Why Are PCs Sales Growing While Mac Sales Are Crashing?

MrDeaf said:
I mean, if you want to see lack of innovation...

Apple has had this same mouse from 2015... with no model change or improvement to the courageous charging port location.

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That mouse is such a piece of shit. I remember having to use one and was absolutely mind boggled, the battery doesn't last too long and if it dies during e.g heavy use for a time sensitive project, you're fucked - out of action while you wait, as it can't charge due to the fucking usb on the base.

Oh but it takes 15 minutes for 60% they say... Tell that to a professional with a tight deadline. It has a shitty battery life to begin with, because fuck you for a 10c cheaper battery.
An MX master is a superior mouse in every way. It looks better too, charges while operating, faster, more configurable, more functionality, has a scroll wheel that doesn't give you RSI, it even has two main mouse buttons! How courageous!

They could release a one button mouse that has a 2m range, some drm hardware pairing and that needs to be returned to apple for charging - those idiots would still buy it, because muh white dysfunctional blob was shilled hard by blogs getting referal sheckels.
 
It could be because Intel has been sitting on their lazy asses and Apple doesn't think it's worth upgrading yet, but I doubt it. lol
 
Apple have painted themselves into a corner with their rigid design principles. Those cool (but now tired) looks are killing them when it comes to dealing with and integrating modern high end hardware. It's now compromise compromise compromise. I don't want that if I'm paying $2000-$5000.

They need to let Ive go. His time is past.
 
Apple changed their name from Apple Computer a while back. They straight up hate their old pro power user base and tried to shove them off pretty forcefully.

The rest is vestigial. Services are bigger than Mac sales.

Apple-revenue-profit-fiscal-Q2-2017.jpg
 
In part MACs are purchased as Appliances. They serve a specific limited purpose. I would be interested to see a study on system longevity. I have upgraded my gaming PC a couple times since I bought my MAC.

-I use my 2012 MAC-mini to check email, watch streaming programming, itunes, and rarely anything else. It works perfectly fine and I have no interest in upgrading.

-I have an office PC at home used for work. I upgrade it to be compliant with work requirements/security (about once every 4 years).

-I have a gaming dedicated Machine with Windows 10/Ubuntu dual-boot. I want to upgrade it every time a new game comes out. I do upgrade as often as I can afford.
 
OSX is a superb OS, far better than Windows for engineer usage and for dummy user usage too. But the hardware is stale and misses a lot of the big ticket capabilities. Touch screen being a big one, 2-in-1 usage, stylus, decent GPU's. I don't give a damn about gaming on my laptop really, but I do like the flexibility on the odd occasion I'm going on holiday or something.

They're clearly focusing on the iPad and iPhones so I don't think they'll cry too much about this. In which case I wish they'd just release OSX into the wild open source. I miss when my Mac was the best tool for the job and Windows I hate with a passion, but I can't justify the price when it's old hat.
 
biggles said:
Because Windows PC's are better for videogames.
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That is what has always kept me on the Microsoft/PC platform. Game support. The other factor is customizability. How often do you see extreme case mods with a Mac inside?
 
nutzo said:
Apple thinks the iPad Pro is your upgrade path.

Guess most customers don't consider that a proper upgrade.

Besides, why bother with a mac. There are plenty of pc laptops that are similar in size and weight to the mac books.
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Having a new ipad pro (work supplied), I can speak to it's ability to become a laptop replacement. (I used it exclusively for a few weeks to set myself up for travel without taking my laptop) There's a few things Apple needs to fix and I think the ipad pros actually could be a laptop replacement for a lot of people.

1) it needs a file system. You can get apps that behave like a file system -but it's hokey at best. Try to open up a visio drawing inside of a .zip file that someone emailed you. It can be done - but it'll take you a bit :)

2) iOS apps need to have full functionality as desktop counterparts. Case in point - iOS outlook versus regular outlook. Maybe not 100% functionality, but many iOS apps have some pretty basic stuff missing from them.

3) Let me use a mouse - some things just need a mouse.

If Apple could work on those three things, the amount of ipad pros they'd sell would be insane. Because then it really would be the most ultralight of ultralight laptops / lowend laptop replacement.
 
