0:00:00[APPLAUSE]
0:00:05Can't innovate anymore, my ass.
0:00:07[LAUGHTER]
0:00:09[APPLAUSE]
0:00:27Thank you.
0:00:28Today, we're going to talk about important things like me driving my dad's 1970 Dodge
0:00:36Dart yesterday.
0:00:37Yep, yeah, that's a good idea.
0:00:39What about, um, I was wondering, Jon, do we have any follow-up?
0:00:44We actually do, and we should actually do it.
0:00:47There's only two items.
0:00:50Only two.
0:00:51Oh, okay, mark the time stamp, kids, because it's only two items, and by my clock, we're
0:00:58seven and a half minutes into the call.
0:00:59- Well, after follow up,
0:01:01we can also talk about t-shirts, I suppose.
0:01:03(laughing)
0:01:05- Okay, Dad.
0:01:06Why don't you kick us off, Dad?
0:01:08- Can't we just eat our dessert first?
0:01:10(laughing)
0:01:11- No, we-- - We'll get there.
0:01:12- No, I support, I'll snark aside.
0:01:14We should get through the follow up.
0:01:15It shouldn't be very long, hopefully.
0:01:17- All right.
0:01:18- So last week, we talked for the second time
0:01:21about APFS file name encoding,
0:01:24and you wouldn't think there would be more to say about it,
0:01:26and yet here we are.
0:01:27to talk about it for the third, possibly fourth time.
0:01:30Are you serious?
0:01:31Yes, because Apple has posted official documentation on their website answering the question,
0:01:39"Hey, what's the deal with file name and coding on APFS?"
0:01:42And so to summarize, and this is a little bit weirder than I would have expected, they say,
0:01:48"APFS has case sensitive and case insensitive variants." We kind of assume that would be the
0:01:53case but here they go they set it right outright. The case insensitive variant of APFS is normalization
0:01:59preserving but not normalization sensitive which is pretty weird like basically if you send it a
0:02:06file name normalized however the hell you want it pick your own Unicode normalization. APFS will
0:02:13preserve that but it's not normalization sensitive this is the case insensitive variant it's not
0:02:18normalization sensitive in that if you try to look something up and you say hey do you have a file
0:02:22called "cafe" with a little e over the accent, and my reading of this is that you feed it that string
0:02:28in any normalization you want, and it doesn't matter what normalization it is in the file
0:02:33system, it will find it because the file system is not normalization sensitive, but it preserves
0:02:39what you give it. Really confusing. So anyway, we'll have to get a case insensitive variant of
0:02:44this on the Mac and do some tests to see what the deal is. But the case sensitive variant is
0:02:48both normalization preserving and normalization sensitive. So that is straightforward. It's
0:02:53case sensitive on iOS is just exactly what we said. It takes what you give it and that's it.
0:02:59And they do clarify here, file names in APFS are encoded in UTF-8 and aren't normalized. So
0:03:07it wants you, so it's not as if you read a directory structure in APFS and you say,
0:03:11"I have no idea what encoding this is." Assuming everybody's following the rules,
0:03:14and I'm not sure if this is enforced at the file system level or not,
0:03:18they all have to be UTF-8 and the file system itself is not going to take your UTF-8 string
0:03:24and normalize it like HFS+ does. Like whatever you give it in UTF-8, that's what it's going to
0:03:29stick in the file system. Both variants will do that, but it's interesting that they're saying,
0:03:33you know, no UTF-16, no UTF-32, no anything like that. I suppose if you use the lowest level APIs
0:03:40you could just jam whatever the heck you wanted into there, but they're they're documented here,
0:03:44utf-8 and they compare with hfs plus which has all of its weird rules and they say that in macos
0:03:5210 12 4 the apos developer preview was updated to include the case insensitive variant so this is
0:03:58the first time the case insensitive variant of apfs has been available in any version of the
0:04:04operating system and in ios of course in 10 3 we get the case sensitive variant and they give some
0:04:10advice for avoiding bugs, I bet there will be WWDC sessions about this exact issue because I think
0:04:16it's going to come up a lot. They want you to use the high level APIs, they want you to use NSFileManager
0:04:20and NSURL, and they want you to use the file system representation property of NSURL when
0:04:25creating and opening files with lower level file system APIs like the POSIX stuff. So
0:04:29there are high level APIs to give you, you know, a character buffer or whatever to feed into lower
0:04:36level APIs. So I'm glad they have some documentation on it. It's still pretty weird. This is definitely
0:04:41a case where we're going to need to see a lot of sample code and a lot of sort of best practices
0:04:46and anti-patterns. And still, I believe when the Mac operating system ships with a non-developer
0:04:53preview version of its operating system, we will all get to find out which of our applications
0:04:58are making assumptions that no longer hold in an APFS world as they slowly break. I'm going
0:05:03I'm gonna bet on Adobe.
0:05:04I don't know about you guys.
0:05:06- I think that's a pretty safe bet.
0:05:08Oh my goodness.
0:05:09All right, we should do a quick bit of follow up
0:05:12and talk about the situation report for WWDC.
0:05:17We spoke last episode, Marco was 100% dedicated to layers,
0:05:20which as far as I know still has availability,
0:05:24so you might wanna check that out.
0:05:25John and I had put our names in the hat for WWDC.
0:05:30Jon, did you win the lottery and win the opportunity to give Apple $1600 of your money?
0:05:36I did.
0:05:37I'm a winner.
0:05:38All right!
0:05:39Congratulations!
0:05:40I was very excited.
0:05:41Yeah.
0:05:42I remember the interminable wait in years past for, you know, when other people are
0:05:46getting their emails.
0:05:47And this time I was distracted enough that by the time I looked at my email, there it
0:05:52was.
0:05:53Success.
0:05:54Very happy.
0:05:55Delightful.
0:05:56I also won the lottery this year, which is very exciting because I did not win the lottery
0:05:59last year.
0:06:00So I will also be at WWDC, which I'm very, very excited about.
0:06:06Before we're asked, since all three of us will be in town, we are not going to do a
0:06:12live in front of people ATP.
0:06:15We never really have.
0:06:17The closest thing we came was when we were on the talk show.
0:06:20We don't do that because even though some of us would enjoy doing so, absolutely zero
0:06:28of the three of us want to have anything to do with planning it.
0:06:31And so that is why it's not happening.
0:06:33But all three of us will be in town.
0:06:35I'm sure we'll talk about this more on the episode before WWDC.
0:06:40But if you see us, please say hi.
0:06:42We always enjoy it.
0:06:43We may not be able to talk for very long, depending on the situation, but we always
0:06:46enjoy it if you could say hi.
0:06:47Any other quick thoughts about WWDC, kids?
0:06:49No.
0:06:50Good talk.
0:06:51Everybody, wear your ATP shirts.
0:06:53Oh, and wear your ATP shirts.
0:06:55It is all but guaranteed you will get a high-five hug or some other interaction from at least
0:07:00me if no one else if I spot an ATP shirt.
0:07:04And if I remember, I'll have some ATP stickers printed, which I'll probably forget.
0:07:08But if I remember, I'll have some printed.
0:07:09And if I see an ATP shirt, you're getting a sticker.
0:07:13And then finally, on a very, very brief but somber note, I just wanted to quickly recognize
0:07:18that a member of our community, Jason Seifer, who is a fellow podcaster, a Ruby developer,
0:07:24and for a long time a teacher at Treehouse,
0:07:26passed away unexpectedly and tragically over the weekend.
0:07:32And I just wanted to acknowledge that
0:07:34and say that I know I'm,
0:07:36and I'm pretty darn sure I speak for everyone.
0:07:39The three of us are very sad to hear it
0:07:41and we were really bummed about it.
0:07:43Mike and I talked about it
0:07:44on the forthcoming episode of Analog
0:07:46that won't be out until the weekend,
0:07:47so probably several days after this episode.
0:07:49But we're really bummed out and we're really sad about it and we just wanted to take a
0:07:54pause to say that.
0:07:57All right.
0:08:00Big week?
0:08:01A little bit.
0:08:02I think it's been--some things have happened.
0:08:05So this morning there appears to have been some sort of an embargo that had dropped about
0:08:12a meeting that happened sometime, I guess, in the last day or two with regard to the
0:08:18The Mac Pro, of all things.
0:08:20Yeah, I mean, who had this on the bingo card for this week, right?
0:08:24Certainly, certainly not me.
0:08:25Oh my god, this was quite a big surprise.
0:08:29A pleasant surprise, but certainly a sizable one.
0:08:34Yeah, so there were a handful of people that were invited to Cupertino to discuss, I believe
0:08:42it was phrased as a roundtable, to talk about the Mac.
0:08:45Yes, a small roundtable discussion about the Mac.
0:08:48So as per Jon Gruber, it was he, Matthew Panzareno, Lance Zulanoff, Ina Fre- how did I- shoot,
0:08:54I pronounced that wrong, didn't I?
0:08:55You're asking the wrong people.
0:08:56All right, well, that's right.
0:08:58I'm so sorry if I got that wrong.
0:08:59Anyway, and John Pagzowski, I believe that's pretty close to right.
0:09:04I should have made somebody else read those names, so I didn't have to.
0:09:07Anyway, the group of them went to Cupertino to have a roundtable discussion about the
0:09:14the Mac and including about the Mac Pro. So not even including the Mac Pro, I would say
0:09:21it was primarily about the Mac Pro. That's absolutely right. It's interesting how they
0:09:24phrase this. Like, come out, come out to Cupertino, we'll have a roundtable discussion about the
0:09:30Mac. Who knows what they actually told the people about what they were going to do, but
0:09:33their characterization of it, we're just going to hang out. We're just going to talk about
0:09:36the Mac a little bit. Right, guys? And like Marco said, no, they're going to talk specifically
0:09:43about one particular Mac that's near and dear to all of our hearts except for Casey.
0:09:48And that's entirely what the thing was about, but I guess they can't come out and tell people,
0:09:52"Hey, fly out Cupertino so we can tell you stuff about the Mac Pro."
0:09:57They always want to have a little bit of a surprise.
0:10:00I guess they did talk about the iMac.
0:10:01I mean, they talked about a lot of things because you could ask them any questions you
0:10:04wanted and then they could answer them however they wanted.
0:10:06But the big takeaway from this and most of the headlines, with the exception of a couple
0:10:10that did mention the iMac were all about the Mac Pro.
0:10:13- Right, so I'm gonna do my best to summarize
0:10:17and then I'll probably get interrupted
0:10:19and that's for the best.
0:10:19So let me start by reading a little for,
0:10:23a little from what Gruber had written and he says,
0:10:25"Here's how Schiller broke the news on the Mac Pro.
0:10:27It's worth quoting him at length."
0:10:28So let me now quote Gruber quoting Schiller.
0:10:32"With regard to the Mac Pro,
0:10:33we are in the process of what we call
0:10:35completely rethinking the Mac Pro.
0:10:37We're working on it.
0:10:38We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can
0:10:42keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we're committed to making it our highest-end,
0:10:46high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers.
0:10:51As a part of doing a new Mac Pro, it is by definition a modular system.
0:10:54We will be doing a pro display as well.
0:10:57John Saracusa, it is your lucky day.
0:11:00That's me, not Schiller.
0:11:01Anyway, now you won't see...
0:11:02That would be amazing.
0:11:03That would have been amazing.
0:11:04Now you won't see any of those products this year.
0:11:07in the process of that. We think it's really important to create something
0:11:10great for our Pro customers who want a MacPro modular system and that'll take
0:11:13longer than this year to do. In the interim we know that there are a number
0:11:17of customers who will continue to buy our current MacPros. To be clear our
0:11:20current MacPro has met the needs of some of our customers and we know that
0:11:24clearly not all of our customers. None of this is black and white, it's a wide
0:11:28variety of customers. Some it's the kind of system that they wanted, others it was
0:11:32not. In the meantime we're going to update the configs to make it faster and
0:11:35for their dollar. This is not a new model, we're not a new design, we're just going to update the
0:11:41configs. We're doing that this week. We can give you the specifics on that. The CPUs, we're moving
0:11:45them down the line. The GPUs down the line to get more performance per dollar for customers who do
0:11:49need to continue to buy them in the interim until we get a newly architected system.
0:11:56So there is a new Mac Pro. It is not happening in 2017. There is a small spec bump on the
0:12:04existing Mac Pro, but things are happening. And the fact that Apple is addressing this
0:12:11at all, I think is really exciting and really, really good news. I can continue to summarize,
0:12:17but I think at this point we should take a moment and start talking. So Marco, let's
0:12:22start with you. What do you think?
0:12:24Marco: I have like four pages of notes here of where to begin. I mean, so we will get
0:12:32get into some of the specifics but just high-level overview I'm incredibly happy
0:12:38to hear this this is awesome because what this means you know for for a long
0:12:43time it has seemed you know the the neglect of the Mac Pro has been going on
0:12:49for three years if you measure it from the trash can but actually the neglect
0:12:54of the Mac Pro started in 2010 the the well the the last like basically in 2010
0:13:01was the last new cheese grater revision.
0:13:04They officially did one in 2012,
0:13:06but it was really the same thing
0:13:07with like one more processor option at the top end.
0:13:10It was actually very similar to what they just did today,
0:13:12but actually what they did today was even less
0:13:14because there are no new options.
0:13:15But the 2012 Mac Pro really wasn't a thing.
0:13:19The 2010 one was the last cheese grater update that mattered.
0:13:23- And if you've ever seen the old logo of our show,
0:13:25by the way, it was a cheese grater Mac Pro
0:13:28with a little new label stuck on it,
0:13:30sarcastically because we were waiting for the Mac Pro the new Mac Pros to be announced at WWC we had been waiting for a
0:13:36While and they did announce new Mac Pros or maybe it was like a press release update or not even on stage
0:13:40I forget but they were only new, you know conceptually like technically yeah, there's one new configuration is one new CPU
0:13:47That was the I think that was the very first icon this podcast ever had it was right
0:13:52and
0:13:53So this show was founded on dissatisfaction
0:13:57With the with the offerings of the Mac Pro see it so that people who date it back to the trash can yeah
0:14:01The trash can has had problems and we'll talk about that
0:14:03But even as far back in the cheese grater
0:14:05It seemed like they took everybody off the cheese grater and said, you know, we've been steadily updating this cheese grater for a while
0:14:10You know every time there's a new CPU upgrading the GPUs every year just like clockwork
0:14:14But we're not gonna do that anymore and maybe they all went off to make the trash can which is really weird and complicated or maybe
0:14:21they were just
0:14:22You know pulling back a little bit and slowing down the updates again
0:14:25it's hard to know what goes on inside Apple, but this phenomenon of the Mac Pro no longer
0:14:31being updated steadily is, as Marco said, not a phenomenon that goes back to 2013, it
0:14:38goes all the way back to 2010, so it's a long time.
0:14:41Exactly.
0:14:42And so, clearly one of the reasons why there was a long delay between the 2010 one and
0:14:47the 2013 redesign, which was really, it was announced in mid-2013, but it wasn't really
0:14:52available it went for sale in late December of 2013 and wasn't actually
0:14:57shipped to anybody until the first couple months 2014 so it was you know a
0:15:01good three and a half years between like July 2010 when that other one came out
0:15:06and this new one and that was presumably because they were doing this big
0:15:09redesign and everything and also by the way they they pre-announced the 2013 Mac
0:15:14Pro mostly because we felt like or Apple felt like it like they had to because we
0:15:19were waiting and like what's the deal what's the deal with the Mac Pro you did
0:15:22this update and it was barely an update it was like you know they call that an
0:15:26update whereas the real new Mac Pro and we were waiting what it then seemed like
0:15:30such a long time for it they felt like they need to say at WWDC here's the new
0:15:36Mac Pro and this amazing thing we're like yay finally and said oh by the way
0:15:39not really like shipping for a long time but but still they like why didn't they
0:15:43hold it until it was it was somewhat close to shipping because they felt like
0:15:47you know that whatever dissatisfaction there was among that customer base they
0:15:50had to reassure them by saying, all right, we're going to announce a thing.
0:15:54We're going to show you the pictures of it.
0:15:55Here it is.
0:15:56We're going to put it in a little glass tube outside of the Presidio at Moscone.
0:16:01And so you can look at it and see that it's a real thing, but you're not getting
0:16:03one for months.
0:16:04But we all felt better because it's like, well, at least we know now that the Mac
0:16:08Pro isn't dead.
0:16:09That is not there.
0:16:10The reason they weren't upgrading the cheese grater is could have been because
0:16:13they were working on this and this is a fancy new thing and it will be coming
0:16:16soon.
0:16:16And I think we all basically felt better about that,
0:16:21even though there was a delay.
0:16:24And this current announcement is like,
0:16:26everything that happened before,
0:16:28but stretch all the timelines out even farther.
0:16:29At the time, we thought they don't care about Mac Pro users.
0:16:32They don't care about the Mac Pro.
0:16:36And then they released the 2013 one,
0:16:37and we thought, okay, great.
0:16:39They released a new one, and this is awesome.
0:16:41However, it doesn't meet a lot of people's needs
0:16:42in a bunch of ways that we'll get into in a minute.
0:16:45And so then that was now, it's been now about the same delay
0:16:49between 2010 and that one and between that one and now,
0:16:52you know, about three and a half years or so.
0:16:55The assumption that we've all been making,
0:16:57and I totally own this, I have been number one
0:17:01on the list of complainers on this show at least,
0:17:04the assumption that we've all been making
0:17:07is that Apple is being run really just by the numbers
0:17:11Tim Cook and that, you know, this fairly small product line that is, you know, something
0:17:18like 1% of Mac sales was just not enough of a blip on the radar for Tim Cook to care about
0:17:26updating ever again. That is how it seemed until this morning to all of us Mac Pro users,
0:17:33and that has manifested itself with a number of side effects, one of which I think might
0:17:39contributed to Apple finally you know getting into gear on doing an update
0:17:42here is that when the MacBook Pro was updated last fall the 2016 MacBook Pro
0:17:49with the touch bar and everything else it was clearly not as well received as
0:17:54Apple thought it would be there was quite a lot of outcry and part of that
0:17:58is because of legitimate downsides of that product part of that's temporary
0:18:02part of it won't be temporary but I think a big part of the of the angst
0:18:06over the 2016 MacBook Pro was also that pros had been neglected on the desktop for so long.
0:18:13That not only were they kind of already mad at Apple not serving their needs, but it sure
0:18:20looked like they were going to have to now wedge their needs into these other products
0:18:25that weren't very good at serving them.
