Mac Sales Reportedly Hit Two-Year Low

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It looks as though the PC market isn't the only one suffering right now, Mac sales are at a two year low as well.

Analysts aren't in agreement over the rate of the slowdown, with IDC reporting a 3.4 percent decline in Mac units shipped and research firm Gartner reporting slowing growth of 1.5 percent. Both numbers point to the lowest growth rate in two years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
 
A lot of folks can do everything with a smart phone or tablet and don't need a desktop pc/mac.
 
I think we're reaching a point where most PCs are good enough for what most people do with them and they don't need to upgrade regularly. They just upgrade when they have a major hardware failure, which probably takes 5 or more years to happen in a lot of cases.
 
On top very small incremental speed upgrades, IMO the US Dollar is very high currently making products quite a bit more expensive in many parts of the world. Apple being at the extreme end of the expressive scale probably suffer more than most from this through no fault of their own really. Well, except overpricing their products to begin with.
 
Yakk said:
On top very small incremental speed upgrades, IMO the US Dollar is very high currently making products quite a bit more expensive in many parts of the world. Apple being at the extreme end of the expressive scale probably suffer more than most from this through no fault of their own really. Well, except overpricing their products to begin with.
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You guys should really read the article sometime. For the lazy ones, Apple is outperforming other manufacturers. The overall market went down 11%, Apple went down 1.5-3.5%.
 
xIronCrossx said:
You guys should really read the article sometime. For the lazy ones, Apple is outperforming other manufacturers. The overall market went down 11%, Apple went down 1.5-3.5%.
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The IDC is worse in both cases for PC and Macs than the Gartner number. Gartner counts 2 in 1s where IDC doesn't I believe and neither counts pure tablets, even x86 ones. So the numbers are not good but maybe not quite this bad. Plus a quarter with an impending launch of a new Windows tends to be off anyway. Plus free Windows 10 upgrades and longer life cycles.

However, PC makers do seem to be trying much harder these days with much more interesting devices that cheap plastic junk. Even as PCs sales have declined, there is a rise in demand for more premium devices with better margins. This quarter will be very important. With the holidays, Windows 10, new and interesting hardware like the Surface Book, it'll be important to see some bounce back otherwise it could get very ugly.

On that front, Apple doesn't seem to be pushing the envelope much these days with Macs. There's a Mac refresh coming up but no hints of much beyond than the usual spec bumps due to new CPUs. The most memorable product launch this year from Apple on the Mac side was the new MacBook. Haven't heard much about how it was doing since launch, it doesn't seemed to have wowed the crowd.
 
No surprise. The market is moving towards touch and pen based hybrids running a real OS like Windows where professional software are abundant. Macbooks are just a shiny repackaged copy of the old Sony VAIO touchpad clamshell from 1999 running a niche OS with limited software support and iPad Prosumer will end up like the Surface RT. Microsoft is going to come out the winner since the quality is even better than the industry standard Lenovo and with the benefit of having OS and driver updates direct from Microsoft.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
I think we're reaching a point where most PCs are good enough for what most people do with them and they don't need to upgrade regularly. They just upgrade when they have a major hardware failure, which probably takes 5 or more years to happen in a lot of cases.
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Yup. I buy decent enough laptops that that about describes my usage. 5 years or there abouts something major fails that is a pain to fix and I replace it.

The desktop is a bit over 5, isn't likely to fail, and has had graphics cards replaced and ram added. It's just about at the point it needs to be replaced for performance.

I'm not a bleeding edge guy anymore, but we are hitting the point where enthusiasts are approaching the same replacement schedule of casual users and businesses, and that means the innovation is minimal. Growth is going to be slow and ebb and flow. Writing article about it as if it is a shock is kind of stupid. If it were a financial news outlet, it'd make more sense as it's just a weather report saying how the wind is blowing for a segment of stocks, but... big tech new? No it's not.
 
I mean really this isn't tough to figure out.

The people who buy full on Macintosh aren't your hipsters or buying because it is popular types generally speaking. It is specific groups of people who want it for their choice in professional applications, or those with lots of disposable income. Basically largely two groups that are going to be statistically less affected by general market shifts that affect less specific or cheaper devices. I would fully expect that if you are comparing a downswing of PC's vs Mac that PC's would represent the greatest downswing, not because of any inferiority or anything silly, but because PC's cover a much larger demographic of people. You are going to naturally see more dramatic swings in a product that covers a large demographic like that where a significant portion don't need the device professionally or have far less disposable income. So, again this isn't terribly surprising or even difficult to pinpoint. Sorry fellas, no real argument to be had here on apple vs PC.
 
xIronCrossx said:
You guys should really read the article sometime. For the lazy ones, Apple is outperforming other manufacturers. The overall market went down 11%, Apple went down 1.5-3.5%.
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Yup, I read it. For Apple to even have to admit down sales on Macs is a big deal and will send their stock prices all over the place. They have more to lose than other manufactures on bad news even if they are doing better than other PC manufactures.
 
Competitive pricing would certainly help. I know cost is a big factor when a customer is looking for a new system and most people write off apple because of that.
 
mac=pc personal computer.... so if pc sales are down then so are mac's....
 
Why are they separating Apple's PCs from the others like this? It's idiotic.
 
