So, summary of out-of-touchness:
- Letting the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro wither on the vine - either upgrade them or slash the price.
- iMac isn't so out of date (the 27" is already on Skylake) but an update with better graphics and TB3 in place of TB2 should have been ready to go at the same time as the new MacBook Pro (but if the iMac, a desktop, loses its USB-A and ethernet ports, Tim is holding Ive's neck wrong).
- General price hikes are not good, but what really throws it is not having a new ~$1000 entry-level machine to replace the Air. The base nMBP is just too expensive, and the 12" rMBP too compromised on power & connectivity.
- 4xTB3 only is defensible (its a huge amount of i/o capacity for a laptop - probably as much as a mobile CPU can support) but 2xTB3 on the entry isn't enough when those ports have to double for charge, external display and legacy USB. At the very least, they could have kept the magsafe so that TB3 charging was an option.
- Could they really have not squeezed at least one USB-A in there? The interface is ubiquitous and its not going away any time soon. The rMBP is way too thick - said Jony Ive and nobody else, ever.
- Ok, so, no, you're going to be purist and go all-TB3. There's some merit to that. At least anticipate that customers won't rejoice in buying half a dozen replacement cables & dongles at $25-$70 a pop, chuck in a couple of USB-A dongles and have the special offers on the table on day one.
- You're the richest company in the world: contrive to have the flipping Thunderbolt Display and a range of TB3 docks available alongside the new machines which pretty much depend on them to make sense. Heck, you're loosing potential sales if customers can't just tick the box to get one alongside their new Mac.
- Oh, Tim, you did so well getting through an entire keynote without mentioning watch bands, then you blew it: nothing says "Pro" like a picture of a touch bar showing emoticons. The touch bar is nice, but won't change the world - don't devote half the keynote to it, instead spend more time selling the advantages of TB3/USB-C.
- You're the richest company in the world #2: you had to adjust international prices to reflect exchange rate changes at some stage but did you have to do it at the same time as hiking the US prices, giving the rest of the world a double whammy? (Lets see what the dollar is trading at in a week's time when we find out whether the US is going to be run by the clown or the joker).
- Leaving the Mac aside: I give you the iPhone 7. It has the incremental performance increases that everybody pretty much expected, its available in Scratchy Black and the only other interesting thing about it is that it doesn't have a headphone jack. Oh, and don't rush because the iPhone 8 is going to be much better. Genius. The only thing that could save you from that is if, say, your major rival's latest handset starts exploding on aircraft. That would be a lucky escape.
- The Watch. An idea with one killer app - sports & fitness tracking - that is done far better by a purpose-designed FitBit or similar because you don't want a $600 "water resistant" halfbrick strapped to your wrist when you're doing sport.
- The Car: imagine an "Apple Car"... what would it look like? Er, pretty much exactly like a Tesla, but probably without the free charging networks and the stuff about giving the patents away. Or a minimalist shell around BMW i3 innards. Still not a bad idea - if they'd started showing off a prototype about 18 months ago. Maybe they've just got stuck up on the self-driving tar baby (...an idea who's time will surely come, but which will have to achieve a ridiculous level of safety, wait for new laws and probably road modifications before becoming mainstream - Tesla have shown what happens if you try to run before you can walk).
On the other hand, we consumers need to get in touch, too: we've enjoyed 35 years in which computer prices have consistently fallen against inflation while their specifications have grown exponentially. This was partly because the
market was growing exponentially and customers were replacing their kit every 18-24 months because they
needed those new specs - the cost of electronics is hugely affected by economies of scale.
That's over. The PC market is mature and hardware is improving incrementally - partly because we don't
need much extra power at the consumer/prosumer level. If you sell someone an upgradeable computer now, you won't see that customer again for 5-6 years. For every customer that desperately needs 32GB RAM and the latest GPU there are now probably 100 who can probably do everything they want on a phone or tablet. Traditional laptops and desktops still have a role - but maybe not the exclusive starring role they once have. Volumes will go down, so prices will go up and the annual spec hikes will be less dramatic.
Its worth noting that the Microsoft Surface Book range is no more affordable than Apple, and even the comparable Dell XPS models (with the UHD screens) are creeping towards Mac prices. Its the lack of cheaper (or chunky but powerful) options that make Apple look expensive, not like-for-like comparisons.
We also have to contend with the fact that Windows (and Linux) are solid, credible OSs capable, between them, of running more Pro software than the Mac. If you want a power-user machine it is pretty easy to build (or have someone build) the exact spec you need
provided you don't need to run MacOS. There may just not be a market for pro workhorses built to Apple's standards...
Microsoft (still) gets a rake-off from every PC sold, and huge licensing revenue from corporates to fund the development of Windows, and 3rd party hardware makers have no choice but to support it. PC makers building mainstream PCs survive on wafer-thin margins and support contracts. Apple's business model relies on them getting high margins on premium-priced laptops and SFF machines to fund MacOS development - they like making things thinner because they can charge a premium for it. The proverbial xMac (the affordable, expandable mini-tower Mac) would either make Apple no money or look ridiculously expensive c.f. comparable PCs, would not be guaranteed to win new customers but
would be guaranteed to hit sales of MacBooks and iMacs. The idea of licensing MacOS to PC builders has been tried and failed, twice: once by Sculley in the 1990s (with the now defunct classic MacOS), but also by Jobs with NeXTStep (which later evolved into Mac OS X)... or, at least, that has always been the logic. Now, maybe, with desktops fast becoming a niche market, its time to revisit that idea?
