WWDC 2023 this Monday 5th June

Wonder what they’ll announce. Plenty of rumours.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Wonder what they’ll announce. Plenty of rumours.

New software, hopefully with a lot less bugs in the iPadOS and iOS for portable and mobile at least. Anything else is rumour of course as its the software event.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Anything else is rumour of course as its the software event.

Hardware needs to be developed too

In reply to a post by billford:

Hardware needs to be developed too

Of course, but primarily this Apple event is for their software developer community, as we saw with the Apple Silicon transition, there can be transition and experimentation hardware made available so that apps can be created long before any new hardware product is ready to show or announce.

At this point there is zero chance that they aren't announcing an AR/VR system next week.

If they weren't there would have been leaks by now to make it clear that they aren't.

this Apple event is for their software developer community

And they need to know the hardware roadmap, since that will influence what their software can do.

M2Max/Ulrtra reported as being tested.

AR/VR gubbins seems nailed on.

I would guess, new Mac Pros too (so an expandable/ pluggable Mac Studio, maybe?)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

At this point there is zero chance that they aren't announcing an AR/VR system next week. If they weren't there would have been leaks by now to make it clear that they aren't.

Yep, but I'm guessing a developer box to create apps for an AR/VR system, rather than the system itself being launched. Who knows?

My guesses:

- very expensive developer version of the hardware available immediately
- an announcement that the consumer version will launch "later this year"
- possibly not even showing the consumer version
- consumer version launches in the autumn, at $1,999 rather than the $3,000 that has been mentioned in rumours (much like the iPad had much higher rumoured pricing until it was unveiled)

In reply to a post by ian_c:

I would guess, new Mac Pros too (so an expandable/ pluggable Mac Studio, maybe?)

I'd give a 50:50 chance of either that or launching the M2 Ultra Mac Studio and saying "this thing is so great, we don't need a Mac Pro after all".

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by ian_c:

I would guess, new Mac Pros too (so an expandable/ pluggable Mac Studio, maybe?)

I'd give a 50:50 chance of either that or launching the M2 Ultra Mac Studio and saying "this thing is so great, we don't need a Mac Pro after all".

Yes. Much conjecture about the "quandary" of the Pro in the age of the mother of all SoC families. Will it live or die.

I think at this point the best way to address the small section of people who actually need a Mac Pro would be to have an external box that people can plug their PCIe cards into.

I can't really see Apple doing this themselves though. But maybe they'd get LaCie/Promise/Sonnet/OWC to produce some that Apple explicitly endorse and commit to supporting really well in macOS.

I know all those companies already have such boxes, but how well do they actually work with Apple Silicon Macs ? (I know for example that Apple Silicon Macs have no support for external GPUs)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Wonder what they’ll announce. Plenty of rumours.

it will be interesting to see, but I doubt I will buy anything else by Apple, I am happy with my Mac mini and hopefully it will last for a few good years.
A friend of mine who has a dustbin Mac pro is looking at updating, but I think she will go for a Mac mini M2 pro, the only problem is the monitor she has got is the older thunderbolt and I don't think the new ones work with it.

All that is needed is a Thunderbolt 1/2 to 3 adapter. £49 for the official Apple one - cheaper than a new monitor.

She should be able to use her older Thunderbolt display with any Apple Silicon machine.

She'll need a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 adapter to make it work though.

https://amzn.to/3MQNpMV

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

All that is needed is a Thunderbolt 1/2 to 3 adapter. £49 for the official Apple one - cheaper than a new monitor.

Only £27.97 at Amazon https://amzn.to/3MQNpMV

Good price for the genuine article. Ther are cheaper third-party offerings, but probably not worth it for the sake of a few quid.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Good price for the genuine article. Ther are cheaper third-party offerings, but probably not worth it for the sake of a few quid.

Given its likely DP over "alt mode" that is used for the critical service, the picture.

There is a surprising amount going on in that unassuming "cable".

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Thunderbolt+3+...

Including three separate DC to DC converters !?

Though I guess a lot of that is probably not being used when the handshake happens to say, just send DisplayPort data...

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

There is a surprising amount going on in that unassuming "cable".

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Thunderbolt+3+...

Including three separate DC to DC converters !?

Though I guess a lot of that is probably not being used when the handshake happens to say, just send DisplayPort data...

