Apple's Mac Revenue Up 70% in Q2 2021, iPad Revenue Up Almost 79%

[LordVic]

I'm not surprised.

Apple was coasting for quite a while. Too many minor iterations that also saw large price jumps over the last few years were definitely barriers to purchases for many users.

how many times in these forums were complaints levied because of small iteratives, but price points that were, nonsense.

At least this year, there's finally a compelling reason to upgrade/replace some of the older, but functioning equipment that could justify the price levels. Thus, people long holding out for such significant value change are now willing to buy.

I know from an anecdotal perspective. For the first time in a decade I am considering either a M1 macbook air or Pro. My last apple computer was a 2011 MacBook Air. Apple really started to push too far with the 2015 MacBook Pro redesign that saw imho significant downgrades and compromises with a higher price point and I absolutely couldn't justify what they were asking for for the hardware they were delivering. simply put, the 2015 to 2020 Apple lineup was over-priced compromise.

 

[LordVic]

I think many, many people would gladly takena lower quality screen for a lesser price, especially considering who Apple appears to be aiming this machine towards. $1299 for a “casual” fun machine is too much IMO. This should be priced on par with the MBA As both machines share the target audience.

yes. It's definitely got the built in Apple Tax. I think give it 3-6 months and there will be small discounts here and there.

Heck, I think there's already $100 off the M1 MacBook Air. $1300 for that computer (CAD) is actually compelling.

 

[mrhick01]

Well, despite your use of asterisks, whatever that means, I disagree totally. Look back at the Mac (and external display) update history at the height of this marketing message. I believe Cook saw the future of Apple being iOS, iPads and iPhones, which is quite understandable for a bean counter. Macs and OS were, I suspect, increasingly a distracting inconvenience for him. Then we had the "Mac is in our DNA message" as he finally realised it would damage the brand to turn his back on the heritage, as well as being a boost for the "lifestyle company" critics.

That was a corporate reaction to the problem of Intel being incapable of building chips that could excel under the thermal requirements of Apple's design.

We've now seen the results. Intel failed Apple's expectations, so Apple designed their own chips and architecture.

 

[LordVic]

That was a corporate reaction to the problem of Intel being incapable of building chips that could excel under the thermal requirements of Apple's design.

We've now seen the results. Intel failed Apple's expectations, so Apple designed their own chips and architecture.

on the flip side. Intel's power limits / thermals were a known quantity and Apple intentionally designed their laptops to not work well within these limits.

When you look at the performance of competing computers in the same space also running intel, but with proper thermal design, they were outperforming Apple's intel laptops quite a lot.

There was a bit of a hilarious meme video by Linus Tech Tips back when the original MacBook launched where he "watercooled" it and demonstrated that the chips were perfectly capable of really good performance if Apple had actually properly designed cooling.

Don't get me wrong. Apple's own silicon is great and easily fills in the low / entry level computer use cases and can absolutely deliver enough performance for just about any day to day casual comptuer usage.

But blaming intel 100% for Apple's design choices is really just handwaving away Apple's own failings with their previous designs.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Intel's power limits / thermals were a known quantity and Apple intentionally designed their laptops to not work well within these limits.

Ah ah ah! Intel’s power limits and thermals were known BEFORE they shipped, BUT what they actually shipped was NOT what they promised on their roadmap. I suppose it’s Apple fault for designing with tight tolerances assuming that Intel would meet the goals they set for themselves?

Systems across the Intel space got thicker and heavier… they had to. It was either that or risk losing marketshare. Due to other missed feature requirements, some of these vendors had to ship laptops configured with desktop RAM.

If Intel had met their promised goals… if they made what they said they were making, we likely wouldn’t be here… Or, maybe we were headed this way eventually anyway, Intel just made it a drop dead easy decision.

 

[MacBH928]

I don't understand why Apple is neglecting the Mac. They only have like 15% market share there is so much area to grow and with more people aware of privacy issues its a better choice over the toxic Windows platform. They are not even promoting it to new users, just the older users.

I remember talk on this forum no so long ago about people wondering if Apple was abandoning the Mac line and going full force with iOS and iPadOS. Guess we got our answer.

