I agree that the mac platform seems to have been neglected but Tim Cook isn't stupid, he knows that without developers the iPad isn't going to grow how he wants so I don't think this is the end of the Mac.<p>I think Tim Cook has ignored the Mac in favour of his favourite projects but in the meantime Schiller and Federighi have been making sure the Mac is in his periphery and fighting for resources.<p>I've chosen to view this update as the start of the uptick where we go back to regular updates (perhaps with a longer period than historically) and more exciting things to come.<p>I think the Mac Pro is over and the iMac will replace it with TB3 enabling external devices to take the workload of what Apple don't want to handle internally but other than that I hope we will see a strong line up in a couple of years and look back at this time as the trough.<p>That or Apple is over and I need to work out what computer I will use in 15 years as I can't stand Windows and Linux is a nightmare.<p>Also, I think the TouchBar looks pretty damn cool and I'll be ordering one as soon as I can.
This recent round of updates made me consider what I need from a "work" machine. For me, it comes down to three items:<p>* Can I code on this machine? This means at minimum three tasks: write, deploy and test code. This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to a non-unobfucated file system.<p>* Can I view all file formats easily and successfully? This includes formats like XML and json which are not typically meant to be viewed by a human.<p>* Can I use and move freely between several web browsers? This also connotes a lot of things, including but not limited to access to browser extensions, console, etc.<p>The answer to all these questions is "Yes" for Mac/Win/Linux and solidly "No" for iOS. Which, is too bad, because I'd love to use something like an iPad Pro for work. But Apple has placed several <i>software</i> based restrictions on iOS which, above and beyond other hardware restrictions (lack of multiple monitors, poor selection of input devices) add up to there being no reasonable way to get "work" done on the platform.<p>I don't see myself as a power user, either: Apple seems completely stuck in a time where all users needed was access to a decent office suite and the ability to email and print in order to "do work".<p>That's not an adequate description of "work" any more, but apparently no one has told Apple.
I think most of the statements in the article are true, the problem is there is not (right now) a superior alternative. Yes, Microsoft is trying with the surface, Linux I'm sure has come far, but there is simply not any alternative that can realistically compete with the Mac platform right now. There is simply no pressure on Apple to dedicate further resources to this area, because there is not much for them to gain. It sucks for users of their products, but probably great for stockholders.
"It will be a switch from iOS developers using Macs at home to them using PCs at home and having a "work Mac" for commercial development."<p>This is exactly what gave rise to the Mac and OSX in the last 10-15 years. People worked on Windows PCs "at work" but had Macs for personal development. Now I'm witnessing the exact same scenario play out now that Apple is the market behemoth amongst power users and developers. Do I think Microsoft will simply win everyone back? Not at this moment. They could keep stepping up their game and possibly do so. Or the collective energy people were spending on macOS could be spent on (finally) making Linux-on-desktop a viable option that doesn't require inordinate amounts of fiddling with drivers and configuration files.<p>Time will tell but I'm already pretty sure my next laptop will be a Dell XPS or Razer Blade.
Wow, I really liked that article. I thought it articulated some really important insights, first that Apple could reasonably be seen as abandoning the core computer user market, and second an acknowledgement that the market they are leaving in favor of the consumer market is probably immaterial to their current business model.<p>It is clear that there are two "kinds" of users of computation platforms, the "apps only" users and "developers." It is also becoming clear that "content creators" (graphic artists, writers, video producers, Etc) are seen more and more as "apps only" users rather than developers as well, even though their content tools are very demanding on the platform.<p>If they are correct and the market is segmenting, then I think you can expect to see "artist workstations" emerge as a category with tools wrapped around a computer to help in their content creation, I think that certainly became true of synthesizers which have "workstations" as a category distinct from instruments you might play on stage or in a studio setting.
I see a lot of parallels of Tim Cook's Apple to John Sculley's Apple. Tim Cook's, like John Sculley's, is focused on immediate short-term bottom line improvements rather than long-term investments. John Sculley kept staying the course, and Tim Cook is doing much of the same. If anything, the most recent iteration of MBP is sidelining serious developers and content producers.<p>So yes, Apple's bottom line is growing. Lots of revenue are being made from iCloud subscriptions to Apple Music. Steve Ballmer was very good at improving Microsoft's bottom line too. But they lost search, music, and cloud at the expense of chasing revenue.
I was a PC user my whole life, since the days of DOS and PC Tools, until I made the switch to Macs in 2011. The last time I used Windows (10) was last year when I was stuck with a PC for 2 months.<p>I don't feel the Mac is in decline at all.<p>Although the new MacBooks are out of my budget for now, there is still nothing that makes me want to go back to PCs/Microsoft. I still remember the almost daily frustrations I had with Windows, some of which continue to plague it to this day. It remains a massive, kludgey hodgepodge of inconsistency. Even if Windows wasn't bad in my opinion there really isn't anything bad enough on the Mac side to make me switch.
I agree it worries me. I've been with the Mac since OS X came out. The focus on more professional users like myself seems to have started a decline beginning with Snow Leopard.<p>Of course I understand the rational. It is a small chunk of Apple revenue now, but can't there be some solution to this?<p>What if they simply outsourced the professional products to other companies? I know the clone makers was a disaster for Apple, but they can do it smarter this time, by specifically only allow the clones to sell computers at the high performance and high end. The consumer grade computers and laptops should be Apple only.<p>Fortunately for me I see that a lot of Linux distros have gotten a lot more OS X like over the years to if I got to switch there are actually systems out there which somewhat resemble what I am used to.<p>Still Linux simply doesn't have the same breath of quality desktop applications available as the Mac today. Every time I use Linux I get reminded that while I might be able to get all the functionality I need, it is too often served up in a package or UI which is extremely kludgy and poorly thought out.
