Expensive, outdated, little sense: Has Apple written off the Mac Pro?
The former flagship Mac in the tower case has long been in the shadows. Apple is reportedly not planning to upgrade it with the M5 Ultra at the moment.
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The Mac Pro seems to be in a dead end again: According to a report, Apple has already “largely written off” the large tower. The still quite new and much more compact Mac Studio is considered internally to be the future of the desktop Macs intended for professionals, as Mark Gurman, who is usually well-informed, writes in his Bloomberg newsletter. The expected top chip M5 Ultra is currently only planned for the Mac Studio; the Mac Pro will likely not receive a significant update again in the coming year 2026.
Mac Pro: Starting price over 8000 Euros
The last major update to the Mac Pro was over two years ago. At that time, the model received the M2 Ultra, and Apple completed the major transition of its Mac division from Intel chips to its processors. Since then, nothing has changed; the successor M3 Ultra and chips like the M4 Max are exclusively available in the more affordable Mac Studio – the latter also optionally in the MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro can still be purchased in its 2023 version, starting at 8300 Euros.
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The Mac Pro, as well as its predecessor, which was then still operating under the name Power Mac, were Apple's flagship Macs for a long time – and a core business. However, with the 2013 redesign, affectionately dubbed “Trashcan” by customers, the manufacturer relegated itself to the “thermal corner.” During more demanding tasks, the computer in the relatively compact cylindrical case quickly became extremely hot and throttled its performance. The dual-GPU design was also completely out of sync with the market.
Even then, it seemed as if Apple had largely written off its professional desktop Macs. Only years later and after many customer complaints did the company promise to develop a new modular Mac Pro. This was then launched in 2019 with a new design, which has been retained to this day, still with Intel processors – even though the major shift to Apple Silicon was already clearly on the horizon at that time.
Modular, but hardly any components
The concept of a modular tower appears to be practically obsolete at Apple: Other Macs can only be upgraded with expensive upgrade packages at the time of purchase; nothing can be easily replaced afterward – and there are hardly any upgrade options for the Mac Pro either. Apple has already given all other Macs a new design for the much more efficient in-house chips. The Mac Pro has so far remained in its stylish, but now much too large, case designed for Intel chips.
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