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

[fairuz]

Apple Intel CPU's are probably custom to them. Their still x86, but like anything Apple customs, i also would include the processor even if it IS intel design. Otherwise the finger pointing is squarely on Apple.

Intel can't be far behind with chip development, but they could also be skimping on Apple, until Apple catches up.

This isn't the case, at least in the Mac Pro since I personally installed Intel x5670 CPUs I bought from a used server parts site. For the other Macs, you can check out the teardowns. I can't think of anything custom Apple would need except maybe the integrated graphics.
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I would be all in on resurrecting Steve Jobs just to have him reprise his MobileMe tirade with Mac Hardware as the subject.

Or iOS in general, especially the new Music app, CarPlay, and the ridiculously complex iPad lineup that are the most un-Steve Jobs things I've seen Apple produce. With the Mac hardware, he might actually be happy about the port removal.

 

[drumcat]

"Sad state"... some truth and some exaggeration.

MacBook Pros have been released every year. The last two were poop, but they aren't all old. Poor design, sure. Very happy with my 2015, and plan to keep it for several years.

Airs haven't been officially killed, but MacBooks are the obvious replacement. The idea that everyone is holding out for an "air" is ridiculous. Buy a damn MB already. Of course, I understand the keys suck.

Mac Minis... absolute tragedy. Should be replacing those with AppleTV4-sized replacements, and moving into the Rasberry Pi-size environment. HDMI, power, USB. Wifi & BT, and cheap as chips. The hackable Mac.

iMacs are just iMacs. They're actually nice, but they definitely need to be released on a tick-tock, 4k and 5k, each mid-October. Annual/holiday purchase. I want to get a new machine for my parents, and that's how you do it. 1 month after iPhone.

And the Mac Pro... that's a huge conversation on its own. Needs to basically be a small rack server. Parts in, parts out. This is not for normal consumers, so start acting like it.

I'm still waiting for the day when a MacBook is really just a place to put your phone, and it runs a keyboard, touchscreen, and iOS, using the phone for processing and as the touchpad... or at least phones start to cannibalise the low end line. Technically it can now, but phones should be able to plug into lightning, and that goes to a screen (HDMI/ATV), and that's MacOS capable... or at least some sort of merged thing where MacOS runs iOS things.

 

[Abazigal]

Or cloning. Maybe convince his son to work for Apple but I believe I read he's going into the medical profession. Can't fault him there. Have one of SJs kids at least as a figurehead, and hire someone who's hungry to actually manage Apple.

I think you confuse someone who is hungry with someone who is a Mac die-hard.

Apple is going full-throttle with new initiatives in wearables, AR, Heath and self-driving cars.

Only a fool mistakes a lack of apparent interest in the Mac line for a lack of ambition at Apple overall.

 

[sir1963nz]

My early 2011 MacBook Pro has finally succumbed to old age, I have the dreaded GPU issue.

Over the years I have done a couple of enhancements myself, upgraded the RAM to 16GB, and installed a 500GB SSD

So this past weekend I went to have a proper look at Apples offerings, and I came away with nothing but the realisation that Apple no longer produces a laptop I want and certainly nothing I would pay for.

Can I upgrade the RAM in them, no
Can I upgrade the SSD in them, no
And from what I have read, the keyboards are (to be kind) problematic.
How about expansion Ports ?, ethernet, USB, SD card, either a costly hub or you end up with something that looks like an unloved scarecrow.
“I would have bought that if it was slimmer” said nobody ever.

I have been a Mac owner since my 512KE, so that’s something like 30 years. As I outgrew my old machine I bought the next step up I could afford
And then I went through the process of upgrading the RAM and upgrading the hard drive in all of these, a path that Apple no longer allows.

I can not afford to pay Apples outrageous prices for RAM/SSD upgrades. And I have certainly had HDs fail and I have replaced them. Apples solution is to throw the whole machine out and buy new, so much for being a "Green" company, being truely green means repairable, upgradeable.

I still have my 2009 27” iMac, so I have moved over to this at home, and I have a 2018 27” iMac at work, and I have chosen not to buy a new laptop to replace my dead one. I will consider what the costs of repair are from the 3rd party, although Apple does its best to prevent affordable repairs too.

The SSD in my MBP will probably go into my iMac to speed that up as I doubt repairs for the MBP are cost effective.

