New 8-Core MacBook Pro Offers Solid Performance Improvements According to Benchmark

[Peperino]

Watch, AirPods, iPhone X, mobile silicon, etc..


You ignoring the great products from Apple doesn’t mean they aren’t here.
[doublepost=1558959394][/doublepost]
That’s all a fancy way of saying it depends on the work load. That doesn’t mean it’s slower as a matter of fact.

Every time someone complains about the lame status of the entire computer line and there lack of innovation and pathetic upgrade cycles, many users come saying that What about the Watch, Airpods, etc...

The only product that has been really great is the Watch. There is nothing that really competes with the Apple watch. That is how you know it is something revolutionary.

- Airpods, nothing new. The Jabras are much better and much better isolation
- iPhone X- Nothing new. Just another phone with better internals.
- Homepod, came late to the party and way overpriced.

We are not ignoring Apple's great products. Apple is ignoring its users with the lack of real computer innovation.

You can see that on the latest MBP upgrade announced this week (with only internal upgrades).
Same keyboard, more cores in the same enclosed chasis (Apple had problems cooling 4 cores, how are they not expecting to overheat with 8 cores in the same enclosure?), still all soldered and glued components.
And to top it off, they expect us to pay over the top expensive prices...

 

[Baymowe335]

Every time someone complains about the lame status of the entire computer line and there lack of innovation and pathetic upgrade cycles, many users come saying that What about the Watch, Airpods, etc...

The only product that has been really great is the Watch. There is nothing that really competes with the Apple watch. That is how you know it is something revolutionary.

- Airpods, nothing new. The Jabras are much better and much better isolation
- iPhone X- Nothing new. Just another phone with better internals.
- Homepod, came late to the party and way overpriced.

We are not ignoring Apple's great products. Apple is ignoring its users with the lack of real computer innovation.

You can see that on the latest MBP upgrade announced this week (with only internal upgrades).
Same keyboard, more cores in the same enclosed chasis (Apple had problems cooling 4 cores, how are they not expecting to overheat with 8 cores in the same enclosure?), still all soldered and glued components.
And to top it off, they expect us to pay over the top expensive prices...

Nice minimization of the most popular wireless headphones in the world. AirPods are anything but ordinary..the Jabras? lol...ok.

iPhone X set up the ultra high end market and is an incredible phone that sold exceedingly well.

 

[Peperino]

Nice minimization of the most popular wireless headphones in the world. AirPods are anything but ordinary..the Jabras? lol...ok.

iPhone X set up the ultra high end market and is an incredible phone that sold exceedingly well.

Still you are avoiding to talk about all the great innovations and upgrades Apple has done in its computer outdated line up.

 

[Baymowe335]

Still you are avoiding to talk about all the great innovations and upgrades Apple has done in its computer outdated line up.

Traditional computers are (for Apple) a smaller business. Mobile computing is the future, obviously. They still make laptops and computers, but iPad and iPhone along with wearables dwarf that business.

 

[trillionaire]

Isn't that the idea of coming up with a more advanced product - to have better specs? Should we have been expecting it to be worse? I don't get it.

 

[09872738]

Traditional computers are (for Apple) a smaller business. Mobile computing is the future, obviously. They still make laptops and computers, but iPad and iPhone along with wearables dwarf that business.

Still no reason to abandon a billion dollar market because there is an even bigger one. As I stated previously: I am convinced Apple could double/triple revenues and market share if only they tried with sane products.
For whatever reason they do not seem to be interested ...

 

[Baymowe335]

Still no reason to abandon a billion dollar market because there is an even bigger one. As I stated previously: I am convinced Apple could double/triple revenues and market share if only they tried with sane products.
For whatever reason they do not seem to be interested ...

I can’t reason with you if you say they’ve abandoned the Mac. They sold 18M of them...very stable.

