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The Case for a True Mac Pro Successor

102 points by brianwillis 14y ago

jpxxx 14y ago
Absolutely spot-on. The day Apple scuttles the Pro is the day they have fundamentally checked out of the computer industry. (That mobile and portable is preposterously more profitable is beyond the point. PCI+x86 is an empire.)
- lukifer 14y ago
  I wonder about Tim Cook's personal history with computing; he's brilliant at what he does, but he doesn't strike me as a long-time computer enthusiast. Nor does Ive; his enthusiasm is wrapped up in crafting beautiful objects. Obviously there are many other influential execs and engineers at Apple, but I don't know of any with the pure love of Woz or Akio Toyoda, who'd be able and willing to burn a billion dollars to push the limits of desktop computing for its own sake. Simply put, I think they've already checked out of the computer industry. They're now a consumer electronics company that happens to make use of computer-grade hardware and software engineering.
fusiongyro 14y ago
The metaphor would work but for the fact that smaller is a harder technical challenge than bigger. They're not skirting some kind of spiritual calling to make better technology by focusing on portable instead of workstations--if anything, they are doing exactly what the author wants. To equate pushing the envelope with losing money is very superficial reasoning.
- jcsiracusa 14y ago
  Good thing the I didn't do that, eh? As I noted in the article, there are many more axes of innovation beyond just performance. But performance is definitely one of them! Apple's pursuing top-end performance with gusto in its laptops and mobile devices. But its desktops have been left to languish, not even using the fastest available off-the-shelf CPUs and GPUs (let alone using custom high-performance silicon designed in-house, a la the latest iOS devices).
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    I'm saying there is no such relationship between halo cars and the Mac Pro. They're "leaving them to languish" while inventing amazing technology on the side of the spectrum. They've managed to make a $330 product seem aspirational. The more I think about your argument the less sense it makes. Great article, well written and full of interesting facts, but I don't think your point holds much water.
- acqq 14y ago
  Exactly. The real technological breakthrough is still 2048 × 1536 pixels in the iPad, together with the processing power needed to drive it small very mobile form and ten hours of work on battery. Compare that with the whole PC industry. The smallest monitor I can buy in my rich european country, which has nearly so much pixels on the shorter side is 27 inches in diagonal, having only 1440 pixels and just 110 dpi. Or with the Microsoft's Surface Pro of only 5 hours and "only" (a lot compared to the 1366x768 Surface RT, only compared to the iPad) 1920 x 1080.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
I agree with the premise, but I think a larger, more capable iPad would actually be a more influential 'halo car', given today's Apple clientele. An iPad with a 15" screen could display twice as much information and would allow for more on-screen controls. Apple could port the full versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS, but also the Pro Apps like Final Cut, Color, Aperture, and Logic. An iOS version of iBook Author could be a killer app. I've also long dreamed of a WYSIWYG authoring suite for making iOS apps on iOS (along the lines of Automator or Hypercard) – not for submission in the App Store, but to run on your own iOS devices and to share with friends and family. Nice to have: add two Thunderbolt ports to the iPad Pro. Not only for connecting fast SSDs, but also so that you could link another iPad Pro. This would add a second screen, and for processor intensive tasks, the two CPUs could work together (think xGrid or GCD).
- jcsiracusa 14y ago
  I am also, perhaps unsurprisingly, a longtime supporter of the idea of higher-end iOS devices.
- tobylane 14y ago
  If they made a swivel hinge and a touch screen on a macbook pro you'd get there, possibly easier.
- rsl7 14y ago
  You know... I want a large format iOS device... but as a pro user the very last thing I want is a sandboxed jailhouse. Apple is abandoning pro users across the board. iOS apps are essentially toys because of the limitations of iOS and the app store itself. The promise and the potential is there for something truly incredible, and that's why it's so hard to watch.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    For (some) developers, I can understand they need full access to the OS, file system, and services. However, many professionals in other lines of work don't need such an open, vulnerable environment. For them it's more important to have a safe, stable system that's easy to use and doesn't require a lot of configuration. That's why I believe the future is in iOS, not OS X. Also, for web development, I find that the iPad works very well (for me). I have all I need with Diet Coda, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, DesignPad, Idea Bucket, Writing Kit, and Photoshop Touch. I just wish for a larger screen.
ROFISH 14y ago
I agree with the idea, but Apple is stuck with Intel's Xeon roadmap, which at this point multi-processor is lagging far behind the single processor lines.
- AngryParsley 14y ago
  Although Intel's Westermere-EX was last updated in late 2011, the specs are still pretty good. Those CPUs have up to 10 physical cores (20 virtual thanks to hyperthreading) and 30MB of L3 cache. The clock speed isn't amazing, but that's to be expected when you have to deal with the heat from 2.5 billion transistors. The Ivy Bridge version is supposed to ship in Q4. It should have even better performance.
- wmf 14y ago
  Sandy Bridge EP has been out for, what, nine months and Apple hasn't used it.
- trackofalljades 14y ago
  I think we should also look up the exact details of how "stuck" they are with Intel, if this new-Mac-Pro-like-thing ends up being as revolutionary as some hope...I seem to recall way back at the "switch" to x86 that there was some deal with Intel and Apple that only locked them together for a certain number of years? That number of years may be approaching, I don't remember the details.
kickingvegas 14y ago
Trying to reconcile this post with the ghosts of past Unix workstation vendors, who tried to push the boundaries of what you could do with microprocessor-based computers, where spending tens of thousands of dollars per box was common. Datapoint as example - a SGI Onyx could run you $250,000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Onyx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Onyx Fast-forward to today, all the knowledge gained in building those high-end workstations have been distilled in the smartphones we have in our pockets now. So for Apple, R&D for its own sake or for controlling the narrative?
- wmf 14y ago
  The "halo" strategy only works if you have a low-end product for people to buy after the halo sucks them in.
  - thrownaway2424 14y ago
    See also: Chromebook Pixel. The mere existence of that thing has to be driving sales of the $250 Chromebooks.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  So true. A Mac IIfx setup could easily set you back tens of thousands of dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_IIfx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_IIfx
