Apple Mac Pro towers get speed upgrade; pro users hope for more

Posted By Sandi Nasseri on June 12, 2012 07:15 am | Permalink


By Sandy Nasseri
Owner/Founder
MelroseTEC

Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference yielded some interesting announcements on June 11, however it still left many in the creative community asking, "That's it?"

The entertainment industry has long been an Apple-friendly (if not outright Apple dependent) community, and a big consumer of the Mac Pro product line mainly due to the fact that the ability to install multiple PCIE Cards and multiple processor cores are attractive features in a technology that is a staple in many post houses. However, the Mac Pro line hasn't been updated now for a little over two years, which has caused many professional users to think that Apple is not interested in their market share. And from the writing on the wall, it does looks like Apple's push is more toward portable units rather than towers.

The good news that came out of the Apple WWDC that could allay some of the fears within the industry is that Apple doesn't have plans to completely discontinue the machines and still gave this line some attention. While no new towers have been announced, a speed upgrade will be made available that can potentially boost the unit speed by 1.5X its baseline (according to this Apple graph http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html). So this show of good faith indicates that the company isn't abandoning the Pro users yet.

The old adage that "something is better than nothing" comes to mind, especially after two-plus years of radio silence. However, I do share what is surely the community's disappointment that a more robust Mac Pro offering wasn't brought to the table. At least we can get excited that there are finally some tower upgrades, plus new announcements about the MacBook Pro line with the new Retina display and support for new dual Thunderbolt connections on the units to enable easy capture, backup and output. (See ARTICLE on Post's site.) 

Regardless, I am a true believer that Apple will still continue to support the pro community and have faith that there is a new Mac Pro or some other higher-end machine that we'll hear about before the end of 2012.

Sandy Nasseri is owner/founder of MelroseTEC and a member of the Apple Reseller Board (www.melrosemac.com). Melrose Mac, an Apple Authorized sales and service center, has locations in Culver City and Burbank.