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Apple's $700 Mac Pro Wheels Kit Discontinued Along With Mac Pro

In addition to discontinuing the Mac Pro, Apple today discontinued the $700 wheel add-on kit that it sold for the Mac Pro.


The ‌Mac Pro‌ Wheels kit was introduced in 2020, and allowed ‌Mac Pro‌ owners to add wheels to their machine after purchase. The ‌Mac Pro‌ could be bought with a wheel option for an additional $400, but the lower price was because opting for wheels removed the $300 feet.

Apple's kit included a 1/4-inch to 4mm hex bit for installing the wheels, and an installation guide.

Apple also sold a $300 ‌Mac Pro‌ Feet Kit for users who ordered wheels but wanted to swap to standard feet. That kit has also been discontinued. The ‌Mac Pro‌ and its accessories have been removed from Apple's website entirely, and old links now redirect to the online Apple Store.

For ‌Mac Pro‌ owners who want to switch to wheels but are now unable to do so, OWC sells a less expensive Rover Pro wheels kit for $200.
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Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and has removed the machine from its website, reports 9to5Mac. Apple said it does not plan to design a new version of the ‌Mac Pro‌, and no new model will be coming in the future.


The ‌Mac Pro‌ was last updated in 2023, which was when Apple added an M2 Ultra Apple silicon chip, but the chassis has not been refreshed since 2019. Apple redesigned the ‌Mac Pro‌ to be more modular in 2019 after failing with its "innovative" trashcan Mac Pro, but the machine has never been mainstream due to its $6,999 starting price.

Apple has largely replaced the ‌Mac Pro‌ with the Mac Studio, a device that is smaller and uses newer Apple silicon chips. The ‌Mac Studio‌ is now Apple's high-end desktop machine designed for professional use.

The current ‌Mac Studio‌ features an M3 Ultra chip, though it is expected to get an M5 Ultra refresh later this year. Apple's desktop lineup also includes the Mac mini and the iMac.

The ‌Mac Pro‌'s downfall started in 2013 when Apple introduced a radical cylindrical design that turned out to be a major mistake. The ‌Mac Pro‌'s components were mounted around a central thermal dissipation core and cooled with a single fan that pulled air from under the case, through the core, and out of the top of the machine. It was quiet, but not efficient.

When Apple announced the 2013 ‌Mac Pro‌, Phil Schiller infamously said "Can't innovate anymore, my ass," in response to critics who complained about the ‌Mac Pro‌'s lack of updates and Apple's failure to create products for pro users.

Unfortunately, the 2013 ‌Mac Pro‌'s design did not include PCIe expansion slots for graphics cards and other hardware, with expansion handled through Thunderbolt 2 ports. The design also did not account for future updates in GPU technology, leaving Apple unable to add larger graphics cards and other components to the device.

Apple ended up apologizing to its pro user base and said the 2013 design was thermally constrained in a way that made upgrades impossible. It took Apple until 2019 to unveil the current ‌Mac Pro‌, which adopted a more standard tower form factor with eight PCIe slots.

After the 2019 launch, the ‌Mac Pro‌ got an Apple silicon chip in 2023, and that's it. There have been three ‌Mac Pro‌ updates in the last 13 years, so it's not surprising to see the ‌Mac Pro‌ retired. The ‌Mac Studio‌ offers almost all of the same capabilities as the ‌Mac Pro‌, with the exception of PCIe expansion slots.
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What's Happening With the Mac Pro?

Apple hasn't updated the Mac Pro since 2023, and according to recent rumors, there's no update coming in the near future. In fact, Apple might be finished with the ‌Mac Pro‌.


Bloomberg recently said that the ‌Mac Pro‌ is "on the back burner" and has been "largely written off" by Apple. Apple apparently views the more compact Mac Studio as the ideal high-end pro-level desktop, and it has almost replaced the ‌Mac Pro‌.

Apple is working on an M5 Ultra chip that will come out next year, but Bloomberg says the company is only planning to use it in the ‌Mac Studio‌, and not in an updated ‌Mac Pro‌. Apple has no plans to update the ‌Mac Pro‌ in 2026 in a "significant way." If we are truly at the end for the ‌Mac Pro‌, will we see Apple discontinue it when the next-generation ‌Mac Studio‌ launches?

The current ‌Mac Studio‌ has a newer, higher-end M3 Ultra chip that supports more CPU cores, more GPU cores, more maximum storage (16TB vs. 8TB), and more maximum unified memory (512GB vs. 192GB). The ‌Mac Studio‌ can support up to four 8K displays, while the ‌Mac Pro‌ is limited to three, and the ‌Mac Pro‌ doesn't have Thunderbolt 5.

The ‌Mac Pro‌ has fallen behind, and the gap will only increase with the launch of an M5 Ultra ‌Mac Studio‌. The only benefit that the ‌Mac Pro‌ offers over the ‌Mac Studio‌ is PCIe expansion slots. It's heavier, bulkier, and more expensive than the ‌Mac Studio‌ when comparing equivalent RAM and storage. For most people, there's no reason to choose a ‌Mac Pro‌ over a ‌Mac Studio‌, but some of Apple's high-end customers still need the space for things like RED capture cards and specialized audio interfaces.

Over the years, Apple has struggled with meeting the needs of pro users who want a desktop. The now-infamous "trash can" ‌Mac Pro‌ that came out in 2013 prioritized design over functionality, and the machine ended up being a failure. Apple was criticized for misunderstanding its pro user base because there was no space for internal upgrades like additional GPUs.

Apple was never able to update the trash can ‌Mac Pro‌ because it wasn't thermally capable of supporting rapidly evolving GPUs. In 2019, Apple unveiled a modular ‌Mac Pro‌ that had a more traditional enclosure able to support expansion with eight PCIe slots and three impeller fans. Apple did update the ‌Mac Pro‌ a couple of times after that, but it has once again been sidelined.

Apple is still selling the M2 Ultra version of the ‌Mac Pro‌ and it hasn't been discontinued or removed from the company's website. Until it's officially discontinued, there's a chance we could get another ‌Mac Pro‌ at some point in the future, but it doesn't sound like 2026 will be the year.
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