"Apple must get rid of that "Pro" moniker a.s.a.p and differentiate the product range in some other way."
One way they could do it is consolidate the line and just call it Macbook.
Or if they want to keep the "Pro" monikor around, just call the 15" MBP with quad-core CPU / discreet GPU Macbook Pro, & everything else Macbook.
Honestly don't see any other solution.
There is no demarcation in technology that "pro" has to refer to quad-core. Of all the things to take issue over the branding is not one of them. I beleive the Apple iPad Air 2 had 3-core and the two iPad Pros went back down to 2-cores.
You just blew the minds of every serial Apple complainer on the internet. Although this will surely not satisfy that user who feels that his/her personal use case should be everyone's personal use case.
Yes! Emphasis added.
I just don't see 'pent up demand' as being a sufficient motivator for record orders of a book that on its face obviously now lacks 'Pro' features that people supposedly need. 'This MBP dropped features I use and need but I'll spend >$1000 anyway' just doesn't play.
And I'd expect a slowdown in the purchase of most any major computing product from any manufacture after six months.
My guess is that more users will be happy with this MBP than not, and that buyers' remorse will not be anywhere nearly as widespread as some people expect/hope.
Apple should have kept one previous model 15", kept its feature set and added Ethernet, souped it up, 32G RAM and battery life be damned, and sold it as the Mac Book PRO, and renamed all the others MacBooks.
I don't need a such a Mac, but there are still those who do. Make the Pro label really means something. Doing that would open up Apple to all the 'Apple admits...' click-bait articles. Apple could weather that teapot tempest.
Prior MBP releases were probably available online AND in store. Since this time it's currently only available online, it's not a surprise - and not saying much - to say the online orders are higher than previous releases.
Well, there's a lot of pent-up demand because they haven't updated for so long.
Let's see how the sales look after 6 months.
But if this thing is as bad as people have been saying it is, then no one would buy it. They'll wait for the next one, or move to Windows as folk here have said they would. I mean if you cannot POSSIBLY work in anything less than 32GB of RAM then the machine is useless to you.
I suspect the real reason is that Apple knows more about its customers than we do.
It's not that black/white.
There are a variety of needs among Apple's customers. I don't doubt that these new laptops meet the needs of many (perhaps even a majority) of Apple's customers.
But the new machines are clearly a disappointment to many (probably not a majority) of Apple's high-end customers.
I think it is a mistake for Apple (and those Panglossian Apple fans who reflexively defend everything Apple does) to believe that just because these high-end customers are not a majority of consumers that they don't matter. Partly they matter because some of these folks are Apple's most die hard fans -- the ones who evangelize Apple products and provide support to family and friends. Partly they matter because while every individual niche represents a minority of users, it could very well be that the some of all the minorities is a majority.
Speaking strictly as an owner many AAPL shares, I think Apple needs to figure out how to provide a broader product range. I don't think they should pursue low margin or "cheap" products, but I do think they should be more open to pursuing low volume (but high margin) products that are direct offshoots of their more high volume products. For example, they need more than one basic Mac Pro configuration and they need to update it more than every 3 to 4 years. As another example, I think it was a mistake to kill off Apple-branded monitors.
A high-end customer is the one who is technically mature enough to not depend on Apple and able to find her/his way around. Not those whining about adapters at every product launch. And they matter to Apple since Apple releases products capable of answering even the most challenging technical demands as seen with Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and of course the hardware range.
That broader product range was the catastrophe of the 90s bringing Apple to the point of extinction: laserwriters, stylewriters, crappy cameras overlapping and inconsistent tower and desktop models... Apple will not go back to these days.
Low volume but high margin products are a feature of vertical markets. There are system integrators, turnkey solution sellers to do that. Apple is not in that business. Apple will not be a Sun, DEC, Compaq, HP either. Apple produces for the mass market, not for vertical markets. Vertical markets prefer Apple products because they are the best, not because they are specifically produced for vertical markets. There will not be a broad range of Mac Pro. Apple provides one expandable power core. The system integrator people take that core and expand it with several solutions to build complete powerhouses for their customers. There are so many talented PC-guys out there that even if they don't know anything about Apple, they can expose a complete wizardry when it comes to building an Apple based solution.
So, that high-end customer everyone pretends to be is an urban legend. There are just customers with myriads of different needs.
