Will the iPhone get its own Mac Pro moment?

There’s no argument that the Mac Pro was in need of some love and in fact, we’d argue that it’s been overdue some attention for quite some time now. We’d hoped that Apple would offer some signs that the Mac Pro was still in their hearts at this year’s WWDC, but we never invisaged something like what Phil Schiller finally announced on-stage. It was a wow moment the likes of which we don’t recall since the original iPhone introduction.

Which got us thinking.

With iPhones being released each year, and with leaks almost commonplace when it comes to Apple’s suppliers, are we in danger of growing bored with Apple’s iPhone? Perhaps more accurately, are we no longer capable of being surprised by a newly announced smartphone from Apple?

Or, as the title asks, will the iPhone get its own ‘Mac Pro moment’ soon?

When Apple announced the newly redesigned Mac Pro during its opening WWDC keynote, a rare thing happened. Apple was announcing a product refresh, and a major one at that, that none of us saw coming. Yes, a new Mac Pro had been semi-expected at each Apple event for some time, but what we got at WWDC was certainly not what most of us could dare dream of. The new Mac Pro pushes boundaries and changes the way we think about the product. With each iPhone, Apple tweaks and itterates, but is it still capable of taking a device that is undoubtedly hugely popular and completely redesigning it from top to bottom?

It is, of course, debateable whether it needs to. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But a product can grow stale long before it breaks, and while the iPhone 5 is certainly a gorgeous piece of kit, will the next iPhone offer the leap in quality and design that we saw when moving from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4?

Since that time Apple has lost its leader and gone through plenty of changes inside the company. It’s been accused of losing focus and being unable to innovate anymore – both accusations that clearly hurt Apple, as witnessed by the way Phil Schiller announced the new Mac Pro a few weeks ago. If Apple’s new powerhouse desktop machine can be stripped down and rebuilt from the bottom-up, can the iPhone also be rethought?

We’re obviously asking more questions than we are answering here, and with good reason. Apple as it is today is something of an unknown quantity. Just as we come to terms with Steve Jobs’ passing and the crowning of Tim Cook as the new king, we’re now in the midst of changes inside the iOS team with Scott Forstall’s departure. We’ve already seen the first results of that change with iOS 7, but the night is still young and more changes are no doubt afoot. We find ourselves wondering what else Jony Ive has free reign over now that Forstall is no longer around.

These are interesting times for Apple and the iPhone, and with competition constantly improving, we can’t help but wonder whether Apple has the stomach for the fight.

If the Mac Pro’s any indication though, we might just be OK.