Kongar said:
If Apple could work on those three things, the amount of ipad pros they'd sell would be insane. Because then it really would be the most ultralight of ultralight laptops / lowend laptop replacement.
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When it comes to the concept of a 2 in 1 tablet obviously the main contenders today are the iPad/iPad Pro and Windows convertible tables like the Surface. I'd say the general consensus which I agree with is that the iPad makes a much better tablet mostly because of its vast tablet app ecosystem and that Windows 2 in 1 are much better at productivity. Indeed all of the weaknesses you mention about the iPad are addressed with using a desktop OS.

It'll be interesting to see where this all goes. While Apple claims they never will I'm expecting some fusion of iOS and macOS to occur, I think that's an inevitability.
 
Apple customers finally maxed out their credit cards buying and repairing shit they don't need?
 
Why? I can point out a few things:
1) Not updating the internals for several years
2)Actively....no, aggressively making the product less usable hasn't helped either. Specifically, the relentless removal of useful ports (HDMI, USB, SD card) in favor of "ports you'll always need a dongle for" (i.e. USB-C)
3) At one point, Apple were unique in design, in slimness, in battery life, in screen quality, and in build quality. That's no longer true--the PC world has caught up in terms of design, and has done so without sacrificing the user's ability to upgrade and repair it.
4) The constant upward march of prices
 
Mohonri said:
3) At one point, Apple were unique in design, in slimness, in battery life, in screen quality, and in build quality. That's no longer true--the PC world has caught up in terms of design, and has done so without sacrificing the user's ability to upgrade and repair it.
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I don't think this is universally the case. Much of the innovation in the PC world recently has been in the 2 in 1 market and those devices are notoriously glued together for the most part. However the key word is innovation. Apple hasn't come close to pushing innovation in the Mac line like PC OEMs have with 2 in 1s in some time.
 
emphy said:
A source if immense frustration for me; apple gets imitated right down to the crappy keyboards and dongles for connectivity. I wouldn't mind so much if some manufacturers did that for some of their laptops, but it's all of them doing it to nearly their entire line ups.
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This is one thing I really hate on all the "thin" laptops, the lack a physical network port. Sometimes wireless just isn't enough.
Instead they expect you to use a dongle. Of course employees loose these dongles, requiring replacement.
 
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nilepez said:
This quote confuses me, because I've read on these boards that everyone hates Windows 10. Should I trust OEMs and component manufacturers or the usual suspects on [H].


On a more serious note, I think Apple needs to get their shit together on updating Macs. CPUs need to be current and they need to update their various lines when new CPUs come out. I know I considered trying a mac and price is certainly an issue, but I'd consider trying one anyway, if they were using current hardware, but every time they're 1 or 2 generations behind on CPUs (I'll worry about other components if they ever manage to be current).
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The population of this forum is a little more tech leaning than most people. They also tend to be whiny control freaks
 
Kongar said:
Having a new ipad pro (work supplied), I can speak to it's ability to become a laptop replacement. (I used it exclusively for a few weeks to set myself up for travel without taking my laptop) There's a few things Apple needs to fix and I think the ipad pros actually could be a laptop replacement for a lot of people.

1) it needs a file system. You can get apps that behave like a file system -but it's hokey at best. Try to open up a visio drawing inside of a .zip file that someone emailed you. It can be done - but it'll take you a bit :)

2) iOS apps need to have full functionality as desktop counterparts. Case in point - iOS outlook versus regular outlook. Maybe not 100% functionality, but many iOS apps have some pretty basic stuff missing from them.

3) Let me use a mouse - some things just need a mouse.

If Apple could work on those three things, the amount of ipad pros they'd sell would be insane. Because then it really would be the most ultralight of ultralight laptops / lowend laptop replacement.
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Funny.
I already have all those on my Windows tablet, and it runs full windows applications.
Too bad it's under powered and doesn't have much storage space.
 
