“That’s a trick question. Apple cares,” Bambi Brannan writes for Mac360. “But it’s 2016. It’s nearly five years after co-founder Steve Jobs died. So, Apple cares different.”
“CEO Tim Cook’s Apple is not Steve Jobs’ Apple, and that’s a fact we have to get over,” Brannan writes. “Cook is an engineer. Jobs was an artist. That means we can expect Apple to act more like how an engineer would run the show vs. how the mercurial Jobs ran Apple.”
“Right up front we can see that Apple cares differently about shareholders. We can argue all day about what Steve Jobs would have done with Apple’s tens of billions in riches, but it’s safe to safe stock buybacks and dividends were not high on his list,” Brannan writes. “If the average customer doesn’t care that much about a product line refresh, and the enterprise customer doesn’t care as much about massive leaps in new technology, then why should Apple care about those of us who bang the drums and cry to the heavens that Apple is doomed because some products are not refreshed as often as we prefer? Trick question again. Apple cares about us. But Apple doesn’t care about us as much as we want Apple to care about us.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Needlessly leaving money on the table isn’t smart business.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s Mac stagnation – August 6, 2016
Here’s why Apple doesn’t care about updating Macs or something – August 5, 2016
Apple should stop peddling four-year-old Macs – August 4, 2016
Is Apple phasing out the pro-level Mac? – August 2, 2016
Apple confirms Mac market share loss – July 29, 2016
Apple prepping new MacBook Air with USB-C, reports claim – July 27, 2016
What’s happening with Apple’s Macintosh? – July 14, 2016
Sales suffer as Apple neglects the Mac – July 12, 2016
Apple’s Mac sales fall, economies shudder – July 12, 2016
IDC, Gartner: Apple’s Mac no longer bucking PC industry’s sales slide – July 12, 2016
Here’s the problem: Apple is ignoring the Mac – April 28, 2016
Apple’s Mac sales tumble 12% in second-biggest downturn since ’07 – April 27, 2016
Apple reports earnings miss in Q216 – April 26, 2016
Apple’s languishing Macintosh: Is a massive re-invention near? – April 25, 2016
Hey Apple, how about shipping a new computer sometime? – April 15, 2016
Apple’s aging Mac Pro is falling way behind Windows rivals – April 12, 2016
So what I got from this story is that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs and they are two different people. Because of that, this creates a problem with product refreshing….
Ummmm, is this considered professional journalism when the writer just made a story based on the obvious and what everyone knows… Maybe I’m just being cranky since I don’t see a Mac Pro update yet… 🙁
Sorry for my rant.
professional (responsible) journalism…a thing of the past !
professional (manipulative) journalism … Status Quo.
So we’re to accept no innovation, weak products, lower quality software and copy of competitors?
Maybe if Cook spent less time on gay and social-political issues and focused more of his time on working at Apple, we may be at least get 1/50th of Steve Jobs.
YEP!!!!!
Hopefully Apple understands they screwed up the Mac Pro badly. They probably put a lot of R&D into developing it, designing it to be produced in the U.S., building assembly lines to make it, touting it as the next generation of professional computing. But ultimately it was a failure and I believe Apple knows this. Part of me hopes they were rushing back to the drawing boards over 2 years ago. I seriously hope for the future of Mac computing that they show something truly desirable in the next month or so, otherwise Hackintosh forever.
They could easily still make the new such more upgradeable 2016-17 Mac Pro here, and in fact if they do it right it would be a much simpler & cheaper manufacturing process (and hopefully cheaper prices).
Yes a Hackintosh or PC workstation the unfortunate alternative. In this case of a product you DO give the pro people what they are asking for – or risk user abandonment.
I have two of the Mac Pro “Trash cans” and I love them. I’d prefer a mini-tower, but, these do just fine.
BTW, it’s more or less the same price I paid for the original Mac Plus and way more powerful.
Unfortunately, with the Trash Can configuration, the question on how good/bad of a value it is depends on one’s specific use case requirements.
For me, I did a budget drill a year ago and found that the nMP vs cMP came out to roughly $7.5K vs $5.5 per seat … yes, that’s $2000 more per desk with the Trash Can…35% more expensive.
