Wishful thinking. Anyone who has been in the Apple ecosystem knows this is very unlikely to happen.
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Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'
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Wishful thinking. Anyone who has been in the Apple ecosystem knows this is very unlikely to happen.
Yes, but the latest MBPs are all "disposable" in my mind, everything soldered in and nothing upgradable. I recently nearly bought one, but gave up at the last minute. I'd rather pay relatively more for an old one. My 8yo 17" MBP is long in the tooth, but it's got a 2TB+1TB SSD in it and I maxed out the RAM. It's incrementally gained larger and faster storage over the years. Currently I'd have to pay an eye-watering >£3.5k upgrade to only have 2/3rds the current storage I have and no ability to ever upgrade (and no, I don't want a load of expensive and messy cables to external drives that I always have to worry about what music projects and sample files I may or may not have with me)!!! Will that last 8 years+? My current one I stripped apart and cleaned as the heat pipes and fans get full of crap over time and redid the thermal paste. They just seem less and less serviceable with every release so I don't hold out much hope.
I regularly ponder that they've lost touch with reality in the multi-millionaire bubble. I can justify spending half the cost of my car on a top quality laptop I'll use and use for ages since it's a very important tool in my life. So can others I know. But no way I can justify that on something I'll have to trash in 3 years if it dies after the longest available Applecare expires. What's the cost of an older logic board vs the new one with £kkks of SSD attached to it?
iOS would be a terrible platform to work on. Seriously iOS is terrible for anything other than consuming media, writing simple text, and drawing using the Pencil. For example text selection is still extremely frustrating when not using a physical keyboard.
Allowing iOS dev on Windows and/or Linux would be a bold and courageous move. I doubt it's going happen. Not because Apple does not want to lose hardware sales, but because for Apple nothing exists outside of the Mac / iOS bubble.
If they sell underwhelming and overpriced products, then yeah, they won't be able to compete. They'll have to keep up with innovation. I think they'd find some motivation, and they'd dominate high end laptops even with an open sourced macOS. They might lose the pro desktop lineup, though. But would they care about that?
At one time Adobe and Apple were much closer. The decision by Steve Jobs to not include Adobe Flash support in the iPhone and the later decision to support HTML5 instead of Flash for computers didn’t help the relationship.
I am not a CS user, so I have to take my friends word about the problems but it’s not a new complaint about Apple but one dating back several years.
He has issues about how Adobe runs their part of the business as well that has little to do with what hardware the program is running on locally.
Excellent example and explanation. The pedestrians who never used anything more demanding than a text editor don’t understand the cost of waiting for the PC to finish a complex render. It’s not an issue when everyone has a similar limitation, but as you noted, when someone can complete the same project in less time, they have a competitive advantage. They can bid less or handle more work. Apple isn’t respecting professionals by postponing possible efficiency improvements or overcharging for those improvements.
iOS evangelicals have no business commenting on a tool they don’t use. Telling us to settle for the Mac’s last evolution is strange advice coming from a crowd that purchases a new smartphone every two years for frivolous reasons.
And here we are incentivizing Apple to rest on its laurels.
I waited as long as I possibly could to replace my 2008 unibody, and I bought the new Macbook Pro in Dec 2017. It's a good machine…but not a great machine. And it was the first time I bought an Apple product and kinda felt ripped off due to the price i paid.
The main problem is that there's no real competition for Apple. Despite all the flaws, imo, the hardware and software is still way better than any other option.
I waited as long as I possibly could to replace my 2008 unibody, and I bought the new Macbook Pro in Dec 2017. It's a good machine…but not a great machine. And it was the first time I bought an Apple product and kinda felt ripped off due to the price i paid.
The main problem is that there's no real competition for Apple. Despite all the flaws, imo, the hardware and software is still way better than any other option.
Mac hardware has felt like an afterthought for 3-5 years now.
I switched months ago and don't regret it, its incredible how much windows has evolved. I can do everything I need for 1/4 of the price and glad I did.
