I have always disliked the way that Apple do things. There is no denying that their products are beautifully designed and do exactly what they say on the tin but the one thing that has always stopped me from parting with my hard earned is “Apples way or the highway”. Until recently that is.
I was put in contact with a new client a couple of weeks back and guess what they use? Yeh that is right a Mac or more precisely an iMac and what a beautifully designed machine it is. One slight problem, I don’t use Macs so time for me to splurge and get one. So off to ebay I went. After quite a while trawling through the options I finally bought a 2009 model Macbook for £275 running Mountain Lion. And so the crash course started.
Boy are Macs easy to learn. Whereas a Windows (and Linux) system will allow you to configure it to within an inch of its life Macs have much less configuration options available to the average user and the whole experience is much better for it. There is no way an average user can configure something incorrectly the way you can with Windows. Apple has decided what the average user needs and dare I say it, it works.
So why aren’t more users using Macs if they are easier to use? Cost. My MacBook would have cost approximately £900 new which for an average user is well above their budget given that a Windows system can be had for a third of that. Of course the specifications of both systems will not be the same but an average user wont care as they “just want a laptop”. If Apple dropped the price to about £450 ish they would sell a boatload of MacBooks but that is not likely to happen as they aim for the top end of the market and not the middle or bottom.
But Apple do have a problem though and that is OS X falling market share. As of December 2013 OS X accounted for 7.43% of all desktops. The problem they have is that iOS seams to be eating into OS X market share as more Apple customers decide to go for the iPad rather than the MacBook.
So where does this leave the MacBook then and even the iMac?
Professionals will still stump up the cash for an iMac for their offices rather than a Windows system which can become “infested” with viruses so no real change there for Apple. The MacBook though is a very different story. If, and it is a VERY BIG if, people start doing real work on an iPad in the same way they can on a MacBook (Office for iPad anyone) then MacBook sales will start taking a real hit and this sadly could signal the end of the MacBook.
So do you agree or disagree? Are Macs still relevant?
About the Author
Hi I’m Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in Stirling and Falkirk.
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