The mac studio design is utilitarian but not ugly. I don't mind the design in that respect. The odd part about the mac studio design is that it forced a more complicated cooling solution with a dog-leg ducting to take the rising heat from the blower out the back side of the case rather than just passing it directly through the top. Not likely a big deal but it is interesting that they committed to a beefier mac mini form when the form required a more complicated internal solution.
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Five Years Ago Today, Apple's Uncharacteristic Apology Set the Stage for the Mac's Renaissance
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Playing devil's advocate, would you be happier if it had some racing stripes, or flames, or maybe some RGB LEDs? It's already the shape most likely to "fit in" (given that most workspaces / desks / rooms start off rectangular). And round is right out - if they had made it round, it would have suffered endless trashcan tie-in jokes. What would you do to make it "inspired" in a way that wouldn't significantly impact its utility?
Many of the other things they could have done to make it unique looking would probably have taken heat, as well. This almost (not quite) feels like a tacit admission that they screwed up with the trashcan Mac - "look, point taken, we're making up for it by giving you a simple no-nonsense box that will fade into the background and just do its job really well."
Created an account just to say great article! It really made me think about where we were at that time and everything that happened since.
Five years ago, the Mac lineup was in a bad state. Over three years had passed since Apple redesigned the Mac Pro with a sleek but constrained "trash can" enclosure, while the iMac, MacBook Air, and Mac mini had also gone years without updates.
A snapshot of the MacRumors Buyer's Guide from April 4, 2017:
At the time, some users began to question whether Apple was still committed to the Mac, especially at the high end of the market.
The criticism ultimately led Apple to hold a meeting with a small group of reporters, where it apologized to pro Mac users and ensured that it remained committed to the Mac. In a rare and surprising move, Apple also pre-announced it was working on a "completely rethought" Mac Pro with a modular design, a new pro-level iMac, and a new pro display.
The meeting, which was disclosed to the public five years ago today, involved Apple's former marketing chief Phil Schiller, software engineering chief Craig Federighi, and then-VP, now-SVP of hardware engineering John Ternus. One of the reporters in the room was John Gruber, and the quotes that follow are from his Daring Fireball coverage.
Schiller's apology to Mac Pro users:Federighi's admission that Apple had designed itself into a "thermal corner":Schiller ensuring that Apple remains committed to the Mac:To say that Apple delivered on its promise is an understatement. Not only did Apple release the modular Mac Pro and the since-discontinued iMac Pro, but it also finally ditched the problematic butterfly keyboard on MacBooks, announced its game-changing transition to Apple silicon, brought back a wide array of ports on the latest MacBook Pro models, gave customers an entirely new option in the Mac Studio, and more.
Apple's roundtable discussion with reporters will forever be a turning point in the Mac's history.
Article Link: Five Years Ago Today, Apple's Uncharacteristic Apology Set the Stage for the Mac's Renaissance
I didn't buy the 2010 Mac Pro new - I bought it about 4 years ago. In terms of Mac computers, it was a very different, more depressing product lineup a few years ago.
Apple Silicon is great. Even the M1 can outperform my 12 Core XEON machine (in certain tasks - definitely not in GPU performance). But that doesn't mean that my machine performs day-to-day tasks poorly or slowly. It works for what I use it for. And it gives me the options I want that may not pertain to just performance! I can plug in many monitors, many USB peripherals, adapt with PCIe, use internal 3.5" Drives/Blu Ray. Dual boot Windows and MacOS - or even triple boot with Linux, Windows and macOS. Heck, it was a great option for using VM's as well because you could add so much RAM! With the Mac Studio you get the performance, but you do not get the flexibility. Sometimes flexibility is worth using older hardware without all the bells and whistles.
For me to retire my Mac Pro and get a Mac that meets all my needs and requirements that my cMP does now - I need to purchase or build a NAS, buy external enclosures for my Blu Ray player, and purchase multiple USB dongles and adapters.
From the Daring Fireball piece:
"Apple bet on a dual-GPU design (multiple smaller GPUs, with “pro”-level performance coming from parallel processing) but the industry has gone largely in the other direction (machines with one big GPU)."
