Will future Mac hardware ever see faster update cycles?
Perhaps someone can explain to me why the update cycle for the Mac is so far behind the rest of the industry. It is the single biggest factor IMO in making the Mac seem slow and outdated compared to the PC. It does not matter if a new Mac is introduced with decent specs. By the time it gets even a minor update, it is way behind in basic i/o, graphics, CPU, ram, drive speed, pretty much everything. Rather than moving obviously outdated products down-market so that the price/performance doesn't get too far out of whack, they let things sit until their machines become laughing stocks.
How long was it before Macs got USB 2.0? Why does the eMac still not have it? Why is the Mac Superdrive slower than comparable after market drives? Why does the consumer Mac line ship with considerably smaller and slower hard drives than comparable PCs? Why do better graphics cards not ship with new Macs. There are new cards on the market every few months. Why does Apple not at least update the things they can update when components are available? They don't even need to make a formal announcement for drop-in component updates. At some point, it's got to be more expensive for them to ship one and two year old components than the more readily available up-to-date parts.
I understand the CPU situation. But the rest of the stuff is off-the-shelf OEM parts. Their treatment of the iMac is unforgivable. 9+ months for PB updates is also nutty. The PM is the flagship system. The graphics card should probably have been updated twice by now. Every product should be updated at least 3 or 4 times a year just so they never fall too far behind the rest of the market in basic things. This would at least help take some of the pressure off of the CPU being one two years behind the competition in clock speed and other aspects.
So why does Apple not have a normal product update cycle. Do they not know how much it hurts them, do they not care that they appear to be a company that can't keep up? Is the Mac so alien that OEM parts can't be easily and cheaply adopted for the Mac? Is Apple so greedy that they want to milk every last penny out of out of date stuff before grudgingly providing a more modern solution? Am I missing something obvious?
As an aside...
Could it be that people by new PCs more often than Mac users because PCs are kept more up-to-date? If you buy a new Mac, it might be two or three years before the line is updated enough to compel you to buy again. In PC land, give it six months and there will be offerings that are twice as fast with more features for less than you paid for your last one. Will future Macs see better update cycles with the introduction of better manufacturing process, or is it simply a marketing decision?
How long was it before Macs got USB 2.0? Why does the eMac still not have it? Why is the Mac Superdrive slower than comparable after market drives? Why does the consumer Mac line ship with considerably smaller and slower hard drives than comparable PCs? Why do better graphics cards not ship with new Macs. There are new cards on the market every few months. Why does Apple not at least update the things they can update when components are available? They don't even need to make a formal announcement for drop-in component updates. At some point, it's got to be more expensive for them to ship one and two year old components than the more readily available up-to-date parts.
I understand the CPU situation. But the rest of the stuff is off-the-shelf OEM parts. Their treatment of the iMac is unforgivable. 9+ months for PB updates is also nutty. The PM is the flagship system. The graphics card should probably have been updated twice by now. Every product should be updated at least 3 or 4 times a year just so they never fall too far behind the rest of the market in basic things. This would at least help take some of the pressure off of the CPU being one two years behind the competition in clock speed and other aspects.
So why does Apple not have a normal product update cycle. Do they not know how much it hurts them, do they not care that they appear to be a company that can't keep up? Is the Mac so alien that OEM parts can't be easily and cheaply adopted for the Mac? Is Apple so greedy that they want to milk every last penny out of out of date stuff before grudgingly providing a more modern solution? Am I missing something obvious?
As an aside...
Could it be that people by new PCs more often than Mac users because PCs are kept more up-to-date? If you buy a new Mac, it might be two or three years before the line is updated enough to compel you to buy again. In PC land, give it six months and there will be offerings that are twice as fast with more features for less than you paid for your last one. Will future Macs see better update cycles with the introduction of better manufacturing process, or is it simply a marketing decision?
Comments
Apple should be updating products every 6 months, that is not unreasonable. Sometimes things can slip to 9 months-maybe, that is not unreasonable if the technology in those products were introduced at "way ahead of the industry" specs.
The iMac is messed up right now, the PowerBook is getting way long in the tooth, and now the G5 needs to be updated so that its price performance matches up with the rest of the industry. The nice thing about the G5 to begin with was its speed for the price compared to the PC industry, now it has gotten about equal or less.
But your central question is a good one. The Wintel side of the industry is based on pushing large volumes of generic boxes with middling features. Apple, on the other hand, is competing with itself. First, if they don't roll out something with a Wow! factor, pundits and analysts start to get a little worried. Second, no one else is selling Macs, so there is no pressure to speed up rollouts except for the fact that customers could switch to Windows, so could be seen as competition.
