Chromebooks outsell Macs for the first time | Hacker News Reader

Chromebooks outsell Macs for the first time

theguardian.com

38 pointsnreece23 comments

Good on them. In my observation, Macs have two markets:

1) Developers and power-users (graphic designers, video editors, etc.) who need a high-performance machine.

2) People who are self-professed "not very good with computers" and don't do much other than email, browse the web, and occasionally process word documents.

The latter have traditionally gone to Macs because they're considered easier to use and have a nicer form factor than most Windows laptops. Unfortunately, they pay a pretty penny for it. I remember my undergrad university advertising their "great" discount on a Macbook for incoming students, and it was still north of $1500.

Chromebooks are great for that group, and they cost a fraction of the price of a Mac. They can cover the needs of your average student/senior citizen without breaking the bank. And they won't last as long, but even if you get four years out of a $300 Chromebook, I'd say it served its purpose. Migrating from one Chromebook to the next is pretty seamless, having done it myself.

I think this is very apt judgement of Mac consumers. Unfortunately, with their delayed release of new chips in their laptops and lagging software support (why doesn't mac formally support a package manager like Darwin when a large part of their audience use macs for development), their focus seems to be on the non-professional market. And chrome does seem to be a much better OS for them since there is nothing to install or maintain.

Without reading too much into it, I think they just recognise (like everyone else) that mobile devices are far more pervasive and profitable in 2016.

It's also way easier to sell someone a new smartphone or tablet with gimmicky bullshit features (notice how all these shitty laptop-tablet devices are in vogue?) than new computers, at least at the rate hardware is advancing past mainstream software.

As someone who's been involved in both groups recently I think the second seems to be their bigger market at the moment. Apple's lackadaisical approach to upgrades on the pro end of the market is starting to be noticeable to me as someone who works with a lot of design things. From people turning to making hackintoshes to others trying out software on windows because the hardware is that much cheaper/faster and they don't want to do all the fiddling required.

If they're not careful they're going to loose a lot of dedicated fans because they're deeming the serious side of things of secondary importance.

Don't forget about developers who enjoy *nix operating systems and also not being handicapped by Linux-Desktop(TM).

Let me just hijack this, to point out Bohdi[0], who are great here.

There install is painless, and turns the Chromebook into a really nice, consumer level device with all the bells and whistles for the average person.

I have no affiliation: just a really pleased user, with friends and family I've set up.

[0] http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/chromebook-install-instructions/

Seems like the supported models for this are limited at the moment. If I wanted to open up my Chromebook to a full Linux distro, I think I'd be more inclined to try GalliumOS[0], which basically keeps the ChromeOS look and feel while allowing full Linux apps to be installed.

[0]https://galliumos.org/

When non-tech friends need a new computer I always try to talk them into getting either a Chromebook or an iPad. Easy to use and fairly secure. I use each myself a lot.

I don't know what is up with Apple as far as their laptops go. They make money from laptops, so I doubt they consciously are transitioning to an iPhone + iPad company. Although both of my MacBook Airs are very old (and currently running Ubuntu), in the last 5 years I have had three customers loan me nicely tricked out new MacBook Pros while I did work for them, and I am unimpressed.

Apple, I am going to help you out here: build a 13" MacBook Air with a 1080p screen, and make it a little thicker for awesome battery life, and sell it for $1000. You are welcome.

Just like with Android, when you flood the market with bargain basement devices (they're showing up at Walmart for $179) this kind of stuff happens.

Initial sales are one thing, though. Retention is another. Most everyone I know that has purchased a Chromebook has hated it for a variety of reasons. The one that loves it is a friend that is firmly wrapped up in the Googlesphere.

I almost think it's scary how well Google is doing in the education market. They've done a frighteningly good job at getting younger kids to equate "the internet" with Google products. Kids don't know about email - they know Gmail. They know YouTube. They know a little about Google Docs and Google Drive, since that's what their schools are using. And more so, they know that they need a Google account to get into some apps. Like Pokemon Go. (although you can make a trainer club account, kids just want to click and have it work.)

