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Mac Pro: 'The computer we were insane to build'
Apple has sent some journalists a poster featuring the new Mac Pro. Macworld's Jeff Carlson was one of the recipients, and he posted a photo of the poster on his Flickr account. Here's what the text reads: It's the computer we were insane to build. The one that turns conventional thinking on its head, then kicks the living $#&% out of it. We challenged all our assumptions. Abandoned our preconceptions. And blew away limitation after limitation. This is the new Mac Pro. It's like no Mac we've created before. And we can't wait to see what you create with it. The posters are obviously meant to get the press excited about the new Mac Pro, which is scheduled to ship in December. If you want to see more images of the posters, check out Jeff Carlson's Flickr page.
Sotheby's auctioning off special Jony Ive designed Product (RED) Mac Pro
The entry level Mac Pro will set you back about $2,999, but If you've got much deeper pockets you might want to take a look at this one-of-a-kind Product (RED) Mac Pro that was custom designed by both Jony Ive and industrial designer Marc Newson. The candy red and super sleek Mac Pro will be up for auction at Sotheby's and is expected to fetch any where between $40,000 and $60,000. The auction is set to kick off on November 23 at 7 PM. Recall that the uniquely colored Mac Pro won't be the only special Apple product up for auction come November. A pair of 18k gold EarPods, also designed by Ive and Newson, will also be up on the auction block.
Promise Technology intros first Thunderbolt 2 storage solutions
Whether you just picked up one of the new MacBook Pros with Retina display or you're waiting for the debut of the Mac Pro later this year, there's good news for those who want to take advantage of the ultra-fast Thunderbolt 2 ports built into the new hardware. Promise Technology has introduced two Thunderbolt 2 storage solutions that boast input/output speeds of up to 20 Gbps. The Pegasus2 Series comes in four-, six- and eight-bay versions housing up to 32 TB of raw capacity. The RAID enclosure supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60. Promise also introduced the SANLink2 Thunderbolt Fibre Channel bridge, perfect for connecting portable and desktop systems up to high-speed Fibre Channel SAN. The SANLink2 box delivers dual 8 Gbps fibre channel ports, and the two 20 Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports support DisplayPort and Device Daisy-Chaining. Both products will be available through the online Apple Store and Promise VARs and distributors. The Pegasus2 devices should be available next month, while the SANLink2 bridge will be arriving in December.
A look at how Mac Pros are made
Ever since Apple first gave us a peek at the all-new Mac Pro at WWDC, Apple fans have been champing at the bit to learn more about the highly anticipated machine. During this week's media event, Apple was all too happy to oblige, announcing that the machine will begin shipping in December with pricing that begins at US$2,999. In typical fashion, Apple also released a video detailing the manufacturing process behind the Mac Pro. Interestingly enough, Apple executive Jeff Williams notes at the beginning of the video that Apple, in making the Mac Pro, had to "pioneer entirely new processes." Now the video is certainly interesting, but the significance of what it depicts may easily be lost on folks not steeped in the latest manufacturing trends and processes. To address that, product designer Greg Koenig took an in-depth look at the video above, extracting a number of fascinating and informative tidbits about Apple's manufacturing methods and innovations in the process. What the Mac Pro video puts on display is Apple's unique talent for bringing together disparate manufacturing technologies to produce incredible precision at extremely high volumes. Sure, having $140B in the bank and the ability to bring a mind boggling number of zeros to a purchase order has its benefits, but plenty of resource rich product companies would never think of combining processes in the manner that Apple does routinely (see: injection molding, machining, polishing and coating an iPhone 5c case). With the Mac Pro, Apple has elevated a relatively low-precision/low-tolerance process (deep draw stamping) used to make my dog's water bowl and toilet brush canister into the creation of an aerospace grade piece of desktop jewelry. Simply put, if you'd like to learn more about just what all of those crazy machines in the video above are doing, check out Koenig's piece in its entirety. While folks always love taking a look at teardowns of Apple products, sometimes it's just as nice, if not more interesting, to take a look at how those products are put together in the first place. To that end, Koenig provides some great context for Apple's latest manufacturing video.
Apple running Mac Pro teaser trailer in movie theaters
Beginning last night Apple has begun running Mac Pro teaser trailers in front of select films in cinemas across the country. According to MacRumors, those that have seen the trailer says it shows the "sleek black curves of the product from multiple angles." The trailer ends with the tag line "Fall 2013." Choosing to spend ad dollars on expensive cinema ads for a device which is sure to have some of the lowest sales numbers out of all the products Apple sells might seem a bit odd. However, since the Mac Pro is used heavily in the entertainment industry, some film professionals or hobbyists are likely to be in the audience.
