On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware (rogueamoeba.com)

Quentin Carnicelli, the chief technology officer at Rogue Amoeba, a widely-reputed firm that produces several audio software for Apple's desktop operating system: With Apple recently releasing their first developer beta of MacOS 10.14 (Mojave), we've been installing it on various test machines to test our apps. The inevitable march of technology means Mojave won't install on all of our older hardware. There's no shock there, but the situation is rather distressing when it comes to spending money to purchase new equipment. Here is the situation, as reported by the wonderful MacRumor's Buyers Guide: At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year. Here are the last updates to the entire line of Macs: iMac Pro: 182 days ago, iMac: 374 days ago, MacBook: 374 days ago, MacBook Air: 374 days ago, MacBook Pro: 374 days ago, Mac Pro: 436 days ago, and Mac Mini: 1337 days ago.

Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with the machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. The Mac Mini hasn't seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop). The once-solid Mac Pro was replaced by the dead-end cylindrical version all the way back in 2012, which was then left to stagnate. I don't even want to get started on the MacBook Pro's questionable keyboard, or the MacBook's sole port (USB-C which must also be used to provide power). It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.

Comments

Apple only a consumer-level gadget company now.

[Sebby]

Except for the very, very few 'pro' products they've (reluctantly) released (and barely updated), they've basically given up on the Pro crowd, and are clearly only concentrating on 'gadget' devices for consumers, not meant for professionals (creators, etc.): iDevices, AppleTV, AppleWatch & HomePod.

How About "Good Enough"?

[nuckfuts]

As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress. It's not good enough that a company provides jobs and turns a profit. It has to show "growth". It's not good enough that a given computer can perform all sorts of useful functions. It has to be reinvented as more powerful every 374 days.

I do agree that a Mac Mini should cost less now than it did over three years ago. But what's wrong with good enough? I recently went shopping for a new TV. I expected that with 4K TVs being common now, I should be able to pickup a 1920x1080 TV for a good price. I was wrong. I ended up making a deal on a 4K TV, even though I almost never watch anything in 4K.

Re:How About "Good Enough"?

[ShanghaiBill]

As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress.

That is not the issue here. Just because hardware is updated every year doesn't mean people need, or want, to upgrade that often. But when their old hardware finally needs to be replaced, they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago.

I really don't understand Apple's strategy. They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position. They could be making a lot of money by releasing more often. Yet they don't. It doesn't make sense.

Re: How About "Good Enough"?

[yeshuawatso]

You're missing the entire point (and ironically the jokes/memes). Apple not updating it's lines puts it even more behind than it already was when the products are usually released. There's that old joke that if you bought a Mac you just bought 2 year old PCs at next year's price. Apple updating the hardware each year just catches it up with all the other Windows and Linux PCs of the previous year. That's why people are pissed.

I'm just holding off hoping that Apple will update mY MBP to use third party docks or at least re-enable displaylink so I don't have to use the 20+ dongles just to get a second monitor and all of my USB A stuff to work again. I'm tired of looking at all of these PCs in my office connect all of their prereferals to their Windows laptops with one cable while I'm looking like I've tapped directly into the Matrix due to dongle hell. Before you ask, you can't just plug in ANY thunderbolt dock into macOS, it won't work with a nice message that it's unsupported. And not because it won't work, just because Apple wants to be a dick and block it so I have to use a Thunderbolt Unlocker kext just so it can partially function. DisplayLink killed off the rest of the dock's use since 10.13.4.

Re:How About "Good Enough"?

[TheFakeTimCook]

As a society, we have become obsessed with never-ending growth and progress.

That is not the issue here. Just because hardware is updated every year doesn't mean people need, or want, to upgrade that often. But when their old hardware finally needs to be replaced, they shouldn't have to buy a "new" computer based on tech from two years ago.

I really don't understand Apple's strategy. They have a huge locked-in customer base, and high profit margins. Any other hardware manufacturer would love to be in their position. They could be making a lot of money by releasing more often. Yet they don't. It doesn't make sense.

Everything from mid-2012 to present can run Mojave. That's SIX, not TWO, years ago.

The issue is not the CPUs, but the GPUs. Those earlier Macs do not have "Metal-compatible" GPUs, and so, Apple drew the line in the sand "there" for Mojave.

I suspect someone in the Hackintosh Community will come along and supply the missing Frameworks to allow installation on those older machines.

