There are ZERO metrics to measure Apple hardware outside of wild speculation based on generated revenue. It was literally predictable that, when Apple stopped reporting actual sales numbers, we'd see a huge decrease in "estimates" of Apple hardware sold.
Also, the revenue compare over fy 2018 for Macs was actually better for 2 out of 4 quarters, and in Q4 fy '18, Mac sales were literally on fire, so that compare is somewhat questionable.
So what hard numbers do these outfits have to base this on? How about none.
That is just completely bull, because they have always researched these numbers which they collect via a large number of channels and reported on them for decades independent of Apple providers figures.
There has always been some discrepancy between Apple's own numbers and these companies, but by and large they agree - also trend-wise.
Let's crunch some real numbers, shall we? These are from Gartner. IDC's appear to be behind a paywall:
Apple actually shipped:
cy 2016: 20.38 M Macs
cy 2017: 18.55 M Macs
cy 2018: 18.99 M Macs
Gartner said:
cy 2016: 18.61 M Macs
cy 2017: 19.30 M Macs
cy 2018: 18.02 M Macs
Gartner percentage miss (in spite of knowing ACTUAL numbers for 3 out of 4 quarters!):
cy 2016: -9.5%
cy 2017: +4%
cy 2018: -5.4%
Needless to say, this is piss-poor. And they'd have been even poorer in piss if Gartner hadn't had the 3 quarters worth of actual Apple numbers to work with.
But thanks for the opportunity to prove you don't know what the fork you're talking about, along with many other anti-Apple posters here.
Actually ... no it isn't. This actually is within the ballpark. Gartner's job is to provide <b>estimates</b> in advance of the official numbers and in particular to provide <b>estimates</b> for companies who never actually release their official numbers (which Apple doesn't do for all their product lines by the way). You can knock Gartner and IDC all you want ... but good luck finding anyone who does better jobs.
There is no doubt that the Mac business is bringing in far more revenues than when Apple was literally a computer company. From that perspective, a contraction in sales means very little.
The bigger question is why the iPhone 'halo effect' hasn't pushed Mac revenues even higher and that is where Apple is lacking IMO and that is why I've always said Apple is underperforming with the Mac.
Obviously we don't need computers as much as we did before but there is still a huge PC market and I think Apple could take a far bigger chunk out of it. And while tablets are trying to chip their way in, the things we said were absolutely necessary to make them truly viable options (not least file management) are only just appearing and have to mature.
Instead of looking at what has been achieved, it is sometimes better to look at what could have been achieved but wasn't.
There are a few reasons why, but clearly price and product stagnation are two clear identifiers.
Being the multi billion dollar business that it is (the classic computer/OS division), it should have focused on its core business: the Mac.
Tim Cook may regard the Mac as just another revenue stream, that pales in comparison to the real moneymaker (iPhone) but the truth is, as a division, the Mac unit went off the rails (yes, in spite of increased revenues).
That's why I've long argued for spinning the division off, putting the word 'computer' back in the name, and pumping some energy back into things. To apply some Apple terminology here, if we have 'good, better, best', then we are at 'better' only.
The Mini, should never have languished for so long. The Pro should have been 'fixed' long before it was. The 2016 MBP redesign should not have been the only design. The same iMac should not have been offered for two consecutive Christmas seasons. A low end tower should have been an option.
I agree that Homekit should have been designed into macOS from the outset.
The home WiFi division should have been expanded instead of disbanded.
Blaming intel for not delivering is a cop out. There are more areas that can be improved (not least pricing).
LOL no. When arguing the highly profitable Macs should have been more successful, nothing is clear other than personal opinion. And if you believe the Mac is Apple's core business, then you simply don't understand Apple very well. The Mac has not been their core business for many years.
They have explained to great length what took so long w/ the MP redesign. Go read the TechCrunch transcript which has been posted numerous times.
The iMac is absolutely fine. Not sure what you'r referring to, but the current iMac 5K was released March 2019, which means it was only around for one Christmas season. I know because I have it. It's an awesome machine.
And "But I want a cheap Mac tower!" is your want, not a failing.
Oh look, more negative news from the smut rags Gartner and IDC, known for totally fabricating numbers out of their asses...
Pardon me while I proceed with ignoring this crap.
I was just waiting for someone like you to say this. Anything from anyone where Apple is doing well and leading, people like you love to say Apple is number one and the best. But, inevitably, when Apple starts to slide down a little, WHICH FREAKING HAPPENS, it always, you can’t trust them and it’s people wanting to bring Apple into negative light.
How the hell are people supposed to be able to report negative things, that actually do happen, about Apple without you bitching and crying all the time?
Regardless of personal opinion, how much trust you can put on Gartner and IDC reliability based on their history?
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
That's a pretty cogent point. Now I will add that there is a synergistic effect for those who buy into the Apple ecosystem, and that is actually pretty meaningful to those of us already fully into that ecosystem. Plus, I know that Apple products have a very high resale value, in part because the products are very well built and thus have a long expected useful lifetime. Then there are other "squishy" positives like services, support, and security. Weighing these all out is almost going to come down to a case-by-case affair, so not practical. But that doesn't negate their existence.
BTW, I own an Apple Watch, and when I sit at my computer, it automatically logs me in now. I no longer need to type in a password. A small thing, but indicative of what I'm talking about.
But thanks for the opportunity to prove you don't know what the fork you're talking about, along with many other anti-Apple posters here.
