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Forbes Predicts 5% Desktop Share for Apple in 2005
sebFlyte writes "Spurred on by the iPod, Apple's share of the desktop computer market will grow to five percent (from three percent) this year, according to research from Morgan Stanley. Apparrently nearly 20% of iPod users surveyed are planning to switch to Macs, and the sales figures for the last few quarters are backing up the theory of the iPod Halo Effect. All this suggests the question ... how many iPod-touting Slashdotters are thinking of switching?"
Time to buy some Apple stock.
I hear people bitch and moan on Slashdot about Microsoft's proprietary operating system but never once mention how Apple has maintained a closed OS.
But not because of iPod. Really, a nice desktop, integrated desktop apps, plus the joy of a UNIX cli under it all. Beat the pants of Linux for me.
-- John
"Apparrently nearly 20% of iPod users surveyed are planning to switch to Macs,"
Never happen. As soon as that 20% realizes there's no games for that shiny Mac in the store window, they'll stay right where they are.
What's interesting about this is that in some sense, an iPod user has the least reason to switch, as Apple has done such a good job of making iTunes work as well as it could possibly be expect to on both the Mac and the PC. Is it just a design thing?
I'm all for the trend, though, whatever the reason.
I'm switching.. As soon as I get my free mini mac (placed my order on march 7)
Unless I sell it and buy DVDs instead
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More marketshare means more income to spend on R&D. With what Apple puts out already, I can only imagine what they'll start putting out with more marketshare (compare to Microsoft's $10 billion a year R&D, and all they can put out are picture-viewing smartphones and media center TVs). At some point, there's a threshold where growth begins to fuel itself through momentum (maybe ~10% or so). With Longhorn not due out until 2006, Apple has the opportunity to grow a few more points next year as well.
Open OS. Very open OS in fact.
Closed desktop environment. Free IDE.
Tell me why you're not happy about this again? You could always run X11 and use KDE or Gnome or whatever. I personally feel that Aqua is worth every penny.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Apple makes a great product, but I seriously doubt it will see double-digit market share any time soon.
Go ahead Apple zealots, mod me into oblivion for speaking heresy.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
that is, of course, assuming, people only buy computers to play games.
whilst certainly a concearn to some, one could look at what is available, and determine if that will be enough to satiate their needs.
maybe though, the 20% have already taken the games and whatever into account, and still plan on switching, whereas the 80% decided they couldn't do without them, or the ones which are available.
of course its probably neither.
Live EVERY week... Like it's Shark Week
I have an iPod, but when I got it I just used it under linux. To be honest, it worked great, and I could care less for iTunes or any of that crap. I "switched" much later on after being lent a 300Mhz powerbook by a friend... even though it was slow, I could do everything I needed in OSX that my craptacular 650Mhz acer laptop could do, and I got 4 hours of battery life.
OSX was the workhorse that sold me on Apple... the iPod's just a toy for long car trips and lugging data files around.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
I think you're asking the wrong crowd. What I mean is, for myself, I enjoy "building" computers. I do it at work, and I enjoy putting together slick systems for myself and others I know. If I could install Mac OS X on these machines, I would in a heartbeat. I do use Linux in some cases, but Windows ends up being the defacto standard because people know it more than Linux. I'm willing to bet many slashdotters, besides the current Apple users, probably like building computers as well. If I could get an IBM PPC chip on a stock motherboard I could buy online and build myself a Mac clone, I might do it.... but what I know for sure is that AMD 64 chips are amazingly fast, fairly cool, and cheaper than most alternatives on the market right now. So, what I REALLY want, is Mac OS X ported for x86. Then I would definitely switch, and possibly a large number of other slashdotters would give it a try as well. But, I know Apple makes cash off of very expensive hardware, and they would never give that up. So, what I'm trying to say is, it would take a hell of a lot more than a fancy MP3 player (that works fine with Windows BTW) to switch both software and hardware for me. I'm not saying I'm the average slashdotter, but I'm willing to bet many people share some of the same preferences I do (even though there is no question somebody will violently disagree with this post like always).
