U.S. Mac Sales Down in June Despite Introduction of New MacBook Airs

[vincenz]

I think it's simple.... Computer sales are bad across the board for the most part. Their lasting longer and it's just not needed to upgrade a computer all the time. Plus, I think many customers are moving to mobile computing which again is slowing desktop and laptop sales.

Apple needs to continue it's focus on iPhones and iPads to win and they need to give their current customers a good reason to upgrade their workstations and laptops... maybe that will come soon?

I think so too. For a majority of the market that Apple caters to (and most of them do NOT visit this site), there's just no "killer" feature that would make them want to upgrade. Upgrading to a new computer every year is also much more expensive than upgrading a smartphone every year too, and since Apple products last longer than their PC counterparts as a whole for the normal user, it makes sense that Mac sales are down. People who have just been introduced to the Apple ecosystem within the last few years with the iPhone have already purchased Macs most likely. All of this coupled with the fact that tablets are getting more versatile and powerful. I'm sure PC sales are not so different either.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Exactly. That's why I don't think this is an issue of Mac's being outdated or over priced or whatever. It's a lot of consumers finding out they can do pretty much everything they were doing on their laptop/desktop on their tablet. Another reason why Microsoft is in a world of hurt.

Yup. I stopped taking my MBP on short trips a "long" time ago. So much easier to travel w/ an iPad esp. if you have LTE data. I still prefer a tactile keyboard but I've gotten fairly proficient at the iPad's touch keyboard for jotting notes and thoughts down.

I'm not alone because a few years ago plane cabins were full of Dell laptops. Now you see a few but many more iPads.

 

[linuxcooldude]

CPU speed has been stagnating for years. It has not kept up with the power user's needs.

Increasing CPU speed indefinitely has engineering downfalls. Termal problems for one. Increasing speed means cooling needs to be increased. Thats why the shift to multiple cores over increasing speed.

Since desktop computer are declining & more efficient CPU's in laptops to save battery life is another thing to think about.

 

[jread]

1. Most people are waiting for the Haswell MacBook Pros. I personally got sick of waiting and bought a current gen, but if Apple waits until October to finally update them them I'm glad I didn't wait.

2. The Haswell MacBook Airs are great, and very portable (especially the 11"), but the displays are just unacceptably bad. We are used to retina displays now, and until the Air has a retina screen I refuse to buy one. I tried hard to like my Haswell MBA, but I returned it after a week. I would much rather use my iPhone or iPad than deal with display technology from 2005.

3. Aside from the Air, Apple's desktops/laptops are cost prohibitive. Not many people can afford $2000+ for a laptop, and if they can they still don't want to, especially if they only use it for email or surfing the web.

Apple is doing well in the mobile realm, with regular updates/refreshes, but beyond that they are taking too long to refresh their other products, they are not outfitting them with powerful enough technology to justify the cost.

 

[Clubber]

Dumb for who exactly? Tinkerers?

Timid tinkerers who can only handle slide in parts.

 

[petsounds]

Getting rid of the Macbook (non-pro) was a huge mistake, in my opinion. Many people don't want the Air for various reasons, but do want an entry-level portable Mac.

I'd also say that the lack of a new halo Mac product is probably not drawing as many people into the Apple stores. The Mac Pro yes, but most of the non-professional market cares little for that machine.

 

[euvnairb]

Apple's recent updates have been minute and don't give people any reason to buy other than extended battery life. At this rate, their "new" line-up will get stagnant quick.

Performance trumps battery life in my view and if Apple were to sacrifice performance for battery life with the new rmbp's then I'm going with something else. And if the rumors are true that Apple is not including a dedicated gpu in the next rmb's then they have placed themselves out of the market (price-wise). I hate being a pessimist but there's a mental barrier of paying extravagant amounts of money for a machine with integrated graphics.

 

[Razeus]

Apple's recent updates have been minute and don't give people any reason to buy other than extended battery life. At this rate, their "new" line-up will get stagnant quick.

Performance trumps battery life in my view and if Apple were to sacrifice performance for battery life with the new rmbp's then I'm going with something else. And if the rumors are true that Apple is not including a dedicated gpu in the next rmb's then they have placed themselves out of the market (price-wise). I hate being a pessimist but there's a mental barrier of paying extravagant amounts of money for a machine with integrated graphics.

or a 5200RPM drive (even with a "fusion" attached).

 

[flux73]

Apple is included in the link I supplied. Your statement fails on every level when Lenovo had a 19% gain and Dell had a 6.4% YoY gain.

How carefully did you read your own link? The gains you're referring to are only in the US. Worldwide, Lenovo is down 0.6%. In your post, you seemed to be disputing the fact that PC shipments are down overall, by pointing out Lenovo's 19% US growth. That doesn't disprove that PC shipments are down overall. Even the title of your link flat out states "Worldwide PC Shipments in the Second Quarter of 2013 Declined 10.9 Percent". Doesn't get much clearer than that.

 

[rumplestiltskin]

Haswell? So what?