Where Gartner and IDC usually differs in their estimates are for Apple BTO direct shipments, which are hard to catch via the other channels.
But now that Apple no longer provides any sales numbers, Gartner and IDC figures will be used without correction.
There is no doubt that the Mac business is bringing in far more revenues than when Apple was literally a computer company. From that perspective, a contraction in sales means very little.
The bigger question is why the iPhone 'halo effect' hasn't pushed Mac revenues even higher and that is where Apple is lacking IMO and that is why I've always said Apple is underperforming with the Mac.
Obviously we don't need computers as much as we did before but there is still a huge PC market and I think Apple could take a far bigger chunk out of it. And while tablets are trying to chip their way in, the things we said were absolutely necessary to make them truly viable options (not least file management) are only just appearing and have to mature.
Instead of looking at what has been achieved, it is sometimes better to look at what could have been achieved but wasn't.
There are a few reasons why, but clearly price and product stagnation are two clear identifiers.
Being the multi billion dollar business that it is (the classic computer/OS division), it should have focused on its core business: the Mac.
Tim Cook may regard the Mac as just another revenue stream, that pales in comparison to the real moneymaker (iPhone) but the truth is, as a division, the Mac unit went off the rails (yes, in spite of increased revenues).
That's why I've long argued for spinning the division off, putting the word 'computer' back in the name, and pumping some energy back into things. To apply some Apple terminology here, if we have 'good, better, best', then we are at 'better' only.
The Mini, should never have languished for so long. The Pro should have been 'fixed' long before it was. The 2016 MBP redesign should not have been the only design. The same iMac should not have been offered for two consecutive Christmas seasons. A low end tower should have been an option.
I agree that Homekit should have been designed into macOS from the outset.
The home WiFi division should have been expanded instead of disbanded.
Blaming intel for not delivering is a cop out. There are more areas that can be improved (not least pricing).
LOL no. When arguing the highly profitable Macs should have been more successful, nothing is clear other than personal opinion. And if you believe the Mac is Apple's core business, then you simply don't understand Apple very well. The Mac has not been their core business for many years.
They have explained to great length what took so long w/ the MP redesign. Go read the TechCrunch transcript which has been posted numerous times.
The iMac is absolutely fine. Not sure what you'r referring to, but the current iMac 5K was released March 2019, which means it was only around for one Christmas season. I know because I have it. It's an awesome machine.
And "But I want a cheap Mac tower!" is your want, not a failing.
Yes, it is an opinion. I actually said that to make it clear just in case.
Your first paragraph fell flat because you have no real counter for it beyond saying that it was simply my opinion and misunderstanding what I actually said (even though you bolded it):
"Being the multi billion dollar business that it is (the classic computer/OS division), it should have focused on its core business: the Mac."
I even made several references to what I was referencing: Apple, in the "Apple Computer" sense.
My whole point was to separate that type of business operation from the rest of the company to see if it could have performed better.
That makes your comment all the more perplexing.
No I don't think the Mac is Apple's core business. I said as much. More than once.
It is also patently clear that I am talking about more than one calendar year. I also made that crystal clear.
The fast moving consumer PC market is driven by performance among other things. Do you really think that presenting the same iMac for two consecutive Christmas seasons did Apple users favours?
The only favours it did was to Apple itself, who didn't bother to move a finger in the process. No change in specifications. No change in price. Absolutely nothing. The utter disdain for those users was culminated in the 'About this Mac" which stated that that expensive 'new' shiny iMac, and likely Christmas present, was actually from the previous year.
That must be an utterly depressing realisation. Notably, sales that year actually increased, but the devil is in the details. More than 60% went to Windows switchers. Mac users were avoiding that thing like the plague!
What a great introduction to Apple and the Mac! Apple fobs you off with last year's machine.
Of course, you totally avoid going anywhere near that issue and throw the 5K iMac into soup, missing the whole point in the process:
Mac users avoided that machine, and with good reason. That's why I think things could have been far, far better there. With hindsight, Ives probably had his entire team doing overtime trying to fix the butterfly keyboard while he worked on his Christmas tree!
With more Mac sales, comes more opportunity to chip away on software, both as a revenue stream AND to compete with rivals. Apple screwed ClarisWorks and then AppleWorks and now it has totally let "iWork" and its pieces sink. Do you really think the state of Pages, Numbers, Keynote et al is truly where it should be in 2020?
On the Pro side, the redesign and subsequent rollout of Final Cut was a classic example of how NOT to do things! Aperture? 250 billion dollars in the bank and they couldn't commit to a piece of software they were marketing to professionals and at a professional price! How many times do you have to burn your users before they abandon ship? Commitment is key in generating trust. Remember. Billions in the bank. Are they really counting the beans that much?
The Mac Pro and the excuses? You swallowed that? Come on. It does not take that long to fix that kind of error! Not even you should be swallowing that.
Take a trip back in time and look at how the Yikes! Mac came to be. There are lessons that Apple has forgotten.
As institutions and professionals continue to flee the ecosystem - the numbers are only going to continue to drop.
The Mac Pro should have been for all professionals, not a niche enterprise-specific only box.
The truth is, there is less and less reason every year to use a Mac - and not more reasons to - like new Apple software. They have all but given up on developing new or better software. The iSuite has been stagnant for a decade with the only real updates coming from making it mobile friendly.
