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peppi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
16
0
I don't really want to say this, but somebody has too.* I've been putting off buying an IMac over the last 5 years, mainly because of Apple itself.

The design features are often relatively dated, and too limited in meanly spirited and begrudging features.* A cutting edge design and brand should be, cutting edge for the price.* Instead we got no bluray, why, other people can easily make one, Chinese sub $100 bluray players have licenses, was it because of. Issues and not involving greed or spite, for our good?* No touch panel, no 3d, no 4k+ resolution screen technology that has been possible for several years, these are design sins.* HP have had a lay down touch panel computer for a while, others have had other features.* Apple is too self obsessed with it's own reflection to see the dating of their own designs.* To me the iPhone and iPad are starting to look dated like the original Macs did.* Let's reflect on what was:

In the beginning Apple stood for innovation, great little designs, visionary like by a man, not Steve Jobs, but Steve Wozniak.* I wanted one of those expensive little wonders, but they were expensive, and a bit quirky (the graphic mode of the Apple II).* But the suites moved in, remember Pirates of silicon valley, Steve was all hippy trend, but could not get financing from the suites.

They struck out against Big Brother in their commercial for the original Mac, now they are as much big brother as some of the large companies out there in this field, with their little plain color boxes in our pockets, like little hands in there, with closed environments, and as has been known in the past collecting information, with bizarrely big contracts.** We shall do, has been displaced by they will do, and you will do.

In the beginning, they created, then they went to Xerox and saw what they had created and then made the Lisa and Mac. Now they are completely against anything even looking like their product or brand, even to some low extent.** They protect their IP, but so much of it bares some similarity to work done years previously that I have seen, mainly unpublished (no malicious intent or method implied here, just the level of uniqueness given the extent that people arrive at similar solutions without knowing each others work).

The costs, network contract manufacturing seems fine, but even losses of network manufacturers during low volume times has to be recouped latter. Also labor issues and intellectual property theft in the third world. A volume manufacturer should have enough capacity to cover it's minimum level of sales at least, to control the situation. In a home soil manufacture basis, machines can displace high cost workers and retain more money in the local economy, and intellectual property more easily protected in house. Certain components can be produced in house exclusively this way, to protect their IP.

Steve continues to control, from beyond our present realm. Steve was a great man, somebody that could see a great product, understand it and take it forwards, like few others in the industry. That is a key asset, but a brand depends on more than that, you have to have people with the concepts to guide them to a product, and people, to market, and people to do the business and administration sides. So, you are looking for at least three senior people to work together. If we look at Microsoft, as another example, Bill got interested in the money side, and it worked for them, but you would not call MS as successful as Apple, or as creative, or great in that fashion. The problem when you get prematurely old and sick, is that your world shrinks in ever decreasing circles and becomes more back and white, so that the scope of your ideas and designs become smaller, I know. It is time for Apple to look at where it is going in the coming years and refresh and redesign many, increasingly, black and white lines.

As for me, if they can deliver a cutting edge product this year, with open architecture that still allows store bought software, with as many optical drives as needed, for the existing premium pricing, I will be happy to buy, and I wish them the best. Otherwise, I will have to look for a nice big 27 inch+ surface PC.

Remember, how many colors the Apple Logo used to contain, it was a vibrant product symbol.


Don't bother telling me what you think, tell Apple!
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
No touch screen no fingerprints.

No 4k resolution I won't need 2x video cards to run it.

No blu-ray is an apple f-u to the customer.

The inability to swap out the hdd with ease is an apple f-u to us buyers and btw right now they are replacing hundreds of thousands of seagate hdds inside of 2009 imacs well beyond the 1 year warranty so at least that f-u to us bounced back to them!
 

ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
Don't NEED nor WANT Retina(resource hog, expensive and if you sit normally in front of the iMac it's already retina) or touchscreens(fingerprints and they're a novelty that you will not use after a while).
 

segovius

macrumors regular
Sep 18, 2006
203
0
Barcelona / Berlin
The thing is that people need to realize that Apple don't actually exist to provide quality product to their customer.

