Is it time again for Apple to define "Professional"?
Five years ago, I sat in one of Apple's oldest buildings on the original Apple campus and listened to three Apple executives do the unthinkable: apologize and share future plans.
The apologies were not directed at me, but at all professionals who have relied on the Mac Pro for commercial, production, and rendering tasks. Arguably a small group of users with a huge influence on the perception of Apple in the broader market. Basically, the circular (often derisively called the "garbage can" design of the current Mac Pro at the time) was either too restrictive or, as Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, and a small group told me of tech reporters gathered, "We found ourselves a bit overcharged for a circular shape.
Apple listens to customer feedback, media reports, and online discussions about its products, but usually never tells people like me about them. This time, however, Apple shared a lot.
Is Apple Silicon the new divider?
The result of all this sharing was the unusual reveal of the next phase of the Mac Pro line. Essentially, Apple told us that they were starting from scratch. The "trash can" design would end up, yes, in the trash, and a new Mac Pro was on the way.
The rest is history. The redesigned Mac Pro, which Apple introduced about a year later in 2019, is a mix of the traditional (removable chassis and significant expandability) and the fantastical with a bold aluminum design featuring dozens of cutout spheres.
I'm not sure everyone liked it, but it wasn't divisive like the last Mac Pro and it quite effectively brought business users back into the fold.
Three years later, Apple is fracturing the pro market with a divider it likes to call Apple Silicon.
Three years later, Apple is fracturing the pro market with a divider it likes to call Apple Silicon.
Apple's custom SoC, introduced a year after the new Mac Pro, is fast becoming the go-to processor for virtually all Apple products (even iPhones are getting into the mix now that Apple insists on calling its chips the series A Apple silicon, as well as).
With four distinct flavors: M1, M1 Max, M1 Pro, and M1 Ultra, there's not much these mighty chips can do. They live in everything from the easy-to-use iPad Air to the exciting new Mac Studio.
For now, the Mac Pro still uses Intel Xeon processors and powerful AMD Radeon GPUs. It's a performance monster and clearly for the "Pro-est" of the Pro.
But for how long ?
Apple seeks to define Pro... again
For professionals looking for a variety of Apple gear—and Apple itself will tell you that it sees products like the iPad Pro and Mac Pro as "complementary"—the picture becomes more confusing, not clearer.
Not everything is bad. Who doesn't like to choose? And Apple of the last two decades is all about choice, breaking each category into three or more options, all designed for a different user or use case. Do you have small hands? The iPhone 13 mini or iPad mini is for you. On a budget? Check out the Macbook Air, iPad 9.7, and iPhone SE.
That's smart, but Pro users who may have discovered their products by power measurements must be a bit confused.
There are other clear differences in storage, ports, and displays that help define the MacBook Pro as a live business system, but the differences continue to narrow.
They thought they were buying the 11-inch iPad Pro, but then they realized the 10.9-inch iPad Air is just as powerful. They were thinking about the Mac Pro, but then they noticed that the Mac Studio with a pair of M1 Maxes came together to create an incredibly powerful M1 Ultra.
MacBook Pro and MacBook run the same M1 chips and their variants. There are other clear differences in storage, ports, and displays that help define the MacBook Pro as a live business system, but the differences continue to narrow.
A little clarity wouldn't hurt
It's not a misstep or mistake by Apple that deserves an apology, but I think we could use some clarity.
Where, Apple, look at the Apple Professional? Does it give you incremental updates, small stream size differences like a bit more performance, expandability, maybe LiDAR and a slightly better camera or can you still expect a river of changes between consumer and pro gear?
I'm under no illusions that Apple is hosting another unique roundtable to discuss apprehensions and the future of the products. Mainly because Apple didn't change that day. He had something to say, he needed to reassure a key market and he found the smartest way to do it.
Still, Apple doesn't need that level of thinking and sharing, but it needs to communicate that it always understands the needs of professionals, knows they're special, and will build for them in ways consumers can hardly imagine or afford.