[herojig]

We are a small A/V business in Nepal and flat out can't afford Mac Pros, so we use iMacs and MBPs for all audio and video editing. Everything works fine, but slower then it would be with towers. This works well in a place where there is more time then money, ie. labor is cheap and hardware costs are 30% higher then in the USA for Apple products. In fact, we are one of the few creative businesses in the country using Macs, as they are priced at x2 or x3 the cost of an equivalent desktop (made from cheap Chinese or other Asian components). Anyway, as soon as our current crop of iMacs and MBPs wear out, we plan on getting a tower or two, even if it really hurts our wallet, but right now we can only drool over photos online.

BtW, a side question might be "Are desktops going to become obsolete, or change in ways we can't imagine?" Just a thought.

[herojig]

If u work in a studio with no windows, a glossy iMac is not a problem but for expandability based on a needed application, like intensive rendering or things like a protools HD card. Besides, if you don't like glossy, it's just 25 USD and a five-minute replacement job requiring two suction cups, and voila, matte screen. The screen itself is only a sheet of plastic.

[Marook]

It's funny, though, that a way-back-then Macintosh IIfx with 72MB RAM and two NuBus monitorcards + 2 14" Apple Color displays and a Huge 80MB Harddrive hit the same price point as a modern max'ed out Mac Pro with 4 SSD's

[ruel24]

Everyone knows there is a big market for a consumer Mac Pro configured with a desktop Core i7 processor / X58 chipset without the ECC memory and everything. This is no secret. I just can't get why Apple couldn't make such a beast. Back when the original iMac was produced, it was common for people to have a G4 tower as their home desktop. Now, the tower is simply priced out of most potential buyer's grasp and forced to live with an iMac. Not everyone likes the all-in-one form factor. Apple needs to wake up to this fact.

[Spheric Harlot]

No there isn't a "big market".

In fact, in comparison to the laptops, it's a pretty small market, and it's rapidly shrinking - and it's a segment generally ruled only by price.

Everybody knows this, except, apparently, you.

[P]

Originally Posted by ruel24 

Everyone knows there is a big market for a consumer Mac Pro configured with a desktop Core i7 processor / X58 chipset without the ECC memory and everything. This is no secret.

So if it isn't a secret, how about substantiating it a bit?

Also, your talking points need some updating - that argument is from before the Nehalem launch. Since the memory controller is now in the CPU, ECC support is based on the CPU - the single CPU MP uses the same X58 chipset as top consumer towers. Intel's prices are public, so let's see what the price difference for the memory difference is. Base MP is a W3530, a 2.8GHz CPU at $294. The closest i7 equivalent is the i7-930, also at 2.8 GHz. That one doesn't have ECC support, and it costs $294. The price difference for ECC memory itself is about $15 for the default 3 gig config.

Originally Posted by ruel24 

I just can't get why Apple couldn't make such a beast.

They could, but they don't want to. Margins - specifically, margins on the MP.

Originally Posted by ruel24 

Back when the original iMac was produced, it was common for people to have a G4 tower as their home desktop.

Back when the original iMac was produced, the G4 didn't exist. The G3 was new, and the most common desktop was either a Performa/Powermac 5x00 series (basically the same as an iMac, except with some expansion), a Performa/Powermac 6x00 series (the minitower everyone is begging for - except it cost upwards of $2000) or the Powermac 7x00 series (which cost even more). The time when towers existed as home desktops was later, when there was a low-end G4 at around $1600, but they weren't exactly common.

Originally Posted by ruel24 

Now, the tower is simply priced out of most potential buyer's grasp and forced to live with an iMac. Not everyone likes the all-in-one form factor. Apple needs to wake up to this fact.

Apple is aware. They just believe that the market is too small to bother with, and a potential margin killer. In fact the base MP is very close to the machine you want - Apple just chooses to overcharge for it.

They have adapted in the sense that the top iMac now has two internal HD bays, 4 RAM slots, a modern and quite decent GPU and powerful desktop CPUs. They also have solutions if you need more than one Ethernet port (the USB adapter - marketed towards the MBA - works) or more opticals (USB DVDs are now fully supported, even for OS installs, and Apple sells one that matches the iMac). Legacy port adapters also exist for USB.

What you can't do basically boils down to two things:

* You can't replace the GPU - but then, you can't be too sure about future upgrade for the MP either, as witnessed by the EFI32 issue.
* You can't add support for connection standards like eSATA, USB 3.0 or LightPeak (when they get here). If you absolutely need something faster than FW800, then you're out of luck, but mostly that isn't need so much as "nice to have".

[Marook]

Originally Posted by P 

In fact the base MP is very close to the machine you want - Apple just chooses to overcharge for it.

As a former post in this thread shows, an equal HP tower costs more! So where is Apple 'overcharging'?
Apple also ships a product where OS & hardware is designed for each other, adding Much better stability and security for your system... HP's does not.. I woudl say Apple's offering is WAY cheaper than HP's.. wake up, and stop smoking that grass.. ;-)

Rule #1: You get what you pay for, if you like cheap-skate crap, buy a Dell!

