Tim Cook Named 'CEO of the Year' by CNN

[aloshka]

This would be valid if they changed the dimensions of the Mac Mini with this iteration. Thus requiring more compact internals than the previous one.

however, thats not the case. In the previous Mini, they were able to succesfully fit a Motherboard with 2 SODIMM sockets, and a standard 2.5" drive. The motherboard also had enough room for a quad core 'laptop' class CPU and it's cooler.

The new Mac Mini uses the same chassis dimensions and size. Yet puts in only a dual core ultra low voltage CPU with coldered on memory and PCI SSD.

there was no legitimate reason for the switch other than profit. Apple is likely using the identical motherboard/chipset setup in the new Mini as they are their MBA's. Thus saving them costs by orderign larger orders of that same setup than having to have 2 different internal setups to buy.

This has zero benefit to the consumer or end user and is a profit pushing change only. It adds yet more to an insanely HUGE bottom line to do what? appease the shareholders.

All theyve done is make the new version of the Mini slower, while removing possibility of expansion for those who wanted it

That's a entirely true. And yeah, I think manufacture savings in just doing 1 board that includes everything might be a huge cost savings. Notice the "might", because they have to have multiple iterations of the board for ALL the different combinations.

Soldering can also speed things up. No connectors is always better flow with little to no noise. But yeah, the space inside is wasted. There is now a lot of space and I don't think heat is the issue.

I think you also have to realize, outside of memory there was not much else user-replacable. The drive yes, but if you had dual drives, you have to have a special tool and take apart pretty much everything, something most consumers can't do. To be honest, outside of using these as mini servers, I'm not entirely sure who the target audience is.

 

[aloshka]

Nope

Then how is he special? Don't you think a lot more eyes are on Tim Cook? More expectations, worldwide?

 

[burnside]

T-Mobile.

The guy ain't perfect, and he's still all about making money, but if anyone is changing the consumer world for the better in the US right now, it's him.

Exactly. He was given a lemon and look what he's done. Cook was given the lemonade and just keeps on stirring.

 

[Sabretooth78]

...however, thats not the case. In the previous Mini, they were able to succesfully fit a Motherboard with 2 SODIMM sockets, and a standard 2.5" drive. The motherboard also had enough room for a quad core 'laptop' class CPU and it's cooler.

...

Wrong. You can fit 2-2.5" drives into a 2009-2012 MacMini. I have a 2011 and seeing where the line is going, rather than brace for an eventual upgrade I just doubled down on what I have. So OWC gets the money instead of Apple. Seems I ended up buying what I did pretty close to the peak, so I'm happy for that (only "missing" USB 3.0).

At the current rate, once the Mini ever bites the dust my only alternatives look to be scoring a 2012 Mini through eBay or elsewhere or building some kind of custom Linux box for HTPC duties. No windows, ever again.

No disrespect to Tim as he's done a good job (whether he deserves the award is obviously open to debate) but there are definitely some storm clouds on the horizon. Either that, or they see bigger issues going forward other than, among others, poaching Windows users as the Mini becomes a less and less attractive jumping-off point.

 

[dannyyankou]

He had his work cut out for him.

All he had to do was increase the size of the iPhone to satisfy the millions of customers who were begging for it for years. Anyone who took the position of CEO could have done that and the end result would have been exactly the same: massive sales.

And there was actually a bigger jump in opening weekend sales from the 5 to the 5s than there were from the 5s to the 6.

 

[Macboy Pro]

give the guy some time...did you want it ALL fixed in one fiscal year? Come on, be realistic

----------

Not sure time is what he needs. It would not have taken any more time to NOT have soldered the RAM to the Motherboard of the Mac Mini. It would not have taken any more time to offer a Quad Core option.

The Mac Mini issue was a complete money grab by Apple and in the short term, its good for stockholder. In the long term, people will have enough of it and it will hurt them.

 

[Piggie]

That IS APPLE since the 1980s.

When did they stop making the Mac Pro then?

