The fact that Apple keeps hardware and, increasingly, software, so tightly controlled leads to a situation like that of this "new" Mac Pro. If the Apple hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways. Performance would go up and prices would come down.
There are lots of use cases where the user couldn't give a crap about a nice and polished enclosure. You are paying dearly for design you don't need. If you want to pay for design, fine, do so, but to a lot of us it means nothing.
Case in point: We have several workstations setup for Finite Element Analysis of heat and fluid flow. They are dual quad core i965 Extremes. They run overclocked at 4.0GHz with memory overclocked to 2.0GHz. They have 64GB of DDR3. All fluid cooled. Tons of storage as well. They also have dual NVidia graphics cards and sport three 24 inch 1920 x 1200 LCD monitors. Total cost, about $3,500. Including the three monitors and the OS hard drive.
These are monster machines in terms of performance and they still cost less than a Mac Pro. We have three Mac Pro's as well.
I would really like to see Apple open it up. A lot of interesting things could come of it.
Because their hardware is not subject to competitive forces, we will now be stuck with a less-than-desirable incremental update for probably three years, if not more.
The irony of this post is so hilarious to me, this is Apple coming full circle from its clone wars days.
Man, those were some shitty experiences.
Apple is an hardware company. They make money off the nuts and bolts pieced together with premium markup, software is but icing on top. They practically give away the results of their development costs on OSX.
You're encountering the cognitive dissonance as experienced in the 90's. Why, oh, why is Apple not courting customers that don't care about shiny enclosures and slick packaging?
Because that's not the Apple way.
I'm just waiting for Mac Pros to go the way of Xserves (which the group was ran for years just to break-even for the sake of pretension)
I agree with all you said except the software being the icing on the top part.
Apple knows its the end to end experience (software to hardware).
Apple is just fortunate to be in the very small category (if not the singular player) of companies that have great depth of talent in both the hardware and software realms.
This and the market they cater too (those with the money to spend) allow them to pick either pushing the hardware or the software forward and make a killing not having to move on the other end.
I say this as a person who hasn't bought an Apple product in 10 years in protest of some of their business practices:
- draconian App Store developer policies,
- 1984- esq lockdown on their platform and employees,
- the ridiculous markup on their devices, etc.
but who isn't dumb enough to not pay attention to them because they are some of the sharpest folks in the industry.
People bring up the "ridiculous markup", but when you compare the MacBook Air vs. the ASUS Zenbook, Apple really is competing on price in the "Ultrabook" market. When the form factor and construction are similar, the Apple version only adds about $150.
The problem with the early attempt Apple made at inviting the clone market is that they didn't give it time to evolve. The first wave or two of IBM clones were a mess. A disaster. Compatibility problems galore. People who buy crap don't continue to buy it and they sure as hell don't recommend it. The crap PC clones died a quick death.
It didn't take long for the market to evolve and "grow up". Companies like Compaq surfaced. Very soon you had a million hardware ideas iterating from every angle trying to do it better and for less.
Today you can buy a PC notebook for a fraction of the cost of a Mac notebook --maybe a third or less. And, frankly, quality is excellent. Today you can walk into a place like Walmart and quite-literally grab almost any notebook computer and walk out with a quality product.
That's what Apple missed out on. Everyone got spooked as they watched the evolution begin and they pulled the plug.
Also, evolutionary forces are interesting. They naturally select product that people want. Perhaps Apple was afraid that they'd loose a lot more than the hardware war if they let go of the hardware. I don't know.
Barring a few details, today a PC and Mac notebook are basically the same machine. Same processor, memory, graphics, etc. Yet Apple isn't iterating the hardware as quickly and efficiently as the PC market continues to.
It'll be interesting to read what will be written in business books about this in twenty years.
The 90's Apple clones didn't collapse itself because they were bad, Steve Jobs tried negotiating software licensing with manufacturers and Apple opted not to renew.
You're also rehashing some old point about Apple missing the boat on low end devices. Why does that matter? Apple sells millions of computers every quarter year over year. They have excessive cash holdings. What would be the point of chasing after some mythical unicorn low end cheap device that has no margins?
Evolutionary forces are indeed interesting. They do silly things like insisting on floppy disks, VGA ports, CD-ROMs, and other vestigial residues that hinders progress.
Where did I say that Apple clones where bad? All I said was that the model was not allowed to evolve and gave, as an example, the crap-to-good evolution of PC's.
There is nothing wrong with floppy disks, VGA ports and CD-ROMs. These and other technologies still have a place in the right context and they tend to die off in an organic manner as industry can justify transitions.
