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iRoll Pro: third-party manufacturer creates wheels with brakes for Mac Pro, still overpriced
by Dominik Bärlocher
The Mac Pro is history
27.3.2026
Translation: machine translated
Apple has cancelled the Mac Pro from its range. This is the end of an era - and a completely logical step.
Apple is no longer selling desktop tower computers with immediate effect. The company took the Mac Pro product page offline on 26 March. And as it made clear to 9to5mac.com, there will be no successor model.
This move comes as no surprise. Apple has been neglecting the Mac Pro for many, many years. Looking back, the history of the Mac Pro reads like a steady decline.
The golden era
Between 2006 and 2012, the Mac Pro was a normal desktop computer. It looked like a desktop, worked like a desktop and used Intel processors. It was a time when high performance required correspondingly large devices, so nobody questioned the point of tower PCs. In addition to the Mac operating system, Windows could also be used natively on the machines. In short, the Mac Pro was a sensible and serious flagship model. Professional users appreciated the fact that the Mac Pro was much more expandable than other Macs.
Source: PD
The dustbin
2013 saw the first break with tradition. The new model stood out with its original cylinder design, which gave rise to all kinds of jokes - for example, the name «Trashcan Mac Pro» is common for this model. This Mac Pro offered no interfaces for PCIe expansions - a major disadvantage for the target group. In addition, Apple never released an improved version of the cylinder Mac. As a result, the «rubbish bin» claimed the dubious record of the longest unchanged Apple computer ever sold. It was only replaced in 2019.
Source: Apple
The cheese grater
In 2019 - and therefore far too late - Apple launched a new Mac Pro. This resembled more of a classic tower PC and was given the nickname «Cheese Grater». Although, unlike its predecessor, it was expandable with PCIe, this in no way signalled a return to the good old days. On the contrary.
Source: youtube.com/iFixit
Apple gave the impression that it didn't really want to sell this device. Prices in Switzerland started at 6399 francs, with customers having to fork out almost 60,000 francs for the maximum configuration. This configuration offered 1.5 terabytes of RAM, which is very useful if you want to keep 6000 browser tabs open. The wheels were not included - to turn the cheese grater into a travelling cheese grater, another 600 francs were due.
The discontinued model
In 2020, Apple switched from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon architecture. This called the Mac Pro's raison d'être into question right from the start. On the one hand, it quickly became apparent that record-breaking performance could be achieved with the Apple architecture even without a tower housing. Secondly, the Apple processors are designed like a smartphone: they are systems on a chip (SoC), which means that the CPU, graphics unit and RAM form a single unit and cannot be replaced. With such chips, a classic desktop housing makes little sense.
Despite this, Apple still released a Mac Pro with silicon architecture in 2023. It still has PCIe interfaces, but graphics cards don't work with it.
The latest Mac Pro is already outdated again. It has an M2 Ultra installed. In the Mac Studio there is an M3 Ultra with higher performance. And Apple has already released the fifth generation of M processors. However, so far without an Ultra version - perhaps because users with high requirements simply don't need it.
Header image: Apple
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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