Some of us don't agree that the lineup is a bloated mess, me included.
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Why is constructively criticizing Apple not allowed on this forum?
- Thread starter BillyMatt87
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I agree with you on that. There is something for everyone. I think if they start going down the road of Pro vs. non-Pro for the iPads it is doing exactly what Jobs started in streamlining a business and consumer model for most of their products.
Times have changed, SJ is dead and TC now has the reins. I like the direction the company is going making the best products imaginable.
A really good read, it's from 2014 but is even more relevant now:
http://ricw.svbtle.com/has-apple-forgotten-to-focus-its-products
http://ricw.svbtle.com/has-apple-forgotten-to-focus-its-products
Since it essentially agrees with you, I don't doubt that you think it is a good read. I will give you the iPad lineup, but none of the rest.
Just over the last year I was wanting to move to a new MacBook in a small form factor that was very light. The Air in 11" would have been great, unfortunately for my eyes, the screen just sucks. Enter the 12" Retina MacBook. Great form factor, very light, and a screen that is just so very nice for my 72 year old eyes. Enough power to do the things I do with no problem and do them every bit as fast as the 13" 2012 MacBook Pro would. Frankly until the 12" MacBook came out I was seriously considering a SurfacePro 3 or 4 and move to Windows in total. I already have a Pixel Chromebook and found the Google ecosystem not to my liking and Android to be a total non-starter.
And I wanted a bigger iPad, so got an iPad Pro.
The strange part is that I can do almost everything on either the iPad Pro since I added the keyboard/case to it, and the same goes for the MacBook. But the iPad Pro stops short of supporting music engraving IMO, and lacks a trackpad/mouse cursor. The MacBook has both of those things, but I love Tapatalk and that hasn't been ported to OSX.
Apple could have done things slightly different in the MacBook line. Air, Pro, MacBook with configure to order offered other than at Apple's online store. But Apple is really into retail placements these days. Here in the boonies where I live there will never be an Apple Store, the demographics wouldn't support it. But we do have a BestBuy for a pretty damned good selection of preconfigured Apple products, we have Walmart/Target/etc for odds and ends of Apple gear. It isn't many years ago when Apple was either not in retail stores, or had such a small presence it wasn't worth going to look.
So what you see as a negative, I see as a definite positive.
Just over the last year I was wanting to move to a new MacBook in a small form factor that was very light. The Air in 11" would have been great, unfortunately for my eyes, the screen just sucks. Enter the 12" Retina MacBook. Great form factor, very light, and a screen that is just so very nice for my 72 year old eyes. Enough power to do the things I do with no problem and do them every bit as fast as the 13" 2012 MacBook Pro would. Frankly until the 12" MacBook came out I was seriously considering a SurfacePro 3 or 4 and move to Windows in total. I already have a Pixel Chromebook and found the Google ecosystem not to my liking and Android to be a total non-starter.
And I wanted a bigger iPad, so got an iPad Pro.
The strange part is that I can do almost everything on either the iPad Pro since I added the keyboard/case to it, and the same goes for the MacBook. But the iPad Pro stops short of supporting music engraving IMO, and lacks a trackpad/mouse cursor. The MacBook has both of those things, but I love Tapatalk and that hasn't been ported to OSX.
Apple could have done things slightly different in the MacBook line. Air, Pro, MacBook with configure to order offered other than at Apple's online store. But Apple is really into retail placements these days. Here in the boonies where I live there will never be an Apple Store, the demographics wouldn't support it. But we do have a BestBuy for a pretty damned good selection of preconfigured Apple products, we have Walmart/Target/etc for odds and ends of Apple gear. It isn't many years ago when Apple was either not in retail stores, or had such a small presence it wasn't worth going to look.
So what you see as a negative, I see as a definite positive.
A classic Steve Jobs moment: "focus is about saying no"
Apple likes to pride themselves on saying "no" more than they say "yes" and that was obviously more apparent during Steve's tenure but not so much under Tim Cook. It seems as if Cook just signs off on whatever is pitched to him without question or reservation. With Jobs, he was brutally honest and wasn't afraid to tell someone that their ideas were ****. Not even Jony Ive was spared from such judgement, but now his ideas and input have gone unchecked.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how easy it is to pitch ideas to Cook in his office:
Apple likes to pride themselves on saying "no" more than they say "yes" and that was obviously more apparent during Steve's tenure but not so much under Tim Cook. It seems as if Cook just signs off on whatever is pitched to him without question or reservation. With Jobs, he was brutally honest and wasn't afraid to tell someone that their ideas were ****. Not even Jony Ive was spared from such judgement, but now his ideas and input have gone unchecked.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how easy it is to pitch ideas to Cook in his office:
A bloated mess!!!
Yeah I don't think the Apple lineup is a bloated mess. How many Samsung phones are there? LG? HTC? Talk about bloated lineups!!!!
