After 'astonishingly' poor quarter, Mac sales predicted to rebound - Page 2

Let me get this straight: most Mac consumers are power users that already have displays and are willing to pay $1900 for a Mac Pro (whatever) instead of $1400 for an all-in-one.
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Apple really needs to get the new Mac Pro out! There is a lot of pent up demand waiting for it including me! My little Mac mini is very nice but I need more power and a dedicated GPU when running Blender 3D!

 

Very interesting hypothesis. The other possibility (or a complementary scenario) is that they stopped ordering parts for the old iMac prematurely and, once having failed to build enough new ones for the launch, also didn't have the parts inventory or capacity to build the old ones instead. One thing seems likely - they had an inking (if not confirmation) of this problem when the new iMac was announced. But they went ahead because the train had already left the station.

 

FWS (friction-stir welding and not stir-friction welding, notwithstanding what this article says) is not used in many high volume applications. I wonder if the root of the problem is as simple as equipment supply.

 

Regardless, your core premise is likely correct - FSW will be used in other Apple products.

 

p.s. According to this (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/20/imac_welding_british_company/), Apple only licensed the FSW technology from its inventor (TWI) in early 2012. If so, that's a short time to ramp up to high volume production.

Edited by ankleskater - 3/1/13 at 12:06pm

Not most. But there are many. Unfortunately, the switch to Windows is growing in numbers, including animation studios.

He wrote: "...just about every Apple product introduction over the past few years has experienced problems with lack of supply." which led to his comment about Cook's aptitude. In no way did his comment reflect only the most recent iMac, hence my reply.

I have no doubts there are a few but eca said it "would sell in larger amounts than the whole desktop line in this moment."

Who is switching?

At least bitching about "the new iMac looks the same" is easier to stand than "I can't f@#$king buy an iMac". Do you think people hate the old design enough to hold back purchasing 700,000 units worth a $1B?

 

 

Do you really mean what you said? Do you really mean there're 17 users globally who use the Mac for movie encoding, for composing music, for ray tracing, for CAD, and for gaming?

If that's the case, and there're only 17 musicians, CAD users, video editors, and gamers, there's no market for the MacBook Pro. Even the MacBook Air seems to be out of the market if that was reality.

However, that's not reality. Reality is that there're thousands of musicians and DJs using computers, thousands of CAD users who also raytrace, thousands of people encoding hours and hours of video, and of course thousands of thousands of people who want to play last generation games.

And no, they don't want a Xeon, unless they need at least a dual-chip configuration.

Apple has no current offering for these thousands and thousands and thousands of users (unless they accept being forced to an "all in one" -which btw isn't designed for the tasks they do, or otherwise getting a Xeon, when they don't really want a Xeon)

I have 200 shares since 2005. So when I visited Cupertino a couple years ago I should have asked for a free computer or office supplies since I do own the assets as well.

And, btw, all this "low Mac sales" worries wouldn't exist if Apple took the late 2012 Mac Mini, made it a bit taller so that a good NVIDIA GPU fits in there, and add a 512 GB SSD option for it. Sell that for $1900 and you have a PC killer right there. Low sales gone instantly. Yes, you would cannibalize the iMac by doing that, as well as the single-chip Mac Pros, but... Why worry on cannibalization on the Mac line if you accept it on the iOS line?

A new Mac desktop line like this "taller Mini" would be the only way of saving the Mac desktop, because this is what desktop users want. They don't find it from Apple, so they fly away to the PC. As simple as this.

 

Challenge.

You are generalizing, bastardizing and miscontruing "investment 101", or perhaps you are making ignorant assumptions. What you, as a common shareholder, are entitled to can range from something to nothing. It is NOT true that anything of the company is yours. If you disagree, go into Apple and claim something, and see if they help you box it and kick u out on your ass as you deserve.

 

If and when a company is liquidated, there is a possibility that you might be entitled to something. But until then, you own nothing but the shares. Even at time of liquidation, what a common shareholder (and you sound pretty common) gets depends on the by-laws of a company (that's the promise you referred but you clearly have not studied this promise). Likely, creditors and preferred shareholders get their fingers in the pie first.

