5 ms·

I thought I heard sales of Macs were way below expected over the last year?

NhanH 3y ago
Almost everything is way below expectation over the last year due to 2022 with whiplash effect and abnormal growth + this year recession.
jasonjmcghee 3y ago
Maybe they pulled an instapot and made a great product that lasts (with only incremental improvements in the next gen). I got an M1 Air when it came out and an M2 Pro for work, and other than the 16 vs 32 GB, it’s very similar in terms of performance. I assume it’d be more apparent if i did 3d modeling or video production, but it works very well as a dev machine.
- gumby 3y ago
  > Maybe they pulled an instapot and made a great product that lasts This is a longstanding position by apple since ~ the iMac.* The long lifetime (hw quality + software support) means higher resale value and pays off for companies like Apple and Toyota. Why didn’t it help instapot? Resale value means the investment for a buyer of a new device is (conceptually) lower and signals quality, so you can charge more. And the resold devices serve a customer who can’t pay full retail, keeping the, from giving their money to a competitor. Now this works bc the new buyer values the new features (else they’d just hang on to the equipment for longer, as I do). Instapot’s problem was they lacked a “killer feature upgrade”: the 2023 model is basically the 2017 model. * dunno before but I somehow can’t believe a company that shipped the Performa line had the same attitude. Edit: I had a brain fart and said BMW had a high resale value, while actually they are notorious the other way (since I’ve owned one myself, I shouldn’t have made this mistake). Thanks to Our_Benefactors for pointing this out.
  - Our_Benefactors 3y ago
    BMW have some of the worst retained value in the car industry.
    - gumby 3y ago
      What a stupid brainfart — thanks for pointing it out. I’ve even owned a BMW so what a thinko! I edited my comment.
      - Our_Benefactors 3y ago
        One thing that BMW does do well is supporting their vehicles on the road. IIRC they keep the parts production active for a minimum of 10 years past the final model year. Compared to finding parts for domestic American vehicles less than 10 years old (looking at you, Ford), BMW support is leaps and bounds ahead of many alternatives.
  - chii 3y ago
    > Why didn’t it help instapot? it's not expensive enough to warrant buying second hand. Also i don't want to use someone else's cooking utensils for my own food. Never know what they've done with it! A mac book, on the other hand, is fine, since the most i would touch it is with my hands. The 2nd hand condition doesn't bother me, as long as i just clean it up with nice wipes.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  M2 Air here that I use as my dev machine. All I do is backend dev running on Docker, and it's works as well as the M1 Pro 32gb and M2 Max 64gb I've used before. (the challenge in running multiple monitors is the main issue, not performance)
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    > M2 Air here that I use as my dev machine. All I do is backend dev running on Docker, and it's works as well as the M1 Pro 32gb and M2 Max 64gb I've used before. (the challenge in running multiple monitors is the main issue, not performance) I'm doing similar stuff, and I think the big thing I'm worried about is SSD write exhaustion. The 8 GB of ram is just not enough to prevent the system using a lot of swap. Especially if I ever need to use Rosetta. And the way Apple's pricing around ram works, if you're going to upgrade to 16 GB, you might as well just get a pro, which comes base with 16 GB. At least with the Mac Mini/Studio. I'll admit that I'm less familiar with the laptop pricing.
    - bdcravens 3y ago
      I'm using an Air with 16gb of RAM. Having had both a 14" M1 Pro and a 16" M2 Max, I feel like the 14" Pro are probably the best value.
- nordsieck 3y ago
  I think this is a big part of the problem: the M1 air is basically the perfect laptop for casual use. Powerful enough, very light weight, great screen, and killer battery life. Luckily for Apple and sadly for everyone else, the SSD is soldiered onto the motherboard, which means that when it gets enough writes, the machine will be toast (short of component level repair, which is possible but difficult and rare).
  - jandrewrogers 3y ago
    How often do SSDs wear out? I've never heard of an example in real life even for the heaviest users. Every time I've looked at SSD lifespan metadata out of idle curiosity it has never been particularly close to end-of-life even after years of use.
    - helf 3y ago
      I've worn out multiple SSDs. But wearing them out isnt the only issue with soldered on planned obsolescence BS. The real issue is parts like SSDs can just up and fail. And now you have a ticking time bomb in a machine that could otherwise last damn near indefinitely just so Apple can shave a few cents off production and enforce upgrading.
ksec 3y ago
It was down YoY, but I am not sure it was below "expectation".

