I can understand this developers frustration. Apologies for the "wall of text" length but it's the only way to articulate what I want to say. My last Apple desktop purchase was the mid-2010 Mac Pro (6 core). My last Apple purchase was when the iPhone 6 Plus was released. I've been an Apple customer and Mac user since the Mac IIcx. Before that, I used PC compatibles (running DOS and towards the tail end, OS/2) but ultimately moved to the Mac when I got into the early days of multimedia. Three products were pretty much plug-n-play for the Mac; the 24-bit color Radius graphics card, HP ScanJet IIc (including Mac scanning software and Photoshop plug-in), and the Philips CDR 522 (this was during a time when CD burners weren't consumer products yet and I acquired a new 2x speed one that was being discounted by $2K along with a copy of Astarte Toast CD-ROM Pro which by itself, cost several hundreds when it was still a version 1.x product).
I retired my last PC (an OS/2 2.1 box) in 1994 when I purchased my Quadra 800. After that, my upgrades was at a fairly consistent pace: Quadra 840AV, Power Mac 8100, Power Mac 8500, Power Mac G3 (B&W), PowerBook G3 400MHz (Bronze Keyboard), Power Mac G4 500MHz (AGP Graphics), Power Mac G4 Cube (as a collectors item), iMac 700MHz (Summer 2001), Power Mac G4 Dual 1GHz (Quicksilver 2002). The G5 was the first redesign in awhile that I didn't jump into since folks who will remember how long in the tooth the PPC was during that period. My Dual GHz G4 was already a nice heat generator and the G5's ran hotter (plus there was the power supply noise and liquid cooling issues on some systems). So I held off a bit. Everything became academic with the 2005 announcement to shift to Intel; for the first time in 4 years, I purchased a new Mac; the 2006 Mac Pro (2.66GHz). The acquisition of products resumed at slightly longer intervals though; 13" MacBook (mid-2007) and Mac mini 2GHz (mid-2007) which I
still use with OS X Server.
One can do the math as far as the amount of money spent with Apple (the only system I sold was the 2006 Mac Pro; everything else, I still have since I am a collector of sorts). This also doesn't include the Apple displays purchased (I still use my 30" Cinema Display as well as a 20" one) or other peripherals like Laserwriters and Airport base stations. For myself, they've been the best tools to get the job done (majority being non-all-in-one systems). I also realized they weren't always on the cutting edge tech wise but it was offset by industrial design and with a few exceptions, very reliable. I do realize recent manufacturing processes taken together with design decisions (which include some form over function ones) have led to some flaws in various products.
Which leads to the present. Mid-2010 was when I purchased my current Mac Pro (3.33GHz hexacore), 13" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, Mac mini 2.4GHz, and then 11" MacBook Air 1.6GHz Core i5 (mid-2011), 11" MacBook Air 1.3GHz Core i5 (mid-2013). All of these "recent" systems besides the mini are still in use (the mini ended up overheating when the air vent was blocked up and the entire thing overheated where even the hard drive failed). My 2010 MacBook Pro has a bloated battery that I need to replace (though the case is already warped), and I already replaced the bloated battery in my 2013 Air (fortunately, it only pushed up on the keyboard and didn't warp the bottom casing). This is one of the side effects of trying to make everything thin as possible, packing in everything into tight tolerances, and heat doing what it does when the engineering that sounded great on paper, doesn't always work the way it is supposed to in real life.
The "cheese grater" form factor Mac Pro was really built to last though and has been reliable to the present. Also love its internal storage (I have 5 SATA drives in it with capacities between 3-6TB plus a PCIe SSD (Accelsior E2). The 2013 Mac Pro was a non-starter because I really did not want to go back to a system design with very limited internal expansion which leads to a whole mess of power bricks and external enclosures. It did also begin to concern me around the 2016 timeframe as to whether or not Apple was moving on from headless desktops.
