“I do think Macs are getting a fair amount of attention from Apple. Adding Force Touch to several models and the Magic Trackpad 2, and revising the wireless keyboard, reborn as Magic Keyboard, represent deliberate investments,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “The same is true for the amazing 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display, which is, when you consider the cost of competing third-party monitors, a real bargain. It required devising new manufacturing techniques, and the enhanced color palette of the 2015 version represents a huge improvement over what other PC makers are offering.”
“Some might suggest the MacBook Air is ready for a Retina display, and I agree. I suspect Apple is probably working on a way to do so without a price increase,” Steinberg writes. “Remember that the 5K iMac now costs no more than the previous versions with regular displays, and I suspect all 21.5-inch iMacs will have a 4K display in a year or two, not just the higher-priced spread, though admittedly more powerful graphics hardware isn’t cheap.”
“As Mac sales continue to grow, outpacing the PC industry for several years, I am certain Apple has no intention to wind down the platform,” Steinberg writes. “But it would be nice to see some enhancements to OS X that range from restoring a few more lost capabilities from the Classic Mac OS to fixing odd interface choices and adding features that are sorely needed.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The state of the Mac and OS X have never been stronger.
Mac unit sales Q106-Q415 (sales in thousand units)
I heard OS X will be for sale come 2018.
You might try removing your head from that dark place you apparently keep it. 🙂
No – I believe Apple will divide the company into two camps.
OS X and Mac products will continue growing strong for those who want them.
Apple is not into dividing. The last time that I recall that happening was Claris.
MY three year OLDER MacBook, while it does run slower than modern machines, still performs admirably. It runs all the websites. Mac apps work fine on it. It is not troublesome at all.
Apple dismisses Macs at its own peril.
Apple is not doing that. There are even those rumors about the Mac Pro getting something special around the beginning of the year…
The title is click bait if ever I saw it.
Yeah. I like Gene, but this is clearly a case of “If the headline is phrased as a question, the answer is ‘No’.” He actually does dismiss his own headline in the last couple paragraphs of the article. I hate those – they indicate a poor way to claim objectivity. If you want to show that you are objective, don’t question your conclusion in the headline. State your conclusion, then back it up with good arguments. That’s good writing.
Restore Mac Clasic features…
I miss OS7. /s
If there’s something you want from the past, maybe you shouldn’t have put that ol’ thang out to pasture. An OS is a living platform, it’s okay to request or lament the past, but don’t get stuck on it. For the most part, Mac OS continues to get stronger, faster, and easier to use, while becoming more secure and capable. Change is good for you – not your ego, but your spirit.
For who enjoy living in the past, SheepShaver still works! There are about a dozen emulators of other old gear around as well.
Yes. Apple is losing interest in the Mac Pro platform. They dropped external TV-out previously supported in all versions of os X at some point in Leopard and have made no moves to bring it back. As someone who works in video on a Mac platform, this is a critical professional issue. I’ve had a bug report open for a year. It hasn’t even been “ranked.”
So, yeah, obviously Apple is shifting their priorities to the mobile market and leaving folks who have relied on the Mac Pro video platform for a couple of decades out in the cold.
I’ve used Macs since 1984, and have owned them since 1987. For me, this is the darkest period in Apple history.
WTF is the $20 dongle with tv out? composite, HDMI, and i have seen RGB all available, maybe you are not famous, but you sure are a whiner without a clue
In a word, yes.
Apple doesn’t make much money off of Mac sales.
As a pro and server user for more years then I can count, I wish Apple paid more attention to us pro and enterprise users.
But it’s the deposable consumer market that generates most of their money.
IOW: Apple wants to become just another idiotic, money generation game company, like all worthless wannabes of the biznizz world.
When that happens, I turn my back on them.
Thankfully, that is NOT what’s going on. Oh, except for this stupidest Tim Cook line EVER:
‘I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?’
Apparently, I’m seriously pissed at him today.
You love your Windows box that much?
*flummoxed* I don’t think so! I dumped Windows boxes a couple decades ago, kiddo.
I think thethirdshoe was saying that Tim Cook meant _Windows_ PC, not including Macs in his dismissive comment.
