“Once upon a time, anyone who wanted a powerful Mac would choose the top of the line. So in the days before Apple went Intel in 2006, it was the Power Mac G5. It was a huge beast, weighing over 40 pounds, but it was extremely expandable. You could add multiple hard drives and PCI cards, and changing RAM was a snap,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “When Apple moved to Intel processors in 2006, the successor to that Power Mac, the Mac Pro, debuted. Externally it looked about the same, but the innards were more efficient because Apple didn’t need so much cooling hardware. It was expensive, powerful, and content creators loved them.”
“In early 2013, Tim Cook promised a major Mac Pro upgrade, and, sure enough, the spectacular ‘trash can’ version was demonstrated during the WWDC keynote that June,” Sternberg writes. “It didn’t show up until December of 2013, and volume shipments didn’t start until early in 2014.”
“It was a sea change, and not necessarily one that was welcome,” Sternberg writes. “The reaction to the Mac Pro has been polarizing… Ideally, if there must be a Mac Pro, maybe Apple could develop a different version, still relatively compact, which restores the internal expansion capability of the original Mac Pro. With Apple’s penchant for miniaturization, I bet they could deliver all that in a computer that weighs no more than 20 pounds or so. But is there enough of a market for such a machine — or the present day Mac Pro?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Mac Pro is revolutionary, but Apple could really stand to, you know, update the thing once and awhile. Not doing so makes it look like Apple regards professional Mac users as an afterthought. Sometimes Apple, the world’s most profitable and most valuable company, still operates as if they have five guys from NeXT working around the clock trying to do all the work on a shoestring budget… Read more in our full Take here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s ‘new’ Mac Pro is a joke; a plain and simple failure – November 23, 2015
50,000,000 pixels: Apple’s Mac Pro powers six 4K displays (with video) – August 31, 2015
Apple may be prepping a Mac Pro refresh for early 2016 – August 25, 2015
What’s next for Mac Pro graphics cards? – August 13, 2014
First impressions: Apple’s new Mac Pro – June 20, 2014
Hardware.Info reviews Apple’s Mac Pro: Revolutionary, Apple reinvents the workstation – June 17, 2014
Houston Chronicle reviews Apple Mac Pro: Unmatched by any Windows system – March 12, 2014
Review: Apple’s $3999 6-core Mac Pro is an impressive computer – February 26, 2014
Ars Technica pro reviews Apple’s 2013 Mac Pro: Powerful, but it isn’t always a clear upgrade – January 28, 2014
T3 Mac Pro review: Unboxing, hands-on, and first impressions – December 20, 2013
ITProPortal reviews Apple’s Mac Pro: One of the best premium desktops we’ve ever tested – January 14, 2014
PC Magazine reviews Apple’s Mac Pro: Stunning, astonishing, Editors’ Choice – December 27, 2013
The New York Times reviews Apple’s Mac Pro: Deeply futuristic; extremely, ridiculously fast and powerful – December 26, 2013
The Verge reviews Apple’s new Mac Pro: Unlike anything the PC industry’s ever seen – December 23, 2013
Engadget reviews Apple’s new Mac Pro: In a league of its own – December 23, 2013
The first 24 hours with Apple’s new Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro X 10.1 (with video) – December 20, 2013
T3 Mac Pro review: Unboxing, hands-on, and first impressions – December 20, 2013
Apple’s powerful new Mac Pro a good value; far from the most expensive high-end Mac or high-end PCs – December 20, 2013
CNET hands on: Apple’s radically reimagined Mac Pro is a powerhouse performer – December 20, 2013
When Apple makes a real Mac Pro again I will buy one. Real Mac Pros take cards, can be user expanded and have INTERNAL storage.
If Apple is concerned with the price point, many of us would be happy with a box like a smaller Mac Pro (non-trashcan) that uses the i7 chips instead of the crazy expensive Xeons.
So you know a server machine, with no video card of course and one xeon 2990 v3 cost 5k, apple does charge a lot for their boxes.
The lack of an optional second CPU, and inclusion of dual AMD GPUs (vs. one-two nvidia), make it unappealing for scientific computing. I now keep my old Mac Pro around (ca. 2008) to maintain SSH / X11 connections to a rack of dual-Xeon E5 servers. Would be nice to have a line of 2-4 Mac Pros instead on my desk. It is also shocking that they haven’t even updated it yet, since later E5 variants are now available.