Always wondered why the 'hump' in that adapter was so.....humpy 😅 Thanks for sharing.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

All that is needed is a Thunderbolt 1/2 to 3 adapter. £49 for the official Apple one - cheaper than a new monitor.

Only £27.97 at Amazon https://amzn.to/3MQNpMV

cheers peeps, I will let her know for when she decides to update., To be honest the dustbin Mac is still going strong.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Wonder what they’ll announce. Plenty of rumours.

No more rumours now...

https://www.apple.com/apple-events/event-stream/

Well, they did it. An M2 Ultra Mac Studio in a MacPro case 😉

With a few PCEi slots...

Only $6,999

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by ian_c:

I would guess, new Mac Pros too (so an expandable/ pluggable Mac Studio, maybe?)

I'd give a 50:50 chance of either that or launching the M2 Ultra Mac Studio and saying "this thing is so great, we don't need a Mac Pro after all".

Looks like they announced BOTH. Blimey!

It’s difficult to see why anyone would want the Pro rather than the Studio.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

At this point there is zero chance that they aren't announcing an AR/VR system next week. If they weren't there would have been leaks by now to make it clear that they aren't.

Yep, but I'm guessing a developer box to create apps for an AR/VR system, rather than the system itself being launched. Who knows?

There it is. Vision Pro. "Facial Computer" / "Mixed Reality Headset"

Spatial computer was their term.

The cleverest thing in that reveal would have flown over a lot of people's heads: the brief bit about visualising a production line. And I have little difficulty imagining a lot of more-money-than-sense marketing firms buying them. Top end interior designers too (the sort for people who fit out HNWI properties). New store layouts too.

Doesn't solve any problem I have, but a proper clever bit of kit.

Edited by ian_c (Mon 05-Jun-23 20:26:24)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

My guesses:

- very expensive developer version of the hardware available immediately
- an announcement that the consumer version will launch "later this year"
- possibly not even showing the consumer version
- consumer version launches in the autumn, at $1,999 rather than the $3,000 that has been mentioned in rumours (much like the iPad had much higher rumoured pricing until it was unveiled)

Not sure I've ever been much more wrong...

No developer version. Not shipping until 2024. They showed it. It is $3,499 !!!!!

There is a niche set of users for which it is basically a requirement to be able to do their jobs on a Mac.

Think musicians/composers/audio engineers who rely on having rock stable low latency setups with 5 or more PCIe cards for all their fancy audio and control interfaces.

Or video production houses who need a stack of specialised PCIe video in/out cards.

It is a very small market, but there are people out there who actually need something like the MacPro.

Yeah, the days when a single frame of Treebeard (in LoTR) took 48 hours to render are long gone.

Yes, but you can buy thunderbolt pcie expansion units for a lot less than the price difference between the Studio and the Pro.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Yes, but you can buy thunderbolt pcie expansion units for a lot less than the price difference between the Studio and the Pro.

I think it's simply about having more of everything - expansion wise - on the Pro box. For those that need it of course and are prepared to pay, otherwise yeah the Studio is awesome As said the Pro is a niche machine in the line up.

Just saw a price comparison.

Full specced Intel Mac Pro - $52,000
Fully specced M2 Ultra Mac Pro - $6,200 (with 16 more GPU cores that specced up Studio and starts at 32gb RAM, BTW)

I would imagine that Apple has listened carefully to the fairly niche market for these things and have studios=uly given the market what it asked for - pci slots.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Well, they did it. An M2 Ultra Mac Studio in a MacPro case 😉

With a few PCEi slots...

Only $6,999

How is that going to work I wonder? That means that any hardware that uses the PCIE slots will need drivers and to be honest I can't see many hardware manufactures writing drivers for their hardware for Mac silicon.,
No memory expansion, I can kind of understand why.

Is it possible to expand the storage in the machine?

In reply to a post by ian_c:

Just saw a price comparison.

Full specced Intel Mac Pro - $52,000
Fully specced M2 Ultra Mac Pro - $6,200 (with 16 more GPU cores that specced up Studio and starts at 32gb RAM, BTW)

I would imagine that Apple has listened carefully to the fairly niche market for these things and have studios=uly given the market what it asked for - pci slots.

i am happy with my Mac mini m2 pro, it does what I need.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Is it possible to expand the storage in the machine?

