The labels for the connectors glow white for a few seconds when you move the computer — a lovely, helpful touch, especially in a dimly lit video-editing suite.
But come on: a cylinder! That’s so Apple, isn’t it? This is, after all, the company that made a transparent computer (the iMac), a computer with no keys (the iPad) and a phone with hardly any buttons.
Sometimes, Apple’s radical designs come at the expense of usability. You know, like how the MacBook Air laptop is astonishingly thin — but doesn’t let you insert a DVD or swap batteries.
That, then, is the question on the Mac Pro: Is it so artsy that it’s less useful?
In some ways, the compact, stunning cylinder is a huge improvement on the hulking, 20-inch-tall, 40-pound design of the previous Mac Pro model. The new one is desktoppable and one-hand carryable. And the cylindrical design creates an efficient chimney effect that keeps the circuitry cool but amazingly silent. (There’s only one fan — not eight, as in the old Mac Pro — and you really have to strain to hear it.)