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Apple Devices To Outsell Windows For First Time Ever In 2013
zacharye writes "Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have long been considered the future of computing and a new projection from market research firm Gartner shows just how important the mobile market has become. According to the firm's estimates for 2013, Apple devices will outsell Windows devices for the first time this year. The estimate takes into account sales of Apple's iPhones, iPads and Mac computers as well as desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones powered by Microsoft's various Windows operating systems..."
Does this mean the DOJ will finally pay attention to Apple and their "fair for everyone, especially the consumers, no this isn't an abuse of power or monopolistic tendencies, hey look over there, there is nothing to see here" policies?
Mobile phones really skewed things. However if you take things like Andriod into account Apple's share is still quite small. It just that Microsoft has almost no presence in the mobile phone market. Bill would not have let this happen had he still been in charge.
Did they include Xbox and windows CE devices?
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
. . . Microsoft has done this to themselves. Having failed to come up with a compelling mobile space product, they decided to force the half baked mobile OS on desktops, where they had, for better or worse, at least established themselves. No one is buying windows 8 machines that owns any previous windows computer. . . and those who hadn't bought a computer yet are buying tablets and phones and other internet consumption products. Now Microsoft wants to kill of thier segment of the content creation space. It's baffling.
In 2008, the Little Tykes Cozy Coupe was the best selling car in the US. However I don't think Toyota was overly concerned about the competition. Apple devices include things like the iPod. Microsoft's big money maker has always been business licensing. When Apple makes double digit market share in the enterprise arena, this will be news.
http://jalopnik.com/5282451/little-tikes-cozy-coupe-the-best-selling-car-in-america
Meh, this is just being posted to wake up the iFans and get their rabid page-clicks.
Android has been outselling Windows for a long time now, and will pass the entire Microsoft installed base in about 18 months.
Probably not, their markets have healthy competition.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Microsoft offers what it thinks you should have.
Apple offers what attracts people.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Obviously consumers are mostly staying away from Windows 8, which is slowing new PC sales... and in all honesty, there isn't an urge to upgrade PCs every year or two any more. We've reached a point of maturity in desktops and laptops, in terms of memory and drive space... the sweet spot seems to be around 8GB of RAM and 1TB of drive space. 90% of consumers do little more than surf, get e-mail and play games. Gaming hardware really hasn't vastly improved the user experience in a few years, even low end cards deliver nice graphics and performance on 1080p monitors.
Combined with customers' concerns over the "Modern UI" in Windows 8, and there just isn't a lot of compelling reasons for consumers to purchase new equipment.
Likewise... IT departments have likely slowed hardware refreshes in light of Windows 8. Many took a year or two to adopt Windows 7, which was a no-brainer upgrade after struggling with Vista (which many IT departments skipped). Again... nothing compelling to move into Windows 8 and integrate it into their common office environments, and hardware requirements of current software hasn't demanded more ram than most companies already have deployed.
Not so fast! If we are going to start comparing counts of "Devices", the clear winner is neither, but Linux.
Windows still rules the Desktop, and Apple the MP3-players, but all those millions of routers, TVs, Blu-ray players, TiVos, GPS units, Android devices and even kitchen appliances....
Linux *Devices* clearly outsell any other comparable platform, by a huge margin.
Don't forget the Zunes. Whatever their final total was, add +8 to it, so it reflects the Zunes.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
In its Android incarnation alone, Linux outsells Microsoft and Apple. Then there's the cloud...
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Passively reading news, or tweeting out the occasional 140-character update on your boring life is not "computing" to me. Watching videos isn't computing. Playing games isn't computing, even if it is computationally intensive for the device.
Call me when people start running spreadsheets on these things, or are using them as their primary development platform.
I think it would be more fair to say that these devices have surpassed the PC as interactive entertainment devices, as opposed to "computing" devices.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You do realize that Jobs was the one who said "people don't know what they want"? Apple is the #1 perpetrator of dictating to users what they "should" want.
Does this mean the DOJ will finally pay attention to Apple and their "fair for everyone, especially the consumers, no this isn't an abuse of power or monopolistic tendencies, hey look over there, there is nothing to see here" policies?
If Apple devices have just outsold Microsoft, then it would imply that there is a somewhat decent balance in the marketplace and the word 'monopoly' is probably misplaced here.
Probably not, their markets have healthy competition.
That's correct and they are suing them like crazy.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Keep in mind the Gartner comparison is in number of units sold. Considering Apple is much more vertically integrated than MS they keep a much larger chunk of the unit selling price and therefore earn substantially more revenue from per device sold. Apple should really start rolling their own server and office productivity software to compete against the remaining MS cash cows.
