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Open Letter to Tim Cook

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Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#101

Post by c0nducktr »

graeme wrote: post #35
IBM wrote: post #20

Best comment [1] I read a couple of days ago: >One thing constantly said to founders here is "don't let a vocal minority come in, tell you they love your product, and then turn into bullies that tell you how you should make said product. You never made it for them; they aren't your market. Don't get confused into thinking they are, just because they're loud." I think that about sums up the relationship between Apple…

Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro ? I'm not a developer. I run an online business and use a MacBook Pro for video recording, editing, and general website admin. I needed the extra processing power, and the ports. The new model has me apprehensive, though I'll certainly look at it. What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

I think the new MBPs are, well... not good, considering the price. I really like my 2012 MacBook Air. It's still going strong, although I wish I had went for the 8GB of RAM instead of just 4.

But when I was talking about the new models with my friends and coworkers, a lot of us shared one thought: We don't think it's worth the money, but we can't spend $2000 on a laptop anyway, so whatever.

So we're not the target market.

It seems that people here don't really want one either, so 'Developers who frequent Hacker News' also doesn't seem to be the target...

It seems like maybe it's just 'wealthy people who want a sleek-looking, well made piece of hardware', which it is. Maybe it includes businesses that will provide one to their employees, and will buy the extra dongles and whatnot. There's probably a lot of them in each group. If I had the money, and didn't care that it didn't have the fastest processor, the ability to have a crazy amount of RAM, and would need an extra damn cable just to connect my iPhone, I would love to buy one too.

One thing seems pretty certain, and it's that there is room for a competitor to jump in and make a great laptop for the people who are looking for something different. I really hope someone can make it work.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#102

Post by [deleted] »

jmeller wrote: post #64
flukus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how are the dominant in that? They've got about 5% of the market share.

Great and valid point. My counter to that is that despite having only 5% of the market share they take home 45% of the profit. [1] They also continue to erode the marketshare of the current leaders even as the overall PC market shrinks. [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2013/04/16/pie-chart-of-the-day-apples-ov... [2] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/10/09/report-apple-widens-sh...

[deleted]

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#103

Post by jmeller »

flukus wrote: post #93
jmeller wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great and valid point. My counter to that is that despite having only 5% of the market share they take home 45% of the profit. [1] They also continue to erode the marketshare of the current leaders even as the overall PC market shrinks. [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2013/04/16/pie-chart-of-the-day-apples-ov... [2] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/10/09/report-apple-widens-sh...

That doesn't make them dominant in any way. That's only a good thing for apple shareholders and bad for their customers.

> That doesn't make them dominant in any way. That's only a good thing for apple shareholders and bad for their customers.

Yes it does. They are the envy of every other device manufacturer, and not just because they make the most money.

The reason why Apple gets more profit than its competitors despite lower market share is because customers are willing to pay high prices for a better computer. How do we know this? When surveyed, users have consistently give Apple top marks in customer satisfaction. They've done it 13 years in a row.

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/27/apple-tops-pc-customer-s...

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#104

Post by jeffbax »

andr wrote: post #38

Given the Mac's history in the last few years, and the fact that it only accounts for 12% of Apple's revenue and 8% of shipped units, I see two scenarios: 1) Apple gets out of the Mac business in a few years - Apple is not the kind of company to wait patiently for its product lines to run into the ground. The only reason they really need the Mac is Xcode for all those iOS apps that need to be developed. I wouldn't be…

Companies don't just "abandon" $20B/year businesses, and it will sure take a lot more than a "few years" for that to decline to make a comparison to iPhone's inevitable cannibalization of the iPod. Additionally, they see iOS devices and Macs as completely distinct, thus not merging them into one like the Surface attempts. Your theories… are pretty much ludicrous.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#105

Post by stomato »

sjtgraham wrote: post #53
graeme wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro ? I'm not a developer. I run an online business and use a MacBook Pro for video recording, editing, and general website admin. I needed the extra processing power, and the ports. The new model has me apprehensive, though I'll certainly look at it. What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? Apple doesn't seem to know or care. I don't know who this MBP is for. Increasingly less people can justify an Apple macOS portable when an iOS device covers their requirements satisfactorily and it doesn't meet the needs of many professionals at all (present and anticipated needs for the machine's useful life). Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique…

> Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM.

Not sure what you mean.

If they made the computer much faster, I imagine it'd get too hot or noisy.

The main failure IMO was that the only real innovation was a touch bar replacing function keys that as far as I can tell no one asked for or wanted.

However, macOS still beats Windows 10 because it's more intuitive and usable and has fewer quirks.

