22 ms·

What the Heck Is Happening at Apple?

• vermontdevil 10y ago
  Seems a repeat of what we have seen at Microsoft, HP, and many other companies. Apple has become too reliant on iPhone and unsure how to look beyond it. Either they would have to shake the leadership team up like Microsoft or split the company up.
  • laichzeit0 10y ago
    An honest question. Why? Does Apple not make enough money, do they need to grow?
    • dx034 10y ago
      No, but without new ideas they'll soon start to shrink. Apple is in a very fast business, not coming up with new ideas means losing business very quickly. They could of course just enjoy sales from the iphone and live off past innovation, but that would mean that they could cut costs by at least 50% and fire most of the workforce. Don't know if that's what they want.
    • SyneRyder 10y ago
      They're a public company. If the company isn't growing, there's little incentive to hold the stock. (The current 2% dividend is a pitiful return, you can get that level of return from an Australian savings account.) If they're not growing & the dividend isn't big enough, then the stock price (and hence company value) will start falling as people cash out. If Apple can take themselves private again, there will be less pressure on them to keep growing.
      • laichzeit0 10y ago
        If as you say the stock price falls, Apple could just buy back their own stock. They have a huge cash reserve. What I'm getting at is I think everybody is overly concerned that Apple isn't releasing any "new" devices. They don't really have to. Looking at market share, they completely dominate on the products they already have. If anything, they can sit back, wait for the "next big thing" and do what Apple typically does best: Copy it, and make it so much better.
    • arvinsim 10y ago
      Apple is a publicly traded company after all.
  • Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    But they do, and they have. The iPad was huge and sold very, very well, and still is one of their top products, even though the market has become saturated because newer iterations aren't as big steps forwards as it was with the iphone, and people are less likely to upgrade ipads because they don't need to (and there's less incentive like with the 2-3 year phone plans). And the Mac has always been their core product, especially since Apple's comeback with the imac. It's no longer their main source of income, but it's a very strong brand that had consistently been getting more and more market share over time. It probably didn't have the huge margin and volume of the iphone, but it'd be a critical error if they were to discontinue it. They should invest more in it, I think; rebrand the new Macbook Pro to just Macbook, come out with a new line of Pros that are bigger again (with pro hardware and features, for the discerning user), update the Mac Pro, etc.
    • neolefty 10y ago
      And before the Mac they had a revolutionary product too ...
  • exodust 10y ago
    Aren't they allowed to sit on the iPhone? Why must they come up with amazing new stuff when they've already got a mountain of cash and loyal fans who love the point release updates? In other industries like cars, the manufacturers don't necessarily create hugely different models every year, but only small improvements on last year's model, and they seem to do okay. Personally I think the touch-bar thing on the Mac is unremarkable, even a gimmick. Why would anyone want the furniture moving around on their keyboard? I could be wrong, I suppose if it's highly customizable then it will be handy for programmable shortcuts.
    • PerryCox 10y ago
      > Aren't they allowed to sit on the iPhone? Why must they come up with amazing new stuff when they've already got a mountain of cash and loyal fans who love the point release updates? Apple cannot rest on their laurels because if they stop innovating Android manufactures will implement all of their features and sell the phones for cheaper than an iPhone. The Google Pixel is a killer phone and could easily steal some iPhone market share if a new iPhone does not keep iterating with new features. If Apple keeps removing two features for every new one that they add, that's going to upset some customers.
      • pjc50 10y ago
        Phone markets aren't really about features; Android phones already out-feature (although not out-perform) iPhones all over the place. It's the usability and image that Apple sells on. And Apple believe - sometimes correctly - that removing features improves usability. Or at least keeping them coherent.
    • Someone1234 10y ago
      To rephrase what you said to make a point: > Aren't they allowed to sit on the Apple II? Why must they come up with amazing new stuff when they've already got a mountain of cash and loyal fans who love the point release updates? Last time Apple built the entire company around a single product (Apple II) they almost went bankrupt.
• ebbv 10y ago
  While the idea of hiring all the writers is cute, the "known" writers all have deals in place already. So Apple would be effectively taking a gamble on all unknown talent. That may or may not pay off. Buying TWC is a monumentally stupid idea for Apple that I won't even go into. Apple is obviously working on things (including self driving car systems), it just doesn't announce them and it doesn't hesitate to cancel them if it doesn't like the results. Those are, IMHO, good qualities about Apple. The idea that Apple has to get into a new category is kind of ridiculous. It doesn't have to do anything. It has solid profits and tons of money on hand. They can coast. The stock value will go down or stall for a bit if they do, but so what? When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price will reflect it at that time.
  • syntheticnature 10y ago
    I'd expect it to pay off... eventually. This would be the sort of thing where I'd expect it to take a decade, easily -- the idea being, as you point out, to snap up all the new talent. Eventually someone will hit, but it might take a while. (Yes, some writers may well object, but that is orthogonal to which ones will write hits.)
  • onion2k 10y ago
    When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price will reflect it at that time. One of the things that keep senior engineers at a company like Apple is vast amount of money they can make from their stock options. If the share price tanks then the senior engineers don't make anywhere close to the money they can make elsewhere, so they leave. That makes it harder to develop a successful product. I'm not suggesting Apple is a single failure away from a death spiral, but I am saying they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple.
    • ebbv 10y ago
      > they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple. No, but they can because they have something like $200 billion cash on hand. Which means if they really care about their stock price they can do a buy back if they want. Or if they are worried about employee compensation due to lagging stock price they can give bonuses, etc.
• walterbell 10y ago
  From a comment on the article, that could be applied to a future quad-core Mac Mini derivative: "I would love to seem them cannibalize their lack luster, overpriced iCloud by introducing a “personal cloud” home server product (that would also be the hub for HomeKit, and all that other stuff). Apple getting back to their roots as a high-margin value added hardware company. NAS systems are terrible, especially when trying to integrate them into a macOS and iOS network."
  • kminehart 10y ago
    Don't they already do that with the Time Machine?
    • Mister_Snuggles 10y ago
      Time Machine is their backup thing, so no. You're thinking the Time Capsule, which is basically an Airport base station with a hard drive that can be used for Time Machine backups. I don't know what other functions it has.
  • petra 10y ago
    Doesn't it go against the common thing Apple users seek: simplicity ?