I see a potential contradiction here... On the one hand you say the MBP should be purely intended for high-end customers, not those of us whining about adapters; but then say Apple produces for the mass market, not the low volume market. Historically speaking, do we have any idea what % of MBPs were purchased by your hypothetical high-end customer vs what we'll call the prosumers? Those who perhaps don't need all the power but can afford to purchase the higher-end hardware and appreciate the convenience and features of the pro models? I'd wager that a significant portion were purchased by people who didn't necessarily need the power/features but bought it anyway because they could afford it.
If you drive away those prosumers, what will happen to the MBP market? Will it become a low volume product without sufficient economies of scale to keep prices and upgrade cycles reasonable? Isn't this basically the situation with the Mac Pro?
Or if they want to keep the "Pro" monikor around, just call the 15" MBP with quad-core CPU / discreet GPU Macbook Pro, & everything else Macbook.
Honestly don't see any other solution.
I think that's a good suggestion.
A similar concept on the desktop might be to call the 27" iMac "Pro", and offer beefier BTO options for the CPU and GPU.
While I would ideally like to see the old aluminum Mac Pro return (or some updated iteration on that), I could live with an iMac Pro that gives me a BTO option to use skylake-X when it comes out next year (the Broadwell-E goes up to 10 cores)
The Touchbar strikes me as something like the S7 Edge. Not convinced it is a groundbreaking new UI that I would use, unless I decide to like Emojis..... Your mileage may vary.
I haven't played with the new MacBook (Touchbar), but it will be very useful for some apps like Final Cut Pro (FCP). The Touchbar would have less impact for simple apps, and might be just cosmetic (providing more meaningful info than the traditional function keys offer. Any app that has the complexity of FCP will see benefit in simplifying the interface by the addition of the Touchbar.
The benefit will go beyond simplifying the interface if the two handed operation with Touchbar and trackpad is as fluid and comfortable as it appeared to be during the event.
"The card was excised because of the "path forward" with more generic physical card readers, or the growing implementation of wireless transfer.
Schiller says that the 3.5mm headphone jack was retained for professionals with audio gear that do not have wireless solutions, and still need the jack for macOS."
So, the "professional" solution to mass storage is wireless, but professionals don't have access to BT headphones. It's getting deep in the spin room.
People keep forgetting that the jack on the MacBook Pro is optical too capable of high sample rate multichannel I/O, which is definitely still a useful pro feature. And while wireless is great for convenient access to huge, reasonably fast mass storage, etc., the professional solution for *really* fast directly connected local mass storage is via those multiple thunderbolt 3 ports. I don't think another laptop with more raw IO capability than the new 15" has ever been available, though that's not to say others didn't have a higher number of various, slower ports which happened to be more convenient for whatever the connection of the moment required. Given time I expect wireless and the C interface will simplify things to a better point than ever, though that time may not be in the lifespan of this model for some people.
Well, there's a lot of pent-up demand because they haven't updated for so long.
Let's see how the sales look after 6 months.
But if this thing is as bad as people have been saying it is, then no one would buy it. They'll wait for the next one, or move to Windows as folk here have said they would. I mean if you cannot POSSIBLY work in anything less than 32GB of RAM then the machine is useless to you.
I suspect the real reason is that Apple knows more about its customers than we do.
It's not that black/white.
There are a variety of needs among Apple's customers. I don't doubt that these new laptops meet the needs of many (perhaps even a majority) of Apple's customers.
But the new machines are clearly a disappointment to many (probably not a majority) of Apple's high-end customers.
I think it is a mistake for Apple (and those Panglossian Apple fans who reflexively defend everything Apple does) to believe that just because these high-end customers are not a majority of consumers that they don't matter. Partly they matter because some of these folks are Apple's most die hard fans -- the ones who evangelize Apple products and provide support to family and friends. Partly they matter because while every individual niche represents a minority of users, it could very well be that the some of all the minorities is a majority.
Speaking strictly as an owner many AAPL shares, I think Apple needs to figure out how to provide a broader product range. I don't think they should pursue low margin or "cheap" products, but I do think they should be more open to pursuing low volume (but high margin) products that are direct offshoots of their more high volume products. For example, they need more than one basic Mac Pro configuration and they need to update it more than every 3 to 4 years. As another example, I think it was a mistake to kill off Apple-branded monitors.