Apple has stopped innovation on desktop software. And the hardware is lacklustre after 1 year of ownership with no upgrade availability. In other words, value in Mac ownership has tanked - with the only factors holding up the platform being the patent system stifling competition and Microsoft being so bad.
The iPhone is the best thing to happen to Apple - but the worst thing to happen to the Mac.
You have valid points. But, there are two others that are also relevant:
1) The basic appeal of the Mac is neither the hardware nor the software but the integration of both where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. No other computer can match that.
2) The Mac line, particularly the MacBooks integrate well with the other Apple products in multiple, myriad and unexpected ways. For instance, my 5 year old MBA is woken by my Apple Watch - and there are a thousand more examples both large and small. (It's what Apple has always done best: pay attention to the details that make things better).
As for having stagnated, I think you will not only see Apple paying more attention to the Mac line but also putting more of an emphasis on functionality ("it just works") which has always been their strong suit.
This is very understandable when one compares Apple Products to those of Lenovo:
Lenovo: Mostly high-end, quality products but a wide range of form factors to meet essentially every need from business man to student.
Apple: Entirely high-end, quality products limited to a single form factor* which forces the buyer to adjust their needs to fit the product available.
* Yes, I know there are iMacs, MacMinis and MacPros, but those are essentially irrelevant, only MacBooks count and there you can't tell one from the other without a spec sheet.
And, adding a cursor and mouse to the iPad will hurt the Mac line even more -- Lenovo considers that a laptop that can function as a tablet, Apple will consider it a tablet that can function as a laptop. Essentially they are the same but fall into different product lines.
Apple needs to do 3 things with the MacBook line: 1) Continue to upgrade it (why is Apple News so sucky on the Mac? You can't even adjust the size/zoom! And, why no FaceBook app?).
2) Provide form factors in addition to the "thin & light, minimalist" designs they have so far limited themselves to.
3) Produce a sub $1K laptop.
In other words, its not a matter of quality but of marketing: other vendors are giving people what they want instead of selling a limited product line and trying to force people into liking it. The iPad, iPhone and iPad are all good examples: Apple produced multiple form factors to meet people's needs and preferences and it worked.
Why would Apple make vast range of laptops as you described when another company is doing that already. I believe Apple already has a confusing batch of products which should be whittled down further. I understand the desktop is not where Apple's profits are any longer but gee whiz surely the design could be improved, how many years has it locked and performed the same 7-8?
He do think a ThinkPad keyboard will save the Mac, so let it go.
LOL.... No, but more crappy keyboards that only the hunt & peck crowd can like will hurt the Mac.
Fortunately, Apple seems to have recognized that they lost their way and are returning to their strength: functionality (instead of a blind charge over the cliff of thin, light and minimalist).
... And finally, the Big Lie continues, where Surface computers are bunched in with PC's but iPads are not. And iPads had a banner year last year.
...
That is a very valid point, but its not even a small lie much less a big one. It's simply one of those things where you have to be careful with statistics if you're interested in reality rather than simply proving a point. In this case:
The Surface line essentially started with computers that then incorporated a tablet mode. But its primary orientation is as a computer.
The iPad line started as a tablet. But now with an external keyboard and trackpad it can also function as a computer. But, its primary orientation remains as a tablet.
Nobody is lying. But each company reports numbers as they see them. They just aren't compatible.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
Yes, that's all true. But there is another factor that could come into play: Unlike Windows computers, Apple has a fixed cost of software (MacOS) development and support. It doesn't matter if they sell one Mac or a billion their cost remains the same. But, the unit cost can change drastically. For instance:
Say, for the sake of argument, they spent $100 Million dollars on MacOS.
If they sell a million Macs their unit cost is $100
If they sell 2 million Macs their unit cost drops to $50. Etc...
.... The more they sell the lower their unit cost goes. So, by keeping their selling price high they are also keeping their unit costs high (and, potentially, their profits low). ............ It's where they need some really good projections ("what happens if...") and a really good cost accountant to translate that into its effects on profit.
It's a balancing act -- and only Apple knows enough to make that call. Hopefully they are making the right one.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
My point was about profit, not revenue. So I repeat Apples Macs generate more profit than all pc companies combined. I wasn't talking about low prices either, although extremely slim margins of pc companies is the reason they have almost no profit at all. Your rambling about low prices misses the point completely because you forget about the operating system. You cannot buy a pc with macOS (and this makes it of no value). It would be nice if Apple could lower its Mac price point, but I indicated that that will happen this year by introducing Apples own A(desktop) processor soc. At that point pc manufactures have 3 problems: they lack decent processors, a decent operating system and any real profits. Because of that I expect Macs to be as successful as iPhones.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
My point was about profit, not revenue. So I repeat Apples Macs generate more profit than all pc companies combined. I wasn't talking about low prices either, although extremely slim margins of pc companies is the reason they have almost no profit at all. Your rambling about low prices misses the point completely because you forget about the operating system. You cannot buy a pc with macOS (and this makes it of no value). It would be nice if Apple could lower its Mac price point, but I indicated that that will happen this year by introducing Apples own A(desktop) processor soc. At that point pc manufactures have 3 problems: they lack decent processors, a decent operating system and any real profits. Because of that I expect Macs to be as successful as iPhones.