Not exactly, as more years come by the 2 platforms become closer to each other. Now we can run iOS apps in MacOS and the internal are exactly the same with iPad having M1. I might not understand too much hardware, but this sounds to me that the new iPad Pro is capable of running MacOS better and faster than my 2015 MBP.

For sure MacOS is not going to be on iphone/iPadOS , so we are left with either iOS going to the Mac or they merge in a new OS that works on both. Maybe they merge iPadOS and MacOS and not iOS

 

[MacBH928]

notice the double speak by saying MacOS and iOS, he didn't mention iPadOS and MacOS

 

[JPack]

notice the double speak by saying MacOS and iOS, he didn't mention iPadOS and MacOS

iPadOS wasn't introduced until 2019.

 

[Abazigal]

I don't understand why Apple is neglecting the Mac. They only have like 15% market share there is so much area to grow and with more people aware of privacy issues its a better choice over the toxic Windows platform. They are not even promoting it to new users, just the older users.

The reason is simple - the Mac does not represent the future at Apple.

The most popular product at Apple is the iPhone - so it stands to reason that Apple would focus on growing that area the most - in the form of higher prices and more models, more accessories and more services.

Wearables represent the next big area of growth for Apple because it leverages on their big iPhone install base and it’s right up their alleyway of making products even smaller, slimmer and more personal. And all the focus on iPhones and wearables has to come from somewhere - the Mac.

Apple simply had bigger fish to fry than grow the Mac user base at the time, IMO.

 

[hot-gril]

2018 was a long time ago and before the pandemic. Also, under no circumstances would he say yes.

 

[JPack]

2018 was a long time ago and before the pandemic. Also, under no circumstances would he say yes.

I don't think the pandemic has changed the strategic priorities or Apple's vision of the iPad or Mac.

Craig didn't have stand on stage and say "No" if Apple wanted to leave the door open. Apple has made it clear the iPad and Mac serve different purposes and it's the same reason why they won't add touchscreen or make a Yoga device.

 

[V.K.]

I don't think the pandemic has changed the strategic priorities or Apple's vision of the iPad or Mac.

Craig didn't have stand on stage and say "No" if Apple wanted to leave the door open. Apple has made it clear the iPad and Mac serve different purposes and it's the same reason why they won't add touchscreen or make a Yoga device.

It's baffling to me why so many people refuse to accept this or understand the reasons why Apple is sticking with this strategy. Desktop Mac interface would suck horrendously for touch because it's designed for point and click. Desktop icons and menu items are too small for fingers, you can't do right click ir middle click with fingers, you can't drill into menus with fingers, you can't do keyboard shortcuts with fingers, etc.
Likewise touch interface sucks on a desktop, although not as badly as the other way around. Apple understands this. The only way to truly unify touch and desktop is to have different modes for every app and for the OS itself so that the UI looks and works differently in them and switches depending on the mode. But Apple chose not to do this (would be admittedly difficult to pull off) so Macs and iPads will remain separate for foreseeable future.

 

[JPack]

It's baffling to me why so many people refuse to accept this or understand the reasons why Apple is sticking with this strategy. Desktop Mac interface would suck horrendously for touch because it's designed for point and click. Desktop icons and menu items are too small for fingers, you can't do right click ir middle click with fingers, you can't drill into menus with fingers, you can't do keyboard shortcuts with fingers, etc.
Likewise touch interface sucks on a desktop, although not as badly as the other way around. Apple understands this. The only way to truly unify touch and desktop is to have different modes for every app and for the OS itself so that the UI looks and works differently in them and switches depending on the mode. But Apple chose not to do this (would be admittedly difficult to pull off) so Macs and iPads will remain separate for foreseeable future.

Indeed. It's one of the biggest reasons why iOS was created in the first place - things like Windows CE or Windows Mobile just didn't work well for a mobile device. Apple wanted something from the ground up designed for touch and handhelds. For Apple to merge iPadOS and macOS means they would have to ignore that strategy.

 

[MacBH928]

The reason is simple - the Mac does not represent the future at Apple.

The most popular product at Apple is the iPhone - so it stands to reason that Apple would focus on growing that area the most - in the form of higher prices and more models, more accessories and more services.

Wearables represent the next big area of growth for Apple because it leverages on their big iPhone install base and it’s right up their alleyway of making products even smaller, slimmer and more personal. And all the focus on iPhones and wearables has to come from somewhere - the Mac.