You being “convinced” the most profitable company in the world could do anything close to 2-3 times revenue growth is absurd. They are the most profitable company in the word because they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t need your advice. Frankly, you’re wrong.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Still no reason to abandon a billion dollar market because there is an even bigger one. As I stated previously: I am convinced Apple could double/triple revenues and market share if only they tried with sane products.
For whatever reason they do not seem to be interested ...

If Apple had abandoned the Mac market, then we would not have gotten a new 13" MacBook Air, a new Mac mini, an iMac update this past march or the 8-core CPU updates to the 15' MacBook pro that we just got last week, would we? Those products would have been cancelled by now, right?

Despite Apple's vast size, they do not have infinite hardware engineering resources. If they did, this whole Qualcomm thing might have turned out very differently.

What Apple has done and has to do, is to continue to prioritize the pieces of the business that constitute the largest amounts of revenue and or growth. The iPhone has been that business for quite a while, riding an insane hot streak of success and profits. The Mac part of the business did not receive the love and attention that many felt it should, but if it was driving sales and profits like the iPhone is, it would be. The Mac is a mature market and the PC market overall is in decline. I do not care how many LCDs a PC OEM tacks on a Windows laptop, it's still just a laptop running Windows.

Apple has had some hits and some misses with the MacBook Pro, but it's still miles ahead of the competition.

When you say "sane" products, I think what you really meant to say is, cheaper products. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the common refrain from the most upset people on this forum center around upgradeability and price.

The unfortunate truth is that concentrating on trying to please that narrow segment of users is that it is net loser and makes very little sense to Apple or its management. Most consumers have zero desire to poke around the inside a tower PC or a 2" thick laptop. They simply want a good, balanced computer that works, works consistently, is reliable and lasts a decent amount of time (3-5 years).

Then there are those Professionals for whom a truly upgradeable computer is important. Apple completed muffed on that particular segment of the market and may or may not rectify their mistake when they preview the Mac Pro.

The last segment is the one who seem to make the most noise about upgradeability and price and who are truly not the market that Apple is going to cater to any more than they absolutely have to. The reason is that this group is the least profitable and the highest maintenance.

If Apple made a mini-tower, it would still be more expensive than the average PC OEM, for which Apple would be criticized. To add insult to injury, most of the users actually interested in buying one of those machines, is going to spec it as cheaply as possible and then cram it full of parts they order from here and there (New Egg, Amazon, et al.) And when those parts don't work, who will they call? Apple...and gripe about how this bargain SSD or this cheap DRAM doesn't work and why not and how do I fix it, and don't you stand behind your computers? WELL, DON'T YOU!?!

And when they continue to have issues, where will they go to tell everyone about it? Here...most likely. Which position is more untenable for Apple? Selling computers with commodity parts that increase their tech supports costs, doesn't differentiate them from other PC OEMs and still nets them bad publicity and criticisms on the MacRumors forums? Or do they keep user upgradeability to a minimum to control cost, control the experience, smooth out performance and keep their hardware and software engineers from wasting time trying to get ever little piece of hardware working in an open box, which streamlines their organization and their capital investment in a declining market?

So, Apple chose the latter and simply changed the rules of the game to make life easier on themselves. I cannot say I blame them. The PC market is not the place to be and hasn't been for the past 10 years.

 

[09872738]

I can’t reason with you if you say they’ve abandoned the Mac. They sold 18M of them...very stable.

You being “convinced” the most profitable company in the world could do anything close to 2-3 times revenue growth is absurd. They are the most profitable company in the word because they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t need your advice. Frankly, you’re wrong.

Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. Frankly: no. I'm most certainly not wrong. Just a sober view on Apple and the direction they are headed

If Apple had abandoned the Mac market, then we would not have gotten a new 13" MacBook Air, a new Mac mini, an iMac update this past march or the 8-core CPU updates to the 15' MacBook pro that we just got last week, would we? Those products would have been cancelled by now, right?.

