13 ms·

The Mac Platform Decline

183 points by milen 10y ago

tlow 10y ago
This is a poorly written article mainly complaining about the lack of an update to the Mac Pro product despite it's thesis that: > Apple, the MacBook Pro is not a pro-level computer. It’s simply not. However, the article is indeed self-contradictory as it later goes on to say: > Who needs anything more than a MacBook Pro? The answer is a very small segment of high-demanding users. So given that the main thesis that the Macbook Pro is not a professional machine is entirely unsupported, I argue that the Mac Platform Decline described in this article is not an accurate portrayal or reality. Edit: Update The linked article even states the different thesis that the Mac _DESKTOP_ product line is doomed. > Apple’s desktop Mac lineup is headed for the graveyard. Dead. Done. Over.[1] [1] http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives/2016/2014 http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives...
- casion 10y ago
  It doesn't sound like a contradiction to me. A very small segment of users are 'pro-level' users. Now yes, it isn't supported, but if you accept that as the reality then it is not contradictory.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Those pro-level users were what kept Apple alive during the dark years but now that greener pastures have been discovered they can easily be abandoned.
    - dasil003 10y ago
      If that's really the thinking inside Apple then they are being penny wise pound foolish. The pro users are the influencers. Losing video and photo editors is one thing, but if it eats into their developer marketshare than it will signal the beginning of a slow decline in apps which will significantly hurt iOS over the long-term, and likely be impossible to recover from given Google's leg up in services. Frankly if the competition wasn't so shitty, I'd probably be jumping ship already, but Apple still has a considerable advantage in hardware quality and the overall Mac OS X ecosystem being way ahead of Windows on the Unixy stuff, and way ahead of Linux on the polish/interop stuff.
      - eyko 10y ago
        People don't buy iPhones for the number of _new_ apps anymore. I have a feeling Apple knows this. They already have a share of the market that they're not easily going to drop as long as they keep updating iPhones and marketing them accordingly. I'd say that Apple's focus has shifted, and therefore their long term strategy. I don't see Apple being the place where the next generation general purpose operating systems will be built.
  - mbernstein 10y ago
    I think the whole 'pro-user' description needs examined a bit. Tons of developers at companies use macbook airs which are far less powerful than the newest laptops. Ex: Rob Pike uses a macbook air. Is he not a professional? There's a huge range of needs even within the pro user camp and I'd posit that the majority of them will be well served by the new Macs. If you're doing game development I'd argue Apple hasn't made great machines for you in the past so I'd expect a continued miss on the portable VR front as well. For those that are doing visual work - are current generation machines actually not powerful enough?
    - tlow 10y ago
      I've found a Mac Pro to be an excellent machine for graphics work including large video editing projects that ground my Dell to a halt.
    - snom380 10y ago
      Nobody is claming that your're not a professional because you don't need a Mac Pro. Of course the majority of pro tasks will be served by the new Mac laptops. But that's not what we're discussing here. For the ones that need more performance, it can be a dealbreaker to go so long without updates. For the ones that have their needs are met today, there's a very clear signal now that if your needs ever grow, Apple won't be there to meet them.
- snom380 10y ago
  To the pro users that need more power than what you get from a laptop, there's no compelling alternative from Apple today. Even the iMac has thermal throttling that puts limits on its performance. I don't understand why you think the article is poorly written, but I certainly can understand and agree with the authors concern. I'm not sure how it's possible to not share that concern after the lack of updates to the desktop line.
jamisteven 10y ago
Its not just the mac but the entire product line. Unfortunately Jobs did not do a good job of finding a sufficient replacement prior to his health issues getting the best of him. - Round edges on the iphone6 - protruding lens on the iphone6 - removal of 3mm headphone jack on iphone7 - forcetouch keys on the new macbooks - video cam on the pro
- s917 10y ago
  I'm getting the impression that Steve didn't pick a replacement as such, just someone that would keep things ticking over until he recovered.
  - snom380 10y ago
    He certainly picked a replacement he believed in. He made very sure that Jony Ive had certain powers inside Apple. He didn't die overnight, and had plenty of time to consider how to set up Apple. On the other hand, last time he picked a successor in the 80s he picked the wrong guy.
- snom380 10y ago
  Sorry, but Steve Jobs also released lots of products with rough edges like that. (Remember "antennagate"?) I think we won't see how Apples management really works until there's a new product space that Apple entirely misses, and I don't think we've seen that yet (it could be AI, VR, or something entirely different we haven't thought of). If they miss that just like Microsoft did in the tablet / mobile space, then we can start comparing Tim Cook to Ballmer.
  - fzzzy 10y ago
    Steve Jobs died just over a year after antennagate. He had already been extremely sick for years at that point.
    - snom380 10y ago
      I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but he was still CEO at that point (his biography has a section about how he dealt with the antennagate issue) after having made a recovery from the transplant.
f_allwein 10y ago
The main premise here is "Apple did not update its desktops in a while, so they don't care about this". I think this is inaccurate - according to http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/ http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/ , they do plan to update them, but are still waiting for Intel to produce the necessary chips. Also, I seem to remember reading pretty much the same thing before the Mac Pro was launched (which was apparently 1046 days ago...). So yes, desktops are becoming less important, but no, I don't think Apple will drop them any time soon.
- Fomite 10y ago
  As a datapoint, I'm a very long-time Mac User (started with an LC) and have used Macs heavily in scientific computing. A Mac Pro was my go-to machine for a very long time. But when my lab got a grant to buy some new workstations? The Mac Pro wasn't even on the list being considered.
- snom380 10y ago
  I also don't think Apple will drop them, but for pro users the lack of updates is a serious problem. It's not like they couldn't have bumped the spec a little every year to keep people happy. People were rightly frustrated by the lack of updates before the Mac Pro was launched, and I think many thought the launch was a signal that Apple took the Pro market seriously. The lack of updates since then serves as another reminder that you can't depend on Apple to deliver up to date hardware in that market.
simonbarker87 10y ago
I agree that the mac platform seems to have been neglected but Tim Cook isn't stupid, he knows that without developers the iPad isn't going to grow how he wants so I don't think this is the end of the Mac. I think Tim Cook has ignored the Mac in favour of his favourite projects but in the meantime Schiller and Federighi have been making sure the Mac is in his periphery and fighting for resources. I've chosen to view this update as the start of the uptick where we go back to regular updates (perhaps with a longer period than historically) and more exciting things to come. I think the Mac Pro is over and the iMac will replace it with TB3 enabling external devices to take the workload of what Apple don't want to handle internally but other than that I hope we will see a strong line up in a couple of years and look back at this time as the trough. That or Apple is over and I need to work out what computer I will use in 15 years as I can't stand Windows and Linux is a nightmare. Also, I think the TouchBar looks pretty damn cool and I'll be ordering one as soon as I can.
