The specs of my laptops become irrelevant before the battery swells
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Mac mini and studio comprise 1% of Mac sales
- Thread starter thebart
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These numbers don't seem realistic. Compare with January 2023 vs March 2024
iMac 13% vs 4%
MacPro 11% vs 3%
Mac Mini 1% vs 1%
Mac Studio 1% vs 1%
Macbook Air 34% 39%
Macbook Pro 40% 51%
Given all of the complaints about the new MacPro it is hard to believe that it had 8% growth.
I wouldn't suggest that is the case. I know a lot of people who have macbooks that spend all day plugged into a dell monitor.
I have more Mac Minis in my business than any other Mac. Cheap to replace and result in very little waste. BYODKM. Only those on the move have a MacBook, and they’re all Airs (Pro previously, but the M series is now More than capable for our needs). Still using 24” and 27” Cinema displays as they seem to last forever. When they die I suppose we’ll move to studio displays. We love a desktop workstation.
MacBook Pro and MacBook Air overwhelmingly drive Apple Mac sales
New research claims to have details on exactly how dominant MacBook Pro and MacBook Air sales are, versus desktop contemporaries.appleinsider.com
I figured it was single digit but didn't think it'd be 1%. It also says Mac pro makes up 3%, which is also surprising.
I'd believe that.
the mini and studio need to be a bit more than basically a MacBook Air/Pro without a screen.
Most people want laptops these days anyway.
The reason I'd buy a mini/studio:
Cheap access to an M-Pro/Max with a decent cooling system (i.e., can run sustained workload with no/minimal fan noise) at a reasonable price.
It would also be nice to have some sort of capacity for internal drive expansion. Don't need much, but even a single SATA drive bay or m.2 slot would be nice.
the problem apple has at the moment with the desktop form factor is that they're just basically the same MacBook Pro chips in a desktop. There's little point.
The base price of the Mac Pro went up by 17% with the release of the 2023 model. So if these figures are by value rather than by unit, who knows?
But then, if data like this doesn't even say what it means by "sales" (counting sales by value/revenue rather than unit is quite common, which is why you need to state which it is) then it should be sent back to the student with "Units!? C-" scrawled on it in red biro and otherwise ignored. Not publishing the methodology sends it straight into the trash bin. Knowing that Apple doesn't release this data, so by inference this excludes any sales from the Apple online and physical stores (which offer the most complete range of models and CTO upgrades) means you should then immediately empty the trash...
Junk data is junk data - it doesn't serve to prove or disprove anything.
Except they are - they include extra ports, including things like ethernet that you don't get on a MBP, and the Studio is available with the M2 Ultra (which, presumably will be bumped to M3 Ultra - we'll have to wait to see how that plays out) which isn't available in laptop form. They're probably quieter under load than the laptops, too (discuss).
What has changed is that - short of the M2 Ultra option - with Apple Silicon, MacBook Pros can have virtually the same CPU/GPU power as desktops, whereas with Intel the desktops used higher-power chips. So now, it really does come down to the form factor you prefer, port count and what type of screen you want.
If you don't want mobility, and want something bigger than a 15-16" screen, or a choice of keyboard then a desktop still does the job better and more neatly. You can get a Mini/Studio and third party display for significantly less than the price of the corresponding laptop - and if you were going to need a large/expensive display to go with your laptop anyway, the desktops become a lot cheaper.
However, if you do need mobility then a laptop is rapidly becoming the preferred option and the need to get a desktop for performance is diminishing - even with PC/Intel, laptops are becoming more and more capable and computing is moving back towards something like the old client/server model, where the "server" can be in the cloud, or a big ugly box in a rack down in the basement. I don't think Apple can buck this trend.
Yes, that would be nice - but backwards-looking, now we have fast external connections for HD etc. SATA isn't quite dead yet, but it's on the way out. What would be nicer is if the Mac Pro wasn't so hugely expensive (and huge - even the Intel version struck me as grotesquely over-engineered and under-designed) because a mini-tower with a bit of internal expansion would still be useful (even if its not the future). I think Apple's problem is that the internal PCIe in the Mac Pro relies on the second "die" in the Mx Ultra chip to add the extra PCIe capacity, so they couldn't do a Mx Max version. Also, I suspect they're running down the "Mac Pro" line, hence they recycled the old Mac Pro enclosure.
If you own five computers then by definition my comment doesn’t apply to you as I clearly stated my comment was about people who buy one computer at a time.
I would have thought at least 5-7% each for the Mini and Studio.
Hard to believe the Mac Pro outsells both of them combined.
Guess I'll take these figures with kpluck's "grain of salt".
Agree with macuros above -- I've come to really like the "Mini" form factor. I've had a 2012, the 2018 I'm using today, and will be looking for either an m3pro or m4pro when (and if) they get released.
picpic observes:
"The day of the desktop is almost over."
Maybe for you, sir, but not for me.
I'll be sitting here in front of a desktop until I topple over.
But I also have a MacBook Pro 14" for downstairs.
Hard to believe the Mac Pro outsells both of them combined.
Guess I'll take these figures with kpluck's "grain of salt".
