New Mac Pros next week would be a welcome signal to professional users

by Kenny Hemphill on July 12, 2011

While the leaking of part numbers for new MacBook Airs may not have told us anything we didn’t already strongly suspect. The fact that they were accompanied by part codes for what looks like a new Mac Pro series was something of a surprise.10macpro hero

If true, the arrival of a new Mac Pro and Mac Pro server, with Lion pre-installed, next week will be welcomed by professional Mac users. They’ve had a tough time of it lately. The launch of Final Cut Pro X left many professional video editors angry at the change in workflow and missing features, and confused by Apple’s apparent change of strategy with its flagship video suite.

And to make matters worse, on Friday Bare Feats published the results of tests it had carried out using Final Cut Pro X on a Mac Pro, a Core i7 iMac, and two Core i7 MacBook Pros. In two of the tests, the iMac beat the Mac Pro for speed, and in the other two it was a very close second. Those aren’t the kind of results you want to see if you’re thinking about investing heavily in Apple’s professional desktop Mac.

With every upgrade it seems as though the iMac is edging closer and closer to the Mac Pro in performance terms. It’s already a more than capable Mac for many professional users. Let’s hope the Mac Pro upgrade puts some clear distance between it and the rest of the pack.

Tagged as: final cut pro x, iMac, Mac Pro

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  • glenmactoo

    Given the power that is now available from the iMac and the MacBook Pros, it is not clear why Apple do not provide a Mini Pro, other than Steve Jobs’ fetish with selling all-in-ones.
    Merely double the height of the Mini and it should be possible to have a really powerful and adaptable computer, in a small package, but allowing a greater choice of peripherals (many of which could be Apple made). At the moment the Mini sits in no-mans land, offering inferior performance, at a highish price. The advent of the iCloud would surely make it even more attractive, since it would provide a more-or-less all in one package for the semi-pro how would like to choose their own screen, but isn’t interested in the rest of the hassle.
    When my G5 Tower blew up a couple of years ago I wasn’t entirely unhappy since it gave me back leg room under my desk, and no more hernias lifting it. I would have loved a Mini Pro, but the Mini just looked like the proverbial wimp compared to an iMac.
    The Pro was a cost too far.

  • jdickey1

    I’d love to see a Mac Pro that was consistently, unambiguously superior to the iMac I’m typing this on. I don’t think I will, though; Apple’s new strategy of “make Macs more like iDevices” means “we don’t want to be in the discrete systems business; we want to sell sealed-box appliance computers.” They’re very nice “appliance computers”, as such concepts go; and it’s been known for years that only a tiny minority of computer owners (well into the single digits percentagewise) ever even crack open their system. So, as a shareholder if not as a customer and fan, I can certainly understand this.

    What I’d really love to see is an Apple computer that fills the niche aimed at by the ancient PowerTower Pro 225 warming my back: a middle-of-the-road, upgradeable system. The 225 doesn’t have its original hard drive, its original memory, or the monitor that was first bought with the system… but it still does useful work day in and day out, and is quite recognisably both part of the Mac tradition and something completely alien to the current lineup from Cupertino.

    I came back to the Mac precisely because I’d had enough of attempting to deal with Windows; while I still had some hair not yet pulled out, I wanted a system that Just Worked in the grand old tradition. When I mentioned all this to a sales guy in one of the Apple authorised dealers here in Second World Singapore, he just laughed and said I should think about a Hackintosh.

    No, thank you; and I’ll be walking into the *other* authorised dealer first when looking for new kit.

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