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I've been reading the comments on this thread and others on HN. I'm equally dismayed by the 'New Normal' with regards to Apple's offering, the bizarre design d

I've been reading the comments on this thread and others on HN. I'm equally dismayed by the 'New Normal' with regards to Apple's offering, the bizarre design decisions (remove the USBs on the base Macbook, 16GB max RAM on the new Pros while Lenovo has been offering 32, the gimmicky top bar that will change the world, etc.) However, to keep in mind here is that for us techies (and for design folks) Macbooks seem as standard as ranger boots in the military, but for the rest of the world, it's a vicious fight for market share and Apple is near the bottom of the 'big ones'. For one of the wealthiest companies in the world, Apple is still behind HP, Dell, Lenovo, even Acer and ASUS in marketshare! [Source: http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/05/11/lower-macbook-sales-push-apple-down-to-sixth-place-in-laptop-marketshare http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/05/11/lower-macbook-sale...] So, it's not a surprise that our needs are cast aside in the grander business scheme of capturing wider audience by casting a wider net. There's no need to psychoanalyze Tim Cook and pray for the Second Coming of Jobs. It's the widening of the net that we're experiencing as pain.

arebop 10y ago
If they want enterprise market share, they need to lower prices by a lot.
- acdha 10y ago
  You're thinking about the consumer IT market, where people tend to buy the cheapest up-front price. In most enterprise shops, people recognize that the purchase price is a small part of the total cost of ownership and favor things like durability, support, etc. I don't want to derail into yet another argument for whether Apple is better or worse on those points but the cost gap between a business-quality PC and equivalent Mac historically has been much narrower than for the cheaper consumer-grade PCs and the buyers have fairly different priorities.
  - arebop 10y ago
    No, I'm definitely thinking of the several Fortune 100 companies I worked for in the past. They did indeed include TCO in their checklists. They did not actually understand or care about the daily experience of the people using the computers. The decision matrix abstraction really missed a lot! Yes, the CEO had MacBook Pro. The rank and file got a "refresh" HP or Dell once every 5 years. Niceties such color gamut, gpu performance, or keyboard travel never showed up on the feature checklist.
leonroy 10y ago
> So, it's not a surprise that our needs are cast aside in the grander business scheme of capturing wider audience by casting a wider net. They just canned their cheapest notebook, the Macbook Air 11" and bumped the price on their other models by a few $100. On top of that the only port on their new notebooks is Thunderbolt 3. What sort of mass market appeal are they going for exactly?
- mancerayder 10y ago
  Maybe they are banking on the hope that enterprises that are already 'locked in', will continue to purchase and refresh inventory with later models. And trying to appeal to the wider audience with gimmicks like the touchbar at the top. Also, I have to say, how many of us, with our complaints, are going to bite our lips and buy a new model anyway. I'm on the border, myself (although refurb'ed has been a go-to for me for years in the Apple space). Innovation has gotten pained across the board - a separate rant, a separate disappointment for me was the new Pixel. I can't use it to replace my 5X because it costs double and doesn't offer much hardware-wise, but the 'Assistant' is supposed to enter that other gimmick captivating the imagination, the AI. In Apple's case they're calculating that their changes will expand market share and profitability. I don't have an MBA (the degree, not the discontinued model of laptop) so my brain is too small to comprehend the greatness of the decision-making in the design, but I'm guessing it has to do with the 'thinnest, lightest ever' and 'the stupid bar at the top' bulletpoints.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
    I don't need a new laptop right now, but I was planning on ordering the 2016 model. After seeing what they offer and the substantial price increase, I'm waiting. And if there isn't anything better in a year or two, I'm going to start looking at PC laptops and switch to Linux. I just think this is another sign that Apple either doesn't care about Mac or they don't know what to do with it. It's felt like a second-class citizen to iOS for a very long time.
    - mancerayder 10y ago
basch 10y ago
> us techies (and for design folks) Macbooks seem as standard as ranger boots in the military, but for the rest of the world the rest of the world => enterprise IT => techies
secstate 10y ago
Like some sort of Eternal September for hardware :)
eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
That doesn't make sense. Market share is only one metric; profits have been more important for Apple in most cases. Apple is well behind in market share on mobile too, but the profit they make on phones is substantially more. I think I remember reading that they make more profit on the iPhone than all of the other major android manufacturers put together. That is not to say that there aren't signs of Apple's growth stagnating, but to judge success on market share alone is a bit silly. Also, what about this new MacBook Pro is "mass market" ? I don't know a lot of people that today will spend $2500+ on a computer if they don't need to spend that much. So the article has a point -- who is this laptop for? It's in the price point for "professionals" but what professionals are they going after? It's not clear at all. Losing the function row and most importantly, the escape key, seemed completely unnecessary.
- mancerayder 10y ago
  You could make the same argument ("it's expensive and thus not mass-market") to IPads and iPhones, consistently (well, until this year perhaps) drastically more expensive than their Android competition, respectively. Don't forget the power of marketing. Is it just me or are there Apple logos every time a character in a TV show pulls open a computer? "It's the thinnest, lightest ever, and the bar at the top has UNLIMITED CAPABILITIES." There's your mass market. Think most people care about the ESC key? I do, but most don't.

