Makes sense with Apple's current terrible product line setup. Both the retina MacBook and 2016 MacBook Pro are much more niche than their last generation. Also much more confusing as the MacBook Air successor is $500 more than the 13" Air was (The non-touchbar MacBook Pro is the spiritual successor to the air.) The true 13" Pro for 2016 is also $500 more than the last gen.
The 12" MacBook is there...but it is a super niche product compared to the old Air or even the old Pro. It's performance is probably enough for most people, but at that point you could just buy a cheaper windows ultrabook and get similar or better performance for a much lower price.
A huge market for Apple used to be college students. Now in 2017 what Apple laptop do they buy? an underpowered MacBook, or an overpriced pro? The best solution for most is buying an older model, but part of the appeal of buying a Mac is having the "latest" thing.
Then you get to desktops...and there isn't much to say there. Apple just doesn't do them anymore.
This is coming from someone that has used a Mac for the past 10 years and is typing on a 2016 pro. It is nice, but connectivity wise it is too far ahead of its time. In 1-2 years it will be fine, but right now it is just in early adopter territory.
The world still isn't ready for a machine with only USB-C/thunderbolt-3. The aren't docks good enough with the right features or port combinations. The myriad of USB-C adaptors is only barely in place, some positions in that market have only one or two options without the depth of a mature market. USB-C/thunderbolt-3 _could be_ great, it could be the greatest docking connector yet, but until the right dock exists I shouldn't get a new MBP because I have a dozen legacy devices on my desk to connect.
And everyone should hold off on the 12" Macbook until the next revision when it gets thunderbolt-3.
How Apple can leave the Mac Pro and Mini in their old configuration this long is beyond reason. 1000 days since its debut. Apple should be ashamed of this. Yet this company is operating like the days before Steve returned except this time there is no Steve to right it
I expect the iMac to get a new chipset but I would like to see the Mac mini updated. Either update the Mac Pro or pull it.
"If you want to write fast software, use a slow computer" - Dominic Tarr
The 12" Macbook is the best computer I've ever owned. Switched to it from a 2014 Macbook Pro, and found it very easy to adjust. The only time it struggles a little bit is when I run Windows in VMware, on occasion.
The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-smooth on other computers, which all have beefier CPUs and GPUs.
The Dell Alienware is so much better value. Amazing keyboard, run any game you like, super fast. I don't care about Win10 either way. It unlocks with facial recognition. It weighs more than my car (but I leave it on my desk 99% of the time)
I just couldn't justify buying an Apple, as much as I wanted one.
[edit] how the hell do I keep getting down voted for voicing my opinion? Lol. Nope. You're opinion is wrong, lose a point!
I have a Retina MacBook next to my sofa in the living room and a 27-inch Retina iMac with 16GB RAM on the desk in my study. At work I have a four year-old 27-inch iMac with all SSD storage and 16GB of RAM. It's still going strong, and I never think it's too slow for anything, despite developing in Scala, which has a slow compiler, and using Intellij or Eclipse, which are resource hogs.
I love them all to death. It doesn't really matter to me whether I could have gotten something cheaper. If I did that, I'd have a little bit more money, and I'd be significantly less happy.
People are missing that the Macbook line are still the best laptops on the market. PC manufacturers will never catch up until they wittle down their selections to 10 or less choices as Apple does. It's too easy to buy garbage from Dell/HP/Lenovo. Versus any MB(P) is going to be a slam dunk everytime.
Most people other than professionals or gamers care about desktops. I'd just build one but those who want macOS the Mac Pro will be updated soon.
I'm not an Apple guy, only own an iPhone but people who insist Apple has fallen off (and say so every single time there's a shred of slightly negative news) are delusional. I'm aware of the market to a fair degree and the only compelling alternative to a MBP is the X1 Yoga.
I just bought a new Macbook, and I can say that it's a great product.
Probably the best on the market.
The problem I had was cost - they are over-priced.
Yes, I've heard the argument that if you want 'x RAM with y CPU' etc it will 'cost just as much' - but this is just no longer true. The Macs with 16G memory are crazy expensive.
