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Here's my theory. Apple has made its reputation in the 90s with the film/graphics/illustration market, and that's where the Power Mac/Mac Pro was a critical pro

by imsky 14y ago

Here's my theory. Apple has made its reputation in the 90s with the film/graphics/illustration market, and that's where the Power Mac/Mac Pro was a critical product. Once the switch to Intel was made and laptops started catching up in speed/GPU power, less people needed a fixed tower just for Photoshop/After Effects/Maya, they just put those apps on a laptop. Moreover, the professional market is always smaller than the consumer market, and consumers don't want desktops, so Apple just went where the money is. They got rid of Xserve and they'll likely get rid of the Mac Pro if demand falls significantly.

scholia 14y ago
A lot of that market has already defected to Windows for the price/performance improvements, except for Final Cut users. If you're running Adobe CS, you don't need a Mac, and Mac OS X has relatively few advantages over Windows 7 for pro work. The line I hear is "I'd rather be using a Mac, but...." It's true that Apple tends to fit high-end Core chips in notebooks, but last year's Core i7-3770K still gives you step up in performance over this year's Retina MBP. And for pro users, time is money.