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I think Apple has a lot of talented engineers and developers working for them, the problem I believe stems from the leaders at the top, Tim Cook not excluded here. There are a number of areas where I have seen things slide or be ignored. Priorities are set at the top. The reality is that Apple is allocating most of their resources in the areas where they are seeing the most revenue, but it is also at the expense of innovation and I believe in the long term, it will hurt the brand.

The most helpful thing any one person can do is leave feedback with Apple on the issues that matter to you: apple.com/feedback
Not enough people take the time to do this.
 
So much rage because MacBooks still have Kaby Lake processors. While I'm still in bliss that my TouchBar MacBook Pro is still the "latest" model. In my business, I'm on a 2.5 year replacement plan.

The reality is Apple is still making billions on Macs regardless of your feelings, they probably just sold 100 units while I typed this.

Nice new HQ full of thousands of staffers using old hardware. It's hard to believe they don't make new stuff to use on their own desks. I guess it's all about the tables and windows and light fixtures. It just doesn't make sense. Maybe it's about the toilets.

lol, it's called an iMac Pro.

Oh wait you don't have one.
 
Ok - respectfully, I disagree. I think what you are speaking of is the business side. Macs may have been the focus of the company, but the appeal - as far as the consumers in the "beginning" - was the usability of the Macs, their ease of use, their function as it were (something that should - logically - extend to iOS).

Have you looked at what kids are beginning with these days?! Pads and phones. Point is we dinosaurs love our computers and spec fixes, but this is rapidly becoming, if not already, irrelevant. Do I like it no? Can we really say Apple is not innovating? They are. We are the past not the future.
 
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I would like to chime in just to thank this guy for saying this and bringing some attention to this problem.

It's not a problem. It's just rage because Jon wasn't on-stage at WWDC to announce a spec bump and price changes.

The afraid cats that won't swap to USB-C will do so sooner or later. Get over it.

It's not like they can't have another special event later, on their terms. Before October.
 
I’m not sure if this qualifies as news at this point. Everybody paying attention knows that the Mac product line is the lowest priority for Apple. It’s amazing, given all of the money that they make, that they can’t be bothered to refresh their hardware at least once every year.

After hearing the news that Apple failed to announce any new hardware at WWDC and in addition to that the modular Mac Pro they spoke of in their mea culpa last year won’t be shipping until 2019, I bit the bullett and bought the 27 inch 5K iMac. I’m going to drop another $300 to $500 on an eGPU and that will get me where I need to go. I bought Apple Care too but if this thing breaks in years 4 or 5 I’m going to be pissed that I can’t repair it myself and at that point, depending on the repair costs, I might just say to hell with Apple and move to a Dell running Windows 10 with an extended 5 year warranty.

I simply couldn’t wait anymore and can totally see why others have moved on from Apple altogether. If they’d given us a glimpse of the direction they were going in at WWDC I may have held off but without that who the hell knows for sure that this new Mac Pro won’t be just as much of a disaster as the Trash Can? I certainly can’t trust Apple to deliver given what they’ve done, or should I say not done, recently.

I was at a family event yesterday being hosted by a family member who lives about a 15 minute drive from a mall with an Apple Store.

I walked into it at 8 PM, let the gentleman directing traffic know I was there to buy a 5K iMac and a HomePod and I still had to wait 20 minutes before somebody would take my money.

It was hard to avoid the irony of the situation. Not only was Apple, from a corporate perspective, refusing to take money from the Pro crowd by delivering a line of modular machines that can be easily upgraded and repaired, but they weren’t even equipped with enough personnel at this particular store to take money from me and the gentleman standing next to me who was also standing there waiting to hand over a few grand to Apple for a 5K iMac.

I will say this though, the guy that eventually helped me was the same employee I spoke with when I walked in initially and after he circled back to approach me everything about the shopping experience was top notch from that point forward.

Lesson learned I guess. Make an appointment if you intend to buy something. The fact that you have to go that route to give a company a few grand of your money is mind blowing. Apple basically has a license to print money.
 
