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

[Starhorsepax]

I am feeling very down about this whole situation. I too feel APPLE left ME.

I know some think the macbook situation is fine but... I have until now been running on Macbooks for years. I had a G3 Imac first, went to my first macbook a refurb 2010 one or so and now have a 2012 one. But its no longer supported so when I went to replace the battery ended up with a cheap, 3rd party thing that hardly holds any charge. Then something shook loose inside, a mere bump on the thing and it shuts down.

I took it to the closest authorized apple place. They have worked on all my macs and said it would be so expensive to fix I might as well save for a new one

BUT WHAT NEW ONE?

Even had I the money every 5 years to spend on it, Apple want me to spend it on something that no longer has the hardware I need. All I asked was for a few ports and a decent graphic card (and intel is NOT decent, I do like to play a few video games on it. Intel is notoriously bad for them and most of the macbooks I found as refurb are intel). The whole multitasking port USB OR power leaves me horrified (since even now I basically can't go unplugged, so as soon as they stop supporting I can see whats coming). So there I am noting that NONE that I can find after 2015 have what I need, even then its a refurb...and I can get a NEW PC for the same price with more features that I want.

I do NOT have high speed internet, I have DSL. So transferring en masse without those ports they figure are unnecessary isn't happening. It's also unwise - internet goes out. Storms, bad ISP etc...so its not always available. Believe me, I work on a Desktop PC and transferring files..it would take years at this rate! Some kind of Port for file transfer is not a luxury its a necessity and it MUST be PC compatible since I do work on PC's too!

So here I am in fairly desperate straights needing to face a need for a new computer....it feels oddly like something I love is dying. Sadly I know how to work or play on the Computer I don't know how to do a hackintosh or I would.

 

[Swift]

Tell me, how do you do an upgrade without a chip upgrade? Intel is dribbling out chips at a snail's pace. I presume that might not hold for the mini, where anything would do, but portables and iMacs that need a faster chipset, what should Apple do? Put up a full-bore chipset? Buy Intel and close down all the part of it that makes stuff for other OSes? For the first time, Moore's Law isn't true anymore. Should Apple make their own? iPhone chips can't run desktops, can they? How to make things better without speed? Sorry, I don't think they want to abandon the desktop, but the beast seems to have growing problems. Intel is only putting out new chips in boutique quantities, for companies that can make a batch of 20,000 or so. Back when Intel was humming along, and IBM couldn't make things faster, we jumped on the Intel train and the ride was great. But now? What can Apple do except go with styling now? The chips for business or pro use are really expensive multi-core. No good for laptops. Whereas, where Apple's making its own chips with ARM, they're still getting huge increases each year. Could those chips run an iMac? Tech guys tell me no. Are they right?

 

[dukebound85]

I can’t believe how stupid this comment actually is. This is what almost lead Apple to bankruptcy in the 90’s and why they stopped doing EXACTLY that. Who the heck wants to buy cheap plastic crap? I know I don’t. It’s macrumors not junkyard 101.

Because the span of 20+ years and a change in business focus means the environments/goals are exactly the same right? Give me a break
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I primarily used Windows computers until 2015. I'm sitting in front of an excellent Mac computer right now and very much in the present, thanks.

If you define "present" as using 3-4 year old hardware at premium prices

 

[villicodelirant]

Do you need 256 GB of RAM? Do you need 32 cores?

In my profession cores translate directly to ROI.

That's why my employer just leased a bunch of Dell Precision workstations with - yes - 32 cores.

Any other question?
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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.

Yes, and your idea of "the future" as a place where computers have gone extinct is extremely unlikely.

So lower your nose before it rains.

You are not authorized to use that kind of tone with me.

 

[ssgbryan]

Simplifier

The iMac Pro has the same limitations as the iCan, AND adds screen Russian roulette. I still have to drop $1k to replace missing functionality after I buy an iMac Pro (I’m out $11k at this point.) I am sure that it is good for some “professional workflows” but it’s a dog for 3D art. And keep in mind, I am not a pro - I am a hobbyist using low end (in cost) software.

Do you really believe Sir Idiot Boy finally understands the concept of heat dissipation? I have a stack Ive designed hardware that cooked itself, so I am leery of his designs.

What I have noticed in this thread is that the folks that can get their work done on a laptop have a really hard time grasping that some of us have workflows the will really, really use every byte of ram and every core we can throw at it.

 

[droog]

Apple Realizes they just need pretty web browsers and email reading machines and that they can sell them at exorbitant prices so that is all they provide. They’ve marketed two desktops as pro machines that are smoke and mirrors product differentiation for those who can spend more on a pretty computer. But that’s about it. I’d say the AR and VR talk is just blather and advertising for those with deep pockets. They know they’ve got a barrel of fish so they don’t need to push too hard.

 

[lec0rsaire]

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

That comment wasn't really about Apple, but more of a general statement. It applies with any computer company. I would say it's probably worse with Dell and HP. Not every machine they sell is exactly amazing. You have to know exactly what parts you're looking for otherwise you'll buy something that is not good enough for your needs.

