I also consider to buy the lowest end ones but they on purpose made the storage of such systems slower.
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Apple Halted M2 Chip Production in January Amid 'Plummeting' Mac Sales
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Stop putting only $25 worth of 256gb SSD in your $1000+ base models and then charging $800 to upgrade to 2gb of SSD when tier 1 2TB SSDs are only $150 would be a great start.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, I don't want to come across as Anti-Apple or Anti-Mac as I heavily lean on Apple everything for both work and play. BUT, as Apple keeps raising prices, practical reality begs any consumer to at least consider the alternative(s).
Until a few years ago, Macs were PCs in just about all ways. We gushed & praised them when Intel was in there. Only with the switch has Intel PCs become cremation oven options, requiring nuclear reactors, and jet engine (fan) noisy, etc.
If one can get past the blind loyalty and not be fooled by the wall of closet marketers who will say ANYTHING in support of Apple, a fresh, objective look at PC and Windows 11 can be quite surprising. I certainly am.
I wouldn't be writing this at all if Apple hadn't basically booted Bootcamp. For those of us who are "working Mac" people, that presses us to at least consider a PC for old-fashioned bootcamp. Take one step down that path and you are quickly reminded of the many benefits of PC hardware, particularly in options like flexibility, competition-pressured pricing, ability to evolve over time vs. throwing it all out, etc.
Overall, I still PREFER macOS vs. Windows but could easily, fully switch. Windows 11 is no slouch and there are plenty of situations where a Windows PC is essential while a Mac is only optional.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Unfortunately, I believe that when the iMac "bigger" returns, the (relative) value pricing to which we are accustomed will be history. That's actually why I think there is this period of no iMac 27" at all. Kill it, establish only the monitor at the old "starting at" price for the same monitor + a whole Mac + keyboard + mouse, then revive it with a "starting at" about TWICE as high and rationalize it by using the price of Studio Display alone "because we added a whole Mac inside."
My guess at resurrected iMac "bigger" will be "starting at" $3499 for minimal specs and nicely equipped at $4500-$5500 or so. Look back to the short-lived iMac Pro as a guide. Mx PRO and maybe Mx MAX options inside (much like taking the guts OUT of a MBpro configured either way) and add to the price of Studio Display roughly what a MBpro sans screen + keyboard + track pad + speakers costs. Tadah! "Starting at $3499. We think you will love it!"
I suspect much of the longing for it to return is driven by the relatively good value it was. I think those days are gone.
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And for people who need a terminal, they can also install Linux on their PC. You don't have to use Windows only on a PC.
They should add more fake or such small improvements that they don't really count, and maybe throw a couple more emojis, then package them as something new and raise the price.
Agreed, I can totally see Apple doing that. I’m also surprised that they’ve been showing way more love for the neglected Mac mini than the small iMac. That sure wasn’t the case last decade.
This sentence is terribly misleading.
This article was posted 3 days after the end of the first quarter of the calendar year. Most people reading this would reasonably (but erroneously) conclude that Mac sales took a dive in the first three months of 2023.
But Apple's fiscal year runs from October to September. Apple's revenue was down 5% for the three months ending December 31, 2022. They haven't yet released the results from Q2 of FY 2023, which ended last week.
In Q12023, Mac sales were actually down about 29%, year over year. But it's a tough compare, because the previous year was the first quarter in which the redesigned MacBook Pro models with M1 chips were available. In Q12022, sales were up 25% from the previous year. And in 2021, they were up 21% from the year before that.
This chart shows 4th calendar quarter (Apple FY Q1) Mac revenue for the last 5 years (in millions):
| Year | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| Revenue | 7,416 | 7,160 | 8,675 | 10,852 | 7,735 |
| Year-over year | +8.7% | -3.5% | +21.2% | +25.1% | -28.8% |
| All PCs | -3.7% | +4.8% | +26.1% | +1% | -28.1% |
Overall, I'd say Apple is doing just fine compared to the rest of the market. And in 2021, it was as blowout!
