
Why Apple doesn’t care about professional Mac users anymore (2016) - smacktoward
https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/10/why-apple-doesnt-care-about-professional-mac-users-anymore/
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arthurofbabylon
A lot of people who complain about hyperbole in the press seem to enjoy
hyperbole applied to their favorite and least favorite tech brands.

Really? You really think Apple “doesn’t care about professional Mac users”?

Not only does this exaggeration/absurdity denigrate the author, it also makes
it really, really hard for reasonably-minded people to pay attention to
possibly valid arguments. The best authors tend to be candid and precise.

~~~
monksy
What happened to their server line?

~~~
techjuice
They discontinued the xserve in 2011, was nice buying the last three of them
directly from Apple.

~~~
monksy
I was using that to point out that they have abandoned their audience before.
This would not be that surprising.

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013a
Apple really only has two major issues with the MBP right now: thermals and
the update cycle.

Its absolutely unacceptable that we have to wait a full year after Intel's
mobile chip releases before we see them trickle to the MBP. I understand that
Apple operates on a scale other manufacturers don't match, but we saw 8750H
laptops release to the public months before WWDC, but Apple will sit on their
7th gen laptops for another 6-8 months before releasing. Because "release
cycles".

But even when they do come out: Apple doesn't understand professional grade
thermal management. They put fans (or, fan) (or, no fans) in the machine that
can spin up pretty high, but you'll never see the machine do it on its own.
Instead, they prefer to thermal throttle the CPUs under any sustained
workload, while the fans just spin at a whisper quiet whrr and the underside
heats up to an uncomfortably hot level (because the machine itself is a
heatsink, which conversely makes your lap part of the heatsink, thanks Apple
[1])

I don't believe them for a second when they say that they still care about the
Mac, as an organization and at their leadership levels. Its immensely
frustrating. But the biggest frustration is that they (and Microsoft) are the
only companies still making laptops with screens other than 16:9, which is a
major component to professional sales. So even if you can get over not having
MacOS (which is pretty darn easy to leave with how lackluster the latest
releases have been), you're still left with a subpar hardware experience.

[1] [http://time.com/4938530/can-laptops-cause-
infertility/](http://time.com/4938530/can-laptops-cause-infertility/)

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jiggliemon
Who are professional Mac users? These are the ones I’m thinking of off the top
of my head.

\- Developers

\- Adobe Suite users

\- Video Editors

\- C-Suite Professionals

I think they abandoned video editors when they dropped Final Cut. So they
didn’t care about those professionals.

Adobe Suite users is a large group of professionals. Photographers for one;
Apple ditched the SD card port - seems like they don’t care about
photographers. Illustrators; Wacom/tables all use standard USB style ports;
and several other ports at the same time; like external hard drives or now,
external video cards I guess. Less ports seems to mean they don’t care about
people who use additional hardware. Musicians, Video editors, I’m sure I’m
missing a few other “pros” who require external hardware.

The iPad Pro has that pencil thing; and maybe the adobe software for the iPad
is good enough to do professional illustration and photo editing. Although i
don’t know any photographer editing 1Gb files on an iPad Pro. They’re hard
enough to edit on a MacBook Pro.

Who does the touch bar serve? Maybe it’s just because I’m in that demographic
who doesn’t understand Snapchat - but I just don’t nderstand the touch bar. It
doesn’t feel “pro” to me.

You can’t charge the Apple mouse while you use it. Somebody needs to explain
that logic to me.

So all the Mac pros are really good at - is jobs for professional typists.
Programmers, writers, emailers; but the new keyboards seem to be pretty poor
at their core function. Typing.

It’s clear in my opinion that Apple doesn’t care about today’s professionals.
Maybe they care about tomorrow’s. I guess I have to ask what problems is Apple
helping to solve for tomorrow’s professionals - today? Wire problems?

Edit: added the iPad Pro, and Apple mouse

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dwc
The rise of the iPhone explains a LOT about where Apple puts their attention.
What it doesn't really explain is why the changes they do make to Mac products
seem designed to annoy. Since they're not upgrading the processors couldn't
they just leave things completely alone and keep selling the old models? I'm
not sure they'd take any more heat for that than they do for dropping
connectors and such.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _leave things completely alone and keep selling the old models_

That would trash the brand. You can't be selling cutting edge out of one side
of the company while milking legacy products out the other. Perhaps more
fatally, it spoils Apple's incredibly effective "make your product obsolete
before someone else does" philosophy.