They updated the Air after how many years? The update is not only half-hearted (Faulty keyboard, rather dim display), its also very late.
Similarly: They updated the mini after how many years? Soldered down, locked down, featuring a price screaming: buy somewhere else.

They last updated the Mac Pro in ... wait, did they even update? Its been so long, I can't even remember... very convincing, they apparently are trying very very hard, right?

In short: yes, they keep updating, but at a pace so slow, its pretty clear the Mac is neither priority 1 nor priority 2. Kind of like in Apple TV territory.

And no, I am not necessarily talking price, albeit admittedly their price hike is almost comical, again, screaming: don't bother buying here.

I am talking about missing products for the education market (think the venerable iBook of decades prior), missing product for the enthusiast market (Mac Pro, something below the Mac Pro not being an AIO), etc., etc.

 

[Abazigal]

Still no reason to abandon a billion dollar market because there is an even bigger one. As I stated previously: I am convinced Apple could double/triple revenues and market share if only they tried with sane products.
For whatever reason they do not seem to be interested ...

It’s really about opportunity cost. An engineer working on the Mac is an engineer not working on the Apple Watch or Apple glasses and my take is that Apple essentially funnelled all their resources towards mobile and wearables. So from Apple’s perspective, giving up their Mac platform was deemed an acceptable trade off because in their eyes, wearables represented the future at Apple, not the Mac.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. Frankly: no. I'm most certainly not wrong. Just a sober view on Apple and the direction they are headed

The direction that they are headed? What direction would that be? Into oblivion? Does it seem like they are anywhere close to headed towards a downward spiral? Your sober view is not meshing with the reality of Apple's financial situation.

They updated the Air after how many years? The update is not only half-hearted (Faulty keyboard, rather dim display), its also very late.

Similarly: They updated the mini after how many years? Soldered down, locked down, featuring a price screaming: buy somewhere else.

They last updated the Mac Pro in ... wait, did they even update? Its been so long, I can't even remember... very convincing, they apparently are trying very very hard, right?

In short: yes, they keep updating, but at a pace so slow, its pretty clear the Mac is neither priority 1 nor priority 2. Kind of like in Apple TV territory.

And no, I am not necessarily talking price, albeit admittedly their price hike is almost comical, again screaming: don't bother buying here.

I am talking about missing products for the education market (think the venerable iBook of decades prior), missing product for the enthusiast market (Mac Pro, something below the Mac Pro not being an AIO).

- The MacBook Air was never supposed to be updated at all. The 12" MacBook was supposed to take over for the MBA, which is why the 2015 model lingered, but was supposed to quietly disappear at WWDC 2017. What happened was that Apple essentially "refreshed" the 2015 model with the next tier up CPU and gave us the "2017" model because the 12" MacBook failed miserably in its mission. Even now, I wouldn't touch one of them...however, I am hopeful that Apple may surprise us yet with an Ice Lake update, Thunderbolt 3 onboard, adding Touch ID and the 4th Gen butterfly keyboard and a P3 LCD would restore a lot of the luster to the dream of the 12" MacBook .

- The 2014 Mac mini was a huge mistake on Apple's part in that they should have not locked down the DRAM or the storage and updated it to dual-cores, but kept quad-cores as a BTO option.

The 2018 Mac mini is a marvelous computer and I have no problem with Apple locking down the storage, although I would have preferred it to be on a removable blade like the 13" nTB MacBook Pro so that upgrades could happen down the road as has been possible with the iMacs and 2012-2015 MacBook Pros, even if only through an Apple service part. However, that is not the route Apple chose for this system.

The pricing doesn't bother me at all. As @PickUrPoison mentioned in another thread, it would be nice if they had a less expensive Fusion equipped silver Mac mini with 8th Gen dual core i5/i7 for sale as well, since there is a market for those who want something akin to a media center PC. However, that flies in the face of Apple's strategy with audio and video and the AppleTV. I don't particularly care for their strategy, personally, but then I do not run the company. Have an Apple TV 3rd gen and have zero plans to buy an AppleTV 4 or higher.

