29 ms·

On the Sad State of Macintosh Hardware

317 points by willlll 8y ago

TillE 8y ago
> Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. Yeah. I'd always thought this was a Steve Jobs quirk, but Tim Cook has been in charge for years now and very little has changed in regard to Mac hardware updates. The Mac Mini is a particularly egregious case. They won't update it, but they won't discontinue it either, so they continue to sell ancient hardware as if it's new. It's baffling, and certainly not indicative that there's some coherent plan being successfully followed.
- tmpz22 8y ago
  I don't think Apple Hardware's core demographic will ever drill down to the quality of the integrated graphics card, CPU, or even RAM/SSD. As long as the main UX takes places inside a browser or seemingly well-optimized applications like Messages and word, users will not flinch and instead be intrigued with gimmicks like the touch bar.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  Updating the Mac Mini would require doing something. Cancelling the Mac Mini would also require doing something. Selling ancient Mac Minis as new requires doing nothing, so that's what happens. In the absence of strategy, inertia rules.
  - LeanderK 8y ago
    interesting viewpoint. Are there other examples of companies exhibiting this behaviour?
    - ambivalence 8y ago
      FCA and its Dodge line. For example, the Challenger is essentially the same car sold since 2008, save for a few new engine options (3.6L and 6.4L in 2011, Hellcat in 2015, Demon in 2018) and a minimal lighting and interior facelift in 2015. In case of FCA the speculation is that they will sunset the brand in the USA to focus on SUVs (Jeep) and trucks (RAM). Looks like focusing on what's generating the maximum profit. Just like Apple with consumer electronics.
- gelstudios 8y ago
  It seems like internal applications (manufacturing, etc) are the only reason they keep the Mac Mini around.
pwason 8y ago
I lost all respect for Apple when they switched to Intel CPUs.
- collyw 8y ago
  It was what differentiated them on hardware.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  POWER Architecture lives !
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    I just bought a G4 iMac on eBay to play around with. Apart from anything to do with the internet it's quite usable.
- IncRnd 8y ago
  I'm curious. Why did Apple switching to Intel CPUs make you lose respect for that company?
makecheck 8y ago
Also, in recent years it seems that Apple just loves to announce things that won’t ship for many months. If they did think they could ship a new Mac within a few months, wouldn’t they eagerly announce it at WWDC and just say something vague like “ships in the fall”? To me, that means that nothing will arrive this year.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  I actually don't think Apple loves to announce things that won't ship for many months; the majority of their hardware announcements even in recent years have been for products that ship within a couple weeks, or even days, of the announcement. The only exceptions that come to mind offhand are ones driven by screw-ups. The iMac Pro and 2019 Mac Pro wouldn't have been pre-announced at all (and the latter probably wouldn't even exist) if the trashcan Mac Pro hadn't become a minimalist garbage fire, and AirPods, AirPlay 2, and the possibly mythical AirPower clearly ran/are running way behind their intended schedule. Hardware just doesn't come out every WWDC. I agree with Rogue Amoeba that Apple needs to be willing to do minor hardware updates more frequently than they have been, but I would be surprised if most or all of their laptops don't get an update in the next three months, probably along with the (non-Pro) iMac and the iPad Pro.
  - rwc 8y ago
    They announced the HomePod and failed to ship by the holiday season 2017, and the wireless charging mat announced with the iPhone X still shows no signs of shipping.
    - bredren 8y ago
      Airpods were also late. I think it is better to say nothing than to disappoint. https://bgr.com/2016/12/09/airpods-release-delay-technical-issues/ https://bgr.com/2016/12/09/airpods-release-delay-technical-i...
    - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
      The charging mat is the AirPower that I referred to. I'm pretty sure that's the name, right? Yes, HomePod also shipped late; I didn't remember that they'd actually given a quasi-date for it that they missed. (Technically, they only announced AirPower as coming in 2018, but it sure seems unlikely that "nine months and counting" was the original plan.)
PuffinBlue 8y ago
I really REALLY wish they'd do something with the Mac Mini. Give it a massive spec bump and drive the price down like they do (sort of) with the iPad and it'd be a great device to pick up. Such a small form factor with good specs - it's like a NUC but with MacOS. It'd be great.
- maxsilver 8y ago
  It's doubly frustrating, because Intel does basically all the work for them (even designing some of their NUCs to match a Mac Mini size and power/thermal limits). Apple could just ride the Intel product roadmap each year, with very little effort, and people would be happy enough. But Apple can't be bothered to do even that. --- In comparison, Intel basically made a "Mac Mini Pro" called the Hades Canyon NUC. Which is roughly the same price as a high-end Mac Mini, but has 2x-6x the compute power (depending on how you'd like to measure it). https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc8i7hvk.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits...
  - PuffinBlue 8y ago
    The Skull Canyon NUC is exactly what I'm thinking of. A MacOS version of that would be really great and like you say, seems fairly 'easy' for Apple to do seeing as Intel is doing so much with the form factor anyway.
    - slantyyz 8y ago
      FWIW, the refresh of the Skull Canyon, aka "Hades Canyon" is even more impressive than its predecessor.
      - maxsilver 8y ago
        Thanks, that is the unit I intended to mention above (the one with the integrated AMD GPU), but I mixed up the name. Corrected it above.
      - PuffinBlue 8y ago
caiob 8y ago
I'm sorry, but I see this as uncalled-for cynicism for the sake of it. Can you point me to an alternative to Apple hardware that is as polished and solid as Apple's MacBooks?
- cimmanom 8y ago
  But does that matter when you need a laptop with 32GB of RAM?
  - slantyyz 8y ago
    Forget 32GB, looks like 128GB RAM laptops have just arrived: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/lenovo-thinkpad-p52-128gb-dell-workstation https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/l...
    - caiob 8y ago
      But what about battery life?
      - slantyyz 8y ago
        If you're the type of user who actually needs 128GB of RAM in a laptop, you're generally willing to make the trade-off on battery life.
      - cimmanom 8y ago
        Sarcasm? I'd take a MacBook Pro a pound heavier and several mm thicker in order to have more RAM. I'd also gladly accept 5 hours of battery instead of 10 (or 2 instead of 4) when 95% of the reason I want a laptop instead of a desktop is not to unplug entirely but to shuttle it between home, work, the coffee shop, my desk, the couch, etc. It used to be that enough of Apple's customers were using their computers for workstation-class workloads (photo and video editing, software compilation, data processing) that there was good reason to provide us a workstation-class portable, not just a notebook-class ultra-light (which even the MBP counts as by my standards). You'd think that now that Apple is making such inroads in enterprise and needs developers on their platform to support the iOS App Store that they'd see the value in continuing to make such a machine available.
LeanderK 8y ago
It's always interesting how something monopoly-like makes companies lazy. I am a cs-student with 3 1/2 year old a machbook pro, which I bought when I started my studies. I must say that I am still very, very satisfied, it's holding up great. Great display, suprsingly good battery life etc. If something happens to my macbook, i would probalby spend a serious percentage of my savings saving on a new laptop. It's a very imporant part of my life, i do most of my work with it and I highly value the flexibility. In this hypthetical scenario, i would really like to buy a new macbook and would probably go through a lot of financial pain if they took their line-up seriously. But it's really getting ridiculus. I really don't understand why they fail so hard to update their hardware.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Apple still sells the 2015 pre USB C MacBooks new. If I had to buy a MacBook, that’s the one to get.
  - econochoice 8y ago
    I've run into a few issues with the Early to Mid 2015 Macbook fans. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I've seen it across three machines.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Not for much longer I think, they are already unavailable in the UK.
- wetpaws 8y ago
  They don't update their hardware because of the reasons you stated in your post. People love Macs and would buy them regardless of hardware.
- dman 8y ago
  Sad fact is that Mac sales are now 10% of Apples revenue. I think the only reason Macs receive any attention at all within Apple is because you need Macs to build iphone/ipad apps. Another way of framing this is - how much effort do you put on the bottom 10 percent of your TODO list.
mulle_nat 8y ago
Just buy an iPad Pro. Why would you buy a PC anymore?
- waynecochran 8y ago
  If I could develop on an iPad pro I might. If I had Xcode, access to other compilers, Bash, Perl, emacs,... There is no underlying platform for development to begin with (there is Un*x down in there somewhere). Forget development for the moment, iPads are really "content consumption" devices not "content creation" .. I don't even like editing spreadsheets on an iPad.
  - wilsonnb2 8y ago
    iPads, especially the Pros, are excellent for certain types of content creation. Digital art with the Pencil and music, in particular. They are also more or less equally as good as PC's at certain types of content creation. Word documents, PDF markup, email, that sort of thing. There are certain types of content creation that they are bad at (programming, spreadsheets), but we can't say that they aren't for content creation based on that small, developer focused subset of content creation.
    - waynecochran 8y ago
      I bought an iPad Pro and pencil with the hope I could at least draw figures and take notes. I gave up after awhile. Still doesn’t beat pencil and paper.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    > (there is Un*x down in there somewhere) Not really; on iOS there is a posix-like kernel but none of the userland.
    - filleduchaos 8y ago
      Not really, iOS is built off Darwin (which is a Unix) same as macOS (which is a Unix) and is a perfectly acceptable Unix-like.
pentae 8y ago
It's an iPhone company that has a lucrative little side business selling computers. And all those enthusiasts who got them there are now left out in the dark like wet dogs.
- htor 8y ago
  this flat touch screen business is making things just horrible. i have ten fingers, and i actually like to feel the pressure and feedback from a real physical keyboard when i type things. seems natural. are we going to write the code of the future on our smartwatches in binary or what? we need more humane devices and more humane interfaces!
