lorin schultz

Last week I posted to Facebook and LinkedIn asking my contacts whether their Apple purchasing patterns have changed in the last year or two. Are they buying more Apple products, fewer, or about the same? If they purchased more or less, what was the reason?

I only got a few responses, but they were all the same: Buying less, not because they don't WANT new Apple products, but because they think new Apple products are too expensive now.

I don't know why Apple's prices are going up so much, but I'm not sure the reason matters. The bottom line is I just can't afford current prices. So far this year we've skipped three planned purchases in our house -- a 15" MacBook Pro and a pair of iPhones. We've been on a three-year upgrade cycle, but the difference between what we paid last time and what those items cost now is enough to interrupt that inertia.

To pick a nit:

Consistent gross margins don't tell me anything about changes to the affordability of products. One doesn't need to be a financial analyst to figure out that the price of a 15" MacBook Pro is substantially higher, even after inflation, than it was five years ago. If the reason for that isn't growing margins, then obviously costs have also increased. Maybe Apple has a problem with cost control and/or spending decisions?

StrangeDays said:

GeorgeBMac said:

StrangeDays said:

Latko said:

Still, this product feels compromised - either or not to maintain the other, more compromised/aging MacBook models.
Processor/port/RAM/HD wise. What about the TouchBar ? Has Apple decided that NOT to be an across-platform standard ?
What’s the policy here ?
Expandability...service...pfff. The whole planet now sees Apple is broadening its 1 year service window and busy defining repair programs as its quality standards appear to fall. This is not gratitude, it is a principal omission that the current leadership isn’t able or interested to address. I am not prepared to pay the premium price for a 2016-spec product designed not to compromise MBPro 2018
I am prepared to buy a $15 BT tactile keyboard substitute for daily use, which should have Apple ashamed as it denies the whole concept of mobility. My 2015 Air being the best mobile solution to date, is just insane. 

Laptops aren’t built for “expandability” and they’re quite serviceable, just not by me which is fine. Like with cars, the compromise is worth it for the attributes I value in a portable — size, weight, etc. 

Compromise isn’t a bad word. It surrounds us. 

Unfortunately, Apple's obsession with size and weight makes compromise pretty much a moot point.  I'm glad these units meet your needs.  My needs are more along the lines of a quality keyboard, easy on the eyes screen, maintainability and upgradability.

The 6 year old Thinkpad T410 I'm typing this on is pretty much bullet proof.  It's running the current OS, has a great keyboard & screen, double its original RAM (which I could double again if needed), a new 256Gb SSD and a second harddrive for automatic backups & such.  But, I'm thinking about tearing it down to apply new thermal grease to the CPU & GPU coolers because its starting to run a little warm when I put demands on it.  Fortunately, Lenovo supplies detailed, step by step instructions on how to do that.

We all have unique needs and one size rarely fits all. 

The keyboards are quality, despite the very few that had issues in the past. Not liking shallow key travel isn’t the same as not being quality. 

Macbooks are maintainable.

You buy buy laptops based on upgradability? Cool story bro. Most people aren’t DIY tinkerers and that is fact. Get a giant Alienware or crappy Dell. Like I said, compromise is all around us...laptops that let you upgrade their components compromise on size, weight, and often look & feel. 

Apple compromising bulk for portability isn’t an obsession — it’s whar their customers want. We vote with our wallets, over and over. 

While I agree, and am myself the kind of Apple buyer you describe, I do think there's room in Apple's lineup for something less svelte and more grunty.

Whatever year it was that Apple was making a lot of noise about how they'd shrunk the chassis of the MacBook Pro to impossibly thin proportions, my reaction was "Why? Those that prefer slim and light already have the Air. Why do we have to compromise the design of the Pro by restricting space and thermals?"

I admit I like the lighter weight and slimmer design of the current MBP over my old Unibody, but if Apple had left it thicker and heavier to allow more RAM, that would have been fine, too. It would not have been a deterrent to me buying it. Who knows, I may been even happier.

bestkeptsecret said:
I seriously feel that people are just making a mountain out of a molehill.

Spend a few days with mine. I promise that will clear up your "feeling" on the matter right quick.

Then again, if you don't use the letter P very much, maybe you won't mind if pressing the key doesn't always produce a character on screen.

Actually the worst offender at the moment is 6. P seems to be working today. Even when it wasn't, it was less disruptive than when the E key went south or the R produced rrrr every time I touched it.

MauiMac5341 said:

I have tested the keyboards (but don't own one yet - still happy with my 4 yo MBP), and they seem fine, any new keyboard takes a bit to get used to, but that takes a few days, then you are over it.

That's what I was hoping when I ordered my 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar two years ago. That hasn't been the case.

I don't have any problem with the way it feels or sounds, but rather how it works (or doesn't). My typing accuracy is significantly lower with the butterfly keyboard compared to the other Macs in the house. I don't know why, maybe because the keys are larger and thus closer together. I thought I was just getting sloppy until I worked on the external keyboard for a few days. As soon as I went back to the butterfly, instant increase in typos.

I could tolerate that, as annoying as it is, but I am sick to fucking DEATH of keys that only respond if you hit them exactly the right way with the right amount of force, stop working completely no matter HOW you press them, or repeat on their own. It's not difficult to remedy -- I just turn the machine upside and spank it -- but it sure sucks the joy out a $5000 purchase when I have to do that every couple days, while people with much less expensive hardware never give the keyboard a second thought.

Mostly I still love this machine and would buy it again, but that love is in SPITE of the keyboard. It sucks.