Apple Halted M2 Chip Production in January Amid 'Plummeting' Mac Sales

[krspkbl]

Times are tough and Apple is squeezing every penny out of you that you're worth. Macs might be nice products to have but not a lot of people have the money to afford them anymore and if they do have £1000-2000 it's less likely to go towards a Mac. If someone needs a new PC/laptop they'll get a cheaper one that will performance just as good if not better. You could argue that Apple silicon is a great performer, which it is, but most people don't care about benchmarks. If it lets people do their work then that's good enough.

 

[JazzyGB1]

Expensive laptops and desktops wont flourish in this economy we are in today. Especially if competition can offer near level of performance for much less money.

And rarely anyone will care about build quality of Macs or stability and reliability of Mac OS enough to justify spending more. In times like these, people are ready to compromise more.

I don't think it matters that they are expensive per se, Macs have always been more expensive than their contemporaries.
What matters is that they are now poor value.
Apple has been getting away with offering poor value across most of their product lines for the last decade or so, it was bound to catch up with them eventually.

 

[krakman]

Last year I bought a 14 inch M1 with 256gb SSD but I returned because I soon realised that 256GB is no where near large enough storage for my needs. If I could have upgraded the SSD myself I would've kept it.

Last week I was about to check out £3800 on an M2 MBP, since it is no longer possible to upgrade anything myself I had to choose the highest spec possible.

But then after a good long think I realised that I didn't need it.

I'm a pro photographer and I can use Lightroom on my iPad at events and my old 2015 MBP works fast enough for the bigger jobs, whilst in the office I have several 2009 Mac Pros which are pimped and full of hard drives for storage and for final editing.

Sure if I was editing multi cam 4K video I would need to buy the latest and greatest but for general usage and photo editing it is just overkill.

I will wait until my computers finally break down before replacing them.

 

[jaehaerys48]

Apple has been getting away with offering poor value across most of their product lines for the last decade or so, it was bound to catch up with them eventually.

Dell, Lenovo, Acer, etc sales fell by more.
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom...h-quarter-of-2022-and-16-percent-for-the-year

Did everyone here forget that economic trends are a thing?

 

[BellSystem]

Buggy software, too many version incompatibilities for applications recently, no x86 emulation solution to run non-MacOS VMs, no boot camp, lack of user upgrades…is what’s probably not helping.

I think they underestimated how many people were onboard for the dual boot/VM options. That was the only thing that contributed to the explosion of growth when Intel Macs showed up. It’s still relevant today. I can’t buy Macs for staff anymore because of it. Our workflow occasionally calls for legacy or Windows x86 apps. That’s about 50 Macs sales lost this year . I bet that number elsewhere add up to a significant number.

Not to mention the OS is a mess. There are so many pointless changes and bugs. It’s hard to really say MacOS is any better than Windows. Apple needs to work on software a bit more. They used to shine there.

 

[The Cappy]

Not every year but every two/three years would make more sense since the M2 just demonstrated how much of a failure it was.

I tend to buy less often, but at the right time if it makes sense. The should wait until end of 2023 or early/mid 2024 to release the MBP M3 with a clearly upgraded product which people will buy big time.

the cadence of hardware upgrades isn't supposed to match how often each individual user wants to upgrade. But a person *does* buy a new Mac, it's nice to know they're buying something that's been improving, rather than something that's 2-3 year old tech (still at the original price).

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I think they underestimated how many people were onboard for the dual boot/VM options.

I think you overestimate how many people are though.

I seriously doubt it is the reason for any noticeable decline in sales.

I say that as one of the people who did enjoy using Boot Camp.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I love Apple silicon but I am finding the release cycle very confusing. I feel like the Pro/Max/Ultra chips need to come before the regular chip, otherwise you end up in the weird scenario where the lowest end Macs are running on newer chips than those at the highest end.

Can’t really do that. Apple is somewhat emulating Intel’s tick-tock cycle. You have to design the chip and make the low end version first before you can refine it into the high end model.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Not to mention the OS is a mess. There are so many pointless changes and bugs. It’s hard to really say MacOS is any better than Windows

Not sure where to start here.

I use macOS on several machines daily and haven't noticed problems. What bugs are you running into?

And as for the last line, come on.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Can’t really do that. Apple is somewhat emulating Intel’s tick-tock cycle. You have to design the chip and make the low end version first before you can refine it into the high end model.

Right. Since an M2 Pro is just 2 M2s together basically. Just like the Max is 2 M2 Pros. Can't start with the high end chip.

