My 2008 Mac Pro, photographed with an iPhone X, and processed on the 2008 Mac Pro.

I don’t write about gear much here, but perhaps this is a special occasion. This week marks ten years since I received my first Mac computer, a Mac Pro Desktop, which is the very same computer I am typing this on. It also remains my primary workstation for all my photography processing, catalog, and archive. To me, this seems like a significant milestone with credit to Apple and Mac OS X for building such a nice machine and keeping it relatively stable.

For certain I have made upgrades to grow over time, mostly to keep up with processing tasks with higher resolution image files. I started with a measly 2GB RAM which is now 28GB (still short of the max 32), a single 320GB hard drive, now with 6.5TB across 4 drives, including one solid state SSD. I updated the video card, and installed add-on cards to give external E-SATA capabilities, and have various external drives for backups.   The Apple Cinema 23″ Display I got with it, still working great.   It still has the original two quad-core Intel Harpertown Xeon brains.

By today’s standards for workstations, I am sure this machine is slower than a snail on Benadryl. But as with many things, it’s all relative. To me, it hasn’t slowed down much since I got it (unlike some other OS’s I know 🙂 ), and if anything, is faster with the improvements in memory.   It can still handle Photoshop files with layers reaching sizes between 1-2 GB on occasion which meets my needs for now.   I don’t do much with video, or have a need for 4K at the moment.   Amazingly enough, I’ve made due without USB3 or Thunderbolt connections.   It is a machine no longer capable of running the latest MacOS though.

Built like a tank made of aluminum, and weighing nearly as much (42.4 lbs/19kg as shipped), with room for expansion, I doubt a machine like this will ever be made again.   Not that they should, I believe there is a bit of overzealous engineering going on with this design.   Apple’s successor to this one, the nicknamed Trashcan design, was clearly an indicator it is an old school Mac by now.   This year Apple will announce what they are doing for their next “big upgrade” in the Mac Pro desktop line.   

I am sure there is plenty of legitimate commentary on what a big behemoth Apple has become in the last ten years and how they may have lost their way in some cases after Steve passed away.   I can only imagine the complexity of their product line coordination now.  Heck, the iPhone was just a newborn back when I started using this computer.   To see how far that has evolved, and the entire market around it, in just 10 years is quite amazing.   Even though Mac desktops are a small fraction now of Apple’s overall revenue, there is always hope they apply the same innovations.

Whether I upgrade this year or not remains to be seen.  Whether I need to is also open.   For now, I am happy with the machine I have and the past 10 years of reliability it has provided, a credit to its designers and support of the OS.  Clearly expectations are set.

So to Apple I say, bring it.