For those wondering why AAPL seems to be foregoing OS X as there is certainly more focus on the iOS/iDevice/Consumer market, I have to wonder:
Why does it have to be one or the other?
AAPL made a good deal of money when Jobs returned. NeXT/OS X, PowerMac's, an excellent CCFL LCD (more than one stripped down 27" LED LCD iMac panel?! NO WAY! /sarcasm) and catered a great deal to the professional market, creative or otherwise.
Then Jobs bought "Shake," discontinued it while announcing to a room of studio professionals that their opinion will no longer be warranted. The years went by w/ Jobs running AAPL, cutting out accessory products and focusing on desktops and the iPod. Profits built a strong cash reserve that fed R&D into projects such as the iPad (which came first around 2004 before the iPhone in 2007) and the iPhone in '07 exploded AAPL into a new market. New iPhone owners got a taste of AAPL and MacBook's took off (mostly for students) and iMac's. Soon OS X began taking a backseat to iOS, power systems such as the PowerMac G5 was replaced with the Intel switch in 2006, tacking on almost $1k in Xeon based work stations resulting in businesses holding off on hardware upgrades due to cost. The 3 CCFL LCD's were cut, and for years weren't updated until a stripped down 24" iMac LED LCD panel and now 27" iMac panel (most likely for cost effectiveness). XServe dropped, Lion begins the bridge of iOS/OS X GUI and OpenGL support is still lagging - I could go on. This all points to AAPL ditching professional grade systems to cater to the consumer (mobile) market (Apple Computers switched to Apple Electronics, Inc.).
With $80+ Billion in cash, why does it have to be the consumer market or the professional "power" market? Why can't AAPL revamp the professional market as it did with the consumer market? Working in communications, the quantity of businesses may not compare to the quantity of consumers, but when ONE business (studio houses, photographers who primarily used AAPL displays with PowerMac's as they required little/no configuring with Spyder's, etc) has $50k, $100k or even more on updates for software licenses and hardware, that adds up to quite a bit.
I have used Mac's since 2002, almost a decade this Fall, and I still use Windows as it truly isn't a bad OS (MS just needs to code a system for a myriad of hardware combinations and third party drivers which would be a nightmare, I'm surprised it works as well as it does). I'm on my fifth Mac (2010 Mac Pro), with 2x 24" LED LCD's. I could not get my work done on another system, esp given the training it would require. If AAPL continues in this direction, my work and life will be further impacted in an already struggling economy. This frightens those of us who depend on OS X for our livelihood.
