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Apple's Mac Sales Down in Q3 2018 Amid a Lack of Updates
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That's not an excuse for allowing the Mac range to wither. There's no excuse for not keeping the range of hardware - that you're actively selling - up to date.
Apple employs thousands of engineers, many of whom just work on Mac/MacBook hardware development. They would love to release new machines every year - just like the phone people - but it seems Apple management can't cope with that.
Every time I read all the complaining from die hard Apple loyalists about how trash their favourite company's hardware is, I think of my Hackintosh and chuckle.
Rapidly coming to the same conclusion. I'm holding my breath until the new Mac Mini/Mac Pro is revealed, but I suspect I'll be going the Hackintosh route too. It's far less painful than having to deal with Apple's idiotic hardware decisions...
I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the lack of updates. Not having invites out to an October event is starting to get a little worrying.
I'm currently on a mid-2011 27" iMac, and it's really showing it's age now, xcode is a shut down everything else job. Which I really don't mind, the main reason I've always got macs and paid more is because you get twice as much time out of a Mac IMO. But it does feel like now is a really bad time for me to buy a mac. I want an iMac, but the current line-up is uninspiring to say the least and the entry iMac Pro is too much for what I need.
Apple needs to come out with a stella Mac line-up very soon. It can't be a press release update. iMac needs a redesign (even if it's to match the iMac Pro's cooling structure, but keep a ram slot), Adding FaceID should be a no-brainer, a touchbar option on the keyboard would be great and going to 9th Gen intel chips is a must. I feel like a basic update to 8th gen, would have me looking at different options.
But surely Apple know there's quite a bit of a market of people like me waiting for a good update it doesn't feel like any of the upgrades most people are asking for are particularly tricky to pull off. Even more so considering it's a iPhone S year, and both iOS 12 and MacOS Mojave have relatively small updates.
But who knows?
I'm currently on a mid-2011 27" iMac, and it's really showing it's age now, xcode is a shut down everything else job. Which I really don't mind, the main reason I've always got macs and paid more is because you get twice as much time out of a Mac IMO. But it does feel like now is a really bad time for me to buy a mac. I want an iMac, but the current line-up is uninspiring to say the least and the entry iMac Pro is too much for what I need.
Apple needs to come out with a stella Mac line-up very soon. It can't be a press release update. iMac needs a redesign (even if it's to match the iMac Pro's cooling structure, but keep a ram slot), Adding FaceID should be a no-brainer, a touchbar option on the keyboard would be great and going to 9th Gen intel chips is a must. I feel like a basic update to 8th gen, would have me looking at different options.
But surely Apple know there's quite a bit of a market of people like me waiting for a good update it doesn't feel like any of the upgrades most people are asking for are particularly tricky to pull off. Even more so considering it's a iPhone S year, and both iOS 12 and MacOS Mojave have relatively small updates.
But who knows?
If that is the issue then maybe Apple need to give the Mac division more autonomy so that it can behave like the 4th largest PC maker in the world and less like a minor appendix of iPhone inc.
However - the inconvenient truth is that the PC has reached saturation - the market is shrinking and probably won't return to the sort of exponential growth that it has enjoyed since the 1980s. For some people, the phone/tablet can replace the PC - or at least replace the second PC, the individual PCs for the kids etc. Meanwhile, for many, many people that 5 year-old laptop still does everything they need. Unfortunately, what hasn't helped is the industry itself talking down PCs, and sidelining their development, in order to promote mobile devices, even to the extent of presuming that people want their PCs to be more and more like tablets and phones. Trouble is, now, phones are heading for maturity/saturation even more rapidly than PCs did. So, what we're seeing right across the board - not just Apple - is increasing prices on "flagship" phones and laptops.
Apple's problem is twofold: (a) everything they sell (worth buying) is becoming a flagship without a fleet - their lower-cost options are increasingly just old models - their competitors have and (b) they have to maintain their operating systems and core software - their competitors are using MS and Google.
MS can afford to just make their reassuringly expensive "Surface" line as the flagships for Windows because every time one of their competitors sells a Windows PC they get a rake-off (even from Mac sales if the user goes on to buy Office or a copy of Windows for virtualisation).
Your move Tim. When does all the collaborative team work from the giant donut start paying dividends for consumers?
I don't believe this is due to out of date machines.
There are two reasons that seem compelling to me:
1. Reliability issues in the 2016 revision (keyboard, Touch Bar, ports, power) and the following insecurity amongst buyers til now.
2. Unclear division of the line makes buyers feel unsure what Mac suits their needs ( for example starting college students don't know which to buy: Air is old, MacBook is too expensive and Pro is overkill).
I know I'm in both camps even though I'm in for an upgrade and I guess I'm not alone.
There are two reasons that seem compelling to me:
1. Reliability issues in the 2016 revision (keyboard, Touch Bar, ports, power) and the following insecurity amongst buyers til now.
2. Unclear division of the line makes buyers feel unsure what Mac suits their needs ( for example starting college students don't know which to buy: Air is old, MacBook is too expensive and Pro is overkill).
