Apple Didn't Release Any New Macs This Quarter for First Time Since 2000

[theinsaneworld]

Macbook buyers aren't a single, monolithic entity. There are some who buy a new one every year. Others are on a different cycle, so the lack of a new model this year creates a bit of a problem for them... buy a year-old model, or wait until next year to buy the new model.


Do you have any data to back up that claim?

The vast majority of individual MBP buyers are not buying a new one every year. I’d wager less than 1% are annually upgrading a several thousand dollar laptop. Institutional buyers, which I work for one, are ok with a year old model, that is frankly still one of the best laptops on the market. Heck, they are still purchasing 2 year old Dells. Those that didn’t purchase already and don’t need will wait for a refresh. Those that need a new laptop right now, will still be getting a great laptop.

That all being said - Apple will ship them when they’re ready. I work in supply chain and it’s still a mess. TVs that were announced at CES were released later than usual this year. Plenty of other products that rely on chips has similar issues. This article makes it seems like there aren’t really any external factors at play. The effects of the pandemic will take at least another year to clear and frankly, the Covid outbreak in China shows how much we still have to go. These aren’t normal times and this stuff already operated on extended time horizons without the pandemic.

 

[Realityck]

The fourth quarter of 2022 this week becomes the first with no new Mac models in 22 years as previously anticipated devices like the next-generation MacBook Pro and Mac Pro models have apparently been pushed out to 2023.

Why would they release MacBook Pro model just a year later? This has been the worst rumor to constantly post articles about. So many other macs that weren’t mentioned and yes the Mac Pro is the worst example to predict as much as people want. So what’s missing really that could have happened this last quarter? Why updates for the Mac Mini of course. Larger/smaller MBA would have been nice. A incremental update for the 24” iMac, as well as a larger iMac.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Maybe the demand is just not there. After all, they know their own market. So, a pause seems justified and they can reallocate resources to areas where there is a need for production. 2020 and the pandemic boost sales a lot and I am sure many like myself who bought an M1 model are just not in the rush to upgrade anytime soon. Sure, the 0.1% representation of enthusiast particularly on this forum who upgrade every chance they get are too tiny. The low hanging fruit of those on Intel likely have upgraded and those remaining will likely be the target as well those who might have jumped on first gen Apple Silicon.

 

[james2538]

And a ton of people complained about the cadence and the lack of improvement “obsoleting” what they just purchased. An annual upgrade isn’t “needed”, especially with the fact that last years’ version still is a beast. Most of the buyers that were waiting for that M-series generation of the MBP already bought it in the last year.

Once again... not everyone is upgrading from the M1. You still have a ton of Apple users still on Intel Hardware.

 

[BlueGhost]

My guess is delay is due to double ordering of prior generation due to shipping delays in most of 2022. Still, would prefer a slow down of new generations of devices to maybe once every other year or 18 months.

Remember that Intel and many other tech companies are having big layoffs recently. Soft/slow orders at Micron... Google claims MSFT has a NEGATIVE 10% profit margin (ie, money loser) on Azure Cloud itself (less add on sales).
Neon is used in chip manufacturing, and a good part of the supply is from Russia and Ukraine.

Truthfully, my late 2013 MBP with 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD still meets my needs. May get a bit warm playing some videos, and its internal Intel graphics doesn't support 4k video at good rates, but otherwise fine. Primarily upgrading to get to a newer version of OS than Big Sur. Hope to switch to a M2 Pro 14" within 6 months, but may switch to M1 Pro refurb. if nothing by then. Prefer (dual) fan cooling to zero (passive cooling) or one fan (13" Pro).

 

[lewchenko]

Let's do a quick recap of the products that Apple did release / refresh this year.

March
Mac Studio
Studio Display
iPad Air
iPhone SE

June
MacBook Air
13-inch MacBook Pro

September
iPhone 14
iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro Max
Apple Watch Series 8
Apple Watch SE
Apple Watch Ultra
Apple Watch Hermès
AirPods Pro (2nd gen)

October
iPad (10th gen)
iPad Pro
Apple TV 4K (3rd gen)

While there were no M2 MBPs, I find that they are new and powerful enough that people should not be expecting annual refreshes. A 1.5 to 2 year update cycle for these products seems more likely, given that they probably sell in lower volumes than the MBA.

