AVID & MAC RUMORS: RELATED?

[Nick Morrison]

What I'm about to say is pure rumor. These are two pieces of industry gossip that seem to make more sense when heard back to back. And I've heard these a week apart, from two people that are very knowledgeable.

RUMOR 1: Avid may stop supporting MAC in the next year. Not definite. But possible.

RUMOR 2: MAC may stop making towers. No more Mac Pros.


Heard back to back. They make sense. Don't you think?

On the other hand, they don't. Avid is courting Final Cut users madly, so to have them abandon MAC now is weird. And while APPLE makes much more off it s consumer products, surely it still makes a profit of its wildly popular Mac Pro towers right? (at least in the design world).

Or maybe APPLE doesn't make enough off of Mac Pro's and they will cut them loose, like Final Cut.

And maybe Avid doesn't want to support an architecture that is only laptop based.


Thoughts?

Again, this is rumor. But it's interesting nonetheless no?

[Jason Diamond]

RUMOR 1: Avid may stop supporting MAC in the next year. Not definite. But possible.


There is no information to support this rumor. Not sure where you heard it but its wild speculation. It would not benefit AVID in any way to discount any platforms especially ones it is already coded for and entrenched in.

[Scott Crawley]

Or maybe APPLE doesn't make enough off of Mac Pro's and they will cut them loose, like Final Cut.

Final Cut has not been cut loose.

[Edward Blythe]

It would not benefit AVID in any way to discount any platforms especially ones it is already coded for and entrenched in.

And having enormous success with given FCPs recent stumblings.

Not sure I'm getting the same harmonics between these rumours... But one does so love a conspiracy theory.

[Tom.Wong]

Avid has left mac before and came right back. I doubt they are gonna make the same mistake twice. macbook pro's are still very popular mobile editing platforms too, 1 product out of many doesn't convince a company that's striving to take back the market they lost to fcp, doesn't define them pulling out of the platform.


and there is still 0 word on the mac pro being discontinued. I speculate that if they were going to, they really would have announced it by now. fact of the matter is, they hasn't been a major leap in tech till this year. apple products usually release as, innovative, bleeding edge tech, than one update after that, that's better but nothing really new. and than a release that's back to the bleeding edge tech again.

we had that one update with the 12 core, but fact of the matter is, intel hasn't come up with anything worth of note till this year. sandy bridge just wasn't a big enough of a leap. dual 8 core processors, ivy bridge, and pci express 3.0, along with thunderbolt are major leaps. and that tech is just getting started this year.

and with new mountain lion coming out this summer, there's already code for more GPU support. how are they not coming out with a new tower if they are programming more code for gpu's you can throw in and out of the system? can't really do that on a imac...

[Matt Gottshalk]

Avid will not be dropping mac support anytime soon.

I have no doubt, however that Apple is seriously considering killing the Mac tower form factor.

[Nick Morrison]

There is no information to support this rumor. Not sure where you heard it but its wild speculation. It would not benefit AVID in any way to discount any platforms especially ones it is already coded for and entrenched in.

I never denied that it was wild speculation. But my source is well informed. I'm sure its just a doomsday scenario that's been bandied about.

[Edward Blythe]

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/files/a-strangelove_0.jpg

[Dave Blackham]

Last time Avid abandoned Apple a large number abandoned Avid, no doubt Apple have new hardware in mind but supporting the creative industries always was important to Apple. I hope they realise creative industry is a very major key to Apples sucsess. they will loose much more than they will gain if they abandon us.

[Matt Gottshalk]

I never denied that it was wild speculation. But my source is well informed. I'm sure its just a doomsday scenario that's been bandied about.


This contradicts with this.

[Subhadip Sen]

There is definitely going to be a new Mac Pro some time this year (Sandy Bridge-EP) that will live through 2013 and Avid will definitely continue supporting OS X till then. There's nothing to worry about in the short term.

What happens after? Apple is moving to ARM company wide with self-branded SoCs. idevices are already there, Macbooks will follow by 2013 (in view of Windows on ARM laptops flooding the market later this year, they don't have a choice) with Mac Pro being the final product to move. OS X and iOS will merge - we are already starting to see glimpses of this. I don't know when it will happen, but my guess is by 2014 Mac Pros will cease to use cutting-edge powerful Intel x86 machines and move to more efficient many core ARM systems. Still powerful, but just not at the bleeding edge. While indeed it is wildly popular in niche industries like filmmaking, these but contribute a very small quantity, and Apple is seeing Mac Pro more and more as device for creating content (incl. videos/movies) for idevices. It just makes more sense for Mac Pro to run on the same architecture as iPhones and iPads. One thing is for sure - Apple and Intel have no future. None whatsoever.