To summarize it I would just say that
You really seem so blinded with your own personal needs that no wonder you cannot see beyond apples eco system.
Do you really think the seconds to open Photoshop is what matters??
Some people actually do more in photoshop than opening small jpegs.
Personally I frequently work with images with up to 100 layers and 15000px width. You think you can even open them on a 4gb ram machine? No! and it would be impossible to work with! I used to have a 2012 iMac retina, top of the line BTO, much more powerful than the MB air you have with 32gb of ram. Saving an image of that size could take up to 30 minutes, and even crash. While on my current machine it takes about 3-4 minutes. Also don't get me started on the other stuff I do, like After Effects and 3d rendering in particular. Having 16 cores of 4ghz CPU actually matters. Probably an image I would render on my current machine which takes an hour, would take days!!! on your machine. Do you still think an outdated Apple laptop would suffice for everyone, then you seriously have nothing to contribute to this discussion.

Its not about pixels on the screen or how fast a program can open at all. Its how fast the machine can compute large amount of data in a short time.
Who said you had to do heavy tasks on a MacBook Air? That's not what I am trying to explain.
To put things simply, let me show you the possible configuration of the current iMac Pro.
Intel Xeon W 18 cores
128 GB of RAM
Is that not sufficient enough? Do you need 256 GB of RAM? Do you need 32 cores?
You guys are all complaining about the Apple computers not being fast enough, but I'm guessing none of you is having this configuration. Apple is still selling the low-key low-resolution MacBook Air that is sufficient enough for like 90% of the population. They also have Pro material that definitely provides enough capabilities to Pro like yourself. But people complain because they don't release right away the latest CPU whatever. Get a life.
 
It destroyed Apple because Apple was a computer company then, and they couldn’t compete with cheaper clones.

It depends on your business model.

Licensing MS-DOS and MS-Windows certainly didn’t destroy Microsoft. But that’s because Microsoft wasn’t trying to survive by selling computers.

At this point, Apple is making a lot of money on computers. But it certainly isn’t their primary source of income.

And on a per unit basis, they would probably make more money selling licenses of Mac OS than they do on Macintosh computers.

Consider that if the Macintosh computer division was shut down, the expenses of that department would also cease.

No more R&D to design new systems. No more support department answering calls about hardware problems. No more class action suits on computer defects. No more manufacturing costs of computer hardware. Literally no money going to supporting, designing, manufacturing, vendor operations, etc.

Their entire computer division could close.

Now they have just the software division.

And that division produces a core operating system. Which other computer manufacturers can pay them and get a license.

All Apple has to do is provide the core operating system. That’s it. And they get money for every licensed copy installed on every computer.

Much lower overhead.

Now... many of you are prepared to say that it increases support costs because they’d have to support more hardware. Wrong...

They’d have zero support costs.

I was once a licensed OEM for Microsoft (among several other licenses and access rights). And here’s the way it boils down.

If Apple adopted the strategy above... Apple doesn’t have to support anything.

Any hardware makers are tasked with writing their own drivers for the operating system. Apple does not have to write the drivers. The hardware companies do that.

Apple does not have to support the operating system, except for copies they decide to sell at retail to individual users. Which they can still avoid supporting hardware related issues and charge for support if the problem comes down to hardware or drivers.

All support costs for Mac OS would fall on the OEM who built the computer and sold the computer with Mac OS. The computer manufacturer has to provide technical support for any operating system it supplies preinstalled on a computer it sold (that’s how it works with Windows too).

And, to really follow the Microsoft model... the computer manufacturers cannot go to Apple for support of the Operating System either. So if the manufacturer has a problem they can’t figure out, even they can’t call on Apple for support.

So if we apply the Microsoft model, then Apple has more to gain by licensing Mac OS than it does by manufacturing and selling computers.

The only reason the above strategy would fail, is if they tried to compete with the other computer manufacturers.

Not really sure what point you are making... but it sounds like you are suggesting Mac OS go the way of Windows... umm... no thanks. If I wanted a system where the hardware vendor points to Microsoft... and Microsoft points to the hardware vendor I’d just buy a PC.
 
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"Apple needs to publicly show their commitment to the full Macintosh hardware line and they need to do it now."

