It ’s been a rough X for the Mac Pro . In 2013 , Apple released a weird cylindrical model that did n’t gather the needs of most of Apple ’s professional customers and was n’t really upgradeable . In 2017 , Apple call a bunch of technical school diary keeper into a room and reaffirmed their dedication to the Mac , promising a new Mac Pro . That Mac Pro shipped in late 2019 … less than two years before Apple made the proclamation that it was shifting the Mac off of Intel and onto its own processor .
Just short of the tenth anniversary of that first Mac Pro trip-up , Apple is now late in conclude its central processing unit changeover by shipping the firstApple atomic number 14 - based Mac Pro . What ’s worse , reportsfrom Bloomberg suggest that the company has ditched the next Mac Pro ’s highest - final stage central processing unit , call the computer ’s total purpose into question .
Is Apple rethinking its loyalty to the Mac Pro ? And , kick in the many powerful characteristics of Apple silicon Macs , should it ?
Niche of a niche
Let ’s start with the fact : Almost nobody buys Mac Pros . The Mac is roughly 10 pct of Apple ’s overall business , and it ’s safe to say that at least 75 percent of Mac sale are laptop computer . That leaves a fraction of a fraction to be campaign over by the iMac , Mac mini , Mac Studio , and Mac Pro . It ’s pretty unlikely that the one that lead off at $ 6,000 is go to be a big portion of those desktop sales event .
But just because the Mac Pro is a niche production within a niche family within a small recession of Apple ’s overall business does n’t intend it ’s not important . The arguments for Apple to keep a powerful expandable screen background at the top of the Mac course are numerous . Obviously , some marketplace just require powerful , modular , expandable systems – and if Apple ca n’t supply them , they ’ll lose out on those gross sales . ( And if a food market switches from the Mac at the in high spirits end , it ’s potential that the rest of the computers in that market will also go from Macs to PCs . )
Then more broadly , there ’s the “ flagship ” literary argument : The high - end Mac demo off everything the weapons platform is adequate to of . Apple might not sell many of them , but their creation helps the Mac platform as a whole . And perhaps , as with the technical school NASA make grow for the Apollo computer programme , Apple ’s piece of work pushing the very high remnant of Mac performance will produce spin - off value that will accrue to the quietus of the intersection lineage .
Or as Apple ’s Phil Schillersaid back in 2017 :
Mac Pro is in reality a pocket-sized percentage of our CPU — just a single - dactyl percentage . However , we do n’t look at it that mode . The fashion we seem at it is that there is an ecosystem here that is related . So there might be a single - digit percentage of pros who practice a Mac Pro ; there ’s that 15 percent base that uses Pro software program frequently and 30 percent who practice it nonchalantly , and these are related . These are not distinct small silo . There ’s a connection between all of this .
That ’s Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller explain that the Mac Pro is valuable because … well , because it ’s connect to the hoi polloi who use Pro software a small and who apply Pro software a lot , and … it ’s all related , I estimate ? It for certain seems a lot squishier when you think about it .
Apple does n’t sell Mac Pro in turn that liken to MacBooks , but it ’s still an important weapons platform .
IDG
The Mac Pro is n’t a intersection you make if the bottom crinkle is all you care about . It ’s the form of mathematical product you make because you want it to furbish your reputation , to apply it to boast about your prowess in plan computers and the chips that go in them . You make it because the experts in central fields want you to , and you love foreground how your computer are used in those glamorous or exciting theatre of operations . You make it because “ there ’s a connection between all of this , ” whateverthisis .
Apple silicon doesn’t fit
Here ’s the problem with the Mac Pro on Apple Si : Apple has spent more than a X design fluid processors to be power effective , to share a loyal kitty of memory between central processing unit cores and GPU burden , and to mix Apple - built GPU core inside the same silicon chip packet . It ’s a model that was made for the iPhone , but it become out that it scales fairly well to the iPad and , as we ’ve discovered over the last few years , even to the Mac .
That ’s great , but the Mac Pro does n’t need to be any of that . It does n’t want to see any of those moral . A big tower Mac does n’t interest about energy efficiency . It ’s get vast cooling devotee and is plugged into the wall . It want expansion slots to charge in more GPU horsepower . It want loads of expandable store . It wants what Apple silicon was never designed to put up .
This is not to say that Apple could n’t redesign thing to check the Mac Pro . But … do you re - suppose central design conclusion of the mainframe architecture that has led you to keen succeeder in telephone set , tablets , and all the other Mac manikin , all for a niche of a recess ? This is one of the key question of the next Mac Pro : Did Apple flex its silicon chip - aim ism for the Mac Pro , or did it bend the definition of a Mac Pro to feature its chips ?
I ca n’t say that I ’m promote byMark Gurman ’s report at Bloombergthat Apple has scrapped plans for an “ M2 Extreme ” , basically four M2 Max chips ( or two M2 Ultra poker chip ) put together , which was in the first place planned to power the new Mac Pro . If Gurman is proper , it means that the new Mac Pro will be power by the next genesis of the M1 Ultra buffalo chip that was introduced in the Mac Studio last class .
Minimal Mac Pro
So what makes a Mac Pro a Mac Pro ? If it ’s a tower envelopment , Apple ’s got a relatively fresh one from 2019 that it can just roll out again . ( Gurman says that ’s now the plan , which is also a little disconcerting when you weigh that the original reports suggested a Modern , half - height enclosure and that quad - M2 chip . ) But what ’s inside the Mac Pro matters , and if it ’s just an M2 Ultra chip , it ’s intemperate not to moot the new Mac Pro just a Mac Studio that proceed out of its apartment and into a miniskirt - manse .
Does it help if there ’s expandible intragroup storage ? Sure , I suppose – it ’s for certain a lot neater than attaching drives via extraneous port . Does it help if Apple provide additional M2 GPU cores via some sort of proprietary add - on card system ? Maybe , if it ’s done the special engineering work . What about random memory expansion ? for certain , but again , such a option would undercut the body of work Apple has done to create a pocket billiards of fast , shared memory right next to the CPUs and GPUs .
And all that usance work , all those distortions to what makes Apple silicon so successful , would be done for a product that ’s a recession of a corner – and it ’s work that Apple ’s chip design team could have spend on a next - generation chip for the iPhone , iPad , and Mac .
Apple
The final countdown
Is it deserving it ? I honestly do n’t know the resolution . It ’s voiceless to imagine that building a new Mac Pro that ’s anything but a big Mac Studio is worth it in terms of chip - figure resource and money . But as much as I am baffled by Schiller ’s argument in 2017 about everything being connect , if decision - makers at Apple truly think it , then it ’s the good case I can happen for build one .
The danger here is that Apple ’s forcing itself to construct a estimator that does n’t really make financial sentience , and along the way of life , it ’s reduced the cathode-ray oscilloscope of the project to the stage where the final product will also be a information processing system that nobody really wants to buy . That ’s bad for all concerned .
But as harsh as I ’ve been in this clause , I ’ll say this : I want Mac Pro users to be well-chosen . I want the novel Apple silicon Mac Pro , when it finally arrives , to justify Apple ’s promises back in 2017 . I ’ve just fix a unsound tone that the Mac Pro and the Apple silicon era are n’t as compatible as we were all hoping they ’d be .