Others have already written: Haswell is there only to provide better battery life. My 2011 MBA already has great battery life; I don't see a need to get a new machine simply because of that. Sure, USB3 is nice but that's not a compelling argument.

It's pretty sure we'll have Haswell MBP models (sans Retina) but, again, better battery life just isn't a good enough reason to buy one.

Hey, Tim! Here's an idea: How about providing some real horsepower improvements to the Mac line? Looks like the Mac Pro will have some but you won't be selling it for a reasonable price. The mini runs fairly well (I have a 2012 model) but I -would- consider a new one if it had a better GPU and some demonstrable, seriously improved performance. The iMac line has been crippled by Jony Ive; that 21.5" with the non-upgradeable (by normal humans) RAM modules? What a dumb idea. And what purpose did "make-it-so-thin-that-we-seal-it-with-double-stick-tape" accomplish? This sort of "no-user-serviceable-parts-inside" approach that Apple has also done with the iPad and iPhone is, frankly, stupid. If you insist upon making the Mac like an iOS device, pretty soon all your eggs will be in that one iOS basket and, as soon as the $600 iPhone market dries up (which it looks about ready to do), you can just be another Samsung flinging crud at the walls to see what sticks.

 

[apfelmann]

APPLE, please fix this:

1.) Nobody likes computers without SSDs anymore. So why do you want fool costumers and sell them MAC MINIS and iMACS with slow HDs?

2.) Many of us don't want computers without RETINA displays anymore. So bring them on for iMac and Macbook Air!

 

[TsunamiTheClown]

Steve jobs basically dug his own and the rest of home computing's grave with their products, and probably have been the ones to do the most harm to home computer advancement since before the 1980's

It is going to take a long time to recover from this damage. It's such a shame

Not sure if this is a very deductive point.

Honestly, what this kind of data is telling us is that there are a great number of people (but not everyone!) who can satisfy all of their computer needs with something like a smart-phone or a tablet. Which I believe is a conclusion that nearly everyone here will agree with.

However I don't see how this is akin to grave digging. Because Apple also offers the alternative to the laptop/desktop.

 

[MikeyMike01]

When you have a company only concerned with making desktops thinner - and reducing functionality (removal of optical drives etc), instead of addressing other issues, it's hardly surprising!

I, for one, am quite happy that Apple is willing to do away with those things. I want my laptops as thin and light as possible.

 

[GermanyChris]

I, for one, am quite happy that Apple is willing to do away with those things. I want my laptops as thin and light as possible.

He was talking about desktops

 

[4TheLoveOfTech]

How carefully did you read your own link? The gains you're referring to are only in the US. Worldwide, Lenovo is down 0.6%. And the title of the article says that PC shipments are down 10.9% worldwide, which seems to be what you were disputing when referring to Lenovo's 19% US growth.

The title of the MR article is
"U.S. Mac Sales Down in June Despite Introduction of New MacBook Airs"

I gave US sales numbers for Lenovo and Dell. Many in the forum are saying that PC sales are down everywhere for everyone.

That is not the case in the US for Lenovo or Dell. Their US sales up are YoY.

Lenovo Worldwide Sales are down the least at 0.6%.

Twist it anyway you want to. I'm just correcting the general incorrect rationale in this forum why Apple US PC sales are down.

 

[dakwar]

There is simply no need to buy new Macs. I use my iPhone and iPad for majority of things, and my 2007 Macbook is still alive and kicking for writing papers and things.

I've been "about to upgrade" my Macbook for 2 and a half years. But you know what happened 2 and a half years ago? I got an iPad. There's just no need... Although as my macbook becomes continuously more obsolete (I'm stuck on Lion), I'll be itching to buy to get the latest software...

I too am stuck on Lion, with my early 2008 black macbook. The laptop works beautifully well and can even run mountain lion as a Parallels VM. It runs surprisingly very smoothly in the VM. Its maddening though that Apple won't let mountain lion runs natively on these machines.

 

[asthamapheo]

maybe their sales will improve if they start offering devices which aren't loaded with software bugs.

 

[ctdonath]

Not sure what the "despite" is predicated on.

The new MBAs are an incremental improvement. Yeah, battery life is great, faster SSD is great, USB3 is great, 802.11ac is great ... but anyone with the prior MBA enjoys great battery life, fast SSD, fast-enough USB2, and nothing to connect 802.11ac to.

Ogling the 13" MBA, I keep oscillating between the shiny new model vs the refurb prior model plus $300 pocket money. The difference is desirable, but not compelling.

The Mac product line is excellent (not perfect, but little to complain about). There just hasn't been anything compelling for a while. Market demands are stable, there's not much out there users want to do which the current lineup - heck, the prior lineup too - doesn't do well. Only exception is the new Mac Pro, which isn't out yet.

 

[TimWillz]

Me too!

Yep, everyone was expecting them at WWDC, so with that miss a whole bunch of sales are on hold. Mac Pro's are the same. Most students buy in July or August too, so the Air didn't have a lot of sales (and the reports of graphics issues probably didn't help either).

