Mac sales decline in Q3 as customers await new models [u]

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  • Reply 61 of 68
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Gruber doesn’t think there will be an event until after the Xr launches.
    And I think that makes total sense...why take the media attention away from the iPhone XR with a special media even right around order/shipping time. 
  • Reply 62 of 68
    elijahg said:
    Rayz2016 said:


    entropys said:
    macxpress said:

    lkrupp said:
    ... according to new estimates from market research firm Gartner....

    Well la dee da. According to estimates the iPhone X was a flop. According to estimates the Apple Watch was a non-starter. According to estimates Apple is on the verge of failure. But whatever, this will be fodder for the “Were’s the new Mac Mini” crowd. In the comments to come we will be treated to pontification and bloviation about Apple’s loyal customers, the ones who kept the company afloat, being abandoned with Apple’s deemphasis of Macs and how it will be the end of the company. Get the popcorn out because here it comes.
    Oh don't forget about these who supposedly will never buy a Mac again, or can't wait any longer so they're gonna go get a PC or create a hackintosh crowd. 
    I ahave to admit I am probably in that camp.
    My old iMac with the dodgy GPU has now been pulled apart five times to bake the GPU again. The last time I did it I must have done something wrong putting it back together and the CPU fan is going full speed. Too much trouble to open up again so waiting for a new iMac to come out. i have been in this situation for about eighteen months now. I would have replaced her but just can’t bring myself to do it And pay full price with the current design iMac with an outdated CPU. I can’t even begin to think how hard it would be to fix. It would be like the transition from my iMac G5 (designed to be easily diagnosed and fixable) to the first intel iMac ( an absolute dog of an internal design that made it hard to even replace the PRAM battery, just like the current design). 
    So this might really be it.  A transition to the dark side. I hope Apple releases a redesign that means it is a bit user upgradable and can fix little things like the PRAM battery. Otherwise I will have to think about a painful separation.  And divorce down the track. Once my computers switch, why not my phones?
    What date are you thinking, so we can mark our calendars? In fact, why wait at all? Switch now. It will be great, and you'll be happy again. Don't you want to be happy?
    When I read “this might really be it” in his post, I actually laughed out loud. 

    Nothing gives a threat more weight than saying you might do it. 

    People in this forum have been saying they will do it, and they’re, unfortunately, still here. So I don’t hold much hope for Mr Might here leaving the platform any time soon. 

    The simple fact is that Apple hasn’t built a machine you like then you’re not their target customer. 

    So rather than wasting bandwidth threatening to leave, you should just get on with it. 
    I realise a tech forum will be biased toward "pro" machines, but considering how many people here say Apple's lineup isn't suitable for them, and with just 3 or 4 people desperately trying to defend Apple, doesn't that make you think you and Apple's Mac "strategy" (haha) might actually be wrong? Apple isn't making Macs that people want, otherwise sales wouldn't have fallen. You'd be fine buying an almost 5 year old Mac mini for the same price it was released for? Yes? Then it's quite obvious you have your head buried in the sand and are blindly obsessive over Apple.
    There are a lot of people in this forum that would defend Apple, simply not against you and your lookalikes, because... you’re just boring. Of course Apple isn’t making Macs that people want, it never did. People never wanted a Mac. People never wanted an iPhone, iPad, Watch... either. Yet here they are in millions. Go back to your Blackberry why would you wait here for Apple makes the hardware keyboard iPhone you “want”?
  • Reply 63 of 68
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    elijahg said:
    Rayz2016 said:


    entropys said:
    macxpress said:

    lkrupp said:
    ... according to new estimates from market research firm Gartner....