They used to be that but now they are not. Just realize it and all is ok.
 

Roller

macrumors 68030
Jun 25, 2003
2,852
1,967
The iMac never was intended or marketed as an open computer - it was, and still is, an appliance, with limited expandability. There's no doubt that you can get a lot more power for your money in the Windows world, especially if you're willing to build your own machine. But to do that you have to give up OS X, unless you go the Hackintosh route, which has its own pitfalls.

It's hard to know what "cutting edge" means in terms of hardware these days. Faster processors and RAM? Better GPUs? Higher capacity hard drives and SSDs? More screen resolution? Those are all commodity items. Apple has always charged a premium for the extra elements of elegant design and OS integration - worth it to some, not to others.

Touch screens and 3D displays have their place, but not for the work that I do most often, which is mostly writing and document/presentation creation. I'd rather see Apple put more resources into OS and UI development. I've used every version of the Mac OS since 1984, and I still feel that each release takes some steps forward and some steps backward. That doesn't mean that we've reached the endgame as far as hardware goes, however, and I'll be interested to see what innovations Apple and others have in store in the coming years.

As an Apple customer and shareholder, I've told the company what I've liked and what I haven't. To me, at least, the positives still far outweigh the negatives.
 

peppi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
16
0
Don't NEED nor WANT Retina(resource hog, expensive and if you sit normally in front of the iMac it's already retina) or touchscreens(fingerprints and they're a novelty that you will not use after a while).

Don't worry about 4k being a resource hog (and you are right about retina).

If you are worried about finger prints, don't use it and you can run it at half resolution. But seriously , how many fingerprints on a good phone do you see? There are technologies to minimise it.

However, this touch thing is not about out stretch use of your arm, as Steve originally mistook. It is about table top computing, where you lay the machine down on the table maybe at a slight angle or drafting board angle, and use it for bring productivity applications including commercial design art and photography, as a PRO cannot cone near it. A few of us cottoned onto this years before Steve mistook it. If I had a good 80 inch 8k 3D table, I would be pretty happy. I know that MS has been playing with a large touch screen. But seriously, for most of us table top computing will do some interesting things, and you can even have several family members around a screen independently or jointly working. But I have already moved onto something better in my own design.
 

JustMartin

macrumors 6502a
Feb 28, 2012
787
271
UK
So you joined up simply to post a rather confusingly worded rant that appears to be saying that you don't like apple and haven't done since the Lisa? Hope the good feeling you got was worth the effort.
 

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
19,458
21,847
Singapore
Apple is not a god. They sell themselves on the promise of an Apple ecosystem where all your devices work flawlessly with one another. Each new tech is one new unknown that has the potential to upset this fragile balance, so it has to be properly tested to see how it can be included properly. This also means that there will be a lot of technology, while useful, won't be used because it doesn't fit in with Apple's bigger picture.

Innovation is not blindly throwing in whatever new tech is the buzzword of the week, without first considering a multitude of factors such as ease of use, viability, cost and support, and most importantly, how well they all work together.

Take the ipad for instance. Nothing about it was innovative in the sense that none of the materials or technology was exactly new or ahead of its time. It had just 256mb of ram (a pittance), and features like flash, 3G was already around for years, nor was the amount of storage offered particularly generous. Spec-wise, a $300 netbook ran laps around it.

Instead, what Apple managed to do was amalgamate all of them together into a neat little package that, at risk of sounding cliche, just worked. When you look back at how all the early tablets floundered, you then realise you cannot just throw a bunch of specs together and expect it to run properly just like that.

You needed a custom OS built for a touch interface. The larger screen meant redesigning every app. Do you think offerings like the app store, itunes and ibooks sprang up overnight? And amongst all these considerations, Apple still manage to preserve the battery life (often the first feature to be sacrificed by companies) and was bold enough to give up just about every port deemed standard by a laptop then (also branded suicidal).

