Apple News
Apple’s Mac Pro had no real raison d’être
The Mac Pro was already dead. Apple just made it official.
The high-end desktop’s slow demise began in 2022, when Apple quietly scrapped plans for a flagship chip with double the processing cores of its Ultra-series processors. Without that ultra-powerful silicon, the Mac Pro lost its last legitimate reason to exist — especially since the far smaller, cheaper, quieter, and more practical Mac Studio already delivered similar performance.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
It was roughly three times larger in volume than the Mac Studio and cost $3,000 more — starting at a whopping $6,999. The approach to expansion also felt stuck in another era: There were PCIe slots for networking and audio cards, but no support for upgrading the components that matter most in modern workflows, like memory and graphics.
By last year, these deficiencies had become impossible to ignore. The Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra pulled further ahead — thanks to better performance, greater memory capacity and significantly higher storage ceilings. Notably, the Mac Pro wasn’t updated at all.
Apple also laid the groundwork for discontinuing the Mac Pro in other ways. That included an announcement last month that the Mac mini would be made in Houston. The Mac Pro had been the company’s only domestically assembled computer, so Apple was able to avoid headlines that it killed its sole made-in-America product (news that probably wouldn’t have gone over well at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.).
MacDailyNews Take: In the end, Mac Pro was a waste of aluminum.
For the vast majority of professional users (video editors, photographers, 3D artists, developers, and those running AI/ML workloads) the Mac Studio is the superior choice overall. It delivers an excellent balance of performance, price, compact size, and modern features. The Mac Studio covers 90% (or more) of what the Mac Pro once offered, but at a fraction of the cost and with newer silicon, and the promise of regular updates. The discontinued Mac Pro was only preferable, or truly necessary, in the rare cases that demand heavy internal PCIe expansion that cannot be adequately handled externally via Thunderbolt; a very niche market. – MacDailyNews, March 27, 2026
Apple’s Mac Pro is a dead end. Mac Studio is the high-end Mac future now. Bring on the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and rename it “Mac Pro.” – MacDailyNews, November 17, 2025
R.I.P., Mac Pro.
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Apple ramps up MacBook Neo production to 10 million units as new laptop sells out rapidly
Apple’s newly launched MacBook Neo, the company’s most affordable laptop ever, has become an immediate hit, selling out quickly and prompting the tech giant to double its production orders to a targeted 10 million units, according to supply chain sources.
Priced starting at $499 for education buyers and $599 for regular customers (approximately NT$16,900 to NT$19,900), the MacBook Neo launched on March 11, 2026, and has generated unprecedented demand. The 13-inch device features Apple’s A18 Pro chip, a fan-free design for silent operation, up to 16 hours of battery life, a vibrant Liquid Retina display, and a durable aluminum enclosure available in eye-catching colors including blush (pink), indigo, silver, and citrus.
Shortages have appeared almost immediately. On Apple’s U.S. online store, orders for all colors and configurations are showing delivery estimates of two to three weeks, while Japan’s site lists waits of one to two weeks — a level of backlog typically seen only with major iPhone launches.
The device has drawn significant interest from budget-conscious consumers, including many switching from Windows PCs or Google Chromebooks, particularly in the education and entry-level segments.
Supply chain insiders told Taiwan’s Yahoo Stock that Apple initially planned for 5 million units, with a potential ramp to 8 million if demand was strong. However, the overwhelming response led to an immediate decision to boost orders directly to 10 million. Key beneficiaries include assemblers Quanta Computer and Hon Hai (Foxconn), as well as component suppliers such as TSMC (for the A18 Pro chip), Innolux (carrier boards), Shin-Etsu (bearings), Hua Tong (PCBs), and Zhen Ding-KY (flexible boards).
The MacBook Neo has sparked widespread social media buzz, with praise extending beyond tech enthusiasts to fashion audiences who appreciate its stylish design and vibrant color options. The blush/pink variant is reportedly a top seller in Europe and the U.S. Analysts and online commentators suggest it could significantly erode market share from Chromebooks in education and compete directly with Microsoft’s entry-level laptops priced in the $600–$700 range.
