Bad time to sell MP?

Supermacguy said:

Snow Leopard was a big improvement over regular Leopard. I think Snow will be the OS that "hangs on" for a long time.

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"Hangs on" at what percentage? Everything hangs around at relatively small percentages.

Take a look at the chart here ( click on "Overall" -> "Major Version" while in operating system mode ) :

http://update.omnigroup.com/

The sampling is limited just to folks who would buy and report to omnigroup but is aligned with other results.

10.6 is on a steady decline (current graph covers Jan 2012 to now and it has dropped almost in half to 16% in a year.). Lion was a minor hiccup but Apple largely corrected with 10.8. If 10.9 further removes some issues ( wonky Skeuomorphic GUI ) and value added additions ( newer faster drivers ), then 10.6 will drop on an even steeper decline. 10.9 may also trigger an end to security upgrades, but as long as hovering over 10% they may continue a while longer.

Two years is enough time for even the procrastinators to chuck some of the PowerPC stuff they had been clinging to. Folks who need very long term Rosetta need to get 10.6 server and go Virtual Machine.

Sometime in late 2013 it should get to a similar relatively steady state point that Tiger and Leopard are in where it takes several years to move to get as significant declines. If the security updates stop, then it definitely will.

Snow has the more classical UI and doesn't do wonky auto-save and auto-restore.

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Auto-save is largely an application, not OS feature. The library to do it is present in the OS resources provided, but apps don't have to use it.

Auto-restore. If quit apps it makes no difference. If traumatized by it just quit applications explicitly. It is a good, safe practice anyway.

P.S. pre-Tiger reading will fall out of omniware metrics because they'll stop collecting from ancient software that is restricted to OS versions older than what they support with their apps.

P.P.S. The arrival of 10.9 not only bring incremental improvement but it also brings something greater than or equal to 10.8.3. There are significant group that won't move to a 10.x.1 or 10.x.2 of OS X. Usually because it isn't stable enough versus the previous > 10.x-1.3 they are already on. In short, 10.8 should accelerate again now that 10.8.3 is out before it starts to decline.

This stability zone in the calendar is a good reason why Apple probably should move the Mac Pro release zone here. it doesn't have to be exactly the same, but away from the introduction of "new" 10.x+1.1 releases.

I considered buying a second-hand MacPro last year, when I was getting fed up of waiting for the iMac refresh.
I was wondering what kind of MacPro I could get for around the same money, and whether that would be a better or comparable machine.

I noticed the following:

• MPs earlier than 2008 were selling very cheap, because they can't run 10.8.
• 2008 models were also selling cheap, because the hardware is slightly more ancient and the RAM is very expensive.
• Newer, quad-core, base model MPs, whose performance is not that great compared to much newer hardware were also selling cheap.
• 6, 8 and 12-core all sold at good (higher) prices.

(In short, the ones I could afford, I didn't want )

I suspect that after the "new" MP comes out, there will be a glut of MPs on the second-hand market. So prices will be low. However, demand before then is also likely to be low, because people are waiting for the new model.

Given that the new MacMini can compete on CPU-terms with many MPs (yes, graphics, expansion, etc), that is going to affect a lot of sales.

Yes, it's a bad time to sell. But it's not going to get better. I say sell now and get as much as you can for it.

Those graphs are probably the most irrelevant stats I've ever seen. Firstly they state: "We're not going to tell you exactly how many individual users have submitted the information, nor can we place any guarantee on the accuracy of this information. Remember, this is not a poll of the Mac OS X community at large, just a subset of our customer base." and by looking at some of the curves plus considering the (un)popularity of Omni software products I must conclude the number of participants is extremely low. Between 5 and 25 users at most - and probably on the lower end of that.

On top of that, it would be extremely unusual user types participating in this aggregation! And there are no "other results" to aligned to or not... So as usual you're just making stuff up to look right as is your M.O. in every thread I've ever read you participating in.

