Six years since the last major upgrade? What is that, 42 dog years? Not that the Mac Pro is a dog, mind you...
A new Mac Pro coming this spring? 'Mais oui!'
Apple will release a new Mac Pro this spring, according to a French fanbois website that got its mains on what it says is a memo from a Gallic Apple reseller. "Apple nous informe qu'une nouvelle gamme Mac Pro va sortir au printemps 2013," France Systèmes wrote in a missive to its customers informing them of the February 18 …
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 21:58 GMT cbf123
Re: Nah.
I've got a Power Mac G5, the precursor to the Mac Pro...we installed Linux on it ages ago because even then it was cheaper than buying a Power4 workstation from IBM.
It's a gorgeous machine, love the transparent side panel below the aluminum panel (so you can take off the aluminum panel and show off the interior without disrupting air flow. I always thought it was kind of cool that when you remove the transparent panel all the fans sped up.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 22:10 GMT Manny Bianco
Re: Nah.
Can you describe a Dell Optiplex 200? Can you describe it so that I wouldn't mistake it for an HP XXXX100? Thought not. A great many people can recognise the Mac Pro. What Macs "of one form or another" did the company you worked for, use? We use Mac Pros, iMacs, Mac minis, lots of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. They are quite distinct from the usual PC stuff. I can tell you what laptop my web developers use - a MacBook Pro. Can I tell you what laptop my Project Managers use? No. It's possibly a Dell, or an IBM or Lenovo, maybe an HP. Who knows? They all look the same.
So, for the simple reason that the Mac Pro is distinct from all other PC desktops, it is more recognisable.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 22:39 GMT Khaptain
Re: Nah.
I would beg to differ that more people would recognize an IBM Thinkpad and I would put that pot ugly iMac in second place.
Mac Pros are high end workstations that are stuck under desks like most other workstations. There really aren't many reasons that people would have seen one outside of the Apple Shops.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 08:15 GMT Silverburn
Re: Nah.
I would beg to differ that more people would recognize an IBM Thinkpad and I would put that pot ugly iMac in second place.
Are you saying that the imac is "pot ugly" compared to the thinkpad? Wow...Thinkpad's are great machines - functional, fast, reliable (in IBM, non-lenovo form) and hard wearing. But they're not lookers.
And re: most people. Putting aside the actual aesthetics, you might find people *do* recognise the Apple's more because Apple/media types are extremely good at product placement on TV, in films etc.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 09:44 GMT Khaptain
Re: Nah.
No, I didn't say that the Thinkpad was good looking, just that is was easily recognisable.
I mentioned the ugliness of the iMac in order to help make the distinction between it and the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is usually a good looking piece of kit.
I agree that the publicity around the iMac would help them get recognised but the publicity only lasted for a short period of time and that was a few years ago. In comparison the Thinkpad has been around for what seems like an eternity and they are still seen on trains, planes and in offices every single day.
Would I call a Thinkpad a workstation, definitely, I have coded and compiled thousand of lines of code on a T43p. At the time it was my principal machine, I never felt the need to use the desktop. For me it was a workstation but then again I didn't do Audio or Video editing..
The term workstation has no real intrinsic value as the meaning will depend entirely on who you are speaking to and also in relation to the job for which it is being used.
For me a workstation is a basically a desktop machine speced out with top of the range everything. It might also be in a nice case but that doesn't change much except for its looks. Since processor power and hard disk speed increase at such a high velocity, today's workstation will quickly become redundant.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 09:13 GMT jai
Re: Nah.
i'm not sure i'd class a Thinkpad as a workstation though. it's a laptop isn't it?
the OP didn't say the Mac Pro was the most recognisable computer in the world, he's talking about the kind that people normally hide out of the way under the desk, not sit on the train with it on their laps.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 12:41 GMT Davidoff
Can you describe a Dell Optiplex 200?
Yes, I can. Anyways, the Optiplex is not a workstation anyways, it's a business PC.
Dell's workstations are called 'Precision@, and yes, they are distinctive. Much more than a wannabe-workstation in a chassis which hasn't changed for almost a decade.
And if you want something really distinctive, look up the HP z820. Designed by BMW.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 12:01 GMT 404
Re: Nah.
Clones of clones of clones... I look for the logo because white/black/multicolor,brushed aluminum, hinged, clamshell-like, processor-driven, computing device pretty much looks the same after a while.
Probably more psychological than anything else - you buy a car, all the sudden you see dozens of them, mostly better than yours.
;)
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 21:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Whatever the change will be,
It'll be knife-edge thin on the ends so it looks all thin and futuristic.