0:18:28And so if I had to guess, it was during the 2016 MacBook Pro launch with all this kickback
0:18:35that Apple finally decided to go ahead
0:18:38with the new Mac Pro project.
0:18:39Craig Federighi made some comments during these interviews
0:18:42that it's been longer than six months
0:18:45they've been working on it,
0:18:46but that doesn't mean it had the green light
0:18:48to go ahead as a product for more than six months.
0:18:51- I don't think it was long as six months
0:18:52they've been working on it.
0:18:53This round table was a bunch of journalists, right?
0:18:55So the journalists are asking questions,
0:18:57and one of the big questions that everyone wants to know
0:19:00is we out here in the community
0:19:05who are interested in the Mac Pro have been upset about it
0:19:07for a long, long time.
0:19:09How did it come to pass that so much time elapsed
0:19:14between the 2013 Mac Pro and now, and there was nothing,
0:19:18literally no updates, no price changes,
0:19:20no announcement or anything.
0:19:22And then just now you call a round table?
0:19:24So everyone wants to know the timeline.
0:19:26How long ago did you decide
0:19:29that this was a thing you were gonna do?
0:19:30And they did it like, well, it's not like
0:19:32there's any one decision or one meeting.
0:19:33and each of us went through our own journey
0:19:36of like deciding, what was it, quick fitteries,
0:19:39we went through like denial and acceptance.
0:19:41So I can imagine there were people like,
0:19:43well, like the denial thing would be like,
0:19:45well, the new Mac Pro is weird and all,
0:19:47and people complain,
0:19:48but I bet if we just leave it out there,
0:19:50people will come to accept it as the new way
0:19:53that Pro hardware is going to work on the desktop.
0:19:55And then eventually I have to say,
0:19:56you know, it looks like they're not really accepting it.
0:20:00And so the six month thing seems to me
0:20:01of a timeline of like when when did you come to this realization they never actually answered
0:20:06how did you go so many years with like basically your heads in the sand right because that's why i
0:20:11mean just two shows ago i was asking us all if we had consensus that basically there's not going to
0:20:16be another new mac pro there's just going to be an iMac pro which by the way there will be and they
0:20:20talked about it um you know basically an iMac uh bent towards pro people because look if there was
0:20:25going to be a new mac pro they wouldn't have left this one there for like four years with no updates
0:20:30right? Like surely they wouldn't do that. With no communication or whatever, and it's like at a
0:20:36certain point they're communicating to you by saying, "We updated the iMac." You know,
0:20:40dropping the Apple monitors and sort of back channel communicating to some journalist somewhere
0:20:48that, "Hey, Apple's not doing monitors anymore," and offering the LG one. That's another big sign.
0:20:52Like, "The iMac, it's the future," right? And so we were just all like, we were in the acceptance
0:20:58or at least I was like, well, you know, no more Mac Pros.
0:21:02And we all wanna know that because we all kind of wanna
0:21:05like be, you know, vengeful and say,
0:21:07how could you have made this mistake?
0:21:08Because on the one hand, we're all ecstatic
0:21:11that the announcement they made was not,
0:21:13hey, by the way, we just wanna let you know
0:21:15we're not making the Mac Pro anymore.
0:21:17Like we wanna make it official.
0:21:18That could have been what they said at this meeting.
0:21:20This meeting could have also been, you know,
0:21:22where we're just giving up on the Mac.
0:21:24Like the most pessimistic ideas of what could it mean
0:21:27to go to a Mac roundtable, an ominous sounding Mac roundtable, if you were accepting there
0:21:32was going to be no Mac Pro, it could have been like terrible bad news. Instead it was
0:21:34good news, but the good news just immediately makes you ask the question, "What took you
0:21:40so long?" And that's the question that, you know, "When did you figure it out? Like, what
0:21:44was your plan before six months ago? What were you doing? Like, what's another year,
0:21:48guys? This current Mac Pro that we never update will, you know..."
0:21:53It's going to set the world on fire. Just wait.
0:21:55Yeah, right.
0:21:56And so they didn't-- they're not going to go into, like, you know, their deliberation
0:22:00process and, you know, because they don't really realize stuff.
0:22:02But they did go into a couple of aspects of, like, why is the current trash can-- why didn't
0:22:09you ever update it?
0:22:11And so Craig Federighi had said-- this is a quote from him-- "I think we designed ourselves
0:22:15into a bit of a thermal corner."
0:22:17And he was talking about the design of the trash can, which is a big cylinder.
0:22:21And inside the cylinder is kind of like three boards, three vertical boards that make a
0:22:24triangle shape if you're looking down on top of it two of them are GPUs and one of them is a CPU board
0:22:28he was saying that the uh this is quoting from uh matt panzerino's article the unique triangular
0:22:34design of the mac pro's thermal core provided proved to be the limiting factor um it wasn't
0:22:38built to have for one of the three sides of the triangle to get super hot so if they if they wanted
0:22:42to have a really hot GPU on one side and then cooler parts it was supposed to be like equal
0:22:46distribution of heat from the two mid range you know mid heat GPUs and the CPU on the other side
0:22:52But basically I think the problem is the little cylinder with the one fan on top,
0:22:55there was just not enough cooling capacity unless you probably crank that fan up to the point where
0:22:59they didn't like it. But the story they gave was they couldn't update it. Like the faster GPUs
0:23:07they could have put in there, it couldn't handle a thermal load, maybe even also the CPUs.
0:23:10And Federighi also emphasized that this wasn't like someone had an idea to make a trash can
0:23:17shaped computer and then they just put all their marbles in that basket without thinking about it.
0:23:20There's another quote from Federiga.
0:23:22Federighi, "We didn't start with a shape and say,
0:23:24"Well, here's the fastest machine we can put in that box.
0:23:27"We actually started with a target for performance
0:23:28"and came up with what we think was a very clever design
0:23:31"for that thermal core and thermal architecture."
0:23:33So they had a target of like two GPUs with lots of cores
0:23:38and one CPU, and then they tried to figure out,
0:23:42which again, you can say was one of their mistakes,
0:23:46what is the smallest, quietest thing we can get that in?
0:23:49They emphasize that in the 2013 Mac Pro launch.
0:23:51Look how much smaller this trashcan Mac Pro is
0:23:55than the giant cheese grater.
0:23:56I remember when they put up the image
0:23:57of the two things next to each other, it looked fake.
0:23:59It was like, what is that, an airport hub next to a Mac Pro?
0:24:04No, that's the new Mac Pro.
0:24:05It seemed impossibly small compared to the size
0:24:08of the cheese grater.
0:24:09And they did, they made it, packaging-wise,
0:24:11it is super quiet and super small
0:24:13compared to a tower computer.
0:24:16And of course, they sacrifice all the internal storage
0:24:18and all the other stuff,
0:24:18that basically by making that design and all the tooling and all that fancy factory in the US that
0:24:23makes all this stuff and you know all the money they put into that the story they gave was that
0:24:28basically they couldn't update it because none of the better stuff that they could fit in there
0:24:33could be cooled inside that case so they had to design a new one but they didn't they just they
0:24:38i don't know what they did they just sat on their hands for several years mulling over what to do
0:24:43all the while continuing to sell that thing until they finally came to this realization so
0:24:48I don't, you know, again we have to wait for people to retire and get the tell-all books, but
0:24:51something went wrong inside Apple. Something went wrong with the Mac Pro because it is
0:24:58not a good look to sell the same computer for the same price for so many years. And it's also
0:25:02not a good look to only realize your mistake many, many, many years later. Way, way too late.
0:25:10So late, in fact, that you are forced to do a thing that Apple never ever does, which is
0:25:15call a bunch of journalists together and tell them about a computer you're going to release
0:25:19in the next year, like not this calendar year. Like, A, let me tell you about something that's
0:25:24not released yet. We can't even show you a picture of it. And B, it's not going to be released this
0:25:28year. They also, by the way, didn't say as far as they were able to determine that it's going to be
0:25:32released next year. All they said is not this year. And everybody's like, oh, that totally
0:25:36means next year. Probably does, but they're covering their bases. And so that means that
0:25:41that says to me that they decided very, very, very recently
0:25:46on the sort of the no go, no go on the Mac Pro,
0:25:50because if they had come and said,
0:25:52guys, we just wanna tell you,
0:25:53there's not going to be another Mac Pro.
0:25:57That would make perfect sense,
0:25:58'cause it's like, well, we debated for a long time,
0:26:00while we debated, we kept selling this thing,
0:26:02but in the end, we're, you know, it's down the toilet,
0:26:06down the toilet with the trashcan.
0:26:08No more Mac Pros, the iMac is the future,
0:26:10We just want to let you know and let's talk about it and let's explain to you why we think pros can use this other stuff
0:26:15Or whatever because at least that would make sense for the trajectory instead
0:26:18They hemmed it hard for four years realized the error of their ways, which is good
0:26:23But realized it's so late that they have nothing to say to us except
0:26:27We will we will make good and I'm glad they did what of course. I'm glad that they're they're gonna do this
0:26:33I love the Mac Pro
0:26:34I'm glad they went into specifics instead of saying we're going to make new pro hardware
0:26:39They went into specifics by saying this new pro hardware will be modular in their parlance
0:26:44There will be a separate monitor and a separate computer
0:26:47So it's not gonna be like oh there's gonna be an awesome iMac you like no
0:26:50They said that is a separate thing where we are gonna do a newer iMac with fancier stuff that pros might like but also
0:26:54There's this thing which is modular and we're gonna make our own displays
0:26:58which so recently they seem to be moving away from and I guess because they want me not to wake in the middle of the
0:27:05night and
0:27:06tremble in fear of having to get a non-apple monitor, they're going to make an apple monitor.
0:27:09And the final point they made is whatever this design is, which they didn't go into details
0:27:15about, we're going to make sure that with this design we can upgrade the internals on some kind
0:27:23of schedule other than never ever upgrading them. Right, so those are the few bits of information
0:27:27they gave about this. I get the impression that the same brief that they gave these journalists
0:27:32was given to Apple's newly formed team not too long ago to say, "We need a Mac Pro. Needs
0:27:38to be modular. We need a new Apple monitor. And we don't want the same thing that happened
0:27:42with the trashcan to happen with this. We need the internals to be upgradeable on a
0:27:45reasonable schedule." All of that is music to my ears because those are all the things
0:27:48I want to hear. Like the only thing they could have said more was like, "We're going to have
0:27:55multiple internal drives and multiple internal slots." They didn't say that, and I doubt
0:27:59They will do that, but that's the only other thing that I could have even asked for in my wildest dreams
0:28:04I am very very happy
0:28:05But also very disappointed in Apple because they know what they did they done goofed
0:28:11Yeah, they they did not do well on this whole Mac Pro thing. I'm glad but I'm glad they came
0:28:19You know, I they messed up like they even said it themselves. They apologized. They said sorry, when does Apple ever do that because
0:28:26It's not a coherent
0:28:29thing like it it would be coherent if they said we slowly phase out the Mac Pro and it disappeared and
0:28:34Let me tell you why we're not gonna be in that business anymore, but to
0:28:38Neglect the Mac Pro like that and then have a change of heart at the very last minute
0:28:42Certainly better from my perspective than not having a change of heart. That's not good for the company
0:28:47It's not good for the image. It's not good for the pros
0:28:48It's not good for Apple that they have to pre announce this product which is not a comfortable position for Apple to be in
0:28:52So this was this was kind of a
0:28:58example of Apple being humble and coming hat in hand and saying
0:29:02We're sorry. We messed up this Mac Pro thing
0:29:06Let us make it up to you by doing all the good things for you
0:29:09And that's why everybody's happy because you know happy and also curious about what went along
0:29:13But but happy to see that the result we all wanted is the result
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0:31:24(upbeat music)
0:31:27- So here's the thing, like on the whole, I agree with you.
0:31:32And even as someone who sitting here now
0:31:34doesn't foresee ever buying a Mac Pro,
0:31:37I'm excited about this, I really am.
0:31:39Like I joked a lot on Twitter about,
0:31:41oh God, this episode's gonna be terrible.
0:31:43But no, I'm actually excited to talk about it
0:31:45because this is good for everyone
0:31:48when Apple commits to the professional market.
0:31:52It's good for me as, by some definition, a professional
0:31:56because I think they actually cited Xcode
0:31:59as one of the apps they consider to be a professional app
0:32:02and one of the apps they look for in their analytics
0:32:04to see who's a professional and who isn't.
0:32:06But anyway, I definitely unequivocally think
0:32:11that this was way, way, way too late.
0:32:16But I don't know, a lot of people on Twitter
0:32:18We're jumping straight to like, "Oh, Apple is just..."
0:32:21You know, they weren't doing anything until yesterday,
0:32:25and then they finally decided to do something.
0:32:28I think it's unfair for us to assume how long it takes to build an entire new computer with
0:32:35an entirely new design from the ground up.
0:32:38I agree that they should have started on this a while ago.
0:32:41I agree that we should never have gotten to this point.
0:32:45But I think it's a bit presumptuous for us to just assume they can go to some parts bin
0:32:50somewhere, throw a few things together, and call it good.
0:32:53I think that we're perhaps assuming the worst where it may not be necessary.
0:32:58This should have absolutely happened at least a year ago, if not two.
0:33:02But it doesn't mean that they didn't start work on it a year ago, if not two.
0:33:06What if they just didn't feel compelled to tell us about it until now?
0:33:11Because a bunch of whiners, like those guys on ATP, God, what a bunch of whiners the three
0:33:15of them are.
0:33:16What if a bunch of whiners just got to the point that they felt like they needed to address
0:33:21it once and for all?
0:33:22Yeah, I, I, you know, we can put a lot where we think the decision was made to do something
0:33:28different, but it's got to be pretty recent.
0:33:31I mean, just use the LG monitor as an example.
0:33:34The monitor for most people is a sideshow here.
0:33:36For me, it's like the main show because I can tell you that if they, if they had said
0:33:41we're gonna make a new Mac Pro, but we're still not making Apple monitors, I would still be like,
0:33:45maybe we'll get an iMac, right? That's just me personally, right? But very recently, as recently
0:33:50as when was it like? October? I don't know, whenever they came out with the new Mac Pro Pros
0:33:56with the LG display, right? And they talked to the press about it and the press would ask them,
0:34:00so, you know, should we get an Apple monitor? We're like, no, this LG monitor is the one we want,
0:34:06it's on our store, we're fully behind it, so on and so forth. And then through back
0:34:10channel communication to someone on Twitter to say basically Apple's out of
0:34:13standalone display business. This is recent stuff. If, as you suggested Casey,
0:34:18that perhaps they've been working on this new Mac Pro for over a year, there's
0:34:21no way they would have told everybody that Apple's out of the standalone
0:34:26display business through whatever back channels they did. Maybe they still would
0:34:29have said buy the LG one anyway because the new Apple monitor isn't coming out
0:34:33for a long time, but yeah there are long lead times in these things, but not... it
0:34:38it doesn't take three years to make a monitor, right?
0:34:40Like the time was when Apple would make new products
0:34:43every year and yeah, they have overlapping schedules
0:34:45and stuff like that, which by the way is why I think
0:34:48the time that Apple needs to start making the next trashcan
0:34:50is before the previous one is released.
0:34:52Like that's usually how these things overlap.
0:34:53Like the new iPhone is in the works at the time
0:34:56that the current iPhone is released.
0:34:58That's the only way you could have
0:34:59UGLE releases of anything, right?
0:35:01So it's not as if you can release the trashcan, right?
0:35:04In late 2013.
0:35:06And then after the trash cans release,
0:35:08start working on the next one,
0:35:09you're already late at that point.
0:35:11Let alone release the trash can, wait a year or two,
0:35:14and then start working on the successor.
0:35:16That's just too long.
0:35:17If you're, one of the things that,
0:35:18the commitments of the pro market,
0:35:19and it's what they talked about is,
0:35:22you have to have a product that you can update.
0:35:25Because the whole point of this product is,
0:35:27the biggest, fastest computer Apple sells.
0:35:31And if you don't update it,
0:35:34Eventually your phone has faster single-threaded performance than that. You know, I mean like in the most extreme case you you have to update it
0:35:41It's the role of this computer
0:35:42The only reason it exists is to be the biggest fastest thing as soon as it's not biggest fastest people like well
0:35:47Why am I buying this?
0:35:47Why don't I buy a 13-inch laptop that has a better CPU speed or a faster SSD or has you know?
0:35:54Thunderbolt 3 and this top-end thing doesn't like it loses its purpose without updates. So
0:35:59They were super duper late and it seems to me that if they can't even promise a 2018 release of this thing
0:36:06They started sometime
0:36:08You know in in the past year
0:36:11Oh easily you may maybe in the past six months because it's not like the thing we're asking about
0:36:17When did they make the call?
0:36:18When did they make the decision because they seem to make no decision for a really really long time and then they made a decision
0:36:23And part of that decision was given that we made this decision
0:36:27Look at our timelines. When will we actually be able to show a product?
0:36:30It will hurt us a lot to just do the normal Apple thing
0:36:34Which is not telling anybody until the product comes out because by then everyone will completely have written off Apple as a pro hardware vendor
0:36:41So we need to make a decision and then the even harder decision
0:36:45We're just now we have to tell people we have to tell people that we kind of started this new project because if we don't
0:36:49By the time we release it, they'll all be gone. They all will have left
0:36:52So be like hey guys, we have a new Mac Pro
0:36:54We didn't want to tell you about it for the past year and a half that we've been developing it
0:36:56but we totally have a new one.
0:36:57It's like too late, we all left, you neglected us, right?
0:37:00So they had to come out and tell us
0:37:02that at some point in the future,
0:37:04defined as not this year, there will be a new Mac Pro,
0:37:07which was the right thing to do.
0:37:09But it is them coming from a position of weakness.
0:37:12And it makes me think that this decision was not made
0:37:15and that the team to make this new Mac Pro
0:37:17was not tasked with doing so
0:37:19anytime longer than maybe like 12 months ago.
0:37:24And I would guess maybe six months ago.
0:37:26- Yeah, I would say that's, 'cause like, you know,
0:37:28we know from various like tips and rumblings here and there
0:37:32that like there were occasional efforts in Apple
0:37:36to investigate new Zeons and stuff,
0:37:39but that there was never any suggestion by anybody,
0:37:42any rumors, any tips or anybody
0:37:44that that was actually becoming a product for, you know,
0:37:47and you were close to a product.
0:37:49I really do think that this probably
0:37:52became a priority six months ago.
0:37:53- And that's how they determined, by the way,
0:37:55That's how they determined probably their thermal limits.