No statement made in the last decade can be more true.



Rogue Amoeba developer Quentin Carnicelli, who works on Mac software like Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Loopback, and Fission, this week penned a critique of Apple's Mac lineup and the company's recent lack of Mac updates, and that missive has been gaining some attention from Mac fans.

Using MacRumors' own Buyer's Guide, Carnicelli points out that it's been more than a year since any Mac, with the exception of the iMac Pro, has been updated.

It's been 375 days, for example, since the iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air machines were last updated, and it's been 437 days since the Mac Pro saw the price drop Apple implemented as it works on a Mac Pro replacement.

macrumorsbuyersguide-800x171.jpg

The Mac Pro has not seen a hardware update since December of 2013, more than 1600 days ago. Apple has promised its professional users that a high-end high-throughput modular Mac Pro system is in the works, but we thus far have no details on when it might see a release.

The Mac mini, Apple's most affordable desktop Mac, has gone 1338 days without an update, with the last refresh introduced in October of 2014. While Apple has made promises about a refreshed Mac Pro, no similar statement has been provided about a future Mac mini, aside from a comment from Apple CEO Tim Cook stating that the Mac mini continues to be important to Apple.

applemacmini-800x705.jpg

According to Carnicelli, the state of the Mac lineup is "deeply worrisome" to him as a person who works for a Mac-based software company. Customers are, he says, forced to choose between "purchasing new computers that are actually years old" or "holding out in the faint hope that hardware updates are still to come."As Carnicelli points out, Apple could reassure its Mac users with updates and speed bumps to its Mac lineup on a "much more frequent basis," calling the current lack of updates "baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their livelihood."

Apple in 2017 refreshed much of its Mac lineup (iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook) at its Worldwide Developers Conference, but this year, Apple opted to focus instead on software, with no new Mac hardware announced. With no new hardware in June, based on past release history, we could be looking at an 18-month upgrade cycle this time around, as pointed out by iMore's Rene Ritchie, with new Macs making an appearance in September or October.

Some of the blame for Apple's lack of updates can perhaps be placed on its reliance on Intel, and in the past, some Mac refreshes have been pushed back due to delays with Intel chips. This is likely one of the reasons why Apple is planning to transition from Intel chips to its own custom made Mac chips as early as 2020.

MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and MacBook Air upgrades are not in the dire state that Mac Pro and Mac mini upgrades are in, but increased attention on issues with the MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards has left Apple customers eager to see those machine updated, especially as Apple has not acknowledged these keyboard issues despite their prevalence in the media.

"Apple needs to publicly show their commitment to the full Macintosh hardware line and they need to do it now," writes Carnicelli.

Carnicelli's comments on the state of the Mac lineup came just before Apple released a new Mac advertising campaign. Called "Behind the Mac," the campaign highlights creators who use their Macs to "make something wonderful."


The first ad spots in the series focus on photographer and disability advocate Bruce Hall, who uses his Mac for editing photographs, musician Grimes, who uses the Mac "from start to finish" to write all of her music, edit music videos, and more, and app developer Peter Kariuki who used his Mac to code the SafeMotos app, which is designed to connect passengers with safe motorcycle drivers in Rwanda.

These ads, while inspiring, may be seen as too little too late by those who have grown frustrated with Apple's Mac lineup and have come to see the lack of updates as an indicator of a lack of commitment to the Mac.

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



Rogue Amoeba developer Quentin Carnicelli, who works on Mac software like Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Loopback, and Fission, this week penned a critique of Apple's Mac lineup and the company's recent lack of Mac updates, and that missive has been gaining some attention from Mac fans.

Using MacRumors' own Buyer's Guide, Carnicelli points out that it's been more than a year since any Mac, with the exception of the iMac Pro, has been updated.

It's been 375 days, for example, since the iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air machines were last updated, and it's been 437 days since the Mac Pro saw the price drop Apple implemented as it works on a Mac Pro replacement.

macrumorsbuyersguide-800x171.jpg

The Mac Pro has not seen a hardware update since December of 2013, more than 1600 days ago. Apple has promised its professional users that a high-end high-throughput modular Mac Pro system is in the works, but we thus far have no details on when it might see a release.