In all, we are looking at an impressive 8-month stretch that no other company appears to come close to matching. Not forgetting the annual updates of their OSes and services. In this context, it seems quite short-sighted to castigate Apple for missing their self-imposed deadline to the Mac Pro, or for the apparent paucity of Mac updates these few months.

Love how Apple Watch Hermes made that list.
Is that even a different product or a watch strap with a custom face on a regular watch. Most ridiculous product from Apple ever ?
Otherwise , good post.

 

[asdfjkl;]

The high end mac mini is already here. It is called ”Studio”.

Agreed but there is room for a high-end mini in the line up both price and performance wise. A "high-end" mini with an Mx Pro cpu could easily be several hundred dollars less than a similarly outfit Studio. I'm guessing $1399 / $1499 for a mini with M1 Pro 16GB / 512GB.

 

[asdfjkl;]

I found it odd they didn't release a M2 Mac mini, that seems like a very simple upgrade. Maybe that does mean they will release a M2 Pro version too and that wasn't ready.

Me too, however the mini has always been an afterthought in their lineup. It always is the last Mac to get spec bumps.

 

[seek3r]

And yet, we survived. Just like we would survive a year without a new iPhone.

to be fair, that would actually be a lot worse because there are a lot of people who pay for the upgrade plans

 

[seek3r]

I found it odd they didn't release a M2 Mac mini, that seems like a very simple upgrade. Maybe that does mean they will release a M2 Pro version too and that wasn't ready.

My bet is there was a shortage of chips so they prioritized the laptops. Same thing with the iMacs

 

[asdfjkl;]

Prior to Apple Silicon (and perhaps more accurately prior to Covid supply chain disruptions) Apple at least spec-bumped the majority of its product line at least annually - the 13 and 15/16" MBPs and larger iMacs were all reliably updated with newer Intel chips annually. So I don't think it's unreasonable to expect refreshes on an annual basis when that's what we had before under Intel. There's nothing stopping Apple from slapping an M2 chip in the iMac (almost two years between refreshes) and the Mini (more than 2 years) and putting out a simple press release.

I agree. Certainly supply chain woes are getting in the way. However, Apple needs to keep iterating ASi or they are going to fall behind. I suspect behind the scenes Apple has been putting a lot of pressure on the Chinese government and TSMC to get their $#!^ together. It might explain their quite public support of the new fabs in Arizona and assembly moving to India and Vietnam(?).

 

[jamess109]

This is because apple is going downhill. Can’t innovate after the m1 nor can they supply the new generation of processors in time. Apple is loosing its historical touch as they have these spurts in every 4-5 years. Sadly their only Mac interests are MacBooks and limited mobile technology not desktops for power users.

 

[seek3r]

I think with the Mac Pro they have the opposite problem of their other computers.

The Mac Pro doesn’t need to be efficient, it needs to be very powerful, and the new one of course has to be more powerful than the old one.

But the M series chips are made for efficiency and the current Mac Pro is already so powerful, it’s not a good fit anymore. All the rumors show that it doesn’t appear physically possible to make a more powerful computer than the current Mac Pro with Apple’s SoC fully integrated strategy. Especially for video, there’s still no replacement for expansion cards.

Add to that that there's a scale issue. Like I don't doubt Apple's engineering teams can break out components from the SoC to allow for external ram (albeit probably at a slight performance hit) and more pcie bandwidth to handle expansion slots, but that means a huge amount of investment in chips, hardware, and software that is aimed at one relatively niche machine. Their profit margin targets means that will drive the price up, making it even *more* niche.

On the Intel side they could rely on the fact that Xeons are used all over the place, Intel handled the scale issue, which meant they didn't need to care that the MP was a completely different level of expandability and power usage than their other machines, but here they need to now maintain workstation/server class expandability for this one niche model.

I'm personally hoping it pushes them to reintroduce the xserve line to spread some of that R&D across more machines, I would love an AS xserve in my homelab (though possibly running Asahi ). Or maybe at least add expandable ram and maybe a single pcie slot to the studio (the long desired xmac!).

 

[Nicole1980]

Exactly, I'm still waiting for my entry into Mx-land from Intel but an M2 Pro or Max doesn't seem that interesting to me since the gain over their M1-peers seems to be fairly small. Given me M3 Pro and Max directly instead.

Wait for the 0.5nm process in 2030. Or maybe give to 2035 to upgrade. I'm sure those will be 'worth' it.

 

[ignatius345]

That's OK, I'm good. The recent upgrades should keep me going for a few years.

