Apple Grabs Record US PC Market Share On Strong Mac Sales in Q3 2014

[Macist]

Is there a way Apple can catch up past the others?

Most PCs still end up as 'dumb terminals' in offices. Apple hasn't gone after that market for years and never had much of a slice of it.

If you break it down to, say, the home market and niches like education, publishing, video, etc. then there's room for growth.

 

[iBug2]

Seriously, if I were to look at tablet vs PC usage in college, it would look like the future generations are NOT using tablets. Every single person has a PC. They're not going away, and it's a good thing because tablets suck.

Really? I teach at a college, all my students have either big smartphones or tablets in the classroom during my lectures. It's rare that I see an open laptop these days. I also use an iPad while I teach. Much more simple to hold everything in your hand than keep walking to a desk to look at the screen of a laptop.

 

[RobertMartens]

Nah.... I'd rather just sit outside and complain,, I can do more damage that way

I actually left New York 25 years ago, Its a nice place to visit...

 

[StoneJack]

There is a massive difference between junk, (2014 Mini), and low priced, (2014 Mini).


Corporate acceptance would mean an end to the ridiculous practice of a new, (buggy), OS every year. IT bods don’t like that kind of thing.

Not the Cupertino business model.

This is interesting point. I think that actually the gap between OS X releases was getting bigger, and only this year we have both Maverick and Yosemite releases. Don't know what made Apple to accelerate their OS X releases. But they are free anyway and most hassles come for Hackintosh users, the native hardware (like my MBA) just feels fine. I agree that businesses would like to have more rare upgrades. 3 year cycles probably will be good.

For consumer OS, however, annuals are more good cause it brings more refinement soon. In this case, I think that the influence of iOS upgrade cycle is creeping in. Since the massive iOS base (700 millon devices) is upgraded every year, it forces upgrade on OS X side, cause the two sides have to work together. The Yosemite, I think, was made necessary by development of AirDrop (OS X-iOS), Connectivity and overall visual changes in iOS7/8 to bring that into line and obviously the file sync in iCloud drive.

I think that with iOS8 and Yosemite the general trend has been established so we will see less of drastic changes on visual front and maybe more technological improvements that could be done by not OS but by partial upgrades maybe for next 2 years?

And the big thing is now the CarPlay, Homekit and AppleTV. I expect these hardware and software to include both Connectivity and if necessary, AirDrop and iCloud drive.

With these things, plus Health and iWatch, the connectivity will be full, from Macs in your office, Mac/iOS in your car, Mac/iOS in your home desk as a tablet, smartphone or MBA, Mac/iOS in your TV, Mac/iOS in your home hardware like music speakers and etc and Mac/IOS devices on your wrist to link you personally.

These things are probably far more important than selling few computers to companies (who would probably anyway prefer HP or Dellls) and will contribute more to company margin and innovation push.

I am excited to see where this all going. As you see, while the hub center evolves from PC (mac) to a digital mobile communications device, still the connectiviity itself is only growing in importance.

So yes, Macs share can increase further, but not to PC but rather on consumer side. I would like just to have a nice midTower to use with existing displays and also have an expansion bays. We'll see if Apple will release them. Still having Mini as option for cheap Mac not bad either.

 

[RobertMartens]

Much less viruses and malware than Windows,

You're right, can't get much lower than ZERO viruses.

 

[TallManNY]

This is a misleading report. First of all, the title to me implies total market share, not a single year's worth of sales for "PCs" which Apple doesn't really compete with anyway because it PCs are almost universally thought of as Windows-based machines. People rarely, if ever these days buy a Mac to ONLY run Windows and if they want to run OS X for ANY reason, they HAVE to buy it from Apple (unless you're going to build a Hackintosh). So they get 100% of the OS X market share and thus, how do you even COMPARE computer sales from DIFFERENT MARKETS??? You CAN'T do it with a straight face.

Secondly, Apple had a MUCH larger home computer market share back in the 1980s and early 90s than it's EVER had with OS X (closer to 20%) and I mean total market share, not just a single year's sales (again, the title is deceiving).