0:37:58Like they had the cylinder and we kept hearing rumors
0:38:01from all sorts of weird sources like,
0:38:03"Oh, they're looking at this chip.
0:38:04"Oh, they're looking at that chip.
0:38:05"They're looking at this GPU."
0:38:06Like maybe they tried all sorts of like component upgrades
0:38:10to the trashcan and every time they tried it,
0:38:12it was either not a big enough win
0:38:13or they couldn't deal with the thermals, right?
0:38:16And it was just kind of like,
0:38:16"Well, do we wanna bother going through with this?
0:38:19"Should we make it a product?
0:38:20"Maybe wait for next year.
0:38:21"Maybe it'll be better.
0:38:22"We have these problems."
0:38:23Like Federighi's explanation is basically like they couldn't put better stuff in that
0:38:28cylinder.
0:38:29They had designed ourselves into a bit of a thermal corner and the fact that they continued
0:38:37to try to tinker with that every time there was a new CPU or GPU but never actually released
0:38:42anything fits with that idea.
0:38:44It wasn't like they were opposed to making new Mac Pros.
0:38:48They couldn't make new Mac Pros without a major investment and they come back and say,
0:38:51"Well, we can't put new stuff in this cylinder.
0:38:54Sorry about that.
0:38:55Oops, can we make a totally new Mac Pro?"
0:38:57And then it was like, "Well, that seems like expensive
0:39:01and not a lot of people buy this."
0:39:02And they just kept doing that and doing that.
0:39:03And you know, externally, we see nothing.
0:39:05We just, you know, we have the same Mac Pro as always
0:39:07and just a bunch of, you know, rumors.
0:39:10And eventually has to come to a head and say,
0:39:12"Look, are we in this business
0:39:13or are we not in this business?"
0:39:14And the decision that they made,
0:39:16which I'm very happy with is,
0:39:17"Yes, we are in this business.
0:39:19We're gonna rededicate ourselves.
0:39:21and we're not gonna make the same mistake twice.
0:39:23Nobody puts new Mac Pro in a corner, in a thermal corner.
0:39:26(laughing)
0:39:28And that's--
0:39:28- Reference acknowledged.
0:39:30- Yeah, so, boy, it's, I would not want to have been
0:39:35in these meetings, but I am so glad,
0:39:37I'm so glad that they made, I can't even say
0:39:39it's the right decision, I don't know if it's the right
0:39:41decision for Apple, but it's the decision that I wanted.
0:39:43Actually, yes I can, I think it is the right decision
0:39:45for Apple, because if Apple's not gonna be
0:39:47in the pro market, then what the hell's the point of Apple?
0:39:50like, which is gonna be a phone company,
0:39:51I think that's not the Apple we all believe in,
0:39:54and it's clearly not the Apple that all the people
0:39:57who come to these meetings and profess
0:39:59undying love for the Mac believe in either.
0:40:01- Well, and I think it's more than that.
0:40:03It's that, like, if Apple decides that iOS
0:40:06is the only OS in their future, then that's one thing.
0:40:09But if the Mac, as a platform, is going to continue,
0:40:13they need to keep building pro hardware.
0:40:16- Yeah, I mean, but is the iMac pro enough?
0:40:19I think we'll talk about that more later. But the one thing that that strikes me about this like I
0:40:23Suspect you guys are right and that it was very recent in the last 12 months or so that that Apple got really serious
0:40:30About replacing the Mac Pro, but it seems a little disingenuous to me for us to say
0:40:36Oh, surely they have Mac OS running on ARM, you know, surely they're doing that. Why would they not?
0:40:42I mean, I know hardware is different
0:40:44But don't you think they would have been doing more than just piddling with a new Mac Pro for all this time?
0:40:51Maybe there were only a handful of people on it
0:40:53Maybe they weren't taking it too seriously
0:40:55But if I feel like why wouldn't you at least have that in the hopper just in case now?
0:41:00To your point a minute ago both of you
0:41:02Maybe that didn't start until like two years ago or one year ago or what have you but I feel half a year ago
0:41:08Well, that's not gonna be not gonna be two years ago
0:41:11They would be they would be done by now if it was two years ago, especially since this like in the I know
0:41:15So here's the thing. There's a tension with Apple between
0:41:17Make an amazing new thing
0:41:20Which I think trash can qualify as I like and you haven't seen a PC like this before look at this thing
0:41:24Isn't it weird and crazy and awesome?
0:41:25Like they want to do that, but then there's schedule pressure
0:41:28So as many people pointed out they can make a rectangular box with nice finishes on it shove a bunch of crap in it
0:41:33And be done, but they don't want to do that
0:41:34So they're going to take longer than it would take to just slap together some basically a PC that runs Mac OS, right?
0:41:40The question is how much longer will they take and if they had started two years ago even with the most obsessive
0:41:47You know
0:41:49Apple craftsmanship they could they could have had something to show today, right? So that makes me think again
0:41:55They had to have started this in the last calendar year
0:41:58You know, that's the longest I'm gonna say this goes back and probably even closer. Yeah, and so I think it's also worth
0:42:06kind of putting the 2013 trashcan in context a little bit
0:42:10to figure out like why they still care
0:42:14and maybe what they can do to avoid another problem like this
0:42:19so in addition to the reasons that John always likes to say
0:42:23about like you know the Halo car analogy
0:42:25and everything else which I agree with.
0:42:27So it actually sells better than I thought.
0:42:29So one of the things that came out in this meeting
0:42:31with this said that desktops are 20% of max sales
0:42:34which that alone is higher than I would have guessed.
0:42:38Laptops are most people's computers these days,
0:42:41so the fact that desktops still have 20%
0:42:44is pretty good, I think.
0:42:46They said that the Mac Pro is in the low
0:42:49single digit percentage of those Mac sales.
0:42:52If that's 1%, which is the lowest that their estimate
0:42:56would really mean, that is about 200,000 Mac Pros a year.
0:43:01Now that I think is like 1% of Mac sales and 200,000,
0:43:06I think that's actually really good for,
0:43:08'cause that's not the sales of the Mac Pro
0:43:11in its launch year when it's updated,
0:43:14that's the sales of the Mac Pro now.
0:43:16Like this three year old lame duck machine,
0:43:19that's the sales of that now.
0:43:22So I think it's remarkable that it still sells that well.
0:43:25And that says that the market for these things
0:43:28is probably bigger than a lot of us were estimating.
0:43:32Because if this machine that's three years old
0:43:34and wasn't even that compelling when it was new
0:43:37for various reasons, I'll get into it in a second,
0:43:38if that can still sell 200,000 units a year, that's amazing.
0:43:43And so I decided to look up a couple of stats,
0:43:47I did some homework, that is roughly--
0:43:49- What?
0:43:51- That is roughly equivalent, I translated this
0:43:52into terms you understand, Casey,
0:43:54to the sales volume of the BMW X5.
0:43:57(laughing)
0:43:59- Well done, well done.
0:44:00- That's roughly what the X5 sells every year worldwide.
0:44:03And that's a fairly popular model in their lineup.
0:44:06So the fact that a car can,
0:44:09oh and by the way, it's also double
0:44:11the total sales volume of Tesla.
0:44:13(laughing)
0:44:15So if it's selling in this kind of volume,
0:44:19if a car company can justify having a car,
0:44:22an entire car model with all the customization
0:44:24that goes into that and support and everything else,
0:44:26Apple can justify having a machine that only sells
0:44:28to this relatively small audience
0:44:31compared to their whole product line.
0:44:33- Well, but what's the profit off of each of these devices?
0:44:36You know, the profit off of an X5, one would hope,
0:44:38would be many, many, many thousands of dollars.
0:44:40What's the profit off a trash can Mac Pro?
0:44:43- Oh no, I mean, no question.
0:44:44The raw, well actually, I wouldn't assume
0:44:47that the profits are that massive on cars,
0:44:49maybe on luxury cars, especially if you get the floor mats,
0:44:52But I think the costs of developing a new Mac Pro line,
0:44:56especially if it's kind of reasonably done,
0:45:02are probably low enough compared to developing a whole car.
0:45:05I think they're probably okay there.
0:45:09But anyway, I did wanna briefly go into exactly
0:45:13what went wrong with 2013 Mac Pro,
0:45:16so that we and as commentators,
0:45:19and hopefully if anybody at Apple is listening,
0:45:22I assume, you know, they're all smart people,
0:45:23they're considering these things too,
0:45:25but I just wanna say it just in case,
0:45:26'cause I think there's important lessons to learn here,
0:45:29and I really hope they have learned them.
0:45:32So, quick summary, when the 2013 came out,
0:45:35it cost more than the previous model,
0:45:38but it accommodated fewer people's needs.
0:45:41And so that'll, even when it was brand new,
0:45:44on day one, once all the configs and pricing were up,
0:45:48a lot of people did not like it very much,
0:45:50and a lot of pros said, "Ooh, never mind,"
0:45:52because it was so much more limited
0:45:54than the previous ones.
0:45:55It gave up all the drive bays, all the slots,
0:45:58a lot of the RAM expansion capabilities,
0:46:00GPU replaceability, GPU options, dual CPU,
0:46:05dual socket options.
0:46:06There was so much stuff that was given up.
0:46:09So it really did a lot less, and it cost more.
0:46:13And so that's like, whatever Apple does next,
0:46:16they have to learn a lesson from that.
0:46:18Whether they choose to follow it or not,
0:46:20something to learn. Also it also suffered from just kind of bad market timing
0:46:25relative to the rest of the industry so almost immediately the 5k screen right
0:46:31you know revolution happened it was like it was like nine months into the Mac Pro
0:46:35when when 5k screens came out in the iMac and the Mac Pro has no good way to
0:46:40drive a 5k screen and and Apple doesn't sell one stuff and and when they did
0:46:45finally get around to launching one last fall it doesn't work with 2013 Mac Pro
0:46:49at least, we keep hearing random hacks about how
0:46:52the stores are kind of hacking it to work,
0:46:54but basically it doesn't work.
0:46:57And so it missed the 5K revolution by a very short time.
0:47:01And a lot of pros, like myself, prioritized having
0:47:06that retina screen over having those additional cores
0:47:08and everything.
0:47:09Also, right after that model came out,
0:47:11the next generation of processors that Apple,
0:47:14of course, didn't use, increased single-threaded
0:47:16performance noticeably.
0:47:18And so what happened was, within a very short time
0:47:20of the Mac Pro being released, within about a year,
0:47:23it was unable to drive the best screens
0:47:25that the highest end buyers wanted,
0:47:27and it was defeated in a lot of single-threaded
0:47:31performance tasks and a lot of benchmarks.
0:47:33It was either beaten completely,
0:47:36or in the case of the 6-core,
0:47:38it could barely edge out in multi-threaded,
0:47:41but that wasn't all work.
0:47:43So it badly timed in the market.
0:47:46- Don't forget about USB-C.
0:47:48One more revolution that happened across the product line.
0:47:50USB-C also came along and guess who didn't get that?
0:47:53The Mac Pro.
0:47:54Like terrible timing in terms of peripheral.
0:47:56Like it wouldn't have been terrible timing
0:47:57if it was on a yearly update schedule.
0:47:59It'd be like, oh, next year the Mac Pro will get updated,
0:48:01it will get the new chips, it will get USB-C,
0:48:03it will get Thunderbolt 3,
0:48:05it will be able to drive a 5K display.
0:48:07But again, the thermal corner.
0:48:10Apparently they just plain couldn't do that.
0:48:13- Exactly.
0:48:14And then also, by limiting it to a single CPU
0:48:18and dual GPU configuration,
0:48:20they were making a big bet that this is going to be
0:48:25the future of pro computing.
0:48:26Unfortunately, it wasn't the present of pro computing
0:48:29at the time, and the future took a different direction.
0:48:32And they were betting that just having this one set
0:48:35of trade-offs, this one CPU, two workstation GPUs,
0:48:40that was gonna solve all pro needs,
0:48:42These are all needs of the Mac Pro customers, at least.
0:48:44That was wrong even in 2013, and it never became correct.
0:48:49They were betting big on OpenCL,
0:48:51and that really didn't pan out beyond
0:48:53a very small number of specialized uses.
0:48:56And they never really supported it very well
0:48:58in Mac OS either.
0:49:01And so I think another lesson to learn here
0:49:03is that whatever direction the Mac Pro takes,
0:49:07it can't rely on highly specialized OS features very much,
0:49:12because chances are it's never gonna have the priority
0:49:16within Apple and the engineering priority
0:49:19to devote a lot of engineering time
0:49:21to optimizing the OS for this machine
0:49:23that sells to 1% of the user base.
0:49:25Like, they're never gonna do that.
0:49:27So it can't depend on weird, like,
0:49:31edge case technologies like OpenCL has turned out to be.
0:49:36If it can handle it well, that's one thing,
0:49:37that can't be the main focus of the machine.
0:49:39They did do a lot of OS changes to support the dual GPUs,
0:49:43because remember one of them was like,
0:49:44"Oh, you could address them individually and use one for compute and one for graphics."
0:49:48And they have that whole demo of the 3D application that Pixar was using.
0:49:51So they actually added OS APIs to make it so that people could write programs
0:49:56to take advantage of this machine.
0:49:57But the only way anybody, like any pro app vendor,
0:50:01is going to change their program to take advantage of this new fancy hardware
0:50:07is if doing so gives them some kind of advantage.
0:50:10Like, okay, well this is weird hardware.
0:50:12But Apple gives us APIs and we can address these two GPUs
0:50:16and control them and do interesting things.
0:50:19If we do this, if we make this big investment
0:50:21and rejigger our application and use these new APIs,
0:50:23what is the payoff?
0:50:24And if the payoff is performance that still doesn't match
0:50:28a plain old Windows PC with a big stonking single GPU in it,
0:50:33well, why would we do that?
0:50:34Why would we spend all this time rewriting our thing
0:50:36to get worse performance than we could get
0:50:38if we just leave our application exactly the way it is
0:50:40and get a G-Force 1080,
0:50:44whatever the top of the line thing was at the time,
0:50:47why would we bother doing that?
0:50:49So people didn't rewrite their programs,
0:50:51even though there were APIs,
0:50:53and those APIs themselves didn't get expanded
0:50:56and supported and everything
0:50:57because there was no one writing for them.
0:50:58So it was an ecosystem that never materialized
0:51:01for hardware that was never good enough
0:51:03to justify the investment
0:51:04and very quickly became embarrassingly not good enough,
0:51:08as you mentioned.
0:51:09Every other standard and peripheral and capability
0:51:13just passed it by, even on Apple's own
0:51:15infrequently updated machines.
0:51:17- Right, and they also had execution flaws
0:51:20even with this one model.
0:51:21They're talking now about how the thermals
0:51:25prevented them from updating it very, very well.
0:51:28The thermals were a problem then too.
0:51:30This machine, anybody who's ever owned one of these,
0:51:32or especially anybody who's had to manage
0:51:34more than one of them, like certain developer studios
0:51:37or visual effects places that have had multiple
0:51:402013 Mac Pros, the GPUs die all the time.
0:51:44Apple's doing tons of warranty replacements on those.
0:51:46The only reason it hasn't become like a big known
0:51:49scandal or thing is because this is a relatively
0:51:52unpopular product, so not a lot of people have them.
0:51:54But anyone who does have it knows that there's tons
0:51:57of GPU overheating problems and they die all the time.
0:52:01And on top of that, to make a GPU focused machine
0:52:05that takes this huge bet on GPUs being the future
0:52:09and then not updating it for three years,
0:52:11like GPUs change like every nine months.
0:52:14Like it's a pretty fast moving part of hardware development.
0:52:18So it was a huge design flaw even then
0:52:21to design something that could barely cool the GPUs it had
0:52:26and then with not only apparently no headroom
0:52:28cool future ones but also to not update this machine at all for three and a half
0:52:33years at least and probably what's probably gonna end up being four and a
0:52:36half to five that's a massive just error in just how it was an execution flaw
0:52:42simple as that I will say though like as much as I bag in this machine like
0:52:48redesigning the tower like the cheese grater typical PC tower I mean it was
0:52:54more than typical, it was a really good one,
0:52:55but redesigning the tower in 2013 was a good idea,
0:53:00and it remains a good idea today.
0:53:02They should not just put new components
0:53:06in the old cheese grater and ship that as the new thing,
0:53:09because there's lots of old baggage
0:53:12that is no longer necessary in the PC tower.
0:53:16So doing a redesign is the right move.
0:53:19They just didn't do the right one.
0:53:22They chose a bad redesign.
0:53:23They went the wrong direction and they admitted that yeah those like my blog post back and before the new Mac Pro in 2013
0:53:30Begging for them to make a new Mac Pro
0:53:32The case for a new true Mac Pro successor like everything you said about the the trash can I agree with and you know
0:53:38It was kind of you know, you could have predicted these mistakes at a time because it didn't suit our needs
0:53:43But like well, maybe there's other audiences for them. It could have worked out but either way whether it worked out
0:53:47It didn't they made mistakes. They were there were bad time with 5k displays in USB C and Thunderbolt 3
0:53:52You can't say that we make fun of the can't innovate anymore my ass the Phil Schiller thing
0:53:58But that was mostly because they failed to update it. This was right an innovative machine
0:54:03They tried something new and bold and daring and they were trying to make
0:54:09The best Mac that there could be it was so different from any other Mac that there ever had been before
0:54:15And there have been since so different in so many ways that I give them full marks for
0:54:22doing what I asked them to do, which is try to do your best.
0:54:25Turns out this wasn't a good idea,
0:54:27but you can't say they didn't try.
0:54:28You can't say like, and again,
0:54:30I would have been more disappointed to say,
0:54:32oh, here's another cheese grater, right?
0:54:33Like, 'cause that's not really trying.
0:54:36That's just kind of a business as usual status quo,
0:54:38which is better than nothing.
0:54:40But I do give them full marks for introducing it,
0:54:45which is why even though I didn't buy one,
0:54:46I was very happy that it existed.
0:54:48I was pinning my hopes on,
0:54:49okay, they're either gonna keep updating this
0:54:51I'll buy the one that can drive the retina display remember those days when I was talking about that
0:54:54Mm-hmm and same thing for this new one in the same way
0:54:57It's like well they could make some kind of rectangular box and sell it and they could get that out sooner
0:55:01I'm willing to wait for them to try something innovative
0:55:05They just need to make a different set of trade-offs with this design building on what they've learned
0:55:10But I totally like the idea of them because if they're just gonna make a box
0:55:14I know people want them to do that just make me like a rectangular PC that I can run Mac OS on which I'm sure some
0:55:20people would like, but I want more than that from Apple.