- IBM 10y ago
  >I think Tim Cook has ignored the Mac in favour of his favourite projects but in the meantime Schiller and Federighi have been making sure the Mac is in his periphery and fighting for resources. Ah yes you heard the latest episode of ATP as well. Maybe if Marco repeats it enough everyone will believe it, which is kind of funny since this story [1] is on the front page right now. I basically feel like I'm being gaslighted after reading all these hot takes about Apple and Macs. [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-th...
  - simonbarker87 10y ago
    No one is lying here, it's speculation so not sure how that article relates. Marco never claimed it was an original thought, I'm pretty sure Gruber said the same a few months back after WWDC. Either way, we can choose to see this update positively or we can be negative about it and stew on the fact that we feel ignored by Apple - the later always works out well.
    - 10y ago
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nkw 10y ago
I think most of the statements in the article are true, the problem is there is not (right now) a superior alternative. Yes, Microsoft is trying with the surface, Linux I'm sure has come far, but there is simply not any alternative that can realistically compete with the Mac platform right now. There is simply no pressure on Apple to dedicate further resources to this area, because there is not much for them to gain. It sucks for users of their products, but probably great for stockholders.
- KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
  As a current macOS user and a former Ubuntu user, I actually feel that my experience with Ubuntu was better than macOS, not worse. Among the features I liked: a decent window manager built in into Unity and free file-system snapshots using btrfs. And I was using a ThinkPad, which was less expensive, more rugged, and would not try to impersonate a leafblower every time you ran a nontrivial computation on it.
- shiny 10y ago
  Yeah, and as a developer it really behooves me to be able to run Xcode and the iOS simulator. Plus every team seems to use Macs nowadays, and it certainly helps to be on the same platform as everybody else. Finally, I already have a couple apps in the App Store that I'd have to abandon if I switched to something else. So I'm kinda stuck.
- Yetanfou 10y ago
  but there is simply not any alternative that can realistically compete with the Mac platform right now I think you forgot to add two important words: for me. Other beg to differ for a variety of reasons.
  - nkw 10y ago
    This is true. I figured that was implied since I'm a random person pontificating on the Internet.
- Chyzwar 10y ago
  Linux is already superior for developers. You servers all running Linux, all dev tools are first released in Linux, everything just work with most hardware. For professional like video editing, photography, CADs, audio etc Windows is better when you can buy better hardware for the same price as Mac. There is no reason to by Mac when most hardware is terribly outdated and you don't know when next upgrade will happen.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Wow, I really liked that article. I thought it articulated some really important insights, first that Apple could reasonably be seen as abandoning the core computer user market, and second an acknowledgement that the market they are leaving in favor of the consumer market is probably immaterial to their current business model. It is clear that there are two "kinds" of users of computation platforms, the "apps only" users and "developers." It is also becoming clear that "content creators" (graphic artists, writers, video producers, Etc) are seen more and more as "apps only" users rather than developers as well, even though their content tools are very demanding on the platform. If they are correct and the market is segmenting, then I think you can expect to see "artist workstations" emerge as a category with tools wrapped around a computer to help in their content creation, I think that certainly became true of synthesizers which have "workstations" as a category distinct from instruments you might play on stage or in a studio setting.
- bane 10y ago
  Apple is fighting too many competitors at the moment. It used to just be Microsoft, but Google's dominance in smartphones and slow but constant pressure in tablets and "good enough for most people" laptops is causing the company to lose focus. Microsoft also traditionally didn't have a credible hardware story, giving Apple a complete vertical integration story. Now both major competitors are vertically integrating (Microsoft with Windows + Surface and Google with Android/ChromeOS + Pixel). I think Apple is having to choose where they're going to focus and tbh, the Mac line is a smaller line of business for the company. If you simply don't use a laptop/desktop at all, then nobody cares that you can't connect your other devices cleanly to it, your other devices are your primary computing devices. Microsoft doesn't have a good story on the phone front, but it's not inconceivable that they'll try again with a shrunk down surface line if the it proves successful enough. Google's desktop story is also incomplete, but they're moving rapidly towards something if they ever stop having OS confusion. The iPad Pro is large and powerful enough that it basically can be the "good enough for most people" computing device. And they have a cohesive ecosystem from small to large in the iDevices. There's no significant future for Apple with the Mac line and the company is allergic to commodification in ways that their competitors aren't (and that's where that line is heading). Apple is more likely to keep playing with iDevice sizing and software than to continue dedicated serious resources to keeping the Mac line alive. I'm not calling it a deathwatch yet, but it's clear it's a backburner line of business for the company.
Razengan 10y ago
I was a PC user my whole life, since the days of DOS and PC Tools, until I made the switch to Macs in 2011. The last time I used Windows (10) was last year when I was stuck with a PC for 2 months. I don't feel the Mac is in decline at all. Although the new MacBooks are out of my budget for now, there is still nothing that makes me want to go back to PCs/Microsoft. I still remember the almost daily frustrations I had with Windows, some of which continue to plague it to this day. It remains a massive, kludgey hodgepodge of inconsistency. Even if Windows wasn't bad in my opinion there really isn't anything bad enough on the Mac side to make me switch.
ascendantlogic 10y ago
"It will be a switch from iOS developers using Macs at home to them using PCs at home and having a "work Mac" for commercial development." This is exactly what gave rise to the Mac and OSX in the last 10-15 years. People worked on Windows PCs "at work" but had Macs for personal development. Now I'm witnessing the exact same scenario play out now that Apple is the market behemoth amongst power users and developers. Do I think Microsoft will simply win everyone back? Not at this moment. They could keep stepping up their game and possibly do so. Or the collective energy people were spending on macOS could be spent on (finally) making Linux-on-desktop a viable option that doesn't require inordinate amounts of fiddling with drivers and configuration files. Time will tell but I'm already pretty sure my next laptop will be a Dell XPS or Razer Blade.
- ihuman 10y ago
  > now that Apple is the market behemoth I thought Windows/PC was still much larger than Apple in the computer market?
