Looking at a business of this magnitude, I don't see how it matters what percentage of the total revenue this is. There's so much money to be had here and, unlike an individual, a company's attention shouldn't be so limited as to essentially make them forget to collect this additional revenue.
We find percentages useful precisely so that we can see through deceptively high dollars to the truth that they don't really play a big part in total dollars brought in.
The fact that it's 25B (if it is, again, no idea) only serves to illustrate the heart-stopping scale at which Apple does business. We're talking about a company for whom even such a sum is a bottom 10% priority from a pure revenue standpoint.
The only reasons I can think of are that they have taken designers completely off the mac line and put them all on the iPhone and other lines or else that they have put alot of designers on some kind of secret project, like moving to a different architecture and it's taking longer than expected to get it right. And even these don't seem to match up with how the company of 10-15 years ago would run things.
As to the actual matter at hand, I hope the output we're seeing now is the result of a de-prioritization, because I don't like to think of these results as best efforts.
For a publicly-traded company all that matters is stock price. One would assume that collecting revenues has a direct impact on that price, but we are not in so rational a world. Today it is all about growth potential rather than current revenues. Apple could be turning huge profits on laptops, but if they see that as a mature market then they will and must ignore it.
Given Apple's grip on users, they may even see laptops as a competitor to their iPhone business. Time on the macbook is time not on the iPhone. The intent may be to transition all macbook devotees away from lap/desktops altogether.
Really? You don't want to qualify that at all, maybe?
If not, please explain the first 10 years of AMZN.
At one time Apple had a lot of passion for desktop and laptop computers. Today, they just seem to be nonchalantly kicking the metaphorical can down the road. You can't blame consumers for not going crazy for products that Apple isn't crazy about themselves.
I think it's wrong to analogize a large corporation to an individual like that. An individual only has a limited capacity to divide its productive capacity, but a corporation almost has an infinite amount.
One of Apple's problems is that they often take what are probably good ideas too far. Some focus is good, but too much can be bad. Back when Steve Jobs took over, it was probably right for them to hyperfocus on a small number of models and software products, but the situation is different now. There's no good reason for a company as successful as they are now to not give the Mac division the resources and leadership it needs to be successful. Unfortunately, they seem to be neglecting it instead.
I'm on Linux though, so given recent fails and the general trend towards non-repairability and non-upgradeability, there's very little incentive for me to consider Apple hardware when I eventually upgrade.
I think if I had a 2012 model I would have been able to wait longer for new laptops. Currently, I'm very likely dumping the MBP as soon as new ones come out with a better keyboard.
When I did my shopping last year I was prepared to get a Linux laptop if things looked comparable and the price was significantly cheaper (assuming the risk of unknown problems like battery or hardware longevity) and the prices were roughly the same with other compromises I wasn't prepared to make.
Despite people's claim, the new macbook pros do have big innovations. You might not like them, but here they are: - Thin -> substantially thinner than my older mac book pro. It's nice! - Keyboard is part of making it thinner - Touchid built in - oled/dynamic keyboard/touch strip
These are consumer oriented innovations, even if you do not like them (personally I don't like the keyboard or the touch-strip.
To sum it up; looking around you don't see people in coffee shops using iPads (or any tablets)--it's all laptops. Even though iPads have outsold laptops by a significant margin for years now.
As a bit of a tangent (also mentioned by him); anyone who is productive on an iPad Pro uses a keyboard. Apple has refused to add touchscreens to laptops, but iPads with keyboard suffer this exact problem. So something still needs to evolve.
I see iPads/phones replacing the entertainment needs a general purpose computer used to fill and maybe Apple gets out of general purpose computing. This is also happening for "light" computing needs in business; like POS and inventory. But I don't see any sign that a PC going away at all for workhorse tasks just yet.
[1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/06/13/ipad-trackpad-i...
Actually they barely ever did, and the peak is past. For example in 2017 there were about 164 million laptops sold versus 161 million tablets of all types.
In 2007 it was 109 million laptops and zero tablets.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-...
[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/02/05/4q17-ipad-vs-other-tabl...
I remember seeing a lot of this take when people were buying up iPads, but I think there are real limitations -- tablets are just not really good for doing work.
I don’t like where Apple is going, but I can easily see a Macbook a generation or two out whose software is more iOS than macOS, and whose character is pretty locked-down / appified.
If Apple would just add support for pointing devices and if they would allow access to arbitrary files stored on USB devices via the Files app, the iPad could serve the needs of most people.
Nobody uses all of the esoteric features of Office, but most people use at least a few.
I rarely see the people who bought in on the iPad revolution almost a decade ago use their iPad beyond light browsing and sending emails.
To me, it seems to have replaced the morning paper more than it has laptops.
Maybe it's more accurate to say that iOS is the (present and) future of Apple. All arrows seem to point in this direction. It's a mobile, run-anywhere world that Apple sees as the future.
In that vision, MacOS machines are a cash cow business. And the corporate playbook for those is min-investment, max harvesting.
Someone has to write all the software, and they're not going to be writing it on an iPad. Even with an external mouse and keyboard.
> I really don't understand why they fail so hard to update their hardware.
It's not because of their monopoly-like status, it's because they make so little money on Macs compared to the vast sums of money they make on iPhones. They probably look at their developers, and ask "how much is it worth to us to have this developer work on a Mac? How much is it worth to us to have this developer work on an iPhone?" and the iPhone wins out every time.
Which... well, sucks, for the rest of us, but it's not laziness—it's opportunity costs.
If they want to sell hardware, they need to convince me to recommend them to the person who asks my advice. (rhetorical "me")
I am a cs-student with 3 1/2 year old a machbook pro, which I bought when I started my studies. I must say that I am still very, very satisfied, it's holding up great. Great display, suprsingly good battery life etc.
If something happens to my macbook, i would probalby spend a serious percentage of my savings saving on a new laptop. It's a very imporant part of my life, i do most of my work with it and I highly value the flexibility.
In this hypthetical scenario, i would really like to buy a new macbook and would probably go through a lot of financial pain if they took their line-up seriously. But it's really getting ridiculus.
I really don't understand why they fail so hard to update their hardware.