Mac sales tripled since 2005 Amid all the ballyhoo and whoop-de-doo about Apple's resurgence being a result of the consecutive successes of the iPod and iPhone — and the promise of the iPad — one Cupertinian money-maker has been flying under the radar: Mac sales have tripled in the past five years. During the company's recently completed $15.7bn third …
The numbers really don't lie.
Apple's iPod sales dwarf their PC sales. Their PC is still an also ran. This is why the iPad was released as a variation on the iPod rather than a Mac. An oversized iPod/iPhone builds on the momentum that Apple has been building with those products. Whereas the Mac has languished in the margins for over 20 years.
Attempts to spin the numbers really don't fly.
Apple's own actions and Jobs' own remarks on the matter are also quite clear.
Some of us have compared iPad and Mac sales numbers as a way to denigrate the iPad and deflate the hype and nonsense surrounding it (ipad).
"Whereas the Mac has languished in the margins for over 20 years."
have you heard of OSX? or the move to intel? have you actually used a macbook pro?
you do realise that mac sales are rising don't you?
maybe they've realised that the future is in portable devices so that's where most of there effort goes...
When I crossed from the darkness (windows) into the light (OS X) I was adamant I'd need windows and kept both a bootcamp partition and a Parallels windows VM
Initially I used the VM quite often - my old bank, for example, had internet banking that only worked on IE6 - but I can't even tell you the last time I used either - boot camp or the VM
it was like a safety blanket that I've grown out of. But I probably wouldn't have taken the risk of OS X without it
--
actually, reading this I feel perhaps I should have started:
Hello, my name is Paul and I'm an Apple user...
With lessening Windows sales, I'd say not.
It's a nice method of transition for the unsure, but it's just a stepping stone.
Mac OS X has all the power of a UNIX / Linux system with better user-friendliness than Windows, so it's a win-win OS. Ignoring all the flaming about "proprietary" / "locked-down" devices, the actual Mac OS X is still an open source core with a value-for-money proprietary user interface.
Don't get me wrong, Windows 7 has made huge strides forward, and we've had XP virtual machines (as well as Linux / UNIX variants) for many years (for testing our products), but moving to Macs was the best move my company has made. Simplicity and power.
Oh, and yes, nothing is perfect, but the flaws I occasionally find with Apple devices are far fewer than the flaws I find on any other device.
(And in case someone puts any comments about antennas here, we've got a stack of iPads and iPhone 4s in our department that we use in "the wild" daily and extensively, and we've yet to hit an issue with any of them - I've seen issues - just not with our particular purchases).
There's little reason to run windows on mac hardware as there's cheaper and just as good options for that; apple's brand is strong but not so strong that people absolutely must have a box with an apple logo on it and then run windows on it. To be sure it's useful to be able to _also_ run windows, though it'd probably be easier to use some emulator instead of booting it "natively". But I don't think it would be worth the premium. It'd be easier to tout an ipod or iphone than to wave an ibook around.
So I think it'll be something else, but I'm not sure what. Something with the economy and a longer term investment than can be expected from wintendo kit?
It may just be that more people are cottoning onto the fact that Macs are just less hassle to run and use than Windows. I switched for several reasons, but a major one was that I was just so fed up of spending so much time maintaining Windows and the necessary security software instead of using the computer for what I wanted to do.
The switch from the 'odd' Power PC architecture (which is so 'odd', that both the Xbox and the PS3 use it in their Xenon chips) over to Intel, generally saw an increase in power consumption, heat output and an anecdotal trend towards an overall drop in reliability - especially in the small form-factor devices, where heat build-up is a major problem, and which have been Apple's core computer market for nearly a decade.
I know the G5 Powerbook I had until recently ran much cooler, for the same performance output, as a much newer Intel-chipped Macbook pro - but then, IBM always did tend to emphasize keeping the chips running cool enough to be up to doing some actual work, over Intel's tendency to quote clock speeds that can only be achieved by cooling the things in Dry ice - regardless of the fact that you can can fry an egg on one, while running on idle, under normal circumstances.
