Not a touch screen, but a touch bar? I'll bet everyone was asking for a touch bar eh?
Everyone was asking for Touch ID, the most secure fingerprint authentication system. It is built upon the Touch Bar. Touch Bar is not there to display colorful emoticons but to carry Touch ID.
No, the Touch ID sensor is not part of the Touch Bar. It's a separate component, sized and situated to visually blend in to the Touch Bar, but it's not part of it. It has no display.
The Touch Bar and Touch ID are independent of each other. Touch ID could be implemented without a Touch Bar.
I read that. I'm not sure what point you're making though. Would you mind elaborating a little please? I don't see anything in that article that either confirms or contradicts what I wrote.
There:
"AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1."
Not a touch screen, but a touch bar? I'll bet everyone was asking for a touch bar eh?
Everyone was asking for Touch ID, the most secure fingerprint authentication system. It is built upon the Touch Bar. Touch Bar is not there to display colorful emoticons but to carry Touch ID.
No, the Touch ID sensor is not part of the Touch Bar. It's a separate component, sized and situated to visually blend in to the Touch Bar, but it's not part of it. It has no display.
The Touch Bar and Touch ID are independent of each other. Touch ID could be implemented without a Touch Bar.
I read that. I'm not sure what point you're making though. Would you mind elaborating a little please? I don't see anything in that article that either confirms or contradicts what I wrote.
There:
"AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1."
Gotcha, thanks.
The control for Touch ID may be part of the same physical assembly as the Touch Bar, but that's a construction consideration, not an operational requirement. It would not be necessary for Apple to include the functions of the Touch Bar in order to incorporate Touch ID. They may have chosen to tie them together, I don't know and don't want to dismantle my machine to find out, but if they did it wasn't because the Touch Bar is required for Touch ID to work.
Not that it matters, I guess. At this point it's not possible to buy one without the other so, for all practical intents and purposes, they are one. I just wouldn't state Touch ID as being a reason for the Touch Bar to exist. It's clear they could have offered either one without the other.
I believe this to be true. Apple has done little to excite the tech world since Jobs. We need them to dream the future and push the timeline on when it is delivered.
I agree tbqh. Siri doesnt work and the cloud services suck so hard.
Not a touch screen, but a touch bar? I'll bet everyone was asking for a touch bar eh?
Everyone was asking for Touch ID, the most secure fingerprint authentication system. It is built upon the Touch Bar. Touch Bar is not there to display colorful emoticons but to carry Touch ID.
No, the Touch ID sensor is not part of the Touch Bar. It's a separate component, sized and situated to visually blend in to the Touch Bar, but it's not part of it. It has no display.
The Touch Bar and Touch ID are independent of each other. Touch ID could be implemented without a Touch Bar.
I read that. I'm not sure what point you're making though. Would you mind elaborating a little please? I don't see anything in that article that either confirms or contradicts what I wrote.
There:
"AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1."
Gotcha, thanks.
The control for Touch ID may be part of the same physical assembly as the Touch Bar, but that's a construction consideration, not an operational requirement. It would not be necessary for Apple to include the functions of the Touch Bar in order to incorporate Touch ID. They may have chosen to tie them together, I don't know and don't want to dismantle my machine to find out, but if they did it wasn't because the Touch Bar is required for Touch ID to work.
Not that it matters, I guess. At this point it's not possible to buy one without the other so, for all practical intents and purposes, they are one. I just wouldn't state Touch ID as being a reason for the Touch Bar to exist. It's clear they could have offered either one without the other.
Both Touch Bar and TouchID appear driven by the T1 chip. Why would Apple do so? Touch Bar is a display. Similar to iPhone's multi-touch display and similar to OLED display in the watch. This OLED multitouch display is alien to Intel architecture, it belongs to iOS/watchOS realm. In the future they may implement the fingerprint scanner into that OLED display, removing the separate TouchID button.
What is more interesting according to that article, the FaceTime camera too is driven by the same T1 chip. Why? Most probably because of the secure enclave. The secure enclave stores now your fingerprint and maybe it will store in the future your... iris image.
Cook's main products are gay rights, renewable energy, and diversity. While he lets Apple real products stay in a state of stagnation:
1. No new iPad Air for THREE YEARS 2. No new Mac Pro for THREE YEARS 3. No new Mac Mini for THREE YEARS 4. Same design on the iPhone for THREE YEARS 5. No Live TV package, no 4k, hardly any games. AppleTV has been a me too product. Hell even a cheap POS Mi Box at $69 blows away the $200 AppleTV 6. AppleWatch has failed to take off like the iPad/iPhone 7. Cancelling displays 8. Cancelling routers
Instead Tim Cook and company is wasting time on designing Christmas trees and $300 coffee table books.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company having a moral compass (politically right or left). Apple aligning itself with progressive values should be of zero surprise to anyone. I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the amount of nay-saying about diversity and values, especially when you consider that Apple's argument for data rights has more of a libertarian/constitutionalist bent to it.
