“The Macintosh line of personal computers will soon be 32 years old,” Jean-Louis Gassée writes for Monday Note. “It has a venerable past… but what kind of future does it have in a declining market?”
“On the surface the Mac appears to be thriving. If ‘Macintosh Inc.’ were an independent company, its $22.8B in revenue for Apple’s 2016 accounting year (which ended in September) would rank 123rd on the Fortune 500 list, not far below the likes of Time Warner, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon,” Gassée writes. “But there’s more to the Mac’s future than its current good numbers. After enjoying a good time in the sun, the Mac is on the same downward slope as the rest of the PC market.”
“Instead of racing to the bottom as the market plummets, Apple appears to be taking the “high road”, in a sense: They’re taking refuge at the high end of the market by introducing new, more expensive MacBook Pros, with a visible differentiating feature, the Touch Bar,” Gassée writes. “This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.”
“In the end, iOS numbers make the decision,” Gassée writes. “For its part, Apple will stay out of the way and let customers — and developers — decide when it’s time to buy the last Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in June 2015:
What comes after the Mac is a Mac by another name – whether it be “iPad” or something else entirely or, perhaps, if iOS becomes so powerful as to negate the need for a Mac, what’s to stop Apple from not ditching a brand name they built with over three decades by simply creating an iOS-powered “Mac” (think “MacPad” or to be a bit cheeky, the “iMacBook” (the “i” denotes an iOS-powered device). (Yes, “iMac” would be problematic. We’ll leave it for Apple to sort out.)
Regardless of the actual names, the visionary Steve Jobs often clearly laid out the plan, as he did in these two quotes, fourteen years apart:
If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. — Steve Jobs, February, 1996
And so, he did just that with iPad:
When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people. I think that we’re embarked on that. Is [the next step] the iPad? Who knows? Will it happen next year or five years from now or seven years from now? Who knows? But I think we’re headed in that direction… [With iPad] you have a much more direct and intimate relationship with the Internet and media, your apps, your content. It’s like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away… I think we’re just scratching the surface on the kind of apps we can build for it. I think one can create a lot of content on the tablet… Your vision would have to be fairly short to say that these things can’t over time grow into tools that can do many things. — Steve Jobs, June, 2010
The power of the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Watch, isn’t in their names, the power is Apple software’s ease-of-use coupled with masterfully designed hardware, inside and out. Apple’s best products elicit a certain feeling – users notice a touch here, “ooh, look at that”, another touch there, “wow, that’s nice” – a coherent aura throughout that says, “This product is thoughtfully designed and carefully considered inside and out with you, the user, always foremost in mind.”
A Mac by any other name would smell as sweet.<
The total PC market may be in a slow decline, but it is nothing to sneeze at. And with fresh new Macs in the market, the Mac market will be expanding again.
“What comes after the Mac is a Mac by another name – whether it be “iPad” or something else entirely”
Because….
a) We just make sh!the up
b) you need it if we say you need it, you want it if we tell you to want it.
Reminds me of the Wesayso company from Dinosaurs.
Not! The! Mama!
How many users are in the same situation as I? I need a new Imac but I won’t buy until a new model is released.
Exactly my situation. Huge void. My phone and iPad are not enough. My iMac died, and my workflow is at a screeching halt. I’ve looked at both cheaper, older Macs and PC’s, best bet is the last iMac, but holding on till spring. Sorry- no substitute for a desktop Mac. Not yet- not for a good long while.
I have 3 mini servers, one iMac and one MBP all 2011 or 2012 models due for replacement, but the current product line is not compelling enough to make the switch. – Ha, they don’t even offer anything that can be called a server any more!
Cook wants to kill the Mac. it’s obvious and his lack of support for it speaks for itself.
He’s slowing pushing Mac users to the PC.
I have a different take. Former TV editor using Avid editing system on Mac. Now I cut social media video in FCPX and couldn’t be happier. Apple just released an FCPX update with continued inmprovements and refinded interface. The touch bar addition is excellent as I can manipulate values much quicker with a feeling of direct interaction. I used a Wacom tablet on Avid, which was excellent for speed and avoiding RSI, but the trackpad matched with gestures, along with touch bar make it redundant and slower for general work, the exception, of course being painting mattes and retouches.
Avid still has many bugs, almost 30 years after it was released. Like Adobe, they pushed people to subscription service. FCPX is a one time cost and no license activation issues, like Avid has. Avid still is tops for Hollywood, with established workflows and especially multiple editor support. However, as Avid has found, this is a relatively small market. Social media shops, ad agencies, anyone who publishes video without going to post and mix houses are smart to choose FCPX over Avid or Adobe.
