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Gruber: Apple TV is Sold at Cost, HomePod at Slight Loss
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Apple never said the cylinder was a complete failure—those are your words. As usual, black or white. In your mind, it can’t possibly be true that the cylinder is fine (and even loved!) by some users, while failing to meet the requirements of others such as yourself.
The primary issue, which they freely admit if you read the April 2017 interview, was designing the cylinder for three heat-producing devices, 1CPU / 2 GPU. The physical design locked that in, and they weren’t able to change from a 1 CPU/2 (smaller, less powerful) GPU config to a 1 CPU/1 (larger, more powerful) GPU config that turned out to be what the GPU-heavy customers could best use. Another mistake was not realizing they needed to make a change for too long. One might guess sales were about what was expected; if it hadn’t been selling, they would have known they had a problem in 2014 and not 2016/2017.
Again, many (most?) Pro users don’t swap internal drives, upgrade video cards or even upgrade RAM. Some do, like you apparently, but in my experience it is very common—especially in the business/enterprise segment—to buy the preferred config from Apple, use it for as many years as it meets their needs, and then replace it.
Most corporate IT departments don’t run around upgrading parts, but you may not know that if you don’t have experience in the enterprise segment.
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What happens when future-proof becomes legacy?
Careful. This might blow people's minds!
The idea is that this takes a long, long time.What happens when future-proof becomes legacy?
The USB Type C connector, be it for USB or Thunderbolt or Power, becoming legacy probably won't happen until wireless connectivity is ubiquitous for almost all applications, including "pro" use cases.
The cylinder was NEVER loved.
IT seems that you are the only person that is trying to defend the indefensible. Even you are saying that the physical design was bad. Obviously, there is no more blind that the person that does not want to see.
I wonder why most PRO, were dearly holding to their towers and NOT upgrading. Even up to today, people rather buy old upgraded towers or hackintoshes rather than buy the old trashcan.
Your experience is not the experience of most other users. All the PRO users I know, they all upgrade something, either RAM, internal HD, etc. Furthermore, one of the reasons is because Apple charge obscene expensive prices for both RAM and internal HD, which is still happening today.
1) Yes, the cylinder is loved, just not by you. It meets some users needs but not others. Just saying, “I’m right, everyone hates the 2013 Mac Pro” is simply your black and white, closed-minded opinion.
2) The design is fine for 1 CPU/ 2GPUs. But the physical design is not amenable to switching from 1 CPU/2 GPUs to 1 CPU/1 power-hungry GPU. This lack of flexibility is why Apple couldn’t pivot to meet more users’ requirements without changing form factors.
3) The anecdotal, limited experience of you and your friends is not representative of all users, and especially not business/enterprise users. They willingly pay Apple’s prices for the machine BTO with the RAM and SSD capacity they need.
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Being a consultant, i would say 95% of my clients never switched to trashcan. Furthermore, Pro users are looking for old upgraded towers rather than upgrade to the trashcan.
Again, you narrow experience does not represent what most of the people actually want and need.
And if most of the Pro users are not willing to upgrade that should tell you how badly designed the computer was.
You can say whatever you want, but actual users/clients use facts speak for themselves.
If only Apple will release the number of units sold, it will show how ridiculous your comments are. But they are not...
Comparing a "tablet laptop" with what is ostensibly supposed to be a professional grade notebook seems to me to be grossly out of bounds. It would be more appropriate to compare a "tablet laptop" with, perhaps, a MacBook Air. A MacBook Pro needs to be properly compared to other professional grade notebooks (i.e. top-tier ThinkPads or Dells).
It seems relevant with that we are comparing - the usefulness afforded by USB-C. Plus I only have my HP elite to go with.
Yet despite his "argument" about unethical activity in the app store, he will continue to use said app store and give Apple more money, thus providing them with no discouragement for said activity. Nice of him to point it out, but ultimately meaningless.
