Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

[rp2011]

Could be that Apple is waiting on its own intel replacement chip for the big update.

 

[lec0rsaire]

All the mobile phones I have owned:

1994 - Motorola MicroTAC flip phone
2002 - Nokia 3310
2005 - Sony Z520a flip phone
2008 - iPhone 3G (for software development - bought unlocked in the Czech Republic)
2017 - iPhone 7.

I expect to have my iPhone 7 for 8-10 years. I use it to make phone calls. I guess at 46, I am just too old to understand the emoji era. My iPhone does not connect to the internet and I have no apps.

I do have an iPad which has internet access and aviation apps (I fly small planes).

I hope you never updated the 3G to 4.2.1! That rendered my phone useless and I bought the 4s as soon as possible! I believe 3.1.3 was the last good version for the 3G.

 

[QCassidy352]

Everything is outdated before we open the box because we are told that every company is constantly working on the next best thing.

I'm talking about the next-gen version of the technology being commercially available at the time you open the box. Not that it's in development in some lab somewhere.

Don’t agree that cars should come out every year either. Sometimes it pays to breathe a little so you know what you add on is going to work and be the best.

Which is why neither car manufacturers nor computer manufacturers do total redesigns every year. But how much time do you have to take to figure out whether "it's going to work" to replace last year's low-power i5 with this year's low-power i5?​

 

[pl1984]

There's a sales and marketing reason they do this. If they continually lower the price over time, then release a new model back at the original price, consumers will complain because they'll see that the widget is getting more expensive, even if the price (at introduction) was unchanged. Plus, most consumers that buy don't know about Intel generations, GPU benchmarks, etc, so they don't have much incentive to lower their average order value.

Your solution is for Apple to sell the old technology for the same price as when it was first introduced?
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Could be that Apple is waiting on its own intel replacement chip for the big update.

Why wait? Couldn't they at least update the platform with current technology while they're working towards that goal?

 

[lec0rsaire]

Do you have any recent studies to confirm this? Or are you relying on the Gistics study from way back when?

It’s just what I have personally observed over the decades from seeing family and friends’ computers. Every Mac was working without issue and every Windows machine had some sort of malware and usually had never been defragged. In many cases the initial bloatware was still there! I now play dumb and refuse to work on anyone’s machine for free.

 

[DesertNomad]

I hope you never updated the 3G to 4.2.1! That rendered my phone useless and I bought the 4s as soon as possible! I believe 3.1.3 was the last good version for the 3G.

I no longer have that phone but I believe it was on 3.1.3. I ended up using it for phone calls until the battery just would not hold a charge for more than a few hours and bought an iPhone 7.

I will say that Macs have always held their value well. I recently sold a 2011 17" MBP that I was using as a test machine. I bought it new in 2011 for $2600 and sold it for $600 a few weeks ago. Not bad for a 7-year-old machine.

I miss the days when SJ was around, Apple cared about Macs and you didn't need a lottery to get a WWDC ticket. Remember when developers could buy (well, rent) early test machines with Intel processors before the production models? That is when Apple cared.

 

[crodonline]

I'm talking about the next-gen version of the technology being commercially available at the time you open the box. Not that it's in development in some lab somewhere.

That’s not what I meant, but okay

 

[pl1984]

It’s just what I have personally observed over the decades from seeing family and friends’ computers. Every Mac was working without issue and every Windows machine had some sort of malware and usually had never been defragged. In many cases the initial bloatware was still there! I now play dumb and refuse to work on anyone’s machine for free.

So you're basing this on decades old experience. Gotcha.

 

[lec0rsaire]

There's a sales and marketing reason they do this. If they continually lower the price over time, then release a new model back at the original price, consumers will complain because they'll see that the widget is getting more expensive, even if the price (at introduction) was unchanged. Plus, most consumers that buy don't know about Intel generations, GPU benchmarks, etc, so they don't have much incentive to lower their average order value.

This is really true. Unless you’re someone who knows hardware like your right hand, core i3, i5, i9, extreme, Xeon, amd, nVidia, DDR3 vs. 4, hdd, sshd, ssd really don’t mean much. People understand that higher numbers are better and that’s about it. It gets tougher when people demo these machines and the UI looks and responds the same on nearly every device.

 

[scoobs69]

Xeons, huge ssds and ecc ram is not cheap stuff. These machines are not meant for the average customer and those who buy them will make back the money spent rather quickly unless they just bought it to show off and are not using it for work.