And that surface table (essentially a giant ipad) you are suggesting? Tried it in a school, found it overrated for the exorbitant price tag it commanded. I won't be surprised if Apple had earlier tested it in their labs and pulled the plug because they found it impractical to market.

If you are hating Apple for not doing all these, then I can only say, you missed the point.
 

peppi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
16
0
The iMac never was intended or marketed as an open computer - it was, and still is, an appliance, with limited expandability. There's no doubt that you can get a lot more power for your money in the Windows world, especially if you're willing to build your own machine. But to do that you have to give up OS X, unless you go the Hackintosh route, which has its own pitfalls.

It's hard to know what "cutting edge" means in terms of hardware these days. Faster processors and RAM? Better GPUs? Higher capacity hard drives and SSDs? More screen resolution? Those are all commodity items. Apple has always charged a premium for the extra elements of elegant design and OS integration - worth it to some, not to others.

Touch screens and 3D displays have their place, but not for the work that I do most often, which is mostly writing and document/presentation creation. I'd rather see Apple put more resources into OS and UI development. I've used every version of the Mac OS since 1984, and I still feel that each release takes some steps forward and some steps backward. That doesn't mean that we've reached the endgame as far as hardware goes, however, and I'll be interested to see what innovations Apple and others have in store in the coming years.

As an Apple customer and shareholder, I've told the company what I've liked and what I haven't. To me, at least, the positives still far outweigh the negatives.

I was referring to moves to online store and eventual disappearance of physical media and the possibility of a close iOS like eco system.

If you buy a top of the line top cutting edge brand model, you expect more, not less, than you can get elsewhere. Otherwise, if they are no longer serving us, why buy? As for 3d, it has it's uses, it dies not have to be used otherwise. I would even use a parallax barrier auto 3D system to watch 3D bluray while I worked on documents, apart from the other practical things.

The thing is, that the uselessness as seen by one man, is not necessarily the view of others,. Occasionally Apple has suffered from this.
 

peppi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
16
0
So you joined up simply to post a rather confusingly worded rant that appears to be saying that you don't like apple and haven't done since the Lisa? Hope the good feeling you got was worth the effort.

Justin, that actually was a rant, mine was just being sensible. I did not say I did not like thee Lisa or Mac, I definitely would not waste time checking if I did not. Just laying out the reality, a bit of a contradictory reality. Far from offer cutting edge, they do not even offer what others offer, features, that have many practical uses. Some of these things are low cost additions in volume, and Apple is the one that can do volume in a way that can even allow them to do it first.

In manufacturing it is not that we get what we pay for, but what they pay for.
 

Wardenski

macrumors 6502
Jan 22, 2012
464
5
, I know. It is time for Apple to look at where it is going in the coming years and refresh and redesign many, increasingly, black and white lines.

In 1990, Apple had to redesign itself and its products otherwise it would have died. Apple is now healthy, it does not need to redesign anything at least in a major way.

No offence but your position is rather sad, you want Apple to design a "great" product just so you can give them money.
 

velocityg4

macrumors 604
Dec 19, 2004
7,328
4,716
Georgia
4K resolution monitors would be obscenely expensive. Apple will have them when the price is marketable. Apple is already ahead of the curve with the rMBP and a 2560x1440 27" display. Most Windows computers even premium ones have lower quality screens included.

The AIZO DM-3428 28" 3840x2160 runs about $50,000. The upcoming Viewsonic VP3280-LED 31.5" 3840x2160 is said to cost about as much as a car so at least $12,000 but likely a lot more. Currently much larger screens are cheaper since the pixel density is lower.

