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Is Apple neglecting Macs?
- Thread starter skaertus
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Oh, c'mon. There is just no use in defending Apple cost what may.
I hope Apple is really working on new iMacs. I am sure there is a better design to replace the current one. There is no such thing as reaching the perfect design.
Most PCs are crap, but not all of them. There are premium machines out there. Inferior keyboards? You probably haven't tried the new ThinkPads. The keyboards are designed to be the best in the world. Actually, Lenovo appears to have done a great job with the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The keyboard on the ThinkPads absolutely kills the keyboard of the new 15" rMBP. The Samsung Series 9 and the Asus Zenbook Prime are also great laptop on their own.
Please don't be a fanboy. Fanboys spoil Apple. Apple would be able to deliver any sort of crap to the consumers and fanboys will still buy it, saying that they are much better than anything else. If we want Apple products to keep their quality, we must complain.
Are you serious?
There is more to this world than browsing facebook or reading books.
I am just quoting what Steve said during the new iPad keynote. Unfortunately you or the "people" who you speak about do not get to decide what Apples intentions are. Apple has said that they are focusing on a post PC era. Which means less updates to their Mac lineup as the years come. Who knows, once all their macs have retina displays, there will be no more re-designs.
For a start, anything that requires a decent amount of typing and a screen bigger than 10 inches (unless they start bringing out 15" tablets, which is pretty unlikely)...
Lets see, I personally do simulation creation for a living, I create and run simulations of pretty much anything a cilent wants, these get pretty complicated, and run on 20K+ Workstations or Server farms.
Tablet can't do that.
I'm not talking about internal components - agreed the iMac is due for a refresh. Though it looks like they're combining the internal updates with a form factor change, rather than doing 2 model updates in quick succession for an upgrade which is a bit "meh" in terms of non-GPU performance (which isn't used) anyway.
How that is "neglecting the mac" i'm not sure...
Apple don't revise designs at the same rate as others. This is how they maintain their margins and limit the number of models OS X has to support well out of the box. Don't like it? Don't buy...
They've been that way since they've been making macs - the 68000 in the original mac was obsolete almost as soon as it was released, for example, and 128k was a joke.
The original form factor for the classic mac also stayed the same for about a decade from memory?
Fanboy? I use what works (and previously, i used PCs between 1989 and 2006). I just don't see what is wrong with the current design that it so badly needs to be updated (again, agreed the imac internals are due for refresh, which is coming), and apple has ALWAYS run designs for a long period of time. My point is that they aren't neglecting the mac any more than they have since it was introduced.
Small number of revisions over a long period of time is how apple operates, and how they have always operated. Their mobile devices are no different, and hardware spec wise lag the competition by a significant amount. They get away with it becaus they're a software/aesthetics company, and their software works, and the devices are nice to use due to the aesthetics.
If you want bleeding edge hardware, then apple is not for you, and never really has been, save for USB1 and thunderbolt.
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Have you ever tried writing a book on an iPad, or designing one, or doing complex photo or video work on one? Or managing a large photo or music library in 64gb? It can't be done...
Right now it can't be done. That's why I quoted what Steve said in his keynote "Post PC Era".
You know what's weird? I used to bag on the iPad for being useless at anything besides watching movies or reading webpages on the go. I didn't think it was a productivity device at all. Wasn't well suited for the task.
Then I got my iPad and one of those slightly overpriced Apple bluetooth keyboards. I grabbed pages off the App Store, fired it up, and...
...holy crap. I kinda liked it. I think typing up and editing documents in portrait mode is pretty nice, myself. It's not exactly superior to the old standard, but it's not any worse, either.
I would argue it is worse.
Because your limited to 1 10 inch screen.
On my workstation, I sometimes have 2 simulation suites open, on 2 monitors, and I put my spreadsheet on the 3rd, and I typically pound out emails on my Laptop next to it, there is no way an iPad could ever come close to the amount of productivity a desktop or laptop could come to in a serious environment imo
Depends on what kind of work you're doing. I think 10" portrait orientation is better for single documents, like reports, tutorials, or...I dunno...book writing. You lay it out, type away, and go to town. It even works fairly well with coding from what I hear.
For anything more indepth, you're right. The iPad is great for single tasks that don't require you to do tons of jumping back and forth between applications. It's good for light productivity, in other words. For what you're talking about, a bigger laptop or desktop would be preferable.