    Well la dee da. According to estimates the iPhone X was a flop. According to estimates the Apple Watch was a non-starter. According to estimates Apple is on the verge of failure. But whatever, this will be fodder for the “Were’s the new Mac Mini” crowd. In the comments to come we will be treated to pontification and bloviation about Apple’s loyal customers, the ones who kept the company afloat, being abandoned with Apple’s deemphasis of Macs and how it will be the end of the company. Get the popcorn out because here it comes.
    Oh don't forget about these who supposedly will never buy a Mac again, or can't wait any longer so they're gonna go get a PC or create a hackintosh crowd. 
    I ahave to admit I am probably in that camp.
    My old iMac with the dodgy GPU has now been pulled apart five times to bake the GPU again. The last time I did it I must have done something wrong putting it back together and the CPU fan is going full speed. Too much trouble to open up again so waiting for a new iMac to come out. i have been in this situation for about eighteen months now. I would have replaced her but just can’t bring myself to do it And pay full price with the current design iMac with an outdated CPU. I can’t even begin to think how hard it would be to fix. It would be like the transition from my iMac G5 (designed to be easily diagnosed and fixable) to the first intel iMac ( an absolute dog of an internal design that made it hard to even replace the PRAM battery, just like the current design). 
    So this might really be it.  A transition to the dark side. I hope Apple releases a redesign that means it is a bit user upgradable and can fix little things like the PRAM battery. Otherwise I will have to think about a painful separation.  And divorce down the track. Once my computers switch, why not my phones?
    What date are you thinking, so we can mark our calendars? In fact, why wait at all? Switch now. It will be great, and you'll be happy again. Don't you want to be happy?
    When I read “this might really be it” in his post, I actually laughed out loud. 

    Nothing gives a threat more weight than saying you might do it. 

    People in this forum have been saying they will do it, and they’re, unfortunately, still here. So I don’t hold much hope for Mr Might here leaving the platform any time soon. 

    The simple fact is that Apple hasn’t built a machine you like then you’re not their target customer. 

    So rather than wasting bandwidth threatening to leave, you should just get on with it. 
    I realise a tech forum will be biased toward "pro" machines, but considering how many people here say Apple's lineup isn't suitable for them, and with just 3 or 4 people desperately trying to defend Apple, doesn't that make you think you and Apple's Mac "strategy" (haha) might actually be wrong? Apple isn't making Macs that people want, otherwise sales wouldn't have fallen. You'd be fine buying an almost 5 year old Mac mini for the same price it was released for? Yes? Then it's quite obvious you have your head buried in the sand and are blindly obsessive over Apple.
    There are a lot of people in this forum that would defend Apple, simply not against you and your lookalikes, because... you’re just boring. Of course Apple isn’t making Macs that people want, it never did. People never wanted a Mac. People never wanted an iPhone, iPad, Watch... either. Yet here they are in millions. Go back to your Blackberry why would you wait here for Apple makes the hardware keyboard iPhone you “want”?
    I think you'll find Macs are boring, hence falling sales. How do you dismiss the falling sales? iDevice sales are irrelevant, they aren't declining. Your last sentence is illegible. 
    cgWerks
  • Reply 64 of 68
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    If the numbers prove to be accurate, maybe Mac sales are down not because consumers are waiting for new models, but because they've become so damned expensive.   I realize that Apple is never going to be a low-end supplier, but I've argued for some time now that salaries of decision-making executives at Apple are so high, they no longer have a clear perception of what "ordinary" people can afford.   And since Apple has designed the machines so that end-users can't replace the battery or upgrade storage or memory anymore, they expect people to buy machines more often, thereby substantially raising the cost of ownership.    $3200 for a MBP with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage?   Ridiculous.   $5000 for an iMacPro?   Absurd.   Especially for Chinese manufacturing.  


  • Reply 65 of 68
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    zoetmb said:
    If the numbers prove to be accurate, maybe Mac sales are down not because consumers are waiting for new models, but because they've become so damned expensive.   I realize that Apple is never going to be a low-end supplier, but I've argued for some time now that salaries of decision-making executives at Apple are so high, they no longer have a clear perception of what "ordinary" people can afford.   And since Apple has designed the machines so that end-users can't replace the battery or upgrade storage or memory anymore, they expect people to buy machines more often, thereby substantially raising the cost of ownership.    $3200 for a MBP with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage?   Ridiculous.   $5000 for an iMacPro?   Absurd.   Especially for Chinese manufacturing.  
    Thats certainly a big part of the problem. A lot of my uni friends would like Apple gear, but it's just way too expensive now. Apple bumped the price of the 2015 MBP by £400 when they introduced the 2016 model blaming currency fluctuations, but after they stabilised did the price drop? Of course not.

