From a note by John Gruber posted on Daring Fireball Tuesday morning:
Let’s not beat around the bush. I have great news to share:
Apple is currently hard at work on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro, with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs and big honking hot-running GPUs, and which should make it easier for Apple to update with new components on a regular basis. They’re also working on Apple-branded pro displays to go with them.
I also have not-so-great news:
These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays “will not ship this year”...
Gruber usually gets his scoops direct from Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller. For more MacPro vaporware news, read The Mac Pro Lives.
UPDATE: Four other reporters were in on this briefing. See also these first-hand accounts:
- Matthew Panzarino, Techcrunch: Apple pushes the reset button on the Mac Pro
- John Paczkowski, BuzzFeed: Apple Says It Is “Completely Rethinking” The Mac Pro
- Lance Ulanoff, Mashable: The MacPro is getting a major do-over
- Ina Fried, Axios: Apple to ditch the current Mac Pro design
Below: Schiller introducing the 2013 Mac Pro.
Here’s one for the rumor mill … LEGO® by Jony Ive.
Good news from today’s AppleInsider: “Apple is still aiming to target professional users looking for new Macs, and has revealed plans to release new iMacs this year with new configuration options that could be attractive to prosumer and creative users.”
Apple designed this really neat Pro that was so cool (not using lots of watts) and so quiet, whisper fan, that they could not be upgraded with hotter and faster chips. Per Gruber, many pro users are sw engineers who love their MacBooks which get more frequent updates and are useful everywhere. Hence, with some constraints on budget, and the use-it-everywhere factor, the Mac Pro loses sales to MacBooks
Then, I guess, a year or two ago, the Mac Pro fell into limbo. Upgrade? But how given the thermal issue? Redesign and go back to modular, admitting the can’t-innovate-anymore triumph was a goof? Hope for Intel or AMD to fit the thermal constraints? Or defer, focusing on bigger revenue opportunities. The last doesn’t sound glorious, especially given the negative press from their biggest fans.
Is there a silver lining?. Maybe the 2018 Mac Pro will have amazing GPUs that Apple is apparently designing, for amazing game creation, Deep Learning, AR, and ? Apple may also bring new faster storage technology and interfaces which can dramatically improve performance for Pro applications.
I’ll buy a new iMac when they come out for sure and no doubt a new MacBook Pro as well.
Now, if they’d just stay in the router business I’d be really happy.
Personally, I’d like to be able to back up my iOS devices locally without using my computer and it would be nice if a Time Capsule could handle that.
Looking back to the first iMac and what it was designed for, the actual iMac, though a few months out of date, is comfortably able to handle a lot of things today’s pro users wants or need.
In 1998 a pro-User was a Graphics or a photo Editor….today’s is consumer who is handling pro stuff like 4k videos shot on a phone.
So the consumer mac has to be able to handle pro stuff and so both lines are merging into another.