U.S. Mac Sales Flat in April as iPod Sales Continue to Slide

[barkmonster]

That would be awesome. I don't need a Xeon CPU or ECC RAM. It's a total overkill. What Apple completely misses is the desktop computer category. You know, desktop CPU, multiple drive (HDD + SSD) configuration, dedicated video card. I don't like the all-in-one iMac, it's extremely hard to replace the drive, and it's a major compromise because of the lack of space. Not to mention I use my monitors for 10-15 years, so the computer part should be separate. As an engineer, developer and photographer, I'll always need more high-end stuff than an internet browser. If the Mac Mini had a version that's 2-3 times larger, it would still fit in my backpack, and it could be made a serious desktop machine with dual drives and a good video card. (Let me explain: I always use external monitors, keyboard and mouse, I very rarely need a laptop, but I still need a machine I can easily carry.)

I completely agree. When Jobs' returned to Apple, the iMac hooked the kids as a "Pretty" entry level Mac (lets ignore the terrible input devices it came with).

Every Mac range from the first G3s to the very last G5s before the Mac Pro had a entry level systems offering equal expansion abilities to the high end systems so far as PCI slots and user upgradable RAM and HDD bays were concerned. As soon as they switched to Intel, if you wanted to keep your screens and have some degree of user expansion the Mac Pro came it at £1,699 or you were out in the cold.

There's only 3 reasons I have a Mac Mini at present.

1) Cost - It's a good first Intel based Mac and it'll make a fine media centre through my TV at a later stage.

2) Integration - I already had a 2.5" SSD and 2 screens I didn't want to ditch for a HDD and an all-in-one. The iMac is out of the question.

3) They offer no affordable middle ground between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, not even in 2013. Again, the iMac is out of the question.

I can't wait to see what happens when the next incarnation of the Mac Pro comes out but I'm sure it'll be out of my price range and I'll be shopping for a refurb or ex-demo model some time towards the end of 2014 as my only option of owning one.

 

[neutrino23]

...
2) When over half of Apple's revenue comes from outside of the US with the emerging market being the growth centre - pray tell why is there still this US-centric outlook on Apple or in fact any other business?
...

Since Apple (and other computer makers) does not release detailed country-by-country sales numbers it is up to analysts to estimate this the best they can.

Some analysts put out numbers to fit their narrative, others make an honest effort to tackle a difficult problem.

The reason the numbers are US-centric is that the analysts are here in the US. These analysts are do not have a worldwide network of helpers sussing out the sales of computers across the world. They consist of a handful of people working with small budgets. With many Apple stores here they can observe sales at some stores to try to get a numerical estimate of sales. Also, many businesses that sell Apple accessories only sell in the US so don't need WW information.

I share the authors' pain. I once had a to write a report on worldwide sales for a machine which sold less than $200 million a year across all vendors. You do what you can. You find as many real numbers as you can then you start filling in the gaps looking at the sizes of different economies, level of industrialization, prevalence of various industries, historical trends and so on.

When reading these estimates I take them for what they are, estimates. This is especially true when extrapolating trends out to the future. These report authors do not claim to be highly precise.

 

[lilo777]

1)
2) When over half of Apple's revenue comes from outside of the US with the emerging market being the growth centre - pray tell why is there still this US-centric outlook on Apple or in fact any other business?

While Apple does sell a lot of iPhones and iPads outside the US it is not the case for Macs. Very few people buys Macs there. Macs sales are mostly limited to USA, GB and Australia.

 

[cppguy]

3) They offer no affordable middle ground between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, not even in 2013. Again, the iMac is out of the question.

This is exactly the reason why some people are forced to build a hackintosh. Gamers, photographers, videographers, developers and engineers would buy the middle-ground system. Either a larger, more powerful Mac Mini, or a low-end Mac Pro with normal Core i7 and plain newegg RAM.

If the motherboard on the iMac dies you can't even use it as an external monitor, even though the display part is still functioning. If it needs servicing, I'd prefer not to carry the 27" display with me. Or better yet, I'd prefer to service it on my own.

Maybe it's just me, but a portable desktop would be very useful. I already have nice monitors and keyboards everywhere I go. Except when I'm on the road or on vacation, but then I can live with significantly less power, or even a mere tablet.

 

[Ryth]

3) They offer no affordable middle ground between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, not even in 2013. Again, the iMac is out of the question.

I can't wait to see what happens when the next incarnation of the Mac Pro comes out but I'm sure it'll be out of my price range and I'll be shopping for a refurb or ex-demo model some time towards the end of 2014 as my only option of owning one.