I'd like to see a touch screen. Then they would have to optimize the OS for touchscreen (a la Windows 8). However they would also have to get all the third party developers to update their software to be optimized for a touch interface. Unlike Microsoft, Apple does not have the clout to impose this on the market and the Mac would be hurt. We'll see it once MS has been able to get the software manufactures and hardware manufactures in line. A poorly implemented touch interface would be very un-Apple
Besides a touch screen isn't exactly cutting edge they were available for the Apple II by third party manufacturers in the 80's.

Blu ray would be great as well. In reality the market for people that want to watch blu rays on their computer is very small. Very few ever took advantage of DVD's which is still a much larger market. Most people watching movies and TV shows on their computer want online content for the most part use a mix of downloaded and stored content or streamed content. You talk about being cutting edge Apple is there with the push to remove the optical drive completely and doing everything online.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,153
18,920
1. 4k resolution is still very expensive
2. Blue-Ray won't ever be in a Mac because Apple doesn't like it
3. Touch screen on a desktop is a horrible idea

The 2011 iMac is still the fastest/best all-in-one you can buy and a very good machine. In fact, in 2011 it was virtually impossible to build a same-spec desktop PC with the same components for cheaper, so it was also a great value. If that machine didn't answer you expectations, then it is very unlikely that Apple computers is what you are interested in - because their overall design is just the opposite to what you want.
 

iHailCarlo

macrumors 6502
Aug 10, 2012
281
1
So you joined up simply to post a rather confusingly worded rant that appears to be saying that you don't like apple and haven't done since the Lisa? Hope the good feeling you got was worth the effort.


Exactly what I was thinking, user joined to just bash Apple. i smell a Fake Boy!!!??
 

Jinzen

macrumors 6502
Oct 16, 2012
348
36
This thread and OP are hilarious.

Please, if I had haters because I had such high regards and reputation, I would be ecstatic.

OP, go build your own iMac and license your own blu-ray (lol).

PS. Haven't even used an optical drive for about 5 years now. Get with the century, Luddite.
 

iMcLovin

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2009
1,963
898
don´t want retina imac, don´t want touch at all and don´t really want bluray. I rather have no disc and thinner iMac than dvd or bluray....guess I´m a perfect candidate for an iMac :D

peppi: buy a custom built pc, forget about Apple and get a life.....if you don´t like how Apple operates or what products they make, why stay on this forum ?
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,156
3,265
Pennsylvania
There was a time in 2008 or so when I was completely willing to sell my MacBook Pro for a new one , one with blu ray. Since then I've realized how apples iTunes business impacts their feature selection, and become more and more disillusioned with them. For me, the lack of a blu ray player in a $2000 laptop is the epitome of everything that's wrong with Apple.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
If you are worried about finger prints, don't use it and you can run it at half resolution. But seriously , how many fingerprints on a good phone do you see? There are technologies to minimise it.

Every modern touch based smartphone is going to have tons and tons of finger smoo all over the screen. Oleophobic coating doesn't mean it rejects the smoo outright, rather it makes it easier to wipe off when it gets too smooey.

----------

PS. Haven't even used an optical drive for about 5 years now. Get with the century, Luddite.

I love posts like this. "I can't see a reason to use it, so UR DUM OLOL". Pure ignorance.

You're semi right, don't get me wrong. I haven't used an optical drive in about forever now myself. They're a bit depreciated these days as far as data transfers go. That said, I can understand why someone would want a blu-ray player for movies. Even with iTunes offering 1080p downloads these days, they don't quite match the quality you get off a blu-ray disc, either in sound or picture quality.

That's alright for me. Hell, I'm happy with Netflix most of the time. But for the AV enthusiast who wants the absolute best, having the option to use the absolute best in their machines would be nice for them, wouldn't it?
 
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Dolorian

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2007
1,086
0
For me, the lack of a blu ray player in a $2000 laptop is the epitome of everything that's wrong with Apple.

