Apple has finally discontinued its tower workstation:
While Apple is celebrating its upcoming 50th anniversary and looks forward to another 50 years, there’s one major product that has come to an end. The Mac Pro, as confirmed by Apple with Macworld, has been discontinued by the company. The Mac Pro section of Apple.com has been removed from the website, though Mac Pros are still available through Apple’s Certified Refurbished store.
It’s a quiet end for a product that was last updated in 2023 with an M2 Ultra chip. But it wasn’t a surprise; Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported last November that Apple had “largely written off” the Mac Pro, believing that the Mac Studio is a better product. Why it took so long to finally pull the plug isn’t clear, but Apple hadn’t done any updates to the hardware since the M2 Ultra upgrade nearly three years ago.
Apple has been rumored to have an update to the Mac Studio in the works, with an announcement likely between now and WWDC26. Apple positions the Mac Studio as the machine for production environments that demand workstation performance, and seemingly feels confident that the Mac Studio can fill the Mac Pro’s shoes.
The discontinuation of the Mac Pro leaves Apple without a modular tower computer, but it’s been moving away from those types of machines for a while. In response to those who think an expandable tower is a gaping hole in the Mac lineup, Apple often counters with confidence that its silicon can make up for the need for expansion cards, and Thunderbolt can handle storage needs just as well.
Apple introduced the Mac Pro in 2006, the same time Apple completed its transition from Motorola chips to Intel. It had two 64-bit, Intel Xeon 5100 (Woodcrest) processors, four hard drive bays, eight RAM slots, and started at $2,499.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Bentonite on Tuesday April 07, @04:23AM (4 children)
Now if only apple was to go bankrupt and thus as a consequence, the rest of the product lines were to be discontinued - too bad that won't happen anytime soon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday April 07, @02:17PM (1 child)
Currently, Apple's prices are reasonably competitive. The "massive" up-charge for RAM/etc that they've charged the end-user in the past has not actually gone up due to the current RAMpocalypse. Sure, the amount they charged may have been obscene and thus deserved ridicule for it. However, they've not subsequently increased their prices, because everyone else is too. Which I think gives them a certain amount of credit. They're also not "not increasing prices" out of the goodness of their hearts. They're a company and are in the business of making money. Thus, it stands to reason that they just aren't affected by the RAMpocalypse like everyone else. Whether through some sweetheart deal they were able to broker in the past and/or just having bought up their supply in advance. Sure, they could increase their prices, because the near future isn't very bright for anyone needing RAM. They might could even get away with it. But, they haven't gone down that path and as such, they are actually competitively priced now. So, if you're in the market for a new device. You might be cutting off your nose to spite your face, if you're not at least considering an Apple device.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bentonite on Wednesday April 08, @01:05AM
My wish for apple to go bankrupt was for the good of humanity, not some trifle to do with pricing, even though apple does charge obscene prices on the hardware and then proceeds to make more money by spying on you.
I have never even considered attacking myself by giving my money to apple - but any decision to not give money to apple is always correct, even if done for the wrong reason.
I don't have the slightest interest in new factory e-waste, with digital handcuffs to ensure that it cannot run free software.
I will never buy new hardware unless it can run free software and therefore the prices of DDR5 (the ram itself runs proprietary software!) and DDR4 are not a concern to me.
ECC DDR3 remains cheap, but even then, I don't need any more RAM.
Storage prices are now ridiculous, but currently I don't need more storage.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by epitaxial on Tuesday April 07, @06:50PM (1 child)
Why?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bentonite on Wednesday April 08, @12:35AM
Apple is a very evil company - what they offer is the antithesis of computing - jails that takes the users freedom and restricts what computation a user can carry out.
But of course the prison bars, the handcuffs and the foot-cuffs are polished and made to seem as shiny and fashionable - over 2 billion have fallen for it and gallantly flaunt how they are restricted - as apple knows best.
Those under apple's spell, don't even realize that apple doesn't even make sense when looking from a purely practical angle - their software is completely broken and has poor software compatibility (worse than windows(!)) and their hardware has a high failure rate by design (although the failure usually does not occur until a few years after the device is "unsupported", excluding cases like the butterfly keyboard).
