Mac Sales Continue to Slide Amid Lack of Updates

[LordVic]

95% of world's software running Intel? Nope, not even close.

The stand-alone PC market is dying, globally. Computing changes.

Microsoft isn't selling boxes anymore, they have Office for ARM ready (and selling it).
They give a ship about Intel, they are selling Office 365 as a service.

Read the signs on the wall. The whole lineup due for refresh.
This is not your usual speed bump.

no, 95% of the worlds software is not running on OSx.

that other 95% isn't just windows. and isn't just intel. (you've reversed the logic). Apple's OSx currently only accounts for ~5% of the worlds Operating system usage.

And microsoft (except for Surfaces) never were a PC manufacturer. i'm still not sure what point you're even trying to make

and no. Stand-Alone PC's are NOT dying. in fact, the PC Gaming industry alone was worth over 35 Billion dollars in 2015 and is continueing to grow.

the PC industry is not dying. what you're seeing is that the "pre-built" PC industry is slowing down and is a mature market, where margins are narrow, and volume is key. Sales have overall slowed down in the market because for most users, whats out today, si enough. But it doesn't negate that there are users who do need more, and as we've moved on Apple has provided less to these "more" people than ever before.

and yes, judging from how long it's been, Apple maybe very well planning a full blown refresh of the lineup with new designs, etc. But that doesn't negate my point about switching to ARM. unless Apple has some magical, never seen before, never leaked, and never able to be reproduced Arm based chipset that they've magically pulled out their asses without even their own licensed FAB's from knowing, Apple is not planning on making the Arm switch here
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Face it - Computers will be dead.

The processing speeds of the iPads and iPhones have gotten very quick.

Soon - all storage will be cloud based. You will plug in your iPhone to a monitor and it will run a watered down version or maybe even full of OSX.

Everyone will have a mac in their pocket.

This is the future. Laptops are dead, and Apple knows it.

this is delusional

idealistic dream that for many would be nice, but ultimately still just a dream. the iPad pro's are great devicves, but to think that their CPU's are even remotely full featured and capable of replacing full desktop CPU's is ignorant at best.

Also, wireless is not the best solution all the time. I sure as hell am not uploading my 4k recorded video to the cloud, just to download it to my computer again. there's a significant difference between 20mbps upstream to cloud (because lets face it, noto everyone is or has access to synchronous gigabit) and directly wired to your target. do you think a photographer, or video editor with gigabytes of recorded materials / media is going to wait all day for their material to be uploaded to the cloud before working on?

do you think corporations who required 100% up time connectivity, with 100% stable network access are going to rely on wireless? its an ideological pipe dream.

 

[pier]

Not necessarily.

All that pro software badly needs modern rewrites instead of tacking on features onto a 12-year old codebase every year.

This, the lack of pro-level iOS apps and the subscription model is why I'm switching completely from Adobe to Affinity once Affinity Publisher comes out.

Also, Apple has been through this before with the Intel switch, and there will likely be a grace period and substantial assistance within and outside of XCode.

Off topic but I paid for Affinity's software over a year ago. It has some nice features, but it's still not there for me. At least Designer. Photo seems to be better.

Moving to x86 from PowerPC was much easier since most big developers already had an x86 codebase.

Time will tell.

 

[ackmondual]

It's like they've stopped caring.

Ironically enough, you can still buy Apple Care.

 

[yellowtruck]

Really glad to see the market is responding!

Only *real* Apple fanboys would defend this Mac lineup.

who are you??? why are you even here?

 

[Tech198]

No word on the Mac Pro...... Think Apple ditching this one.... personally .... its gonna go the way of the 18 gold watch did.

Apple's focus i think would be on phone and (consumer) smart-watch, phones, tablets... and tvOS, Even the Mac mini is slowly grinding to a halt with slow updates.

 

[MaxGravy]

What I want to know is WHEN? Some say October 27th because Apple moved the conference call to the 25th. It seems to me that hardware is usually released before the conference call, not a few days after. So I dug through Apple history and compiled a 10-year date list of 4th quarter conference calls and new hardware announcements.

Only 2009 and 2010 saw hardware announced after the conference call. Every other year the hardware was announced before the conference call. No hardware was announced in October of 2006 and 2007, but iPods were released in September of both those years.

