Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
You know when Samsung introduced their Exploding Kittens Notes? They lost lots of money and sales, but their fridges, toasters, TVs, mid-range phones, low-range phones, dishwashers, godsknowwhatelse kept them more than afloat. What would happen to Apple if iPhone XI had to be completely recalled because of battery (or other) problems?

They would lose money, and it would hurt their brand a little bit. But nothing more major; furthermore, users would either wait for the next iphone or just buy the older models. Apple is still in a position to continue business as normal, even with an iphone disaster, don’t be mistaken about this, no matter how much press and user clash they would receive...
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
Retina iMac prices are very good value, although RAM/storage prices does reduce that. The iMac Pro is reasonably priced as you say, but not affordable due to the choice of hardware. The MacBooks, on the other hand, are not priced well and Apple know this.

I think the 12” MacBook is a beautiful design and there’s nothing with its portability on the market but Apple should’ve known that this wasn’t the MacBook most people wanted. The MacBook should’ve been more like the 13” Pro but with weaker specs. 1 port is just not enough even with the DV adapter that gives you charging, HDMI and one Type A port. I hope they release a better MacBook design. I wouldn’t buy one since I need better performance but many people would if it weren’t crippled with one port. The price is high because of the ridiculously thin design and the engineering necessary but it’s still a ridiculous amount of money for such a poor performer.
[doublepost=1529432946][/doublepost]
Good for you, but considering there are at least 3 class action lawsuits against Apple over the butterfly keyboard I don't think you are in the majority.

Do you have any idea how many lawsuits there are at any given point in America? These lawyers are claiming without any proof that Apple knew this design was defective from the beginning and that is bull. I don’t see these lawsuits going anywhere.

I agree that Apple should extend warranty service for anyone who has problems with the keyboards but it certainly doesn’t affect every MacBook with a butterfly keyboard. I also find it hard to believe that some people have wrecked their keyboards even after they’ve been repaired. Maybe they’re banging way too hard on the keys? They don’t require much force. A light touch is all that is needed for typing fast.

Before I get attacked, this is different from the problems with Toyota and Lexus cars they did have serious safety problems. Those were not because of driving habits like Mr. Toyoda shamelessly claimed in court.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
And that's not to mention that you don't have to buy it all at once.

I often upgrade my GPU on its own cycle, the motherboard + RAM + CPU on another cycle.

Once you have solid basics (power supply, case, cooling, storage), the rest can be done when the time, funds, and offers are right. Oh, and you aren't restricted to specific screen size/aspect and have to replace it every time you want an upgrade (which costs a small fortune).

As has already been stated by another member, I highly doubt this is Apple’s vision of a modular Mac...heck, they even made it clear with that interview!
 
They would lose money, and it would hurt their brand a little bit. But nothing more major; furthermore, users would either wait for the next iphone or just buy the older models. Apple is still in a position to continue business as normal, even with an iphone disaster, don’t be mistaken about this, no matter how much press and user clash they would receive...

I think it would hurt a lot more than you give credit for. I think they'll continue, but losing big sales on the iPhone would have a trickle down affect on the rest of their products and services.

the iPhone is a halo product for Apple. The rest of their core (aside from Mac sales) are dependant on iOS. Most of their service revenue is directly from iOS users using the services native to the platform. If iPhone sales tanked, so would services. In addition, so would "other" which currently features accessories such as AirPods, HomePods, Watch. which are all driven as well by being accessories to iPhone / iOS devices.

if the iPhone sales started to decline on a consistent basis, it would have this trickle down affect on the rest of their product categories. would be interesting to see if Apple can diversify. they haven't done a great job yet of it. First would be ensuring that all their services are platform agnostic, that way if users leave iOS, they still have access to the services they like. Apple has opened up some of their services slightly, but not nearly enough that people are going to switch to them if their not iOS based.

I don't think it's doom. I just think that Apple has done a bad job diversifying. It's also why we see so much volatility in the stock price, especially during quarterly results. The first quarter with a significant decrease in iPhone sales and you'll see an exodus of investment.
 
A very bleak present though. Most accessories (keyboard, mice, memory sticks, etc) are still manufactured with USB-A connectors. Even Apple's Mac accessories come with USB-A and not USB-C cables.

And let's forget al the problems surrounding the USB-C spec.