 

[mikethemartian]

I am feeling very down about this whole situation. I too feel APPLE left ME.

I know some think the macbook situation is fine but... I have until now been running on Macbooks for years. I had a G3 Imac first, went to my first macbook a refurb 2010 one or so and now have a 2012 one. But its no longer supported so when I went to replace the battery ended up with a cheap, 3rd party thing that hardly holds any charge. Then something shook loose inside, a mere bump on the thing and it shuts down.

I took it to the closest authorized apple place. They have worked on all my macs and said it would be so expensive to fix I might as well save for a new one

BUT WHAT NEW ONE?

Even had I the money every 5 years to spend on it, Apple want me to spend it on something that no longer has the hardware I need. All I asked was for a few ports and a decent graphic card (and intel is NOT decent, I do like to play a few video games on it. Intel is notoriously bad for them and most of the macbooks I found as refurb are intel). The whole multitasking port USB OR power leaves me horrified (since even now I basically can't go unplugged, so as soon as they stop supporting I can see whats coming). So there I am noting that NONE that I can find after 2015 have what I need, even then its a refurb...and I can get a NEW PC for the same price with more features that I want.

I do NOT have high speed internet, I have DSL. So transferring en masse without those ports they figure are unnecessary isn't happening. It's also unwise - internet goes out. Storms, bad ISP etc...so its not always available. Believe me, I work on a Desktop PC and transferring files..it would take years at this rate! Some kind of Port for file transfer is not a luxury its a necessity and it MUST be PC compatible since I do work on PC's too!

So here I am in fairly desperate straights needing to face a need for a new computer....it feels oddly like something I love is dying. Sadly I know how to work or play on the Computer I don't know how to do a hackintosh or I would.

Instead of a Hackintosh I’ve been wondering how well a high powered PC running VMWare Workstation would do running OSX as a virtual machine. It isn’t strictly allowed by Apple but there is patch that allows it to work.

 

[geromi912]

Tell me, how do you do an upgrade without a chip upgrade? Intel is dribbling out chips at a snail's pace. I presume that might not hold for the mini, where anything would do, but portables and iMacs that need a faster chipset, what should Apple do? Put up a full-bore chipset? Buy Intel and close down all the part of it that makes stuff for other OSes? For the first time, Moore's Law isn't true anymore. Should Apple make their own? iPhone chips can't run desktops, can they? How to make things better without speed? Sorry, I don't think they want to abandon the desktop, but the beast seems to have growing problems. Intel is only putting out new chips in boutique quantities, for companies that can make a batch of 20,000 or so. Back when Intel was humming along, and IBM couldn't make things faster, we jumped on the Intel train and the ride was great. But now? What can Apple do except go with styling now? The chips for business or pro use are really expensive multi-core. No good for laptops. Whereas, where Apple's making its own chips with ARM, they're still getting huge increases each year. Could those chips run an iMac? Tech guys tell me no. Are they right?

Is that why LITERALLY ALL OTHER VENDORS can update on time? Is it intels fault the Mac mini and Mac Pro are using FOUR TO FIVE generations back hardware? And what about GPUs? Pascal from Nvidia is leagues above the outdated garbage in the Mac Pro and also the crippled iMac Pro, and with Volta it wouldn’t even be a competition.

 

[villicodelirant]

Do you really believe Sir Idiot Boy finally understands the concept of heat dissipation?

You'd expect the guy to have learned something from the G4 Cube.

I have a stack Ive designed hardware that cooked itself, so I am leery of his designs.

I take it you, too, owned a white iBook.

 

[lec0rsaire]

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...

Anyone who is interested in tech already knows what the difference between an i5/i7 and Xeon is. Even if we're talking about older Xeon that is effectively slower than the new consumer offerings the offer stability that the consumer parts are not capable of. This is why they cost 4x and more what an equivalent i7 costs. It's an unfair comparison imo since they are reserved exclusively for servers and workstations. For a personal home computer Xeon is just not necessary unless you're doing high-end professional work and cannot risk any sort of downtime.

 

[geromi912]

That comment wasn't really about Apple, but more of a general statement. It applies with any computer company. I would say it's probably worse with Dell and HP. Not every machine they sell is exactly amazing. You have to know exactly what parts you're looking for otherwise you'll buy something that is not good enough for your needs.

Better than not being able to buy something good enough even if you know exactly what you need.

 

[lec0rsaire]

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.

Well everyone is different. Your circle of friends might be more well versed in tech than the average person. Not everyone knows how to build a PC either and many probably wouldn't do it even after watching hours of Youtube how-tos. The younger generation is more literate but my experience goes back to the mid-'90s. In those days only tech enthusiasts really knew what they were doing.

 

[geromi912]

Anyone who is interested in tech already knows what the difference between an i5/i7 and Xeon is. Even if we're talking about older Xeon that is effectively slower than the new consumer offerings the offer stability that the consumer parts are not capable of. This is why they cost 4x and more what an equivalent i7 costs. It's an unfair comparison imo since they are reserved exclusively for servers and workstations. For a personal home computer Xeon is just not necessary unless you're doing high-end professional work and cannot risk any sort of downtime.