[P]

Originally Posted by Marook 

As a former post in this thread shows, an equal HP tower costs more! So where is Apple 'overcharging'?

It's not an equal tower. The HP tower uses a single Xeon 5600 series, ie a CPU that is capable as running as one of two in a dual CPU config - something Intel charges a pretty penny for. Presumably that motherboard also has two sockets, so you can upgrade to two CPUs later. The single CPU MP uses a Xeon 3500 or 3600 series CPU, which is limited to one socket configs, so it can't be upgraded to a dual down the linge. Intel charges $1440 for that single HP CPU (X5667 - so even a power efficient model, with a lower TDP). The CPU Apple is using can be one of two, but it seems to be the 3565, which costs $562.

[Marook]

And you completely, as so many others, miss the point!

The configs shown, where HP has smaller HD(!) and NO graphocs card, but same speed CPU and same amount of RAM, has the same price.

And in case you didnøt notice: Apple is not, and (I guess) never will be on the market for _geeks_ that like to upgrade their system, by changing the CPH in the socket! It VOIDS your warranty! Get it? You might like to do so, but in Apple's segment, that would be under 1% of the customers wanting that - people that buy Apple does it because they need something that WORKS.. not something they can mess around with...

Mac Pro's are for highend systems.. FCP editing, music studios, 100+ layer PSD files at LEGO and so on.. they are not meant for John Doe and his 'i like to check email on a system with 5 disks attached..'

But with that said, the apple is still not more expensive than a HP, so... buy the one that gets the job done.. ;-)

PS: And they people that asked about a 'low end tower' does not care about the type of CPU anyway, they don't know the difference, looks at the clockspeed, and say Amen... I work for an Apple Reseller, trust me...

[Martyimac]

Figured i would join just to give you an "outsiders" view"
The first thing everyone forgets is comparing say an HP workstation to a MP, is that the HP doesn't include OSX. OSX is what apple is all about so this comparison really isn't apples to oranges.
Secondly, I have had 3 iMacs in the last 10 years. In every case, the monitors either failed, which left me with no computer while it was being repaired, or hurt my eyes. This became painful when Snow Leopard came out. Even using shades BARELY brought the brightness down to a level that was tolerable.
Third, upgrading an iMac is only for the adventurous,, they are not nearly as easily upgradeable as a MP.

So where did all that put me? Out of the market for an iMac. So now I use my old 13" uMB as my machine with an external monitor. But to get an intel i CPU I would have to go with a 15" MBP as a minimum and I am back to not being as easily upgradeable as a MP, doable yes but more limited options and I don't need a 15" laptop when I travel, the 13" is fine. And of course there is the cost of the MBP.

So how does this relate to the MP's? It is what I want for my desktop computer. A MP is WAY out of line for what I do. A MBP, is out of line. If Apple where to make a box in the 17-1900 range, with more ram slots, minimum i5 processor, upgradeable GPU path, replaceable HDD, I would be all over that. There are folks out here in the world, that really do want this kind of tower with this pricing. I think Apple might just be surprised by how many they could sell. And as one poster put it, Apple already makes a machine I would be happy with, it is just way overpriced. Drop the price $1000 and it would be mine.

[testudo]

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.

Of course the desktop sales have tanked except the iMac line. The MacPro are so over-priced for the market that would want a tower that those customers end up just going the cheap-way and getting a laptop or imac. Duh.

Apple is all about the up-sell. They have no desire to give people who want to spend 'some' but not 'a lot' anything they don't absolutely need (or apple wants them to have). Thus the reason there's no minitower Mac (too many MacPro sales would be lost to those needing the expansion, but not all the power). And also why Apple irritatingly removed the ExpressCard slot from the 15" MacBookPro, which makes it more 'consumer' than 'pro'.

But if someone wants expansion (which means they want to use some technology or feature Apple has specifically decided not to give them), make them pay for it by only offering it in their top-of-the-line models.

[gurman]

I can't say I haven't thought about top-end iMacs as replacements for some of our machines at work --- especially because I buy them with your tax dollars. Here's why I still purchased this year's Mac Pro model: gargantuan internal storage capacity, 12 cores (24 virtual cores) for processing enormous amounts of 4096 x 4096 pixel image data, and at least the possibility of video card upgrades over the lifetime of the AppleCare extended warranty. Still makes so much sense I'll probably buy one for home use, as I did the 2008 model, when its warranty expires. Not because I like paying that much for a home machine, but because I do the same CPU- and storage-intensive tasks at home as I do at work (hurrah for telework and FIOS), and I play the occasional game at home that may benefit from current-generation video cards (as my 2008 Mac Pro did when I upgraded to the 3870).

The reasons the iMac didn't make the grade was the slowness of external storage (might be different if Steve allowed eSATA in the door), the fear of almost immediate obsolescence of the GPU/VRAM with no way to upgrade them, and (despite the Display Port spec) the inability to drive more than one external monitor. No one really makes any monitors that display 4K x 4K, and the manufaturer who used to offer 4K x 2K over 2x Dual-link DVI's has stopped selling them.

