Apple has finally done something out of the ordinary and broken silence on their plans for Mac Pro. The Cupertino giant is working on a new Mac Pro and Pro Display which will not be released this year. To fill the gap, they have slightly reduced the prices of current Mac Pros and bumped up the specs. As per Apple, there are Pro consumers who love the current Mac Pro and the updates are for them.
New Mac Pro Updates
| Previously | Now | |
| $2,999 | 4 XEON CPU Cores dual AMD G300 GPU |
6 XEON CPU Cores dual AMD G500 GPU |
| $3,999 | 6 XEON CPU Cores dual AMD G500 GPU |
8 XEON CPU Cores dual AMD G800 GPU |
Too late, too little.
Apple could have released these spec updates last year or even before. Years of silence followed by these updates does not erase the ignorance that Apple has shown towards its users. Those who decided that the existing Mac Pros do not fit their requirements have already moved on to iMacs or Windows workstations. Apple knew that upgrading the Mac Pro was not possible, even for them, due to its thermal limitations and dual-GPU choices. But they kept selling the same machine, at the same price to milk profits. Now they have woken up to realize that there is widespread disappointment in the Pro community of Apple users, they shared slight hints of what they are doing about it.
Cannot upgrade, my ass.
Engineers at Apple are working on the next generation Mac Pro which will be modular by design to allow for regular updates. After slowly killing the Cinema Display, they are also working on a new Pro display, however there is no information on how it will be better than their past display products.
Competitors like Samsung and HP have released their own takes on the Mac Pro, with round bin like designs. Microsoft has also raised the bar by releasing the Surface Studio which has received a positive response. It might not sell a lot, but they are doing something new and trying.
To counter these machines, Apple will also release ‘Pro’ upgrades to the iMac lineup later this year. While the beloved Mac Mini has no immediate upgrades on the horizon but it will stay on the store for the same price and specs.
Apple has bought itself some time for the new Mac Pro by being open to its user base and saying that they are listening. Here’s hoping that they get the next generation release just right.