Progress? A quick Google search finds estimates that say that there will be about two billion PC's world-wide by 2015. That's progress, not coming up with a new port that nobody really cares for outside markets that can afford expensive new hardware on a regular diet. I think you are confusing progress with innovation. Testing new ideas is commendable. Apple has always been on the forefront of that in some ways.
Progress is a different story altogether. One measure, as I am suggesting above, might be just how accessible a technology is to the masses (not just wealthy countries). World-wide Macs only represent 5 to 10% of the installed base. By this measure Apple has failed to deliver progress.
If you look at smart phones, then, yes, Apple hit it out of the park.
Apple isn't successful because of Macbooks, Mac minis or iMacs.
Bulk of Apple's success is from their iDevices and its surrounding ecosystem. iPod, iPod touch, iPhone and iTunes app/music sharing infrastructure.
So in many ways Apple isn't a computer company anymore. Its more like Sony nowadays. What you will see in the future might be computers dying a slow death in the Apple ecosystem. Expect things like TV, Stereo and other entertainment stuff like Gaming consoles gaining more traction.
Slowly but steadily Apple is transforming itself into a consumer electronics company like Samsung.
Actually, Samsung sells pretty much everything a company could possibly sell, even weapons. I know you mean Samsung Consumer Electronics, but it's a tricky example because the network effects (or lack thereof) between all of Samsung's subsidiaries are not obvious.
Also unlike Samsung, Apple depends on OS X as their developer OS. The whole WWDC was praising developers for helping iOS take off, and I think rightly so.
That is certainly where their money is, however they built a lot of their existing consumer business on the goodwill from people who were loyal Apple computer users. All of the original iPod users that I knew where loyal Mac computer users (partly because the software didn't run on anything else at the time).
I wonder what would happen if they decided to abandon their Laptop/Desktop business and go purely for consumer electronics? This would certainly piss off many of their loyal fans such as graphic designers/musicians who aren't exactly going to be looking to go back to Windows based PCs for their work and could damage their brand.
Perhaps they will launch some sort of "Post PC" device intended for serious work, for that I am thinking something along the lines of the chromebox.
The problem with them was that they were better than the Apple products of the time, thus killing Apple's margins.
(although, really, most Apple products of the mid 1990s were abortions of various kinds -- Performa and Centris especially, and the weird education-channel-specific stuff. Good Macs stopped with the IIfx and IIci and began again with something around 1998)
In any batch of Apple products from the pre-Tim Cook days there were always a few solid products and a whole bunch to pad out the channel. They were junk that was simply intended to clutter up shelves and take up space in retail stores to command more presence.
I know people that ran their Quadra into the ground and only gave up on them, reluctantly, when the PowerMac equivalents became embarrassingly faster. Expensive, as was everything in that time, but irreplaceable.
I disagree. Apple is both a hardware and software company, and I would argue that most of the decision to buy a Mac lies in software, not hardware. People don't say "I need this computer because it has an aluminum case"; they say "I need a Mac because it's easier to use."
Not charging for minor updates doesn't mean they're giving them away. It means they've already rolled the cost into the original sale price.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. True, it's not the aluminum case they're after. But it also isn't the ease of use; The ease of use paradigm is yet another clever Apple marketing tactic to give people something to talk about when trying to explain to their friends why they made the decision to buy. The real reasons people buy Macintosh (and I'm talking about the general public here, because admittedly, the personal preferences on this board are likely to be skewed) are subconscious: People's brains notice that Apple products don't make the typical creaking/squeaking sound typical of tightly screwed together plastic parts when you touch them / pick them up. People notice things like magnetic power cords on laptops and cases and accessories designed to flawlessly fit their products without a centimeter to spare. People are influenced by what they see around them. People want to fit in, and do what's relevant. But most of all--and this is the one that a lot of us have trouble accepting--people care about style EVEN MORE than they do about function. Don't believe me? Take a look at how people dress. If people cared most about function, every single person on this planet would be walking around in New Balance trainers (or maybe Crocs), basketball shorts/track pants, and a Wallmart t-shirt. But instead, people pay hundreds of dollars for jeans that are far from functional. And sure, you might argue that not everyone does that, but a lot of the people who are buying Apple's products do.
My theory on why they don't care about the Mac Pro? They're phasing it out because Apple as a company is sustained by sexy, identifiable gadgets that are fun to flash and look at, and no matter what you do to the Mac Pro, it's still a computer tower. You're never going to bring it on vacation. You're never going to see it at a party. You can't even take it out into your living room to show your friends when they come over. The Mac Pro is a purely functional product, and Apple is about as much a functional company as C is a functional language.
