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Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

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Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#5
Reddit[0] attributes this largely to Chromebooks snatching up most of the K-12 education market from iPads, with Google vaulting ahead while Apple was under-prioritizing that market.

Motivations school districts might have for switching: (1) Cheaper, (2) Keyboards are nice for typing, (3), More resilient over time due to easy software updates, and (4) Easier to debug (similar to prior point; nothing is stored locally, so a 3 minute re-image fixes most software problems)

In addition, folks in that thread think that tablets are generally the worst of both worlds as compared to laptops and phones (phablets?), whereas Chromebook are everything that tablets should be.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/4k234g/chromebooks...

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#6

Not surprised ... Apple hasn't put out a laptop with up-to-date specs for years. I'm a lifelong Mac user and I'm unhappy with their current specs.

Somehow I don't think that their hardware is as much an issue as their price point. As a developer you'd still be a fool (or just loaded with elbow grease) to attempt developing with a chrome book.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#8

I wonder how much cheaper macs would be if their primary purpose was tracking users to deliver ads

I haven't seen any suggestion that Chromebooks are somehow directly subsidized by Google - are Samsung, Toshiba, etc. getting some kind of kickbacks for making and selling the hardware? ChromeOS itself is free to license for vendors [1] But most have fairly low-end CPUs, not much RAM, and small SSDs, so I don't think they compete with Apple for features, per se.

1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook#Sales_and_marketing

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#9
post #3

This might be due to the fact that a new Macbook Pro is coming. Everyone I know has held off upgrading until the new form factor comes out at WWDC.

The problem there is that Google will likely release an updated Chromebook Pixel soon, also.

With coreboot enabling installation of Linux on the Pixel for developers (And stock ChromeOS for regular users, of course), there is no reason to prefer MBP over the Pixel.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#10
post #5

Reddit[0] attributes this largely to Chromebooks snatching up most of the K-12 education market from iPads, with Google vaulting ahead while Apple was under-prioritizing that market. Motivations school districts might have for switching: (1) Cheaper, (2) Keyboards are nice for typing, (3), More resilient over time due to easy software updates, and (4) Easier to debug (similar to prior point; nothing is stored locally…

reddit comments are a source now?
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