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Apple's Share of PC Users Drops To A Five-Year Low (infoworld.com)
Windows 10 is installed on 24.5% of devices -- but that's only half the story. "Apple's Mac share of personal computers worldwide fell to a five-year low in December," reports Computerworld, adding that Linux and Windows "both benefited, with increases of around a half percentage point during 2016."
An anonymous reader quotes their report:
According to web analytics vendor Net Applications, Apple's desktop and notebook operating system -- formerly OS X, now macOS -- powered just 6.1% of all personal computers last month, down from 7% a year ago and a peak of 9.6% as recently as April 2016... The Mac's 6.1% user share in December was the lowest mark recorded by Net Applications since August 2011, more than five years ago... In October, the company reported sales of 4.9 million Macs for the September quarter, a 14% year-over-year decline and the fourth straight quarterly downturn. Apple's sales slide during the past 12 months has been steeper than for the personal computer industry as a whole, according to industry researchers from IDC and Gartner, a 180-degree shift from the prior 30 or so quarters, when the Mac's growth rate repeatedly beat the business average.
Apple's success through 2016 was "fueled by Microsoft's stumbles with Windows 8 and a race-to-the-bottom mentality among rival OEMs," according to the article, which also notes that the user share for Linux exceeded 2% in June, and reached 2.3% by November.
Apple's success through 2016 was "fueled by Microsoft's stumbles with Windows 8 and a race-to-the-bottom mentality among rival OEMs," according to the article, which also notes that the user share for Linux exceeded 2% in June, and reached 2.3% by November.
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While they continue to pull defeat from the jaws of victory with baffling regularity(eg. needlessly atrocious touchpads for no obvious reason); it's amazing how much less-bad your average PC laptop is today, when compared to the race-to-the-bottom and "Yeah, it's a 15in low-res screen and 2 inches thick" era. Models that can go directly head-to-head with Apple's finest are rarer; but you can often save enough money, vs. the really classy Apple gear, that a few minor sins can be overlooked. Combine that with Apple's more or less total neglect of anything desktop/workstation, which is a boring segment but moves a lot of hardware; and the fair success of Chromebooks as practically-disposable cheap 'n portable options; and you have a few reasons why OSX marketshare might not be doing as well outside of the truly devoted.
Back in the day, an ibook/macbook was both good and actually one of the cheaper options if you needed something small and light; mac minis stacked up reasonably favorably against all but the most atrocious cheapy towers; and Mac Pros were pretty respectably priced workstation offerings. I remember, back when they were still doing the intel-based 'cheese grater' case Pros; we were a Dell shop but when we priced out the Pros vs. equivalent Precisions our Dell rep turned a slightly unhealthy color and had to cut us a deal to make it worth going with those rather than just bootcamping the macs. That...isn't exactly...how the world works anymore.
They abandoned productivity computing users almost entirely.
Appliance-style computers with high-end sensory specs, rather than modular ones with high-end throughput specs.
Abandonment of "professional" tier applications, integrations, and support.
Marketing and product development that targeted information consumption rather than production and manipulation.
Modifications primarily to the computing platform whenever computing and mobile needed to be brought closer.
Not so long ago Mac OS was a compelling computing platform at the hardware and at the software level for many professionals, including many computing professionals like me (who were once hardcore Linux/*nix users).
This is no longer the case. With the changes that have been made over the last few years, Mac OS and related hardware are now also-rans, but ones that come at a significant cost premium and with significant limitations.
Meanwhile, they have avoided the (often controversial) wisdom of Steve Jobs, who tended to cannibalize existing product lines and userbases with new ones in order to stay ahead of the curve. Instead, they have worked hard not to cannibalize and/or risk the iOS userbase (designing instead for its lowest common denominator, which is low indeed) by upgrading or innovating in iOS.
The result is that Mac OS is no longer a viable (much less obvious) choice for professionals even in many of its traditional constituencies, while iOS has stagnated and is now significantly behind Android in many ways.
I don't think all of this would have happened under Steve Jobs, who would have continued to be controversial, and also would have continued to make gains but in often surprising ways that would only be grudgingly conceded later on.
With Tim Cook they got a traditional bean-counter who carried Apple back into the traditional corporate cycle of aggressive rise, complacent dominance, unavoidable fall.
I'm annoyed that I'll have to switch computing platforms again—the switch from Linux was not easy after 17 years when I made it in 2010—but I suspect that I will.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
And Valve is no longer a game developer.
They are a gambling site and games retailer.
