Sales

First, there are the reasons Apple executives themselves gave for considering shelving the Pro. Reportedly, the sales of these expensive computers have dwindled to the point where making them isn’t nearly as profitable for Apple as it once was. Apple has never been particularly sentimental about keeping a computer around when it isn’t profitable; consider the fate of the G4 Cube, for example, which was introduced to the world in July 2000, and then discontinued just a year later after failing to impress the buying public. Desktop sales in general have been flagging, with notebooks and tablets picking up the slack.

Apple has been cited as bucking the downward trend in desktop sales, but the Mac Pro isn’t the computer whose sales we hear broken out during conference calls or at Apple special events. That honor is reserved for the iMac, Apple’s all-in-one that’s proving there’s still a market for affordable, sleek desktop computers.

The reason the Mac Pro doesn’t get a shout-out during Apple’s events is probably because Apple has nothing to crow about, because if there’s good reason to talk about how well a product is selling, Apple usually isn’t shy about doing so.

Thunderbolt

Apple may also be able to shore up the demand for added expandability using Thunderbolt technology, which is another point reportedly raised in discussion among Apple execs. Thunderbolt expansion devices will soon allow video capture cards and other devices that use PCI Express expansion connectors to be plugged in outside of the case to an iMac, MacBook or Mac mini. Thunderbolt also allows the direct connection of much faster RAID storage devices, and multiple displays, something the internal PCI Express slots in the Pro once provided exclusive access to.

Anticipating the mass market curve

The Mac Pro could still be a very useful piece of tech for a demanding set of niche customers, but those buyers are less and less Apple’s target market. Apple showed it wants to keep focus on the consumer end of its business when it discontinued the Xserve back in Nov. 2010, and it redesigned Final Cut Pro with non-professional end users in mind. In both cases, it eventually made concessions to try to ease the blow for professional users (Mac mini server model and promised updates to Final Cut Pro X).

Apple succeeds mainly because it keeps its product lines tight, so that it can focus on doing a few things very well, instead of many things adequately. This past fall, it even skipped a substantial iPod touch update, which is the biggest seller of its media player line, which indicates it could already be anticipating a future where the iPhone completely scratches that itch. The Mac Pro, which is much farther away from its core business, could hardly merit more attention.

Closing a door, but opening many windows

Shuttering the Mac Pro could understandably disappoint some users, since it would effectively represent the end of significant, Apple-sanctioned internal tinkering by end users, but as I wrote about before, Thunderbolt could introduce many external expandability options where once there for few.

In the long run, it’s better for Apple’s core business (and where its future customers will mostly be) to focus on making products with wide appeal that can also serve the professional needs of the few with somewhat pricey add-ons, than to sell a prohibitively expensive machine that only a select few can justify buying to begin with.

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Facebook and Twitter share links are kind of a weird addition, if you ask me. Are people really all that likely to want to share basic information about available Apple products along with links for where to purchase them? I can see people maybe using it to brag about an upcoming purchase, but that’s about it. But it is something that’s been in place at the iTunes Store for a while now, and I suppose if even some people tweet or post about Apple products to their wall, the links will have done their job.

As mentioned, so far, these drop-down menus are only appearing for Mac Pro and iPod classic models. It’s possible that the role out was stopped midway, if it somehow contributed to the store outage, which web performance monitoring firm Catchpoint told GigaOM via email was network-related.

We’ll keep watching to see if these appear throughout the store, and let us know if you spot them anywhere else, too.

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It turns out that Mac Intel chips have a built-in feature called THERMTRIP that will temporarily suspend the CPU when things get hot, and shut down the CPU altogether when things get too hot. Speculation is that this temperature is somewhere in the neighborhood of 120-130ºC. While my Macs did not reach three digit temperatures, the increase did alarm me. Luckily, as you can see, the temperatures settled down to a normal range after a few days. This is likely due to the machines running a lot of initial tasks like Spotlight indexing of your entire drive just after the Lion upgrade.

Still, if you, like me, are concerned and want to do something a little more proactive than just waiting, here are a few precautionary measures you can take:

iStat Pro Dashboard Widget. One of the first (and lately the only dashboard widgets) I installed is iSlayer’s iStat Pro. This widget will allow you to monitor several of your Mac’s vital statistics, and with the optional companion iOS app, you can monitor your Mac from your iPhone when you’re attached to the same Wi-Fi network. Information reported includes systems various temperatures, and the speed of your Mac’s internal fans. The problem is that as your Mac keeps getting hotter, your fans aren’t spinning faster, something for which we turn to the next tool.

smcFanControl Menu utility for Mac. To manually modify the speed of your internal fans, you can install Hendrik Holtmann’s smcFanControl. For some of the older Macs that are still technically capable of running OS X 10.7 Lion, you may find that they are having some difficulty keeping up at times, and the default fan speed just will not provide the relief required. This menu bar item will allow you to change the minimum fan speed and effectively take control of just how fast your fan will blow. I created two custom settings: a midrange setting at 4000 RPM, and a high setting at 6000 RPM and will turn them on when I see things get a little too hot. I then set things back to Apple’s default levels once things cool down.

