The 'Trashcan' Mac Pro: Remembering One of Apple's Most Controversial Designs Nine Years Later

[MacRumors]

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

The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylinder that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan." 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 WWDC in 2013. During the announcement, Apple's Phil Schiller infamously remarked "Can't innovate anymore, my ass." The comment was directed at armchair 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.

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. 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 trashcan Mac Pro from Apple, with no upgrades coming to the device during the six years since its release.

https://twitter.com/x/status/833730471804731392

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 2022's Mac Studio.

Article Link: The 'Trashcan' Mac Pro: Remembering One of Apple's Most Controversial Designs Nine Years Later

 

[Nozuka]

IMHO great product engineering wise.

Sadly not what the target customers needed.

 

[andrewxgx]

basically what mac studio became, minus the controversial shape

 

[steve09090]

At least they were trying and didn’t produce a beige machine like the other mob do.

 

[moshind]

I remember the announcement, and even though I don't have the needs of a PRO, I wanted one for myself, even today i still like this design.

 

[city_17]

Loved this design, hope they dare to come up with creative designs like this for new products again. Current Apple design is becoming bland, all variations of the same thing.

 

[Pakaku]

basically what mac studio became, minus the controversial shape

I wouldn't have minded seeing the shape live on with Studio internals

 

[pdaholic]

We all joked about it, but secretly we all felt the design was pretty cool 😎.

 

[ts1973]

Still using it today... professionally even. It's a bit slow single core, but other than that... going strong.

 

[djcerla]

I looked for an used one some years ago and prices were still sky-high. I guess for some it’s been a perfect machine.

 

[NightFox]

Loved mine, the only thing it was missing was the hiss of compressed air and maybe a bit of dry ice smoke when you slid the case open.

 

[vladi]

There were actual people who bought that. Oh well.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

This was an innovative design, no question about it. No need to bring up Phil’s ass.

 

[Realityck]

I thought it looked neat at MacWorld Expo. So petite compared to the previous aluminum towers. But then it took Apple 6 years to replace it. That was odd for a company with a series of Mac Pro’s model before that, then just forgotten. Truely Apple droped the ball so to speak.

 

[opeter]

This was as much of a dead end as the PowerMac G4 Cube and the iMac with the nodding head.

 

[TechNutt]

When I think Apple design, this was the pinnacle of their tech products. Beautiful. Intriguing. Mesmerizing. But yet still very functional. The Jonny Ive version was my dream computer. I ogle and drool over a computer such as that one instead of the cheese grater we got on the last iteration.

 

[TechNutt]

Loved this design, hope they dare to come up with creative designs like this for new products again. Current Apple design is becoming bland, all variations of the same thing.

This!! 🎯

 

[Anson_431]

After all these years I still find the design quite cool tbh - and I think with the current M-series chip from Apple this design would actually work rather well.

Maybe this was just a little bit ahead of its time?

 

[Feek]

The design is fantastic and I'd been holding out to replace my old Mac Pro for quite some time but eventually gave in and bought an iMac instead. When this was launched, I was pleased I didn't wait.

I quite fancy one now, they're relatively cheap on eBay, just for the nostalgia.

 

[steve09090]

Loved this design, hope they dare to come up with creative designs like this for new products again. Current Apple design is becoming bland, all variations of the same thing.

I don’t mind the current Mac Mini design. It has made for real useful peripherals like the docks that sit under it. And the shape/size clearly came from the first AppleTV. I also like that they used it for the first few Time Capsules before they went with that tower. And they also used the same basic shape for the Airports and Apple TV's.

Whilst they might not be fresh, it's iconic, and beats the mini PC's out there and the Chromecast designs

 

[Leon Ze Professional]

The Trashcan name sounds harsh, I prefer to give it a more eloquent name. I present to you the "Round File".

 

[R2FX]

My daily desktop driver, hooked to 27“4K Eizo via eGPU.

Always loved the design, shame they didn’t care to update it with newer HW (GPUs, CPUs). In my opinion this would have been perfect design for Apple silicon machines, not the fat Mac mini masquerading as a Sususudio

 

[wanha]

Loved this design, hope they dare to come up with creative designs like this for new products again. Current Apple design is becoming bland, all variations of the same thing.

Agreed.

I especially dislike the current iMacs design - it looks more like a kids' toy rather than an actual adult work machine.

 

[iZac]

Because of some of the design flourishes that match the G4 iMac I’ve always contented this was a design concept back from the early 2000s, possibly a concept for the G4 cube. Apple could have easily recycled it (pun) for the 2013 Mac Pro.

 

[4nNtt]

It was a cool design, it just didn’t fit all use cases, grew long in the tooth, and required a dual GPU that could be utilized by very few programs. The Mac Studio is much better. There is less need for expansion these days. I’m still curious about an M2/M3 Mac Pro, but there may be few that need that level of expansion in a machine.