According to MacRumors, citing a report from Bloomberg, Apple has put the Mac Pro “on the back burner” and has “largely written off” the high-end desktop. The company hasn’t updated the machine since 2023 and currently views the more compact Mac Studio as the ideal pro-level desktop, which has almost replaced the Mac Pro. Apple is reportedly working on an M5 Ultra chip for next year, but plans only call for it to go into the Mac Studio, not a new Mac Pro. Furthermore, the company has no plans to update the Mac Pro in 2026 in any “significant way.” Right now, the Mac Studio already beats the current M2 Ultra Mac Pro in specs, offering more maximum storage, more unified memory, and support for more 8K displays.
The Strategic Sunset
Here’s the thing: this isn’t really a surprise, it’s just Apple finally admitting the quiet part out loud. The Mac Pro’s business case has been crumbling for years. The Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra is more powerful, smaller, quieter, and cheaper than the equivalent Mac Pro. For 99% of pro users—even high-end ones—the Studio is the obvious, superior choice. So why keep investing in the complex, low-volume, and expensive-to-produce Mac Pro chassis? From a pure business strategy standpoint, it makes zero sense. Apple is clearly positioning the Mac Studio as the new pinnacle of its desktop lineup, a move that simplifies their supply chain and focuses engineering resources. The beneficiaries are the vast majority of creative pros who get a more than capable machine without the Pro’s bulk and price tag.
A History of Pro Missteps
But this feels like history repeating itself, doesn’t it? Apple has a famously rocky relationship with its pro desktop users. Remember the 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro? That was a design marvel that completely failed its audience because it had zero internal expansion. They prioritized form over function and got burned. The 2019 modular Mac Pro was a massive, expensive mea culpa—”Fine, you want PCIe slots? HERE ARE YOUR SLOTS!”—but it always felt like a concession, not a vision. And now, just a few years later, they’re sidelining it again. It seems like Apple’s silicon is so good that it’s made their own expandable tower obsolete for their core market. The only people left who truly need a Mac Pro are a tiny niche with specific PCIe cards, like for high-end video capture or audio processing. And that’s probably not a big enough market for Apple to care about anymore.
The Final Nail?
So, is it dead? Basically, yeah. As long as it’s still for sale on their website, they’ll pay it lip service. But when your own cheaper, smaller desktop outperforms your flagship “expandable” tower, the writing is on the wall. The Mac Pro is a relic of the Intel transition era. In Apple’s unified silicon world, the future is the Mac Studio. It’s a cleaner, more controlled, and more profitable model for them. For industries that still rely on heavy internal expansion, like manufacturing or industrial control, they’ve long since moved to specialized, rugged systems from companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs. Apple’s exit from the true pro tower space just cements that divergence. The Mac Pro had a dramatic comeback, but its final act seems to be a quiet, unceremonious fade to black.
