At Apple, Mac Is Getting Far Less Attention - How It Handled the New MacBook Pro Is a Living Proof (bloomberg.com) 230
Apple CEO Tim Cook may have assured employees that the company is committed to Mac computers, but people working in the Mac team say the company now pays far less attention to the computer lineup, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who has been right just about every time with Apple scoops. From his report: Interviews with people familiar with Apple's inner workings reveal that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company's software team. They also describe a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers. While the Mac generates about 10 percent of Apple sales, the company can't afford to alienate professional designers and other business customers. After all, they helped fuel Apple's revival in the late 1990s. In a stinging critique, Peter Kirn, founder of a website for music and video creators, wrote: "This is a company with no real vision for what its most creative users actually do with their most advanced machines." If more Mac users switch, the Apple ecosystem will become less sticky -- opening the door to people abandoning higher-value products like the iPhone and iPad. The report also sheds light on battery issues in the new MacBook Pro lineup that many have complained about. From the report: In the run-up to the MacBook Pro's planned debut this year, the new battery failed a key test, according to a person familiar with the situation. Rather than delay the launch and risk missing the crucial holiday shopping season, Apple decided to revert to an older design. The change required roping in engineers from other teams to finish the job, meaning work on other Macs languished, the person said. The new laptop didn't represent a game-changing leap in battery performance, and a software bug misrepresented hours of power remaining. Apple has since removed the meter from the top right-hand corner of the screen.
laptops sell more (Score:3)
been like that for years now. Apple would be dumb to delay a MBP launch to work on a product a lot less people are going to buy.
Re:laptops sell more (Score:5, Insightful)
been like that for years now. Apple would be dumb to delay a MBP launch to work on a product a lot less people are going to buy.
And in case you haven't noticed, Apple also seems to be doing all it can to kill off their laptops as well. Reduced ports, non-upgradeable, crummy keyboards. And that's not even to start on the touch bar which removes physical keys from the keyboards of high end users - the one most likely to want to use physical keys.
And as other people have pointed out, the Mac Mini seems absent from Tim's prognostications.
All in all Apple is going downhill fast*
* Says me with a MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad, Mac Mini, iPod x2
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It isn't taking away ports or keys. It is because they are taking away stuff and not adding an alternative.
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Yeah, but now you can plug your laptop to recharge from either side (I think maybe, not sure). That's like $4K of value right there!
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I want to feel at Home, and be satisfied till the End.
Re:laptops sell more (Score:5, Interesting)
I dunno... it certainly seems that way, especially when you consider that Macs (or rather, OSX-running stuff) represent what, 10-20% of their revenue nowadays, when compared to iPads and etc?
But then, if you look at the population at large, we're seeing a somewhat similar trend.
You and I (and anyone who loves to tinker with stuff) are decrying the lack of ports, lack of upgradeability, etc... meanwhile, Joe Sixpack never bothers to do much more than occasionally up the RAM on his laptop, his wife dumped her laptop for an iPad/tablet years ago, and a *huge* percentage of folks do nearly everything on their smartphones nowadays.
Port usage is different too among most consumers - most folks have long ago begun switching to bluetooth and wifi to connect stuff. Printers nowadays are wifi-connected, so what's the point of having a dedicated printer cable port? Geek sticks? Okay, we'll still need a USB port.. but that's about it. Camera/SD cards? USB adapter, as always, or just use the USB cable, or...
Makes perfect sense to the average consumer, who doesn't have a lot of use for the holes in their laptop, and isn't going to bother with upgrades beyond maybe a bigger hard drive a couple of years down the road - when it comes time to buy a new laptop. I don't blame them, either - there haven't been any real advances in performance over the past, what, decade? At least when it comes to the trinity (CPU, RAM, Disk), it's been incremental at best.
