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I know, right? Putting 'Pro' after the word iPad doesn't make it any more than an iPad.


They should still consider a crossover device such as the surface pro, I'll bet such a device would sell enough to justify its own existence. I'm an avid surface pro user, but given all the privacy scandals and my respect for Apple's privacy stance, I would definitely switch to a tablet with Mac OS on it. I have very little use for an ipad as a tablet, it's just too primitive for my needs and my surface pro does every single thing an ipad can do, although admittedly I'm certainly jealous of the battery life. I also do not want a Mac laptop, I have just grown accustomed to awesome features such as having a touch screen.

Both of those devices are great and still are a necessity for many, although I would argue that once the surface pros catch up to the battery life the concept of something like the ipad will become completely unnecessary, but we are not there yet. Apple just needs a competitive kick to the butt and they will suddenly "believe" in crossover tablets, just like they suddenly "believed" in phablets and styli. I think battery life is the big deal here and what will ultimately push Apple when other superior devices can match them. Although Apple must be also considering the impact of Chrome books which do match the battery life and have a superior OS and hardware which can be used similar to a PC. I suppose we will see if the sales impacts Apple's business.

I don't think anyone could deny that a Mac OS tablet wouldn't sell like hotcakes if done correctly. Of course it would take away from ipad and laptop sales, but then again it could create an entirely new segment like the ipad did not too long ago. But most likely it would spell the end of the ipad, which I'm completely fine with.
 
I don't say they have to merge but I like the idea of a touchscreen Mac competitor to the Surface. I bought a Surface a few months back due to work requirements and love the form factor and different ways you can use it. Microsoft did a good job here thinking outside the box. I love the kickstand and use it all the time. Yes as a Microsoft product there are compromises and things that drive me crazy. (Simple things like copy & paste.) BUT...that doesn't mean Apple's would have to be. I would expect Apple to do it better.
 
Make the screen detachable like an iPad. When you detach it, it runs iOS. When you have it attached, it runs OSX. It would be the perfect computer.

That's more or less my thought. At work I use a PC, but when I go to meetings I tend to take my iPad. The iPad "does" everything I need it to do in those meetings, in that I can take notes on OneNote, Open and edit documents via OneDrive, and review emails. But the maneuverability, for lack of a better word, can be frustrating - I want a better keyboard, I want a wireless mouse, and I want more multi-tasking features so that the experience of using the iPad for stuff I do quickly on the PC is better and smoother. I don't need a full OS on the Ipad, but I need it to be closer to what the OS is.
 
Long time graphic designer here, Windows for years, Mac for the past 10 yrs, coupled with a Wacom Intuos Pro as my input device. Last year I got a Surface Pro, and found that my need for the MacBook and iPad gradually dwindled away. The experience of Win 10 as a touch OS isn’t perfect, but it is totally usable, and far superior to no touchscreen. What I discovered is that the choice to use mouse, or pen, or finger, or keyboard, or surface dial, or Wacom in any full desktop app makes this a winning concept. It takes a while to work out exactly how to position all your input device choices and decide which tool is best suited for what, but oh, how nice to have these options! Panning through Indesign pages with your finger... using touch version of Adobe apps if you wish, then switching back to the full app.. awesome. The track pad support in adobe apps is still better for Mac, but touch somewhat compensates for it, to the point where I now do pretty much all my design work in the surface. Apps built for Win 10 and the pen are a really nice experience... one note, sketchable, Leonardo drawing app. And how nice to be able to use full versions of all the adobe apps. I frequently detach the keyboard and use it as a tablet when I am drawing or reading. The pen and touch experience is very nice.

Anyone tried air display with their iPad and Mac? I was thrilled to have touch access to my full Mac desktop this way! I really do not see this as an impossible task for Apple to accomplish. Even if it was no better than air display, it would be better than it is now. I would love to see the precision of the Apple Pencil usable with full Desktop apps.