Did you understand TC to mean that he questioned anyone wanting to buy a Mac? I seriously doubt he meant to say that.
If Tim Cook meant the Windows PC, all is forgiven.
As I often point out, it was Apple, not anyone else, that advertised the very first ‘personal computer’, aka PC.
Well said.
And the pushback on MDN’s ‘never been stronger’ is to simply ask … just how much *better* would Mac OS X sales have been if Apple hasn’t been utterly negligent in cultivating the platform and its customer base?
Anyone that can look objectively at Mac OS X can see that it needs fixing, and not just the brushing off it got in El Capitan. Imagine having to open and close and open again a mail message for it to actually show up? Yes, that’s what we VoiceOver users have to deal with, among other things like reader not even showing up for us most of the time on the first try, the mac installer not showing the percentages and such, and Mail, Safari and other apps frequently going “busy” all the time. Think about that, Mac lovers. Think of how far we’ve fallen as regards to the OS.
Sent from my iPhone
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Dumb story that doesn’t look at the facts. OS X 10.11 El Capitan just got released. Most of the Mac line has had hardware updates. And Mac sales are increasing versus PC sales which are still in a decline. No Apple has not lost interest in Macs by a long shot. You don’t need external TV out because all Macs can do Airplay. External TV out is an ancient technology we don’t need anymore because we can do it wirelessly with no effort. Get out of the 80’s not famous.
Nonsense at all. They have nothing to talk about!
Tim and cie is greatly aware that the mac division is gaining market share… Need we say more.
Damn nonsense Apple news. Clickbait moron who want a piece of visibility because they use the word Apple. GTFO!
My local community centre, where I’m the IT monkey, has just purchased three more iMacs bringing our complement up to ten. Two are destined for the office where they will be replacing PCs. I have already implemented comprehensive migration, backup / disaster recovery, and training plans for the office staff in anticipation of their arrival.
Our punters have taken to the Mac like ducks to water—they love them, and by the end of next year, I hope to swap out the last four remaining PCs from our IT suite and go wholly Mac.
The icing on the cake would be to deploy a late-2012 Mac mini on our bridged network running OS X Server. Then I could sit at home and phone my part in 😀
=:~)
OS X and Macs will always have a place, Steve Jobs gave the vision. Macs will be the trucks of computing, iOS, tvOS, and WatchOS devices will be the sports cars, family cars, and motorcycles. They will exist hand in hand for many years to come. OS X, iOS, tvOS, and WatchOS will continue to share a common code base. (Which is a good thing.)
That would suck. I love Macs. To me they are affordable Unix workstations. There was a time people paid Sun and SGI 6 figures for machines with less speed.
Betteridge’s Law says the answer’s “No”.
It’s time for more than a little innovation on the Mac. Others are catching up.
Lost interest in the pro users…for sure. Look at the dumb downed apps. There focus is mass market sales period. First time I’ve ever started to wonder about the company. Not the Steve Jobs Apple anymore.
I am a content creator, HTML5 motion graphics for the most part. In the process of creating them, the only Apple app that I use is Mail (although I am looking at alternatives) and TextEdit as a parking place for text.
If it were not for 3rd party apps, which are better than they have ever been, I think Mac OSX sales would be a lot less than they are.
3rd party apps better than ever except for the load which is placed on developers when someone at Apple decides to change something for the sake of change, “need to enhance my career with an “innovation” don’t ya know” And I know they are getting unhappy about it, more costs and development time just to conform to some new thing from Apple which may or may not be beneficial.
“The state of the Mac and OS X have never been stronger.” —MDN
Don’t be an idiot, MDN. The truth is that the state of OS X has never been more confused. In the past, expert Mac users would almost always upgrade to every new version of OS X. Nowadays, it is becoming much more common for those who earn their living using OS X to stick with older versions that work reliably well instead of gambling on Apple’s latest whiz-bang folly.
“Nowadays, it is becoming much more common for those who earn their living using OS X to stick with older versions that work reliably well instead of gambling on Apple’s latest whiz-bang folly.”
