Nope. Maybe some do, but most buy Apple for functional reasons. Apple is a premium brand, but it's far too ubiquitous to give you special status (at least among Apple customers in the US, who are affluent enough not to see Apple as a status item). It's not like owning a Bentley. To the extent people pay premium prices for Macs, it's typically simply because they strongly prefer MacOS over Windows or Linux.
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Mac Pro Enthusiasts Raise Concerns Over Upgrade Limitations of Apple Silicon
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That isn't how I would describe it.
Apple builds their computers to very specific and strict requirements, for somewhat higher margins than other manufactures. Are you paying a bit more "Apple Tax" for the ecosystem? Yes, but it isn't that much, and it isn't what causes Apple's products to seem so expensive.
The requirements are the challenge.
Apple doesn't build many different products. They build the products that they:
- want to,
- think will make them the most money, and
- think the ecosystem will most benefit from.
If Apple's requirements don't match yours, then to buy Apple's products you are being made to spend lots of money for engineering, hardware, and features you don't want. This is why they seem so expensive (OK, the extremes of the BTO upgrades are pretty ridiculously, but the same issue is at play). The farther you're requirements are from Apple's, the poor and poorer value Apple's products seem to be.
The extreme cases are obvious:
- You want a $300 laptop, and price is your primary requirement, Apple has nothing for you
- You want a gaming computer optimized for high frame rate, and power draw is immaterial, Apple's products are an iffy match.
But... if you're requirements for features, build quality, and operating system do match, Apple's products' prices really don't seem that bad.
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So you pretty much just admit that you had no point to make. You don't really have to work in a corporation to know the difference between planning the demise of your own product and planning for contingencies. In fact, these two different types of planning are handled by two different departments. Either you're just really confused or purposely trying to conflate the two to make a non-point.
Again, no. The iPod was only discontinued 8 months ago, on May 10, 2022. It wasn't planned by Apple. What made Apple discontinue the iPod wasn't some imaginary 5-year roadmap, but market forces. Apple's only really "compete against their own products" in the case of the iPhone. "Systematically"? No. Reality just doesn't bear out your theory.I mean, it’s not a stretch to think that, while they were working on the iPhone, that they had an inkling that the iPod market would be dealt a killing blow. I mean, yes, it’s possible that, a year after the iPhone was released, some lower level staffer burst into Steve’s office, sweating profusely, stating “iPod sales appear to be falling and we don’t know why!” But I doubt it. Apple looked at the mountain of cash coming in from the iPod… a business that ANY company would have made a deal with forces unknown to have… and killed it one fell swoop. Nokia/Sony, most of tech will prop up whatever they were good at years ago to try to keep that golden goose producing. Apple’s killed a few golden gooses in their day. No, I don’t know the future, but if someone asked “will Apple keep on killing golden gooses I’d say, “probably”. And, in 10 years when Apple’s still relevant, no one will even know these words existed.Considering how many companies have gone the way of the dodo, there’s something different about Apple. “Future facing culture” was just my attempt to try to put a name to why they can systematically compete against their own products over years and continue to win.
And I guess the butterfly keyboard, the Touch Bar, and Wi-Fi being always one generation behind should be on that list too? 😆
Excellent description! Leaving the boats there would create a temptation to use it to go back to where they were previously, on choppy waters. Not good for business.
This.
Some people just want to ignore some facts and would rather prefer Apple to go back. I don't know but I suspect people that want to add or remove RAM and GPUs are Intel employees.
Nope.Yet another reason why Intel can claim to be on the cusp of producing the coldest processor this side of sliced ice, if they go to the vendors saying, “Hey, um… yeah it’s not as cool as we thought and consumes more power than we expected… it’s a dumpster fire, really. So, how many can we put you down for?” they’re all still going to place those orders.
It’s a done deal Microsoft has already officially stated future of Windows is Arm and coming soon.
Signed only 1 cpu parter in Dev stage for now. Soon I’m sure it’ll open up and Intel will either jump on board or have a megalithic cpu stacking x86-64+ Arm or bow out entirely. I highly doubt the latter.
