If you’re the type of power user who’s been keeping an eye on the next Mac Pro upgrade, it’s time to make other plans. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the Mac Pro is basically dead, as Apple has “largely written off” its desktop tower and believes its target audience is served by the Mac Studio.
That news isn’t so surprising, considering how Apple has handled the Mac Pro in the past decade. When the Mac Pro debuted in 2006 with an Intel CPU, it was regularly upgraded on a one- or two-year basis until Apple decided to think different and released the cylindrical Mac Pro in 2013. That Mac got incremental upgrades, but its design created limitations on the upgrades it can receive.
The company eventually switched back in 2013 to the tower design it still uses today, but also adopted an upgrade strategy so intermittent that customers were left wondering when or if the Mac Pro would get an Apple silicon chip. It eventually did, but it was the last Mac to get an M-series chip, the M2 Ultra, which it still has today.
Apple wants to grow its Mac market share, according to past reports, and the company has big plans for the Mac next year. So if that’s the goal, why isn’t the Mac Pro part of it? Apparently, the Mac Pro sells in such low volume that the costs to develop it aren’t worth it. An argument can be made that the customer who wants a Mac Pro doesn’t really care about the CPU speed but rather needs PCI expansion slots. Therefore, they don’t upgrade regularly, and some may even still be using Intel-based Mac Pros.
That means the Mac Studio is truly at the top of Apple’s Mac performance chart. It fits the bill when it comes to speed, and it is expandable to a certain extent with external Thunderbolt devices. Of course, you can’t upgrade the CPU, GPU, or RAM after purchase, but that’s true of any Mac, including the Mac Pro. An earlier report claimed that Apple delayed the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips due to a new design that separates the CPU and GPU, which could allow for great user customization at the time of purchase.
Gurman also reported that the M4 Ultra chip is no longer in development, the processor that was once rumored to debut in the Mac Pro. Could Apple be taking a two-year approach with its M-series Ultra chip? The most current Ultra is the M3 Ultra, which is Apple’s fastest chip and available in the highest-end Mac Studio, so it seems likely. And if you’re a Mac Pro user, you might want to start thinking smaller.
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.