I'd guess that Apple would have retained PowerPC, if they hadn't seen their ownership of the consumer market, for that chip architecture, being wrested away from them by the console makers.
The G5 was too hot for laptop's, so they had laptop's with incredible design, yet very slow G4 CPU. Code optimization cannot really help with a poor CPU ... they had Quarz Extreme, which still kind of kicks everybody's backSide, yet the CPU arch remained the main bottleneck.
Then they switched to intel, and one could easily compare the CPU power, they have the best design, they win ... easy?
You had Windows in virtual pc on Power, which "worked" with windows nt or 2000, it was slow, but it worked.
Strictly speaking for the Asian market share gains, apart from the iPod, iPhone and iPad enthusiasm working as a propellant, every Asian I've ever spoken to on the matter have always been astonished at how much better and natural their double-byte languages look on the Mac as compared to Windows. The onscreen difference, regardless of screen resolution, is similar to the difference of laser printers as compared to dot matrix.
Windows displays single-byte languages just fine, but Asian double-byte ones very poorly. It's like they're not even trying. They apply no text smoothing whatsoever, and unless you're using large headline style font sizes, you can't even tell the difference between serif and sans serif. It's just a jagged mess.
I use Windows extensively at work, and for certain tasks at home, but for all my Asian language tasks, I only use the Mac.
Since I only ever use Linux or Apple computers, I remember being astonished when using a Windows computer in Asia for the first time, and seeing the terrible Asian fonts and awkward input system. The input system in Macs is far better than Windows (or Linux for that matter, which seems to copy the Windows method).
While Japan has a healthy mix of Apple and Windows, Korea is very-much a windows country, and most Korean-language sites don't work properly without IE. Hopefully the rising mac-related sales there can help address this issue with time...
>Their PC is still an also ran. This is why the
>iPad was released as a variation on the iPod
>rather than a Mac
The iPad was released as a variation of the iPod because it was possible to adapt iPhone apps to the iPad quite easily. If the iPad had been a variation of MacOSX, people would try to install applications not designed for the device and 99% of them would suck. That is bad user experience. That is also the problem Microsoft is facing when they try to sell Windows on tablets claiming that "it works". Yeah, but the competiiton from Cupertino are selling tablets that "really work".
It is funny how people jump to the dark strategy / conspiracy theories, when more often than not, Apple's decisions are based on sound engineering reasons.
One day, you will be right, the Mac will fall victim to some clever hack. Sadly, I have no doubt that this is true. Equally though, we've been hearting this since the low-point of Windows XP's security problems: let's say that's 2004 which is oddly coincidental with the graph shown at the top of this page. Six years later and an increase in profile and success beyond the wildest fanboi-ish dreams and it still hasn't happened. As a market, Mac users skew wealthier than PC users. They don't run anti-virus software. They don't need to know whether their firewall is running as, in 2010, it won't make any real difference. BlackHat claims that Macs can be hacked into in seconds. If that isn't a juicy "market" I don't know what is. But it doesn't happen. In 2004 maybe it was security through obscurity. That seems like a weak argument now. I'm left concluding that despite all the claims, maybe it just is a more secure system.
Hacking conventions like pwn2own prove year in and year out that there is essentially zero security on Apple products.
Why there has not been a huge wave of viruses yet, I do not know. Maybe it has happened and no one has noticed yet, because the Macs are so locked down people don't even have the ability to check what is running.
Either way, the clock is ticking.
Those contests are fairly specific, mostly focusing on web browsers, so they don't give an indication of overall (resistance to) vulnerability. Knowing something about the architecture I'd take macos X over any windows any day, simply because it does have functional compartimentalisation and therefore less in the way of completely unfixable, designed-right-into-the-fabric, security problems that are the hallmark of micros~1 software. There is more to it but this is enough illustration already.
