“The original Mac Pro is 12 years old today and people are hoping the next one will bring back its famous expandability,” William Gallagher writes for AppleInsider. “Professional or power users are demanding —and they’re also presently clamoring. The call is clear. They want a new, powerful machine for many of the same reasons that they wanted the original Mac Pro in 2006.”
“On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs had formally revealed that it was true, Apple was switching to Intel processors for the Mac,” Gallagher writes. “Over that next year up to June 2006, Apple steadily introduced Macs with Intel processors but not the replacement for the PowerMac G5. Until 1:08 PM eastern time on Monday August 7, 2006. ‘In the first two quarters, we transitioned almost all of our product over to Intel. Except for one, and that is the Power Mac,’ Jobs declared. ‘Well, today the Power Mac is going to fade into history.’ Phil Schiller then came on stage to reveal what looked like exactly the same machine as before. The same large aluminum casing, the same handles for carrying it and the same ease of access to the insides. ‘We have the best enclosure in the business, this is a beautiful enclosure design,’ Schiller said. ‘On the outside it has all the benefits as before. inside, it’s entirely new.'”
“That original promise of power and performance is what makes people want the new ‘modular’ machine too. But, as much as some of us might like, the cheese grater isn’t coming back,” Gallagher writes. “What Apple will deliver is anybody’s guess.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Jonathan Ive, recently named, “Designer of the Year” by London’s prestigious Design Museum is a genius who has outdone even himself with the new Power Mac G5… If you don’t understand or cannot grasp how perfect Ive’s austere Power Mac G5 design really is, it would be best to just be quiet and not make a fool of yourself.
This single sheet of aluminum, folded and simply cut to reveal functional handles, and wrapped around a gloriously organized interior makes all other personal computer designs, including the Power Mac G3/G4 cases look ham-fisted.
Ive has now matured to the point where his design is simply genius. And genius is often ahead of its time, as is the case here. Pun intended. If you can’t appreciate the quality of the Power Mac G5’s industrial design right now, wait a bit; you’ll catch up sooner or later. — SteveJack, MacDailyNews, June 26, 2003
MDN will you please get rid of the massive auto playing ads that are showing on your app. It’s more than just annoying it’s another reason to add to the ones to stop coming here.
Oh, and how much bandwidth does this use? I don’t have a lot to have it drained away by a video for something I’ll never buy.
There are filters who will do that for you as this site has become unvisitable without. MDN admits it doesn’t seem to have control over it’s own site.
MDN, a whore to their Google ad pimp, is the worst hypocrite. One should not have a website if one cannot manage it. Maybe MDN should try using Mac software to write its own website. Practice what you preach, MDN.
Whatever happened to that guy???
It’s too bad Jony Ives imploded on himself (and us) with the 2013 Mac Pro debacle delivering exactly the wrong machine and spectacularly wrongheaded design for the market it was intended (is that ever a consideration Apple? – Sheesh!). And as many have mentioned it would have been so EASY to simply update the Cheese Grate and satisfy the grateful intended market. You only “innovated your ass” right out of the pro market!
Adding insult to injury taking 6 years to then correct that dreadful mistake and putting many pros needing state of the art machines NOW in a precarious situation and forcing the abandonment of the Mac for a powerful PC Workstation that was “just right” (except for the OS). Customers they have now lost more then likely forever.
Some “innovative” thinking. Or were you even thinking at all Tim & Apple? Certainly market & user satisfaction awareness and satisfying all your device sectors is not your forte.
I guess Jony Ive has had no one to reign him when he gets out of control with thinness and form over function since Steve Jobs died. He now has too much power at Apple.
And it’s up to Tim Cook to guide the process, reign in impractical design and give users what they need based on actual user interaction, and what is still working well on there PC Workstation side for pros, and then adding innovations on top of that. Something they came too late to the game understanding when it’s was as plain as the nose on any CEO’s face – 7 years ago.