scarface74 8y ago
I don’t think the iMac line is in bad shape. If I were in the market for a Mac, I could see myself spending almost $3K on an iMac 5K with 32GB of RAM and not feel any regret. But the entire MacBook line is completely unappealing at thier current prices and with the unreliable keyboard.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  I mostly agree. I bought a 27" 5K iMac recently when my personal MBP from 2011 finally kicked the bucket (GPU, of course...). If only it work in target display mode so I could hook up my work MBP to it when I'm at home, I'd be in heaven.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Do you really need to though? I routinely work with two monitors but if I had a 5K iMac. I probably wouldn't care. Between Dropbox and git, it's fairly easy to move between computers.
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      Some things I can do on my personal machine, but the company VPN is not transferrable so if I need connectivity to something on our network I have to use the work machine for that. My workaround has been to use a 34-inch widescreen as my primary monitor, with the iMac's built-in screen acting as a second monitor, and then I can just toggle between whichever computer I want to use. It's an okay solution, but it means my primary display isn't 5K
- pier25 8y ago
  The iMac 5K is the best Mac I've ever owned. Powerful, almost silent, amazing screen, beautiful. I wish the same could be the said about the rest of the Mac lineup which is in terrible shape.
plink 8y ago
They're becoming the stale monolith that Jobs once derided in IBM.
quizme2000 8y ago
I work full time for an IT company that supports Apple products and we are in the same position. Its hard for us to recommend upgrades unless there is an hardware failure that's beyond the replacement cost. I still rock a 2012 MBP that has RAM, HDD, ODD, and ports. It can be service by removing 8 screws. IMHO it is the peak Apple Laptop. After 2012 they started being anti-consumer, anti-repair in laptop design.
- ataturk 8y ago
  The 2015 MB Pro was damn decent. I bought my daughter a refurb 2012 Pro 13" with 16GB of RAM and yes, it is damn decent. Not sure what the hell is wrong at Apple. My work machine is the 2017 MB Pro and its awful, I hate it.
- danbolt 8y ago
  I use a mid-2012 at home too. The RAM/HDD slots have been updated multiple times. I love how long the device has lasted me.
  - quizme2000 8y ago
    I love refurbishing these models. You can upgrade the RAM to 16 GB ($110), Install an SSD ($150), and replace the battery ($65) in 15 mins. Your biggest hurdle is having a $1 tri-wing bit for the battery and it will run MacOS as well as any current model.
    - slantyyz 8y ago
      The great thing about those models. You didn't have to max out right away and pay the exorbitant prices. When I bought my 2011MBP, I slowly upgraded the parts as prices came down. My advice to people buying Mac laptops today is to max everything out if you can afford to, because you're generally going to be stuck with the RAM and storage for as long as you keep the computer. (Yes, I know you can upgrade the SSDs, but it's a little more complicated than running to your local computer store to buy commodity parts).
macinjosh 8y ago
This reminded me of Steve Jobs' comparison of the Mac to trucks. Not everyone has a truck but a lot of people need them to do their job. As more and more people move to mainly using mobile devices (including tablets) for the majority of their computing needs I think the truck (i.e. mac) business will continue to be slow and plodding. Developers are the only people Apple really needs to make Macs for and that's a pretty small market in the grand scheme. Creatives doing photography, 3D, video, etc. have long left for other platforms. I don't expect things to get much better.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  What you are saying makes sense but it also means that Macs shouldn't get thinner and prettier but more utilitarian with upgradeable parts, plenty of ports and so on. I guess Apple doesn't know anymore who Macs are really for.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    A good, durable, keyboard, twice the battery life, lots of storage, memory, maintainable, and still easy to lug around? I'm gonna swoon...
  - extralego 8y ago
    Right. The ‘Thin Wars’ have been killing us from the start, and I’m not even sure anyone is fighting in them besides Apple.
    - krisroadruck 8y ago
      I don't know. My last 2 PC laptops have been incredibly thin yet still don't have the spec-suck that you see with apple offerings. Current Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition and an HP Spectre x360 both managed to be light, while still having great processors, plenty of Ram, fast nvme drives, good battery life and 4K displays with touchscreens. Both managed to have more than 1 port. Being less thin certainly gives you more room for "stuff" but I don't think lack of it is what's causing mac to fall behind.
- 8y ago
jnwatson 8y ago
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Apple needs to sell off Macintosh. Their lack of focus on Mac hardware has cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, which for a normal company would be a big deal, but is rounding error for Apple. I bet they could easily sell 1,000,000+ units of 2015 Macbook Pro laptops with 32GiG RAM and an updated processor/chipset/graphics. I don't think it is a coincidence that 2015 was their peak unit sales for Mac [1]. 2017 was down from 2015 by 1.3 million units. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-sales-since-fiscal-year-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-...
- zorkbonker99 8y ago
  As the other person mentioned, since 2012, as they've gotten anti-consumer and anti-repair, and anti-developer, I'm in a holding pattern. I would only buy new MacBook Pro in a dire emergency. Upgrading is now something you do to avoid disaster, not to achieve delight/happiness.
- unclebucknasty 8y ago
  >Apple needs to sell off Macintosh My immediate thought was that Apple values control of its ecosystem and Mac hardware figures into this. So, it seems unlikely that they would sell it off. That got me thinking "what business has Apple actually sold off in its modern era?" I can't think of one.
macinjosh 8y ago
If one company made a laptop trackpad as good as Apple's that worked perfectly in any mainstream Linux distro I'd buy their laptop in a heartbeat. I've never seen one that fits that bill though.
- geerlingguy 8y ago
  So far the closest I've seen is the Dell XPS line... but those trackpads are still on the smaller side and have physical click buttons. One of my favorite aspects of force touch is you can adjust the pressure required for a click to register—and the amount of physical feedback you get!
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    You can do that on pretty much any Windows laptop. Not the feedback though. Is there a feedback?
- PolCPP 8y ago
  The closest i've seen to that is the Pixelbook but that's not mainstream linux but clearly shows it's doable
- ISL 8y ago
  From ~2001-2005, the finest linux laptop I'd ever seen was an Apple product running Debian. I presume that people have linux running on modern macbooks -- would that fit your needs?
  - lev99 8y ago
    https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux New macbooks are not universally supported by Linux.
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  At this point I think just sticking a phone screen in there instead of the poor excuses for touchpads we normally get would be better. It's super easy to get a great phone touchscreen, maybe just grab the glass and touch matrix or whatever, but that would surely be better than the sorry state of affairs of current touchpads.
overcast 8y ago
Still have my 2008 Mac Pro desktop, that has been frankenstein'd to the max. Seems to get by just fine considering it's ten years old. Still blows my mind how much they've pushed the power user away. All they had to do was keep the cheesegrater box updated, and there would be no complaints. Now we're all using or looking for alternatives. My latest being an old Dell corporate throwaway running Linux for my dev environment. If Mac's are such a minuscule part of their revenue, then just get rid of the entire hardware line completely and be done with it. Stop stringing us all along for a god damn decade, so we can move along.
- greedo 8y ago
  I've got a 2006 MP, and a 2008 Mac Pro. All updated with SSD and maxed out RAM. Work like a champ. Even running High Sierra on the latter. I figure it will last me another 5 years, then I'll have to make a decision.
  - overcast 8y ago
    Minus hardware upgrades, mine has been running ten years continuously. Original fans even. My concern is when the day comes that it just stops, and I have no replacement options.
    - greedo 8y ago
      Yup. On my 2010, one of the RAM pair slots on the daughtercard has failed recently. I could buy a replacement off eBay, but for now it's fine. I worry about when the system board or something like that fails, but parts will probably be available for another 5 years.
htor 8y ago
it's a sad state for hardware these days, just look at lenovo's thinkpads. they are destroying their brand too, but perhaps in another subtle way, by slowly removing things that people liked and adding bogus features. i really don't know what to buy when my mid-2014 macbook stops working. might just skip computers, go on a spiritual quest and find true love instead.
bitkarma 8y ago
Maybe it is time for Apple to embrace the Hackintosh and let us install MacOS on our own hardware.
totalrobe 8y ago
Wife has a Macbook Air from 2013 that recently was water damaged. I took a look at the lineup and there has been almost zero change to the Airs since apparently 2010...same crap screen, monster bezel, and tiny ssds.
slg 8y ago
I don't want to go all "640k RAM" on this, but I think people's hardware needs have plateaued in recent years. The average person mostly uses a laptop for the web browser and a handful of other simple programs. Even gaming, many users' most hardware intensive task, has shifted in recent years to be less demanding. So the question is why should Apple update their hardware more frequently? The HN reader, the software developer, or the content creator are simply not big enough audiences to motivate Apple anymore. A MacBook with 2-3 year old hardware does everything that your average Mac user would want.
- srmatto 8y ago
  Hardware requirements probably have plateaued for the 85th percentile of users. I think you've touched on something important, but I'd say it actually goes in reverse. One of the deprecated pieces of hardware in Mohave is the 2011 27" iMac which ought to be more than capable of handling Mohave. Sure it doesn't support handoff, night shift, or some other minor features but I can accept that. It's frustrating to buy a piece of hardware and having it deprecated by the software less than a decade later when the chipset is more than capable of handling said software. Mohave will presumably run on the 2016 12" MacBook which is far, far less powerful than my iMac. Let me choose to live without minor features but continue to be able to use contemporary software if it can run on the hardware.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    My Plex server is running on a 2009 era Dell Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz with 4 GB of RAM running Windows 10. It’s actually not slow and the 15 inch 1920x1200 display is one of the last great non 1080p non Retina displays.
