Apples Are For Grannies?

RoboJock writes "So much for Justin Long — the young, hip 'n' trendy face of the Apple Mac (as seen in the 'Mac vs. PC' ads) is even further removed from the average Mac owner than everyone suspected... By three or four decades. According to research discussed at Silicon.com, 'nearly half of Mac owners are 55 and older — that's almost double the share for average home-PC users.' It seems the young guns don't have the extra cash to stump up for smooth shiny aesthetics." From the article: "For the digital youth, high-street box shifter Gateway is the brand of choice, taking the number-one slot among PC buyers aged between 18 and 25. Dan Ness, principal at MetaFacts, said in a statement: 'Apple can claim long-time loyalists but its future among the young technoliterati is an interesting dynamic.'"

Psssh.

[SatanicPuppy]

55 and up? You think that ads targeted toward "Young, hip people" are more effective toward actual young hip people, or older people who are desperately craving to be young and hip?

Couple that with the fact that that demographic has a hell of a lot of disposable cash, and Apple looks fricking brilliant.

I got my parents a mac mini.

[FlyingSquidStudios]

My mother is in her 60s and my dad in his 70s and they can handle it a LOT better than their old XP machine. I actually like XP and I run both OSX and XP, but the ease-of-use factor with OSX and the $500 mini price tag (especially since they could keep their old monitor, printer, etc.) made it worth getting. Now they aren't only into it, but my dad has gotten himself a Macbook Pro too! They used to hate their computer when it was XP because they had no idea what they were doing. They still don't really have much of an idea, but this time they can actually get things done.

I have a dumb question

[KiahZero]

What does "high-street box shifter" mean?

More on topic, it doesn't seem to me like Apple has much to worry about here, if the problem is not anything intrinsic to Macs, but rather the price. As the 18-25 year olds graduate from college, get jobs, and get promoted, the difference in price between a Mac and a cheap PC becomes less and less significant.

Granny halo effect?

[melonman]

From TFA, it appears that the halo effect (sales of Macs because of iPod fans) is supported by this survey. So, to get this straight, we are postulating huge numbers of geriatric iPod users too? Methinks that the survey, at least as presented in TFA, is even less useful than your average market research survey.

Dunno why this is surprising...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Dunno why this is surprising...

My mom got her first Apple computer 24 years ago. When her current Compaq PC finally dies I know she will replace it with a Mac; she only switched over to the dark side because it looks like Macs were going the way of the dinosaur.

Also remember: Macs are ancient. If you started using one the year they came out and you were 30 that year, you would be 53 now.

Probably lots of reasons

[drinkypoo]

One reason is the Macintosh's dramatically declined role in education. At some point Apple got tired of eating computer loans and made them a lot harder to get, so students bought less of them. Around the same era, maybe a little earlier, Apple slipped in performance and Microsoft introduced educational pricing that made their operating system and office suite practically free, so the Apples aren't used much in classrooms either. Another good reason is that today there is very little important Mac-only software. Most of it is in the form of multimedia applications which have direct equivalents or even superior replacements on the PC.

In addition, of course, there is the pricing, which is only now achieving anything like parity with the PC. For the most part it has achieved it, which is a huge accomplishment for Apple, having been so much more expensive than the PC for so long. However, Apple computers are still more expensive and difficult to upgrade in most cases, and like Linux or the other non-Windows OS of your choice, driver support is still a sticky issue. There's lots more hardware supported on Windows than on OSX.

Finally, for people in the age range we're talking about, the lack of support for games is a killer. Of course, today you can use boot camp... But if you're just going to boot windows anyway, why not buy a PC clone?

Have you been to a MUG lately?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried going to support our local Mac Users Group. (which I won't mention for obvious reasons). My friend and I (40 & 35, respectively) were the youngest people in the room. The second youngest was at least 55. Half were on legacy (pre os x) macs. I'd estimate something like 50 people were there. I was astounded. "where were all the younger mac geeks?" At first we thought that our age group & younger just doesn't get together in person, that perhaps it's all virtual these days.

