Apple makes 90 percent of expensive computers

I see a hole: Most high-end x86/x64 kit is built, not bought. Quite a few combinations of high-end hardware and software will take your total north of a grand, but it won't register in studies like this because the individual components used are not "PCs shipped."

So, no, Apple does not really make 90% of expensive computers; it's far more likely that we do.

My computer and each of my son's computers cost well over 2,000 dollars each and I built all three myself. No matter how much we spend on a Mac it is still low spec and under-powered.

A bigger % of a very small market doesn't mean they sold more, it means others may have sold less and in turn apple sold less/the same and increased market share.

Please show real figures and not %
How many units apple shipped this month and how many last month

The results are also skewed by the fact that all but 1 apple machine is £1000 or more (really wanted to say all but meh $999 isn't quite £1000 and the fan boys would cry), without checking i'd assuming the like's of HP 95% of their machines retail for <$1000

Also like Chronos said, not many people with high performance PC's would let Dell/HP etc build them, they'd do it themselves

Of the 3 PCs that I built, 2 were in the 2,000 dollar range as these were gaming rigs. The 3rd PC I built was sub 1,000 dollars as I wanted a lean mean Linux machine i.e. AMD 9550, 4GB RAM, on board everything and Ubuntu. The rest of the hardware I had as spare parts. I've always seen Apple as over priced and underpowered albeit very pretty.

"Apple today announced financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2009. Apple posted revenue of $8.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.3 percent, compared to 34.8 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue. The numbers represent the best non-holiday quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history."
Quote from Macrumors regarding this quarters sales. It would seem Apple are up in % and in actual sales and profit(even with the price slash there making more money).

i It is not clear why Apple has been doing so well either. The recent Apple results came as a surprise to every analyst on Wall Street. /i

Yeah, a 'surprise' to the Inquirer too, it seems. And as Jeri notes above, it's not just the case (as spun by INQ to spare your own blushes on your recent Mac bashing) that the other vendors have collapsed; Apple have just had another record quarter in sales.

"The results are also skewed by the fact that all but 1 apple machine is £1000 or more"

Untrue, and misleading spin. Even leaving aside education machines, the Mac Minis and the lowest-end iMac all go in under the £1000 barrier as well. And Apple choose not to do netbooks or cr*ppy Dell-like lowend machines.

Another way to put it is that Apple ignores 90% of the market, to offer the high end products worth 10% of their selling price. I am glad it works for them, but if they were truly competitive, and truly offered value for the price, they would gain ground in the mainstream, and that is what they have been trying to tell you. "They cost more, but they are worth it." Used to be true, but not since they joined the Intel camp.

@ all of you :

read carefully the article,

it says

90% of the 1000$ and up computers are sold by apple.

the survey dont fok-in include your clones! and this is not the goal here, and yes apple make a sub 1000$ computer, but this is not the goal here either.

it is just to show the facts that 9 out of 10 BUILT computers are sold by apple..

that is it..

learn to read statistics..

i guess mac users have no choice but just to praise jobs, and just get what ever is new.that is why apple share is still stuck at the 9-10% cause most or all of the new buyers of the new toys are themselves owners of older models. I wouldn't be surprised if apple will price the macbook to 3 grand, people will still buy it.

So what you're basically saying is this study is meaningless in the real world and the headline is misleading? I agree.

Learn to recognise what constitutes a computer, old son. For all you may or may not know about statistics, with some of us remaining unconvinced even on that point, your geek fu is weak. As for clones, you may want to give the 80s their meme back. Modern machines such as x86-64 are no more clones (unless you want to include Intel's use of AMD's 64 bit extensions) of the old IBM PC than a modern ARM machine is of an Acorn Archimedes.

They're computers. They're expensive. They're not built by Apple. Need I say more?

You can try an knock Apple all you like, but you simply can't polish a turd. Windows is a patched up bloated mess of an OS that relies on a very simple, yet cryptic, database to store information about configuration and other data that is a mess to deal with. It's a horrible OS.

I'm not one of those that think Linux, Unix, or Mac OS is far superior in security, though I think they are inherently more secure. I completely realize that most of the security comes from the obscurity of the OS itself. There simply isn't the number of attacks that Windows receives.

However, as an OS, and I'm running Windows 7 RC, it's sub par. I don't care what machine you put it on, and I'm on very high spec machine, it's still a bottom feeder of an OS by a company that simply doesn't care about users and tries at every turn to pounce upon their rights with crap like DRM and WGA.