    - amag 8y ago
      Hehe, mine runs on a 900MHz (x4) Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with 1 GB of RAM...
      - scarface74 8y ago
karpodiem 8y ago
Switched to a Dell Latitude 7470 14' (Skylake) and haven't looked back.
gepeto42 8y ago
They should kill the Mac Mini. Until they do, I'll keep waiting and hoping for a Mac Mini with USB-C that can drive external monitors well. The iMac Pro is awesome, but the lack of target display mode makes it use a lot of space that can't be used with anything else. Older 27in iMacs were awesome for that - personal Mac for home, use as an external screen for work when working from home, or as an external display for a gaming PC. Where are we supposed to place the sacrifices to the gods who will keep all of our 5-7 year old Macs alive until the new ones come out?
- kickingvegas 8y ago
  Really? No target display mode in iMac Pro is painful, especially when you want it to do double duty as an external monitor. This only gets worse when Mojave drops support for non-Metal supporting systems like the iMac I have now.
- slantyyz 8y ago
  >> They should kill the Mac Mini. Why? I think it's still a pretty good value (albeit a better value with an up-to-date cpu), and it is great for people who want to keep their displays separate from their computing hardware. Prior to my most recent monitor upgrade, I ran my monitors for close to 15 years. I expect to get a good 10 years out of my most recent monitors.
  - gepeto42 8y ago
    But they are not updating it. It would be better to kill it than to make us believe an update is coming. To be clear: I WANT a USB-C Mac Mini. Basically there's 5 ways Apple could get me to spend on new Mac hardware and none of them is realizing.
doktrin 8y ago
I'm honestly blown away by how many hardware problems I've experienced with my 2017 macbook pro after barely a year : * the top 5% of the screen is nothing but horizontal flickering lines * there's a similar vertical line down the middle of the screen, but much smaller * when the machine heats up, the T and U keys sound like a static discharge * my left speaker basically doesn't work and just makes popping sounds I was already sort of on the fence at the weird 16gb limit on a so-called "pro" machine, but now I'm definitely committed to going in a different direction next time I get new gear.
jasonm89 8y ago
Made the switch to a thinkpad running linux last November and couldn't be happier.
newscracker 8y ago
Apple is so shameless that it sells old hardware for the same prices it released them at several years ago. The profit margins on selling the Mac Pro and Mac mini must be at least 70-80%. If that’s not eye gouging, nothing else is. At least reduce the prices and be honest instead of following this dirty and unethical practice. What was even the point of talking about changes to the Mac App Store during WWDC with this poor state of affairs?!
benologist 8y ago
The sad state will be when Apple eventually pushes a tremendous upgrade across their product line in 2019 or 2020 and instead of the powerful X86 CPUs we get even thinner laptops with ARM CPUs and a reset across the software ecosystem. I think we're kind of the dinosaurs clinging to X86 not them and that's the most annoying part.
- bredren 8y ago
  That's a funny way to put it, but it isn't just x86 folks are stuck with right now. There are battery and keyboard issues on the MBP, and I think a lot of folks are wondering about that Touchbar and whether it is a good idea or not.
outlog 8y ago
just give us ARM/apple Ax processor macs already - a 8/16/32 core mac would run corners around any intel stuff.. especially as the thermal properties of intel turboboost is really horrible nowadays on macbook/laptop for dev usage.. (imagine maybe due to the meltdown/spectre slowdown..)
kilon 8y ago
So first Mac is dead, because of iOS then we have iMac 5k . Then macbook is dead, because of iOS, we have new macbooks. Then mac pro is dead, because of iOS we have iMac Pro. Is shouting "dead" the new password for upgrade request ? I see an average of 1 update in less than a year with the only exception of mac mini. Why we need more often? I fail spectacularly to see the problem here. Mac users buy computers that keep for years. My first iMac I kept for 7 year my second one is already on its 4 th year and still feel nowhere close to the need to upgrade and I do 3d graphics + coding. I even live mostly in Windows 10 nowdays , mainly for coding reasons. Flies with no issues. I kinda like Win 10 actually. Sad is exactly the opposite thing that I feel using my iMac. I feel sad with most pc monitors that I see around though. Hell, the new OS brings native support for eGPUs , so I can even upgrade my iMac without forking money for an iMac Pro. The new Metal which was already 10 times faster than the crap... sorry I meant.. OpenGL is reported to be 2 times as fast as the previous version. Waiter... yes please may I have another plate of sadness soup... I really like it.
jacobsenscott 8y ago
Apple's logical next step is to end their line of computers, create a locked down "developer pro ipad (jet black is extra)" that comes with a Swift development environment that can only build iOS apps, requires a $50 a month "subscription" to boot up, and can only connect to apple IP addresses. But it will have a beautiful aluminium case.
- mcphage 8y ago
  Careful you don't cut yourself on that edge.
usermac 8y ago
So glad this post came along. I was just thinking the other day that I am truly in favor of Apple splitting with one part iPhone and the other Macs. I really think that will bring back innovation in Mac hardware.
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  If they actually pull off migrating to an in-house chip, then that makes ultra-low-power consumption laptops more feasible. Once that is in place, you can truly have a single binary from phone to tablet to laptop. And once that is possible, you can start to do system-level tricks with their tight control over the entire stack like checkpoint restart between radically different devices. Simple example: I start a Mosh session to support a customer inside iTerm 2 on a Mac, and a couple hours later my train return home is arriving in about 30 minutes, I slide the session over to my tablet, continue seamlessly on the train. Thankfully the troubleshooting points to a different team, but I want to monitor the screen share on my phone while I'm at the pub down the street from my home, so I slide the session over to the phone. Completely friction-less form-factor changes, with even the possibility to fork between devices instead of exec'ing. Then you could fork to your watch, which buzzes you when someone mentions your name in a Slack window on your Mac/tablet/phone. Fully cooperative applications between devices also possible, with much reduced smokestacks.
dracodoc 8y ago
It could be that Apple is planning to switch intel cpu to their own, which will take quite some time to finish, and they don't want to release an incremental upgrade before the new cpu.
- bredren 8y ago
  This is the most logical conclusion, it is just earth shaking to suggest the entire line will migrate simultaneously.
- nmstoker 8y ago
  It's pure speculation but an active reason to explain their approach seemed more plausible to me too and various of their moves with hardware manufacture could support this (although clearly they have their eye on the iPhone applicability in the first instance)
jedberg 8y ago
I've been using exclusively Mac since 2007, and I used Mac as my primary since 2000. I currently use a late 2011 MBP as my primary machine, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. I'm seriously considering getting a Linux laptop to replace it. I ran linux as my primary from 1998 to 2000, so it's not entirely foreign to me, but it will still be a bit of a switch. The main thing holding me back is that I make income giving Keynote presentations, and I'm not sure how I'd do that with a Linux laptop without having to carry a second device.
stupidcar 8y ago
I think the Apple leadership's thinking is as follows: - The revenues and market share of Apple's Mac unit has been stable for years[1]. No big gain, declines or spikes, regardless of how frequently they update, or how close their hardware is to the bleeding edge. Therefore, it makes sense to reduce their expenditure on the Mac until they see a drop in either revenue, market share or profit share, or some other genuine sign of danger beyond the griping of some professionals. - The personal computer market overall is declining. Spending more for a slightly bigger slice of a shrinking pie isn't worth it, because there's no real opportunity for long-term growth that will please shareholders and analysts. - Reducing the cadence of Mac hardware updates gradually closes the gap between the performance profiles of the iOS and macOS hardware, which moves them closer to the eventual goal of unifying the mobile and desktop software market. - More frequent and more regular updates give more power to Apple's suppliers, as they become dependent on them for the components necessary to provide the updates expected by the market. Supply change management is Cook's area of expertise, and by delaying Mac hardware updates, and doing them on an irregular schedule, Apple can reduce supplier leverage, and walk away from deals it considers to be too expensive. The most important supplier is, of course, Intel, and I think Apple would love to break the industry out of the idea that the supplier tail wags the dog in terms of CPU adoption. E.g. Intel can't just produce a new microarchitecture on their own schedule and assume all manufacturers will rush to adopt it, but instead have to accept a somewhat more subordinate role, whereby the big vendors like Apple can say "this is what we want, this is when we want it, and this is what we'll pay for it." [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/02/earnings-4q-2017/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/02/earnings-4q-2017/
- simonh 8y ago
  Except that Apple have spent a ton in thoroughly revamping the MBP. They came up with a new slimline design, with a super slimline keyboard mechanism, a brand new programmable touchscreen function bar with thorough support in all their built in applications. The assertion they’ve lost interest in or are ignoring the platform is patently, absurdly false. All of that must have cost a fortune. The problem is these changes are all highly problematic. The keyboards are unreliable and a lot of pro users and developers hate the touch bar. Those are fair and reasonable criticisms.
bredren 8y ago
