Nothing has changed. Apple remains Apple, and a lot of people sound angry and disappointed as if this was something new.
Apple made their move, held their Mac event, and it was unimpressive. What was actually announced looked great to me, the problem was everything else. (Also: the fact that the event dragged on like back in the old days where Apple had much less to announce.) Many parts of my world is annoyed and angry to various degrees. I thought several times that this should not have been an event, it should have been press releases, some nice product videos and perhaps briefings with writers.
The main thing is that many people - myself included - wanted a lot more. We wanted Apple to refresh all their stale computer models, to give the sense that they have a clear drive and a will to make great machines. So many computers they make are old things in nice packages, and those of us who care about performance and such things see no good reason not to keep the machines updated. Letting them sit unchanged for years feels like a waste, like flushing that reputation for quality slowly down the drain. How can they talk about vision and ambition when so many of their computers are refreshed so rarely? We hoped Apple would show a drive that would live up to the invitation, or even to their own statements during the actual presentation. Their words were trying to say that they were taking a huge step with these laptops, when in reality the presentation was mainly about the introduction of the touch bar. And even that possible revolution (I think it will be one of those things which quietly become something I will never want to be without if it can be helped) is pretty limited, with nothing but my own hopes indicating it will make it outside these particular laptops any time soon.
I bet Apple know a lot better than we who complain what they are doing. They probably spend their energy creating models at a pace and in a way which makes sense. I imagine we technical complainers are a vocal minority, and we also keep buying their computers because we still like them best. The rest of the world do not care as much about which generation of chip is inside which machine, they buy something which appeals to them and use it until it breaks. As Apple tend to build stuff well, that is a long time and so they come out of the experience happy and will buy another Mac the next time. Perhaps it is the exact right thing to do in the ever shrinking market of traditional computers. I do not think Apple needs to be making computers for me specifically (even if they do and have done so pretty well for a long time). I do not even feel this is much of a change in how Apple thinks and acts.
I just wish more ambition was on display. Would that not make both Apple and the computing world better off in the long run? Good thing Microsoft is doing exciting stuff.
Hey, let me finish on something wholly positive: watching events like this in groups is always fun. Find a meetup, a group of friends, a chat room or whatever. Company and commentary improves everything.