No one orchestrates surprise better than Apple.
The fever of excitement surrounding the launch of a new Apple product is the envy of every other consumer company in the world. Rumors, gossip, and eager anticipation create a potent mix for marketing.
But professional users are different. The shattering echoes from the death of Final Cut Server and Final Cut Studio (3) last summer are still reverberating throughout the industry.
The unnecessary, and unheralded, death of both these products killed businesses overnight, destroyed relationships, and alienated an industry. It wasn’t Final Cut Pro X that a caused the outcry, it was what died in its birth.
Professionals are not consumers – we are running companies, meeting payroll, and creating products using Apple tools.
THE CASE OF THE MACPRO TOWER
Two months ago, Lou Borella sent me an email asking if I had any insight on the MacPro. I told him that I had just had a meeting with Apple where I asked them that question and they declined to answer. (This is not surprising because, as we all know, Apple does not comment on unannounced products.)
Lou told me he was going to start a Facebook petition to ask Apple to clarify its plans for the MacPro. This is Apple’s last remaining tower computer and a daily workhorse throughout the creative world. I told him that he could do what he wanted, but that Apple does not pay attention to petitions or respond to discussion groups on social media.
Still, he set up the page – https://www.facebook.com/MacProsPlease – and I tweeted about it.
This last week, he caught the eye of Gizmodo – along with other Mac rumor sites – and his page exploded. More than 7,000 likes as I write this and adding more every minute.
There are two ways to view this: as a forlorn attempt to get Apple’s attention, or as a way to show that the MacPro is still relevant in today’s mobile society. This could go either way.
Apple locks its hardware plans LONG before any product is announced. The decision on the future life, if any, of the MacPro was made, probably, last year. Most likely, earlier than that. So, Apple already knows what it intends to do.
For those of us running businesses using a hardware tool that can not be sourced from any other vendor, it would be very, very helpful to know if it has a future life.
MY TAKE
Here’s my thought: Apple hasn’t upgraded the MacPro since 2010 because it feels the market for it is too small. Combine that with Apple’s philosophy that it doesn’t pre-announce products and you have a perfect stew of insecurity for creative types.
But Apple’s philosophy doesn’t prohibit it from pre-announcing the death of a product. If sales are already so low as to not justify upgrading the MacPro, then there is no significant harm to Apple’s business to saying that the MacPro will be “End of Lifed” by such-and-such a date.
Conversely, if the market for the MacPro is large enough to justify updating it, there is no harm in announcing that the MacPro will be updated by such-and-such a quarter because the MacPro market is far smaller than any other computer hardware segment that Apple serves. Neither announcement would have any significant financial impact on Apple, but would be a SIGNIFICANT benefit to creative professionals planning their hardware purchases.
APPLE WANTS TO KEEP US INFORMED
In my recent meetings with Apple, just before NAB last April, they told me that they wanted to give creative professionals a heads-up with where they were going with Final Cut Pro X. This was why they were having on-the-record meetings and sharing up-coming features with me. (You can read my entire report of that meeting here.)
Keeping us informed is a GREAT idea!!!
I sent an email to my contacts at Apple to see if they want to comment on this. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.
It has been obvious for the last couple of years that creative professionals no longer make up the bulk of Apple’s business – and that’s fine with me, I wish Apple every success. But because we are responsible for creating the content that Apple displays so wonderfully on all its consumer devices, it would be really helpful if Apple could share with us an outline of their future hardware plans for those tools that consumers will never buy and professionals can’t live without.
I mean, can you imagine what it would be like creating movies for an iPad on a Windows system?
Let me know what you think.
Larry
P.S. If you want to stay informed on what I learn from Apple, as well as the world of audio and video, please subscribe to my free, weekly newsletter: www.larryjordan.biz/newsletter/
39 Responses to Does the MacPro Have A Future?
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Joe Pavlo says:
May 25, 2012 at 8:14 pm
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Peter Tours says:
May 25, 2012 at 11:11 pm
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Craig Seeman says:
May 26, 2012 at 3:30 am
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nickeditor says:
May 26, 2012 at 5:58 am
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Craig Seeman says:
May 26, 2012 at 12:42 pm
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Larry says:
May 26, 2012 at 12:52 pm
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Jeff Orig says:
May 26, 2012 at 1:41 pm
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Craig Seeman says:
May 26, 2012 at 6:48 pm
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LeoHans says:
May 26, 2012 at 7:28 pm
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Tim Monaghan says:
May 27, 2012 at 2:14 am
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Steve Steele says:
May 27, 2012 at 4:52 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →Have you looked at Apples “Pro” page at apple.com lately?
apple.com/pro
Along with the links to (the long since discontinued) Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio you will find the most recent articles to be almost 3 years old!
