Apple canvassing iMac Pro users on why they bought and what they like

It's not the first time Apple has sent out surveys, but this one concentrates on power features that may point to plans for the forthcoming Mac Pro.

An unknown number of iMac Pro buyers have been sent a survey asking about their purchase. Apple is specifically asking why they bought the machine and what they think of it now that they've been using been it for some time.

Twitter user @afwaller tweeted a screengrab of the survey sent to his iPhone.

"Questions include whether you bought the iMac Pro because it has more ports, SD card, and what features you like or dislike," he said. "The survey includes a series of check boxes for you to nominate reasons you bought the iMac Pro. These range from the "Space Gray finish" to more specific technical reasons such as "External display support (two 5K external displays or four 4K external displays)."

Currently, Waller's tweet appears to be the only account of the survey, and it's not clear how many customers have received it nor how extensive the questions are.

It's also not known why Apple has chosen this time to send the survey. The first iMac Pros were shipped by Apple just over eight months ago on Dec. 21, 2017 and there have been no substantiated rumors about a refresh.

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However, Apple has confirmed that the Mac Pro will be released in 2019. As this is also aimed a pro users, it's reasonable to suspect that data from this survey may be used to aid that effort. The overriding request from potential Mac Pro users to date has been for an expandable machine but this survey may give Apple finer detail.

Alternatively, it may just give the company more of an idea how to differentiate the iMac Pro and Mac Pro in its marketing.

Apple's interest in customer surveys is well documented. For example, the company queried MacBook Air owners about their machines (and sparked rumors of a cellular-equipped model) in a 2011 survey, and did the same for other products in the intervening years.

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43 Comments

ireland 18 Years · 17436 comments

About 6 years ago

They should canvas MBP users. Your favourite feature: the gimmicky Touch Bar, the lack of a physical esc key, the lack of MagSafe, the worse power plug with no cable management, the lack of port diversity, or the crappy feeling, fragile keyboard?

This should ruffle a few features here ;-)

sedicivalvole 17 Years · 231 comments

Interesting...

Those would be on my list against the MBP 😉

sflocal 16 Years · 6138 comments

ireland said:

They should canvas MBP users. Your favourite feature: the gimmicky Touch Bar, the lack of a physical esc key, the lack of MagSafe, the worse power plug with no cable management, the lack of port diversity, or the crappy feeling, fragile keyboard?

This should ruffle a few features here ;-)

I have the 2017 MacBook Pro. I can answer that no problem

Touch Bar: Works fine for me - and I'm a software developer.
Lack of physical Esc key - No issue.
Lack of Magsafe - No love lost. I'll take the combined TB3-USBc-Power in a single port anyway.
Power Plug Management: WTF?
Port Diversity: My TB3 port connects to a dock with all legacy ports I need. Most of my external gadgets come with USBc connectors now. Those that don't have a $7 dongle that rarely ever gets used. Get over it.
Keyboard: Sure, mine clicks loud compared to my old MBP. I got used to it. A year later, still works with zero problems.

I suspect there are more happy people like me, then the vocal minority that you're in.

boltsfan17 12 Years · 2294 comments

sflocal said:

ireland said:

They should canvas MBP users. Your favourite feature: the gimmicky Touch Bar, the lack of a physical esc key, the lack of MagSafe, the worse power plug with no cable management, the lack of port diversity, or the crappy feeling, fragile keyboard?

This should ruffle a few features here ;-)

I have the 2017 MacBook Pro. I can answer that no problem

Touch Bar: Works fine for me - and I'm a software developer.
Lack of physical Esc key - No issue.
Lack of Magsafe - No love lost. I'll take the combined TB3-USBc-Power in a single port anyway.
Power Plug Management: WTF?
Port Diversity: My TB3 port connects to a dock with all legacy ports I need. Most of my external gadgets come with USBc connectors now. Those that don't have a $7 dongle that rarely ever gets used. Get over it.
Keyboard: Sure, mine clicks loud compared to my old MBP. I got used to it. A year later, still works with zero problems.

I suspect there are more happy people like me, then the vocal minority that you're in.

I just bought a 2018 MBP a few weeks ago. I actually like the Touch Bar a lot. I prefer using my finger on the screen brightness slider for example over physical buttons. I like using the Touch Bar to save items, delete, etc. I just started using the Touch Bar with photo editing software. It works great. Overall, I think the Touch Bar is a great feature on the MBP.

dunks 16 Years · 1252 comments

It’s interesting that the survey selects for people who purchased an iMac Pro.

It’s probably even more valuable for them to survey the people who added an iMac Pro to their cart but didn’t end up purchasing.