dysamoria

Notsofast said:

dysamoria said:

Apple wants to further eliminate meaning behind the term “pro”?

So tired of this nonsense.

Relax. You're getting angry by letting an unsubstantiated rumor ruin your day. Whatever it is called, it will be the latest evolution of a beautiful piece of technology that will make so much possible in the hands of those who use it- photography, music, books, podcasts, radio, telephone, email, texts, language translator, mapping, searching the Internet, etc., etc., etc.

It isn’t ruining my day (the rest of my life does that). I’m just fed up with Apple’s marketing-first behavior. If this rumor is true, it’s just more of the same mindless and meaningless end-stage capitalism.

So many Apple defenders here are explaining the “pro” moniker to those of us complaining about it, and they are all failing to accept a basic problem: “pro” means nothing in a linguistic context. It really does just translate to “more costly”. Why are we so willing to allow words to have no meaning, or so willing to accept euphemisms that hide exploitative marketing?

What has been *added* to the “pro” line of MacBooks that has actually been a differentiator for “professional” usage? It’s now a fairly basic portable computer, requiring extra add-ons to be used in a professional production environment. It’s not an impressive offering, especially at the base price. With the tiny storage, insufficient ports & connections, it has the outward impression of a cost-reduced variety of MacBook Pro, compared to its own predecessors. What cost was actually reduced? Apple’s expenses in building them, of course. The consumer actually pays MORE for these devices that require more add-ons. It is a market designed to cut production costs, encourage third-party product development to fill in the holes, and is marketed with a “pro” moniker to make them sound like they justify their higher cost. It’s disingenuous business practice, yet anyone pointing this out gets slammed by the corporate boot-licker crowd.

Why have Apple so dramatically shrunken the market for their own “Mac Pro” line, compared to all prior models? Is THAT what “pro” means to Apple? Clearly not, because the MacBook Pros are fairly basic.

Which definition of “pro” will be used on a phone? What can you possibly do to an iPhone to justify raising the cost even further than the current stupidly expensive iPhone by adding a “pro” moniker? And then what comes next? The iPhone Pro XS? The iPhone Pro XS Professional? This is a game for raising prices and nothing else. What will become of the non-pro models? Will basic functionality be dropped while not actually reducing the costs for consumers?

When the Masters of Business Administration mindset takes charge of a company (as has been the case at Apple for a while now), the outward appearance is of immediate value increases, but the long view is always poor. The leadership will eventually harm the products (this has been happening since 2013), their customers, and the business.

The Wall Street cult doesn’t want to consider the long view, because it doesn’t need to: Whatever happens to Apple with this kind of leadership, the executives at the top, the people sitting on the board, the people holding the majority of shares, etc... they will all be fine no matter how much damage their “leadership” does to the company and customers. They’ll have their golden parachutes and will land on the next public corporation to continue feeding.

Soli said:

dysamoria said:

I presume they’re not taking people with bankruptcy on their credit history…

There's more to it than your credit score, but a bankruptcy usually isn't a detrimental factor. Perhaps most notably is that once you have a discharge you have to wait 8 years before you can file again. It really doesn't take a long time to regain a Good or Excellent credit rating after a discharge if you've actively worked to build and maintain a credit history in good standing.

It’s been about 8 years. Still getting rejected for credit cards and car loans. Haven’t missed any payments on anything, but it’s all just service bills and I don’t get credit for my mortgage anymore. I kept the house and mortgage, but the debt itself was discharged, so they don’t report my payment history. I’d have to literally re-file the bankruptcy to change that.

StrangeDays said:

Aegis2k said:

Everyone loves their T2 until they need to boot from external media. And you will. You will... I like security, but I like *ME* deciding what level of security I want or need, not Apple. If I like sleeping with my windows open is my choice. I don't want anyone saying to me 'dude close your windows, you might get robbed' or even worse, someone actually nailing my windows shut and saying 'it is not safe to have windows at your house, screw you.'.

Can you explain what on earth you're talking about, specifically?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/15/how-to-make-new-t2-secured-macs-boot-from-external-drives

wizard69 said:

It is still expensive for what you get. This especiallyl after upgrading to a reasonably sized SSD.  

Agreed. I find myself comparing it to the $1500 13” MacBook Pro 5,5 I bought in 2009 and I feel like the storage and base CPU are kind of lame on this new model. Yeah, the 2009 model was a dual core only, and came with only 4GB RAM (which I expanded for less than $100), but it had real function keys, a reliable keyboard with decent travel, far more than just two I/O ports, an analog AND digital audio output, a 2.5GHz base clock, and 250GB storage.

Ten years later, while the type of storage and CPU are technically superior, I suspect that it looks, to casual buyers, like the new model is missing things. This isn’t quite the “technology gets better and cheaper over time” comparison I would’ve hoped for.

A friend of mine has been feeling very negative about what she sees she can get for her money in a new MacBook Pro, compared to her own 2010 model. I’m not the one giving her these negative impressions; she did the reading all herself. If anything, I’ve been still behaving like an Apple advocate when talking to her about what she might want to consider (she’s a Logic user and therefore needs a Mac to keep using Logic).

Apple is not looking good, from the perspective of average buyers. Between these skimpy MacBooks and the “Mac Pixar”...

the monk said:

marsorry said:

Shame, I actually think he's just a guy missing his old friend Steve and was acting out when he didn't get the super-star attention he was used to getting.  Leadership is such a critical aspect of work that when you feel undervalued, it shows in unintended ways.  The other problem is that he was a top-level leader and he affected everyone working below him, so that's uncalled for.  I think it's probably best for him to step aside and let the company take on a different course.  Nobody is indispensable, it's time the other designers stepped up and filled those shoes.

This article was written primarily from the point of view of the design staff, so don’t make any absolute conclusions. Maybe Ive couldn’t change after his friend’s passing, but it looks like it was the design staff who couldn’t move on either. They’re adults, they were trained by the best. They didn’t need their full-time mentor anymore.

And if he was indeed spending a great deal of time designing Apple Park as the articles states many times, then obviously he didn't have time for his former duties. He is human.

And I would like to know about these sources who say they hardly saw him but claim to know how he was feeling. Nice way to treat a man who made the design team the stars of Apple.

Unified vision isn’t something that comes from a bunch of experts in their individual fields.

As for making the design team “the stars at Apple”: Ive put the iOS 7 visual redesign in the hands of the print design team. Utterly inappropriate “leadership” choice. What became of all the “Apple stars” who already had the GUI expertise? Did they stay around while their specific expertise was being made into a joke by Ive handing it to people utterly unqualified for it? To this day people keep defending the iOS 7 redesign by bashing people who actually know better about GUI design and claiming that “Apple employs the best people”, utterly missing the point of having expertise in the right field.