Apple laptop shipments, more

Welcome to NetFive Mac Daily 4 Friday, April 3, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by Backblaze. Leading off today, analysts at TrendForce have revised their 2026 notebook shipment estimates downward. Apple, however, is standing out as the exception. TrendForce initially estimated that full-year notebook shipments for 2026 would be down by 9% year over year. The analysts now, however, are predicting a drop of 15% year over year due to what's described as deteriorating in market demand and rising supply chain costs. TrendForce cites macroeconomic headwinds as one of the reasons for weaker than expected demand in the consumer market so far. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of computing demand for AI continues to drive up costs. As key component costs continue to climb, notebook brands are gradually passing on those increases to customers. TrendForce expects pricing to continue to rise in the coming quarters, which in turn will make consumers even more cautious and more reluctant to make new purchases. But as for Apple specifically, TrendForce says that its highly standardized product specifications, streamlined model lineup, and concentrated memory capacities and configurations enable it to scale procurement volumes and strengthen its long-term contract negotiations better than other companies. As a result, TrendForce expects Apple to outperform the broader market, with shipments growing by 7.7% year over year. We're sponsored this week by Backblaze. If you travel with your MacBook, you're carrying your digital life with you. iCloud keeps your files in sync across devices while Time Machine protects you locally. But what if while you're traveling, your MacBook is lost or damaged? Would you have an off-site backup? Well Backblaze runs automatically and creates a separate backup of your entire Mac in the cloud, including external drives. I've used Backblaze before and it's easy to use. You set it up once and you forget about it. So iCloud for sync, Time Machine for local backup, and Backblaze for off-site protection. Try it free at Backblaze.com slash 9 to 5 Mac and get 20% off with code 9 to 5 daily. My thanks to Backblaze for their support of the show. Next up today, Apple is confirmed to the New York Times that Jay Bolognaik, its vice president of fitness technologies, is set to retire in July. His retirement comes after 13 years at the company. He worked on the Apple Watch and is credited with coming up with the device's signature three-ring activity system. And he also played a central role in the launch and development of Apple Fitness Plus. Most recently, however, things took a turn. In August, the New York Times reported that Mr. Bolognaik created a toxic work environment according to nine current and former employees who worked with him. And his behavior reportedly contributed to decisions by more than 10 workers to seek extended mental health or medical leaves of absence since 2022. The Times report detailed multiple instances in which employees say Bolognaik behaved inappropriately, including allegations of verbal abuse, sexual remarks and retaliation, and at least one instance in which Apple settled a complaint alleging sexual harassment. Since then, Bolognaik has remained largely out of the spotlight, while Apple says an internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing. As for Bolognaik's retirement, in an email to employees this week, Apple said that he will retire in July to, quote, spend more time with his family and make an exciting move to New York City, end quote. Meanwhile, EDEQ has taken a larger role over Apple's broader health teams, while Bloomberg has reported that the future of Apple Fitness Plus is under review and it's viewed as one of the company's weakest digital offerings. Running out today as part of Apple's 50th anniversary celebrations, EDEQ, Apple's Vice President of Services and Health, appeared on the TB, PN, or Technologies Daily Show podcast. Q discussed a wide range of topics during the interview, but what was most interesting was a look at how Apple managed to make money selling songs on iTunes for just 99 cents. Essentially, Q explained that in order to offset credit card fees, Apple would batch song purchases together and only charge your card once. He explained, quote, at 99 cents, if you're charging a credit card, you would lose money. Credit cards have fixed fees and a percentage that you pay. The fixed fee and the percentage on a 99 cent song was like a quarter and the vast majority of the rest of the money went to labels. So every time we sold a song, we'd lose money. Nobody wanted to do that. So instead of closing the transaction on every single purchase, we combined them over a period of time. Let's keep the transaction open for 24 hours or 8 hours and everything you buy will give you, then we'll charge you at the end. And that's exactly what happened. Very few transactions were just 99 cents. Most of them were multiple dollars and the fixed fee didn't matter. End quote. This is something Apple still does today for App Store purchases and other subscriptions. For example, if you have two subscriptions renewing in a similar timeframe, it will batch those two subscriptions together so your card is only charged once and Apple only pays the swipe fee once. If you make an App Store purchase for $5, you might notice the charge on your credit card is for $15. That's because Apple might have batched the App Store purchase with your monthly subscription for Apple Music. From a business perspective, it makes total sense. From a user experience perspective, it can be a bit frustrating to try and figure out what each charge on your credit card correlates to. Q's explanation this week, however, at least gives some insight into Apple's thinking, so those card charges you see from Apple aren't as random as you might think. There ups up another episode and another week of 95 Mac Daily. As always, if you like the show, you can find us on Apple Podcasts where you can leave a rating and a review. You can find all of the latest Apple news on 95Mac.com, follow along with me on threads at Chance H. Miller, and we'll be back on Monday for a new week of Apple News.