- kickingvegas 14y ago
  Turning it around, what computer could you build for a $10K price point? $100K?
thrownaway2424 14y ago
Would Apple really be innovating by coming out with some smoking fast workstation? We know how to build these things: cram them full of top-of-the-line Xeon CPUs and tons of SSDs and GPUs. The real problem is Apple's pro software is rotten, and throwing more hardware at it barely helps.
- webwielder 14y ago
  What is rotten exactly? Besides the fact the FCP X debuted with some missing features that were quickly restored in dramatically improved form.
  - xuhu 14y ago
    HFS+. Searching for 'git osx performance' turns up these: - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3313908/git-is-really-slow-for-100-000-objects-any-fixes http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3313908/git-is-really-slo... - http://lists-archives.com/git/652294-git-performance-on-os-x.html http://lists-archives.com/git/652294-git-performance-on-os-x... - http://blog.persistent.info/2010/12/making-git-faster-on-large-repositories.html http://blog.persistent.info/2010/12/making-git-faster-on-lar...
    - thrownaway2424 14y ago
      Bingo! Their filesystem, block i/o generally, and networking are all slower than linux, and scale up less will with additional cores.
  - bleair 14y ago
    Shake was acquired and then killed. FCP is no longer a pro application. They've added lots of nice first time user experience things, but largely ignored what "professional" users need. Which is fine. Apple wants to sell software (and iphones and ipads) to Moms and Dads and college kids.
    - webwielder 14y ago
      FCP may not be a pro application for editors who use tape, but it is most definitely a pro app for editors who have gone fully digital. I doubt Apple spent millions of dollars and several years to rebuild FCP from the ground up in order to sell iPhones to Moms and Dads.
brudgers 14y ago
The analogy to Corvettes and Vipers is massively flawed. Automotive companies use sports cars to market their brand directly via racing and indirectly when the owners of production cars drive them down the street. On the other hand, the days when speed was a major selling point of computers are long passed, and online, nobody cares whether I'm surfing HN with 8 Xeon cores of my desktop or one ARM core on my phone. The only people who care about the MacPro are people who already want to buy Apple products. And an Apple logo which sits under your desk doesn't promote the brand in coffee shops and airports.
- mahyarm 14y ago
  For us iOS & OSX developers, and apple themselves, an up to date mac pro is very very useful.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Apple can compile their toolchain and OS to run on any hardware they want. And when it comes to OSX and iOS, over the long term, they would probably prefer not to have to support third party development. The analogy for iOS development is sharecropping, and it doesn't exist anymore because it's more efficient for the landowner to buy a tractor.
    - pi18n 14y ago
      That is a well-stretched analogy. What is the tractor?
    - mahyarm 14y ago
      In practice, they don't give their own software developers non-production machines except in special circumstances. Most OSX & iOS developers in apple are using apple production hardware.
- kalms 14y ago
  For me, the thing I lusted before switching completely to Mac's was indeed the PowerMac G5. I saw it at an agency back in the day, and I couldn't get that massive tower out of my mind. I eventually bought a MacBook Pro, but soon after a Mac Pro followed suit. I don't care if it's 8, 12 or 16 Xeon cores, but I do care about speed. The way I can use all the applications and virtualizations I need at the same time is amazing. I initially thought of it as overkill, but I'm never going back. Unless Apple forces me. Plus, that tower is just gorgeous. I love looking at it. I even have an empty G5 case that I cannot bear to part with. That's what a "halo car" can do to you, I guess.
jws 14y ago
I say go the other way: Sell a version of OS X without video drivers. (ok, maybe a text console so it can cry piteously when it is broken and you can create an account or something if you have to.) Remote desktop to manage; if you have a supported GPU it is 100% free for compute; only support chipsets and processors that Apple supports anyway. The engineering cost is minimal. Compatible hardware is the customer's problem. People that need horsepower for their render farms or whatever can build or buy the systems that make sense the month they need to buy. People that need to stick code in a hosting service can do that. Stop making me do my engineering twice; once for the native Mac OS, and once for the servers. Stop losing customers when the Pro line gets too long in the tooth. Give it a "no brainer" price. You aren't doing much engineering and it isn't canibalizing your human interaction machines, it protects them from migration.
- larsberg 14y ago
  I'm not sure about the engineering cost being minimal. My research group builds a compiler for a parallel programming language, and we have trouble getting reliable performance on OSX. Many of the things you take for granted on Linux are not there: - Pinning the kernel to one core - Reliable pinning of threads (instead of just suggesting that groups be co-located on the same cache bank) Honestly, we have a fairly long list to even get to basic performance, and that's before you start hammering network stack reliability (as my distributed systems friends complain), etc. OSX on the client with Linux on the server works pretty nicely, and I'm somewhat concerned that the OSX team would have to drop client work for a whole release to focus on hardening the server experience, as well as figuring how what they need to implement to be able to support the wide variety of Linux libraries that don't quite work due to holes in the OS that performance people rely on (numactl; papi; etc.). That said, I thought most of the Apple developers have Mac Pros under their desks. If for no other reason, to maintain a highest-end client workstation, it makes sense to keep things alive. But the server sell seems a bit of a reach, engineering-wise.
  - jws 14y ago
    I don't think you'll pry linux developers away with this. But for people adding distributed backend workers to existing OS X apps it makes great sense, even if you don't end up at the same speed as a tweaked out Linux implementation. Likewise, you probably won't beat a good Linux network stack for jamming bits through, but lots of people just need to be up and running, and if the code is shared with the client, that's great. I think its a case of "showing up", they can worry about being best later, if it makes sense, but showing up at all is important. Apple just lost a premier video production house run by a friend of mine over the Mac Pro lifecycle. They'd have stocked up on render machines and waited out the front ends if they could, but that wasn't an option. (Apple will beat my last round of 100% Intel motherboards in Linux servers which have a years old, unresolved flaw in one of their two ethernet controllers that make them reset whenever you push them too hard. They also have a good chance of beating Linux in GPU computation because the vendors actually care a bit about Macs. I've got a lot of GPU power laying around that I can't use at all in Linux.)
