Well, my Mac Pro is from 2008 and my MBA from 2012. I'm having a hard time finding a decent replacement for either one of them.
You and me too! I've a MacBook Pro from late 2011, and ALL the ports I need and want. With the drop of all these ports and this ingenious idea someone came up with called Magsafe also being eliminated, I also struggle to find something to upgrade to at this time. Oh Jobs, I wish you were still alive so this mess didn't exist. A laptop is meant to be portable but Apple's MacBooks no longer are due to all these modifications. Upgrades and modifications are good but not when the manufacturer determines what the customer requires. And who came up with this changing and modifiable function key layout? That was not what is considered an enhancement request from users, but just a neat new fangled idea some noob at Apple threw out there. But one of the most concerning things is the build quality. If the build quality of MacBooks in 2011 like it is today, I would definitely not still be using my current MacBook Pro.
Some of Apple's restructuring and modifications are poorly thought out, especially when things like the recent iPhone battery mess come to light.
Many of the decisions Apple make are strictly for the bottom line, not for consideration of it's customers. There is absolutely no doubt that that is now the case at Apple.
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Well Apple products hold their value and you can still buy the 2015 MBP 15" direct from Apple for $1999+.
Yes, the older products up to about 2015 do hold their value. The current stuff doesn't even compare my 2011 MacBook Pro. Just look at how Apple have almost eliminated their Airport and Time Capsule divisions. I left the M$ world behind in 2009 and migrated to the Apple ecosystem, but it appears as more and more have switched to Apple products over the last ten years that Apple has become A$$le, $pple, Appl$, or whatever you wish to call it.
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I totally expect Apple to do the wrong thing this year lol.
New mac mini: A magic touchpad sized device with 4 USB-C ports, one of which you use to power it. Starts at just $1099 and comes in gold, rose gold, and space gray. Basically a Macbook with a super low end processor.
New Mac Pro: A $9999 desktop that is without question, the fastest commercial workstation you can buy. And not even a bad deal, but it will completely ****ing miss the point.
Yep, Apple is going down a slippery slope now. Get rid of that silly function key idea. I've witnessed two separate incidents where MacBooks got kicked to the floor because of no Magsafe, and I actually saw a girl crying because her computer would not power up. This is something that never happened before Magsafe was dropped. And, if you really need users to adopt USB-C then don't have just one, have at least three in addition to Magsafe. It's a laptop! In other words it is meant to be portable.
Dongle this, dongle that is really just a $$$ grab. As we've seen recently, many of Apple's decision are based upon how much money they can get away with through product modifications and throttling.
A$$le / $pple / Appl$, whatever you want to call them is losing it just as they were gaining considerable traction in the marketplace.
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Apple could have smoothed the transition over to the 12" MacBook by offering an updated version of the MacBook Air with an IPS display and moving up in processor generations to keep in step with the MacBook (Skylake U and then Kaby Lake U), yet leaving the ports as they were. I think a lot of users looking to get into the Apple ecosystem would have benefitted from a lower cost, slightly updated MBA, but I digress.
I would love to see a 17" MacBook Pro again, with the same overall dimensions as the last revision (Late 2011). Better cooling, the Touch Bar, the scissor keys from the Apple Magic Keyboard and a Retina Display. However, driving a 3840 X 2400 (1920 X 1200 @2x)display probably at decent frame rates is not feasible until Apple moves to an AMD Mobile Vega GPU. Combine that with a 6-core H-series CPU (Cannon Lake/Ice Lake) and up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and pros looking for a portable editing workstation might really take to it.
The SuperDrive is dead and all that extra dead weight in an iMac was useless. Despite all the early production problems, why would anyone want that old iMac chassis back?
It would be nice to be able to upgrade RAM and SSD myself, but the CPU? Apple would have to engineer a card as Intel doesn't even sell it's mobile chips in FCLGA versions only soldered down BGA version. Besides, the market for people upgrading their laptops CPUs would be infinitesimal...it was tiny even back in the days when you could upgrade the CPU in your Power Mac with a DayStar Digital PDS card.
The Mac mini does deserve a decent update and Apple has completely missed the boat in giving users something like what Intel did when it released the Skull Canyon NUC.
USB-C is the future, period, end of story. USB Type-A connectors will be around for some time, but eventually, they are going to fade away.
Non-sequitur - Apple's keybaord is laid out logically enough, but the Touch Bar really shouldn't cost $300 USD extra for users.
The 2016/2017 MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt 3, buy an adapter and move on.
The 2016/2017 MacBook Pro has USB 3.0, buy new cables and move on.
FireWire 800...really? Are you serious? Buy an adapter. FireWire had it's day and it's day is done...that's almost akin to asking for the parallel and serial ports to be put back on PCs. If people still use them and they work, that's great, but no one is asking for that port to be brought back...talk about a big bag of hurt.
I agree with much of what you said, but specifically regarding the MacBook Pro, dropping Magsafe was a very stupid idea. Regarding USB-C, add two more USB-C ports and not restrict users to just one. The MacBook line are LAPTOP's, not DESKTOPs!