Mac Revenue Down 34% Year-Over-Year, But Tim Cook Expects 'Significant' Improvement With M3 Macs

[Velli]

$1800 for a 8GB MBP lol. How can people still defend this crap…

Let me give it a go:

I can buy a Lenovo, today, on Lenovo's website, with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, as a standard configuration, that costs more than that (admittedly with a bigger display, but several disadvantages compared to a Mac).

A 16/512 M3 Pro starts at 1999,-. A 14" Thinkpad X1 16/512 with a much worse screen is only a few hundred less (and probably more comparable to the Air, really). Yes, you can get it on sale, but an M2 Mac is on sale too, and still faster with hours of better battery life.

Apple is not expensive, they just don't have cheap options. If you are so offended by the 8GB option, go get the 16GB.

 

[Macalicious2011]

$1800 for a 8GB MBP lol. How can people still defend this crap…

256GB storage for a computer going into 2024 is more criminal. After system files, apps etc there’ll be paltry amounts of storage left.

But who cares when there’s iCloud that will likely be bumped up to $40/month for a decent tier in 2025.

 

[brofkand]

Apple has priced the Mac out of my home and probably many others as well.

 

[jhowarth]

Let me give it a go:

I can buy a Lenovo, today, on Lenovo's website, with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, as a standard configuration, that costs more than that (admittedly with a bigger display, but several disadvantages compared to a Mac).

A 16/512 M3 Pro starts at 1999,-. A 14" Thinkpad X1 16/512 with a much worse screen is only a few hundred less (and probably more comparable to the Air, really). Yes, you can get it on sale, but an M2 Mac is on sale too, and still faster with hours of better battery life.

Apple is not expensive, they just don't have cheap options. If you are so offended by the 8GB option, go get the 16GB.

The problem Apple has is that, with the 14th gen Intel processors, the battery life will improve just enough on Intel processors to make Apple's marketing desire to nickel and dime the end user less tenable. Apple has feasted far too long on the approach of making none of their pricing completely satisfactory in hope that users keep rationalizing their way up the price chain.

 

[Tunster]

They should simplify products names like Macbook (M3), Macbook Pro (M3 Pro), Macbook Max (M3 Max)

Agreed! The irony is that producing their own chip should drop costs (less licensing, less lead-time to product from Intel).

I keep thinking of the quad diagram that Steve Jobs always used. We have a matrix of products and I think that confuses a prospective customer.

Apple have a resell value/2nd hand/LTI issue too with how good their products are. Maybe concentrating on the corporates/business sector might be a good move again. Servers. Datacentre.

Or maybe kill the tablet?

 

[Trusteft]

I do want Apple to do well, and I have zero money to buy anything, but with that in mind, it's not that hard to see why not more people end up buying macs.
You are not Dell or sell chromebooks. Either reduce the upgrade prices, or have more for the base price. In 2023, almost 2024, starting with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD is ridiculous that only the most insane fan boys will not see it.

Then the upgrade prices...when you have a PC you can buy a 1TB of NVMe SSD for under 50 euros and here to have to pay an EXTRA 400 to get the 1TB is insane.

You are paying 11 times more money for the same storage and it's not like you can keep the 256GB either.

While people who want a Mac will mostly continue to buy only a Mac, they can't always accept this BS with pricing.

You can't have as a solution for more internal storage a "buy an external drive!" No.

And it's not like one can buy a Mac now and upgrade the storage later on to make it easier for someone to accept the prices.

And I am not even touching the RAM prices.

 

[Velli]

256GB storage for a computer going into 2024 is more criminal. After system files, apps etc there’ll be paltry amounts of storage left.

But who cares when there’s iCloud that will likely be bumped up to $40/month for a decent tier in 2025.

I haven't looked at how much storage I have left on my 256GB M1 MBA for at least a year. Just checked, 75GB left and I can probably easily free up quite a bit if I want to.

I have a few games and none of them AAA (unless Civ VI is considered AAA). MS Office installed, and various tools but no big apps other than Office.

People are different. 512 would have been a waste of money for me, at least until now - and I don't see my use change in ways that would increase my needs anytime soon. My work computer (Lenovo) has 512, but I don't think I use more than 100, because all data is required to be on the company server anyway. Granted, if I used my work computer also for home stuff, 256 would have been pushing it.

Of course it's nice to have a buffer, but not everyone needs lots of storage.

 

[darngooddesign]

Key to that bit of rationalization is making $200 for 512GB (or 256GB MORE) a good price...

No, that's a separate discussion. I was responding to someone comparing the price of 8/256 to 8/512 instead of similar configs.

 

[Velli]

I do want Apple to do well, and I have zero money to buy anything, but with that in mind, it's not that hard to see why not more people end up buying macs.

It's not Apple's objective to sell as many Macs as possible. They have from time to time stated this clearly (also under Jobs). It is Apple's objective to earn the most possible money from whichever amount of sales achieves this. It might seem intuitive that selling something to everyone is what makes the most money, but that's not the case. Trying to reach customers with less money will hurt their ability to reach the customers with a lot of money.

