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I find it very hard to believe that Apple deliberately sabotaged a multi-billion dollar product line for ~5 years in order to (possibly?) boost sales when their

I find it very hard to believe that Apple deliberately sabotaged a multi-billion dollar product line for ~5 years in order to (possibly?) boost sales when their incredibly risky and expensive investment into their own silicon came to market. People have been shitting on MacBooks since they removed MagSafe and brought in the butterfly keyboard in 2016. The i9 Pros with massive thermal issues came out in 2018. That's a lot of money to lose due to everyone and their mother complaining about the decline in quality and poor value for money of your product. I wouldn't ascribe to malice what can be more easily be ascribed to incompetence - Apple made questionable regarding the design of the MacBooks, and took the complaints to heart in time for release with their much improved chips.

dr_zoidberg 4y ago
> I wouldn't ascribe to malice what can be more easily be ascribed to incompetence While I usually agree with the sentiment, it's hard to believe that one of the most successful companies in the world can be subject to such levels of incompetence on one of their flagship products.
- inamberclad 4y ago
  I think the simpler explanation was that for that period of time, the mac wasn't their flagship. They were 100% on mobile devices.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Incompetence is the general state of affairs in the life of us all, unfortunately.
- DoughnutHole 4y ago
  The rust belt is littered with the remains of what were at one time or another some of the most successful companies in the US or the world. Corporations are ran by fallible people and are perfectly capable of running themselves into the ground. I'd argue it's nearly their natural trajectory to become bloated and inefficient over time. General Motors was largest and most successful auto manufacturer in the world right up until it crashed and burned in 2008 and had to be bailed out by the federal government.
  - qzw 4y ago
    I agree with your overall point, but GM was already widely seen as a has-been for years, maybe even decades, before 2008. They still had a lot of sales volume but apart from their trucks and a few SUVs, most of their products had been well behind those of their competitors in terms of both design and quality. So I don’t think they were really comparable to Apple at that point.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  I take you don't know anyone working at Apple. There is plenty of good and bad, like everywhere. Apple took tons of questionable decisions and pissed off a lot of customers (me included) but they're redeeming themselves by bringing ARM to the laptop world (which was long overdue). Personally I'll run my current Mac to the ground and then I'll just have a (non Mac, hopefully ARM) desktop PC.
- hajile 4y ago
  Given the turnaround that happened when Ives left, I can definitely ascribe a lot of the problems to his push of form over function. Steve Jobs could set him straight in a way that Tim Cook apparently could not.
hnaccount_rng 4y ago
The point isn't even lost revenue. That Apple can swallow. That's not going to sink them. But they had sufficiently many really _bad_ generations (like 4 or so) that people _had to_ start thinking about how to move out of the Mac-universe. And that requires significant amounts of investment that you cannot easily recover. And that means that once Apple comes up with a non-sucking Mac, it's by no means clear that they get _back_ that business. If they did that intentionally, then they took a very risky bet that paid off. But I really don't think anyone would make that kind of bet.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  It was one generation, the 'touchbar' machines, not four. The third generation Macbook Pro is widely considered one of the best computers Apple ever built. I'm typing on one now. It's almost ten years old. Original battery, even (though it really should have gotten a new battery about 2-3 years ago.)

dr_zoidberg 4y ago

> I wouldn't ascribe to malice what can be more easily be ascribed to incompetence While I usually agree with the sentiment, it's hard to believe that one of the most successful companies in the world can be subject to such levels of incompetence on one of their flagship products.

inamberclad 4y ago
I think the simpler explanation was that for that period of time, the mac wasn't their flagship. They were 100% on mobile devices.
disgruntledphd2 4y ago
Incompetence is the general state of affairs in the life of us all, unfortunately.
DoughnutHole 4y ago
The rust belt is littered with the remains of what were at one time or another some of the most successful companies in the US or the world. Corporations are ran by fallible people and are perfectly capable of running themselves into the ground. I'd argue it's nearly their natural trajectory to become bloated and inefficient over time. General Motors was largest and most successful auto manufacturer in the world right up until it crashed and burned in 2008 and had to be bailed out by the federal government.
- qzw 4y ago
  I agree with your overall point, but GM was already widely seen as a has-been for years, maybe even decades, before 2008. They still had a lot of sales volume but apart from their trucks and a few SUVs, most of their products had been well behind those of their competitors in terms of both design and quality. So I don’t think they were really comparable to Apple at that point.
jokethrowaway 4y ago
I take you don't know anyone working at Apple. There is plenty of good and bad, like everywhere. Apple took tons of questionable decisions and pissed off a lot of customers (me included) but they're redeeming themselves by bringing ARM to the laptop world (which was long overdue). Personally I'll run my current Mac to the ground and then I'll just have a (non Mac, hopefully ARM) desktop PC.
hajile 4y ago
Given the turnaround that happened when Ives left, I can definitely ascribe a lot of the problems to his push of form over function. Steve Jobs could set him straight in a way that Tim Cook apparently could not.

hnaccount_rng 4y ago

The point isn't even lost revenue. That Apple can swallow. That's not going to sink them. But they had sufficiently many really _bad_ generations (like 4 or so) that people _had to_ start thinking about how to move out of the Mac-universe. And that requires significant amounts of investment that you cannot easily recover. And that means that once Apple comes up with a non-sucking Mac, it's by no means clear that they get _back_ that business. If they did that intentionally, then they took a very risky bet that paid off. But I really don't think anyone would make that kind of bet.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
It was one generation, the 'touchbar' machines, not four. The third generation Macbook Pro is widely considered one of the best computers Apple ever built. I'm typing on one now. It's almost ten years old. Original battery, even (though it really should have gotten a new battery about 2-3 years ago.)