 

Now, I am going to guess you're going to argue that Apple is different because there are not no creditors and no preferred shares. But you were referring to Investment 101, which you need a refresher on. Furthermore, there are indeed creditors and preferred shares.

 

Since you appear to not know what you are saying, "I will take you much less seriously on the topic."

Edited by ankleskater - 3/1/13 at 2:16pm

Do you know what the average PC sells for? It's well under half that $1900 price. Even among Macs $1900 is about $700 above the average sale price. For these reasons alone I don't see how this would kill all non-Mac PC sales.

Ohhhh, I like that. Succinct!

 

I mean, yeah, it can come back to bite you when you're questioning an argument like that, but in this case it should be easier to find testimonies of his claim than the opposite.

 

I'm curious, what the hell is it you do that requires a Mac Pro, and not a "vertical laptop" as you call the iMac? The iMac is an very powerful machine, so tell me, what is that you do that an iMac or any other Mac can't handle?

 

I'm a shareholder, and I bought a ton of stock @ $650. I lost big. You're not entitled to a fucking thing. It's an investment, and investments are always a gamble. I'm rational enough to understand that the hammering of the stock is not rational, nor does it seem connected in any way to Apple's performance, but to other variables and unreasonable market expectations. The company is performing extremely well, apart from the stock- they just had a record quarter and record sales. There's no "quick fix" to raise the stock, and no sane person would demand one. I expect and have faith that Apple is continuing to do what it has been doing which has made it so successful, and it has products in the pipeline, as well as a long term vision. It won't benefit anyone for Apple to make knee-jerk decisions on their products and direction based on the stock price- that's ridiculous. All that will do is make them lose their focus, and have negative repercussions down the line. Any new product they come out with needs to be extremely well thought out and considered, and I have faith in Apple's team, and that the stock price now is a bump in the road. Alot can change very quickly. If they're going to attack a new market, they need to nail the product the first time- you can't make a 2nd 1st impression. This impatience by people that Apple should "do something" because of stock price is so idiotic, childish, and short-sighted. Apple still has the most solid business model in the entire industry, and the best and most wholistic roadmap. There's no other company on the planet that can do the combination of hardware, software, digital downloads, app ecosystem, the cloud, mobile, desktop, as they can. Not a single one. They're the only company that has a disciplined "vision", unlike everyone else thats running around with their heads cut off releasing something new and shiny every while. You have absolutely nothing of value to contribute to Apple, in terms of decisions they should make, so stop whining like a baby and pretending you're entitled to something. You won't be served by Apple making some short term decision to please shareholders- Apple needs to continue making decisions for the long term, and I doubt thats something you know anything about. If you have so little faith in the company going forward, just sell all your stock now, you're still coming out ahead at your average buying price. Look, as an example, of the massive inroads Apple is making in enterprise and education- business and educational insitutions are adopting (and in many cases mandating) iOS devices like there's no tomorrow. Android is getting zero traction in these areas. You don't see how this is incredibly beneficial? As for me, I'm not touching my shares. 

Edited by Slurpy - 3/1/13 at 2:49pm

Really? CAD, 3d rendering, video encoding, better games, anything that needs more then a 680m graphics and not everyone needs a Xeon processor. Its a marketing problem to.. "Macs are too expensive and aren't very powerful," I know thats not true.. but a Mac Pro is a workstation, an iMac has laptop graphics that are not upgradable, make something in between, that is all I am saying. And there is nothing wrong with a "vertical laptop".

GTX 680 / GTX 680M
1536 cores / 1344 cores
clock rate 1058 / clock rate 720
Texture fill rate 128.8 / Texture fill rate 80.6
Bandwidth 192 / Bandwidth 115

 

None of these things requires more than a 680M. Video encoding is CPU-dependent. 

Not everyone is the intended market for a Mac Pro. It's a workstation, not a desktop proper.