A high-end customer is the one who is technically mature enough to not depend on Apple and able to find her/his way around. Not those whining about adapters at every product launch. And they matter to Apple since Apple releases products capable of answering even the most challenging technical demands as seen with Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and of course the hardware range.
That broader product range was the catastrophe of the 90s bringing Apple to the point of extinction: laserwriters, stylewriters, crappy cameras overlapping and inconsistent tower and desktop models... Apple will not go back to these days.
Low volume but high margin products are a feature of vertical markets. There are system integrators, turnkey solution sellers to do that. Apple is not in that business. Apple will not be a Sun, DEC, Compaq, HP either. Apple produces for the mass market, not for vertical markets. Vertical markets prefer Apple products because they are the best, not because they are specifically produced for vertical markets. There will not be a broad range of Mac Pro. Apple provides one expandable power core. The system integrator people take that core and expand it with several solutions to build complete powerhouses for their customers. There are so many talented PC-guys out there that even if they don't know anything about Apple, they can expose a complete wizardry when it comes to building an Apple based solution.
So, that high-end customer everyone pretends to be is an urban legend. There are just customers with myriads of different needs.
I see a potential contradiction here... On the one hand you say the MBP should be purely intended for high-end customers, not those of us whining about adapters; but then say Apple produces for the mass market, not the low volume market. Historically speaking, do we have any idea what % of MBPs were purchased by your hypothetical high-end customer vs what we'll call the prosumers? Those who perhaps don't need all the power but can afford to purchase the higher-end hardware and appreciate the convenience and features of the pro models? I'd wager that a significant portion were purchased by people who didn't necessarily need the power/features but bought it anyway because they could afford it.
If you drive away those prosumers, what will happen to the MBP market? Will it become a low volume product without sufficient economies of scale to keep prices and upgrade cycles reasonable? Isn't this basically the situation with the Mac Pro?
I didn't say anything about MBP. Maybe you mixed up quoted texts?
"Apple releases products capable of answering even the most challenging technical demands" and that's it. Take Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro and other "Pro" apps as a "benevolence". They don't make Apple a vertical market seller. The situation with Mac Pro is not the lack of its "economy of scale" to sustain itself, but the quality standards of Apple who always strives to supply the best. Even a quick glance at this site will show you that Intel has not yet enough mature chips to justify an early Mac Pro update.
"The card was excised because of the "path forward" with more generic physical card readers, or the growing implementation of wireless transfer.
Schiller says that the 3.5mm headphone jack was retained for professionals with audio gear that do not have wireless solutions, and still need the jack for macOS."
So, the "professional" solution to mass storage is wireless, but professionals don't have access to BT headphones. It's getting deep in the spin room.
I found the headphone socket thing to be a ludicrous comment as well. Has he not actually met studio people or spent any time seeing how studios actually USE computers for audio? Apple could've put a lightning port on these new Macs to show us how committed they are to lightning, but they didn't. Also, unless that headphone socket STILL has an optical S/PDIF in there, there's nothing remotely "professional" about it. Even then, most music pros use external audio interfaces because they need more than one channel in/out (this socket is, what, one channel out only?) and need MIDI connections, and maybe more, and the entire populous of GearSlutz and KVRAudio would laugh at the notion of this socket being "professional".
Just a question: does anyone here feel that Schiller has his finger on the pulse of the computer/tech world?
For my part, the answer is no. Microsoft is everywhere with commercials that say "You can't do that on a Mac" and "My Mac doesn't do that". Apple's response (direct or indirect) is nowhere to be found. Is this because Schiller can't think of a response, or because the products that might counter such ads or create their own buzz don't exist? I think the Touch Bar is a significant advance in user interface, and I don't know if the Surface is going to be crap or the Next Big Thing, but right now it's all anyone is talking about. Why would you cede this battlefield to a deep pocket competitor?
Based on the Apple executive interviews everyone is commenting on, the recent Apple approach of "we just took years and years polishing and polishing this pebble until it glowed" is Band on the Titanic Redux. And bad things tend to happen when you bring marketing and advertising all in house. Maybe we can get another Bokeh photo feature ad for iPhone (ask around yourself...most people seeing those ads have no idea what the ad was about), or another "shot on iPhone" ad. I know the "shooting in the rain at night on a skateboard" ad was, uh, riveting.
