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Comment by jakobegger | Hacker News Reader

I care a lot about the Mac, and I'm not sure what to think about the fact that Mac unit sales are down again.

The Mac has been growing for a long time, and they seem to have reached a plateau. I assume that's the reason why Macs have became absurdly expensive in the last few years -- when they can't grow unit sales, they need to grow revenue per unit.

The result is that Apple doesn't build the computer most of their potential customers want -- a $1000 Macbook. I understand that they don't care about the $300 netbook market, but not offering a decent $1000 laptop is a bad idea. It means they are going to loose consumers and students – there are decent alternatives at that price point. Or, people like me, who just keep using their old Macbooks because the high price of the new machines isn't worth the marginally improved performance.

Where does this lead us? I don't see how the Mac should grow from here, and as a Mac software developer that worries me. I want to be in a growing market, not a stagnant one. I'm probably going to be okay for the next few years, but is the Mac still going to be a worthwhile platform for a small software company in 10-15 years? I don't know.

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I care a lot about the Mac, and I'm not sure what to think about the fact that Mac unit sales are down again.

Well, what do you expect people to buy? I'm sitting on a six year old MBP, having gotten rid of my 2009 iMac. New iMac? Meh, it might come to that, but I already have enough displays. Mac Mini to go with the display I already have? Surely you jest to suggest a four-year old model. Mac Pro? See: Mac Mini. Current laptops aren't an option unless I get desperate (i. e., current MBP dies tomorrow). I mean, I want a new Mac, there just isn't anything out there that makes me feel like I'd be getting an upgrade.

So my theory is that a lot of people are in the cycle I've been in for the last three years: "Meh, I'll wait to see what they have next year...<year passes>...Meh, I'll wait until...holy shit, is this thing really six years old?...<year passes>"

Yes, though I would like to buy their newest 15”. A better Air model would be more my style. Their prices are just way too steep. I’d rather have an ultraportable with just enough power for UI and a Linux box somewhere for my projects.

What I wouldn’t give for a ‘Macbook SE’- just like the iPhone SE, same model as a proven favourite, no touch bar, with new innards and lower price (I don’t even need the lower price actually) I would buy THAT in a heartbeat.

it befuddles me that they didn't do this after the success of the 2012 13in macbook, which soldiered on for YEARS of the retina models. They kept the 2015 15in pro for a year or two, but i really wish they'd actually just UPDATE the old style of machines and keep one around as a basic model.

i wonder if they think, unlike the SE, that it would actually vampire off too many sales from the high ticket models. what i wouldn't give for a 2015 style 8th gen CPU machine.

If that’s what you want, the 13” MacBook Pro for $1299 should fit the bill.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch-space...

But why not 15”?! :(

The iPhone SE doesn't have the 5.5" screen either.

True, but the iPhone SE copies an existing model. The existing models of Macbook came in both sizes (and 17", but that one was discontinued).

This model only has two Thunderbolt ports, both on one side, and severely gimped internals.

The SE is not the top end iPhone either. He asked for the “iPhone SE” of MacBooks.

When it was released, it kind of was–it had essentially the internals of the flagship iPhone at the time (iPhone 6s), just in a smaller form factor. So think of it as what would be a 11" Retina MacBook Pro that was a clone of the early 2015 13" one internally, if one ever existed?

My Macbook is 4.5 years old by now. But why should I upgrade when their lineup is just plain bad? I've always loved their design and features. But they've stripped all of the good stuff from their lineup except for the design and OS. I want my port selection back, a proper keyboard, and a normal price tag again. I thought the original price was expensive, but it was worth it. It has only gone up because the cheaper models just aren't viable anymore, it's a complete rip-off imo.

I don’t get all the hate on the new MacBook Pros. I have a 2016 with TouchBar. It’s not a beast but it’s definitely faster compared to the 2015 model I replaced.

You haven’t had any issues come up with the keyboard? I’m honestly surprised.

I've had two of the new pros for the last ~year (one for work and one at home) and haven't had any keyboard issues on either. I don't doubt that it's a problem but it probably gets blown a little bit out of proportion

Mine's a year and a half old now, no problems here. Works like a charm.

I should note that roughly 25% of that time has been on an external keyboard (Apple display, MBP lid closed), so it might not see as much use as others.

I dn't knw what yu're talking abut. My Macbk Pr keybard is wrking fine.

The keyboard fails are double the rate of the old model, which elevates it from "very rare" to "rare." The problem is that the repair was $700, so the folks to whom it happened (including myself) were very, very vocal.

I’ve had a 2017 MacBook Pro in daily heavy use for a year now - no keyboard troubles.

Our IT Department anecdotally reports that about 15% of the 2016 models had issues, and fewer of the 2017 models. Nearly all of our 2500 employees have MBPs or iMacs of some sort.

I've heard similar reports from the IT department at my employer as well. However, on my personal computer (and I've seen similar with a few friends), I've had to have the keyboard repaired 3 times. This makes me suspect there's something that aggravates the issue, or that a lot of people use external keyboards (which a glance around the office suggests is true). The majority of the keys that have failed on my computer have been in the areas that get hot when the processor is under load.

Our sample size is smaller but we are closer to 40% with models needing multiple fixes. It doesn't help that most of our people are traveling with them and working in various environments. The few that uses them as desktop workstations (with external keyboard constantly plugged in) have a lot less issues.

The MacBook Pro gets all the hate because is the only model even worth talking about...at this point if you buy a MacBook Air with its 4yo internals and 8yo screen you end up feeling they took you for a chump, so you buy a $2000 machine when you only needed a $1000 one but then the keyboard breaks.

hahaha my exact experience. 5 trips to the apple store and finally my 2017 13 inch pro is usable. I've had the battery, screen, and keyboard all replaced under warrantee. Easily the worst experience Ive had with an Apple product.

You're mad that Apple replaced those under warranty, rather than, say, the issue happening past the warranty period or not being covered?

Maybe the issue is that it required that many repairs in the first place.

I do get angry when something breaks and I need to pay for a fix, obviously, but generally I'm a lot less annoyed when the company offers to fix something at no cost/under warranty/free replacement/whatever. Forgive and forget?

How about it not breaking in the first place? When people talk about their Macs with pride, the first thing you'll probably hear is "Apple has the best build quality".

A 2017 13" Macbook Pro should not require 5 service trips in its first year. Warranty or not, we're not talking about some $200 piece of crap that's made in China, we're talking about a premium laptop at a premium price.

