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It's a matter of resources - Apple has limited resources and history of execution glitches even when they aren't stretched out. With the continuous strain to fi

It's a matter of resources - Apple has limited resources and history of execution glitches even when they aren't stretched out. With the continuous strain to find the next new thing, put out an iPhone release every year, improve iOS and also dabble in cars - even though these sound like separate things different teams should be able to do, the integration aspect and company culture makes it very hard for Apple. It is very logical that Apple will dump or merge some product categories sooner rather than later. There's little chance macOS will be made touch friendly and with little resources to keep the Mac updated (see Mac Pro) it just makes sense for them to sell the iPad Pro somewhat like Microsoft does for Surface line - lower cost model without physical keyboard and a Macbook like one that shares the same SoC and runs the same iOS. Get XCode running on it and that solves the problem of iOS App Developers. Make the Pro version of iOS little less restrictive and add better multitasking and that helps the regular iPad line as well. Much easier than redoing macOS for touch. It also solves the margin and control issues for Apple. One OS, shared CPU/SoC, no need to do Mac and macOS development anymore and that frees up a ton of resources. It's just too good for Apple to not do it. And if they could solve the problem of pesky "pros" wanting to control their hardware and OS better by slowly making the Mac more and more inconvenient/unattractive - they are going to do it.

appleiigs 10y ago
"Apple" and "limited resources" does not go together.
- blinkingled 10y ago
  I meant human resources - there's not a ton of Engineering/Product Management talent sitting around even if Apple has a ton of money to pay for it. If they did have unlimited resources you would have seen more attention to Mac product lineup and they wouldn't have gotten rid of the Airport unit after not updating it for a while.
  - chx 10y ago
    I find it very, very hard to believe that a company with two hundred billion dollars in cash would have a problem hiring any amount of people at any level. Everyone has a price. In other words, if you need to hire super engineers at a staggering million bucks a year, well, didn't Apple make 45B last year? That's enough for 45 000 such super people while I bet a few dozens would make big changes.
    - techdragon 10y ago
      This works "normally"... however apple is not normal. There is a borderline ridiculous level of control being exercised by the design team. Jobs was Ive's boss, he set boundaries and goals. Cook is empowering Ive to set design direction and as gifted as he is... apple is not an "art" company, it makes products for use. As much as Ive waxes on about Dieter Rams he can't hope to avoid screwing it up eventually because he lacks balance... unless Cook or Apple shorten his leash, Ive will be the cause of Apple's slow decline into its death, built on a road strewn with arguably beautiful objects.
      - matwood 10y ago
        That's fine. It is not a problem of limited resources then, and instead a problem of Apple management. There was an article last week about how the management style of Apple is breaking down at scale.
        thomasjudge 10y ago
        source?
        lobster_johnson 10y ago
        I suspect parent meant this: http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-functional-divisional http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-funct...
      - 10y ago
lcbs 10y ago
> Apple has limited resources I keep seeing this written in various places and I don't understand it. Apple aren't short of a dollar and they haven't been short of a dollar for a good long time. How is it that they can find themselves with "limited resources"? What does that actually mean?
- wmf 10y ago
  For example, every revision of every product has to be signed off by Jony Ive.
  - tassos 10y ago
    How how have you come to know this?
- toyg 10y ago
  It's just an old refrain that Jobs used as a mantra, back when Apple was indeed short on cash. It gets burned into customers' brains as a catch-all excuse whenever they ask "Why don't you do <perfectly logical thing> ?" "well, y'now, we have limited resources." This was fine up to and including the first couple of iPhone releases; now it really sounds like bog-standard corporate weaselwords. Apple just built a space-age campus as big as a town, could run a small country for years with all the money stashed offshore, and keeps raking in cash from their ecosystem and content services. If they don't do X is simply because either they don't want to, or they are not good enough at doing it.
  - whywhywhywhy 10y ago
    > Apple just built a space-age campus as big as a town Wonder how much director time was spent signing off the minutiae of that project VS these so called Pro laptops and the touchbar as a concept over the past 2 years.
    - wmf 10y ago
      Yep. Mac Pro, AirPort, and monitors are canceled but check out that spaceship, art book, and Christmas tree!
gutnor 10y ago
> Apple has limited resources Well come on now. Apple is one of the richest company in the world and has a tiny tiny product line to care about. They have skipped a whole year of refresh on their entire Mac Line so they can focus on those 3 laptops. They also dropped their network equipment division and outsourced their monitor division to LG which must have freed some resource people or money. This MBP release is catastrophic, even by Apple "don't buy iteration 1" standards. There is no excuse for the indeed poor story telling. The Mac line is secondary business does not work either when they fucked up similarly the iPhone release. Promising that the world has moved from the headphone jack yet failing to deliver any headphone several months after the events, despite owning a whole business dedicated to that. 2016 is a miserable year for Apple. Hopefully that just an off year and they are preparing a unforgivable 2017, or it is just one of those crisis large companies goes through.
- blinkingled 10y ago
  I don't think I made it clear that my main point was that Apple isn't going to invest in the Mac much longer for control and margins issue along with their Post-PC agenda. It's not very hard to imagine having resource issues when you're trying to do something that is under constant scrutiny and higher standards and you're also doing a bunch of other things while still trying to find the next big thing - I stand by my point on that one, but more so I wanted to allude that it is just too convenient for Apple to not pay much attention to the Mac.
- majewsky 10y ago
  > Hopefully [2016] just an off year and they are preparing a unforgivable 2017 I assume you mean "unforgetable"? :)
  - gutnor 10y ago
    Aww, I read it 10 times thinking "there is something weird", but my mind was completely convinced unforgivable meant unforgettable.
whywhywhywhy 10y ago
> and also dabble in cars Nice they get to dabble in cars so a handful of SV/SF CEOs can drive around in a space black siri powered car in a few years. What a worthwhile endeavour. Meanwhile the tool I use all day every day at my job is getting worse and worse and the tipping point where PC maintenance and dealing with Windows is starting to look very inviting to gain access to that raw computing power their platform is failing to provide.