I qualify as one of the oldest Apple fanboys (1985 and a crap ton of Macs ever since), but this boat needs a new crew. Maybe the Admiral can stay on board, maybe not.
Apple has opaquely, and with a heavy dose of market-speak, pivoted away from professional workflows. The MacBook Pro is 'Pro' in name only. The company is abandoning professionals so it can chase money. Some have argued that Apple has no idea who the MacBook Pro is for. I argue they know exactly who it is for: general purpose users with cash to burn. Apple is abandoning the people who have driven and defined what a Mac is for decades. The marketing and sales people are in control and they're letting Jonny Ive pursue his fetish obsession with thinness at the expense of performance: https://torusoft.com/blog/preemptive-multi-talking-E22
cool story, bro. meanwhile, I'm developing software on my iMac and my MBP. did i somehow stop being a professional overnight, because 16GB RAM?! thats so fucking absurd it's hilarious.
That's not possible. Everyone on twitter, and tech blogs and Apple rumor sites hates these new machines. /s
You might be being sarcastic but hate is the sentiment that I'm seeing. Not by everyone but by a lot. As others have mentioned, there are even "die hard" Mac users thinking of moving away from Apple.
yeah we haven't heard that Troll Trope a thousand times before.... ("After [some new thing], I'm concerned. I think it may be time for me to jump ship to [Windows/Android]!")
OK, so let's see, if one wants Retina, 13 inch, 256 GB; the options are
2015 MBP: $ 1,500 2016 MBP: $ 1,500
Next options down 2015 MBP w/o 256 GB: $ 1,300 MB w/o 13 inch: $ 1,300 MB Air w/o retina: $ 1,200
So essentially, retina is worth $ 300, 1 inch screen size is worth $ 200 (plus you get a slow machine), and 156 GB are worth $ 200.
But you are right, I am wrong. There are offerings in the $ 1,200-1,300 space, each missing only one feature (except the MB, which is missing two: one inch and some power). Now I just need to dig into why the 2015 MBP w/256 GB costs the same as the 2016....
I made this same observation. I ended up buying the 2016 MBP w/Function Keys (8GB, 256 SSD) on Saturday and find it just right for my needs - but then the most powerful app I use is Lightroom 6.7. It was a great upgrade to the (Early 2011) 13" MBP, non-retina machine that it replaced. Plus I am easily getting about 11 - 12 hrs of battery life. It's a speedy, well built, thin and light machine. Yeah, $1500 was a bit more than I wanted to spend but I'm very satisfied with my purchase.
Pent up demand is all. The iOS kids have permeated Apple and it is blinded by the huge consumer market it has tapped into. The dream is all but over. Apple has lost its rudder. It makes no professional Macs any longer. It might see the light before it's too late, but I cannot hold my breath much longer. 30 years of living the dream. I should be happy with that, but it still saddens me to see the fire inside me flicker out. RIP Apple. Please prove me wrong.
hyperbolic nonsense. Jobs was the head cheerleader for iOS -- so he was a kid and blinded by consumers? uh dude, you do realize Jobs and the original Mac team's goal was "a computer for the rest of us", right??
Well, there's a lot of pent-up demand because they haven't updated for so long.
Let's see how the sales look after 6 months.
But if this thing is as bad as people have been saying it is, then no one would buy it. They'll wait for the next one, or move to Windows as folk here have said they would. I mean if you cannot POSSIBLY work in anything less than 32GB of RAM then the machine is useless to you.
I suspect the real reason is that Apple knows more about its customers than we do.
Apple know more about their end consumers, maybe. The people buying iOS devices and laptops for casual activities are their core market right now (and there's nothing wrong with such computer usage; we cannot all be content creators or studio artists). Apple seem to not give much consideration to actual professional content creators, though. Or developers, for that matter. I find myself wondering what Apple use internally in their design and engineering departments. 2013 Mac Pro? Older Mac Pro models? iMacs? MacBooks?? I know that photography and music have crashed as far as things you can make a living on (and design is in the trash can as well), but video editing and CGI for TV and film are still growing, as is the gaming industry, none of which are professions that Apple spend much time catering to with their product at this time. These industries see time as money, so the more RAM and brute CPU/GPU speed, the better for them. I'm happy Apple produces luxury computers, because I think PCs suck for everything but brute power, but Apple isn't even attempting to maintain a foothold in the professional realm.
