US MacBook sales drop 6% over 2012 holidays, NPD says - Page 2

Dooooooooomed.

Why? Because it's Apple and I don't recall the last time I heard anyone claim that Microsoft was doomed, or that anyone would be upset by that. 

If Apple drops prices on the MacBooks, they will dominate the laptop market.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

I'd say roughly zero percent. The iPad isn't suffering for lack thereof; it has iWork. The Surface isn't succeeding (by anyone's definition!) because it has Office; it's just terrible.

 

And if you're talking all iOS devices, that's even more readily apparent. All Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone (is it still phone when phone, or is it just "Windows") 8 devices never took off, despite having access to Office. 

 

I mean, iWork exports to DOC. Even in environments where Office still has a greater presence than iWork, that exporting is apparently all that is needed.

 

One of my biggest dreams right now is that the DOC format is dead in the first world by January 1, 2020. By extension, all of Microsoft Office. That'll require a push by Apple on two fronts: first into business as a whole and second to make iOS iWork and OS X (XI) iWork have absolute feature parity. They'll need to be identical applications, simply with different UI and UX.

Quote:

Originally Posted by antkm1 

That might happen, but I doubt it.  Unless Apple can make their current iWork Suite of Apps just as capable as Office Apps, it will still be around for another 7 years or more.

 

The current complaint i hear A LOT is that iWork is just not as capable as Office.  Sure Pages reads and writes to .doc format (i might also mention the current standard, post-Office 2010 is .docx) but iWork Apps often have issues in the translations and compatibilities.  I'm going to give iWork a chance to be my home/personal use Apps, but the world of business would never (right now or in the near future) rely 100% on it.  Office is a much better Suite of programs than most Mac Users realize. Sure it's highly complex suite of Apps, but they need to be for business to function.

And from what most of the people I know say, it's more like what antkm1 is saying which is that MS Office still affects their buying decisions when it comes to computers...in fact, affects whether they buy a tablet versus a laptop?  It's not so much the touch vs non-touch... rather, it's getting an OS that can support MS Office.

I would say that the younger generation is a bit more savvy when it comes to flexibility using iWork/GoogleDocs/Open Office...but for those still in school or in a corporation, MS Word and Excel is a mainstay.

TS: I dream the same dream...but for now, it's more to the tune of Les Miserables.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ifij775 

A cheaper, lighter, longer-battery, arm-based notebook would destroy PC sales. Throw in LTE FTW

You've just described the iPad... and yes, it is destroying PC sales...

At some time there will be a tipping point between the capabilities of an Apple Laptop and an Apple Tablet -- for many, if not most, uses.

It has to do with:

• raw CPU and GPU power
• other hardware capabilities
• OS Capabilities

• App availability and portability
• I/O and UI capabilities
• Cloud Services availability

Apple has a desktop OS and a mobile OS that share a lot of common capability (and two-way porting of capabilities).  We know we can run iOS (apps and most iOS system capabilities) on OS X using the simulator.  I suspect, that somewhere in the labs at Apple, they are running full iOS on desktops and laptops.

The Xcode developer tools and APIs have matured to a point where you could compile an App to run on OS X, then recompile the same source to run on iOS -- and it would run on either system -- UI and Horsepower issues aside.   I realize that there are APIs and Frameworks that are not common to both OS X and iOS -- but that is an ever diminishing issue.

This is not to say that OS X and iOS will be combined into a single OS -- rather, each separate OS will be able to run the apps of either OS (to a greater or lesser degree of performance and success.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewys808 

And from what most of the people I know say, it's more like what antkm1 is saying which is that MS Office still affects their buying decisions when it comes to computers...in fact, affects whether they buy a tablet versus a laptop?  It's not so much the touch vs non-touch... rather, it's getting an OS that can support MS Office.

 

I would say that the younger generation is a bit more savvy when it comes to flexibility using iWork/GoogleDocs/Open Office...but for those still in school or in a corporation, MS Word and Excel is a mainstay.

 

There is a downside to Office when it comes to a "touch" interface, and that is it's so full of bells and whistles that it becomes nearly impossible to implement. Even Microsoft seems to cede that point on the Surface RT. Word, for example, has grown in complexity to the point where it can nearly perform as a word-processing program. That's a good thing for a sub-set of users that are highly skilled at designing with Word.

The broader set of users want to open whatever they want, read it, edit it, and create much simpler documents. A pdf document serves most of these functions except the last, and iWorks satisfies the bulk of latter.

Apple, on the other hand, seems to be of the mind to keep the iWork apps lean and clean and in balance with the overall iPad experience.

Originally Posted by jragosta 
Let's just say you're completely out of touch with reality.
A laptop without Office would be seriously hindered. That doesn't mean that it's useless or that no one would buy it, but pretending that a laptop that didn't run Office has zero disadvantage is just plain absurd.

