Apple could soon control 5 percent of the desktop computer market, Morgan Stanley predicts, thanks to the success of the iPod. Elsewhere, Apple released Mac OS X security update today.
iPod tipped to boost Apple’s desktop share
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I think 400 is a small sample, and anyway there’s a gap from saying “yeah sure I’ll move to Mac sometime this year” and actually doing it.
Looks a bit too optimistic for me.
I give very little for what analysts say. Their statements are to much driven by their own interest. Only time will tell if Apples marketshare will grow.
Hell yea! Go Apple!!one
Actually, a 400 survey sampling is a respectable survey smapling to generate a common average for a statistic.
The only variable that needs to considered is if this sampling was only conducted in the US or worldwide. Buying habits throughout different regions of the world vary of course…. The statistic indicates that 20% of iPod owners (at least in the US… assuming the statistic was only generated there) are switching is incredibley significant when you consider how widely used the iPod is.
I used to work for a market research company. I’m familiar with these types of things.
another Apple flamefest coming up.
An unbiased sample of 400 gives error of up to 5%, and who knows whether the sample is biased or not?
>An unbiased sample of 400 gives error of up to 5%
Where does that percentage come from?
And what motivation would the sample have to be biased?
Why is it that so many people strive so hard to disprove that Apple is growing faster than the industry. If they can slow their growth they can increase it. Stop trying to spin this news.
I swear, the anti Apple spinmeisters are *SO* much worse than the Apple spin meisters on this site. A better question to ask is why is that demographic so disproportionate on this site as compared to other OS sites?
Where does that percentage come from?
Any first course in mathematical statistics! The standard way to estimate the error is 98%/sqrt(sample size), which can be deduced from the Bernoulli distribution, the central limit theorem and table of Normal distribution values.
expect to convert from PC to Macintosh
Saying you are going to buy and actaully having bought a Mac are to different things. Like the saying goes – Talk is cheap. The survey means nothing.
On the other hand – After twenty years on a PC. I bought my first Mac this year. A 2.5ghz G5, Cant say I am terribly impressed with it, but there it is on my desk. At least it looks really cool 😉
However a client of mine also bought his first Mac this year, tried it for a month, sold it on eBay at a loss and bought a new PC loaded with WIN-XP and has no plans to try a Mac again.
Whats my favorite OS? NONE! They all have problems.
The margin for error for that number is closer to 2% of all those that were interviewed (maybe 2.5%)
Certainly not 5%… but even if it were 5% of 400, that could be both 5% in the positive or 5% in the negative.
In any event, it doesn’t negate the statistic as it appears you are trying so hard to imply.
…unlike the PC market, Apple’s market share can pretty much only go up, which makes it a much better bet than HP, for instance, in terms of investment. Moreover, the critical mass is building toward market doubling (and beyond) for Apple. There is no way PC manufacturers can double their sales in terms of real numbers or in terms of percentages.
Certainly not 5%… but even if it were 5% of 400, that could be both 5% in the positive or 5% in the negative.
In any event, it doesn’t negate the statistic as it appears you are trying so hard to imply.
I didn’t say anything about whether the error is + or -. If you use the population estimate for the probabilities then yes, the error is closer to 2%, but a priori there is no reason to trust the population estimate!
Anyway, the news article didn’t have any information about sampling technique used, or whether that was done only within one country.
>there is no reason to trust the population estimate!
And there is no reason to distrust it either… yet I find it interesting that you are so quick to distrust them.
>Anyway, the news article didn’t have any information about sampling technique used, or whether that was done only within one country.
And yet you automatically assume the information should be doubted.
>…unlike the PC market, Apple’s market share can pretty much only go up, which makes it a much better bet than HP, for instance, in terms of investment.
I think you are mixing up market share with install base.
a PC only needs to be replaced by an individual that already had a PC to increase market share by one percent (assuming a Mac user didn’t also replace his computer also within the same time period.