" If people cared most about function, every single person on this planet would be walking around in New Balance trainers (or maybe Crocs), basketball shorts/track pants, and a Wallmart t-shirt. But instead, people pay hundreds of dollars for jeans that are far from functional. "
I think your argument is salient, but for the opposite reason. Everybody on the planet does wear these things. It's a very small majority of the population, usually urban and with money to spend, that dresses in hundred(s) dollars jeans. Walmart pulls down half a trillion per year on cheap schlock with hundreds of millions of happy customers.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. This is a tired, tired, worn cliche about Apple, as well as a misunderstanding of fashion for real people. Top it off with rhetorical tricks that don't do your argument justice; "And sure, you might argue that not everyone does that..."
This is just a variation on the "Apple only succeeds because of marketing, or shiny iObjects, or consumer stupidity." That if consumers were only intelligently informed, they'd all run either Linux on home built desktops or something other than what is currently popular.
Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes things become popular because they are good?
That's not strictly true. Perhaps for the fanboy. I got Mac because I just don't have time to admin windows anymore. When I realized how much time I was spending on this and how many times cheap hardware had failed me I made the switch. I didn't want to because I didn't care to learn a new OS but at some point I decided the potential savings were worth the risk.
I'm not sure about jeans, I think they are quite practical as they are comfortable , warm , durable and provide basic protection if your leg touches something sharp etc.
One thing larger Apple computers have provided them is exposure, it's difficult to walk into a primarily Mac office and not notice the giant Apple logo staring at you from everywhere. I guess it also helps that people are able to use Apple products for basically everything, as somebody who has a MPB , an iMac as well as an iPad etc is good marketing to other people who may just be interested in buying an iPhone or whatever.
It's also very rare to see a computer used in a movie or TV show now that isn't a Macbook.
(1) You're thinking of FreeBSD. Not OpenBSD. A lot of the command line utilities Unix nerds would use in the terminal are ported from FreeBSD.
(2) The kernel, Darwin, is NOT based on FreeBSD. Darwin is a direct descendant of NextStep, based on the Mach microkernel.
(3) And pretty much all of the GUI and indeed the whole Cocoa API are also from Apple/Next. Not FreeBSD. Essentially, everything that isn't what Unix nerds interact with? That's pretty much all Apple. (Except for Apache if they turn on personal web serving, but that's not FreeBSD. And Webkit started as a fork of KHTML, but, y'know, not FreeBSD again.)
(4) For that matter, even a fair amount of the Unix nerd stuff is specific to OS X, like launchd, or has tweaks to support OS X-specific nerdosity.
So, vain hope, could we _please_ knock this sort of nonsense off? For both better and worse, OS X is very much its own animal, and whether or not you like it, it's ridiculous to claim that Apple doesn't put a hell of a lot of development work into it.
(2) The kernel, Darwin, is NOT based on FreeBSD. Darwin is a direct descendant of NextStep, based on the Mach microkernel.
Darwin[1] is not the kernel, is the operating system. The kernel is called XNU[2] which was a combitation of a non microkernel version of Match with the 4.3BSD unix kernel interface. Apple remplaced the 4.3 BSD code with FreeBSD code[3].
(2) the Mach kernel was originally developed for BSD.
(3) true, they did make a shiny wimp variant.
(4) is that why stuff like rename is not there? The man page for rename is there, but rename isn't for some reason though. I had to rename lots of things and I had to write a script and everything.
Apple is what it is because they tightly control the end-to-end user experience, from the hardware to the software. You can't maintain that and open up the hardware ecosystem; it's an either/or choice. So far, their choice has worked out really, really well for them, so why should they mess with that?
I'm sure you're aware of Apple's fairly disastrous entry into the world of Mac clones back in the day. What you're arguing now is essentially the same theory back then: clones would benefit them by increasing the marketshare for their OS. Instead, clones just cannibalized Apple's own sales and diluted their brand with a bunch of crappy knock-offs. I'm not sure why anyone would expect it to play out differently now.
Sure, it might be in your interest as a consumer to have choice in hardware, but I don't see how it's in Apple's interest to do so. They seem to be doing pretty well precisely because of the choices they've made to lock things down, not in spite of them.
What you're arguing now is essentially the same theory back then: clones would benefit them by increasing the marketshare for their OS.
That's not what OP is saying:
If the Apple hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways. Performance would go up and prices would come down.
This isn't "moar market share," it's "the end user would benefit greatly if Apple hardware opened up."