Is it weird I am kind of turned on by this post?
And wait until you try GNOME
The 6S and SEs are still fine! That's why I mentioned the 5 and 5S which are not fine. They're useable but they're not providing the experience the a 7, 8 or X provide with iOS 11.
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If someone is on Ivy Bridge or Haswell, Kaby Lake is mighty fine upgrade especially if they bought them as soon as they were refreshed last year. Hardware HEVC support, 10-bit display. TB3, PCIe 3.0 x4. That's already a big step up from a 2012-2014 MacBook. Or is the problem that you want a 4-core machine but aren't willing to pay for a 15" model?
Apple will have machines with 6 and 8 cores along with 32GB RAM in the near future but then you will just complain about the price. If you're not happy go buy a Dell or Lenovo and forget about outdated MacBook Pros.
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In some ways this post should be music to Apple's ears because it spells DEMAND
So many people are waiting that if they make the next MBP half as good as they should it will sell like hot cakes.
So many people are waiting that if they make the next MBP half as good as they should it will sell like hot cakes.
Our first Mac was also a 512Ke. And Apple's new computers have the same upgradability as the 512Ke. Couldn't add RAM. Couldn't add a hard drive. Ports? Everything was proprietary, soldered, etc. More then than even now.
So, to be fair, Apple was more "open" on certain machines at certain times, but to pretend they've always been upgradable is just not true.
Don't misunderstand, I WISH Mac upgrades were possible, and hope they will be in the future.
It's not really a matter of price but ROI.
The Mac has been stumbling for the last 5 years, for a number of reasons.
- Lack of latest hardware
- Crappy laptop keyboard
- Obsolete products (Mac Pro, Mac Mini, Macbook Air)
- Buggy macOS (Yosemite and High Sierra in particular)
- Stupid design decisions (anorexia, touch bar, USB ports, trash can Mac Pro)
Wouldn’t be surprised if/when Apple sells off or discontinues their Mac division and focuses solely on iThingies and digital services.
Dedication to a platform isn't based on short-term actions, but rather long-term commitment. The faith in the platform and brand(Mac) that Steve Jobs built up after returning to Apple in 1998, over years, even going so far as to usher in the digital lifestyle age of computing has been squandered and wasted by Tim's Apple since Steve's passing.
How confident are we as consumers going to be, when purchasing a Mac, about whether or not Apple is invested in the Mac platform going forward? Forget about revolutionary jumps and re-designs, they can't even seem to manage/care-about incremental CPU/HDD/RAM updates.
Apple2018, IMHO is a text-book-example of what happens when profits/revenues dictate vision, when bean-counters run the company over risk-takers/visionaries. It doesn't take a genius to see where this might lead..... you need not look further than Apple circa 1985, after Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple.
Honestly, I'm more worried about not being able to replace the battery than upgrading the RAM and SSD.
The battery starts degrading from day one, and in many cases the whole top panel of the machine needs to be replaced (keyboard, trackpad, etc).
Apple Mexico asked for about $550 to replace the battery on a 13'' 2014 rMBP. Then they would buy the old part from me, and my final price would be $350. **** that. I won't pay $350 to replace a battery.
Someone needs to mail this to Tim. I think they need to really address this situation and very soon.
Neil Cybart (the person who runs that subscription service) is not that much better informed than other financial analysts who also cover Apple for Wall Street (none of whom I would pay any money to because then I might as well pay money to anyone on the street for their opinionated thoughts). His articles/podcasts are free though so you may want to just humor yourself and read/listen to this analyst ventilate about Apple. I know and still keep in contact with some folks at Apple (as do some other former Apple engineers who also occasionally post here) to know that some of what Cybart (and other analysts) postulates about is not even close to being accurate.
With that said, about the only one I have respect for (independent or not) is Horace Dediu because before he started Asymco, he used (and still does) do the same sort of in-depth analysis on a few AAPL message boards with the regular folks and has had an incredible track record when it comes to accuracy.
