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Apple’s audacity is on display with new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR

Tuesday June 4, 2019. 11:22 PM , from Mac Daily News
Ben Thompson for Stratechery:

It is the nature of hardware that a computer the vast majority of Apple’s customers will never own was the headline from the company’s keynote at its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC). The Mac Pro starts at $6,000, and will be configurable to a number many times that. If you think that is absurd, or would simply rather buy a new car, well, you’re not the target customer…
It was fun seeing what Apple came up with in its attempt to build the most powerful Mac ever, in the same way it is fun to read about supercars. More importantly, I thought that sense of “going for it” that characterized the Mac Pro permeated the entire keynote: Apple seemed more sure of itself and, consequentially, more audacious than it has in several years…
In retrospect, the previous malaise around Apple should have been expected… [but, late last year] CEO Tim Cook had to issue a revenue warning thanks to slumping iPhone sales; after four years of accounting for between 68-70% of Apple’s revenue in the company’s fiscal first quarter, the iPhone suddenly only accounted for 62%. It might have been the best thing that could have happened to Apple.

MacDailyNews Take: Thompson writes of “three announcements” yesterday that “when taken together, spoke to a company moving forward.”

iTunes being split into separate Music, Podcast, and TV apps
iPadOS of which Thompson writes, “it is a statement from Apple that the non-iPhone parts of its business still matter. While the company was on the iPhone plateau it wasn’t so clear that management cared about either — both the iPad and Mac languished, the former in terms of software, and the latter in terms of hardware — but now there is real evidence the company is fully back in. That management no longer had a choice is besides the point.”
App Store on Apple Watch because now the Watch can live on it’s own, without iPhone, becoming much more interesting to the 70+% of the world who only have pretend iPhones constantly leaking their personal data onto the internet.

The most important announcements were the tandem of Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR because their existence is tangible proof that Apple’s management has finally woken up from the stupor of gorging on easy iPhone earnings for years and gotten back to work!
As we wrote earlier, to once again be able to confidently state that Apple makes the world’s most advanced personal computer has us brimming with joy! Regardless of how relatively few will be purchasing Mac Pro units, the knowledge that Apple has this flagship Mac now percolates throughout the entire family of Mac models, elevating them in the process. The same goes for the Pro Display XDR.
There’s a reason why quality carmakers make esoteric high-performance models – because they can and because they cast a halo of quality on all of their other more salable models. They don’t make money on the supercars themselves, but supercars make them money.
This is why we were so disappointed with Apple letting Mac Pro rot for over half a decade and for killing off Apple-made high quality displays. Both were poor decisions, now rectified. All Apple needs to do now is demonstrate their commitment to these products over an extended period of time and they’ll be right back on track!
https://macdailynews.com/2019/06/04/apples-audacity-is-on-display-with-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-x
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