 

[BCWorld]

Yay! He's the man! Gave us all a crappy Mac mini update, no Apple TV after almost 3 years, no iPad mini update, screwed up on the ios 8 release AND the 10.10 release. I LOVE HIM! HES THE MAN!

 

[Macboy Pro]

And there was actually a bigger jump in opening weekend sales from the 5 to the 5s than there were from the 5s to the 6.

Image

Have a look from the other side of the fence. It took them TOO LONG to offer the larger phones. Great that they did it now, but don't forget all the "geniuses" at Apple forever stating that no one wants a larger phone. LOL

They were behind the curve by a long shot and as an investor, it would seem they missed quite a bit of revenue.

 

[cdmoore74]

He looks like he is in some battlefield in that picture. Put on camo instead of the suit and you have call of duty!

Picture was taken at Foxconn. Tim was hiding in the bathroom when BBC did their story.

 

[LordVic]

Wrong. You can fit 2-2.5" drives into a 2009-2012 MacMini. I have a 2011 and seeing where the line is going, rather than brace for an eventual upgrade I just doubled down on what I have. So OWC gets the money instead of Apple. Seems I ended up buying what I did pretty close to the peak, so I'm happy for that (only "missing" USB 3.0). .

I stand corrected.

So the new upgrade actually removes an Additional drive bay for those who used 2x drives, making this "upgrade" even worse than I had said.

 

[Sabretooth78]

When did they stop making the Mac Pro then?

The problem (my problem?) is there is no practical medium between the Mini and the Pro, both in terms of capability and cost. A reasonably high-end Mini was that medium in many respects. I love my Mini as it is perfectly suited for what it does. It's a desktop without really having a have a desktop. It blows the similar vintage Win7 tower I use at work out of the water.

 

[jase1125]

It's extremely hard to take over after a major influential founding CEO leaves.

Examples:
* Walt Disney died. Disney floundered for 20 years. Recovered in the 90s after many CEOs.
* Bill Gates left. Balmer did a poor job where Microsoft isn't relevant anymore.
* Jim Henson died. The Muppets floundered for 15 years. Just trying to recover now.

It's very hard to continue success.

Microsoft is irrelevant. Really? Ballmer built many billion dollar businesses. Now if you say not as relevent in the consumer market, then there would be an ounce of truth. However, Microsoft owns the commercial market. Uninformed statements leads one to conclude you are a fanboy. Hopefully it was just an off the cuff statement without thinking.

 

[aloshka]

The problem (my problem?) is there is no practical medium between the Mini and the Pro, both in terms of capability and cost. A reasonably high-end Mini was that medium in many respects. I love my Mini as it is perfectly suited for what it does. It's a desktop without really having a have a desktop. It blows the similar vintage Win7 tower I use at work out of the water.

And iMac?

 

[redscull]

This exemplifies how out of touch MacRumors users are with the rest of the world.

Keep them coming.

Out of touch because we're wrong, no. Out of touch because we're more aware and informed, yes. But you can't screw up for too long before it starts generating more attention, attention that the rest of the world will eventually notice.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthony...quality-imperils-future-growth-and-retention/

 

[LordVic]

And iMac?

iMac is only really suitable for those who are willing to go "all in one" and throw away a perfectly usable monitor every time they replace their computer.

it might be fine for mom and pop. But for many, MANY people. especially professionals or enthousiasts who use their computers non stop, they have invested in their own display setup of multiple monitors. Often monitor that are far better for their needs than the iMac.

So your options if you want a "desktop" from Apple are 3 different lines of computers. And none of those 3 seems to want to hit the middle "average".

you have the high end, niche product in the Mac Pro that really only makes sense if you're using Apple's media creation programs. Otherwise it's an expensive tin can

you have the extremely low end Mac Mini desktop with no upgradibility running Ultra low voltage intel parts, offering equivelant performance of the Macbook Air line of computers.

Then you have the desktop class of computer, that can only be bought with integrated display.

