Predicting the next Mac desktops | Hacker News Reader

Predicting the next Mac desktops

marco.org

31 pointsshawndumas19 comments

FWIW, Marco said on Twitter he already received credible-sounding emails claiming that both predictions are wrong: http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/216244550207942656

EDIT: He clarified further saying no retina iMacs and Ivy Bridge instead of Haswell Xeons: http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/216249589949399041

I don't see Retina as priority for the desktop line at the moment. Sales of standalone iMacs and Thunderbolt Displays are a rounding error on their income streams and ordering 27" panels would soak up a lot of HiDPI panel output that would be much more valuable in portables.

The yield rates on giant panels right now would probably be atrocious, driving up costs. And Apple clearly doesn't need Professional Imprimatur to make money anymore.

But in a year or two, 200DPI will be table stakes for anything with a display.

One reason for creating retina 27" displays would be for content generation. Developing and designing applications and other digital content for retina iPads and new retina MacBooks means that the designers need even more real estate.

No don't get me wrong, I would strangle for 200+ DPI across 27". And it does seem inevitable. I thin it's just asking too much of the supply right now, especially when there's an entire MacBook and MacBook Pro line to update, not forgetting the legacy Windows market too.

I don't think the Airs will get retina for a while – until a case redesign or the retina display gets thinner. Take a look at this shot from the Ars review of the 15": http://cdn.arstechnica.net//wp-content/uploads/2012/06/rMBP_...

The thickness of the two notebooks are the same, but the MBP has a much thicker display and thinner body. That's fine for the "spine" of the notebook, but I don't think the Air's thin end can get any thinner.

I think next in line for a retina display is the 13" Pro and that Apple might keep a non-retina vs retina distinction between the Airs and the Pro for a little while.

Good eye! I think you're totally right. This might force a new Air body which makes it more of a project than it would otherwise be.

If the Air wasn't selling it might be a priority, but these things appear to be blowing off the shelf.

It's an interesting theory, but technically the thunderbolt port carries the display signal separately from the data signal (which speed he quotes).

Display Port 1.2 Spec allows 17.28 Gbit/s of bandwidth and 1.0-1.1 allowed 8.64 Gbit/s. It looks like the current thunderbolt is based on 1.1.

I still don't see what's preventing them from shipping Core i7 Ivy Bridge Mac Pros now.

I wonder if the near future of the Mac Pro might be headless, providing storage, CPU and maybe GPU horsepower and advanced legacy I/O for an iOS device, which serves as the principal UI.

Mac Pros use Xeons, not i7s. But yeah, the big question is why they aren't using the Xeon E5 that's available now.

I'd probably take an i7 Ivy Bridge over the Xeon Sandy Bridge, especially if it meant a lower price point. I don't really make good use of all those cores in any case, though the L3 cache penalty would probably be felt.

Now you're into the xMac discussion. Everybody says they want an xMac, but Apple doesn't want to sell one.

Hmm, maybe you're right. The xMac is traditionally assumed to be a gaming device, with prosumer CPU and beefy GPU. This is likely a battle Apple can't win, as I can build a nice gaming rig for a relatively low price, and I'm going to want to run Windows on there in any case.

Maybe what I really want from Apple is an iServer, which is a Mac Mini with lots of HD bays and legacy I/O. Or maybe I'm in too small of a market, and I should just consider a Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt breakout expansion box.

It seems to me like using iOS apps to access your iServer's resources is the direction we're headed.

I would have been really entertained if this link returned a 404.

Maybe Apple is designing a new chip for the Mac desktops? A6?

That's not feasible. Even so, if the A6 is not ready yet, why not release an E5 stopgap? Supposedly Apple has a "plan B" for every situation, so they should have something.

In addition to the good points you make, I've heard that top people within Apple are increasingly assigned to the iPhone and iPad, and there just aren't enough (human) resources left over to design new desktops (to Apple's high standards).

Not bashing Apple but how much revolutionary design goes into a Mac desktop?

The CPU, chipset and graphics card are all off-the-shelf. The motherboard is Apple but isn't anything special. The cases are nicely built but so are high end HP workstation (since they are actually designed by BMW consulting)

It wouldn't tie up 1000s of Jonathon Ive's little helpers to stick a new Xeon and more memory slots in the existing models (and throw in Thunderbolt and USB3)

Agreed.

In fact, one of Apple's Chinese suppliers could probably do most of the design work involved in providing a product to customers who (e.g., because the customer is a large organization that cannot afford the cost and the publicity of losing a software-infringement lawsuit) cannot use Hackintoshes, but want to run OS X on hardware vaguely competitive with current beefy Windows and Linux tower computers.

May help: http://mactracker.ca/

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