The solution is simple: If you feel the product isn't worth the expense, don't buy it.
But what if he never intended to buy one anyway? His message was that they are incredibly overpriced. That view has largely been shared by virtually all the tech media coverage. In fact, I have yet to read an article that doesn't comment on the high pricing. The solution is not 'don't buy' although that may well be the outcome for many.
Macintosh: priced out of the market since 1984.
Eat your heart out.
Actually, you are wrong. Very wrong. Sawtooth Macs, late 2009 27" iMac, mid 2011 MBP and a long etc. All great buys if you take the hardware in them into account. They weren't cheap but in no way priced out of the market. At launch, the panel alone in the iMac was worth 1,400 dollars. The problem was that they didn't didn't increase the stock capacity of the machine for the next six years!
Which part of "People have been saying this for thirty years, and they've always been wrong" wasn't clear from my post?
They haven't been wrong. Let's rewind to the Bondi iMac. The history books will tell you Steve Jobs was a visionary. That just isn't true. He made just as many stupid decisions as the next person. If you see things objectively you get a different picture. People will tell you that the iMac saved Apple. That much is true. Sales went off the scale (in Mac terms). That is also true.
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
I don't get it. People are honestly critical of the 4 TB3 ports!! I would rather rather have the functionality and bandwidth of TB3 than an old USB-A or DVI port. TB3 is more than worth having to purchase an inexpensive adapter.
I was actually impressed by the new machines. OLED still isn't mainstream and I like the touchbar. Discrete graphics in the higher end machine is a plus. The discrete graphics would work well with the iPad Pro using Duet and having such a set up is quite portable and would serve nearly conceivable need I would ever have. Including the ability to run Windows in VMWare.
I am seriously looking at picking up one of these machines.
Why do people keep thinking that those of us who would have liked a USB Type A port don't ALSO want some Type C love, too? How about 3 Type C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and one Type A/USB 3 port? How often is anyone going to need more than 3 C ports? If you are using all 4 ports there is a very good chance that one of them is connected to a Type A device via an adapter.
And it's not about the expense, it's about the convenience. Forget or lose your adapter just once and you're screwed if a friend or client hands you a flash drive or you want to borrow someone else's cable to charge your phone or your watch or wireless headphones. If your MBP sits at your desk 90% of the time it's probably not going to be an issue. But some of us take our laptops out into the real world where USB C is probably a couple years (or more) away still from being common place. Don't expect accessory makers to simply start shipping all of their devices with USB C cables anytime soon because they will need to maintain compatibility with the Type A ports on the vast majority of their customer's computers and chargers.
Exactly. USB A ports are going to be around for a VERY long time. They are like the headphone jack and the VGA port. Just because Apple is standardizing on USB C, doesn't mean the rest of the industry is.
Yes it does. That's EXACTLY what it means.
I'm all for forwarding technology (e.g. when Apple dropped the floppy disk) when it makes sense. But USB C is still too new. Even when Apple moved to USB, back in the Power Mac days, they still included some of the legacy ports on the Power Mac G3. They allowed for an easy transition to the new standard. These days, Apple goes full steam ahead with a new standard, users be damned. It's sad, really. But hey, need to connect a legacy device? There's an adapter for that!
They included basic networking and analog audio. EVERYTHING else was replaced by USB and FireWire at the time. You could, however, get a SCSI expansion card - for the desktop towers only. Sort of an internal dongle.
The Bondi iMac was the absolute worst transition in computing history. I mean the worst ever. In fact it wasn't even a transition in the true sense of the word. They just hacked off the old and brought in the new and required people to 'get on with it'. Floppies were a pain - but people had tons of them and they had tons of them because Apple used them! When they were gone on the iMac people had to buy floppy drives to continue using them. By all means switch to USB but do it in an orderly fashion with your users' needs in mind. remember MIDI. The mac was great for MIDI but not with the Bondi. Users were told to get a G3! Audio USB. Nope the Bondi didn't support it. Printing? I think there was just one USB printer available at the time. Users had printers but couldn't use them. That is not how you do transitions. Ironically, before the switch to the iMac, Apple already had a way to transition effectively: the Personality Card!! so simple. If you wanted to upgrade and had lots of legacy stuff they could have designed a personality card for it and sold it as a BTO at cost pricing. Even on the iMac. It a spare slot that never got used.
This time there isn't much room available due to Apple's obsession with thinness. Apple needs help here. Medical help. Perhaps some group therapy to manage this anorexic tech issue. It's now affecting the core of the machines. If they hadn't gone so thin, battery life would be longer still and 16GB wouldn't be the max RAM.
Which part of "People have been saying this for thirty years, and they've always been wrong" wasn't clear from my post?
They haven't been wrong. Let's rewind to the Bondi iMac. The history books will tell you Steve Jobs was a visionary. That just isn't true. He made just as many stupid decisions as the next person. If you see things objectively you get a different picture. People will tell you that the iMac saved Apple. That much is true. Sales went off the scale (in Mac terms). That is also true.
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
I was there. I lived outside the US, and I had a Rev. B Bondi iMac.
Including FireWire would have made ZERO sense, as the ONLY consumer application to use FireWire was DV, which the 233 MHz G3 was not capable of handling properly.
The reason the iMac saved Apple was BECAUSE margins were high. Apple didn't have the capacity to build dozens of millions of them, and without the high margins, they'd never have been able to finance it. The iMac was a hard gamble and a high risk, as it was.
Incidentally, what was probably more damaging to sales (but possibly necessary for initial manufacturing contracts) was Apple's insistence that dealers buy equal numbers of each color when the Rev. C was introduced. I know that caused some fallout, leading to some dealers refusing to stock iMacs, lest they sit on unsold stock of the less popular colours.
I don't get it. People are honestly critical of the 4 TB3 ports!! I would rather rather have the functionality and bandwidth of TB3 than an old USB-A or DVI port. TB3 is more than worth having to purchase an inexpensive adapter.
I was actually impressed by the new machines. OLED still isn't mainstream and I like the touchbar. Discrete graphics in the higher end machine is a plus. The discrete graphics would work well with the iPad Pro using Duet and having such a set up is quite portable and would serve nearly conceivable need I would ever have. Including the ability to run Windows in VMWare.
I am seriously looking at picking up one of these machines.
Why do people keep thinking that those of us who would have liked a USB Type A port don't ALSO want some Type C love, too? How about 3 Type C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and one Type A/USB 3 port? How often is anyone going to need more than 3 C ports? If you are using all 4 ports there is a very good chance that one of them is connected to a Type A device via an adapter.
And it's not about the expense, it's about the convenience. Forget or lose your adapter just once and you're screwed if a friend or client hands you a flash drive or you want to borrow someone else's cable to charge your phone or your watch or wireless headphones. If your MBP sits at your desk 90% of the time it's probably not going to be an issue. But some of us take our laptops out into the real world where USB C is probably a couple years (or more) away still from being common place. Don't expect accessory makers to simply start shipping all of their devices with USB C cables anytime soon because they will need to maintain compatibility with the Type A ports on the vast majority of their customer's computers and chargers.