All dates sourced from here: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/

2006
Sep 12 - New iPods
(No new hardware in October)
Oct 16 - Conference Call

2007
Sep 5 - New iPods
(No new hardware in October)
Oct 18 - Conference Call

2008
Oct 14 - Apple announces new MacBook Family, 24-inch Cinema Display
10/17 - Conference Call

2009
Oct 15 - Conference Call
Oct 20 - Apple unveils iMac, Magic Mouse

2010
Oct 15 - Conference Call
Oct 20 - Apple launches MacBook Air

2011
Oct 04 - Apple Launches iPhone 4S
Oct 13 - Conference Call

2012
Oct 23 - Apple introduces iPad mini, 13” MBPr, All-New iMac
Oct 24 - Conference Call

2013
Oct 22 - Apple announces iPad air2, iPad mini 3, iMac5k, Mac mini
Oct 24 - Conference Call

2014
Oct 16 - Apple introduces iPad air2, iPad mini 3, iMac5k, Mac mini
Oct 17 - Conference Call

2015
Oct 13 - Apple Updates iMac with Retina
Oct 23 - Conference Call

2016
No October hardware yet announced
Oct 25 - Conference Call scheduled

 

[groove-agent]

I get the impression that Apple is spreading itself too thin, and putting Macs on the back burner. Combine this with a lack of innovation ("ok, let's make it 10% thinner!" - gah!) and drive the company got from Steve's perfectionist leadership and you have your decline. Ideally they should have done a refresh by Sept for back to school and Christmas (leave some padding to fill orders) but they missed the mark.

I used to be a total fan boy, but Apple continues to disappoint. I miss the days of the "one last thing" keynotes. My next computer will likely be a hackintosh.

 

[MaxGravy]

I'd also like to post this image that I put together myself (on a 2011 iMac). The first time I posted without comment and it was removed.

Comment: Come on Apple!!!

 

[C00rDiNaT0r]

Which would make sense in some way, but that would be forgetting one important detail: if Apple is going to charge us premium prices for Macs, they ought to give us the latest hardware, otherwise it leaves a bitter taste, as if we're getting ripped off.

The other angle would be, as a premium product, the value of your Mac does not depreciate as fast as PC's. This was the case for Nokia phones in the pre-iPhone era, that their prices didn't drop as much or as quickly as their competitors.

It's the difference between value/bargain brands like T.J. Maxx or Hyundai vs. premium brands like Burberry and Ferrari.
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For a company like Apple the internal release is a piece of cake in particular compared to the loss of sales due to lack of updates.

I disagree with that sentiment - if they do everything simply because they are financially capable, then they are not as focused as they are today. "A company like Apple" does not have to worry about complexities involved in compatibility and testing major software releases like Microsoft (Windows) and Google (Android), exactly because there are fewer variance in specs, chipsets, etc.

 

[nt5672]

Disagree. The poster's comments about Rosetta and Apple's response were a distortion of facts. Apple's decision was strongly influenced by their lack of control over Rosetta. The poster attempted to cast Apple's decision as a callus whim, which it wasn't.

Another case in point: Apple controls and owns the Carbon frameworks but they continue to be included in OS X distributions even though Apple deprecated them years ago. A whimsical/callus Apple would have removed them years ago.

Possibly some of Apple's decisions might be dubbed egregious/whimsical/callus but not Rosetta, and Apple's long-term support of Carbon is a supporting data point.

There only included because no one at the top realizes they are being included. That is how far the current management is from understanding how a computer works. And this IS the problem.

 

[Osty]

slower? thats a new one.

Surprised me to. I'm no fanboy and I use Linux and Windows daily. I've found that on identical stock hardware (my 2011 Mac mini), El Capitan runs faster and smoother than Windows 10.

 

[C00rDiNaT0r]

There only included because no one at the top realizes they are being included. That is how far the current management is from understanding how a computer works. And this IS the problem.

I don't think that was the reason. How much detail do you think the top person needs to know about the products to excel at what they do? Do you expect Tim Cook to know the 601th line of the latest macOS alpha source code by heart?

 

[ackmondual]

Face it - Computers will be dead.

The processing speeds of the iPads and iPhones have gotten very quick.