I just hope the Haswell rMBP still has a discrete GPU.

Yeah I really hope they keep discrete graphics, personally i think they will with it being a retina display n'all

 

[ctrlshft]

Waitin' for the new mac pro, as well as 5s. Apple's current lineup just feels stale to me.

 

[flux73]

Others have already written: Haswell is there only to provide better battery life. My 2011 MBA already has great battery life; I don't see a need to get a new machine simply because of that. Sure, USB3 is nice but that's not a compelling argument.

It's pretty sure we'll have Haswell MBP models (sans Retina) but, again, better battery life just isn't a good enough reason to buy one.

Hey, Tim! Here's an idea: How about providing some real horsepower improvements to the Mac line? Looks like the Mac Pro will have some but you won't be selling it for a reasonable price. The mini runs fairly well (I have a 2012 model) but I -would- consider a new one if it had a better GPU and some demonstrable, seriously improved performance. The iMac line has been crippled by Jony Ive; that 21.5" with the non-upgradeable (by normal humans) RAM modules? What a dumb idea. And what purpose did "make-it-so-thin-that-we-seal-it-with-double-stick-tape" accomplish? This sort of "no-user-serviceable-parts-inside" approach that Apple has also done with the iPad and iPhone is, frankly, stupid. If you insist upon making the Mac like an iOS device, pretty soon all your eggs will be in that one iOS basket and, as soon as the $600 iPhone market dries up (which it looks about ready to do), you can just be another Samsung flinging crud at the walls to see what sticks.

2007: "You can't even change out the iPhone battery. No physical keyboard? No thanks! Fail."

2008: "Where the hell is Blu-Ray on a Mac? FAIL."

2010: "The iPad? What a piece of crap. Useless without an SD card slot. The camera sucks. Mega-fail."

2011: "They took out the optical drive on the Mini? Have they lost their minds? FAIL FAIL FAIL!"

 

[twilson]

Cannot wait for a new iWork, however I have fears it'll be a crippled iOS version ported to the desktop.

That makes LESS than no sense. They already have a VERY capable version of iWork on OS X, and the upcoming WEB version is closer to desktop iWork than it is iOS version.

----------

1.) Nobody likes computers without SSDs anymore. So why do you want fool costumers and sell them MAC MINIS and iMACS with slow HDs?

2.) Many of us don't want computers without RETINA displays anymore. So bring them on for iMac and Macbook Air!

I agree with you a little on item 1, but item 2, no! There are hardly any retina displays on the market, and the vast majority of people don't care that much.

 

[downpour]

I'm in the market for a new Mac and three things are making me delay my purchase.

1. The upgrade to the Airs was a little disappointing, battery is nice but I don't need it. I would have preferred something in the graphics/screen department. I'm waiting to see if there will be anything better in the pro line.

2. Despite little change to the Air, the new version is having lots of problems. Apple should do more testing before they release a product.

3. Cost. Macs are damn expensive. If I'm going to spend that much money I want to be sure I'm getting what I want. Apple always force you to compromise on specs. Tiny SSD drives makes this feel more like an expensive downgrade. I'd love to see a fusion drive in a Macbook as I need some space. My current 512GB drive is full even with my external drives for non-essential files.

 

[IGregory]

I think its because everyone is holding out for the Haswell versions of the pros

No, only guys who frequent this and other forums care about the Haswell processor. The same down turn is occurring over on the PC side also. iPads are what people want.

 

[flux73]

The title of the MR article is
"U.S. Mac Sales Down in June Despite Introduction of New MacBook Airs"

I gave US sales numbers for Lenovo and Dell. Many in the forum are saying that PC sales are down everywhere for everyone.

That is not the case in the US for Lenovo or Dell. Their US sales up are YoY.

Lenovo Worldwide Sales are down the least at 0.6%.

Twist it anyway you want to. I'm just correcting the general incorrect rationale in this forum why Apple US PC sales are down.

What am I twisting exactly? You were the one who was challenging someone else's assertion that PC sales were down worldwide. First off, that is a correct and true statement. There's no twisting of anything.

Second of all, if you're trying to use specific Lenovo numbers to prove something about why Mac sales are down, let me point out that the link you provided doesn't break out the Mac data so we have no idea how it compares. But let's say for a moment Macs have decreased by 5% like the NPD data shows and let's say that it's directly comparable to the Gartner data (even though the data collection methods and sampling are different). So what? What's your conclusion exactly? That Lenovo is selling better and therefore, eating Apple's lunch? Wouldn't you be making an assumption that the people buying a Lenovo considered Macs as a possibility in their choice? Couldn't it be just as likely true that most of those who bought a Lenovo chose it over an ASUS, Acer, HP, or Dell?

IOW, how is Lenovo's US growth any commentary on Apple's Mac sales? You appear to be making false connections without proving that the underlying data is linked by causality. ie That declining Mac sales are because of Lenovo's increased sales.