OT: Despite new CPU options, Apple reportedly questioning future of Mac Pro

Could be the end coming for Mac Towers (kinda feel this coming)...

[www.appleinsider.com]

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Sad news about Apple. again. I hope it's only a rumor. I've been waiting for a MacPro update with all current goodies: USB 3, Thunderbolt, and of course, the latest processor to replace my aging PowerMac G5. I'll wait a little longer before getting what's available now.

Alberto

Well, if they killed FCP Studio, they also may have killed any reason for people to buy a high end tower
as well. Sometimes software sales drive hardware sales. Just a thought.
I wonder how much Apple's foot hurts from the self inflicted bullet wound <:


Hauffen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sad news about Apple. again. I hope it's only a
> rumor. I've been waiting for a MacPro update with
> all current goodies: USB 3, Thunderbolt, and of
> course, the latest processor to replace my aging
> PowerMac G5. I'll wait a little longer before
> getting what's available now.
>
> Alberto

Quote
I wonder how much Apple's foot hurts from the self inflicted bullet wound

Second best quote I heard this year

Yet another consideration for going Adobe / Avid. Both are cross platform, our AJA Kona boards are cross platform. So instead of being forced to go all external thunderbolt technology, I can still the same Kona boards in a comparable Windows 7 machine and for the most part, the PCs are still cheaper than the Macs.

Plus our server supports both Mac and Windows so I can replace my machines one at a time and not all at once since the media is also cross platform.

Quite simply, more options in both hardware and software with Adobe / Avid than X.

That's HUGE from a business standpoint and something I'm hearing quite a bit more from business owners. It's not just X, but the overall system configuration that's moving away from Apple.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

I disagree that anything is "moving away from Apple". I dislike that word "cheaper". My opinion is that everything is just miniaturizing & consolidating. I have not worked on a tower in my freelance business for almost 3 years and have not needed it. My new MBP Quad (4 cores + 4 virtual cores) with the SSD is just as fast (if not faster on some things) as my studio 8 core MacPro. I now have a studio in my backpack that can run both Mac & Windoze. This "MacPro tower going away" thing is a long time coming.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Two guesses:

1. My gut feeling is that the rumors are right. They'll eol the tower as we know it soon. Because; a) the form-factor is totally obsolete, b) after dropping Studio they don't make software anymore that even requires a MacPro and, c) thunderbolt offers the potential for external slot expansion. I just hope that they don't pull the plug on it from one day to the next as with Studio, but at least offer some legacy support, parts and service for awhile. Getting blindsided twice within a year would be a bit much.

2. Which leads to when? Soon = within the next 3-6 months. Tower sales are certainly soft in part because a lot of people are holding back due to the uncertainty. For that reason alone, Apple can't and won't let the suspense continue too much longer.

With 80 billion or so on hand Apple could easily afford to keep a racing stallion in the stall, even if it were only avaible on-line via pre-order and/or via their authorized solutions experts. Like an expanded MacMini-type one-piece facility-friendly rackmountable unit with one very fast processor option, a lot of ram, a decent (replaceable) gpu and a bunch of thunderbolt ports. (Dreaming)

Whatever. At very least it seems to me that it will all be decided sooner than later. Meantime, our purchasing budget here is on hold, waiting to see what, if anything, Apple comes up with.

ClayC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Two guesses:
>
> 2. Which leads to when? Soon = within the next
> 3-6 months. Tower sales are certainly soft in
> part because a lot of people are holding back due
> to the uncertainty. For that reason alone, Apple
> can't and won't let the suspense continue too much
> longer.
> Whatever. At very least it seems to me that it
> will all be decided sooner than later. Meantime,
> our purchasing budget here is on hold, waiting to
> see what, if anything, Apple comes up with.

I certainly have no purchased anything in the past 18 months because we're waiting to see what was going to happen. I keep hearing November 15th bandied about as a date for "news about the Mac Pro." Of course I've heard two other dates over the course of this year so I'm not hopeful.

We're going to have to upgrade our machines starting Q1 of 2012 regardless of what Apple does. So it's either going to be something that Apple releases or we'll go look the other way. I've gotten some excellent recommendations for Windows configurations for both Avid and Adobe.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

As Walter said. Why would I dump my Mac Pro just because Final Cut Pro is no longer available? I already have Avid and Premiere Pro installed. And the rest of Adobe CS5.5 production suite. Good Lord.

