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Apple’s Admission of Failure

ggibson913

ggibson913

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 11, 2006
1,123
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So I watched as we all did the presentation of Apple’s new pro laptops and other than the notch (not a good idea but not a deal breaker), I was excited to see all of the changes. But, it occurs to me in making the new Pro, Apple has admitted that just about every design decision they have made since 2015(ish) has been wrong.

Removal of MagSage - Bad
Removal of HDMI - Bad
Removal of SD CARD Slot - Bad
Touch Bar - Bad
Keyboard Redesign ( last year, I know) - Bad

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that. I am also putting that out there because as the owner of an Intel Macbook Pro, I am a little hesitant to swap it out.
 
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A full "reverse Ive"

Glad to see they did it. It's complete vindication for those of us who were basically mad from the 2016 redesign onwards.

What they just now released (in nearly 2022) should have been the general guideline for what to release in 2016 instead (ASi stuff aside of course)
 
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WildSky said:
I think of it more in terms as Apple's success in listening to customer feedback, and not in terms of right and wrong, good or bad. They changed the design again to meet customer's needs. Smart, very $mart.
Click to expand...

Way too generous in my view -- what you're describing is what they should have done half a decade ago (or more) when planning the successor to the 2015's and that long run of machines.

Instead they just pushed ahead with undesired extreme minimalism and the line suffered for 5 years as a result.
 
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WildSky said:
I think of it more in terms as Apple's success in listening to customer feedback, and not in terms of right and wrong, good or bad. They changed the design again to meet customer's needs. Smart, very $mart.
Click to expand...

Oh noooo, no no no no. They screwed the pooch with their absolute arrogance and ignorance when they went with USB C/Thunderbolt only. They were quite rightly universally lambasted for it and have now made a complete U-Turn to sell more laptops. They did it for them, not us.
 
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ugru said:
I did not say that they have to remove completely USB-C/TB3. USB-C/TB3 is ok, 3 of them are enough.
Just add back Magsafe (150/200W), SD card reader and HDMI (which will never be replaced by USB-C) and a decent GPU and it would be the perfect laptop...
Click to expand...
This post from 2019 aged like a fine vintage....

1634665836399.png


It is the final nail in the coffin of the worst laptop series Apple ever made...MBP2016

The notch, though, is really hideous....
 
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It seems there are many people on this forum who see topics like this in absolute terms, from their perspective only. Like most things in life, there are multiple preferences and viewpoints and Apple, like all manufacturers, has to both innovate and make compromises. From my perspective:

Removal of MagSafe - I thought it was a good idea, but I've never tripped over a charger cable so not a big deal.
Removal of HDMI - couldn't care less. The only time I can remember "needing" HDMI was when hooking up my MBP to a hotel TV to watch a movie. Now, if I go away for more than a day or two, I bring an Apple TV with me and hook that up to the room's TV.
Removal of the SD Card - couldn't care less. I use a USB-mini to USB-C with my Leica to download photo files. Works fine.....for me.
Touch Bar - it held promise but wasn't of much use to me. I used to just set it to mirror the function keys and basically ignored it, but certainly never thought of it as a "disaster."
Keyboard redesign - I've heard the horror stories of keyboard failures so I guess that was a real problem. Never affected me, though.
 
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It is reversal of Jony’s direction, but I don’t see it as a turnaround. They are rolling back the design to one that is tried and true, and starting a new branch there. It does hopefully represent a realignment of Pro values in a way. I think Jony had a vision for personal computing and he wanted that vision to pull people along with him towards the future, as the iPhone pulled everyone out of the smartphone dark ages of the time.

The problem is that the notebook paradigm is too established, enduring, and useful. Its like trucks. Lots of people buy trucks because of the perceived utility. They might think they need something for big trips to the home store, when they only go twice a year. It ends up being as much about fashion as utility and they might be as well served by a compact car. But telling people they don’t need a truck isn’t going to change their mind, and then refusing to sell them a truck isn’t going to change their mind either. And now the people that do actually use their trucks can’t buy them any more either and they get nervous and start looking for someone who will sell them a truck.

Ultimately I don’t think Jony’s quest to end the tyranny of the wire is wrong, but it was too early for the technology and too early for the economic realities. He couldn’t create the market for his particular vision of computing, and Apple couldn’t figure out how to make it useful to the existing market, so they brought back the truck.
 
