According to numbers from IDC (International Data Corporation), the PC market has achieved its second quarter of growth after breaking out of an almost two-year-long slump — and Apple is leading the pack with a whopping 20% increase in sales compared to last year.
These numbers are focused on “traditional PCs,” which includes desktops, laptops, and workstations — but not tablets. For Apple, the main money-maker in this category is the MacBook, and the increase must be happy news since sales in 2023 were down 30% compared to 2022. This was largely due to the end of the pandemic and the extra work from home sales it brought, but there was also limited interest in the M2 chip because so many people had already upgraded to Apple silicon with the M1 chip.
More recently, it seems the M2 to M3 transition is going much more smoothly. Compared to Lenovo’s 3.7%, HP’s 1.8%, or even Acer’s 13.7%, Apple’s 20% sales increase is through the roof. But why? IDC speculates that overall market health has been bolstered by AI hype and a shiny new commercial refresh cycle, and while Apple’s own AI products have only just been announced and are yet to be released, it doesn’t mean the hype hasn’t affected them.
For one thing, all of the Apple Silicon MacBooks will be able to use Apple Intelligence, so anyone eager to give it a go might have upgraded or switched to Apple silicon after the WWDC keynote on June 10.
There must also be plenty of people who were prompted to buy a new laptop by all the AI buzz, but after shopping around, ultimately went for a MacBook. And since the Copilot+ PCs only released toward the end of Q2, anyone looking for a laptop with good battery life in April or May would have been likely to choose Apple.
There might also have been a bunch of M1 owners who felt ready for an upgrade — though their MacBooks can technically last far longer than three and a half years. Before I upgraded to my M2 MacBook Air, I was using a 2013 Air model that was about ready to celebrate its 10th birthday. That trend has only expanded recently, as reported by Bloomberg.
With MacBook sales back on the rise and Copilot+ PC sales off to a good start, it will be interesting to see how the numbers turn out for Q3 at the end of September.
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.