Apple

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple on Tuesday reported that it sold 3.72 million Macs in its third quarter, which spanned April 1 through June 30, the fewest in any single quarter since it sold 3.47 million in the third quarter of 2010.

And:

There are a number of possible explanations for the decline, including consumers increasingly shifting towards the iPhone and iPad. Together, those devices accounted for 65 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter, compared to just 10 percent for the Mac. Apple even markets the iPad as a computer replacement.

The bigger reason, however, may have been that nearly the entire Mac lineup was outdated last quarter. Beyond the iMac Pro, released four months before the quarter began, no other Mac had been updated since 2017 or earlier.

I find it no wonder that Mac sales are down. The only updated machines have been dogged by the keyboard reliability issue. As I said yesterday, I think the new warranty and anti-crumb membrane are enough to make me bullish on the new MacBook lineup.

The other Mac elements that need to line up here are the new Mac Pro and the Mac mini. The question is, does Apple truly care about the Mac as more than just a balance sheet line item?

Apple just killed the App Store Affiliate Program. Presumably, the goal there is to maximize services revenue.

Apple is holding fast to a paltry 5GB of iCloud base storage. Presumably, this goes to maximize services revenue as well.

Is this “maximize revenues” logic correct? Apple is not communicating any other message, even in the face of howls from their loyal base.

Is the Mac becoming an afterthought? Will we ever see a new Mac mini? How about a new Mac Pro? And what’s the status on the AirPower charging mat?

My two cents? I think Apple should come out and address all of this. I get playing cards close to the vest, but sometimes you need to let the troops know you feel their pain, give them reason to hope.

We’ve stuck with you through thick and thin. But more and more, the relationship is feeling more like financial calculation than shared passion. Just saying.

I just replaced my 2015 MacBook Pro with a brand new 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Lots has been written about Touch Bar over the last few years, so I’m going to focus on two things. [Jump to the main Loop post for the deets]

Marco Arment:

Sometimes, you just need Low Power Mode: the switch added to iOS a few years ago to conserve battery life when you need it, at the expense of full performance and background tasks.

There’s no such feature on Mac laptops, but there should be.

This is a fascinating read and this suggestion would be a perfect add to the System Preferences Energy Saver page.

Another earnings call, another excellent, detailed set of charts from Jason Snell.

Jump down to the section of Mac sales:

Mac sales were down 13 percent year over year, and revenue was down five percent. It’s understandable given the environment—the year-ago’s quarter saw new MacBook Pros being released in June, while this year they didn’t release until July, after Apple’s third quarter ended.

That last bit is critical. As you read the reaction to Apple’s earnings, you’ll no doubt run into the “Mac is doomed” take, based on the numbers released yesterday. But, as Jason points out, the new MacBook Pro lineup, with its third generation, membrane protected keyboard and Apple keyboard exchange program in place, kicked in after the 3rd quarter ended.

Too early for sales numbers on the new Macs but, I will say, I’ve been waiting for the keyboard brouhaha to resolve itself and this new warranty and anti-crumb membrane were enough for me to buy in. I bought my new MacBook Pro last week and I am really happy with it.

My experience, as well as chats with other folks I’ve spoken with who’ve also been waiting to buy a new Mac, makes me bullish. I think we’ll see a nice upward slope on the next set of Mac numbers. My 2 cents.

What it’s like shopping for a new Mac at Best Buy. The slamming it down thing? Don’t try this at home.

[VIDEO] Dave Lee started this whole thing, and this is him taking Apple’s new patch for a spin to see if things really are fixed (video embedded in main Loop post). Good results, thoughtful take on thinness and compromises.

One side note: The day before this patch hit, I tweeted about a Reddit take on thermal throttling. The Reddit take implied that the issue was an issue with the Voltage Regulator Module and not the CPU. This was the first take I saw that implied that this issue was fixable in software and not an Intel i9 issue, not a hardware heat sink issue (at least not completely).

The Reddit take has also been updated to reflect Apple’s patch. All very interesting. Glad this is resolved.

Jeff Carlson, TidBITS:

You may not even have noticed that your Mac is now running APFS. To find out, open Disk Utility, click your startup disk in the sidebar, and look under the disk name.

As Jeff suggests, take a minute to launch Disk Utility, click on your startup disk and look at the text underneath the volume name. Mine says “APFS Volume • APFS (Encrypted)”.

This is a terrific read, chock full of detail on APFS, but very readable. And the fact that the transition to APFS has been so seamless for so many says a lot about the APFS engineering team.

I was doing research for a post yesterday and I stumbled on this Stanford University page dedicated to the marketing campaign for the original Macintosh.

Lots of links here, a dive into a wonderful rabbit hole of Apple history.