[Salty]

So, I was in an Apple Store recently... getting... not hired. And I noticed they have one Mac Pro in the whole shop... one! I recently worked at a printing company where all the graphic artists were using iMacs. Now none of this is to say that nobody is buying them, but who is left buying them? It seems as if the Mac Pro isn't being bought by even half way normal people anymore. At this point I can't see anyone buying one if work isn't paying for it.

I remember just a few years ago you could get a low end Power Mac for under two grand, and now the prices seem to have sky rocketed.

I know I know, Apple doesn't care about those of us begging for a headless iMac sort of computer. But I have to ask who on earth is buying these computers? Is Apple selling any significant number of them? I mean even looking around on the boards, the number of people asking questions about mac towers has plummeted, I think partly because nobody can afford them anymore.

[chabig]

I don't think it's an issue of affordability. It's that the iMac and portable machines do everything most people need.

[Spheric Harlot]

People who need Mac Pros don't need demo units.

And while iMacs fulfill the needs of "most" users, the Mac Pro is woefully underpowered for the Next Big Thing in audio: component-level physical modeling.

Developers figure it will be about five years before desktops will be able to run a single instance of, say, a Fender bass amp, simulated at the component level.

[P]

Apple is pricing them out of the market. They have this thing about not competing with themselves, and therefore not having two machines at the same price, and as the iMac has become more capable, they have reduced the range of the MP to compensate. I think they're wrong there, but that's how they think.

[Doc Juansinn]

Yup! I knew I should have bought one of those $1,800 MacPro refurbs some time ago. Current MacPro prices are just a bit more than I want to spend on a computer, and the Mini and iMac aren't to my liking.

I guess it's just relative to one's income level. I've never spent more than $3,000 on a guitar, but I know a guy who has several $10,000-20,000 custom-made acoustics.

[Leonard]

I'd still buy one, if I needed an upgrade from the one I have.

It's just that I'd change what I'd buy for a Mac Pro now. I used to buy a high-end dual, now I'd settle for just the high-end single 3.33 6-core.

It's more powerful than my current one, at smaller price.

[mduell]

They can make more profits selling shiny consumer products with the same margin to more people more often.

[Headshot]

A few things I've learned in my not too long career as a wedding photog. here and that's this:

iMac's screen, while really groovy and luscious, still doesn't have the fidelity as a cinema display or one of the boutique-luxury monitors.
Plus, glossy can be a huge drag on seeing what you're doing in critical work and tends to have higher contrast than matte. I couldn't imagine
not using matte for accuracy.

While you can always add external drives to expand the iMac, the 3 extra bays have practically paid for themselves in that I can get $120 2tb internals
from newegg now. Externals are always more expensive, even with cheap enclosures.

AS for affordable, the last 2 MP's I got were through indie Ebay merchants with great feedback rating, free shipping and ZERO tax. I probably saved $400 on the last one in autumn? (MP4 I think?).

I'm sure everyone has a different reason why they think the MP is better for their needs, these are the only reasons I have to say it is for me!
But yes the iMac has become so powerful it is kind of cannibalizing the towers a bit. There was a brief period of time when the processors were even faster than the towers!

[ort888]

Originally Posted by Headshot 

A few things I've learned in my not too long career as a wedding photog. here and that's this:

iMac's screen, while really groovy and luscious, still doesn't have the fidelity as a cinema display or one of the boutique-luxury monitors.
Plus, glossy can be a huge drag on seeing what you're doing in critical work and tends to have higher contrast than matte. I couldn't imagine
not using matte for accuracy.

While you can always add external drives to expand the iMac, the 3 extra bays have practically paid for themselves in that I can get $120 2tb internals
from newegg now. Externals are always more expensive, even with cheap enclosures.

AS for affordable, the last 2 MP's I got were through indie Ebay merchants with great feedback rating, free shipping and ZERO tax. I probably saved $400 on the last one in autumn? (MP4 I think?).

