9 ms·

As someone who just invested in a Mac Pro late last year, I'm a bit frustrated. I wanted years for a modular design that I could keep and upgrade over a longer

by redm 5y ago

As someone who just invested in a Mac Pro late last year, I'm a bit frustrated. I wanted years for a modular design that I could keep and upgrade over a longer time only to find out I'll be forcefully phased out within 2 years.

tantalor 5y ago
Apple doesn't do modular
- redm 5y ago
  The old (2012) Mac Pro, and the newest Mac Pro are fairly modular and upgradable. The trash can was not.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  They used to. In ye olde dayes they were great about it.
  - icedchai 5y ago
    When was that, the Mac II days?
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      Apple II :) Jobs specifically hated that, and it was indeed the Mac II where Gassee and others pressured him into producing a Mac with more expandability.
      - Finnucane 5y ago
        Yeah, and Woz had to convince him to make the Apple II have more than two slots. But the G3 and G4 towers were also easily expanded and modified.
barkingcat 5y ago
M1 mac pros were always going to come. Apple themselves announced that the next 2 years will be transition. I'd say if you purchased a Mac Pro, it's still the same. If you find yourself not having enough power, you bought the wrong machine to begin with (probably modern threadripper pro would be what you should have been looking for) If the computer satisfies all your performance needs, what use is it to "feel frustruated" over something that was expected to come? Don't feel Fear of Missing Out. The Mac Pro didn't change. Your feelings about it changed because of marketing and advertising (ie apple trying to persuade you that you need the M1, when in fact your computing needs are being taken care of already) Wait for the next generation after that current M1/M1x mac pros and go for the next generations when apple comes out with 128 Cores and 256G of ram. One constant of computer industry, there will always be the next chip, the next computer, and by then, the fancy M1 Mac Pro will become obsolete. Exactly like how nobody wants a 486 computer anymore but when it was released it was the hottest thing on the planet. Its day will come when everyone says "oh that M1? that was a slow POS that is now ewaste"
- redm 5y ago
  "what use is it to "feel frustruated" over something that was expected to come" 1) The details were all speculation. 2) There was no other option if you needed more horsepower. 3)_I'm happy with the current Mac Pro, but its going to be phased out of software support before its time, just like the Motorolla. So it's more about the software support being phased out than new hardware coming out.
  - barkingcat 5y ago
    1) it is not speculation that there will be an M1 Mac Pro. Apple clearly says within the next 2 years there will be no more Intel macs for sale. If you want the software support, wait until the support dies/runs out, and then buy the newest computer at that time, when you need it. You'll find that apple will drop support for the M1 too in the future. Its day will come when Apple decides the neural engine is too outdated or the architecture is too old and will stop support it as well. That's a fact, not speculation.
  - deleted 5y ago
newsclues 5y ago
They aren’t forcing you to phase out your machine. They will continue to support it.
- redm 5y ago
  Only for ~2 more years. I had a Motorola machine and when they switched to x86, it was useless pretty quickly, far before its time.
  - CoolGuySteve 5y ago
    The Intel MacBook was introduced in 2006 and SnowLeopard discontinued PowerPC in 2009. So 3 years seems to be about what you can expect before there's no OS, and another 2-3 years after that the patches stop.
    - newsclues 5y ago
      I’m still using an iMac from 2007 with a core 2 duo. No software updates but it still hums along and functions as a YouTube machine.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - StrictDabbler 5y ago
    I mean, if you had a Motorola Mac (68XXX) at the time of the x86 transition, you must have gotten a good decade of use out of it... I kid, obviously. I've never seen anybody refer to the PowerPC as Motorola machines even though Motorola was part of the PowerPC alliance.
- bombcar 5y ago
  At some point macOS will no longer provide an Intel version but that is likely years down the road - perhaps 2026 at the earliest? And likely much later. And third-parties will supply upgrades as the upgradable parts are roughly standard, so the Mac Pro is likely to be a completely usable machine for nearly a decade to come.
killingtime74 5y ago
Truly a first world problem for you.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't be an asshole in HN comments, no matter how annoying another comment feels. It just makes this place worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
xu_ituairo 5y ago
They announced the planned transition to ARM in June of last year. Did you know about that before your purchase?
Applejinx 5y ago
I got an iMac Pro. I have similar feelings, but for all that it's certainly doing the heavy lifting I need right NOW. Feels like wanting to be both on the cutting edge of performance, and running/developing for a Mac, is damn pricey. However, I'd rather have it this way, than sit with my current machine being the best you could get. In some ways I am gratified that Apple is busy making last year's news feel really inadequate. You can be damn sure I'm devoting a lot of effort to promptly supporting the new architecture. I've already got literally hundreds of M1 builds for my Audio Unit plugins out. I chose to produce native versions of EVERY product, no matter how old it was: rather than make a new product and only release that for M1, I treated it as the same as the 32/64 bit transition, and re-did every product in the whole library. If we're going to get absurdly capable Mac computers, I mean to be categorically included in that equation. For now, I'll enjoy my very costly iMac Pro that's still very capable… AND the M1 Macbook Pro at a fifth of the price that outperforms the iMac Pro at a few things already.
vmception 5y ago
everyone saw this coming, you can consider recouping your costs now