I admit what I just described is a vanishingly small market share. I have to assume Apple doesn't sell an expandable iMac-class machine for exactly the same reason they stated a few years back: something like 95% of the owners never added anything as it was. Apple didn't get to where it is today by selling something for 5% of its own share of the market. The exception I think, is that they continue to sell the Mac Pro so as not to lose the high end graphics/video/music market in which they are seen as the default choice. Call it a matter of ego.... and they can continue to command premium prices in those markets where the added price is passed on to the mass market consumers of entertainment products.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by testudo 

Of course the desktop sales have tanked except the iMac line. The MacPro are so over-priced for the market that would want a tower that those customers end up just going the cheap-way and getting a laptop or imac. Duh.

I'm not talking about Apple.

I'm talking about the ENTIRE DESKTOP COMPUTER MARKET.

Laptops have been outselling desktop computers since Q1 2008, and the trend has continued, with the only desktop line in the entire industry that's bucking the trend being the iMac.

[P]

Originally Posted by Marook 

And you completely, as so many others, miss the point!

Careful there.

Originally Posted by Marook 

The configs shown, where HP has smaller HD(!) and NO graphocs card, but same speed CPU and same amount of RAM, has the same price.

The computer you quoted also has something that the MP doesn't have - the ability to add a second CPU. The same computer but without that abilty costs $1800 with 6 gig RAM (twice what Apple has). The closest equivalent to the base model (2.8 GHz quad, 3 gigs RAM, GPU included) costs $1369.

Your comparison is like comparing a motorcycle to a car, pricing them up so they have the same acceleration and top speed, and pronouncing the car to be overpriced because it costs more. You are completely ignoring an extra capability - the ability to carry passengers in the case of the car and the possibility to use multiple CPUs in the case of the computer.

Originally Posted by Marook 

And in case you didnøt notice: Apple is not, and (I guess) never will be on the market for _geeks_ that like to upgrade their system, by changing the CPH in the socket! It VOIDS your warranty!

It usually does, because you have to reapply the thermal paste and attaching the heatsink is finicky. Apple is not unique there.

Originally Posted by Marook 

Get it? You might like to do so, but in Apple's segment, that would be under 1% of the customers wanting that - people that buy Apple does it because they need something that WORKS.. not something they can mess around with...

Mac Pro's are for highend systems.. FCP editing, music studios, 100+ layer PSD files at LEGO and so on.. they are not meant for John Doe and his 'i like to check email on a system with 5 disks attached..'

Has anyone disagreed with that?

Originally Posted by Marook 

But with that said, the apple is still not more expensive than a HP, so... buy the one that gets the job done.. ;-)

PS: And they people that asked about a 'low end tower' does not care about the type of CPU anyway, they don't know the difference, looks at the clockspeed, and say Amen... I work for an Apple Reseller, trust me...

I'm pretty sure that people who shop for an also HP pick the cheapest one that does all that they need - in this case, the $1800 computer and not the $4000 one.

[xmattingly]

Originally Posted by Salty 

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 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.

Salty, Mac Pro's have been around long enough that there are plenty to find on the used market.

I know this is a bit tangential to your question, but if you were considering buying one and didn't want to pay retail price, finding a used one is a route I'd highly recommend you consider. Sure, the newest machines have slightly updated processors, slightly faster RAM & beefier GPU's, etc - but if having the latest and greatest isn't a priority you can easily save a $1000 or more.

Take for example my experience: early this year, I bought a 2006 quad core MP, for around $1500. At the time I had a 2009 MBP (which was about 6 months old), which I sold for $1800. I bought 8gb of RAM, and made money back through both exchanges.

So what if I traded around for an older machine? It's still substantially faster than any top of the line laptop, and infinitely more expandable. Look, processor speeds haven't made a lot of progress in the past half decade, so an older Mac Pro will still be able to keep up with the latest stuff just fine, for the foreseeable future. I should be able to hang on to mine for possibly another five years.

Anyway, given the amount of expansion these things have - even if you were going to buy new - when you compare their retail price against any other consumer desktop or mobile machine vs. usability lifetime, I think they're actually a better financial investment.

[parsley]

Your average weekend designer needs a Mac Pro as much as he needs the top of the range Nikon.

[madprof44]

I've been so impressed with Adobe's new video suite that I thought I might at last make the switch to a Windows machine. But as others have pointed out, there isn't much if any cost advantage. Base price comparisons mean nothing - price out a Dell or HP workstation at comparable specs and you find yourself pushing a lot of buttons in the configuration menus, while if you buy RAM or hd's not to mention the other add-ons from Apple you've done something really foolish. The base model is what you buy, RAM, hd's, RAID cards and Fiber Channel comes from elsewhere. I suspect it's because Apple is happy to let smaller companies handle the CS while they keep AppleCare unmolested. In any case, comparisons that add Apple RAM and hd's are meaningless. And for a real comparison, talk about real shipping machines, dual quad-core Xeons, four or more pcie slots, five (it really isn't four any more) internal hd's, and eight RAM slots each capable of holding 8GB RAM modules. Yes, it is a bitch that Apple doesn't include eSATA connections, so you have to use one of your three free pcie slots, but if it important to you that's exactly what you will do. It's also undeniable - and enviable - that you can find Windows workstations with many more hd and pcie slots, but to have those with comparable other specs your prices will be very high. If I've missed something please let me know - I'd jump ship in a minute if I found a better price/quality/performance configuration.

