What if Apple had a better lineup...?

[da na]

Does anyone else think that it would be beneficial for Apple to have a wider lineup, including laptops/AIOs for people who don't like ports and slightly thicker ones for people that don't like dongles? I personally don't own any Mac computers from later than 2012 but some of my apple user friends complain frequently about the lack of I/O. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, wat3rmelon_man2 said:

 but some of my apple user friends complain frequently about the lack of I/O. 

Yeah, my moms macbook has 2 thunderbolt ports, and a headphone jack, the thunderbolt is used for charging too, so if your charging it, you only have 1 thunderbolt port.

[da na]

Just now, Cool_Evlo said:

Yeah, my moms macbook has 2 thunderbolt ports, and a headphone jack, the thunderbolt is used for charging too, so if your charging it, you only have 1 thunderbolt port.

Or like how you can't charge an iphone and use headphones at the same time without like 3 dongles.

[dilpickle]

Apple used to be like any other PC company with dozens of numbered models. Steve Jobs came back and simplified things. They are not going back to the old ways.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 hours ago, wat3rmelon_man2 said:

2 hours ago, Cool_Evlo said:

 

Or like how you can't charge an iphone and use headphones at the same time without like 3 dongles.

There's like 3 ways to....

Wireless charging and wired headphones (1 or 0 dongles)

Dual wired headphones and charging dongle (1 dongle)

Wired/wireless charging and Bluetooth headphones (0 dongles)

[Ravendarat]

2 hours ago, wat3rmelon_man2 said:

Does anyone else think that it would be beneficial for Apple to have a wider lineup, including laptops/AIOs for people who don't like ports and slightly thicker ones for people that don't like dongles? I personally don't own any Mac computers from later than 2012 but some of my apple user friends complain frequently about the lack of I/O. 

Apple customers are loyal to Apple. Things like lack of IO might make some complain but in the end the MAJORITY by the new product regardless because they want Apple. The amount of people refusing to buy based on something like IO is so minor that its not worth designing an entire line for them. You adapt to Apples new way or you dont buy Apple, but those that want it almost always justify it in the end

[Guest]

2 hours ago, comander said:

Unless you have a dock... or the charging cable has ports. I wonder if the latter exists. 

A USB hub is the best thing to get if you need more IO, its just inconvenient to have to carry one around. 

[blitzduck]

Apple's whole shtick is to have as few different products as possible:

• It's easier to funnel customers' purchases
• It's less of a hassle to manage all their products
• It endows its products with a higher trust in their brand identity (i.e, if Apple bothered to make it, it "has to be good")
• Apple's products (generally) don't compete against themselves

[LogicalDrm]

This is like "Why must Noctua only have brown fans" questions years ago. Why would Apple need to do something which would cost them more and from what they wouldn't really make big profits? They aren't, and have never been, brand to serve customers. Its always been about image and having customers adjust to what Apple/Jobs has seen as future.

[tkitch]

15 hours ago, comander said:

Unless you have a dock... or the charging cable has ports. I wonder if the latter exists. 

A modern USB C Dock can be smaller than a power adapter for a laptop.

 

It's hardly that big an impediment anymore.  

[AMD A10-9600P]

As for lack IO, the majority of people don't want a bulky laptop with 10 USB ports, 3 HDMI ports, 2 ethernet ports and a chunky proprietary power adapter. For Apple users this is even less important, as Macs are about style and aesthetics, and the majority of work done on a Mac doesn't require heavy IO anyway.

 

Besides, the need for IO is shrinking in all aspects of the market. Find me an upmarket thin and light Windows laptop without a USB C port, I'll wait. USB C is a great option if you just need to charge the machine (which is a solid chunk of the userbase, as everything most people do is online now, so there's very little need to carry a USB stick around anymore), then USB C is great, as it provides a slim port that can be used to charge from a power bank. It also means that you don't have to struggle to find a propriety barrel charger if you don't have yours.

[da na]

6 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

As for lack IO, the majority of people don't want a bulky laptop with 10 USB ports, 3 HDMI ports, 2 ethernet ports and a chunky proprietary power adapter. For Apple users this is even less important, as Macs are about style and aesthetics, and the majority of work done on a Mac doesn't require heavy IO anyway.

