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The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess, trying to figure out which one was the best option available at your price point, One of the best things Steve Job
by dhosek 2y ago
The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess, trying to figure out which one was the best option available at your price point, One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to trim the number of Mac models to a minimum. When my ex-wife was looking to upgrade her Windows laptop a few years back, she ended up in analysis paralysis because the options just from HP were so complicated that she couldn’t figure out what she should buy. Say what you will about Apple’s extreme overcharging for internal memory and storage, it’s at least easy to pick the right Mac for yourself.
- bombcar 2y agoIt’s also a better strategy for the company because you’ll easily pick the right “level” and then it’s much easier to upsell you on a part or two. If instead they give you ten thousand combinations you’re much more likely to just grab “the cheapest”.
- rbanffy 2y ago> you’re much more likely to just grab “the cheapest”. And then realize there were better deals at the time and tarnish the brand. Absolutely simplifying the lineup to four Macs was the best decision. Right now they have one more than they should - the MacPro and Mac Studio seem to clash a lot, especially since you can't use the PCIe slots of the Pro for GPUs. What do people put in those slots? I'd assume storage and fast networking.
- Tsiklon 2y agoI’d also imagine there’s firms using SDI video capture cards for on set/production purposes. Outside of local storage I also used to see Fibre channel HBAs and the like somewhat commonly on the older cheese grater (unsure how common that use case is now). The current Mac Pro to my recollection is also readily available in a rack mount format, in and of itself that’s a solid reason for keeping it alive
- bombcar 2y agoThe Mac Pro is expensive enough that it takes it solidly out of the "consumer" arena and puts it into commercial/business customers. Those customers will take the time to investigate and determine what they need for the job. You can see this by comparing the marketing around the F150 (a consumer pickup that is used by commercial/business customers) and the F650 - https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/f650-f750/ https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/f650-f750/ There have been times where the Mac Pro dipped into the high end consumer market explicitly, but we're not in one of those times now. (Do note that some consumers WILL buy "commercial" products and Apple's obviously aware of that, but I suspect it's hard to get them to recommend the Mac Pro to home users.)
- sgt 2y agoEspecially as a developer - Macs are like a godsend for us. And it's a device that you use 8-14 hours a day. Sure, pay a bit extra for RAM (which btw has much better bandwidth than the competition), in the end that extra cost is negligible.
- adastra22 2y agoYeah both RAM and storage aren’t comparing apples to apples (heh) when compared as people often do. If you double the storage on your MacBook, Apple doubles the number of storage chips, with dedicated pcie lanes to each. Since it internally operates with something like RAID0, you also get double the speed.
- ahartmetz 2y agoNot a very relevant point - the difference between 500 MB/s and 5 GB/s mass storage is rarely noticeable.
- adastra22 2y agoDepends on what you're doing. It's very noticeable for my work.
- ahartmetz 2y agoIn my case, software development with C++. It's basically small files and a lot of disk cache.
- adastra22 2y agoI’m processing 100’s of GB of information (the whole historical bitcoin blockchain). Enough to not fit in RAM, but the computation I’m running is fast enough to not be CPU bound. At home I have a desktop rig with multiple TB RAM and a fast server CPU. I would normally ssh into that to run tests with the chain mounted on a /dev/shm partition, which was a pain and only was accessible when I was at home. With my new MacBook Air, the upgraded internal drive is large enough to hold the full historical chain, and streams from disk fast enough to finish a run in comparable time. So now I’m mobile and can work from anywhere, with an entry point laptop replacing a dedicated server! That’s a big change for me. I recognize not everyone’s tasks are bottlenecks the same way though.
- prmoustache 2y ago> she couldn’t figure out what she should buy. I am not sure what "should" means in that context. Surely many models would have been suitable. It is more a self induced SKU nightmare/issue for the manufacturer.
- lproven 2y ago> I am not sure what "should" means in that context. Really? The phrase means "what was the best choice", which means "she could not figure out which model offered the best balance of price, performance and features." I can't offhand think of a more efficient way to phrase it, TBH.
- amelius 2y ago> One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to trim the number of Mac models to a minimum. So much for choice.
- kwanbix 2y ago100% agree. I call it the "toothpaste paralysis." It’s like when you’re shopping for toothpaste, and brands like Colgate have so many overlapping options that it becomes impossible to figure out which one is actually the best. Unfortunately, I think the same thing is starting to happen with MacBooks again. It’s not as bad as before, but it’s definitely not as straightforward as it used to be.
