Correct. People tend to read message boards like this or other social media and believe it makes up the majority of the customer base. Far far from it. We're the minority.
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Apple Halted M2 Chip Production in January Amid 'Plummeting' Mac Sales
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M1 Air is still offered, though, and with inflation an M2 Air is about the same as an entry-level MacBook from the late 2000s.
Apple prices have always been high, and people have been saying that Apple is going to die because of it for 15+ years. As I've pointed out, sales of cheaper PCs are suffering too. Chromebooks, basically the cheapest decent computers around, suffered massively in 2022.
https://news.softpedia.com/news/chromebook-sales-collapsed-in-2022-for-obvious-reasons-536968.shtml
M2 and m2 pro and max are nice but given the high price apple charges for new Macs, it is hard to ignore m1 and M1 Max that are now on discount. M2 max nice but is not good enough to be worth several hundred more than M1 Max.
Yes, exactly! For the love of God, sort it out Apple. All this pro/max/ultra nonsense... It really does my head in. It's the same with iPhones too, and I have completely lost track of the iPad lineup. When you release an M3 it really needs to be better than the M2 "whatever".
That's exactly what forums like this were hammering Apple for not doing under the last 5+ years of Intel-based Macs.
There's now a great range of different machines available in a large number of different configs in terms of CPU, GPU cores and RAM.
If chips like the M1 Max or Ultra were garbage, then Apple should absolutely be hammered for keeping them around, but the fact is they're not. M1 Pro chips still perform brilliantly in terms of performance and efficiency compared to the competition.
Again, this isn't Intel-era Mac where older chips were poor performers as well as being inefficient and running incredibly hot etc.
There's lots of choice out there which is what people want isn't it? It's also not that hard to work out what the most powerful chips are is it? Between the number and the name, it's pretty simple. I used to be a proper geek for this stuff, but even I lost interest with Intel naming convention in recent years - that was confusing.
Anyway, back to the headline. "Plummeting" makes for a dramatic headline doesn't it?
That's literally how the computer market works. OEMs release iterative spec bump updates with the latest chips, and sometimes updated ports or reconfigured memory and storage, and every few years they make more substantial changes to the chassis. This is literally what Apple did before Apple silicon came around. You're not supposed to upgrade your Mac every year or every two years like you would a phone.
I don't think Bootcamp is a big deal. Or gamers ignoring the Macs more than they already did.
I was playing World Of Warships for years with my MacBook Pro and was bummed when they announced they will stop supporting Macs. I continued playing with GeForce Now but the FPS was terrible and the resolution sucked. Then I discovered Parallels and the game is now blazing fast on my M1 MacBook Air. Well blazing fast in comparison to GeForce Now and even to the native Mac game.
This is probably why there is no 15” Air (yet). I mean, the bigger screen is half the reason to go Pro for a lot of customers. Anyway, big money still comes from iPhone sales so maybe it isn’t such a big deal.
Not sure if others have said this - the big issue is that for the vast majority of the laptop or desktop segment, an M1, even with 8GB of RAM, is more than enough for current computing needs. The Max, Ultra, Pro, M2 upgrades have targeted niche customers. The M2 Macbook Air was a great update, but for items that had nothing to do with the chip itself
This is happening across the industry. Both Dell and HP have guided for substantially lower PC sales.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
...until the probable price shock hits.
While tradition implies Air will be a good relative value, there is no rule that demands that. Apple just yanked the whole iMac computing guts out of a monitor and then priced the monitor as high as the same monitor PLUS those guts. What if this same Apple decides a loaded, "thinnest" Mac should be priced for profit vs. value?
There are a combination of factors at play here.
There was a big bump in IT spending associated with the pandemic and remote work/learning. Combine that with the introduction of the new Apple processors (which motivated me to update my touch at MBP along with the horrid keyboard), inflation, and the increase in interest rates, and people just have less money to spread around. The opposite of pent up demand is in play and the market is now saturated on newer tech that is much more capable than most users need at present. That will lead to longer upgrade cycles.
