Tim Cook, in a posting to Apple’s internal messaging board:
The desktop is very strategic for us. It’s unique compared to the notebook because you can pack a lot more performance in a desktop – the largest screens, the most memory and storage, a greater variety of I/O, and fastest performance. So there are many different reasons why desktops are really important, and in some cases critical, to people.
The current generation iMac is the best desktop we have ever made and its beautiful Retina 5K display is the best desktop display in the world.
Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops. If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.
When a CEO has to go out and say the company is committed to X, the company is probably not committed to X.
You can be fully committed to something but still not understand your customer base or fail to listen to them. Or you can have a great understanding of your customer base and not care what they have to say, and still be committed to the product.
Vanders,
MS has received so much bad press over it’s OS changes. Apple really could have pounded home the resentment of microsoft’s anti-consumer features (ie features like tracking, unwanted GUIs, forced updates, and restrictions that are designed to serve microsoft rather than the consumer). It would have had very positive repercussions for both apple and microsoft consumers. Yet apple just sat on it’s behind and did practically nothing. If apple were a starving company, I bet they would have done something, it just seems they don’t care because they’re making more money than they know what to do with as is.
Although, Microsoft listened to the GUI concerns (but still Windows 10 windows are ugly) Microsoft did not still listen on its horrible forced updates, forcing you unwanted reboots and the long process of “Windows is configuring your computer, please do not turn off.”
The bad press for Microsoft won’t matter, users won’t flee to Apple in large numbers simply because of price. And due their business model, Apple can’t lower prices.
nicubunu,
Their PCs are too expensive for me as well, especially after comparison shopping IMHO. I also realize it’s just wishful thinking and that if anything apple probably wants PCs to be even more restricted like IOS. But hypothetically if apple had shamed and competed directly with microsoft’s big-brother policies, then I believe those waves could have made a real difference for the whole industry.
In the PC world, Apple competes with only a fraction of Microsoft’s market, the large majority of the PC market does not care what Apple does.
On the other hand, form inside their walled garden, Apple does not have a moral stand to shame Microsoft for big brother policies.
nicubunu,
I agree, that’s why it’s wishful thinking.
Edited 2016-12-21 13:46 UTC
I’m sure apple would have said “the laptop is very strategic for us” and “we are very committed to the macbook pro” 6 months ago.
The reality is shipped a laptop with poor battery life (so bad they removed the time estimate), small battery (even smaller on the high end 13″, and made them incompatible with the vast majority of keyboards, mice, cameras, and displays. Even worse the 16GB limitation is pretty severe for a “pro” model.
Sadly I expect the desktops will be a non-upgradable iMac.
Edited 2016-12-20 12:14 UTC
Funny. My logitech mx performance mouse is working just fine. My sound blaster X is working just fine. All my iPhones from 3G upwards works just fine, same for iPads. My Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS works just fine. My external 8tb thunderbolt drive works just fine. My thunderbolt display works just fine. My cheap unknown brand 28″ HDMI monitor works just fine. My contour video camera works just fine. What are these incompatibilities you are talking of?
daveak,
Obviously they’ll work with adapters. That’s his point, you need dongles to use things that used to work out of the box. For a company that prides itself so much on style and elegance, dongles are the anti-thesis of that. At least they knocked the price of dongles down amid criticism.
http://time.com/4559059/apple-dongle-accessory-usb-macbook-pro-pric…
But it’s not just a matter of money, it’s a matter of convenience and practicality. Dongles, seriously? Why not at least one model for power users who want the ports and throw in a bigger battery while we’re at it. I’m sure many consumers would prefer for apple to have kept the magnetic power cord as well.
Edited 2016-12-20 23:22 UTC
People are making the most important things of things that are not really that important.
What really matters and that is why macs are selling great is that they are really reliable, they age great, they are really nice to use as a portable laptop, the applications are high quality, and the system is dependable in general.
For a mac laptop to be 4 years old doesn’t mean you loose functionality. They are still great to use. You can still use all the software out there.
Most people don’t connect ton of stuff to the laptops anyway. Also most people already carry with them a charger for the computer, a phone, a charger for the phone, a USB cable to connect the phone. So carrying another small dongle for the people that need is not anything that will make the bag that you have anyways when you have a laptop not a big deal.
If you don’t like something don’t buy it, it is fine. No product is for everybody. It is good to remember the things that really matter.
ycarel,
Of course. I’m actually very glad that apple exists as a competitor to microsoft. If mac-os closes shop, that would be devastating for consumer choice from my point of view. I wish there was stronger competition from even more platforms.
Still, apple’s got so many billions and they could loose a few without even flinching. Yet they haven’t done much investing in the PC market for years and even dismantled development teams. Now I can’t say whether it’s in apple’s interests or not to retool the company around IOS, but regardless, I think the uncertainty surrounding apple’s intentions for macos is legitimate. Even the fact that Tim Cook felt the need to address this internally highlights a level of skepticism among apple’s own employees. I guess we’ll see what happens.
You are right about the uncertainty, apple is been doing silly things lately. Producing products that are all wrong, with emphasis to the wrong things.
Unfortunately it seems that most companies are doing the same thing too, look at the phones today, they are too big, battery life is not good enough.
Same thing with smart watches. Instead of following the path set by pebble to a simpler products, with decent battery life. Everybody went to wrong way and now the product category is not doing great.