The defensive commentary from Apple execs isn't impressing anything on me other than how far off the mark their arrogant insular opinions are...
Just a question: does anyone here feel that Schiller has his finger on the pulse of the computer/tech world?
For my part, the answer is no. Microsoft is everywhere with commercials that say "You can't do that on a Mac" and "My Mac doesn't do that". Apple's response (direct or indirect) is nowhere to be found. Is this because Schiller can't think of a response, or because the products that might counter such ads or create their own buzz don't exist? I think the Touch Bar is a significant advance in user interface, and I don't know if the Surface is going to be crap or the Next Big Thing, but right now it's all anyone is talking about. Why would you cede this battlefield to a deep pocket competitor?
Based on the Apple executive interviews everyone is commenting on, the recent Apple approach of "we just took years and years polishing and polishing this pebble until it glowed" is Band on the Titanic Redux. And bad things tend to happen when you bring marketing and advertising all in house. Maybe we can get another Bokeh photo feature ad for iPhone (ask around yourself...most people seeing those ads have no idea what the ad was about), or another "shot on iPhone" ad. I know the "shooting in the rain at night on a skateboard" ad was, uh, riveting.
I qualify as one of the oldest Apple fanboys (1985 and a crap ton of Macs ever since), but this boat needs a new crew. Maybe the Admiral can stay on board, maybe not.
(hey pro tip -- "I've been an Apple Fan since xxx..." is basically a troll trope these days. you get no street red with that, especially with so few posts/history here)
as for Microsoft's ads:
1) theyre comparing touch/drawing functionality to a Mac when they should be comparing it to iPad. they also dont call attention to their lousy OS, battery life, etc etc. it's a cherry-picking ad.
2) when you're the market leader as Apple is, you dont run ads responding to your challengers. only challengers call out market leaders.
Apple has opaquely, and with a heavy dose of market-speak, pivoted away from professional workflows. The MacBook Pro is 'Pro' in name only. The company is abandoning professionals so it can chase money. Some have argued that Apple has no idea who the MacBook Pro is for. I argue they know exactly who it is for: general purpose users with cash to burn. Apple is abandoning the people who have driven and defined what a Mac is for decades. The marketing and sales people are in control and they're letting Jonny Ive pursue his fetish obsession with thinness at the expense of performance: https://torusoft.com/blog/preemptive-multi-talking-E22
I think your definition of 'pro' is likely too narrow.
its the definition of an Apple pro user from the 80s 90s and 00s. Apple is now a consumer-driven corporation.
Apple is a customer-driven corporation.
There are no more "bright shiny professionals" and "dark dull consumers". There are just customers.
Apple must get rid of that "Pro" moniker a.s.a.p and differentiate the product range in some other way.
"Here is the iPad Pro, it's an excellent drawing canvas..." "But this is a Pro machine, I'm not a Pro. I just want to sketch something when I'm watching TV..." and walks away...
"Apple must get rid of that "Pro" moniker a.s.a.p and differentiate the product range in some other way."
One way they could do it is consolidate the line and just call it Macbook.
Or if they want to keep the "Pro" monikor around, just call the 15" MBP with quad-core CPU / discreet GPU Macbook Pro, & everything else Macbook.
Apple has opaquely, and with a heavy dose of market-speak, pivoted away from professional workflows. The MacBook Pro is 'Pro' in name only. The company is abandoning professionals so it can chase money. Some have argued that Apple has no idea who the MacBook Pro is for. I argue they know exactly who it is for: general purpose users with cash to burn. Apple is abandoning the people who have driven and defined what a Mac is for decades. The marketing and sales people are in control and they're letting Jonny Ive pursue his fetish obsession with thinness at the expense of performance: https://torusoft.com/blog/preemptive-multi-talking-E22
I think your definition of 'pro' is likely too narrow.
its the definition of an Apple pro user from the 80s 90s and 00s. Apple is now a consumer-driven corporation.
Apple is a customer-driven corporation.
There are no more "bright shiny professionals" and "dark dull consumers". There are just customers.
Apple must get rid of that "Pro" moniker a.s.a.p and differentiate the product range in some other way.
"Here is the iPad Pro, it's an excellent drawing canvas..." "But this is a Pro machine, I'm not a Pro. I just want to sketch something when I'm watching TV..." and walks away...