Trust me, every other company in the world is envious about Apple's ability to reach the lucrative customers and not having to deal with the non-lucrative customers. The companies that are successful in mass-market but not in premium, are pulling their hair out over how they can get into the premium market. Not the other way around. Discounting is something you do if you are failing at premium. If you are succeeding at premium, you shouldn't touch mass-market with a tent pole.

I happen to believe that if Apple started to cater for the mass market, the products targeted to the premium market would suffer. I prefer good premium products over mediocre mass-market products. Apple already tried once to reach mass-market, and it almost killed them. There are plenty of mediocre mass-market products to buy, I don't need Apple to do it.

 

[Substance90]

I'm skeptical. The prices are very high, the upsells are aggressive and I'm not sure the value proposition is strong enough because of that.

Pretty much this ^^^
I would have upgraded my M1 Max 16" but it's almost 1000 € more for an M3 Max 16" than what I paid for my M1 Max 16".

 

[The Game 161]

Pricing so high is a big factor and they don’t need upgrading often so less people have reason to upgrade

 

[Trusteft]

It's not Apple's objective to sell as many Macs as possible. They have from time to time stated this clearly (also under Jobs). It is Apple's objective to earn the most possible money from whichever amount of sales achieves this. It might seem intuitive that selling something to everyone is what makes the most money, but that's not the case. Trying to reach customers with less money will hurt their ability to reach the customers with a lot of money.

Trust me, every other company in the world is envious about Apple's ability to reach the lucrative customers and not having to deal with the non-lucrative customers. The companies that are successful in mass-market but not in premium, are pulling their hair out over how they can get into the premium market. Not the other way around. Discounting is something you do if you are failing at premium. If you are succeeding at premium, you shouldn't touch mass-market with a tent pole.

I happen to believe that if Apple started to cater for the mass market, the products targeted to the premium market would suffer. I prefer good premium products over mediocre mass-market products. Apple already tried once to reach mass-market, and it almost killed them. There are plenty of mediocre mass-market products to buy, I don't need Apple to do it.

I think I was quite clear on what I said.

I never once mentioned selling to the peasants or at budget prices.
No one needs the poor people.

/s

 

[Macalicious2011]

I haven't looked at how much storage I have left on my 256GB M1 MBA for at least a year. Just checked, 75GB left and I can probably easily free up quite a bit if I want to.

I have a few games and none of them AAA (unless Civ VI is considered AAA). MS Office installed, and various tools but no big apps other than Office.

People are different. 512 would have been a waste of money for me, at least until now - and I don't see my use change in ways that would increase my needs anytime soon. My work computer (Lenovo) has 512, but I don't think I use more than 100, because all data is required to be on the company server anyway. Granted, if I used my work computer also for home stuff, 256 would have been pushing it.

Of course it's nice to have a buffer, but not everyone needs lots of storage.

Yes. For casual users 256GB is enough. If you need more, thankfully nvm ssd are cheap now. A Samsung t6 1tb is £60. It's so compact that you can stick it to the back of your imac and forget that it's even there.

 

[luke_s1911]

Ludicrous prices

 

[jhowarth]

It's not Apple's objective to sell as many Macs as possible. They have from time to time stated this clearly (also under Jobs). It is Apple's objective to earn the most possible money from whichever amount of sales achieves this. It might seem intuitive that selling something to everyone is what makes the most money, but that's not the case. Trying to reach customers with less money will hurt their ability to reach the customers with a lot of money.

Trust me, every other company in the world is envious about Apple's ability to reach the lucrative customers and not having to deal with the non-lucrative customers. The companies that are successful in mass-market but not in premium, are pulling their hair out over how they can get into the premium market. Not the other way around. Discounting is something you do if you are failing at premium. If you are succeeding at premium, you shouldn't touch mass-market with a tent pole.

I happen to believe that if Apple started to cater for the mass market, the products targeted to the premium market would suffer. I prefer good premium products over mediocre mass-market products. Apple already tried once to reach mass-market, and it almost killed them. There are plenty of mediocre mass-market products to buy, I don't need Apple to do it.

You can only take that strategy so far. Apple would have done better to raise the base price of the M3 by $100 and made the base memory 16Gb or hold the pricing and make the base memory 12Gb. When the iPhone 15 has 6Gb of memory, it makes the 8Gb on the M3 look pathetic. Especially as the 8Gb will result in excessive SSD wear from swap usage. Like their reluctance to port the hard 80% charging limit from the iPhone 15 to older models, Apple never misses a trick to shorten the replacement cycle.

 

[Eracles]

I am curious to what you wrote. You mention you have an old intel that you want to replace. So why didn't you buy and M1 or an M2 mac if your current machine is THAT old.

