“Apple’s line of MacBook laptops is likely to show better year-over-year growth in unit sales than both the iPad and the iPhone, according to a new report from KGI,” Benjamin Mayo reports for 9to5Mac. “The analyst predicts Mac laptop unit shipments will rise between 13-16% in 2018, compared to about 7-10% for iPad and a maximum of 6% for iPhone.”
“This is primarily due to Apple planning new MacBook models and revisions from June onwards,” Mayo reports. “With the MacBook growth story healthy, KGI says that the Touch Bar MacBook Pro models are seeing a larger weighting in particular. This is good news from a financial perspective because the Touch Bar laptops are also the most expensive MacBook models in the lineup.”
“Ming-Chi Kuo reiterates his prediction of a new more-affordable MacBook Air in the pipeline for release this year,” Mayo reports. “Digitimes has previously said a new 13-inch Retina MacBook is on the way.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This new 13-inch Retina MacBook or MacBook Air tantalizes us. Depending on its physical size and weight (and whether it actually exists, of course), it could push the 12-inch MacBook out of our backpacks!
We need new MacBooks here, with 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD. But, what I really want is ability to buy minimum RAM and SSD and later buy third party RAM and SSD to install myself. But noooo, Apple knows better than us peon customers. Sometimes, maybe, but not with non user upgradeable RAM and SSDs.
Exactly, Apple loves to blow their horn on how environmentally friendly they are but they don’t let their products have longer life cycles that the older macs had because of the non-upgradable parts like ram and a SSD. This basically forces people to have to buy newer hardware more quickly than they traditionally would.
Apple I have two words for you … “Shut Up” about being so environmentally friendly when you purposefully don’t allow longer life cycles on your macs because of your greed.
This is a very interesting observation! I see your point!
We all do, and used to have that ability. Ever since Apple decided that they can make much more money (in terms of outrageous profit rate) by selling (forcing) memories and storages, to the devices they are attached to, they simply sealed shut the access to those basic DIY updates, yet making another profit by forcing us to update the device itself. This means Apple, not us, dictates what we can and cannot do, and we are siply talking about very basic DIY updates everybody else is doing. I am outraged by them doing this to us, the loyal customers, the very people who have been supporting Apple. This profit first, at all cost, approach, a typical beancounter mentality, will eventually cost Apple….unfortunately. We pay overprices, and give us opportunities to have a satisfying mind that we paid fairly, and are getting superb products to justify the price, which we used to feel back in good old days….years bygone….
Oh, one more thing. Don’t use Ming-chi Kuo to have him say that really are not quite true, and you do not want to say yourself, like pipeline stories, Apple.
… I also strongly expect there will be a dose of reality that hits iOS users. They’re using hobbled computers. Having the real, whole, complete thing is FAR more enabling of what at least professionals in the field need and want to do. Wonderful as an iPad Pro can be, it’s not good enough. It’s just a convenient adjunct.
… looks like?
My wife can’t understand why I’m not satisfied with her single-user-only iPad.
The “keyboard” I can live with, and the screen size, and the storage. Even a single USB port would be wonderful, though.
With time, I suspect there will be a melding of iOS with Mac OS capabilities whereby devices can be setup or ‘tuned’ to the user’s interests, needs and abilities. For now, we have a ‘generation gap’ between the technologies. I like both! But I’ll take my Macs over my iOS devices any day. That’s what I personally need/want.
… needs to have only 8GB RAM – that’s more than I need. 256 GB is good enough for now, but I will go for the next step up … ‘because’. I certainly WILL be going for a buff CPU, though, an i7. That’s what I abuse the worst. My 2012 model only has 4 GB – not quite enough – and a i5 – weak tea. The 512 GB option is because my current HD has nearly 256 GB already.
Plan ahead, folks.
They could grow shipments by up to 16% this year by simply including the ability to buy up to 32GB RAM and fixing the keyboard. I’m not buying a new MBP (currently have original retina MBP) until that day arrives. Then again, I just put a new battery in my 5-year-old MBP, so I’m good to go for another 2-4 years, at least.
Could the increase in shipments be largely due to the underwhelming MacBook Pro models being heavily discounted? Then everyone wonders why desktop sales are soft. Apple thinks holding prices high on Thunderbolt 2 Macs and offering 5400 rpm disc drives is good strategy. Well it is if your goal is to destroy Apple’s presence in all the personal computing arenas it used to have a technical and usability and value lead. Today the iPhone Company has abandoned creaters to cash in on its walled consumer garden. It doesn’t have the leadership to do both.
You are correct. $1000 off MacBook Pros at https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?setNs=p_PRICE_2%7c1&Ns=p_PRICE_2%7c1&ci=29069&origSearch=Macbook+pro&srtclk=sort&N=3709772171#
What are the numbers for Mac Pro shipments?