I know you were talking about profit and not revenue. I just don't believe you. Prove me wrong by posting Apple's profits in PCs and then posting the profits of the top 5 PC manufacturers. As for the rest of your comments I was actually agreeing with you but apparently you can't handle someone disagreeing with your minor point while agreeing with your main point. So maybe you should reread my post.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
Yes, that's all true. But there is another factor that could come into play: Unlike Windows computers, Apple has a fixed cost of software (MacOS) development and support. It doesn't matter if they sell one Mac or a billion their cost remains the same. But, the unit cost can change drastically. For instance:
Say, for the sake of argument, they spent $100 Million dollars on MacOS.
If they sell a million Macs their unit cost is $100
If they sell 2 million Macs their unit cost drops to $50. Etc...
.... The more they sell the lower their unit cost goes. So, by keeping their selling price high they are also keeping their unit costs high (and, potentially, their profits low). ............ It's where they need some really good projections ("what happens if...") and a really good cost accountant to translate that into its effects on profit.
It's a balancing act -- and only Apple knows enough to make that call. Hopefully they are making the right one.
Yeah however you have to get to a large number of units in order to get the unit cost down. Samsung does a decent job of leveraging this, and even more so because Android is free and they make most of the components that go into their phones so Samsung Semiconductor, Samsung screens, Samsung audio etc. can make money for their divisions by "selling" items to Samsung Mobile. But that isn't and can't be Apple's business model.
To their credit they did adopt the unit cost thing with iPhones with the SE, which grabbed a ton of market share from Android manufacturers that were making "pretty good" smartphones for $350-$500 like the (sadly departed) Google Nexus. But they don't sell anywhere near enough Macs to benefit from the unit cost thing and I do not think that lowering prices would enable them to.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
That's a pretty cogent point. Now I will add that there is a synergistic effect for those who buy into the Apple ecosystem, and that is actually pretty meaningful to those of us already fully into that ecosystem. Plus, I know that Apple products have a very high resale value, in part because the products are very well built and thus have a long expected useful lifetime. Then there are other "squishy" positives like services, support, and security. Weighing these all out is almost going to come down to a case-by-case affair, so not practical. But that doesn't negate their existence.
BTW, I own an Apple Watch, and when I sit at my computer, it automatically logs me in now. I no longer need to type in a password. A small thing, but indicative of what I'm talking about.
I have enjoyed similar functionality with my Android phones and watches with Windows PCs and Chromebooks for years. That - along with a few of my favorite applications - was among the things that I gave up when I switched to MacBooks but getting away from Windows 10 was worth it. I am absolutely dedicated to being multi-platform using open standard protocols whenever possible so the whole "ecosystem synergy" thing will never appeal to me. But that is the same way that most consumers are to begin with. I would say that most Americans have an iPhone (and iPad), a Windows PC and either a Roku or Amazon Fire smart TV or set top box. Because of this, I do not believe that dropping prices would cause that many more people to buy Macs. There aren't enough people who specifically want Macs instead of "a computer to use to get on the Internet and use Microsoft Office with." Maybe there was a time - peak iPhone I guess - when Apple could have done some sort of yearlong promotion where you could have gotten a MacBook Air at a significant discount if you bought an iPhone and done that to get more people into that great synergistic ecosystem that you are talking about but that time has long passed.
... And finally, the Big Lie continues, where Surface computers are bunched in with PC's but iPads are not. And iPads had a banner year last year.
...
That is a very valid point, but its not even a small lie much less a big one. It's simply one of those things where you have to be careful with statistics if you're interested in reality rather than simply proving a point. In this case:
The Surface line essentially started with computers that then incorporated a tablet mode. But its primary orientation is as a computer.
The iPad line started as a tablet. But now with an external keyboard and trackpad it can also function as a computer. But, its primary orientation remains as a tablet.
Nobody is lying. But each company reports numbers as they see them. They just aren't compatible.
No, this guy is just repeating one of Daniel Eran Dilger's old talking points. According to that guy Android was never going to make a profit and Google, Samsung and Microsoft were all supposed to be out of business by now. Reality: if you are going to count iPads as PCs then you would need to count the millions of Android tablets sold by Amazon and Samsung as PCs too. Then there are Chromebooks: some analysts consider them PCs but others do not. So there is no massive anti-Apple conspiracy. It is about the OS.
Windows, macOS (and "desktop" Linux distros) are PC operating systems. So devices that are sold with those operating systems that have a PC use case/form factor (meaning excluding servers, gaming consoles and specialty devices where the OS is basically firmware) are going to be classified as PCs. Surface Books have tablet form factors but even the ones that run on Qualcomm mobile ARM chips run the same OS as $7500 Windows 10 engineering workstations. Windows DID make a separate OS for smartphones and tablets. Back when that still existed, the few devices that actually sold were not counted as PCs by IDC, Gartner or anyone else.
Android and formerly iOS are mobile OSes. Devices made with them are going to be considered mobile devices and not PCs.
ChromeOS is a special category. Even though it was built on top of Debian and now - similar to Android - is a custom Linux distro, it is stripped down and doesn't have enough features or capabilites to be considered a (modern) PC OS. You have to add that stuff back in to get a full-blown Ubuntu or Debian PC yourself (totally worth your while if you have enough RAM and a decent CPU/SOC ... but if you have one of the 2 GB of RAM and/or Celeron or MediaTek models don't bother). But even though it has long been used to make 2-in-1 type devices and recently is being used in pure tablets, ChromeOS isn't a mobile OS either. It would be a great one if Google allowed it to be. ChromeOS on Samsung Galaxy Note hardware ... dare to dream.
