Apple pre-announces an overhaul for the Mac Pro

It’s been a long while since any Apple-related news has resonated with me as much as todays news that Apple will be giving the Mac Pro a complete make over.  It isn’t too often that the company makes public their plans in this manner well before they have anything to really show.

My previous two blog entries here touched closely on this subject since I was one of those customers who really felt that Apple was moving on from this particular demographic since we’re representing a very tiny minority of the Mac’s marketshare.  Whenever Apple talked about the Mac, it was either the iMac or the MacBook lines.  The cylindrical Mac Pro while it was never an option for someone like myself, ended up being neglected year after year to the point where it further cemented the notion that Apple was moving beyond this seemingly archaic desktop box+monitor setup (thus the relevance of my last two blog posts).

So after reading each journalists article (only a small pool were actually invited), I was stunned that Apple still considers customers like myself important enough that they were candid about coming up with a solution (acknowledging that the 2013 design may not have been completely on the mark).  What’s even more amazing is they felt they finally had to break with the tradition of secrecy which considering this won’t be available until 2018, was the right move since it really would have looked like the Mac Pro line was dead with no news or updated technologies after 5 years.

I clearly stated everything I needed to say in my last blog post about how I was looking beyond the platform since none of their hardware offerings appealed to my needs.  My ASUS small form factor gaming system+4K display has been an absolute champ (it just lacks internal storage expansion) and I was looking to utilize something like that in the future for my main desktop.   This news changes things a great deal though in terms of putting off the actual planning process when it comes to migrating to another operating system for my main desktop.

Am I completely sold that they will come out with a design that is not only just modular, but also provides internal expansion capabilities and not completely and “courageously” jettison technology (like I would still like the option for internal SATA hard drives)?  Not yet since there is obviously nothing concrete yet.

Apple’s 2010/2012 Mac Pro form factor (updated with new industrial designs) would be a great starting point when it comes to a modular design with internal expansion capabilities.  Since it is clear they will remove the optical drives, that allows for shrinking the dimensions significantly.  And there are still ways to fit 4 5.25″ drives in there (we still need mechanical drives for their sheer capacity) while supplementing it with flash storage blades.

Obviously they want to come up with a new design which tops that but realistically, there are only so many ways you can design such a systems form factor.

Regardless, this is one of the first pieces of Apple news in a very long time where I feel like I am re-engaged with the company again in terms of having something to actually look forward to.  My 2010 Mac Pro will be nearly 8 years old by the time this new one comes out.  But it is still trucking along and only really needs a graphics card upgrade.  My internal storage is beyond crazy with a mix of 4-6 TB drives (5 hard drives total) plus a 128MB PCIe flash storage card courtesy of this incredible form factor which they gave us.

If they can come up with something that isn’t restrictive like the 2013 model was, Apple will likely retain me as a Mac user for awhile.  If not, I’ll be more than ready to move on with the eventual planning that I had been long thinking about before this piece of news.  The ball is now in Apple’s court to deliver.