[besson3c]

We all know how long it has been since a refresh of the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, etc.

How difficult is it to slap a new CPU and GPU into the existing case and ship the thing? This is obviously not sexy, but not every release has to be bold and innovative. I would assume that with the iMac and Mac Pro in particular, the case wouldn't have to be designed to accommodate these upgrades.

Really, what more can Apple do to "innovate" with these PCs? Just upgrade them and call it a day, I don't get it.

Can somebody explain this?

[Laminar]

I assume that most Mac buyers don't really care about specs, and mid-cycle refreshes make it more difficult to know what hardware is actually in the device. If all hardware is consistent for a year, manufacturing and servicing are a million times easier than if there are a couple redesigns and retools to make new machines.

[mindwaves]

There is absolutely no excuse for Apple not to update their Mac line every year. Not a single desktop Mac got upgraded this year (which maybe would be fine if someone of them never got upgraded for years -- an eternity in the fast moving tech world).

[andi*pandi]

Laminar makes sense as far as mid-year updates etc goes. But it's no excuse for not updating things year after year. MacPro cough cough.

[ort888]

I think they've figured out that mid-cycle spec bumps don't move the needle financially enough to be worth the trouble.

None of these computers should go a year without some sort of bump. It's ridiculous.

Apple should be completely ashamed of themselves for selling the 3 year old Mac Pro at the premium price they do. The price was ridiculously high when it debuted, and now it's just like a sad joke. It's insulting to their customers.

[The Final Dakar]

It's pretty obvious they've lost their way. They don't need to spend big bucks trying to keep the lines revolutionary, but they should be spending money keeping them current at the very least. Letting one of your lines rot is a great way to kill the ecosystem. If they care.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I think they've figured out that mid-cycle spec bumps don't move the needle financially enough to be worth the trouble.

None of these computers should go a year without some sort of bump. It's ridiculous.

Apple should be completely ashamed of themselves for selling the 3 year old Mac Pro at the premium price they do. The price was ridiculously high when it debuted, and now it's just like a sad joke. It's insulting to their customers.

That's just it, maybe it doesn't move the needle financially as far as a clear and direct benefit, but what about all of the indirect stuff like this?

[osiris]

Why? IMO the current Apple is like a spoiled rich kid without an imagination or any common sense - I really don't know what the problem is. It's embarrassing, actually.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

It's pretty obvious they've lost their way. They don't need to spend big bucks trying to keep the lines revolutionary, but they should be spending money keeping them current at the very least. Letting one of your lines rot is a great way to kill the ecosystem. If they care.

Exactly.

I thought of cooling as another factor, but there are fans in the laptops, I'm sure Mac Pro users wouldn't care about there being as many fans as necessary to support a modern CPU/GPU.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Why? IMO the current Apple is like a spoiled rich kid without an imagination or any common sense - I really don't know what the problem is. It's embarrassing, actually.

The cliche is a lack of vision. They need to hire someone with either crazy ideas or a strong roadmap that preserves the ecosystem. And not be afraid to spend some of that money achieving it.

[osiris]

yep, with the amount of money piled up... but nothing to spend it on.

[Waragainstsleep]

They are getting lazy, but at the same time certain aspects of computing are not moving forward as quick as they used to.
A high end G4 processor cannot handle Youtube videos and this has been the case for a number of years now. But a ten year Intel MacBook will manage. If only just.
There are phone handsets that can handle multiple 4K streams but we don't even have a 4K equivalent to Blu-Ray for home movies and very few streaming or broadcast sources of 4K content. Its far from mainstream. So the tech has crept past a fair few milestones in terms of what it needs to be able to do for us. If you can render high quality text and images and manipulate them smoothly, thats adequate for most Mac users. Gamers are not a big influence on Mac. The Pro market has gone and so is no longer driving cutting edge hardware adoption.
CPU clocks aren't really much higher than they were a decade ago so as long as you can read your email, load a webpage, watch Netflix without skipping or artifacts then users are happy.

