Mac sales fall by 40%

[Realityck]

Is already happening, hence the single nand SSD's on the M2 Mac's. Apple will happily throw the customer under the bus way before it's profits & margins.
Q-6

Sometimes computer manufacturers do stupid things when they were short supply of parts for a production run. Rather than install two 128 GB nan SSD's, install only one 256 GB nan SSD and save money. Then there the question about would most consumers even notice it.

At least the YouTube and Mac Rumors parties immediately cry foul.

 

[v0lume4]

Over three years - its been an excellent laptop, while the battery is not ideal - it is a gaming laptop after all, everything else has been top notch. Very Mac like in its design, fit and finish

That’s encouraging to hear. Thanks for the answer.

 

[usagora]

Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people.

I highly, highly doubt that figure is anywhere close to reality.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Then there the question about would most consumers even notice it.

Running disk speed benchmarks? Yes
Running productivity benchmarks and comparing the numbers? Yes
Running anything in real life? Unlikely.

 

[maflynn]

Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people.

Do you have any facts to back up such an outlandish claim?

 

[Queen6]

Sometimes computer manufacturers do stupid things when they were short supply of parts for a production run. Rather than install two 128 GB nan SSD's, install only one 256 GB nan SSD and save money. Then there the question about would most consumers even notice it.

At least the YouTube and Mac Rumors parties immediately cry foul.

Difficult to say, could be a request on Apple's behalf, or a supply issue. TBH for the primary target audience doubt there is much if any difference in performance. Personally I'd be unhappy as I tend to purchase the lowest spec I can get away with and push it to the max.

As Mac's are basically unrepairable these days, I see no need to spend more than I need to. Apple could change that, they choose not to. I for one am not willing to pay 50% - 75% the price of a new machine to replace a Logic Board, but that's Apple's game...

Q-6

 

[Queen6]

Do you have any facts to back up such an outlandish claim?

iOS & Android phones/tablets are useless to me, so guess I'm in the lowly 10% LOL. Oddly all the multinational's I've worked for seem to have an unfeasible number of desktops, laptops & servers with only management or key personnel having company provided mobile devices...

I wonder why.

Q-6

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

People use their smartphones and tablets for their computing needs. Laptops and desktops are obsolete for 90% of people. The Mac is a legacy platform and will stay that way until Apple finally lets people develop apps on the iPad with a keyboard. When that day comes, the Mac will be put to rest.

People as in the domestic market?

Your claim isn’t the case for industry that’s for sure. How many offices around the World have people sat at their desks using iPads and iPhones hooked up to monitors? I couldn’t imagine designing using CAD on an iPad either, not a pleasant thought lol.

 

[maflynn]

all the multinational's I've worked for seem to have an unfeasible number of desktops, laptops & servers with only management or key personnel having company provided mobile devices...

My company relies completely on laptops and desktops, we're talking thousands. Tablets and phones cannot handle the work effort. Some of us work off of multiple computers, and run multiple Vms within each computer on top of that.

 

[Queen6]

My company relies completely on laptops and desktops, we're talking thousands. Tablets and phones cannot handle the work effort. Some of us work off of multiple computers, and run multiple Vms within each computer on top of that.

Exactly, iPads are what they are..

Q-6

 

[thebart]

Exactly, iPads are what they are..

Q-6

As Logan Roy says to his children, "I love you, but you're not serious [devices]"

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Are price increases really the major factor here? NVIDIA is getting away with $1,500+ for a GPU alone. And gamers are buying it up.

No they aren’t. Prices for GPUs are falling through the floor.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Noise. I have my Razer configured in such a way, that its a very quiet laptop. I gave up some performance for the fans not spinning up as much (for non-gaming activities).

Gaming of course, equals heat and the fans do spin up, but for other stuff the razer is quite quiet and that's all due to to keeping the temps low.

I do the same on my 2021 Asus Zephyrus G14. In silent mode it works perfectly doing anything I need it to and the fans don’t even come on. For gaming, I put it in Performance mode and it definitely has fans then. But I can game AAA titles on my laptop. And the rest of the time? No fans and no heat.

 

[uffenman]

PC Pain Persists in Q1 2023 Due to Excess Inventory and Poor Demand, According to IDC Tracker

IDC examines consumer markets by devices, applications, networks, and services to provide complete solutions for succeeding in these expanding markets.

www.idc.com

View attachment 2186762

What is most surprising here is that Apple's share growth is worse than other PC makers. It seemed like Apple was going to continue to gain market share in PCs with Apple Silicon effortlessly. But this didn't happen in Q1.

