I'm not sure it's that simple. The Mac line is still doing very well, especially compared to other PC manufacturers. It appears that Apple mostly views the critique of people like us as outliers or else they would have changed this focus on thinness if they saw it was affecting sales.
I think it really comes down to software -- MacOS -- which is still significantly better for certain kind of work than Windows or even Linux. Until that changes, people are going to continue to tolerate these hardware problems with Apple computers. I'm definitely one of them.
Just for the record, I have two Touchbar laptops. One from 2016 and one from 2017. The 2016 one, when I first bought it, had the busted keyboard on day one, right from the Apple Store. I went back and swapped it for another one and that had the same issue but with different keys. The third one worked but it started having issues about a year into use. I had that one repaired and now it's having issues again, not even a year after (the symptoms show once the laptop has heated up a bit). It's comical how atrociously bad these laptops are in the reliability department.
My 2017 one was slightly better, in that it worked when I bought it, but it also started having keyboard issues about a year after. Several of my friends who bought the same laptop around the same time also had to take theirs in for service for keyboard issues.
Your comment is the one that, for me, has broken the proverbial camel's back. I'm a fanboi from all the way back to the 1980's and have never owned a non-Apple machine. I'm typing this on a mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro which has NEVER had a single problem and runs as fast as my iPhone SX Max. I haven't taken it outside my home in years. My 2009 27" iMac died a couple months ago and I miss it, but I have put off replacing it. I've read so much here about the current MacBook Pros and their myriad problems that I'm reluctant to get one when my current machine dies. It just occurred to me that I can solve both my problems (lack of a big screen and inevitable failure of my 2012 MacBook Pro) for a lot less money than it would take to replace either of the above-named machines with their exact descendants. What I'm going to do — either before or after this MacBook Pro dies — is get a 21" iMac. $1099 with plenty of screen, way easier to move around the house than the old 27", and no keyboard issues. Not to mention the couple thousand dollars that stay in my pocket. Thank you.
2012 Macbooks were notorious for hard drive flex cables breaking, which is basically the same issue mentioned in the article, except for hard drive, not display. The difference was, though, that the cable was a separate part, so when it broke, it was a $20 repair.
Absolutely this. I'm typing this on a 2012 MBP and it has had 6 hard drive flex cable replacements by the Apple Store over 3 years, each time requiring a week of downtime. On the last service they replaced the entire motherboard, because they thought it can't possibly the flex cable if they've replaced it six times, but it's already starting to show the symptoms that it might need another replacement soon...
I love my 2012 MBP, but ultimately it's been so unreliable (and I can't stand the new butterfly keyboards) that it pushed me into buying a Windows laptop. I still use the MBP quite regularly when it's working though.
Mid 2012 MBP seems to be really popular. Thing just lasts forever. Especially if you have i7 + 16 GB RAM configuration, then there's still not much reason to buy a MBP right now. $3000 for the privilege to carry around USB dongles, no thank you.
For now I'm getting a Mac Mini instead. Seems like the option with the least amount of risk attached... It has a fast desktop i7, that should last 5+ years, and its not that pricey either.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten that many 2012 retina MacBooks had bad screens. Mine did. Mine also had problems with USB or the bus it's on cutting out, causing the internal keyboard to stop working. Most of my internals were replaced for that one and it still happens occasionally. Overall it's still a good computer which is why I continue to use it.
Apple has had quality issues for much longer than most people realize. It keeps getting worse.
I worked for an Apple repair shop from 2008ish to 2014ish.
The mid 2012 laptop I bought new went through two separate optical drives before I stopped using the drive altogether and put in another hard drive. The laptop also had two bad logicboards from NVidias recall iirc. One board died a month after getting it new, and the other died almost 3 years later.
To this day it is still going strong. I am starting to run into some video ram type issues (I think). I get random lines on any screen (external / internal) and a full reboot "fixes" it. I don't want to replace it, but after all the Apple changes (iOS devices vs "Pro" devices mainly), I just don't think any of their laptops fit my needs for a device anymore.
Like you said though, Apple has always had some hardware type issues like this. I remember HP, Dell and Lenovo all having big issues like that too when I was on the bench.
My 2012 MBP is still pretty great, but newer MacOS releases have put a strain on reliability, for me at least: When plugging in an external display while it's asleep, there's a significant chance it won't wake up without a forced restart.
"Your computer restarted because of a problem", and subsequently having 20 apps open up on login is the bane of my existence on MacOS. Same issue with my work touchbar MBP.
