New Macs bring new normals
SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2016 — POST 242
Next Tuesday Apple is set to announce the next iPhone, and a refresh of the Apple Watch. And if the whispers that have reached the ears of Walt Mossberg and Nilay Patel, as hinted at in this week’s Ctrl-Walt-Delete, Apple will have a surprise up its sleeve for next week’s event. As nice as a heavily-rumoured iPhone and a second iteration of their smartwatch are, what Apple really needs to drop are some new Macs.
To borrow from Patel’s riffing on the topic, we’re at a point where a whole lot of people are on Mac hardware they need to update — the last overhaul of the MacBook Pro came in 2012. Between unpowered GPUs and old CPUs, the MacBooks only remain best-in-class in virtue of their OS. Frankly, there are so many more compelling PC options along most of the laptop category — from “ultrabooks” to pro machines. And even if the iMac stands out in all-in-ones, the Mac Pro is beyond a joke at this point. Apple’s only “pro” desktop machine is easily outclassed by even a rudimentary custom PC build.
More fundamentally, the Mac has been ignored in Apple’s pursuit of services: an attempt to convert every iPhone owner into an $X/month subscriber to Apple Music or iCloud. And this ignorance is starting to rot away a foundation of their brand. As much as the iPhone has seen the company shot to untouchable superstardom, the Mac laid the groundwork in the 2000s. The iPod was a notorious trojan horse: working across Mac and PC, it allowed consumers to become acclimated with Apple’s hardware and software in a way that drove Mac sales. And the iPhone continues to do the same thing. The problem for Apple is there just isn’t a reliable place for converted or devoted consumers to land right now.
I remember when I started university in 2010. The summer before starting, I bought the first computer I’d ever bought with my own money, a 13” MacBook Pro. At this point in time, it felt like everyone had this computer. Three years later, when I bought the machine I’m currently on — a 2013 MacBook Air — this was the machine almost everyone was buying (if they weren’t Adobe-heads that gravitated toward the 2013 15” Retina MacBook Pro). In both these moments — just like the white MacBook moment and many others before — some implicit agreement was made. There was such a thing as the MacBook. (Even this concept itself has been undermined by naming their newest, ultra-thin laptop the “MacBook”.)
When I worked in a consumer electronics store, this concept’s potency actually worked against me as a salesman. In 2013 and 2014, I too often had to convince a soon-to-be-student that the MacBook Air was better than the 13” MacBook Pro, the latter still the MacBook in their cultural circle. But the singular MacBook also was incredibly useful. More than just suggesting a purchase decision, it suggested a method of interaction. 2010 “MacBookers” plugged chargers under lecture tables, waited for the front light to start pulsing to indicate the drive had stopped spinning, and shared iMovie creations burnt onto DVDs. 2013 “MacBookers” were untethered, carried lighter bags, and would have an external hard drive on hand. When everyone’s on the same computer, there are a bunch of things they can’t help but do the same as well.
Even though next week’s event is unlikely to include new Macs, Apple has been rumoured to be bringing new Macs to a stage later this year. With a distinct hardware innovation — the replacement of the function keys for a context-sensitive touchscreen strip — it is conceivable that the concept of the MacBook could very soon return.
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