PC OEMs race to Ship Thinner Notebooks to Better Compete with Apple's New MacBooks Rolling out in Q2
With Apple's new ultra-thin 13 and 15-inch MacBooks to start shipping at the end of the second quarter, notebook brand vendors such as Asustek Computer, Dell and Lenovo have also prepared new ultra-thin notebooks for launch around the same time, hoping to catch up with the trend, according to sources from the upstream supply chain. Apple shipped 20.38 million Mac products in 2015, growing slightly by 4.08% on year and with Apple's new ultra-thin MacBooks, the sources expect Apple to continue enjoying growth in 2016 despite weakening demand for notebooks. According to the supply chain report, the two new MacBooks are likely to be thinner. The report didn`t mention the MacBook Pro which is due for a refresh.
Digital Trends noted today in a new report that Apple's special event was underwhelming. The site went on to say that "if you're a fan of the Mac, you're probably a bit more emotional. Another event has passed, and the Mac continues to be ignored. No one was expecting to see anything new today, but that's the point. Apple's Macs — the MacBook Air and Pro, in particular — are becoming outdated, bloated, overpriced machines, and it's a damned shame."
With today's news that new MacBooks are on the way next quarter, hopefully these disgruntled Apple fans will finally have something to brag about again. Then again, Apple is talking up the iPad Pro as a PC replacement. They made that abundantly clear yesterday during their special event. During Phil Schiller's segment of the keynote, he laughed at the fact that 600 million Windows PC's have yet to be upgraded in the past five years and that those people should consider the iPad Pro. To clarify: Not the MacBook Pro, not the MacBook Air, but the iPad Pro.
Apple's marketing supports that position loud and clear as well: "the iPad Pro is more than the next generation of iPad — it's an uncompromising vision of personal computing for the modern world."
So that feeling that some Mac fans have that the Mac is continuing to be ignored … is likely a trend that they may just have to get used to going forward.
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