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The Macintosh line of personal computers will soon be 32 years old. It has a venerable past… but what kind of future does it have in a declining market?
On the surface the Mac appears to be thriving. If ‘Macintosh Inc.’ were an independent company, its $22.8B in revenue for Apple’s 2016 accounting year (which ended in September) would rank 123rd on the Fortune 500 list, not far below the likes of Time Warner, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon
But there’s more to the Mac’s future than its current good numbers. After enjoying a good time in the sun, the Mac is on the same downward slope as the rest of the PC market.
[...] Instead of racing to the bottom as the market plummets, Apple appears to be taking the “high road”, in a sense: They’re taking refuge at the high end of the market by introducing new, more expensive MacBook Pros, with a visible differentiating feature, the Touch Bar. This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.
Apple’s recognition that the PC market is declining also explains why the company has been slow in updating its laptops and desktops. The iPhone, with $136B in revenue for 2016, is a much higher priority and gets more development resources. In a war, the top general puts more and better troops on the most important battle.
(Score: 3, Touché) by tibman on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:11PM
At least the journalist isn't claiming the desktop market is dying. Gamers will still be gaming on desktops in 2026. The enthusiast group does drive a lot of technology. Better graphics cards, better cooling, lower latency, and so on. A lot of corporate offices have transitioned to laptops which is a big part of the decline. A lot of people are fine with having a shitty laptop to type up school papers, emails, and operate that old printer.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by zafiro17 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:46PM
Have a closer look at the byline. This isn't a random journalist, it's Jean Louis Gassee, former Apple executive and the guy who started BeOS in about 2001 or so. He's not just a pundit. That said, he might as well be just a pundit, since this article offers no insight whatsoever into the ecosystem, or a plausible "end game" of any sort for the Macintosh. In fact, as far as I can tell, he concludes with "oh well, nobody knows, but if they've got a good idea, they'll be rich." Hell, I could have written this article based on the observations I make at any random Apple consumer store.
I read all the hate and abuse online about the new TouchBar, but when I saw one in the shop and played with it, it sort of made sense to me. I miss my function keys, but let's face it, the F1 keys gave way to volume/brightness/etc. a long time ago for most consumers (only programmers really use function keys extensively, and even Microsoft Word shortcuts like Control-F3 and the like seem antiquated, something out of the 1980s). Alt-F4 sucks: Win-W would be much more elegant. So, maybe they're onto something here. The criticism that the machines are overpriced and underpowered, on the other hand: that's accurate. But what if future machines expand the Touchbar interface to provide an occasional number pad, things like that? They are clearly mapping out a path to something new and interesting.
I don't know what it is, but Jean Louis Gassee, despite penning an article that claims to have insight into the future, doesn't know either. Hope he earned his $40 for writing it, spent in on coffee and a sandwich, and went back to watching TV from the couch.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:13PM
Regarding the "touchbar", all I can see is them mapping out the ability to touch-type. It's a ridiculous idea for a "professional" machine.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:56PM
So right with the function keys. Normal people have so little use for them that a lot of laptops have mapped the media keys over them and you have to press FN+F# to get "normal" functionality. As a developer my left hand can get stuck on F9-F12 for periods of time (debugging). Some games make good use of the F# keys as well. But the F# keys are largely vestigial now. Even though i will miss them it's not the end of the world to remap their functionality to some meta+key functionality, as you suggested.
Personally, I have already dropped the numpad in preference for a smaller keyboard (tenkeyless). Much less travel time/distance when going from home-row to mouse. Bonus is that it also fits in the work laptop bag. Trying to play Dwarf Fortress without the numpad sucks though : P
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(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:02PM
The main two reasons sales of traditional computers are falling is that first, as someone above said, there's no longer any need to upgrade; a ten year old computer will do anything most folks need a computer for (except gamers). But the primary reason is that ten years ago there were no tablet computers, and for 95% of the population, a tablet's all they need.
Tablets are for watching, reading, and listening. Desktops and laptops are for typing, which most people have little or no need for.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:57PM
Yeah, good point with the tablet. If you are mostly consuming and not creating then a tablet is perfect.
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(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:14PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday November 30 2016, @02:26PM
Once you attach a keyboard, mouse, and use a stand for your tablet you've effectively created a laptop.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:40PM
"What creation do you think that most people do on a laptop or desktop that they can't do on a tablet?"
In the absolute sense, not much.
In the sense of practicality, plenty. Creation requires entry and management of information. Rapid, accurate entry, and ideally with a good view of the data at hand because current entry is based on current state.
Even granting that modern tablets are powerful enough for major work in CPU terms, they are often IO constrained both in terms of internal architecture, and in terms of their connection options.
Now I do observe that you weasel-worded "most people" so you can always mumble something about emails with funny cat videos being easy on a tablet, but the constraints of the tablet will also keep them there. Writing a novel? Terrible on those crappy tablet keyboards. There goes NaNoWriMo. Want to use your lovely MIDI keyboard with all the bells and whistles? At the very least you need the USB dongle and a MIDI interface attached to that. Want to do serious video rendering? Hope you have your power cord, because this will take a while. A long while.
But hey, if you want to keep the monkeys pulling the lever ... I mean, the turtleneck wearers sipping their espressos while telling themselves how creative they are, tablets are great!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday November 30 2016, @02:07PM
What you are doing now might not be what you want to do in a year. This situation where people are encouraged to buy computing devices unsuitable for creating works also increases the entry barrier for people who want to start creating for the first time. Not everyone has a spare $1000 to drop on a MacBook once he learns he has outgrown the capability of his iPad.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:06PM
It depends on what you're creating. This five year old laptop I paid $250 for new is fine for writing.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org