    Years ago in the Jobs era Macs were more expensive than PCs, but the total cost of ownership was less than a Windows PC (due to antivirus, Windows updates, third party programs, needing to get Windows fixed every 6 months etc) - plus you'd get current hardware. Now not only is the total cost of ownership of the Mac much more than a PC, Apple's also flogging outdated hardware. Windows has improved and updates and antivirus are now generally free, and it's more reliable than it used to be. Macs are of course much better quality than PCs, and macOS is a better OS than Windows. However, macOS isn't perceived to be an order of magnitude better than windows, and the quality of mid-range PCs has improved markedly. The Apple premium becomes less and less appealing as time goes on because for most people Windows 10 is good enough.

    I agree with you regarding the salaries of Apple's top brass blinding them to an average person, plus with Cook being a bean counter he does seem to be riding on the trajectory that Jobs set. He doesn't seem aware that the higher and higher prices are damping the once almost cosmic growth; growth has stalled and it's almost all down to lack of value.
    cgWerks
  • Reply 66 of 68
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    wizard69 said:
    Parts can be accessible it is simply a matter of design.    The iMac is a perfect example of design failure in that parts that should be accessible, without incurring a massive and expensive tear down, aren't.   Even the Mini could use an overhaul with an eye towards serviceability.    
    Yeah, for sure. The iMac is a perfect example. Other machines in their lineup do make more sense to go less user-serviceable (like the laptops). The argument seems to be that only a few percent of people ever do any kind of servicing or expansion. I'm not really sure that would be the case if they were easily expandable... i.e.: a little door with RAM slots in the iMac.

    On the other hand, there just isn't nearly as much stuff to service/expand now as their once was with SSD, no DVD drives, etc. A machine can now be made with little to no moving parts and super-fast external I/O, such that aside from RAM, there isn't so much to upgrade... and if machines come with reasonable RAM at the base level, and/or reasonable BTO pricing, then there isn't too much reason to do so.

    commentzilla said:
    4K screen accomplishes what exactly? You're just doubling the number of pixels you can't see and placing an unnecessary load on the GPU and battery.
    I guess because the average user doesn't realize this, and just wants more spec.

    Rayz2016 said:
    The simple fact is that Apple hasn’t built a machine you like then you’re not their target customer. 
    Apple's leadership is so poor that they can only manage to have one kind of target customer?

    entropys said:
    I don’t want to switch. I want an updated iMac that I will be as happy as I was with the three I have already had. That isn’t unreasonable. 
    To fanboys, any complaint is unreasonable.
    If it were easy to switch and be happy... I'd have been gone several years ago.
    I keep hoping Apple will get their %*$#( together one of these days again.

    mike54 said:
    ... so I don't understand why Apple, a trillion dollar company, can't keep their few PC models up to date.
    Well, that's the thing. They can, so that leaves either gross incompetence, or they actually have some reason why they aren't. And... that the iPhone is really, really important to them isn't a good reason (i.e.: the reason we hear over and over again in Mac circles).

    wonkothesane said:
    Maybe the board is following a strategic direction, maybe the current lineup simply doesn’t appeal as they did before to the consumers. 
    In one way or another a statement from SJ comes to my mind where he simply acknowledges that at the end the consumers decide with their wallet. 
    Except that there isn't a monolithic customer base where one size fits all (or even most). But, that seems kind of exactly what the new-Apple is trying to do... hit some maximization demographic to sell the ultimate gadget (or just a couple variations) at the maximum price possible. And, screw everyone else.

    That's great on paper in sheer terms of greedy corporate economics. But, it kind of sucks for a company that is supposed to be about bigger and better things. Of course they need to make a profit. I WANT them to make a healthy profit. But, I'm a bigger fan of the idea that this can be accomplished by making the best products with a bit of business sense thrown in (which I see as the SJ way).

    dewme said:
    Would resolving the so called "dearth of new products" on the Mac side compel me to run out and buy a new Mac? Not at all. My personal computing bandwidth is already over allocated. 

