“Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops,” Cook wrote. “If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.”
Look, I see why people are saying Apple might be done with desktops, but it doesn’t make sense at this point. Someday maybe, but not now.
I think this is great, but I also think that Tim or Phil could have made a statement like this a year ago, even in response to email queries by random customers, to alert the user base that they’re committed, etc. This to me seems like a message that something more concrete is in the pipeline, perhaps Spring. Magic Keyboard with Touch Bar to go along with Mac Pro?
Customer expectations and Apple actions seem to be out of sync here, but it would do Cook well to take heed of this.
I can’t grasp the complete lack of faith and patience people have now.
Why do I feel sullied after reading an article at TechCrunch?
“Let’s Make Apple (Desktops) Great Again.” Perhaps Tim’s been sitting too close to Donald?
I for one am happy to hear this as I’ve been holding off on getting a new iMac because I want to see if anything is going to be done with the Mac Pro or if something all together new might be coming from Cupertino.
I’ve been in the “Shut up Apple & Take My Money” mode for over a year now, so this is welcome news indeed as we move into 2017!
But why? Apple has never had a consistent history of showing its hand until the hand is open. Why change now?
You make up a Trump-like quote and then mock Cook for being Trump-like? SMH …
I think you missed the point. Customer expectation isn’t that Apple become more transparent. Customer expectation is that Apple updates its products regularly.
Contrary to what trolls like to say, faith in Apple was based on experience. Apple earned that faith by updating its products regularly, making cool & useful design changes, and packing new (and often leading-edge) tech into their products. It isn’t just somebody’s imagination that Apple has neglected the hell out of their Mac lineups. The laptops hadn’t had meaningful updates in a couple of years. People criticize intel for having been slow with updates, but Apple hadn’t even incorporated those updates when they occurred. Can you really look at the Mac mini and Mac Pro (especially the Mac Pro) and not grasp why there’s frustration and impatience? Even the iMac, which has the most-current processors in the lineup: that’s only on the high end. The low-end iMac — which is still a pricy machine — has a processor from the previous generation. Maybe your inability to grasp other people’s frustration is because you think it’s supposed to be about faith and not concrete experience.
Wrong. Customer expectation is that Apple puts out great products. Those with any sense know that that is usually quite hard and that it usually takes time, and that that RARELY follows any arbitrary time table!
I can. It’s called stupidity and cluelessness about how great products are made from mere ideas. IT TAKES WORK!—a foreign concept for many.
Not too close—close enough!
Sure blame Cook anytime something about Apple isn’t to your liking. Typical.
The fact of the matter is that Tim Cook is the HMFIC of Apple and, along with his Apple team, is responsible for Apple’s current prosperity which isn’t about to end anytime soon, despite what any fickle markets might portend to some.
Cook and company know how to run the show and when to show any cards.
Did I say I couldn’t grasp people’s frustration?
I think there is too much worry about specs without looking at what those specs actually mean. The performance difference between CPU generations these days is generally minimal at best. Complaining about the use of last generation processor alone is meaningless. That’s a complaint about perception and status and not utility.
Well that’s all fine and dandy, but when the rest of the computer world is updating their computers, Apple can’t just sit still and not expect criticism.
The Mac Pro was a great product…1000 days ago. Today, it’s a very expensive, very dated product. The iMac and Mac mini are also dated.
There’s a simple thing Apple can and should do regularly: Give regular spec bumps to the form factor. At least one a year, at least one of the following should be bumped: processor, graphics, memory, hard drive/SSD. That doesn’t take some fantastic feet of engineering; it just takes putting the latest and greatest from Intel, Nvidia or AMD, etc. into their box. And believe me, it would go along way.
It’s absolutely inexcusable that that hasn’t happened in three years for the Mac Pro, over two years for the Mac mini, and over a year for the iMac.
After this weight, a mere spec bump would be disappointing, but it shouldn’t have taken this long. Update specs regularly, and give us Ive’s latest and greatest design when it’s ready. But don’t make the former wait for the latter.
I’ve closely followed Apple’s announcements since Jobs return in 1998. My personal expectations are based on that ~18 yr track record. However, I’m not alone in thinking there is a disconnect between Apple fans’ expectations and what Apple is delivering.
I do not presume too know how easy or hard it is for them to do their job. Cook has had a difficult and distracting past few years. I can’t possibly appreciate how complex and demanding it is for him to maintain the annual pace of iOS/iPhone/MacOS/Watch/watchOS, along with Apple Campus 2 construction, datacenter/clean energy development, maintaining their commitment to environmental responsibility, sparring with foreign politicians and regulators, as well as being bullied by the FBI, and harassed by fickle investors.
I’ve given Apple my trust because they earned it. A large part of my livelihood depends on their products & services. I have a real need for them to develop and refine their legacy products. So when I hear about new emojis but no update on a MacPro (even if its just a speed bump or updated connectivity), I get pissy. I get pissy when I have to find a new solution for routing because Apple’s given up on them, or I have to settle for an inelegant monitor because Apple’s decided to give up on those too. Cook has enough problems to iron out, but he doesn’t need customer confidence to erode too.
Over one, two, and three years for the iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro, respectively, will test anyone’s faith and patience.
Maybe Apple has been working too hard on this, then. Too busy thinking up the latest and greatest, thinnest and lightest new enclosure instead of giving a simple spec bump. The hard work for that is mostly done by other companies.
If you think it’s acceptable to sell a computer with the same specs and price as three years ago, then you’re putting too much hard work into making excuses for Apple.
That’s true on many products, but not the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is now outpaced by the iMac in most single-core tasks. To be selling this 1,000-day-old product at full price is terrible.
(All this said as someone who had to get a Mac Pro at work this year—so it’s not like I’m blindly criticizing the product, I’m using it ay my desk right now.)