I'm going to speculate why:

• People are going back to buying cheaper laptops due to the economy, inflation, and exchange rates. Apple suffers in this environment because they're generally less flexible when it comes to dropping prices.
• M2 was late by ~8 months (assuming they want to release a new gen every year).
• M2 Pro/Max, consequentially, was also late by 4 months.
• M2's performance increases did not knock it out of the park. No Ray Tracing support. No drastic increase in ST. Still using a node in 5nm family.
• Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
• M1, Pro, Max were so good that people will wait for M3 or M4 to upgrade again. I'm in this camp.
• Still no MacBook SE to capture the value Walmart/Costco Windows laptop buyers
• Still no 15" Macbook Air, which will very likely become the #1 selling Mac when it's released
• RAM and SSD are expensive upgrades and 8/256 base is finally not enough

The most frustrating thing about following Apple Silicon over the last 2 years is just how passive Apple's strategy is. Hopefully, Apple is learning a lesson here and will be more aggressive going forward. No more delays. No more holding back. Less stingy on RAM and SSD.

You have some good points. The truth is that Apple Silicon is just getting started AND I don't think they can deliver/support more models until some of the manufacturing issues get resolved in Asia. They will need to add additional plants and also stabilize current model supply chain systems AND manufacturing before adding new models. This just simply takes time. I'm frustrated too as my 2017 MacBook needs an update, and so I've gotta wait 6+ years for this to happen!? Well there are many factors involved here: the Magic Keyboard will not fit into the MacBook chassis so it will need to be redesigned, the M3 will be the only chip to work in this if the weight is to be kept sub two pounds, and the factories are too busy churning out MBP & MBA models to keep up with demand. That's my opinion and I'm sticking with it. Time and innovation in the next two years will bring more of what we want. There's just a lot of changes going on right now.

 

[AL2TEACH]

No more holding back. Less stingy on RAM and SSD.

That seems to be it to me.

 

[Ethosik]

No they aren’t. Prices for GPUs are falling through the floor.

They are rising. 3090 was cheaper than 4090. 4090 has not dropped in price.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Their storage and memory is so god damn expensive. There’s no reason why they need to stupid high.

Profit.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Products based on MacOS have always been niche products and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Very true. When I worked in the medical field all software was for the Windows platform. I used to dream about being able to write such software for the Apple platform or make it universal.
Apple is very happy with their niche products because it produces great profits and lots of monopoly (like the game) money.

 

[baryon]

I can only speak for myself but:

• None of the Macs I've owned had been durable, they've all had some incredibly expensive issue after the warranty expired that was not worth fixing
  • For this reason, if I'm lucky enough to have a functional Mac, I sure as hell am not buying a new one, who knows what expensive problems it will have down the line
• Inflation means Macs pretty much double in price every few years, so it's better value to just hang on to what you already own for as long as you can
• The difficulty of repairing these things puts me off paying a lot for them. If they can break for seemingly no reason while also being nearly impossible to repair at a reasonable price, that's a huge risk, I don't like investing money in something risky. If they're disposable, make them cheap. If they're expensive, make them durable and easy to maintain. Choose one.
• With the AI revolution, nVidia seems to be a must for anyone who wants to run machine learning or AI locally. Macs don't support nVidia or even other brands of GPUs, so they are being completely left out of something potentially as world-changing as the internet was.

 

[Queen6]

Apple Silicon isn't too relevant for the business world where you'll find either HP, Dell or Lenovo computers. Those sales are driven by businesses with fixed lifecycles. Units moved isn't the best indicator either, HP Probooks are sold dirt cheap to businesses in masses (way lower than what you can find for retail pricing) but they start falling apart the moment you unbox them and are straight up trash.

The point here being, there is nothing wrong or unexpected with these numbers, that's just what happens when you mix things together that don't go together, like business sales and end user sales.

Products based on MacOS have always been niche products and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Unless Apple innovates so radically that businesses throw out decades of Microsoft dependence, I don't see how this can change.

Absolutely correct, while Apple Silicon does have significant advantages it's also further marginalised the Mac due to the lack of support for Intel based applications.

One company I was with for well over a decade switched from ThinkPad's to Dell. TBH the Dell's were just junk. When I quit and turned mine in the only thing that was original to the machine was the case. Some of the 15"/17" laptops had a better build quality, equally same poor design ethic.

