The September 2022 Apple event is over, and like most of its events this time of year, Apple has focused on the iPhone 14, AirPods Pro 2, and the new Apple Watch Ultra. We haven’t seen the updated Mac Pro, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but time is running out for Apple to deliver on its promise.
The company said in April that a Mac Pro with Apple Silicon was on the way, and when Apple began the transition, it said the transition would be complete in two years. We didn’t hear about the Mac Pro at Apple’s “Far Out” event in September 2022, and that could mean Apple won’t ship a Mac Pro this year.
The Mac Pro is in desperate need of an update, and all eyes were on WWDC 2022 for an announcement. Apple promised to deliver an update in April this year, and the annual conference seemed like the perfect platform to launch a new high-end desktop. But we didn’t receive an announcement during Apple’s developer-focused event, and we still don’t know when that announcement might take place.
A Mac Pro with Apple Silicon isn’t just about Apple delivering on its promise. The Mac Pro has been a staple of creative industries such as film and audio production for years, but it’s lost a lot of favor in the last two revisions. That’s because hardware is moving much faster than Apple can keep up. Even with the current Mac Pro’s modular MPX design, we only saw a few add-on GPUs and no upgrade path for the CPU. RAM and additional MPX cards have also largely waned, with the same modules available now that were available at launch.
Right now, the Mac Pro is an insanely expensive paperweight (maybe a cheese grater if you really want to get creative). Ever since the launch of the MacBook Air M1, it’s been clear that Apple’s silicon works wonders in terms of performance and efficiency. Chips like the M1 Ultra just continue that, delivering class-leading performance in applications like Premiere Pro. This is what the Mac Pro needs right now.
Even late last year, the M1 Max and M1 Pro were able to outperform the Mac Pro, and that was inside a laptop. It wasn’t close either, with laptops finishing a render about a quarter of the time while the Mac Pro was powered by an Intel Xeon processor. That doesn’t bode well for a workstation that costs at least $6,000 and well over $20,000 at most.
We didn’t get an announcement or teaser for the Mac Pro at Apple’s September event, but there’s still time in the year for the desktop launch. Apple has had a Mac-focused fall event for the past two years, and we might see a similar event this year. It’s important to keep in mind that Apple doesn’t always host these events, so we might not hear any news until spring 2023.
As for what we’ll see in the machine, it’s hard to say aside from the fact that it will come with Apple silicon. The company has already introduced its M2 processor, and rumors indicate that the Mac Pro could use a multi-die configuration with multiple M2 chips.
Industry insiders say there’s an M2 Extreme in the works, featuring 128 graphics cards and a total of 40 CPU cores. It could be similar to the M1 Extreme, essentially linking two M2 Ultra chips. However, we only have the base M2 at the moment, and Apple hasn’t confirmed any details.
The Mac Pro wasn’t the only product Apple skipped during its September 2022 event. We saw no news on the M2 MacBook Pro, joining a list of products Apple didn’t announce during its September 2022 event. of its “Far Out” showcase.
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