12 ms·

Mac’s share falls to five-year low

132 points by danjoc 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago
I think it's as simple as better PC's and Macs that have not really improved and are just really expensive.
- CountSessine 10y ago
  Certainly with laptops; PC laptops 4 years ago were really a cut below the macbook pro. PC laptops have improved so much in 4 years. And apple just gimped the latest mbp with a really bad keyboard and another $500 on the sticker.
alphaomegacode 10y ago
Whether this was a reflection of overall PC slowdown, I don't know but Apple execs need to make some course corrections sooner rather than later. The apparent neglect of developers with respect to some of the changes (and non-changes) in the laptop and desktop lines seems to be giving many developers pause and concern.
- gogopuppygogo 10y ago
  The Mac Pro is in such bad state that it appears it's worth just building a Hackintosh desktop to avoid buying such old hardware. I'm still running a Mid 2010 Mac Pro because the new trash can model wasn't compelling and it's since sat without upgrades since introduction.
  - xja 10y ago
    This is true, but I'd guess that having a nice Mac Pro isn't going to gain them market share. The market they're losing is probably the low end (where cost difference is higher).
    - gogopuppygogo 10y ago
      Lexus offers the LFA because it attracts enthusiasts and media to enhance the brand and to ensure the pleb models have a higher perceived value. Apple offering an extremely obsolete Mac Pro filters down from a brand standpoint, it hurts them by turning former ambassadors against them (such as myself), and by losing third party support for professional software when the customer base starts asking for alternatives because the hardware is too obsolete.
    - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
      Sure, the volume is definitely in the low end. But the cost difference has always been there, and they used to have higher market share. They're losing 2 things: 1. Exclusivity of really good hardware and software. They're still among the best in hardware, but a nice 'ultrabook' (like a Surface Book, XPS 13, or X1 Carbon) running Windows 10 is comparable to a Mac in ways that an Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP or Vista just wasn't comparable to a 2007 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5. 2. The dedication of the high end. The developers on this site are a tiny market, for certain. But we're the people our families and friends go to for computer questions (for better or for worse). The artists and especially the musicians and videographers which the Mac Pro used to attract are more trendsetters. If enough high schoolers watch their favorite Youtubers editing on their Mac Pros, and ask their uncle to look up from reading HN on his Macbook Pro to recommend a laptop, that effect can have a powerful impact on the low end.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    The 2010 Mac Pro is also very upgradeable (and fairly cheaply too). I upgraded mine from a 2.4ghz 8-core to a 3.3ghz 12-core w/ 128gb RAM, very very fast SSD, USB3, and much improved graphics card (driving five displays). The only thing it's lacking that I'd want is Thunderbolt really. Yes, newer processors are a little faster, but the main benefit of Haswell and later CPUs is much lower TDP for mostly same-ish performance. For my usage, I'm much less concerned about power usage / heat, so it doesn't effect me much.
    - carlmcqueen 10y ago
      Who do you use for upgrading it? I have one sitting around that I'd love to upgrade but always found the secondary upgrade market hard to navigate.
      - jsjohnst 10y ago
        I did it myself, buying parts mostly on Amazon, after doing a bit of research. If you want specific part numbers / buy links, let me know.
    - greedo 10y ago
      The issue with that is that eventually that Mac Pro won't support the latest versions of macOS. It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra.
      - jsjohnst 10y ago
        > It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra I honestly highly doubt that. As I indicated in my post, there's very little new instructions / capabilities in Haswell and newer cores outside TDP reductions for a general purpose OS. There's a couple new AVX instructions and some crypto instructions, but outside that, I can't think of much (admittedly I'm no expert though) that macOS would need that would warrant cutting support.
- sounds 10y ago
  One thing that Windows (somewhat famously) gets is "developers! developers! developers!" Apple has a passionate, loyal developer community. Developers who create iOS apps use OS X machines to do it. They spend almost twice as much on an OS X machine (vs. a Windows machine) to get over the barrier to entry. Apple has never made anywhere close to the same investment in their developers that their developers have made in Apple. Their mindset can be summarized as (I think): 1. iOS and OS X are "easy to develop on" (so Apple thinks) so WWDC is sufficient as far as developer relations. Lately even WWDC is an empty shell. 2. Huge software failures don't seem to touch Apple's revenue stream (e.g. Maps, iCloud, security exploits), which over time makes Apple more and more deaf to the realities of software outside their company. 3. Apple execs are "courageous" and visionary. The company has a very top-down culture.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    I think Microsoft forgot about developers for a while. The Windows 8 timeframe wasn't a great time to be a Microsoft developer. They have been recovering mindshare lately, but it's the same back and forth. It's less clear that developer mindshare even matters as much these days when the web is the real desktop platform for most software.