All the article is really saying is that as a generic "hardware manufacturer" Apple sells more "machines" than any single brand company (all of which only compete against each other for Windows market share, not OS X share so thus again, it's an absurd comparison to begin with).

The real question is what is Apple's total home computer market share overall right now compared to Windows? It's hard to be certain since many Macs also double as Windows and even Linux machines through VMWare, Parallels and Boot Camp. I'm betting it's still no more than 7-10% at most, less counting the machines also running Windows a significant amount of the time. And what's a "PC" anyway? Are Microsoft's "Surface" line "personal computers" or "tablets/mobile/something else" ? The lines are blurred and getting blurrier. The bottom line is Windows still has far more software (especially games) than Macs ever will have due to Apple keeping OS X proprietary to its own hardware alone. The same is true of the iPhone. It can NEVER approach Android's market share due to having to compete against multiple manufacturer's all selling a competing operating system. Is Apple selling hardware or software? It's selling them combined so you often lose customers that don't like the hardware or the price even if they do like the software/gui/os somewhat better.

I'm in New York City and granted I hang with a fairly upper middle class crowd; but I have not had a friend buy a non-Mac PC for their home use in years. In fact, I can only think of a few people who have a PC at home. A friend's boyfriend who plays flight simulators. And a business guy who has a Mac and an old PC at home. And a retired couple who does email through an old PC. That is all I can think of. Everyone uses a PC at work and then comes home to a Mac.

In the long run I'd rather be selling the product that people buy with their own money than the sales to corporate groups.

 

[laurim]

Not supporting 2 year old hardware / software and making the software more socially connected won't do it for apple either.

Huh? I'm typing on a 2008 MacBookPro running Yosemite and I have a 2008 MacPro in my arsenal as well. How am I not being supported?

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Everyone I know that is getting new computers are getting Macs. I definitely see this number going up in years to come.

I have long-time clients and every year I see more and more using Macs, even if they have to buy their own to get around their company's restrictions. People around me seem to be sick of being forced to use Windows computers and saying screw that, I'm going to use what I want to get my work done. I think that would make for an interesting commercial, a la the iconic 1984 commercial. "Don't be forced to be just another cog in the corporate wheel. We'll support your Mac when your company's IT department won't".

 

[Oracle1729]

The problem is wuth a tight bidget, they can only get crappy pc that'll die very soon and give crappy performance. They ended up buying many pc in a short period of time. With a more expensive mac, you get better experience and so much less headache mostly because of osx).

We get that you prefer macs, but you really need to be fair to the other side. 94% of users still choose windows, do you think they all do it because they don't know what's best? OS X is a nice sleek smooth interface for basic functions, but windows give you a huge range of choices from dirt cheap to blow the top end nMP out of the water. And much more flexibility; I have 12 TB of internal storage in my PC which is impossible on any mac. The video card options on a PC are beyond the wildest dreams of a mac user.

I spend about $400/year on my PC on average and I have never for the past 20 years had a machine slower than a top level mac and usually far superior. I upgrade as needed, a video card here, a cpu there. And on rare occasion a case or power supply.

The comparison is really apples and orange. Mac gives you a very small, very narrow set of options. PC is a huge world, and the budget machines is just a minor segment of that huge world. And with the way Apple is entirely focused on iToys to the point they're crippling their computers to match the limitations of iToys, Yosemite is getting a lot less useful while windows 10 is looking really good.

 

[mftsang]

There's no comparison to the efficiency and throughput possible with a full, tactile keyboard. I don't see tablets taking over any time soon. Not to mention the fact of how iOS has a terrible/inexistent file manager for cross platform document management.

iPad was not designed for keyboard (not to mention mouse).
Using touchscreen alone can never be productive.
(I would say tablet is 10% as productive as a laptop, for serious tasks)
And iOS apps are not designed for productivity.

When iPad was announced the first day, people expected a device which can replace their laptop to perform productive tasks. But it just cannot. And then people forget what a tablet was supposed to be.

Now people are using tablets solely for web surfing & games. They forget productivity. People will continue to buy tablets. And PCs will continue to sell to those people who need to get things done.