Microsoft "devices" (which apparently means "Windows devices" - mainly laptops, desktops and servers, with a few smartphones and tablets) are being outsold by Apple devices (mainly smartphones, tablets, and laptops, with a handful of desktops and even fewer servers).
In other news, Ford is outselling Airbus in terms of vehicles sold, and India makes more films than America.
Not only is there the whole computer-vs-mobile thing (with mobile being a growing market and actual computers having plateaued), but Microsoft itself is pretty new as a hardware manufacturer. They make Surface RT, Surface Pro, two generations of Xbox, the Zune, and a long series of mice and keyboards. Whereas Apple has been making hardware since day 1. So a more fair comparison would be "hardware sold" and "software sold" (not counting OS copies bundled with the hardware). Bet you it ends up with each winning one.
PS: Doesn't the Xbox count as a "Microsoft device"? TFA doesn't say, but they don't seem to include it. Seems unfair to have "OS X + iOS" versus "Windows" when Microsoft has their own locked-down, walled-garden media-consuming device.
Yeah apple's PEG ratio is 5 times SMALLER than google's. Price/ Earnings/ Growth. So smaller means better. five fold better. Stunning.
I tried to find data on historical accuracy of predictions by Gartner, but surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any.
Here is one example (which is actually not that bad): http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/013108-gartner-it-predictions.html?page=1
I really don't think the DOJ should bother. Capitalism did to Microsoft what the government could not. Even in the EU, where supposedly proper justice was being served, when given the choice, the customers chose internet explorer anyways. Microsoft was forced to sell the N version of windows that didn't include media player, but nobody bought it anyways.
Yet when superior browsers rose up, not even the inclusion of IE as the default and unremovable browser (in the US at least) stopped customers from ultimately picking Chrome in higher numbers than IE.
I think capitalism will do the same thing to Apple. Yeah, there are the washed masses. We should know that better than anybody. But the customers aren't going to change from that unless something better comes along. The best we can do is remove government sanctioned monopolies granted by overbearing patents, and do away with the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
If Microsoft doesn't back down and quit trying to cripple desktop PCs into second-rate tablets, Apple just might beat Microsoft for new desktop and laptop sales in some future year, too. Especially if PC hardware continues its relentless race to the crap commodity bottom & Apple can resist the urge to do the same with its hardware.
Don't laugh. Back in 2008. if you told a group of guys with Windows Mobile phones that it would be dead from Microsoft-induced suicide by 2010, you would have gotten laughed at. The original iPhone was a dumbed-down crippled toy by comparison, and Android was just a whispered rumor. Microsoft had a device that was largely dysfunctional for making voice calls, but one hell of a kick-ass pocket laptop with wireless internet access.Then, right around the time they finally started to look like they were learning how to make a phone... they pulled the plug.
Three years ago, Microsoft crawled from the Vista abyss and gave us Windows 7. The skies parted, the angels sang praises not heard since the midnight release parties of Windows95... then Microsoft threw it all away two years later in the wretched name of Metro.
Microsoft is proof-positive that corporate insanity (or alzheimer's) is real and exists. They're going to put themselves out of business, then wonder how they could have fallen so far, and so completely, in so little time. And if they don't, it'll only be due to thirdparty developers working tirelessly to give us the Windows we actually *want*.
But that's not what the masses want, you're a nerd (admit it you're on slashdot) and what you want is a microscopic market niche. Steve was right.
The Gartner report never projects the sales of iOS and OSX devices exceeding those of Windows devices. Those projections cover the years 2012 through 2017, so I'm not sure where that sensational conclusion came from. It's also worth noting that the projected sales of Windows devices is continuing to increase, albeit not at the same rate as iOS/OSX, each year.
Not that I would place much value in these projections. The volume of sales of mobile phones suggests that people will be replacing them every 2.4 years, and that's assuming that everyone over the age of 15 owns one. (If you assume that fewer people own mobile phones, the replacement rate must increase to less reasonable levels.)
Microsoft and Google.
I don't want Blu-ray playback, if it means the OS has to conform with the required DRM hooks.
If you're on a Mac the OS already does. It's more about licensing with MPEGLA and protecting the iTunes ecosystem.
Especially if PC hardware continues its relentless race to the crap commodity bottom & Apple can resist the urge to do the same with its hardware.
The race to the bottom happens because the consumer wants and will buy cheap products. The only reason they will pay more is if the cheap product is not good enough. The problem is that Android and ChromeOS can go far lower than windows can. Future generations of ARM chromebooks are far more of a threat to Microsoft than Apple will ever be.
The apple brand is too strong for OEMs to make significant sales at that price-point so they need to go lower. If you can go lower than everyone else while still providing an adequate product then you corner 30 to 50 percent of the market. If the race to the bottom is not happening then anti trust laws should be brought out.
