Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro, marking a significant shift in the industry towards integrated systems. The move comes after months of warning signs, including a Bloomberg report stating that the Mac Pro was on the “back burner.” The discontinuation is a result of Apple’s increasing integration trend, where performance and features are being combined into a single, non-upgradable component.
This trend has been underway for decades, starting with the original IBM PC in 1981. Over time, processors, memory, graphics, and storage have become increasingly integrated into a single chip or system. Today, Apple’s M1 and M2 SoCs integrate CPU, RAM, and storage onto a single die.
The industry is expected to follow suit, with AMD already having on-chip GPUs and leading in chiplet-based manufacturing. Nvidia is also investing heavily in its customers, including the development of LLM clusters, which are likely driven by the trend towards integrated systems.
As the technology advances, traditional tower computers with expansion slots will become obsolete. The industry has already seen this shift with the decline of GUI desktops, laptops with built-in pointing devices, and USB ports. The discontinuation of the Mac Pro is a sign that Apple is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in integrated systems.
The trend towards integrated systems also raises concerns about the future of Moore’s Law, which states that computing power increases exponentially with time. However, Dennard scaling has slowed down this growth, and Koomey’s Law suggests that chips will become less energy-efficient over time.
Despite these challenges, Apple is leading the way in developing highly integrated SoCs. The company’s Mac Studio model showed promising results, with a 512 GB RAM configuration that was later quietly discontinued due to rising RAM prices.
The industry can expect significant changes as this trend towards integrated systems continues. As manufacturers look for ways to reduce costs and increase performance, they will be forced to abandon traditional expansion slots and focus on building more compact, efficient systems. The future of computing is likely to be shaped by the integration of hardware components into a single, non-upgradable entity.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/27/apples_last_tower_topples