from the have-you-tried-programming-on-a-tablet? dept.
Christopher Mims writes at the WSJ that Apple like all ambitious companies occasionally strays from its focus. According to Mims the iPhone is just coming into its prime, the iPad is an immature platform and the iWatch is in its infancy, yet Apple continues to invest in one-of-a-kind feats of engineering like the Mac Pro, which ships in volumes that are a rounding error on pretty much everything else Apple makes. "Something's got to give," writes Mims. "Showpieces like iMacs with screens that have more pixels than any PC ever (and four times the average selling price of a PC) are impressive, but what is Apple trying to prove? Is it really a good idea for Apple to continue to put resources against being king of a last-century technology?"
According to Mims the world's best tech companies can be the best at two things at once, maybe three and even a company as mighty as Apple gets to be the best at only a handful of things. "In a world in which the cloud is increasingly the hub of everything individuals and businesses do, and our mobile devices its primary avatar, what on Earth is Apple doing running victory laps around a dying PC industry? Personally, I'd rather see Apple push the envelope on what's next."
takyon: Paywall buster.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:52AM
From my observation, it's just now that Apple laptops are getting traction (I see lots of them; that was not the case just a few years ago).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by davester666 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:56AM
I believe the correct response would be for the WSJ to not be telling Apple what to do.
One of these companies is one of the highest stock-market caps in the world [which is really all that is important in the US], and makes billions and billions of dollars in profits, including from the division making desktop machines [yes, just throw those away, don't need or want them anymore]
The other is a company that is trying to stay afloat by publishing multiple negative and/or bizarre stories about the other company in a cheap attempt to get page hits.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:03AM
Focus? Resources? I think a $230 billion company can afford a handful of engineers to figure out how to get the high DPI panel (made by LG Display [ifixit.com]) stuffed into a MacBook or iMac. As long as professionals keep on buying them, they'll keep on selling them.
Paywall busted: http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2015/06/15/why-apple-should-kill-off-the-mac [bdlive.co.za]
Looks like the defense of Apple against this column already occurred... two weeks ago:
http://www.macworld.com/article/2935980/no-wsj-apple-shouldnt-kill-off-the-mac.html [macworld.com] (I do like the garbage can design)
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/06/16/column-calling-on-apple-to-kill-the-mac-sparks-derision-debate/ [siliconbeat.com]
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/16/no-wall-street-journal-apple-shouldnt-kill-off-the.aspx [fool.com]
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2935638/apple-mac/apple-doesnt-need-to-kill-the-mac-to-replace-it.html [computerworld.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:08AM
Yeah, just as they did when they released the iPod when heir focus was computers. What a failure! </sarcasm>
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:36AM
BREAKING: Wall Street Analyst Cannot See Forest From All the Trees That Stand in the Way.
Next: Ice-cream tastes good.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:09AM
The answer is simple: because iphone depends on macs. You can only develop for them with a mac. If mac didn't exist you could do that with a normal windows or linux pc and that goes against apple's core strategy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:59AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:26AM
This. Not only would killing the Mac kill all development for iPhone/iPad, Apple has time and time again proven that when they attempt developing for other platforms, the result is bloatware that people will do anything to avoid.
And without apps, the iPhone and iPad would be as popular as Windows Phone and Surface.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:46PM
Just because tools to make apps aren't available to the general public doesn't mean there will be no apps. Case in point: The PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS have plenty of games even though access to the devkits is curated.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:43PM
Apple could kill iMac, kill MacBook, and kill Mac mini. Then it could still keep making Mac Pro in what the article calls "volumes that are a rounding error" to sell to established software companies. The major video game console makers have employed this strategy successfully with their devkits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:02PM
Successfully is a relative term. The iPhone is worth 700 billion, PlayStation isn't.
Had it had such a steep new developer entry bump, the app store would have been stuck with a chicken-egg problem. Few users -> no point to spend immense effort to make apps -> still few users etc
(Score: 3, Insightful) by M. Baranczak on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:27PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @08:35AM
Dominating a growing market the way iPhone does leads to absolutely ridiculous profits. Not doing so leads to mediocre profits. Profit-wise, nothing else should matter to Apple besides ensuring that dominance.