Both the A’s tend to run into a lot of weird and frustrating software and hardware bugs. Much more unlikely in FCPX. FCPX’s timeline and tagging systems are much easier for average people to comprehend and execute, especially with regarding to mainting audio sync. Post production tools are excellent. Apple has designed FCPX to drive sales of Macs and in doing so, is serving the new majority of users rather than the elite. Avid is extracting money from editors that need that specific toolset and good for them.
Wow! An insightful and professional thought on the subject! Thanks for sharing!
Apple better release fresh, relevant Mac updates, especially to the crippled/beyond-stagnant Pro & Mini, or it truly will be the endgame for Macs as we all have known and loved them. I am holding off until Apple releases viable products in these two lines.
iOS will never replace OSX. Gawd………
“Your vision would have to be fairly short to say that these things can’t over time grow into tools that can do many things.”
I’ve been disappointed with the Mac a bit recently too, but realistically, there haven’t been any massive improvements in hardware that Apple has skipped over. The new hardware is fine, but not massively better than what it replaced. The problem with declining sales has really been PR, not hardware.
Without a desktop Mac, a desktop OS and X-code it will be the end, Apple putting one right between the eyes.
Come on guys.
Apple needs Mac OS X for its developers to create its iOS apps and other integrating infrastructure with the other forms of Apple hardware beyond the Mac, such as iWatch and other coming products.
That true right now. But perhaps not indefinitely.
So give it all back to Microsoft??
I agree 100% with him. The people complaining about then new Pros are not even a minority, they are insignificant. Period. Its the blogger echo-chamber that regurgitates the nonsense they come to believe by smelling each other’s farts.
There is no doubt that iOS will continue to expand and become more capable. Customers drive that funding. In purchasing they fun the arm chip development, miniaturization, battery technology, SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. See where it’s going?
Intel said they out a couple years ago. People didnt seem to listen, certainly those of you in the echo-chamber didn’t. The lack of new Intel.chips should.be the smelling salts some in that echo-chamber need to wake up.
The continual declinenin sales led Intel to make a run for it, and being quite open about it too. But echo-chamber doesn’t want to hear it . The lack of consumer demand hasn’t moved Microsoft because they are slowly moving away and looking for something else.
Apple already has that something else in iOS. Google with Android. So the end of the Mac and Windows is not the end end powerful computing. Its just not going to be done on a Windows machine or a Mac.
pros are Always a small minority…. but their opinion has a huge weight on credibilty of computing platform .
its wrong of Apple to overlook this !
its not all about dollor and cents on every product… some items are meant to be iconic of a companies prowess.
in In Apples case .. Computing. They have to offer the best of the best in every category/front .. no holes… to justify their premiums .
i hate to see increasing chatter that the best and most powerful computeing hardware are not Apple anymore.
that was not the image or the chatter a few years back.
It wasn’t until 2016 that the YoY GROWTH in sales of the Macintosh finally came to an end after something like an incredible 35 quarters.
And considering that for several of these more recent years, the Mac’s growth was outpacing Windows PC sales & gaining marketshare.
That’s hardly the warning signs of an impending “End of Life” product line.
If anything, it is the iPad which is showing more concerns, as the Mac’s quarterly revenue has outperformed the iPad for 6 of the last 8 quarters….and that’s despite just how poorly Apple has performed in serving up Mac hardware updates.
-hh
I think that’s far more a function of the slowing of Mac development and the lack of newer or more-interesting (or more-usable) Mac models. Of course, its also due to the longer upgrade cycle of such mature, capable machines (Macs AND iPads), but also partly related to a shift from usable software (iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD and Aperture), and other platform apps that stimulated loyalty to the Apple ecosystem, toward computer use mostly for email and social media by the masses, functions just as effectively managed on a 5-year old Apple machine, tablet, phablet, phone, or cheaper non-Apple device (including smart TV’s, these days).
Oh, I agree that there are many factors involved in the slowdown of Mac sales — I was merely being simplistic in pointing out MDN’s fallacy of the old “…milk it for all its worth…” mantra by showing how the Macintosh cow’s had plenty of milk and for at least the near term isn’t really at risk of drying out.
The question of why Mac sales have within the past year have stopped growing is indeed a combination of the factors you mention: the iPad as a *consumption* alternative is a big one, as is also lengthening lifecyles and an underwhelming value in the hardware, particularly in light of the shameful neglect / erosion of the Mac Ecosystem.
The last one is also particularly profound, as Apple has become complacent in having the luxury of being able to charge substantially more for Macs because their product differentiation provided their consumers sufficient value-added to rationalize it. But with the destruction of the Apple-centric ecosystem for content creators, the justification to pay more for Apple is also gone.
And finally, Apple’s stonewall of silence on this subject effectively forces the Influencers to protect themselves by transitioning to OS-agnostic workflows. The implications of this are that as soon as their older Macs they’ll move these now OS-agnostic workflows over to Windows … and while they may keep an iPhone, they’ll never come back for another $5K Mac purchase.