Don't forget to count Cameras and TVs.
And OS/2 beats them all if you count ATMs!
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Apple owns their own store. It is not a third party. They can do whatever they want in their own store. If they threatened Best Buy that's another story. Apple has the right not to carry Windows in their brick and mortar stores as much as MS has the right not to sell Apple products in their stores. Please try again.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Android based products outsells Apple by a significant margin. Then throw in the sales of all sorts of NAS/set-tops Sat&Cable boxes/xDSL routers/Blu-ray players/Media players/Tivo/Smart tv's running linux.
Makes Linux the world's Dominant Operating System.
Unfortunately.. few people are aware of that Linux OS is behind a large portion of this technological revolution.
Sure, there are other mobile device software stores.
You can't define the market as "software stores for iOS devices" because Apple makes all the iOS devices, and you can't be guilty of having a monopoly of your own product.
See inkjet printers, games consoles and razors. It's perfectly legal and non-monopolistic to tie a base product with add ons and consumables. So long as there are other viable choices of system.
To a company like HP, the real cost of Windows (Home, at least) is about $20-25... they pay ~$35 to Microsoft, but if they shipped it with Android, they'd have to pay $10 to Microsoft anyway.
Microsoft has only three things to blame for the piss poor sales of Windows 8 (and hardware that ships with it) -- themselves, Metro, and Windows 8 itself. If they'd left well enough alone, and allowed Windows 8 users to change one or two preferences settings and have Windows 7's look and feel back, just about everyone would have upgraded to it without a second thought.
OEMs can go with a long-term losing strategy of lower prices, or they can mount a direct assault on Apple the way Google did with the first Nexus One by raising the hardware bar to some point WAY above the level Apple is willing to allow. A shit netbook is no match for a Macbook. A notebook with 2560x1600 13.3-17" display would turn heads. A notebook with a non-chiclet keyboard that didn't utterly suck for anyone who knows how to type faster than 100wpm would get noticed. A notebook with a second display clamped onto the back of the main one for travel that's powered by a powered USB hub built into the laptop's own power brick would get a standing ovation.
A Macbook is not God's Chosen Computer -- there are plenty of ways to leave Apple in the dust hardware-wise. If you can't make a computer that's a 2/3mm thick laminated-glass slab like Apple, the solution isn't to make one that's 5/6mm thick and try to undercut Apple by $10. The solution is to say 'fuck Apple', make it an inch thick, give it a mechanical keyboard, and pack the empty space inside with 4 pounds of Lithium Ion gel that can run an i7 at full bore for 16 hours without breaking a sweat. Let the bitchy fashion queens who think the world begins and ends with Facebook have their credit-card thickness tablets with soft keyboards, and let people who use their computers to get real things done not be crippled.
That's not what "people" want. That's only what "SeaFox" wants.
You really think people don't appreciate being able to increase the storage on their cell phone or tablet without having to buy a whole new device? And I'm sure there's no gamers out there with Macs who would like to be able to use a high-end graphics card without having to plunk down for the top-end pro tower from Apple.
Go to any Mac forum and read from the creative professionals upset the Mac Pro hasn't been updated in any major way in three years. Or the folks with 24-27" iMacs annoyed they have that IPS screen and can't watch HD video on it unless they either rebuy their movies on iTunes or jump through hoops encoding/space-shifting their own content because they can't just pop the disc in the drive and play it like on a PC.
If you're gonna be a troll, you could at least not make yourself look like a moron in the process.
As keeps being pointed out the real bearded ones: The operating system itself is the kernel together with the drivers and kernel modules. Everything else is either shell or application. You are messing up distributions with operating systems.
This can only result in this:
1. PC manufacturers, not asociated by Apple will go full Linux;
2. Apple's security department will face security breach hell;
3. People will return to Windows or switch to Linux.
Mac OS X security is a joke. Not by design, but by practical reality:
1. It's based on free software;
2. It's not patches as fast as that free software;
3. Since there is no security through obscurity, cracker will only need to subscribe to various free software mailing lists and acces CVS systems;
4. Wait for holes in FreeBSD to be explained on the mailing lists;
5. Look at the CVS fixes before and after the patched holes;
6. Laugh their asses of while Apple's security responds team waits arrogantly for weeks to months on end to supply updates, since Apple doesn't appear to need a lot fixes, because Mac OS X is supposedly the shit;
7. Bye bye Apple customers;
8. Ballmer: "Missed me?";
9. Linus: "Don't go to the Darkside, Luke."
Here be signatures
If we take "passively reading news" to include other sources like forums, home pages, blogs etc. then most web browsing is excluded in general. If "tweeting out the occasional 140-character update" isn't computing then everything from IRC to e-mail to posting on Slashdot isn't either. Take away "watching videos" then I'm guessing that excludes listening til music, watching pictures or any other form of similar activity too, we've already excluded social activities and commenting as blabbering so all of Facebook and YouTube has nothing to do with computing. When you exclude things that are computationally hard for the computer but not for me, then I think you've excluded 95%+ of all I've ever used my computer for personally. Even compiling from source probably shouldn't count as "computation" then, if all you do is make && make install.
