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I honestly do wish the Apple would split into two. The idevice division and the Mac division. Get back to making top of the line hardware with great updates and reasonable (for Apple) prices. The idevice market has screwed over development of decent Mac hardware.

I agree but iOS makes money hand over fist all day longand then coupled with the app store revenue.


And this is purely for fun and a joke but i know some people will get pissed.


this is how i see the board meeting going
Tim Cook: So Do we have the new mac Mini ready yet? or mac pro?
Craig: Better! MEMOJI!
Mac Team: Hey guys we can fix the VESA Mount for the iMac Pro.
Tim: Look im a spooky ghost!
Mac Team: ok how about the keyboard issue on the macbook pro?
Tim: Fine but only the new ones, OOO now im a T-rex
MAc Team: Ok but we have a mac mini and pro ready to ship.....
Johnny:Are they thin?
MAc Team:.......They are desktop computers......
Johnny: Thinner......
MAc Team: But the heat?........
Johnny: Your using it wrong then just use Final Cut instead
Mac Team:.....But.....fine.....
Accessory Team: Hey guys can we release airpower yet?
Tim: Whats airpower again?
Accessory Team:What?!? we announced it last year and told people early 2018.....
Tim: Im a tiger now!
Mac and accessory Team: *face palms*
 
No different than 2016, when Mac sales declined each quarter and each quarter's drop was deeper than the prior quarter's. Then updated MacBooks, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros and iMacs launched at the end of the year and sales rebounded in 2017. New MacBooks, MaMBPs just arrived and now we have new MacBooks and iMacs coming along with rumors of a new Mini by end of year. And then new Mac Pro drops in 2019. So I expect we'll see 2019 looking pretty decent in terms of shipments.

In other news, Mac revenues per unit are at an all-time high so even though they are selling less, they're making more from each unit they do sell.
 
Apple needs to update their entire lineup and lower the prices if they want to sell more units. Wasting all this cash on superfast home grown SSD's when they could just ship a Samsung 970 Pro instead. It's stupid. We're all paying for Apples push into custom parts and we're not getting good value, they cost twice as much and perform the same as off the shelf components.
 
this is history repeating itself. it's not that they're trying to be the "brand of the rich" it's just that the current direction of the company is focused more on the financials side of things than the products. Apple is catering to the stock market crowd for their business decisions and not necessarily the products themselves.

This can be directly tied to the fact that the CEO's net worth and renumeration is heavily tied to the stock price. it is in Tim Cook's best financial interest personally to operate in this manner.

THe problem is this sort of behaviour can backfire (but not always). if volume decreases due to products that no longer are capable of easily selling themselves due to their own merits that they decide to raise prices across the board to make up for the potential loss revenue, there's always threat of blowback from the customer base.

Often this is seen as "profiteering for the sake of profiteering" or a "tax" to keep wallstreet happy. This can have potential ramifications of pissing off customers. Apple should be no stranger to this, as this nearly tanked them in the 90's. The term "Apple Tax" didn't come from out of nowhere. Many, especially in foreign markets where there is additional currency conversions in place so that Apple's US books can look good, we are paying for those hefty margins just so that Apple can boast to the investors how well revenue wise they did.

This quarter has been a resounding financial success for apple. However, there are certain things that should be paid attention to by Apple, that might pose future risk. iPhone sales were relatively flat with no growth. Mac Sales declined as this article shows. Service revenues, and an increase of ASP accross almost the entire product lineup should make investors raise an eyebrow.

Yep. Pretty much the exact same trajectory as MS under Ballmer.
 
Why do people have a need to buy EVERY SINGLE ITERATION OF THAT Ridiculously overpriced phone?

...

I just replaced my 2008 MacBook with a 2017 MBP, and when my 2009 iMac 27' dies, it won't be replaced.
See you again in 10 years, Apple.

Totally agree. Laptops are once-in-an-every-few-years purchase. They're generally only replaced these days when the software requirements exceed your platform specs. The only place more frequent replacement is needed is for the gamer PC arena, and Apple has all-but shut themselves out of that business (for some strange reason).