The Mac Pro was probably slated to be killed off a long time ago, but Pros hung on. This is a strategic mistake by Apple in that they built a cylinder that relied on external expansion, and had two GPUs right at the end of the SLI era. They read the tea leaves wrong big time. I hope they make a course correction that fixes that mistake.

The iPad is where the Education Market is for Apple, for better or worse. The venerable iBook was a cranky pain in the ass that I had the displeasure of working on for a friend.

The enthusiast market is not something Apple ever catered to, EVER. Apple's expandable Macs with NuBus/PCI/PCI-X and PCIe slots, DRAM slots and IDE/SATA bays were a necessity of the times and are mostly part of Apple's past. Steve Jobs eliminated all but one model with the G3/G4. The writing was on the wall, when the Power Mac G5 was released, that Apple was going upmarket and that continued with the Mac Pro which only increased in price as they released new models. The G4 was the last "enthusiast" Mac. Steve did that by design...that was not Tim Cook or Jony Ive or anyone else but Steve.

Apple has no desire or intention of creating something for the "enthusiast" market. That is not the target that they are aiming for and have never aimed to capture. There is zero reward in that market. I owned many expandable Macs in my time and with the odd exception, and I never added a NuBus or PCI/PCIe card and I am sure that I am not the only one.

Yes, the Mac is closer to Priority 4 or 5 behind iPhone, Watch, iPad and Services. I think Apple has shown more commitment recently to the Mac side and that is great, but the Mac is never going to be higher than 3 or 4 moving forward. That's just the reality of it...many are still having a hard time with the transition.

As for the pace of updates being slow, the MacBook Pro has been updated every single year, sometimes twice a year, since 2006 and right up to 2019. The iMac has been updated every single year since 2006, sometimes twice a year, with the exception of 2016 and 2018. The MacBook Air has been updated every single year since 2008, sometimes twice a year, with the exception of 2016. The 12" MacBook was introduced in 2015, updated in 2016 and 2017, but is in need of an update. Tim Cook specifically blamed Intel for the lack of timely CPU deliveries on the lateness of the 13" MacBook Air introduction, which shares the same Y-Series CPUs with the 12" MacBook.

The Mac mini was woefully neglected and I have spoken on that many other threads. It is inexcusable.

Ditto for the Mac Pro. The cylinder should have been sold alongside a revised cheese grater for those who preferred a more compact professional system and those who needed a beast that held everything internal and could be thrown in a gorilla case. Again, there were issues with how to route Thunderbolt 1/2 in a system with a dGPU which was removable, but that is a discussion for a different thread.

Apple wants the majority of their customers spending money on the iPhone, the iPad, the Watch, the Home Pod, Services and accessories. Most people do not need a Mac anymore, which should become even more apparent after next weeks's WWDC keynote, if Apple has done its job.

Apple knows that some people will be left behind. There almost always are when these sorts of transitions take place. Sorry, it's inevitable.

 

[09872738]

The direction that they are headed? What direction would that be? Into oblivion? Does it seem like they are anywhere close to headed towards a downward spiral? Your sober view is not meshing with the reality of Apple's financial situation.

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been". The financial situation is great, yes. But it does not convey anything about the current situation, i.e. products; it reflects the situation of the past. Just saying

 

[Zdigital2015]

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been". The financial situation is great, yes. But it does not convey anything about the current situation, i.e. products; it reflects the situation of the past. Just saying

What the hell are you even talking about? Other than the Mac Pro and the 12” MacBook, every single Mac in Apple’s lineup has been refreshed in the last 7 months.

The situation of the past? You lost me there. The iPhone sales tanking...sure, not a good look, but Apple still turned a profit, just not as big a profit as they projected.

Apple is skating to the Watch and Services and whatever else they have cooking in their labs, but it’s NOT the Mac...