If you've used Macs from the "Beige Era" you would realize how much industry standards driven Apple has become. (ADB, geo serial ports, SCSI drives, oy!). Meanwhile look at the arse of most PCs and you'll still find serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports and yet they'll clutter it up with eleventy billion USB ports.
As for OEM off-the-shelf? P-shaw! Who else is buying PowerPC motherboards!? Answer: no one. Just because you see USB, Ethernet and Firewire ports on Intel or Asus OEM boards doesn't mean Apple should be paying the same. The volume advantage goes to Wintels...
Apple is still in a transition stage with the G5 (as is IBM). Once the divorce from Motorola is finalized and IBM can get used to being Apple's CPU OEM, then rollouts should steady.
Screed
- Apple designs their own motherboards (and computers)
- Apple has a much smaller market share
- Apple needs to keep the computers sanely priced (some will argue)
So the cost of a new MB design rests solely on Apple... it takes time to recoup those fixed costs (depending on how many units you can sell) and retiring a model before those costs are paid for is just throwing money away. The longer they can hold out with an existing design the better. The down side is that as each month that goes by less and less of the current model will sell so this is really a tough balancing act Apple must perform.
Compare that with someone like Dell..
Dell either designs their own motherboards and/or buys them from Intel
Dell sells a BOATLOAD+++ more boxes than Apple does
All things being equal Dell could recoup their design/engineering costs in half the time (OR MORE) and move on to newer design much more quickly all because of the number of units sold is so much greater.
Clone box makers... forget about it... they all (pretty much) buy from Intel these days and the sheer volume of units Intel ships?!?! Hell Intel could be churning out new MB designs every other week if they wanted to... Heck for all I know maybe they do...
Okay ... maybe not but you get the idea...
You want Apple to churn the MB designs more quickly you gotta expect the cost per machine to go UP UP UP... That's the only way the designs will get paid for...
Dave
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
I think you are being a bit dramatic, however I share your concerns to an extent.
Apple should be updating products every 6 months, that is not unreasonable. Sometimes things can slip to 9 months-maybe, that is not unreasonable if the technology in those products were introduced at "way ahead of the industry" specs.
The iMac is messed up right now, the PowerBook is getting way long in the tooth, and now the G5 needs to be updated so that its price performance matches up with the rest of the industry. The nice thing about the G5 to begin with was its speed for the price compared to the PC industry, now it has gotten about equal or less.
M.tosh, that's just it. They do not introduce products that are way ahead of industry specs. Grant it, the top of the line G5 was every bit the equal to anything on the PC side. The consumer line does not fair so well. Why are the PBs getting long in the tooth. All I'm suggesting is that when better drop in components are available. Apple should use them. Is Apple locked into component contracts with their vendors?
To my knowledge, Apple is the only company that updates in this manor. PC vendors don't even call them updates when they put in a faster drive or a better graphics card. A Dell Inspiron 8100 does not get a name change or a product announcement just because it puts in a better video card. Why does Apple need so much time and drama to make minor updates.
PC users just buy a new computer whenever they want to because they know they are getting the most up to date stuff for the price. Mac users sit around waiting for much needed updates because most of the product line sits around out-of-date in some way or other. This glacial update cycle would be somewhat offset if products got regular price drops in keeping with aging specs.
Design Cost: $1,000,000
Expected # of Units Sold: 10,000,000
Design cost tacked on to the price of each machine (after raw materials) would be $0.10
Design Cost: $1,000,000
Expected # of Units Sold: 1,000,000
Design cost tacked on to the price of each machine (after raw materials) would be $1
Design Cost: $1,000,000
Expected # of Units Sold: 100,000
Design cost tacked on to the price of each machine (after raw materials) would be $10
Design Cost: $1,000,000
Expected # of Units Sold: 10,000
Design cost tacked on to the price of each machine (after raw materials) would be $100
Dave
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Perhaps someone can explain to me why the update cycle for the Mac is so far behind the rest of the industry. It is the single biggest factor IMO in making the Mac seem slow and outdated compared to the PC. It does not matter if a new Mac is introduced with decent specs. By the time it gets even a minor update, it is way behind in basic i/o, graphics, CPU, ram, drive speed, pretty much everything. Rather than moving obviously outdated products down-market so that the price/performance doesn't get too far out of whack, they let things sit until their machines become laughing stocks.