    • hawski 10y ago
      I would see it successful if: 1. Just works. 2. Primary mode of operation as a cache for iCloud and all other Apple things. Acting as a router probably and as was said a HomeKit hub. 3. Private cloud as an option.
  • 314 10y ago
    What's wrong with NAS? I bought a Synology to work with a mixture of mac/linux/win machines and it worked fine out of the box.
• marknutter 10y ago
  I've always hated Cringely's opinions on Apple and this article is no exception. He has simply been wrong about them time and time again, yet people looking for FUD disguised as thoughtful criticism keep giving him hits. Apple, by every known metric known to the financial world, is doing spectacularly well. They are innovating at the same pace the always have, which has always been a brand new product category every 3-5 years with a series of incremental improvements on existing products from year to year. They absolutely dominate the wealthiest subset of the consumer market, and as such, they can seek rent for the next 10-20 years and continue to make money hand-over-fist for themselves and their investors without ever introducing a new product again. But they're going to continue to innovate just like they always have, and that innovation is going to be met with skepticism, ridicule, and dismissiveness just as it always has been. Bet against Apple at your own peril. Having closely followed them since 2003 when I made the switch to OS X myself, I've yet to see a single indication that they have made anything but the best business decisions of any company during that same period (possibly ever).
  • hash-set 10y ago
    They may be a darling of Wall Street, but they have jumped the shark technologically. You've already seen the peak.
  • scaryspooky 10y ago
    How is releasing the iPhone 7 which is port-wise incompatible with the new MBP a "best business decision of any company" when they clearly knew the product timetables? The Google Pixel phone is better suited for the new MBP than the iPhone. I think there are serious leadership problems at Apple and these sorts of incompatibilities among their own products is a symptom. I'm stuck on my late 2011 MBP because every model after it is failing at the 'professional' part by removing ports and upgradeable/swappable components. USB-C is nice and all but it's not sufficient as the only port (and with only 3 of them left while charging).
    • marknutter 10y ago
      I'm not saying every single decision they've made has been the best. I'm saying that on the whole their decisions have been among the best as demonstrated by their dominant market position and insane growth and profits over the past 16 years.
• hash-set 10y ago
  Apple has gone cheap. That's what is wrong. The Late 2012 Mac Mini I bought recently died for no apparent reason. It had upgradeable hard disks and memory. The 2014 version I just replaced it with has 4GB of RAM soldered onto the board and the case is designed not to be opened at all. That is just one small example, but a) the one I had shouldn't have died, and b) the replacement isn't anywhere as good as the old one. Apple, I'm done. You fucked me and I'm done.
  • deleted 10y ago
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• cdubzzz 10y ago
  > And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out, but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have so far generated well over $1 million in revenue. My own experience with Apple's computers has been similar. The last Apple I purchased was a MacBook Pro back in 2006/7 that lasted me a solid eight years, including three in an extremely hot and dusty environment. The only problem it ever had was a faulty optical drive (and I did always have lots of trouble with Apple's laptop optical drives). But that is just one more individual experience. Anyway, I don't know that "revenue generated while using the computer" really says anything at all. And I doubt Apple would come out ahead in that calculation industry wide.
  • criley2 10y ago
    > And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own. >but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device I always forget how dis-attached and money-blind pro-apple authors are from the 98% of people and how they approach money. I guess if I was in the 1%, I'd also think Apple was the cheap option! (I'd probably also think that about Lexus and BMW...) $1600 over 6 years, or about $270 a year, is not inexpensive and the false label "cheaper to own" is absurd to the highest degree. I could go out right now and buy a $600 laptop, a $200 chromebook, and be out $800 dollars. Then I could build a $500 rather powerful budget desktop, and be at $1300, with three devices, and have $300 leftover for repairs or upgrades. I could buy a $800 laptop and another one in 3-6 years for that price. I could buy an iPad, a Chromebook, and a $600 laptop. I could buy three $500 laptops. There is no universe in existence where spending $1600 total cost of ownership in 6 years approaches ANYTHING CLOSE to "cheaper to own". Frankly, I DON'T EVEN KNOW windows users who have spent $1600 in the past 6 years total, except for hardcore PC gamers whose hardware so dramatically eclipses the medium-grade consumer level tech in Apple laptops that to compare them is entertaining and silly.
    • 10y ago
• BatFastard 10y ago
  Go Cringely! Very interesting proposition. I am a believer that when we free ourselves from surviving day to day (to which we are pretty close), that the creatives will be the people in the highest demand. Or at least I can dream of such a day.
  • return0 10y ago
    So higher supply will create higher demand?
    • BatFastard 10y ago
      More free time to spend on leisure activities will create higher demand. Demand for talent has skyrocketed over the last 5 years.
• znpy 10y ago
  What is going to happen imho: Apple is doing and will do a shitload of money anyway. People will buy Apple stuff anyway because people already are: unless you are an Apple user, you should know how "religious" (I'm being kind here) Apple users are. They have been consciously been buying outdated and overpriced hardware until now, and they have been super proud about this too. Also, unless Apple software actively gets in the way of users doing their stuff it is all going to be "okay". So this is going to last anything from five to ten years at least, still imho. I have no true idea whether newer apple stuff is so bad or not (besides the idiotic drop of the audio jack on the iPhone). But Apple users have been subject to this Apple-isy for literally decades. I have a suspicion that now that Apple Macbook Pros are so widespread, complaining about Apple is the new hipsteria. This is what I feel, reading the news, on a foggy October, almost-November morning.
  • gourou 10y ago
    Apple has been getting bad press these days because: - A lot of employees left the Apple Car project, it is now reduced to software only - Siri is lagging behind other assistants - Removed the audio jack off the iPhone - Removed USB ports on the macbook The only exception, Apple Music, is catching up to Spotify but that comes at the cost of paying for exclusives.
    • TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      Also declining software reliability; declining hardware performance; lack of real vision or creativity; emphasis on superficial hardware changes (smaller, thinner, etc) over engineering significant new classes of customer benefits.
    • chrisseaton 10y ago
      Removed the USB ports? Actually they doubled the number of USB ports from 2 to 4 and they upgraded them to the latest standard USB-C.
