“Apple has continuously been leaving its Mac line dusty and old,” Ezra Reschke writes for AppleBlend. “To put it simply, the Mac line has one too many entry points.”
“Apple’s Mac line currently stands with the MacBook being the student and lightweight business user’s Mac, the MacBook Air being the mid student, business, and consumers entry point and the MacBook Pro being the power user and pro person’s go to solution,” Reschke writes. “I personally think Apple should drop its Air line in favor of the MacBook to simplify the Mac laptop lineup, because the markets are similar and it would allow them to improve the other two more overall. ”
“The desktop lines need a giant upgrade as well just to meet the standard of the market today,” Reschke writes. “Overall, simplifying the whole Mac lineup would bring it to today’s standard, making the Mac line feel less like a museum and more like an on par computer.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Until Apple can get the MacBook down to MacBook Air pricing (starting at $899), there will be a place in the Mac lineup for the MacBook Air.
As for the, uh… extended wait for new Macs: Good things, very good things, come to those who wait.
Not much longer now. Patience, Padawans.
SEE ALSO:
The iPhone’s new A10 Fusion chip should worry Intel – September 16, 2016
Apple is a semiconductor powerhouse; expect the first ARM-based Macs to appear in 2016 – March 31, 2015
Apple’s blowout quarter predicted very accurately by same analyst who predicts ARM-based Macs – January 28, 2015
Five barriers that might keep Apple from moving Macs to custom ARM chips – January 16, 2015
Apple A-series-powered Macs are not only feasible, they may be inevitable – January 15, 2015
Why Apple dumping Intel processors would be disastrous – January 14, 2015
KGI: Apple is designing its own processors for Mac – January 14, 2015
Apple A9-powered MacBook Air? – December 16, 2014
Why Apple will switch to ARM-based Apple A-series-powered Macs – August 27, 2014
Intel-powered Macs: The end is nigh – August 4, 2014
Intel’s Broadwell chips further delayed; not shipping for most Macs until early-mid 2015 – July 9, 2014
Apple will inevitably drop Intel for their own A-series processors in the Mac – June 26, 2014
How long before Apple dumps Intel from MacBook Air? – June 26, 2013
i have a bad feeling fans are in a for a letdown. i think tim cook is more interested in the phone and music now. the mac mini update was a big disappointment from the 2012 model. i think future macs are going to be dumbed down even more, and less user friendly for people who like to upgrade them
Macs used to be the best machines you could get. Now – there’s no way I could recommend a work colleague buy a Macbook Air with its inferior screen, a Macbook because of its inferior power or a MacBook Pro which is becoming a time-piece.
The reviewer had it right – the line-up is a museum. As loyal Mac users, we – and the rest of Apple’s Mac customers deserve better.
“Now – there’s no way I could recommend a work colleague buy a Macbook Air…”
Just the Air?
Unfortunately, there’s not *any* Macs that I can recommend with a straight face.
And what’s also a big old ‘DANGER’ sign in the reviewer’s piece is that they’re pushing for even more “streamlining”. That’s probably code word for “Kill the Desktop”.
Apple is something like the #5 computer OEM in the world and have a product line that’s roughly 1/10th the breadth of any of the others. If that’s not too much streamlining already, then what is?
MDN:
Why keep drinking the Cook koolaid?
You don’t stick with old technology and then release new stuff beside it until you get costs down. You elimiante the old crap and bring in the new.
Remember Jobs’s quote about dearh being the best invention… the one you mouth off about sometimes.
Well, it applies here. Death makes way for the new.
Selling MacBook Airs is absurd. Last century screen technology…
Apple needs to eliminate the Air, get more power in the MacBook, and offer them in a larger screen.
My 2013 iMac can’t be ‘upgraded’ at all. Luckily it has USB 3 and thunderbolt ports. RAM is soldered in.
Yeah, the current mini is actually inferior to the 2012 model. No quad core, soldered RAM, no possibility of a second hard drive, we’d have been better off if Apple had just left it alone. New old stock 2012s are still selling for what they did when they were current.
The Mac Pro is garbage, no expansion capability, three year old graphics cards that weren’t great new, and no way to upgrade them. No possibility for even two internal drives, when the previous model could hold four. A single processor when the previous model could have two. The old one was better.
