4 ms·

> clear case where using a powerful off-the-shelf Intel chip makes more business sense right now. It will simplify MacOS when they end Intel support.

lapcat 4y ago
Exactly this. There's a cost to supporting Intel forever only for the Mac Pro and nothing else. Not only a cost to Apple, but also a cost to 3rd party Mac developers, who would be even less likely to have the resources to support the Mac Pro for its own sake. Apple dropped PowerPC support in Mac OS X (10.6) 3.5 years after the Intel transition started, and they dropped Rosetta support in Mac OS X (10.7) 2 years after that. IIRC the last PPC Mac hardware was discontinued very soon after the Intel transition started.
- iamtedd 4y ago
  You don't think it's possible that the cost to maintain MacOS support for Intel is already built into the price of a Mac Pro?
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Certainly not for 3rd party developers, who get $0 from Mac Pro sales. Hard to sell a machine if there's no software support. Anyway, no, not for Apple either, because Mac Pro unit sales are already low, and trying to make that one Mac model cover the cost of all macOS Intel support will make the already expensive and low volume Mac Pro even more expensive, and thus even lower volume, making it harder to cover the cost.
vlovich123 4y ago
Yeah, that’s a common analysis people seem to miss even though Apple is very clearly vertically integrated. Software maintenance costs are so much significantly higher that unifying HW is significantly more value even if the margins aren’t as good. The high end macs serve as cachet status symbols amongst the creators and designers which tend to contain a lot of trend setters + mind share + creative software being optimized around the macs which then means that hardware is purchased at disproportionately higher levels (+ potential downstream effects where if you’re mostly a max shop already, shouldn’t you just get the MacBook Air and other Apple devices to simplify corporate device management?). Also a unified HW platform ALSO reduces software maintenance costs for partners and which is a nice virtuous cycle of encouraging that porting to happen. Apple has a uniquely holistic view of the market place that they’ve cultivated over decades and I’ve seen no sign that they’ve ever lost sight of that like many competitors due at much smaller market caps.
akamaka 4y ago
That’s aside from the point. They could accomplish that by simply killing off the Mac Pro line. The question is how they will pay for a high-end chip when they no longer can rely on Intel to spread out the development cost among many customers.
- pigsty 4y ago
  I feel like Mac Pro purchasers also have an accompanying MacBook Pro and iPhone and are more entwined in the ecosystem than the typical user. Frustrating those people likely comes with a risk of losing high value customers. I think it’s similar to the model a lot of game consoles have. They make little to negative profit on the console itself during the first couple years, but make it up on software and other benefits of hardware lock-in.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > They could accomplish that by simply killing off the Mac Pro line. In the time after the trashcan Mac Pro they lost a significant portion of the professional market. And while that market is relatively small, it's highly influencial. By the time Final Cut Pro X was unveiled Apple could boast that 60% of Hollywood movies are edited on a Mac. Now? Not so much. And this probably extends into other areas, too.
  - donbrae 4y ago
    Indeed. Releasing FCP X as an MVP (a concept no-one outside of software dev understands), without the features in FCP 9 that professionals expect, was a bad idea. I know a couple of filmmakers that switched to PC, partly due to the cost of Macs but also because of FCP X.
    - jsjohnst 4y ago
      > without the features in FCP 9 that professionals expect There was no version 9, nor version 8. ;)
      - 4y ago
cm2187 4y ago
Do we know how long it will take? Apple doesn't have a huge history of backward compatibility. This could be a not so subtle nudge to force everyone to re-buy their hardware at a time people are keeping their computer hardware for longer.
rahoulb 4y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they keep internal Intel support anyway - as well as other architectures. The difference would be supporting Intel publicly - with third-party developers. As the target for Mac Pros won't just be running a load of electron apps.

lapcat 4y ago

Exactly this. There's a cost to supporting Intel forever only for the Mac Pro and nothing else. Not only a cost to Apple, but also a cost to 3rd party Mac developers, who would be even less likely to have the resources to support the Mac Pro for its own sake. Apple dropped PowerPC support in Mac OS X (10.6) 3.5 years after the Intel transition started, and they dropped Rosetta support in Mac OS X (10.7) 2 years after that. IIRC the last PPC Mac hardware was discontinued very soon after the Intel transition started.

iamtedd 4y ago
You don't think it's possible that the cost to maintain MacOS support for Intel is already built into the price of a Mac Pro?
- lapcat 4y ago
  Certainly not for 3rd party developers, who get $0 from Mac Pro sales. Hard to sell a machine if there's no software support. Anyway, no, not for Apple either, because Mac Pro unit sales are already low, and trying to make that one Mac model cover the cost of all macOS Intel support will make the already expensive and low volume Mac Pro even more expensive, and thus even lower volume, making it harder to cover the cost.

vlovich123 4y ago

Yeah, that’s a common analysis people seem to miss even though Apple is very clearly vertically integrated. Software maintenance costs are so much significantly higher that unifying HW is significantly more value even if the margins aren’t as good. The high end macs serve as cachet status symbols amongst the creators and designers which tend to contain a lot of trend setters + mind share + creative software being optimized around the macs which then means that hardware is purchased at disproportionately higher levels (+ potential downstream effects where if you’re mostly a max shop already, shouldn’t you just get the MacBook Air and other Apple devices to simplify corporate device management?). Also a unified HW platform ALSO reduces software maintenance costs for partners and which is a nice virtuous cycle of encouraging that porting to happen. Apple has a uniquely holistic view of the market place that they’ve cultivated over decades and I’ve seen no sign that they’ve ever lost sight of that like many competitors due at much smaller market caps.

akamaka 4y ago

That’s aside from the point. They could accomplish that by simply killing off the Mac Pro line. The question is how they will pay for a high-end chip when they no longer can rely on Intel to spread out the development cost among many customers.

pigsty 4y ago
I feel like Mac Pro purchasers also have an accompanying MacBook Pro and iPhone and are more entwined in the ecosystem than the typical user. Frustrating those people likely comes with a risk of losing high value customers. I think it’s similar to the model a lot of game consoles have. They make little to negative profit on the console itself during the first couple years, but make it up on software and other benefits of hardware lock-in.
dmitriid 4y ago
> They could accomplish that by simply killing off the Mac Pro line. In the time after the trashcan Mac Pro they lost a significant portion of the professional market. And while that market is relatively small, it's highly influencial. By the time Final Cut Pro X was unveiled Apple could boast that 60% of Hollywood movies are edited on a Mac. Now? Not so much. And this probably extends into other areas, too.
- donbrae 4y ago
  Indeed. Releasing FCP X as an MVP (a concept no-one outside of software dev understands), without the features in FCP 9 that professionals expect, was a bad idea. I know a couple of filmmakers that switched to PC, partly due to the cost of Macs but also because of FCP X.
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    > without the features in FCP 9 that professionals expect There was no version 9, nor version 8. ;)
    - 4y ago

cm2187 4y ago

Do we know how long it will take? Apple doesn't have a huge history of backward compatibility. This could be a not so subtle nudge to force everyone to re-buy their hardware at a time people are keeping their computer hardware for longer.

rahoulb 4y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they keep internal Intel support anyway - as well as other architectures. The difference would be supporting Intel publicly - with third-party developers. As the target for Mac Pros won't just be running a load of electron apps.