Apple continues to be a remarkable innovator but the user pay dearly for the sleek lines and closed system.

PCIe based storage is no faster than a good Raid setup. As in normal Mac tradition it's only more expensive and more proprietary, ie less choice in purchasing the hardware.

Server PC motherboards have 4 memory lanes and the same memory bandwidth GPU-wise as this system. Not that any of it would speed up your editing one bit. But if it makes you feel good...

Apple knew it was losing the price/performance battle and switched to Intel! And after touting PowerPC as the way to go for all those years. Kind of funny. And now, as it has always been they get the latest and greatest AFTER it hits the PC world.

As I wrote at the beginning of this post. Apple makes some incredible products and help drive the market. But for me it's waay to expensive for what you get and the software is too dumbed down. But I hope they sell these like hotcakes.

And yes, I could build a PC that's just as fast for half the price. For 3/4 of the price it would absolutely kill this Mac.

"Apple continues to be a remarkable innovator"

No. Not anymore anyway. Apple hasn't been "innovative" in quite a while. There has been little more than sidestepping in the ipad, Samsung is light years ahead of the iphone technology and has been for some time, and there is nothing really innovative with the new mac pro other than its look.

Frankly, Apple has completely failed in the "innovation" department since the death of Jobs.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "...and there is nothing really innovative with the new mac pro other than its look."

Really? So you don't think that redesigning a personal computer motherboard in the shape of a prism with the heat sink in the center core so that a single quiet fan can cool all of the components simultaneous instead of having CPU fans, and GPU fans, and PSU fans, and Case fans, that all scream like a 747 on take-off, is not innovative? Hmm... I tend to disagree unless this is what you meant by "other than it's look" and then I agree with you (where "look" includes the entire design). ;-)

I haven't seen any other computer manufacturer change the form factor of the personal computer like Apple has. I wasn't that impressed with the Mac Pro until I saw how it was designed on the inside. I think it's incredibly innovative and as someone who requires a silent computer for my work, it's incredibly attractive as a workstation.

~jr

"Really? So you don't think that redesigning a personal computer motherboard in the shape of a prism with the heat sink in the center core so that a single quiet fan can cool all of the components simultaneous instead of having CPU fans, and GPU fans, and PSU fans, and Case fans, that all scream like a 747 on take-off, is not innovative? Hmm... I tend to disagree unless this is what you meant by "other than it's look" and then I agree with you (where "look" includes the entire design)."

No. Not innovative at all. There is nothing new about this technology. It has all been done before. Apple has taken bits and pieces of other peoples work/ideas in other technologies and simply applied it to the mac. The fact is that the conic wind tunnel design has existed for a great many decades and Apple is not the one who designed it or even thought of it. What Apple has done however is remove form and function in order to apply it.

Wrapping all parts around a central wind tunnel with a single fan. Exihbit A: http://www.xi3.com

Don't fight against it.

For believers a Mac is - ah - kinda - Intelligent Design.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "It has all been done before. Apple has taken bits and pieces of other peoples work/ideas in other technologies and simply applied it to the mac. The fact is that the conic wind tunnel design has existed for a great many decades and Apple is not the one who designed it or even thought of it. "

OK, so if that's your basis for innovation then Henry Ford was not innovative since he stole the idea of the automobile assembly line from the meat packing industry who used a line of hooks and butcher stations to process meat more efficiently.

Taking ideas from other industries and applying them to your own is not only innovative, it is patent worthy. It's called "prior art" and those of us who hold patents know that we can see further when we "stand on the shoulders of giants".

It's OK if you don't think Apple is innovative. I thought it was pure genius to apply wind tunnel design to computers.

> Reply by: PixelStuff "Wrapping all parts around a central wind tunnel with a single fan. Exihbit A: www.xi3.com"

I like that PISTON too. That's another innovative design. I wish they had more pictures of their tri-board system. I love their video (...existing systems are "Ludicrously Large", "Numbingly Noisy", "Preposterously Power-Hungry" lol) :-D



touché

~jr

<<And yes, I could build a PC that's just as fast for half the price. For 3/4 of the price it would absolutely kill this Mac.>>

I've never been a fan of Apple. At work I use HP Z series workstations and at home I've always built my own.