    - Fnoord 10y ago
      > I think Microsoft forgot about developers for a while. The Windows 8 timeframe wasn't a great time to be a Microsoft developer. Microsoft wasn't thinking much about web developers during their monopoly of Internet Explorer. Or, well, they might've had thoughts. But no love.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Depends on the developers you talk to. As someone whose Windows dev experience goes back to Windows 3.0, I was thrilled with WinRT, having Visual C++ finally catching up with C++ Builder and .NET finally going properly native as it should have been since .NET 1.0.
      - bostand 10y ago
themihai 10y ago
They are expensive and underpowered. I used to get the top of the line macbook but it's not worth it anymore. It's starts to look like the John Sculley era. If it wasn't for the pro audio support I would jump on the linux boat.
- edblarney 10y ago
  Apple prices like a luxury item: no sales etc.. But the thing is - tech is not like fashion. You can't just call it 'Gucci' and hold the plebes at bay with high prices. It's utility - so when there is less utility, people will drop apple and go elsewhere. If they want to keep luxury brand status they actually have to provide something of value.
  - dijit 10y ago
    This is an odd sentiment to hear on HN. We are usually technical people, surely we can see past "spec" as the only differentiator of two laptops. Apple are priced like a high-end business quality laptop. (except upgrades are a higher mark-up) if you compare laptops based on the quality of their build Apple laptops are quite competitive.[0] That's before you factor in little things that don't seem to make it to business line laptops even like protection against USBKiller[1] and getting BIOS firmware updates 8 years after buying a laptop.[2] It's disingenuous to compare an Apple Macbook with an Acer Aspire on things like specification without taking into account all the little things. If you haven't noticed, spec selling has thoroughly destroyed the bottom end of the laptop market, it's super difficult today to get a decent quality laptop because manufacturers are just throwing out devices with high spec and corner cuts everywhere else. I say this, as a person attempting to buy a Dell Precision 5520. I'm not an apple fanboy, but I appreciate quality. It's not a fashion label. [0] http://i.imgur.com/Gjnr0sw.png http://i.imgur.com/Gjnr0sw.png [1] http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/711745/USB-killer-2-0-Macbook-Pro-Apple-Macbook-Air http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/71174... [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518
    - edblarney 10y ago
xja 10y ago
Does this really matter? I've also felt that recent mac desktop/laptop releases have been poor. But is it really important to satisfy the masses in this market? It seems like we're in a world where most people could be quite happy with doing most things on a phone or tablet. That's not to say it isn't likely an important strategic market (after all it's the only platform you can develop iOS apps on). But having a large share of this market might not be important.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >It seems like we're in a world where most people could be quite happy with doing most things on a phone or tablet. We're not those people, though, and we do care. >That's not to say it isn't likely an important strategic market (after all it's the only platform you can develop iOS apps on). But having a large share of this market might not be important. As long as people also have jobs, it will be.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    The reason people make apps for iOS/macOS despite the small market share is because those users spend a disproportionate amount of money. As long as Apple keeps them there it doesn't matter. But, if the people who are spending money are using Apple products because they enjoy the integration across the entire product line and they become disillusioned, the whole house of cards could come tumbling down. Alternatively, if people evangelizing Apple fall in this camp and stop recommending them, that could also have adverse affects. I don't know if this will happen, but it's a risk for them for sure. In the end a killer iPhone can probably solve everything, but Mac users leaving is definitely a drag.
freehunter 10y ago
Personally I'm hopeful. I think Apple does their best work when they're on their back foot. When they get to be the market leader (however you want to define that term) they get lazy. I wouldn't like to see a repeat of their situation in 1997, but it certainly did spur some big changes.
- temp246810 10y ago
  While I would agree with you a company is the sum of its people and right now the personnel at Apple has changed just way too much. I'm not as hopeful - Apple will continue to be a behemoth, but I'm afraid the magic is gone. It may not go down the path of HP, but it will be closer to Dell in the future than to Apple at its Zenith.
