“More scuttlebutt on the Mac Pro, Apple’s one and only desktop tower, which the company has promised to overhaul and rerelease this year,” Josh Lowensohn reports for CNET. “New tidbits come from longtime video producer Lou Borella, the creator of the Facebook group ‘We Want a New Macpro,’ who on Monday posted details on the changes from ‘a source or two that has some credibility.'”
The gist:
• It will be heavily reliant on Thunderbolt
• There will be no internal expandability
• It will have support for dual GPUs with three-monitor support right out of the box
• No [Firewire 800] or optical drive
• It will be released in the fall
• It will be a completely new design
“While some of those details have shown up before, the rumored changes suggest something much closer to a souped-up Mac Mini than the $2,499, expandable desktop tower Apple has kept largely unchanged (physically) for the past decade,” Lowensohn reports. “The Mac Pro is one of several machines Apple is expected to update in the near future. Others include the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, which were last updated about a year ago.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Who needs internal expansion with Thunderbolt’s speed and Jony Ive’s design ability? It’s time to rethink the professional desktop. Exterior expansion can be done neatly, especially with Jony Ive’s team on the case.
Related articles:
Mac Pro supplies dry up at retailers ahead of WWDC – June 1, 2013
Evidence of new Mac Pro at WWDC: Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan drivers in Apple’s latest OS X builds – May 29, 2013
RUMOR: Apple to announce replacement for Mac Pro soon – April 8, 2013
Apple’s Final Cut push hints at imminent launch of new Mac Pro – March 29, 2013
Apple aims to win over video editors with new Final Cut Pro X marketing push – March 28, 2013
Apple confirms launch of new Mac Pro in spring 2013 – February 6, 2013
Ultimate Mac: Building the Final Cut Pro X dream machine – November 9, 2012
The CUBE !!! For Steve!!
The inherent unreliability of a setup with external peripherals which the proper operation of the OS depends on, is what scares me. Scanners, and a number of other devices can be freely plugged-in en unplugged, but NOT hard disks that are crucial to your everyday job.
Who needs internal expansion? Let’s see: Lots of users and offices.
In my personal experience, I’ve seen many small offices in a variety of industries that have switched over to all mac in the last few years after they got fed up with crappy Windows machines. This includes the local file server. The two 1TB drives in the Mac Mini Server are often not sufficient. Concatenating the two drives for capacity would be extremely foolish. So the office has to employ some kind of external RAID storage to meet their needs.
Great, more expense and another box that has to be monitored and backed up. Another bunch of cables to add to the rat’s nest in the server room. Another couple of boxes that won’t bolt into a rack.
Since File Service is about all OS X Server is good for these days, wouldn’t it be nice if a couple of 2TB drives could be dropped inside the machine instead? Why yes, it would be nice. And we could put in bigger drives later if we needed to without replacing the whole damned machine.
But Apple doesn’t work that way. If past performance is any indication, the new Mac “Pro” will be totally sealed, require a special tool to access the proprietary storage and have RAM soldered on the board. Why? because Apple, that’s why.
So the Audio Industry will start to shift away from Apple too, just like the Film Industry has been doing in the wake of iMovie Pro? Avid must be loving this.
My thoughts exactly. I was on the Avid site today thinking what to buy. AVID or Premiere over at Adobe. FCPx is Dead. Even on the latest IMAC fully loaded 27, I wait hours for rendering sometimes, waiting for the new Mac PRO. Don’t need a cute mac. Why doesn’t Apple just make AVID an offer they cant refuse? Be pro again. Own the industry right when everyone is pissed about RENTING Adobe products. But still need a machine that pushes the limits. Macs are great. We’ll see… I need about 3 times the hook ups that the Imac offers. I have over 24 drives on my desk from the last 4 years with many cable types. Every type. Then about 50 drives dating back to 94. Nobody really makes a great hub yet. They are all on hold for some reason, Belkin, etc. the waiting continues. I’m not a complainer although it must sound like it. I have money I want and NEED to spend on new great stuff. It’s need at this point. Peace…
Guessing the pushback will dwarf the initial Final Cut change dust up.
OMG don’t remind me. That mushroom cloud has still not cleared.
There will be no internal expandability
For many applications, that’s a DEAL KILLER.
Examples:
1) Want to add USB 3 or eSATA or FireWire or newer technology drives to this rumored new Mac Pro? You’re SCREWED.
2) How about optimizing your Mac Pro for mining Bitcoins via adding further GPU cards? You’re SCREWED.
On the other hand, this sounds like the smaller and cheaper Mac Pro some people have been ranting about for years.
I personally am not seeking a replacement for my olde Mac tower server. I’m fine with a Mac Mini server and my trusty MacBook for my purposes. But if I was still working with graphics professionals, I’m not sure I or they would be pleased with this rumored new hobbled Mac Pro.
Apple certainly has turned their back on serving Enterprise companies, apart from very basic servers and client machines. That’s right in line with Apple’s killing of the XServe, rack drive bays and their rather careless attitude toward OS X Server and its services. Bleh.
What a load of drivel, how can this drop-kick (or anyone else) have any idea what apple are going to release. We just have to be patient and see what they come up with and then make a decision.
What if more than one computer were interconnectable via thunderbolt to create and Mini-Supercomputer?
Just dreamin’. 😉
And the dumbing down of Apple products continues…
Apple should give all of the above options:
1. The cube
2. An expandable chassis
3. An the Pro tower
But not a single one to satisfy everybody. The full tower is a must for the reasons given by many here.
The problem is the Pro market represents a limited segment and Apple wants to support the fewer hardware possible hence the dilemma or the conflict of interest.
A modular Mac Pro like a lego is a dream but lets find out what Apple has for us.
Is Apple insane? When they removed the optical drive from the iMac, MANY people were peeved!
I’ve read numerous threads by people stating that they are professionals, and need the optical drive and expandability that the Mac Pro provides. Evidently Apple is completely out of touch with their customer base, and will do whatever Apple deems necessary to reduce manufacturing complexity and increase profits, at the expense of their customers.
If true, this is going to piss off the majority of the small number of people left who are interested in a Mac Pro. Either give them what they want or kill off the product line.
Wondering if the TB might be a modular snap system where you can stack enclosures upon other enclosures… no wires, just a solid vertical bus.
Settle down, Francis. These mucklucks have no idea of what Apple is up to regarding the Mac Pro, and neither do any of you. Just relax until they announce it, THEN resume your bitching when you still aren’t happy with their design.
I don’t understand why we have to start this FireWire thing all over again… Go with USB3 and stop fragment the world… Thunderbolt might be a technically good standard but I think it’s stupid… Really really stupid…
As a pro musician I have been waiting for a faster Mac Pro, believe it or not I know a lot of musicians (including myself) that run top of the line models and they’re still not quick enough.
The thought of thunderbolt is fantastic UNLESS its your profession and there isn’t a Thunderbolt audio interface available!!! I cannot wait for the manufactures to play catchup I have to earn a living.
As with many musicians, I shall buy the new system but phase it in over 6 months to check compatibility and reliability.
No PCIE means I have to keep running current Mac Pro for a while. Tests with thunderbolt to PCIE chassis have not been successful enough to totally convince me.