Apple’s keyboards, mice and trackpads are all wireless. Cheaper memory sticks are Type-A and mostly the slower 3.0 spec. USB-C ones have been on the market for a while.

What are the problems with the USB-C spec? There is some confusion yes because charge cables (2.0 speeds) and data cables are different but look the same.

I expect Apple to shortly ship most of their products with USB-C cables. The reason why they probably haven’t done so is that people have accumulated lots of power adapters from iPhones and iPads that are Type A as well as third party peripherals. For those with a newer MBs and MBPs it’s not an issue but not everyone has them yet. People always complain when standards are changed. I’m sure many didn’t want their 30-pin accessories to become useless either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
And that's not to mention that you don't have to buy it all at once.

I often upgrade my GPU on its own cycle, the motherboard + RAM + CPU on another cycle.

Once you have solid basics (power supply, case, cooling, storage), the rest can be done when the time, funds, and offers are right. Oh, and you aren't restricted to specific screen size/aspect and have to replace it every time you want an upgrade (which costs a small fortune).

Yup. I like this new perk. I like that I could swap out my 8-core for a 10 - 18 core CPU if I felt it was a necessary upgrade.

Why would anyone pay for an OS if there are free alternatives. Its like paying for a web browser. This is not the 80ies anymore.


Because one would prefer one browser over the other? I'd pay $50-$100 for OSX to run on my 7820x machine right now. I don't mind Windows 10. There little things I still prefer with OSX.

But I do like not being tied down/dependent to the Mac OS anymore. :D
 
Last edited:
It's also why we see so much volatility in the stock price, especially during quarterly results.

This volatility only applies to day traders. Those who invest for the long haul have nothing to worry about. Investors are also a little spoiled. No company can introduce a new revolutionary product every other year. What happened from 2007-2010 was really unique. We were transitioning from PCs to touch screen mobile devices. We’re now almost a decade removed from that time and both iPhone and iPad are mature products. I still see lots of innovation from Apple in the future.
 
One advantage I see of getting OSX in everyone's hands is that it lowers the barrier to develop iPhone apps.

iOS has plenty of developers right now. Apple doesn't need any more.

There is really no good angle on the idea of opening macOS to non Apple hardware.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fairuz
I think it would hurt a lot more than you give credit for. I think they'll continue, but losing big sales on the iPhone would have a trickle down affect on the rest of their products and services.

the iPhone is a halo product for Apple. The rest of their core (aside from Mac sales) are dependant on iOS. Most of their service revenue is directly from iOS users using the services native to the platform. If iPhone sales tanked, so would services. In addition, so would "other" which currently features accessories such as AirPods, HomePods, Watch. which are all driven as well by being accessories to iPhone / iOS devices.

if the iPhone sales started to decline on a consistent basis, it would have this trickle down affect on the rest of their product categories. would be interesting to see if Apple can diversify. they haven't done a great job yet of it. First would be ensuring that all their services are platform agnostic, that way if users leave iOS, they still have access to the services they like. Apple has opened up some of their services slightly, but not nearly enough that people are going to switch to them if their not iOS based.

I don't think it's doom. I just think that Apple has done a bad job diversifying. It's also why we see so much volatility in the stock price, especially during quarterly results. The first quarter with a significant decrease in iPhone sales and you'll see an exodus of investment.

I meant as a one time situation, because there’s no way this disaster would happen twice, that would have been suicide!

But iOS is not only iphones, it’s also iPads, granted a much much smaller share, but still.

I agree overall with diversification, but I should stress their focus on self-driving cars, AR, Machine Learning (for me can be a seperate business unit/entity), watches, headphones, speakers, TV/entertainment, Glasses (as it seems), and God knows what else they will come up with...
 
You know when Samsung introduced their Exploding Kittens Notes? They lost lots of money and sales, but their fridges, toasters, TVs, mid-range phones, low-range phones, dishwashers, godsknowwhatelse kept them more than afloat. What would happen to Apple if iPhone XI had to be completely recalled because of battery (or other) problems?

Definitely a good point. However, I'd guess that the Samsung's appliance / consumer electronics sales dwarfs the PC / laptop / tablet market so a major issue with iPhone even with a robust, well streamlined Mac division would hurt Apple far more than the exploding Notes hurt Samsung.

I don't have the numbers but if Apple's non iPhone offerings make up an equivalent amount of revenue to Samsung's non-smartphone products - than by all means its a bigger problem than I originally thought. I tried to find some numbers and it seems Apple for example is already far more reliant on iPhone than Samsung was on their premium Smartphones.

