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In Apple’s darkest days, the company was very much in a death spiral.
Apple’s machines were overpriced and underpowered, and sales dwindled. Apple was losing to the Wintel alliance, which cranked out ever-lower-priced machines that worked just as well but for a lot less. And as the alliance’s market share grew, network effects made it stronger and stronger.
The first iMac in 1998 reversed that slide, and the Mac platform has slowly clawed its way back since then.
For the last few years, Apple’s PC market share has hovered between 8% and 12%. Cupertino has generally outperformed its rivals, thanks largely to Apple silicon.
And with the low-cost MacBook Neo, Apple now finds itself in Wintel’s shoes. Now, PC manufacturers are struggling to compete with Apple.
Tim Cook just announced that the Neo is bringing in more Mac virgins than any other model in history. And there’s more bad news for Apple’s rivals: In the long term, the Neo is even cheaper than entry-level PCs — by a very substantial margin.
Funny how the world turns.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Google is beta-testing a new Gemini app for Mac that’ll bring agentic smarts to the platform.
Before you rashly drop a small fortune on the new AirPods Max 2 headphones, you should be aware of some ongoing shortcomings.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: Amazon’s got a blowout on last year’s 15-inch M4 MacBook Air, a beautiful machine that now costs less than a grand.
If you ever visit the Cult of Mac website, please ignore this how-to about removing ads.
I have a huge soft spot for the iMac. I’ve owned a bunch, starting with a used blueberry one I got off Craigslist. Here are seven of the best iMac setups we’ve seen. No. 4 has a great tip for speeding up a sluggish old Intel iMac.
Compare the current Mac lineup to the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a bold attempt to define the computer of the future. Thank goodness it failed!
We have a special guest on this week’s Cult of Mac podcast — Christina Warren, a long-time Apple expert formerly at TUAW, Gizmodo, Mashable and more. Christina now works at GitHub, where the Mac mini-loving ClawBot resides. We dig into AI on the Mac (and more).
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
Cult of Mac podcast #12: With special guest Christina Warren (aka filmgirl)
Cult of Mac’s buyback program
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One more thing ...
I know some of you spent a lot of time working on stuff that we put a bullet in the head of. I apologize. I feel your pain.
Today’s poll
Are you actually glad to see more people switch to Mac?
Results from yesterday’s poll: Do you take selfies?
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