For Apple to increase market share, they need to sell more computers in a given time period than all PC manufacturers combined… in essence have their current users replacing their computers as fast while also bringing on enough users to match the turnover rate of all the PC manufacturers out there.
i will soon be buying a 40 gig ipod (of the usb2/firewire generation) and a mac of some type to go with it. i do wish the ipod played .ogg, but most of my music is in .mp3 format anyway and what isnt i can convert easily enough for ipod usage
i want the ipod because nothing else compares in terms of an mp3 player that i have ever seen, i want the mac because i want final cut pro (i will be opening a small video/audio production business this summer). i will be using a powerhouse of a box dual booting linux and windows as well, depending upon what i am doing at the time.
i really thing that people should use the right tool for the right job and i have to admit that with the advent of macosx apple finally put out a tool worth using, at least IMO.
That would definitely be nice Z)
I’m not trying to troll, but why on earth would you buy a desktop system based on your experience with a glorified mp3 player?
Wouldn’t a normal human being at least want to try the system out first?
Another question. Where did they do the survey?
Did they run around the streets looking for people with iPods? Or take the much easier step of sitting inside an Apple store waiting for iPod customers?
Maybe it was on the web, we all know those surveys never get skewed by the zealots..
I love Linux.
Definitely.
RE:err
Because people follow other people. So if other people are buying Macs, they will buy Macs. Mac finally has something mainstream, this makes them more acceptable to idiots.
and the reason he dumped it?
also, what makes you not impressed? were you expecting it to turn your water into wine?
Ahh, I see now, the £150 training shoe factor.
Suddenly all becomes clear.
I try to give credit where credit is due. Mac OS X has awesome features, very attractive looking, stable but on a uber expensive machine with dual 2.5s and 4 gigs of memory it is dog slow. With that kind of a hardware, XP sings!!! But it does not have any of the above mentioned cool features. I like XP cause I can tweak it, mould it secure it and so on. It is very fast for me…things are close to instantaneous whereas on the Mac I was playing around with, it would take a while to turn on its browser…or refresh it GUI or do some nice little effect…I forgot what its called where all the windows get shown onto the screen all at once…Expose maybe? Windows also has something like that…a virtual desktop manager and its animation seems just as bad as the Expose animation. I mean the XP does not even have half the capabilities of the OS X and yet it is so much zippier. Sigh I hope the next gen hardware on the Macs spice things up…but then again…dual core AMD FXs will be out by then and well well they will still be faster than the Mac from what I have been reading. I so wanted a Mac….
actually anonymous, you are wrong. apple can increase their market share without selling more than ALL pc makers.
if during a certain period apple increases their percentage of the desktop computers sold, then they have increased their market share during a certain period. this directly relates to an increase in the market share over-all, even if it is a millionth of a percentage.
–i did not read any of the links
I think you are mixing up market share with install base.
a PC only needs to be replaced by an individual that already had a PC to increase market share by one percent (assuming a Mac user didn’t also replace his computer also within the same time period.
For Apple to increase market share, they need to sell more computers in a given time period than all PC manufacturers combined… in essence have their current users replacing their computers as fast while also bringing on enough users to match the turnover rate of all the PC manufacturers out there.
I think you mean that Apple needs to grow atleast at the same rate as the whole industry as to maintain its current marketshare OR grow at a higher rate as to increase its share of the over all PC market.
Apples share, in terms of sales, only shrunk because their computer business growed at a slower rate than the rest of the industry – nothing new there – happens all the time; what Apple NEED to do, to grow their business, is market overseas to the same level they do the US, they also need to open up more Apple shops in the main centres and start evangelising their products in markets outside the US.
I use an eMac 1 Ghz with 1 GB ram. I use if for print and web design: Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, QuarkXpress, skEdit, a webserver etc.
I often have 10-15 programs running simultaneously, and I have not noticed any slow-down. The system is quite fast, much more responsive than my friend’s Athlon 2500+
I don’t see how a dual 2.5 with 4 gigs of memory can be slow, especially opening a browser window. My eMac opens the Safari browser in 2-3 seconds. Perhaps there is some problem with your system.
i just bought a Creative Zen Micro player so no Apple for me.