I'm one of those holdouts still using an Intel iMac due to my needs of Intel-based OS virtualization. I'm going out on a limb here, but I really think switching to Apple Silicon was a mistake.
I think one thing hurting M2 MacBook sales is the fact the M2 MacBook Air tends to run quite hot doing any complex tasks. I really hope that Apple corrects this with the rumored 15" MacBook Air with a vapor-chamber cooling system so the SoC is less subject to thermal throttling.
They need to at least up the base storage to 512GB. 256GB is just not enough for the prices they charge.
Sure, but Apples business model has never revolved around outselling the likes of Lenovo or Dell. They instead try to retain a decent minority of the market, and based on those figures that won’t change (again, they had a lEssex decline than the big Windows PC manufacturers). Mac OS has actually increased its market share over the past 5 or so years, which shows how out of touch the people here claiming that everything went downhill after Steve Jobs’ death are.
PC manufacturers who use mostly Intel had bigger sales drops than Apple. I’m going out on a limb here, but you’re probably wrong.
Or have the government finally split the service business of these monster corporations
The confusion isn't helped by stories like this.
Look, it's really simple. Apple had a plan for how to roll out M1, M2, M3, along with associated Macs, Mac Pro etc. Then Covid came along and screwed up both TSMC's timeline and Apple's timeline. So we got about two years of what looks like unorganized drift as Apple delayed things and made do waiting to get back on track.
Presumably starting this year with TSMC N3, the M3 and the A17 everything gets back on track and the pattern looks more obvious.
And I think much the same is true for "plummeting" mac sales. Everybody who CAN hold off on a mac purchase is doing so (I certainly am, and have advised all my friends to do so) because we all have good reason to believe that the M3 machines will be a substantial improvement over the M1/M2 generation. There's no big mystery here.
Well, that's comparing a quarter where COVID was far more active (and laptops were thus far more important to buy) and the M1 was introduced (on three Macs, one of which is the most popular by a wide margin) with a quarter that saw zero new Mac products. Given that, a 5% decrease is… not much. It certainly isn't "plummeting".
How high does a decrease need to be to constitute "plummeting"? 30%? 50%? 70%? Whatever the number, surely it isn't single-digit.
And that's because they hit SUCH a home-run with the M1 Air and Pros. I have a 14" MBP and I don't plan on upgrading for YEARS...
Of course there is always something better; that's not unusual.
What is unusual is that there are multiple good technical reasons to believe that the M3 will be a substantial (ie better than business as usual) improvement over the M1/M2.
This is probably a one-off substantial boost for two reasons
- the end of the COVID delay and so the accumulation of more years of work than usual to be embedded in a product
- the learning from the M1 as to the most obvious sub-optimal tradeoffs and choices in that design (and even more so the Pro/Max/Ultra). M2 was too close to M1 to benefit much from this experience, but M3 will be able to embody most of it.
I really doubt "an upcoming SoC generation may significantly boost performance again" moves the needle much at all, right now. The M2 isn't outdated enough for that to be a big issue.
It was an increasingly big issue in the Skylake++++++++ era, when people were growing frustrated waiting for Intel to achieve 10nm. (And then, to start scaling that.) And even then, it didn't have a huge impact on Mac sales, because not that many people buy based on performance.
The M2 is less than a year old, and you don't know what comes next. You don't know how soon the M3 will arrive, nor do you know how much of a performance boost it will bring. In fact, if it's A16-derived, the answer is: probably not that much (unless they significantly boost clock and/or cores).
the m2 is already an unimpressive upgrade over the m1, so makes sense for me.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
For those who need full Windows, the next computer purchase may be “must” (Windows PC) vs. “want” (Mac).
I happen to be in the good position to choose “both” but not everyone can. The end of bootcamp may force the move back to PC for some. Windows ARM is OK but some need full Windows compatibility. Their next purchase may already be decided for them.