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I think Apple being as big, and making the big technological leap with M1 convinced a lot of customers to buy the new Macs. Even those that technically weren’t
by reacharavindh 4y ago
I think Apple being as big, and making the big technological leap with M1 convinced a lot of customers to buy the new Macs. Even those that technically weren’t needing one/upgrade. Now, that curiosity bubble has saturated with the M2 being an iterative improvement and the customer base certainly not as desperate (intel to M1). Given enough time, I think the Macs will continue to gain market share. Most tech companies now provide MacBooks for their employees as a default choice. One doesn’t lose such grip easily.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago> Most tech companies now provide MacBooks for their employees as a default choice. Depends on your location, bubble and what kind work you do. Where I live now in Europe, companies mostly provide PC laptops with with Windows (vast majority) or sometimes Ubuntu on the same machines, because the bean counters here are far too scroogy to justify to management switching the entire fleet to Macs. Also probably because it's what most IT guys here are used to managing so moving everything to Macs would mean costs the company is not willing to bear. If by tech you only mean agile web and mobile dev shops, then yes, it tends to be a majority Mac scene, but tech is much more generic and encompasses more industries than just web-dev. If you go to traditional tech industries, banks or large enterprises, it will 98% sure be a Windows machine here with almost no choice in the matter. Only the frontend, graphic design and mobile app guys in my current company get Macs, the backend guys Ubuntu, and all the rest Windows.
- chank 4y agoPretty much the same in the US. Even those doing webdev. Non-Windows is still very outlier.
- cbm-vic-20 4y agoMy company does periodic refreshes of laptops, and we get an option of a Windows PC or a Mac. I do most of my development on cloud-hosted dev boxes, and minimal "local" development (though I do most of my code-reading locally). The primary reason I switched to selecting a Mac is that it is extremely quiet. The fans rarely turn on in the M1 MBP. There's no coil whine. Back while I was working in the open-plan office, I woudn't notice the noise from the machine next to me over the generally loud office environment with its air handling, people walking by, etc. But while working from home, the near constant fan noise from the Windows machine randomly spiking the CPU to 100% was maddening. Next time I replace my personal laptop (XPS 13 9370), I'm strongly considering getting a Macbook Air. I really appreciate having a completely silent machine.
- marinhero 4y agoThis makes sense. Amongst my friends, a number of them maxed out an M1 machine not just because of the processor but also because of the improved I/O and new form factor. The M1 machine ticked so many boxes that the purchase decision was not solely pushed by the CPU. The machines are so good it’s hard to justify a new one!
- wil421 4y agoSame here. I’ve wanted a MacBook Air since the core 2 duo days but the processor was always too slow and RAM too small. The fanless M1 air was exactly what I’ve wanted for 15 years.
- crossroadsguy 4y ago> and RAM too small The current default is 8GB and max is 16GB. It isn’t too high even now considering it’s 2023
- Squarex 4y agoMax is 24GB on M2 Air. It's a great machine but pretty expensive.
- wil421 4y agoI’m the tech guy in my circle and despite my wishes most of my friends and family get the standard 8GB models. Beside one friend that had a crazy memory link, most of them don’t bat an eye. If Safari, Word, and Excel open they don’t mind too much. 8GB is fine at the moment on MacOS. The standard is still 8gb for most non-performance laptops and there are legions and legions of corporate HPs and Dells with 8GBs.
- mikhael28 4y agoI think 8gb is totally fine if all you are doing is full-stack JS development, with some light backend stuff thrown in (Python rest service, maybe even running postgres locally). I occasionally run my tech stack on a 12' MacBook with an Intel m3 processor to make sure that I haven't gone overboard with tooling, mostly to ensure international, developing country open source contributors don't have to struggle opening local servers and such on their machines.
- golergka 4y agoI have the maxed out 2020 16" Macbook Pro, the last of the Intel ones. I really wanted to buy M1 and M2 one, and I have the means, but the existing one just works too well still for me to justify the expense to myself. Also, when I go and finally buy one, I think I'll just won't need the maxed out version anymore, and will prioritise portability over power, so I'll pay less. Simply because of reports about how powerful M1/2 is.
- earthnail 4y agoI’ve traded my 2017 maxed out MBP for an M2 Air. It’s insane. I don’t do video editing but lots of code compiling and the Air handles it without problems. Sure, the Pro would be even faster, so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing out on, but the Air is so crazy fast and the battery life so incredibly long, I have zero regrets on that purchase.
- wirthjason 4y agoI’m in the camp of: I like the colors and cuteness of the air (I’m a guy for what it’s worth) but I always buy the pro ‘cuz, we’ll it’s “pro”. It’s probably more economical to buy the air at a lower cost and replace it more frequently but I dislike the hassle of moving files (the cloud has simplified this a lot), but more recently I’m concerned about e-waste.
- nickpp 4y agoSell/trade your old hardware and there is no e-waste. Apple devices are great at keeping their value.
- propogandist 4y agowhat is the long term viability of the MB Air’s components since it doesn’t have a fan / air circulation to diffuse heat?
- 1123581321 4y agoPassive dissipation is enough to keep up since it runs cool. There is throttling that kicks in if you max the CPU for several minutes in a row.
