There's profit and there's profit. The margins are there but the units sold are not.

That could easily be fixed by bringing the price back down into reality (i.e. 30-50% more expensive than equivalent x86-hardware, but not 300% more expensive).

Currently you'd have to be lobotomized to buy a MacPro at this price point. You can buy literally 2-3 "beige boxes" with similar specs for that money.

The shiny case and OSX make up for a lot, but there's a limit to what people will bear.

Really? iPhones alone brought in $22 billion in revenue last quarter.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1166533/apple_nearly_doubles...

The entirety of worldwide PC shipments for a quarter is less than 100 million units. So, no, cutting prices is not going to help catch up to iOS revenues.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1981717

Exactly. Apple may be figuring that if they could divert the resources currently devoted to the Mac Pro line to other products, they would be making a greater return.

Or perhaps they have something in the pipe but not ready yet. They've never been a company to tip their hand early.

Apple thrives on hype and unpredictability. Good for going after the impulse buys; lousy for people who bother trying to plan things.