Thus we get:
Mac business hurts iOS business -> ditch macs
Mac business supports iOS business -> give macs some extra help (if need be, although they seem to be doing fine)
Mac business is completely irrelevant with regard to iOS business as well as whatever is the next big thing -> spin it off
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:19AM
Despite the fact that OS X has sucked horse nuts since 10.7, these people that think that killing off the PC in favor of brain damaged tablets and smartphones is a good idea, well, they are definitely not developers. I hate tech pundits who know nothing about tech. It's all about the feel of the keyboard of the new Macbook Air and not about the underlying hardware and capabilities. Feel lucky if you get some accurate hardware specs. Don't expect them to know shit about what it means though.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:43AM
yeah, this is just another THE DESKTOP IS DEAD
HEY WHY ARE PEOPLE BUYING DESKTOPS?
Because the desktop is far from dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:55AM
Of course the desktop is dead. I've been using towers exclusively for the last 20 years!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:47AM
Not just developers, but anyone who uses their computer creatively. Just try to whip up a complicated CAD drawing on an iPhone, even the 6 plus, or a computer generated monster for a movie on a Nexus 7. How about dealing with a simple 12 column spreadsheet, or write up a basic ten page report? Basically, anyone who does digital work needs a computer with precise and accurate, plus speedy, input and usually as much screen real estate as can fit their field of view. Phones and tablets are great for consumption -- and that's it. To do real work on a phone, you'd need a full size keyboard, a mouse or pen device, and big ass fresnel lens to see what the hell you're doing. It's like this guy watched Brazil and thought -- that's how I want my computer to be: http://modes.io/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/brazil_console_computer.jpg [modes.io] -- tiny screen with a bunch of crap stuck on it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:54AM
Darn it, double reply. I recently "downgraded" from Snow Leopard to Yosemite (except on this laptop -- still has SL on it). Apple definitely needs another Snow Leopard -- in tracking down a solution to an issue I ran into this article: http://www.tekrevue.com/yosemite-bugs-time-for-another-snow-leopard/ [tekrevue.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:05AM
What a humongous moron this Christopher Mims is.
First of all, that's where apple came from. It wasn't the ipods and other stuff.
Secondly, even if it is just a "rounding error" of other sales, it's still brings in money, so now you just want to dump it, because it's not making enough? Way to think like a useless piece of shit corporate CEO and the rest of the money hungry morons running things.
Thirdly, a company should always also have other things to do than the core, because at some point the core business is not going to be relevant anymore. It's late to start thinking of other stuff to do, when no one is buying the core crap anymore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:17AM
According to Mims the iPhone is just coming into its prime, the iPad is an immature platform and the iWatch is in its infancy
...
what on Earth is Apple doing running victory laps around a dying PC industry
The iPhone hardware is physically a good cellular wireless telephone device (but you must usually pay a hefty subscriber premium and live in Apple's walled-garden)...
The iPad hardware is physically a good flat, tablet-y device (but you must live in Apple's walled-garden)...
The iWatch might be a good example of a (ridiculous, expensive, unnecessary and mostly useless) "smart watch" (which isn't a actually a "smart watch" but rather an Expensive Extra External display for your phone,) however...
Those of us that actually use our Personal Computers to do real work instead of just consume content (like, for example, actually creating that content) will be using our real, true workstation computers long after the "PC industry is dead."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Geezer on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:21AM
Gee, arrogant much? Building good PC's may not be the biggest profit center or the sexiest new hipster fad, but if refining a mature technology still makes money, why not? A buck's a buck, isn't it?
Let's examine a few buggy whips that, while mature, remain bleeding-edge on the R&D front:
Cars. Power train and safety R&D never end. Last I checked, they seem to still be popular.
Airplanes. Materials and power plant research never ends. Boeing and Airbus are still making them. People still pay to ride them.
Food. Big R&D for a low-margin business. But with a 100% of population market, any share is a big share.
Can we leave the "desktop is dead" fanboy stories to the trolls still skulking around the green site?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:02PM
if refining a mature technology still makes money, why not?
Because our current technology business climate has an obsessive, almost psychotically self-destructive, fixation on exponential growth. Even mere linear growth is considered a "dying" market that must soon be abandoned. If the market for some product provides only steady sales with little or no growth at all, you should be running from it as fast as you can. Disinvest! Get out of making desktops!
Desktops then laptops then tablets and smartphones each had periods of explosive growth which smoothly led into each other, so that became "normal". Wallstreet, tech pundits, and business writers all calibrated their measures of success around this unsustainable model. Now, a return to some sanity and stability looks like a market segment about to die.