But recently I did the unthinkable and switched from Android to an iPhone. I installed iMovie and when I finally got around to trying it out was stunned: editing 720p HD video on my iPhone is smoother than editing 720p HD video with Vegas on my Core i7 Ivy Bridge at home or my 6-core Xeon at work.

Then in July I went to SIGGRAPH and saw Mac books running high end 3D apps. So two weeks ago I once again did the unthinkable and made an appointment with the biz folks at the Apple store. I got a comprehensive 90-minute demo of FCP and was blown away at its fluidity, even on a moderately spec'ed iMac. FCP is missing some things that I feel are deal breakers for me, at least right now (no timeline markers? REALLY?), but I must say that the editing experience was very, very fluid.

My take-away is that Apple optimizes their hardware and OS such that the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

" it is patent worthy. It's called "prior art" and those of us who hold patents know that we can see further when we "stand on the shoulders of giants". It's OK if you don't think Apple is innovative. I thought it was pure genius to apply wind tunnel design to computers."

No disrespect, but clearly you are a rather easy person to please. Is it this way with everything, or just Apple products?

Once again.... this is not cutting edge technology. There is nothing special here. There is no OHHH and AHHH like when the ipad was born. Now THAT was cutting edge technology. THAT was truly innovative. The mac pro however is nothing more than a bunch of re bagged technology

Patents? Apple applies for a GREAT many patents in a given year. Some are accepted, and some are refused. But patents don't necessarily spell out innovation.

I'm not the only one who believes the Apple magic is gone. There are countless articles out there stating the same thing. Articles of this nature were justifiably impossible to find when the ipad hit the market, but they're a dime a dozen now. So the only thing I can say to you if you think this is "pure genius", is that I find it truly amazing how far down the bar has slid for measuring innovation.

>>>Then in July I went to SIGGRAPH and saw Mac books running high end 3D apps<<<<

Hmmm, no, again. There is no high end 3D on macs. In fact just about the only cases of people I know moving from macs to windows have been among people who wanted to do high end 3D.

3DStudoMax or Softimage are not available on macs. Maya is, but has traditionally been a half assed version compared to its windows counterpart. maybe houdini?
Not many choices there.


>>>>t's OK if you don't think Apple is innovative. I thought it was pure genius to apply wind tunnel design to computers<<<

They are just blowing air over the board, just like every single pc has been doing since who knows when. Nothing new here. They can shape it any way they like and call it whatever they like it's still the same thing. You need a fan to cool the cpu, then GPU and a few extra fans doesn't hurt either.

If Apple wants to cut down on fans to keep things quiet, let's see how it works out. It won't be the first time macs start overheating and burning up. It's happened before. This is nothing more than Apple fans bending over and letting Apple blow hot air up their rectums. If that's what they want so be it.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "No disrespect, but clearly you are a rather easy person to please. Is it this way with everything, or just Apple products?"

No disrespect taken and YES I am very easy to please in everything that I do... I just expect the things that I buy to work! I really don't care how they work or why they work, I just want them to work. That's not too much to ask. My Apple products deliver on that for me.

Let me give you an example because it's really hard to understand if you are on the outside looking in. When I was asked if I wanted a MacBook Pro at work I wasn't interested because it had a trackpad and I've been using Lenovo laptops since 1995 with a TrackPoint that I felt had a lot more control over mouse movements than trackpad. Then a friend let me use his MacBook Pro and I was unaware that it supported gestures. The same gestures that I use on my iPad. I couldn't believe how much more productive I was with the Mac's trackpad than Lenovo' track point. I agreed to take a MacBook Pro. Then the unthinkable happened... me, the guy that hated trackpads, actually got rid of the mouse on my Mac Mini and replaced it with a trackpad! That's right... I got a trackpad for my desktop! Unless you have experienced the tight integration of hardware and software that Apple provides, you would think that the trackpad on a Dell laptop is the same as a trackpad on a Mac, but it's not the same user experience at all. So I would say that bar that I set for software is pretty simple, but Windows just doesn't reach it.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "I'm not the only one who believes the Apple magic is gone."