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You were responding to someone who doesn't want to carry a briefcase full of adapters and dongles around to use his professional grade notebook computer, not the "usefulness" of USB-C.
Perhaps the HP Elite qualifies as professional grade, but the greater issue for me personally is that in the PC world, I can choose a pro machine that meets my preferences and requirements. That isn't possible with Apple because the *only* "pro" option on offer is one where the chosen design compromises/trade-offs are no longer in line with what I want. So, yeah, maybe *some* other PC manufacturers have aped Apple in this regard, but not *all* of them have.
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Your personal experience is not relevant, since it’s not representative of the population of all 2013 Mac Pro owners. Yet for some reason you think it is.
You’re no different than the person who claims Apple Watch is a total failure because “they’ve never seen one in the wild.” Or that AirPods are a complete bust because “none of their friends have them—besides, they look like Q-tips sticking out of your ears... no wonder no one’s buying them.”
You do know there’s a whole, big world out there—beyond your friends and clients. It’s hard for me to believe you can’t understand you don’t speak for everyone... that not everyone thinks the same as you. But here we are! Oh well.
At least you don’t think Apple engineers are too busy drawing emoji to work on a new Mac Pro—which I think we can both agree, is long overdue
except there are thousands like him, considering Apple apologized for the mac pro and telegraphed in advance roughly when a new modular one is coming, those are basically unprecedented for the company, it hints to that being the overall feeling of the pro community.
I personally switched several pros that came to me to Hackintoshes (normally something I don't like to do because of the legalities)
prior to that, I was pushing a lot of mac pro 4,1's I was refurbishing, a few clients have moved to MacBooks with eGPUs but many are just jumping to PCs.
more anecdotal evidence, but that's all either side has to go off of, that and what Apple has said.
Absolutely, I don’t have any problem with the idea that the 2013 doesn’t work for a significant chunk of the pro market. Or that Apple freely admitted they screwed up with the decision to go with a dual GPU architecture, which boxed them into a corner when they (finally!) realized they needed “one big powerful GPU” instead of two less-powerful GPUs. That corner being, there’s no way the physical design of that cylinder could accommodate a 250W GPU in the balanced triangle thermal design. So, without a doubt—the 2013 nMP is simply not a viable solution for those who need a single, powerful GPU.
My issue with OP is he insists that no one likes the 2013, which is absolutely false. Just like there are thousands/tens of thousands/more whose requirements aren’t met by the cylinder, there’s also a significant chunk of users who don’t require high GPU performance. There are workloads that are CPU heavy but light on GPU. Those users find the 2013 to be an excellent solution. They value its size, it’s quietness, its transportability and some just like its appearance(!)
I don’t know what the percentages are; is it a lousy solution for 30% of Pros? 70%? We’ll never know because Apple won’t say. But sales were decent enough for the first couple years to the point that they didn’t even know they had much of an issue until 2015/2016. If you read the April 2017 interview between Apple and the tech journalists, it’s clear it took quite some time—iirc it was phrased something like, “some took longer to come around than others”—before everyone came on board with the fact they had to go back to the drawing board. (I’m sure the original plan was to simply refresh the CPU/GPUs and call it good for another year or two.)
Anyway, as I’ve said, there are those who really do love the 2013, and those that hate it with a passion that’s unbounded. It’s not the black and white, all or nothing situation that OP is convinced of. The cylinder actually has a good resale value; it’s hard to find one under $1,500. For some users, it’s exactly what they want.
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Huh. Weird that all these other companies seem to be selling new wifi mesh systems. I guess they didn't get that memo about the demand not being there anymore
And my point is that I am not walking around with a briefcase full of adaptors. I have just one, and chances are, most users will be able to make do with a single adaptor / hub which contains that unique selection of ports that they need.
This whole “buried in cables” meme is seriously overblown, IMO.
Huh. Weird that all these other companies seem to be selling new wifi mesh systems. I guess they didn't get that memo about the demand not being there anymore
Oh, I believe the demand certainly is there.