This prompted a serious consideration to change over the workflows over to Windows, as the Windows hardware solution would similarly be around $5K instead of pushing $8K. The cornerstone software app to do this has already been purchased, and it is test piloting….
Hmmm, no Frank/Mac/Joe & the pre-pubescent types moronity spew first up here at this great opportunity to deride Apple and specifically Tim Cook? MDN appears to be culling the nothing -to-offer-except-hate imbeciles much better now.
I am waiting yet to see how this fall product line shakes out and Apple just might yet catch up with it’s prior greatness & expectations yet, to everyone’s satisfaction & delight, quieting the trolls albeit only briefly.
Frank/Mac/Joe/Pete we already KNOW you’re a moron. Thanks for putting on yet another spectacular display of adolescent gibberish doofusity.
I LOVE the fact you’re so IQ deprived & infantile diaper loaded you don’t see how you shoot yourself constantly in the rabid foot and mouth. You have zero impact here because you are so out of control. In fact you ARE a big zero (troll). *Yawn*
Is English you first language?
“…the fact you’re so IQ deprived & infantile diaper loaded you don’t see how you shoot yourself constantly in the rabid foot and mouth…blah blah”
What the blank does all that blathering nonsense even mean?!?
Bottom line; there is not one Mac on sale today that is worth buying.
I’m currently – after two decades of Apple fanboyism – telling friends and relatives NOT to buy Macs until they’re up to date.
This is indefensible and I expect better from the biggest company in the world.
Now do us all a favor, ‘peter’, stfu until you have something better than asinine playground insults to offer.
I wasn’t insulting you but some other anonymous bushwhacking troll who has continuously singled me out for his moronic treatment. Pay attention to the page layout and stop being so salsitab and attempt to understand what’s going on! You are feeding into it. I have often said on this forum how we needed a new Mac Pro designed for pro’s and not Jonny Ives.
Now I suggest you do the STFUing and move your self-righteous cause elsewhere.
Your very existence is out of context with civilization troll. Salsitab is a cartoon substitute for “sensitive” dimwit. Being a cartoon joke yourself you should know that. Hilarious too how you play at pretending I’m grammatically incorrect when in reality it flies over your gutter brain third grade level of comprehension.
Apparently you never watched any Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes cartoons as a child (assuming you actually still aren’t one – hard to say). When you talk of ignorance you’re the definite poster child. What an ultra-maroon! I suppose you never heard that before either eh illiterate & pop-culture deprived one?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ultramaroon
Frank/Mac/Joe take a hike. The jig is up troll. The only penchant you have is for trolling stupidity with nothing else up on deck. Also a little too proud of your rampant illiteracy and retched vocabulary comprehension challenges. Sad.
That’s a spot you’re steadfastly held on to. And still doing a great job of it.
Sorry Mac, that’s been your job and you fool no one FOOL.
You can’t even spell maroon right moron. How your body’s autonomic functions can even work with so little octane upstairs is beyond me. I’d say “go fuck yourself” but that’s probably all jackal trolls like you, using many persona’s in spectacularly un-clever & obvious fashion, ever do.
Check this out and THEN go fuck yourself:
“…we can expect Apple to act more like how an engineer would run the show…”
This is an insult to engineers.
LOL!!! I work with a lot of different Mechanical Design Engineers and they would feel the same way!
Ok. Tim comes from an Industrial Engineering background.
“…Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering which deals with the optimization of complex processes, systems or organizations. Industrial engineers work to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, man-hours, machine time, energy and other resources that do not generate value. According to the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, they figure out how to do things better, they engineer processes and systems that improve quality and productivity…”
No one ever bad mouths Apple’s processes, systems, and productivity. That’s for sure.
What if Tim is looking at all of OUR major processes, systems, and productivity from a level so high that those of us down here in the forrest of technology simply cannot see it?
There are people who are concerned with the differences between 4th, 5th, and 6th generation intel core i7 processors and how that might effect their productivity on a daily basis, but are they not a minority? I personally don’t find a huge jump in productivity between 4th generation and 6th.
So maybe, Tim, as an industrial engineer, isn’t looking at those people. He’s looking at the vast majority of technology users who are only interested in appliances, which is what Apple is building now.
