Apple Sees All-Time High Mac Revenue of $9 Billion in Q4 2020

[anson42]

And things in “support” of remote work, like an iPad for each kid (if they’re not in school) so they can watch they want when their sibling wants to watch something different, play a game.

Yeah, that, too The idea of "screen time" went out the window with parents trying to get work done.

 

[Mascots]

As much as I loathed that particular piece of hardware, corrolation ≠ causation. I very much doubt the vast majority of consumers would have a strong enough preference to actually hold off buying a new Mac if they needed one.

I would agree with you on general features (e.g., Touch Bar), but it's not only because people didn't like the keyboard that it was loathed, it was because the reliability of it was so low and problems so widespread that your average user perceived it as a drop in value not worth the price paid / the continual game of "it's fixed" when it wasn't started to build a reputation. It is not every day that major publications take specific hits to products which they use in their every day lives, nor every review for a series of years grip about a flaw which could prevent some of the basic functionality of such a popular device to work.

From the market research and post analysis I've seen during that crisis (from a good variety of sources, not just my own opinions), the keyboard really did fatigue Apple's laptop line.

Now about ARM? I don't think that's having any reasonable impact since the outcome is less dramatic for the end user.

 

[ignatius345]

it was because the reliability of it was so low and problems so widespread that your average user perceived it as a drop in value not worth the price paid / the continual game of "it's fixed" when it wasn't started to build a reputation. It is not every day that major publications take specific hits to products which they use in their every day lives, nor every review for a series of years grip about a flaw which could prevent some of the basic functionality of such a popular device to work.

That's true. I forgot about that WSJ article. I'm sure Apple has market data about this, but it's not like they're sharing it.

Either way, I'm really happy the problem got corrected. As a matter of fact, it seemed like they heard about people wanting a physical escape key and inverted-T arrow layout too, because the MacBook Air I waited several years to buy has both of those things as well.

Now about ARM? I don't think that's having any reasonable impact since the outcome is less dramatic for the end user.

Even for this pretty nerdy user, that's definitely the case. I'm cautiously excited at the prospect of ARM Macs, but I also wouldn't pass up a deal on a good Intel iMac 5K either.

The worst bottlenecks for my Mac usage the past year or two have been the bugginess of MacOS anyway.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Yeah, it’s amazing what happens when you release a decent product with a keyboard that doesn’t suck. Pity it took them four years to figure it out.

Yep, and there's still quite a few unpopular flaws remaining that could be ironed out and boost sales even more.

 

[xander09]

I agree ~ and I’m most looking forward to the new Macs over anything else they are offering.

I would still keep that 17 Pro ~ I’m running Mojave flawlessly on my 09 iMac with the DosDude patch, so yours should be able to run as well. Have you added an ssd to it?

Oh yeah, it's been opened up many times: drive mount in the optical bay, SSD upgrades, and a swapped wireless board from 2012 15" for Handoff capability. Unfortunately its dGPU is, as they all end up in this model, dead (after two replacements by Apple). The last one died a year or so after the repair program ended.

I got an eGPU set up so I could maintain external display capability, and in 4K even! It was rock solid under Sierra, but I had to upgrade to High Sierra for software that I needed. Now some things work better (I can have all the transparency bells and whistles running and use the "displays as separate spaces" setting) but it is less stable, with the WindowServer hanging pretty regularly every couple days. I haven't been able to get the dosdude Mojave patches to play nice with the patches that enable the eGPU and external displays, which are a must for me, so I'm stuck. It's been fun (for the most part 😉) keeping it going all these years, despite the challenges those dGPUs present. Much gratitude to the MacRumors community for making it possible! But, I'm ready to not be hopping into terminal on another machine every other day to run pkill and reboot. 😛

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Oh yeah, it's been opened up many times: drive mount in the optical bay, SSD upgrades, and a swapped wireless board from 2012 15" for Handoff capability. Unfortunately its dGPU is, as they all end up in this model, dead (after two replacements by Apple). The last one died a year or so after the repair program ended.

I got an eGPU set up so I could maintain external display capability, and in 4K even! It was rock solid under Sierra, but I had to upgrade to High Sierra for software that I needed. Now some things work better (I can have all the transparency bells and whistles running and use the "displays as separate spaces" setting) but it is less stable, with the WindowServer hanging pretty regularly every couple days. I haven't been able to get the dosdude Mojave patches to play nice with the patches that enable the eGPU and external displays, which are a must for me, so I'm stuck. It's been fun (for the most part 😉) keeping it going all these years, despite the challenges those dGPUs present. Much gratitude to the MacRumors community for making it possible! But, I'm ready to not be hopping into terminal on another machine every other day to run pkill and reboot. 😛

Man, that’s neat ~ sounds like you’ve really maximized use out of that machine. Hopefully they start with the 16” Pro so you can make that transition. Cheers!

 

[hans1972]

Huh, so it turns out that when the chips are down a lot of people would rather get real work done on a Mac instead of an iPad. Go figure.

iPad revenue was up 46% YoY while Mac revenue was only up 29% YoY.

 

[xander09]

Man, that’s neat ~ sounds like you’ve really maximized use out of that machine. Hopefully they start with the 16” Pro so you can make that transition. Cheers!

Thanks! It's been a journey. I could write love letters to the expandability and problem solving routes that Thunderbolt enables in providing an external PCI interface. 😉