 

 

That's just the thing; Apple doesn't see a market for something in between. There hasn't been a large enough drive from Apple's users for such a market. And a piecemeal tower computer is exactly the opposite of what Apple wants to make. They're not an end-all-be-all-do-all company, and they're generally fine with the 80% of the market's needs they do cover. 

 

Now, the Mac Pro update this year? Might change that a little. But you can bet it won't take sales from the iMac.

Bang on the nail Slurpy !

Well said. +1

So I guess we should be blaming Jony Ive and his new obsession friction stir welding. 

But I do think Apple could do something to try and reverse the negative sentiment out there.  Especially if its likely we're not going to see any new product until June (WWDC).  The perception out there is the magic is gone without Steve, Apple isn't innovating anymore, Google and others are catching up to it in design (I just read an article today from a long time Mac user heaping praise on Chromebook Pixel and saying the trackpad is better than the MacBook trackpads).

 

It burns me up inside that Apple's approach is basically to sit there and take all the abuse and not fight back.  Why not let some of the SVP's schmooze the tech press like Google has been doing.  Give the Verge or some other friendly tech site an exclusive with Jony Ive or Bob Mansfield.  You don't have to reveal specific product plans.  It would just be a way to get some favorable PR and show off the leadership team.  And maybe start to chip away at this meme that Apple = Steve Jobs, every product was dreamed up by him and without him Apple is screwed. Seems to me Apple could be doing a better job of countering the negative sentiment.  Maybe that means being a little more open rather than doubling down on secrecy in Cupertino only to have the web full of rumors and leaks coming from Asia.

 

To be fair, I'm in the same boat as ElectroTech. I have used Macs since the bad old Mid-90's, rid out OS 7.5, 7,6, 8, 9 and the early versions of OS X until things got really good. And I evangelized the Mac the whole time. And despite that, I decided to downsize too, get a gaming PC and a Mac Mini with it. It doesn't please me, but the 21" iMac is now not much more then a good quality laptop in a less movable box. it's gorgeous and if it fits your needs, that's fantastic. But no discrete card, no upgradeable RAM? And to get that upgradeable RAM you have to start at 1800 dollars. I built the base of my gaming PC for 350 dollars, and added on a gorgeous 24" matte screen monitor that fits my space and a graphics card that destroys the one in the 2000$ 27" for 400 more. Is it elegant? No. God I hate Windows 8 too. But given the choice, I'd rather do what I want to do with a machine I dislike then have an iMac I know I'm going to be replacing in 2-3 years at a cost way too high.

 

The bottom line is Apple made a choice with the current iMac. It dropped the people who like upgradeable RAM and a good discrete card for the 21" in favor of getting more sleek-and-slim buyers. I'm 100% sure Apple made the right call for them. It just happens I landed outside. I hope one day they decide to make the headless iMac with a real card and RAM slots. I Hope one day Mac minis get external graphics card boxes so I can use that and my choice of PCI-E graphics cards. Until it does though, I'm stuck as-is. 

 

What would Jony or Bob say in an interview that would lead to favorable PR? We all know they won't say peep about future endeavors to any degree, we know what they usually have to say which are largely platitudes about Apple's philosophy and products, which are all pretty boilerplate at this point. I honestly don't know that I'm getting much less out of the recent interviews with Cook that we would've gotten out of Jobs (Businessweek feature or Brian Williams interview), or that throwing Eddie Cue or Ive in would add much to most peoples' perceptions of Apple's executive team.

 

I'd honestly rather they ignore all of the noise as much as possible and focus on what they're doing, which is churning out gazillions of high quality products and, despite what the mainstream media and bottom-feeding bloggers would have you believe, working on the Next Big Things, whatever those may be. It's absolutely ludicrous to think that anyone who understands how Apple works would believe any of this tripe suggesting Apple is sitting on its thumbs waiting for someone else to copy or catch up to. I don't need them to show proof-of-concept demoware like Google (hey what happened to the Nexus Q anyway?). It may take longer than we all want for the next huge market disruption to come, but if I had to place my bets on where it was going to come from (and I have) I'm going with Apple. 

