“To die-hard fans, Apple Inc.’s Macintosh sometimes seems like an afterthought these days,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg. “Interviews with people familiar with Apple’s inner workings reveal that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company’s software team. They also describe a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers.”
“While the Mac generates about 10 percent of Apple sales, the company can’t afford to alienate professional designers and other business customers. After all, they helped fuel Apple’s revival in the late 1990s,” Gurman reports. “If more Mac users switch, the Apple ecosystem will become less sticky—opening the door to people abandoning higher-value products like the iPhone and iPad.”
“In another sign that the company has prioritized the iPhone, Apple re-organized its software engineering department so there’s no longer a dedicated Mac operating system team. There is now just one team, and most of the engineers are iOS first, giving the people working on the iPhone and iPad more power,” Gurman reports. “Apple hasn’t given up on Macs. In a recent company Q&A session, employees asked whether Mac desktop computers remain strategically important. “We have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said… Mac fans shouldn’t hold their breath for radical new designs in 2017 though. Instead, the company is preparing modest updates: USB-C ports and a new Advanced Micro Devices Inc. graphics processor for the iMac, and minor bumps in processing power for the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Currently, when it comes to the Macintosh (and Apple TV, among other products and services), Apple under CEO Tim Cook is struggling.
It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products. — Steve Jobs
Cook, who never remotely threatened to offer either of the former attributes, is now obviously having difficulty delivering the latter.
The question is how far up the food chain does this mismanagement problem go? Is this fish rotting from the head down? Or is there a layer of incompetent upper management or an integral structural problem coming to light as Apple grows like a weed with post-Steve employees that’s gumming up the works?
Under Tim Cook, Apple has endured:
• John Browett
• Apple Maps launch debacle (tarring Maps with a bad rep to this day)
• No iMacs for Christmas 2012
• Massive undersupply of Apple Watch at launch, basically killing all momentum
• Massive undersupply of Apple Pencils and Smart Keyboards on hand for the iPad Pro launch
• No updated Mac Pro for three years
• No updated Apple TV for Christmas 2016 (A 4K-capable Apple TV would have been so easy, it’s inexplicable and unforgivable not to have this on the market right now)
• No Apple skinny bundle(s) for Apple TV while other companies ink deals and announce launches – these customers will be tough for Apple to get back once lost, if they ever get the deals signed. (Perhaps, Tim, you need to hire better negotiator(s) who can get the ink? Or make an acquisition that reshapes the industry, causing them to line up to work with you?)
• No compatible Remote app for Apple TV at launch
• No Apple Music capability in Siri on Apple TV at launch
• Apple TV remote looks to have been “designed” by Steve Ballmer himself (If Steve wasn’t already dead, the Apple TV Remote would have killed him; he would’ve had an aneurysm the second the mockup was handed to him)*
• Flagship iPhone launches without its flagship feature (Portrait mode) and is currently still only in “beta” (seriously?)
• No new iPads for Christmas 2016 (Even simply “refreshed” with current A-series processors would have created significantly more sales)
• No updated iMacs for Christmas 2016
• No updated Mac mini for 2+ years
• No AirPods in any meaningful supply for Christmas 2016Unfortunately, that’s just a partial list of painfully obvious mistakes.
When you’re walking the halls, Tim, look at the walls once in a while. Hopefully, you’ll see these:
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have… It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it. — Steve Jobs
Real artists ship. — Steve Jobs
In closing:
“This is absolutely shameful for a company claiming to be a leader in technology.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Exactly how rich and big does Apple have to be before the company runs like it has more than five guys working 18-hour days trying to do everything? The world’s most valuable company is incapable of updating the Mac Pro for two and a half fscking years? Seriously? “Mismanagement” is not too strong a word to apply to the ongoing Mac Pro fiasco.
Just like every other human, there are things Tim Cook does very well and there are other things about which he seems painfully inept.
Hint: Make new Macs and update them with regularity while advertising them strongly. Obviously, as you might have noted by perusing iPad unit sales reports, not everyone has fallen for your “iPad is the next PC” meme, yet, Tim.