  • muninn_ 10y ago
    "People will buy Apple stuff anyway because people already are: unless you are an Apple user, you should know how "religious" (I'm being kind here) Apple users are. They have been consciously been buying outdated and overpriced hardware until now, and they have been super proud about this too." This is a usual mistake people make. They assume that performance is simply a matter of specifications. It's not.
• EugeneOZ 10y ago
  Just offensive and very stupid article. Regret for the lost time.
  • strictnein 10y ago
    Yeah, the "I've got a super good idea, but Tim Cook will have to call me to get it" is about as obnoxious as it gets.
  • adamors 10y ago
    Par for the course for Cringely.
• deleted 10y ago
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• SEJeff 10y ago
  The comment on Apple at industry conferences is a bit of a misnomer. I've seen at least 12-15 Apple engineers (from the backend Siri team) at MesosCon this year and last year when I went. In fact, they gave a talk[1] about how the re-did the entire Siri backend ontop of Mesos and it has became much more reliable as a result. [1] https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/04/23/apple-details-j-a-r-v-i-s-the-mesos-framework-that-runs-siri/ https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/04/23/apple-details-j-a-r-v...
  • goodwink 10y ago
    I think he might mean things more like CES and other trade shows. Apple has frequently been involved in technical conferences.
    • SEJeff 10y ago
      Ah got it. I don't honestly see the value of a lot of those types of conferences. Apple is a marketing company with some serious engineering talent.
• pinaceae 10y ago
  beautiful qed - armchair product guy analyses situation (ok viewpoint), then makes a suggestion so asinine that it acts as a reminder just how hard product work is. as tech is becoming mainstream, more and more "football coaches" will spout their nonsense, just like in sports.
• syntheticnature 10y ago
  This is a better-reasoned opinion than much of Cringely's recent work. That's not exactly a recommendation, though. He's an idea guy, some of which he shares, some of which he doesn't, but it's another thing to execute on said ideas.
• ZenoArrow 10y ago
  From what I've seen of the latest Apple devices, they make sense to Apple if Apple wants greater integration between OS X and iOS, as in eventually having a single OS on all Apple devices. The new bar on the keyboard helps with iOS-style swipe gestures, standardisation on USB Type C means peripherals can target iOS and OS X devices, etc... That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.
  • mcintyre1994 10y ago
    How do you target iOS with USB Type C?
    • ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Perhaps that was a bit of a stretch, though both are protocol-agnostic, so switching from Lightning to USB-C in the future may not be as problematic as it could be.
• strictnein 10y ago
  So the whole point of this article is to get to his magical idea, that Apple should somehow hire all the screenwriters and be then be granted the streaming rights for all of their work? Just a tiny problem (well many problems, but this is the most glaring) in all that: The companies who actually pay for and produce the movies, films, documentaries, etc would never agree to it.
  • exodust 10y ago
    Yeh I agree, I think this is another "Apple need to do more" even though they actually literally don't need to do more.
    • dexterdog 10y ago
      They're a public tech company. If they don't grow like cancer they will die.
      • exodust 10y ago
        They grew so big, they can now afford to sit at cruising altitude and release a few updates here and there. If they're not growing to your liking, blame consumers for handing over all that cash year after year just for the Apple brand, and hopefully a useful product that turns on, turns off and all those other fancy things.
        • dexterdog 10y ago
          I'm not saying I care that they grow like that, but the market does.
  • ajmurmann 10y ago
    I found the idea to be startling in this context. However, the idea itself isn't all that crazy. I believe CAA (Creative Artist Agency) had done something similar to sell their bundled talent packages for movies. If I remember correctly they bought up a huge amount of screenplay rights and then bundled them with their own actors, directors, etc.
• abakker 10y ago
  He's right - Apple has a numbers problem ins that they need to have any potential investment be a big product category almost immediately. They've been notoriously careful to avoid random development in the public eye. When they have come to the market with half-baked products (Maps, AppleTV, iCloud/Mobile Me) they've tended to double down on them, rather than walk them backwards. The highly integrated approach they've taken to hardware, software, and services across Watch, phone, tablet, computer, apps and a number of accessories have put them in an awkward place. They need to integrate more things into the stack, and whatever they choose needs to be almost immediately integrated into the full stack. HomeKit has been an effort to jump into the IoT with a better platform. Seemingly, Apple's main strategy now is to rely on the accessories or apps to highlight opportunities (siri, maps, etc) and then buy them and integrate them. I suggest that Apple should probably buy Sonos to continue pushing HomeKit and to follow on their acquisition of Beats, especially given the tighter integration that Sonos now has with the Apple ecosystem. The lack of an obvious target for complete ecosystem integration is not only their lack of creativity, but the lack of obvious consumer demand for additional pieces of the puzzle. CarPlay is very nice, but it doesn't change car buying behavior, it is more like icing on the deal. Finally, this leaves Software, which Apple has been investing less in since creating the app store. They've become comfortable as a platform company and have been unable to beat Adobe and others in the pro app market. To any professional, Software should be the obvious target, but it seems the vast majority of Apple's customers don't care enough to seek alternatives to Apple's apps. I think the lack of focus on pro software is what is really behind the lack of newer pro-level machines, since I suspect that APple's engineers on the software side were really the ones pushing for greater levels of machine performance (Logic, Aperture, Final Cut X). Right now, Apple has Breadth in their stack, and they need depth. Software is the way to build depth, but it is not clear that Apple has anyone who understands software beyond OS-level details.
  • blueprint 10y ago
    > it is not clear that Apple has anyone who understands software beyond OS-level details That's a pretty broad statement to make! What does it take for someone to qualify as understanding software?
• snowwrestler 10y ago
  I'm old enough to remember that public hand-wringing always accompanies major updates to Apple product lines. The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was first released. It went on to be the most popular laptop they sell, and one of the most popular in the U.S. Apple has a ton of money and a willingness to percolate new ideas. We won't be able to really evaluate the new MBP--and the ideas it contains--for years.
  • bluedino 10y ago
    >> The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was first released. The Air wasn't a replacement of the Pro. It was a new device, an ultra portable. It didn't become popular until they added a second USB port and SD card reader, added a higher resolution screen, fixed the battery life issues, fixed the horribly slow performance, and reduced the price big-time.
    • oldmanjay 10y ago
      That's not a rebuttal of the parent's, although it may have felt like one while writing it.
