My excuse is that I was on break at the time.  As to Ivy Bridge I'm not at all certain that there will be a huge performance increase clock for clock in the CPU anyways. 

Hehe... well it's not predicted to be one.  He was saying that they'd probably use the older type on the low end seeing as that's what they did the last time.  It's not a real precedence though when intel didn't come out with direct westmere replacements at all. 

ALL of our MacPros have additional cards
That's one of the things we want the for

We have been waiting for the New Model to do a refresh of existing MacPros

While Thunderbolt perhaps could support some external cards, we are not keen on that solution
Security for one thing we would need to ensure that any such external boxes were kept secure

We were also looking for the Next MacPro to be rack mountable
- Perhaps via additional brackets or something. 

If there are NO new Mac Pros
Then it's very likely that we will be forced to switch 'back' to windows
After Macs making stead inroads, and replacing most PC kit, we now may have to start looking the other way again

- general concept: a radically new design that will redefine the Mac Pro
- no optical drive bays
- built-in flash memory for OS and Apps
- 3 additional 3.5" drive-bays (with hot-swap?) 
- no slots, Thunderbolt will make up for this
- way smaller case
- lower price point
- release: October 2011 (maybe at a special Mac event?) 

As with Final Cut Pro X, professionals will cry out foul! 

Thoughts? 

-------------------------------------------------
NOP - I don't like the sound of that
WE want INTERNAL Card Slots

We still have some use for Optical Drive bay - though that would be the easiest sacrifice

It's pretty clear that Apple have NOT been developing a 'New MacPro' for the past 6-months
It looks like there is NOT going to be one at all

While as MacPro is undoubtably NOT very profitable In Cash-Up front terms
I think NOT having such a flagship CPU for Pro's to use is a MAJOR Mistake

Humm I am now Starting to get more optimistic that a new MacPro will appear
Sometime in 2012 Chip availability is pat of the issue

Chips are part of the issue but I really hope Apple is seriously taking a crack at the Pro concept to make it a more viable machine.  Viable is not by default cheaper, but the platform does need to become a technology leader again. 

Quote:

Remember people want MacPros for flexibility
Where that's not needed an iMac does very nicely
But where it is needed there is no substitute

I have to disagree with the above, at least in the sense that the iMac does very nicely.  Some of us will never consider an iMac so no it won't do nicely.  If people would take the time to blot the iMac out of their mind it would be far easier to see why an XMac is needed. 

I have to disagree with the above, at least in the sense that the iMac does very nicely.  Some of us will never consider an iMac so no it won't do nicely.  If people would take the time to blot the iMac out of their mind it would be far easier to see why an XMac is needed. 

Given the number of people that primarily use laptops as primary machines, it seems unlikely to me that the imac would retain a really significant portion of overall sales much longer.  The 27" is relatively competitive by Apple's standards.  The 21.5" seems like it would appeal greatly to the education market.  I don't mean students.  I mean labs that need to purchase however many seats.  The mini does not stack up favorably in cost relative to these, as displays don't look that great after three to five years or so of constant use.  In case anyone wishes to bring up the cinema displays, I've seen how they age. 

Really if Apple does end up pulling the plug on the Mac Pro, I wouldn't expect a desktop machine from them (at all) for more than a few years after that. 

...looks like a 'leak' from Apple P.R prepping us for a 'dinosaur-less' future. 

Pity (always liked the Mac Pro...) ?  A little...but not so much. 

It's been on the cards for some time. 

Apple's moving mainstream whether die hards like it or not. 

iMac.  iPods.  iPhones.  iPads...

All plenty powerful for the mainstream consumer whether for Image or Word Processing, Emailing, video work. 

The tower's had this coming for some time.  It's 'huuuuuge' design, it's even 'huuuuuuuuuuug-er' price tag and it's even 'huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug-er' out of date gpus have made it the province of a Mac/creative pro/elite in denial. 

Top end iMac 27 inch vs the entry level crap (sorry, 'Quad') core Tower?  No competition.  One is overblown and a sucktackler irrelevance and the other is actually selling. 

Apple aren't Apple computer any longer.  They're Apple.  That happened some time ago. 

We're in the post pc era.  That means no big, ugly (or even big 'pretty') boxes with lots of wires. 

We're done with Power PC.  We're done with towers.  We're done with 'gas guzzlers'...it's small, elegant, it's portable...it's bang for buck in power vs power consumption. 

I'm sure they'll sell the tower for another year or so.  Then there's ebay for people who want to nerd away with...uhm...well...whatever it is you're putting in there (but it won't be new improved gpus with any regularity... :/ )

The tower?  This parties over. 

The iMac will carry the 'mid tower' x-Mac desk top torch (and is currently doing so...) for the forseeable future.  If you aren't demanding, stick an SD powered mini to a monitor of your choice. 

If that that doesn't excite you, there's lots of luvly Apple laptops and a terrific iPad 3 (retina rocks!)  around the corner. 

