Mac losing focus of Jony Ive, others in Apple management - report
Despite promises by Chief Executive Tim Cook that "great desktops" are coming, Apple's Mac team has become seriously neglected in favor of iOS devices, a new report claims.
In recent years, the design team led by Jony Ive has been making fewer visits to see early concepts at the Mac labs, and that change is said to have become even more pronounced after design leadership was rearranged last year, one of several sources told Bloomberg. That elevated to Ive to "chief design officer," giving him a more hands-off role, while two other people -- Richard Howarth and Alan Dye -- stepped in to fill the gap.
Managers have meanwhile been floating multiple competing ideas at a time, forcing designers and engineers to split their attention in the hopes that one option will be shippable, Tuesday's report said. As an example, the publication pointed to the 12-inch Retina MacBook, which had two core prototypes: the lighter Stealth Fighter, and the heavier, more conventional Stealth Bomber.
Although the lighter option was picked, the work on Stealth Bomber meant that there was less time available to figure out how to slim down components. This resulted in the finished computer shipping in 2015 -- several months after an original 2014 target.
Some engineers were allegedly hoping to add Touch ID and a second USB-C port to this year's model, but instead had to settle for a speed boost and the new rose gold color.
The 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was originally supposed to have high-performance battery packs contoured to the chassis, much like the 12-inch MacBook, another source claimed. Because the battery failed an important test however, Apple decided to revert to an older design to launch in time for the holidays. The company had to pull in engineers from other teams to get the Pro finished on time, causing work on other Mac hardware to suffer.
Bloomberg noted that not only is there no longer a dedicated macOS team, but most of the engineers are iOS-first, and the company's design strategy has turned to making Macs more iPhone-like, for instance emphasizing thinness and minimal ports. The 2016 MacBook Pro was at one point going to have a gold color, and early 12-inch MacBook prototypes are even said to have used a Lightning connector in place of USB-C.
Over a dozen managers and engineers from the Mac hardware teams have left for different parts of the company -- or other companies entirely -- in the last year and a half, multiple sources said. While some were simply searching for a less grueling work environment, others are claimed to have been worried about the future of the Mac given executive focus on iPhones and iPads.
On the future, some engineers have allegedly suggested moving Mac Pro production out of Austin, Tex. back to Asia, where it's not only cheaper but the manufacturers are better prepared for ambitious designs. The desktop was last updated in 2013.
Designers are meanwhile said to be considering standalone keyboards with the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar and Touch ID components. Their release, though, will supposedly be tied to how well the features do on the MacBook Pro.
The company is otherwise said to be preparing "modest" Mac updates in 2017, namely USB-C ports and AMD video cards for the iMac, and speed boosts for the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
In recent years, the design team led by Jony Ive has been making fewer visits to see early concepts at the Mac labs, and that change is said to have become even more pronounced after design leadership was rearranged last year, one of several sources told Bloomberg. That elevated to Ive to "chief design officer," giving him a more hands-off role, while two other people -- Richard Howarth and Alan Dye -- stepped in to fill the gap.
Managers have meanwhile been floating multiple competing ideas at a time, forcing designers and engineers to split their attention in the hopes that one option will be shippable, Tuesday's report said. As an example, the publication pointed to the 12-inch Retina MacBook, which had two core prototypes: the lighter Stealth Fighter, and the heavier, more conventional Stealth Bomber.
Although the lighter option was picked, the work on Stealth Bomber meant that there was less time available to figure out how to slim down components. This resulted in the finished computer shipping in 2015 -- several months after an original 2014 target.
Some engineers were allegedly hoping to add Touch ID and a second USB-C port to this year's model, but instead had to settle for a speed boost and the new rose gold color.
The 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was originally supposed to have high-performance battery packs contoured to the chassis, much like the 12-inch MacBook, another source claimed. Because the battery failed an important test however, Apple decided to revert to an older design to launch in time for the holidays. The company had to pull in engineers from other teams to get the Pro finished on time, causing work on other Mac hardware to suffer.
Bloomberg noted that not only is there no longer a dedicated macOS team, but most of the engineers are iOS-first, and the company's design strategy has turned to making Macs more iPhone-like, for instance emphasizing thinness and minimal ports. The 2016 MacBook Pro was at one point going to have a gold color, and early 12-inch MacBook prototypes are even said to have used a Lightning connector in place of USB-C.
Over a dozen managers and engineers from the Mac hardware teams have left for different parts of the company -- or other companies entirely -- in the last year and a half, multiple sources said. While some were simply searching for a less grueling work environment, others are claimed to have been worried about the future of the Mac given executive focus on iPhones and iPads.
On the future, some engineers have allegedly suggested moving Mac Pro production out of Austin, Tex. back to Asia, where it's not only cheaper but the manufacturers are better prepared for ambitious designs. The desktop was last updated in 2013.