Got to a point where I just gave up and used my own Mac, as the Dell's were such a mess. IT manger wasn't overly pleased. Told him to deal with it...

Mate of mine was a VP in a multinational with a 12" Dell Ultraportable, I was a then a subcontractor with a 12" rMB, his comment was "does it ever need charging" as his so called top of the line Dell could barely pass 4 hours. One client wanted to send me a Dell, told them to save their money as they are useless. At the time I needed a guaranteed 10 hours of off the mains runtime (13" MBP) Same 13" MBP once stretched to over 12 hours and paid for itself in a single click of the trackpad.

As long as you can run the SW you need the portable M1/M2 Mac's are very difficult to beat out...

Q-6

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple is very happy with their niche products because it produces great profits and lots of monopoly (like the game) money.

Not having a monopoly gets them monopoly money. ok

 

[AL2TEACH]

I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future the iMac gets discontinued.

I would. I prefer to imagine Apple working on a new and improved 27'.

It's hard to justify getting an all in one anymore when most people would rather just use their own displays nowadays.

IMHO, LOL

along with the ridiculously overpriced cost to reach 16GB RAM/512GB HD space,

Apple needs to stop this scamming of it's customers.

The economy has been nuked hardcore by the money elves who seriously thought nothing bad would happen by giving every single person $4000.

😂 this thought pattern is really cute.

very important to me for BootCamp purposes and now that is gone from Macs completely.

Apple's hubris at work to not have developed Boot Camp in its new software.

But the iMac's screen really is a beautiful one when you see it in person, and combined with the camera, mic, speakers and fantastic performance, it would make the ideal office computer in a Mac environment.

In any environment if the software available is capable. I'm talking about a new 27'

However, function over fashion always reigns supreme,

Oh gawd, if Apple took their time to make a new iMac, I'm sure it would have eh function . Apple might be working out the kinks with their silicon chip. Who knows?

To me the main issue is Apple is not concerned with market share, they're concerned with profitability.

If I was the bingo caller, you would hear BINGO you would win but what a sad state of greed Apple is in.

I think that a 27 inch iMac with more ports would be received well too.

Heck, it could even be thicker etc... It surely does not need to be paper thin.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Not having a monopoly gets them monopoly money. ok

In the game it does. Gawd, I wanted to really find a way to keep saying monopoly, lol.

 

[okkibs]

None of the Macs I've owned had been durable, they've all had some incredibly expensive issue after the warranty expired that was not worth fixing

It's literally been the same thing with me and equally expensive Windows business laptops. HP is the worst offender, but for example I have a perfectly working Latitude 7 series (high-end business ultrabooks) where the carbon housing cracked over night after 4 years, out of nowhere just sitting on a desk. I have had a dozen similar issues (coil whine for example) that I've not experienced with Macs even once in over a decade.

So there will always be someone who says brand x is the worst, I am switching to brand y, whilst simultaneously other people do the reverse switch for the same reason.

Inflation means Macs pretty much double in price every few years

That is flat out wrong. For example: 15" MBP 2015 launch price: $1999. Today this sum would be $2,581.74 when adjusting for inflation. 16" MBP 2023 (M2) launch price: $2499.

The 15" MBP 2016 launch price was $2399, today that would be $3,038.42. So the 2023 16" MBP is actually much (!) cheaper than some Intel predecessors.

There isn't a single Mac that "doubled in price every few years" ever, at worst they didn't become cheaper, and in many cases they actually did as I showed above.

The difficulty of repairing these things puts me off paying a lot for them.

Even though that is correct, you can now keep the AC+ warranty for the entirety of the Mac's lifetime, beyond the usual 3 years. My Mac will last me at least 5 years and I will keep the warranty for those 5 years as well. For the $4500 I paid for it the AC+ on top doesn't make a big difference in pricing. And let's not forget the 14" was available through deals starting at $1599 brand new, so it's not like there are only very expensive Macs.

 

[senttoschool]

That is flat out wrong. For example: 15" MBP 2015 launch price: $1999. Today this sum would be $2,581.74 when adjusting for inflation. 16" MBP 2023 (M2) launch price: $2499.

The original Macbook Air launched at $1,799. That's $2,437 in 2023. But you can get the M1 Air for $800 on sale frequrntly.

So the prices for the Air has definitely dropped.