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tolmasky 14y ago
I am an owner of the "latest" Mac Pro, and I had the liquid cooled PowerMac G5 before that. I don't really know what to feel when it comes to the Mac Pro anymore. I used to compile WebKit a lot, and it takes forever (change one .h file and go get some lunch while you wait). When I got my Mac Pro 2 years ago it compiled it in under a minute I think. It was incredible. The best part was, back then, Xcode had the distributed builds feature, so I could go anywhere in my apartment with my Macbook Air and compiling was still crazy fast since the work was offloaded to the Mac Pro's 12 cores on my home network. Then they removed that feature from Xcode. I also had a two monitor workflow, but then they broke (for me) dual display support with Lion. The Mac Pro also doesn't support the latest and greatest graphics cards, so its not worth it in my opinion to upgrade them for Cinema 4D or games. I don't even know if I mind really. The reality is that for the last 3 or 4 years, it feels like Apple has more and more been pushing me to not really love the computer experience anymore. When I think about my next "big" purchase, I will probably build a PC. I have never done that before in my life. I've exclusviely owned Mac. But "leaving" Mac OS X doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore. I'll just be trading one set of frustrations (Messages, Notification Center, 5 minute long sleep wake up times, endless WiFi issues, etc) for another. At least I'll actually have fast graphics. And Xcode will suck on my Macbook Air the same way it sucks on my Mac Pro today, so no real loss there, since I don't compile WebKit anymore. Again, its mainly just indifference now. I don't know if I miss the days when this stuff was fun, but Apple has certainly finally succeeded in making me see their computers as just tools.
- kalms 14y ago
  On graphics: I use a GeForce 670 in mine. Works great! No boot screen, but I have an older card for that.
- The_Sponge 14y ago
  >When I think about my next "big" purchase, I will probably build a PC. I did precisely that. Instead of upgrading my MBP, I built an i5, 16GB RAM, and a gtx650ti for well under $700. I've had some teething issues with regard to my workflow but VirtualBox has been a life saver.
- drawkbox 14y ago
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cheald 14y ago
Somewhat cynically, I think that Apple wants to be out of the tower business because you can't obsolete a tower every 9 months and get people to buy a new one. Towers have user-upgradable parts, can be serviced by laymen (and thus don't have the upsell opportunity when you have to bring it in to fix an issue), and are generally resilient against not being the latest-and-greatest. In a Macbook Pro, by comparison, you are charged $200 for an extra 8GB of RAM and $500 for an extra 384 GB of SSD, not because the components or labor are worth that, but because you'll pay whatever they want you to, because you can't upgrade it later. For better or worse, Apple is in the appliance business now. Buy your appliance, use it for a few months, then Craigslist it and buy the new one when it comes out. It's obscenely profitable and they have their consumer base trained to do it on command. Giving people something that they could keep current for a slim fraction of the cost of a new device is not in their interests.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  All the things you mention that make towers great for advanced users also make them a hassle for normal users. When someone's sealed box has a defect, if you know what you put in the box, your troubleshooting and repair scenarios are vastly reduced compared to letting the consumer into the box. To a normal consumer, knowing that they could have upgraded their tower doesn't just give them more upgrade anxiety, it also convinces them that they're being ripped off while the smartass kid down the street is not. The sealed box is the ultimate equalizer. I think all your points hold, I'm just saying there are a few somewhat less cynical explanations that may also apply.
  - cheald 14y ago
    I think you're absolutely right, but I think that's just another point in the "Apple as an appliance vendor" category. Sealed boxes are easier to service, easier to replace, and easier to get past consumer hesitation with. I think it's a rock solid business strategy (and Apple's financials would seem to agree), but I think it makes for an absolutely abysmal computer company. I don't think that Apple wants to be a computer company anymore. A tower wouldn't fit into who Apple is today.
fierarul 14y ago
It's only been 6 years since Apple dropped 'Computer' from its name... (http://youtu.be/P-a_R6ewrmM?t=1h41m49s http://youtu.be/P-a_R6ewrmM?t=1h41m49s ). Their 'halo' product must begin with a lowercase 'i'.
watmough 14y ago
I run a HP Z620 Workstation with a bunch of processing power as my daily. This is HP's 'Mac Pro'! I'm guessing it serves to keep the HP boffins doing cool things. It has 16 GB memory and a XEON on a daughter card (and the same again on the main board), which can be unclicked and slid out. All custom, and all different from the sister high-end box, the Z820. This is serious bad-assery, and more power to HP for doing it. I sincerely hope that Apple build a great new Mac Pro, and keep the flame of high-performance, no-compromise hardware alive.
stcredzero 14y ago
How about something with a separate screen like a Mac Mini, but in a much bigger vertical profile chassis based on iMac internals, more CPU cores, liquid cooling or heat pipes, with lots of passive cooling using its increased surface area? (Like the area the screen would have taken up?)
mark-r 14y ago
Interestingly enough Google just introduced their halo device, the Chromebook Pixel. It seems somebody believes in the concept.
redthrowaway 14y ago
The Halo Car is an interesting parallel, but one that I believe to be fundamentally flawed. Here's the problem: Apple isn't building a Corvette, or a Viper, or even an LFA. It's building the world's fastest steam locomotive. Is it impressive? By Jove, yes. Is it fast? Ridiculously so. Is it powerful? Let me count the ways. Does it do something people want? ... The problem with the Mac Pro is that it's a solution to a problem almost no one has. It uses server hardware to solve consumer problems. Great, but ... why? Is there any consumer app out there that really takes advantage of 12 cores? Seriously, what applications have been parallelized to that degree? Anything that benefits from 12 cores will benefit more from CUDA and massive GPU parallelization. I like the idea of the Mac Pro. I like going balls out just for the hell of it. I just don't think it's a computer that anyone can really use.
- jcsiracusa 14y ago
  The problem with the Porsche 918 is that it's a solution to a problem almost no one has. It uses racing hardware to solve commuter problems. Great, but…why? Is there any public road out there that really takes advantage of 820 horsepower? Seriously, what routes have been designed for these speeds? Anything that benefits from 820 horsepower will benefit more from lighter weight and a better CD. I like the idea of the Porsche 918. I like going balls out just for the hell of it. I just don't think it's a car that anyone can really use.
