Lack of Hardware Updates Leading to Lighter-Than-Expected Quarterly Mac Sales

[marmotmammal]

Waiting for the new MBP is daunting. It's been a long wait and there's no solid confirmation in sight for new releases. The current models are pretty bad, at least for video editing: outdated and no Blu-Ray. We're coming up to a year on FCPX, and how can FCPX progress if laptops have FCP7 technology?

More RAM, more VRAM, SSD, Tbolt, etc., can speed along FCPX and prepare the app for future versions. Granted the optical drive will probably be canned, but at least consider updating DVD Studio Pro to Blu-Ray Pro (since Toast 11 reportedly sucks), and that requires improved laptop guts.

Conversely, current MBP prices on the used market are horribly high. New Apple laptops will adjust the price scheme across-the-board, pushing used MBPs down to realistic levels.

 

[iamkarlp]

One more thing about Lion: it feels slower. I recently had to add a small Snow Leopard partition in order to use the ClearScan feature in Acrobat 9 (Adobe only support it on Acrobat X with 10.7 but I don't use it often enough to justify the expense).
If you have been using Lion for a while, try running a Snow Leopard partition for kicks. It's that much faster. Boot time, time spent for opening files. I have yet to compare render speeds or something like it, the overall feel just reminds me of the difference I experienced when I first used a Mac. Everything worked instantly while with Windows you always had that .2 sec lag and the dreadful thought in the back of your head that everything might just crash. Lion brought that back.
Oh and memory leaks. Safari 14.5 GB web content ram usage? No problem!
Sadly, I don't have the time to fully convert back to 10.6 but I hope, and I really hope, that 10.8 will be better.

There is something wrong with your install then.

I have at least 2 or 3 dozen Lion machines of various vintages under my direct supervision, and all of them, bar none, had a noticeable 15~20% speed up and battery life extension over there leopard/snow leopard state.

The only exception was improper upgrades. Fresh install + migration assistant is needed in almost all cases.

Lion, while having a few little issues, is pretty loved around here.

Karl P

PS: I should add that we are running it bound to Active Directory, and using it to talk to various servers, in a professional environment, etc. It hasn't given us much trouble. But we maintain our network to "current" standards in order to make everything play together as nice as possible.

 

[MattInOz]

License Apple License your crappy OS.

Not understanding....
If Crappy...
Why would people want to buy it?

 

[Comeagain?]

There is something wrong with your install then.

I have at least 2 or 3 dozen Lion machines of various vintages under my direct supervision, and all of them, bar none, had a noticeable 15~20% speed up and battery life extension.

The only exception was improper upgrades. Fresh install + migration assistant is needed in almost all cases.

Lion, while having a few little issues, is pretty loved around here.

Karl P

No, there is not something necessarily wrong. I have a fresh install of SL, Lion, and ML, all on an external drive, and Lion is the slowest of the three.

 

[Comeagain?]

License Apple License your crappy OS.

How does this increase hardware sales? Ultimately, that's what Apple sells. Hardware.

 

[3282868]

No, there is not something necessarily wrong. I have a fresh install of SL, Lion, and ML, all on an external drive, and Lion is the slowest of the three.

Agreed:

"Snow Leopard" and "Lion" comparison on 12-Core Mac Pro

 

[Yamcha]

I'm sure the reason we haven't seen updates is because Apple is waiting on Ivy-Bridge..

 

[yanksrock100]

Retina...display...macbook pro or air...

Thats how you get some sales up!

 

[gramirez2012]

License Apple License your crappy OS.

That would kill their hardware sales even more.

 

[ericinboston]

"Lack of Hardware Updates Leading to Lighter-Than-Expected Quarterly Mac Sales"

Ya think? Apple releases new Macs about every 12-16 months unlike the rest of the world that releases new personal computer models/lines more frequently AS WELL AS DISCOUNTS later in the year as the models grow old.

I still think Apple is in a big identity crisis...they should either kill the Mac or greatly embrace it. For the past 5+ years it's just been in kind of limbo with lame 3 models of desktops, 3 laptops, and 1 "mini" that is greatly overpriced unless you already own a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I'm **NOT** saying the Macs are lame, I'm saying the few choice of Macs is lame.

Apple will gladly take your money for their profits of overly-sexy-looking machines that do 100% of what PCs do for 1/2 the price (maybe technical performance differs by 20% at best)...90% of consumers out there use their "personal computers" for web-based stuff and the 2-3 rare thick clients like iTunes, MS Office, and maybe a photo organizer program.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

All I know is that this will be the first iMac and MBP that I've had longer than two years without an upgrade.

I just have found no reason to upgrade yet and apparently....neither has Apple.

 

[twoodcc]

apple needs to update all the macs across the board

 

[ghettochris]

here's how it will go: quartery results have bad mac sales numbers, stock drops, I and other smart people buy, then new mac comes out and stock shoots up. Maybe a good time to sell before, but might be other record numbers in quartery results so who knows if it will drop. but if it does, good time to buy!

 

[scottsjack]

Nah. It's the "iPad is the new PC" era.

