> (servers, wifi base stations, office software, music software)
And how about workstations, high quality monitors, video and photo editing software?
The thing is, while Apple's main focus was never spreadsheets or enterprise SW, it once produced the go-to computers for creative professionals (musicians, photographers, video makers, designers). I believe that Apple is losing its edge in that field, because they are exclusively focusing on consumer devices and software.
The Mac Pro hasn't been updated in years; Aperture has been killed, Final Cut went from being a professional product to a "prosumer" one, Logic still seems to be doing OK but latest updates of Mac OS broke compatibility with many pieces of SW used by musicians (e.g. Ableton, NI Maschine etc), the list could go on...
As unsexy as the Mac Pro line was, all they needed to do was keep the latest round of I/O (SATA 3, followed by USB 3, then USB 3.1, ThunderBolt) and just updated CPUs and GPUs without bothering to change the form factor. I'm still rolling a 2008 Mac Pro heavily updated. As someone who contracted for 3 Hollywood shows, I can tell you everyone jumped Final Cut Pro X for Avid or Premier Pro. It was sad.
When they touted the Mac Pro 2013 as a computer you could carry to a set to do editing, a friend of my quipped "Clearly no one at Apple has any fucking idea how movies or TV show are made."
That said, as long time digital musician 10.9+ hasn't been a problem for Maschine, Ableton, Cubase or Logic. I still have soft synths that are nearly 10 years old from the first Intel mac days working just fine...
It's not like they were up to date before. Old video cards, USB 2.0...
And it wasn't that great before those. The G5's were watercooled and would leak all over, not to mention slow, the G3 and G4 towers were upgraded so fast they obsoleted each other as soon as they came out, and didn't have support for all their features in OS 9.
And how about workstations, high quality monitors, video and photo editing software?
The thing is, while Apple's main focus was never spreadsheets or enterprise SW, it once produced the go-to computers for creative professionals (musicians, photographers, video makers, designers). I believe that Apple is losing its edge in that field, because they are exclusively focusing on consumer devices and software.
The Mac Pro hasn't been updated in years; Aperture has been killed, Final Cut went from being a professional product to a "prosumer" one, Logic still seems to be doing OK but latest updates of Mac OS broke compatibility with many pieces of SW used by musicians (e.g. Ableton, NI Maschine etc), the list could go on...