Apple's PC Sales Fall Behind ASUS as Buyers Await Next-Generation MacBook Pro and Other New Models

[Since1987]

Apple's Priority list

1. iPhones
2. iPads
3. Beats products
4. Watches
5. Watch Bands
6. Cars ( seriously... WTF ?!?!? )
7. Removal of all ports ( they mess with Ive's all important "clean lines")
8. Hiding all IOS UI features into In-n-Out style "secret menus" ( UI messes with Ive's all important "clean lines" )
9. Apple TV
10. Subscription Streaming Music services ( how dare you want to OWN music !! )


end of list. Computers??? They absolutely could not care LESS. Computers are just an albatross for Ive, Cook and Ferengi ( not a typo... Google it )

If Ive and Cook could get away with NOT making computers. They would do so in a heartbeat. I would argue their product line clearly indicates they are ALREADY out of the computer business. Larry Ellison was right.

Apple with Steve Jobs = Insanely Great !!
Apple without Steve Jobs = just insane

 

[DakotaGuy]

What strange logic.

So if company A(for apple) can't sell obsolete junk, and company B(for Lenovo) can't sell modern hardware, what does that tell you about company A and modern hardware?

Clearly you're not saying it means company A won't be able to sell modern hardware. And you're not saying that company A should drag their feet on modern hardware. So your entire post is a null statement.

Apple should release modern hardware (which doesn't just mean a switch to Skylake). They should sell a machine that is more capable than what they sold before. And 2012 was peak Mac hardware. There is absolutely zero reason to buy any computer Apple sells in 2016 over what they sold in 2012. The 2012's were better machines with a better lineup of options.
[doublepost=1468335056][/doublepost]

Pie graphs are fun. But let's compare yours to the 2016 version.

So...iPhones are a smaller piece. iPads are 25% smaller. Macs have grown.

And...the entire Pie is smaller. They iPhone will go the way of Blackberry/Nokia/Motorola/etc. It's only a matter of time and the way the cell phone market has always been, phones are a fashion statement, just look at all the people here who want a new "look" more than anything else. Fashions become passe very suddenly. Tablets were a fad who's time has passed. And Apple wants to kill off the Mac.

My guess is the iPhone will jump back close to that 70% figure when the iPhone 7 is released. Even though the Mac still accounts for several billion in revenue it's profit margins are much lower then the iDevices. There is a good chance that if Apple were to get out of the PC business it would experience even better profit margins. Maybe slightly less total profit, but the shareholders would love the margins! I love my Mac, but I know maintaining an entire division with all sorts of models costs a lot to develop and market.

I don't see Apple leaving the traditional PC market, but I do see less focus and development going forward. The Mac Pro has not seen any updates because it just doesn't matter to Apple. It's such a tiny market that if they lose it they might be money ahead.

Apple is now the iPhone company. They saw it coming years ago when Apple Computer Inc. became Apple Inc. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Apple must do all it can do to ensure the iPhone does not fall from grace because the future of the company rests on it.

 

[Internaut]

I bought one today.... But I'm hedging against price rises due to a very weak pound.

 

[neoelectronaut]

My fiancee is awaiting a Macbook Air update and I'm awaiting a Mac Mini update. As soon as that happens we'll both be upgrading our 5 and 6-year old iMacs respectively.

 

[grahamperrin]

1. iPhones
2. iPads
3. Beats products
4. Watches
5. Watch Bands
6. Cars ( seriously... WTF ?!?!? )
7. Removal of all ports ( they mess with Ive's all important "clean lines")
8. Hiding all IOS UI features into In-n-Out style "secret menus" ( UI messes with Ive's all important "clean lines" )
9. Apple TV
10. Subscription Streaming Music services ( how dare you want to OWN music !! )

Wot, no Mac?

 

[DakotaGuy]

Apple's Priority list

1. iPhones
2. iPads
3. Beats products
4. Watches
5. Watch Bands
6. Cars ( seriously... WTF ?!?!? )
7. Removal of all ports ( they mess with Ive's all important "clean lines")
8. Hiding all IOS UI features into In-n-Out style "secret menus" ( UI messes with Ive's all important "clean lines" )
9. Apple TV
10. Subscription Streaming Music services ( how dare you want to OWN music !! )


end of list. Computers??? They absolutely could not care LESS. Computers are just an albatross for Ive, Cook and Ferengi ( not a typo... Google it )

If Ive and Cook could get away with NOT making computers. They would do so in a heartbeat. I would argue their product line clearly indicates they are ALREADY out of the computer business. Larry Ellison was right.