There isn't a single option here that gives you a desktop class computer on it's own. it's something Apple ALMOST had with the previous mini, but threw that out with the latest iteration. Now there is absolutely zero option.

 

[redscull]

And iMac?

Buying a new monitor just to upgrade the internal hardware is a waste of money when those internals gain significant improvements at a much faster pace. iMacs just encourage people to upgrade less often than they might otherwise have.

 

[aloshka]

Out of touch because we're wrong, no. Out of touch because we're more aware and informed, yes. But you can't screw up for too long before it starts generating more attention, attention that the rest of the world will eventually notice.


https://www.facebook.com/redscull/posts/10154953735475500

You determine this by a single facebook post? The only other thing that is worse is determining this by some kid on youtube.

If this was completely true, investors would start pulling out. yet sales go up and investors are putting more in. I think once sales start declining, then they will absolutely address this. But right now, it seems majority of users rather have something newer than getting updates of software that is purely bug fixes.

But I do agree, software quality has been on a huge decline. But I would even argue that is actually something that is happening globally and not just Apple. I think the demand for all sorts of software is on such a rise and hurry, that developers are getting lazy. Some things are getting fixed in iOS, but I think they just don't have the resources to do bug fixes and release new stuff. One or the other, people can't have it both ways. Would you not have an iWatch release just so they can fix some issues? It seems they are fixing the big ones, but nothing that is considered small or is affecting majority of users. Case in point, iOS can't make phone calls. That got addressed pretty quickly.

 

[Gasu E.]

Only reason the share price has gone up is coz he's wasted billions of dollars buying back their own shares. What a criminal waste of money in a world full of poverty and starvation. Happy Christmas Mr Cook you useless sack of ****.

Why is share buyback a waste of money? The shareholders who get the money are perfectly capable of giving as much as they want to charity. Why should Apple pick the charity, rather than the shareholders who have a right to the money? Why do you think Tim Cook should choose rather than other people?

 

[macs4nw]

I dunno about you guys, I'm completely contempt with what I have and it does everything I need it to do.

Read that again.

…..Do you ABSOLUTELY need the latest and greatest thing right now? Are you guys sooooooo upset that we don't have the latest Apple TV OR the latest iPad that we think ought to be so incredibly awesome at this point or that Apple isn't doing every single itty thing you guys want them to do?…..

Progress and the expectations that it foments, are a freight train that, for better or worse, can't be stopped.

…..Anyway, I'll let you guys vent and attack and all that jazz, but put yourself in the shoes of Tim Cook and accomplish everything he did this year...

I certainly agree Tim has exceeded all expectations, and, in my mind at least, has done an amazing job thus far.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Out of touch because we're wrong, no. Out of touch because we're more aware and informed, yes. But you can't screw up for too long before it starts generating more attention, attention that the rest of the world will eventually notice.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthony...quality-imperils-future-growth-and-retention/

The out of touch part was mainly directed at the people mentioning hardware expandability. And you're exactly right that "out of touch" doesn't mean "wrong". But as of this time, iOS 8 and Yosemite aren't bad enough to affect the majority of users. Of course, every code change can affect people in different ways- even if iOS 9 has a similar amount of bugs in comparison to iOS 8, it could affect a different subset of iOS users. That means an even higher percentage of unsatisfied customers overall, which is bad news.

I like to think that tons of effort will be placed into ensuring that iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 have less bugs than what we have now. But we just don't know.

 

[aloshka]

iMac is only really suitable for those who are willing to go "all in one" and throw away a perfectly usable monitor every time they replace their computer.

it might be fine for mom and pop. But for many, MANY people. especially professionals or enthousiasts who use their computers non stop, they have invested in their own display setup of multiple monitors. Often monitor that are far better for their needs than the iMac.

So your options if you want a "desktop" from Apple are 3 different lines of computers. And none of those 3 seems to want to hit the middle "average".

you have the high end, niche product in the Mac Pro that really only makes sense if you're using Apple's media creation programs. Otherwise it's an expensive tin can

you have the extremely low end Mac Mini desktop with no upgradibility running Ultra low voltage intel parts, offering equivelant performance of the Macbook Air line of computers.

