Are you really trying to convince us that DIY home built PCs are being build at 10x the size of the whole PC market? that must be newsworthy and being covered by publications everywhere.
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Mac revenue up 14% year over year, PC shipments declined 5.1%
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Much of the GPU demand was for crypto mining, not just individuals building PCs. And as Tagbert pointed out, your 100:1 estimate is not plausible.
He's trying to convince you that DIY PCs sold 100x more than Macs last quarter. That's a laughable statement because DIY PCs are a very niche market.
And he tried to justify this claim by using GPU MSRP which is heavily influenced by crypto as already stated.
Well, obviously Mac ecosystem can't compete at the lower and higher end of PC market (not to mention a variety of industrial, infrastructure and other types of applications). That's quite a limitation which should not be used to come up with special definitions for macOS friendly markets. Otherwise one need to clarify that he is talking about a macOS market share in English speaking wealthy countries (but who cares about this type of market share?)
It’s not just English speaking wealthy countries, it’s wealthy countries. And I think it is an important market, because the third-party devs care about markets where they can make money. Again, look at iOS va Android market - a huge difference in size, and yet iOS generates more revenue. Because Apple users are more likely to spend money on apps and services. Similar argument can be made for other sectors. Windows dominates markets such as health, public services etc, but users in those markets consume highly specialized software and only generate revenue for a handful of highly specialized software companies. That’s not general-purpose computing.
And by the way, if Mac market share is so insignificant, why does MS goes through all that effort to support their office software on the Mac? Can’t be all then irrelevant for business.
What other groups of people/professions would be more likely to use macOS? What should Apple do to cater to them?
The biggest driver for fast GPUs is gaming and machine learning in the personal computer space. Especially gaming.
I don’t count crypto.
Thus, I believe Apple must appeal to AAA developers. This is a must for Their upcoming VR as well.
Gaming is a lost cause. A few more games would make current macOS customers happier, but I doubt a gamer will buy a Mac over a PC unless they can play as many games on macOS as they can on Windows.
I was thinking of professionals who need few but demanding programs, such as architects or mechanical engineers.
Most PC gamers play games on PC instead of consoles because they also use their PCs for work or school. A PC is useful beyond gaming.
It’s the same for Macs. People won’t buy a Mac purely for gaming. But many, like myself, would like to use it to play games. I only want to own one computer. And I want to play games when I travel too so consoles are out of the question.
Heck, it’s the same for mobile phones. People buy phones because they need a phone, not because of mobile games. But it just so happens that they can play games on it. And given the market size of phones, the mobile gaming market is huge.
I always hear CAD being a particular market. And being that Apple has to run Windows to use a lot of CAD software I feel like that’d be a natural target to take.
And anecdotally, freelance 3D artists are commonly using NVidia gpus in custom builds. Being able to tackle freelance artists seems to be a very “Apple” move. (Which is why I think they’re contributing to Blender).
The former is a tough nut to crack being that it’s more reliant on proprietary software and deeply entrenched.
On revenue vs. shipments: Neil Cybart (Above Avalon) provides some pretty detailed estimates to subscribers.
The discussion about market share reminds me of this answer Steve Jobs gave in response to a question about market share:
The discussion about market share reminds me of this answer Steve Jobs gave in response to a question about market share:
Jobs didn't say that they didn't want market share. What he said was that Apple wasn't willing to release subpar products. They're willing to release products that they're "proud of" at the lowest price possible.
An affordable Macbook SE with an M2 chip using the current (and soon to be outdated) Macbook Air 13" design would fit into the category of "proud of" at the lowest price possible.
Apple is "proud of" their $330 iPad, $280 Watch SE, $430 iPhone SE. I would be very proud of a $750 - $799 Macbook SE.
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To increase macOS in the premium sector, Apple could work with developers of software used by high-paying professionals such as engineers or architects. If students in these professions could use a mac during college, they could be Apple customers for life.
And yet we all do them
My PC biased perspective is that Apple introduced something that turned the market on its ear. No one was expecting the level of performance from an ARM processor. I've been soaking up every video, news story and review of the M1s and how they compare to Apple's M1
Apple has caught the attention of the public and even PC people who wouldn't consider a Mac in the past, is now. 50% of Apple's Mac sales came from new buyers. That tells me that the M1 is checking off a lot of boxes for consumers that windows machines are not.
And yet we all do them
My PC biased perspective is that Apple introduced something that turned the market on its ear. No one was expecting the level of performance from an ARM processor. I've been soaking up every video, news story and review of the M1s and how they compare to Apple's M1
There were those of us pointing out that the iPad was benchmarking in the same class as Apple’s laptops a year or two before the transition announcement. There was the counter-narrative that iOS benchmarks were “not comparable”, and thus it was all hogwash.