appleiigs 10y ago

"Apple" and "limited resources" does not go together.

blinkingled 10y ago
I meant human resources - there's not a ton of Engineering/Product Management talent sitting around even if Apple has a ton of money to pay for it. If they did have unlimited resources you would have seen more attention to Mac product lineup and they wouldn't have gotten rid of the Airport unit after not updating it for a while.
- chx 10y ago
  I find it very, very hard to believe that a company with two hundred billion dollars in cash would have a problem hiring any amount of people at any level. Everyone has a price. In other words, if you need to hire super engineers at a staggering million bucks a year, well, didn't Apple make 45B last year? That's enough for 45 000 such super people while I bet a few dozens would make big changes.
  - techdragon 10y ago
    This works "normally"... however apple is not normal. There is a borderline ridiculous level of control being exercised by the design team. Jobs was Ive's boss, he set boundaries and goals. Cook is empowering Ive to set design direction and as gifted as he is... apple is not an "art" company, it makes products for use. As much as Ive waxes on about Dieter Rams he can't hope to avoid screwing it up eventually because he lacks balance... unless Cook or Apple shorten his leash, Ive will be the cause of Apple's slow decline into its death, built on a road strewn with arguably beautiful objects.
    - matwood 10y ago
      That's fine. It is not a problem of limited resources then, and instead a problem of Apple management. There was an article last week about how the management style of Apple is breaking down at scale.
      - thomasjudge 10y ago
        source?
        lobster_johnson 10y ago
        I suspect parent meant this: http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-functional-divisional http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-funct...
    - 10y ago

lcbs 10y ago

> Apple has limited resources I keep seeing this written in various places and I don't understand it. Apple aren't short of a dollar and they haven't been short of a dollar for a good long time. How is it that they can find themselves with "limited resources"? What does that actually mean?

wmf 10y ago
For example, every revision of every product has to be signed off by Jony Ive.
- tassos 10y ago
  How how have you come to know this?
toyg 10y ago
It's just an old refrain that Jobs used as a mantra, back when Apple was indeed short on cash. It gets burned into customers' brains as a catch-all excuse whenever they ask "Why don't you do <perfectly logical thing> ?" "well, y'now, we have limited resources." This was fine up to and including the first couple of iPhone releases; now it really sounds like bog-standard corporate weaselwords. Apple just built a space-age campus as big as a town, could run a small country for years with all the money stashed offshore, and keeps raking in cash from their ecosystem and content services. If they don't do X is simply because either they don't want to, or they are not good enough at doing it.
- whywhywhywhy 10y ago
  > Apple just built a space-age campus as big as a town Wonder how much director time was spent signing off the minutiae of that project VS these so called Pro laptops and the touchbar as a concept over the past 2 years.
  - wmf 10y ago
    Yep. Mac Pro, AirPort, and monitors are canceled but check out that spaceship, art book, and Christmas tree!

gutnor 10y ago

> Apple has limited resources Well come on now. Apple is one of the richest company in the world and has a tiny tiny product line to care about. They have skipped a whole year of refresh on their entire Mac Line so they can focus on those 3 laptops. They also dropped their network equipment division and outsourced their monitor division to LG which must have freed some resource people or money. This MBP release is catastrophic, even by Apple "don't buy iteration 1" standards. There is no excuse for the indeed poor story telling. The Mac line is secondary business does not work either when they fucked up similarly the iPhone release. Promising that the world has moved from the headphone jack yet failing to deliver any headphone several months after the events, despite owning a whole business dedicated to that. 2016 is a miserable year for Apple. Hopefully that just an off year and they are preparing a unforgivable 2017, or it is just one of those crisis large companies goes through.

blinkingled 10y ago
I don't think I made it clear that my main point was that Apple isn't going to invest in the Mac much longer for control and margins issue along with their Post-PC agenda. It's not very hard to imagine having resource issues when you're trying to do something that is under constant scrutiny and higher standards and you're also doing a bunch of other things while still trying to find the next big thing - I stand by my point on that one, but more so I wanted to allude that it is just too convenient for Apple to not pay much attention to the Mac.
majewsky 10y ago
> Hopefully [2016] just an off year and they are preparing a unforgivable 2017 I assume you mean "unforgetable"? :)
- gutnor 10y ago
  Aww, I read it 10 times thinking "there is something weird", but my mind was completely convinced unforgivable meant unforgettable.

whywhywhywhy 10y ago

> and also dabble in cars Nice they get to dabble in cars so a handful of SV/SF CEOs can drive around in a space black siri powered car in a few years. What a worthwhile endeavour. Meanwhile the tool I use all day every day at my job is getting worse and worse and the tipping point where PC maintenance and dealing with Windows is starting to look very inviting to gain access to that raw computing power their platform is failing to provide.