Does anyone here have any hope that Apple is going to turn all of this around and become a 'computer company' again?
I'm not holding my breath. Tim's Apple is very different from Steve's Apple.
Kaby Lake is not old hardware. I happen to like the 2nd butterfly keyboard. I can type really fast with it and have not had a single key fail on me. I wonder if the Kaby Lake models are more prone to failure because my sole experience is with the 2016 15". I wipe down the keyboard with damp cloth before closing the lid after long sessions and never eat anything while I'm using it. 10.13 was initially buggy but 10.13.5 is fine. Sierra was also buggy until 10.12.3-10.12.4. 10.12.6 is perfectly stable. Apple has always slimmed devices down as soon as it was possible. The retina Mac (mid-2012) was much slimmer than the previous aluminum unibody design due to removing the obsolete Superdrive. It's now considered to be one of the greatest notebook designs of all time, if not the greatest.
USB-C is no longer the future, but the present. The spec was finalized in August 2014. August 2014! We're now in June of 2018 and I think it's high time that a superior technology replaces something that was great for its time but is no longer necessary. USB-C flash drives, external HDDs and SSDs, displays, etc are all readily available. Sure some legacy professional devices require USB Type-A and the only solution is to use an adapter or buy new peripherals. It is expensive but will have to be done sooner or later. I applaud Apple for adopting new technology as early as possible leading everyone forward. The were among the first to adopt USB 1.0, built-in Wifi, dumping the DVD burner, moving to SSD storage, switching to high PPI displays and more that I can't readily remember.
What don't I like about my 2016 15"? The 720p FaceTime camera. It is low res for a 2880x1800 display. A 1080p cam should've been standard by now. We're no longer in the 2000s and almost everyone buying these products has fast broadband. I also don't like the weak Radeon Pro GPUs, but no generation of MBPs has really come with cutting edge GPUs. Perhaps the older product with nVidia was slightly better for its time but they've never had the GPUs you will find on gaming notebooks from Alienware. But then again these are meant to be sleek machines for adults instead of bulky, plastic devices with all sorts of LED lights.
Edit: Also if I need to plug in a Type-A flash drive, I just use my $9 C to A dongle. Carrying one is really not a big deal. At home or at work dongles are not a hassle.
The Mac side of things isn't as sexy as the iPhone and probably never will be again. I don't think Apple will fail without it. It's just a missed opportunity for what would be a profitable side stream of income that reinforces their entire brand from the ground up. They own pretty much entire pipeline right now from conception to launch - and I hope, as an investor and (increasingly jaded) "Mac or die" guy, they are actually working on this in a meaningful way. It seems it should be easy to streamline the entire Mac side of operations into a efficient and well-received money making machine. They don't even need a marketing budget for it.
Seems quite easy to make the line as
Mac Mini
iMac
Mac Pro
Macbook
Macbook Pro
High End display
I'm hopefully not just being naive for thinking they just have had issues behind the scenes (Intel or a new tech to make it all 'click' in some way) in realizing their new Mac paradigm which has held up the next era.
I don't think Apple loses half its value if they abandon or sell the Mac arm - iPhone is king and I'm fine with that but lots of companies would kill for this kind of small, dedicated customer base willing to pay a premium for something already established.
Seems quite easy to make the line as
Mac Mini
iMac
Mac Pro
Macbook
Macbook Pro
High End display
I'm hopefully not just being naive for thinking they just have had issues behind the scenes (Intel or a new tech to make it all 'click' in some way) in realizing their new Mac paradigm which has held up the next era.
I don't think Apple loses half its value if they abandon or sell the Mac arm - iPhone is king and I'm fine with that but lots of companies would kill for this kind of small, dedicated customer base willing to pay a premium for something already established.
Very sad really. Starting to lose the vision of Apple even being a computer company first and foremost at all.