This was pretty interesting; CNet reports that according to NPD stats, Apple has 91% of the retail PC sales in the US above $1,000.
Now, let’s add the caveats here:
- That’s retail PCs. Of course, loads of people build their (desktop) PCs from OEM parts rather than buying a prebuilt machine, so it’s safe to say that these sales are almost all going to be laptops, where Apple particularly shines.
- Also, these are primarily going to be consumer purchases, because businesses tend to buy in bulk and not at retail (excluding the smaller businesses) – again Apple is far more popular in the consumer space than in business (barring the iPhone).
- The above $1,000 range is a minority of all sales; a majority of people buy cheap rubbish
- This is only the US, where Apple seems more popular
So, the headline isn’t quite as accurate in its crushing assessment as the wholesome reality, but even so it’s pretty impressive. When it comes to laptops, I always buy quality because I’ve been disappointed many times by machines that looked good on paper but turned out to be poorly constructed, poorly designed, and had all kinds of heat / battery life / general robustness issues, which led me to always buy from the ‘premium’ range in the last 6 years or so. At first that was the likes of the top-end Sonys, but after being convinced to try a MacBook Pro, I’ve been so pleased with the overall construction / design and the ability to use OS X as well as Windows that I’m very unlikely to buy anything else next time (my next hardware revision will be 2010, I generally switch every 3 years, which is reasonable if you buy something decent to begin with).
The talk now is about whether Apple will start making a netbook, to compete at the cheaper end of the market. Personally I don’t care – I quit buying cheap laptops ages ago, I don’t think it really ends up being cheaper in the long run. Powerful and cheap machines tend to be poorly built – I’ve burned through (literally in a couple of cases!) far too many laptops that couldn’t handle their power actually being used regularly, or which developed problems because the build quality was naff. Cheap machines with decent construction but lower spec (e.g. netbooks) just need upgrading faster if you have my sort of needs, or are just a supplement to a ‘real’ machine, either of which costs more in aggregate, and the resale value when you do upgrade is usually not even worth considering. In the round, buying a premium laptop relatively infrequently works far better for me, and as such Apple already provide what I want. YMMV 
July 25th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I bought my Asus laptop 2 years ago and its still doing really well. Of course it did cost me an arm and a leg. That being said, you should also keep in mind there are higher end PC laptops in the market. I wouldn’t mind trying out a macbook.. if only I knew somebody who had one. Out of everybody I know I can’t recall any macbook users. Maybe theres a certain demographic, at least in WA state I’ve only seen a few people in public places with macbooks.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
“you should also keep in mind there are higher end PC laptops in the market”
Yeah I know, as I said I used to buy them (Sony was one of the best for gfx at the time, IBM for business – in fact my last Vaio before the MacBook Pro cost more than the MacBook Pro did). Asus seem pretty good now, although I haven’t seen any of them in the ‘flesh’, which based on my prior bad experiences I’d really want to. I’d never buy a laptop without seeing it first now.
“Maybe theres a certain demographic, at least in WA state I’ve only seen a few people in public places with macbooks.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jicho/2390618492/
Do US students get a discount or something?
Definitely depends on the demographic. Try going to Siggraph or other graphics conferences, I found over 50% of people using Macbooks; that was certainly the case at FMX this year too. Probably because of the “movie types” I guess. But they seem quite popular with developers these days, I know several other developers in my local area who have one (and one ex-pat who convinced me to try a MBP, and who now works for MS!). Most of them still work with MS tools for their jobs but still prefer the Mac as a machine. I think if you’re a developer and you’re already looking to buy a high-end machine, you should give a Mac a go; they’re well built, well specced and being able to develop on OS X (and iPhone) in addition to regular Windows is definitely worth the money, as well as getting a really nice machine. But it is a hard initial leap to make, I took a lot of convincing.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Macs are ok .. I am starting to warm up to them. On the other hand they are still way overpriced .. I got myself the cheapest thing I could find ( iMAc) to do iPhone work and I paid abot $1000 which is waaay to much for essentially $500 worth of PC ( with a crappy keyboard and unusable but a cool looking mouse)
I could easily get myself much, much better PC ( or build one ) …
In reality I should have gone for a $2000 model ( or a laptop).
To the point … they own the premium market because with exception of some geek/gamers oriented hardware, they are the only ones left there ! It is to the credit of their marketing department , they have managed to convince people to pay a lot more money for what is essentially the same hardware.
Still , you do get Xbox/Playstation style reliability and security of being limited to a very small subset of perfectly supported hardware – for some people it is well worth the cost.
