Apple admits the Mac Pro was a mess

Post by barryp » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 2:57 AM UTC

Post by karlshea » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:17 AM UTC

barryp wrote: post #11

I hope somebody at Apple can get it through their heads that a Mac Pro desktop doesn't need to be the thinnest, lightest box full of the most exotic parts with corners engineered to within fractions of a millimeter. It just needs to: 1. Run macOS 2. be fast as hell 3. be quiet 4. be reasonably priced 5. be somewhat expandable on the inside with RAM and disks 6. have a variety of external ports 7. be spec-bumped at le…

Post by karlshea » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:24 AM UTC

terminado wrote: post #9

It's just that it's not worth $4,000 or even $3,000. The trashcan is cool, despite looking like a trashcan, but way too expensive for what you get. Something at that price needs to last, and permit upgrades. For what you get, and what you can do with it, it's not worth more than $1,000. Many Apple fans buy for status though, and Apple knows this, hence the watch. So, simply having the price tag as an ornament works f…

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:26 AM UTC

cycomachead wrote: post #8

mixmastamyk wrote: post #6

Second article and I still don't understand why they can't at least do a spec bump every year. If not possible due to suppliers a price drop should at least grab some market share. With the resources Apple has, anything else is simple negligence.

Engineers, and especially the hardware kind, are a limited resource. Not that Apple couldn't spend even more than they currently are on growth, but they're reaching some limits, and until later this year office space is/will be one of them. This is combined with the fact that the Mac Pro sells in the "low single digit" percentage range of Mac sales means that it's hard to justify an outsized expense. When factoring i…

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:30 AM UTC

karlshea wrote: post #14

mixmastamyk wrote: post #6

Second article and I still don't understand why they can't at least do a spec bump every year. If not possible due to suppliers a price drop should at least grab some market share. With the resources Apple has, anything else is simple negligence.

On the Accidental Tech Podcast from the other day it was hinted they heard rumors that Apple engineers did try and do some spec bumps, but they kept running into thermal problems no matter what they tried. I guess they were really really close to the edge with that design, and Marco said he's heard those GPUs are failing from heat issues fairly often.