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Apple Transitions Hardware Leadership
redletterdave writes "Apple will begin transitioning the leadership role within its hardware engineering department, now that Bob Mansfield, who led the engineering of many of Apple's most successful products since 2005, has decided to retire. Apple was quick to name Dan Riccio — currently the VP of hardware engineering for the iPad — as Mansfield's successor, mentioning that Riccio will learn the new role over several months. During that time, the hardware engineering team will continue to report to Mansfield."
I thought Steve Jobs invented everything, designed everything, fixed everything and sold everything at every apple store in the world.
First, redo the Mac Pro.
Interesting how the first thing on your list to do is something that won't benefit Apple as a company very much at all.
Define "make." They certainly have invested a lot of technology and design into the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac cases —especially the unibody designs. They may not assemble it in-house in California anymore, but it's not like they're slapping together outer case components from other companies. That qualifies as "make" in my book.
iPad2 Launch Video: Steve Jobs asks those who worked on iPad2 to stand and take a bow.
Every one of your proposals sounds like pretty much the exact opposite of what you would put the guy with the iPad experience in charge of...
Then virtually nobody in the tech industry makes anything, by your definition.
This is 100% a copy/paste post ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2947841&cid=40498491 though there may be others as well). How many times do you intend on posting it? Just curious. I would say you're just karma-whoring (since you were modded +5 previous) but you're posing AC so I'm not entirely sure of your motive.
Mac users know better than to open their computers. You might untangle the interwebs in there.
These days, are HDD slots really necessary? Most users don't upgrade their hard drives. USB 2 works pretty well, FireWire 800 is fantastic, and Thuderbolt is supposed to wipe with the floor with FW800. I'm sure the next iMac will have USB 3.
External drives work fine for a desktop. It's not like years ago when if you didn't have SCSI the performance was terrible.
I seriously doubt Apple would do that for the iMac. On the laptops you do it for space reasons, but on a 23" or 27" computer you have plenty of space to spare.
The point of the mini is that it's a tiny quite computer on the cheap (compared to full sized Apple models, not low end PCs). Why does it need to be bigger? And you're not supposed to need to open the case. What percentage of normal computer buyers do you think ever open their computer? At this point, laptops sell the best and can't be opened. They just have a slot or two that can be accessed through a panel. I'll agree that upgrading the older minis was terrible (I don't know if it's improved, I doubt it), but Apple markets and treats their computers like sealed appliances, and most people don't seem to care.
For $1200 the base iMac is a great computer. The graphics are fine for 95% of users. You can easily expand the storage with all the ports mentioned above. A fair number of people upgrade the RAM or hard drive in their computers, but almost no one buys expansion cards. The most common reason seems to be to get some new port (like USB 2 when that came out, or USB 3 now) and you can do that with Thunderbolt.
Apple has all the large market bases covered, and then some. The DIY Mac may appeal to /.ers, but I seriously doubt they'd sell. I can tell you users love the integrated easy to use appliance like setup of the current iMacs. I use one for development every day at work, and it's fantastic. Most people (both for person or work reasons) buy laptops anyway.
What kind of user would switch to the Mac for that? People who want to play games? Because the game selection on OS X isn't that great, and usually runs months behind Windows, if the games every come. When the latest graphics card comes out, there wouldn't even be drivers. No one is going to use it as a server, Apple clearly isn't interested in that (and I don't blame them, it's not a big market, and you can just use a Mac Pro if you really want one).
So your market is DIY people, who aren't hardcore gamers, who don't want a server, but do want a desktop. That's a tiny fraction of people. The Mac Pro is probably a rounding error in Apple's computer sales, and it has a decently sized market of professionals. But with Thunderbolt, some of the reasons for using a Pro (such as high speed interconnect to a RAID for video editing) can now be covered by the iMac.
Face it, the Mac Pro is what you want, you just don't want to pay the price. I don't blame you, it's not targeted at individuals and the price reflects that (by a good margin). But really, Apple has been ignoring the requests for the Mac Pro Mini for most of a decade, and it doesn't seem to have hurt their business at all. It's clearly not necessary.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The mini needs to be a little bigger so it can have been cooling and a easier to open case.
If it was bigger then it wouldn't be a mini now would it?
But what apple really needs is a $1000-$1500 (base price) desktop with a mid-range video card in a X16 slots + 1-2 open pci-e slots. with 4 ram slots and at least 2 hdd bays.
I think you are confusing what you want with what Apple needs. What you are describing is a PC with OS X. If that is what you want, build it yourself. Fact is that most people never open their PCs ever. The few that do aren't really much concern to Apple. Desktop PCs like what you describe are a market with a limited future. Laptop and tablet sales are where the profit and the demand is. Why would Apple introduce a product in a dying market segment with features that hardly anyone will use? Makes no business sense at all.
...Obviously Jobs did not invent, bundle, market or sell a sense of humour. You need more than one button for that.
My family has had an iMac for years, and I really like the one I have at work. You can get better graphics cards at the higher end, but none of them are blow-your-socks-off. I can't wait to see a 27" retina display model, but I'm sure it will at least a year, probably two, to get one.
I agree the external storage thing is a little odd, my point was more that in this day and age it's not that bad, you're not sacrificing performance. The hard drives in the current iMacs may be big enough for most users for their entire life, although that's clearly no the case if you go SSD. Having the drive internal is cheaper (since you don't have to pay for the enclosure) and prettier (since you don't have an external box sitting around), but then you have to make the computer more accessible to get the drive in and out and that's a compromise that Apple has shown they're not willing to make. I can tell you from upgrading my MBP's RAM and HD that I would have preferred the old days when there was a little panel you could take off instead of removing the entire bottom of the case.