The process of updating is also much more complex than you allow for. Apple is extraordinarily fussy when it comes to parts and interoperability. There are parts that are nearly identical but Apple still won't swap them out into a machine they aren't approved for because they haven't been properly tested.
Any chip or component including SSDs, HDDs and even LCDs can affect the thermal properties of the system and so they have to be fully tested before Apple can put them into production. That doesn't cover the drivers and software.

[OAW]

I found this article to be quite insightful ...

Functional versus divisional structures

Any large organization needs to have an organizational structure.

There are two main ways to structure a business. You can build divisions that are built around particular lines of business or you can build functional groups that are built around particular kinds of expertise.

Apple is extremely functional

Apple isn’t like that. If you look at their executive team you’ll find that there’s no senior vice president for iPhone who works alongside a senior vice president for Mac. Nobody is in charge of Macs or iPhones or iPads or really anything else, because Apple is almost entirely functional.

....

Functional structures, more broadly, allow for collaboration. Apple is able to develop features like continuity across multiple Apple devices or use a chip developed for the Apple Watch to power the new TouchBar in part because its top executives are responsible for things like “software engineering” and “hardware technologies” (i.e., chip development) rather than for specific products.

Functional Apple struggles to walk and chew gum at the same time

Which brings us back to the poor Mac.

Apple is an enormous company with vast revenue, huge cash reserves, and a strong global brand. Objectively speaking, it should not be struggling to put out regular updates of its highly profitable Mac desktop and laptop computers. Of course, it might be hard to bring radical redesigns and breakthrough innovations to the Mac. But what existing Mac customers really want is something more basic: confidence that Apple will regularly update the Mac to incorporate new chips as they become standard in the rest of the computer industry.

Instead, Apple has a situation where they rolled out a radical redesign (including breakthrough innovations) of their desktop pro computer and then haven’t updated it at all in three years. When that innovative computer was new, Phil Schiller scoffed at critics with the line, “can’t innovate any more my ass,” and he was right. But a well-managed line of business doesn’t try to subsist on sporadic breakthroughs. It requires ongoing work.

But on any given day, the iPhone is far-and-away the most important product Apple ships. The company needs to be incredibly focused on making sure that each year’s new iPhone is meaningfully better than the previous one. The iPad shares enough hardware and software DNA with the iPhone that putting in the extra work to keep it updated is a no-brainer. The Watch is supposed to be Apple’s effort to break through into a growth market. Apple is trying to play catch-up with its online services to bolster the iPhone’s position. The entire Mac business isn’t that important. And within the Mac universe, the consumer-grade laptop is the most important product.

The upshot is that even though regularly updating desktop Macs should not be that difficult, objectively speaking, it tends not to happen in part because it’s not anyone’s job to make it happen. The functional organization values collaboration on top corporate priorities above all else, and that means basically everything comes ahead of desktop Macs. Admitting that they can’t work at all on peripherals is, in that context, a step in the right direction.

But it does raise the question of whether persisting with functional organization is really compatible with the company’s growth aspirations. After all, monitors — large objects that you connect to computers — seems like a genuinely promising market for a company that makes digital devices and is known for its strength in industrial design. The Mac’s share of the PC market has steadily grown over the past few years, and it genuinely could be a growth business if it had an executive to focus on it. And Apple’s strategically significant online services businesses would arguably benefit from clearer accountability.

Moving away from pure functional organization would, obviously, carry some real costs. In the past, functional structure has allowed Apple to retain much of the nimbleness of a startup.The iPod was originally launched as a Mac accessory, but Steve Jobs rapidly changed course and made it a cross-platform hit — a feat that was much easier to pull off because there was no “Mac division” to wage bureaucratic warfare against the idea. Launching new products like the iPhone and iPad without fear of cannibalizing resources or market share has helped Apple stay ahead of the curve, while the more divisional Microsoft was never able to plunge headfirst into mobile.

But Apple’s market exits are a clear sign of severe growing pains inside the existing structure. Apple is already huge, but it wants to be bigger. To get there, it may need to finally start acting like a big company.

Apple may have finally gotten too big for its unusual corporate structure | Vox.com

But naturally, there are opposing perspectives ....

Apple’s Functional Organization is Stronger Where It Matters

Divisions are great for managing established products. It is a structure made for peacetime, but it is not suitable for waging war.

