Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week

Summary: The MacBook Air is due for a refresh any day and a new rumor suggests that the venerable Mac Pro could get upgraded at the same time. Could be a Lion, Air and Pro trio -- as soon as tomorrow.

By Jason D. O'Grady for The Apple Core | July 11, 2011 -- 20:55 GMT (13:55 PDT)

Follow @jasonogrady

If you're in the market for a new MacBook you're undoubtedly aware that the MacBook Air is due for a refresh any day now. A new rumor making the rounds (via 9to5Mac) claims that the Mac Pro could get upgraded at the same time.

The new line was rumored to be launching in the last week of July or the first week of August, but it looks like Apple is getting them out earlier (or we just got the part numbers super early, which is unlikely). The new Mac Pros are may feature a re-designed enclosure that is both narrower and rack-mountable. A faster, 16 core model is also a possibility and Thunderbolt is an obvious addition. As expected, a new Mac Pro Server model will also debut

My guess is Lion will launch with the new MacBook Air, and Mac Pro tomorrow because Apple's had enough time to image the machines with the Lion GM build and still stay inside its 30-day delivery window. And Apple likes to announce things on Tuesdays, so there's that...

Although it's far too late, I have two requests for the new MacBook Air:

A backlit keyboard is a must (it was in the 1st gen model!)
A LED battery gauge like the one on the MacBook Pro

And tower PCs? Srsly? Who's buying towers these days, anyway?

Image: MacTechDish

Topics: Laptops, Apple, Hardware, Mobility

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22 comments

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RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week

I'm sure both people who need to rack mount a Mac will be happy ;-)

Seriously why?

tonymcs@...
11 July, 2011 21:10

Reply Vote
- I agree, Apple should stick with consumer products
 
 @tonymcs@...
 Its enterprise products are all sub par.
 
 toddybottom
 11 July, 2011 21:35
 
 Reply Vote
 - RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @toddybottom I thought that Apple's emphasis was small to medium business, not enterprise. A Mac Pro such as this would be quite useful as a server in small to medium business. It is really quite innovative to design a computer that can be used as stand-alone workstation or rack-mounted server. Given the relatively small number of servers that Apple sells, this seems to be a sensible move by Apple.
 
 Restricted_access
 11 July, 2011 22:50
 
 Reply Vote
 - Not quite -- enterprize products are good; however, the question is whether
 
 @toddybottom: ... these are good enough to be better than competitors.
 
 DDERSSS
 12 July, 2011 03:17
 
 Reply Vote
 - RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @ptorning,
 "I thought that Apple's emphasis was small to medium business, not enterprise. A Mac Pro such as this would be quite useful as a server in small to medium business."
 
 Servers from HP and IBM includes basic features that small/medium business need, like 3yr warranty, hot pluggable hard drives and redudant power supplies. Right now, Apple lacks on server hardware. Let's see if it changes on their next revision.
 
 dvm
 12 July, 2011 05:40
 
 Reply Vote
 - RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @toddybottom
 Don?t you have an ?I love Windows? meeting to go to? Why aren?t you starting to prepare for your Windows 8 launch party? I am sure you can invite your parents, as they live upstairs
 
 ;) :p
 
 Rick_K
 12 July, 2011 06:30
 
 Reply Vote
- RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @tonymcs@...
 Maybe then the 790 persons, which my airline employees to maintain our 173 x-serve boxes, have been forgotten by Apple. certainly not by ME, or our reservation service reps.. Not that we COUNT on those machines AT ALL, and were deeply saddened the day we read they had been discontinued. MORE that we have NO REALISTIC alternative to replace them with. Which essentially means the end on online internet based reservations for a airline serving 172 cities world wide with over 10k employees as I will NOT fall to the conspiracy to force ALL the "NON ANGLOPHILE" world to use American built Windoze Servers. No x-serves, NO SERVICE in the USA by LyonsAire Inc., too bad Apple does not care about OUR business or OUR investments in their products since our very first "Fat Mac"!
 
 LyonsAireCEO
 12 July, 2011 07:09
 
 Reply Vote
 - RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @LyonsAireCEO I don't get why you bash Microsoft for being American and claim you won't buy from them while demanding to purchase from another American company. You are pretty much saying that you don't want to buy American, you want to buy American.
 
 Personally, I don't care if you choose to not buy American products. Does that suck for me as an American? Sure, but its your prerogative. Just don't sound like a complete idiot while doing so.
 
 I'm sorry your company's IT department is filled with idiots that went with the off-brand products instead of going with the tried-and-true Enterprise products with a great history. Sure sucks when you buy an off-brand and find out later that you won't be supported by them.
 