zzzcpan 10y ago
This overall slowdown could be the reason why Apple made a gimmick for newcomers, i.e. the touch bar. They needed to try to boost sales.
- coldtea 10y ago
  They don't think like that. "Let's make a gimmick for newcomers". They just legitimately thought it was great and will it enough to impress people and shut them up about the late revamp of the MBP line. And it could be good, with certain provisions, but not will all the other BS coming with it. The main issue is it seems nobody at the top could see this -- and I mean see this when they said ok initially, because surely they did know the issues before launching the machine, when it got to wider testing (before that it was only small teams that had seen the whole new laptop plus strip, as it their usual modus operandi).
  - Patrick_Devine 10y ago
    If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? You can easily see how the touchbar comes across as being gimmicky. Lenovo already ditched their touch bar on the X1 Carbon (2nd generation) because it was a terrible idea. Buttons are useful, particularly for people who touch type.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? Obviously this is no argument. It basically is: If cake is so amazing why don't we eat cake or day? Cake is indeed amazing to have in moderation, but it's also not the best thing to solely eat. We could thrive on just greens and meet maybe, but we'd do worse with just cake. Standard alphanumeric keys are used far more often, and people rely on them far more than they do on function keys (common people, the 95% of users, don't use debuggers or vim). Without a great haptic feedback story that actually gives the sense of clicking it would be disaster. Plus, it would be way costlier, and just give diminishing returns (since most of the time we just want the alphanumeric keys to be just that, whereas function keys already had a double life as controller keys for sound, etc). Third, even if it was ergonomically perfect and likable, it will obviously be even more power hungry and expensive at this point.
fjarlq 10y ago
Why does StatCounter disagree? They find OS X user share currently at an all-time high of 11%: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-201612 http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-2016...
- fjarlq 10y ago
  StatCounter's answer to that question: http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps
  - mhurron 10y ago
    404
  - cpncrunch 10y ago
    My own site also shows OS X to be around 10-12%, similar to a year ago.
  - tyfon 10y ago
    This stuck out for me, but I might be wrong: Net Apps base their stats on unique visitors per site per day. ("We 'count' unique visitors to our network sites, and only count one unique visit to each network site per day.") We [StatCounter] base our stats on page views So if an os x user read more pages than a linux user on a specific site, that same user will have more "weight" in the statcounter analysis. Basically.. different methods that actually measures different things.
eridius 10y ago
PSA: This "news" comes courtesy of a company called Net Applications, which I've never heard of before. Looks like they're a web analytics firm. So take this with a huge grain of salt, because they can't actually see real user share, all they can see is the share of people who browse to their clients' sites.
- news_to_me 10y ago
  Hmm yeah, for some reason I conflated them with NetApp, the storage company. Glad I double-checked – I haven't heard of Net Applications either.
- bitflipman 10y ago
  So what would be the best way to estimate OS market share? Stopping short from including household OS usage in worldwide census?
  - eridius 10y ago
    I'm not sure, but you could start by asking someone who's in a position to observe a much larger portion of internet usage. For example, I bet CloudFlare could collect some interesting statistics.
    - CamelCaseName 10y ago
      While CloudFlare would be a much better source, I think it's not so bad to compare a large number of sites, with their previous selves.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
  And it's being covered by ComputerWorld. Say no more. Thanks to "free" industry-supported publications like this -- designed to make non-technical management feel good about following the Microsoft/Cisco/Oracle status quo -- my efforts to integrate Linux into my company's operations in the 90's was very frustrating.
- tyingq 10y ago
vijucat 10y ago
Also see the relative growth of /r/buildapc vs. /r/apple: http://redditmetrics.com/r/buildapc#compare=apple http://redditmetrics.com/r/buildapc#compare=apple (click on Total Subscribers). March 2013 was the crossover point. I'm trying to compare Apple on it's own turf here (tapping into the enthusiasm of retail / consumer folks). That's a lot of mindshare lost, IMHO, by defining themselves as the "Bose of computer hardware". Important mindshare at that: young people. Once these young folks struggle with BSODs, fiddling with BIOS settings, NVidia drivers, screwdrivers and thermal paste, and get a rig up and running, it becomes an addiction. I find it ironic that it is the very opposite of what Apple offers, a trouble-free "It just works" experience, that is the appealing factor of /r/buildapc. The one thing they should have learned from Steve is: everything has a context; it's OK to change your opinion.