I guess I’ve just never had to deal with, or see anyone else have to deal with repeated repairs. And yes, I agree that this isn’t a great look for Apple. But it’s better that everything’s fixed for free than the alternative.

after the second or third trip, they should have just given a new replacement one. 5 replacements (if I read that right) would be classified as a 'lemon' under car laws in many cases.

I think the individual components were replaced, not the device itself.

When it's getting repaired, you don't have access to that same laptop. For professionals, it's a waste of time and an interruption to our ability to output.

Some people won't care about that. Some do.

I just run a restore from a Time Machine Backup and wipe it before giving it back.

I bout a full spec XPS 9560, the second time my '16 MBP went in for repairs. The same generation CPU, the same storage (2TB) and double the RAM... and it's $1000 less than the full spec MBP.

I wonder how long before a lot more folks come to the conclusion that Apple premiums aren't worth paying anymore.

Doh. I can't type. "bout" should clearly say "bought" <nerdface emoji>

Just exactly how longsuffering are we supposed to be? My '16 MBP has been in for repairs 3 times SO FAR.

This was also my most expensive Apple purchase ever.

Usually, the trend goes the other way. I don't know about other folks, but I'm less inclined to forget after dropping $4300 on that unit.

You're paying in time. Depending on what you're hourly rate is at the 5th replacement you could have just bought a new one.

> Forgive and forget?

I have a 10yo Acer laptop that at the time cost me about 500$ which up to this day required no fix or trip to the repair shop.

If I had spent 4x the cash and still was forced to take the laptop to the shop 5 times to fix a myriad of design and production problems for a product that is marketed as high-end and professional-grade, I can assure you I wouldn't forgive, much less forget.

I guess it's strange to assume that nagging hardware failures will just disappear when the warranty does run out

I guess I’ve just never experienced the kind of hardware failures that everyone else is mentioning, so I don’t have a lot of experience with how they actually occur. I’m not saying that they don’t happen, but I have no idea if these are early failures or the middle of the bathtub curve.

They are not building what people actually want. A modern macbook pro with F keys and a physical escape key instead of a Touchbar and ports that actually get used in addition to USB-c (USB, HDMI, maybe a memory card reader). They are so out of touch it's a joke. I'm not sure how they are managing to make each iteration of the Macbook Pro worse except for the actual specs.

Is that what people want, or is that what you want? I couldn't care less about a row of keys I never use, so I'm not sure you speak for everyone when you say what "people" actually want.

What this person wants is a home, end, forward delete, pgup and pgdn key on the keyboard, which the touchbar lets me have. Funny how what "the people" want manages to line up exactly with your expectations and doesn't match mine at all.

Exactly right. And I made the jump and bought a USB-C monitor which plugs right into the MBP and charges and connects video in the same connector (which is awesome). Then I bought the USB C to Lightning cable, which fast charges my iPhone. I wish Apple had gone with USB C for the iPhone instead of Lightning, but I think they are too deep in with Lightning at this point.

I have the HDMI/old-USB to USB C dongle, but I hardly ever use it these days.

I'd gladly support an all USB C future.

The full size SD card slot is important to photo/videographers, a market that Apple seems to be taking for granted recently. The range of "professional" users that the Macbook Pro is actually appealing to seems to be getting narrower and narrower over time.

Can attest as a non-pro photographer (but as someone who cares a lot about photography), that the SD card built in is not that important. I tend to use a dock/reader anyway because most of my cameras use CF or mini SD. True, full sized SD cards are actually not used in any equipment I have now.

CF has always been used in high end bodies, but most of them still have a secondary SD card slot. And these days SD is fast enough to be used as the primary card and there are flagships like the Sony A9 that only take dual SD cards.

I use both the F-keys and Home, End, Insert, Delete, PgUp, and PgDown on my laptop. The two use cases can co-exist, but it seems Apple doesn't want to bother appealing to those who want both.

well... sprite wants it and I want it. and some colleagues want it too. So... "people" - yeah - "people" want it. Not just sprite.

There's not a lot I can do to register dissatisfaction with Apple's direction. I bought a 2016 mbp, then returned it (for a variety of reasons) - many of which have been beaten to death here in the last 18 months.

I think that's what a lot of people want, at least in my circle of friends who have the Touchbar and they absolutely hate it, mainly because of the escape key, accidental touches of the touch bar being annoying, and it being a visual distraction (minor issue IMO, unless you work in lowlight conditions a lot).

I wish Apple would go back to the 2012 models and just refresh the internals.

I don’t get all the hate on the new MacBook Pros

I'm a heavy tmux/vim user.

Apple replaced the best programmer's laptop on the market (their previous-gen MBP) with the MBP model that they sell now. It's not a bad laptop per se, it's just that it's not a programmer's laptop.

Apple sells the MBA which doesn't have enough pixel density to support tmux with multiple panes.

Apple sells the MB and the MBP with that execrable butterfly keyboard which is terrible for touch-typing for long periods.

There's nothing else anymore. They stopped selling that Ivy-bridge-era MBP model they were keeping around for serious touch-typists. Everyone I know who has one of these turkeys defends the keyboard, but then admits that, "anyways, I usually use an external keyboard anyhow." I need the built-in keyboard to be useable and Apple has given up on making those.

I'd buy a new programmer's laptop from Apple, but they just don't make those anymore. Apple took something we loved away from us - that's why the new MBP gets so much hate.

> Apple sells the MB and the MBP with that execrable butterfly keyboard which is terrible for touch-typing for long periods.

The MacBook and MacBook Pro's keyboards are markedly different. Sure, they're both butterfly, but MacBook Pro's keyboard is a lot more clickly/springy than MacBook's, which I can only describe as mushy. Have you tried using them for an extended period of time?

God I love my MacBook Air 2013 keyboard. I still think it’s tons better than the 2018 MacBook Pro crap. The MBP was given to me my the employer but I don’t quite enjoy typing. It’s like walking on grass vs walking on tarmac. One just makes your fingers so goddamn happy when you type. The MBP keyboard keys get stuck all the time. The spacebar get stuck at times! WTF! That’s just terrible engineering.

Steve jobs or whoever it was doing QA, I gotta say really had a knack for what is usable and makes the evokes a feel good emotion. The new macs nowadays look beautiful but horribly lack in usability in many ways. Steve Apple was very focused on usability. Aesthetics came later, now it’s the reverse.

Agreed, and there's a name for this. It's 'bullshit'.