I'm sure everyone has a different reason why they think the MP is better for their needs, these are the only reasons I have to say it is for me!
But yes the iMac has become so powerful it is kind of cannibalizing the towers a bit. There was a brief period of time when the processors were even faster than the towers!

We're a full service ad agency and we've moved from towers to iMacs. Mac Pros are just not worth it. I have no idea who they are selling to.

I have a feeling that overall tower sales have tanked and somehow they think that people all want iMac now... but I think there would be a strong demand for a cheaper tower.

[sek929]

Judging by this forum they would sell at least a dozen xMacs right away from the people who frequent these boards. My last purchase would have been a 1700 dollar xMac instead of a 900 dollar refurb iMac.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Salty 

So, I was in an Apple Store recently... getting... not hired. And I noticed they have one Mac Pro in the whole shop... one!

I don't ever remember seeing more than one Mac Pro or Power Mac on display in an Apple Store.

[Headshot]

Originally Posted by ort888 

We're a full service ad agency and we've moved from towers to iMacs. Mac Pros are just not worth it. I have no idea who they are selling to.

I have a feeling that overall tower sales have tanked and somehow they think that people all want iMac now... but I think there would be a strong demand for a cheaper tower.

Imagine the video guys, they have wayyy more demand than our needs, an iMac would be outta the question for them.

I think maybe you can add another display to the newer iMacs no?

[Spheric Harlot]

1) the 27" iMac has the exact same panel as the 27" Cinema Display. It can be calibrated nicely.

2) the iMac has had an external monitor connector since the iMac DV in 1999. Since January 2006, all models have been capable of screen spanning, and in the last few years, they have all gracefully handled dual-link DVI resolutions.

[Waragainstsleep]

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of Apple's tower sales for the last few years. I used to work at a reseller and must have sold 50 iMacs for every Mac Pro by the time I left. The G5 towers were moving a little more often back when I started I think.
The consensus for of this thread is right though, very few people can justify the cost of the Mac Pro these days. They are good machines and very well built, but you can get two big iMacs for the cost of a Mac Pro + display in the UK.

[Doofy]

This is for this thread:

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

This is for the September thread about the same thing:

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

This is for the October thread about the same thing:

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

This is for the November thread about the same thing:

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

Here's one spare, in case anyone needs to copy and paste it in reply to anyone saying "I don't know who's buying Mac Pros any more":

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

[Veltliner]

For professional use: if you have a good work station with a higher RAM ceiling, lots of drive bays, and no need of the glossy iMac display: these are the people who will buy a Mac Pro.

These people want power and many of them don't flinch so much if they are spending $3000 (fastest iMac with RAM upgrades) or $4500 on a Mac Pro (or $6000, if you choose to get an SSD for main hard drive). It's a business investment, and you buy what you really need, not an iMac that sits in the center of a bunch of external hard drives like a spider in a web, and after 2 years you have to throw the thing out because it's lacking RAM or has some other upgrading issue.

It's the private users who wouldn't buy those towers, and they are not the target market.

The only thing I really find ridiculous are those low RAM ceiling 4-cores and 6-cores who are no match for the professional user. I would never buy one of them.

And if you count on a Mac Pro serving you longer than an iMac, the higher initial investment may not look that big if you calculate the cost of computing per year.

[Don Pickett]

Any ad agency, pre-press shop, audio or video production place, serious software business or lab doing heavy science work is full of the things. Place I've been working lately has dual 2.93 GHz quad cores with 32 GB of RAM for the retouchers and various other Mac Pros for the production people. They even have an old dual 2 GHz G5 as a scanning station.

In other words, the same people who have always bought the towers are still buying them. They've always been heavy duty production machines.

[sek929]

That is complete and utter nonsense.