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ggibson913 said:
So I watched as we all did the presentation of Apple’s new pro laptops and other than the notch (not a good idea but not a deal breaker), I was excited to see all of the changes. But, it occurs to me in making the new Pro, Apple has admitted that just about every design decision they have made since 2015(ish) has been wrong.

Removal of MagSage - Bad
Removal of HDMI - Bad
Removal of SD CARD Slot - Bad
Touch Bar - Bad
Keyboard Redesign ( last year, I know) - Bad

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that. I am also putting that out there because as the owner of an Intel Macbook Pro, I am a little hesitant to swap it out.
Click to expand...
Given that Apple sold a metric ton of Macs, even with all the issues, that "admission of failure" is hyperbole at best.
 
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I love the new keyboards, and I am glad the Touch Bar is gone, but I have no use for an SD Card slot, an HDMI port, or MagSafe. I'd rather have a sightly thinner and sleeker machine with 4 - 6 Thunderbolt ports and FaceID.

You can't please everyone - and what may be considered failures to some, were good features to others. But, since these are the 'pro' machines, I can see why they added these things back in, so I am not mad about it.

If the next generation MacBook Air's don't get larger displays, and will come in happy-fun colors with white bezels, then there will be no in-between Mac portable category, just two extremes (if they kill the current M1 Pro and Air offerings).
 
ggibson913 said:
So I watched as we all did the presentation of Apple’s new pro laptops and other than the notch (not a good idea but not a deal breaker), I was excited to see all of the changes. But, it occurs to me in making the new Pro, Apple has admitted that just about every design decision they have made since 2015(ish) has been wrong.

Removal of MagSage - Bad
Removal of HDMI - Bad
Removal of SD CARD Slot - Bad
Touch Bar - Bad
Keyboard Redesign ( last year, I know) - Bad

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that. I am also putting that out there because as the owner of an Intel Macbook Pro, I am a little hesitant to swap it out.
Click to expand...
Overall I think Apple is responding to it's users and their needs. The 2016 MBP was clearly more about design than practicability, worse reliability. Apple looks to have made a decisive decision to once again balance features, function, performance and usability starting with the current Mac Pro and Apple said as much.

Admittedly I'm not in the market for a 2021 MBP, equally owning the M1 13" MBP I think Apple will deliver on performance and the rest we'll see in time. Has to be said as long as your workflow runs under Apple Silicon the 2021 MPB is a very impressive line of notebooks to say the very least...

Q-6
 
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The only innovation was the chip. I don't consider the notch an innovation. It's annoying.
 
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ggibson913 said:
So I watched as we all did the presentation of Apple’s new pro laptops and other than the notch (not a good idea but not a deal breaker), I was excited to see all of the changes. But, it occurs to me in making the new Pro, Apple has admitted that just about every design decision they have made since 2015(ish) has been wrong.

Removal of MagSage - Bad
Removal of HDMI - Bad
Removal of SD CARD Slot - Bad
Touch Bar - Bad
Keyboard Redesign ( last year, I know) - Bad

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that. I am also putting that out there because as the owner of an Intel Macbook Pro, I am a little hesitant to swap it out.
Click to expand...
Maybe not. You think that Apple, a currently 2.08 Trillion dollar company(bigger than all but 7 countries in the world), is incapable of having a long range plan that included having all that stuff so that when they brought out their own silicon and restored the concept of a real Pro laptop, that it wouldn’t blow away the competition who thought that they were just a fluff company???

Apple convinced all its competition over the past 6 years or so, that it was only about sexy, thinness, and lightness. And that it was incapable of making anything that might challenge any of the big boys. Yeah, they were a challenge in the Phone market, but clearly Apple had essentially given up on their PC market, and that Intel was simply controlling them by what they would sell them.

Making your enemy underestimate you is the easiest way to win a battle.
 
While I appreciate why people feel this way, it makes me nervous as the 2016 MacBook Pro was my first Apple computer and I've loved it. The Touch Bar I won't miss too much (except it did have its uses) but I really liked how neat the ports were. Personally I won't ever use an SD slot and I was good using the UBC-C to charge and output to external displays.

I've ordered my upgrade and I'm sure I'll appreciate the power, but I did always like the design.
 
