Mac Sales Continue to Slide Amid Lack of Updates

[sunapple]

I'm typing this on the same laptop, but I'm so ready to jump ship to a new rMBP once they come out. The one USB-C port is survivable, but having two would make life so much easier (much less four, if it is as rumored.) I also have a 4k monitor...but the 30hz limit is extremely annoying so I don't use my MB with it (I'm aware of the USB driver tweaks, but I'd rather have my usb 3 speeds and general stability.) Also I have lately been hitting the limits of a non-fan cooled CPU and when it gets throttled it gets slow (doing large xcode project builds.) Hopefully just a few more weeks.

The MacBook is limited, but oh so very light and small. It makes me forget the limitations sometimes which is great. 4K via the Apple AV adapter is limited at HDMI HiRes 1080p @30Hz which is OK, but a total waste of a nice monitor like mine. The one port doesn't bother me at all (USB C > USB C, HDMI, USB w/ 4x USB hub), but I would like a better video output. Haven't bothered looking for solution because this situation was supposed to be temporary.

Really hope the new MBP is much lighter and smaller than the previous model, makes so much difference.

 

[GeneralChang]

They're still in fifth place worldwide? Huh... That's a bit of a surprise.

 

[satchmo]

I wonder how large and how vocal was the vocal minority that swayed Apple into re-releasing a 4" phone.

Creative professionals in need of new Macs may not be the "majority of users", but are a mainstay and easily the most rabidly loyal of Apple customers. Still, Apple risks alienating them by letting its Pro hardware and software fade to irrelevance.

Oh I agree that keeping customer loyalty is paramount. Something that seems lost on Apple leadership since iPhones and watches took over.

Though I'm not sure the 4" iPhone was a direct result of customer demand. But rather an easy repurposed product with little cost to Apple.

Someone, perhaps a bean counter is presenting a rosy picture to Cook. Five million can't be wrong, right? And so he focuses his attention on new watch bands.

 

[TurboPGT!]

I got a good chuckle out of the idea that Dell and especially HP do nothing but try to sell PCs.

Oh, please tell me about their other business ventures that are 10x as large by revenue than their PC business.

Apple has an iPhone business that is 10x the size of Mac. An iPad business that is the same size as Mac. A services business that is 2x the size of Mac.

What do Dell and HP have that compare? Nothing.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Wait for the new Macs to be launched, and that number will drastically change.

 

[BarryBigtime]

Hardly surprising. I had to buy a Windows based PC for work and chose the new Lenovo X1 Carbon. It's lighter than my 2014 MBA, has 16GB of ram, crazy fast SSD and I can put a sim card in it. Sure it looks like a piece of **** but at the moment Lenovo are the foremost pioneers in personal computing so I hope Apple respond well later this month...

 

[Mildredop]

Working with the architect on his new iMansion in Pacific Heights.

The thing is, I don't think you're far from the truth.

Apple has got tired. I'm just amazed no other company has come along and taken their place. Several years ago I predicted Google would by now have their own desktop OS (that worked with Android) and their own high-end phones and tablets.

We still have the confusing mess that is Chrome OS and now we finally have the Pixel phone which is the weirdest phone I've seen for a long time.

Apple are resting on their laurels, but no other company seems interested in trying to capture the market.

 

[JackANSI]

I wonder what Apple's strategy is? Are they really going to double down on the iPads and give up on the macs? Or is there something else going on that we don't know about? I do see tim talk about the iPad being better than most PC that are over 5 years old so the iPad is a great replacement. Then the ads come out that ask what a computer is. So I do think that Apple is looking to the future and investing there, but it seems very strange to me that they would abandon the PC/Laptop line so fast. The fact that macOS continue to get attention is the counter point that suggest they are investing in the Mac and that there is some super secret project that will be revealed soon that will blow us away. (not really counting on that happening, but I got nothing else).

Apple can't dump Macs until they've sorted out a way to restore an OTA-update-bricked iOS device without one.

