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The Macintosh line of personal computers will soon be 32 years old. 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
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. This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.
Apple’s recognition that the PC market is declining also explains why the company has been slow in updating its laptops and desktops. The iPhone, with $136B in revenue for 2016, is a much higher priority and gets more development resources. In a war, the top general puts more and better troops on the most important battle.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:10PM
First, a lot of stuff has moved onto the web. I was speaking to someone a few days ago who was complaining about IT support upgrading her computer to Windows 10. She hates the UI and only ever uses the machine for email, web browsing, and running MS Word. All of these work fine on her iPad and the end result is that now she uses the iPad instead of her laptop. She wouldn't buy a Mac, because she doesn't have a need for any of the other things that it does, any more than she uses most of the things that her Windows machine can do. This is a similar problem to Microsoft: Windows XP was good enough for most people, the only reason to upgrade is that XP won't run more modern apps or doesn't get security updates, and most people aren't willing to pay a subscription for security updates.
The other factor is the relatively short lifespan of iOS devices rather than Macs. I have a MacBook Pro that's just over three years old. I'd happily buy one with more RAM, but the latest Intel CPUs are not noticeably faster or more power efficient than the three-year-old ones. For most people, the machine that it replaced is fast enough. If I weren't using this machine for development, the 8-year-old one before that would still be fast enough. Again, this is the same problem as other PC manufacturers: new computers hit diminishing returns a while ago. In contrast, a new tablet or phone is smaller / thinner / longer battery life / has a better screen. And, best of all for Apple, they only support iOS on a device for about three years, after which it doesn't take long before new apps stop working and users have a big incentive to upgrade.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ramze on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:12PM
Bingo. If new computers aren't significantly more advanced than older models, then they've unintentionally extended the lifespan of those older models. The reason the PC market is declining is generally due to market saturation. Everyone that wanted one got one, and it's good enough. Laptops have largely become "desktop replacements" and tablets and smartphones have filled the mobile niche that laptops were too bulky/heavy for.
PCs and laptops have become more like cars -- nearly everyone that wants one has one, and most people are fine with a 10 year old model if it does what they need, but many would shell out extra for a newer one if it has significantly better features or will impress their social group.