  - ascendantlogic 10y ago
    Yes but it's been steadily declining. I guess I should have added an asterisk and said "Amongst power users/developers" since those are almost exclusively Mac now (from my observation, YMMV)
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      I imagine you are living in a Mac bubble. On our main building, which has four floors, there are exactly 4 Macs. On two of the customers sites I visit regularly, with several hundred people on the respective buildings, only iOS developers have Macs, and they aren't that many on site.
      - parasubvert 10y ago
        It really varies; among many SF Bay Area companies, PCs are rare sights for the past 5-7 years. Go into any Bay Area coffee shop, for example. Now in London, Tokyo, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Toronto or New York it's probably more balanced, but I see plenty of tech companies that are Mac standard. I work for a global software and services company of over 2500 people and I'd say maybe 5% are running PCs with windows or Linux, the rest are on Macs. (And we aren't specialist iOS developers). I'm not sure what the share is in Salesforce, Amazon, Google or Facebook or the like, probably over 30% at least.
taylodl 10y ago
Is it too much to ask to wait until we get the actual machines in our hands and use them for 30 days before deciding our verdict? Maybe they suck. Maybe they don't.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  You don't need a "hands on" nor 30 days to realize 16gb of RAM isn't going to be enough for the CAPEX of a $2500 to $4000 dollar machine over the span of (hopefully) 3+ years. That is just one example... there are many more.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Pfew, I may not believe how professional you are if you had just used the word "price" instead of "CAPEX".
    - monkmartinez 10y ago
      You are right... In my defense, it is not only "funner" to say the same thing differently, but sometimes drives the point home "more better."
      - matt4077 10y ago
        That's very (p/f)unny, . Please don't let people like me take the fun out of funding for you, and inform me if you ever start a religion, cult, country, CAPEX LIMITING INVESTMENT SCHEME(TM) or hummus-based fast food chain,
  - dictum 10y ago
    The one upside of this MBP generation is that it will force Apple to milk every last drop of performance in future macOS updates. (I'm still running 10.11, hope 10.12 is still stable)
CalChris 10y ago
I bought an SE rather than a 7. Size is a better fit for me and I still use the audio jack. A lot. So Apple had an upgrade path for me. But with the new MacBook Pro, they cut out USB-A. If they'd kept it on the entry level model, that'd be my upgrade path. Instead, I'll eek out maybe a couple more years on my current MBP. BTW, I'm not sure at all why they ditched MagSafe. They did all this and kept the RCA port. Now that's a head scratcher. On the plus side, I'm a big fan of the T1 Secure Enclave processor.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > BTW, I'm not sure at all why they ditched MagSafe. They did all this and kept the RCA port. Now that's a head scratcher. It makes sense to me: we'll have RCA ports long, long after MagSafe, USB and FireWire are nothing but memories. As long as man has two ears, we'll have RCA ports.
  - Terretta 10y ago
    Does it still have the mini-toslink optical fiber connection inside the headphone jack? They've had these since 2005. Could be a reason to keep the headphone port.
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  I think the losses of Magsafe and the 3.5" headphone socket will go down as the point Apple finally lost it. Magsafe was such a perfect example of Apple doing small innovation, utterly brilliantly; if they've ditched it purely to save half a millimetre off thickness, it's all the proof I need that the lunatics have taken over.
  - no1youknowz 10y ago
    > I think the losses of Magsafe and the 3.5" headphone socket will go down as the point Apple finally lost it. Magsafe was such a perfect example of Apple doing small innovation, utterly brilliantly. I agree 100% with magsafe. I am hoping a 3rd party (like the breaksafe but recommended by apple) comes up and fills the void. If not, I am not entire sure what my next upgrade will be. I may wait another 5 years! Magsafe has saved me a whole bunch of times, which I have seen echoed in many other comments across the other threads over the past few days. I know some peoples comments were that the threads frayed. But surely they could have come up with Magsafe 3 with better cable shielding?
walter_bishop 10y ago
Yahoo finance says they're doing well. If this is a sign of decline then most companies would be happy getting such results. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1
- snom380 10y ago
  Yes. And Microsoft was doing extremely well during Ballmers reign, and BlackBerry was doing extremely well for many years after iPhones release. Current revenue doesn't necessarily say anything about future decline, you need to look deeper than that.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Exactly. Current revenues for Apple are a result of decisions they made years ago. You can't look at this quarter's numbers to evaluate decisions made today. If anything, Apple's fat profits are a danger sign. That kind of money attracts people who like spending lots of money. It removes any need for discipline. It discourages innovation, because people are afraid to do anything that might disturb the giant cash pipeline.
angryteabag 10y ago
Easy fix, bring macOS to non Apple hardware.
- mafro 10y ago
  I don't think "easy" is the way to describe that endeavour. Ever tried a hackintosh?
  - WaltPurvis 10y ago
    >> Ever tried a hackintosh? Yes, I've been running a hackintosh for several years now. It works flawlessly. What point are you trying to make?
    - mahyarm 10y ago
      Years ago it wasn't working perfectly :D
  - swozey 10y ago
    Hackintoshing is incredibly easy now. You can grab a build off of reddit that works perfectly. The issues lie in when you use hardware that has never been in an Apple, for instance there's no Kaby Lake support until Apple releases something with KB. The most common issues if you don't buy all Intel/Nvidia are the wifi and BT which can be alleviated by $10 usb receivers. Touch screen of course is a no go. Clover, the latest Hackintosh installer is very easy.
- stock_toaster 10y ago
  I think we will see Apple runing macOS on their own ARM chips long before we see them opening up for whitebox installs.
- snom380 10y ago
  I think that's one thing that would actually make sense. Maybe they're more open to the idea now that they're publicly supporting and advertising third party displays. (edit:spelling)
jasonjei 10y ago
I see a lot of parallels of Tim Cook's Apple to John Sculley's Apple. Tim Cook's, like John Sculley's, is focused on immediate short-term bottom line improvements rather than long-term investments. John Sculley kept staying the course, and Tim Cook is doing much of the same. If anything, the most recent iteration of MBP is sidelining serious developers and content producers. So yes, Apple's bottom line is growing. Lots of revenue are being made from iCloud subscriptions to Apple Music. Steve Ballmer was very good at improving Microsoft's bottom line too. But they lost search, music, and cloud at the expense of chasing revenue.
- zepto 10y ago
  I keep seeing people say things about how the Mac is sidelining serious developers and content producers, but I haven't seen any actual argument as to why this is so. Can you explain?
  - trurl 10y ago
    Because serious developers require computers with more horsepower (CPU, GPU, memory, etc.) than Apple is providing? 16GB is nowhere near enough for my work. And I can't seriously justify buying a iMac or MacPro at this point when their hardware is so out of date.
    - eknkc 10y ago
      Not arguing, just curious. What type of work are you in?
      - trurl 10y ago
