9to5 Mac Opinion piece on Secrecy

[Craig Seeman]

This has me grumbling because Apple isn’t even on top of minor updates.

As someone who does some on location live streaming I’m impressed with the possibility of having four TB3 ports. On the other hand, while I’m almost always on AC, the battery life issues have me thinking I should wait out one iteration especially since the TB3 devices I’d want aren’t there yet.

I’d expect next year’s 15″ MBPr to move to Kaby Lake processors and better battery life. But if that doesn’t happen Apple’s option for me will be to buy what will be last year’s tech and this year’s prices. If they refuse to do incremental releases they should at least drop the price over time.

Faced with similar thinking about my ’13 Mac Pro I did finally decide to upgrade the SSD (yes that can be done). Ideally I’d want to jump to TB3 on both MBPr and MP although it’s less critical for my MP use. The lack of incremental updates are all the more severe in this regard. At the very least drop the price. So what happens if a ’17 MP appears and I decide not to move until the next iteration of 15″ MBPr. I may well end up faced with a year old MP tech purchase.

Ultimately Apple’s schedule is what it is. But, their pricing doesn’t reflect the age of components. They don’t seem to care how much that hinders sales.

[David Roth weiss]

Schedule? What schedule?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Bob Zelin]

ya know – what the hell do I know (not much) but this is my opinion, and I have heard similar opinions to this.
This is also one of the reasons I give our Bill Davis a hard time all the time (because of his promotion of “know a high school student that wants to edit).

Look at the Ford GT that Ford will release in 2017. It’s like the Dodge Viper. It’s not a car for the masses, but people look at it, and drool, and wind up buying a generic model. Ford or Dodge never make their quota, or impress their stock investors with a Ford GT, or Dodge Viper (does the Chevy Stingray affect GM’s bottom line) ? Well maybe the Stingray is a good analogy, because they DO sell Stingrays – but not many.

This is the Mac Pro – especially with what “we” want – a NVidia GTX 1080GPU in it. How many will they sell. Will they sell 5 million – or will they sell 100,000 – or maybe even less.

Lots of companies have “flagship” products to promote their product line (Apple could say “the latest DreamWorks movie was done with Apple computers) – and it certainly wont’ be the new MacBook Pro.
WE are the Ferrari owners – WE want the hi end sports car, because WE are the race drivers, and it matters to us.
Exactly who would care if GM, Ford and Chrysler dumped all their flagship sports cars. Would it affect their bottom line ? Would the investors care.

Guys like Steve Jobs cared, because “cool” was more important than making money. But Jobs ain’t running the show anymore.

There is no one more than me that wants to see a new generation of Mac Pro’s, iMac’s and Mac Mini’s. And it’s not just me – there are all the “NAB manufacturers” that have Thunderbolt 3 products ready – with 24 bay RAID arrays, 10G and 40G Ethernet adaptors, etc. etc. Every one of my clients wants external GPU’s for their cylinder Mac Pro’s. As the expression goes – “you are preaching to the choir”, and Creative Cow (and FCP.co, etc.) are the churches.

But do “we” matter. Do the 100,000 (maybe) people that will buy this stuff make a big enough market to influence Apple ? What would happen if 10 million people knew how to edit ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Craig Seeman]

Actually it seems only the phones have something resembling a schedule. Even the iPad series is irregular.
Regarding Computers you’d think there’d be a pattern relative to Intel chip releases but that’s not the case either. Apple isn’t anywhere near first with systems with new chips. Heck they’re even behind Windows on Thunderbolt 3. HP is there already.

[Michael Gissing]

Consumers matter less than shareholders. Pointy end consumers are just an irritation unless you are a management with a personal interest in catering to them. Apple could easily afford to cater to us if they were still interested. Nothing in the past six years has indicated to me that their interest continues.

I’ve moved on to home built PCs and Win which superceeded my FCP7 2009 Mac Pro – the last Apple hardware and software I bought.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “Nothing in the past six years has indicated to me that their interest continues. “

You Betcha.

Roles was conceived and created entirely for folks who do “my kid growing up” videos.

Got it.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Michael Gissing]

[Bill Davis]”You Betcha. ”

Merry Christmas Bill. Your inability to understand what I say is a constant joy.

[Andrew Kimery]

There’s certainly overlap between this thread and one just started by Steve Conor called “This is encouraging” where I cite a recent Bloomberg article talking about the focus at Apple shifting more and more towards iOS and mobile (which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone). Apparently there’s not even a separate MacOS team anymore (iOS is the primary focus and MacOS gets worked on as time allows) and mobile hardware gets most of the focus. Again, not surprising given that mobile is where about 75% of Apple’s revenue comes from.

Saying that Mac users (especially desktop users) are a relatively low priority in Apple’s eyes isn’t a slight, it’s just the reality of today’s landscape. Where’s the growth potential to keep a company the size of Apple hitting its numbers? It certainly isn’t in desktop or laptop sales. It’s barely in cell phone sales anymore (unless you can crack a massive new market like China or India). Apple needs the iPad, iWatch, AppleTV or something not yet announced to be the new runaway hit to placate Wall Street and keep their stock climbing.

Apple fans’ favorite Gretzky quote is about skating to where the puck is going, and the puck-of-insane-revenue-growth sure as hell isn’t going towards computer sales (and definitely not NLE software). Would it be swell if it was like the pre-iPhone days when Apple was actively catering to the desktop crowd and FCP announcements would be front and center on Apple.com? Yeah, but those days are gone and never coming back.

[Bill Davis]

Michael G. – In my years doing video work for the National Speakers Association – one thing they drilled into the presenters was….
if the entire audience isn’t getting your message correctly – YOU need to change how you deliver it.

Yes, I too am as guilty of that as the next guy. But considering the fact that 5 years ago NOBODY took X seriously – and now all but the most “stuck in the echo chamber” editors do – I think I (and others) have done reasonably well waking up the nay-sayers. Sometimes, a whisper isn’t enough. You need at least a few folks shouting to gain attention.

Merry Christmas yourself!

FWIW.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Michael Gissing]

[Bill Davis] “Michael G. – In my years doing video work for the National Speakers Association – one thing they drilled into the presenters was….
if the entire audience isn’t getting your message correctly – YOU need to change how you deliver it.”

Easy to say but impossible to implement. We all filter understanding with our confirmational biases. No speaker can change everyones filter nor should we try. I have basically given up rather than be frustrated and will simply speak my truths and be dammed as you do.

Maybe my divorce papers which arrived this morning in time for Christmas has put me in a jovial mood but please don’t go changin Bill. All the best for 2017.

M