- akgerber 10y ago
  I'm not sure I believe your assertion that building a PC makes people love it for life— I built a PC in high school, then switched over to a Macbook for college and haven't looked back. Now that fiddling with computers is my job, it's less appealing as a hobby.
  - electic 10y ago
    Agree. I used to build PCs as well. I even had a review site that received 2MM uniques a month and manufacturers would send me motherboards and top end video cards, for free, to review. I loved making PCs but would I trade my Macbook Pro and go back to a PC/Windows setup, no. I don't imagine anyone would want to go thru that. Getting a case, fiddling with screws, power supplies, Video Card, and CPUs. Even worse, it is highly error prone. Do something wrong and POOF that 800 dollar CPU you bought is toast.
    - quickben 10y ago
      Arguably, you a trading the chance to lose 800 with a guaranteed loss of around that much, just by paying the Apple premium.
innocentoldguy 10y ago
I can understand the fall, since I myself am torn or the subject. I am a huge fan of Apple laptops for two reasons: 1. I can do all my development on the same Unix environment I run Adobe and various DAWs on. 2. Apple's trackpads. Having said that, I've been considering a move back to my previous two-laptop setup; one Linux machine for development and general use, and one Windows machine (shudder) for Adobe and DAWs. I can get a PC with the same specs or better than a Mac, with memory capacities up to 32GB of RAM (twice what Apple offers), for around $1,000.00 less. I could also solve the problem of the vanishing hardware (e.g. ports, Esc key, etc.) by going this route. However, I still like macOS a million times more than I like Windows. I'm not ready to switch yet, but I'm thinking about it. If Apple continues to neglect their Mac line, and fail to offer specs comparable to their competitors, my thoughts may turn into action. I imagine others are feeling the same way.
jameslk 10y ago
I keeping hearing the narrative from this crowd that the MBP is on its way out of being in vogue for developers, but I don't buy it at all. First of all, this is market share up to the release of the new MBP. It's not surprising that their market share has been slipping given that up to this point they haven't released a significant update to the MBP since 2013. But getting to the point, the Mac ecosystem is now ingrained into open source development. Believe me I used to use a PC not too long ago and nothing would work because OS software is designed to run on top of a NIX environment. I recently had to go through this exercise with a colleague who was in denial. But over time, it ends up the same: software built to run on Linux servers runs best under an environment that is designed more like Linux. He now owns a MBP. So Windows is out (for non .NET devs). That leaves us with what, Linux itself as the OS? Anyone who suggests doing this either hasn't done it before or has way too much time on their hands. I use macOS because I don't have time to hunt for drivers, trying to understand an obscure error discussed in a long forum thread or having all my software no longer work just because I updated a package. I've already tried that twice once with Gentoo and then with Ubuntu years later hoping it would be different. I know plenty of others who have as well. Ultimately we have jobs and we need to debug our own software. Which brings us back to the Mac. I fully expect this release to be their Windows 8 moment, a beta event from which they will recover from given time for hardware to catch up. Not every release can be a stellar event. Give it time.
- sn0v 10y ago
  Agreed. If the rumored terraced batteries (that couldn't make it in time for this year's release) come through, coupled with ostensible efficiency improvements in the next gen of processors, GPUs etc, we might be able to reach that hallowed 10 hour mark again. Well, that and hopefully there's a price drop with the second gen of touchbar MacBooks (not holding my breath there)
- derefr 10y ago
  > I used to use a PC not too long ago and nothing would work Was this before or after the Windows 10 WSL environment was released? I think that has done a lot to change developers' views on doing ＊NIX development on Windows.
davidf18 10y ago
IBM for one is converting their laptops to mostly Macs, claiming to calls to support is way down compared with users of PCs (e.g., look at total cost of ownership -- TCO). IBM has software which helps to deploy Macs in the Enterprise. The integration of Macs/ Mac OS with the iPhone / iPad eco-system is helpful as well. I use iMessage a lot on my Mac. For those that need it, tech support is readily available in Apple stores.
- Someone1234 10y ago
  IBM is selling enterprise Apple support, them claiming that the TCO is lower is like a car salesman telling you the TCO of their specific brand of vehicle is lower. Take it with a huge grain of salt. IBM has a vested interest in pushing Mac enterprise adoption.
codeddesign 10y ago
Oh please...this is like saying google shares fell. It's not like there is a new competitor that entered the marketplace or that mass mac users are jumping ship like a mass exodos for windows or Linux. It's because they haven't launched an iPod or iPhone. But I guess people gotta write to get those clicks these days..