Today is much different than the Mac clone era for two reasons:
(1) Apple clearly has no intention of offering a high-end desktop solution. Instead of losing those users to high-end Windows or Linux machines, they could keep them in the ecosystem by licensing OS X for use in boutique-style desktops.
(2) Apple holds much more power now. In the 1990s they licensed Mac OS from a point of weakness; today they could license to high-end, boutique manufacturers who meet their design standards.
Is this the right way forward? Maybe, maybe not. But OP's suggestion does not necessarily lead to the Mac clone days of the 90s.
That isn't what has happened with Windows machines, though, or Windows itself. It's also the opposite of what has happened with Android: you've ended up with a fractured market full of underpowered phones running obsolete and incompatible versions of the OS.
All this Adam Smith idealism is great until we look at the real world, where the barriers to entry, integration costs, barriers to accurate consumer knowledge and platform compatibility hurdles are too high for competition to actually produce ideal outcomes.
If people wanted a competitive platform with a propitiatory OS they'd all be developing on Windows. There is no reason for Apple to try to compete in the same space, especially not when they are winning everywhere that matters for consumer electronics.
I'll skip the Windows/Google comparisons, because Apple is not them and has never been like them, and get to my main point: I agree!
Apple prints money, and could afford to choose only the cream of the licensing crop (which, to be fair, will be pretty curdled). Here's where we violently agree:
All this Adam Smith idealism is great until we look at the real world where [stuff is] too high for competition to actually produce ideal outcomes.
In this hypothetical I'm not considering "competition." I don't know if this was obvious from my last post, but I'm wondering what would happen if Apple licensed OS X to a high-end desktop manufacturer that would make Mac Pros on its behalf.
Let me be clear: there is a 0% chance this happens. At the same time, it is clear Apple is not interested in the high-end desktop game. So it's fun and interesting to consider the possibility that Apple -- a company with negotiating power in spades -- could pick from any manufacturer on this planet and choose a licensing partner.
> If the Apple hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways.
And OSX would also be crashing all the time, getting a reputation for being unstable. This is exactly why they have such tightly controlled hardware configurations: so some cheap company with bad drivers can't make Grandmothers think Mac OSX crashes all the time.
It's not "free" throwing in support for any stupid (even conflicting!) configuration that people could come up with. You have to write your OS different and you're still not going to stop all the problems. Most of Windows old reputation for being horribly unstable came from a handful of drivers.
"Crashing all the time"? This isn't the days of 95, 98, and early XP...
Crashing and BSODs are a thing of the past now, unless you buy a non-name peripheral, or have faulty hardware (which will crash an Apple just as quickly).
The crowning irony is that it looks like the digital creative set is going to be pushed into the arms of Microsoft, for so long the subject of their scorn. If you want a fast digital workstation now Windows is your only reasonable option.
Discounting home-made computers, which the big names are not interested in competing with, where you can you source a workstation that's more powerful than the 12-core Mac Pro?
The Dell T7600 with 2x2.2GHz 6-core Xeon chips and only 8GB of memory and a 500GB drive comes out at $4,300. The Mac Pro with 2x2.4GHz 6-core, 12GB and a 1TB drive is only $3,800.
Unless I'm missing something, the Mac Pro is still a better deal, even for Windows.
Exactly. Plus, for the kind of people that really need a machine this powerful +/- $1000 isn't decisive.
And the cloud of uncertainty hovering over the Mac Pro has got to have a lot of people worried. It's bad enough that you can't get anything resembling a roadmap from Apple but it really looks like the Mac Pro is headed for extinction.
Your right I recall a few years back that sound on sound (pro audio industry bible) Mac columnist was getting worried that Apple was going to abandon the creative industrys.
Looks like Apple is transitioning from a tech to a consumer company.
Presuambly EVGA and the Other Workstaion Class kit makers will be holding a viking funeral for the Old Apple Woz would be invited to light the funeral pyre
It's a good point. A quick look on Newegg lets me know I could probably build a much better machine for around $3k even. But systems builders charge much much more for worse hardware.
Sidequestion: people still buy hard drives as small as 500GB? 3tb runs around $170.
If you want non-Apple hardware, go buy it. There's nothing stopping you (or anyone else) from doing so. I think Apple fills an obviously valuable niche (several niches, really) and I don't see any incentive for them to open up like you suggest. A lot of us do like to pay for design, reliability, and the end-to-end experience, and I'm glad there is a company like Apple to provide for customers like myself.
I just built a fairly powerful desktop hackintosh and I'm running OSX 10.7.3. The little bit of research that went into ensuring all the parts were compatible was well worth the cash savings.