Agreed. Apple for some reason thinks the iMac is that middle ground, but that is not something the majority of gamers and motion/graphic/video people want. We want something that is the iMac but in a Mac Pro Mini Tower with upgradeable slots for all components (Video Card, HD/SDD, etc).

As for the next one, I hope they offer a mid and then a high end one of the MacPro. I do motion graphics, but I sure don't need some absurd high end top of the line MacPro. The current top of the line iMac is just fine in terms of tech specs for my needs. The issue is...again...it's in an iMac.

 

[The Deepness]

You've being sold that hook line and sinker. High end OS? Yes. High end industrial design (the aesthetics of their systems)? Yes. High end amounts of RAM, high end storage and prices that reflect it? Not a chance!

It's over £200 to trade a HDD for an SSD worth at most another £100. They don't ship with the most high end HDDs available which they should for the price. Anything with a laptop 2.5" drive should have those new Hitachi 7200rpm drives AS STANDARD with a fair build to order cost for trading up to an SSD when 500Gb SSDs with TLC flash (35 year lifespan, not 70) are around the £250 price bracket for consumers.

I agree with the "Just works" idea. My old G4 is still going strong after 11 years of use and I'm the second user it's had in it's lifetime, they build their Macs to last but the standard storage/RAM is not only lacking in capacity, in a lot of cases, it's lacking in performance.

Anything with 3.5" drives should be Caviar Black drives all the way as a minimum, 2.5" drives should be 6Gb/s SSDs of 250Gb+ or power efficient 7200rpm drives with large caches and 750Gb/1Tb capacities AS STANDARD.

That means no price increases, just across the board spec increases on the most basic of components all brands of computer come with. They're negligible costs compared with the overall prices of any system but would go a long way to actually getting the most out of them from the outset. There's no get out clause where they get to peddle cheaper, lower performing components for premium prices based on some percieved idea of "most consumers" they're high end priced, they should reflect that with the performance of the most basic of components. The move to 8Gb RAM as standard on some systems is positive but want any more and you better get saving for that 200%+ mark up Apple charge to swap out the standard RAM for double the density.

I'll grant you that Apple's Build-to-Order options may not be as flexible and wide-ranging as some would like, and the pricing structures they have in place for said options may not always be agreeable. Apple definitely overcharges for RAM, and has for years, which is why I always upgrade my own RAM with less expensive options later.

I still contend, however, that Apple is confident that its pricing structure is competitive and that their hardware choices are well-considered for the superior user experience the majority of their customers expect. Clearly, you don't fall into that "majority of their customers" demographic (most people, myself included, will have never heard of most of the hardware and specs you mentioned, nor would they care), but, for that majority, Apple's offerings not only offer superior build quality and long-lasting performance (as you yourself have attested), but the peace of mind that their investment was a wise one because their Mac of choice will "just work" without any problems. For many, if not most, that alone is worth the added expense.

What you may consider my "being sold" a party line, is actually my years of having used Macs and PCs side by side, and coming to the commonly-experienced conclusion that Macs are better-made, better-performing machines that are far more reliable over the short- and long-term than their PC counterparts. More importantly, when using my Macs over the years, I've had to contend with but a fraction of the headaches that are an everyday aspect of using PCs and Windows. Whether its the hardware or the software, one or the other fails on the PCs I deal with every day, whereas all of my Macs have purred like cats until their hardware simply didn't support the OS anymore.

Much like your 11-year-old G4, I had, until recently, a fully-functional 9-year-old iBook G4. I turned it and a 6-year-old white iMac (also fully-functional) in for recycling when I upgraded to my new late-2012 top-of-the-line 27" iMac. Was it expensive? Yes, of course, but I knew that when I budgeted for that investment. You'd probably still say it was too expensive, or unnecessarily expensive. And you may have an argument there, but I disagree. Many others and I would say you get what you pay for. I know that for the next 6 years and beyond, my new iMac is going to perform as expected (that is, exceptionally well!) and not give me an endless stream of headaches.

Others' mileage may vary.

 

[HenryDJP]

The iPod lives in a dead zone where it is not a disposable level rugged player for exercising, Sony even has one for swimmers for $99 if you can consider the disposable, and it is not a tablet size (the screen size) device or a phone (to use it as a phone, am I right?).

I don't see why anyone would need to listen to music in their ears while swimming.

 

[Krazy Bill]

iPod: R.I.P.

You were an innovation at the time, the de facto spring board to Apple's success but your time has come.

 

[HenryDJP]

iPod: R.I.P.

