Apple Cuts Affiliate Commissions on Apps and In-App Purchases (macstories.net)

From a report on Mac Stories: Today, Apple announced that it is reducing the commissions it pays on apps and In-App Purchases from 7 percent to 2.5 percent effective May 1st. The iTunes Affiliate Program pays a commission from Apple's portion of the sale of apps and other media when a purchase is made with a link that contains the affiliate credentials of a member of the program. Anyone can join, but the Affiliate Program is used heavily by websites that cover media sold by Apple and app developers.

Comments

But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're still not getting a MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

And you're still not getting a MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM.

You will be, as soon as Intel makes good on their Product Roadmap's Delivery Promises.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Or an upgraded Mac mini since 2012.

It's in the works as I type...

Re: But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only because it was given a "Do not buy" reviews.

An any "Pro" device that does not have user replaceable RAM or storage is not a "Pro" device. Clearly if you believe that it is, then you clearly love in a reality distortion field.

Re: But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[sexconker]

Apple will get 29.25% (30% minus 2.5% of 30%) of a commissioned sale instead of 27.9% (30% minus 7% of 30%).

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Prove it or STFU. apples PR machine is no proof.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Right, because Intel hasn't yet released any mobile chips that support 32GB in 2 DIMMs. Well, other than the i7 in my wife's gaming laptop, which was already an older model when I bought it for her more than a year ago.

Right, it's Intel's fault Apple doesn't sell laptops with the maximum amount of RAM possible. You know, just like the 2011 MacBook Pro I have sitting next to me could only possibly use 8GB of RAM (again, due to Intel's limitations, supposedly) but it's been running just fine with 16GB (and able to use all of it as well) of aftermarket RAM for 6 years.

No QUAD CORE, KABY LAKE's (or later) that supported more than 32 GB, sorry. That's what Apple was counting on.

And the much lower power consumption of the Kaby's was ESSENTIAL to Apple meeting the THERMAL BUDGET for the design.

And THAT was ESSENTIAL for the 2016 MBP's being able, unlike its 2015 predecessor, to run full-tilt, with NO THERMAL THROTTLING of the CPU nor GPU, making the new MBP MUCH faster in SUSTAINED high-demand Applications than its predecessor, EVEN THOUGH THE CPU IS ABOUT 8% SLOWER.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

And IIRC, your 2011 MBP only supported 16 GB after APPLE released a FIRMWARE REVISION. So perhaps it just took them a little bit to develop and debug the firmware patch, "Qualify" their memory controller with a good sampling of different memory modules, and get all the sign offs necessary to push out something as potentially catastrophic as a "BIOS" update. Perhaps they didn't feel they could get all that done by the initial engineering cutoff (freeze) date. So they shipped with an 8 GB limit at first.

So, sounds like "Engineering in the Real World" to me.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are saying due to Apples bad design they sacrificed functionality in order to keep slim and pretty.

Re: But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[RevDisk]

We moved all of our "pros" to Surface Pros or Surface Books. They love them for the decent SSDs, processors and RAM. Expensive, but good productivity.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

And IIRC, your 2011 MBP only supported 16 GB after APPLE released a FIRMWARE REVISION.

Huh, they must have released that firmware revision on DAY ONE, then... Oh, wait, no... Intel makes the CHIPSETS that contain the RAM CONTROLLERS that DETERMINE HOW MUCH RAM IS SUPPORTED and APPLE'S FIRMWARE NEVER PLAYS A ROLE IN THAT.

By the way, it is very ANNOYING and REALLY DESTROYS YOUR CREDIBILITY when you type in RANDOM CAPITALS like you did throughout your ENTIRE POST.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself how annoyed you are and how credible you think I am after reading the above statements.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

And IIRC, your 2011 MBP only supported 16 GB after APPLE released a FIRMWARE REVISION.

Huh, they must have released that firmware revision on DAY ONE, then... Oh, wait, no... Intel makes the CHIPSETS that contain the RAM CONTROLLERS that DETERMINE HOW MUCH RAM IS SUPPORTED and APPLE'S FIRMWARE NEVER PLAYS A ROLE IN THAT.

By the way, it is very ANNOYING and REALLY DESTROYS YOUR CREDIBILITY when you type in RANDOM CAPITALS like you did throughout your ENTIRE POST.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself how annoyed you are and how credible you think I am after reading the above statements.