The new MacBook Pro with retina display doesn't even includes a CD/DVD drive because physical media is being phased out. Soon the entire MacBook line will come without a CD/DVD drive. Blue Ray is no different as far as Apple is concerned. The future in their view lies in online streaming and downloads for all your movies, music, games and applications and syncing them all across your devices with iCloud.

I don't see anything wrong with Apple for them framing things in this model.
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,156
3,265
Pennsylvania
The new MacBook Pro with retina display doesn't even includes a CD/DVD drive because physical media is being phased out. Soon the entire MacBook line will come without a CD/DVD drive. Blue Ray is no different as far as Apple is concerned. The future in their view lies in online streaming and downloads for all your movies, music, games and applications and syncing them all across your devices with iCloud.

I don't see anything wrong with Apple for them framing things in this model.

In 2008, it was a problem. Although in 2012 it's less of a problem, it's still the epitome of apple milking its ecosystem for profit rather than providing what consumes want.
 

hakuryuu

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2007
350
6
Lomita, CA
None of your "design sins" are an issue, at least for me. Touch screens on a desktop are a gimmick at best and a recipe for carpal tunnel at worst. The only place touch screens belong are tablets and the larger Surface (table) systems. The real cutting edge for the moment is this https://leapmotion.com/ and the kinect. At least until something like Jarvis in Iron Man becomes attainable.

4k isn't really necessary at this point, the 27 inch display is more than sufficient for normal usage. The reason phones and tablets have higher dpi is because you hold them closer. Even the retina Macbook is generally held close enough to justify the jump. I'm not down on the higher DPI because it does make a difference, but no one is really doing 4k because that is a lot of pixels to push.

Blu-ray, yeah it would be nice, but I was never one to watch a lot of movies at my desk. I have a TV and PS3 for that purpose.

Just because it can be done doesn't make it necessary or even a good idea.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,086
31,020
As a company Apple asks the question 'why?', not 'why not?'. They don't just throw ****** at the wall to see what sticks. Some argue that's a lack of innovation. I argue it's common sense. I see all these different Windows 8 designs coming out of the woodwork and most of them seem gimmicky. Maybe you can call it innovation but ill bet none of them sell very well. Especially when PC buyers are used to cheap and most of this stuff isn't.
 

peppi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
16
0
OK, guys, they have released them, and still am disappointed.

To answer some questions, I have been doming here for years, I rarely post (I actually do have a life elsewhere), but it has been so long I have lost track of my account, and my email account I registered with has been replaced.

In 1990, Apple had to redesign itself and its products otherwise it would have died. Apple is now healthy, it does not need to redesign anything at least in a major way.

No offence but your position is rather sad, you want Apple to design a "great" product just so you can give them money.

That is how marketing and product design works to keep a business healthy. It is not often somebody from the other side of product design posts to forums. Apple knows of the problem, 3d, touch surface computers (a general term), TV's, laser projectors etc, are all on their agenda (I don't know of plans for 3d though, but I finally have cracked the auto stereo 3D problem myself). Years ago it was coming apparent that hardware was increasing in performance so much that eventually faster hardware would offer little extra advantage in many applications, and that the styling would eventually dead end and loss it's appeal. I knew the path forward was services and new features (via software or non computing hardware) which they have since started to move towards a few years ago. Of course they need to change, because it is dead ended. If you care about Apple you should care about this.

The problem is they are holding off on things for various reasons, but that just gives somebody else a chance to look good.

The exception is online content. Online HD+ media is often very inferior compared a good bluray, which can be a joke. If you want quality it can be expensive, as you are looking at high bit rates resulting in big sizes. New video comoressiin codecs way better than h264 can eventually resolve this, but you then own a ghost that depends on a medium that can disappear like a puff of smoke. So you own something like smoke, supplied by something that can disappear like a puff of smoke. Guess how that can turn out like. Yvette real reason for it, is too make more money for the companies.

I am not a fan boy, except in designing things right. The present designs are visually getting to the point of no longer being great visually.

