“Apple finally introduced a pro-level machine, and updated its iMac line in 2017. However, many Macs, including the Mac Pro and the Mac mini, haven’t been updated in years,” David Gewirtz writes for ZDNet. “While these machines have marginal demand when compared to the iPhone, they’re certainly important to Mac users.”
“The conventional wisdom is that Apple just doesn’t have the share of mind to give these machines, compared to the behemoth that is the iPhone,” Gewirtz writes. “That said, the Mac’s revenue is far from tiny. According to interviews Apple did with analysts this summer, Apple sells $25 billion worth of Mac products each year. That’s more than McDonald’s makes (for the record the Mc made $24.6 billion compared to the Mac’s $25 billion)… Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker by unit market share did $6.7 billion in Q4, or an annualized run rate of $26.8 billion… Apple’s PC business is as good or better than the actual market share leaders in the PC business — and Apple’s PC business is merely a rounding error on its balance sheet compared to its phone business.”
“All that brings us back to the idea of spinning out the Macintosh business. I know, I know. There are lots of structural reasons why this might not be possible for Apple,” Gewirtz writes. “Would a stand-alone company on the verge of market dominance ever let its flagship top-end machine languish for five years? What about its most versatile (the Mac mini)? Would it let that machine languish, without even a processor bump, for three years? Apple went two years without updating the iMac, and that’s a top-seller. The answer to these questions is ‘of course not.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is broken.
No properly-run company can do what’s been done to the Mac – for years – and not be broken.
Apple is simply so massive and the iPhone so thoroughly blots out any and all mistakes, that, to the casual observer, the company looks to be well-managed. It is not, and the Mac – along with all of the recent software errors, poor hardware design choices, poor communication with customers, etc. – proves it.
So, yes, Apple is broken. Not irrevocably broken, not by a long shot, but some very basic things — focus, commitment, timeliness, and execution — need to be fixed.
Apple is broken like a car speeding down the highway, misfiring on a cylinder and with worn brakes. It still looks like its working just fine from the outside, but the timing is off and there’s potential for accidents. Tim Cook should correct Apple’s obvious issues or step down and allow someone to run the company who is capable of correcting these issues and who can focus singularly on Apple Inc.
There is no need to spin the Mac out into a separate company given a properly-managed, focused Apple Inc.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Yes!
Terrible idea. Stop posting these Mac spinoff articles every 6 months.
That is no solution at all.
Fix what’s broken at Apple.
Yeah, another clickbait story to prey on the anxieties and fears of masOS users. Steve Jobs said “PostPC”… which means all PC form factors designed by Apple are on the wane, spin it off and it’s dead within 5 years…
The hardware ONLY exists now to create iOS software and to run Apple’s macOS apps. Those purposes don’t require yearly refreshes. If you’re using macOS and aren’t doing the things mentioned above, you’d be well suited to switch to a platform more aligned to song what you do.
Spin off Apple Watch and make Tim Cook the singular CEO of wrist bound technologies.
Fabulous idea!
The Apple chief of the only new product released under his watch. 😉
Still no breakdown of sales numbers, though. Tsk, tsk, must be really embarrassing numbers for all the money and research they throw at the project. Otherwise, if sales were OUTSTANDING they would be shouting numbers from the rooftops.
I suspect Cook is hit with watch sales reality and simply envious of the Mac business he had nothing to do with. After seriously neglecting several Mac models for up to five years, the Apple Watch probably brings in a pittance of sales cash by comparison. Naturally follows, this is the EXACT REASON sales numbers are kept SECRET, no?
I like the idea of Cook as Apple’s fashionista CEO. Obvious that’s where his head has always been and can one day put up his own chic coffee table time. Besides, fashion is way easier and it’s way more FUN. 😄
Leave the hardcore details of engineering computing and software design/implementation to qualified individuals like … Scott Forstall! 👍🏻👏🏻🙏🏻
Actually this is not a bad idea…
MND gross exaggeration and negative personal bias. Apple mistakes are minor issues compared to the complex global scale, distribution, turnover, etc. Its growth has been phenomenal and quality remains among the best manufacturers in the world.
