“I was secretly looking forward to Apple’s announcements at MacWorld; I have to admit, I was deeply disappointed,” Rob Enderle writes for Designtechnica. “The iMac and Titanium notebook designs were, in my eyes, dated. Granted, in many ways they are still very clean designs and stand out against their competitors, but the current iMac isn’t as innovative as the last one (and others did similar things last decade) and the Titanium hasn’t changed that much since it was released a long time ago. While I was very sure, given the timing of Intel’s new part, that Apple was going to release their first Intel-based products, knowing Apple, I also believed they would use this opportunity to refresh these designs. Unfortunately, they didn’t; I can’t help but feel disappointed.”
“For buyers, this would suggest waiting until after mid-year to purchase the new platform (which, if you recall, was the date that Steve Jobs originally set). This should result in not only a better experience but hardware from Apple that may go farther in setting the pace in hardware design than ever before,” Enderle writes. “One thought: These things could become collectors’ items, as the initial runs could be relatively small for an Apple product. However, MacWorld was no match for CES this round; next round, I’m not so sure… Apple will have to do a lot to match the wow factor of [some of the products announced at CES]. However, Apple does have Steve Jobs, who often can make even mediocre things seem spectacular.”
Full article here.
Apple debuted the current iMac design (up to 1/2-inch thinner and 15 percent lighter with built-in iSight camera) only three months ago, in October 2005. Apple debuted the aluminum PowerBook enclosure on January 7, 2003 with the 17-inch model. Apple replaced the 15-inch Titanium PowerBook with the aluminum PowerBook on September 16, 2003. Apple portable Pro Macs have featured aluminum enclosures since that time. As usual, Enderle obviously missed those not-so-minor facts. That one man can get so much wrong so often and continue to write articles and be quoted by others is amazing and sad.
[UPDATE: 11:45am EST: Added 17-inch PowerBook aluminum release date information to MDN Take.]
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Big surprise: Enderle was wrong about Apple’s holiday quarter Mac sales – January 19, 2006
Enderle: ‘Some people got really excited by the new iPod, but a growing number of people did not’ – October 19, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle: ‘Microsoft wrote the first Mac OS’ – September 28, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle incorrectly compares Apple’s Mac OS to iPod licensing – September 01, 2005
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Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘fourth quarter should be ugly for Apple’ – August 09, 2005
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Tech pundit Enderle: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger’s main features ‘borrow heavily from Longhorn’ – May 02, 2005
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Enderle desperately wants Mac sales to tank so his prediction of an Osborne effect comes about.
Sad.
How can Enderle miss that?
It blows my mind
He misses the point.
Apple wanted to keep the designs similar to emphasize the point that there’s no substantial difference in the look and feel, even with a Intel chip.
And… keep in mind these announcements were way ahead of schedule.
I “believe” (MDN Magic Word) pundits just need something to bitch about.
“”For buyers, this would suggest waiting until after mid-year to purchase the new platform (which, if you recall, was the date that Steve Jobs originally set).”
Actually, the date by Enderle is only the latest point possible that Apple would be shipping these units while still being considered “on time”.
*****
To MDN: “Apple portable Pro Macs have featured aluminum enclosures since that time”
While your statement regarging the TiBook is correct, this one is not. Apple’s portable Pro Macs have featured an Aluminum enclosure since January 2003, the debut of the 12 and 17″ PowerBooks.
WHO CARES!!
The “dated” designs are still the best looking and most innovative out there. Speaking of the iMac, who else has anything closely resembling it?
mw: recent
He REALLY is in the pay of Microsoft…
And if I ever meet him in person, I’ll discuss it with him for one minute – then lay him out flat…
TI books?????? What an IDIOT.
At least for the iMac, I honestly can’t really see a way in which the form factor could be significantly improved. I suppose they could make a new, flashy case for it, but that’s about it. Well, I wouldn’t mind if they got rid of that big white space down the bottom, I suppose.
Perhaps Apple will prove me wrong, but at least for now, unless they can reduce the size some more… what more can you do and still keep the all-in-one design? I mean, putting the computer behind the monitor is about as compact as you’re going to get, all you can do is try and keep making it smaller (which seems unlikely without sacrificing some of the desktop components for laptop ones).
As for the laptops… again, while they could do another case design that looks different, I don’t see the form factor changing much.
Whew! I feel much better now. If he was ecstatic about the announcements I’d be worried, but since he was disappointed, that means they did everything right!