Funny; I just upgraded the RAM in a friend's mid-2010 Mac mini, and it required an Apple Firmware Update to recognize more than 8 GB of RAM. And the threads I was reading at the time also referred to that being necessary for some MBPs around that time-period.

Ok, it appears it was on the 2008-2010 MBPs; so yours was not affected. But Apple still may not have qualified their systems with > 8 GB at the time of release.

BTW, here's the link to the firmware (EFI) Update that allows the 2008-2010 MacBook Pros (and Mac Minis) to recognize more RAM than was "allowed" when the products were launched. Note that it also requires 10.6.6 or later; so it isn't just what the RAM controller can support that makes the difference:

https://eshop.macsales.com/sho...

Oh, and as for the "random" capitals. If Slashdot would get into the 20th Century (21st is asking too much!) and put a "rich text editor" in their Comments system (Macrumors has got the best one yet!), I wouldn't feel the need to resort to the old-skool method of "capitalizing for emphasis". It's a bad habit, I know; but my brain is old and grizzled...

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

No QUAD CORE, KABY LAKE's (or later) that supported more than 32 GB, sorry. That's what Apple was counting on.

Apple didn't need chips that supported more than 32GB in order to build a laptop with 32GB of RAM. Dafuq you talkin 'bout? And, even when they start using those CPUs with support for 64GB of RAM, you know they're only going to give us half of that.

Wait... Right, Apple does "need" a CPU that can handle 64GB of RAM before they'll sell a system with 32GB, because Apple artificially limits the quantities or RAM they'll sell in their systems to half of what the CPU can actually support.

Wasn't a big deal before they started soldering the shit to the gahdamn board.

Sorry that was a typo. Calm down. I meant "more than 16 GB". Sheesh!

Stop just spewing hate. And most laptop manufacturers are doing that with RAM (at least) these days. I don't like it either; but it's unfortunately an industry-wide trend. Not every laptop (yet!); but it has certainly gone from nobody to a lotta bodies doing it in the past few years. I'm pretty sure it is because of two factors:

1. Reliability. Seriously, in a laptop, it can matter if the RAM is socketed or soldered.

2. Outside of Slashdot, most people don't upgrade their RAM, they just buy another laptop. As I said, I personally don't like it much, either, especially with the typically-long-lived Apple laptops; but that is undoubtedly true.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

Kaby Lake CPUs didn't come out at all until October 2016 and, when they did, all of the quad-core SKUs supported 64GB of RAM. That's irrelevant, though, as the Kaby Lake CPUs aren't what's in the 2016 MBP. The two prior generations (at least) supported 32GB. That includes the i5-6360U in the lowest-end 2016 MacBook Pro.

So, what's the excuse, again?

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

Really? My pro device has 0 hours of battery life. It's a desktop workstation and no laptop on the market can touch it in actual productivity.

Where are these supposed "professionals" working that they're away from power for hours on end? I don't know very many professionals who work poolside for hours on end; but, then I also never said that gaming machine was used professionally... I also didn't tell you it gets 5 hours under moderate load (and much longer under typical use), but it does.

Normally, I don't reply to ignorant AC comments, but you're just that special.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Kaby Lake CPUs didn't come out at all until October 2016 and, when they did, all of the quad-core SKUs supported 64GB of RAM. That's irrelevant, though, as the Kaby Lake CPUs aren't what's in the 2016 MBP. The two prior generations (at least) supported 32GB. That includes the i5-6360U in the lowest-end 2016 MacBook Pro.

So, what's the excuse, again?

So, I went back and re-read some of the articles that came out at the time the 2016 MBPs were launched, and it turns out that I was sort of right; but not exactly right.

The real issue was that (if I got this right, synthesizing from a couple of different articles) the CPUs that were due to come out, but didn't, were due to support LPDDR4 (low-power DDR4) RAM, and when they didn't come out as promised by Intel, Apple chose to use a memory controller that supported LPDDR3 RAM (because that's all the CPU would support?), but limited it to 16 GB due to concerns with battery-life.

And that is a legitimate concern; because, if you visit the product-forums for the laptops that do support more than 16 GB of RAM, you will find scores of complaints about hideous battery life, whereas, Apple just got praised for being the only laptop manufacturer who actually generally meets or exceeds their battery-life claims.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

I wonder what thrashing the SSD to swap to/from RAM does to battery life. Not to speak of performance or the longevity of said SSD.