DED originated that ridiculous - and utterly false - take because of his personal conviction that 99% of Windows PCs are trash and most Windows users are cheapskate dunderheads who use their PCs for simple consumption and light productivity tasks that an iPad could easily replace. A lot of other Apple bloggers picked up on his hyperbole and propaganda but it was honestly never true. There are tons of necessary things that you can do on a $500 Windows PC that you can't do on an iPad Pro that costs twice as much. (And keep in mind: the iPad Pro or anything like it didn't even exist when DED came up with this ridiculous take. He was pushing this nonsense back when iPads still had 32 bit dual core processors and 1 GB of RAM.) Apple's own failed and thankfully now abandoned "you can replace your PC with an (often more expensive!) iPad" marketing campaign aside, Apple partisans who repeat stuff like that just show themselves to be condescending classist elitists who don't know nearly as much about tech as they claim to.
Your mistaken, Mac profits are low in percentage against for example the iPhone, but not low in absolute numbers.
This means that Mac profits are higher than all Dell, Hp and Lenovos combined.
Dell earns about $23 billion in revenue a quarter. Lenovo about $15 billion in revenue. I am not going to list HP because unlike Dell and Lenovo they get revenue from a lot more things than PCs, including services.
That said, I agree with your overall point. You can easily get a Windows laptop with an i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM for $500-$550. Meanwhile an equivalent MacBook Air is going to cost $1000. Were Apple to drop the price of their MacBook Air to $650, how many more people would buy it? I don't know ... if they make $500 on every MacBook Air as it is but would only make $100 if they were to try to compete with Asus - probably the best "cheap" PC manufacturer there is - would they need to sell 5 times as many MacBook Airs? Now can you envison a scenario where Apple sells 5 million MacBook Airs a quarter? Did Apple even move anywhere close to that many MacBook Airs during "peak Apple", when the iPhone 6+ had everyone in a frenzy, Ballmer was refusing to budge off Windows 8 and there were even multiple major Hollywood movies about Apple and its products? So what would their chances be of doing that now with Windows 10 is at least halfway as good as Windows 7 was and even Chromebooks now somehow being a viable marketable product? Seriously where a $400 Windows laptop is still a questionable purchase, you can spend that on a Chromebook and get a decent Intel i3 Ubuntu laptop with a touchscreen and 2-in-1 form factor that can also run mobile apps.
Even if they were to make the entry level Air model a good bit cheaper, say $750 ... you can get a legit 1080p Windows gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce graphics card for that. I really don't think that Apple is going to make much more money by lowering prices. It is tough for the people who want a MacBook but legitimately can't afford one but that's still the set of facts we are dealing with. Apple could lower prices on their cheapest models, experience only a few percentage points bump in market share but actually make less money.
My point was about profit, not revenue. So I repeat Apples Macs generate more profit than all pc companies combined. I wasn't talking about low prices either, although extremely slim margins of pc companies is the reason they have almost no profit at all. Your rambling about low prices misses the point completely because you forget about the operating system. You cannot buy a pc with macOS (and this makes it of no value). It would be nice if Apple could lower its Mac price point, but I indicated that that will happen this year by introducing Apples own A(desktop) processor soc. At that point pc manufactures have 3 problems: they lack decent processors, a decent operating system and any real profits. Because of that I expect Macs to be as successful as iPhones.
I know you were talking about profit and not revenue. I just don't believe you. Prove me wrong by posting Apple's profits in PCs and then posting the profits of the top 5 PC manufacturers. As for the rest of your comments I was actually agreeing with you but apparently you can't handle someone disagreeing with your minor point while agreeing with your main point. So maybe you should reread my post.
... And finally, the Big Lie continues, where Surface computers are bunched in with PC's but iPads are not. And iPads had a banner year last year.
...
That is a very valid point, but its not even a small lie much less a big one. It's simply one of those things where you have to be careful with statistics if you're interested in reality rather than simply proving a point. In this case:
The Surface line essentially started with computers that then incorporated a tablet mode. But its primary orientation is as a computer.
The iPad line started as a tablet. But now with an external keyboard and trackpad it can also function as a computer. But, its primary orientation remains as a tablet.
Nobody is lying. But each company reports numbers as they see them. They just aren't compatible.
No, this guy is just repeating one of Daniel Eran Dilger's old talking points. According to that guy Android was never going to make a profit and Google, Samsung and Microsoft were all supposed to be out of business by now. Reality: if you are going to count iPads as PCs then you would need to count the millions of Android tablets sold by Amazon and Samsung as PCs too. Then there are Chromebooks: some analysts consider them PCs but others do not. So there is no massive anti-Apple conspiracy. It is about the OS.
Windows, macOS (and "desktop" Linux distros) are PC operating systems. So devices that are sold with those operating systems that have a PC use case/form factor (meaning excluding servers, gaming consoles and specialty devices where the OS is basically firmware) are going to be classified as PCs. Surface Books have tablet form factors but even the ones that run on Qualcomm mobile ARM chips run the same OS as $7500 Windows 10 engineering workstations. Windows DID make a separate OS for smartphones and tablets. Back when that still existed, the few devices that actually sold were not counted as PCs by IDC, Gartner or anyone else.
Android and formerly iOS are mobile OSes. Devices made with them are going to be considered mobile devices and not PCs.