Yes it is very clear there is something going on in mac hardware. I believe it has been in this state for some time now, since prior to the updated MBP. I believe it is a combination of failed milestones by Intel and a change in direction at Apple regarding use of ARM processors. It was a disappointment to have no HW announcements at WWDC, but I imagine there are folks at Apple who are more disappointed than rogue amoeba. I run a fully loaded 2015 11' MBA I picked up after returning a well appointed 13" MBP. The battery life was way to weak to justify the high price. The 2015 11" is showing its age a bit, primarily in rendering on a large 27" with higher resolutions than the apple cinema. There is no good upgrade path for me right now, in mobility / price / performance.
- pfranz 8y ago
  I feel like if that was the case they'd make a last push maxing out the current gen as they release new ARM lineup. Everyone knows it'll be a big change that requires buy-in from developers and third party hardware--which will take years. I'm pretty sure that's what Apple did for previous transitions like OS9 to OSX and PowerPC to Intel. The current multi-year lull in hardware then launching the new thing that won't be feasible for a few years makes sense from a development/resource allocation standpoint, but is a nightmare from a business perspective. You have to do double-duty so customers don't abandon you during the transition.
  - bredren 8y ago
    I think there is a mix of things going on: 1. Apple thinks there is no where to go, substitution is low likelihood. 2. Apple confidence in first gen. They are “betting the company” on the upgrade they have planned. 3. Apple doesn’t care about the transition, the best one is a hard and fast one. 4. Apple is saving pent up demand for these new Macs to increase penetration.
TetOn 8y ago
I'd say the problem is an outdated method of judging a hardware design's "age." Saying the iMac Pro is "neutral" in terms of modern-ness 6 months out from introduction strikes me as particularly nonsensical. Exactly what should have been updated there? I don't see any advance in Intel's relevant line of Xeons in the interim (and AFAIK Xeon development is itself measured in years). Obviously, the Macbook Air and Mini are extreme (and genuinely embarrassing) examples, but generally speaking a ~1yr update cycle (everything else on that page) seems entirely reasonable, especially given Intel's more, uh, deliberate pace in recent years.
- greedo 8y ago
  NONE of the systems have been updated in 365 days other than the hideously expensive iMac Pro. None. And with no announcement at WWDC, odds are we won't see updates til 1st Q 2019. The next big hardware announcement will be the iPhone in the Fall. They won't mix iPhone with Mac. It's also important to look at the averages for the upgrades. It's not consistent at all, except the MBP. All the other Macs, it's on a whimsical schedule. And the updates, when they've happened have been poorly thought out. Castrating the mac mini, foolishly recreating the Cube as the new Mac Pro. Adding the touchbar, while removing ports. The list goes on. Apple has lost their way with the Mac. Clear as day. They're doing great with the iPhone/iOS, but they're only paying lip service to the Mac and macOS.
acjohnson55 8y ago
I agree. It's tough to imagine I'll buy another Mac at this point. It seems like Windows has several options for doing Unix development, which was another historical advantage of OS X. For personal use, all I really want is a 2011-era MBP form factor with modern internals and a modern display (ideally matte). My mid-2010 still has no replacement in sight. I'm not sure the exact PC laptop of my dreams exists, but there are certainly way more options.
ben_w 8y ago
I have a hypothesis, and desire feedback: Software (including websites) is designed around the limits of “normal” hardware. Right now, that means phones and tablets. That hardware is less powerful than ‘proper’ computers, so any software designed for the average user’s hardware runs so easily on proper computers that there is almost no demand for significant CPU improvement. (GPU is another matter, and will remain so until “photorealistic graphics” stops being an exaggeration). Yes, there is still the point that the same specs on paper can be bought much more cheaply without the Apple logo. This used to be a regular thing which flipped the other way around for a couple of months whenever Apple released new hardware. That said, my hypothesis leads to a testable prediction: conventional computers will not improve until tablets and phones are as powerful as them.
jakobegger 8y ago
I think it's pretty clear that Apple is having trouble following up on things. They're struggling with gradual improvements. Everything they do is so focussed on a big keynote, that they don't have any time left to focus on the smaller things inbetween. It also means they only do one thing at a time. One year they update the iOS App Store, this year they update the Mac App Store, maybe next year they finally get to update the iTunes Store on the Mac. Once they do release something, they move on to the next thing. If you're not happy with one of the major releases, you'll have to wait five years until the next time they come back to this. Don't like the new Mac Pro? Maybe the next one in 5 years will be for you. Did the redesign of the Mac App Store not fulfill your hopes? Maybe the next one in 5 years will be better. In my opinion, they are failing to scale their vertical integration as the number of products they are selling grows. In the mean time, other companies that have embraced gradual improvements are running circles around them. The collaboration features of iWork are a joke compared to Google Docs. While Apple is struggling to add proper CSV import to Numbers, Google Sheets offers Pivot Table. Within short time, Amazon Prime has become so much better than the iTunes Movie Store. Apple has completely lost the lead there. It's crazy that Amazon has a better UI here than Apple. If you want to get an 8k Display, you need to get a Windows PC, since macOS doesn't support it. If you want to get a 28" Screen with a stylus, you need to get a Windows PC.
- jshaqaw 8y ago
  Not to mention Amazon Prime works on a smart TV right out of the box and doesn’t need an Apple TV. I have a limited investment in purchased iTunes content that I’m just going to write off when I get a new TV and switch to Amazon.
ksec 8y ago
iMac Pro VESA Mount - Which is a complete pieces of crap. [1] Macbook Pro - Keyboard failure. Forget about the type feeling or depth of key press and the loud sound of it trying to trick your brain as if you have pressed it. It fails, constantly, and consistently. And Apple charges you $400 to $650 for replacing the Keyboard. And BTW if you have Keyboard problem you should convince Apple to replace your battery, which you actually get a Keyboard for free. ( I cant find the post where an Apple employees's rub of telling customer they should have buy AppleCare in the first place. I mean like.... most, if not All big brand Laptop manufacture provides more then one year warranty on their top of the line Pro Laptop. Not Apple ) Trackpad - So large that even with their false positive detection software it is still 1% to 2% error. Some might not be bothered with it. Many do, and hated it. USB PD - It is basically frying what ever it is plugged in [2], silently. It it wasn't some geeks discover it I bet 99% of the consumer has absolutely no idea what went wrong. Reliability - So far any Retina MacBook Pro seems to have a higher failure then the old ones in 2012. It is happening a lot more often around me. And I am not sure if this is pure bad luck or what. Old 2012 MBP are solid. Newer 2015 onwards MBP suffer from sudden death, non chargeable battery, screen quality problems etc. They made MBP more expensive, more prone to failure, also more expensive to repair. Mac Mini - Is selling this to customer in 2018, morally OK? For this price? Mac Pro - It took them 3 years to admit they messed up, and 2 more years to come up with a redesign. Macbook Air - Non Retina TN Screen for $999? Just went Router hacking got to new level, Apple decide to discontinue their AirPort line. Great. To add insult to injury, they continue to say they "care" about Mac. When none of their action has proved or showed they do. This is a company that act and execute way faster on the same products when they were a $10B company, now they are close to $1000B. My friend's MBP just suddenly dead today. Came back, didn't turn on, Magsafe was always on Amber. And he now has to decide what to do, he doesn't want Touchbar, nor the keyboard of newer MBP. The MacBook is way too small screen size. He may be forced to buy refurbished older MBP. Or may be leaving the Mac all together. It really is a sad state. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/28/snazzy-labs-imac-pro-vesa-adapter-broke/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/28/snazzy-labs-imac-pro-ve... [2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8223635 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8223635
pier25 8y ago
I agree with the article, but I think Apple has known about this for quite some time now. Redirecting a huge ship like the Mac takes a couple of years at least. I think (hope) we will start to see nice results in 2019.
notadoc 8y ago
Actions (rather, lack of action) regarding the Mac speaks volumes. The messaging could not be more clear, the real question is why are we all still in denial?
jshaqaw 8y ago
The new MacBook Pro keyboard/port situation/touchbar is a complete fail. Another company would say oops and revert. Apple never will. They see it paramount to project a corporate image of infallibility above actually creating products people want. I echo the sadness here. I have so much sweat, money, and love invested in the Apple platform but when I have to replace my first gen retina MBP I’ll probably just go Windows.
jason_slack 8y ago
Are there any laptops that support macOS but are NOT Apple hardware? I dropped my MacBook Pro and need to replace it, but I am holding off because the hardware is almost the same as when I bought it a few years ago! Can anyone recommend a laptop that supports 32gb of RAM, would run MacOS (or Ubuntu, I could get used to) and made of something besides metal? I have allergies to nickel, cobalt and gold. You would be doing me a solid!
- sebazzz 8y ago
  macOS is not supposed to run on non-mac computers, or are you referring to using a hackintosh setup here? (which is, iirc, not allowed by the license)
  - jason_slack 8y ago
    I get that the license doesn't allow it. My argument here is that I am so heavily invested in macOS for the last 20 years that switching completely, instantly, would be a productivity killer for a while. Apple is starting to disappoint in the hardware offerings. Apple, do you know how much money I have spent on your hardware and software over the last 20 years? At least 10 laptops, iMacs, a Mac Pro. iPhones, iPads (always times 2 as my wife upgrades too). Are you seriously going to make me move to another platform?
jshaqaw 8y ago
Is there any Windows replacement for Alfred/Launchbar? Give me that and I’m out of here.
- pier25 8y ago
  Preach it brother. Sadly the alternatives on Windows are simply terrible. Wox, Launchy, etc.
vannevar 8y ago
I've got a 2011 Macbook Air and find no compelling reason to upgrade it. If Apple doesn't update the line before my trusty Air bites the dust, it may be back to Linux on a Lenovo for me.
g3houdini 8y ago
When will this change? Apple keeps announcing an interest in "us" Pro users but can't seem to push out a Pro product we want? On top of which the new OS wont work with older Macs....

