Microsoft Says Windows PC Makers Seeing 'Continued Growth' in Premium Market Led by Apple

[theotherphil]

Not sure I agree with their argument. I just changed my early 2010 15" MBP to a 13" 2016 with touch bar. I'm very happy with the upgrade, despite my 2010 still being very fast (SSD and 16Gb).

 

[MH01]

What you consider wrong I consider a good design decision. We can't keep holding on to old technology when much better technology is out there. USB-c brings along many benefits. You now have a truly universal port (4 of them) that can adapt to anything.

I seriously don't get why people are angry about this. Want to plug a USB-2 device in? Go for it! All you need is a cable (or adapter). Need to power your laptop from the other side? Go for it! All ports are universal. Need to drive two different types of monitors? No problem, just use an adapter and two of your ports. No need to worry if you only have one video port.

Sure there's some super minor inconvenience in using an adapter or a cable but its nothing in my opinion to having four universal ports.

It's a great port, though probably 2-4 years from being widely adapted. Until such time you need to live with the inconvenience of adapters.

 

[jkruehne]

IMHO it's still Apples to Apples...
(…) All Apple would need to do is if they innovated and created a detachable touch screen, then when it's detached, then change from OS X, to iOS. (…).

Why they didn't "just" build a detachable MBP –
• screen = iPad(pro) running iOS
• Keybord = Mac (flat and thin ; ) running macOs

both connected = MacOS
screen detached = iOS
…

isn't it that easy : D

 

[Steve121178]

No doubt enabled by the lull in Apple's update cycle.

The PC manufacturers still have to prove their products are worth the premium they are charging though. Or any gains they make in this period will be short-lived. Because from what I am reading from reviews online, products like the surface studio, razor blade and XPS are not without glaring flaws of their own.

The Surface Studio is a great piece of kit, the only 'flaw' being that it's based on older hardware.

Razor Blade is not something that interests me, but it does what it's designed to do very well so I don't really see the problem.

Dell's XPS range of machines are excellent and cover all bases and budges. The only negative I can see if the web cam position, but it's not really a deal breaker unless you use it regularly. The XPS machines have been very well received and scored very highly in all reviews.

There's a lot of premium PC's to choose from which cover every possible usage scenario.

 

[maflynn]

As for Apple Watch it always was intended as ancillary revenue.

That seems more like an excuse - I remember the huge marketing push for the Apple Watch, it was supposed to be an innovative product that would allay critics that Tim Cook's Apple isn't innovating, or to put it another way, this was Cooks own baby. They pushed hard, so much so that it doesn't make sense to say it was intended for ancillary revenue.
[doublepost=1485775147][/doublepost]

Mac is a cash cow now. PCs are not a growing market.

The market is definitely shrinking and Apple has to fight harder for less customers. They've largely been successful with that, but I'd say others have copied Apple's approach so its harder to continue that momentum.

 

[Abazigal]

Mac is a cash cow now. PCs are not a growing market.

As for Apple Watch it always was intended as ancillary revenue. Cook was under pressure to release something and it was low hanging fruit. It is telling that they and Samsung are the last 2 major players left. Watches are ancillary revenue to phones.

The Apple Watch appears to serve as a remote for the iPhone (it helps make certain smartphone features more accessible), plus it helps lock users into the iPhone ecosystem. So the revenue it generates isn't just confined to sales of Apple Watches alone, but also the users who continue upgrading to iPhones instead of a competing brand.

 

[Elijen]

Spend more time fiddling with the config that using it. Plus the fans I used were all noisy and I hate noisy computers!
[doublepost=1485568099][/doublepost]

Steve said touchscreens were junk back in 2008. Nothing has changed.

Oh yes, I can hear my PC fans across all the house. F***ing annoying.

 

[Steve121178]

Steve said touchscreens were junk back in 2008. Nothing has changed.

Of course things have changed! Back in 2008, of course touch screen PC's were crap. Did you ever see the touch screens tacked on to Windows XP? It was horrific.

Wind forward to today and we have modern OS's coupled with amazing hardware which make touch screen computing a great experience.

Right now I have no use for touch screen computing, but there are millions of people who do. Microsoft's Surface Studio PC shows how well it can be done on the desktop. The Surface Pro and Surface Book also shows how it can work and more importantly, work exceptionally well.

Your mentality is like Apple's, closed and not forward thinking. However, at some point in time Apple will produce a MacBook/portable device that has a touch screen. It will probably run a fusion of macOS & iOS or it may run a new flavour of macOS entirely, but I am certain it will happen. It could even be a new product line totally separate from the MacBooks. If you do a little digging, Apple owns enough patents for them to produce such hardware.

 

[neil.r.benson]

Microsoft is starting from a small base, so percentages don't mean as much. It will be interesting to see how Mac sales fared last quarter, as well as how they do in the current quarter, now that the MacBook Pro has been updated.

