Do You Think The Mac Pro Buyer's Guide Upgrade Clock Should Have Been Reset?

[jbg232]

I really don't want to stir any feathers as I love this site and have visited it every day for 5 years but I sincerely disagree with MacRumors' decision to reset the upgrade cycle for the mac pro buyer's guide after the miniscule upgrade that was made on 6/11. Apple rescinded the upgrade and I think with that move by them, MacRumors should follow in turn and update buyer's guide to NOT reset the clock for the mac pro upgrade cycle. To be fair, the defense of this action by a moderator is below:

So as many have noticed, we've made a compromise on the Buyer's Guide page. We still do consider it to be an update for the purposes of predicting when the next update might occur. (And with Tim Cook having said that an update is coming "later next year" that 427-day average update interval might put us right in the range!)

But we have changed the recommendation to "Don't Buy" because the line remains outdated even with the update.

Basically, if you absolutely have to have a Mac Pro for whatever reason, either buy now or be prepared to wait a year.

What do you think - should MacRumors keep the clock reset, or continue the clock from the last true upgrade, 685 + X days ago. Please mods, I'm not trying to cause problems, just want to express my voice democratically.

 

[arn]

I really don't want to stir any feathers as I love this site and have visited it every day for 5 years but I sincerely disagree with MacRumors' decision to reset the upgrade cycle for the mac pro buyer's guide after the miniscule upgrade that was made on 6/11.

It looks like we just won't come to an agreement on this.

I guess our final reasoning is based on how you answer this question:

Is Apple more likely or less likely to update the Mac Pro next week after they did the minor-inconsequential-non-upgrade-upgrade on Monday?

My answer is a) far less likely. And the resetting of the graph reflects that expectation for people who casually come to that page. Meanwhile the Do Not Buy recommendation reflects the poor quality of the update.

If, for whatever reason, we thought that Apple was increasingly likely to update the Mac Pro in the coming weeks, then not-resetting the counter/graph would certainly make more sense.

But if we continued the out-of-proportion counter for the next 6 months, it would cause people to expect the Mac Pro to be updated at "any moment" based on the increasingly disproportionate length of the graph (as compared to the average release cycle). That would be more misleading, imo.

arn

 

[Flood123]

But if we continued the out-of-proportion counter for the next 6 months, it would cause people to expect the Mac Pro to be updated at "any moment" based on the increasingly disproportionate length of the graph (as compared to the average release cycle). That would be more misleading, imo.

Not if you clearly state under the recommendation heading that the new Mac Pro will be released sometime during or after 2013.

 

[jbg232]

While I understand the rationale behind the decision to reset the counter, it has some very unfortunate consequences as I will demonstrate below.

[The following argument assumes that the new mac pro will be released in about 1 year which is probably the best guess anyone can give at this point - and one that is very reasonable. However, the specific timetables do not matter so much as you will see from the illustration below]

It is true that in the near future (read: up until the next mac pro release ~1 year) a casual or experienced reader going to the buyer's guide will be correctly guided to not buy or expect new mac pros for awhile as compared to keeping the clock going from 685 days + some. However, the chief downside to this reset is what will happen to mac pro buyers in the future.

One of the great benefits of the buyer's guide is that it gives a history in days of each apple product "upgrade." The problem will become apparent in the year following the mac pro upgrade of 2013 (let's say mid 2014 for sake of argument which I think is reasonable). A consumer looking to buy a mac pro in mid 2014 will go to the site and see that the average length of time between releases (based on both the mac pro average length of time between releases and the last segment that was measured - which will be about 1 year as this is the amount of time from the 2012 refresh to the time of the 2013 overhaul) is 1-2 years (about 365-500 days) and INCORRECTLY assume that this timeframe is accurate for new mac pro release schedules. However, the reality is that a one year old mac pro is actually a pretty new machine as the last few release cycles have gotten longer and longer and are now approaching 2-3 years/update. Whereas the buying advice based on resetting the clock on 6/11 would be in the realm of "neutral to don't buy" toward buying the computer as it is mid-release to end of cycle, the accurate assessment would still be in the realm of "buy now" given the mac pro's recent history the last 2 upgrade cycles. The longer apple waits in 2013 the more true this will be. The big problem that the site is setting itself up for is that future buyers cannot reliably trust the historical graph of "days until next release" to make accurate buying decisions because the data is misleading.

While I respect the decision of the moderators to protect against current mac pro buyers from making an upgrade I believe that the long term harms of this decision outweigh the short term benefits. Just my 2 cents.