This presents a problem for the tinkering crowd. I can't just buy a baseline MBP and bump the disk and RAM when I get home. I can't plug in all my old shit like I used to. Unlike most consumers, I actually use the built-in Ethernet port once in awhile on my 2012-era MBP (occasionally troubleshooting the home router/sat-link ISP). Stuff like that. But then, I see my own home rigs changing: the laptop I sit in front of connects to boxes I've rigged as servers: media, storage, what-have-you. Given this, I don't mind so much if I can't do as much with the laptop nowadays. If I want to do gaming or some real demanding thing, I can turn to my fire-breathing dual-boot (Hackintosh/Linux) desktop - either by sitting in front of it, or by using RDP, or...
I think it's part and parcel of Apple's response to usage patterns among the general public (not the geeks, but the general public), which makes more sense to them, at least financially.
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The problem is that Joe Sixpack doesn't want new technology until it "just works" for him. The tinker around crowd is frequently also the developer and entrepreneur crowd, and we do need some "raw" technology and a platform to create it on.
VR is an example, it's definitely at the point where it's "real", Joe Sixpack will want it, a laptop is never going to believably deliver it. So you need a desktop, you need a high end CPU and you also need a high end GPU (no more AMD mobile crap). If Apple doesn't delive
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Port usage is different too among most consumers - most folks have long ago begun switching to bluetooth and wifi to connect stuff. Printers nowadays are wifi-connected, so what's the point of having a dedicated printer cable port? Geek sticks? Okay, we'll still need a USB port.. but that's about it. Camera/SD cards? USB adapter, as always, or just use the USB cable, or...
What is wrong with you? The four USB-C/TB3 Ports are a Godsend for "tinkerers"...
Besides a Parallel Printer port (and even that may be possible), name me one reasonably-popular port (one that you would find on most laptops made in the past 5 years) that the USB-C/TB3 port can't be easily and relatively cheaply adapted to? Heck, I think you can even buy USB-C to SATA adapters! Yep, just found two on Amazon for $20 (one was actually $17).
USB-C to USB-A. Under $7.
USB-C/TB3 to Ethernet. $14.
USB-C/TB3 to H
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So, did I miss anything?
Did you miss that one of those ports is needed for the charger?
My Late-2011 17" (bought in mid 2012) has EIGHT ports: power, ethernet, firewire 800, thunderbolt, three USB 2.0 (3.0 didn't happen until a few months later, only one old-school Mac Mini got it before The Solderening), and an ExpressCard slot (which usually has an SD card adapter in it).
But at least they still have the headphone jack. Not that I use mine, because the little switch inside it sticks, and I always have to tickle it with a toothpi
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You can charge through a type C hub.
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But..
Try to plug in the headphones that come with the new iphone 7 (with a lightening plug) into your laptop. You can't. Their ain't a dongle for that.
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I dunno... it certainly seems that way, especially when you consider that Macs (or rather, OSX-running stuff) represent what, 10-20% of their revenue nowadays, when compared to iPads and etc?
But here's the real imact, I use a Mac Pro for work. Which also led me to buy a MacBook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone.
If I have to switch from the Mac Pro to Linux, I am definitely going to move away from a MacBook.
Suddenly, I will also care a lot less about the iPad and iPhone too, in favor of Android or other options.
Re: laptops sell more (Score:2)
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Well, but it's not. The empirical evidence is against you. Apple's sales are swimming against the stream of declining PC industry sales and profits.
I don't use laptops, but let's take what you say as true: reduced ports (true, though everything will be USB-C eventually anyway), non-upgradeable (indisputable), crummy keyboards (subjective).
Obviously these things are either not dealbreakers or they're things that people actually want. The tradeoff for a light laptop is worth it. Or for a stylish laptop. Or ju
Re:laptops sell more (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what marketing does, they look at history and pat themselves on the back. Then they get slaughtered when the future arrives.
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I've seen some real desire for the thin MacBook. Ports and keyboard didn't come up as concerns. It was all about the weight and look.
Meanwhile, the mini is a staple like your daily bread. In cramped offices doing desk work, they're just about ideal. I can't imagine Apple dropping the mini. But now that SATA drives are irrelevant, there's no need for the flat box shape and I actually use most of them on their side, so they could do a lot with a new form factor.