        I am building a next generation database system.
        grzm 10y ago
        Sounds interesting! What system are you currently using? What limitations are you running into? What do you envision the system running on in production?
shripadk 10y ago
> From where I'm standing, Apple are redefining (shrinking) their target audience for the Mac platform. If you feel left out by the latest updates and the neglect on the desktop, it's simple as Apple deciding not to serve your segment's needs. I know that it can feel quite personal to Mac devotees, like me, but it's simply business and strategy. How does this work? Can someone please explain to me how Apple can neglect macOS if all iOS/watchOS/tvOS app development needs to happen on macOS? I'm with you however on the fact that Apple has seriously disappointed me with the latest launch. I was hoping to finally get a much better, powerful notebook and an accompanying iMac. I feel very sad that the legacy left behind by Steve Jobs is being destroyed so badly. If this is truly the decline of Apple as I'm starting to think, at the very least, Apple should open-source macOS.
- scotu 10y ago
  > How does this work? Can someone please explain to me how Apple can neglect macOS if all iOS/watchOS/tvOS app development needs to happen on macOS? precisely because you are forced to use macos to access the lucrative ios market, they can get away with a lesser experience for developers. (Note that I'm not saying this is what is happening, just saying how that would work; although I often feel like they are indeed leaving the pro/advanced user market behind)
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    For iOS devs, you don't need that much RAM fortunately, since xcode takes about ~2-4GB ram itself for large projects. But the tooling is not great and it's annoying to run CI systems with them. iOS dev is definitely geared towards small team projects.
jeffehobbs 10y ago
This recent round of updates made me consider what I need from a "work" machine. For me, it comes down to three items: * Can I code on this machine? This means at minimum three tasks: write, deploy and test code. This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to a non-unobfucated file system. * Can I view all file formats easily and successfully? This includes formats like XML and json which are not typically meant to be viewed by a human. * Can I use and move freely between several web browsers? This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to browser extensions, console, etc. The answer to all these questions is "Yes" for Mac/Win/Linux and solidly "No" for iOS. Which, is too bad, because I'd love to use something like an iPad Pro for work. But Apple has placed several software based restrictions on iOS which, above and beyond other hardware restrictions (lack of multiple monitors, poor selection of input devices) add up to there being no reasonable way to get "work" done on the platform. I don't see myself as a power user, either: Apple seems completely stuck in a time where all users needed was access to a decent office suite and the ability to email and print in order to "do work". That's not an adequate description of "work" any more, but apparently no one has told Apple.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  Agreed on all counts, though if you are coding, reading XML and JSON, and switching between multiple web browsers, you are the creme de le creme "power user", no?
- baby 10y ago
  > XML and json which are not typically meant to be viewed by a human XML and json are meant to be viewed by a human. Those are visual encodings a contrario to binary encodings.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    Meant to be viewable by a human, but not viewed by most humans.
  - landryraccoon 10y ago
    Agreed. When someone says "not meant to be viewed by a human" I think protobuf or png, not XML/JSON.
matt4077 10y ago
There's a basic premise this article gets wrong: that there is a tradeoff between the Mac platform and the iUniverse. That's just not true, at least not on the 5-years plus timescales that we've been hearing these complaints. The most valuable company in the world can certainly afford staffing the Mac division with what they had back in 2000 or so or whenever people believe they were at their best. And the Mac business is without doubt profitable and that's the only thing that counts. We're not even talking about "innovation" issues anyway, where Apple may be constrained by not cloning SJ or JI. Note people don't want innovation (no floppy, no headphone, no F9) but rather simple grunt work like updating the chipsets. I don't have any coherent theory. I'd say it's a combination of: - Mac Pro: possibly waiting for something that then didn't turn out as expected? It's a segment that may actually be obsolete in that anything you can't do on an iMac happens on a cluster? I mean – what's there besides video editing and chrome compiling, two things the iMac is absolutely capable of. - MacBooks: There's a minority complaining very loudly, who just! can't! work! professionally(!!) without 32GB of RAM and F7 – and they're real professionals by the way, not like those unprofessional hipster-wannabes. Meanwhile, there have been quite a few advances but it's just not exciting any more: SSDs have had the most significant performance impact since the Pentium. Battery life has reached the point of diminishing returns (as has battery durability). Retina displays are on the level of vector fonts in terms of UI improvements. No idea about wide-gamut colors, but I certainly thought "why didn't this catch on 16 years ago?". A modern Apple trackpad is the hoverboard my fingers have been making memes about for a decade. Build quality and durability at the highest they have ever been, and if IFixIt complains, it's because YouDontHaveToAnymore. Software is a different story maybe, but a large part of that may just be that it's solved. It's a stable, safe, fast, pretty OS. The Apple applications have seen a bunch of stumbles, indeed. But even Photos does what I actually need and there are alternatives for all of them.
geocar 10y ago
I really just want an upgrade for the MBA. There's finally a few Windows machines that don't look like complete dogshit, but I don't know how to connect to multiple exchange servers in Outlook.
jernfrost 10y ago
I agree it worries me. I've been with the Mac since OS X came out. The focus on more professional users like myself seems to have started a decline beginning with Snow Leopard. Of course I understand the rational. It is a small chunk of Apple revenue now, but can't there be some solution to this? What if they simply outsourced the professional products to other companies? I know the clone makers was a disaster for Apple, but they can do it smarter this time, by specifically only allow the clones to sell computers at the high performance and high end. The consumer grade computers and laptops should be Apple only. Fortunately for me I see that a lot of Linux distros have gotten a lot more OS X like over the years to if I got to switch there are actually systems out there which somewhat resemble what I am used to. Still Linux simply doesn't have the same breath of quality desktop applications available as the Mac today. Every time I use Linux I get reminded that while I might be able to get all the functionality I need, it is too often served up in a package or UI which is extremely kludgy and poorly thought out.
majewsky 10y ago
Speculation time: What if the big master plan is an Apple Compute Cloud? It would be a public cloud that can run all your favorite resource-intensive macOS apps. Then you could actually run Xcode and VMs and machine learning on your iPad Pro, because it runs on the cloud instead and the iPad is just RDP'd into your cloud account. The need for a separate Mac product line would then be obliterated entirely. Within that theory, the disappointing update can be explained as the Apple Compute Cloud being delayed, so they had to scramble something together quickly.

