
Apple should stop selling four-year-old computers - doener
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/4/12373776/2012-macbook-pro-still-alive-not-dead-why
======
IBM
Anyone who buys a Macbook Pro today, before they're updated in the fall, will
be able to use it for the next 3 years without issue. My Macbook Air was
purchased in 2012 and is still fast enough that I probably won't replace it
for another 2 years. People keep their computers longer now because they're
fast enough. This has been true for the PC industry for at least 5 years now
and it's why sales have been declining since they peaked in 2011 [1]. The year
over year changes from Intel/AMD are incremental and I suspect Apple has
decided they're not going to buy every iteration. It's even less important to
get every chip now that Intel has stretched their development cycle from Tick-
Tock to Process-Architecture-Optimization [2].

[1]
[http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56968e64c08a80492c8...](http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56968e64c08a80492c8b794e-1200-900/20160113_pc_bi.png)

[2] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/10183/intels-tick-tock-
seeming...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10183/intels-tick-tock-seemingly-
dead-becomes-process-architecture-optimization)

~~~
justinlardinois
> Anyone who buys a Macbook Pro today, before they're updated in the fall,
> will be able to use it for the next 3 years without issue.

It kind of depresses me that three years is considered a long lifetime for a
computer.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Why, though? Lifetimes are dictated by the physical processes that govern
wear, and computers wear out fast: we pump a whole lot of electrons through
them, and because we want them to be faster and faster have made them less and
less fault tolerant under heavy load.

Make no mistake: ever since the AT/XT days the useful lifetime of a computer
has been in the three year range because of the nature of matter and the
physics we exploit to make digital circuits do what they need to do. Can you
still use a 20 year old computer that runs Word Perfect 5 on MS-DOS 6.22 and
isn't really made to do much more? Of course. And of course, you'll still be
able to run OSX Panther on a 2005 MacMini for years to come, but you can't use
those things for anything new or modern, you've created a little time machine
that can only do what we wanted to do in 1985, or 1995, or 2005, instead of in
2015 (or soon enough, 2025).

Most of us want to use those new programs that rely on new algorithms that
require the faster hardware, or old algorithms that massively benefit from
faster hardware - we want spreadsheets to take less than seconds, not more
than minutes, for ever-more complex work; we want games that run smoothly, not
"not at all" or at 1 or 2 frames per second; we want our internet browser to
start when we tell it to, not after a period of time that is long enough to
wonder whether it even started at all.

Things all have lifetimes, and for computers that lifetime's about 3 years,
and has been for decades. On the upside, computers are ships of Theseus: most
of the time, we can just swap out broken parts for new parts, including faster
parts, so really the lifetime of a single, unadulterated, intact computer is
three years, but with a few hundred bucks every three years, we can keep
pulling it back into the modern age until at some point nothing of the
original remains - and the lifetime of THAT computer is much, much longer.

~~~
nextos
Why 3 years? My MacBook Air 2012 runs Linux better than some brand new
machines. As a browser and a ssh machine it's good enough.

My dad ran Ubuntu for a decade on my 13 year old workstation. He couldn't do
anything I could do on my laptop. A Pentium IV with HT was good enough for his
LaTeX and his MCMC simulations.

~~~
Nullabillity
> Why 3 years? My MacBook Air 2012 runs Linux better than some brand new
> machines.

Not if you compensate for how much extra you paid for it.

> As a browser and a ssh machine it's good enough.

So you're just offloading the needed upgrades to someone else, while still
ALSO needing to maintain your own computer (though to a lesser degree).

Unless you need the extra battery capacity (how often do you need to work for
several hours without being close to a plug?) then it's much simpler to just
run everything locally. Plus you don't need an internet connection! Plus using
an IDE or anything else graphical will actually be a bearable experience!

~~~
rbanffy
> Not if you compensate for how much extra you paid for it.

It's not how much you pay for your computer, but how much you spend per year,
on average, that counts. If a computer does its job for twice as long as the
other, it's reasonable to pay up to twice as much for it.

------
verisimilidude
Last week I bought a new computer. And for the first time since 2002, it
wasn't a Mac. I wanted a Mac Mini, but that's a tough buy when you can get
something much smaller, more flexible, and more powerful in the PC realm. I
wound up buying an Intel NUC and slapping Ubuntu Gnome on it.

Most surprisingly, Gnome 3 does not feel like a compromised choice in
comparison to OS X. It's not a seamless experience by any means. That said,
I'm really digging some of the UI choices they've made. It's a UX that's
committed to a vision of how the user should interact with the computer.

I remember a time when the Mac also felt like a strongly opinionated
experience, designed by and for humans. It no longer feels so. It feels
aimless and stagnant, even regressive in some ways. It feels designed by
committee rather than vision or voice. The changes do not seem to serve any
higher purpose than making the UI look cool in screenshots. I miss the high-
contrast controls, readable fonts, always-visible functionality, personable
quirks, etc.

I still use a Mac all day at work, and I still respect it as a good tool for
getting shit done, but I really wonder about the point of it. If I can pick up
a free alternative like Ubuntu Gnome and actually feel happy and productive
quickly, what's left to recommend the Mac? If Apple doesn't care any more, why
should I?

(Alright, now y'all can light me up.)

~~~
sounds
I chuckled at your parting "y'all can light me up," but if Gnome on an Intel
NUC meets your needs, you are indeed a happy man. (NUCs are on Newegg for
around $386 right now.)

Here's what is most commonly mentioned that Linux "can't do". Maybe some
things on this list haven't bitten you yet, but it's worth reviewing:

• Fewer games. It's not as bad as comparing Linux to Windows, but even Mac has
games that don't have a Linux port. Wine is pretty impressive these days -- if
you are willing to mess with the command line and config files and searching
random internet posts for how to get the game to work.

• "Professional" software. Microsoft, Adobe, nVidia and Autodesk all openly
refuse to support Linux. Whatever their reasons, it means that Linux users
must do the format conversion to something that does run on Linux. Arguably
that's a good thing because proprietary data formats mean archived data can't
be opened in a decade, but day to day it's super painful.

• Driver issues #1: plugging random things in via USB. Linux has impressive
driver support for things that are well understood. But the lesser well-
standardized hardware (printers, scanners, wifi dongles, ...) may not work.
Know before you buy. Windows again has it best, but knowing if it runs on Mac
is usually printed on the packaging. (And Linux is not.)

• Driver issues #2: Actually Linux wins out if you're willing to wait a few
years because Linux will gain driver support for quirky fringe hardware over
time. macOS actually DROPS support for things over time.

• Driver issues #3: Very new hardware like VR headsets are going to be an
adventure in cobbling together new kernels, the latest software versions built
from source or downloaded from an unstable branch, ... [1]. Or, sometimes the
answer is: nope, never going to get Linux support.

[1] [https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/first-steps-with-
open...](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/first-steps-with-openvr-and-
the-vive-on-linux.7229)

~~~
windlep
I agree entirely with everything on this list. Thankfully, there is a modern
solution!

Buy the PC of your dreams, install Windows 10 on it, then install VMWare
Workstation. Put the linux distro of your choice in vmware, enjoy! Everything
will _just work_ , consistently, elegantly, and without hassle.