    • erikpukinskis 10y ago
      I know in my case I wanted one instantly but my MBP wasn't stolen until several years later so I didn't buy an Air right at launch. Wasn't because of ports or anything.
    • mathw 10y ago
      Yeah, the first Air was pretty awful - so focussed on being so thin and so light that it sacrificed almost everything else. You know, like being useful. The second Air was a genuinely good machine, and that's when it became really popular.
      • iainmerrick 10y ago
        Yeah, exactly. In this case the first MacBook (with the single USB-C port) would be the first awful prototype. The new MacBook Pros would be the improved followup. But I don't think they'll be as popular as the Air, not yet.
• andy_ppp 10y ago
  I agree Apple needs a new billion dollar business segment and it's simple what it is; Apple Bus Pool Pro :-)
  • Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
    Apple Bicycle!
    • pavel_lishin 10y ago
      The Apple iCycle: A two-wheeled revolution in transportation. The battery will allow two miles of (downhill) travel, at which point you'll have to charge it over USB-C. (Battery is not swappable.) No pedals are included.
      • andy_ppp 10y ago
        You only need a USB-C to bipedal human cable, what's the big deal?
        • diegoperini 10y ago
          The cable will be released 2 months later.
      • coredog64 10y ago
        If you had worked "courage" into your post it would have been perfect.
• Artoemius 10y ago
  Everything about Apple these days points to the same elephant in the room: their top management are just a bunch of clueless salesmen without their leader.
  • neolefty 10y ago
    Cook isn't a sales guy -- he's operations. Still an elephant in the room though; there's a natural tension between trying new things and streamlining your existing things.
• JackFr 10y ago
  > Yet writers, like most actors, are notoriously underpaid. ...according to writers. Writers seem to me to be paid at a market clearing rate, with the protection of a union. It seems to me that if they were truly underpaid they might find a better use for their time.
• itsobvious 10y ago
  all the things happening at Apple right now and this guy drones on about they should be getting buying media companies. what the heck indeed..
• kirykl 10y ago
  What's notably absent from from Apple is the passion for the product. Sure Jony is passionate for design. BUT Steve would bring the passion and frame the product and exactly how it's innovative and will change things. At these past keynotes for example product managers have given canned passionless presentations for Apple products. Like the Apple TV presentation from last week
• UVB-76 10y ago
  What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake. I'm never going to buy an iPhone without a headphone jack, but reinstating the jack on a future model would be admitting they made a mistake with the iPhone 7. Likewise, with the new MacBook Pros, they are not going to release an update in a year's time that doesn't sacrifice ports and performance and battery life for size and weight, because doing so would be admitting a mistake. Nor are they going to dramatically cut the prices, such that they are actually affordable for someone, because doing so would be admitting a mistake.
  • pavel_lishin 10y ago
    What about the changes that bluedino talks about? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12836747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12836747 > [The Macbook Air] didn't become popular until they added a second USB port and SD card reader, added a higher resolution screen, fixed the battery life issues, fixed the horribly slow performance, and reduced the price big-time.
    • mathw 10y ago
      They did that while keeping it thin and light though, which is the entire reason for the Macbook Air to exist - or at least, it was, until the even thinner revised Macbook turned up. Which will, I'm pretty sure, gain a second USB C port just as soon as they figure out how to fit it in.
  • usefulcat 10y ago
    They will change if it hurts their bottom line enough. Only question is how much is "enough".
  • smoser 10y ago
    I can think of one instance. After Apple released the 3rd gen iPod Shuffle (gumstick) with no buttons they said at the release of the 4th gen iPod Shuffle event: "But users clearly like the buttons". So then the next gen had buttons just like the 2nd gen.
  • logfromblammo 10y ago
• csomar 10y ago
  I'm not sure if he is serious with his idea or not. I can't see how it'd work. Also, the MacBook Pro just launched. We can't know if it'll be a success or not, until 4-6 months later. I'm personally going to buy one (the higher end).
• awinder 10y ago
  "But Amazon’s requirements for success are much lower than Apple’s and its tolerance for failure (Amazon Fire phone anyone?) are higher." Can someone explain why Apple has less tolerance to failure? It would seem like they're in the perfect place for failures -- it's not going to torch the company, and they have stable revenue to offset any failures. This seemed like it was more of a company culture thing, but maybe there are strong reasons why Apple couldn't tolerate some failures in the name of searching / growing?
  • criddell 10y ago
    They experiment and fail occasionally. Remember the iPod HiFi?
    • sjm-lbm 10y ago
      To be honest, I feel like the fact that you have to reach back 10 years to find a genuinely interesting Apple experiment more or less supports the point made in the article.
      • deleted 10y ago
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      • criddell 10y ago
        Ok, then how about MagSafe power connectors?
        • sjm-lbm 10y ago
          "MagSafe is a series of proprietary magnetically attached power connectors, originally introduced by Apple Inc. on January 10, 2006, in conjunction with the MacBook Pro at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe (I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk, and will certainly admit that I thought MagSafe was several years newer than that - I still stick by my comment above, though)
      • 10y ago
• marcalc 10y ago
  I was eagerly waiting for the release of a new MacBook Pro, but when I saw the Apple keynote, my first/only reaction was to buy a new mid-2015 model to upgrade my mid-2009 one. Great upgrade, btw. I want to see what are apple's next moves, I just secured more 4-5 years on a great and stable laptop. Just speculating: maybe Tim Cook wants to force a decline in sales in order to justify the killing of the low-performant MacBook line? Hackintoshes are fairly common nowadays and external keyboard and trackpad 2 can keep the great interaction provided by OSX.
  • slantyyz 10y ago
    >> I was eagerly waiting for the release of a new MacBook Pro, but when I saw the Apple keynote, my first/only reaction was to buy a new mid-2015 model to upgrade my mid-2009 one. As much as we like to hate on the new MBP (myself included) -- in the grander scheme of things, the new MBP is a more than competent Mac laptop for a lot of people. The thing with people who spend a lot of time with computers is that we're an extremely passionate bunch. And because we're so passionate, we pay attention to the small details that matter most to us, while assuming those details have equal importance to everyone else, when that may not be the case. I tend to think a lot of people, including those who aren't terribly happy about the changes, will begrudgingly accept these changes over time. If you're a fan of the Mac operating system, you don't really have many other places to go, even if those places are functionally equivalent. For a lot of people who hate the changes in the new MBP, staying on macOS is still better than having to switch to Windows.
