“Apple is the master of radical pivots. It killed the floppy drive, the CD drive, and the headphone jack in iPhones, while Macintosh systems went from the Motorola 68000 to the PowerPC chip to the Intel X86 line of chips,” John C. Dvorak writes for PC Magazine. “A very memorable pivot came when the company dropped the Apple II line of machines with an event called Apple II Forever. While it extolled the venerable machine with a fancy new model, it marked the end of the system.”
“What I’m sensing is that like the old Apple II (forever), the Mac will be phased out and the whole line will be replaced by iPads,” Dvorak writes. “My thinking is based on the latest Apple commercial for the iPad Pro… Here, a little girl is floating around town with her iPad Pro doing all sorts of fiddling around. She’s in a tree; she’s in a field. At the end, her mom [neighbor] asks her what she is doing with her computer. The girl responds by asking, ‘What’s a computer?'”
“I assume the point is to highlight Apple’s attitude towards computers,” Dvorak writes. “The little girl rejects the notion of a computer itself and thus separates an iOS device from everything you think of as a PC. The ad ends with a mention of iOS.”
“Earlier in the year, Apple ran a short ad where it said that an iPad Pro isn’t close to being a computer. It’s something better, more modern. The subtext of both ads is that computers are stupid or dead or passe. It’s a rejection of the concept of computers,” Dvorak writes. “What does this say about the Macintosh? I’m seeing the parallel with the Apple II and “Apple II Forever” extravaganza. It’s the end of the line… I know that Mac users do not want to see this reality, but the Mac is not a money maker… On top of that, the company is doing extensive custom chip engineering with its ARM licensing and the A9 chip.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s A9 SoC debut in 2015. We’re sure why Dvorak uses a two-generations-old chip as an example instead of Apple’s current state-of-the-art SoC, the A11 Bionic, but we assume it’s for the usual reason: The bloated gas bag is uniformly wrong.
Last we checked, $7.170 billion was larger than $4.831 billion. That’s Mac revenue vs. iPad revenue for Apple’s last reported quarter. Mac unit sales grew 10% YOY and revenue grew 25% YOY. In fiscal 2017, Apple’s Macintosh generated revenue of $25.85 billion. Any company on earth would do just about anything to have a money maker like Apple’s Macintosh.
Funny guy, every time we tries a piece on Apple topics.
In most cases simple the opposite is true from what he said. So its easy to deal with his nonsense.
Unusually for me, but I think Dvorak is right. He just didn’t explain his thesis in great enough detail.
As a consumer device I agree, the Mac is dead. However, there are tasks and computing power that the enterprise requires, and the iPad is unable to provide. This is the reason Apple is able to raise prices on its Macs. The power of today’s Macs far exceed the power of a Cray main frame of just a couple decades ago, and they cost millions.
Macs dead? Maybe in the future, but certainly not today.
Great product at a horrible price (and at a great margin).
For example, the least expensive 15 inch laptop from Apple is the Mac Book Pro 15, with a 2.2 Ghz i7. 16 GB RAM and a tiny 256 GB SSD. Yours for $1,879.
Comparison: Dell 15.6 Inspiron laptop. 2.7Ghz, 8 GB RAM, and a lowly 1 TB HDD (oh, and USB 2 and USB 3 ports). It is inferior, but you can get it for only $469.99.
Most people will be happy with a plastic computer running a faster processor, slower storage drive, and 8 GB RAM on Windows 10 to save $1409. That $1409 in savings would let them get three Windows laptops for the price of a single MBP.
Instead of just one for “mom or dad”, there is enough for one each for “mom and dad”, and yet another one for the kid in school.
Will I (and the rest of us here) buy Mac’s, yes. Can I understand why others will not, yes.
Speaking to students, if they brought back the white MacBook as a student edition, they would sell a ton of those to students and families. Once they are hooked on the platform and graduate, they’ll be a Mac customer, buying higher margin systems, for life. We need some low hanging (but not stupidly underpowered) systems.
Oops, I didn’t mention… The Dell laptop is also has an i7 CPU.
I use Macs for the interface, security, and reliability. If you value the price for those features less than the dollar cost for the hardware, then you get to deal with not having those features.