They're not meant for 95% of the people who need a 4, 6, 8, 10, 14, or 18 core workstation. The amount of people who buy i7 and i9 (and Ryzen) CPUs and do real work on Windows workstations prove this. Apple simple refuses to offer this to those people (like me).

In Apple's little warped real world work view, anyone who wants an 8+ core machine needs to have a Xeon - and this just isn't the case.

 

[flyinmac]

See, it's statements like this which make it hard for me to take the haters seriously.

https://www.apple.com/sg/leadership/

Basically, all the VPs and SVPs report to Tim Cook. Tim Cook and his board of executives look after Apple's day-to-day operations, many of the key decisions regarding Apple's strategy are likely determined by a much smaller group of SVPs (including Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller, and Jeff Williams), while the Industrial Design group looks after Apple's product strategy.

Meanwhile, Jony Ive as Chief Design Officer is left to do what he wants, which is basically the exact role formerly held by Steve Jobs. And still people criticise Tim Cooks for not being the product visionary that Steve Jobs was when that role has already been filled (making it a non-issue).

Likening the monumental task of running Apple to that of a figurehead role is frankly quite insulting, and vastly underrates Tim Cook's importance. Yes, Tim Cook is not front and centre like Steve Jobs, but that doesn't make his duties and responsibilities any less important. Different leaders lead in different ways, in accordance with their respective strengths and weaknesses, and there's nothing wrong with that.

To sum it all up, different people are needed at different points in a company history. Jobs was right for his era, but he would have been a disaster for the Cook era. Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, but not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Cook has refined the culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.
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Which is what Apple is doing, by moving to position the Apple Watch as the next successor to the iPhone.

You don't move forward by looking back.

A chart of the chain of command doesn’t illustrate that a particular individual is in ultimate control and the actual leader of an organization.

Even the janitor has people that report to him. That doesn’t mean he is in charge of waste management. It just means that he has a job as long as he does what he’s told, and keeps those under him working towards the goals that were assigned to him.

If the true boss gives a command, and he decides to lead his team a different direction because he’s the CEO, he’ll find himself CEO of the Corner Window Wash.

 

[asiga]

Removing the glowing logo is also frustrating.

I used to enjoy showing the Apple logo, but now I prefer to put a sticker and hide it, because now it stands for a political ideology that I don't support. When Apple was Apple and the Mac was the Mac, it was cool to feel proud of the Apple logo. But now I won't show it, for the same reason I don't have a rainbow flag in my home. If at least the CEO was careful about showing off his ideology, the Apple logo could keep its non-political meaning. But with this CEO, the logo is a political party flag.

 

[crodonline]

Which is why neither car manufacturers nor computer manufacturers do total redesigns every year. But how much time do you have to take to figure out whether "it's going to work" to replace last year's low-power i5 with this year's low-power i5?

Also didn’t mean a redesign. And unless you work in either industry, none of us know how much time it actually takes

 

[lec0rsaire]

They're not meant for 95% of the people who need a 4, 6, 8, 10, 14, or 18 core workstation. The amount of people who buy i7 and i9 (and Ryzen) CPUs and do real work proves on the Windows side of computing work prove this. Apple simple refuses to offer this to those people (like me).

In Apple's little warped real world work view, anyone who wants an 8+ core machine needs to have a Xeon - and this just isn't the case.

This was Steve Jobs’s decision and how he chose to turn around the dying Mac business. They did offer consumer desktops back in the ‘90s but stopped when he came back. At one point the G5 was an incredible value but unfortunately PowerPC was no longer viable.

It’s also the success of the iMac that is responsible. Consumers loved that they could just have a good looking monitor instead of a separate tower as well.

 

[pl1984]

This is really true. Unless you’re someone who knows hardware like your right hand, core i3, i5, i9, extreme, Xeon, amd, nVidia, DDR3 vs. 4, hdd, sshd, ssd really don’t mean much. People understand that higher numbers are better and that’s about it. It gets tougher when people demo these machines and the UI looks and responds the same on nearly every device.

So their ignorance means Apple is justified in selling outdated hardware at current prices?

 

[utelme]

We aren't buying it. We'd like to. That's the problem.



Apple was still decent 2 years ago

If the Mac platform continues to dwindle and anymore developers outside the Apple corp quit making software you might not have any choice since PC platform will be the only thing affordable and viable left.

