“There’s a lot riding on the success of Apple’s latest Macs — they’re the company’s best hope to regain momentum in the PC market, even as that sector continues its decline,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “Not so long ago Apple was ignored as a PC platform because it held just 2-3 percent of the market. The popularity of the iPod and iPhone blew Mac sales out of the niche, today, while iPad sales cannibalize the PC market, the company must hope its new Macs will bring fresh momentum.”
“It remains open to question if the company’s new machines will help the company once again shrug off the general PC industry malaise,” Evans writes. “You could argue that this doesn’t matter: iPad is seizing the lead in the post-PC transition across personal and professional markets. Any cannibalization of Mac sales that is taking place is a small price to pay for Apple’s post-PC leadership position. You could argue this, but the future of post-PC isn’t a world in which people don’t have any PCs at all, but one in which most homes and offices will keep one or two computers for tasks mobile devices aren’t yet capable of handling.”
Evans writes, “Inevitably, the new Macs represent an attempt to make sure the next PC most iPad and iPhone owners invest in is a Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPhone/iPad/iPod touch users who don’t have Macs and vice versa or, most painfully, neither, are really missing out. They’re pitifully behind those of us who have iPhones and iPads and/or Macs. Only Apple offers the type of life-changing seamless syncing capabilities between all of your personal computing devices, whether they’re on your desk or in your pocket.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
I have a MBP quad i7 17″ and no plans to replace it soon. I will stick an SSD in it soon which will give another 2 years before I’ll need to consider a replacement. I will be getting an iPad Air next week to go with it and my iPhone 5.
I’m sure I am pretty typical here. I’ll still have at least one Mac for the foreseeable future as I’m not thrilled with cloud backups and I need at least 6 TB of data now which will only get bigger. I do a lot of audio work. Most likely my next Mac will be Mac Pro because if I’m going to get a new mac it might as well be most powerful as it will have to last 5 years or more. The iPad will take care of my portable needs.
As a former Windows user/developer I can testify that there is just no comparison against OS X and the Mac platform. It is truly the best there is. Period.
MDN: I agree.
I am an Apple Junkie. I need my fix daily.. no I am worse than that. I have my iPhone in my hand like every 5 minutes sometimes more. It’s crazy.
The least expensive desktop Apple system still costs over $800 (Mac Mini + KVM).
If Apple were to shave the cost further by selling a bare bones business version of the Mac mini, they’d attract more IT doofuses at offices and schools. With iWork and Mavericks now free, the price advantage of Wintel boxes disappears.
Nobody needs “doffuses” as customers, nor does anybody really want them as customers.
It’s not a sustainable business.
Just look at DELL.
iOS + Mavericks + iCloud = Computing Heaven
Shit article. Consumer (70% of computer market) Mac and PC sales are down because tablets are extending desktop useful lives. Instead of a useful life of 3-4 years, CONSUMER desktops are now 4-5 years.
Calendar 2014 should show a return to desktop sales growth (over current levels) as a greater number of units (currently in place) near, or reach, the end of their new useful life age. This effect is being influenced (positively) by a strengthening of the world economy.
That works with replacements, but what about first-time consumers who may bypass the PCs altogether, in favour of a tablet?
I am a proud owner of the (new) top of the line MBP. Do I need that much power? Nope. In fact, if my 2010 i7 MBP was not lacking in a few areas, it would probably have carried me a bit longer.
As a side note, having done much “shopping” for PC laptops for others, I now fully understand the price discrepancy. These other idiots sell Gen 3 iX chips (where X <= 5) or they sell 4th gens of those running at 1.7GHz or less.
I realize these chips are not slouches, but people think they're getting bargains and they are not. I digressed. A lot. 😛
Apple keeps the iPad 2 around for low-end business needs. Why not create an under-powered, low-end Mac mini for the business consumers whose needs are Office and a browser only.
Oh Crap! Not another one of these stupid articles again. These guys are idiots.
Just take them out and ignore them.
Selling an underpowered McMini would just be bad advertising.
If it needs to be crippled, let it be upgradable to a full-fledged McMini. Apple shouldn’t make the Performa 5200 mistake again (crippled architectures that weren’t upgradable).
I don’t think consumers have all that much money to spend at the present time and I believe the entire computer market will continue to decline except for tablets. I see too many jobs being lost where I am and I don’t expect a recovery for quite a number of years. Apple may show less of a decline than the rest of the Windows PC industry, but there will be a decline. Smartphones and tablets are good enough for most consumers.
I think Apple have to push more aggressively the development of 3D CAD design apps for this platform. Inventor, Autodesk, SpaceClaim apps should be able to run on OSX. These apps are expensive and need good hardware to be used. Thus, investing in a Mac for using them won’t be a problem. Ohhh one more thing, the MBP should have an option for 32GB RAM!!
Has the writing on this site changed? It’s not as pithy and curt as it used to be.
I was at Cisco yesterday for a technology review.
All demos except one were conducted on Mac and Keynote presentations.
We’ll, all except one. The telepresence demo was 50% Apple and 50% Microsoft showing how the TP could show keynote or Powerpont on your iPad.. And, the Microsoft demo crashed and didn’t work. Go figure.
No, really, I am not making this up. To be slightly fair it was the custom software, not windows itself. But so hard to write your own software? I will stick with Xcode thank you…