Quite right too, that’s why they invest. But there’s a balance between shareholders and customers or both lose out.
Or even by specialists. When I bought my Unibody MacBook I bought the extra RAM and the extra hard drive space, and they did it there and then in the Apple Store for me, turning a “base” model into an upgraded one. These days they have a stock of common options, anything else gets build in the factory and shipped to you.
Sadly you’re not their target market then, and frankly neither is anyone complaining about not being able to upgrade RAM etc once you’ve bought the machine. Most people wouldn’t know a CPU speed or even how much RAM they have. It doesn’t matter any more. How long does it take for web pages to load / word to open / excel to open… whatever their use case is. Apple has built computers that can cope with most use cases of consumers, and that’s all they care about.
You’re right… Only a frakking idiot would consider Macs for business use these days. No one takes them seriously any more. Not video professionals. Not finance professionals.
Would make sense to remove “Pro” from the name of what is essentially a consumer product then. Although I think the late nineties distinction between professional and consumer models that Apple once followed is now long gone, replaced by a series of blurred lines between product categories.
I was giving MissionMan the ‘plastic’ comment because whilst Carbon-fibre and Glass-fiber reinforced plastic have impact and shatter resistence WAY greater than the plastic used in consumer laptops he’s correct that they’re ‘technically’ still plastic… and as we all know… ‘technically correct is the best kind of correct’
To be fair, I do know some businesses who do use Macs rather than PCs on an enterprise level. Monash University (the largest uni in Australia) is Mac-based (and interestingly, also Google Apps based, having completely divested themselves from the shackles of Microsoft). But you are correct, most large corporations haven’t done this. I am the sole Mac user at my own workplace, which gives my IT department headaches but they tolerate me because they have to.
What is pro? Is a business person a professional? A photographer? Are you saying a professional photographer couldn’t work with a MacBook Pro? Or are you saying it because it doesn’t meet your professional requirements as a geek? The pro name has been used to indicated “more power” for some time already. That aside, why does pro have anything to do with upgrades. Most professionals write off their computer equipment over 3 years so upgradable isn’t any issue. It’s more likely to be an issue for non-pros who keep their equipment longer.
Plastic laptops as a general rule are the cheap kinds. Most of the premium models aren’t plastic. Whether it’s stronger or not is a different question. It also comes down to manufacturing quality. If you want Apple to rather produce plastic, that’s your call. I prefer the aluminium or buy these plastic laptops you do desperately seek. You’re the one that seems unhappy with Apple, not me.
Generalisations like this frustrate me. Not sure what sort of business you are in, but I support over 100 different people at around 40 businesses… all on Macs. Macs are absolutely appropriate for business - indeed for many small businesses they are still way more cost effective than Windows PCs. Not every customer is the same, and not every business is the same. I get that recent Mac hardware may frustrate you, but be careful not to generalise about all users/customers/businesses.
You see a lot of them at executive level in companies because senior management can bypass IT. IT on the other hand are driven by cost and still won’t even buy SSD despite the improvements in employee productivity as a result.
But a lot of companies have standardised on the non-upgradable iPhones.
Incidentally, why wouldn’t a finance professional take them seriously? I’m trying to understand what amazing finance stuff these finance guys are doing that warrants upgrades? Or that couldn’t be dons with a quad core MacBook Pro with 16gb of Ram? Or with an iMac with 32 or 64GB of ram.
I have a number of clients on PCs too, and in big business (finance being one area) the Windows version of Excel is far better than the Mac version specifically with VBA scripting, but also in general. For people that basically do email and calendar and love Outlook, the PC version kills the Mac version too. I have a couple of clients who run Windows purely because they live in Outlook 90% of the time on their computer and that’s what they’ve always known.
I’m a Mac specialist, but I recommend the best tool for the job for everyone, so those people get a PC. Likewise, if you have 1000 staff you want to manage, you should probably be on Active Directory and Windows. The Mac management is getting better, but it’s nothing like the Windows stuff when it’s deployed well (as I find can generally only be done in 50+ staff businesses as there’s a high management cost overhead).
Don’t immediately jump to conclusions, because I was addressing the issue of “Pro” now being merely a marketing term and not actually an indication of the capabilities of specifications of a machine.
It’s a term that companies have seemingly become a little too fast and loose with, and Apple has been attaching it to everything from notebooks with base storage and consumer level integrated graphics, to iPads with larger screens and some additional processing horsepower that clock for clock is roughly equivalent to a MacBook Air. Even the MD101X/A, sold as new with hardware last turned four years ago carries the MacBook Pro moniker.