I will buy Windows 7 when it's released, but as you can tell by my ID, I'm not a big fan of it.

The cost of a Mac is worth not having to deal with the crap OS that 90% of the market uses, while having access to quality commercial software titles.

Hey guys,

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro notebook because of the value Apple has brought to the laptop segment. (So that makes me a "switcher"! Plus I am also a Unix Server guy, so I know a bit.)

Looking at Apple's Mac Pro line, I would have to agree with most of the comments here ...

If you want a "top of the line" system you are better served building it yourself. You get more options, and you get the price you want.

Note a couple of things though when comparing to Mac Pros ...

1. Mac Pros use "Server Boards" that that are "DUAL SOCKET".

2. Mac Pros use Nehalem (XEON) processors. The "Server" versions of Nehalem, which do cost more with probably no difference in speed. (Though you need XEON to support Dual socket or higher system configs)

3. Mac Pros support ECC memory (more expensive). Desktop systems support non-ECC memory which is cheaper and good enough for a desktop system (reliability wise)

4. Mac Pros come with 3 x PCI 16 slots (full length), which means you can do a triple SLI on a server board. You won't find many (any?) server boards that support that.

5. A Mac Pro as a "gaming system" is not the best choice, but as a "Workstation with triple SLI" that would be pretty "sweet" for Workstation apps. (Animation, Graphics, etc)

6. Firewire 800 and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR is included

7. Mac Pros cases are pretty sweet, and you would be hard pressed to find a comparable case out there.

Soooo ... if you compare a Mac Pro to a "desktop PC system", you are really comparing "Apples" to "Oranges".

A better comparison would be to a "Server PC system". In this regard as a Unix guy, I would likely purchase a PC because then I can configure it to what I want.

For many people out there though, (Animators, Graphics people etc), they might still consider a Mac Pro because other metrics might drive their decision (ex. the software they will use).

I welcome your feedback.

Billy

Xeon processors differ from normal Core i7 processors in that they also have a transfer rate of 6.4 GT/sec vs. the Core i7 having one of 4.8 GT/sec, with the exception of the Core i7 Extreme.

Just reflecting on the hardware price of an Apple computer seems often to miss the mark.

I use a Mac because I run Logic Studio. An iMac running Logic Studio with an Apogee Duet firewire audio interface is a pretty compelling proposition for a DAW which you would struggle to match on any other platform in terms of features and (audio) quality per $.

Would I buy a Mac just for Word and Internet browsing? Unlikely, but using a Mac for those functions is certainly a positive experience. Apple’s customer service has always been outstanding.

Apple has a business model that is working very well for them right now, this seems to make people angry ?! . For those who by a Mac as a stable platform for OSX based apps, often as a means of making their living, the debate is irrelevant.

As far as i can tell,Mac Pro's do not have the driver support for Crossfire or SLI as of yet and do not scale as a Multi GPU config should.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/15/new-macbook-pro-running-hybridsli/

Just slap Windoze on the box, and you can run SLI. I am not talking a "Virtualized" Windoze, I am talking booting directly into Windoze.

From a hardware point of view, it's just high end PC hardware.

Here is one solution for gaming ...

Dual boot two drives, one for Mac OS X, and another for Windows.

By day you work and at night you transform your box into a PC gaming powerhouse!

That way you can squeeze the MAX performance from the hardware for your specific application or "mode" you want to run it in.

Billy

You don't count PC workstation sales.

Most of the high dollar macs are loaded Mac Pros sold to businesses. Let's see what the numbers are like if you were to include all non mac workstation sales, rather than just consumer PCs.

Poor Grammar and lazily written - Check.
Incorrect or missing facts - Check
Flame bait headline - Check
Insulting to a proportion of Inq readership - Check.

Must be a Farrell article.

You can in fact polish a turd. They did it on Mythbusters, check it out.

You cash-in on your large pile of Apple stock?

AND, what makes this even worse, M/S has announced that an upgrade from XP to W/7 HAS TO BE A CLEAN INSTALL...That means - formatted disk and all....EVERYTHING is lost from the previous environment...

This should fry a lot of rear-ends....

7. Mac Pros cases are pretty sweet, and you would be hard pressed to find a comparable case out there.

Antec P182 and I'm pretty sure I have a better air flow than a Mac pro.