That aside, I think the arguments you made about product release cycles are completely accurate. I, myself have been waiting for several months to upgrade my iMac, but I won't do it knowing that there is something on the horizon. Product updates should be an operational function. If they are not executed on a routine cadence, they should at least follow a predictable one. This is something that (at least on the desktop sector of business) has been disappointingly lacking. Apple gets away with it because their products are exceptionally well made and have a devoted fan base. This is false security and I'm not sure how patient the next generation of consumers will be.
I do have less of a problem with AppleWatch not catching on (always seemed like a niche product to me), nor am I worried about the cancellation of displays and routers. Jobs cancelled a ton of products when refocusing Apple. It seems to me that Apple may be refocusing their efforts with these moves. I'm hoping that the redirection of resources includes a more robust home automation effort. We've seen lots of tepid entries into this market (from Apple and others), but nothing that rewrites the rules. A big success in this industry could tie Apple's ecosystem closer together (something that has always been a plus to Apple) and reinforce the need for disparate products with a highly tangible benefit to customers.
I"m not even caring that they have failed to innovate. They can't even keep their current products remotely up to date. 3+ year old MacPro's are unacceptable. The seamless Mac eco-system is being fragmented and destroyed by the cancelation of key products (Monitors, routers). Apple monitors are pure source of advertising for a company. Going into an office and seeing all those lit Apple logo's was fantastic mind share. Now we get to see plastic LG monitors and have no clue whats running them. But hey, Apple will only make a hundred million on monitors instead of a 100 billion, so it needs to be axed.
They have been switching to USB-C for over a year now and yet only 2 models have them. How am I suppose to buy USB-C peripherals for my company when our MacPro's, iMacs... etc can't use them. The "Hello" event should have a been a complete transition day for all of Apple's desktops, laptops, iphones, and iPads over to USB-C. That's how you transition. I guess, Tim and company really have replaced their computers with iPads because they have no clue how their decisions are affecting people in the real world.
This isn't the first time in history that Apple has taken a break from making monitors. Given past history in fact there's a good chance they'll make monitors again and probably with some innovative features added. Just adding a couple of ports isn't Apple's idea of innovating. More likely if they do come back they'll com back with external card support and maybe some other goodies we hadn't thought of.
I dont see routers as a key component. Very few people I know ever owned an airport. I've owned all three major versions and about 3 months ago bought one because I thought with my FIOS service I would want one. Well as it turns out the router VZ gave me was faster than the Airport and supported NAS and other USB devices etc. All that being true why would I keep my Airport? Why would anyone spend extra money on an airport? And why would Apple continue to make vanilla wifi routers? Years ago airports were needed to do things most manufacturers didn't support. Now that's no longer true. If Apple continues to work on wifi it will probably be integrated into the ATV or other hub category devices.
Although, you may not see routers as a key component, I believe they are. To many users, especially those that are not very computer literate they choose Apple because "it just works". When these people walk into a store, they pick up their mac, maybe a monitor, a router and go home. Plug it all in and few steps it all works.
Today. they walk into a store and buy a mini for example. They then say I'll need a monitor. Sorry sir, Apple doesn't sell monitors and the LG one we sell won't work with that. Maybe the PC store across the street can help you with that. Okay. can I just connect this to the internet? No sir. You will need a router and then follow the 50 step process. (make sure its secure or else). These are the 10 routers we sell. Which one do you want.
Heck you can go in buy and brand new Macbook Pro, go home and be surprised it doesn't connect to your brand new iPhone or iPad. Off to the store again.
All these things may sound trivial but this is no longer the Apple I know. Everything takes back seat to the iPhone and they are completely neglecting or misunderstanding there core markets. When the iPhone gravy train is over, their will be nothing left to fall back on. In 30+ years, I've never seen Apple in such disarray.
Many people here are cherry picking their examples. How many consumers that want to purchase a Mac Mini (lowest priced Mac) were interested in Apple's $1000+ line of monitors, or their $300 line of Time Capsules? You desire to point out hypothetical issues, and think they are likely quite common, when a bit of analysis would say they are extreme corner cases.
I think Apple has a good solution for WiFi home networking that is reliable, easier to setup than most, and has good performance. I personally hope they are not abandoning this market, but perhaps taking a fresh look at it from the smart home & cloud perspectives. However, I have no illusions that it was a high selling product. Many people are opting to just go with what their ISP/cable/Telco provides.
As for monitors, it is hard to see the "value add" that Apple brings here, other than design. That is nice, but does mean the products are expensive. It is funny, as the people who were lambasting Apple for focusing too much on the "form" of the new MBP's & how expensive they are, then turn around and criticize Apple for not providing what they last year would have called an overpriced monitor with no value add.
Whilst Apple products are still streets ahead of the competitor "alternatives" I do feel they are losing their polish somewhat and sw is becoming too complex. Apple need to simplify products so they feel magical not technical.
I have to say I increasingly run into people who don't know about even some of the most basic features of their iPhone or Apple Watch. For instance, someone didn't know they could issue voice commands to their watch. Whaaaat????? There was someone who didn't know you could alter the way mail messages were displayed on their iPhone. That's a normal part of any new and powerful tool's use - users taking time to learn about them.