- Spooky23 4y agoCompanies usually buy base models. Apple is also struggling with supply chain, as M1 is still prominent. Another feature of this issue is that because of their parsimonious storage configuration and linkage of M2 chip and storage, upgrades are nuts - it costs as much as an iPhone to get a storage upgrade that is like $100 with commodity SSD storage.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago>Apple is also struggling with supply chain Not anymore. They actually had to cut back M2 orders due to slow sales. Nvidia and AMD and others have also been cutting back orders for the same reason. The consumer tech supply chain is no longer blocked like ti was during the pandemic.
- senttoschool 4y ago>upgrades are nuts - it costs as much as an iPhone to get a storage upgrade that is like $100 with commodity SSD storage. I generally agree that Apple's SSD and RAM upgrades are too expensive. I'd like them to be cheaper. However, I'd like to point out that Apple's SSDs have built-in protection against data-loss from power loss which is usually an enterprise SSD feature. Also, Apple uses LPDDR5 on their Macs which are quite a bit more expensive than DDR4/DDR5. In addition, there's some evidence that Apple's LPDDR5 is actually not off the shelf and is specialized specifically for Apple.[0] That said, yea I think Apple is a bit stingy with SSD and RAM upgrades. [0]https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/24gb-macbook-air-m2-ram-question.2355885/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/24gb-macbook-air-m2-ram...
- labcomputer 4y agoI know I would, and I dare say most people are the same, prefer to have the option for 3% lower memory bandwidth in exchange for 4x more memory. There’s no justification for Apple’s memory prices.
- tough 4y agoI see it like cars, mass produced standard models are way cheaper than the ones with all the extras and whistles and what not
- quickthrower2 4y agoI use iPhones for the “cuz it just works” factor, and with those M chips, I am tempted to make the switch from Windows PCs These days laptop PCs are unreliable across most brands I have tried and supplied with crapware and the operating system is hostile and forces stuff like OneDrive on you and begs you not to install Chrome. Last 2 years over 2 devices: Broken screen (not due to external) Touchscreen not working Lid came apart Audio stops working while windows uodates pending Laptop stopped turning on With the latest device I got all the extended warrantees and accidental damage coverage as the pot odds made it worth paying 33% of the device price over 3 years.
- teh_klev 4y agoWhich devices gave you such trouble?
- quickthrower2 4y agoLenovo Flex, Asus Vivobook, Dell XPS13 Desktops are a different breed. They last forever.
- propogandist 4y agoA thinkpad would offer great build quality, although some of that is slipping due to Lenovo’s cost cutting strategies. Unfortunately, today’s Windows OS is spyware, especially Windows 11, so the entire OS needs to be removed, if you want a good machine which fires not constantly send usage data to the Azure mothership, or some 3rd party.
- postalrat 4y agoI've seen a lot Linux based deeper machines now that docker has become huge.
- zippergz 4y agoYup. I bought an M1 to replace an Intel mac that was less than two years old. I certainly don’t have any plans to replace the m1 that quickly. This isn’t a knock against the M2; the Intel to M1 leap was a very unusual situation.
- reaperducer 4y agothe big technological leap with M1 convinced a lot of customers to buy the new Macs Building on this — A good number of people who planned to buy new Macs (myself included) held off on those purchases until the M1 came out. Call it the "Osborne Bounce" — A bit of tech is announced too early, and the anticipation reduces normal sales volumes until it's available. At that time, there's a huge spike in sales, followed by numbers being depressed because everyone already has the shiny new thing. Something like the Osborne Effect, except Apple has the cash and product diversity to not go out of business while everyone holds on to their wallets.
- vishnugupta 4y agoI’d say there are multiple factors at play, one you pointed out being one of them. The current downtrend has definitely played a role. Not online have companies laid off tens of thousands of employees they have also cut down hiring. In all likelihood these companies have excess of IT hardware inventory. There’s also longitivtiy, my Mac from Nov 2018 is still going strong and I don’t think I’ll need to upgrade for at least 2 more years. And finally let’s not forget the price. As good as M2 is I need to spend a bomb to get an M2 that can handle my workload. So I keep putting off the purchase.
- bluedino 4y agoI think a lot of the 13" buyers will end up upgrading as they sound pretty tired about the lack of dual-monitor support.
- cableshaft 4y agoI only just upgraded mine this past month, but I was still using a Macbook Pro from 2015 (not regularly, it finally was getting too annoying to use much after 8 years, but I have a Windows laptop also so I wasn't in a big hurry to upgrade). Part of me kind of wishes I didn't though, that was a lot of money I dropped there, especially with all the layoffs (my company had their first layoff a week after I made the purchase also).
- makeitdouble 4y agoI wonder if we haven't hit the top of the bell curve. Up until the M1 transition, the macbook 15" (and then 16") were already the defacto machine for any dev in most companies. I had colleagues who had to justify they could use Dell's linux laptops. As of now it's more of a split, with those who stay on mac, those who move to "gaming" laptops if they rely on x86 or need GPU power, linux laptops which are now fully mature, and those who moved to machines like Lenovo's yoga line or MS Surface. Basically Apple moving away from Intel, freezing the form factor while giving the middle finger to GPU intensive apps opened the door to many other options.