Microsoft starting from a small base? Windows PCs account for over 90%

 

[ericwn]

Microsoft starting from a small base? Windows PCs account for over 90%

I think what was meant is that their own hardware product business is much younger, and smaller.

 

[malexandria]

Apple has something like 90% of the market for PCs over $1000. It's a small slice, to be sure, but they dominate that part of the market.

Where do you get that ridiculous number from and provide some proof or link to the source.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

My iMac has been broken for the last two months. I haven't replaced it with anything yet because Apple's current lineup is so completely disappointing.

I've been getting by with my Windows 10 laptop from work instead. It's not awesome, but it does everything I need it to and saves me a few thousand.

Edit: Normally I'm happy to have a lot of upvotes on a post, but it's really depressing to have so many people agreeing with me that the Mac is dead.

People that think the Mac is dead aren't looking closely at the 2016 MBP.

And the Desktops are languishing because Intel has blew its timeline, and Apple (unlike others) isn't going to release something just to say it's "New".

Look for new Desktop Macs in Spring of 2017.
[doublepost=1485816577][/doublepost]

Apple,add at least 1 extra USB port to the 12 Inch Macbook and Replace at least 1 of the USB-C ports of the new MBP with standard USB.

or indeed MANY will ditch Macbooks and swith to Surface.

It's just stupid and no one can defend these wrong design decisions.

Well, that will last exactly ONE more iteration, then NOBODY will be putting USB-A ports on laptops.

Geez guyz! All it takes on stuff with removable cables is replacing your USB-A to USB-A cables with USB-A to USB-C cables. And on the stuff with built-in connectors or captive cables, go to Amazon and buy a few $2.50 USB-A to USB-C Adapters!

It's not hard, really.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple,add at least 1 extra USB port to the 12 Inch Macbook and Replace at least 1 of the USB-C ports of the new MBP with standard USB.

or indeed MANY will ditch Macbooks and swith to Surface.

It's just stupid and no one can defend these wrong design decisions.

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and others keep ignoring is; to create true meaningful change in a market you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetically stances. Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. Here’s a smart phone without a heahphone jack. Here's a laptop with only USB C ports.

That's the Apple I came to know and respect - the Apple who marches to its own beat and not care two hoots about what the rest of the world thinks.

 

[Roykor]

Do a significant number of people really switch from Mac OS to Windows 10? Seems like a bit of a red herring to me even if Apple's current lineup is unimpressive. I can see power users, maybe, who's revenue depends on fast output changing. But is that a big number? I can't see the avg. consumer switching and also Mac seems to remain the preference of kids and college students.

Well, i did. And i am a big fan of Apple. But there whole computer range from Mac Pro to there laptops is just not worth it anymore. Yes, i do miss OSX. But W10 is great to be honest. I have more trouble with my ecosystem, so i need to work on that. It looks like i am going to leave Apple to help myself having a better ecosystem experience.

Ps, almost everyone in my screne (creative content creators) is moved over or planing to do so. Why would u invest in a old Apple machine? Its called an bad investment.

 

[LordVic]

What you consider wrong I consider a good design decision. We can't keep holding on to old technology when much better technology is out there. USB-c brings along many benefits. You now have a truly universal port (4 of them) that can adapt to anything.

I seriously don't get why people are angry about this. Want to plug a USB-2 device in? Go for it! All you need is a cable (or adapter). Need to power your laptop from the other side? Go for it! All ports are universal. Need to drive two different types of monitors? No problem, just use an adapter and two of your ports. No need to worry if you only have one video port.

Sure there's some super minor inconvenience in using an adapter or a cable but its nothing in my opinion to having four universal ports.

The problem isn't that people don't want USB-C. They do. USB-C IS THE FUTURE.

the problem is that right NOW, USB-A is the standard universal norm across billions of hardware devices from Laptops, desktops, portables, ultra portables, mobile devices, hard drives, memory sticks, smart cards, dongles. Etc, Etc, Etc.

by going USB-C ONLY, Apple has forced users to either stop using the TODAYS standards, or spend more money on cables and adapters.

What I think most people would have been happy with is 1 single USB-A port for those times where you just can't get away from USB-A. Apple could have done it.

Nevermind the fact that All 4 USB-C ports on the new MacBook pro are NOT full bandwith Thunderbolt. only the 2 on the left get the full PCI-E lanes. But because of limitations of the CPU, the two on the right are NOT FULL Thunderbolt. So, the argument over "BUT YOU GET 4 FULL 20GBS THUNDERBOLT 3 PORTS" IS not accurate at all. You get 2 full Thunderbolt ports, and 2 half thunderbolt ports.

