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Mac Sales Declined Nearly 10 Percent Last Year (9to5mac.com)
It's not surprising that Mac sales dropped for Apple in 2016 as they experienced their first year over year sales decline since 2001. What is interesting, however, is that as Mac sales dropped roughly 10% and personal computers overall dropped 5.7% for the year, the top four leaders in the market all saw growth as Apple was pushed to number five. From a report: Although Mac sales were up in Q4 2016 compared to Q4 2015, an analyst note today from Bloomberg's Anand Srinivasan and Wei Mok has revealed Apple has dropped to the fifth largest PC vendor, with ASUS overtaking fourth place. The top four vendors are now Lenovo, HP, Dell, and ASUS. The report adds, "Those four companies represent 65.2% of the overall market and each grew year -- over-year, while Apple ceded ground, declining 30 bps to 7.1%. The other 27.7% of the market is comprised of more than 200 vendors. In a market expected to consolidate, Samsung and Fujitsu are reported to be in discussions to sell their PC businesses to Lenovo."
Thanks summary and article for quoting "30 bps" seemingly without knowing what it means.
Anyway, I looked it up. It is a financial term, not a bandwidth one.
A basis point (often denoted as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of a percent.
I don't know how 30bps is easier to understand than 0.3% but there you have it.
Soldering RAM and SSD to the mobo is an instant "no-go" for a workstation for me. The goofy function row display just adds cost for a feature I didn't ask for. Sure, I'm not everyone, but I can say out of the dozens of macbook wielding "startup entrepreneurs", no one has upgraded to the new generation and those that need replacements are scouring Craigslist and the like for used ones (my favorites are from 2012). I hope Apple is leading us to the future of computing, but I don't like what I'm seeing so far.
I tried to procure Mac Minis for a small office in angel-finance reboot mode—it was a blank slate for changing the mix—and Apple had neutered the quad-core mini with the expansion RAM slot so badly, we bought refurbed Windows 7 boxes instead.
Worse machine, twice as much memory, half the price.
One key executive who has cold feet about making the jump, and you're not going to risk a castrated revamp. So it goes.
The New Mac mini is Quickly Turning into a Disaster
I had 100% buy-in for the Apple solution, had we still been able to get the 2012 spec. Mac mini.
My office mate had brought his own 2012-era Mini into the office and everyone loved it, which is how the option to jump ship from Microsoft entered the conversation in the first place.
Then *bam* the anvil behind the velvet curtain when we specked out the crippled revamp.
I can only imagine that Apple kind of wants to kill off the PC category altogether. Insufficient lock-in. Choice remains.
Yup. I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro and our usual upgrade cycle is 3 years. Work would buy a new one, but I'm waiting until the next generation of CPUs so that I can get one with 32GB of RAM. There hasn't been a single compelling update to the MBP line since 2013 (Haswell).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ram has not been upgradeable aftermarket in any MBP released after 2011. In the latest models you cannot even swap the SSD drive; that's a slap in the face, it basically forces you to buy their AppleCare insurance as soon as warranty runs out (1 or 2 years depending on country). And if you want extra power bricks, you have to buy them AND power cables separately. That's taking "nickle & dime" to a new level.
-- Let's go Viridian.
Nope, both RAM and SSD are soldered now so no upgrades at all.