ChromeOS is a special category. Even though it was built on top of Debian and now - similar to Android - is a custom Linux distro, it is stripped down and doesn't have enough features or capabilites to be considered a (modern) PC OS. You have to add that stuff back in to get a full-blown Ubuntu or Debian PC yourself (totally worth your while if you have enough RAM and a decent CPU/SOC ... but if you have one of the 2 GB of RAM and/or Celeron or MediaTek models don't bother). But even though it has long been used to make 2-in-1 type devices and recently is being used in pure tablets, ChromeOS isn't a mobile OS either. It would be a great one if Google allowed it to be. ChromeOS on Samsung Galaxy Note hardware ... dare to dream.
DED originated that ridiculous - and utterly false - take because of his personal conviction that 99% of Windows PCs are trash and most Windows users are cheapskate dunderheads who use their PCs for simple consumption and light productivity tasks that an iPad could easily replace. A lot of other Apple bloggers picked up on his hyperbole and propaganda but it was honestly never true. There are tons of necessary things that you can do on a $500 Windows PC that you can't do on an iPad Pro that costs twice as much. (And keep in mind: the iPad Pro or anything like it didn't even exist when DED came up with this ridiculous take. He was pushing this nonsense back when iPads still had 32 bit dual core processors and 1 GB of RAM.) Apple's own failed and thankfully now abandoned "you can replace your PC with an (often more expensive!) iPad" marketing campaign aside, Apple partisans who repeat stuff like that just show themselves to be condescending classist elitists who don't know nearly as much about tech as they claim to.
So, it's all about the OS huh? The OS defines the market?
Are you aware that iOS was derived by stripping out unneeded parts from MacOS? ... In short, yours is not necessarily untrue, just an oversimplification. Incomplete.
Sorry, that you have a hang up about DED. For myself, I have no idea what his take on the subject is.
... And finally, the Big Lie continues, where Surface computers are bunched in with PC's but iPads are not. And iPads had a banner year last year.
...
That is a very valid point, but its not even a small lie much less a big one. It's simply one of those things where you have to be careful with statistics if you're interested in reality rather than simply proving a point. In this case:
The Surface line essentially started with computers that then incorporated a tablet mode. But its primary orientation is as a computer.
The iPad line started as a tablet. But now with an external keyboard and trackpad it can also function as a computer. But, its primary orientation remains as a tablet.
Nobody is lying. But each company reports numbers as they see them. They just aren't compatible.
No, this guy is just repeating one of Daniel Eran Dilger's old talking points. According to that guy Android was never going to make a profit and Google, Samsung and Microsoft were all supposed to be out of business by now. Reality: if you are going to count iPads as PCs then you would need to count the millions of Android tablets sold by Amazon and Samsung as PCs too. Then there are Chromebooks: some analysts consider them PCs but others do not. So there is no massive anti-Apple conspiracy. It is about the OS.
Windows, macOS (and "desktop" Linux distros) are PC operating systems. So devices that are sold with those operating systems that have a PC use case/form factor (meaning excluding servers, gaming consoles and specialty devices where the OS is basically firmware) are going to be classified as PCs. Surface Books have tablet form factors but even the ones that run on Qualcomm mobile ARM chips run the same OS as $7500 Windows 10 engineering workstations. Windows DID make a separate OS for smartphones and tablets. Back when that still existed, the few devices that actually sold were not counted as PCs by IDC, Gartner or anyone else.
Android and formerly iOS are mobile OSes. Devices made with them are going to be considered mobile devices and not PCs.
ChromeOS is a special category. Even though it was built on top of Debian and now - similar to Android - is a custom Linux distro, it is stripped down and doesn't have enough features or capabilites to be considered a (modern) PC OS. You have to add that stuff back in to get a full-blown Ubuntu or Debian PC yourself (totally worth your while if you have enough RAM and a decent CPU/SOC ... but if you have one of the 2 GB of RAM and/or Celeron or MediaTek models don't bother). But even though it has long been used to make 2-in-1 type devices and recently is being used in pure tablets, ChromeOS isn't a mobile OS either. It would be a great one if Google allowed it to be. ChromeOS on Samsung Galaxy Note hardware ... dare to dream.
DED originated that ridiculous - and utterly false - take because of his personal conviction that 99% of Windows PCs are trash and most Windows users are cheapskate dunderheads who use their PCs for simple consumption and light productivity tasks that an iPad could easily replace. A lot of other Apple bloggers picked up on his hyperbole and propaganda but it was honestly never true. There are tons of necessary things that you can do on a $500 Windows PC that you can't do on an iPad Pro that costs twice as much. (And keep in mind: the iPad Pro or anything like it didn't even exist when DED came up with this ridiculous take. He was pushing this nonsense back when iPads still had 32 bit dual core processors and 1 GB of RAM.) Apple's own failed and thankfully now abandoned "you can replace your PC with an (often more expensive!) iPad" marketing campaign aside, Apple partisans who repeat stuff like that just show themselves to be condescending classist elitists who don't know nearly as much about tech as they claim to.
So, it's all about the OS huh? The OS defines the market?
Are you aware that iOS was derived by stripping out unneeded parts from MacOS? ... In short, yours is not necessarily untrue, just an oversimplification. Incomplete.
Sorry, that you have a hang up about DED. For myself, I have no idea what his take on the subject is.