Play your games with Steam in Windows of course, and thanks to Windows
handling all the drivers, you can enjoy issue-less plug-and-play with USB and
everything else. Merely install the apps that only work in Windows.... in
Windows, and keep the rest of the dev-work in the linux VM.

The only caveat I can think of, is that you don't get 2d GPU hardware
acceleration, vmware will accelerate 3d, but not 2d for say, compiz. I usually
turn off these random 2D type effects so I don't notice that. Virtualbox is an
option of course, but it still doesn't feel solid enough to me. At some point
Hyper-V will have enough GPU acceleration with vmconnect that Windows 10 Pro +
Hyper-V will be plenty (I know it has RemoteX acceleration now, but afaik
that's only for Windows Server...).

I've loved this solution so much, I actually copied my VM over to my Retina
MacBook Pro so I can use the linux VM for development work on the go. OSX
handles ensuring the wifi always works, and the VM sees it as a reliable
hardwired connection, no issues.

After 15 years of being a hardcore OSX/Apple user(fanboi), I cannot be more
happy with the past 18 months since switching to this configuration. Cheaper
than the Apple ecosystem, and waaaay faster hardware.

~~~
gtirloni
Exactly my situation. I've been a 24x7 Linux/BSD desktop user since the
Slackware 3.3 days but got too tired with all the issues.

I started dual booting an year ago and a few months ago switched for good.

Now I'm using Win10 and VMware Workstation 12.1 and some Fedora/CentOS VMs. 3D
acceleration screams and my desktop just works.

Workload involves working with Linux servers all day, developing inside the
VMs, etc. Everything else I do natively on Windows.

I wish it had turned out differently over these 10+ years (with a pure OSS
desktop) but that's where I find myself today.

------
nissehulth
They become sad after 5 years, I guess.

[http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-
hypocritical-...](http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-hypocritical-
insensitive-pc-users-old-pc/)

"There are over 600 million PCs in use today that are over five years old.
This is really sad, it really is."

~~~
BatFastard
I have half a dozen desktop PCs from 2000-4 in use in my house. I had to
update the graphics card, but a Core2-Dou at 3 GHz with a decent graphics card
will run virtually every program in existence. Recently I went from 2.4GHz
processor to 3GHz processors, 15 bucks on ebay ;-)

I don't get the obsession with notebooks. Why do I want to spend 4X the amount
of money for something that last 4 years if I am lucky. For the <1% of time I
am not working from my desk? In meeting I prefer people NOT to bring a
notebook, this way they pay attention and I can get them out of the room and
back to work faster.

~~~
mcphage
> I don't get the obsession with notebooks. [...] For the <1% of time I am not
> working from my desk?

It turns out, many people spend much more than 1% of their time not working
from their desk.

~~~
dmd
When I had a desktop, I spent 99% of my time working from my desk.

I switched to a notebook in 2006, and now spend less than 20% of my time
working at a desk.

------
protomyth
We've been pretty loyal buying Macs, but at this point we just cannot justify
it anymore. We had a brief flirtation with giving people iPads instead of PCs,
and that is better from a support / update point of view. But, the desire for
a "real computer" is pretty strong with the generation of people we have on
staff. At this point, I'm reading up on Chrome books and Chrome boxes to see
how simple IT things (e.g. network login, server storage) are managed and can
we use them with local not cloud storage[1]. We might do more Win 10, but
Microsoft sure isn't making it easy with their OS. I guess the Enterprise
edition might be ok.

Creative arts will probably always be Mac, but we are an all Adobe institution
after the Final Cut Pro X fiasco so even that is not a certainty.

1) I have to obey a couple of very un-fun local laws and will buy old machines
rather than deal with problems in that area

~~~
tim333
>we just cannot justify it anymore

Have you looked at total cost of ownership? From the ‘Every Mac we buy is
making and saving IBM money’ - IBM article:

"Just 5 percent of IBM’s Mac using employees need to call the help desk; In
contrast an astonishing 40 percent of PC using staff call the help desk."

[http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998315/apple-
mac/every...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998315/apple-mac/every-
mac-we-buy-is-making-and-saving-ibm-money-ibm.html)

~~~
StevePerkins
Were the employees who received MacBooks selected randomly/arbitrarily, or was
it by request?

A pretty key point to consider, since people who prefer "non-standard"
technology tend to be more tech-savvy users, who require less support.

I'm sure that Chrome users also call the help desk less frequently than people
who use Internet Explorer (or Safari for that matter).

~~~
kodr
or it could be the fact that you don't have to install an antivirus. I have a
Dell at work and the company policy is to have mcAfee installed. It prevents a
lot of stuff from working (need to use virtual box 4 for example)

~~~
wmf
IBM requires antivirus on Macs, but it may be less broken than Windows
antivirus software.

~~~
majewsky
I have McAfee on my work Macbook, but I don't have an opinion on whether it's
"less broken". I used a Windows 7 Thinkpad before the Macbook (also with
McAfee), and didn't notice McAfee at all in these 3 years. In 2 years on the
Mac, I noticed one interesting UI bug where the taskbar icon says "Your Mac is
Not Secure", but when you click on it to open the main UI, the window will say
"Your Mac is Secure", and the taskbar icon then agrees with the main window
from that point on. Just a glitch, nothing that I would consider noticably
broken.

------
addicted
The 2012 MBP bought new today for $1100 will serve a lot of people really
well.

An $800 Dell XPS will serve them much better, last them much longer, and keep
them much happier.

A $500 Chromebook might be an even better choice.

Unless you have no escape from the Apple eco system lock in, it's almost
impossible to recommend a mac to anyone anymore. Even if Apple does come up
with a great refresh to their lineup, their treatment of the mac over the last
couple of years means they might simply do this again, which means I really
cannot recommend them anymore. Apple has pretty much destroyed all teh
goodwill they built up with me, and the only way I can recommend a mac anymore
is if they open up OS X to all hardware makers (but then, I'd trust Windows
which has been doing that for decades, over OSX which has not and Apple would
almost certainly have trouble supporting OSX on non Apple devices).

And finally, because of how deliberately tied up Apple's ecosystem is, that
means I cannot recommend iPhones/iPads anymore despite iOS being a superior
platform anymore.

I genuinely feel Apple is trading away their past reputation in an effort to
extract money from consumers who may not know better.

~~~
freshflowers
I doubt a Dell XPS will last longer. The problem with non-Apple laptops, with
few (and expensive) exceptions, is the build quality.

It's 2016, people treat laptops like any common electronic household item, and
the majority of non-Apple laptops, especially Dells, start to look pretty
ragged after less than 2 years.