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    The Porsche 918 is a prestige product, though. The jet set and saudi princes can point to the 918 as a status symbol. The Mac Pro doesn't have that going for it. All hypercars, from the Huayra, to the La Ferrari (gag), to the Veyron are ridiculously impractical. However, that's a feature, not a bug. Their very impracticality cements their position in the hypercar pantheon. The Mac Pro just doesn't have that cachet. It doesn't give you bragging rights, except among a tiny subset of the population. Even then, they'd likely be more impressed by triple-SLI'd GPUs in a liquid-cooled tower with a ridiculously overclocked CPU.
    - 14y ago
specialist 14y ago
What does Apple use for their in-house compute heavy tasks? If there's an internal user base doing important work, then I think the professional line is safe. The whole "eat your own dog food" phenomenon. Knowing no one, I can't guess what that situation is.
- charlesism 14y ago
  It is common knowledge that Apple mainly uses PC hardware in their data centers. You can get an idea of the third party products they use by searching the jobs postings at jobs.apple.com. I'd bet they would be open to using non-Apple hardware in other areas if they thought there was a good business case.
orbitur 14y ago
Apple does have a "halo car." It's the Retina MacBook Pro. Most people aren't willing to spend $1700+ for a laptop, with that case and that screen. They'll pick up one of the Airs or the old style MBPs. The Retina MBP is nice to look at when browsing at the store, and subconsciously, they know they'll have it in 3 years when the technology trickles down the product line. To Apple, it's not about raw performance. It's about the total package. Which is unfortunate, because it means they're willing to make concessions in performance.
- city41 14y ago
  When you take the top standard MBP and bump its memory to 8gb and give it an SSD, it costs more than the Retina. I do see your point, especially with the top end retina, but the retina line isn't way out there in the way a Pro is beyond an iMac.
bleair 14y ago
This blog post comments that "Consider Larrabee, Intel’s project to create a massively multi-core x86-based GPU. Rumor has it that Apple was working on integrating the technology into a Mac Pro. Intel eventually scuttled the project, but consider what would have happened if it had taken off, reshaping the GPU market in the process." and while Intel has not released a consumer oriented graphics card based on Larrabee, they have released a card called the Xeon Phi based on this tech. For the HPC world the card has the potential to compete well with nvidia and ati's gpu compute offerings. It's a specialized chunk of hardware for sure, but it is not a failure. http://insidehpc.com/2013/03/05/benchmarking-intel-xeon-phi-vs-sandy-bridge/ http://insidehpc.com/2013/03/05/benchmarking-intel-xeon-phi-... As for an updated Mac Pro, all I can do is chuckle. Apple cares about selling high profit margin consumer electronics items to millions of consumers. Apple has long long ago dropped any concern for people who were "professional mac users" (see shake, final cut pro, etc. etc. etc.)
Someone 14y ago
We know that there hasn't been a significant update to the line in ages. We also know Cook has publicly stated the line is not dead and that there will be something for pros this year. That's where facts end and speculation begins. For me, the big question is "what are they waiting for?" I don't think it is a CPU; they could easily ship something with faster intel CPUs, and I doubt (understatement) they would release a pro line with Apple-designed ARM CPUs (that would certainly explain the wait, though). So, what is it they are waiting for? Faster RAM? Unlikely. A terabyte SSD? I doubt it. Some retina 3D monitor? Unlikely; that could only cause delays if it were built into the hardware and I would not expect pro stuff to have a built-in display. Some interconnect (optical thunderbolt? Something wireless?) that will allow them to come up with a new form factor of a pro box? That, I think, is the most likely. But hey, let them surprise us.
veidr 14y ago
> "Apple should keep pushing the limits of PC performance because it’s a company that loves personal computers." I love reading Siracusa, and want to agree with him here, but this sentence stops me. Apple clearly doesn't 'love' personal computers anymore. How much clearer could the signs be? They took their engineers off Mac OS X and put them on iPhone OS. Their PC OS lagged and stagnated. The 'new' Mac Pro isn't the only insult to power users; OS X 10.8 itself is, too. It is the worst update in (Mac) OS X history, not only with serious show-stopping bugs, but also with new 'features' that are ground-breaking in how dumbed-down they are[1]. Their new love is closed, power-user-hostile, quasi-disposable consumer devices. Steve Jobs himself broke up with the personal computer in his last years, and the company followed suit. [1]: LaunchPad, newly-crippled Expose, disabling extra monitors in fullscreen mode, double clicking hidden files doesn't open them, moron open-save dialogs, by-default iCloud file storage that prevents one app from being able to open another app's docs (even to attach as mail attachment), etc etc et
- bsimpson 14y ago
  If it cost 5¢ to dismiss an App Store Update notification, I'd be in more debt than the US government. Notification Center is the single most annoying (and unstoppable) OS feature I can remember.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    By scrolling up in the Notification Center panel, you can suspend notifications for the day. You can also permanently disable Notification Center, if you desire: http://lifehacker.com/5942898/permanently-disable-notification-center-in-os-x-mountain-lion http://lifehacker.com/5942898/permanently-disable-notificati...
  - veidr 14y ago
    Yeah, meant to mention that too, but it definitely isn't an exhaustive list.
- webwielder 14y ago
  Your list of minor interface tweaks made in 10.8 isn't giving me an overwhelming sense of hostility toward personal computers.
rayiner 14y ago
The iPad is Apple's "halo car." It's their RISC machine with in-house designed CPU running their in house designed OS. The Mac Pro is at best a assemblage of off-the-shelf PC parts in a nice case. Want to build the most powerful Mac Pro possible? Just buy the most expensive CPU/motherboard Intel is offering that day and pair it with a ton of RAM. Done before lunchtime.
codex 14y ago
A Mac Pro with a Xeon Phi would be a genius move--satisfying the core graphics market while not requiring the use of insanely priced general purpose Xeons, which are intended for the datacenter, not the PC. Most buyers don't want to run a database, they want to crunch pixels. Of course, they need Adobe on board. Given how shittily Adobe makes software, we could be waiting a while.
Tloewald 14y ago
I want to see whether Apple delivers on Tim Cook's alleged, cryptic comment. Given some of the very clever things Apple has done technically (GCD, neatly adding closures to C, Thuderbolt,...) I remain hopeful Apple has at least one nice surprise left for the Mac Pro faithful. But don't assume it will be a new Mac Pro. Why not a new portable that can transparently offload compute-intensive operations to the cloud, and seamlessly utilize external acceleration via Thunderbolt?