Both succeed in their attempts to gain more money =P
Apple is also losing the battle in education. There are almost 100,000 schools in the US and until about 5 years ago, many ran Apple computers in their classrooms.
Chromebooks have eaten Apple's lunch almost entirely in that space.
Cutting Tim Cook's pay is not enough - Microsoft put a tech guy in charge of the company - it's time for Apple to do the same.
Apple was a "just works" solution for people who didn't want to be bothered with their computer to do what they actually wanted to do. And Apple delivered that beautifully. Not to me, I never got my mind wrapped around the "Apple way" of thinking, but I could easily see it with the various people I used to admin PCs for. They quickly fell in love with the intuitive interface (beats me how this is intuitive, but they thought so) and how "naturally" everything felt (personally, I felt it was all wrong). But it wasn't for me, it was for them, and for them, it worked perfectly. There also was never an issue with odd drivers or having to upgrade them, Apple did that for you. There was also never an issue with having to buy some additional reader for whatever esoteric memory medium your digital cam used, your Apple could read it. Out of the box. Without you having to install anything. Even the most cryptic format nobody heard about, your Apple would read it and seamlessly let you work with it, it organizes your files for you, it was the perfect computer for people who just wanted to do stuff without having to learn how to do it.
Quite frankly, Apple's engineers apparently spent a lot of time employing people like my dad telling them what they want to do and they designed the software to "think" for the user. That was the key asset for Apple. And they threw that away.
No, not with the software. That probably still works the way it did. But with the hardware. Again, one of the key selling points for Apple was that their machines could read anything you could possibly throw at them. And that is simply no longer the case. They can't even read USB out of the box anymore. Instead you are supposed to buy a lot of additional crap, various cables for various reasons that confuse and overwhelm people. Which one do I need? And I don't want to buy the wrong one, they're all quite expensive.
Apple replaced total compatibility with absolute incompatibility. They saw that they can cram it down their users' throats in the phone market and tried the same stunt with their computers. And now they get to learn the MS lesson: Just 'cause you can piss on your customers in a market you dominate doesn't mean that it will work everywhere.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am a creative professional in the online, SaaS, new media publishing era. I should easily be in the traditional Mac OS demographic.
I am using a 17" 2010 MBP. It has been maxed to 16GB RAM and dual internal large SSDs. I regularly use all of the ports that it offers. Even though the screen resolution is lower, I use the larger screen because I often have side-by-side windows open running SublimeText and/or some IDE, and doing that on 15" or less introduces eyestrain, even with the higher resolutions (which are mostly supported only in a way that adds visual actuance/sharpness, not in a way that increases available workspace). Density is cute for photos, but for reading and working in text, density < surface area.
I was an iPhone early adopter. I had been using smartphones for years (Palm at the time that iPhone was released), and iOS was a revelation early on. Absolute game-changer once apps happened.
Talk to me in 2009/2010 and I am a hardcore Apple supporter. I am running my old Linux applications in X, have a shell window open all the time, have access to pro-grade multimedia and development tools, and every part of the product line enhances the productivity of every other part seamlessly. They get it and they are enabling me to do my work like nobody else.
I recommend Apple's ecosystem to friend/family/co-workers without hesitation.
Now? The Mac is 7 years old. There is no device currently in Apple's lineup that would better serve my needs. I can't buy something from Apple, at any price, that I'd want to replace it with.
Many of the Applications that I previously used on it—Aperture, Final Cut, even iWork—have either been retired by Apple or hobbled by Apple, leading me to purchase third party alternatives, e.g. from Adobe, that are also supported on other platforms. The transitions were a pain in the ass, but now I've made them, so I'm no longer facing the resistance to switching that comes from losing all your applications and workflows.
And while iOS was once inimitable, nothing like it, enables many more things than any competitor, now I use Samsung Galaxy Tab S machines and a Panasonic CM1 Android phone. They give me shell access, expandable storage to move files around, and hardware that is better for mobile (better camera, better portability/weight, etc.) than iOS does.
In short, I'm an savvy computing professional, not someone easily swayed by marketing speak, and Apple isn't selling a single thing that I want. I've gone from an Apple house (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Time Machine for router/backup) to a mixed house (Mac, Android phone, Android tablet, Roku, third-party NAS).
The only Apple item left is the Mac, and in a year or two it'll probably go and be replaced with a Dell/Samsung/Asus high-end machine running Linux.
There is no reason Apple had to lose me, they just didn't continue to make products that would enable me to get my work done more efficiently than the alternatives, which is what Apple used to do with shocking skill. But now?