All I know is I see a lot of very patient Geniuses at Apple Stores informing people about basic features that exist on their devices.
I'm an Apple Developer and have been an Apple user for 38 years.
IMO, iOS is a treasure-trove of capabilities -- but it has become much too complicated for the non-tech user to uncover these treasures -- you have to know where things are, and what the designer calls them. It is totally non-intuitive. There has to be a better way -- maybe Siri could be used to [contextually aware] suggest/ask to help the user navigate and setup iOS.
I have to agree. We passed a threshold on the complexity spectrum a few years ago. Effort, training or tutorials are now needed to decipher and unlock the tricks. I suspect there are many Apple users like me who can't be bothered to "read the manual," whatever that consists of these days. There oughtta be like a coherent course of tutorials . . . probably is somewhere, but where?
You mean like the included Apple "Tips" apps, which everyone derided and hid in a folder...
While there has certainly been a vocal population (however large it is in reality) that has panned the new MBP, the reasons they panned it was the opposite of innovation. All that this segment wanted was an updated MBP with a desktop CPU that could handle more RAM, the same ports as before, keep the price the same, and claim not to care about weight or battery life. In other words, they wanted ABSOLUTELY NO INNOVATION! All of the innovation that Apple did bring to the new MBP - Touch Bar, Touch ID, supper fast storage, a new thin and light design which supports a high performance mobile CPU with better thermals and less fan noise, wide colour screen, high performance multi-use ports - was simply laughed at or ignored.
It is fine to say that Apple didn't deliver what you wanted, but to then claim on this thread that Apple is not innovating enough is just too much hypocrisy for words.
Anyway, let's go back to the article, or to the analyst's memo. Since no one has cared about it, we've dived into many different deeper issues. What the analyst says is very simple: "Apple lacks the courage to lead the next generation of innovation" What is that "next generation of innovation" we'll see. Please note that the analyst is not interested in every innovation, he's very selective, he's just involved with the "next generation of innovation". Which is...
AI, cloud-based services, messaging Now take your time to digest this.
Apple must lead the AI, Apple must lead cloud-based services, Apple must lead messaging. This is what the analyst says. So, Apple must be a services company, not a hardware company. In order to be a leader in a market you must devout all your resources to that market, obviously.
So, stop your urge to discuss Apple's innovation within the context of this article, the article and the title will not reflect what is discussed in this thread.
Yeah, that is pretty much it. They defined "future innovation" to be these three things. As others have said, "AI" is just a concept that is ever changing - today it is all about machine learning, but that of course is not AI.
Apple's innovations to date have been numerous, and you see then in all of their products (customer silicon, secure ID for payments and future products, photography, greatly improved wireless,...). I have no doubt that Apple is innovating in many arenas - some of which may never come to light as they deem them a dead end.
Even in these three areas though, Apple isn't standing still. They last release of iMessage was a huge update and shows they are not ignoring these areas.
One of the potential biggest markets after smartphones is wearables (a market that has a target of every individual on the planet, with the same tech - not byzantine messes where every country has its own standards and regulations). With the Apple Watch, Apple was the leading computing wearable, and is refining it well in these early days. Come back in 2-3 years and this product will have a much broader user base due to a vastly wider set of use cases. It ties directly into health and fitness, which have huge potential. Also, the Air Pods represent another wearable beginning, in having a very elegant solution for a voice activated assistant in your ear, delivering audio of all kinds, with a simple setup. Think beyond the white version of release 1 and think how this might iterate over 3-5 years.
but come on. This idiot ANALyst thinks he can predict what Apple will be in a decade? I mean WTF. These assholes can't even predict what sales will be in the next 90 days.
This is the kind of crap Jobs would never put up with. This guy would have been chewed out by now. But Timid Timmy won't do a thing and continue to allow the Apple Brand and Name to be abused and violated and humilated in the press for all to see.
Yes, Tim Cook should angry tweet at 3AM to trash the journalist. Seems to be how things are done these days.
I am not so sure about health, since it's an incredibly complicated, messy business. 'Social', music accessories (e.g., Airpods, Beats) and music subscriptions are definitely not 'it' for me.
Apple's trademark has always been to take incredibly complicated, messy businesses and come up with a simple implementation that works well in an intuitive manner (iPod, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB...)
Also, while you may not like Beats, they are now being used as a showcase for the revolutionary W1 chip. They're also a favorite among kids and hipsters, and they have insane profit margins. Looks like it was not such a bad acquisition after all.
How many consumers that want to purchase a Mac Mini (lowest priced Mac) were interested in Apple's $1000+ line of monitors, or their $300 line of Time Capsules?
That's an interesting question. It got me wondering who the buyers of Mac minis really are.
I suspect that it's probably NOT people looking for an inexpensive way to get a Mac, or at least that they're not a large proportion of the user base. Price sensitive buyers probably aren't looking very hard at Apple. Besides, very few "average" buyers are looking for desktop computers these days. The people who come to me asking about which Mac to buy for themselves or their nephew for Christmas are asking about laptops. When I mention the iMac or mini they shake their heads.