102 points by brianwillis 14y ago

jpxxx 14y ago

Absolutely spot-on. The day Apple scuttles the Pro is the day they have fundamentally checked out of the computer industry. (That mobile and portable is preposterously more profitable is beyond the point. PCI+x86 is an empire.)

lukifer 14y ago
I wonder about Tim Cook's personal history with computing; he's brilliant at what he does, but he doesn't strike me as a long-time computer enthusiast. Nor does Ive; his enthusiasm is wrapped up in crafting beautiful objects. Obviously there are many other influential execs and engineers at Apple, but I don't know of any with the pure love of Woz or Akio Toyoda, who'd be able and willing to burn a billion dollars to push the limits of desktop computing for its own sake. Simply put, I think they've already checked out of the computer industry. They're now a consumer electronics company that happens to make use of computer-grade hardware and software engineering.

fusiongyro 14y ago

The metaphor would work but for the fact that smaller is a harder technical challenge than bigger. They're not skirting some kind of spiritual calling to make better technology by focusing on portable instead of workstations--if anything, they are doing exactly what the author wants. To equate pushing the envelope with losing money is very superficial reasoning.

jcsiracusa 14y ago
Good thing the I didn't do that, eh? As I noted in the article, there are many more axes of innovation beyond just performance. But performance is definitely one of them! Apple's pursuing top-end performance with gusto in its laptops and mobile devices. But its desktops have been left to languish, not even using the fastest available off-the-shelf CPUs and GPUs (let alone using custom high-performance silicon designed in-house, a la the latest iOS devices).
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  I'm saying there is no such relationship between halo cars and the Mac Pro. They're "leaving them to languish" while inventing amazing technology on the side of the spectrum. They've managed to make a $330 product seem aspirational. The more I think about your argument the less sense it makes. Great article, well written and full of interesting facts, but I don't think your point holds much water.
acqq 14y ago
Exactly. The real technological breakthrough is still 2048 × 1536 pixels in the iPad, together with the processing power needed to drive it small very mobile form and ten hours of work on battery. Compare that with the whole PC industry. The smallest monitor I can buy in my rich european country, which has nearly so much pixels on the shorter side is 27 inches in diagonal, having only 1440 pixels and just 110 dpi. Or with the Microsoft's Surface Pro of only 5 hours and "only" (a lot compared to the 1366x768 Surface RT, only compared to the iPad) 1920 x 1080.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

I agree with the premise, but I think a larger, more capable iPad would actually be a more influential 'halo car', given today's Apple clientele. An iPad with a 15" screen could display twice as much information and would allow for more on-screen controls. Apple could port the full versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS, but also the Pro Apps like Final Cut, Color, Aperture, and Logic. An iOS version of iBook Author could be a killer app. I've also long dreamed of a WYSIWYG authoring suite for making iOS apps on iOS (along the lines of Automator or Hypercard) – not for submission in the App Store, but to run on your own iOS devices and to share with friends and family. Nice to have: add two Thunderbolt ports to the iPad Pro. Not only for connecting fast SSDs, but also so that you could link another iPad Pro. This would add a second screen, and for processor intensive tasks, the two CPUs could work together (think xGrid or GCD).

jcsiracusa 14y ago
I am also, perhaps unsurprisingly, a longtime supporter of the idea of higher-end iOS devices.
tobylane 14y ago
If they made a swivel hinge and a touch screen on a macbook pro you'd get there, possibly easier.
rsl7 14y ago
You know... I want a large format iOS device... but as a pro user the very last thing I want is a sandboxed jailhouse. Apple is abandoning pro users across the board. iOS apps are essentially toys because of the limitations of iOS and the app store itself. The promise and the potential is there for something truly incredible, and that's why it's so hard to watch.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  For (some) developers, I can understand they need full access to the OS, file system, and services. However, many professionals in other lines of work don't need such an open, vulnerable environment. For them it's more important to have a safe, stable system that's easy to use and doesn't require a lot of configuration. That's why I believe the future is in iOS, not OS X. Also, for web development, I find that the iPad works very well (for me). I have all I need with Diet Coda, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, DesignPad, Idea Bucket, Writing Kit, and Photoshop Touch. I just wish for a larger screen.

ROFISH 14y ago

I agree with the idea, but Apple is stuck with Intel's Xeon roadmap, which at this point multi-processor is lagging far behind the single processor lines.

AngryParsley 14y ago
Although Intel's Westermere-EX was last updated in late 2011, the specs are still pretty good. Those CPUs have up to 10 physical cores (20 virtual thanks to hyperthreading) and 30MB of L3 cache. The clock speed isn't amazing, but that's to be expected when you have to deal with the heat from 2.5 billion transistors. The Ivy Bridge version is supposed to ship in Q4. It should have even better performance.
wmf 14y ago
Sandy Bridge EP has been out for, what, nine months and Apple hasn't used it.
trackofalljades 14y ago
I think we should also look up the exact details of how "stuck" they are with Intel, if this new-Mac-Pro-like-thing ends up being as revolutionary as some hope...I seem to recall way back at the "switch" to x86 that there was some deal with Intel and Apple that only locked them together for a certain number of years? That number of years may be approaching, I don't remember the details.

kickingvegas 14y ago

Trying to reconcile this post with the ghosts of past Unix workstation vendors, who tried to push the boundaries of what you could do with microprocessor-based computers, where spending tens of thousands of dollars per box was common. Datapoint as example - a SGI Onyx could run you $250,000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Onyx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Onyx Fast-forward to today, all the knowledge gained in building those high-end workstations have been distilled in the smartphones we have in our pockets now. So for Apple, R&D for its own sake or for controlling the narrative?

wmf 14y ago
The "halo" strategy only works if you have a low-end product for people to buy after the halo sucks them in.
- thrownaway2424 14y ago
  See also: Chromebook Pixel. The mere existence of that thing has to be driving sales of the $250 Chromebooks.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
So true. A Mac IIfx setup could easily set you back tens of thousands of dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_IIfx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_IIfx
kickingvegas 14y ago
Turning it around, what computer could you build for a $10K price point? $100K?

