On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware (rogueamoeba.com) 525
Quentin Carnicelli, the chief technology officer at Rogue Amoeba, a widely-reputed firm that produces several audio software for Apple's desktop operating system: With Apple recently releasing their first developer beta of MacOS 10.14 (Mojave), we've been installing it on various test machines to test our apps. The inevitable march of technology means Mojave won't install on all of our older hardware. There's no shock there, but the situation is rather distressing when it comes to spending money to purchase new equipment. Here is the situation, as reported by the wonderful MacRumor's Buyers Guide: At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year. Here are the last updates to the entire line of Macs: iMac Pro: 182 days ago, iMac: 374 days ago, MacBook: 374 days ago, MacBook Air: 374 days ago, MacBook Pro: 374 days ago, Mac Pro: 436 days ago, and Mac Mini: 1337 days ago.
Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with the machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. The Mac Mini hasn't seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop). The once-solid Mac Pro was replaced by the dead-end cylindrical version all the way back in 2012, which was then left to stagnate. I don't even want to get started on the MacBook Pro's questionable keyboard, or the MacBook's sole port (USB-C which must also be used to provide power). It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with the machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. The Mac Mini hasn't seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop). The once-solid Mac Pro was replaced by the dead-end cylindrical version all the way back in 2012, which was then left to stagnate. I don't even want to get started on the MacBook Pro's questionable keyboard, or the MacBook's sole port (USB-C which must also be used to provide power). It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Apple only a consumer-level gadget company now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for the very, very few 'pro' products they've (reluctantly) released (and barely updated), they've basically given up on the Pro crowd, and are clearly only concentrating on 'gadget' devices for consumers, not meant for professionals (creators, etc.): iDevices, AppleTV, AppleWatch & HomePod.
The signs that this was coming have been on the wall for a while. I've been getting away from Mac exclusive software ever since Final Cut Pro X had it's debut (and I don't work in video at all). The debacle that was the initial release (seriously, no multicam editing?) was a clear sign to me that Apple was giving up on its professional users. I jumped ship on anything that was only available for a Mac and (even though I'm typing this comment on a Mac Mini) can switch to another OS at any time.
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Especially since they haven't allowed memory upgrades beyond 16 GB for over six years! We still have hundreds of four+ year-old MacBooks since we can't upgrade them for more memory. Just sucks having engineers waste time with old and slow laptops, but at least they still basically work unlike a Dell or other PC laptop. As soon as Apple finally allows more memory, we're going to replace most of the laptops used in our company.
Re:Apple only a consumer-level gadget company now. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't Apple, it's Intel who, has refused to add the support of more than 16 Gb of LPDDR RAM to their chipsets year after year after year.
Do you really think that Apple _doesn't_ want to sell you 32 Gb of soldered on RAM for what they would be marking it up for?
As for using power hungry desktop DDR like PC makers do, it'd kill the battery life on MBPs.
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Agreed. I ran Mac Pros (I started with a G5 Power Mac, actually) all the way through the 2012 model year. Stayed on a 12-core (dual 6-core) Mac Pro until 2016, when I could no longer defend the use of the machine any longer. No support for modern NVidia cards meant no support for the software I was using that was increasingly going CUDA. And the 2013 Mac Pro? What a joke.
My Win10 workstation runs circles around my Mac Pro and gives me the flexibility to use whatever video cards best suit my needs. I can't s
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I'm getting away from Mac, too, having run exclusively them since Mac OS X 10.1 was released. Before that, I ran Linux, and recently I've begun the process of transferring back. I recently built myself a nice 8th-gen i5 system and loaded Manjaro Linux on it. Life's good!
Re:Apple only a consumer-level gadget company now. (Score:4, Informative)
UMAX, Power Computing, Motorola (I think), etc... When Jobs came back, he made the licensing agreements so ridiculous, nobody wanted to continue, so they died out within a year or two, having had the terms changed on them so drastically.
Re:Apple only a consumer-level gadget company now. (Score:5, Interesting)
The 2014 Mac Mini was a colossal failure. Between the elimination of the two-drive version and the elimination of the quad-core configuration, it went from being a great mini server to being an almost completely useless toy. I'd imagine their sales dropped commensurately, though they don't break out sales by product line enough to be certain. So I suspect it isn't getting updated because it has terrible sales, and it has terrible sales because the last upgrade was a huge downgrade.
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How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress. It's not good enough that a company provides jobs and turns a profit. It has to show "growth". It's not good enough that a given computer can perform all sorts of useful functions. It has to be reinvented as more powerful every 374 days.
I do agree that a Mac Mini should cost less now than it did over three years ago. But what's wrong with good enough? I recently went shopping for a new TV. I expected that with 4K TVs being common now, I should be able to pickup a 1920x1080 TV for a good price. I was wrong. I ended up making a deal on a 4K TV, even though I almost never watch anything in 4K.
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress.