~~~
geerlingguy
> You can't be selling cutting edge out of one side of the company while
> milking legacy products out the other.

Except that's exactly what's happening with the MacBook Air, Mac mini, Mac
Pro...

~~~
andrewmcwatters
Additionally, iPhone has been their core focus for a long time now, and yet
prior to the X, they basically shipped the same phone for the last 4 years.
What have they been doing at Apple for the last half decade or more besides
building a GCHQ replica?

~~~
sdhgaiojfsa
Making money hand over fist, for one thing. It is _smart_ to change slowly if
you've achieved market saturation and your customer base has no viable
alternatives. It means more profits.

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filesystem
Especially given the recent launch of the iMac Pro, I don't think we can say
this definitively until we see the next release of the Macbook Pro.

~~~
threeseed
Except we largely know what the next MacBook Pro will be.

Same design. Same TouchBar. Same display. Same keyboard but with covers on the
key to prevent dust (refer to recent patent). Upgrade to 6-core for 15inch,
4-core for 13-inch. Possibly 32GB maximum on 15inch.

Tim Cook has himself said it takes years for Apple to switch directions in
their product line. And so since the current MacBook Pro is only a couple of
years old it isn't likely we will see a dramatically different product.

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mullingitover
I think Apple's concern for Mac users is roughly proportional to Macs' share
of Apple's revenue breakdown. Currently this is in the single digits[1].

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-
re...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-revenue-of-
apple/)

------
Animats
And just as phone sales went flat.[1] The computer business may become more
important as phones become a commodity.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-
ipho...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-
since-3rd-quarter-2007/)

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tcfunk
I think Apple makes some top-notch computers, but I also think I am no longer
the target audience for those computers.

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jacinabox
I realized something like this a while ago; that Apple is catering to casual
users and neglecting its upscale offerings, not pushing its desktop software
business forward. The problem in the long run is that the loyalty of
smartphone users is fickle; there's no vendor lockin. Suppose someday people
decide that X smartphone maker is the next big thing; what's tethering them to
Apple products?

~~~
threeseed
> there's no vendor lockin

Really ?

200+ billion apps sold, which on average are more expensive than Android.
iMessage/Facetime which are iOS only and are likely top 3 messaging platforms.
Apple Watch which is the leading wearable and is iOS only. HomePod and AirPods
which are iOS only. Apps like Notes, Photos etc which are iOS/OSX only.

If you spend ANY time using the functionality of iOS you are slowly but surely
cementing your feet in the ground.

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bayfullofrays
This is absolute crap. Apple cares about their pro users, they just want them
using products that are much more accessible and easier to use. We just
transitioned to iPad Pros in our recruiting office and some of our developers
are recommending that we just push everything into Google Cloud and using the
iPad to do development on.

This argument is like saying that Tesla doesn't care about petrolhead and
horse carriage enthusiasts. The only people that I know who care about Mac
hardware are the same people who waste powerful machines on web browsing and
like to boast about how fast their computer is. Just toxic.

~~~
pokemongoaway
Right, it was so hard to use magsafe, keyboards with key-travel, non-touch
screen laptops, and all of those annoyingly varied ports on the side! I think
OSX and iOS should become the same thing so no one has to manage their own
software - let's get everything from their appstore, it's wonderful! I'm also
really glad they incentivize smaller hard drive space so more people decide to
use their cloud offerings; cloud is the future! Also, anyone who liked the old
non-reflective displays just doesn't understand graphics; a company shouldn't
listen to all customers, just the correct customers. USB is a great example of
where most customers are wrong.