Talk about asleep at the wheel! It breaks my heart!
In my experience during tech crises with Apple, just they don’t want to get that we rely on them for our living. They refuse to acknowledge any responsibility. That’s not to say they don’t honor their warranties – they just treat everyone like a consumer. They really should remove the word “Pro” from their products to be fair.
While the new Xeon E5 was released in March, that’s probably not the last piece in the puzzle. The new Thunderbolt controllers were released in late April.
My hunch is that we’ll be looking at a new form factor. 4xPCIe slots will be replaced with Thunderbolt. I’m hopping for 4 ports given the number of endo of chain devices. The other variable is the GPU. Will there be one or two 16xPCIe for GPU? Another question are the internal hard drives. They could conceivably have a box with just SSD boot and one additional HD. With the above changes (along with dropping the two optical bays) You could potentially have a much smaller box.
So what might the form be? I see two possibilities, one might be an “iMacPro” of sorts (a variation on HP’s new Z1). The other would be something akin to a very large version of the MacMini but more like a rack mount size a few RUs tall. In either case the Jonathan Ive magic will be how cooling is handled and what direct they take with the GPU.
Basically the MacPro as we know it gone but it will probably be replaced by something.
As to the current MacPro. Apple hasn’t killed it because there’s a replacement coming and the supply channels need to be in place (my guess). As to announcing in advance. Not going to happen if it’s a new box. Apple likes to keep its’ competitive advantage by not revealing details and they wouldn’t announce an update, which would be misleading, since this would be a new box.
Another Clue At Apple’s Final Cut Pro In Action pages, Radical Media lists only Mac and no specific computer. None of the three list MacPro. I note that the Red Rocket card on Electric Entertainment (waiting for mLogic mLink R tie in?). While the RR works in other chassis, it will need a chassis going forward if there’s no PCIe slots in Macs. Also interesting is that I believe the last Compressor update helps clustering with headless Macs . . . of which there are two types, MacMini, MacPro. My guess we’d be something a little bit more powerful than the current Minis for useful clustering (of course a quad i7 Mini might become a standard).
Changes are certainly a foot. My guess is the MacPro, as we know it, is gone but something new will replace it. It may be slimmer beast. Maybe a slightly lower price point. A bit more modular to sell a bit better (more versatile).
Current Mac Pro:
· ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 was released in october 2009
· Processor in first quarter of 2009
· RAM 1333MHz DDR3 ECC R-DIMM SDRAM perhaps for the same dates (DDR3 2400 MHz is here and DDR4 soon)
· SATA II (3Gb/s) hard drives, SATA III was released in may 2009 (current HDD with 64MB of buffer)
· Superdrive 18x and now you can find 22x (and blu-ray)
You can configure 512GB SSD for 1250$ or 1400$, are they crazy?
Sorry, but Apple gives embarrassed 🙁
Larry, you have to consider how an early announcement of a MacPro replacement would damage iMac sales. Consider the following Pro Apps and FCPX test results from Barefeats.
http://barefeats.com/macs11_01.html
and
http://barefeats.com/fcpx01.html
The 2011 iMac Quad Core i7 compares favorably to the 2010 MacPro Six Core Xeon. With announcements like Smoke on iMac one might guess the top iMac is benefiting from the lack of updates and the lack of significant power advantage of most 2010 MacPros over 2011 top iMac. Consider that Quad Core iMac with 2GB GPU and monitor is $2300 vs 2010 MacPro 6 core with 5870 (1GB) and Apple Monitor is close to $4900.
Given the above Barefeats test results and the price, which would most people (even Pros) would buy? Announce a MacPro replacement before it’s ready to ship and the iMac sales drop. Additionally it deepens pent up demand as a result. That may follow with supply chain issues given the increased upfront delivery volume needed.
Tim Cook is known as a supply chain master. I don’t think Apple would announce early, hurt their iMac sales, create supply chain challenges.
Apple will most likely make an announcement at the time they can ship something more powerful that the iMac Quad i7.