0:55:24I mean, even the cheese grater is, like you said, Mark,
0:55:26it's not just a tower case, it is a really cool,
0:55:28really good, really interesting tower case
0:55:30that has many innovations inside and out
0:55:33and turned out to be a good design
0:55:36that they kept for a long time.
0:55:37Just do that again, Apple, is that so hard?
0:55:39Just be successful all the time, that's the deal.
0:55:42- Well, and I think, looking back, as you said,
0:55:45they did something, as Federighi said in this interview,
0:55:48he said, "We wanted to do something bold and different
0:55:49with the 2013 one.
0:55:51And he said, "It's good for some,
0:55:53"but it does not address the full range
0:55:54"of Mac Pro customers."
0:55:56And I think this is the nut right here.
0:55:57Apple is really good at being bold and different.
0:56:01And they pride themselves on that.
0:56:04They really try to do that with much of what they do.
0:56:09The problem is that if you only make
0:56:12bold and different product line choices,
0:56:15then the overall product line will suffer,
0:56:17because you need general purpose products to fill the gaps
0:56:21and satisfy the most needs.
0:56:24And the Mac Pro, the purpose of this machine
0:56:27is to serve a bunch of those edge cases.
0:56:30And you can't just make one super focused design
0:56:34like this one CPU, two Pro GPUs, no slots, nothing else.
0:56:37You can't do that kind of bold and different design
0:56:41for this particular product line
0:56:42because all of the different edge cases
0:56:45that the Mac Pro needs to satisfy
0:56:46they're all different from each other.
0:56:48So no single narrow design like this can satisfy them.
0:56:51The old Mac Pro cheese grater could be configured
0:56:54in completely different ways,
0:56:56depending on what the customer needed.
0:56:58And there was a huge range of what that could do.
0:57:01And that's the kind of flexibility this product line needs.
0:57:05Mac Pro buyers, they don't need cool and bold and different,
0:57:09they need versatile, powerful, and kept up to date.
0:57:13- And it can be innovative too,
0:57:14like the Yosemite case.
0:57:16Before Yosemite was the name of an operating system.
0:57:19It was a code name for a tower case designed by Apple
0:57:22that was like, oh, a tower.
0:57:23It's like a vertical rectangular solid,
0:57:26but Apple did its thing.
0:57:27Hey, ours has handles on all four corners,
0:57:29and ours has a side panel that folds down,
0:57:31and the motherboard was on the side panel at that point.
0:57:33Look how easy it is to open this thing up,
0:57:35and here's the RAM, and here's the GPU,
0:57:37and you can change your hard drives,
0:57:38and they use that design for two generations,
0:57:40the G3 and the G4, and well,
0:57:42more if you count like a mirror drive door and the wind tunnels and all that other stuff.
0:57:47And then came the cheese grater with the power Mac G5.
0:57:49Still four handles, but a different design, aluminum.
0:57:52And look how easy it is to slide the hard drives in and out.
0:57:54And there's a little panel that comes off the side and look how much room we have for
0:57:56fans and the computer controlled fans and all this other stuff.
0:58:00Like both of those designs were innovative and interesting.
0:58:03But like Marco was saying, they were modular, they could be configured to different needs.
0:58:09You could choose what you wanted to put in them and make the computer that you needed.
0:58:13If instead they had made an innovative, like the G4 Cube is a good example.
0:58:17The G4 Cube is basically a trash can before it's time.
0:58:20Here's one computer with one specific set of trade-offs and you can't change those trade-offs
0:58:23at all and if it doesn't suit your needs, you're out of luck.
0:58:27The G4 Cube did not do well in the market despite being a cool, cute little computer.
0:58:34To address the pro market, you either need to have a bunch of different models, each
0:58:37which satisfies a need or some kind of system that you can configure to serve different
0:58:43people's needs.
0:58:44So either they can configure themselves with third-party things or they can configure on
0:58:46your store by picking from pop-up menus.
0:58:49How much storage, how many drives, how many GPUs, what kind of GPUs, how much memory,
0:58:53all those things.
0:58:54And I think too, like, it's important to recognize when they were designing the trashcan in 2013,
0:59:01I don't think they necessarily forgot what pros need.
0:59:05I think they were swayed by both a bit of hubris
0:59:10and also the times.
0:59:12Back then, the reason why Phil Schiller said,
0:59:15can't innovate anymore, my ass,
0:59:17and the reason that got a huge applause,
0:59:19besides the fact that it's hilarious hearing that from him,
0:59:21is that at the time, there was a huge, overwhelming
0:59:26press and analyst narrative of Apple not being able
0:59:29to innovate anymore, and that Samsung was doing
0:59:32all the innovation.
0:59:33This was a huge thing in 2013,
0:59:35that Samsung was taking the innovation crown.
0:59:37And of course, we were all trying to figure out,
0:59:39what do they mean by innovation, exactly?
0:59:40But that was a massive thing that everybody was saying
0:59:44about Apple, the press, the stock people,
0:59:46everyone was saying, Apple can't innovate anymore.
0:59:48Samsung's innovating.
0:59:50And it turned out that all that was was big phones,
0:59:52'cause Apple didn't have the big phones yet.
0:59:54Turns out, all Apple needed to do to innovate Samsung
0:59:57was to make the same size phones that Samsung makes.
1:00:00But that pretty much solved that problem for them.
1:00:03But I feel like that narrative really got to them
1:00:06and that helped sway their decision
1:00:08into taking a much bigger risk with this product
1:00:11than they should have.
1:00:12I think Apple, and maybe this has changed now,
1:00:15I'm not sure it has,
1:00:16Apple needs to be confident enough in itself
1:00:20to release boring products sometimes
1:00:22when that's actually what certain types of customers need.
1:00:26And the Mac Pro is the biggest example of that.
1:00:28Like they can totally do, not only can they,
1:00:30they should probably do a relatively boring line of Mac Pros because that's like what
1:00:38comes along with boringness is what pros need.
1:00:43Yeah, I'm struggling because it's so clear to me how right you are in retrospect, but
1:00:51if you're Apple and you're looking at what's coming in 2013, which here again, I mean 2013
1:00:57like forever ago and that's when this thing was that was released oh my god
1:01:00this is so bad but anyway when you're looking at the future in 2013 and you're
1:01:04looking at like open CL and all these different options it makes sense to me
1:01:09to bet the maybe not at the house that's probably a little aggressive but bet big
1:01:14on open CL and and say you know what this is probably the future and we're
1:01:19gonna give you the best possible machine that will be as fast as it possibly can
1:01:24can for that future that is so obviously coming. Unfortunately, that future never came. But
1:01:30sitting where Apple presumably was sitting in 2013, I think it does make sense to do what they
1:01:39did. But unequivocally, looking at it in hindsight, you are absolutely correct that the boring machine
1:01:45was the writer machine. And maybe the cleverness is what Jon was talking about and having a
1:01:49a motherboard on the door or whatever, or what have you, or making it easily upgradeable
1:01:53or whatever the case may be. But I don't think we could necessarily fault Apple for the way
1:01:58they were thinking in 2013, given the facts they had in front of them.
1:02:03I think you can fault them by saying like, if they thought OpenCL was the future, wouldn't
1:02:08they have to release a machine that the next year they could make it run OpenCL faster?
1:02:13And then the year after that they can make it run OpenCL faster? Even if they had kind
1:02:16of an idea of what the GPU compute future was going to be like. It doesn't seem like
1:02:21they had a roadmap of like, when this future arrives, we should be poised to make the fastest
1:02:28thing that you can run OpenCL on year after year. They weren't even poised to do that,
1:02:31even if it had materialized. By the time this machine slipped, like I said, you can get
1:02:37a single GPU PC that beat it, right? In the things that people cared about, right? And
1:02:43people didn't have to rewrite their applications. And they seem to have no plan. I mean, it's
1:02:47a surprise to me because this type of chimney design where you pull in cool air from the
1:02:50bottom and exhaust the hot air out the top with a really big fan that goes slowly, I
1:02:55would think that would have more thermal capacity than it apparently has. So we're taking what
1:02:59they said in face value that like they had, you know, thermal problems with it and they
1:03:03couldn't get new stuff in it. That's pretty darn bad. And I have a hard time envisioning
1:03:09good plan for the Mac Pro that does not include the ability to make it faster
1:03:13next year and faster the year after that and faster the year after that in an
1:03:16incremental way because again the whole point of this product is to be the
1:03:19fastest thing out there and I know what Mark was saying with the boring updates
1:03:23I wouldn't use that word to characterize it because as far as I'm concerned
1:03:26having the best performance in the product line is not boring even if it's
1:03:30not in a in a spiral shaped underwater case right you know or whatever you want
1:03:35to say is like oh we can put it in a sphere and it rolls around your desk
1:03:38like whatever, if every year it gets faster and faster,
1:03:42speed is not boring, capability is not boring.
1:03:45Like, you know, my renders or compiles
1:03:47took x amount of time.
1:03:49If I buy a new one in a year or two years,
1:03:51they should take x divided by some number amount of time,
1:03:55it's something that's greater than one, right?
1:03:58I wanna see things happen faster, and that's not boring.
1:04:01I think what you're getting at with the boring is like,
1:04:03be innovative, but don't try to change things
1:04:07for the sake of changing them.
1:04:08And I think what they tried to do
1:04:10is kind of what they tried to do with Final Cut Pro X,
1:04:12which is let's not be constrained
1:04:15by what defines pro computers today.
1:04:17It could be that we are holding on to baggage
1:04:20that is not actually necessary anymore.
1:04:22If we start basically from a clean slate and say,
1:04:24what do our pro users really need?
1:04:27What can we eliminate?
1:04:28What is it just there?
1:04:29Because like, oh, everyone expects to have floppy drives
1:04:32and parallel ports and whatever.
1:04:33Like what if we drop things and just leave the essence,
1:04:37can we get it a simplification?
1:04:39And they dropped too many things on the wrong things, right?
1:04:43If they had found the correct essence
1:04:47and dropped some things but left others,
1:04:49like, you know, they could have come up
1:04:51with a better balance and it still could have been
1:04:53in a cylinder case for all we know,
1:04:54and it still could have had no internal storage.
1:04:56Like some of the bets I think were reasonable,
1:04:57like no 3.5 inch internal base,
1:05:00no optical drive, obviously, like all those things,
1:05:03all those things that they removed from the Mac Pro
1:05:05compared to the cheese grater, those were correct things to drop. It's like you don't have to keep
1:05:10having three and a quarter inch drive bays, you don't have to have any kind of drive bays. You
1:05:13can, you know, we see the future as being PCI Express SSDs or, you know, Optane, whatever things
1:05:19from Intel. That is an example of a simplification that isn't possible if you say super boring,
1:05:25which is basically like, well, Pro computers got to have a bunch of PCI slots and a bunch of 3.5
1:05:29inch bays and a bunch of five and a quarter. You'll never, you'll never make anything interesting
1:05:32there. It's just that they dropped other things as well and it didn't work out. And I think
1:05:37to, to try to make different trade-offs, we can start talking about what we think a new
1:05:44Mac Pro as vaguely sketched by Apple's words in this meeting would look like.
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1:07:35(jazzy music)
1:07:38I wanted to talk a little bit about the iMac,
1:07:41because they had some interesting things
1:07:42to say about that too.
1:07:44You know, to me, what was probably one of the most
1:07:48parts of this briefing is that it sounds like
1:07:52they're not working on one Mac Pro,
1:07:55that they're working on two different Pro desktops.
1:07:58One of them is new, like higher end configurations
1:08:02of the iMac, which is probably why they seem to have
1:08:06apparently canceled the iMac revision that's been
1:08:09like mostly done, and you know, like the USB-C
1:08:11Kaby Lake revision, it seems like they're now
1:08:13just gonna hold that, maybe until the fall, whenever,
1:08:16'cause what they said was that there's gonna be
1:08:18new, more pro configurations of the iMac this year.
1:08:22So I'm guessing that maybe gets announced every Tuesday,
1:08:26but probably the fall, and that probably,
1:08:29whatever iMacs we're gonna come out this past winter
1:08:33or spring have probably been delayed
1:08:35to just make one big update then.
1:08:37Which I'm not sure that's necessarily the right move,
1:08:39but I see that is typical of Apple,
1:08:40so that's plausible, right?
1:08:41But anyway, I wanted to kind of get an idea of
1:08:46If they're going to do pro configurations of the iMac
1:08:50and also do a modular Mac Pro,
1:08:53and we'll talk about what that might mean also,
1:08:56what would the iMac configurations actually be like?
1:09:00So I was thinking they could put Xeons in there
1:09:03to get higher core counts and more PCI lanes and everything,
1:09:06but I figure that might become a Mac Pro only thing,
1:09:10so maybe the Intel Extreme series,
1:09:11like we keep getting told about,
1:09:13like the X99 boards and the Extreme Edition processors
1:09:16that have like six to 10 cores,
1:09:19that are basically Xeon's, but not in official name.
1:09:22And so they don't have ECC RAM support,
1:09:25they don't have quite as high of cores as Xeon's do,
1:09:29and they don't usually max out
1:09:30at quite as high of clock speeds.
1:09:32But that would be one way,
1:09:35like if they wanna keep these two different things,
1:09:38they have the regular iMac,
1:09:39which the regular iMac already has usually the fastest,
1:09:43like typical desktop processors that Intel sells.
1:09:47GPUs, they have more headroom.
1:09:49GPUs, they usually use like a low-power desktop GPU
1:09:52'cause the big honkin', like the 1080 kind of equivalents,
1:09:56like the big things with the big green plastic fans
1:10:00from the overclockers, like those GPUs don't fit
1:10:03in the iMac enclosure, like space or heat-wise.
1:10:06So if they make the enclosure thicker
1:10:10and have bigger heat capacity,
1:10:13maybe larger, slower fans with massive heat sinks somehow.
1:10:17If they do that kind of thing,
1:10:19then they could increase the capacity enough
1:10:22to maybe have at least mid-range desktop class GPUs.
1:10:26And that could also add more.
1:10:28But again, how high would that actually be able to go
1:10:33before it questions the need for the Mac Pro Tower?
1:10:36So I'm guessing it would probably be obviously limited
1:10:39just one GPU, but maybe again,
1:10:42limited to the PC mid-range,
1:10:44the kind of PC GPUs you can usually get for 200 bucks,
1:10:47like that kind of class.
1:10:48And maybe it might have a higher RAM ceiling,
1:10:53'cause right now the iMac is 32,
1:10:56maybe the iMac Pro, in finger quotes, goes to 64,
1:11:00and the Mac Pro goes to 128, stuff like that.
1:11:03The iMac Pro probably wouldn't have
1:11:05all of the Thunderbolt bandwidth,
1:11:07and the Mac Pro has like three Thunderbolt buses.
1:11:11The new one would probably have a different arrangement,
1:11:13but suffice to say that they would max out
1:11:15however many PCI Express lanes and Thunderbolt,
1:11:18however much Thunderbolt bandwidth they could get,
1:11:21the Mac Pro would have the most,
1:11:23and the iMac Pro would probably have closer
1:11:24to a consumer level of them.
1:11:27And maybe the iMac Pro would retain older ports for longer,
1:11:32maybe like if they drop Ethernet, say,
1:11:34or the SD card or whatever.
1:11:35I think you've got a better example.
1:11:37If they drop ethernet off the iMac in the consumer line,
1:11:40maybe they keep it in the iMac Pro line.
1:11:42Or if they drop upgradeable RAM out of the consumer line,
1:11:45maybe that gets kept in the Pro line.
1:11:46So I think there are ways they can do the iMac Pro
1:11:51that doesn't interfere with the Mac Pro,
1:11:54but not only am I very surprised that they're doing two,
1:11:59but I'm very excited to see what the iMac Pro is,
1:12:01because that might end up being
1:12:02the computer that's right for me.
1:12:04Because I actually don't need a lot
1:12:05what the Mac Pro offers, I really just need
1:12:08the massive CPU power.
1:12:10That being said, as I stare at my 5K iMac
1:12:12with the horrible image retention,
1:12:15I'm starting to wonder maybe that would still
1:12:17go that way anyway.
1:12:19- The big question with the iMac Pro for me is,
1:12:22was this product planned before or after they decided
1:12:26they were doing the new Mac Pro?
1:12:28Because that really dictates the design.
1:12:29Because if I think about it in the new world
1:12:31where they're saying, hey, we're gonna have
1:12:32a new modular Mac Pro, I think,
1:12:35well then this iMac with stuff for pro people is just going to be like a little bit faster
1:12:41internal SSD, you know, Thunderbolt 3, a little bit faster GPU, a little bit faster CPU, all the
1:12:48same classes, just like better components all around, a new high end, what we used to call
1:12:54a plain old speed bump, right? But if this new iMac was planned and, you know, because this new iMac
1:13:01is coming this year, right? So this is not like a distant thing. It's coming this year.
1:13:04If this new iMac had been planned at a time when Apple was like, "We're not doing the Mac Pro
1:13:09anymore," and this was going to be their replacement to satisfy everybody, then I start
1:13:14thinking, "Well, maybe they could put a Xeon in it. Maybe they could put an actual slightly higher
1:13:21end GPU." All the things that you said, like, "Use the X99 series and use a desktop class GPU."
1:13:25That's the only reason I think we would get that, and that machine I think makes
1:13:30less sense for Apple to invest in,
1:13:32in a situation where they really are making new Mac Pro,
1:13:36because who in the world would buy that
1:13:38when they have the option to buy a new modular Mac Pro?
1:13:40Like if you need that stuff,
1:13:41if you feel like you need tons of cores
1:13:43and you need a faster GPU and stuff,
1:13:45like why wouldn't you go with the modular one?
1:13:47It's so much better, you know,
1:13:48'cause then if your monitor does have image retention,
1:13:49you can just, you know, ship the monitor back
1:13:51or get a different monitor
1:13:52instead of chucking the whole machine.
1:13:53Like all in one is not pro-friendly
1:13:56in terms of how to configure a system
1:13:58to your specific needs, right?
1:14:00So really this machine,
1:14:03depending on when it was created
1:14:07and what Apple's plan for it was,
1:14:10it could end up being this weird one-off
1:14:11where somehow by some miracle,
1:14:14we get an iMac with a Xeon in it,
1:14:16but then that goes away as soon as the new Mac Pro comes,
1:14:18'cause like what the hell's the plan
1:14:19of an iMac with a Xeon in it when you've got the Mac Pro?
1:14:21But for the most part,
1:14:23I'm thinking that this new iMac will basically be
1:14:26like the current top of the line 5k iMac,
1:14:28but every component of it just be a little bit better
1:14:30and also have Thunderbolt 3.