Switched On: Form in the USA
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. The Mac Pro might have been worthy of the "One More Thing" kinds of reveals that Steve Jobs used to do at Apple events. Despite being foreshadowed by Tim Cook as a product the company was going to make in the US, it was virtually carted in from left field at an event that focused broadly on new operating systems before a crowd of developers that could appreciate its power. That said, it will likely require OS X Mavericks, a thematically fitting release for a product that represents a new wave in Apple's design. Some have said that iOS 7 may be the company's New Coke. The Mac Pro, though, is the new can. Its cylindrical form represents a new design for Apple, albeit one that jibes with the company's affinity for simple, rounded, iconic shapes. Like the new AirPort Extreme, it has a significant vertical profile, but is a fraction of the size of its predecessor designed to accommodate multiple optical drives and hard drives.
Early Mac Pro benchmarks show major speed increase
The new Mac Pro isn't supposed to launch until later on this year, but Geekbench has nabbed a new set of benchmarking tests which appear to be from the new machine itself. The computer is labeled as "AAPLJ90,1" in the report, which seems strange, considering that a retail build would probably be listed as "MacPro6,1." But perhaps that "J90" is a code name of some sort, suggesting a pre-release build. The machine in question is running a 12-core processor, and 64 GB (!) of RAM, along with a pre-release build (Build 13A2054) of OS X 10.9, which we now know as OS X Mavericks. The motherboard ID also matches one known to be in the new Mac Pro, so it's likely this set of benchmark results is legit, though it might not match up to a final release of the machine. And what's the verdict? It's fast, of course. Significantly faster, in places, than a current 2012 Mac Pro build. Of course, Apple bragged during WWDC 2013 that the latest model would be "up to 2X faster" than previous Mac Pros. While that might be true for some applications, this machine doesn't meet that figure consistently. Still, considering this is probably an early version that's less than fully optimized, there's no doubt at all that the new Mac Pro will be a very slick machine indeed. [Via MacRumors]
Mac pros react to the Mac Pro
It's been over a week since Apple announced the new Mac Pro, and while public opinion has been quite positive, the creative professionals who will most likely be the target market for the shiny cylinder haven't been heard from... until now. Macworld UK's Karen Haslam followed up with a number of power users, and found that while many are thrilled with the prospect of Apple's new flagship product, there are some concerns as well. The lack of internal expansion in the new design is of concern to several commenters. Writing for Broadcast Engineer, David Austerberry noted that "If I upgrade, that spaghetti under the desk will be joined by more Thunderbolt spaghetti connecting to external storage." Referring to the turntable base of the new Mac Pro, Austerberry says, "If I need to plug in an external drive to bring in video content, I can attempt to plug in at the back, but the chassis isn't going to turn easily with all the cables plugged in. Some front connectors would have been dead handy!" Despite the concerns about internal expansion, Final Cut Pro trainer Larry Jordan recently blogged that 80 percent of current Mac Pro users don't have any PCI cards installed except for the graphics card. Jordan also wrote that "Apple essentially provided a virtually unlimited number of card slots for users that need the maximum in expandability," in reference to the use of the still unproven Thunderbolt 2 bus. Pros need a lot of storage. Video editor Lou Borella bemoans the lack of Thunderbolt peripherals, saying that the "missing piece is the lack of high-speed Thunderbolt-native RAID 5 storage systems" and "very, very few 5- to 10-drive RAID 5 systems, which we editors need the most." Most of the pros seemed thrilled with the prospect of the Xeon E5-powered Mac Pro and fast PCIe flash memory. But most were also concerned about the lack of choice of GPU in the new Mac Pro. Borella "was drooling at the thought of two NVidia Titans" in his future Mac Pro, but Apple has apparently decided that the two built-in AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs are enough. Some Mac users have software that isn't optimized or even compatible with the new graphics card, so the ability to swap out GPUs is a major concern. For the most part, many of the pros were optimistic, with Borella noting that "This machine will change the way my peripherals sit on my desk. It will cause me to take a hard look at my current monitor situation. It will cause me to re-evaluate my home network and my NAS devices. It might even cause me to give a harder look to FCPX. For good or bad this Mac Pro will change everything and cause a ripple effect in my entire computing life... It's probably about time that some company takes me to the next step." We'll hear more about the Mac Pro, including pricing and expansion possibilities, as the fall release date draws closer. If you're a current Mac Pro owner and have your doubts or hopes about the new model, please leave us your comments below.