by redm 5y ago

tantalor 5y ago

Apple doesn't do modular

redm 5y ago
The old (2012) Mac Pro, and the newest Mac Pro are fairly modular and upgradable. The trash can was not.
Finnucane 5y ago
They used to. In ye olde dayes they were great about it.
- icedchai 5y ago
  When was that, the Mac II days?
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    Apple II :) Jobs specifically hated that, and it was indeed the Mac II where Gassee and others pressured him into producing a Mac with more expandability.
    - Finnucane 5y ago
      Yeah, and Woz had to convince him to make the Apple II have more than two slots. But the G3 and G4 towers were also easily expanded and modified.

barkingcat 5y ago

M1 mac pros were always going to come. Apple themselves announced that the next 2 years will be transition. I'd say if you purchased a Mac Pro, it's still the same. If you find yourself not having enough power, you bought the wrong machine to begin with (probably modern threadripper pro would be what you should have been looking for) If the computer satisfies all your performance needs, what use is it to "feel frustruated" over something that was expected to come? Don't feel Fear of Missing Out. The Mac Pro didn't change. Your feelings about it changed because of marketing and advertising (ie apple trying to persuade you that you need the M1, when in fact your computing needs are being taken care of already) Wait for the next generation after that current M1/M1x mac pros and go for the next generations when apple comes out with 128 Cores and 256G of ram. One constant of computer industry, there will always be the next chip, the next computer, and by then, the fancy M1 Mac Pro will become obsolete. Exactly like how nobody wants a 486 computer anymore but when it was released it was the hottest thing on the planet. Its day will come when everyone says "oh that M1? that was a slow POS that is now ewaste"

redm 5y ago
"what use is it to "feel frustruated" over something that was expected to come" 1) The details were all speculation. 2) There was no other option if you needed more horsepower. 3)_I'm happy with the current Mac Pro, but its going to be phased out of software support before its time, just like the Motorolla. So it's more about the software support being phased out than new hardware coming out.
- barkingcat 5y ago
  1) it is not speculation that there will be an M1 Mac Pro. Apple clearly says within the next 2 years there will be no more Intel macs for sale. If you want the software support, wait until the support dies/runs out, and then buy the newest computer at that time, when you need it. You'll find that apple will drop support for the M1 too in the future. Its day will come when Apple decides the neural engine is too outdated or the architecture is too old and will stop support it as well. That's a fact, not speculation.
- deleted 5y ago

newsclues 5y ago

They aren’t forcing you to phase out your machine. They will continue to support it.

redm 5y ago
Only for ~2 more years. I had a Motorola machine and when they switched to x86, it was useless pretty quickly, far before its time.
- CoolGuySteve 5y ago
  The Intel MacBook was introduced in 2006 and SnowLeopard discontinued PowerPC in 2009. So 3 years seems to be about what you can expect before there's no OS, and another 2-3 years after that the patches stop.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    I’m still using an iMac from 2007 with a core 2 duo. No software updates but it still hums along and functions as a YouTube machine.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- StrictDabbler 5y ago
  I mean, if you had a Motorola Mac (68XXX) at the time of the x86 transition, you must have gotten a good decade of use out of it... I kid, obviously. I've never seen anybody refer to the PowerPC as Motorola machines even though Motorola was part of the PowerPC alliance.
bombcar 5y ago
At some point macOS will no longer provide an Intel version but that is likely years down the road - perhaps 2026 at the earliest? And likely much later. And third-parties will supply upgrades as the upgradable parts are roughly standard, so the Mac Pro is likely to be a completely usable machine for nearly a decade to come.

killingtime74 5y ago

Truly a first world problem for you.

dang 5y ago
Please don't be an asshole in HN comments, no matter how annoying another comment feels. It just makes this place worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

xu_ituairo 5y ago

They announced the planned transition to ARM in June of last year. Did you know about that before your purchase?

Applejinx 5y ago

I got an iMac Pro. I have similar feelings, but for all that it's certainly doing the heavy lifting I need right NOW. Feels like wanting to be both on the cutting edge of performance, and running/developing for a Mac, is damn pricey. However, I'd rather have it this way, than sit with my current machine being the best you could get. In some ways I am gratified that Apple is busy making last year's news feel really inadequate. You can be damn sure I'm devoting a lot of effort to promptly supporting the new architecture. I've already got literally hundreds of M1 builds for my Audio Unit plugins out. I chose to produce native versions of EVERY product, no matter how old it was: rather than make a new product and only release that for M1, I treated it as the same as the 32/64 bit transition, and re-did every product in the whole library. If we're going to get absurdly capable Mac computers, I mean to be categorically included in that equation. For now, I'll enjoy my very costly iMac Pro that's still very capable… AND the M1 Macbook Pro at a fifth of the price that outperforms the iMac Pro at a few things already.

vmception 5y ago

everyone saw this coming, you can consider recouping your costs now