Not sure if much has changed since college (2001-2007) but this was the 4 paths people often took:


PC: owner
a. gets crap laptop for college > ditches it or deals with it or i fix it for beer money
b. or builds their own because mom and dad wont buy it

MACs:
a. buy an old one for $500 when its worth $50
b. or parents buy them a new one for christmas (364 days a year an atheist)

none of the above:
a. go to computer lab > try to surf pron in the corner
 
apple laptops are way, way, WAY better than any disposable piece of windows installed trash. real thinkpads havent been a thing for over a decade, there are no current laptops that have apples support or can be expected to last longer than 5 years. ill always have a windows desktop for gaming but anyone who thinks the macbook pro isnt the absolute pinnacle of laptops is seriously delusional or just poor.
 
Dick Johnson said:
Apple has never had more than 10% market share in computers. Usually less. Although Macs are quite good and widely used in certain niche areas, most people have no interest in Macs because:

High price, very poor price vs performance ratio
High repair cost, DIY repairs are much more difficult
Severely limited choices for hardware and software
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I mean lets be honest they had only 2 market segments, before Vista's(yes I know people hated it) stable(minus Audio and Video drivers) 64bit, a mainstream PC didn't have really enough resources to compete in Production workloads like in Photo/Video/Music Industries compared to the optimization of limited Hardware Mac had, Now when PC resources started to get high enough Macs became already a norm with many industries and people were taught to use tools on Macs that were limited to that platform. Now things have changed, Macs are a Fad at best with Tools changing platforms or across platforms, with the Boom in Twitch/YouTube/Gaming Production loads have started filtering to the "Arm Chair Warriors" of the Amateur Industries and hobbyists, PCs are cheaper and have the capabilities per dollar to stomp or equal a Macs power without being locked into a specific ecosystem or a bunch of BS requirements like replacing overpriced specialized hardware with only 1 vender and no right to repair being enforced. Lets be honest Macs are a grey area that exist in a legal loophole of lawsuits that should destroy a company, but perception drives the hypetrain Stockmarket that keeps putting money back in their pocket along with companion devices like the Ipod and iPhone.

When I have asked people why they use a Mac past the 2000 date I always here or get 2 responses, with an additional tag on reason,

-Professional
-Fad - because its popular

ToR - Virus Proof system

Also when I ask these people how much Marketshare does Apple currently have of all Laptops and Computers connected to the Internet most of them reply 50-80% so there is definitely an amount of ignorance

Currently MacOS only has an 8.44% percent of the actual market while Windows carries 88%

When people hear the actual figure they say its wrong or a lie, the people who except the figure usually backpedal then and say well Apple products are superior more expensive and like Ferrari or Lambo are; "Prosumer", "Exotic", "Luxury branding", "Exclusive".

Job's ConMan Marketing effect with a tad of delusion.

"High price, very poor price vs performance ratio" - This isn't really true, optimization does go a long way with limited hardware and some systems of similar performance equate to close the same price particularly on Intel X platform, but that is more due to the Dram price inflation and high cost of video cards. This will change within the next year.

"High repair cost, DIY repairs are much more difficult" - More like non-existent



"Severely limited choices for hardware and software" - Honestly Macs Optimization of limited hardware is the only reason why they can get the performance they do.
 
When the first retine macbook pros hit, they were thin, light, powerful, had decent cooling, had a killer screen and were damn nice for about $2500, and to get something similar, but likely with less GPU and worse air path for thermal management, you saved maybe $400 max by going PC. They also had easily accessible 0% 12 month financing.

It wasn't a cheap product, but it was a pretty damn good product.

Now, for something that holds the equivalent spot in the market you can still pay 2500, but you are getting the usual apple poor thermal management, the stupid touch bar taking away useful keys, and the PC equivalents are running about $800-1000 cheaper. Additionally, because the PCs are $800-1000 cheaper.

Even worse, if you are a grpahic designer or video editor, traditionally the stronger markets for apple's high end stuff, to get the fastest system for your work, you are stuck buying a near $4k laptop when what you might actually want is a workstation, and THEN you have to realize you can get something that kicks the shit out of the mac option in every conceivable way for about $1200. For about the price of the $2500 option, you can put together something that works very well for you faster, AND toss in a decent sized wacom cintique. OR if you need mobility, get a pretty powerful 2-in-1 that lets you use your laptop as a drawing tablet.

If you are video editing, a PC workstation is literally so much faster, you can either undercut the people using mac simply due to render time, or have that much more margin and make more money. Either way you will spend less time wanting to shoot yourself in the face because of the workflow a $4k laptop forces you into.
 