Soon - all storage will be cloud based. You will plug in your iPhone to a monitor and it will run a watered down version or maybe even full of OSX.

Everyone will have a mac in their pocket.

This is the future. Laptops are dead, and Apple knows it.

All storage will be cloud based? This can work in S. Korea or Japan where their internet is 5 to 10 and 10 to 15 years ahead of us respectively. In the US we have data caps/throttling, and speeds are surprisingly slow for a country like the US because of lack of (need for) innovation and competition. Heck, I read a blog of someone who spent a year in Korea, and he was surprised he was able to get wifi on top of a mountain!

Until that happens, I'm pretty glad my phone has storage (on-device and micro-SD card), and how my laptop has an 80 GB SSD.

 

[trifid]

I'd also like to post this image that I put together myself (on a 2011 iMac). The first time I posted without comment and it was removed.

Comment: Come on Apple!!!

Haha that's awesome

 

[Borin]

That is how far the current management is from understanding how a computer works.

At least four Apple top brass have degrees in Comp Sci (Cue, Federighi, Srouji, Deneve) and a fair few of the rest have various engineering degrees. I don't necessarily disagree with the rest of your post, but I think they have a decent grasp of how a computer works.

 

[ateslik]

Wait until they announce that the iPhone7 -IS- the new MacBook Pro. That Smart Connector is begging for a laptop dock.

To wit:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

http://browser.primatelabs.com/ios-benchmarks

iPhone 7 multi-core (5350) is faster than Late 2015 27" iMac single core (5209). That's begging for a dock with a big screen to me.

Even better would be a MacBook that you can plug your phone into "the slot" and get more active cores. Baller.

 

[trifid]

Wait until they announce that the iPhone7 -IS- the new MacBook Pro. That Smart Connector is begging for a laptop dock.

To wit:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

http://browser.primatelabs.com/ios-benchmarks

iPhone 7 multi-core (5350) is faster than Late 2015 27" iMac single core (5209). That's begging for a dock with a big screen to me.

Even better would be a MacBook that you can plug your phone into "the slot" and get more active cores. Baller.

Hardware power isn't the issue, the issue is how ridiculously stagnant and neglected iOS has become when it comes to larger screen sizes. Lack of vision for iOS to be a fully capable creative platform, and being so closed down limits it more a consumption platform rather than creation.

 

[NY Guitarist]

I need to replace a substantial number of work computers. That decision has been delayed until there is news, one way or the other, about new Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac computers.

Apple may still sell me another iPhone but lose me as a business customer.

But... if the competition is good, the iPhone may no longer be relevant to the computer ecosystem I purchase and might result in Apple losing my future phone purchases too.

 

[flyinmac]

No word on the Mac Pro...... Think Apple ditching this one.... personally .... its gonna go the way of the 18 gold watch did.

Apple's focus i think would be on phone and (consumer) smart-watch, phones, tablets... and tvOS, Even the Mac mini is slowly grinding to a halt with slow updates.

Apple has been distancing themselves from the enterprise and professional market for years.

The Xserve being discontinued was a huge step out of the business industry.

A Mac mini server was a joke. It had no chance of being a corporate server.

Apple replacing the Xserve with a Mac mini server was an example of either how little Apple understands the complexity of corporate/enterprise servers, or how little they care.

The idea of a server sounds very simple to a consumer. But it's more than file and print sharing. If you actually work with enterprise networks, then you'd see that there is no way a Mac mini could ever manage a major corporate network. It's like asking a butterfly to carry a FedEx cargo container instead of using airplanes.

The Mac Pro is likely going the way of the Xserve. Apple is not a serious business machine company. The new Apple is focused on mass production of consumer products.

Apple has put all their Apples in one basket. A saturated market of tablets, phones, and wearable gadgets. Markets that see a high turnover of disposable products. Products designed to be replaced frequently, it's the toilet paper of the tech industry. Everyone uses it, and everyone will replace it frequently.

It's a highly competitive market. Grasping to keep everyone buying your brand of toilet paper / phone. They all do the same thing, they will all be replaced soon. Will customer X buy your Toilet Paper / phone the next time, or perhaps buy a competing product?

Apple has stepped out of the corporate and business industry. They've never successfully re-entered the educational market (that they lost following the discontinuation of the Apple II series).