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And in case you haven't noticed, Apple also seems to be doing all it can to kill off their laptops as well. Reduced ports, non-upgradeable, crummy keyboards. And that's not even to start on the touch bar which removes physical keys from the keyboards of high end users - the one most likely to want to use physical keys.
Not really. It's just that the professionals they are targeting now are giving Power Point presentations and not compiling code or doing page layout.
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>the touch bar which removes physical keys from the keyboards of high end users - the one most likely to want to use physical keys.
And the ones least likely to be looking at their keyboard while they work.
Seriously.
OK, a macbook keyboard and screen are close together so shifting eyes isn't too much. Adding a external monitor? And then being supposed to switch where you're looking like that?
One of the important things (yet another) that people in general (and Tim specifically) forget that Steve Jobs did w
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Well,
iOs beyond iOS 6 is ugly, iOS 7 barely bearable. ... and on the company laptops I used last months, it crashes constantly (15" laptops, don't know how old).
OS X from 10.10 on is ugly
I still have my old 17" on OS X 10.6 ... and won't upgrade the OS. I actually consider to buy a few used/refurbished 17" of the latest generation, with matte screens ofc. But they cost used nearly as much as a new 15" one :)
I would use one of them and mothball the others, till finally in their wisdom the gnomes at Apple bui
I agree Apple is losing its' panache (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is definitely losing it's rep among people that actually use computers for things other than surfing the web and checking email.
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Re:I agree Apple is losing its' panache (Score:5, Insightful)
If you will notice, the iPhones and iPads have not been blessed with much 'innovation' these days. Just courage.
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If you will notice, the iPhones and iPads have not been blessed with much 'innovation' these days. Just courage.
BUT BUT LOOK no headphone Jacks? They have no headphone jacks! Come on
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The company that overtakes Mac as the main laptop of serious computer users ...
Actually, the market is NOT serious computer users.
Those stick with the PC models.
Mac users were/are mostly portable form factor.
I was in the IT business for 30 years and the only business I ever saw that had a Mac system, with desktops, servers and printers was the one I donated to Goodwill in favour of Windows shit.
The users at that firm were were appreciative.
Macs are for niche users -- mostly students and artists.
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The company that overtakes Mac as the main laptop of serious computer users ...
Actually, the market is NOT serious computer users.
Those stick with the PC models.
Mac users were/are mostly portable form factor.
I was in the IT business for 30 years and the only business I ever saw that had a Mac system, with desktops, servers and printers was the one I donated to Goodwill in favour of Windows shit.
The users at that firm were were appreciative.
Macs are for niche users -- mostly students and artists.
Sounds like a blast from 1990. Let's just say you obviously don't hang out at the same businesses that I do.
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Let's just say this [netmarketshare.com].
Windows 7 47.17%
Windows 10 23.72%
Windows XP 8.63%
Windows 8.1 8.01%
Linux 2.31%
Mac OS X 10.11 2.21%
Mac OS X 10.12 2.21%
Windows 8 1.96%
Mac OS X 10.10 1.35%
Windows Vista 1.10%
Mac OS X 10.9 0.47%
Windows NT 0.34%
Mac OS X 10.6 0.17%
Mac OS X 10.8 0.15%
Mac OS X 10.7 0.14%
Mac OS X 10.5 0.02%
Windows 2000 0.01%
Windows 98 0.01%
Mac OS X 10.4 0.00%
FreeBSD 0.00%
Macintosh 0.00%
Mac OS X) App 0.00%
Mac OS X (no version reported) 0.00%
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The 5 different companies I've worked at, since 2008 have used iMac desktops for development (and usually mac laptops for other support staff).
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When did Goodwill start accepting entire businesses as donations?
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You're outa your goddam mind.
I've hired IT peeps by the shitloads for corporations and none were Mac-trained.
My firms hired double shitloads of computer/software users. No one used a Mac to get the work out.
In my career, I've bought over a million dollars of desktop/portable/server equipment, and associated software, and none of it was Mac.
"Serious" is defined as, "makes money."
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Its disappointing to watch Apple sh1t all over it self. OS X has been going down hill since 10.9, now the hardware is getting the same treatment.