We only say that as those who were already Mac users for over 13 years at the point Cook was still over at Compaq trying to get his Windows PC to work. — MacDailyNews, July 12, 2016
*With the Siri Remote, users can’t tell which end is up in a darkened room due to uniform rectangular shape. The remote is still too small, so it gets lost easily. All buttons are the same size and similarly smooth. Only the Siri button attempts to be different, but the slightness of its concavity is too subtle to matter; a raised dot on the button would have been much easier for users to feel. The tactile difference between the bottom of the remote vs. the upper Glass Touch surface is too subtle as well; this also leads to not being able to tell which end is up. A remote with a simple wedge shape (slightly thicker in depth at the bottom vs. the top), as opposed to a uniform slab, would have instantly communicated the proper orientation to the user.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s not very good, really quite poor 2016 – December 19, 2016
Apple’s software has been anything but ‘magical’ lately – December 19, 2016
Lazy Apple. It’s not hard to imagine Steve Jobs asking, ‘What have you been doing for the last four years?’ – December 9, 2016
Apple may have finally gotten too big for its unusual corporate structure – November 28, 2016
Apple has no idea what they’re doing in the TV space, and it’s embarrassing – November 3, 2016
Apple’s disgracefully outdated, utterly mismanaged Mac lineup is killing sales – October 13, 2016
Apple takes its eye off the ball: Why users are complaining about Apple’s software – February 9, 2016
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
When they do a post mortem on Apple they will point back to how the Mac line was ignored or allowed to languish as the beginning of the end.
It is true that the Mac keeps people in the Apple sphere. If I leave Apple because of the Mac, it will be traumatic. I have been using Macs since system 7. It will feel like a divorce. If I feel forced to buy, for the first time in my life, a windows computer, I will likely ditch my iPhone to affirm the rupture. And I will not buy Apple again.
Fine. Do it.
You’re such a tit.
Maybe someone should put a mac on his desk again. Lol.
More importantly, Apple should design and build Macs that Tim Cook and Johny Ive would **WANT** to put onto their desktops and actually **USE**.
It they’re not building items that they themselves will want to use, why are they building anything?
Billionaires seldom do any computing. Cook and Ives personal assistants use their ipads to pass notes to the hundreds of employees who rely on mac, linux, and even windows machines to make stuff happen
The fact that Apple can’t even operate its own business using its own products shows how out of touch Apple leaders have become.
IOS is not and never will be the future of computing. Watch isn’t the future of computers. ATV sure as hell isnt the future of video distribution. And if Apple continues to ignore the Mac, then Apple truly will be just a phone company. Maybe Apple should just merge with Nokia now.
Well said.
My faith in Apple has been shaken to the core. No Pro desktops for Christmas … 😭
This is an inevitable outcome when a patriarchal genius founder dies and leaves his children in charge, such is the history of Walt Disney et al. It will take many years and corporate political upheaval before real change can take root.
Steve’s biggest failure was his shortsightedness, nepotism and denial for a genuine transition plan.
i have a feeling that now its clout that gets people hired at Apple… not qualification.
and that maybe the upper managemnt is too rich and inflated in ego to give a shit .
You have a “feeling,” yojimbo07? Well, I guess that must be factual then. I have a feeling that you have a lot more regard for your anonymous opinions than most of the rest of us. Doom and gloom griper.
hey maybe before u make a stupid comment …you should undetstand the differance between having a feeling , guessing and factual… 3 words u used in your incoherent sentense to insult me.
and maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee rather than blindly applaud Apple even when they screwup. ..
and maybe you should just talk for yourself not the “rest of us”..
man Apple and their dogmatized blind fanboys… one of the worst things in Apple’s universe.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Amen! MacDailyNews!
A company with the resources of Apple should have dedicated engineering, operating system and marketing teams. To promote teamwork they can have frequent meeting with their iOS counterparts.
No wonder there have been so many bugs and incomplete features in Apple products over the last couple of years.
Apple needs Execution! It is a sad day when Microsoft’s leadership appears to be outperforming Apple’s.
Keep this up Apple and we will forced into purchasing Microsoft Surfaces.
During a quarterly results conference call earlier this year, Cook warned that it may seem like a “long Christmas Eve”, suggesting that new products won’t be released in the near term. So I’m taking a wait-and-see approach. It will be disappointing though if he doesn’t deliver on the promise.
Damn, who or what is going to shake Apple out of their misguided Mac-less reverie? At least Walt Disney always remembered it started with a mouse. Apple needs to always remember this too.
So called Mac loyalists are the problem. This minority group think that Apple should always prioritise their specific needs. Well, they need to learn that times have moved on and that mobile devices are the priority now. Stop forever whinging about a new MacPro that sells in minuscule numbers.
Unless Apple deigns to allow true development on iOS, this “minority group” are very literally the only people making the apps you run on your iOS device.
Unless you count web apps. Which you shouldn’t, because that was only a 1-year stopgap before 3rd party app development tools and the app store were ready.