Apple is perhaps engineering appliances and matching services that not only meet the needs of the majority, but meet those needs more efficiently than the competition. From email to entertainment, Apple is refining products and services.
I for one am already wondering how I lived without my desktop being everywhere since playing with macOS sierra.
I’m beginning to care less and less how a computer works, and only that it does work.
Perhaps pundits have vision that ends with counting the ports on both sides of the computer. They can’t see the forest, they can only see the tree in front of them, let alone see the forest from Tim’s view.
Apple might just be 2 or 3 generations in thinking ahead of the punditry.
They earned a big enough lead in mind share to take a risk and, enjoy their momentum, and prepare for the next decade.
I think I get it.
At the same time though, it doesn’t hurt to tweak your existing technology here and there, without years between “here” and “there.” Damn Razor 17″ Pro and Razor Blade laptops are like the dark side of the force calling.
Industrial Engineering is all about making a manufacturing process more efficient, and Tim Cook does excel at that.
However, the relative utility of an i5 vs i7 and core counts doesn’t really show up on that radar, except in terms of foundry yield rates, delivery schedule, parts binning and net unit costs.
As such, the hardware innovation is mostly driven by others, and as we’ve already seen with Johnny Ive and “can’t innovate” But Schiller is that stylistic FORM is more important than function. That’s how we end up with unmaintainable boxes that are thermally limited, orphaned software lines, and arbitrary performance requirements that block improvements in products from shipping.
Add to that how they’re allowing themselves to work outside of their core competences – – yes, the Mothership of All Trash Cans, as well as My Mother the Electric Car – – it is clear that they’ve lost vision.
Maybe Apple seems “uncaring” or disdainful or distracted because they’re looking so very far down the road, and are transfixed by what they see there, and keep barreling along whilst blithely sideswiping any nearby traffic, creating roadkill left and right, and ignoring people frantically trying to flag them down! — Including certain people who were given to understand they’d be picked up; but now feel stood up,
I sense that to Tim Cook’s way of thinking, in his expansive landscape of people and possibilities — to this man, jilting a relatively small group of users so strongly bound to Apple is, somehow, acceptable collateral damage. He may even know, and not “care,” that such an attitude can transform love into its opposite.
I hear you. But can any company ever remain completely true to their roots? Companies that last for a long time have to evolve right? We’re talking a company that could barely stay afloat while making computer and then they made a phone and became the biggest company in the world. (Depending on the day of the week). They addressed a need that a vast majority of people had, and it paid off big time.
So does it not behoove them to keep moving in this direction? And you can’t just blame Tim Cook for this. I still say he is realizing the Steve Jobs vision.
” I personally don’t find a huge jump in productivity”
a Mac user who needs GPU power would find a big difference.
Like I’ve posted before:
Barefeats.com shows a 6 year old Mac Pro with slower subsystem and processors but with Upgraded Video card running a GPU intensive game Diablo 3 beating current macs by a wide margin .
2010 Mac Pro with Upgraded Card : 181 fps
iMac 5k : 75 fps
current cylinder Mac Pro D700 : 73 fps
(lowest price with d700 is over $4500 !)
Macbook Pro retina : 27 fps
A NEWER Barefeats test in July with a GTX 1080 in the 2010 MP pushed it’s fps to 195 !
A hackintosh (with faster subsystem than that 6 year old MP) or high end windows machine will have even BIGGER differences than the above. People have argued that fps is not important as games have a limit for fps playability but that’s not the point, the test shows GPU power. Besides games GPU power is needed for CERTAIN tasks like running multiple high res monitors or doing certain types of 3D etc.
The Mac Pro has other issues, the Xeons, subsystems are one to two generations old. Apple provides up to 64 GB RAM (upgradable to 128 by OWC) but PCs can go up to 512 GB (yeah you might not need 512 Ram but that RAM stat is just an obvious indicator — easier to grasp than bus speeds etc — to show the gap in tech now)
There is no Mac today where you can upgrade the video card.
—–
I have a 27 inch Cintiq pen monitor and another large monitor, there is no Mac now that I want to buy to power them.