I am absolutely positive that a hybrid would sell like hot cakes to pro designers. Pen and touch in full apps is necessary, keyboard and mouse as well. I have noticed a lot of long time Mac designers like me welcoming these new windows hybrids into their workflow for the same reasons I am. Microsoft is doing a far better job catering to this market right now and being visionary in the way Apple used to be.
 
I somehow think this will be inevitable. Where the iPad Pro will become a MacBook of sorts. And with more SaaS occurring, everything will be cloud based so there is no need for huge hard drives as everything will be streamed. Of course when you're on an aeroplane, a remote island someplace without signal, or whatever this will suck.

I know Apple will somehow think this is the best way of doing things, but it really seems Apple lost it's magic from when being an Apple user was more of a cult of sorts. Apple users were a special breed. Sure the iPod probably saved the company from bankruptcy. The stores drove people into trying the rest of their product line. But as they got bigger, it seemed they also got dumber. And by doing that they neglected the original people that loved the brand.
 
Have you forgotten that it was Jobs who coined the term "post-PC" where the PC (including the Mac) had a very small role as specialised computers, aka trucks?
If I recall the quote correctly, he also said trucks would always be needed. Assuming I'm in the minority as someone who uses Macs more than iOS devices, I still find it hard to believe that a company as large as Apple can't give the Mac the resources it needs to stay competitive... or rather, that they won't.
 
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If I recall the quote correctly, he also said trucks would always be needed. Assuming I'm in the minority as someone who uses Macs more than iOS devices, I still find it hard to believe that a company as large as Apple can't give the Mac the resources it needs to stay competitive... or rather, that they won't.

I don't have any need for a Mac, but I think this is a fair point to make. I am sure it's an uncomfortable situation to be in to need a certain quality of computer for a career, but the company that has typically supported your business has been dragging their feet for a while now. Considering I know nothing, is there something about say an iMac Pro that wouldn't be acceptable to your line of work? It is more so the fact that it's locked in and non upgrade-able? From my eyes, it seems capable, but I can understand why it wouldn't work for an individual. Obviously iOS is their most lucrative OS, so it makes sense, but you would think they would be just as dedicated to providing workstations that people need.
 
because i'll be paying for something that i am never going to use, if there is a touch screen i may tend to use it, and then i'll be rubbing it to remove finger spots
Split hairs all you like. When you buy a product you will NOT use all of its facilities capabilities.
 
the 2017 Mac Book Pro is a joke on the street. Likely the 2018 and 2019 will continue the humor.
-I am so sorry i got evolved.
-I dont work for Apple but actually own some of these products.


Difficult to think will all this is headed, a guess:
no changes till Apple can get rid of Intel hardware in all their products?
 
If I recall the quote correctly, he also said trucks would always be needed. Assuming I'm in the minority as someone who uses Macs more than iOS devices, I still find it hard to believe that a company as large as Apple can't give the Mac the resources it needs to stay competitive... or rather, that they won't.

"I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we've embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? ... We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable." -Steve Jobs at D

It clearly shows that Steve Jobs believed that the future lay in a tablet, not PCs or Mac.

And to quote from Walter Isaacson's biography about the inception of the iPad:
"This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “**** it, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, “I want to make a tablet, and it can’t have a keyboard or a stylus.”

Again, he wanted a separate device from Mac without keyboard and stylus, no hybrid.
 
Front Row. It wasn't exactly the same thing. It was Apple's version of Windows Media Center, which has also been killed off because nobody used it back then.

But for a device such as an Apple TV or Mac Mini attached to a UHD TV it would make sense to be able to merge the products.

Of course it wasn't exactly the same thing, I said exactly that in my post. It was long before fast home internet was common enough for streaming to be a thing. It was focused on playing local media.

It absolutely was not Apple's form of Media Center. Apple has had quicktime since before WMC exisited. Front Row was purely a front-end user-interface designed for couch-top watching content on the big screen using your mac. It definitely was the precursor of Apple TV.

