# Apple Begins Responding to Criticism from Pro Mac Users

DevFeed: [Apple Begins Responding to Criticism from Pro Mac Users](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/apple-is-listening-38583.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://marco.org/2019/06/09/apple-is-listening>)

Author: Marco Arment

Published: 2019-06-10T01:07:58Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Marco.org](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/marco-org.md>)

Topics: [Hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/hardware.md>), [macOS](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/macos.md>), [Computing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/computing.md>), [GPU](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gpu.md>), [keyboard](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/keyboard.md>), [USB](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/usb.md>)

Tags: [apple](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/apple.md>), [gpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gpu.md>), [hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hardware.md>), [keyboard](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/keyboard.md>), [mac](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mac.md>), [macos](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/macos.md>), [usb](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/usb.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that Apple's Mac product line had failed many professional users, citing problems with the Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, and macOS. It describes Apple's 2017 Mac Pro roundtable and subsequent creation of a Pro Workflow Team as signs of a more institutionalized effort to listen to pro users.

## Source excerpt

Something big changed at Apple around the beginning of 2017. They had encountered significant turbulence in the product line over the preceding years, especially Macs. It was a rough time to be a pro Mac user. The "trash can" 2013 Mac Pro addressed only a fraction of the needs solved by the previous "cheese grater" towers, aged quickly without critical upgrade paths, and suffered from high GPU-failure rates from its cooling solution -- all because its design prioritized size and appearance over performance and versatility in the one Mac model that should never make that tradeoff. Over the next few years, it became clear that the Mac Pro was an embarrassing, outdated flop that Apple seemed to have little intention of ever updating, leaving its customers feeling unheard and abandoned. I think Apple learned a small lesson from it, but they learned a much bigger one a few years later. The current MacBook Pro generation launched in late 2016, and I think Apple was truly caught completely by surprise when the new Touch Bar, sparse USB-C-only port offerings, high prices, and highly polarizing butterfly keyboard were met with harsh criticism, mixed reviews, and high failure rates. This one really hurt: while the Mac Pro is a niche machine for the highest-end and most-specialized needs, the popular MacBook Pro is the lifeblood of the Mac. By the end of 2016, in addition to the generally buggy, neglected state macOS seemed to be perpetually stuck in, Apple had replaced its entire "pro" Mac lineup with controversial, limiting products that seemed optimized to flex Apple's industrial-design muscles rather than actually addressing their customers' needs. The only company that can make computers for our OS seemed incapable of making good computers anymore. Each update threatened to remove or break things we needed or loved. Their newest designs felt punitive, rather than feeling like a celebration of computing. Then, in April 2017, out of nowhere, Apple held a Mac Pro roundtable d