Regardless, after looking over some of the numbers of the effects of the Note debacle, its irresponsible of Apple to not start diversifying. I just hope they will give some of that love to the Mac instead of content (which seems to be where they are heading more and more).
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
I've been waiting for MBP upgrades for years to replace my CTO 2011MBP which is upgraded to 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, but the last refresh was a bad joke...not much real speed gain, no 32GB of RAM, the couldn't-care-less waste touch bar, etc., and crazy 'upgrsde' costs to get reasonable storage. So I bought a used 2015 15" MBP at half the price and am still waiting for a 'pro' laptop to surface from Apple.

Any 2016 or 2017 machine is much faster than any 2011. The RAM is also faster @2133MHz not far off from DDR4 @ 2400. Those crazy upgrade costs for the SSDs are because they are among the absolute best money can buy. Your 1TB SSD is SATA. It doesn’t compare to PCIe 3.0 x4. All SSDs are not created equal. Look up the prices for high capacity 2TB NVMe at retail. You’re looking at anywhere from $1100-1400. The difference is night and day. The 2017s have 10-bit P3 displays and much stronger GPUs than anything offered in 2011.
[doublepost=1529434597][/doublepost]Investors also need to understand that most people did not own smartphones from 2007-2010. There was a lot of growth potential from 2010-2014 but by that year almost everyone had a smartphone. Today people can buy budget phones for half the price of a recent iPhone that gets the job done. That Apple continues to sell a ridiculous amount of devices every year speaks to how good of a product they make that people around the world want one. If the iPhone X were priced at $749 I’m sure they wouldn’t be able to keep it in stock. The $1000-1200 price tag is what has kept many away. Until OLED becomes cheaper the X and it’s successors will effectively remain luxury products.

Inflation also has to be accounted for. We are finally seeing the consequences of all those years of near zero interest rates. Combined with the massive GOP tax cuts, the wealthy have more cash than at any other time in this century. I will use the luxury watch market as an example. Over the past year the market prices for popular Rolex and Patek Philippe watches has skyrocketed. A steel Patek 5711 that sold for $28k last year now fetches $50-60k. New steel sports Rolex models that retail for $9-12.4k cannot be purchased for less than $18-22k. Even food prices are higher than ever. Higher prices are here to stay until a recession.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
Any 2016 or 2017 machine is much faster than any 2011. The RAM is also faster @2133MHz not far off from DDR4 @ 2400. Those crazy upgrade costs for the SSDs are because they are among the absolute best money can buy. Your 1TB SSD is SATA. It doesn’t compare to PCIe 3.0 x4. All SSDs are not created equal. Look up the prices for high capacity 2TB NVMe at retail. You’re looking at anywhere from $1100-1400. The difference is night and day. The 2017s have 10-bit P3 displays and much stronger GPUs than anything offered in 2011.

$800 for the latest and greatest 2TB NVMe from Samsung...
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vMMwrH/samsung-970-evo-20tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-mz-v7e2t0bw


...I pulled a Samsung NVMe out of my 2015 MacBook Pro, so Apple does use Samsung sticks for their MBP lineup. Apple is charging $1,200 without less cost of pulling the 512GB storage chip out of the base price unit. So technically, they're charging you $1,450 for 2TB stick upgrade instead of $800.
 
These lawyers are claiming without any proof that Apple knew this design was defective from the beginning and that is bull. I don’t see these lawsuits going anywhere.

Time will tell. There is evidence that butterfly keyboards are failing at twice the rate than previous keyboards.

Apple’s keyboards, mice and trackpads are all wireless. Cheaper memory sticks are Type-A and mostly the slower 3.0 spec. USB-C ones have been on the market for a while.

But they come with USB-A cables for charging, and afaik they don't work without charge.

Who knows, maybe in 3 more years USB-C will be the mainstream option but so far it's not.

If Apple totally believed in USB-C how come its phones and tablets don't use it? How come all it's accessories come with USB-A cables? Apple made a mistake by completely removing USB-A from its laptops and it knows it. The time to go 100% USB-C will be 2020 at the earliest, not 2016.

What are the problems with the USB-C spec? There is some confusion yes

Some confusion? That is quite a euphemism.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/usb-c-implementation-messy-and-unclear/
 
Last edited:
We're whining because we're Mac users not because we're worried about our Apple shares.