Yeah, I agree. I'm on the M1 versions of the MacBook Air and iMac right now, and both are serving me amazingly well. The Air in particular was a truly massive upgrade over its Intel predecessor. And if my needs were greater (video editing or something), there are all kinds of much more powerful Mac desktops and laptops available for purchase right now. It's fun to have new machines available, but frankly I think we will all collectively live another 3, 6, 9 months with the lineup that exists now.

 

[Weasel13]

And the news is, there is not news...

 

[CarAnalogy]

Add to that that there's a scale issue. Like I don't doubt Apple's engineering teams can break out components from the SoC to allow for external ram (albeit probably at a slight performance hit) and more pcie bandwidth to handle expansion slots, but that means a huge amount of investment in chips, hardware, and software that is aimed at one relatively niche machine. Their profit margin targets means that will drive the price up, making it even *more* niche.

On the Intel side they could rely on the fact that Xeons are used all over the place, Intel handled the scale issue, which meant they didn't need to care that the MP was a completely different level of expandability and power usage than their other machines, but here they need to now maintain workstation/server class expandability for this one niche model.

I'm personally hoping it pushes them to reintroduce the xserve line to spread some of that R&D across more machines, I would love an AS xserve in my homelab (though possibly running Asahi ). Or maybe at least add expandable ram and maybe a single pcie slot to the studio (the long desired xmac!).

I have a feeling this is what’s taking them so long, internal debate as to how to approach this.

I don’t think their pride will allow them to continue to use Intel even if they wanted to.

Personally I fear there will be no expansion slots in the Mac Pro. I think they are just going to talk about how powerful it is and ignore the expandability issue entirely.

 

[Realityck]

From 2006 to 2020 the MacBook Pro lineup got an update every year, sometimes even 2 or 3 times a year.

I always thought the 13” MBP was never comparable to the larger MBP models. The 13” MBP is very close to a 13” MBA in design. They are much more likely to see updated models than the larger models. Since we have ceased to use the Intel platform with laptops, we really have no baseline to how far apart AS platform macs will be released. The 18 month interval for the 13” MBA/MBP has only had one change so far. It’s not like we can reliably predict the AS platform releases, we wish it was more predictable but pandemic made a mess of Apples rollouts. Hoping 2023 has what we want.

 

[seek3r]

I have a feeling this is what’s taking them so long, internal debate as to how to approach this.

I don’t think their pride will allow them to continue to use Intel even if they wanted to.

Personally I fear there will be no expansion slots in the Mac Pro. I think they are just going to talk about how powerful it is and ignore the expandability issue entirely.

I mean, that machine already exists, it's the studio - especially if the rumor about them dropping the extreme chip and just using the ultra is true. The target market for the mac pro, at its current or higher price point, needs to have slots - lots of folks in music and graphics production who need to put their cards in something without a mess of thunderbolt enclosures. Lots of folks who need massive amounts of ram.

 

[orionquest]

Thank god. A slowdown at last. Make it every three years and we will still survive.

Survive what? I'm still on a 8 year old Haswell intel CPU with Mojave, does everything I need ATM.

 

[infodriveway]

Clearly, Apple is doomed.

 

[tranceking26]

Nothing wrong with taking their time, if it means solid future upgrades!

 

[dukebound85]

Thank god. A slowdown at last. Make it every three years and we will still survive.

rather the slow down be with os updates than hw

 

[vadimyuryev]

Finally - we are in a tenuous macro-economic environment. Discretionary spending is lower than it has been the last several years due to the lack of stimulus, the war in Ukraine and general corporate greed increasing crude oil/natural gas costs throughout the world - which has had ripple effects throughout the entire supply chain. We also have the fed increasing interest rates to cool the market. Retailers are sitting on excess inventory and this years’ holiday season saw a pretty big contraction.

There’s a lot going on that easily explains why there aren’t any new Macs this quarter and it’s not that controversial.

Bingo!

 

[CarAnalogy]

I mean, that machine already exists, it's the studio - especially if the rumor about them dropping the extreme chip and just using the ultra is true. The target market for the mac pro, at its current or higher price point, needs to have slots - lots of folks in music and graphics production who need to put their cards in something without a mess of thunderbolt enclosures. Lots of folks who need massive amounts of ram.

I agree I just hope Apple realizes this too and doesn’t try to pull another courageous move.