- KerrAvon 2y agoThe MacBook choices today seem relatively clear? - Pro if you need maximum CPU/GPU power. - Air if you want something lightweight and don't need the "Pro" level CPU/GPU power If you're only doing email/web, you should probably go Air. (There are no bad choices with the Apple silicon Macs for general use, it's mainly a question of how slow you want your video rendering chores and Xcode builds to be.) Then multiply by screen sizes, which determines the overall size of the machine. Edit: formatting. HackerNews support markdown challenge. Edit 2: fuck, forgot non-Pro. Maybe you're right.
- radley 2y agoThe MacBook Pro also has a choice of regular, Pro, Max, and Ultra chips.
- FireBeyond 2y agoThe MacBook Pro has the choice of Pro and Max. The Mini has the choice of base or Pro. The Mac Pro/Studio has the choice of Max and Ultra. IIRC.
- rqtwteye 2y agoiPad has reached that state. The regular iPad and the Pro make some sense but the Air is in a very awkward middle.
- twoodfin 2y agoThe Air exists so the Pro can have expensive Pro features and the (null) iPad can hit an impulse purchase price point. While those two are pulling in opposite directions, having nothing in the middle would leave a big market gap.
- kergonath 2y ago> The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess, trying to figure out which one was the best option available at your price point Yeah. I really liked my 9600 but the Performa lines were way too confusing.
- troyvit 2y agoI didn't mind it that much because the higher the number was the more powerful the computer tended to be. The 9500 was super good. The 8500 not bad. The 7500 was the best of the mediocre, and the 7200 was similar but not as great. During that time we bought our Macs from a local computer store. Our guy, Fred, always helped advise us, but he was pretty frustrated overall with the whole situation. I mean he also didn't get why anybody would want a Mac when Windows devices were cheaper, more standard, and less buggy. > One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to trim the number of Mac models to a minimum. Fred always said that if they ever introduced colors to computer cases he was going to quit. Jobs came along with the iMac and less than a year later he retired. It cracks me up how he stuck to his word.
- KerrAvon 2y agoKeep in mind the 9500 (and 9600) and 8500 were at or near the top of the line and relatively easy to figure out. If that and the 7000 had been the only things Apple shipped, fine. The problem was the 4000/5000/6000 range, and Performa vs Quadra/Centris/Whatever. It was a complete and total mess. Your Fred also clearly had a weird sense of "less buggy." At that time, Windows was essentially a GUI atop an extended version of MS-DOS. Look up any contemporary serious review and you'll find complaints about stability. Compare to OS/2.
- troyvit 2y agoHeh I disagreed with Fred that's for sure. Also thanks for bringing back the memory of all those "other" macs. I'd forgotten how weird it was trying to distinguish between all those meaningless names, and the marketing behind them didn't really help much.
- cosmic_cheese 2y agoThe most awful machine I've ever used was a circa-2000 98SE Celeron Compaq Staples special that my family bought when the old Performa gave out one evening and we needed a replacement right away. Aside from being a little slower, that Performa was better in every single way despite being four years older.
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- have_faith 2y agoI think the iPad is the current outlier of that strategy. There's the iPad, iPad Mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro, with overlapping sizes. It's too much differentiation I think.
- robertoandred 2y agoDon't forget iPad keyboards! That's a whole other level of overload.
- drooopy 2y agoI still don't understand why the iPad mini needs to be its own separate product category instead of it just being the 8" iPad Air.
- vardump 2y ago> The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess... Same goes for a lot of other products. For example CPUs, GPUs, TVs and fridges. Sometimes appliance names are nearly impenetrable.
- mrcwinn 2y agoHow dare you attempt to sully the honor of my beloved Power Mac 9500, or take an implicit shot at my Performa 638CD — which was not even 4 digits, but 3 digits and 2 letters. You need to check your wiring, friend, or dial up your SoftRAM.
- Suppafly 2y ago>When my ex-wife was looking to upgrade her Windows laptop a few years back, she ended up in analysis paralysis because the options just from HP were so complicated that she couldn’t figure out what she should buy. It's like cars where they bundle one feature you want with a bunch of stuff you don't care about to force you into overspending.