Designers are meanwhile said to be considering standalone keyboards with the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar and Touch ID components. Their release, though, will supposedly be tied to how well the features do on the MacBook Pro.
The company is otherwise said to be preparing "modest" Mac updates in 2017, namely USB-C ports and AMD video cards for the iMac, and speed boosts for the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
Comments
Even if it's not, it's pretty clear to all but the most die hard Panglossian Apple sycophants that there has been real trouble in Mac Land.
I hope that Apple's senior management is getting the message that they can't neglect the Mac like this. The Mac is a vital part of the ecosystem, and Mac users are the core of their customer base. The Mac is such a great product -- this neglect is tragic.
I personally don't understand how Apple as the largest company in the world with no concerns about cash flow can't have multiple successful product teams going.
How hard is it for them to put out a decent looking updated monitor for example?
The culture there sounds brutal too...?
Another thing that slows Mac development is Apple's reliance on Intel for an application processor. Apple doesn't face that delay and uncertainty for iPhone and iPad. Apple's work with TSMC on 7nm and 5nm processors for later in the decade puts a lot of pressure on Intel to step up its game. In recent years, Intel's biggest strategy in PC's has been partnering with Chinese makers of laptops based on the MacBook Air design. Moore's Law, it turns out, was a corporate strategy that Intel has since abandoned.
Once Jony Ive has finished working on the Spaceship, he will have more time for Mac and other matters.
Forget the price, forget the particular specs: at first and second glance, one could be forgiven for asking, "Why isn't this the new iMac?" Who knows what it coming, but that kind of reaction is hard to displace when you're patiently waiting for the next upgrade cycle and something viscerally appeals to you.
why all the doom?
Also, I'm guessing that the Mac Pro may finally disappear and in its place the iMac may be supplemented with an iMac Pro.
There have also been articles speculating that Apple's functional organization contribute to this problem.
I certainly don't want Apple to end up with independent, competing product divisions. They need to keep a unified structure in order to produce a unified ecosystem. But the current structure clearly needs refinement. Adding a bit more parallelism to the organization, so that multiple products can move forward simultaneously without running into a senior management bottleneck, does not require separate profit/loss statements for every product. It just requires a decision from Tim Cook that maybe we don't need Jony Ive to sign off on everything.
It's almost as if Apple is structured as a single core CPU that is now running up against the limits of clock speed scaling. They need to figure out a way to add parallelism. They need to go multi-core, but still with a single OS.
Because it's a gimmick? Leo Laporte had one and even he, as a recognized Apple basher, struggled to show any significant utility for it. I am glad Apple is waiting for something more useful and polished.
I needed a desktop (haven't had one is 10 years), went with a PC, faster, much faster, and saved 1000$ (counting dual 4K monitors). Win10 is pretty good so far, just have to disable a bunch of junk.
I still think I will buy Apple Macbooks though.
The reality is that Intel has vastly improved performance per watt and has enabled extremely mobile laptops favored by Apple. As nice as the A10 may be it can't do what the high end Core i7 does for the Mac and Intel has being going in the direction that Apple has wanted with the 4.5W TDP CoreM7.
Intel hasn't been holding Apple back. Intel has been catering to Apple's desires. This holds true in 2016 as much as it did in 2005.
Same with the iPads, and AppleWatch.
The iMacs need an update, maybe edge-to-edge screen. And this iteration like the MacBooks could last another 5 years with just only speed updates.
AppleTV is excellent considering how hampered it is b/c of the cable companies and cable providers.
Software is second to none. I remember when Pages came out, I love the simple design and it has only got better as it has matured. I prefer the Apple apps b/c of the seamless integration between devices. Was Notes or the Podcast App perfect when it came out? Certainly not, but one thing about Apple is it's all about improvements and now Notes is excellent and the Podcast App is better.
Anyway, I'm probably stating the obvious.
A bizzarre statement after the release of a new MBP. The iMac has seen lots of upgrades, especially in the display part. The only two macs that have been neglected are the two that were often neglected: the mini (so neglected that AI declared it dead a long while ago) and the Mac Pro.
Some things that I particularly like about the Mac relative to XP are:
1. Spaces (or whatever you want to call it these days)
2. Very smooth multitasking (I found that I had to fiddle with processor affinity and process priorities to get a windows PC to run smoothly when all logical cores were maxed out)
3. The accessibility Zoom feature
4. Awesome multi-touch trackpads
5. Single menu bar at the top plus general efficient use of window space (I guess that will probably never change in Windows)
6. Windows was always just ugly; macOS just looks more elegant to my eye
How does a high-end Windows 10 PC stack up on these things?
It's business as usual that concerns me, and for Tim to use the "Hello Again!" moniker to market the new Touchbar Mac as a sign of innovation, shows his lack of respect for the company and product.