That's what happens when your company is run by a "management professional" bean counter like Tim Cook. No imagination. He only sees his company through revenue and profit graphs.
you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would be a lot less annoyed by the lack of Mac attention at Apple if OS X would run on non-Apple hardware.
Read the next four words carefully and let them sink in: Never going to happen ... Apple has said so on many occasions. Not licensing OS X to crapware producers in China is a key part of their business strategy. Still, congratulations on getting modded '+4 Insightful'.
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What about letting a dell or hp do the workstation (Score:2)
What about letting a dell or hp do the workstation and server part. Apple can make the thin and under powered imac's and mini's.
But they don't lose the pro market that needs power and does not really want a thin system with poor cooling.
Re:you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, five years ago I would have scoffed at that. Why would Apple kill their cash cow by allowing race-to-the-bottom hardware manufacturers to screw up the OS X experience running it on junky hardware?
But now? I wonder. If the goal is to create a best-of-breed laptop, then Apple would be crazy to allow MacOS on anything but their own hardware. On the other hand, if the goal is only to create a development environment for iOS applications (because you need MacOS and Xcode to write them), then you don't care what hardware it runs on.
Everyone says, "Apple will never kill the Mac. How would you write iOS apps?" Simple. You kill the Mac and then release MacOS as part of the iOS development kit. If companies stick MacOS on junk hardware that falls apart in a year and has constant driver issues, why would Apple care? It won't be their market anymore. All they will care about are iPads and iPhones. They'll recommend a particular set of hardware to iOS developers, and ignore everything else.
Re:you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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True, but Apple hates ports!
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fyi fwitw, Typing this from my hackintosh. For pc hardware that you can spec, its easy. Not so much for laptops.
Im still pretty annoyed about the state of Mac's however. I will have to switch my next laptop from a powerbook to linux. Sigh.
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Now that OSX targets Intel architecture, there are instructions available online to build a "Hackintosh", a computer built from non-Apple parts that can run OSX. A few laptops are OSX-compatible, but Mac-hackers have the best success with a tower build as they can choose the exact hardware supported by Apple.
What's not annoying [quora.com] about that?
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What isn't annoying about computer operating systems these days?
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Well played.
Watch what is done, not what is said... (Score:4, Insightful)
.
The Mac lineup looks to be on life-support, if not completely abandoned, at this point.
Anyone looking at a move to the Mac should really examine their decision process to assure it takes into account long-term viability of the product line.
For this past year, it has appeared that Apple is only interested in doing the bare minimum to string along current Mac customers. Innovation costs money, and Apple is clearly not looking as if it wants to commit innovation money to the Mac line anymore.
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Yes, and Microsoft is doing all that it can to get us to move to the other side. Hardware vendors serving malware. Microsoft turning into an advertising and spy agency.
What a wonderful world we live in! Where's our jetpack?
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Where's our jetpack?
Here. [youtube.com] There's only one, so you'll have to share.
Re:Watch what is done, not what is said... (Score:4, Insightful)
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This year will be the year of Linux on the Desktop ! Finally!
Perhaps a subsidiary like Claris? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple just needs to move it or milk it. Put some effort into getting new Macs out or spin off Macs to another company (like how Claris/FileMaker was done.) Keep iOS and macOS source trees open between both ventures.
Ideally, Apple should jettison Macs to a subsidiary that can focus some real attention onto them. Not just consumer level, "shinies", but after other markets, such as schools, colleges, and even the enterprise. With this, the subsidary could offer NDAs and roadmaps to customers, so timing of mass purchases can be synced with model refreshes.
This split will let Apple do what it wants to, but give customers the feeling of stability that is needed when buying bread and butter computing needs.
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This is true of all Apple products.
I've gone through iPhones 3G, 4s, 5c, 5s, 6s Plus.
While individual features like the cameras and dimensions, as well as speed and battery life have all improved, it's all the same shit.
Apple now has more cash than God, but no Steve Jobs.