Here’s the thing, though. The trashcan Mac Pro took a ton of work to conceive, build, and implement. It was done in a modular design to support easy spec bumps, RAM replacement, etc.
And then, after having designed it, they haven’t even bothered updating the CPU in over 3 years, which would be a very incremental change the device was designed for. That strikes one as “disinterest,” when the options for professionals for high-end Macs are limited.
In the past, Apple always had a lag when they redesigned the platform (e.g., the new MacBook Pro), but then they’d have regular bumps on a yearly basis (without a press event, usually just an update on the website/store). The product was designed for this just like all the others. So why isn’t Apple doing it?
Of course, for long-suffering Mac Pro fans… note that Tim Cook in his memo only noted the iMac.
Amounts to the same thing. Products that aren’t updated don’t remain great.
The Mac Pro was a great product when it was released (at least for some). Selling it 3+ years later at the same price is a joke.
To a lesser extent, its the same thing with the USB C-less iMac. Great product for many when it was introduced last year, kind of absurd to expect someone to shell out $4k for it today.
Now, the current version of the mac mini was never a great product, or even a good one. But that’s a different discussion…
The Mac Pro uses Xeon chips which will tend to underperform the single-core performance of the prosumer Intel chips. That’s no surprise. I would say this highlights the issue I mentioned. People tend to not look at what the various products are designed to do. The Mac Pro is designed for multi-thread, GPU-aided heavy lifting. Intel’s Xeon releases have been stilted and slow, which limits how much Apple can do with the Mac Pro (as disappointing as that is). My guess would be they realized the new design wasn’t a great fit and are working on a whole new design.
A 3 year old Mac Pro isn’t a great product. It’s a neglected product at a premium price. People with honesty who aren’t simply trying to argue their partisan position might want to admit that.
Sure, I think comparing Xeon to Core is probably not a winning bet. But still…
Intel has had at least one E5 CPU refresh. There’s no reason Apple can’t include this. Are there specific known issues with the Haswell part?
Also, there’s the old GPU, which has had multiple refresh opportunities.
At least one refresh between design iterations would quiet a lot of users’ concern and perhaps drive more Mac Pro sales.
Also:
Bigger/faster/cheaper SSDs.
USB C
Thunderbolt 3
cheaper RAM (and probably everything else)
That Apple has done absolutely nothing with the Mac Pro in 3 years is entirely on Apple.
you guys arent taking Intel’s schedules into account. there have been delays.
Uh…it takes “WORK!” to drop a new processor in when the processor uses the same socket?
It takes “WORK!” to replace the SSD with a new, faster SSD that they’ve already designed for other computers?
It takes “WORK!” to drop the price of an older product?
What utter bullshit. Defending Apple’s utter lack of updates at this point does the company a disservice.
Apple needs to know that their customers are unhappy. Apple now needs to repair the relationship with their pro and prosumer customers, or they will lose customers, likely permanently.
Same here. The bulk of my work is relegated to an aging 2008 Mac Pro. So yes, I am in the market for new workstation class Apple hardware.
Sure, but he didn’t mention the Mac mini ether. So who knows.
Hilarious. Apple is more inclined than just about anyone to put out products on a timetable, ready or not, bugs be damned. New phone every year, new iOS every year, new Mac OS every year. Same event, same venue, same speakers, same attire, same “incredibles” from Cook, same “amazings” from Schiller. Groundhog day. Sometimes they deliver. Sometimes not. Lately, not. Especially when it comes to Macintosh. That’s why people are pissed.
I would avoid Boy Genius Report. Major cooties.
Of course there are delays. But it’s not as if Intel hasn’t made any improvements over the past one, two, and three years.
You make my point, and you’re so clueless you don’t even realize it.
The $3,000 that is still sitting in my bank account disagrees with your point. I am an engineer. I know what it takes to update products. Apple has simply chosen not to do it.
My new windows machine saved me over $1,000 and it works GREAT. The only problem I’ve had so far is that the “control” key isn’t where the “command” key was.
Apple is losing customers because they don’t update their products. They inexplicably do not drop in new processors that use the same socket, are more powerful, and use less energy. They inexplicably do not drop prices on unchanged three year old machines.
You can foolishly defend Apple all you want. Have fun with that.
Bullshit. That would have been true if Apple had used the Skylake i7-6770HQ processor, as was widely expected. That processor only came out in May 2016. It’s only been used in one computer so far, the Skull Canyon NUC – but those were purchasable by late May.
But Apple chose to use a i7-6700HQ. That processor was released in September 2015, so it was over a year old when the 2016 rMBP was announced.
So, Intel’s roadmap and delays had NOTHING to do with Apple’s delayed release of the rMBP.
Yet again, you make my point. Apple won’t miss you.
Hahahahahahahaha!! Hahaha! Ooh, I’ve got to stop to take a breath.
I forgot that “competition” has no effect on Apple (or at least no effect on Apple’s fanbois!) Unlike other companies, they don’t have to struggle to win new customers, and struggle harder to win old customers back.
You’re very funny. I guess you can’t read between the lines: the 2016 rMBP redesign had the “largest online sales ever,” which means NOT largest sales ever…and that lack of a sales record came with huge pent-up demand from having longest delay in updating the rMBP ever.
Apple is not doomed, not by a long shot. But not even Apple can ignore its customers and continue to thrive.
Have a great time! Again, I’m very glad to have “proved” your point for you! Hahahahaha!
Given those 67X0HQ chips (which I also expected) haven’t made their way into any other shipping product, maybe Intel hasn’t been able to reliably produce them at scale, or there were performance issues with the Iris Pro integrated graphics, or both — which would lead them to have chosen another chip and wait for the mobile Polaris chips to ship which happened just before the MBP release.