Mac Sales: It’s All about Intel

Is Apple is going to switch to Apple chips for the Mac? The question arises because Apple uses an in house design to power the iPad.

The arguments for the switch are abundant:more control, more profits, a chip expressly designed for Macs. Seems good on the surface but what if the Mac's surge in popularity is predicated on the chips from Intel?

A deeper look at what the switch has done to Mac sales is in order, but first a note about Apple. Apple has a history of doing things that seem completely stupid at first glance, and making them work. Physical Apple Stores? How well did Gateway stores do? A physical store in the age of Amazon and so forth seemed like pure folly, but Apple has made the concept work so well Microsoft is trying to imitate it. The iMac also seemed like a bad idea. Everyone owned modular computers and Apple wanted people to go out and buy a translucent gumdrop? Not a savvy move on the surface, but Apple saw the impending internet revolution. The company knew there was a market in the scads of people looking for an easy road to the internet. The iPod Hi Fi? Well, that actually sucked, so nevermind about that one. Overall, the picture is one of a company that can pull just about anything off.

Forgive the tangent. Back to the switch to Intel and the impact on Macs. If you've used a Mac before and after the switch you probably haven't noticed a lot of difference. Macs aren't wildly cheaper or incredibly snappier. Macs are more flexible since the switch, you can use Windows with just a little bit of legwork, but one wonders how much of a motivating factor the ability to triple boot your Mac is. The increased flexibility noted and dismissed there doesn't seem to be a completely objective reason why Macs sales should blossom with a change to Intel. Yet, that is exactly what happened, as illustrated by the following chart:

You can easily see some trends here. Pre switch Mac sales were flattish. After the first Intel powered Macs came out sales trending decidedly up and once the transition was complete Mac sales took off.

Of course, it is entirely possible that there is some problematic thinking here. It could be that we are assigning causality where only correlation is present. Vista, the operating system loathed by seemingly everyone who has touched a keyboard, could be seen as a driving factor behind sales of the Mac. If we put some markers on the graph, we get the era of Vista terror:

Not very convincing. Vista, as reviled as it was, sold more XP machines than Macs. Additionally if the sales of Macs were about the quality of Microsoft OSes you'd expect to see a huge crash when the very nice Windows 7 hit, but sales just keep accelerating.

The next thought is that it is the continuing further refinement of OS X that is pushing the sales of Macs. Adding some lines coincident with the major releases of OS X. The graph doesn't bear that notion out.

Still not convinced that it was the switch to Intel that pushed Macs to new heights? Recall, if you will, the reason for the switch. Laptops. Before the switch to Intel Apple's laptops were languishing in processor hell. It wasn't that the companies offerings weren't capable, they were, but the chips were seen as a generation behind. It was hard to push a high-end laptop that used the same chip as consumer machines. When you look at the graph, you'll note that the explosion in Mac sales is mostly an explosion in laptop sales.

If you dig a little deeper you'll find that laptop sales went crazy when Intel chips were used in laptops. Apple might as well slap a "Powered by Intel" sticker on the corporate report when the company talks Mac sales.

So the idea that Apple will switch from the warm and trusted chips made by Intel to chips of the companies own design seems like a move of pure lunacy. But Apple has done crazier things before. And Apple has made crazier things work.