The next few years should be interesting.

I didn't know that retention for Chromebooks was poor. Surprising. I suppose that it depends strongly for what Chromebooks are used for. As a developer, I work largely on a large memory, multi-core remote server so if I like the SSH shell support, then I am happy. I really like my 1080p screen Chromebook, and my iPad Pro - so much so that I don't need to reach for a Linux laptop very often.

I agree with you about Google's grip on the education market. I would like to see kids using Raspberry Pis, learning to code, doing electronics experiments, etc.

At least among the group I know, it's mostly the one guy that's a huge Google product fan that loves his Chromebook. The rest of them have felt that the novelty has worn off. They're great if you're wrapped up in Google-everything.

The others have also realized that they can pick up a fairly recent refurb MacBook Air for just a little bit more than they'd find a decent PC laptop for.

I still have an old 13" 2011 macbook pro that feels almost like a new machine now that I threw an SSD in the thing. add Xcode and maybe macports I have all of the command line love that I can shake a stick at. I'm still a hobby sysadmin and have always been happy with Terminal in OS X. Add Transmit for when I'm lazy and need to move files, and I'm happy too. :)

The problem with the Chromebook model is that most webapps suck, with very few exceptions (like: GMail, Google Maps, etc). So they're fine until that one day in the year you decide you'd like to make some nice newsletter for that club you just joined, or decide you'd like to play that game you heard about, or decide to do pretty much anything except reading blogs and sending email. Then you discover that Google Apps is the best of a poor bunch and that your computer is much, much more limited than you thought you needed.

I don't know what it was like in America, but as a kid in New Zealand during the 80's/90's Apple was synonymous with desktop computers in an education setting. My understanding is that Apple deliberately targeted the education sector. Aren't Google just doing the same thing? My wife is a teacher in the US and has only ever been issued macbooks so I assume Apple is still a big player in education, but it's a lot cheaper to hand out 20 chromebooks to a classroom than it is to do the same with Apple products.

> but it's a lot cheaper to hand out 20 chromebooks to a classroom than it is to do the same with Apple products.

initially it might be. But return on investment studies still wind up favoring the Apple stuff in the long run.

Google is doing the same thing, yes, but it's different now. They're targeting education and selling themselves as a complete all you need package. desktop OS, hosting all the email, all the files, all the software, everything.

I'm surprised this wasn't always the case. Good Chromebooks can be had for $200. They should be everywhere by now. I can't imagine very good margins for anyone in that price range.

Meanwhile macs are expensive and currently stale, however they make Apple a lot of money.

Not surprising since both Macbook Pro and Air lines have gone >15 months without a hardware upgrade.

The current mac owners have no real reason to buy newer versions.

I wonder if the Ford Fiesta is also outselling the 911.

The 911 gets you pretty good performance per dollar, unlike a mac.

Try to put a price on UX.

macOS is the choice * nix desktop operating system as far as I'm concerned. All the * nix utilities, POSIX compliance, all of the proprietary software, none of the virtualization bullshit.

I'm a hackintosh guy so I can't say I 100% disagree, but there's also something to be said for build quality and look-and-feel(TM).

"Basic laptops that cost as little as $150 outsell $1700 laptop" was less sexy a headline I guess.

Nothing to see here folks.

> Basic laptops

Hey now, I went through two years of college on an Acer C720 that I ripped ChromeOS off of and ran Arch on. It was a great fucking laptop; even after putting a 250 gig SSD int it, the little thing flew far higher and faster than anything else in its price bracket (all told, around 300 bucks). And the battery life was honestly obscene, I managed to get 10 hours of a bus ride into a combination of reading papers for school, playing nethack, and doing homework before it finally crapped out on me.

Not saying it's a bad thing - cheap computers are great.

It's just a silly comparison: different market segments

Most Chromebooks don't cost the same price as macs.

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