That is not the issue here. Just because hardware is updated every year doesn't mean people need, or want, to upgrade that often. But when their old hardware finally needs to be replaced, they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago.
I really don't understand Apple's strategy. They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position. They could be making a lot of money by releasing more often. Yet they don't. It doesn't make sense.
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As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress.
That is not the issue here. Just because hardware is updated every year doesn't mean people need, or want, to upgrade that often. But when their old hardware finally needs to be replaced, they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago.
I really don't understand Apple's strategy. They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position. They could be making a lot of money by releasing more often. Yet they don't. It doesn't make sense.
Seems to make plenty of sense. It's contained within what you said right here: "huge locked-in customer base". What else are those people going to do? Move to Windows? Linux? They're solid Mac users. A lack of hardware updates and such doesn't matter. Their sales are still strong with little to no new investment. That base is more than happy to keep paying more and getting less.
hackintosh (Score:2)
Yes the locked people are using hackintoshs just to get hardware they need.
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What else are those people going to do?
Upgrade less often.
If I upgrade every 4 to 6 years instead of every 2 to 3 years, then Apple is selling half as many computers. Why would they want to do that?
A lack of hardware updates and such doesn't matter.
Except that they are a hardware company.
Their sales are still strong with little to no new investment.
Wrong. Sales of Mac hardware is stagnant. The Mac Pro line is dead, with infinitesimal sales. They make almost all their money from phones ... which they upgrade regularly.
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Upgrade less often.
If I upgrade every 4 to 6 years instead of every 2 to 3 years, then Apple is selling half as many computers. Why would they want to do that?
Isn't upgrading less often a trend generally across electronics now? It seems to me that it is.
Years ago I remember being able to pick up perfectly functional computers from friends and family because they bought something newer and faster. I'd be invited over to help them set up their new computer and in exchange I'd get their old hardware. Given the pace of improvement of electronics at the time I'd mostly just use the computers I got for parts or as "toys" to play with while I experimented with differ
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress.
That is not the issue here. Just because hardware is updated every year doesn't mean people need, or want, to upgrade that often. But when their old hardware finally needs to be replaced, they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago.
I really don't understand Apple's strategy. They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position. They could be making a lot of money by releasing more often. Yet they don't. It doesn't make sense.
Everything from mid-2012 to present can run Mojave. That's SIX, not TWO, years ago.
The issue is not the CPUs, but the GPUs. Those earlier Macs do not have "Metal-compatible" GPUs, and so, Apple drew the line in the sand "there" for Mojave.
I suspect someone in the Hackintosh Community will come along and supply the missing Frameworks to allow installation on those older machines.
But even if that is not practical, those machines can still install High Sierra, and that has sufficiently modern Frameworks that it will be supported by Apple and third-party Applications and OS-Features for at least another 5 years or so.
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They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position.
I have a theory. Jobs wanted to have his hands in everything. He only has so many hours in the day. Even with Jobs gone, it seems that they're still running the company the same way. Despite having billions in cash reserve, they aren't spending it hiring more divisional management - they are letting less profitable segments wither and die because they're being so short-sighted and giving them no oversight to grow.
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:4, Insightful)
My washer uses tech from 20 years ago. It cost $250 delivered. The latest washers cost nearly $1,000.
My clothes still come out clean. And the Dryer dries them.
Technology for technology's sake is a waste of money and I'm afraid that computers have reached the appliance stage for regular consumers.
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Informative)
Your old washer used 40 gallons of water per load. A $1,000 washer can use as little as 12 gallons for a full load.
Re: How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many gallons of water does $750 buy?
Irrelevant, since the inflation adjusted price of a new washer is actually LESS than a washer cost 20 years ago.
On Lowes.com they list a front loading washer (they kind that saves water) for $649. In 1998 dollars ($1.83 in 2018 $s) that would be $352. Could you buy a front loading washer in America for $352 in 1998? I don't think so.
If you are willing to buy a top-loader, they start at $399. That is $215 in 1998 dollars.
As a general rule, prices of services have gone up faster than inflation, while the prices of goods have gone down.
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My washer uses tech from 20 years ago. It cost $250 delivered. The latest washers cost nearly $1,000.
My clothes still come out clean. And the Dryer dries them.
Technology for technology's sake is a waste of money and I'm afraid that computers have reached the appliance stage for regular consumers.
I used to think that, but washer/dryer tech (even aside from phone integration and whatnot) has indeed improved massively, even from 10 years ago.
I made a decent-midrange washer/dryer purchase in 2003 and replaced them with a pair of LG uprights on Black Friday around 2011. They used 1/8th (literally) the water/gas and got my clothes notable cleaner, with less fabric damage and fading, and with cheaper per-load detergent (HE).
I moved in 2016 into a place without a gas hookup, so for a while was using a smal
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:4, Insightful)
"they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago."
Why? What is different from 2016 technology from 2018?
Indeed. Why not? If my computer served my needs, why would I want a different one?