The Mac mini, Apple's most affordable desktop Mac, has gone 1338 days without an update, with the last refresh introduced in October of 2014. While Apple has made promises about a refreshed Mac Pro, no similar statement has been provided about a future Mac mini, aside from a comment from Apple CEO Tim Cook stating that the Mac mini continues to be important to Apple.

applemacmini-800x705.jpg

According to Carnicelli, the state of the Mac lineup is "deeply worrisome" to him as a person who works for a Mac-based software company. Customers are, he says, forced to choose between "purchasing new computers that are actually years old" or "holding out in the faint hope that hardware updates are still to come."As Carnicelli points out, Apple could reassure its Mac users with updates and speed bumps to its Mac lineup on a "much more frequent basis," calling the current lack of updates "baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their livelihood."

Apple in 2017 refreshed much of its Mac lineup (iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook) at its Worldwide Developers Conference, but this year, Apple opted to focus instead on software, with no new Mac hardware announced. With no new hardware in June, based on past release history, we could be looking at an 18-month upgrade cycle this time around, as pointed out by iMore's Rene Ritchie, with new Macs making an appearance in September or October.

Some of the blame for Apple's lack of updates can perhaps be placed on its reliance on Intel, and in the past, some Mac refreshes have been pushed back due to delays with Intel chips. This is likely one of the reasons why Apple is planning to transition from Intel chips to its own custom made Mac chips as early as 2020.

MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and MacBook Air upgrades are not in the dire state that Mac Pro and Mac mini upgrades are in, but increased attention on issues with the MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards has left Apple customers eager to see those machine updated, especially as Apple has not acknowledged these keyboard issues despite their prevalence in the media.

"Apple needs to publicly show their commitment to the full Macintosh hardware line and they need to do it now," writes Carnicelli.

Carnicelli's comments on the state of the Mac lineup came just before Apple released a new Mac advertising campaign. Called "Behind the Mac," the campaign highlights creators who use their Macs to "make something wonderful."


The first ad spots in the series focus on photographer and disability advocate Bruce Hall, who uses his Mac for editing photographs, musician Grimes, who uses the Mac "from start to finish" to write all of her music, edit music videos, and more, and app developer Peter Kariuki who used his Mac to code the SafeMotos app, which is designed to connect passengers with safe motorcycle drivers in Rwanda.

These ads, while inspiring, may be seen as too little too late by those who have grown frustrated with Apple's Mac lineup and have come to see the lack of updates as an indicator of a lack of commitment to the Mac.

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

ive been a Mac user since college. Just sold my 2010 MacBook Pro. However, I feel myself wavering on purchasing another. Don’t get me wrong, It was a great machine. But, with undead to hardware coming few and far between, combined with what I believe is significantly less innovatin on software updates, it’s hard to see Apple’s dedication to Mac and it’s users. It pisses me off when Mac mini goes years without updates of any kind, yet, they’ve managed to carve out time for the super important development of Animoji and junk like that. I came so close to purchasing a Dell XPS 15 last night. I hope Apple has the sense to have people reading this forum.
 
Have you looked at what kids are beginning with these days?! Pads and phones. Point is we dinosaurs love our computers and spec fixes, but this is rapidly becoming, if not already, irrelevant. Do I like it no? Can we really say Apple is not innovating? They are. We are the past not the future.

I'm sorry, but... I mean, no.

In 1985, the gadget all kids wanted was a Walkman, then a Nintendo, then a Playstation, then for a brief period they wanted a PC, and now if you don't have a smartphone you're nobody.

Very well.

Meanwhile, grown-ups in the scientific, medical and engineering professions depend on computers more and more, and in very many industries processing power is still king.

