Has apple's Mac computers popularity grown/more market share or is it on the decline?

A family friend said that if it wasn't for the ipod then the apple computer wouldn't be around still. I was under the impression the computer sales were increasing steadily before the ipod was released? Has the apple inc's computer (mac computers) share gone up or stayed the same or even decreased?

Has apple's Mac computers popularity grown/more market share or is it on the decline?microsoft

Apple's sales are increasing at a much faster rate than the computer industry as a whole. They have been selling record breaking numbers of Macs year on year for the last several years. Recently Apple's stock value rose higher than Dell's where they are now the #3 computer company.

The iPod certainly got Apple noticed and had people looking at their equipment again, but things were improving long before that when Steve Jobs returned to the company.

The original Imac was probably their biggest success since the original Macintosh, and that was long before the iPod.

There are a couple of reasons for the name change to Apple, Inc. Firstly, Apple decided that if it couldn't break Microsoft's stranglehold in the industry then it would create a whole new market based around the Macintosh as the digital hub of a series of lifestyle products. They don't only work with Mac's but they often do more, and work flawlessly with them. Secondly, Apple had a long running dispute with the Beatles over copyright issues with the Apple company name. Recently those differences were settled out of court to the satisfaction of both groups involved, and gave Apple full control over their name. The change reflects the changing product range and because there were no longer any legal barriers to do so.