I have the same problem with toasters, frankly. When my 20 year old toaster died, I want another one just like it, not some shiny contraption with electronic doodads that add no value to what I want to do, which is toast bread.
The market for new machines (Score:3)
My point is that is really hasn't. My laptop already does all the things I need to do with it.
That does not matter for purposes of buying a new one. All that means is that you aren't going to upgrade until you either get a new use case requirement or it breaks. And when you do replace it you almost certainly are not going to buy the same model even if it worked just fine. You are going to buy something that most likely is technologically superior to whatever you are currently and likely for the same or less money. Because why wouldn't you? It's like buying a new car that gets notably better gas
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> What is different from 2016 technology from 2018?
A few things. If you buy a Skylake (2015-2016) i5 8600k you get 4 cores clocked at 3.5GHz. The Coffee Lake (2017-2018) 8600k gives you 6 cores clocked at 3.6GHz. Not earth shattering on the speed bump, but the 2 extra cores on the "same" part is nice. The Coffee Lake chip also supports a higher turbo clock speed, faster RAM, and has the next bump up in onboard graphics. And generally speaking the mobile chips of each generation usually get more ener
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> You guys don't get it: 4 cores at 3.4Ghz vs 6 cores at 3.6Ghz makes no difference.
Horse pucky. There's a LOT of shitty bloated software out there, and for the average end user running a browser with 20 tabs open and a mail client and a music player and half dozen other things those two extra cores definitely come into play. If developers today optimized like we used to back in the 80s and early 90s, then yeah even a 5 year old processor would be overkill, but that's not the case. Each release of mos
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about speed, it's about price. Compare the price of a CPU in 2016 and the same CPU in 2018. The 2016 CPU costs less in 2018, but the 2016 Mac is still sold at the same price in 2018.
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Bingo. So if Apple redesigns it, are they going to raise the price, or lower it? Sure you can argue that Apple should lower the price, but that won't happen because price isn't only based on the cost of the components.
I think you misunderstand. I believe the complaint is that Apple is currently selling computer hardware using a CPU that has dropped in cost over time while keeping their selling price point unchanged. Added to that fact, fixed costs over time should drop as engineering, development, and tooling costs are paid for. Nobody expects Apple to sell "new design" hardware for less that the older models.
Apple has great vendor lock in since their computers are not easily substitutable, but eventually that can
Dell / hp / others all do specs bumps / price drop (Score:3)
Dell / hp / others all do specs bumps / price drops over time. But apple still has 5400RPM hdds in the imacs.
Apple looks for ways to make system thinner and thinner and takes ports away.
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Still has 5400 RPM HDDs in the Mac minis too.
Re: How About "Good Enough"? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the entire point (and ironically the jokes/memes). Apple not updating it's lines puts it even more behind than it already was when the products are usually released. There's that old joke that if you bought a Mac you just bought 2 year old PCs at next year's price. Apple updating the hardware each year just catches it up with all the other Windows and Linux PCs of the previous year. That's why people are pissed.
I'm just holding off hoping that Apple will update mY MBP to use third party docks or at least re-enable displaylink so I don't have to use the 20+ dongles just to get a second monitor and all of my USB A stuff to work again. I'm tired of looking at all of these PCs in my office connect all of their prereferals to their Windows laptops with one cable while I'm looking like I've tapped directly into the Matrix due to dongle hell. Before you ask, you can't just plug in ANY thunderbolt dock into macOS, it won't work with a nice message that it's unsupported. And not because it won't work, just because Apple wants to be a dick and block it so I have to use a Thunderbolt Unlocker kext just so it can partially function. DisplayLink killed off the rest of the dock's use since 10.13.4.
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... But what's wrong with good enough?...
When it is not really good enough? Your example is nice and all, but if the current line of Macs is not really "good enough," then there's an issue. I gave up on Macminis because Apple started falling behind in keeping them up to date.
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good enough would be fine, but Apple never lowers their prices even years after the computers have launched.
Good enough would be fine, but 4GB of RAM with the latest macOS is far from being sufficient even for basic Web browsing.
Good enough would be fine, but the latest macOS are absolutely slow as molasses when used with mechanical HDDs, which is what Apple are still using in the Mac mini, not even offering an SSD option for the low-end model. I'd rather Apple sold the low-end Mac mini with a 64GB SSD than a slow 500GB HDD. And maybe upgrade the RAM to 8GB with the money saved.
nothing wrong with "Good Enough"? (Score:2)
But why in the hell would you pay a huge premium for something that is only "good enough"?
That only suggests that Apple people, such as yourself, care about your image more than substance.
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I'm not talking about paying a "huge premium", or buying Apple as opposed to other brands. I'm merely saying that, in general, complaining that "this product has not been revamped in the last 2 years" seems a bit obsessed with progress.
A lot of products made 3 or 4 years ago should still be plenty useful today.