Apple with Steve Jobs = Insanely Great !!
Apple without Steve Jobs = just insane

Spot on, however remember it was Steve Jobs who claimed we were entering the post PC era. It looks to me all Cook is doing is slowly and silently shifting away from making computers to focusing on lifestyle electronics.

 

[theelysium]

Hellow Apple, you need entry level computers with good specs. Theses over priced machines are what is causing the slump. My work got me a MBPro 13 Retina i7, 16bram and 1tb drive should not cost 2200 that's fcuking crazy! It is a great computer, but over priced!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN for Apple!

 

[iBug2]

If that were the case Tim would not be pushing iPad to REPLACE computers.

Doesn't matter what Tim pushes, Apple has always killed products that don't sell well, and iPads sales are declining.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Hellow Apple, you need entry level computers with good specs. Theses over priced machines are what is causing the slump. My work got me a MBPro 13 Retina i7, 16bram and 1tb drive should not cost 2200 that's fcuking crazy! It is a great computer, but over priced!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN for Apple!

The problem is making products like that have poor profit margins. Apple is in business to make their shareholders money not give you a killer deal on a computer. They could easily let Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. fight over low margin PC sales while they just focus on mobile devices which have much better margins. Apple knows its customers will still buy an iPhone even if it dropped the Mac. Now I don't think they will drop it anytime soon, nor will they ever "officially" drop it, but over the new few years I could see it neglected to the point it just sort of fades away.

 

[kemal]

It takes time to develop products that give the consumer less for more money.

 

[cardfan]

I was on Tim's side up until this year but it has become abundantly clear he does not understand the Apple Culture and he does not understand that he is ruining the brand by selling 3 year old products that are suppose to be your top model.

Everyone knows that phone models are cyclical so its just a matter of time before iPhone sales trend downward. Apple had an opportunity to build up their share of the computer market with halo sales for when things start to taper off in phone land. They had the chance to dominate but blew it big time. Very short sided leading if you ask me. Its clear that there is a halo effect because its shocking how well they are doing with sales of this ancient lineup. Can you imagine if they had machines that actually matched what PC's include with regular updates and maybe just a couple of dollars worth of marketing. When was the last time you've seen a mac commercial.

Steve and Woz were doing this stuff in their garage by themselves for pete sakes, I just don't get what 100 000+ employees are doing over there. How many employee days does it take to refresh something like the MacPro once a year. (you know like put in E5v3 which has the same socket, Replace the GPU's with something current, maybe add some Ram and up the HD just to keep the pricing somewhat justifiable and competitive.

900+ day with no updates and more importantly, no communication of whats going on, is completely unacceptable. There are business such as ours that rely on these machines, and we require them to be technologically at par with PC's to stay competitive. Just like Apple partners with suppliers to get stuff they need to run their business, we partner with Apple to get the tools to run ours. I would like to see how Tim would deal with suppliers that are over 900 days releasing products and no communication at all if there will even be a new product. This is just so unprofessional and offensive in how they are treating us. If you are not interested in this market, the least you can do is tell us. Unfortunately, I've seen so many of my colleagues foolishly abandon Apple's ship but it is become more apparent that I am the foolish one. 19 days left for me.

I agree. Macs have done ok vs PCs in recent years, but they should have done MUCH better given what they had to leverage in iphone.

An apple without computers to use along with macOS isn't an Apple I'm interested in. Despite the iphone's success and being the bread n butter for Apple, my primary purchase is a computer. Everything revolves around the computer I'm using. My mobile choice is the one most compatible with computer.

If I have to resort to going back to windows PC's, then I have no desire to buy an iphone. I may as well get an android or windows phone.

 

[aced411]

If you mean a substantial update it's been well over 400 days.

What's the matter, "well over a year" didn't provide the dramatic effect you needed to get your point across?

It's been 291 days since the last iPhone hardware upgrade

 

[Rob_2811]

My fiancee is awaiting a Macbook Air update and I'm awaiting a Mac Mini update. As soon as that happens we'll both be upgrading our 5 and 6-year old iMacs respectively.

You could be set for a very long wait ..

 

[phrehdd]

I'll just say thank you to you all for providing interesting viewpoints. Naturally, I have my own opinion but I'll wait to see what Apple does by late 2017. If Apple (for me) remains so uninspired in the computer venue then like some, will do a serious exit.

 

[zooby]

.

 

[theatremusician]

I see popular musicians on obviously old 08 Macs, if they can get by with that, I am sure you can with anything sold within the last few years. What kind of music are you creating that couldn't be handled by a XEON based Mac Pro with 64 GBs of RAM?

I think for you, it just boils down to a case of you wanting the latest and greatest, nothing wrong with that. At the same time, nothing wrong with Apple hardware over the past two years that could prevent you from doing what you want, because I see musicians using PowerPC based Macs with Cinema displays and they are on Billboard making millions.