When a machine with 8GB non-expandable memory, 128GB of internal storage, HD 6000 integrated graphics and a 13-inch display that seems to be most popular amongst home and education users earns the Pro name, I am left to wonder. That’s what I meant in saying “the distinction between professional and consumer models had since been replaced by a series of blurred lines between product categories”.
These days I’m not exactly sure what constitutes a professional model. At first I thought it was the ability to further upgrade memory and internal storage compared to the closed and consumer oriented MacBook Air, but the Pro soon followed suit. Then I thought perhaps it was Thunderbolt, but then that feature became available across all product lines as well. Even the Retina display is filtering down into consumer notebooks and ultraportables. Perhaps the Pro name will soon become primarily associated with models feating ports for wired connectivity as the consumer models cease to have them, à la the 12" Retina MacBook. We’ll have to wait and see.
Hmmm, I’m a finance professional and use a mac, just back from XeroCon, the world’s largest accounting conference - plenty of Macs to be seen, and all the demos were on Macs.
I haven’t used the PC version of Excel for years, but the latest Mac version does everything I need to do and more. You’re right about the VBA scripting, but that’s really only a problem for legacy workarounds. If you’re in a position to change how things are done, then there’s no need to have a PC. If you have to use custom built workflows with VBA then you’re stuck in PC land.
This was my one problem a while ago, but Outlook 2016 plays well with Exchange and PC Outlook users. I use it for my work emails, calendar etc, and use Mail for my personal stuff. If your clients haven’t checked out Outlook 2016 they should give it a go.
And yet you used ‘plastic’ in a derogatory way to denigrate the T series where as in truth the manufacturing quality of the T series is generally regarded as excellent.
Personally I don’t care what a laptop manufacturer uses to cover the outside of their laptops as long as it’s durable and strong. To me the appearance is of secondary importance at best.
MM I’m not unhappy with ‘Apple’, I’m unhappy with their current product mix and it’s pretty much expected these days that unhappy customers express their opinions online.
It seems to me that you’re defending Apple simply because they’re Apple rather than providing counter arguments.
Very true, I’ve been sticking with Apple (personally) where as every one else at work is now on Windows (unlike 5 years ago where it was half and half) but having finally bought a Doze laptop I am finding less problems with Excel and Outlook is great.
I do miss the OS interface, Windows is ugly by comparison but productivity trumps appearance.
And I’ve still got the iMac and the MacMini for personal use at home for my Apple fix.
@Erwin I’ve no idea what they use these days, but back when I was at Griffith Uni in Brisbane, they had Macs pretty much solely in their video/audio labs… But otherwise - PCs everywhere. You are lucky to be able to dictate using a Mac… though in fact, I could ask to use a Mac Mini in my finance/sales/analyst role (they have a few spare laying around), I wouldn’t do it, as I live in Excel, and Excel on Mac is shit.
@jaysee I do apologise as yes, it was a very generalised comment. I do however stand by the fact that Apple have done NOTHING to try to make Macs fit into the general business environment. Actually, they used to at least try back in the 90’s. My employer happily buys Macs for the Art Team, and then passes the old ones down to other staff, but would not buy a new Mac for anyone else. My new CFO made a derogatory comment about Macs just the other day, and I could not fault him on it.
I was trying to point out that the term Pro is used loosely with all products to indicate slightly higher performance, not upgradability which has nothing to do with Pro. Upgrades and professional use are mutually exclusive because they have no dependency on each other.
Yes, I use plastic because, like most things, plastics are considered the poor cousin when it comes to premium brands, and it’s largely because in the majority of cases, the plastics used is poorer quality, not premium quality. Nikon has taken a bad rap recently because of their decision to move their lenses to plastic. It’s a perception issue because of the history of plastics and one which the public still considers when buying gear. This is one of the reasons that if you put two models side by side, one plastic and one metal, people would assume the metal is the better quality one. This may change in time, but it’s still the reality.
On the issue of defending Apple, I’m defending them because 90% of the market don’t care about upgrades and for the last 4 or 5 years, Apple have moved this direction. It’s not like its a recent surprise, its been happening for ages and you’re suddenly complaining about a strategic move they made 5 years ago like it’s a recent event. Apple hasn’t tried to hide it. As mentioned, upgradability for most people including myself is not an issue. When I buy something, I buy max spec knowing that the upgrades are not an option. It’s called making an educated purchase rather than buying something lower spec and being surprised when you can’t upgrade it. I don’t care about upgrades, I don’t need to upgrade, and neither do 90% of the market.
