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Apple Halting Mac Component Orders Due to Overestimated Demand?
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You're sure about the 16GB RAM? The spec sheet seems to indicate that it only supports up to 8GB. http://support.apple.com/kb/SP583
I agree with you. This is why Apple is doing things like soldering memory to boards and making proprietary Flash. You have done what most can do to be financially wise. You have upgraded the system as time went on and it is still usable. If history predicts (which it ALWAYS DOES), 8GB RAM is not enough in 2015 so if you bought a 13" Retina MBP, you will possible have to buy a new system. If you buy a non-retina MBP today and want to upgrade it to 16GB or maybe even 32GB later, you have the option.
Apple did not have to solder memory and make the Flash proprietary in order to put a retina screen on the new line. They had to do it to make the system "thinner" This is their mistake. Its not an iPad, its a computer. It needs to be semi-servicable to technically capable folks.
This is also why larger corporations do not go Mac.
All I can say is to wait and see what the break down of the sales are based on region - I have strong inkling of the emerging markets growing at a rate not fast enough to off set the decline in the established markets. I still see sales in New Zealand but us along with Australia are probably not as bad economically as the United States or Europe - it all comes down to what is going to happen in the more established countries.
Unfortunately Apple has a long history (pre-return of Jobs) of doing this to themselves. I had read that Apple literally buried huge inventory in the desert because they couldn't sell it...
Cut the price in half and it would be underestimated demand
Margins too
If Apple's sole goal here was to sell a ton of iMacs it could sell them @ cost. But Apple has goals: a) sell a ton of iMacs at b) a price that retains a healthy margin.
This report is from Digitimes so most intelligent people here take the news with a dusting of salt... a grain would be far too large. But for sake of argument let's say it is true. The problem is with estimating demand. What did Tim Cook not see?
We know generally that PC sales have been plummeting even as Mac sales have slight growth. Are Macs now catching "down" with PCs? If so its likely not a price point issue, but rather consumers tastes turning further from desktops to laptops and tablets.
Apple still aren't in a bad place, we're seeing a significant shift in the personal computer market which Apple have largely created. They've played a very big role in creating the shift to tablets and smartphones and as a result are in far better shape long term than the likes of Dell through to particularly Intel or Microsoft. The last two have missed the boat.
Personally I think the 15" MBP retina is good value when you compare specs to equivalently powered laptops, the 13" is rather less value. The point being that a typical consumer will not understand quad core, retina, 16gb RAM etc but will see a beautifully designed but expensive device that doesn't appear to do anything substantially better than their three or four year old laptop. Which is why they're hanging on to their current laptop or desktop and buying a tablet in addition to their existing devices.
The response to this will be for manufacturer's to try to build in redundancy to devices for both hardware and software. Wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft's next desperate step was to make Windows Blue a Haswell only platform. Intel will probably make their CPU's soldered to motherboard's etc, they'll go out of their way to prevent consumers from upgrading their devices to extend their usable lifespans.
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Seriously? I'm really happy if your 3-4 year old machine does the job for you, but a quick look at geekbench shows a significant speed increase:
Your machine: 3340
Current entry level rMBP: 6625
Current entry level cMBP: 6658
Yep - they are both twice as fast. With the improving technology of each generation of intel i5 and i7 processors processor speeds are noticeably improving, while the clock speeds are changing very little.
Also, never underestimate the massive speed increase of SSD.
The same applies to everyone complaining about the price of macs in general. There are i5/i7 processors and there are i5/i7 processors; depending on the generation, number or cores and power usage, speeds can be wildly different. Specs have never been harder to compare. Looking at chip comparison sites, apple more or less consistently have the most powerful processors in their class in their machines. Truly compare a plastic windows machine with an identical sleek mac and you might be surprised (without even looking at the value of OSX vs Windows 8, bloatware on the pc, battery life, aesthetics etc.)
P.S. Apple seem to be doing fine in market share - take the Digitimes BS with a pinch of salt. Next it'll be Gizmodo sticking their oar in...
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You're very unlucky. I won't recount every apple product I've owned since 2001, but it's a lot - and there's been exactly one failure, the hd on a 2004 iBook.
+1 I've had exactly one superdrive fail
(if you exclude things I physically broken)!
I have to agree here. I think my iMac is a great machine, I have given iPads to my parents as gifts, but for the life of me I cannot get friends to buy any Mac. A few have iPads but when it comes to computers they look at $300 laptops and double that for desktops with monitors and just laugh at Mac prices. Because once you strip away the case savvy buyers look at components and that is where it all falls down. As one friend told me, Apple is damn proud of that case aren't they.
I figure a good twenty to thirty percent and even then its iffy. Windows laptops are at commodity prices, its hard to convince anyone that the base Apple laptop is worth three to four times that.
I'm sure the things are selling fine, but it feels like Apple have misjudged component orders a lot recently - similar to them placing and cancelling orders for massive amounts of NAND that crashed prices and have burned manufacturers so badly that they seem unwilling to enter into long term deals.
Thats your experience. Mine is the opposite. We have 21 Macs (various models from Power PC up to new 27" iMacs. We have had 2 failures both old power pc's.
We also have 4x 1 year old Toshiba 17" laptops which have all failed in the last 6 months. Not to mention a batch of 3 3yr old Lenovo desktops which have had burst motherboards due to blown caps. 1 HP server 1 yr old, drive array chassis blown out and 2 failed disks. HP laptop, failed motherboard at 2 years old. a 3ft high stack of del laptop batteries all under 5 years old, alongside a stack of dell laptops with burst hinges. Thats just in the to be recycled pile.... just sayin...
That is because the majority of people who buy Apple products know that people at Best Buy have no clue and the service is far better at an Apple store. Also those who shop at Best Buy are looking for deals and not necessarily something of quality.
I've owned both the 2009 and 2011 13" MBPs and I'm going to have to disagree for 2 reasons.
- The move from C2D to Core-i5 in 2011 provided a very real improvment in real world performance.
- The move from NVidia 9400 to Intel HD3000 was also a reasonably big step up, especially with 8GB of RAM fitted. The NVidia was pegged to use 256 MB of RAM, while the HD3000 was dynamically assigned and will employ up to 512 MB.
Not sure if the news is true or not but it is stock manipulation. These analyst wait till the week before the earnings report when Apple is legally unable to respond to rumors before bombarding everyone with negative Apple news. The people who short the stock then make tons of money.