We left after 15 minutes (whilst the group was planning a pool party.. shudder...) and grabbed a beer.

Semi-Generation gap?

[abaddononion]

It seems to me that this would have a lot more to do with when people were coming of age with computers, so to speak, than with actual age. A lot of these people most likely grew up (computeratively speaking, not literally) in a time period when the big computer manufacturers were Apple, IBM (too expensive for most people in the day), Compaq, HP (dont get me started on old HPs), and possibly young Dell (im leaving out a lot of older models, I know. please forgive me/fill in the gaps). I remember when I was in middle school, most of the computers WERE Apple. By the time I got to High School, this was completely different, and a Mac was a rare thing to see. Also... not to be *too* stereotypical here, but I know a lot of older people (not elderly, just older), who still have old computers and outright refuse to upgrade, or accept the fact that there are newer, better models out there for less than a thousand bucks. I know of at least one friend whose parent have an old pre-OSX mac still, and adamantly maintain that it does everything they need it for, and dont need to upgrade.

My point is, I dont think it's fair to say that Apple's primary audience is actually older people. I would guess that a lot of these "Apple owners", which are not defined as "Apple buyers", arent actively seeking the next new upgrade, and *probably* dont represent the staple of income Apple should be trying to target with their next generation of devices.

Re:Dunno why this is surprising...

[peragrin]

And to note that a person familar with system 6 and 7 won't have much of a learning curve for Basic tasks. Sure the more advanced features have changed a lot, but the finder and menu still work exactly the same. The way to launch apps is the same as well.

Try that with windows.

For what it's worth...

[ep251]

Walking around my college campus I would say that a good 60-70% of the students here (myself included) are using Macs. A lot of these kids have Macs at home and have been using them their entire lives, but a significant percentage (myself included once again) opted for a Mac when it came time to buy a laptop for college. I realize this might say more about the kind of students my particular school attracts than it does about Mac use and adoption nationwide, but it's got to mean something that most everyone I know is already sick to death of Windows at 19.

Re:Capitan obvious to the rescue!

[businessnerd]

I'm living that now. So much fun. When I was in my final year of college, and I got that job offer and looked at the number they were offering, a big grin appeared on my face and I screamed "WHOOOO!!! I'M RICH BIOTCH!!!!" Then I graduated and all of a sudden I had a lot of expenses piling up before I had even started the job. I had to find a new apartment and pay the deposit, and the rent (before I was being paid). Then I bought a car and had to pay for my insurance. Then there was my credit card bill that was getting bigger everyday with all of the new apartment expenses and pre-new-job expenses (mainly work clothes). After I got that first paycheck, there was nothing left for even a nice cold relaxing beer let alone a $3k computer. Now that most things are paid off and I'm getting the steady paycheck, the amount of savings is still small. Throw in the live-in girlfriend who doesn't make enough to support herself, and the savings account is pretty stagnant. Life is good, but high end electronics are not part of it.

Soem Mac ads are confounding

[amigabill]

Some of the Mac ads have felt like they are from some parallel anti-universe.

Like the one where the new Japanese digital camera chic could talk to the Mac but no tto the PC. Huh? Show me one digital camera available at the time of that commercial that did not work with a PC. Seriously...

Or how they make the PC into some business-only thing that isn't any fun. Come on, show me how to run HalfLife 2 on a Mac... OK, I've seen Quake 4 and WOW retail boxes for Macs at the store, but that shelf is a great deal smaller than the PC gaming shelf.

