[chongli]

Apple’s problem at that time was their dreadful supply chain and glut of models. How were people supposed to know whether to buy a Performa 5200 (my first computer), or a Performa 6200, or a Power Mac 7200, or an 8500, or a 9500, or... one of the dozens of models in between all those?

I loved my Performa 5200 and I miss that computer like crazy, but Apple made a huge mistake with all of those models and they paid the price for it by having to write off huge amounts of old inventory.

It’s funny. Apple’s biggest weakness in the early 90’s has been transformed into their greatest strength today. Talk about learning a lesson!

[wtallis]

Arguably, Apple didn't just learn a lesson, but actually overcorrected. A majority of the complaints I've seen about Apple's computers in the x86 era and especially in the past several years have an underlying dissatisfaction with Apple simply not offering machines for various major market segments.

Apple's lack of a traditional consumer desktop PC means the Mac Pro is always getting complaints from consumers who don't understand the difference between the desktop and workstation market segments. The trashcan Mac Pro was a pretty niche product even among workstations. The MacBook Pro is less of a swiss army knife than it once was, and their other notebooks are even less willing to prioritize anything over being thin and light. Apple's never even attempted to entice gamers (much to their vocal dismay and derision), even though no other major PC vendor has cared as much about ensuring every machine has a decent GPU.

[chongli]

I’ve heard people complain for years that Apple ignores the gaming market but I’ve never heard a compelling argument for how Apple would benefit by catering to it. Gamers are a notoriously fickle bunch, always chasing the best price/performance ratios. Apple customers are notoriously loyal and willing to shell out a lot of money on high margin products. I think the overlap between these two groups must be tiny, given their contrasting natures.

The people who do love gaming and prefer Macs are probably better off buying a console. Those machines, of course, have no margin at all. I think this is the way Apple looks at it as well.

[chipotle_coyote]

While I think you're right, I think the OP is also right in that it might behoove Apple to have answers for at least a couple other market segments. The 16" MBP could be the laptop that has more ports besides USB-C, for instance, even if it adds a couple millimeters in thickness. And it'd be nice to see the Mac mini and the iMacs be made a little more user-modifiable: user-upgradable RAM and storage drives across all of them, for instance. (This is assuming it's possible to just plug in any internal SSD into a T2-enabled Mac, which I'm not 100% sure about, admittedly.)

I don't think Apple needs to go all in on competing with PC makers, by any stretch. But it would have been nice to see a lower-end version of the Mac Pro that started at, say, $2999. And that's not too crazy, given that the first Intel-based Mac Pro started at $2499. (Actually, you could get a build-to-order one with a slower CPU that started at $2199!)

[rbanffy]

> Mac mini and the iMacs be made a little more user-modifiable: user-upgradable RAM and storage drives across all of them, for instance

The new Mini and 27" iMacs can have their RAM upgraded. I believe in the case of the iMac it's possible (although terrifying) to upgrade storage as well.

I'd too love to see a MacPro that's not a luxury item but, with the massive precision milled shell and exquisite structure, that is unlikely to happen. I'm guessing a substantial part of the BoM is in that chassis.

OTOH, you can get a lot of workstation for a lot less with the Mini and iMac/iMac Pro. 18-core and 256 GB of RAM is a lot of workstation.

[chipotle_coyote]

I didn't know the new Mini still could have its RAM upgraded -- that's good. I'd still like to see the 21" iMacs have upgradable RAM, too, and to have the storage upgradable without the "although terrifying" qualifier. :)

You're probably right about the Mac Pro and its chassis; to go cheaper they'd have to be willing to go a little exotic. I suspect the Mac mini is supposed to be in that space. I suspect that rather than a cheaper Mac Pro, we'd be more likely[1] to see the Mini divided into "Mini" and "Mini Pro" lines -- I know the current model is more "Pro" than the previous generations, but they could be split in a way that lets them go down a bit more on the lower end and adds a few more options on the high end.

[1] More likely than a cheaper Mac Pro, but still not actually likely to happen. I know it's a bit of dreamcasting. :)

[rbanffy]

But then we'd again be in the model hell Jobs dug Apple out. Apple has low and high-end laptops, all-in-ones and modular desktops. Some of those groups already have some confusing attributes.

Even with the prodigious resources Apple has, the lines are a bit out of sync with some odd limitations (such as the inexpandable everything on the 21 inch iMac or the different keyboards in the MacBook Pro line)

[beervirus]

Pre-2020 iMacs could have their internal storage upgraded, although it’s not for the faint of heart. From what I’ve read though, it’s no longer possible for the 2020 model with the T2 chip.

[chongli]

I’ll be interested to see what effect, if any, the move to ARM has on their Mac Pro line. It may be the case that the baseline model is so expensive due to the cost of Xeons. I don’t know for sure, though, so it’s a bit of a wait and see.

[hakfoo]

There's probably almost two sub-markets in gaming.

There's the crowd that ogles price-performance, that buys things like Ryzen 3600s and RX480s and 1050s. They're DIY builders.

Then you've got the splash-the-cash crowd, who buy machines from boutique shops and expensive prebuilds with $500 paint jobs on the case and "We have a GPU that's 2% faster and 40% more expensive". Apple could potentially build something in that niche.

However, their shift to home-built silicon is not going to do them any favours as long as most gaming takes place on Windows.