I am not much different than most of the die hards who wring their hands concerning the future of Apple, but I have had a change of heart recently...
I can really see both sides of the argument. My background is in software engineering and I got back into the Macs once OS X rolled out. I was amazed at what Apple was able to release sitting on top of BSD Unix. Still to this day, there is nothing that even comes close on Linux or Unix. Back in the day my friends had Apple IIs (I had Vic-20s and C-64s), and eventually I crossed in and out of the Apple world beginning with the Mac SE/30. Once my career in software and system engineering started I strayed from Apple (I was never a big fan of the Apple OS pre-OS X, and always viewed it as somewhat of a toy). I crossed over to the dark side and became a predominantly Windows user since that is what the tools that I used were on for most of my career. Just when I started getting heavily into Solaris, OS X came onto the scene and I truly fell in love with what it was and what I thought its potential may be.
I figured that Apple now had a rock solid Unix underneath and would begin making major inroads into Enterprise IT. I played with OS X server, began developing with Web Objects was really excited by the XServe, XServer RAID, XSan, the announcement for their implementing ZFS. I really truly believed that Apple was going to break out big time in the Enterprise. They truly had the technology, they just did not have the traction and customer base in the Enterprise. Being such a smart guy, I was absolutely convinced that they would buy Sun Microsystems and basically meld the technologies together. One of the exciting things about OS X in the early days was that it was going to be such a spectacular system for running Java on. Even the Web Objects framework went Java. I have to admit, I was really geeking out on the possibilities.
But then the retreat from the Enterprise market began. It seemed like it was ripe for the taking, but Apple just did not seem to be interested. Web Objects went from being a big dollar application server, to a packaged app sold in the Apple store for around $100, to becoming free. They began backtracking incrementally from the enterprise, and then even decided to remove Computer from their name.
Perhaps it would have never worked anyway, because future product secrecy and longterm corporate IT planning do not mesh. I just always imagined what might have been, for someone who was tired of the status quo in the enterprise - it felt like a potential rennaisance was suppressed (OK, maybe I am laying it on thick - but I was really sick of working on the same old stuff and was really interested in what Apple might have been able to bring to the table).
Ever since then, until very recently I have always been looking at the glass as being half empty instead of half full. With every product announcement, I saw the cool iStuff, but less and less of what made me such a fan of Apple. I finally ditched windows for good, after so many years, and I felt like at some point I might be heading for an iOS brick wall.
Why the long winded story? Well I think a lot of people who feel like the OP, probably come from a tech/power user background like myself, and are very worried that the Apple we love might eventually disappear. I mean when Steve Jobs got up and announced that Apple 'is now a mobile device company', I almost passed out.
The Xserve has been discontinued, there are now rumors of the Mac Pros demise, and who could seriously believe that Apple can continue to put any resources into OS X Server when it is being sold for $49.99 through the Mac App store (with unlimited licenses). I really believe that this release of OS X Server will be the last (at least in its present form) because it seems like Web Objects all over again.
Ok, that is the doom and gloom. But I have to say over the last several weeks I have finally had it with the doom and gloom. From my technical background, I absolutely love the killer work horse machines like the Mac Pros. But realistically, with the pace of technology these smaller machines like the iMacs, Mac Minis and MBPs are just absolutely amazing spec wise. If you look at the benchmarks it would have been unfathomable to me that any of those machines would even be able to come close to the power contained in the Mac Pros.
I think what we are beginning to see is more power coming in smaller more compact packages. The Mac Mini, with its footprint, is really an amazing machine if you take it for what it is. Heck, I am even amazed by my hockey puck sized Apple TV. If Apple had never switched from the Power PC, think of how far behind we might have been at this point. Our Mac Pro beasts would probably have less power than a Mac Mini, and we would have still loved them, because we wouldn't have known any better (at least not any better than we had known pre-Intel).
I was 100% against the iOSifficaton of the Mac product line. Until I realized how ridiculous that stance was, since iOS is OS X.
I'm beginning to change my opinion, and starting to believe that Apple is not abandoning the Pro user - its just that the specs available on machines now a days puts almost everything in the pro category (barring things like GPUs which I am confident will be rectified in short order). Connectivity like TB and beyond, will allow pieces of the system to become more modular. Just like some don't like the iMac because it is an all in one, in a way, so is the Mac Pro. High speed connections like Thunderbolt (and whatever comes next) will allow high demand users to modularly build out their systems, instead of just having it all in one box. Sure it might not sound pretty, but if all those pieces became rackable, and had rows of nice power lights lined up in the dark - I would bet that many of us would think that it was really cool, almost like the old days (and in many ways better). Perhaps at some point in the future, we may even see the introduction of an Apple Server device with a powerful CPU in the form factor of an Apple TV, just waiting for all of the modular goodness to be bestowed upon it.
With the enormous changes we are likely to see in the near future due to the push towards Cloud computing, any laptop or desktop will be a pro machine, because every one else will have absolutely no use for a form factor like that. OS X and iOS will no doubt have to merge at some point, because the iDevices will have the power to run a full operating system, without limitations. Developers and content creators will be on anything above an iPad or iDevice. Office workers again will be working on basically dumb terminals running off of the cloud or images running in the server room. (I know Steve had told us all that with his cars/trucks analogy - but I just could not truly wrap my close minded attitude around it).
Its funny, but Apple use to be the ones to race ahead, and Microsoft used to make such conservative incremental changes. But it looks like Microsoft knows that the writing is on the wall and they need to do something drastic, and I believe that will be Windows 8. The convergence of iOS and OS X is minuscule and ultra conservative compared to what it seems like Microsoft has up its sleeve.
When the iPad first came out, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't something that would be able to replace a laptop. I had always been a desktop tower guy, and used laptops for mobility only. I think there is a huge percentage of the population waiting for tablets to do everything that a laptop can. And I believe Windows 8 will do that on a tablet.
If Apple does not continue down the road it is going with the advancement of iOS, and the merging of OS X and iOS, there will be a point in time that Apple will be left standing, wondering how everyone happened to pass them once again.
So here I am, a computing dinosaur, grasping onto my tower machines and griping about iOS (much in the same way I swore I would never give up the command line). When in reality, though, we are seeing some amazing things transpire. My 15" MBP has WAY more power than I imagined would have been possible just a few years ago. Will I continue to need a desktop machine running 24/7 - absolutely, but it probably will not look like what this tech dinosaur is used to. And in the end, many years from now, I bet I will still be amazed by how powerful these little machines have become.
Sorry for such a long post, its just something that had been on my mind for such a long time....
-OldMike