Actually, I’ll admit that I hoped the MacBook Pro would look very different, but I think gorkypark is right, it’s probably about showing that, fundamentally, nothing has changed.
Once again, Comical Rob E. shows that he has his finger firmly on the pulse of the Apple world (rolls eyes).
I agree –
The first two iMacs were truly innovative; nothing had ever looked like them before. The current edition looks just like a flat panel monitor, or one of those failed Sony Media Centres.
And nowadays you see hundreds of cheap, nasty windows laptops with metal-effect cases. Granted, they look disgusting and feel similarly, but they make the PowerB… urr, I mean MacBook Pro look like just another Dell POS.
<“The iMac and Titanium notebook designs were, in my eyes, dated. >
Amazing statement considering he’s probably writing his feeble thoughts on the new “futureistic” Dell. Dell and any number of PCs (Sony excluded) are so missing any kind of style and design – the garbage can under my deck would give their designers a run for their money.
Enderle! STFU!
What got announced at CES? I didn’t see any media coverage of it, but the Intel-based Mac news is everywhere.
“others did similar things last decade” – oh puhleese! There is no comparison between all-in-one design of iMac G5 (or G4, or even G3) and similar (failed) efforts of wintel box assemblers. Enderle -it is obvious – has never set up DELL all-in-one. This mess has a cable organizer cover – you should see its pathetic efforts to hide the viper’s nest of cables this box is equipped with.
Sad indeed.
In the American market place I will never understand how/why some would want the only real OS competition to MSW to “tank”. Even if you don’t care for the Mac OS, wouldn’t any real American capitalist realize that, what we have now [with Windows] is so blatantly unAmerican?
Without good ole capitalist competition mediocrity reigns – So does lying cheatting and stealing.
Enderle speaks from on high that Apple continues to disappoint in his eyes . . . and the stock jumps back $2.50.
KEEP GOING, ROB!
if mr. Enderle from the Enderle Group is having sex with his wife (shudder)… will that qualify as “group sex” then?
Rob is a marketing consultant.
It’s his job to make Apple look bad.
He sure prevented the iPod from owning the market, didn’t he?
That one man can get so much wrong so often and continue to write articles and be quoted by others is amazing and sad.
Enderle doesn’t care about accuracy. In fact, he thrives on it. The controversy his inaccuracy creates, generates hits to his site. Hits mean advertising dollars.
Apple may have design revs in the works. That is really besides the point. I think the point with these current releases for many people is that this form factor with the Intel chips inside is still the same Macs we love. Nothing really important has changed. Once the customers understand this point, Apple will then again rev the design. I think over the next 12 months we’ll see some amazing new product from Apple, but htese first machines are to prove a different point.
Brain Transplants were not announced either.
Enderle will be stuck with the chimpanzee model for a few more years…
The iMac G5 ^h^h is just about perfect. You can only make the case so small. I don’t see the point in changing it, although I have to say I’m disappointed that it is no longer user-maintainable, except for the memory.
The MacBook Pro was a little ahead of its time and has pared-back features, like th optical drive. I’m sure users wouldn’t mind adding a 1/10 inch to have a faster optical drive. This is just weird.
Elderly is so wrapped up in the anticipation of the RDF though, that he is premptively disappointed. Strange man. I think he only would have been happy to see Steve Jobs demo those new Mac running Windows. That’s what he was “secretly” looking forward to.
And I am “deeply disappointed” with Enderle’s dated and uninformed opinions.
— That one man can get so much wrong so often and continue to write articles and be quoted by others is amazing and sad.
Welcome to the amazing world of journalism. I think the general rule is ‘write first, and check the facts later — if at all’. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard some tiny rumour or misunderstanding blown up and exagerrated beyond all proportion in the national press. They may issue a retraction later, but the damage is already done.
Journalists regularly ruin innocent people’s and business’ reputations, and get nothing more than a slap on the wrist before walking straight back into work the next day. Enderle getting some facts wrong about the Mac is peanuts by comparison.
I sincerely wonder whether Enderle (his wife must be the yst, as Rob sure as hell is mostly anal) believes what he writes, or if he is deliberately misleading to generate hits to his website and controversy for him to comment? These kinds of people intrigue me no end.
MDN magic word “test”, as in Rob has been tested and found severly wanting.
This guy is BM reincarnated in human form. Excuse me, I’ll be right back… I’m gonna puke!