back to article Apple pushes back release date for 'dustbin chic' Mac Pro

It has been described as Darth Vader's dustbin, but that hasn't stopped fanbois from salivating over the new Mac Pro. But they will have to keep drooling a little while longer after Apple pushed back the release date of their new high-end desktop to April. Customers in Blighty, Europe and the Far East may have to wait until …

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  1. ratfox
    Angel

    Nice

    "The Mac Pro starts at about £2,500, but can be upgraded up until it costs more than £7,000."

    ...good to know it can be expensive enough, then?

    1. Ralph B
      1. Semtex451

        Re: Nice

        Ah. I get it now. Machrones Law relates to PCs, ergo Apple add $2000

  2. jai

    Is this for new orders only? or are existing orders having their estimated shipping dates changed?

    Not like people are lining up for these things

    If it is just that if you place a new order now, it won't ship to April (which is how I understood it when the news first broke yesterday) then it would seem that people are, in fact, lining up for them faster than Apple can build them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I don't really want to be a nay sayer - but how many are Apple building? They're managed to seriously piss off most of their actual professional users who've been heading in droves to HP/Dell/etc who do professional things like "on site" warranties, same day swap outs. Not, pull out all your kit and trapse to the nearest Apple store to have someone who is so seriously impressed by his job title of "genius" that he actually believes his own hype tell you that "it's not covered by applecare" and you'll have to wait for them to put in a new motherboard at your expense.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        Um, yeah, because the sort of professional who needs a Mac Pro really will be able to make do with a Dell or an HP. And have you looked at HP's service recently? In order to get software updates you need to be under warranty or have signed up for a service contract.

        Sorry, Windows Fanboi Coward, I'll take my chances with the Apple Geniuses.

        1. Hellcat

          @45rpm

          Not sure if you've seen this one...

          http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/12/hp_clarifies_firmware_support_contract_rules/

          If I am reading correctly, it seems the warranty or support contract stupulation only applies to servers - and only to the system firmwares.

          My personal experience with Dell's pro support is that the service is good with the only criticisim being (for servers) you must call the Dell support centre for the country of purchase. I don't have a lot of dealings with HP outside my microserver farm, so cannot comment on their support.

          As for a professional who needs a Mac being unable to make do with a PC... why not? Unless the software is 100% Mac only and no Windows alternative is available why couldn't they use a PC? Sounds like the difference between 'want' and 'need' to me.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @45RPM - windows fan, maybe, but I deliberately didn't say Windows. That said the Linux fan that I am is prepared to concede that premier, PhotoShop etc are only on two platforms. Take your chances with Apple, be aware that it's a day not working and your time is charged out to your clients isn't it? No work=no pay.

          1. tony
            Happy

            "Take your chances with Apple, be aware that it's a day not working and your time is charged out to your clients isn't it? No work=no pay."

            Anybody whose earning relate to a single instance of easily duplicated hardware probably should think a little harder before going into business.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Workstation class HP, Lenovo or Dell running Windows are used by many graphics and video professionals - just because you have some deluded perspective that Mac=Pro doesn't change that.

          Case in point, lack of 10 bit color support in Mac OS - the ATI Firepro's in the Mac Pro support it, Adobe have supported it since CS5 but you can't use 10 bit color on your Mac Pro unless you put Windows on it. Ha! Huh?

          1. rvt

            10bit color is still very flaky, Apple will support it when it's stable. At this moment it not yet stable enough for professional use.

        4. csumpi
          Paris Hilton

          "I'll take my chances with the Apple Geniuses."

          You must be a Genius like them Geniuses.

        5. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          45RPM: "Um, yeah, because the sort of professional who needs a Mac Pro really will be able to make do with a Dell or an HP."

          The only "professional" that "needs" a Mac Pro is someone who needs to impress other vacuous idiots with their willingness to buy shiny crap. Plenty of the graphic and video related agencies that I've been to recently have switched to non-Apple hardware, since Apple are focused on the consumer market. As someone else points out above, with Dell and other business oriented PC sellers you can get same day, on site repairs whereas with Apple it's typically a case of sending it to a service centre and waiting a minimum of a week (even if you work near an Apple store, the "geniuses" are really just there to guide clueless consumer users through using their shiny stuff).

          1. PJI

            Dell, professional?

