If you think a bit further than sales percentages you should understand that the IMac is importortant to Apple. All in one is taking over for tower pc's. 2012 is the year were AIO sells more than regular desktops. Apple is the leader of that market. In addition it's the machine most Mac people buy in addition to mobile laptops to work on. Millions buy it. Just the fact that iPhones etc sells a lot doesn't mean apple doesn't understand that if they stop making the computers it will kill sales all across their product lineup. Like me I have bought 4 iPhones since my last iMac, no wonder it sells a lot. But I would probably be more hesitant to apple products if I could not have a workstation with OSX.
Tower PCs will always exist as a niche market, at least for gamers. And low-end tower PCs may also continue to exist, as they are much cheaper than all-in-ones. But all-in-ones may well replace the mainstream tower PCs.
However, if you look at the figures, desktop Macs sales dropped from 1.27 million units in Q4 2011 to only 968,000 units in Q4 2012. Not even a million units sold during the whole quarter.
There are several reasons that may explain this steep decline. One of them is that iMacs were outdated machines and didn't get an update in over a year, therefore having less appeal than they had a year ago. But, in addition to that, there is the indeniable truth that the desktops are being replaced by laptops and other mobile solutions. The iMac is increasingly becoming less popular. It's not irrelevant, of course, but it may become one day.
Look at the Mac Pro, for instance: as sales dropped, Apple started to update it less frequently. Although the Mac Pro remains an important platform for several useres, Apple doesn't seem to care so much about it.
The fact that apple makes a huge state of the art update to the iMac now proves its still an important product to them.
It's still an important product.
But if you look back, this is the first redesign of the iMac in more than three years. Prior to that, the longest the iMac took to be redesigned was 26 months, and the average time was about 1 year and a half.
It's still important, but not as it used to be, huh?
Most likely the Mac Pro as well is an important product to apple. not financially but to keep developers staying in the apple Eco system. I only suspect that apple feels that the desktops have reached a peak and its not necessary to update them as often as before. But they will keep doing it still - until most people don't see any point for them to exists anymore
It should be. I'm not sure, though, as Apple is not updating the specs as it used to do.
