Can Apple return the ‘wow factor’ to the Mac line?

There are legitimate complaints that Macs have lost their “wow” factor. The MacBook Pro and Mac mini are long-in-the-tooth. And the Mac Pro is practically extinct by computer years.

In a 2015 report, Needham & Company Analyst Charlie Wolf said that the Mac’s “wow factor” is gradually fading and is no longer attracting as many “switcher” customers from Windows machines. Can Apple change this?

Wolf estimated that more than 40 million Windows users had switched to the Mac since 2005. That’s a figure twice the size of the Mac installed base at the beginning of that period.

However, the effect may have been greater in the past, Wolf said, when the quality gap between the Windows experience and the Mac experience was greater. What’s more, PC designs, have become “satisfactory for the jobs to be done.” Still, he noted that the Mac continues to generate the lion’s share of computer profits — more than the top PC makers in the world combined.

“Apple’s challenge as we see it is to continue to introduce compelling new versions of iMacs and MacBooks,” Wolf wrote. “But that’s a tall order given that the company has already introduced what in our view are virtually the ‘perfect’ machines for the PC market.”

This poses a problem for Apple. If they’re going to make “near-perfect” computers even better, what can they do, hardware-wise? Return to offering color options as with the original iMac? Add touch screens? Perhaps a “foldable laptop” as an Apple patent (number 268943) for a new flexible material that could be used as the enclosure and hinge mechanism for a future MacBook hints at?

What do you think Apple should do to return the “wow factor” to the Mac?