132 points by danjoc 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago

I think it's as simple as better PC's and Macs that have not really improved and are just really expensive.

CountSessine 10y ago
Certainly with laptops; PC laptops 4 years ago were really a cut below the macbook pro. PC laptops have improved so much in 4 years. And apple just gimped the latest mbp with a really bad keyboard and another $500 on the sticker.

alphaomegacode 10y ago

Whether this was a reflection of overall PC slowdown, I don't know but Apple execs need to make some course corrections sooner rather than later. The apparent neglect of developers with respect to some of the changes (and non-changes) in the laptop and desktop lines seems to be giving many developers pause and concern.

gogopuppygogo 10y ago
The Mac Pro is in such bad state that it appears it's worth just building a Hackintosh desktop to avoid buying such old hardware. I'm still running a Mid 2010 Mac Pro because the new trash can model wasn't compelling and it's since sat without upgrades since introduction.
- xja 10y ago
  This is true, but I'd guess that having a nice Mac Pro isn't going to gain them market share. The market they're losing is probably the low end (where cost difference is higher).
  - gogopuppygogo 10y ago
    Lexus offers the LFA because it attracts enthusiasts and media to enhance the brand and to ensure the pleb models have a higher perceived value. Apple offering an extremely obsolete Mac Pro filters down from a brand standpoint, it hurts them by turning former ambassadors against them (such as myself), and by losing third party support for professional software when the customer base starts asking for alternatives because the hardware is too obsolete.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    Sure, the volume is definitely in the low end. But the cost difference has always been there, and they used to have higher market share. They're losing 2 things: 1. Exclusivity of really good hardware and software. They're still among the best in hardware, but a nice 'ultrabook' (like a Surface Book, XPS 13, or X1 Carbon) running Windows 10 is comparable to a Mac in ways that an Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP or Vista just wasn't comparable to a 2007 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5. 2. The dedication of the high end. The developers on this site are a tiny market, for certain. But we're the people our families and friends go to for computer questions (for better or for worse). The artists and especially the musicians and videographers which the Mac Pro used to attract are more trendsetters. If enough high schoolers watch their favorite Youtubers editing on their Mac Pros, and ask their uncle to look up from reading HN on his Macbook Pro to recommend a laptop, that effect can have a powerful impact on the low end.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  The 2010 Mac Pro is also very upgradeable (and fairly cheaply too). I upgraded mine from a 2.4ghz 8-core to a 3.3ghz 12-core w/ 128gb RAM, very very fast SSD, USB3, and much improved graphics card (driving five displays). The only thing it's lacking that I'd want is Thunderbolt really. Yes, newer processors are a little faster, but the main benefit of Haswell and later CPUs is much lower TDP for mostly same-ish performance. For my usage, I'm much less concerned about power usage / heat, so it doesn't effect me much.
  - carlmcqueen 10y ago
    Who do you use for upgrading it? I have one sitting around that I'd love to upgrade but always found the secondary upgrade market hard to navigate.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      I did it myself, buying parts mostly on Amazon, after doing a bit of research. If you want specific part numbers / buy links, let me know.
  - greedo 10y ago
    The issue with that is that eventually that Mac Pro won't support the latest versions of macOS. It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      > It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra I honestly highly doubt that. As I indicated in my post, there's very little new instructions / capabilities in Haswell and newer cores outside TDP reductions for a general purpose OS. There's a couple new AVX instructions and some crypto instructions, but outside that, I can't think of much (admittedly I'm no expert though) that macOS would need that would warrant cutting support.
sounds 10y ago
One thing that Windows (somewhat famously) gets is "developers! developers! developers!" Apple has a passionate, loyal developer community. Developers who create iOS apps use OS X machines to do it. They spend almost twice as much on an OS X machine (vs. a Windows machine) to get over the barrier to entry. Apple has never made anywhere close to the same investment in their developers that their developers have made in Apple. Their mindset can be summarized as (I think): 1. iOS and OS X are "easy to develop on" (so Apple thinks) so WWDC is sufficient as far as developer relations. Lately even WWDC is an empty shell. 2. Huge software failures don't seem to touch Apple's revenue stream (e.g. Maps, iCloud, security exploits), which over time makes Apple more and more deaf to the realities of software outside their company. 3. Apple execs are "courageous" and visionary. The company has a very top-down culture.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I think Microsoft forgot about developers for a while. The Windows 8 timeframe wasn't a great time to be a Microsoft developer. They have been recovering mindshare lately, but it's the same back and forth. It's less clear that developer mindshare even matters as much these days when the web is the real desktop platform for most software.
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    > I think Microsoft forgot about developers for a while. The Windows 8 timeframe wasn't a great time to be a Microsoft developer. Microsoft wasn't thinking much about web developers during their monopoly of Internet Explorer. Or, well, they might've had thoughts. But no love.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Depends on the developers you talk to. As someone whose Windows dev experience goes back to Windows 3.0, I was thrilled with WinRT, having Visual C++ finally catching up with C++ Builder and .NET finally going properly native as it should have been since .NET 1.0.
    - bostand 10y ago

