Apple Discontinues iMac Pro

[Random_Person1234]

Summary

Apple has confirmed to MacRumors that they will be discontinuing the iMac Pro. The iMac Pro was released in December of 2017, and has received no substantial hardware changes over it's 3 year lifespan. Apple recommends those who want an all-in-one Mac for professional use should get the latest 27" Intel iMac. Currently, you can only buy a single iMac Pro configuration on Apple's site, with a "while supplies last" notice also on that page. That config contains a 3.0GHz 10-core Xeon W, 32 GB of 2666MHZ ECC RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, a Radeon Pro Vega 56 GPU, 10Gb Ethernet, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a 27" 5k display. This config costs $4,999.99.

 

Quotes

Quote

Apple on late Friday evening added a "while supplies last" notice to its iMac Pro product page worldwide, and removed all upgrade options for the computer, leaving only the standard configuration available to order for now.

Quote

We've since confirmed with Apple that when supplies run out, the iMac Pro will no longer be available whatsoever. Apple says the latest 27-inch iMac introduced in August is the preferred choice for the vast majority of pro iMac users, and said customers who need even more performance and expandability can choose the Mac Pro

Quote

Released in December 2017, the iMac Pro received no substantial hardware refreshes over its lifetime.

My thoughts

This isn't a surprise given that the iMac Pro was basically released to fill in the time period between the trashcan Mac Pro and the new Mac Pro. I would also recommend against buying the current 27" iMac since Apple is rumored to be releasing a redesigned iMac with Apple silicon soon.

 

Sources

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/06/apple-confirms-imac-pro-will-be-discontinued/

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac-pro

[ProjectBox153]

That's interesting, but not at all surprising. It hasn't been a great choice for a while now. 

[whm1974]

So will Apple be releasing an ARM based Mac Pro sometime soon then?

[Jet_ski]

It’s a shame you can’t plug in an Apple mini and use the display. I’m sure you could make a very low latency screen-share through the thunderbolt.

[ProjectBox153]

12 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

It’s a shame you can’t plug in an Apple mini and use the display. I’m sure you could make a very low latency screen-share through the thunderbolt.

That used to be a thing. It's called Target Display Mode, and it was present on the 2009 and 2010 27" iMac and then the 2011-2013/14 non-5K iMacs. I use my 2011 27" iMac as a display for my 2013 13" MacBook Pro, and it's great. Unfortunately it doesn't work anymore with newer Macs. Macs from 2020 and newer can't output to an iMac in TDM, even if the iMac does support it. 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Random_Person1234 said:

Summary

Apple has confirmed to MacRumors that they will be discontinuing the iMac Pro. The iMac Pro was released in December of 2017, and has received no substantial hardware changes over it's 3 year lifespan. Apple recommends those who want an all-in-one Mac for professional use should get the latest 27" Intel iMac. Currently, you can only buy a single iMac Pro configuration on Apple's site, with a "while supplies last" notice also on that page. That config contains a 3.0GHz 10-core Xeon W, 32 GB of 2666MHZ ECC RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, a Radeon Pro Vega 56 GPU, 10Gb Ethernet, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a 27" 5k display. This config costs $4,999.99.

 

Quotes

My thoughts

This isn't a surprise given that the iMac Pro was basically released to fill in the time period between the trashcan Mac Pro and the new Mac Pro. I would also recommend against buying the current 27" iMac since Apple is rumored to be releasing a redesigned iMac with Apple silicon soon.

 

Sources

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/06/apple-confirms-imac-pro-will-be-discontinued/

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac-pro

 

I think it's pretty clear that the iMac Pro, just like the Cylinder Mac Pro were not the tools Pro's wanted. They want a traditional tower that is expandable, not a AIO with a built in screen, and not an art-piece.

 

Like I've tried to rationalize buying Mac's and the only system that has ever justified their costs were the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini, and only to the extent that the Mac Pro is for expandability, and the Mini is for building Mac/iOS software with, it's not terribly useful for any pro application, and likewise most iMac's are in this bizarre niche where someone can get away with an AIO (All in One), like a student, but you are just straight up better having a laptop.

 

[ProjectBox153]

Just now, Kisai said:

Like I've tried to rationalize buying Mac's and the only system that has ever justified their costs were the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini, and only to the extent that the Mac Pro is for expandability, and the Mini is for building Mac/iOS software with, it's not terribly useful for any pro application, and likewise most iMac's are in this bizarre niche where someone can get away with an AIO (All in One), like a student, but you are just straight up better having a laptop.