Sony and Microsoft at their respective times represented the pinnacle of divisional organizations. Efficient and profitable companies envied by competitors. But when an apparently unprepared enemy shot an arrow to their knee, the giants crumbled.

Divisional structures fail because they are unable to look beyond their own product. Their vision is shortsighted and dances to the tune of Wall Street’s quarterly mating ceremony.

This attitude is perfectly normal. Executives are held accountable for the performance of their division, which creates an incentive to pursue its own benefit above all else. And at all costs.

However, Apple’s functional organization is stronger where it matters most. It is prepared to ditch great products in order to embrace new paradigms that revolutionize the market.

Functional organizations create so-called ‘functions’ that are common to every product line.



A quick look at Apple’s executive members reveals what this really means. There are executives in charge of design, marketing, software, services, hardware and retail. But not a single mention to iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch or Apple Music, despite its strategic importance.

That means Phil Schiller is managing the marketing strategy for all these devices. Dan Riccio and Craig Federighi are in charge of software and hardware for all of them too. As a consequence, each one specializes in their own function, avoiding the inherent duplicities of a divisional structure. There aren’t four executives of hardware, software or marketing, on per product line.

As a result, Apple’s functional organization doesn’t hesitate when they have to develop and release a new product that can negatively impact their current business. Apple’s willingness to cannibalize itself is designed to make the ultimate sacrifice. No questions asked.

Apple’s Functional Organization Is Not a Problem: It Is the Solution | The Techanalyzer

What say you?

OAW

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

The cliche is a lack of vision. They need to hire someone with either crazy ideas or a strong roadmap that preserves the ecosystem. And not be afraid to spend some of that money achieving it.

The counter-argument is getting out of the "truck" business is the visionary approach. The only desktop activity which Macs distinguish themselves in is coding for Apple OSes.

Why cater to, say, people who need big iron for the Adobe suite? Why compete with dozens of manufacturers and BYO on the battlefield of who has the best speeds and feeds?

[osiris]

I don't believe we're asking Apple to cater to anyone, just not ignore. People like me want to spend money but will move to Windows for creative needs, because Apple is utterly ignoring us. (not to mention notoriously bad enterprise support)

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

The counter-argument is getting out of the "truck" business is the visionary approach. The only desktop activity which Macs distinguish themselves in is coding for Apple OSes.

Why cater to, say, people who need big iron for the Adobe suite? Why compete with dozens of manufacturers and BYO on the battlefield of who has the best speeds and feeds?

Letting their computer line stagnate is not visionary its cowardly. If you're done axe it so we know the ecosystem is dead.

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Letting their computer line stagnate is not visionary its cowardly. If you're done axe it so we know the ecosystem is dead.

It's not dead, it just caters almost exclusively to people who code for Apple OSes.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

It's not dead, it just caters almost exclusively to people who code for Apple OSes.

That strikes me as... incestuous.

[andi*pandi]

my work bought the designers imacs instead of macpros. I have adapted but it still feels weak.

[The Final Dakar]

Been that way here for years and I don't blame them.

[osiris]

I blame you.

[Thorzdad]

I've been doing graphic design on an iMac for years now, and have never regretted the move. A MacPro is just overkill for what I do, which is mostly Photoshop and Illustrator work.

[osiris]

A lot of the problems for me arise in apps like Unity and Cinema4D - Unless I spend thousands on graphics cards alone I'm better off buying a PC.

[BadKosh]

I support 20+ graphic designers and I spec out what Mac's we use. I've ALWAYS gone for the top end Macs, loaded with RAM, flash drives and such. we don't use any PC's for production. We tried a few years back but when required to really perform, the PC's had issues where the artist would lose the work and the PC would crash. They are more expensive when you factor in the larger amount of support required and time wasted.

[subego]

Originally Posted by osiris 

I don't believe we're asking Apple to cater to anyone, just not ignore. People like me want to spend money but will move to Windows for creative needs, because Apple is utterly ignoring us. (not to mention notoriously bad enterprise support)

Apple desktop hardware has always been weakly specced compared to the competition. What drove people to suffer that was the OS blowing the doors off of Windows, and the popularity of the OS with creatives, pushed software development of creative software.

