The long-awaited Mac Pro with Apple Silicon has been delayed till 2023 due to issues with its development and production. Apple also plans to release several new Macs next year with the M2 Pro and M2 Max chip options.
Apple plans to release a handful of new Macs next year including the Mac Pro with in-house designed chips
Back in 2020, Apple said that it would transition its entire Mac lineup to chips designed in-house by 2022. However, 2022 is now nearing its end and a Mac Pro with Apple Silicon has yet to be launched.
In the latest edition of his “Power On,” newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman reveals that although the Apple Silicon Mac Pro and updated Mac mini are delayed, Apple is actively testing the machines and aims to release them next year.
Apple had aimed to introduce the new Mac Pro by now, but the high-end machine has been held up for a number of reasons, including multiple changes to its features, a significant shift in the company’s plans for high-end processors and a potential relocation of its manufacturing.
The Mac Pro will come equipped with the M2 Ultra chip, the journalist reports. It will feature 24 CPU cores, 76 graphics cores, and support for 192 gigabytes of memory.
The Mac Pro with Apple Silicon was originally expected to feature an M2 Extreme chip that would have offered 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores. However, Gurman says Apple has likely scrapped it due to issues with the cost and complexity of producing such a processor. There was also a concern about how expensive the machine could get for consumers.
Based on Apple’s current pricing structure, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 — without any other upgrades — making it an extraordinarily niche product that likely isn’t worth the development costs, engineering resources and production bandwidth it would require.
Gurman also predicts that refreshed 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with the M2 Pro and M2 Max configurations will arrive early next year. The coming year will also see the release of an updated Mac mini with the M2 and M2 Pro options, however, Gurman does not know exactly when Apple will launch them.
The journalist goes on to mention that Apple “continues to eye a high-end iMac Pro with Apple silicon, but that machine has suffered internal delays for similar reasons as the Mac Pro.”
In this week’s newsletter, Gurman also revealed that Apple is working on several new external monitors, including an updated Pro Display XDR with Apple Silicon.