Yes. Either via PCIe or Thunderbolt.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

Just saw a price comparison.

Full specced Intel Mac Pro - $52,000
Fully specced M2 Ultra Mac Pro - $6,200 (with 16 more GPU cores that specced up Studio and starts at 32gb RAM, BTW)

I would imagine that Apple has listened carefully to the fairly niche market for these things and have studios=uly given the market what it asked for - pci slots.

A fully decked out M2 Ultra Mac Studio (24‑core CPU, 76‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine, 192GB unified memory, 8TB SSD storage) is £8,999 here.

A fully decked out M2 Ultra Mac Pro with the same spec as above is £11,999. You also get a Magic Keyboard and Mouse for that price.

So the real delta is more like £2,700 between the two. So basically a chassis that can take six PCIe Gen 4 slots, has an extra 10 GbE port, an extra HDMI port and 2 more Thunderbolt-4 ports.

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 06-Jun-23 11:06:47)

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Is it possible to expand the storage in the machine?

Yes. Either via PCIe or Thunderbolt.

So not much different to what other Macs are in that regard, no Sata or NVMe, it will be classed as external storage to Apple OS

I’m pretty sure that a PCIe drive is classed as internal storage.

SATA is slow; NVMe uses the PCIe interface. PCIe is the physical interface, NVMe is the communication protocol.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

So the real delta is more like £2,700 between the two. So basically a chassis that can take six PCIe Gen 4 slots, has an extra 10 GbE port, an extra HDMI port and 2 more Thunderbolt-4 ports.

And an extra USB-A port, that internal one that is intended for software licence dongles.

And also it has same option for a couple of internal drives that the Intel one has (it has the two 6GB SATA ports).

And presumably a lot quieter than the Ultra Studio under load.

You can also officially upgrade the SSD on the Mac Pro

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MR393ZM/A/appl...

The price is eye-watering, £1,000 for a 2TB SSD. Only £820 more than the Samsung 990 PRO I bought recently.

Oh and don't forget the wheels...

Edited by andynormancx (Tue 06-Jun-23 15:47:25)

The Mac Pro has space for two 3.5 drives and has two SATA headers on the motherboard. You have to buy an extra bracket to add them though.

And you can upgrade the SSD, with an Apple supplied part, at vastly inflated prices.

Or you could put a card in one of the PCIe card slots with a bunch of NVMe drives on it.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

How is that going to work I wonder? That means that any hardware that uses the PCIE slots will need drivers and to be honest I can't see many hardware manufactures writing drivers for their hardware for Mac silicon.,

We aren't talking about general mass market cards here, it will be niche devices aimed at musicians/composers/audio people and video input/output cards (not GPU cards).

And I expect the makers of those niche cards know how keenly some of their customers want to keep using Macs. Many of them even go to the trouble of providing Linux drivers 😉

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

So the real delta is more like £2,700 between the two. So basically a chassis that can take six PCIe Gen 4 slots, has an extra 10 GbE port, an extra HDMI port and 2 more Thunderbolt-4 ports.

And an extra USB-A port, that internal one that is intended for software licence dongles.

And also it has same option for a couple of internal drives that the Intel one has (it has the two 6GB SATA ports).

And presumably a lot quieter than the Ultra Studio under load.

You can also officially upgrade the SSD on the Mac Pro

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MR393ZM/A/appl...

The price is eye-watering, £1,000 for a 2TB SSD. Only £820 more than the Samsung 990 PRO I bought recently.

Oh and don't forget the wheels...

Indeed. My point was that the price delta wasn’t as great between the two as claimed. Not sure where the $52k cost of the Pro came from / perhaps that was loaded with other drives etc?

For professional users with budget, the uplift is actually not that much in the grand scheme of things really - if you’re in the market for one - and can imagine some pro grade dedicated/specialist music and video PCIe add in cards could be half as much as the base system cost if not more.

Here:

https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/05/mac-pro-max-price-2/

(I inadvertently transcribed the delta from base to full: so it's $50k plays $12k

The old Intel one, yeah adding AfterBurner cards and memory etc

If you go to the Apple UK store you can max spec both new M2 Ultra in Studio and Pro form and (with the exception of wheels!) get the answers I gave above.