ALL of this reminds me of the Apple that was killing its self just before Steve Jobs came back, this time there is no Steve .
I think now I am going to have to accept that Apple has become an IOS company because I really doubt they have the will, the drive, or the talent to be anything else anymore.


I have 2 Mac minis at home running as servers for various projects. Apple is slowly abandoning the server software leaving users to install the open source software and edit the config files manually themselves. If I wanted to do that I would have put Linux on them years ago. As these die I will be shifting to Linux on an Intel NUC.
Apples “updates” for the mini and the Pro are so far behind already I think Apple is going to end up skating to where the puck was, they are certainly not going to be a leader anymore .

The Mac, and eventually OSX have that look and smell of Blackberry, and will probably share the same fate.

At work, I can get a VDI spun up for either Windows or Linux for short term projects, we have been told that up to 16 cores, 256GB RAM will be on offer. There is NO OSX option, Apples license forbids it, so all the high end computer jobs we did on Mac Pros and the like are shifting to Windows and Linux.

I think Apple is exhibiting a very human trait, they are too busy looking at their iPhones to notice what is happening around them, and they are in danger of stepping off the sidewalk and getting hit by a truck.

The Mac, OSX, Airport base stations, IOS all made a cohesive experience. That experience is so compromised now that the idea of shifting to another platform is unreasonable.

 

[torana355]

I think you confuse someone who is hungry with someone who is a Mac die-hard.

Apple is going full-throttle with new initiatives in wearables, AR, Heath and self-driving cars.

Only a fool mistakes a lack of apparent interest in the Mac line for a lack of ambition at Apple overall.

What you need to realise is Apple are abandoning their loyal customer base that got them to where they are today.

 

[pl1984]

And the Mac Pro... that's a huge conversation on its own. Needs to basically be a small rack server. Parts in, parts out. This is not for normal consumers, so start acting like it.

Have you given thought that it may be the non-normal consumers (i.e. the Mac Pros target market) that are raising concern about the Mac Pros stagnation?

 

[pgwalsh]

I read a lot of posts in this thread and found it really interesting. I'm certainly left with the feeling Apple isn't focused on computers much at all. I think it's all multimedia creation, multimedia consumption and how it's delivered, which is all about iOS. I think they're keeping content creation based computers around, but there's no gaming or business focus on the desktop side. You will obviously still be able to develop for the platform, but if you want anything outside Apple's vision you'll have to be acquainted with HomeBrew or MacPorts.

When looking at it from that angle going ARM makes sense; you're going to develop on ARM systems for ARM systems. Making iOS apps run on the desktop makes sense as that's the focus. They still need the desktop for application development, they just don't need x86. Obviously I have no idea if that's their goal or not, but it just seems logical to me.

They've had a lot of acquisitions over the last few years and not much has been focused on the desktop except for Logic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple

 

[Glockworkorange]

Anyone realize today’s coding is not sturdy anymore?

My mba 2010 looks beautiful with the shiny beveled edges and nice green light next to the Apple iPod from 2008 that had 2 drops and survived. These products I purchased did not include relentless sales pitches of Apple care as my iPad did I had to buy last year.

I miss using the iMac g4 igloo I never had a spinning ball or had to run any malwarebytes or 3rd party
What? My safari is convulsing........
Meahwhile while typing this, the Mac mini 2012 stopping streaming the mlb game is was watching. For 2 minutes I had to stop the spinning ball, clear cache, reload safari, click bookmarks, select mlb favorite, tap the game I was watching, and think of getting rid of high Sierra, maybe tomorrow.

I will never by a new Mac product again!

Boy, you aren’t kidding Re: Apple Care. They really pitch that hard in the stores now. I don’t remember them doing that 5 to 7 years ago.

 

[sir1963nz]

Without a Mac I do not buy or use an iPhone. I am not the only one.

I had bought a new iPhone every 2 years, starting with the 3GS.

This was the first year I will not be upgrading.

My old 2011 MBP also died last week, I went and looked at what Apple had to offer and have chosen to do without the laptop and upgrade my 2009 27" iMac instead. There is NOTHING is the current Mac hardware line that will convince me to part with my Money.

Mac OSX and the Mac both have the smell of Blackberry about them and the new MacPro and Mac mini may well be last years technology delivered a year too late.