Thing is - what constitutes as high demand for these companies likely isn’t good enough for Apple. A small company like Eero might be happy making a couple of million dollars selling them. This would barely move the needle for Apple.
It has nothing to do with mesh. When Apple releases AirPort 20 years ago, the ISP didn’t supply a WiFi access point, they supplied a modem, not even a router. Apple wanted to offer a capability that their users would find valuable.Huh. Weird that all these other companies seem to be selling new wifi mesh systems. I guess they didn't get that memo about the demand not being there anymore
So now it’s 2019. Is there an ISP that doesn’t offer built-in WiFi with their modem? How many people actually go out and replace that with a third party solution? And the 90% or whatever that have Windows PCs likely don’t buy Apple network hardware.
To think there’s a viable business there but Apple isn't interested in the revenue/profit opportunity seems less likely than the alternative explanation that they think their resources are better spent on products that more people want and value. If there weren’t other easy to use alternatives, as was the case twenty years ago, AirPort would likely still be a thing. Just my take, I could very well be wrong.
But really I don’t think it’s all that different from other products that Apple has discontinued, such as the 17” MacBook Pro or iPhone SE. Sure, there are some people that love it, but not enough to make it worthwhile for Apple to continue with (apparently)
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all of those products they would be better off bringing back.But really I don’t think it’s all that different from other products that Apple has discontinued, such as the 17” MacBook Pro or iPhone SE. Sure, there are some people that love it, but not enough to make it worthwhile for Apple to continue with (apparently)
none of them lost money.
With your same criteria, your opinions are NOT relevant either. Who are you to decide what is relevant and what is NOT??
I know there a whole world, and most of it agree, look online and most of the reviews of the new Macbooks PRO are not good to say the least and that is in addition to all the direct personal experience that corroborate that the Macbook pros are a complete failure.
The difference between you and PickUrPoison is that you claim to speak for everyone, which can't be right, while he doesn't.
I never said 95% of all users.
I spoke based on my client's experiences and YES, 95% of my clients hated the Macbook Pro.
And yes he is claiming that he is above everybody...which in itself is quite disqualifying.
I didn’t say your opinion isn’t relevant. I said your personal experience that 95% of your clients stayed on the cMP isn’t relevant because it’s not representative of the population of all users. It’s no more relevant than someone claiming that 95% of their clients prefer the nMP. In both cases it could be true, in their own, limited experience. But neither is correctly describing the actual opinions of all Mac Pro users.
No idea why you’re talking about the MacBook Pro. We’ve been discussing the 6,1.
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Oh, 95% of your clients hate the MacBook Pro, do they? Very interesting, but not at all relevant since we’ve been discussing the 6,1 nMP.
But then again, a couple of posts ago, you were claiming that 95% of your clients “never switched to trashcan”. Apparently you lost track of your made up statistics.
At this point, I’m thinking you have no clients and you’re full of it. You’re just making crap up.
95% of your imaginary clients would appreciate if you could keep your stories straight.
Welcome to my ignore list.
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Because it shows how little Apple care about the Pro users, and the same thing is happening with the Macbook Pro that happen to the Trashcan. There is even a class action lawsuit because of the bad keyboard.
You opinions are supported by nothing. As I said before, yes 95% of my clients never upgraded to Trashcans, furthermore since the last 2 years, they either bought upgraded 12 core cheesegraters, move to a clone or to an iMac since they got tired of Apple ignoring the Pro community.
In addition, besides all the bad reviews the trashcan got, all third party computer stores I know which cater to Pros are making much better business selling used Cheesgraters than trashcans. So I commenting based on my own experience. You are commenting by nothing...
And I wonder why the used market for cheesgrater MP exploded. It is certainly NOT because the Trashcan was selling so good. And as I said before even Apple recongnize the design failure on the Trashcan. But it seems that you know better than Apple.