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Open Letter to Tim Cook

petersphilo.org

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161–170 of 233 posts

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#161

Post by DanHulton »

c0nducktr wrote: post #101
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? 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 thi…

I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS.

I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I want them to, well, that would grate. And over time, I'm probably going to grow to hate that machine.

Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac.

This is a big part of why people are so upset, is because we can't just wait for a competitor to jump in and save us. We've let ourselves become dependant on Apple, and -- like you put it -- we seem not to be the target market anymore. As much our fault as theirs maybe, I'm not one to judge, but it still sucks.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#162

Post by cameldrv »

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…

It's fine for Apple to make the current MBP, it fits the needs of many people, I'm sure. Creative and software professionals though, want a truly high-end model to exist, even if it weighs a bit more and is a little thicker. People developing iPhone apps in Swift are hurting because compile times are too slow, and there is no Apple laptop they can buy with high-end CPU.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#163

Post by mrich »

santaclaus wrote: post #29
ktRolster wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>models now are 16gb of ram only Do you have a use for more than 16gb? Serious question.

Multi-threaded builds of C++ codebases that make gratuitous use of template meta programming.

You should offload the build to a compile cluster. Especially if there are multiple developers doing this it will be worth setting it up.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#164

Post by jmeller »

hota_mazi wrote: post #156
jmeller wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that 5% market share they capture approximately 45% of the profits. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2013/04/17...

That number is nonsense. If you follow the source, it comes from Dediu, who's a well known Apple apologist, and if you read his own article, there's no substance to it. I'd love it if we could find actual, objective numbers.

To be honest I don't really know much about Dediu but I did read his article and I didn't get the impression that it lacked substance.

What is wrong with his methodology or assumptions that invalidate the 45% number?

I am honestly curious because I don't want to continue to cite a bad source.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#165

Post by Ar-Curunir »

c0nducktr wrote: post #101
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? 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 thi…

You still need people to develop for your platform, and delivering underpowered machines does not help with that.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#166

Post by dingaling »

toyg wrote: post #121
Razengan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> models now are 16gb of ram only (can someone explain this one?) Which other laptop were you going to buy that supports more than 16 GB? How much does it cost? What's it size, weight, color depth and battery life? As far as I know, the new Surface Book also only supports 16 GB of RAM . Or the new Razer Blade. The Razer Blade Pro can have 32GB of RAM, but it is twice as heavy and twice the volume of the 15" MBP.

The field was even more scarce 4 years ago. At the time, 16gb in a laptop was extremely rare. Apple won a lot of business (including mine) by showing that it was possible. Some people (including me) thought they would have spent some of the following 4 years figuring out how to keep moving up. Unfortunately, it looks like they actually spent that time pushing an MBP into an MBA chassis and adding a touch sensor that…

> The field was even more scarce 4 years ago

Dell Precision and HP EliteBook W series had more than 16GB well before that; several in the company where I worked had 20 and 24GB. Neither was obscure or exotic, both were aimed at the same professional market and were 'standard issue' for the top-tier in many large companies.

Apr 2011 ... the EliteBook 8540w can accommodate up to 32GB of memory

April 25, 2011 ... The Precision mobile workstations can handle up to 32GB of 1333MHz RAM and 16GB 1600MHz RAM

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#167

Post by rukuu001 »

DanHulton wrote: post #161
c0nducktr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thi…

I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS. I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I w…

> Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac.

The message from Apple seems to be 'get an iMac'. They seem to prefer their developers to be stationary :/

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#168

Post by addicted »

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?

A different way to put your question, is how do the design goals of the MacBook differ from the MacBook Pro?

As far as I can tell, the design goals are the same. The difference is that the Pros are more expensive.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#169

Post by agumonkey »

flukus wrote: post #97
agumonkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of video shops also used Mac extensively for decades. It seems it wasn't only good marketing, they were alright for this profession. Saying this lightly, I was a kid in the 90s, but I do remember a lot of ads for large Mac stacks (towers, disks, video cards, etc). Tiny SGIs in a way.

> video shops Presumably you mean video editing shops and not blockbusters? Our video shops were green screen terminals on DOS until... well until they ceased existence.

I couldn't say which precisely, maybe only part of the market, maybe some part of the post production pipeline. Surely lots were done on Flame like systems, which AFAIK weren't Mac based.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#170

Post by dasil003 »

pjmlp wrote: post #159
petersphilo wrote: post #90

Hello All, i am the OP of: https://petersphilo.org/#post-71 Just wanted to add a couple of things: Pro hardware can exist and has existed at Apple for most of its existence, please look back at the post and comments for evidence.. My point was not that Apple should choose between 'pro' hardware and consumer/boutique hardware, in fact, Apple has a long tradition of keeping both happy.. Maybe Apple really isn't interes…

Developers on Mac were always using the same computers as everyone else. I don't remember having a Mac Classic Pro or a LC Pro and so forth.

Very odd your selective memory. You don't remember the Macintosh IIfx?
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