For a very long time there was an entry level tower that the common man could afford. Are you telling me they didn't sell any of those? Affordable expansion existed in several PowerMac lines that, of course, could still be configured north of 5 grand. The reality is that Apple does not want to compete in any way with their iMac line, and users who may not want an AIO machine are sh!t out of luck now.

I don't understand this because they sold G3 / G4 iMacs like hotcakes along side entry PowerMac G3s / G4s with very similar chips. Did the iMac 333mhz suffer because of the cheapest 350mhz PowerMac G3? When I wanted my first computer I picked an iMac, when I wanted something with more options I bought an entry G4 PowerMac. Price difference between the two was $600.

[Spheric Harlot]

The difference is that desktop sales have absolutely tanked over the past ten years in favo of laptops, with the sole exception of the iMac line.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The difference is that desktop sales have absolutely tanked over the past ten years in favo of laptops, with the sole exception of the iMac line.

I personally haven't seen any sign of Mac Pro sales tanking. Like I said, every place I work has a lot of them. Historically, Apple sold many, many more desktops than laptops. Now Apple is selling about twice as many laptops as desktops, but are selling more desktops than they have since 2000.

Apple's towers haven't gotten that much more expensive either. While it's true Apple has dropped the low-end desktop models--no single 1.8 GHz G5s, no 733 MHz G4s--they've always had a price point starting at ~$2,500 and going up from there. What has changed is the iMacs are vastly more capable than they used to be. The new iMacs have taken over the point of the old, cheap desktops. Now, I understand why this isn't desirable, but it's stretching the truth to imply that Apple has somehow removed an entire line of computing power. They haven't removed it. They've just moved it from the Mac Pros to the iMacs.

Additionally, the high end Mac Pros really are high end. Very few people actually need dual six-core machines: their are probably only ten or twenty software packages which can effectively use all twelve cores, and they're pretty specialized.

[Spheric Harlot]

Agreed entirely, and you're probably right that Mac Pro sales aren't "tanking", given Apple's growth - though I assume that their percentage is declining, if not the absolute numbers.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by sek929 

That is complete and utter nonsense.

For a very long time there was an entry level tower that the common man could afford. Are you telling me they didn't sell any of those? Affordable expansion existed in several PowerMac lines that, of course, could still be configured north of 5 grand. The reality is that Apple does not want to compete in any way with their iMac line, and users who may not want an AIO machine are sh!t out of luck now.

I don't understand this because they sold G3 / G4 iMacs like hotcakes along side entry PowerMac G3s / G4s with very similar chips. Did the iMac 333mhz suffer because of the cheapest 350mhz PowerMac G3? When I wanted my first computer I picked an iMac, when I wanted something with more options I bought an entry G4 PowerMac. Price difference between the two was $600.

Erm, the price difference between the top line iMac and the bottom line Mac Pro is $500.

[Brien]

Originally Posted by Dr. Wahnsinn 

Yup! I knew I should have bought one of those $1,800 MacPro refurbs some time ago. Current MacPro prices are just a bit more than I want to spend on a computer, and the Mini and iMac aren't to my liking.

I guess it's just relative to one's income level. I've never spent more than $3,000 on a guitar, but I know a guy who has several $10,000-20,000 custom-made acoustics.

Well, yeah. That's why you see things like gold-plated iPhones or $220,000 bottles of liquor.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Erm, the price difference between the top line iMac and the bottom line Mac Pro is $500.

The price difference between my iMac G3 and my PowerMac G4 was 600 dollars, if anything the high end iMac price has climbed along with the Mac Pro base price. So if I want a 'base' power machine I'm stuck with an iMac with un-upgradeable internals for the price of what a tower used to run me. Lame.

[The Final Dakar]

What was the most expensive iMac back in those days?

[sek929]

Well, I'm sure you could add RAM from Apple that would bring it near 2 grand, but at the time of the Rev D the fastest iMac was 1200 dollars. The cheapest PowerMac was around $1800. I believe the same is true throughout the G4 years as well but I'm not sure about the PowerMac G5, was there an entry G5?