Mindset of people have changed. They are willing to buy a "computer" just for entertainment. The sad fact is that such a machine (tablet) could be very productive technically. Tablet manufacturers just don't want the tablets to be productive devices.

That's Apple's strategy. They will never make the iPad a productive device. If they really do this, many people will sell their Macs.

 

[mftsang]

We get that you prefer macs, but you really need to be fair to the other side. 94% of users still choose windows, do you think they all do it because they don't know what's best? OS X is a nice sleek smooth interface for basic functions, but windows give you a huge range of choices from dirt cheap to blow the top end nMP out of the water. And much more flexibility; I have 12 TB of internal storage in my PC which is impossible on any mac. The video card options on a PC are beyond the wildest dreams of a mac user.

I spend about $400/year on my PC on average and I have never for the past 20 years had a machine slower than a top level mac and usually far superior. I upgrade as needed, a video card here, a cpu there. And on rare occasion a case or power supply.

The comparison is really apples and orange. Mac gives you a very small, very narrow set of options. PC is a huge world, and the budget machines is just a minor segment of that huge world. And with the way Apple is entirely focused on iToys to the point they're crippling their computers to match the limitations of iToys, Yosemite is getting a lot less useful while windows 10 is looking really good.

Agree.

Macs (or in general Apple products) are targeted for people looking for a machine which looks good at the first place. These people are willing to accept the lack of choices of real desktop software, lack of file management on their tablets/phones...

Again, that's Apple strategy. They will never release a machine which satisfies all your needs. If you want to be portable, buy an iPad. If you cannot get things done with an iPad, buy an iPad+Macbook.

 

[mftsang]

Tablets will replace PCs eventually.

GUI- and mouse-based computers sucked when they first came out in comparison to traditional, command line based machines. They lacked power, couldn't do much of anything that justified the relatively exorbitant cost, weren't compatible with most of the existing hardware and software, etc. I lived through that transition and heard geeks everywhere denouncing Apple's "toy computers" as a joke. At the time, it was true.

Things will continue to evolve and new ideas will incrementally improve the tablet experience until the PC becomes a thing of the past.

Yes, tablets will replace PCs, only if tablets have full support for keyboard & mouse, plus a big collection of productivity apps. And most importantly, tablets can never be useful with a screen less than 10". If you include all these essential elements to a tablet, it would become a laptop with a touchscreen, isn't it???

While touchscreen is a comfortable experience, it is way less effective than using keyboard+mouse. Unless one day we have a mature, cheap technology capable of detecting finger movements in the air, keyboard and mouse are hard to disappear.

With tablets, you can never complete a serious task faster than a laptop. Indeed it is way slower. Imagine creating a document with lots of typing, inserting pictures, picture editing - using a tablet to do this is really a terrible experience.

To be honest, tablets never replace laptops. But for some people, they just don't need a tablet because laptops include all functionalities of a tablet.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I'm in New York City and granted I hang with a fairly upper middle class crowd; but I have not had a friend buy a non-Mac PC for their home use in years. In fact, I can only think of a few people who have a PC at home. A friend's boyfriend who plays flight simulators. And a business guy who has a Mac and an old PC at home. And a retired couple who does email through an old PC. That is all I can think of. Everyone uses a PC at work and then comes home to a Mac.

In the long run I'd rather be selling the product that people buy with their own money than the sales to corporate groups.

So, what is is you are trying to infer? Because your friends use Macs everyone must use Macs? Could it be that they are your friends because they have things in common with you like owning a Mac? Everyone I know at work has a Windows machine. I'm the sole Mac user. One expressed interest in a Macbook, but he can't stomach the price tag of a $1200+ Macbook when he can get a PC notebook for $600 that does what he needs.

Try to find high-end gamers that use Macs. They don't exist because there are no Macs that fit the requirements for hardware (even running Windows), not even a Mac Pro these days (and yes, high-end gamers tend to use PCs, not consoles since consoles are always behind the tech curve; you can play 4k games on a PC now. You're lucky to get a smooth frame rate at 1080p on a console).

 

[inkswamp]

We get that you prefer macs, but you really need to be fair to the other side. 94% of users still choose windows, do you think they all do it because they don't know what's best?