I agree with most of that, for basic consumer stuff, its fine.
But anything else, I think its far to limited.
The most simple job I've ever had in an office was when I worked for a crappy car loan company in tally, this was the early 00's when I was in college, despite only being part time, I had 3 monitors, 1 for typing email and reading email and requests, another for the in house program that kept track of all of our loan data, and another screen for navigating the various used and new car prices.
Thats the most basic thing I've ever done in an office, and I just couldn't seen an iPad working for it.
In that situation, or really any office situation, you could use the iPad as a second screen. You could have your email on two screens, and the in house program on the iPad (for instance). One in your hand for a quick look-up, the other two for typing. If you need to study something on the in house program while you're on your lunch break, then just pick it up and take it with you.
That's just a quick example. I could think of dozens of situations where the iPad won't be able to do much on it's own, but makes a great addition to other existing workflows.
To me, it's like a netbook. You wouldn't even think about doing heavy duty work on a netbook. You'd likely crash the thing and set it on fire. But you could still think of dozens upon dozens of other things that you could use it for to help you out. Despite not being a fully capable PC, it's still a great supplementary device.
Oh my, I never take my work with me to lunch, I even go as far as to leave both my phones, Personal and work, on my desk. I need a break for lunch lol.
Imo, a Laptop dock and 2nd monitor is MUCH cheaper than an iPad, and a business grade laptop easily has enough power for multiplte monitors and its own monitor.
The iPad is great for simple stuff, and depending on the office envioment, it can be great, but most I've run into, your better off spending that money on a laptop.
Indeed, however even a basic netbook is better than an iPad imo.
And I've seen ' netbooks ' with Quad Core CPUs, discreet video cards and 8gb of ram lol. I wonder how hot those get lol
The Mac mini and iMac line offer excellent values, and aren't expensive considering what they offer.
Outdated hardware and no expandability? And severe reliability issues with the current iMacs?
Yeah, I know. Same here. Some people are weirdo workaholics though, so...you know...it's good for them.
I gotta find out where you're getting business laptops, and get me to get one. I don't think I could find a good one along with a dock for less than the $399-499 the iPad cost. HOOK ME UP!
Yeah. Once again, it all depends. An iPad obviously isn't the best fit for you, considering what you do. But for me? The thing's great. It does everything I need a portable computer to do, and it's easy to carry around with me (even if I do have to have a case for it to lug the keyboard and portrait stand around in).
Then again, I think tablets in general are the greatest thing to happen to computers in years, and I'm always going to be cheerleading them. It's why I'm all stoked about MS putting the competition thumbscrews to Apple. I like tablets so much, I want to be able to do more with them than what I am currently.
Yes and no. I've seen a few fairly powerful netbooks in the past. The problem with them was that they could only do a little more than the lower end models at the cost of a helluva lot more battery life. I know one of the better Asus netbooks only lasted about 2-3 hours per charge. That's not a lot at all.
Yeah, I could run Photoshop on it. But hell, it'd last all of 20 minutes. I'd have to keep it tethered to a wall plug to get anything out of it. And if I have to do that, I might as well get a full sized powerful laptop. That's always been the problem with the netbooks, though. And one of the main things the iPad addressed. I can use my iPad for a good 80% of what I intended on using a Netbook for. It lasts practically all day long, and tons easier to carry around with me.
Yeah, I know. Same here. Some people are weirdo workaholics though, so...you know...it's good for them.
Pffft screw that, sometimes I take my personal phone ( S3 ) with me to play some games on, and read the news, but my iPhone 4S ( I miss my blackberry's battery life ), stays firmly planted on my desk when I hit up PIggys BBQ for lunch.
I'm talking JUST the dock and monitor, every place I've ever worked for issues you a workstation and a laptop, a Dock is pretty cheap, as well as a second monitor. Then again, my industry is a bit odd.
I think for most enterprise, an iPad isn't the way to go for real workflow, sure it has some really good uses, but with the surface comming, it looks like there might be a massive enterprise adoption.
I don't think they are the greatest thing, I think they are an extension to the PC.
ANd yeah, I'm so happy Microsoft has put together 2 tablets that both look great. The pro? imo its 10 times more capable than an iPad. Its a full on Laptop with tabletness, kinda like the old Tablet PCs that were also convertibles.