themihai 10y ago

They are expensive and underpowered. I used to get the top of the line macbook but it's not worth it anymore. It's starts to look like the John Sculley era. If it wasn't for the pro audio support I would jump on the linux boat.

edblarney 10y ago
Apple prices like a luxury item: no sales etc.. But the thing is - tech is not like fashion. You can't just call it 'Gucci' and hold the plebes at bay with high prices. It's utility - so when there is less utility, people will drop apple and go elsewhere. If they want to keep luxury brand status they actually have to provide something of value.
- dijit 10y ago
  This is an odd sentiment to hear on HN. We are usually technical people, surely we can see past "spec" as the only differentiator of two laptops. Apple are priced like a high-end business quality laptop. (except upgrades are a higher mark-up) if you compare laptops based on the quality of their build Apple laptops are quite competitive.[0] That's before you factor in little things that don't seem to make it to business line laptops even like protection against USBKiller[1] and getting BIOS firmware updates 8 years after buying a laptop.[2] It's disingenuous to compare an Apple Macbook with an Acer Aspire on things like specification without taking into account all the little things. If you haven't noticed, spec selling has thoroughly destroyed the bottom end of the laptop market, it's super difficult today to get a decent quality laptop because manufacturers are just throwing out devices with high spec and corner cuts everywhere else. I say this, as a person attempting to buy a Dell Precision 5520. I'm not an apple fanboy, but I appreciate quality. It's not a fashion label. [0] http://i.imgur.com/Gjnr0sw.png http://i.imgur.com/Gjnr0sw.png [1] http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/711745/USB-killer-2-0-Macbook-Pro-Apple-Macbook-Air http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/71174... [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518
  - edblarney 10y ago

xja 10y ago

Does this really matter? I've also felt that recent mac desktop/laptop releases have been poor. But is it really important to satisfy the masses in this market? It seems like we're in a world where most people could be quite happy with doing most things on a phone or tablet. That's not to say it isn't likely an important strategic market (after all it's the only platform you can develop iOS apps on). But having a large share of this market might not be important.

coldtea 10y ago
>It seems like we're in a world where most people could be quite happy with doing most things on a phone or tablet. We're not those people, though, and we do care. >That's not to say it isn't likely an important strategic market (after all it's the only platform you can develop iOS apps on). But having a large share of this market might not be important. As long as people also have jobs, it will be.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  The reason people make apps for iOS/macOS despite the small market share is because those users spend a disproportionate amount of money. As long as Apple keeps them there it doesn't matter. But, if the people who are spending money are using Apple products because they enjoy the integration across the entire product line and they become disillusioned, the whole house of cards could come tumbling down. Alternatively, if people evangelizing Apple fall in this camp and stop recommending them, that could also have adverse affects. I don't know if this will happen, but it's a risk for them for sure. In the end a killer iPhone can probably solve everything, but Mac users leaving is definitely a drag.

freehunter 10y ago

Personally I'm hopeful. I think Apple does their best work when they're on their back foot. When they get to be the market leader (however you want to define that term) they get lazy. I wouldn't like to see a repeat of their situation in 1997, but it certainly did spur some big changes.

temp246810 10y ago
While I would agree with you a company is the sum of its people and right now the personnel at Apple has changed just way too much. I'm not as hopeful - Apple will continue to be a behemoth, but I'm afraid the magic is gone. It may not go down the path of HP, but it will be closer to Dell in the future than to Apple at its Zenith.

zzzcpan 10y ago

This overall slowdown could be the reason why Apple made a gimmick for newcomers, i.e. the touch bar. They needed to try to boost sales.