And don't get me started about phone replacement...

The main activity for me on my phone is still the same as when they were released: Calling people, texting people (without emojis), using Google Maps, and surfing the web to avoid talking to people at dinner.
 
Yeah I am looking into Windows machines too. I much prefer the Mac though and it'd be a pain to transfer my large Photos gallery to Windows. The rest wouldn't be a problem.

I'm not going to go Mac free (my house is completely within the Apple Eco system.. Apple Watch, A-TV, iPhones, beats earphones, AirMac thingies.. I'm sure there's even an iPod Hi-Fi somewhere in the closet), but the thing that helped in terms of photo upkeep in a bi-OS world was my iCloud account that I've had since my .mac days.

The windows iCloud app for Win 10 is flaky, but you can access the iCloud/Photo cache, and download the entire library from there.

The only thing that I am having trouble with, in my quest to be bi-OS is, I can't figure out how to transfer/backup the saved non-IMAP emails I have on my Mail.app. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but not in a hurry..

Sorry to go off topic.
 
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I'm hoping Apple comes on stage next year to say that they've been having "problems" keeping the Mac up-to-date because of third party suppliers and they will now be making their own CPUs and GPUs for new Macs going forward. Their chip team is incredible and the desktop computing industry overall hasn't been keeping pace in recent years. Otherwise arn might need to be looking into alternative domain names for MACrumors.com because this isn't sustainable.

If Apple makes their own chips for the Mac, that just means the platform will become locked down and completely proprietary. You will no longer be allowed to run your own software, everything will have to be signed by Apple.

The T2 chip that they put in the MBP is the next step to locking down the Mac platform, all under the guise of security.

CPU's and GPU's are fast enough, they are stagnating because of the laws of physics. "In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics" Increasing the number of cores really is not that useful.

Long term, the next phase is likely quantum computers.
 
Apple needs to update their entire lineup and lower the prices if they want to sell more units.

They don't. Mac unit revenues have been rising for years so even as they sell around the same number each year, they make more money from each one. If the Mac was it's own company, it would be in the Fortune 500 and is on it's way to being a Fortune 400 company.
 
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Love my MacBook Pro, technology changes pretty rapidly, making any computer made 1 year ago outdated, i.e. the Surface Pro 4. Yet you wouldn't read such a bogus headline involving Microsoft or any other manufacturer.
 
Yep. Pretty much the exact same trajectory as MS under Ballmer.

Dell also had the exact same problem, and it hurt business so bad due to quality slippage that Michael Dell spent billions of his own money to buy back controlling interest in the company so that he could regain control

there's this mindset in the last few recent years where a CEO's job is the maximization of profits above all else. This is assanine thinking and removes any long term accountability from their decision making.

The CEO's responsibility is not just the creation of profit, but the long term health, safety and reliability of the company. To ensure employees are paid. To ensure the products released meet the companies defined standards, and to ensure that future operation of the company can be maintained and grown.

Boiling this down to "PROFIT ABOVE ALL ELSE" is terrible direction and has a history (not always) but frequently of biting a company in the ass, because it's short term thinking. People need to stop repeating the nonsense that the CEO's only job is the maximization of profit. THATS the accountants job. NOT the CEO. The CEO needs to take the accountants position into consideration and balance it against other factors.

Unfortunately, while great for investors, Tim Cook seems to not be that CEO. I'd love him as a bean counter to provide me direction, but as a CEO itself? He's left a lot to be desired regarding the actual products.
 
People demand yearly mac refreshes akin to the iPhone, but don't understand there's no groundbreaking hardware advances to justify it. If people want to shell out 3K every year for the sake of a new laptop shell, maybe apple should oblige them.
1. Different group of people needs to upgrade each year. Yearly update is not for you only.
2. Even if there is no suitable CPU, you can always update something else like RAM, SSD, GPU etc.
3. If tech really is stagnant, the price should come down as years go by. Not stay the same like this.
4. In fact, each iteration seems to have higher and higher price. Take MacBook Pro 15” as an example. Right now the base model is ridiculously expensive, not to mention their weird decisions to remove the perfectly fine keyboard, MagSafe (along with the LED indicator) and ports.
 