[The Final Dakar]

And that's the difference between now and then. The cheapest iMac now starts at around 1200, right?

[sek929]

Sure does. The iMac line is much more diverse than it was back then, so I guess you could reckon the 1800 dollar iMac is the entry level Pro computer. However, without expansion all the power and pretty screens in the world will not make its usefulness longer than an upgradeable tower. I don't see why Apple neglects this market, it's not like they need a new case or anything. Put an i3 in it, lesser GFX card, lesser HDD, and bingo...Entry Mac Pro with plenty of options for upgrade in the future.

Gaming on my iMac is a mixed blessing, I've got more than enough RAM for my puposes, and my C2D is still fine for the games I play, but my GFX card is seriously outdated...guess I"m screwed. I wish i had the ability to open a latch and throw a new one in, but Apple wants me to shell out 2500 buks for that ability.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I don't see why Apple neglects this market,

Cynically, I imagine its because MacPros stay viable for longer than iMacs, thanks to those expansion capabilities.

Realistically, its likely margin is better on the iMac, so they have no reason to dissuade people from buying them. Given how much more powerful [the top end] iMacs have become since the intel switch, it seems to me they're trying to encourage iMac purchases.

[sek929]

I'm sure planned obsolescence comes into play somewhat here. My first iMac lasted 4 years, my first PowerMac lasted me 7. Given the difference of only 600 bucks I guess Apple would rather me buy a cheaper machine more frequently, which makes sense, but I still hate it.

We'll see how long I can flog my current iMac, which is already 2 1/2 years old, because my next computer will be a tower again...whether on not it is going to be an Apple tower remains to be seen. I hate to be a "i'm never buying Apple again" type, but I can't justify their machines anymore. If I had a home theater I'd consider a Mini, but it's really the same thing as an iMac with no screen, so I'd be in the same boat. I dislike the idea of a Hackintosh, but it might come to that. Sh!t, I can price out a home-built i7 machine for less than the mid-level iMac.

The prosumer Mac tower is exactly the type of computer I need and want, and Apple got rid of it years ago in favor of making more money on iMacs. I see their reasons but I don't agree with them.

[The Final Dakar]

Are already becoming unhappy with your current iMac's performance?

I got screwed by early adopting the first intel iMac (didn't have a choice as my PowerBook died). It lasted four years but I feel like I could have eked out one more year if the RAM hadn't been limited to 2 GB (or if the damn thing had been Core2Duo).

Still, I spent like $1300 on it. I just picked up a $1000 refurb and I feel like its a great deal. Partly because I loathed the hour I did some monitor shopping while I was considering the Mac mini.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Are already unhappy with your current iMac's performance?

Just in the GFX department. Also, I wish it had a higher RAM ceiling for the future, but right now it is fine.

Games that require, say, a 256mb card (I have a 128) have much lower CPU and RAM specs than my machine. As we all know, games heavily tax the GFX card so that's where it hurts. I wanted an Intel Mac for two reasons: 1. My G4 could no longer browse the web quickly and smoothly 2. While I'm at it I can play PC games I've missed all these years.

While I have played lots of games there has been significant trade-offs between quality and frame rate. Couple that with the inability to play anything newer than Oblivion (which runs at around 30FPS as it is) and I really, really wish I had the ability to upgrade my card.

Still a very fast machine in many respects, but the AIO design reminds me of why I went away from the iMac line back in 2001. Of course the price of 950 bucks was a huge selling point too.

[The Final Dakar]

Heh, I'm not well studied on the subject but I swear I've read complaints on this forum on the limitations of what card you can upgrade your Pros with.

Either way, I feel like you're getting burned more by the Apple-Gaming conundrum more than the limitations of their upgradeability. Tell me, what would you be doing for PC gaming if Apple hadn't even introduced the dual-boot machine?

