Andrew Cunningham
If rumors are to be believed, Apple had to scale back its ambitions for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. The planned performance-boosting “M2 Extreme” chip has allegedly been cancelled, and some of the perks people usually associate with a Mac Pro (upgradable RAM and graphics) are a result of how Apple Silicon chips are designed. may not be supported due to
If the latest rumors are correct, we’re left with a high-end Mac Studio with a user-accessible storage slot in the current neo cheese grater Mac Pro tower design.
This doesn’t leave a huge space between the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro, and not enough that the Mac Pro struggles to justify its continued presence and price premium. One possible solution, as reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman: Apple skipped the Mac Studio M2 generation update entirely, leaving a performance gap between the M1-based Studio model and the M2-based Mac Pro. can leave more gaps.
“It makes no sense for Apple to offer an M2 Ultra Mac Studio and an M2 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time,” Gurman wrote in his newsletter (via MacRumors). “Apple will likely not update the Mac Studio at all or delay it until the M3 or M4 generation, at which point the company may be able to differentiate the Mac Studio from the Mac Pro more.”
Gurman is usually in a position to know these things, but it’s worth noting that he’s hedged this prediction as more of a guess rather than attributing it to any particular source at Apple or its suppliers. The absence of an M2 version of Studio is certainly not an impregnable guarantee.
Whatever Apple ultimately does, it’s clear that the Apple Silicon era won’t change anything for Apple’s desktop users. do arrival.
The M2 Mac mini came six months after the M2 versions of the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, but the M1 versions of all three Macs were announced at the same time. The 24-inch iMac (his 2nd birthday) may not get his M2 version at all, and Apple is planning a larger Apple Silicon iMac to replace the 27-inch Intel model or iMac Pro. There is still conflicting evidence as to whether. The new Mac Pro has already broken Apple’s original two-year transition schedule to Intel. It’s all a lot less predictable than his September-by-September launch schedule for the iPhone (which helps new iPhones be able to beat and beat Apple’s quarterly financial reports, but new Macs generally aren’t). isn’t it).
This discrepancy is almost certainly justified by Mac desktop sales numbers. Apple doesn’t split sales between Mac laptops and desktops in its financial reports, but there’s no question that laptops outsell desktops. Given the limited number of chips and limited capacity to design and manufacture new products, it makes sense to prioritize laptops. This is especially true for Macs with Apple Silicon chips. increase. Macs are more power efficient, so laptops and desktops generally work the same.
This doesn’t make the long and uncertain wait between refreshes any easier for people who need or prefer desktop settings. If so, your new Mac Pro may include features you don’t need or cost more than you need. It might not offer everything you’re looking for (like we liked it). We can wait to decide to release.
