Apple had better do something soon. And I don't think they can rely on Intel. The whole industry is in denial, but Intel has hit the wall. No improvement in CPU speeds. Every generation is behind schedule. Skylake isn't living up to even the modest promises. Nothing supports Thunderbolt 3, Intel's own standard, but basically because the processors aren't up to the promises Thunderbolt 3 comes with. Nobody wants to say it because there is no alternative…
I visited an Apple Store today (mall store), half the shop including the Genius Bar was repairs. NOBODY looking at ANY Macs, Watches or iPhones, and just 2 adults and 2 children playing with Pencils on iPad Pros. This is unheard of for this Apple Store. It's as busy as any of them. Admittedly this is Australia, where iPhones are $1500 and the MacBook went up $400 in the 6 months after I bought it. Add high prices outside the US, from where the majority of Apple's sales come, to a worldwide downturn in all consumer electronics and you can see why demand is low.
The noises out of the US don't sound much different, except lower prices seem to cushioning the fall at bit more.
And the Apple echo chamber is all about - well, no new design this year for iPhone, BECAUSE next year is the tenth anniversary, etc.
Whatever happened to Tim Cook's 'we'll innovate our way out of the downturn'? Apple needs a new iPhone design THIS year AND a brilliant NEWER design next year for the tenth anniversary. THAT is how you get customers interested in your product in a downturn - really cool new stuff, and to sweeten the deal, how about prices go down to reward loyal customers! Sacrifice average profit to make it up in volume! Most especially if you can't deliver increased performance!!
Nobody's THAT excited about Sky-late MacBook Pro, because if recent years are any guide, there won't be any improvement in performance and the prospect of them being able to drive an Apple Retina external monitor (so far overdue, it's an industry joke) just went up in smoke.
And forget about a Mac Pro. In a non-upgradeable product, Apple needs to be upgrading processors and most particularly GPUs at LEAST yearly if they want anyone to wake out of their stupor over Mac Pro.
Yes Intel's on the rocks.
No ARM won't replace a mobile much less desktop processor.
Apple saw how iPad sales fell when they didn't upgrade the iPad Air 2, and yet they refuse to double-down on innovation, not only in notebooks and desktops, but iPhone, the goose with the golden egg!!
Apple is in a pit of its own making and customers locked-in to the ecosystem (don't anybody mention Apple Music, please) are feeling like they're being taken for a ride!
Hey look, shiny new notebook, slower than last year… but emoji are triple the size…
Any wonder that even among developers, that was more popular than Clipboard Continuity, or we're-going-to-do-to-your-documents-what-we've-done-for-Music-and-Photos, delete them from your hard drive and hide them in the cloud for you, good-luck-with-getting-them-back-when-you-need-them.
The pit gets deeper, the future gets darker and Siri's smartarse attitude as it falls on its face over the simplest of tasks is the audible sound of the world's largest company falling completely out of touch.
An underperforming Skylake MBP in October after the most exciting thing about this year's iPhone in September will be a darker shade of (brown?) for 'space grey' - will really cap a disastrous year for Apple-lock-ins!!
at 760 pages!
