Apple May Have Leaked Its Mac Pro Release Date

Last week, Apple unveiled its long-awaited and incredibly powerful Mac Pro refresh. This week, the company may have inadvertently leaked when the device will begin shipping.

At its WWDC ’19 keynote, Apple said that the powerhouse Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR monitor would launch some time in the fall. That’s a fairly vague timeframe, but what appears to be a website error seems to have narrowed down when the two products will become available.

Inaccurate Information or Leak?

On Apple’s main homepage, there’s a “Notify me” button next to the Mac Pro listing. When you click on that button, an overlay will pop up that lets you sign up for launch notifications. Over the weekend, that overlay said that the Mac Pro would be “Coming September.”

It’s worth noting that the leaked September date only appeared in the U.S. and hasn’t shown up on any other Mac Pro marketing materials. Technically, it also doesn’t necessarily apply to the Pro Display XDR (although the two products will probably be launched simultaneously).

And, as of the writing of this article, Apple has changed the overlay to read “Coming This Fall.”

To be clear, we’re not entirely sure whether that listing was a mistake or an accidental leak of the Mac Pro’s actual launch date. It may have simply been a placeholder icon, or someone at Apple HQ may have revealed when pros will be able to get their hands on the new workstation.

A September launch date — right in the middle of iPhone season — could make sense, based on how long Apple has been working on the Mac Pro.

Just for comparison’s sake, the iMac Pro was unveiled at WWDC in June 2017 and was launched in December of that year.

The New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR

The new Mac Pro itself is an absolute beast of a machine. It can be spec’d out with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, up to 1.5TB of EEC RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, and up to AMD Radeon Pro Bega II Duo Graphics with 64GB of graphical memory. It’s also tailor-made to be expandable and user configurable, with eight PCIe expansion slots (including four oversized slots).

Apple’s new Pro Display XDR, the company first monitor in quite some time, is a 32-inch 6K monitor with P3 wide color gamut, true 10-bit color support, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a ultra-wide viewing angle. It’ll also be able to run at 1,000 nits of brightness indefinitely, with a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.

The Mac Pro will start at $5,999 and will come with an 8-core Intel Xeon CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a Radeon 580X GPU.

The Pro Display XDR will retail for $4,999. And yes, the stand is extra and is priced at $999 (although buyers can opt for a $200 VESA mount instead).