So, indeed, probably completely useless.

benwiggy said:

I noticed the following:

1. MPs earlier than 2008 were selling very cheap, because they can't run 10.8.
2. 2008 models were also selling cheap, because the hardware is slightly more ancient and the RAM is very expensive.

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Just a note:

1. MP1,1 and MP2,1 can indeed run 10.8 with only a few minor modifications. Do a search for how to install 10.8 on MacPro1,1 and you'll be pleasantly surprised to see it's doable and stable.
2. RAM is not "very expensive" for MP1,1 MP2,1 and MP3,1 machines as rip-off Apple venders would have you think. 32GB for MP1,1 and MP2,1 is $280 to $320. And add $30 to $50 to that for MP3,1.

Tesselator said:

[*]MP1,1 and MP2,1 can indeed run 10.8 with only a few minor modifications. Do a search for how to install 10.8 on MacPro1,1 and you'll be pleasantly surprised to see it's doable and stable.
[*]RAM is not "very expensive" for MP1,1 MP2,1 and MP3,1 machines as rip-off Apple venders would have you think. 32GB for MP1,1 and MP2,1 is $280 to $320. And add $30 to $50 to that for MP3,1.
[/LIST]

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Yes, you may be able to find RAM for a 2008 MP at a reasonable price, and get 10.8 running on it.

My point is that these are the reasons people aren't buying these machines: They don't run 10.8 out of the box; they use RAM that is based on an older technology and is increasingly scarce and costly.
This makes them less of an investment for anyone wanting a secondhand MP that will do decent work for a good few years.

There are many more attractive options than a 2008 MP at the moment. If you're trying to sell one, it's going to go cheap. If you want to pick up an old workhorse, then yeah, knock yourself out.

benwiggy said:

Yes, you may be able to find RAM for a 2008 MP at a reasonable price, and get 10.8 running on it.

My point is that these are the reasons people aren't buying these machines...

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Ah... yeah, i see. And you're right from what I've seen too.

PowerPCMacMan said:

Not to mention there are things 10.8 can do that 10.6 can't (iCloud saving, better graphics drivers

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Most new graphics drivers work as well under snow.

Tesselator said:

On top of that, it would be extremely unusual user types participating in this aggregation! And there are no "other results" to aligned to or not...

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Oh like .....


http://www.netmarketshare.com/

Select Desktop OS by version. And get

"...
Market Share of Mac OS X 10.8 2.61%
Market Share of Mac OS X 10.6 1.97%
Market Share of Mac OS X 10.7 1.93%
..."

Where 10.7 + 10.8 are cleary dominate over 10.6 ?

or the drill down into 10.6 from there which show steady decline from 3% to 2%.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Mac+OS+X+10.6&qpcustomb=0

or the spike and decline of 10.7

http://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Mac+OS+X+10.7&qpcustomb=0

or the spike and overall steady incline of 10.8

http://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Mac+OS+X+10.8&qpcustomb=0


There are several public sources that measure the overall market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems



There are several more private ( for pay or confidential access ) sources too.

The sampling isn't super precise but it that far off either.


Anyone who looks in the MacApp store will see that OmniGraffle Pro is right now the top 19 grossing paid app in the store. OminiPaln is 33. regular OmniGraffer 40. OmniFocus 57 .

In the top 60 who else besides Apple has more entries?

So as usual you're just making stuff up to look right as is your M.O. in every thread I've ever read you participating in.

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I think you are looking in the mirror and confused about what you are looking at.

Dnix said:

I should have sold last year. But I went back and forth so many times, on whether I was keeping it. Now that I've come to my FINAL conclusion, the used market is piss poor.

I may just go ahead.

PS what's going on in this thread. Bunch of people arguing over which version of OS X is better, lol.

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Just browsed at eBay on Mac Pros. I see many 2008 2.8ghz MPs and not much on 2009 2.93ghz models. Might be a good chance your model may attract interests.