How up to date is the G5's bus and RAM? They are still doing just fine and have been out for a while. Please remember that Apple's G4 machines are hamstrung by Moto's bad CPUs, so they can't simply just make a new mobo for a G4. I think that we can see with the G5 that Apple is competing just fine. If your point was to complain about the slowness of G4 desktop machines, then your post was redundant.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
How long was it before Macs got USB 2.0? Why does the eMac still not have it? Why is the Mac Superdrive slower than comparable after market drives? Why does the consumer Mac line ship with considerably smaller and slower hard drives than comparable PCs? Why do better graphics cards not ship with new Macs. There are new cards on the market every few months. Why does Apple not at least update the things they can update when components are available? They don't even need to make a formal announcement for drop-in component updates. At some point, it's got to be more expensive for them to ship one and two year old components than the more readily available up-to-date parts.
Who cares? How many of us need USB 2.0? Why does Apple want to go full bore with support for a competitor to firewire? I seem to recall that the Superdrive is slower due to heat concerns. Where most people can run it quickly, if a small percentage of superdrives overheat and are destroyed, then Apple gets PR egg on their face (ala iBook mobo fiasco) and they have to pay $$ to replace the damaged units. Apple designs consertavitely so that you will get a reliable product and they must do this because they aren't the end consumer, but the company that will have to pay the repair bills. Reliability trumps bleeding edge. As for the video cards, what do you expect, Apple to switch their lineup every few months when Nvidia and ATI release a new card/driver that makes their product better? No, it is not more expensive to ship old video cards. It is only more expensive once the video cards aren't being produced anymore. In fact, when newer cards come out, the older cards get cheaper. Maybe Apple is trying to hit a price point instead of shipping the uber eMac.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
I understand the CPU situation. But the rest of the stuff is off-the-shelf OEM parts. Their treatment of the iMac is unforgivable. 9+ months for PB updates is also nutty. The PM is the flagship system. The graphics card should probably have been updated twice by now. Every product should be updated at least 3 or 4 times a year just so they never fall too far behind the rest of the market in basic things. This would at least help take some of the pressure off of the CPU being one two years behind the competition in clock speed and other aspects.
I think that you forget that the CPU situation can determine some of the component issues, like the MOBO and RAM. Updating the iMac 4 times a year may be a good idea, but might be a headache for consumers. BTW, how many iMac users even want a super duper top of the line video card? While we're at it, since the iMac is a nonstandard form factor, how many top of the line video cards even fit into it? Hello, there are some space considerations to think about here, not to mention why people want to have a workstation iMac (let alone an eMac with a top of the line Radeon GPU- gah what a waste!). As for what I think about the iMac/eMac, see the bottom of my response.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
So why does Apple not have a normal product update cycle. Do they not know how much it hurts them, do they not care that they appear to be a company that can't keep up? Is the Mac so alien that OEM parts can't be easily and cheaply adopted for the Mac? Is Apple so greedy that they want to milk every last penny out of out of date stuff before grudgingly providing a more modern solution? Am I missing something obvious?
I think that they do have a normal product upgrade cycle, but that it is not as frequent as you want it to be. There is a big difference.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
As an aside...
Could it be that people by new PCs more often than Mac users because PCs are kept more up-to-date? If you buy a new Mac, it might be two or three years before the line is updated enough to compel you to buy again.
Or Maybe PCs dont't last as long as Macs because the software requirements of the OS and some apps go up quite a bit more. Speaking as someone who hopes his users upgrade to 3GHz P4's, I can say that as a windows developer, I can pull off stuff that mac developers would probably never think of doing. Macs have value in a way that PCs don't.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
In PC land, give it six months and there will be offerings that are twice as fast with more features for less than you paid for your last one. Will future Macs see better update cycles with the introduction of better manufacturing process, or is it simply a marketing decision?
You are smoking crack and obviously a troll. Twice the speed in six months? How stupid are you? Are you telling me that one year ago, the P4 was running at 1GHz and now it is running at 4GHz? Quit abusing retoric to make your case look better- it makes your occasional relevant point hard to swallow.
As for what I think about why the iMac and eMac are lagging when it comes to upgrades, you need to remember that the same lag happened for the G4s until we transitioned to the G5. We had a long period of G4 stagnation in the Powermacs. Now that the iMacs and eMacs are where the powermacs were ar, we see the same stagnation. Yes, it stinks to see these machines with slow G4s. However, we need to remember that their transitions to G5s are probably just around the corner.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
M.tosh, that's just it. They do not introduce products that are way ahead of industry specs. Grant it, the top of the line G5 was every bit the equal to anything on the PC side. The consumer line does not fair so well. Why are the PBs getting long in the tooth. All I'm suggesting is that when better drop in components are available. Apple should use them. Is Apple locked into component contracts with their vendors?
Being totally superior to anything on the PC side means spending considerable ammounts of $$$ on R&D, pursuing what may not become a standard and passing along all that cost and risk to consumers. SGI does this and we can see how well they are doing. Playing with commodity parts means that you are cost effective.