Why compare to a misfiring jalopy except for an arrogant self righteous narrow bias, including targeting tim cook professionally and personally.
Not fair appraisal, I’m betting Apple has a great 2018.
No, MDN is spot on. Imagine Mac sales if they built machines people really want and offered timely and yearly upgrades?
Apple has largely forsaken part of their product line that can easily stand on it’s own and grow much larger if unleashed from the mothership busy elsewhere. And be more responsive, and not go down dead ends, and listen to their customers, and listen closer to the Enterprise, etc.
Mac’s have the potential to grow exponentially but not under the current inattentive regime. Ah they love to give lip service on how important Macs are to them but it’s not reflected in the product itself, or many of the product deviations. In my opinion the Mac is not winding down, it’s only getting started.
2018 Mac sales will of course be very good, but how much better could they be? How much more satisfied would all Mac market segment customers be? How much more would Enterprise embrace the Mac knowing they were finally cared about?
Both perspectives are right to some degree.
Every corpoation even a fraction the size of Apple is messed up. Apple seems better run than the vast majority. I’m not sure you could find a management team anywhere in the world who could do a better job.
Having said that, as MDN says, just imagine where Apple could be if they got their Mac hardware act together and did a better job with software and cloud services quality control.
Realistically yes, that’s what has to happen. I hope Tim has realized that MUST happen and stop treating the Mac as a bastard child. Problem is if they have talked themselves into thinking they are already doing a great job. That way lies madness, and neglect.
No way. MDN is not only spot on but probably its best constructive critique of Apple to date. Sorry, apologist …
Do you call people you disagree with in real life names like “apologist”? That would make you a bit of a jerk in real life, in addition to being a bit of a jerk online.
A spin off company would have better focus, but it would lose software and services integration with iOS, iPhone iPad, and Apple Watch.
A better fix would be:
1) Treat Macs like valuable iPhone accessories and give them at least as much focus as the iPad and Watch get. I.e. annual upgrades at a minimum.
2) Create a user interface for Apple TV (gestures, eye tracking, voice, …) that rivals the efforts they did for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The fact that I can’t FaceTime (“RoomTime”) with my large screen, browse maps etc with the family, etc., talk to it as easily as an Amazon Echo, etc., is a massive wasted opportunity.
More thoughtful post with excellent suggestions and I agree with every one.
Bad news is you were too hasty and short sighted calling MDN out and I stand by my comments in that regard. The good news is if great suggestions went before degrading MDN excellence, I would not have been hasty with the term “apologist.”
That said, what you failed to appreciate is I did SOFTEN it and said “sorry,” before “apologist.”
Jerks simply don’t do that …
Quality vs quantity. Doesn’t the (high paying) customer want and deserve a quality product?
It’s become clear that the Mac is no longer the priority for Apple. Whether that’s right or wrong from a business standpoint is something that business analysts will have to determine, although I think the developer community is pretty much unanimous that leaving the Mac to languish is a mistake. That being said, anything that brings the Mac back to prominence is a good thing, whether it’s a change in the mindset of management, or whether it’s breaking off the Mac and making it its own company. Whatever happens, let’s hope the Mac regains its rightful place in the Apple architecture.
Spinning the Mac business unit out as separate business makes ZERO sense because the iPhone and the Mac OS are, at their cores, the same. They are linked. Changes in one affect the other and the underlying architecture and software are the same. It actually makes NO sense to separate the Mac into a separate company. The Mac and iPhone will always be too closely linked to be separated…
In that case, then the necessary solution would have to be a change in mindset by Apple upper management to make the Mac more of a priority. How likely is that to happen? If it does, then great, I’m all for it, and it sounds like from your comment, that would be the preferable solution. But if the Mac business does break off, and as a result, Macs regain prominence in the market, then that is a win, albeit a small one.
Not likely to happen at all. The Mac will die like the Apple II, and the Lisa. People will yell loudly that it’s wrong, but in the same way that I’d rather use a Mac today than an Apple II, I will prefer using whatever the “PostPC” thing is more than a Mac.