As someone pointed out, desktop sales are tanking. In fact it it weren't for iMacs they would be going backwards and have been for a couple of years (Apple iMacs Driving WorldWide Desktop Sales Growth | Otaku Gadgets) . In those market conditions of course consumer choice will narrow - how could it be otherwise? I do agree with the argument that iMacs are subject to some strategy of planned obsolescence, the reason being that the damned things are so well made. Mac Pros are supposedly held onto by their original owners for much longer than comparable Windows machines (supposedly - can't find the reference so mark this "unsupported and quite possibly unreliable"). If you've got a suitable UPS there's no reason why they can't function for a decade or more. That in itself is worth a premium, but as mentioned above after speccing the competition I don't see any evidence of one.

As for the perception that Mac Pros are expensive in an absolute sense, I can only say, look back, young lady/feller. The 1G Mac in todays dollars would buy you an eight-core MP or nearly (perhaps even a 12-core if you added the external floppy and printer as everyone did and upped the RAM to 512k). If you go back to the eighties you don't have to look hard to find Macs that would be $10k up to $20k in today's dollars. How about around $13k (today's dollars) for a 16lb portable with an 10" 1-bit B&W screen? I've owned many of them, regret only one (a Performa), and everything seems impossibly cheap to me these days. Again, no brand loyalty for me, and I'd buy a Windows machine in a minute if I could get the same performance and similar reliability for a lower price. Point me to it (please)!

[madprof44]

Now that I'm in full rant mode, just remembered another point I wanted to address—the perception that Mac Pros are over-powered for all but a small fraction of the market. Agree completely, and even if I didn't the sales statistics can only support that conclusion. However, I'd add that ever since the first high-end went on sale, another fraction of the market has been convinced that the most expensive machines are unnecessary status symbols, that, as has been said many times, "nobody needs that much power".
An iPad or netbook will handle what most people need a computer for quite nicely. But those who need the power really do need it, and for them faster machines can't come soon enough. Lucky for many of us, they have been. Most photographers (though not many professionals apparently) can get by just fine with an iMac-level of performance, lucky them. But people in video production, including people who produce a lot of video in the course of another profession, need everything they can get. In my case, my average work day is at least 12 hours (your tax dollars really working), all eight cores really getting a workout. But it's when I stop working that my computer really gets cranking, night after night, year after year, eight cores working up to their limit encoding and rendering. People who consume video are accustomed to getting everything in a snap, but when you produce it even high-end workstations seem still to be in a primitive stage. With many scientific and technical applications the same applies.
When it comes down to it, you could argue that everything between the top workstations for producers and the cheapest reliable netbooks for consumers is frivolous. Personal computing itself famously started out as a time-wasting and "useless" hobby, and of course for many years now the principal driver of innovation has been gaming. So I wouldn't sneer—time and again we've seen how frivolity ended up changing the world. And I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the high-end: those who need such machines are ever conscious of how far we have to go and how close we are to the beginning of the road. What will people think when they read about our little squabbles thirty years from now? Not hard to imagine we'll be worth a belly laugh and little else. And it's hard not to suspect that the biggest laughs of all will be inspired by the undying theme: we've gone as far as it's possible to imagine, and anything beyond it is just showing off.

[Big Mac]

Here's another thing I just recognized: You can get a top of the line (as in standard configuration) MBP for hundreds less than an entry-level Mac Pro. $2,299 for the 17" MBP compared to $2,499 for the entry level MP. Has that ever been the case in the past?

It seems like the MBP's value is improving while the Mac Pro's value is declining. I suppose a lot of it has to do with MBP sales volume, but that differential is still quite notable regardless.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by herojig 

BtW, a side question might be "Are desktops going to become obsolete, or change in ways we can't imagine?" Just a thought.

Good question, and it's a bit hard to answer. Apple laptops sell in much larger numbers than desktops do, but also Mac desktop sales are higher than ever before. I do think that we'll evolve away from the desktop at some point, except for very high end.

[Big Mac]

The iMac is a laptop in everything but orientation, so it too can be considered a "laptop" in a broad sense of the term. Desktops will always exist at least on the PC side, but Apple has definitely moved away from them for the most part because the iMac is "good enough" for most who want Macs on their desktops, and Apple apparently prefers selling iMacs over any xMac alternative. The traditional desktop, as represented by the Mac Pro, has been relegated to the very high-priced end of the spectrum, which is unfortunate.

[Veltliner]

Apple's offerings are pretty good.

For most people, an iMac is just all they need.

And for those who need more - these people want a real workstation.

And there's the mac mini on the low end side.