"I just build a fairly powerful desktop hackintosh and I'm running OSX 10.7.3 illegally"
Now you might not care about the licensing restrictions on Mac operating systems (I don't) but saying "Oh you can just do this" when it is technically* breaking the law is not an alternative for many people.
* Rather up in the air at the moment to be sure, but err on the side of caution
Your not breaking "the law" as nobody can come and arrest you for running OSX on your PC.
The worst that could happen is that Apple would try to sue you, but have there been any successful cases of this? End user being sued that is , not companies that were selling PCs with OSX on.
Whether something is a federal crime (you know, with warrants and handcuffs and all that) or not hardly seems pedantic. You're the one making the assertion here, so do you have any legal sources to cite or are you sticking with the "pedantic semantics" argument when someone challenges your point?
Ok, then for me breaking "The law" covers Civil Law and Criminal law. I never made any mention of Federal or not and don't see how that matters.
I thought it was well known on HN that Apple used the DMCA ( Digital Millennium Copyright Act, aka, part of "the law" in the US) against the Hackintosh company Psystar, I guess I was wrong. A quick google will bring up the specifics if you want it. (e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/)
The reason I said it was a grey area was that the DMCA supposedly has provisions for compatibilty and personal use. So it could be argued that installing it yourself on your own hackingtosh (not commercially like Psystar did) does not violate the DMCA, but since this has not yet been tested in court (as far as I know) do this at your own risk.
I think the reason we ended up down this road was that your original comment accused somebody of "illegal" use of OSX.
Firstly this makes the assumption that the person fell under US jurisdiction at the time of their use of the system.
It would also assume that the DMCA would apply to this specific person in this case. I don't know of any instance of a successful crimimal conviction against somebody for using their own legit software on a system they own themselves and we will not unless this is tested in court.
"Unlawful" would probably be a better term in this context. You could argue that this is pedantry but I think that throwing terms like "illegal" around in this way could cause undue anxiety to people who do not understand the specifics.
Fair point on the first one, I did assume US & DMCA.
For the second. A law is a law is a law, even if there is no successful conviction using it yet. It is a "Damocles Sword" hanging over every person in the country it was enacted until courts actually rule on it at which point we will know what the judiciary thinks of it.
As for "illegal" vs "unlawful". As far as I am concerned they are synonyms.
Would it be a DMCA violation? I'm not really sure of the specifics here.
You wouldn't be breaking copyright , since you're not making a copy (assuming you bought a legit copy of the OS). You also aren't circumventing any of the copy protection afaik since OSX doesn't really have any.
Basically Apple says there is code in there to lock their OS to their hardware, it doesn't have to be particularly good, as long as it is there and has to be circumvented for a hackintosh (you cannot just pop a DVD in and install, unless things have changed since I last had a look).
The Apple statement is in that article if you want their legal definition.
I can't see much benefit to Apple though they obviously already make heaps on markup of the current Mac Pro's. Selling OS X standalone I imagine would devalue the rest of OS X products.
You are forgetting the primary question here: What is in it for Apple to cater to users who couldn't give a crap about a nice and polished enclosure? They are happy to play in the premium segment.
They don't play in the premium segment for high-end desktops anymore. That's their right but it does bum out users who would like a high-end OS X desktop.
Even though I agree with your sentiment, you're comparing a desktop/server with a laptop. One is built to be portable, and will have big tradeoffs because of this.
The fact that Apple keeps hardware and, increasingly, software, so tightly controlled leads to a situation like that of this "new" Mac Pro. If the Apple hardware ecosystem were open like that of Windows you'd have major companies all over the world evolving the platform in wonderful ways. Performance would go up and prices would come down.
There are lots of use cases where the user couldn't give a crap about a nice and polished enclosure. You are paying dearly for design you don't need. If you want to pay for design, fine, do so, but to a lot of us it means nothing.
Case in point: We have several workstations setup for Finite Element Analysis of heat and fluid flow. They are dual quad core i965 Extremes. They run overclocked at 4.0GHz with memory overclocked to 2.0GHz. They have 64GB of DDR3. All fluid cooled. Tons of storage as well. They also have dual NVidia graphics cards and sport three 24 inch 1920 x 1200 LCD monitors. Total cost, about $3,500. Including the three monitors and the OS hard drive.
These are monster machines in terms of performance and they still cost less than a Mac Pro. We have three Mac Pro's as well.
I would really like to see Apple open it up. A lot of interesting things could come of it.
Because their hardware is not subject to competitive forces, we will now be stuck with a less-than-desirable incremental update for probably three years, if not more.