[sek929]

I wouldn't be PC gaming at all I suppose. Even with limited cards for the Pro that still is 100% more cards then I can use now.

I guess my gripes do stem a bit from the gaming area, but also my 250gb internal drive is really starting to fill up and I also hate the idea of a bunch of external drives cluttering up my desk. With my G4 I bought 4 drives over the course of the machine to continually add more space, and one to add DVD burning. That's all I want, flexibility. While the iMac line can do more than ever these days, they are not flexible. You buy it with everything it is ever going to have in it.

Maybe I am a hold-over from a different time, a relic that needs not be satisfied. Maybe instead of wanting something that doesn't exist I should just save my pennies until I can afford a ridiculously over-powered MacPro.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I wouldn't be PC gaming at all I suppose. Even with limited cards for the Pro that still is 100% more cards then I can use now.

Yeah, not trying to invalidate your point, just curious how it would have been addressed by an affordable Mac Pro.

Originally Posted by sek929 

I guess my gripes do stem a bit from the gaming area, but also my 250gb internal drive is really starting to fill up and I also hate the idea of a bunch of external drives cluttering up my desk. With my G4 I bought 4 drives over the course of the machine to continually add more space, and one to add DVD burning. That's all I want, flexibility. While the iMac line can do more than ever these days, they are not flexible. You buy it with everything it is ever going to have in it.

Grabbing a stock refurb screwed you there more than Apple in general (my 2006 came with a 250). Still, a 1.5 TB HD and a dock for it aren't that terribly expensive or cluttering (Hey, a tower would be taking up more space, scummo).

Originally Posted by sek929 

Maybe I am a hold-over from a different time, a relic that needs not be satisfied. Maybe instead of wanting something that doesn't exist I should just save my pennies until I can afford a ridiculously over-powered MacPro.

Meh, we all have different needs that aren't always properly met by existing technology or companies' philosophies (I am notorious for this). That's how progress is made.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Well, I'm sure you could add RAM from Apple that would bring it near 2 grand, but at the time of the Rev D the fastest iMac was 1200 dollars. The cheapest PowerMac was around $1800. I believe the same is true throughout the G4 years as well but I'm not sure about the PowerMac G5, was there an entry G5?

The G5 debuted in 2003 at $2000-3000, and they (re-)introduced a single-processor low-end version for a while in late 2004 at $1500. Other than that phase, all further G5s were $2000+.

The G4 iMacs (2002) were $1300 to $2200, as were the G5 iMacs until they introduced the crippled (sans Bluetooth or remote, Combo instead of SuperDrive) low-end 17" version at $900 in 2006.

[Don Pickett]

As an aside, there are those of us who have always found Apple's tower prices too expensive, but have managed. My first G5, a single 1.8, was bought refurb'd from Apple for a considerable discount. My current machine, a dual 2 GHz G5, was bought used on eBay. And I've been checking out eBay for Mac Pros, and finding some good prices.

The fact that I am now thinking of being able to buy a new Mac Pro is all about my 40th birthday coming up and has nothing to do with Apple changing their pricing structure.

edit: another aside about changing iMac versus Mac Pro capabilities. Used to be, if you popped your head into a print shop or an ad agency, it was all towers, all the time, as iMacs just didn't have the grunt. You'd see them at the receptionist's desk, or maybe hanging out on the network watching a hot folder to automatically create and distribute PDFs. Pop your head into the same place now and you will see a fair amount of design and some production work done on iMacs, because today's iMacs are vastly more powerful than the older ones. So long as you don't have to open any really huge Photoshop or Illustrator files, any of the Core Duo iMacs are more than fast enough. The latest i3/i5 iMacs are more than powerful enough. In order to get that kind of power in the PPC era you had to buy a tower. Now you don't.

Production people still have Mac Pros, because we do things like open 2 GB Photoshop files. But for designers and simple page layout stuff you really don't need a tower any more.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

(…)

Audio people are buying Mac Pros because (1) we're richer than you poor graphics peasants and (2) we need more horsepower than you graphics peasants.