"Apple must get rid of that "Pro" moniker a.s.a.p and differentiate the product range in some other way."
One way they could do it is consolidate the line and just call it Macbook.
Or if they want to keep the "Pro" monikor around, just call the 15" MBP with quad-core CPU / discreet GPU Macbook Pro, & everything else Macbook.
Honestly don't see any other solution.
Have you told this to microsoft, samsung, del, and every other company that uses "pro" as a moniker?
As is typical with Apple products, there is a vocal minority of complainers out there, never satisfied with some aspect of any Apple device. When Apple was selling the fastest, most powerful (fill in the blank device), the complainers said it was too expensive, or didn't have some port or drive that they just absolutely couldn't live without.
As I've lived with Apple products going back to the original Macintosh, and supported them through lots of dark days, I kind of feel bad for Apple. They have been scorned for so long, especially by people in the tech (and financial) markets, even as they push entire markets and their competitors forward.
The thing is, they DO push the markets and tech forward... And then they rest on their laurels for as many years as it takes to cause serious self-inflicted injuries. They go in spurts of great accomplishments, followed by insular arrogance and downward spirals. Last time, they were rescued by one of their original founders. That will not happen again. There is very little legitimate leadership in the publicly owned corporate landscape, let alone the stagnant computer industry. Apple seriously pushed that stagnation, and I rejoiced, but they are now part of the problem again, through their own fault (and yes, Intel only developing chipsets for huge, loud, and hot PCs).
Pent up demand is all. The iOS kids have permeated Apple and it is blinded by the huge consumer market it has tapped into. The dream is all but over. Apple has lost its rudder. It makes no professional Macs any longer. It might see the light before it's too late, but I cannot hold my breath much longer. 30 years of living the dream. I should be happy with that, but it still saddens me to see the fire inside me flicker out. RIP Apple. Please prove me wrong.
hyperbolic nonsense. Jobs was the head cheerleader for iOS -- so he was a kid and blinded by consumers? uh dude, you do realize Jobs and the original Mac team's goal was "a computer for the rest of us", right??
You're absolutely right. But at the time, I don't think Jobs realized (or maybe he did) that it was the iPhone, and later the iPad, that would go on to become "the computer for the rest of us". And in a much bigger way than the Mac.
Comments
I just don't see 'pent up demand' as being a sufficient motivator for record orders of a book that on its face obviously now lacks 'Pro' features that people supposedly need. 'This MBP dropped features I use and need but I'll spend >$1000 anyway' just doesn't play.
And I'd expect a slowdown in the purchase of most any major computing product from any manufacture after six months.
My guess is that more users will be happy with this MBP than not, and that buyers' remorse will not be anywhere nearly as widespread as some people expect/hope.
Apple should have kept one previous model 15", kept its feature set and added Ethernet, souped it up, 32G RAM and battery life be damned, and sold it as the Mac Book PRO, and renamed all the others MacBooks.
I don't need a such a Mac, but there are still those who do. Make the Pro label really means something. Doing that would open up Apple to all the 'Apple admits...' click-bait articles. Apple could weather that teapot tempest.
A sad truism. Another is that many people love to hate, and find it easier than being objective.
If you drive away those prosumers, what will happen to the MBP market? Will it become a low volume product without sufficient economies of scale to keep prices and upgrade cycles reasonable? Isn't this basically the situation with the Mac Pro?
A similar concept on the desktop might be to call the 27" iMac "Pro", and offer beefier BTO options for the CPU and GPU.
While I would ideally like to see the old aluminum Mac Pro return (or some updated iteration on that), I could live with an iMac Pro that gives me a BTO option to use skylake-X when it comes out next year (the Broadwell-E goes up to 10 cores)
The benefit will go beyond simplifying the interface if the two handed operation with Touchbar and trackpad is as fluid and comfortable as it appeared to be during the event.
"Apple releases products capable of answering even the most challenging technical demands" and that's it. Take Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro and other "Pro" apps as a "benevolence". They don't make Apple a vertical market seller. The situation with Mac Pro is not the lack of its "economy of scale" to sustain itself, but the quality standards of Apple who always strives to supply the best. Even a quick glance at this site will show you that Intel has not yet enough mature chips to justify an early Mac Pro update.