My Mac has 200-ish G hard-drive which is f-ing retardedly small. They should all have 1T. But if you want those upgrades you have to pay massively more.
I fundamentally believe the issue is simply price.
If you could get a sub-$2K macbook with 16G RAM, good CPU and lots of disk-space - this conversation would never be had.
I really do think Apple has the best boxes, but they are barely worth it, and just not worth it in many cases.
I wish the Macbook mini would get some love. It's GASP, actually upgradable. Swapping out the dimms, storage, or display is relatively straight forward.
Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales.
Back then it was the white plastic MacBook but now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot.
That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS.
Instead of replacing the Air, Apple introduced the MacBook at a premium price point. It seems like a marketing failure to me that a lower spec MacBook (1080p, slower SSD) wasn't released and the Air discontinued.
Quite a few years ago I saw someone at college using a white plastic laptop and man I thought that looked sharp. I glanced at the top of it and saw it was a Mac. At the time I didn't own a Mac and I didn't follow their product lines, but that was a hell of a good looking laptop, I thought. That was actually the first time I'd ever seen a Macbook, I don't come from a very well-off or tech-forward area. Everyone at the time owned a Dell Inspiron 150x. When I looked it up I was really disappointed to see that it had been discontinued.
I have an aluminum Macbook and sure it's nice... but when I think about Macbooks, I think about that white plastic machine. Shiny, almost see-through. It really stood out to me in a world of dull metal and chunky black plastic and laser-etched designs on laptops. My 2015 looks nice, I guess, but in my mind it doesn't look nearly as nice as that shiny, translucent white Macbook I saw years ago.
Now, I never used one and I'm sure a lot of people here have, and I'm sure there are a lot of negative stories about them cracking or discoloring or being squeaky or something. But I still remember the first time I saw one, and it stuck with me. That was the same when I saw an aluminum Macbook, it was nice. They don't look all that special these days, the design is getting stale. Everyone has a Macbook-looking laptop, from a distance I can't tell the difference between a Samsung Chromebook and an 11" Macbook Air.
I hope they can wow us with a new design again in the future.
Yeah, discontinuing the Air is crazy. The "entry level" laptop from Apple now (excluding their late-year models they kept around) is now $1299 and features a Core M3 processor. For people with a 2014+ Air that is a downgrade in performance for more money than they paid initially.
> Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales.
Isn't that normal for almost every product though? You advertise the top of the line knowing that most will come in and look for something similar that fits their budget.
"That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS."
Except it's made from a block of aluminum, has excellent build quality and will easily last 5+ years of day-in-day-out use.
All I wanted was an 11" MBA with a higher res screen.
They could have reused the exact same form factor and dies and tooling, etc. I would have happily upgraded to that.
Just a reminder: the original Macbook Air was introduced 9 years ago for US$1799, a very premium price point for a, at the time, really weak machine. Give it time!
I don't think the 11 has ever sold in great quantities. I had one for years (recently replaced with the new 15 pro) and I rarely ever saw another 11 in the wild. If I did it was usually at WWDC.
The 13 air however would easily be their most popular laptop. Those things are literally everywhere.
Everyone is complaining about the confusing direction of Apple with regards to the Mac but when I look around, I often wonder if they're just not reacting to what is really happening. For example; my wife's 10 year old MacBook died last year and for the most part, she hasn't missed it. She uses her phone for everything. And for the things that she can't/doesn't want to do on her phone, she uses her iPad.
I just bought the family an iMac for Christmas and my kids use it often, but they also spend at least as much time on their iPods.
I think what Apple is seeing, and reacting to, is that the younger generation of non-developers are increasingly using their mobile devices for everything.
We as power users hate it because we want to continue to have a solid laptop and/or desktop on which to do our work. But I'm guessing that despite our complaining, we're on the whole willing to pony up the money.
Not to mention, these machines last a really long time. I'm writing this on a mid-2012 MBP that even with a battery that is going bad will still outlast my friends Window's laptops. So yeah, $2400 is a lot for a laptop by comparison. But its not so bad when you consider that you can reasonably expect to have that machine for a much longer time than a Dell or Lenovo.