1:14:32And I think they could sell that as saying,
1:14:34this is a iMac that has more appeal to pro users
1:14:38than the previous one.
1:14:39But to me, it would just be a speed bump in the old style
1:14:44where we just took it for granted that every year,
1:14:46the computers that Apple sells, at the very least,
1:14:49would have all their components upgraded
1:14:50to be slightly better.
1:14:51And every couple of years,
1:14:52they would get a new generation, kind of like cars,
1:14:54although they don't tend to get horsepower bumps.
1:14:56But you know, there's a generation of car
1:14:58and they improve it year after year after year,
1:15:00and then there's a new generation.
1:15:01They used to have them with Max too.
1:15:03Every year, they would get a little bit faster.
1:15:05We used to be disappointed in speed bumps.
1:15:06Remember that?
1:15:07It was like, oh, they just did a speed bump.
1:15:08But now we would kill for speed bumps.
1:15:10Please just make every component,
1:15:11make every component a little bit faster.
1:15:13Make, you know, just make everything a little bit better.
1:15:17And that will hold us over until next year.
1:15:19Instead they just don't update stuff at all anymore.
1:15:21So yeah, for the iMac, I'm interested
1:15:26in what it will be as well,
1:15:27but the promise of a real new Mac Pro
1:15:31is probably going to keep me away from an iMac
1:15:34no matter what.
1:15:35A real new Mac Pro with an Apple monitor.
1:15:37The only way I'll end up with that iMac
1:15:38is if my computer dies, I will get an iMac,
1:15:40and then I will get the new Mac Pro after that.
1:15:42But if my little 2008 Mac Pro can hold out,
1:15:46as I've said, joked about in many past shows,
1:15:48We can go for the full decade, 2008 to 2018,
1:15:5210 year service life of a computer.
1:15:55If I can make it, I will.
1:15:57And if not, I'll get an iMac.
1:15:59- Yeah, I think you guys are right
1:16:01that an iMac Pro would just be more of
1:16:05whatever the top of the line 5K iMac is.
1:16:08It would potentially have more ports.
1:16:10I think Marco, your example of ethernet is a phenomenal one
1:16:13because I think Apple's itching to get rid of that
1:16:15for the most part, but a pro user is the kind of person
1:16:19that would want to move humongous bits of data around.
1:16:21- Didn't they already get rid of it?
1:16:22I don't think my 5K iMac has either.
1:16:24- No, the iMacs still have it.
1:16:26- Yeah, the iMacs have it.
1:16:27- I think the Mini still does too,
1:16:28but who cares about the Mini?
1:16:29- I gotta go look, I don't think mine does.
1:16:31Continue talking, I'll be back in a second.
1:16:33- Jon, I have the most modern 5K iMac, I believe,
1:16:36and it absolutely has an Ethernet port.
1:16:38- It definitely still has it, you don't have to check.
1:16:40- Yeah.
1:16:42I think it would have more ports, like Marco said,
1:16:44potentially more RAM.
1:16:45The other thing I wanted to bring up though is, and I don't know anything about this,
1:16:50so maybe this is completely bananas, but what about like VR?
1:16:54So I know that VR is super intensive and it requires just tremendous GPU power, but is
1:17:00it feasible to have a 5K iMac Pro that maybe does VR?
1:17:05Because VR is kind of that in-between, right, where you need tremendous hardware, but you
1:17:11You don't necessarily need to go all the way to a Mac Pro for that sort of thing, do you?
1:17:16So maybe that's the target, is you could use an Oculus with an iMac 5K or something.
1:17:21I understand that at last I heard Oculus isn't supporting macOS, but just for the sake of
1:17:26conversation—
1:17:27That's because Apple doesn't make any hardware that's fast enough.
1:17:28And like I said, I don't think you can fit a VR-capable with current VR standards, VR-capable
1:17:34GPU inside the iMac.
1:17:37Unless, again, unless the iMac we're talking about was the one that was designed and planned
1:17:43and executed for an age without the Mac Pro.
1:17:46Because there's plenty of room back there to add stuff to the back of that monitor.
1:17:49They could put much more capable cooling.
1:17:51They have a lot of area, especially between the 5K one.
1:17:53There's a lot of area behind that monitor to put stuff.
1:17:55You can spread it out far away from each other.
1:17:57You can get lots of air flowing over things.
1:17:59You have tons of options.
1:18:01But the only way such a thing would exist is if it was something that was supposed to
1:18:05to be in a lineup that doesn't include the Mac Pro,
1:18:09and in which case I think it would be a one-off.
1:18:11- So you think Apple's official message is,
1:18:14if you ever wanted to do VR, we have an answer for you,
1:18:17and it's a $5,000 Mac Pro?
1:18:19- Maybe, I mean, it depends.
1:18:21I think VR is, right now, even in the PC world,
1:18:25VR requires the highest-end hardware,
1:18:28because it's really new,
1:18:29and it's incredibly taxing on GPUs.
1:18:32but everything that comes out that's like a new type
1:18:37of thing you can do with GPUs requires the best GPUs.
1:18:41And if you look at gaming, which is what VR
1:18:44is obviously involved with, typically what happens is,
1:18:48in a few years, more pedestrian GPUs will be able
1:18:52to handle VR in the same way that today,
1:18:55you can run a 3D game on a MacBook Pro,
1:18:58but you maybe just can't turn all the settings up,
1:19:00so you can't have all the super high resolution,
1:19:02super high detail levels, things like that.
1:19:04So VR's gonna be the same way.
1:19:07Right now it requires these massive things,
1:19:09but in two years, and Apple's patient.
1:19:13They're not gonna design a whole new product line
1:19:16with this iMac Pro that would be only able to do VR
1:19:19with this massive thing on the back of it,
1:19:22but then in two years that wouldn't be necessary anymore.
1:19:25So basically I think that by the time
1:19:29the new Mac Pro comes out, and we see the kind of stuff
1:19:33that whatever the new Mac Pro balance with the Pro iMac
1:19:36and the regular iMac is, I think by the time
1:19:38that all gets settled out, VR will run fine
1:19:42on mid-range hardware, and so that question
1:19:45will be kind of moot.
1:19:46Now, if you want a really good VR setup,
1:19:49you're probably gonna want a high-end gaming PC
1:19:52or the equivalent hardware in a Mac Pro,
1:19:54but that's a different story.
1:19:55- We're still early in VR because there is so much
1:19:58just in resolution. Like it's so grainy, it's like not going back to Doom where the pixels are the
1:20:02size of boulders, but like you need a high-end rig just to get the current best VR, you know,
1:20:10goggle setups to show you something that looks incredibly grainy from the perspective of what
1:20:16you would expect from like a modern 2D regular PC game. So there is a huge amount of capacity for
1:20:23for a new GPU power that will purely be absorbed by making things less ridiculously dotty.
1:20:28And it doesn't mean, like, you can be able to do VR as it exists today on a mid-range
1:20:32system, so at least it will be possible, right?
1:20:34So you're right about that, that like suddenly it's possible on a mid-range system, but the
1:20:37appetite for high-end will not go away for a long time, just because, you know, at the
1:20:42very least you're doing twice the work for VR because you have two different images or
1:20:45two different eyes, and it just goes up from there in terms of sensor fusion and response
1:20:50times for getting things to your eyeballs as fast as possible in a very demanding environment
1:20:55where every millisecond counts.
1:20:58So that's why I feel like you always need a high-end rig to wring the best out of this.
1:21:01Either a high-end rig or something like PSVR where it is a purpose-built system that is
1:21:05not a general purpose computer but that is designed specifically to do VR and that has
1:21:09strict constraints on latency and frame rates and all that stuff.
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1:22:25So let's talk about the whole idea
1:22:31of what is this modular design?
1:22:35So they mentioned, they were very clear
1:22:37on a number of times during this briefing
1:22:40that the new Mac Pro that's coming out
1:22:43sometime after this year, is going to have a,
1:22:46quote, modular design.
1:22:48What does that mean?
1:22:51One of the things that people online have been
1:22:54thinking about and asking about and suggesting
1:22:57and even predicting for the future for years now
1:23:00is a kind of set of stacked components
1:23:03that would look kind of like Mac Minis
1:23:05that you'd stack up and like,
1:23:06one would be your CPU module,
1:23:08and one would be your GPU module,
1:23:09and stuff like that, right?
1:23:11Here's a storage one.
1:23:11You kind of like build your own assembled stack of parts,
1:23:16each one of which is its own independent box
1:23:18that you could buy and upgrade and customize as needed.
1:23:22The more I thought about this kind of thing,
1:23:24the more I think that this is not only not what Apple
1:23:27probably has in mind, but that it actually might be
1:23:30terrible and impractical in reality.
1:23:33- I can't believe you were ever entertaining it enough
1:23:35to discuss it as a show topic, because you're right.
1:23:37The people have been talking about this for a year,
1:23:39'cause it sounds like a cool sci-fi thing.
1:23:42Kind of in the modern incarnation of this
1:23:44that people may be more familiar with
1:23:45is like the Project Era, whatever it was, those phones.
1:23:48Like we're gonna make a cell phone
1:23:50by having a bunch of modules that we snap together
1:23:51and you can pick your camera and you pick your CPU
1:23:54and your GPU and how much storage and how much battery.
1:23:56And you'll just be able to build your phone
1:23:58from a bunch of these little modular capsules
1:24:01that snap together to build a phone.
1:24:02It's like, no, it's an interesting idea,
1:24:06but the tech for that simply does not exist.
1:24:08And so with the advent of Thunderbolt 3, everyone says,
1:24:11well, the tech for that does exist.
1:24:13Everything you just described,
1:24:14they can get a bunch of Mac Mini type things
1:24:15and they snap together with the cool Thunderbolt 3 thing.
1:24:17And I have my GPU and my CPU and my storage,
1:24:20and it just snaps together.
1:24:22But it's like, what is that buying you
1:24:24versus just having a regular computer
1:24:27that you can pull things in and out of?
1:24:29Like, what do you get by putting them
1:24:31in separate little modules?
1:24:32What does Apple get?
1:24:33What do you get?
1:24:34It has always been a pipe dream.
1:24:36And as the technology comes closer
1:24:38and it goes from pipe dream to potential reality,
1:24:41then you have to say, if we could feasibly do it,
1:24:43what do I get out of it?
1:24:44And other than it being really cool and futury,
1:24:48I think we don't get enough out of it
1:24:50with today's technology for it to be worthwhile
1:24:53for Apple to even consider this approach.
1:24:55- Well, and if you even think about
1:24:57what it would actually be, if you think through,
1:25:00okay, what would these things actually require?
1:25:02How would this be sold?
1:25:03How would it be supported?
1:25:05So number one, obviously, is how do they connect
1:25:09to each other, over what kind of interface
1:25:13do they talk to each other that is actually
1:25:14fast enough to do this stuff.
1:25:16And if you're putting a disk on there,
1:25:19Thunderbolt's fast enough.
1:25:20But if you're putting a GPU or a CPU,
1:25:23or things that need lots and lots of bandwidth,
1:25:26then you're gonna need, either you're gonna have to deal
1:25:29with the limitations of Thunderbolt,
1:25:33because Thunderbolt is PCI Express over a cable,
1:25:36but it is not nearly as much bandwidth
1:25:39as the internal slots for a GPU and desktop have.
1:25:43And furthermore, the standards for PCI Express itself
1:25:48and the Thunderbolt standards, those change every few years.
1:25:53So you'd have the set of pods,
1:25:55I guess that's the word I'll use,
1:25:58you'll have the set of component pods
1:26:00where there'll all be different speeds
1:26:02if you mix and match over the years.
1:26:03And if you're not gonna mix and match over the years,
1:26:05there's no point in doing this.
1:26:07Not to mention, every one of those pods
1:26:09would need its own power and cooling.
1:26:12And so maybe you could have some interface
1:26:15where the big honking one on the bottom
1:26:18has a giant power supply and powers all the other ones.
1:26:22You still need to put fans in all of them.
1:26:24So that's gonna be more noise, more size.
1:26:27They're all gonna have their own metal casing
1:26:29and whatever hardware is involved
1:26:31with the interconnection between them
1:26:32and keeping them securely mounted
1:26:34so your GPU doesn't pop out of the socket
1:26:36in the middle of using it if you nudge the desk
1:26:38or your catwalks over or whatever.
1:26:39Like, it is so challenging to build a system like that
1:26:43that works at all.
1:26:45And it would end up, these pod things would end up being
1:26:49so cumbersome and expensive and loud.
1:26:54And it would, and then not to mention like,
1:26:57imagine the support nightmare of like,
1:27:00You think it's bad now when we have to know,
1:27:02well, if you have a 13 inch MacBook Pro,
1:27:05the two Thunderbolt ports on the right side
1:27:07are a little bit less bandwidth
1:27:08than the two Thunderbolt ports on the left side.
1:27:11You think that's bad.
1:27:12Imagine a system where, well, you can stack
1:27:16three GPU modules, but only if you have
1:27:19this one high-powered CPU module,
1:27:20and only from this year forward,
1:27:22and not if you have a disk module
1:27:23between any of the two GPU modules.
1:27:25It would be crazy to support,
1:27:27and it would be crazy as a user
1:27:28to figure out what would work with what else
1:27:30and whether you could do things.
1:27:31And it would just be a nightmare.
1:27:33And there would be weird limits of like
1:27:36how many of something you could have,
1:27:37what order they'd have to be stacked in,
1:27:39what the certain like main module would have to be
1:27:42to support the other ones.
1:27:43It would be a mess.
1:27:45So that entire idea of stacking these external boxes
1:27:50that you could just combine into whatever you want,
1:27:53I don't think that's ever going to happen.
1:27:54It just, in practice, it just doesn't work.
1:27:58- I completely agree with you,
1:27:59and I think that that reading of modular
1:28:03is grossly overcomplicating
1:28:06what Apple's probably talking about.
1:28:07- Yeah, they just mean a separate monitor.
1:28:09That's all they mean.
1:28:10- Yeah, that's it, just a separate monitor.
1:28:12- Well, and I think what they mean,
1:28:14it turns out if you can describe the configurability
1:28:18of a PC tower that we've had for decades,
1:28:21like that is modular.
1:28:23I think what they mean--
1:28:24- That's exactly what I was gonna say.
1:28:25I think it just means like user replaceable RAM,
1:28:28maybe user replaceable CPU, maybe.
1:28:30User replaceable graphics card,
1:28:32it's basically a cheese grater Mac Pro,
1:28:34but presumably done in a much more modern fashion,
1:28:37but with the same amount of upgradeability.
1:28:40- And I would say it doesn't even necessarily need
1:28:42to be user replaceable on all these parts.
1:28:44I think what Apple means by modular is,
1:28:47they can configure the same general case
1:28:52in different ways to suit different types
1:28:54of needs at purchase.
1:28:55So the old Mac Pro Tower could be configured with
1:28:58one or two CPUs, three or six RAM slots,
1:29:02any number up to five, I think, of PCI express cards,
1:29:05two of which have GPU,
1:29:06or three of which could have GPU bandwidth, I think.
1:29:09Four disks, two opticals,
1:29:11there were all these different configurations,
1:29:13and this one product that Apple,
1:29:15this one case with this one power supply,
1:29:18with this one set of supporting components,
1:29:20could be configured by Apple in a modular fashion
1:29:24to solve a bunch of people's needs differently
1:29:27in one product.
1:29:28That's what the PC tower gave Apple.
1:29:30That's what the Mac Pro had until 2013.
1:29:33And so when they say modular,
1:29:35I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing they're describing
1:29:38as opposed to the 2013, which is with this model,
1:29:42you get one CPU and two mid-range GPUs and that's it.
1:29:45Like it was one configuration you could make with that one.
1:29:48So that is what I would expect by the word modular.
1:29:51so I wouldn't get your hopes up, anybody out there,
1:29:54about the stacked components idea,
1:29:56or even as you were saying, even like user-replaceable stuff,
1:30:00like, you know, I'm sure like the RAM probably will be,
1:30:04storage maybe, processors probably not,
1:30:08I mean, it's like CPU upgrades haven't really been
1:30:12a practical thing for quite some time,
1:30:14because basically like sockets that the CPUs plug into,
1:30:17and like the motherboard chipsets and everything,
1:30:20Those change so frequently that you can't really upgrade
1:30:24to a processor that is newer than the one you have.
1:30:27You can move laterally, like within the same family.
1:30:30Like if you bought the low end one in the family,
1:30:33and then two years later you can find the high end one
1:30:35for sale somewhere, you could put that in,
1:30:37but the gain usually isn't that big.
1:30:38The difference between the low and the high end
1:30:40within a single family, like in a single year,
1:30:42isn't that big, it's like 5% most of the time.
1:30:44You could get more cores with the Mac Pro,
1:30:47But again, it's not as big of a gain
1:30:50as just buying a new one would get you.
1:30:53And doing a CPU upgrade on a modern computer,
1:30:56especially a Mac Pro with these giant Xeons in it,
1:30:59involves so much like messing with delicate
1:31:02and very important thermal management things,
1:31:04giant heat sinks moving the fans around,
1:31:07dealing with these little fragile sockets
1:31:08and the thousand pins in the bottom of them.
1:31:11It would be such a crazy ordeal to put most people through.
1:31:15I would not expect anybody today to consider the CPU
1:31:19in an average person's computer to be user-replaceable.
1:31:22So I definitely would not expect that
1:31:24to ever happen again with Apple.
1:31:26That's, you know, it wouldn't surprise me
1:31:27if the CPU was soldered to the board.
1:31:28Probably not for component management reasons,
1:31:30but wouldn't surprise me.
1:31:32- So I don't want to poo-poo the external stuff too much,
1:31:35because you're just like,
1:31:36"Oh, nothing's ever gonna be external."
1:31:37It's probably the right choice for the Mac Pro,
1:31:39but Thunderbolt 3 does let you have things
1:31:44were previously inside the case, outside the case.
1:31:47And so it is conceivable, but ill-advisable,
1:31:51that Apple could say, hey, we've solved the GPU upgrading
1:31:54problem by putting it in a separate box.
1:31:57And we already talked about that Thunderbolt 3 does not
1:32:00have enough bandwidth to fully satisfy the very, very, very
1:32:03top-end cards in a specific application
1:32:06where they need all the PCI Express lanes
1:32:08that they could have internally, because the external does not
1:32:11have as many lanes as internal.