Quix said:
Why are they separating Apple's PCs from the others like this? It's idiotic.
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Why would they separate Apple smartphones from others? It's idiotic.

Jesus. "Hurr durr Macs are 'personal computers' too! Derp!" Come on man.
 
Yakk said:
Yup, I read it. For Apple to even have to admit down sales on Macs is a big deal and will send their stock prices all over the place. They have more to lose than other manufactures on bad news even if they are doing better than other PC manufactures.
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You said they are probably doing worse than others, but they aren't based on the article. The stock price will also depend on estimations and/or projected growth, so it could actually go up rather than down. It's why some companies that post shit revenue will sometimes increase in value. Their market share actually increased.
 
I'm in the market for a new laptop. When it comes to laptops, I only purchase Macbooks. So, it's about getting the funds and the need timed right. I've moved mostly to working mobile on my iPad. So, I haven't been needing the laptop yet. If I need more intense work done, I usually move over to my PC.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
I think we're reaching a point where most PCs are good enough for what most people do with them and they don't need to upgrade regularly. They just upgrade when they have a major hardware failure, which probably takes 5 or more years to happen in a lot of cases.
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I think it's been like that since the C2D/C2Q era.
 
xIronCrossx said:
You guys should really read the article sometime. For the lazy ones, Apple is outperforming other manufacturers. The overall market went down 11%, Apple went down 1.5-3.5%.
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people read articles before they start to reply? nope not possible.
 
To be fair i know a lot of macbook pro users and they don't care if there is a marginal improvement, if its new they want it.
Why? I ask. "Because of (insert keynote speech)"
That's not very diffrent, i thought they laster for a long time with great reliability and build quality, why not wait a cycle?
(friends)" nope apple guy said to buy new macpro"
But you use your ipad like 90% of the time.
(friend) "but i need the laptop for mobile pro apps"
Like what?
(friend) "final cut, office, adobe stuff"
But you use your desktop for that.
(friend) "i only use the desktop when i need it done fast"

Why not buy a hp or dell business laptop lime my hp elitebook,it's faster, same exterior design, more ports, battery slices give you a total of 16 hours or more and the chassis is easy to open and repair.

(friend)" those brands break and wi dows sucks"

Your going to buy another laptop in 11 months anyway, it runs most of the software you mentioned and has millions of titles plus touch screen, great reviews, newest tech and cost less.

(friend) " i might buy a iring too"

There is no taking the mac out of the person, they will clic together and stay in the ecosystem because that's the club they joined. If your always buying new stuff half of the mac-vertisements dont matter, but if your stuck in the software ecosystem and have thousands tied up in services and purchases... Meh.

I myself bought a 350$ elitebook 9870m energystar and love it. Best security i have ever had, looks like an apple mac pro and is super easy to repair. I dropped a intel 730 in it for longevity and under windows 10 its stupid fast... Won't buy another one for probally 4 years. Taking this one to africa.

Little off topic
 
mi7chy said:
No surprise. The market is moving towards touch and pen based hybrids running a real OS like Windows where professional software are abundant. Macbooks are just a shiny repackaged copy of the old Sony VAIO touchpad clamshell from 1999 running a niche OS with limited software support and iPad Prosumer will end up like the Surface RT. Microsoft is going to come out the winner since the quality is even better than the industry standard Lenovo and with the benefit of having OS and driver updates direct from Microsoft.
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Hey man you have any recommendations for a phone to replace my iPhone, looking to spend around $30 and it has to be superior.
 
My 10 year old Mac Pro still runs and does it's job 24/7. As much as I would enjoy replacing it, there just isn't point. My Mac Mini is couple years old and does what it needs to do. Same with my 3770 i7 PC. Point is, stuff has gotten good enough for vast majority of people's needs.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
I think we're reaching a point where most PCs are good enough for what most people do with them and they don't need to upgrade regularly. They just upgrade when they have a major hardware failure, which probably takes 5 or more years to happen in a lot of cases.
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Yea, if you don't play games, what has been the compelling reason to upgrade over the last 5 years?


*shrug*
 
staknhalo said:
I think it's been like that since the C2D/C2Q era.
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Definitely since the dualcore-is-default era. Most usage cases are perfectly fine with the config as long as it's at least dualcore and has 4GB ram. It's really hard to go wrong with that. Most people here wouldn't say an i3 sucks. Consider that a Celeron (in most cases) is close to being an i3 with HT turned off. I use a celeron based chromebook (although upgraded to 10GB ram) as my daily driver and it's definitely good enough for browsing and video streaming.

Most people I know who are upgrading have only bothered because something broke. Not because they needed to.
 
The only thing worth upgrading is the HDD to a SSD and maybe a little more RAM. I find 6GB helps to avoid Windows update jams.
 
Yakk said:
Yup, I read it. For Apple to even have to admit down sales on Macs is a big deal and will send their stock prices all over the place. They have more to lose than other manufactures on bad news even if they are doing better than other PC manufactures.
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Apple makes most of their money on iPhones, so this will have no effect on their profits.
 
Are these correct from Apple? I know a year or two ago they combined their Tablet and Desktop together to make it look better for them before releasing the numbers to the public which was why the MAC sales soared for no apparent reason.
 
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