Yes, it is all about the OS. The OS does define the market. The OS controls the device's capabilities and use case. "Are you aware that iOS was derived by stripping out unneeded parts from MacOS?" No, because it isn't true. The original iPhone OS came from the same development/product line as the iPods and iPod Touch. And more to the point: iOS (now iPhoneOS and ipadOS) devices run on ARM architecture which means that it uses the RISC instruction set. Ditto tvOS and watchOS. Meanwhile macOS runs on Intel CPUs and uses the x86 instruction set. Claiming that iOS is "stripped down macOS" ignores all that. It also ignores that ever since Apple migrated to the multi-core Ax SOCs and started using more than 1 GB of RAM there ceased to be a reason to "strip down" macOS to begin with. An iPhone 11 Pro has as much/more RAM and (raw theoretical) processing power as MacBook Airs and Mac Minis from 8-9 years ago.
Let me put it to you this way. A Surface knockoff from HP, an iPad Pro and a Chromebook could have the same internals - 4 GB of RAM, Qualcomm (or equivalent) ARM SOC - as well as the same basic form factor (after you get the add-on).
That Surface knockoff can run the full-blown desktop version of Microsoft Excel. (We know this because Microsoft's marketing lets us know this relentlessly and yes it is a reason why people buy them.)
That iPad would have to run the Excel mobile app, which is quite good but doesn't have all the features.
The Chromebook? You could run the terrible Android Excel mobile app in theory ... but in practice you would be better off uploading the file to the cloud and using either Google Sheets or Office 365. (Granted you can put Ubuntu or another Linux distro on that Chromebook and use LibreOffice Calc ... but that capability isn't in ChromeOS itself.)
So anti-Apple spin. PCs and mobile devices aren't the same. Claiming they are is akin to claiming that a speedboat is the same as a sports car. Even better: a motorcycle versus a tractor-trailer. You can't even legally drive the former with the latter's license or vice versa.
Actually, it's the other way around: The market defines the OS. That's why they simply used a stripped down version of MacOS to create iOS -- iOS on small screen, less powerful device without peripherals simply didn't need all the features and bloat that MacOS had. It's also why they developed IPadOS from iOS.
Comments
They have explained to great length what took so long w/ the MP redesign. Go read the TechCrunch transcript which has been posted numerous times.
The iMac is absolutely fine. Not sure what you'r referring to, but the current iMac 5K was released March 2019, which means it was only around for one Christmas season. I know because I have it. It's an awesome machine.
And "But I want a cheap Mac tower!" is your want, not a failing.
BTW, I own an Apple Watch, and when I sit at my computer, it automatically logs me in now. I no longer need to type in a password. A small thing, but indicative of what I'm talking about.
Where Gartner and IDC usually differs in their estimates are for Apple BTO direct shipments, which are hard to catch via the other channels. But now that Apple no longer provides any sales numbers, Gartner and IDC figures will be used without correction.
Your first paragraph fell flat because you have no real counter for it beyond saying that it was simply my opinion and misunderstanding what I actually said (even though you bolded it):
"Being the multi billion dollar business that it is (the classic computer/OS division), it should have focused on its core business: the Mac."
I even made several references to what I was referencing: Apple, in the "Apple Computer" sense.
My whole point was to separate that type of business operation from the rest of the company to see if it could have performed better.
That makes your comment all the more perplexing.
No I don't think the Mac is Apple's core business. I said as much. More than once.
It is also patently clear that I am talking about more than one calendar year. I also made that crystal clear.
The fast moving consumer PC market is driven by performance among other things. Do you really think that presenting the same iMac for two consecutive Christmas seasons did Apple users favours?
The only favours it did was to Apple itself, who didn't bother to move a finger in the process. No change in specifications. No change in price. Absolutely nothing. The utter disdain for those users was culminated in the 'About this Mac" which stated that that expensive 'new' shiny iMac, and likely Christmas present, was actually from the previous year.
That must be an utterly depressing realisation. Notably, sales that year actually increased, but the devil is in the details. More than 60% went to Windows switchers. Mac users were avoiding that thing like the plague!
What a great introduction to Apple and the Mac! Apple fobs you off with last year's machine.
Of course, you totally avoid going anywhere near that issue and throw the 5K iMac into soup, missing the whole point in the process:
Mac users avoided that machine, and with good reason. That's why I think things could have been far, far better there. With hindsight, Ives probably had his entire team doing overtime trying to fix the butterfly keyboard while he worked on his Christmas tree!
With more Mac sales, comes more opportunity to chip away on software, both as a revenue stream AND to compete with rivals. Apple screwed ClarisWorks and then AppleWorks and now it has totally let "iWork" and its pieces sink. Do you really think the state of Pages, Numbers, Keynote et al is truly where it should be in 2020?
On the Pro side, the redesign and subsequent rollout of Final Cut was a classic example of how NOT to do things! Aperture? 250 billion dollars in the bank and they couldn't commit to a piece of software they were marketing to professionals and at a professional price! How many times do you have to burn your users before they abandon ship? Commitment is key in generating trust. Remember. Billions in the bank. Are they really counting the beans that much?
The Mac Pro and the excuses? You swallowed that? Come on. It does not take that long to fix that kind of error! Not even you should be swallowing that.
Take a trip back in time and look at how the Yikes! Mac came to be. There are lessons that Apple has forgotten.
You have valid points. But, there are two others that are also relevant:
LOL.... No, but more crappy keyboards that only the hunt & peck crowd can like will hurt the Mac.
Fortunately, Apple seems to have recognized that they lost their way and are returning to their strength: functionality (instead of a blind charge over the cliff of thin, light and minimalist).