Exactly. USB A ports are going to be around for a VERY long time. They are like the headphone jack and the VGA port. Just because Apple is standardizing on USB C, doesn't mean the rest of the industry is.
Yes it does. That's EXACTLY what it means.
I'm all for forwarding technology (e.g. when Apple dropped the floppy disk) when it makes sense. But USB C is still too new. Even when Apple moved to USB, back in the Power Mac days, they still included some of the legacy ports on the Power Mac G3. They allowed for an easy transition to the new standard. These days, Apple goes full steam ahead with a new standard, users be damned. It's sad, really. But hey, need to connect a legacy device? There's an adapter for that!
They included basic networking and analog audio. EVERYTHING else was replaced by USB and FireWire at the time. You could, however, get a SCSI expansion card - for the desktop towers only. Sort of an internal dongle.
The Bondi iMac was the absolute worst transition in computing history. I mean the worst ever. In fact it wasn't even a transition in the true sense of the word. They just hacked off the old and brought in the new and required people to 'get on with it'. Floppies were a pain - but people had tons of them and they had tons of them because Apple used them! When they were gone on the iMac people had to buy floppy drives to continue using them. By all means switch to USB but do it in an orderly fashion with your users' needs in mind. remember MIDI. The mac was great for MIDI but not with the Bondi. Users were told to get a G3! Audio USB. Nope the Bondi didn't support it. Printing? I think there was just one USB printer available at the time. Users had printers but couldn't use them. That is not how you do transitions. Ironically, before the switch to the iMac, Apple already had a way to transition effectively: the Personality Card!! so simple. If you wanted to upgrade and had lots of legacy stuff they could have designed a personality card for it and sold it as a BTO at cost pricing. Even on the iMac. It a spare slot that never got used.
This time there isn't much room available due to Apple's obsession with thinness. Apple needs help here. Medical help. Perhaps some group therapy to manage this anorexic tech issue. It's now affecting the core of the machines. If they hadn't gone so thin, battery life would be longer still and 16GB wouldn't be the max RAM.
What are you talking about? MIDI what? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? MIDI requires an external interface, and has since 1984. Absolutely nothing about the iMac was less suitable for MIDI studio work than the previous beige G3s. I don't recall offhand whether serial-USB converters might have introduced some clock issues (I was playing everything by hand in this phase of my career), but USB MIDI interfaces were soon and plentiful. Audio USB as generic standard didn't EXIST at the time. The iMac was literally the first computer to standardize on USB at all. If you were serious about digital recording, you were using a smurfMac tower with an audio card.
Printers mostly worked fine with those serial adapters.
Which part of "People have been saying this for thirty years, and they've always been wrong" wasn't clear from my post?
They haven't been wrong. Let's rewind to the Bondi iMac. The history books will tell you Steve Jobs was a visionary. That just isn't true. He made just as many stupid decisions as the next person. If you see things objectively you get a different picture. People will tell you that the iMac saved Apple. That much is true. Sales went off the scale (in Mac terms). That is also true.
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
I was there. I lived outside the US, and I had a Rev. B Bondi iMac.
Including FireWire would have made ZERO sense, as the ONLY consumer application to use FireWire was DV, which the 233 MHz G3 was not capable of handling properly.
The reason the iMac saved Apple was BECAUSE margins were high. Apple didn't have the capacity to build dozens of millions of them, and without the high margins, they'd never have been able to finance it. The iMac was a hard gamble and a high risk, as it was.
Incidentally, what was probably more damaging to sales (but possibly necessary for initial manufacturing contracts) was Apple's insistence that dealers buy equal numbers of each color when the Rev. C was introduced. I know that caused some fallout, leading to some dealers refusing to stock iMacs, lest they it on unsold stock of the less popular colours.
You are wrong again. Storage. Storage. Storage. Apple wanted to sell firewire. it was in a world of its own and amazing technology. There were firewire hard drives on the market but very expensive for two reasons: Apple's stupid desire to get a licensing fee of each port and the lack of hardware on the market for drive manufactuers to sell to. Including firewire on the Bondi would have set firewire free. Far from having ZERO effect it would have flooded the firewire market with ports and brought prices down for everyone. Win, win for all involved. With USB 1 useless for mass storage and limited due to technical restraints, Apple would have ruled the roost and it would have been much harder for USB to move out of its original niche.
I don't get it. People are honestly critical of the 4 TB3 ports!! I would rather rather have the functionality and bandwidth of TB3 than an old USB-A or DVI port. TB3 is more than worth having to purchase an inexpensive adapter.
I was actually impressed by the new machines. OLED still isn't mainstream and I like the touchbar. Discrete graphics in the higher end machine is a plus. The discrete graphics would work well with the iPad Pro using Duet and having such a set up is quite portable and would serve nearly conceivable need I would ever have. Including the ability to run Windows in VMWare.
I am seriously looking at picking up one of these machines.
Why do people keep thinking that those of us who would have liked a USB Type A port don't ALSO want some Type C love, too? How about 3 Type C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and one Type A/USB 3 port? How often is anyone going to need more than 3 C ports? If you are using all 4 ports there is a very good chance that one of them is connected to a Type A device via an adapter.
And it's not about the expense, it's about the convenience. Forget or lose your adapter just once and you're screwed if a friend or client hands you a flash drive or you want to borrow someone else's cable to charge your phone or your watch or wireless headphones. If your MBP sits at your desk 90% of the time it's probably not going to be an issue. But some of us take our laptops out into the real world where USB C is probably a couple years (or more) away still from being common place. Don't expect accessory makers to simply start shipping all of their devices with USB C cables anytime soon because they will need to maintain compatibility with the Type A ports on the vast majority of their customer's computers and chargers.
Exactly. USB A ports are going to be around for a VERY long time. They are like the headphone jack and the VGA port. Just because Apple is standardizing on USB C, doesn't mean the rest of the industry is.
Yes it does. That's EXACTLY what it means.
I'm all for forwarding technology (e.g. when Apple dropped the floppy disk) when it makes sense. But USB C is still too new. Even when Apple moved to USB, back in the Power Mac days, they still included some of the legacy ports on the Power Mac G3. They allowed for an easy transition to the new standard. These days, Apple goes full steam ahead with a new standard, users be damned. It's sad, really. But hey, need to connect a legacy device? There's an adapter for that!
They included basic networking and analog audio. EVERYTHING else was replaced by USB and FireWire at the time. You could, however, get a SCSI expansion card - for the desktop towers only. Sort of an internal dongle.