Really? Because I've never had Office on any of my Macs at any point and… I get along just fine. So do millions of others. And hundreds of millions of iOS users.

Originally Posted by peter236 
If Apple drops prices on the MacBooks, they will dominate the laptop market.

Why would they do that when they're already dominating the laptop market at their current prices? Make less profit for no reason? Why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


Let's just say you're completely out of touch with reality.
A laptop without Office would be seriously hindered. That doesn't mean that it's useless or that no one would buy it, but pretending that a laptop that didn't run Office has zero disadvantage is just plain absurd.

TS was writing about tablets, and is correct. You changed to topic to Laptops, where you are correct. Whether MS Office will remain as dominate as it once did remains to be seen as Enterprise and government's adaption to the iPad and iPhone does not seem to be an issue as they also transition to iWorks. 

It's this latter transition that should worry the hell out of MS as it really does undercut the old "Office" mindset going forward. 

In fact Apple sold zero MacBooks during the period in question. Yes! — zero, not a one.

Why? Because the last MacBook (model 7,1) was discontinued in July 2011.

So if you hear that the pundits don't know what they're talking about, you can take that literally.

Another Moron making up numbers, these guys act like they know something that everyone else does not, No one will know the numbers until Apple announces them. These guys are assuming a decline due to other things happening in the market which may or may not apply to Apple, however, Apple has continue to grow in a down or declining market. 

My local Apple store didn't have a single Mac mini or Mac Pro on display over the holiday season.  It seemed like that space was used for their express table of iPhones/iPads/iPods.  What's even stranger, they don't stock the mini with the Fusion Drive (BTO only from Apple.com).  With the supply chain constraints on the iMacs, it probably wouldn't have hurt to at least have other options to show people...
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by winstein2010 

Even a two year old can find an Elmo app on an iPad. A two year old toddler would pop all the keys on a laptop/netbook and put them in his mouth.

Hahaha, 2 yo playing on ipad...  I bet his eyes will be ruined (nearsighted) by age 5.

Originally Posted by ipen 
Hahaha, 2 yo playing on ipad...  I bet his eyes will be ruined (nearsighted) by age 5.

Why?

Originally Posted by jragosta 
Really? Then why did he state:

Because YOU mentioned computers.

Which specifically mentions both.

You'll notice I didn't say it was, just that people obviously don't care about it, making it nonessential. Perhaps you're out of touch with something.

Pretend to believe whatever you want to believe. It's almost like this is PO… *rimshot*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton 

I do think Apple is on to something with their current trend towards larger multi-touch trackpads controlling an onscreen pointer. The future desktop might be something like that: a combination of touch gestures directly manipulating "selected objects" on screen, with a pointer to make selections.

I think it's possible that, eventually, hardware keyboards will become a thing of the past. That we'll use something with a touchscreen that can be a keyboard, trackpad, and other types of controls, including application defined. But that this "control panel" will remain separate from the screen, even though we use it somewhat like we use an iPad today.

When citing predictions made by market research companies, analysts, psychics, etc., it would be nice to know what the predictor's historic track record has been on similar predictions that are now verifiable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


It doesn't matter of your finger is touching air or a display, I'd your arms are outstretched in front of you for extended times you'll get gorilla arm.

Why would you have your arm outstretched in front of you for an extended period of time?  Or do you have some strange idea that you would spend all of your time inputting through the screen?   Never mind a laptops screen is never far out of hand to start with.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider 

Despite slower sales, the average selling price of MacBooks was up nearly $100 from a year prior to $1,419.

 

This says that even though sales were down, the price was up by $100.

How about sales were down because the price was up by $100?

Quote:

Originally Posted by justamacguy 

No 17 inch (our company would have purchased 3 of them if they were sill available) and no optical drive (necessary for our video productions and file distribution to customers).

Except for editing on location, why would any company doing video production use a laptop or a 17" screen to create/edit content or make DVDs?

Originally Posted by Chris_CA 
Except for editing on location, why would any company doing video production use a laptop or a 17" screen to create/edit content or make DVDs?

I think that's it; I think that's a big thing the 17" afforded. I mean, from aught three to '12, the 17" MacBook Pro was the machine used in that situation, and many others. Not saying people didn't take 15's on location, but I've always heard 17, 17, 17… 

Same here.....I drop a SSD 240GB and replace my dead DVD with another 1TB HDD on my early 2008 Macbook Pro......it's a like driving an old Toyota with a turbo charge 10 litre engine now.

Upgrade for me can wait until it dies off....... 

Video editing is not the only situation 17" laptop was/is used (on location is a big one). The 17" laptop was the standard of the recording industry. Logic (or other DAW's) is simply to difficult to work on a 15" retina screen (live mobile situations). Many people in the recording industry would have bought a new laptop (even though the market is small). It is sad that people want to belittle those of us who wanted and were willing to pay for the extra's that came on a 17".