183 points by milen 10y ago

tlow 10y ago

This is a poorly written article mainly complaining about the lack of an update to the Mac Pro product despite it's thesis that: > Apple, the MacBook Pro is not a pro-level computer. It’s simply not. However, the article is indeed self-contradictory as it later goes on to say: > Who needs anything more than a MacBook Pro? The answer is a very small segment of high-demanding users. So given that the main thesis that the Macbook Pro is not a professional machine is entirely unsupported, I argue that the Mac Platform Decline described in this article is not an accurate portrayal or reality. Edit: Update The linked article even states the different thesis that the Mac _DESKTOP_ product line is doomed. > Apple’s desktop Mac lineup is headed for the graveyard. Dead. Done. Over.[1] [1] http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives/2016/2014 http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives...

casion 10y ago
It doesn't sound like a contradiction to me. A very small segment of users are 'pro-level' users. Now yes, it isn't supported, but if you accept that as the reality then it is not contradictory.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Those pro-level users were what kept Apple alive during the dark years but now that greener pastures have been discovered they can easily be abandoned.
  - dasil003 10y ago
    If that's really the thinking inside Apple then they are being penny wise pound foolish. The pro users are the influencers. Losing video and photo editors is one thing, but if it eats into their developer marketshare than it will signal the beginning of a slow decline in apps which will significantly hurt iOS over the long-term, and likely be impossible to recover from given Google's leg up in services. Frankly if the competition wasn't so shitty, I'd probably be jumping ship already, but Apple still has a considerable advantage in hardware quality and the overall Mac OS X ecosystem being way ahead of Windows on the Unixy stuff, and way ahead of Linux on the polish/interop stuff.
    - eyko 10y ago
      People don't buy iPhones for the number of _new_ apps anymore. I have a feeling Apple knows this. They already have a share of the market that they're not easily going to drop as long as they keep updating iPhones and marketing them accordingly. I'd say that Apple's focus has shifted, and therefore their long term strategy. I don't see Apple being the place where the next generation general purpose operating systems will be built.
- mbernstein 10y ago
  I think the whole 'pro-user' description needs examined a bit. Tons of developers at companies use macbook airs which are far less powerful than the newest laptops. Ex: Rob Pike uses a macbook air. Is he not a professional? There's a huge range of needs even within the pro user camp and I'd posit that the majority of them will be well served by the new Macs. If you're doing game development I'd argue Apple hasn't made great machines for you in the past so I'd expect a continued miss on the portable VR front as well. For those that are doing visual work - are current generation machines actually not powerful enough?
  - tlow 10y ago
    I've found a Mac Pro to be an excellent machine for graphics work including large video editing projects that ground my Dell to a halt.
  - snom380 10y ago
    Nobody is claming that your're not a professional because you don't need a Mac Pro. Of course the majority of pro tasks will be served by the new Mac laptops. But that's not what we're discussing here. For the ones that need more performance, it can be a dealbreaker to go so long without updates. For the ones that have their needs are met today, there's a very clear signal now that if your needs ever grow, Apple won't be there to meet them.
snom380 10y ago
To the pro users that need more power than what you get from a laptop, there's no compelling alternative from Apple today. Even the iMac has thermal throttling that puts limits on its performance. I don't understand why you think the article is poorly written, but I certainly can understand and agree with the authors concern. I'm not sure how it's possible to not share that concern after the lack of updates to the desktop line.

jamisteven 10y ago

Its not just the mac but the entire product line. Unfortunately Jobs did not do a good job of finding a sufficient replacement prior to his health issues getting the best of him. - Round edges on the iphone6 - protruding lens on the iphone6 - removal of 3mm headphone jack on iphone7 - forcetouch keys on the new macbooks - video cam on the pro

s917 10y ago
I'm getting the impression that Steve didn't pick a replacement as such, just someone that would keep things ticking over until he recovered.
- snom380 10y ago
  He certainly picked a replacement he believed in. He made very sure that Jony Ive had certain powers inside Apple. He didn't die overnight, and had plenty of time to consider how to set up Apple. On the other hand, last time he picked a successor in the 80s he picked the wrong guy.
snom380 10y ago
Sorry, but Steve Jobs also released lots of products with rough edges like that. (Remember "antennagate"?) I think we won't see how Apples management really works until there's a new product space that Apple entirely misses, and I don't think we've seen that yet (it could be AI, VR, or something entirely different we haven't thought of). If they miss that just like Microsoft did in the tablet / mobile space, then we can start comparing Tim Cook to Ballmer.
- fzzzy 10y ago
  Steve Jobs died just over a year after antennagate. He had already been extremely sick for years at that point.
  - snom380 10y ago
    I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but he was still CEO at that point (his biography has a section about how he dealt with the antennagate issue) after having made a recovery from the transplant.

f_allwein 10y ago

The main premise here is "Apple did not update its desktops in a while, so they don't care about this". I think this is inaccurate - according to http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/ http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/ , they do plan to update them, but are still waiting for Intel to produce the necessary chips. Also, I seem to remember reading pretty much the same thing before the Mac Pro was launched (which was apparently 1046 days ago...). So yes, desktops are becoming less important, but no, I don't think Apple will drop them any time soon.

Fomite 10y ago
As a datapoint, I'm a very long-time Mac User (started with an LC) and have used Macs heavily in scientific computing. A Mac Pro was my go-to machine for a very long time. But when my lab got a grant to buy some new workstations? The Mac Pro wasn't even on the list being considered.
snom380 10y ago
I also don't think Apple will drop them, but for pro users the lack of updates is a serious problem. It's not like they couldn't have bumped the spec a little every year to keep people happy. People were rightly frustrated by the lack of updates before the Mac Pro was launched, and I think many thought the launch was a signal that Apple took the Pro market seriously. The lack of updates since then serves as another reminder that you can't depend on Apple to deliver up to date hardware in that market.

simonbarker87 10y ago

I agree that the mac platform seems to have been neglected but Tim Cook isn't stupid, he knows that without developers the iPad isn't going to grow how he wants so I don't think this is the end of the Mac. I think Tim Cook has ignored the Mac in favour of his favourite projects but in the meantime Schiller and Federighi have been making sure the Mac is in his periphery and fighting for resources. I've chosen to view this update as the start of the uptick where we go back to regular updates (perhaps with a longer period than historically) and more exciting things to come. I think the Mac Pro is over and the iMac will replace it with TB3 enabling external devices to take the workload of what Apple don't want to handle internally but other than that I hope we will see a strong line up in a couple of years and look back at this time as the trough. That or Apple is over and I need to work out what computer I will use in 15 years as I can't stand Windows and Linux is a nightmare. Also, I think the TouchBar looks pretty damn cool and I'll be ordering one as soon as I can.