I have an IBM ThinkPad from 2004 and Lenovo ThinkPads from (more or less) 2010 and 2015, they all work fine. The 2004 one is slow with current software and the battery lasts like 1 minute, but otherwise it does what it should according to its (now weak) specs.
If you think Lenovos don't last, it's probably because you have seen low-end Lenovos (which indeed often break after 3-5 years). But a MBP is a high-end laptop, it should be compared to high-end laptops from other brands.
> We as power users hate it because we want to continue to have a solid laptop and/or desktop on which to do our work.
And we will. I think the people who can live with only a phone today are the same group of people who were using no computer at all before 1998 or so. Businesses and power users who were using computer long before that will also keep using laptops and desktops in the future. Or do people really think that in 10-20 years all work will be done on phones and restricted tablets? I don't. The PC market might shrink, but it's not going away. If Apple doesn't want to be part of that market anymore other companies will.
Both Dell and Lenovo's websites are awful. They try so hard to segment the market that they make it almost impossible to shop their products. I want to buy but I can't figure out what they are selling.
Dell's laptop picker is bad enough. Try their enterprise server configuration tool and you'll want to burn down their headquarters and steal their red stapler.
"They try so hard to segment the market that they make it almost impossible to shop their products. I want to buy but I can't figure out what they are selling."
Bravo!
This is it.
So many manufacturers of so many things screw this up so bad.
I call it 'Sony-itis'.
They have massive segmentation, within that, so many variations, it's crazy.
I think it's an issue of culture: unless the change comes from the top, it will never happen.
All the MBA's in the world could not convince them to change, operationally.
I worked for a 'major' handset manufacturer that just made new products willy nilly. There was hardly any rhyme or reason.
When I bought my first MacBook, I tried piecing together something from Dell's site that would be equivalent. (15", nice screen, SSD, good graphics, etc.) It took me about an hour of flipping through pages and trying to configure various models before I ever got close. And, lo and behold, there was only $300 difference between the "comparable" Dell and the MBP I would up buying. $300 for OS X? Yes please. It was clear to me then that Apple's simplified lineup was a major selling point advantage in the consumer market.
I'm guessing it's because for both of them, the amount of sales though their website is tiny. The vast majority is probably though other resellers/retailers for consumers, and sales people for enterprise.
But regardless, it's a missed opportunity and a self-fulfilling thing.
Just wanted to add an opinion you don't see as much here, as a non-developer. It's not just developers who are pretty upset about the new Macbook, myself and my fiance were both in the market, and my fiance used a MBP through college. She pretty much fought me on the new MBP until she tried it in store, and promptly was against it. She's going with a Surfacebook and I'll probably go with the new Dell XPS 15 with the 4k screen.
It's not just developers that are a bit... confused by the new direction.
I was a Macintosh user since 1985, one of the die-hard faithful who stuck around all the way through Apple's late-'90s doldrums, but I haven't bought a Mac in years and at this point it's hard to imagine why I'd ever feel like paying that premium again. Not that there's anything wrong with them - Apple still makes very nice computers. The simple fact is that computers in general crossed my "good enough" threshold en masse, roughly six or eight years ago, and I just don't care much about the differences anymore. Any machine will meet my needs, as long as it has an SSD and at least 4G of RAM. In this world, why would I pay $1800 for a Macbook Pro when any random $300 Thinkpad will do the job?
We're riding out the top end of the S-curve here. That's okay; the market is mature. I expect that Apple can continue to do their high-margin BMW/Mercedes thing for years to come. I just don't happen to need (or even particularly desire) a luxury computer.
I think the good news here is that PC and Mac are back on par again. Even for demanding users of mainstream use cases (office, development, ...) both platforms offer great products.
Personally, I have an MacBook Air 13" at home and a Lenovo X1 Carbon at work. Both have their unique strengths and weaknesses but they are both great laptops. Windows has done a great leap forward as has PC hardware. If I were in the market today I would really struggle to make up my mind which one it should be.
