The Apple company of today is best known for its consumer electronics gadgets. The Mac Pro, Apple's high-powered desktop computer, is a long way from being just a motherboard, but the spirit of customization remains. The Mac Pro offers flexible memory options, vast amounts of hard disk space and the ability to personalize and expand its hardware and software.

The Mac Pro is a niche product, mostly appealing to those who need more storage, expansion, and memory than your average desktop can provide: graphic designers, film editors, engineers, gamers and the like. The new tower version of the Mac Pro feels like a lot of ideas with high-end gaming desktops, with huge expandability, an easy-access chassis and plenty of cooling. But for the pro audience, the briefly seen rack-mounted model may even be more interesting.

It will offer the same configuration options, with only minor tweaks along the way. The main difference is that the similar-looking body is actually a completely separate enclosure, just in the kind of rack-friendly shape that music, video and 3D shops might need. Of course, in the rack model, you'll only get a minimal view of the new design, which is fine as rack systems aren't sold on their looks.

That might be for the best. Perhaps the era of ultra-modern, ultra-minimalist design fetishism is over. iPads and iPhones look largely the same year after year. MacBooks are mostly professional-looking silver machines, a far cry from the severe black or white polycarbonate shells or the translucent candy-colors of older Apple computers. Instead, the physical body has been subsumed by the software and experiences that run on it.