• gaius 10y ago
  Hands up who would happily trade 5mm extra thickness for 32G, 8 cores and a bigger battery? For me its a no-brainer... And I'll wager for anyone else who wants a workhorse not a fashion accessory...
  • noir_lord 10y ago
    I currently use a Vostro 17" beast (7lbs) as I really don't care about thinness or lightness at all, I'm a 200lb 6ft bloke so carrying it around/resting it on my knee isn't an issue. This trend towards thin/light everything at the expense of upgrade-ability and repair-ability confuses me but I'm not the target demographic.
    • goodwink 10y ago
      I'd like to see that used on a plane in economy. Given that I travel a lot and don't always end up in business/first, this is one of the first questions I ask myself when considering any new laptop.
      • gaius 10y ago
        But how does extreme thinness help there? I got alot of work done on planes with what passed for a laptop in the 1990s...
        • JimDabell 10y ago
          Not so much size, but weight. If your carry-on allowance is 7kg and you don't check baggage, having a laptop that weighs 3kg like the Vostro 17" is a big deal. If you've got a heavy laptop, you've got to either bring less stuff with you on your trip, or go through the hassle of checking baggage.
      • knieveltech 10y ago
        What percentage of your time over it's entire lifespan is spent using a it on a plane?
      • 10y ago
• JohnBooty 10y ago
  Putting aside the ports discussion, the stagnant performance of the Macbook Pro is just kind of where the market's at - Apple uses Intel chips and Intel slammed up against Moore's Law quite a few years ago. Looking at current ThinkPad offerings, it looks like I can get a $4,000 7.5-pound luggable with a mobile Xeon CPU (Thinkpad P70) but I'm not sure how much extra performance that buys me. The lack of 32GB options on Macbook Pros is definitely frustrating, though.
  • hellofunk 10y ago
    You are only looking at CPU, though. What about memory, and why does Apple not care about a "Pro" having more than 16GB RAM?
    • denzil_correa 10y ago
      Apparently, the lack of a higher capacity RAM was due to the performance/energy ratio. https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944 https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944
  • FireBeyond 10y ago
    That's a pretty cherry-picked comparison. "Ultra expensive, ultra heavy". Or you could get a Dell Precision 7510, 6.2lb (versus 5.5lb), Xeon CPU... for $2300.
• nakodari 10y ago
  The problem is right here, "I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte Fusion drive." Here's the thing. Apple is making this increasingly difficult in newer Macbook Pros.
  • laurentdc 10y ago
    I agree, the underlying philosophy is wrong (at least from a hacking/tinkering perspective) but again... how many people outside our tech bubble are actually doing these upgrades? The average Joe with a Mac (or a Lenovo or a Dell for that matter) doesn't know about RAM upgrades or SSD random seek times. He doesn't want to know. Apple still manages to deliver a laptop that will work decently out of the box for the years to come, with a reasonably fast SSD and an acceptable amount of memory for most tasks. Now, why the rest of their product line (Mini, iMac) still ships with sub-par hardware (4 GB base memory and/or 5400 rpm drives), that I don't know. I guess they're becoming products for a more and more niche market.
    • iainmerrick 10y ago
      how many people outside our tech bubble are actually doing these upgrades? That's true, but I think the point is, the people in the tech bubble are also the people making the apps. I don't know how you'd go about testing this, but I feel very strongly that part of Apple's recent success has been due to making very developer-friendly computers in the early 2000s. The original iPhone was a joy to program for (once they finally opened it up) because it was based on OS X, which was already pretty great compared to the competition. If programmers stop buying Macs, because they're just too expensive, too limited and unexpandable, the apps will start drying up and users will start drifting away. Maybe. It's just hard to see who these new machines are aimed at. I see tons of students using Macs in coffee shops -- but what's happening to the low-end, semi-affordable Airs? Graphics and video professionals love Macs -- but where's an up-to-date Mac Pro, or at least a really beefy MacBook Pro? I'm a mobile app developer, I love my MBP, but if I get a new one I'd also need a ton of adaptors for all the mobile devices I work with.
• gtrubetskoy 10y ago
  There is one industry where Apple can make a lot of money, and nobody is noticing it: healthcare. One of the biggest problems holding the inevitable healthcare disruption from happening is security - whom will you trust to keep a record of your heart rate or whatever? I'd pick Apple over any other provider because of the hardware innovations with the security enclave chips, etc, as well as insistence that security does not need to be sacrificed in order to make data useful.
  • petra 10y ago
    Most of the healthcare dollars goes to poor, elderly - who have much more chronic health issues. The iPhone isn't strong in that demogrpahic, due to economic reasons(source: a post by a health IT guy) .
    • mst 10y ago
      I believe Apple are partnering with healthcare providers since the savings in care costs make it worth subsidising the phones. Or, at least, that's the theory; I'm not informed enough to say if it's going to work.
• jlebrech 10y ago
  they are leveraging their watch tech as a very expensive value-add.
• Keyframe 10y ago
  The proposed idea is interesting, where interesting means stupid. If Apple wants to dominate music industry, all it has to do is to create a baseline support for songwriters. If Apple wants to dominate software industry, all it has to do is to create a baseline support for programmers. If Apple wants to dominate computer industry, all it has to do is to create a baseline support for EE guys. If Apple wants to dominate the flower industry, all it has to do is to create a baseline support for horticulturists and maybe buy some bees? Naivety of couch analysts with no clue how certain industry works and why so is always amusing and irritating at the same time.
  • vasaulys 10y ago
    I think the bigger idea is to think outside the box. Apple has stacks of cash to experiment with. This is precisely the sort of thinking it should take into consideration, spending big on wild ideas to see what works. Perhaps the _exact_ idea he mentions isn't solid, but the spirit of it is true.
    • Keyframe 10y ago
      That's a valid viewpoint and a valid idea, especially considering Apple's history. I don't think that's what author meant though. He's straight-up proposing vertical integration. That's not vague direction, that's a concrete proposal of direction. Doesn't matter which segment of business.
