Apple is testing a new version of the Mac Pro running macOS 13.3, according to a tweet shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today.
Given that macOS 12.3 was released in March 2022 and macOS 11.3 was released in April 2021, it's likely that macOS 13.3 will be released in the spring as well. This timeframe could set the stage for Apple to introduce the Mac Pro at a spring event, shortly before releasing macOS 13.3 with support for the computer. The new Mac Pro is expected to feature Apple's new M2 Ultra chip, but a higher-end "M2 Extreme" chip was reportedly canceled.
Earlier this week, Gurman said the new Mac Pro will have the same design as the 2019 model, but lack user-upgradeable RAM.
In an October edition of his newsletter, Gurman said the long-awaited 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips would also be tied to macOS 13.3, suggesting that the notebooks could be announced this spring as well.
Gurman has previously claimed that a new Mac mini is in the works with M2 and M2 Pro chip options, but he hasn't commented on the Mac mini recently. It's certainly possible that it gets announced alongside the new Mac Pro and MacBook Pro models. In the meantime, Apple continues to sell Intel-based Mac Pro and Mac mini configurations.
Apple has not released any new Macs since the MacBook Air with the M2 chip in July.
Top Rated Comments
You need to plan properly so you don’t fall into this trap of constant upgrades. It’s good to over buy ahead of time from a CapEx perspective where you value your computer purchase across many years. This is what I did for my Mac Studio. I have stalled on 32GB of RAM for about a decade now, but I went ahead and upped it to 64 since I want my Studio to last a good 4-5 years.
Your mileage can very! Want to upgrade? Go ahead! But the whole concept of “Pro NEEDS to be upgradeable” needs to just stop.
At one point I used a PowerMac G5 for my research. I purchased the machine with enough RAM for the calculations I anticipated I'd need to make, and that worked fine for a couple of years. But when we decided to simulate a different class of biopolymers (something that couldn't have been readily forseen when the work started), I needed more RAM. Because the RAM was expandable, I was able to upgrade it to meet our new needs.
[The machine was used for development work—I'd make sure it the code was working on a few sample biopolymers, and then send our jobs to the university's clusters.]
University labs, especially in the physical sciences (as opposed to those being supported by large NIH grants), often have tight budgets, and we could not have afforded to buy a new machine just because our RAM needs changed. Besides, since we didn't need a new machine, just more RAM, that would have been wasteful.