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Apple clearly doesn't care about the Mac platform and derives only a sliver of revenue from it compared to iPhone, music and app sales. Apple believes that Mac

Apple clearly doesn't care about the Mac platform and derives only a sliver of revenue from it compared to iPhone, music and app sales. Apple believes that Mac exists solely as platform to develop iOS apps.

pjmlp 10y ago
They care enough for those of us that see Mac OS X, as an operating system using Swift, Objective-C, Cocoa, drivers written in C++, Metal, playgrounds and sandboxed applications, with little or no interest to UNIX PDP-11 CLI compatibility.
newscracker 10y ago
I doubt any "additional" money spent on macOS/OS X would make a huge difference to Apple's bottom line. But it would show that Apple is serious about the platform. Money itself is not the issue, but a serious lack of management attention right from the top. Craig Federighi is a nice and funny communicator who knows software (at a deep enough level usually not expected in large corporations for someone in his position), but something is clearly missing in the entire pipeline.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > I doubt any "additional" money spent on macOS/OS X would make a huge difference to Apple's bottom line. But it would show that Apple is serious about the platform. Why should they care about it as a platform if its impact is negligible. Wouldn't one prefer to focus on the next non-negligible thing?
  - newscracker 10y ago
    > Why should they care about it as a platform if its impact is negligible. Wouldn't one prefer to focus on the next non-negligible thing? Apple should care for multiple reasons: - reputation matters - not acting like it's abandoned its roots is a positive in image building - not being shamed repeatedly, with good reason, about its attitude as well as seeming ineptitude - recruiting talent becomes easier since it's likely more people may see Apple as a decent place to work at (considering this alone in this context, for the sake of simplicity) - making the platform used to build apps for its best selling platform a lot better ought to be a no-brainer - …and many more that don't occur to me right now As I said, I don't think Apple would have to blow a significant amount of money with its finances and budgets to make this better. In my view, with the reasons stated above, Apple has more to lose with this lackadaisical attitude toward macOS/OS X and the Mac platform than just saving some money because the revenue potential is lower. I can't imagine how it'd be to be in a company that gets shamed so much and doesn't seem to want to respond or do much to alleviate matters. On a related note, Xcode also gets a lot of flak, despite the fact that it's what helps Apple make money from apps. I repeat, something seems seriously missing.
    - gaius 10y ago
      If apps and content are developed on OSX then they will be first-class citizens on iOS devices for end users. If Apple gives up on OSX to milk revenue from iOS, what happens when the hottest new apps and content are second-class citizens on iOS devices because everyone is developing/authoring on something else? Apple's long term strategy absolutely relies on OSX, if current management are taking a short term view, well it wouldn't be the first time. Only there is now now Jobs to come riding to the rescue.
umanwizard 10y ago
I'd be surprised if this is true. When I was in college (graduated three years ago) a huge share of students had Apple laptops.
- theanswerer 10y ago
  And that disproves my point how? In last quarter Apple had revenue of $42B. $24B in phone sales compared to $5B in Mac sales. iPad revenue roughly same as Mac sales. Services made up the bulk of the remaining revenue. This gives you an idea of how unimportant Mac sales are to Apple. They just need Macs for the sake of the iOS ecosystem.
  - danieldk 10y ago
    No. One of the worst spots to be in for a company is for your revenue to be dependent on one product. 'Services' is dependent on iOS/macOS (App sales, Apple Music, iTunes, etc.). Apple needs the Mac, because it's currently their only other product besides iPhone/iPad that brings in significant revenue (and not just dependent revenue). I think problems with macOS are often magnified on discussion forums. Partially, because there is a subset of the community that heavily dislikes Apple (for ideological or other reasons). Some macOS updates introduced minor bugs for my daily use, but it is an incredibly smooth ride compared to most other systems (I have used Linux on the desktop from 1994-2007 and still have a Linux machine at home for porting software, etc.).
    - newscracker 10y ago
      > Apple needs the Mac,... It's very clear from Apple's action, or rather, inaction and silence, over several years, that Apple doesn't "need" the Mac for any specific reason. It's one of those things that's there because it's there. If it were true that Apple needs the Mac, we would've seen a lot more attention paid to the platform, not just neglect that has been shamed online repeatedly for a long time. The situation is quite unfortunate, in my view.