  • sosuke 10y ago
    I'm not asking this as a joke or facetious question but are you familiar with Cringely? I personally wouldn't categorize him as a couch analyst. Maybe checkout his Wikipedia entry or Youtube for "Triumph of the Nerds", he has been around the block.
    • crimsonalucard 10y ago
      Wikipedia says this guy has been around the block as a couch analyst.
    • 10y ago
• pilif 10y ago
  Let me be contrarian for a moment when I tell you that I absolutely don't understand the negativity surrounding the newly announced MBPs. All the arguments I'm hearing about why the new machines are a step back, at least for me, are irrelevant or just the usual "I don't like change": Magsafe: Maybe I'm just lucky, but I have never been in the position where could be tripping over the power cable but not over another cable that was also attached to a device. That's the thing: I rarely ever have just the power connected, so magsafe doesn't really protect me much. Plus: With 10 hours of battery life, maybe I don't even need to connect the device outside of charging in the cases where I really only need power. On the other hand, by not having a proprietary power connector, I can share power adapters with other devices, and I finally reach the point where I only have to connect exactly one cable to the machine to both power it and to connect the USB hub where all the devices I use are already connected to. Touch Bar: This is finally a discoverable function row. Yes. I'm a developer and I'm using some shortcuts involving F-Keys. But I'd much rather just press the touch-screen button spelling the name of the function I'm using instead of fiddling with various modifier keys and a matching F-key. This is a huge improvement in discoverability of shortcuts and I can't wait for applications to take advantage of this and show me context-specific shortcuts. It will also make new application much easier to learn and to be maximally productive with them. The Esc-Key still exists, albeit only on a touch screen, but as it's to the top left, I assume I'll still be able to hit it blind. If an App decides not to show me the Esc button, I assume it also doesn't have a binding for it. And speaking of binding: If I have trouble hitting the virtual esc key, I'll be able to rebind caps lock. Touch ID comes at the cost of having another locked-down processor running in my machine. I don't like this 100% but on the other hand, I think this is the first time where there's crypto hardware built into a machine that then isn't used for DRM but to protect something of mine that I really, really don't want applications to have access to. I might even be using this. USB-C: Yes. Right now that's annoying because right now I only have maybe one or two USB-C cables. But as USB-C is so much superior to the other existing USB solutions, I fully expect USB-C to quickly become a standard and for cables to be bundled with the various devices. I already have more USB cables (A to Micro, A to Mini, A to B, A to lightning) than I can count and most devices I purchase come with more unneeded cables. It's just a matter of time before the collection completes itself. At that point I will finally have my reversible plug on my machine. No more fumbling and trying the correct orientation. Also in the really rare case when I really need to plug more than the monitor (which has a hub on its own), I now have a much more versatile solution as any device can be plugged into any slot. Much better. With regards to HDMI and DisplayPort, it was my experience so far that neither HDMI nor DisplayPort would actually work for me in all the cases where I wanted to plug in the laptop (with the exception of my desk in the office where I had a thunderbolt display): Whether it was at conferences or at customers for presentations: The selection of ports I had to deal with included the (Lenovo proprietary) Mini-HDMI, DVI and VGA. Only very rarely could I use HDMI and Display Port was never available. Which meant that I needed to have a collection of dongles with me anyways, so there, nothing changes. So now I'm left with the other two arguments I hear: One is the missing card-reader which, I can accept is annoying for some and we'll have to see how it plays out. Once everything is just USB-C, then maybe it's worth it to just connect the device instead of removing the card, dealing with card-size converters and all that crap. The other is the 16GB RAM restriction which, by now we have learned is a hardware restriction because there's no solution yet for low voltage RAM if more than 16GB are required. Sure. They could have gone with non-low-voltage RAM, but that would have come at the cost of either battery life or size and weight. And weight, honestly, so far was the only thing that was annoying me about my existing MBP (2012 retina). Every gram the can shave off is very welcome to me as it brings me closer to my optimal configuration which would be to just have one device and commute with it. The current machine is too heavy for that and who knows, the new one might be light enough. Being able to do serious development (which you totally can on these new boxes) and still commute with the machine, this would be a total dream of mine and maybe, just maybe, this machine is the one to finally make it possible - even at the cost of 16GB of maximum ram. The existing 16GB is enough for MacOS and a VM or two.
• michaf 10y ago
  > What we can count on is that MacBook Pro prices won’t get any higher for many years This is pure speculation stated as if it were fact. It makes me question the validity of the rest of the article.
  • FireBeyond 10y ago
    Especially just a paragraph or two after "and have raised prices by about $200, for seemingly no discernible reason".
• rsync 10y ago
  "So Goldman Sachs is upset that Apple didn’t at least bid for Time Warner. I’m pretty sure Apple didn’t even know Time Warner was for sale." Is there really any person, anywhere, who isn't absolutely certain that in ten years time we will all look back on the time warner / ATT merger and how badly it turned out and the 20 billion dollar write off and blah blah blah ? In fact, in this case, the actual company in question has already been the subject of the very same narrative - the disaster that was the AOL/TW merger.[1] It's incredible to watch the people who spent all of their B-school years studying these train wrecks dive right into a new (but almost identical) train wreck of their own. Goldman complaining about Apple not being involved is either stupidity or a selfish for the m&a fees that would have resulted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL
• cletus 10y ago
  So some analyst thinks Apple should get into the content business. Yawn. For largely historical reasons we have a model that is divided between content producers and content distributors. Apple is essentially (at best) a distributor not a producer. It's good to have this separation (which at least in part came about from the Paramount decision). If Apple becomes a producer too then that could hurt their distribution efforts (eg trying to make the Apple TV a distribution platform). The real problem with post-Jobs Apple is that Jobs had a vision and Tim Cook does not. Don't get me wrong: Cook has done wonders on the logistics and provisioning front to turn Apple into the behemoth but is he the leader Apple really needs? I have doubts. When Apple announced the watch, I raised an eyebrow. Personally I think smartwatches are stupid. The tech just isn't there yet (battery life, size, etc). Apple traditionally only got into markets once they were proven. That wasn't (and still isn't) the case with smartwatches. Look at Apple's change in direction. The first Apple Watch was positioned like a luxury brand (another change for Apple). This one is focused on health and fitness. Even there it's a compromise (eg for any serious exercise with a heart rate monitor you need a chest strap and no one has yet invented an HRM without one that's sufficiently accurate without one under stress). But constant health monitoring and potentially warning before you have a major health event (eg stroke, heart attack) is a real potential growth market. But again, the tech just isn't there yet. Steve Jobs famously stuck to having one mouse button. I think he was wrong on this one. The right-click is here to stay but he did have a point about discoverability. So I was once again shocked when Apple introduced Force/3D Touch as it has even more discoverability and consistency problems. It also adds weight and cost. The haptic home button is also (IMHO) a step backwards. And again, ditching the headphone jack seems too soon. In another shock, Apple's Ear Pods have been "delayed". Has Apple ever not had their shit together to delay a product after announcement like this? So phones are becoming if they haven't already a commodity. What I mean is that pretty much any smartphone you buy now is probably going to be good enough, even the prepaid phones you buy for $150 or less. Oh the hardware front, only these things seem to matter now: - Display (although arguably they are or soon will be all good enough) - Battery life only to the point that it's sufficient (ie beyond a certain point it doesn't matter and they'll all get to that point) - The camera One the last one it does seem like the Pixel is better than the iPhone 7 (disclaimer: I work for Google). After that, it's software the matters and is the real differentiator between phones (IMHO). iOS, once clean, simple and elegant, seems to have gotten clunkier, confused and is suffering more from feature bloat. That's natural if product managers and UI/UX people aren't reined in. This is mirrored in OSX, which seems to have gotten worse starting with Yosemite.
