
Apple planning 11″ iPad Pro, Mac mini, 1.57″ and 1.78″ Apple Watch, AirPower - uptown
https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/11/kuo-iphone-ipad-mac-apple-watch-rumors/
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misterhtmlcss
Won't upgrade a single Apple product in my house until we get a resolution on
MacBook Air. We are already evaluating leaving Apple products due to their
complacency and won't be upgrading until we see movement on pricing and
product development regarding the MacBooks. It's a sad state of affairs when
you are waiting 3 years to update and you can't because your vendor of choice
refuses to update your product category.

Hopefully they sort things out before we commit to a switch in early 2019. We
aren't the only ones either we've had friends leave already and some are
either waiting on us to blaze a path forward or are already planning to leave
the platform.

I think Apple needs to seriously consider the long-term impact to their
business of losing their major platform advocates; from artists, to
developers, to technology savvy people that have a dramatic affect on the
spending habits of others. Myself alone have easily and directly impacted
about $50k worth of consumer spending, not a lot I know, but I'm also
confident I'm not alone and this is a trend that is going the wrong direction.

Just thought I'd share where I'm at and those in my circle.

Also of you are imminently switching or have switched I'd love to know what
you switched too and why.

~~~
Panino
> Won't upgrade a single Apple product in my house until we get a resolution
> on MacBook Air.

Just curious, what's the problem and resolution? (I'm not familiar with recent
Apple hardware.)

My wife is considering switching from Win8 to OSX for various reasons and the
_Air_ looks like the best bet. The show-stopper against buying a _Pro_ was the
lack of normal USB and HDMI, and at least the Air has full-sized USB3.

There don't seem to be any _good_ options for us. She wants to switch away
from Windows but Apple seems to oppose that idea. We might instead get a
refurbished laptop and throw Ubuntu on it. (Gotta keep the existing Windows
laptop for specific software needed when working from home.)

~~~
thirdsun
The main problem with the Macbook Air is the actual resolution: At 1440 x 900
a non-retina display like this is plain outdated and doesn't fit the premium
price tag, even if this is Apple's most affordable laptop. The Air is also
somewhat abandoned in recent years and hasn't seen an upgrade for a while.
There are people that are fine with the low resolution, however these days I
would not buy any non-retina displays/devices and opt for the Macbook if it
has to be a small, portable, lightweight laptop.

However if you aren't in a rush you should obviously wait for the actual
product announcements we're discussing here.

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ddp
I helped build Apple 1's. I had a Lisa. I've owned nearly every generation of
PowerBook and MacBook and I've had enough. I bought a loaded Surface Pro
tablet last summer and I ordered a new 15" Surface Book 2 w/ Nvidia GTX 1060
to replace my MacBook Pro. Not the new one with TouchBar, that one was so bad
I sold it back to Apple for a substantial loss. It was a good run.

~~~
berberous
What's wrong with APFS?

~~~
ddp
Well, when it shipped it didn't support Fusion Drives, which were the default
when High Sierra shipped. Time Machine backups fell over and quit working
(somewhat different issue, agreed) and before I got them working again,
FileVault 2 ate both of the disks on both of my MacBook Pros causing me
substantial data loss.

I also had two macOS Servers running on mac minis and they announced that
they're discontinuing it, leaving Apple with no server offering. I also
removed the discontinued Apple Airports from my network.

I plan to stay on iOS and Watch for now, though I only use my iPad Pro for
music synthesizers and basic chat/browsing.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm being absolutely harrassed typing
in my iCloud password on all my i-devices. In contrast, I think I've typed my
Microsoft password less than 10 times in the last year.

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Jyaif
My prediction: the mac mini will be smaller. Gruber has been preparing the
fanboys for that (
[https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/06/14/snellintosh](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/06/14/snellintosh)
)

~~~
y_molodtsov
Mac mini in a body of AppleTV would be really fun.

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rvanmil
If the keyboard hasn't changed significantly I'll stick to my 2015 MBP for yet
another year.

~~~
leesalminen
I’m holding onto my ‘14 model for dear life.

~~~
anon1253
Same here, I tried replacing it with a 2018 Lenovo Carbon X1 with the intent
of running Linux but that ended in tears. I just really wish they had
continued this line of laptops ... or at the very least kept the keyboard in
their newer models :/

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Apocryphon
Remember for a couple of years in the early to mid-'00s when there was a
Cambrian explosion in iPod models?

iPod with Photo, iPod with Video, iPod with color displays, Minis and Nanos
with radically different hardware form factors with each iteration. Upon
revisiting, it appears that the photo-color-video iPods were all variations of
the original, and released in successive years, but it still felt like a
dizzying array of different device types, at least to me at the time.

It feels like all the emerging new form factors are doing the same to iPhones
and iPads, to some extent. Both the iPhone SE and 5C feel like one-offs,
evolutionary dead ends. The inconsistency in size between the first and second
gen smaller iPad Pro's. The product lines, when looking at the changes from
year to year, feel like a jumble. Not as much of a mess as from other
companies, of course, but still a little reminiscent of the iPod years. Doubt
it will affect the quality of the products or the bottom line, but still
messier than it used to be.

~~~
close04
Sometimes companies throw stuff against the wall to see what sticks, sometimes
they try a variation of something that was either successful in the past or it
actually failed and they want another go, and sometimes the product is just
what the market needs on the short term. And sometimes companies are just out
of ideas and change for the sake of change, faking "new".

For example something like the SE or 5C took relatively little development to
make but filled in a gap in the small-ish phone segment. They can't really go
anywhere with people demanding larger and larger screens but if they came at
the right time they don't really need to evolve. They do the job and exit the
stage.

With any relatively new or dynamic market there's a need to experiment and
then to fine tune. Especially true with smart watches that didn't really find
a comfy home with most consumers.

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timwis
I've been waiting to get a new MacBook until they fix the keyboard issue. Any
word on that with these newer models? Or are they doubling down...

~~~
joshstrange
I think we are currently in a "first" for Apple in where they announced an
extended warranty for their 2016+ laptops WITHOUT having viable alternative
for sale. I really hope this means we get some upgrade to the keyboard. I've
got a 2014 and I really want to upgrade to a 15" with dedicated graphics but
if they don't fix the keyboard my "upgrade" will be to a 2015 model. There
were some reports that Apple is using a new alloy when they replace in those
stupid butterfly switches them that has less issues but it hasn't been
confirmed AFAIK.

~~~
y_molodtsov
iFixit confirmed that 2016 and 2017 butterfly keyboards are just a little
different. They’re replacing with 2017 now and there’s no any data on their
actual failure rate except for the fears on Twitter.

~~~
kondro
Every MacBook I’ve bought for our business (and every MB any of my friends has
owned) since 2016 (including the 2017 models) continues to have regular
keyboard problems leading to repair.

It’s only a sample size of a couple dozen, but 100% of them have had keyboard
problems within 6 months.

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Simulacra
My household has left Apple after 20 years, because of the inability to
upgrade the MacBooks, and just an oversimplification of everything. I dearly
wish I had an upgraded cheese grater. After three Mac minis died, we called it
quits on those too. Cost, reliability, and expansion have pushed us towards
PCs.

