Absence makes the mind speculate. At least, that's the case for industry observers waiting to see what happens with Apple's overall Mac strategy this week.
My ZDNet colleague, David Gewirtz, believes that Apple's lack of innovation in Mac product releases over the last several years seems to indicate that the platform is running out of steam -- that effectively, the company has "given up" and has ceded mobile PC computing to its competitors, namely Microsoft.
I think "given up" is a bit too strong of a descriptor. I think the correct term is closer to "transitioning away from".
Apple has, since the rise of the iPhone and the iPad and the App Store ecosystem, been deriving most of its income from mobile device products, not Macs.
From a pure revenue generation perspective, the Mac has been a relative figurehead of an appreciative but dwindling customer base. Sure, it's a business that is worth billions of dollars, but in comparison to everything else the company does, it's 11 percent of the overall revenue, which is roughly $25 billion out of a $233 billion total, according to Apple's last 10-K filing with the SEC.
Yes, it's a business worth maintaining. But is it a business worth expanding on and putting substantial development efforts into? No. Small, iterative changes have been made to macOS over the last several years, not major ones. All the important OS development has gone into iOS.
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