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orange_monster said:
apple laptops are way, way, WAY better than any disposable piece of windows installed trash. real thinkpads havent been a thing for over a decade, there are no current laptops that have apples support or can be expected to last longer than 5 years. ill always have a windows desktop for gaming but anyone who thinks the macbook pro isnt the absolute pinnacle of laptops is seriously delusional or just poor.
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Owned a 2012 RMBP. Nice laptop, but mobo shit itself in 4 years due to defective design. APple put out a silent recall that I could have gotten it for free if only I kept tabs on the lying bastards 24-7. We have a variety of macbook and MBPs for work. Our system replacement lifecycle is 5 years at this point. They are about 50-50 for making it without a full replacement at some point. The butterfly keyboards are shit and costing a lot of downtime for the units. And pro-tip. If it's throttling on day one under load, it's not going to last 5 years. It has thermal management issues.

Every dell XPS laptop I have owned has made it at LEAST 5 years. Same goes for the ones we buy for work. Build quality is excellent. The newer ones seem to be no exception.

Currently also have a high end HP. The build quality there is also excellent. At least as good as apple, possibly better than the current macbook lineup.

As for service, apple does win the retail service race IF you buy apple care. However, for business plans? Apple service is shit to the point we have an in-house certified apple repair shop so that we can get warranty work done in something resembling a reasonable amount of time. For the pc vendors, they literally send people to us and fix shit in 24 hours or less, or do hot swaps if it requires depot repair.
 
nutzo said:
Apple thinks the iPad Pro is your upgrade path.

Guess most customers don't consider that a proper upgrade.

Besides, why bother with a mac. There are plenty of pc laptops that are similar in size and weight to the mac books.
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A Mac Pro isn't a laptop. But I get the confusion as "Macbook Pro is so prolific"
Yes an Ipad Pro can't possibly be considered my upgrade path. But I think you might be right that Apple actually considers that. My Mac Pro is a Xeon W3690 6 Core 3.46-3.73ghz with 48GB of DDR3 1333 in triple channel mode. 512GB Mushkin SSD, 240GB Crucial SSD, 5TB Toshiba drive, a AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16GB, and even a LG Bluray burner for kicks, oh and I hacked in via a converter card the newer blutooth and wifi card from the ImacPro into my old MacPro as well. It's about as far as one can push a 2009 machine from Apple and is quite abit of money into a machine of its vintage. It really shows how crap the upgrade paths have been for their professional desktop users. Businesses have abandoned the Mac craze a long time ago when Mac Servers first were canceled. MacOS server dying is just going to accelerate the problem. I don't see a future for Apple computers at this rate. In reality, though MacOS itself isn't actually that bad. It's a nice GUI over a variant of BSD with some custom filesystem work at this point. Yes, they have been adding their own code to it for years as well so it's definitely its own distro by now. I don't see where it goes from here but I have noticed Apple going wait.. why is the Mac division crashing? The Macbook Pro hasn't moved in an appropriate direction but the ImacPro has. The Mac Mini is a joke and the Mac Pro is a turdburger that really does make a good garbage can. So out of the entire Mac lineup, they have 1 product up to par specwise but not pricewise. Oh I forgot to mention the future. They are going to start making their own cpu to compete with AMD and Intel. Smaks head... I remember the last time Apple thought this was a good idea. The failed Motorola G series processor experiments. Who are they kidding?
 
orange_monster said:
apple laptops are way, way, WAY better than any disposable piece of windows installed trash. real thinkpads havent been a thing for over a decade, there are no current laptops that have apples support or can be expected to last longer than 5 years. ill always have a windows desktop for gaming but anyone who thinks the macbook pro isnt the absolute pinnacle of laptops is seriously delusional or just poor.
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Lol! Good laugh.
 
I would have purchased a refreshed Mac Pro and 1-2 Mini's but they don't exist. That pushes me toward the Windows ecosystem, so when they finally release I may not be a customer. It's crazy how they neglect product lines.

My iPad is the prize of all my electronics, and it looks like they're adding Facewhatever to the new Pro model. and eliminating touch ID. That makes it far less desirable to me, so I'm glad I decked out the last revision.