 

[rondo]

I use an M1 Max MBPro and it is more than enough for now for serious audio work. Never considered an M2. I guess a lot of users are in the same position.And for casual browser users M1 Air is more than enough.

 

[no_idea]

Just go ahead and finally converge the MacBook and iPad. You will see a massive uptick in sales

 

[zombierunner]

a lot of demand for a bigger imac/imac pro

 

[okkibs]

The M2 MBP update improved on performance as well as battery life, at least for the higher configs that don't have the worse SSD, so it's by no means a bad update, but with M1 MBP sales over the last couple months anyone who was still on the fence probably switched to a M1 device already. The refurb store M1 pricing was great after M2 release as well.

So who is supposed to buy all these M2 devices when they have to compete with Apple's own M1 chip that's good enough for most people? The newly designed M1 MBPs were released less than 2 years ago, so anyone who switched to these would have to throw out their perfectly good M1 Pro or M1 Max machine in order to buy a new M2 one. That would be a ridiculous expectation.

For example, my M1 Max device is still under AC+, what is the incentive for me to sell it at a loss and get the M2 version? Ok the newer XDR screens have less ghosting, but that's it for me.

I think they underestimated how many people were onboard for the dual boot/VM options. [...] I can’t buy Macs for staff anymore because of it. Our workflow occasionally calls for legacy or Windows x86 apps.

You can now officially run X86_64 Windows software through Parallels for business use. If that's not enough for your business then Apple doesn't care about the lost sales. And you aren't doing your users a favor when they need to use Windows and are forced to do it through horrible Bootcamp. Legacy boot, Windows updates that can brick the install, bad Apple Windows drivers that make the trackpad tedious to use and decrease battery runtime, more fan noise, no official support from anyone in case of issues (Apple doesn't care, and neither does Microsoft) and so on. I have always recommended against purchasing Macs when Windows is needed.

At least now you can run it officially supported for limited workflows through Parallels without resorting to interruptive dual-boot with crappy hardware drivers. In fact I think killing off Bootcamp was one of the best decisions Apple could have made. In the same price regions as MBPs your users will be just as happy with a Thinkpad Carbon X1 for sure.

 

[Frixos]

They are more than I can afford. Don't really want to spend more than £1000 then you've got to factor in £400 to upgrade RAM and SSD since you can't do it yourself any more.

“Any more”? It’s been a decade since they’ve released a MacBook with upgradeable RAM and SSD.

 

[coffeemilktea]

I just want a new iMac to upgrade to, and I don't really care whether it's M2 or M3. My 2017 iMac probably isn't going to be able to upgrade to whatever version of MacOS comes out this year. 😅

 

[George Dawes]

Whole product line is unnecessarily complex , a return to the pre Steve days sadly

So many options that most people are bewildered and end up buying nothing

 

[Solomani]

They are actually better buys than in the past. A 1984 Mac was $2499 USD, a Mac 2 was $5500 you can on and on with models into the 21st century but recent Mac Models that are AS platform based are both economically, and technically better buys then past Mac Models. Flourish is not a problem.

You are totally spot on. Those were the times, weren't they? The lovely 1980s! Now I can reminisce about those days when the Apple LaserWriter cost almost as much as an automobile!

 

[roncron]

Makes perfect sense.

The M2 is an almost trivial upgrade to the M1, and the M2 iPad Pros and MBPs were, for many people, trivial upgrades to the M1 versions.

The only Apple product with an M2 that's selling very well, I'd imagine, is the M2 MacBook Air. And not because of the M2 chip, but because of the new form factor, brighter & slightly bigger display, the return of MagSafe, etc.

Most power users who are Apple's target market for the pro-level devices know that the M3 is coming soon, and the M3 promises to be a much bigger jump over the M2 than the M2 was over the M1 in terms of power and battery life. So most of these folks are understandably holding off on buying iPad Pros and MB Pros.

 

[everlast3434]

Maybe they should try making something innovative instead of the current everything-looks-the-same-as-the-previous-gen-recycling-program.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Last year I bought a 14 inch M1 with 256gb SSD but I returned because I soon realised that 256GB is no where near large enough storage for my needs. If I could have upgraded the SSD myself I would've kept it.

Last week I was about to check out £3800 on an M2 MBP, since it is no longer possible to upgrade anything myself I had to choose the highest spec possible.

But then after a good long think I realised that I didn't need it.

I'm a pro photographer and I can use Lightroom on my iPad at events and my old 2015 MBP works fast enough for the bigger jobs, whilst in the office I have several 2009 Mac Pros which are pimped and full of hard drives for storage and for final editing.