Or they could maybe not make them so frequently so we who bought last year's model don't feel disencfranchised so quickly. Although I must say, two-plus years on with my lowly '09 2.26 Mhz 8-Core, I don't feel that way at all-- so maybe to bring up the blood lust-- don't make them so frequently! A new model every couple years will goose up the hunger..

Also, the miniaturization factor may mean "tower" really does go away. Even if it remains a powerful desktop device, not optimized for travel, as long as it can handle some third party PCI-E cards-- that could simply be a matching accessory box-- the whole kit could probably fit inside a Mini case today!

Wouldn't surprise me, but "the consensus among sales executives" scares the hell out of me. I had a beer with some of these folks last week. Nice, bright folks but clearly they're on a mission which doesn't answer my needs in particular.

Saw a mediocre PBS hour on Steve Jobs tonight. Mostly Robert X. Cringely and Walt Mossberg. It was all about Steve's yo-yo personality. Whoever made it missed out on the essential details of fit and finish which Steve obsessed over in every product to define insanely great. A few examples would have made all the difference. Many of these are not obvious. In the MacOS software, how many people know there is a "V buffer" engineered for mouse travel from main to submenus, allowing the user to sort of slide into the submenu without having to mouse directly across first? This is so subtle it's insane, but it's a big usability improvement over rigid heirarchal menu systems invoked by mouse. And the show had absolutely nothing with Jony Ive and industrial design. Or Jef Raskin and the beginning of the Mac. One of his greatest talents was attracting great talent. Better than nothing for a coda, but very uneven, IMHO.

Best, as always,
Loren S. Miller
www.neotrondesign.com
Home of KeyGuide Central

I watched "Steve Jobs: iChanged the World" too - and agree - it was pretty uneven from our (the pro users) POV but it seemed more of a consumer doc for a consumer audience - we my dear Loren - are heading the way of the art house film!

My worry is that this "new trend" to minimise - forcing pro users to put PCIe expansion outside the box is a backwards step at the moment as Thunderbolt imo does't quite cut it at 10Gbps.

Now if Apple - roll out a 100Gbps version for a Pro Mac model and make Macs capable of "Transputer-like" "automatically load-balancing" "fully hot-plugable redundancy" so we can simply connect up more Macs to the "farm" and achieve ever greater Multiprocessing then fine - sign me up.

But to limit us (at the current point) with the top of the line iMac to 4 processors 16GB of RAM and a 10Gbps second connectivity bandwidth is crazy - I often utilise all my 32GB RAM both 800-1200MBps RAIDs and high bandwidth GPU processing in my 8 core.

I need the ability to expand - unless the consumer models get soooo powerful (which they will) that I don't need the extras.

Until that tipping point, Apple really should make sure they keep their position in the pro market...

...even if its like Apple's version of the Bugatti Veryron - a production concept car that cost a huge amount in development but it shows the world that they lead the world in pushing tech. Apple used to do this (on occasion), I think they need to do it again rather than cobbling together lagging PC tech (with the exception of Thunderbolt).



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

<<I've gotten some excellent recommendations for Windows configurations for both Avid and Adobe.>>

I need to upgrade one suite like right now or latest, end of the month for an upcoming job. I'm torn between buying the current MacPro (to see it get eol'ed a week later?) or heading over to a PC. I've seen plenty of solutions on how to configure a PC that is similar to the current MacPro's in performance terms. What would interest me more is what configurations (especially for CS5.5) are conceivable/affordable that would do better.

Can you share some of the solutions that have caught your eye?

Here, here Ben - I would buy that Apple Veyron

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

[www.dell.com]
Check out this badboy PC, with the i7 990



ClayC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> <>
>
> I need to upgrade one suite like right now or
> latest, end of the month for an upcoming job. I'm
> torn between buying the current MacPro (to see it
> get eol'ed a week later?) or heading over to a PC.
> I've seen plenty of solutions on how to configure
> a PC that is similar to the current MacPro's in
> performance terms. What would interest me more is
> what configurations (especially for CS5.5) are
> conceivable/affordable that would do better.
>
> Can you share some of the solutions that have
> caught your eye?

It kinda reminds me of a '58 Caddy, with all the fins and things...

randy

"[www.dell.com]
Check out this badboy PC, with the i7 990"

Nice one.

Here's the Bugatti. 240 cores and 16 GB's of GPU power sounds about right.