Comparing the cost of a Mac to the cost of a Windows PC is pretty much the same game today competitors play comparing the iPhone to an Android phone.
perhaps he is simply the master of reverse psychology.
he says stupid stuff and people simply click on his stupidity to check it out and deride him.
its pretty much water off his ducks back as long as he gets those clicks.
wonder if anyone has actually compiled a box score on how wrong he has been vs. the once upon great occasion that he has been right.
one would think mdn has a pretty impressive roll of i’cals on him. please share.
Good thing Dvorak’s an idiot. I’d hate to lose the mac.
The integration of all of my devices through icloud and handoff make the mac absolutely indispensable to me. Not to mention all the other reasons I love the Mac.
I’m sort of forced to own and use a windows 10 device, just for a couple of recurring tasks. I hate every minute I spend on that machine. Just saying
What tasks do you need windows 10 box for? I have used quicken for the better part of almost 30 years, 15 of which were on the windows platform. I am not a fan of the Mac Quicken (but it is getting better – just not there yet) – so I use Virtual Box on my Mac just for Quicken. No need to have a separate Win10 box – unless your mac can not handle VM (i.e. 4GB 256GB MacBook Air, like my wife’s mac)_- or you need major computing power that VM will not give you.
I don’t know how any stupider Dvorak can get but he appears to be trying by even harder to underline and emphasize that distinction with this Mac drivel. Someday the oceans will go dry too.
Uhm, no. The point of the ad was for people to think outside of the box, like this little girl. A Mac is still a Mac, but the notion of computing is no longer tied to a desk or even a lap. Now, you can do on the run, everything you used to have to sit at a desk for. This was quintessential Apple, just like the Think Different ad campaign.
I’m actually half-expecting Apple to spin-off Apple Computer as a subsidiary. It would let them do what they’re clearly passionate about as a company (portable consumer devices), and give “computer people” a vehicle for doing what they know could again be insanely great if corporate would just leave them alone to build computers and computer OSes.
No. Just this past month I have had to research three possible health issues for my wife. So I have a folder structure of these three issues, possible symptoms, three or four various remedies and what to expect. All very rare. Over 160 Pdfs, text, photos and outlines. Many referenced in two locations so I use aliases for files or even folders. There is no way I could do this on an iPad.
Dvorak is such an idiot. He’s been wrong about Apple so many times you’d think he’d learned his lesson by now not to try to second-guess the company.
I don’t happen to think the Mac is dead. I like using OSX and the power it can provide in tasks. I don’t know what the future will bring for ARM and iOS but I’m happy Intel chips are still going strong on desktops.
I don’t see Apple spinning off the Mac desktops into a different division but maybe that’s not such a terrible idea. I’m only for spinning off the Mac into another division if it can increase Apple’s overall value but I wouldn’t count on that happening.
I ditched Dvorak decades ago. Apparently Apple just updated Xcode so they could dump the Mac and prevent developers from writing both macOS and iOS . Apparently the fact that the market share of Mac’s keeps growing and its consistent profits are an incentive for Apple to kill the platform.
Dvorak is an idiot and so is any argument that an iPad is a replacement for a Mac for some of us. If it works for you, fine.
Apple has chosen to lock down many aspects of iOS that are user accessible in mac OS and I somehow doubt that it will change. The chance of you ever being able to install 3rd party apps outside of the Walled Garden without a jailbreak is pretty slim.
When I can rip a BluRay DVD and convert it to a no-DRM h265 file give me a call.
He’s just mad because he spends all day sitting on his porch yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
You know . . . all those pesky kids with their iPads.
When an iPad can support a 27” monitor, a Wacom tablet, 4 – 5tb external drives, download XQD, CF and SD memory cards, support all the post production capabilities of PhotoshopCC and Lightroom, organize hundreds of images into individual folders, download to thumb drives, burn DVDs, facilitate the printing of labels on those DVDs and for thumb drives, upload terabytes of images to the cloud, not to mention the business software then I’ll consider getting rid of my iMac.
Till then I’ll just have to continue to prove Mr Dvorak wrong.
But… between Apple’s complete loss of meaning for the word “Pro” (no iPad has ever been Pro, MacBook Pro is just a MacBook Air Plus, Mac Pro is 4 year old waste bin) and their complete lack of QA testing for High Sierra, it’s pretty clear that Tim Cook doesn’t care about Mac people .
Funny guy, every time we tries a piece on Apple topics.
In most cases simple the opposite is true from what he said. So its easy to deal with his nonsense.
