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Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

9to5mac.com

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Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#11

Post by Amorymeltzer »

nosrepa wrote: post #9
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't know what the t-shirt reference is, it's a creation by John Siracusa/The Accidental Tech Podcast: https://cottonbureau.com/p/4RUVDA/shirt/mac-pro-believe-dark >.

And I still don't get it.

Siracusa—probably best known here for doing fabulous OS X reviews for Ars—is a co-host of ATP. He is also known is such circles for having Mac Pros, and using them for a long time (sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstance). He thinks Apple should make a Mac Pro, not necessarily because it's a big seller, but because he thinks Apple should make a "best computer," much in the same way car companies might make a car that will never sell but pushes engineers, etc.

They made a shirt. It was fun.

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#13

Post by testing22321 »

al_borland wrote: post #7
bigyabai wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The form-factor always felt like a weird fit for Apple Silicon. With the Intel boxes it was understandable; you want a few liters of free space for a couple AMD cards or some transcode hardware. The system was designed to be expandable, and the Mac Pro was the apex of Apple's commitment to that philosophy after bungling the trashcan Mac Pro. None of the Apple Silicon hardware can seemingly justify this form factor, t…

Their justification for the form factor, when it was released, was that pro users need various PCI cards to interface with some of their equipment, and this would allow them to do that. It seemed like the guts of the Mac Pro were essentially shoved inside of a box and stuck in the corner of the tower. It would seem like they could decouple it and sell a box that pro users could load cards into (like other companies d…

It was always strange the Apple Silicon kept the 1.3kw power supply which was massive overkill.

I always hoped we’d get a consumer version of what they have internally - 10 or 20 or more Apple Silicon chips for 1000 cores or so.

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#14

Post by dangus »

> Serviceable, repairable, upgradable Macs are officially a thing of the past.

Well, not exactly. Apple’s desktop Macs actually all have modular SSD storage, and third parties sell upgrade kits. And it’s not like Thunderbolt is a slouch as far as expandability.

I can see why the Mac Pro is gone. Yeah, it has PCIe slots…that I don’t really think anyone is using. It’s not like you can drop an RTX 5090 in there.

The latest Mac Pro didn’t have upgradable memory so it wasn’t much different than a Mac Studio with a bunch of empty space inside.

The Mac Studio is very obviously a better buy for someone looking for a system like that. It’s just hard to imagine who the Mac Pro is for at its pricing and size.

I think what happened is that the Studio totally cannibalized Mac Pro sales.

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#15

Post by [deleted] »

al_borland wrote: post #2

They've been trying to kill the Mac Pro for over a decade. I wonder how long before they backtrack again? It seems like they should at least have a migration path for users who needed the expansion cards the Mac Pro supported. Pushing them to the PC seems pretty bad. Apple's new "Pro" definition seems more like "Prosumer".

[deleted]

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#16

Post by bigyabai »

dangus wrote: post #14

> Serviceable, repairable, upgradable Macs are officially a thing of the past. Well, not exactly. Apple’s desktop Macs actually all have modular SSD storage, and third parties sell upgrade kits. And it’s not like Thunderbolt is a slouch as far as expandability. I can see why the Mac Pro is gone. Yeah, it has PCIe slots…that I don’t really think anyone is using. It’s not like you can drop an RTX 5090 in there. The lat…

> Apple’s desktop Macs actually all have modular SSD storage

"Modular" does not mean that it's serviceable, repairable or upgradable. Apple's refusal to adopt basic M.2 spec is a pretty glaring example of that.

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#18

Post by bigyabai »

badc0ffee wrote: post #12
pjmlp wrote: post #4

Now everyone that needs classical workstations can finally move on into Linux or Windows workloads. Believe t-shirts at WWDC were not enough. Thus the workstation market joins OS X Server.

Apple still sells a workstation-type machine: the Mac Studio.

What is this, a workstation for ants?

Re: Apple discontinues the Mac Pro

#20

Post by internet2000 »

bigyabai wrote: post #16
dangus wrote: post #14

> Serviceable, repairable, upgradable Macs are officially a thing of the past. Well, not exactly. Apple’s desktop Macs actually all have modular SSD storage, and third parties sell upgrade kits. And it’s not like Thunderbolt is a slouch as far as expandability. I can see why the Mac Pro is gone. Yeah, it has PCIe slots…that I don’t really think anyone is using. It’s not like you can drop an RTX 5090 in there. The lat…

> Apple’s desktop Macs actually all have modular SSD storage "Modular" does not mean that it's serviceable, repairable or upgradable. Apple's refusal to adopt basic M.2 spec is a pretty glaring example of that.

> Apple's refusal to adopt basic M.2 spec

I get the ideological angle, but in practical terms that's not a barrier: https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-apple-ssd-adapter.html...

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