Hey Apple! What about the pros?

As a long-time Apple fan, I've pretty much stuck with their products no matter what. Windows has never been an attraction as it's always been pretty clunky, annoying and – well, Microsoft. This might change, however, as Apple continues to ignore the Mac in favour of its iPhone goldmine, and in particular ignore the professionals (like myself) who rely on their hardware and software for a living,  investing lots of money in the Apple ecosystem.

A lot of Apple users have been complaining about the lack of recent updates to the Mac hardware, and when the MacBook Pro came out just before Christmas, there was hope that this would be the beginning of a slew of new products. The pros, however, were freaking out because the MBP had minimal RAM, only USB-C ports and a magic touchbar thing (that looked cool at first, but actually will probably be more of an annoyance than anything else). Not only that, but it was ridiculously expensive. I was hoping to buy one myself, but given the specs and price I backed off. A new version of any piece of computer hardware is always a bit of a gamble.

I'm now using a 2015 MacBook Pro model with 16 GB of RAM which I bought instead and I love it (even though it's 2 year old computer technology). It's lightweight, has all the ports I need plus it's pretty fast. True, it doesn't have a DVD drive, but the times I need one are so few these days I don't really miss it. Besides, I have a plug-in USB Superdrive just in case.

As for other Macs, the rest are in dire need of an update, especially the Mac Pro that is currently a 2013 version (yes, over three years old!). Why anyone in their right minds would shell out over three grand for it is beyond me. And why Apple thinks anyone would want to is even more bizarre.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has promised 'great desktops' are coming, but judging by their efforts with the MacBook Pro, I'll be surprised if they're great enough for people who make a living using Macs.

My brother, a creative who has been a long-time Mac user, has told me he's moving over to Windows. He's fed up waiting for a high-end desktop from Apple and I don't blame him. Ultimately, his work is what's important and if he can achieve the same results on a non-Apple machine at a lower price then why stick with out of date equipment?

Yes, the Apple operating system is user-friendly, reliable and secure (most of the time – it's not perfect), but Windows has come along in leaps and bounds since the low point of Vista and Microsoft are not shying away from attracting disgruntled Mac users over to the other side. After all, these machines that we spend our hard-earned cash on are just tools and, ultimately, only the dedicated hard-core fanatics will stick with a neglected line of products.

If the rest of us can do our work easier, cheaper and faster then we probably will.