Purchase a laptop stand. Proper ventilation is key to allowing your Mac to cool down under normal conditions. Placing your laptop on a pillow or blanket because it is running hot may do more harm than good, especially if you end up blocking the vents that are trying to expel all that hot air. My personal favorite is the Cooling Bar from Just Mobile for $39.95US.  I find it convenient to carry with me and easy to set up.  Just Mobile has other stands for your MacBook as well. And if you tend to keep your Macbook closed when at a desk, consider Twelve South’s BookArc Pro for $49.99 U.S.

Let us know if you have other tips for keeping your Mac cool under pressure, or if you’re seeing temperature spikes under Lion that last beyond the first few days.

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Try this first

There are some good best practices to perform before running off and resetting your Mac at the first sign of strange behavior. This isn’t a step-by-step list; try each and all of the below separately when you’re having trouble:

• Quit (Command+Q) or even Force Quit (Command+Option+Esc) any and all running applications.
• Log off and then log back on to any and all logged on user accounts.
• Put the Mac to sleep and wake it up again.
• Restart the Mac.
• Shut down and unplug the Mac (and remove any battery if you have access) for at least thirty seconds before powering back on.

You may even have to press and hold the power button several seconds in extreme cases when your Mac is truly not responding or refuses to shut down and power off. But if you have tried all of this to no avail, then perhaps you do need to either reset your PRAM or your SMC.

Parameter random access memory

PRAM is used by OS X to store certain information that the system can access quickly. Macs will store settings like which startup drive to boot from, various display and video settings, startup speaker volume and even the DVD’s region settings. If you feel that you need to reset your Mac’s PRAM because of the issues you’re having, do the following:

1. Turn off your Mac. Don’t worry about disconnecting the power or removing the battery.
2. Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys all at the same time (all four keys).
3. Keep holding down all four keys until you hear the startup sound for a second time.

If you do not hear the startup sound twice, then you most likely have not reset the PRAM.  If you find that your Mac is not retaining the information that is stored in PRAM when you perform a shutdown, then it might be time to replace your Mac’s main logic board battery.  This is sometimes referred to as the PRAM or Clock Battery. I hardly ever fully shut down and power off any of my Macs, and have yet to replace this battery on any Mac I have owned, so that should only be the culprit in very extreme cases.

System management controller

The SMC is an Intel-only feature.  There are so many symptoms that can potentially be solved by resetting the SMC that you’d think you would need to do this sort of reset all of the time. These include fans running out of control, lights not displaying correctly, the Mac does not sleep or wake properly, and just generally poor performance and high CPU cycles for no good reason. There are three ways to reset your SMC, based on what sort of Intel-based Mac you have:
Portable Macs with removable batteries

1. Shut down the Mac, unplug and remove the battery.
2. Press and hold the power button for five seconds before releasing.
3. Replace the battery (just put it back in), plug in the Mac and turn it back on.

Portable Macs without removable batteries

• Shut down the Mac.
• Ensure that the Mac is plugged into a power source.
• While the Mac is turned off, press and hold the Shift, Control and Option keys, as well as the Power button.
• Release all four keys at the same time (note: the Mac should not power on when performing this task).
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

Desktop Mac Pros, iMacs and Mac minis

• Shut down and unplug the Mac.
• Keep the Mac unplugged for at least fifteen seconds.
• Plug the Mac back in and do not turn it back on for at least five seconds.
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

This shouldn’t be considered a routine operation, like fixing file permissions in Disk Utility. It’s just something to keep in mind as a possible last resort solution to weird behaviors that your Mac starts to develop, which can often happen when you perform upgrades like installing OS X Lion, especially on older hardware.

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A new report from CNET claims that Apple will be upgrading its Mac Pro and Mac mini computers with the new high-speed I/O Thunderbolt port, and with Sandy Bridge processors. Similar upgrades have already been launched for the MacBook Pro and iMac lines, and one is rumored to be in the works for the MacBook Air, too. If these reports are accurate, all updates are expected to arrive by the end of summer at the latest, which would make Thunderbolt nearly ubiquitous on new Macs, with the exception of the basic MacBook.