            Perhaps they have improved since I had to support Dell kit. But at that time, just seven or so years ago, we ordered six laptops: within half a year six laptops had problems ranging from display to power supply, a couple twice. The servers were better, when they finally delivered the ordered components (as opposed to wrong, incompatible ones). Gold Service was required to get realistic, business service. I also notice that, the bigger the firm, the better the quality of Dell kit we seemed to get (in terms of reliability). Anyway, Dell is not doing so well today, so many customers must have made an adverse judgement. HP makes most of its money from printer ink.

            I suspect that, while most Apple users have experienced Windows, may still do at work, at home or as a virtual machine, relatively few Windows or Linux users have worked with OSX and, if so, got far enough to find the BSD-style UNIX underneath the GUI. So I tend to be cynical about the negative opinions in these columns and, frankly, sceptical of the "I tried a mac and it was awful - broke in three hours - Apple laughed at me …" comments.

            It may well be that Apple, as a firm, have not put much emphasis on businesses running servers. But I think the large number of people using Apple hardware for graphical, intensive work includes many small firms and sole traders who are keenly aware of costs and the need for reliability. If not, they must be outstandingly successful financially, showing that they know what they are doing, as opposed to merely writing about how others imagine they are doing.

            It's horses for courses. If, for instance, you are a keen games player, get a well-specified Windows desk top that supports the majority of games you play. If all you do is read the web and send the occasional email, stick to your mobile 'phone or a tablet, as cheap as you can find while still being reliable as a 'phone. If you want to work generally and travel a lot, needing light weight and top battery life, get a macbook air.

            Analyse your requirements, that may reasonably include something you enjoy looking at and using as hardware (customers may judge you more successful with attractive hardware than cheap-as-chips clunk that merely "does the job" - appearances count not just for you personally).

            Regarding Windows (as opposed to the hardware): I had the opportunity or need to work with W8 a week ago (some poisonous software found its way onto someone's system, on rather attractive HP kit), after a short time I rather liked it. Not as much as OSX; but it is an enormous step up from the XP days, as was W7. Shame it is so big that my ancient Lenovo can not host it. Still, it should run well enough as a virtual machine under OSX :).

            There is no need to slag off those whose needs or taste or judgement differ from yours. That just says more about you and your insecurity/self doubt.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "... since Apple are focused on the consumer market."

            That may be true, but it is stretching credibility to call the MacPro a consumer device, even for the anti-Apple brigade

      2. ThomH

        @AC

        One wonders whether Apple's much ballyhooed attempts to manufacture these things in the US (national pride and all that) might be causing problems as presumably they've had to tool up a brand new factory and train a brand new work force. They could very well be building a lot fewer than they'd wanted to.

      3. Ian Michael Gumby

        @AC

        You do realize that Apple doesn't have a really good business model when it comes to selling to the corporate world. That's never been their niche.

        The reason why this really is a non news story is that the WSJ ran articles on how the iMac desktop outperformed the new Mac Pro on many common everyday tasks. So that very few programs and people could take advantage of the multi-core systems.

        The only people they are 'pissing off' are fanbois. But you have to ask... how can you piss them off because they won't leave....

    2. Pet Peeve

      New orders only, at least so far

      Yep! My order (for the up-spec model, with a few upgrades over the starting point) is still showing "February" for a ship date. This thing really needs to ship soon - my 2008 era mac pro knows something is up and already ate a hard drive.

  3. Daedalus
    Pint

    And under his nightshirt could clearly be seen...

    A brand new cylindrical MacPro machine!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    its' not 'dustbin chic'...

    ...it's DERELICTE

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: its' not 'dustbin chic'...

      Isnt there more to computing than it just being really, really, really good looking.

      Apple can Derelicte my balls.

  5. Frank Bough

    It's depressing for us long-time MacPro users - the machine you want Apple to build isn't the machine that makes Apple money.

    I still think they dropped a clanger by shipping the new MacPro without 10GigE - we wouldn't care about the lack of slots if it only had a pair of those on the back. A coupe of extra USB3 ports wouldn't hurt, either.

    1. Darryl

      But then they couldn't sell you the extremely expensive Thunderbolt to 10Gig adapters

      1. Frank Bough

        The thing is...

        We wouldn't buy those, as our SAN is FC. But it would be nice if Apple helped us on our way to our future 10GigE infrastructure.

    2. Gordon 10

      Then Hackintosh. There are some bonkers crazy Hackintoshs running well over Pro spec's for well under Pro money. All you sacrifice is the nice looking case and if you choose a non-intel board dubious thunderport.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        What about official support and stability?

        Isn't Hackintosh using an ancient version of the Darwin kernel?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          No, thanks to iBoot + MultiBoot (and similar)

          That is all.

