Research Firms Paint Contrasting Pictures of Apple's Mac Shipments in Q2 2019

[MauiPa]

They didn't fix the storage pricing. They cut down the two most exorbitant cash grabs on their product catalog and left the base and next level up unchanged. It's clever cutting pricing on your two least purchased items and getting a lot of pub for it, but until they touch the stuff 90% of the people buy, it's all show.

If Apple had "courage", the base/upgrade would look like this.

MBA - RAM 8GB, 16 GB +$100 (currently is 8, 16 +$200)
MBA - SSD 256GB, 512 GB +$100, 1TB +$200 (currently is 128, 256 +$200, 512 +400, 1TB +600)

MBP - RAM 16GB, 32 GB (+150 when available) (currently is 8, 16 +$200)
MBP - SSD 512GB, 1TB +$100, 2TB +$200 (currently is 128, 256 +$200, 512 +400, 1TB +600, 2TB +1,000)

A true delineation from MPA and MPB, and storage fit for 2019.

correction: MBP 15 SSD (256, 512 +200, 1TB +400, 2TB +800, and yes they do offer 4TB)

I don't totally disagree, certainly ram upgrades are too high, and SSD upgrades appear too high. But it all gets down to speed of the SSDs. From what I can tell, the Apple SSD read/write speeds are very high (not too mention, hardware based encryption through the T2). for example, the best benchmarks I can find for the Dell XPS shows pretty mediocre SSD performance of around 560 MB/sec (although I am skeptical, with the Apple having SSD read speeds up to 3.2 GB/sec. If that is actually true, the slightly more money for SSD performance of Apple is justified.

I am not a fan of soldered SSDs, but if you argue security, all you have to do on a non-soldered SSD is pop the card and place it in your own machine and you own the data with little work. On the Mac, that is not possible. also, with TB3 data transfer speeds, it does not matter if your SSD is internal or external, so you could easily add in the Samsung 970 and get up to 3.4 GB/sec read speeds
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Impression I get from enthusiasts is Thinkpad for laptop and custom DIY build for desktop.

Windows, euyyy!

 

[Cosmosent]

Hey MR staff, it would help to have a History of Reported Units Sold (for comparison purposes).

Apple announced they would Stop Reporting iPhone, Mac, etc. units sold on Nov 1st of last year.

While the mobile phone industry is very dynamic, sales of Macs probably have NOT changed that much.

A graph of the last 3-4 years of Reported Mac Unit Sales would help ALOT !

 

[falainber]

I'd love to get a job where I can make stuff up, get paid for it, and even though I'm proven wrong countless times I still get to keep my job and keep getting paid to make even more useless reports with made-up numbers year after year.

Do you really think you proved them wrong? I like your ambitions.

 

[joeblough]

well, i know this: i bought a 2018 macbook air from costco.com just a couple days before the spec rev. not a bad deal; $150 off.

i always check what coconut battery has to say on a new machine, and i was surprised to find that the machine was manufactured in november 2018, which is 8 months ago. either costco doesn't sell any of these, or people aren't buying them, cause in this "just-in-time" world of manufacturing, 8 months is an eternity for something to sit on the shelf.

i'm pretty impressed with the computer though... i have not bought a new mac laptop since my 2013 air. the retina display is gorgeous.

 

[TrenttonY]

I have a feeling Apple will soon combine their iPad Pro sales with their Mac sales.
1. This will inflate their numbers.
2. They already call an iPad a computer.
3. iPad now has it own OS: "iPadOS"

 

[MultiMan]

Windows, euyyy!

You probably haven't used the latest iterations of Windows 10. Satya Nadella seems to be steering the Microsoft ship with skill and focus. I hated especially W8, but even W10 at first. Today, Windows 10 is my first choice in desktop OS.

 

[trip1ex]

estimated macs sold numbers are different by ~8%. news at 11.

 

[Soccertess]

For all the apple fan boys who claimed Tim Cook was god and could do no wrong:

High prices
Bad keyboards
one port (major downside)
useless touch bar which is over priced
Underpowered Macbook Airs.

Glad the sales numbers are talking for themselves. Hopefully people can start thinking critically again and be open to the fact that Mac Hardware isn't what it use to be. There have always been draw backs but never like this.. Timmy really has been kicking the can lately.


GET RIDE OF TIM!

 

[NMBob]

This just in: "People guessing numbers, guess differently."

Well, someone should be able to compare the numbers for any of the other companies that do report quantities and see if the guesses of either estimator are correct. Apple is cutting prices and fixing keyboards again, I suspect they are not doing it out of the kindness of their heart and sales are down.

 

[CrysisDeu]

If relying on my buying pattern... and I'm a big Apple fan when they put out some that puts function before fashion... then they are definitely on a down trend. I still have a 2012 MacBook retina pro, and none of the new laptops in 7 years has been enticing. I can still plug in USB A devices, and if I trip over the power cord, the MagSafe does a safe release. Apple share holders must hate me.