I just went through a list of everyone I know myself who is using a mini. Most are using them in their living rooms as a media server. They could probably get rid of them if the Apple TV made it possible to plug in a hard drive full of content and make it available to other devices in the house. These people are not using a monitor at all -- the TV is the display -- but are likely candidates for an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule.
Some are using them as servers in commercial settings. Sometimes several in a rack the way you'd expect to see X-Serves or more traditional Windows servers, but usually just one or two in specialized applications, like multimedia playback for live events. These people are not likely to use either an Airport or an Apple monitor.
Then there's a group who use them instead of Mac Pros or iMacs. The TV segment of our facility went with the Mac Pro for audio production, but the radio division uses minis. They don't use Airport products but they do have Apple monitors.
So, none of those examples likely represent a very big market for Apple-branded peripherals, or even for the mini itself. The thing is that MOST of them are using Apple products for reasons relating to interoperability, and are not well served by alternative products in Apple's lineup. Even though most of the people I know who use minis ALSO have an Apple laptop (or two or three, as well as iPhones and iPads), they're for different applications and the mini could not be easily replaced by other products in Apple's lineup. That means any move towards making the ecosystem less "sticky" means risking losing sales of more than just the peripherals themselves. While I am NOT saying I'd jump ship if Apple dropped the Airport, the reality is that I'm less likely to consider buying Apple computers, phones and tablets if making all the parts work well together isn't any easier and/or more elegant and productive than less expensive alternatives. In other words, if my home or facility is going to be cluttered with ugly devices anyway, and I have to learn how to configure ports or whatever is required for everything to work, why would I bother buying ANY of my devices from Apple? If I have to live with the downsides of mainstream consumer products anyway, I might as well save some money and open up my configuration options by skipping Apple altogether.
Much of the appeal of Apple products is an "elegant" experience. That includes not just how the products look, though that is part of it, but also how easily and smoothly they work TOGETHER. Things like Airports and monitors may not contribute much to the balance sheet on their own, but they contribute to the overall experience that gives the brand strength by providing an effortless and obvious path to doing the things one wants to do with Apple products. I don't want to wade through Best Buy trying to figure out which router will make it easy to set up Back to My Mac while still offering decent security, or which monitor has the right combination of input and display technology to make my experience a positive one. I want to go to a single source and know that it will work well, and that there will be support available if it doesn't. If I have to become an "expert" in security and configuration anyway, I might as well just build my own systems around Android and Windows rather than buying Apple devices.
That's why *I* think devices like the Mac mini, Airport/Time Capsule, and Display may be important to Apple. Then again, if they're not selling very many, then maybe others don't care as much about the points I raised as I do.
[...] Also, the Air Pods represent another wearable beginning, in having a very elegant solution for a voice activated assistant in your ear, delivering audio of all kinds, with a simple setup. Think beyond the white version of release 1 and think how this might iterate over 3-5 years.
I agree with your points about innovation. The W1 chip is a HUGE step towards overcoming one of my fundamental complaints about wireless cans -- changing sources.
That said, I think Apple has a challenge on its hands in terms of how to make the experience "elegant." In my opinion, voice control isn't a good approach in this particular case. I don't want to sit on a crowded train and say out loud "skip" or "volume down" or "pause." Nor do I want to poke incessantly at my ear trying to morse code the correct combination of taps to make it louder. Obviously I can do those things on the iPhone itself, but then I have to keep it in my hand instead of my pocket or purse. It just trades one form of inconvenience for another.
I don't know what would be better, but I may just stick with wired earphones and that handy little inline remote until someone comes up with something I can control without the social stigma.
[...] Also, the Air Pods represent another wearable beginning, in having a very elegant solution for a voice activated assistant in your ear, delivering audio of all kinds, with a simple setup. Think beyond the white version of release 1 and think how this might iterate over 3-5 years.
I agree with your points about innovation. The W1 chip is a HUGE step towards overcoming one of my fundamental complaints about wireless cans -- changing sources.
That said, I think Apple has a challenge on its hands in terms of how to make the experience "elegant." In my opinion, voice control isn't a good approach in this particular case. I don't want to sit on a crowded train and say out loud "skip" or "volume down" or "pause." Nor do I want to poke incessantly at my ear trying to morse code the correct combination of taps to make it louder. Obviously I can do those things on the iPhone itself, but then I have to keep it in my hand instead of my pocket or purse. It just trades one form of inconvenience for another.
I don't know what would be better, but I may just stick with wired earphones and that handy little inline remote until someone comes up with something I can control without the social stigma.
Just a few thoughts on what you bring up: - Although we don't have the AirPods to test out yet, it is possible with their "beam forming" mic that Siri commands may work will at low spoken volume (will see). - Apple Watch brings forward the option to control that from the wrist, so the phone can stay where it is
Agree the solution isn't here yet, but I am optimistic about AirPods, and hope they arrive in time for Christmas.
brucemc said: How many consumers that want to purchase a Mac Mini (lowest priced Mac) were interested in Apple's $1000+ line of monitors, or their $300 line of Time Capsules? ...