Every generation gets harder to service, more impossible to upgrade.
I’m about to have to start selling Hackintoshes to my clients because Apple doesn’t build anything suitable for a server.
Have to add… I feel you are right.
Apple seems they will abandon Desktop machines and only focus on mobil devices by end of 2018. And while they do so, the Desktop industry which got hit hard by early iPad adoption, shall return to some stage of glory. And although there truly is a need for very very powerful desktop computing — Apple continues to ignore. Sadly, this decision will harm Apples supremacy unless they really do have a plan for the Mac line – which I thought would have been the SmartTV arena.
Any new macs Apple releases will follow the established pattern.
You’ll get a speed bump and lose a bit more expansion options.
Hate to think like that but its what I’m expecting.
I need an iMac and a MBP. Our phones don’t need upgrading till next year maybe, no use for the watch just yet. The Macs are needed not now- but yesterday! And I’m hoping there are no 1.0 hardware glitches with the first of the refreshed lines…
I think for Cook to be interested in the Mac, the Macs need to be called, iLGBTMac. It’s the only way Cook will pay any attention to it. Otherwise, forgetaboutit.
macOS starts to look more like iOS with every release.
In the end we may end up with a Macintosh that ‘identifies’ as an iPad 😉
Well macOS Sierra is the first release and I think it still is a Desktop OS far from iOS.
You’re such a twit. Homophobic much?
Hello Ezra,
Remember Tim Cook wrote back just a week ago?
“… we Love the Mac, Stay Tuned…”
Side note..
with the pentup demand having been building up for so long for new state of the art MACs… wallstreet maybe underestimating its iimpact on holiday earnings. (if Apple makes and announcement in the next couple months)
Does not apply. Last time Apple spec’ed new Macs in the Fall we did not see them for sale until well past the new year. We may lose the best made personal microcomputer in history to bad marketing. I am already eye-balling linux boxes for my next move.
yeah, keep a product away from your customers, and that will make them want it more.
yeah, that makes sense! What could possibly go wrong?
But the message for new desktops a few days back was also about upgraded AMD graphics, I remember that pretty well.
What will Apple offer from AMD in the new 2016 top iMac? A top desktop AMD 480? The AMD 480 is not a bad card for the mainstream segment it is intended for but the 480 is not a high end desktop graphic card either. There are speculation about a 490 AMD card before the year ends, but it may be a 300 watts dual chip card running in Crossfire. It maybe a powerful card but not suitable for a current iMac 27 and also dual cards won’t generally offer their 2x full potencial because they need constant optimizations.
The point is the same: better hardware this year but to a point where the Mac is far away from the best the desktop market offers this same year. And year over year the Mac is becoming a less cutting edge product. Will Apple expect their iPhone business to run like this?
Honestly I am only expecting the same iMac line from last year with better graphics, faster SSDs and USB-C. This is not enough for high end gaming, not great for Final Cut or creative profesional video-audio production and even less suitable for 3D graphics content creation.
So do we have to expect Apple to announce in October also upgraded Mac Pros with “dual dual” AMD graphics? That is possible also but again I don’t think 600 watts are suitable on graphics alone inside the current small Mac Pro form.
We need a Mac for high end desktop use and a new profesional Mac line.
What I would do: Create e new high end user serviceable desktop Mac using the current Mac Pro cylinder form and create a much modern professional tower line for professional only use and leave the all mighty iMac line to cover such a wide user need.
Also create a high end Macbook Pro with powerful graphics and unsoldered parts. The professionals buying this options don’t care as much as general users about form factor and high battery lasting.
All these “should do, could do, might do’s” make sense, but is anyone at Apple care?
It’s not at all clear to me that they do.
Laptops and desktops are still important to have around, and it’s been too long since Apple’s were updated.
To everyone who thinks they can get by with just an iPhone because it has a “desktop class” CPU now, I invite you to try posting a question on Apple’s own support/discussion forums (discussions.apple.com) on an iPhone.
The MacBook is one of the crappiest laptops Apple has ever done. I have to believe that Ezra hasn’t really spent much time with them and is maybe just riffing on some top down, Jobs retail theory.