Outdated and overpriced.

giphy.gif
 
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People demand yearly mac refreshes akin to the iPhone, but don't understand there's no groundbreaking hardware advances to justify it. If people want to shell out 3K every year for the sake of a new laptop shell, maybe apple should oblige them.

Computer technology advanced no matter what, even if it's small increments. I don't think the people are complaining that there's not a full blown redesign every year. But selling the same internals for 3-5 years straight isn't good. There needs to be a yearly revisions to the internals to upgrade to current parts. Everyone else in the industry seems to be able to do this on a 6month basis. Apple, despite their financials, and despite their size, can't seem to keep any of their computers up to date but one at a time.

Apple I think needs to start putting responsibility downwards towards individual teams and stop believing every single product decision needs to go through 2-4 people. These individuals do not seem to be able to keep up with the size of Apple's customer base or product lineup anymore. When you get a large company, with so many people and so many moving parts, you have to be able to delegate.
 
So 3.7 millions people (assuming one computer/head) willingly bought overpriced and outdated computers...Perhaps they found value where a vocal majority on this site do not?

Look at the Mac trend, it fluctuates but there is no real growth or real decline over time. Let's see what happens next quarter before we can say anything about a trend.
 
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I agree! Seems no one at Apple gets this. They are quickly becoming the brand for the rich. Sad.

Difference is, you had to pay up-front years ago. Now they're partnered with CC companies that'll let you purchase at zero interest for up to 18 months. Take those customers out of the equation, and I wonder how many people are actually purchasing phones, tablets, desktops, etc outright?
 
They don't. Mac unit revenues have been rising for years so even as they sell around the same number each year, they make more money from each one. If the Mac was it's own company, it would be in the Fortune 500 and is on it's way to being a Fortune 400 company.

They do if they want to sell more, which was my point. It doesn't matter if it costs a billion dollars per unit and they only sell 50. All these companies want more market share. The Apple logo stamped on all their stuff brings brand image and awareness which drives sales.

Apple will not be happy about selling less Macs now than they did 8 years ago. That shows stalling growth.
 
1. Different group of people needs to upgrade each year. Yearly update is not for you only.
2. Even if there is no suitable CPU, you can always update something else like RAM, SSD, GPU etc.
3. If tech really is stagnant, the price should come down as years go by. Not stay the same like this.
4. In fact, each iteration seems to have higher and higher price. Take MacBook Pro 15” as an example. Right now the base model is ridiculously expensive, not to mention their weird decisions to remove the perfectly fine keyboard, MagSafe (along with the LED indicator) and ports.

Agreed, Apple have been trading on brand loyalty and their ecosystem rather than their technology for a long time. They always have in many ways. The MacBook Air or Mac Pro, Mac Mini for four years, really, at those prices? It's no wonder there's a vociferous minority who think we're complete fools for supporting Apple.

Even the iPhone X was playing catch-up.

I still really like many of their products as I type on my iPad Mini 4! Oh there's another antiquated piece of kit.

I almost which their user base would turn on them. I do wonder what the next generation will adopt and how Apple will be perceived? It's rarely a case of a new generation following the previous one.

The pattern is often that the dominant market player ultimately becomes bloated, arrogant and complacent, from Xerox to Microsoft.
 
Apple said it still recorded double-digit year-over-year growth in its active installed base of Macs last quarter, reaching a new all-time high, with nearly 60 percent of purchases coming from customers who are new to the Mac.

so they sold 16 MacPros last year and 6 of those people were new to Mac..... learned a long time ago the use of the % value is a way to hide the truth. No one want a computer built in 2013.
 
“They need to?”

Why? Isn’t the goal of a company to make money? They seem to be having no trouble with that.

I'd counter that if a company wants to remain competitive, their goal should be to provide value to their customers. Apple's got a pretty long history of doing that... Recently - well...

As they approach the trillion dollar market cap, I'm sure we can all agree that their short term decisions are helping them make money.
 
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