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Apple to Announce New MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Possibly MacBook Air at WWDC
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Not a Tim hater, but I think the backlash is partly because popularity and sales have become the measure of success, instead of innovation and inspiration for professionals to do more (now Microsoft's slogan). Candy crush is/was highly popular and generated huge income but I doubt anyone here would say there's anything substantially significant about it.
I don't want a touch screen, I want a pen-enabled screen so I don't need to use my cintiq.
I think the company has shifted a little from the days of Steve Jobs, it's not the same because Tim is not Steve Jobs, have they made mistakes, of course they have no one or no company is perfect, but at the same time they have still made great products, AirPods are great, iPhone 7 Plus is a great smartphone with the Bokeh Effect (one of my personal favourites) and the Apple Watch is the best smart watch on the market in my opinion. I think they need to work on the Mac and hopefully we will see great machines but I also think this whole "Apple is doomed" "fire Tim Cook" is really getting boring now.
I'm not a "hater" either. Just a lousy analyst.
Tim Cook has been fantastic for Apple investors and short term strategy and gain. But the current trend indicates that the position he's steering Apple into is one where the financials take the front seat to that of actual product development.
Don't get me wrong, if I needed an accounting guru and supply chain guy, I'd want Tim Cook. if I wanted a products guy? Tim is not that guy. There's enough history here where Apple under Cook has absolutely put short term financial gain ahead of the product themselves.
We see it with the iPhone 7, and we see it with the Mac line-up. We see it with cancelling less than high margin products that compliment the "just works' ecosystem
The problem with this sort of "wallstreet investors first" mentality, is that while under the short term you will see good numbers, eventually when customers no longer feel like they are getting the right value for their dollars, they start shopping elsewhere. There is always lag to this. Make a bad decision in 2017, it's likely not going to truly hit the bottom line till 2018/19. The consumer market is overall, very fickle, and if you burn the consumers on one purchase, they're less likely to repurchase in 1-2 years time and go to a competitor.
I feel, that this behaviour, letting products languish with out updates, then putting out updates that don't always make the most sense for the conusmer, but somehow make sense to "Apple", this will hurt them in 2-3 years time. We're already seeing a lot of the fans, just take a look at this forum, of people getting disgruntled
Tim Cook, very much reminds me of a Steve Ballmer. he's come in on the coat-tails of the previous guy who built the foundation, and then rode those products. Just like Ballmer, Microsoft saw huge financial gains post Bill Gates, But it wasn't exactly seen as Microsoft's most glorious times. the Few products he oversaw under his watch were mediocre at best, and after enough time of it, Microsoft had to push him out or risk the competition overtaking them. This is very very similar to Tim Cook's leadership. He's seeing great success on products that were brought to market prior to his leadership, But his own products have been mixed. Widely financially succesful, but outside of that financial success, not a lot of new success to really be claimed.
I don't think Apple is doomed. that's just foolish talk by people who don't understand business. I Do think that Apple is in need of a fundamental shift in it's corporate business ethics and structure. The current executives are still under the belief that the small group of them can do everything for apple, all at once, and that they're the only ones who know what products people want. They've clearly been unable to diversify themselves to do multiple things at once, despite the financial resources available to them. And they seem that they're stuck within the Hubris mentality of "look at what we did in the past, so we can't be wrong today!" forgetting that they are missing the team leader of the past.
Apple needs to transition to be more like Microsoft / IBM at this size. more horizontal, with more leaders running their own departments in earnest.
Replace 'touch screens' with any number of technologies throughout the years, and you'll see that this has pretty much always been Apple's MO. It's really not surprising.
they don't even include the dongles, they will charge you 3 times the price for that as well.
But the quality and usefulness of the products has fallen. Most notably the MacBook Pro which has been reduced to being a fashion accessory rather than a useful tool.
no, not surprising. just very myopic. Apple isn't infallible and has been wrong before.
I see touchscreens on laptops to be like larger displays on smartphones. there's no one size fits all. just like there's no "touchscreens are only bad" or "they're the best thing ever". it's binary thinking that's closed minded.
Why not provide users the option as BTO, and see what the actual market wants? we already have evidence from the PC industry that more and more laptops are being sold with touchscreens, and it's a desired feature, even if used minimaly.
I just think that Apple's current exec's don't actually understand the current state of the PC industry. They're doing OK imho in the Mobile space overall, and the services are pickign up nicely. But the computer side of things they just seem to be very ignorant about what the market on whole is doing
I guess my point was to the people who are acting surprised that Apple won't see something the way they see it, because that's how Apple's always been. It's good to be aware that that's one of the main reasons you probably shouldn't plan on buying all of your tech from them.
A black or space grey Macbook Air with a Retina screen would be a near-perfect laptop for me. One can dream. I'll consider the new 13" Pro, sans touchbar, once it's cheaper.
I doubt a new MacBook Air, but they need to keep a budget or edu line. I personally love the Air. It is perfect for casual users who want to use Apple environment. Great size, decent speed and graphics for everyday use at an approachable price point. Not a pro or gamer, but great for me to use instead of the crap my IT department gives me. In my house we have the older 2012 model a 2013 and 2015 model all running Sierra and doing what is needed. Yes, Apple needs a line of basic consumer and education line (getting killed by google chrome books). It also needs a dedicated Pro line. It is blurring those lines right now and frustrating both groups.
The new MacBook Pros are faster than the old MacBook Pros. In what way where they "reduced to a fashion accessory"?