The Bondi iMac was the absolute worst transition in computing history. I mean the worst ever. In fact it wasn't even a transition in the true sense of the word. They just hacked off the old and brought in the new and required people to 'get on with it'. Floppies were a pain - but people had tons of them and they had tons of them because Apple used them! When they were gone on the iMac people had to buy floppy drives to continue using them. By all means switch to USB but do it in an orderly fashion with your users' needs in mind. remember MIDI. The mac was great for MIDI but not with the Bondi. Users were told to get a G3! Audio USB. Nope the Bondi didn't support it. Printing? I think there was just one USB printer available at the time. Users had printers but couldn't use them. That is not how you do transitions. Ironically, before the switch to the iMac, Apple already had a way to transition effectively: the Personality Card!! so simple. If you wanted to upgrade and had lots of legacy stuff they could have designed a personality card for it and sold it as a BTO at cost pricing. Even on the iMac. It a spare slot that never got used.
This time there isn't much room available due to Apple's obsession with thinness. Apple needs help here. Medical help. Perhaps some group therapy to manage this anorexic tech issue. It's now affecting the core of the machines. If they hadn't gone so thin, battery life would be longer still and 16GB wouldn't be the max RAM.
What are you talking about? MIDI what? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? MIDI requires an external interface, and has since 1984. Absolutely nothing about the iMac was less suitable for MIDI studio work than the previous beige G3s. I don't recall offhand whether serial-USB converters might have introduced some clock issues (I was playing everything by hand in this phase of my career), but USB MIDI interfaces were soon and plentiful. Audio USB as generic standard didn't EXIST at the time. The iMac was literally the first computer to standardize on USB at all. If you were serious about digital recording, you were using a smurfMac tower with an audio card.
Printers mostly worked fine with those serial adapters.
The post was on the transition to USB. People upgrading who had MIDI devices (serial) were told to get a G3 (expensive) to continue using them as there were no USB midi interfaces on the market. When they became available, it meant extra cost. to use MIDI on the original iMac required purchasing a Griffin Serial Stealth port if I remember correctly. As I said. It was the worst 'transition' in computer history but Apple could have remedied ALL of the problems for existing users by including personality cards.
Which part of "People have been saying this for thirty years, and they've always been wrong" wasn't clear from my post?
They haven't been wrong. Let's rewind to the Bondi iMac. The history books will tell you Steve Jobs was a visionary. That just isn't true. He made just as many stupid decisions as the next person. If you see things objectively you get a different picture. People will tell you that the iMac saved Apple. That much is true. Sales went off the scale (in Mac terms). That is also true.
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
I was there. I lived outside the US, and I had a Rev. B Bondi iMac.
Including FireWire would have made ZERO sense, as the ONLY consumer application to use FireWire was DV, which the 233 MHz G3 was not capable of handling properly.
The reason the iMac saved Apple was BECAUSE margins were high. Apple didn't have the capacity to build dozens of millions of them, and without the high margins, they'd never have been able to finance it. The iMac was a hard gamble and a high risk, as it was.
Incidentally, what was probably more damaging to sales (but possibly necessary for initial manufacturing contracts) was Apple's insistence that dealers buy equal numbers of each color when the Rev. C was introduced. I know that caused some fallout, leading to some dealers refusing to stock iMacs, lest they it on unsold stock of the less popular colours.
You are wrong again. Storage. Storage. Storage. Apple wanted to sell firewire. it was in a world of its own and amazing technology. There were firewire hard drives on the market but very expensive for two reasons: Apple's stupid desire to get a licensing fee of each port and the lack of hardware on the market for drive manufactuers to sell to. Including firewire on the Bondi would have set firewire free. Far from having ZERO effect it would have flooded the firewire market with ports and brought prices down for everyone. Win, win for all involved. With USB 1 useless for mass storage and limited due to technical restraints, Apple would have ruled the roost and it would have been much harder for USB to move out of its original niche.
My 1998 was a very different 1998 from your 1998. A normal consumer in 1998 had no idea what to fill a 6GB drive with, let alone an external one. "External mass storage" was only just beginning to mean "CD burner" - which worked fine via USB 1.1 (I had one).
Floppies turned out to be a lot less relevant than everybody thought, as email was becoming prevalent and anything that could fit on a floppy could be mailed.
If Apple had been hell-bent on selling FireWire as a consumer I/O, why on earth would they have omitted it from the 350 MHz Rev. D, but added it to the 400 MHz DV model? It was aimed at the premium and pro market from the start. Adding it to the original iMac would have been completely counter to the message Apple was sending with that machine.
Incidentally, that 233 MHz G3 was *really* fast for a consumer computer at the time.
And NOBODY was using iMacs for recording at least until the Rev. D was released. It never even entered consideration. Digital audio was already standard, and for that, you needed expansion slots or FireWire, full stop. Everybody was on towers, before the transition and for a long time after the transition.
Um, do what they did with every other MBP port migration in the past. When they moved to FW800, there was a model of MBP that had both FW800 and FW400. When they moved to Thunderbolt they had a model that had both Thunderbolt and FW800. In both of those cases, the outgoing port would easily have been considered a niche market, and yet Apple included it so that users could have time to transition their devices/peripherals to the new standard while still being able to conveniently use their old devices.
USB Type A is easily the most prolific port standard in computer history, not niche like FW was. Literally every device most of us own and use daily is going to require an adapter. You'll either need to buy many adapters, one for each device, or be constantly swapping them. And always carry one with you in case someone hands you a thumb drive with files you need. You'll need a different cable or adapter depending if you are charging your phone/watch/table/etc from your laptop vs wall charger.
While I see your point, this is crucially different, precisely because it isn't niche: the entire industry IS standardizing on USB-C connectors, which means that this is a very short-lived, temporary issue - much like the initial USB transition spearheaded by Apple.
They included both FW 800 and FW400 for a while probably because they didn't want to alienate an already small user base. They aren't risking that here, despite all the (somewhat amusing, somewhat pathetic) whining on some of the tech forums. They are merely spearheading and forcing a move that is already happening, for everybody.
If they included legacy USB, they would dilute the message, clutter the design, and slow down a transition that needs to happen as quickly as possible, for the benefit of everybody.
And Thunderbolt wasn't a directly replacement for FW800. It was utilizing the mDP port that Apple invented and adopted by VESA and that pot interface was then adopted by Intel for TB. You could use the TB for FW (and Ethernet USB and DVI and many other communication standards it's protocol agnostic) but it's primary reason for being included was that it was available and it didn't affect the display-out port on the Mac.
This USB-C hate I'm seeing blows my mind. FINALLY after decades of countless, shitty port interfaces we finally have a reversible, versatile, high-bandwidth, protocol agnostic, future-proof port. If this had happened last year I would've bought a new MBP then.
And let's remember that Apple has to once again pull the rest of the world into the present. Not the future, but the present—that's how poor we are at accepting change and why nearly all other vendors keep pushing the status quo until a company like Apple comes along and forces their hand. And let's also keep in mind that Apple will no longer be getting the same revenue and profit from their PSU's with the attached power cable now that we can buy any PSU with sufficient Wattage and USB-C cable or our choice, either from a 3rd-party vendor or even as a stand-alone product from a Win OEM that has a really nice option (like one with a built-in dock. I certainly plan to have to multiple PSUs and USB-C cables for charging now that it's not $80 each and will be useful for multiple generations of MBP.
