Apple officially discontinued the Mac Pro on Thursday. While most of us couldn’t afford Apple’s most powerful Mac, it was an example of how much power a Macintosh could wield. But Apple, always looking forward, thinks its time has come and gone.
The Mac Pro was first introduced in 2006, and while Macworld had a web presence back then, the focus at the time was on the print magazine version. As a way to remember the Mac Pro, below are scans of the first Mac Pro articles that Macworld published.
This first article is a Mac Pro FAQ. The actual Mac Pro announcement occurred several days before the magazine was set to go to press and be distributed. Because of this discrepancy in scheduling (the magazine would hit the newsstand long after the Mac Pro news hit the wire), the magazine answered reader questions about the Mac Pro, which appeared on the cover of the October 2006 issue.
Macworld followed up with a full review of the Mac Pro by then editorial director Jason Snell. It got four mice (Macworld ratings used to be mice instead of the current stars). Snell wrote, “The 3GHz Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve tested—however, since the 3GHz processors cost an additional $800 and provide a proportionately slight speed increase, they’re a good bargain for only voraciously speed-hungry pros.” (This issue was also the only time Johnny Depp was on a Macworld cover.)
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.