And WMC was not killed off because nobody used it. It was plenty popular, but MS didn't want to keep paying codec royalties for every copy of windows so they made it a separate purchase when Win8 came out; originally for free then they started charging for it.

And merging ATV with MacMini is a horrible idea. ATV competes with chromecast and under sub-$50 set top boxes. Mac Mini is a powerful desktop mac that should maintain the $600-1000 price point and good hardware. What they should do is make the ATV box a standalone as it is but also make the software run on any mac. But Apple will never do it because they don't want to lose ATV sales.
 
It isn’t fixed, I have to use Windows 10 for work and gaming... it’s bloody horrible. They need to stick to one UI, get rid of the Tablet style UI.
Use it much?

  • Click or tap the Start button
  • Open the Settings application
  • Click or tap on "System"
  • In the pane on the left of the screen scroll all the way to the bottom until you see "Tablet Mode"
  • Ensure the toggle is set to off to your preference.
The magic of non-Apple stuff being that you get to pick how you want it to work for you.

Combine that with industry-leading stability, security, usability, and manageablility, and you get a knockout punch for dominating industry and dominating the market.

That's why Windows (and Android) won. And that's why Apple's Accountant King promising that he will or won't do something in 2018 is nothing more than an opportunity to have a giggle and wistfully reminisce about the company's heyday.
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"I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we've embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? ... We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable." -Steve Jobs at D

It clearly shows that Steve Jobs believed that the future lay in a tablet, not PCs or Mac.

And to quote from Walter Isaacson's biography about the inception of the iPad:
"This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “**** it, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, “I want to make a tablet, and it can’t have a keyboard or a stylus.”

Again, he wanted a separate device from Mac without keyboard and stylus, no hybrid.
Yeah Steve Jobs believed in a lot of things.

RIP.

What does Tim Cook believe in aside from recycling Steve's old ideas to fluff up the balance sheet quarter after quarter.

And when consumers cry for world-changing paradigm shifts, Tim distracts them with gimmicks, sparklies, and parlour tricks, while still selling them the same old, OLD ideas.

In tech that strategy works super goodly...right up until it doesn't.
 
Does this mean an end to the refrain that, "Windows stupid. Nobody wants to touch a laptop screen?"

... I'm okay with an ARM transition if it means more than 10 hours of battery life and a more efficient machine. I'm okay with a touch screen on the MacBook (although I know for a fact I'd never use it). I'm not okay with IOSifying Mac OS.


Edit: On that note, I think every Windows PC must be a touch-screen now. Every time someone uses my laptop, I hold back screaming at them as their first order of business is putting their fingers on my MacBook pro screen and trying to effing scroll. WTF. don't touch my screen!
 
The man doesn’t believe in watering down one for the other but has no problem in just watering down :)

Additional ports are disappearing, mag safe is gone, new MacBook keyboards are more suitable to the occasional typist rather than the regular. How long before there is little to set them apart in real practical terms?

The MBP just feels like a cheap budget machine despite the crazy-high price. Besides what you listed, no lighted logo, no breathing LED, no startup chime. They're all minor things but they were signatures of the mac design for decades and their absence cheapens the feel for no good reason.

Non-upgradable ram, not replaceable SSD (how do you retrieve your data if the logic board fails?). Retina was nice when it came out, but now 4k is standard on laptops at less than 1/2 the price of an MBP. The MBP screen is lagging way behind. There is nothing premium about the Mac anymore besides the crazy high price, it's sad. And the prices have gone up a lot as the rest of the computer market has had price drops.

My 2011 MBP was the best computer I ever owned. The 2017 is one of the worst.
 
I know, right? Putting 'Pro' after the word iPad doesn't make it any more than an iPad.

