51–60 of 223 posts
"Jony Ive was the hero long enough to become the villain" may be an overdone take at this point, but this just continues to prove it true. Ive led Apple's design org through a renaissance that lasted two decades, but it ultimately collapsed in a string of vanity projects that put a serious dent in Apple's design credibility. Maybe it was not having Jobs as a counterbalancing force that wasn't afraid to say "no;" mayb…
So eight years after the first retina MBP there's finally a good retina MBA.
The ARM comparison in terms of power efficiency doesn't really make sense, does it? I guess he's right about the efficiency but there isn't a real competitive ARM-based laptop available right now, at least I haven't heard of one and even if there is one: Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptab…
I don't think the OS is the problem. First, macOS went through PowerPC -> x86 -> x86_64. Secondly, iOS and macOS share a lot of components, including the kernel.
More difficult would be moving the app ecosystem. Apple could do PowerPC emulation with Rosetta, because Intel CPUs had leapfrogged PowerPC by quite a wide margin at that point. It's probably a more difficult feat to put off with x86_64 -> ARM. Though, I think Windows ARM (at least) does x86 emulation.
That said, Apple has a lot of leverage with/over the ecosystem. Most macOS/iOS developers are already used to having to fix their applications for the next macOS/iOS iteration, so Apple probably won't have much trouble convincing developers to add ARM as a target.
However, if this happens, we'll probably have fat binaries for some years again. For backwards compatibility, but it's also likely that they are not at the point where they could replace the Mac Pro yet.
It would be smart for them to do the transition though. They would not be dependent on Intel's cycles and product decisions anymore.
MacBook Air 2020 (4-core Core i5) 1,127 2,854
11″ iPad Pro 2018 (8-core A12X) 1,118 4,477
iPhone 11 Pro (6-core A13) 1,321 3,387
$999 Retina Mac with 256GB Baseline Storage?
Somewhere along the line in 2016, Apple's product value proposition went off. Everything from Mac to iPhone, they either had the same price but not as much improvement or a price hike with new feature.
At first it was thought Apple is moving into higher margin luxury style business, but now it seems it was a cover up for Service Revenue with huge margin. Despite Apple doubled its Service Revenue from 2016, its Gross and Net Margin has been stable over the past 5 years at ~38% and ~19%.
iPhone 11, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPad in 2020 have all priced like they were in ~2015. Roughly 30% premium to their competitors, So in a way, you can think of Services ( and likely wearables ) is Subsidising ( Edit: Offsetting should be the better word ) these price reduction.
"Jony Ive was the hero long enough to become the villain" may be an overdone take at this point, but this just continues to prove it true. Ive led Apple's design org through a renaissance that lasted two decades, but it ultimately collapsed in a string of vanity projects that put a serious dent in Apple's design credibility. Maybe it was not having Jobs as a counterbalancing force that wasn't afraid to say "no;" mayb…
What vanity projects?
Uh no. 8GB memory is not okay. 16GB is marginal but $200 more. Can you upgrade the memory?
The ARM comparison in terms of power efficiency doesn't really make sense, does it? I guess he's right about the efficiency but there isn't a real competitive ARM-based laptop available right now, at least I haven't heard of one and even if there is one: Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptab…
It's hard to take Gruber seriously anymore. I haven't seen anyone with such an obvious bias for Apple and disdain for anything non-Apple so 99% of what he writes about Apple is going to be sunshine and butterflies. If you aren't going to say anything controversial, why bother even listening to you? I'll just watch Apple's PR videos and be happy.
Rene Ritchie is worse. I've seen Gruber call Apple to task a few times this past year, but Ritchie just continues to make excuses.