IBM 10y ago
>I think Tim Cook has ignored the Mac in favour of his favourite projects but in the meantime Schiller and Federighi have been making sure the Mac is in his periphery and fighting for resources. Ah yes you heard the latest episode of ATP as well. Maybe if Marco repeats it enough everyone will believe it, which is kind of funny since this story [1] is on the front page right now. I basically feel like I'm being gaslighted after reading all these hot takes about Apple and Macs. [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-th...
- simonbarker87 10y ago
  No one is lying here, it's speculation so not sure how that article relates. Marco never claimed it was an original thought, I'm pretty sure Gruber said the same a few months back after WWDC. Either way, we can choose to see this update positively or we can be negative about it and stew on the fact that we feel ignored by Apple - the later always works out well.
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nkw 10y ago

I think most of the statements in the article are true, the problem is there is not (right now) a superior alternative. Yes, Microsoft is trying with the surface, Linux I'm sure has come far, but there is simply not any alternative that can realistically compete with the Mac platform right now. There is simply no pressure on Apple to dedicate further resources to this area, because there is not much for them to gain. It sucks for users of their products, but probably great for stockholders.

KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
As a current macOS user and a former Ubuntu user, I actually feel that my experience with Ubuntu was better than macOS, not worse. Among the features I liked: a decent window manager built in into Unity and free file-system snapshots using btrfs. And I was using a ThinkPad, which was less expensive, more rugged, and would not try to impersonate a leafblower every time you ran a nontrivial computation on it.
shiny 10y ago
Yeah, and as a developer it really behooves me to be able to run Xcode and the iOS simulator. Plus every team seems to use Macs nowadays, and it certainly helps to be on the same platform as everybody else. Finally, I already have a couple apps in the App Store that I'd have to abandon if I switched to something else. So I'm kinda stuck.
Yetanfou 10y ago
but there is simply not any alternative that can realistically compete with the Mac platform right now I think you forgot to add two important words: for me. Other beg to differ for a variety of reasons.
- nkw 10y ago
  This is true. I figured that was implied since I'm a random person pontificating on the Internet.
Chyzwar 10y ago
Linux is already superior for developers. You servers all running Linux, all dev tools are first released in Linux, everything just work with most hardware. For professional like video editing, photography, CADs, audio etc Windows is better when you can buy better hardware for the same price as Mac. There is no reason to by Mac when most hardware is terribly outdated and you don't know when next upgrade will happen.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Wow, I really liked that article. I thought it articulated some really important insights, first that Apple could reasonably be seen as abandoning the core computer user market, and second an acknowledgement that the market they are leaving in favor of the consumer market is probably immaterial to their current business model. It is clear that there are two "kinds" of users of computation platforms, the "apps only" users and "developers." It is also becoming clear that "content creators" (graphic artists, writers, video producers, Etc) are seen more and more as "apps only" users rather than developers as well, even though their content tools are very demanding on the platform. If they are correct and the market is segmenting, then I think you can expect to see "artist workstations" emerge as a category with tools wrapped around a computer to help in their content creation, I think that certainly became true of synthesizers which have "workstations" as a category distinct from instruments you might play on stage or in a studio setting.

bane 10y ago
Apple is fighting too many competitors at the moment. It used to just be Microsoft, but Google's dominance in smartphones and slow but constant pressure in tablets and "good enough for most people" laptops is causing the company to lose focus. Microsoft also traditionally didn't have a credible hardware story, giving Apple a complete vertical integration story. Now both major competitors are vertically integrating (Microsoft with Windows + Surface and Google with Android/ChromeOS + Pixel). I think Apple is having to choose where they're going to focus and tbh, the Mac line is a smaller line of business for the company. If you simply don't use a laptop/desktop at all, then nobody cares that you can't connect your other devices cleanly to it, your other devices are your primary computing devices. Microsoft doesn't have a good story on the phone front, but it's not inconceivable that they'll try again with a shrunk down surface line if the it proves successful enough. Google's desktop story is also incomplete, but they're moving rapidly towards something if they ever stop having OS confusion. The iPad Pro is large and powerful enough that it basically can be the "good enough for most people" computing device. And they have a cohesive ecosystem from small to large in the iDevices. There's no significant future for Apple with the Mac line and the company is allergic to commodification in ways that their competitors aren't (and that's where that line is heading). Apple is more likely to keep playing with iDevice sizing and software than to continue dedicated serious resources to keeping the Mac line alive. I'm not calling it a deathwatch yet, but it's clear it's a backburner line of business for the company.

Razengan 10y ago

I was a PC user my whole life, since the days of DOS and PC Tools, until I made the switch to Macs in 2011. The last time I used Windows (10) was last year when I was stuck with a PC for 2 months. I don't feel the Mac is in decline at all. Although the new MacBooks are out of my budget for now, there is still nothing that makes me want to go back to PCs/Microsoft. I still remember the almost daily frustrations I had with Windows, some of which continue to plague it to this day. It remains a massive, kludgey hodgepodge of inconsistency. Even if Windows wasn't bad in my opinion there really isn't anything bad enough on the Mac side to make me switch.

ascendantlogic 10y ago

"It will be a switch from iOS developers using Macs at home to them using PCs at home and having a "work Mac" for commercial development." This is exactly what gave rise to the Mac and OSX in the last 10-15 years. People worked on Windows PCs "at work" but had Macs for personal development. Now I'm witnessing the exact same scenario play out now that Apple is the market behemoth amongst power users and developers. Do I think Microsoft will simply win everyone back? Not at this moment. They could keep stepping up their game and possibly do so. Or the collective energy people were spending on macOS could be spent on (finally) making Linux-on-desktop a viable option that doesn't require inordinate amounts of fiddling with drivers and configuration files. Time will tell but I'm already pretty sure my next laptop will be a Dell XPS or Razer Blade.