 

[albebaubles]

Id sure like to know what computers the developers at apple work on.

 

[dfs]

Moore's law is slowing down. Dennard scaling is just not happening any more. There's less and less gain from spending money on new high-profit-margin hardware every couple years, like there used to be a decade or two ago.

The only Mac that seems really out of date is the Mac Mini, which can be out-performed by a 4k AppleTV at a much lower cost in a package with a fraction of the volume. I'd buy an arm64 Mini running macOS (essentially a 4k+ ATV with a bigger SSD and a slightly different OS).

 

[Drunken Master 911]

I'm a photographer. I use a 2012 MBP with a semi-dead battery and two huge dents in it as a desktop. Threw the DVD drive out years ago so it has two HD's in it. Every couple of months I roll into an Apple Store, and walk out in complete disgust.

The pricing structure is a complete joke. $200 more for 8GB RAM? $200 more for 128GB HD space? No upgradeability, USB-C only, a Touchbar for $500 more, and 4 year old Intel chips?

It's not even about the money, it's about feeling respected. I can't even buy an iMac Pro because I have no idea what direction Apple is heading in with the Mac Pro.

I never expected to hold on to this computer for so long.

 

[falainber]

Is this dude even aware that Apple just added Oprah Winfrey to their line-up?

 

[ConfluxNZ]

I had recently saved up enough to buy the new MacBook Pro but all the lawsuits, news and coverage on the flakey keyboard made me stop dead in my tracks.

In the context of this article, I feel the MacBook Pro keyboard is a great metaphor for Apple’s approach to Mac hardware in general: half-assed and not well thought out, with all of their engineering might clearly diverted to iDevices (which themselves have become less and less compelling in the face of other innovative offerings). It’s a real shame and I hope they get their act together on Macs soon.

 

[npmacuser5]

You dont make money with "what people need" nowadays. You make money with "what people want". And the people want new Mac Hardware. Easy as that.

Maybe, Apple makes a good deal of money with their strategy. When has Apple ever followed what people want. Like a music jack, floppy disks, multiple ports, to name a very few of the so called people wants list. Apple defines what people want, while more then meeting their needs with great software and supporting hardware. Easy as that.

 

[scoobs69]

But that’s exactly the point. You can’t compare consumer and server grade hardware even if performance is really about the same in some cases. Of course the latter costs more and not everyone needs that sort of reliability. Same thing with ECC RAM. Buying parts is always cheaper since no one is paid for assembly and the OS is not included in the price. I wonder how much Apple charges for years of macOS updates in their prices. Nothing is free and we’re definitely paying for those yearly releases.

Yes you can.

Regardless what Apple fanboys suggest, you can compare anything you wish - especially if they can perform the exact same tasks. I know this, as I used to be an Apple Fanboy; and 10 years ago I used to defend, er...justify Apple's pricing.

I can compare my machine to the Dell Z workstation, as they can do the same thing.

Now...if one computer could cook me breakfast in the morning, and the other only do menial word processing tasks, then yes. It would be stupid to compare the computers. ...but you could still do it...

 

[pl1984]

I had recently saved up enough to buy the new MacBook Pro but all the lawsuits, news and coverage on the flakey keyboard made me stop dead in my tracks.

In the context of this article, I feel the MacBook Pro keyboard is a great metaphor for Apple’s approach to Mac hardware in general: half-assed and not well thought out, with all of their engineering might clearly diverted to iDevices (which themselves have become less and less compelling in the face of other innovative offerings). It’s a real shame and I hope they get their act together on Macs soon.

The keyboard is a reflection of the poor direction Apple has decided to travel: Form over function.

It's understandable the Butterfly keyboard is necessary in the MacBook due to its small size. But they've taken that philosophy to all their other products. I can't think of anyone who wanted a thinner MBP over what the previous generation offered. Having a MB to complement the MBP is understandable. To take the concept of the MB and apply if to the MBP is not.

 

[groadyho]

Yep. Especially for folks who don’t know how to fix their OS problems macOS is more likely to be running well years later compared to a Windows install that is filled with junk and hasn’t been properly maintained. For us it’s not a problem but Geek Squad wouldn’t exist making any money if tons of people didn’t need help constantly.

Where do you guys get this stuff. I dont know anyone who ever needed geek squad on a windows update. My wifes law office still uses win7 machines updated to win10.