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Sure, self-centered authoritarian egotists firmly convinced that the world revolves around them are definitely the dreamers that change the world. After all what else is in need to be changed to make the world better if not making cool tech devices. It’s not like there are wars, hunger, slavery, exploitation, children that die every minute from curable diseases just so that entitled western people can keep their life style and be able to afford their shiny widget.
I’d gave you two thump up for that.
 
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I loved the old colourful iMac/iBook designs, they were a breath of fresh air against the rest of the industry.

The iBook design owes so much to the Newton eMate 300.. Can see the eMate as a test run for a lot of the weird clamshell design. The eMate is heavy too, and much more indestructible.

Not as useful though. :)
 
And today we still don’t have LTE built into a laptop. Why is that?
A modern laptop can last easily for 5 to 10 years. Meanwhile cellular tech is evolving much faster. Do you want to be stuck with a laptop with 4G when everybody else is enjoying 5G? I’d rather save money by excluding the cellular modem.

Having said that, there are form factors that do serve their purpose better with a built-in cellular modem, like the Surface Pro.
 
Wow, $1600 price twenty years ago? That’s $2500 adjusted today - more than a 15” Macbook Pro!

So, the price of an entry-level Mac laptop (prices from Everymac.com or Wikipedia for the PB100):

1991: $2300 (Powerbook 100)
1998: $2799 (Powerbook G3)
1999: $1599 (iBook)
2006: $1299 (MacBook)
2010: $999 (11" MacBook Air)
2019: $1199 (new MacBook Air...)

I'm not going to bite on the Jobs vs. Cook bait, just point out that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't expect the prices of computers to follow the general rate of inflation (any more than you'd expect the price of a volatile commodity like gas or property to follow the headline average). The number of dollars needed for a half-decent (desktop) personal computer (of any flavour) stayed in the same $1000-$2000 ball-park pretty much from 1980 through the early 2010's, while the definition of "half-decent" rose exponentially higher - so the norm in the computer market has been to expect rapid de-flation over time. The last few years have seen prices start to creep up as the technology stagnates and people are increasingly happy to stick with 5+ year-old machines.

...a lot of that is just the market, and can't be laid at either Jobs' or Cook's door. However, the iMac and iBook were the result of Jobs' efforts to make mass-market Macs (look at the dip between the PB G3 and the iBook) and moving to commodity Intel processors vs. PPC chips that nobody else was using in personal computers probably saved a penny or two.

Ultimately, though, the changes in technology (and its affordability) over the years has been so great that the only way to compare the value-for-money of tech products is against their contemporary competitors.

Anyway, a lot of price criticisms about current Macs are mainly about gaps in the product line (e.g. no mid-range headless desktop, no affordable non-retina entry level laptop, no performance-over-form laptop workstation) rather than the products themselves.
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Do you want to be stuck with a laptop with 4G when everybody else is enjoying 5G?

...also, wake me up when I can get a mobile contract that gives me SIM cards (or the digital equivalent) for my phone, laptop and tablet without paying through the nose.
 
Wow, $1600 price twenty years ago? That’s $2500 adjusted today - more than a 15” Macbook Pro!
Mr. Tim does really good job at keeping manufacturing costs down...

Yes from a long term perspective the Mac has been cheaper than ever. It is also worth point out the price percentage difference between a Mac and PC has also been shrinking, especially since the move to Intel.

Unless Apple move to have their own CPU for Mac, those prices aren't going to come down much at all. I am quite sure a lot of the component has hit the lower end of the curve and price floor.
 
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And today we still don’t have LTE built into a laptop. Why is that?

Probably so they can sell more iPhones as they want you to connect to connect to that instead.
It is an odd omission especially as it’s prove level. And the iPads have it as an option across the entire range.

These Macs were so cool and colourful though, wonder if anyone here has remembered Ive designed these?
 
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What?? He is a Snake Oil Salesman right out of a cheap western. Whenever we see some of his dreams not happening he promises something else to distract you from his failures.

He's done and said some stupid things.

On the other hand, SpaceX really are launching real satellites into real orbit for real money, and are successfully landing and re-using boosters (something NASA has been drawing pretty artist's impressions of since the 70s without actually doing). If you don't start humming the Thunderbirds theme when those Falcon boosters land upright with their rockets blazing - as Gerry Anderson intended - then you have no soul.

...and, yeah, the full-self-driving mode for Teslas is still vapourware, and he's pushing Autopilot before its really ready, but the only reason he can do that is that he's sold a metric shedload of practical all-electric cars, when the rest of the industry was treading water and doing the bare minimum to meet Californian quotas.

Personally, I blame twitter for letting drunk/stoned/angry people address the world on a whim without engaging brain first.
 
Yet the FaceID technology behind it most certainly is.

Well yes but... Apple bought the company ‘Realface’ who basically shrunk down a Kinect and developed Face ID. So then is it Apple who innovated or Realface who they bought who did?