The consumer lineup is long in the tooth because it is soon to be bumped to G5s. Would you prefer that Apple update the iMac and then two to three months later come out with the G5 iMac? That would immensely suck (ala the IIvx fiasco). Why do you assume that any video card can fit into an iMac?
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
To my knowledge, Apple is the only company that updates in this manor. PC vendors don't even call them updates when they put in a faster drive or a better graphics card. A Dell Inspiron 8100 does not get a name change or a product announcement just because it puts in a better video card. Why does Apple need so much time and drama to make minor updates.
Yeah, you get a brand new dell whatever the heck named notebook. You get a laptop that is 10 pounds and ridiculously thick. You get a laptop built out of cheap plastic that you worry about breaking. I should know, I work on a Dell laptop. If you want a well designed product, get the Apple. If you want a 16 pound laptop, get a toshiba.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
PC users just buy a new computer whenever they want to because they know they are getting the most up to date stuff for the price. Mac users sit around waiting for much needed updates because most of the product line sits around out-of-date in some way or other. This glacial update cycle would be somewhat offset if products got regular price drops in keeping with aging specs.
Actually, I was of the opinion that PC users buy new components as they need them. GPU too slow? Go to Fry's and buy a new one. Need to steal more music? Go get a new HD. Apple users can't do this unless they had the desktop machines, but then again, AIO buyers aren't buying for expandability so much as for simplicity. You are confusing markets.
As far as G5 graphics cards go, the top of the line computer should have the top of the line graphics card at all times. That is the easiest component to update in a tower. It does not need any fan fair, just quiet updates that keep it current. I don't expect miracles. I just want them to stay on top of the things they can control. Maybe they are. But it just seems like every few months, one or more of their products starts to look out of kilter. I was just thinking that there must be a way for them to keep that from happening.
By the way, How do you make posts with multiple quotes? As long as I've been around here, I have never been able to figure that out.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
So what I am hearing is that it is too expensive for Apple to make even minor changes in a product line. Is that correct. If so, shouldn't Apple consider future updateability when designing motherboards. the iMac and eMac have an AGP graphics card. Is there some reason why any AGP card cannot be used? Now that I think of it, heat might be a factor in the consumer line. Still, that is a consideration that should be made in the design phase. Some complain about the way PCs are designed. The notebooks are too heavy, etc. But what their design allows is for them to be kept up to date.
Yes, they are AGP cards, but they don't fit just any AGP card. The iMac is a small case and it is difficult to fit any old card in there. Also, why do people want the top of the line video cards in an iMac? Apple differentiates their products on the basis of users, and power users should not ever be buying iMacs. iMacs are meant to be consumer machines and so their specs should lag the G5s.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
As far as G5 graphics cards go, the top of the line computer should have the top of the line graphics card at all times. That is the easiest component to update in a tower. It does not need any fan fair, just quiet updates that keep it current. I don't expect miracles. I just want them to stay on top of the things they can control. Maybe they are. But it just seems like every few months, one or more of their products starts to look out of kilter. I was just thinking that there must be a way for them to keep that from happening.
Well, the HD is actually the easiest component to upgrade (sorry, just being a pain).
I think that Apple does quite a bit more in the way of quality control for video cards. This can really pay off in the end because Apple is about reliability, not necessarialy the up to the moment bleeding edge performance. The main reason why my roomate switched to the Mac platform (iBook G4) was because Win XP didn't like his top of the line Radeon. Stuff like that is a nightmare. Also, how many people really need the top of the line/bleeding edge/bad price performance ratio/only fully used by unreal/graphics card? I think that most people would rather have a good CPU over a good GPU so long as the GPU isn't that old.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
By the way, How do you make posts with multiple quotes? As long as I've been around here, I have never been able to figure that out.
Lots of cutting and pasting of the html tags to make it look good. You have to do everything yourself. It doesn't bother me- I wrote web pages in simpletext (back in the day when Mosaic was still the #1 browser) and I think that C is a usable programming language.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
Why does Apple need so much time and drama to make minor updates.
we add the drama.
Originally posted by ipodandimac
we add the drama.
And Moto makes it take so much time (at least for the G4s).
I agree with Yevgeny who said
"Would you prefer that Apple update the iMac and then two to three months later come out with the G5 iMac?"
Apple can already hear the moans of the faithful, and the hammering of the PC trolls if they were to update the iMac with a speed bump, and another G4. They also know there is huge loss involved with that because the majority of potential iMac buyers will wait for the G5, or worse = switch to PC.