I do think the mac book was and is still a good productive laptop. And being used by so many in the silicon valley, were apple is. This for sure makes the importance of its laptops easy to see for apple executives and employees.
I do hope that apple refocuses and stops doing the mistakes they are doing now, and get back to creating really enjoyable stuff to use. They still have a lot of talent in there, and lots of good use cases for their products, and lots of money too.
The last five years it has been the same for other computers, including Windows computers.
The only thing they have improved in that time is battery life and amount of monitor pixels, but performance has remained more or less the same since 2010.
What you *do* still have after four years, is a lot more resale value for your macbook than you do for your windows laptop. But given that those things are much pricier to start with, the end result is that you still lost more money with the macbook compared to an equivalent (hardwarewise of course, softwarewise would be impossibru) windows laptop.
As someone who just updated from his 2010 laptop I strongly disagree. My new MBA is at least twice as fast as my old MBP with twice the battery life and lighter and cheaper too. The new SSD is 5-10 times faster then the old one.
There is progress, its just not as rapid as it used to and especially the CPU doesn’t gain much speed anymore.
daveak literally posted a long list of things he has connected, or can connect, to his MacBook…
I accept that you personally may not need to connect a lot of stuff to your laptops, but plenty of people do. That’s why that group of people are upset at the dongle proliferation. That’s why Apple had to perform damage limitation by lowering the prices on dongles.
Besides all that, getting rid of Magsafe is the most boneheaded thing ever.
That is true about the magsafe. It was amazing. I hope it comes back.
This reminds me so much of the discussions, CEO town halls, etc. we had at Blackberry while I was there (2010-2015).
Why do I feel like the next MacBook Pro iteration will be an iPad Pro for the screen, and an iPad for the “keyboard” connected by a $500 custom-designed hinge?
Thats kind of absurd. iMacs have been their traditional entry level computer. The fact that its now put forth as their best one is kind of funny.
Although they only have mac minis, imacs, and trash cans.
So I guess that makes sense. The trash can is not actually indented for most users.
I’d feel better at least if they brought back the cube. Bring back the cube! And maybe a pyramid! Or a death star!
I’d vote for the NeXTcube. Also cool and it was big enough for a full sized video card.
Yea, but having a fanless computer can’t be beat. Silence is golden.
He can say whatever he wants, component wise they are just laptop parts attached to a 5K screen. There doesn’t seem to be a single desktop GPU in their lineup. Not sure about the mac pro trashcan model, but I hear it’s performance isn’t great in that area either.
Actions usually speak louder than words. So when you see what’s happened to the Mac lineup over the last few years and then you get “We are committed to” messages from the CEO like that it comes off as the typical CEO-doublespeak that usually means the opposite of what’s said or implied.
As for bringing back the NeXTcube – that would be great!!! But that’s a pipe dream.
Apple just needs more time, and focuses on r&d for arm based desktop machines.
48 core ARM64 CPUs, two of them, coming to a desktop machine near you.
You read it here first.
Edited 2016-12-20 16:47 UTC
Most tools and utilities rewritten in Elixir and Erlang for the occasion? It would be surprisingly awesome.
Go the Parallella way then…
From what I can garner from the CEO-speak Tim gave in the article, “Committed to the Mac” means that a new iMac is coming and that’s it. I wouldn’t expect to see any other Desktop Macs, no Mini, no Pro.
I’m reading into this quote from the article: “[The desktop Mac is] unique compared to the notebook because you can pack a lot more performance in a desktop — the largest screens, the most memory and storage, a greater variety of I/O, and fastest performance.” The largest screen part especially points to the iMac.
The recent discontinuation of the Apple monitor also points to no more headless Macs. I’m afraid we are only going to see updated iMac, Macbook, and Macbook Pro hardware in the future. The current Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and Macbook Air lines will not see another update.
Steve Jobs (after revealing the Mac was going Intel):
“We will support PowerPC for years…” (5 more, maybe?)
Yeah, right… Tiger was Intel release 1. Leopard was Intel release 2 and the LAST PowerPC version.
And? Your quote is from June 2005, the last release of Leopard is from 2009, the last security update from June 2011. Thats six years of support for the PPC Macs.
Well… prove a point, why don’tcha? 😀
When I hear “support for years”, I think of years of OS releases, as in 3-4 more OS’s, not just updates. There was only Tiger and Panther. That was it. End of the road. I guess my definition of SUPPORT… for years, wasn’t their definition. They meant actual support… I thought they meant OS releases. Oh, well…
Someone wanna port iPiano (to a newer MacOS X or Windows 10 or HaikuOS or whatever), so I can stop running MacOS X on this old sub-GHz G4 system and slap MorphOS on it instead? 😀 It really is the ONLY reason I still have my G4. I have too much music in this unique format, to get rid of it.
This was a statement to employees, not to consumers.
However, when you combine it with this..
https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/20/apple-mac-development-on-the-bac…
It might explain why Cook is making this statement to employees..
It’s pretty clear even to an outsider looking in that this is what is happening. Jobs’s fears of sales and marketing people running the company have come to fruition……..and there is no Jobs to come back and save them.
That’s pretty much it. He has no idea how the desktop fits in in relation to developers or what knock-on effects it has. He’s drunk the anti-freeze that says desktops will all be replaced by tablets.
It’s funny that Jobs always talked about ‘A’ players, but recruited Cook from Compaq of all places. I wonder if he recommended him knowing what would happen.
I’d like more details about his time at compaq, considering now they are just exact copies of HP computers with less memory.