The only criticism I have are the single processor Mac Pros with their fewer RAM slots.

But as 8 Gb modules are no longer more expensive than 2 x 4 GB (at least if you buy from OWC) and Mac Pros now accept the 8 Gb (and possibly even 16 Gb modules) even this downside of the Apple offerings seems to disappear.

The only thing that would be really critical if Apple downgraded the workstations to make them more affordable.

But, luckily, that's not happening. They are quality computers and suitable for demanding work.

Apple is moving in the right direction by no longer putting garbage graphics cards into the Mac Pros (now the ATI 5770 is standard)

PS: the new solid state drive option (another nice add-on towards higher performance) just got "cheaper". Now a 512 Gb SSD drive in bay one costs $1250 instead of $1400. The price for SSDs in all other bays remains $1400 (expression of puzzlement furrowing both eyebrows simultaneously).

[CaptainHaddock]

I sure wish they cost less too, but I'm considering a Mac Pro as my next upgrade for the first time ever. I already have a high-quality 27-inch display, and even a low-end Mac Pro is twice as fast as the quad-core iMac in a lot of benchmarks without being all that much more expensive. I think a quad-core Nehelem with 8 or 16 gigs of RAM oughta be sufficient for the next few years, and I'll even be able to upgrade the video card in the future.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I'm not talking about Apple.

I'm talking about the ENTIRE DESKTOP COMPUTER MARKET.

Laptops have been outselling desktop computers since Q1 2008, and the trend has continued, with the only desktop line in the entire industry that's bucking the trend being the iMac.

Reason: The couch.

Since the advent of massive social networking sites (and wi-fi), computing is no longer something the home user does in the confines of the attic (i.e. along with that Hornby set that you wanted to keep secret) - it's become socially acceptable, so computing has moved out of the darkness of the attic into the light of the living room. It's now something which is acceptable to do in front of the family, while they watch (and you half watch) some kind of Simon Cowell show on the idiot lantern.

[Spheric Harlot]

Actually, though that may be part of it, most people buy a laptop for one single reason, IME: as opposed to the fugly gray contraption they had before, the laptop disappears into the desk drawer or into the shelf when not in use.

That's also why the iMac sells so well: it doesn't need to disappear.

Couch surfing is not actually something terribly many people do - laptops are still rather impractical to use on your lap.

The iPad-class devices are going to change that, though.

[FormerNavalPerson]

Originally Posted by 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.

(What follows is slightly O/T - sorry!)

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but I am pretty certain that "Power" was the prefix Apple appended to all its professional-grade products between about 1998 and the Intel transition. This was one of the changes Steve made when he took over the company - under Sculley, Spindler, and Amelio, the company had had a profusion of confusingly similarly named products: IIx, IIcx, IIci, etc. See this page, but hold on tight to something: Timeline of Macintosh models. Steve & Co. swept away all these minute gradations and left the company with four core product lines - two desktops and two portables, which you could (for the first time in an Apple product) configure online before you bought.

As I remember it, between about '98 and '05, Apple sold four computing lines - pro desktops, consumer desktops, pro portables, and consumer portables. The pro machines' names started with the prefix "Power" and the consumer machines with "i." Desktops were suffixed with "Mac" and portables with "Book." Hence PowerMac, PowerBook, iMac, iBook.

When the company transitioned from PowerPC chips (which started off in the early '90s as a joint effort of Motorola, IBM, and Apple) to Intel chips, its product marketers decided to mark the change to the constituent chipsets by changing the names of the pro products as well - having the word "Power" in the product name was too reminiscent of the bygone processors. Thus, the PowerMac began the Mac Pro and the PowerBook became the MacBook Pro. Personally, I still hate calling the consumer portable a "MacBook" - "PowerBook" had a much nicer ring to it.

(Side note: I can't remember the last time before just now that Michael Spindler's name entered my consciousness...it's almost hard to remember what Apple was like before Steve returned. Although, of course, that's not entirely a bad thing.)

[MacManx86]

The lack of a low end Mac Pro has driven people to building Hackintoshes. I had an original Mac Pro that I had to sell and wanted an equivalent machine. So, I built a machine very similar to the new low end Mac Pro for around half the cost using a retail copy of Snow Leopard.

You can see a comparison of the systems at tonymacx86 Blog: Building a CustoMac: CustoMac Pro 2010. The only thing that's missing in their sample build is 1 less ethernet port and no FireWire 800 or AirPort.

[P]

Regarding the branding... Seventies Apple had all sorts of confusing computer names - there was the Apple II, IIx, IIe, IIGS and probably a bunch more. The Macintosh branding followed this more or less precisely during the Sculley era, with names like Mac II, IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, IIsi, IIvi, IIvx.

After that a couple of things happened. First, Apple realized that the word Mac was associated with the original Mac and it's 9" black and white screen, and the only laptop was the terrible portable. Apple needed new brands - one can't trademark things like "IIvx", they're model numbers rather than trademarks. It came up with "Quadra" for their new 68040 machines, and "Powerbook" for the new modern laptops. Those first Powerbooks arrived years before the PowerPC, but were really quite modern - first with a trackpad, first with handrests for the keyboard, etc. This was a success - people could talk about "a Powerbook" or "a Quadra" and noone would think it was a 9" museum piece.