 

[Baymowe335]

Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. Frankly: no. I'm most certainly not wrong. Just a sober view on Apple and the direction they are headed



They updated the Air after how many years? The update is not only half-hearted (Faulty keyboard, rather dim display), its also very late.
Similarly: They updated the mini after how many years? Soldered down, locked down, featuring a price screaming: buy somewhere else.

They last updated the Mac Pro in ... wait, did they even update? Its been so long, I can't even remember... very convincing, they apparently are trying very very hard, right?

In short: yes, they keep updating, but at a pace so slow, its pretty clear the Mac is neither priority 1 nor priority 2. Kind of like in Apple TV territory.

And no, I am not necessarily talking price, albeit admittedly their price hike is almost comical, again, screaming: don't bother buying here.

I am talking about missing products for the education market (think the venerable iBook of decades prior), missing product for the enthusiast market (Mac Pro, something below the Mac Pro not being an AIO), etc., etc.

Yes, you are wrong. Companies with $265B in revenue don’t double or triple revenues. Apple also has THE best track record of sales execution and profit delivery of any company. All the numbers prove that. They made $60B in profit in 2018 because of their winning strategy. You know who came in second place? Google at $23B.

You think just simply selling different products at different prices changes that? That’s not how business works. You don’t get to do thing A and it’s automatically accretive. You will have consequences for any change in product mix or prices changes.

Apple has proven they know how to make money better than any company.

At least come back with one fact and we can have an intelligent discussion. You’re not backing up anything you say.

 

[ipponrg]

It’s really about opportunity cost. An engineer working on the Mac is an engineer not working on the Apple Watch or Apple glasses and my take is that Apple essentially funnelled all their resources towards mobile and wearables. So from Apple’s perspective, giving up their Mac platform was deemed an acceptable trade off because in their eyes, wearables represented the future at Apple, not the Mac.

It's really due to a surplus of engineering jobs and a shortage of engineers which causes the opportunity costs.

 

[Peperino]

I can’t reason with you if you say they’ve abandoned the Mac. They sold 18M of them...very stable.
They are the most profitable company in the word because they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t need your advice. Frankly, you’re wrong.

Apple revenue is coming mainly from Apple, wearables and the growing services.
Sorry to say but you ARE wrong. Loki is right since almost the entire computer line up is outdated and way overpriced.

What Apple is doing in design, innovation and quality, in relation to the computer line up has been quite a disaster.
Mac sales has been down year over year.
Products speaks for themselves just a simple look at the computer line up shows how little interest Apple has in innovating and design the computer line up. Not to mention that the upgrade cycles has become ridiculously long (4-6 years).

- Mac Pro 6 years and counting.
- iMac external design 10 years and counting. Internals, recent upgrade still shipping with a 5400RPM in 2019. What a joke.
- Macbook Pro- 4th revision of a failing keyboard design. As stubborn as it gets. Not to mention that most other laptops have already touchscreens, ship with 16GB Ram 512 SSD at almost half the cost of a Mac. Now with 8 cores in the same enclosure where they had problems cooling 4. So much for the old Apple quality reliability.
- Mac Mini- 4 year and 70% more expensive, using the same enclosure that had cooling problems and still with soldered components.

Again, regardless how many units they sell (which actually are much less if you consider that prices increased), that does not mean that they are creating good products.

 

[09872738]

Apple revenue is coming mainly from Apple, wearables and the growing services.
Sorry to say but you ARE wrong. Loki is right since almost the entire computer line up is outdated and way overpriced.

What Apple is doing in design, innovation and quality, in relation to the computer line up has been quite a disaster.
Mac sales has been down year over year.

Correct. Of course! There is a clear tendency, one just needs to see it.

Its too obvious Apple has no interest in the Mac, focusing on iOS devices instead because those are the oh so bright and golden future, with ever increasing profits. Oh wait... iPhone sales 30 % down? Maybe iPhone was the bright future - in 2009. Looks like someone in Cupertino realized its 2019, markets are saturated and possibly the future lies somewhere else. Maybe in some innovation. But since there is nothing of the sort to be seen its best to focus on services, right, what could possibly go wrong with services? A formerly visionary company on the way to becoming... a dull IBM 1984 clone, exactly as Steve Jobs predicted?