I'd agree with this. Whilst 9-5mac and its readership will be focussed on what Apple is doing right/wrong, this may be ignoring the fact that competitors are offering genuinely compelling products.
The jury has been out on Tim Cook's performance as Apple CEO since he took over about 7 years ago. I think this new line of Macs is evidence that he's just too focussed on operations to the point where it's ruining their products.
I'm guessing the move to consolidate the ports and kill the audio jack may make total sense internally at Apple when it comes to their 10-year manufacturing operations plan and really maximizing their profitability, but to the outside world it's just bad product development.
I switched to OSX when it was at v10.4, the very first generation of Intel chipset Macbook Pros came out. I switched because it was the closest thing I could get to a proper fully integrated desktop environment with a BSD-like command line and full Unix-ish functionality (macports, etc). The first generation of Macbook Pro (Core Duo) had a full complement of ports that were state of the art when it was released. Now OSX is becoming a bullshit iOS-like walled garden of app store garbage and the hardware is marketed at people who like shiny, non-repairable consumer throwaway junk, and nothing has a proper complement of I/O ports. Ugh.
Just give me a state of the art Thinkpad with full I/O ports that runs OSX please.
Back in the 1970s you still had old men who fought in WWII who would refuse to buy a Japanese car, thus, General Motors and Ford abused them because they knew American car buyers would buy American no matter what.
It's the same with Macs today. I gave a talk at my local startup accelerator and found that they had every kind of dongle to attach a Mac to a screen, but no (full size) Displayport adapters.
The next day I added a full-size to mini Displayport adapter to my kit.
This seems odd to me as now more than ever I see more and more people with MacBooks / iMacs and AppleTVs which have become 'the standard' where as in the past you'd see people with windows laptops or whatever and that'd be the norm it's now appearing to be quite rare (at least from what I've seen in Australia), I don't really know anyone that still uses a windows machine bar one friend who has a gaming rig but he only has it for the GPU and uses a MacBook for everything else other than that it's just a few of the older aged managers / project managers at work and everyone else really uses macOS or Linux of some form.
The biggest problem that Apple is creating for itself is not one that is being discussed directly in most of these threads: it's not about the loss in Mac sales, which they clearly don't give a damn about. It's the exodus of producers from their platform.
Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? The answer is: content creators. Video creators. Film editors. Photographers. Music artists. Photoshop experts. And developers.
These people create the content that the rest of the "herd" consume. The herd doesn't follow Apple (even though it seems that way); they follow the content, wherever that content is. People didn't switch from Windows to Mac primarily because $x wasn't available on Mac. But soon enough, $x, $y, and $z were on Mac and the switch became easier. Think back to when the iPhone was fighting against BlackBerry and Motorola. It was stupid things like Plants and Zombies and Angry Birds that drove adoption. It was the music industry's alliance with Apple (aka content) that helped the iPhone gain an edge just as much as its technical merit.
5 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to say goodbye to my Mac and go back to Windows. This year, I did (just weeks before the joke of an MBP was announced, thank God). My favorite Mac apps are on Windows. WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) gives me native Linux on Windows with decent integration. I have my posix and I have an OS I can use. MS was trash, but they listened to their power users (thank god for Nadella and good riddance to Ballmer) and ditched Metro everything and went back to a useable, dev-friendly desktop with Windows 10. They're embracing 3D printing, they're bringing back the content producers, and this is going to hurt Apple way more than I think they realize right now.
Every company makes its money at the bottom, but there's a reason these companies continue to make losing investments at the top: to keep the content creators, the prosumers, the reviewers, the influencers happy. It's not just computers. Look at car companies. Look at what Toyota spent on the LFA. They were _never_ going to recoup those costs, no matter what. The goal was to entrench themselves in the minds of auto enthusiasts, to say that Toyota has the ability, the technical knowhow, and the spirit it takes to make a real super car. Now buy and recommend our normal cars, please.