They do it because that's what their employer uses or because that's what their best friend uses or because that's what the smart computer geek kid down the street uses or because, you know, everyone else has a Windows PC.

Ever heard the saying "Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd"? Herd mentality. I've listened to people curse their Windows PC until they're blue in the face and when I suggest they might try a Mac, they get the deer-in-the-headlights look on their face. "Oh, yeah, that's a lot different than Windows. Windows is what I'm used to."

A good chunk of that 94% aren't consciously, actively, purposefully choosing Windows. They're just terrified of choosing something different.

 

[Oracle1729]

They do it because that's what their employer uses or because that's what their best friend uses or because that's what the smart computer geek kid down the street uses or because, you know, everyone else has a Windows PC.

So you honestly believe the 94% of people who use windows machines only do so because they don't know macs are unconditionally better?

 

[TimelessOne]

Mouse and GUI will never replace the command line. The user interface is not good and too slow.

Try to write a shell script, search the file system with a regular expression, edit system logs. You will end up on a command line again and at this point there is not reason not to use Unix or DOS.

Cute icons and fun clicking -> Mouse and GUI
Productivity -> Command line

My $0.02.

I know you are being sarcastic trying or at the very least try to make his argument look bad but the fact is going from command line to gui was an improvement and most people understood that fact. Really the best way to interact is a mixture of mouse and keyboard using shortcut keys for something point and click for others.

Touch can not replace mouse and keyboard. The draw back to touch is it is not very precise. It is pretty inaccurate.
Where it is good some things it sucks at others.

Places tablets suck is editing a word document, writing code. Writing long emails ect.

The up is great for reading email, surfing the Internet as long as it is reading and limited real interaction. Heck for surfing and reading Internet I like my table for most of that. It does it better but for work give me mouse and keyboard any day.

They are different ui and use cases completely. The gui and command line had a lot of use case over lap. Touch not so much. They have areas that are very well defined. Now can I see tablets having a docking station like set up that connects to things like a larger monitor, mouse keyboard yeah. But it would let it flip between usages. I expect touch screen on the monitor will come in to give that use plus the tablet might flip what it looks like and most the main display to the monitor.

Mouse and keyboard have been pretty main stay now for well over 20 years. That should tell you that they are not going to get replaced any time soon.

The keyboard has a much longer life left in it than the mouse. Touch screen keyboard are OK and require a lot of guess work by the keyboard for the autocorrect and let's face it we miss a lot of hits. I do not even want to know how SwiftKey cleaned up this as I typed. I know I missed typed more words than I got right.

 

[twoodcc]

good for Apple. now please update the Mac Pro, with maybe a cheaper option?

 

[Col4bin]

This is wonderful news...if you own Apple stock. (Darn)

 

[mpainesyd]

Market share is interesting but profit is more important. I suspect Apple makes more overall profit than any of the other brands, despite selling about half of the number of computers that HP sells

 

[H2SO4]

My experience is the same. When I am at a place with a public network it is almost all Macs. On rare event I see another brand. Very few. I must live in an area that is very Mac friendly.

Ok. The raw figures, (which is ALL we have to work with at the moment), would suggest that your experience is atypical.
If there are 10,000 Lenovo units and they see a 10% market share rise, it's reasonable to say they sold 1000 extra units.
Similarly, if there are 1,000 Mac units and they see a 20% market share rise, it's reasonable to say they sold 200 extra units.

Most people "it would seem" are not buying Macs.

 

[StoneJack]

Ok. The raw figures, (which is ALL we have to work with at the moment), would suggest that your experience is atypical.
If there are 10,000 Lenovo units and they see a 10% market share rise, it's reasonable to say they sold 1000 extra units.
Similarly, if there are 1,000 Mac units and they see a 20% market share rise, it's reasonable to say they sold 200 extra units.

Most people "it would seem" are not buying Macs.

Well, Macs are up definitely. At my university, all PC, now the professors and higher ranking administration all got iMacs; students who can afford, also use mac notebooks; wealthier one all use iPhones and now increasingly iPhone 6. This trend is very strong. Samsung devices, so popular until now, being replaced by iPhones. This trend has not reached labs, however; all students labs are staffed with cheapest PC available, sometimes with meagre 1-2 Gb of RAM. They are used only for some general office use and some specific software like econometrics and equation editors.