Much of the appeal of Apple products is an "elegant" experience. That includes not just how the products look, though that is part of it, but also how easily and smoothly they work TOGETHER. Things like Airports and monitors may not contribute much to the balance sheet on their own, but they contribute to the overall experience that gives the brand strength by providing an effortless and obvious path to doing the things one wants to do with Apple products. I don't want to wade through Best Buy trying to figure out which router will make it easy to set up Back to My Mac while still offering decent security, or which monitor has the right combination of input and display technology to make my experience a positive one. I want to go to a single source and know that it will work well, and that there will be support available if it doesn't. If I have to become an "expert" in security and configuration anyway, I might as well just build my own systems around Android and Windows rather than buying Apple devices.
That's why *I* think devices like the Mac mini, Airport/Time Capsule, and Display may be important to Apple. Then again, if they're not selling very many, then maybe others don't care as much about the points I raised as I do.
I do agree that Apple has had a history of making an elegant, better, or just plain easier - user experience. They have lead with design, which includes industrial design, but also software design, and the goal that it should "just work".
While some talk that one of Apple's long-term challenges is to remain "focused" and not try to be into every new market area, I sometimes wonder if they are not over-correcting and becoming so laser focused on a few updates and product lines that it also hurts their potential. I think home networking is close to the home automation / services market, and Apple could make this home environment much more elegant and make the user experience of all Apple products better.
That said, one could objectively look at the recent situations and come to the following conclusions: - In monitors specifically, the Apple "value add" was really only industrial design. They add no s/w smarts. Everyone complained they were expensive. So really, is it a market they need to be in? Perhaps better to work with a few partners to ensure compatibility, and the monitors are available at lower prices than Apple would do. - For AirPorts, if they are indeed scaling this back and exiting (only a rumour from one source), perhaps it is because they were just selling a very small number. Are the versions supplied by ISP's getting to be "good enough" for majority that they don't look elsewhere. If only a fraction of Apple users purchase them, is the impact to Apple of moving away from that market big? I have an AirPort Extreme, but purchased it 3 years ago (it just keeps on working well), so I am certainly not buying much and I am very aware of their benefits. - For Mac Minis, if they are mostly being used for media servers or similar, is there much benefit to an update? - For iMac's, they did a big update last year, so is the latest Intel CPU that much better? I think there is a positive brand benefit to updating as I argued in another post, but perhaps from a pure performance perspective (for a desktop) there was really no big reason to update.
LOL! Yup. I know what you mean. I wrote that lengthy diatribe on why peripherals and the mini are so important to the Apple "ecosystem," then realized just in time to write the very last line that if no one is buying them, maybe they're actually NOT as important as I thought!
The industrial design may matter more than some of us care to admit, even to ourselves. My wife didn't object when I wanted to place a second Airport Extreme among her sculptures atop a bookcase, but I wonder how she would have felt if it had been one of those upside-down dead spider looking monstrosities? Also, I know more than one television production person who has told the engineering department that they "need" an Apple-branded monitor for technical reasons when really the only reason they wanted it was because it looked cool.
As for the mini, I use mine both as the above-mentioned media server and also to offload transcoding from my primary machine (a MacBook Pro). Renders and transcodes can take anywhere from eight hours for a small project to five days for something more complex. I obviously don't want to tie up my daily driver for that length of time, so I use an imperfect-but-better-than-nothing alternative instead. A Mac Pro trashcan would be better, but I don't have a place to put something that big and I can't justify the price for a hobby machine that generates no income, much less paying for all that fancy pants dual graphics card stuff that would serve no purpose in my application (I *might* think twice about it if I could get a trashcan with single GPU and dual CPUs instead of the other way around). An iMac is a non-starter both because the display is superfluous and it won't fit on a bookcase shelf next to the AirPort. That has me wishing hard for a quad-core i7 mini! I know my application is not common, but couldn't Apple build one just for me? I've been a good boy all year!
The original concept of a small headless Mac at an attractive price point has been twisted into an attempt to pull users in at a base price and then quickly ramp up the BTO options at premium pricing to get a decent machine.
In the past, and for a variety or reasons, the Mini was attractive to a wide spread of users.
Here is an article by someone with experience in the market and within Apple:
I don't agree with hardly anything he is saying but this snippet is hard to reject:
'They’re taking refuge at the high end of the market by introducing new, more expensive MacBook Pros, with a visible differentiating feature, the Touch Bar. This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.'
Yes, they started this push into the high ground with the Retina Macs. Even at the other end with the MacBook, they produced an overpriced and underpowered offering.
It is wrong to speak of the post PC era as the end of the PC. The correct line should be the end if the PC domination era. Now there are other devices that overlap computer functionality but the PC will not go away and will be another great money earner for whoever gets the balance right on features, systems, design, functionality sand of course price.
Right now Apple lacks the courage to put out a killer machine at a competitive price for fear of eating into its own premium priced strategy.