Apple have never targeted the business market for laptops and desktops. If they tried to they would fail for the simple reason that business decisions for laptops and desktops are make primarily on cost rather than value for money or quality. It’s a low margin area and most business run on windows so they would be wasting their time targeting it. Instead, they made a play for the mobility market where they have had substantial impact. I don’t think thats bad decision making, I think it’s smart decision making. I run a business, and you pick the areas of the market you are most likely to succeed in, or where you believe there is a gap and you try to target those markets. You don’t pick an established market, especially a low margin established market, because the risk vs reward is too low. The reason for this is the investment required to succeed in an established market is very high. With very low rewards, you will battle to get the return you want. As web based applications become more prevalent, the reliance on Windows may become less, but I think you will find cheaper options like Chrome Books will become the play because the decision will still be based on cost.
On the issue of Excel being shit, that has nothing to do with mac quality or upgradability. That is Microsoft’s failure to develop for the Apple platform. If anything, you’ve just shown that Apple’s decision to not play in the business arena is valid because they have dependencies on other companies they don’t want.
The uninformed have bagged Nikon because of their pro lenses moving to ‘plastic’ but the truth is that it’s a better substance for their product. If you’d ever dropped a metal Nikon lens (I have) and dropped a Nikon pro plastic lens (I have) then chances are you’d come to the same view, Nikon made the functional choice.
As for ‘the public’ I don’t really care about that, a mass of 10 million uninformed doesn’t equal a single Nikon engineer in my book, I care about what functions best.
And ‘perception’, well that’s secondary and a job for the PR department after the engineers have designed the product. And marketing should NOT be getting in the way of engineers when it comes to designing product. Regrettably in recent years Apple marketing have been doing just that.
You don’t have to believe me… just look at what Woz has been saying lately.
Plastic is light and it bends and rebounds but it also cracks where metal won’t so there is no hard and fast rule. I’ve dropped my 24-70 f/2.8 and the only thing broken on it is the plastic thread mount at the front. The metal on it is unscathed. The old metal lenses were thick are not prone to drop damage, so the benefits of plastic are largely weight. I.e. My 20 f/1.8 weighs next to nothing. The perception of the “plastic lenses” also is helped by the sub standard quality of some of the new lenses like the 24-70 VR compared to the old 24-70. Yes, its optics, but public perception is still driven by outcomes and if the poorer outcome is associated with a plastic lens through experience, it reinforces the perception, whether correct or not. So, yes, you can leave the opinions to the uninformed public, but the engineering of the lens reaffirms the publics perceptions which doesn’t help.
The poorer perception of the plastic lens body is driven by poorer outcomes with plastic in the cheap lenses, not by plastic in the pro lenses where plastic has been shown to have consistently lower damage rates than the earlier metal pro lenses (yes it’s not damage proof just more damage resistant). And the optics of the newer pro lenses are generally superior to the earlier lenses.
As for dropping the older metal lenses in my experience it often resulted in bent metal where as the newer plastic lenses are more likely to bounce. As for damaging the front thread mount I’ve never done that on either type of lens, in my experience that’s generally restricted to people who don’t use a lens shield.
Lens shield? I assume you mean lens hood? Lens hoods are great but if you have it reversed because you aren’t using the camera, it doesn’t help. In my case, a toddler pulled it off a table with the lens hood reversed. My lens hood on my 70-200 has also cracked where the plastic parts are thin and in an area that steel would never crack (low quality plastics) so it doesn’t stay on when reversed and the lens hasn’t been dropped. The problem with plastic is it wears down over time because as much as it can rebound, it wears down more than steel does and shouldn’t be used in areas where wear is expected. Bad engineering and bad choice of products.
The other issue at the moment with plastics is the quality of the plastics they use in commercial products. Yes, plastics can be stronger than metal for particular properties, but most of these are still more expensive than aluminium or steel so they haven’t found their way into consumer grade products. Right now, I would say that the quality of the plastics used in Nikon lenses is unlikely to be stronger than steel although likely to be stronger than laptops given the size, and I would say that the plastics found in laptops would be highly unlikely to be the stronger kind, which is exactly why they have to reinforce it. If it was stronger enough, they wouldn’t have to, and that makes it prone to cracking in the areas that are not reinforced. I would also go as far as to say the cost to manufacture both is still cheaper. So right now, I don’t think there is any benefit to plastic in laptops, the cheaper or more expensive kind, because they are still manufactured using cheap commercial plastics.
Not sure what sort of business you are in, but I support over 100 different people at around 40 businesses… all on Macs. Macs are absolutely appropriate for business - indeed for many small businesses they are still way more cost effective than Windows PCs. Not every customer is the same, and not every business is the same. I get that recent Mac hardware may frustrate you, but be careful not to generalise about all users/customers/businesses.