Too soon to tell if it’s the beginning of the end for the Mac

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/too-soon-to-tell-if-its-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-mac/2013/01/25/227b15be-66a8-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html?hpid=z9

by sonabinu • 13 years ago

19 20 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

jiggy2011• 13 years ago

Might this be partly because there are huge numbers of Mac using professionals who are holding off until the Mac Pro refresh later this year?

If the ipad is cannibalising consumer sales and new products such as the iMac with non-upgradable RAM are not appealing to the top end.

Kudos• 13 years ago

The 27" iMac has upgradeable RAM, which I discovered when buying mine over the phone from Apple.

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

I also believe that the giant marketing push for making Macs trendy is dying out. They are accepted as mainstream computing platforms now.

Maybe it's just my location or demographic (I am a college student now), but I, honest-to-god, never saw a single Mac in person my entire life until I was 14 years old (this is about when the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" ads started playing).

Now that the message has been propagated, the surge is dying down.

greghinch• 13 years ago

Macs have always had pretty good longevity, and that's been even more true for the ones produced in recent years. I usually get 5-6 years out of Mac, and even then can usually sell it for not too bad a price to someone who will surely get several more years out of it.

I would say that the likelihood that most of the growth in the Mac line in recent years has been "switchers"; now they're all enjoying a computer that can actually last you 10 years potentially, so sales of course will stagnate.

jetti• 13 years ago

"and even then can usually sell it for not too bad a price to someone who will surely get several more years out of it."

This was one of my deciding factors of jumping in and getting my first Apple computer (MBP Pro). The fact that the sticker price is so high is countered, in my eyes, by the fact that I could sell and get a decent amount of my money back. Although, I've had the laptop for about a month and I don't think I'll be selling any time soon. I would miss it too much.

StacyC• 13 years ago

For years now I have been buying refurb (from Apple) and used (Craigslist) MacBooks and MacBook Pros for my wife and kids. There are some great deals to be found. We take good care of our stuff and always get a nice resale value when it's time to replace one.

teilo2• 13 years ago

Speaking from a shop which is heavy Mac, we were at our wit's end with Apple last quarter. For the first time that I can remember, and certainly the first time in my company's history, we could not by a new iMac if we wanted to. And we dearly wanted to. We snapped up any refurbs we could, and that channel quickly dried up as well. So for us, at least, we were forced to push sales of new machines into the next quarter.

Seriously, what company does this? Cancel one product line, months before the replacement is available. It staggers the mind. Release after release we could always get the current model until the new one was ready.

In our local market at least, the demand for the new iMacs was so huge that it is only just now recovering from the supply shortage. Custom builds are still 2-3 weeks out - which we need if we want a machine with 16GB. So I am forced to purchase 8Gb models to meet our demand, knowing full well that they cannot be upgraded without voiding the warranty, and without a great deal of labor and the risk of shattering the front panel glass.

niggler2• 13 years ago

In my experience, you always have to purchase a few spare macs every time you refresh (be it iMac or MacBook Pro or Mac mini) because any nontrivial servicing will take at least a week.

teilo2• 13 years ago

Yes. Did that. But they were out for over 2 months. We used up our spares, and couldn't get new ones.

diego• 13 years ago

That is a terrible, terrible headline. Prediction without commitment. They might as well write "We have absolutely no idea where the Mac is going."

btown• 13 years ago

It's too soon to tell if "Too soon to tell if..." is the classy way of saying "I know the following statement will be linkbait but I don't care."

niggler2• 13 years ago

Washington Post tech coverage is about as sensationalist as Forbes, and that's saying something.

jemeshsu• 13 years ago

Crap article. The reason Mac has lower sale volume last quarter is Apple ended the iMac sales for more than a month while waiting for the current iMac model to launch. It blew my mind that only Apple can afford to terminate one hot selling product line for so many weeks.

igrekel• 13 years ago

I don't know about the US but around here (eastern Canada), in December and early January, there were no Macs available in stores anywhere except for some models of laptop, they were still expecting the new ones.

nestlequ1k• 13 years ago

Apple seems to forget people still have to develop all those iOS apps. Their mac lineup has been horrendously badly suited for devs. I feel like the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro 17 are regrettable casualties to their disinterest in the market.

malandrew• 13 years ago

I really don't see why a MacPro or Macbook Pro 17 are in the least bit necessary for iOS development. Developing iOS apps really doesn't require that much power, just screen real estate if you are using Interface Builder. For iOS development, the 27" iMac or any one of the Macbook Pros or Airs paired with a 27" Thunderbolt display are more than adequate for the job.

FWIW I just sold my Macbook Pro 17 inch after my new job gave me a 13" Air. After using the Air, I can't even imagine lugging around 17" anymore. The convenience of the Air paired with a large external display when necessary is perfect.

The only professionals that have a legitimate complaint about the MacPros and Macbook Pro 17 are those doing a lot of intensive video and audio work.

rcirka• 13 years ago

Well, xcode is such a memory hog that an air is impractical. With 4gb of ram, xcode runs so poorly its not worth it. With 8gb or ram, you can BARELY run xcode, don't bother have anything else open. 16gb is optimal.

I agree that MacPro or MB17 are overkill. A smaller macbook pro or mac mini with an external are good. A basic mac mini is most cost effective for only $550, plus $100 for 16gb. When my macbook pro died, I bought a mac mini and I'm very happy with it.

MaysonL• 13 years ago

However, it's quite obvious by now that the KaplanCo birdcage-liner is well past its sell-by date.

derpmaster• 13 years ago

Walking around campus I still see an endless sea of Apple products, though it's more of a fashion accessory now.

I am a pariah with my IBM Thinkpad running openbsd. When I spot the other heathens using Thinkpads we nod at each other like it's some underground secret club.

As for tablets the new google nexus tablets will be in the $99-150 range and you can manipulate the source to custom build whatever you want.

michaelpinto• 13 years ago

I'll tell you this: It's not too soon to tell if it’s the beginning of the end for the Washington Post. Their main reason reason for existence to cover Washington is being taken over by the likes of Politico. They have a good brand, but that's not enough if they want to survive.

Too soon to tell if it’s the beginning of the end for the Mac

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