I found the headphone socket thing to be a ludicrous comment as well. Has he not actually met studio people or spent any time seeing how studios actually USE computers for audio? Apple could've put a lightning port on these new Macs to show us how committed they are to lightning, but they didn't. Also, unless that headphone socket STILL has an optical S/PDIF in there, there's nothing remotely "professional" about it. Even then, most music pros use external audio interfaces because they need more than one channel in/out (this socket is, what, one channel out only?) and need MIDI connections, and maybe more, and the entire populous of GearSlutz and KVRAudio would laugh at the notion of this socket being "professional".
For my part, the answer is no. Microsoft is everywhere with commercials that say "You can't do that on a Mac" and "My Mac doesn't do that". Apple's response (direct or indirect) is nowhere to be found. Is this because Schiller can't think of a response, or because the products that might counter such ads or create their own buzz don't exist? I think the Touch Bar is a significant advance in user interface, and I don't know if the Surface is going to be crap or the Next Big Thing, but right now it's all anyone is talking about. Why would you cede this battlefield to a deep pocket competitor?
Based on the Apple executive interviews everyone is commenting on, the recent Apple approach of "we just took years and years polishing and polishing this pebble until it glowed" is Band on the Titanic Redux. And bad things tend to happen when you bring marketing and advertising all in house. Maybe we can get another Bokeh photo feature ad for iPhone (ask around yourself...most people seeing those ads have no idea what the ad was about), or another "shot on iPhone" ad. I know the "shooting in the rain at night on a skateboard" ad was, uh, riveting.
I qualify as one of the oldest Apple fanboys (1985 and a crap ton of Macs ever since), but this boat needs a new crew. Maybe the Admiral can stay on board, maybe not.
yeah we haven't heard that Troll Trope a thousand times before.... ("After [some new thing], I'm concerned. I think it may be time for me to jump ship to [Windows/Android]!")
I made this same observation. I ended up buying the 2016 MBP w/Function Keys (8GB, 256 SSD) on Saturday and find it just right for my needs - but then the most powerful app I use is Lightroom 6.7. It was a great upgrade to the (Early 2011) 13" MBP, non-retina machine that it replaced. Plus I am easily getting about 11 - 12 hrs of battery life. It's a speedy, well built, thin and light machine. Yeah, $1500 was a bit more than I wanted to spend but I'm very satisfied with my purchase.
hyperbolic nonsense. Jobs was the head cheerleader for iOS -- so he was a kid and blinded by consumers? uh dude, you do realize Jobs and the original Mac team's goal was "a computer for the rest of us", right??
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Price_Fight.txt
Apple know more about their end consumers, maybe. The people buying iOS devices and laptops for casual activities are their core market right now (and there's nothing wrong with such computer usage; we cannot all be content creators or studio artists). Apple seem to not give much consideration to actual professional content creators, though. Or developers, for that matter. I find myself wondering what Apple use internally in their design and engineering departments. 2013 Mac Pro? Older Mac Pro models? iMacs? MacBooks?? I know that photography and music have crashed as far as things you can make a living on (and design is in the trash can as well), but video editing and CGI for TV and film are still growing, as is the gaming industry, none of which are professions that Apple spend much time catering to with their product at this time. These industries see time as money, so the more RAM and brute CPU/GPU speed, the better for them. I'm happy Apple produces luxury computers, because I think PCs suck for everything but brute power, but Apple isn't even attempting to maintain a foothold in the professional realm.
The defensive commentary from Apple execs isn't impressing anything on me other than how far off the mark their arrogant insular opinions are...
as for Microsoft's ads:
1) theyre comparing touch/drawing functionality to a Mac when they should be comparing it to iPad. they also dont call attention to their lousy OS, battery life, etc etc. it's a cherry-picking ad.
2) when you're the market leader as Apple is, you dont run ads responding to your challengers. only challengers call out market leaders.
The thing is, they DO push the markets and tech forward... And then they rest on their laurels for as many years as it takes to cause serious self-inflicted injuries. They go in spurts of great accomplishments, followed by insular arrogance and downward spirals. Last time, they were rescued by one of their original founders. That will not happen again. There is very little legitimate leadership in the publicly owned corporate landscape, let alone the stagnant computer industry. Apple seriously pushed that stagnation, and I rejoiced, but they are now part of the problem again, through their own fault (and yes, Intel only developing chipsets for huge, loud, and hot PCs).