It's not USB-C hate. It's the fact they did away with existing ports for all the wrong reasons. USB-C may well be the future but people have a ton of older, existing equipment (and will continue buying it in the future while prices are lower) that can't be plugged into these new models without yet another adaptor. People are simply fed up with Apple dongles. The price of them (it adds up quickly). The quality of them (they usually aren't great quality for the price). They are a pain and are often NOT seamless substitutes for the original ports. There are often some restrictions to be discovered. Dongles are hassle. Unnecessary hassle. People would prefer a slower transition. one that would allow them to work without having to cart around a bag full of adaptors. Machines are thin enough. People don't need 'thinner' if the result is that there is no room for the feature they still need: ports, for example. And if you push me on this, I'd say most people would prefer two USB-C ports plus the standard range of 'legacy' ports and use a USB-C hub if necessary to increase options.
Um, do what they did with every other MBP port migration in the past. When they moved to FW800, there was a model of MBP that had both FW800 and FW400. When they moved to Thunderbolt they had a model that had both Thunderbolt and FW800. In both of those cases, the outgoing port would easily have been considered a niche market, and yet Apple included it so that users could have time to transition their devices/peripherals to the new standard while still being able to conveniently use their old devices.
USB Type A is easily the most prolific port standard in computer history, not niche like FW was. Literally every device most of us own and use daily is going to require an adapter. You'll either need to buy many adapters, one for each device, or be constantly swapping them. And always carry one with you in case someone hands you a thumb drive with files you need. You'll need a different cable or adapter depending if you are charging your phone/watch/table/etc from your laptop vs wall charger.
While I see your point, this is crucially different, precisely because it isn't niche: the entire industry IS standardizing on USB-C connectors, which means that this is a very short-lived, temporary issue - much like the initial USB transition spearheaded by Apple.
They included both FW 800 and FW400 for a while probably because they didn't want to alienate an already small user base. They aren't risking that here, despite all the (somewhat amusing, somewhat pathetic) whining on some of the tech forums. They are merely spearheading and forcing a move that is already happening, for everybody.
If they included legacy USB, they would dilute the message, clutter the design, and slow down a transition that needs to happen as quickly as possible, for the benefit of everybody.
And Thunderbolt wasn't a directly replacement for FW800. It was utilizing the mDP port that Apple invented and adopted by VESA and that pot interface was then adopted by Intel for TB. You could use the TB for FW (and Ethernet USB and DVI and many other communication standards it's protocol agnostic) but it's primary reason for being included was that it was available and it didn't affect the display-out port on the Mac.
This USB-C hate I'm seeing blows my mind. FINALLY after decades of countless, shitty port interfaces we finally have a reversible, versatile, high-bandwidth, protocol agnostic, future-proof port. If this had happened last year I would've bought a new MBP then.
And let's remember that Apple has to once again pull the rest of the world into the present. Not the future, but the present—that's how poor we are at accepting change and why nearly all other vendors keep pushing the status quo until a company like Apple comes along and forces their hand. And let's also keep in mind that Apple will no longer be getting the same revenue and profit from their PSU's with the attached power cable now that we can buy any PSU with sufficient Wattage and USB-C cable or our choice, either from a 3rd-party vendor or even as a stand-alone product from a Win OEM that has a really nice option (like one with a built-in dock. I certainly plan to have to multiple PSUs and USB-C cables for charging now that it's not $80 each and will be useful for multiple generations of MBP.
It's not USB-C hate. It's the fact they did away with existing ports for all the wrong reasons. USB-C may well be the future but people have a ton of older, existing equipment (and will continue buying it in the future while prices are lower) that can't be plugged into these new models without yet another adaptor. People are simply fed up with Apple dongles. The price of them (it adds up quickly). The quality of them (they usually aren't great quality for the price). They are a pain and are often NOT seamless substitutes for the original ports. There are often some restrictions to be discovered. Dongles are hassle. Unnecessary hassle. People would prefer a slower transition. one that would allow them to work without having to cart around a bag full of adaptors. Machines are thin enough. People don't need 'thinner' if the result is that there is no room for the feature they still need: ports, for example. And if you push me on this, I'd say most people would prefer two USB-C ports plus the standard range of 'legacy' ports and use a USB-C hub if necessary to increase options.
1) Nope. All the right reasons.
2) If they don't adopt USB-C until people no longer "have a ton of older, existing equipment" then there would never he a move to USB-C, or to USB-A for that matter.
3) If you're "fed up with dongles" then you would be happy to see USB-C adopted.
4) No, the price doesn't add up up quickly. USB-C adapters or full cables are inexpensive.
Um, do what they did with every other MBP port migration in the past. When they moved to FW800, there was a model of MBP that had both FW800 and FW400. When they moved to Thunderbolt they had a model that had both Thunderbolt and FW800. In both of those cases, the outgoing port would easily have been considered a niche market, and yet Apple included it so that users could have time to transition their devices/peripherals to the new standard while still being able to conveniently use their old devices.
USB Type A is easily the most prolific port standard in computer history, not niche like FW was. Literally every device most of us own and use daily is going to require an adapter. You'll either need to buy many adapters, one for each device, or be constantly swapping them. And always carry one with you in case someone hands you a thumb drive with files you need. You'll need a different cable or adapter depending if you are charging your phone/watch/table/etc from your laptop vs wall charger.
While I see your point, this is crucially different, precisely because it isn't niche: the entire industry IS standardizing on USB-C connectors, which means that this is a very short-lived, temporary issue - much like the initial USB transition spearheaded by Apple.
They included both FW 800 and FW400 for a while probably because they didn't want to alienate an already small user base. They aren't risking that here, despite all the (somewhat amusing, somewhat pathetic) whining on some of the tech forums. They are merely spearheading and forcing a move that is already happening, for everybody.
If they included legacy USB, they would dilute the message, clutter the design, and slow down a transition that needs to happen as quickly as possible, for the benefit of everybody.
And Thunderbolt wasn't a directly replacement for FW800. It was utilizing the mDP port that Apple invented and adopted by VESA and that pot interface was then adopted by Intel for TB. You could use the TB for FW (and Ethernet USB and DVI and many other communication standards it's protocol agnostic) but it's primary reason for being included was that it was available and it didn't affect the display-out port on the Mac.
This USB-C hate I'm seeing blows my mind. FINALLY after decades of countless, shitty port interfaces we finally have a reversible, versatile, high-bandwidth, protocol agnostic, future-proof port. If this had happened last year I would've bought a new MBP then.