[www.nvidia.com]

It all depends on what sort of expansion chassis and the functionality thunderbolt gains. I for one wouldn't be sad to see it go. I see a 27" iMac quad core i7, along with a thunderbolt 27" thunder bolt display, along with a matrox mxo2 mini with thunderbolt, as a pretty sweet "almost do it all" rig for me for under 6k. Or replace the iMac with a MBP, and same deal, only portable.

If expansion chassis provide could provide functional PCIe slots imagine the possibilities- for say a Kona or Red Rocket or any other I/O type of card then it can go high end I/O to decks, and "real" monitors. Not something crucuial for me though since I'm "just" an editor.

I dunno. I like working at a desktop with dual monitors and a broadcast monitor. I have a 17" MBP for portable editing but I prefer working at a desktop with balanced monitors.



www.strypesinpost.com

Avid just announced MC6 BTW with IO support for nearly the full matrox line, AJA/BMD/MOTU this is a huge deal for Avid. Now there is really no good reason to start anything with FCP 7.

Soapbox Deployed.

I posted this a few months ago. Apple would have been doing this even if Steve Jobs was hiking Everest next week after gaining 15 pounds.

I am gonna buy a new macpro in the spring and i am beefing it out as i think that in the next 2 they will move away from macpro. Dumbing them down starting next year.

The moment the ipad came out that was the smoke. Then they made FCPx stupid and that was fire to me. FIRE!!!!!!!
The iMac can do some things but they are basically laptops. Not enough for video production which these days include devinci, c4d, maya, heavy AE plugs, batch processing, large raids and transcode that are at times happening simultaneously.

Who knows 5 years from now we will all work from old macs and sorry ass pc's. No offense to pc users but i really despise them for the instability and constant fixes.

I hope that they don't think they can compare a 4500. machine's sales to a 1200. machine's sales. That is more of the dumb corporate thinking that seems to be a highly transmittable disease these days.
Why not just drop the price 1k or so and then see if they sell like a pc thingy. The only complaints that i really hear about them is that they are EXPENSIVE. Every other complaint deals with lack funds to properly utilize peripheral interfaces or that they are nervous that they don't have to spend 2 months plus a year fixing stuff.

PC PERSON: "Thats weird, it always works? You mean to tell us that this computer doesn't get viruses and you don't have to have virus software, or run monthly maintenance. Well if you don't have to do that, then Apple must suck."

An apple guy once said in reference to disliking pc's, " I don't want to know how to build a computer or write computer code. I just want a computer that works."

Apple is gonna suck if they don't push high powered machines. It was the constant usage in pro environment that made them get popular. People were happy knowing that their machine was the same as the machine that made music and video. ( excluding avid )

I think i have been on mac since about 98 or 99. I like them cause they like a burly lumberjack with the hands of a masseuse and the intellect of a team of nuclear scientist.

Its coming.

.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Quote
TimMirk said:
Now there is really no good reason to start anything with FCP 7.

...bingo

...and that should effectively kill FCPX's chances of catching on with the Pro Audience. All the big boyz & girlz are talking Avid now across Social Media. BIG WIN for Avid & new 64-Bit Macbook Pro owners w/ thunderbolt. You will be able to run a full blown Avid System from anywhere now. This might just recapture market share Avid lost to FCP.

Interesting times ahead...

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

And I'm still learning PPro. Which I'm finding to be exactly what I wanted Studio to become i.e. not "just" an editor, but a great suite of apps. But, Ok. Got it and lovin' it.

CS6, from all I've read and heard, should be major too. April or so. Very much looking forward to that release too.

Yup, very interesting times ahead with lots of excellent options. Win, win for the users.

ClayC-

You can strip that clutter down to resemble ALMOST FCP7. I did it.

Ben-
[My worry is that this "new trend" to minimise - forcing pro users to put PCIe expansion outside the box is a backwards step at the moment as Thunderbolt imo does't quite cut it at 10Gbps. ]

I haven't even touched Thunderbolt anything and you've already outgrown 10Gigabits??

Joey-
...and that should effectively kill FCPX's chances of catching on with the Pro Audience. ]

That's what I threw at the marketeers. Until you show us a mission-critical pro project, an hourlong doc, or a feature film, scenes, takes etc and how to deploy that mess o metadata, you're not reaching us.

In FCP7 we handle that sort of info during capture or transfer, following best practices in each genre. I don't need to be assaulted by it when I load up to cut.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Summon your Video Scopes with Option - 9 !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com