Breaking with its traditional veil of secrecy, Apple Inc. invited a select group of journalists to its Cupertino offices Tuesday to discuss the company’s plans for a major rethinking of its desktop Mac Pro and iMac.

In addition to announcing a revamped iMac due out this year and price cuts for the Mac Pro, several of Apple’s top executives — Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing; Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering; and John Ternus, vice president of hardware engineering — spoke with unusual candor about what has worked and what hasn’t with recent Mac Pros.

The Apple executives also spoke about the new “completely rethought” Mac Pro that is currently in the works. The revamped Mac Pro will have a modular design, allowing users to swap components in and out, and will have powerful central processing units and graphics processing units. Apple wants the new device to be refreshed on a regular basis to keep pace with competitors. The company is also hard at work on Apple-branded pro displays to go with the Mac Pro.

Apple announced a new lineup of Mac Pros three years ago and hasn’t updated the device since. Many professional users have taken the stalled Mac Pro lineup as a clear indication that Apple no longer cares about them. Federighi admitted that the Mac Pro wasn’t loved by all its pro users. “The Mac Pro, the current vintage that we introduced, we wanted to do something bold and different. In retrospect, it didn’t well suit some of the people we wanted to reach.”

Despite the fact that the “completely rethought” Mac Pro won’t be unveiled this year, Apple didn’t commit to a date and simply said it “will not ship this year.” But the company described some of the details anyway. “We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we’re committed to making it our highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers,” said Schiller.

Following his comments about the longevity of the personal computer last year, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook backtracked in December and said that the company is still committed to the desktop and has “great desktops in our roadmap.” Now it’s more apparent what he was talking about.

Here’s a look at Apple’s other announcements, including a new iMac and cheaper Mac Pros:

iMac

Schiller and Federighi also announced that the company is currently working on “great” new iMac all-in-one desktops, due for release “this year”. Some models will be aimed at professional users who require higher-powered components.

Apple last updated its iMac in 2015 with the release of the 21.5-inch Retina iMac. After the company failed to unveil a new iMac at its September launch, rumors emerged that a new iMac would launch in the first quarter of 2017. However, as Apple didn’t have a spring launch event this is no longer on the cards.  

New possible launch dates for the revamped iMac include Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which takes place from June 5 or it could coincide the launch with the new iPhone 8 in September.    

Apple didn’t share specific details about the iMac at the briefing and few rumors have surfaced. Based on Schiller’s response of “No,” we do know that the Mac won’t contain a touchscreen.

We will likely see faster processors, Thunderbolt 3 ports and a faster AMD graphics chip for at least one model, but nothing is confirmed at this stage.

Based on a recent patent filing by Apple, rumors suggest that the company may introduce the same Touch Bar unveiled in the MacBook Pro in a refreshed Magic Keyboard. This would bring both Touch Bar functionality and fingerprint unlocking to the iMac and Mac Pro.

Current Mac Pro: price cuts

At its briefing, the company also announced a price decrease for the current Mac Pro lineup.

Apple has dropped the 4-core Mac Pro while the baseline 6-core and 8-core options have received a price decrease. The company has also lowered the price of the processor and GPU upgrades. Apart from a change to pricing and configuration, the Mac Pro’s other specs remain the same, including Ivy Bridge E Xeon processors, dual AMD FirePro GPUs and Thunderbolt 2.

Upgrading the 3.5GHz entry-level 6-core Mac Pro to the 3.0GHz 8-core processor now costs $800, compared to the previous price of $1,500. Upgrading further to the 2.7GHz 12-core machine costs $2,000, down from the previous cost of $3,000.

Upgrading the GPU of the 6-core machine to the FirePro D700 will cost $200, rather than $600.

Instead of paying $9,599 for the top-of-the-range Mac Pro machine with a 12-core processor, 64GB RAM, 1TB flash storage and dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs, it will now cost $6,999.

The 6-core Mac Pro, starting at $2,999, is currently available on the online Apple Store, but the 8-core Mac Pro, starting at $3,999, is currently not available yet.

Image: Apple