Each of these possibilities are imaginable, so I think "Never happen" might be a little premature.
I've used only PCs for the past eight years. However, I bought my iPod in July 2003 and since then, I've purchased two Apple laptops -- an iBook and then a Powerbook. I love OS X so much that I've just purchased a Mac Mini for my parents. I think the iPod is a great segue into becoming a Mac user. My personal belief is that there are more applications for PC users, but the applications out for Mac users are of better quality.
The irony is that an X-Box was the final factor in my decision, since I found myself spending most of my gameplaying time on the console, I do not need a PC around to run games.
I would go further and say that there may be a great deal of overlap between the people that switch to Macs and the people that primarily use consoles for gaming - total end users that like the simplicity of hooking a console to a TV, shoving in a game, and having it just work, and similarly like the simplicity of plopping down in front of their Mac and having it "just work."
The big question is whether the Mac's software library is up to the task. It has respectable Internet software available and there is Mac Office (IMHO the single most important application to the Mac platform).
The coolest voice ever.
I am calling Shenanigans!
Ipod sales are predicted at 13.3 millioin units for 2005, but I find it hard to believe that one out of five (2.66 million) will convert soley due to their experience with the ipod (sure there is windows based frustration).
It would make sense that many people would say they plan to switch to the platform, but how many really follow through with that is going to be lower once they find the sticker shock on their standard systems. If they can gain a market foothold with the mac mini will may work. There is also the question of being retrained on a new system. There certainly is something to be said for the status quo.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
That's fair to say. For me, a Mac was an ideal network administration system on a network with a managed network switch, Linux and Windows boxes.
For example, I found pretty easy instructions (two commands, edit the xinetd tftp file, then restart xinetd) on how to enable the TFTP server so I can update the firmware on my managed switch, the same two to turn it off. That switch has a built-in TFTP client, so having a server available was slick. The same instructions would have worked in Linux, but for some reason, I generally find instructions intended for Linux distributions to be more difficult than they have to be to perform what is really a simple task.
Sometimes I have a devil of a time getting Windows machines to share or transfer files, esp. between W2K and WXP systems, with a mini, I just connect to them both and transfer files as an intermediary.
That's why I have a Gamecube.
I hear PC gamers fretting all the time about whether their graphics cards are up to snuff, whether they're going to be able to run the hot new game coming out in two weeks... I never have to worry about any of that. My computer can't run any games at all (except World of Warcraft, which I don't really want), but I know I can go down to walmart and there's more games there than I've got money to buy or time to play, and all I have to do is put a disc in a machine and switch it on. I don't even have to sign off AIM or Skype.
Okay, if your conception of "games" is "first person shooters" then the PC is where it's at and what I'm saying is worthless, but as far as I'm concerned, my lifetime needs as far as first person shooters go was sated completely in 1998. And if first person shooters aren't your thing then commercial PC gaming probably isn't going to do much at all for you right now. There's some interesting stuff coming out of the PC shareware game community, but when was the last commercial PC gaming got a game like Katamari Damacy, or Wario Ware? There was a time in the past where the pc games lineup made being a mac user a bit depressing but at this point, pc gaming seems like it wouldn't be worth the bother even if my computer could run it. I've got all the games I want and then some.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I switched 3 weeks ago and have been very, very happy
I added a 12" PowerBook in addition to my Athlon desktop last month, and I'll tell you why I did, and why I am glad I did
This laptop will probably convince me to buy a Mac desktop next. I keep trying to use Quicksilver on my Windows machine. I keep wishing the software I had on my Mac were available on my PC.
Yes, my iPod helped me become more comfortable with the Apple brand name before I bought my PowerBook. I used an old PowerBook at work before, and that got me hooked too.
I bought the laptop right before I left for the Middle East (Qatar to be specific) and wanted it to store images on. It cost a little bit more than a new, larger memory card. But it's been very, very worth it
After all, Linux is such a huge bastion of gaming, and NOBODY uses that operating system!
More people play console games than PC games. That's where gaming is going.
