What's with all these Macs on campus?

Summary: Macs seem to be everywhere in the media, despite a relatively small marketshare. However, they are also disproportionately flooding college campuses.

What kind of computer does Jimmy Fallon have sitting on his Late Night desk? A MacBook Pro. On and off 24, Keifer Sutherland uses Macs. Keifer Sutherland, at a Soho Mac Store, courtesy of obamapacman.com. In fact, according to brandchannel.com, Apples have appeared in 107 top-grossing movies, second only to Ford in terms of movie product placement. It doesn't come as much of a surprise then that close to half of all incoming freshman this fall will have a Mac in tow.

That's right, 50%. Back in my day, I was a little weird for bring a Mac to college. It was one of the earlier PowerPC desktops and my dorm mates wondered what I was doing at a school focused primarily on science and medicine. Now, as Fortune reports,

Among those who planned to purchase a new computer, 87% planned to buy a laptop. And among those students 47% planned to buy a Mac.

Originally, Fortune keyed in on a Wall Street analyst who downgraded Microsoft, citing a 70% figure for incoming freshmen. His research, however, was based on a sample from 5 unnamed universities. Fortune's research suggested lower numbers, but still much higher than Apple's overall PC market share (depending on who you listen to, it's generally under 10% in the US). So what gives? Is it all just poor, misguided Millennials responding to some brilliant product placement? I hope not since that wouldn't say much for those incoming freshmen.

Next: It's more than just students... »

However, what it does say is that Macs are sexier and trendier than anything Dell or HP can crank out and, despite the price differential, resonate with students far more than their Windows-based counterparts. They resonate elsewhere, though, too. When Google employees were given a choice of Linux or Mac computers after the company dumped Windows, many employees were unconcerned, as long as they could still have their Macs.

A colleague of mine is a pretty hardcore developer. He also manages to run and invest in a variety of cool tech businesses and is a big open source advocate. Guess what he uses? A Mac. Ivan Krsti?? He switched to a Mac long before he started working for Apple. Tim Bray? Yup. A Mac.

So what's the deal? I know that Windows remains the dominant platform just about everywhere, my much-loved Ubuntu is making some dents (well, more dings, except on the server side where it's getting really competitive with the other Linux flavors that have done so well in the back office), and Android is exploding on a variety of fronts since most folks don't know it's Linux. But Apple is scoring significant mind share among a mighty influential bunch of users, most of whom will be entering the workforce with their Macs sooner than later.

I can understand the siren song of the Mac. Their laptops are light and durable, their desktops range from iMac cool to Mac Pro stupid-power, and they have these little phones and tablets floating around everywhere in spite of a crappy provider. And OS X? It's elegant, speedy, and robust. Quite frankly though, so are Windows 7 and Ubuntu (if in their own special ways). It isn't their attractive business leasing programs (although the options are enough to make me consider Macs for the expansion of my own consulting business since they'd also meet my needs well and suddenly become affordable with the terms Apple offers) since students can't leverage those. It isn't their academic discounts since they amount to a couple hundred dollars at the most and many students head for the Apple stores anyway.

It, apparently, is a magical combination of cool features, great marketing, brand cache, and slick software. This secret sauce may not play well with a lot of IT managers and purchasers (or so sayeth the market share gods), but it obviously works for this year's incoming freshmen, along with a growing group of technology-haves. Talk back if you've bought a Mac recently and tell me why.

Topics: CXO, Apple, Hardware, Laptops, Mobility

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108 comments
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  • What do you expect??

    It is not that they are all over in movies and TV series. It is mostly due to the exposure to the Apple brand.

    iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad are a catalyst to Mac computers. People were exposed to products they liked from Apple and are now more inclined to spend the extra bucks on a Mac product. And let be clear .... MacBooks are cooler looking laptops than your regular BestBuy laptop.
    wackoae
    • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

      @wackoae: As a bonus, they also happen to be all-around better computers. :)
      Random_Walk
      • It's also the tool students "WANT" to use...

        @Random_Walk

        A student is more likely to do better in school if they have learning tools they actually "WANT" to use.
        i8thecat
      • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

        @Random_Walk - I disagree. Having used Adobe CS4 Master Collection on both Mac and Windows, the suite runs snappier - and without as much crashing - on Windows (Win7, 64-bit, Professional edition).<br><br>OS X (Snow Leopard, 10.6.4) has some niceties, but having used both platforms I could compile a long list of what's good - and what's bad - about both. Except I don't give away every microscopic detail for free.
        HypnoToad72
      • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

        @i8thecat - true. Both desire and the development of one's innate abilities make for the best products and services coming out of said students. Never shoehorn or think anybody can do anything just like a machine. Otherwise all of those personality profiling tests are grossly overpaid, empty gimmicks.
        HypnoToad72
      • @HypnoToad72 - Perhaps your CS4 installation is borked?