 

[LiveM]

Yep. I bought my (2012) Mac Mini the day the 2014 model went on sale.

And the 2014 Mac mini was in most ways worse than the 2012 one. They even made the top of the line version SLOWER than its predecessor, taking out half the CPU cores (at least the GPU is a little faster). It's things like this...

 

[jpn]

Somebody cue up Elvis...

i agree.
wow.​

 

[Glockworkorange]

Tim Cook MUST go. He has no balls. It’s absolutley incredible that no one is saying this. Apple was innovative and lean, now its just a monolithic company with no vision milking the winning formula. iOS has become pure junk, so many bugs it’s hard to keep up with. iOS1 has better auto correct than iOS 11 for goodness sake. Security bugs across all platforms. Minimal updates to Mac hardware. Confusing nomenclature in regards to the iPad. Apple Watch design is stale and competitors are getting much more battery life out of their smart watches. Plus a plethora of other things I won’t bore you with. Bring back Forstall, get rid of cook.

I’d wager money that Cook was waiting for Forstall to slip, and that he took full advantage of the maps situation to get rid of him. 5 years later and Apple maps still sucks. Forstall WAS Apple. Mac OS X was heavily inspired by his work at Next, and iOS was his teams creation. What has cook contributed? I suppose privacy, because he doesn’t want people looking at his dick pics to his boyfriend (not a jab, just keeping it real).

Even more annoying, Tim Cook has weasled his way into supposedly being someone whose opinion on politics and life are messianic. We get it Tim, you’re gay. Can we carry on now with refreshing the Mac hardware?

The pic comment made me laugh. I do miss Forstall and the old design language. Everything about Apple now is so...sterile. Not fun.
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Yep. I bought my (2012) Mac Mini the day the 2014 model went on sale.

Hopefully you got the quad core, ‘cause those are never coming back

 

[richinaus]

What you need to realise is Apple are abandoning their loyal customer base that got them to where they are today.

So what exactly?
They seem to be doing very well indeed.

What you need to realise is that the 'loyal customer base' for the computers doesn't matter. They make their money on the phones, tablets and services. They would hardly notice if the whole computer division went, and allowed everything to be developed on PC's.

Apple are not a charity who owes people a computer. They are a business. And like all business will prioritise the goals in areas where they can make money. The PC market is not this area quite clearly.

I really wish people would stop thinking they are entitled or owed something.
You made a business transaction to purchase a machine from a company. They don't owe you never ending upgrades, support beyond a couple of years etc.

What exactly do people want or expect?
Things are changing and you simply cannot accept this change or truth.

 

[jasnw]

You will obviously still be able to develop for the platform, but if you want anything outside Apple's vision you'll have to be acquainted with HomeBrew or MacPorts.

If Apple decides, or has already decided, that on the desktop computer side they only care about the user base that develops apps for the mobile side, then there is going to be an exodus of people who moved to OS X from the Linux world in the early 2000s back to Linux. Maybe that’s what Apple management wants, get rid of those noisy users who think they know what’s best for them. Focus on the mobile and content serving market and just enough on the developer side to keep mobile and content alive, and devil takes the rest. We don’t make computers, fool, we make DREAMS!

 

[sir1963nz]

what's so ironic is that the biggest sites to cover apple news all have mac in their name! this site, 9to5 and macworld. Yet, it's the iPhone that gets all the attention year after year!.. I couldn't give a rats ass about some me-moji AR rubbish that only works with a $1000 phone. Get back to the core of Apple, the whole reason the company was founded in the first place and make some god damn modern computers already!

I can't believe that apple are on the verge of becoming the most valuable company in the world, the first trillion dollar company, and even with all that wealth they still have the nerve to release an AIO desktop with 1 inch thick bezels in 2018. Where is the R&D money going!?!?! The iMac shares the same design going way back to 2012, a desktop with the same chassis for SIX YEARS!! But that's not all, the most valuable computer company in the world have the nerve to put a 5.4k spinning disk in the 4K iMac priced at $1299. Great value! I could go on the same war path but it's all been said before.

Apple, don't humor us with gimmicky ads. Just make some computers that are worth the THOUSANDS of dollars you charge for them. It's that simple.

