This sounds scary. Do you mean that now that I have decided to change to the
Apple world, that the Mac is going to the dogs?
Paulette
From: mac4theblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:mac4theblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of trish
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2018 2:30 PM
To: mac4theblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mac4theblind] Re: [mac4theblind] Under the Microscope » Blog Archive
» On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware
that is most discouraging
On Jun 14, 2018, at 12:43 PM, Sarah Alawami <marrie12@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintosh-hardware/
On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware
Posted By Quentin Carnicelli on June 14th, 2018
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
<https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac> MacRumor’s Buyers Guide:
Buyer's Guide showing 'Don't Buy' on nearly all Macs
<https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/wp-content/uploads/20180614buyersguide.png>
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
* 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.
For our own internal needs, we’ve wound up purchasing used hardware for
testing, rather than opting to compromise heavily on a new machine. That isn’t
good for Apple, nor is it what we want.
Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the
failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps
to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. The much smaller Apple of
the mid-2000s managed this with ease. Their current failure to keep the Mac
lineup fresh, even as they approach a trillion dollar market cap, is both
baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their
livelihood.
Given the incredibly sad state of the Mac lineup, it’s difficult to understand
how WWDC could have come and gone with no hardware releases. Apple’s
transparency in 2017 regarding their miscalculation with the Mac Pro seemed
encouraging, but over a year later, the company has utterly failed to produce
anything tangible. Instead, customers are still forced to choose between
purchasing new computers that are actually years old or holding out in the
faint hope that hardware updates are still to come. Every day, the situation
becomes more dire.
Apple needs to publicly show their commitment to the full Macintosh hardware
line, and they need to do it now. As a long (long) time Mac OS developer, one
hesitates to bite the hand that feeds. At a certain point, however, it seems
there won’t even be anything left worth biting.
