[Robo]

It's just baffling, in a way that Apple pricing rarely is.

Like, sure, when the iPhone X was ZOMG a thousand dollars, some people griped, but it was clear what you got for the money. A fancy vision-statement phone with a fancy OLED ultra-high-res screen and a fancy stainless steel case. Of course that's not going to be the same price as the "mainstream" iPhone, that's why they made the iPhone 8.

But this is different. It has the same GPU as the $2299 iMac. Heck, for $2699, you can configure that iMac with an eight-core CPU that is faster than the base Mac Pro's eight-core Xeon and supports the same speed of RAM. Even after bumping up the RAM to 32GB at Apple's ridiculous prices and adding a SSD that's twice as large as the one in the Mac Pro (you can't configure an iMac with an SSD that's as small as the one in the $6000 Mac Pro), your souped-up iMac costs all of...$3399. With the best 5K display around, thrown in for funsies.

The point of the Mac Pro is to be an option that makes different trade-offs, sacrificing the display and compact form factor for expandability. And I'm glad the Mac Pro has expansion slots again. But what are they made of, unobtanium? I just don't get where the massive price hike over previous Mac Pros is coming from, other than "because we can," because it certainly doesn't seem to be warranted by the specs. Is the massive PSU really that expensive?

The new Mac Pro seems like it's going to be over-engineered for anything other than builds with price tags that rival Toyota Corollas.

You'll note that I'm not even complaining about the price of the display, because the idea that the display is an industry-leading product that provides value that is worth its price because there's nothing else like it is much clearer to me. (Although I still don't know why they would only decide to make the best "money is no object" display, and not even have the option of the "let's make the best display that mere mortals can afford" display.)