I know I'm in both camps even though I'm in for an upgrade and I guess I'm not alone.
https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/
The point is precisely that there is no Mac division at Apple in the conventional sense, just like there is no iPhone division or Apple Watch division. Resources such as manpower is deployed (and redeployed) on a needs basis - people move to whichever project demands more attention at that particular point in time, and my guess is that at the moment, it's all hands on deck on mobile products such as the iPhone, Apple Watch, and new projects like the Apple Car.
Try looking at the Lenovo X1, or T-series, or P-series--best keyboards in the industry bar none.
Don't like Lenovo? Look at the Dell XPS series.
Windows laptops also offer screens which provide accurate color, come in glossy or matte, and offer4k.
The build of Windows laptops now is very competitive with Macs and in some regards (*cough* keyboards *cough*) is better.
Exactly this. I bought the first iMac the first day I could, later replaced it with an iMac G5, and then asked myself why I was taking perfectly good screens for recycling. So I got on the Mac mini train, and was lucky enough to get a 2012-era quad core only months before the Great Mac mini lobotomy. Now if only they’d make a machine as good as that one again.
You know Apple can produce both! The current MacBook Pro for those who love the butterfly keyboard and touch bar and the Pro's Pro! with the OLDER silent blister keyboard, smaller Touch Bar and the USB-A ports which is what real working Pro's want and need!
Scully didn't have iPhones to fall back on, making Apple huge profits despite lagging home computer and laptop sales. If Apple's main market was still laptops and desktops, they'd have been in serious trouble three years ago, when it first became apparent that Mac updates weren't a priority. Interestingly, I just received a survey yesterday from Apple requesting my input about my iMac and its features, as well as information about my overall computer ownership and habits (home/business use, student or non-student, etc.). There were pointed questions regarding the ports I used on the iMac and whether I was or was not satisfied. That tells me that Apple, or at least some factions (whoever is behind Mac development), has taken active interest in its Mac users and customers. I was honest about my desire for ports, adequate cooling and updates, upgradability and so forth. If you get one of these, please take it and return it (all online). Perhaps they'll pay attention.
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Launch new: Mac Mini. Mac Pro. MacBook (that is under $1000 for crying out loud). Problem solved.
I had the 13” XPS 9360, while a great laptop(apart from the horrible coil whine) its trackpad and keyboard is not a match for my 2017 MBP’s.
I think people don’t see an upgrade as important as they used to, after all, computer performance has kind of plateaued the last few years.
Sure, if you want to be stuck with the same monitor for the rest of the computer's life, and throwing out the whole computer when the monitor craters.
I got a refurbished 28” 4K screen for about 200-300 AUD (I can’t remember the exact price).
It still remains the case that laptops and desktops are preferable for production processing - robust keyboards, mouse/pad devices, and plenteous ports. Tablets can be more convenient for content delivery, but that alone isn't adequate to make them laptop/desktop replacements, at least in their current forms.
Definitely. I’ve got a commodity tower for gaming. A couple of weekends ago I put in a new 500GB SSD to use as an Ubuntu playground. The entire cost of the operation was about half of just the extra increment Apple charged to go from a soldered-down-for-all-time 250GB SSD to a soldered-down-for-all-time 500GB SSD. Even if you count the voluntary donation to Canonical.
Many of the development tools I use are cross-platform. I am finding that, despite three decades of Apple fanboyness, Apple’s stupidity and arrogance is pushing me out the door.
I agree the trackpad on the Mac offers better responsiveness and function but it is too big and I prefer the Dell keyboard over the MBP 2017 or 2018 (I have used both). It offers a better experience for touch typing and it is repairable without replacing the entire top case.
I am not in statistics and i lived in idea that last column sum should fit with total change. Here 0.1 or -0.4 % but real sum is completely different. Is it right?
Each to their own I suppose. I prefer MBP’s shallow keyboard over the mushy XPS’s. I can type so much faster on the Mac. I also love the bigger trackpad I have never had a problem with typing/palm rejection either.
I've been wondering about the lack of desktop upgrades. And the fact that there have been no invites yet for an unveiling.
Apple's worldwide Mac shipments were down in the third quarter of 2018, according to new preliminary PC shipping estimates shared this afternoon by Gartner.
Article Link: Apple's Mac Sales Down in Q3 2018 Amid a Lack of Updates
And suddenly I thought, what if they are working on getting some stuff that is normal on the iPhone to the Macs? I'm thinking of neural network hardware as in the A12 chip. Or a true-depth camera on Macs so you can log in with face recognition? If you want the latter, you probably need some fundamental changes in hardware. And if you want that on a future Mac Pro, you need a separate truedepth camera. And you might even need an even faster bus than Thunderbolt 3 if you get these separated components perform really well (fiber?). And you need a lot of changes in the OS to support it all, especially extra chips (a T-something chip with a x-core neural network engine). Such developments take a lot if time and energy.
As thing stand now, the only explanation for the very slow pace of hardware releases seems to me that they are going to come up with some revolutionary stuff. It's either that or total incompetence. But the iPhone stuff suggests they are very competent.
So, the longer it takes, the higher my expectations and the potentially larger disappointment.
But I can see a November announcement including the announcement of a shipping MacPro in early 2019.