 

"Don't bet against us" - Tim Cook

2-3 years? Why do you need to replace it in that short time period?

What fastasleep ^ said.

You can't win playing counter spin when you go down that road.

I do agree that Apples secrecy has made it real easy for rumours to swirl - but that said I think Apple should stick to the knitting and keep developing and marketing great products.

 

The markets just the market - hell you buy when you think it's low and hope like hell you're right. Sell when you've got enough and try to make some sense of when to buy back in. Jeez, everybody gets caught out sooner or later - ask Einhorn lol. God Ive waited for years for some of my dodgy gold mining stocks to do something. Many of them have folded -  bye bye money. I can wallpaper your house if you want and your mothers and your dogs kennel.

 

Cue the "but I own a part of the company howls of indignation, it ain't good enough, Cook has to go !" posts

Edited by RobM - 3/1/13 at 6:32pm

 

Slurpy, 

 

I do this http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-266/ ( Yes, it runs on the Mac ) and I would like to put 2 of these http://www.nvidia.com/titan in it! You can have 2 GPUs working together on CUDA tasks.  If you don't know what CUDA is look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA also OpenCL will be supported in the future.  If you don't know what OpenCL is look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL

 

I will be buying the new Mac Pro if it ever comes out!  :-)   

Saw this on Jon Gruber's blog tonight.  A hardware review of Chromebook Pixel.

 

http://daringfireball.net/

 

No one ever knew about any products before launch when Steve Jobs was alive. 

 

Fine, you do it. You'll take credit when their quarterly 13 billion in profit becomes 13 billion in losses, right?

 

i dunno, maybe having the most profitable (unadjusted for inflation) year in corporate history. I'm sure Tim Cook et al. are crying in Apple's $140 billion cash/investments.

 

 

Rumors have flown since Jobs came back. You can't stop it. If you pre-announce products, WS won't stop creating rumors. Hows' that $12B serving Sammy. The 4S outsold/shipped the GS3. The iphone is #1 and #2. Apple has 70% of the mobile profits. Where's the ROI on Sammy's advertising.

 

 

There is nothing Apple can do. WS will still make up negative stories. Apple could release financials on a daily period but WS will spin them negative. They spun the record 4th qtr numbers negatively.

 

Who cares? They're going to sell very few of these things. It's not like we haven't seen the results of meticulous copying of Apple's hardware already from other parties, so why does it matter if Google does it too?

 

 

A lot of Google's software is beautifully designed. Some of it is terrible. Same applies to Apple really. Pretty sure we could find examples on both ends of the spectrum being produced by both camps. Revolution, I dunno about that. :) I'm curious to see what Apple has coming up this year for iOS (and OS X, and hopefully iWork). Let's not forget that Forstall is out now, and that may affect iOS and their supporting app design quite a bit (though who can say for sure at this point?). I suspect Jony Ive has some thoughts...

 

 

By making them the most profitable tech company in the world? For starters.

 

 

With Samsung, what do you expect them to do? Outspend them on advertising? Google Glass is hardly a product at this point, it's a tech demo. You think they're going to sell millions of those and their overpriced browserbook? Announcing non-products far in advance of availability gains what exactly? Look at the Nexus Q. Oh wait, you can't.

 

Updates to existing successful products are a no-brainer; of course those are coming. Plastic phones for China is a rumor at this point. What on earth are you expecting them to do RIGHT NOW — announce something they are secretly working on in their lab? Give a prototype of some proof-of-concept device to some blogger to write about? Release their 5 year roadmap so competitors know exactly what to expect? So you can get excited? 

 

 

You do realize that you previously said this:

 

 

So, which is it?

 

 

I'm not convinced you could do better.