You are right. The best thing to do would be to put in place a management team that has an executive in charge of each key product line responsible for maximizing the results of their products and keeping them at the leading edge of performance. Maybe they could even have a real business unit for network products and for TV products. The fact that the same business structure that Steve Jobs created about 30 years ago is still in force shows the lethargy of the current team.
I agree with MDN that this is “broken”. But MDN’s solution seems to be to put a high fashion retail executive in charge who has done almost nothing of note since arriving at Apple, except cash gargantuan paychecks.
MacDailyNews said nothing of the sort. I’ve read all of their takes regarding Ahrendts. MDN merely states that having an accomplished CEO on deck in case of a tragedy befalling Cook (hit by a bus, private jet malfunctions, etc.) occurs is a good thing. MDN says that having a potential successor on board avoids the previous succession nightmare caused by analysts and stock manipulators as Steve was dying of cancer. They don’t proffer Ahrendts as the ultimate “solution” to Apple’s CEO problem.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
MDN has made this suggestion numerous times, touting her as a successor. She is not qualified, and more importantly has not done anything of note since joining Apple. She is the “sales VP” elevated to CEO that Steve Jobs described as the death of a good company. She should not be put anywhere near control of Apple. In reality, Apple needs an executive who understands how to put a corporate structure in place that maximizes the results of the company. This has never been done at Apple and the many recent failures are because of the absence of product accountability. Nobody is in charge of the products, except maybe Tim Cook. Everyone else is just the committee.
So little effort has gone into the Mac in recent years I wonder whether it isn’t viable to “macify” Linux and create a standalone Mac replacement line for all of us frustrated Mac users. It doesn’t have to be a copy of OS/X but it could be based on the values which underpinned the original Macintosh.
I think it’s time for something new. And not from Apple.
ElementaryOS
You’re thinking along the right lines. It’s been this way for awhile, but many want to ignore that Steve Jobs called it for “PostPC” a long time ago and Apple has been sprinting in this direction for awhile.
But instead of looking for something Maclike, many folks don’t bring ANY of the old with them, and the skills they pick up learning a new platform have benefited them well. Sure, some people don’t want to or are unable to change, but the future usually goes to those that can accept and work with and help create that future.
Totally disagree with MDN’s take. As I said here once before, it was Steve Jobs who created the mindset to ignore and marginalized the Mac. He himself is the one who had the cheese grater Mac Pro discontinued and very reluctantly agreed to even include a modular mac in the lineup, the Mac Mini. He also felt that every product that Apple sells must carry itself revenue wise; if it didn’t make a significant profit it was to be sidelined. In Steves mind, a Mac was just a truck, and in truth there just are not enough pro users to make it all that big of a revenue generator. It was Steve Jobs who said something to the effect that the Mac should be milked for all it’s worth and then move on to the next thing. And that is just what he did. He was all about the iPhone.
Now you and I could argue that there is value in nurturing the Mac in order to have a complete end to end platform that is integrated. But I really think that Steve thought the Mac was totally closed out from the enterprise and was not worth using it as an inroad to future success for Apple.
Because of the paradigm concerning the Mac’s minimal importance to Apple was left as a legacy to Tim Cook upon Steve’s death, the attitude was carried forward. Everybody at Apple were and still are reluctant to second guess Steve’s wisdom, so we have as a result the neglect of the Mac.
But, guess what, the leaders at Apple today now understand that Steve was wrong on this and are now in the process to correct this mistake. So if there is anything broken at Apple concerning the Mac, it was broken by Steve himself.
The entire Apple business model is built around the Apple ecosystem, so I think this would be a massive mistake. A spun off Mac business would slowly drift away (style wise, software, hardware, etc) and lose the Mac selling points that allow it to succeed as a $25 billion business. Separate, it would be Apple, but NOT Apple.
The Mac problems are not structural, they are managerial, and can be fixed with a managerial solution. I would argue that it may not even need that. It can be fixed with a budgetary solution. Give them more resources. More simply, things would be noticeably better if the Apple board was willing to concede the several points of extra profit margin they pick up during a product life cycle by allowing products to go stale and buy processors and main logic boards cheaper as they fall several generations behind what is current.
– Levis 501 Jeans, unchanged since launch (1980).
