Ugh! I've tried to "keep the faith" with Apple this far... Like many people, I've been less than thrilled with some of the recent design decisions and the focus on wearables, tablets, etc. instead of the core product that built the company; computers.
And truthfully? I'm still happy with my iPhone. I bought the new 7 Plus and it's a nice, incremental improvement from the 6s, which was a good incremental bump from the 6, and so on .... I don't think you necessarily need to keep radically changing a smartphone once you have the formula down. Apple got this right under Steve Jobs and they've been wise not to screw it up, IMO. You can argue individual points like the quality of its camera, but that means little. Most of us who are that serious about photography still use a real SLR anyway. The phone just needs a serviceable camera, and anything over and above that is "cake".
BUT, today's announcements? There's no sugar-coating it. This was a FAILURE. Apple's waited so long to refresh their computing line, practically everything in it is on a "Do not buy" list on web sites making recommendations. Plus, being the 25th. anniversary of the Apple portable, you'd think they'd really go all out with something impressive in that category today. But no! Microsoft stole Apple's thunder yesterday with that Surface Studio all-in-one. That "Dial" device they've got that lets you sit it on the display screen to manipulate objects and turn them and everything else? That's a message to Apple, saying "Hey... since you don't care about your creative pros anymore -- come see what we've got to offer them!"
Apple needed to come out swinging, and they just stood there with a proverbial finger up their rear end, trying to remind us how cool their original products were 25 years ago and how world-changing it would be to have a slightly thinner, lighter Macbook Pro with all the function keys replaced with a virtual strip that can draw whatever an app tells it to as buttons. (How well do you imagine that will get supported in Boot Camp, BTW?)
Then, they drop the Macbook Air 11" and make it clear they don't care about the 13" model much either (nothing new for that one). Never-mind this is probably Apple's best selling portable of all of them. Let's just tell everybody they'd rather spend more money for an entry level MB Pro, or one of those plain old Macbook 12" underpowered Ultrabooks with only 1 lousy port on it.
Mac Mini gets ZERO attention. Mac Pro workstation gets ZERO attention. WTF!?
FOCUS?????!?!?!?!
WHAT DO THEY DO ALLLLLLL DAY?!?!? THEY HAVE A MILLION EMPLOYEES AND ALL THEY COME OUT WITH A PEICE OF CRAP MACBOOK PRO????? What, couldn't spare a few guys to make a display?
I'm sorry, but its time for the Apple fan base to wake up and realize Apple has become a joke and even Microsoft is making better stuff. Did you see that new Studio Surface desktop. My god, it blew me away! Microsoft does not have anywhere near the talent that Apple has and look what they have produced. All I've can do is make things thin and dick around with the keyboard. After seeing the event today it is clear Tim Cook should be fired. The only focus at Apple is the iPhone and even that is crap now. Like the half baked camera. Apple has run out of ideas. They make the same old boring stuff time and time again. It's nice that people have an updated MacBook Pro...but I doubt it was what people hoped for based on comments around here.
Apple products are overpriced, boring, and uninspired. It is that simple.