arebop 10y ago

If they want enterprise market share, they need to lower prices by a lot.

acdha 10y ago
You're thinking about the consumer IT market, where people tend to buy the cheapest up-front price. In most enterprise shops, people recognize that the purchase price is a small part of the total cost of ownership and favor things like durability, support, etc. I don't want to derail into yet another argument for whether Apple is better or worse on those points but the cost gap between a business-quality PC and equivalent Mac historically has been much narrower than for the cheaper consumer-grade PCs and the buyers have fairly different priorities.
- arebop 10y ago
  No, I'm definitely thinking of the several Fortune 100 companies I worked for in the past. They did indeed include TCO in their checklists. They did not actually understand or care about the daily experience of the people using the computers. The decision matrix abstraction really missed a lot! Yes, the CEO had MacBook Pro. The rank and file got a "refresh" HP or Dell once every 5 years. Niceties such color gamut, gpu performance, or keyboard travel never showed up on the feature checklist.

leonroy 10y ago

> So, it's not a surprise that our needs are cast aside in the grander business scheme of capturing wider audience by casting a wider net. They just canned their cheapest notebook, the Macbook Air 11" and bumped the price on their other models by a few $100. On top of that the only port on their new notebooks is Thunderbolt 3. What sort of mass market appeal are they going for exactly?

mancerayder 10y ago
Maybe they are banking on the hope that enterprises that are already 'locked in', will continue to purchase and refresh inventory with later models. And trying to appeal to the wider audience with gimmicks like the touchbar at the top. Also, I have to say, how many of us, with our complaints, are going to bite our lips and buy a new model anyway. I'm on the border, myself (although refurb'ed has been a go-to for me for years in the Apple space). Innovation has gotten pained across the board - a separate rant, a separate disappointment for me was the new Pixel. I can't use it to replace my 5X because it costs double and doesn't offer much hardware-wise, but the 'Assistant' is supposed to enter that other gimmick captivating the imagination, the AI. In Apple's case they're calculating that their changes will expand market share and profitability. I don't have an MBA (the degree, not the discontinued model of laptop) so my brain is too small to comprehend the greatness of the decision-making in the design, but I'm guessing it has to do with the 'thinnest, lightest ever' and 'the stupid bar at the top' bulletpoints.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
  I don't need a new laptop right now, but I was planning on ordering the 2016 model. After seeing what they offer and the substantial price increase, I'm waiting. And if there isn't anything better in a year or two, I'm going to start looking at PC laptops and switch to Linux. I just think this is another sign that Apple either doesn't care about Mac or they don't know what to do with it. It's felt like a second-class citizen to iOS for a very long time.
  - mancerayder 10y ago

basch 10y ago

> us techies (and for design folks) Macbooks seem as standard as ranger boots in the military, but for the rest of the world the rest of the world => enterprise IT => techies

secstate 10y ago

Like some sort of Eternal September for hardware :)

eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago

That doesn't make sense. Market share is only one metric; profits have been more important for Apple in most cases. Apple is well behind in market share on mobile too, but the profit they make on phones is substantially more. I think I remember reading that they make more profit on the iPhone than all of the other major android manufacturers put together. That is not to say that there aren't signs of Apple's growth stagnating, but to judge success on market share alone is a bit silly. Also, what about this new MacBook Pro is "mass market" ? I don't know a lot of people that today will spend $2500+ on a computer if they don't need to spend that much. So the article has a point -- who is this laptop for? It's in the price point for "professionals" but what professionals are they going after? It's not clear at all. Losing the function row and most importantly, the escape key, seemed completely unnecessary.

mancerayder 10y ago
You could make the same argument ("it's expensive and thus not mass-market") to IPads and iPhones, consistently (well, until this year perhaps) drastically more expensive than their Android competition, respectively. Don't forget the power of marketing. Is it just me or are there Apple logos every time a character in a TV show pulls open a computer? "It's the thinnest, lightest ever, and the bar at the top has UNLIMITED CAPABILITIES." There's your mass market. Think most people care about the ESC key? I do, but most don't.