You may have been nice this year but Apple's ben naughty, because even if you may have wanted Santa to give you the latest Mac Pro for Christmas, Apple's standing in the way.
The Mac Pro equipped with the latest Intel Xeon E5 processors officially went on sale 3:00 am EST, Thursday, with the delivery date as early as December 30. However, a few hours after launch, consumers noticed that the shipping date for all specs of the newest Apple rig perfect for moviemakers and digital artists was moved to February 2014. Some buyers even reported seeing March next year as the delivery date for the space-age-looking computer.
One thing is clear, the newest Apple Mac Pro will be a difficult machine to get hold of this month. While Apple has fulfilled the promise that Mac Pro will roll out before the end of the year, it was a photo finish. It will be safe to assume that the Austin assembly line for the device is not fulfilling the current demand.
Consumers who want to buy a Mac Pro online but have not ordered the machine yet, may not be able to just walk into a brick and mortar Apple store or authorized dealers and buy the machine.
"It's possible that initial store allocations will go to those customers paying $500 per year for a Joint Venture membership. Every Apple Store that we've checked with seems to also be taking orders solely for Personal Pickup at this point, not for walk-in purchases," wrote Mark Gurman of Apple-centric tech blog 9to5Mac.
The last aluminum edition of the Mac Pro was discontinued last year. The new design centers on a unified thermal core with the latest computing technologies surrounding it. The quad-core Mac Pro has a starting tag price of $2,999 while a six-core setup starts at $3,999. Apple has made available customization options that can give the computer an eight-core or 12-core processor, of course coming with a heftier sticker price.
The Mac Pro made its public debut in June 2013 but it seems there was not enough time for Apple to get its production line in sync with the potential demand. Mac Pro is part of Apple's move to bring production line back to the U.S. Perhaps the delay in shipments would not have risen had they been produced in China.
