Apple Discontinues the Mac Pro for Good

Source Domain: tidbits.com

After nearly 20 years, Apple has officially discontinued the Mac Pro, with no plans for future models, as first reported by Chance Miller at 9to5Mac. The move marks the end of an era for Apple’s most expandable desktop, although the Mac Pro had become something of an anachronism.

Early in its run, the Mac Pro was the choice of people like me who considered themselves professionals because they needed a bit more processing power, additional RAM to avoid swapping, faster (and less cluttered) internal storage, and support for multiple displays. I bought an early 2009 “cheese grater” Mac Pro for those reasons, paying $2279.

My Mac Pro now serves as an end table alongside the original Power Mac G5 it replaced. Can you guess which is which?

In 2013, Apple introduced the cylindrical “trash can” Mac Pro at $2999, abandoning the cheese grater’s PCIe expandability for a compact design that relied on Thunderbolt 2 (see “Can a Normal User Justify a Mac Pro?,” 21 April 2014). The following year, the 27-inch iMac with Retina display arrived—combining significant CPU power with an unbeatable screen, user-expandable RAM, and dual-display support—capturing many users who had previously bought Mac Pros (see “Apple Launches iMac with Retina Display, Refreshes Mac mini,” 16 October 2014 and “The Retina iMac: It’s All about the Screen,” 31 October 2014). The 27-inch iMac’s popularity left the Mac Pro’s audience limited to scientists and audio/video professionals who specifically needed PCIe cards, which the trash can couldn’t provide.

Apple acknowledged its misstep with the trash-can design in 2017 (see “Maca Culpa: Apple Admits Mac Pro Missteps and Promises More Transparency,” 4 April 2017), but did not release the third-generation Mac Pro until 2019, which hearkened back to the cheese grater design, albeit with feet and optional wheels. That model was still Intel-based, but saw a massive price jump to $5999 (see “2019 Mac…

Source