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The trade offs for a SoC are different than for a desktop machine, and to a lesser extent a laptop. The desktop is where we'll feel the most pain. I wouldn't be

The trade offs for a SoC are different than for a desktop machine, and to a lesser extent a laptop. The desktop is where we'll feel the most pain. I wouldn't be surprised if they cancelled the Mac Pro entirely.

jmull 9y ago
It would surprise me, because they made a big public show of recommitting to the Mac Pro last year. If they had any doubts all they had to do was say nothing -- which is their strong preference -- and it would have remained clear that the Mac Pro was dead. Making a strong "trust us, we're working on it" statement and then canceling would be a pretty bad unforced error. Not impossible, but with their top-down, forward-looking decison-making process it seems very unlikely to me.
- slededit 9y ago
  Given the failure of ARM in the datacenter Apple would be pulling something off that no other semi manufacturer has. It's not impossible but just very unlikely. It's much more reasonable that they'll do a "best effort" in the high end space but it won't be comparable to a Xeon. You can see the iMac Pro as a prelude to that. A beefy machine to be sure but not what you'd expect for top of the line.
  - jmull 9y ago
    It really depends on what exactly Apple is intending to do, which we just don't know yet. But if they really are committed to the Mac Pro (and if this rumor is essentially true), then they must be planning something pretty extraordinary: 1. They actually have a solid plan on how they are going to make CPUs competitive with Intel Xeons over the next ~2-4 years. 2. They're planing on a bifurcated line, where some Macs have Apple CPUs and some have Intel CPUs... presumably with different architectures. I guess 2b. would be that the Apple CPUs will actually be x64 compatible. It all seems pretty crazy, but Apple has done this kind of thing before, and done it rather smoothly. I guess time will tell.
    - slededit 9y ago
      The simplest explanation is that they aren't that committed to the high end. They don't make any money there and they've proven with their actions it is not a priority. A few quotes to the contrary don't change the fundamentals of what they've been doing.

jmull 9y ago

It would surprise me, because they made a big public show of recommitting to the Mac Pro last year. If they had any doubts all they had to do was say nothing -- which is their strong preference -- and it would have remained clear that the Mac Pro was dead. Making a strong "trust us, we're working on it" statement and then canceling would be a pretty bad unforced error. Not impossible, but with their top-down, forward-looking decison-making process it seems very unlikely to me.

slededit 9y ago
Given the failure of ARM in the datacenter Apple would be pulling something off that no other semi manufacturer has. It's not impossible but just very unlikely. It's much more reasonable that they'll do a "best effort" in the high end space but it won't be comparable to a Xeon. You can see the iMac Pro as a prelude to that. A beefy machine to be sure but not what you'd expect for top of the line.
- jmull 9y ago
  It really depends on what exactly Apple is intending to do, which we just don't know yet. But if they really are committed to the Mac Pro (and if this rumor is essentially true), then they must be planning something pretty extraordinary: 1. They actually have a solid plan on how they are going to make CPUs competitive with Intel Xeons over the next ~2-4 years. 2. They're planing on a bifurcated line, where some Macs have Apple CPUs and some have Intel CPUs... presumably with different architectures. I guess 2b. would be that the Apple CPUs will actually be x64 compatible. It all seems pretty crazy, but Apple has done this kind of thing before, and done it rather smoothly. I guess time will tell.
  - slededit 9y ago
    The simplest explanation is that they aren't that committed to the high end. They don't make any money there and they've proven with their actions it is not a priority. A few quotes to the contrary don't change the fundamentals of what they've been doing.