      2. Pet Peeve

        @gordon10 - haha, no.

      3. asdf

        >Then Hackintosh. There are some bonkers crazy Hackintoshs running well over Pro spec's for well under Pro money. All you sacrifice is the nice looking case and if you choose a non-intel board dubious thunderport.

        Which is fine until you actually use it for commercial work (using Mac OS X) and open yourself up for some major legal action.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Which is fine until you actually use it for commercial work (using Mac OS X) and open yourself up for some major legal action.

          Doubt Apple will be testing that grey area of European law any time soon.

        2. Ross K Silver badge
          WTF?

          Which is fine until you actually use it for commercial work (using Mac OS X) and open yourself up for some major legal action.

          Ok, I'll bite. What kind of major legal action are you opening yourself up to, and why?

          1. asdf

            >Ok, I'll bite. What kind of major legal action are you opening yourself up to, and why?

            You are breaking the EULA on Mac OS by running the software on non Apple hardware. As mentioned above yes this a real grey area and may not hold up in court in many jurisdictions for users. However Apple has been quite successful going after companies that tried to sell Hackintoshes like Psystar. Personally I probably wouldn't bet my business on a Hackintosh even with legal uncertainty aside. Also personally I think Apple are bunch of wankers on this and I am tired of their crap software so am running Mint Linux on my home Mac Pro (windoze at work for me unfortunately).

            This link discusses.

            http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-computers-legal/

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Links or

        STFU!

  6. Ross K Silver badge
    Holmes

    Basic Capitalism

    If demand increases and supply remains the same, those willing to buy will pay a higher price... This can be seen on eBay at the moment where Mac Pros are selling at $2k over retail.

    FFS, the way people are going on you'd think Apple never did anything like this before.

  7. Tel

    Apple haven't pushed back the 'release date' for the Mac Pro. Its release date was back end of 2013. It has already been released.

    What you mean is that there's a delivery delay due to the numbers on back order.

    Sloppy writing.

    1. Ted Treen
      Boffin

      Whoa, Tel

      Sloppy writing?

      It's Jasper, innit?

  8. TRT Silver badge

    So the design...

    arises as a result of an engineering solution to a problem, it appeals to certain classes of users for one reason or another, then we get copycat PC clones coming in. It's been seen before.

    It's also not the first time that demand has outstripped supply and resulted in slippage on estimated delivery dates.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So the design...

      "It's also not the first time that demand has outstripped supply and resulted in slippage on estimated delivery dates."

      Yup, like... Well, more or less every Apple launch this century. They build a couple of dozen, sell out, and claim "OMG! WE SOLD OUT IN SECONDS! ULTRA POPULAR MACHINE OVER HERE!"

      Dont fall for Apple's tricks again. This time, Think Different :)

  9. Zot

    Western Computer told me they have one hidden in the shop...

    ...They could show it to me if I wanted to, but I can't buy it! I just refused, with a jolly smile of course, as they get easily offended in there.

    I don't want to buy one anyway, because it lacks professional attributes like PCIe slots for things like ProTools. Time to buy the exterior add-ons... oh dear.

    Other than the fact that it's a carpet dust sucking ashtray of a thing.

    Perhaps they should have called it the 'Mac TopToy.'

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never again. Mac Pro from 2007 first got abandoned by Apple due to lack of 64-bit EFI (it has a 64-bit Xeon, just needs 64-bit EFI). Then it died, probably PSU failure.

    The only affordable Mac these days is the Mac Mini. Everything else is stupid money.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Same here, with my iMac, Apple stopped supporting it with Lion, no security updates for nearly a year... It is dog slow under OS X Lion as well. Put Windows and SUSE on it, works fine and I still get security updates...

      1. PJI

        @big_D

        >>with Lion, no security updates for nearly a year

        That's odd. I run Lion and get security updates. My system is very old and runs at a respectable speed (even faster since I changed the disc to solid state).

        Check your configuration vis-a-vis updates.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't want it. Don't need it.

    If I was given one for free I'd take it and install Ubuntu.

    1. Ted Treen
      Facepalm

      Re: Don't want it. Don't need it.

      "Don't want it. Don't need it."

      Then don't buy it - or are you just trying to show how superior you are"

  12. Kaffy

    Got three last week. Very nice for our creatives: fast, sexy and makes them very happy. That doesn't happen with a new Dell. There's value in that (although most will poo-poo the idea of keeping folk happy I'm sure... more stick! less ashtray!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I only pooh-pooh the idea of keeping creatives happy. Let them be sad, for it is only through misery that they can really learn to express themselves.

