Where have all the good Steves gone? AKA can someone start a new Macintosh company please?

[SBMH.online]

Let me start by stating that I've loved Apple (Macintosh) products for a long time. I've been there through the dark ages and certainly enjoyed the enlightened age. Sadly we are slowly but surely heading down the dark hole of what we hated about the dark times of Macintosh before our buddy Steve came back and made things great again... and I remember it clearly. It's the second coming of the dark times.

I owned a third party Mac for a while back in the day and it was not a good time. Google it if you don't remember the time. Apple had lost it's way and we are certainly heading that way once and again.

Tim has done a decent job of keeping things flowing, but the reality is that he is no Steve... Jobs, nor Wozniak. As I write this, I just ordered a multiple lightning/audio splitters for my iPhone 7. I'm ok that we are moving to using lightning cables for everything, but the fact that Apple doesn't give me a splitter to plug in for audio and charge at the same time is f-n ridiculous. Hey Apple, do you realize how much money I just spent on this phone and I can't actually charge and listen to audio from this device at the same time?! I had to resort to a third party to make an adaptor, because you don't provide basic functionality.

Not to mention the desktop Mac. You haven't even given us basic processor and connectivity updates. You know, I hate to pull out the "Steve is rolling in his grave" fanboy quotes, but at this point Steve has not only rolled over, but has jumped the shark several times over.

 

[Garrod]

I hear you brother. Alas, unless there is a decent iMac update on the next refresh then I'm done...I'll be out of the Apple loop and I doubt I'll ever come back.

 

[phrehdd]

SBMH - I appreciated your opening post. I recall the days when 3rd party computers could run an Mac operating system. I also recall that multiple articles mentioning that NEC put out a better computer than Apple at that time. In some respects, I wish that the 3rd party computers were still being done (beyond the hackentosh) with Apple's blessing. Yes, I would pay for a "mac mini" like PC with OSX/MacOS and with better video and cpu offerings than the present anemic models put out by Apple.

I'll just say that your points resonate with me and I am sure many others. I really hate Gates and his product line but may end up with at least some computers going that direction as Apple simply wont have offerings that meet my check list.

 

[Tommo66]

I definitely don't wish third party computers were being done, only had experience of one way back when and it was awful. Also if you look at all the innovations that came out of Apple following Steve's return they were pretty much all designed by Ive and he is still there. I think the Apple of today would be pretty much the same if Steve was still alive, he would just probably have got bored with it all by now. It isn't the scrappy underdog anymore.

Innovation is not going to come with the current line of products, they will merely be updates as apart from tinkering with the specifications the computer and the phone have pretty much peaked, whether that is from Apple or not. As far as I can tell they still follow Steve's philosophy of making stuff they feel people want rather than something they want to and then try to work out how to sell it. The driverless car being a case in point as I don't know anyone who would buy one even if they were available.

I will go Linux if I ever leave MacOS, Windows is to buggy and vulnerable for me especially given it's reliance on vendors writing third party drivers for. I used to get so tired of updating the OS only for hardware to stop working because of a driver issue.

 

[decafjava]

I used to get so tired of updating the OS only for hardware to stop working because of a driver issue.

Arrggg that's me right now with my old Win 7 HP desktop. I am often getting BSOD due to dx or nvidia driver errors. I did swap out the video card soon after I got it 6 years ago but it worked ok. Problem is now while I can update the card drivers I can't update directx for some reason. Oh well.

 

[Tech198]

I'm ok that we are moving to using lightning cables for everything, but the fact that Apple doesn't give me a splitter to plug in for audio and charge at the same time is f-n ridiculous.

I think the reason Apple doesn't bundle stuff in for two reasons:

(a. They wanna make more profit by getting u back into the store.. Once there, u'll probably find more stuff u like.
(b. Apple probably reckons not everyone will want to do this, only a small portion of users, so leave it as an option if u want it or not.

I don't think u can create a company, change CEO's, and reckon it will always stay on track as it once was 100% accuracy at all times... No company can do that...

It comes down to uses not liking change. Apple may have changed from the early days of Steve, and don't like it either, but i do accept the fact it happens and we live with it.

 

[robotica]

If there is too much going on at Apple hq they should spin the Mac business off into a separate company within the Apple brand and have a it's own CEO.

Tim Cook could still do the watches iPhones iPad, cars etc. and still be the CEO of Apple inc.
A separate company looking for its own profits in a competitive market.

Similar to alphabet and google.

As it stands it feels like the macs are getting forgotten about.