Nah. It's the "people who really need to use PCs still use them but we'll come up with yet another elitist, new paradigm-sounding advertizing slogan like "post-PC" in order to convince some of the faithful (of our 8% of the market slice) that it they really want to be where it's at they'll have to have to buy an iPad".

Desktops are great. iPads are great. Laptops are great. "Post-PC" is just on-stage BS.

 

[Apple Corps]

Smart people are waiting on Ivy Bridge.

Others, equally smart or smarter, are buying now as needed. Ivy Bridge will not bring any huge gains in performance...

 

[GearDriven]

There's little reason to upgrade right now. My 2009 MBP 13" does everything I need in mobile. The things it doesn't do aren't really remedied with the newer ones. I walked into an Apple store and bought it. I upgraded the RAM to 8gb that night and it's been solid since. With an SSD it would be on par with everything out today for most of my needs.

If I walk into an apple store I can get a 13" MBA with 2GB of memory (no upgrade) and 100 lines less of vertical resolution.

Or the 2009 MBP could be upgraded for the 2011... (13" is my preferred form factor.)

2009/2011

Display: 1280x800 / 1280x800
Media: DVDs / DVDs
Processor: 2.26 C2D / 2.4 i5 (never really peg this on my mobile computer...)
HDD: 160GB / 500GB old fashioned mechanical HDD. SSD SKU??
Looks: Same
Battery: Same
Weight: Same
Dimensions: Same
Bluetooth: Same
WiFi: Same
OS: Snow Leopard>Lion

Reasons to maybe upgrade: FaceTime HD Camera and SD XC support...not really worth an upgrade. Graphics have seen a nice boost, but I don't really use my MBP for gaming. And Thunderbolt? Still waiting for it to be useful/ relevant.

Is it any wonder I don't feel the need to rush out and upgrade? I'm really looking forward to an update that really brings something new. It's hard to look at my MBP screen after the New iPad...

 

[lilo777]

All I know is that this will be the first iMac and MBP that I've had longer than two years without an upgrade.

I just have found no reason to upgrade yet and apparently....neither has Apple.

There is one big difference between you two. You can keep using your Macs for 10 more years without upgrading but if Apple delays upgrades for 10 more years - they will go bankrupt.

 

[iSee]

The stated reason (lack of updates) doesn't really make sense to me:
Going by the buyers guide, only the Mac Pro and iMac are overdue for updates...

That seems to be perpetually true of the Mac Pro and at any given time there's usually *something* overdue. As a desktop, the iMac is relatively less significant than the lappies.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I agree, Snow Leopard was better. I don't like being on old operating systems when applications require the newer version. I am trying to deal with Lion.

 

[entatlrg]

Delays from Intel and not wanting anything to take the light off the newly released iPad just yet are the reasons I'd guess.

 

[Vantage Point]

Perhaps if Apple would drop the prices of aging product lines as their costs drop, like every other electronics manufacturer, then sales, would be more constant. Why spend full price for last years models. This is something that I never liked about apple - value is only good at the beginning of the product cycle (also their price for upgrades like RAM are just ludicrous)

 

[Husky1992]

Perhaps if Apple would drop the prices of aging product lines as their costs drop, like every other electronics manufacturer, then sales, would be more constant. Why spend full price for last years models. This is something that I never liked about apple - value is only good at the beginning of the product cycle (also their price for upgrades like RAM are just ludicrous)

that's to keep used products cost high, which is a good thing

 

[a0me]

Others, equally smart or smarter, are buying now as needed. Ivy Bridge will not bring any huge gains in performance...

Others like me don't really care that much about performance increase and are waiting for one the following:
1) MacBook Air with bigger screen (15-inch) and more storage (512GB)
2) MacBook Pro without an optical drive (lighter) and with a flash storage option (ala MacBook Air)
3) Buying the current MacBook Air or Pro model now, just before a major update means that your machine will get obsolete that much faster, which is a problem if you like to use your Mac for more than a couple of years

 

[balconycollapse]

Ivy Bridge will be great for mobile, yawn for desktop!

I'm a computer science student and was working on a group project today with several computer engineering students. We were discussing the new architecture and spent some time reading over the specs for Ivy Bridge. It looks like the new processors will give 5-10% performance boosts but most importantly use about 1/2 the power of the Sandy Bridge chipsets (i3,i5, i7). This reduced power consumption is due to the new tri-gate transistor technology.

As someone who really wants an 11" Air to take around campus but was sorely disappointed in the real world 3 hour battery life and who can't get programming done on an iPad I am looking forward to an 11" Air with 7 hours of battery life or more. However, I don't see a reason to upgrade my i5 quad core iMac as the power consumption is of little importance and the performance boost of the Ivy Bridge chipset won't be that significant.

Also in the article we were reading it said that due to excessive stock of sandy bridge chips Intel was purposefully delaying the Ivy Bridge release.

 

[yeah]

Doesn't Apple have the option to get the Ivy Bridge processors faster then other PC vendors? (I mean by "bribing" Intel to get the chips faster)