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> I wouldn't be surprised if they were selling the M1-based Macs on a loss to reel you into their apps and services ecosystem You do not understand Apple's bus

> I wouldn't be surprised if they were selling the M1-based Macs on a loss to reel you into their apps and services ecosystem You do not understand Apple's business. They sell hardware, and have the biggest profit margin in the industry. With the M1 they've probably increased their margin because they no longer have to pay Intel. Their services served as incentive to buy their hardware. Only recently have they realized that they could also monetize some of their services, but it remains secondary to their core business model.

fxtentacle 6y ago
The M1 is a new process node, so yields will probably be horrible, at least for now. If I remember correctly, that's also why there is a 3090 shortage. Plus Apple has some billions to recoup. So it'll surely take a while before the M1 MacBooks become profitable.
- compsciphd 6y ago
  the more M1s they can sell that run linux would increase profit (at least if they could make enough to satisfy mac and linux demands and if linux demand wouldn't undercut mac demand significantly)
londons_explore 6y ago
It entirely depends what they pay TSMC for producing a massive die on the brand new 5nm process. I could easily imagine them paying a lot... Everyone wants some 5nm stuff, and apple probably had to outbid every other company.
midrus 6y ago
Yes...but how do you sell even more hardware? If your users are locked by not having alternatives because of your software. So what you're saying is correct, and what the parent comment says is also correct. They might not make as much money from software, but that software leads to more hardware sales. If people started to use linux on macs, and they find everything they need works fine, some people might consider cheaper alternatives to macs
- kreetx 6y ago
  At the moment they would sell their hardware with very good CPUs. We already want those laptops, but since they don't run linux (some of us) won't buy them. I guess it depends on which group is larger.
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    > but since they don't run linux (some of us) won't buy them. I guess it depends on which group is larger. The frustrating thing with us geeks is that we overestimate our market segment. At Apple's scale, we are insignificant. As a publicly-traded company, Apple publishes a fair amount of operating info, such as their sales for their various product lines: https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx From there, looking at the 2020 Q4 "Financial Statements" PDF, we can find the "sales by category" and see that in the "12-month ending Sept 26 2020" they sold $28,622M worth of Mathe previous year. Alternatively, they sold $9,032M in Q4 2020 (July-Sept) vs $6,991M in Q4 2019. Of course we'll have to wait another quarter to get a glimpse of how well the new M1-based macs sell (while considering that they're only part of Apple's Mac lineup.)

fxtentacle 6y ago

The M1 is a new process node, so yields will probably be horrible, at least for now. If I remember correctly, that's also why there is a 3090 shortage. Plus Apple has some billions to recoup. So it'll surely take a while before the M1 MacBooks become profitable.

compsciphd 6y ago
the more M1s they can sell that run linux would increase profit (at least if they could make enough to satisfy mac and linux demands and if linux demand wouldn't undercut mac demand significantly)

londons_explore 6y ago

It entirely depends what they pay TSMC for producing a massive die on the brand new 5nm process. I could easily imagine them paying a lot... Everyone wants some 5nm stuff, and apple probably had to outbid every other company.

midrus 6y ago

Yes...but how do you sell even more hardware? If your users are locked by not having alternatives because of your software. So what you're saying is correct, and what the parent comment says is also correct. They might not make as much money from software, but that software leads to more hardware sales. If people started to use linux on macs, and they find everything they need works fine, some people might consider cheaper alternatives to macs

kreetx 6y ago
At the moment they would sell their hardware with very good CPUs. We already want those laptops, but since they don't run linux (some of us) won't buy them. I guess it depends on which group is larger.
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  > but since they don't run linux (some of us) won't buy them. I guess it depends on which group is larger. The frustrating thing with us geeks is that we overestimate our market segment. At Apple's scale, we are insignificant. As a publicly-traded company, Apple publishes a fair amount of operating info, such as their sales for their various product lines: https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx From there, looking at the 2020 Q4 "Financial Statements" PDF, we can find the "sales by category" and see that in the "12-month ending Sept 26 2020" they sold $28,622M worth of Mathe previous year. Alternatively, they sold $9,032M in Q4 2020 (July-Sept) vs $6,991M in Q4 2019. Of course we'll have to wait another quarter to get a glimpse of how well the new M1-based macs sell (while considering that they're only part of Apple's Mac lineup.)