thrownaway2424 14y ago

Would Apple really be innovating by coming out with some smoking fast workstation? We know how to build these things: cram them full of top-of-the-line Xeon CPUs and tons of SSDs and GPUs. The real problem is Apple's pro software is rotten, and throwing more hardware at it barely helps.

webwielder 14y ago
What is rotten exactly? Besides the fact the FCP X debuted with some missing features that were quickly restored in dramatically improved form.
- xuhu 14y ago
  HFS+. Searching for 'git osx performance' turns up these: - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3313908/git-is-really-slow-for-100-000-objects-any-fixes http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3313908/git-is-really-slo... - http://lists-archives.com/git/652294-git-performance-on-os-x.html http://lists-archives.com/git/652294-git-performance-on-os-x... - http://blog.persistent.info/2010/12/making-git-faster-on-large-repositories.html http://blog.persistent.info/2010/12/making-git-faster-on-lar...
  - thrownaway2424 14y ago
    Bingo! Their filesystem, block i/o generally, and networking are all slower than linux, and scale up less will with additional cores.
- bleair 14y ago
  Shake was acquired and then killed. FCP is no longer a pro application. They've added lots of nice first time user experience things, but largely ignored what "professional" users need. Which is fine. Apple wants to sell software (and iphones and ipads) to Moms and Dads and college kids.
  - webwielder 14y ago
    FCP may not be a pro application for editors who use tape, but it is most definitely a pro app for editors who have gone fully digital. I doubt Apple spent millions of dollars and several years to rebuild FCP from the ground up in order to sell iPhones to Moms and Dads.

brudgers 14y ago

The analogy to Corvettes and Vipers is massively flawed. Automotive companies use sports cars to market their brand directly via racing and indirectly when the owners of production cars drive them down the street. On the other hand, the days when speed was a major selling point of computers are long passed, and online, nobody cares whether I'm surfing HN with 8 Xeon cores of my desktop or one ARM core on my phone. The only people who care about the MacPro are people who already want to buy Apple products. And an Apple logo which sits under your desk doesn't promote the brand in coffee shops and airports.

mahyarm 14y ago
For us iOS & OSX developers, and apple themselves, an up to date mac pro is very very useful.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Apple can compile their toolchain and OS to run on any hardware they want. And when it comes to OSX and iOS, over the long term, they would probably prefer not to have to support third party development. The analogy for iOS development is sharecropping, and it doesn't exist anymore because it's more efficient for the landowner to buy a tractor.
  - pi18n 14y ago
    That is a well-stretched analogy. What is the tractor?
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    In practice, they don't give their own software developers non-production machines except in special circumstances. Most OSX & iOS developers in apple are using apple production hardware.
kalms 14y ago
For me, the thing I lusted before switching completely to Mac's was indeed the PowerMac G5. I saw it at an agency back in the day, and I couldn't get that massive tower out of my mind. I eventually bought a MacBook Pro, but soon after a Mac Pro followed suit. I don't care if it's 8, 12 or 16 Xeon cores, but I do care about speed. The way I can use all the applications and virtualizations I need at the same time is amazing. I initially thought of it as overkill, but I'm never going back. Unless Apple forces me. Plus, that tower is just gorgeous. I love looking at it. I even have an empty G5 case that I cannot bear to part with. That's what a "halo car" can do to you, I guess.

jws 14y ago

I say go the other way: Sell a version of OS X without video drivers. (ok, maybe a text console so it can cry piteously when it is broken and you can create an account or something if you have to.) Remote desktop to manage; if you have a supported GPU it is 100% free for compute; only support chipsets and processors that Apple supports anyway. The engineering cost is minimal. Compatible hardware is the customer's problem. People that need horsepower for their render farms or whatever can build or buy the systems that make sense the month they need to buy. People that need to stick code in a hosting service can do that. Stop making me do my engineering twice; once for the native Mac OS, and once for the servers. Stop losing customers when the Pro line gets too long in the tooth. Give it a "no brainer" price. You aren't doing much engineering and it isn't canibalizing your human interaction machines, it protects them from migration.

larsberg 14y ago
I'm not sure about the engineering cost being minimal. My research group builds a compiler for a parallel programming language, and we have trouble getting reliable performance on OSX. Many of the things you take for granted on Linux are not there: - Pinning the kernel to one core - Reliable pinning of threads (instead of just suggesting that groups be co-located on the same cache bank) Honestly, we have a fairly long list to even get to basic performance, and that's before you start hammering network stack reliability (as my distributed systems friends complain), etc. OSX on the client with Linux on the server works pretty nicely, and I'm somewhat concerned that the OSX team would have to drop client work for a whole release to focus on hardening the server experience, as well as figuring how what they need to implement to be able to support the wide variety of Linux libraries that don't quite work due to holes in the OS that performance people rely on (numactl; papi; etc.). That said, I thought most of the Apple developers have Mac Pros under their desks. If for no other reason, to maintain a highest-end client workstation, it makes sense to keep things alive. But the server sell seems a bit of a reach, engineering-wise.
- jws 14y ago
  I don't think you'll pry linux developers away with this. But for people adding distributed backend workers to existing OS X apps it makes great sense, even if you don't end up at the same speed as a tweaked out Linux implementation. Likewise, you probably won't beat a good Linux network stack for jamming bits through, but lots of people just need to be up and running, and if the code is shared with the client, that's great. I think its a case of "showing up", they can worry about being best later, if it makes sense, but showing up at all is important. Apple just lost a premier video production house run by a friend of mine over the Mac Pro lifecycle. They'd have stocked up on render machines and waited out the front ends if they could, but that wasn't an option. (Apple will beat my last round of 100% Intel motherboards in Linux servers which have a years old, unresolved flaw in one of their two ethernet controllers that make them reset whenever you push them too hard. They also have a good chance of beating Linux in GPU computation because the vendors actually care a bit about Macs. I've got a lot of GPU power laying around that I can't use at all in Linux.)

