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Seems like almost assuredly they will just drop it.. basically I can't imagine any engineer at Apple that is or was working on it is super excited about somethi

by xt00 10y ago

Seems like almost assuredly they will just drop it.. basically I can't imagine any engineer at Apple that is or was working on it is super excited about something that probably made a grand total of like 50 million USD during the mac pro lifetime compared to like 80 billion on iPhone sales per quarter...

spamizbad 10y ago
Considering Apple's significant profits and cash in the bank... Apple is well-suited to fund a loss-leader products that bolster their cachet in the professional community -- putting their platform on the front-lines of culture creators. Furthermore, today's demanding professional are tomorrows Joe Schmoes: having the hearts and minds of pioneers would them better see what's coming on the horizon. It just seems silly not to invest money to keep the power-user niches happy.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  > Apple is well-suited to fund a loss-leader products that bolster their cachet in the professional community They could do this, but they have yet to prove that they will do it. Ever since Jobs, Apple has been hyper fixated on focused, profitable product lines. The Pro is out of step with that, and I bet with laptops making up the bulk of their computer sales, we'll start seeing them move away from the iMac too. My only guess right now is that they still feel they need the Pro to maintain their computer business, but I fear they are slowly becoming just a gadget company and will forget their roots.
  - murukesh_s 10y ago
    I wish Apple management folks read the sentiment here. Because, I believe if not for Apple, the industry wouldn't have progressed this far, at least in the build quality department (We had Sony, Dell and IBMs pro laptops but they never had the combination of price/build quality/looks nailed).
- tlow 10y ago
  I think this is a very interesting perspective. If I understand correctly, your argument is that a Mac Pro product need not be a direct profit maker so long as it perpetuates Apple's position as a top end computer manufacturer. Have I understood correctly? Or are you perhaps prognosticating a change in market demands rendering such a product less relevant?
  - spamizbad 10y ago
    You got it. It's a strategy employed by the automobile industry as well: high-end loss leaders that "signal the brand" and cultivate loyalty among enthusiasts. Apple's claim is staked on high-margin products, so it needs an elite cachet much more than say... Xiaomi or Dell. And you can signal that to consumers with one-of-a-kind high-end products that operate on the absolute cutting-edge of various creative, technical, and scientific niches.
    - blumentopf 10y ago
      Porsche for instance isn't earning any money with their LMP1 race cars. They need them to sustain the illusion that they're a sports car company, despite the majority of their sales being SUVs (Cayenne, Macan) and sedans (Panamera).
  - graeme 10y ago
    That, plus also the effect that people in the market for pro computers tend to be infleuntial. They creatd software and influence the purchasing decisions of others.
true_religion 10y ago
I think its a bad idea to drop things based on how excited your engineers are. If you go that route, then plenty of companies producing boring software and industry specific products will just die.
- xt00 10y ago
  Yea totally agree in general -- in this case I just mean that its so obvious right now how much focus Apple puts on their money making products that engineers at Apple would see the writing on the wall and they too would not be that interested in pushing the product forward -- likely the people who worked on it if they were smart tried to bail out of that group long ago. So if both the management and the engineers both don't want to work on something, then both the money and effort is dropped on the product and its dead. When Jobs was alive, people could get Jobs to approve it as a pet project and they would get money and people on it and it would move along. But nobody seems to be pushing those pet projects at Apple anymore.
tmsldd 10y ago
You got the point.. all Apple want to its pro line is having enough computing power to develop apps for mobile... For Apple, developing laptops systems/applications is not economically interesting anymore. All said, Apple wants pro developers as long as you are a mobile pro developer.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  That's incredibly short sighted. This way they will lose many of their pro users which might not matter. But then they will tell their friends when asked what to buy to not get a Apple computer. I believe pro users is what made Apple big and it's a large part of what their success stand on.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  I think - sadly - you're right about this. There doesn't seem to be anyone at Apple speaking for creatives any more. Certainly no one who gets really excited about working with musicians, artists, film directors, and so on, almost as an equal. Cook has the mindset of an accountant who is a media and trinket consumer, not the mindset of an inventor with creative aspirations. Likewise the rest of the executive team. To be fair, there aren't many people like that around. But it would cost Apple virtually nothing to host some product focus groups with creative talent to ask "What do you want...?"
  - Lio 10y ago
    Totally agree. It's like the company actually decided to stop standing for something real.