The economy is all ready in a recession. That’s on a global scale. No economy or country will escape it. The layoffs have been ongoing for almost a year now, and increasing interest rates have exposed the weakness in the banking sector. This means less money will be available for IT for a while.
Apple will survive just fine. Mac sales aren’t the biggest piece of the pie and haven’t been for a while. But the days of ever increasing profits and stock prices are over.
Lean times ahead for all.
There was a big bump in IT spending associated with the pandemic and remote work/learning. Combine that with the introduction of the new Apple processors (which motivated me to update my touch at MBP along with the horrid keyboard), inflation, and the increase in interest rates, and people just have less money to spread around. The opposite of pent up demand is in play and the market is now saturated on newer tech that is much more capable than most users need at present. That will lead to longer upgrade cycles.
The economy is all ready in a recession. That’s on a global scale. No economy or country will escape it. The layoffs have been ongoing for almost a year now, and increasing interest rates have exposed the weakness in the banking sector. This means less money will be available for IT for a while.
Apple will survive just fine. Mac sales aren’t the biggest piece of the pie and haven’t been for a while. But the days of ever increasing profits and stock prices are over.
Lean times ahead for all.
As I said two years ago, I had the money to buy the new MacBook Pro but the new design is ugly, sorry I tried, but that thicker fatter notched design is never going to enter my home. Besides that keyboard with so much depth terrible. Oh I forgot, legacy ports. I can’t, sorry I can’t.
OMG... A well-reasoned analysis and conclusion!
Stop it... responses like that will not accumulate forum cred. Best to go with Apple is doomed - a well established crowd-pleaser.
Is it really a contraction in the long term though, or just a lull in a super-cycle? When the pandemic began and companies began rapidly shifting to work-from-home, and both businesses and consumers bought new equipment like crazy, most of which is 2-3 years old now and therefore midway through their lifecycles. Apple's introduction of the M1 in 2020 stretched their boom cycle out a bit as consumers upgraded early in 2021-22 to take advantage of the new architecture. The contraction we're seeing across the entire computer industry is a result of that spike that happened earlier, but as those machines that were purchased in 2020-21 age out in the next 2-4 years there will be another uptick in demand. Eventually it should even out.
Agree with all your points. I ended up building a PC for gaming, light game development, and other hobbies about 9 years ago and haven’t looked back. About 2+ years ago I built a new rig (16-core, 64mb RAM, high end Nvidia GPU, 2x1TB PCIe4 NVME drives) and handed the old one down to my son. It’s fair to say I would have paid A LOT more for equivalent Mac hardware, and lacked the ability to incrementally update.
I still run an old Mac occasionally but if I’m honest, I miss it less and less as time goes on.
Apple continues to neglect the iMac market, and the expensive Studio display doesn’t help. There were a lot of people before who would buy the 27” iMac and now don’t want to buy the Studio display and Mac mini with M2 Pro chip because it’s $1,000 more than what they normally would have paid.
I said it from the start M1 to M2 is pointless. Stop being so damn greedy and lower the prices to a reasonable point and sales will go up. Until then, gtfo with your bs new product releases.
I wanted an iMac for 10 years. I was finally ready for the new 27” then apple released 24” crayola crayon macs and that BS $2000 monitor. So naturally I said F that and bought a new NON APPLE monitor and saved myself $2700.
I wanted an iMac for 10 years. I was finally ready for the new 27” then apple released 24” crayola crayon macs and that BS $2000 monitor. So naturally I said F that and bought a new NON APPLE monitor and saved myself $2700.
I had a 2011 MBP to replace. I chose a refurbished M1 Air over a new M2 Air to save money and not deal with potential issues of the computer running too hot. I don’t think overheating turned out to be a problem for anyone but I’m still very happy with my decision. I got a bargain that will serve me well for several more years.
Apple dropped the ball in failing to ship a 27 inch or larger iMac and now are paying the price for that incompetence.
Most consumers like myself who bought an m1 Mac isn’t going to upgrade for any reason fir at least a few years. Most people keep their computers fir at least 5 years