July 25th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
“they have managed to convince people to pay a lot more money”
For the desktops I agree. For the laptops, I don’t think they’re actually *that* much more expensive (as I say, I’m speaking as someone who spent more on PC laptops in the past than I spent on my mid-range MacBook Pro). If you try to find a laptop with the same actual features – particularly the build quality, the dual-GPU so you can have battery life *and* power when you want it, the lithium polymer battery, the fast CPU etc – really there’s not much difference in price, and it’s easily made up for by the design features and the ability to run OS X too IMO.
July 26th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Yeah, I made a mistake …I should have bought a laptop.
I don’t play games or do anything else but coding on my laptop and an OS X based machine would have been perfect for it.
Frankly, the more I play with OS X the more it seems as if Apple managed to do what Linux guys always wanted to but were unable to – create an alternative , Unix based user friendly OS which actually has a decent , thought out GUI … and more importantly, some decent software to go with it.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Come on!
Even if the Linux people wanted to, they can’t suddenly begin a dictatorship, which is what Apple is, comparatively. I don’t think you can compare it with Linux at all. Compare it to Windows. Then you’re comparing things which *can* be compared.
Despite this, I am pleasantly impressed by the new KDE. It’s rock stable and in many ways a better experience than Vista.
Still, under the hood, it’s choice which makes Linux great. Which is why OSX always will be more polished and thought out.
IMO.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:15 am
You are missing my point … frankly, I don’t care how this thing is being build … I only care about how it behaves once I get my hands on it.
Personally, I run Linux to host my private web site as well as bunch of other things (like subversion etc) but that’s about it – while I do use KDE to do some stuff that cannot be done anywhere else ( like for instance coding for Linux) but I wouldn’t want to run it as my main desktop.
July 26th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, I’m with warmi on this one.
I love Linux for my servers. It’s fantastic, I wouldn’t really consider anything else now. On the desktop it’s miles better than it once was, and ridiculously good for something that’s free, but OS X and Windows are just a better overall experience IMO, really just because of a consistent design, a few great apps, and that more trivial things just work rather than requiring faffing around (sound, video setup, movie codecs, I’m looking at you). It’s really just the small things. As a developer and sysadmin, I love choice – I need it to find the best way to build my apps and run my servers. As an end-user with stuff to do, I care less about choice and more about quality.
Linux’s main benefit (ignoring cost) is the packaging system – it’s awesome to be able to grab apps quickly and easily like that, and on a server they’re all consistent in approach and (mostly) quality, which makes it a dream. However, the end-user apps you end up getting on Linux are by and large just not as polished, with more inconsistencies and small, nagging problems. I attribute this to the fact that it’s mostly programmers that are making them, and programmers know how to write good code, and how to design good software generally, but frankly suck at creating an end user experience, as a rule. I include myself in this rule – I learned a long time ago that I need to have non-programmers working on my team to create a really good end-user tool (and why I mostly stick to making products for other developers). See my comments in a previous post about that being needed to take open source to the next level. Until that happens, or until more commercial vendors who pay non-programmers to bring that experience to bear target Linux, I think the Linux end-user desktop experience will remain a step behind in comparison. It’s not as big a step as it used to be, but it’s still there, and paying a small amount of money for a more polished desktop experience is worth it to me just to let me get on with doing the stuff I need to do with minimal hassle.
July 26th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
If you haven’t tried the new KDE, I am not buying it.
I didn’t have to tweak a single thing. And I’m pretty demanding.
They did a great job this time – so do yourself a favour and try KDE 4.3 when it goes out of beta.
Then we can talk.
If you choose your applications carefully, you’ll have a great time in Linux.
My installation is over 3 years old, and it’s still fresh.
My Windows partition gets reformatted once or twice a year.
Of course, OSX is – and will always be – a polished experience.
A well paid team is behind it.
With a dictator at the top.
Regarding your previous post, I really think the KDE developers *are* taking it to the next level right now.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Hi Steve,
I actually sold (well, kinda..) my laptop and bought a new MacBook Pro a while after I read your post here : http://www.stevestreeting.com/2009/05/15/homeless-frank-laptop-hunters/ .
I used to think that Macs are very expensive (my dad owns an iMac which I think is overpriced), and have never thought of buying one before. But since they dropped the price on those MacBook Pro line recently, I decided to try and buy one.
Well my impression so far is exactly as you said. The MacBook Pro is one polished machine, the aluminum body is a solid build, the keyboard, the LED screen, and you must try the new battery, actually last that long when I brought it to my family’s gathering event. One charge for the whole evening.
The user experience is great, and it’s dead simple to use when you want to do simple things. And it boots Windows too. And it’s actually priced not far from my previous laptop with higher spec and better quality.
I’m not surprised if Apple managed to own the premium laptop market. Well, they’ve got me as well, heheh..
