“Apple recently did a mea-culpa about its failed Mac Pro, and announced that the company was working on a new model, that would perhaps be released next year,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville.
“But the company doesn’t need to look far to design a new Mac Pro,” McElhearn writes. “They already know how to make it.”
“The people who want a new Mac Pro want a computer that allows them the freedom to make changes over time. They want to be able to replace hard drives, video cards, and more; add RAM when they need to. And add PCI cards or other internals,” McElhearn writes. “Apple could make a smaller version of the ‘cheese grater’ Mac Pro.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wouldn’t that be a pleasant surprise?
SEE ALSO:
Why is Apple’s next-gen Mac Pro taking so long? – April 18, 2017
Apple’s Mac Pro rethink is a good idea, but will it be good enough? – April 14, 2017
Laggard, trailing Apple needs to catch up HP’s workstation designs – April 7, 2017
Why Apple’s promise of a new ‘modular’ Mac Pro matters so much – April 6, 2017
Apple’s cheese grater Mac Pro was flexible, expandable, and powerful – imagine that – April 6, 2017
More about Apple’s Mac Pro – April 6, 2017
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
While you’re at it, how about a MacBook Pro that can have memory and disk upgrades in the field? Being thin and light has its drawbacks.
No…
Why no? Apple previously allowed this. Back when Apple designers actually listened to customers, the MBP battery was hot swappable, RAM was easily accessible under the keyboard without tools, hard drive swaps were easy.
Despite the loss of legacy ports, dual drive bays, and user/owner friendly features like those above, do you honestly believe the portability of the 15″ MacBook Pro is appreciably better than it was 15 years ago??? Only Ive and a few weakling humans make such a big deal about a few ounces of weight and a few mm of thickness of what is supposed to be a PRO level computer.
By all means, if Apple wants to build a family of thin sealed consumer MacBooks, fine. Just don’t call them Pros. Give the Pros real machines with real lasting value instead of fashion pieces.
Mike, I am looking for the thumbs up button to push. As I can’t find it, all I can do is:
+1
Mini-cheese grater would be awesome with user upgrades.
NOT gonna happen. They want the OBSCENE profit pricing from RAM, Video Cards, SSD’s etc etc……
You get what Apple believes you need. Stop complaining. You don’t know where the puck is going, do you?
The puck goes where I shoot it. Get the point?
hell, Pipeline Timmy doesn’t know where the puck is going, he can’t even find the keys to the zamboni.
The Mac Pro debacle is a case of Apple skating to where they *thought* the puck would go, all while the other players and the crowd were yelling louder and more desperately at them that the puck was going the other way and wondering how the hell Apple could be so blind and deaf.
That seems to be the case on many things nowadays. I used to really like Tim as the CEO but 2016 was the year I changed my mind. He might be a nice guy and all but I don’t think he’s the right fit for Apple anymore.
Even Mac daily news seems to be yelling at Apple what they are doing wrong all the time. You know you’re trouble when MDN is telling you you’re wrong on a constant basis.
As far as a desktop is concerned, I already told myself I’m building a hackintosh for my next rig. I get the best os for the best price and I don’t have to wait on people that don’t get it anymore.
I honestly get so sick of Apple trying to shove down our throats that the iPad is a laptop replacement…it is not. Plain and simple. I love my iPad. I’ve owned 4 of them.
They don’t replace my laptop though. If I want to read the internet, read a book, watch YouTube or a movie, look at pictures….hands down, the iPad wins…
If I want to do real work like Logic Pro, word processing for work, managing my files and organizing them the way I want, it’s my MacBook Pro all the way.
The fact that Apple doesn’t acknowledge this is another alarm that they are not connected to reality of what normal users use in their daily life.
A iPad Pro costs around the same as a MacBook Air (dilapidated as it is) and can’t do nearly as much as the MacBook Air.
Yes, I know everyone is going to scream at me about the truck/car analogy from Steve Jobs.
I agree with him to a certain extent too.
However, the way Apple has gone about creating the user experience still leaves it trailing behind the desktop experience as it stands now.
Will that change? Maybe. We shall see.
Apple was trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on people that their iPad was a laptop replacement. It’s just more BS from Cook to try to fool people.