Wonder if this excursion taught them anything that enabled M1 Ultra, and very likely future multiple SOCs?
"Apple bet on a dual-GPU design (multiple smaller GPUs, with “pro”-level performance coming from parallel processing) but the industry has gone largely in the other direction (machines with one big GPU)."
Wonder if this excursion taught them anything that enabled M1 Ultra, and very likely future multiple SOCs?
Cough Cough - there are many of us on these forums using the 2009-2012 Mac Pro's.
I think there is an inflection point on user replaceability where longevity is enhanced.
On laptops, user replaceability of components will always be limited lest we want to go back to not particularly portable physical forms. Basically no one makes this product for the consumer market in 2022.
For desktops, there is a gradient that dependent on form factor. The tower is the one place where lifespan extending user replaceability is expected.
Top exhaust would also allow stuff to fall into the chassis, not good...?
I agree on the Air - if it's 2.25 lbs or less I think it will be great (note the 12.9" ipad pro is 1.5lbs and the 12" Macbook is 2lbs). The current MBA seems to have put on some pandemic weight.
The mini is wonderful, but design-wise its also chubby. When you think about how small the M1 is (ie. ipad pro) and multiport dongles are, the box is easily 2-3x the volume it should be.
My guess is with explicit instructions to allow room for thermals and other aspects of the design required to meet the engineers needs. On a short leash.
Yep, I'm guessing that as an outside consultant, he's no longer in a position to dictate all the parameters of the machines.
And yet Mac has and continues to outpace iPad in revenue since it’s inception. If you think that Mac is not important to the Apple ecosystem, you haven’t been paying attention.
The point was that most people don’t want Macs and of those that want Macs, most don’t want a desktop of any kind. So, while the Studio has buzz among a lot of folks (many who say they’ll never buy it), it falls flat with 80% or more of the customers that will buy a Mac from Apple this year.
The Mac is important to Apple primarily as a way for developers to create apps for iOS. And, secondarily, as a platform for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. Beyond that, Apple’s more than happy to sell Macs to folks that aren’t developers, a dollar is a dollar.
And, revenue isn’t “unit sales”. 20 million Macs a year is nice, 20 million iPads a quarter is nicer!
For me personally, the simplistic and clean design is part of the reason I like Apple Products. As a PC gamer, I loathe the fact that everything built for "gamers" has to look like a stealth fighter with RGBs. It looks horrible.
It's also how I feel about vehicles - for example, a Camry TRD versus Camry XLE V6. I'd much rather have the elegant sleeper XLE V6, versus trying to make my family sedan look like a Fast and Furious movie just because it has a bigger engine in it.
Agree. My solution for my setup is either 14"/16" MBP and PC for all the advantages you have described.
I have chosen M1 Macbook as my laptop cause efficiency is king for me in laptops.
False.
Apple reports blowout earnings, record revenue
Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre breaks down the latest Apple earnings report.
Apple's Mac Is Selling Strong, iPad Not so Much
The tech giant sold 61 million iPhones, or 40 percent more than in the same period a year ago. But executives also shed some light on other well-known Apple products in interviews and a conference call with analysts Monday evening.
Mac sales climb 10%, revenue again thumps iPad
Apple on Monday said it sold 4.56 million Macs in the first three months of 2015, an increase of 10% over the same period last year
www.computerworld.com
Apple's Q2 crushes estimates as iPhone, Mac, iPad sales surge; Apple now has 660 million subscriptions
Apple saw strong growth across its product line. International sales were 67% of total revenue in the fiscal second quarter.
www.zdnet.com
Apple's Mac Selling Strong, iPad Not So Much
Tech giant sells 61 million iPhones, or 40 percent more than first three months of last year
www.voanews.com
Apple sales revenue share by product 2012-2025| Statista
Apple’s iPhone sales accounted for around ** percent of the company’s overall revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, the largest share of all Apple products.
www.statista.com
No GOOD on Professionals whom paid their hard earned dollars and hard earned sweat, pain and tears for suffering on using what otherwise looked cute but ran like junk in a workstation.