• binarymax 10y ago
  How often must Apple release a new category? They released a watch in 2015. Apple needs an entire new product category every year?
• a_plastic_bag 10y ago
  > And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out, but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have so far generated well over $1 million in revenue. His arguments makes no sense to me. How is it cheaper to own a laptop that is expensive in the first place, but is also one of the less upgradeable ones on the market (making it more expensive to run post-warranty)? And no, that's not what IBM reported either. They reported that Macs are cheaper to use as company PCs (which doesn't necessarily extrapolate to the laptop market as a whole).
  • nicolas_t 10y ago
    Yes the entire argument from IBM revolved around lower costs for company's helpdesks because mac users needed less help. But, to be fair, apple's computers tend to be well built and not break easily. I had a powerbook that lasted 9 years (used for a few years then gave it to my parents). All the apple computers I bought lasted a long time (except for a second gen macbook air I had). I've had a small toshiba laptop and it broke after 3 years shortly after the insurance stopped. It's anecdotal but I've seen it also with friends.
  • renaudg 10y ago
    For an individual, the TCO argument for Macs still holds, but it's a bit different : - Don't just look at the initial outlay that gets you on the Apple ladder : Macs also have a much, much better resale value than PCs, even years later. It's incremental and relatively painless if you upgrade regularly. - You're a human, your peace of mind matters and your time isn't free. Buy stuff that brings you joy or at a minimum, stuff that doesn't feel like death by a thousand cuts day after day. And you might not recognize that before you've tried a Mac, seriously (I used to be a hardcore desktop Linux guy until 2004) As someone who briefly lost faith in Apple last year, then went ahead and built a Hackintosh ("why not?"), I can't stress the second point nearly enough. My high end 32GB 4Ghz Core i7 box with Thunderbolt and a 32" screen cost me about 25% less than a top of the line iMac that satisfies the same use cases. Great. The money I saved is roughly what I make in 1-2 days, but I've spent at least a dozen evenings so far researching / troubleshooting / preparing for OS upgrades. Plus I need to reboot the box once after each cold boot before it will see my TB devices and I can play music on my audio interface. Great. Not to mention the floor/desk space compared to an iMac. The tinkering was fun at times, I don't completely regret trying, but frankly life is too short : guess who's going back to the Mac next time ?
• rzhikharevich 10y ago
  > As Steve Jobs (and Picasso) said, they are stolen. AFAIK, Picasso didn't.
• cs702 10y ago
  The fact that this post is on the front page is evidence that the most demanding users of laptops, including software developers, feel they are being IGNORED by Apple. I believe this creates a window of opportunity for other vendors to offer top-of-the-line Linux/Unix-friendly laptops. Many people here, including me, would jump at the chance to buy a high-quality Linux laptop without the MacBook Pro's nonsensical limitations.
  • wpietri 10y ago
    Truth. As somebody who has used Linux on Thinkpads for years, I know there's a lot of suppressed demand there too. A lot of people feel that things have gone steadily downhill since Lenovo took over.
  • igravious 10y ago
    I know we're not meant to do "me too" comments on HackerNews but me too. For the life of me I do not know why one of the top Linux distro makers hasn't attempted this. Or even a consortium of them? The top ten distros on Distrowatch are: 1 Mint 2 Debian 3 Ubuntu 4 openSUSE 5 elementary 6 Manjaro 7 Fedora 8 Zorin 9 CentOS 10 Arch If they partnered with a hardware maker like Lenovo or Dell or Asus or whoever they could jump-start a whole new world. Chromebooks show it can be done.
    • ianai 10y ago
      It would have to be a hardware manufacturer choosing a Linux distribution. They would have to expect more sales than the cost of development. Contrast that with market share and growth of the Linux desktop. It's historically not been worth it to them.
  • muad 10y ago
    I am looking forward to a diaspora of developers from MacOS adding a lot of activity and tooling to popular Linux distros.
  • symfoniq 10y ago
    Indeed. I'd already bailed for a ThinkPad a few months ago, but the rest of our office was still solidly Mac. My company was ready to upgrade, but the new MacBook Pro isn't going to be a good fit for us. That's about $25K we will be spending elsewhere. I didn't leave Apple; Apple left me.
• Shivetya 10y ago
  My biggest concern is that Apple products don't have any agreement on connectors. Apple is becoming a company you need to buy dongles/adapters to connect their own products together. While I can get some stuff done via wireless/bluetooth its odd I cannot simply take the provided cables with my phone and connect it to my Mac. Let alone the corded headphones. Still I really don't understand the touch bar. When Microsoft is the lead in fully touch screens for their PCs and tablets you know something is wrong at Apple. A touch bar?? Really, what about all that screen where the action is really taking place. Then comes the abandonware as I term some of their hardware, namely the Mac Pro but you can add the mini to that. Don't they have any shame?