I guess there's a fading hope that Apple may nix the overblown tower and give us a double mini whopper (with a cheese side order) ala Cube style replacement.  I could vaguely see that happening with Thunderbolt helping with the expansion. 

But the increasingly 'epic' gaps between Tower updates suggests the writing is on the wall. 

Lemon Bon Bon. 

You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...

I am constantly dismayed at the lack of understanding of what constitutes a professional machine here, and can only put it down to most people commenting are not professional users and are criticising a machine gendre they have little use for or knowledge of...
Lets be clear the development of the existing lineup without the MacPro could very happily suffice for Apple without all the costly proapps hassle and especially considering the other half of the commercial world population that are now starting to become a profitable open market for Apple which would be far easier to market with easy to use none critical but highly integrated applications promoting further inbuilt Apple sales. 

When it comes to providing machines for the much smaller but also diversely specialised Professional market then we have to think in terms of what hardware is most suited to the choice of software needed and today Adobe leads the greater part of that creative market, nearly all most employed top Professional software requirements can cost equal too or more than the machine they are run on making productivity the name of the game, Apple have spent years trying to run and match the MacPro with MacOS up against the PC/windows fraternity and today they have all but lost that initiative. 
The only folk I know of that haven't yet migrated their Professorial (money making businesses) to PCs are only dithering in decision that they know they will have to eventually make. 

That is not to say that many lighter professional individuals will find the iMac a quite suitable machine for their needs and will happily stay in the Mac camp, but studio use invariably needs the heavey lifting processing of ever more capable machines to maintain their commercial advantage and in the abscence to a competing MacPro line they have had to swop allegence by force of circumstance, and whats more sophisticated PCs like the ultimately customisable Maingear CS5.5 setup on Windows OS is a very impressive markup at a simular build cost to a relatively inferior MacPro and somewhat lacking MacOS today. 

In order for Apple to continue with the Macpro then this is the target market for such a machine to compete in, or change direction and like they withdrew from the server market Apple can redesign rename and re-purpose their flagship for a more lucrative semi professional market and by that I mean the independent SOHO creative artist market. 

to that end I would propose a compact mini water cooled i7 based 22nm Ivybridge machine as the twin Zeon board is getting on and well past its SBD where the i7 based cpu range apart from being more cost effective is matching up on performance too and the future rummers are of 16/20 core Intel single processors to come in the 2011 socket,
As with the trend all SATA mechanical and opticle drives are outgoing and Apple do not and neither should design a retro machine, but PCIe mini format would provide all the future SSD and the very good news of the rummered return to nVidea GPU processing cards in the Mac. 
this small but quite customisable MacX with TB would be radical but then thats Apple all over. 

And what does the future hold well ARM A15 full size quad core parallel processing chips are a couple of years down the road yet but... nVidea Maximus

for studio professionals though who moving into the future need lossless 4k 3D editing rendering and low audio latency multiple plugins then Apple would have to compete with the top end of new developments and when a new board/CPU comes out for a tower its easy to swop out rather than have to buy a new machine to upgrade, then theres the built in hot swop libruary HDs and bluray for proofs not to mention 4K plasma screen drives, and full size multi-touch control tables all fully supported in windows. 

Although I have been a proud owner of the MacPro for over eight years I too think its the end of the line for that particular niche machine, but that certainly doesn't mean the end of Apple-mac. 

I don't think so.  Especially if they want to take any interest in the bisiness market.  Outside of the bisiness market I could really see people in the future relying on a combo of a desktop and a tablet.  Maybe even just an iPhone and a desktop.  After all if portable is good more portable will eventually be better. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmm

Given the number of people that primarily use laptops as primary machines, it seems unlikely to me that the imac would retain a really significant portion of overall sales much longer. 

Well this will continue to be the trend if Apple continues to ignore the desktop hardware.  Let's face it Apple's laptops are faster than about half of the desktop machines it sells. 

Quote:

The 27" is relatively competitive by Apple's standards.  The 21.5" seems like it would appeal greatly to the education market.  I don't mean students.  I mean labs that need to purchase however many seats.  The mini does not stack up favorably in cost relative to these, as displays don't look that great after three to five years or so of constant use.  In case anyone wishes to bring up the cinema displays, I've seen how they age. 

Really if Apple does end up pulling the plug on the Mac Pro, I wouldn't expect a desktop machine from them (at all) for more than a few years after that. 

There are still good reasons to prefer desktops even for personal use.  For professional use the needs are so varied I don't ever believe Apple will be able to cover all customers with just laptops.  They may need to rationalize their line up in the future because right now it is a bit of a joke. 

...looks like a 'leak' from Apple P.R prepping us for a 'dinosaur-less' future. 

Pity (always liked the Mac Pro...) ?  A little...but not so much. 

Like it or not I've never considered it due to it being grossly over priced for what you get.  Or maybe more importantly for what I need. 

Quote:

It's been on the cards for some time. 

Apple's moving mainstream whether die hards like it or not. 

iMac.  iPods.  iPhones.  iPads...

