touted by reviewers don’t tell the whole story, ‘optimization’ plays a big part. Many Apple products require less RAM for example to do the same task.
Hey, Applecynic, where are you? Where are the Cook doomsayers? I figured as much…this news conflicts with your negative outlook on Apple, so you just ignore it. Meanwhile, the rest of us have been touting Apple’s advantage in internally developing its own silicon for years. This is *big* news and very important for the future of the company.
Hey Melvin!
So Apple invented coprocessors now? Good, about time.
All I know is I was stuck with a MBP with only USB2 in the USB3 era, and it couldn’t be added.
I see evidence from Apple’s recent past and now with the iMac T2 chip that it sees security as the #1 thing required for any company in digital equipment to succeed and grow long term.
Apple can’t rely on other’s chips to protect their customers.
The “cpu” is likely to become more of a heavy lifting processor and something like the T2 becomes the gatekeeper.
The worst thing in the world is for Intel chip vulnerabilities that let competitors or nation states hack every one of your desktop Intel processors.
Especially since Apple may well be shipping unsecured cpus now.
Was Apple ever any better than the competition, or have they always been just as crass, cynical, and self-serving as you make them out to be?
I used to think they were above the others, but I was very young. Was I that wrong?
Short answer… yes.
Long answer… yeeeeeeessssss.
Hey Apple made first a customer, then a cynic if me too. Don’t feel bad.
The real answer is Apple has moved forward with better hardware and software faster than the PC side.
Super Heavy Duty Security Design of hardware/software systems has only entered the mainstream design processes in the last decade. Apple recognized the essential need by adopting NEXT/UNIX even earlier.
I think we should give Apple credit as being the safest consumer Systems readily available for networked use to date
I give Unix credit.