Not always. Some people just want a desktop computer, not a MacBook plugged into a monitor all the time. The iMac is a one-cable solution for that, and it works really well for a lot of things. The iMac Pro just wasn't what people wanted. 

[captain_to_fire]

9 hours ago, whm1974 said:

So will Apple be releasing an ARM based Mac Pro sometime soon then?

Rumor has it that Apple will release two Mac Pros, one is an update to the cheese grater SKU with newer Intel Xeon chips and it will be the last Mac to get an Intel chip. The other one will be similar to the design of the Power Mac G4 cube but with Apple Silicon inside instead of an Intel chip.

[Arika]

To be honest, a workstation / professional all-in-one has never made sense to me.

[GDRRiley]

8 hours ago, Kisai said:

ike I've tried to rationalize buying Mac's and the only system that has ever justified their costs were the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini, and only to the extent that the Mac Pro is for expandability, and the Mini is for building Mac/iOS software with, it's not terribly useful for any pro application, and likewise most iMac's are in this bizarre niche where someone can get away with an AIO (All in One), like a student, but you are just straight up better having a laptop.

they still though price the mac pro and iMac pro out of the reach of schools who need new machines from their 2010 or 2012 mac pros

Still waiting on a mini mac pro, just 2-3 expansion slots with a desktop platform xeon

[Master Disaster]

8 hours ago, ProjectBox153 said:

That used to be a thing. It's called Target Display Mode, and it was present on the 2009 and 2010 27" iMac and then the 2011-2013/14 non-5K iMacs. I use my 2011 27" iMac as a display for my 2013 13" MacBook Pro, and it's great. Unfortunately it doesn't work anymore with newer Macs. Macs from 2020 and newer can't output to an iMac in TDM, even if the iMac does support it. 

When I first read though this I was thinking "That's not how target disk mode works", luckily I decided to read it through a second time and noticed you said display, not disk.

 

I've never heard of this before and had no idea it existed until today. TIL

[Video Beagle]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

When I first read though this I was thinking "That's not how target disk mode works", luckily I decided to read it through a second time and noticed you said display, not disk.

 

I've never heard of this before and had no idea it existed until today. TIL

Weirdly, I also read "target disk mode", despite knowing about display mode and knowing what they were talking about., and when read your comment, relooked at the origianal and saw it said display.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

When I first read though this I was thinking "That's not how target disk mode works", luckily I decided to read it through a second time and noticed you said display, not disk.

 

I've never heard of this before and had no idea it existed until today. TIL

Yea TDM was awesome, was sad to see it go. Was actually semi common for a multiple generation iMac owner to have two iMacs on their desk, the older one being a secondary monitor.

[Spindel]

iMac Pro was a stop gap during the wait for the new Mac Pro.

 

It’s not needed any more, specially with the AS macs that are about to come.

[ProjectBox153]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Yea TDM was awesome, was sad to see it go. Was actually semi common for a multiple generation iMac owner to have two iMacs on their desk, the older one being a secondary monitor.

It's such a nice feature. I still use my 2011 27" iMac as a monitor. 1440p display, excellent (seriously, excellent) speakers, what more could you want?

7 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

When I first read though this I was thinking "That's not how target disk mode works", luckily I decided to read it through a second time and noticed you said display, not disk.

 

I've never heard of this before and had no idea it existed until today. TIL

Yep, it's always been a bit confusing as to what models supported it and what Mac works as a source, but I've got it all now. It's a great feature, but it's been mostly gone for a while now. 

[Bombastinator]

17 hours ago, whm1974 said:

So will Apple be releasing an ARM based Mac Pro sometime soon then?

Rumor mill is saying there’s this thing that looks like a double or triple thick Mac mini that is going to be the new pro.  Until Apple releases though who knows?

[whm1974]

21 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Rumor mill is saying there’s this thing that looks like a double or triple thick Mac mini that is going to be the new pro.  Until Apple releases though who knows?

Is it just me, or did Apple fall quite a bit since Steve Jobs died? I mean the Mac gotten a deal more respect when MacOS X was release and Apple went to get the UNIX Standards.

[Bombastinator]

Just now, whm1974 said:

Is it just me, or did Apple fall quite a bit since Steve Jobs died? I mean the Mac gotten a deal more respect when MacOS X was release and Apple went to get the UNIX Standards.

I dunno.  The last time I bought a Mac Steve Jobs was still kicking. Bought my first one after the toaster Mac was retired.  I tried and fails to do anything useful with a NeXT. I bought their laptops before I bought a desktop.  The first Mac desktop I bought was an 840av. 

