New Macs for pros?
Tim Cook offers assurance that his company still has creative types on its mind
Apple speaks out on a neglected user segment.
TIM COOK HAS spoken out regarding plans to do more with Macs in the “pro” market. In a shareholders’ meeting at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Cook indicated that the company hasn’t forgotten about its high-end customers. “You will see us do more in the pro area,” he said. “The pro area is very important to us. The creative area is very important to us in particular.”
The comment is clearly a general one, but was meant to placate those who are unimpressed with the lack of a refreshed Mac Pro or indeed iMac. A new version of the former, in particular, has been a long time coming: its last update was at the end of 2013.
It’s unsurprising, then, that many creative pros are getting impatient. Cook hinted that things are happening behind the scenes, albeit somewhat obliquely: “Don’t think something we’ve done, or something that we’re doing that isn’t visible yet, is a signal that our priorities are elsewhere,” he added.
Last October’s MacBook Pro update muddied the waters even further. The Touch Bar was seen as gimmicky by some pundits, while others weren’t impressed with the connectivity options, or the fact that 16GB remains the maximum amount of memory, apparently due to power issues. These are the drawbacks of creating a thin and light device with a large battery capacity; Apple is rumored to double memory to 32GB and add Intel Core i5 and i7 “Kaby Lake” processors later this year.
When asked about the possibility of a touchscreen Mac, Cook restated Apple’s position that the iPad and Mac will remain distinct entities: “Expect us to do more and more where people will view [the iPad] as a laptop replacement, but not a Mac replacement – the Mac does so much more. To merge these worlds, you would lose the simplicity of one, and the power of the other.”