– Bic Cristal Ball point Pen, launched from Freedom 1931, over 100 billion sold and design untouched to this day.
– Kitchen Aid Mixer, 1937. Design still to essentially the same specs.
-Lego Bricks, made in 1958 still lock with those made today, great backward compatibility.
Some products just don’t need to be updated constantly. The upgrade cycle for computers in their heyday was crazy but now it just may be that the upgrade cycles can extend themselves. After all the basics are done for now.
Until the next revolution.
Mobile devices, soft wear products like the apple watch, that’s where the action is.
Get used to it.
If that’s true, can they also extend the lifetime of your AppleCare protection to match?
Who knows, maybe one day, but I do have to admit those Macs sure run a long long time.
Running further behind the competition, you mean.
I have two iMacs. I am not a powere user. One is 24 inch and the other bought because it was 27 inch. I am thinking of buying the 5K if i find a 4K external drive to use in it 3.0USB. These 2 iMacs replaced the none inter white 20 inch iMac (still very useful for making audio and video disks so please don separate the iMac from the rest of apple as it I’d my very easy to use HuB. Just do the PRO for our Pro. Graphic consumer. Leave the iMac to us Prosumers.
Software suggestion
Grammarly for Mac and iOS
Might make some sense considering the neglect aspects, but for the very simple fact that at long last the company is bringing the two OS together and thus will increasingly cross fertilise the hardware along with the developing software love-in. So the logic of separating their ownership, development and products at this point would be even more incompetent a decision than that even Cook could execute on the worst work day of his life.
“the company is bringing the two OS together and thus will increasingly cross fertilise the hardware along with the developing software love-in. ”
You are automatically assume that this would be a good thing for the Mac. I don’t see any evidence that it would be true, more likely the opposite.
I think the 25 b etc numbers they’re talking about are revenue numbers. By PROFIT (revenue minus expenses) Macs probably make a lot more than Lenovo etc as Macs profit margins are better.
Macs are a good business, they make something like twice the Other Products category (Apple TV, AirPods, Beats, watch etc COMBINED) and more than iPad.
Apple should take the Mac more seriously, besides profit there’s the ‘total eco system’ thing. The iMac Pro is a machine that is making many pros happy but the Mini , MacPro etc should be upgraded faster and there’s no excuse for computers being not upgraded for 4-5 years (no need to have major changes all the time but pop in faster processors, RAM, bigger SSDs etc when they become available )
there doesn’t need to be crazy number of models but every line (laptop, all in one, tower) should have entry level to pro. The Macbook Pro is a good executive laptop but a true 32 GB RAM, power GPU, expandable, Macbook ‘Truck’ is still needed.
Just because Tim Cook can’t do his job is no reason to rip Apple apart. Get rid of the problem, Tim Cook, and all is better.
Apple, this should be simple: just continue to make and keep updated Macs. Done.
I wonder if Steve Jobs have ever thought about including this in his 10yr master plan for Apple prior to his departure?
Certified Clones
Apple Corp. has an inherent snobbery against anything Macintosh, giving priority to iOS. Workers and managers look down at Mac. This attitude must be fixed before Mac products get the respect and meaningful updates that customers want.
Steve Jobs had said before the NeXT takeover: “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth – and get busy on the next great thing.”
Problem is, in order to milk a cow, you still need to feed it. Apple idiot executives locked the poor thing in a barn and forgot about it. It is a miracle that emaciated Old Bessie still produces milk given the inhumane treatment she got since 2012, the day all Mac designs went anti-user and way behind the state of the art.
Assume for a moment that you use dual 4K monitors, you already have keyboard and trackball. Go to the Apple Store and find a modern Mac.
The Mac Pro trashcan is now 4 years old, sporting Thunderbolt 2 connectors, antique processors, GPUs that were outclassed the day they were launched, and cannot receive any significant internal upgrades. The Mac Mini is even less competitive.
IMac is a non starter. Who wants uncalibrated mismatched monitors for graphics and video work?
Does any one at Apple have a clue????