People who actually use desktop PCs for work, developers, know better. And Apple needs developers for the rest of their business to make any sense.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mendax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:49AM
My first experience with a Mac was in 1984 or thereabouts when the university I was going to acquired two of the original 128k Macs. The screens were small, only black and white, the thing took forever to boot and you could only write eight pages or so of a MacWrite document before you ran out of memory. Yet, it was an extraordinary device, with software that was absolutely amazing for the time. But I was a mainframe guy at the time, wrote my term papers and essays in a text editor, and printed them out on the computer center line printer loaded with letter-sized white paper. I was comfortable and competent in the command-line world and preferred it. When I got my first PC, I generally used DOS instead of the GeoWorks GUI that came with it. But I eventually graduated to Windows 3.1, and even though I started to have some more experience with Macs when I took a job in grad school, I preferred working in the Windows world. When Windows 95 came out I was flabbergasted at just how good it was. Sure, it had some problems and deficiencies but compared to what Apple was producing it was obviously superior. I still think that Windows 95 was perhaps the greatest piece of software engineering in history given what Microsoft had to overcome to make it work.
Fast forward to about 2000. Windows 2000 was out and, while it was better than Windows NT, I found that it and PCs were quite uninspiring. About a year later I decided to bite the bullet and take a chance on an iMac and the relatively new Mac OS X. I spent what I thought was a small fortune and bought a second-generation iMac, one of those things with the monitor on a pedestal sticking out what looked like half of a white bowling ball. It was weird, it was bold, but it was beautiful and it worked splendidly. MacOS was equally beautiful. It was stable, it was relatively easy to use, and it worked well for me.
Now, let's move on to the present. I'm writing this using a new iMac, my fourth. I bought it for the same reason why I bought the last three. The design was bold, the OS was easy to use, and it did what I needed well enough. Yes, it was overpriced—all Apple products are overpriced—but I am convinced that you generally get what you pay for. If this were not the case I could not see so many Mac laptops at Starbucks in front of their coffee-swilling patrons.
I have an HP laptop which runs Windows 8.1. I almost never use it and I admit I hate it, both because it has Windows on it and because HP botched its design. I have yet to see Apple botch the design of anything in the hardware realm its sold since the late Steve Jobs took over the running of the company. Sure, it has had software problems (e.g., Mac OS "Yosemite" is a performance dog even on my new and speedy iMac—Linux on my old 6.5-year-old iMac is far more responsive) but its hardware is usually first rate (in my opinion).
People buy Macs because they are well-designed, well thought-out, and have software that usually is equally well-engineered. As long as people want to buy them, Apple will have no problem selling them.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @11:59AM
Clearly you've never experienced OS/2 Warp.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:36PM
You lost me there. Windows 95 was a major step back from Windows NT. All it had was that it looked a little better. Instead it doomed the PC to years of layered-on-dos disaster until it was fixed with Windows 2000. Win2k, with all it's bulk, might be worthy of that designation.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:05PM
I think he is referring to Microsoft's move from DOS/Win 3.x to a graphical OS.
The road to NT was a long one that was carefully planned out. Even though NT was technically superior to Windows 95/98/Me, Microsoft could not tell an entire industry running on DOS/Win3.x to suddenly switch. If Windows NT was their only offering as a successor to DOS/Win 3.x and lacked compatibility, it almost certainly would have flopped.
So they developed a common UI and API, Win32, that would work on both a hybrid DOS/32bit OS (Win 95) and their fancy 32bit hybrid NT kernel (NT 4.0). So as time progressed, more and more Win32 software was developed which was (almost) able to run on either OS architecture. Eventually win32 displaced DOS and Win 3.x. to the point where MS could safely switch to NT without disrupting the software ecosystem. That was around the time of Windows 2000 when they finally merged the Direct X multimedia ability of Win 9x into NT. Prior to 2k, NT had very limited direct X support making it unsuitable for PC gaming which was starting to really take off. But there were still two classes of OS: Consumer oriented 98/Me and the NT powered 2k which was aimed at commercial users. Finally MS released XP which bought NT to all users eliminating the legacy 9x code.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:04PM
I find it strange to be arguing for Microsoft here given how much I generally loathe their products but I must. While I agree with you that Windows NT was a superior operating system on the whole when compared to Windows 95, Windows NT required a computer with vastly more memory and was about as unfulfilling to use as Windows 3.1.