It's amazing to me how many people equate Steve Jobs with innovation at Apple. Yes, Steve had some innovative ideas and was an outstanding leader and salesman, but the real "innovators" are Jony Ive and his team. Most companies are lucky to have a disruptive product like the iPad once in their lifetime. Apple has had several but you don't create a product like an iPad every year. To say innovation is dead at Apple because they are not producing the next iPad-like breakthrough every year is ridiculous. It will be a few years before we see something as disruptive as the iPhone or iPad. Yes, Job's death must have had an impact on this but I wouldn't call it "dead".

BTW, you could make the same argument about the iPad that you are making about the Mac Pro. There is absolutely nothing innovative about the iPad. Tablets existed before the iPad and Microsoft even had one. When asked about Microsoft's tablet Steve Jobs said that Apple would never build a tablet because nobody wants one. The iPad is just a rehash of existing technologies that Microsoft already demonstrated. Nothing new. Nothing new at all! Move along... nothing to see here. lol ;-)

~jr

. . . . Innovation is in the Eye of the Beholder. Or should that read the Marketeer?

G

Calm down everybody.... Calm... down.... :)

The arguments will never ended...

> Posted by: set "Calm down everybody.... Calm... down.... :)"

That's the unfortunate thing about internet posts and emails. You have no idea of the emotion that someone is conveying the message. Quite often if you are mad or excited, you read the message as if the other person was mad or excited too but it doesn't necessarily reflect the true emotions of who wrote the message.

I am sitting here on my iPad very calmly having a discussion with Rob Franks (who I respect) in a public forum about the merits of Apple's Mac Pro design. He doesn't think it's innovative, and I do. Since the term "innovative" is rather subjective, the conversation can become quite colorful but I think it's been very civil. I have these discussions all the time at work because I work for IBM Research at the T.J. Watson Research Center and I'm constantly pushing my team to be innovative and they are constantly asking me, "how do I know if I'm being innovative?" and I usually tell them, if you can't file a patent on it, or you can't publish a paper about it that colleagues in our industry will want to read, then you're not doing innovative research, you are just glorified developers. Innovation is hard to define and I'm always curious to know what people think is innovative.

> Posted by: set "The arguments will never ended..."

Ford or Chevy?, MacDonalds or Burger King?, Paper or Plastic?, Mac or PC?... nope, Setiawan... they never will end and that's a good thing because it will be a sad, sad, day when we loose our right to choose and defend our choices. ;-) (...although I realize that there are still some countries where people don't have these rights that we take for granted)

~jr

"It's amazing to me how many people equate Steve Jobs with innovation at Apple."

LOL!
No, no. Jobs was both an interesting and brilliant personality, but not once did I say he was the back bone of Apple's innovative movements. What I (and others) look at is; what was... and now, what is. Apple has done not much more than move sideways SINCE the death of Jobs. They have in fact joined the rank of the rest of the world by introducing levels of product (ipad mini, iphone 5c....) in an effort to better compete IN PLACE of innovation (or lack of).


Not sure you can even THINK of comparing the old Microsoft tablet to the ipad. What really separated the ipad from anything else which was introduced prior was the absolute and complete touch control abilities which was not only supported from the hardware end, but also from the software end. It was COMPLETELY touch controlled in finite detail, unlike anything else introduced at that point in time. Of course it was smaller and lighter too, but the biggy was the vastly improved and detailed touch ability, a true innovation. That innovation has now carried the touch concept (which has been around for decades) to a whole new level.

Now... has the mac pro even come close to that kind of innovative level? No. It's very pretty and it deletes a few fans (at the expense of a lot of form/function). Not innovative at all. In fact for those looking at REAL pro end machines (machines which can expand to their needs), it may even be considered a step back.