I would rather see the Mac split off from the mobile division and left to cater to its natural market without having to play second fiddle to the mobile division. Focussed ideas, focussed management and focussed products.
The Airport line if products could have been a great earner for the company if they had made pricing competitive.
^^^ So you are seizing on the snippet that is easiest to reject from his piece. Contrary to what Gassee says, they made the new MacBook Pros more expensive because they cost more, not because they are "taking refuge," a manifestly absurd idea.
And his following paragraph: the extra year or so of development taken for the wholesale revision of the platform was, I say again, clearly used up in the back-and-forth production and design struggle caused by the radical advance in display technology, the oxide backplane, and its consequent affordance of power, heat and size savings.
None of you price-focused nega-niks are connecting basic engineering cause and effect.
^^^ So you are seizing on the snippet that is easiest to reject from his piece. Contrary to what Gassee says, they made the new MacBook Pros more expensive because they cost more, not because they are "taking refuge," a manifestly absurd idea.
And his following paragraph: the extra year or so of development taken for the wholesale revision of the platform was, I say again, clearly used up in the back-and-forth production and design struggle caused by the radical advance in display technology, the oxide backplane, and its consequent affordance of power, heat and size savings.
None of you price-focused nega-niks are connecting basic engineering cause and effect.
No one is against progress.
It's more the pace and price (literally) of progress. The fast lane vs the not so fast lane.
Let me propose an experiment.
If Apple released a slightly thicker, slightly heavier MBP with the so called 'legacy' port spread plus two USB-C/TB ports, old keyboard, slower SSD, discrete graphics, better battery life and decent quality HD (but non Retina screen) and priced it applying the same margins as the previous generation, do you think it would hurt the new MBP line?
Do you think the people fervently defending the new line would still be interested in one? Even if my proposal didn't include ultra fast SSD, was bigger, heavier and didn't have the latest and greatest screen tech?
In my opinion, the machine I just described would be a best seller for Apple in spite of its supposed limitations.
Comments
"AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1."
Gotcha, thanks.
The control for Touch ID may be part of the same physical assembly as the Touch Bar, but that's a construction consideration, not an operational requirement. It would not be necessary for Apple to include the functions of the Touch Bar in order to incorporate Touch ID. They may have chosen to tie them together, I don't know and don't want to dismantle my machine to find out, but if they did it wasn't because the Touch Bar is required for Touch ID to work.
Not that it matters, I guess. At this point it's not possible to buy one without the other so, for all practical intents and purposes, they are one. I just wouldn't state Touch ID as being a reason for the Touch Bar to exist. It's clear they could have offered either one without the other.
What is more interesting according to that article, the FaceTime camera too is driven by the same T1 chip. Why? Most probably because of the secure enclave. The secure enclave stores now your fingerprint and maybe it will store in the future your... iris image.
That aside, I think the arguments you made about product release cycles are completely accurate. I, myself have been waiting for several months to upgrade my iMac, but I won't do it knowing that there is something on the horizon. Product updates should be an operational function. If they are not executed on a routine cadence, they should at least follow a predictable one. This is something that (at least on the desktop sector of business) has been disappointingly lacking. Apple gets away with it because their products are exceptionally well made and have a devoted fan base. This is false security and I'm not sure how patient the next generation of consumers will be.
I do have less of a problem with AppleWatch not catching on (always seemed like a niche product to me), nor am I worried about the cancellation of displays and routers. Jobs cancelled a ton of products when refocusing Apple. It seems to me that Apple may be refocusing their efforts with these moves. I'm hoping that the redirection of resources includes a more robust home automation effort. We've seen lots of tepid entries into this market (from Apple and others), but nothing that rewrites the rules. A big success in this industry could tie Apple's ecosystem closer together (something that has always been a plus to Apple) and reinforce the need for disparate products with a highly tangible benefit to customers.
I think Apple has a good solution for WiFi home networking that is reliable, easier to setup than most, and has good performance. I personally hope they are not abandoning this market, but perhaps taking a fresh look at it from the smart home & cloud perspectives. However, I have no illusions that it was a high selling product. Many people are opting to just go with what their ISP/cable/Telco provides.
As for monitors, it is hard to see the "value add" that Apple brings here, other than design. That is nice, but does mean the products are expensive. It is funny, as the people who were lambasting Apple for focusing too much on the "form" of the new MBP's & how expensive they are, then turn around and criticize Apple for not providing what they last year would have called an overpriced monitor with no value add.
It is fine to say that Apple didn't deliver what you wanted, but to then claim on this thread that Apple is not innovating enough is just too much hypocrisy for words.
Apple's innovations to date have been numerous, and you see then in all of their products (customer silicon, secure ID for payments and future products, photography, greatly improved wireless,...). I have no doubt that Apple is innovating in many arenas - some of which may never come to light as they deem them a dead end.
Even in these three areas though, Apple isn't standing still. They last release of iMessage was a huge update and shows they are not ignoring these areas.