Like lparsons21, I think the iPad line is the only line that looks cluttered, but when I see businesses buying the less expensive older/slower/non-retina iPads to use as displays and kiosks, I think there's probably a valid point for Apple still continuing to sell them.
I don't get the author's point.
Apple selling different iPads doesn't consume any extra engineering cycles than if Apple had stopped selling those older/slower/non-retina iPads years ago.
[doublepost=1457725780][/doublepost]
If you're trying to tie together that thought with the current product lineup, ... there is no focus required to continue to sell the older iPads to the businesses/folks that can make use of them.
If Apple was currently spending engineering cycles offering year updates to each of the five different iPad models, you might have a point.
But right now, it seems like you're misunderstanding what Steve meant about saying no (when he said it 19 years ago), IMO.
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What the actual ****?
Apple is the most lucrative public traded company of all time. These days, if they want 100 iPhone models being sold, they can do it. If they want to burn 15 billion dollars every quarter, they can do it.
It's as if you have absolutely no notion of the "scale" that we are dealing with, here. Apple isn't small. Or medium. Or big. Or huge. They are the biggest. Not only that, some unbalanced people have this notion that not being the biggest = failure. It doesn't work like that.
About the bolded part, provide evidence. Apple came from a situation where they were behind on hardware and Android was getting so so close to leave iOS as an ecosystem in the dust, to today. Today they have by far the best internal hardware ( SoC, Memory, getting now 4GB of RAM, by far the fastest storage, always top notch displays and cameras only occasionally matched surpassed, very close to the best battery life with the Plus series, etc.) and iOS is, without any margin of doubt and error, the most powerful ecosystem. From Entertainment (Best apps exclusives or iOS first, streaming services, Best developers with best support and APIs + dev tools, Users using the latest APIs and OS version, most lucrative, etc.). iOS has had low-level graphics APIs since when? 2 years? What about 64 bit? What about the absolute best integration of payment systems, fingerprint scanners, etc?
Do you realize the difference? Look at this:
https://marco.org/2011/12/07/eric-schmidt-android-leads-the-iphone
As both individual products and as ecosystem, Apple devices were never better than the gap in ecosystem quality is getting wider.
You spend way too much time on your computer. Just look around. How can anyone take you seriously, you baseless and factually wrong statements like that? I would be ashamed, actually.
[doublepost=1457729589][/doublepost]
What the actual ****?
Apple is the most lucrative public traded company of all time. These days, if they want 100 iPhone models being sold, they can do it. If they want to burn 15 billion dollars every quarter, they can do it.
It's as if you have absolutely no notion of the "scale" that we are dealing with, here. Apple isn't small. Or medium. Or big. Or huge. They are the biggest. Not only that, some unbalanced people have this notion that not being the biggest = failure. It doesn't work like that.
About the bolded part, provide evidence. Apple came from a situation where they were behind on hardware and Android was getting so so close to leave iOS as an ecosystem in the dust, to today. Today they have by far the best internal hardware ( SoC, Memory, getting now 4GB of RAM, by far the fastest storage, always top notch displays and cameras only occasionally matched surpassed, very close to the best battery life with the Plus series, etc.) and iOS is, without any margin of doubt and error, the most powerful ecosystem. From Entertainment (Best apps exclusives or iOS first, streaming services, Best developers with best support and APIs + dev tools, Users using the latest APIs and OS version, most lucrative, etc.). iOS has had low-level graphics APIs since when? 2 years? What about 64 bit? What about the absolute best integration of payment systems, fingerprint scanners, etc?
Do you realize the difference? Look at this:
https://marco.org/2011/12/07/eric-schmidt-android-leads-the-iphone
As both individual products and as ecosystem, Apple devices were never better than the gap in ecosystem quality is getting wider.
You spend way too much time on your computer. Just look around. How can anyone take you seriously, you baseless and factually wrong statements like that? I would be ashamed, actually.
That was hilarious, thanks for posting it twice!
Evidence of how bloated and complicated their product line up is can be found here: http://www.apple.com
And I would disagree that their Mac line up is exempt from this statements.
MacBook - ultra portable, lightweight device. Not performance focused.
MacBook Air - umm...not as portable as a MacBook. Not as powerful as a MacBook Pro with Retina Display?
MacBook Pro - a 4 year old computer that is being sold alongside 2015 computers. Branded as a professional machine with high performance.
MacBook Pro with Retina Display - their flagship models.
Those naming conventions are ridiculous. The iMac lineup is nice and lean at least.
Onto the iPad line up:
iPad Pro - Performance focused. Is meant to appeal to the a professional user.
iPad Air - their normal iPad range. No one knows why it's called "Air".
iPad Air 2 - the current model of their normal iPad range. The average consumer, not knowing specs will not understand what is different about an iPad Air and an iPad Air 2
iPad Mini 4 - a smaller version of the iPad Air 2. "Why are the numbers different?" asks the average consumer.
iPad Mini 2 - even I, an Apple fan and regular user of MacRumous, can't even remember what the Mini 2 was. Was it a smaller iPad Air? And "where is the iPad Mini 3?" asks the average consumer.