But I'm not on the outside looking in. I'm a pc user, but that doesn't mean we don't have apple products around the house. We have both an android and an iphone in the family and frankly (and objectively), the Samsung Galaxy runs circles around the iphone on pretty much all levels (stability, ease of operation, flexibility). Even with the new IOS7 Apple is still trying to play catchup. Things that Samsung introduced long ago are now just hitting the iphone (live backgrounds for example). And talk about restrictive! I can change the look and feel of the Galaxy software operations to the 'N'th degree if I wish. I can't even come close to that with the iphone. I don't even have to worry about memory on the Galaxy. If I need more, I just add it. Can't do that with an iphone. I can go on with this if you want but the point is that I do have experience with Apple and what I see as a result is a bunch of restrictions complicated by what appears to be a complete stall in Apple's ability to pump out really forward thinking stuff.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "What really separated the ipad from anything else which was introduced prior was the absolute and complete touch control abilities which was not only supported from the hardware end, but also from the software end. It was COMPLETELY touch controlled in finite detail, unlike anything else introduced at that point in time."

I agree. That's the power of controlling both hardware and software and why Android may be at a slight disadvantage since it has no control over the quality of the hardware that is brought to market using it's OS.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "I don't even have to worry about memory on the Galaxy. If I need more, I just add it. Can't do that with an iphone."

I have to agree and that unfortunately now includes Apple laptops. I bought my son a MacBook Air with a 128GB hard drive and he has since decided to go college for graphic design and he's installed Adobe CS6 and has tons of graphics files and is now running out of hard drive space and there is no upgrade option. He will have to buy a new computer if he wants a larger hard drive. I bought him a 1TB USB drive but it's not like having the storage local. That is the one thing that I don't like about the direction that Apple is taking and why I have the last non-Retina MacBook Pro that still allows you to upgrade the hard drive. So I agree about the restrictiveness of Apple's current approach. I understand it may be needed to make things thinner, but would give up thin for expandability any day.

~jr

Your not alone Johnny. For this price,this is ground breaking. One of my associate is editing with $8K HP system. This was 3 year ago system editing Red files.

So I know what type machine you need to have editing Red files for a living. You also have to add cost of maintenance. To handle those large files.

To have a $3K machine and edit 4K files. This is game changing... blurring the line for consumer to professional.

I will be ordering my MacPro and Sony 4k camera. First quarter 2014.

"I agree. That's the power of controlling both hardware and software and why Android may be at a slight disadvantage since it has no control over the quality of the hardware that is brought to market using it's OS."

Not sure you heard me.... Can't speak for all android phones (just the Galaxy) but Samsung has by far surpassed Apple in phone stability. As both an iphone and Galaxy owner I can tell you (from my situation anyway) the Galaxy is far superior. The number of times I have to restart the iphone to clear glitches is at least twice what the Galaxy is. As for third party software, can't really tell you which one crashes more, but that in itself is a bit strange since Apple approves all software and as a result one would figure crashes to be very close to non existent. This is not the case at all!

Are there cheaper android based devices? Sure there are, but that's the glory of the market... CHOICE. But alas, Apple has now joined that club with cheaper level products as well.

"I have to agree and that unfortunately now includes Apple laptops"
Yes. And it's not that Apple is dumb either. It could easily add expansion slots/options at very little extra cost. In fact it's quite the opposite... Apple is smart. It's grabbing for your wallet :)

"I bought my son a MacBook Air with a 128GB "
You can not simply replace the HDD? Why?

Thanks JohnnyRoy. Don't worry, no personal feeling affected here :), But, I'm amazed with how discussion goes so far :)
--- Another favorite arguments: "Canon or Nikon (or Sony/Panasonic) ? :)" - ok, no straight answer for that. :D

In terms of 'Innovations', I think, for most casual people or today's fresh-graduates, the Cylindrical design of MacPro is a new thing, because there's no comparable past product known by them (also me), until it was told that Cray ever made it too once. Also, Cray is 'SuperComputer' category, 'Large-computer size' category, where not all casual users will ever think or care about it. Apple announced it this time, and giving 'wow' effect due to its' difference.