One big reason why people stay with Apple is the ecosystem. Well, the Mac is a large part of that ecosystem, and if people abandon the Mac, then a large part of why they stay in the Apple ecosystem disappears. Because Apple’s ease of use only carries so far, and they’ve made numerous mis-steps these last few years that have diminished both that and customer delight, especially on the Mac side of things.
You are more interested in insulting with your arrogance than providing a real argument.
You fool, even those iPads, A10 chips and mobile computer devices need real workstation computers to be designed, imagine the next vehicle, spaceship or business center, or just anything cutting edge. Nope, it couldn’t happen because the times they “move on”…
Then what about Apple dumping the nicely upgradeable MacMinis? Any refurbed MacMini gets sold almost as soon as they get them. There seems to be a demand for them. I’m guessing Apple doesn’t want to make them attractive to potential buyers because Apple won’t make enough money from selling them. Now Apple doesn’t even sell its own displays to go along with the MacMini, so Apple loses out on those display sales.
It’s possible I’m just clueless about how Apple operates but nothing seems to add up. The company is definitely profitable and they do make very attractive-looking and reliable products, in my opinion. However, it just seems Apple is trying to alienate a lot of potential buyers by only focusing on a narrow customer base. I’m just guessing that Apple products could potentially appeal to more consumers even if they do charge more. It’s like one section of Apple doesn’t know what the other section is doing.
Apple has enough money to build some super-expensive headquarters but can’t manage to build an easily upgradeable MacMini. Why is that? Is it greed or is it because most MacMini buyers never upgraded them. I just don’t know. If they explained it to me I might understand. Can’t Apple afford to build at least one enthusiast/power user computer like many other computer companies do?
Suggest change your avatar to APPLclueless to reflect your knee jerk defense of company adrift in the Techno Sea. Power Mac users like myself will NEVER accept the neglect and excuse will have to stand in back of the line because we are now obsolete and forgotten Apple diehard decades supporters. That clear enough for you?
Don’t try to paint Mac loyalists as the problem. Just because you registered on MDN (a name by the way, that was coined by Windows users and widely considered to be derogatory) does not make you the voice of Mac advocates.
To Tim Cook: Sorry to hear of the death of the MacBook Pro. The current Pro models are non-upgradable; they are commodity consumer appliances. Pros need a MacBook with upgradable Ram, Storage, and GraphicCard, preferably with 15″, and 17″ screens. Don’t abandon the Pro market to Wintel!!! 🖖😀⌚️
I would never have thought I might have an interest in anything other than Mac for a serious computer but my thoughts began to change with the death of Apple’s Aperture. I think Apple has made some huge blunders lately and one was to kill Aperture which took my enthusiasm for Apple down several pegs. I switched to Apple all due to Aperture AND I bought one of their $6500.00US Mac Pro’s specifically for Aperture, before Aperture was killed. With Apple’s huge cash pile you would think they could have easily thrown the Aperture team a few million a year to keep their zealot fans happy. But they chose not to and I’m no longer an Apple zealot. Their ace in the hole is still the quality of their hardware but they better figure the other issues out and reconfirm their interest in the professional desktop and laptop user or they’ll be no different than Kodak in twenty years.
I agree with you sentiment about the killing off of Aperture – a damn shame. But that happened under Jobs. Can’t blame everything on Cook.
Wrong. Last release of Aperture was in 2014.
In fact, Aperture was going strong until Cook took the reins. One of the first things Cook did was force a rewrite of all Mac software to work like iOS and rely on iCloud. Aperture was killed because it was personal computer software. Photos is garbage designed by Cook to get you to rent iCloud. The Google iCloud, actually, since Apple doesn’t even have the chops to run its own servers.
Anybody that believes anything that comes out of Cook’s piehole, needs to have their head examined.
Always “in the roadmap” never “in the store”.
Steve Jobs also really “struggled” with a number of Apple products: remember MobileMe? And guess who thought of “me.com”? Rember the Motorola Rokr and iTunes? And whatever happened to all that iPod roadkill, like the Classic? Or the Apple HiiFi stereo? Remember how clunky the original iPhone was in comparison to today? Jobs started out by totally putting down dedicated apps for the iPhone, remember? And remember all those early iPhone problems, like Antennagate? There’s a ton of Jobs-based products and services that were problematic, in fact, I’d say that Cook as a whole has done better than Jobs.
At least he was putting out products, learning for the failures, and moving forward. Cook just keeps saying everything is “in the roadmap” as the software gets buggier and the hardware updates slow to a crawl.
Jobs at least appeared to listen and make changes if the outcry was loud and long enough.
Words are nice but actions speak louder than words.
