In March 2026, Apple officially discontinued the Mac Pro, removing the workstation from its website and confirming that no future models would be released. The move marked the end of a product line that had served professional users for over a decade. While many assumed Apple had long moved on from Intel-based Macs, a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reveals that the company had actually been developing two new Mac Pro models — including one powered by Intel silicon — before ultimately abandoning the plans.
According to Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Apple had two Mac Pro prototypes in development, codenamed J170 and J190. The former was a surprising Intel-based Mac Pro, built even while Apple was transitioning its entire lineup to Apple Silicon. The latter was an M3 Ultra version that was slated to launch alongside the M3 Ultra Mac Studio in early 2025. Both models were scrapped, and Gurman reports that Apple does not currently plan to bring back the Mac Pro anytime soon — if ever.
Inside Apple’s scrapped Mac Pro plans
The decision to kill the Mac Pro “wasn’t always the plan” inside Apple, according to Gurman. The company initially envisioned a high-end “Extreme” chip positioned above the “Ultra” tier, which would have driven a new generation of Mac Pro performance. Gurman states that Apple developed both M2 Extreme and M3 Extreme chips before winding down those projects due to cost and demand concerns. These chips were intended to offer significantly more CPU and GPU cores than the Ultra variants, targeting professionals who needed maximum computational power for tasks like 3D rendering, video editing, and scientific computing.
The Intel-based J170 Mac Pro is particularly intriguing because it suggests Apple was hedging its bets even as the Apple Silicon transition was underway. Intel-based Macs had been phased out of the consumer lineup by 2023, but some professional users relied on legacy software or specific hardware configurations that were not yet compatible with Apple’s custom chips. By developing an Intel Mac Pro, Apple may have been trying to cater to those users while gradually convincing them to migrate to Apple Silicon. However, the project was ultimately canceled, possibly because Intel’s roadmap no longer aligned with Apple’s performance goals or because the demand for such a machine was too limited.
The M3 Ultra J190 Mac Pro, on the other hand, represented Apple’s continued push to unify its lineup around its own silicon. The M3 Ultra chip, which would have been the most powerful in Apple’s arsenal at that time, was expected to feature up to 32 CPU cores and 128 GPU cores, along with support for up to 256GB of unified memory. The Mac Studio featuring the M3 Ultra launched in early 2025 as planned, but the Mac Pro version never materialized. This suggests that Apple decided the Mac Studio could adequately serve the professional market without the need for a separate tower form factor with expandable PCIe slots and other customization options.
Apple’s decision to discontinue the Mac Pro has been met with mixed reactions. Longtime fans of the product point to its modular design, which allowed users to swap out components like RAM, storage, and graphics cards. The Mac Studio, while powerful, lacks that expandability, meaning professionals who need to upgrade individual components may be forced to buy entirely new machines. On the other hand, the Mac Studio offers exceptional performance in a compact form factor and has been widely praised for its thermal efficiency and quiet operation.
The Mac Pro’s history stretches back to 2006, when Apple introduced the first Intel-based Mac Pro as a replacement for the Power Mac G5. Over the years, the line underwent several redesigns, including the controversial “trash can” Mac Pro in 2013, which lacked internal expansion. Apple acknowledged its misstep in 2017 and promised a truly modular Mac Pro, which arrived in 2019 with a return to a tower design and support for PCIe expansion. That model, powered by Intel Xeon processors, was the last Mac Pro released before the transition to Apple Silicon.
With the Apple Silicon era, Apple introduced the Mac Studio in 2022, which quickly became the go-to machine for many creative professionals. The Mac Pro was updated to Apple Silicon in 2023, but it was essentially a Mac Studio in a larger chassis with additional PCIe slots for audio and video I/O cards. Even then, it lacked support for discrete graphics cards, a key feature that some professionals desired. Sales were reportedly modest, leading Apple to re-evaluate the product’s future.
Gurman’s report also notes that new Mac Studios with M5 Ultra chips are expected as early as fall 2026. This indicates that Apple is investing in the Mac Studio lineup as its flagship professional desktop, rather than pursuing a separate Mac Pro model. For users who need more than what the Mac Studio offers, Apple may be encouraging them to consider cloud computing or other external solutions.
The scrapping of the Extreme chips and the Intel Mac Pro underscores the challenges Apple faces in balancing innovation, cost, and market demand. While enthusiasts may lament the loss of a customizable tower, Apple’s focus on efficiency and integration has yielded impressive performance gains across its Mac lineup. Whether the Mac Pro will ever return remains uncertain, but for now, the Mac Studio stands as the company’s ultimate pro desktop.
Source: 9to5Mac News