Same here, starting from 2013’s 750m, to the radeon cards(260,360,460,560,560x), there aren’t real changes, at most 2x. SSDs are still the same size, just faster. CPU performance only doubled. Less reliable, worse batter life. Double the price.
Why would I buy it?

 

[realtuner]

Do you really think you proved them wrong? I like your ambitions.

Don't need to try to prove anyone wrong when they do it just fine on their own (while making themselves look like idiots in the process).

 

[QCassidy352]

If relying on my buying pattern... and I'm a big Apple fan when they put out some that puts function before fashion... then they are definitely on a down trend. I still have a 2012 MacBook retina pro, and none of the new laptops in 7 years has been enticing. I can still plug in USB A devices, and if I trip over the power cord, the MagSafe does a safe release. Apple share holders must hate me.

As an Apple shareholder and owner of a 2013 MacBook Pro, I think you’re wise.

 

[Feenician]

You probably haven't used the latest iterations of Windows 10. Satya Nadella seems to be steering the Microsoft ship with skill and focus. I hated especially W8, but even W10 at first. Today, Windows 10 is my first choice in desktop OS.

What changed for you between the release of W10 and now that makes it so much better? I do use it in a VM infrequently, though I do keep that VM up to date. With that infrequent use I can't think of anything that's drastically changed the character of the OS, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who uses it more deeply.

 

[mrNiftYpAnts]

If relying on my buying pattern... and I'm a big Apple fan when they put out some that puts function before fashion... then they are definitely on a down trend. I still have a 2012 MacBook retina pro, and none of the new laptops in 7 years has been enticing. I can still plug in USB A devices, and if I trip over the power cord, the MagSafe does a safe release. Apple share holders must hate me.

You are so correct. I, sadly, bought a high end Mac book pro last year. I hate the pointless Touch Bar, but way worse is the performance. I regularly use it in "hot" environments.. like 75-85 degrees. It throttles itself sooo much I have to close all apps I am not using at that given time, and re-open when I need them. Close mail app, open Xcode. close Xcode, open mail... not exact apps but you get the idea. It has gotten pathetic how poor the performance can be on these super thin MacBook pros. Just make them freaking PRO with more space inside and a fan. Keep the airs tiny, but stop the thinness please!!!!! ...... And remove the Touch Bar ASAP.. its more of a distraction than a help. .. there, my 2 cents .. oh, and try the fancy thunderbolt connections to connect external monitors and / or dongles... They work great some times, other times, they disconnect. My monitors blink, ethernet goes out, and I get USB ejected warnings over and over while just sitting at my desk trying to work. I feel like I am using a Windows Vista machine...

 

[EJ Lala]

Impression I get from enthusiasts is Thinkpad for laptop and custom DIY build for desktop.

You're right, Thinkpad T series are great machines and really easy to work on. The dual battery is really nice too.

 

[Dave-Z]

Lenovo: Great keyboard, good prices, okay OS - Sales up big
Apple: Bad keyboard, bad pricing (storage pricing is a joke), great OS - Sales down

Seems pretty easy. Fix the keyboard, fix the storage...watch sales jump..

Interesting. I jumped shipped from Apple to Lenovo. I think your comment pretty much nailed it.

 

[ajfahey]

I am surprised that market share isn't much worse. Apple is hasn't been innovating in the computer market really since Jobs died and personal computers have become commodities. Commodities with high markups rarely sell well.

A bigger problem on the horizon is their obstinance relative to remaining in China for most of their manufacturing. This too will not end well for Apple. Cook's expiration date is five years overdue. Ive's recent departure is just the beginning. Engineering talent sticks with excellent technology companies. Expect more departures. There won't be enough restricted stock in the world to keep them working at a place that isn't cutting edge.

 

[Baymowe335]

And none of this matters because they are worthless guesses and Apple will report Mac revenue later this month.
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For all the apple fan boys who claimed Tim Cook was god and could do no wrong:

High prices
Bad keyboards
one port (major downside)
useless touch bar which is over priced
Underpowered Macbook Airs.

Glad the sales numbers are talking for themselves. Hopefully people can start thinking critically again and be open to the fact that Mac Hardware isn't what it use to be. There have always been draw backs but never like this.. Timmy really has been kicking the can lately.


GET RIDE OF TIM!

$700B in value added to Apple.
Industry leading silicon
Wearables in Watch and AirPods
3X as many iPhones as any point during Jobs era.
Services a $50B business

 

[Dave-Z]

What changed for you between the release of W10 and now that makes it so much better? I do use it in a VM infrequently, though I do keep that VM up to date. With that infrequent use I can't think of anything that's drastically changed the character of the OS, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who uses it more deeply.