Almost everything is way below expectation over the last year due to 2022 with whiplash effect and abnormal growth + this year recession.

jasonjmcghee 3y ago

Maybe they pulled an instapot and made a great product that lasts (with only incremental improvements in the next gen). I got an M1 Air when it came out and an M2 Pro for work, and other than the 16 vs 32 GB, it’s very similar in terms of performance. I assume it’d be more apparent if i did 3d modeling or video production, but it works very well as a dev machine.

gumby 3y ago
> Maybe they pulled an instapot and made a great product that lasts This is a longstanding position by apple since ~ the iMac.* The long lifetime (hw quality + software support) means higher resale value and pays off for companies like Apple and Toyota. Why didn’t it help instapot? Resale value means the investment for a buyer of a new device is (conceptually) lower and signals quality, so you can charge more. And the resold devices serve a customer who can’t pay full retail, keeping the, from giving their money to a competitor. Now this works bc the new buyer values the new features (else they’d just hang on to the equipment for longer, as I do). Instapot’s problem was they lacked a “killer feature upgrade”: the 2023 model is basically the 2017 model. * dunno before but I somehow can’t believe a company that shipped the Performa line had the same attitude. Edit: I had a brain fart and said BMW had a high resale value, while actually they are notorious the other way (since I’ve owned one myself, I shouldn’t have made this mistake). Thanks to Our_Benefactors for pointing this out.
- Our_Benefactors 3y ago
  BMW have some of the worst retained value in the car industry.
  - gumby 3y ago
    What a stupid brainfart — thanks for pointing it out. I’ve even owned a BMW so what a thinko! I edited my comment.
    - Our_Benefactors 3y ago
      One thing that BMW does do well is supporting their vehicles on the road. IIRC they keep the parts production active for a minimum of 10 years past the final model year. Compared to finding parts for domestic American vehicles less than 10 years old (looking at you, Ford), BMW support is leaps and bounds ahead of many alternatives.
- chii 3y ago
  > Why didn’t it help instapot? it's not expensive enough to warrant buying second hand. Also i don't want to use someone else's cooking utensils for my own food. Never know what they've done with it! A mac book, on the other hand, is fine, since the most i would touch it is with my hands. The 2nd hand condition doesn't bother me, as long as i just clean it up with nice wipes.
bdcravens 3y ago
M2 Air here that I use as my dev machine. All I do is backend dev running on Docker, and it's works as well as the M1 Pro 32gb and M2 Max 64gb I've used before. (the challenge in running multiple monitors is the main issue, not performance)
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > M2 Air here that I use as my dev machine. All I do is backend dev running on Docker, and it's works as well as the M1 Pro 32gb and M2 Max 64gb I've used before. (the challenge in running multiple monitors is the main issue, not performance) I'm doing similar stuff, and I think the big thing I'm worried about is SSD write exhaustion. The 8 GB of ram is just not enough to prevent the system using a lot of swap. Especially if I ever need to use Rosetta. And the way Apple's pricing around ram works, if you're going to upgrade to 16 GB, you might as well just get a pro, which comes base with 16 GB. At least with the Mac Mini/Studio. I'll admit that I'm less familiar with the laptop pricing.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    I'm using an Air with 16gb of RAM. Having had both a 14" M1 Pro and a 16" M2 Max, I feel like the 14" Pro are probably the best value.
nordsieck 3y ago
I think this is a big part of the problem: the M1 air is basically the perfect laptop for casual use. Powerful enough, very light weight, great screen, and killer battery life. Luckily for Apple and sadly for everyone else, the SSD is soldiered onto the motherboard, which means that when it gets enough writes, the machine will be toast (short of component level repair, which is possible but difficult and rare).
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  How often do SSDs wear out? I've never heard of an example in real life even for the heaviest users. Every time I've looked at SSD lifespan metadata out of idle curiosity it has never been particularly close to end-of-life even after years of use.
  - helf 3y ago
    I've worn out multiple SSDs. But wearing them out isnt the only issue with soldered on planned obsolescence BS. The real issue is parts like SSDs can just up and fail. And now you have a ticking time bomb in a machine that could otherwise last damn near indefinitely just so Apple can shave a few cents off production and enforce upgrading.

ksec 3y ago

It was down YoY, but I am not sure it was below "expectation".