I've discussed the new iMac in numerous Mac forums, and many think the new iMac is dysfunctional.  People are astonished to find that this "all in one" has no optical drive, and feel that it was removed prematurely, for the sake of pushing consumers towards purchasing more content from apple.  The argument that the optical drive is antiquated is ludicrous.  There are still $billions in sales of videos, audio, and software.  I often use the the super drive in my 2011 iMac to rip CD's, burn movies, burn playlists, give photos and videos to friends, etc.  Of course you can buy an external drive, and hang one more ugly piece of equipment from you iMac, but you shouldn't have to.

 

And the SD card reader is located on the back?  Really?  Now that's convenient.  And no USB ports in a convenient location either?  That's ridiculous.  I have two USB extension cables running from the back of my iMac, just so I can have quick access to a USB port.  Most people I've conversed with don't give a crap about how thin the new iMac is -- It still looks the same from the front.

 

Give me 1" iMac with an optical drive and some conveniently placed ports, and then I'll consider purchasing one.  I plan on keeping my 2011 for as long as possible.

Rogifan- no offence, but you're confusing the share market with the company. As do many round here.

You guys can't seem to separate the two.

They are related, of course.

If you're trading you can only win or lose to others in the market.

Divs, share splits, buy backs are all part of it, if you're positioned to be able to take advantage.

Leveraged too much one way - hell it can be fantastic or can cane your arse.

Timing and liquidity are your friends. But sometimes because of a decision that YOU made ya just gotta wait and wait for it to play out.

Dont expect Apple  to help you in your endeavour to try and make money from the sharemarket. I don't - never have, not from any company

 

Really - Its what Slurpy posted above.

Edited by RobM - 3/1/13 at 11:04pm

Solely regarding the gpu issue, I have to say it varies. Most 3d rendering is still cpu based. A lot of the newer ones seem to build in some way of leveraging the gpu, but the most widely used engines remain cpu based. Television or film renders could use gigabytes worth of mapped textures and complex shader stacks on hero objects. This is difficult to deal with at a gpu level. I'm certain these companies would like to implement more gpu based functionality. After Effects went this route with their raytracer, but I don't know how well After Effects would support complex retexturing. I've never tried it, but it would make for a rather complex set of layers given the required passes, if it even works without artifacting. If the comment was regarding 3d applications and CAD in general, much of that comes down to drivers. Gaming benchmarks mean very little there. Unfortunately this is an inconsistent issue. Sometimes the gaming cards work really well. The 680M isn't the fastest available, but it's not a bad card. If someone has a highly gpu constrained workload, I understand why they would want the fastest available when it cannot be upgraded after purchase. You can also go higher in ram on the desktop versions, which goes back to what I mentioned about gpu based renderers. There are reasons to want one thing over another. As for 3d apps, they have a much larger following on Windows than OSX. Apple has picked up some stuff that used to run solely on Linux, which is really great for them.

That's not true. Last Christmas I did a draft of the PC I'll build if Apple fails to release the computer I need. So I did a configuration with the fastest i7 available, a 4GB NVIDIA card, 512 GB SSD, and a good PSU. The price, from a low cost provider was into the $1600 range. Any PC user who wants to build a good computer for gaming, rendering, music production, video, photo, etc, aim for a configuration like the one I mention, so in the $1500 - $1600 range. So, yes, a $1900 Mac with the same power would be a PC killer, because the slightly higher price is reasonable considering Apple higher quality builds, ultra silent behavior, etc...

Anyway, I didn't finally buy that configuration, because I'm waiting for the next Apple move.

Regarding some other comments I read, I don't think the problem with Apple desktops is that "there's nothing in the middle". The problem is that Apple lacks the most demanded sector of current desktops, which isn't the middle, but top i7s with top GPUs. Apple doesn't sell you a top i7 with a top GPU unless you're willing to buy it attached to a 28 inch display (and attached in a way that you cannot service it in case some component fails). Paying $3000 for such a configuration it's a joke, and it goes up to that price because of the nonsense of buying it attached to a 28 inch display, and because the only SSD option is 768 GB.

Problem is that Apple isn't neglecting 20% of the desktop market by doing this, but 80% of the desktop market.