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/19/apple-buys-facial-recognition-firm-realface/
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Ah Steve, the only person right now changing the world to the same degree is Elon Musk. So grateful for these incredible dreamers that push progress!

Erm no, he’s a big headed self opinionated egotistical idiot who refuses to see his failures, not a business man at all and a very very very insulting human too, I would NEVER trust his robot to stick a microchip in my brain so I can talk to a computer which he’s now trying to flog!
Also I dislike how he’s been allowed, or anyone for that matter, to put thousands of satellites into orbit because you know there isn’t already enough human junk circling the globe already....

Elon is no where near the man Jobs was fact.

He would never design products like the ones in this story, the cool sophisticated look they now have, no he builds plastic way overpriced cars that the workers put together with electrical tape. Oh and then offers cars as self driving even though they are not and not legal to be either..

Steve Jobs was loved by investors for his fantastic approach to tech and his vision. Investors hate Elon but have to support the guy to make their money back.
 
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Sure, self-centered authoritarian egotists firmly convinced that the world revolves around them are definitely the dreamers that change the world. After all what else is in need to be changed to make the world better if not making cool tech devices. It’s not like there are wars, hunger, slavery, exploitation, children that die every minute from curable diseases just so that entitled western people can keep their life style and be able to afford their shiny widget.

Well said. Every once in a while its good for some of us to take a step back from our first world discussions on here and realize that a lot of all this is just boys (and girls) with their toys.
 
And that’s just for the official grid, not counting the systems people WANT to exist. Like the “Mac Pro, but not as powerful because I really like the features, but I don’t have THAT much money”. Or the “Mac mini, but powerful enough to run 4 8k monitors”. Or the “MacBook Pro that’s super thick, with a 17 inch screen and ALL DA PORTS!”

Actually, as far as Mac goes, one thing sticks out, the Mac mini just doesn’t belong and shouldn’t exist.
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Blasphemy! The Mac Mini is cool and useful!
 
And that’s just for the official grid, not counting the systems people WANT to exist. Like the “Mac Pro, but not as powerful because I really like the features, but I don’t have THAT much money”. Or the “Mac mini, but powerful enough to run 4 8k monitors”. Or the “MacBook Pro that’s super thick, with a 17 inch screen and ALL DA PORTS!”

Actually, as far as Mac goes, one thing sticks out, the Mac mini just doesn’t belong and shouldn’t exist.
View attachment 849248
I'd argue this style of grid is outdated now anyway, given that currently on the order of 80% of Macs sold are laptop form factors, but the grid implies equal weight to the desktop market. At this point, the portable lineup probably needs more than two boxes to service it, as it's by far the largest section, while most of the remaining 20% desktop sales are covered by the iMac, with the mini, iMac pro and Mac Pro being Apple's special (goodwill?) niche offerings to the enthusiasts that want them/ the Pro going back after high end workstation markets which were previously unserviced from 2013-19.
 
And that’s just for the official grid, not counting the systems people WANT to exist. Like the “Mac Pro, but not as powerful because I really like the features, but I don’t have THAT much money”. Or the “Mac mini, but powerful enough to run 4 8k monitors”. Or the “MacBook Pro that’s super thick, with a 17 inch screen and ALL DA PORTS!”

True, but the long-term problem for Apple is that you can get those things (well, after running some of them through the hyperbole filter) by switching to Windows or Linux - both of which have improved beyond recognition since 1999.

We'll only find out how good/bad value the new Mac Pro is like-for-like when (a) we find out what the BTO upgrades will cost and (b) other products with the new Xeon 3000 series chips appear. As I understand it, the Xeon 3000 series supports more PCIe lanes per chip than previous Xeons, which is what enables Apple to have so many slots driven by a single processor, support quad GPUs + afterburner etc. At the moment, any 'competitor' you find online can either be dismissed because it only has a couple of full-bandwidth PCIe slots or is in the $6k+ price bracket because it has two Xeons.... but the 3000 series was only recently released, and the Mac Pro isn't actually available yet, so that advantage might disappear over the coming months. As for the BTO prices - the only people buying the entry level are going to be hobbyists with extra-deep pockets - its hard to see who would need all of that expansion capability but "only" an 8-core processor and a worse-than-the-iMac-Pro straight-to-landfill GPU (which looks like its going to be MPX format so you can't even flog it to a PC user).

...but the real problem is that huge gulf between the Mac Mini (no internal expandability and an iGPU that struggles with 2D on more than one 4k display) and the Mac Pro (insane internal expandability but at a huge cost) with the only alternative being the iMac/iMac Pro (good spec for the price if you don't mind zero internal expandability and like the display that it's built in to).

Apple have now got to the stage where the only competition that they really seemed to be worried about is from... Apple. Look at all the benchmarks on the Mac Pro site comparing it with Dell/HP etc... not. Instead, we find that the 28 core Mac Pro (GPU unspecified) is 28/18 times faster than the 18 Core iMac Pro on multi-threaded workloads and loads faster than the 2013 trashcan that everybody hated. Who'd have thunk it? They're only trying to sell to people who are locked into FCPx or Logic. That's the route to being king of a slowly shrinking pond.
 