Then you have the desktop class of computer, that can only be bought with integrated display.

There isn't a single option here that gives you a desktop class computer on it's own. it's something Apple ALMOST had with the previous mini, but threw that out with the latest iteration. Now there is absolutely zero option.

My guess is they are wanting to move everyone to iMacs. Whatever screen you have the iMac probably beats it. Like Tim Cook says, you are buying a screen that just so happens to include a computer inside. If your monitors are expensive and beats iMac screen, than chances are you are using a Mac Pro and need professional screens. But Apple is not interested in creating a new line of computers ONLY to support 17" monitors (exaggerating of course). If you need mid-level there is no reason you can't get a free screen with the computer.

Don't misunderstand me. I would love a good working Mac Mini because I need dual screens and cannot deal with them being completely different and even worse non-matching heights (TB and iMac). So right now I have a Mac Pro, but am about a smudge away from just selling the Mac Pro and sticking with my custom PC. For one, my work is 95.5% windows and only a little for iOS development. I'll keep all my other Apple devices, but cost is extremely prohibitive. If there was a mid-Mac Mini, I'd not be in this position. But I'm a geek and I'm guessing so are you which is why you need a mid-level computer. Majority does not.

 

[Sabretooth78]

iMac is only really suitable for those who are willing to go "all in one" and throw away a perfectly usable monitor every time they replace their computer.

...

Good synopsis. I'll admit I'm biased as I have never really considered an iMac - it serves no purpose to me as I use an HDTV as my Mini's monitor and I have a 23" LCD monitor for when I want to "dock" my MBP. That's not to say I don't think other people can have a use for it. That said, I don't see it as any more of an intermediate step than the more recent Minis - I may be wrong but I see it as more of a desk-bound laptop with a big screen. Certainly not "PC-like" such as a Pro or the Mini almost was in terms of expandability or the like. I'm guessing RAM and internal storage are the top two most common upgrades in all PCs, respectively, and by allowing those you could probably placate most of the "expandability" crowd. Even when I owned a PC, that's all I ever did, aside from 1 each video card and DVD burner. Not any more.

 

[teslo]

iMac is only really suitable for those who are willing to go "all in one" and throw away a perfectly usable monitor every time they replace their computer.

it might be fine for mom and pop. But for many, MANY people. especially professionals or enthousiasts who use their computers non stop, they have invested in their own display setup of multiple monitors. Often monitor that are far better for their needs than the iMac.

So your options if you want a "desktop" from Apple are 3 different lines of computers. And none of those 3 seems to want to hit the middle "average".

you have the high end, niche product in the Mac Pro that really only makes sense if you're using Apple's media creation programs. Otherwise it's an expensive tin can

you have the extremely low end Mac Mini desktop with no upgradibility running Ultra low voltage intel parts, offering equivelant performance of the Macbook Air line of computers.

Then you have the desktop class of computer, that can only be bought with integrated display.

There isn't a single option here that gives you a desktop class computer on it's own. it's something Apple ALMOST had with the previous mini, but threw that out with the latest iteration. Now there is absolutely zero option.

you just listed the three options apple does offer for what you're talking about and then methodically and in highly anecdotal detail gave a sweeping 'they don't offer anything' generalization.

that was strange.

 

[redscull]

You determine this by a single facebook post?

No. I was trying to link straight to the Forbes article, but the Facebook app's "Copy Link" deceived me. I've since updated my post to link to the source article instead of Facebook.

But I base it not just on that article. I base it on my personal experience as an Apple, Windows, and Android user and veteran software engineer. I base it on the anecdotal evidence of my wife, a more casual user. I base it on the feelings of my friends and coworkers, many of them tech savvy if not also software engineers. I base it on actual, documented bugs and patches. On promised yet unfinished features.

It is fact that Apple software quality has declined. All that remains to be seen is whether it's declined enough for "normal" people to notice and impact their purchasing decisions.