Apple discontinuing first its servers, then its 17" MacBooks (and I've never owned a 17" laptop in my life), its Mac Pros (seriously!?!??), and now, the MacBook Pro (there's a reason there used to be a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Now "Pro" is marketing and they're all MacBook Pros while none of them are), is the problem. It's clear some pinhead that doesn't get the market is looking at the numbers and thinking "hmmmm, $x, $y, and $z have a $devcost/$saleprice ratio that is poorer than our other mainstream products, kill them," not realizing what that means for 10 years down the line.
I'm not saying we're going to see this impact _today_, but we're going to see it at some point. Apple's prosumer focus is what kept it alive when it was bankrupt and desperate and allowed it an opportunity to make a comeback. Ignoring them now isn't just shortsighted and stupid, it's also ungrateful and traitorous. But whatever. I'm happy with my thin & lightweight Xeon ZBook with 32GB of ECC RAM and a 4K display running Windows 10 and Linux. I don't care. But I do think it's a damn shame.
What is even more baffling is how they can possibly employee 80,000 people. With that many people you think it would be possible to actually update their products regularly, and make the updates compelling.
Apple is floating on the surface, and bloating like a dead whale. They have no vision what so ever, and if they do, it's process engineered out of the company. Their previously outstanding product engineering is even falling down. Unless Mr. Cook is able to find or trust a visionary the company will continue to downward spiral.
There is a fine line between a vision and a hallucination, and Apple is hallucinating right now.
I can't wait to retire my 2013 MBA and set it aside with my OEM 8800GT (nVidia's iconic desktop GPU). Both represented the best combination of tradeoffs with the tech that was available at the time at a price point that led to ubiquity.
I'm not sure what my next portable computer will be, but if I want it to fit into that criteria of iconic hardware, I doubt it will be an Apple computer.
I've used the T450s keyboard and love it. There are reports of variation in quality. They have two providers, one sucks. But get it with a warranty then they'll replace it for you (send out a tech and everything).
Over the year they declined, but were up YoY in the 4q. Early year declines show people were waiting for an update and then purchased when one came out. We'll have to wait for 1q 2017 numbers to see if the releases keep the trend going back up.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If Apple doesn't care about their Mac line, why should their users?
I've been a hardcore Mac fan since '04. That said, it's VERY hard to argue that quality in both hardware and software haven't been declining.
I spent over $4K for the 2016 MBP w/Touchbar. Problems. Problems. Problems.
I'm 2 days in to completely switching back to Windows. I bought a Dell XPS 15" with a better CPU/GPU and more RAM than the top MBP, for a lot less money.
Dell makes a better "Macbook" in the new XPS line, than Apple's own Macbooks. It makes me sad. These days, it's hard to think that Apple cares about anything other than iOS devices.
I bought my Macbook Air for $1,629 in June of 2012. It's still my main computer and I've spent <$300 (new battery, charger, etc) since the initial purchase.
I'm not easy on computers. I travel a lot and this think has put up with very poor treatment. I can't think of a better computer for me. After this one dies I'll definitely buy another Mac (not thinking about which one because I'm expecting this to last at least another year). I hope I'm not disappointed because this computer exceeded my expectations for a laptop.
Makes sense to me. Because Apple is discontinuing the Macbook Air - the best combination of power, form factor and price - I'm regularly looking at all available alternatives.
Can't really see how they're doing "what's best for the customer" anymore. More like what's best for their bottom line.
[+] [-] jclardy|9 years ago|reply
The 12" MacBook is there...but it is a super niche product compared to the old Air or even the old Pro. It's performance is probably enough for most people, but at that point you could just buy a cheaper windows ultrabook and get similar or better performance for a much lower price.
A huge market for Apple used to be college students. Now in 2017 what Apple laptop do they buy? an underpowered MacBook, or an overpriced pro? The best solution for most is buying an older model, but part of the appeal of buying a Mac is having the "latest" thing.
Then you get to desktops...and there isn't much to say there. Apple just doesn't do them anymore.
This is coming from someone that has used a Mac for the past 10 years and is typing on a 2016 pro. It is nice, but connectivity wise it is too far ahead of its time. In 1-2 years it will be fine, but right now it is just in early adopter territory.
[+] [-] brianolson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
I expect the iMac to get a new chipset but I would like to see the Mac mini updated. Either update the Mac Pro or pull it.
