Apple’s Mac Pro may not sell nearly as well as the iMac or the MacBook Air, but the high-end desktop still commands a small but devoted user base. Since it caters to a specific niche, Mac Pro enthusiasts have grown accustomed to Apple treating it as something of an afterthought. As a prime example, Apple released the somewhat controversial trashcan Mac Pro in 2013, and waited a full six years before updating it with a new form factor and drastically upgraded internals. You might also recall that Apple didn’t release a Mac Pro with Apple Silicon until 2023, even though it started releasing M-series notebooks in 2020. Suffice it to say, the Mac Pro hasn’t been a priority for Apple for quite some time. Looking ahead, it doesn’t seem like that will change anytime in the near future.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple recently decided to cancel a few planned Mac Pro updates – after the existing Mac Pro got one key upgrade — and has no plans to refresh the computer at all in 2026. What’s more, there’s no indication that a brand new iteration of the Mac Pro is even on Apple’s product roadmap. Citing sources within the company, Bloomberg relays that “Apple has largely written off the Mac Pro.” This, however, shouldn’t be taken to mean that Apple is abandoning its Pro-oriented users. On the contrary, Apple is reportedly of the mind that the company’s Mac Studio “now represents both the present and future of Apple’s professional desktop strategy.”
Apple’s Mac Studio is a worthy successor to the Mac Pro
There’s something undeniably nostalgic about the current Mac Pro. After all, the industrial design of a hefty Mac Pro tower is iconic. The form factor alone tends to signify that this is a serious machine designed for professional users. Even decades ago, Apple’s Power Mac G3, G4, and G5 towers were a way for Apple to differentiate its more consumer-friendly iMac line from its more powerful tower-based machines. In 2025, however, the need for a distinctly large tower — no matter how powerful the machine may be — is arguably not necessary. This is especially true in an age of Apple silicon, where tremendous performance can be delivered in smaller form factors with efficient cooling.
Additionally, it stands to reason that Apple wouldn’t be drifting away from the Mac Pro in the first place if sales were strong. And so, in its place we have the Mac Studio, a more compact desktop computer that delivers more processing power and storage than what’s currently available on Apple’s top-of-the-line iMac. While the current Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra processor has some performance advantages over a Mac Studio with an M4 Max processor, it’s possible that, for most pro users, even the Mac Studio is good enough. What’s more, the current Mac Pro weighs nearly 40 pounds and is thousands of dollars more expensive than the Mac Studio, which is small enough that one can even travel with it. In other words, the Mac Pro arguably doesn’t have a place within Apple’s current Mac lineup anymore.
