I don't understand how they let the Mac lineup get in the state it's in.
With their money they could easily have upgraded the line up with new internals whilst they finished off any innovations that they wanted to roll out.
Piss poor management, very unusual.
non sequitur. The Mac Lineup is not the reason they made less money last year.
and it's quite simple: the Mac Lineup is in the state it's in due to 1) the iPhone is the product that drives the company; 2) Apple's commitment to reduce churn in products (to avoid rapid obsolescence / devaluation); 3) their dependence on Intel to provide 'compelling' upgrades to the x64 computational platform 4) Apple's view that the world [read: the 99% of the buying public that doesn't write code, play computer games, or crashes molecules, planets, or TB databases together] wants lighter more portable products.
I [hopefully] think this is the same conundrum as in 1997-2004 where they had to 'dance with who brung ya' [GSeries chip], until they could get 1) the NeXTSTEP->MacOSX migration reasonably complete, AND the Intel Core/Xeon Chips were Price/Performance competitive with the PowerChips.
I do think that the A series chips will go to the MacOS line... but it's still 4-5 years out, not so much for the Ax chips, but for supporting chip set that provides all the stuff that iDevices don't have to deal with at the performance levels a 'real computer' has to.
I do think the Apple Execs take a very long view in their product pipeline [3+ years], and are compensated such that a couple million a year off the top is a 'pinch' and not a 'penalty' (If I have a x0,000 shares at 2010 $70 RSUs, the real benefit is still to grow stock price 20% over 3 years [remember this is the friction' highest capitalized public company in the free world 5% YoY is serious growth]).
Nothing to see here, business as usual.
Sounds more like you're saying 'Apple can't walk and chew gum at the same time', to me.
Not a single one of them needs the money, nor could ever in their entire lifetimes spend the money they have already been paid in past years.
You obviously haven't met my wife. Pair her up with any of them and that money will be quickly spent. She's about to divorce me because I can't earn money as fast as she spends it.
Maybe this year they will focuse more on innovation, and making better products, and stay out of politics.
What nonsense. The current idevices and macs are the best there have ever been. They don't innovate themselves.
I welcome Apple to get more involved in politics -- whether it's standing up the FBI and protecting my right to encryption, or standing up to anti-gay US state policies that are guided by pretend gods and books written by ancient men.
They are not focused on Innovation, the iwatch was a failure. Instead of focusing on VR and being a leader in that they are taking a back seat. Instead of making their laptop and computer screens touchscreen, they make more expensive iPads. Instead of being a leader in home automation they took a back seat to google and amazon. They havent updated their mac pro line in several years now. Their computers receive marginal upgrades and the prices go up. If I was an investor, I would have dumped this a year ago, even with it trading near all time highs now. So many other great investments out there, even AMZN and NVDA have outperformed AAPL. Apple has absolutely built a great infrastructure around movies and music but its going to be cannibalized by Amazon Prime and other streaming services. Tim Cook has proven he isnt a Steve Jobs.
More rubbish. The Apple Watch was an overnight billion dollar business and a success -- Apple is now the second biggest watch earner, second only to Rolex. They are completely focused on innovation, which is how these devices get better and better over time. They do not fall off trees.
As for comparing Cook to Jobs, this is a troll trope. Apple is doing better under Cook than Jobs by every metric -- size, earnings, stock price, etc. Jobs was a product manager as well as CEO but that is unusual and not expected. You don't see Bezos doing design either.
There are legitimate questions about the Mac lineup. It's pretty bad when even John Gruber is like WTF Apple regarding the Mac Pro. What reason do they have for not updating it for 3 years and not reducing the price? If Apple doesn't want to be in the pro market then discontinue the product. Same thing with the router business. Those products are woefully out of date. Either update them or kill them. But it does call into question why Apple seems to be struggling from a bandwith perspective. Other than the iPhone - which they have no choice but to update every year at the same time - it seems like it's a struggle to get stuff out the door. Is Apple's functional org structure hurting them? Would things be different if there was one person responsible for the Mac and nothing else?
Simple logic, which even seems to be beyond Gruber these days of mass Internet hand-wringing, should tell you that Apple has something significant in mind with the Mac Pro. They would have signaled a long time ago if the line was dead-ended, and they would have updated it a long time ago if it were a good or possible strategy to do so.