The switch to ARM will be like the move from OS 9 to OS X and PPC to x86, but at the same time. Some developers may decide the new Apple ecosystem is not worth developing for and concentrate on more suitable platforms. My guess is that some would wait till the ecosystem is stable and proven. If Avid isn't there in 2014, they would probably come around by 2016 - this is something they have done before in the mid-2000s. So your well-informed sources aren't speaking through their hat - there are valid reasons for why it might happen. Good news is that such an occurrence is probably 2 years away.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Final Cut has not been cut loose.

Yeah...discontinued is a better word...

[michael zaletel]

Avid cannot afford to abandon the Mac OS X platform because eventually iOS and Mac OS X will be merged into iOS X similarly to what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8.

You heard it here first. Avid, if you are listening, think about this.

Michael Zaletel

[Marc Wielage]

RUMOR 1: Avid may stop supporting MAC in the next year. Not definite. But possible. ... RUMOR 2: MAC may stop making towers. No more Mac Pros.
I'd guess we'll know at NAB in three weeks.

But: Apple is not exhibiting at the show, which is not a good sign. Many, many people in LA have been concerned about the potential loss of Apple in continuing to market desktop systems. It'd be sad to see them leave this business, but I concede that they're making an awful lot of profit from non-computing areas these days (iPhone / iPod / iPad).

[jaadgy akanni]

Yeah...discontinued is a better word...

It's funny how FCPX detractors seem to believe that wishing it away is gonna actually make FCPX disappear. Not gonna happen. FCPX is poised to rule the NLE world whether you want it or not. Get it, use it , learn to love it, 'cause soon everyone will.

[Liam Hall]

I'd say Avid are embracing Mac:

http://www.avid.com/US/products/Avid-Studio-app

[Cüneyt Kaya]

avid would be stupid to leave the mac.
but i have the bad feeling there wont be a new macpro, and everything moves to thunderboldt.
i so wish that apple, if they abandon the macpro, licence the os to a 3rd party company like boxx.
where you have suddenly 4 thunderboldt connections and 6 pci slots. i have no clue about computers though ;)

[Scott Crawley]

Yeah...discontinued is a better word...

Bah... Rhetoric

[Will Keir]

One thing is for sure - Apple and Intel have no future. None whatsoever.



What do you mean?

[Scott Crawley]

I'd guess we'll know at NAB in three weeks.

But: Apple is not exhibiting at the show, which is not a good sign.

When they walked away from the trade show that bears the name of their own product Apple seemed to indicate that they don't need trade shows to achieve their marketing goals. For years they made statements comparing the number of unique visitors to their retail stores to the numbers of similar contacts made at the shows and viewership of their own online PR events appears to be through the roof.

I'm not convinced that their absence from NAB means anything at all. That's not to say however, that I don't share some of your concern. I would think that the damage done to customer confidence by the FCPX release debacle is reason enough to justify a presence this year if for no other reason than to allay these concerns. This gives me pause.

[Matt Gottshalk]

It's funny how FCPX detractors seem to believe that wishing it away is gonna actually make FCPX disappear. Not gonna happen. FCPX is poised to rule the NLE world whether you want it or not. Get it, use it , learn to love it, 'cause soon everyone will.

Fanboyism isnt pretty, no matter what NLE you choose.

[Paul E. McCarthy]

I can end all the rumors, i got the inside Scoop last night while sleeping

Steve Jobs came to me in my dream last night and he sold me The Cube (remember that)? and he sold me Apple thunderbolt Expansion cube, and he also sold me an Apple 48" Thunderbolt 4k OLED Monitor with PCIE 4 slots (for maybe 2 RR and 2 Quador cards)
Its not about the box people its about the cards.

He also told me that the Broadcast Television Apocalypse is upon us.

[Dave Blackham]

http://www.avid.com/US/products/Avid-Studio-app

This is really a good sign for Avid at least. Im suprised but perhaps I shouldnt be that they have done this so credit where credits due.

Now we have to work out how the iPad connects to the SAN to work on shared projects and all the other implications about media formats and so on.

[Scott Crawley]

Steve Jobs came to me in my dream last night and he sold me...

LOL the reality distortion field is stronger than ever! Now that Steve is one with The Force he can achieve something unattainable in life; Mythical status!

You're funny.

[Terry VerHaar]

But: Apple is not exhibiting at the show, which is not a good sign.

When is the last time Apple was at NAB? They no longer do trade shows. Their absence means absolutely zilch.

[jake blackstone]

http://www.avid.com/US/products/Avid-Studio-app

This is really a good sign for Avid at least. Im suprised but perhaps I shouldnt be that they have done this so credit where credits due.