• dahart 10y ago
  Is this whole thing satire? I'm taking it as serious, but maybe the joke's on me... > these new Macs seem to have gained an average of $200 over the preceding models of the same size. What makes Apple think they can get away with that? Apple can get away with that because it always has gotten away with it. So, inflation has gone up 10.7 percent since 2010, which is just over $200 on a $2000 laptop. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm Seems like a bogus assumption to suggest that Apple is "getting away" with something. What comparable companies with comparable products have left their prices untouched since 2010? The Big Mac went up more than 20% since 2010. > Apple fanboys are proud to be the first and proud to have spent so much. It’s a luxury thing, I suppose. [...] This very durability presents a problem for Apple I'm totally confused. Apple has a problem because it's products are too good? The products outlive your cheap shitty Windows laptops 3:1, yet only luxury and status explains why people buy Apple products? > All Apple needs is a new product category, right? Another iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad will do nicely. Where is it? It isn’t anywhere and in that sense Apple has lost its mojo. Same argument every year. This one has been used every year that a new product category was introduced, because it's deemed not new enough. How many product categories have been introduced since Apple started, or even since the iMac? And how many years have elapsed since then? It's a strange myth or fail or arithmetic to think Apple has done something mind glowingly innovative twice a year for the last 15 years.
  • theli0nheart 10y ago
    >> these new Macs seem to have gained an average of $200 over the preceding models of the same size. What makes Apple think they can get away with that? Apple can get away with that because it always has gotten away with it. > So, inflation has gone up 10.7 percent since 2010, which is just over $200 on a $2000 laptop. > http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm > Seems like a bogus assumption to suggest that Apple is "getting away" with something. What comparable companies with comparable products have left their prices untouched since 2010? The Big Mac went up more than 20% since 2010. You're looking at the wrong data. The price index for personal computers and peripherals has decreased from 7.0 to 4.2 over that same period. Using the price index as a guide, a $2000 laptop in 2010 would be priced at $1200 today. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/long-term-price-trends-for-computers-tvs-and-related-items.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/long-term-price-trends-for-...
• Shivetya 10y ago
  Second post, I did find it interesting another blog compares Cook to Balmer. both expanded their companies bottom lines but both also reigned over a stagnation of innovation
• gigatexal 10y ago
  Johnny Ive and company are ruining the firm that and people reportedly being overworked. They should have bought Tesla and made the model 3 their iCar and not gimped the pro-sumer laptops with midrange GPUs and 16GB of ram.
• jbverschoor 10y ago
  Why do people expect Apple to deliver a completely new product every year? There's not much to be changed in the macbook pro. Yes, it would be nice to have more cpu or a better gpu, but no, not at the expense of battery life. I think the bar is awesome, although I won't upgrade since my 2013 retina mbp is doing everything perfectly fine. If I would be able to add the bar for $300, I'd do it. The last 10 years, apple has created: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, the Retina macbooks, the new macbook, the new mac pro, new imac, better icloud, the new appletv, better music/itunes, the app store and probably lots of other things. All greatly different than before. Whenever Apple does something, it always seems incremental... Until 5 years down the road when they realise they were in a revolution.
• deleted 10y ago
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• kumarski 10y ago
  Their ethnocentric headphone design discriminates against those with larger ears. So many unused headphones, so much waste....
• pascalxus 10y ago
  There's only so much innovating you can do on a laptop or handheld device. It's time for Apple and the rest of the big tech companies to start focusing on moonshot ideas: like teleportation, trains, transportation, perhaps even an iHouse. The iHouse could be a modular unit that can move around the city when you need to move, thus plugging into any other iInfrastructure areas, making moving much easier and reducing commutes, saving the environment and huge amounts of time and money. Unfortunately, no company will be able to do the above, because government prevents all of that from happening. The next 100 years will be a period of great innovative stagnation, until people and voters understand that innovation must first be legalized before it can occur. And we haven't even begun to educate voters and politicians on these matters, so it's going to take a looong time.
  • anentropic 10y ago
    I don't want Apple to stuff around with teleportation (or more realistically... cars) I just want them to make a pro laptop
    • bsmith 10y ago
      Why? What if Google had just stuck to search? Would your life be better?
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • muad 10y ago
    Tesla/Solar City is better positioned for iHouse.
• davidf18 10y ago
  I'm a rMBP 15" 2015 entry level machine owner who was looking forward to a Skylake version of the $2K machine. It would have been more battery efficient and lighter which are both important for my work. It would have been wonderful if they would have updated the machine with Skylake, with the new thinner, brighter, better color gamut screens. As it is, the AMD models will probably consume more power than the entry level Skylake model would have with the iris pro graphics.
• alva 10y ago
  Shame Apple don't go ahead and create a Macbook Developer Edition. Even if it had smaller margins, it seems like it would do a world of good for the community. 1. Larger body for bigger battery 2. Previous keyboard mech that devs seem to love 3. Up to 32gb 4. Graphic card options 5. Ports galore Perhaps I don't realise just how expensive it would be to manufacture a line that has lower but more targeted sales.
• pducks32 10y ago
  Hey Apple acts like they don't care about competition but they do. So I really think all of this is good. I find it impossible to believe Tim Cook himself hasn't read these posts.
• jdmoreira 10y ago
  Here's a new product category for Apple... Give a digital paper solution, 13'' e-ink display plus pen running some sort of watchOS. They don't have to invent it, just start from the Sony DPT-S1.
• Spooky23 10y ago
  My pet theory is that without the dictatorial control of Jobs, people like Ive are off the reservation and distracted by vanity Christmas tree design projects. As a company, they're also wasting time and energy on designing the new building. It's ridiculous that the company can't bother to do the basic product line maintenance that even dying companies like HP can do. Why are they making Mac Pros and Mac Minis? It's an institutional hubris that is very dangerous.
• kjs3 10y ago
  Is Cringely trading his shtick of being almost always wrong about IBM to being almost always always wrong about Apple, but writing 4 follow-on articles about the tiny sliver of the story he's actually got right crowing about how he's a fucking genius? Has IBM ever actually gotten around to laying off as many people as he absolutely, positively confirmed would be layed off in the first quarter of last year? How many times has Cringely declared that IBM was definitely, positively going to die in the last 2 decades? Like next month. Without a doubt. He's like one of those end-of-the-world types constantly spewing up the same prattle because one day he might be right.