TidBITS:
If you’ve been feeling as though Apple’s heart isn’t in moving the Mac forward these days, you’re not alone. The new MacBook Pro models have taken widespread criticism, Apple has provided no roadmap for the future of its desktop Macs, and most recently, the company eliminated the position of Product Manager of Automation Technologies, presumably seeing it as unnecessary. High-end creatives have despaired about Apple’s lack of attention to their needs, and the mood among many of the consultants and support professionals at last week’s MacTech Conference was downbeat.
So what could explain Apple’s increasing marginalization of the Mac, particularly in the pro market? The culprit is clearly the iOS platform, and the iPhone in particular. But the reason why it’s happening has more to do with a structural fact about the company that Apple will have to change if the Mac is to get the attention it needs to thrive.
Those of us who “love” our Macs or need them to make a living certainly have trepidation with the seeming lack of direction Apple is showing with the Mac. I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom or that the Mac is going away any time soon though.
The United States just went through an election where the winning candidate painted a picture of doom and despair for the nation despite virtually every metric showing the nation as being better off than anytime in recent history. This pessimism gave rise to conspiracy theories, false news and animosity. It also led the “news” sites giving over to opinion and click-bait instead of covering the real issues. It is sad seeing the same mood take root in the tech press and “pro” crowd.
Yep. It’s not one or the other, iOS or OS X. And the Mac’s not dead. Apple delivered that message with the Touch Bar, and other incremental improvements like a larger trackpad.
Rewatch Generations. It’s always been “The Little Things” from one iteration to the next:
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/
*typo alert. trepidation, not tre[idation. Took me a while to figure that out.
STOP IT. You’re continuing this really annoying narrative that Apple IS marginalizing the Mac without any actual evidence aside from slow updates, some of which can be laid at Intel’s feet.
Look, people, computers are a mature technology. They aren’t going to evolve quickly anymore like they did through the 90s and early 2000s. First, CPU gains slowed. Then we had SSDs which were a breakthrough in I/O speed, but we’re at the point of diminishing returns for most of us in that aspect too. battery life is about as good as it needs to be for most of us (sure, something lasting days would be a significant gain but the difference between 10 and say, 13 hours isn’t material to most).
The hard, cold reality is that we’re not going to see big, new shiny things as much anymore in the desktop and laptop space. That’s NOT the same as marginalization. I don’t for a second believe Apple is marginalizing the Mac, I think they’ve done One big thing wrong:
They have crappy communications.
Even though the current Mac Pro is still highly capable it feels wrong for it to be 3 years old at the same price as 2013. Apple in general needs to get updates back on track even if they’re just CPU/GPU bumps (whining will happen about that too… ) and if they anticipate something like the Mac Pro getting updates every ~24 months vs every year, tell people that.
Going forward, they need to pare the line down to what they think it should be for the next several years. For me, that would be the MacBook, the MBP, the Mini, the iMac and the Pro. But if they really don’t feel the Pro has a future, discontinue it. If they feel that because, despite all the blather online they’ve only sold, say, 7800 of them… TELL US.
I’d LIKE to see the tech blogs and press stop the doomsaying… but let’s face it, you guys get clicks that way.
Apple isn’t paying as much attention the Mac as it used to. The current line-up is a confusing array of mostly crappy choices:
Old MBPs – wtf? why are they still selling these?
iMac – more than a year old, without the features that are so heavily promoted in the new MBP. Would you spend $3k on a machine without Thunderbolt 3, the One Port to Rule Them All?
If Apple wasn’t neglecting the Mac, we would have:
– new MBPs actually available on the day of the announcement, or shortly thereafter
– Thunderbolt 3/USB C (and maybe touchbar) across the lineup (in the iMac at least)
– some resolution to the Mac Pro debacle
Lack of direction? Quite the opposite. I’d argue Apple has painted a VERY CLEAR direction they are taking the Mac. There is no ambiguity, they’ve made it crystal clear.
Whether “pros” agree with that direction is one thing. But you can’t say Apple is lacking direction. I would say their competition are the ones lacking a clear focused direction for traditional desktop computing.
Amen. Well said.
Couple that with dropping the Thunderbolt monitor without notice and now AirPort and Time Capsule (will Time Machine be next?) and you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to maybe think that something’s up.
And, then there’s the state of Apple made Macintosh software: iBooks on the Mac? Amazingly bad. iTunes, ditto, Notes, very limited, and then there’s iCloud reliability…
Sigh.
I’m a very long term Macintosh user (1984) and have been both watching Apple as an investor and serious user since the early days. While this may not be as depressing as the Gil Amelio / Performa days, it definitely feels like the Macintosh is being left behind.
Sort of interesting to consider what machines folks are using to write all the apps that sell in the app store? Or, what machines folks are using to do all of Apple’s advertising, let alone everyone else’s advertising and web development.
I think better communication of a Macintosh roadmap, even a very loose one without any huge giveaways would go a long way toward reassuring those of us who make a living using this technology.
If that roadmap is, the iPad is the future of personal computing, I’ll be extremely sad.
