Poll: Could your next Mac be your last?

[maflynn]

The lengths people will go to, to find reasons to complain about Apple is astounding.

And conversely people who bend over backwards defending apple.

You love apple, but you feel you must defend them to the last breath, arguing with anyone that doesn't put apple on a pedestal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apple is a premium product, they price their products as a premium product. They offer customer service that's expected of a premium product, yet for many of us the recent releases of the MBP have been anything but premium. I don't think I need to go over every issue that apple's had these past few years but when you're pricing your laptops as much as 2,000 more then the competitor then the buyer has a reasonable expectation they are not getting a laptop that will fail so easily.

People vote with their wallets and here we see a number of folks doing just that. They're not wrong, just as you're not wrong by sticking with apple.

Apple appears to be moving to a more closed environment using the T2 to further lock down the computers, some people are fine with that, others are not, those in the latter category will most likely move on. Again neither group is wrong.

Apple is a multibillion dollar corporation, they don't care for us, they are an impersonal corporation. They do have excellent customer support and I'm not knocking that but they care more to appease their owners - the stock holders.

 

[Stephen.R]

You love apple, but you feel you must defend them to the last breath, arguing with anyone that doesn't put apple on a pedestal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you want to think that, you go right ahead. Meanwhile, let's discuss what was actually said shall we?

yet for many of us the recent releases of the MBP have been anything but premium

I don't have an issue with mine but I am aware a lot of people have had faults, and take issue with the choices made. Let's not debate the validity of those choices, I agree that for some the value of an Apple laptop may have dropped.

but when you're pricing your laptops as much as 2,000 more then the competitor

I don't know what competitor you're talking about specifically, and it doesn't much matter, I'm sure there are laptops that people will buy instead of a Mac, and pay $2K less, agreed.


But that's the problem. The comments I replied to, literally never said anything about Macbook Pros being higher cost for (potentially) lower perceived value.

S/He singled out two very specific things to complain about : a stand for a display that s/he admitted to having no use for, that is generally believed to be cheaper than the competing products, and the 'flagship' phone model, now that they offer two lines of phones (again), which s/he also admitted has "unneeded" features for his/her use.

It'd be like if Toyota sells a Camry for $25K, and then releases a Camry Ultra Sport and sells it for $50K, and someone says "well I can't afford a Camry now, they're double the price, and why does it include a turbo charger and fancy wheels, I just need to drive to the office".


If s/he'd complained that e.g. base-model 15" MacBook Pro's have increased from the 2015 model, then sure, I'd have to agree, and I wouldn't have said a ****ing peep. They've increased about 20% in price, vs 8% inflation. But that was never brought up until you mentioned the MacBookPro. The comments I replied to were ostensibly about a "general increase in apple pricing" while only specifically mentioning the iPhones XS, conveniently leaving out the much cheaper, less featured iPhone XR that has the same price point as previous years, and an un-released stand for a display, that based on what I've seen just looking quickly, is anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 the price of the competition, with better specs.

 

[maflynn]

If you want to think that, you go right ahead.

It's an easy assumption given your posts.

I don't know what competitor you're talking about specifically, and it doesn't much matter, I'm sure there are laptops that people will buy instead of a Mac, and pay $2K less, agreed.

I paid 2260 for the Lenovo X1e, 32GB of ram 1TB of storage, and a 3 year extended warranty. With a similar configuration the MBP would have run 4,600. There's the 2,000, since I priced it out and chose the thinkpad.

 

[Stephen.R]

irrelevant

Literally irrelevant to my point. I agreed with you that people can and do find cheaper non-Apple laptops. I guess your lack of response to my actual point means you have no actual point to argue besides "well you must be a fanboy".

 

[MacClueless]

Funny how this thread became more about aging forum users than the future of the MacBook itself!

 

[s15119]

I'll take it you mean macOS, not mac hardware. Because some of the recent mac hardware releases have been pretty sketchy, both in terms of value and reliability.

Not in my experience.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I am an IT professional with an extensive background with Apple. As much as I am enticed by going more down the Microsoft path, I will always need to at least keep my Apple knowledge up to date as a fallback. And doing so, requires that I keep using the products as a user. But as a Mac user, I'm displeased at the annual macOS release cycle (which makes it so that only every third release is solid).

That being said, I've been a Mac user for sixteen years and does sort of make this a bit of a hard divorce for me to make. I'm already planning on moving my iTunes library over to iTunes for Windows and to have it be kept in sync via OneDrive, and to have the vast majority of the files that would've lived on my Mac onto Dropbox. That makes it so that I don't really need a substantial Mac to maintain relevance with the platform. Though, it is hard to justify a MacBook Pro with such a high price and such a low reliability rating. I might do a MacBook Air, but I'm still worried that it, alone won't suffice for the few things I'd still like to mess around with on my Mac. So, I'm either going to get a 13" Pro (Two Thunderbolt ports) or I'm going to get a MacBook Air and an iMac. I'm pretty sure that past this point, my "divorce" from the Mac platform will just entail me owning a single 13" MacBook Pro that does enough of everything and that the rest of my computer arsenal will be Windows and Linux boxes.

Certainly if and when the Intel to ARM switch happens, I'll reevaluate how the platform is doing to see if Apple is apt to get a more substantial Mac purchase out of me. Though, at the rate they're going, that isn't very likely.

With people keeping their Macs 5-10 years, iPads getting more powerful and the possibility of macOS and iOS devices merging, is it possible your next Mac will be your last (at least the Mac as we know it)?

macOS and iOS/iPadOS won't be merging. What IS happening, however, is that macOS is being serviced (installed, updated, and maintained) in a fashion very similar to iOS and iPadOS, and Apple is trying to make it easier for apps that are developed for an iPad to also be developed for a Mac and vice versa. But that's it. No merger beyond that. The T2 chip and the switch to ARM and Project Catalyst are where there is any kind of convergence. Otherwise, you're not going to suddenly run Adobe After Effects on an iPad the way you would on a Mac or PC. The Mac will still be the Mac and the iPad will still be the iPad. There will just be more and more of a visual and under-the-hood operational similarity between the two with the end user experiences remaining separate. All of Apple's executive team have stated as much repeatedly.

 

[Reality4711]

Funny how this thread became more about aging forum users than the future of the MacBook itself!

Oldies mostly (IMO) like precision; especially in the written word.

Given that; it is not surprising at all that the Original Question has been interpreted in more than one way. Being of a certain age also includes being more aware of there being more ways for this Mac (or anything else) to be my last.