>My current Macbook Pro cost me about £1100. No part of it is user serviceable so it's disposable.
In that sense maybe, but not in the "low quality" sense (which disposable also implies, e.g. disposable razors etc). Besides modern cars are not "user serviceable" like 70s cars for the most part either, but they are not "disposable".
>My first Apple laptop, a Titanium Powerbook was almost 3 times that.
The overall price for the high end laptops on the market dropped since the Titanium powerbook though, and modern MBPrs are still priced at the high end segment of today's prices.
You can't expect 1999 prices for a 2016 computer when the tech innovations make both low and high end products more affordable all the time.
>My point was the company isn't what it once was, it's not a high end tech company for the few but a disposable tech company for the many.
"High end tech company" does not necessitate "user serviceable".
The tech in the Mac, compared to the average laptop, is way higher, and the engineering process to build a new MacBook Pro Retina model (from the machining to the logic board, batteries, etc) is far more advanced. Hence, high end of the market.
Nor was the Mac ever "for the few" -- it was always intended as a mass market PC, for those with the money to spare, not just some tinkering propellerhead elite ("the computer for the rest of us"). Heck, they even sold cheaper models back in the day (the Mac Classic, the original iMac, etc).
> Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could find in shops at the time cost the same, and felt like cheap rubbish. And this laptop just refuses to die, and handles my workload just fine after all these years. I'm dreading the day I have to replace it.
> You can say that Apple always charges a premium, but not too much today on their main lines. Apple simply doesn't sell low-end stuff. Yes, a MacBook Pro 2GHz costs $1,800 which is a lot. However, you can't compare it to laptops with crappy 250-nit, 1080p screens or laptops made of plastic, or laptops with 15W processors.
Last time I checked, Apple was selling laptops with an Intel i3 processor packing 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD for 1300$.
Apple's cheapest laptop carrying more than 8GB of RAM is selling for around 2300$.
You can argue that you like Apple's gear,but the myth that they are not way overpriced simply doesn't pass any scrutiny.
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out, but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have so far generated well over $1 million in revenue.
My own experience with Apple's computers has been similar. The last Apple I purchased was a MacBook Pro back in 2006/7 that lasted me a solid eight years, including three in an extremely hot and dusty environment. The only problem it ever had was a faulty optical drive (and I did always have lots of trouble with Apple's laptop optical drives). But that is just one more individual experience.
Anyway, I don't know that "revenue generated while using the computer" really says anything at all. And I doubt Apple would come out ahead in that calculation industry wide.
> It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Fuck that, as long as possible.
To be fair, with the new Macs you still get to daisy chain adapters...
Here's the thing, nobody can take away how great the Macs we have now were when they came out. The fact that it was so well built and so powerful that you're still using it after 5 years speaks exactly to what we loved about them.
But the new MBPs aren't the same. They're just as expensive as they always were, but they don't have forward-looking specs. Unlike the old ones, we don't see the new ones being machines we can keep around for the next 5 years.
I've got a 2013 MBP and it's got virtually identical specs as the new 2016s. (Used similarly upgraded from base units both times -- with Apple care this cost ~$3,300 then and would cost ~$3,300 now.)
>Despite their price, there was a time when macbooks were only 5-10% more than the PC equivalent laptop.
I seriously doubt 5-10%. You are talking about minimum $50 - $100+ dollar difference, that has never happened. Mac has always been roughly 20-30% more expensive than a laptop with comparable specs. So $1000 comparable spec laptop, Apple will sell you one for $1300, ( But with more expensive upgrades )
The 30% has been fine for years, the quality and finishing as well as macOS was well worth the price tag. But in recent years it hasn't been 30% at all.
> "they sell things that are locked down, both physically and in software"
Well, I can understand the physically part, but fortunately you can solve it with money, you just have to pay for your hardware upfront, it is expensive, but I work on my MacBook Pro > 9hrs a day. It's four years old now and doesn't need replacement yet, it's doing fine, the battery is doing fine.
Most people only look at how much an item costs at the time of purchase, but a fairer comparison would include the span of time that your device is sufficient and you don't need replacement.
I use my laptop for my job, the amount of money I make with a laptop outweighs the cost of a laptop by far. Most professionals in their job invest in good material, why would it be different in IT?
As for the software part, the software that Apple provides is astonishing to me. For example wiping a HD multiple times is just a setting, in windows you can start looking for freeware for doing the same thing. It comes with so many possibilities out of the box, I can't think of anything that I would want to do that I can't do now.
Just yesterday I sat next to a guy running Ubuntu and I couldn't believe what I saw, when he tried to search his hard drive he typed in his search parameters.. but then the first thing that popped up were shopping items, faster than the items present on his hard drive... Really?!?