One of the potential biggest markets after smartphones is wearables (a market that has a target of every individual on the planet, with the same tech - not byzantine messes where every country has its own standards and regulations). With the Apple Watch, Apple was the leading computing wearable, and is refining it well in these early days. Come back in 2-3 years and this product will have a much broader user base due to a vastly wider set of use cases. It ties directly into health and fitness, which have huge potential. Also, the Air Pods represent another wearable beginning, in having a very elegant solution for a voice activated assistant in your ear, delivering audio of all kinds, with a simple setup. Think beyond the white version of release 1 and think how this might iterate over 3-5 years.
That's an interesting question. It got me wondering who the buyers of Mac minis really are.
I suspect that it's probably NOT people looking for an inexpensive way to get a Mac, or at least that they're not a large proportion of the user base. Price sensitive buyers probably aren't looking very hard at Apple. Besides, very few "average" buyers are looking for desktop computers these days. The people who come to me asking about which Mac to buy for themselves or their nephew for Christmas are asking about laptops. When I mention the iMac or mini they shake their heads.
I just went through a list of everyone I know myself who is using a mini. Most are using them in their living rooms as a media server. They could probably get rid of them if the Apple TV made it possible to plug in a hard drive full of content and make it available to other devices in the house. These people are not using a monitor at all -- the TV is the display -- but are likely candidates for an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule.
Some are using them as servers in commercial settings. Sometimes several in a rack the way you'd expect to see X-Serves or more traditional Windows servers, but usually just one or two in specialized applications, like multimedia playback for live events. These people are not likely to use either an Airport or an Apple monitor.
Then there's a group who use them instead of Mac Pros or iMacs. The TV segment of our facility went with the Mac Pro for audio production, but the radio division uses minis. They don't use Airport products but they do have Apple monitors.
So, none of those examples likely represent a very big market for Apple-branded peripherals, or even for the mini itself. The thing is that MOST of them are using Apple products for reasons relating to interoperability, and are not well served by alternative products in Apple's lineup. Even though most of the people I know who use minis ALSO have an Apple laptop (or two or three, as well as iPhones and iPads), they're for different applications and the mini could not be easily replaced by other products in Apple's lineup. That means any move towards making the ecosystem less "sticky" means risking losing sales of more than just the peripherals themselves. While I am NOT saying I'd jump ship if Apple dropped the Airport, the reality is that I'm less likely to consider buying Apple computers, phones and tablets if making all the parts work well together isn't any easier and/or more elegant and productive than less expensive alternatives. In other words, if my home or facility is going to be cluttered with ugly devices anyway, and I have to learn how to configure ports or whatever is required for everything to work, why would I bother buying ANY of my devices from Apple? If I have to live with the downsides of mainstream consumer products anyway, I might as well save some money and open up my configuration options by skipping Apple altogether.
Much of the appeal of Apple products is an "elegant" experience. That includes not just how the products look, though that is part of it, but also how easily and smoothly they work TOGETHER. Things like Airports and monitors may not contribute much to the balance sheet on their own, but they contribute to the overall experience that gives the brand strength by providing an effortless and obvious path to doing the things one wants to do with Apple products. I don't want to wade through Best Buy trying to figure out which router will make it easy to set up Back to My Mac while still offering decent security, or which monitor has the right combination of input and display technology to make my experience a positive one. I want to go to a single source and know that it will work well, and that there will be support available if it doesn't. If I have to become an "expert" in security and configuration anyway, I might as well just build my own systems around Android and Windows rather than buying Apple devices.
That's why *I* think devices like the Mac mini, Airport/Time Capsule, and Display may be important to Apple. Then again, if they're not selling very many, then maybe others don't care as much about the points I raised as I do.
I agree with your points about innovation. The W1 chip is a HUGE step towards overcoming one of my fundamental complaints about wireless cans -- changing sources.
That said, I think Apple has a challenge on its hands in terms of how to make the experience "elegant." In my opinion, voice control isn't a good approach in this particular case. I don't want to sit on a crowded train and say out loud "skip" or "volume down" or "pause." Nor do I want to poke incessantly at my ear trying to morse code the correct combination of taps to make it louder. Obviously I can do those things on the iPhone itself, but then I have to keep it in my hand instead of my pocket or purse. It just trades one form of inconvenience for another.
I don't know what would be better, but I may just stick with wired earphones and that handy little inline remote until someone comes up with something I can control without the social stigma.
- Although we don't have the AirPods to test out yet, it is possible with their "beam forming" mic that Siri commands may work will at low spoken volume (will see).
- Apple Watch brings forward the option to control that from the wrist, so the phone can stay where it is
Agree the solution isn't here yet, but I am optimistic about AirPods, and hope they arrive in time for Christmas.
I do agree that Apple has had a history of making an elegant, better, or just plain easier - user experience. They have lead with design, which includes industrial design, but also software design, and the goal that it should "just work".
While some talk that one of Apple's long-term challenges is to remain "focused" and not try to be into every new market area, I sometimes wonder if they are not over-correcting and becoming so laser focused on a few updates and product lines that it also hurts their potential. I think home networking is close to the home automation / services market, and Apple could make this home environment much more elegant and make the user experience of all Apple products better.