It’s too lightweight and insubstantial, too dumbed down, too port-poor to be anything other than a seriously overpriced, underpowered netbook. Gawd, I hope Apple doesn’t kill the Airs in lieu of this. It just doesn’t look and feel like a well made machine. Quite uncharacteristic of what we expect when we pay big bucks for Mac hardware.
The MacBook Air line just needs a retina display, continued processor bumps, greater RAM and HD capacity. It’s a GREAT laptop. Plug it in to a mouse, keyboard and display, and you’ve got a fantastic desktop with spectacular portability. The Airs look good, feel good, and are a really solid line of laptops.
And the MacBook Pro line is very healthy and robust and just needs to BRIGHTER display if anything and continue those improvements in processing speed, cooling, and a 2TB HD option.
But the author is correct about Mac neglect. The iPhone is about 70% of Apple’s profit these days with Macs making up maybe 20%. The Mac hasn’t really been Apple’s focus for a long time now and that’s how the dumbest looking Mac, the MacPro trashcan, replaced a more rational design.
iOS is NOT something we should be forced to work in. It’s a fun, consumer based, single tasked internet consumption OS. It’s fine for the iPhone or iPad. Regardless of what Tim Cook says, the iPad is a very lame and limited “work” machine. Just because it works for AppleStore staff to tote them about and test things using them, doesn’t people who need a computer to work should be forced to use them.
Keep iOS off our Macs and pay attention to the millions of Mac users who need an actually computer to get work done.
~~~
My Mac stat may be overly optimistic. Just saw 12% for the last quarter.
As a software developer of engineering I have found the MacBook wonderful as a 2nd/3rd laptops.
My machines:
– Big Windows PC for major GPU computing (no comparable Mac exists, ffs. I would love a real “Pro” Mac.)
– MacBook Pro Retina
– MacBook in my pick up and go back
– MacBook to run my 4k 98″ monitor (yes really)
Writing software on a MacBook is great, especially as I am very mobile. Of course, I need the MacBook Pro and PC to run intense calculations once the software is written, but I actually use the two MacBook’s more than anything else.
Should say “MacBook in my pick-up-and-go bag.”
I’m curious. If the MBAir gets the retina screen, would you say with the MacNetBook? It’s just as mobile and much more powerful and well built. Just wondering why you’d do any real work on a MacBook with that iOS processor in there.
And (not being rhetorical here at all–still curious) doesn’t the skinny, flimsy construction bother you at all? And the complete lack of ports beyond the C?…
Concerning Apple and the Macintosh I would not say forgotten, I would say forsaken.
What they have done to the Pro, Scientific and Educational markets is really abandoning a group of Apple’s most loyal users who helped sustain it during it’s darkest times. Apple has plenty of resources to walk and chew gum at the same time.
I have no problem with Apple developing other products, but it all comes down to the Macintosh. As I am out and about with my iPad Air running this, my Mac at home is transcoding a huge batch of EyeTV MPEG 2 1080 HDTV files to H.264 MP4s on Handbrake that will all be done by the time I get home. Then a quick trip through Soundsoap for some files to clean up the audio then over to iFlicks2 for artwork and metadata. Then the files are ready for my iTunes library which the Mac serves to the various devices in the home. That huge batch conversion cannot be efficiently done on any iOS device or a Vampire Video Intel Iris GPU Mac.
Were I home, I could easily do a significant amount of multi-tasking even as the File conversion goes on on the background. Try that with an iPhone.
DavGreg,
I fear the answer from Apple is: “Why? We have all the movies already on iTunes. Buy or rent it and download/stream from any iOS device.”
all that hand braking is a major waste of time. just go to https://yts.ag
“Concerning Apple and the Macintosh I would not say forgotten, I would say forsaken.”
I am not sure they have put enough energy into it to rise to the forsaken level.
Apple: prove me wrong….until then. Have already put an SSD in my mid-2012 Mini, and have ordered one for the 2012 Macbook I am writing this on.
So Apple,if things don’t change I won’t be providing any income for you.
Thereby: creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for you?
“I am not sure they have put enough energy into it to rise to the forsaken level.”
Ha! Good one. Excellent nuance. 🙂
Nice to see others realizing what I was predicting 3 years ago, when every Mac “update” was a useability takeaway, an artistic exercise, or an overpriced netbook.
