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1. Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac 2017
2. Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac 2016
3. Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac Free

COACHES POLL The predicted order of finish as voted on by the league’s coaches. Included are total points, with first-place votes in parentheses.

Lake Stevens (7) — 49 2. Glacier Peak — 41 3. Monroe (1) — 38 4. Mariner — 25 5. Jackson — 24 6. Mount Vernon — 22 7. Cascade — 13 8.

Kamiak — 12 NOTE: Coaches weren’t allowed to vote for their own teams. FAVORITE Lake Stevens.

The Vikings have won five consecutive Wesco 4A titles and are riding a 31-game conference win streak dating back to October 2013. Last season — including five contests by more than 40 points — en route to its sixth state-playoff appearance in seven years. Senior quarterback Tre Long, who replaces, threw for a combined 694 yards, six touchdowns and just one interception in the Vikings’ two playoff games last year after Bardue suffered a season-ending injury. Lake Stevens graduated a handful of first-team all-conference players, but plenty of talent returns on the offensive line, at running back, at cornerback and elsewhere.

After dominating Wesco 4A competition the past several seasons, the Vikings are the overwhelming favorite to claim yet another conference crown. Lake Stevens’ Tom Lewis rushes by Monroe defenders Oct. 27, 2017, at Monroe High School. League coaches picked the Vikings as the top team, but others are close behind this year. (Kevin Clark / The Herald) CONTENDERS Monroe and Glacier Peak. Monroe is coming off back-to-back state-playoff appearances, including a historic opening-round win last season that resulted in the program’s first-ever trip to the state quarterfinals.

But after graduating 10 of their 11 all-conference players, the Bearcats have numerous voids to fill. Monroe lost all five starters from its massive offensive line, as well as 2,000-yard running back Isaiah Lewis, two standout linebackers, its starting quarterback and more. The Bearcats have been the clear-cut second-best team in Wesco 4A the past two years, but their significant roster turnover could open the door for Glacier Peak to assume the role as Lake Stevens’ primary threat. The Grizzlies’ hopes for a breakthrough season begin with the dynamic senior trio of and two-way standouts Evan Mannes and Ma’aka Fifita. Glacier’s Peak Ayden Ziomas reaches for the pylon and a touchdown with Snohomish’s Keegan Stich attempting to stop him Sept. 8, 2017, at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Snohomish.

With Ziomas running the offense, the Grizzlies could challenge for the league mantle in 2018. (Kevin Clark / The Herald) STORYLINES TO WATCH Is this the year Glacier Peak ascends into league-title contention? Since moving up a classification and joining Wesco 4A in 2016, the Grizzlies have struggled mightily against conference powers Lake Stevens and Monroe. Despite going 9-1 against the league’s other five teams the past two seasons, Glacier Peak has lost all four games to Lake Stevens and Monroe during that span by an average of 54 points per contest. With Monroe having graduated a slew of key players and the Grizzlies returning a trio of dynamic senior standouts, perhaps this is Glacier Peak’s chance to ascend into the conference’s upper tier. The returns as a fourth-year starter at quarterback after totaling more than 3,000 yards and 36 touchdowns last season. The 6-foot-4 Mannes, who received a scholarship offer from the Air Force Academy, is back as a matchup nightmare both on defense and at receiver.

And the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Fifita, who has an offer from Washington State University, returns to anchor both sides of the line. Mariner’s Amory Brown tackled by Oak Harbor’s Mac Carr and Isaac Gomez (52) as the Marauders took on the Wildcats in football Sept. 1, 2017, at Goddard Stadium in Everett. Mariner is expected to battle for playoff position this season. (Andy Bronson / The Herald) The league’s middle tier could provide an intriguing battle for postseason spots. In the Wesco 4A preseason coaches poll, there was very little separation between Mariner, Mount Vernon and Jackson for the No.

Assuming the league is once again allotted four postseason berths, that could mean an intriguing battle for the conference’s final Week 10 playoff bid. Mariner will look to bounce back from last year’s 3-6 campaign, which came after graduating numerous key players from its 2016 state-playoff team. Mount Vernon appears to be on the rise under second-year coach Nic Vasilchek, who guided the Bulldogs to a 4-6 record last season after the program suffered back-to-back winless campaigns in 2015 and 2016. Jackson, which ended a four-season playoff drought last year but finished 3-7, is seeking just its second winning season since 2012.

New coaches take over at Kamiak and Cascade. Wesco 4A has a pair of new head coaches in Kamiak’s Bryant Thomas and Cascade’s Jordan Sieh. Thomas replaces former longtime coach Dan Mack — a 2014 inductee into the state football coaches association’s Hall of Fame — who stepped down this past winter after guiding the Knights for 20 seasons. Thomas, who played receiver and defensive back at Washington State University, was an assistant coach at Idaho State University and spent the past five seasons as Auburn Riverside’s head coach. He looks to turn around a Kamiak team that went winless in league play last year.

Sieh, who helped lead Cascade to the 2005 state semifinals as a player, takes over as head coach at his alma mater after spending the past seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Bruins. He replaces Shane Keck, who resigned this past spring after three seasons at the helm. Sieh looks to build on the success of last year’s five-win campaign, which matched the program’s win total from the previous two seasons combined.

ZDNet's David Gewirtz, Jason Perlow, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, and Mac developer Oliver Breidenbach discuss whether there's a future for pro Mac users. And, they did it - in the opinion of this columnist at least - in a tone-deaf, we-don't-really-care-about-pro-users-needs kind of way. Apple holds a big event in the fall where it updates its iPhones and some other stuff.

