New Mac Pros

Apple introduced new Mac Pros yesterday. They look like reasonably useful upgrades to the previous machines, based on the new Penryn processors and including some tidy upgrades like bumping the front side bus from 1333 MHz to 1600 MHz. I've been considering a Mac Pro purchase for my Photoshop needs, and this would seem like a step in the right direction.

The interesting thing though is the timing, with Macworld less than a week away. I can't recall a time when Apple has released new hardware so close to the date of a Macworld keynote, except maybe when they were trying to kill off the summer Macworld in Boston/New York.

I think there's a few reasons for this. First, the Penryns were officially introduced at CES this week, and so every manufacturer is announcing their Penryn-based boxes. Second, Apple has very clearly pitched Macworld at consumers, keeping Mac Pro updates to separate events. For example, the January 2003 Mac Pro update was launched at a separate event on 28 January. Third, and most exciting, it's pretty clear that Steve Jobs will have a lot to talk about at the keynote. There are rumors of ultraportable Macs, movie rentals, a new version of iTunes, and updates to iPhone software. All of those seem relatively likely so there's reason to believe Jobs won't want to dilute the message with useful but straightforward updates to the pro platform.

There's a good chance I'll end up with a new Mac Pro this year. But I'm holding out to see what comes at Macworld. Because this is shaping up to be one with some very interesting developments.