GOOD on them for shouting loud enough to GET Apple to not only respond but also apologize and DO something better!!!
4U is correct because his post was about unit sales as a proxy for customer penetration.
You're arguing revenues, which is distorted by the much higher revenue per unit that macs sell for. iPads seem to outsell Macs three to one. I can't easily find device sales of Mac pros, I would suspect that iPads would outsell them more than ten to one. It's not that Mac is not important. It's just that most people engaged with apple are, as 4U says, not buying mac things.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
I don't know about renaissance. They're at the exact inversion of where they were before, when people wanted Apple for the software and put up with mediocre hardware performance.
There are just so many bugs. And the UI has gone from great to pretty bad, IMO. So many crappy first party apps that should be an embarrassment to them.
It's difficult to understand how a company as large as Apple ships some of the built-in apps they do when some 1-person indie developers ship higher quality apps.
My latest pet peeve is things not working and just having no error message whatsoever.
If Apple notes can't sync because Apple's server is down, Apple Notes (the app) just crashes as it tries to sync. No error message.
And I'll keep repeating it. This has never been fixed:
forums.macrumors.com
Apple used to the iLife platform, the iSync platform, where devices from so many manufacturers worked beautifully with the Mac.
And now look at the lengths people go to, including me, to get an Apple iPhone to connect correctly to an Apple Mac.
I remember the first Intel Mac ad. It said something about imagine what an Intel chip could do in a Mac.
Well, they've now got even better hardware (although the notch . . . lack of USB A in the laptops), but the software quality just isn't good. Imagine what Apple Silicon could do if they cared about software quality as much as their chips.
There are just so many bugs. And the UI has gone from great to pretty bad, IMO. So many crappy first party apps that should be an embarrassment to them.
It's difficult to understand how a company as large as Apple ships some of the built-in apps they do when some 1-person indie developers ship higher quality apps.
My latest pet peeve is things not working and just having no error message whatsoever.
If Apple notes can't sync because Apple's server is down, Apple Notes (the app) just crashes as it tries to sync. No error message.
And I'll keep repeating it. This has never been fixed:
Image Capture not seeing photos on iPhone
Plugging in phone via cable. Image Capture launches and can see the device, but no images or videos show up in the list. It was working when I was running the Public Beta, but now running the general release of 10.14.0 it's no longer working properly (this is the first time I've connected the...
forums.macrumors.com
Apple used to the iLife platform, the iSync platform, where devices from so many manufacturers worked beautifully with the Mac.
And now look at the lengths people go to, including me, to get an Apple iPhone to connect correctly to an Apple Mac.
I remember the first Intel Mac ad. It said something about imagine what an Intel chip could do in a Mac.
Well, they've now got even better hardware (although the notch . . . lack of USB A in the laptops), but the software quality just isn't good. Imagine what Apple Silicon could do if they cared about software quality as much as their chips.
Ironically, 5 years later I now own m1 macbook, an ipad, an r7 hackintosh, and a samsung galaxy fold 3. Sorry apple, your phones are so far behind samsung, I won't convert any time soon, even when app developers tell me to.
I just wonder, when do we get apology from Apple, about vendor locked RAM and storage?
And forgetting the most ecological and economical way to use GPU power: eGPU. Turned on only when needed. Like the expansion of iGPU/dGPU.
Jeesh, just noticed that they have ruined Time Machine support in Apple Mail.
What next...?
Can somebody stop this Renaissance, please...?
And forgetting the most ecological and economical way to use GPU power: eGPU. Turned on only when needed. Like the expansion of iGPU/dGPU.
Jeesh, just noticed that they have ruined Time Machine support in Apple Mail.
What next...?
Can somebody stop this Renaissance, please...?
There really was a dark period during the butterfly keyboard era, when I kept using an older MacBook Air simply because Apple did not make a laptop with a good keyboard. Now it's one hit after another. The M-series chip has been everything they promised. What I hope for now is some more followthrough on the OS side.
Why would an App developer tell someone to convert? If you’ve already got their app it seems they’d accept that as a ‘win’.