The new 2013 Mac Pro by Apple, Inc.
Apple, Inc. gave a sneak peak of their redesigned Mac Pro at last week’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. Available “later this year,” the new Mac Pro is a vast departure from the current Mac Pro line which has changed little in form factor in the last decade. Few would argue that Apples flagship professional machine was due a major overhaul, but many professionals are clamoring that Apple went too far with design and not far enough with functions and features.
The new Mac Pro is a black cylinder-shaped computer and is 1/8 the size of the current Mac Pro model. It is a true powerhouse sporting a Xeon E5 CPU (with up to 12 cores), flash storage, Thunderbolt 2.0 and support for up to three 4K displays, according to Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller. The revolutionary (evolutionary?) computer is 9.9 inches tall with a diameter of 6.6 inches. With such a small footprint, many are asking how Apple was able to squeeze in the four SATA hard drives, twin optical drives and multiple PCI-Express expansion slots they are accustomed to using on the current Mac Pro. It’s a professional machine, right? Answer: They didn’t. The new Mac Pro has no internal expansion options, other than user-serviceable RAM memory.
So, what is Apple thinking? What will professional users do? How will they use their current equipment? Answer: Professional users will most likely have to upgrade some, or all, of their existing equipment and peripherals – when they become available from third-party vendors.
The new Mac Pro is configured with four USB 3.0 ports and six Thunderbolt 2.0 ports for external expansion. The latter providing 2.5 times the throughput as Thunderbolt 1.0. Attach an external Thunderbolt 2.0 RAID array and this should satisfy the needs of even the most demanding professionals for fast storage, but the setup will be cast about spider-like atop your desk due to thunderbolt cables connecting the dots between Mac Pro and peripherals. For video out, the new Mac Pro comes with dual AMD FirePro workstation class GPUs, but they are not replaceable. While this is the best of the best in graphics chipsets right now, will it still be the best video chipset in 4-5 years? Probably not. To get full details on the new Mac Pro’s specs see Apple’s website.
Fans and critics alike are attempting to christen the new machine with a myriad of nicknames. Among them, the Mac Tube, the Mac Trash Can, R2D2, the Mac coffee maker, Darth Mac, and so on. Perhaps the device to which the new Mac Pro is most similar is Apple’s own PowerMac G4 Cube. Introduced in July 2000, the G4 Cube was a cube-like computer, also plagued with limited expansion options and a high price tag. The machine was commercially unsuccessful because it was viewed as too expensive compared with other PowerMac G4 models available at the time. More information on the PowerMac G4 cube at EveryMac.com. Hopefully Apple has studied their own history.
Other announcements at WWDC include previews of the new iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, which will be version 10.9 of Apple’s desktop operating system, both available this fall. Apple also announced a refresh to the MacBook Air lineup. iTunes Radio, due out this fall, promises personalized, streaming radio similar to Rhapsody and Google’s offerings.
This fall promises to be full of product releases from Apple, based on these WWDC announcements. For more information watch the WWDC Keynote.
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