Yes, battery life is a legitimate concern. However, it is less important than having 32GB of RAM to someone who needs more than 16.

I'd like to now address something you said a couple posts up:

Stop just spewing hate.

I'm not. I have waaaaaaaaaaaay too much Apple gear around here to be the Apple hater this site seems to think I am. More detail here.

If I hated Apple, I wouldn't give two shits that they don't currently make a computer that suits my needs, and I certainly wouldn't have bought my wife a brand new 5k iMac in November. In fact, if I hated Apple, I would be glad they didn't make a computer that fits my current needs, as that removes any potential temptation for me to give them a shot; more likely, if I hated Apple, I wouldn't know that they don't make a computer that fits my current needs.

No, I'm actually quite a fan of Apple. I do hate their current computer lineup, though, because it entirely excludes me.

You can pry my iPad Pro from my cold, dead hands, though.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

To someone who needs 32GB of RAM, having 32GB of RAM is more important than the slight battery savings of using DDR4L. What's your excuse for not understanding that?

I would imagine thrashing the SSD to swap data in and out or RAM takes a much bigger toll on battery life than the different between DDR4 and DDR4L. I certainly know it kills performance and isn't good for the longevity of the SSD.

And look, I made my point without calling anyone a dumbass. Dumbass.

Oops...

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

I wonder what thrashing the SSD to swap to/from RAM does to battery life. Not to speak of performance or the longevity of said SSD.

Yes, battery life is a legitimate concern. However, it is less important than having 32GB of RAM to someone who needs more than 16.

I'd like to now address something you said a couple posts up:

Stop just spewing hate.

I'm not. I have waaaaaaaaaaaay too much Apple gear around here to be the Apple hater this site seems to think I am. More detail here.

If I hated Apple, I wouldn't give two shits that they don't currently make a computer that suits my needs, and I certainly wouldn't have bought my wife a brand new 5k iMac in November. In fact, if I hated Apple, I would be glad they didn't make a computer that fits my current needs, as that removes any potential temptation for me to give them a shot; more likely, if I hated Apple, I wouldn't know that they don't make a computer that fits my current needs.

No, I'm actually quite a fan of Apple. I do hate their current computer lineup, though, because it entirely excludes me.

You can pry my iPad Pro from my cold, dead hands, though.

Well, thrashing to/from an SSD is definitely less battery-intensive than thrashing to/from an HDD. As far as longevity goes, I would bet that later versions of OS X/macOS minimize the swapping between RAM and SDD, and "load leveling" also helps take care of some of that.

Keep in mind that Apple now rolls-their-own SDD controller. Did you know that? I would bet that it and its macOS driver work hand-in-glove to both maximize SDD life (important when you solder the suckers in!), and increase speed (Apple has the fastest, or one of the fastest, SDD on the planet).

I do wish that Apple would have pushed the Fusion Drive concept more aggressively, instead of jumping on the SDD so fast. I think the only thing you can still get with a Fusion Drive is an iMac. SDD is still too expensive, and as you point out, still creeps people out (me included!) about longevity, especially with long-lived Apple laptops...

And I think that the wait for "a computer that suits your needs" may soon be over, if the recent "peek under the covers" roundtable discussion regarding the Mac Pro and iMac (and possibly Mac mini) roadmaps are any indication.

As for the "people who need more than 16 GB of RAM", that appears to be a pretty small segment, most involving Virtualization (VMWare-type, not Virtual Reality), where you simply cannot ever have enough RAM, and some large-scale 4k and above video projects (where again, you can never have enough RAM). So, for now, those people have to be content with an iMac or a Mac Pro. But it is likely that the next gen of MBPs will be able to address more than 16 GB (at least 32 GB), because by then, LPDDR4 will be allowed by the Gods of Intel...

And I am getting really frustrated by my iPad 2; so I lust after your iPad Pro. Glad to hear you are happy with it.

Maybe after I sell my Apple 1 next year...