1:32:12Maybe you could gang cables together or something like that, but they could do that, but as you said
1:32:18Another external power supply cooling like it's awkward
1:32:21The role of that is to make a laptop have a decent GPU if Apple was ever going to do
1:32:27Something like that. They would do it for a laptop because you can't put it inside the case
1:32:31wouldn't it be cool if you could put your laptop down and then
1:32:34Connected with Thunderbolt 3 to a GPU that is not the highest of the high-end
1:32:39But is so much faster than the GPU that's inside your case that it's a win
1:32:44So my hope my first hope with the modular thing, which I interpreted
1:32:49This is the same as Casey which is basically them just saying it has a separate monitor. I'm not even talking about the internals
1:32:53I'm just saying if there's a box that doesn't have a monitor and there's a monitor connected to it
1:32:57That's my interpretation of modular modular. That's no different than the current Mac Pro, right?
1:33:02But it's not the iMac
1:33:03That's that's what I say
1:33:04Like we're gonna make a new Mac Pro and that's their way of saying and it's not gonna be an iMac Pro like that's how I
1:33:09I read their statement at the broadest level, right?
1:33:12So what I hope, my first hope is that they do not have an external GPU connected with
1:33:17Thunderbolt on the new Mac Pro.
1:33:19Because again, the whole point of this computer is to be the absolute fastest thing that money
1:33:24can buy.
1:33:25And if you connect a GPU with a Thunderbolt 3 cable, you are already down behind all the
1:33:30people who have internal stuff.
1:33:31Forget about having a CPU connected separately from this and that and get like, just plain
1:33:35old taking the GPU outside the box is a bad idea from packaging and it's a bad
1:33:40idea from performance perspective. Right, that I think to me as we think through
1:33:45like what the new Mac Pro should be and what it's likely to be the question of
1:33:50whether the GPU is internal or external I think decides a lot of it for us and
1:33:55and I'm with you John I think once you think it through and think through the
1:33:59realities like no question that Thunderbolt is great and you can do
1:34:03external GPUs over Thunderbolt now.
1:34:05And they actually, if you look up,
1:34:07like I know barefeets.com did a bunch of tests
1:34:10a few months back, and it turned out that external GPUs
1:34:14for a lot of applications that didn't involve tons
1:34:16of transfer to and from main memory,
1:34:19they actually did pretty well in the external boxes.
1:34:22- Yeah, they can be just as fast.
1:34:23If you're not constrained by bandwidth,
1:34:25they're exactly as fast as if they were internal.
1:34:27But again, the whole point of this computer
1:34:29is to be the absolute fastest at everything,
1:34:31and say you're doing some workload
1:34:33that does take advantage of all those lanes,
1:34:35now you're down some number of PCI express lanes,
1:34:37now you're down bandwidth.
1:34:38Why take that hit?
1:34:40For what advantage?
1:34:40It's like, oh, well, if it's external,
1:34:42we can upgrade it easily.
1:34:43Well, guess what?
1:34:43If it's internal, you can upgrade it easily
1:34:45through this amazing technology we call cards.
1:34:47(laughing)
1:34:48- Well, we'll get to that.
1:34:49- Not that Apple's gonna get into the upgrade business,
1:34:51but like you both said, Apple can upgrade it.
1:34:54Maybe they'll never let you upgrade it,
1:34:55but next year, they can swap out one of the GPUs
1:34:58and put in a new one and say,
1:34:59here's the speed bump to Mac Pro.
1:35:01We're now with new GPU options
1:35:03because we built them with enough cooling capacity.
1:35:05That's what we're talking about here.
1:35:06Not even like, oh, you'll be able to take your GPU out
1:35:09and put a new one yourself,
1:35:10which you probably will be able to do
1:35:11by taking PC GPUs and flashing them and all the other stuff.
1:35:14But in terms of Apple-supported stuff,
1:35:16internal versus external does not give Apple
1:35:20any more flexibility in terms of modularity.
1:35:23- Right, and I also, kind of like product-wise,
1:35:27I cannot see Apple shipping a portion of a computer
1:35:31that does not contain a GPU.
1:35:33- It would contain the internal one
1:35:35and they would do switching.
1:35:36- Yeah, oh god.
1:35:37(laughs)
1:35:38A computer these days needs a GPU to do anything.
1:35:42You're not gonna use a computer without a GPU.
1:35:44Sorry Linux people or embedded routers,
1:35:46but I'm not talking about that.
1:35:48And so they're not gonna sell you the base Mac Pro box
1:35:53that doesn't have a GPU.
1:35:55They're going to put one in there.
1:35:57That's not the way Apple would do things without that.
1:35:59So if you're gonna have a GPU that comes with the computer,
1:36:03it might as well be internal.
1:36:04Like that, they would make no sense to put it external.
1:36:05So I think once you have kind of realized like,
1:36:09okay, there's going to be an internal GPU,
1:36:12and they've already talked about modularity,
1:36:14and they've talked about upgrades easily in the future,
1:36:17you know, for them, updates, I should say,
1:36:18updates easily in the future,
1:36:20they're basically going towards a PC tower, right?
1:36:24So what other parts of a PC tower
1:36:27still needed today. You know, we mentioned earlier, they needed, there's
1:36:31lots of things like, you know, optical drive bays that you don't really need
1:36:34anymore, right? Upgradable RAM is an easy one, that's gonna be in there, but we
1:36:39already have that. You don't need to make a tower to have, you know, you have it in
1:36:41the iMac. You had it in laptops until very recently, so we already have
1:36:45upgradeable RAM, you know, you can just have a little tiny door somewhere and
1:36:48have that be it. So you don't need a tower for that. You don't need optical
1:36:53you, John you said earlier that you don't need
1:36:57three and a half inch bays.
1:36:58I think you're probably right, but I'm not 100%
1:37:01confident in that because here's the thing.
1:37:03When I first, when I was first trying to think about this,
1:37:05I was thinking, you know, you don't really need
1:37:07three and a half inch drive bays anymore
1:37:09because you can, today you can get a four terabyte SSD.
1:37:13Right, and it's not, it isn't even that
1:37:15ridiculously expensive.
1:37:16And the two terabyte ones, which is about as much space
1:37:18as most people need on their desktops most of the time,
1:37:21two terabyte SSDs are actually inexpensive now.
1:37:23They're actually like only a few hundred dollars.
1:37:26And by the time this thing comes out in 2018 or beyond,
1:37:30that'll be even cheaper.
1:37:33And so at first I was like,
1:37:34"Well, you don't really need three and a half inch bays."
1:37:36'Cause if SSDs can be that cheap,
1:37:38they can put a couple of like the stick kind.
1:37:40'Cause I'm not even saying like,
1:37:42if you're building a computer to have a bunch of SSDs in it,
1:37:44you might use 2.5 inch drive bays,
1:37:47which is like the little one
1:37:48that SSDs and laptop hard drives use.
1:37:50- That's storage skeuomorphism right there.
1:37:532.5 inch SSDs, come on.
1:37:55- Right, like you don't even need that anymore
1:37:57because not only are the SSDs a lot smaller,
1:37:59but also like the interface standards,
1:38:01like the SATA standards.
1:38:03- Yeah, you're the PCI Express,
1:38:04you're not coming through SATA, that's not a spinning disk.
1:38:06- Exactly, so like you're gonna have some kind
1:38:09of directly connected PCI Express SSDs,
1:38:11and whether they're on little slots,
1:38:12like those little M2 stick things or whatever they are,
1:38:15they're probably gonna be on slots, right,
1:38:16at least for Apple to service and replace them when they die.
1:38:19So, and it would be nice to have more than one of those.
1:38:22It'd be great to have two SSD slots maybe
1:38:24so you can configure it at purchase time probably
1:38:27with more storage, 'cause that'd be awesome.
1:38:29But I wouldn't expect more than that for SSDs.
1:38:32However, you can kind of make an argument that,
1:38:36you know, if they would just put like one or two
1:38:38three and a half inch bays in there,
1:38:40you know a 10 terabyte hard disk
1:38:43is just 400 bucks right now.
1:38:45- But it's just too slow.
1:38:48It is really slow to be your boot drive, right?
1:38:51But like, but pro users, so many pro users
1:38:55need to work with very large files
1:38:57that they almost all of them use these,
1:39:00these, you know, incredibly expensive,
1:39:02complicated, loud, giant external raid boxes and stuff.
1:39:06If you would put two three and a half inch bays
1:39:08inside this machine, that could accommodate
1:39:11lots of that in a really nice way.
1:39:12Now, I'm not saying necessarily
1:39:14that this is definitely what Apple should do,
1:39:16and I'm almost certainly not saying
1:39:17this is what they will do.
1:39:18I bet they, there's no, I really don't think there's any chance that they would do this.
1:39:22But a three and a half inch bay inside something that's big enough to have a GPU on a slot
1:39:28is nothing.
1:39:29It's like three and a half inch bays aren't that big, right?
1:39:32And so, you know, it wouldn't take a lot for Apple to fit this into whatever shape this
1:39:38is going to take.
1:39:39That being said though, again, I don't think they will.
1:39:41I don't think it's very realistic.
1:39:42But I would go the reverse of what you said.
1:39:44I would say that I don't think they should do it, but I can actually envision them doing
1:39:49it because they really are having this self-reflective moment about the Mac Pro and atoning for mistakes.
1:39:56I think they would actually entertain the idea, which is inconceivable from the perspective
1:40:02of the trash can that they would entertain this idea, but I think they should not do
1:40:05it.
1:40:06Like my vision of what – if I had to advise them both what they should make and what I
1:40:10I want, which coincidentally are very close to the same thing, is I think all they need
1:40:16to do to atone is all the things they already said they're going to do, which is make it
1:40:19so that you can change the parts year over year to make them faster, which necessitates
1:40:23a certain amount of cooling and power structure.
1:40:26And honestly, for the past – since the Power Mac G5, the pro Apple desktop line has – you
1:40:36Johnny I've even said in his little intro video for the power Mac t5 has been basically
1:40:40Making a box to extract heat from components like that. It was modeled after a heat exchanger
1:40:47Like that's why the cheese where it looks the way it does
1:40:49he actually talked about heat exchangers like, you know up and up in a room or whatever take air one temperature in and
1:40:55extract heat from it and you know
1:40:57Like that's what these boxes are all about the the cheese grater is about that the the the trash can is about that
1:41:03It's a chimney, right? So
1:41:05Make a box or doesn't have to be a box make make a case that can support the thermal load of all the parts that you
1:41:10Could possibly put in it. That means you have to support two really hot GPUs
1:41:15Maybe also two really hot GPUs some combination thereof so you can upgrade them year over year
1:41:20You have to have excess capacity and one great thing about the cheese grater is it has excess cooling capacity
1:41:25Like it was made for chips on such an old process that were so incredibly hot
1:41:29Like I mean they made a water-cooled one at one point, you know, there was room for that in there
1:41:34There's so much, you know, you can cool almost anything in this box. It is huge
1:41:37It has direct airflow from back to front. It, you know works great
1:41:41You have plenty of room for different arrangement of fans
1:41:42Not that I'm saying they're gonna make something that big but so make a box with adequate cooling
1:41:46and you know
1:41:49Upgradable and the next thing I think that we need to do is gets what you were getting at
1:41:53It's like what things can we remove?
1:41:54Obviously you need to have tons of ports all Thunderbolt 3 and all that other stuff, you know high-speed Ethernet
1:41:58Put 10 gig ethernet on it put two separate Ethernet buses like do everything you can use all those PCI Express lanes on the back
1:42:04of the thing and then for storage I
1:42:06Think it would be the right thing to do to have more than one
1:42:10Internal storage thingy more than one internal SSD because they are so small to be able to support not a 3.5 inch drive for bulk
1:42:18Storage which again?
1:42:19I think they might consider especially if they have a lot of room in the case because
1:42:21Well for all the reasons you said but I think they should not do instead
1:42:25they should let me have three or four internal SSDs, which they will charge an arm and a leg for.
1:42:29But that I think gives all the advantage you're looking for, which is like, you know,
1:42:33what if I don't want to have a giant RAID array? I just want to have adequate internal storage. And
1:42:38SSDs, you know, you can only get them so big, but if I could have
1:42:42four
1:42:442 gig internal SSDs that are super fast because they're internal, right? Like that's what you want out of it.
1:42:51I think there's plenty of room for
1:42:54one to two GPUs one to two CPUs and
1:42:56One to three or four very fast PCI Express
1:43:01SSD things and that to me looks like and whatever shape they put it a
1:43:05Modern Mac Pro especially if you're saying those SSDs eventually be replaced with the optane
1:43:10You know 3d cross point whatever thing Intel's coming up with it's even faster still that you say that I don't know X point
1:43:17I don't know. You know anyway, like that's the point of this machine very very fast storage
1:43:22And yeah external storage is great for bulk storage and everything
1:43:24But it'll never be as fast as internal storage and I don't want to just have oh my boot drive is internal and everything else
1:43:30They work with is outside
1:43:32Mistakes of the past don't make it so darn small that you only have room for one tiny little SSD
1:43:37But the things are like the size of a thumb drive practically inside there. They're so small
1:43:40You have plenty of room to put four of those inside there. No five and a quarter bays
1:43:45No three and a quarter bays no two point five inch bays
1:43:47But you have room for that if they made that machine with that combination of things
1:43:52that would be upgradable by Apple
1:43:54and upgradable by industrious hackers
1:43:57and having more than one internal storage thingy,
1:44:01all of which are super duper fast
1:44:02and that third parties could sell into,
1:44:04I think that would cover all their needs
1:44:07and all the sins of the past
1:44:09while not looking backwards
1:44:10and while foregoing the 3.5 inch day,
1:44:13even though like you're saying like this,
1:44:15this could keep people from having to go
1:44:16for the big array even longer.
1:44:18'Cause I just think any spinning thing
1:44:21inside this case is a non-starter
1:44:24and is not forward looking.
1:44:25So I would not save space for it,
1:44:26and I would use the space that I get from that
1:44:28to put that other stuff in.
1:44:30- That's a reasonable argument.
1:44:31The only thing I will say though is that
1:44:34all of these super awesome PCI Express SSD systems
1:44:38need a good amount of PCI Express lanes to make them fast.
1:44:42And one of the issues with the current Mac Pro
1:44:44is that there actually aren't enough PCI Express lanes
1:44:46to really add anything more to it than what it has now.
1:44:50And so if you have the slots inside,
1:44:53if you have like four M2, wherever they are, SSD slots,
1:44:58then you have to have allocated the PCI Express lanes
1:45:04to assume that those are gonna be in use.
1:45:07And then maybe you don't have enough
1:45:08to also have two high-powered GPUs
1:45:10and the Ethernet port and stuff like that.
1:45:12- That's what makes it a configurable system.
1:45:14You could say, hey, if you wanna have
1:45:16four really fast internal SSDs,
1:45:17you gotta give up something.
1:45:18You can't have two GPUs then.
1:45:19Like in other words, be able to configure the machine
1:45:22or Apple, just let Apple configure it.
1:45:24Not you, like it's a built auto
1:45:25where you get to pick and choose everything,
1:45:26but Apple can make different configurations.
1:45:28Here's the one for people who need a single modest CPU,
1:45:33one really fast GPU and tons of fast storage.
1:45:35And here's the people who need two of the fastest GPUs,
1:45:39but storage is less of a concern and a moderate CPU.
1:45:41Like you're right that the lanes have limit,
1:45:43but again, the whole point of the machine is they will,
1:45:45they will choose the chips and chip sets from Intel.
1:45:47They give the maximum number of PCI Express lanes
1:45:50that money can buy,
1:45:51and then it's up to Apple to allocate those
1:45:54in arrangements that serve all the different needs.
1:45:56- That's fair.
1:45:57- I'm just saying one of those needs
1:45:58may be the one that says,
1:45:59"Hey, I wanna have more than one internal storage thingy."
1:46:02Because if you don't,
1:46:03then it's gonna be like a SAN over 10 gig ethernet.
1:46:06Data's gotta get into the system somehow anyway.
1:46:07Like you're just gonna go through a bridge chip
1:46:09and get into the whole,
1:46:10like it all ends up in the same place.
1:46:14It only needs to get into the computer somehow.
1:46:15So it's not as if by not having internal storage,
1:46:18you suddenly get more bandwidth for storage.
1:46:20You don't, it just, you know,
1:46:21it sips through a smaller hose outside the computer.
1:46:24- And I'm curious to know your thoughts about
1:46:27whether we think they would actually use
1:46:31like standard PC slot GPU sized things,
1:46:35or whether the GPUs would take,
1:46:37would be like a custom smaller Apple slot.
1:46:41Because to me, there's clear advantages to both.
1:46:44I mean, number one, if it's a PC, like standard one,
1:46:48like the old Mac Pro used, the GPUs in the cheese grater
1:46:52were really just PC GPUs with Apple firmware
1:46:55and custom Apple driver support,
1:46:57but they weren't that different.
1:46:59If you go that way, then it's easier
1:47:02for Apple to keep updated.
1:47:03And I really do think, they said,
1:47:06a number of the Apple executives in that meeting
1:47:09seemed to say this over and over again,
1:47:10which is they want the new Mac Pro
1:47:12to be something they can keep updated frequently.
1:47:15And so if the GPUs are not something crazy custom
1:47:19that's just for Apple, but if they're just regular slot GPUs,
1:47:24then that could probably help them achieve that goal a lot.
1:47:28On the other side of it though,
1:47:29if they do the slot GPUs, then assuming
1:47:32that they're at all user replaceable,
1:47:36then they're not gonna be integrated
1:47:38with the system's cooling thing.
1:47:39So they're gonna have to have 16 different fans
1:47:42because the GPU's gonna have its own fan,
1:47:43by the way, GPU fans die constantly,
1:47:46so the GPU's gonna have its own little stupid fan
1:47:47that's gonna be loud and filled with dust
1:47:49and die all the time,
1:47:50and then the rest of the system's gonna have
1:47:51all these different heat sinks all over the place
1:47:52like the old one did.
1:47:54If they do something custom,
1:47:57it would be harder to keep updated,
1:47:58it would be more likely to neglect it,
1:48:01like the current one,
1:48:02but also like the current one,
1:48:04they could integrate the GPU's cooling needs
1:48:06into some kind of larger combined cooling system,
1:48:10And that would therefore probably be a nicer product
1:48:14'cause it would be quieter and it would be easier
1:48:16and more reliable to cool if they gave it enough capacity.
1:48:20Well, unlike the current one.
1:48:21So I can kinda see both sides of this.