[+] [-] feross|9 years ago|reply
The 12" Macbook is the best computer I've ever owned. Switched to it from a 2014 Macbook Pro, and found it very easy to adjust. The only time it struggles a little bit is when I run Windows in VMware, on occasion.
The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-smooth on other computers, which all have beefier CPUs and GPUs.
[+] [-] wodenokoto|9 years ago|reply
Apple simply don't offer that price point anymore. What used to be their low-price line of laptops - the MacBook, now starts at $1.300
[+] [-] monk_e_boy|9 years ago|reply
I just couldn't justify buying an Apple, as much as I wanted one.
[edit] how the hell do I keep getting down voted for voicing my opinion? Lol. Nope. You're opinion is wrong, lose a point!
[+] [-] nessus42|9 years ago|reply
I love them all to death. It doesn't really matter to me whether I could have gotten something cheaper. If I did that, I'd have a little bit more money, and I'd be significantly less happy.
[+] [-] BuckRogers|9 years ago|reply
Most people other than professionals or gamers care about desktops. I'd just build one but those who want macOS the Mac Pro will be updated soon.
I'm not an Apple guy, only own an iPhone but people who insist Apple has fallen off (and say so every single time there's a shred of slightly negative news) are delusional. I'm aware of the market to a fair degree and the only compelling alternative to a MBP is the X1 Yoga.
[+] [-] edblarney|9 years ago|reply
Probably the best on the market.
The problem I had was cost - they are over-priced.
Yes, I've heard the argument that if you want 'x RAM with y CPU' etc it will 'cost just as much' - but this is just no longer true. The Macs with 16G memory are crazy expensive.
My Mac has 200-ish G hard-drive which is f-ing retardedly small. They should all have 1T. But if you want those upgrades you have to pay massively more.
I fundamentally believe the issue is simply price.
If you could get a sub-$2K macbook with 16G RAM, good CPU and lots of disk-space - this conversation would never be had.
I really do think Apple has the best boxes, but they are barely worth it, and just not worth it in many cases.
[+] [-] sliken|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WildUtah|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CoolGuySteve|9 years ago|reply
Back then it was the white plastic MacBook but now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot.
That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS.
Instead of replacing the Air, Apple introduced the MacBook at a premium price point. It seems like a marketing failure to me that a lower spec MacBook (1080p, slower SSD) wasn't released and the Air discontinued.
[+] [-] freehunter|9 years ago|reply
I have an aluminum Macbook and sure it's nice... but when I think about Macbooks, I think about that white plastic machine. Shiny, almost see-through. It really stood out to me in a world of dull metal and chunky black plastic and laser-etched designs on laptops. My 2015 looks nice, I guess, but in my mind it doesn't look nearly as nice as that shiny, translucent white Macbook I saw years ago.
Now, I never used one and I'm sure a lot of people here have, and I'm sure there are a lot of negative stories about them cracking or discoloring or being squeaky or something. But I still remember the first time I saw one, and it stuck with me. That was the same when I saw an aluminum Macbook, it was nice. They don't look all that special these days, the design is getting stale. Everyone has a Macbook-looking laptop, from a distance I can't tell the difference between a Samsung Chromebook and an 11" Macbook Air.
I hope they can wow us with a new design again in the future.
[+] [-] jclardy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|9 years ago|reply
Isn't that normal for almost every product though? You advertise the top of the line knowing that most will come in and look for something similar that fits their budget.
[+] [-] rsync|9 years ago|reply
Except it's made from a block of aluminum, has excellent build quality and will easily last 5+ years of day-in-day-out use.
All I wanted was an 11" MBA with a higher res screen.
They could have reused the exact same form factor and dies and tooling, etc. I would have happily upgraded to that.
[+] [-] iaskwhy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomwilson|9 years ago|reply
The 13 air however would easily be their most popular laptop. Those things are literally everywhere.