Heh I think the iMac is a good move, that's probably what I will do. I definitely am tired of spending ~$2k on a portable that I cannot depend on.
What I'm doing right now is just using my MacBook pro in lid-closed mode with an external monitor and the Apple wireless keyboard/trackpad, so I can avoid those keyboard issues entirely. It's very stupid I need to even do this, but here we are :)
Hackintosh is pretty easy these days, even properly including hardware acceleration and audio support. I have a tower I can use for gaming with Windows and music via Logic Pro X on Mac, I would definitely recommend trying that route. Best price point, most customizable, most flexible
> It appears that Apple mostly views the critique of people like us as outliers or else they would have changed this focus on thinness if they saw it was affecting sales.
Apple seems to have a very insular culture. They seem very resistant to even acknowledging external feedback, let alone changing course based on it.
> I think it really comes down to software -- MacOS -- which is still significantly better for certain kind of work than Windows or even Linux.
That, and the Apple brand still has a lot of premium cachet. The utilitarian fact that MacOS is the most successful desktop UNIX only really matters to developers.
> The Mac line is still doing very well, especially compared to other PC manufacturers.
Apple built up a lot of positive brand credibility over the second Jobs era. That credibility is eroding now, but that kind of erosion takes time to show up in sales figures. All that banked-up credibility can drive sales for a long time until it's completely drawn down. But operating that way is like living off the money in your 401(k) -- it lets you pretend nothing's wrong until the moment the balance hits zero, at which point everything goes wrong all at once.
Techies are more exposed to the details of hardware than normal people are, so Apple should be looking at their complaints as the leading edge of tomorrow's problems rather than as an outlier. Back when Apple couldn't sell computers to save their lives, the techies were the first to notice their products had improved enough to be worth recommending. Now everyone wants to buy their products, but the techies are the first to notice that maybe they shouldn't.
Could you get a cargo cult on the consumer side too?
Like the brand keeps its aura of quality longer than the quality as been maintained? That would just be a phase shift between the reality and perception.
> Like the brand keeps its aura of quality longer than the quality as been maintained? That would just be a phase shift between the reality and perception.
That's a phenomenon that actually exists, and is deliberately exploited by private equity. A stark example is newspapers: there's a company that's aggressively buying them up, and once they acquire one they slash the newsroom staff to drastically cut costs. That results in a much inferior product, but it takes time for their customers to realize and even longer for them to cancel their subscriptions en masse. In the meantime they collect greater profits as they kill the business.
The fact that lots of customers buy a thing does not necessarily mean that thing is presently a good product that serves their needs.
> A stark example is newspapers: there's a company that's aggressively buying them up, and once they acquire one they slash the newsroom staff to drastically cut costs.
That's been the norm for the newspaper business since at least the 1970s. The current company you are probably thinking of doing that is Digital First Media, which has mostly been getting attention for it's unsolicited bid for Gannett, a company that was well know for doing the same thing during the 1970s-1990s (and was recently considered a threat for doing that again with it's—ultimately abandoned—bid to take over Tribune Publishing.)
What are you talking about, apple is definitely not in the lead sales volume wise. They are typically 4th or 5th. They are still 7-10 percent just like they were ten and twenty years ago.
Did I ever say they were leading in unit sales? Please don’t twist my words.
Apple of all companies has never been about mass volume, but instead higher revenue and profit per unit. It’s the same with iPhone compared to Android.
I’d much rather own a company with 1000 units sold at 10mil revenue over 100,000 units with the same revenue.
Don't know why you're downvoted; Dell, HP and Lenovo all individually outsell Apple laptops. They spread their sales over many more models though so Apple wins on the most-sold-SKU metric.
I think it really comes down to software -- MacOS -- which is still significantly better for certain kind of work than Windows or even Linux. Until that changes, people are going to continue to tolerate these hardware problems with Apple computers. I'm definitely one of them.
Just for the record, I have two Touchbar laptops. One from 2016 and one from 2017. The 2016 one, when I first bought it, had the busted keyboard on day one, right from the Apple Store. I went back and swapped it for another one and that had the same issue but with different keys. The third one worked but it started having issues about a year into use. I had that one repaired and now it's having issues again, not even a year after (the symptoms show once the laptop has heated up a bit). It's comical how atrociously bad these laptops are in the reliability department.
My 2017 one was slightly better, in that it worked when I bought it, but it also started having keyboard issues about a year after. Several of my friends who bought the same laptop around the same time also had to take theirs in for service for keyboard issues.