(I have not paid for any apple products and avoid being used by them as much as possible, but I've noticed that the software is completely broken even from that).
Realistically, the only way such evil would end would be for apple to go bankrupt, which is clearly a honest wish, for the good of humanity and myself, not a troll.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07, @08:20AM (3 children)
The point of the Mac Pro was traditionally to be a serious workstation computer which was, mostly, used for professional video work. The Apple Silicon Mac Pro was weak sauce for this because it couldn't accommodate nearly as much RAM as the Xeon-based Mac Pro. 192GB sounds like a lot until you notice that the Intel-based Mac Pros usually were equipped with 1TB+.
It's possible that Apple is just punting on this market, since they're probably pulling software support for the Intel-based Mac Pro next year and there's no viable replacement. The limitation on addressable RAM is built into the CPU so there's no possibility of stealth boosting the capacity with new RAM modules or something.
The Mac Studio used to be available with 512GB, which ... is only 1/3 as much as the Intels but it's kinda sorta good enough maybe, but Apple now limits it to 256GB because of the RAM shortage.
Maybe Apple is planning a new Studio before they pull software support for the Intel Mac Pros, but they also need a new M6 CPU, because the laptop-focused M4 and M5 actually have less addressable RAM even than the M2 used in the new Mac Pro! (Probably this saves them a dollar or so per CPU). The other thing about the Studio is that it doesn't support plug-in GPUs (or upgrades of any kind really), which is likely also painful for video editing.
The only thing stopping basically everyone with a Mac Pro from switching to Linux is that Adobe and some CAD companies won't release their software for Linux.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday April 07, @11:24AM (2 children)
That does not bode well for their new budget laptop, Neo?, as it will be locked in on storage and ram to what is today very small amounts -- 8Gb of RAM, soldered to the motherboard and I'm not sure the CPU could even handle more so no need to hack that in there someplace unless you sort of want to start with total RAM banking again.
Still Apple does these things from time to time, they slim and trim their catalogue. They don't tend to have to many models. They have one or a couple and that is it. I in that regard assume that they think that "desktop towers" are uncool and not needed anymore. Or that the Mac Studio will cover the niche. Perhaps you can stack multiples of them? Isn't their "pro" machine otherwise the Macbook PRO? They don't want their users locked into a desk, but to be able to take their work on the road. It's probably a whole design philosophy idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07, @12:39PM (1 child)
Yep, 8GB is the maximum the A18 CPU in the Neo can use. It is not even Apple's latest A* CPU, the iPhone 17 has the newer A19 which can handle 12GB on the Pro version. Usually Apple purpose-builds these CPUs for a particular phone so using it in the Neo points to some kind of fab issue IMO, maybe the basic M5 isn't yielding well or maybe there's a production glut on the A18. Using a phone CPU in the Neo is also responsible for the Neo's lack of ports - basically the same thing that happened to the Raspberry Pi prior to the 4. I still think the Neo is a reasonable device, it costs more than twice as much as a Chromebook but it's also a lot more capable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday April 07, @01:39PM
I think the NEO will sale like hotcakes. They know their demographics. They should have enough knowledge and telemetry by now to know what people do and use their machines for. Most people don't do much more then just view some videos, type some documents and surf the web. Their non-commercial users don't really sit around crunching large amounts of data on the daily.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @01:45PM
My kids school has (had?) a lab of Pros for graphics arts classes (including video editing).
They could lock the desktops up (kind of) and only the keyboards and displays and mice take damage from the kids.
My guess is they'll replace them in the long run with mac minis. Probably cheaper. Its not like editing the same old 4K video is going to require any more MIPS over time. Also the techniques learned would probably not change much with resolution so 480i would seem almost as usable for educational use as 8K video, just a lot cheaper LOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07, @02:19PM (1 child)
Apple stopped being a company for creators when they changed their name.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday April 07, @08:05PM
They became a company for shareholders when they went public. The wisest creators, who bought a few shares way back when, are living quite comfortably today.