coldtea 10y ago
They don't think like that. "Let's make a gimmick for newcomers". They just legitimately thought it was great and will it enough to impress people and shut them up about the late revamp of the MBP line. And it could be good, with certain provisions, but not will all the other BS coming with it. The main issue is it seems nobody at the top could see this -- and I mean see this when they said ok initially, because surely they did know the issues before launching the machine, when it got to wider testing (before that it was only small teams that had seen the whole new laptop plus strip, as it their usual modus operandi).
- Patrick_Devine 10y ago
  If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? You can easily see how the touchbar comes across as being gimmicky. Lenovo already ditched their touch bar on the X1 Carbon (2nd generation) because it was a terrible idea. Buttons are useful, particularly for people who touch type.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? Obviously this is no argument. It basically is: If cake is so amazing why don't we eat cake or day? Cake is indeed amazing to have in moderation, but it's also not the best thing to solely eat. We could thrive on just greens and meet maybe, but we'd do worse with just cake. Standard alphanumeric keys are used far more often, and people rely on them far more than they do on function keys (common people, the 95% of users, don't use debuggers or vim). Without a great haptic feedback story that actually gives the sense of clicking it would be disaster. Plus, it would be way costlier, and just give diminishing returns (since most of the time we just want the alphanumeric keys to be just that, whereas function keys already had a double life as controller keys for sound, etc). Third, even if it was ergonomically perfect and likable, it will obviously be even more power hungry and expensive at this point.

fjarlq 10y ago

Why does StatCounter disagree? They find OS X user share currently at an all-time high of 11%: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-201612 http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-2016...

fjarlq 10y ago
StatCounter's answer to that question: http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps
- mhurron 10y ago
  404
- cpncrunch 10y ago
  My own site also shows OS X to be around 10-12%, similar to a year ago.
- tyfon 10y ago
  This stuck out for me, but I might be wrong: Net Apps base their stats on unique visitors per site per day. ("We 'count' unique visitors to our network sites, and only count one unique visit to each network site per day.") We [StatCounter] base our stats on page views So if an os x user read more pages than a linux user on a specific site, that same user will have more "weight" in the statcounter analysis. Basically.. different methods that actually measures different things.

eridius 10y ago

PSA: This "news" comes courtesy of a company called Net Applications, which I've never heard of before. Looks like they're a web analytics firm. So take this with a huge grain of salt, because they can't actually see real user share, all they can see is the share of people who browse to their clients' sites.

news_to_me 10y ago
Hmm yeah, for some reason I conflated them with NetApp, the storage company. Glad I double-checked – I haven't heard of Net Applications either.
bitflipman 10y ago
So what would be the best way to estimate OS market share? Stopping short from including household OS usage in worldwide census?
- eridius 10y ago
  I'm not sure, but you could start by asking someone who's in a position to observe a much larger portion of internet usage. For example, I bet CloudFlare could collect some interesting statistics.
  - CamelCaseName 10y ago
    While CloudFlare would be a much better source, I think it's not so bad to compare a large number of sites, with their previous selves.
TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
And it's being covered by ComputerWorld. Say no more. Thanks to "free" industry-supported publications like this -- designed to make non-technical management feel good about following the Microsoft/Cisco/Oracle status quo -- my efforts to integrate Linux into my company's operations in the 90's was very frustrating.
tyingq 10y ago

vijucat 10y ago

Also see the relative growth of /r/buildapc vs. /r/apple: http://redditmetrics.com/r/buildapc#compare=apple http://redditmetrics.com/r/buildapc#compare=apple (click on Total Subscribers). March 2013 was the crossover point. I'm trying to compare Apple on it's own turf here (tapping into the enthusiasm of retail / consumer folks). That's a lot of mindshare lost, IMHO, by defining themselves as the "Bose of computer hardware". Important mindshare at that: young people. Once these young folks struggle with BSODs, fiddling with BIOS settings, NVidia drivers, screwdrivers and thermal paste, and get a rig up and running, it becomes an addiction. I find it ironic that it is the very opposite of what Apple offers, a trouble-free "It just works" experience, that is the appealing factor of /r/buildapc. The one thing they should have learned from Steve is: everything has a context; it's OK to change your opinion.