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

As far as longevity goes, I would bet that later versions of OS X/macOS minimize the swapping between RAM and SDD

Just how does one minimize swapping when you're trying to fit a 26GB dataset into 16GB of RAM? You don't and you can't, as that data must be in RAM to be utilized. That means swapping 10GB in and 10GB out every time you need to scan through it. It's actually more than 10GB because some of that 16GB is taken up by the OS and applications, but you (should) get my point.

I do wish that Apple would have pushed the Fusion Drive concept more aggressively

Why? They're garbage. My wife's 2015 iMac with Fusion has no better load times than her 2013 MacBook Pro did when it used a spinning disk.

SDD is still too expensive, and as you point out, still creeps people out (me included!) about longevity, especially with long-lived Apple laptops...

If you have enough RAM for your use case, there's no reason to be creeped out by an SSD. I run all-SSD systems (except for my backup disks, which rotate out daily and need to be BIG rather than FAST; those are spinning disks, but that's for cost reasons rather than reliability).

And I think that the wait for "a computer that suits your needs" may soon be over, if the recent "peek under the covers" roundtable discussion regarding the Mac Pro and iMac (and possibly Mac mini) roadmaps are any indication.

Too little, too late. I built the system I needed last month.

As for the "people who need more than 16 GB of RAM", that appears to be a pretty small segment, most involving Virtualization (VMWare-type, not Virtual Reality), where you simply cannot ever have enough RAM, and some large-scale 4k and above video projects (where again, you can never have enough RAM).

You mean the "Pro" segment, which is who a MacBook "Pro" should be aimed at. Also, it's not that small of a segment (of professionals) who run VMs and edit 4k video; most every software developer should be virtualizing their test environments and everything on a professional scale is recorded and edited in 4k (or 8k) today, even if the final output format is to be 1080p.

The segment of Mac-using professionals who do this may be small, but that's more a factor of Apple not providing hardware options that are well suited to the tasks (where Apple's systems used to excel less than a decade ago, mind you) than it is to do with what actual professionals are doing with their systems. Those users use non-Apple systems because Apple systems that suit their needs don't exist; and those users spend upward of $10-20k or more on a single workstation. Hell, I've sat in front of more than one $50k video editing workstation (and that's before factoring in the $30k panel that was connected to it).

Why does Apple not want a piece of that market?

We're willing to pay a premium.

So, for now, those people have to be content with an iMac or a Mac Pro

Or a PC, since we're talking about portability. PC laptops that meet these needs already exist and that's what gets used where those needs exist.

But it is likely that the next gen of MBPs will be able to address more than 16 GB (at least 32 GB), because by then, LPDDR4 will be allowed by the Gods of Intel...

And, by then (in fact, by now), an entire industry that used to prefer Apple less than a decade ago will have (e.g. already has) moved on to platforms that can actually support their needs. It's been half a decade since Apple was the darling of the video production industry and workstations in that field are replaced or upgraded well within that timeframe.

Apple hasn't made a machine that can properly handle virtualization since the XServe line was killed off. The Mac Pro could have taken that torch, and it looked like it was going to in 2012, but then the trash

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Plumpaquatsch]

To someone who needs 32GB of RAM, having 32GB of RAM is more important than the slight battery savings of using DDR4L. What's your excuse for not understanding that?.

And who needs 32 GB RAM? And no, your sexual fetish doesn't count. https://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=6355

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

I top 32 quite frequently on my workstation and I'm not doing anything I consider to be all that "intensive" as far as a professional workload is concerned. I wouldn't do everything I'm doing on my workstation on a laptop, though, but I to often run up against the 16GB in both my PC laptop and my MacBook Pro.

One example of how I manage to do this on a regular basis is matching the configurations of the various node types in one of my clients' production environments 1:1. Just having one of each instance running (the bare minimum for a functional 1:1 testing environment with no compromises) eats 9GB, plus overhead for the virtualization subsystem; we'll call that 10GB. Windows wants ~2GB for itself (and no, OSX is no better), so we're at 12GB. My IDE is currently eating a cool 1.5GB: 13.5GB. That leaves 2.5GB for my browser (1.25GB currently), disk cache, and buffers. Less if using integrated graphics as those share system RAM.

And that's before I start running test suites.

As a result, I do have to compromise the testing environment on both my PC and Mac laptops.