Apple could happily transform itself into an entertainment and services company and the shareholders would be perfectly happy. Or, a momentary dip in their share value due to some random whim of the market could see them taken over and asset-stripped overnight.
Given that only about 10% of current revenue comes from services and that Apple is the most valuable (traded) company in the world, those predictions are a big emotional overreaction coupled with an unrealistic view of how businesses and markets work. I fear you are too upset to view things clearly at the moment.
 
Last edited:
I cannot vouch for the current state of Apple and Intel's relationship, but the Apple of 2008 very much depended on Mac sales to help finance the new iPhone and iTunes App Store which was set to launch on July 10 of that year.
While revenues from the Mac did contribute, it was actually Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store business that provided the R&D opportunity to bring the (created internally first) iPad derived iPhone to market since it was that business which surpassed the Mac in revenues. We also learned after the fact (via Isaacson's book) that Jobs was initially not in favor of 3rd party native apps/app store (which is really what helped propel iPhone/iOS); it took several key members of the executive team to convince (actually annoy) Jobs to the point where he told them to "do whatever the hell you folks want to do" (paraphrased).
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
One advantage I see of getting OSX in everyone's hands is that it lowers the barrier to develop iPhone apps. So there could be more people willing to feed the beast that is the iPhone. I hope the bean counters at Apple are able to spin this positively and actually liberate OSX..
There'd still be another big barrier, the stupid level of complication to develop for iOS. The libs are impressive, but every little thing with Swift/ObjC + UIKit takes forever to deal with, especially if you're a newbie. It's so bad that lots of devs, including big-time ones like Discord, said "screw it" and put everything inside a Javascript interpreter running on iOS (React Native).

- No widely used package management, so we have to rely on CocoaPods
- So many arbitrary different ways to do things: wut is a UIViewController vs a UIView? viewDid/WillAppear vs viewDid/WillLoad vs init, error handling (exceptions, if let, unwrapping, NSError, returning nil)
- They're anal about lots of stuff: structs vs objects, anything to do with strings, NSURL
- Swift initializers are by far the most complicated initializers I've ever seen
- Swift/Xcode are still kinda broken: tuples, debugger, initializer inheritance
- They hate new stuff: JSON is a massive pain to handle, strings are UTF16 (would should have never existed)
- The whole setup for GUI layout is awful: autolayout and any alternatives suck
- CoreData was kinda cool when it came out but is just a mess now, and idk why multithreaded usage is so hard
- Xcode is generally annoying to deal with for many reasons

[doublepost=1529439830][/doublepost]
They'd probably make more money selling their OS to everyone else vs. selling computers to a small niche of users.
This probably isn't true. Microsoft makes by far the most popular desktop OS, and their profits from it are still less than 1/4 of Apple's Mac profits.

Software doesn't make much money, and being able to control both the software and the hardware allows for better user experience. Apple has thought hard about this. Same reasons Nintendo still makes consoles and develops basically exclusively for them.
[doublepost=1529440205][/doublepost]
$800 for the latest and greatest 2TB NVMe from Samsung...
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vMMwrH/samsung-970-evo-20tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-mz-v7e2t0bw


...I pulled a Samsung NVMe out of my 2015 MacBook Pro, so Apple does use Samsung sticks for their MBP lineup. Apple is charging $1,200 without less cost of pulling the 512GB storage chip out of the base price unit. So technically, they're charging you $1,450 for 2TB stick upgrade instead of $800.
It's a bad deal now but wasn't when the laptop came out. Apple always does this. Maybe they want to lure people in or encourage full computer upgrades or just don't want to keep changing prices.
 
Last edited:
I also find it hard to believe that some people have wrecked their keyboards even after they’ve been repaired. Maybe they’re banging way too hard on the keys? They don’t require much force. A light touch is all that is needed for typing fast.

All this stuff with the butterfly keyboard made me think of a former colleague of mine. We had an open office plan and he sat a few desks away from me. This guy would bang on the keys on his Dell laptop so loudly it would infuriate me. For some reason every time he hit the enter key it would be louder: bang bang bang bang BANG!! Again and again. All day long. It was like he felt that hitting his keys so loud made it seem like he was working harder. It was so hard to concentrate working next to this guy. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard would last one week with this guy.

I never understood his or others necessity to incessantly bang on their keys so loud and hard. It is like some have an irresistible urge to hit their keys as hard and loud as possible. It drives me nuts.

