Celebrate, ye 20 or 30 people who will actually buy one, for evidence is mounting that Apple will be introducing a new Mac Pro refresh next week at its World Wide Developer Conference! The company has run out of Mac Pro inventory at several Apple Stores, while 9to5Mac claims a “reliable source” says a Mac Pro refresh is coming.
Apple doesn’t offer product road maps for its hardware, making guess-what-Apple-is-releasing-next something between a sport and an obsession for Apple fans, competitors, and investors, alike. One consistent sign of an impending refresh is when inventory begins disappearing from its online Apple Store and/or the company’s retail stores.
MacRumors reported that Apple began actively pulling Mac Pro inventory from many Apple Stores, and a quick check shows that Mac Pros are listed as being available on June 13th, two days after Tim Cooks kicks off WWDC with a keynote address. The screenshot below shows a check of some bay area stores for 8-core Mac Pros.
8-Core Mac Pro Availability in the South Bay
Of nine stores in Silicon Valley that we checked, only one—the Los Gatos Apple Store—had that model in stock. The other eight stores all list June 13th as the availability date for this model. The same was true with the entry-level 4-core Mac Pro, and these results were repeated in other markets.
That said, the online Apple Store lists the base Mac Pro models as “In Stock,” meaning that if you want to order a two-year old Mac Pro and can’t wait for five more days to find out if Apple is updating them, you can. Apple last updated the Mac Pro in July of 2010, leading many to wonder about its future.
If 9to5Mac’s sources have it right, we’ll be able to cease our wondering on Monday, when Apple will announce three Mac Pro configurations. We have product numbers (below), but we don’t have any information on what new features or specs these devices will sport, or what kind of form factor they will have.
The reported product numbers:
- MD770LL/A – K5BPLUS,BETTER, BTR-USA
- MD771LL/A – K5BPLUS,BEST,BTR-USA
- MD772LL/A – K5BPLUS,ULTIMATE,BTR-USA