Can you back this up with numbers or is this another example of “everyone knows”.
I hope Apple is losing interest in adding shiny things to OS X. Just make OS X do everything it’s supposed to do now, but more reliably and efficiently where possible.
I’m already one of the “truck drivers” in Steve Jobs’s truck metaphor. Adapting to a new type of truck every year, with a variety of new features and new problems, is a nearly complete waste of time for me. I just my truck so I can get my work done.
Thing is, I’ve got a 2010 MacBook Pro and it’s running El Capitan and is fast enough for what I need.
I’ve got some money saved up and was thinking about getting a refurbished 5k iMac. Problem is, the iPad Pro is just around the corner…
As is always said, better to cannibalise your product with another of your own.
If you were to compare computers to cars, Apple would be more like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and so on, whereas a PC would be more like Chevy, Ford, Mopar, et cetera.
Apple, you pay for a higher quality computer. They don’t break down as often, but when they do, they are more expensive to repair.
PCs break down more often than Macs, but they are often cheaper to fix.
It is much easier to customize a PC. Since Apple has pretty much locked-out components, you can’t do much except custom order a higher end machine.
Macs, on average, last 5-6 years before obsolescence is a concern, versus your average PC which is 2-3 years.
This is just a general synopsis, and nothing iron clad. Apple should be more competitive with the PC market rather than trying to be a separate market.
An average computer customer spends $1500. PC customers will buy a $600 PC, a $100 monitor, software packages, antivirus, antimalware, and so on, until they are overburdened with accessories.
Apple customers tend to buy the computer and nothing else.
Your average PC can be easily updated.
Macs no longer offer that benefit.
I’m expecting a new 27″ 5K iMac, fully tricked out, to arrive at my door in 3 days. Been using Macs since the first one in 1984. I don’t have any sense of Apple dropping the ball with the Mac, if anything they give it more love now than at any point in their history. What has changed a lot in recent years is people’s expectations for more and more rapid advancement.
In general we Mac users are being pushed in the middle of a giant shift in the computer industry. Blame tablets and smartphones, but who is mostly driving this change? Apple. And I am not saying this is bad, it is a reality and is good for consumers but for power users, entry level professionals and even for small studios or companies this is a challenge.
Top CPUs with 8-core or more cores and top GPUs today run hot and are very or extremely expensive for iMacs and Mac Book Pros and this leaves less options to create powerful and unique desktop machines. It looks like Apple is doing all it can on peripherals to create a different experience more than a top performer on raw numbers.
Maybe when 8-cores will run cool enough and also high end graphic cards will be able to run cool enough and not being extremely expensive we will have those inside an iMac or inside Mac Books. Will Apple see the need for a 4K prosumer iMac? I do, and I know others will agree. But I don’t know the market so well as Apple do.
And if I think Apple is doing the best choices or the best combinations to attract power users, I am not so convinced. For prosumers I don’t get why Apple choose AMD as for the last year at least Nvidia had the edge. Apple is soldering all it can inside Macs and also Apple retired the option for the quad cores CPUs on Mac Minis. OSX is driven to iOS and this is a clear consumer OS. All these looks away from my point of view.
But hey, Apple listened and released El Capitan to focus on performance. Who knows, please Apple surprise your loyal power users!!
Cool, affordable 8-core (4 real and 4 hyperthreaded) CPUs are here today with Intel’s Skylake processors but Apple missed the boat on these. You’ll have to go to Dell or HP to get these.
I have an iMac with a top 4-core i7 and an Nvidia 680MX 2GB, a great machine with 4-cores and 4 threads. 8 real cores + 8 threads is called an 8-core by Intel.
Intel recently announced it will produce the first 8-core CPU for desktop or consumer market. This CPU is not a Xeon 8-core that has been available for years.
But I doubt Apple will release such a dream machine anytime soon.
I can’t WAIT to see a new iOS software developed with Dell utilizing the Windows 13 ‘Gates of Help’ OS….
Yep there is always room for improvement.
But much more room for that on the Windblown OS
Putting in an order for a new MB Air 13inch i7. I cannot wait for the next upgrade.