You were an innovation at the time, the de facto spring board to Apple's success but your time has come.

Well yes, of course on some level, but you have to think of the many people that an iPod will serve their purposes. Mainly young kids and maybe others that just don't use cell phones at all but still want a portable music player.....but I do understand your point. But you gotta give the Apple some credit, MP3 players had no swag and just weren't taking off very well until the invention of the iPod.

 

[Krazy Bill]

But you gotta give the Apple some credit, MP3 players had no swag and just weren't taking off very well until the invention of the iPod.

Very true! Credit due where credit is deserved.

And if my cell phone bill gets any higher I'm going to buy an iPod and duct tape it to a $19 cheap-assed no contract phone.

 

[Eidorian]

I don't see why anyone would need to listen to music in their ears while swimming.

I considered it for swimming. To listen to music while swimming...

 

[cirus]

I'm probably repeating myself...

As usual, lilo tries putting a negative spin on things, and as usual, she fails. Most cheap laptops that are sold come with the absolute bottom line of Intel or worse AMD processors. For example, Dell doesn't sell anything with quad core processors that is cheaper than a MacBook Pro with Retina display.

----------

Dell sells tons of quad core notebooks that are cheaper than the rmbp 15.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...nspiron-15r-se-7520&c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1

I can almost buy three of these things for one rmbp 15.

Depends on the metrics you choose.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57581290-37/macbook-pro-declared-best-performing-windows-laptop/

You realize that none of those laptops are mobile workstations? (dell precision lineup)

That is system reliability (BSODs, crashes, hangs, and backgound processes).

You realize that the $479 acer came in front of the $2199 rmbp 15.

Or that the two macs are (with the exception of the lenovo x1 carbon) by far the most expensive notebooks on that list.

Or that for the macs we took the time to install bootcamp and win 7 but for the windows competitors we couldn't take the 20 minutes to remove all the crapware? And that that crapware was one of the measured metrics?

A main factor in this machine's metrics is the fact that every Windows installation on it is clean. With PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an unfair competition. But, on the other hand, PC makers should look at this data and aspire to ship PCs that perform just as well as a cleanly installed MacBook Pro.

If we take the time to install win 7 on our mac wouldn't it be fair to reinstall win 7 on all the other notebooks?

Flawed study.

 

[pragmatous]

It's slower - it's a 2.2 - mines a 2.6. Dell's are made out of plastic. Apple has the hard aluminum casing. OS X is also far superior to windows with exceptions related to business.

What about this one?

 

[paulsdenton]

Waiting to buy...

I have 000's of $$$ waiting to buy new Mac Pros, but nothing to buy!

Years ago I worked for a guy who told me "Don't keep people waiting to give you money". (It was a ski area that sometimes had long ticket lines.).

Apple should think about adopting that thought!!

Would like to spend on some new displays too....

 

[seyo]

Release a new Mac Pro, Apple

You'd sell a lot of those.

 

[Renzatic]

Or that for the macs we took the time to install bootcamp and win 7 but for the windows competitors we couldn't take the 20 minutes to remove all the crapware? And that that crapware was one of the measured metrics?

I'll have a lot of experience removing crapware from OEM machines. I know for a fact it takes a helluva longer than 20 minutes to do. The bare minimum is one hour. On occasion, it's actually quicker to wipe and reinstall Windows than it is to remove everything using PC Decrapifier.

Crapware is THE worst thing about buying a PC. None of it serves any purpose whatsoever. It's all "sign up to our pointless customer satisfaction services so we can mail you coupons", or "use all our overly flashy overlays for stuff that already comes standard in Windows" or "sign up for McAffee's and Norton AT THE SAME TIME". It can, will, and does compromise system performance, and makes things considerably more difficult for people than it should be.

If you know what you're doing, it's trivial (if not time consuming) to remove everything and get back to regular Windows default. If you don't, you can look forward to months and months of software conflicts because HP's networking program is fighting with the one already built into Windows.

One of the reasons why I never have problems with Windows is because I always install straight from an MS printed disc. People who buy their computers at Best Buy aren't so lucky.

 

[sofila]

I'd like a 64/128 gb iPod touch just for listening to music.
Don't need all the other features. I'd probably like an FM radio included.
I'd pay 350 dollars for the 128 gb

 

[samcraig]

my 2010 17" mbp runs about 4 hours on battery, maybe more if i'm careful as when on an airplane.

os?

 

[kazmac]

If anyone who can afford and needs a Mac in the next couple of months, they're most likely holding out for a refresh, and/or that annual back-to-school sale.