Current Mac desktops are targeted to users who don't need a desktop. That's the problem. No wonder Apple is in the "post desktop" era. If you don't release the desktops that desktop users need, how couldn't you be in the "post desktop" era?
Edited by ecs - 3/2/13 at 2:34am

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I have wanted a MacBook for a while but I will not buy one with less than 16 gig of Ram.

That means I have to spend 3K for the only model that has 16 gig ram.

Not likely.

Less than 16 is basically obsolete out the door.
.

 

Regarding your wish of 16GB RAM on your laptop, you might consider my experience on laptops vs desktops:

 

I've been an advocate of replacing desktops by laptops for some years now. However, I've changed my opinion this last year. Why? Well, because the latest hardware runs *hot*. I'm very happy with my MacBook Air, use it everyday, and it's the best computer I've owned in terms of balance between comfort and performance. But, when I push it to 100% CPU or 100% GPU, its fans jump to full speed. If I need 100% performance for more than 15 minutes, I don't believe that's healthy for my Macbook, it was certainly designed for less demanding work. The same happens to MacBook Pros: push it to 100% CPU/GPU and fans go crazy.

 

My current opinion about laptops is that if you need to have the machine working at 100% for more than 15 minutes, that's not a healthy task for a laptop, but for a desktop. So, I´ll complement my Macbook Air with a (powerful) desktop in coming months. Long renderings jobs (LuxRender and such), as well as gaming, will go to the desktop. On the other hand, I'll continue to use the MacBook Air for source code compiling, as well as Office and Gimp work, and also for very demanding CPU/GPU work if it doesn't last more than a few minutes.

 

One thing I'll not repeat on my MacBook Air is playing the Sims 3 for a whole morning. Performance of Sims3 is very good on the MacBook Air, but fans are at top speed during all your game, and the laptop surface really *burns* (I cannot keep my finger over the first row of the keyboard -just where the CPU and the GPU are- because it burns).

 

I'm saying this just in case your wish of having 16GB RAM on a laptop was for doing things similar to what I do with my MacBook Air, just in case it helps.

All I'm saying is we've gone nearly 6 months now with a lot of negative sentiment and I don't see Apple really doing anything to try and change that. I'll go back to a quote Jony Ive gave Walter Isaacson for his Steve Jobs book.  It was in reference to the perception that Steve was the only ideas guy at Apple.  Ive said: “That makes us vulnerable as a company".  Well that perception is alive and well out there isn't it?

 

I think a lot of the perceptions of the company right now are flat out wrong but they're out there and often times perception can become reality.  Look at the stock - down 36% over the last 6 months, 21% over the last 12 months.  All the while releasing great products, raking in record profits and amassing a humongous cash pile. FUD and D&G helps drive the stock down which in turn creates more FUD and D&G which in turn keeps driving the stock down.  It's a vicious cycle.

 

I'm not saying I have the answer or could do better but when perception is so far away from reality and is helping to drive the stock down to a 52 week low (while the overall market is at or near record highs) doesn't management have a responsibility to try and turn that perception around?  Obviously it's not just about pushing out product as they updated nearly all of their product line in the second half of the year and yet the stock dropped 36%.  Or do we say the stock was in a bubble and had to burst (even though stocks like Google, Amazon and Netflix show no signs of bursting)?

Edited by Rogifan - 3/2/13 at 5:10am

 

*cough*

 

Or you could accept that you're just never going to buy an iMac again based on ludicrous requirements and an unwillingness to move forward.

 

So that's basically nonsense right there.

 

No, post-PC. Huge difference.

 

This isn't true, either.

 

Right, they never have at any point in their history, and they don't have to. The only thing that they need to do is perform well enough to prove these people are liars. Same thing they did when they were actually in any sort of trouble back in '96.

 

$130 billion dollars is just going to magically disappear because people think they're bankrupt?

 

 

You're missing the big point here: the stock is meaningless. This isn't. This is tangible, and it's proof that everything else being said is sheer crap.

 

On the contrary, one could say that since Apple "burst", those companies crash that much harder.