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They likely didn't have a choice, especially as they released a speed bump today. The Mac Pro had become a bit of a joke but the iMac and MBP range was powerful

by jads 10y ago

They likely didn't have a choice, especially as they released a speed bump today. The Mac Pro had become a bit of a joke but the iMac and MBP range was powerful enough (just enough) that the pro community would grumble more than complain. After the critical reception of the new MacBook Pro range amongst the Apple community, especially pro users, everyone was questioning Apple's commitment to pro users, and the Mac as a whole. I'm glad to see Apple doing this, but I can't help thinking this was totally reactive and pre-emptive damage control. If Apple had just released the Mac Pro speed bump, there would be even more of an outcry that Apple has given up on anything more than incremental changes. The pessimist in me thinks that Apple simply had no idea that there was this sort of demand for pro Macs. Phil and Craig mentioned the iMac numerous times, as though to say "hey pros, there is a great Mac you can use", so they can still claim that they do make great, high-performance pro devices. My guess is "next year" means "Holidays 2018", and my guess is that Apple has only recently started work on this. Apple hasn't been about modular design or expandability for a long time. With the rise in adoption of VR, there has been even more discussion about upgrading graphics cards (remember Oculus comments about the Mac?), and the age of the CPUs is another criticism. I just can't imagine Apple starting work on this some time ago.

simonh 10y ago
Most likely the current gen speed bump and next gen redesign were both green-lit at the same time, so however long ago they started on the current update.
- JoelTheSuperior 10y ago
  Well all the current update is is them dropping the price of configurations they already owned and killing off the previous base model. It's very much a matter of flicking a switch.
JoelTheSuperior 10y ago
To be honest the age of the CPUs isn't too bad. I mean, they're old but the CPUs they have are still perfectly acceptable and competitive. The issue is that the GPUs just aren't worth bothering with at all compared to what's out now. They talk in the article about being backed into a thermal corner and that's easy to believe. They simply didn't know that GPU technology was going to accelerate in advances in the way it did, and particularly not in single-GPU workloads.
gabriele 10y ago
> They likely didn't have a choice Probably, but I've read Gruber's piece twice and I couldn't help but feel as if the talk was held by a bunch of young geeks coming from a Kickstarter project. Maybe that's an Apple's new approach at PR but it sounds like they tried to downplay the impact of bad management that ultimately led to a failure that must have cost them millions.
ansible 10y ago
The pessimist in me thinks that Apple simply had no idea that there was this sort of demand for pro Macs. I've heard again and again stories about power users that are editing videos (4K these days) or doing other content creation (3D animation, etc) which can really benefit from high-end hardware. I'm thinking it was more an issue they couldn't figure out a high-end, upgradable Mac Pro which kept their beefy profit margins, and didn't become a support nightmare at a price point that was somewhat reasonable (i.e. less than $10K USD).

by jads 10y ago

simonh 10y ago

Most likely the current gen speed bump and next gen redesign were both green-lit at the same time, so however long ago they started on the current update.

JoelTheSuperior 10y ago
Well all the current update is is them dropping the price of configurations they already owned and killing off the previous base model. It's very much a matter of flicking a switch.

JoelTheSuperior 10y ago

To be honest the age of the CPUs isn't too bad. I mean, they're old but the CPUs they have are still perfectly acceptable and competitive. The issue is that the GPUs just aren't worth bothering with at all compared to what's out now. They talk in the article about being backed into a thermal corner and that's easy to believe. They simply didn't know that GPU technology was going to accelerate in advances in the way it did, and particularly not in single-GPU workloads.

gabriele 10y ago

> They likely didn't have a choice Probably, but I've read Gruber's piece twice and I couldn't help but feel as if the talk was held by a bunch of young geeks coming from a Kickstarter project. Maybe that's an Apple's new approach at PR but it sounds like they tried to downplay the impact of bad management that ultimately led to a failure that must have cost them millions.

ansible 10y ago

The pessimist in me thinks that Apple simply had no idea that there was this sort of demand for pro Macs. I've heard again and again stories about power users that are editing videos (4K these days) or doing other content creation (3D animation, etc) which can really benefit from high-end hardware. I'm thinking it was more an issue they couldn't figure out a high-end, upgradable Mac Pro which kept their beefy profit margins, and didn't become a support nightmare at a price point that was somewhat reasonable (i.e. less than $10K USD).