It could be interesting to spin off the Mac as a wholly owned subsidiary like FileMaker. Apple stil controls it but the management team in place will be aggressive about quality and refreshing the platform. The difficult aspect would be MacOS because it shares so much code with the iPhone and iPad.
Because it worked so well for Claris. 😐
Rearranging the deck chairs was tried, over and over and over in the 1990’s, and never worked.
Now that Apple is finished with the office building business, I expect them to get back to work.
Just license the OS with tight controls.
Enterprise to H-P for Desktops and Workstations.
Multiple for consumer.
That way we can let Apple concentrate on Planet of the Apps, crappy headphones and and selling rental rap out of Angela’s Boutiques.
Couldn’t give a shit about how thin the edge is on an iMac or a MacBook. Jony should go design pants or something. A computer is a tool and form should be dictated by function- not fashion.
Really great post, DG.
“That way we can let Apple concentrate on Planet of the Apps, crappy headphones and and selling rental rap out of Angela’s Boutiques.”
That is better stated than I have ever read. It seems a gay CEO and a woman fashionista lieutenant are certainly attracted more to the areas you outlined above than running the details of the finest tech company of all time.
In other words, they are tech interlopers promoted by access and connections — having NOTHING to do with writing a single line of code. For too long tone deaf to the needs of techies, the TRUE FOUNDATION of Apple the spaceship was built on.
Their priorities seem to center around Hollywood Blvd., Rodeo Drive, Paris and teenagers posting their first selfies with iPhones wearing cool watch bands. Why they can’t do it ALL AT THE SAME TIME is simply a matter of focus and ability. I have my doubts regarding EITHER one, but fingers crossed.
“Couldn’t give a shit about how thin the edge is on an iMac or a MacBook. Jony should go design pants or something. A computer is a tool and form should be dictated by function- not fashion.”
Amen! Jony should KNOW the golden rule of industrial design, as well as, the golden rule of visual communications: “form follows function.”
Not the other way around Jony, as your forms dictate function as proven with too thin batteries or materials that NOW lose performance quickly. Also Tim, whatever your software engineers pour into the code that NOW slows performance INTENTIONALLY. Not what I expected when I bought a fully loaded SE on day one 21-months ago.
Unless I am wrong, never happened prior to iOS 10, going back to the first iPhone. This is an argument that could help the plaintiffs to prevail. As I have posted before, to temper Apple’s arrogance is more important than pocket change money paid out to plaintiffs.
Many Apple apologist defenders have opined repeatedly altruistic Apple reasons to save an iPhone from shutting down in emergency situations from a two year old degraded battery. How noble the the cause, but not the effects.
What they most miss is several factors:
The problem did not exist until recently. The batteries have never been thinner and who knows if they are the same quality as in the past. And who knows what is in the code that was NOT NEEDED in prior iOS versions. This one size fits all updates is leading to planned obsolescence. C’mon, slowing down a 21-month old state of the art small form factor iPhone, seriously?
When my recently new Jeep Renegade battery degrades over time, there are no maintenance software updates (every oil change) that purposely slow my vehicle battery down where I cannot exceed 100 mph whenever I please. Battery simply dies one day unexpectedly and I buy a new one — PERFORMANCE UNAFFECTED.
But until it dies completely the PERFORMANCE of my vehicle is NEVER SLOWED down for a nanosecond!
Unfortunately, my SE is not so lucky …
Many here don’t understand, or don’t want to face, the game plan: Mac is on the road to obsolescence. Once iOS can do everything sufficiently that a Mac can do, Macs will be eliminated. “Sufficiently” isn’t the same as everything; it is the same as “what the majority of users demand”.
macOS is not as restrictive: you can add software that doesn’t fetch profit for Apple. Users can muck with it and get themselves into trouble. iOS is closed and requires far fewer repairs. Fewer problems, more profit; any reason to question why iOS is the future and macOS is the past?
Just one problem with that – iOS still needs developers to develop apps for them, and barring some monumental change in iOS, that means developers need Macs! Developers may not comprise “the majority” of users, but they are a crucial portion of them. Which means, for now at least, Apple still needs to take care of its Mac base and not just go full guns blazing into iOS exclusivity.
And just then, you woke up …