A tech blogger who goes by the name Piker Alpha recently discovered a peculiar code within the OS X El Capitan during an XHCI debugging session. Piker Alpha published his finding in his blog, Pike's Universum, with the suggestion that the code is a potential reference that a new Mac Pro is coming.
"Apple may surprise us, soon, with a brand new and very powerful MacPro7,1 with a couple of new Intel Xeon processors," Piker Alpha wrote in his blog.
The code "AAPLJ951," found during a debugging session, reportedly bears a degree of similarity with "the AAPLJ901" designation, which first appeared in a Mac Pro benchmark testing in 2013. Apple Insider reported that along with the recent "AAPLJ951" code, Piker Alpha also found product descriptions that belong to the latest 2015 iMac.
Tech sites and computer experts immediately picked up on the code's discovery and many concur that the code is perhaps a signifier that Apple will soon launch a new version of the Mac Pro, which has not been upgraded since the last model's release in 2013.
Current Mac Pro models, including the iMac and the Mac Mini, are allotted with four USB 3.0 ports. The product described with the unearthed code within the OS X El Capitan has an allotment of 10 USB 3.0 ports.
According to Apple Insider, the addition of six USB 3.0 ports would be a deviation from the 20GB/s Thunderbolt 2 protocol.
The Mac Pro, released in 2013, has not been updated since, which explains why many believe that the code is a potential reference to a new Mac Pro professional workstation. Aside from additional USB ports, experts speculate that the new Mac Pro will be installed with a new Intel Xeon processors, faster graphics cards, and dramatically improved RAM.
While he may be on to something, Piker Alpha stated that he could be wrong entirely.
"Only Apple knows if a new Mac Pro is around the corner or not. I only report my findings here," he said.