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tolmasky 14y ago

I am an owner of the "latest" Mac Pro, and I had the liquid cooled PowerMac G5 before that. I don't really know what to feel when it comes to the Mac Pro anymore. I used to compile WebKit a lot, and it takes forever (change one .h file and go get some lunch while you wait). When I got my Mac Pro 2 years ago it compiled it in under a minute I think. It was incredible. The best part was, back then, Xcode had the distributed builds feature, so I could go anywhere in my apartment with my Macbook Air and compiling was still crazy fast since the work was offloaded to the Mac Pro's 12 cores on my home network. Then they removed that feature from Xcode. I also had a two monitor workflow, but then they broke (for me) dual display support with Lion. The Mac Pro also doesn't support the latest and greatest graphics cards, so its not worth it in my opinion to upgrade them for Cinema 4D or games. I don't even know if I mind really. The reality is that for the last 3 or 4 years, it feels like Apple has more and more been pushing me to not really love the computer experience anymore. When I think about my next "big" purchase, I will probably build a PC. I have never done that before in my life. I've exclusviely owned Mac. But "leaving" Mac OS X doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore. I'll just be trading one set of frustrations (Messages, Notification Center, 5 minute long sleep wake up times, endless WiFi issues, etc) for another. At least I'll actually have fast graphics. And Xcode will suck on my Macbook Air the same way it sucks on my Mac Pro today, so no real loss there, since I don't compile WebKit anymore. Again, its mainly just indifference now. I don't know if I miss the days when this stuff was fun, but Apple has certainly finally succeeded in making me see their computers as just tools.

kalms 14y ago
On graphics: I use a GeForce 670 in mine. Works great! No boot screen, but I have an older card for that.
The_Sponge 14y ago
>When I think about my next "big" purchase, I will probably build a PC. I did precisely that. Instead of upgrading my MBP, I built an i5, 16GB RAM, and a gtx650ti for well under $700. I've had some teething issues with regard to my workflow but VirtualBox has been a life saver.
drawkbox 14y ago

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cheald 14y ago

Somewhat cynically, I think that Apple wants to be out of the tower business because you can't obsolete a tower every 9 months and get people to buy a new one. Towers have user-upgradable parts, can be serviced by laymen (and thus don't have the upsell opportunity when you have to bring it in to fix an issue), and are generally resilient against not being the latest-and-greatest. In a Macbook Pro, by comparison, you are charged $200 for an extra 8GB of RAM and $500 for an extra 384 GB of SSD, not because the components or labor are worth that, but because you'll pay whatever they want you to, because you can't upgrade it later. For better or worse, Apple is in the appliance business now. Buy your appliance, use it for a few months, then Craigslist it and buy the new one when it comes out. It's obscenely profitable and they have their consumer base trained to do it on command. Giving people something that they could keep current for a slim fraction of the cost of a new device is not in their interests.

fusiongyro 14y ago
All the things you mention that make towers great for advanced users also make them a hassle for normal users. When someone's sealed box has a defect, if you know what you put in the box, your troubleshooting and repair scenarios are vastly reduced compared to letting the consumer into the box. To a normal consumer, knowing that they could have upgraded their tower doesn't just give them more upgrade anxiety, it also convinces them that they're being ripped off while the smartass kid down the street is not. The sealed box is the ultimate equalizer. I think all your points hold, I'm just saying there are a few somewhat less cynical explanations that may also apply.
- cheald 14y ago
  I think you're absolutely right, but I think that's just another point in the "Apple as an appliance vendor" category. Sealed boxes are easier to service, easier to replace, and easier to get past consumer hesitation with. I think it's a rock solid business strategy (and Apple's financials would seem to agree), but I think it makes for an absolutely abysmal computer company. I don't think that Apple wants to be a computer company anymore. A tower wouldn't fit into who Apple is today.

fierarul 14y ago

It's only been 6 years since Apple dropped 'Computer' from its name... (http://youtu.be/P-a_R6ewrmM?t=1h41m49s http://youtu.be/P-a_R6ewrmM?t=1h41m49s ). Their 'halo' product must begin with a lowercase 'i'.

watmough 14y ago

I run a HP Z620 Workstation with a bunch of processing power as my daily. This is HP's 'Mac Pro'! I'm guessing it serves to keep the HP boffins doing cool things. It has 16 GB memory and a XEON on a daughter card (and the same again on the main board), which can be unclicked and slid out. All custom, and all different from the sister high-end box, the Z820. This is serious bad-assery, and more power to HP for doing it. I sincerely hope that Apple build a great new Mac Pro, and keep the flame of high-performance, no-compromise hardware alive.

stcredzero 14y ago

How about something with a separate screen like a Mac Mini, but in a much bigger vertical profile chassis based on iMac internals, more CPU cores, liquid cooling or heat pipes, with lots of passive cooling using its increased surface area? (Like the area the screen would have taken up?)

mark-r 14y ago

Interestingly enough Google just introduced their halo device, the Chromebook Pixel. It seems somebody believes in the concept.

redthrowaway 14y ago

The Halo Car is an interesting parallel, but one that I believe to be fundamentally flawed. Here's the problem: Apple isn't building a Corvette, or a Viper, or even an LFA. It's building the world's fastest steam locomotive. Is it impressive? By Jove, yes. Is it fast? Ridiculously so. Is it powerful? Let me count the ways. Does it do something people want? ... The problem with the Mac Pro is that it's a solution to a problem almost no one has. It uses server hardware to solve consumer problems. Great, but ... why? Is there any consumer app out there that really takes advantage of 12 cores? Seriously, what applications have been parallelized to that degree? Anything that benefits from 12 cores will benefit more from CUDA and massive GPU parallelization. I like the idea of the Mac Pro. I like going balls out just for the hell of it. I just don't think it's a computer that anyone can really use.

jcsiracusa 14y ago
The problem with the Porsche 918 is that it's a solution to a problem almost no one has. It uses racing hardware to solve commuter problems. Great, but…why? Is there any public road out there that really takes advantage of 820 horsepower? Seriously, what routes have been designed for these speeds? Anything that benefits from 820 horsepower will benefit more from lighter weight and a better CD. I like the idea of the Porsche 918. I like going balls out just for the hell of it. I just don't think it's a car that anyone can really use.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  The Porsche 918 is a prestige product, though. The jet set and saudi princes can point to the 918 as a status symbol. The Mac Pro doesn't have that going for it. All hypercars, from the Huayra, to the La Ferrari (gag), to the Veyron are ridiculously impractical. However, that's a feature, not a bug. Their very impracticality cements their position in the hypercar pantheon. The Mac Pro just doesn't have that cachet. It doesn't give you bragging rights, except among a tiny subset of the population. Even then, they'd likely be more impressed by triple-SLI'd GPUs in a liquid-cooled tower with a ridiculously overclocked CPU.
  - 14y ago

specialist 14y ago

What does Apple use for their in-house compute heavy tasks? If there's an internal user base doing important work, then I think the professional line is safe. The whole "eat your own dog food" phenomenon. Knowing no one, I can't guess what that situation is.