And as Influencers, when others ask them for IT advice, they’ll steer their colleagues, friends & relatives away from Apple as well.
That’s when I’ll be selling off the last of my Apple Stock.
-hh
Apple next Mac Pro is going to have an 80386/25 processor, 640k of RAM and and 8K display to save on power.
640k should be enough for anybody
possible evidence:
— TCook is slowly killing Mac
possible facts:
— iPad, iPhone, iXXX earn a lot of money, more than Macs
— promotion of third-party apps of Adobe (graphics and video), Microsoft (office apps)
— slowing development of propietary Apple softw (except OSs)
— non-(semi)professional environment downgraded to consumer-level iCloud-based iPad-based structure
— dissapearing of reasonable-use of any cloud-based file system
major ditto
Fair points .. but as per Apple’s Quarterly Reports, the iPad’s quarterly sales revenue has declined and has now been less than the Mac’s for 75% (6 out of the past 8) fiscal quarters.
-hh
Don’t use your facts to argue with me! This is the internet!
#hackintosh is what’s next for me
Fair points .. but as per Apple’s Quarterly Reports, the iPad’s quarterly sales revenue has declined and has now been less than the Mac’s for 75% (6 out of the past 8) fiscal quarters.
-hh
Why is everyone trying to kill the Mac?
It is making more money than ever and is far to indispensable to stop using it. Now Windows on the other hand . . . 😉
TC needs to go?? Big fat fast machines are needed for software App creation. A laptop won’t do.
I have said this before. If Mac developers are not going to be able to get beefy machines for development; What does Apple use internally for it’s computational heavy lifting???
When you see xCode running on an iPad Pro it will be time to buy your new Windows 10 or LINUX PC. How about WWDC 2017?
That would actually be welcome, and finally make the iPad a Personal Computer.
But…If we can code directly on an iPad, mandatory curation dies. Also welcome.
I own a iPad Air and two iPod Touches (and no smart phones by choice). There are three Macs in the house with the latest being a 2015 iMac with 32 GBs of RAM. In all honesty I really can’t love an operating system that is:
1. Too locked down and
2. Forces me to upgrade the OS or hassles me over and over again to do the same.
It’s for those two reasons that I can never like iOS. As such the only other iOS device that I’ll buy is an iPhone and that’s only after the 3G network is shut down and my 11 year old Nokia becomes useless. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the OS
When Apple brings out the last (user) RAM upgradeable iMac that will be the end of my association with Apple. And for the record I’ve been a Mac and Apple user since 1993. Apple doesn’t wow me any more, it’s become just another money making company (sigh).
I’ve written a lot about why Mac is important, too tired to do so again.
Only point I want to make is about iPad.
People keep saying Apple ignores iPad because iPad is SUCH A BIGGER and GROWING business than Mac. It HAS to be THAT right otherwise why ignore Mac?
FACT is iPad has declining sales for YEARS ( 8-9 straight quarters).
It has fallen to about HALF peak sales numbers.
even with massive iPad Pro effort sales are still falling.
Macs make more money than iPad.
i believe Apple ignores Mac because no one is really interested in it because it’s ‘boring’ or ‘old’ or something. Seriously.
Tim Cook does’ t lead like Jobs but works more like a manager (a COO who ‘provides tools to his managers’), he’s been described as a ‘coach’ rather than a ‘leader’. He doesn’t innovate products but asks his SVPs what they are interested in.
I think when he ASKS Ive what he wants to work on Ive isn’t very interested in building ‘simple Towers’ that pros want. I think it’s simply not interesting for him (he’s already done the great Cheese Grater , a wonderful design). he tried the more interesting Cydinder which many pros think is a failure as it’s had non upgradable GPUs etc.
Not building and upgrading certain Macs like Pro, Mini had got nothing to do with sales (msft has shipped 300 million Win 10 copies and is aiming for 1 billion. and Macs currently have 10% market share), resources (Ive is involved in Coffee Table books, Christmas trees, Fashion Galas etc. ) it’s just that the SVPs are bored with it,
btw: Mac are ALSO important for the stock (number one reason aapl is so low (if it had the PE of Google it would 300) is that investors say it’s a dangerous ONE PRODUCT iPhone company,
completely agree – and I think whoever was involved in the coffee table book should be fired – complete disconnect
As much as I hate to admit it, I think this is indeed the path being taken by Apple. The first step down this path was making the OS free. That likely was the first step in a multi-year plan that has accelerated due to the overwhelming success of the iOS platform.
So, in a way, it’s “our” fault /s.
From another viewpoint, the only communities who seem to really neeeeeeed a mac right now are those in video (hello social media!) and developers. It will be interesting to see if/how/when these could be transitioned.
I say the above as a mac mini owner. It’s 9 years old now, still working well, with both OS X and bootcamp and windows 10. 🙂