“The new MacBook Pro models have taken widespread criticism,”
…yes from haters. the reviews and users i’ve read said it’s a fantastic machine.
“Apple has provided no roadmap for the future of its desktop Mac”
…er, since when has apple been in the habit of publishing its roadmap. never — never is when they did that.
you’re citing Notes? wtf. it’s a great simple app. no problems syncing and multiple media types.
news flash: ipad is the future of personal computing. it’s capabilities will increase until it’s the new normal.
god, this site. regurgitating the DOOM. how sad.
Hard to see how it gets here from there. Some of the limitations of the iPad are baked-in pretty deep. Its fundamentally a single (smallish) screen, with very limited capability for using multiple apps simultaneously. A lot of the UI doesn’t scale very well (ever compared multiple selection of a lot of items on an iPad to a Mac?)
I like my iPad for a few tasks, but its definitely a distant third behind my Mac and iPhone (or, depending on the day iPhone and Mac).
Exactly. I have an iPad. Love it for what I use it for but it does not do the heavy lifting of my Mac nor do I expect it to.
Ever try SimpleNote? It’s free, syncs better than Apple Notes, uses tags, and has worked like a charm on both Mac and iOS for years.
Problem is that it is not clear that anyone at Apple other than the deepest-buried programmers is using a traditional personal computer for anything. One gets the impression that from the manager level it is iPads all the way down. And certainly there seem to be no decision-makers at Apple who use a DSLR or other non-iPhone imaging device (or have non-techie family members who do, which is perhaps more to point).
We have Mac longevity in common (I bought my first new Mac in ’86) and I also have a lot of skin in this game.
From that perspective, I agree there are a number of things to be concerned about at the moment. Update: As I’ve said elsewhere, personality points are being removed from Apple products, which concerns me. They’re sticky. So are Apple’s solutions to pain points, such as Airport (software) ease-of-use in setting up and managing home networks.
But I don’t think we – outside the company – have enough information to suggest that recent developments spell anything definitive or perilous about Apple.
While it might turn out that you’re spot on in your analysis, I think there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Apple’s not only systematically addressing its broader weaknesses (just not quickly enough for so many critics), but the Mac’s alive and doing amazingly well, all things considered.
Until only recently, like the last three quarters, the Mac platform has grown year-over-year for the last several years. Not only that, but quite remarkably Mac sales grew quarter-over-quarter for 30 some reporting periods. This, while the broader PC market contracted(!). That’s no small feat given how the PC landscape is changing.
Yes, Mac sales have recently slowed. That’s something to keep an eye on rather than view as a catastrophe. Particularly given that Schiller said on the record that the MBPTB is the best selling MBP to date.
That despite the chorus of torches and pitchforks.
I also agree that we don’t see a Mac product refresh cycle like we used to, but this might have far less to do with Apple’s alleged lack of enthusiasm for Macintosh than the reality that Apple must adjust its priorities to reflect not only a “new” personal computing landscape but very real limitations in regard to processor, battery and storage improvements.
These are the same challenges the entire industry is facing. Aside from Microsoft’s Surface Studio – and have you seen the last year specs on that thing? – which Macintosh peer is hitting innovation milestones year after year, or even just once as is the case with the Studio? No one.
I agree Apple’s current situation is thorny, and the company has a lot of work to do, but I don’t think the sky’s falling yet.
You can only use one app at a time, I try to use all the opened apps I can’t, can you show me how?
Apple Notes is great for me and free too.
Yes I can lock it down too,
Good points, totally agreed.
But some people think they can read the tea leaves better than others hence the whines and groans.
The most repeated ones were they didn’t update the computers fast enough but these people were blind to the fact that Apple update their MacOS every year doesn’t that tell us whatever is going on.
You were right we don’t know what is going on in Cupertino but the clever ones think they know better.
Let’s face it. Apple is using the bloggers as their communications department. Sooner or later, one or two bloggers would guess right about something, and the whole community would think they saw it coming.
Nothing gets Apple enthusiasts more riled up like a nest of angry vipers, than debating Apple’s shortcomings.
What are you talking about? There are eight comments on that story….
But, there is no loop symbol next to the title so I thought I could not comment
Huh? How is Apple doing that?
eh, I think they;’re transitioning the laptop line. That’s why the Air still exists (and you’ll note the 11″ doesn’t). Are they actually selling the older MBP? that’s silly if so.
The delays…are annoying, but those are likely a product of higher than expected demand… it’s a temp thing that doesn’t indicate anything about how they view the Mac.
The Mini and Pro… I agree with you here. I think they need to figure out the purpose of each. Do people still need a decent but not awesome desktop (the mini)? I get that a lot of Apple people with blogs use them as home theater boxes, but I wonder about the actual percentage of people who do that.
The Pro… they need to 1) update it, 2) talk about how they see it being updated going forward (it might be that ever year is too much for that niche) and 3) ideally they’d ship an update that lets people replace GPU cards, etc so that an advance there means that people could add power without waiting for Apple to move.
Apple is marginalizing the Mac. Stop the denial.