4. Mac Pros come with 3 x PCI 16 slots (full length), which means you can do a triple SLI on a server board. You won't find many (any?) server boards that support that.

Anyway why a server would need triple sli ?
Why apple don't use quadro of fireGL? These cards are made for CAD/3d modeling. Even better than a gt280, so a gt120 aka 9500gt aka 8500t ?

Yes, I agree with your comment, HOWEVER, that wasn't of course the point of this study. From a business sense, none of these manufacturers are concerned with those that build their own systems (not that they don't want that business, but none of them get it...).

Additionally, I'm not sure if you represent much a percentage. Sure, some of us nerds assemble systems, but we are the minority. Especially these days. Few build their own laptop!

itunes.

Apple has a really elegant development environment with Objective C, Cocoa, and XCode.

It's worth checking out, and it's easy to learn. Objective C's messaging model is really interesting.

It is not clear why Apple has been doing so well either

Newsflash nick, they make f(*king good computers which don't break in a few weeks like most P~C makers ! Sales reflect this, people have taste (not most inquirer readers obviously).

Imposter, I think you're right. I believe that's what Microsoft actually managed to do with Windows 7. It polished Vista up completely, but it's still a turd!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL_7DCp-vcw&feature=player_embedded

Billy, you seem to be confusing workstations for servers. Servers do not need advanced graphics. Workstations usually do. Apple pros are workstations.

Also, this statistical analysis appears to only include workstations made by apple (mac pros) in its dataset. If other workstations were included the results would be different.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli

I think people are crazy for paying more for a machine that is less powerfull than a PC.

Also as benchmarks have shown XP is faster on a Mac than their own OS

Gamers are doing it for themselves that much I can say with certainty.

Nota Bene as already discussed, 90% of prefab $1k does not mean 90% of high end nor 90% of prefab. Ask yourself how much volume HP & Dell are doing with prefab PCs <$1k and also Ebuyer + NewEgg parts vendors (et al) for "enthusiasts" who build and upgrade for themselves.

What you have here is Apple selling PC= spec machines at 150% the going rate. Why? Because they can.

Mom and Pop purchasers a lot of them I bet, who believe that you get what you pay for and do not consider that anyone could survive in the competitive computer market if they charged more than their product was worth, rofl. They do not see the darkenss that lurks in the core of Apple who raise their prices to convince people they are better when there is no basis for believing that.

Another big traunche of Apple buyers is vanity purchasers with the same principle, they buy it because it IS expensive. They dont know enough to build or buy cost effectively, but want to feel above all like they have something with status attached because it is pricey. Its all about ornamentation and perception, same reason people love bling, lust for Rolex and adore Ferraris. Its all about cocking a snook at the bloke next door aka snobbery.

Apple know that only too well so all their guff is angled to convince the naive that they are somehow better. Anyone who knows computers knows this is just a fantasy, like phone sex, it aint real.

But sex sells, fantasy or no. Far be it from me to call Apple a company of hookers.

I hated Vista, so I had a look at Ubuntu (great for what it is, but not for me and my needs), not impressed with Windows 7 and the thought of continuing to use XP, an OS 10 years old is depressing. I have always wondered why Apple does not develop an OS to use on PC's and take advantage of a time where many users are looking to jump the MS ship to an alternative OS. My thinking is they would take a big wet bite out of MS's share on the PC OS market.

To rephrase it one more time, using different wording:

Nine out of every ten people who go out and spend more than $1000 on a computer (notebook? desktop? Monitor included?) return home with an Apple.

I find it hard to believe, unless the data is restricted to desktops, but fwiw that's what the study says.

Easy: it's a very carefully chosen statistic. It ONLY includes retail, as in pick-it-upp-off-the-shelf retail, computers, which cost more than $1000.

Most critical is the off-the-shelf retail part. Nearly all of the higher-end (ie: $1000) HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc computers are custom configured, and made to order. And usually bought online, to boot. The only non-Apple mass-produced non-configurable retail computers are at the low end, whereas nearly all of Apple's sales fall into this bracket.

So that's how you take a figure which is probably below 10% (Apple marketshare of non-server computers that are bought either online or retail for over $1000) and pump it up to 90%. Careful choice of restrictions.

Buying and Apple Computer is like buying a luxury car that you can only drive a few selected roads. Just doest make sense...

Sold most of mine - lovely design but so boring.
Gone back to Linux and haven't regretted it at all.