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Apple Says It Has No Plans for Solely ARM-Based or Touchscreen Macs
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And Apple makes and sells accessories to turn said tablet into a "Mac" - they sell a keybaord that doubles as a stand. 90% of the way to a touchscreen "Mac".
My hand rests nowhere near the touchpad - PC or Mac.
Smudges are an OCD thing - they don't bother me much - be it phone, computer, tablet, whatever. When they do bother me it's a quick wipe away.
My gut says that the touchbar will make it's next appearance on a brand new keyboard or maybe the implementation of an iPad (ARM that way) becoming that device for our macs.
Just bought the iPad Pro big boy haven't tried it out yet but have had a iPad Air for a while -- I am one of those people that do NOT like to type on an iPad but -- if the iPad was able to convert to a touchscreen virtual keyboard that integrates into Mac -- now your talking..
I only use Windows 10's built in stuff and CCleaner when I feel like. Going on 4 months with Windows and so far so good. As reliable as OSX for me.
MS has the Linux Subsystem for Windows available for Windows 10. Ununtu/Bash/Cygwin in Windows. A little messy to install but supoprted and supposedly works well.
The only way Apple will listen is to hit them in their pocketbook. I did that - Windows 10 PC and Android phone this year. No Apple gear is planned.
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MS has Windows running natively on ARM (Specifically Snapdragon) with such apps as Photoshop and it runs well. No reason Apple couldn't do something similar for OS X.
Find a docking station for your wide screen iPhone and move along. Don't twist the arm of so many pro users into accepting a useless CPU.
Keyboard & mouse, touchscreen and stylus/inking Surface Pro 4 I do my university productivity work on absolutely OWNS my otherwise all singing/all dancing MBP. Entering mathematical formula with the stylus and having Word/OneNote 2016 convert it to correctly formatted notation with a silly high accuracy rate never gets old. I appreciate what the iPad Pro can do, but iOS MS Office can't do this (yet).
Someday Apple will understand that there are OS-X applications where a touch-screen is desirable and there iOS are applications where a mouse is desirable and we will have touchscreen Macbooks and iPads that support a mouse.
Actually they already understand this, but they are rooted in the belief that if they de-feature both the Macbook and the iPad that their loyal customers will buy both devices. And maybe they're right for the fanboi subset of their user base. But there are vast numbers of regular people that will simply buy one of the many 2 in 1 Windows machines and forego both OS-X and iOS.
Actually they already understand this, but they are rooted in the belief that if they de-feature both the Macbook and the iPad that their loyal customers will buy both devices. And maybe they're right for the fanboi subset of their user base. But there are vast numbers of regular people that will simply buy one of the many 2 in 1 Windows machines and forego both OS-X and iOS.
Why ditch ARM? Apple has a plethora of in-house skills that know the architecture inside out. I know from firsthand experience how hard it is to move archiectures. Apple would need to start from square 1 with a new CPU archicture. That typically takes 3-5 years. IMHO and FWIW this is a non starter.
I had to go on a training course for work and they had Touch screen Dell iMac style knock offs. The touch screen was frustrating as occasionally either the instructor or myself would point on the screen at code and it was detecting this as input instead of me pointing and would drag things and move the cursor. Touch Screen Mac? No thanks!.
I really don't know where I stand on touch screen maps. On the one hand the MS thing looks so enticing, and other people find it so too, that I start to think it must be a good idea, and MS are taking the lead. On the other hand, I've never once wished my PC were touchscreen.
ARM Macs may be more real than many think:
"Apple already has several ARM powered laptops drifting around internally. I've seen several of them with my own eyes."
"They've completely ported OS X to ARM (including all of Cocoa and Aqua)..."
Take a look:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10191963&cid=53786433
"Apple already has several ARM powered laptops drifting around internally. I've seen several of them with my own eyes."
"They've completely ported OS X to ARM (including all of Cocoa and Aqua)..."
Take a look:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10191963&cid=53786433
Thanks a lot for that post. It gave me a lot to think about.
Unix/Linux app support is a huge need for me. I do software development on the side and need to run various POSIX utilities in a terminal constantly.
And it's great to hear that you don't actually have to use cleanup/maintenance utilities as much as I thought on Windows.
I'm like you, except that I'm still the battered wife holding on to Apple with a fading hope that he'll ever start loving us again and change his ways and stop drinking (looking at you, Phil Schiller). But maybe it's time for a divorce.
With Windows I would have an extremely fast machine (translating to handling bigger music production projects with ease) which is very cheap and can be easily upgraded by just swapping a few components every few years. I would finally have a desktop touchscreen that can be angled like a mixing desk, which would give me incredible multitouch control of my music production (pulling faders and knobs intuitively and super quickly), just like when I briefly owned a Slate Raven MTi2 mixing touchscreen. And I wouldn't have to put up with Apple's obnoxious "holier than thou" snarkiness anymore. They think their turds don't stink. Meanwhile their pathetic hardware is old, overpriced and obsolete and their OS is stuck in the pre-touch generation.
My main remaining issue with windows, is that the OS and apps are still very cluttered and schizophrenic. One thing Apple really did right was to set a "human interface guideline" design and to lock developers into certain GUI controls that all look great. So every app on Mac is beautiful and easy to use. On Windows, there's so much ancient stuff with cluttered GUIs and it drives me mad to see all of that technical information on screen at all times. Tons of menus and buttons and displays. It's like a programmer designed most apps. Apple sadly still has the upper hand in clarity and ease of use.
But like I said in a post above, something is happening with Windows... they're finding their new design language, and more and more apps are looking better and better and their design is starting to rival what's on the Mac side. Modern apps on Windows can be very clean.