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Good enough" would be fine, but Apple hardware is no longer worth the premium price. After owning Apple laptops since 2003 (my Powerbook still runs great) when my wife's 13" MBP finally kicked the bucket last week I gave her my 15" i7 MBP (totally good enough) and bought a Dell 9570 for $1000 less than a "good enough" 15" Mac.
Apple is flat-footed in this space. Good enough is fine but the prices should reflect that. All they care about is the phone ecosystem.
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It's not good enough that a given computer can perform all sorts of useful functions. It has to be reinvented as more powerful every 374 days.
Yet the Mac is not able to perform "all sorts of useful functions", it can perform "Many sorts of useful functions", but if you have that one use case that you can't run on a Mac, then it's useless.
In my case, it's memory, I run a couple VM's and a memory hungry IDE. My 16GB Macbook was no longer able to keep up, so I finally traded it in for a 32GB Lenovo and haven't looked back -- twice the RAM, faster CPU, more disk storage (a big SSD for real work, and an even bigger HDD for automatic SSD backups and ar
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...if you have that one use case that you can't run on a Mac, then it's useless.
That's quite the sense of entitlement you're expressing there.
I'd like my Lenovo laptop to be able to crack RSA keys in under a minute, but it can't. Perhaps I should just throw it in the trash.
If you're an artist we're nowhere near good enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is NOT "totally fine". "Good enough" from a few years ago is NOT "good enough" here in the future year of 2018. The #1 thing done on a computer is browse the web. Web pages have gotten fatter and slower with JavaScript and parallax scrolling and a bunch of other shit that I don't care about but people insist on doing and the trend is not going away.
Intel is making faster chips. Memory is cheap. I just want a computer in a form factor I like that runs my OS of choice and can keep up with the world that's
Re:How About "Good Enough"? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is NOT "totally fine". "Good enough" from a few years ago is NOT "good enough" here in the future year of 2018. The #1 thing done on a computer is browse the web. Web pages have gotten fatter and slower with JavaScript and parallax scrolling and a bunch of other shit that I don't care about but people insist on doing and the trend is not going away.
Intel is making faster chips. Memory is cheap. I just want a computer in a form factor I like that runs my OS of choice and can keep up with the world that's changing around it.
My mid-2012 MacBook Pro suffers no detectable slowdown or inability to handle complex websites, etc.
Same here with my mid-2013 MacBook Pro (Score:3)
My mid or late (can't recall, I'm at work) MacBook Pro from 2013 "suffers no detectable slowdown or inability to handle complex websites, etc" as well. Mind you, a 500GB SSD, Intel i7, and 16GB of RAM should still be decent, even today.
That being said, though, the chances of my next computer being an Apple are 50:50. I'm probably going to come back to Linux and just have a decent mid tower PC.
Apple stopped loving me (Score:5, Insightful)
I've owned every single model of Mac Pro, but enough is enough. I used to do music production and sound design primarily using Logic and Pro Tools on Mac Pros, but the last iteration was my breaking point. The juice just wasn't worth the squeeze any more, and I found much better tools for Windows (Cockos Reaper, Pro Tools, etc). After decades of loving the work-flow and support and quality, I just got the feeling Apple was jerking users around and just didn't care about the desktop platform any more. Happier now.
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I used to do music production and sound design primarily using Logic and Pro Tools on Mac Pros, but the last iteration was my breaking point.
I was a Logic user until Final Cut Pro X. I decided it was time to get away from Apple "pro" products at that point and went heavier into Pro Tools and discovered Studio One.
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Studio One is good. I really recommend giving Cockos Reaper an in-depth try. It won't cost you anything.
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You know, I tried. I had problems because some of the music production software I was using at the time required hardware dongles to unlock. That's when I changed my main DAW to Cockos Reaper and once I had given up on Logic, I figured, why do I need Macs for anything any more?
I remember when I was teaching, Apple was all about the education market. They really worked hard to get our business and demonstrated that they valued our input and our busine
No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Apple's Mac division has really kind of gone of the rails in recent years. They've made multiple repeated bizarre design decisions and they seldom update their hardware. While is hasn't been all bad, it's getting hard to recommend the Mac to people I previously would have done so without hesitation. They cater to a fairly specific customer and that's fine but they aren't even doing a very good job of that anymore.
It's pretty clear that the focus of management is on the iPhone. Understandable but I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of the value proposition from Apple comes from the tight ecosystem integration. Without that it's not so compelling to buy an iPhone or an iPad. Honestly I don't see a lot of tight integration in ways that are useful to me.
I have a Mac Mini and I'm about to replace it but probably not with another Mac Mini and the way things are going not with any other type of Mac either. Apple just isn't investing in the Mac and if they cannot be bothered in spite of the massive cash hoard they have then why should I care either? Apple should be making the Mac the best type of PC available and they just aren't. They are nice enough but they're behind the technology curve at this point. I don't think they need to be bleeding edge but they aren't even close to the edge on PCs anymore. Either they are incompetent or they just can't be bothered and I tend to favor the later theory.
apple needs to let some like HP sell pro workstion (Score:2)
apple needs to let some like HP sell pro workstations that run mac os in areas where looks or forcing video cards to use TB is not an big deal.