Making a laptop with a terrible keyboard to save 2-3mm of thickness when no one really cares about such extremes of thinness. That's bullshit.

Making a laptop with largely unsupported USB-C ports and nothing else. No transition-year with both new and old ports, just tossing the old ports out abruptly and making customers buy fucking dongles. That's bullshit.

Eliminating function keys for a gimmicky touch screen which almost no one will use on a day-to-day basis a month after buying the laptop. That's bullshit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

I'm not an expert in keyboard, I'm just a software developer that spends a bunch of time in front of a computer: I had some adjustment period to the new keyboard but now I'm used to it and it feels perfectly fine.

What is the problem with "touch-typists" and the new keyboard? Is the layout different in such a way that confuses you? Is it the lack of feedback from the touchbar?

If you're a vim user the touch bar mbp is pretty much a no-go. Most users just map capslock to escape and they're mostly okay, but if you're like me and like to map capslock to delete, then having to press escape on the touchbar just doesn't work. (i've tried to map some other key to escape, but haven't found anything that feels natural)

I am a regular vim user (every day) and I really just got used to using ESC on the touchbar. It’s not a big deal.

Mis-taps on the touchbar are my main annoyance.

Have you tried mapping caps lock to escape?

Yeah. But I found it didn’t make sense to me, my muscle memory is for my pinky to reach up. Hitting a flat surface was less weird than hitting caps lock.

I have a 2016 touchbar MacBook Pro. I’ve been learning vim, but I agree using escape is hard with the touchbar. I ended up mapping “jj” to escape. Seems to work well and keeps my fingers on the home row.

I have remapped Caps Lock to Ctrl and Escape to Ctrl + ].

US users can map caps lock to esc an be fine with it, but pretty much the rest of the world uses more characters than english does. Many people use caps lock as a switch to the local keyboard layout. This way you can get the best of both worlds.

You know Ctrl + [ is bound to escape doesn't even re-bind. I use a Thinkpad but I won't reach all the way for escape. Ctrl + [ is way easier.

I’m a heavy vim user and have not had an issue hitting the escape key past the first couple days as long as I don’t look down.

The keys don't have enough tactile feedback. That tricks (my) brain into hitting the keys harder because they instill less confidence. That's exhausting when typing for a few hours.

The ESC key issue isn't as bad - I have 'jk' remapped to ESC anyways. But the lack of feedback with the butterfly keys makes my hands feel like I'm setting myself up for repetitive stress injury.

The keyboard is just awful. Can anyone honestly say that they prefer the feel of the butterfly keys?

Yes. Typing for a whole day on my 2013 MBP would give serious wrist pains. This is not the case on my 2016 MBP.

HDMI isn't dead and it pisses me off that they sacrificed it in exchange for any amount of thinness. I don't notice how things my laptop is day to day, but I definitely notice when I can't plug into a projector.

> HDMI isn't dead

People said the same things about floppy drives and cd roms.

I'm pretty sure HDMI will support 8k and resolutions beyond that.

Great but USB C can do that as well and much more. There is no need for both.

I'm yet to see a TV with USB C inputs. Unless of course , if you're suggesting dongle-hell as an alternative for all missing ports, in which case, whatever few mm you save in thin laptops are gained back and more by much fatter dongles you have to carry around (or forget).

> I'm yet to see a TV with USB C inputs.

That is not how Apple works, the reason they do such drastic changes like dropping support for floppy/cd drives, usb A ports is because they want to move the industry forward.

As a professional I encounter still too many VGA only projectors in clients offices, but HDMI is the dominating standard by far. So many people use TV in their conference room and that is not going to change any time soon. Getting rid of the HDMI port to save a few mm of thickness is just plain stupid.

I watched my boss buying a new MBP on day one. Months later I still laugh when I see him fiddling with adapters that never work reliably.

This is precisely why I like Apple. The fact that I got 5 years out of my last MBP was totally amazing. I used that computer at least 10 hours a day, every single day!

I don't care about saving $1k or $2k when it comes to a device I use that much. We're talking about a dollar an hour here. I've literally spent more money on coffee over that time.

I'm typing this post on an 11 year old Dell Latitude D830 running Ubuntu. 5 years is not some amazing lifespan for a laptop, especially these days with such incremental improvements in processors year over year.

Unless you're gaming on your laptop your requirements probably aren't that much higher than they were half a decade ago.

It's an amazing lifespan for anybody who has ever operated a windows laptop.

I have a 10 year old Dell Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz running Windows 10 being used as a Plex Server. It’s only slow when overtaxed because I haven’t bothered upgrading to 8GB of RAM or replace the hard drive with an SSD.

Luckily it has a gigabit Ethernet port so it can take full advantage of my gig internet.

That’s an issue with windows, not the laptop. I’m happy enough with the Dell XPS and Linux that I have bought 3.

My Asus UX31A is six years old and still going strong. It's a pity the RAM is soldered in at 4GB but certainly not worth replacing the entire laptop for it. And it wasn't top of the line - about $1300 as I remember.

Perhaps you just haven't really used a windows laptop recently and only remember the old days when Windows laptops really did only have a life span of about 3 years.

Not really, Thinkpads are known for being built like trucks since the 90s.

My Windows laptops had a average of 5 years, minimum.

Maybe one should take care about where to service them from?

My Thinkpad x201 from 2011 is doing just fine. Java dev, webdev, IntelliJ Idea and VSCode just flies on it. Yeah, no 4k for you though.

Not only do I occasionally game, I also have a DSLR that generates quite the stream of photos and videos to edit. I also run a bunch of VMs (including one of Ubuntu, my favourite dev environment), and I use photoshop and illustrator for the occasional design thing.

Me too.. but mostly just personal stuff. I use DarkTable and Gimp for that. I did this on a 13 year old machine running Linux. It is still running but I got my hands on a cheap NUC that I use nowadays. My machines are pretty much running 24/7 all year around..

My impression when it comes to Mac is that people don't want to pay ludicrous prices for repairs e.t.c.. anymore. Also that they can not upgrade because their current machine can't handle the new OS e.t.c..

The only stumbling block for old laptops is bad display quality. Switching from classic ThinkPad to MacBook really save my eyes.

The trick to avoiding this is to buy laptops with good displays in the first place. The D830 has a 1920x1200 display that is a little bit dimmer but just as readable today. It's not a retina display, but it looks just fine to me.

I was looking at laptops about 3 years ago and it was extremely hard to find ones that didn't use that cursed 1366x768 resolution.

