And here we go again with the new Mac Pro “problem”. Jason Snell writing about the challenges Apple is facing with the unfinished Apple Silicon transition of its Mac line:
And all that custom work, all those distortions to what makes Apple silicon so successful, would be done for a product that’s a niche of a niche–and it’s work that Apple’s chip design team could have spent on a next-generation chip for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Remember the Trashcan Mac? The black cylinder Mac Pro was a closed system with very limited internal expandability beyond memory and SSD drive. Criticism from pro users lasted so long that Apple reverted his take on the Mac Pro with the return of the expandable machine in 2019. Pro users rejoiced as they could again add the PCI cards of their choices as well as adding as much memory they could afford. Problems fixed? Think again.
Now, enter the Apple Silicon chip: a highly regarded and efficient system-on-a-chip design with fixed amount of RAM and GPU (except for Pro, Max, Ultra flavours). A Mac Pro built around this chip would go against having 1 TB of RAM or external GPU without sacrificing latency and performance with support for RAM or eGPU. Apple Silicon makes the Mac a more closed system, just like the 2013 Trashcan Mac was. How ironic this is.