[Sauron]

It's almost like a non-expandable prosumer workstation was a stupid idea from the start.

21 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Is it just me, or did Apple fall quite a bit since Steve Jobs died? I mean the Mac gotten a deal more respect when MacOS X was release and Apple went to get the UNIX Standards.

By all metrics it's only done better over the past decade. It's not gotten better or worse in their design either, every problem you can point to in their products now fits perfectly with the way the company operated under Jobs.

49 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Rumor mill is saying there’s this thing that looks like a double or triple thick Mac mini that is going to be the new pro.

Damn, I wonder why they didn't think of that earlier!

 

Oh wait they did and it was awful

 

[D13H4RD]

Well, it was never really the kind of machine which would be fitting for a long-term product development cycle, given that it is a stopgap product until a proper Mac Pro was re-introduced.

 

An all-in-one professional workstation is a niche and not a very sensible machine when long-term expandibility is accounted for.

[Bombastinator]

41 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It's almost like a non-expandable prosumer workstation was a stupid idea from the start.

By all metrics it's only done better over the past decade. It's not gotten better or worse in their design either, every problem you can point to in their products now fits perfectly with the way the company operated under Jobs.

Damn, I wonder why they didn't think of that earlier!

 

Oh wait they did and it was awful

 

That one was fanless and really small.  It attempted to work with passive chimney effect air.  Only kind of worked.  Jobs hated fans with a desperate passion.  It killed the apple III.  Also it didn’t look much like a modern Mac mini. The pic I saw looked a LOT like a triple thick Mac mini.

[Commodus]

43 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Is it just me, or did Apple fall quite a bit since Steve Jobs died? I mean the Mac gotten a deal more respect when MacOS X was release and Apple went to get the UNIX Standards.

Yes and no.

 

In terms of sheer inventiveness and audacity, I'd say so. Jobs had an uncanny ability to foresee where tech was going and what it needed to solve. He also wasn't afraid to rethink whole products if he thought there was something better. I still remember how Apple ditched the iPod mini after just a year and a half to replace it with the iPod nano. The modern Apple is more iterative (see how often it reuses designs) and unwilling to take some big risks.

 

At the same time, post-Jobs Apple has a number of things going for it. In terms of sheer execution, it's brilliant — it knows how to target products at different audiences, and when it designs something well, it dominates (see: AirPods, Apple Watch, M1 Macs and the like). It's also not quite so rigid about its ideology. In the Jobs era, you knew the company would refuse to expand a product line or change with the times because Jobs, specifically, didn't like it (he wasn't a fan of music subscriptions). Cook-era Apple will happily cater to a market if it thinks there's enough interest, or have a change of heart if something didn't work.

 

We also tend to put Jobs on a pedestal far too often, to pretend that everything he touched turned to gold. He screwed up plenty of times — the misses just weren't bad enough to offset his tendency to deliver hits. iPod Hi-Fi? G4 Cube? Mobile Me? Many of those missteps were specifically Jobs' fault as he entered some categories too soon, misjudged a market or let his personal tastes override what people were really asking for. Apple is legendary for refusing to produce larger iPhones during Jobs' tenure, but it's clearly better off now that it has a whole range of handsets.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Rumor mill is saying there’s this thing that looks like a double or triple thick Mac mini that is going to be the new pro.  Until Apple releases though who knows?

It'll be one of the new Mac Pros. There will still be a traditional tower, if the rumors are correct; this is more of an adjunct for people who don't want to spend $6K on a 'headless' desktop and can live without the expansion slots.

[Bombastinator]

27 minutes ago, Commodus said:

It'll be one of the new Mac Pros. There will still be a traditional tower, if the rumors are correct; this is more of an adjunct for people who don't want to spend $6K on a 'headless' desktop and can live without the expansion slots.

I get the impression there are two levels of pro machines.  The $20,000 full towers for making movies with and the thick Mac mini’s for doing graphics.  I’m real interested in what the thick Mac mini’s will cost and what their graphics solution is. If there’s enough gpu and a low enough price I may buy one, run PC games on it at slightly reduced speeds (hence my interest in the GPU.  I’m gonna need a thick girl to do that) and just opt out of the cryptomining BS entirely.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Not surprised. Honestly considering they just reused the shell of the standard iMac with the only difference being the user replaceable stand/VESA mount (who still remembers the shenanigans that brought?), we shouldn't have expected any long term commitments to this thing.