This comes amid a broader PC market where competitors like ASUS are planning price increases of 25–30% in Q2 and beyond due to rising component costs. Apple’s stable pricing strategy, with no increases planned until early next year, gives the MacBook Neo a notable competitive edge.
Industry observers had previously projected MacBook Neo shipments of around 4.5–5 million units for 2026, but the current momentum and production ramp suggest significantly higher potential. The device’s ability to attract first-time Mac buyers while maintaining Apple’s signature build quality and ecosystem integration positions it as a potential game-changer in the affordable laptop space.As wait times persist and production scales up, the MacBook Neo appears poised to expand Apple’s reach into new customer segments, further strengthening its position in the competitive notebook market.
MacDailyNews Take: More and more Mac users every day! And, once they go Mac, they’ll never go back!
[Thanks to @apolicyguy for the heads up.]
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Apple shifts AI strategy toward App Store and search-like platform
Apple’s revamped AI and Siri strategy signals a clear recommitment to its proven core business model: selling premium hardware and the high-margin services that power it.
The company acknowledges that its in-house artificial intelligence technology trails well behind leaders like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic, and others. With competitors advancing at a rapid pace, Apple faces no realistic near-term path to AI leadership.
That acknowledgment is driving its new direction, which is expected to be detailed at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8. Instead of chasing an expensive AI arms race, Apple is doubling down on its greatest strengths — delivering highly profitable devices and monetizing the services and ecosystem that run on them.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Instead, Apple is pursuing a two-pronged strategy: embedding just enough AI into its operating systems to keep users from defecting to Android, while opening Siri and Apple Intelligence to third-party services. This approach leverages Apple’s hardware, makes its products more customizable and keeps the company in control of its ecosystem.
A cornerstone of this strategy is the upcoming iOS 27 Extensions feature, which will let users install third-party AI chatbots beyond ChatGPT and run them inside Siri. This feature will have its own dedicated App Store section, effectively creating an AI App Store. It will be a marketplace of sorts for third-party AI integrations.
A separate effort to use Google’s Gemini technology to revamp Siri and other AI functions allows Apple to offer in-house technology that’s usable and capable. But complementing those features with third-party offerings is the key next step. Apple can maintain sales of the iPhone and other devices while also generating revenue from AI-driven apps, via the App Store’s 30% commission.
Apple will still need to offer its own services, both for marketing purposes and to provide a usable out-of-the-box iPhone experience. It’s the same approach the company has long used with built-in apps: Apple tries to make its offerings useful even when they lag behind rival fare. Moreover, the company needs in-house technology to enable the launch of new device categories: high-end AirPods, smart glasses, a pendant and smart home products. Delays to the new Siri have set back some of these plans.
Apple’s own artificial intelligence software may still be subpar, but its chips and hardware run AI well in general. That dynamic shows that the company’s future probably remains rooted in hardware, not AI software and advanced large language models…
Apple has effectively conceded the AI race. That means not developing a serious competitor internally while letting third parties innovate. The company had little choice. It got caught flat-footed by ChatGPT in 2022 and has lost AI talent to OpenAI, Meta Platforms Inc., Google and Anthropic PBC.
Yet it still has a potentially successful path — even if the company stumbled into it. The closest historical parallel is the App Store: Apple offers in-house apps while allowing users to install third-party alternatives and takes a cut of the revenue. Many customers stick with Apple’s defaults, but many others opt for superior options…
MacDailyNews Take: Imagine the AI world as a vast network of superhighways where powerful AI “vehicles” — like Grok, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and others — race forward at breakneck speed, constantly upgrading their engines and capabilities.
Apple isn’t trying to build the fastest or most powerful AI car. Instead, it has decided to own and control the toll roads that all those AI vehicles must drive on to reach users.
Competitors can pour billions into making their AI vehicles faster and smarter, but without Apple’s roads, they have limited access to the massive, high-value traffic of iOS users. Apple, meanwhile, collects steady revenue from every trip while focusing on what it does best: selling premium vehicles (hardware) and maintaining the profitable highway system (services and ecosystem).
This way, Apple doesn’t need to win the AI arms race which they lost long ago due to a rather appalling lack of vision at the top of its executive ranks — it just needs to make sure every serious AI player eventually drives through its gates.
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