The Mac OS is in need of some TLC. Mail for instance could use some real work. Fixes such as:
“Please re-enter your password errors” every few hours.
Folders that cannot be alphabetized. Try organizing 80+ folders of the typical small business without an alphabetical option.
To me, this current state of Apple is more worrisome than the days of the ’90s. I knew Apple still had the best System, even though OS 1-9 was a mess, it was better than msdos or Windows. OS X still is. It’s totally Cook’s fault for abandoning Macs. Jerk.
hey man,
that is, as you say, just a partial list
how about the complete list, in every aching detail.
that way we can send our messages of discontent to the board, so they can see, in black and white, all of the foul ups, and blown launches and inadequacies of current design, implementation and availability of a once great line of products.
something has to wake them up. maybe that would help.
Apple’s BoD, upon which Tim Cook sits (not in the literal sense, although with Algore, I’m not so sure).
i am trying to get the boards attention… did you sign this?
https://www.change.org/p/apple-board-of-directors-remove-tim-cook-as-ceo-of-apple
there’s a need for pro editors to carry their garbage can around town and plugin to whatever monitor and drive array is there…. and then take their garbage can across town to the next gig. I hope by desktop apple means something that can be carried easily and not a behemoth that is impractical to transport.
Maybe Tim should go in the office. When the cats away the mice will play. Seems he is flying here or there for this or that cause. The cause he should be worried about is Apple. Not personal issues. Get to business. When I have to wait three weeks and go to four different apple stores to purchase a watch I can walk out of the store with that’s a sign of the end. Get products in the stores.
ALL of Apple’s success is due to the fact that Mac users were its base, its raison d’etre in the 90s and early 2000s, and we were the “influencers” in the culture, the leading edge of creative types, scientists, educators etc. without Mac users, the iPod would have been just another consumer product – but we made it cool at first. We were the source of a trickle down effect- the iPod and iPhone weren’t just good products, but they worked seamlessly with our Macs, which made them must-haves. As Apple loses creative industry after creative industry in the coming years, the opportunity is ripe for another company to replace Apple as the cool and indispensable to one, and Apple will have no advantage over its competitors.
Not just that, Apple worked hard to develop the technologies that powered OS X. Those under-the-hood technologies helped make the iPhone, iPad and Watch. If Apple walks away from the prosumer market where will the technology come from for the next generation of iOS devices? It is not just a matter of what you can sell right now, they need to nurture the technologies that will power the next generation of devices. Chamfered aluminium edges only get you so far.
Apple mismanaged all its underlying Mac tech if it didn’t support Cooks vision of an all iOS company. ALAC, Quicktime, Automator, you name it, have all been abandoned. But Cook brought more emojis to the gimmick bar on your new consumer grade sealed mbp!
I have been a Mac guy since 1984 and Apple II before that. I have three MBA’s two iPad’s and a Thunderbolt Monitor. I see what Windows based computers have evolved over the past two years with Wn 10 and see that they are light years ahead of what capabilities the OS X has available. For my own gratis, I purchased a $350 HP with Win 10, built in Blue Ray, 8g ram, 1000gig drive, HDMI out, 17″ screen, removable battery that will last 10 hours. It still isn’t a Mac in many ways primarily it is still relatively slow even with a 5 core Intel and the screen is not even close to be as bright as the Mac. But you know, for $350, why not?
I so wanted enter a new iPad or a new Desktop Mac for Christmas or Both but not paying a premium for 1+ to 3+ Year old tech. Cant wait to see 1st Qrt Results hope they plummet just so the Board gets the message,
Geez, he doesn’t even mention the Mac Pro.
I really don’t get it APPLE. Just give us a butt-ugly empty box with a lot of slots and stamp the logo on the front and you will most likely make a lot of people happy.
I’m looking to do time travel with the next Mac Pro, just a lot of number crunching, mapping and image processing.
All of the packages we and our clients use STATA, SAS, SPSS, ESRI, ArcGIS, ERDAS all have Windows versions, so switching platforms would be easy, but I’d just as soon stay with what I like, MacOS.
Just a muscle machine that does heavy lifting. Nothing elegant required.
I’m NOT looking to do time travel with the next Mac Pro! lol
“Just a muscle machine that does heavy lifting. Nothing elegant required.”
Amen, brother! 👏🏻
Maybe we will see innovative new Macs. Or maybe we won’t.
