JANUARY 2022 MACWORLD 45co/3pzoD8J), to alter the way it does
business. With looming antitrust threats
from the U.S. government and the
European Union, it does at least lend hope
that the company can be nudged to
improve itself.
PORTS IN A STORM
That pressure doesn’t have to come from
governments, either. Take the new
MacBook Pro as an example. After several
years of lackluster models that drew fire for
abandoning “legacy” ports and featuring
problematic keyboards, Apple rolled out
brand-new pro laptop models that seem to
return those features and address almost all
of the aforementioned complaints. It’s
almost like the past several years of
MacBook Pros didn’t even happen.
While the cynical viewpoint might
argue that Apple took all these things
away just to be able to turn around and
sell them back to us, I’d be a little more
charitable: The growing pressure from pro
users made the company realize that the
product they were making wasn’t the one
most of its customers wanted.
Or, in other words, they hit Apple right
in the pocketbook. Not that MacBook Pro
sales are a huge part of the company’s
bottom line, but the ultimate question is:
Could they be selling more if they did
bring back those features? It’s early yet to
know just how well the new laptops have
performed, but the reviews have been
kind, and when sales numbers ultimately
arrive next year, I have no doubt they’ll
back up those assessments.PARTS IN A
WHOLE
And so we come to
the company’s most
recent about-face.
After years of
insisting that the only
way to officially fix
your iPhone was via
its own AppleCare or
an Apple Authorized
Service Provider,
Apple announced
Apple changed its design for the MacBook Pro for the better. last week (fave.