I'm sitting at 14.3GB right now, with the cluster of dev VMs shut down and the hypervisor not running, which means I'd be at 24.3GB with that stuff running. Before I built this workstation, I'd run up to the 32GB my old workstation had by doing just that, then running a test suite. There is also 35.2GB of data cached in RAM at the moment, so I'm really using 47.3GB when you factor that in.

These are things I do on a near daily basis.

I'm a developer, and my projects aren't that big. A lot of developers "get away" without much less, and that includes me as recently as a few years ago, by not doing proper test-driven development with continuous integration wherein the test suite (or an appropriate subset of it) is run after every change in order to give immediate feedback as to the state of the codebase.

Doing things right does require additional resources, but the end result is 90% less time wasted chasing down bugs when you should be deploying a finished product.

I don't watch it like a hawk, but I do peek at my RAM usage from time to time; the highest I've seen on this workstation is 47.6GB; plus cache and buffers, I had probably damn near topped out the 64GB I've got. The highest I've ever seen on my Windows laptop with 16GB is 18GB of swap used; my MacBook Pro has topped 20GB of swap -- there's a reason I had to compromise on the dev environment on those machines.

But no, nobody needs 32GB.

For Facebook, at least.

But, then, those users don't exactly need a MacBook Pro, either, and would be better served by a MacBook Air with 4GB and putting the savings toward apps, games, and/or retirement.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[Plumpaquatsch]

I top 32 quite frequently on my workstation .

Apart from your sexual fetish - we were talking about notebooks. But you already made clear that professionals can't use notebooks anyway.

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

As far as longevity goes, I would bet that later versions of OS X/macOS minimize the swapping between RAM and SDD

Just how does one minimize swapping when you're trying to fit a 26GB dataset into 16GB of RAM? You don't and you can't, as that data must be in RAM to be utilized. That means swapping 10GB in and 10GB out every time you need to scan through it. It's actually more than 10GB because some of that 16GB is taken up by the OS and applications, but you (should) get my point.

I said "Minimize". I didn't say "Eliminate". So, what's your point?

I do wish that Apple would have pushed the Fusion Drive concept more aggressively

Why? They're garbage. My wife's 2015 iMac with Fusion has no better load times than her 2013 MacBook Pro did when it used a spinning disk.

I note you didn't mention Boot Times, I'll bet those were significantly faster.

How much faster "load times" are with a Fusion Drive depends on your Application-Use profile. If you use a small number of Applications often, those will get pushed to the SSD "Volume", and "Load Times" for THOSE Applications should be significantly improved. However, if your Application use is more "random", then the Fusion Drive concept will still help for Booting, but not so much for Application Launching or use.

SDD is still too expensive, and as you point out, still creeps people out (me included!) about longevity, especially with long-lived Apple laptops...

If you have enough RAM for your use case, there's no reason to be creeped out by an SSD. I run all-SSD systems (except for my backup disks, which rotate out daily and need to be BIG rather than FAST; those are spinning disks, but that's for cost reasons rather than reliability).

That's a strawman argument; because no matter how much RAM you have, it will still be a small fraction of the amount of data that transits to/from the SSD to/from RAM, and to/from I/O (network/internet/other storage).

And I think that the wait for "a computer that suits your needs" may soon be over, if the recent "peek under the covers" roundtable discussion regarding the Mac Pro and iMac (and possibly Mac mini) roadmaps are any indication.

Too little, too late. I built the system I needed last month.

Maybe "too late" for you, but since none of us can know the future, the "too little" part of that tired old chestnut remains to be seen.

As for the "people who need more than 16 GB of RAM", that appears to be a pretty small segment, most involving Virtualization (VMWare-type, not Virtual Reality), where you simply cannot ever have enough RAM, and some large-scale 4k and above video projects (where again, you can never have enough RAM).

You mean the "Pro" segment, which is who a MacBook "Pro" should be aimed at. Also, it's not that small of a segment (of professionals) who run VMs and edit 4k video; most every software developer should be virtualizing their test environments and everything on a professional scale is recorded and edited in 4k (or 8k) today, even if the final output format is to be 1080p.

The segment of Mac-using professionals who do this may be small, but that's more a factor of Apple not providing hardware options that are well suited to the tasks (where Apple's systems used to excel less than a decade ago, mind you) than it is to do with what actual professionals are doing with their systems. Those users use non-Apple systems because Apple systems that suit their needs don't exist; and those users spend upward of $10-20k or more on a single workstation. Hell, I've sat in front of more than one $50k video editing workstation (and that's before factoring in the $30k panel that was connected to it).