That's why MacBooks tend to have a decent resell value, whereas you cannot
even give other old laptops away.

~~~
leviathant
I've got a Dell E1505 I bought refurbished in 2016 that runs Windows 10. It's
been dropped a couple of times from the door of an old Ford Econoline van with
door pockets that, as it turned out, weren't in great shape.

In 2010, I received a brand new Mac Mini. We had at that point been using the
Dell laptop to run Hulu and Netflix, and I decided to swap in the Mac Mini.
Turns out the Mac Mini couldn't run 1080p without chugging a little bit, but
the laptop from four years earlier had no problem keeping up.

It mostly sat in a drawer, as I needed something faster for video and audio
work. Over the years I'd try out Windows upgrades as they came through.
Another fun point - It came with Windows XP. When the Win 7 beta came out, I
installed that just to see - it ran surprisingly well. Back in the drawer it
went until Windows 8's preview came out - that also installed without any
issue, and ran surprisingly well. When Windows 10 rolled around, it actually
upgraded from the Windows 8 beta to a full-fledged installation of Windows 10.
Never ended up paying for an upgrade to the operating system!

The internal wifi did burn out at some point, and I'm sure the screen was
dimmer than when I'd first gotten it, but other than that? You could browse
the internet and run some basic apps.

We finally donated it a couple of months ago. I can't argue about the resell
value of Dell laptops, but that E1505 had build quality in spades, and better
longevity than the equivalent Mac. Can you even put the latest OS X on a
Macbook from a decade ago?

~~~
leviathant
Correction: bought refurbished in 2006, not 2016.

------
intopieces
Why should Apple stop selling anything that people want to buy?

For most people, buying a new computer is something you do when your old one
breaks. I know Apple cultivates itself as a "professional's brand" but that's
not really the case anymore. Every 18 year old with a pocket full of
graduation money next to her iPhone grabs a new Mac, and any Mac she grabs
will perform a vast majority of the tasks she needs.

The real question is not "why does Apple still sell.." It's "why do people
still buy ...?"

Answer: because it works.

~~~
melling
Because the computers get slower with each OS upgrade. At some point this
catches up and the machine feels slow. CPU's might not be improving at the
same rate but GPU's are. iMacs, for example, use a mobile gpu on the desktop.
i've goto a 2010 iMac and it's slow because i didn't opt for an ssd at the
time and got a painfully slow 5400 rpm drive.

People buy because they don't know any better. Wait until every new Mac in the
fall has USB C connectors.

~~~
wwweston
> Because the computers get slower with each OS upgrade.

It seemed was a time in the history of OS X (up through Snow Leopard) where
the reverse was true, and it's certainly not true that the OS _must_ become
less efficient with each iteration.

~~~
dzamo_norton
It's not a necessity that the machine must slow down with each OS update. Boot
an XFCE on Linux image to establish a baseline level of performance. Make that
your OS and you can _buy_ from guys selling 2012 computers.

~~~
melling
No one said that it was a necessity. The fact is that Apple software needs
more performance over time so they shouldn't skimp on the hardware, or sell
"old" hardware.

Why are you introducing an irrelevant tangent into the conversation? I have an
old Dell in my closest that has Linux on it. But once again, that's irrelevant
to this conversation.

------
shurcooL
Many people who are asking or hoping for an update to the non-Retina MBP are
missing an important point. Apple already has released an update to it with
newer CPUs, and better screen, and thinner, it's the Retina MBP.

The non-Retina MBP is effectively discontinued because it's largely replaced
by the Retina version, and has been for many years.

They still sell the non-Retina MBP (in one size only, no 15") just for few
people that absolutely need a built-in optical drive in their MBP for some
specific reason.

The non-Retina MBP is not meant for the general public. If you walk into an
Apple Store without knowing anything, the chances of you walking out with one
is less than 1%, it's hard to find and store employees will recommend
something better for your needs.

~~~
kristianp
That's a good point. The article does mention that its latest release was over
a year ago, which isn't bad:

"The Retina MacBook Pro is 442 days into its current cycle, despite refreshes
coming every 268 days on average in the past."

------
maxsilver
Can Apple at least just put a Retina screen and 16GB RAM option on the 13'
MacBook Air. That's all I'm waiting for. They don't even have to bump the CPU
or ports or anything else.

It's not a hardware problem. My MacBook Pro's HD 4000 drives a Retina screen,
the Air's current HD 6000 certainly could too. Microsoft and Dell have been
shipping Retina screens and 16GB ram ultrabooks for 2 years now -- but we're
forbidden from using it for iOS development.

I totally get that it's more fun to go "Scrooge McDuck" swimming through their
iPhone money. But if Apple could kick out just a basic spec bump from 1-2
years ago for the Air, I'd be thrilled.

~~~
kalleboo
I think they're more likely to drop the Air in favor of the new Retina MacBook
line than update it...

~~~
maxsilver
Your probably right. But if they do that, I'm out. I simply won't buy a laptop
that ships without a working keyboard.

------
chrisseaton
Processor speed isn't a limiting factor for me, but the 16 GB max RAM really
is and it's definitely becoming a problem for daily work as a programmer
working with compilers and VMs. I just wish they'd fix that.

~~~
umanwizard
If you don't work remotely, I suggest a Mac Pro. Mine has 64 GB of ram which
is rarely not enough.

~~~
btgeekboy
It would be great if it wasn't the same machine they released 3 years ago.
I've wanted to upgrade my desktop Mac to a machine that can support 4K output
at 60Hz, but my options are currently to downgrade from quad to dual core and
get a Mac Mini, spend a lot of money on an outdated Mac Pro, or repurpose on
of their laptops into a desktop, which I'm not terribly interested in doing
(and also only dual core).

~~~
Aloha
are the current generation processors much much faster or better, than the
ones from a generation ago?

~~~
btgeekboy
If you're considering the Mini, then no, not at all. Core for core, they're
quite similar, with only a mild speed bump. The 2012 had a 4-core option, but
does not support 4K. The 2014 models (current generation) are dual core only,
but have a graphics system that's able to handle 4K @ 60Hz. (Not sure how well
it does it, but it can actually output it.)

------
pronoiac
There was an article about its appeal:
[https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a](https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a)

Upgradable storage, memory, and an optical drive. It's cheap and not _that_
outdated.

~~~
wwweston
And personally, I think that we passed the point of adequate specs for most
purposes 8 years ago.

I have two MBPs. One is a 2008 that is beat to hell at this point but still
functions pretty darn well with an SSD and maxed out RAM. It's good enough
I've been able to do most day-to-day development with it and audio production
up through this summer. If it were effectively invulnerable and weren't
eventually going to stop receiving OS updates (or if security/compatibility
weren't a concern), I could conceive of using it indefinitely for most work.

I also have a 2012 that is still adequate (though, weirdly, sometimes worse in
terms of locking up, not sure if that's the later version of OS X or no SSD).
I bought it not because I needed anything newer, but because I didn't want to
be stuck searching for a replacement when the 2008 fails. And perhaps
interestingly, I bought it used because Apple has decided to no longer offer a
15" model with a matte screen that's upgradable anymore.

------
oldmanjay
"...that doesn’t mean it isn’t unconscionable for Apple to continue to sell
outdated products to people who may not know any better"

I may suffer from a lack of nannying instincts that make these sort of
hyperbolic assertions hard to swallow. Is it a common impulse to want to save
all those poor people from themselves for no particular reason? If they "don't
know any better", it's pretty clear they don't have a personal reason to care,
and this entire sentiment becomes rather condescending in that light.

~~~
toodlebunions
If you buy something new, isn't it reasonable to expect something is new? Not
four years old and soon to be antiquated?

