“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.]