 You make no sense, and I will always avoid your company from now on. Way to have terrible PR for your company.
 
 vel0city
 12 July, 2011 08:57
 
 Reply Vote
- RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
 
 @tonymcs@... Because they don't want to use Windows 2008 Server for their server OS. Vastly more expensive, and it's Windows. Seriously. Of course they do lack redundant hot swappable hard drives. But I think four internal hard drives can make for a useful system, with one ready to hot reboot if necessary. And with a couple of Thunderbolt ports, they don't need so much space inside. Some companies already have OS X server as the backbone for their network, or they have a department that they use to tie their Mac users into Exchange and the Windows Servers for their Enterprise. There are lots of reason for this. Plus the demise of the XServe make these very useful. A small part of most industries, but for a company, it can be make or break.
 
 ewelch
 12 July, 2011 18:21
 
 Reply Vote
RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week

Since Apple no longer produce enterprise server. The Pro line is supposed to be the replacement

bojanwojan
11 July, 2011 21:26

Reply Vote
rack mount Pros - maybe apple is the biggest customer

Its a bit embarrasing that they don't use macs in their own data centres... now they could. And they can probably snare a mates rate bargain, too.

paulhknight
11 July, 2011 21:54

Reply Vote
- RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
  
  @paulhknight Just because they're not using Mac hardware in their data centers doesn't mean they're not really using MacOS on non-Apple hardware. Personally, I'm all for a version of Lion that can run on hardware made by other companies than Apple, especially since EFI is finally making the rounds through the rest of the PC industry.
  
  Champ_Kind
  12 July, 2011 12:26
  
  Reply Vote
re: And tower PCs? Srsly? Whoâ??s buying towers these days, anyway?

how are you going to add an extra hard drive, video card, optical drive, sound card to an imac or i book? Sure you could get external this and that, but then you'll be dragging a bunch of boxes and wires around. Creative professionals need many options - don't turn people off from towers, they have their uses, that is why they are still around

ddmmaaxx
11 July, 2011 22:24

Reply Vote
- The Tower
  
  @ddmmaaxx - exactly! We are many! We prioritize power and flexibility over pretty. We regularly enhance our systems and swap out the weak components to give to our parents to use for web browsing. We recycle. We don't pay over and over and over again for a new plastic shell. We put our own logos on our machines instead of settling for a fruit logo. We eat fruit.
  
  Who's with we?
  
  scH4MMER
  12 July, 2011 08:56
  
  Reply Vote
  - RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week
    
    @scH4MMER I use a mac Tower, but if they screw that up like they did final cut pro x it won't be for long
    
    ddmmaaxx
    12 July, 2011 13:29
    
    Reply Vote
  - I know so many people who are so mad about FCP
    
    @scH4MMER
    Apple has lost themselves several customers over that one.
    
    toddybottom
    12 July, 2011 13:32
    
    Reply Vote
RE: Rack-mountable Mac Pro to arrive with Air and Lion this week

I forgot my Macbooks even had that battery gauge. It's certainly not something I miss on a machine designed to stand-by for 30 days.

The backlit kb however goes without saying. And let's light candles and say a small prayer they don't end up actually soldering those SSDs in place.

Playdrv4me
12 July, 2011 02:36

Reply Vote
New online reports indicate that the MBA models have backlit keyboards

AppleInsider has reported today that those missing backlit keyboards have returned - which should make, if true, Jason very happy.

kenosha77a
12 July, 2011 05:45

Reply Vote
Mac Pro as server ...

I used to run a shop that used a bunch of Xserve servers, they were actually terrific, trouble-free machines and had (at least in the later versions) all the redundant this and hot-swappable that that any IT pro could ever want. Even Apple's rack-mount kit was innovative.

Before the Xserve came along, they had used some old Blue&White G3 and Gray&White G4 towers -- the plastic cased ones -- with 3rd party rackmount kits. The rack kit worked slick enough, but the machines were massive and consumed something like 6 or 7U -- totally space inefficient.

A lot of folks didn't realize that Apple had a Gray&White G4 tower server that actually did come with a dual power supply -- but it was a single unit with dual internals. It worked, but kinda dumb -- the only way to replace a failed unit was still to shut the machine down and replace the entire (dual) power supply.

If the new Mac Pro Server -- if it even materializes -- is any bigger than 2-3U, it will only be attractive to the folks who absolutely need a Mac OS X server for some Mac-specific app. Anyone concerned at all with space and power efficiency will be looking for higher-density systems.

Frankly, the Mac mini still makes a nice, economical little server, especially when fitted into a 3rd party rack-mount unit ... along with several more minis. Give that a faster processor and/or more cores and it'd be a great little solution for more SMBs.

jscott69
12 July, 2011 06:48

Reply Vote
- This personifies Apple's enterprise knowledge... riiiight.. here..:
  
  @jscott69 .. "Apple had a Gray&White G4 tower server that actually did come with a dual power supply -- but ... the only way to replace a failed unit was still to shut the machine down and replace the entire (dual) power supply."
  
  Unfortunately, the Xserves also suffered from this lack of forethought. For example, why on earth would anyone want a small server to use full-sized hard drives? And why always position the Xserve RAID (the first Xserve to hit the chopping block) for audio/video professionals when it ran so damn loud?
  
  Unfortunately, Apple's enterprise offerings often showed that they cared about the question of "what do you want", but forgot to ask "why do you want it".
  
  daftkey
  12 July, 2011 12:57
  
  Reply Vote