HP does TB loop back cables to tie DP out into an TB add in card. But no apple has to say that looks like crap and we can't do it.
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They focus on the iPhone, but they seem to forget that people buy the phone for its apps - apps that can only be created on a Mac. They're ignoring a huge market right now. I understand that Mac is probably tiny compared to phones, but with the phone ecosystem depending on Macs, it makes sense to pay attention to the Mac line.
If there's an afterlife, Jobs is kicking himself daily for setting up Tim Cook to be his successor.
Re:No shit (Score:4)
I bought an 8.1MBP in March of 2012. Aside from a new SSD upgrade installed last December, I haven't done anything to the machine and it's still rock solid.
I have a work 13.1MBP and compared to the Dells most others use, I never have a slow down or require repair.
I don't care what tech they're using or how much it costs: I still recommend it to other people because they run well for a long time and don't require as much maintenance as their PC counterparts.
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It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Apple's Mac division has really kind of gone of the rails in recent years. They've made multiple repeated bizarre design decisions and they seldom update their hardware. While is hasn't been all bad, it's getting hard to recommend the Mac to people I previously would have done so without hesitation. They cater to a fairly specific customer and that's fine but they aren't even doing a very good job of that anymore.
It's pretty clear that the focus of management is on the iPhone. Understandable but I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of the value proposition from Apple comes from the tight ecosystem integration. Without that it's not so compelling to buy an iPhone or an iPad. Honestly I don't see a lot of tight integration in ways that are useful to me.
I have a Mac Mini and I'm about to replace it but probably not with another Mac Mini and the way things are going not with any other type of Mac either. Apple just isn't investing in the Mac and if they cannot be bothered in spite of the massive cash hoard they have then why should I care either? Apple should be making the Mac the best type of PC available and they just aren't. They are nice enough but they're behind the technology curve at this point. I don't think they need to be bleeding edge but they aren't even close to the edge on PCs anymore. Either they are incompetent or they just can't be bothered and I tend to favor the later theory.
I'm not sure what you think is "behind the technology curve" with the iMac Pro or the 2017 MBP. Even the 2017 iMacs are up-to-date, too.
Yes, we ALL know the Mac mini and Mac Pro are SADLY in need of a refresh; but don't damn the entire BRAND, just because they have let a couple of products languish. Apple has already committed to updating the Mac Pro in some sort of completely different direction than the cylinder; so, let's let them do their work, shall we?
Apple has no been a company that believes they nee
A $5000 laptop? Typo? (Score:2)
[This post was written on a $200 laptop].
Re:A $5000 laptop? Typo? (Score:4, Insightful)
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And 3 years from now, it's still going to be the same machine, with the same $5000 price tag.
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Mac == iOS (Score:2)
Someone called it on these forums a LOOOONG time ago that Apple was trying to convert Macs into iOS devices. Hell, I think Jobs was still alive when that assertion was made and with iOS apps coming to Macs (which will likely become the ONLY way you'll get new Mac software soon since the Mac app store wooed sooo many iOS developers /sarcasm), we're seeing it come to realization and soon to past.
Damn shame that we'll have to look to Google or Microsoft soon for advancement in PCs especially considering that b
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At this point, someone from the future could tell me "everyone in the future uses Steam computers" and I'd believe him, because the alternatives are becoming too scary to contemplate.
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Steam = SteamOS
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iOS being touch based, not really multi-tasking, and without the most important feature: the command line, would really blow.
Pros are leaving in droves. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is destroying one of their best markets. That is, people who use it for pro audio and also graphic workstations to some extent. The hardware compatibility silliness and lack of updates and support if pushing tons and tons of audio people away. I organize raves and electronic music shows. Apple machines used to be considered the premium choice for live performances and DJ software, but it has all changed in the last few years. For the first ever since laptops became a thing on stage, I've seen former die hard Apple users make the switch to Windows over the last couple years.
Apple has made it clear that they just don't care about professional media customers anymore, unless they are the kind that can buy $4000 of new gear every year. But even then, people are catching on that it's just not very cost effective anymore. Not to mention that Windows performance and stability has drastically improved too, making it a viable switch, that didn't used to be the case.
Re:Pros are leaving in droves. (Score:5, Insightful)
To really drive the point home, I think someone should do one of those "Hi, I'm a Mac. Hi, I'm a PC." TV ad again.
This time, the Mac would be represented by a millenial that's more preoccupied by his social media status and how thin he looks because of this great diet he's on and how he's a great person because he has many LGBT friends and they only talk about PC issues, while the PC would be represented by a normal person doing actual work, playing great games, talking with other people about any subject like a normal person.
Posted from my Mac mini. I'm not anti-Apple, I'm anti-stupid and Apple are really testing my patience these days.