My God, how we miss Steve Jobs. Cook is a poser, and an awful one at that.
We have plenty of evidence of what happens when Apple doesn’t deliver what pros want – they go to competing platforms where the exact paradigm required (and excites us) already exists. I won’t sit by for one minute if any Mac Pro doesn’t fill my need and will move on – regretfully – but my needs trump Apple’s lack of understanding and hubris thinking it thinks it knows best. When they don’t.
Actually Apple doesn’t know where the puck is going
Johnny Ive made the puck so thin …
… that everyone else at Apple is going: “There’s still a puck?”
“Apple could make a smaller version of the ‘cheese grater’ Mac Pro.”
This.
The mod Mac Pro announcement was clearly an afterthought.
Some at Apple wanted to produce a real iMac Pro. Room for 2 HD’s plus a full size video card. This would mean a deeper and heavy case for this iMac Pro. But others at Apple wanted to retain the design as much as possible.
This latter group won. That’s when they knew the iMac Pro could not replace the Mac Pro so they announced the new mod Mac Pro would come out something in 2018.
Nobody outside Apple was clamoring for the Trashcan, all they had to do was keep the Cheesegrater current on specs and everything would have been just fine. Workstations are not fashion statements.
I do not want to buy a new Mac every 2 years. I want to buy top of the market and upgrade it until the market has shifted enough to justify thousands of Dollars on another.
Jon Rubinstein headed Mac HW engineering when the Cheesegrater Macs were developed and just left his last gig. Bring him back inside Apple and charge him with developing a whole new generation of Mac Pros, Mac minis and iMacs. It is more than obvious the current crew at Apple are either clueless or do not give a shit about the Macintosh.
That or license H-P to produce workstation Macs. I’ll bet they could ship quickly. H-P and HPE split so the people over there are hungry and have the fire in the belly to do it right. Unlike Apple, they are trying very hard in the Desktop and Workstation markets.
Can you imagine the number of pros who would flock to an HP Mac Pro solution with a joyous “At last! A workstation of OUR requirement!” And there would be much cheer throughout the Macland.
The main problem would be could HP make the workstation quiet enough?
Heck, I could design a great Mac Pro in 30 minutes. Y’all can too. We have known what we want for years. Yes, Apple, you do make junk.
Something weird is going on with Apple. They have seriously neglected all things Mac. Why? I think something else is coming out to replace the Mac. iOS is the future for Apple but it’s not even out of the gate, as it were.
IOS isn’t ever going to replace the Mac in this household.
More people in the world have smartphones than they do desktops or laptops, so not everyone feels the way we do. I want to have multiple computing devices in my home. Apple is making most of its money from smartphones and that’s where they’re focusing their R&D. Apple should be able to handle smartphones, desktops, laptops and pro computers with relative ease but maybe they’re not motivated all that much.
Gosh…quit beating a dead horse , er..umm MAC, Ain’t happening….Apple just doesn’t want to, or doesn’t see the value. It is a niche category in their eyes..It’s over folks…move on.
I thought Apple was always producing new and alternative solutions in its Labs so not clear why when there must have been signs for well over a year that a new solution might be needed as they struggled to update the trash can. New products can be a difficult choice but really how can getting back on track with the Pro Mac be such a difficult choice when the alternative solution has clearly not the way to have gone. I suspect it is because for some time they were simply going to dump it pushing instead the ‘pro’ iMacs it intends to launch. I suspect internal pressure from the Pro Mac faction internally along with and strengthened by Microsoft’s decisive moves to attract Pro creative users a group which has a psycological and influential power well beyond simple user numbers, has tipped the balance belatedly and now given a new I put us to an actual replacement. Sadly I suspect similar, if less black and white conflicts are taking place on other products too.
I also suspect this may all have had an effect on encouraging some staff to move on to less fractious environments.
I don’t think the old Mac Pro is the answer . I expect so much more from Apple . I don’t think the Trashcan was such a failure … I bought 60 of them . They are great . The fact that you can’t put a nvidia card in it and that the graphic drivers / OpenGL / direct x suck compare to window is the major problem . They need to fix that . Make it a priority . Fast . They went from fully upgradable to not upgradable at all . We just need a middle ground and they need to work better with pro software & drivers developers.