Apple's Mac Pro ship times fall below one week for first time since launch

By AppleInsider Staff

More than six months after Apple debuted its redesigned Mac Pro, the company has finally caught up with demand and is estimating ship times of three to five days on base configurations sold through the Online Apple Store.

Apple's new shipping estimates hit the Online Apple Store early Saturday, ending a six-month Mac Pro drought that caused customers who purchased the computer in January and February to wait more than one month for their order to arrive. The change was first spotted by Portuguese Apple blog AllMacLong.

At the time of this writing only base model configurations are eligible for 3-5 day ship-by times, while modified systems are still running at 2-3 weeks.

Since launching the completely redesigned Mac Pro in December, Apple has faced supply issues with the "Assembled in USA" machine. The company has been making steady progress, however, and advanced ship times to 2-3 weeks earlier in May. Last month, ship-by dates dropped to below one month for the first time since launch.

Historically, ship-by dates have steadily improved over the first quarter, with checks in April showing estimates at 5-6 weeks, which moved up to 4-6 weeks on Apr. 11, 4-5 weeks on Apr. 18 and 3-5 weeks on Apr. 24.

While the new estimates mark substantial progress, supply is such that in-store models are still non-existent. In January, Apple said it didn't expect to have Mac Pros available to buy from brick-and-mortar stores until at least March.

As Apple builds its inventory toward 24-hour ship times, authorized resellers like MacMall and Adorama have dozens of Mac Pro configurations for sale, which can be seen in AppleInsider's live Price Guides.