Second, computers invaded the home electronics store. All manufacturers responded (eventually) with an attempt at market segmentation with new brands for home sales. Compaq had "Presario", IBM had "Aptiva", Apple had "Performa". With these brands followed special rules: All home electronics stores had realized that if they guaranteed that if they could promise to be the cheapest, that generated sales. To be able to guarantee that, they bought entire batches of a specific computer. To enable this, computer manufacturers responded with model numbers that were all slightly different in their configurations - a bigger or smaller HD, more or less RAM, including a modem or not, etc. This is the reason for the model numbers that expanded across the world.

Then came the PowerPC. Because the Powerbook was such a success and PowerPC was to be a big brand in its own right, Apple decided to capitalize on that with "Powermac". The Performa brand lived on, but quality sank (especially the 5200 model), so eventually Apple had to kill it and replace it with Powermac as well. Apple also iterated quite quickly, boosted clockspeeds whenever it could, and soon started to add the clockspeed to the model number directly. Because it didn't want to get stuck with old stock on hand, Apple pushed out old models when they knew a new one was on its way.

This was the situation as Steve returned - not only were there 6 different Powermac lines and 3 Powerbook lines, but there were multiple generations active at once, and everyone in multiple clockspeed variants. This was the reason for cutting it back to only one pro line for desktops - Mac Pro - and one highly pruned Powerbook line. The iMac was added as the consumer Mac, and the laptops eventually split into two as the Powerbooks became more expensive and the iBook was introduced below it.

The renaming after the Intel launch was motivated by a need to affirm that this was still Macs, and the number of "i-products" in Apple's line meant that iBook wasn't sufficiently descriptive. The final "Mac Pro" was only for symmetry.

[testudo]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Apple's offerings are pretty good.

For most people, an iMac is just all they need.

Um, I have a couple of good monitors. Why do I need to pay for another one inside my iMac?

And for those who need more - these people want a real workstation.

Um, no, they don't. Many want 'more' not because they need EVERYTHING apple throws into the MacPro. They want something Apple has deemed not worthy for any other line.

Many people, like myself, would like more internal hard-drive space. I'd also like the capability to use my eSATA drives (which work a lot faster than Firewire or USB). But I don't need workstation class CPUs.

The only thing that would be really critical if Apple downgraded the workstations to make them more affordable.

But, luckily, that's not happening. They are quality computers and suitable for demanding work.

Why would that be so bad? Making affordable computers for those who don't need workstation-class processing or such. Apparently, Apple believes only a 'pro' ever needs anything more than what they deem worthy of putting in their boxes. And for these folks, they want to charge them $2500+, to start with.

[Spheric Harlot]

"pros" may need more. That's why the Mac Pro has expansion slots. Also, pros tend to get the tools they need, and offset them against their taxable income.

As mentioned above, twice, the market for affordable towers is dying.

Apple doesn't invest into dying markets.

[-Q-]

Originally Posted by testudo 

Why would that be so bad? Making affordable computers for those who don't need workstation-class processing or such.

Apple decided long ago that's not the market they're competing in. If you want a mac, you have 4 product tiers to choose from. If your needs aren't met by those tiers, or you can't afford the tier that has a feature you want, they've decided the cost of not having you as a customer is easily made up by the the other people coming to the brand.

I can't say whether that's right or wrong, but it's a model that's working for them and I can't argue with a company with such a well-defined product strategy.

[SamuraiArtGuy]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

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

The sticky difference is that you have to cap the Mac Pro with a Display, adding $800 to $1800 to the cost of a working system. That makes the price difference more like $1300 to $2300.. ($1400 with the new 27" LCD Display if you don't mind glossy )

Design pros upgrading from older G5 machines will also be retiring not only their Power PC macs, but the now-incompatible ADC Connector Displays.

Just sayin'

[P]

Apple is very open about how it makes its products: It identifies a segment that is large enough and profitable enough for them to bother with, and they make the best possible product for it. They never compete with themselves, and they're not shy about killing a product when it is replaced with something better. Apple has a very small number of products, because they find it hard to find people that are good enough to design more than that.

This is becoming that dreaded xMac discussion yet again, so in the interest of saving us all some time, let me summarize it for you. There are two versions of this debate:

"I want a cheaper box! Surely Apple can make a decently powerful $800 box (or $500 box)- look at this box from Dell/HP/my local whitebox supplier! If they would just stop the business of slim and tiny, they could save lots of money on cooling, and I can upgrade it with stuff I might need one day."

They could make such a box. They won't, because noone makes any money on that box, and because the market for it is slowly dying. Also, if you take one of those Dell boxes and add in enough software to represent iLife, the price difference to the cheaper iMacs is gone. That's there the price difference is - not in the cooling. The cooling probably costs money in development, but the part price difference is miniscule.

