Why The Pro Market is Important
With the recent release of the new MacBook Pros, there has been a lot of renewed debate over Apple’s commitment to the Pro Market, or lack thereof. As per usual, there was an initial round of shock and upset by Apple users who feel that Apple is abandoning them, followed by the inevitable backlash against the backlash. As always happens in these cases, the sensible arguments get lost in the middle. At the crux of this is whether or not Apple cares about the “Pro” market anymore. I think the MacBook Pro isn’t the real issue in this debate, though. I think it was just a catalyst for a bigger discussion and I think the importance and the potential impact of what’s happening in Apple are being unfairly dismissed by those who are defending Apple in this case.
There was a very good discussion about this subject on a recent episode of John Gruber’s Talk Show podcast. I’m a big fan of John Gruber and equally so of his guest on this episode, Jason Snell. They were discussing the recent MacBook Pro, and the criticism of it, and by association, criticism of Apple in the wider context of the Pro Market. It was a good discussion, and they made some interesting points, but I disagree on several of the arguments that they made. I think that they’re missing the bigger issue here. Before I get into that, here’s what I do agree on…
The displeasure with the MacBook Pro is overblown. In particular the 16gb of ram issue. I think the explanations presented in the podcast as to why Apple did this make a lot of sense, and I think that this is primarily down to Intel not delivering on their roadmap. Apple has clearly been working on this design for a while and so it has more than likely designed the enclosure and the system as the platform for the next several years. It seems highly unlikely that they would deliberately limit the amount of ram, so it is likely that it will support 32gb in the near future. There is a really good discussion about this on the podcast, and I won’t re-iterate it here. Apple wasn’t going to re-design the laptop or create a whole separate design to support 32gb because Intel wasn’t ready, and which would only be necessary for a few months when DDR4 support for 32gb is likely to come anyway. It makes perfect sense and had Apple just come out and say that I don’t think it would be as much of an issue.
The real problem here though is a matter of trust. I think trust in Apple from some segments of its customer base is at an all-time low. It has taken so long for the MacBook Pros to be revised, that people are expecting them to be fully future proof now, and to have the best now, rather than to have to wait again, because it seems to many as though you have to wait years between revisions from Apple now, whether or not that is accurate. As I said at the start, though, I don’t think this is just about the MacBook Pro. This is happening in an environment where people are increasingly questioning Apple’s commitment to the Mac in general. However, as John and Jason point out in the podcast, the touch bar took a significant amount of engineering, and it doesn’t seem like something that Apple would invest the time and money in if it was planning on demoting or retiring the Mac anytime soon.
Despite this nugget of reassurance, the creative professional market is very worried. It’s been three years since Apple last updated the Mac Pro, and it was years before that since they had previously updated it. Even the iMac has seen a significantly long time since its last update. Combined with the news that Apple has shut down their Automation Technologies section, and fired long time developer and evangelist Sal Soghoian, as well as the rumours about Apple killing AirPort, have a lot of people wondering just what is going on.
While some long time Apple pundits have declared this concern to be nothing more than the whining of “entitled” creatives, or have tried to re-define the meaning of “Pro” so that it fits with the current release, I think being dismissive of these concerns because it might not affect you directly is wrong, and just plain arrogant. This may not affect you now, but if you are a Mac user it will almost certainly affect you in the future.
As someone who has worked in the creative professional space for many years, as both a designer, 3d artist, and photographer, I understand the needs of the market, and I have a lot of colleagues and friends who are all working at various levels in this space, and they are all worried about Apple’s lack of clarity on the future. And that is the biggest problem. It’s a lack of clarity from the company on their directions and a lack of trust that the company will do the right thing.
Anytime you bring this point up, you always get the same response from this who would defend Apple’s position: “Apple has no obligation to tell you anything about its plans or make you feel better.” This kind of argument is like a get out of jail free card because it pretty much allows you to write off any criticism of Apple or its decisions.
While this “Apple has no obligation to you” argument may be technically true, it’s no way to treat your customers. There is a fundamental breakdown of trust that has been brewing for some time between Apple and the Pro market, and you can give out to the people in the Pro market all you want, but this is Apple’s fault, not theirs. Creative professionals care about their jobs and their industry, and criticising them for that is ridiculous. Many of the people I have spoken to in the creative space are loath to move to windows, but many are feeling that they may not have a choice soon. This isn’t because of the new MacBook Pros per se, but that has been the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of people.
In some respect none of this is new. Apple has always been relatively secretive about its plans, but something has changed recently. Perhaps it is the fact that it has taken so long for Apple to update much of the mac line. Things like the infamous book certainly don’t help the perception that Apple is losing touch with its customers. There was a time when people knew that Apple was working for them, and even though Apple was secretive, they trusted the company. Apple’s “we know best” attitude worked when it was Steve jobs because people trusted Steve and felt he had their interests at heart. A lot of Apple’s customers just don’t trust Tim Cook that way.
While Apple was always secretive, it used to communicate with the Creative professional market in a much better way. It’s own “Pro” section of its website, for example, was updated regularly and it featured many great stories of Apple products in use, and it highlighted the enthusiasm surrounding them. For example, in the weeks leading up to the annual National Association of Broadcasters, the excitement surrounding the next release of Apple’s Pro apps, was palpable. A friend once told me of one of the times when at NAB, the doors opened and crowds rushed straight to the Apple stand. Now many question if Apple will even continue developing Final Cut Pro, and many of the people doing high-end editing will not use Final Cut Pro X. Even as it is, it sometimes seems as if it’s been done begrudgingly by the company.