I've been thinking of getting myself a mac for ages, but after the mini came to the market it's a bit easier for me to do the switch due to it's low cost. Never had or have any plans of buying an ipod, but i think the ipod has put apple on the map for the average joe.
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
How much did you pay for your computer 3 years ago?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I agree with the "consoles are for games" sentiment a lot of the time, but any game with an FPS interface will, all else being equal, be vastly better on a pc due to control issues.
I remember when the quake3 online console version came out (dreamcast?) and someone found a way to let pc players connect to DC servers. It was fun for about 15 minutes, winning a map at like 93-4 or whatever, but watching those people struggle while you ran circles around them just made it that much clearer that you need a kb and mouse.
First, if a game is decent, chances are, it exists for the Mac. Nearly all major games (Warcraft (I-WoW), Call to Duty, NWN, SW KotOR, Sims, etc.) have Mac versions that equal their Windows counterparts (not emulation). Second, who is running away from Linux because of the lack of games?
In all fairness to people buying these computers, it is about user experience. If the Macintosh delivers a better user experience, people will switch. The halo effect of the iPod is to show people what a well-designed machine feels like. Since (IMHO) the Macintosh has a much better experience, along with all of the accoutrements of a *nix under the hood, I had very little heartburn over switching.
Incidentally, the main use of my Mac is collision modelling in FORTRAN. Thank goodness for gfortran. The POSIX-compliant version is much more stable than its Windows counterpart and neither it nor g95 require MinGW on Darwin (obviously).
Finally, Darwin has the ability to compile the *nix OSS that we have all come to love. I keep a recent build of Apple's X11 on my machine and have yet to run into a tgz that didn't compile cleanly or with minimum tweaking. For those who love their OSS but don't like to work their own code, there are a couple decent package managers for the Mac as well (i-Installer, Fink, etc).
Using a PC doesn't mean using Microsoft software. This post is made from a machine running ubuntu and 0% Microsoft software.
This suggests to me that your reasoning is flawed.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Couple things.
1) I like Linux.
2) I like the Mac.
3) I mostly use Windows, (work and home).
If Mac catches up and passes (back) Linux it only proves what I have been thinking for a while now - and that is - If somebody does not do something interesting in the Linux GUI/desktop space Linux will never catch on (with the masses).
Considering all the things Linux has going for it - mainly, it runs on PC hardware and is free, there is almost no excuse.
All KDE/GNOME has to do is try something new - something cool - anything - do something creative!!! do something cool!!! I mean I know GNOME had a project render the desktop with vector graphics, I mean - do that!...
But, I a feel I am only typing to hear myself type .
and what, a 1.2 or 1.4ghz processor?
You're not really using MHz to compare, are you?
The mac mini is obsolete.
Your point of view is obsolete.
Can you point to any important research publications by Apple researchers in the last few years? I haven't seen any.
.4, .5...
Yes: It's called OSX 10.3,
The simple fact is that Apple R&D seems to be going into helping users. For instance, coming out in Tiger we actually have what WinFS was trying to accomplish in Spotlight. Not just the searching abilities, but also the searching API that developers could hook document creation into which was so important to WinFS.
So look at the Tiger design docs and say Apple has no R&D publications. They just happen to be practical and technically oriented. After all, a company the size of Apple can't afford to throw billions a year into a hole with nothing real to show from it like you have with MS.
As I've said before, Microsoft R&D is just a way to make sure there are a lot of smart people not producing things for other companies. It's basically a cushy prision for people Microsoft fears being in the wrong hands.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're missing the point.
Look at how Apple is marketing the mini. What they're pushing more than anything else is the software bundle, and what regular users can do with it. It's almost as if the hardware is irrelevant. That explains why the small size is significant, but at the same time, not really the point of the thing; a small, unobtrusive device is a sort of physical representation of the fact that hardware is fading into the background.
Even the tiny box the Mac mini ships in is sort of reminiscent of software packaging. It's almost as if Apple is selling a really slick bundle of software that just, you know, happens to run itself without any need for the user to supply a computer separately. And at this price point, a lot of consumers who want to get into digital media might consider buying the thing basically as a media creation appliance, with the intention of keeping their existing computers for "computer stuff."