They are well aware of the problem for years. That's why they are pushing into services and moving iPhone production when they can out of China. It may take a decade to know whether they are successful.
Not at all, at least for me. I buy for the design, performance, device integration, support, and so forth. Lots of reasons.
At this pace... Apple would do well to keep M2 Ultra/Max to the Mac Studio/Imac/Mac Mini and not release Mac Pro until M3 is cooked and ready to serve..
Do a live presentation of Mac Pro M3 at WWDC and say coming soon TM
Do a live presentation of Mac Pro M3 at WWDC and say coming soon TM
Totally Agree. Let's wait and hope Apple puts out a high quality M3 family of chips, all with 3nm chip manufacturing process, to cut down on size and heat, and possibly increase speed and/or cores a bit.
And then if Apple really wants to release a breakout product, release an M3 Mac Pro desktop, with a turbocharged high power version of the M3 Ultra SOC, instead of a laptop/tablet/phone clock speed and thermal optimized SOC chip. Say 8GHz or 10GHz desktop chip, or something ridiculously fast like that. PC manufacturers have been throwing so many Watts of Power at PC CPU chips for years to enhance speed performance. Let's show them how to really do it, not just for a PC CPU or PC GPU card like with Windows machines, but with Unified Memory, Media Engines, Neural Engines, and screaming fast SSDs! It is time for Apple to make a desktop Mac Pro with a high-performance variant of the M3 chip for people with the need for CPU and GPU speed!
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Someone remind this guy that the Mac Pro is already only for a tiny tiny fraction of power users.
If Apple releases a Mac Studio on steroids that is more powerful and rivals some top end machines, that will actually cover most of the Mac Pro users. The Mac Pro users who want only the $50k config are the smallest minority, and they are almost not worth making machines for. They will never be happy with anything since their needs are so different from every other Mac user. These are people who care only about raw performance at any price and any amount of energy usage. They don't actually care what machine they use to get the job done, but would prefer to use macOS if they could (because of course everyone does).
Personally I would rather Apple keep its focus with Apple Silicon and forget about that user.
If you're paying attention it's unlikely that Apple will make a Mac Pro that hits that price point. A 2x Mac Studio in performance and price is about what we can expect.
ARM windows will be a Chromebook competitor. By the time Snapdragon gets to be anything close to useful as laptop replacement Intel will be using state of the art ASML machinery which will prevent Qulacomm to play in anything but bottom feeder laptops.
Not quite. Someone who asks for a $50k computer usually wants a setup for a server. And there's a lot of money to be made here, even if they don't sell as many units.
The problem is that people here don't trust Apple, as they are not historically good on long-term API support, and Apple is not willing to allow for customization. If you pay top dollar, then chances are you WANT solutions to be customizable to your workflow.
Let me remind you that we DO have custom and powerful ARM servers.
Nothing really stops anyone from designing a powerful ARM chip like Apple did, except inertia.
That being said, nothing stops Intel and AMD to keep improving on their architecture either. AMD is proving you CAN customize the x86 / x64 architecture to be as power-efficient as Apple's. If not exactly identical, then close enough.
To be fair, though, there was literally no other company that had the infrastructure, manpower and supply chain that could fulfill orders of over 150 million phones a year other than Foxconn. Apple’s “reluctance” was not so much an overarching business goal as it was an answer to the question “where does Foxconn have factories”? So, too, you’ll find that Apple’s attempts at diversification aligns 1:1 with “countries where Foxconn NOW has factories”. Saying Apple “could have diversified” while Foxconn’s main operations were in China is just a lack of comprehending the vast scale of iPhone hardware production.
You kinda do, though.
It really helps to understand how organizations plan for restructuring not only of manpower, but resources, manufacturing capacity, everything. In those organizations, the people that aren’t on the planning teams are planning for their fellow employees pink slips and/or transfers to other offices as well as the contract negotiations with the suppliers. If it goes as planned, all non-touch iPod lines are ended on-schedule and employees are reassigned to the next things (or they’re on their next chapter in their career path). Being a part of that process helps to understand how it happens.We’ll have to agree to disagree, then.
