Apple recorded very strong notebook sales figures in the second quarter of 2017, thanks in no small part to the release of its revised 12-inch MacBook. The company shipped an estimated 3.98 million units between April and June, which makes for an increase of 17.1 percent over the previous quarter.
In terms of global notebook shipments, Apple now sits in fifth place, just behind Asus — and the company is certainly gaining ground. In the first quarter of 2017, Asus recorded a 9.7-percent market share while Apple could only muster 9 percent, but these results put both companies almost on a par with 10 percent each.
Apple is poised to record another significant increase when shipment results from the third quarter are announced, according to analysis from TrendForce. A focus on the MacBook Pro line will likely allow the company to once again up its total shipments by a double-digit percentage, which could enable it to outpace Asus.
At WWDC in June 2017, Apple announced plans to refresh its MacBook Pro laptops, alongside a $200 price cut to the entry-level version of the system. Since these developments only took effect deep into the second quarter, we won’t fully see the results until the next time hardware sales figures are posted.
Dell managed to outdo both Apple and Asus to comfortably take third place in the rankings. It recorded the best quarter-on-quarter improvement out of any of the top six notebook manufacturers, with an increase of 21.3 percent, according to a report from MacRumors.
Global notebook shipments in the second quarter increased by 5.7 percent over the first quarter, representing an increase of 3.6 percent over the same time span in 2016. Sales totaled 39.96 million units, with new product lines and particularly strong sales in the U.S. being cited as two of the reasons that sales figures are on an upward incline.
These sales figures don’t offer up good news for all parties, though. Acer made a big play for the Chromebook market in 2017, but based on the numbers, the effort is not necessarily paying off in the way the company might have hoped. Its market share dropped from 8.8 percent to 8 percent, and it shipped 3.5 percent less notebooks than the previous quarter to boot.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.