Is 5 years really that amazing? I had 7-8 years on an Asus laptop I just recently replaced that I traveled with and used all the time.

My parents are still using the absolute garbage quality Acer gaming laptop I bought in 2009. The durability is awful, the design is not very pragmatic, the less said about software and drivers the better... But it's still working.

I have loved some of the Macs I owned, but I don't think that comment was meant as a compliment. It is unfortunate that so many people would rather limp by on 3-5 year old machines rather than paying for what Apple is selling new. The fact that they are able to limp by is better than the alternative — but I count myself among those who couldn't. My MBA gave out last year and I bought an MBP with a compromised keyboard. I wish it weren't so.

Getting 5 years out of a laptop isn’t particularly impressive, especially if your laptop can be upgraded. Perhaps it’s remarkable that a laptop that can’t be upgraded lasts that long, so congrats I guess.

My Windows PC is from 2012, works great.

$1200 in parts total. When (if) GPU prices go down I'll throw a new one and be good for another few years.

I expect hardware failure of the CPU or Motherboard to do the machine in before it becomes obsolete.

Put all my money into RAM and SSD, upper mid range CPU, mid range GPU, life is good.

I don't care about saving $1k or $2k when it comes to a device I use that much.

I said nothing about price. You don’t want to know the eye-watering numbers attached to that iMac I sold. And it’s great that you and I can get such life out of our machines. But in the context of the topic at hand, its not great that you and I sit on five year old machines because Apple makes nothing so compelling so as to make me say, “Shut up and take my money.” Because I own shares of AAPL, too.

I agree. I used my 2013 MBP heavily for compiled programming and music production. Just upgraded to the 2018 MBP and am very happy with it.

Five years for a Mac isn't all that long. You're still getting software support!

>> The fact that I got 5 years out of my last MBP was totally amazing.

No, it's not.

A 15" _2011_ Macbook Pro with a quad core i7 is still more than usable today.

If you bought a Macbook Pro with a powerful CPU (i.e., CPU model not ending with a U), you should easily get 10 years out of it.*

[edit] * At least until Apple decides not to support it with OS upgrades, but you can always run the latest Windows on it. And Windows generally runs faster in Boot Camp on Macbook Pros than OSX does natively.

"you can always run the latest Windows on it. And Windows generally runs faster in Boot Camp on Macbook Pros than OSX does natively."

When did this happen? The last time I used Bootcamp, it seemed almost specifically designed to make Windows feel like a sub-par experience compared to OS X

Using a then-brand-new 2012 MBP with the latest version of OS X at the time (I believe Lion?) with Bootcamp. Some of the bizarre omissions I witnessed were

- A buggy BIOS implementation instead of EFI (rEFInd at least let me try and boot Linux under EFI)

- SSD set to run in IDE mode, instead of AHCI, resulting in utterly crippled performance (required issuing dd commands to the disk from within OS X to fix)

- No GPU switching. Only the Radeon card was enabled, leaving the system running insanely hot and guzzling battery

The final straw was when I ran some test VM's on it, and under a sustained load, had the CPU hit an eye watering 117 degrees celsius. Shutting it down almost immediately and then asking on tech oriented IRC channels I was in if this was a bug simply yielded dismissal from Apple acolytes at the time

"Oh it's DESIGNED to do that, the whole system is a huge heatsink!"

"Just make sure it's getting plenty of airflow, it's fine"

This is anecdotal - on my 2008 Macbook (not Pro) and on my 2011 MBP, Windows 8+ always felt snappier than the latest version of OSX (ymmv based on what you do). I have seen other people on HN report similar.

My thinkpad x220 is my work laptop since 2011, with a few upgrades (ssd, 16gb ram, battery, because you can actually upgrade it) it performs quite well to this day.

My 10 year old Asus is still working quite well, already went through Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and all releases of 10.

The GPU is a GT200M with 1GB dedicated RAM, still pretty much in shape versus the toy Intel GPUs.

In those 10 years extended it to 8GB and replaced the HD with a SSD.

Original sales price, 1 000 euros.

Macs used to be cool. The magnifying effect on the Dock was one of the coolest things when I first saw it a few years ago. Windows has completely caught up and I am happy using a PC with Windows Linux Subsystem. I still like shiny new things, but Mac isn't it anymore. I think Apple needs to put more shiny and new in their OS like the magnifying effect used to be. Spice things up a bit.

I hope they come out with a Mac Mini with similar CPU/memory options to the 13" MBP, like they used to (generation before the one they're currently selling). Using that with either duet display or the new Luna Display and one of the new iPad Pros would be great. And it would be almost as portable as the 15" MBP.

What could Apple possibly do to make a really compelling MacBook - except drop the price? Intel hasn’t exactly been delivering on its chipsets lately.

They do need to update the Mac Mini.

I care a lot about the Mac, and I'm not sure what to think about the fact that Mac unit sales are down again. The Mac has been growing for a long time, and they seem to have reached a plateau. I assume that's the reason why Macs have became absurdly expensive in the last few years -- when they can't grow unit sales, they need to grow revenue per unit.

Well, what do you expect? They keep redesigning the hardware in authoritarian ways: Thou shalt not upgrade the memory yourself (RIP old Mac Pro aluminum tower); Thou shalt not have F and ESC keys; Thou shalt heretofore use USB-C and dongles or will be sent to dongle Hell (I think one of them only has 2); Thou shalt not have feedback on keys. Etc.

And in each of the Commandments there are those who rush to defend: "but I love the new keyboard, I remapped the ESC to Caps, and anyway I love the new garbage can design of the workstation, I prefer soldered memory".

And that the sales numbers speak? Fantastic.

I too wish they would abandon an open standard like USB-C for a cornucopia of proprietary and legacy plugs.

Yeah, that proprietary sdcard technology has no place on the side of a new computer in 2018. Instead, we should use a generic USB-C hole which leads to cable which leads to this sdcard thing.

SD Card is legacy.

Legacy: (noun) a useful, established technology that Apple's designers feel it makes their computers less pretty.

It’s great on paper but rife with problems of its own.

There's enough space to have both. You know, like on 2015 model. Remove Thunderbolt 2 and Magsafe, add TB3/USB-C.

But don't make me look for dongle every time I want to plug in a mouse, USB stick, YubiKey or any other of literary thousands of USB-A devices.

The user experience of this device is objectively worse. It made me think less of Apple - they decided to constantly annoy me to earn more money on dongles.

