Oh, and Microsoft have just made their laptop heavier than previous version to increase battery life to 16h. At the same time Macs are getting "thiner and ligher" (C)
What will failure look like? From your perspective, how would you measure the success or failure of your statement? I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just want to know what you mean by this.
Failure will be the long, slow death of macOS.
First, content producers will abandon the Mac. Content producers have been the dominant part of the Mac's customer base for as long as the Mac has existed, but over the last few years Apple has been increasingly neglectful of that segment of their market. Letting the Mac Pro die on the vine, discontinuing Aperture, removing ports from the MacBook Pro, etc. At some point, the pro market will get sick of it and abandon ship, and this is twice as likely with Microsoft going out of their way to court creative professionals.
With the pros gone, there won't be a huge market for Macs anymore. There will be two types of people left: those who want a Unix machine with a user-friendly UX and iOS/watchOS/tvOS users who want a PC that will offer comprehensive integration with their gadgets. Those markets aren't huge.
The enthusiasts are a fickle market: they're just as likely to follow the pros in their exodus for most of the same reasons. On top of that, Windows 10 is becoming more and more attractive: the new Linux subsystem will scratch that "Unix box with friendly UI" itch just fine while also having all the compatibility benefits of running the most popular desktop operating system in the world (no more compromises for gamers!).
The consumers are going to find that the extra integration with iDevices isn't really a big deal, especially if the iDevices are their main machines. If you mostly use your iPad when you're at home, do you really need to keep buying new Macs? Why not just keep an old Mac around in case something comes up where you need to use a desktop and just not buy another? And if your old Mac does die, you can always just save some money and buy a cheap Windows PC... sure, you won't get Continuity, but did you ever really use it anyway?
So once the pros go, macOS and the Mac line will be on life support for a few more years, marketshare continuously shrinking until Apple stops updating the product line entirely, shifting to release only security updates, and then it'll stagnate a few more years before Apple stops Mac sales entirely. Just like the classic iPod.
I don't think the classic iPod is a good example here, the iPod line still exists. I think something similar might happen with the Mac line, we might see the end of the Mac Pro, Mac mini and even the iMac (less likely). But I don't see the Macbook and Macbook Pro going anywhere soon.
I'll clarify what I meant in my first response. I understood mamon to make this claim[0] (clarified by teh_klev[1]):
If Apple removes the function keys and includes Polaris GPU in the MacBook Pros, it will be the "last nail in [the MacBook Pro's] coffin".
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12799089 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12800446
There are lots of vague claims forecasting the demise of this or that without any kinds of specifics. Given a long enough timeline, things do go downhill, so without those specifics, it's easy to claim to be validated.
I'm going to look at your response through that lens. And I'm going to be a pedantic, as that's was my initial intent. If that's not how you interpreted my comment, I won't be offended if you correct me :) And if the pedantics don't interest you, that's fine, too. I'm not going to pursue this thread any further following this comment (though I reserve the right to thank you if you take the time to respond :)
"At some point," -- Validated any time in the future if MacBook Pro sales slip in some way (market share, in comparison with some other product, profit, revenue, units shipped)
"Mac line will be on life support for a few more years, marketshare continuously shrinking until Apple stops updating the product line entirely,"
So, can we measure this as true if Apple no longer releases new personal computers (desktop or laptop) after October 2019? Only MacBook Pros?
"shifting to release only security updates"
Valid if: After October 2019, Apple no longer releases a new major version of macOS (e.g., 10.10, 10.11, 10.12).
"shifting to release only security updates"
it'll stagnate a few more years before Apple stops Mac sales entirely."
Valid if: After October 2022, Apple no longer sells laptops or desktops.
If you'd like to change the values -- or even the statements--, please go ahead. That's really all I'm getting at. Something substantive and measurable.
I'm not the poster you're replying to, and I think "last nail in the coffin" was hyperbolic, but to me, decline would be measured as decreasing unit sales. Consistently over quarters and years, not one-off. As with the iPad: https://twitter.com/kartick_vad/status/791111864197320705 That's 10 quarters of decline!
I guess I'm just pushing back on empty doom-and-gloom statements. I'm all for people making predictions, up or down. I just like to see them made with some kind of measurable scope. Otherwise they're not really substantive, especially when they tend towards the hyperbolic.
I'm always looking for ways to improve my own predictions as well, finding ways to measure the accuracy of what I'm thinking of. After all, you can only improve what you can measure, as they say. And you can only measure if you have something to measure against.
I saw the same thing happen with Dell's high end Precision laptops a few years back. Once upon a time you got a full 17" 1920x1200 display and an outstanding specification that would almost match the power of their desktop Precision range. But then the displays changed to cheaper 1080p panels, the processor, memory and GPU offerings were less than stellar and that was that. They settled on new revisions that were good enough, but not the impressive flagship models they once manufactured. I think this is maybe happening to Apple and the MB Pro range.
Makes sense. By "level of hardware" are you thinking of specs (ports, screen, processors)? Form factor (dimensions, battery life)? Software?
"the same thing happen with Dell's high end Precision laptops"
Do I understand correctly that the specs of the Dell Precision line reached a peak and then decreased? Plateaued? Just didn't keep up with the cutting edge hardware available? I can see the third happening -- sadly, it could be argued that it's been happening for a while. I have a harder time imagining the first two scenarios happening.
Thanks for digging into this more. This is the kind of discussion I think is useful. Cheers!
Yes, this.
As for the Dell's they plateaued then weren't as cutting edge any more.
I used to lust after Dell's top of the range Precision laptop, but not any more.
Edit: That said, I just took a look at the specs of their latest offering, the Precision 7000. They seem to have stepped their game up a bit since I last looked. You can get a 4K display now.