“For many years, Apple was at the top of the creative pro hardware world,” Alexander Fox writes for Apple Gazette. “Digital artists, animators, 3D modelers, photographers, game designers and developers all seemed to prefer Apple devices, reinforcing the brand’s prominence as the fancy creative brand. Some of the best creative software ran on Macs only, and there was a broad ecosystem of hardware and software tools to help professionals that required significant computing power.”
“But as time wore on, Apple lost some of its gleam in the eyes of creative professionals. Hardware has aged badly,” Fox writes. “Updates have been slow in coming. The product line has become twisted and confusing. Can Apple return to their former glory and make great pro hardware again?”
“Some signs are troubling,” Fox writes. “When announcing that the Mac Pro would be delayed until 2019, Apple also announced that it had convened a professional workflow team to examine the requirements of professional users and build a machine uniquely suited to them… While asking for feedback from customers shouldn’t be interpreted as a bad sign, what happened to the confident Apple of yore? Where is the Apple that knew what users wanted before they wanted it?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course Apple can still make pro hardware. All Apple needs is willing leadership.
Aren’t Apple themselves professional Mac users doing everything from industrial design to film/video production to architecture and more? Does Apple really need a “Pro Workflow Team” or is it just more bullshit meant to paper over the indefensible mismanagement of the Mac Pro? — MacDailyNews, April 6, 2018
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Apple's job on the Mac under Cook is not great. At all. Apple's current CEO seems to have swallowed his company's marketing hook, line, and sinker that the iPad is the future of personal computing (which it actually is – eventually, not in its current state), so seems bound and determined to force the issue via the type of disinterest in the Mac that only a former Compaq parts-orderer could muster. In the hands of a more aggressive CEO, as opposed to just a caretaker CEO who’s proven repeatedly that he cannot take care of all of Apple’s product lines concurrently, the Macintosh would have much greater unit sales, market share, and profitability. — MacDailyNews, April 14, 2018
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