As you can see, I've been a member of this forum for over 15 years, and I've been a Mac user since the inception of OS X. Today I feel compelled to write what I'm pretty sure is my first rant on this forum since I've been a member!
Back then Apple offered a product considerably superior to any competition offered by Wintel brands, and was worth a premium. Fast forward to today, and I'll concede Mac OS X is still more reliable than Windows 10 in my experience (I own a Surface Pro 3), but the difference isn't drastic like Mac OS X vs. Windows XP; not even close!
What's more, I believe the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros that is being sold as a major innovation is actually a major *compromise* brought on by internal management decisions at Apple. Obviously at some point Apple considered integrating touch screens in some fashion to their notebooks; they'd be stupid not to. I believe, knowing the way Tim Cook thinks, that when he was presented with some sort of idea of integrating touch into Apple notebooks, it was explained how important it would be to redesign the Mac OS X UI in order to allow for mouse/touch hybrid use, Tim Cook realized it would be a huge investment of resources. Since Tim realized he'd have to deploy engineers and programmers for many man hours to make such an OS possible, he nixed the idea. Why? Because when you dedicate resources towards something you increase the cost for R&D development, and when you increase R&D development you increase the *risk* that you'll make a profit on the product you release. Since touch support was no longer possible, somebody came up with the Touch Bar compromise we see in front of us.
Frankly, this is sad because Apple could have leaped over many of the obstacles hybrid Wintel devices have faced in the past and (to a lesser extent) in the present. As an example, the Surface Pro 4/keyboard combination makes it perform better while being used in the lap, but still not as good as a regular laptop. Apple has the engineering talent to find a better solution to that problem. I believe, given some time, Microsoft will solve this issue with superior solutions and continue to leave Apple behind innovation-wise.
So where does this leave Apple when it comes to *both* their considerably more expensive MacBook Pros, and also more expensive iPad Pros? It leaves them vulnerable. If I was an executive at Microsoft, I'd be elated by the Apple keynote.
Here's what Microsoft needs to do:
-Continue their quest to make Windows 10 scale more effectively with higher resolution displays. Allow that support to be easily built into third party applications.
-While keeping the effective desktop solution Windows 10 *already* is, continue to improve on the UI for touch by looking at the size of menus, drop down menus, etc. and scaling them to reasonable sizes and more effective pull downs. This is a challenge, and will require a lot of time and manpower but its very doable.
-Finish the quest to integrate all settings options under the new settings interface and get rid of the old control panel.
-Totally rework the file management system (Window's equivalent of the finder) to be considerably more concise, and also work to make what remains available in terms of options considerably more intuitive. Also make that interface more touch friendly as well.
With that said, there's kind of been a mantra by Apple fans that says a touch interface/UI should remain exclusive to the iPad while OS X should be left without touch so it can do what it does best. Okay, keep that stance. But know that that stance resulted in the Touch Bar and a $500 price hike for no good reason.
In the mean time, I'd like to offer one last suggestion to Microsoft to mock Apple and those folks who believe Mac notebooks should not have a touch UI (which, ironically they actually do now, just a really sh*tty one). Microsoft, you need to integrate a product to Windows 10 called Screen Bar. Screen Bar will only appear as an option to Windows 10 2 in 1s and will offer context-based buttons that appear on the screen so the user DOESN'T HAVE TO TAKE THEIR EYES OFF THE SCREEN! To make things worse, the user should have the option to have those buttons appear either on the bottom, top, right, or left of the screen, or to totally disable the option. In other words, while Apple had to develop this strip on the top of their keyboard that can't be disabled and takes up unnecessary keyboard real estate (all because Tim cook is adverse to risk/innovation), Microsoft can invent a more flexible version available right on the touch interface of the screen. Heck, Microsoft could allow users to increase or decrease the size of their buttons, or even add additional rows to it!