pjmlp 10y ago

They care enough for those of us that see Mac OS X, as an operating system using Swift, Objective-C, Cocoa, drivers written in C++, Metal, playgrounds and sandboxed applications, with little or no interest to UNIX PDP-11 CLI compatibility.

newscracker 10y ago

I doubt any "additional" money spent on macOS/OS X would make a huge difference to Apple's bottom line. But it would show that Apple is serious about the platform. Money itself is not the issue, but a serious lack of management attention right from the top. Craig Federighi is a nice and funny communicator who knows software (at a deep enough level usually not expected in large corporations for someone in his position), but something is clearly missing in the entire pipeline.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> I doubt any "additional" money spent on macOS/OS X would make a huge difference to Apple's bottom line. But it would show that Apple is serious about the platform. Why should they care about it as a platform if its impact is negligible. Wouldn't one prefer to focus on the next non-negligible thing?
- newscracker 10y ago
  > Why should they care about it as a platform if its impact is negligible. Wouldn't one prefer to focus on the next non-negligible thing? Apple should care for multiple reasons: - reputation matters - not acting like it's abandoned its roots is a positive in image building - not being shamed repeatedly, with good reason, about its attitude as well as seeming ineptitude - recruiting talent becomes easier since it's likely more people may see Apple as a decent place to work at (considering this alone in this context, for the sake of simplicity) - making the platform used to build apps for its best selling platform a lot better ought to be a no-brainer - …and many more that don't occur to me right now As I said, I don't think Apple would have to blow a significant amount of money with its finances and budgets to make this better. In my view, with the reasons stated above, Apple has more to lose with this lackadaisical attitude toward macOS/OS X and the Mac platform than just saving some money because the revenue potential is lower. I can't imagine how it'd be to be in a company that gets shamed so much and doesn't seem to want to respond or do much to alleviate matters. On a related note, Xcode also gets a lot of flak, despite the fact that it's what helps Apple make money from apps. I repeat, something seems seriously missing.
  - gaius 10y ago
    If apps and content are developed on OSX then they will be first-class citizens on iOS devices for end users. If Apple gives up on OSX to milk revenue from iOS, what happens when the hottest new apps and content are second-class citizens on iOS devices because everyone is developing/authoring on something else? Apple's long term strategy absolutely relies on OSX, if current management are taking a short term view, well it wouldn't be the first time. Only there is now now Jobs to come riding to the rescue.

umanwizard 10y ago

I'd be surprised if this is true. When I was in college (graduated three years ago) a huge share of students had Apple laptops.

theanswerer 10y ago
And that disproves my point how? In last quarter Apple had revenue of $42B. $24B in phone sales compared to $5B in Mac sales. iPad revenue roughly same as Mac sales. Services made up the bulk of the remaining revenue. This gives you an idea of how unimportant Mac sales are to Apple. They just need Macs for the sake of the iOS ecosystem.
- danieldk 10y ago
  No. One of the worst spots to be in for a company is for your revenue to be dependent on one product. 'Services' is dependent on iOS/macOS (App sales, Apple Music, iTunes, etc.). Apple needs the Mac, because it's currently their only other product besides iPhone/iPad that brings in significant revenue (and not just dependent revenue). I think problems with macOS are often magnified on discussion forums. Partially, because there is a subset of the community that heavily dislikes Apple (for ideological or other reasons). Some macOS updates introduced minor bugs for my daily use, but it is an incredibly smooth ride compared to most other systems (I have used Linux on the desktop from 1994-2007 and still have a Linux machine at home for porting software, etc.).
  - newscracker 10y ago
    > Apple needs the Mac,... It's very clear from Apple's action, or rather, inaction and silence, over several years, that Apple doesn't "need" the Mac for any specific reason. It's one of those things that's there because it's there. If it were true that Apple needs the Mac, we would've seen a lot more attention paid to the platform, not just neglect that has been shamed online repeatedly for a long time. The situation is quite unfortunate, in my view.