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What to Expect from Macworld Tomorrow
Steve writes "The Mac fellows at iThings.de have posted an entertaining read about what could happen on Tuesday at Macworld in San Francisco."
That's pretty good. Also at the top of the reading list for such Apple rumor satire is Crazy Apple Rumors.
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Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world... -- Wally Shawn
Just like Apple rumors.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Apple's releasing a secretly developed video-enabled color-changing 19" Bluetooth/802.11g iPod-style Firewire 2 Web Address Book PVR/web browser
Wrong on two counts - you can get a crap PC for $500. iBooks start at $999 which is not bad for a laptop. You can also buy a brand-new (non-swivel) iMac from $799
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Something like a quad-G4 machine with support for three 23" cinema displays and a case that floats 4" above your desk.
Otherwise it will be more interesting hardware and clever software that I cannot afford.
how people find this Onion-style hyperbole funny. It's low-brow humor marketed as high-brow humor, and as a result it's audience either puffs it's chest in an "I get it, I'm so smart" kind of way when there's nothing to get, or they believe that the stories are true and act accordingly. It's also rather formulaic and as a result doesn't take much creativity to produce a "news release"; just stamina to keep churning them out.
Oh well, nevermind. I'm curious to see what's going to be announced. Hope it's something spiffy, like a new color scheme. Or a phone or a new PDA. Or a two button mouse with a scroll wheel. You know, something that will "change the industry forever". But then again, I'm still waiting for the time travel function I was promised in OS8.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
Yeah, I'm sure Apple would make tons of profit if they went after that "people with no money" market.
This guy really knows what he is talking about.
The difference with Apple and consoles is huge. Consoles have huge cash reserves from previous successes. Also, the money they lose in selling boxes is quickly recouped in the income from license fees on titles. Apple doesn't get $10 when you buy Photoshop.
Additionally, if you start selling at lower prices, get a bigger market share while making a loss (or a very slim profit) and then raise prices when you have market share, you become everything that Wal*Mart is.
For my last point, you should also take note that Apple's hardware sales support not only production, but the OS and all the iApps you could ever hope for. Think about where the $1,799 goes for the 15" flat panel iMac with SuperDrive:
15" LCD screen
800 Mhz G4
60 gig HD
GeForce 2
Ethernet, modem
DVD-R (RW, though not well advertised)
Mac OS X
AppleWorks
iMovie
iDVD
iPhoto
iTunes
iCal
iSync
Sherlock
Mail
Plenty More...
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I'm waiting for the Xserve Cluster (Beowulf?)edition - it comes with a special connector to tie the Xserve to the one above or below it with multi-gigabit fiber. You'll be able to purchase a "rack spanner" for an extra $50.
This would be the first step in creating a Cluster Computer - imagine a web server made of 42 Xserves, sharing traffic, distributing updates between each other with Rendevous, capable of dealing with down or failed servers, automatically re-distributing traffic to servers with more resources...
Ok, so I'm crazy. Aren't you?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
seems to be working for Dell...
Dell computers are not particularly less expensive than Apple computers. You'll spend between $700 and $5000 on a computer from either company. Sure, you can build a pretty good PC for around $400, but you can't get a full machine with monitor from dell for that cheap. They advertise a $449 machine on their site under "Hot deals" but by the time you get it into your cart it's basically stripped down and doesn't include any support or labor warranty. It also doesn't include a monitor.
Apple should dispense with the huge profit margin
Why? Aren't profits more important than market share? Who cares if you've only got 15% of the market as long as you're making money?
I think it's nice to have a company like Apple around. They're willing to take design risks and charge the high prices that allown them to take design risks simply because they only target a small portion of the market. If it makes you upset that you can't afford a mac, you can always pick up a used on for a fairly reasonable price.
Yea, but us geeks have Ellen Feiss and Janie Porche.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Dude, what a coincidence! I'll be coming home from the bar at 4am and having insane sex with your wife. Good to know I'll only have an hour.
I aplogize If i came accross as bashing Apple. However I don't want to label myself as a fanatic listing all the stuff of theirs I own and collect. I just really think Apple could benefit from more marketshare. I'm obviously not alone in this thought. It's really kind of sad that Apple only has around 5% of the market. Last I heard that was a generous statistic. If Apple were able to even so mch as double their marketshare the possibilities for expansion are trememndous. Obviously, some of this is debateable. If they had more marketshare they would have more users, more possible subscribers to .Mac and the possible new iApp packages etc. This would in the end allow them to develop even more than they have in the past.
Apple is obviously aggressively targetting new customers with thier switch ads. They've recognized that most everybody has a comptuer now. There are no virgins to convert. It's now a dangerous game of stealing marketshare fomr competitors. This also means that these peopel have an existing investment in compeitotr software and equipment. The upfront price or the simple Apple hardware is idsconcerting to those used to buying a sub thousand dollar computer.
Most Apple users recognize that we're paying for higher quality goods, or at leats an ease of a designer product and we're fine with that. But it's tough to convince peopel to swithc with such a daunting pricetag. Not ot mentino that faith i a horrible reaosn to stay with a ocmpany and in the end will only last for so long. Evntually, P companies will have a price/performance ratio that is impossible to ignore.
Just my thoughts. I'm really just describing what I've obsered amongst many o my friends who certainly admire the Macintosh they see me using, but could never make such a huge leap at the current prices.
3 Hours later: iCal 1.0.4 available for download via website
2nd Day of MW Expo: Announce iCal 1.0.6 (iCal 1.0.5 was an internal release only), iCal 1.0.4 available through Apple SW Update
End of MW Expo: iCal 1.2 released for only $129. That's only $129 for each new feature!! :-(
No, but seriously... FireWire 800Mbps. Yea!
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dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
I got the basic model of the iBook (USD 999). While speaking to the apple sales guy on the phone(the intenet store crashed) he tells me that the laptop will be "almost unusable" in that configuration. I need to upgrade the memory to at least 384 Mb of RAM for it to boot properly.
Having used both a $999 Apple laptop and a $999 intel based laptop I can safely say that you get most bang for the buck buying the intel based one...