And there is no reason to distrust it either… yet I find it interesting that you are so quick to distrust them.
I’m with K on this… there IS a lot of reason to doubt it. A survey of 400 individuals is almost certainly from a population selected by some factor – whether it’s geographic or whatever.
There is probably some basis to it, but statistics get skewed constantly by the media. Nobody wants to read an article saying “Apple poised to increase market share by a really tiny amount!”…
Come to think of it, that sounds quite like a title from the Onion…
Let’s face it, 19% of 400 = 76 people. That’s fairly easily skewed – especially considering that there’s no easy way to grab 400 ipod owners. What do you do – camp in an Apple store asking everyone that comes in with a pair of white earphones?
a uber expensive machine with dual 2.5s and 4 gigs of memory it is dog slow
I just do not believe that. What are you doing with your machine?
My Mac is nowhere near that kind of magic and it just rocks. The only slowdown I notice is when the graphics card is used heavily. For all the other, operating system related operations, there is nothing slow about it. with 4 gigs of RAM, your machine should be tearing along.
…I forgot what its called where all the windows get shown onto the screen all at once…Expose maybe? Windows also has something like that…a virtual desktop manager and its animation seems just as bad as the Expose animation. I mean the XP does not even have half the capabilities of the OS X and yet it is so much zippier
With 30 windows open, Expose is still zippy for me. It slows down at 50 windows, admittedly, and then it only takes maybe 1 to 1.5 seconds. How many windows do you have open to slow down Expose on your dual 2.5 Gig rig?
And you wonder why your virtual desktop manager is bad? It’s bolted onto the OS by a third party vendor, how would you expect any kind of decent performance by something like that?
If you don’t like your dual 2.5 gig Mac, you can always ship it my way. I’ll give it all the tender loving care it needs, trust me. In the mean time you can secure your Windows XP box until the cow leaves the barn in Redmond.
And make the cute doggy do tricks.
My experiences are similar to The flying boolaboola’s – Expose is smooth on my 2×1.0GHz G4 with 1GB RAM and a 4600Ti graphics card. I’ve also got the MSVDM desktop manager and the animation feature is laughably jerky on a dual Athlon 2600MP with 1.5GB RAM and a Quadro4 graphics card.
I agree with Surya. It’s dog slow, but this is in its responsiveness. It can easily run 10 programs, but they’re won’t be any snappiness, even with 1 program open. Although I had a G4, I would never buy a G4 again (can’t believe they still sell them new). The G5 should fair better, although I heard a lot of stories from people that know what they are talking about (e.g. Ars forum) that MacOS X is still not up to par on that kind of hardware.
OSX slow in responsiveness? You gotta be kidding, I can compare my 2.8ghz P4 with my 700mhz G4 with only 256mb ram and even then i love the reposiveness of the Mac better. Its so much more silky smooth working on OSX, it does a superb job of multithreading.
For example, if I use firefox on the PC and minimize it, then work on something else, dear lord maximising firefox again is so painfully slow, it hurts. First it draws the border, wait for harddisc churning, then window bar and menu, wait for harddisc churning, then slowly part by pasrt of the rest of the window draws on the desktop. It looks so mechanical and agonizingly slow. Wheareas, on the OSX, no matter even if I have 15-20 programs running concurrently (256mb RAM!), maximizing firefox is so silky smooth and draws the entire window completely, and more importantly, immidiately without the dreaded disc churning effect. Complete with Genie effect. Clicking on the menu from OSX will require some time to show, just like XP, however, unlike XP, the entire program doesn’t freeze and stall while waiting to show the menu. Everything always remain responsive to user input.
I don’t know how OSX does it, but its kernel has a huge advantage on its threading over my klunky mechanical WinXP.