Such a pity the best OS platform (macOS) is let down by poor hardware, lack of interest and greed. Maybe they should consider selling the Mac/macOS division to someone who actually is enthusiastic about it.

 

[Baymowe335]

Apple revenue is coming mainly from Apple, wearables and the growing services.
Sorry to say but you ARE wrong. Loki is right since almost the entire computer line up is outdated and way overpriced.

What Apple is doing in design, innovation and quality, in relation to the computer line up has been quite a disaster.
Mac sales has been down year over year.
Products speaks for themselves just a simple look at the computer line up shows how little interest Apple has in innovating and design the computer line up. Not to mention that the upgrade cycles has become ridiculously long (4-6 years).

- Mac Pro 6 years and counting.
- iMac external design 10 years and counting. Internals, recent upgrade still shipping with a 5400RPM in 2019. What a joke.
- Macbook Pro- 4th revision of a failing keyboard design. As stubborn as it gets. Not to mention that most other laptops have already touchscreens, ship with 16GB Ram 512 SSD at almost half the cost of a Mac. Now with 8 cores in the same enclosure where they had problems cooling 4. So much for the old Apple quality reliability.
- Mac Mini- 4 year and 70% more expensive, using the same enclosure that had cooling problems and still with soldered components.

Again, regardless how many units they sell (which actually are much less if you consider that prices increased), that does not mean that they are creating good products.

What are you arguing? I said Mac has posted stable revenues and the other Apple businesses dwarf the Mac, thus the less frequent updates. However, they haven't "abandoned" the Mac if they keep refreshing it and the revenues are stable. Show me the large decline in Mac. I am objectively right, lol.

Apple is focused on mobile computing and is still selling Macs at quite a stable rate. You can talk about overpriced or poor specs all you want, but that business is still solid. It's just much smaller than their other businesses that are far more important and popular.
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Correct. Of course! There is a clear tendency, one just needs to see it.

Its too obvious Apple has no interest in the Mac, focusing on iOS devices instead because those are the oh so bright and golden future, with ever increasing profits. Oh wait... iPhone sales 30 % down? Maybe iPhone was the bright future - in 2009. Looks like someone in Cupertino realized its 2019, markets are saturated and possibly the future lies somewhere else. Maybe in some innovation. But since there is nothing of the sort to be seen its best to focus on services, right, what could possibly go wrong with services? A formerly visionary company on the way to becoming... a dull IBM 1984 clone, exactly as Steve Jobs predicted?

Such a pity the best OS platform (macOS) is let down by poor hardware, lack of interest and greed. Maybe they should consider selling the Mac/macOS division to someone who actually is enthusiastic about it.

You think Apple's growth will come from the Mac? I mean, you're dreaming. Apple's future is in services, wearables, and monetizing the user base the iPhone created over the last 12 years. No one is surprised iPhone sales have peaked, including Apple, which is why you see wearables growing at 30% and services at 20%. They saw this long ago and are making the change.

iPhone sales were down 17% (revenue). The 30% you're quoting is not any official data from Apple, but an extrapolation (guess) from a research company on no longer reported unit sales.

The trade issues with China and Chinese nationalism are real and largely out of Apple's control. With more normal performance in China, iPhone revenue would have been far better. You are also comparing a very strong quarter in iPhone versus the most recently reported quarter due to iPhone X's huge success in early 2018 after a Nov 2017 release.

We'll see how iPhone sales fare over the next 6 months, but you can't ignore the growth we're seeing in services, wearables, and even iPad at 20% growth most recently. The future is mobile and in services for Apple. Some kind of renewed focus on laptops/Macs is not going to be some huge growth story. Apple maintains that product line adequately. The future is different. Get on board or hate on.