MacStadium to provide new Mac Pro hosting and colocation
For the Mac faithful, it won't do to share space on just any server -- you want to use a Mac server. Likewise, we like to have our own Mac servers colocated at a place that specializes in Macs. That's why hosting providers like MacStadium are so popular. Now MacStadium has announced that as soon as the new Mac Pros arrive, they'll be ready to rack 'em and stack 'em in their hosting and colocation center. The company expects to be able to fit 270 Mac Pro servers per POD on only 12 square feet of floor space in their datacenter. That's what that Lego-like image above represents, with Mac Pros sitting on their sides stacked 15 tall, nine wide and two deep. That MacStadium facility provides redundant cooling, power and security systems, and each of those Mac Pros will be connected to the world with Gigabit Ethernet through a 50 GB/s network backbone. The existing Mac Pro, according to MacStadium, has never been popular in the hosting and colocation world because of their huge physical footprint and high power draw. MacStadium will be able to provide Mac Pros as a monthly rental or purchase, or you can send in your configured Mac Pro for collocation.
Daily Update for June 17, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple let developers from The Foundry and Pixar test out the new Mac Pro weeks before WWDC
AppleInsider was able to spend some time talking to developers from The Foundry who shared how they were able to get some quality alone time with Apple's Mac Pro weeks before the public was first made aware of the upcoming beast during this year's WWDC keynote. In recounting how they were given special sneak-peak access to Apple's newly revamped and cylindrical Mac Pro, The Foundry explains that they were placed in a "room at Apple HQ known as the 'Evil Lab'" where they were able to test out their MARI software on the Mac Pro. MARI, if you're unfamiliar, is world-class visual effects software often used in movies. Of course, seeing as Apple has always been keen on the big reveal, the Mac Pro itself was hidden inside a locked metal cabinet during testing. "We were essentially doing a blind tasting of the machine," said Jack Greasley, MARI product manager at The Foundry. "All we could see was the monitor, and the Mac Pro was encased in a giant metal filing cabinet on wheels. Experiencing the machine in this way was actually really cool, because I can tell you that the speed and power of this machine really stands up. MARI running on this machine out of the box is the fastest I have ever seen it run." Hop on over to AppleInsider for the full scoop as to how folks from The Foundry and Pixar found themselves able to give Apple's upcoming Mac Pro a spin. Lastly, and per The Foundry's website, MARI will be coming to the Mac as a beta product in the near future.
Engadget gets a glimpse of the new Mac Pro
Apple usually doesn't announce products until they are ready to hit the market, but the company made an exception today when it announced the long-awaited update to the Mac Pro. A prototype of the workstation was on display at WWDC, and Engadget went eyes on with the unique, cylinder-shaped computer. We've embedded the best Mac Pro shot above as well as Engadget's video overview below. If that is not enough eye candy, you can hop over to Engadget's website and check out the rest of their photos.
Apple unveils new and interactive Mac Pro site
During today's WWDC keynote, Phil Schiller gave us a rare, if not unprecedented, look at an upcoming product that won't be shipping for a while. If you saw today's keynote, you likely caught Apple's eye-catching 30-second teaser video for the next-gen Mac Pro. We reported earlier today: The Mac Pro will have Dual Workstation CPU FirePro processors, up to two times faster than the current Mac Pro. There is built-in support for up to three 4K displays, HDMI out, GB Ethernet and internal storage with 1.25 GB/s reads and 1 GB/s writes. The new Mac Pro features Thunderbolt 2, and it's backwards-compatible with the current-generation Thunderbolt accessories. And did we mention that the new Mac Pro is only 9.9 inches tall? Shortly after the keynote finished, Apple updated its website with a new, very cool, informative and interactive page for the Mac Pro. Head on over here to check this puppy out in great detail. As Phil Schiller said, "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" We'll keep you posted as to when shipping and pricing information on this beauty become available.