  13. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Who's waiting?

    I don't know anyone who's trying to buy this confusing little cylinder of excess and deficiency. It sounds like a hardware problem is limiting yields.

  14. corestore

    Balls...

    My Apple dealer (no actual Apple Stores here in NZ) has stock for immediate delivery. Could nip down and walk out with one in an hour.

    I'm turbocharging my 2009 Mac Pro instead; that's a REAL pro machine, and upgrading it is a much better value proposition… #Titan #12core #SSD #USB3 :-)

    1. Pet Peeve

      @corestore

      Did you actually find a USB3 card that works in a mac? If so, could you tell me the manf and part number? I tried to find one a while back for my cranky old 2008 mac pro, and I didn't see any that would admit to being compatible.

      I have a pro on order to replace the old beast, but I may spruce it up a bit and use it as a backup machine.

      1. corestore

        Re: @corestore

        Here's a good start:

        http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1606920

        Mike

  15. Stevie
    Happy

    Bah!

    It looks like one of those cyber marital aids everyone was frothing about a few weeks ago.

    What's with the annulus? Do streamers and sprinkles shoot out of it to alert one to the advent of a new model of iPhone?

  16. Gil Grissum

    OMG. Delays in shipping the R2D2 Edition Mac Pro? What shall we do while waiting?

    1. Admiral Grace Hopper
  17. Jay 2

    I finally saw a new Mac Pro the other day. Whilst it's an interesting concept, the fact that it starts at £2500 and will require external storage counts me out. So my 2008 Mac Pro will soldier on, but it's only a matter of time until the next release of Mac OS X decides not to support it.

    Annoyed that I'll probably have to replace it with a Mac Mini and some sort of external storage that will no doubt require more cables everywhere and yet another plug socket.

  18. mastodon't
    Gimp

    Dell same-day onsite fixit-tards

    I wonder why the need for this, could it be that they break ALL the time.

    we had 2x dell laptops for testing websites and presentations for a company i worked for and both needed new motherboards, one within 6 months and the other the week after the warranty expired.

    I've had one day of downtime with my MacPro since 2008 when a power unit went, had a new one shipped next day, I fitted it in 10 minutes and then carried on working.

    I'll be giving it a year before getting my darth dustbin to avoid beta-testing so April shipping is no biggie to me.

    1. Sp0ck

      Re: Dell same-day onsite fixit-tards

      All manufacturers get bad reviews from people who have had bad experiences. I like Dell, I've got a 3 year old Latitude here that is used everyday all day and has performed faultlessly. The only thing that went wrong was the HDMI slot, this is because the dog dragged it off the table whilst it was plugged in. The machine has the accidental damage + next day warranty. I called them up, they came next day with a new mobo and it was sorted. Is that possible with Apple?

      We also have a Dell Studio laptop. This has had a few issues, all sorted the next day by an on-site visit. The issues were pretty minor.....the 'M' key stopped working and the machine half died due to over-heating because the fan vents were blocked. Dell sorted them FOC through the warranty. I'm pretty sure Apple would not have replaced the motherboard and graphics card through the warranty on a macbook if the cooling vents were blocked with fluff.

      So, in my eyes, even though Dells might not be 100% reliable their warranty is (IMO) second to non.

      1. PJI

        Re: Dell same-day onsite fixit-tards

        >>I'm pretty sure Apple would not have replaced the motherboard

        Did on mine when I managed to destroy USB (too embarrassed to reveal how, though I did explain to Apple), right at the end of, actually a few days over the guarantee period, gratis. I was amazed and very grateful.

  19. CmdrX3

    I think as far as the Mac Pro is concerned I don't know if I'd call them fanbois. For the most most part they will be used in a professional environment and usually an environment (i.e publishing) where the Mac is generally the standard. That's not to say some fb's won't buy one, I'm sure they will... just so they can say they have one as if it's some sort of elite prize.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Upgrades?

    Why cant I just pay $7000, I dont care about the spec I just want to brag about how I spent $7000 on a Mac. Picking upgrades takes too much time. If only Apple could design an aluminium box with upgrade written on it that I can jack into a thunderbolt port. Thats how upgrades should work.

    Oh well, ill have to find another way to spend $7000 that doesn't use my precious time up.

    Ive got screenplays to write and vine videos to make.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We ordered our Mac Pro in December and are still waiting! Why on earth didn't Apple plan this launch a little better!? Regard the price - you get one hell of a machine for the money spent!

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