And let's remember that Apple has to once again pull the rest of the world into the present. Not the future, but the present—that's how poor we are at accepting change and why nearly all other vendors keep pushing the status quo until a company like Apple comes along and forces their hand. And let's also keep in mind that Apple will no longer be getting the same revenue and profit from their PSU's with the attached power cable now that we can buy any PSU with sufficient Wattage and USB-C cable or our choice, either from a 3rd-party vendor or even as a stand-alone product from a Win OEM that has a really nice option (like one with a built-in dock. I certainly plan to have to multiple PSUs and USB-C cables for charging now that it's not $80 each and will be useful for multiple generations of MBP.
It's not USB-C hate. It's the fact they did away with existing ports for all the wrong reasons. USB-C may well be the future but people have a ton of older, existing equipment (and will continue buying it in the future while prices are lower) that can't be plugged into these new models without yet another adaptor. People are simply fed up with Apple dongles. The price of them (it adds up quickly). The quality of them (they usually aren't great quality for the price). They are a pain and are often NOT seamless substitutes for the original ports. There are often some restrictions to be discovered. Dongles are hassle. Unnecessary hassle. People would prefer a slower transition. one that would allow them to work without having to cart around a bag full of adaptors. Machines are thin enough. People don't need 'thinner' if the result is that there is no room for the feature they still need: ports, for example. And if you push me on this, I'd say most people would prefer two USB-C ports plus the standard range of 'legacy' ports and use a USB-C hub if necessary to increase options.
1) Nope. All the right reasons.
2) If they don't adopt USB-C until people no longer "have a ton of older, existing equipment" then there would never he a move to USB-C, or to USB-A for that matter.
3) If you're "fed up with dongles" then you would be happy to see USB-C adopted.
4) No, the price doesn't add up up quickly. USB-C adapters or full cables are inexpensive.
5) Your complains are shortsighted, to be kind.
Please re-read my post. You didn't catch key parts. No one hates USB-C. No one is proposing not moving to it. People will move to it but don't need to be 'pushed' onto it. Why can't you get that? Can't you see that this can be achieved without dongles? without the extra cost? without the inconveniences? My points are reasonable.
Just how much do you consider inexpensive for adaptors? Please give a figure.
Um, do what they did with every other MBP port migration in the past. When they moved to FW800, there was a model of MBP that had both FW800 and FW400. When they moved to Thunderbolt they had a model that had both Thunderbolt and FW800. In both of those cases, the outgoing port would easily have been considered a niche market, and yet Apple included it so that users could have time to transition their devices/peripherals to the new standard while still being able to conveniently use their old devices.
USB Type A is easily the most prolific port standard in computer history, not niche like FW was. Literally every device most of us own and use daily is going to require an adapter. You'll either need to buy many adapters, one for each device, or be constantly swapping them. And always carry one with you in case someone hands you a thumb drive with files you need. You'll need a different cable or adapter depending if you are charging your phone/watch/table/etc from your laptop vs wall charger.
While I see your point, this is crucially different, precisely because it isn't niche: the entire industry IS standardizing on USB-C connectors, which means that this is a very short-lived, temporary issue - much like the initial USB transition spearheaded by Apple.
They included both FW 800 and FW400 for a while probably because they didn't want to alienate an already small user base. They aren't risking that here, despite all the (somewhat amusing, somewhat pathetic) whining on some of the tech forums. They are merely spearheading and forcing a move that is already happening, for everybody.
If they included legacy USB, they would dilute the message, clutter the design, and slow down a transition that needs to happen as quickly as possible, for the benefit of everybody.
And Thunderbolt wasn't a directly replacement for FW800. It was utilizing the mDP port that Apple invented and adopted by VESA and that pot interface was then adopted by Intel for TB. You could use the TB for FW (and Ethernet USB and DVI and many other communication standards it's protocol agnostic) but it's primary reason for being included was that it was available and it didn't affect the display-out port on the Mac.
This USB-C hate I'm seeing blows my mind. FINALLY after decades of countless, shitty port interfaces we finally have a reversible, versatile, high-bandwidth, protocol agnostic, future-proof port. If this had happened last year I would've bought a new MBP then.
And let's remember that Apple has to once again pull the rest of the world into the present. Not the future, but the present—that's how poor we are at accepting change and why nearly all other vendors keep pushing the status quo until a company like Apple comes along and forces their hand. And let's also keep in mind that Apple will no longer be getting the same revenue and profit from their PSU's with the attached power cable now that we can buy any PSU with sufficient Wattage and USB-C cable or our choice, either from a 3rd-party vendor or even as a stand-alone product from a Win OEM that has a really nice option (like one with a built-in dock. I certainly plan to have to multiple PSUs and USB-C cables for charging now that it's not $80 each and will be useful for multiple generations of MBP.
It's not USB-C hate. It's the fact they did away with existing ports for all the wrong reasons. USB-C may well be the future but people have a ton of older, existing equipment (and will continue buying it in the future while prices are lower) that can't be plugged into these new models without yet another adaptor. People are simply fed up with Apple dongles. The price of them (it adds up quickly). The quality of them (they usually aren't great quality for the price). They are a pain and are often NOT seamless substitutes for the original ports. There are often some restrictions to be discovered. Dongles are hassle. Unnecessary hassle. People would prefer a slower transition. one that would allow them to work without having to cart around a bag full of adaptors. Machines are thin enough. People don't need 'thinner' if the result is that there is no room for the feature they still need: ports, for example. And if you push me on this, I'd say most people would prefer two USB-C ports plus the standard range of 'legacy' ports and use a USB-C hub if necessary to increase options.
1) Nope. All the right reasons.
2) If they don't adopt USB-C until people no longer "have a ton of older, existing equipment" then there would never he a move to USB-C, or to USB-A for that matter.
3) If you're "fed up with dongles" then you would be happy to see USB-C adopted.
4) No, the price doesn't add up up quickly. USB-C adapters or full cables are inexpensive.
5) Your complains are shortsighted, to be kind.
Please re-read my post. You didn't catch key parts. No one hates USB-C. No one is proposing not moving to it. People will move to it but don't need to be 'pushed' onto it. Why can't you get that? Can't you see that this can be achieved without dongles? without the extra cost? without the inconveniences? My points are reasonable.
Just how much do you consider inexpensive for adaptors? Please give a figure.
1) How are you pushed to it? Did Apple cause your current Mac to brick itself and send out death squads to make sure you don't buy a WinPC? Why can't you can't that you're not being forced to do anything?
2) What dongle is required to charge a new MBP with The included USB-C cable? Wait, you have a VGA monitor you want to connect—OK, you do need a dongle for that, but it's silly to bitch about such use cases.
3) I think around $5 0 for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C cable is inexpensive. I also bought 2x 12V cig lighter connectors with both a USB-A and USB-C ports for under $10 each, as well, so I can see how well my new MBP will charge whilst on the road. I don't think pay $40 for an excessive number of USB-C accessories for a port interface that will be around for a decade+ deserves the outrage you're giving it after I just spent thousands on a new Mac.