Is it innovative on bringing the Room_sized-successful(?) Cray-cylindrical system into small-portable-size Apple-Cylindrical system? Probably.
How about performance & stability compared to other PC? We can only speculate until someone make independent-review and tests.

But for right now, I'm more to "More options & expansion of computer" choice, and usually I divide the HDDs in physical, more than one drive (although partition is made too inside). Finding 'only one HDD' spec may give us a feeling 'something is missing' for the first time, but, this feeling may change after using it.

As for iPad2 (it is what I have), my parents are able to get much comfortable first time, at least, browsing through internet with iPad2. Previously, it is a bit difficult to do in computer, due to confusing steps and what buttons to click after button and what next-to-do. Even for Asian-Chinese language handwriting, character-recognizing is very smart.
And since I don't go to iPhone system (even though we have iMac2011 type here), at least with Android phones, they are able to make use of it, compared to previous hard-key button phones (especially qwerty-type phones or Blackberry - which is extremely popular in my area).

You can not simply replace the HDD? Why?
I think this is caused by very closed MacBook Air design?
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Mid+2013+Teardown/15042

"I think this is caused by very closed MacBook Air design?"

Thanks. Did some research on that already. (I think Johnny is speaking about a SSD actually). But at any rate it is apparently possible to upgrade to a larger ssd (although it is not accepted practice and could void your warranty). Of course with Apple being Apple, the SSD's are not standard. and are quite proprietary. OWC does make them though, up to 480gig.

Replacing the drive takes about 10 minutes, then format and reinstall.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

If on the other hand it's an HDD jr is speaking of, forget it. Apparently they have soldered them directly to the mobo. Why I have no idea.... so you can't upgrade even if you wanted to?

I was just perusing the specs for the new Mac Pro, and it indicates that the PCIe storage begins at 256GB and goes up to 1TB, but it is still effectively only one physical drive.

Now that's where it loses me straight away. I have always considered storage drives as consumables, and for the last 15 years or so, I have fitted two identical drives into my 'puter and perform twice weekly backups by cloning one drive to the other.

It takes no time at all, runs in the background and if anything went wrong, I have a bootable drive ready to swap into place. So I would never go back to a single drive computer of any sort.

I also note that the base model of the Mac Pro is exactly $1K more in Australian dollars, yet another example of how Apple treat Australians like donkeys.

Shame, Apple, Shame!

Geoff

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Not sure you heard me.... Can't speak for all android phones (just the Galaxy) but Samsung has by far surpassed Apple in phone stability."

Sorry, I wasn't clear. In my head I was thinking about tablets not phones. The Android tablet market seems to be at a disadvantage because not all hardware is up to the same standards and doesn't give the same user experience. When you buy an iPad you get the "iPad experience" and it's always the same. I agree with you that the Galaxy is a beautiful phone. iOS 7, on the other hand, is horrible. Nice try but they went too far. It's "too white!". Everything is white on white with no buttons and skinny little text and no way to know what can be selected and what can't. So I'm not happy with everything Apple does. I have iOS 7 on my iPhone but I have not upgraded my iPad yet because I don't like it. (don't get me started about iOS 7... I'm not a fan) ;-)

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Yes. And it's not that Apple is dumb either. It could easily add expansion slots/options at very little extra cost. In fact it's quite the opposite... Apple is smart. It's grabbing for your wallet :)"

I'm sure there is a bit of that but it's their quest for making the thinnest device. At some point the device is thinner than the expansion connector and you have to just solder it in but I don't get why they think they need to make them that thin. Same is true for the iMac. They are ridiculously thin and to do that they removed the DVD drive so now you have to buy an external drive for your desk because, contrary to Apple's belief, DVD's are not going away any time soon because there is no standard to replace them and Apple hasn't delivered that capability either (i.e., Apple has no way of sharing music and videos in the home without someone having a Mac open running iTunes when they could have easily built this capability into Apple TV... but I digress)

> Posted by: set "I think this is caused by very closed MacBook Air design?"