I started to keep a tally of how many times you said that but realized I couldn't count that high without the help of my Mac Pro.

[Don Pickett]

It struck me last night that Apple's renaming of the Power Macs as Mac Pros foreshadowed these changes: moving the Mac Pros up the line some to make a real distinction between consumer high end--i5 and i7 iMacs--and workstation machines, like the newer, top-end Mac Pros.

[Veltliner]

I don't think the naming has anything to do with it.

The word "Power" was abundant in the nineties: power lunch, power work-out, power everything, Power Mac.

This decade is about Pro. Everything manufacturers claim to be of particular good quality has the syllable "pro" added. I'm just waiting for pro underwear and pro toilet paper.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

It struck me last night that Apple's renaming of the Power Macs as Mac Pros foreshadowed these changes: moving the Mac Pros up the line some to make a real distinction between consumer high end--i5 and i7 iMacs--and workstation machines, like the newer, top-end Mac Pros.

Moving from the $2500 12" PowerBook to the $1300 MacBook Pro says you're wrong.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Moving from the $2500 12" PowerBook to the $1300 MacBook Pro says you're wrong.

When did the 12" PB have a base price over $1800?

[iMOTOR]

HP workstation:

^ Where it says ‘Not Included’ is referring to graphics card.


Apple Workstation:

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by mduell 

When did the 12" PB have a base price over $1800?

March 2003, maxed the RAM (1.25GB), SuperDrive option. €2700.

[P]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

I'm just waiting for pro underwear and pro toilet paper.

I think I've seen underwear made for runners referred to as pro underwear.

You're right, though. Pro is a very good word now. Power was great, but now draws the mind to big heavy SUVs and waste. Hi-tech was the best anything could be in the early nineties, and Turbo is making a comeback together with the rest of the eighties

[P]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

And that's the difference between now and then. The cheapest iMac now starts at around 1200, right?

Excluding education models, yes, but that is due to something else than what is discussed here. The old $999 iMac was to be the basic computer for someone who just wanted to do email and browse and whatever. Today, that computer is the Macbook (except for schools). The iMac is a semi-pro desktop - it has to be, because the basic desktop is dead. That is also the reason for the repositioned Mac mini, IMO. I keep complaining about the death of the low-end iMac, but I think I'll start begging for a cheaper Macbook instead.

[SierraDragon]

Do not underestimate the HUGE negative of the only-glossy display in iMacs. Only a limited number of image pros can tolerate them, and that helps the Mac Pro and matte-display Macbook Pro market segments.

Of course gamers, many graphic designers, web surfers, etc. find glossy no problem which is why iMacs sell so well.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by P 

Excluding education models, yes, but that is due to something else than what is discussed here. The old $999 iMac was to be the basic computer for someone who just wanted to do email and browse and whatever. Today, that computer is the Macbook (except for schools). The iMac is a semi-pro desktop - it has to be, because the basic desktop is dead. That is also the reason for the repositioned Mac mini, IMO. I keep complaining about the death of the low-end iMac, but I think I'll start begging for a cheaper Macbook instead.

Ah, that explains the low-end, but not the high end. They've replaced the the start of the pro-line with the end of the semi-pro line and, as the thread demonstrates, some people preferred the old way better.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

Do not underestimate the HUGE negative of the only-glossy display in iMacs. Only a limited number of image pros can tolerate them, and that helps the Mac Pro and matte-display Macbook Pro market segments.

You can always connect a second display. That's what I'm doing (I own a MacBook Pro, though).

[OzarkMtn]

Maybe it has something to do with previous purchasers of being burned with limited upgrade options as in video cards. It's nuts to be told the Mac Pro you bought last year can not utilize the latest and greatest video card that came out this year. They hobble every model in some way to limit the upgrade path...