For the record, neither mac nor windows are what I primarily use nor support in the day job.
@Bullseyed
I love the clueless who write about things they do not understand. You have never used a Mac for more than a few hours, or are just a plain iDi0t.
1. It is so much easier to see EXACTLY what is running on a Mac, just like on any other Unix flavour ... unlike Windows, where god-knows what is hiding behind svchost.
2. those hacking conventions also expose many holes in other OS's
I cannot hear the clock ticking ... ;-)
> Their PC is still an also ran.
I think the point was that Mac sales are climbing rather than falling. Not what you'd expect from an "also-ran." More of an "upstart".
True, they'll never match Dell's or HP's overall figures, but then premium salon shampoo will never match the sales of Sainsbury's own, despite the fact that they do the same job and both consist mostly of water. Apple don't play in the same market space as Dell.
Personally I suspect its the trackpad which boosted Mac laptop sales. It's a great device which makes a laptop usable on your lap. Build quality is also important. Almost all laptops look just ghastly. Sony comes closest with its top end products but they cost just as much.
Sure the ipod/phones will outstrip mac sales - there's no "network-effect" disadvantage to having a different phone from everyone else.
I'd expect to see more Macs being sold in the future. Every time an iphone/ipad/android device is sold it becomes less of a given that there will be Windows as the client to an internet server. As developers move to expecting standards-based clients, it becomes easier for those clients to co-exist with the dominant OS.
>> Their PC is still an also ran.
>
> I think the point was that Mac sales are climbing rather
> than falling. Not what you'd expect from an "also-ran."
> More of an "upstart".
It's a nice trend but it's certainly nothing to get excited about. This article is the perfect example of an attempt to OVER HYPE something. It appears to be an attempt to create a reality by distorting perception. It's much like the rest of the recent Apple hype.
It also reminds me of a lot of the media nonsense with DOS and Windows in the 80s and 90s.
At this point, given all of the rhetoric coming out of Cupertino I would be more worried about Apple's continued comittment to the platform. It's strategic direction clearly seems to be elsewhere. I am not sure I would want to push anyone into that.
Yes. Seriously. I was recommending Macs for n00bs (long before it was fashionable) but now I won't be doing that anymore.
As I remember 2005 I was advising anyone wanting to buy a Mac to wait for a while, until they went Intel, so there may be a fairly significan skew on these sales. Also, anyone who got a stop-gap Wintel/Lintel machine would be getting to the point where they were dumping them for their long waited for Mac.
And another thing: Why only Q3 sales? (Did I miss that in the article?)
"After struggling with vista for 3 years"
So what you're saying is you don't know anything about computers, and needed a giant helmet to stop you from damaging your own computing experience.
Because otherwise, if you knew anything at all about computers, you would have changed back to Windows XP after the first month of "struggling".
Gosh you make knowing nothing about computers sound like an insult. What an odd way to measure one's self worth.
Completely true. I know nothing about how windows works, and to be honest I didn't know I could have gone back to XP. And to be honest why should I have? Perhaps microsoft should have fixed vista? There's a radical idea.
I just want to be able to buy stuff online, get at information, sync my mp3 player, email friends and family and so on. Life's too short to mess about with computers. I have too many other things to do.
It's not that the iTunes Music Store refuses to do business with most Asian countries, it's that most Asian countries refuse to do business with the iTunes Music Store. Something to do with those pesky copyright laws.
I'm sure you know that Apple has to negotiate with each and every county's copyright authority for the ability to open an iTunes store in their jurisdiction. Most do, some (like Asian counties) don't.
The interesting thing is the average unit price.
For desktops, this remains relatively constant for the last 5 years (there is a blip in one quarter), but for portables it remains relatively constant *until* 2010, when it drops by around 15%.
Now, I don't follow Mac at all, but the numbers suggest that a new low-end model was released in 2010, which has driven both the increased sales and the lower AUP.