1:48:24If you make it the custom Apple thing,
1:48:27you have, I think, more flexibility
1:48:30to design a really cool new product,
1:48:32which as we mentioned, we're not actually sure
1:48:34that that's what they should do.
1:48:35But if you do it the PC way, the more you think about
1:48:39what's going to be in this new Mac Pro,
1:48:42the more it seems to me that it's basically
1:48:45just going to be like the bottom half of the cheese grater.
1:48:49Like, and maybe, you know, they can tweak certain things
1:48:51a little bit within that design,
1:48:53but if it has to accommodate regular PC graphics card slots,
1:48:57and especially, presumably,
1:48:58it would accommodate more than one,
1:49:00and even if it maxed out at two,
1:49:02unlike the old one, I think you could put four
1:49:04low-power ones in, but even if it maxed out
1:49:06two big honking GPUs.
1:49:08Just to design something that could accommodate that,
1:49:12even if they didn't offer dual CPU options,
1:49:16which I hope they do, but I wouldn't bet on that,
1:49:20that very quickly becomes a PC tower.
1:49:22And whether it's just like really short
1:49:25and doesn't have any drive base or not is a question,
1:49:27but it doesn't really matter.
1:49:29If it has to accommodate those standard GPU sizes
1:49:31and more than one of them,
1:49:33it's going to basically look like a small PC tower, right?
1:49:36The question is whether—what is the barrier to them updating the GPU? If they went with
1:49:44a custom thing, it would be harder for them to upgrade the GPU. I'm not entirely sure
1:49:48that's the case because updating the GPU—they can get the chip and the chipset and the reference
1:49:56board that goes with it. The packaging of what you're talking about is like PCs. They
1:50:01have all this cooling and then there's this other fan that's facing a totally different
1:50:04direction like 90 degrees to the whole rest of the airflow that's cooling the cart because
1:50:08they're sold modular.
1:50:09- And usually it has its own slot on the back because it has the double-width slot cover
1:50:14thing to blow the air out the back and fill with dust.
1:50:17- It is its own little cooling universe because it's modular, right?
1:50:21But I think Apple can actually use the work of the PC industry.
1:50:27"Hey, we have a new chip, a new chip set,
1:50:28a new reference design, a new card, a new,"
1:50:30like the whole nine yards,
1:50:32but not take their cooling solutions.
1:50:35It would still be in some kind of slot,
1:50:37but that Apple would have their own cooling solutions.
1:50:39'Cause again, I don't think Apple cares
1:50:41that you can upgrade it after the fact.
1:50:42They're not gonna sell new cards for it.
1:50:43If you wanna do some weird third-party thing
1:50:45and hack a thing in, like Apple's not supporting you,
1:50:47that's not a thing that they've done in years and years.
1:50:51So I have to think that no matter what,
1:50:53even if they make a rectangle,
1:50:55that they're gonna do their own cooling solution.
1:50:57'Cause I think they're off the train of doing
1:50:59like a card with its own, like you said,
1:51:01terrible, you can tell what we used to call them,
1:51:04video coolers or they had a weird name
1:51:08that people used to call them for the,
1:51:09those horrible fans that would be attached to your GPU.
1:51:11They would always be the first thing to die in your system.
1:51:13I think those days are gone for Apple.
1:51:16Even if they use an actual card, you know,
1:51:19a full length or half length card,
1:51:21like in a slot that looks like a plano,
1:51:25I think they will still do custom cooling.
1:51:26'Cause I think to design a good case with thermal capacity,
1:51:30Apple's recent designs and even on the Mac Pros
1:51:34to some degree, like they're all working towards,
1:51:37let's design the airflow as one,
1:51:40like one system for maximum capacity.
1:51:43And taking this other little island of cooling
1:51:45and chucking it in the middle, I've got my own fan,
1:51:46I'll put my intake here.
1:51:48Like, first of all, they pull their intake
1:51:49from inside the case.
1:51:50And then they do exhaust to the outside
1:51:52through their back little slot thing, right?
1:51:53But like that is so, so not how to efficiently design,
1:51:58you know, a system like an Apple style system for cooling,
1:52:03which is why the, you know,
1:52:04the Trashcan Mac Pro wasn't like that.
1:52:06And why in from the G5 until today,
1:52:09it has always been so incongruous to open up these machines
1:52:11and see the carefully planned air flows and channels,
1:52:13and then see the cooler, the video cooler,
1:52:16sitting on its thing,
1:52:17doing its thing off in the side of the world.
1:52:19So it really depends, I think, on like,
1:52:22does Apple think that doing that, doing custom cooling,
1:52:25or even a custom form factor for the card,
1:52:27is that too onerous that will actually stop them
1:52:29from updating the GPU?
1:52:30Like, oh, we would love to upgrade the GPU,
1:52:31but we can't just take a new thing and slap it in there.
1:52:35Or will they say, well, you know,
1:52:36we just need to have enough cooling capacity
1:52:39and a way to design a cooling solution,
1:52:41and we will take your board and your chip
1:52:43and plug it into a standard slot
1:52:45and then slapped onto it, alien face hugger style,
1:52:49will be our cooling solution that integrates
1:52:52with the whole rest of our cooling flow inside the case.
1:52:54So if I had to bet, I would say they are going to go
1:52:58with custom cooling even if the cards themselves
1:53:00are standard.
1:53:01Now on the trashcan, the cards themselves are not standard.
1:53:04They're not in standard slots.
1:53:05They're on the outside of a weird triangle thing,
1:53:08which is no arrangement than any PC motherboard.
1:53:10They're like, that is custom head to toe
1:53:12and that didn't work out.
1:53:13So I don't think they need to go that extreme.
1:53:15I totally think they can have cards, but I'm thinking the best bet is to go with custom
1:53:19cooling which means you will not be able to yank that thing out, go buy, envy a card off
1:53:25the shelf and shove it in without doing some, you know, pretty fancy hardware hacking to
1:53:31get their giant cooler in there.
1:53:33Because I'm just having trouble envisioning a box that would accommodate that that isn't
1:53:36literally the size of the cheese grater, maybe with some parts of it lopped off the top and
1:53:40bottom because those cards are huge.
1:53:42the coolest to come with the huge, they're noisy,
1:53:44it's just gross.
1:53:45- So basically we've basically redesigned the Mac Pro
1:53:49for Apple in two hours.
1:53:50- Yeah, that was so easy, what's taking them so long?
1:53:53- Yes. (laughs)
1:53:55Yeah, so and I think to close out, I think for now,
1:53:59what I think they're going to do with this,
1:54:01or what I think they should do with this,
1:54:03as you work through what this machine should be,
1:54:07I think it's a lot more like the cheese grater
1:54:10than like the trash can.
1:54:11And even though the cheese grater was definitely outdated
1:54:14and should have significant editing done to it
1:54:17and significant changes done to it,
1:54:19I think what we've ended up with is to make a good Mac Pro,
1:54:23you need to go more towards that style,
1:54:25whether it's just the bottom half of it,
1:54:27lopped off, or whether it's more designed.
1:54:30And this is not going to be a sexy, high PR product
1:54:35for Johnny Ive to feel really good about.
1:54:39it's not it's because it's going to be a some form of PC tower or something you
1:54:43know it's going to be utilitarian more than it's going to be a fashion object
1:54:48but this if Apple has to do that this is the one Mac in the entire Mac lineup
1:54:55that must sacrifice appearance for functionality if that choice is
1:55:00necessary to make if they come to a point where they have to decide whether
1:55:05to make this thing cooler and prettier or whether to make it more utilitarian
1:55:10every other Mac you could make a case maybe they should go the other direction
1:55:13not the Mac Pro it has to always go to functionality first because it has to
1:55:20satisfy the widest range of pro needs possible that are not satisfied by the
1:55:26iMac the iMac already has the high-end nicely designed computer covered the iMac
1:55:33is that, it is great at that.
1:55:35The Mac Pro must be utilitarian, even if it comes
1:55:39at the expense of the coolest, tiniest,
1:55:42smallest, thinnest thing they could make.
1:55:45The more tower-like that it gets,
1:55:47the more the design they choose for it resembles a tower,
1:55:51the more it offers above the iMac,
1:55:54and the easier and cheaper it is
1:55:55for Apple to keep it updated.
1:55:57- I just don't agree with the way you're characterizing that
1:55:59because I think the G3, G4, and Power Mac G5 cases
1:56:04were awesome looking.
1:56:06They were fantastic.
1:56:07They were the best looking things Apple had made.
1:56:11I don't think they sacrificed the beauty and design
1:56:13of those cases at all.
1:56:15And they also delivered amazing utility, right?
1:56:18So I get what you're saying.
1:56:19Like, I think the way to phrase it would be more like
1:56:22what Federighi said, where we came up what we wanted,
1:56:25which was like two GPUs and a CPU.
1:56:27And then they pulled in, like they basically said,
1:56:31how small and quiet and elegant a case
1:56:34can we get this exact amount of power?
1:56:36Like they pulled in the edges as far as they could go.
1:56:38Like they shrink wrapped it down.
1:56:39That's the wrong approach, right?
1:56:41Instead of saying, here's what we wanna build.
1:56:44Now let's put it in a beautiful case
1:56:46that has like 10 times that cooling capacity, right?
1:56:49So that we have so much headroom
1:56:50that no matter what comes down the line,
1:56:52we have places to put all that stuff.
1:56:54And I think there is tremendous freedom to make,
1:56:57It should be the sexiest looking computer that I've made
1:57:00'cause it can be fantastically weird
1:57:02like no other computer.
1:57:03You just have to make sure you don't, like you said,
1:57:05make those trade-offs where you're like,
1:57:06"Oh, I have a great idea.
1:57:08"Let's make it shaped like a corkscrew."
1:57:10And we could fit the pieces in the corkscrew
1:57:12and they could go in a little, it's like,
1:57:13no, wait a second.
1:57:15You may think corkscrews are cool,
1:57:17or maybe we could fit these parts exactly in a corkscrew,
1:57:19but that corkscrew has no headroom.
1:57:22That corkscrew is the wrong choice for this.
1:57:24So don't, or whatever, making it super duper flat.
1:57:27Here's a Mac Pro that's like it's like an iMac with no monitor. It's so incredibly flat and thin right just lays
1:57:32I don't know underneath your feet and you put your feet on it keeps them warm like
1:57:35Stuff like that is where you're where I get what you're saying like don't make that trade-off right, but I disagree that this shouldn't be sexy
1:57:42I think it should be the sexiest computer that Apple makes and I think there
1:57:45You have the flexibility to make it sexy because it doesn't have to have a monitor in it. It can be insanely expensive and
1:57:53You have don't have the size limits of portability
1:57:55So by all means make this thing awesome looking and make it look like I don't know make make it you can make a look
1:58:01at a Death Star as long as the sphere is big enough to support a tremendous amount of cooling like go nuts it can be black and
1:58:07Shiny and chrome and you know, whatever you want to do to it
1:58:10I I picture in my head something that even just a rectangular solid with the right surface finishes, right?
1:58:15Would would be really cool like a couple of well-placed white LEDs, you know
1:58:21Not saying has to be have ground effects on it and have water bubbling through it or whatever although they did that with the g5
1:58:26Or was it the g5 that the water cooled when I forget anyway, yeah, I am I want this to be exciting and sexy just
1:58:35You know and again I point to the the whole
1:58:39Yosemite El Capitan line of cases that all sorts of weird surface finishes within the same basic
1:58:47But also very weird and cool shape
1:58:49Hiding the fact that guess what inside it was a gigantic rectangle with with reasonably good cooling and the g5 the same thing
1:58:55I think it looks pretty cool
1:58:56It's about now we're bored with it because it's ancient right but it did its job and it did it with
1:59:02style and pizzazz and
1:59:05elegance
1:59:06And it wasn't as cool
1:59:08But it was also a workhorse. And so I I want it all I want sexiness and utilitarian this
1:59:14And I think I think it's possible. I think Apple's proved it's possible
1:59:18Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, the other funny thing is like
1:59:21by by going
1:59:24From the big utilitarian silver rectangle that weighed 50 pounds and sat on the floor
1:59:30To the little black cylinder it had to come off the floor. It had to sit on your desk
1:59:35That's a question
1:59:36Do you want this on the desk or the floor the new one right and honestly I really greatly prefer it on the floor
1:59:42because it allows for neater, cleaner cable routing.
1:59:47If there's any noise produced by it,
1:59:48it's further from your ear and your podcasting microphone.
1:59:51And it just, to me, it gets everything out of the way.
1:59:55And it is, the only thing is though, to be on the floor,
1:59:58it does have to be huge and fairly heavy to be stable there.
2:00:02Like, there was nothing saying that you weren't allowed
2:00:04to put the trash can on the floor.
2:00:07It was just unwise.
2:00:08- You'd just kick it over all the time.
2:00:09- Right, yeah, exactly.
2:00:10You just shouldn't put it on the floor
2:00:12And the only thing is like I deserves to be up on the desk. That's an interesting thing like socially speaking
2:00:18I had my g3 and g4s on my desk because I thought they deserve to be up there because they were beautiful
2:00:23But the g5 I also had on my desk, but it was just too damn big. Yeah
2:00:28How big is your desk? It was on the desk. It was like it was gonna fall on me and crush me to death
2:00:31Right. So I had it on my desk for a long time and I said, you know what?
2:00:34This is inappropriate and it went to the floor and you know
2:00:37My g5 and mac pro have been on the floor ever since so I'm not opposed to putting something
2:00:42The other people would put on the floor that could be put on the floor on the desk just because I think it's really cool
2:00:47And looking at it makes me happy but at a certain point it becomes ridiculous. So I'm I'm thinking this one
2:00:52Should be and will be small enough that you could put it on the desk
2:00:56But I think a goal should be also it works underneath the desk
2:01:00So that gives the people the choice of where they want to put it
2:01:02which means like you said, it can't be so small
2:01:04that it like, it tips over from a stiff Thunderbolt cable
2:01:08in the back or whatever.
2:01:09- Yeah, exactly.
2:01:10But I'm just guessing, just by the way things are,
2:01:12like the direction technology is going,
2:01:15you know, if you actually do take that Choose Greater case
2:01:17and subtract all the stuff you don't really need anymore,
2:01:20I think it actually might be too small to go on the floor.
2:01:22- They'll put lead weights in the bottom,
2:01:23like high-end audio equipment.
2:01:25- There you go.
2:01:26So Casey, what do you want them to make?
2:01:29- Anything.
2:01:32Or you want them to make nothing, right?
2:01:33So we'd stop talking about it?
2:01:34- No.
2:01:35- Or do we talk about it more when they make nothing?
2:01:38- A, you talk about it more when they make nothing,
2:01:40and B, I want them to make something.
2:01:42I said that at the opening of the show.
2:01:43I want them to make something.
2:01:44I just, I want it to be here 'cause
2:01:47I don't wanna do 50-some weeks of us
2:01:50pontificating about what it will be.
2:01:53- Could be more than that.
2:01:55They only said not this year.
2:01:57- Yeah.
2:01:58- That leaves the whole rest of the future.
2:02:01Right on an infinite time scale kids there is a new Mac Pro. There we go
2:02:05No, so, you know overall if I could summarize
2:02:09How I feel about this one more time to kind of close out my thinking on it so far
2:02:15Which of course I'm sure we will follow up next week with all the stuff we forgot about but I'm incredibly happy to see this because
2:02:22It really does show for the first time in a long time
2:02:28that Apple is really taking pros' needs very seriously.
2:02:32And they might have done that for a lot of time
2:02:36in the middle here, but we weren't seeing
2:02:38a lot of signs of that from the outside.
2:02:40It was always questionable from the outside
2:02:43whether they really cared about addressing pro needs
2:02:48or whether pro needs were kind of like this nuisance
2:02:51they had to deal with, and that they were kind of
2:02:53reluctantly supporting very minimally
2:02:57until the pros just all went away.
2:02:59And none of us wanted that as pros or as fans of Apple
2:03:03trying to be the best that it can be.
2:03:05None of us wanted that.
2:03:07And for a while it really did seem like that's what we had.
2:03:11And whether that was true or not,
2:03:13this shows us that they are taking a serious effort now
2:03:18and really putting themselves out there, you know, publicly,
2:03:21to show that that's not the case.
2:03:25And whether that was the case two years ago
2:03:27and they had a change of heart in the last six months,
2:03:29I don't know, it doesn't matter, honestly, right now,
2:03:31it doesn't matter.
2:03:31What matters is that they are getting back
2:03:35on the right track.
2:03:36And maybe this new iMac will get halfway there
2:03:39and that's only a few months away.
2:03:41And then maybe the new Mac Pro is only a year away.
2:03:44A year's not that long.
2:03:46And it's gonna feel like an eternity,
2:03:48but it isn't that long.
2:03:50- Especially for some of us.
2:03:52(laughing)
2:03:53that's and so I'm I'm very I kind of I kind of just feel
2:04:00relieved today thinking that like you know reading all the
2:04:04stuff seeing like all the things that that the Apple
2:04:06executive said I feel relieved that they clearly care as much
2:04:13about this as I do right now, possibly even more so which I
2:04:17kind of hope because it's their job to and that's really a very
2:04:21feeling and I feel very good about that right now and actions do speak louder
2:04:25than words you know group run that is he and his people something smelling these
2:04:28lines of he's in a better version of what I'm about to say you know actions
2:04:32do speak louder than words and these aren't necessarily actions and in the
2:04:36sense that we don't have any new shipping products today but the fact
2:04:41that they put themselves out there so publicly it talking about future
2:04:45products which Apple almost never does they really did commit to to doing this
2:04:50and you know they they could decide in a few months oh you know what never mind
2:04:55we're not gonna do that but that would be really bad PR like they that's
2:04:58unlikely right the fact they made such a deal out of this and gave so much info
2:05:05about why they can't update or won't update the 2013 Mac Pro kind of why it's
2:05:14been so long although that's you know okay that that wasn't they weren't doing
2:05:18everything they could have done in the meantime but that's behind us now now
2:05:21you know they're doing it now right that's what matters so we now know that
2:05:27they care they're being honest with us about what has gone wrong about how long
2:05:32it might take and that they're actually planning on apparently one and a half to
2:05:38two pro desktop lines depending on what the iMac Pro ends up being that to me is
2:05:44is awesome and I am just incredibly happy and relieved
2:05:49as a user of this platform and as a fan of this company
2:05:53and its products and everything.
2:05:56So much of my life is in the Apple universe
2:05:59and most of it is in the Mac universe specifically.
2:06:02To know that Apple is that committed to it,
2:06:06it really means a lot and it's something
2:06:09that we've been lacking for some time
2:06:11in at least being shown to the public.