Like I said, there's not a single thing in Apple's product line that I want to buy or that seems like a good investment from the productivity perspective. That's a complete and shocking inversion from the late '00s.
I now recommend Windows 10 or Linux and Android to everyone, and Chromebooks for those that just browse and type papers.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I think when Steve Jobs was still alive, he enforced a philosophy at Apple that the Mac was the "cornerstone" of the company, no matter what else it developed. It was all about that "halo effect", where the Mac was the control center for everything else, and everything had a symbiotic relationship with everything else Apple sold. (EG. You could be a Windows user and buy an iPod as your music player, and use it just fine. BUT, you'd eventually say, "Hey... Apple's iTunes software that manages this thing really runs better on the Mac than it does in Windows. Maybe I'll just go with a Mac in the future and use it with this?" Or you might be a Windows or even Linux user who bought an Apple Airport Extreme as your wi-fi router because it got high reviews. You *could* manage it with the Windows version of the management software, but you'd find it's easier to just set one up from an iPhone, where support is built right in.)
Back then, it was commonplace for Jobs to remind people that low overall percentages of Mac sales compared to Windows didn't concern him. It was about selling gourmet food vs. McDonalds. If you have a premium product, you concentrate on catering to those who appreciate that ... not worrying about maximizing sales numbers.
Today, it's very different. Apple under Tim Cook seems to believe iOS devices are the "future" as the traditional computer dies out, and MANY of the complaints Mac users have are direct results of this change in course. There are problems right now with PDFKit in OS X, where Apple suddenly rewrote the thing from the ground up in OS X Sierra without so much as informing developers. The reason? They wanted one with feature parity with the iOS version. This made Apple's own Preview software unsafe to use to edit PDF documents, because it causes embedded OCR layers to be stripped from them when you save them. Other applications like Mariner Paperless, which use Preview to display scanned documents in their database, crash as soon as you try to view a file in your collection. It's basically a trainwreck right now. I hear Apple is scrambling to fix a lot of this in the latest OS X beta, but this fiasco already caused many realtors to switch back to Windows because they rely so heavily on PDF as part of their daily workflow,
If rumors I've heard can be believed, Apple doesn't even have much of a Mac OS X development team left anymore. The updates to it are supposedly being done by a team that's expected to spend part of their time doing iOS related work.
I've been a big Mac proponent since the 2001 time-frame, but I'm finally reaching the point where my next computer won't be a Mac, unless there's a major change of course in the near future. As others have said, Apple has nothing for sale that I'd really want to buy. The new Macbook Pro 15" looks desirable at first glance. The touch-bar is a nice addition and it looks attractive in space gray color and all that. But in reality, it's the most expensive laptop Apple has ever sold (in a high spec configuration at least), while demanding more compromises to use it than have ever been expected of "Pro" users before. The lack of all ports except USB-C would be more acceptable if the USB-C standard was more prevalent. But putting it there today is doing it just to prove you're "cutting edge", while hampering real-world usage. And at that price? Why isn't a set of the dongle adapters included with it?? The Mag-Safe charging was a mistake to eliminate too. That's been a signature feature that made Mac laptops a step ahead of everyone else. Couldn't they at least do a USB-C variant of Mag-Safe?
They never were a computer company (atleast not since their "rebirth").
They're a fashion company and they failed to make enough changes to remain fashionable.
Do you really believe that, or are you just regurgitating hater credo? Woz and Jobs fucking CREATED the individual computer movement. Microsoft created Word for Mac, not for DOS. Jesus, learn your history.
Really? So the Commodore Pet (1977) doesn't count as a personal computer? Also, there was this thing called Wordperfect (1980) that came before Word (1983)... The only reason why Microsoft developed for the Mac first is that they saw a market where WordPerfect didn't have a foothold (i.e. ease of entry).
If you think that Woz and Jobs created the personal computer then you are seriously misinformed. There were a large number of other computer designs being developed and the Apple was no where near the most popular or most advanced.
I think that you need to read a few more history books yourself.
Omitting the fucking ESC key for one. Requiring expensive adaptors to connect pretty much anything is another. Or how about the fact that after 4 years it's barely faster in many benchmarks, or that they utterly rape you if you want to opt to increase the non-upgradable-flash-SSD-storage. Or that their touted battery life increases have not only not been borne out in practice, but people are having issues with the battery lasting 1/2 as long as before. Or that after all of that lack of innovation, they haven't even made it cheaper.
I have a 2012 MBP, and there wasn't any serious competition to it back then (even as a Windows laptop using Parallels). But after 4 years this is all they could do, and not even drop the price? It's a joke!