How Apple will "Pro for it" with Future Macs

Typically, Apple won’t publicly launch into extensive detail about any upcoming products until those products are on the verge of shipping. However, the company recently broke from this playbook for a meeting with a small number of reporters - in Apple’s Product Realization Lab for the Mac, too - with whom the subject of the Mac’s future was brought up. The message that the press walked away with was clear: Apple is committed to giving the Mac a bright future for professional users.

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin

THE MAC IS CLEARLY FLOURISHING

Tech Crunch paints a vivid picture of Apple’s Mac PRL, as the facility is dubbed in abbreviation. Reporter Matthew Panzarino details the “display of Macs from many eras of Apple”, including the “solid chunk of aluminum mocking up the slim 12-inch MacBook” and “the 20th Anniversary Mac famously sketched out by Jony Ive before he was head of all things design at Apple.” This PRL is located in an Apple-owned business park in Cupertino and Mac desktops and laptops are prototyped here.

Considering various statistics that Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, shared with the press at this meeting, the Mac looks to be in great health. The Mac’s user base is now closing in on 100 million, while the business has nearly reached a run rate of $25 billion, putting it close to the value of a Fortune 100 company. 80% of Macs currently shipped by Apple are notebooks, with the remaining 20% desktops. In the first fiscal quarter of 2017, when the redesigned MacBook Pro was introduced, MacBook Pro sales as a whole grew by 20%.

There are also many ways in which the Mac remains popular with pro users. Schiller reported that, having reached out to these users and endeavored to understand their productivity practices with Apple products, the company found mac OS to be received very highly. Pro users have told Apple of their fondness for the Mac’s workflow and apps. Nonetheless, Apple decided to break some significant news to these users - and it’s about new, even more productivity-focused Macs that are on the way.

WHAT THE NEXT MAC PRO COULD BE LIKE