saintstryfe

Wipe out the Mac Mini, have a config for 999$ with a dual-core i5, 8gb RAM. It's 100$ more than the current equivalent Mac mini and toss in the keyboard and mouse to balance it out. I know I could sell 'em.

Marzipan is probably just a back-end method so one set of code can connect and the OS does the things about connecting the interface, letting the OS do whats best for the available hardware.

Think of it like this: Twitter just discontinued its mac client. Why? Because it's a lot of work up keeping both iOS and Mac. Imagine if the same codebase could with a press work on both iOS and Mac, and the OS handled if there's cursor or a touch interface.

It'd be a big boon to MacOS. Thats what I believe it's for, not any hair brained scheme to merge OSes. 

rcfa said:

Microsoft‘s Surface Hardware is cool, and in several ways more interesting than Apple‘s offerings, same goes for some non-Apple Smartphones.

The Problem: they don’t run macOS respectively iOS. It’s the software that is key to the Apple user experience, and that often means biting the bullet of biting inferior, overpriced, misdirected hardware.

e.g. the stupid MacBook PRO, that maxes out at 16GB RAM and 2TB storage, when even Apple’s own MBP from a few years ago already had 16MB RAM, and can take 8TB SSD, as if real PRO users give a damn about how “thin” their stupid machines are; if they’ve did, they’d be in the market for MB Airs.

A pro user wants to see 32-64GB ECC RAM and 4+TB storage capacity, and slots for media cards without external periphery.

Apple still has not a single touch/pen enabled portable or desktop, requiring pro users buying expensive stuff like Wacom screens, etc.

But without the Apple software, none of the attractive hardware from other vendors is of interest.

The article makes the mistake to attribute the sales failures of these devices to the hardware, rather than to the abysmal operating systems found on these devices.

Can I make an input here, as someone who's been a Mac tech for about two years now?

I can see 30+ machines a day. my store has contracts going back over a decade with big advertising firms and schools and everything else.

The number of these supremely decked out machines I see is miniscule. I almost never see 16+GB in machines that can take it, and I almost never see 4+ TB SSDs in machines that can handle it.

And when they are there, my personal notice is that a good majority are not being used very effectively - they're overbought machines by people with more money then sense. They just said "Give me the biggest/best/most expensive thing" then use it for Word and Bejeweled. 

I don't think in the age of cloud storage and efficient ram usage the fact that Macs have 16/2TB is hurting anyone significantly. I'm sure you know dozens of people who are just seething with rage that they can't produce render Toy Story 4 at Starbucks but in reality, that group is very, very small, and to be blunt, demanding and unprofitable. 

And I'm guessing you have never used consumer-grade pen input in a computer, because if you have, then you'd know why it belongs on Mobile devices. THere's nothing wrong with leaving high-end options to the third-party providers. 

There won't be an end. There'll be a maturing, but until there's a radically new form factor - and at this point, we don't know what that is - there won't be a challenge to smart phones.

Computers got replaced by laptops. PMPs got replaced by phones. Tablets got replaced by large-screen phones. Hard Drives got replaced by SSDs in most cases.

Things only get replaced when there's something that provides such an additional benefit that extra cost is worth it. No one needs an iPod when the iPhone they'd carry around anyway has more advanced music capabilities. No one needs a tablet (Especially a tiny screen one) when my phone can, if I like, have screen just as nice but just a hair smaller. No one needs a big desktop when laptops do most of the same work in a smaller package but can be taken with out.

Now, desktop computers, tablets, mechanical hard drives and PMPs still exist, but they're increasingly niches - and products like these are seen as anachronisms, not the next thing.

Now, COULD Phones one day be replaced? Sure. Some sort of bio-engineering that gives equivalent information I could see. I always joke about Futurama's idea of a phone/camera that goes behind your eye, but in the end, yes, that could happen. But until then a simple piece of glass and metal that slides in and out of your pocket that does 90% of what you could on a computer? It will be the "end" of tech until something better comes along. 

And Apple is leading the profitability and innovation in that space.

Let's put it this way. Some random schmo from Newsmax says "Obama is tracking us via microwave ovens" is fake news - it's objectively false, zero proof given. If 45 repeats the claim he read and claims Obama is tracking HIM via microwave ovens, then that's news, because a person of consequence is repeating a false news story.