I don't want one of these because of the touchbar, though. It just seems unnecessary, and I wish they would've waited on a more practical innovation that would solve a problem and not remove physical keys and be a distraction and take away from design aesthetics.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#106

Post by cinquemb »

initram wrote: post #85
sjtgraham wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? Apple doesn't seem to know or care. I don't know who this MBP is for. Increasingly less people can justify an Apple macOS portable when an iOS device covers their requirements satisfactorily and it doesn't meet the needs of many professionals at all (present and anticipated needs for the machine's useful life). Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique…

> Apple doesn't seem to know or care. Oh nonsense! They showed like a dozen ways that the new touch pad alone makes using professional apps easier, faster, and generally better in their keynote. They are clearly thinking specifically of the professional market. Whether they hit their mark or not is up to the market to decide. The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.

>The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.

Does them being back-ordered matter much (outside of annoyance to consumers)?

Wouldn't it be more informative to see the absolute numbers of back orders now relative to the numbers for previous releases? For all we (public) know is that the back-ordered demand could be from smaller supply initial supply, not necessarily from record demand.

Are such numbers public knowledge?

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#107

Post by sjwright »

mojuba wrote: post #72
andr wrote: post #38

Given the Mac's history in the last few years, and the fact that it only accounts for 12% of Apple's revenue and 8% of shipped units, I see two scenarios: 1) Apple gets out of the Mac business in a few years - Apple is not the kind of company to wait patiently for its product lines to run into the ground. The only reason they really need the Mac is Xcode for all those iOS apps that need to be developed. I wouldn't be…

> The only reason they really need the Mac is Xcode for all those iOS apps that need to be developed. This is simply not true. MacOS is at the very least a companion OS that gets more and more tightly integrated with the iOS devices. App handover, now also copy/paste, etc etc. An iPhone without a Mac loses many of its advantages over Android. Let alone that there are no signs Apple is going to abandon the Mac busines…

There's simply no point for Apple to switch desktop CPU architectures unless there's a unavoidably compelling reason to do so. The move to Intel met this high threshold easily.

A modest cost saving doesn't qualify and would be partially swallowed up by R&D costs. Energy/thermal savings might be a reason in theory, but how much of a laptop's energy use goes to the CPU anyway? Apple seems to be doing just fine with Intel's low-TDP parts anyway.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#108

Post by kornholi »

nodamage wrote: post #92
MikeKusold wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was all about battery savings, then why not use DDR4? DDR4 is more power efficient [1] [1] http://www.memcon.com/pdfs/proceedings2013/track2/Designing_...

Your link compares DDR4 against DDR3, but you should be comparing DDR4 against LPDDR3 .

Why not LPDDR4 against LPDDR3? LPDDR4 is also more efficient and has better density.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#109

Post by anexprogrammer »

initram wrote: post #85
sjtgraham wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? Apple doesn't seem to know or care. I don't know who this MBP is for. Increasingly less people can justify an Apple macOS portable when an iOS device covers their requirements satisfactorily and it doesn't meet the needs of many professionals at all (present and anticipated needs for the machine's useful life). Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique…

> Apple doesn't seem to know or care. Oh nonsense! They showed like a dozen ways that the new touch pad alone makes using professional apps easier, faster, and generally better in their keynote. They are clearly thinking specifically of the professional market. Whether they hit their mark or not is up to the market to decide. The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.

The new touchpad got so big it looks impossible to type without touchpad activity.

Isn't the illusion of scarcity and back orders from product launch 101 to encourage higher demand?

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#110

Post by phire »

jacobolus wrote: post #27
sotojuan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Macbooks are so close to being great it's annoying. The specs are fine by me and I'm neutral on the Touch Bar, but the price and lack of ports just makes them not worth it. While I'm glad Apple is trying to move the industry to use USB-C for everything, it wouldn't had killed them to include some USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port. It's going to be at least 3-5 years until the industry uses USB-C and by that poin…

> it wouldn't had killed them to include some USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port. Magsafe, USB Type A, HDMI, and Mini DisplayPort / Thunderbolt 1/2 are all literally too wide to fit within the width of the new laptop’s sides. They would have needed to make the whole laptop noticeably thicker or otherwise differently shaped to fit any of those. The headphone jack barely fits.

My current laptop is thinner than the new 13" Macbook Pro (bearly, by just 0.5mm). Way thinner than the 15" Macbook Pro.

Yet it has full sized USB 3.0 ports, a USB-C port, SD slot and an HDMI port.

The only reason those ports don't fit on the new MacBooks, is because the bottom curves up near the edges.

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