Apple blames 17% drop in Mac sales on iMac supply constraints

Apple blames 17% drop in Mac sales on iMac supply constraints


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duh...

I'm beginning to suspect the demise of the iMac in the next five years or sooner. First, you make them so they can't be upgraded, then you blame poor sales on their unavailability. Yeah, right. ;P

Unfortunately, I agree. ;P

Yeah, I support the notions mentioned above....

Laptops and tablets are the wave of the future. They are getting powerful enough to do all one would want.

While notebooks and tablets may be getting more powerful, they still lack the high resolution of a large screen. Which means now you not only have to spend big bucks on a power notebook but also a large external monitor.

chscag said:

I'm beginning to suspect the demise of the iMac in the next five years or sooner. First, you make them so they can't be upgraded, then you blame poor sales on their unavailability. Yeah, right. ;P

Click to expand...

More like the demise of all desktops - Most people just don't need em' anymore...

noodlemanc said:

More like the demise of all desktops - Most people just don't need em' anymore...

Click to expand...

I don't see that happening. Not for a good decade or two. You get so much more bang for the buck with a desktop and if you want something mobile, you have a tablet (or smartphone). I understand the pros may need notebooks like the MBP for when they're on the go, but there are more than enough average users/consumers that can't justify a MBP when an iMac or Mac Mini with an iPad will suffice.

There's a place in the market share for each device. Right now you're just seeing a "correction", to use a stock market term, because the MBPs and Airs are improving in performance and display. But desktops won't completely disappear. Maybe transform as technology improves. Maybe built into the wall or into your TV. Or some other sci-fi options.

Decade or two? No way. I see it happening a lot sooner. Go into any store that sells computers and what do you see? Four or five counter rows of notebook machines and maybe one or two desktops off in the corner somewhere. And guess what? The desktops you do see are copy cats of the iMac. (Re: Sony and HP)

chscag said:

Decade or two? No way. I see it happening a lot sooner. Go into any store that sells computers and what do you see? Four or five counter rows of notebook machines and maybe one or two desktops off in the corner somewhere. And guess what? The desktops you do see are copy cats of the iMac. (Re: Sony and HP)

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I don't know about "any store that sells computers", but I was specifically addressing the earlier speculation in this thread about the iMac line going away. I don't pretend to know the future, but I guess time will tell if iMacs last another decade or two ...or less.

Yep. The iMac is a nice machine and I love mine, but I see a limited future for them. I hope I'm wrong, but the way Apple is "evolving" them, (making them thinner, no optical drive, non upgradeable) the next step in their evolution may be one of invisibility.

To be completely fair, Oppenheimer spelled this out quite explicitly in the conference call:

1. We can't make the iMacs fast enough, and if we had been able to, we would have sold about 1M more.

2. There were 13 weeks in the quarter this year, compared to 14 weeks last year. We sell an average of 330,000 per week.

Bottom line: without these two factors, Apple would have sold exactly as many Macs as analysts had predicted. Today, we've gotten news that production problems have finally been resolved and that supply should improve over the next few weeks. If that actually happens, then we'll know the truth.

On the long-term future of the iMac, I'd say my colleagues are premature on reports of its demise. But I'd bet good money that this next Mac Pro will be the last one ever produced. You want to talk about a computer "nobody" needs anymore, that's it. Thunderbolt and other factors have rendered that machine incredibly niche now.

The iMac I think has a number of good years ahead of it. Yes, the iPad is supplanting it as a consumer desktop, but I think it has quite a bright future as a pro-level workstation -- essentially replacing the Mac Pro.