Apple simply had bigger fish to fry than grow the Mac user base at the time, IMO.

Yes that is a good arguement but a company the size of Apple ($2T) can push on all boundaries but I agree its more profitable on the accessories and iphone side of things. People upgrade phones yearly, they keep computers for years.

 

[hot-gril]

It's baffling to me why so many people refuse to accept this or understand the reasons why Apple is sticking with this strategy. Desktop Mac interface would suck horrendously for touch because it's designed for point and click. Desktop icons and menu items are too small for fingers, you can't do right click ir middle click with fingers, you can't drill into menus with fingers, you can't do keyboard shortcuts with fingers, etc.
Likewise touch interface sucks on a desktop, although not as badly as the other way around. Apple understands this. The only way to truly unify touch and desktop is to have different modes for every app and for the OS itself so that the UI looks and works differently in them and switches depending on the mode. But Apple chose not to do this (would be admittedly difficult to pull off) so Macs and iPads will remain separate for foreseeable future.

It works well enough in Windows. People aren't pressing menus with their fingers. They use the touch interface for light stuff like web browsing, which is a huge part of daily usage, or tablet-specific applications like drawing and touch apps. You can do a lot in an only mildly touch-optimized OS with only touch, and you can connect the keyboard/mouse when you're doing work.

Of course, Windows is lame for unrelated reasons, regardless of whether you're using the KB/M.

 

[Abazigal]

Yes that is a good arguement but a company the size of Apple ($2T) can push on all boundaries but I agree its more profitable on the accessories and iphone side of things. People upgrade phones yearly, they keep computers for years.

Maybe the reason why Apple is a 2 trillion company is precisely because they knew how to say no to a product category like the Mac at a time when they needed to grow the iPhone install base and its accompanying ecosystem. In short, Apple did not lose focus on what mattered more to them at the time.

That doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t make this any less frustrating for users, and at the end of the day, is this not a reflection of what life is all about ultimately? A bundle of compromises.

 

[mrhick01]

on the flip side. Intel's power limits / thermals were a known quantity and Apple intentionally designed their laptops to not work well within these limits.

When you look at the performance of competing computers in the same space also running intel, but with proper thermal design, they were outperforming Apple's intel laptops quite a lot.

There was a bit of a hilarious meme video by Linus Tech Tips back when the original MacBook launched where he "watercooled" it and demonstrated that the chips were perfectly capable of really good performance if Apple had actually properly designed cooling.

Don't get me wrong. Apple's own silicon is great and easily fills in the low / entry level computer use cases and can absolutely deliver enough performance for just about any day to day casual comptuer usage.

But blaming intel 100% for Apple's design choices is really just handwaving away Apple's own failings with their previous designs.

It's less that I "blame" Intel. They couldn't make what Apple wanted.

It's just that, yes, Apple could have engineered their hardware to play nicer with Intel's processor quirks, but that's the point: they did not and do not want to do that.

They wanted, and I assumed were promised, chips that would fulfill their design vision and did not want to compromise their vision of lighter and thinner (for better or worse, however any MacRumors Forums member feels about it, YMMV). When they did not get it, there was a limbo of frozen and dying-on-the-vine SKUs that looked increasingly bad until Apple called that come-to-Jesus/apologetics meeting with tech media in 2017. That was also likely after the decisions were made to move away from Intel permanently and transition to Apple silicon.

 

[LordVic]

It's less that I "blame" Intel. They couldn't make what Apple wanted.

It's just that, yes, Apple could have engineered their hardware to play nicer with Intel's processor quirks, but that's the point: they did not and do not want to do that.

They wanted, and I assumed were promised, chips that would fulfill their design vision and did not want to compromise their vision of lighter and thinner (for better or worse, however any MacRumors Forums member feels about it, YMMV). When they did not get it, there was a limbo of frozen and dying-on-the-vine SKUs that looked increasingly bad until Apple called that come-to-Jesus/apologetics meeting with tech media in 2017. That was also likely after the decisions were made to move away from Intel permanently and transition to Apple silicon.

"they did not want to do that"

but it's INTEL's FAULT..wahhhhhhhhhhhh

Intel has had major problems. this isn't without question

But when Intel says "here are our chips, they run at 15w to 25w under X loads"

Apple designs their chassis to only handle 10-20..

and the complains it's INTELS FAULT!!!!!

that's just stupidity.