Yeah, I've seen some insanely powerful netbooks, most of them do last about 2-3 hours, and hell I have considered them in the past, might still buy one. I like the idea of not carrying my 12 pound sexy powerful Alienware, and being able to pwn some n00bs at wild wings, 2-3 hours is plenty for that, at least for me.
I get what your saying, but for me, I'll take 2-3 hour battery life for amazing performance, then with the money I saved by buying a high end netbook over a high end iPad, I'll buy a Nexus 7 for when the Netbook battery dies
Yes, I am serious.
If you can't figure out how to do more than those two... that's your problem. I'm still in college, so I guess using it for that doesn't count as "real work".
But I can assure you, doctors can most definitely use their iPads in their "real work"
I can assure you that interviewers who are taking short notes before they go into their interview, helping them prep for it, are doing real work. People have written entire reviews... just using their iPad. If you have to give a big presentation... say you're a Project Manager, you can create your entire presentation using your tablet.
See where I'm going with this? Just because you don't use a tablet for "real work" doesn't mean it can't be done.
Could you be more specific?
Yep, your job can't be done with a tablet.
I see where your going but your comment before was rather vague since G51989 clearly specified when high CPU power is required.
And no, browsing facebook is not work
I see where your going but your comment before was rather vague since G51989 clearly specified when high CPU power is required.
And no, browsing facebook is not work
Actually, his exact quote spoke of "serious performance and productivity"
I can be seriously productive on a tablet.
And it performs amazingly for the tasks that I give it.
>_>
He's, unfortunately, just in the crowd of "tablets can't do real work" that I've had to deal with every day since the iPad 2 came out.
I hope that doesn't mean that there'll be no more Macs in a few years' time. I'd have to go back to Windows. I hope the Mac will always exist in some form.
Macs do have better touchpads, true.. you've got a very valid point there. However, there are some PC laptops out there with really great keyboards, and no I'm not referring to Lenovos (although I'm sure those are nice, too). The one my last Sony had seemed hard to distinguish from an Apple keyboard.. then again, Apple did copy their notebook keyboard
Anyway, there is one undeniable fact: When Apple is shipping machines with last generation hardware, they are neglecting their hardware. I don't mean last generation as in 2 week old hardware, I mean last generation as in still shipping machines with a 3 year old chipset even though a new one came out over 6 months ago.
Even a modest speed bump would have seemed like neglect in the case of the Mac Pro - how can Apple expect people to be interested in making products they can't even use?
Here's an even better question: How long has Apple been neglecting their customers, and when do they cross the border from saying "The customer is not always right" and "We're a bunch of control freak idiots that don't listen to our customer base at all"
It seems that people have been asking for a mid-range Mac tower for a very long time now, and they still have yet to deliver on that.
Seriously though - keep on insulting the people that question Apple, keep on telling them that their needs are not important and keep on telling them that they're crazy or too demanding. Obviously, they have no appreciation for Apple products if they're not huge fans of the iOS ecosystem and are more interested in new (and more) OS X options.
Anyway, there is one undeniable fact: When Apple is shipping machines with last generation hardware, they are neglecting their hardware. I don't mean last generation as in 2 week old hardware, I mean last generation as in still shipping machines with a 3 year old chipset even though a new one came out over 6 months ago.
Even a modest speed bump would have seemed like neglect in the case of the Mac Pro - how can Apple expect people to be interested in making products they can't even use?
Here's an even better question: How long has Apple been neglecting their customers, and when do they cross the border from saying "The customer is not always right" and "We're a bunch of control freak idiots that don't listen to our customer base at all"
It seems that people have been asking for a mid-range Mac tower for a very long time now, and they still have yet to deliver on that.
Seriously though - keep on insulting the people that question Apple, keep on telling them that their needs are not important and keep on telling them that they're crazy or too demanding. Obviously, they have no appreciation for Apple products if they're not huge fans of the iOS ecosystem and are more interested in new (and more) OS X options.
Actually, his exact quote spoke of "serious performance and productivity"
Lets see, little ARM CPU...so there goes performance....
Productivity, pretty much anything you can do on an iPad can be done better on a Net book or Laptop, or desktop if you dont need to be portable.
I bet I could be more productive on a laptop.
Amazing, the average tablet performs about as good as a desktop from 10 years ago.
Well, a vast majority of " real work " can't be done on tablets, the rest of it can just be done....slowly.
That said, gotta say the Microsoft Surface Pro is the 1st tablet that ever really appeals to me, Real CPU, Real OS, and a Real Keyboard.