If you really want to show Apple's accent go back to 2000 when their shares were suspended, and they were on the verge of going bankrupt... I remember advising someone that if Apple got through the next 12 months they had a NeXTStep based OS that was going to enable them to produce great things for the next 10 years, and that they could be a good invenstment (d'oh! did I miss getting rich there!)
MacOSX was still in development then. While the iPod is important in end user mind share, it's MacOSX that's the engine - it made possible the shift to Intel, and 64 bit. iOS is a cut down OSX and shares much of the code. Expect iOS and MacOSX to get closer as laptops get touchscreens and iP*'s get more powerful.
Mac is the core platform, even if it made small profits - it sits in the middle of what Apple do, and is the most important even wqhen it's not in the spotlight. What to you plug your iP* into if you? Where do you do iP* development?
I switched over about 4 years ago. I like OS X's simplicity and reliability, I'm not battling with the operating system, as I was with Win XP and Vista, just being more productive. The analogy I'd use is cars, when you are young with heaps of time on your hands, you can enjoy restoring a banger, repairing old cars that you could never afford to buy brand new. But as you get older, you'd rather not spend your time on the machine, but just want to get from A to B quickly, safely and in comfort. Same for computing
I got sick of windows hanging up, and crashing, trashing hours of work. Programs that just stopped working. The constant threat of virus and malware, and the reality of it at work, when idiots merrily open all email attachments regardless of origin. Funny thing is that I still use Win XP for my CAD system run under Parallels, and guess what? Win XP is much more stable on Mac hardware.
I was visiting a customer last week and during the meeting there where two occasions when their windows laptops crashed or hung up. I was so glad that I no longer use Microsoft products, but what truly amazed me is their acceptance that their 21st Century computers crashed and hung up, they even congratulated themselves on managing to restart and "solve" the problem.
We all make choices in life, guess a lot more people are choosing a Mac. (Resale values are higher too)
"Funny thing is that I still use Win XP for my CAD system run under Parallels, and guess what? Win XP is much more stable on Mac hardware."
So what you're saying is there is and never was anything wrong with Windows, you just bought cheap and crappy hardware, then blamed everyone else for your own stupidity.
Let me guess, you had a Dell? No? Gateway then.
I mean, c'mon, guys. Is it really necessary? I know it sounds so much cooler to you than "I changed my main computing platform", but can you not see how the use of phrases like that causes the very hatred you complain about? To the rest of us, it doesn't sound cool, it marks you out as a twat.
I'm perfectly happy with my (100% stable and performant, thanks) Windows and Linux PCs. When I stop being happy with them, I shall look around for alternatives. The attitude displayed by "moved into the light" type comments guarantees absolutely that I won't be looking at Apple products at that point.
GJC
I moved into the light too (in 2006) :-)
You see, it isn't just "changing a computing platform", it's switching from endless frustration to having something that's a joy to use. When you see the light you will understand.
The hatred you feel comes either from envy or just failing to understand.
Yeah, that'll be right.
Why would I be envious? I have more than enough money to buy myself Apple products to replace all of my computers should I choose to do so. I choose not to, being perfectly happy with those I currently have, which fulfill my needs perfectly, causing me no frustration or trouble of any kind. Perhaps you were using yours wrong?
For the record, btw, I hate no-one - it's a corrosive, destructive emotion that does no good to anyone. I know others, however, who do.
GJC
"being perfectly happy with those I currently have, which fulfill my needs perfectly"
- Wow, the same thing said by countless Mac converts who used a Mac for a length of time and found that the Mac was even better than the solution they were previously "happy" with. As someone else said, you just don't get it and trying to explain it to you is a waste of time.
So, you know nothing about my business or personal computing requirements, nothing about my lifestyle, nothing about my likes or dislikes, but you're convinced a Mac will suit all these things better than my current carefully honed mix of Windows/Linux/Android, personally chosen by me to suit all of the above?
Wow. Do you have next weeks lottery numbers, too?