"What's a computer?" (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought that was a Microsoft Surface commercial.
...when mac was innovative (Score:3)
That was many years ago.
I got something called a Message Pad 2100, that thing was an awesome wonder (ipad predecessor) invention that packed a whole lot of power for 1993, it packed a punch of 162 MHz, could talk, had a large touchscreen, could bring you to the internet, even wireless with the right PCMCIA card.
I'm no mac fan, especially not today - but back in its heydays with powerpc and a promising new architecture, those things were the beast within the graphics industry, nearly all printing & ad bureaus worth their salt had to have one.
Today - it's all about bling-bling, and looking gorgeous (because frankly, that part they got right). But they're expensive, old-tech consumables that you can basically throw away after a few years of use, because they won't support them anymore. And if you've seen a few experienced repair tech's videos on youtube - there are downright design-flaws that has been repeated thorough the production of the mac's the last 5-7 years.
Mac needs to find its roots again, when innovation and driving our world of tech forward actually meant something.
We need a Threadripper Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine a Mac with the newly announced 32 core Threadripper in an ATX case that can be fully upgraded.
But instead we will get four core 16gb MBPs with inadequate ports again. They didn’t even announce hardware at WWDC because they are so weak at it.
WWDC is a software-focused conference. They never (or almost never) announce HW at WWDC.
Also the $5K imac pro sucks to thin / storge locke (Score:2)
Also the $5K imac pro sucks to thin / storage locked to the MB / over priced upgrades and it's hard to change the ram on your own.
And the T2 chip is chained off the DMI bus and not some of the open CPU pci-e lanes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody asked for the fucking iMac Pro, just like nobody asked for the fucking trashcan Mac Pro.
It would be nice if the industrial designer was pushed aside and Apple let the engineers design computers and then order the industrial designer to make it look nice. It's currently the other way around and unfortunately engineers can't break the laws of physics.
Re: (Score:2)
Also the $5K imac pro sucks to thin / storage locked to the MB / over priced upgrades and it's hard to change the ram on your own.
And the T2 chip is chained off the DMI bus and not some of the open CPU pci-e lanes.
Because they dedicated the PCI lanes to Thunderbolt.
Mobile First... should become "Mobile Centric". (Score:3)
Not just Apple really... but yes especially Apple. Companies seem to be very focused on a mobile first approach. Which is perfectly fine. The reality is that many of us still need mouse and/or keyboard and large screens for productive applications. And we probably don't need faster processing, or more RAM or much more storage so spec. stagnation is real in the desktop and laptop space.
Personally I would like to see better "docking" abilities for smartphones in hardware and software so you can just plop your phone down on a desk with a big monitor and keyboard/mouse and start working on a larger screen where you can get all the apps you need. And it would be good if it was much more seamless across android and iphone.
There is another level of creativity and productivity to be had if we can realize more of that future level of integration that has been the stuff of sci-fi for years.
We seem to be closer than ever, but the impediments are both the security of letting devices communicate more freely and the arbitrary divisions of proprietary software hardware stacks that keep our technology apart and makes it less useful than it could be.
Intel, not Apple (Score:2)
The real issue here is Intel, not Apple. There is no point in updating any of Apple's computer line as long as Intel can't get their upgrade cycle running smoothly. Add in all the security flaws and you have another reason not to update anything.
Intel can announce all the crap they want and trickle out a small number of chips, but Apple won't jump on board until they can get mass quantities of CPUs...
Apple would be better off doing their own CPUs....
E
Re: (Score:2)
They already are and I'm beginning to think this is the reason for the lack of updates on many of their low-end computers.
Re: (Score:2)
The real issue here is Intel, not Apple. There is no point in updating any of Apple's computer line as long as Intel can't get their upgrade cycle running smoothly. Add in all the security flaws and you have another reason not to update anything.
Intel can announce all the crap they want and trickle out a small number of chips, but Apple won't jump on board until they can get mass quantities of CPUs...
Apple would be better off doing their own CPUs....
E
Exactly this!
And that's why Apple is obviously looking into doing JUST THAT!
Please spin off your laptop division (Score:2)
Please spin off your laptop division. Anyone technical with a Mac won't buy crap from your store anyway, and the integration points with your iPhones aren't worth it. (Many of us use Android phones and use your laptops they understand Unix commands and because random system upgrades won't take us offline for half a day at a time.)
Thank you.
Signed,
Most of Your Customers
Next stop... CloudMac (Score:2)
Next Macintosh will be a docking station that connects users' hardware to their virtual Macs in the cloud. Latency might suck for a few, but for 90% of Mac users with simple io devices like mice and other pointers being their only hardware, it would be fine.
What's a computer?
Mac Mini (Score:5, Insightful)
The Quad Core Mac Mini I bought in 2012 is faster than any Mac Mini sold in 2018. Get it together, Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
The Quad Core Mac Mini I bought in 2012 is faster than any Mac Mini sold in 2018. Get it together, Apple.