They may have boxed themselves in to a point with the thermal design or with the specialized US assembly program, for examples, but I think its obvious that a strategic upgrade to the platform is either waiting for components to appear or being worked out in agonizing detail, American style. They may also have been short on engineering personnel and other resources because of Mac Pro or iMac projects.
We may never know why these things take so long, but I think we can be sure they are planning or working seriously on something for the platform, or they would be obligated to end it, publicly.
Edit: Jkichline gives a nice detailed rationale for the delay in post 40 above.
The real news here is...did Apple just announce their results for the Oct-Dec quarter before the official announcement on January 31st? It sounds here like we already know the numbers for calendar year 2016.
After using them for a few hours I realized how wires used to get in the way or tug at my ears every time I'd zip up my coat and go out. Absolutely love them.
Have you done any semi-serious exercises (running a couple of miles, working weight machines etc.) with them in? If so, how do you feel the do in terms of staying in? I have tried a lot of wired and BT headphones but have never been happy with them for workout purposes and would be curious to get a users perspective if you had one.
Our experiences are relative because our ears aren't yours. But they stay in my ears during serious workouts. My SO felt they were too lose in one ear to keep.
Maybe this year they will focuse more on innovation, and making better products, and stay out of politics.
You need to be involved in politics. There were plenty of successful companies that went down with the ship in WWII. Unfortunately the government does not make wise decisions, especially involving technology but evidently in human rights either. Apple is leading in this area.
"Human rights" involvement (whatever that means) is not Apple's purpose. Their purpose is to design and make "insanely great" things. That's it.
If you were the CEO perhaps. But not under the actual past two CEOs, who did and do in fact care about civil rights. And thank god for that, they'll get even more of my money.
Just imagine if they were government bootlickers -- they'd have handed over the keys to Comey.
I don't understand how they let the Mac lineup get in the state it's in.
With their money they could easily have upgraded the line up with new internals whilst they finished off any innovations that they wanted to roll out.
Piss poor management, very unusual.
I'm not understanding why they are pouring so much R&D into niche products like the Apple Watch and Touch Bar. The vast majority of us want affordable computing and progressive refinements and bug fixes.
There are legitimate questions about the Mac lineup. It's pretty bad when even John Gruber is like WTF Apple regarding the Mac Pro. What reason do they have for not updating it for 3 years and not reducing the price? If Apple doesn't want to be in the pro market then discontinue the product. Same thing with the router business. Those products are woefully out of date. Either update them or kill them. But it does call into question why Apple seems to be struggling from a bandwith perspective. Other than the iPhone - which they have no choice but to update every year at the same time - it seems like it's a struggle to get stuff out the door. Is Apple's functional org structure hurting them? Would things be different if there was one person responsible for the Mac and nothing else?
Simple logic, which even seems to be beyond Gruber these days of mass Internet hand-wringing, should tell you that Apple has something significant in mind with the Mac Pro. They would have signaled a long time ago if the line was dead-ended, and they would have updated it a long time ago if it were a good or possible strategy to do so.
They may have boxed themselves in to a point with the thermal design or with the specialized US assembly program, for examples, but I think its obvious that a strategic upgrade to the platform is either waiting for components to appear or being worked out in agonizing detail, American style. They may also have been short on engineering personnel and other resources because of Mac Pro or iMac projects.
We may never know why these things take so long, but I think we can be sure they are planning or working seriously on something for the platform, or they would be obligated to end it, publicly.
Edit: Jkichline gives a nice detailed rationale for the delay in post #40 above.
Very sensible perspective. I really know understand the hand-wringing, or worse, the suggestions that Apple is doing it out of spite. They're a tight-lipped company and shit happens...that's about all there is to it.
While CEO's need to help their companies perform, it should be for the long run. This type of thinking makes them focus on next year's earning instead of the next 10 year's products.
It shouldn't. Not a single one of them needs the money, nor could ever in their entire lifetimes spend the money they have already been paid in past years.
