“Our Pro customers like you are really important to us,” reads part of
Cook’s e-mail. “Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac
Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really
great for later next year.”

Obviously you have not been close to the pro world… lol

Also, large 3D suites extensively used in the film and television world are available on Mac including Maya and Cinema 4D.

No hard 3,5 inch drive bays? Who cares in 2012? We USED to need those for raiding some 7200 or 10000rpm drives for serious drive performance with video etc. In 2012, a 512Gb SSD is totally affordable, and fits next to the 1Tb drive in the Mini. Try putting 2 drives in the iMac…. The bays never were for storage on the Pro’s only for Raiding into super performance. Well, the Mini delivers super drive performance. Having a lot of storage in you machine is irrelevant. Since you need backups too, you always have to work with an external solution too. If you are that terabyte guzzling movie maker, you probably work with a 10 disk external TB raid solution anyway. The RAM: zippy too. 16Gb 1600Mhz is more RAM speed than any Pro delivers, and with SSD, 16Gb is pretty much enough for most professional work. With SSD RAM swapping never was faster if you reach the limit.

And then the totally bullocks GPU argument. People who really depend on massive GPU power, run Windows on self-built PC’s. Mac’s do only get 30% of all serious 3D CAD, solid modelling and rendering software. So that never was a market for the MacPro. The MacPro was for graphic designers, and an accidental movie maker. Those will be perfectly happy with the power of the Mini and its HD4000.

And last but not least: stop the crap about the iMac: “The new iMac is downright beautiful with a thinness that has yet to be matched”. This is exactly the iMacs problem. Because of the new form factor, there is production hiccups, and don’t expect them to be widely available this year. We will see heat problems too. The new iMac, is no longer the pro workstation the previous generation was. It is a pure salon-fahig ubergizmo for the rich and bored. For any serious OSX-ing, please skip this ugly piece of crap. If Ive designed it, we would have lost the fugly beard, and we would not have the pregnant belly on the back. This iMac was designed by amateurs in the kindergarten of Apple Design.

And the Mini, it just had big luck. If Apple was spot on, it slimmed down the Mini to just fit a dual core i7, and make it the smallest desktop in the world (hey, it still has an empty dvd bay space! That should have been shrinked out). No they were lazy, kept the case the same and made the super-dumb descision to pop the best Intel processor out there in the mid-model, just because it fit in. Apple: THANK YOU VERY MUCH. HERE GOES YOUR PROFIT!

I know from a marketing perspective all that happened is very weird. But if you are a pro designer, needing a zippy new Mac, just ditch your preconceptions and hug the Mini as your new desktop power beast. It’s good for your wallet too in this time of crises.

There aren’t enough buyers to justify the R&D.

1. Make an all new Mac Pro
2. Design a clever marketing campaign that cons people into thinking it’s worth more than double the cost of a PC with identical components.

(written on my Asus Laptop with higher specs than my friends MacPro desktop that cost him $2000 more without a display. Yes, he’s switching.)

They’re buying monstrous workstations from HP and running linux.

I’d like a new Pro to come out in order for the old stuff to drop in price. I’d be happy with a Nehalem based Pro. But I would never pay more than $1000 for one.

One needs Firepro or Quadro cards for that, not “dual GeForce GTX GPUs” as you put it. In any case, a dual GTX 550Ti/460SE is not a patch on a single GTX 680. Just “Dual” doesn’t make anything better.

And the processor really depends on what you wanna do. An FX 8350 will do a lot better than the 3770(K) in a lot of multi-threaded apps ;)

And a Z77 will do just as well/badly depending on whether you wanna tweak your settings (OC). If not, a ‘lowly’ H61 will do typically the same job. No more, no less. On stock settings, there will be zero performance difference. Just saying.

Ronen

Tim Cook has already stated 2013 is the year we’ll see “something special” on the Mac Pro front. They are just waiting for Thunderbolt to mature and not require onboard video etc. IMO and for there to be more compelling reason to update the whole platform.

They will update. And I can only assume with it will be upgraded Retina Cinema Displays.

Business users are not going to be swayed to buy something just because it has an Apple logo on it. They’re looking for productivity, and value for their money. Apple offers neither of these things. They’re not even going to try.

Go get you an i7 3770k CPU with dual GeForce GTX GPUs, a nice Z77 MOBO, a huge SSD or velociraptor drive, a decent case and PSU, then buy a decent big monitor and you have a PC that will smoke the balls off a donkey. Most of the time ou can make a few small teaks and run OSX as well, at the same time even with drag and drop capabilities if you use the right software package. You can get all this for the same or less that a Mac Pro, especially the older Mac Pros, and you also have a decent amount of upgrade ability (or downgrade, if you want I guess). Plus you get to have fun and learn something by doing it yourself.

Only thing you pay for in a Mac Pro is name and a small amount of fine tuning.