ihuman 10y ago
> now that Apple is the market behemoth I thought Windows/PC was still much larger than Apple in the computer market?
- ascendantlogic 10y ago
  Yes but it's been steadily declining. I guess I should have added an asterisk and said "Amongst power users/developers" since those are almost exclusively Mac now (from my observation, YMMV)
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I imagine you are living in a Mac bubble. On our main building, which has four floors, there are exactly 4 Macs. On two of the customers sites I visit regularly, with several hundred people on the respective buildings, only iOS developers have Macs, and they aren't that many on site.
    - parasubvert 10y ago
      It really varies; among many SF Bay Area companies, PCs are rare sights for the past 5-7 years. Go into any Bay Area coffee shop, for example. Now in London, Tokyo, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Toronto or New York it's probably more balanced, but I see plenty of tech companies that are Mac standard. I work for a global software and services company of over 2500 people and I'd say maybe 5% are running PCs with windows or Linux, the rest are on Macs. (And we aren't specialist iOS developers). I'm not sure what the share is in Salesforce, Amazon, Google or Facebook or the like, probably over 30% at least.

taylodl 10y ago

Is it too much to ask to wait until we get the actual machines in our hands and use them for 30 days before deciding our verdict? Maybe they suck. Maybe they don't.

monkmartinez 10y ago
You don't need a "hands on" nor 30 days to realize 16gb of RAM isn't going to be enough for the CAPEX of a $2500 to $4000 dollar machine over the span of (hopefully) 3+ years. That is just one example... there are many more.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Pfew, I may not believe how professional you are if you had just used the word "price" instead of "CAPEX".
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    You are right... In my defense, it is not only "funner" to say the same thing differently, but sometimes drives the point home "more better."
    - matt4077 10y ago
      That's very (p/f)unny, . Please don't let people like me take the fun out of funding for you, and inform me if you ever start a religion, cult, country, CAPEX LIMITING INVESTMENT SCHEME(TM) or hummus-based fast food chain,
- dictum 10y ago
  The one upside of this MBP generation is that it will force Apple to milk every last drop of performance in future macOS updates. (I'm still running 10.11, hope 10.12 is still stable)

CalChris 10y ago

I bought an SE rather than a 7. Size is a better fit for me and I still use the audio jack. A lot. So Apple had an upgrade path for me. But with the new MacBook Pro, they cut out USB-A. If they'd kept it on the entry level model, that'd be my upgrade path. Instead, I'll eek out maybe a couple more years on my current MBP. BTW, I'm not sure at all why they ditched MagSafe. They did all this and kept the RCA port. Now that's a head scratcher. On the plus side, I'm a big fan of the T1 Secure Enclave processor.

wtbob 10y ago
> BTW, I'm not sure at all why they ditched MagSafe. They did all this and kept the RCA port. Now that's a head scratcher. It makes sense to me: we'll have RCA ports long, long after MagSafe, USB and FireWire are nothing but memories. As long as man has two ears, we'll have RCA ports.
- Terretta 10y ago
  Does it still have the mini-toslink optical fiber connection inside the headphone jack? They've had these since 2005. Could be a reason to keep the headphone port.
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
I think the losses of Magsafe and the 3.5" headphone socket will go down as the point Apple finally lost it. Magsafe was such a perfect example of Apple doing small innovation, utterly brilliantly; if they've ditched it purely to save half a millimetre off thickness, it's all the proof I need that the lunatics have taken over.
- no1youknowz 10y ago
  > I think the losses of Magsafe and the 3.5" headphone socket will go down as the point Apple finally lost it. Magsafe was such a perfect example of Apple doing small innovation, utterly brilliantly. I agree 100% with magsafe. I am hoping a 3rd party (like the breaksafe but recommended by apple) comes up and fills the void. If not, I am not entire sure what my next upgrade will be. I may wait another 5 years! Magsafe has saved me a whole bunch of times, which I have seen echoed in many other comments across the other threads over the past few days. I know some peoples comments were that the threads frayed. But surely they could have come up with Magsafe 3 with better cable shielding?

walter_bishop 10y ago

Yahoo finance says they're doing well. If this is a sign of decline then most companies would be happy getting such results. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1

snom380 10y ago
Yes. And Microsoft was doing extremely well during Ballmers reign, and BlackBerry was doing extremely well for many years after iPhones release. Current revenue doesn't necessarily say anything about future decline, you need to look deeper than that.
- wpietri 10y ago
  Exactly. Current revenues for Apple are a result of decisions they made years ago. You can't look at this quarter's numbers to evaluate decisions made today. If anything, Apple's fat profits are a danger sign. That kind of money attracts people who like spending lots of money. It removes any need for discipline. It discourages innovation, because people are afraid to do anything that might disturb the giant cash pipeline.

angryteabag 10y ago

Easy fix, bring macOS to non Apple hardware.

mafro 10y ago
I don't think "easy" is the way to describe that endeavour. Ever tried a hackintosh?
- WaltPurvis 10y ago
  >> Ever tried a hackintosh? Yes, I've been running a hackintosh for several years now. It works flawlessly. What point are you trying to make?
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    Years ago it wasn't working perfectly :D
- swozey 10y ago
  Hackintoshing is incredibly easy now. You can grab a build off of reddit that works perfectly. The issues lie in when you use hardware that has never been in an Apple, for instance there's no Kaby Lake support until Apple releases something with KB. The most common issues if you don't buy all Intel/Nvidia are the wifi and BT which can be alleviated by $10 usb receivers. Touch screen of course is a no go. Clover, the latest Hackintosh installer is very easy.
stock_toaster 10y ago
I think we will see Apple runing macOS on their own ARM chips long before we see them opening up for whitebox installs.
snom380 10y ago
I think that's one thing that would actually make sense. Maybe they're more open to the idea now that they're publicly supporting and advertising third party displays. (edit:spelling)

jasonjei 10y ago

I see a lot of parallels of Tim Cook's Apple to John Sculley's Apple. Tim Cook's, like John Sculley's, is focused on immediate short-term bottom line improvements rather than long-term investments. John Sculley kept staying the course, and Tim Cook is doing much of the same. If anything, the most recent iteration of MBP is sidelining serious developers and content producers. So yes, Apple's bottom line is growing. Lots of revenue are being made from iCloud subscriptions to Apple Music. Steve Ballmer was very good at improving Microsoft's bottom line too. But they lost search, music, and cloud at the expense of chasing revenue.

zepto 10y ago
I keep seeing people say things about how the Mac is sidelining serious developers and content producers, but I haven't seen any actual argument as to why this is so. Can you explain?
- trurl 10y ago
  Because serious developers require computers with more horsepower (CPU, GPU, memory, etc.) than Apple is providing? 16GB is nowhere near enough for my work. And I can't seriously justify buying a iMac or MacPro at this point when their hardware is so out of date.
  - eknkc 10y ago
    Not arguing, just curious. What type of work are you in?
    - trurl 10y ago
      I am building a next generation database system.
      - grzm 10y ago
        Sounds interesting! What system are you currently using? What limitations are you running into? What do you envision the system running on in production?

