After the launch of the new MacBooks Pro with Touch Bar, we thoroughly discussed not only the introduction of the new notebooks but Apple’s lack of attention towards other Macs, especially desktops.
Looking at the Apple notebook line, we saw that the MacBook Pro was upgraded, the MacBook (12-inch model) received an upgrade in the first half and the MacBook Air is on track to be discontinued, so there would be no reason to even mess with it. Now, if we look at the desktops, we notice that they spent 2016 blank: no new Macs mini, iMacs or Macs Pro. The professional model, by the way, hasn’t been updated since its redesign in mid-2013 – it’s over 1,000 days (!) without receiving the affection of the Apple.
Of course, this sparked discussion and many soon saw Apple’s attitude as a sample that Macs will fall by the wayside, starting with desktop models.
It took, but Tim Cook finally put out in defense of the “Macs” table Macs.
In a question and answer session on the Apple intranet (which generated an explanation of why he met with Donald Trump, but that is for another article), the CEO responded about the strategic importance of desktop Macs:
The desktop is very strategic for us. It is unique compared to the notebook, because you can put a lot more performance on a desktop – bigger screens, more memory and storage, a greater variety of inputs / outputs and more performance. So there are many reasons why desktops are really important and, in some cases, critical to people.
The current generation iMac is the best desktop we’ve ever made and its beautiful Retina 5K display is the best desktop screen in the world.
Some people in the media have raised the question of whether we are committed to desktops. If there is any doubt about this in our teams, let me be very clear: we have big desktops coming up. Nobody should worry about that.
I just hope Cook’s comment on the iMac isn’t an indication that the Mac Pro has gone to the swamp (again, Apple’s professional Mac hasn’t come across company executives), and that a wider range of inputs / outputs do not mean six Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of four.
Cook was also asked about what he considers to be Apple’s biggest differentiator and what employees can do to promote these efforts. Despite being a bit too philosophical answer, the subject is quite interesting and deserves our translation:
Our biggest differential is our culture and our people. They are the foundation on which we have everything else. Without great people and a great environment where people can live, we would not have intellectual property. We wouldn’t have the best products. We would not have the inventions or the resources that I mentioned earlier.
I think it is this attitude and boldness to “change the world” that is deeply rooted in our culture, that “the good is not good enough”. All of that fuels everything we do.
From a strategic point of view, we also focus on things where software, hardware and services come together and bring out the magic that only Apple can offer. This is our secret sauce. This appears in many different places and is something that we look for in new employees.
You can rarely see exactly where you want to go from the start. In retrospect, it is always written like this. But this is rarely the case. The great thing about Apple employees is that they get excited about something and want to know how it works. What this is going to do. What are your capabilities. If they want to know about something in a totally different industry, they start to make money and see what happens. They are more focused on the journey, which allows many interesting things to happen.
In the last two years alone, [o mercado] watch and fitness took us to ResearchKit, and ResearchKit took us to CareKit. We have a lot of things planned that I can’t comment on, but that I’m incredibly excited about, that are the result of going ahead and not being trapped inside a box that holds so many people.
With so many things we’ve done, we don’t do that because there is a return on investment. We don’t do it because we know exactly how we are going to use it. We do this because it is clear that it is interesting and can take us somewhere. It often doesn’t take us, but it often takes us to some place where we didn’t have it in the beginning.
There is definitely a bit of a “CEO speech” in Cook’s speech, but a lot of things actually show the different position that Apple has historically taken in the technology market. May this differentiation take the Apple to new and interesting places!
[via TechCrunch]
