Thursday, June 13, 2013

Apple : In depth: 5 things we're worried the Mac Pro might do

Apple : In depth: 5 things we're worried the Mac Pro might do

In depth: 5 things we're worried the Mac Pro might do

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In depth: 5 things we're worried the Mac Pro might do

Apple has unveiled the new 'ultimate' Mac Pro and, well, nobody really knows what to make of it. It's black, shiny and cylindrical, and about an eighth the size of a current Mac tower.

Basically it looks a bit like a gothic thermos flask and, when fully opened up to display its terrifying array of Intel Xeon processors, actually resembles the Death Star. We're half waiting for it to quietly click open in the dead of night and start spewing humanity-enslaving tentacles.

Here are five other, slightly more reasonable things we're worried it might do:

1. Be out of our price range

Initial reports at WWDC 2013 suggest that the new Mac Pro could cost anywhere from $2,400 (around £1,530 or AU$2,500), with more powerful versions going for upwards of an eye-watering $10,000 (£6400 or AU$10,530, or thereabouts).

On one hand, we know we can't afford to spend that much on a desktop. On the other hand, look how shiny it is!

Apple is still shuffling its feet over a release date, but we've heard the phrase "later this year", so we'll expect it then if not later.

2. Cause city-wide power blackouts

Despite the Mac Pro's diminutive stature - it stands 9.9-inches tall and 6.6-inches in diameter - it packs more than twice the power of a current desktop Mac, boasting dual GPUs, ultrafast memory, PCI Express-based flash storage and Thunderbolt 2 ports that allow 20GBs of bandwidth per plugged-in device.

There are even planned versions with up to 12 processing cores, presumably to facilitate teenagers with bras on their heads to call into being inexplicably posh women made out of bits of the internet, a la Weird Science.

3. Outsmart (and eventually enslave) us

Apple has stuffed the Mac Pro with flash memory - which is common in mobiles and tablets - to speed up data transfer and processing time.

It's so powerful that it can even run notoriously heavy-duty Pixar animations, which Apple demonstrated in a co-presentation with Pixar at WWCD, showing off the Mac Pro's AMD FirePro graphics and 4k UltraHD video support.

And we all know how that goes. Step 1: animate a heartbreakingly whimsical CGI movie (not Cars or Cars 2). Step 2: realise that humans are squishy and useless. Step 3: destroy all humans. Brr.

4. Fly

So Apple says that it's made the new Mac Pro cylindrical to draw heat up and away from the CPU and GPUs. It says it's done away with traditional cooling fans and added one - larger and quieter - triangular fan at the bottom of the chassis to attack the problem of overheating components.

That's what Apple says. What we suspect might be the case is that this configuration also allows the Mac Pro to levitate and, you know, shoot lasers out of the top and, maybe, ENSLAVE HUMANITY. Yeah, Apple. We know your game. We've seen films.

5. Be mistaken for a desktop shredder

Or a bin. Or a giant Rolo. If we should stumble into our office without our glasses on, or enough coffee in our systems. Seriously, just look at it.
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