If Apple to release something like that for FCPX, they'd be crucified. I can just see it "Apple only cares about IOS, they don't care about the professional crowd"...

[Dave Blackham]

If Apple to release something like that for FCPX, they'd be crucified. I can just see it "Apple only cares about IOS, they don't care about the professional crowd"...

Thats quite true, but theres nothing wrong with using an IOS device to preview and use when traveling or other mobile use. SO LONG AS it connects back to professional grade edit infrastructures when it needs to. I can well imagine on location picking up a proxy from an Epic (and where is that proxy module anyway !) and checking out how a sequence might look on an iPad. The IO will be interesting unless its Thunderbolt.

But we are off topic. on of off chance theres some one from Apple reading this, it would be very dumb to drop the Mac Pro and abandon profesionals. Mac Pros drive the sales of al of the other stuff such as iPhone's ipads etc.

[adam mcclelland]

Over the last quarter desktop unit sales were up 16% and revenue up 15%, while for the portable devices sales were up 3% and revenue up 2%. Those are trends, not numbers. The 1.278 million desktops sold last quarter are a company record and still account for 26% of all Apple sales. Not to mention apple spent $758 million on R&D. They are still innovating and investing. The Xeon E5 has been late for delivery but is officially coming out this week. We're talking computers here. You need new products to make new sales. (warning: speculation) I imagine we'll hear something one way or another in the next 2 weeks.

[Scott Crawley]

We're on RedUser here. We've embraced modularity... Let me pose a question.

If Apple were to release a "core" Mac with an assload of throughput and only one slot for a GUI card, as part of an expandable system to customize and add a multitude of slots externally, will people be crying "They abandoned the Mac Pro!"?

They could be poised to do just that, and reduce their desktop lines to one. You want a Mac Mini config? Bam! Here is the core system in a Mini case. You want an iMac config? Bam! Slide this same case onto the back of our new monitor. You want a rack mount?...

[Manuel Wenger]

It's funny how FCPX detractors seem to believe that wishing it away is gonna actually make FCPX disappear. Not gonna happen. FCPX is poised to rule the NLE world whether you want it or not. Get it, use it , learn to love it, 'cause soon everyone will.

hahaha, never gonna happen on a professional level. but thanks for the good laugh ;)

[Mike Halper]

hahaha, never gonna happen on a professional level. but thanks for the good laugh ;)

Actually it could... eventually. How many people said FCP wouldn't, or thought it never would, enter the professional world? But it did, and in a very big way. There's a lot of great stuff in FCPX, and of course a lot of not great stuff right now. A lot of people are just being closed-minded about it. It's not ready for primetime right now, and I don't use it myself, but I am keeping a very close eye on it because eventually it will be ready for primetime. Sure it will be different than FCP7 and earlier, Premiere Pro, Avid, and other editing apps, but that doesn't mean it won't be one of the right tools for the job.

[Terry VerHaar]

:laugh:
hahaha, never gonna happen on a professional level. but thanks for the good laugh ;)

It's always a little dangerous to be smug. As the saying goes, "Never say never." :laugh:

[Jay Kim]

"the high-end Mac Pro workstations have dropped off so considerably that the desktop machines are no longer particularly profitable for the company."
quoted from Appleinsider.(http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/01/new_intel_sandy_bridge_xeon_chips_available_for_po tential_mac_pro_update.html)
Sad rumor but most likely...

[N_Villers]

As for the mac pro being discontinued we should see soon as the xeon proccesors they are likely to use come out this week.

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I can end all the rumors, i got the inside Scoop last night while sleeping

Steve Jobs came to me in my dream last night and he sold me The Cube (remember that)? and he sold me Apple thunderbolt Expansion cube, and he also sold me an Apple 48" Thunderbolt 4k OLED Monitor with PCIE 4 slots (for maybe 2 RR and 2 Quador cards)
Its not about the box people its about the cards.

He also told me that the Broadcast Television Apocalypse is upon us.

Heheheh

[Stephen Gentle]

Avid cannot afford to abandon the Mac OS X platform because eventually iOS and Mac OS X will be merged into iOS X similarly to what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8.

Not going to happen, I think...

[Vico Martin]

Hope...

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/01/mac-pro-update-now-possible-with-new-xeon-e5-chips-next-week/

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/14/apple-switching-back-to-nvidia-graphics-for-upcoming-mac-pro-update/


I think there is more of a symptom that something will happen,
keep the hope!

[Dave Blackham]

"the high-end Mac Pro workstations have dropped off so considerably that the desktop machines are no longer particularly profitable for the company."
quoted from Appleinsider.(http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/01/new_intel_sandy_bridge_xeon_chips_available_for_po tential_mac_pro_update.html)
Sad rumor but most likely...