And those new USB-A devices exist for a reason. There's a formal ban on female USB-C to male USB-A adapters because they're afraid of someone making an A to A cable with two dongles. So if you want to follow the spec, and want to support hosts that don't have a USB-C port, then all you can ship is a USB-A device.

Like any of the USB A male to male cables that you can use to transfer files between to machines, or the USB A female to female adapters you can use with one of these cables to create an extension cable? If they’re banned, I wouldn’t expect them to be as widely sold.

You mean the A to A cables that warn that you may damage your computer if you connect two computers? Or the A to A “cables” that are actually a tiny device that relays data between two computers?

The male to male cable to transfer between machines probably has a device with two slave ports in it. There's EE reasons, as well as protocol reasons why just plugging two hosts into each other is a bad idea (and fixing that was most of the work behind USB OTG).

Female to female is fine, because there shouldn't be a host with a male end that isn't OTG.

And beyond that, there totally exist the banned adapters (C female to A male) but that has more to do with the fact that you can get anything from China, regardless of trademark infringement.

I wish they could do a magsafe/USB-C combo - love both shame they couldnt make a USB-C on either side somehow do magsafe too.

The problem is that there isn't a lot of wiggle room in the USB-C spec to make a compliant plug thats attached magnetically rather than mechanically, and the contacts are recessed rather than surface contacts (so it has to be 'plugged in' rather than 'resting on')

Griffin sells a magnetic USB-C cable - that winds up being a magnetic dongle to a charging cable. Apple doing this would have been considered a hack against their design and would have required them to include a lower quality data-only cable rather than the data+charging USB-C cables they currently include.

Yeah I can see that - too bad Apple has the patent on magsafe so it couldnt be incorporated when USB-C was being designed.

Hm, USB-A and SD aren't proprietary, so I guess you're considering them legacy? SD certainly hasn't been replaced, and I've yet to see a memory stick that isn't USB-A. Ditto for hard drives, though I'm sure they exist.

I understand that thickness perhaps knocked out the USB-A, but the same can't be said for SD. And since the ultra-thin keyboard hasn't worked out that well, then perhaps the MBP is a little too thin for its own good?

An explanation/rebuttal would be more helpful than just downvoting!

On one hand, my xps at work goes through to a dock that uses usb-c/tb3, everything goes through to the dock and nothing except the connector to my laptop. I get why they only had so little usb-c ports. I hope it wasn't as a decision to look "minimal" and thus less practical, meaning they took little is more a bit too literally.

Thing is, to take my work laptop home, I don't want to have to shell out for a dock just to use it at home too so on that hand, I'm happy the xps gives me options to not have to be reliant on a dock, as much as I love the use of a dock at work.

I think the last truly proprietary connector on a Mac was the Apple Display Connector from the G4 Power Mac days.

Magsafe is still on the MacBook Air.

Ah that's right. I guess I've found video adapter dongles more annoying than the proprietary power connector.

Honestly the worst one is the macbook, which is ostensibly the "macbook air with retina display" everyone was dreaming of, has ONE. We're never getting another macbook air, this is the path forward.

There's plenty of space for two, a prototype design with two ports even leaked a few years back

And yet one. It's not like the air even had a cornucopia of ports. It's not like i think it NEEDS them. But seriously, one port for everything?

I would already own one if it had two jacks, but that's just patently ridiculous. One port arguably is barely enough for a phone, much less a full on computer that's expected to be a device host for even just like, a flash drive.

I can only guess the reasons for this weren't the rational engineering-motivated ones.

I picture a meeting of a dozen folks, a powerpoint slide and statistics that show the two models (the four-USB-C version next to this "budget" single-port version). I picture a sort of an argument/pitch/"presentation" that suggests that a high percentage of folks -- consumers (or whatever they are called by marketing people) -- in the "Undecided" camp would lean to the more expensive version. Budgetary swing voters if you will who wouldn't accept a one-port world.

After that I picture some sort of final whitepaper (or whatever it's called), finally approved by someone in jeans who's higher up in the hierarchy of decision-making.

Behold - the Apple Product Lifecycle <tm>

Had one for years. I only ever use the port for power.

The screen is amazing, innards slow and I love it for the purpose I purchased it for.

In Australia cost is a real problem. Wages have stagnated over the last 15 years, the AU$ has fallen, but Macs have gone up in price.

A new entry level 13" MBP 16/512 is A$2,819

Factor in increased discretional spending priorities for smart phones, smart home devices and gaming PCs or Consoles and you have a market problem.

It's not an argument that Macs are expensive as such, or dont represent good value. It's just that Macs are now very expensive for Australian consumers.

Anecodtally many workplaces will now provide employees with a laptop by default, so the need for a home computer is significantly reduced for some people. If you have a family, then a gaming PC or a console is what the Kids want, not a Mac.

I'm an Australian die-hard Apple (computer) user from my first personal computer being a Macintosh SE, to owning almost every single desktop Mac, and lots of the MacBooks, from then until I couldn't afford (justify) upgrading to the 5K iMac. I loved my last 27" iMac like it was one of my kids. That thing was a huge part of my life, and one of the most memorable PCs I've ever owned, so having to bail on Apple was deeply upsetting.

Friends convinced me to build a monster Linux desktop PC, which I've been using ever since and have grown to love it. BUT, I'd switch back to an iMac INSTANTLY if I could a) afford it, b) justify it, c) mentally get over the fact that they've broken decades of love and trust, and treat customers like shit while cranking out increasingly crap products then telling us we should still lick their feet and hand over our first born.

How about making a desktop computer that can actually... compete? I don't care if it's expensive if it's GREAT. I don't mind stuff not being perfect if it's cheap. I won't buy shitty products for premium money though.

Soldered internals, thinness and lightness over performance and quality, sky rocketing prices with snail-pace development, increasingly shittier support and corporate "personality" (? Not sure if that's the right word, but they're becoming easier to hate due to constantly dropping the ball, pissing customers off, releasing shit products, ignoring issues, etc).

I miss the old Apple. I'd love them to turn things around. Release a thicker heavier MacBook that actually performs really well, is built rock solid, and costs $1k USD, even if that means having fans and vents and stuff. Apple has incredible designers, I'm sure they can still make it look good. Release an iPhone SE2 with a modern-era camera, 128GB storage, and make it $500 USD. Release an actual Pro/Geek friendly desktop like the old days, something around $1500 USD, comparable to a mid-to-high (not extreme high end) modern gaming PC, so we can actually render videos and do WORK without it crumbling like the Colosseum every time you ask it to break a sweat.