~~~
copperx
Have you ever bought a TI calculator?

~~~
toodlebunions
Yes my 20 year old TI84 still works fine.

Do you really think a new Mac is like a 20 year old graphing calculator? How
about an iPhone or iPad? Nokia phone? Am radio? Is a Tesla different from a
Ford model T?

------
macawfish
As a teenager, I subscribed to MacAddict from 1997-2001. It was very exciting
to watch the company transform over this time. Alas, since then my
relationship to Apple has evolved dramatically, to the point of more or less
despising the company and its manipulations. I am grateful for this journey.
It has given me a sharp sense (distaste) for manipulative marketing tactics
and branding in general. When my hard drive crashed badly in 2010, I quit for
good, jumping over to Ubuntu full time. (More recently I installed Arch, which
makes me excited about computers again!)

Anyway, It's completely frustrating to me even my most financially disabled
friends will, to this day, look to spend $1200 as much on a Mac laptop or an
iPhone when they could get an equally powerful, used machine for $150. A close
friend of mine just spent $300 on a used G5 iMac from 2006... I told him not
to but he didn't listen. He has had to learn the hard way that the computer is
slow, won't accept updates, won't run any new software or drivers, etc.
because Apple's branding black magic is _that_ powerful, that it could
completely trump the well reasoned advice of someone knowledgable about the
subject that you've known for years.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
> more or less despising the company and its manipulations

I will never understand why perfectly normal human beings do this, whether it
be against Apple or Google. I have an Apple sticker on my car because I'm
proud of where I work. On four separate occasions now Google fans have come up
to me after I've parked and tried to convert me to an Android fan or make fun
of me for being an "Apple fan," assuming the sticker represents my status as a
demagogue for one side. (One guy asked me if I felt inferior for not having
root on my phone and I had to resist answering the question honestly, but it
would have been really fun and confusing for him.)

My own family gets sheepish and embarrassed when they buy an Android phone
because their partisan friends have trained them to think that I'd react
explosively to this grievous slight instead of the truth, which is that people
should buy what works for them and it's not really any of my business. I don't
actively sway people toward Apple products or discourage them from buying what
they want. Sometimes a Mac is the answer, and sometimes it isn't. Their
purchasing choice has arguably no effect on me personally, and this applies to
other things too, like cars. As you're discovering, in general, people don't
listen anyway and instead quietly form a negative opinion of you.

Speaking personally, there are things I dislike and like from Apple and there
are things I dislike and like from Google. I simply cannot connect with the
mindset of red vs. blue, us vs. them, vim-vs-emacs, all-or-nothing that people
get frothed up like this about. It's your prerogative to despise Apple and I'm
fully supportive of your decision to do so. I'm just saying it strikes me as
weird to invest part of your humanity in despising an inanimate entity that
creates products as opposed to just not buying the products. I'd say this
about people who despise Google, too, and I'm only using that example because
it seems like the war of our time (and because you probably carry an Android
device, given the market).

Am I the only one who feels like it's just not worth it to hate a company? I
don't even hate Comcast, and they've given me plenty of reasons. I don't even
hate patent trolls; they've identified a strategy that is legal and shitty and
exploit it. That's capitalism. Maybe it's just me and, before you think it's
partisan, I felt like this before ever being personally vested. I've just got
far better things into which to invest my hatred.

(Only my personal opinion, speaking for me alone.)

~~~
woot123
Sorry, "not buying products" and otherwise being silent doesn't cut it. There
are (were[1]) whole magazine categories that test and criticize consumer
products.

[1] In Germany at least some of those magazines were quite good. Haven't read
any recently though.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
Okay, you've refuted my point, now bring it home and illustrate _your_ point:
why doesn't it cut it?

Reviewers are a totally different animal and orthogonal to my point; I'm not
arguing that reviews should cease. You're talking to a guy who respects film
reviewers individually and recognizes patterns and traits of certain reviewers
(like Ebert or Travers or Tom Long, who I dearly miss in retirement -- if I
were on the fence for any film in the last decade I read Tom), so I definitely
value review as an industry. Hell, Broadway might argue review is an essential
part of the industry, I reckon, since there are _many_ people who wait for the
_Times_ to review a play before buying tickets.

------
justin66
The power savings from including a newer Intel processor seem pretty massive
in and of themselves. It doesn't seem like they'd have to do a massive
overhaul to make an update worthwhile.

------
rincebrain
At least until recently, they would have been hard-pressed to do a refresh -
Broadwell had basically no non-low-power SKUs for a long while, so you
wouldn't want one in your MBP.

So they'd need to refresh with Skylake, which would add lead time,
particularly with how long it took to ramp up Skylake manufacturing yield.

Meanwhile, if they were going to leverage anything from Skylake for OS X
features (looking at you TSX-NI), they wouldn't want to refresh the desktop
until they could get it there too, which would probably mean Xeon E[57] v4,
and that only came out this quarter.[1]

So I'd probably blame this current delay on refreshing on a ripple from
Intel's Broadwell/Skylake timeline debacle, and Apple deciding to merge any
intervening hardware upgrades into the next iteration forward.

[1] - The slight oddity with this logic is that the Xeon E[57] v3, Q2 2015,
_does_ have working TSX bits, so they could have conceivably shipped that,
even though it's "technically" Haswell. Maybe they got scared when Intel had
to use the chicken bits to disable TSX in the first Haswell revs? [2]

[2] - [http://www.anandtech.com/show/8376/intel-disables-tsx-
instru...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8376/intel-disables-tsx-instructions-
erratum-found-in-haswell-haswelleep-broadwelly)

------
cletus
Some people point to the limited improvements in Skylake and Broadwell as an
argument why it doesn't matter that Mac updates have faltered. I respectfully
disagree.

Look at the 12" Macbook. This, to me, is just too much compromise. Only one
port and it's USB-C and it's the power?? Compare this to the healthy amount of
ports on the HP Spectre in what is still a small form factor. Add in the
terrible (IMHO) keyboard, pointless Force Touch and lack of tactile feedback
on the trackpad.

Yet the Macbook Air remains with a relatively crappy display. For year it was
suggested it wasn't economical/possible to add a retina display to this form
factor. The Macbook is proof to the contrary.

Plus with the 12" Macbook, 13" Retina MBP and 11" and 13" Macbook Airs, it
seems clear that not all these SKUs are going to survive.

I have a 2011 13" Macbook Air as my personal laptop. At the time I considered
it to be about perfect in terms of portability and power.

But the design is getting pretty long in the tooth now. Crappy (relatively)
display. Look at the Dell XPS 13 and 15s as inspiration. For one, they have
really thin bezels.

The Mac Pro? Introduced with much fanfare 3 years ago and hasn't been updated
since.

Mac mini? Coming up on 2 years without an update. And we lost the quad core
options.

This all comes as Apple has pushed the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement.

My point is that with the Apple ecosystem (and many others) there's a halo
effect. People buy into part of it based on the complete range, regardless of
whether or ot they'll buy into the rest. They have the option.

The sense I get from Apple is they're no longer interested in the PC/laptop
segments. They seem to no longer care about power users even though power
users are influencers.

Also, it seems like the days of only horrible trackpads on PCs might finally
be over. At least it seems like some models might have decent trackpads.

Can Apple really think tablets are the future? Maybe they aren't but we're a
long way from that. The UX on an iPad Pro with a keyboard is as terrible as
Steve Jobs used to say it was (Jobs famously called touchscreens with
keyboards terrible).

So even if Apple does update their lineup later this year I'm not sure I'm
going to buy in because the writing seems to be on the wall.