Of course, to achieve all of that thinness, some components will have to be scrapped - Optical drives, extra hard drives, processors, you know. All of that stuff that a true Mac connoisseur doesn't need.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 21:28 GMT Khaptain
More extended translation + Question
I would like add to your translation a little, it does make a difference :
"Apple have informed us that a new range of Mac Pros will be brought out in the spring of 2013."
The difference being that we are told a "Gamme" which translates a "range" or a "series". In other words there will probably be more than one version..
But you won't find any reference to the new Macs.
On the MacG website there is a reference mentionning that France Systems have removed the last paragraph from the announcement they made, it doesn't mention why..
"[MàJ@20h15, 1re éd. à 13h45] France Systèmes a retiré le dernier paragraphe de sa lettre."
MAJ = Mise A Jour = Update.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 22:23 GMT asdf
hmm
Great a whole new Mac Pro Apple wants me to buy to replace my perfectly serviceable first generation Intel Mac Pro. I guess that is why they went out of their way to be sure I couldn't upgrade it to the latest Mac OS X. Obsolesce by design is their business model. I mean you can't be in the cool kids club unless you drop fat dimes to Tim every few years.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 22:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: hmm
The main thing about the existing Pro is that you aren't beholden t Apple for anything in terms of upgrades.
My memory came from Crucial and just slotted in, HD's are standard and just slot it, likewise DVD drives (you have to remove the front bezel though, a 10 second job). Swapped out my GPU for a Quadro (naturally you must get a Mac version) and added an ESATA card from Amazon (just had to make sure I got one with the right chipset).
I needed to add wireless to mine and could have gone for a standard adaptor, but picked up a second hand airport card instead. So technically in that case I did use an Apple product to upgrade the box, but it was actually cheaper than a new generic card anyway.
All the connectors internally are standard. So its just a question of making sure you have a driver for whatever you intend to plug in.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 23:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: hmm
While I agree with the basic premise of your comment I disagree in so far as in some areas you are beholden to Apple.
First - and probably most significant - you cannot replace the PSU with a non-Apple PSU should your PSU fail. An Apple PSU is horendously expensive - even compared to some of the most expensive after-market PC PSUs.
Second - the wifi. My MacPro (2x 3GHz dual core Xeons) has no facility for adding wifi - Nothing at all. If I had wanted wifi I would have had to had a build-to-order machine with the necessary internal connector and wiring fitted - there is nowhere to fit an aerial (unlike the PowerMac G5) which came with a plug-in external aerial just in case. Are you talking about a credit-card sized airport card with its own little dlug-in slot (as fitted in all other Macs) or are you referring to a card stuck in one of the expansion slots?
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Thursday 7th February 2013 00:37 GMT asdf
Re: hmm
>The main thing about the existing Pro is that you aren't beholden t Apple for anything in terms of upgrades.
Yes I upgraded mine with a ATI 4850 hacked special from China and found 8 gig of FB DIMMS from some off brand manufacturer for $100 as well. The driver issue is always hit or miss on hacked hardware though (I got lucky). I just think its pathetic that Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux as well would both run just fine (win with boot camp) on my supposed old machine. That may well be my next step instead of buying a new machine. Probably best to get out from under Apples yolk with Linux anyway before they start trying to keep me from rooting my own desktop.
>making sure you have a driver for whatever you intend to plug in.
And that is exactly the issue. It takes a lot of effort and or money to stay in the official Apple club (only buy hardware not only supported today but will be supported going forward). Otherwise you find yourself in the hackintosh uncool crowd and that is even more pain going forward to keep things working right.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 23:57 GMT asdf
Re: hmm
Couldn't have said it better myself (stole much of post).
Another example for you why don't you try to install IOS 6 on your original iPAD. Oh that's right its not possible (without hacks anyway). Same will probably be true with the iPAD 2 and IOS 7.
By the way, for all of you who have anything but an iPhone 5, get ready for this: Your devices won't be supported very soon because Apple has changed the interface on the iPhone 5. So, the next generation of iPod and iPad will have the news ones too. And, my friends, that leaves your old devices in an incompatible format.
Awesome.
Think Different.
Planned obsolescence doesn't mean two years. Get a clue, Apple.
Consider me, "Unconverted."
What do you think of Apple's decision to not offer iOS 6 for a two-year-old device?
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Thursday 7th February 2013 07:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: hmm
I have a 1st generation Mac and it does support 64bit, indeed I have it running Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
The little sting in the tail is that the UEFI or EFI or whatever the low level BIOS is called only supports 32 bit loaders which means that it can't load up the latest and greatest (YMMV) version of Mac OS X.