So while I probably won't end up switching yet (because Windows apps are such a headache usability-wise), I know that one of these two will happen:
A) Apple produces a touchscreen iMac and I stay within the Apple ecosystem but keep begrudgingly paying extra money for lesser hardware.
B) One or two years pass, Windows 11 comes out and looks clean and beautiful (Windows is already more and more impressive with every year), and the quality of apps stabilize around having clean GUIs just like the Mac.
And the most likely scenario given Apple's lack of vision is... B.
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50% marketshare would attract the attention of the Regulators (Monopolies etc). With their current market share they can do just about anything they want. That in itself is something that I'd want to protect. Obviusly, I don't know the big picture bit I'd be wary of going for 50% or even anything over 30% market share. Besides, MS would not like an interloper.
Gestures on Apple's trackpad does a great job of both of those to scroll just use I adddf one to my Mac mini because it works so much better than a mouse.
I think touch definitely makes sense on a laptop - I use my touchscreen quite a lot, particularly when collaborating with people on content. On my desktop, I use it only occasionally. However, from a COGS perspective It doesn't add much cost to a computer, it's really the effort of updating the OS to have touch interactions. What Apple is really saying here is that they don't want to invest much in MacOS.
Smudged finger printed screen drives me crazy. I clean my iPad screen maybe 20 times a day, and most often use the Apple Pencil rather than my finger just to avoid the screen getting finger printed. I can say I would NEVER touch the screen of my iMac 27", especially when I can to the same thing with my had that is already either on the mouse or right next to it.
Have that mode enabled for when users actually want to utilize the touchscreen. Disable it for everyone who doesn't. Easy.
Apple's not known for options, so this isn't surprising.
There's an app for that! BetterSnapTool. It's only $3 and can be customized like crazy. I've never had a problem with it. Rock solid and feels like it's built into the OS. I'm often jarred when I use someone else's Mac and they don't have this installed because I'm so used to it. BetterSnapTool, MagicPrefs, Paste and Bartender are four utilities I can't live without.
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No but we used them for years, and some of us still have to use them sometimes at work or to fix systems for family and friends. Some people are wired to work better with a certain OS. Creatives typically gravitate more towards Apple. I know this is the case for me and 90% of the kids back in design school and most professionals I work with today. There are always outliers, but it's just a thing with us.
Apple recently invited a small group of reporters to Cupertino for a roundtable discussion about the Mac, and while the conversation was primarily focused on the Mac Pro, Apple also revealed that it has no plans for Macs with touchscreens or Macs powered solely by ARM chips, rather than Intel processors, per Axios.
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller aptly said "no" when asked about the prospect of touchscreen Macs, according to TechCrunch.It's not the first time that Schiller or Apple have dismissed the idea of a touchscreen Mac. In November, he said that Apple has tested a touchscreen Mac and "absolutely come away with the belief that it isn't the right thing to do." He even went as far as calling the idea of a touchscreen iMac "absurd."Apple design chief Jony Ive has likewise said that a touchscreen Mac would "not be a particularly useful or appropriate application of Multi-Touch."
For now, it appears the closest we will get to a touchscreen or ARM-based Mac is the latest MacBook Pro, which has a Touch Bar powered by an ARM-based T1 chip as a companion processor. Apple has said one thing and later reversed course in the past, however, so the company's roadmap could change in the future.
Article Link: Apple Says It Has No Plans for Solely ARM-Based or Touchscreen Macs
At the moment I still very much agree with Apple's stance on this, even if it's only because it matches my own workflows. I've worked with Surfaces and I do think they're nice, but most of the people I see using them in practice are using them in the exact same way I use my laptop—which is mostly as a desktop.
I have a laptop because I work at home and at an office. It's nice to pack it up and set up at a new location. I rarely use the laptop's input controls though except when I'm on the road but that's a minority of my total use.
I haven't used a hybrid touch/mouse device that ever excited me for very long. Surfaces initially made me really want something similar from Apple, but once the novelty wore off... not so much. My laptop basically NEVER needs to become my tablet. I'm not suggesting a legitimate workflow doesn't exist for this but I am saying I've never seen a very compelling one in my own personal or professional life with maybe ONE exception (and even he was a desktop user of his surface like 75% of the time).
Hybrids are always compromises. Even the laptop model means sacrificing performance for portability.
The Surface does work when you want a limited tablet and mostly a laptop. The iPad seems to meet needs in the other direction, mostly tablet and occasionally laptop.
I have a laptop because I work at home and at an office. It's nice to pack it up and set up at a new location. I rarely use the laptop's input controls though except when I'm on the road but that's a minority of my total use.
I haven't used a hybrid touch/mouse device that ever excited me for very long. Surfaces initially made me really want something similar from Apple, but once the novelty wore off... not so much. My laptop basically NEVER needs to become my tablet. I'm not suggesting a legitimate workflow doesn't exist for this but I am saying I've never seen a very compelling one in my own personal or professional life with maybe ONE exception (and even he was a desktop user of his surface like 75% of the time).
Hybrids are always compromises. Even the laptop model means sacrificing performance for portability.
The Surface does work when you want a limited tablet and mostly a laptop. The iPad seems to meet needs in the other direction, mostly tablet and occasionally laptop.
My thinking is that they introduce a new product line and call it something other than "Mac". My desires are similar, that is ARM based hardware that has great battery life and is fanless. The entry price is one additional feature but with Apple we likely won't see a huge benefit.
Honestly the issue here is that ARM as a system processor doesn't have a chance unless a huge manufacture gets behind it. I want to see a real alternative to Intel develop and at this point the world is ready.