Has Apple passed its peak?

[xVeinx]

Is Apple really that involved in the education world? In all the schools I've gone too I've never seen Macs used widely. They are only used in the animation and graphic design classes. I've had a a few teachers who would use them to code but they weren't by any means easily accessible to students.

Any time that I am in class or wandering campus, 3/4s of the people around me are using Macs.

 

[G51989]

Any time that I am in class or wandering campus, 3/4s of the people around me are using Macs.

Thats in a college, not K-12. Which is a huge education market.

I was one of the few people using an Apple laptop back in the day ( Pismo ), it was almost all Dells and Compaqs, probably because Apple laptops up till the G4s were total garbage.

 

[Ariii]

Apple laptops up till the G4s were total garbage.

That's not necessarily true at all... The early, 68k PowerBooks were way ahead of most PC laptops of the time. And the early iBooks were fast and durable, and their design was great.

 

[skaertus]

Thats in a college, not K-12. Which is a huge education market.

I was one of the few people using an Apple laptop back in the day ( Pismo ), it was almost all Dells and Compaqs, probably because Apple laptops up till the G4s were total garbage.

Well, I guess Apple is much more popular right now.

Here in Brazil, where I live, Apple products have never been so popular. However, Macs still represent only 1.56% of the market share (while Windows represents more than 95%). That's a far cry from the U.S., where Macs account for more than 15% now.

 

[G51989]

That's not necessarily true at all... The early, 68k PowerBooks were way ahead of most PC laptops of the time. And the early iBooks were fast and durable, and their design was great.

The early 90s-late 90s Powerbooks were complete crap IMO, and I owned a couple of them, sure some of them looked great for the time, but I collect vintage machines, and out of all the early and mid 90s powerbooks, Ive only seen 2 that still work, they were terrible machines imo. The biggest problem was Software, System was complete garbage. Theres a reason Steve Jobs threw away all the hardware and software from that era, because it was crap.

But, throughout the 90s, the majority of PC laptops were far ahead of Apple laptops, in performance and design. The G3 iBook really brought up the quality, but was limited by horrible OS 8 and 9 until OSX came out.

This is just me, I think 90s Apple products were complete crap. The newer ones are leaps and bounds better.

 

[LostSoul80]

It's premature, but a safe assumption referred to the iPhone.
The very nature of Apple allows rivals to create large user bases. Android and WPs are comparable to iOS and their hardware isn't any different. Competition is gaining more and more momentum, and Apple can't just stop them. They're missing interesting innovative ideas in my opinion, and given their position it's very easy to understand that model.

 

[76ShovelHead]

With the iPad, yes. Though we could see that change with the cheaper Android tablets like the Nexus. School districts these days are pressed for cash.

As far as Macintosh computers go, at least in the districts I grew up in ( all of which had zero money problems, I think mine actually had a problem with to much money, so they randomly renovated the entire high school campus for 54 million, even though the buildings were only 15 years old ) were a very rare sight, you saw some older ones in the kiddie labs, and a couple G3 laptops. But everything was Dells and Compaqs.

I've been to the local high school before helping out a friend ( he's an basic computer science teacher, ugh ). And it was all a sea of dells. According to him at least, the Mac is leaving the K-12 market due to extreme cost. Look at it from their perspective, you can buy 3 Dells for the price of one Mac,( they refuse to go Mini, they iMac the macs they do have. They buy 300 dollar Dell mini towers, with 16 inch monitors, and I think they get a HUGE discount on the monitors. ) and Dell has a better warranty than Apple. And the Dell can be repaired in house, the Apple cannot. They do have a large number of iPads however, and Apple is probably going to be strong in that market for a long time,



However, Apple probably is at its peak, its not a computer company anymore of course, it's going down the same path SONY did. It'll be the name brand to buy for awhile until someone else comes along. Its just the way things go.

I don't understand all these " Apple is doomed! " Threads, they'll be fine. But they are at the point where there are a group of people who just will buy an ' i ' device no matter how good or bad it is.

Pressed for cash isn't even the half of it! I have a few relatives in the education field up north whose school systems went bankrupt and unable to pay the teachers.

The school system I grew up in was also up north (New England) but we were a small town with the funds. Each teacher had an eMac, the librarians had eMac's and iBooks, the computer teacher had an iMac, and all the computer labs had eMacs. Since then, I heard they were able to upgrade to iMacs.

When I moved south, it was a similar story to yours. There was a portable classroom that had old white iMac DVs and eMacs, then a lab outside of the library with eMacs, but the rest of the school had crappy Dells. The only new macs were purchased for the AV classes.

To shed a positive light, when apple does finally pass its prime, the hipsters will jump ship and we will once again be a minority!

 

[McGiord]

What is the pleasure on saying my toy is better than yours? And the company that makes it, and gets my money, is doomed because I cannot give them my money more frequently...and you don't know what it is what you want, but you want something, what exactly? I just wish they surprise me with something earth shattering more frequently...is not a valid answer.
The instant gratification nowadays is creating a generation of impatient people, I only hope you put the same intensity on real important life issues, and besides complaining you actually do something about it.
One thing not considered is the availability of making a living out of the so called Eco-system, either making Apps, Digital Books, Music, Videos, Podcasts, etc... And the data mining marketing spy methods currently implemented and soon to exploit. If you check your privacy settings in Safari, you will see even more evidence of apple tracking and sending data about how we use the iToys, some things are earth shattering but not obvious to many of us.