Right, that's what I meant by "The Macs are part of an ecosystem that needs to be healthy though so too much neglect is short term thinking."
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Apple claims keyboard fix is permanent...
- Thread starter kjvmartin
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Right, that's what I meant by "The Macs are part of an ecosystem that needs to be healthy though so too much neglect is short term thinking."
That seems like circular logic that hurt my brain. If Xcode ran on windows and people don't need a mac, then why do would people write Xcode then, i.e., no macs, mean no need for macOS apps.
Does anyone like Xcode anyway? MacOS users seem to prefer to use other much more powerful IDE's - They just put it all through Xcode at the end when publishing because they are forced to do so.
Main reason Xcode isn't on Windows is because Apple doesn't have an apetite to support Xcode for Windows.
Main reason Xcode isn't on Windows is because Apple doesn't have an apetite to support Xcode for Windows.
I think its because Apple would lose out on sales. There would be less of a reason to spend 3,000 on a laptop because you can do the same thing on a much cheaper windows machine.
A genius bar person told me the same. He said specifically that the keyboard is being replaced with a 2017 "B variant" of the keyboard. He said they gathered some data and implied that this was the backup version on the keyboard.
Well you could just get a 2nd hand Mac mini and connect it to your Windows machine while you develop it in Xamarin or otherwise on Windows - and push it through Xcode via the mini. I know some people do that for their iOS app development.
But you are right, there will be some mac sales just on the basis that you need Xcode to publish iOS, so there is potential revenue lost. Although you could argue they also potentially lose a lot of talented app developers, developing apps for iOS and making Apple money?
I am not a developer. Could you please explain more.
In your opinion how many developers use Macs to develop iPhone and iPad apps and how many do it via Windows and then just compile the code on a Mac (if I understood correctly).
In your opinion how many developers use Macs to develop iPhone and iPad apps and how many do it via Windows and then just compile the code on a Mac (if I understood correctly).
If true this explains why some retailers were running out of Pro inventory. My Best Buy still doesn’t have any 15” Pro’s available until Saturday.
I know people that do that also.
And you don't even have to own a Mac. Here is an article that covers some of the options. https://learnappmaking.com/develop-ios-apps-on-windows-pc/
Also, Chris Lattner who designed Swift now works at Google. They are looking at using Swift in several new projects and existing products.
That's interesting because John Lewis, a large retailer in the UK is out of stock for 10 days on the 15" also.
The UK refurb store had 30+ 15 inch Pro's 2 weeks ago and then overnight they all vanished and now all they have are 2 x 2015 15" and 2 x 2017 15" (base config) but nothing else for nearly 2 weeks. Meanwhile other modes (Air, iMac, MB) have seen stock level variations.
Might be totally random fluctuations but fun to speculate
I honestly thought they were going to update the keyboard and refresh the internals at the same time but I guess they are going to wait to do that in the Fall. My 2016 model is on the original keyboard and it's been fine but a few keys have jammed requiring a thorough cleaning. I do eat around my computer but it's never been an issue before this computer and I always keep the computer clean of crumbs and grease.
For perspective:
That piddling little $18-20Bn in revenue?
Only 165 companies in the Fortune 500 list have a higher revenue than $18Bn, and only 151 exceed $20Bn.
Within that $18-20Bn range are insignificant little companies such as Visa, Kimberly-Clark, Western Digital, and Kohls.
Clearly too small a revenue to be at all concerned with. /sarcasm
Yeah, that's awesome. Just a piddly $5M would seem like alot of $$ for several startups I've worked at. Doesn't change the fact that Apple's revenue in 2017 was $230B. What does Kimberly-Clark et. al's market performance
have to do with Apple's internal decision making? Are they competitors in a growth space?
See that little slice representing Mac sales that has trended smaller over time? See the iPhone and Services slices that have trended larger? Is it clearer now?
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See that little slice representing Mac sales that has trended smaller over time? See the iPhone and Services slices that have trended larger? Is it clearer now?
Of course mac sales are a lower percentage of overall revenue as iphone sales keep going up, which is what your graph shows.
Still doesn't make the mac business unit insignificant to the shareholders.
It also doesn't make the business unit insignificant in the overall platform model, particularly in terms of developing/maintaining cross-device platform stickiness, thereby enhancing the exit-barriers in consumer's eyes.
Here's a better illustration, which shows that as iphone net sales continue to grow the other platforms also keep chugging along (except ipad/ipod):
Who said anything about insignificance? Reduced importance, for sure. While it has grown, as evidenced by the graph you've provided above, it went from the largest segment of their business to barely more than blip. PR issues in the Mac line just do not grab the public's attention like they did 10 years ago.
It's about overall performance of the company. Ultimately, that's what shareholders care about in the end, where their stock will go. In the past they may have cared about Apple's relationship with the pro community and education and cared about the Mac as a mainline growth business. Nowadays they're more concerned about the business unit in its ability to support the mobile ecosystem - they need it maintained, but it's not the 'future' of the company outside of this supporting role.
Just google "iPad cannibalization" for instance, and see all the statements that Apple execs have made made to address these types of concerns in the past.
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Financially, Apple is too reliant on iPhone. One major miss-step and Apple could see a catastrophic drop in revenue. Shareholders will prefer long term stability and will expect Apples revenue to be a little more evenly spread and diverse to protect the company. That is why Apple has pushed into new categories and pushed for aggressive growth in services. Whilst Mac may continue to remain a small share of Apples overall income, I fully expect Apple to still grow the Mac business in real terms. So it is, and will remain, an important part of the product line up.
If you read @Beau10's comments more carefully, you'll find that this point has already been made. In fact, Beau made the exact point that the reason why they end up marshalling up the resources to take care of a "fringe" product is because that product actually has an important role to play to the overall health of the business even if putting resources into it appears to be a poor investment decision on the surface.
After what Apple put me though with my MBPro keyboard, I will never buy another until I see they have fixed the keyboard.
I think this is wishful thinking and I'd like to agree with you, but the trend says the opposite and it's not Apple dictating the direction of the trend. It's just the way our society and technology is going. 20 years ago, if you waited more than 2 years to upgrade your computer, you could feel the time that was slipping through your fingers while you waited for your aging machine to sputter along. Compare that to now where people with 10 year old MBPs are puzzled as to why their machines won't be supported anymore when they run just perfectly fine. The world simply does not need personal computers and more of them the way it used to.
The personal computer isn't going anywhere. It'll be around for a long time, but don't expect it to ever be the star of the show again... at least not in its current form factor.
I never said star of the show. I said continue to grow in real terms, or as a stand-alone figure.
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that you did. I just meant that the decline is real. I don't think the renaissance is coming, but neither is abject doom.
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Apple Australia support just confirmed me that my 2016 15-inch MBP keyboard replacement will be "updated to address the original issue" and "it is a revised updated version that will resolve the issue that you were having with keyboard".
Now that 2018 Gen3 Butterfly keyboards are out, I wonder whether the replacement will be basically the Gen3 but made compatible with older models or whether it will still be the 2017B rev as someone above posted.
Now that 2018 Gen3 Butterfly keyboards are out, I wonder whether the replacement will be basically the Gen3 but made compatible with older models or whether it will still be the 2017B rev as someone above posted.