GJC
He's not alone in having a point, but even as someone in my sixth year of Mac use it turns me off when people try to portray the switch as something grander than finding a type of computer with which you are more happy. Even if there were some light to see, it'd surely be that there's choice and that you can think for yourself? Which is a light Geoff's already seen.
>when people try to portray the switch as something grander than finding a type of computer with which you are more happy.
The very fact that people are switching in ever greater numbers from Windows to Mac and that people switching the other way are as rare as rocking horse droppings shows that there is a "light" to be seen.
@Geoff
Since this is a common phrase used by Windows to Mac switchers (myself included over 6 years ago) maybe you should realize this is not an attempt to sound cool, but a common perception of those who have actually used both extensively. This is what the switch feels like and that is why it is described that way. The fact that you don't understand it means you're still simply toiling in "the dark" as many of us were not so long ago.
Your anti-elitism stand has become the new elitism. Apple users are so fiercely loyal because most have used the alternatives and made the choice to stick with Macs because they like them better. Most Apple haters haven't used Macs for any length of time and are arguing out of a position of ignorance on what the platform has to offer. It's like describing the color blue to a blind person. I know what blue looks like, but I can't describe it to you. You're blind and until you can see what I see describing it is a pointless exercise.
> It's odd, because when I look at the Windows market, all I see
> is countless sheep who go out and unquestioningly buy beige.
> Why do you all do that?
The usual justification for MS-DOS, is that it "runs everything". That can be a pretty compelling argument assuming that it works out. That means for any set of requirements you will find something suitable and functional.
The problem with Macs is that they trade off functionality for usability. Narrow the focus of a problem down enough and it becomes easy to solve. The problem then becomes when you want to do anything beyond that narrowly redefined version of the problem.
THAT is where the Mac fanboy herd menality comes in. It's at this point where you start to see a cultish sort of attempt to shout down dissent.
> The problem with Macs is that they trade off functionality for usability.
That is absolute rubbish typical of someone who has little or no experience of using Macs. Usability and functionality are not mutually exclusive, all though that's a commonly held view by Linux-tards like yourself used to software who's full power can only be accessed by running it from the command line with a never ending string of arcanely named options.
One of the things that make the Mac user experience so good is precisely that the OS and most of the software that runs on it is so usable and intuitive and yet still has all the functionality (or even more) that its Linux or Windows equivalents.
> Your anti-elitism stand has become the new elitism. Apple
> users are so fiercely loyal because most have used the
> alternatives and made the choice to stick with Macs because
> they like them better. Most Apple haters haven't used Macs for
> any length of time and are arguing out of a position of ignorance
> on what the platform has to offer. It's like describing the color
A minimum "buy in" of $700 certainly doesn't help that any.
You've got to be a serious gadget geek with money to burn to buy a Mac to casually play with. So generally, anyone that has a Mac will be the "converted and the faithful". So naturally that leads to very skewed observations when it comes to the platform.
Also, you have the problem of varying requirements and the likelihood that a lot of us with reason to pick Macs apart have more interesting requirements or some precise notion of how things should be done (rather than being satisifed with the choice presented).
I know what you mean: "it's not apples products, it what happens to the twats who buy them!"
If it's generally considered that only twats fly around in planes would you then take the train to Moscow instead of catching a flight?
Who cares what a bunch of twats people are when they find something better and want to tell everyone else about it. After all that's what twats do, right? You ever found anything you really like about something and wanted to tell people about it? You twat.
Forgive human nature a bit Geoff and don't be ignorant to different/new things because the messengers are unfashionable cheddar cheeses.
I suggest that if your skin is so thin, and that these phrases cause such hatred, that you see a doctor as soon as possible, he will recommend either a course of treatment or refer you to a suitable professional. If the comments in The Register effect you so much that it will sway your decision about buying a better technology platform, then you should perhaps seek help sooner. I'm not a doctor but if I was you I'd stay away from the world wide web, as there are far worse things out there than people who like Apple products.
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