 

Besides, the need for IO is shrinking in all aspects of the market. Find me an upmarket thin and light Windows laptop without a USB C port, I'll wait. USB C is a great option if you just need to charge the machine (which is a solid chunk of the userbase, as everything most people do is online now, so there's very little need to carry a USB stick around anymore), then USB C is great, as it provides a slim port that can be used to charge from a power bank. It also means that you don't have to struggle to find a propriety barrel charger if you don't have yours.

I guess I'm just used to my 5 USB ports, VGA, HDMI, 10/100 Ethernet and DVD-ROM on my older laptop... 

And that 3 pound power brick.

[AMD A10-9600P]

6 minutes ago, wat3rmelon_man2 said:

I guess I'm just used to my 5 USB ports, VGA, HDMI, 10/100 Ethernet and DVD-ROM on my older laptop... 

And that 3 pound power brick.

Comparing one of my older laptops to my new one, the difference is night and day. I've got older HP Pavilion 15s with DVD drives, 3 USB ports, an ethernet port and an SD card reader, I consider myself a "power user" but only ever used the charging port and one USB regularly. I will admit, there's nothing wrong with good IO, but holding on to older ports for too long on a thin and light machine makes no sense, it prevents the machine from being thin and light, which is the draw of Apple's line-up to a huge chunk of their userbase.

[da na]

26 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

Comparing one of my older laptops to my new one, the difference is night and day. I've got older HP Pavilion 15s with DVD drives, 3 USB ports, an ethernet port and an SD card reader, I consider myself a "power user" but only ever used the charging port and one USB regularly. I will admit, there's nothing wrong with good IO, but holding on to older ports for too long on a thin and light machine makes no sense, it prevents the machine from being thin and light, which is the draw of Apple's line-up to a huge chunk of their userbase.

Ah, I prefer the upgradability and cooling (and opportunity for greater performance) in thick and heavy laptops. (Mine has an older FX-9000 series APU and a RX 460).

[ajaxburger]

16 hours ago, comander said:

Unless you have a dock... or the charging cable has ports. I wonder if the latter exists. 

I have an Anker adapter for my Macbook that has a few USB-B ports, an HDMI and a Type C that supports PD. It's out there, people usually just go for the cheapest $10 adapters.. $30 at Target to not-Apple is fine by me.

[AMD A10-9600P]

6 minutes ago, wat3rmelon_man2 said:

Ah, I prefer the upgradability and cooling (and opportunity for greater performance) in thick and heavy laptops. (Mine has an older FX-9000 series APU and a RX 460).

Fair enough, each to their own. That's why it's great that we have such a broad range of machines available, especially on the Windows and Linux side of things, choice is a grand thing. (I'm just nitpicking here, but "opportunity for greater performance" only goes up to a certain point, thin and lights are now incredibly powerful and can push speeds of up to 4.7GHz. My older, thicker laptops are at their limits for performance, and although they are upgradeable, there's no opportunity for any performance left. My new laptop, on the other hand, has a Thunderbolt 4 port that can support an eGPU.)

[tkitch]

Just now, comander said:

Ohh I have one. I'm using it right now. 

 

The main complaint I'd have is, why not build it into the power brick of a charging cable? you need the bulk anyway... 

power bricks are plenty overpriced already, do you want them to go up to 200$?!

[Helpful Tech Witch]

14 hours ago, blitzduck said:

Apple's products (generally) don't compete against themselves

Usually yeah, bit recently there's been a lot of cross competition. Why get a MacBook pro when the air really is the exact same thing? The toutchbar? That's not a selling point. That's a gimmick.

And the iPad pro is really stepping on the toes of the MacBook with a m1 iPad.

[8tg]

It’s just not their market, there are so many other options for that kind of stuff. Namely the big 3 in the enterprise space, Lenovo, HP and Dell. They all have an obscene amount of options ranging from tiny low end education netbooks to extremely high specced mobile workstations and everything in between. They have those markets nailed down and Apple wouldn’t be able to see enough sales with their already niche market spread even thinner.