Windows 95 was very different. Under the hood, was not much different from Windows 3.1 where it mattered. It was essentially a 32-bit multitasking version of DOS (and pretty awful at that) which ran a GUI. The GUI was completely redesigned and far, far much easier and more intuitively easier to use than that of Windows 3.1. However, the graphics code that ran it was the same 16-bit code was was used with Windows 3.1. What made Windows 95 (and 98 and ME) very different from Windows NT was its support for plug and play, the idea that you can shut the machine, swap out hardware, and the operating system would not only detect the change but would identify what changed and look for a driver that would work. What was remarkable about this feature was not so much the difficulty in making that work was the fact that Microsoft had to test just about every conceivable hardware configuration from just about every manufacturer. It wasn't until the release of Windows 2000 that NT had advanced to this point.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Skittles on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:44PM
I've worked in support at several companies over the years and always loved to hear how awesome Apple hardware is from my users. Having actually worked on them on a daily basis I can say that they're *far* from perfect. Drink spills are the worst on Macs, the curved bottom panel holds the beer/curry/chicken soup/durian smoothie (yes, that happened. no, I didn't try to clean it) right against the motherboard. I know drain holes aren't pretty but they work wonders on laptops that have them. Even water spills that would normally be fine after 24 hours under a fan sometimes aren't repairable due to all the nooks and crannies where water can hide.
My favorite is how often the sata connector ribbon in the pre-retina Macbook Pro fails. Just look at how ridiculously over-engineered this thing is:
http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Cable-MacBook-Unibody/dp/B00456S0IO [amazon.com]
And who the fuck glues a battery into a laptop? But hey, as long as you're cool with your shiny hunk of aluminum becoming a paperweight when the soldered in RAM starts flipping bits on you then go for it. Also, this isn't a defense of your forlorned HP. They haven't made a product worth buying since the LaserJet 4 series was retired.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @03:37PM
I had my first experience with a Mac in college in 1987, got my own PC in 1990 but went DOS (DR-DOS) because I wanted a color screen for games. I actually liked GEO-Works for its word processor. During grad school I used Windows 3.1 on an early-ish laptop (486-sx with 16 shades of gray and a clip on trackball which I actually liked a lot). My first job after grad school was at a place which used Macs -- they sucked, were slow, crashed all the freakin time (late 90s, pre-OSX). At home I was still using 3.1 but was also struggling with Linux. By 2000 I was in a new job and using Windows there, not sure what (95, 98?), at home I got a new computer with Windows ME (!) but I was also getting proficient enough on Linux (Red Hat at the time) to be a dual booter. By 2003, I was 100% Linux. Then I got married in about 2005, and my wife wanted to be able to do a lot of the stuff Linux didn't do well, and I didn't really want Windows on my home network, so I got her an iBook. When I saw how awesome OSX was, I got myself a macbook. Then I switched over my whole small business to using macs on the frontend of things.
As for the quality of Apple hardware, I'm a cheapskate so I usually buy from the Apple's refurb store. I'm typing this out on a refurb machine I bought in 2009 for $1600ish. I have a new one I just bought (also refurb) for $1600 sitting here waiting for me to do a manual migration. The only reason I got the new computer was because Snow Leopard is end-of-lifed and Yosemite will murder this perfectly good but older laptop. Even so, this machine has only cost me $22.25 per month and I could sell it for $300 to 400 (which would bring that down to about $17.50/mo), and it has helped me earn tons of money. It is one the absolute least expensive things about my business, and at the same time, one of the most valuable tools. It is true that I could do my work on $300 windows laptop, but I'd probably have to replace that every two to three years -- roughly $10/mo. Doing that would save $7.50/mo over the cost of my mac. That's 1.5 lattes or one meal at McDonalds. It's such a small amount of money, it's irrelevant, and when compared to the hit or miss nature of cheap crappy laptops, which might be reliable or might not, going with a craptop is penny wise and pound foolish.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:37PM
Oh, yes! You have reminded me. I did use its word processor. It worked quite well. However, at that time I was out of school and therefore when I needed to write something I generally did it by hand or in a text editor. Incidentally, I still prefer to write things in longhand 25 years since that time.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:08PM
For whatever reason, I grip my pens or pencils like I'm trying to choke them to death. If couldn't have used a keyboard most my entire life, I'd have a totally useless writing hand by now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by enigma32 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:07PM
I'm pretty sure the experience varies from person to person.
Personally, when I sit down at a mac, I find it impossible to get anything done because the UI doesn't work the way I want it to and I can't tweak it to work as such. (It's impossible. I've really, really tried.)