I’ve akways been a soft and quiet typist. I’m just as fast as anyone else and usually have better accuracy. For me, the butterfly keyboard has been great. Maybe it is why mine hasn’t broken after 18 months. Maybe it is only made for typists like myself. It shouldn’t be - it should be made to handle heavier typists - but there comes a point when typing so hard and loudly goes beyond the realm of normal use.
 
You made me miss using my smith & corona manual typewriter.
All this stuff with the butterfly keyboard made me think of a former colleague of mine. We had an open office plan and he sat a few desks away from me. This guy would bang on the keys on his Dell laptop so loudly it would infuriate me. For some reason every time he hit the enter key it would be louder: bang bang bang bang BANG!! Again and again. All day long. It was like he felt that hitting his keys so loud made it seem like he was working harder. It was so hard to concentrate working next to this guy. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard would last one week with this guy.

I never understood his or others necessity to incessantly bang on their keys so loud and hard. It is like some have an irresistible urge to hit their keys as hard and loud as possible. It drives me nuts.

I’ve akways been a soft and quiet typist. I’m just as fast as anyone else and usually have better accuracy. For me, the butterfly keyboard has been great. Maybe it is why mine hasn’t broken after 18 months. Maybe it is only made for typists like myself. It shouldn’t be - it should be made to handle heavier typists - but there comes a point when typing so hard and loudly goes beyond the realm of normal use.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
All this stuff with the butterfly keyboard made me think of a former colleague of mine. We had an open office plan and he sat a few desks away from me. This guy would bang on the keys on his Dell laptop so loudly it would infuriate me. For some reason every time he hit the enter key it would be louder: bang bang bang bang BANG!! Again and again. All day long. It was like he felt that hitting his keys so loud made it seem like he was working harder. It was so hard to concentrate working next to this guy. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard would last one week with this guy.

I never understood his or others necessity to incessantly bang on their keys so loud and hard. It is like some have an irresistible urge to hit their keys as hard and loud as possible. It drives me nuts.

I’ve akways been a soft and quiet typist. I’m just as fast as anyone else and usually have better accuracy. For me, the butterfly keyboard has been great. Maybe it is why mine hasn’t broken after 18 months. Maybe it is only made for typists like myself. It shouldn’t be - it should be made to handle heavier typists - but there comes a point when typing so hard and loudly goes beyond the realm of normal use.

Well, I don't always type like that, but there are days where that describes me as the anger is rising.

a good solid THUNK on the enter key is always so cathartic. it's my geeky way of wanting to punch someone :p

Could be louder. I could be using a cherrymx-blue key keyboard.
[doublepost=1529443556][/doublepost]
I'd pay $50-$100 for OSX to run on my 7820x machine right now. I don't mind Windows 10. There little things I still prefer with OSX.

Considering that for those of us who don't buy OEM computers, a windows home license would cost $120, if Apple decided to open MacOS to the world and made it compatible with any x86, and got some traction with Metal2, it might be a really decent option at $100. I'd pay.
 
What business succeeds by putting its priorities before the customer’s? If Apple isn’t designing a customizable Mac to satisfy the wants of the people in this discussion—and desktops aren’t in vogue with Sally Selfiemaker—who the f**k are they designing it for?

Everyone else.

The people who want an updated Mac Pro are a niche of a niche. In other words, an extremely small number of users whose combined expenditure would barely move the needle in Apple revenue.

In short, for all the criticism hurled at Apple’s supposed neglect of the Mac, there are likely still tons of people purchasing Macs. Just look at YouTube and how many tech YouTubers are using MBPs or iMac Pros (MKBHD, ijustine, Austin, Tailosive, a painfully honest tech, just to name a few).

Life goes on, even without a new Mac Pro or Mac Mini.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
@Nieval Feel free to report my post then (and I also extend this offer to anyone else who thinks I have crossed a line). If I have indeed fallen afoul of any posting rules (and I may well have), then I accept full responsibility for my actions and any repercussions that follow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
As has already been stated by another member, I highly doubt this is Apple’s vision of a modular Mac...heck, they even made it clear with that interview!

Oh I'm sure it isn't -- we were talking about PC builds.

Apple is anti-consumer these days... why would they allow anything that saves the consumer money or gives them options? "Lock-em down" should be their slogan. ;)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.