I (and surely others here) have been on 5–year deprecation projects before. And, it was to replace a product that was already performing well with a product that was a risk but, if the plans worked out, it was expected to (and did) entirely subsume the customers of our old product into the new one while, critically, not providing an opportunity for our competition.I’ve never worked in Apple, but it’s true that, while different companies have vastly different problems that are indeed unique to each one, the set of solutions to those problems are surprisingly similar.
Thing is, Apple has been showing other companies how to do this for YEARS. It’s not a big secret. Still, though, there’s something at Apple that, over the years, has their teams operating this way regularly in a way that other companies aren’t able to replicate effectively.
IN an ideal world... Apple would make a Mac Pro that can swap Apple Silicon with compatibility to the next couple MX variety of chips... OR swap for higher amounts of RAM versions with a rebate on your previous chip.
This would satisfy both the GFX crowd and the RAM crowd. Sure, you can not buy 3rd party RAM/GFX without the apple tax, but you CAN upgrade the RAM/GFX if you NEED to.
Avoiding the Apple tax might become impossible, but it shouldn`t be that you are painted into a corner with a 50 000$ purchase... Also e-waste... repairability... It makes sense and it is possible to do.
Alas, Tim Cook doesn`t like the prospect of making less money! As much was clear when he fielded a question on the "Green SMS" controversy, his answer was "..buy an iPhone..." And I feel like that is likely the answer to RAM and GFX and what have you... Buy the biggest amount, when you want more, buy another... Buybuy buy. Because Apple wants that dolladollabill and they do not like you avoiding the Apple Tax.
In an ideal world, Apple would be forced to be environmentally conscious. It would benefit the consumer. It would benefit the environment. I have no doubt it would benefit Apple in the end... Because a mission statement of building an actually better future for humanity is something even the humans within Apple would appreciate.
This would satisfy both the GFX crowd and the RAM crowd. Sure, you can not buy 3rd party RAM/GFX without the apple tax, but you CAN upgrade the RAM/GFX if you NEED to.
Avoiding the Apple tax might become impossible, but it shouldn`t be that you are painted into a corner with a 50 000$ purchase... Also e-waste... repairability... It makes sense and it is possible to do.
Alas, Tim Cook doesn`t like the prospect of making less money! As much was clear when he fielded a question on the "Green SMS" controversy, his answer was "..buy an iPhone..." And I feel like that is likely the answer to RAM and GFX and what have you... Buy the biggest amount, when you want more, buy another... Buybuy buy. Because Apple wants that dolladollabill and they do not like you avoiding the Apple Tax.
In an ideal world, Apple would be forced to be environmentally conscious. It would benefit the consumer. It would benefit the environment. I have no doubt it would benefit Apple in the end... Because a mission statement of building an actually better future for humanity is something even the humans within Apple would appreciate.
Microsoft is kinnnda like Intel on this though.
If it comes down to the wire and Microsoft says “We’re still going in this direction, but we’re just pressing pause for a minute” no one’s going to bat an eye. It’s not like, if customers need Microsoft Windows, they’re not just going to buy whatever Intel machine they need at the time and wait it out.And, due to Microsoft’s current dependency on Intel, I doubt the latter, too. Intel will be there on day one with… something.
I think that there’s a lot of people that just fundamentally don’t understand the SoC. I’d guess they don’t even understand that “graphics over a PCIe bus” would be going backwards because “that’s what everyone else is doing”.
Maybe I wasn’t clear: Apple charges a premium just for it’s brand. People may buy Apple’s products for other different reasons and so are willing to pay that premium anyway, but Apple does charge it just for the brand.
Yes, and so you’re willing to pay Apple’s premium, but Apple is charging you that premium just for the brand. Not for the design, performance, device integration, etc you were looking for and found, they just charge extra for the brand.