Apple has had "about 10% of the global laptop market" since 2013. If there's some powerful growth driver, I'm not seeing it.

The proliferation of web-based enterprise software mostly stands to Windows and ChromeOS' advantage. macOS is the platform that has relied on "native" and "ecosystem" efforts that are becoming increasingly unpopular among consumers and industry pundits that don't like paying per-seat for software services. The Mac Pro used for render farms, on-prem hosting and cluster computing was depreciated completely, driving some of Apple's highest-margin customers over to Linux and Windows servers. Apple has absolutely began their Mac pivot to prosumer/B2C vending, and it's resulted in advertisements and SaaS slop invading macOS.

Lenovo will keep selling laptops because that's their product equivalent to the iPhone. Apple's equivalent to the iPhone is... well, the iPhone. If they see an opportunity to force Mac users into an iPad-esque experience, they'll take it in a heartbeat and play coy asking "what's a computer?" like the iPad advertisements. The Mac not an important product for Apple these days, the App Store is.

▲

DrScientist a day ago | parent [-]

I see you've moved the goals posts from Apple is circling the drain to 'not a powerful growth driver'.

Totally agree that Mac servers ( they went years ago ) and Mac desktops ( and desktops in general ) are on the decline.

I just think you are basing your opinion on the past. Sure in the past, when Apple hardware was worse overall than the Wintel offering, Apple heavily relied on the Mac specific software, and your right that's less important now more than ever.

But the point here is right now, and for the last few years, Apple hardware is significantly better! And because of this in turns your argument on it's head.

I think we both agree that the landscape in terms of mix of devices may change in the future - I just think Apple is following that market, not 'forcing' Mac users into an iPad-esque experience.

And right now I think the laptop market is still pretty healthy - I can't see Apple moving away from it unless sales drop, and as I said sales are actually rising.

	▲	bigyabai 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I didn't say Apple is circling the drain. I'm saying that their hardware advantage has driven close to zero growth when compared with AMD, Nvidia or even Intel. That investment is only worth it if they can sell more services, so from Apple's POV it's all hunky-dory to lose the datacenter and professional customers. From the user POV, there's not much reason to reward Apple over Microsoft if they both load up their OSes with ads and crapware. Apple has the advantage, but they're losing to the underdogs simply because of their arbitrary business choices. It's a profoundly dumb strategy to invest your hardware advantage into selling subscriptions. That's the issue. What I meant by "Apple's Last Stand" was referring to the Mac. Their destiny is to become "the iPhone company", and their inability to support the Mac as a competitive product has basically guaranteed that fate. The landscape of computing already changed, and when Apple was confronted with the opportunity to invest in GPGPU products, Vulkan or PCIe hardware support, they forced those customers to pound sand. That is not an optimistic outlook for their future ambitions, at least from where I'm standing. The "my way or the highway" philosophy is hemorrhaging market share.