Apple’s Mac Lineup: Judge, Jury and Execution

Preamble

Two camps have emerged from the aftermath of Apple’s “hello again” event. on October 27. There are those who have tried to explain and rationalize the gaping holes in Apple’s presentation. Part of Apple’s structuring of the event may have been driven by Intel’s CPU/GPU roadmap. Part of it may have been that Apple executives have been sidetracked by the Apple Car, Campus 2 construction and EU/Ireland affairs. Part of it may have been that they were taken by surprise by both the Microsoft’s Surface Studio design and the warm reaction to it. This might be constructed as some of the case for the defense.

The prosecution claims that Apple took too long update all of its Mac lineup. There should have been more periodic updates along the way for each kind of Mac. Leading up to the event, the often cited MacRumors Mac Buying Guide showed that all of the Macs, except the MacBook, have been painfully neglected. The addition of a Touch Pad to the Skylake-based 2016 MacBook Pros wasn’t enough of a broad corporate affirmation to both the mobile and desktop lines. The tagline, “hello again” suggested that Apple would reignite the Mac. It didn’t happen. Neglect and indifference to consumers as well as to technical and creative professionals were cited.

Below, I have a list of notable articles for each side of the argument. Then my verdict.

Apple’s MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

Apple’s Defense

1. Jason Snell presented: “Why 2016 is such a terrible year for the Mac.” He lays out the best defense for Apple by explaining Apple’s situation and the elements of the huge pushback. He’s critical of Apple in parts, but also explains some of Apple’s plight. With respect to Intel’s roadmap:

In this case, Apple’s timing appears to have been bad. There’s no way to know for sure, but it seems like Apple decided to dance to its own rhythm, skip an Intel chip generation, and then wait for the good stuff, only to get bitten by slippage in Intel’s schedule. If that’s what happened, it’s hard to blame it on Intel. After all, it was Apple’s gamble.

2. Horace Dediu, in his quintessential analytical style, lays out the business and market forces related to desktop and mobile computing. “Wherefore Art Thou Macintosh.”

If the market, the tendencies, the future and all the money are on mobile, it’s going to be hard for Apple not to place all of its attention there. This is a great article. An excerpt:

The Mac is thus not treated disparagingly. It deserves and gets respect. It is preserved but with limited responsibilities….

It’s [the Mac] not obsolete but it is a decreasing share of engagement. Alternate ways of doing the jobs it does well with direct input are emerging on the third pivot but they are not yet good enough. The children are still adolescent and making lots of stupid mistakes. There’s still life in the parents….

The Mac is what it is because it’s not alone. It’s part of a family. It is a parent. It strives to be better but will not take the future from its child.

3. Finally, belatedly, the defendant takes the stand. The Independent was later given an interview by Apple SVP Phil Schiller. “Apple’s Philip Schiller talks computers, touchscreens and voice on the new MacBook Pro.” SVP Schiller responds to all the negative outcry about Apple’s deafening silence regarding other Macs.

I hope everyone gets a chance to try it for themselves and see how great the MacBook Pro is. It is a really big step forward and an example of how much we continue to invest in the Mac. We love the Mac and are as committed to it, in both desktops and notebooks, as we ever have been.

Not everyone will see that mea culpa.  That one sentence in the event itself would have saved the day.  Now, on to Apple’s prosecution on page 2.

Next page: The Case Against Apple’s “hello again” event.

Page 2 – The Case Against Apple’s “hello again” event

From the MacRumors Mac Buying Guide.

Apple’s Prosecution

1. The most complete compilation of the community’s negative response to the “hello again” event comes from developer Michael Tsai. “New MacBook Pros and the State of the Mac.”

There are many indictments in this collection of community comments. Questions were raised about whether these new MacBooks can really be called “Pro” devices, questions about Apple’s excessive focus on thin and light, (and the 16 GB RAM limitation), instead of powerful and versatile. Owen Williams was quoted from his magnificent missive.

Apple spent the entire event comparing itself to its own past, rather than showing us the future, and even then painted a very clear picture: it has no idea who the Mac is for.

Dognotdog comments:

The negative reaction is not because the new MBP is terrible when viewed in a vacuum, it is because people who would like (or actually need) more powerful hardware than the one-size-fits-all approach that seems to be Apple’s current course are no longer catered to, or so it seems.

This compilation runs to roughly 100 thoughtful, critical observations about what they saw from Apple on October 27th. It’s an impressive body of work and is a great cross-section of community feelings.

2. Finally, the most explicit argument against Apple I’ve seen is from our own John Kheit. “Apple Has Missed the Plot.” Author Kheit sets up the indictment, then delineates nine ways Apple has lost touch with the Mac community and its needs. Here’s #6, but they’re all spot on.