Certainly the wider PC market wasn’t expecting it, but I also don’t think it would have changed anything if OEMs/Microsoft were paying closer attention. Microsoft and OEMs combined are simply unable to move as nimbly as a single company when it comes to architecture shifts, and Windows in particular has backwards compatibility as a design goal. I think WoA would still follow the same trajectory even if everyone saw it coming, because Microsoft has to not just have a transition plan, but keep that x86 translation layer running for potentially decades into the future. It has to be near-perfect.
But when the market is moving more and more to mobile devices, I do think a lot of businesses were and still are looking at desktop (and maybe even laptop) PCs as a dead end in general.
One reason I hope we see a 15” MBA. I have family where the M1 MBA would be more than they ever need, but could use a larger screen. Pushing them to an M1 Pro is overkill.
I think the question is more: will Apple save enough money on this hypothetical SE to hit that price point or are they just shrinking margins? The iPhone SE niche was created as the iPhone itself went higher end and more expensive. So using the older components that were always cheaper helps. To do that with the Air, keeping everything the same as the current 999 model won’t save much money. The MBA is already pretty stripped down as far as a Mac goes.
I know that that’s when I switched, taking an iOS dev and UNIX classes made me try out the Mac and I found out I liked it better. I could see the same happening to others as well.
The trouble is how would they get their foot in the door?
I know I was part of that crowd. It’s still astounding to me that the performance was real.
The problem imo, was that OEMs are/were reliant on x86 processors, of which there are two vendors (not counting VIA). Even if they had insight to Apple’s progress and saw what was coming, what could they do? Apple is the only one who makes an ARM processor that competes with x86 in performance, and they weren’t getting any from Apple.
Microsoft is a different story but I think suffer from a similar conundrum. They do ship Surface devices with ARM cpus but those don’t compete with their own x86 products well, and it’s not clear whether or not the Surface lineup is a loss leader or makes significant profits. I think it’s clear that it’s not a priority for Microsoft anyway.
And even if it were, Microsoft doesn’t make their own processors.
This is true to an extent, but I think nimbleness wouldn’t have helped here. It was a chicken or egg problem that really only Apple was in a position to resolve.
I’ve been dicking around with a Windows 11 ARM VM since I got my mbp, and I have to commend Microsoft there. It’s been flawless in running x86 programs. Whether this is representative of a new focus on WoA I don’t know, but at the very least I think MS is hedging their bets.
I’m not so sure about that, the consumer market has shifted a lot for sure, but businesses are always hungry for more computing power, and even if mobile devices are “adequate”, there’s always a need for the most grunt possible.
I wasn't surprised because I spent enough time developing cross-plat Mac/iOS stuff to also be seeing it in person. But also involved enough to know that the behavior of the two platforms weren't that different in reality.
Agreed.
I'd agree that only Apple was in the right position to make this sort of bet. Mostly because they are the only vertically integrated stack large enough to simply go "Okay, we are all in on this, make it happen". But that's precisely the nimbleness that I'm talking about.
Consider what it would take for Microsoft to really make a similar bet. The number of partners involved, and the partners that would actively fight against it. To me, that's an aspect of nimbleness. Even if Microsoft was ready and willing to make such a bet, they would be fighting against so much inertia it's not even funny.
As someone who has watched MSFT for almost a couple decades, they've always been willing to experiment with new stuff. They were one of the first into the smart watch business in the sense of a programmable smart watch using .NET, but it never went anywhere. I generally get the impression that they are willing to be early, but super cautious to try to avoid over-investing. I'd almost call it being smart enough to see what the possibilities are, but risk adverse enough to not bet on any of it. That said, being able to do that means that if you are too early to a party (which Microsoft has a knack for doing), it means you aren't sinking the company on it. But it also means Apple and Google can come and eat your lunch after being in the smartphone market since 2003, when they decide to bet big.
And I'd say that the Microsoft of today is head and shoulders better at software quality than when I started watching them. UX on the other hand...
To be more specific, I am thinking of consumer PC space with this comment. It's more a statement that if you are looking for the "new hotness" that brings in venture capital, the consumer PC space ain't it. And when I say dead end, it's more in the sense that the washer/dryer is a dead end. It can still evolve, but it's not a growth engine for a business to go chase.
Wouldn't Apple need to provide tasteless red or blue lights on their Macs then?
Hopefully not.
As a working adult, most PC gaming laptops are out of the question for me. The main reason is that I have to carry my laptop to meet clients. How can a client take you seriously if you take out a laptop that looks like this?
A Macbook looks far more professional when meeting clients.
Amusingly, one of those laptops has the word "Stealth" in it ?Hopefully not.
As a working adult, most PC gaming laptops are out of the question for me. The main reason is that I have to carry my laptop to meet clients. How can a client take you seriously if you take out a laptop that looks like this?
A Macbook looks far more professional when meeting clients.
Professionals are to busy trying too make money instead of playing games! I gave up gaming when
I went to College and especially after Graduating I was to busy to make money as much as can!
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Not much then since lowest Esports player makes a good chunk of a whole battalion. Been there, done that.