However the reasonably easy way around this, is to trick the Mac Pro to boot another OS through bootcamp, which actually then boots Mountain Lion rather than Windows. This is all done at startup and to be honest 99 people out of 100 wouldn't actually know there's an additional automatic startup step in the process. This is how the Hackintosh system works but the advantage is that a) I'm running this on a genuine Mac with b) a legal paid up copy of Mac OS X so am struggling to work out why this isn't completely legitimate.
I agree (in advance) that it's completely pants that Apple won't release a 32bit loader for 10.8.2 as the rest of the OS works perfectly well.
My machine has 8 cores, 32GB of memory and quite a lot of disk. It runs OS X Server as well and just sits there quietly doing it's job. I'm loathe to replace it as I'm not going to get a lot more speed for a hell of a lot more money. It's stands me about about £1,200 with the genuine Apple graphics card (which is the latest and slowest), a new machine is 2-3x that price and for what, i7 chipset , 3Ghz cores vs 2.6Ghz cores, a snappier graphics card to run the games I never buy or play?
Perhaps thats the problem and why the Saintly all-knowing, never wrong, android hating Jobs never really liked the Pro and why Acolyte Cook is struggling to replace it. It works, it doesn't go wrong (for me) and its cost effective.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:00 GMT Davidoff
a new machine is 2-3x that price and for what...
"...a new machine is 2-3x that price and for what, i7 chipset , 3Ghz cores vs 2.6Ghz cores, a snappier graphics card to run the games I never buy or play?"
I don't know what you use your Mac Pro for but let me tell you that the XEON 5600 processors which are also used in the current Mac Pro run circles around the old XEON 5100/5300 or 5200/5400 series CPUS from the old Mac Pro days. And the memory performance has also improved dramatically. FB-DIMMs were a pretty stupid idea, especially for desktop computers.
Today, even a current quadcore Mac mini will most likely outperform your Mac Pro in anything except maybe graphics performance.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:31 GMT t.est
Re: a new machine is 2-3x that price and for what...
Nope it won't
The MacPro1,1 has pretty good I/O capabilities. That's it's strong part. If you only consider CPU speeds you are maybe correct. But as soon as you start doing I/O the old mac pro outperforms most pc's. But then it's a proper workstation, not a generic PC.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:16 GMT asdf
Re: hmm
>b) a legal paid up copy of Mac OS X so am struggling to work out why this isn't completely legitimate.
Which requires you to have another new Mac around so that the stupid ass Mac store will actually allow you to purchase and download it. Apple goes out of there way to make sure they check your machine before they even legally allow you to join their club. Your money is not good enough for them unless your membership card is up to date.
>Perhaps thats the problem and why the Saintly all-knowing, never wrong, android hating Jobs never really liked the Pro and why Acolyte Cook is struggling to replace it. It works, it doesn't go wrong (for me) and its cost effective.
Exactly Apple hates any system that can be upgraded in any way. They only believe in the making fancy enclosed appliance like stuff that must be replaced every few years an not upgraded. And they don't push the Mac Pro much because as you say at least when I bought mine it was actually cost effective to comparable dual socket PC of the era.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 12:51 GMT Davidoff
Mac Pro and 64bit
"The limitation with the original Mac Pros if I remember correctly was that those CPUs can't do 64-bit"
No, the CPUs do 64bit just fine when sitting in a non-Apple system (I have a Dell Precision 690 using the same intel XEON 5365 processors as the old Mac Pros, running Windows 7 x64 just fine).
The problem was with Apple's implementation (or better: crippeling) of UEFI which they used as system firmware instead of a standard BIOS. UEFI has it's advantages but Apple removed most of them for the Mac Pro. It's this firmware which prevents it from running 64bit OS X.
But then, the firsg gen Mac Pro's could only take 16GB anyways (32GB with 3rd party modules and an user accepting the risk for killing the memory because of overheating), at a time when Windows/Linux workstations a la Dell Precision 690 or HP xw8400 could already take 64GB. Without overheating.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:24 GMT t.est
Re: hmm
Actually the CPU do 64 bit fine.
Problem is 32 bit EFI support only. But everything else is supporting 64 bit. Apple choose not enable booting the kernel in 64 bit mode, by a n update.
But you can bypass the 32bit efi with some thinkering to make it load the 64 bit kernel in 10.8. 10.7 was last to ship with 32 bit kernel.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:20 GMT t.est
Re: hmm
Well
iPads have 4:3 screens
iPhones have 3:2 screens except iPhone 5 which have 16:9.