And don't even get me started on the Apple Watch...I haven't a clue what all the different models are.
I would say at this point in time, the iPhone lineup is probably the easiest to navigate. And that's about to change with the "iPhone 5SE" or whatever it is.
I think at the very least they desperately need to align their naming conventions across the different ranges. "Air" shouldn't one mean thing in the iPad range and another in the MacBook range.
Personally, I think they should rebrand to:
Mini - iPad Mini, MacBook, iPhone 5SE)
Standard (not actually branded as "standard" just absent of a "Pro" or "Mini" tag) - MacBook Air, iPad Air 2, iPhone 6S
Pro - iPhone 6S+, MacBook Pro, iPad Pro
... Or simply drop the tags and numbers completely. And just offer the product ranges in three different sizes/loadouts. Make that part of the signature Apple standard - a new portable consumer product gets released, and you knows it going to come in three sizes, with the largest having the best performing hardware.
Simple Apple. It needs to be happen.
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Agreed with a lot of this. Here's how the ideal Apple product lineup could/should look, streamlined and minor price cuts all around:
iPad
No more Mini, Air, Pro or number naming schemes, just year or generation numbers to differentiate. I'd have the 7.9", 9.7" and 12.9" models be all under the name "iPad" so the specs would be the same across the board, the only difference would be the display sizes. Preferably, I'd discontinue the Pro model in favor of just the 7.9" and 9.7" sizes. The colors and wifi-only or wifi & cellular options wouldn't be affected.
- iPad 7.9" (32GB/$299, 64GB/$399, 128GB/$499)
- iPad 9.7" (32GB/$399, 64GB/$499, 128GB/$599)
iPhone
Same overall strategy as the iPad; no specific names, same specs across the board but differentiated by display size. I also think they need to settle on display sizes. Considering the 4" iPhone has a different aspect ratio than the current 4.7" and 5.5" models, fragmentation (the thing we've always criticized Android devices for), should be avoided at any cost. Therefore, I think they should focus on the current display sizes.
- iPhone 4.7" (32GB/$149, 64GB/$249, 128GB/$349)
- iPhone 5.5" (32GB/$199, 64GB/$299, 128GB/$399)
Mac
The iMac lineup needs the least cleaning up. I would just have two tiers for the 21.5" and 27" models, all retina. 1TB HDD/8GB RAM standard on the 21.5" models and 2TB HDD/16GB RAM standard on the 27" models.
- iMac 21.5" (2.8GHz/$999, 3.1GHz/$1199)
- iMac 27" (3.2GHz/$1499, 3.3GHz/$1699)
The Mac Mini and the Mac Pro are not gonna be included here since their lines are relatively contained.
The biggest offender of bloat is definitely the MacBook lineup. I would personally consolidate the MacBook Retina lineup with the Air. It would have the specs and features more in line with the Air, but an exterior design similar to the MacBook. So basically, the MagSafe charger, all the ports, FaceTime HD, glowing back Apple logo, etc. would remain but with a newer design. Two model tiers with 256GB SSD/8GB RAM and 512GB SSD/16GB RAM, respectively.
- MacBook 12" (1.1GHz/$899, 1.6GHz/$1099)
The MacBook Pro line could also use some major cleaning up. I think it's time to retire the 13" non-Retina model. Again, two tiers for each specific model. The 13.3" Pro would have 256GB SSD/8GB RAM and 512GB SSD/16GB RAM, respectively. The 15.4" Pro would have the same exact configurations.
- MacBook Pro 13.3" (2.7GHz i5/$999, 2.9 GHz i5/$1199)
- MacBook Pro 15.4" (2.2GHz i7/$1299, 2.5GHz i7/$1499)
I will only answer this once. You and him spend way too much time in fantasy/dream land.
Apple's decisions to name things the way they do, to sell what they do, made them the most successful public company of all time. Today. Got it? They selling crap like the MacBook pro, at whatever price they want, influences 0 for those that want a modern MacBook.
You have no financial basis, no engineering basis, no business basis, no entrepreneur basis, to formulate an important and relevant opinion. So leave it at that.
Apple's strategic planning allows them to re-use tons of components in similar products and generations. They did it extremely successful with the iPod to even a greater extent, in times when they were selling 10x less macs, no services, no iPhone, no iPad,no watch.
Porsche does it with the 911. There are other similar and extremely successful cases as well.
All current iOS devices are 90% the same product.
All you have is an ignorant opinion.
What are you on about? Porches, engineering, iOS and name calling is all I see in that post.
I think what you're trying to say is "I disagree - I think Apples naming conventions are fine, and I don't think they need to slim down their product line up."
Is that pretty much it?