Apple updates Mac Pro desktop

Apple is finally gearing up for updating the Mac Pro desktop which was introduced in 2013 and has not received any updates since then.

As part of Pro-level update announcements, Apple this week updated the processors and RAM on the Mac Pro. The company also offered a glimpse of its new Mac Pro desktop design which is in the works.

The Mac Pro desktop was launched amid much fanfare in 2013. The cylindrical desktop tower which is meant for professional content creation audience had not been changed since then.

The 2013 "trash can" Mac Pro design was a departure from the more familiar PC tower design, which made for easy user-upgrade of drive bays, memory and graphic cards.

Against this, the unique tubular design 2013 system meant only a handful of components could be updated at a later date, though even those were difficult to access.

The entry-level $2,999 model came with a quad-core 3.7GHz Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and AMD D300 FirePro graphics.

The model was earlier this week updated to include

• 3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 processor
• 16GB 1,866MHz DDR3 ECC memory
• Dual AMD FirePro D500
• 256GB PCIe-based flash storage

With the step-up version, for $1,000 more, users now get an 8-core CPU and Dual AMD FirePro D700 video cards. Also custom upgrade configurations are available on Apple's website.

According to commentators, on the basis of the time it normally took to develop a project, the machine could be out in 2018 or even 2019.

TechCruch shared a transcript of an interview with Apple's Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, told the media, ''With regards to the Mac Pro, we are in the process of what we call 'completely rethinking the Mac Pro.' We're working on it. We have a team working hard on it right now, and 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.''

As part of doing a new Mac Pro - it is, by definition, a modular system - we will be doing a pro display as well. Now you won't see any of those products this year; we're in the process of that. We think it's really important to create something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro modular system, and that'll take longer than this year to do.''