charlesism 14y ago
It is common knowledge that Apple mainly uses PC hardware in their data centers. You can get an idea of the third party products they use by searching the jobs postings at jobs.apple.com. I'd bet they would be open to using non-Apple hardware in other areas if they thought there was a good business case.

orbitur 14y ago

Apple does have a "halo car." It's the Retina MacBook Pro. Most people aren't willing to spend $1700+ for a laptop, with that case and that screen. They'll pick up one of the Airs or the old style MBPs. The Retina MBP is nice to look at when browsing at the store, and subconsciously, they know they'll have it in 3 years when the technology trickles down the product line. To Apple, it's not about raw performance. It's about the total package. Which is unfortunate, because it means they're willing to make concessions in performance.

city41 14y ago
When you take the top standard MBP and bump its memory to 8gb and give it an SSD, it costs more than the Retina. I do see your point, especially with the top end retina, but the retina line isn't way out there in the way a Pro is beyond an iMac.

bleair 14y ago

This blog post comments that "Consider Larrabee, Intel’s project to create a massively multi-core x86-based GPU. Rumor has it that Apple was working on integrating the technology into a Mac Pro. Intel eventually scuttled the project, but consider what would have happened if it had taken off, reshaping the GPU market in the process." and while Intel has not released a consumer oriented graphics card based on Larrabee, they have released a card called the Xeon Phi based on this tech. For the HPC world the card has the potential to compete well with nvidia and ati's gpu compute offerings. It's a specialized chunk of hardware for sure, but it is not a failure. http://insidehpc.com/2013/03/05/benchmarking-intel-xeon-phi-vs-sandy-bridge/ http://insidehpc.com/2013/03/05/benchmarking-intel-xeon-phi-... As for an updated Mac Pro, all I can do is chuckle. Apple cares about selling high profit margin consumer electronics items to millions of consumers. Apple has long long ago dropped any concern for people who were "professional mac users" (see shake, final cut pro, etc. etc. etc.)

Someone 14y ago

We know that there hasn't been a significant update to the line in ages. We also know Cook has publicly stated the line is not dead and that there will be something for pros this year. That's where facts end and speculation begins. For me, the big question is "what are they waiting for?" I don't think it is a CPU; they could easily ship something with faster intel CPUs, and I doubt (understatement) they would release a pro line with Apple-designed ARM CPUs (that would certainly explain the wait, though). So, what is it they are waiting for? Faster RAM? Unlikely. A terabyte SSD? I doubt it. Some retina 3D monitor? Unlikely; that could only cause delays if it were built into the hardware and I would not expect pro stuff to have a built-in display. Some interconnect (optical thunderbolt? Something wireless?) that will allow them to come up with a new form factor of a pro box? That, I think, is the most likely. But hey, let them surprise us.

veidr 14y ago

> "Apple should keep pushing the limits of PC performance because it’s a company that loves personal computers." I love reading Siracusa, and want to agree with him here, but this sentence stops me. Apple clearly doesn't 'love' personal computers anymore. How much clearer could the signs be? They took their engineers off Mac OS X and put them on iPhone OS. Their PC OS lagged and stagnated. The 'new' Mac Pro isn't the only insult to power users; OS X 10.8 itself is, too. It is the worst update in (Mac) OS X history, not only with serious show-stopping bugs, but also with new 'features' that are ground-breaking in how dumbed-down they are[1]. Their new love is closed, power-user-hostile, quasi-disposable consumer devices. Steve Jobs himself broke up with the personal computer in his last years, and the company followed suit. [1]: LaunchPad, newly-crippled Expose, disabling extra monitors in fullscreen mode, double clicking hidden files doesn't open them, moron open-save dialogs, by-default iCloud file storage that prevents one app from being able to open another app's docs (even to attach as mail attachment), etc etc et

bsimpson 14y ago
If it cost 5¢ to dismiss an App Store Update notification, I'd be in more debt than the US government. Notification Center is the single most annoying (and unstoppable) OS feature I can remember.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  By scrolling up in the Notification Center panel, you can suspend notifications for the day. You can also permanently disable Notification Center, if you desire: http://lifehacker.com/5942898/permanently-disable-notification-center-in-os-x-mountain-lion http://lifehacker.com/5942898/permanently-disable-notificati...
- veidr 14y ago
  Yeah, meant to mention that too, but it definitely isn't an exhaustive list.
webwielder 14y ago
Your list of minor interface tweaks made in 10.8 isn't giving me an overwhelming sense of hostility toward personal computers.

rayiner 14y ago

The iPad is Apple's "halo car." It's their RISC machine with in-house designed CPU running their in house designed OS. The Mac Pro is at best a assemblage of off-the-shelf PC parts in a nice case. Want to build the most powerful Mac Pro possible? Just buy the most expensive CPU/motherboard Intel is offering that day and pair it with a ton of RAM. Done before lunchtime.

codex 14y ago

A Mac Pro with a Xeon Phi would be a genius move--satisfying the core graphics market while not requiring the use of insanely priced general purpose Xeons, which are intended for the datacenter, not the PC. Most buyers don't want to run a database, they want to crunch pixels. Of course, they need Adobe on board. Given how shittily Adobe makes software, we could be waiting a while.

Tloewald 14y ago

I want to see whether Apple delivers on Tim Cook's alleged, cryptic comment. Given some of the very clever things Apple has done technically (GCD, neatly adding closures to C, Thuderbolt,...) I remain hopeful Apple has at least one nice surprise left for the Mac Pro faithful. But don't assume it will be a new Mac Pro. Why not a new portable that can transparently offload compute-intensive operations to the cloud, and seamlessly utilize external acceleration via Thunderbolt?