I posted here many times in simple terms Apple should make the biggest, baddest pro computers the world has ever seen. They have the most money in the world. They have the best tech engineers in the world. The have the best industrial designer in the world. What’s the problem?
Right, Steve not around keeping his tone deaf Sir Highness of Design in line.
What I liked about your post you laid a simple common sense game plan that will do the trick.
Buy and deconstruct every Pro PC kicking Apple’s butt. Don’t match the specs, EXCEED them in every way. We know the Apple/Design tax will kick in at a premium price, fine.
But if I’m going to invest well over 10 Grand — I need a few assurances.
Expandability of the machine and easy parts replacement like the cheese grater. I prefer not having to mail it back to Apple (downtime). Licensed resellers same day service IDEAL and third parties everywhere, even better. Or, DIY.
Software guaranteed to be upgraded and supported for 10 years minimum. Regardless of alternative Jony’s future moves.
If Microsoft can support XP for 12 years, no reason Apple cannot do the same.
Peter, imagine if Apple sold DA BEST PRO COMPUTERS of all time. They probably sell very few now because the product is five years old and has many flaws and overpriced.
That would be a world wide game changer and imagine what it would do for future sales, as well as establishing
Apple as the PRO STANDARD.
A standard they achieved FIRST, now neglected and allowed to slip away years ago. Regain the crown …
Exactly right, Peter. I just think this follows a horrible trend Apple started years ago by making computers not upgradable and soldering boards, etc.
If that’s not bad enough, why did they also design themselves into a thermal corner with the 2013 Mac Pro and then let it languish for five years?
In the old days they updated regularly with new spec bumps, so why not now? If they won’t do it, then unlock ALL models and allow us to do it (upgrade). Problem solved.
And Apple give OSesore of a shelf life ..,
A truly wonderful design. I never had the need for that powerful of a computer, but the design of the PowerMac G5 made it a potentially compelling purchase. This computer is a great memento of a once great Mac Pro.
Until Pipeline took a dump all over the product line.
Until Pipeline ignored the Mac Pro for years upon years.
Until Pipeline created the iMac Pro, a computer that Apple pretends is equivalent to the PowerMac G5.
Until Pipeline, understanding that the iMac Pro is not enough, promised a new Mac Pro.
Until Pipeline took 1.5 plus years to re-invent that which Steve Jobs’ Apple had already invented.
Pipeline is an embarrassment to Apple Computer.
Pipeline does not give a damn about pro computer users.
Pipeline does not care about Mac evangelists.
If Pipeline cared, then the Mac product line would look radically different than it does today.
The Mac product line, from the Mac Mini, to the MacBook Air, to the Mac Pro, totally reflects how little Pipeline cares about the Mac.
The terrible state of the Mac falls squarely on Pipeline’s shoulders.
77 votes in 5 minutes? Suuuuure, I believe that.
Funny you should mention that.
Not really, I have noticed it for years and Botty was one of the first to point it out.
The same AMAZING result happened to me Monday on the first article of the day. First two posts back to back were mine.
By the time the third post hit around the same timeframe as you, roughly 15 minutes later, I had 107 — 1.5 star downvotes. Simply amazing all those people could read my post and vote in that amount of time.
NOT!
Botty noted the same experience as I recall saying in 15-20 minutes garnered over a hundred downvotes, several times.
Another thought. Check the first post I mentioned on Monday and take a glance at the high number of positive votes on some posts and two to ten higher number of downvotes on other posts, like mine. Notice the pattern?
I’ll save my theory for another day if others don’t figure it out …
Ahem, I’ll have you know that I, myself, brought up this issue of gaming the star voting system when it first began, which is not long after WordPress implemented it. The first offenders were Russian bots and Microsoft trolls, but soon enough disgruntled acned teenagers learnt the trick. Voting systems suck, here, and in Iran, Turkey, and Russia, and maybe everywhere else now that people have come to realise how little their votes matter in the face of organised ballot manipulation.
I posted, “ I have noticed it for years and Botty was one of the first to point it out.“
“One of the first,” peace?✌️
That said, yes I recall your insightful detailed posts many times. Kudos for being the first to expose this WordPress manipulative false voting process.