Non-core ventures like TV, self-driving cars, China investments, all serve as death throes to an aging brand.
We've seen this before.
Look at IBM.
It doesn't end well.
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Apple Computer 1, also known later as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. [wikipedia.org]
I can post unenlightened shit, too.
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On is their desktop serious computer is outdated. It has been two years since the new Mac Pro was released and there has been no update. New processor, bigger SSD, should be expected by now. Sometimes you need a computer who major design parameter is not how many movies it can play on one charge.
The second in Mac OS. We should have had a major rewrite by now. From 1984 to the early 90's we
They don't want to alienate pros? (Score:2)
It feels like any hardware/software decisions they make with Macs have been alienating pros... Taking forever with significant hardware refreshes, non-modular hardware design, elimination of useful ports and connectors, Final Cut Pro X
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Taking forever with significant hardware refreshes,...
Hell. At this point, I'd settle for some non-significant hardware refreshes.
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There are an awful lot of people out there hanging on to the last generation of non-glued MBP's, especially the 17" model, which has enough pixels and inches for legible side-by-wide windows, enough space inside for 2x storage devices, 16GB RAM capability, lots of ports, and a screwed-on bottom to enable in-house repairs (i.e. replacements of failing drives, fans, and so on, so that people can be back to work in an hour or two rather than waiting on Apple for service).
I know that we will not go to the newer
Dear Tim Cook. (Score:4, Insightful)
Open up OSX to non blessed hardware. Then you can stop worrying about those annoying people that want a Professional workstation class laptop when you want to deliver a netbook.
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Allowing it to run on ESXi or VMWare Workstation without requiring a SMC would be a start at least.
Let mac os server run in a VM on any hardware! (Score:4, Informative)
it does work just that the license says no to running in a VM on non apple hardware.
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If Apple were going to do it, I would say they should open it up to blessed hardware, which is subtly but importantly different.
Apple doesn't like taking blame for things that are out of their control, which is why they so rarely relinquish control. Apple should open up the platform, but the hardware needs to meet certain standards for stability and durability. Anything less than the agreed upon metrics and the hardware manufacturer pays a penalty or forfeits their license. Apple doesn't have to care about
Its easy (Score:3)
Run OSX under the VMware hypervisor and enable graphics pass through. Then you can do the same thing for Windows or Linux and switch between them as needed.
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Apple didn't have the market cornered on portable consumer electronics back then, and the Mac was all they had. It's a very different story today.
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Irony: Arrogant Cunt says others are idiots unable to grok that Tim Cooks doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas.
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When you are head of the most successful company in all of history...
By what measure? Courage?
Apple pipeline (Score:3)
I've been a mac user for years so I pay attention to what they say in the annual conf calls. Every freaking year Steve Jobs or now Tim Cook would say that they have exciting new products in the pipeline and it's going to be an exciting year ahead.
And every single year we get nothing exciting or innovative or from the Mac side even a decent refresh. I'm now making the effort to move away when possible. I did the Fire TV instead of the new appleTV (which is good since the appleTV doesn't pay nice with the Harmony Hub) and there is no way I'll jump on the Home infrastructure. I like the Insteon system (currently).
The wonderful Intel NUC is making for a nice replacement for my mac mini (for headless servers) so that area is covered.
That leaves a replacement for the MacPro and my notebook (MBP). I have another 2 years or so before I'll be refreshing so I'm just going to wait.
The fact that they threw away monitors makes getting a Dell monitor that much easier. For my work the Dell's have been great.
Sad to see how much I've spent over the past 20 years but before that I was buying a Sony or HP every stinking year. It was nice to go 3+ years and then be able to hand the replacement to a family member. We have MBPs that are going on 8 years old still running strong.
Re:Apple pipeline (Score:5, Insightful)
I know something is wrong when a Dell XPS 13 actually is better than Apple's offerings. In fact, it actually is a better MacBook Pro than what Apple has, because it has two USB ports in addition to a USB-C port, a high res screen, and a recent (as of this year) CPU/chipset. Of course, Windows 10 may not be as nice as OS X to some, but it gets the job done.