317 points by willlll 8y ago

> Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. Yeah. I'd always thought this was a Steve Jobs quirk, but Tim Cook has been in charge for years now and very little has changed in regard to Mac hardware updates. The Mac Mini is a particularly egregious case. They won't update it, but they won't discontinue it either, so they continue to sell ancient hardware as if it's new. It's baffling, and certainly not indicative that there's some coherent plan being successfully followed.

tmpz22 8y ago
I don't think Apple Hardware's core demographic will ever drill down to the quality of the integrated graphics card, CPU, or even RAM/SSD. As long as the main UX takes places inside a browser or seemingly well-optimized applications like Messages and word, users will not flinch and instead be intrigued with gimmicks like the touch bar.
smacktoward 8y ago
Updating the Mac Mini would require doing something. Cancelling the Mac Mini would also require doing something. Selling ancient Mac Minis as new requires doing nothing, so that's what happens. In the absence of strategy, inertia rules.
- LeanderK 8y ago
  interesting viewpoint. Are there other examples of companies exhibiting this behaviour?
  - ambivalence 8y ago
    FCA and its Dodge line. For example, the Challenger is essentially the same car sold since 2008, save for a few new engine options (3.6L and 6.4L in 2011, Hellcat in 2015, Demon in 2018) and a minimal lighting and interior facelift in 2015. In case of FCA the speculation is that they will sunset the brand in the USA to focus on SUVs (Jeep) and trucks (RAM). Looks like focusing on what's generating the maximum profit. Just like Apple with consumer electronics.
gelstudios 8y ago
It seems like internal applications (manufacturing, etc) are the only reason they keep the Mac Mini around.

pwason 8y ago

I lost all respect for Apple when they switched to Intel CPUs.

collyw 8y ago
It was what differentiated them on hardware.
mistrial9 8y ago
POWER Architecture lives !
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  I just bought a G4 iMac on eBay to play around with. Apart from anything to do with the internet it's quite usable.
IncRnd 8y ago
I'm curious. Why did Apple switching to Intel CPUs make you lose respect for that company?

makecheck 8y ago

Also, in recent years it seems that Apple just loves to announce things that won’t ship for many months. If they did think they could ship a new Mac within a few months, wouldn’t they eagerly announce it at WWDC and just say something vague like “ships in the fall”? To me, that means that nothing will arrive this year.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
I actually don't think Apple loves to announce things that won't ship for many months; the majority of their hardware announcements even in recent years have been for products that ship within a couple weeks, or even days, of the announcement. The only exceptions that come to mind offhand are ones driven by screw-ups. The iMac Pro and 2019 Mac Pro wouldn't have been pre-announced at all (and the latter probably wouldn't even exist) if the trashcan Mac Pro hadn't become a minimalist garbage fire, and AirPods, AirPlay 2, and the possibly mythical AirPower clearly ran/are running way behind their intended schedule. Hardware just doesn't come out every WWDC. I agree with Rogue Amoeba that Apple needs to be willing to do minor hardware updates more frequently than they have been, but I would be surprised if most or all of their laptops don't get an update in the next three months, probably along with the (non-Pro) iMac and the iPad Pro.
- rwc 8y ago
  They announced the HomePod and failed to ship by the holiday season 2017, and the wireless charging mat announced with the iPhone X still shows no signs of shipping.
  - bredren 8y ago
    Airpods were also late. I think it is better to say nothing than to disappoint. https://bgr.com/2016/12/09/airpods-release-delay-technical-issues/ https://bgr.com/2016/12/09/airpods-release-delay-technical-i...
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    The charging mat is the AirPower that I referred to. I'm pretty sure that's the name, right? Yes, HomePod also shipped late; I didn't remember that they'd actually given a quasi-date for it that they missed. (Technically, they only announced AirPower as coming in 2018, but it sure seems unlikely that "nine months and counting" was the original plan.)

PuffinBlue 8y ago

I really REALLY wish they'd do something with the Mac Mini. Give it a massive spec bump and drive the price down like they do (sort of) with the iPad and it'd be a great device to pick up. Such a small form factor with good specs - it's like a NUC but with MacOS. It'd be great.

maxsilver 8y ago
It's doubly frustrating, because Intel does basically all the work for them (even designing some of their NUCs to match a Mac Mini size and power/thermal limits). Apple could just ride the Intel product roadmap each year, with very little effort, and people would be happy enough. But Apple can't be bothered to do even that. --- In comparison, Intel basically made a "Mac Mini Pro" called the Hades Canyon NUC. Which is roughly the same price as a high-end Mac Mini, but has 2x-6x the compute power (depending on how you'd like to measure it). https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc8i7hvk.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits...
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  The Skull Canyon NUC is exactly what I'm thinking of. A MacOS version of that would be really great and like you say, seems fairly 'easy' for Apple to do seeing as Intel is doing so much with the form factor anyway.
  - slantyyz 8y ago
    FWIW, the refresh of the Skull Canyon, aka "Hades Canyon" is even more impressive than its predecessor.
    - maxsilver 8y ago
      Thanks, that is the unit I intended to mention above (the one with the integrated AMD GPU), but I mixed up the name. Corrected it above.
    - PuffinBlue 8y ago

caiob 8y ago

I'm sorry, but I see this as uncalled-for cynicism for the sake of it. Can you point me to an alternative to Apple hardware that is as polished and solid as Apple's MacBooks?

cimmanom 8y ago
But does that matter when you need a laptop with 32GB of RAM?
- slantyyz 8y ago
  Forget 32GB, looks like 128GB RAM laptops have just arrived: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/lenovo-thinkpad-p52-128gb-dell-workstation https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/l...
  - caiob 8y ago
    But what about battery life?
    - slantyyz 8y ago
      If you're the type of user who actually needs 128GB of RAM in a laptop, you're generally willing to make the trade-off on battery life.
    - cimmanom 8y ago
      Sarcasm? I'd take a MacBook Pro a pound heavier and several mm thicker in order to have more RAM. I'd also gladly accept 5 hours of battery instead of 10 (or 2 instead of 4) when 95% of the reason I want a laptop instead of a desktop is not to unplug entirely but to shuttle it between home, work, the coffee shop, my desk, the couch, etc. It used to be that enough of Apple's customers were using their computers for workstation-class workloads (photo and video editing, software compilation, data processing) that there was good reason to provide us a workstation-class portable, not just a notebook-class ultra-light (which even the MBP counts as by my standards). You'd think that now that Apple is making such inroads in enterprise and needs developers on their platform to support the iOS App Store that they'd see the value in continuing to make such a machine available.

LeanderK 8y ago

It's always interesting how something monopoly-like makes companies lazy. I am a cs-student with 3 1/2 year old a machbook pro, which I bought when I started my studies. I must say that I am still very, very satisfied, it's holding up great. Great display, suprsingly good battery life etc. If something happens to my macbook, i would probalby spend a serious percentage of my savings saving on a new laptop. It's a very imporant part of my life, i do most of my work with it and I highly value the flexibility. In this hypthetical scenario, i would really like to buy a new macbook and would probably go through a lot of financial pain if they took their line-up seriously. But it's really getting ridiculus. I really don't understand why they fail so hard to update their hardware.

scarface74 8y ago
Apple still sells the 2015 pre USB C MacBooks new. If I had to buy a MacBook, that’s the one to get.
- econochoice 8y ago
  I've run into a few issues with the Early to Mid 2015 Macbook fans. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I've seen it across three machines.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Not for much longer I think, they are already unavailable in the UK.
wetpaws 8y ago
They don't update their hardware because of the reasons you stated in your post. People love Macs and would buy them regardless of hardware.
dman 8y ago
Sad fact is that Mac sales are now 10% of Apples revenue. I think the only reason Macs receive any attention at all within Apple is because you need Macs to build iphone/ipad apps. Another way of framing this is - how much effort do you put on the bottom 10 percent of your TODO list.

mulle_nat 8y ago

Just buy an iPad Pro. Why would you buy a PC anymore?

waynecochran 8y ago
If I could develop on an iPad pro I might. If I had Xcode, access to other compilers, Bash, Perl, emacs,... There is no underlying platform for development to begin with (there is Un*x down in there somewhere). Forget development for the moment, iPads are really "content consumption" devices not "content creation" .. I don't even like editing spreadsheets on an iPad.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  iPads, especially the Pros, are excellent for certain types of content creation. Digital art with the Pencil and music, in particular. They are also more or less equally as good as PC's at certain types of content creation. Word documents, PDF markup, email, that sort of thing. There are certain types of content creation that they are bad at (programming, spreadsheets), but we can't say that they aren't for content creation based on that small, developer focused subset of content creation.
  - waynecochran 8y ago
    I bought an iPad Pro and pencil with the hope I could at least draw figures and take notes. I gave up after awhile. Still doesn’t beat pencil and paper.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > (there is Un*x down in there somewhere) Not really; on iOS there is a posix-like kernel but none of the userland.
  - filleduchaos 8y ago
    Not really, iOS is built off Darwin (which is a Unix) same as macOS (which is a Unix) and is a perfectly acceptable Unix-like.

pentae 8y ago

It's an iPhone company that has a lucrative little side business selling computers. And all those enthusiasts who got them there are now left out in the dark like wet dogs.

htor 8y ago
this flat touch screen business is making things just horrible. i have ten fingers, and i actually like to feel the pressure and feedback from a real physical keyboard when i type things. seems natural. are we going to write the code of the future on our smartwatches in binary or what? we need more humane devices and more humane interfaces!