shripadk 10y ago

> From where I'm standing, Apple are redefining (shrinking) their target audience for the Mac platform. If you feel left out by the latest updates and the neglect on the desktop, it's simple as Apple deciding not to serve your segment's needs. I know that it can feel quite personal to Mac devotees, like me, but it's simply business and strategy. How does this work? Can someone please explain to me how Apple can neglect macOS if all iOS/watchOS/tvOS app development needs to happen on macOS? I'm with you however on the fact that Apple has seriously disappointed me with the latest launch. I was hoping to finally get a much better, powerful notebook and an accompanying iMac. I feel very sad that the legacy left behind by Steve Jobs is being destroyed so badly. If this is truly the decline of Apple as I'm starting to think, at the very least, Apple should open-source macOS.

scotu 10y ago
> How does this work? Can someone please explain to me how Apple can neglect macOS if all iOS/watchOS/tvOS app development needs to happen on macOS? precisely because you are forced to use macos to access the lucrative ios market, they can get away with a lesser experience for developers. (Note that I'm not saying this is what is happening, just saying how that would work; although I often feel like they are indeed leaving the pro/advanced user market behind)
- mahyarm 10y ago
  For iOS devs, you don't need that much RAM fortunately, since xcode takes about ~2-4GB ram itself for large projects. But the tooling is not great and it's annoying to run CI systems with them. iOS dev is definitely geared towards small team projects.

jeffehobbs 10y ago

This recent round of updates made me consider what I need from a "work" machine. For me, it comes down to three items: * Can I code on this machine? This means at minimum three tasks: write, deploy and test code. This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to a non-unobfucated file system. * Can I view all file formats easily and successfully? This includes formats like XML and json which are not typically meant to be viewed by a human. * Can I use and move freely between several web browsers? This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to browser extensions, console, etc. The answer to all these questions is "Yes" for Mac/Win/Linux and solidly "No" for iOS. Which, is too bad, because I'd love to use something like an iPad Pro for work. But Apple has placed several software based restrictions on iOS which, above and beyond other hardware restrictions (lack of multiple monitors, poor selection of input devices) add up to there being no reasonable way to get "work" done on the platform. I don't see myself as a power user, either: Apple seems completely stuck in a time where all users needed was access to a decent office suite and the ability to email and print in order to "do work". That's not an adequate description of "work" any more, but apparently no one has told Apple.

paulddraper 10y ago
Agreed on all counts, though if you are coding, reading XML and JSON, and switching between multiple web browsers, you are the creme de le creme "power user", no?
baby 10y ago
> XML and json which are not typically meant to be viewed by a human XML and json are meant to be viewed by a human. Those are visual encodings a contrario to binary encodings.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  Meant to be viewable by a human, but not viewed by most humans.
- landryraccoon 10y ago
  Agreed. When someone says "not meant to be viewed by a human" I think protobuf or png, not XML/JSON.

matt4077 10y ago

There's a basic premise this article gets wrong: that there is a tradeoff between the Mac platform and the iUniverse. That's just not true, at least not on the 5-years plus timescales that we've been hearing these complaints. The most valuable company in the world can certainly afford staffing the Mac division with what they had back in 2000 or so or whenever people believe they were at their best. And the Mac business is without doubt profitable and that's the only thing that counts. We're not even talking about "innovation" issues anyway, where Apple may be constrained by not cloning SJ or JI. Note people don't want innovation (no floppy, no headphone, no F9) but rather simple grunt work like updating the chipsets. I don't have any coherent theory. I'd say it's a combination of: - Mac Pro: possibly waiting for something that then didn't turn out as expected? It's a segment that may actually be obsolete in that anything you can't do on an iMac happens on a cluster? I mean – what's there besides video editing and chrome compiling, two things the iMac is absolutely capable of. - MacBooks: There's a minority complaining very loudly, who just! can't! work! professionally(!!) without 32GB of RAM and F7 – and they're real professionals by the way, not like those unprofessional hipster-wannabes. Meanwhile, there have been quite a few advances but it's just not exciting any more: SSDs have had the most significant performance impact since the Pentium. Battery life has reached the point of diminishing returns (as has battery durability). Retina displays are on the level of vector fonts in terms of UI improvements. No idea about wide-gamut colors, but I certainly thought "why didn't this catch on 16 years ago?". A modern Apple trackpad is the hoverboard my fingers have been making memes about for a decade. Build quality and durability at the highest they have ever been, and if IFixIt complains, it's because YouDontHaveToAnymore. Software is a different story maybe, but a large part of that may just be that it's solved. It's a stable, safe, fast, pretty OS. The Apple applications have seen a bunch of stumbles, indeed. But even Photos does what I actually need and there are alternatives for all of them.

geocar 10y ago

I really just want an upgrade for the MBA. There's finally a few Windows machines that don't look like complete dogshit, but I don't know how to connect to multiple exchange servers in Outlook.

jernfrost 10y ago

I agree it worries me. I've been with the Mac since OS X came out. The focus on more professional users like myself seems to have started a decline beginning with Snow Leopard. Of course I understand the rational. It is a small chunk of Apple revenue now, but can't there be some solution to this? What if they simply outsourced the professional products to other companies? I know the clone makers was a disaster for Apple, but they can do it smarter this time, by specifically only allow the clones to sell computers at the high performance and high end. The consumer grade computers and laptops should be Apple only. Fortunately for me I see that a lot of Linux distros have gotten a lot more OS X like over the years to if I got to switch there are actually systems out there which somewhat resemble what I am used to. Still Linux simply doesn't have the same breath of quality desktop applications available as the Mac today. Every time I use Linux I get reminded that while I might be able to get all the functionality I need, it is too often served up in a package or UI which is extremely kludgy and poorly thought out.

majewsky 10y ago

Speculation time: What if the big master plan is an Apple Compute Cloud? It would be a public cloud that can run all your favorite resource-intensive macOS apps. Then you could actually run Xcode and VMs and machine learning on your iPad Pro, because it runs on the cloud instead and the iPad is just RDP'd into your cloud account. The need for a separate Mac product line would then be obliterated entirely. Within that theory, the disappointing update can be explained as the Apple Compute Cloud being delayed, so they had to scramble something together quickly.