Revenge of Woz (Score:5, Funny)
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Except the people who worked on the Mac team that displaced the Apple II resources are almost certainly not working on the Mac anymore so they never had to feel it.
Also, your sig is dumb. There is no language I have ever heard of that allows a variable name to begin with a number.
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Lisp. Fortran. Forth. It's not really that uncommon of a language feature. You just need to get out more.
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Reason being that if the C++ preprocessor is anything like the ANSI C one (#), then it's effectively a text replacement facility separate from- and preceding- parsing of the languag
People forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to have a Mac to make iOS apps.
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As a DTS person once said,
"Do you really think Apple wants people developing iOS apps on Windows?!"
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At Apple... (Score:3)
At Apple, prosumer customers are getting far less attention.
And don't think they haven't noticed it.
Spin off the Mac book before you close the doors (Score:2)
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Bring back the 17" MBP while they're at it. Older users like myself need bigger displays.
Ditto. Fortunately, still a few out there (or were in October, the last time I really looked).
Mac sales lead to other sales (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I'm a typical tech consumer, but I think consumers like me are pretty important to Apple's success in the last decade.
I've had pretty much Apple everything for a little over a decade. My Macs are always bought infrequently. I've had four iPhones, three Apple TVs, and two iPads in the time I'm on one Cinema Display. I've had three iPhones in the time I've had my current MacBook Pro. Ten percent of sales, sure.
But here's the deal: I'm about to buy a laptop that isn't a Mac. When I do, I'll probably stop updating all my other Apple products too. I had a Mac first, and even today, I buy all those other things because of how nicely they integrate with a Mac. The Mac anchors all my other Apple products, and frankly, I anchor the tech purchasing decisions of a lot of my friends and family.
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This right here.
Look at my username. LOOK AT IT.
I was a Mac-only guy back in the late 90's. I had a subscription to MacAddict magazine for several years. My first computer was a beige G3/300 running MacOS 8.1. I eventually upgraded that box to 224MB of RAM and added a Voodoo3 3000 card (with the firmware flashed for the Mac).
I hated Windows and everything it stood for. But I started using white-box hardware running Windows when I wanted to make Unreal Tournament maps in 2002.
When I got over that phase (in 2
Mac Pro (Score:5, Interesting)
The Mac Pro using the 12 core Xeon is based on Ivy bridge, that is quiet old. There has been Haswell, Broadwell, and now Skylake since it came out. The Wifi doesnt support N just AC. Only 1 Xeon CPU. Only 64 gigs of memory when you can buy 64 gigs for a desktop now cheap. And they still use the AMD FirePro D700 for the gfx card is bad. Its about the speed of a 980, when nvidia 1080's are out.
They gave up on power users, they gave up on power laptops. If you are an adobe photoshop user and you need speed, you migrated to windows awhile ago.
Long time Mac user will defect on next purchase (Score:5, Informative)
I'm writing this on a 13" mid-2011 macbook pro and I'm ready for a new purchase. For the first time since, well let's see, 1989, I will not buy an Apple computer. I'll probably purchase a Razor Blade Stealth. I will still need an Apple desktop for the time being, as my work demands the use of Pro Tools on an also aging 21 inch iMac. When you think about it, that's a pretty damn, damning statement on the current state of Mac development. The current lineup of MacBook(s) is overpriced, completely un-upgradable and just does not suit my needs. I will miss OS X, it's served me well, but it's development in recent years towards Mac iOS features just doesn't interest me. I'd rather purchase something like the Stealth, keep Windows on it and run Linux in a virtual machine for daily email, web browsing etc... When you start to lose loyal 25 year customers, something is really, really wrong. So Apple, it's been a nice ride. No longer will I extol your virtues to other users, no longer will I purchase your products or support your developers (I'm also an Android user). I stuck with you all those years, bought your stock at around 12 bucks a share when things were really dim for Cupertino in the '90s. It's been nice, but it's time to move on.
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Professional Designers (Score:2)
the company can't afford to alienate professional designers and other business customers. After all, they helped fuel Apple's revival in the late 1990s.