As a person that uses his iPhone and iPad more than his laptop some days is that to be considered bad?  On the other hand I consider the concept of an XMac to be very mainstream these days. 

Quote:

All plenty powerful for the mainstream consumer whether for Image or Word Processing, Emailing, video work. 

The tower's had this coming for some time.  It's 'huuuuuge' design, it's even 'huuuuuuuuuuug-er' price tag and it's even 'huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug-er' out of date gpus have made it the province of a Mac/creative pro/elite in denial. 

Top end iMac 27 inch vs the entry level crap (sorry, 'Quad') core Tower?  No competition.  One is overblown and a sucktackler irrelevance and the other is actually selling. 

Apple aren't Apple computer any longer.  They're Apple.  That happened some time ago. 

This really isn't the big issue people make it out to be.  Apples Mac sales are extremely strong even if most of those sales are laptops.  In fact I would have to think the executive team has to be very pleased that sales are growing at the rate they are in an otherwise flat market. 

Quote:

We're in the post pc era.  That means no big, ugly (or even big 'pretty') boxes with lots of wires. 

What's with the negativity with wires?  You do realize that Apple introduced to the world the newest wired port the industry has. 

Quote:

We're done with Power PC.  We're done with towers.  We're done with 'gas guzzlers'...it's small, elegant, it's portable...it's bang for buck in power vs power consumption. 

That is great for the laptop market where people are willing to trade off performance for other features but it can be a problem in the desktop market. 

Quote:

I'm sure they'll sell the tower for another year or so.  Then there's ebay for people who want to nerd away with...uhm...well...whatever it is you're putting in there (but it won't be new improved gpus with any regularity... :/ )

The tower?  This parties over. 

The iMac will carry the 'mid tower' x-Mac desk top torch (and is currently doing so...) for the forseeable future.  If you aren't demanding, stick an SD powered mini to a monitor of your choice. 

Except that the iMac doesn't even come close to filling the shoes of the proverbial XMac. 

Quote:

If that that doesn't excite you, there's lots of luvly Apple laptops and a terrific iPad 3 (retina rocks!)  around the corner. 

Speaking of which, the more I use my iPad and I do use it a lot the more I think my next computer will be a desktop.  Apple currently has a very strong bias to laptop hardware, but I can see consumer demand shifting here.  Value wise though Apples desktops are pretty crappy performance wise relative to their laptops.  It is unfortunate but part of the reason Apple has such lopsided sales right now is the poor value in the desktop lineup. 

Quote:

I guess there's a fading hope that Apple may nix the overblown tower and give us a double mini whopper (with a cheese side order) ala Cube style replacement.  I could vaguely see that happening with Thunderbolt helping with the expansion. 

But the increasingly 'epic' gaps between Tower updates suggests the writing is on the wall. 

Lemon Bon Bon. 

Well the epic gaps as you call them aren't entirely Apples fault.  However it is telling that Apple has yet to implement Thunderbolt in the Mac Pro.  Honestly I'm hoping it is because they are waiting for a chip set from Intel that will support multiple TB ports.  On the other hand I think they have given up on the box. 

Why do I say given ?  Well it is no loneger a technology leading platform.  It is one thing that TB isn't in the machine, but it is another to realize the general layout of the hardware fast changed in years.  No innovation in storage nor display hardware.  Pretty sad really. 

Like it or not I've never considered it due to it being grossly over priced for what you get.  Or maybe more importantly for what I need. 

As a person that uses his iPhone and iPad more than his laptop some days is that to be considered bad?  On the other hand I consider the concept of an XMac to be very mainstream these days. 

This really isn't the big issue people make it out to be.  Apples Mac sales are extremely strong even if most of those sales are laptops.  In fact I would have to think the executive team has to be very pleased that sales are growing at the rate they are in an otherwise flat market. 

What's with the negativity with wires?  You do realize that Apple introduced to the world the newest wired port the industry has. 

That is great for the laptop market where people are willing to trade off performance for other features but it can be a problem in the desktop market. 

Except that the iMac doesn't even come close to filling the shoes of the proverbial XMac. 

Speaking of which, the more I use my iPad and I do use it a lot the more I think my next computer will be a desktop.  Apple currently has a very strong bias to laptop hardware, but I can see consumer demand shifting here.  Value wise though Apples desktops are pretty crappy performance wise relative to their laptops.  It is unfortunate but part of the reason Apple has such lopsided sales right now is the poor value in the desktop lineup. 

Well the epic gaps as you call them aren't entirely Apples fault.  However it is telling that Apple has yet to implement Thunderbolt in the Mac Pro.  Honestly I'm hoping it is because they are waiting for a chip set from Intel that will support multiple TB ports.  On the other hand I think they have given up on the box. 

Why do I say given ?  Well it is no loneger a technology leading platform.  It is one thing that TB isn't in the machine, but it is another to realize the general layout of the hardware fast changed in years.  No innovation in storage nor display hardware.  Pretty sad really.