Mac Sales Continue to Slide Amid Lack of Updates

[TonyC28]

Resources have been diverted from the Mac. All those watch bands aren't gonna make themselves

 

[apolloa]

I think Apple will find stiff competition now, with the Surface and other laptops, and if Microsoft launch Surface all in one desktops and undercut Apples pricing it will be good competition. Not that Apple really seems to care any less about competition to its computers these days, with no updates for so long..

 

[Lesser Evets]

Tim Cook is lucky that Steve Jobs is gone: Steve would have pitched a bitch fit and cut that guy in two starting from the ******* and going full on through.

Macs are 10% or better of revenue, and they are treated like iPods. Why aren't they updated yearly, whatever the small improvement might be? I wouldn't be surprised if the new Macs come out this month with little more than various colors to the exteriors.

 

[Born Again]

i wouldn't advise buying a mac.

 

[Feenician]

If that's the case then shouldn't we all just get $300 chromebooks since 95% of most users's use case involves surfing the web?

I don't know how you're getting "surfs the web" from "Haswell/Broadwell not being taxed". My quad i7 is hardly a chrome book. Right now 12Gb of the 16Ggb of RAM and 6 of the 8 logical cores are taken by two VMs that are working hard. It's still running smoothly under that pressure.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Is it Stockholm syndrome that is causing some Apple users to defend this indefensible behavior by Apple?

I wouldn't exactly call it indefensible. The newer mobile CPUs (especially quad core) don't offer any real noticeable performance benefit. I can appreciate why Apple didn't feel the need to update to newer CPUs.

Regardless, people know this is the case. They're not angry it hasn't been updated to a newer-gen but lower-performance CPU. I'd argue the main point of contention is the cost of these machines. If there's no real benefit in updating to the next gen, fine. Don't do it. But don't continue to charge the same prices for older hardware.

 

[apolloa]

Apple will have trouble getting the 5th generation intel chips for the new MacBook Pro now that the 7th generation is rolling out.

This made me chuckle hehe..

 

[Feenician]

I can appreciate why Apple didn't feel the need to update to newer CPUs

I'm not even sure they didn't feel the need so much as Skylake being slow to be released in all but the low power forms and being buggy dog**** in all its forms. Parts of it had to be switched off because it straight up didn't work. Not unheard of course, all CPUs ship with errata really, but Skylake was particularly bad.

Honestly I think both Apple and the people clamoring for Apple to update would do well just to sit tight and wait for Kaby Lake to be released in appropriate forms. It's much less problematic and actually has efficiency gains that someone might notice (performance gains, less so)

 

[matthew856]

Apple just does not care about their Mac customers anymore and they are following the money making their phone toys. The lack of refreshes is proof. Simple as that.

I have a MPB 15 from 2008, Apple has supported updates on this old system up to El cap. Pretty amazing that this workhorse has been kept relevant by software. I also have made repairs to it to keep it going, replaced the internal magsafe part, etc.

 

[cube]

I'm not even sure they didn't feel the need so much as Skylake being slow to be released in all but the low power forms and being buggy dog**** in all its forms. Parts of it had to be switched off because it straight up didn't work. Not unheard of course, all CPUs ship with errata really, but Slkylake was particularly bad.

Wasn't Skylake fixed eventually? I always had some suspicion if Apple never used it because of bugs.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I'm not even sure they didn't feel the need so much as Skylake being slow to be released in all but the low power forms and being buggy dog**** in all its forms. Parts of it had to be switched off because it straight up didn't work. Not unheard of course, all CPUs ship with errata really, but Slkylake was particularly bad.

Yeah, Intel's recent chips haven't really been cutting the mustard. I don't think anybody here would see any real-world benefits if the rMBPs were currently boasting the latest mobile Intel chip.

But again, they're too expensive for old tech. Not to worry though, as an update is on the horizon.

 

[Feenician]

Wasn't Skylake fixed eventually? I always had some suspicion if Apple never used it because of bugs.

Partly because, as I said, they updated microcode to switch parts that were faulty off. Add that to performance and efficiency being pretty close to flat compared to the prior gen and I can only imagine said, "f*** that noise" and left it.

 

[apolloa]

Tim Cook is lucky that Steve Jobs is gone: Steve would have pitched a bitch fit and cut that guy in two starting from the ******* and going full on through.

Macs are 10% or better of revenue, and they are treated like iPods. Why aren't they updated yearly, whatever the small improvement might be? I wouldn't be surprised if the new Macs come out this month with little more than various colors to the exteriors.

Actually the iPods are a LOT fresher then the Mac lineup, Apple refreshed the iPods last year. So they are in fact, treating the Macs worst then the iPod lineup.

 

[Moonjumper]

The problem with #2 is that Apple would kill it the first chance they get, like they did with Rosetta.

And no Windows VMs/Bootcamp would turn away a lot of people.

As the story says, they are already turning away. Intel compatibility will be lost anyway if they continue to push towards the iPad Pro as the computer most people need.