A MacBook pro isn't perfect and it is costly but it's simply the best option for me now.
> the last couple of generations have been badly overpriced.
Which ties back into the earlier comment on this thread that after Jobs died, the company has gradually devolved into a 'premium cost for not quite as premium hardware' tech company. Previously MacBooks were well priced for what you got (Australian here also), nowadays they are more expensive that equivalent laptops which have more connectivity, touch screen etc.
> FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time.
I agree with you, but that doesn’t change the fact outside the US, many Apple products are 15+% more expensive than they were a few years ago. In the UK we’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis—my bills have shot up and I simply don’t have the extra disposable income.
I mean shit, I’m a decently paid developer (for the north of the UK, so not London) and until my most recent rise a base 16” MacBook Pro cost almost an entire month’s take-home salary.
My retina macbook 13" is three years old, still as snappy as I first got it, no issues at all. Everything still works completely fine and it feels solid. The battery still holds 90% of its original charge. That's why I'll get a macbook again, because if I hadn't I'd have gone through at least 2 Windows laptops between then and now. These are just built way better. Other examples of laptops that compete on build quality, weight, and size are just as expensive.
But I do agree that they need to pull a miracle to get the mac lineup out of the sorry state it is in right now. I guess they're good enough for most people, and looking around at my university library I'm sitting in right now I can see many people with new macbooks and macbook pros. The hard part is for Apple to do something _interesting_ without making it _worse_...
> This argument is a red herring. People like new things. People like things that work all the time without modification.
Apple and others have convinced people that they need to upgrade to the latest and greatest device each year. Because if they don't then it negatively impacts Apple's revenue and stock price.
> Almost no one actually wants a phone or computer that lasts twice as long but is bulky and requires maintenance.
That's a false dichotomy, you're assuming that in order for a computer to have a modular or maintenance friendly design, that it has to be big and bulky. Lenovo doesn't seem to have any problems producing laptops with similar dimensions to Apple's that are almost entirely modular.
> The disposable / non disposable distinction doesn’t really make sense. On a long enough time horizon, everything is disposable.
That same logic can be used to invalidate pretty much everything. The distinct makes perfect sense when framed within the usable life of the device. I have a 3rd generation iPod Touch going on a decade old that still works, are you saying I should just throw it away because it's more than a year old?
> you can replace things like screens, storage, memory, keyboards and so on.
Putting aside the fact that Apple doesn't permit most of those upgrades and that they don't actually sell most of those parts.
On which devices specifically can you upgrade storage, memory and keyboards?
On all iOS devices since ever, and on all the MacBooks since 2016 the storage and memory are soldered directly to the motherboard. They are non user serviceable parts.
The keyboards on all Macbooks with butteryfly keys are riveted to the aluminum unibody so a keyboard replacement is literally replacing half the machine.
On the Mac Pro they keyboard and mouse are the only things you can upgrade.
> The company's MacBooks are slim, powerful and well-built, but you'll need pile of money and a bagful of dongles. The company's support and warranty options are second to none.
Mmm...
So, the only reason why the MacBook Pro isn't first is the price? It doesn't make any sense.
I bought the Late-2016 MacBook Pro (no touchbar, of course), and it's the best laptop I've ever used by a long shot.
I wasn't happy to have to pay more than I used to (EUR 1490 vs. EUR 1199), but being a developer my machine is important, and with my hourly wage the expense is justified if I can be more productive. Thanks to the improved keyboard, I'm more productive as I can type faster and more enjoyably. I also used to have a MacBook Air, and I _love_ the HiDPI display.
I don't have a bag full of dongles, so I have no idea what that's about. I attach the laptop to an external monitor, so I have 1 adapter that I keep plugged into the HDMI cable. It's got 2 USB3 ports, HDMI, and another USB-C port. I never bring it with me or use it besides for the monitor, though.
I definitely would not want to replace my current laptop with a plastic Lenovo to save $300 (or whatever).
I guess laptopmag.com is trying to ride the MacBook bitching wave one last time to get some visitors.
> find that hard to believe. You're claiming plastic race-to-the-bottom laptop pc makers are building machines that last as long as all aluminium premium Macs? Fat chance.
I'm not saying that, at all.
I am saying that people keep reasonably priced hardware for longer than Mac owners because they don't have money to waste and can actually repair and upgrade them for cheap.
>you are okay with laptops being wholly disposable and barely repairable.
As I said, barely differentiable. Baring that, its as standard as a plastic laptop comes.