I'm not against Macs or anything, in fact I just got an iBook a couple months ago to find out what they're like. Yea, it's a couple years old, but that's what I'm willin got pay up for to do an evaluation of the platform. I'm not going to pay for a brand-new MacBook to evaluate the platform... What can I do with it? Well, there's all those iDVD, iPhoto, etc. apps that I haven't had reason to try. iTunes, well, I already had that for my PC. Same for Thunderbird and Firefox and OpenOffice. I got one of the later Myst games which runs well enough, and the PCB layout software I'd like to use is available for it as well. I played my free demo of WOW on the PC for 3 days and never logged back in, hopefully they aren't charging my credit card since I'm not actually playing the game, and so don't see much reason to get that. The DVD player works well enough, but I had to get some 3rd party hack utility to change resolutions to extermal monitors connected such as my 720P projector. I had to get powerstrip for Windows to do the same thing though, and Windows still messes up somehow, the projected image seems OK but it appears to be scaling the framebuffer to something larger than 720P and only showing the top-left 720P portion of that larger framebuffer, which sucks so the Mac is better for that. (Yes, I do have a box that I intend to install MythTV on if the kubuntu installer ever manages to complete without hanging, but it's not usable yet)

Anyway... I think some people who might consider a Mac are seeign some of these ads and not believing them. Yes, PCs ARE fun. Yes, cameras work with Windows. Why are you fibbing to me? I don't think people like hearing things they don't believe to be true like that. Besides, most younger people are coming into PCs looking for the new games. That leaves out Macs, Linux, Amigas, QNX, BSD, and a number of other alternatives to Windows. Of course most sales for that age bracket will go to Windows.

Re:Capitan obvious to the rescue!

[FlyingSquidStudios]

I have insane insurance. If I ever meet a talking fish with hands, I get $2 million. The premium is a bitch but the payout would be so worth it!

Re:Psssh.

[lucabrasi999]

Well I think the same can be said of something like the VW Beetle.

Have you ever noticed the age of the driver's for cars that are targeted towards younger buyers? Cars like the Scion "Clown Car" and the Honda "Element"? One of the big fears of Toyota is that many younger buyers consider their vehicles to be an old-persons car. Hell, my 70 year-old parents recently bought a Camry and I wouldn't be caught dead driving one.

I wonder how many younger buyers wouldn't be 'caught dead' using a Mac....

Re:Psssh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Couple that with the fact that that demographic has a hell of a lot of disposable cash, and Apple looks fricking brilliant."

And the fact that this age group has seen personal computers evolve as consumer products (unlike the snot-nose kids today). They remember Microsoft when it was 80x25 non all points addressable. And have seen Microsoft raise the temperature of the water slowly, step-by-step trying to boil their frog customers. So, yeah, these memories factor into their purchase decisions today in addition to having some disposable income.

And then you have the older crowed versed on POSIX systems and looking for both a real shell and a fancy GUI that OSX provides (recognizing, of course, FOSS OSes too).

 

Re:Obligatory part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft damned if it does and damned if it doesn't on /.? Unpossible.

Re:Well, it's all about User-Friendliness

[natrius]

It's a freakin UNIX box with an open source kernel, that ships with a DVD full of developer tools! How much more functional do you want?

For people who like to dig into their OS, the kernel is usually at a lower level than is useful. What is useful is being able to tweak iTunes to do something in a specific way, or change some Finder feature that you don't like. Very few people actually do this, but the people who do have created a couple of open source desktop environments that aren't too shabby. When someone else comes along with a need and the requisite skills to fulfill it, you've got a new contributor. The usefulness of an open source user-space is far greater than that of an open source kernel.

Why older people use Macs.

[rjwoodhead]

You are a computer geek.

Your mom asks you what computer to buy.

You *know* you will be on the hook for free tech support.

What computer you recommend depends on your personality.

Suicidal : Linux, custom install

Masochistic : Windows

Sadistic : Windows

Realistic : Mac

My mom (late 60's) has been on Macs for years, and is now at the point that she installs firmware updates before breakfast, and nags her neighbors to secure their WAPs. But then, she's my mom, so you'd expect that of her. The only problem that's defeated her lately is getting and old XP craptop (needed to do accounting for her church) to connect to the wireless network, but I couldn't get it working either!