Which part of "People have been saying this for thirty years, and they've always been wrong" wasn't clear from my post?
They haven't been wrong. Let's rewind to the Bondi iMac. The history books will tell you Steve Jobs was a visionary. That just isn't true. He made just as many stupid decisions as the next person. If you see things objectively you get a different picture. People will tell you that the iMac saved Apple. That much is true. Sales went off the scale (in Mac terms). That is also true.
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
I was there. I lived outside the US, and I had a Rev. B Bondi iMac.
Including FireWire would have made ZERO sense, as the ONLY consumer application to use FireWire was DV, which the 233 MHz G3 was not capable of handling properly.
The reason the iMac saved Apple was BECAUSE margins were high. Apple didn't have the capacity to build dozens of millions of them, and without the high margins, they'd never have been able to finance it. The iMac was a hard gamble and a high risk, as it was.
Incidentally, what was probably more damaging to sales (but possibly necessary for initial manufacturing contracts) was Apple's insistence that dealers buy equal numbers of each color when the Rev. C was introduced. I know that caused some fallout, leading to some dealers refusing to stock iMacs, lest they it on unsold stock of the less popular colours.
You are wrong again. Storage. Storage. Storage. Apple wanted to sell firewire. it was in a world of its own and amazing technology. There were firewire hard drives on the market but very expensive for two reasons: Apple's stupid desire to get a licensing fee of each port and the lack of hardware on the market for drive manufactuers to sell to. Including firewire on the Bondi would have set firewire free. Far from having ZERO effect it would have flooded the firewire market with ports and brought prices down for everyone. Win, win for all involved. With USB 1 useless for mass storage and limited due to technical restraints, Apple would have ruled the roost and it would have been much harder for USB to move out of its original niche.
My 1998 was a very different 1998 from your 1998. A normal consumer in 1998 had no idea what to fill a 6GB drive with, let alone an external one. "External mass storage" was only just beginning to mean "CD burner" - which worked fine via USB 1.1 (I had one).
Floppies turned out to be a lot less relevant than everybody thought, as email was becoming prevalent and anything that could fit on a floppy could be mailed.
If Apple had been hell-bent on selling FireWire as a consumer I/O, why on earth would they have omitted it from the 350 MHz Rev. D, but added it to the 400 MHz DV model? It was aimed at the premium and pro market from the start. Adding it to the original iMac would have been completely counter to the message Apple was sending with that machine.
Incidentally, that 233 MHz G3 was *really* fast for a consumer computer at the time.
And NOBODY was using iMacs for recording at least until the Rev. D was released. It never even entered consideration. Digital audio was already standard, and for that, you needed expansion slots or FireWire, full stop. Everybody was on towers, before the transition and for a long time after the transition.
We both lived in the same 1998. If the 1994 LC/Performa 630 came with SCSI, there clearly was a case for external 'high' speed external devices in the consumer space. Yes, storage. More so four years later. Firewire was developed in part to resolve the issues that SCSI had. The iMac lacked any high speed interface. It had ethernet which also gave it potential as a networked business mac. The omission of firewire on the early iMacs was one of Jobs' biggest technology errors (along with the licencing stance). An error of huge importance in the bigger scheme of things further down the line. As soon as firewire became available Apple should have pushed it out to its entire line. A new connection technology is entirely dependent on the devices brought to market that make use of the port. Those devices, in turn, are dependent on the installed base of ports. Storage could have been a key selling point but there were others (remember scanning on USB scanners?). Apple could have flooded the market with firewire ports and gave companies like VST a much larger market to sell to. That in turn would have helped bring the prices of firewire equipment down. And let's not forget the other advantages of firewire. Target disk mode, networking etc. Then throw in the non-computing possibilities: I actually saw a Lissa in a local store. It also very nearly became an option for early DLNA-type proposals (HANNA).
The argument that firewire was only relevant on iMac DVs is not correct. It was about much more than that. Had Apple got their tactics right at the start, USB might not have gone past 1.1.
I had many a use for external drives in 1998. It has little to do with how much space I needed and more to do with backup (duplicated content, portability etc). The iMac didn't allow for extra internal drives. That's one of the reasons I never bought an early iMac.
Um, do what they did with every other MBP port migration in the past. When they moved to FW800, there was a model of MBP that had both FW800 and FW400. When they moved to Thunderbolt they had a model that had both Thunderbolt and FW800. In both of those cases, the outgoing port would easily have been considered a niche market, and yet Apple included it so that users could have time to transition their devices/peripherals to the new standard while still being able to conveniently use their old devices.
USB Type A is easily the most prolific port standard in computer history, not niche like FW was. Literally every device most of us own and use daily is going to require an adapter. You'll either need to buy many adapters, one for each device, or be constantly swapping them. And always carry one with you in case someone hands you a thumb drive with files you need. You'll need a different cable or adapter depending if you are charging your phone/watch/table/etc from your laptop vs wall charger.
While I see your point, this is crucially different, precisely because it isn't niche: the entire industry IS standardizing on USB-C connectors, which means that this is a very short-lived, temporary issue - much like the initial USB transition spearheaded by Apple.
They included both FW 800 and FW400 for a while probably because they didn't want to alienate an already small user base. They aren't risking that here, despite all the (somewhat amusing, somewhat pathetic) whining on some of the tech forums. They are merely spearheading and forcing a move that is already happening, for everybody.
If they included legacy USB, they would dilute the message, clutter the design, and slow down a transition that needs to happen as quickly as possible, for the benefit of everybody.
And Thunderbolt wasn't a directly replacement for FW800. It was utilizing the mDP port that Apple invented and adopted by VESA and that pot interface was then adopted by Intel for TB. You could use the TB for FW (and Ethernet USB and DVI and many other communication standards it's protocol agnostic) but it's primary reason for being included was that it was available and it didn't affect the display-out port on the Mac.
This USB-C hate I'm seeing blows my mind. FINALLY after decades of countless, shitty port interfaces we finally have a reversible, versatile, high-bandwidth, protocol agnostic, future-proof port. If this had happened last year I would've bought a new MBP then.
And let's remember that Apple has to once again pull the rest of the world into the present. Not the future, but the present—that's how poor we are at accepting change and why nearly all other vendors keep pushing the status quo until a company like Apple comes along and forces their hand. And let's also keep in mind that Apple will no longer be getting the same revenue and profit from their PSU's with the attached power cable now that we can buy any PSU with sufficient Wattage and USB-C cable or our choice, either from a 3rd-party vendor or even as a stand-alone product from a Win OEM that has a really nice option (like one with a built-in dock. I certainly plan to have to multiple PSUs and USB-C cables for charging now that it's not $80 each and will be useful for multiple generations of MBP.