akgerber 10y ago
I'm not sure I believe your assertion that building a PC makes people love it for life— I built a PC in high school, then switched over to a Macbook for college and haven't looked back. Now that fiddling with computers is my job, it's less appealing as a hobby.
- electic 10y ago
  Agree. I used to build PCs as well. I even had a review site that received 2MM uniques a month and manufacturers would send me motherboards and top end video cards, for free, to review. I loved making PCs but would I trade my Macbook Pro and go back to a PC/Windows setup, no. I don't imagine anyone would want to go thru that. Getting a case, fiddling with screws, power supplies, Video Card, and CPUs. Even worse, it is highly error prone. Do something wrong and POOF that 800 dollar CPU you bought is toast.
  - quickben 10y ago
    Arguably, you a trading the chance to lose 800 with a guaranteed loss of around that much, just by paying the Apple premium.

innocentoldguy 10y ago

I can understand the fall, since I myself am torn or the subject. I am a huge fan of Apple laptops for two reasons: 1. I can do all my development on the same Unix environment I run Adobe and various DAWs on. 2. Apple's trackpads. Having said that, I've been considering a move back to my previous two-laptop setup; one Linux machine for development and general use, and one Windows machine (shudder) for Adobe and DAWs. I can get a PC with the same specs or better than a Mac, with memory capacities up to 32GB of RAM (twice what Apple offers), for around $1,000.00 less. I could also solve the problem of the vanishing hardware (e.g. ports, Esc key, etc.) by going this route. However, I still like macOS a million times more than I like Windows. I'm not ready to switch yet, but I'm thinking about it. If Apple continues to neglect their Mac line, and fail to offer specs comparable to their competitors, my thoughts may turn into action. I imagine others are feeling the same way.

jameslk 10y ago

I keeping hearing the narrative from this crowd that the MBP is on its way out of being in vogue for developers, but I don't buy it at all. First of all, this is market share up to the release of the new MBP. It's not surprising that their market share has been slipping given that up to this point they haven't released a significant update to the MBP since 2013. But getting to the point, the Mac ecosystem is now ingrained into open source development. Believe me I used to use a PC not too long ago and nothing would work because OS software is designed to run on top of a NIX environment. I recently had to go through this exercise with a colleague who was in denial. But over time, it ends up the same: software built to run on Linux servers runs best under an environment that is designed more like Linux. He now owns a MBP. So Windows is out (for non .NET devs). That leaves us with what, Linux itself as the OS? Anyone who suggests doing this either hasn't done it before or has way too much time on their hands. I use macOS because I don't have time to hunt for drivers, trying to understand an obscure error discussed in a long forum thread or having all my software no longer work just because I updated a package. I've already tried that twice once with Gentoo and then with Ubuntu years later hoping it would be different. I know plenty of others who have as well. Ultimately we have jobs and we need to debug our own software. Which brings us back to the Mac. I fully expect this release to be their Windows 8 moment, a beta event from which they will recover from given time for hardware to catch up. Not every release can be a stellar event. Give it time.

sn0v 10y ago
Agreed. If the rumored terraced batteries (that couldn't make it in time for this year's release) come through, coupled with ostensible efficiency improvements in the next gen of processors, GPUs etc, we might be able to reach that hallowed 10 hour mark again. Well, that and hopefully there's a price drop with the second gen of touchbar MacBooks (not holding my breath there)
derefr 10y ago
> I used to use a PC not too long ago and nothing would work Was this before or after the Windows 10 WSL environment was released? I think that has done a lot to change developers' views on doing ＊NIX development on Windows.

davidf18 10y ago

IBM for one is converting their laptops to mostly Macs, claiming to calls to support is way down compared with users of PCs (e.g., look at total cost of ownership -- TCO). IBM has software which helps to deploy Macs in the Enterprise. The integration of Macs/ Mac OS with the iPhone / iPad eco-system is helpful as well. I use iMessage a lot on my Mac. For those that need it, tech support is readily available in Apple stores.

Someone1234 10y ago
IBM is selling enterprise Apple support, them claiming that the TCO is lower is like a car salesman telling you the TCO of their specific brand of vehicle is lower. Take it with a huge grain of salt. IBM has a vested interest in pushing Mac enterprise adoption.

codeddesign 10y ago

Oh please...this is like saying google shares fell. It's not like there is a new competitor that entered the marketplace or that mass mac users are jumping ship like a mass exodos for windows or Linux. It's because they haven't launched an iPod or iPhone. But I guess people gotta write to get those clicks these days..