What is certain is that this year I would have purchased a new iMac except that what was offered was simply not worth the price asked (How about descent sized SSD drives on every Mac for starters?) Thunderbolt? What in the world is going on with that?. Instead I upgraded my 5+ year old Mac with a new SSD drive, and that should last me several more years before I need to buy a new computer (note, I did not say new Mac). So, Apple kept their pricey not so hot Macs, and I kept my money. Hmm…. not a way to increase profits.
Each year for the past two years I have planned on buying a new 27 inch iMac. Each year I have been disappointed in Apple’s offerings and prices.
Instead I upgraded my 27 inch iMac to a 1tb ssd and 32gb ram.
Apple cost themselves a sale because of using out of date microprocessors, graphics cards and WAY OVERPRICED SSD’S (flash storage).
I think my displeasure with Apple began with their new generation of mice. All I wanted was a mouse that was low in weight and did the job. What Apple offered was a choice of two mice, one that was too heavy the (bluetooth one because of the batteries) or a mouse that became useless far too quickly because the pea sized scroll wheel picked up every piece of gunk which meant I’d have to clean it every day. Nowadays I use a MacAlley Bumper mouse. It just works!
Then there is the AppleTV. All I wanted was a media centre that had the option of physically connecting hard drives to the unit. Nope! Apple forced me to to wade into the world of Western Digital.
Now I’m being told that the future is iOS but I like Macs. Sure I’ve got iPod Touches and an iPad but the latter I only really use for for some web surfing (and I still do most of that on my iMac) as well as being a portable option for watching tv shows or movies.
As the 2G network is shutting down in my country I’ll be buying an iPhone and it’ll be a 6s because I don’t want to connect a dongle so I can use my Beyer Dynamics earphones (which incidentally leave Apple’s earphones for dead).
I’m rapidly reaching the point where Apple is closing off the available options for me. I can’t believe it that I’m actually thinking of Windows. And this is from a person who got boxed around the ears for pushing Apple in my classes in the early part of the century. For crying out loud I was once an Apple fan boy. Not any more, now I’m just a disgruntled and increasingly alienated consumer.
Awesome list of missed opportunities, MDN! This should be required reading, posted on all Apple employee bulletin boards. Wait, I’m old school so an Apple digital solution would work better. Certainly, we could add more to the Apple neglect list like Aperture, Final Cut Pro, iWeb, routers, et al.
It has been a while since I looked forward to Apple pushing the envelope on technology we could use. iPads are nice but they don’t replace a Mac, they augment your Mac. I still use iWork ’09 because the current offering has yet to bring back features that we had let alone adding new ones that would make it more useful. The same with iBooks Author. It is very good but it hasn’t seen any new features to speak of since it came out.
I understand that most sales are provided by the iPhone. Yet the Mac alone would be about number 120 or so on the Fortune 500 list. Many others would die to have that revenue. I don’t get why Apple is not interested in it.
If it is difficult to manage why don’t they just take the Mac (Pro, iMac, MacBooks, Mini) and macOS and the various software packages and spin that off into a different group like FileMaker. That way the Mac group would be free to develop new products and not be held back by iOS.
You know, you could make a list as long as that about Apple during the 80s. And the 90s. There’s a reason why they almost went broke.
Apple today is a totally different company. That may piss many loyalists but my 10 year daughter wouldn’t have a clue why they’re complaining. She just loves her iPad. And would love an Apple Watch. And judging by the huge numbers of kids running around the Apple stores so do they.
Whether we oldies like it or not, Apple’s future belongs to them.
Wrong!!! 👿
Apple belongs to ALL OF US!
To my 84-year old father getting his first tech device (iPhone) and my six-year old nephew getting his first tech device (iPad) — come Sunday.
I may be an old geezer buying Apple products consistently since the early 1980s. But I refuse to be marginalized and DISENFRANCHISED by Apple like the U.S. voters the last eight years.
This “deplorable” will not go quietly into the night … 😡
The problem is really Tim Cook.
He behaves as a classic big enterprise manager: ‘the “owner” of the company are the shareholders, not really the product users’. The aim of the company now is really to earn more and more money, being the products it makes as only the tool to do that.
The first idea in the “old-pre-Tim” Apple was to create products to make people happy being useful productive and creative, and the money comes naturally from this behaviour.
Now the first aim is mantaining money flow or incrementing it, and only products being “productive” that have attention.
So is comprehensible that thousands of employees “cannot” update or innovate or create new products, hardware and software (years ago a fraction of these employees where gorgeously productive and creative).
But the problem is that when a big corporation like Apple is more interested in finance than in it’s own soul, with the time the dusk is near….
Emilio
did you sign this?
https://www.change.org/p/apple-board-of-directors-remove-tim-cook-as-ceo-of-apple