My macbook air works great for hangouts in Chrome, but when I try to do anything with xcode I deal with error messages and crashes.
For these sorts of reasons I've bought exclusively Sony laptops for over a decade and installed linux on them.
The sony machines I've had have been beautiful (always a step *above* apple in design) and extremely resilient despite abuse. Linux, of course, always just works as long as the hardware is properly supported on the initial install-- something I find increasingly more common now.
You'll find that a fair amount of Apple's design details originated with Sony-- Chiclet keys being the biggest example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiclet_keyboard).
I can't find a link right now, but I remember reading an article about a partnership between Apple and Sony at some point where Sony provided much-needed advice to Apple about manufacturing for the consumer space. Wish I could find that.
At any rate, Apple may be three steps ahead of most PC manufacturers, but their UI is a toy and they were always behind Sony in product design. (You should my Air next to my VAIO. It's appalling.)
Too bad they won the war; I'm holding on to my last VAIO laptop until it completely falls apart, since nobody in the PC industry stepped in to fill the void when Sony dropped out.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:03PM
System76? I've never used one but their computers do look nice and are reputably well made.
As for chicklet keyboards, I've gotten used to them, but my TRS-80 Color Computer (16 extended color basic) had those back in the mid 80s, though it was much harder to type on than the current chicklet systems.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:05PM
preview dammit. That was a "16k extended color basic" version. Like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer#/media/File:TRS-80_Color_Computer_1_front_right.jpg [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:34PM
Xcode is an exception to what I wrote about Apple software. Its authors must be in league with Satan (or Microsoft's current Windows team) to produce such awful software. Over the years I've tried to use it and given up on ever being productive. Fortunately, I've never developed stuff for Mac OSes exclusively, so having to use Xcode was never a requirement. I do have it installed on my new iMac, but only because it's the fastest way to get the command-line GNU compilers and runtime libraries so I can be productive in other ways.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @10:42AM
Christopher Mims writes
Well, perhaps he shouldn't
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday July 01 2015, @11:01AM
Some people own ordinary everyday cars, but aspire to own a Ferrari.
Some people own ordinary everyday computers, but aspire to own a Mac Pro.
Hell, if I had the money to burn, I'd buy one in a heart beat!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:11PM
I'd buy one in a heart beat!
I wouldn't but who gives a shit.
Apple can make whatever the hell they want. If it's profitable then they should keep making them. If they aren't then they should keep making them if they don't cost too much and helps maintain their image as a high-end device maker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:25PM
In other words, while it benefits them in some way they should keep building them.
You probably have something there.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:53PM
Yeah, to extend the analogy -- how many car manufacturers have a "halo car"? One that few buy, but many want. I think it's a pretty well understood marketing concept.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bart9h on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:14PM
A better headline should be:
"Should Apple Kill Off the Mac?"
Then we would all know the answer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:20PM
"Showpieces like iMacs with screens that have more pixels than any PC ever (and four times the average selling price of a PC)
Or, to put it another way, that cost less than a 5k PD display on its own [dell.com]. Any PC maker with a full range is likely to offer a model that costs 4x the average (mean) selling price of a PC. Averages are a bloody useless statistic for this sort of comparison.
Meanwhile, the Mac allows Apple to offer a seamless PC/phone/tablet/watch/set-top-box platform (yeah, its not perfect, but it makes trying to interoperate between, say, Windows and Android a joke). The "halo" effect - originally referring to the way iPods helped raise the profile of Macs - cuts both ways: now they're selling popular and attractive PCs which, incidentally, are at their best if you buy an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch to go with them...
I'd agree that the Mac Pro is a bit of an oddity, that really doesn't make sense unless you're doing pro 3D or video editing... but it doesn't hurt the rest of the brand to have the odd movie made on your kit.
what on Earth is Apple doing running victory laps around a dying PC industry?
...hedging its bets against the possibility that the PC industry is only "mostly dead" and might get better soon. I'm sure tablets and phones are going to be big business for the foreseeable future, but its far less clear that PCs are going away in the medium term - sometimes, you just need a decent sized screen and a proper keyboard. Phones are probably here to stay but tablets could easily be squeezed out between large-screen phones and sub-ultrabooks.
