In 2017, there was a round-table discussion billed as "a small roundtable discussion about the Mac", including Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi and John Ternus from Apple and Matthew Panzarino, Lance Ulanoff, Ina Fried, John Paczkowski and John Gruber. This was in connection with the Mac Pro debacle.
In that discussion, Phil Schiller said the following (summarised):
- 15% of Mac users used a pro app regularly
- 15% used a pro app less frequently (a few times a month)
which leads to
In this context a pro app was defined as applications for things like music creation, video editing, graphic design and software development. Your usual suspects. I don't think the percentages of changed much since then.
Of those 70% who never use a performance insensitive application, a lot of them would be satisfied with a Neo. This is especially true when one takes price into the account. A lot of casual users are willing to sacrifice a few things for getting a decent computer at a good price instead of getting a great computer at a high price.
The same type of users from the Windows PC/Chromebook world are also potential buyers.
That's the markets Apple now have a competitive model in.
Do I think every user of MBA will buy a Neo in the future? No. Do I think huge percentages of Windows users or Chromebook users will switch? No.
If Apple gets 3% of people who are going to buy a Windows machine or a Chromebook in 2026 to buy a Mac instead, it would represent something like 4 million users and would be a huge success.
If Apple sells 5 million of the MacBook Neo in the first year to both current Mac users and others, it would be a success.
Source:
https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