2:06:14And so I'm very happy.
2:06:16Here's my hope for this new Mac Pro.
2:06:20Because as we've discussed in many shows in the past, despite this recommitment, people
2:06:24are understandably wary.
2:06:26Because even when they come out with the new Mac Pro, people are going to say, "Well, that's
2:06:30great and all, but you did this once in 2013.
2:06:33Fool me once, right?
2:06:34Why would I buy this machine if I have no faith that you're going to update it?"
2:06:40But if everybody takes that attitude when the new Mac Pro comes out, Apple's going to
2:06:44be like, "Well, maybe we misjudge this because we come up with this new Mac Pro and people
2:06:49aren't excited about it and not a lot of people are buying it despite the fact that there's
2:06:52got to be pent-up demand."
2:06:55So I think it's important for when the new Mac Pro comes out for it to be successful
2:06:59in the market.
2:07:00And my hope for the way that it could accomplish that is the old-fashioned way.
2:07:06Because again, you can't prove that you're going to, "Oh, we promise we'll update this
2:07:08next year and the year after the year after you can say that all you want but people people
2:07:11aren't going to trust you at this point right you have you have a trust issue the way you
2:07:15can get people to buy this thing and get them to be excited about it is the way Apple used
2:07:19to get people to buy and be excited about almost all of its computers but certainly
2:07:23it's top end ones show me that this new thing you're going to sell for thousands of dollars
2:07:28is the fastest thing money can buy show me that it can do things that not only no Mac
2:07:33could do but like that for a brief moment probably really really brief it is like the
2:07:37the fastest thing in the world at a bunch of tasks.
2:07:40Show me that it runs Final Cut Pro faster
2:07:42than any other computer has ever run it.
2:07:44Show me that it runs 3D stuff faster,
2:07:46like whatever, pick VR,
2:07:47like I don't care what it is specifically,
2:07:49but you have to show me to get me excited
2:07:52about this computer that is not just finally a Mac
2:07:55that I can use to do my job.
2:07:56Get me excited enough that I forget about the fact
2:07:59that you introduced a fancy new computer
2:08:01and didn't update it for four years, right?
2:08:03Make me just say, I just gotta have that
2:08:04'cause it's so darn cool or fast or has some capability,
2:08:08even if I'm never gonna do that.
2:08:09They used to do that with their laptops,
2:08:10for crying out loud.
2:08:11They'd be like, "Buy this laptop.
2:08:12"It's the world's fastest laptop."
2:08:14Or, "It has the best screen."
2:08:15Or, "It's gotta be the best."
2:08:17Or, "Look at the throughput on the storage."
2:08:20Whatever it is, that is a thing.
2:08:24It's not appropriate for you to do on the iMac
2:08:27or the MacBook, and even on the phone,
2:08:30they show those little graphs to show how much faster it is
2:08:32and stuff like that, but like, this is the Mac Pro.
2:08:35Get us excited about it.
2:08:36Do not release it and say, yay, aren't you excited
2:08:39that we are now remotely competitive?
2:08:42No, I want you to crush everything.
2:08:44It's gonna cost thousands of dollars.
2:08:46I know it's the next week,
2:08:47it's not gonna be the best thing.
2:08:48And I know the benchmarks will be contrived
2:08:50and probably isn't really the fastest
2:08:51and you can still build a PC for less and yada, yada, yada.
2:08:53But you just, if you're gonna go through all this trouble
2:08:57and make this product and you wanna convince enough of us
2:08:59to buy it despite our better instincts
2:09:01about the fact that it won't be supported going forward,
2:09:04make it awesome in at least a couple of ways
2:09:06so that we come out of the presentation drooling.
2:09:09They say, "I don't even think I need this thing,
2:09:11but I want it because it's awesome."
2:09:13That is the feeling that I want.
2:09:15I think we even had that feeling for the trashcan
2:09:17because it's like, who knows what this thing can do?
2:09:20Two workstation GPUs, what does that even mean?
2:09:22What the hell is the D500?
2:09:24That's not a part number that I write.
2:09:25I mean, we learned it wasn't as cool
2:09:27as you thought it was or anything, but yeah,
2:09:30That's my hope for this product,
2:09:32and I think that would be a good strategy
2:09:33to get people off their butts and into the Apple stores,
2:09:36plunking down their thousands of dollars for this stuff.
2:09:38And after that, all you gotta do is execute.
2:09:40Next year, update it, next year, update it,
2:09:42next year, update it, and everything will work out.
2:09:45- Yeah, this, I feel like, is the first step
2:09:50in what is going to have to be a multi-year series
2:09:54of actions by Apple to regain that trust
2:09:58and to show all of us pro buyers and just Mac fans in general to show us that they are
2:10:04committed to this after all.
2:10:06It's going to take not only the release of this product, but then also an update or two
2:10:10to show like, yeah, we really are going to keep this updated this time.
2:10:15Thanks a lot to our sponsors this week, Casper, Betterment and Indochino.
2:10:20And we will talk to you next week.
2:10:21Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin
2:10:28'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
2:10:33John didn't do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn't let him
2:10:39'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental
2:10:44And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
2:10:49And if you're into Twitter You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
2:10:59So that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
2:11:03N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A
2:11:11It's accidental (it's accidental)
2:11:14They didn't mean to accidental (accidental)
2:11:19Tech broadcast so long
2:11:24So did I win the bet? Or rather, I guess I didn't win it yet. Did I lose the bet?
2:11:28Uh, it's iffy. I think...
2:11:32I think you put a lot of qualifiers on, like, if these exact models are on sale come January,
2:11:36and technically these exact models won't be on sale, even though they just shifted configurations
2:11:40and prices, that's not the exact models with the exact specs. So I think we have to go back to the
2:11:44to the tape and see exactly how you phrase that.
2:11:46- Yeah, 'cause I think I said, like,
2:11:47is the 2013 Mac Pro still for sale at the end of this year?
2:11:51And that is almost certainly gonna be yes,
2:11:53but then I think I might have said unmodified,
2:11:56and that is the question.
2:11:57(bright music)
2:11:59Do you think on January 1st, 2018,
2:12:04the 2013 Mac Pro will still be for sale?
2:12:06- No, absolutely not.
2:12:08- I vote yes.
2:12:09- I would, if I had to pick, I would vote no,
2:12:13but it's not as big of a, it's not as sure of a thing
2:12:16as I would hope it would be as I think about it.
2:12:19- You wanna bet five bucks?
2:12:20- I'm not betting you any money.
2:12:23- I'm guessing January 1st, 2018, it's still for sale.
2:12:26- I'll take your five dollar bet.
2:12:28- Yeah, all right, it's a deal.
2:12:29If I said unmodified, it's arguable
2:12:35whether it has been modified or not,
2:12:37because here's the deal, what they did today was,
2:12:41They used to have four and six core SKUs,
2:12:45and then you could custom build them up to eight and 12.
2:12:49They eliminated, and also the D300, 500, and 700 GPUs.
2:12:54What they've done is they've eliminated the four core
2:12:56and the D300, so they got rid of the lowest end parts,
2:13:00and they basically moved everything down a notch.
2:13:03So now the low end SKU gets the six core and the D500,
2:13:07and the high end SKU gets the eight core and the D700.
2:13:11Now these are all parts that were available
2:13:14from since 2013, these are all the same parts.
2:13:16And like nothing else has changed
2:13:18except for the options that come pre-configured
2:13:22with the two SKUs in the store.
2:13:26So does that count as whether the computer
2:13:30has been still available at the end of this year
2:13:33unmodified or not?
2:13:35- So I think there's some ambiguity here,
2:13:37I think the one clear resolution to this problem is when you or someone else, I'm assuming
2:13:45you, because this is your MO, buy a Mac Pro in a week or two, what does the Mac Pro say?
2:13:53Is it Mac Pro comma early 2017?
2:13:57Then it's a new computer.
2:13:59But if it still says MacPro comma prehistorica,
2:14:02I mean, 2013, then it is the same computer.
2:14:06- Commas, parentheses, right?
2:14:10- Yeah, right, sorry, comma, parentheses,
2:14:12you know what I'm saying.
2:14:13- That is probably right.
2:14:16Like, I think I would consider that,
2:14:17I would consider that the authoritative source as well,
2:14:19and I can almost certainly guarantee
2:14:22that it's not gonna get a new model identifier.
2:14:24I cannot see that happening.
2:14:25- Wait, I'm sorry, so you're saying
2:14:27it would still read 2013?
2:14:29- Yeah, 'cause I'm guessing that whatever they have changed,
2:14:34it does not get a new model ID,
2:14:36and it does not get a new name in Apple support system,
2:14:39like Mac Pro, late 2013.
2:14:41Like I'm guessing there is, that's what you're saying, right?
2:14:43Like those things-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:14:45- I don't think they've ever changed
2:14:46the support-facing English language name
2:14:51without also changing the internal identifier.
2:14:56So if they, you know, whatever the model is, you know, Mac Pro 6, 1 or whatever the hell
2:15:02the trash can is, I can't imagine them changing the external name to say Mac Pro 2016 without
2:15:10also changing the internal one.
2:15:11But there's no way they're changing the internal one because the hardware is literally the
2:15:14same.
2:15:15Exactly.
2:15:16So I think they're not going to change it, the internal or external name, because they
2:15:19come in a pair.
2:15:21So then you win, right?
2:15:25Because if it's still-- - I would win if it's still for sale on January
2:15:291st.
2:15:30- Oh, that part I'm pretty confident in.
2:15:31So unless they, and we didn't talk about this in the main part of the show, but there is
2:15:35the slim chance that they are deeply under-promising with the hope/intention of over-delivering.
2:15:42So you never know what'll happen.
2:15:43But if we take Apple at their word, then you will not see a new, new Mac Pro until at least
2:15:502018, which means if it still reads Mac Pro comma paren late 2013 or whatever it was,
2:15:57then I owe you $5.
2:15:58>> MATT STOWE - No comma.
2:16:00And I think now that they've announced, preannounced the upcoming one, I think they are free now
2:16:05to stop selling the trash can as soon as they think not enough people are buying it anymore.
2:16:10Because presumably sales will tail off even more now.
2:16:13I know there's always people who just need to replace it because they just need more
2:16:16of them period, right?
2:16:18Come January they could say all right
2:16:20Well, we've drained all our existing inventory and sales have slowed to a trickle and we know although we're not gonna tell you yet
2:16:26The new one is coming in X months. And so we're discontinuing the macaroni discontinue, but no one's gonna be upset
2:16:32But they're like you already told us the replacements coming like it's you know, it's it's there
2:16:37What I'm saying is they are now free to stop selling a trash can anytime
2:16:40They think it is a reasonable thing to do and so we have to wait until January before any money changes hands because it is
2:16:47not inconceivable. They could just plain stop selling it because we all know new
2:16:51one's coming. Oh yeah, I'm definitely not gonna declare victory or loss until
2:16:54January 1st, but it's still on my calendar. We will see. Do we want to
2:17:00mention t-shirts? Oh yeah, we launched t-shirts. That's a thing. That's a thing.
2:17:05Go to our site ATP.fm/shirt or you should go to the shirts item in the
2:17:11nav bar on our site and we'll put a link in the show notes as well and probably
2:17:15have some kind of promotional artwork and link at a chapter marker at this point in
2:17:19the podcast as well because we are really good at self-promotion. That's how we do things.
2:17:23So we had a couple of minor glitches. If you saw it, when we first launched it, there were
2:17:28a couple of issues with certain sizes being sold out, which we didn't even know was a
2:17:31thing on Teespring, but apparently it is. So we fixed that now. Thank you, Jon, for
2:17:37fixing that very quickly before the show.
2:17:38- Or at least we think we fixed that.
2:17:40I'm pretty sure I fixed that.
2:17:42If you don't see a size option listed,
2:17:46just send us an email and we'll do something.
2:17:49We're trying to get you the shirts
2:17:52in the sizes that you want.
2:17:54The website is fighting us on that.
2:17:56- Yeah, and the shirt design, it's an interesting story.
2:17:59So it was actually about a week ago
2:18:03that I had the initial concept
2:18:05and then John did a lot of work on it
2:18:07and came up with something way better.
2:18:09But the initial concept that led to this shirt
2:18:11was basically Mac Pros.
2:18:15And it was like the first Mac Pro, the trash can,
2:18:17and then like a dotted box with a question mark in it,
2:18:20like what comes next, where's the new Mac Pro?
2:18:22And that kind of evolved over a week of design
2:18:25and into what we have now,
2:18:26which is more of a celebration
2:18:28of the pro Mac desktops over time.
2:18:32Right from the very first one,
2:18:33all painstakingly illustrated by the artist on the show,
2:18:37john syracuse
2:18:38and are involved in stress things
2:18:40it forgot to take the credit it was our seriously
2:18:43well i i think more credit for for the design concept because of the in in the
2:18:46channels like a mac pro mac pro question mark and uh... i thought the question
2:18:50mark was a little bit too snarky like a where's the new mac pro like i didn't
2:18:53want to be
2:18:54didn't want the shirt to be
2:18:56accusatory
2:18:57uh... because people want to you know where it and feel good about it not like
2:19:01here's his angry protest shirt that i'm wearing and
2:19:04one of the in-between designs was like, well, what about this?
2:19:06What about the evolution of the Mac Pro?
2:19:10Like, doing the whole evolution from monkey to homo sapien.
2:19:15You've seen that thing.
2:19:16They always show in textbooks of it starts off all hunched
2:19:18and gets upright.
2:19:19And at the end, there's the human being
2:19:20holding the spear or whatever.
2:19:22You know?
2:19:22That was the idea.
2:19:24Trying to pull that off with computers,
2:19:25because they're not tall and slender like humans are,
2:19:28doesn't really work that well.
2:19:30We tried a whole bunch of different iterations on it,
2:19:32but we couldn't quite get it.
2:19:32we'd already eliminated the question mark.
2:19:35There are a couple of times I still think had some legs
2:19:37to them, but someone who's a better designer than I am
2:19:40could maybe make it work.
2:19:41But then, you know, we abandoned that and said,
2:19:43well, look, let's just make it no question mark,
2:19:45let's just make it about Pro Max.
2:19:48And me being the old person that I am,
2:19:51I have the long view of Pro Max.
2:19:52It's not cheese grater trashcan question mark.
2:19:55There have been many, we didn't include them all,
2:19:57but there have been many, many Pro Mac designs.
2:20:00In the beginning, every Mac was the top of the line Mac,
2:20:03because first there was only one,
2:20:04and when there was two,
2:20:05the new one was faster than the old one.
2:20:07And when there was three,
2:20:08the third one was faster than the first and the second.
2:20:11And like, so early in the PC industry,
2:20:12and especially in the history of the Mac,
2:20:14every Mac was better than all the previous ones
2:20:17in like every possible way.
2:20:18Like one of them came out with color and it was like,
2:20:20the other ones are black and white,
2:20:21this one color, it wins, right?
2:20:23So what we put on the shirt is the classic Mac.
2:20:26And there are many of these,
2:20:27obviously the first one was the fastest,
2:20:28but then the SE was faster and then the plus was faster and then the SE and SE30 and so on and so forth.
2:20:33Then the color Macs, the Mac 2, 2X, 2FX.
2:20:36And then I skipped a whole bunch of weird looking towers that don't look good in profile,
2:20:40because there's not so much room in the shirt.
2:20:42And then I skipped to the G3 and G4 design, which I think is fantastic.
2:20:47And then the G5 cheese grater, which lasted a really long time.
2:20:50And then finally the trash can.
2:20:52So we have a nice progression of Pro Macs.
2:20:54Not pictured is every other Mac that was not a Pro Mac.
2:20:57All the laptops aren't there because f them.
2:21:02All of the boring towers that were like mid-range.
2:21:06The LC is not there.
2:21:10What other weird like the tooth is not there.
2:21:13The EMAC is not on the list.
2:21:14None of the iMacs are shown in this silhouette.
2:21:17This show, this shirt and so many episodes of the show are all about pro desktop Macs.
2:21:24was there like the least popular, most uninteresting to most people, maxed in the lineup, and yet
2:21:31we spend, as much to Casey's regret, so much time in the show talking about it.
2:21:36The logo of our show, as discussed, was originally the cheese grater with the snarky new badge
2:21:41on it, and then the later logo of our show that you may be looking at right now, assuming
2:21:45you're not driving a Tesla and seeing some crazy artwork that is unrelated, is a depiction
2:21:50of the front of the current trash can macro.
2:21:53So this show is all about the Mac Pro and the shirt is all about the Mac Pro.
2:21:57So buy one.
2:21:58They'll be on sale for the next, well, 21 days from the time we're recording this
2:22:03and by the time you hear it, less than 20 days.
2:22:07And thus far we have never repeated the design.
2:22:11So don't think, well, I don't want to buy the shirt now, I'll buy it next year.
2:22:14You probably won't.
2:22:15If you want a shirt, buy it now.
2:22:17Oh yeah, and shipping.
2:22:19Last year we had a lot of complaints about it was super expensive to ship these outside
2:22:23the US.
2:22:24We've gone with a different vendor this time that has fulfillment from the EU so hopefully
2:22:28the shipping will be cheaper for people who are not inside the US.
2:22:32And we have many many many choices of colors.
2:22:36It's not even obvious sometimes from the store pages how many choices.
2:22:38If you want to see what kind of color choices you have, almost all the shirts have only
2:22:41one color choice except for the shirt with white ink that has like seven color choices.
2:22:47And a couple of them have like two choices where you can get a black or a white shirt.
2:22:50So if you look at the shirts and they all look boring to you or you just see two blue
2:22:53ones you're like, "Well, I don't want black or gray or blue.
2:22:55I'm not going to get a shirt."
2:22:57Click through to the ones that have white ink on them and they will have, how many choices
2:23:01do we have?
2:23:02One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, up to seven color choices of the shirts.
2:23:06And unfortunately the color choices are not the same in the US and Europe and they're
2:23:10not the same on men's and women's because they're just not.
2:23:12We tried to make them as consistent as possible, but we are limited by the offerings through
2:23:17the t-shirt vendor.
2:23:18So take some time, click through the things, try to find the best shirt for you.
2:23:22We apologize for inconsistencies.
2:23:24We apologize for regional and gender inconsistencies, so we did the best we could.
2:23:30And special thanks to Jon for doing the vast majority of the work this year.
2:23:33Indeed.
2:23:34Yep, that was extremely awesome, and I'm glad we have you on the show, Jon, for many
2:23:38reasons.
2:23:39That's the primary one right this very moment.
2:23:42[BEEPING]