It's not USB-C hate. It's the fact they did away with existing ports for all the wrong reasons. USB-C may well be the future but people have a ton of older, existing equipment (and will continue buying it in the future while prices are lower) that can't be plugged into these new models without yet another adaptor. People are simply fed up with Apple dongles. The price of them (it adds up quickly). The quality of them (they usually aren't great quality for the price). They are a pain and are often NOT seamless substitutes for the original ports. There are often some restrictions to be discovered. Dongles are hassle. Unnecessary hassle. People would prefer a slower transition. one that would allow them to work without having to cart around a bag full of adaptors. Machines are thin enough. People don't need 'thinner' if the result is that there is no room for the feature they still need: ports, for example. And if you push me on this, I'd say most people would prefer two USB-C ports plus the standard range of 'legacy' ports and use a USB-C hub if necessary to increase options.
1) Nope. All the right reasons.
2) If they don't adopt USB-C until people no longer "have a ton of older, existing equipment" then there would never he a move to USB-C, or to USB-A for that matter.
3) If you're "fed up with dongles" then you would be happy to see USB-C adopted.
4) No, the price doesn't add up up quickly. USB-C adapters or full cables are inexpensive.
5) Your complains are shortsighted, to be kind.
Please re-read my post. You didn't catch key parts. No one hates USB-C. No one is proposing not moving to it. People will move to it but don't need to be 'pushed' onto it. Why can't you get that? Can't you see that this can be achieved without dongles? without the extra cost? without the inconveniences? My points are reasonable.
Just how much do you consider inexpensive for adaptors? Please give a figure.
1) How are you pushed to it? Did Apple cause your current Mac to brick itself and send out death squads to make sure you don't buy a WinPC? Why can't you can't that you're not being forced to do anything?
2) What dongle is required to charge a new MBP with The included USB-C cable? Wait, you have a VGA monitor you want to connect—OK, you do need a dongle for that, but it's silly to bitch about such use cases.
3) I think around $5 0 for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C cable is inexpensive. I also bought 2x 12V cig lighter connectors with both a USB-A and USB-C ports for under $10 each, as well, so I can see how well my new MBP will charge whilst on the road. I don't think pay $40 for an excessive number of USB-C accessories for a port interface that will be around for a decade+ deserves the outrage you're giving it after I just spent thousands on a new Mac.
Pushed or 'pushed'? I wrote it like that for a reason. Dongle for charging? Where did you get that idea? dongles for the rest? Yes. That was my point.
1) How are you pushed to it? Did Apple cause your current Mac to brick itself and send out death squads to make sure you don't buy a WinPC? Why can't you can't that you're not being forced to do anything?
2) What dongle is required to charge a new MBP with The included USB-C cable? Wait, you have a VGA monitor you want to connect—OK, you do need a dongle for that, but it's silly to bitch about such use cases.
3) I think around $5 0 for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C cable is inexpensive. I also bought 2x 12V cig lighter connectors with both a USB-A and USB-C ports for under $10 each, as well, so I can see how well my new MBP will charge whilst on the road. I don't think pay $40 for an excessive number of USB-C accessories for a port interface that will be around for a decade+ deserves the outrage you're giving it after I just spent thousands on a new Mac.
Pushed or 'pushed'? I wrote it like that for a reason. Dongle for charging? Where did you get that idea? dongles for the rest? Yes. That was my point.
The rest of what? You've offered no explanation as to what you believe is such a pervasive issue that these Macs will hinder the usability for the average customer.
1) How are you pushed to it? Did Apple cause your current Mac to brick itself and send out death squads to make sure you don't buy a WinPC? Why can't you can't that you're not being forced to do anything?
2) What dongle is required to charge a new MBP with The included USB-C cable? Wait, you have a VGA monitor you want to connect—OK, you do need a dongle for that, but it's silly to bitch about such use cases.
3) I think around $5 0 for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C cable is inexpensive. I also bought 2x 12V cig lighter connectors with both a USB-A and USB-C ports for under $10 each, as well, so I can see how well my new MBP will charge whilst on the road. I don't think pay $40 for an excessive number of USB-C accessories for a port interface that will be around for a decade+ deserves the outrage you're giving it after I just spent thousands on a new Mac.
Pushed or 'pushed'? I wrote it like that for a reason. Dongle for charging? Where did you get that idea? dongles for the rest? Yes. That was my point.
The rest of what? You've offered no explanation as to what you believe is such a pervasive issue that these Macs will hinder the usability for the average customer.
Yes. I have. I told you that people have a lot of equipment that they cannot connect to these macs without dongles/adaptors. I told you these people will also continue buying such equipment. Think. What might your average user want to plug into these new Macs that can't be plugged in directly? Basically everything they have. That means dongles/adaptors, does it not?
The rest of what? You've offered no explanation as to what you believe is such a pervasive issue that these Macs will hinder the usability for the average customer.
Yes. I have. I told you that people have a lot of equipment that they cannot connect to these macs without dongles/adaptors. I told you these people will also continue buying such equipment. Think. What might your average user want to plug into these new Macs that can't be plugged in directly? Basically everything they have. That means dongles/adaptors, does it not?
Again, you've offered no explanation. Are you a policy maker for the Trump campaign?
What equipment can only be connected with a dongle/adapter? VGA? Probably, because it's pretty silly to have a USB-C-to-VGA adapter since it needs a chip to convert from digital to analog, but it's certainly not impossible to offer a single cable. So what equipment do you claim can't be done with a cable?
The rest of what? You've offered no explanation as to what you believe is such a pervasive issue that these Macs will hinder the usability for the average customer.
Yes. I have. I told you that people have a lot of equipment that they cannot connect to these macs without dongles/adaptors. I told you these people will also continue buying such equipment. Think. What might your average user want to plug into these new Macs that can't be plugged in directly? Basically everything they have. That means dongles/adaptors, does it not?
Again, you've offered no explanation. Are you a policy maker for the Trump campaign?
What equipment can only be connected with a dongle/adapter? VGA? Probably, because it's pretty silly to have a USB-C-to-VGA adapter since it needs a chip to convert from digital to analog, but it's certainly not impossible to offer a single cable. So what equipment do you claim can't be done with a cable?
I didn't claim anything couldn't be done with a cable. Instead of repeating myself, here's the first Google result I get for MacBook Pro, dongle:
The question was what cannot be done with the new connectors and dongles, not what it would cost you.
I knew what adapters I'd need going in and had budgeted accordingly for six months. The cost is minor compared to the whole investment (and it's not $264 either, because nobody needs ALL of the ports - I'd venture hardly anybody uses more than a combination of four, ever).
Comments
What people never talk about are all the decisions that held sales back. Steve Jobs rode his luck and got away with it. What would you think if I told you Apple could have sold double the amount of iMacs that they did? Surely that would paint a different picture of the man and the team behind him.
