The market for powerful computers, like the Mac Pro is now, isn’t going away any time soon, but the question is whether Apple will leave that market behind (for others to take). I don’t believe that’s what we’re seeing, although that also wouldn’t surprise me.

I believe that in the same way the iPad will increasingly replace our MacBooks, the MacBook Pro and iMac are replacing our Mac Pros. The more portable, less expensive computers are stepping up to the demands traditionally made of their big brothers.

Things have been looking rocky for Apple’s most powerful computers ever since Steve Jobs likened traditional computers to trucks.

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. … PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people. … I think that we’re embarked on that. Is the next step the iPad? Who knows? Will it happen next year or five years from now or seven years from now? Who knows? But I think we’re headed in that direction.