Lots of people want to follow the narrative that mobile has killed the PC. The alternative viewpoint is that the PC reached maturity and, instead of adapting to a market where people's PCs weren't obsolete after 18 months, the industry were distracted by the tablet fad and ignored the PC or, worse, wrecked it by trying to turn PCs into tablets (*cough* windows 8 *cough*). Only Apple has been continuing to innovate in PCs: nothing ground-breaking, but they've pushed up screen resolutions, done a hard sell on replacing spinning rust with SSDs, pretty much invented the ultrabook format and challenged the need for internal expansion now that everything is hooked up with packetised serial interfaces.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:19PM
They didn't invent the ultrabook format. They may have a great entry in the area, but they were far from the first to try.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Thursday July 02 2015, @09:31AM
They didn't invent the ultrabook format.
Well, the term "ultrabook" wasn't coined by intel until after the success of the Air... and read any review of a PC ultrabook and see what they compare it to.
The Air was, pretty much, a new format: there had been ultra-portables (like the Vaio 505) and netbooks (like the eeePCs) but they tended to have tiny displays, miniature keyboards and pretty feeble processors. The Air had an almost full-pitch keyboard, a reasonable sized display, was comparatively powerful, but really went for thin-ness and dependence on wireless connectivity.
Anyway, the whole concept of the modern laptop - with the set-back keyboard and the pointing device in the middle of a wrist-rest - dates back to the Apple/Sony collaboration on the original PowerBook.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:38PM
Most of the responses WRT phone vs desktop have focused on the phones really poor UI for serious tasks.
However I'd propose there's bigger differences like the walled garden vs relative freedom. A world where I can only develop software that apple approves of and is flawlessly politically correct and doesn't compete with apple, would pretty much suck. Or a world where I have no choice other than what apple decided (kind of like Gnome, which no one likes but the designers and utter noobs). A world where I never really own or control "my" computer and have to pay extortionate IBM mainframe like monthly fees per device for network access, sucks.
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:51PM
They need the Mac to own the application environment to develop apps for iOS. A lot of things could be suboptimal if they had to support generic Windows hardware.
I say this even if I'd like a cross platform Xcode and no ties with OS X.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:43PM
Love it how the blind fanboys don't realize that their fabled Macs are generic Windows hardware...
It used to be wintel but these days it's also mactel.
But hey, go ahead, pay a premium for your unicorn milk and dragon horn built wonder machine...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:52PM
Yes it is Intel based, and yes some of the hardware is shared, but it ain't generic. If that were the case, building a hackintosh wouldnt be an accomplishment . . .
(Score: 4, Informative) by RobotMonster on Wednesday July 01 2015, @03:42PM
I have a 5 year old twin-Xeon Mac pro (with the tower form-factor instead of the dustbin).
I paid a lot for it, but an equivalent Windows machine would have cost similar.
It has easily paid for itself in reduced compile times and general lack of hassle.
It still kicks arse, despite being 5 years old -- I can still get into the top-ten list for individual machines contributing to SETI without dedicating 100% of its processing power...
I have had zero problems with it. It's very quiet - the last desktop Windows machine I had (with considerably less grunt) sounded like an F16 taking off every time you did a compile.
OSX is far from perfect, but it's a lot closer to something sensible than Windows has ever been.
Unfortunately I develop software for Windows. Running Windows inside a VM's window is the only way to run Windows. When it goes into an update-reboot-frenzy, I can catch up on email and soylent...
I recently bought a new Retina MacBookPro. It too, is quite a nice piece of hardware. Well made, quiet and fast (though not faster at compiles as my 5-year-old-monster).
I've bought high-end windows laptops in the past, and they never delivered on the promises they made. Super loud. No battery life. And Windows. Ugh!
Hilariously, one activity that is guaranteed to activate the fans in my new MacBookPro is running *windows update*.
I'm just hoping that Apple fix their dustbin design before my current tower is cost-effective to replace. AC power cable right next to the headphone plug? No extra internal storage? Come on!
Unlike Christopher Mims, I actually use my computer for computing...
(Score: 3, Touché) by penguinoid on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:49PM
Who wants to bet as to whether Apple will be profitably selling desktops longer than WSJ is profitably selling papers?
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:36PM
The WSJ is profitably selling papers?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:07PM
WSJ also says that we should do away with solar and wind power because they are a growing threat to coal.
I observed not long ago that most people make decisions without considering the effects of those decisions on entire systems. Mims is considering only the money made by selling a box. How much revenue does Apple enjoy as a result if what that box' new owner uses it for?
Professional video, prepress graphics, Apple's own coders building OS X or iOS.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:46PM
Forget about Apple doing victory laps around a "dying" PC market. I want to see them do victory laps around the rim of a fast flushing toilet!