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 06-Jun-23 16:51:07)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

How is that going to work I wonder? That means that any hardware that uses the PCIE slots will need drivers and to be honest I can't see many hardware manufactures writing drivers for their hardware for Mac silicon.,

We aren't talking about general mass market cards here, it will be niche devices aimed at musicians/composers/audio people and video input/output cards (not GPU cards).

And I expect the makers of those niche cards know how keenly some of their customers want to keep using Macs. Many of them even go to the trouble of providing Linux drivers 😉

Just like ATTO who emailed me to tell me they’re “ready…now!!” 🤣

https://postimg.cc/Jt9VHxyN

https://postimg.cc/DS1X3xGB

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Just like ATTO who emailed me to tell me they’re “ready…now!!” 🤣

Of course, this is pretty much why they created their products. I remember someone using an ATTO thunderbolt to 10GigE unit years ago (may have even been RevK).

I always assumed the (local for Apple) customers for the Mac Pro chassis with these cards was the likes of the studios in LA, Paramount, MGM, etc. If you’re spending $150m on a movie and expecting to get $400m at box office, spending $1m on the hardware for your team is not really an issue.

I know some scientists (at a Uni in the US) whom had Intel Mac Pro’s in a server room they would remote into to run long computation / analysis jobs. I always wondered why they didn’t use a Linux Intel server, and was told it was because the Mac Pro was run by IT as any other Mac…. Shared between 50 scientists it wasn’t expensive.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I know some scientists (at a Uni in the US) whom had Intel Mac Pro’s in a server room they would remote into to run long computation / analysis jobs. I always wondered why they didn’t use a Linux Intel server, and was told it was because the Mac Pro was run by IT as any other Mac…. Shared between 50 scientists it wasn’t expensive.

Do you recall SGI / Silicon Graphics from the early nineties? Universities and research institutes were also big buyers of them, just like the film and graphics industries. Then they slowly slid to oblivion in the noughties.

Just the Xeon CPU in that beast was somewhere around $10,000 retail.

Ha, I was looking to see if I could see if there was already anyone announcing support to include in my post.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Do you recall SGI / Silicon Graphics from the early nineties? Universities and research institutes were also big buyers of them, just like the film and graphics industries. Then they slowly slid to oblivion in the noughties.

I never used, my academic experience was SPARC (SunOS) and VaxVMS on the Alpha… but friends of mine at other establishments were all on Irix…. SGI !

I had a nice little SGI Indy that I inherited from work. Unfortunately I managed to drop a screwdriver on it when I had the case open (it was on at the time) and something went bang. We all make mistakes.

Irix was a nice Unix for its time.

Ouch!! There’s always Ian’s SGI Depot if your feeling a deep pang of nostalgia / in need of some last millennia raw compute talent 😅

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Do you recall SGI / Silicon Graphics from the early nineties? Universities and research institutes were also big buyers of them, just like the film and graphics industries. Then they slowly slid to oblivion in the noughties.

I remember them, never used one, but seen one in action. strange how times have changed, in the day it was a very powerful machine and yet now a home machine is better at what that machine did

They (along with lots of other specialist workstation makers) were always under pressure from commodity machines, which kept getting more powerful and cheaper. Strange to think those original machines are now 30 years old.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by ian_c:

Just saw a price comparison.

Full specced Intel Mac Pro - $52,000
Fully specced M2 Ultra Mac Pro - $6,200 (with 16 more GPU cores that specced up Studio and starts at 32gb RAM, BTW)

I would imagine that Apple has listened carefully to the fairly niche market for these things and have studios=uly given the market what it asked for - pci slots.

A fully decked out M2 Ultra Mac Studio (24‑core CPU, 76‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine, 192GB unified memory, 8TB SSD storage) is £8,999 here.

A fully decked out M2 Ultra Mac Pro with the same spec as above is £11,999. You also get a Magic Keyboard and Mouse for that price.

So the real delta is more like £2,700 between the two. So basically a chassis that can take six PCIe Gen 4 slots, has an extra 10 GbE port, an extra HDMI port and 2 more Thunderbolt-4 ports.

Target audiences for an M2-based Mac Pro…or something

https://youtu.be/naeTkt21S6w