I remember when Apple understood what personal computing was all about. Now Apple is acting like the Big Brother it paradied in 1984 — everyone toting a thin wireless electronic tether to the iCloud mothership.
If Apple doesn’t deliver a state-of-the-art 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro and a proper workstation Mac Pro in the next 6 months or less, then we will have no choice but to begin shopping elsewhere.
Mike, a lot of us have seen the writing on the wall for some time, and I totally agree.
Soldered RAM, proprietary hard drives, unnecessarily thin and glued shut DESKTOP machines with no way to install RAM on the 21.5” iMac without removing the logic board?!…. These are just the few that pop into my head right now.
HOWEVER, I will bet the family farm that you will never see another 17″ MBP. Sorry, mate. Even in our Mac shop, they were so rare that we stopped stocking parts and didn’t want to purchase used 17” for resale because they were so hard to sell. It’s just easier to plug and Air or an MBP if you want more real estate. The 17″ definitely had its niche fans, but they really didn’t sell well for Apple.
As for the MacPro, Sheesh! I think they should throw it out and start all over. The “Trash Can Mac,” as we call ’em, seems to be intentionally designed for force all serious users into forking over ALL of their $ for Apple proprietary SSD drives. Everything over Thunderbolt? Well, I guess… But they should have had a way do plug in naked drives directly (2.5″ or otherwise). There is so much I don’t like about the Trash Can Mac, that I’d rather Jonny just throw the whole thing out and start over with an eye to an Mac Mini stackable design option. I’m not a designer, but man! I could come up with a half dozen ways to do that more elegantly, faster, and more efficiently.
All of this is complicated by the Apple secrecy cloud. It’s not serving Apple anymore. I’m not suggesting the switch is either on or off, but they really need to get away from the Steve Jobs paranoia, flat out lying approach (you know, “we’re not making a tablet, they’re dumb,” etc…) where we’re all needlessly kept in the dark. Good surprises are fun. Bad surprises are not worth waiting for. Supposedly Timo is getting more transparent about stuff, but I think they have a long ways to go to get to the middle of that dimmer switch. Obviously you don’t want to give away stuff to the competition, but sometimes talking about where you’re really going, is not a bad thing. The cloak and dagger stuff just isn’t magical anymore.
~~~
The secret research Apple once had is false now. nevertheless, Apple has forced and inspired many companies to at least rise to the standard Apple sat. Re-think, re-do and change how users use computers. Sadly, the miniature world of phone computing will be where Apple dies. And the Desktop and serious computing shall rise up again in other forms that Apple themselves could not predict.
Once this occurs, in Apple style, if they are still around, Apple will attempt to express how to do it better. Innovate not create. Apple did not create the world of computing but bring us a useful user interface. Apple did not create touch, they simple took it to all the greedy hands of the masses. Apple did not create Siri and voice assistance, they bought it and still are innovating on it. IBM has the real thing guys. Watson shall evolve and Desktop computing shall be through your Smart TVs – that is if the governments let us have powerful computers. Lol
And lastly,
Without a desktop running MacOS can development be done?
Or is Apple quietly telling us and its developers to use a PC. Heck Steve Jobs himself had been using a non-apple laptop for years with a special brand of OSX. MacOS can survive and Apple could in fact just provide a non-hackintosh – PC friendly installer to carry on those needs. Yet its a slap in the face to fans and a insult to all those who love the Mac.
There’s no magical reason for the delays of the macs. Except to an Apple nut with endless excuses. Basic updates are easy for these types of products.
The Mac Pro’s delay is an embarrassment.
No kidding. One of the big reasons for abandoning the PowerPC was that Intel would allow for more frequent updates, even if they were just minor tweaks to keep things current. Instead, we get the current lineup. There is NO excuse, Apple. Intel has released two generations of Xeon since you released the trashcan Pro. Fix it.
Correct and no M10, 11, 12 or A10, 11, 12 chip set will provide where the Xeon has taken the Mac. If Apple dreams of impregnanting its Mac line with dumbed down IOS chips it has no future in the Desktop arena.
I will say this because I want to work on a powerful Mac system for high end gaming design, CG art and content creation:
Please Apple release a $500 OS X license to run OS X on a variety of PC motherboards and a set of processors.