At this point a Dell XPS 13 or 15 seems like the way to go.

~~~
rsync
"Mac mini? Coming up on 2 years without an update. And we lost the quad core
options."

Also, they dramatically reduced its utility by removing the optical drive.

It is stupefying that you cannot buy a mac mini with an optical drive. It's
ridiculous. It takes most of the interesting use-cases off the table and makes
many other use-cases a pain in the ass.

I would have kept buying mac minis, continuously, every 3-4 years, forever.
Instead, I bought two of the fastest/latest ones with optical drive and that's
all I'll ever have.

~~~
carterehsmith
Can you not use external optical drive?

~~~
rsync
Of course I could. There's all kinds of lame things I _could_ do.

The mac mini is about the form factor. The form factor is broken if there's a
second device hanging off of it.

~~~
slantyyz
>> The form factor is broken if there's a second device hanging off of it.

That perfectly describes my problem with the tubular Mac Pro. Call me old
school, but I loved the old Mac Pro chassis and its internal expandability.

------
shmerl
I don't think Apple care about their desktop OS and hardware anymore. It has
been stagnating for a while already. I suppose recent rise of stats for global
Linux usage can indicate OS X refugees who are fed up with that stagnation.

------
applecore
Why did Apple stop making new computers? Is there an underlying business
rationale or is it component supply challenges?

~~~
nxc18
It doesn't make money. Even though they have a crap ton of cash because of
their mobile business, they don't seem willing to invest in their desktop os
or their PC business.

Its surprising because the mac + ios system is such a powerful combination.
With MS at least trying lately with their pen enabled devices, bash on
windows, and general lack of complete disdain for customers, they may be
getting ready to eat Apple's lunch.

Compare that with 4 year old laptops, little real innovation in mac os (the
latest I can recall is implementing Windows 8's window system for full screen
and making dev's lives harder with all the security changes in el cap) and it
starts to make you wonder.

Not saying Windows is better than Mac, just wish Apple would stop pulling an
MS and actually try with their OS.

~~~
stupidcar
The Mac _does_ make money though, about 13% of revenue in Q4 2015:
[http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/27/q4-2015-earnings/](http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/27/q4-2015-earnings/)

Yes, the iPhone delivers the lion's share of revenue, but the Mac is still an
important product category.

To me, the problem seems to be one of focus. The extreme centralisation that
Apple inherited from the Jobs era means that, when the leadership is focussed
on a particular product or product category, be it the iPhone, the Apple
Watch, or a new service like Apple Music, then progress in all other areas
grinds to a halt.

I can understand that Apple wants to avoid the Microsoft problem of having
multiple, independent business units that end up distrusting and working
against one another, but the complete opposite situation isn't healthy either.
A company of Apple's size and means should be able to do more than one thing
at once.

A few years ago, Apple had a perfect opportunity to finally break the Mac out
of its 5-10% niche of the PC market. Windows 8 was a dud, while Apple's brand
and reputation were at their zenith, and their hardware had a huge edge in
terms of quality and aesthetics over anything other PC vendors were putting
out. The time was right for a huge push of the Mac. But they didn't do it.

Perhaps it was absent mindedness. Perhaps it was a lingering fear of taking on
Microsoft in their own territory. Perhaps they genuinely believed the
PC/laptop market was going to be disappear and be replaced by tablet
computers. But for whatever reason, they blew their chance. And if I was an
Apple shareholder, I'd be pissed about it.

~~~
pmontra
Perhaps they already have most of the customers that want to spend the money a
Mac costs AND want to buy from Apple. There is no way for Apple to swap market
share with Windows unless they sell a Mac for $300 and I'm pretty sure Apple
doesn't want to sell at such a low margin.

~~~
stupidcar
That might be true if the only segment of the PC market left was the low-end,
but that's just not the case. There's still masses of high-end PCs sold to
software developers, video and graphics creatives, and gamers. And there's
still masses of mid-range PCs sold to businesses, government, and schools.

It's not that Apple doesn't play in these markets. The Mac mini is their
offering for the mid-range, for example, and the iMac and Mac Pro are for the
high-end desktop market. But as the article points out, they have left these
products without updates for years, at precisely the moment they should have
been capitalising on their brand momentum and the rest of the industry's
problems.

~~~
qw
One area that deserves more attention is the office. Not every company wants
to buy both an iMac AND a MacBook for each employee, so they end up with a
mess of cables that has to be connected to a MacBook every morning.

Why haven't Apple made a decent docking solution yet?

~~~
pmontra
It happens that companies buy from Apple but Apple's primary market is
consumers. I think Apple really doesn't have interest in that kind of
specialized enterprise products. Maybe a third party could work on it as they
do on connectors.

------
derefr
The main reason to keep selling old _models_ is a logistical one: what Apple
actually wants is to get rid of all their pipelined _stock_. That doesn't mean
that they produced too many 2012 MBPs; but rather, they have a bunch of last-
gen _components_ they've already irrevocably taken receipt of, and are now
stuck integrating, manufacturing, and warehousing; and those components can go
together to make (among other things) a 2012-MBP. Which still sells. So making
and selling those is one strategy for getting rid of those components.

Adding a channel for using up last-gen stock has, after all, been stated as
the main reason for the existence of the iPod Touch.

~~~
nikdaheratik
The non-Retina 2012 MBP is their institutional laptop product. If it was a
consumer oriented product, they would have gotten rid of it, but they keep
selling thousands at a discount to universities and high schools. They haven't
dragged in an update as the specs and prices are good enough for what those
customers need, and they are pushing a move to iPad for them anyway.

Their other products _should_ have been updated by now. Especially the Mac Pro
and Mac Mini. And they've been skimping on the graphics card for lower end
models. The price/performance has been very frustrating as you can get a good
(e.g. Alienware) desktop with the same high end graphics as the high end iMac
but for the same price as the low end model now.

Their laptops are still good even at the price, but the rest of the line could
be much better.

------
jwatte
Not a single computer sold by Apple meets the minimum spec for a VR
experience, nor the next crop of AAA games. What does that mean to the
creative that used to prefer Macs for their content creation? What does that
do to the brand long term?

~~~
AWildDHHAppears
Real "creatives" _never_ preferred Macs. Mac, until very recently, didn't have
any way to calibrate a monitor (and you had to buy a 3rd party monitor to get
a full-gamut display), or 10 bit/channel color. For all our color-critical
work at our shop, we _never_ used macs.

~~~
acdha
It's not helpful trying to play No True Scotsman by defining “real creative”
as “what we do”. Anyone with more than cursory exposure to printing, video,
photography, etc. knows that there's a sizable percentage of people who
vocally prefer Macs – certainly not everyone, but far, far too many to pretend
that a claim like “never preferred” is anything other than fanboy hyperbole.

As an aside, what do you mean by “calibrate a monitor”? ColorSync arrived in
1993.