IMHO Apple's executive team should be doing the jobs because of the challenge, personal pride, or maybe even the love of the company and not more personal monetary compensation. And those things may be their motivation, but at this point in their executive careers they don't benefit from any more money. If a drop in bonus pay that they wouldn't ever need anyway is enough to make a couple of them lose focus on the long-term picture perhaps they aren't the best leads for Apple anyway. Just my.02
Great point, but couldn't that also work the other way, in that, because pay cuts or increases don't really motivate them and the board can't really fire them that they vaunarable to relaxing and becoming complacent, and too focus on things they cant build yet, secrificing the present for a future which might endup not woking out, I think with out realizing it (as you never do) Apple is now where Microsoft was back in its heyday, matter of fact Apple has been in this position befor back when the Apple II was kicking ass and taking names, they focus all their energy and time on their golden goose overlooking everything els. At this point iPhone runs Apple. Here's hoping Timmy's got something really WOW "cooking"
There are legitimate questions about the Mac lineup. It's pretty bad when even John Gruber is like WTF Apple regarding the Mac Pro. What reason do they have for not updating it for 3 years and not reducing the price? If Apple doesn't want to be in the pro market then discontinue the product. Same thing with the router business. Those products are woefully out of date. Either update them or kill them. But it does call into question why Apple seems to be struggling from a bandwith perspective. Other than the iPhone - which they have no choice but to update every year at the same time - it seems like it's a struggle to get stuff out the door. Is Apple's functional org structure hurting them? Would things be different if there was one person responsible for the Mac and nothing else?
It's simple. The Skylake architecture for the E5 class of Xeon processors was originally road mapped for Late 2015 and haas been delayed by Intel until early 2017. It has nothing to do with Apple, it has everything to do with their vendor, Intel.
Just like between people, when something bad happens and you explain yourself, it makes whatever bad thing happened easier to deal with, same thing will Apple. Would it kill them to explain why they have not updated their Mac Pro?
I don't understand how they let the Mac lineup get in the state it's in.
With their money they could easily have upgraded the line up with new internals whilst they finished off any innovations that they wanted to roll out.
Piss poor management, very unusual.
I'm not understanding why they are pouring so much R&D into niche products like the Apple Watch and Touch Bar. The vast majority of us want affordable computing and progressive refinements and bug fixes.
It's not an either/or proposition. Bug fixes is software, and that's happening always. And the macs are indeed being progressively refined and improved -- in fact the touch bar is one example of that. I don't own one but from using it in Photos in the store and reading reviews, it's good. Meanwhile the machine is being improved, such as the new tech used on the display, the continued reduction is mass, etc...
AW may seem like a niche now, but so did the iPod once*. As its capabilities continue to grow it will offer even more value than it does now.
Maybe this year they will focuse more on innovation, and making better products, and stay out of politics.
You need to be involved in politics. There were plenty of successful companies that went down with the ship in WWII. Unfortunately the government does not make wise decisions, especially involving technology but evidently in human rights either. Apple is leading in this area.
"Human rights" involvement (whatever that means) is not Apple's purpose. Their purpose is to design and make "insanely great" things. That's it.
Pretty sure the Chinese NYTimes app was "insanely great" to a lot of people.
There are legitimate questions about the Mac lineup. It's pretty bad when even John Gruber is like WTF Apple regarding the Mac Pro. What reason do they have for not updating it for 3 years and not reducing the price? If Apple doesn't want to be in the pro market then discontinue the product. Same thing with the router business. Those products are woefully out of date. Either update them or kill them. But it does call into question why Apple seems to be struggling from a bandwith perspective. Other than the iPhone - which they have no choice but to update every year at the same time - it seems like it's a struggle to get stuff out the door. Is Apple's functional org structure hurting them? Would things be different if there was one person responsible for the Mac and nothing else?
It's simple. The Skylake architecture for the E5 class of Xeon processors was originally road mapped for Late 2015 and haas been delayed by Intel until early 2017. It has nothing to do with Apple, it has everything to do with their vendor, Intel.
Just like between people, when something bad happens and you explain yourself, it makes whatever bad thing happened easier to deal with, same thing will Apple. Would it kill them to explain why they have not updated their Mac Pro?
Apple doesn't comment on products. You know this. Also, I don't think Apple wants to start a pissing match between them and Intel blaming them for the reason why they cannot update the Mac Pro among other Mac models. Apple never comments on much of anything until they have something to introduce. Since Intel is basically holding Apple back they have nothing to release at this point. Same was true for the iMac until just recently.