Yea, my son's MacBook Air has an SSD and I thought it was soldered into the motherboard but maybe not after looking at that tear down video you pointed me too. It looks like only the RAM is soldered in and the SSD is replaceable. I've gotta look into this.

> Posted by: Rob Franks "Replacing the drive takes about 10 minutes, then format and reinstall. If on the other hand it's an HDD jr is speaking of, forget it. Apparently they have soldered them directly to the mobo. Why I have no idea.... so you can't upgrade even if you wanted to?"

Thanks for that link! Yes it is an SSD so maybe I can replace it. This thread has turned out to be invaluable because now I can see about upgrading the SSD on my son's MacBook Air which would make him very happy, but Apple shouldn't make it this hard.

> Posted by: GeeBax "Now that's where it loses me straight away. I have always considered storage drives as consumables, and for the last 15 years or so, I have fitted two identical drives into my 'puter and perform twice weekly backups by cloning one drive to the other."

Yea, OK. That is similar to what I do today on my PC workstation and this is where I had to unlearn my PC "sys admin ways" in order to understand the Mac. ;-)

There is no need for this procedure on a Mac and you will be 100% backed up and ready to go. Here's how: You buy an AirPort Time Capsule that gives you 2 or 3TB of storage over 802.11ac WiFi (that's 3x faster than the 802.11n you're probably using today) and your Mac is incrementally backed up every hour to the Time Capsule. At any point in time you can use Time Machine to get any file back. For a complete hard drive failure, you replace the drive and your Mac can still boot to the point where it will connect with your Time Capsule and restore the drive. It's really set-and-forget technology that has helped me out of a pinch already. All of our Mac's are backed up to our Time Capsule every hour. This is software that comes with OS X.

> Posted by: GeeBax "It takes no time at all, runs in the background and if anything went wrong, I have a bootable drive ready to swap into place. So I would never go back to a single drive computer of any sort."

Now if you want to be instantly working again, you can boot you Mac off of an external drive. Just plug in an external drive into the Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 port, hold down an option key when you boot, and your Mac will ask you which drive you'd like to boot from. You can use a utility like SuperDuper to maintain a second external drive that is a mirror image of your internal drive (this is what I do before major upgrades and you could still do this twice a week like you do now). If you have a 128GB SSD you can buy a 128GB USB key and have a complete backup in your pocket at all times ready to boot from and keep working.

Another thing PC users probably don't realize about Macs is that there are no application installers because there is no Windows Registry. If you need to go to someone else's place to work, you can drag an application onto a USB key, go to your friends house and plug the USB key into their Mac and continue working with the application on the USB key! My new MacBook Pro didn't have iDVD so I went to my Mac Mini, dragged iDVD from the Application folder onto a USB stick, copied it to the Application folder on my new MacBook Pro, and immediately started using it. How cool is that?! Also, Apple licenses applications to you. They don't lock them to a computer, You pay for the app once and you can download the app onto all of your computers and use it. When I upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion, I paid $19.95 once and downloaded it to my three Macs and upgraded them all legally. Microsoft, in contrast, would have you pay $120 per computer to upgrade Windows. OS X Mavericks is now free but the point is, it is much easier to get all of your Macs using the same software without having to buy it multiple times.
Likewise with the office suit. I bought Pages, Numbers, and Keynote once for $19 each and use them on all of my Macs. I had to buy 3 copies of Microsoft Office to use it on three PC's. I just like Apple's licensing philosophy. You buy the tools you need and use them however you use them, where ever you use them.

So part of the problem with interpreting a Mac as a PC user is not understanding the Mac does things differently and quite often things that don't make sense on a PC make perfect sense on a Mac. I constantly have to change my thinking to understand this. I don't agree with the way Apple does everything, but I at least try and understand it and take advantage of it and not fight it (or rather... I resist the urge to think like a PC user). lol

~jr