M
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
U.S. Mac Sales Surge in January as iMac Orders Pick up Steam
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm not surprised. Demand is high for the new iMacs. A lot of people on MacRumors want to complain that Apple isn't meeting their current 'buying criteria' of more power but the truth of the matter is Apple Inc. is filled with smart minds that know society changes, and so does 'buying criteria.'
Not only are iMac's more powerful, but they are thinner, lighter, simpler and more essentialwhich is what society wants in a desktop machine going forward. Our buying criteria is more influenced by laptops and tablets than anything else.
I talk about buying criteria in my latest podcast.
if you want to learn about it and how businesses use it as an innovation strategy.
Maybe I'm missing something but doesn't the surge of new iMac purchase come from the fact that...ugh...a new iMac was released? I don't see any prove that people necessarily buy the new iMac because it is thinner/lighter. I'd say it is because people simply waited for the new refreshed iMac to show up...
By your logic, AiO should be selling en masse. They don't. So no: society as a whole doesn't really want lighter/thinner as a desktop.
You know: critical thinking and all that...
Like for example, I like the idea of the different colors in iPods vs just black and white for iPhone. I thought adding the color white alone when 3GS came out was cool, since it was tiring seeing the same black iPhone in everyone's hands.
I think adding every color for iMac will be weird (e.g. pink?) but having the option to choose black or white will be nice.
Well it's obvious to many of us
consumers want skinnier computers with a hump (bootie) in the back
Do they have a choice?
----------
Thanks for pointing that out, I have a friend who'll need a refurb.
When one owns no legacy devices or media of a given type, one does not need the corresponding port. (shrug)
I can understand people complaining about the lack of a DVD/Blu-ray drive in a laptop, but with a desktop machine, just buy an external USB drive. The computer is always going to be sitting on your desk. It's not going anywhere. All you have to do is plug it in when you need it, and put it up when you don't.
And you get the added benefit of easy replacement if something goes wrong with it. You don't have to take it to the local Apple store and wait 2 days for them to replace the drive for you.
----------
Life's great when it works out in your favor, huh?
It also kinda sucks when it doesn't.
Exactly the opposite... If people buy desktop machines with laptop components inside, soldered RAM, etc. it only tells him that they can make profit without bothering too much about a real desktop with desktop specs.
Not that I'm upgrading my 2011 anytime soon, but if I did, I'd have to use the Thunderbolt to Firewire 2.0 dongle to connect to a Firewire 2.0 to Firewire 1.0 dongle that I use to connect old Firewire drives and my original iPod.
Nice sales for Apple. I wonder how many of these are new Mac buyers?
Apple should hurry and get that Mac Pro update out the door. I bet it is going to sell a lot more than Apple and other folks think it will. Especially if there are some nice design features or if Apple keeps the price reasonable and includes a powerful graphics card option.
----------
Well the iMac is very powerful. Very few people need any particular amount of power from their computers. So laptop specs are more than sufficient.
But I can't wait for the Mac Pro to come out. Apple needs a big bad and made in America beast of a computer. Just some screaming PC that blows everything short of the big custom rigs out of the water.
Nice sales for Apple. I wonder how many of these are new Mac buyers?
Apple should hurry and get that Mac Pro update out the door. I bet it is going to sell a lot more than Apple and other folks think it will. Especially if there are some nice design features or if Apple keeps the price reasonable and includes a powerful graphics card option.
----------
Well the iMac is very powerful. Very few people need any particular amount of power from their computers. So laptop specs are more than sufficient.
But I can't wait for the Mac Pro to come out. Apple needs a big bad and made in America beast of a computer. Just some screaming PC that blows everything short of the big custom rigs out of the water.
My point exactly: few people need a very powerful machine but that doesn't mean these few people aren't out there. I am one of them. I do heavy graphic programming and the whole Apple line of computers at the moment just doesn't cut it.
Unfortunately (or fortunately for me!), I have a lot of work that can't wait. What did I do? I bought a PC and I turbo-charged it with 4 graphic cards, 64GB RAM and several TB of HD with a Windows 8 Pro (which I'm starting to like, by the way). It doesn't have OS X which I like even better but at the end of the day, I can code in C/C++ on my new machine, use 3D packages and my work is done faster that any current Apple machine could enable me to.
I'm an Apple fan, for sure... but I'm not a blind fan and I start to be tired of all this "thin, thinner, thinnest" crap. I wouldn't mind my iPhone 5 to be a little thicker and for the battery to last me the whole day, a larger iMac that has the specs I need, etc.