Thunderbolt has lots of promise, but there’s a problem: there aren’t really any peripherals out there that use it yet. Apple seems poised to fix that, however, as a recent report by MacRumors suggests that we’ll see a host of Thunderbolt peripherals arrive alongside Apple’s Final Cut Pro X video editing application sometime this week. Apple could well use Final Cut Pro to jumpstart Thunderbolt by showing video pros just how much faster their workflows could be with super high speed data transfers.

But pro Thunderbolt hardware and peripherals with mass market appeal are two very different things. Cost will be a factor with the first wave of Thunderbolt hardware, but if Apple is aiming to have Thunderbolt present across its Mac lineup by summer’s end, I’d argue that we’ll see the first line of peripherals aimed at the average user by fall, too. Count on early entrants to consist mainly of adapters for use with older, more established tech. Adapters have the advantage of being cheap, and working with kit that buyers already have.

Thunderbolt can easily be adapted to work with other high-speed technologies like USB 3.0, and eSATA. Not only that, but it should be easy to make hubs that include these technologies along with older standards like FireWire and USB for docking solutions that truly cover all the bases. Adapters will make Thunderbolt a boon to consumers and accessory-makers alike long before dedicated Thunderbolt devices make the move from professional to consumer levels of affordability.

The real ‘headline’ updates of recent Macs have been Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt. Improved processors is a great addition, but Thunderbolt is the new feature that’s easier for most consumers to grasp. If Apple does get it on all shipping Macs by the end of the summer, we’ll see an accompanying tidal wave of third-party accessories that should help Thunderbolt prove its usefulness by the time fall rolls around.

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The graphics processor range now includes the ATI Radeon HD 4670, HD 5670, and HD 5750. These graphics chips are decent, and a nice upgrade over last year’s iMacs, but are still middle-of-the-road.  Tom’s Hardware has a nice Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart that illustrates how these processors stack up against the latest graphics hardware. One change that will be welcome to videophiles is the addition of audio to the Mini DisplayPort connector to match the latest Mac mini update.

The new iMacs also have faster memory that runs at 1333 MHz, a good improvement over the previous 1066 MHz. A 256GB Solid State Drive (SSD), while an expensive option from Apple, is available on the 27″ model as either a replacement of the internal hard drive or in addition to a large 1- or 2TB drive. An SSD boot drive for the system, and apps with a 2TB hard drive for storage would be a killer system for many professionals.

“We took the world’s best all-in-one and made it even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the latest processors, high-performance graphics and signature aluminum and glass design, customers are going to love the latest iMac.”

All of the new iMacs have 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, 8x SuperDrive, Mini DisplayPort with audio and video, 802.11n wireless networking, iSight video camera, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, four USB 2.0 ports, SDXC card slot, and are bundled with a wireless Apple Keyboard and Magic Mouse. The new Magic Trackpad is available as an option, but does not replace the Magic Mouse.

Base price for the updated iMac falls between $1199 and $1999. It can also go up from there depending on how you configure things.

In addition to the dodeca-core upgrade, the Mac Pro also features new ATI graphics with the help of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 or HD 5870 graphics processors. Memory isn’t neglected either now that buyers have the option of maxing out their RAM to 32GB and their HDD space to 4TB. Buyers also have the option of configuring it with up to four 512GB SSDs, which should be insanely fast — and insanely expensive.

Speaking of expense, the baseline quad-core model costs $2499, while the 8-core model costs $3499, and the 12-core a whopping $4999. I hope any of you potential buyers out there just got your paycheck.

No word yet on when this monster will be available. These new monsters should be available for purchase sometime next month. You can read the full press release for more specs.

So what, right? The ads are probably incorrectly labeled, or something. But the word on the street (well, the word on Engadget, anyway) is that these might predict the much-anticipated Mac refreshes that we’ve been waiting for.

From Engadget:

Apple’s Australian online store lists the most affordable versions of the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Pro at A$1599, A$1999 and A$3599, respectively, but the ads show significantly higher “starting at” prices of A$1899, A$2399, and A$4499.

Following the ads to Apple’s Australian online store reveals the same Mac models at the same old prices, so either these ads are terribly wrong or they’re been released a little early…

It has been over a year since Apple released a major update to its high-end Mac Pro computer. I know very well because I bought one last April at an astronomically high price, and as such, guard it with my life. (No one else is allowed near it. No one!) If history has taught me anything, it is that I am not allowed to have the best and brightest kit for long. Therefore, an update is imminent. As for the MacBook Pro, we can probably expect to see Apple upgrade it with Intel’s powerful i7 Chipset.