Next-generation Apple Mac Pro eyes-on at WWDC 2013 (video)
Historically, Apple hasn't been one to offer sneak peeks of anything. That changed today with the next-generation Mac Pro -- likely a function of the fact that teasing such a machine couldn't possibly weaken sales of a desktop that hasn't been updated in a technological eternity. Waiting just outside of the concourse walls was one of the prototype cylinders, and it's perhaps the sexiest workstation this world has ever seen. All we know for now is that it'll make its debut "later this year," boasting four USB sockets, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, a full-size HDMI connector, a 3.5mm headphone port and a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports. And yes, it's almost certainly a fingerprint magnet. Have a gander at the eye candy below (plus a vid after the break), and our apologies for the clear case surrounding it. We attempted to remove it, and we're now being forced to type this post with just a single hand. Follow all of our WWDC 2013 coverage at our event hub. %Gallery-190917% %Gallery-190929% Myriam Joire contributed to this report.
Mac Pro inventory appears low as WWDC approaches
This year's WWDC is just around the corner, so we're all wondering what -- if any -- new products Apple might reveal at the event. If Apple's inventory at a number of different retailers is any hint, we might be looking at a new Mac Pro sometime in the near future. J. Glenn Künzler over at MacTrast did a little bit of sleuthing and checked the stocks of a dozen major Apple sellers, from Apple's website and retail stores to major websites like Amazon. His search discovered a majority of the stores he examined were either out of stock of the 2012 Mac Pro or were running low on inventory. Apple officially stopped selling the Mac Pro in Europe on March 1 of this year due to new regulations that impacted its power supply, but had already begun to pull the units from stores by mid-February. Apple confirmed last year to Forbes that there would be a new Pro model in 2013. Whether this lack of stock leading up to WWDC is a sign of new hardware on the horizon or not will be confirmed in a few short weeks. If you're thinking about buying a Mac Pro, you should consider waiting until after WWDC. If the new hardware doesn't knock your socks off, you might be able to find a deal on a current-generation model.
Sapphire graphics card updates your Mac Pro when Apple won't
Those of you waiting for an updated Mac Pro might want to consider the new Sapphire graphics card to hold you over. Sapphire Technology has just announced the launch of its new Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card. The card will work in Mac Pro models from 2010 and later that have an available PCI-Express card slot. Features of the new graphics card include AMD's latest Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, which Sapphire says increases gaming frame rates by 200 percent, general benchmark performance by 30 percent and graphic intensive benchmarks by as much as 300 percent compared with the NV 8800GT graphics card commonly found in these Mac Pros. The card also sports 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, two mini DisplayPort outputs with a maximum resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 per display and a dual-link DVI port with HDCP, which supports a maximum resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. Finally, the card offers dual firmware support via a simple firmware (dual BIOS) switch, according to the company. This allows it to be used in a Mac Pro or a Windows-based machine. The Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card costs US$479.99.
Mac Pro no longer available from European Apple online stores
Time is quickly running out for European shoppers who hope to grab a Mac Pro from Apple. Back in January Apple announced that it would stop selling the Mac Pro on March 1st in Europe due to new regulations regarding the unit's power supply. It looks like Apple has now started the withdrawal of sales of the Mac Pro early. Virtually every European Apple online store now shows the product as "currently unavailable." The "currently unavailable" status can mean a few things. Perhaps Apple has chosen to move up the date of eliminating the current Mac Pro from its European stores, or maybe Mac Pro buyers have snapped up the remaining units and Apple has no more to sell. Either way, consumers who still want Mac Pros in Europe should call around to their local Apple stores or Apple Authorized Resellers and grab the remaining units before they become illegal to sell on March 1st.
The Daily Roundup for 01.31.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
European customers lose the Mac Pro on March 1, maybe earlier
Product safety regulations, how do they work? European regulators are requiring adherence to UL's 60950-1 second edition standards, which originally came into effect in late 2010. The rules cover power supply design and other technical specifications. As reported in Macworld, the Mac Pro's 2010-era design doesn't meet the new spec, and Apple is ceasing sales of the tower machine in Europe as of March 1 to comply with the regulatory cutoff. Tim Cook has previously said that 2013 will see a revamp of the heavy-duty Mac form factor, which currently offers expandability at the cost of modern I/O like Thunderbolt. Even though the Mac Pro could technically be sold for one more month, UK reader Terry Hall in Devon reports that his local retailer had already sent back all the Mac Pro inventory in stock. While it would be nice to think that we'll see an all-new Mac Pro before the end of Q1 2013, more likely that it will debut at WWDC this summer instead.
Daily Update for December 10, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