So why not have replaced ONE of those USB-C ports with a USB-A port? USB-A can fully support the USB-3.0 standard for data speeds. The same as USB-C. this would have given the new MacBook Pro at least a smidge of compatibility with Today's standards, without the need of adapters or rebuying stuff.

However, for me, it's not JUST the 4xUSB-C that makes the new Mac Pro not worth the value (for me). it's the keyboard, the removed physical ESC key, the smaller battery life just for thinner laptop. the soldered in hard drive and RAM. When you take all of these, and then throw in a $500 price increase over the last model (In Canadian funds), the new MacBook Pro is a terrible buy.

 

[lowkey]

^ 5.4 million Macs sold with highest ever quarterly revenue for computer sales...so there's plenty who disagree with you.
As an owner of a 1 port usb-c machine, I can safely say USBC is not a big problem...

 

[nofear1az]

Not really, crappy dual core across the board.


Dell kit is pish, they use cheap components and the driver support is garbage. Especially display drivers on the new 4k laptops. We moved a client from Dell due to a 56% failure rate on desktops and that was with dell providing us with 100 'spare' desktops because of the number of failures. Moved to HP and haven't looked back, dell lost out on a 10k unit supply deal. They seem to think that if they replace their ****ed units quick enough they can get away with shipping *****.

yah, that does suck and was a good decision moving over to something does work for you. I had a huge bad experience with IOGEAR with a HUGE failure rate on their external USB vga adapters and drivers. I would never ever go back or use them again. Bad experience will always impact our future decisions on a brand.

 

[crashoverride77]

Apple doesn't want to tell people they aren't selling any of the things.

Apart from the 25 million this quarter and the 60% market share they have. It's a Fortune 500 business

But hey don't use facts it's mac rumours after all.

 

[brendu]

Apart from the 25 million this quarter and the 60% market share they have. It's a Fortune 500 business

But hey don't use facts it's mac rumours after all.

They sold 24 million Mac pros??

 

[crashoverride77]

They sold 24 million Mac pros??

Lol, my bad. Apparently I cannot read. I thought he was talking about Apple watches.

 

[Tech198]

You have a few points here:

* As long as Apple keeps creating shaddy Apple products not everyone likes,, Microsoft has nothing to worry about.
* Apple leads the way and shows how a laptop is done, Microsoft and others follow

1.6% may not be much, but every little bit helps.

 

[brendu]

Lol, my bad. Apparently I cannot read. I thought he was talking about Apple watches.

Ah, gotcha. I was wondering where your 60% market share came from... No worries.

 

[kazmac]

Sadly, Microsoft now knows people will pay Apple prices for their products, and in some cases, more for older tech too.

 

[jblagden]

My impression, having studied, worked, and lived around a large college campus for several decades, is that the last ten years have seen most students using the MacBook and MBP platform, while faculty and staff mostly use PCs. The last year, however, I've noticed more and more students migrating from Macs to top-line PCs such as the MS Surface, the Dell XPS laptops, as well as top-of-the-line Toshiba and ASUS laptops. I think Apple has pushed price-point vs. quality past the purchasing power of most students, and that PC offerings are getting much better - both in terms of hardware and software. Tech-oriented students also gravitate toward pre-installed Linux offerings by Dell such as the XPS-Developer Edition line. Nothing statistically to back it this up just now, but just my observations while in libraries, coffee shops, etc.
[doublepost=1485700529][/doublepost]
Perhaps if Apple ends up getting out of the computer hardware (Mac) business, they will open up their OS offerings to the PC market. That would be a great move, IMO. The competition would be good for OS innovation and support. Hackintoshing, right now, is really attractive only to hobbyists with time and money to tinker with both hardware and OS software, as there is absolutely no tech support from either PC or Apple vendors.

I'm at the point where I think Linux might be best way in the future. Though, I'd love to be able to run OS X on a PC without a bunch of hacks because then I'd still have access to proprietary software. I guess Linux could be the future and OS X for PC could be the bridge. Do you think Linux will ever be the dominant OS or if it'll ever have a large market share?

 

[jblagden]

Apple showed that good design mattered to the consumer and that you can use good design as a key differentiator in the PC market and escape commoditisation. Their Macs were expensive, but at least when I spend $2k on a Mac computer, I get a computer which looks and works like a $2k desktop.

The problem with windows PCs was that only until recently, they consisted largely of crappy hardware loaded with crappy software and tons of bloatware, backed up with crappy aftersales support. None of which justified the premium prices manufacturers dared to charge for them.

There is still a very long way to do before I am tempted back into the windows ecosystem, but the gulf between Macs and windows PCs is definitely less than 4-5 years ago.

Not really.

Windows 10 contains adware, spyware, and tons of backdoors. And its installation was forced on many Windows 7 and 8 users.

New Macs are generally non-upgradable and non-repairable.