        I can't comment on relative speeds of CS (OS X vs Win7) but if your CS4 is crashing, then I suspect you have a borked installation. My CS installation doesn't crash on OS X. At least I can't remember the last time it crashed it's been so long, and I routinely work with 1GB to 2GB files in Photoshop. Thankfull with enough RAM to make relatively painless.
        snberk341
      • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

        @i8thecat

        <i>"...tools they actually WANT to use."</i>

        Yeah, why not let the kiddies select the curriculum that the teachers will teach. Heck, why have teachers or grades.

        In fact why not have Steve Jobs rule the world!!!

        Yeah man!!!!!

        Just outstanding logical thinking on your part.
        Raid6
      • Good try Raid6....

        @Raid6

        Are you aware that college students actually do choose what they learn??? They pick and choose classes... And they are our best and brightest minds of the future... And most of them apparently choose Mac... I bet that just burns you up...

        Maybe you should leave the logic for those of us that have brains... But keep practicing Raid6... You might pull it off some day... or not.
        i8thecat
    • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

      @wackoae - "cooler"?

      http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/04/27/new-macbook-pro-core-i7-models-seriously-overheating/

      or

      http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/core-i7-macbook-pro-keep-it-off-your-lap-if-you-still-want-kids/8126

      Not quite "cool", huh. :(

      I wonder how many Macbook engineers reported to Steve about that issue...

      A BestBuy laptop I'd expect to overheat. They sell for $1349, come with Blu-Ray, a quad-core i7 CPU, 6GB of RAM, and more. A $2300 laptop whose specs are LOWER THAN THOSE MODELS (4GB RAM, and dual-core i7) certainly shouldn't.

      Yet does.

      Extremely poor QC on Apple's part and it's disheartening.

      Can't they afford to hire a few people to ensure a good product is made? Apparently not.

      Then again, if they ignored the engineer who went to the top re: iPhone 4's antenna, nobody should be surprised at the... possibilities.
      HypnoToad72
  • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

    I started off in the computer world with an Apple IIe. Moved up to the Mac world with an LC and a IIfx. After that I moved to the "dark-side" of windows.<br><br>I made the move because of the lack of software that was available at the time. I loved the OS on the Mac but it just wasn't offering the selection of software that I was searching for.<br><br>Fast forward 7 years... I purchased an iPhone and remembered how much I loved being the owner of a product that was made by a company that cared for their customers and was at the top of the game when it came to cutting edge innovation.<br><br>I decided to take a look at what applications I would be able to use for the things that I use my computers for. I found the the market had changed. Everything that I had looked for in the past was suddenly available!<br><br>I decided to give Macintosh another try and purchased a Mac Book Pro. I instantly fell back in love with a product that I had not even looked at in many years.<br><br>Now I have an i7 iMac (damn this thing is fast) and a regular Macbook. Couldn't be happier with them.<br><br>I still use Windows server 2k3 for the domain in my home network. I also use SMB to serve my media to my hacked AppleTVs. But for my main computers, for both work and play, I have chosen what I believe to be the best option for a computer and OS today.<br><br>It is nice to be back "home".

    I almost forgot one of the other things that I love about the Apple world... It just works.... that is one of the current catch phrases out there. It should be "It just works together"

    I currently have a Time Capsule. I extend the coverage of my network using two airport expresses. I have had an iPhone since the 3g (I have gotten the new one every release). 3 AppleTVs (The AppleTV is a bit of a bummer for one reason... to get streaming network video you need to hack it)

    But everything in my Apple arsenal just works well together. Makes for an easy to administrate powerful computing family of devices.

    "It just works, together" That should be the new catch phrase.
    Geuseppi
    • My timeline is somewhat different

      @Geuseppi
      I started with the Apple II and at the time, it was a great computer. A few years later, I was forced to use the original Mac at work and that was easily the [b]worst[/b] computer system I've ever used in my life. Slow, crashy crashy crashy, terrible screen, absolutely terrible in every single way. Oh the irony of all those who complain about being forced to use Windows at work. Try being forced to use the original Mac at work. Ugh.

      Apple did the right thing by abandoning the Classic Mac OS. It was never a good OS. It could not compete with any version of Windows that was out at the time.