Nothing there tells that iPads will go 16:9
Planned obsolescence isn't two years with Apple. Here are some figures.
here is an bit old image but you get the idea
http://www.knowyourmobile.com/siteimage/scale/0/0/300316.gif
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Thursday 7th February 2013 11:47 GMT EvilGav 1
@Hans 1 Re: hmm
Errm, nope, not at all.
I'm running a Core 2 Quad Q6600 from November 2007 (ok, 1 year newer than the Pro).
It's currently quite happily sitting running Windows 8.
It's due to be replaced in a couple of months as I want something a bit more up to date.
It wont be dead, though, it'll be going off as a new PC for a friends son where it will be just as capable of running the same software.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:05 GMT asdf
Re: hmm
>Note that most Windows running crap from that year is probably on a dump somewhere today .... so you could consider yourself lucky.
Apple would prefer that also which they are not so subtly trying to get me to do with forced software obsolescence. As I mentioned though Windows OSes from 2006 and even he latest greatest Windows OS (yuck) run just fine on the hardware. Yes it was six years ago but it was top of the line hardware then and it still even runs games fine today. If you haven't noticed much of the reason why PC hardware sales in general are collapsing is because its no longer true a computer from a few years ago can't do the latest greatest. And if Linux and even Windows can support Mac hardware from 2006 why the hell can't Apple?
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 22:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
Had one since 2008
Had one since 2008 as my main workstation for video editing. It was bloody expensive and it is very heavy. It is well built and its nice to work on internally provided you are accessing the bits Apple want you to be able to access. Airflow is exceptional internally and the fans only makes a noise when you thrash the CPU for hours on end.
It's never given me any hassle at all. Sits there, switched on 24/7 all year round barring Christmas. Chugs away, batch processes video encode jobs overnight, keeps all the data in one place and runs beautifully.
The magic is that it does "just work". The previous edit suite ran on XP. Cheaper? Hell yeah! But the problem always was that everyone running Windows has slightly different hardware config. So you'd apply an update and all the video acceleration would suddenly become invisible to the edit software or something (this used to happen more than I'd like). I'd sit there tearing my hair out trying to work out what had gone wrong this time. On a production machine that is annoying.
Could you build a better spec Windows PC for far less money? Easily! Could you guarantee I wouldn't lose any edit days to niggy hardware problems that will crop up? Probably not.
If Apple offer an updated version I'll probably go for it when the time is right so glad to see they aren't dropping it.
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 23:13 GMT Malcolm Weir
While I agree with the concept (since strictly Apple limits what will work with MacOS, it's approximately one metric fuckton easier to ensure compatibility), the reality is that Apple isn't going to give you that guarantee that you won't lose edit days due to upgrades; what they do get you is a lower risk of that sort of thing happening (although the other aspect of this is that it is perfectly possible to achieve the same with non-Mac boxes, it's just harder because YOU have to pick the mainstream fully supported parts, rather than Apple doing it for you).
(The other other aspect is that traditionally Apple has been slow to provide upgrades to MacOS, even when they should because of security vulnerabilities, and provide fewer of them, therefore reducing the chances of upgrade problems by reducing the number of upgrades).
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Wednesday 6th February 2013 23:31 GMT asdf
>While I agree with the concept (since strictly Apple limits what will work with MacOS, it's approximately one metric fuckton easier to ensure compatibility)
Keep believing those lies. I guess getting enough people to believe that is how you become a 600 billion dollar company. What I am saying is Apples goes out of their way to drop support for their own hardware they designed. It has gotten especially obvious in the last few years.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 06:10 GMT Malcolm Weir
Lies? What lies? The sentence you quoted noted nothing more than it is EASIER to ensure compatibility. You apparently conflate that with some kind of alleged guarantee that compatibility will be achieved.
Over here in the real world, decisions on what degree of backward compatibility (and compatibility testing) may or may not make it into a given release (of anything) factor the ease (or otherwise) of getting that job done. If it is easier, the probability is higher than if it is harder. Sorry this is confusing.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 17:27 GMT asdf
no
No the lie (not yours) is that Apple wants to imply that they can only support a very limited subset of even their own hardware in order for everything to just work. I can buy the argument they don't want to support others hardware (although Microsoft and Linux for at least the last 5 to 10 years has had no problems really doing this) but for the most valuable company in the world they should find a way to support their own hardware just a bit better instead forcing everyone to pay top dollar again every few years. It might be why their downward curve has already started again.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 03:21 GMT MachDiamond
It's amazing that Apple has made any sort of announcement. Steve Jobs was big on secrecy and Tim Cook suffers from the same disease in a more advanced stage. It's about time Apple upgraded the Mac Pro. I don't care for the mac v. win v. lin debates. In the creative world the software that is used the most runs on Mac, period. Yes, there are alternatives and many vendors have the same app that runs on Windows as well, but creative people prefer the Mac interface. You may also notice that when you watch videos of NASA engineers, the computer mix is usually AT LEAST 50% Mac.