Sorry but not going to happen. They just introduced the redesigned 4th gen MacBook Pro back in October. This design will last at least 4 years with spec improvements. There will never be a lightning port since lightning is probably on its way out. Everything will be USB-C. Even USB type-A will slowly be phased out. They're not going back. Apart from Kaby Lake, all I would expect are minor GPU improvements, perhaps a 32GB ram option and MAYBE a new battery design, though the new battery design is probably not ready this quickly. Maybe only the 13" models are refreshed. They don't always refresh both sizes at the same time and in all honestly the 13" versions both nTB and TB are the real non "pro" machines out of the bunch. The 15" models are much more powerful as usual.
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Spot on. It's really not credible when people complain about the new MBPs, but praise the Air or reburbished 2-3 yr old machines. An SD card slot and USB type-A is what defines a real work machine? Sure the 13" 2016s are underpowered especially in the GPU department, but 13" models will always be inferior to 15" models with quad core i7s and discrete GPUs. That's the trade off between power and portability. This will never change. I would argue that the Air and the pre Touchbars are more of a "fashion accessory," because of the huge illuminated Apple logo on the lid. The new MBPs just have a much smaller discrete stainless steel logo.
I stopped getting overly excited about WWDC, since Steve's passing. If they bring something cool out great, but this has gone from a must see to a cool to see.
i wonder how you can even ask that question, those things have been discussed allover the internet.
a) no function keys on the higher spec'd machines, many users think the touchbar is a toy and even annoying (so do i)
b) almost no ports
c) degrading software quality (we get useless gimmicks instead)
d) ridiculous price point
e) ongoing GPU problems (personal experience: 2007 macbook died after 1,5 yrs, multiple 2011 after 2-3 yrs, soon after releasing late 2016 macbook GPU problems have been reported AGAIN)
f) no magsafe anymore
h) not repairable anymore
i) (almost) not upgradeable anymore
j) no more sd card slot
what helps faster (the CPUs are not SO much faster btw!) if so many other things are getting worse.
i didn't even want to move away from OSX, i was really looking forward to get the new top-of-the-line macbook in late 2016. when it was released, i was not only disappointed, i felt insulted. it was more than obvious i had to look for alternatives, and i am happy i did. today i'm using a headless mac mini, accessing it remotely from linux with remmina so i can update a few apps in xcode that i had previously developed... this is very cheap, does the job and i can do 90% of all work natively on linux, some 5% occasional windows stuff is running inside VMs. for HALF the money of the new macbook that i was going to buy (the max spec version, 5k euro), i could get TWO fully spec'd thinkpads.
lets hope the new macbook will be purchase-able again, so it might at least be an update for my wife, she still prefers the macbook. her high spec'd mid-2013 retina MBP is just fine, though. i'd only replace it by routine to stay in-warranty, and only if the new MBP is not a step back.
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Just give me the current version with Magsafe and two USB 3 ports ... and an HDMI port.
and a 2 TB option and a 32GB RAM option. and hell, fix ridiculous price for the top-of-line. 5k eur for the 1tb/16gb MBP is a joke ...
Counterpoints have also been discussed all-over.
a) Function keys aren't that useful to certain types of use (I fall in this category)
b) Faster I/O (You can hook into 4K / 5K screen now)
c) Not really (at least not enough to make it a 'fashion accessory')
d) That is a valid point
e) GPU issues / Audio issues were shortly addressed, not ongoing anymore (at least not in a considerably large scale)
f) Lot of people don't care about magsafe either (I do though)
g) Repairability is an issue. Upgradability not so much.
h) Who gives a F#*k! Not all professionals need a SD card slot. A laptop isn't supposed to be only for photographers and/or video editors.
Besides, with last year's models you get things that are clearly better than previous gens..
- Better Display
- Better Sound
- Better Performance
- Faster Disk + I/O
Should be enough to make people happy. I don't even own a 2K16 MBP, F.F.S.
Just chill.
I hope the new laptops come with cupholders and built-in cheese graters.
i wonder how you can even ask that question, those things have been discussed allover the internet.
a) no function keys on the higher spec'd machines, many users think the touchbar is a toy and even annoying (so do i)
b) almost no ports
c) degrading software quality (we get useless gimmicks instead)
d) ridiculous price point
e) ongoing GPU problems (personal experience: 2007 macbook died after 1,5 yrs, multiple 2011 after 2-3 yrs, soon after releasing late 2016 macbook GPU problems have been reported AGAIN)
f) no magsafe anymore
h) not repairable anymore
i) (almost) not upgradeable anymore
j) no more sd card slot
what helps faster (the CPUs are not SO much faster btw!) if so many other things are getting worse.
i didn't even want to move away from OSX, i was really looking forward to get the new top-of-the-line macbook in late 2016. when it was released, i was not only disappointed, i felt insulted. it was more than obvious i had to look for alternatives, and i am happy i did. today i'm using a headless mac mini, accessing it remotely from linux with remmina so i can update a few apps in xcode that i had previously developed... this is very cheap, does the job and i can do 90% of all work natively on linux, some 5% occasional windows stuff is running inside VMs. for HALF the money of the new macbook that i was going to buy (the max spec version, 5k euro), i could get TWO fully spec'd thinkpads.
lets hope the new macbook will be purchase-able again, so it might at least be an update for my wife, she still prefers the macbook. her high spec'd mid-2013 retina MBP is just fine, though. i'd only replace it by routine to stay in-warranty, and only if the new MBP is not a step back.
So the only two options, as you see it, are:
a. has everything you need
b. is a fashion accessory
Care to explain how exactly how I am able to use my MacBook productively, if it is merely a "fashion accessory"?
As far as I can tell, I have been using it perfectly happily, and productively, for a couple of years now. In which case it cannot be merely a "fashion accessory".
Hope this helps.
Of course. People decide themselves what they like and want to buy. Of course some people will like it. I didn't.
As simple as that.
