Much of Apple’s offerings in the content creation side and to a reasonable extent on the business enterprise side was because it was trying to push an alternative to another strategy - Windows (software) + Intel (hardware) with its own offering - OSX + power pc. Wintel was running away on the desktop front which attracted developers, while Apple had to keep creating alternatives itself, esp in categories where it was trying to be relevant.
Once they gave up, realizing its an uphill struggle and switched to Intel and holy smokes run Windows on Mac hardware, it was only a matter of time before they would be just another player in the x86 market. The need to maintain its own software was much less now.. macs could run Windows and if not, then it was easier developing for both macs and windows because now they shared the same underlying hardware..
Their third savior ( first two being creatives and music lovers) the re booted smartphone aka iPhone is mainly responsible for Apple’s current fortune ( but which cannibalized their own iPods ..and why not ? The iPod was a one trick pony vs the IPhone which targeted a much more versatile and collectively a far more lucrative market , combining and in some cases offering better solutions for existing segments )
So that leaves the macs. By Apple’s own estimation, the Mac division by itself can be ranked amongst the top 500 companies. It’s market share is around 7% (no of units sold , not profit margin) There is a whole 93% room for growth ( never mind the repeated mantra that Apple doesn’t care about market share but about profit margin ... it can have both market share and profit margin.. if not it would sell iPhones for 2k and get a healthy profit on top. There is a sweet spot that Apple is targeting ..one that puts iPhones into as many hands as possible but still maintaining healthy margins .. the success of the first iPhone was as much about how people got it - subsidized carrier payments as it was about its features. In markets that didn’t offer such emi style of payments, Android came in and dominated with its cheaper phones )
Even in macs, the mbps and to an extent the iMacs dominate which is, as Apple would like us to believe, a solved case.
Now that Apple is signaling that it wants to be taken seriously again in the top performance category, it needs to demonstrate much more effectively that in round 2 it is here to stay for good (until the entire industry goes away )
It isn’t just the professional who is wary of Apple in the recent past with a loves me, loves me not stance. It’s the developers too who are looking for answers from Apple vis a vis the Mac ... Yay = stay or Nay = go away.
For that to happen, Mac Pro should listen to the markets needs and re attract investment on the Mac platform. Both hardware and software.
Windows has much more variety and in many cases, newer desktop class apps just do not prioritize macs in their roadmap. For the most part, ‘Mac version coming soon’ is often the answer or ‘no plans as of now’ when queried if they plan to make one for the macOS.
A pretty hardware is useless ( as is a pleasant OS) if there aren’t many apps supporting it. And I say this as someone who really likes macOS (and I suspect many of here share the same feeling) The computer industry ( I consider smartphones as computers in their own right ) is unique in that it needs two things to work well..hardware and software. Both have to be in sync to sell the system as a whole.
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