Why does Apple not want a piece of that m

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[BronsCon]

I note you didn't mention Boot Times, I'll bet those were significantly faster.

For a system that's left on (and sleeping when not in use), boot times are largely irrelevant. The difference between a 5 second boot time and a 50 second boot time is less than a second a day. That's the live most of the iMacs I've seen (let's just say more than a handful) live. Load times are what people who actually use their computers notice; most people seem to go get a cup of coffee or a snack while their computer boots, and they're gone much longer than it takes to do so no matter how fast or slow it is; but they're sitting at the damn thing when they launch a program, aren't they?

How many users do you think really spend "upward of $10-20k or more on a single workstation?" The numbers just aren't there.

Enough that companies exist just to serve them. If the numbers weren't there, those companies wouldn't be, either.

HOWEVER, I do get the sense that Apple is trying to figure-out how to address at least some of that market, by saying that the next Mac Pro is going to be "modular", and that the emphasis will be on "expandability, customize-ability, and 'A system that can be updated to continue to meet future needs.' "

You mean like the MacPro they killed off in 2012? Like I said, they were the darling of the video production industry until they did that and, by now, those systems have been replaced and the industry has migrated to new platforms; they won't be coming back after being bitten once.

What that translates to in actual hardware/software terms remains to be seen; but it is heartening that Apple appears to be listening and trying to address the "Pro" market in a much less "one size fits all" approach.

Indeed, and they shouldn't have tried to make it one-size-fits-all in 2013, either.

In other words: Jobs is dead. And Apple is just beginning to realize that some of his peccadilloes regarding a penchant for minimalism do not necessarily serve some higher-end market segments very well.

Funny, you blame Jobs for this, but the decision to destroy the Mac Pro came after his death. The trash can is not a path Jobs put apple on, that was all Ives. Professionals love Jobs-era Macs, many I know are still clinging to them for whatever tasks they can still be useful for.

Yes, but those laptops weigh 13 pounds (literally)

Some, not all. My entire workstation and 2 23" display barely weigh that much and there's way more in there than there is in the typical workstation-replacement laptop.

and still have shitty displays

Again, some, not all.

and generally horrible case-designs

Again, some, not all.

That's what you get it you try to pay less for your workstation-replacement laptop than you'd pay for a comparable workstation. Factor in the premium you pay for portability and be willing to shell out the cash and you can have something much smaller and lighter with a much nicer display. Look at machines targeting the video production market; those people give a fuck about portability, display quality, and durability; and the products geared toward them reflect that.

And they are "portable' only in name. You can't use any of them away from an AC outlet for more than an hour (if that).

What conference room doesn't have an outlet? The people who use these kinds of machines aren't the ones who work poolside, on the beach, or on long flights, they don't need insane battery life, but they do need insane power they can pack up and bring with them to the next place they'll be working at, where they'll have access to *GASP* (and I know this comes as a surprise since they're soooooooooo rare) an AC outlet!

Re:But Apple get its 30% cut still.

[TheFakeTimCook]

I note you didn't mention Boot Times, I'll bet those were significantly faster.

For a system that's left on (and sleeping when not in use), boot times are largely irrelevant. The difference between a 5 second boot time and a 50 second boot time is less than a second a day. That's the live most of the iMacs I've seen (let's just say more than a handful) live. Load times are what people who actually use their computers notice; most people seem to go get a cup of coffee or a snack while their computer boots, and they're gone much longer than it takes to do so no matter how fast or slow it is; but they're sitting at the damn thing when they launch a program, aren't they?

You may have me there. And it may explain why Apple has de-emphasized the Fusion Drive.

I guess the problem is that people run too much of a mix of Applications to make the "Copy the most-used ones to SSD" actually work out in practice. Well, at least I have an answer to my internal question regarding that topic...

How many users do you think really spend "upward of $10-20k or more on a single workstation?" The numbers just aren't there.

Enough that companies exist just to serve them. If the numbers weren't there, those companies wouldn't be, either.

