Bring back the headphone jack and peek and pop. Give the people what they want
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The MacRumors Show: Our Plan to Fix Apple's Product Lines
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Macbook Basic ?
What would the tagline be?
'Macbook Basic, like the pro ones but not really as good'
You probably don't want to be that negative, but isn't that actually true?
It is, I think the opposite is true honestly I think that the Air branding makes more sense now it is thinner and lighter than the MBP models.
Analogizing to 1997 is wrong on every level; just compare Apple's size and resources to today (hint: one can not even remotely compare Apple's 1997 size and resources to today). Today Apple has a huge customer base and the finances to support more products.
Agreed the Mac Pro line seems to lack confidence in itself as there is no clear roadmap for it's future, but the Mac Pro is a miniscule part of Mac sales, one end of a broad product lineup. One can not extrapolate what IMO are growing pains with Mac Pro to mean products overall are going backward. Apple's Mac lineup has evolved to be very solid.
At this point we just need to see what M3 brings to Mac Pro before writing it off. IMO your claim of a blur between itself (Mac Pro) and the iMac line, although true two years ago, is not true today. The status of iMacs we agree is unclear at the moment, but that is not a critical issue IMO perhaps because I personally do not like All-In-Ones as a computing solution ~
.Apple now has a very solid Mac lineup after adding the excellent Studios. Your statement "If AMD or Intel is able to match or beat the M-series in terms of power and efficiency before Apple gets this sorted out then their gains over the past two years could easily collapse" is without merit. Sorting out Mac Pro, although IMO important, is not critical to Macs because Mac Pro is less than 1% of Mac unit sales. Intel et al. are playing catchup to Apple and even if they do catch up the solid product lineup below Mac Pro is very, very unlikely to "collapse."
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Wow, I am amazed multiple folks liked on this wrong-headed-thinking post. Some buyers (think a K-12 administrator running one edu app at a time on 50 Macs, or grannies only accessing email; both scenarios demanding low cost) require an absolutely lowest base cost device. Suggesting that Apple's IMO appropriate service of those folks is "Apple's biggest problem" is way wrong.
IMO y'all demanding higher base specs are really just looking for cheaper prices.
Apple is a business. The correct observation that "In general the range seems to be crafted to always make you buy the next stage or machine up" is just good business. The suggestion that Apple should limit the lower end choices so lazy buyers do not have to move up the product lineup is just wrong.
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About the only thing on the 'net I bother looking at any more, is this site and Slashdot. So my complete understanding of the outside world, beyond what I pereonally experience, is mostly from here.
I pretty much at least skim every article on MR, and yet I truly do not know the difference between Max, Pro, Ultra, and Plus, except that they are marketing babble of some sort.
I imagine that 99% of Apple consumers don't know either. But such terms DO sell products, whether it's phones, automobiles, or blenders.
The average consumer idiot will spend an extra $50 for a Pro Max Ultra vegetable blender over the regular blender, even if it has no idea what the difference is. Same for any other consumer electronic junk, like phones.
I tuned out after the iPhone discussion, which was as confusing as the product lineup!
I currently use a 13 mini and will not upgrade to a heavier, larger iPhone until mine becomes unusable. Only 5% of sales, you say? But what is that sales volume and how many mini owners have failed to upgrade?
I currently use a 13 mini and will not upgrade to a heavier, larger iPhone until mine becomes unusable. Only 5% of sales, you say? But what is that sales volume and how many mini owners have failed to upgrade?
We agree. "Only 5% of sales" would be a huge number of units worldwide that indeed justifies intense attention from Apple.
Nah, that's not the Apple way. They should be named after rivers in California; iphone Trinity, iPhone Klamath, iPhone Salmon, iPhone Mad and so on. Version numbers are so 20th centry!
Agree, lose the camera bump, but keep the camera, at least the 12mb. There are a lot of good reasons why to keep it for professionals. Doctors and staff use it to document wounds and injuries, plumbers and electricians use it to document the work they do, lawyers and others to scan documents. But to be universally accepted, it’s got to be smaller, thinner, and lighter.
Sure, the modern day iPhone is better. Of course it is. 12 years have passed by. They cost more to make, if inflation is ignored. But Apple are also making a more profit on each device than they did with the iPhone 4...
Cut the prices 25%.
See what sells best, reduce the other lines.
Problem solved.
See what sells best, reduce the other lines.
Problem solved.
Macbook 12+14/15, MBP 16+18", Iphone 5", Iphone Pro 6-7". Mac (Mac mini) regular, Mac Pro w/ M Ultra & co. IMac 24, IMac Pro 32. Ipad mini as a basic and cheap one, Ipad 10", Ipad pro 12"+. Apple watch in the trash can, since it is never a stand alone, Ipads should be able to make phone calls and send sms, 5G in all computers. All Monitors sould have some os to function as a TV ("Apple TV") 32", 40", 50" and maybe even 75".
That would require Apple caring about its customers. They don't, never have and never will.
Looking at worldwide iPhone sales, I would suggest that iPhones are universally accepted, and it does not need to be smaller, thinner, and lighter. In fact sales have grown as sizes have grown. I am one of those professionals that documents with the iPhone Pro camera and all I want each year is ongoing camera improvements irrespective of size/weight/thickness (but that is just me).
The iPad Mini‘s greatest asset is not being cheap, its being the most portable creativity device apple makes. An iphone is a “media consumption device”, the ipad mini is a productivity powerhouse. With a display as big as a notepad, plus the pencil, its a portable sketchbook, whiteboard, annotation device, doc, spreadsheet & presentation editor, even basic audio & film editor. Unlike every other ipad, its small enough to fit in many pockets, light enough to hold at length while you work out in the wild. Every 5 minutes you’re sitting waiting to pick someone up is 5 minutes you can put your ideas down and 5 minutes you don’t have to sit at your desk later. Price the air to be cheap, build the mini to be powerful and portable again (it was once at feature/power parity with the top of the line ipad). But without a headphone & mic jack, it loses a ton of its utility as a portable audio recorder/sampler.
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It's actually easy to fix. Just let us pay a normal market price for RAM memory and SSD storage.
That way we don't need to be ashamed anymore to use a Mac or an iPhone in public because we don't look like suckers.
That way we don't need to be ashamed anymore to use a Mac or an iPhone in public because we don't look like suckers.
I blew 4 years marketing a product line directly to the public. When I started, we had 1 model in each of 4 product categories with a hard max of 3 variations per, to limit sku’s to a manageable & affordable level. Showed the line @ our industry trade show, the press went nuts for it, & dealers ordered what we made. But then the phone started to ring, and the public started to weigh in on what different things they thought we should be making (rarely ever the same different things though, we kept a list of requests). We killed months producing some variations to reach into other niches, only to sell single digit qtys. It seems like whatever you make, 99% of the people who want your product will want you to have made it different than the way you made it, and the hard part of being a product manager is accurately identifying which of your customers to ignore.
Disagree about putting a M Pro Chip in the MacBook Air (except maybe if it’s the last gen). It just doesn’t make sense for what that product is supposed to be in comparison to the MBP. If anything, a cheaper MBP without a M Pro chip makes more sense. Have all the pro screen/connectivity features with less power but still powerful chips.
Apple is making more profit because we are talking about higher dollars (before adjusting for inflation) and much higher unit sales but recent margin percentages are about the same as or even lower (depending on source) than they were in 2010-11 when the iPhone 4 was originally being sold new.
I think it’s the naming that confuses the line ups, rather than the lineups themselves. You’ve highlighted iPads as standing out, but if the lineup was instead named: iPad SE (for iPad), iPad (for mini and Air), iPad Pro, it would make way more sense