The analysts predicting doom remind me of the media lately: bad news, sensationalistic headlines. etc. So what else is new?

 

[SILen(e]

Mac sales remaining constant instead of increasing is not bad news, but good news.

You just have to see this in context:
All the desktop/notebook manufacturers except for Lenovo have had decreasing sales in the last quarters, selling up to 30% less units than in the same quarter of 2012.

Increasing sales (like Lenovo) would be great, but sales remaining constant in comparison to almost all the other manufacturers with significantly lower sales is good news, especially when you consider that Apple's cheapest desktop computer starts at 600$ -Lenovo's cheapest desktop system (IdeaCentre Q180) starts at 199€ in the EU, Apple's cheapest notebook is the MBA 11", while Lenovo is selling the IdeaPad S206 (a kind of netbook) for 250€.

 

[senseless]

I use a 6 year old Ipod nano for the gym and would like to get a new one, but the darn thing refuses to break!

 

[LaDirection]

1) When you say 'analyst' aren't you really saying '******** artist'?
2) When over half of Apple's revenue comes from outside of the US with the emerging market being the growth centre - pray tell why is there still this US-centric outlook on Apple or in fact any other business?
3) iPod sales were always going to decline - the idea of it being 'shocking' dumb founds me given that Apple has never made it a secret that there is a transition occurring.
4) Who the hell is Piper Jaffray and why should I take what they have over what some random drunk on the corner says about 'the world is coming to an end'? at least the guy in the corner is trying to dress up his ranting behind the pretentious charade of a business suit!

I love how Apple fanboys live in a closeted world where everything is just peachy.

As for "Who the hell is Piper Jaffray", PJ is one of the world's most respected financial firm that has been operating for almost 120 years.

 

[neutrino23]

Originally Posted by neutrino23
my 2010 17" mbp runs about 4 hours on battery, maybe more if i'm careful as when on an airplane.

os?

10.8.3

 

[SILen(e]

Wow, you mean with only one iMac refresh in a span of 748 days (and counting, over two years) the consumer public doesn't feel any urgency to go out and shop Apple? Do tell!

And?

Do you realize, that in the last few years, not very much happened with PC hardware?!

Intel IvyBridge wasn't a big improvement over Intel SandyBridge architecture (except for the integrated GPU, but that doesn't matter for an iMac) and the same goes for GPUs.
AMD is now giving away tons of games if you buy one of their gamer grapphics cards, because the GPUs they will be selling until the end of this year will be the ones they released in December of 2011! It's the same with Nvidia, they have no new product for regular customers until much later this year (the GTX Titan being an ethusiast product with ridiculously high prices and the soon to be released 780 GTX a downscaled GTX Titan and the 770 GTX being a renamed 680 GTX.)

To refresh an iMac, Apple needs new, better hardware they can use - but as Intel, AMD and Nvidia have been sleeping the last two years, there was no reason for Apple to refresh their hardware more often.

The "stigma" of being perceived as overpriced is not something Apple has ever concerned itself about, and never will. Computers so well-designed, that "just work," come at a premium, as they should. It's part of what sets the Apple brand apart. Consumers either understand and accept that, or they buy something else.

I actually don't think that Apple is overpriced - competitors are selling too cheap instead.
But unlike Apple, which is selling good hardware for the price that you have to charge for it, they instead are selling hardware with lots of compromises.

Hardware that is very loud, has a short battery life, with a 15" screen that is of a same resolution (and much worse quality) than the 11" screen of the entry MBA. ****** trackpads, keyboards you will hate - and the things are also usually ugly, with cheap looking plastik and tons of INTEL or NVIDIA stickers and pre-installed crapware.

I am sure that less people would hate computers if they owned a good one, instead of a cheap one.

There are other companies that can build good computers (but not Acer^^), but those devices start.... at the same prices that Apple charges.

One reason why i love the iPad is because it's Apple Quality, but for a price that is competing with cheap and crappy ("real") computers from other companies.

The moment you touch an iPad, you realize there's something better than hollow-feeling cheap plastic stuff with TN panels and short battery life available.

Dell sells tons of quad core notebooks that are cheaper than the rmbp 15.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...nspiron-15r-se-7520&c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1

I can almost buy three of these things for one rmbp 15.

You realize that that thing has a 5400rpm HDD? That's the exact opposite of the SSD in the rMBP

 

[AppleScruff1]

I don't see why anyone would need to listen to music in their ears while swimming.

Maybe for the same reasons some listen to music while jogging, running, walking, cycling, riding the train, etc.