There are legitimate questions about the Mac lineup. It's pretty bad when even John Gruber is like WTF Apple regarding the Mac Pro. What reason do they have for not updating it for 3 years and not reducing the price? If Apple doesn't want to be in the pro market then discontinue the product. Same thing with the router business. Those products are woefully out of date. Either update them or kill them. But it does call into question why Apple seems to be struggling from a bandwith perspective. Other than the iPhone - which they have no choice but to update every year at the same time - it seems like it's a struggle to get stuff out the door. Is Apple's functional org structure hurting them? Would things be different if there was one person responsible for the Mac and nothing else?
It's simple. The Skylake architecture for the E5 class of Xeon processors was originally road mapped for Late 2015 and haas been delayed by Intel until early 2017. It has nothing to do with Apple, it has everything to do with their vendor, Intel.
Just like between people, when something bad happens and you explain yourself, it makes whatever bad thing happened easier to deal with, same thing will Apple. Would it kill them to explain why they have not updated their Mac Pro?
Apple has never ruined the surprise or uncovered the mystery around their strategic operations, nor should they. They wouldn't be Apple if they did.
You might get an occasional explanation about something minor like the white iPhone 4, but on the major platform moves it seems Apple lets the handwringers have enough room to make themselves look stupid when the shoe finally drops.
Trouble is, the handwringers never seem to learn that the company knows what it's doing. At least this means that the Maclope still has a job.
Maybe this year they will focuse more on innovation, and making better products, and stay out of politics.
Right?¡ I can't believe Apple sent thousands of engineers to Washington to lobby for gay rights this past year instead of working on new HW and SW¡ Oh, wait, none of that happened.
They are not focused on Innovation, the iwatch was a failure. Instead of focusing on VR and being a leader in that they are taking a back seat. Instead of making their laptop and computer screens touchscreen, they make more expensive iPads. Instead of being a leader in home automation they took a back seat to google and amazon. They havent updated their mac pro line in several years now. Their computers receive marginal upgrades and the prices go up. If I was an investor, I would have dumped this a year ago, even with it trading near all time highs now. So many other great investments out there, even AMZN and NVDA have outperformed AAPL. Apple has absolutely built a great infrastructure around movies and music but its going to be cannibalized by Amazon Prime and other streaming services. Tim Cook has proven he isnt a Steve Jobs.
Apple Watch a failure? Seriously? So instead of making a watch, Apple should have focused on VR? You are pretty funny. I have the Playstation VR and I think it's great, but it's never going to be a big product like a watch is. If you want a touchscreen, buy an iPad. iTunes isn't a streaming movie service like Amazon Prime or Netflix. Saying Amazon Prime or other streaming services are cannibalizing iTunes is like saying Dollar Tree will put Gamestop out of business. It doesn't make sense. Tim Cook isn't Steve Jobs. There will never be another Steve Jobs.
Comments
I welcome Apple to get more involved in politics -- whether it's standing up the FBI and protecting my right to encryption, or standing up to anti-gay US state policies that are guided by pretend gods and books written by ancient men.
More rubbish. The Apple Watch was an overnight billion dollar business and a success -- Apple is now the second biggest watch earner, second only to Rolex. They are completely focused on innovation, which is how these devices get better and better over time. They do not fall off trees.
As for comparing Cook to Jobs, this is a troll trope. Apple is doing better under Cook than Jobs by every metric -- size, earnings, stock price, etc. Jobs was a product manager as well as CEO but that is unusual and not expected. You don't see Bezos doing design either.
They may have boxed themselves in to a point with the thermal design or with the specialized US assembly program, for examples, but I think its obvious that a strategic upgrade to the platform is either waiting for components to appear or being worked out in agonizing detail, American style. They may also have been short on engineering personnel and other resources because of Mac Pro or iMac projects.
We may never know why these things take so long, but I think we can be sure they are planning or working seriously on something for the platform, or they would be obligated to end it, publicly.
Edit: Jkichline gives a nice detailed rationale for the delay in post 40 above.
If you were the CEO perhaps. But not under the actual past two CEOs, who did and do in fact care about civil rights. And thank god for that, they'll get even more of my money.
Just imagine if they were government bootlickers -- they'd have handed over the keys to Comey.
AW may seem like a niche now, but so did the iPod once*. As its capabilities continue to grow it will offer even more value than it does now.
* "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
You might get an occasional explanation about something minor like the white iPhone 4, but on the major platform moves it seems Apple lets the handwringers have enough room to make themselves look stupid when the shoe finally drops.
Trouble is, the handwringers never seem to learn that the company knows what it's doing. At least this means that the Maclope still has a job.