Primitive Pro
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I don't say they have to merge but I like the idea of a touchscreen Mac competitor to the Surface. I bought a Surface a few months back due to work requirements and love the form factor and different ways you can use it. Microsoft did a good job here thinking outside the box. I love the kickstand and use it all the time. Yes as a Microsoft product there are compromises and things that drive me crazy. (Simple things like copy & paste.) BUT...that doesn't mean Apple's would have to be. I would expect Apple to do it better.

I'm baffled as to why the kickstand isn't something EVERY single tablet has. I'm not sure if MS has a patent on it, but even if they do they don't care who uses it because their purpose is to improve the design of tablets overall. Although I'm not sure if that applies to non windows machines. Still, I couldn't live without my kickstand, it's integral to my use of a tablet.
 
Primitive Pro
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I'm baffled as to why the kickstand isn't something EVERY single tablet has. I'm not sure if MS has a patent on it, but even if they do they don't care who uses it because their purpose is to improve the design of tablets overall. Although I'm not sure if that applies to non windows machines. Still, I couldn't live without my kickstand, it's integral to my use of a tablet.
The Dell Surface Pro clone has the same kickstand but it autodeploys. It's amazing.

Held the iPad 12.9" for about 4 seconds before it started to feel ridiculous. It's a device that you have to prop up on a table that comes with no prop.

But then again they make a dozen devices that you use with headphones that don't have a place to connect headphones.

In the old days this was called the Reality Distortion Field. It was OK back then because they were asking you to expand your mind and imagine new ways to use technology.

Now they just ask you to pretend that objectively bad designs on objectively overpriced gadgets are actually good designs at fair prices.

That's not reality distortion; that's just lazy and cheap.
 
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They can keep the product lines separate. What I think they should do is make the products more competitive, by making them more usable.

They want the iPad Pro to replace a computer? Why not make a full-featured iMovie, rather than a neutered pos? Why not have a $50-200 FCPx app for iPad Pro? Have it interact well with the pencil and all that. Introduce MS-style control accessories designed just for editing and charge a stupid amount. And don't skimp on connectivity options, make it so that people can plug hard drives in and use media off them, like they would on a computer. It doesn't have to extend to the whole OS, but you should be able to work with video on hard drives. Have something that competes with Lightroom (the full powered one on desktop) and can easily work with SD cards or hard drives. Apply this logic to all "pro" or work-related apps. Make it so these work only on the "pro" iPads if necessary.

It's quite amazing what they've done with their SoCs. They charge an arm and a leg for upper end iPads. They should do what the hardware is capable of, and they should provide value according to the price they charge.
 
Two words: Microsoft Surface. It’s a tablet and a laptop and it’s a great product. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
 
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If Tim Cook thinks merging iOS and MacOS would result in compromises then he lacks imagination and should not be leading Apple.

Done properly the software could make the best use of what ever hardware it finds itself running on so the user gets to pick and choose how and where they want to use it. I'm a user and a programmer, for 40 years, so I speak from a bit of experience and I apparently have a lot more imagination than Tim Cook. If he can't imagine better things then he needs to get out of the way of people who can.
 
"I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we've embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? ... We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable." -Steve Jobs at D

It clearly shows that Steve Jobs believed that the future lay in a tablet, not PCs or Mac.

And to quote from Walter Isaacson's biography about the inception of the iPad:
"This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as your have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “**** it, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

Jobs went into the office the next day, gathered his team, and said, “I want to make a tablet, and it can’t have a keyboard or a stylus.”

Again, he wanted a separate device from Mac without keyboard and stylus, no hybrid.

I think what he meant was that in the future, we would have more computing options beyond the PC.

To use an analogy these are the people who were trying to drive in screws using a hammer because the screwdriver hadn’t been invented yet.

Just think of how many tasks we now carry out on our smartphones and tablets instead of our PCs because it’s just so much more convenient and accessible. Heck, my Apple Watch can even take on some of the functions of my phone, from messaging to music to Apple Pay and maps.
 
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