Apple has largely written off the Mac Pro and does not plan to give its expandable desktop an upgrade in 2026, according to Mark Gurman, Bloomberg’s Apple insider. The company now sees the Mac Studio as both the present and future of its professional desktop strategy.
Gurman says there is no M4 Ultra chip in the works, and Apple canceled plans for a Mac Pro to support it. The next high-end desktop processor will be the M5 Ultra, but Apple is only focused on a new Mac Studio for that chip.
The Mac Pro has struggled to find its place in Apple’s lineup since the company transitioned to Apple Silicon. The 2023 Mac Pro, powered by the M2 Ultra chip, remains the only machine with six PCI expansion slots. However, the Mac Studio (with either the M4 Max or M3 Ultra processors) offers excellent performance without expansion slots.
After years of criticism, Apple redesigned the Mac Pro in 2019 with a bigger chassis resembling a gigantic cheese grater. This gave ample thermal headroom and options for future expansion. Apple stuck to the same chassis design when it upgraded the Mac Pro with its M2 Ultra chip in 2023, but it hasn’t updated the machine since then. It was the last Mac to make the transition to Apple Silicon. The Mac Pro has been overshadowed by the Mac Studio, which received the M3 Ultra chip. These were Apple’s plans for the M3 Ultra SoC.
The current Mac Studio gives workstation-class performance in a compact design that runs cool and quiet. For most professionals, the Mac Studio meets their needs without the higher cost and larger footprint of the Mac Pro.