I'm not the user you were addressing. Nor have I used Windows 10 from its initial release. But having used it the last 7 months (I'm on the Oct. 19 release), I find it to be quite fast compared to previous versions of Windows. There is a lot less nagging from the operating system (e.g. Cancel/Allow prompts). My laptop is a 2-in-1 and I really like how Windows switches to/from tablet mode. There is not a lot of touch-optimized software but Windows does a pretty good job emulating a mouse with touch (long press to right-click, double-tap-and-hold to click-and-drag, etc.). Multiple clipboards is a built-in feature that I use all the time. Windows also supports a lot of the little things that macOS does: reducing blue-light on the screen at night, notifications with the ability to silence them during various activities or times of day, configurable multi-touch trackpad gestures, easy to use system-wide search (I use this a lot to launch applications; I used Spotlight on macOS for the same thing), random MAC addresses when connecting to public wireless networks, etc. System updates are automatic and can be set to happen at times of the day when you're not using your computer (makes things mostly seamless).

Microsoft is making some really great strides in the Pro version. The 1903 update features "Windows Sandbox", which is like a lightweight version of Windows that's isolated and ideal of testing things (think a VM that restores a snapshot every time it's shutdown). They also have a Linux subsystem so I can install a lightweight Linux environment; this lets me create a web development environment similar to my servers.

When I used iOS and macOS I kept saying I'd never go back to Windows, but I have to admit I was wrong.

 

[StevieD100]

You probably haven't used the latest iterations of Windows 10. Satya Nadella seems to be steering the Microsoft ship with skill and focus. I hated especially W8, but even W10 at first. Today, Windows 10 is my first choice in desktop OS.

Ha-ha. Having been around computers for 50 years and spent two decades fighting the various lunacies of Microsoft Windows 10 is rapidly becoming a 'do as we do and when we tell you to do it' kind of OS. Forced updates, borking after updates and those tiles! The last straw for me was making changes somewhere in the OS that stopped software that had been running for fifteen years dead. Even rebuilding it failed to produce a working solution.
Moved the code (C++ and Pascal) to MacOS and after a day or so to get the makefile right it now works again. Ported to CentOS 7 in a couple of hours. Again, it works like a dream.
Windows 10 is no more. I deleted the last copy a couple of months ago. As the saying goes, you can polish a turd but it is still a turd.
That is my impression of Windows 10 these days.
How long before they start charging subscriptions eh?

 

[haunebu]

Growth stopped when Tim Cook became the CEO. I'm shocked.

 

[Feenician]

I'm not the user you were addressing. Nor have I used Windows 10 from its initial release. But having used it the last 7 months (I'm on the Oct. 19 release), I find it to be quite fast compared to previous versions of Windows. There is a lot less nagging from the operating system (e.g. Cancel/Allow prompts). My laptop is a 2-in-1 and I really like how Windows switches to/from tablet mode. There is not a lot of touch-optimized software but Windows does a pretty good job emulating a mouse with touch (long press to right-click, double-tap-and-hold to click-and-drag, etc.). Multiple clipboards is a built-in feature that I use all the time. Windows also supports a lot of the little things that macOS does: reducing blue-light on the screen at night, notifications with the ability to silence them during various activities or times of day, configurable multi-touch trackpad gestures, easy to use system-wide search (I use this a lot to launch applications; I used Spotlight on macOS for the same thing), random MAC addresses when connecting to public wireless networks, etc. System updates are automatic and can be set to happen at times of the day when you're not using your computer (makes things mostly seamless).

Microsoft is making some really great strides in the Pro version. The 1903 update features "Windows Sandbox", which is like a lightweight version of Windows that's isolated and ideal of testing things (think a VM that restores a snapshot every time it's shutdown). They also have a Linux subsystem so I can install a lightweight Linux environment; this lets me create a web development environment similar to my servers.

When I used iOS and macOS I kept saying I'd never go back to Windows, but I have to admit I was wrong.

Thank you. Appreciate your input. I think quite a few of the things you mention in your first paragraph were present at W10 launch, but I don't doubt they've been refined a bit. Some others are definitely newer, and you missed the expose-like feature too, which is relatively recent and quite nice imo.

Windows sandbox I'd never even heard of quite honestly and does seem like it's pretty damn useful for both devs and tinkerers (I'm not using that word negatively, for the avoidance of doubt here) but it seems to be specific use case of Hyper-V, which isn't new really. The whole WSL drive is something I'm liking a lot about Satya's vision of Microsoft. Pragmatism over stubbornness is definitely a good thing.

 

[steve333]

Pathetic. If Apple's hardware wasn't such a rip off they would shoot up. Windows 10 is a disaster

 

[throAU]

build "pro" machines that are overpriced trash that pros don't want and your market share goes down.

who could predict?!

 

[Avalanche66]

to be fair.... Apple doesnt sell garbage $200 laptops to people who have no idea what they are buying...