Unusually for me, but I think Dvorak is right. He just didn’t explain his thesis in great enough detail.
As a consumer device I agree, the Mac is dead. However, there are tasks and computing power that the enterprise requires, and the iPad is unable to provide. This is the reason Apple is able to raise prices on its Macs. The power of today’s Macs far exceed the power of a Cray main frame of just a couple decades ago, and they cost millions.
Macs dead? Maybe in the future, but certainly not today.
Why is the Mac “dead”?
Great product at a horrible price (and at a great margin).
For example, the least expensive 15 inch laptop from Apple is the Mac Book Pro 15, with a 2.2 Ghz i7. 16 GB RAM and a tiny 256 GB SSD. Yours for $1,879.
Comparison: Dell 15.6 Inspiron laptop. 2.7Ghz, 8 GB RAM, and a lowly 1 TB HDD (oh, and USB 2 and USB 3 ports). It is inferior, but you can get it for only $469.99.
Most people will be happy with a plastic computer running a faster processor, slower storage drive, and 8 GB RAM on Windows 10 to save $1409. That $1409 in savings would let them get three Windows laptops for the price of a single MBP.
Instead of just one for “mom or dad”, there is enough for one each for “mom and dad”, and yet another one for the kid in school.
Will I (and the rest of us here) buy Mac’s, yes. Can I understand why others will not, yes.
Speaking to students, if they brought back the white MacBook as a student edition, they would sell a ton of those to students and families. Once they are hooked on the platform and graduate, they’ll be a Mac customer, buying higher margin systems, for life. We need some low hanging (but not stupidly underpowered) systems.
Oops, I didn’t mention… The Dell laptop is also has an i7 CPU.
I use Macs for the interface, security, and reliability. If you value the price for those features less than the dollar cost for the hardware, then you get to deal with not having those features.
Comparing the cost of a Mac to the cost of a Windows PC is pretty much the same game today competitors play comparing the iPhone to an Android phone.
perhaps he is simply the master of reverse psychology.
he says stupid stuff and people simply click on his stupidity to check it out and deride him.
its pretty much water off his ducks back as long as he gets those clicks.
wonder if anyone has actually compiled a box score on how wrong he has been vs. the once upon great occasion that he has been right.
one would think mdn has a pretty impressive roll of i’cals on him. please share.
You may not like him, but is he wrong? Mac is dead, Long live the iPad.
His track record is so bad, when has he ever been right?
I recall Dvorak telling us that cable modems were going nowhere and would be rendered useless by ISDN.
Can I get a show of hands? Who out there uses ISDN for Internet access?
Nobody? OK then.
A stopped clock is right twice a day. Dvorak’s problem is he never stops.
I use a Mac Pro on a daily basis for Graphic Design and general printing use.
I could never see the time an iPad could replace this for me anyway.
Good thing Dvorak’s an idiot. I’d hate to lose the mac.
The integration of all of my devices through icloud and handoff make the mac absolutely indispensable to me. Not to mention all the other reasons I love the Mac.
I’m sort of forced to own and use a windows 10 device, just for a couple of recurring tasks. I hate every minute I spend on that machine. Just saying
I am amazed Dvorak is still around, since no one I know mentions his lame loser opinions anymore.
What tasks do you need windows 10 box for? I have used quicken for the better part of almost 30 years, 15 of which were on the windows platform. I am not a fan of the Mac Quicken (but it is getting better – just not there yet) – so I use Virtual Box on my Mac just for Quicken. No need to have a separate Win10 box – unless your mac can not handle VM (i.e. 4GB 256GB MacBook Air, like my wife’s mac)_- or you need major computing power that VM will not give you.
You guessed it quicken and quickbooks
I considered a VM but decided I didn’t want windows anywhere near my mac and the rest of my life.
Thats my crazy position and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
He is a loser idiot. But it does make one wonder about the current state of the Mac.
I don’t know how any stupider Dvorak can get but he appears to be trying by even harder to underline and emphasize that distinction with this Mac drivel. Someday the oceans will go dry too.
Uhm, no. The point of the ad was for people to think outside of the box, like this little girl. A Mac is still a Mac, but the notion of computing is no longer tied to a desk or even a lap. Now, you can do on the run, everything you used to have to sit at a desk for. This was quintessential Apple, just like the Think Different ad campaign.