My post was a hope for a way for Apple to regain interest (it does appear from the outside that they are losing interest) in fully functional computers. I think the difference is for a transition away from Intel would cause issues that a transition from PowerPC didn't. Rosetta was dropped when the data showed fewer people were using it. I don't think that would happen the same with Windows support being critical for some.

 

[Feenician]

Yeah, Intel's recent chips haven't really been cutting the mustard. I don't think anybody here would see any real-world benefits if the rMBPs were currently boasting the latest mobile Intel chip.

But again, they're too expensive for old tech. Not to worry though, as an update is on the horizon.

I'm going to be honest and say that it entered my consciousness when i bought the 15" quad i7 that an update would be coming sooner rather than later but, rationally, you'll be hard pressed to tel the difference between that and a Sky/Kaby machine. What I did get from the 2013->2015 update is a disk that (with full volume encryption) went from pushing ~400Mb R/W to ~1600Mb R/W and that made a bigger difference than intel's current tick, tick, tick architecture updates would have

 

[mtcowdog]

I agree with a previous poster - it's more of a physiological 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./QUOTE]

Hardware matters far more than basic processing. The future of computing is not static. This is why this update matters. It matter more than ever. #thinkfuture[

 

[steve333]

That's pretty sad when asus is selling more than Apple.
A company the size of Apple with all of it's money should be able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
The day Cook leaves Apple I'll throw a party

 

[winmacuser]

The question is: does Apple ignore its Mac line because people aren't buying anymore or is it the other way round?

I wonder how they source the components for the 2012 non-retina MBP13 they still sell for a ridiculous 1,205 €.

If you ask me they could stop further Mac development and concentrate on (far more profitable) mobile devices but give us developers a DAMN alternative for making iOS apps.
Xcode running on iOS or even Windows, anyone?

 

[Feenician]

That's pretty sad when asus is selling more than Apple

At what ASP? Since when were Apple a volume, or even volume oriented, PC manufacturer?

 

[keysofanxiety]

I'm going to be honest and say that it entered my consciousness when i bought the 15" quad i7 that an update would be coming sooner rather than later but, rationally, you'll be hard pressed to tel the difference between that and a Sky/Kaby machine. What I did get from the 2013->2015 update is a disk that (with full volume encryption) went from pushing ~400Mb R/W to ~1600Mb R/W and that made a bigger difference than intel's current tick, tick, tick architecture updates would have

Phwoah yes, the Flash speeds are ludicrous. That ranks above CPU & GPU when I've been tempted to upgrade my 15" cMBP 2012. I drool when I think how quickly my Logic plugins/projects would load.

 

[MacHiavelli]

Hurricane ARM Macs are coming. Intel is over for Apple. Just look at the code available to devs.

 

[thehodges]

Come on guys. Everyone keeps whining and complaining about the lack of Mac updates. Yes its true the line hasn't been updated in a long time. But for the majority of users what else do you really need?

I run a small development company and right now my daily workhouse is a MB Pro Mid-2014 model with 16GB of memory. Being that I'm in development means that I push my computer much harder than most users every single day. And it runs absolutely fine and lets me get my work without any major slowdowns.

So for the other 80% of Mac users who are using it for email and word processing what is a brand new Mac going to give them that the current ones don't? If anything it will make life a bit harder at first because Apple will probably remove yet another port in their relentless pursuit of thinness which means we have to deal with a new configuration = more $$$$ spent on new cables and accessories.

So for the majority of users Apple has a solution that will work perfectly for them now and for at least the next couple of years.

Now I'm stepping off my soapbox and I will say "YES I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEW MACS!"

 

[Feenician]

Phwoah yes, the Flash speeds are ludicrous. That ranks above CPU & GPU when I've been tempted to upgrade my 15" cMBP 2012. I drool when I think how quickly my Logic plugins/projects would load.

Even with virtualization overhead the host and each of two VMs would, at full disk i/o, get somewhat similar throughput as the old machine did on its own. In fact though I tend to run some VM's off of Samsung T1's over USB 3.0 and those can pretty much match the 400Mb/s of the old internal SSD.

 

[satchmo]

The only "logical" reasoning I can figure is someone at Apple realized they are going to sell 4.5 - 6 million macs per quarter whether they update them or not. People are still buying them so why not. Let the fervor build, intro new models, sell 6-8 million for the next 4-6 quarters, 5-7 million for the successive 4 quarters, and 4.5-6 million for the 3-4 quarters. Wash rinse repeat.

They know it's just the vocal minority on forums like MacRumors who are complaining. Maybe all total a few thousand members?
Meanwhile there are millions (approximately five), who are clueless to processor cycles and probably couldn't care less.

In one way, it's kind of sad that 'we' don't just get on with life.
And in other ways, it's sad how millions have had the wool pulled over their eyes.

 

[keysofanxiety]

That's pretty sad when asus is selling more than Apple.

Yeah, well ASUS sell laptops with Celeron processors which don't even match the performance of decade-old mobile Core 2 Duos.

"Apple don't ship junk" may be disputable to some. But a lot of people forget just how much junk the competitors ship.