At launch, the original Bondi Mac was barely cutting edge in terms of specs. In fact there was a lot to criticise about the machine. Worse, it was only available in the US initially. By the time it made it to worldwide release it woefully lacking in hardware and seriously overpriced. There were countries that had psychological price points which Apple just ignored. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more of Bondi iMacs just by keeping prices below the red line price points. They just sat back and said 'look how many we're selling'. That is Apple in a nutshell. As long as margins are high, they are happy. At the time, had they thought ahead, they would have realized that marketshare would prove to be of far more importance than margins. They could have sold hundreds of thousands more by including Firewire. The simple inclusion of firewire would have brought the cost of firewire down in itself and with that the cost of firewire devices. The problem was that Apple wanted a licence fee for each firewire port. More margins. Something that would prove fatal, years down the line. This shortsightedness has been Apple's undoing on multiple occasions. They could have sold millions more had they moved up to 17" screens years before they did. Ironically firewire made it onto the iMac but then they dragged their heels over adding USB 2.0. They dragged their heels over so many tech advances - that mattered to people - to get their work done. Yes, they brought some great features to market but the hockey puck mouse wasn't one of them! Nor was the Flower Power Mac (yes, Steve Jobs bragged about spending 18 months on plastic injection technology for those Macs). Nor was the Cube. If you look a why some products failed, the price has often been the culprit. Sometimes combined with a lack of decent hardware under the hood or dubious BTO configurations that are only devised to push the user to spend more.
My view is the opposite of what you claim. Apple has been wrong but largely got away with offering sub-par performance and upgradeability. There have been notable exceptions that have maintained things cooking over nicely but that doesn't change the overall game plan. Margins mean more for Apple if they can get away with it and that they have. However, this time, I fear they have lost touch with reality and the starting prices are simply out of reach of many of its users. The design decisions taken on these models push the user to make far too many concessions and the key hardware on offer on the base models is woefully lacking for a 'pro' machine.
So no, the people were not wrong by saying machines were overpriced.
The Bondi iMac was the absolute worst transition in computing history. I mean the worst ever. In fact it wasn't even a transition in the true sense of the word. They just hacked off the old and brought in the new and required people to 'get on with it'. Floppies were a pain - but people had tons of them and they had tons of them because Apple used them! When they were gone on the iMac people had to buy floppy drives to continue using them. By all means switch to USB but do it in an orderly fashion with your users' needs in mind. remember MIDI. The mac was great for MIDI but not with the Bondi. Users were told to get a G3! Audio USB. Nope the Bondi didn't support it. Printing? I think there was just one USB printer available at the time. Users had printers but couldn't use them. That is not how you do transitions. Ironically, before the switch to the iMac, Apple already had a way to transition effectively: the Personality Card!! so simple. If you wanted to upgrade and had lots of legacy stuff they could have designed a personality card for it and sold it as a BTO at cost pricing. Even on the iMac. It a spare slot that never got used.
This time there isn't much room available due to Apple's obsession with thinness. Apple needs help here. Medical help. Perhaps some group therapy to manage this anorexic tech issue. It's now affecting the core of the machines. If they hadn't gone so thin, battery life would be longer still and 16GB wouldn't be the max RAM.
Including FireWire would have made ZERO sense, as the ONLY consumer application to use FireWire was DV, which the 233 MHz G3 was not capable of handling properly.
The reason the iMac saved Apple was BECAUSE margins were high. Apple didn't have the capacity to build dozens of millions of them, and without the high margins, they'd never have been able to finance it. The iMac was a hard gamble and a high risk, as it was.
Incidentally, what was probably more damaging to sales (but possibly necessary for initial manufacturing contracts) was Apple's insistence that dealers buy equal numbers of each color when the Rev. C was introduced. I know that caused some fallout, leading to some dealers refusing to stock iMacs, lest they sit on unsold stock of the less popular colours.
Printers mostly worked fine with those serial adapters.
your 1998. A normal consumer in 1998 had no idea what to fill a 6GB drive with, let alone an external one. "External mass storage" was only just beginning to mean "CD burner" - which worked fine via USB 1.1 (I had one).
Floppies turned out to be a lot less relevant than everybody thought, as email was becoming prevalent and anything that could fit on a floppy could be mailed.
If Apple had been hell-bent on selling FireWire as a consumer I/O, why on earth would they have omitted it from the 350 MHz Rev. D, but added it to the 400 MHz DV model? It was aimed at the premium and pro market from the start. Adding it to the original iMac would have been completely counter to the message Apple was sending with that machine.
Incidentally, that 233 MHz G3 was *really* fast for a consumer computer at the time.
And NOBODY was using iMacs for recording at least until the Rev. D was released. It never even entered consideration. Digital audio was already standard, and for that, you needed expansion slots or FireWire, full stop. Everybody was on towers, before the transition and for a long time after the transition.
2) If they don't adopt USB-C until people no longer "have a ton of older, existing equipment" then there would never he a move to USB-C, or to USB-A for that matter.
3) If you're "fed up with dongles" then you would be happy to see USB-C adopted.
4) No, the price doesn't add up up quickly. USB-C adapters or full cables are inexpensive.
5) Your complains are shortsighted, to be kind.
No one hates USB-C. No one is proposing not moving to it. People will move to it but don't need to be 'pushed' onto it. Why can't you get that? Can't you see that this can be achieved without dongles? without the extra cost? without the inconveniences? My points are reasonable.
Just how much do you consider inexpensive for adaptors? Please give a figure.
2) What dongle is required to charge a new MBP with The included USB-C cable? Wait, you have a VGA monitor you want to connect—OK, you do need a dongle for that, but it's silly to bitch about such use cases.
3) I think around $5 0 for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C cable is inexpensive. I also bought 2x 12V cig lighter connectors with both a USB-A and USB-C ports for under $10 each, as well, so I can see how well my new MBP will charge whilst on the road. I don't think pay $40 for an excessive number of USB-C accessories for a port interface that will be around for a decade+ deserves the outrage you're giving it after I just spent thousands on a new Mac.
The argument that firewire was only relevant on iMac DVs is not correct. It was about much more than that. Had Apple got their tactics right at the start, USB might not have gone past 1.1.
I had many a use for external drives in 1998. It has little to do with how much space I needed and more to do with backup (duplicated content, portability etc). The iMac didn't allow for extra internal drives. That's one of the reasons I never bought an early iMac.
Dongle for charging? Where did you get that idea?
dongles for the rest? Yes. That was my point.
What equipment can only be connected with a dongle/adapter? VGA? Probably, because it's pretty silly to have a USB-C-to-VGA adapter since it needs a chip to convert from digital to analog, but it's certainly not impossible to offer a single cable. So what equipment do you claim can't be done with a cable?
https://www.google.es/amp/bgr.com/2016/10/27/macbook-pro-2016-thunderbolt-3-dongles/amp/?
I hope from here on you can work it out for yourself.
I knew what adapters I'd need going in and had budgeted accordingly for six months. The cost is minor compared to the whole investment (and it's not $264 either, because nobody needs ALL of the ports - I'd venture hardly anybody uses more than a combination of four, ever).