You must remember, the desktop market was demoted, concentrating on that there are more issues. Steve had redesigned Apple products before when younger, to save the company, but I am yet to see the divergence towards that this time. It is worth thinking about that.

4k

About 4k monitors, they are actually as expensive as 4 cheap full.lhd monitors, so $600 might be a more objective figure. The figures you see are not just cutting edge performance (not like cheap fullhd monitors) but what they want to pay, not what they are worth. The problem is demand to get the volume to make them cheap. Apple is one of the few companies that can generate that volume. It works like that. Ever wonder why the retina notebooks are so "cheap" with displays that should cost even more than the 4k prices quoted, as the must be harder to manufacture with the much higher pixel density they use? Of course it is not like that, it is actually an old density and far cheaper than people on the retail side comprehend.

A lot of objections here are confused and dont add up, not my posts.


don´t want retina imac, don´t want touch at all and don´t really want bluray. I rather have no disc and thinner iMac than dvd or bluray....guess I´m a perfect candidate for an iMac :D

peppi: buy a custom built pc, forget about Apple and get a life.....if you don´t like how Apple operates or what products they make, why stay on this forum ?

Guess what I was aiming to do, I already have a life, but am a pragmatist. If they deliver, they deliver, if they don't they don't. It is not time yet to move onto a Apple high end system, so I have a few months to several months to play with before I absolutely need to buy. However, it would good for Apple do this.


None of your "design sins" are an issue, at least for me. Touch screens on a desktop are a gimmick at best and a recipe for carpal tunnel at worst. The only place touch screens belong are tablets and the larger Surface (table) systems. The real cutting edge for the moment is this https://leapmotion.com/ and the kinect. At least until something like Jarvis in Iron Man becomes attainable.

i4k isn't really necessary at this point, the 27 inch display is more than sufficient for normal usage. The reason phones and tablets have higher dpi is because you hold them closer. Even the retina Macbook is generally held close enough to justify the jump. I'm not down on the higher DPI because it does make a difference, but no one is really doing 4k because that is a lot of pixels to push.

Blu-ray, yeah it would be nice, but I was never one to watch a lot of movies at my desk. I have a TV and PS3 for that purpose.

Just because it can be done doesn't make it necessary or even a good idea.

But they are.

I was actually only referring to much easier table surface like system, where the thin iMac tilts down on the table. Your keyboard also gives carpal tunnel..

We are talking about real advantage of non cloud, non hdd, bluray to post bluray 25-500GB backup disks. The drives are so thin they can fit into a thin profile. Watching movies on the PC while you work on it at home is also great, as is using your computer as a media center for your TV, you can throw that worthless game console in the bin. Less equipment, not more.


The resolution for the human eye is supposed to top out at 2400dpi monochrome, 1200 color. But I am yet to see how they define that (if it is an absolute figure, or some figure where adjacent smaller features don't affect the pixel, so are not noticed, which would closer to 300dpi). Most people don't seem to have top vision though.

4k is old tech. For the tables we are talking about, you need at least 150dpi per inch across to do it justice. 30 inch tops out 4k. 60 inch plus table now gets to the 8k TV resolution, and they are using that for a reason, because people really can see that resolution.

Maybe by next April.


Well, have fun guys, I think you are conning yourselves though. Being in front of surface and media pc's would have really harmed MS. Android is not as good for desktop yet, PC was behind, as is Linux.
 

soco

macrumors 68030
Dec 14, 2009
2,840
119
Yardley, PA
I don't really want to say this, but somebody has too.*

I'm not saying this to be mean, but I honestly stopped reading here. I instantly felt like this was about to come off as an immature rant against a company that just isn't giving you exciting tickles in your pants anymore.

Furthermore, if you didn't really want to say it, then you wouldn't have.

Don't bother telling me what you think, tell Apple!

I do, with my wallet.
 
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