~~~
AWildDHHAppears
Mac LCD monitors have a LED back light that's too blue and too narrow a gamut
to do color grading. Yes, it's true that some of the early CRT machines were
capable of this.

~~~
acdha
So let's correct your statement:

1\. Every Mac since the early 90s has had support for color management

2\. Most people doing serious color work have to buy a more expensive,
professional-quality display – as has long been the case on every platform.
This was a staple of reviews for printing, photography, scientific/medical
imaging, etc. publications, along with comparing color calibration devices,
and a big reason why CRTs persisted longer those fields than the general
market.

------
r0m4n0
I don't mind the release cycle as it exists... I get the newest model when
they come out and the feeling of missing out on something better doesn't
linger over me. There aren't a million configurations of the same laptop,
there are only a few, which makes things simple on aspects of development,
support, and troubleshooting.

When people on this thread compare MacBooks to "chromebooks" I don't even know
what that means... It could be any number of manufacturers using any number of
combinations of hardware to run a common OS. Just because it has the latest
Intel doesn't mean the rest of the components aren't subpar. Even if they are
higher quality, it wouldn't nearly stack up to the millions of users that have
tried and tested the exact configuration of my MBP.

Most of the professional community feels the same way, even within the last
year [1]

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-
survey-2016#tech...](http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-
survey-2016#technology-desktop-operating-system)

------
chenster
This is my personal opinion.

My Late 2013 MacBook Pro is running so smooth that I have no doubt that I
would keep it for at least another 2 to 3 more years before looking into
replacing it with another MBP. So In between now and then, why even bother to
look for another computer? Apple probably saw the same that users would keep
their Apple computer long enough before needed another major replacement to
buy new ones every 3 to 5 years or so. IMO, for everyday tasks or even medium-
to-high CPU instense tasks, current MBP handles very well, given that you are
not a gamer or 3D CG designer.

Secondly, for the price you pay, it makes no reason to look into another Mac
every or every other year. Serious, the author Sam Byford's 2012 MacBook Pro
should be fine running everyday tasks. Mine is only 1 year newer, so if mine
running so well, so should his. Admittedly, having SSD makes a HUGE difference
in terms of stability and performance. I encourage everyone should have it.
Maybe that's what the author's really missing out.

------
jarmitage
Read this as "Apple should stop selling four-year-olds computers" and I was
like hell yeah they should! Get those babies on Raspberry Pi's asap.

------
xlayn
I didn't read a single technology or feature any ultra modern computer has
that the 4 years old MBP doesn't have, nor about anything you can't do on it
any newer computer does.

People are interpreting "PCs are extremely good and capable now" as "PC is
dead".

~~~
AhtiK
Skylake supports HEVC (H.265) codec making it so much more battery efficient
to encode and decode video [1]. Smaller battery consumption also means less
heating issues, so that's what keeps me excited about "ultra modern" computers
that none of the MBPs has.

[1] [https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2015/12/11/codecs-
are...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2015/12/11/codecs-are-they-
slowing-you-down)

~~~
kalleboo
> Smaller battery consumption also means less heating issues

This is the main thing for me - I'm still using a 2012 rMBP as my main
machine, and I have no complaints about performance except often when you try
to make the most of the performance it's capable of, it overheats and
throttles down. Especially a problem in the summer.

------
xf00ba7
You know, I've had Mac's that well...I have no idea when they'll die. They're
all still going. My Apple IIlc is in fact still kicking. I have a 2007 MBP
that runs like a champ (well, swapped in a SSD, but other than that...). The
OS might have some features that make it tough for bleeding edge
developers...but you know, for the most part people need those features
(security, etc.). The Dell and Sony laptops I've had just don't hold up to
constant use. Lenovo on the other hand was a different story. I loved their
keyboards and the build quality is quite good, equivalent to Apple. Style
though, until recently hasn't quite been up to the fruit standards.

------
yuhong
Background: This is about the last MacBook Pro without things like soldered
RAM I think.

~~~
hiram112
Yes. I recently almost purchased one of these for $800 on eBay simply because
I have a spare SSD and 16 GB of DDR3.

I won't pay $2000 for a laptop from Apple that has these things already
soldered in.

In the end I still couldn't justify it as I want an I7 which they no longer
sell with the ability to add ram and SSD.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_I want an I7 which they no longer sell_

You can still buy the 2012 Macbook Pro with an i7. You must BTO:

13-inch MacBook Pro

    
    
        2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
        4GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x2GB
        500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
        SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) 
    

[http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-
pro?product=MD101L...](http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-
pro?product=MD101LL/A&step=config)

Cost is $1249. Bring your own RAM and SSD to upgrade as desired.

~~~
hiram112
Thanks - I did not know these were still sold.

I usually look on EBay for a new one, and $700-$800 (with no tax) is a price
point that I'd be willing to pay. I've never seen a new i7, though.

At $1300 (with tax), I could get a pretty nice Thinkpad or Dell Precision with
quad core 6th gen Intel and still use the ram and SSD.

------
slr555
The dearth of Macbook Pro releases may not represent an obstacle or even a
nuisance for everyone but for devotees of the Mac such as myself whose work
falls under the general rubric of "creative", it presents real challenges. The
Mac issue is not necessarily speed (which could mean processor, bus, GPU etc)
but isolation. The platform is burdened by I/O options that are not mature or
well supported. Things became really challenging when Apple bet on
Thunderbolt, which from my non-techie perspective seems to have never gained
great acceptance by peripheral makers. By stripping out Firewire and and
providing somewhat limited USB 3.0 support Apple really narrowed the universe
of mass storage and other peripherals that were viable.

Everything that formerly lived happily in the enclosure of a Mac Pro now had
to live in a stack near a laptop or new Mac Pro cylinder. The more compact Mac
Pro exacerbated workplace sprawl rather than helping it. Macbook Pro models
faced the many of the same issues.

I have been nursing along an early 2009 Mac Pro, praying is does not have a
major component failure because apple has left me as a
photographer/videographer out in the cold. While I realize the Intel processor
road map has created challenges for Apple, they need to get updated machines
into the market or face defection from people like me who have been Mac
Zealots since the mid-80's.

------
JustSomeNobody
I bought my rMBP in late 2014. At the time, I just needed a laptop, Windows or
otherwise as I mainly use Linux. Other than the rMBP, every laptop that I
could physically get my hands on was flimsy junk. The keyboards flexed, that
plastic around the screen flexed, the screen was not steady in the open
position. Even my workstation (Lenovo w530) for work is a hunk of flimsy
plastic. It's just crazy.

Maybe things are different now? Or maybe I didn't get my hands on some better
ones, but how can companies sell so much junk?

~~~
willtim
It's obviously all subjective. Personally, compared to Lenovo, I find
MacBookPro keyboards to be "junk". I also don't want a glossy glass-covered
screen, a glued-in battery or a heavy dent-prone radio-attenuating metal case.
Each to his/her own.

~~~
diimdeep
It's 2016, it is much more effective to integrate battery, who needs removable
anyway ?

~~~
willtim
Can you explain "more effective"? The 2016 Thinkpad X1 Carbon is significantly
lighter than any MBP and still allows a user to replace the battery using a
screwdriver - they are consumables after all.

------
ryanmarsh
I just dropped off my 15" rMBP for service. The work order showed the purchase
date: May 2013. Wow. It's an i7 w/ 16GB RAM and an SSD. I had no idea it was
that old but I'm a little surprised the specs don't feel that outdated.

I mean, don't get me wrong. If I were to replace it I don't want to pay top
dollar for old hardware. Makes me wonder if  has something brewing the the
desktop space.