It is said that Apple took the view that it had one bottom line and didn't have 'Divisions' or products that would divide the company in terms of bottom line of a department. It seems to me that the Mac Pro triggers so many sales of other devices and is an enabler for the company. Im not connected to Apple in other than being a customer, I hope the current leadership and top management has the same conviction Steve had.

[Subhadip Sen]

Pretty much all the major players offering 2P standalone workstation solutions have announced Xeon E5 based workstations today. HP Z820 seems impressive and I am loving what Next Computing are doing. The 16 core portable Radius EX All-in-one seems like a perfect fit for a variety of digital cinema applications. I would expect Apple to follow up shortly with a Mac Pro update.

[Mike Halper]

Apple won't announce anything until it's actually available and almost ready to ship. That's how they are with their computers.

[Corey Culp]

Apple won't announce anything until it's actually available and almost ready to ship. That's how they are with their computers.

I also wouldn't expect Apple to interfere with it's "All Eyes On Us, World" iPad announcement. In my opinion, the iPad is only second to the iPhone on Apple's priority list.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

[Ido Karilla]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

Bless you and bless your source!

[Scott Crawley]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

Nice! Completely plausible, and just when you would expect it; April. Thanks for sharing.

[Oliver Peters]

As nice as a machine like that sounds, it would be a complete 180 from the direction Apple has been going. I highly doubt it. In addition, a machine like that would also be quite a bit more expensive than previous Mac Pros. Basically, it would appeal to an even smaller niche than Mac Pros already do.

- Oliver

[Mike Halper]

Agreed. Sounds too good to be true, especially considering what's the norm for Apple.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

My gut says Jeff's source has it right.

I have been saying for 2 years that laptops have become so powerful that there is really no reason to make a desktop unless its a bomber - especially now that we are seeing I/O taps like Thunderbolt and USB3 on laptops & All In One's.

I agree that Apple has not shown much interest in the pro market the last 3 years. That said, one thing Apple has managed very well over the last decade is to pick strategic times to move the game. Perhaps I am giving them too much credit, but it seems like the stars are aligning with the new procs, new OS in beta and pent up demand in the pro space.

Cheers - #19

[Paul E. McCarthy]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

So are saying that my Nvidia 6000 card for PC will work in the new Mac Pro???

[Tom Birmingham]

It might have to do with an overall future direction of UI development and return on investment. Do companies invest their development team resources in having their team code to proprietary platforms, HTML5, Android, Mac, Windows, etc? In other words, like with Microsoft Windows Metro App development for Windows 8, MS wants you to code once, and it will run on any device, screen size, tablets, etc. Same concept with HTML5. But with Metro, it is the MS way and for Windows platforms. HTML5 is general, yet runs in a browser. I have downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer preview and the GUI is quite different, yet another learning curve on how to navigate around the desktop. Windows 8 has an HTML5 feel. Also; smartphone companies are starting to announce phones running quad-core, soon why even have a laptop, just connect a usb keyboard/mouse, needed peripherals, and hdmi port to monitor.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

What about drive bays?

[Bob Gundu]

Well if this might be apples last tower, they might as well go out with a bang. But the logic doesn't make sense if they took the time to redesign the tower. If they did indeed redesign the tower, I doubt we have seen the last of them.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Well if this might be apples last tower, they might as well go out with a bang. But the logic doesn't make sense if they took the time to redesign the tower. If they did indeed redesign the tower, I doubt we have seen the last of them.

Agreed. If they redesign the MacPro at this stage, it's a sure bet it'll be around for a few more years at least. Then again, I'm fine with the current design.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Several sources have seen prototypes of a rack mountable design so that's highly likely - makes sense for the pro market anyway.

The case form factor, whatever it is, will likely be with us for several years and with some clever design work I am optimistic it will be easy to upgrade most of the internals.

Cheers - #19

[Vico Martin]

Just heard a juicy rumor from a source I trust pretty well. New Mac Pro coming April: Intel C606 chipset dual Xeon-E5. 6 PCIe 3.0 slots (4 @ X16, 2 @ X4), 16 DIMM sockets, dual Thunderbolt ports. Rack-mountable, redesigned tower. Onboard SAS/SATA connectivity with hardware RAID 0,1,5. Open GPU support via nVidia only to start (buy any nVidia GPU card off the shelf). No USB 3.0.

I can't confirm or deny this one, but my source has been 99% accurate on specs for the last two Macbook Pro and Air releases...

You make my day Jeff, amazing news for everybody.
With a couple 590 this is an aeroplane!!