And what apps that run on Mac would require xeons and ecc ram? Solid works? Oops, Windows exclusive. Oh, and these apps actually require REAL workstation GPUs i.e. quadros, no the underclocked gaming Radeon scam rebadged “Radeon Pro” in the current “““Pro””” line of macs.

 

[hawkeye_a]

Tim's Apple doesn't update Mac hardware for months and years, and draws resources away from Mac development.

Next they will announce that Mac sales are so low and its not a viable business, using it as justification to cut investment even further.

Never thought it would ever come to this, but talk is cheap, so ive decide to vote with my wallet going forward.

This isn't the Apple I used to care about. I miss Steve.

 

[lec0rsaire]

None of that canibalization happens with the iPhone, why should it happen with MacBooks? They are doing something similar right now without the refresh. One can still buy the 2015/2016 model, which I did and I know that some developers actually returned to that model due to several reasons.

Why? Because computers are much more powerful and have much longer useful lifespans. A lot of people on this forum are still getting by perfectly with the original 2012 retina MBP and even non-retina models in 2018. With iPhones if you're not running something that runs at least iOS 10 well, you're not getting the most out of the software. Many apps require 10 as the minimum today and it will get worse by the end of the year. An iPhone 5/5s simply is not good enough for 2018.

 

[groove-agent]

Sadly these days I think we make our Mac purchases based on the fact that we really have no other choice.

Apple should just start licensing/selling Mac OS on standard PC hardware and stop fooling themselves and everyone else with hardware. No reasonable person would buy a brand new Mac mini today and think to themselves that they made a smart purchase.

 

[villicodelirant]

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.

The Mac Pro is not sold to consumers, though - it's sold to folks who know exactly what they want.

Good point, otherwise.

 

[tonywalker23]

Got an error message on my Mac that took me to an Apple support article. The quote below was the first sentence and it reminded me of this thread...

"State-of-the-art technology is what makes a Mac a Mac."

 

[lec0rsaire]

The same walled garden that Android provides and Amazon and most recently Windows as well...

Yes but Android is more tolerant with what they allow on their store. You will never see emulators and stuff like Kodi on the official App Store and the only way to install any of this stuff without a jailbreak is to use a paid developer account unless you want to have to sign them every week. That's what I meant.

 

[PhilMacbook]

I just saw the new Mac advert for the first time during the half-time break of the Brazil v Switzerland game. Something strange was the Macbook in it had a shining logo on the top-case which Apple no longer do.

The tag line was 'Go create something wonderful' or similar. Reading this thread it looks like we'd all like Apple to join in with that too.

 

[groove-agent]

Macrumors doesn't necessarily need the complaining but Apple needs the complaining in order to do something. People really need to turn up the heat on Apple and force them to smarten up. There's no reason for a company with so much revenue to be so incredibly unproductive for this many years.

The only thing I can think of is they tried a premature ARM changeover and had to scrap the plan.

Just what the site needs. More complaining about the Mac. Sigh.

 

[cocacolakid]

Apple doesn't care. They've lost quality in the last few years. They're either distracted by working on self driving cars and other projects or they think the Mac business is dying and not worth the investment. It's pathetic that they have several year old CPU's in current products. But this is a bigger issue than simply needing to refresh their product line.

I've had nothing but problems with Apple products in the last 6 years. I upgraded to the 2012 Mac mini only to find it wouldn't actually use the HDMI port as a second monitor, it bricked the system. Apple eventually replaced my model with a new one but I have never tried to hook up a second monitor because this is a known error Apple had and claimed there was no fix, which meant they were falsely advertising the mini as being able to run two monitors. Apple told me that is only possible with a Thunderbolt display, which they conveniently discontinued.

My $2500 2015 15" retina MBP died in less than 2 years with a logic board failure. Apple wants $575 to fix it.

My iPhone X broke after 3 months. Apple replaced it and the new one again has issues after only two weeks and is going to need to be replaced. A $1250 phone doesn't even work for more than a few months.

When I consider all of the money I have spent on Apple products and how low quality their products have become, I feel like a fool. I hate Windows, but I bought a Windows laptop instead of giving Apple more money. There are no good phone options unless I want to get into Android, which I do not, but I will NOT buy another iPhone. I wish Apple put quality first again. I'm fed up and not going to keep buying their products.

 

[sundog925]

still on my 13” rMBP early 2015

No qualms here. And no need for an upgrade.

Even my 2009 iMac is still giving me life.

 

[4jasontv]

A lot of people on this forum are still getting by perfectly with the original 2012 retina MBP and even non-retina models in 2018.

My Late 2009 MBP runs great after an SSD, new battery, and RAM upgrade. The same can not be said about my back.
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still on my 13” rMBP early 2015

No qualms here. And no need for an upgrade.

Even my 2009 iMac is still giving me life.

Jelly. My 2011 iMac lost its GPU and now gives pink dot pox on boot. Great machine otherwise.