scarface74 8y ago

I don’t think the iMac line is in bad shape. If I were in the market for a Mac, I could see myself spending almost $3K on an iMac 5K with 32GB of RAM and not feel any regret. But the entire MacBook line is completely unappealing at thier current prices and with the unreliable keyboard.

rootusrootus 8y ago
I mostly agree. I bought a 27" 5K iMac recently when my personal MBP from 2011 finally kicked the bucket (GPU, of course...). If only it work in target display mode so I could hook up my work MBP to it when I'm at home, I'd be in heaven.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Do you really need to though? I routinely work with two monitors but if I had a 5K iMac. I probably wouldn't care. Between Dropbox and git, it's fairly easy to move between computers.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    Some things I can do on my personal machine, but the company VPN is not transferrable so if I need connectivity to something on our network I have to use the work machine for that. My workaround has been to use a 34-inch widescreen as my primary monitor, with the iMac's built-in screen acting as a second monitor, and then I can just toggle between whichever computer I want to use. It's an okay solution, but it means my primary display isn't 5K
pier25 8y ago
The iMac 5K is the best Mac I've ever owned. Powerful, almost silent, amazing screen, beautiful. I wish the same could be the said about the rest of the Mac lineup which is in terrible shape.

plink 8y ago

They're becoming the stale monolith that Jobs once derided in IBM.

quizme2000 8y ago

I work full time for an IT company that supports Apple products and we are in the same position. Its hard for us to recommend upgrades unless there is an hardware failure that's beyond the replacement cost. I still rock a 2012 MBP that has RAM, HDD, ODD, and ports. It can be service by removing 8 screws. IMHO it is the peak Apple Laptop. After 2012 they started being anti-consumer, anti-repair in laptop design.

ataturk 8y ago
The 2015 MB Pro was damn decent. I bought my daughter a refurb 2012 Pro 13" with 16GB of RAM and yes, it is damn decent. Not sure what the hell is wrong at Apple. My work machine is the 2017 MB Pro and its awful, I hate it.
danbolt 8y ago
I use a mid-2012 at home too. The RAM/HDD slots have been updated multiple times. I love how long the device has lasted me.
- quizme2000 8y ago
  I love refurbishing these models. You can upgrade the RAM to 16 GB ($110), Install an SSD ($150), and replace the battery ($65) in 15 mins. Your biggest hurdle is having a $1 tri-wing bit for the battery and it will run MacOS as well as any current model.
  - slantyyz 8y ago
    The great thing about those models. You didn't have to max out right away and pay the exorbitant prices. When I bought my 2011MBP, I slowly upgraded the parts as prices came down. My advice to people buying Mac laptops today is to max everything out if you can afford to, because you're generally going to be stuck with the RAM and storage for as long as you keep the computer. (Yes, I know you can upgrade the SSDs, but it's a little more complicated than running to your local computer store to buy commodity parts).

macinjosh 8y ago

This reminded me of Steve Jobs' comparison of the Mac to trucks. Not everyone has a truck but a lot of people need them to do their job. As more and more people move to mainly using mobile devices (including tablets) for the majority of their computing needs I think the truck (i.e. mac) business will continue to be slow and plodding. Developers are the only people Apple really needs to make Macs for and that's a pretty small market in the grand scheme. Creatives doing photography, 3D, video, etc. have long left for other platforms. I don't expect things to get much better.

maxxxxx 8y ago
What you are saying makes sense but it also means that Macs shouldn't get thinner and prettier but more utilitarian with upgradeable parts, plenty of ports and so on. I guess Apple doesn't know anymore who Macs are really for.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  A good, durable, keyboard, twice the battery life, lots of storage, memory, maintainable, and still easy to lug around? I'm gonna swoon...
- extralego 8y ago
  Right. The ‘Thin Wars’ have been killing us from the start, and I’m not even sure anyone is fighting in them besides Apple.
  - krisroadruck 8y ago
    I don't know. My last 2 PC laptops have been incredibly thin yet still don't have the spec-suck that you see with apple offerings. Current Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition and an HP Spectre x360 both managed to be light, while still having great processors, plenty of Ram, fast nvme drives, good battery life and 4K displays with touchscreens. Both managed to have more than 1 port. Being less thin certainly gives you more room for "stuff" but I don't think lack of it is what's causing mac to fall behind.
8y ago

jnwatson 8y ago

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Apple needs to sell off Macintosh. Their lack of focus on Mac hardware has cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, which for a normal company would be a big deal, but is rounding error for Apple. I bet they could easily sell 1,000,000+ units of 2015 Macbook Pro laptops with 32GiG RAM and an updated processor/chipset/graphics. I don't think it is a coincidence that 2015 was their peak unit sales for Mac [1]. 2017 was down from 2015 by 1.3 million units. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-sales-since-fiscal-year-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-...

zorkbonker99 8y ago
As the other person mentioned, since 2012, as they've gotten anti-consumer and anti-repair, and anti-developer, I'm in a holding pattern. I would only buy new MacBook Pro in a dire emergency. Upgrading is now something you do to avoid disaster, not to achieve delight/happiness.
unclebucknasty 8y ago
>Apple needs to sell off Macintosh My immediate thought was that Apple values control of its ecosystem and Mac hardware figures into this. So, it seems unlikely that they would sell it off. That got me thinking "what business has Apple actually sold off in its modern era?" I can't think of one.

macinjosh 8y ago

If one company made a laptop trackpad as good as Apple's that worked perfectly in any mainstream Linux distro I'd buy their laptop in a heartbeat. I've never seen one that fits that bill though.

geerlingguy 8y ago
So far the closest I've seen is the Dell XPS line... but those trackpads are still on the smaller side and have physical click buttons. One of my favorite aspects of force touch is you can adjust the pressure required for a click to register—and the amount of physical feedback you get!
- lostmsu 8y ago
  You can do that on pretty much any Windows laptop. Not the feedback though. Is there a feedback?
PolCPP 8y ago
The closest i've seen to that is the Pixelbook but that's not mainstream linux but clearly shows it's doable
ISL 8y ago
From ~2001-2005, the finest linux laptop I'd ever seen was an Apple product running Debian. I presume that people have linux running on modern macbooks -- would that fit your needs?
- lev99 8y ago
  https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux New macbooks are not universally supported by Linux.
PuffinBlue 8y ago
At this point I think just sticking a phone screen in there instead of the poor excuses for touchpads we normally get would be better. It's super easy to get a great phone touchscreen, maybe just grab the glass and touch matrix or whatever, but that would surely be better than the sorry state of affairs of current touchpads.

overcast 8y ago

Still have my 2008 Mac Pro desktop, that has been frankenstein'd to the max. Seems to get by just fine considering it's ten years old. Still blows my mind how much they've pushed the power user away. All they had to do was keep the cheesegrater box updated, and there would be no complaints. Now we're all using or looking for alternatives. My latest being an old Dell corporate throwaway running Linux for my dev environment. If Mac's are such a minuscule part of their revenue, then just get rid of the entire hardware line completely and be done with it. Stop stringing us all along for a god damn decade, so we can move along.

greedo 8y ago
I've got a 2006 MP, and a 2008 Mac Pro. All updated with SSD and maxed out RAM. Work like a champ. Even running High Sierra on the latter. I figure it will last me another 5 years, then I'll have to make a decision.
- overcast 8y ago
  Minus hardware upgrades, mine has been running ten years continuously. Original fans even. My concern is when the day comes that it just stops, and I have no replacement options.
  - greedo 8y ago
    Yup. On my 2010, one of the RAM pair slots on the daughtercard has failed recently. I could buy a replacement off eBay, but for now it's fine. I worry about when the system board or something like that fails, but parts will probably be available for another 5 years.

htor 8y ago

it's a sad state for hardware these days, just look at lenovo's thinkpads. they are destroying their brand too, but perhaps in another subtle way, by slowly removing things that people liked and adding bogus features. i really don't know what to buy when my mid-2014 macbook stops working. might just skip computers, go on a spiritual quest and find true love instead.

bitkarma 8y ago

Maybe it is time for Apple to embrace the Hackintosh and let us install MacOS on our own hardware.

totalrobe 8y ago

Wife has a Macbook Air from 2013 that recently was water damaged. I took a look at the lineup and there has been almost zero change to the Airs since apparently 2010...same crap screen, monster bezel, and tiny ssds.

slg 8y ago

I don't want to go all "640k RAM" on this, but I think people's hardware needs have plateaued in recent years. The average person mostly uses a laptop for the web browser and a handful of other simple programs. Even gaming, many users' most hardware intensive task, has shifted in recent years to be less demanding. So the question is why should Apple update their hardware more frequently? The HN reader, the software developer, or the content creator are simply not big enough audiences to motivate Apple anymore. A MacBook with 2-3 year old hardware does everything that your average Mac user would want.

srmatto 8y ago
Hardware requirements probably have plateaued for the 85th percentile of users. I think you've touched on something important, but I'd say it actually goes in reverse. One of the deprecated pieces of hardware in Mohave is the 2011 27" iMac which ought to be more than capable of handling Mohave. Sure it doesn't support handoff, night shift, or some other minor features but I can accept that. It's frustrating to buy a piece of hardware and having it deprecated by the software less than a decade later when the chipset is more than capable of handling said software. Mohave will presumably run on the 2016 12" MacBook which is far, far less powerful than my iMac. Let me choose to live without minor features but continue to be able to use contemporary software if it can run on the hardware.
- scarface74 8y ago
  My Plex server is running on a 2009 era Dell Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz with 4 GB of RAM running Windows 10. It’s actually not slow and the 15 inch 1920x1200 display is one of the last great non 1080p non Retina displays.
  - amag 8y ago
    Hehe, mine runs on a 900MHz (x4) Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with 1 GB of RAM...
    - scarface74 8y ago

karpodiem 8y ago

Switched to a Dell Latitude 7470 14' (Skylake) and haven't looked back.