I'm starting to think their strategy is to wait awhile more and do a "update with pent-up demand" so it looks amazing on the quarterlies for a year. Bolster up that stock a bit before Tim exits.

 

[lowendlinux]

Oh, please tell me about their other business ventures that are 10x as large by revenue than their PC business.

Apple has an iPhone business that is 10x the size of Mac. An iPad business that is the same size as Mac. A services business that is 2x the size of Mac.

What do Dell and HP have that compare? Nothing.

While neither Dell nor HP have other business that are 10x larger than there PC business both are in enterprise networking, storage, HW, and SW. Dell does it under one big roof and HP has spun some of it off but it's still under the same umbrella.

 

[milo]

Why is apple bothering with OS X updates if they aren't going to update any of the computer hardware?

The degree to which Mac Pro is out of date is so shocking. You obviously don't care about these machines at all, they have had major hardware problems that don't seem to be fixed. If you're going to kill them off just do it already.

 

[spacebro]

The thing is, I don't think you're far from the truth.

Apple has got tired. I'm just amazed no other company has come along and taken their place. Several years ago I predicted Google would by now have their own desktop OS (that worked with Android) and their own high-end phones and tablets.

We still have the confusing mess that is Chrome OS and now we finally have the Pixel phone which is the weirdest phone I've seen for a long time.

Apple are resting on their laurels, but no other company seems interested in trying to capture the market.

All of the pc makers have taken apple's place. Look at lenovo and dell. You can get a slim nice laptop without the useless cdrom in a package very similar to the retina macbook pro. Compare to 2012 when you could not buy a high end pc laptop in a slim enclosure without a cdrom. You can get a lenovo with latest gen cpu and 64gb ram for less price than a macbook pro with 4 generation old cpu and 16gb ram. It would be really stupid to buy a new macbook right now compared to the pc laptop options available.

 

[gimikinc]

Very foolish of them to let things slip like this for so long.

Totally agree, the long refresh cycles of mac's and lackluster updates to ios devices. Maybe the innovation was redirected to the iCar! lol

 

[Deacon-Blues]

The reason I'm buying a Dell XPS 15" instead of a MacBook Pro for the first time is because I need a discrete video card, and that would mean paying $2499 for the highest end model, whereas I can get a discrete video card in a comparable XPS for $1199. Way to go Apple.

 

[HVDynamo]

I agree with a previous poster - it's more of a psychological issue. I have the "top of the line" MPB 15 - and not once have I had ever thought geez I wish this thing were faster.

Besides games, what's taxing these machines? The current line is more then adequate for 90% of current use cases. Same goes for the other platforms.

I think it's a case of wanting the new every year...vs actually needing the marginal improvements yr over yr.

This is spot on. For most it's just wanting the new shiny thing. Processors aren't increasing in speed as fast as they used to, and that really isn't as much Intel's fault as it is that we are getting close to the limit of the silicon process and the shrinking silicon process is what has largely been driving the massive speed bumps by allowing faster clocks and more transistors to throw at a problem. I am still using my mid 2012 cMBP, and after adding an SSD to it I doubt I will need a new laptop for another 2-3 years at least. This doesn't mean that there aren't people that need every last ounce of performance that have a legitimate complaint of having to wait this long, but those people are definitely in the minority.

 

[oliversl]

I blame iWatch and Titan for this, what stupid loss of direction

 

[iZac]

Hmm, I wonder if the alternate product is the Macbook or the iPad Pro?

I still have this weird, masochistic fantasy that it'll be the long fabled ARM MacBook, that'll run iOS apps within an ARM version of macOS.

 

[Cayenne1]

I worked as a global program manager for a large tech company for many years. We'd refresh 50K to 100K PCs at a pop for enterprise clients every few years as they came off lease. These business decisions to roll over millions of PCs a year had little to do with faster chip sets, but calculated dollars and cents ROI.

A similar analysis goes on at Apple, or any large manufacturer. What are the business cases for product refreshes? If a company has multiple product lines, many factors are involved in approving a go ahead to refresh a particular product. For instance, what are the projected revenue and market share gains balanced against the costs of engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, etc.? Conversely, what is the business impact of delaying a refresh?

