Multiple reports offer widely differing views on the state of the Mac

The Mac has a great future. Apple is losing interest in the Mac. Jony Ive is bored with the Mac. A flurry of reports all claim differing states of the Mac.

In a post to an employee message board obtained by TechCrunch, Apple CEO Tim Cook had this to say: “Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops. If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.”

Cook cited the far better performance of desktop computers, including screen sizes, memory, storage and more variety in I/O as a reason that they are “really important, and in some cases critical, to people.”

However, a Bloomberg report, quoting unnamed “people familiar with Apple’s inner workings,” says that the Mac has “Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company’s software team.” What’s more, there’s a lack of clear direction from senior management when it comes to the Mac, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers, the article adds.

So what can we expect? No radical new designs, but USB-C ports and a new AMD graphics processor for the iMac, and minor bumps in processing power for the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro. Also likely are standalone keyboards with the Touch Bar and a fingerprint reader for desktops. What of the Mac mini and the Mac Pro? Bloomberg says their fate is “less clear.”