That said, one could objectively look at the recent situations and come to the following conclusions:
- In monitors specifically, the Apple "value add" was really only industrial design. They add no s/w smarts. Everyone complained they were expensive. So really, is it a market they need to be in? Perhaps better to work with a few partners to ensure compatibility, and the monitors are available at lower prices than Apple would do.
- For AirPorts, if they are indeed scaling this back and exiting (only a rumour from one source), perhaps it is because they were just selling a very small number. Are the versions supplied by ISP's getting to be "good enough" for majority that they don't look elsewhere. If only a fraction of Apple users purchase them, is the impact to Apple of moving away from that market big? I have an AirPort Extreme, but purchased it 3 years ago (it just keeps on working well), so I am certainly not buying much and I am very aware of their benefits.
- For Mac Minis, if they are mostly being used for media servers or similar, is there much benefit to an update?
- For iMac's, they did a big update last year, so is the latest Intel CPU that much better? I think there is a positive brand benefit to updating as I argued in another post, but perhaps from a pure performance perspective (for a desktop) there was really no big reason to update.
So that is me arguing against my own "feelings":)
LOL! Yup. I know what you mean. I wrote that lengthy diatribe on why peripherals and the mini are so important to the Apple "ecosystem," then realized just in time to write the very last line that if no one is buying them, maybe they're actually NOT as important as I thought!
The industrial design may matter more than some of us care to admit, even to ourselves. My wife didn't object when I wanted to place a second Airport Extreme among her sculptures atop a bookcase, but I wonder how she would have felt if it had been one of those upside-down dead spider looking monstrosities? Also, I know more than one television production person who has told the engineering department that they "need" an Apple-branded monitor for technical reasons when really the only reason they wanted it was because it looked cool.
As for the mini, I use mine both as the above-mentioned media server and also to offload transcoding from my primary machine (a MacBook Pro). Renders and transcodes can take anywhere from eight hours for a small project to five days for something more complex. I obviously don't want to tie up my daily driver for that length of time, so I use an imperfect-but-better-than-nothing alternative instead. A Mac Pro trashcan would be better, but I don't have a place to put something that big and I can't justify the price for a hobby machine that generates no income, much less paying for all that fancy pants dual graphics card stuff that would serve no purpose in my application (I *might* think twice about it if I could get a trashcan with single GPU and dual CPUs instead of the other way around). An iMac is a non-starter both because the display is superfluous and it won't fit on a bookcase shelf next to the AirPort. That has me wishing hard for a quad-core i7 mini! I know my application is not common, but couldn't Apple build one just for me? I've been a good boy all year!
The original concept of a small headless Mac at an attractive price point has been twisted into an attempt to pull users in at a base price and then quickly ramp up the BTO options at premium pricing to get a decent machine.
In the past, and for a variety or reasons, the Mini was attractive to a wide spread of users.
Here is an article by someone with experience in the market and within Apple:
https://mondaynote.com/the-macintosh-endgame-7d6be7dc33ab#.sl77slgs7
I don't agree with hardly anything he is saying but this snippet is hard to reject:
'They’re taking refuge at the high end of the market by introducing new, more expensive MacBook Pros, with a visible differentiating feature, the Touch Bar. This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.'
Yes, they started this push into the high ground with the Retina Macs. Even at the other end with the MacBook, they produced an overpriced and underpowered offering.
It is wrong to speak of the post PC era as the end of the PC. The correct line should be the end if the PC domination era. Now there are other devices that overlap computer functionality but the PC will not go away and will be another great money earner for whoever gets the balance right on features, systems, design, functionality sand of course price.
Right now Apple lacks the courage to put out a killer machine at a competitive price for fear of eating into its own premium priced strategy.
I would rather see the Mac split off from the mobile division and left to cater to its natural market without having to play second fiddle to the mobile division. Focussed ideas, focussed management and focussed products.
The Airport line if products could have been a great earner for the company if they had made pricing competitive.
And his following paragraph: the extra year or so of development taken for the wholesale revision of the platform was, I say again, clearly used up in the back-and-forth production and design struggle caused by the radical advance in display technology, the oxide backplane, and its consequent affordance of power, heat and size savings.
None of you price-focused nega-niks are connecting basic engineering cause and effect.
It's more the pace and price (literally) of progress. The fast lane vs the not so fast lane.
Let me propose an experiment.
If Apple released a slightly thicker, slightly heavier MBP with the so called 'legacy' port spread plus two USB-C/TB ports, old keyboard, slower SSD, discrete graphics, better battery life and decent quality HD (but non Retina screen) and priced it applying the same margins as the previous generation, do you think it would hurt the new MBP line?
Do you think the people fervently defending the new line would still be interested in one? Even if my proposal didn't include ultra fast SSD, was bigger, heavier and didn't have the latest and greatest screen tech?
In my opinion, the machine I just described would be a best seller for Apple in spite of its supposed limitations.