"I want a powerful box but not pay MP prices! At $1500 bucks, Apple could make a great box with this awesome CPU and a really powerful GPU."

This argument had some relevance in the days before Nehalem. Apple made an expensive MP made out of expensive parts (Xeons and FB-DIMMs), and there should be room for something built around a Core 2 Q6600 or Q9400 or something like that paired with basic DDR2 RAM. Apple could make a cheaper MP out of cheaper parts, and the diffrentiator could be the lower RAM ceiling and namdwidth. Those days are long gone, however - after the Nehalem launch in 2009, Apple switched to regular DDR3 RAM (if with ECC) and a cheap Xeon that is essentially a rebranded Core i7 900 series. Apple is making precisely the box you want, but overcharging some $800 for it. That's the reason for my signature.

If you look back, you will find some rather long debates about if Apple could make such a box, and essentially cripple it with fewer HD bays or something to diffrentiate it from the low-end MP. I don't think they ever could without canibalizing the low-end MP. In my mind, the reasonable response is to drop the price of the low-end MP by at least $500 and hopefully more, but with the high ceiling of the iMac line these days, that runs into the "not compete with themselves" rule.

[Spheric Harlot]

While it's true that G5 users will need to replace their ADC displays, ADC Displays are AT LEAST six years old and have more than paid for themselves.

[SamuraiArtGuy]

I've been thinking about this and the current rather pricey and disappointing upgrade to the Mac Pro line, particularly in light of the Adobe CS5 upgrade, which is Intel-only. This will have a lot of Design Pros retiring older, but still working, G5 machines. And I have also noticed the neglect status of the Mac Pro in Apple Stores.

This is out of my own Studio's Blog... just quoting the rant, too long to reproduce fully here. But I feel that Design Professionals have been somewhat tossed to the curb in Apple's relentless (and profitable) push for the "consuming " Computer user.

"... The galling point for us Design Pros, and I am talking about Publishing, Photography, Graphics and Web Design, is that Apple has tossed us to the curb YEARS ago to the tender mercies of Adobe. Go into an Apple store and good luck finding any serious pro gear, such as an tabloid size (11″ x 17″) printer or press quality scanner. Not for the likes of us. And we’ve been crying for a mid-range Mac for frakkin’ ages. The majority of us would probably be quite comfortable with the performance range of the 27″ i7 iMac in an expandable tower configuration. The price gap between the i7 iMac nicely appointed and the Base Mac Pro and Display is enough to buy a decent laptop and the Adobe CS5 upgrade. Which I might mention is a non-trivial sum. Adobe enjoys a near monopoly in the must-have graphics applications that design pros use such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash and Acrobat, and charge us accordingly. The further fact that [with the 27" LCD Display ] Apple has done away with all non-glossy screens except for the BTO MacBookPro, shows their disdain for Design pros over “oooohhh shiny,” which does look spiffier in the Apple Store lighting. ..."

If you're interested, the full article is here.
Mac Pros. Mac users?

[Spheric Harlot]

Yes, you've mentioned all of that, and P did a rather nice job of explaining it all to you.

The only new point there is being at Adobe's mercy - which, from all we've seen, Apple would LOVE to change, but is powerless to.

Apple is as much at Adobe's mercy as you are, and has likely been reamed royally by Adobe in the past.

What do you suggest they do about that?

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by P 

after the Nehalem launch in 2009, Apple switched to regular DDR3 RAM (if with ECC) and a cheap Xeon that is essentially a rebranded Core i7 900 series. Apple is making precisely the box you want, but overcharging some $800 for it. That's the reason for my signature.

Does this wanna-be Xeon only regard the Quad core, or also the single six core?

The duals have real Xeon processors then?

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

While it's true that G5 users will need to replace their ADC displays, ADC Displays are AT LEAST six years old and have more than paid for themselves.

Who would want to work on a six year old display anyway?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by 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...

The HD5870 works in the original Mac Pros: Radeon 5870 in 2006 Mac Pro

[P]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Does this wanna-be Xeon only regard the Quad core, or also the single six core?

It's the sixcore as well, however that is a rebranded i7-980X - the most expensive desktop CPU sells.

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

The duals have real Xeon processors then?

Yes.

Real and real, btw... You could argue that the i7-900 series are rebranded Xeon 3500/3600 series pushed out to have a true quad in the enthusiast market a year earlier, because it was dangerous to leave that area to Phenom - noone knew that it would tank the way it did. With Nehalem and the return to regular DIMMs, the difference between workstation and enthusiast desktop hardware mostly disappeared. The difference between Xeon 5500 series (Gainestown) and Core i7 900/Xeon 3500 series (Bloomfield) is one more QPI link. Core i7 900 has one, between Northbridge and CPU, while the Xeon 5500 has two - one to the Northbridge and one to the other CPU. Same thing for 3600 (Gulftown) and 5600 (Westmere-EP). Of course Intel charges through the nose for that extra QPI channel, especially at the upper end of the range where it lacks true competition. If you want to be really scared, look at what they charge for the 4-socket 7500 series (Beckton). Even the nerfed 4-core 1.83 GHz model costs $856, and the top ones cost more per CPU than an entire 8-core MP.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

"pros" may need more. That's why the Mac Pro has expansion slots. Also, pros tend to get the tools they need, and offset them against their taxable income.

