Rogue01

mike1 said:

Looking forward to upgrading my 12 Pro this year.

Your 12 Pro has one feature that new phones don't - the ability to turn off Apple's horrible HDR in the camera.  You get realistic photos, compared to the cartoon-like looking photos with bad simulated enhancements that make sunlight too bright and fake looking.  And you don't even have the option to see or save the original photo.  It is HDR or nothing.  I wish Apple would bring back the setting to turn off HDR, or least save both photos to choose from.

"Apple was at the mercy of Motorola's or Intel's timelines, and sometimes shipping delays, which hurt Mac sales."  Not so true with Intel, since Apple was always able to use the latest chips in all the Macs.  Apple ran into some issues with the PowerPC G4 and G5 CPUs, and availability.  But it never hurt sales for very long, only a few months.

In reality, Apple Silicon has made this worse.  Motorola to PPC and PPC to Intel were much smoother transitions.  Apple transitioned all Macs to Intel in 270 days.  Apple Silicon took THREE years.  The Intel Mac Pro was superior to the Power Mac G5 in every way.  The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is $3,000 more expensive with zero expansion except for SSD cards.  Fixed memory and a fixed GPU, in a Pro tower.  It is embarrassing.  Apple burned themselves with that one.  It is as bad as the 2013 Mac Pro with zero expansion.

Apple makes their own chips, but they cannot even put the current chip in all their products.  They shipped a 15" MacBook Air with a CPU that was a year and a half old (M2), and called it new.  The iMac, used to be their top selling Mac, had an outdated M1 chip for three years.  The Mac mini didn't get upgraded to M3 or M3 Pro.  The Mac Studio did not get upgraded to M3 Max or Ultra.  What are they waiting for?  Why is the mini and Studio ignored?  Why didn't they also get the M3?  The MacBook Pro with M3 Max is faster than the Mac Pro in a few benchmarks.  The Mac Pro should have been upgraded to M3 Ultra for a blazing fast Mac.  Nope.  The iPad has an M chip, but iPadOS cannot take advantage of it.

Apple is taking more of a hit on sales now more than ever.  No one wants to buy a new Mac because the chip is outdated, or they wonder when that Mac will get the latest chip, when it is already available in other Macs, but not the Mac they want.  Now there is talk of the M4 coming soon?  So now no one will spend top dollar for a Mac with an outdated CPU, especially the mini or the Studio.  Many consumers also despise Apple for the very inflated memory and SSD storage upgrade prices.  Now you have to buy the upgrades from Apple at very inflated prices because Apple now knows you cannot upgrade later with less expensive options.  That is what Apple Silicon gave us.  The chips are fast, but not many are happy with the inflated upgrade prices or weird CPU options in different Macs, some new CPUs, some outdated CPUs.  It doesn't make any sense.  They claim they now control everything, but their decisions don't reflect that.  That is the reality.

jeffharris said:

What about old Mac games like titles from Ambrosia Software. Mars Rising, etc?
There was a developer that released a whole bunch of pinball games.
Or Hellcats. 

That would be great!

Ambrosia games were the best and I still play them on my working LC 575.  Pinball games...8 Ball Deluxe, Crystal Caliburn, Looney Labyrinth.  Yep, I have those three too.

And 14 years later, the iPad is still hampered by iPadOS and its restrictions and limited functionality.  The fact that an iPad and a keyboard cost more than a far superior MacBook Air is a big problem.  Most would take the MacBook Air and do so much more with it.  The M-class SoC is wasted in the iPad because iPadOS cannot take full advantage of the chip, and it runs baby-versions of apps made for iPadOS.  14 years later, the iPad still does the exact same thing as the first generation model in 2010.  Nothing has changed.  That is why every new iPad is not that exciting.  It is still the same device.

Even Intel Mac users would likely choose the MacBook Pro models.  More performance, more ports, more features, and a much better display compared to the Air.  Best savings are at B&H with the clearance models.