Apple silicon Mac Pro might be the biggest disappointment in years
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Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has shed some more light on Apple’s plans for the long-overdue Mac Pro update in his latest Power On newsletter, and it’s not good news.
At the end of 2022 Gurman claimed Apple had adjusted its plans due to the “complexity and cost” of producing a Mac Pro with its ultimate chip combination: 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores. At the time Gurman suggested that as a result, Apple had “likely scrapped that higher-end configuration.”
Now, in his January 8 newsletter, Gurman confirms that the 48-core CPU, 152-core GPU Mac Pro “has been canceled.” Instead, Apple will only release a Mac Pro featuring the M2 Ultra–the same chip used in the Mac Studio.
Gurman goes on to question why, “beyond the machine’s expandability,” customers would choose to purchase the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra rather than the cheaper Mac Studio with the same processor. It’s a fair question.
With regards to the former point, this new Mac Pro, which Gurman indicates will “look identical to the 2019 model,” will probably not be equal to the Intel Mac Pro in terms of expandability options. It will lack user-upgradeable RAM due to the memory being built on to the M2 motherboard. But there will be expansion options for storage, graphics, media, and networking cards, according to Gurman.
Our thoughts: With the M2 Ultra Mac Studio being either out of stock or on-order with long delays, perhaps Apple will stop selling that model, claiming lack of interest, and focus on the M2 Max Studio instead. Inevitably, however, it will look like Apple is reducing its offering for pro creatives.
Gurman’s newsletter also includes some interesting insights into other Macs that are in the pipeline at Apple. For example:
MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max: Will offer only “marginal leaps from today’s MacBook Pro processors.”
iMac Pro: “I would be surprised at this point if it arrives in 2023.”
24-inch iMac: “Won’t arrive until the M3 chip is ready, which likely won’t happen until late 2023 or 2024 at the earliest.”
15-inch MacBook Air: The “saving grace for the Mac lineup in 2013.”
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