Sometimes, Apple holds a big event in the spring, where it updates some other stuff. Then, in the early summer, Apple holds WWDC, its, where product intros are a complete wild card. This is important especially for Macs. For buyers of professional-level Macs, which are, this cadence is critical. The last thing anyone wants to do is settle for a vomit-inducingly high-priced Mac and then discover there's a new one, one that you really would have preferred, that's been introduced just a little while later. Ended on June 8.

On July 12, exactly 35 days later, Apple introduced an, a MacBook Pro capable of supporting 32GB of RAM, instead of the paltry 16GB most Macs max out at. Many pros have been waiting for this, literally for years. Developer Tony Pitman expresses it well: 'I specifically waited until after the developer conference to buy a new Mac because that is usually when they announce a new Mac, right? I even waited a week after that just to be sure.' Because Apple doesn't pre-announce products, pro developers like Tony (and me) have to rely on experience to predict when it will be a good time to buy the new equipment we need.

Right after a, when it's disappointingly clear there will be a long cold desert of new pro level products, is the time when we break down and settle for what's on offer. Apple's clearly not updating the Macs this round, right? If they were going to, especially with something like doubling the max capacity of RAM, opening up i9 processors and going up to 6-cores, they would have announced that to their developers, all of whom would have cheered that particular development.

No announcement. Instead, 35 days later - after smart buyers waited long enough to be sure, really, really sure that the new Mac well was dry, Apple dropped a major update. Tony asks, 'Apple knew they were going to do this.

Why couldn't they announce it at the developer conference?' Also: I can't give you an official answer, but I have a pretty good idea. I'm guessing these machines were ready for WWDC, but the supply chain wasn't. I'm guessing that they weren't sure they could ship them in volume, so they held off on the announcement.

Tony (and others who must plan their purchases based on Apple's cadence pattern) is upset. In his case, he would have definitely preferred the more powerful i9 with 32GB RAM, but Apple won't let him return his 28-day old MacBook Pro.

Here's what sucks. Apple allows 14 days to return products. Tony has been to his Apple Store, has called Apple, and has pleaded his case.

Because Apple announced new products two weeks after his 14-day return window, he's stuck with his brand new, out-of-date MacBook Pro. I think Apple's approach is wrong here. What would it take for Apple to update the Mac mini to a modern, professional-level machine? According to David Gewirtz, not much. The new high-end MacBook Pro is specifically a developer and pro machine. Granted, professionals are no longer Apple's primary market (neither is the Mac, for that matter).

But, professionals are the key influencers, the app builders, and the people who truly showcase what Apple products can do. They've been feeling abandoned and generally unloved by Apple since. Now, obviously, any company has a right to introduce products at any time. But Apple isn't any company. It's one of the world's richest, and it has achieved that popularity not just by virtue of its products, but by virtue of what professional developers and media pros have produced using those products. So what should Apple have done? What should Apple do?

Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac 2017

Ideally, Apple would have previewed these new machines at WWDC. It's possible they just weren't sure the supply chain would be successful, but, then again, they were comfortable years before it is going to be available.

Perhaps, for some reason, that just wasn't doable. As a former product manager, I know that you never really, truly know if your product is going to launch until it actually does. What Apple could, and should, do is honor returns of MacBook Pros for anyone who bought them from June 4 (the first day of WWDC on).

Heck, it'd even be okay if Apple required a visit to the Apple Store and provided customers the opportunity to return only if they buy a newer, beefier model. We Apple sells about 1.2 million laptop Macs a month. Of all those Macs, only about 15 percent use pro-level applications at least once a week. In terms of Mac sales, Apple probably sold roughly 180,000 MacBook Pros to pros since WWDC. On one hand, you might say that it would be far too costly for Apple to eat returns on 180,000 machines, but think about it.

Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac 2016

First, only a very small percentage would be like Tony, having spent a bunch of money, but wanting even more capability. Those buyers actually want to spend more money with Apple. Tony is calling all over, trying to get Apple to let him return his 28-day old Mac, so he can give them yet more money. While Apple has had some difficulty moving the volume needle, there's little doubt that if they took in one-month old returns, they'd recoup their investment on either the refurb market or in used sales. There is absolutely no doubt they'd make pro users feel respected and well-treated. 1 - 5 of 12 Occasionally, Apple will say it cares about professional users and developers. It will give lip service to this critically influential audience.

But the company's actions belie those words. The company's actions indicate something else, perhaps a deep disrespect for the needs of pros, or at the very least a lackadaisical focus on professional needs overall. There are reasons to stick with Macs at the pro level. Some software that can increase workflow productivity is only available on Macs. But if Apple continues to take purchasing patronage of professionals for granted, there will be a time when it gets to be too much: too much hassle, too much cost, too much chain yanking and, yes, too much disrespect.

When I talk with Apple execs, they don't show disrespect for professionals. They regularly speak, with pride, of the amazing projects their professional users produce. But they also don't seem to (or even want to) understand just how stressful the relationship with Apple has become for pros.

Also: In a sense, there's nothing new about this. In our ZDNet roundtable, developer talked about how Apple's odd relationship with its power customer has been strained for decades. Yet Apple continues to be successful, and yes, most pros continue to be successful as well.

It's just not a healthy relationship. And that's just sad. It doesn't need to be this way.

Notebook: Plenty Of Talent Returns For Mac Free

Who am I kidding? Those pros who need these things are going to suck it up and buy them up, no matter what. I guess Apple must know that. I'm still thinking about a hackintosh. You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at, on Facebook at, on Instagram at, and on YouTube at.

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