[+] [-] robotresearcher|9 years ago|reply
They don't sell that model any more. 13" is the only MBA now.
http://www.apple.com/us/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air
[+] [-] neutronicus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zelphyr|9 years ago|reply
I just bought the family an iMac for Christmas and my kids use it often, but they also spend at least as much time on their iPods.
I think what Apple is seeing, and reacting to, is that the younger generation of non-developers are increasingly using their mobile devices for everything.
We as power users hate it because we want to continue to have a solid laptop and/or desktop on which to do our work. But I'm guessing that despite our complaining, we're on the whole willing to pony up the money.
Not to mention, these machines last a really long time. I'm writing this on a mid-2012 MBP that even with a battery that is going bad will still outlast my friends Window's laptops. So yeah, $2400 is a lot for a laptop by comparison. But its not so bad when you consider that you can reasonably expect to have that machine for a much longer time than a Dell or Lenovo.
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|9 years ago|reply
If you think Lenovos don't last, it's probably because you have seen low-end Lenovos (which indeed often break after 3-5 years). But a MBP is a high-end laptop, it should be compared to high-end laptops from other brands.
[+] [-] skrause|9 years ago|reply
And we will. I think the people who can live with only a phone today are the same group of people who were using no computer at all before 1998 or so. Businesses and power users who were using computer long before that will also keep using laptops and desktops in the future. Or do people really think that in 10-20 years all work will be done on phones and restricted tablets? I don't. The PC market might shrink, but it's not going away. If Apple doesn't want to be part of that market anymore other companies will.
[+] [-] guelo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrodust|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edblarney|9 years ago|reply
Bravo!
This is it.
So many manufacturers of so many things screw this up so bad.
I call it 'Sony-itis'.
They have massive segmentation, within that, so many variations, it's crazy.
I think it's an issue of culture: unless the change comes from the top, it will never happen.
All the MBA's in the world could not convince them to change, operationally.
I worked for a 'major' handset manufacturer that just made new products willy nilly. There was hardly any rhyme or reason.
They don't exist anymore, or rather, barely do.
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guitarbill|9 years ago|reply
But regardless, it's a missed opportunity and a self-fulfilling thing.
[+] [-] Kevin_S|9 years ago|reply
It's not just developers that are a bit... confused by the new direction.
[+] [-] potatosoup|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marssaxman|9 years ago|reply
We're riding out the top end of the S-curve here. That's okay; the market is mature. I expect that Apple can continue to do their high-margin BMW/Mercedes thing for years to come. I just don't happen to need (or even particularly desire) a luxury computer.
[+] [-] visarga|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesumofall|9 years ago|reply
Personally, I have an MacBook Air 13" at home and a Lenovo X1 Carbon at work. Both have their unique strengths and weaknesses but they are both great laptops. Windows has done a great leap forward as has PC hardware. If I were in the market today I would really struggle to make up my mind which one it should be.
[+] [-] srazzaque|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capkutay|9 years ago|reply
I'm guessing the move to consolidate the ports and kill the audio jack may make total sense internally at Apple when it comes to their 10-year manufacturing operations plan and really maximizing their profitability, but to the outside world it's just bad product development.
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
Just give me a state of the art Thinkpad with full I/O ports that runs OSX please.
[+] [-] Ezhik|9 years ago|reply
God, this. I still have no idea what I'll replace my Hachintosh T420 with when the time comes.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|9 years ago|reply
It's the same with Macs today. I gave a talk at my local startup accelerator and found that they had every kind of dongle to attach a Mac to a screen, but no (full size) Displayport adapters.
The next day I added a full-size to mini Displayport adapter to my kit.
[+] [-] mrmondo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|9 years ago|reply
Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? The answer is: content creators. Video creators. Film editors. Photographers. Music artists. Photoshop experts. And developers.
These people create the content that the rest of the "herd" consume. The herd doesn't follow Apple (even though it seems that way); they follow the content, wherever that content is. People didn't switch from Windows to Mac primarily because $x wasn't available on Mac. But soon enough, $x, $y, and $z were on Mac and the switch became easier. Think back to when the iPhone was fighting against BlackBerry and Motorola. It was stupid things like Plants and Zombies and Angry Birds that drove adoption. It was the music industry's alliance with Apple (aka content) that helped the iPhone gain an edge just as much as its technical merit.