But the Mac Mini sold now is for computer hacking
Mac Mini: 1337 days ago
Apple needs to be good again. Serve the pros. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mindless masses (Score:2)
After all... Apple consumers are more than happy to to pay a premium to get outdated tech. Why would any company bother to invest in new products when the mindless masses continue to buy the old crap and paying full price?
MacBook Air (Score:2)
The MacBook Air has been last updated a lot more than 374 days ago.
The last "update" was only a small 100MHz upgrade on the CPU of the low-end model but it's still the same old Broadwell CPU, the same used in the 2015 MacBook Air.
The last update to the MacBook Air was about 1150 days ago. And it's still using a TN display in 2018.
For the money Apple are asking for their computers, they can't possibly be proud of the specifications.
They've standardized on laptop parts (Score:4)
Even the new so-called Mac Pro iMac throttles itself before the fans spin up. This is laptop engineering, not desktop engineering and I fear they may have lost that expertise. As someone who depends on a Mac Pro 5,1, sorry but it looks like my next machine will be a Hackintosh. I don't need the latest bell and whistle on the desktop. What I do need are:
Something that I can depend upon for a high availability duty cycle
Using all 110 volts coming out of the wall
Spinning as many large hard drives as I can fit in the box
PCI cards for the SSD raid boot, swap file SSD, full size graphics card and communications card
And I'm no-one special.
Addressing that third point, Our German friends have a wonderful word: Kablesalat (literally cable salad). The current Mac Pro iMac and Coke Can Mac Pro force you to have multiple power bars nearby for brick on string external power supplies for all of your hard drives. Jesus? Who thought that was a practical idea for given how the cable transformers are made it's often impossible make full use of the sockets.
If the answer is put them all in a single raid box you're missing the point. Not everything needs to should be or should be a raid.
If anyone at Apple is listening: you're telling people who want to buy from you, and have options, and are sophisticated enough to be fault tolerant, to f*** off. Well, do as you will but it seems to me you should reserve that attitude for people who don't have options.
PS, can you make another seventeen inch laptop large enough to hold hard drives? Those new video cameras soak up a lot of hard drive space.
Don't abandon us (Score:5, Interesting)
I was pretty disappointed when I downloaded the 10.14 Developer Beta and was told that it wouldn't install on my Mac Pro....a machine with 12 logical cores running at 3.2 Ghz, 32 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD, and a 3 GB ATI Radeon 7950 that's Metal compatible . The release notes say that support for this machine is coming in a later beta release, but who knows when this will happen.
I realize that my machine is about 6 years old, but Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 run just fine on it. They really need to release this Mac Pro tower that's been rumored, because I sure don't want to move to the trash-can or an iMac.
There is an alternative (Score:2, Informative)
People could move to Windows 10. [youtu.be]
state of affairs (Score:2)
it kinda the way apple is, its the "state of affairs" of things. apple is knife focused on iOS devices. and mac is yea we do that to.
32GB ram laptops are not uncommon, even 64GB can be had... and now lenovo is pushing out a 128GB ram laptop apple? 16GB....
there is alot of people that need power, and apple is not paying attention to them. so they are moving to windows in most cases a few to linux
but most are going to windows 10, not becuase the love windows.. but because they can get better hardware.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Get them while they are new and hold on to them (Score:3)
With Macs is always the same. As soon as a significant upgraded specs machine is anounced, you buy it, with max CPU and RAM (since those are soldered). Skimp on the (removable) SSD if you must.
When Updated machines just hit, they are price-competitive with whatever has similar specs in the PC world (apple uses their scale to get good deals from component suppliers, and pass a very, very little part of the savings to us).
then hold on to it for a Very, very long time. Because, after a couple of semesters without upgrades, thos machines stop being price-competitive with their similar specd PC equivalents. If you are "forced" to buy a mac ahead of time, buy 2nd hand.
When the next significant update hits, lather, rinse, repeat.
Since this tends to align with my personal tastes, I have no Problem, but some people can not (or do not want) to operate in that pattern, I feel for them.
My MacBook aluminum Unibody Late 2008 lasted me (with SSD and RAM upgrade) until 2015. Now I am rocking and Early 2015 Air (maxed CPU, Maxed RAM, Downgraded SSD). And by the looks of it, this Air will last 7 years as well...
Yes, I am not a pro. Nowadays I am just a lousy cloud (mostly openstack) trainer and architect.
Apple's not the only offender. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple may be on the egregious side. But they're far from the only offender here. *Everyone* seems to be letting their real computers stagnate in favor of gadgets. And I suspect that it's not even the fault of any of them; but a result of Intel's recent trend of sitting around with their thumbs up their bums.