Overall, the M1 move is a good one given APple's demands. But Apple was literally demanding something that NO TECHNOLOGICAL CHIP MAKER AT THE TIME WAS MAKING.

that puts apple out of touch with reality with their expectations. Not Intel. Not everyone else who managed to use the same chips, in similar sized chassis without the same throttling limits. Apple has been notorious (during Intel era) at being the absolute worst for thermal performance.

Heck, At one point even using the laptop chips in their 21" iMAC with more space and it was throttling. The iMac 27" was throttling at points with underperforming cooling

The simple fact is Apple handicapped themselves and performance by designing chassis and cooling solutions that nobody was designing chips for. That is on APPLE not intel.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

But when Intel says "here are our chips, they run at 15w to 25w under X loads"

Apple designs their chassis to only handle 10-20..

Just a weee bit of clarification.

When Intel says “We’ll be shipping chips that have the performance you’re looking for and they’ll run at 10-12w under X loads…

So that Apple designs their chassis to only handle 10-20..

But THEN Intel says, months late, "here are our chips we promised! Only they run at 15w to 25w under X loads, but that’s fine right? We’ll do better and absolutely not continue to make you promises we can’t keep for… like 6 years or so. That’s not a thing we’d do.”

😳

 

[LordVic]

Just a weee bit of clarification.

When Intel says “We’ll be shipping chips that have the performance you’re looking for and they’ll run at 10-12w under X loads…

So that Apple designs their chassis to only handle 10-20..

But THEN Intel says, months late, "here are our chips we promised! Only they run at 15w to 25w under X loads, but that’s fine right? We’ll do better and absolutely not continue to make you promises we can’t keep for… like 6 years or so. That’s not a thing we’d do.”

😳

except nobody else was having that problem.

JUST apple couldn't cope. again: That's an apple design decision.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

except nobody else was having that problem.

JUST apple couldn't cope. again: That's an apple design decision.

Go look during those years at successive members of the same product line… because I did. I was wondering the same as you. ALL the other laptops got REALLY chonky to account for the thermal envelope. AND, because they were worse on battery, larger batteries added MORE to the chonk. Across the board, you’ll see desktop memory in laptop form factors (more heat, more power, more chonk) because Intel had promised support for 32G of LPDDR4, but didn’t deliver. For the lighter computers, they had to give up expectations of performance and go with a weaker member of the Intel line. Not because they wanted to, because that’s what would work. Apple only ever used i7’s or i9’s in some of their designs, so shrinking back to an i5 was a non-starter.

 

[LordVic]

ALL the other laptops got REALLY chonky to account for the thermal envelop

you clearly don't look very hard at the market.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that this is untrue about everything being "CHONKY" and super big.

honestly we're done here if you're nto going to even discuss in good faith and invent your own narrative

 

[Unregistered 4U]

you clearly don't look very hard at the market.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that this is untrue about everything being "CHONKY" and super big.

honestly we're done here if you're nto going to even discuss in good faith and invent your own narrative

I guess we’re done, then. I mean, looking for information that goes against your claim is very likely something you’re not interested in anyway.

But for anyone else, look it up. Look at the published reviews for computers made back then. There were overall complaints that the systems didn’t last as long on battery as the prior generation OR had gotten heavier. Those PC systems that folks held up shipping with 32Gigs of RAM when Apple seemed stuck at 16? Every single one of them were shipping with desktop Memory (DDR4), Apple was using LPDDR4 that Intel promised would be supported, but they kept excluding it.

Apple’s not perfect, they designed a system frame and a manufacturing process that’s efficient, but it really doesn’t allow for significant changes to their system. Apple designed in a way that assumed that the CPU/GPU vendors would be able to meet the goals outlined on their roadmaps. BUT, the risk was always there that if a part was even slightly out of spec, the entire plan falls apart and they have to deal with workarounds and accept shortcomings. When the risk became reality, Apple was left to ship underperforming, poorly engineered systems where the only real benefit to Apple’s users was that they ran macOS. In almost every other way, the flexibility of the PC vendors manufacturing chain meant that they were in a FAR better position to deal with unforeseen variances in the parts they were provided.