Macintosh share of the U.S. market tops 9%

Alex Rodriguez:

You said: “Within dialog boxes, there is no way to use keyboard accelerator shortcuts on the Mac. Windows has them.” Just so you know this is not true, there is a way to control dialog boxes. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts. At the bottom of the window, hit the radio button for “all controls.” Now when you go to close a window that has an unsaved document, for example, you can hit the space bar to hit “Don’t Save.”

I’m working at Apple on contract. It’s my first time using a Mac, and I’m 25% less productive than on the Windows counterpart. This is not due to unfamiliarity, but the lack of a robust, productive keyboard accelerator paradigm on the Mac. In addition, the over-reliance on the mouse aggravates the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries for those susceptible to them.

Under Mac Os 10.5.5, you must press Ctrl+F2, then the first few letters of a menu, then the down arrow key, then the first few letters of a menu command, then Enter, and maybe some up or down arrow keys to execute a command on the keyboard. Under Windows, Alt+a letter, plus one more letter, then Enter does the same thing. Within dialog boxes, there is no way to use keyboard accelerator shortcuts on the Mac. Windows has them.

Then there’s the application speed difference. On an iMac, there’s a noticeable lag, from a fraction of a second to several seconds between a keyboard actions for Word and Excel. Under windows, I don’t have to think about this issue.

All this doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but over the course of a day, the difference is 25% productivity, plus the added stress on the mousing hand.

In addition, the gorgeous new iMac monitor displays unpixellated fonts only at its highest resolution, as far as I or Apple’s internal support can tell. This results in tiny system and application fonts, producing eyestrain after a normal business day, if you have astigmatism, as I do. Even one resolution setting lower on the display produces noticeable pixellation. Sure, there are utiltiies such as TinkerTool, and hacks to the Apple OS that control some font displays, but not all, and the apps don’t adjust well to anything larger than the original set of point sizes.

The free, Apple-supplied applications — Mail, Safari, Address Book, and meeting maker/ical — are rudimentary and uncoordinated. After using Outlook on the PC, it’s a big step backwards to use the equivalent native Mac tools. And Entourage, the MS offering for integrated mail, calendaring, address book, and to do lists, has an HTML engine so old that it doesn’t support sending contextualized hyperlinks, which is a big deal if you’re trying to avoid sending multi-megabyte files behind the firewall or deep links outside it without the URLs wrapping lines, and thus breaking for the mail recipient.

So, color me unimpressed by the Mac for office productivity applications.

I am 42 I am finishing my networking associates in arts&sciences in the next 6 mos.I have a great grasp of what is popular to middle aged -young adults in Ohio.I have finished my comp+ stage so as far as hardware and installed software specs I am aware of the pros and cons of PC vs Mac user debate.Here is the single most important thing > GUE ! “General user experience” Apple first time users walk away with a 90% positive experience and are usually individuals who will be always upgrading constantly in their professional lives. Apple’s growth is a natural snow ball effect of a good brand , product, and market for the simple dynamic to occur regardless of our economies PC’s will be sold. Apple will constantly be growing for a long time to come.Steve Jobbs or any of the forces that be, have done a wonderful job in restructuring a great American company.For the record I use a Toshiba laptop and I am sure my next laptop purchase will be an upgraded Macbook.

“With the economy down, people will defer increasingly to cheaper Windows PC’s”

Maybe. It may also transpire that in tough economic times, an operating system that costs people money because it is unstable will face mortal pressure from an increasingly unforgiving market.

Gone are the days when folks were so impressed with new programs that they would tolerate a freeze and shutdown every couple of hours. Software is old now, and people just expect computers to do their thing. The wow factor is gone from new software.

And so folks are reacting to vista in a different way. There is less tolerance. More folks are asking why it is so fundamentally unstable. That has been my professional experience, anyway.

And as computers become tools rather than novelties, I think Apple will continue to grow for precisely the same reason that American machine tool manufactures became globally dominant during the past century.

The folks making them cared more, and the products were better quality. As computers become tools rather than toys, Microsoft will be shown the door.