Me? I have WinXP and Win7 and Ubuntu running with VMware. I need to live in all worlds and my Mac Pro lets me do that. There are woefully few good CAD programs available on the Mac, so I use the Windows install to allow me to use a serious CAD package. When I am coding embedded systems, linux rules and I use that.
A previous comment stated that there was no way except a PCI card to get WiFi on the vintage of Mac Pro that they possess. Mine's a 2006 and has a slot to stick in an Airport (or clone) card, but the computer is not particularly portable so I stick to the old fashioned ethernet cable that just happens to be much faster than flinging bits through the air. I have WiFi so I can tote my laptop around the house and if I ever actually watched TV, I could set up some sort of WiFi link to stream movies over there. I'd run ethernet cable everywhere, but I'm just renting the house.
Competition is good. It keeps all of the players on their toes and keeps us lot in good kit.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 11:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Nasa Mac Love
Not surprised that the Mac found its way into NASA. They were pretty keen on the Amiga back in the day.
Ah here we go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAPD9HA8Unw
Long and short of that video is that back in the 80's NASA wanted to use Macs but Apple wouldn't play ball. So they went to Commodore instead. I assume Apple have since had a change of heart.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 04:58 GMT -tim
What is new?
If their last few upgrades are any indication, this new one will have a band new upgraded RoHS sticker.
I wish they would put a real power chip back in these things. When Apple was doing OS X for the PPC, they were still building for x86 internally and they found many bugs doing the dual platform development. A Power 7/8 device would regain their title of having the fastest desktop computer again and would help reduce their bug count in their products while keeping a core customer demographic very happy. Too bad they won't even consider that anymore.
/mines the one with the g4 laptop in the very large pocket
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Thursday 7th February 2013 10:00 GMT Jay 2
I've had my Mac Pro for about four and a half years now. It cost a small fortune, but at least I saved a bit my putting my own memory and disk in. I deliberately got a Pro as I wanted a Mac with more than one disk, and I was messing about with video a bit at the time. I've had no real problems with it, though the OS is a bit laggy every now and again, but that's probably my fault for being lazy and upgrading rather then a fresh install. And on that subject I have a sneaky feeling that for the next release of Mac OS Apple may shift their support window and leave my Pro out in the cold.
I see my Pro going for a good few years yet (not bad considering I used to replace my Win PCs every 2-3 years) and I'd love to replace it with another Pro (hopefully with USB3, Thunderbolt etc all thrown in), so fingers crossed Apple don't do away with it and try and convince people that a Mac Mini with serveral daisychained external drives is a good thing...
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Thursday 7th February 2013 10:35 GMT Electric sheep
Interesting
You say it will be barred from Europe and refer to a standard on a none European website?
Failure to comply to EN60950 is not a reason to bar an item from Europe. Failure to comply with the LVD (Low voltage directive) is the only way to bar an item from Europe.
Compliance with EN60950 does not automatically infer compliance with the directive.
You can market something provided it complies with the directive even if it does not meet EN60950.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 11:11 GMT The FunkeyGibbon
The lack of a new Mac Pro
Just shows how superficial Apple have got with their product line. It's all glitz and surface. That's not to say that the products are bad just that they are not competing on performance like they used to. The new Macbook Pro? That's sold on it's flashy screen. Why? Because the CPU, RAM and HDDs are all stock components that are found in loads of PCs from any number of manufacturers or system builders.
I agree with the poster above, -tim, that the change from PPC to x86 has cost Apple their 'power' crown.
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Thursday 7th February 2013 13:09 GMT Davidoff
The change from PPC to x86 has cost Apple their 'power' crown.
No, it hasn't. The later PowerPC Macs (later G4s and the G5) were in fact quite slow, even when compared to the dreadful Pentium4 with its Netburst architecture (and the XEONs which were based on the same stuff). When intel finally came out with their Core 2 processors, Apple was lost. Plain and simple.
The only positive thing for Apple in using PowerPCs was that they were different enough to act as a differentiator from ordinary PCs. Since Apple adopted x86, there is not much which makes a Mac different from a PC, and in the areas there still is a difference, Apple is mostly more limiting.