Apple choses its customers and who they want to serve. Now, to me, it looks like it's the "facebook-using crowd" they care about as they are not caring for the pros... You know... ...those guys who kept the faith in Apple during the rough years.
Well your paying more for the new iMac without one than you were for one with a DVD drive. Don'y pay attention much do you.
The new iMacs cost far less to make and far less to ship yet they are still charging the same if not more depending country.
That argument holds a lot less water with cases like this.
First, there really isn't much Firewire equipment still being made. If you're one of the niche-within-a-niche that has some, odds are you just buy a different computer that supports it, OR buy one of the hubs that supports it! For virtually everybody in the buying population, the existence of a Firewire port is pure sunk cost. If this was 2004 for example and consumer video cameras still used Firewire fairly often, you'd have something there. But it's 2013 and there are no consumer video cameras anymore. (Just prosumer and pro, really. That's how it is when our phones shoot 1080p video. And the best camera is the one you have with you.)
Second, optical media remains a bit more widespread, it's true. But DVD players have cost less than lunch for two at Chipotle for half a decade or more. You can get an external blu-ray burner even now for less than the cost of a tank of gas. Again, if this was 2008 and DVD ripping was a much bigger part of the computing culture, you'd have something there. But for a significant majority of the buying population, an optical drive is pure sunk cost, and for the rest, it's a TRIVIAL add-on. You yourself said it, in the case of a desktop computer you just plug one in. It may break the feng shui of a user's immaculate TRON-Legacy-style minimalist desk, but by definition the folks in that demographic aren't the same as the ones clinging to legacy media.
I do have a BR burner because I do rip media from time to time. But most of the time that drive serves as a pedestal for my phone charger and little else. I'm under no illusions as to how "necessary" it is, and I don't think it needs to be present in my next Mac. (My cMBP has a DVDRW that has never been used.)
I never said people were ONLY buying for thinner/lighter. People buy for a mix of benefits. Just like a car, you may buy a car because of 1. Gets you from A to B, 2. Luxury design 3. Powerful engine, 4. Great driving experience, 5. iPhone compatible, etc. Buying criteria mixes together. And it's something to be carefully considered when innovating/designing/building a product or service. You have to observe societies needs and how value is perceived today vs. yesterday.
So if anything I'm saying mixing thinner/lighter with other criteria (power, HD speed, etc) is filling the needs as they exist in flux. Needs never stay exactly the same (you don't need a computer with floppy, and processor speed may be less of a priority in your purchasing needs now as they would have been 10 years ago).
And with buying criteria, it tends to piss people off when they're buying criteria isn't met ("No DVD drive?" "No high-level gaming video card?").
I was simply saying I'm not surprised that millions of Americans don't mind or are in need of the new iMacs given the direction of innovation (ie. tablets and Airs don't have DVD drives).
Thank you, on point and respectful. I'm with you, and there are more of us than just a "few", however not many want to admit such a fact.
Also: imagine the future (20-50 years from now). I'm imagining all computers to essentially be screens (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop). If that is our future then society most likely does want that, eliminating the bulk of things (just display, inner components being flat). I think the iMac is an example of movement in that direction.
Fact is, we all waited so long for the refresh...I love my new iMac, but boy did they make us wait...A lot of the sales are folks who waited patiently for the upgrades.
The slot-loading DVD drives found in previous iMacs and Mac minis were unreliable and slow.
And I don't think it's even Apple's fault for choosing cheap drives, faster and higher quality slot-loading drives probably don't even exist since it's a dying media and I doubt any company is working to improve slot-loading DVD drives.
And I don't think it's even Apple's fault for choosing cheap drives, faster and higher quality slot-loading drives probably don't even exist since it's a dying media and I doubt any company is working to improve slot-loading DVD drives.
So far, sales disagree with you.
And thankfully so.
Seriously, stop whining about it, let go of the past, and just buy an external drive already.
If they remove the dvd drive then logically speaking the price should have gone down and not up.
New welding process is reportedly complex, and there is also the problem with yields, so the cost of removing the super drive has most likely been offset and then some at the manufacturing level, which of course would be temporary until these processes have become more streamlined and ironed out. I expect prices for iMacs to drop back to traditional pricing in time.
See, I'd turn that around. If you only use optical media once in a while, which I think is the case for most of us, the small hit to utility is worth the savings on weight/size on a laptop. But with a desktop, who cares if it's a little heavier/larger? It's not going anywhere. The hit to utility, however small, is to gain... What exactly?
agreed.. The only time I've used mine is to burn CD's for my gf's car, who will be upgrading her vehicle soon.