There was a time when the Mac was considered by many outside the community of users as a “toy”, and not a real computer. Apple worked very hard to get rid of this reputation, and it did. It became the platform of choice for many, and instead of the toy it was previously branded as, the Unix core and powerful platform for video and development, propelled it to the top of many fields. For Apple, it wasn’t about producing the “nicest” computer, but the best and most powerful.
Do you remember when Apple was promoting the fact that its X-serve was responsible for one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers? What a distant memory that now seems. The idea that Apple would be pushing the boundaries of computing power now seems like a different era. All of the work that Apple did to sell the Mac as the best platform for computing, not just for design, but for computing in general, seems to have been undone in recent years. Whether or not it’s down to the direction of Tim Cook is unclear, but everything from the changes in architecture of recent operating system updates, such as the wildly unpopular sandboxing and other depreciation of certain Unix level architectures, to the lack of hardware updates, Apple has taken a step away from the days when it was the pinnacle of computing. In the eyes of some, it’s heading back to the days when people are looking at it as an expensive toy again. You can argue that it is an unfair description, and I would agree, but unfortunately, that perception is creeping back in.
On the Talk Show Podcast, Jason Snell, while sympathetic to people who are affected by these decisions, made the point that perhaps Apple feels that it no longer needs the Pro market and it is willing to lose it to concentrate on the rest of its customer base. Again, this is a technically correct argument, and you can’t argue with it on the basis of the fact that it could well be technically true. Apple technically can do whatever it wants. That doesn’t make it a good decision. Again, this level of uncertainty is no way to treat customers.
The argument is that the pro-space, and maybe even the high end of the pro-space, is just a small percentage of Apple’s market and that the company is right to abandon it based purely on numbers. But, in my opinion, this is a really bad way to look at it. The pro market, specifically the creative pro market, may not be huge, but it is Apple’s tentpole core market. Core doesn’t necessarily mean largest, but the pillar from which all others are supported.
Think of it this way. The people who use Apple’s hardware and software in the creative and pro markets, make the stuff that the rest of the market uses. If you abandon that, then it ripples out to the rest of the customer base. If Apple abandons the pro space, then people will stop writing pro software for it, and then, in turn, other software will stop being developed for the platform. If you are a developer creating software and the tools you need to make your software, and design it’s advertising, user interface etc all work better on a different platform than the one you’re developing for, then you’re going to be inclined to move to that platform too. If this happens it will have a knock-on effect on iOS development too. If developers need to use Windows for the design and development aspects, then they’re going to be less inclined to use a mac just to develop for iOS. When all the rest of the tools that they need are on a different platform, they’ll just stop developing for iOS. What makes Apple’s platforms so compelling, isn’t just the design of the computer, or the operating system, but the ecosystem of Apps and accessories.
If this sounds hyperbolic, it’s not, because this has happened before.
There was a time when it was feared that Adobe would stop developing for the Mac. It was the days of the Powermac and the platform was seriously lagging its Intel competition. At the time, Publishing was one of the largest markets. Quark Xpress, a long time Mac only application had been ported to Windows, and its future on the Mac was becoming a question mark. Premiere had been abandoned on the Mac and many software developers that had previously been Mac only or Mac first were making moves to go Windows only or Windows first.
It was in this environment that Apple, determined to showcase the potential of its platform, created Final Cut Pro, Aperture and its the rest of the Pro Apps. It wanted to showcase what the platform can do and it was a huge success. This was only a small percentage of the Mac market, but the effect on the reputation and sales was huge. Because, and I hate to use the phrase, it “trickles down”, or to put it another way, it ripples out.
Now the situation is in reverse. People are considering moving back to Windows. If they move for one thing , then they will be less inclined to use Apple products for others. If someone stops using the Mac for work, not because they are faced to by their company, but because they want to, then the Apple ecosystem no longer makes much sense to them. They’ll eventually be more likely to stop using an iPhone or an iPad too because it won’t make as much sense anymore.
Make no mistake, abandoning the pro market, would be a bad move for Apple. Maybe not straight away, but over a relatively short period of time, the knock on effect would be huge. There’s a reason Microsoft is pursuing this segment so strongly. Microsoft doesn’t “need” the pro market either, but they realise that its influence is priceless.
But let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute and think what might be going on that would explain all this, and give Apple the benefit of the doubt. Why has there been such a slowdown in product development? Trying to look on the bright side, it could be that Apple has decided to slow down ongoing products as it prepares to move to its new campus. It could be that on the Mac Pro, Apple is redesigning the computer again, and has faced issues beyond its control. I just don’t know, and like everyone else, I’m left to speculate.
The thing is, of course, we don’t know that Apple is abandoning the market, or that is even its intentions. But something is happening inside the company. The leaks and rumours aren’t doing it any favours, and it’s at times like these that the company’s infamous secrecy is really hurting it. Over the past little while, they have had fewer and fewer product releases. The company seems to be incapable of doing several things at once.
Whether there is trouble at management level, or the company is reorganising, is unclear, but there is definitely something going on, and customers are left reading the tea leaves, and that is really not helping the perception that Apple doesn’t care about it’s Pro customers.