Sure. It is a late 2012 retina macbook pro 13. I changed myself the battery last year, with third part battery, ad it works fine for word processing and web surfing with firefox. But recently I became interested in video editing, and a mac that old can't do that.

 

[jhowarth]

Ludicrous prices

Yes, Apple needs to realize that they aren't in Kansas anymore. You can pick up a Dell Inspiron 7630 with 13th Gen Intel i7 processor that has 15 hours of battery life and 16Gb ram as well as a 1Tb SSD for $850. The window for really leveraging the shorter battery life on Wintel is closing on them.

 

[Daventry]

Yes, Apple needs to realize that they aren't in Kansas anymore. You can pick up a Dell Inspiron 7630 with 13th Gen Intel i7 processor that has 15 hours of battery life and 16Gb ram as well as a 1Tb SSD for $850. The window for really leveraging the shorter battery life on Wintel is closing on them.

Plus support for dual external displays...

 

[Macalicious2011]

Yes, Apple needs to realize that they aren't in Kansas anymore. You can pick up a Dell Inspiron 7630 with 13th Gen Intel i7 processor that has 15 hours of battery life and 16Gb ram as well as a 1Tb SSD for $850. The window for really leveraging the shorter battery life on Wintel is closing on them.

Fair points. However, there are ios users for whom a window laptop won't even be remotely considered.

If they consider a recent mac to be a poor value proposition, a refurbished macbook is a better choice. Likewise, a cash strapped iPhone users who can't afford will buy a 13 or 14 rather than jump to android for the same money.

 

[Schizoid]

Come on people, let’s prove old “8 gig” Tim wrong!

 

[biffuz]

Everybody: overpriced anemic base configurations and ridicolous markups on updgrades
Apple: challenging market conditions and supply chain issues

 

[return2sendai]

Because they are 34% more expensive.

 

[deputy_doofy]

My M1 MBA is so very nice, but 13” is a bit rough on my eyes. The power eclipses my still-daily driver (and physically falling apart) 2013 MBP.

The 16” M3 Max MBP, which is overkill for my needs, is definitely the machine to carry me through the next 10 years.

All that said, it does feel like Tim needs to go. A visionary, he is not. An idea man, he is not. Messy product lines and naming conventions. ****, even Schiller was naming an iPhone model XR “because it sounds like a car model.” Someone with Steve’s vision AND temperament is needed, apparently.

As unexciting as all this is, many have short-term memory at best (“Hi! I’m Tom!”). Intel mobile CPU iterations over the last decade were pretty abysmal. The M1 was a huge leap (the revolution) and now the evolution of the chip happens for the foreseeable future.

The i7-4960HQ was in the top of the line 2013 MBP. Has a multiple core score of 6598. How many of you ran out to buy the 2014 i7-4980HQ, with an amazing score of 6626?

Of course, perception is reality. The perception is that Apple is stagnant…

 

[webkit]

And this appears to be the plan. Why? Because so far it has worked, and worked, and worked again. It wasn't that long ago that margin was UNDER 40%. How much longer until it exceeds 50%?

As long as the masses find ways to rationalize higher prices, higher pricing for each unit sold can work. However, if those masses ever reach their "too rich for my blood" moment, watch out. History is full of this very same tale and it always has the same outcome once it reaches that point.

Look through this thread... on a site devoted to Apple, frequented by Apple fans who will passionately defend any Apple moves, even at their own expense. What percentage of people in this thread seem to be near that point? If fans can feel like RAM & SSD is too expensive, "making me hang on to my existing Mac for a few more years", etc... how do the NOT-fans feel not loaded with "good old days" goodwill accumulations?

That's a rhetorical question: I don't know. But their buying actions or inactions this year will very tangibly paint a picture of higher pricing acceptance or rejection. Is this yet another year of (whine loudly but) "just pay up" or do people unhappy at "insane pricing" vote with their wallets? TBD.

The other reality is that the overall desktop/laptop market is down so it's not just an Apple/Mac issue.

 

[webkit]

Yes, Apple needs to realize that they aren't in Kansas anymore. You can pick up a Dell Inspiron 7630 with 13th Gen Intel i7 processor that has 15 hours of battery life and 16Gb ram as well as a 1Tb SSD for $850. The window for really leveraging the shorter battery life on Wintel is closing on them.

And a Dell XPS 15 laptop with similar specs (13th Gen Intel i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, etc.) can run $1,599 plus adding office software for $150 (Mac includes iWork) would bring the price to $1,749.

Apple, and some Apple fans, would argue that Macs match up more closely to higher end products from the competition, and they simply don't sell to the lower end of the market. Similarly, Apple doesn't sell to the lower end of the smartphone market.

Although Amazon and other authorized retailers will discount Apple products, Apple for better or worse tends to shy away from doing that. Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. routinely discount many of their products as do authorized retailers.

As I mentioned in another post, the other reality is that the overall desktop/laptop market is down so it's not just an Apple/Mac issue.