Apple’s new Mac Pro – the company’s first desktop upgrade in six years – will cost more than $57,000 (Dh209,372.4), enough to buy the base model of a Mercedes C200, a BMW X5 or a Nissan Patrol.
Announced in June at Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference in San Jose, the latest Mac Pro went on sale on Apple’s website on Tuesday. The base price starts at $5,999 but increases with add-ons.
Adding 1.5TB of memory for instance, with 32 GB graphics cards, a 28-core 2.5 GHz Intel processor and 4TB of storage will take up the cost to $50,200. One of the most expensive products from Apple to date, the Mac Pro comes with a Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard, and a charging cable but without a monitor.
Users need to shell out an extra $7,000, if they want to buy Apple’s new monitor designed specifically for the Mac Pro - the Pro Display XDR. That brings the total cost to a whopping $57,200.
Apple justifies the high price saying the machine is geared for “hard-core professionals ... Mac Pro is designed for pros who need the ultimate in CPU performance,” the company said in a statement. “From production rendering to playing hundreds of virtual instruments to simulating an iOS app on multiple devices at once, it’s exceedingly capable”.
In the new Mac Pro, which is built in Texas, Apple abandoned an earlier cylindrical design for a tower shape that comes with a handle on the top and plenty of holes to keep the device cool. It even has optional $400 wheels for easily moving the machine around an office
Industry analysts say the higher price will not deter people looking for fast computers and the new Mac Pro can add to Apple's revenue which was impacted by a dip in iPhone sales over the past few months.
"Well, it (Mac Pro) might cost $50,000 but starts at a much more affordable price of less than $6,000… it is purely targeted towards the professional users and makes sense in that market," Abbas Ali, managing editor of TechRadar Middle East, told The National.
The base model of Mac Pro will cost Dh22,999, almost Dh10,000 more than its predecessor.
"It's a shame that Apple is bundling the new machine with just 256GB of storage. It should have started with at least 1TB storage,” Mr Ali said.
Things you could buy for the cost of Apple’s new Mac Pro:
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✅ A Lotus Elise
✅ A house in rural Maine
✅ A year of tuition at @UMassAmherst pic.twitter.com/If4Gf4oz06
Starting with 256GB, the Mac Pro is configurable to a 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB storage to deliver the fastest possible performance.
Sales of Macs increased almost 2.1 per cent yearly in the fiscal year end of September 28, whereas iPhones sales dropped by more than 13 per cent. The company generated almost $25.7bn in revenues from the sale of Macs during the period.
Owing to its huge memory, the Mac Pro can serve as a multi-core workstation that usually requires unending storage capacity and superfast processors, said Apple.
Featuring six channels of superfast error-correcting code (ECC) memory and 12 physical memory slots, Mac Pro allows users to pile up to 1.5TB of memory. It would be boon for professionals working on large projects, analysing huge data sets or running multiple pro applications.
ECC data storage adds an extra layer of security as it can detect and correct most of the internal data corruption. It is useful where data corruption cannot be afforded under any situations - such as for scientific or financial computing.
The new Mac Pro has also taken security to new heights as it is the most secure machine Apple has ever built, the Cupertino-based company claimed.
There is a secure enclave co-processor that provides the option of encrypted storage and secure boot capabilities. So users can worry less about protecting their work and intellectual property.
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