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Open Letter to Tim Cook

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Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#191

Post by enraged_camel »

grzm wrote: post #10

I agree with the gist of the letter. Watching "Truth in 24" makes me appreciate Audi so much more. I thought this snippet from Jason Snell summarizes the new MacBook Pro offering well: "I don’t quite get the existence of the low-end, non-Touch-Bar-having 13-inch MacBook Pro. On stage, Phil Schiller argued that it was essentially a Retina replacement for the 13-inch MacBook Air, and I can see that. But it’s $500 more…

Agreed on the price. I was holding out for a retina MBP/MBA around the $1,000 mark. As things stand though, I'll probably add another 4 GB ram to my 2011 MBA and use it for a few more years.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#192

Post by pabloski »

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?

"Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro?". NO!!! They are the target of this machine. After all it is called Macbook Pro for a reason.

Consumers don't need Macbook Pros, they need at max Macbook Airs. A lot of them can be served by iPad Pros. And the vast majority by iPhones.

So yes, Apple is shooting itself in the foot.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#193

Post by ubernostrum »

zaphar wrote: post #19
ubernostrum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're seeing is people who never really liked Apple or its products, but ended up using them anyway because they were clear best-in-class products, and who consistently posted rants and conspiracy theories about Apple and threatened to jump ship at the earliest possible opportunity. And now they have what they see as an opportunity to exit while doing the most damage to a company they hate, by portraying the cu…

When people who use your products because they are best in class stop using them the clear message is they no longer think they are best in class. Being a fan and using Apple sends very little signal regarding their quality. Being agnostic and using Apple sends a larger signal. Right now the signal seems to be that Apple is no longer making professional class hardware. Fans and status symbol seekers will still want t…

I really do think we're seeing a lot of people who either A) despite furiously posting about how they're "done with Apple" and this was "the last straw", etc. (and doing this at literally every product refresh) are still going to buy iPhones and Macbook laptops, or B) mostly only used a Mac because it was issued to them at work and now are going to demand something different because they think they can make a case against Apple.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#194

Post by wila »

nodamage wrote: post #114
kornholi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Skylake does not support LPDDR4, nor does Kaby Lake (except with their ultra-low power chips). I don't think we're going to see 32 GB RAM in the ultrabook category until LPDDR4 is supported by Intel in their mobile-class processors. Edit: AnandTech suggests that LPDDR3 is 25-30% more power efficient than DDR4. ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/6326/additional-details-on-mic... )

That might be so, but the macbook air is the ultrabook series and the mac book pro should be the work horse series.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#195

Post by dolguldur »

Apple inverted the previous Christmas-like feeling of "we have something new for each of you" to a "we've removed something you personally liked" that seems to cover many of us.

I haven't commented yet at all since I think several issues aren't actually as big as people are concerned about them, but overall, I'm frustrated with the situation for computing.

I don't know how Apple works internally, but for me the problem is clearly not Tim Cook, but rather Jony Ive. He seems to be obsessed with some sort of purity that I appreciate in design. However form vs. function is too much of a tension to be bearable within one person. I think Apple lacks folks who weigh in on the functionality side of things. Why? Becasue Ive is magically associated with Jobs, Ive is almost like some medium to get to Jobs, or at least that's how I think some folks perceive him.

In reality Ive seems to be the person who'd rather have a nice TouchBar that spans the whole width of the keyboard instead of keeping just the escape key, which is obviously used much more than the other function keys.

I thought about this a lot and by now I know I'll definitely be okay with it, especially since there's no other non-tactile key near it (meaning my body will know I've hit escape once it touches the flatness that doesn't give in).

Another personal thing for me is the Magsafe. I really liked it not just as a trip-proof charging solution, but also for the way you connect it. It's so effortless, it's fun again and again. It's one of these micro-reinforcements that makes us love products. And again I can see the conflict. The new beauty is that you can dock so many devices and charging with just one single cable. I think that's a pretty great feature.