But even if that is not practical, those machines can still install High Sierra, and that has sufficiently modern Frameworks that it will be supported by Apple and third-party Applications and OS-Features for at least another 5 years or so.

Re:How About "Good Enough"?

[DontBeAMoran]

This isn't about speed, it's about price. Compare the price of a CPU in 2016 and the same CPU in 2018. The 2016 CPU costs less in 2018, but the 2016 Mac is still sold at the same price in 2018.

Re: How About "Good Enough"?

[ShanghaiBill]

How many gallons of water does $750 buy?

Irrelevant, since the inflation adjusted price of a new washer is actually LESS than a washer cost 20 years ago.

On Lowes.com they list a front loading washer (they kind that saves water) for $649. In 1998 dollars ($1.83 in 2018 $s) that would be $352. Could you buy a front loading washer in America for $352 in 1998? I don't think so.

If you are willing to buy a top-loader, they start at $399. That is $215 in 1998 dollars.

As a general rule, prices of services have gone up faster than inflation, while the prices of goods have gone down.

Apple stopped loving me

[PopeRatzo]

I've owned every single model of Mac Pro, but enough is enough. I used to do music production and sound design primarily using Logic and Pro Tools on Mac Pros, but the last iteration was my breaking point. The juice just wasn't worth the squeeze any more, and I found much better tools for Windows (Cockos Reaper, Pro Tools, etc). After decades of loving the work-flow and support and quality, I just got the feeling Apple was jerking users around and just didn't care about the desktop platform any more. Happier now.

No shit

[sjbe]

It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.

Apple's Mac division has really kind of gone of the rails in recent years. They've made multiple repeated bizarre design decisions and they seldom update their hardware. While is hasn't been all bad, it's getting hard to recommend the Mac to people I previously would have done so without hesitation. They cater to a fairly specific customer and that's fine but they aren't even doing a very good job of that anymore.

It's pretty clear that the focus of management is on the iPhone. Understandable but I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of the value proposition from Apple comes from the tight ecosystem integration. Without that it's not so compelling to buy an iPhone or an iPad. Honestly I don't see a lot of tight integration in ways that are useful to me.

I have a Mac Mini and I'm about to replace it but probably not with another Mac Mini and the way things are going not with any other type of Mac either. Apple just isn't investing in the Mac and if they cannot be bothered in spite of the massive cash hoard they have then why should I care either? Apple should be making the Mac the best type of PC available and they just aren't. They are nice enough but they're behind the technology curve at this point. I don't think they need to be bleeding edge but they aren't even close to the edge on PCs anymore. Either they are incompetent or they just can't be bothered and I tend to favor the later theory.

"What's a computer?"

[Comboman]

Apples recent iPad commercial says it all.

Mac Mini

[rhadc]

The Quad Core Mac Mini I bought in 2012 is faster than any Mac Mini sold in 2018. Get it together, Apple.

Re:Pros are leaving in droves.

[DontBeAMoran]

To really drive the point home, I think someone should do one of those "Hi, I'm a Mac. Hi, I'm a PC." TV ad again.

This time, the Mac would be represented by a millenial that's more preoccupied by his social media status and how thin he looks because of this great diet he's on and how he's a great person because he has many LGBT friends and they only talk about PC issues, while the PC would be represented by a normal person doing actual work, playing great games, talking with other people about any subject like a normal person.

Posted from my Mac mini. I'm not anti-Apple, I'm anti-stupid and Apple are really testing my patience these days.

Re:ARM based Macs

[doconnor]

The longer they don't update, the higher the percentage speed increase they can boast about with the new ARM Macs.

If you're an artist we're nowhere near good enough

[rsilvergun]

there's plenty of room to improve video editing, film production, computer programming, scientific research and even business finance. AMD's doing a brisk business with 16 and 32 core desktop processors. I don't see anything close to that on offer from Apple.

Re:My PC is from 2006

[MightyYar]

I'm a big Mac fan - I've been using them as my main computer since 1993.

With that said, the stagnation got to be too much. I picked up an HP Envy recently that costs about half of what an i7 does on the Mac side, and it has one of the new 15 watt TDP chips in it so it is cool and has decent (but not spectacular) battery life. Sure, I die a little every time I need to use Windows 10 - but at the end of the day I just couldn't spend too much money on hardware that seems to be somewhat flaky.

Tangentially, why the hell can't Microsoft figure out high-res displays? Are my choices really teeny-tiny or big-n-fuzzy? Sheesh. And if it were just legacy support, fine - but it's the situation with MS's own bundled apps!