But why so much more expensive? Engadget’s Vladislav Savov suggests:

The rise in MacBook Pro pricing could be attributed to the cost of the i7 chipset, but it seems unlikely that in a recovering economy Apple would increase their prices significantly without having a cheaper baseline model available.

I am hoping to see something more than just a chipset upgrade this time around; support for Blu-Ray is one of those things I want (even though it’s something most people don’t need) and who wouldn’t like to see high-capacity SSD’s as-standard?

I know only this; I’m a weak-willed slave to Apple’s hardware. I was the same way with PC’s, but let’s face it, a tech-obsessed geek with a weakness for shiny new toys will usually spend far less on generic PC equipment than on the latest newness from Cupertino.

At a time when the entry-level iPad would more than easily meet my needs, I know for a fact that, instead, I’ll be ordering the most expensive model available when we Brits can (finally!) get our hands on them. The same thing happened a year ago when I bought my painfully-expensive Mac Pro — truth is, I could have gotten by with an iMac. And even now, despite having twin 30” HD Cinema displays, I feel like I’m missing out not owning a 27” iMac as well. Thankfully, I’m in a tiny minority of crazy people.

Are these ads correct? If they are, will we have new Macs before the end of the month? Apple’s New Zealand online store also displays odd pricing inconsistencies along similar lines to those on the Australian store. Perhaps we’re reading too much into it (as Apple crazies want to do) but let’s face it, one of two things will happen from here; either the ads will be replaced with ‘corrected’ prices, or, one day very soon, that little yellow sticky note will appear on Apple’s online store and insane gadget freaks like me will reach for our credit cards…

Am I as crazy as I think? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.

It’s unsettling, then, that in recent months, owners of the very latest model of Mac Pro (the “Nehalem”-based machines introduced in early 2009) have been reporting worrying problems with their machines when performing otherwise very mundane tasks.

Let me give you an example. Imagine it’s early morning and, coffee in hand, you take your comfy seat before your 30-inch HD Cinema Display and power-up your gleaming Mac Pro. In no time at all you’re on the Snow Leopard desktop. You fire-up Mail and Safari and, as you prepare to trudge through the messages and articles that have amassed overnight, you decide to play a little light music in iTunes to lift your spirits. Some Beethoven, perhaps. Maybe a little Hans Zimmer. (John Williams is much too stimulating for this hour of the morning.)

Bam! No sooner have you hit Play and your machine inexplicably slowed to a crawl. You hear the Mac’s normally-whisper-quiet fans suddenly kick into high gear. For some unaccountable reason, your mighty Mac Pro is now guzzling power from the mains and getting very hot under the collar. It makes no sense. You’re doing the same things that would present no challenge at all to the most humble of MacBooks (a “mere abacus” by comparison, to quote the late great author and Macintosh-fan, Douglas Adams).

This isn’t just puzzling. It isn’t just troubling. It’s completely and unremittingly maddening. Your Mac Pro cost you an arm and a leg. Nothing less than perfection, remember?

Old Problem

The first reports of this problem appeared on the MacRumors.com discussion forum back in October, but eventually migrated to the Apple Support Discussion pages where they have grown quite considerably in number (and noise).

Users report the problem on machines running both Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6. Symptoms usually include a hefty cut in overall performance (as much as 20 percent in some cases), skyrocketing internal temperatures (excesses of 30 degrees celsius are common) and dramatically-increased power consumption for even minor “low power” tasks.

Software known to reliably and consistently trigger the problem includes heavy-duty titles such as Logic Studio and Flash, plus everyday applications like iTunes. The issue doesn’t appear to affect any earlier model of Mac Pro.

Curiously, the problem vanishes completely for those users who boot into Windows 7, which has led to speculation that Mac OS X itself is the culprit. MacNN reports;

Based on testing it is suspected that there could be a flaw in OS X’s handling of power management kernel extensions, or else the driver that exploits particular Nehalem features, such as SpeedStep and Turbo Boost.

Silence

Predictably, Apple is saying nothing. Users are also finding that even AppleCare Support is proving less than helpful. MacRumor’s Eric Slivka writes;

Despite the thorough investigations by users into the situation, AppleCare representatives have been unwilling [to] acknowledge that any issues exist, calling such temperature spikes normal and within design parameters for the machines. Users continue to be frustrated, however, by the performance hits their machines are experiencing and Apple’s refusal to address the situation. Apple has yet to issue any statements regarding the issue.