I’m actually half-expecting Apple to spin-off Apple Computer as a subsidiary. It would let them do what they’re clearly passionate about as a company (portable consumer devices), and give “computer people” a vehicle for doing what they know could again be insanely great if corporate would just leave them alone to build computers and computer OSes.
it’s best to be bloated…as I write with choice on my MBA. I think I’ll just call him a Dillweed.
No. Just this past month I have had to research three possible health issues for my wife. So I have a folder structure of these three issues, possible symptoms, three or four various remedies and what to expect. All very rare. Over 160 Pdfs, text, photos and outlines. Many referenced in two locations so I use aliases for files or even folders. There is no way I could do this on an iPad.
Dvorak is such an idiot. He’s been wrong about Apple so many times you’d think he’d learned his lesson by now not to try to second-guess the company.
I don’t happen to think the Mac is dead. I like using OSX and the power it can provide in tasks. I don’t know what the future will bring for ARM and iOS but I’m happy Intel chips are still going strong on desktops.
I don’t see Apple spinning off the Mac desktops into a different division but maybe that’s not such a terrible idea. I’m only for spinning off the Mac into another division if it can increase Apple’s overall value but I wouldn’t count on that happening.
“I’m only for spinning off the Mac into another division if it can increase Apple’s overall value but I wouldn’t count on that happening.”
And therein might lie the tragedy, but for a different reason.
They may not spin it off because they don’t care enough about it or understand it well enough to do it.
“What is this Mac thing in our company that people are talking about?”
Yes that is a fake quote, but I am not sure that it doesnt fit the situation.
“I’m only for spinning off the Mac into another division if it can increase Apple’s overall value but I wouldn’t count on that happening.”
And therein might lie the tragedy, but for a different reason.
They may not spin it off because they don’t care enough about it or understand it well enough to do it.
“What is this Mac thing in our company that people are talking about?”
Yes that is a fake quote, but I am not sure that it doesnt fit the situation.
Killing the Mac is corporate seppuku. Then again, who ever said Tim Cook was committed to Apple’s success?
Well, we can certainly guarantee it wasn’t you… since you are incessantly negative.
Just pointing out the facts. Too bad you don’t like ’em.
Yes King Wrong’s alt-facts.
I ditched Dvorak de
[Stupid MDN app!]
I ditched Dvorak decades ago. Apparently Apple just updated Xcode so they could dump the Mac and prevent developers from writing both macOS and iOS . Apparently the fact that the market share of Mac’s keeps growing and its consistent profits are an incentive for Apple to kill the platform.
IOW: STFU Dvorak, you dolt‼️
iPad FAIL!!!!!!!
NO NETWORK PRINTING/No local printing!!! R U F’en kidding me!!! STILL.
I will be pissed and dump Apple altogether if they dump MacOS/desktops/laptops.
Dvorak is an idiot and so is any argument that an iPad is a replacement for a Mac for some of us. If it works for you, fine.
Apple has chosen to lock down many aspects of iOS that are user accessible in mac OS and I somehow doubt that it will change. The chance of you ever being able to install 3rd party apps outside of the Walled Garden without a jailbreak is pretty slim.
When I can rip a BluRay DVD and convert it to a no-DRM h265 file give me a call.
He’s just mad because he spends all day sitting on his porch yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
You know . . . all those pesky kids with their iPads.
When an iPad can support a 27” monitor, a Wacom tablet, 4 – 5tb external drives, download XQD, CF and SD memory cards, support all the post production capabilities of PhotoshopCC and Lightroom, organize hundreds of images into individual folders, download to thumb drives, burn DVDs, facilitate the printing of labels on those DVDs and for thumb drives, upload terabytes of images to the cloud, not to mention the business software then I’ll consider getting rid of my iMac.
Till then I’ll just have to continue to prove Mr Dvorak wrong.
Dvorak is a troll who intentionally pushes clickbait BS. He and Enderle are never worth reading. https://www.google.com/search?q=dvorak+enderle+worst|dumbest|wrong|wrongest
But… between Apple’s complete loss of meaning for the word “Pro” (no iPad has ever been Pro, MacBook Pro is just a MacBook Air Plus, Mac Pro is 4 year old waste bin) and their complete lack of QA testing for High Sierra, it’s pretty clear that Tim Cook doesn’t care about Mac people .
Thats a girl in that advert?