Support for PCs is terrible, despite the organization wide legal license; most PCs are infected with most dangerous viruses available which can even disable your USB keys; only full reformatting and reinstalling can have those PC for another year. Most PCs are on Windows XP 2nd edition; thats horrible.

I have Windows 7 PC at an office but try to avoid it; it has unexplainable lag despite being a new installation with 4GB of RAM and modern i5 CPU and using it for anything else than Word and Firefox is an exercise in patience, anger management and its prolonged use will result probably in anxiety and lost sleep. It is a Dell desktop, and pretty new one btw. It uses Intel graphics so someday I will void the license and install a graphic card (cheap one) by myself.

Those who brought Windows to this world should never be allowed to be born.Thanks god that i have MBA and use hackintosh at home. Despite all troubles with OS X updates, it works zillions times better than PC. Granted, i don't use it for games (i have somewhere Call of Duty for OS X but never play it), but for all other uses its excellent. I now only wish for headless xMac midtower and I will be very happy.

 

[Exhale]

The PS4 controllers had to use some ridiculous driver that kept having issues

You mean you had issues trying to get a controller that is not supported by Sony and not supported by Microsoft working?

No ****. You were trying to hack hardware to work on a non-intended platform - issues can arise from doing so. Its about as stupid as complaining Hackintoshes don't work perfectly.

Try to use a less retarded example next time.

 

[Qzaki]

IDC = I Don't Care?

Sorry I had to

 

[thekeyring]

There are countless little things like this that make OS X on a Mac the best thing to use.

Exactly. Too many to mention!

 

[H2SO4]

Well, Macs are up definitely. At my university, all PC, now the professors and higher ranking administration all got iMacs; students who can afford, also use mac notebooks; wealthier one all use iPhones and now increasingly iPhone 6. This trend is very strong. Samsung devices, so popular until now, being replaced by iPhones. This trend has not reached labs, however; all students labs are staffed with cheapest PC available, sometimes with meagre 1-2 Gb of RAM. They are used only for some general office use and some specific software like econometrics and equation editors.

Support for PCs is terrible, despite the organization wide legal license; most PCs are infected with most dangerous viruses available which can even disable your USB keys; only full reformatting and reinstalling can have those PC for another year. Most PCs are on Windows XP 2nd edition; thats horrible.

I have Windows 7 PC at an office but try to avoid it; it has unexplainable lag despite being a new installation with 4GB of RAM and modern i5 CPU and using it for anything else than Word and Firefox is an exercise in patience, anger management and its prolonged use will result probably in anxiety and lost sleep. It is a Dell desktop, and pretty new one btw. It uses Intel graphics so someday I will void the license and install a graphic card (cheap one) by myself.

Those who brought Windows to this world should never be allowed to be born.Thanks god that i have MBA and use hackintosh at home. Despite all troubles with OS X updates, it works zillions times better than PC. Granted, i don't use it for games (i have somewhere Call of Duty for OS X but never play it), but for all other uses its excellent. I now only wish for headless xMac midtower and I will be very happy.