I'd personally be more interested in a portable than another laptop. Most laptop's I've owned have not needed repair for their lifetimes, and very seldom have I ever even thought about needing to upgrade my laptops "piecemeal" rather than just upgrading the whole thing together.
If I wanted a 16" MBP I'd buy a 16" MBP. Plus it can run MacOS.
What nobody makes is a portable workstation rather than a laptop. Laptops are great if you want situations where you want to use it on your lap - airplanes, airports, coffee shops, your couch, etc.
No that people are moving to a hybrid in-office/at-home work environment, and companies are going to "hot desk" models I want something maybe a bit heavier than a laptop, that I can easily transport from one desk to another another, and not have to spend a bunch of time hooking it up when I get there.
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out, but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have so far generated well over $1 million in revenue.
His arguments makes no sense to me. How is it cheaper to own a laptop that is expensive in the first place, but is also one of the less upgradeable ones on the market (making it more expensive to run post-warranty)?
And no, that's not what IBM reported either. They reported that Macs are cheaper to use as company PCs (which doesn't necessarily extrapolate to the laptop market as a whole).
> The article read more like a list of minor annoyances to me
It is mostly a list of minor annoyances, and if MacBook Pros were about half their current price, it would make sense to accept them as inevitable.
But when you're paying close to $2800 (or £2800 - about $3800 -- if you're in the UK) for a laptop you have the right to expect better. If I want a crappy keyboard and a short battery life, I can have them without paying a massive premium.
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to be cheaper to own.
>but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device
I always forget how dis-attached and money-blind pro-apple authors are from the 98% of people and how they approach money. I guess if I was in the 1%, I'd also think Apple was the cheap option! (I'd probably also think that about Lexus and BMW...)
$1600 over 6 years, or about $270 a year, is not inexpensive and the false label "cheaper to own" is absurd to the highest degree.
I could go out right now and buy a $600 laptop, a $200 chromebook, and be out $800 dollars. Then I could build a $500 rather powerful budget desktop, and be at $1300, with three devices, and have $300 leftover for repairs or upgrades.
I could buy a $800 laptop and another one in 3-6 years for that price.
I could buy an iPad, a Chromebook, and a $600 laptop. I could buy three $500 laptops.
There is no universe in existence where spending $1600 total cost of ownership in 6 years approaches ANYTHING CLOSE to "cheaper to own".
Frankly, I DON'T EVEN KNOW windows users who have spent $1600 in the past 6 years total, except for hardcore PC gamers whose hardware so dramatically eclipses the medium-grade consumer level tech in Apple laptops that to compare them is entertaining and silly.
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.
>Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
Until you want more memory or a larger SSD then the Macbook is all of a sudden double the price of the equivalent PC laptop.
>Increasingly feels like most manufacturers have given up on the laptop as an innovation center and are happy to just scrape up the consumers who can't or won't buy Apple.
That's basically true, but with Apple becoming more and more expensive that does leave a very large low-end market for them to play in.
> The Ugly: Really expensive, even in the context of past MacBook Pros.
I find this conclusion, and the article's discussion of Apple's current laptop lineup, to be the most interesting part of the article.
In comparison to the 2015 13" MacBook pro, you get some minor hardware updates, a bit of increased thinness, some changes to ports, and the honor of paying an extra $200.
It doesn't seem like a very good value, especially when it's the bottom of the lineup distinguished more by what's missing (touch bar, touchID and extra ports) than what it adds to last year's model.
I was hoping that the marketplace would punish them, but if Schiller's comments about the new MacBook Pro getting more orders than any previous pro model are accurate, it looks like I'm in the minority.
In that sense maybe, but not in the "low quality" sense (which disposable also implies, e.g. disposable razors etc). Besides modern cars are not "user serviceable" like 70s cars for the most part either, but they are not "disposable".
>My first Apple laptop, a Titanium Powerbook was almost 3 times that.
The overall price for the high end laptops on the market dropped since the Titanium powerbook though, and modern MBPrs are still priced at the high end segment of today's prices.
You can't expect 1999 prices for a 2016 computer when the tech innovations make both low and high end products more affordable all the time.
>My point was the company isn't what it once was, it's not a high end tech company for the few but a disposable tech company for the many.
"High end tech company" does not necessitate "user serviceable".
The tech in the Mac, compared to the average laptop, is way higher, and the engineering process to build a new MacBook Pro Retina model (from the machining to the logic board, batteries, etc) is far more advanced. Hence, high end of the market.
Nor was the Mac ever "for the few" -- it was always intended as a mass market PC, for those with the money to spare, not just some tinkering propellerhead elite ("the computer for the rest of us"). Heck, they even sold cheaper models back in the day (the Mac Classic, the original iMac, etc).
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