“OSX slow in responsiveness? You gotta be kidding”
They’re not kidding, they’re lying, Period>
with a dual G5, kinda slow on some parts but overall its ..ok i guess. i’d rather buy an alienware.. drools… now thats a computer!
what are you guys counting as slow? windows resizing? the OS is fast and fine. I am running OS X on a g4 1 GHz (which was a 400 MHz) and it runs great now and it ran fine with the 400 MHz CPU.
window resizing has nothing to do with the snappiness of the OS. I have never run into the redraw problems that I get when I am in XP on my new Dell. I do not care how zippy the windows resize and the content redraws in the window as I move them around (I would prefer outline window movement) as long as when I am done I can use the window.
Of course iPod will help apple sell desktops. iPod helps apple establish a relationship with consumers which, if positive, is bound to increase desktop market share somewhat.
The mini-mac is especially important in the quest to translate the good will towards iPod into desktop sales.
How much market share apple will pick up is anyone’s guess though. It could be 1%. It could be 10% or it could be .5%. who knows.
It’s only a 1.25Gz with 512 Mb Ram – not really knowing what to expect (I’m coming from a Windows background with a little Linux thrown in) the system appears to run fine even with several apps running – the interface is very slick.
I’m still using XP as my main machine though as that is what I’m used to.
For me the Mac Mini was the hook I needed to try OSX/Apple.
I’ve been a fan of Apple for years, but never was able to get my hands on one because my parents were convinced they were “inferior” to x86 computers, which is funny, because all they do is check email and surf the net. I have a Dell Inspiron 5150 (running Linux) which runs loud and hot all the time. High end iBooks or low end PowerBooks look like a great investment to me. Go Apple!
Can anyone give more specific details about the responsiveness of the Mac (particularly the Mac Mini)?
I do a fair amount of software development and my WinXP laptop becomes totally unresponsive when compiling a large program. This seems mainly due to Windows churning the very slow hard drive (a computer at work with a faster hard drive is not so bad).
Since the Mini has the same slow hard drive, is it just as bad (you can’t really avoid disc churning when compiling large programs)? Are there any developers out there with experience of the Mini yet?
It is very fast for me…things are close to instantaneous whereas on the Mac I was playing around with, it would take a while to turn on its browser..
Well, let’s see, I start the app and I close it as soon as the window emerges and is ready for use (a little slower than that, actually, owing to my reflexes):
apl:~/foljs$ time /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
real 0m1.911s
user 0m0.760s
sys 0m0.420s
Subtracting for my slow reflexes this is about: 1.3-1.5 secs. Is this slow? And this is on an old iBook G4 768Mem, not on a dual 2.5 G5!
As a matter of fact, as a musician I frequently read music technology press. Similar to video editing, one of the most demanding CPU processes is audio editing. Well, a standard metric is how many instances of a specific plugin you can have open on a machine prior to having audio errors in the audio stream. The winner (on Future Music magazine, UK) was the G5 machine, not the 3Ghz PC one. By a large margin.
Yes, Windows XP has its own problems with performance. However, this is correlated to the number of programs open. MacOS X has very good multithreading, like Linux, but the responsiveness isn’t there. Minimize a window and wait a splitsecond before it actually minimizes. Even the much accused Gnome responds faster than Panther on an old Pentium II.
It is a true problem, not trying to troll here. See for example this Ars Technica review of MacOS X 10.3:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.3.ars/5
Ars Technica is considered one of the best technical sites on the internet, especially for reviews of software.
Interesting, within the same page, you fail to take into account:
“Here’s another way to look at Panther’s performance. For over three years now, Mac OS X has gotten faster with every release — and not just “faster in the experience of most end users”, but faster on the same hardware.”
Regarding minimise and maximise, what delay? you mean the microsecond-delay-that-can-only-be-detected-by-people-with-anal-retent ion?
Because they are monopolizing harware and software.
woe is going to come in case apple controling more than 10% market share.
Apple is alreay worse than M$. At least MS does not make hardware except Xbox.
I’m a stat, I switched via iPod.
i am now dumber from reading your comment, thank you.