As mentioned above, twice, the market for affordable towers is dying.

Apple doesn't invest into dying markets.

I would say this differently: the market for powerful, general purpose computers is shrinking to a more realistic size.

For the purposes of 80% of computer users out there--even business users--a powerful tower is massive overkill. The vast majority of computer use is limited to several basic tasks: email, web, spreadsheet, checkbook, music, videos, photos, casual games. All of these can be effortlessly handled by any desktop machine from the last five years, and I think most users wouldn't notice if you replaced the internals of a Mac Pro with a G5. In fact, all of those tasks can be handled by the cheapest MacBook. It just doesn't take a lot of oomph to run Word, Safari, iTunes and Excel at the same time.

Added to this is the fact, experienced by many here, that most people never upgrade their computers, instead seeing them as appliances akin to a microwave or TV: you buy it, use it for a couple years, and then buy a new one. I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has benefitted from a friend of relative getting rid of their "old" machine, now three years out of date. . .

Simply put, most people who bought towers didn't need them and never used them to capacity. And now that we're seeing devices like the iPad, which take the most used tasks and put them in a new form factor, I predict we will see a gradual shift in sales away from general purpose machines across the board, towards devices like the iPad. Half of my relatives could get by with nothing but an iPad, and almost all the others need nothing more than a cheap laptop. I'm the only person in the family who really needs muptiple processors and GB of RAM, and that's only because of how job. It's the same among my friends. If you look at what people need, rather than want, very few need more than basic computing power.

The flip side of this is also true: High end machines are now so powerful that they've become niche products. The number of software packages out there which can actually keep 12 cores consistently humming along is small. Most of them are going to be highly specialized and highly expensive. Photoshop won't do it. Avid and FCP won't, except for special circumstances. To use all 12 cores you will probably need to be using some pretty esoteric scientific and/or engineering programs, and those may cost as much as your machine.

This holds true for me as well. I'd love to have a fully stocked 12 core machine on my desk. But, looking at the software I use, it's probable that half those cores would go unused most of the time. The single, six core machine is probably all the power I will need for the next couple years, and that's assuming Adobe gets is act together and figures out how to use multiple cores more of the time.

So, the shift isn't dying towers or Apple ignoring a market segment. The shift is more people buying machines which actually fit their needs and leaving the heavy duty machines to people who really need them, and who are used to paying for the privelege.

[Spheric Harlot]

You're describing cause. The effect is a dying midrange Tower market.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You're describing cause. The effect is a dying midrange Tower market.

But I don't think the market is dying. To me, dying implies the machines in that market will disappear and won't be made again. I don't see that happening. I just see them being used by the people who really need the power, and that's a small market.

[Spheric Harlot]

I believe you missed the "MIDRANGE" in my post. That market is indeed dying.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by P 

after the Nehalem launch in 2009, Apple switched to regular DDR3 RAM (if with ECC)

So this would concern all Mac Pros, not only the Quad.

Would you consider the switch to regular DDR 3 RAM a downgrade?

Or is the difference not really there and only a compatibility thing?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

While it's true that G5 users will need to replace their ADC displays, ADC Displays are AT LEAST six years old and have more than paid for themselves.

Wouldn't this adapter work?

Apple Display adapter 29 pin combined DVI - male 1 x 4 pin USB Type A - male - 35 pin ADC - female

I know it's not cheap, but I'd expect it to work, since ADC was just DVI with power and USB added anyway.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I believe you missed the "MIDRANGE" in my post. That market is indeed dying.

I did miss midrange. But I'm still right!

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Wouldn't this adapter work?

Apple Display adapter 29 pin combined DVI - male 1 x 4 pin USB Type A - male - 35 pin ADC - female

I know it's not cheap, but I'd expect it to work, since ADC was just DVI with power and USB added anyway.

I know about the Apple DVI --> ADC Adapter, but just assumed that hooking up an adapter to the mini DisplayPort --> DVI adapter wouldn't work.

On further reflection, I see no reason why it shouldn't. Also, don't Mac Pros still have a DVI output? If so, double reason for ADC to still work fine.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

I did miss midrange. But I'm still right!

Redundant, but right.

[P]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

So this would concern all Mac Pros, not only the Quad.

Yes, but for the 8-core the CPU is still a distinctive factor.

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Would you consider the switch to regular DDR 3 RAM a downgrade?

By price, yes. By number of DIMM sockets (so in effect, by RAM ceiling), yes. By performance, absolutely not. I never liked FB-DIMM, too Rambussy for me, but it did let us use lots of RAM. If Apple had used regular DIMMs on the Core 2 designs, we would be limited to 4 sockets total, both CPUs. Nehalem increased the limit to 6 or even 9 if you can take an underclocking (even if Apple didn't make use of that), and made it per socket. This removed the main selling point of FB-DIMM, and it's death was natural.