------
draw_down
Ding them for supposed planned obsolescence or tell them to stop selling 4
year old computers, take your pick :)

------
jordanlev
It was just 6 months ago the internet was singing the praises of the
"outdated" 12-inch MacBook Pro:
[https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a](https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a)

~~~
jonknee
Singing the praises? Here are some quotes from the piece:

> it’s an open secret among Apple employees that the “101” still sells
> surprisingly well — to a nearly tragic degree, given its age and mediocrity.

> Geeks like me often wonder why anyone would still buy such an outdated
> machine.

> I’m right there with everyone else who’d strongly advise against buying this
> machine for most people who’d ask me

~~~
jordanlev
Wow, that's weird -- I distinctly remember reading this in January and coming
away feeling great about my 4-year-old MBP that still runs just fine. Totally
stuffed the bad parts down the memory hole -- thanks for rightfully calling
this out.

------
gkop
Another problem is that, as recently as May 2016, a brand-new 13" MacBook Pro
from the Apple store is loaded with Yosemite. It's a totally crappy first-use
experience to discover you are on an old version of the operating system.

~~~
laurentdc
It's just that most people don't care. You won't believe how many students
(non IT related field) I see who still run 10.8/10.9, or whatever OS their
MacBook came out with.

Also: if you hold down alt-R for performing Internet Recovery on a Mac it
downloads the OS it came out of the store with. No idea why. I've had to
internet recover a 2013 MacBook Air a week ago and it downloaded... Mavericks.

------
Philipp__
It's all up to your needs in the end. I am always for more battery and better
optimisation than latest and fastest!

We are in a weird period in terms of PC hardware. Things settled down and
people expect new shiny hardware every year or two. But why? Get used to it,
you don't buy latest car model every 2 years. If a machine gets the job done
use it to every last bit.

Bought rMBP 13" (maxed out) in November and I can see myself using it for 5
years easily! Consumer society is hungry and they want redesign, shiny new
specs every year. But those times are 20 years behind us. So just enjoy in
your machines... :)

------
akeck
Apple "should" sell hardware people will buy, since they are a hardware
company. I'm about to buy one of these laptops. It's fast enough for web
coding, organizing photos, Darktable processing, and Inkscape. I'm mostly
space constrained vs. CPU constrained. The standard-form-factor SSD in "101"
model, and its replaceable RAM, means I'll be able to get 6-8 years out of it.
I'm currently using a 2009 Macbook Pro that I upgraded to 8GB of RAM, when one
of the original DIMMs died. That type of fixability isn't available in newer
Apple gear.

------
adventured
Mac sales were down 11.5% in the latest quarter. Apple knows where that's
heading: their Mac business will get cut in half from 2015 to 2021 or so.

Few businesses are going to be interested in investing into regular updates to
a segment that is being significantly reduced in size. More likely, Apple will
cut how many PC models / variations they sell, and the business will slowly
fade until it's a nearly meaningless portion of their business. In ten years
the traditional PC market will be 3/4 smaller than it was at the peak a few
years ago, and that drop will go the same for the Mac.

------
PebblesHD
I'm still using a Mid-2012 Retina 15" Pro, which I upgraded significantly when
purchasing. It was plenty of power to crunch database reports and compile my
code then and its still one of the most powerful laptops available. I don't
see a reason to get rid of it until either a significant jump in processing
power or some massing improvement in other hardware, until then my Quad core
2.6GHz lasts 9hrs on a charge and runs every piece of software imaginable
without skipping a beat.

~~~
vbs_redlof
9 hrs is a massive stretch. I'm lucky to get 4~5hrs on a single charge.

~~~
PebblesHD
Really depends what I'm doing, if I'm just on Cisco remote it lasts all day
and more, but if I open Outlook it goes in 6 hours or less. Worse if the GPU
fires up, then its maybe 3...

------
thallukrish
I bought a MBP in 2012. The motherboard went bad after a year. And after a
year the cable to the hard disk had to be replaced. Also I feel the upgrades
we do on OSX causes the MBP to slow down. It is sleek, elegant, battery life
is great (actually I need to replace it now, its dying), great design etc. But
I feel the more perfect it is designed to be, the more vulnerable it is.

I say this when I compare this to my HP pavilion sleekbook which did not have
any trouble so far in the last 3 years.

------
jrnichols
I've been getting more and more life out of my Apple stuff. For example, my
early 13" 2011 MacBook Pro (2.3 GHz i5, 8gb RAM) feels like a much newer
machine now that I replaced the spinning disk with an SSD. For what I'm doing
with it, things are great. I have the feeling that macOS Sierra will be the
last OS X version that will run on it, though. At that point, I might finally
do an upgrade, which I plan to keep for a 5 year cycle if at all possible.

~~~
slantyyz
>> I've been getting more and more life out of my Apple stuff.

The thing is, your next upgrade is probably going to involve a device with
soldered on memory and a chassis that isn't as conducive to end-user hardware
upgrades as the model you have. The upgradability gravy train pretty much
ended with the 2012 unibody models. The only way you can maximize the life of
your next purchase is to buy the maximum spec'ed machine. Doesn't sound like a
problem, but maxing out an Apple BTO machine gets expensive fast.

I thought my 2011 15" MBP would still be my main machine today (the specs
still hold up today), except mine was one of the models that had the
overheating GPUs and it got bricked and stopped booting. It wasn't until after
I switched to a Windows laptop that Apple finally acknowledged the problem and
issued a repair order. By that time, they had basically lost me as a customer
of their computer products.

~~~
jrnichols
That is true, but I'm seeing that spreading into the non-Apple world as well.
It's as if the industry realized that people just don't do many hardware
upgrades to laptops.

Desktop space is a whole different story, though. Although the resale value on
the Apple stuff seems to hold up a bit. I've had friends upgrade to a newer
machine for the price they would have paid for a PC just by selling the old
Mac. I suspect that too will slowly change as time goes on.

(Was just looking at eBay for example - I could sell the Mac Mini that I have
and only had about a $100 loss on it. I bought it almost two years ago now.)

------
bitwize
For casual and most technical users[0], Apple machines are still way ahead of
the competition in all areas that matter: available software, quality of OS,
build quality, portability, battery life...

Why should Apple mess with a good thing? The market supports selling the
machines they have at the prices they ask. No need to spend NRE costs on new
kit.

[0] Meaning Web devs, engineers, and scientists, most of whom can't stand
Linux. The only thing that matters in software is the experience of the user.

~~~
jwatte
Sorry, I can't find versions of 3ds Max, Inventor, Solidworks, or AutoCAD for
the Mac. Also, no Visual Studio. And no Excel.

The Mac "equivalents" where they exist are far inferior.

How does the Mac have better available software these days?

~~~
sbuk
Ah, the "CAD" canard.

1\. 3dsmax is but one 3D/animation program, most are multi-platform (see Maya,
Cinema 4d, Modo etc...). No, it's not the "industry standard".

2\. PLM software like Inventor and SolidWorks are underrepresented on the Mac.
Software like Fusion 360 and OnShape[0] are beginning to make up for this

3\. AutCAD is available for macOS. Has been of about 5 years. Autodesk in fact
produce plenty of software for the Mac... [1]

4\. No, but there is Xcode. And IntelliJ.

5\. No Excel? Microsoft appear to disagree. [2]

Based on your comment, you have no clue what you are talking about, and I'm so
bored of seeing this nonsense every time this comes up. Please, stop.

[0] [https://www.onshape.com/](https://www.onshape.com/) [1]
[http://www.autodesk.com/solutions/mac-compatible-
software](http://www.autodesk.com/solutions/mac-compatible-software) [2]
[https://products.office.com/en-gb/excel](https://products.office.com/en-
gb/excel)

~~~
Arcaire
> 5\. No Excel? Microsoft appear to disagree. [2]

In my considerable experience using Office on Mac in tandem with Office on
Windows, the Mac experience is severely, severely degraded in comparison.

