Topic: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

Heard this from a work buddy of mine who's in charge of IT here.  I've read rumors like this since maybe two years ago.  Just as a thought experiment, what would this mean to those in our respective industries.  Why do we need Desktop PCs or workstations for our work and what would we need to fill the void if this does happen?

  My buddy says that manufacturers are going to focus on Tablets and Laptops.  I'm a bit skeptical about rumors like these...  I don't think we need another curveball thrown at us after what happened with FCPX.

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Re: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

You don't shut down a product line that's growing in sales and market share. Most likely, this is speculation by some outside annalist. You know, the type who's been predicting the end of Apple since 1977.

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Re: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

actually, the sales data that I looked at here: http://macpro.macrumors.com/  shows a decline in sales of mac pro desktops.  The reason behind the decline could be any number of things.  The article seems to suggest that Apple sees it as "people don't want to buy mac pros anymore because they don't need them."   I don't really think so.  I think the reason mac pro sales have declined is because 1. people are waiting for the upgrade 2. The mac pro they picked up 2 to 3 years ago still does the job 3. mac pros are fucking expensive.  Again, there could be other reasons why we see those figures.

Last edited by switch (2011-11-08 00:52:34)

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Re: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

I wouldn't be surprised. Apple has been trying to narrow down their product line for a while now. I figured that they were moving in this direction when they announced that the Macbook Air wouldn't have a CD/DVD drive.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

As much as I'd love a Mac Pro, I'd rather spend that kind of money building a custom system capable of running whatever operations system I want.  There's a device, EFIX, which plugs into your motherboard and emulates the EFI environment of a Mac (as opposed to BIOS on a PC).  There are a few drawbacks: it's a couple hundred bucks, you're limited to using compatible hardware, and each operation system needs its own hard drive.  Compare that to the benefits of being able to build a system that will run OSX, Windows and Linux natively, and the drawbacks don't look so bad.  Even with the cost of the device itself, you can build a system pretty darn close to a Mac Pro, and still save a bundle.  Even the hardware restrictions aren't all that restrictive, you just have to consult their site before buying anything.

Personally, my Macbook Pro does everything I need a computer to do at the moment.  If anything I'd like a Mac Mini, to act as a server for my iTunes and such, so I don't have to keep the laptop hooked into workstation mode all the time.

That said, I do miss having a desktop to poke around in sometimes.  The fan in particular gets annoying when I'm running a video game, rendering a scene, or encoding a video.  Heck, watching a vid on YouTube or Vimeo often eats up so many compute cycles the fan kicks in.

Desktops might be going away for the public at large, but I think there will always be a place for them, in my life anyway.

Re: Rumors about Apple dropping Mac Pros and the death of Desktop PCs

I share the same sentiment.  Critics have been railing about the death of desktop PCs for so long that it's hard to take any of this too seriously.

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