The days of replacing phones every year are long gone too, just fine with my 6+. I'd like to get the SE model next if they refresh that, since I rarely do anything but make calls and check Twitter/SMS/email.
 
orange_monster said:
ill always have a windows desktop for gaming but anyone who thinks the macbook pro isnt the absolute pinnacle of laptops is seriously delusional or just poor.
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Hmmm. Considering the problem with MacBook keyboards recently I'm gonna say nope. There's really nothing special about Macbooks these days, not that they're horrible, just no where near as special as they used to be. There's a lot more innovation and options with Windows laptops/2 in 1s these days.
 
I recently went to a MicroCenter and found the most innovative thing Apple had done with their desktops was make them in a color other than silver. Apparently, Apple has recently discovered black.
 
I remember spending the day playing with a friends brand new Apple Mac back in the 80's. It was amazing. Apple did nothing with it. That's how they roll. It's like they don't know how to take the next step.

All Apple ever had going for them was revolutionary operating systems developed by Steve Jobs and nothing more. Really expensive shiny baubles to intoxicate the Apple faithful and little else. Job's is gone and Apple is a dying company despite their current financial condition. At some point the Apple bubble has to burst...
 
i refuse to believe macbook users have gotten smarter and realized the macbook is a ripoff.
 
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vegeta535 said:
You think Apple would be worth a trillion dollars right now if they followed your philosophy?
Click to expand...

Imagine Apple split into The Mac Company and The iDevices Company. Consider the resource split between those two. If The Mac Company had to stand on its own, would it be able to stay in business?
 
1_rick said:
Imagine Apple split into The Mac Company and The iDevices Company. Consider the resource split between those two. If The Mac Company had to stand on its own, would it be able to stay in business?
Click to expand...
They're the 3rd or 4th largest Desktop/Laptop MFG, so they'd stay in business.
 
Master_shake_ said:
because a mac pro that needs 7000 dongles to achieve what a mac pro used to before the garbage can form factor was chic is bullshit.
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Cmon man. You know it’s only 6382 Dongles. If yer gonna post, tell the truth and don’t exaggerate !
 
Kongar said:
Having a new ipad pro (work supplied), I can speak to it's ability to become a laptop replacement. (I used it exclusively for a few weeks to set myself up for travel without taking my laptop) There's a few things Apple needs to fix and I think the ipad pros actually could be a laptop replacement for a lot of people.

1) it needs a file system. You can get apps that behave like a file system -but it's hokey at best. Try to open up a visio drawing inside of a .zip file that someone emailed you. It can be done - but it'll take you a bit :)

2) iOS apps need to have full functionality as desktop counterparts. Case in point - iOS outlook versus regular outlook. Maybe not 100% functionality, but many iOS apps have some pretty basic stuff missing from them.

3) Let me use a mouse - some things just need a mouse.

If Apple could work on those three things, the amount of ipad pros they'd sell would be insane. Because then it really would be the most ultralight of ultralight laptops / lowend laptop replacement.
Click to expand...

Or you can buy a Surface Pro and have all of those things.
 
MavericK said:
I'm amazed that students could ever afford Apple products in the first place.
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Plenty of students are given plenty of money from their parents. Sadly due to tuition increases, university is becoming more of a rich kids club than it was in the past.
 
MrDeaf said:
I mean, if you want to see lack of innovation...

Apple has had this same mouse from 2015... with no model change or improvement to the courageous charging port location.

Click to expand...


who in the fuck thought that was a good idea?

imaging being in a room while designing that mouse and the consensus was to put the charge port on the bottom and not the front.

i imagine there was a lot of back patting going on. not one person said hurr durr what about use while charging?

they probably never heard of that concept before.
 
Master_shake_ said:
who in the fuck thought that was a good idea?

imaging being in a room while designing that mouse and the consensus was to put the charge port on the bottom and not the front.

i imagine there was a lot of back patting going on. not one person said hurr durr what about use while charging?

they probably never heard of that concept before.
Click to expand...

They probably thought we should go outside.
 
I prefer my uncourageous, several button, charge plug connects in front pc mouse.

6kIuodk.jpg
 
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