Coming To A Theater Near You: Apple’s Last Gasp At A Pro Computer

Apple has started running ads in theaters and on YouTube for the Mac Pro—a product that it preannounced in June. We now know it will come out this fall, according to the message that the clip closes with.

Is that too late, both for this model—and for the Mac Pro line? Could we be seeing the last gasp of Apple’s high-end desktop computers?

“A Bicycle For The Mind”

For years—at least it was true when I worked there—Apple’s standard pitch was that Mac users were more productive because your computer did not get in the way of getting your work done. People bought Macintosh computers because of what you could do with them—the famous “bicycle for the mind.”

Apple has become a lot more consumer-oriented after Steve Jobs came back to Apple and promised to never preannounce a product that was not ready to ship. (So much for that, with the Mac Pro’s all-steak, no-sizzle reveal at the Worldwide Developer Conference—and the months-long wait that followed.)