 

[09872738]

Well, ok.. if its all services and other boring stuff while the Mac became an annoyance for Apple, go right ahead.

Sell off the Mac division to someone who cares, where‘s the problem? No need to torment customers with crazy overpriced unreliable computers just to keep them away from the annoyance the Mac has become for Apple. Obviously

 

[Glockworkorange]

can't wait until Apple updates the MacBook line again with new graphics cards in 3 months.

I mean, come on. We bash them when they go too long between refreshes and then bash them when they immediately update the cards as they become available.

What would you like them to do?

 

[Zdigital2015]

can't wait until Apple updates the MacBook line again with new graphics cards in 3 months.

Pretty sure that there is nothing in the pipeline GPU-wise, regardless. Besides, that was a fluke, and not soon to be repeated. It's pretty obvious that Apple had everything ready to go and AMD was close to decent yields on the Vega 16/20, but not close enough, or something went wrong during validation testing. Apple decided to ship the MacBook Pro without the Vega BTO option...people on this forum were griping big time that the 8th Gen didn't ship at WWDC. What is Apple supposed to do? Were they supposed to wait until November to ship revised MacBook Pros? People here would be screaming bloody murder, like they were with new iMacs not being released at the October event. Apple cannot win for losing.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I mean, come on. We bash them when they go too long between refreshes and then bash them when they immediately update the cards as they become available.

What would you like them to do?

wait 3 months to include the new GPU or wait 6 months after releasing the new MacBook to release yet another new MacBook.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Well, ok.. if its all services and other boring stuff while the Mac became an annoyance for Apple, go right ahead.

Sell off the Mac division to someone who cares, where‘s the problem? No need to torment customers with crazy overpriced unreliable computers just to keep them away from the annoyance the Mac has become for Apple. Obviously

Tim Cook's job is to grow the company by creating and sustaining revenue while providing jobs and benefits to his employees. If Services are another avenue for Apple to create value and revenue, and it's boring...well, I guess that is all in the eye of the beholder.

I do not think the Mac division is an annoyance to Apple, but they have to focus on where the largest chance of growth is going to be to meet their financial targets and objectives. The Mac division is not where the biggest opportunities are at right now and they haven't been for the past 8 years.

Please, be realistic...Apple is never going to sell off the Mac division. Apple has built an ecosystem for all of these products (iPhone, iPad, Watch and Mac) and that ecosystem is important to them, regardless of what you or I or anyone else thinks. If it wasn't, why did Apple just refresh the 13" and 15" MacBook Pros last week? The 21.5" and 27" iMac back in March? The 13" MacBook Air and Mac mini back in later October? Because they had to? Nope...Apple sold the Mac mini for 4 years straight without an upgrade, without batting so much as an eyelash. Same with the 2015/2017 13" MacBook Air, which they sold unchanged for 3-1/2 years.

Is it possible for Apple to grow Mac revenues and marketshare? Yes, anything is possible. Personally, I believe there is some upside to the Mac that Apple could take advantage of which they are not, but that is my personal belief only and I don't pretend to know what the long term strategic plans are for the company. Which means what I think is irrelevant to Apple, as it should be. Yes, I want Apple to listen, but they are going to do what they are going to do, regardless. Apple is a business, not a wish fulfillment center.

Apple is not tormenting customers...maybe you believe they are tormenting you, but they are not...at least, not on purpose. They have a lot of satisfied customers who like and enjoy the current lineup of Apple products.

Apple does care about the Mac, just not the way you and many others here on these forums want them to care about the Mac...it doesn't mean that they are ignoring the Mac, even though it has felt like it at times. It means that they had to focus on growing other part of the business that have the most upside, growth and long term profit potential. It is what it is.
[doublepost=1559233425][/doublepost]

if they can make us wait 6-7 years for a new Mac Pro, they can make us wait 3 months for the new GPU or make us wait 6 months after they released the new MacBook to release an update to that MacBook

Yeah, I don't think so...Apple has release schedules and purchasing contracts that are in place for CPUs, support chips and components months ahead of a changeover or update to any of their products. Coupled with the just in time nature of Apple manufacturing and the goal of keeping as little inventory on shelves and in warehouses as possible, Apple cannot simply put something on hold for 6-7 months when a partner like AMD hits a roadblock...which is what this ended up being.