    Of course the means less on the business side. Perhaps that's where the "dearth" is happening. But would fixing that issue even change the numbers in the chart?  
    For a user like you, I suppose not. But, for all the users (like me) which are nearly inverse of your usage (i.e.: #1 Mac, #2 iPhone/iPad, #3, iPhone/iPad) having some good new Mac hardware would add even more sales... as I'd still buy the iPhone/iPad, but also a new Mac, which I haven't now for several years.

    Why can't they do both? Just because they are wildly successful doesn't mean they aren't screwing up in that they could be even more wildly successful if they did it right.

    spice-boy said:
    It all comes down to ego, "my pc is faster than yours" although there is little practical use for all that speed. Most things made will ultimately fail that is the only reason for me to retire my 7 year old iMac.
    I can't speak for everyone here, but it comes down to a lot more than speed. Yes, I need a reasonably powerful computer, but I have other criteria that Apple just isn't fulfilling.

    I'd like it to be headless, as I want to pick my own display and use that display with other devices.
    It needs to have at least 4 cores, 16 GB RAM, and current ports so I can add an eGPU if needed.
    It needs to be quiet and reliable.

    What should I get from the current Apple lineup?
    elijahg
  • Reply 67 of 68
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    macplusplus said:
    Of course Apple isn’t making Macs that people want, it never did. People never wanted a Mac. People never wanted an iPhone, iPad, Watch... either. Yet here they are in millions.
    What the hell are you talking about? Are you new to the platform?

    I didn't have this problem a decade ago... or two decades ago... or 1.5 decades ago. Back then, Apple did build stuff I wanted... desperately wanted, even though my budget limited me to just a few of their products at a time. I absolutely wanted an iPhone and was trying to make Palm devices kinda, sorta be like that. I totally wanted a tablet like the iPad before it came along, even though I was a bit shocked at what they pulled off and the level of refinement/technology.

    And, we never wanted a Mac? Sorry, I wasn't one of those PC guys who couldn't understand why anyone would want a mouse or GUI. I was an Apple evangelist at the time, trying to convince them otherwise.

    zoetmb said:
    If the numbers prove to be accurate, maybe Mac sales are down not because consumers are waiting for new models, but because they've become so damned expensive.   I realize that Apple is never going to be a low-end supplier, but I've argued for some time now that salaries of decision-making executives at Apple are so high, they no longer have a clear perception of what "ordinary" people can afford.   And since Apple has designed the machines so that end-users can't replace the battery or upgrade storage or memory anymore, they expect people to buy machines more often, thereby substantially raising the cost of ownership.    $3200 for a MBP with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage?   Ridiculous.   $5000 for an iMacPro?   Absurd.   Especially for Chinese manufacturing.  
    I suppose the people trying to make that argument remember (or at least heard of) a time when Apple's Macs were far more expensive than they are today. The problem is that Apple went through a quite-long period when they were somewhat reasonably priced, which has become the new expectation. In comparison to that, current Macs are quite expensive. But, not historically so.

    I think the explanation is a simple, that Apple is just playing the economics game of seeing what the maximum price is that they can pull off. But, I do think you're right that most of the Apple leadership don't have a very firm grasp of the world outside the bubble.

    elijahg said:
    I agree with you regarding the salaries of Apple's top brass blinding them to an average person, plus with Cook being a bean counter he does seem to be riding on the trajectory that Jobs set. He doesn't seem aware that the higher and higher prices are damping the once almost cosmic growth; growth has stalled and it's almost all down to lack of value.
    It's more than their salaries... the whole SF area is a bubble, in more ways than one. Even the typical Apple employee likely doesn't have a good grasp on reality outside the bubble. IMO, that is somewhat why Siri is what it is, for example not being able to do something simple like answer a phone call. If you're not driving, why does Siri have to answer a phone call? Siri is made for urban dwellers doing the coffee-shop crawl.
    elijahg
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