Basically, everything has gotten fast enough now that for most users in the consumer market, hardware performance just doesn't matter anymore. Design, quiet operating, operating system and software bundle are much more important, and Apple gets that, even if some performance-enthusiast tech-heads don't.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Umm, dude. Only 3 or 4 of those listed titles are even current titles on the PC. It's nice that the Mac *finally* got them, but you seriously need a better argument than that.
I've been using Athlons for me and all the people I've been building custom Linux PCs for. I remeber a few years ago when AMD had one socket and Intel had 7. That was a major reason to use AMD.
Now AMD has something like 3 (or more) adding up to 9 or 10 different PC CPU sockets. Add in the bazillion variants of RAM clockings, HDD (SATA, EIDE (3 different speeds), SCSI (god know how many different types, etc.) conection standards etc. and even for a hardwarefreak like me things are getting very confusing.
I don't have the time for this anymore. And since configuring a PC with good hardware and a good OS (Linux) takes lots of time, in the end a Mac is cheaper. Much cheaper.
Linux will be the future workhorse OS, OS X will be the appliance OS.
Apple has gotten things just right for quite some time now, they deserve the market share they are just gaining.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Every mac user should submit a bug into the apple bug tracking system that says something like "the finder still sucks". They should do this once a quarter till apple gets the message.
evil is as evil does
As soon as the Mini came out, I predicted Apple could go as high as 10-15% by Summer 2006. To everyone who asks my advice on what kind of new computer to get, I recommend a Mini so they can avoid spyware. To everyone who has a PC and is sick of spyware, I recommend a Mini. (My mom wanted to replace her aging PII/266 but she didn't listen to me--she got an iMac instead.)
Now that spyware is such a huge honking problem and people are buying new PCs just to get away from it, I imagine it'll drive a bunch of people to switch. Honestly, if it weren't for spyware, I'd still go either way. All else being equal, PCs are still cheaper for low-end use. But with spyware being as bad as it is, I think Apple can really make a dent.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Well,
if the idea of having a computer for you is to tweak it and play with it then a Mac isn't for you. If you just want it to "work" and don't have to worry about, then I really suggest you get one.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Its not just a faster processor. Its a MUCH faster processor than a 1.2GHz G4. It takes many more types of video cards, drives and NICs etc.
I like the whole idea of a cocoa GUI over FreeBSD + microkernel, tried OSX and loved it. Being Apple, it has much better application support than FreeBSD alone commanded.
But for a general purpose machine, both the much faster CPU, and bigger application market are good leverages, makes decisions tough. Thus the 3% of Apple. Otherwise goto any Apple show thousands of people walk around looking and lusting for the machines, and not buying them. Everyone knows Apple macintosh, many swear by it. Others would love to join, if it weren't for the very annoying application lackage. This is a serious problem when youre a gamer.
Mac lovers have told me to just buy a mac and just not deal with software that arent available for the mac. Now thats not so easy, given some of the biggest titles out there are PC-exclusive, heck not even a Linux version (and Linux's market is weaker for the same reason). Should any desktop OS gain the threshold market percentage, about 20% I'd say, software developers will take notice, and the application problem will be less acute. We're just not there yet, better hardware or not, better OS or not.
Hmm... someone might come up with a computer based on an unknown CPU, that runs awesome at 5GHz, beats the pants off Opterons, and the whole thing costs $100. Given not even netbsd runs on it, will you buy it?
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
don't know if a third party monitor will work with an Apple-approved video card; this is probably something to ask your local Apple dealer.
If said 3rd party monitor has a standard VGA or DVI connector then it will work. This is just another one of many misconceptions about apple products. Same goes for any keyboard and mouse. Plug it in and it will work *Disclaimer: If you have some mutil-button/multi-function keyboard or mouse their may not be a driver that will work with apple.
But any Standard monitor/keyboard/mouse will work.