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Apple release strategy is just plain flawed
- Thread starter Rychiar
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If you could use the performance of an M3 right now then you can buy an M3 Max computer right now. If that performance is a legitimate business positive and worth the extra money to you then that's what you would do. The reality is most businesses don't need their staff to have the very latest and shiniest things to do their work. Buying the current model is going to be absolutely fine. It doesn't matter if it won't be the current model in six months anymore. As consumers, the relative performance feels like it matters so much more as we want to get the best bang for our bucks. A lot of self-employed people and small business owners will feel the same way but the truth is that from a wider business perspective, it's honestly irrelevant.
As a tech enthusiast, I'm with you. I've been waiting for these M3 Max MacBook Pros to come out before buying. As a business owner with staff that I have to buy equipment for, waiting for a new model to come out is stupid. If a staff member needs a new computer, they need it now so whatever is available now is what is important. If a staff member genuinely needed the performance of an M3 Max and wanted a new desktop computer then I'd either get them an M2 Ultra Studio or an M3 Max MacBook Pro because if they're saying they genuinely need this extra performance then having them sit on whatever old machine they're using for another six months is honestly not worth it.
Which is exactly what they did. They released the professional machine that makes up, by far, the vast majority of their professional computer sales.
None of these are problems the largest corporation around can’t solve.
Perhaps you can go work for TSMC, and tell them what they are doing wrong.
My assumption is that the Mac Studio with M3 Max & Ultra will take another 2-6 months to be released for the following reasons:
(1) In the case of M3 Max, Apple want to maximize the sales of the MacBook Pros with M3 Max in the period until the end of the year holidays, so they will artificially delay the M3 Max Studio in order to extend the "wave" of M3 releases. This also spreads out the fabrication load across several months - adding an M3 Max Studio now might result in delays.
(2) In the case of M3 Ultra I expect there are still fabrication issues to work out, and possibly even still some design work going on.
Apple may release the M3 Max Studio within the next 2-3 months if M2 Max sales dry up, even if M3 Ultra is not ready, and have a launch event for both with M3 Ultra "available soon" and M3 Max "available immediately".
It certainly seems to cause some consumer anxiety but probably results in more unnecessary purchases than lost sales
In CPU heavy work M3 Max is around 50% faster than M2 Max. For certain GPU tasks (like rendering) it’s 2x faster.
Apple Studio Display + 16 M3 Max and you have the best of both worlds.
There is no difference between a desktop and laptop in terms of performance with Apple computers unless you need a M3 Ultra.
Makes no sense what so ever. Laptops is where the money is at.
I am more surprised the MacBook Air didn’t get the M3 first because that is their best selling Mac.
I don’t think releasing a new model MacBook Air so soon after releasing the 15” MBA would have gone down well.
According to MacRumors, only computers with the M3 Ultra are “professional” computers.
Your average laptop buyer doesn't know and doesn't care what chip is in the laptop. Professionals want the absolute best performance they can get. Pros out there are now going to wait until June for M3 Studios and MacPros. Thats seven months of low/zero sales.
Well... most pros will be buying M3 MacBook Pros because those are Apple's best selling pro machines by a nautical mile.
I’m still using the 7 Plus (3GB RAM) and it performs well, but the battery’s not the best. Its only bottleneck is neither the processor, nor the RAM, but the battery.
The 7 Plus is a wonderful machine.
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58% battery health?! Golly gee, dude, get your battery replaced! It would bring new life to your phone!
Apple ought to give you a free battery service. I've never seen anything below 60%.
He might not even benefit from that.
M1 chips were already on overkill territory for most workflows.
From a super user's point of view, that makes sense. From a "pro" user or regular folks point of view or business point of view, it makes no sense.
You should release the products as soon as they're ready in order to start making money. And you should release them to the segment that makes the most revenue first. The base, Pro, Max chips are simpler to produce and vastly outsell the Ultra chips. Therefore, they should be release the base, Pro, Max first.
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Oh great, now we're complaining that there isn't a new product release every day! How very un-comfortable that time passes by and that in between a product being brand-new or soon-to-be-replaced, there is this neutral gray area in which you could either wait or buy. What should I do?
NEW RULE: Never leave a decision to the customer, they can't handle the responsibility for themselves anymore.
The more I think of it, seems hard to believe that the current Mac Studio and Pro (released < 6 months ago) will get axed from MacOS updates before the current iMac and base-M3 MacBook Pros.
Why are you even buying these machines then? People who need the absolute best performance use cloud computing or super powerful in-house servers.
The iPad Air 2 had 2GB of RAM, the iPhone 6, in a brilliant move of planned obsolescence, had only 1GB.