Thankfully we will never see the consumer hysteria around personal computers of the early 2000s again, but that hardly makes traditional computers irrelevant or makes "us" a thing of "the past"
 
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This just shows that they want faster horses. But no one is able to clearly elaborate why.
I don't want faster horses. I want working horses. Mac mini and mac pro should not be 5 years old. That's considered vintage in Apple's world. Macbook pro should have a keyboard that functions well enough they aren't being sued for it. And iMac should have more sufficient cooling to not be thermal throttled. These are the products apple needs to work on. For most consumers, we cant just drop 6K on an iMac pro.
 
yet, they’ve managed to carve out time for the super important development of Animoji and junk like that. I came so close to purchasing a Dell XPS 15 last night. I hope Apple has the sense to have people reading this forum.

Maybe you should go back to college if you think Animoji development in anyway affects Mac hardware development.
 
I just don't understand Apple's logic.

Macs are a successful and popular product line up with good profits.
Surely with the literally limitless money Apple has they could just dedicate a group of engineers and designers to keep the Mac lineup up to date?

Half the time all people are wanting is the same thing with the latest silicon inside, it's really not that hard. Yet they just don't seem focused at all.
You assume that with Intel's current rate of progress, not using new processors the month they become available is something that matters to most people. I doubt it does. So far, the MBP has received an update in every single calendar year since the switch to Intel.

Then there is Intel's protracted release cycle, if I read Wikipedia correctly, there are no 8th gen 4.5-W TDP chips yet. Also Intel often doesn't release the 15, 29 and 45-W TDP chips at the same time, or not all versions of them at the same time (eg, the chips with Iris Pro graphics might ship later). Apple however likes to update all its laptops at the same time together, certainly all MBP models which currently use three different processor subcategories.
 
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For desktops, before the big Mac Mini Lobotomization of 2014, there was a reasonably smooth range of performance available for headless desktop machines. The one I've got has a multicore geekbench of 11400, which was the top for the 2012 Mac mini BTO; the can Mac Pro starts at 13113 for a four-core Xeon.

But with the killing of the quadcore, the top geekbench available for Mac mini BTO now is 7052. There's a massive gulf completely unserved between 7000 and 13000. It's a great big hole.

So suppose you want a headless desktop machine in that range. What you do? Overbuy or underbuy. Those are your choices. Pay $1K for a machine that won't let you do what you need (and can't upgrade), or pay $3K for a model that's at the end of its line.

Here's a better idea, Apple. Make a Mac mini that isn't bone stupid. You used to be able to. Why not do it again?
 
Mac mini and mac pro should not be 5 years old. That's considered vintage in Apple's world. Macbook pro should have a keyboard that functions well enough they aren't being sued for it.
Show me a product Apple did not get sued over yet. The keyboard is a problem, but I am not sure getting sued over something is the best benchmark.
 
I'm sorry, but... I mean, no.

In 1985, the gadget all kids wanted a Walkman, then a Nintendo, then a Playstation, then for a brief period they wanted a PC, and now if you don't have a smartphone you're nobody.

Very well.

Meanwhile, grown-ups in the scientific, medical and engineering professions depend on computers more and more, and in very many industries processing power is still king.

Thankfully we will never see the consumer hysteria around personal computers of the early 2000s again, but that hardly makes traditional computers irrelevant or makes "us" a thing of "the past"

The original point that I replied to was that people got started on Mac OS because it was so easy to use and transitioned to IOS... so support Mac OS.. to which.. no.

I was just commenting on the future, because that’s where Apple is headed. Sorry if that conflicts with what you want. And btw, I’m one of those scientists you mention and I get along fine with my current macs. So lower your nose before it rains.
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Show me a product Apple did not get sued over yet. The keyboard is a problem, but I am not sure getting sued over something is the best benchmark.

Show me a company as large as Apple that doesn’t get sued for sneezing. Being sued is a benchmark of being successful in apples case
 
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True. I'm not sure what that other user was thinking. The iPhone and iPod were and still are popular fashion items that work and work well.

However, iOS market share is shrinking. I’ll bet it would see even a bigger drop if Mac was to be EOL. At any case, Apple isn’t trying very hard with Mac. Actually, for the past year it seems they are hardly trying at all.
 
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Apple should just start licensing/selling Mac OS on standard PC hardware and stop fooling themselves and everyone else with hardware.
They do this and Steve may just rise from the dead and take the company back over. I'd love to see Tim's face as Zombie Steve walks through the doors.
 
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