Yeh my prices and specs probably aren't "correct" but the idea stands. Increase the performance and quality, drop the damn prices, and stop being such a depressing shadow of your former self. Your piles of cash don't make us love you, good products we can actually afford do.

The 27" 5k iMac is the best Desktop I've ever owned - don't think there's anything else that comes close to that build quality + form factor. Monitor is gorgeous and performance is fantastic.

Personally I consider the USD $1,799.00 starting price great value for the 27" 5K iMac, although as I hang on them for a few years I always get the CPU upgrade + SSD options and always buy RAM elsewhere (where it's much better value).

I'm also a late 2013 MBP hold out who was waiting for a great MBP option to upgrade to, but didn't find the latest MBP's was compelling enough to upgrade to so got a 5k iMac instead, glad I did.

>> I miss the old Apple.

Depends on what you mean by "old".

I was an Apple user from the mid 80s starting with the Apple //c. Moved from a IIgs to a Mac SE and a bunch of Macs in-between before switching to Windows in 97 and back to Mac in 05. The most expensive Mac I ever bought was a Powerbook 170 which was a whopping $4K CAD (in 1991 dollars), even with a friend's Apple employee discount. I also had a couple of Newtons along the way.

The second most expensive Mac I ever bought was an early 2011 15" Macbook Pro (yeah, that one), and that didn't end well for me. It was the first laptop I ever had of any brand that just up and died. It happened just after my AppleCare lapsed, but before they issued the repair order. That soured me on Apple for good, and I haven't looked back since.

I don't miss the "old" Apple. In my mind, Peak Apple was 2012, pre-Retina Macbook Pro. Macs in 2012 were still relatively user serviceable while being reasonably compact.

I felt the same way when Apple discontinued the $499 Mac Mini. It's vital to the platform that "anyone can afford a Mac."

But since then, there's the iPad. Apple's line is "the Mac is a truck, but most automobiles aren't trucks." And I hate to admit it, but for web browsing and word processing, the iPad is just fine. I don't like it, but I get it.

Apple didn’t discontinue it. You can still buy a $499 Mac Mini with - 4 GB RAM. God help your soul if you buy it though.

Sorry, outdated knowledge. I know somewhere around 2010 they revamped the line to start at $799, I was under the impression they never dipped back down.

Mac Mini's have utility. I have an office full of Mac Mini's, a dozen of them or so, and keep buying more.

I still love them for my team. I have it down to a routine now, I buy one of the cheaper ones from the Apple refurbished site for about $400-500 or so, and buy an SSD from Crucial on the same day.

When it shows up I swap out the unusably slow internal 5400rpm drive for the SSD. That's a little tricky but once you've done it twice you can do it again in 10-15 minutes no problem.

Then I get it all fired up. I have a bunch of Dell IPS 4k screens in various sizes and get a another used one or two from B&H if I need more.

I'm very happy with this workflow, but it's still a hack. It sure would be better if Apple just made more reasonable desktop machines.

I’ve had two Mac Minis. The higher spec G4 Mac Mini and the first Intel Mac Mini - a Core duo 1.66Ghz. Apple abandoned it relatively quickly but I put Windows 7 on it and my mom still uses it to this day as a secondary computer when she tutors.

I also recommended Mac Minis as single purpose computers. A non profit I volunteer for uses one for live-streaming with WireCast and s Black Magic box, one to control lights, and a third for Propesenter.

But when I spec out a Mac Mini with a decent processor and RAM, I’m paying as much as I would for s low end 21” iMac with much better specs.

We've replaced out Mac minis with Intel NUCs. It really go to the point we just wouldn't spend the money on something that so outdated and crippled.

> It's vital to the platform that "anyone can afford a Mac."

Now it's "anyone can afford an Apple product." Get an iPhone for $125 a month or whatever it costs to lease and get a voice/data plan.

Last year I bought an iPhone SE from Walmart to replace my obsolete iPod touch. $140, tax included. Checking their site, it seems they still have it for a bit more, locked to their own prepaid brands.

> Apple's line is "the Mac is a truck, but most automobiles aren't trucks."

OTOH, the top three best-selling vehicles in the US are trucks: the Ford F Series, the Chevy Silverado, and the Dodge Ram.

Isn't that largely because of the Section 179 tax credit?

Partially, but a lot of folks really need trucks for professional use.

But modern pickup trucks are also very popular for personal use. You can get them with really nice interiors these days (compared to when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s). They're damned luxurious in comparison to the old days.

The whole recent "what's a computer?" ad campaign kind of signaled that Apple believes we should be using more powerful iPads + keyboards instead of notebooks on a daily basis, right?

This is so dumb, because on the one hand Apple refuses to do a touchscreen laptop because of gorilla arm, and then turns around and says you should replace your laptop with a device that you have to gorilla arm.

That's why they brought back the stylus^H^H^H^pencil! =)

Anecdotally speaking, I have a couple friends in medical school right now and they do everything on their iPad + keyboard. My mom has used an iPad as her primary computer for the past 5 years. For a lot of people who primarily interact with their computer using PDF's, slideshows, a little email and video, I think that it is a totally respectable replacement.

I would be curious to see what percent of the market is people that want their computer to be doing things powerful enough to justify a computer more powerful than an iPad pro is.

Disclaimer: Obviously a $300 chromebook destroys an iPad in price but you know so do a lot of Android phones and people still pay the premium for iPhones because they are sexy[1].

[1]https://www.recode.net/2017/9/12/16290910/apple-event-iphone...

Except that iOS blows away ChromeOS and Google’s half assed approach refusing to have a competent approach to tablets...so maybe it’s a bit more than whatever that unnecessarily disclaimer is saying.

Depends. I think a Chromebook is ergonomically a better choice–the keyboard, while worse in quality, gets points just because it has travel can actually function on my lap. Plus you can slap Linux on it and get a nice lightweight machine that can actually do quite a bit. But for most people I think an iPad is a better choice, and personally I feel the same for myself–anything really advanced is better off on my Mac rather than on a crummy 11" (or really nice 10.5") screen.

I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the future of “personal” computing on non-phone devices (eg next 10-20 years) ends up looking like the Microsoft era, but with ChromeOS laptops in place of Windows, iPad/future large format iOS devices in the position of the Mac. I see a huge generation of kids in the US quite literally growing up with Chromebooks, it will be interesting to see if they keep using the platform as adults. The ease of switching device with ChromeOS is pretty remarkable really, the truest realisation of “the network is the computer” we’ve seen.