It makes no sense for Apple to have waited for July 11th to introduce the 2018 MacBook Pro. Odd date, and after WWDC. Intel released those CPUs in April of 2018, just like they did with the 9th Gen. Initial supplies were constrained a bit, but Apple could have announced before or during WWDC. That's certainly where the marketing value would have been. I think Apple put things on hold just a bit to give AMD time to get the Vega 16/20 GPUs yields where Apple needed them. AMD hit a roadblock, Apple said we have to ship before Back To School. AMD said they couldn't make it in time and Apple shipped. Better to ship minus a couple of upper tier GPU options than to release an updated MacBook Pro a month or two after BTS winds down and piss off students and parents who just bought the supposed latest and greatest that was already a year old and updated CPUs existed. The PR hit for that would be horrible, versus the heat Apple took for the Vega release. It was always meant to be a BTO option, never the default GPU. I simply don't think AMD had the yields to make enough for Apple's needs. AMD has been focusing on its core CPU business, because that business is crucial to their success long term. They have to compete with Intel and claw away at market share, which they seem to be doing pretty well. Gaining marketshare on NVIDIA is a ton more difficult at this point for a whole host of reasons.

Also, there is zero correlation between Apple "making" us wait 6-7 years for a new Mac Pro and Apple making us wait for a BUILD TO ORDER GPU update for the MacBook Pro.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Pretty sure that there is nothing in the pipeline GPU-wise, regardless. Besides, that was a fluke, and not soon to be repeated. It's pretty obvious that Apple had everything ready to go and AMD was close to decent yields on the Vega 16/20, but not close enough, or something went wrong during validation testing. Apple decided to ship the MacBook Pro without the Vega BTO option...people on this forum were griping big time that the 8th Gen didn't ship at WWDC. What is Apple supposed to do? Were they supposed to wait until November to ship revised MacBook Pros? People here would be screaming bloody murder, like they were with new iMacs not being released at the October event. Apple cannot win for losing.

if they can make us wait 6-7 years for a new Mac Pro, they can make us wait 3 months for the new GPU or make us wait 6 months after they released the new MacBook to release an update to that MacBook

 

[Peperino]

However, they haven't "abandoned" the Mac if they keep refreshing it and the revenues are stable. Show me the large decline in Mac. I am objectively right, lol.

Apple is focused on mobile computing and is still selling Macs at quite a stable rate. You can talk about overpriced or poor specs all you want, but that business is still solid. It's just much smaller than their other businesses that are far more important and popular.

You are so wrong. The decline has been year over year. Why do you think Apple stop reporting how many units were sold?
If you consider that prices increased 30%, and y/y revenue is lower, that means that the actual units sold were actually much less since the price per units are more expensive.

Apple is barely upgrading processors and internals in the entire computer line up, with no major innovation. If that is NOT abandoning what is it? if major upgrade cycles are 4-6 years, means not abandoning, what is it?

We are not talking how big the Mac business compares to others (Services, mobile, etc). We are talking about the poor/lame products Apple is releasing within the computer line up.

Business soo stable that sales are declining Y/Y? Business is NOT solid if it is declining. And the main reason it is declining because many users are not willing to upgrade to the current outdated technology/overprice products Apple is releasing.
Why waste 3k in a disposable Laptop?

Compared to other similar products, the MBP is so behind and so overpriced that I wonder why sales are declining...

But according to you MBP are so on fire they are selling like hotcakes.
https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/30/macbook-pro-catches-fire/



Apple
Yesterday Technology at tomorrow's prices.