Agree with macuros above -- I've come to really like the "Mini" form factor. I've had a 2012, the 2018 I'm using today, and will be looking for either an m3pro or m4pro when (and if) they get released.
picpic observes:
"The day of the desktop is almost over."
Maybe for you, sir, but not for me.
I'll be sitting here in front of a desktop until I topple over.
But I also have a MacBook Pro 14" for downstairs.
True, but a current maxed out model tops out at ~$12K vs the old Intel model at over $50K.
I'm skeptical about that 1%. The mini gets its share of real estate at Best buy and Costco
But if the mini and studio make up such miniscule sales., then Apple won't mind making it easy to expand memory and storage, right? Throw the 1% a freaking bone?
/s
But if the mini and studio make up such miniscule sales., then Apple won't mind making it easy to expand memory and storage, right? Throw the 1% a freaking bone?
/s
Agreed. Given the option, I will always use a desktop for serious work and heavy lifting - even if, in some cases, it’s because I prefer the screen real estate that a Studio Display offers me. I used to augment that with a laptop. But, in recent years, I have found that iPads can handle secondary duty for me just fine. I had a 14-inch MBP with M1 Pro chip for a while and found I hardly used it.
I keep reading this over and over..
Cheap to "replace"
Results in "very little waste"
🧐😅
2 computers (should be 3) are for doing tasks some sort of IoT, but if we talk about the computers that I use, then my third computer is a laptop that I only use when I'm out of my house.
I don't like laptops for work or gaming, I prefer desktops.
for myself, I desktop like installations, much more ergonomically friendly than just using a laptop. I enjoy multiple larger displays, set up a little further away and slightly higher up, a a full keyboard with a number entry pad, slightly lower than the desktop, And a trackpad or mouse, to the side of the keyboard. If I’m gonna be working on it for hours on end, I find an installation like this much more comfortable than a laptop, with the display attached to a keyboard and a track pad directly below the keyboard.
I could have such an installation with a laptop with just all the peripherals plugged in. But the purchase price would be higher, and I would be concerned for lifetime would be less. Having a battery unit plugged in for years at a time cannot be a good thing for reliability.
As for the 1% Mac mini and Mac studio sale numbers: I say interesting, but not very believable. I thought someone previously on MR posted Amazon or Best Buy sales figure for Mac computers, And those numbers were very different. Also, I was under the impression that a large portion of Mac mini sales were bulk sales for server farm like installations. While I understand the bulk of the sales are directly from Apple, and are not reported publicly. I find it hard to believe that they would be that different from sales reported by resellers.
I could have such an installation with a laptop with just all the peripherals plugged in. But the purchase price would be higher, and I would be concerned for lifetime would be less. Having a battery unit plugged in for years at a time cannot be a good thing for reliability.
As for the 1% Mac mini and Mac studio sale numbers: I say interesting, but not very believable. I thought someone previously on MR posted Amazon or Best Buy sales figure for Mac computers, And those numbers were very different. Also, I was under the impression that a large portion of Mac mini sales were bulk sales for server farm like installations. While I understand the bulk of the sales are directly from Apple, and are not reported publicly. I find it hard to believe that they would be that different from sales reported by resellers.
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Totally agreed with you, that's why if I had a mac, that would be my fifth computer.
Actually I had to buy a gaming laptop just for the nvidia GPU, now that Apple has killed non apple video cards, the decision about getting a mac, has worsen for the people that want a good video card, specially now that nvidia is the equivalent of "google" in video cards for multiple purposes not just gaming.
Why? And which resellers? Apple offer all the options (and makes it easy to configure a system), which you can't always find at resellers - on the other hand resellers regularly have special offers on the popular whereas Apple rarely do. Large supermarket chains may sell MacBook Airs by the truckload, but probably don't even offer Mac Pros (and if they do, are unlikely to have them in stock)... Buying a new laptop - I'd want to go into a store and try the keyboard, display etc. Buying a Mac Mini - it's the same aluminium box as 12 years ago. There's no reason to think the profile of Apple Store sales will be the same as Kwik-E-Mart.
Yeah, exactly this. I have no doubt whatsoever that laptops outsell desktops by a good amount. But 1% seems absurd to me. I'm not sure why Apple would continue to produce them. It's more likely this undisclosed methodology is better at detecting laptops than desktops.
If you care about gaming, then you wouldn't be using a mac at all.
Yes!
And now it's obvious why mini, Studio and Mac Pro are last in line for the latest chip.
-Apple is always making sure that there are more than plenty of its latest SoC for iPhones, then MBPs, then MBAs, then iMac, and then Mac Pro, mini and Studio can get the scraps.
Apple has only done minor tweaks on the Mac minis design since 2012 (or even further back?) so r&d costs are extremely low just upgrading the SoC and a few other internals for every new refresh.
This means big profit margins for Apple.
And while Mac Studio's design is a lot newer, I doubt Apple will do anything with the design and I/O over the next 5-10 years. It's probably also just getting spec bumps and nothing else. Big profit margins, little effort on Apple's part.
Same goes for Mac Pro. Quite the old design. But it's still a decent design. And paired with new internals, some while find it a good buy and Apple will love saving on r&d.
Plus, selling someone on a $599-ish Mac might be a gateway to having them buy an iPhone or other Apple devices.
(Roughly,) the figures definitely check out.
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