Hi Tom from NC, keep dreaming:

AAPL market cap: $85B
MSFT market cap: $220B

With the economy down, people will defer increasingly to cheaper Windows PC’s

Tom B observed that “Unit sales for Apple need only triple to eclipse HP in the US.”

Actually, since a doubling in sales will likely come largely at Dell’s and HP’s expense, and each unit represents more money on average than a Dell or HP unit, sales need not triple. A doubling would bring Apple very close to second place.

I hate to say it but…

Apple need to grow their global market share.
Apple is an American company.
Most global enterprises are American.
A global enterprise may have 100,000 employees in 150 countries.
PCs may be starting to move from VGA to DisplayPort as a standard.

For the sake of a few millimeters, Apple have chosen a non-standard DisplayPort connector which means that no manager in any enterprise will ever switch from a PC to a mac because he never wants to be the only competitor in the room who cannot give his presentation because he has left his adapter in his other suit !!!

I can attest to the fast growing awareness of the Mac in Switzerland. For example, Geneva airport has iMacs available for public use at an information terminal. I thought that was kind of weird. And I have definately seen a lot of mac book pros, which leads me to think the new macbook will sell really well here. Folks here are not looking for the cheapest things in life.

Nice use of the CNC machine as the picture for this article, by the way. Very tasteful. Very modern.

It shows HOW MUCH YOU CARE.

That guy from the video, the designer from hell, he is going to sell so many macs for the divine one. He is pure gold.

Apple seriously need to attack the European market.

I think Europeans are used to paying higher prices and so value better quality and style. Apple just need to raise their profile in Europe and build Apple Stores.

Great results and double digits are almost here. As a long suffering Apple shareholder , I can only hope that the market starts rewarding the stock soon, but don’t see any meaning full recovery will 2009/2010.

Soon 10%. Very impressive, in the U.S. only.
Because where is Apple worldwide? 3.5 - 4%?
They really need to be more present out there.

Just a statement here from a small town in Austria:

I’m going to an opening of an Apple-Reseller-Shop tomorrow.There’s alrady two here in town. This will be the third one. They’re also selling Macs+ iPods at the big Chains here and say selling is increasing 4x YTY.If you halt at the Apple-Shop in mainstreet and listen to the people in front of the window you’ve got the impression they’re eager to buy one of those shiny iMacs …If you step inside the shop it’s crowded with all kinds of young people. It’s not the brand for snobs anymore and it’s got this huge connection with all those other devices like iPods +iPhone…

If you go a 100 km further to Swizzerland you’ll find it even more amazing how many Macs they have and the bigger part of scools is equipped with also.

Same if you go to Munich … all here in central-Europe

I never would have thought that this will develop so quickly back at the time when we were some niche-users in 1999.
The crisis will come to Austria as well and people will spend less perhaps (although I’m not shure if that will happen) but I think the shift from PC to Mac is so evident that maybe this equals LARGELY the turndown of economy for Apple.

Soon 10%. Very impressive, in the U.S. only.
Because where is Apple worldwide? 3.5 - 4%?
They really need to be more present out there.
There are enough Apple stores in America.
Come on Apple, open more of them globally.
When you hit 10% worldwide, you wake me up.
The U.S. market is just a small part of a whole.
300 millions consumers out of 6 billions!!!

It’s almost as if Apple were in a different business than Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Acer and Toshiba.

Exactly! What we’re seeing here is a substantial shift from the lowest-price model of Dell, HP, et.al. to a best-value model for Apple and probably Lenovo. Where I’m seeing this shift happen most are for people who are not hard-core geeks, but rather people with substantial experience using computers in their daily life, who are looking at a “total experience of ownership” (cost plus other considerations, e.g. the hassle factor) and deciding that “cheap” doesn’t necessarily mean “good”. Apple is capitalizing on both the “iPod halo” and cool factor, and also the “it just works” reputation for the experienced computer user.

A couple of take away observations: Unit sales for Apple need only triple to eclipse HP in the US. I’m thinking 3 years for this to happen. Apple has ASTOUNDING potential overseas, since it still hasn’t cracked top 5. I predict Apple beats MSFT in market cap by Sept. 2009.