It’s pretty clear Apple don’t care hugely about losing marketshare in education as their recent still pretty expensive edu focused “cheap iPad” shows. They will enjoy what they always did, quality computing products for a small marketshare who are happy to pay high margins for it, leaving the other PC manufacturers to bloody battle over minuscule margins and hard to differentiate product.

Google needs to make an extra effort for that to actually happen.

ChromeOS is barely noticeable outside US.

I see a huge generation of kids in the US quite literally growing up with Chromebooks, it will be interesting to see if they keep using the platform as adults

But they're just using the Chromebooks to access Google Docs and Google Classroom for school work. The cloud ecosystem is what will matter more than the browser used to get there. Kids care even less about the hardware it's running on.

Apple is too far behind now on all of this.

I think the more provocative question than "why are Mac sales down again" is: "how do people work? What IS work today?"

For me, I really truly cannot imagine working on anything other than a real computer. I need a lot of text and number input for really any kind of work. Anything that could be called work.

So what's happening with people? With the economy?

I can see a lot of people doing their work on their phones and tablets, without a real computer. Lots of email, presentations, videos, conferences, apps, maybe some report viewing, etc. This fits well for people in management, sales, service, and even some technical professionals that aren’t primarily computer focused (doctors, dentists, etc)

Marketing not so much (lots of spreadsheets), deep development or system admin also (though most of my sysadmin work can be done on an iPad with a terminal, I like the multi monitor displays on a real computer).

the high price of the new machines isn't worth the marginally improved performance

Comparing the base models of the 15-inch Macbook Pros on Geekbench:

  Single core:
  2012: 3216
  2018: 4918 (+53%)

  Multi core:
  2012: 10558
  2018: 21118 (+100%)

but those scores do not necessarily translate to real world experience.

the issue I take with Apple is they do have the ability to come in under 1k and provide a good product that they can profit from both in desktop and laptop lines but they don't choose to.

on product availability and innovation the last major update to iMac was the retina screens discounting putting a workstation CPU in the same chassis. the mini is just a disgrace but this also comes with the fact that they dropped their stand alone screens and people have been waiting for a 4k Apple branded screen.

Indeed. I recently picked up a used 2012 rMPBP i7 and I dont really find myself waiting for anything.

Photoshop and iMovie for instance all work fine. As ever XCode compilling could be faster, as could rendering iMovie videos.

But really, it's fine.

GPU sucks though. And I wish I had TB3.

I usually direct people to the 2014 and 15 ones of these, as someone still rocking a 2012. The newer ones run so much cooler and the GPU performance bumps were nice. They aren't even that much more used generally.

I can't get myself to replace mine unless it totally dies, but damn does it run super hot a lot of the time. And it has since it was brand new. It really does feel like there was an apex in there that we've gone downhill from though, and the 2012 was definitely higher up there than we are now.

I went from the top-spec 2012 rMBP to the 2017, and was surprised just how small the performance difference was. Most of it was in the GPU (e.g. the 2012 struggled to play a video on an external monitor while working). The 2017 gets a lot less hot/throttles down less often too.

Never mind the insane difference in SSD performance.

All they need to do is keep the old form factor and update the internals. No redesigns. I've been waiting for a 11" Macbook Air with Retina screen, but I'll never get it. Many people would buy a cheese grater Mac Pro with updated internals, or a Mac Mini with updated cpu's.

My feeling is that they were so jealous of Steve Jobs legacy that they had to redesign everything to prove something, and screwed it all up in the process. Maybe it's like having a parent who is very famous and successful and having to live in their shadow.

Actually I really like my 2017 Macbook Air which I bought for $800. It may have old architecture but the system 'just works', mainly because of the OS (Windows 10 is far from being a decent dev platform). I primarily use it for coding, and for heavy tasks I delegate them to my PC running HyperV.

P.S. I don't really understand the obsession with getting the latest gen processors. Your main bottleneck is IO anyway if you don't do video encoding or some other CPU intensive tasks.

MacBook Air? Coding with a quite low-res screen seems unpleasant.

The question is why do you care if Mac sales are down? When the Mac was my primary computer in the 90s, I cared very much about Mac sales because if the Mac died, Apple died. But Apple doesn’t live and die by the Mac.

I doubt Apple will discontinue Mac sales in the foreseeable future.

I plan to rejoin the Mac fold next year and by the look of things, it will be a 5K iMac just because I want to do some Unixy things and you can develop anything on the Mac - iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows.

All of the third party software I care about is open source except for using MS Office occasionally, JetBrains Rider, and Plex. As long as the software support is there, I don’t care.

You make a good point. I personally would love to see Mac sales crater. Just fall through the floor. That would hopefully nudge Apple to stop trying to use the product line as a design exercise in minimalist extremes.

All I want is a slightly thicker laptop, with some key travel, and a couple USB-A ports. Is that too much to ask for?

In the 90's I cared about Apple not dying because I loved the Mac. Apple dying or discontinuing the Mac are the same thing to me. I would be fine with an Android instead of an iPhone, the difference there just isn't that big to me. OTOH every time I try Windows it makes me want to throw the thing out the window.

The chances of Apple discontinuing the Mac without maturing iOS is slim. What I am saying is that In the 90s if the Mac wasn’t doing well, Apple was toast and there wasn’t going to be any Mac. Now, Apple’s existence is not dependent on the Mac and Apple can survive and keep producing Macs without the Mac being thier primary revenue generator.

Honestly, it doesn’t take much investment in the Mac to keep it. Apple is already on the path of merging the Mac underpinnings with iOS underpinnings. Any investment in iOS is an investment in the Mac. Intel does a lot of the heavy lifting with chip design and motherboard design.

The air starts at $1000 and is equipped with an i5. That's your $1000 laptop.

That's a thousand dollar for hardware that's years out of date. It's a terrible deal. You're going to be far better off buying a decent Windows laptop.

At risk of being a broken record here, that is why I got an XPS. Sub 1k for the 13" model I chose (not due to price, but form factor) and subjectively far better than my 2015 MBP for my use cases.

You might have been a bit lucky there. As we've discovered after making the mistake of buying one to try ourselves, the XPS series has also had plenty of problems.

We bought the Developer Edition, which is the official Linux model. The supposedly supported Linux has been throwing up error messages from moments after we first turned it on that have survived all software updates so far. The machine itself had some sort of battery failure after just a few months of occasional use, then an SSD that was corrupted to the point of being unbootable even when we had apparently recovered from those battery issues. More generally, the over-sensitive trackpad that has been widely criticised was an irritation for us as well, and the keyboard doesn't feel particularly good.

