Apple to Halt Mac Pro Sales in Europe Effective March 1 Over Regulatory Requirements

This makes it ever more urgent for Apple to release their Mac Pro 2013 soon!

A company sitting on over $130B in cash and who just posted record year-over-year sales and profits (over $13B) should be ashamed of themselves for not updating their flagship product. You can't tell me that Apple hasn't made a conscious decision to let this product die. Apple is such a large company and they can't update the Mac Pro to current industry specs for over two years? Something doesn't sound right...

Not that anyone in their right mind would be buying this now anyway...

You realize this is something Apple has no control over right? This is a government regulation.

You realize this is because apple has not updated their outdated product to keep up with regulations?

We've all known Mac Pros are radioactive for years, just nobody wants to talk about it. :D

This opens the door for the new Mac Pro which will be 2mm thick and use SD cards (soldered to the logic board) for mass storage...

First the Java blocking debacle, now this. This is one big FU today from Apple to business/enterprise customers.

Remember that Tim Cook only promised new MacPros for "later in 2013", this could leave Europe without a stock of MacPros for a few months.

Exact quote:



Does sound like third or fourth calendar quarter 2013 to me. Not good if you need a new professional Mac this spring or summer in Europa. High and dry. Ebay might be your last resort.

All iToys all the time. Full steam ahead.

You realize this is something Apple has no control over right? This is a government regulation.

For the first time, I'm genuinely starting to worry.

I work in pro audio and *really* need a new Mac Pro, because my aging 1st generation quad-core no longer has the horsepower required to run modern audio plugins the way I need to.

I would be rushing to the Apple Store tomorrow, debit card in hand, if all Apple did was release exactly the same Mac Pro as they have now, but with up-to-date processor architecture and a couple of Thunderbolt connectors.

I'm all for a redesign, but only as long as Apple doesn't do one of those redesigns that entails deleting a bunch of features it thinks people no longer need. Because I'm people, and I do!

I need a minimum of three PCIe slots for Pro Tools HD, UAD2 DSP, RME MADI interfaces, etc.
I need Firewire 800. Several expensive external devices I depend on use Firewire only.
I need that built-in optical TOS-link audio output (even though I have very expensive external interfaces as well)
I need to be able to run three monitors simultaneously.
I need lots of fast, cheap, internal storage.

I realise that's a lot of "I need, I need..." But as far as my work is concerned, it really is all about me. I know more about what I need to do my job than Apple do. Apple could of course ask me...

And if anyone suggests that you can do all your expansion externally these days - even if all these devices were available as external Thunderbolt devices, which they're not - a smaller computer with half a dozen extra boxes and their power supplies all hanging off the Thunderbolt bus is in no way a more convenient or elegant solution than housing them inside the computer. My studio is enough of a tangled mess already thank you very much.


I've been an Mac owner and user since the late eighties. I still have the IIcx that I spent my life savings on in 1988 in the loft. If this European ban does turn out to be a subtle excuse for cancelling the Mac Pro line later on, then it's the end of a long happy road for me and Apple. I'm not confident that I can reliably do everything I do now on a Windows system. Plus I detest Windows. I only use Windows if someone holds a metaphorical gun to my head. I'd basically be sitting there in my studio all day, mixing with one hand and metaphorically blowing my own brains out with the other.

I hope Apple remember that it was the loyalty of professional creative arts users kept them in business thru all those difficult years. Some loyalty in return would be nice. After all, it's not as if they sell Mac Pros at a loss...

More bad news for our beloved Mac Pro.

I hope apple doesn't use this as an excuse to discontinue the Mac Pro altogether that would be a very sad day.

First the Java blocking debacle, now this. This is one big FU today from Apple to business/enterprise customers.

Remember that Tim Cook only promised new MacPros for "later in 2013", this could leave Europe without a stock of MacPros for a few months.

Exact quote:

Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year.

Does sound like third or fourth calendar quarter 2013 to me. Not good if you need a new professional Mac this spring or summer in Europa. High and dry. Ebay might be your last resort.

All iToys all the time. Full steam ahead.

"It is currently unclear exactly what aspect of the regulation the current Mac Pro will fail to meet."

Would be very interested to know what this is.

A failure to be competitive in a market segment most likely.