#400  3rd April 2026

50!

This week Apple marks their 50th anniverssary. Congratulations!

Last week also saw the discontinuation of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro can trace its lineage all the way to the Macintosh Quadra 700. In the late 90s and early 2000s the PowerMac G3 and G4 sold into print and publishing and provided the "bread and butter" business that kept Apple afloat while the PowerBook, iPod and Music business were picking up steam. With the PowerMac G5 Apple could briefly claim supercomputing power). Its iconic aluminum alloy enclosure would last for ten years, used for the Intel-transistion Developer Kit and the Mac Pro until the "paint yourself into a thermal corner" black cylindrical Mac Pro in 2013). Apple revived the tower design with lots of expansion slots in 2019) which lasted into the Apple silicon age.

Along the way, Apple has attempted to "improve" on the tower design mutliple times. The PowerMac G4 Cube had many of the same design choices that would later hamper the 2013 cylinder Mac Pro. Only with the Mac Studio, introduced in 2022 did Apple finally seem to figure out the balance of a compact desktop super computer. Apple silicon chips do not support additional graphic cards, which made the PCIe slots in the tower form factor far less useful. The remaining use cases for slot expansion can (mostly) be covered by external Thunderbolt devices. Apple hadn't bothered to update the single generation of Apple silicon Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra chip when they updated the Mac Studio with M3 Max/Ultra and later M4 Max chips. The writing has been on the wall.

There are probably some people still holding on to their 2019 Intel Mac Pros for some expansion card that is essential to their workflow who are disappointed. I don't want to invalidate their plight, but I assume Apple has run the numbers and decided they don't justify keeping the product line.

It is ironic that the news of the discontinuation of the Mac Pro hit the week of the 25th anniversary of Mac OS X, since back in 2001, you basically needed a PowerMac G4 to adequately run Mac OS X. It could run on a G3 chip, but only as the G4 chips moved into the PowerBook, and then iMac and iBook, lines did those become performant enough for the new operating system. I have written before on how much Mac OS X was a turning point in Apple's trajectory. The introduction of the iMac, PowerBook G3, iBook proved Apple could still design excellent and beautiful hardware. Mac OS X, which allowed to run productivity software like Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut, side by side with Unix tools and software, made it very useful for (web) developers, scientists and other professionals who had so far needed two separate computers. And you could do all this on a PowerBook (or later MacBook Pro) and get about three to four hours of battery life!

Nothing was perfect, obviously, but back then Apple continually confirmed its reputation as being the only tech company who would and could build good software and good hardware. With the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, they also showed that they could combine that hard-/software combination with online services. Apple struggled for while with iTools/.Mac/Mobile Me/iCloud but eventually figured that out, too. Then the iPhone dropped and... well... the rest is, as they say, history.

Not everything was perfect, of course, (see the PowerMac G4 Cube, PowerPC falling behind, the rough path of iTools/.Mac/Mobile Me) but from the acquisition of NextStep to the early/mid 2010s, Apple did have an attention to detail which often put a lot delight into the use of their products. Even when Apple zeroed in on aluminum and glass as their main materials, they rounded the edges and corners to make them feel good and friendly.

Apple used to be good at bulding software that makes simple things easy to do, and complex things possible. The iLife suite did a great job of providing the basic functionality for workflows that you used to have to get expensive professional software for, and making it accessible. With AppleScript (and scripting support in the apps), Automator, and Terminal, as well as pre-installed scripting languages, like Python, Ruby and Perl, Mac OS X/macOS provided a platform suitable for basic, as well as professional users. Since even the most professional in a field will also be a beginner in a different field, this combination works really well.

Now the user interface is hiding everything but the most basic functionality to "put the content front and center" and everything else is hidden and often needs to be revealed by inscrutable gestures. Workflow and automation tools are restricted and neglected.

When Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, Steve Jobs showing versions of Keynote, Pages and Numbers, optimized for the touch screen, proving that this was device for creation not just consumption. However, while current iPads have the same powerful chips as the MacBook Air, the creative software is still lacking. All that is available on iPad are reduced versions of the software. Shortcuts is the only automation solution. Apps can only come from the App Store.

The iPhone transformed Apple from a beleagured boutique tech company to a Tera-corp. Today, they are continually among the top companies globally. It has been an amazing success story.

The iPhone also unlocked the mobile internet, and with that came social media. While most of us enjoyed and initially embraced social media, now it should be clear that the companies are willing to poison our minds and societies for the sake of "engagement," merely to improve their profits. Despite their claim that the curated App Store is a requirement to protect users from harm, apps which allow generation of CSAM and other harmful and explicit content, remain on the App Store. Apps and social media that are used to spread hateful and dangerous speech remain, too. Tim Cook may claim he is "not a political," but tolerating the status quo supports the status quo, and is a political stance, too.

With several billions of profit and bash reserves, and their history and reputation of quality products and attention to detail, one would expect them to resist the "enshittification" prevalent to the tech industry. Despite astoundingly high profit margins, Apple still finds it necessary to sell and place ads in their App Stores and, soon, for Apple Maps. While they restrict what third party apps can track about their users, they track and use a lot of data for themselves. Their app guidelines forbid using notifications for advertising, but that is enforced only inconsistently and Apple regulary send notifications for their own promotions. They try upsell their subscriptions all over. All of this cheapens the platform.

Apple is defending their share of App Store revenues tooth and nail, against regulation efforts world wide. Scammy apps are so common, that there are regular reports, while you also see similarly regular reports of legit independent developers getting inconsistent rejections from App Store reviews, often threatening their livelihood. If Apple wants to be the curator of what software we can run on the devices we purchase from them, they must get much better at it.

For a large part of the last five decades, Apple has been on a wild roller coaster ride between amazing success and beleagured to the brink of extinction. Next year the iPhone will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. While nothing was certain about the iPhone for the first few years, all but one of the major phone manufacturers of 2007 are gone or irrelevant. Remember Blackberry? Only a handful of the major computer companies from thirty years ago remain.

Despite all my criticism, I still believe the Apple is the "least worst" choice among major tech companies. But I would very much like them to do better than that. Much better. I wish they put the attention to detail and quality that is still obvious in their hardware into the operating systems and software, as well as the services. I wish they found ways to "surprise and delight" again. I wish they remembered the strengths and purpose of each of their platforms and designed the software to use and enhance those, rather than try to make everything the same.

I wish Apple put their users at the center, not their profits. I don't know if it is possible for a company of that size to return to mindset of the scrappy underdog, but I would love to see them try just a little.

400!

This week also marks the 400th issue of this news summary. To be exact, it is the 400th email. Keeping track of those is easier. There were a handful of issues on the website only, before it was an email. The first website issue was published nearly exactly nine years ago.

Many thanks to all of you who are reading this. I am grateful that you find this interesting and worth your attention. Many thanks, also to the sponsors, who ensure that my time spent pays some of my bills, which is nice and necessary. But most of all, many thanks to all of those in the community who write posts, code, and solutions and otherwise share their experience, so that we all can learn from each other!

So many anniversaries. On to the next year!