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Why The Mac Pro Won’t Last

9 points by jmartellaro 15y ago

untog 15y ago
it’s pointless for Apple to carry a product forward for the sake of a few, even if those few complain rather loudly. Not necessarily. Do they make a profit on these boxes? Then there is clearly a point in maintaining them. Obviously, at some point research and development would outweigh any potential profits, but canning a product just because it's used by a minority doesn't always make sense. Many people who choose a Mac Pro over an iMac might go to a tower PC rather than an Apple all-in-one or Mini.
kls 15y ago
The big issue I see is one that Apple and many companies overlook. One reason that apple is where Apple is at as far a success goes is due to the fact that an overwhelming demographic of creators use Macs, From Audio, to Video all the way down to Development many times the Mac is the choice of the creator. People see this, and people fashion themselves of the same mold as the creators, I think this is overlooked and I think it is one of the core reasons that Apple is wildly successful, people perceive whether right on wrong that the creators use Mac's. I don't know if some of those creators in specialized fields like video production, will be so willing to move to laptops that do not compare to the Mac Pro line. So the question becomes, what happens with the Mac as a platform looses those creators, what happens if those creators find a new platform and that platform becomes known as the platform the creative use. I don't know if it means anything at all, but not knowing the answer sure seems like a huge bet to me, when all that hangs in the balance is a product line that does not have as great of sales as other lines. If it where me I would find out the answer to that question before I killed the line. Because those that need that kind of horse power will be moving to a different platform, and not moving to the Mac Book Pro.
marquis 15y ago
There are a huge number of professional applications using PCIe cards in Mac Pros. I've seen some hundreds of installations in media centers. While I see their point, it would be a horror story if the Mac Pro were discontinued before developers moved to a format away from PCIe (thunderbolt-driven dedicated DSP processing?).
lukev 15y ago
The article makes a big deal of how GPUs can be better than CPUs. Fine - you can still fit a much beefier GPU in a desktop than a laptop. In fact, the performance gap between desktop/laptop GPUs is greater than CPUs.

9 points by jmartellaro 15y ago

untog 15y ago

it’s pointless for Apple to carry a product forward for the sake of a few, even if those few complain rather loudly. Not necessarily. Do they make a profit on these boxes? Then there is clearly a point in maintaining them. Obviously, at some point research and development would outweigh any potential profits, but canning a product just because it's used by a minority doesn't always make sense. Many people who choose a Mac Pro over an iMac might go to a tower PC rather than an Apple all-in-one or Mini.

kls 15y ago

The big issue I see is one that Apple and many companies overlook. One reason that apple is where Apple is at as far a success goes is due to the fact that an overwhelming demographic of creators use Macs, From Audio, to Video all the way down to Development many times the Mac is the choice of the creator. People see this, and people fashion themselves of the same mold as the creators, I think this is overlooked and I think it is one of the core reasons that Apple is wildly successful, people perceive whether right on wrong that the creators use Mac's. I don't know if some of those creators in specialized fields like video production, will be so willing to move to laptops that do not compare to the Mac Pro line. So the question becomes, what happens with the Mac as a platform looses those creators, what happens if those creators find a new platform and that platform becomes known as the platform the creative use. I don't know if it means anything at all, but not knowing the answer sure seems like a huge bet to me, when all that hangs in the balance is a product line that does not have as great of sales as other lines. If it where me I would find out the answer to that question before I killed the line. Because those that need that kind of horse power will be moving to a different platform, and not moving to the Mac Book Pro.

marquis 15y ago

There are a huge number of professional applications using PCIe cards in Mac Pros. I've seen some hundreds of installations in media centers. While I see their point, it would be a horror story if the Mac Pro were discontinued before developers moved to a format away from PCIe (thunderbolt-driven dedicated DSP processing?).

lukev 15y ago

The article makes a big deal of how GPUs can be better than CPUs. Fine - you can still fit a much beefier GPU in a desktop than a laptop. In fact, the performance gap between desktop/laptop GPUs is greater than CPUs.