      OS X is at least built on good roots but Apple seems absolutely incompetent when it comes to writing their own software. Everything they've added to the kernel has been an absolute disaster. So while I was happy to buy a MacBook, I was just as happy to install Windows 7 on it to truly unleash the power of the hardware. OS X is truly that bad.

      [i]to get streaming network video you need to hack it
      ...
      But everything in my Apple arsenal just works well together[/i]

      Don't you see the irony in your statement? Something that requires hacking in order to work to your goals is not something that just works well. Their new catch phrase should be: [i]We have a million apologists waiting to apologize for all our deficiencies.[/i]

      [i]I currently have a Time Capsule. I extend the coverage of my network using two airport expresses. I have had an iPhone since the 3g (I have gotten the new one every release). 3 AppleTVs (The AppleTV is a bit of a bummer for one reason... to get streaming network video you need to hack it)[/i]

      I currently have an HP Media Smart Windows Home Server that handles all of my backups automatically for me, streams music and video, acts as a file share, and performs a couple server duties. I extend the coverage of my network using a D-Link DAP-1522. I have an iPhone 4. I have a Windows 7 nettop computer as my HTPC (no hacking required). My iPhone 4 remote controls my iTunes library just fine on that HTPC so I can listen to music on my stereo and control it without turning on my TV. All of it truly does just work well together. You have slurped too much of the Apple kool aid if you believe you need to buy everything Apple in order to make things work together.
      NonZealot
      • Here comes the aneurysm

        Do you get in fights with folks who don't drive the same car, or wear the same clothes? What a one track loser.

        @NonZealot
        GoPower
      • So just in case I don't trust your story what was

        @NonZealot
        that "original" Mac called? Let me give you a clue the Lisa likely should not be an option the Lisa was never actually considered to be a Mac. However after that came the Mac but there was the Mac blank which originally referred to the amount of ram it came with.

        Pagan jim
        James Quinn
    • Does Windows need to emulate OS/X?

      @Geuseppi

      No it doesn't. Yet all the Mac owners I know have some version of Windows installed so that they can get work done.

      It's simply marketing. There's one born every minute, which keeps Apple growing ;-)
      tonymcs@...
      • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

        @tonymcs@...

        Microsoft spends twice as much on marketing as Apple.

        All those Reps taking Mike Cox and his friends out to dinner must really add up... what was the tab for your last "business meeting", Tony ?

        So, sorry, "marketing" isn't a legitimate argument.

        And yes, I have a copy of W7 installed.

        I haven't USED it since installing it though.

        It's there in case I need to run something windows-only like Gcode simulation ... although there's NX CAM for Mac now.

        I'm trying to get our college to buy a seat so I can evaluate it. It's GOT to be better than MasterCam.

        And for now Crossover Mac runs the odd simulation.
        Jkirk3279
      • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

        @tonymcs@... which now includes me.

        It is about marketing. And a cool GUI (based on FreeBSD and GNOME, but that's okay). Otherwise the *applications* would run *better*. And not "just work".
        HypnoToad72
    • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

      @Geuseppi - try using Time Machine to
      (a) restore specific files
      (b) clean up obsolete data
      (c) see how much space it automatically deletes as the drive fills up

      It just works, but it doesn't always work very well.

      Neither does iTunes. Especially when adding music, or organizing it in folders the way I want it to. It's a very 2D-application. Do it the way the programmer made it, regardless of how user-unfriendly it is.
      HypnoToad72
  • reasons

    and don't forget the mac is the only computer that can run mac os x, windows and linux natively. kind of three computers in one.

    and chris, in general and i know for IT guys that concept is very hard to grasp, students buy macs (even for a higher price) because they think they are better!

    imagine that. a better product, a higher price. not because they are sexy or cool or you see them in movies but because of quality, durability, longevity, ease of use, design, powerful included software (iLife), lack of need for antivirus software and if you would factor in their resale value they are even cheaper than you POS dell garbage.

    the world (at least the future leaders) are finally waking up after the decades of microsoft dominated dark age of computing. 5% market share worldwide, 10% in the us. apple has plenty of room to grow.
    banned from zdnet
    • RE: What's with all these Macs on campus?

      @banned from zdnet
      man, you are asking for it! the winnerds are going to tear you a new one! it's all about marketing, nothing more. just ask them. crapple and marketing.
      9 years in pc support and 4 years as a windows network admin and when i left i asked myself one question: what did i learn from that? answer: i don't want one of these things.
      been on mac's since.
      sportmac
      • Try being an Apple network admin

        It got to th epoint where the entire network was scrapped and replace with Dells at one location I deal with.

        Imagine, that: Going to a Dell/Windows network to save time and money...
        John Zern