gepeto42 8y ago

They should kill the Mac Mini. Until they do, I'll keep waiting and hoping for a Mac Mini with USB-C that can drive external monitors well. The iMac Pro is awesome, but the lack of target display mode makes it use a lot of space that can't be used with anything else. Older 27in iMacs were awesome for that - personal Mac for home, use as an external screen for work when working from home, or as an external display for a gaming PC. Where are we supposed to place the sacrifices to the gods who will keep all of our 5-7 year old Macs alive until the new ones come out?

kickingvegas 8y ago
Really? No target display mode in iMac Pro is painful, especially when you want it to do double duty as an external monitor. This only gets worse when Mojave drops support for non-Metal supporting systems like the iMac I have now.
slantyyz 8y ago
>> They should kill the Mac Mini. Why? I think it's still a pretty good value (albeit a better value with an up-to-date cpu), and it is great for people who want to keep their displays separate from their computing hardware. Prior to my most recent monitor upgrade, I ran my monitors for close to 15 years. I expect to get a good 10 years out of my most recent monitors.
- gepeto42 8y ago
  But they are not updating it. It would be better to kill it than to make us believe an update is coming. To be clear: I WANT a USB-C Mac Mini. Basically there's 5 ways Apple could get me to spend on new Mac hardware and none of them is realizing.

doktrin 8y ago

I'm honestly blown away by how many hardware problems I've experienced with my 2017 macbook pro after barely a year : * the top 5% of the screen is nothing but horizontal flickering lines * there's a similar vertical line down the middle of the screen, but much smaller * when the machine heats up, the T and U keys sound like a static discharge * my left speaker basically doesn't work and just makes popping sounds I was already sort of on the fence at the weird 16gb limit on a so-called "pro" machine, but now I'm definitely committed to going in a different direction next time I get new gear.

jasonm89 8y ago

Made the switch to a thinkpad running linux last November and couldn't be happier.

newscracker 8y ago

Apple is so shameless that it sells old hardware for the same prices it released them at several years ago. The profit margins on selling the Mac Pro and Mac mini must be at least 70-80%. If that’s not eye gouging, nothing else is. At least reduce the prices and be honest instead of following this dirty and unethical practice. What was even the point of talking about changes to the Mac App Store during WWDC with this poor state of affairs?!

benologist 8y ago

The sad state will be when Apple eventually pushes a tremendous upgrade across their product line in 2019 or 2020 and instead of the powerful X86 CPUs we get even thinner laptops with ARM CPUs and a reset across the software ecosystem. I think we're kind of the dinosaurs clinging to X86 not them and that's the most annoying part.

bredren 8y ago
That's a funny way to put it, but it isn't just x86 folks are stuck with right now. There are battery and keyboard issues on the MBP, and I think a lot of folks are wondering about that Touchbar and whether it is a good idea or not.

outlog 8y ago

just give us ARM/apple Ax processor macs already - a 8/16/32 core mac would run corners around any intel stuff.. especially as the thermal properties of intel turboboost is really horrible nowadays on macbook/laptop for dev usage.. (imagine maybe due to the meltdown/spectre slowdown..)

kilon 8y ago

So first Mac is dead, because of iOS then we have iMac 5k . Then macbook is dead, because of iOS, we have new macbooks. Then mac pro is dead, because of iOS we have iMac Pro. Is shouting "dead" the new password for upgrade request ? I see an average of 1 update in less than a year with the only exception of mac mini. Why we need more often? I fail spectacularly to see the problem here. Mac users buy computers that keep for years. My first iMac I kept for 7 year my second one is already on its 4 th year and still feel nowhere close to the need to upgrade and I do 3d graphics + coding. I even live mostly in Windows 10 nowdays , mainly for coding reasons. Flies with no issues. I kinda like Win 10 actually. Sad is exactly the opposite thing that I feel using my iMac. I feel sad with most pc monitors that I see around though. Hell, the new OS brings native support for eGPUs , so I can even upgrade my iMac without forking money for an iMac Pro. The new Metal which was already 10 times faster than the crap... sorry I meant.. OpenGL is reported to be 2 times as fast as the previous version. Waiter... yes please may I have another plate of sadness soup... I really like it.

jacobsenscott 8y ago

Apple's logical next step is to end their line of computers, create a locked down "developer pro ipad (jet black is extra)" that comes with a Swift development environment that can only build iOS apps, requires a $50 a month "subscription" to boot up, and can only connect to apple IP addresses. But it will have a beautiful aluminium case.

mcphage 8y ago
Careful you don't cut yourself on that edge.

usermac 8y ago

So glad this post came along. I was just thinking the other day that I am truly in favor of Apple splitting with one part iPhone and the other Macs. I really think that will bring back innovation in Mac hardware.

yourapostasy 8y ago
If they actually pull off migrating to an in-house chip, then that makes ultra-low-power consumption laptops more feasible. Once that is in place, you can truly have a single binary from phone to tablet to laptop. And once that is possible, you can start to do system-level tricks with their tight control over the entire stack like checkpoint restart between radically different devices. Simple example: I start a Mosh session to support a customer inside iTerm 2 on a Mac, and a couple hours later my train return home is arriving in about 30 minutes, I slide the session over to my tablet, continue seamlessly on the train. Thankfully the troubleshooting points to a different team, but I want to monitor the screen share on my phone while I'm at the pub down the street from my home, so I slide the session over to the phone. Completely friction-less form-factor changes, with even the possibility to fork between devices instead of exec'ing. Then you could fork to your watch, which buzzes you when someone mentions your name in a Slack window on your Mac/tablet/phone. Fully cooperative applications between devices also possible, with much reduced smokestacks.

dracodoc 8y ago

It could be that Apple is planning to switch intel cpu to their own, which will take quite some time to finish, and they don't want to release an incremental upgrade before the new cpu.

bredren 8y ago
This is the most logical conclusion, it is just earth shaking to suggest the entire line will migrate simultaneously.
nmstoker 8y ago
It's pure speculation but an active reason to explain their approach seemed more plausible to me too and various of their moves with hardware manufacture could support this (although clearly they have their eye on the iPhone applicability in the first instance)

jedberg 8y ago

I've been using exclusively Mac since 2007, and I used Mac as my primary since 2000. I currently use a late 2011 MBP as my primary machine, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. I'm seriously considering getting a Linux laptop to replace it. I ran linux as my primary from 1998 to 2000, so it's not entirely foreign to me, but it will still be a bit of a switch. The main thing holding me back is that I make income giving Keynote presentations, and I'm not sure how I'd do that with a Linux laptop without having to carry a second device.

stupidcar 8y ago

I think the Apple leadership's thinking is as follows: - The revenues and market share of Apple's Mac unit has been stable for years[1]. No big gain, declines or spikes, regardless of how frequently they update, or how close their hardware is to the bleeding edge. Therefore, it makes sense to reduce their expenditure on the Mac until they see a drop in either revenue, market share or profit share, or some other genuine sign of danger beyond the griping of some professionals. - The personal computer market overall is declining. Spending more for a slightly bigger slice of a shrinking pie isn't worth it, because there's no real opportunity for long-term growth that will please shareholders and analysts. - Reducing the cadence of Mac hardware updates gradually closes the gap between the performance profiles of the iOS and macOS hardware, which moves them closer to the eventual goal of unifying the mobile and desktop software market. - More frequent and more regular updates give more power to Apple's suppliers, as they become dependent on them for the components necessary to provide the updates expected by the market. Supply change management is Cook's area of expertise, and by delaying Mac hardware updates, and doing them on an irregular schedule, Apple can reduce supplier leverage, and walk away from deals it considers to be too expensive. The most important supplier is, of course, Intel, and I think Apple would love to break the industry out of the idea that the supplier tail wags the dog in terms of CPU adoption. E.g. Intel can't just produce a new microarchitecture on their own schedule and assume all manufacturers will rush to adopt it, but instead have to accept a somewhat more subordinate role, whereby the big vendors like Apple can say "this is what we want, this is when we want it, and this is what we'll pay for it." [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/02/earnings-4q-2017/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/02/earnings-4q-2017/

simonh 8y ago
Except that Apple have spent a ton in thoroughly revamping the MBP. They came up with a new slimline design, with a super slimline keyboard mechanism, a brand new programmable touchscreen function bar with thorough support in all their built in applications. The assertion they’ve lost interest in or are ignoring the platform is patently, absurdly false. All of that must have cost a fortune. The problem is these changes are all highly problematic. The keyboards are unreliable and a lot of pro users and developers hate the touch bar. Those are fair and reasonable criticisms.

bredren 8y ago

Yes it is very clear there is something going on in mac hardware. I believe it has been in this state for some time now, since prior to the updated MBP. I believe it is a combination of failed milestones by Intel and a change in direction at Apple regarding use of ARM processors. It was a disappointment to have no HW announcements at WWDC, but I imagine there are folks at Apple who are more disappointed than rogue amoeba. I run a fully loaded 2015 11' MBA I picked up after returning a well appointed 13" MBP. The battery life was way to weak to justify the high price. The 2015 11" is showing its age a bit, primarily in rendering on a large 27" with higher resolutions than the apple cinema. There is no good upgrade path for me right now, in mobility / price / performance.

pfranz 8y ago
I feel like if that was the case they'd make a last push maxing out the current gen as they release new ARM lineup. Everyone knows it'll be a big change that requires buy-in from developers and third party hardware--which will take years. I'm pretty sure that's what Apple did for previous transitions like OS9 to OSX and PowerPC to Intel. The current multi-year lull in hardware then launching the new thing that won't be feasible for a few years makes sense from a development/resource allocation standpoint, but is a nightmare from a business perspective. You have to do double-duty so customers don't abandon you during the transition.
- bredren 8y ago
  I think there is a mix of things going on: 1. Apple thinks there is no where to go, substitution is low likelihood. 2. Apple confidence in first gen. They are “betting the company” on the upgrade they have planned. 3. Apple doesn’t care about the transition, the best one is a hard and fast one. 4. Apple is saving pent up demand for these new Macs to increase penetration.

