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Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup.

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The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of the Mac Pro's components were mounted around a central thermal dissipation core, cooled by a single fan that pulled air from under the case, through the core, and out the top. The fan could spin more slowly than smaller fans and keep the Mac extremely quiet, even during intense operations.

Apple announced the radically redesigned Mac Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2013. During the announcement, Apple's Phil Schiller infamously remarked "Can't innovate anymore, my ass." The comment was directed at critics who pointed at the previous Mac Pro's lack of updates and claimed Apple had largely abandoned its pro user base and was out of ideas.

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Phil Schiller unveiling the redesigned Mac Pro in 2013

Apple said that the new Mac Pro offered twice the overall performance of the previous generation while taking up less than one-eighth of the volume, thanks to its unified thermal core. The Mac Pro twinned Intel Xeon processors with dual AMD FirePro workstation GPUs, enabling it to deliver seven teraflops of computing power.

While the striking design was undoubtedly ambitious, users were unhappy with the way that almost all expansion had to be served externally by Thunderbolt 2 ports. Many professional users who were reliant on powerful hardware could not get past the Mac Pro's lack of internal slots to add graphics cards and memory.

The result was a device that was unable to adapt to changing hardware trends. Even Apple seemed unsure how to offer a meaningful hardware update for the Mac Pro; as recently as 2019, it was possible to buy a brand new trashcan Mac Pro from Apple, with no upgrades coming to the device during the preceding six years.

This led Apple to make a rare admission of the product's failure during a meeting with reporters in April 2017, explaining in detail why the device didn't succeed in the way it had hoped. In 2019, Apple's full mea culpa came in the form of yet another Mac Pro redesign, which took the machine back to a highly modular tower form factor with eight PCIe slots and three impeller fans.

Yet in many respects, what the 2013 Mac Pro set out to achieve—a small, powerful computer for professionals, with external expansion only—lives on and has been executed more effectively by the Mac Studio.

Article Link: Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today
 
I picked up the 12 core D700 model for $300 on Facebook marketplace. Took it apart and redid all the thermal paste. It’s a solid secondary machine and also the coolest Mac I own. I think it’s a really unique and aesthetically pleasing computer. Gives me joy to see it every time I walk into my office.
 
The "trashcan" Mac Pro was an awful design, but at least it had upgradable memory and upgradable storage. Tim Cook, being the greedy MBA degree holding corporate suit that he is, has since removed upgradable memory and upgradable storage from all Macs, both desktop and laptop, to pressure customers to buy new Macs when they need more memory or more storage. That way, Cook can continue to increase profits for shareholders by giving less and less to customers.
 
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I love mine. Easy user upgradable RAM and NVME storage. I just retired mine to second backup system and replaced it as my daily driver a M4 Pro Mac Mini.

Still, the 2013 Mac was gorgeous and cool as hell (love the port illumination) and I can't imagine getting rid of it.
 
that design was absolutely stunning and genius. The triangle setup was perfect. The only issue was that it was targeted at wrong crowd. Dual GPU wasn't a good call when most rendering was still CPU based and overall it shouldn't be a Mac Pro but a different product like others mentioned. I think that design is timeless and I wish we still had it around.
 
Such a long time ago!! It was a very different and nice product though it had its fair share of problems. Looking forward to seeing the next Mac Pro.
 
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