And if you buy a spare power supply for your new MBP it does NOT come with the USB cable, you need to give Apple more of your money. Worse though is the cable Apple supplies with the MBP is a charging only cable, using it for data transfer between 2 Macs is not possible.

 

[pl1984]

So what exactly?
They seem to be doing very well indeed.

What you need to realise is that the 'loyal customer base' for the computers doesn't matter. They make their money on the phones, tablets and services. They would hardly notice if the whole computer division went, and allowed everything to be developed on PC's.

Apple are not a charity who owes people a computer. They are a business. And like all business will prioritise the goals in areas where they can make money. The PC market is not this area quite clearly.

I really wish people would stop thinking they are entitled or owed something.
You made a business transaction to purchase a machine from a company. They don't owe you never ending upgrades, support beyond a couple of years etc.

What exactly do people want or expect?
Things are changing and you simply cannot accept this change or truth.

No one is questioning the iDevices are Apple's bread and butter. That doesn't mean they should be happy with outdated Mac offerings.

 

[sir1963nz]

So what exactly?
They seem to be doing very well indeed.

What you need to realise is that the 'loyal customer base' for the computers doesn't matter. They make their money on the phones, tablets and services. They would hardly notice if the whole computer division went, and allowed everything to be developed on PC's.

Apple are not a charity who owes people a computer. They are a business. And like all business will prioritise the goals in areas where they can make money. The PC market is not this area quite clearly.

I really wish people would stop thinking they are entitled or owed something.
You made a business transaction to purchase a machine from a company. They don't owe you never ending upgrades, support beyond a couple of years etc.

What exactly do people want or expect?
Things are changing and you simply cannot accept this change or truth.

All true, but here's the thing, if Apple abandons the Mac they will loose a LOT of customers.
If all you know is Windows, then a windows phone looks reasonable
If all you know is Linux, Android looks reasonable .

IOS worked because of the cohesive nature of the ecosystem.

 

[femike]

I see some making excuses for Apple's abysmal treatment of its customers. There is absolutely no excuse.
They write, you are using a five year old mac still does everything you need, computers haven't advanced that much, oh they are working an ARM mac etc.... That is not the issue.

I would you feel if your friend sold you a 5 year old computer at new computer prices? And only to find out later you've been duped. He won't be your friend any longer. Apple is blatantly showing no respect for customers. It is as insult to expect people to buy a mac mini/mac pro. It is disgusting behaviour. If you had a computer business would you be treating your customers like that? Of course not.

Apple is almost a trillion dollar company. While Tim Cook travels around university giving speeches and shows that he is cares about customers and environment, it's all fake and no sincerity... there is no question about it, the current situation proves it. It is abundantly clear that Tim Cook only cares about profit and image to satisfy shareholders so he can be the first trillion dollar CEO. Amongst this state of affairs, he signs up Oprah for tens of millions! Incredible! How can Tim reconcile the two and this stage? I would like to see Tim go, and someone with different skills and understanding brought in, maybe Scott Forstall.

The mac is still an important and necessary part of Apple ecosystem and future business. People like macOS. But people are leaving. Apple need to have a reasonably priced headless mac, with upgradable storage, ram, gpu (or at least decent one). It doesn't need to be mini size, and it doesn't need to cost $5000. It is not hard. But its plain to see they don't care.

 

[Abazigal]

What you need to realise is Apple are abandoning their loyal customer base that got them to where they are today.

I would argue that it kinda works both ways.

Firstly, for management to dedicate attention to new pro Mac hardware, the company may need to take its foot off the accelerator with other products. So there's a very real opportunity cost here. You can argue that you don't care about watches or wearables, and that's precisely the point. Somewhere out there, someone is equally passionate about new apple watches and really couldn't care less about an updated Mac.

70% of the Mac user base does not use pro software and would not classify as pro users, so Apple could theoretically move them to the iPad some day. Of the remainder (roughly 30 million), I daresay the majority have been able to make do with the newer MBPs and iMac Pros, so we are looking at a very niche portion of an already niche user base for whom Apple's existing Mac lineup isn't sufficient.

That this thread has over 1000 replies just shows that you are all extremely passionate and vocal, not that there are that many of you in the larger scheme of things.