Extreme slowdowns in large documents, odd crashes, and difficulties handling
macros are pretty much the defining experience for Office 365 on Mac for me.

~~~
sbuk
I think this is case of YMMV as I've genuinely not experienced those problems.
That said' i'm not crunching through big data sets. Anecdotally, my partner
does. SPSS to Excel and back without issue...

------
uptown
Still using an early 2011 MBP. Replaced the drive with an SSD on day one, and
have since swapped out the DVD with a 1tb hard drive. Upgraded the RAM and it
works well for its age, but it's had its main board replaced as part of the
2011 video card recall and it's definitely got some issues that would benefit
from a clean install of OSX.

I'm a buyer of their refreshed MBP ... whenever that comes to market.

------
vegabook
it's not just the hardware. El Capitan, the latest and greatest, still ships
with a stone age Vim 7.3 from August _2010_. And we're told not to touch it
because /usr/bin is sacrosanct. Bunch of add ins doesn't even work properly.
Seriously Apple just doesn't seem to care. This isn't hard to fix, and it's an
embarrassment compared with Linux.

~~~
hiram112
I think the solution is to install the Brew version of the Unix-land tools you
use, then set your path to favor these over the Apple supplied executables.

That's what I did for Emacs, find, bash, etc. and it works fine.

~~~
rleigh
This is a workaround, one which I use myself. But I do have a not unreasonable
expectation that the base operating system will be actually maintained rather
than abandoned. The amount of unmaintained and obsolescent stuff is quite bad,
and getting worse.

------
greenspot
I miss something between a MacBook and a MBP.

Something light with a Retina display, minimum 13" and a good CPU. Basically a
Thinkpad X1 Carbon with OSX.

------
rbanffy
I suppose the non-retina MacBook Pro is still made due to some supply
agreement with a sufficiently large buyer that wants a specific configuration
to be available for a certain period. And, frankly, an indestructible computer
that's field upgradable (or upgradable at all) is not a bad proposition. I'd
prefer a cheaper one, of course.

------
Canada
I'm keeping my mid 2012 air for at least another year. It's fine. Use it every
day and I'm not gentle with it. Only the battery needed replacing. Let's be
real here. If you need real power you get a proper desktop or use servers. If
you're constantly running your laptop hard enough to power up the fan then
you're doing it wrong.

------
fernly
If they refresh, how many ports would the new MB Pro have? I was seriously
taken by the looks and weight of the latest MB, but the idea of a single port
-- and needing a bulky adapter dongle to connect an HDMI cable or any of a
dozen legacy USB devices I routinely use -- killed it. A laptop that requires
a hub dangling off it is just not acceptable.

------
msoad
The fanless CPUs and USB-C ports on top of new monitors made this iteration a
bit longer but wait for it. Some cool computers are coming out of Apple very
soon. I haven't seen them but every Apple employee I talk to seems to be very
excited about them. They also have a ridiculously large track pad with better
palm rejection

------
nommm-nommm
Would anyone care if Lenovo or Dell was selling outdated computers? Hell, they
probably are. Do we have different expectations for Apple? Is it because they
are more of a luxury brand? Why does Apple have an _obligation_ to update
their hardware every X years?

Also from what I have seen prices of MacBooks seem to have been going down
quite a bit.

~~~
yuhong
They don't typically sell new computers this outdated.

~~~
glogla
Yes. New Thinkpads have CPUs two generations newer than lates rMBPs

~~~
Xorlev
You certainly can buy an outdated Thinkpad, but the lines are refreshed often.
Literally from the first Google result:

> At CES 2016, Lenovo announced a massive overhaul of its ThinkPad line. In
> addition to unveiling new ThinkPad X1 notebooks, tablets and convertibles,
> Lenovo also unveiled refreshes to its X, T and L series ThinkPad as well as
> a new ThinkPad 13. Except the ThinkPad 13, which comes with options for
> either Windows or Chrome operating systems, all the ThinkPad models unveiled
> come with Intel's sixth generation Skylake processor, giving them a boost in
> performance and battery life.

------
davidf18
Well, the new retina Macbook Pros should be coming out in a few months.

Increased battery life and hopefully a lighter 15" retina Macbook Pro will be
a compelling reason to upgrade.

Moreover, now that Windows 10 Anniversary Update has the integrated bash
shell, this makes the Windows platform finally much more competitive for Open
Source software development.

------
musgrove
Apple's stuff is still expensive. Putting new components and building newer
models will surely raise costs, and prices, which may be something Apple
realizes isn't feasible with their target market. I'm a developer/designer and
I still had a hard time plopping down what I did for my MBP.

------
mrbill
I would rather pay $200 for a refurbished Thinkpad t420s and then $150 in SSD
/RAM / wifi card upgrades than $750-1K for a brand new laptop.

My last Mac Mini went 4 years before I upgraded to the current model, and
honestly there's not a lot of performance difference between the two, at least
for my use cases.

------
xbmcuser
Well people should stop buying it if they don't want apple to sell. As long
people are buying why shouldn't they sell it. With every macbook pro made and
sold Apple per unit cost keep coming down. It is probably making $100-200 more
on each unit then when it first started selling it.

------
znpy
I think there is a simple answer for this: Apple is busy doing other stuff
(probably figuring out the next market to dive into) and isn't caring that
much about 15" rMBP which after all still sells good.

Imho Apple will upgrade when sales will slow down below a certain threshold.

------
diimdeep
Apple have MBPr and it is powerful reliable machine. On other side Air model
is really outdated at the moment. I think they just can't miniaturize MBPr
specs in Air sized model yet and don't want release half backed laptop, wait..
I forgot about new MacBook. Damn Apple.

------
schuke
I'm constantly amazed by people's lack of care for the Macbook Air's abysmal
TN screen. It's so good to see this being pointed out in this article. But
still I can't believe there is no a single mention of TN or IPS on this page!

~~~
bartvk
For me, the most important is the resolution, which is 1440x900. Doesn't seem
too bad for me, for a 13".

------
mark-r
Apple's always been a big proponent of the "shock and awe" product
announcement. Since the introduction of Retina displays, has there been
anything that would qualify? The small incremental component improvements just
don't cut it.

------
cdysthe
Good thing Apple price these relics competitively. They don't?

------
jwatte
How long did the Mac Plus form factor (and 16 MHz 68k) stay on the market?
Much longer than 4 years. ("Mac Classic" anyone?)

------
sengork
This is the 'Good Enough' inflection point, much the same as with PCs (minus
the gaming and virtualisation crowds).

------
slyrus
"Making computers is hard. Let's just sell phones, apps, songs, ads, and
whatever the hell people are paying us for icloud for!" \-- Apple, probably.