There's no use for a touch interface on laptops, my arse! Apple just released one, it's just that they released a CRAPPY one! Go get 'em, Microsoft; they deserve it!
Back then Apple offered a product considerably superior to any competition offered by Wintel brands, and was worth a premium. Fast forward to today, and I'll concede Mac OS X is still more reliable than Windows 10 in my experience (I own a Surface Pro 3), but the difference isn't drastic like Mac OS X vs. Windows XP; not even close!
What's more, I believe the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros that is being sold as a major innovation is actually a major *compromise* brought on by internal management decisions at Apple. Obviously at some point Apple considered integrating touch screens in some fashion to their notebooks; they'd be stupid not to. I believe, knowing the way Tim Cook thinks, that when he was presented with some sort of idea of integrating touch into Apple notebooks, it was explained how important it would be to redesign the Mac OS X UI in order to allow for mouse/touch hybrid use, Tim Cook realized it would be a huge investment of resources. Since Tim realized he'd have to deploy engineers and programmers for many man hours to make such an OS possible, he nixed the idea. Why? Because when you dedicate resources towards something you increase the cost for R&D development, and when you increase R&D development you increase the *risk* that you'll make a profit on the product you release. Since touch support was no longer possible, somebody came up with the Touch Bar compromise we see in front of us.
Frankly, this is sad because Apple could have leaped over many of the obstacles hybrid Wintel devices have faced in the past and (to a lesser extent) in the present. As an example, the Surface Pro 4/keyboard combination makes it perform better while being used in the lap, but still not as good as a regular laptop. Apple has the engineering talent to find a better solution to that problem. I believe, given some time, Microsoft will solve this issue with superior solutions and continue to leave Apple behind innovation-wise.
So where does this leave Apple when it comes to *both* their considerably more expensive MacBook Pros, and also more expensive iPad Pros? It leaves them vulnerable. If I was an executive at Microsoft, I'd be elated by the Apple keynote.
Here's what Microsoft needs to do:
-Continue their quest to make Windows 10 scale more effectively with higher resolution displays. Allow that support to be easily built into third party applications.
-While keeping the effective desktop solution Windows 10 *already* is, continue to improve on the UI for touch by looking at the size of menus, drop down menus, etc. and scaling them to reasonable sizes and more effective pull downs. This is a challenge, and will require a lot of time and manpower but its very doable.
-Finish the quest to integrate all settings options under the new settings interface and get rid of the old control panel.
-Totally rework the file management system (Window's equivalent of the finder) to be considerably more concise, and also work to make what remains available in terms of options considerably more intuitive. Also make that interface more touch friendly as well.
With that said, there's kind of been a mantra by Apple fans that says a touch interface/UI should remain exclusive to the iPad while OS X should be left without touch so it can do what it does best. Okay, keep that stance. But know that that stance resulted in the Touch Bar and a $500 price hike for no good reason.
In the mean time, I'd like to offer one last suggestion to Microsoft to mock Apple and those folks who believe Mac notebooks should not have a touch UI (which, ironically they actually do now, just a really sh*tty one). Microsoft, you need to integrate a product to Windows 10 called Screen Bar. Screen Bar will only appear as an option to Windows 10 2 in 1s and will offer context-based buttons that appear on the screen so the user DOESN'T HAVE TO TAKE THEIR EYES OFF THE SCREEN! To make things worse, the user should have the option to have those buttons appear either on the bottom, top, right, or left of the screen, or to totally disable the option. In other words, while Apple had to develop this strip on the top of their keyboard that can't be disabled and takes up unnecessary keyboard real estate (all because Tim cook is adverse to risk/innovation), Microsoft can invent a more flexible version available right on the touch interface of the screen. Heck, Microsoft could allow users to increase or decrease the size of their buttons, or even add additional rows to it!
There's no use for a touch interface on laptops, my arse! Apple just released one, it's just that they released a CRAPPY one! Go get 'em, Microsoft; they deserve it!
