Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground • Hacker News Board

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#81

Post by jerven » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

tekklloneer wrote: post #52

monk_e_boy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dell Alienware is so much better value. Amazing keyboard, run any game you like, super fast. I don't care about Win10 either way. It unlocks with facial recognition. It weighs more than my car (but I leave it on my desk 99% of the time) I just couldn't justify buying an Apple, as much as I wanted one. [edit] how the hell do I keep getting down voted for voicing my opinion? Lol. Nope. You're opinion is wrong, lose…

The flip side is that I needed a laptop to take with me to events, so I got a $750 dell xps13. If I were a college student, I'd be eyeing the $1200 version extremely hard versus an equivalent specced macbook pro at $1700 Or, the $750 version (which is what I have) versus a $1000 macbook that's significantly less powerful.

I just got myself a Dell precision 5510 with Ubuntu out of the box. A lot more capable than the most power full current macbook pro, weighs slightly less then the macbook pro from 2009 I am typing this on (moving files across to the new dell)

After 16 years of Mac use I don't regret the switch.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#82

Post by dkroy » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

Am I the only one that has issues with the Macbook's WIFI and bluetooth drivers? Granted I am sure the price versus specs differential that keeps expanding my have something to do with. With that said, I am a creature of habit, and stuck in my ways and keep using unix and iOS.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#83

Post by tw04 » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #56

bostand wrote: post #2

Given the CES announcements from Lenovo, Samsung and asus I can only assume 2017 will be even worse for Apple. Laptop with 25 hrs battery? Give me two please!

And yet no one but Apple can seem to make a decent track pad (even for windows). It's a show stopper for me whenever I think of moving back to a PC.

The surface book trackpad is indistinguishable outside some of the gestures. Those could probably be custom configured if I cared enough to find an app to do so.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#84

Post by aconz2 » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

feross wrote: post #64

jclardy wrote: post #10

Makes sense with Apple's current terrible product line setup. Both the retina MacBook and 2016 MacBook Pro are much more niche than their last generation. Also much more confusing as the MacBook Air successor is $500 more than the 13" Air was (The non-touchbar MacBook Pro is the spiritual successor to the air.) The true 13" Pro for 2016 is also $500 more than the last gen. The 12" MacBook is there...but it is a super…

"If you want to write fast software, use a slow computer" - Dominic Tarr The 12" Macbook is the best computer I've ever owned. Switched to it from a 2014 Macbook Pro, and found it very easy to adjust. The only time it struggles a little bit is when I run Windows in VMware, on occasion. The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-…

"If you want to write yesterday's software, use a laptop" - me / paraphrase of Alan Kay I think?

I get why people are still blacksmiths making door handles and I think that's great. But I'd rather be in a giant machine shop making aircraft carriers.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#85

Post by edblarney » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC

010a wrote: post #74

ComputerGuru wrote: post #19

The biggest problem that Apple is creating for itself is not one that is being discussed directly in most of these threads: it's not about the loss in Mac sales, which they clearly don't give a damn about. It's the exodus of producers from their platform. Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? T…

I have to disagree. Completely. First: Your theory isn't new. It's been discussed to death here and elsewhere. Second: There's no evidence that content creators are actually leaving the Mac. It's easy to look at the new machines and Apple's trends and conclude that, but go look on Youtube at any major content creator. FCPX is still popular. If not, Adobe on OSX is still very popular. I'm not suggesting that no one ha…

"Second: There's no evidence that content creators are actually leaving the Mac. "

I don't think this is true. It's hard to say but there is a lot of noise about it.

Consider this: most 'creatives' are poor. Or kind of. My landlords wife is a 'photographer'. She doesn't make a lot of money. She - like many others - are 'money sensitive'. She uses a PC to do all her high-end work. I don't know why, or if she used Mac before, but I don't see any reason why creatives, in 2016 'need' to be on Mac.

If developers and creators can do their jobs well on a machine 1/2 the cost, that will affect outcomes.

"Apple's Mac sales are not, in _any_ way, propped up by professionals." - again this is false. Almost all consumer markets have 'category leaders' that drive the rest of consumption.

98% of Lululemon attire is worn outside of the Yoga studio - but if Lulu ever stopped making good yoga gear (and trust me, it's really good) - they'd be out of business.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#86

Post by capkutay » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC

The jury has been out on Tim Cook's performance as Apple CEO since he took over about 7 years ago. I think this new line of Macs is evidence that he's just too focussed on operations to the point where it's ruining their products.

I'm guessing the move to consolidate the ports and kill the audio jack may make total sense internally at Apple when it comes to their 10-year manufacturing operations plan and really maximizing their profitability, but to the outside world it's just bad product development.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#87

Post by ser0 » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #11

Has anyone here used the MBP touchbar on a daily basis? Does it improve productivity or is it just a gimmick?

I have the touchbar on my work laptop. As a developer I would say that it is a gimmick. I leave it on control strip mode rather than mix of app controls with control strip so that the keys do not change as I change applications.

Applications in *nix and by JetBrains still utilise function keys for shortcuts. If default touch-bar preferences allowed for showing function keys at all times with control strip triggered on fn, that would be my preferred default mode.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#88

Post by jotjotzzz » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:34 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #77

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #5

Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales. Back then it was the white plastic MacBook but now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot. That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS. Instead of repla…

Quite a few years ago I saw someone at college using a white plastic laptop and man I thought that looked sharp. I glanced at the top of it and saw it was a Mac. At the time I didn't own a Mac and I didn't follow their product lines, but that was a hell of a good looking laptop, I thought. That was actually the first time I'd ever seen a Macbook, I don't come from a very well-off or tech-forward area. Everyone at the…

I still have my old white Macbook. It has never discolored for me and it's still running pretty fast.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#89

Post by freehunter » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:34 PM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #11

Has anyone here used the MBP touchbar on a daily basis? Does it improve productivity or is it just a gimmick?

I don't own one, but I've seen them in stores and I honestly cannot understand the hate for the touchbar. When I ask people about it they end up saying something like "they took away the Esc key" but every model I saw in the Apple store had an Esc key prominently displayed on the touchbar. Every single one of them. I imagine it ships stock like that.

So they switched it to a touch sensitive key instead of a physical key, but it's still there, right? It's still in exactly the same location. I honestly don't understand the outrage.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#90

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

aconz2 wrote: post #84

feross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you want to write fast software, use a slow computer" - Dominic Tarr The 12" Macbook is the best computer I've ever owned. Switched to it from a 2014 Macbook Pro, and found it very easy to adjust. The only time it struggles a little bit is when I run Windows in VMware, on occasion. The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-…

"If you want to write yesterday's software, use a laptop" - me / paraphrase of Alan Kay I think? I get why people are still blacksmiths making door handles and I think that's great. But I'd rather be in a giant machine shop making aircraft carriers.

I have no idea where this analogy is going.

I'd rather be on a mountain making sleds?