Yes, that's all true. But there is another factor that could come into play:
Unlike Windows computers, Apple has a fixed cost of software (MacOS) development and support. It doesn't matter if they sell one Mac or a billion their cost remains the same. But, the unit cost can change drastically. For instance:
Say, for the sake of argument, they spent $100 Million dollars on MacOS.
............ It's where they need some really good projections ("what happens if...") and a really good cost accountant to translate that into its effects on profit.
So I repeat Apples Macs generate more profit than all pc companies combined.
I wasn't talking about low prices either, although extremely slim margins of pc companies is the reason they have almost no profit at all.
Your rambling about low prices misses the point completely because you forget about the operating system. You cannot buy a pc with macOS (and this makes it of no value).
It would be nice if Apple could lower its Mac price point, but I indicated that that will happen this year by introducing Apples own A(desktop) processor soc.
At that point pc manufactures have 3 problems: they lack decent processors, a decent operating system and any real profits.
Because of that I expect Macs to be as successful as iPhones.
To their credit they did adopt the unit cost thing with iPhones with the SE, which grabbed a ton of market share from Android manufacturers that were making "pretty good" smartphones for $350-$500 like the (sadly departed) Google Nexus. But they don't sell anywhere near enough Macs to benefit from the unit cost thing and I do not think that lowering prices would enable them to.
Windows, macOS (and "desktop" Linux distros) are PC operating systems. So devices that are sold with those operating systems that have a PC use case/form factor (meaning excluding servers, gaming consoles and specialty devices where the OS is basically firmware) are going to be classified as PCs. Surface Books have tablet form factors but even the ones that run on Qualcomm mobile ARM chips run the same OS as $7500 Windows 10 engineering workstations. Windows DID make a separate OS for smartphones and tablets. Back when that still existed, the few devices that actually sold were not counted as PCs by IDC, Gartner or anyone else.
Android and formerly iOS are mobile OSes. Devices made with them are going to be considered mobile devices and not PCs.
ChromeOS is a special category. Even though it was built on top of Debian and now - similar to Android - is a custom Linux distro, it is stripped down and doesn't have enough features or capabilites to be considered a (modern) PC OS. You have to add that stuff back in to get a full-blown Ubuntu or Debian PC yourself (totally worth your while if you have enough RAM and a decent CPU/SOC ... but if you have one of the 2 GB of RAM and/or Celeron or MediaTek models don't bother). But even though it has long been used to make 2-in-1 type devices and recently is being used in pure tablets, ChromeOS isn't a mobile OS either. It would be a great one if Google allowed it to be. ChromeOS on Samsung Galaxy Note hardware ... dare to dream.
DED originated that ridiculous - and utterly false - take because of his personal conviction that 99% of Windows PCs are trash and most Windows users are cheapskate dunderheads who use their PCs for simple consumption and light productivity tasks that an iPad could easily replace. A lot of other Apple bloggers picked up on his hyperbole and propaganda but it was honestly never true. There are tons of necessary things that you can do on a $500 Windows PC that you can't do on an iPad Pro that costs twice as much. (And keep in mind: the iPad Pro or anything like it didn't even exist when DED came up with this ridiculous take. He was pushing this nonsense back when iPads still had 32 bit dual core processors and 1 GB of RAM.) Apple's own failed and thankfully now abandoned "you can replace your PC with an (often more expensive!) iPad" marketing campaign aside, Apple partisans who repeat stuff like that just show themselves to be condescending classist elitists who don't know nearly as much about tech as they claim to.
So, it's all about the OS huh? The OS defines the market?
Are you aware that iOS was derived by stripping out unneeded parts from MacOS?
... In short, yours is not necessarily untrue, just an oversimplification. Incomplete.
"Are you aware that iOS was derived by stripping out unneeded parts from MacOS?"
No, because it isn't true. The original iPhone OS came from the same development/product line as the iPods and iPod Touch. And more to the point: iOS (now iPhoneOS and ipadOS) devices run on ARM architecture which means that it uses the RISC instruction set. Ditto tvOS and watchOS. Meanwhile macOS runs on Intel CPUs and uses the x86 instruction set. Claiming that iOS is "stripped down macOS" ignores all that. It also ignores that ever since Apple migrated to the multi-core Ax SOCs and started using more than 1 GB of RAM there ceased to be a reason to "strip down" macOS to begin with. An iPhone 11 Pro has as much/more RAM and (raw theoretical) processing power as MacBook Airs and Mac Minis from 8-9 years ago.
Let me put it to you this way. A Surface knockoff from HP, an iPad Pro and a Chromebook could have the same internals - 4 GB of RAM, Qualcomm (or equivalent) ARM SOC - as well as the same basic form factor (after you get the add-on).
That Surface knockoff can run the full-blown desktop version of Microsoft Excel. (We know this because Microsoft's marketing lets us know this relentlessly and yes it is a reason why people buy them.)
That iPad would have to run the Excel mobile app, which is quite good but doesn't have all the features.
The Chromebook? You could run the terrible Android Excel mobile app in theory ... but in practice you would be better off uploading the file to the cloud and using either Google Sheets or Office 365. (Granted you can put Ubuntu or another Linux distro on that Chromebook and use LibreOffice Calc ... but that capability isn't in ChromeOS itself.)
So anti-Apple spin. PCs and mobile devices aren't the same. Claiming they are is akin to claiming that a speedboat is the same as a sports car. Even better: a motorcycle versus a tractor-trailer. You can't even legally drive the former with the latter's license or vice versa.