> From where I'm standing, Apple are redefining (shrinking) their target audience for the Mac platform. If you feel left out by the latest updates and the neglect on the desktop, it's simple as Apple deciding not to serve your segment's needs. I know that it can feel quite personal to Mac devotees, like me, but it's simply business and strategy.<p>How does this work? Can someone please explain to me how Apple can neglect macOS if all iOS/watchOS/tvOS app development needs to happen on macOS?<p>I'm with you however on the fact that Apple has seriously disappointed me with the latest launch. I was hoping to finally get a much better, powerful notebook and an accompanying iMac. I feel very sad that the legacy left behind by Steve Jobs is being destroyed so badly.<p>If this is truly the decline of Apple as I'm starting to think, at the very least, Apple should open-source macOS.
I bought an SE rather than a 7. Size is a better fit for me and I still use the audio jack. A lot. So Apple had an upgrade path for me.<p>But with the new MacBook Pro, they cut out USB-A. If they'd kept it on the entry level model, that'd be my upgrade path. Instead, I'll eek out maybe a couple more years on my current MBP.<p>BTW, I'm not sure at all why they ditched MagSafe. They did all this and kept the RCA port. Now that's a head scratcher.<p>On the plus side, I'm a big fan of the T1 Secure Enclave processor.
Is it too much to ask to wait until we get the actual machines in our hands and use them for 30 days before deciding our verdict? Maybe they suck. Maybe they don't.
The main premise here is "Apple did not update its desktops in a while, so they don't care about this". I think this is inaccurate - according to <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/" rel="nofollow">http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/</a> , they do plan to update them, but are still waiting for Intel to produce the necessary chips.<p>Also, I seem to remember reading pretty much the same thing before the Mac Pro was launched (which was apparently 1046 days ago...).<p>So yes, desktops are becoming less important, but no, I don't think Apple will drop them any time soon.
There's a basic premise this article gets wrong: that there is a tradeoff between the Mac platform and the iUniverse. That's just not true, at least not on the 5-years plus timescales that we've been hearing these complaints. The most valuable company in the world can certainly afford staffing the Mac division with what they had back in 2000 or so or whenever people believe they were at their best. And the Mac business is without doubt profitable and that's the only thing that counts. We're not even talking about "innovation" issues anyway, where Apple may be constrained by not cloning SJ or JI. Note people don't want innovation (no floppy, no headphone, no F9) but rather simple grunt work like updating the chipsets.<p>I don't have any coherent theory. I'd say it's a combination of:<p>- Mac Pro: possibly waiting for something that then didn't turn out as expected? It's a segment that may actually be obsolete in that anything you can't do on an iMac happens on a cluster? I mean – what's there besides video editing and chrome compiling, two things the iMac is absolutely capable of.<p>- MacBooks: There's a minority complaining very loudly, who just! can't! work! professionally(!!) without 32GB of RAM and F7 – and they're real professionals by the way, not like those unprofessional hipster-wannabes.<p>Meanwhile, there have been quite a few advances but it's just not exciting any more: SSDs have had the most significant performance impact since the Pentium. Battery life has reached the point of diminishing returns (as has battery durability). Retina displays are on the level of vector fonts in terms of UI improvements. No idea about wide-gamut colors, but I certainly thought "why didn't this catch on 16 years ago?". A modern Apple trackpad is the hoverboard my fingers have been making memes about for a decade. Build quality and durability at the highest they have ever been, and if IFixIt complains, it's because YouDontHaveToAnymore.<p>Software is a different story maybe, but a large part of that may just be that it's solved. It's a stable, safe, fast, pretty OS. The Apple applications have seen a bunch of stumbles, indeed. But even Photos does what I actually need and there are alternatives for all of them.
Yahoo finance says they're doing well. If this is a sign of decline then most companies would be happy getting such results.<p><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1</a>
I really just want an upgrade for the MBA.<p>There's finally a few Windows machines that don't look like complete dogshit, but I don't know how to connect to multiple exchange servers in Outlook.
Speculation time: What if the big master plan is an Apple Compute Cloud? It would be a public cloud that can run all your favorite resource-intensive macOS apps.<p>Then you could actually run Xcode and VMs and machine learning on your iPad Pro, because it runs on the cloud instead and the iPad is just RDP'd into your cloud account. The need for a separate Mac product line would then be obliterated entirely.<p>Within that theory, the disappointing update can be explained as the Apple Compute Cloud being delayed, so they had to scramble something together quickly.
Its not just the mac but the entire product line. Unfortunately Jobs did not do a good job of finding a sufficient replacement prior to his health issues getting the best of him.
- Round edges on the iphone6
- protruding lens on the iphone6
- removal of 3mm headphone jack on iphone7
- forcetouch keys on the new macbooks
- video cam on the pro
This is a poorly written article mainly complaining about the lack of an update to the Mac Pro product despite it's thesis that:
> Apple, the MacBook Pro is not a pro-level computer. It’s simply not.<p>However, the article is indeed self-contradictory as it later goes on to say:
> Who needs anything more than a MacBook Pro? The answer is a very small segment of high-demanding users.<p>So given that the main thesis that the Macbook Pro is not a professional machine is entirely unsupported, I argue that the Mac Platform Decline described in this article is not an accurate portrayal or reality.<p>Edit: Update
The linked article even states the different thesis that the Mac _DESKTOP_ product line is doomed.<p>> Apple’s desktop Mac lineup is headed for the graveyard. Dead. Done. Over.[1]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives/2016/2014" rel="nofollow">http://www.tedlandau.com/slantedviewpoint/index.php/archives...</a>