If there was more functionally thinking folks with power at Apple, they'd probably suggested to keep a Magsafe and allow the MBP to be charged by either that or over the USB-C. But you see how "ugly" even this though is, right?! It's a compromise and so in the end I think the current MacBook Pro is the result of not making any compromise in any of these decisions and that yields the product they showed us.

So part of me hates this chasing of pureness since I see it almost as some neurotic obsession about the visual aesthetics. I guess it would take a lot of self-confidence for a company like Apple to be okay with things that could be easily portrayed as compromises by the press. On the other hand I realize I'm pathetic and I'm not really working on improving any of this, so I thank Apple for pissing us off because it's somehow stimulating as well. (Even if it's just stimulating as in "work harder", so I can buy one of these without thinking too much about it).

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#196

Post by Yaggo »

neotek wrote: post #157

I'm looking forward to seeing what John Gruber over at Daring Fireball will have to say about all this, since his perspective tends to lean heavily toward giving Apple the benefit of the doubt and all I've seen so far is relentless negativity about the new MacBook Pro lineup. Personally, I'm extremely disappointed - I've been desperately holding off buying a new MacBook Pro to replace the aging mid-2012 non-retina mo…

Same here. I only wished for 32 GB RAM (would happily pay for 64 GB even with Apple premium, but hey).

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#197

Post by moon4u »

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…

I've gotta say. I'd use that device (on your [2] link) way more than my phone. Well... I wouldn't use it as a phone, but still.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#198

Post by ramchip »

snoman wrote: post #140
greggman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My number one consern was weight. I've been carrying my MBP for the last 3 years working out of coffee shops and co-working spaces. I'm tired of lugging around 4.5 lbs. Especially when there are 2 lbs 15 inch notebooks. Apple lowered the weight .3 lbs to 4.1, still double the lightest 15 incher.

Not sure how to say this without sounding offensive, but that seems you're very finicky, have some extreme environmental/situational requirements or like you have a medical condition resulting in serious physical weakness. Your body will naturally fluctuate double that in a day without your knowing.

I'm quite in shape, and yet I also find it tiring to lug around a laptop to and from work. There's a big difference between carrying a few pounds in body weight, and carrying it concentrated on one shoulder.

(A backpack would probably feel better than a messenger bag, but my local train line is often too crowded to carry a backpack)

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#199

Post by asendra »

sotojuan wrote: post #9
girfan wrote: post #2

The 15inch MBP has i7 Quad Core processor, Radeon graphics and double the RAM than the default 13inch models. This is not a minor jump in performance. I agree that they do sometimes prioritize size, thickness and beauty over performance but I don't see what else could go into the 15inch MBP that it currently lacks?

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…

Yeah, this is basically my opinion too. Luckily I was due for an upgrade last year when the Broadwells came out so Im set for a few years, otherwise this would have been a painful update for me.

I believe is fair for them to raise prices if they need to in order to properly achieve their targets. I'm willing to pay those prices every 3-4years for a better machine where I do 100% of my work. But they need to make them worth the price!

Instead, they removed a lot of useful things used every day by me, added things many won't have a use for (I use my laptop docked most of the time) and still they didn't make them top of the line spec wise (8gb/256gb at 2000$, max only 16gb), while being 500$ for the same BTO options!.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#200

Post by toyg »

kyriakos wrote: post #139
toyg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is ablaze. The first comments on Ars were very snarky too.

What subreddits by the way? (I want to have a look)

On /r/apple, keynote megathreads were an angry affair. All subsequent MBP-related threads, even the ones with positive titles, are full of people discussing alternatives. The "preorder" thread has been hastily unpinned.

These are the people who spent a year posting almost-daily "waiting" threads, and who would normally be discussing how to cheat or sell their souls to get the latest gizmo right away. I expect people in /r/pcmasterrace are laughing.

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