About three years ago, I bought a top-end iMac with a core i7 CPU that tops out "turbo boost"ing at 4Ghz. Leaving aside "pro" model and Xeons, the top-end iMac now is an i7 @ 4.2Ghz... which you would think would say something bad about Apple. But a quick check for the top-end consumer non-Xeon HP and Dell machines that I could find, turns up machines specced at core i7s topping out at most 4.6hz. That's better; but not by much. Granted, an i7 @ 4Ghz today is not quite the same thing as an i7 @ 4Ghz from three years ago. But the improvements are fairly incremental and underwhelming yawners... especially considering we've had two full 18-month Moore cycles in the meantime. The Intel of old would have improved its product lineup considerably more than they have bothered to do these last 36 months.
Perhaps this is the root of the persistent rumors of Apple switching to its own ARM-based chip designs? After all, that's pretty much how Apple wound up on Intel in the first place... IBM was letting the PPC G5 stagnate and Motorola pretty much checked out entirely.
Re: (Score:3)
Take a look at the benchmarks and performance scores, not to
Excel! [Re:My PC is from 2006] (Score:3)
Ninety percent of the market uses Excel to work on small data sets.
I use Excel to keep track of my grocery bills, and sometimes to add up travel expenses when I take a trip.
I expect a faster processor would add *microseconds* to my free time.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it is obsolesce business model, but the shift to mobile systems. While 2006 is pushing it, 2012 is a better time. But with most software being designed to run systems smaller then the CPU of the systems of these times. There has been a lot of work, shrinking down the bloat in the software so it will work on mobile devices or push a lot of the work to the cloud.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not even Microsoft planned obsolescence. It's the crappy hardware that most Window installations run on.
Re:My PC is from 2006 (Score:4, Interesting)
My laptop runs everything I want to run fine. Why would I want to "upgrade" to something "better" if it's not actually any better at what I want it to do?
I'd much rather they spend their money fixing system bugs.
Re:My PC is from 2006 (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a big Mac fan - I've been using them as my main computer since 1993.
With that said, the stagnation got to be too much. I picked up an HP Envy recently that costs about half of what an i7 does on the Mac side, and it has one of the new 15 watt TDP chips in it so it is cool and has decent (but not spectacular) battery life. Sure, I die a little every time I need to use Windows 10 - but at the end of the day I just couldn't spend too much money on hardware that seems to be somewhat flaky.
Tangentially, why the hell can't Microsoft figure out high-res displays? Are my choices really teeny-tiny or big-n-fuzzy? Sheesh. And if it were just legacy support, fine - but it's the situation with MS's own bundled apps!
Re:My PC is from 2006 (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, I'm a big Apple fan. The thing that's unfortunate right now is: if you are at a point where you should upgrade systems--- laptop life, OS support, etc--- all of the offerings are underwhelming: dated and not price-performant. Apple has always been a premium option but you'd usually get premium, up to date hardware for it until the past few years.
I'm on a Linux laptop these days and I hope they fix it so I can go back to everyday use of MacOS.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Microsoft is rewriting Excel in JavaScript
They are not. What they are doing is adding javascript support, which is bad enough, to office 365. They are not re-writing one of their core products in javascript.
Re: (Score:3)
> Old macs are generally inline with old PC's
Except "Old Macs" are your only option. "Old Macs" are being sold as "New Macs" at the same high price points Apple has long be famous for.
Outside of the Apple reality distortion field I can get an "Old PC" for CHEAP or a MUCH better "New PC".
Consider this another iteration of "ANY monopoly is bad".
Re: (Score:3)
With computers it isn't quite so simple.
Your inputs are changing. Let's use a simple example of someone dealing with videos or photos. Resolutions and color depths have increased to where they overwhelm the memory and storage available in older equipment. The processing of these files also takes longer.
Hard drives fill up, log files get longer, patches accumulate, caches grow larger, temp directories fill up. Software is installed but rarely cleaned back out, so total number of processes climb. Drives fragm
Re: (Score:2)
By PC's you mean Windows? The same Windows that kicked me out of a game last night to install some updates?
Or by PC's do you mean non-Apple laptops? The same laptops that are also beginning to have non-replacable components just like Apple's laptops?
This is not about vendor lock-in, it's about the whole industry catering to the lowest common denominators and our needs as power users being pushed aside.
Re: (Score:2)
Totally forgot about them. Sure, some useful little tools for some people, but really they are small potatoes. That said, this guy is somewhat right in what he says but my 2009 and 2011 iMacs are running fine. My only concern (and a big one too) is that at some point a future OS upgrade will not be compatible with the aging computers. That I why I avoid upgrading the OS.
That point has come with macOS Mojave. Nothing earlier than mid-2012 need apply.
But you can still install High Sierra on those machines (at least the 2011 one for sure), and get almost all of the benefits that those running Mojave will have. I would suggest doing that, before the High Sierra Installer gets pulled from the Mac App Store...
Re:ARM based Macs (Score:5, Insightful)
The longer they don't update, the higher the percentage speed increase they can boast about with the new ARM Macs.
Re: (Score:2)
I went that route for awhile too, but it would break every time a system update was released (admittedly, this was about 10 years ago). Is this still a problem?