From InfoWorld: No three words will stop a Mac user in their tracks faster than these: Mac Pro update. It’s been more than three years since Apple last paid any attention to its desktop tower, and users have been anxiously awaiting an upgrade. However, while Apple indeed announced a refresh Tuesday morning, the real news is about what’s coming down the road.
First, the new specs: Apple is still offering two base models of Mac Pro at $2,999 and $3,999. The lower-end model jumps from from a quad-core Xeon CPU to a 6-core one, and gets dual G500 GPUs (an upgrade over the G300 GPUs), while the step-up model gets an 8-core CPU (up from 6) and dual D800 GPUs (up from the D500). That’s it. There’s no USB-C and no Thunderbolt 3, which means it still won’t be able to run the LG UltraFine 5K display.
On top of all this disappointing news, Apple uncharacteristically threw users a bone by divulging its future plans for the Mac desktop. Apparently, new pro-level iMacs are due later this year.
Supply and demand: Any news about the Mac Pro is better than no news. Still, until Apple backs its commitment with serious hardware upgrades, we remain skeptical. The refreshes released today don’t do anything to move the needle—seriously, where’s USB-C?—but maybe someday Apple will release the machine of our dreams, with enough expansion slots and I/O ports to handle everything we throw at it.
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