Those companies are mostly systems-integrators, not really OEMs. And most of them are nearly always teetering on the verge of insolvency. Yes, there are a lot of "qualifiers" in that sentence; because there are always exceptions. But for every "Avid" (which I am not sure even makes any "systems" anymore), there are probably a dozen flash-in-the-pan companies of this ilk.

HOWEVER, I do get the sense that Apple is trying to figure-out how to address at least some of that market, by saying that the next Mac Pro is going to be "modular", and that the emphasis will be on "expandability, customize-ability, and 'A system that can be updated to continue to meet future needs.' "

You mean like the MacPro they killed off in 2012? Like I said, they were the darling of the video production industry until they did that and, by now, those systems have been replaced and the industry has migrated to new platforms; they won't be coming back after being bitten once.

As I said, they were betting on Thunderbolt; but most of the rest of the industry didn't follow their vision. If they had, the Trash Can would have been a much larger success.

What that translates to in actual hardware/software terms remains to be seen; but it is heartening that Apple appears to be listening and trying to address the "Pro" market in a much less "one size fits all" approach.

Indeed, and they shouldn't have tried to make it one-size-fits-all in 2013, either.

But the flip-side of that concept is Dell or HP, which have 12 thousand overlapping models with a Googolplex of BTO options. That isn't engineering, it's nothing more than Newegg whitebox-computers with a brand-name on the case.

But what is the actual bottom-line of any "card-cage" computer (like the 2012 Mac Pro), other than trying to be "one-size-fits-all". The 2013 Mac Pro could have been that (at least to a much larger extent), if Apple had simply created their own TB card-cage and set "C'mon boys, fill 'er up!". Then it would have been far-closer to a "re-imagining" of the tower computer that I believe they had envisioned. I am kind of amazed that they never came to that conclusion, actually.

In other words: Jobs is dead. And Apple is just beginning to realize that some of his peccadilloes regarding a penchant for minimalism do not necessarily serve some higher-end market segments very well.

Funny, you blame Jobs for this, but the decision to destroy the Mac Pro came after h

Wow!

[kamapuaa]

Now that's what I call courage!

I am altering the deal

[enjar]

Pray I don't alter it any further.

Re:I am altering the deal

[clonehappy]

This about sums it up.

If I want to use a smartphone, but can't stand Apple or Google, what do I do?

Re:I am altering the deal

[GNious]

Jolla?

Re:I am altering the deal

[DogDude]

If I want to use a smartphone, but can't stand Apple or Google, what do I do?

You can use a Windows Phone. They work fine, unless you need 1000 different "apps".

Re:You got your closed market place

[Anubis IV]

Abuse? How do you figure?

This is a kickback program, no different than Amazon's affiliate program. Sites attach their referrer ID to links, and when someone following a link buys an app, the referring site gets a kickback (taken from Apple's cut) on each sale. This is a standard business practice, and all Apple is doing here is adjusting the strength of the incentives they're providing, presumably because they no longer see as much value coming from referrals. There's nothing abusive about reducing incentives.

Now, this may be a case of Apple shooting itself in the foot, given that these sorts of affiliate programs generally play a role in drumming up business; dropping the incentive from 7% to 2.5% on each sale will result in fewer sites referring people to their store. But considering Apple had neither a legal nor a moral obligation to set up an incentive program at all, it'd take quite the stretch of the imagination to suggest it's some sort of abuse.

Re:The walled garden holds all the hostages

[angel'o'sphere]

And how is that different to Amazon or the Google Play store?

Re:The walled garden holds all the hostages

[krouic]

There are alternative stores for Android devices and for the stuff that Amazon sells.

Earnings closer to 0%

[kiwioddBall]

Affiliate revenue becomes effectively 0% for smaller earners - Performance Horizon who runs this program puts a threshold value at the country level before earnings are sent out. So now it will take approx three times as many impressions in each country to reach that threshold value - difficult for smaller countries. Why is this important? Because there is a time related threshold as well. If you haven't reached that country threshold in 18 months they keep the loot. Source - I earn through this affiliate program.

Re:You got your closed market place

[BarbaraHudson]

Sorry, that's a picture of a typical American. I'm neither typical, nor American. :-)

Re:The walled garden holds all the hostages

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes, for Amazone the alternative e.g. is iTunes/Apple and Google ... wow, that was easy.

So what exactly is the alternative to Amazone or Google play and how does that affect the revenue of the developers selling there? Hm?