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Almost everything Apple did with this thing is great. I'm just mad that the design is not great.
 
ggibson913 said:
So I watched as we all did the presentation of Apple’s new pro laptops and other than the notch (not a good idea but not a deal breaker), I was excited to see all of the changes. But, it occurs to me in making the new Pro, Apple has admitted that just about every design decision they have made since 2015(ish) has been wrong.

Removal of MagSage - Bad
Removal of HDMI - Bad
Removal of SD CARD Slot - Bad
Touch Bar - Bad
Keyboard Redesign ( last year, I know) - Bad

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that. I am also putting that out there because as the owner of an Intel Macbook Pro, I am a little hesitant to swap it out.
Click to expand...

I don't like making generalizations or agreeing with negativity, but you are right in MANY ways. Usually Apple used to IMPROVE features. If they eliminated or changed something, it wasn't AS much as they did with the MacBook Pro.

The port thing is pretty infuriating. I spent resources, time, work arounds, and bought products specifically for thunderbolt.

And now, it's like "yeah nevermind we've got HDMI"

Why the crud would I buy two 4K 24" monitors from the apple store if I could get an HDMI monitor I can use with more products?

I got caught DEEP into the ecosystem system now because of thunderbolt alone, and theres no way I can climb out with spending a ton of money and WASTING electronics i paid A LOT of money for!!!

YW APPLE!
 
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I have been using computers since I was in high school using a Commodore 64 at home and going over to friends who had an Atari 400 and the other had an Amiga 500. I eventually branched over to the PC with the Intel 80286 computer and now I am using an MBP 13" M1 computer. I'm at the point in my life where I don't really care all that much for speed though it's nice to have, but rather can the computer handle the current applications. I am really digging the M1 as the applications respond very nicely other than my external hard drives bogging it down when they first do the spin up dance. 🤣 If I was working for a company, I would get a beefier m1 MacBook, but I work for myself and can go on a Pop (Soda) break if I'm doing some video rendering though I really don't do too much video. I am not much of a gamer as I used to be and I am really more into game play that graphics (though they are amazing with today's computers). This is my first MacBook as the other Apple computers have been desktops and decided to get the MBP for the portability.
 
hotdogcowboy said:
It is reversal of Jony’s direction, but I don’t see it as a turnaround. They are rolling back the design to one that is tried and true, and starting a new branch there. It does hopefully represent a realignment of Pro values in a way. I think Jony had a vision for personal computing and he wanted that vision to pull people along with him towards the future, as the iPhone pulled everyone out of the smartphone dark ages of the time.

The problem is that the notebook paradigm is too established, enduring, and useful. Its like trucks. Lots of people buy trucks because of the perceived utility. They might think they need something for big trips to the home store, when they only go twice a year. It ends up being as much about fashion as utility and they might be as well served by a compact car. But telling people they don’t need a truck isn’t going to change their mind, and then refusing to sell them a truck isn’t going to change their mind either. And now the people that do actually use their trucks can’t buy them any more either and they get nervous and start looking for someone who will sell them a truck.

Ultimately I don’t think Jony’s quest to end the tyranny of the wire is wrong, but it was too early for the technology and too early for the economic realities. He couldn’t create the market for his particular vision of computing, and Apple couldn’t figure out how to make it useful to the existing market, so they brought back the truck.
Click to expand...
One person didn’t make all these decisions. Phil Schiller got up on stage and announced these Macs. When the 12” MacBook came out Schiller was on stage bragging about the butterfly keyboard. Craig Federighi demoed the Touch Bar. This was a decision the Company made. They’re doing a 180 because customers, especially pro customers said ’naw, dog’. My guess is they knew the roadmap for their on silicon and decided to make these changes when they were ready to announce laptops using their own chips.
 
turbineseaplane said:
Way too generous in my view -- what you're describing is what they should have done half a decade ago (or more) when planning the successor to the 2015's and that long run of machines.

Instead they just pushed ahead with undesired extreme minimalism and the line suffered for 5 years as a result.
Click to expand...
I'm gonna blow your mind :) They *did* listen to their customers back then! Complaints at the time were that for several generations, the Macbook Pro looked basically the same, with small tweaks, mostly to the internals. The customers said they were bored, wanted something new. And you have to admit, what they came up with was new! They made it almost as thin and light as the Macbook Air, gave it a giant touchpad with 3D touch, and replaced the top row of function keys with a touchscreen that could change virtual keys or functionality based on an app's needs.
 
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