I’m not saying that it may not be a nicer place to be. What I’m saying is that most would not appear to see the Mac and its OS in that light. Again, all we have is the raw figures, what we need to take out from that are business purchase numbers.
I used to hate Windows, (when I didn’t actually use it a lot). Now I find that although I still dislike it, it’s an excellent and probably more fully featured OS than the Mac comes with.
As to the above points though;
Support for PCs is terrible?
Are you sure? That’s not my finding. OEM and third party support is far more widespread than for Apple but a slightly different experience is found here also, only the retail stores are a cut above any of the competition I’ve found.
Most PCs are infected with most dangerous viruses available which can even disable your USB keys.
You are generalising. Macs also have Malware BTW. There are ways of disabling an iDevice with a compromised charger. I’ve got a PC, have had for years and I use it sensibly, (only in the last year or so have I installed Avast. I’ve never had a virus.
only full reformatting and reinstalling can have those PC for another year.
That’s just rubbish.
Most PCs are on Windows XP 2nd edition; thats horrible.
Don’t like XP either but it’s pretty solid if used correctly.
I have Windows 7 PC at an office but try to avoid it…………..
Go look at the Apple forums. There are plenty of issues that are the same.
It is a Dell desktop, and pretty new one btw. It uses Intel graphics so someday I will void the license and install a graphic card (cheap one) by myself. It’s great that you have the option. Apple would purposely block your ability to use certain hardware and solder in RAM etc etc.
Those who brought Windows to this world should never be allowed to be born WTF??
Thanks god that i have MBA and use hackintosh at home. Despite all troubles with OS X updates, it works zillions times better than PC. Granted, i don't use it for games (i have somewhere Call of Duty for OS X but never play it), but for all other uses its excellent. I now only wish for headless xMac midtower and I will be very happy.
Now this is telling. It fits your use case, that doesn’t mean it’s crap.

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Exactly. Too many to mention!

Like?

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Agree.

Macs (or in general Apple products) are targeted for people looking for a machine which looks good at the first place. These people are willing to accept the lack of choices of real desktop software, lack of file management on their tablets/phones...

Again, that's Apple strategy. They will never release a machine which satisfies all your needs. If you want to be portable, buy an iPad. If you cannot get things done with an iPad, buy an iPad+Macbook.

I have to agree here. The first thing that drew me to the Mac was its appearance. A lonely PowerMac G4 sitting on the shelf in PC World. That said, I’ve managed to get it to do what I want with it through hacking.

 

[StoneJack]

I’m not saying that it may not be a nicer place to be. What I’m saying is that most would not appear to see the Mac and its OS in that light. Again, all we have is the raw figures, what we need to take out from that are business purchase numbers.
I used to hate Windows, (when I didn’t actually use it a lot). Now I find that although I still dislike it, it’s an excellent and probably more fully featured OS than the Mac comes with.
As to the above points though;
Support for PCs is terrible?
Are you sure? That’s not my finding. OEM and third party support is far more widespread than for Apple but a slightly different experience is found here also, only the retail stores are a cut above any of the competition I’ve found.
Most PCs are infected with most dangerous viruses available which can even disable your USB keys.
You are generalising. Macs also have Malware BTW. There are ways of disabling an iDevice with a compromised charger. I’ve got a PC, have had for years and I use it sensibly, (only in the last year or so have I installed Avast. I’ve never had a virus.
only full reformatting and reinstalling can have those PC for another year.
That’s just rubbish.
Most PCs are on Windows XP 2nd edition; thats horrible.
Don’t like XP either but it’s pretty solid if used correctly.
I have Windows 7 PC at an office but try to avoid it…………..
Go look at the Apple forums. There are plenty of issues that are the same.
It is a Dell desktop, and pretty new one btw. It uses Intel graphics so someday I will void the license and install a graphic card (cheap one) by myself. It’s great that you have the option. Apple would purposely block your ability to use certain hardware and solder in RAM etc etc.
Those who brought Windows to this world should never be allowed to be born WTF??
Thanks god that i have MBA and use hackintosh at home. Despite all troubles with OS X updates, it works zillions times better than PC. Granted, i don't use it for games (i have somewhere Call of Duty for OS X but never play it), but for all other uses its excellent. I now only wish for headless xMac midtower and I will be very happy.
Now this is telling. It fits your use case, that doesn’t mean it’s crap.

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Like?

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I have to agree here. The first thing that drew me to the Mac was its appearance. A lonely PowerMac G4 sitting on the shelf in PC World. That said, I’ve managed to get it to do what I want with it through hacking.

You don't believe, which I admit, is your option. However, with those student PCs infected with such malicious malware and viruses that they barely start up, let alone work. You can't clean such installation by Avast or whatever, those antivirus software is simply not enough. There are trojans, spyware and god knows what else, not just usual viruses that turn your files into folders, make them disappear all together or transform your PC into a hacked zombie for DDS attack. Granted, for macs its not that clean, but its not THAT dangerous.