 

[grapes911]

I'm impressed that members are so enthusiastic about the Buyer's Guide, yet surprised they put so much stock into a such a simple tool. I think people are reading too much into it. It's a simple tool that serves a simple purpose, which it does well if you understand it's limitations. I do appreciate the passion though and that can't be understated.

 

[BigPrince]

Critical thinking skills need to be applied for a solution. I think it is clear that the past mode of operation for the Buyer's Guide is no longer a reliable metric for today's Apple Products.

The definition of an "update" used to be much more substantial and therefore accurately reflected the "common way" the buyer's guide was interpreted; basically an update was a reliable metric for indicating that something "became a good buy because it was recently updated with new hardware" again while at the same time indicating the product "became a good buy because Apple gave it some attention and is likely not to return its attention back to this product for roughly X period of time."

Now however an "update" does not hold that same definition, destroying the correlation and the way the guide functions has changed as a result, making it less useful then in years past.

 

[Gasu E.]

I'm impressed that members are so enthusiastic about the Buyer's Guide, yet surprised they put so much stock into a such a simple tool. I think people are reading too much into it. It's a simple tool that serves a simple purpose, which it does well if you understand it's limitations. I do appreciate the passion though and that can't be understated.

This reminds me of the episode where Captain Kirk had to prevent the evil alien mind from resetting the clock on the Universe.

 

[FloatingBones]

I'm impressed that members are so enthusiastic about the Buyer's Guide, yet surprised they put so much stock into a such a simple tool. I think people are reading too much into it. It's a simple tool that serves a simple purpose, which it does well if you understand it's limitations. I do appreciate the passion though and that can't be understated.

Last November's refresh of the iPod Touch contained no detectable improvements in the product, but the upgrade clock was reset on that product. I don't recall any brouhaha when that was done -- and I understand people are a bit more passionate about the Mac Pro refresh.

The issue seems to be that naive users of the Buyer's Guide may attribute excessive significance to the resetting of the clock on a product. I agree with @grapes911: I don't think this is really a big issue. One way to mitigate any concerns: have the Buyer's Guide contain an explicit link to the MR article that spells out the differences with the product refresh and the one it updates. The article I referenced above would be the appropriate one for the iPod Touch's entry in the buyer's guide.

 

[G5isAlive]

This reminds me of the episode where Captain Kirk had to prevent the evil alien mind from resetting the clock on the Universe.

Wow, I don't consider myself a 'trekkie' but thought I was well versed on the original episodes... I don't have any clue what episode you are referring to though.

as for the OP... I suspect this will be one of those gray regions that will never be resolved... call it what you want, the Apple 'upgrade' of the MP's is WAY over due and ... well.. whatever happened this week really was just stupidity, so try classifying stupidity!

In the end, I think MacRumors took the best approach, even if flawed...not sure I buy the argument it will confuse the casual buyer, because, umm... who casually buys a Mac Pro?

 

[Peace]

Who cares.

Maybe the admins know something about having to reset the timer that some others don't .

I can see them now all hunkered down in some weird place underground with some kind of giant LED timer counting down. And when it reaches so many days a loud alarm goes off and they have to reset stuff by entering specific numbers into an old Comodore Vic-20.

 

[miles01110]

It was just updated. Shrug. When a Mac gets updated, the counter gets reset. Not sure why there's a reasonable case against resetting the counter.

 

[Gasu E.]

Wow, I don't consider myself a 'trekkie' but thought I was well versed on the original episodes... I don't have any clue what episode you are referring to though.

There is no such episode. I was just lampooning the nerdish tendency to obsess over the trivial.

 

[Flood123]

Who cares.

Maybe the admins know something about having to reset the timer that some others don't .

I can see them now all hunkered down in some weird place underground with some kind of giant LED timer counting down. And when it reaches so many days a loud alarm goes off and they have to reset stuff by entering specific numbers into an old Comodore Vic-20.

If they don't press the button a large electromagnetic pulse will be released causing large aircraft to be downed. Tell Desmond and the crew I said what's up fellas'

 

[winston1236]

personally no, I don't think a severely outdated machine with a few minor changes warrants the same description as the new macbook pro's which received true upgrades. perhaps a new description is needed, "just a minor update"

 

[G5isAlive]

There is no such episode. I was just lampooning the nerdish tendency to obsess over the trivial.

phew. i was worried i had to return my star trek decoder ring.

 

[wordoflife]

I think it's fine the way it is.