You said previously that an iPad/Phone IS a computer. It is not a computer that I can use for MY work. I'm not waiting for the "latest and greatest", I'm waiting to see some innovation to jump in and buy a new computer. Otherwise I can stick with my late '06 MacBook for awhile longer or go Windows.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong that Apple is getting out go the traditional computer business. But I don't see any evidence to let me think otherwise.

 

[Razeus]

I love my Dell XPS 15 that I bought earlier in the year. Skylake, 16gb ram, 512GB storage, fast af.

edit: I have a 512GB storage model.

 

[maflynn]

Hellow Apple, you need entry level computers with good specs.

The Mac Mini was that computer and it was great, but aside from not being updated for a significant amount of time, Apple hamstrung it as well, with less cores.

I love my Dell XPS 15 that I bought earlier in the year. Skylake, 16gb ram, 256GB storage, fast af.

I was seriously tempted to buy that model, but I opted for a desktop and after significant amount of waffling and changing my mind, I opted for an iMac. I love my iMac its a great computer but the XPS was on my short list.

 

[Razeus]

Nope, nope, all kinds of nope. Apple tried to hit me with a banana in the tailpipe with the last mac mini "update". Really made me think they didn't want people to actually buy the mini. Outside of replacing my wife and daughter's phones, Apple gets no mo money from me. When my MBA finally dies that will be the end of my OSX days.

I've personally been selling off my Apple products that are non iPhone. Since iPhone is clearly their bread and butter, and thus where they are putting all of their money, I'll continue to use the iPhone, but it's time to move on from Apple products.

Since I couldn't upgrade my 2011 Macbook Pro to a latest tech Mac back in Jan 2016, I had to get a Dell.

Since OS X is becoming more and more like iOS, I'm happy using Windows 10.

Since Apple TV doesn't offer all the features I want, like Amazon Prime Video, I'm going to Roku.

I found I really have no use for a tablet, so I sold my iPad Air 2. If I find I need a tablet device in the future, it won't be something that costs be over $600+ just to browse the web or have background music or occasional Youtube Videos. One of those Fire Tablets will work at 1/3 of the cost.

Depending on what the next Google Nexus looks like, my 6S Plus could be my last dance with Apple. We've had a good run. I had fun. Competition is great. I don't believe in loyalty anymore. Just the best products for my usage and needs. Apple shows they have no loyalty to their consumers that kept them alive pre-iPhone, so I should have the same mindset.

 

[DesertSurfer]

Count me in for Mac mini.

It's almost certainly coming.

 

[neoelectronaut]

You could be set for a very long wait ..

No worries. What I have now still works just fine and I guess the longer I wait the more worthwhile it'll be.

 

[cult hero]

For most people, Haswell is more than enough computer. The crime against humanity is Apple won't reduce their prices as their product line ages.

Yep. That's what bothers me the most. Fine, you have some cycle you gotta deal with or hardware updates or whatever. I get it. So reduce prices because the stuff you're selling just isn't as impressive now.

I'm hoping machines come out in the near future just because I have a family upgrade cycle that begins with me and the machine at the end of the line (my mom's) is just about dead. But... it'll happen when it happens. Not like my current machine is unable to do my work. I just like new machines.

 

[Apple Corps]

The problem is making products like that have poor profit margins. Apple is in business to make their shareholders money not give you a killer deal on a computer. They could easily let Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. fight over low margin PC sales while they just focus on mobile devices which have much better margins. Apple knows its customers will still buy an iPhone even if it dropped the Mac. Now I don't think they will drop it anytime soon, nor will they ever "officially" drop it, but over the new few years I could see it neglected to the point it just sort of fades away.

Well, all the more reason for Cook and Levinson to go, if, as you say, Apple is in business to make shareholders money. The Dow closed at an all time high today and AAPL is trading just slightly above where it was 4 years ago.

 

[entropys]

I notice dell, HP and Asus increased market share these companies have their budget crappy lines, but they also make premium lines at mac like prices and no doubt mac like premiums. I have a skylake i7 HP x360 pro which is a very worthy MBA alternative. Same with the Dell XPS.

I have had the HP since Christmas. Apple haven't made any real Mac upgrades except for Ive's vanity project for ages. The HP was purchased because the Macs were already too outdated, and here we are seven months later....I am out of the product cycle even if Apple deigns to provide us a worthy update.

Fish rot from the head. Apple's CEO is posturing to the political elite and the company is building a palace. Soon the peasants will revolt.

 

[winston1236]

I'm more surprised at how low Acers sales are than at Apples numbers. What are they doing so wrong I wonder.