Seems MDN bad actors are doing much more in tangible results for manipulating votes and make the Russian trolls look like also rans …
Funny how just a few people seem to be hit by this manipulative voting process. Perhaps those 4 or 5 million fake voters in the 2016 POTUS election have created WordPress accounts? lol
A few people? Obvious you are not paying attention to what it going on. Oh, and lol …
It was awesome, I wish I’d never let mine go. I had the G5 and the Intel machines. I am not hopeful that the new ‘modular Mac Pro’ will be anything to write home about, though I’m open to being proven wrong.
It is a seminal case design and remains relevant and vital today. With contemporary components it could be smaller perhaps and less sharp at the handles but it would wonderfully retro to see an merely updated version introduced
Right on. Bring back the exact same case design, simply updated with today’s hardware and interfaces.
Bottom line is whatever Apple does with it’s 2019 Mac Pro will cost you more overall once you add in all the inevitable modular options (no doubt cluttering up your workspace as it did with the 2013 Mac Pro) you’ll need than a revamped Cheese Grater would have.
This is not the Mac Pro Boutique Shop Apple. Really, just get back to tower basics and you’ll be adored and called “genius” all over the world again. Certain things do not have to be reinvented by fidgety & temperamental design jockeys with nothing better to do.
I still have my PoweMac G5. I don’t use it and refuse to give it up.
Seriously WHY NOT bring back the cheese grater mac Pro?
-Do the new chips or something physically not fit in it?
-Did something about it get more expensive?
-Is it just pure ego? We had to change it despite no improvement being made?
-Could a new design be better for today’s users then a cheese grater with modern internals?
As nonsensical as it sounds, the most logical explanation for the current situation is that Apple doesn’t want to serve pro users anymore. Maybe they don’t want customers who are savvy enough to make a hacintosh?
My fear is that they have no interest in updating it because ARM is in the future and future versions of OS X are going to be locked down to the app store.
Its almost like the age of smart clients is in vogue again, we just need nicer dumb terminals. ugh.
I hope I’m wrong.
Yes and that would explain a lot the delays. I’ve thought something similar in the past. Apple knows what it has ahead, knows the pro market rejects the 2013 Mac Pro and they have to do something but also know these new Mac Pro’s won’t have the same lifetime as the older ones because of Apple’s future plans. Thereby pissing off people once again who invested heavily on a 2019 Mac Pro who will only get a few years out of it before a huge OS X CPU paradigm shift occurs.
I would want reassurances from Apple that it wouldn’t torpedo the new Mac Pro next year by major architecture changes for at least 5-7 years.
“I would want reassurances from Apple that it wouldn’t torpedo the new Mac Pro next year by major architecture changes for at least 5-7 years.”
Amen!
Here is a thought, why not Apple make a Pro OS version that lasts at least seven years if not 10-12 years. Seem to recall Microsoft offered different versions of OS smartly geared to their markets. It would certainly be attractive and stabilizing.
XP was excoriated for years around here as being bloated spaghetti code on top of whatever, and yet it was fully supported for 12 YEARS.
Imagine that, and to best of my knowledge, Apple ceased thinking differently when it comes to keeping high investment Macs supported after a few years. Sad …
That wasn’t by choice. Vista flat out would not run on the new netbook form factor that emerged at this time, so hardware was shipping with XP at least until Windows 7 shipped. Funny how humiliating failures never seem to do much harm to Microsoft.
Granted, and hating to say this MS did a better job of supporting OSes all around …
It’s ego. If Apple resurrected a past design, the pundits would rip ’em a new one.. it would be a mockery of all their hifalutin design innovations, like Ford bringing back an older model sedan after the embarassing failure of the Edsel.
I still have a liquid cooled G5 2.7 in my garage that I keep meaning to do something with. It’s such a gorgeous machine I can’t bring myself to part with it.
I need to check on the state of PPC Linux.