The same should go for the rest of the line. I think Apple is trying to get the whole line running on G5's, then it's going to introduce an IBM 975, or 976 G5 (980's should be the G6) into the PowerMac, and something similar into the PowerBook (eventually) to set the Pro class Macintosh ("Power" Versions) computers apart from the regular consumer versions once again, and try to reduce consumer Mac prices with older price reduced G5 processors that will still be competitive vs. their x86 counterparts.
After that the ship should be running smoothly once again, and our niche community can regain it's 3% (being that it recently fell to 1.7% according to a news source), and hopefully get it up to the 10% market share where it deserves to be.
I was a little upset about USB 2.0 taking so long... the peripherals for USB 2.0 were much cheaper than FireWire... So I got stuck with slow equipment dangling from my mac. But oh well.
The case I always make is that my Macs last me a heck of a lot longer than a PC. My oldest mac is a Performa 475. No hot rod, but still doing everything it did on the day I opened it. (OS 7 and all!)
I feel like I do not "get rid" of a Mac, it "gets rid" of me, only when I can no longer feed it software I can no longer find, or one of it's little brothers get passed down the hand-me-down ladder. They just work... and for a long time. My PC using brother is on his third machine in five years, and never satisfied. I have a feeling that my Rev B G5 will be on my desk for 4+ years, by choice.
I would love to find some hard data on how often Apple people do major machine upgrades compared to PC people. :???
Originally posted by Jubelum
I would love to find some hard data on how often Apple people do major machine upgrades compared to PC people. :???
Hard data here I come...
My rev c lime green iMac is still going strong running OS X. I haven't done a major machine upgrade, I have only added a Ti PB 400 (used) because my wife is a computer hog and doesn't like sharing. I as of yet have no need to upgrade to a new machine, because the two I have do what I want them to do, and do it more than fast enough for me.
Yes, the iMac has been upgraded, bigger hard drive, more ram, and I did have to replace the cd-rom. My son thought corn startch was a good thing to put in it. My wife thought a quick puff of breath would do the trick, then didn't tell me for 2 weeks. It turned to a solid and $215 later it was all better.
The fact is that out of 4 Mac product lines, there lately seems always to be at least one, often two, and sometimes 3 (like now) that are way overdue for updates. That's a bit crazy if you ask me.
And to repeat a point that seems to have been ignored, if Apple would be a little more aggressive about discounting older hardware, it wouldn't seem so bad that they're out-of-date. Instead, they seem to be very willing to let sales trail off terribly on a line before doing anything about it. All of which is perhaps OK from a protect-profit-margin-at-all-costs point of view, but not so good from a try-to-maintain-or-increase-market-share point of view.
There are a lot of technology areas where Apple really does lead (original USB, wireless, Firewire) and others where it lags, for various reasons, some legitimate. But they do seem to, as a rule, let their machines get pretty stale before doing *anything* to goose up sales.
More regular incremental updates would do a lot to soothe the worries of a lot of people buying Macs, who cringe at the thought of buying the exact same hardware that was available 6 months ago or more at the exact same price.
Originally posted by neilw
More regular incremental updates would do a lot to soothe the worries of a lot of people buying Macs, who cringe at the thought of buying the exact same hardware that was available 6 months ago or more at the exact same price.
This is also true in the PC industry. There were just as few changes in the last year on the other side of the fence. I am tired of this argument. You have to look at the big picture to really grasp what has and hasn't changed. Your view also has to be proportional in comparison.
So before you all go running off and naming the ultra high end what ever, that very few PC user's will ever see, you need to put it into context, and then compare.
Changing motherboard/casing and software requires far more testing/quality control (of the overall machine reliabilty etc) so it would just reduce the quality of the machines.
People are already complaining about the powerbook range being too hot and comparativley dim and reduced angle screens or other laptops of similar price.
(edit: removed while apple constantly announces (yeah right!))When Apple announces a PB or a PM and you wait 2-3 months before the top of the range is available is very annoying, I think their announcements are adequately timed.
I would like apple to announce a 3 x faster cpu/memory/disk/etc every 2 months but that is not techically feasble (Moores law).
Apples product range is currently at an all time high (apart from not having G5 laptops) and I think we should count ourselve lucky that we actually have a choice of Desktop environment that does (out)perform the competition.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Dobby.
While the product line has grown I don't recall the refresh cycle goals ever changing.
If Apple wants to grow I believe there needs to be consistent refreshes with incremental updates. This keeps the flow fresh and moving and moderates the ups and downs which helps with meeting demand and with preventing stagnation and inventory build up (both no no's).
This also shows stability, reliability and consistent progress, something that enterprise as well as everyone else appreciates.