Let me try phrasing it it another way, what were the reasons I wanted to upgrade to a better PC in the past? Playing MP3s and MIDI was big in the 90s, better graphics modes in the 90s and HD video in the 2000s, games the 80s until present. In fact, I don't think I've ever wanted a new computer to make my spreadsheets go faster or to get my compilation times down. So since you've excluded all the reason I'd like to have or upgrade a computer, I guess it hasn't lost as a computing device only as a PC. Because I guess almost all the things I've used it for over the last decades haven't been computing, silly me. Oh and the really heavy computation you now do on a server or in the cloud, welcome to the new mainframes - on my desk at work is nothing but a thin client.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And we Nokia guys (which in Europe was pretty much *everyone*) laughed at the crashing piece of shit that Windows Phones were, and laughed even more at the ridiculously limited iPhones.
You idiots don't even know history. We had "one hell of a pocket laptop" in freaking 2002! It could do everything you'd expect from a small PC. Hell, I ran Putty on that thing, tested web applications, chatted via IM+ (all networks), played games, listened to music, watched videos, ordered files, edited documents, and changed whatever setting I wanted... all with every hardware bell and whistle you could want back then.
If Nokia would have kept its balls and not run after shitty Apple but aimed *higher* (which is not hard, considering Apple aims and complete morons and *only* those), and if Microsoft wouldn't have injected their mole (piece of shit and all-time enemy of half of Europe), Nokia would still kick everyone's ass today.
Hell, even with the mole, their hardware still easily blows everything else out of the water. And Jolla will steamroll the market again, in a few years.
ok, so MS owns it OS, yet the EU told them they had to put in a different browser? How is this different?
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
No one is going to lug around a 5lb brick just so some geeks can look at it drool.
You do realize that Jobs was the one who said "people don't know what they want"? Apple is the #1 perpetrator of dictating to users what they "should" want.
Non sequitur. "People don't know what they want" doesn't mean you dictate to them what they _should_ want. It means you figure out _for them_ what they will like when they see it. You give them _exactly_ what they want, even when they don't know what they want themselves.
Which is why Apple users are switching to Android, it's a better experience. It's why I've had one several years now, it's a better experience. I have multiple choices instead of Apple's moronic 'black or white'. I can get sliders or flip phones, different sized tablets, with or without HDMI connectors, most with SD card slots for expandability. And tons of different price points. It's got apps for what I need, like being able to remote connect to my desktop at work for support, so there is no need to buy an Apple computer or phone just for software.
.. iTune software sucks. She would rather use an old Creative brick MP3 player than her iPods because the music software just worked better. Now she just uses her Android phone.
My wife gave away two different iPods because she and I both agree
I work for a company that runs RedHat clusters on Vmware. No Apple computer in sight because they are expensive and don't provide the same bang for the buck.
Apple may be leading windows, but that is mostly because Windows phones just suck. They always have, and they always will. But people will continue to want choices, which Apple has yet to figure out because it wants a stranglehold on it's product. Because it wants to make money and really doesn't give a crap about anything other than that.
If it did, it would allow me to buy any PC I wanted to and put Apple software on it. It would let manufacturers build iPhone compatible hardware, and let them put Apple software on it. But they don't. Because they want to make a bunch of money by charging more for a device by controlling the supply and artificially inflating the demand.
Apple does not play well with others, and I will never buy their products.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/03/nobody-cares-what-you-think-about-their-phone/
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Actually, Google bought the original Google Maps too.
Here, it gets complicated. The main reason is Dalvik, a layer above the kernel itself. From a pure OS point of view, it's a shell, allowing the starting and stopping of applications. At the same time, it's also the only available interface to the kernel. Thus, from an application point of view, it acts like the OS itself. Often, it's called a platform, abstracting the real OS. Google could replace Linux at any time within Andoid, and for the applications, it wouldn't make any difference. That's why you can develop Android apps in the Android SDK on your computer which is neither ARM based as the Android devices the apps will later installed on nor necessarily runs Linux as its OS - Dalvik is presenting a layer against which the apps are built, and which acts the same on any OS it is running on.
I can only buy a 911 from Porsche. Obviously, they are a monopoly that needs breaking up.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Me. Me. Me. Your argument is full of data that is from your own experience. So what show me some real numbers. I live in the country so does my family, as well as everyone else I work with. So everyone must live in the country?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.