I'd imagine Thunderbolt cables will get cheaper as they become more ubiquitous. Thanks to Intel's new chipset PCs are starting to ship with Thunderbolt ports, and that should help. I remember USB being expensive despite every motherboard having a couple of ports. It was only after the iMac kick-started demand for USB peripherals that the prices became reasonable.
As for eSATA... that's one I'll give you. On the laptops it's not too odd since it takes up space, but on an iMac there is plenty of room. It's not a special port that needs a separate controller chip, and there is no way an iMac is using up all the internal SATA ports on the chipset. My guess is that one was pure "We use Firewire, we don't need that."
I haven't used a mini in years, so I'll take your word for it. I'd imagine that (like many of the laptops) it can get quite warm when pushed. Come to think of it, my image of a Mini is still the older white models, I keep forgetting them made them even smaller and aluminum.
As for the Pro... I'm sure they'll fix it next year. That one has been driving a ton of speculation on the Mac blogs. I like the theory they didn't want to update until they could support a retina display, but that's pure conjecture.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
round the corners, add a button or two and file a patent.
Well, they may replace them when they inevitably fail. Of course, they take their computer into the Apple Store and say, "It broke. Make it better," rather than actually consider replacing the hard drive themselves. Especially when, if they looked, they'd see that Apple is charging them up the yang for a hard drive. But that's another story.
This is always an interesting question, though, and tough to gauge. One of the things about Apple is that you have no choice.
Consider Dell for a moment. Dell has come out with some pretty clever computers. But they didn't sell very well. I would posit that one reason they didn't sell very well was competition from other Dell machines. You can have a cool laptop that folds into a tablet for $999. But right next to it is a laptop that doesn't do that but has a bunch of USB ports and a memory card reader and a bigger screen and it's $699. And guess what they choose? Yup--the $699.
Apple doesn't do this. You get a gorgeous iMac with a stunning 27" screen, a sleek keyboard and touchpad. It looks like something from a Sci-Fi movie. But you don't have the choice to say, "Yeah, it's gorgeous, but go ahead and take all that stuff and stick it in a cheap-ass plastic PC box and charge me $300 less." When you have no choice, you start having to justify yourself. "It's not a big deal if I can't replace the hard drive. I can always get an external one. Sure it will cost a bit more and it may not be as fast, but that's the price I pay for having this gorgeous computer."
And this is where you run into the difference, I think, between Consumer and Pro lines. You're right--my Mom will never upgrade her hard drive. When her MacBook's hard drive goes south--as it eventually will--she will take it into the store and someone else will take her machine apart and replace her hard drive for her, hopefully rescuing her data in the process. The car analogy is apropos--when my car breaks down, I take it to the mechanic. He takes off the various "covers" that keep me from tinkering with my car and fixes the problem.
Pros, on the other hand, want to be able to upgrade their machines. They worry about things like battery life and having replaceable batteries. They want to be able to fix their machines themselves rather than finding an Apple Store or Authorized Repair Shop and dropping the computer off for two days. If I'm a photographer and my MacBook Pro's hard drive fails while I'm shooting a safari in Kenya, finding an Apple Store may be a bit tricky. But I can probably find a hard drive somewhere.
In a world where a single natural disaster can and unfortunately sometimes does cause devastation over vast areas, as it seems anyone near Washington DC is all too aware tonight, your comment is far too close to the truth to be funny.
A tiny number of big manufacturers are now responsible for actually making the hardware for almost every major computer and mobile device manufacturer in the world. I'm not sure whether we are down to single figures yet, but if not, we're close. There is a reason you could hardly find a new hard disk to buy not so long ago unless it was part of an entire new computer. It's because there literally weren't enough stocks of those devices to satisfy market demand, after major natural disasters brought production to a halt at too many of those few key facilities for an extended period.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
But what apple really needs is a $1000-$1500 (base price) desktop with a mid-range video card in a X16 slots + 1-2 open pci-e slots. with 4 ram slots and at least 2 hdd bays.
No, this is what you want, this is not what Apple needs. This is a machine for people who build out their own hardware. It's an extremely vocal minority on hardware/CS forums, but in reality it's a part of the market that fits snuggly in the margin of error of most statistical models (3-5%). Why would they dilute their line with a machine like that?
are HDD slots really necessary? Most users don't upgrade their hard drives
The people who make good Apple customers are the same ones who like to have the hood of their car welded shut.
You shoot that off as a derogatory comment, and that's why you're missing the reality of modern life. I've never done anything with my car mechanics-wise in the past 6 years other than top up fluids, replace a headlamp and change a flat. I'm neither technically inept, rich or foolish - I'm just an adult.
See, my reality is that I work pretty hard, earn a decent living and it is easier and cheaper for me to hand my car over to a competent mechanic to fix it, that it is for me to a) diagnose the problem, b) buy the tools, c) source the part(s), d) find a space to fix it and, finally, e) do the work. I am by no means technically inept, I just don't find car repair interesting in the least. And by that measure, I can understand people who don't find computer repair/upgrade skills to be of any value to them. They're not worse, they're just interested in other things than you are.
iApp makers are mostly not making money and carriers don't like Apple grabbing all the margin. Bad news.
You know, even if that were true - Android app makers are making even less money, and Google as well as Android take the same 30% Apple does.