Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

When Steve Jobs re-joined Apple in 1997, he drew a grid on a white board that looked something like this

Jobs then gutted Apple of everything that didn't fit into one of these four quadrants. If it wasn't a desktop or laptop that was specifically aimed at Creative Professionals or Consumers, it was no longer part of Apple.

We've come a long way since then. Today over 70% of Apple's sales revenue come from a category that didn't exist in 1997 called iOS devices. While last quarter Mac sales were up 26% year–over–year, Macs only made up 22% of Apple's revenue. Within total Mac sales hide the Mac Pro towers. These are the computers that professionals use to crunch large video, create music, work on scientific equations, create 3D models and more. These niche markets represent a small part of the overall Mac user population, but they all have one thing it common: they need horsepower machines with expansion capabilities. An iOS device, or even an iMac won't provide what they need.

It's important to note the current Mac Pro's have grown long in the tooth. One has to wonder if the Mac Pro's aren't going to find their way out of Apple's line-up like the XServe did a year ago. Apple wasn't selling enough servers and decided it didn't need to be in the server market to be successful, so they discontinued the product. Could the Mac Pro find a similar fate?

We sure hope not. While consumer products are sexy, Apple's DNA came from professionals using the Mac to make things that never existed before. Creativity and Macs go hand in hand, but for professionals, power is the third leg of that stool. While you can use Garage Band to create a fun song, music, and video, scientific and creative professionals use powerful software that requires powerful, expandable hardware.

The Mac Pro needs an update, and we hope the recent rumors of it's demise are greatly exaggerated. If not, the Mac Pro may become the next Apple product to "walk the plank".

1 Comment

1. Robert ~ November 10, 2011 05:09
   I hope they don't but we've already seen changes in professional apps that have caught the pros off guard (Final Cut Pro X). The key to all of this is whether professionals believe a top-end iMac will satisfy their needs. I know at first glance, the Mac Pro, with four internal HDs, and extra slots for specialized cards, beats the iMac hands down but is it that far ahead? Mac Pros can be purchased with 2x6core CPUs while iMacs are limited to quad core CPUs. Heat is an issue with iMacs but when cooler-running quad or 8-core CPUs are available, there is room to fit them in an iMac. How many cores can effectively be used by Apple professional apps as well as third-party apps? Thunderbolt is the wildcard. Are TB-attached RAID systems as fast as the internal RAID on a Mac Pro? How many Mac Pros in professional studios are connected to something like Xsan, now basically "free" with Lion server. Can studios re-tool, using the iMac as an intelligent "monitor/CPU" while incorporating the existing fiber-channel-based backend storage system? There already are TB-FC interface boxes so iMacs can easily connect to these data farms. Specialized I/O cards, primarily video and audio cards, are the one area I see of concern to the pros. You can get an AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5 graphics card with the TOL iMac. Is that enough for everything? Can it drive enough displays? Check out http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrastudio3d/. Is $1K the amount you'd pay for a PCI card in a Mac Pro with similar capabilities? I'd still like to see a half-height Mac Pro with the capability for a few PCI cards but I don't see having a bunch of internal disks that necessary when you can get a 3TB internal drive (or smaller but faster SSDs) or connect large RAID systems via TB. The time might have come for the behemoth Mac Pro to finally disappear. With the current crop of iMacs, I don't see there being that much of a difference in performance but there is a big difference in price.

Leave your reply