Late 2016 was the first time since the early 90's that I purchased a non-Apple computer; a small form factor gaming system from ASUS. I liked it so much that I purchased the updated model last year with a Core i7 3.2GHz quad core (turbo boost to 3.9GHz), an Nvidia 1070 GTX, 512GB SSD, 1TB SATA, and ASUS 4K IPS panel gaming display for $1500. I love the monitor (fully articulating as well). While it's a SFF gaming rig, it handles graphics and 4k video editing/encoding fine. And I do realize I could've built my own system for much less (but I really just wanted a SFF turnkey system). Paying the Apple tax all these years makes it easy to swallow the prices of even what is considered the higher end on the PC (non-Apple) side. Windows 10 (I took part early on in the Windows Insider program to give a lot of feedback and it turned out to be refreshing experiencing even though there is still a lot that can be improved) hasn't been that bad (once you disable auto update and lock out feature update installs so that you can set rollback points to test) but I still prefer OS X (macOS).
I never did desire to return to a dual platform setup but that is where things are today. I am also not what you would call very sticky with Apple's ecosystem (a conscious decision to not be tied to any single cloud service) and am more or less an edge case when it comes to using Apple's pro products. On the iOS side, I only purchased two iPad's (the original and the 2nd generation mini). I also purchased a 2nd generation Apple TV as an experiment and wasn't too impressed (it still crashes and resets even when I stream to it using AirPlay). I am still undecided about going with an Apple TV 4K versus something like a Roku. And as I mentioned at the start, the iPhone 6 Plus was the last Apple product I've purchased (my favorite iPhone form factor is my 5s that I still use for media and photos).
After the April 2017 Mac Pro roundtable discussion and then the update in April 2018 about the modular Mac Pro being a 2019 product, it became apparent that Apple executives lost the plot with this niche segment. The "pro" moniker has a very diverse group with a wide array of needs so its not like I am tone deaf when it comes to trying to design a product that meets the varying needs of these customers. I actually come from an IT background so the whole convergence of classic Mac user interface with the underpinnings of BSD unix appealed to me after the acquisition of NeXT in 1996. And while it hasn't been perfect (often times annoying having gone through several hardware and software transitions), the platform has served me well being the best tool for the job.
But I am also realistic in terms of the amount of time left on my 2010 Mac Pro where there is going to be a point that it will be dropped from the supported list where it will eventually be several iterations out of date for macOS. After the Mojave announcement, I purchased a flashed Nvidia GT740 so that I can eventually run the later beta on it. I'm also not going to be surprised if Mojave ends up being the last version that will officially support this particular form factor but at least I know there will be a few more years left on it when it comes to security patches and ability to run the latest software.
Because I have no idea how Apple is going to define "modular" (like if they end up overthinking it) when it comes to their actual design and form factor of this new Mac Pro, I've already made plans to transition to HP's Generation 4 workstations (specifically the Z6 since it has the right amount of expandability and internal storage capabilities for my needs). It will also serve double duty as a gaming rig with an Nvidia 1080 GTX in one of the 16x slots. I'm impressed with the HP division (located in Colorado) that designs these workstations as they put them through a lot of rigorous testing. For myself, Windows 10 Pro is serviceable but lacks "personality" and still doesn't have the pervasive refinement in various functions (one small example is drag-n-drop where it works so much better on the Mac). But it's not like the Mac has been slowly losing the special touches that gave them some soul (like the startup chime, the Happy Mac bootup logo, the cloud poof derived from the Newton when removing an icon from the dock, the pulsing light, the backlit logo on laptops, etc).
I'm not looking for Mac updates every single year. The situation with the Mac mini and Mac Pro (yes, they've roundtable discussed this but it is still a vapor product at this point) is beyond reproach though when you consider those are being sold at their same price points with tech that is not reasonably current relative to the competition (there is a point where it is insulting). I would love to continue spending my money with Apple if they designed a non all-in-one desktop that isn't internally restrictive like it was with the 2013 model. I guess time will tell.
P.S. I feel I should disclose that I am also a long time AAPL shareholder. The ROI from the growth in mobile is something I cannot complain about BUT it doesn't mean that I agree that all decisions should be about squeezing every single penny at the expense of the companies core pillars and crown jewels. The Mac (hardware and software) are an important cornerstone of the entire Apple ecosystem even though it may represent a smaller portion of the revenue and marketshare pie. They are still high margin products (and more so the niche Mac Pro line) which at one time, used to be where I spent a lot of my own disposable income on. The executive team do hear about this stuff and have given lip service like "we love the Mac" or "the Mac mini is an important product in our lineup". Actions speak louder than words though. All I can say is that Apple has been losing me as a customer with the neglect of some Mac products for most of this decade and I know I am not the only one.
