Mac Pro 2018 (or 2019) preview

Apple's talked about its plans for the Mac Pro, but it's not given much away yet. But thanks to the iMac Pro we do have an inkling of what to expect

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Mac Pro 2018 (or 2019) preview

The last time Apple updated the Mac Pro it made a big deal about how it was revolutionary and proof that Apple could still innovate. The 2013 Mac Pro was built around a thermal core that cooled a 12-core Xeon processor, a 256GB flash drive, up to 64GB RAM, and two GPUs, all squeezed into a tube that was 9.9in by 6.6in. Read our review of the 2013 Mac Pro here.

While some joked about its resemblance to a trash can, the 2013 Mac Pro certainly did have all the looks. But when Apple had made its design choices it had made some assumptions about the path that future workstation technologies would take, and unfortunately, while the design of the Mac Pro did a great job keeping it cool, thanks to the thermal core, the internal design just couldn’t accommodate the processors and GPUs that were to arrive over the years that followed, and as a result Apple was unable to update the Mac Pro in its current form.

This might have been forgivable but for the fact that those people who did purchase a Mac Pro couldn’t update their models either. Much better processors and GPUs have arrived since the ones that Apple used in the 2013 Mac Pro, but no Mac Pro user was able to take advantage of these.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Mac Pro when it launched back in 2013, and finally went on sale that Christmas, was the fact that it was not user upgradable.

The old ‘cheese grater’ Mac Pro (pictured below) had been popular because it could be upgraded with faster graphics cards, better CPUs, extra storage space thanks to the internal drive bays and PCI Express expansion slots. With the 2013 Mac Pro Apple tried to tell pros that the Thunderbolt 2 ports provided on the Mac Pro would give them all the upgradability they needed. Pros laughed at the idea and wondered how they would find the desk space.

As a result, in the four years since the introduction of the trash can Mac Pro many Pros have been creating their own ‘hackintoshes’ with the CPUs and graphics cards they need. Those pros who aren’t desperate to run macOS (or Mac OS X) have just switched to the Windows of Linux workstations that have left Apple’s Mac Pro for dust.

So really there were only two things Apple could do. Either it had to pull out of the workstation space all together and face the onslaught of bad press about turning its back on the creatives who made the company popular in the first place, or it needed admit to its failings and go back to the drawing board and start again with the Mac Pro.

At a briefing with a select few journalists in April 2017 Apple admitted that it had made a bit of a mess of the Mac Pro and explained that it was “completely rethinking” the design and its approach. Creatives cheered, or at least those ones who were still listening. There is more information about this briefing here: New Mac Pro latest news.

But what do we know of this “completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display,” as Apple’s VP of marketing Phil Schiller described it?

It would seem that the company isn’t far along in its reinvention of the Mac Pro, there was no prototype to show off at WWDC in June 2017, and no more information given at that event, other than a reiteration of the promise that something is in the pipeline.

What we did see at WWDC was the other pro machine that Apple promised at that same April briefing. The iMac Pro is due to launch later in 2017 and it offers some clues as to what we can expect from the new Mac Pro when it arrives.

In addition the comments made by Schiller and the two other Apple VPs present at the briefing in April give us some insight as to just how much of a revamp Apple is conducting. Apparently it’s a “radical revamp” if you were wondering.

The most important aspect of the redesign is that Apple’s not going to back itself into a thermal cor-ner again (surely someone else has made that joke). Schiller said: “We want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we're committed to making it our highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers.”

So that’s great; Apple won’t take another four years (probably by the time it launches, five years) to update the Mac Pro with the next round of processors and GPUs… But what about user upgradability. That’s that the pros have been crying out for.

Upgradability

Apple does promise that it will be a modular system. This suggests that the Apple workstation will have easily replaceable parts that use standardized interfaces.

Apple being Apple, the fear is that the company will use proprietary connectors, meaning that the computer can only be upgraded with parts that it approves. We can only hope that this won’t be the case.