5 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to say goodbye to my Mac and go back to Windows. This year, I did (just weeks before the joke of an MBP was announced, thank God). My favorite Mac apps are on Windows. WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) gives me native Linux on Windows with decent integration. I have my posix and I have an OS I can use. MS was trash, but they listened to their power users (thank god for Nadella and good riddance to Ballmer) and ditched Metro everything and went back to a useable, dev-friendly desktop with Windows 10. They're embracing 3D printing, they're bringing back the content producers, and this is going to hurt Apple way more than I think they realize right now.
Every company makes its money at the bottom, but there's a reason these companies continue to make losing investments at the top: to keep the content creators, the prosumers, the reviewers, the influencers happy. It's not just computers. Look at car companies. Look at what Toyota spent on the LFA. They were _never_ going to recoup those costs, no matter what. The goal was to entrench themselves in the minds of auto enthusiasts, to say that Toyota has the ability, the technical knowhow, and the spirit it takes to make a real super car. Now buy and recommend our normal cars, please.
Apple discontinuing first its servers, then its 17" MacBooks (and I've never owned a 17" laptop in my life), its Mac Pros (seriously!?!??), and now, the MacBook Pro (there's a reason there used to be a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Now "Pro" is marketing and they're all MacBook Pros while none of them are), is the problem. It's clear some pinhead that doesn't get the market is looking at the numbers and thinking "hmmmm, $x, $y, and $z have a $devcost/$saleprice ratio that is poorer than our other mainstream products, kill them," not realizing what that means for 10 years down the line.
I'm not saying we're going to see this impact _today_, but we're going to see it at some point. Apple's prosumer focus is what kept it alive when it was bankrupt and desperate and allowed it an opportunity to make a comeback. Ignoring them now isn't just shortsighted and stupid, it's also ungrateful and traitorous. But whatever. I'm happy with my thin & lightweight Xeon ZBook with 32GB of ECC RAM and a 4K display running Windows 10 and Linux. I don't care. But I do think it's a damn shame.
[+] [-] watertom|9 years ago|reply
Apple is floating on the surface, and bloating like a dead whale. They have no vision what so ever, and if they do, it's process engineered out of the company. Their previously outstanding product engineering is even falling down. Unless Mr. Cook is able to find or trust a visionary the company will continue to downward spiral.
There is a fine line between a vision and a hallucination, and Apple is hallucinating right now.
[+] [-] jplasmeier|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure what my next portable computer will be, but if I want it to fit into that criteria of iconic hardware, I doubt it will be an Apple computer.
[+] [-] bostand|9 years ago|reply
Laptop with 25 hrs battery? Give me two please!
[+] [-] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
If Lenovo made a model with the thinkpad keyboard from 10 years ago, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
[+] [-] radicalbyte|9 years ago|reply
Really nice little machine, blows the Air away and is a steal at 650 EUR (~400 USD using Apple's exchange rates).
[+] [-] MichaelGG|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akulbe|9 years ago|reply
I've been a hardcore Mac fan since '04. That said, it's VERY hard to argue that quality in both hardware and software haven't been declining.
I spent over $4K for the 2016 MBP w/Touchbar. Problems. Problems. Problems.
I'm 2 days in to completely switching back to Windows. I bought a Dell XPS 15" with a better CPU/GPU and more RAM than the top MBP, for a lot less money.
Dell makes a better "Macbook" in the new XPS line, than Apple's own Macbooks. It makes me sad. These days, it's hard to think that Apple cares about anything other than iOS devices.
[+] [-] weisser|9 years ago|reply
I'm not easy on computers. I travel a lot and this think has put up with very poor treatment. I can't think of a better computer for me. After this one dies I'll definitely buy another Mac (not thinking about which one because I'm expecting this to last at least another year). I hope I'm not disappointed because this computer exceeded my expectations for a laptop.
[+] [-] jalopy|9 years ago|reply
Can't really see how they're doing "what's best for the customer" anymore. More like what's best for their bottom line.