The top iMac has a 4 GB card ( 2GB each monitor is not enough to rotate high polygon models etc and keep multiple programs, many files open ) and the Mac Pro as seen above is 3 years old costs many thousands for the D700 and still dwarfed by PC cards.
I and many others find SCREEN REAL ESTATE is crucial and a great time saver. (for example you can have reference files, training videos, manuals open in one monitor and the programs with their palettes open in the other. )
—-
I realize that many Mac users with lower needs are very happy with their Macs but there is no denying (people one star me but I’m just printing test numbers) for certain pro users the cylinder was mis-designed (non upgradable GPU etc) and long in the tooth.
(I have two upgraded Mac Pros, an iPad Pro 12.9 and a Macbook Pro etc)
When did Apple stop caring? When Tim Cook became CEO.
It’s that simple.
Tim’s doing a great job.
If the stock gets back up to $130 i’ll sell my entire position. Its been foolish of me to have a sizeable part of my portfolio in Apple alone, coupled with the company’s weird behavior under Cook. Jobs set up an amazing money-machine for Cook to manage. Apple’s tremendous financial success in the last 5 years is Job’s legacy. Cook may have been ok as a caretaker, and Apple has been strong enough to weather his insane social justice warrior virtue signaling, but he’s no visionary. I don’t think anyone at Apple is anymore, they can’t buy it.
If Apple really gave a shit:
1- There would be a proper Mac Pro tower.
2- You could easily add memory on any Mac- no sealed boxes.
3- A MacBook Pro with Retina Display would have better than Intel Iris vampire video.
4- There would be a 4k Apple Cinema Display.
5- There would be a Quad Core or better Mac mini.
6- The Apple TV eould be able to handle 4k video.
7- Apple Keyboards, Trackpads and Laptops would support Touch ID.
8- Beats would belong to Samsung and iTunes would not suck like a Dyson.
9- I could buy a Thunderbolt Dock at an Apple Store
10- Eddie Cue would be looking for a job.
Tim Cook is a good leader and interim CEO otherwise Steve would not have left him in charge but Tim is a supply chain expert and Apple obviously has that down to science (great job Tim!). Apple now needs a visionary leader that can connect with it’s customers the way Steve did. I believe Apple can see the future better by learning from the past. Remember the G4 Cube? It tuned out to be a failure but that was OK because Apple still had the successful Power Mac G4 tower and a road map to the Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro. They could bring back the tower and keep the trash can to see which one sells the best. I agree keeping loyal customers happy is a must. Steve knew this even though tough choices were made to to push technology forward he always took care of the Pro users. If sales numbers are down that is a true indicator for change but since everything was/is heading mobile Apple needs to be fully prepared and not end up like HP. A balance of R&D for desktop and mobile may not be possible, even for Apple right now. I believe you will see Apple branching out into all kinds of technology which makes sense since they certainly have the cash to do it now and take some risks. Steve was a risk taker!
Apple stopped caring about 2pm last Wednesday. I was there. I saw it. It wasn’t pretty.
professional (responsible) journalism…a thing of the past !
professional ( manipulative) journalism.. Status quo.
Journalism has changed, and no longer is entitled to the respect it once got, because it’s become grubby and dishonest. Writers trying to make a living are pressured to sensationalise everything. And even reasonable articles are tarnished with clickbait headlines. It is a sorry state of affairs in a free society that once prided itself on its “Fourth Estate” that strove to keep the other three honest.
yup!
When stock holders are your customers instead of retail consumers, its always lead to a decline in the consumer electronics industry.
Everyone who complains about Apple’s Mac lineup not being refreshed enough should have to disclose what mac model and year they are using. I doubt it is the current model. Put your money where your mouth is. Unless the current model is what you have and no longer adequate then the refresh cycle is just an excuse to complain.
My MacPro still cranks on Final Cut Pro X as good as it did 2 years ago.
My MacBook Pro 15″ Retina, current model I got last spring still cranks on Final Cut Pro X as good as it did when I got it. And it replaced the 2012 version which was still fine other than I needed more storage space for a major project.
Our 21″ administrative iMac we got a year ago still looks beautiful and handles Quickbooks in Parallels.
And don’t compare that with what with the spec dreck Windows manufacturers put out because it’s WINDOWS stupid. All things are not equal.