Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the second quarter of 2012, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. While Apple experienced only small year-over-year unit growth of 4.3% in the United States, the company was the only one of the top five vendors to see year-over-year growth and the company once again outperformed the overall industry and its 5.7% decline.
Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q12 (Thousands of Units)
Apple's share of the U.S. market rose to 12.0% for the quarter after two straight quarters of decline due to the company's seasonality. The figure, which allowed Apple to consolidate its hold on the third position in the U.S. market behind HP and Dell, marked Apple's second best performance in recent years following a 12.9% share in the third quarter of 2011. The third quarter, which includes back-to-school purchases in many of Apple's strongest markets, is typically its best-performing quarter.
Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-2Q12 (Gartner)
As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis. PC shipments experienced a 0.1% year-over-year decline on a worldwide basis, with strong growth from Asus and Lenovo being offset by declines from HP and Dell.
Update: IDC has released its own estimates for the quarter, pegging Apple at a 1.1% year-over-year decline in U.S. shipments and an 11.4% share of that market. IDC estimated that Lenovo was able to enter the top five on the strength of a 6.1% year-over-year gain, but the overall U.S. market was much weaker than expected in registering a 10.6% drop.
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
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Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Monday December 1, 2025 2:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
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Apple's chipmaking chief Johny Srouji has reportedly indicated that he plans to continue working for the company for the foreseeable future.
"I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon," said Srouji, in a memo obtained by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Here is Srouji's full memo, as shared by Bloomberg:I know you've been reading all kind of rumors and...
Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji could be the next leading executive to leave the company amid an alarming exodus of leading employees, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Srouji apparently recently told CEO Tim Cook that he is "seriously considering leaving" in the near future. He intends to join another company if he departs. Srouji leads Apple's chip design ...
Monday December 8, 2025 11:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple and Google are teaming up to make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, according to 9to5Google. There is a new Android Canary build available today that simplifies data transfer between two smartphones, and Apple is going to implement the functionality in an upcoming iOS 26 beta.
Apple already has a Move to iOS app for transferring data from an Android...
Friday December 5, 2025 10:08 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Intel is expected to begin supplying some Mac and iPad chips in a few years, and the latest rumor claims the partnership might extend to the iPhone.
In a research note with investment firm GF Securities this week, obtained by MacRumors, analyst Jeff Pu said he and his colleagues "now expect" Intel to reach a supply deal with Apple for at least some non-pro iPhone chips starting in 2028....
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Everyone who says that Macs are overpriced needs to take a good long look at these figures. Some of the cheaper alternatives (hardware and/or windows software) simply dont work as well as they should and, if something does not work as well as it should, then it could be free - its still no use.
Every Mac Ive bought since 1986 has made my eyes water price-wise (esp. when comparing it to cheaper alternatives available at the time) and yet every time Ive bought a new computer its been a Mac - not because Im a fan-boy (I am) but because it always does what I want it to do, and often more - from the moment I get it out of the box until long after I sell it. I used a PC just last week for a few hours. The UI was ugly, it crashed twice, it kept asking me stupid questions and then could not find my digital camera without a long, drawn out installation session.
The day Ballmer, Dell and various other people get their heads around the fact that lots and lots and lots of people, even in hard times, will pay that little bit more in return for almost 100% customer satisfaction, is the day the trend shown in this graph will be reversed.
Ballmer, however, wont ever get it - because the mans an idiot and a liability to Microsofts legacy.
Steve got it. Jony gets it. Bob (who will be missed) gets it. Phil gets it.
So yeah, we go out with our hard earned burning our wallets - and we get it.
Why ? If they did update the iMac and Mac Pro, they would probably get quite a few more sales, which is what the poster was hinting at. Why would you down vote him ?
Why not explain to us why you don't agree instead of cowardly down vote ?
I'm glad it's gone. Now you won't have perfectly reasonable posts being downvoted to hell and back simply because someone said something some other guy didn't like.
Such as "Android is a perfectly good platform, and competes quite well with iOS these days".
That's a true statement, but just mentioning Android in a positive light is enough to get people all riled up. If I said that within the first two pages of a thread, I would've been sporting a -15 for no other reason other than NUH UH UR DUM! I USE APPLE STUFF BECAUSE INNOVATION AND STEVE JOBS AND STUFF ITS THE BESTEST EVER -1".
Now if you disagree with something someone says, you have to make a post to air your disagreement. You can't just snipe at people passive aggressively anymore.
...though admittedly, this could end up being a double edged sword.