Neither of those things are true anymore. Windows isn't that bad, and there's parity with creative software development. To compete on this front they'd need to run the spec bump treadmill even faster then they've ever done, let alone the glacial pace they have now.

[subego]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

my work bought the designers imacs instead of macpros. I have adapted but it still feels weak.

It finally got to the point a month ago where I had to get a new Mac, and even though it's slower, I couldn't justify dropping that kind of coin on three-year-old hardware.

Unfortunately, I've got projects in Logic to deal with, so I'm locked in for the time being.

[subego]

Originally Posted by osiris 

A lot of the problems for me arise in apps like Unity and Cinema4D - Unless I spend thousands on graphics cards alone I'm better off buying a PC.

I need cores for After Effects. I imagine I can get more than 12 for $6K+.

[P]

The iMac isn't very old. It could get a new GPU at the top, but we know AMD has had supply issues of them, and that may be why the update was held up. I also think that they should make Fusion Drives standard, but other than that... they're fine, really. Kaby Lake is barely out and doesn't bring much (200Mhz clock basically) anyway.

I think that the Mac Pro is dead, and while I think that that is sad, I can't see any other explanation for why they didn't update them. There was the perfect set of hardware for an update - Haswell-E, DDR4 and the Hawaii GPUs (AMD Radeon 290 series). All of them were perfectly slot-in compatible upgrades with at least 50% more cores. Now, they COULD be waiting for the Purley platform (Skylake-E with Intel's new 3D Xpoint between-RAM-and-flash thing), but I honestly don't think so. If you think the CPU is old, consider that the GPU is positively ancient.

I'm not sure about the mini. It may just be that it is and remains an afterthought, and they might get around to it eventually, but it might also be dead.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by subego 

It finally got to the point a month ago where I had to get a new Mac, and even though it's slower, I couldn't justify dropping that kind of coin on three-year-old hardware.

Unfortunately, I've got projects in Logic to deal with, so I'm locked in for the time being.

The new MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is a rather lovely machine.

[subego]

Originally Posted by P 

The iMac isn't very old. It could get a new GPU at the top, but we know AMD has had supply issues of them, and that may be why the update was held up. I also think that they should make Fusion Drives standard, but other than that... they're fine, really. Kaby Lake is barely out and doesn't bring much (200Mhz clock basically) anyway.

My iMac will be... acceptable. I've been waiting so long for an updated Pro, it's a significant jump from what I've been using, which is a four-year-old MacBook Pro.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The new MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is a rather lovely machine.

Unfortunately, I need to be able to do After Effects on it too.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by subego 

Apple desktop hardware has always been weakly specced compared to the competition. What drove people to suffer that was the OS blowing the doors off of Windows, and the popularity of the OS with creatives, pushed software development of creative software.

Neither of those things are true anymore. Windows isn't that bad, and there's parity with creative software development. To compete on this front they'd need to run the spec bump treadmill even faster then they've ever done, let alone the glacial pace they have now.

lol I think Windows is that bad. It's an abortion in every way, horrible. I am up against a wall

[...deleted...]

[osiris]

Originally Posted by BadKosh 

I support 20+ graphic designers and I spec out what Mac's we use. I've ALWAYS gone for the top end Macs, loaded with RAM, flash drives and such. we don't use any PC's for production. We tried a few years back but when required to really perform, the PC's had issues where the artist would lose the work and the PC would crash. They are more expensive when you factor in the larger amount of support required and time wasted.

PCs are a nightmare to maintain. That is a fact. the support ratio has to be something like 5 to 1 on manpower, factor in virus/malware, driver issues and the choice becomes a compromise. Work slow but at least work, vs "everything is gone"

[Waragainstsleep]

Apple should have bought Adobe a few years back. That would have been good for the Mac.

[Brien]

Our work switched us all to Dell workstations a few years back. I'll take an old Mac over these POS' anyday.

[mindwaves]

I actually prefer using my 13" MBA over my 13" 2016 MBP w/o TB. They keyboard is that much better, and with better battery life.

I'm so happy that the iPhone 7 was not any thinner than the iPhone 6. Too thin means form over function.