The remains of their computer line are all but forgotten. The writing is on the wall. The Macintosh is no longer a focus. The idea of competing against Microsoft is abandoned. We might see a few updates before it's put out to pasture. Like the way many automakers have done an enhanced model last production run of a car.

But the writing is on the wall. The Macintosh will be a memory in coming years.

The only savior to the Mac would be if the consumables market drops, and Apple scrambles to prop up the Mac again in a last ditch effort to keep the company alive.

But, really, the best we could hope for would be for another company to come forward and buy the Macintosh division from Apple, and breathe new life into the machine (much like Lenevo did with the IBM computer division).

 

[pat500000]

Apple has been distancing themselves from the enterprise and professional market for years.

The Xserve being discontinued was a huge step out of the business industry.

A Mac mini server was a joke. It had no chance of being a corporate server.

Apple replacing the Xserve with a Mac mini server was an example of either how little Apple understands the complexity of corporate/enterprise servers, or how little they care.

The idea of a server sounds very simple to a consumer. But it's more than file and print sharing. If you actually work with enterprise networks, then you'd see that there is no way a Mac mini could ever manage a major corporate network. It's like asking a butterfly to carry a FedEx cargo container instead of using airplanes.

The Mac Pro is likely going the way of the Xserve. Apple is not a serious business machine company. The new Apple is focused on mass production of consumer products.

Apple has put all their Apples in one basket. A saturated market of tablets, phones, and wearable gadgets. Markets that see a high turnover of disposable products. Products designed to be replaced frequently, it's the toilet paper of the tech industry. Everyone uses it, and everyone will replace it frequently.

It's a highly competitive market. Grasping to keep everyone buying your brand of toilet paper / phone. They all do the same thing, they will all be replaced soon. Will customer X buy your Toilet Paper / phone the next time, or perhaps buy a competing product?

Apple has stepped out of the corporate and business industry. They've never successfully re-entered the educational market (that they lost following the discontinuation of the Apple II series).

The remains of their computer line are all but forgotten. The writing is on the wall. The Macintosh is no longer a focus. The idea of competing against Microsoft is abandoned. We might see a few updates before it's put out to pasture. Like the way many automakers have done an enhanced model last production run of a car.

But the writing is on the wall. The Macintosh will be a memory in coming years.

The only savior to the Mac would be if the consumables market drops, and Apple scrambles to prop up the Mac again in a last ditch effort to keep the company alive.

But, really, the best we could hope for would be for another company to come forward and buy the Macintosh division from Apple, and breathe new life into the machine (much like Lenevo did with the IBM computer division).

Something tells me that after Tim Cook invest 1 billion dollars toward Chinese version of uber and obtaining a seat as a board member says a lot about future of Apple....

 

[eebrown]

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.

serious question as I do not know for sure, but does apple make and computers or laptops that are upgradable anymore?

 

[BenTrovato]

One of my colleagues said something similar recently, so she got a PC and then instantly missed having the ability to send and receive SMS's from her computer and having it be seamlessly integrated with her iPhone and iPad. As for me, my family is all iOS and I have a MBP, iPhone, Pad, and an Apple Watch. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, nor do I have any desire to leave the Apple ecosystem at the moment, but to each their own.

If everyone I chat with only had iMessage I wouldn't leave but that's not the case for me so no big deal.

 

[toke lahti]

The other angle would be, as a premium product, the value of your Mac does not depreciate as fast as PC's.

This WAS a case with macs. What is the value of a non-upgradeable 2014 mac mini?
Less than more powerful AND upgradeable mac mini of 2011.
Which is pretty close to zero in 2016.

 

[AkuskaUK]

It's like they've stopped caring.

With all the emoji updates and the horrible full screen "Happy Birthday" messages, Ild say so... Our once beloved fruit company has become a high end toy company

"According to rumors, Apple is planning to introduce a revamped MacBook Pro as soon as next month"

Uh, please tell me this was written in September.

That would be incredible and help restore some faith back to Apple, it seems that toys are the only thing they care about anymore... New Mac Pro anyone?

 

[groove-agent]

Something tells me that after Tim Cook invest 1 billion dollars toward Chinese version of uber and obtaining a seat as a board member says a lot about future of Apple....

Not to mention all the Apple stock he just sold.