They’ve lost the plot believing that they are making tools for creative professionals (e.g., that a $5,000 MacBook Pro with only 16GB of memory and a Touch Bar is a reasonable creative professional offering). And that abandoning creative pro tools (Aperture, crippling Final Cut Pro, expandable Mac Pros, etc.) is a cogent strategy.

The Verdict

Looking at all the evidence above, plus the many, many other articles [here’s a good one] that make the case for and against, I conclude that this affair was brought on by Apple willfully. Apple could have maintained its Mac energy with regular hardware updates. That would have telegraphed its continuing attentions.

Apple could have shown or at least talked about other Macs, perhaps iMacs, on October 27th, but was apparently frozen into inaction by either technical delays and/or the Microsoft event the day before. Observers have noted that Tim Cook’s presentation seemed strained, not as well rehearsed, and invoked what seems to be filler material at the outset. The team seems to have been up late, re-thinking the agenda in light of what Microsoft announced. All the earmarks of failure to execute are there.

The weight of evidence is that no matter how much we love Apple, and want to stick up for it, the company stumbled badly. Apple can no longer claim innocence and ignorance about how the Mac community feels. The company has a choice. Make things right, or endure continued storms of outrage that will bleed into generalized disaffection with other minor offenses that would normally be overlooked.

All this said, it would be incredibly easy to Apple to wow us and make amends. The company should know what to do now.

Next page: Some weekly news debris. Does Apple Really understand TV?

Page 3 – Does Apple Really Understand TV?

The new TV app for Apple TV shows what you’re currently watching, upcoming episodes, and suggestions. But no Netflix support.

Tim Cook continues to maintain that Apple has intense interest in TV. By now, I am personally wondering why Apple hasn’t turned intense interest in TV into intense accomplishment. Yoni Heisler wonders the same. “Apple has no idea what it’s doing in the TV space, and it’s embarrassing.” This is a broad and deep condemnation of Apple’s inability to do something wonderful with it’s TV vision. This is another must read.

Author Heisler looks at TV interfaces, search, the terrible Siri remote, Apple’s failed subscription service, and the delay of single sign-on. Also, the lack of 4K support is mentioned.

Aimless. Backwards. Confused. These are just a few adjectives which, to a frustrating extent, seem to perfectly encapsulate Apple’s glaring lack of vision in the TV space. Apple certainly understands that TV (and by extension, the living room) is important, but the more I see what Apple is doing with the Apple TV, and the more I hear Apple executives excitedly drone on about their comically boring TV strategy, the more I become convinced that the company has absolutely no idea what it’s doing.

I have long maintained that Apple should be giving us delightful, drool worthy hardware that solves our operational problems, not trying to work against the interests of an entrenched, clever TV industry. That Apple isn’t going, apparently, to give us a cool 4K/UHD/HDR Apple TV for the holidays (again) is symptomatic of the same kind of thinking that led to Mac neglect.

Meanwhile, Roku, just keeps giving customers good choices and dominates in market share.

More Debris

Now that the new MacBook Pro has just four USB-C ports, it’s time to get really technical on these ports and the protocols they support. Here’s a fantastic article, must reading. [Ignore the drama in the title, but the author has good points.] “Total Nightmare: USB-C and Thunderbolt 3.”

Do you have an unlimited data plan with your carrier? Or think you do? Chris Mills at BGR reminds us that the plans we have with our carriers have gone from simple minutes, texts, and perhaps some roaming fees to a complex EULA subterfuge, shenanigans and limits on no limits. “Don’t buy the crap T-Mobile (or anyone else) is selling.”

We now have Macs and iPhones theoretically capable of teraflops of computational power. Then why doesn’t our user experience seem to reflect that? Ponder: “Why App Developers Are Fed Up With SDKs.”

Finally, I have a note on a completely different theme, but one I’ve mentioned before. As AI agents become more and more responsible for making decisions for us, it’s going to be more and more important for humans to understand the basis of their reasoning and decisions. That topic is now being explored. See “Making computers explain themselves.”

When Siri is smart enough to be really street and human smart, hopefully it’ll also be smart enough to explain why it thinks the way it does. It will be a challenge for Apple to engage that ethical part of the AI community, along these lines, and still maintain a competitive edge. Maybe Siri will get smart enough to tell Apple engineers how to do that.

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Particle Debris is a generally a mix of John Martellaro’s observations and opinions about a standout event or article of the week (preamble on page one) followed on page two by a discussion of articles that didn’t make the TMO headlines, the technical news debris. The column is published most every Friday except for holidays.

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