The MacBook Air and the Mac Pro are polar opposites: one a marvel of engineering — the other a marvel of brute strength.
I don’t think the Mac Pro is going anywhere, but I also don’t think it is something that Jony Ive’s team has spent much time thinking about.
While I agree that the Air and Pro are opposites in many ways, I think that they are both marvels of engineering.
The Mac Pro’s internal layout got a massive update back in 2009, putting the CPU[1. Then the Nehalem flavor of Xeons.] and RAM on a removable tray and re-jiggering the air flow within the chassis.
Clearly, as interchangeable components are in the Mac Pro, and as expandable as they are, it will be a very different experience with the MacBook Air. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, nor do I think it’s been ignored by Apple as much as some think.
By the way, Ben is totally right about this:
As I think about everything that Apple stands for with its design and goals, I can’t help but suspect that the MacBook Air is the epitome of the Mac experience as Apple sees it. Small, quick, sleek, low-price, sealed.
The Air is the future, but that doesn’t mean the Mac Pro is the past. Don’t get me wrong — I wouldn’t be surprised if it went away in the future. But I also think it’s an experience that a lot of people still need and desire.