Anecdotal Evidence

I am very proud of my Mac Pro, for which I paid a quite obscene amount in April last year. I could have bought a car, or gone on a fantastic, life-changing trip around the world. But I’m a geek, so instead of those things I bought a big metal box with a picture of a fruit stamped on its side. (I regret nothing.)

And I really use this thing, all the time. I run iTunes constantly, and very regularly use audio-intensive apps like Apple’s Soundtrack Pro and Adobe’s SoundBooth. So far, I am relieved to say, I’ve never had any problems as a result.

But I have had one issue, and I’m beginning to suspect it might be connected to these complaints.

You see, in my experience, iMovie 09 is a great, lumbering cow. I need only use it for a few minutes before my machine collapses onto its metaphorical knees in protest. Closing the app doesn’t return things to normal, either. Instead, I have to completely restart my Mac. It’s annoying, certainly, but I spend more time in Final Cut these days, where I have no performance issues at all. I always just assumed that iMovie was a little buggy. Now, I’m not so sure.

If you’re a Mac Pro owner I’d love to know if you’ve suffered any of these problems. And, even if you’re not, leave a comment and let me know – is it just me, or is iMovie ‘09 an uncompromising diva for you, too?

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Strolling the mall with my wife, I was looking for an excuse to visit the Apple Store, but instead I found a reason: the disappearing desktop.

“Where have all the desktops gone?” I asked her pointedly.

She looked inside the glass front and pointed. “They’re right there.”

“Well, yeah, but why are there so few? I need to investigate.”

She sighed. “Don’t buy anything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I replied. “This is work. Anyway, no one in the know buys anything right before an Apple event.”

Well, not usually.

Inside, a quick count of Macs tallied just thirteen desktops, ten iMacs, two Mac minis, and a single Mac Pro. That contrasted with 36 Mac laptops.

If that disparity surprises, it shouldn’t. A look at a few other numbers tells the tale of the respective rise and fall of Mac laptops and desktops, and maybe what it means to you.

I asked a nice person in a brightly-colored shirt about the dearth of desktops, but he didn’t know anything, not even that there was a brightly-colored Apple event imminent. The invitations were privately sent out from far above the local Apple Store, and thus could not even be officially acknowledged below. That might explain from whence the store layout came.

Luckily, Apple must still divulge at least some information to the public, like Macs sold. Over the last decade laptop sales have been waxing, desktops not quite waning. While it is true desktop sales have seen some growth since the nadir in 2004, desktops have yet to match the sales record set in 2000. While that’s not exactly the end of the world, looking at models in percentage terms of Macs sold does seem a little more apocalypsish.

Those trend lines are no friend of the Mac desktop. For 2009, seven out of ten Macs sold were laptops, and in 2010 that ratio will likely rise to three out of four. While this may explain the single table of iMacs in the back of my local Apple Store, the question now becomes: is the Mac desktop doomed?

Steve Jobs once described Apple’s business model as an uncomfortable piece of furniture, a three-legged stool. What he was getting at is where the money comes from: Macs, iPods and the iTunes Store, and the iPhone.

This is Apple’s business model without the awkward furniture metaphor. Looking forward into 2010, the iPhone is surging, pulling along the iTunes Store, the iPod flattening out, and Macs are holding their own, or rather laptops are. In 2010, the desktop Mac will likely account for just a tenth of Apple’s net sales.

However, it’s important to remember Apple is a company that makes things, four major hardware product types, maybe five soon, but four now.

In 2009, desktop Macs, which include the Xserve, Mac Pro, iMac, and Mac mini had net sales of $4.3 billion on 3.18 million units. That works out to about $1,350 per desktop, and compares favorably with laptops at $9.47 billion in sales on 7.2 million units, around $1315 per laptop. There is no chance Apple is going to take that kind of money off the desktop anytime soon, but an increasingly portable world will continue to have consequences for desktop users.

I was there at Macworld Expo 2005 when the Mac mini was introduced, and five years later it looks pretty much the same, even the new server model sans optical drive. From the outside, the Mac Pro of 2010 looks a lot like the PowerMac G5 of 2003, even though one could arguably create a lighter, more portable mid-tower case with Intel inside. Not going to happen.

While internal changes are required, external redesign of Apple’s desktops would require R&D better spent on, say, a tablet. To that end, only Apple’s flagship desktop, the iMac, has seen, and will likely see, further refinement. From polycarbonate to aluminum and glass, to maybe a dock/slot for a tablet, the iMac has effectively become the desktop Mac.

If you are the Panera Bread iMac Man, you probably won’t notice, but for the rest of us desktop Mac users the future will pretty much look like the past.

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