Yes, of course they can. If 10% of your userbase represents 90% of your costs, then it's not only affordable to get rid of them, it's profitable as well. Contrarians will argue that these people are "evangelists," responsible for bringing other people to the platform, but a) there's little evidence that's true, and b) even if it is true, they're doing a te
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They have been killing the OS starting with 10.7. It is almost dead to the point most of the last year I have been using a $180 windows 8.1 PC.
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Supporting OS X installations on commodity hardware is actually incredibly difficult. If you want support nightmares, that's the way to do it.
I work in games, and varied PC configurations are one of the biggest pains in our ass. PS4? No problem. We know the target hardware. Same with XBox. PC? Man, that's a crap shoot, and everyone expects everything to work absolutely perfectly the first time. For an OS manufacturer, that must be just obnoxiously difficult.
iPhone cash cow is more important (Score:2)
Well, let's think about this one...which one would you rather manufacture?
- A high-margin computer, with high end components, requiring a lot of engineering effort to get right and keep supporting over an extended life cycle, or
- An even higher-margin, throwaway, replaced every 2 years, locked down device, on which you get a 30% cut of every single thing a user installs on it -- requiring lots less engineering since user interactions are artificially limited
I have been a long-time Mac user and supporter, bu
Has been going on for a long time (Score:2)
Considering the shite OS X / MAC OS has become. The last version that was ok was 10.6.8
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I've been using a Late-2011-17" that I immediately downgraded to 10.6.8 when I got it, and that isn't easy, because it requires at least 10.6.7 and the last retail version was 10.6.3. A few months ago I finally took the plunge to 10.9, and one of my main motivations was that Minecraft (which I haven't been playing anyhow) would fuck up the GPU because of how it used OpenGL in v1.6. I've recently revived an older MacBook Pro to run 10.6.8, so now I can again use some obscure stuff from the PPC era.
I think t
The new mac pro has failed in meany ways (Score:2)
The new mac pro has failed in meany ways.
And they may of hit the wall of how thin you can go vs the power needed for an pro level workstation.
They need look the HP Z line to see what can done with pro workstations.
How's that again? (Score:2)
... the company can't afford to alienate professional designers and other business customers.
I believe that ship has already sailed...
People forget... (Score:2)
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What's the best hardware nowadays to run MacOS/X? Ahem, one with HDMI and normal USB ports. And magsafe.
A one or two year old Mac.
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What's the best hardware nowadays to run MacOS/X? Ahem, one with HDMI and normal USB ports. And magsafe.
A one or two year old Mac.
Phew! That's what I have.
In fact I'm getting the battery replaced in my MBP to extend its useful life. I tried the new keyboard on the new MBPs and did not like what I felt under my fingers. That's an issue when my primary use of the MBP is writing and programming. I can adapt to USB-C and touch bars, but the keyboard is non negotiable.
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but it fits not at all into my workflow
I felt the same way, then I bought a Surface and started using it, and I realized how useful and intuitive it is.
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IMHO, Windows 10 does not do touchscreen and stylus very well, except for very basic tasks.
Many of the built-in apps have only very rudimentary support (through the widgets they use), but the fundamental issue remains: older apps were not designed for touch and stylus in the first place.
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What, Amiga was a big success as a game machine, although when the Amiga 1200 came out games just ignored (mostly) the newer abilities as with all upgraded consoles/home computers, and still targeted Amiga 500 features. They fucked up the Amiga 600 perhaps, that's too bad. But I was trying to say, Commodore wasted a lot resources by trying to sell their higher end ones as serious business computers and well no, Windows 3.0 and 3.1 sucked for multimedia, with unaccelerated 640x480 and unaccelerated everythin
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The Mac Mini is not a viable computer
You mean the new, downgraded Mac Mini with 8GB soldered RAM? I've found three of the 2010-2012 vintage over the past year or two, and they're great, especially as remote servers. One of them is even a late-2012 Quad 2.3 i7 / USB 3.0 model. That was the only time you could get both upgradeable RAM and USB 3.0.