So, you might ponder, what is the business incentive for Apple to reduce the refresh cycle for Mac products? If it is marginal, as I suspect, then you have what you have. Marginal of course when compared to its iPhone sales which dominate Apple's strategic planning.

Bottom line, Apple does not see a business case in a quicker refresh cycle of Mac products. Sales, profits and market share gains would be minimal relative to its primary revenue generator, the iPhone.

 

[salmacis3]

Its a chicken and egg situation with those two machines to an extent. I wonder how many of the five million Macs were Mac Pros or Mac Minis? Not many I would think.

I'm still using my 2009 Mac mini as my main machine (albeit with a SSD and RAM upgrade.) I'd buy a new Mac mini in a heartbeat if it was value for money and upgradable.

 

[asiga]

I only see two possibilities for the survival of the Mac:

a) Bring back the tower-based Mac Pro, designed in such a way that the user can keep it relatively updated with new GPUs and hardware options when they're available.

or

b) Open source Mac OS.

Sincerely, I don't see any other options. If the future depends on slim+slim+slim products, then the future is the iPhone and the iPad, not the Mac. Only a heavy Mac tower or open sourcing Mac OS can provide a real future for the Mac.

 

[Rob_2811]

I'm still using my 2009 Mac mini as my main machine (albeit with a SSD and RAM upgrade.) I'd buy a new Mac mini in a heartbeat if it was value for money and upgradable.

You can guarantee if there was a new one it wouldn't be either of those things

 

[BornAgainMac]

Logically, Apple will realize they messed up and release brand new Macs.

 

[Technodynamic]

My money is getting moldy waiting for Apple to innovate. Still have an iPhone 6, gen 1 apple watch and waiting for the redesign on MacBook pro to replace my mid 2012 15" retina MacBook pro.... waiting and waiting.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

I blame iWatch and Titan for this, what stupid loss of direction

I love how some people seem to actually think that Apple has like 100 employees in total that are all working on iPhone, iPad, Watch, the car, and all the operating systems.

You do realize Apple has like 120,000 employees, right? They're not exactly scrambling to find enough people to roll out a new i7 MacBook Pro, they just don't feel they need to yet for whatever reason.

 

[cdpage]

I'm on a Mid 2010 Mac Pro and would have replaced this as much as 2 years ago... If they update back then, i'd be looking to be a new one in a year or so.

So they are only loosing out on extra sales. I buy 2 computers in the time that they could have sold me 3.

their loss.

But this is getting to be a real Pain in the butt.

 

[recoil80]

I worked as a global program manager for a large tech company for many years. We'd refresh 50K to 100K PCs at a pop for enterprise clients every few years as they came off lease. These business decisions to roll over millions of PCs a year had little to do with faster chip sets, but calculated dollars and cents ROI.

A similar analysis goes on at Apple, or any large manufacturer. What are the business cases for product refreshes? If a company has multiple product lines, many factors are involved in approving a go ahead to refresh a particular product. For instance, what are the projected revenue and market share gains balanced against the costs of engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, etc.? Conversely, what is the business impact of delaying a refresh?

So, you might ponder, what is the business incentive for Apple to reduce the refresh cycle for Mac products? If it is marginal, as I suspect, then you have what you have. Marginal of course when compared to its iPhone sales which dominate Apple's strategic planning.

Bottom line, Apple does not see a business case in a quicker refresh cycle of Mac products. Sales, profits and market share gains would be minimal relative to its primary revenue generator, the iPhone.

That's an interesting point of view.
I think you are right when you say there is no business case in a shorter life cycle of Mac, since it is not the iPhone.
But I don't think customers expect a completely new Mac to be released every year, or every other years. A subtle refresh, like a faster CPU, more storage or a little price cut would be more than welcome.
People pay a premium price for a Mac, but why should they continue to pay for outdated hardware? If a new CPU architecture is not available just cut the price, or put more storage/ram at the same price.