Sure if I was editing multi cam 4K video I would need to buy the latest and greatest but for general usage and photo editing it is just overkill.

I will wait until my computers finally break down before replacing them.

As an Apple everything guy myself, your situation practically begs for a fresh look at a Windows PC. PCs can serve all photography needs just as well and they don't have Apple's enormous margin to pay on top of the costs of the hardware itself.

After a VERY long period of using iMac as both my Mac and PC, the lack of Bootcamp in Silicon led me to buying a new PC to pair with my new Silicon Mac. I was reluctant but overwhelmingly surprised at the quality of the PC + Windows 11. The "nuclear furnace heat" spin is VERY far overblown. The jet engine noise of fans is far overblown. For most computing needs, Power > Power Per Watt. My electric bill doesn't seem to show any uptick from using the PC. Etc.

PC resurrects all of the benefits of Intel Macs:

• at any time, add your own RAM to expand RAM (and leverage the competitive marketplace of many sources of RAM to find a best value price).
• at any time, add your own storage to expand storage (and leverage the competitive marketplace of many sources of storage to find a best value price).
• at any time, upgrade the graphics card to something newer and better vs. throwing away the whole computer when the horses are eventually slowed too much by OS updates
• Compatibility with ALL Windows software vs. only that which runs on Windows ARM.
• Best PC games
• When something fails, replace it and resume using your computer vs. throwing the whole thing out if one part conks.
• Windows generally doesn't leave old hardware behind. A Windows 11 PC purchased today will probably still be very usable 10 years from now, instead of being vintaged and no longer getting security updates.
• Etc.

You are demonstrating a great fondness (or loyalty) to Apple, who is rewarding you/us with exploitive prices for RAM and Storage... and ever-increasing prices for base hardware too. Anyone who wants maximum VALUE for their money should take a fresh look at Windows. 11 is not Vista. In fact, 11 feels somewhat macOS-like. There is a lot of value and a much bigger app world outside the walled garden.

If I was a professional photographer, unless I could come up with a very specific and strong reason(s) to stick with Mac, I'd change with my next purchase, leaning on my existing Mac for any things I really prefer to do on a Mac. I don't think there is anything that Mac can do that PC can't when it comes to photographer support and the savings for even Mac Pro-like power would be significant. Put a Silicon Mac purchase-like budget towards a PC and you are going to get a very powerful PC.

While I went Mac Studio for my bite of Silicon, if I could redo my setup now, I'd buy Mac Mini (maybe M2 PRO) + a similarly-priced/sized PC + the Dell Ultrawide 5K/2K monitor (priced about as much as Studio Display). The display has a full hub built in and inputs for both PCs (even the ability to split the UW screen to have both on screen at the same time). In other words, my historical thinking has been buy the most powerful Mac I can get. Now, I think a good, general approach is buy Macs towards the cheaper end and put the big savings towards a (not Apple margined) monitor and a good-to-great PC. This might be a good idea for you too.

 

[120FPS]

They are actually better buys than in the past. A 1984 Mac was $2499 USD, a Mac 2 was $5500 you can on and on with models into the 21st century but recent Mac Models that are AS platform based are both economically, and technically better buys then past Mac Models. Flourish is not a problem.

Car shopping must be fun when you're dragging out a Model T for comparison 🤭

 

[sflagel]

Everyone is waiting for the 15-inch MacBook Air.

 

[Steve121178]

Exactly. People are way overthinking things. Economic uncertainty + end of lockdown buying means lower sales.


Apple's sales fell by less than Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Acer (the king of budget PCs), etc last year.

Mac prices are high but consistent.

There's quite a large difference between the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs for example.

M2 based 14" & 16" Pros are more expensive than their M1 counterparts.

Anyone wanting a large iMac now has to buy a Studio & Studio Display which dwarfs the amount it used to cost to buy the old 27" iMac.

Of course no ones forced to buy anything, but anyone looking to upgrade to a like-for-like machine is going to pay significantly more than they used to, particularly in Europe. And that's before people start adding any hideously priced configurable extras.

 

[Steve121178]

Everyone is waiting for the 15-inch MacBook Air.

Nope. The average person walks into a store and grabs whatever is available or orders whatever is available on Amazon/Apple/online. The overwhelming majority won't know or even be aware of the 15" MacBook - only enthusiasts know the rumours about the 15" MacBook. It's not enough to cause a slump in sales.

Besides, that 15" machine is going to be far from a budget offering.