Additionally, I think Apple will want to push the move to Mountain Lion hard, especially given the dependency FCPX may have on it. That would mean such new Mac won’t happen until Mountain Lion is ready unless there is a significant OS delay that would result in not getting advantageous hardware sales.
Craig:
I don’t necessarily disagree – provided you assume that silence means the MacPro is being upgraded. However, that is not a sure thing… Perhaps a better way to phrase my thought is that if a professional product is going to be end of lifed, that some advance warning be given – similar to the one year advance notice Apple gave on the demise of Shake.
As for the relationship between FCP X and Mountain Lion – this is conjecture, though Apple apps try to leverage the latest OS, in the case of FCP X, there is only one new feature in FCP X that leverages OS X 10.7 – which is the full screen display. I’m not sure how quickly Apple wants to make FCP X run exclusively on OS 10.8 — or the benefits in forcing users to upgrade to an brand new operating system.
Larry
This is pure speculation and wishful thinking but from a marketing standpoint it makes sense to keep the MacPros alive. In my opinion, it’s a classic marketing strategy to offer 3 choices: bargain, best value, and high end. This translates to Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. Having the Mac Pro in the line up makes the iMac and Mac Mini seem like a great value.
I hope Craig is right and a new and more flexible form factor is on the horizon.
If the MacPros die, we’ll live and do what we do best: get creative.
Larry,
While not a sure thing, a don’t think Apple acts irrationally . . . well not too often 😉
That the MacPro is still being sold (even one in the Apple Stores I visited) but not marketed as per FCP In Action, does mean they haven’t killed it and, barring something irrational, there’s likely a reason for keeping the channel going.
As per the OS, maybe I’m mistaken but . . . Broadcast Monitoring is only available 10.7. Also, on my own network, “Add SAN Location” only works in FCPX from 10.7 as well. Additionally Apple has been giving away 10.6 (through MobileMe) with an offer termination of June 15th to facilitate moving 10.5 holdouts to 10.7. Of course they can release a new Mac with 10.7 but, just my speculation, it looks like Apple is really pushing people up the OS chain regards to using FCPX.
Not that the MobileMe offer has anything directly to do with FCPX but it’s just another indicator that Apple is pushing very hard to try people generally into new OS features. This would be to push people into iCloud, which requires Lion. Lion must be updated from SnowLeopard (App Store)
Personally I would use Shake as a comparison to MacPros. Hardware and its manufacturing costs are a bit different than software. Given the above Barefeats tests, there already are fewer reasons to buy a 2010 MacPro, other than the 12 core, than ever before.
Maybe the delay one way another is just a function of a deep internal divide on the final decision. Even that would mean that there’s something already in wings that may or may not see the light of day.
In fact, if Apple simply wanted to kill the MacPro, with no replacement, doing that as quickly as possible might increase the sales of the top end iMac. Sustaining pent up demand to not satisfy it whether through a new box or a current iMac, doesn’t make much business sense and I just don’t think Apple would be that self injurious when it comes to hardware sales.
How current top line MacPro compares to current PCs?
Could it be that the reason not to release new MacPro until… (don’t know when) is because actual MacPro is ok considering that the OS itself is taking better use of the hardware and the actual evolution of thunderbolt market does not justify to release a brand new one yet?
Great Article all the way up to your last point.
“can you imagine what it would be like creating movies for an iPad on a Windows system?”
Well in terms of CG of couse I can because macs are generally absent in this area… Editing may be a different story but film editing is platform neutral unless your dedicated to FCP 7 “RIP”. That being said, Avid is still stuck in the nooks of a lot of production offices and Adobe Premiere is turning into a real player in this space. Probably due to the introduction of FCP X.
I love my Mac Pro… boy I really do! However I need a relationship with my hardware provider and the absent of news is like clinging to a love affair after the other half left and won’t return my phone calls. Sure, she may come back home but I just can’t be in a relationship like this.
Thunderbolt could theoretically take the place of PCIe, and eSATA, and internal drive bays, but it can’t take the place of large RAM per CPU requirements. For the large orchestral film scores, and large pop productions I deal with, I will always need very large amounts of memory that is directly linked to the CPU. No current Apple product other than a MacPro type form factor can accommodate that type of flexibility. Components are getting smaller and perhaps at some point an iMac that holds enough RAM, and a bunch of Minis (if they meet the requirements – Qnode), used in a Distributed Audio Processing network might be the future. That means DAW manufactures will have to support Distributed Audio Processing, or hope that Apple doesn’t kill Logic Pro.