TetOn 8y ago

I'd say the problem is an outdated method of judging a hardware design's "age." Saying the iMac Pro is "neutral" in terms of modern-ness 6 months out from introduction strikes me as particularly nonsensical. Exactly what should have been updated there? I don't see any advance in Intel's relevant line of Xeons in the interim (and AFAIK Xeon development is itself measured in years). Obviously, the Macbook Air and Mini are extreme (and genuinely embarrassing) examples, but generally speaking a ~1yr update cycle (everything else on that page) seems entirely reasonable, especially given Intel's more, uh, deliberate pace in recent years.

greedo 8y ago
NONE of the systems have been updated in 365 days other than the hideously expensive iMac Pro. None. And with no announcement at WWDC, odds are we won't see updates til 1st Q 2019. The next big hardware announcement will be the iPhone in the Fall. They won't mix iPhone with Mac. It's also important to look at the averages for the upgrades. It's not consistent at all, except the MBP. All the other Macs, it's on a whimsical schedule. And the updates, when they've happened have been poorly thought out. Castrating the mac mini, foolishly recreating the Cube as the new Mac Pro. Adding the touchbar, while removing ports. The list goes on. Apple has lost their way with the Mac. Clear as day. They're doing great with the iPhone/iOS, but they're only paying lip service to the Mac and macOS.

acjohnson55 8y ago

I agree. It's tough to imagine I'll buy another Mac at this point. It seems like Windows has several options for doing Unix development, which was another historical advantage of OS X. For personal use, all I really want is a 2011-era MBP form factor with modern internals and a modern display (ideally matte). My mid-2010 still has no replacement in sight. I'm not sure the exact PC laptop of my dreams exists, but there are certainly way more options.

ben_w 8y ago

I have a hypothesis, and desire feedback: Software (including websites) is designed around the limits of “normal” hardware. Right now, that means phones and tablets. That hardware is less powerful than ‘proper’ computers, so any software designed for the average user’s hardware runs so easily on proper computers that there is almost no demand for significant CPU improvement. (GPU is another matter, and will remain so until “photorealistic graphics” stops being an exaggeration). Yes, there is still the point that the same specs on paper can be bought much more cheaply without the Apple logo. This used to be a regular thing which flipped the other way around for a couple of months whenever Apple released new hardware. That said, my hypothesis leads to a testable prediction: conventional computers will not improve until tablets and phones are as powerful as them.

jakobegger 8y ago

I think it's pretty clear that Apple is having trouble following up on things. They're struggling with gradual improvements. Everything they do is so focussed on a big keynote, that they don't have any time left to focus on the smaller things inbetween. It also means they only do one thing at a time. One year they update the iOS App Store, this year they update the Mac App Store, maybe next year they finally get to update the iTunes Store on the Mac. Once they do release something, they move on to the next thing. If you're not happy with one of the major releases, you'll have to wait five years until the next time they come back to this. Don't like the new Mac Pro? Maybe the next one in 5 years will be for you. Did the redesign of the Mac App Store not fulfill your hopes? Maybe the next one in 5 years will be better. In my opinion, they are failing to scale their vertical integration as the number of products they are selling grows. In the mean time, other companies that have embraced gradual improvements are running circles around them. The collaboration features of iWork are a joke compared to Google Docs. While Apple is struggling to add proper CSV import to Numbers, Google Sheets offers Pivot Table. Within short time, Amazon Prime has become so much better than the iTunes Movie Store. Apple has completely lost the lead there. It's crazy that Amazon has a better UI here than Apple. If you want to get an 8k Display, you need to get a Windows PC, since macOS doesn't support it. If you want to get a 28" Screen with a stylus, you need to get a Windows PC.

jshaqaw 8y ago
Not to mention Amazon Prime works on a smart TV right out of the box and doesn’t need an Apple TV. I have a limited investment in purchased iTunes content that I’m just going to write off when I get a new TV and switch to Amazon.

ksec 8y ago

iMac Pro VESA Mount - Which is a complete pieces of crap. [1] Macbook Pro - Keyboard failure. Forget about the type feeling or depth of key press and the loud sound of it trying to trick your brain as if you have pressed it. It fails, constantly, and consistently. And Apple charges you $400 to $650 for replacing the Keyboard. And BTW if you have Keyboard problem you should convince Apple to replace your battery, which you actually get a Keyboard for free. ( I cant find the post where an Apple employees's rub of telling customer they should have buy AppleCare in the first place. I mean like.... most, if not All big brand Laptop manufacture provides more then one year warranty on their top of the line Pro Laptop. Not Apple ) Trackpad - So large that even with their false positive detection software it is still 1% to 2% error. Some might not be bothered with it. Many do, and hated it. USB PD - It is basically frying what ever it is plugged in [2], silently. It it wasn't some geeks discover it I bet 99% of the consumer has absolutely no idea what went wrong. Reliability - So far any Retina MacBook Pro seems to have a higher failure then the old ones in 2012. It is happening a lot more often around me. And I am not sure if this is pure bad luck or what. Old 2012 MBP are solid. Newer 2015 onwards MBP suffer from sudden death, non chargeable battery, screen quality problems etc. They made MBP more expensive, more prone to failure, also more expensive to repair. Mac Mini - Is selling this to customer in 2018, morally OK? For this price? Mac Pro - It took them 3 years to admit they messed up, and 2 more years to come up with a redesign. Macbook Air - Non Retina TN Screen for $999? Just went Router hacking got to new level, Apple decide to discontinue their AirPort line. Great. To add insult to injury, they continue to say they "care" about Mac. When none of their action has proved or showed they do. This is a company that act and execute way faster on the same products when they were a $10B company, now they are close to $1000B. My friend's MBP just suddenly dead today. Came back, didn't turn on, Magsafe was always on Amber. And he now has to decide what to do, he doesn't want Touchbar, nor the keyboard of newer MBP. The MacBook is way too small screen size. He may be forced to buy refurbished older MBP. Or may be leaving the Mac all together. It really is a sad state. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/28/snazzy-labs-imac-pro-vesa-adapter-broke/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/28/snazzy-labs-imac-pro-ve... [2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8223635 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8223635

pier25 8y ago

I agree with the article, but I think Apple has known about this for quite some time now. Redirecting a huge ship like the Mac takes a couple of years at least. I think (hope) we will start to see nice results in 2019.

notadoc 8y ago

Actions (rather, lack of action) regarding the Mac speaks volumes. The messaging could not be more clear, the real question is why are we all still in denial?

jshaqaw 8y ago

The new MacBook Pro keyboard/port situation/touchbar is a complete fail. Another company would say oops and revert. Apple never will. They see it paramount to project a corporate image of infallibility above actually creating products people want. I echo the sadness here. I have so much sweat, money, and love invested in the Apple platform but when I have to replace my first gen retina MBP I’ll probably just go Windows.

jason_slack 8y ago

Are there any laptops that support macOS but are NOT Apple hardware? I dropped my MacBook Pro and need to replace it, but I am holding off because the hardware is almost the same as when I bought it a few years ago! Can anyone recommend a laptop that supports 32gb of RAM, would run MacOS (or Ubuntu, I could get used to) and made of something besides metal? I have allergies to nickel, cobalt and gold. You would be doing me a solid!

sebazzz 8y ago
macOS is not supposed to run on non-mac computers, or are you referring to using a hackintosh setup here? (which is, iirc, not allowed by the license)
- jason_slack 8y ago
  I get that the license doesn't allow it. My argument here is that I am so heavily invested in macOS for the last 20 years that switching completely, instantly, would be a productivity killer for a while. Apple is starting to disappoint in the hardware offerings. Apple, do you know how much money I have spent on your hardware and software over the last 20 years? At least 10 laptops, iMacs, a Mac Pro. iPhones, iPads (always times 2 as my wife upgrades too). Are you seriously going to make me move to another platform?

jshaqaw 8y ago

Is there any Windows replacement for Alfred/Launchbar? Give me that and I’m out of here.

pier25 8y ago
Preach it brother. Sadly the alternatives on Windows are simply terrible. Wox, Launchy, etc.

vannevar 8y ago

I've got a 2011 Macbook Air and find no compelling reason to upgrade it. If Apple doesn't update the line before my trusty Air bites the dust, it may be back to Linux on a Lenovo for me.

g3houdini 8y ago

When will this change? Apple keeps announcing an interest in "us" Pro users but can't seem to push out a Pro product we want? On top of which the new OS wont work with older Macs....