It has become clear that Apple's inability to move beyond the Mac poses the much bigger long-term risk. Even moreso than Apple's decision to work on another Mac Pro, which I personally still have my misgivings about (I still feel the engineering resources diverted to them could be better used on their other mobile products). I guess the other (very unpopular) alternative would be for Apple to draw the line in the sand and say "These are the Macs we have, take em or leave em".

All true, but here's the thing, if Apple abandons the Mac they will loose a LOT of customers.
If all you know is Windows, then a windows phone looks reasonable
If all you know is Linux, Android looks reasonable .

IOS worked because of the cohesive nature of the ecosystem.

I think you overrate the importance of the Mac (and other products like the Airport Express) with regards to the overall stickiness of the Apple ecosystem. The majority of people who buy iPhones don't use Macs. Other products like AirPods, Apple Watch and Apple Music work far better at keeping users in the Apple ecosystem.

 

[pgwalsh]

If Apple decides, or has already decided, that on the desktop computer side they only care about the user base that develops apps for the mobile side, then there is going to be an exodus of people who moved to OS X from the Linux world in the early 2000s back to Linux. Maybe that’s what Apple management wants, get rid of those noisy users who think they know what’s best for them. Focus on the mobile and content serving market and just enough on the developer side to keep mobile and content alive, and devil takes the rest. We don’t make computers, fool, we make DREAMS!

To me it seems that way. Swift is going to be available to the Linux crowd or is available, so people outside the Apple desktop echo system will be able to develop for iOS. For me, with the death of os x server, xsans etc and the new Mac Pro, which is clearly focused on content creation, was the first signs of this shift. People were calling it out back then, but with recent announcements it seems more likely than ever. I don't think they'll ditch consumer laptops or iMac etc, but I do see a shift to ARM for those products.

 

[richinaus]

All true, but here's the thing, if Apple abandons the Mac they will loose a LOT of customers.
If all you know is Windows, then a windows phone looks reasonable
If all you know is Linux, Android looks reasonable .

IOS worked because of the cohesive nature of the ecosystem.

Yes and no. I will still keep my iPad and iPhone like I always have even when using PC's. There are no better alternatives than those. This means I will still be in the system with apple, and remain invested with iTunes.
I don't think it will be the effect you think to be honest.

For an example, I have worked in very large companies where we used PC's as the computers and were given iPads and iPhones as the mobile devices. Worked very well and didn't have many issues at all.

The tie in of the devices with Mac OS is a nice to have.

There are a tremendous amount of people who just use PC's for their computers but have iOS devices. Why do you think they are so popular !

 

[R3k]

Wait, that GPU problem makes it sound unusable. I'd be furious if my new pro machine were doing that.

Luckily in my case it mostly happens when the system is idle and my work load is light at the moment. If either change...I feel for the guys where it happens hours into a render though.

 

[Tiger8]

And this is why Mac will never be the real deal, Windows, unix and Linux own every vertical of the market, from servers to PCs to laptops.

 

[mlung]

I am glad to see so much passion expressed on this topic. Keep it coming everyone. This is Macrumors after all!

I personally own a mid-2014 MacBook Pro which is my daily companion. It works just as well today as it did the day I bought it. My wife and kids also have macs going back to 2012 which also serve their intended purposes. It’s a testament to the quality of the product engineered back in that day.

Needless to say that our Family is committed to the Mac/iCloud infrastructure, but I’ll be the first to admit that I would not purchase any of the existing Macs out there in its current price and form. It just doesn’t give me any more benefit for what I do. Sorry, but I don’t care about butterfly keys and touch bars. Faster, larger, and cheaper SSDs is number 1 on my list. Small SSD is the single most limiting factor when I want to work on videos/photos or prep myself for an extended trip away from home. Next item on my wish list is more ports, not less. Please don’t make me buy dongles or hubs to attach an external hard drive or monitor. Lastly, I would be so grateful if the MagSafe could be restored in some form. It seems that Apple gave up the things that we all loved for a lot of meh, and they’re charging us more for more meh.

I have no plans to return to PCs, not ever, but if my MacBook ever dies, I’ll probably hunt for another mid-2014 model instead of buying a newer model. Apple has given me no incentive to do anything otherwise.

 

[maflynn]

Apple updates the MBP roughly once a year. How often do you expect them to update it?

I was hoping at the year mark given the issues with the keyboard and the fact that coffee lake is out