For example, here’s the current apple lineup:

-MacBook Air

-MacBook Pro

-24” iMac

-27” iMac

-mac mini

-mac pro

This covers casual home users, higher end machines for home or business, the larger MacBook pro is their mobile workstation, the Mac Pro being their super high end professional machine.

 

Meanwhile here’s Lenovo:

-Yoga convertible laptops

-yoga thinkpads for convertible X series

-X series small business laptops

-T series 14/15” business laptops

-L and E series cheaper options of the same above things

-P series mobile workstations in 15 or 17”

-x1 series is the same deal but in ultra book form factors, small x1 nanos and large x1 carbons and workstation oriented X1 extremes

-x1 yoga, same thing but convertible

-think books which are consumer oriented thinkpads meant to replace the old SL/R series

-ideapads, a purely consumer lineup with tons of its own options for size and specs

 

Think of a budget and a spec requirement and Lenovo has a laptop for it. And that’s just them, on Dells website for the latitude alone there’s like 40 different models. Not to even mention Precision’s or the entirety of HP’s lineup.

Apple basically has to keep their product line simple because their customers want those more generalized options, and too many options = huge development and production costs just segmenting their same sales pool.

If Apple had more products they’d overall sell less of each individual model, wouldn’t be able to compete with the lineup of other companies, and would just hemorrhage money.

 

[Zando_]

19 hours ago, blitzduck said:

Apple's whole shtick is to have as few different products as possible:

• It's easier to funnel customers' purchases
• It's less of a hassle to manage all their products
• It endows its products with a higher trust in their brand identity (i.e, if Apple bothered to make it, it "has to be good")
• Apple's products (generally) don't compete against themselves

To add to this, it's also far easier to keep a handle on their OS, vs Microsoft or Android OEMs having to support a zillion different devices. 

 

4 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Usually yeah, bit recently there's been a lot of cross competition. Why get a MacBook pro when the air really is the exact same thing?

Cooling. The MacBook Air has 0 heat issues until you load the GPU, then it cosplays as a reactor meltdown - aka it slams into the 90s and downclocks as you'd expect. If I were doing anything that uses the GPU (I only ran some graphics tests to see how it behaved as a passively cooled device), I'd want the MacBook Pro. If I wanted a chunky increase in battery life, also the Pro. 

 

4 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

And the iPad pro is really stepping on the toes of the MacBook with a m1 iPad.

A bit, but it's far more of a "really boss iPad for iPad people", as Apple still keeps iPad OS and macOS separate. If I wanna run the full versions of most apps, I need macOS. Apple does likely hold that line to keep the iPad from eating the Air though. 

 

[Monkey Dust]

I guess you'll most likely need the extra ports when either at home or the office where you can leave a hub. Plus it gives them a chance to rinse you for accessories, not every Mac user want to be seen using Anker gear . 

[Heliian]

16 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

This is like "Why must Noctua only have brown fans" questions years ago. Why would Apple need to do something which would cost them more and from what they wouldn't really make big profits? They aren't, and have never been, brand to serve customers. Its always been about image and having customers adjust to what Apple/Jobs has seen as future.

And now noctua sells black fans and coolers. 

 

Apple has a formula to it's success and they won't change until there's competition.  People buy apple for the branding but stay for the "quality". apple simply can't make too many products to muddy up the waters and risk poor feedback.  

[ajaxburger]

22 hours ago, comander said:

Ohh I have one. I'm using it right now. 

 

The main complaint I'd have is, why not build it into the power brick of a charging cable? you need the bulk anyway... 

That's fair. I know the new iMac adapters include ethernet in the power brick for certain models.

 

My perspective is Apple tries to create the least amount of clutter out of the box as possible. Ideally, they would sell dock systems for the MacBooks at a reasonable price that could handle all of this on the side but Apple has never been one to make all-in-one accessories like that Belkin likely offers something like it I just don't care enough to take a look. After having mine for some time, I've only actually had to pull out my dongle a handful of times honestly.