For a supposedly professional-grade laptop from a big name, that's obviously a long way short of the quality standards we'd expect. But then recent Macbooks have had their issues with both hardware and macOS, and we won't go near Windows 10 until Microsoft fixes the same complaints about updates and privacy that everyone keeps raising. Where's a business supposed to get professional-quality laptops that just work any more? :-(

Hows the screen quality on that?

It was great when the Air line was introduced. Not so much in 2018.

Yes I know I have one and its quiet dated now. i was just teasing him because he conveniently ignored that.

And here I was thinking their $1000 laptop was an iPad Pro with keyboard.

That’s not saying it’s what I want in a $1k laptop, but what Apple thinks it is.

No, it's not. The screen is not even full HD.

I prefer it that way. Much less power consumption.

That's not how Apple designs their computers–they grow battery size proportionally with power consumption.

New MBP have smaller batteries in relation to power consumption than the generation before. My new MBP also has shorter battery life than my Air and it runs much hotter. It has a dedicated gfx that is almost completely offset by its screen resolution compared to my Air in game benchmarks.

Also, notice that I wasn't complaining about battery life, so your response doesn't not address it.

Apple of recent has a habit of selling old Macs that you should not buy. For example, they sold the 2012 non-retina, DVD equipped, 13" Macbook Pro for four years(!) after it came out, for $1100.

They released updates to the Macbook, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and iMac last year [1]. The year over year comps aren't as relevant.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/05/apple-macbook-lineup-cp...

The MacBook Pro line was just refreshed 2 weeks ago. I wonder if people were holding off on buying a new machine because of the keyboard issues (if people knew about those) or just the knowledge that new machines were likely to come soon.

If half the devs clinging to their 2012-13 rMBP with missing keys and wire-exposed MagSafe cables would just get with the program and upgrade, sales would go thru the roof.

Build a decent laptop and they'll soon come around.

> I don't see how the Mac should grow from here

I think they could start selling MacOS as a competitor to Windows. I realise this would limit some of the coolness and designer feel (and quality) you get from mac hardware, but hardware has become a lot more stable in the past decade or so. with their marketing, they could convince consumers to ditch windows and just put MacOS on their PCs for $X/month.

The time to do that would have been during Snow Leopard. At this point, MacOS is a liability, not an asset.

> I'm probably going to be okay for the next few years, but is the Mac still going to be a worthwhile platform for a small software company in 10-15 years? I don't know.

I think it is more important to measure its users usage shares, rather than unit sold market shares. For example, out of the 2 billion Mobile Phones sold in 2017, 1.3 billon of those are Smartphones, and 230 Million of those are iPhones. That is 230 out of 1300, or ~18%. However if we look at usage, there are close to 3 billion Smartphone users today, and according to Tim Cook's word in today's conference on iPhone user growth, we are looking at around 800M iPhone user, a 26% of the market. The iPhone user base is still growing, as it matches towards one billion iPhone users.

The Mac users bases last report were around 150 million, out of the estimated 1.5 billion PC in use. So 10% of total user base. The PC user base hasn't been growing at all, while the Mac user base keeps growing. I think the most important metrics to Apple, is how many users are leaving its ecosystem and how many users are entering it. It reported 60% of the Mac are sold to new buyers. So Apple is roughly adding ~10M Mac users per year.

I used to think Apple not caring about Mac was because they see Tablet / iPad ultimately as a replacement of Mac. But this hasn't happened. ( yet ) And it may take another 10 years before we know if Tablet could really take over. In the mean time I think it would be wise for Apple to keep the Mac growing, it needs at least 300M user base to make the ecosystem solid.

The thing that worry me most is Apple's inefficiency. With Steve Jobs, he manage to create so many thing with so little budget. Apple now take 7% of its revenue to R&D, the highest ratio it its history and it seems they don't have much to show for. Hopefully we will have MacBook SE and iPhone SE Plus this September.

Today's Apple is good, but we demand great.

>when they can't grow unit sales, they need to grow revenue per unit.

Don't forget dropping the BOM in increasingly petty ways for such an expensive machine like no longer including the short power cable.

iPad.

It's a $330 "laptop". It's less of a general computing device, but there's plenty of software avail for it.

You and I may not think about it as a development laptop, but it does the majority of what the majority of cheap laptop owners want. I love the iPad for family members because it Just Works(tm) and I don't have to play IT for most of it (save the occasional force-quit app).

Wonders aloud — are laptop/desktop markets growing at all? Has the phone killed the computer? Or are Chromebooks/Winbooks on the rise?

Apply already makes a $1000 laptop - the MacBook Air

This is overblown, on the call they mentioned this. It's because last year the Mac shipped Q3 and this year it slipped to Q4.

Which is a shame really because the amount of great boutique developers on the Mac is one of the great pros of the Mac ecosystem.

I'm all for the demise of Mac if it means Apple would eventually have to let developers build iOS apps on other platforms.

Keep in mind that this doesn't include the 'back to school' season...

I could be very wrong here, but I'm not so sure Apple's customers want the $1000 macbook.

Many mac users (and perhaps apple users in general) are the type of people willing to pay up for the top-of-the-line, latest-and-great, spare-no-expense tech gadget.

I've seen this with companies giving their developers the maxed out mac + mac accessories.

I've seen this with individuals who view their mac laptop as the biggest most important usage of their time.

Where have you seen apple struggle because they were being undercut by competitors?

This leaves out a huge amount of the market that might want a macOS device but are unwilling or unable to go to the spare-no-expense level.

I understand that Apple doesn't want to create a "cheap" Mac but they're even unwilling to do "affordable".

Prob. does not have the margins Apple wants

Schools. Chromebooks are now an option and the iPad just isn't a laptop.

We were buyers of a lot of Mac minis, iMacs, and laptops, but folks are starting to ask for Surfaces and the Intel NUCs are a good deal. At this point, the graphics arts people might get Windows boxes if Apple doesn't get their crap together as Adobe runs just fine either way. That would be a true shame.

Stop development on macOS.

iOS is Apples futures.

If you haven’t gotten that memo in the 11 years of iOS existence, I’m sorry.

(And sadly, there is way less money to make selling iOS $0.99 apps)

It seems Apple hasn't gotten that memo either, because XCode doesn't run on iOS.

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