July 27th, 2009 at 9:38 am
@avee: Cool, glad you’re liking it. Your experience sounds very much like mine after I finally took the plunge.
@jacmoe:
I haven’t tried the new KDE, because as a rule I don’t use beta OS software (from anyone!). I look forward to trying it then.
But, OS is just one factor, 2hat about the apps? You say ‘so long as you choose your applications carefully’, but I haven’t yet been able to find best-of-breed apps within one WM style, I always have to mix-and-match between KDE and Gnome-primary apps which is not ideal. Which apps would you suggest?
“With a dictator at the top.”
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to get at with that line. Every company is “technically” a dictatorship if you want to look at it that way, and sometimes an explicit lead is needed to get things done right. Leadership doesn’t just mean clout, it means taking responsibility too. It also doesn’t mean dictatorship in the perjorative sense, it means setting the tone, and having the casting vote (and responsibility for that). That doesn’t mean there isn’t distribution of influence, it just means there’s a consistent overall context. If you think having a leader is a bad thing, then we disagree on what makes good design work. Personally, I think design by committee doesn’t work. Implementation by committee does, so long as there’s a consistent context for it to happen within. All the best open source projects have their tone set by a very small number of people, often a single ‘benign dictator’ (who needs to listen to the community, but has to make the call in the end and take the rap for that), so I don’t really see the difference.
If Apple really was a dictatorship, there would have been a coup while Steve Jobs was ill
July 27th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Actually, I’m using KDE 4.2 – not fond of beta software either.
To quote our local KDE developer ‘milliams’:
In my opinion, KDE 4.2 passed the threshold of being a completely usable desktop environment. Both 4.0 and 4.1 were aimed at early adopters but 4.2 is aimed at all users. Quoting,
[quote="The KDE 4.2 Release Announcement"]KDE 4.2 builds on the technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in January 2008. After the release of KDE 4.1, which was aimed at casual users, the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users.[/quote]
KDE 4.3 is once again making large strides to make the desktop environment useful for the user, e.g. http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.3-beta2.php.
Sorry about the formatting – but I think he’s right.
I noticed a big difference between KDE 4.1 and 4.2 – I think they’re definitely on the right track.
I’ve always been a die-hard Gnome user, but not anymore, not after trying KDE 4.2.
The integration of Gnome apps works nearly flawlessly in KDE. Not so in Gnome: it has poor KDE support.
The Gnomers have a lot of catching up to do.
About Apple:
What I meant was that they have total control over their OS. They decide what goes into the core. And how the windowing system should be like.
I am definitely going to shop for a MacBook when I need a portable machine.
July 27th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hopefully my Mac Mini won’t be considered rubbish =D For $419, a refurbed Mac Mini seems to be the most inexpensive way to get into iPhone development outside of robbing a Mac Store or setting up a Hackintosh =D
I’ve heard they serve well as home media clients too, so maybe my wife won’t kill me when it shows up on our doorstep as long as I can find a way to get Netflix running on it (we just moved, and now the 360 is now in the max cave).
July 27th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Well, I was considering getting a Mini as well .. but when I looked at it that thing had some crappy intel GPU and I wasn’t sure if it would work with the simulator.
Of course, now I know it doesn’t matter since the simulator is essentially a custom software renderer.
In any case, if you find your Mini being too slow .. you can always use Windows for majority of your dev time – I just use Imagination Technologies GLES1/GLES2 emulator which can be configured to mimic all kinds of hardware ( including MBX/SGX combos used by iPhones)
It works great …. frankly, when compiling my code for the device on the mac , I had more problems with differences between Visual C++/gcc than any issues related to GLES emulation.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Can’t judge solely by a screenshot, of course, but the KDE 4.2 desktop does look sweet: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/screenshots/desktop.png
July 27th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
They surely do.
The problem is not with the KDE itself … as soon as you try to deploy non-KDE based apps , things will start behaving differently etc …
July 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
That’s exactly my point.
KDE does a good job of it, however, better than Gnome.
Btw: that screenshot, Dan, seems to be an early KDE 4.2 screenshot. Looks better now.
I better start my own blog on the subject, instead of cluttering Steve’s blog.
July 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I’ve been on Gnome the last 2 times, it’s ok but there’s always stupidly simple things which annoy the crap out of me. Like:
1. X setup seems to *always* barf the first time
2. Sound is often a PITA
3. Clipboard requires a separate app to work properly across all apps (WTF?)
4. Compiz has the look of something nice if only I had a couple of days to figure out how to configure it best via an esoteric, user-unfriendly sprawling mass of options
So let’s hope new KDE is a big step up on that. I don’t use Vista because it had a few small things which pissed me off enough not to want to be arsed with it. My desktop Linux experience so far has been the same, if anything to a greater degree.