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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2021-10-20, 13:34

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Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Have you met the iMac Pro?
I have indeed. But have you noticed it ain't around anymore either? Did anyone actually buy one? It came and went like a thief in the night! I think that last round of 27" iMac updates make it kinda pointless, so away it went. I always saw it as a not-long-for-this-world placeholder anyway.

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Oh yeah. I thought it was 20, but it's apparently been those weird 21.5 inches since 2009. Oops.
Yeah, that first round of aluminum/glass iMacs that came out in August 2007 is what I had (the mid-range 20")...it was in 20" and 24", then up to 21.5" and 27" a few years later...and stayed that way for 11,000 years.

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Well, they also went with "9.7-inch iPad Pro" and "12.9-inch iPad Pro". Why? It's OK to round those up!
Exactly. I'd just call them 10" and 13" iPad Pros. They're inconsistent sometimes, in how they name/position things. I guess they have their reasons.

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I just think it's hard, institutionally, for Apple to get excited about… a desktop tower. Blech. Anyone can make those, and they're a shrinking (almost disappearing) market segment.

However, as long as Apple is unwilling to license macOS (and they probably should be), there will remain weird niches that they need to offer something for, even if they'd rather not.
That's why I set it off completely in that little mockup/infographic I did a month or two ago, where the pro tower just kinda sits off on its own little niche, for a particular set of customers/users. The Mac mini, iMac and MacBook (both "regular" and "pro" versions of each) form the meat-n-taters of Apple's Mac lineup.

Hopefully the notebook thing will soon be in place with a redesigned, next-gen Air. And if those rumors are anything to go on, they could soon drop the Pro/Max stuff into a larger, modified mini-like chassis and have the mid-range headless desktop that's "pro enough" for gazillions of users. And the iMac may be split into a consumer and a pro offering (based on sizing and AS). Those six products - along with all their RAM/SSD/Core BTO options - would probably serve 85-90% of the Mac-using public.

If they want to create a super-expensive, zero-compromise full-tilt, customizable/explandable tower for that remaining 10-15%, by all means...have at it! I don't care. I just pay attention for the wheels.

I do think a mid-range headless, done right, would pretty much be a tower killer for many. Maybe that's how they get back into the sub-$3,000 pro desktop market...put the M1 Pro/Max stuff into something smaller than a huge tower, but offer generous RAM, storage and core options, knowing that would satisfy thousands of users. They'd have something to offer in that ~$1,500-3,000* space again, as they did for years and years (G3, G4, G5 and Mac Pro towers). There's "high end" and then there's "ridiculously high-end". Currently they're only serving/catering to the latter.


*If they can sell a 14" notebook starting at $1,999 with the M1 Pro in it, then, once you remove that nice, high-end display, camera and related sensors, keyboard, battery and any other portable-specific features/components, then that's surely going to bring things down to $1,500-1,700...right around where those towers of yore always started. Plenty of space in that $1,500-3,500 range to play in.

It's a "want to" thing for them. But their "want to" effectively told that $1,500-3,000 bread-and-butter crowd to go kiss it on Main Street, as Apple opted to head uptown to the land of overkill and $6,000+ towers. They could've done both, but they abandoned one base to chase another.

I would love to see/know the sales numbers on the Mac Pro (and that accompanying display)!

Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2021-10-20 at 14:17.
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