And today we still don’t have LTE built into a laptop. Why is that?

Likely Qualcomm charges a royalty by total device price and Apple just isn't going to play that game.


The first laptop with wireless networking? Tim Cook take a hint, that's what innovation is.

Animojis are not innovation.

Look at the iMac and iBook intros. As consumer devices, they stacked up against the best in the industry.
Airport changed the game for wireless, again, category leading.
This is the Apple of old - Consumer devices, industry leading, only bettered by Apple pro products.
Those days are gone. It's more about nickel and diming necessary upgrades.

Maybe iPad gets the accolade for being world leading, only bettered by Apple's top Pro products… but that's for a device that is used by people that don't need a computer/ just need to do the basics. Sure with Pro iPad speed, you can invent convoluted ways to to some things a notebook can do, but seriously, Apple should have been putting that effort into touch macOS and Mac and left iPad for the billions of people that don't need a computer. There's a market there. Seriously.
 
Well said. Every once in a while its good for some of us to take a step back from our first world discussions on here and realize that a lot of all this is just boys (and girls) with their toys.

I don't think so - at all. Personally, I don't need anyone unrolling their first world guilt complex on here. Leave the 1st world entitlement guilt trips at the door. Instead if ops so guilt ridden with their perceived 1st world entitlement, they should actually go do something like donate their old tech to needy kids who could really use it or better yet, donate ones actual life currency in the form of their time and money vs sitting on their duff guilt tripping folks on here like we're some type of 21st century bourgeoise.

I've got a name for ppl like that and it ends with hole.
 
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That basic product strategy was so damn smart. It got everything back on track.

What is amazing is the reactions to Steve Jobs when he constantly says, "We try to work to keep the cost down...". He later says that "all other notebooks with this kind of technology in it costs $1,700 and most over $2,000+" Then he announces the cost of $1,500...

The audience claps and cheers at the cost...

Now in 2019...Tim Cook announces the wonderful new mac pro. Then he announces the new wonderful monitor. He then announces the price of the stand...THE STAND for the monitor. It does not come with a stand..?!

Then..Tim Cook announces the PRICE of the stand...He says, "The stand costs an additional $1,000..

The audience gasps....

What is wrong with this picture...?

Steve Jobs: "We worked hard to keep the price down..."

Tim Cook: The wonderful monitor does not come with a stand. The stand costs and additional $1,000...

How times have changed...
 
I don't think so - at all. Personally, I don't need anyone unrolling their first world guilt complex on here. Leave the 1st world entitlement guilt trips at the door. Instead if ops so guilt ridden with their perceived 1st world entitlement, they should actually go do something like donate their old tech to needy kids who could really use it or better yet, ones actual life currency in the form of their time and money vs sitting on their duff guilt tripping folks on here like we're some type of 21st century bourgeoise.

I've got a name for ppl like that and it ends with hole.

Agreed as well. But still, I think a some of us get too bent out of shape here and tend to forget, like I said, that we're just boys with our toys.
 
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Agreed as well. But still, I think a some of us get too bent out of shape here and tend to forget, like I said, that we're just boys with our toys.

Yeah I hear ya man. It's all good. Mmmm speaking of Frisch's BigBoy, I could so go for a Brawny Lad & some chili right now. I feel the hangry coming on.
 
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Um. Mac mini fits perfectly in the Consumer Desktop category.
And that’s just for the official grid, not counting the systems people WANT to exist. Like the “Mac Pro, but not as powerful because I really like the features, but I don’t have THAT much money”. Or the “Mac mini, but powerful enough to run 4 8k monitors”. Or the “MacBook Pro that’s super thick, with a 17 inch screen and ALL DA PORTS!”

Actually, as far as Mac goes, one thing sticks out, the Mac mini just doesn’t belong and shouldn’t exist.
View attachment 849248
 
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Actually, as far as Mac goes, one thing sticks out, the Mac mini just doesn’t belong and shouldn’t exist.
View attachment 849248

The Mini does have a place, the one it was created for in the first place.

The Mini was supposed to be the "switch to mac" entry level desktop. Any easy way to go mac with your existing display and peripherals. Cost effective enough to get people into the ecosystem with the potential for their next upgrade to be a more fully featured mac.

The problem is it hasn't really fit in its place for a while.
 
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And today we still don’t have LTE built into a laptop. Why is that?

Mainly because it isn't really needed.

Apple did once consider making MacBooks with built in 3G (in those days) wireless.
See: https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/1...macbook-pro-with-integrated-3g-cellular-data/

Why were they never released? Well, how often do you use your laptop in places where both a) there's no WiFi, and b) you don't have your phone with you for tethering? You'd also need a separate SIM card, which costs money - generally it's going to be much cheaper to have a single SIM and tether off your existing data plan!
 
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