by xt00 10y ago

spamizbad 10y ago

Considering Apple's significant profits and cash in the bank... Apple is well-suited to fund a loss-leader products that bolster their cachet in the professional community -- putting their platform on the front-lines of culture creators. Furthermore, today's demanding professional are tomorrows Joe Schmoes: having the hearts and minds of pioneers would them better see what's coming on the horizon. It just seems silly not to invest money to keep the power-user niches happy.

bluejekyll 10y ago
> Apple is well-suited to fund a loss-leader products that bolster their cachet in the professional community They could do this, but they have yet to prove that they will do it. Ever since Jobs, Apple has been hyper fixated on focused, profitable product lines. The Pro is out of step with that, and I bet with laptops making up the bulk of their computer sales, we'll start seeing them move away from the iMac too. My only guess right now is that they still feel they need the Pro to maintain their computer business, but I fear they are slowly becoming just a gadget company and will forget their roots.
- murukesh_s 10y ago
  I wish Apple management folks read the sentiment here. Because, I believe if not for Apple, the industry wouldn't have progressed this far, at least in the build quality department (We had Sony, Dell and IBMs pro laptops but they never had the combination of price/build quality/looks nailed).
tlow 10y ago
I think this is a very interesting perspective. If I understand correctly, your argument is that a Mac Pro product need not be a direct profit maker so long as it perpetuates Apple's position as a top end computer manufacturer. Have I understood correctly? Or are you perhaps prognosticating a change in market demands rendering such a product less relevant?
- spamizbad 10y ago
  You got it. It's a strategy employed by the automobile industry as well: high-end loss leaders that "signal the brand" and cultivate loyalty among enthusiasts. Apple's claim is staked on high-margin products, so it needs an elite cachet much more than say... Xiaomi or Dell. And you can signal that to consumers with one-of-a-kind high-end products that operate on the absolute cutting-edge of various creative, technical, and scientific niches.
  - blumentopf 10y ago
    Porsche for instance isn't earning any money with their LMP1 race cars. They need them to sustain the illusion that they're a sports car company, despite the majority of their sales being SUVs (Cayenne, Macan) and sedans (Panamera).
- graeme 10y ago
  That, plus also the effect that people in the market for pro computers tend to be infleuntial. They creatd software and influence the purchasing decisions of others.

true_religion 10y ago

I think its a bad idea to drop things based on how excited your engineers are. If you go that route, then plenty of companies producing boring software and industry specific products will just die.

xt00 10y ago
Yea totally agree in general -- in this case I just mean that its so obvious right now how much focus Apple puts on their money making products that engineers at Apple would see the writing on the wall and they too would not be that interested in pushing the product forward -- likely the people who worked on it if they were smart tried to bail out of that group long ago. So if both the management and the engineers both don't want to work on something, then both the money and effort is dropped on the product and its dead. When Jobs was alive, people could get Jobs to approve it as a pet project and they would get money and people on it and it would move along. But nobody seems to be pushing those pet projects at Apple anymore.

tmsldd 10y ago

You got the point.. all Apple want to its pro line is having enough computing power to develop apps for mobile... For Apple, developing laptops systems/applications is not economically interesting anymore. All said, Apple wants pro developers as long as you are a mobile pro developer.

ajmurmann 10y ago
That's incredibly short sighted. This way they will lose many of their pro users which might not matter. But then they will tell their friends when asked what to buy to not get a Apple computer. I believe pro users is what made Apple big and it's a large part of what their success stand on.
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
I think - sadly - you're right about this. There doesn't seem to be anyone at Apple speaking for creatives any more. Certainly no one who gets really excited about working with musicians, artists, film directors, and so on, almost as an equal. Cook has the mindset of an accountant who is a media and trinket consumer, not the mindset of an inventor with creative aspirations. Likewise the rest of the executive team. To be fair, there aren't many people like that around. But it would cost Apple virtually nothing to host some product focus groups with creative talent to ask "What do you want...?"
- Lio 10y ago
  Totally agree. It's like the company actually decided to stop standing for something real.