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176 points mfiguiere | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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haunter ◴[] No.45765331[source]
Kind of telling that

1, the iPhone outsells every other category by 5-7x ratio, and the Mac (which includes everything from Macbooks to Mac Minis to iMacs) barely sells more than the iPad.

2, Services (iCloud, apps, music, TV shows etc.) now bigger than every other category, except the iPhone, combined

Basically 76% of the sales are iPhones and Services

(millions)

iPhone $209,586

Mac $33,708

iPad $28,023

Wearables, Home and Accessories $35,686

Services $109,158

Total $416,161

Next 5 years or so (or even less) both the iPad and the Wearables, Home and Accessories category will overtake the sales of Macs.

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1. SllX ◴[] No.45778287[source]
If anything, they're the iPhone company and they are massively understating how much of their revenue is directly attributable to the iPhone.

Take "Services" for example: most of their services are things like App Store revenue and Google Search revenue, something they technically have on all of their platforms, but the lion's share of that revenue comes directly from iPhone users subscribed to iPhone apps, playing iPhone gacha games or using Google (or any of the other officially supported search engines) in the iPhone version of Safari. The reason to have iCloud+ is to be able to backup your phone, and the photos you take on your phone, and store the emails and iMessages and other data you create on your phone. It's all there accessible on the Mac and iPad too, but they have far more iPhone customers than Mac or iPad customers.

Even the smaller services are mostly supported by iPhone users: most AppleCare users, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, arguably you could make a case that Apple TV+ (a.k.a. just Apple TV now for some reason) is the one service that isn't directly attributable to the iPhone, but that is also like the one part of their services division that has had prior reports that it isn't exactly turning a profit, and I don't think you can even apply for an Apple Card unless you own an iPhone.

It's the same with most of the other divisions: the reason to have an Apple Watch or AirPods is they go great with your iPhone. They have their individual appeal, and at least with the AirPods, you don't technically need an iPhone to use them, but these are at the end of the day iPhone accessories, the same as their Magic Keyboard, Trackpad and Mouse lines or displays are Mac accessories even though technically, any iPad could also take advantage of them now, or you could plug a Magic Keyboard into a Windows PC or something. The math on that doesn't change just because of technicalities like that.

So yeah, Apple is the iPhone company and has been for a very long time now. Macs & iPads, the tens of billions of dollar businesses that they are, are just side gigs for them and Services/Wearables et al. is just obfuscating the degree to which they are the iPhone company.

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2. pjmlp ◴[] No.45780395[source]
The day Playground evolves to something similar to XCode is when iPadPro takes over.
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3. SllX ◴[] No.45785041[source]
That’ll be a good day for the iPad but take over? Not a chance in hell.
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4. pjmlp ◴[] No.45785287{3}[source]
Depends on Apple's management.

Some people still hope they haven't completely forgotten about UNIX workstation market, after dropping the server one.

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5. SllX ◴[] No.45789904{4}[source]
It’s mean if the next CEO is fucking stupid and replaces everyone at the top with literal slugs, it could happen. Short of that, it’s a consistent $35B-40B segment of their operations that makes the iPhone, iPad and everything else they do possible.

I spoke above about Apple being the iPhone company, but that doesn’t make the Mac inessential. An iPad with Xcode would be great for the iPad, but it’s a far cry from any kind of justification for killing off an extremely successful and profitable product line. You could stick macOS on an iPad tomorrow and it wouldn’t be an adequate replacement for a MacBook Air, let alone a MacBook Pro or anything else in the lineup.

Also nobody is talking about UNIX workstations in 2025.