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Apple is Going Out of Business ... Again
gsfprez writes "Its been a while ... and strangely, the world almost seemed empty without the constant drumbeat of how Apple is on the verge of going out of business. If you're a fan like i am, then you're in luck, because this Canadian tech journalist didn't get the memo that Apple's been going out of business longer than most tech journalists have been in business. And besides, someone needs to let Robert Thomson know: when writing a story on how Apple is about to die,
you have to
call
them "beleaguered". Come on, that's Tech Journalism 101, people. In any case, he brings up no new points to bolster his argument: he confuses his personal inability to use third-party software that works fine for most of us with legitimate bad third-party support, and uses this to draw his illogical conclusion. Illogical because it's the same reasons/unrealized conclusions that were the staple of tech journalism from 1985-1999."
What you're saying is there's a problem with stupid media journalists attempting to create FUD that apple is going to go out of business simply by stating they will, and people buying it becuase they have this perception of apple on shaky ground simply because they've heard that same thing stated frequently in prominent media positions?
Is giving this front page coverage on slashdot.org going to help things?
These articles are almost as silly as the old argument that increasing S/N ratios on Usenet are killing the Internet.
This sig no verb.
If the article is considered irrelevant and incorrect, why is it being posted as news?
:)
Don't even start with the "Well it's Slashdot, think about it" arguments
just run to a store and grab one
like everybody does
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
...I'm laughing so hard. He spends two paragraphs being mad at his Palm m515 (Software that was not written by Apple) so it MUST be Apple's fault.
I wonder if he is being paid by Microsoft as part of the new "UnSwitcher" campaign? I'd say he should take the fork he was going to stick in Apple, and...well...you get the idea.
In all actuality, I'm curious as to what Apple's market share is now? I don;t know that it has ever been as low as 3%. More like 5%. But I'd venture a guess that with OSX converting Linux users left and right that it'd be around 6-8% by now. Thoughts?
My
This betrays the same sort of misguided thinking that caused the internet tech crash.
Market. Share. Is. Not. Necessarily. An. Indication. Of. A. Company's. Success.
Why can't people understand this? Why do they keep clinging to notions that have been disproved time and time again, are intuitively wrong, and yet people still believe them?
Apple doesn't have to beat PCs in market share. All they have to do is make a profit. That's it. And they don't even have to make a profit every quarter, as long as their cash reserves are large enough (and they are). They just have to over the long run bring in more money than they spend. It's so simple, why can't these people understand it? Why do they insist that "market share" has something to do with it? Enron had a sizeable market share. So did Worldcom. What they didn't have was profitability.
Based on what he said:
"Crashes and screen seizures were regular occurrences. And the iBook doesn't play well with a lot of things that are part of the Microsoft world."
It sounds like he might be booting up in OS 9 instead of OS X, and he probably didn't fork out any money to upgrade his MS Office suite.
Things are looking good(*better) for Apple. They have entered a niche including portable devices (iPod and Powerbooks). Compare to MacOS 9 - X is a really respectable OS. In fact Apple has pointed to this as part of their future success. Apple to date has been more profitable than other computer hardware makers. And finally, it would seem that Apple is receiving its long due respect from computer users, be they linux gurus, mac addicts, or disillusioned windoze users. I suspect that if things ever get bad, Apple can just flood the Windows market with an x86 version of MacOSX and see were it goes from there...
What do you expect him to do? He can no longer write stories about "Apple makes a comeback" or "Apple's amazing new success", because everyone and their dog has done that already and people know about it; nobody would read articles like that. The way to grab people's attention is to write an article the predicts something unexpected or surprising, or takes a controversial point of view: and saying Apple will die, when it appears to be at the height of its power, is a good way to do that, as evidenced by the fact that it's been posted to the front page of Slashdot!
Now, maybe this guy's an idiot. I don't know. But whether intentionally or not, he's being the best kind of journalist: the one whose articles people actually read.
So this reporter is comparing his clearly outdated Powermac and his new iBook (the weakest, speed wise, branch of the Apple tree) to regular PCs. And the main complaint is that Palm software doesn't work? And Apple created Safari becuase there is no development for browsers on the Apple platform? Please, no one tell the folks reponsible for Chimera, Navigator, Omniweb, et al, about this. If this was a post it would be an obvious -1 Troll. Even IE has an update in the wings. Jeez, with my 6 years life out of each of my Macs (one desktop, one notebook) I only have 3 yeras left until my laptop stops functioning, and 6 years left on my new iMac. Maybe they can oust Steve Jobs, and bring him back again.
Things aren't all bad. It's wonderful having Unix with a really nice GUI. Apple is filling in some of the gaps by writing software like Safari, iMovie and Keynote themselves. The boxes are physically beautiful. But it certainly isn't nirvana. The Mac is in a very difficult transition between OS9 and OSX and it needs to pick up market share before application developers will take it seriously. Dependence on Microsoft is an ongoing problem.
As the owner of a Sony Clie, I do agree that sometimes hardware manufacturers forget about Mac owners. Of course, then someone steps in and creates the excelent program like TheMissingSync, which allows mac users to sync with their unsupported Clies.
Apple, in the meantime, realizes there is a problem with Palm support on the Mac, and creates iCal and iSync.
Imagine that - I have choices when syncing my Clie. I can use Palm Desktop (which I rather like) or I can use iCal/iSync.
Choices are good!
Some argue this is a result of Apple trying to ween itself off of its reliance on Microsoft. Imaging that - Apple big enough that it is willing to start taking on Microsoft. Keynote, which he ignores, can also be seen as a shot across Microsoft's bow. If nothing else, it can at least be seen as Jobs telling Bill to make sure and continue development on the Mac platform.
The Mac platform is a huge money-maker for Microsoft. Safari and Keynote are a win-or-win idea for Apple. Either it provokes competition from Microsoft and others in the field (competition being good for the consumer) or it eliminates some of the reliance Apple has on Microsoft right now. Both of these outcomes are good for Apple.
I notice that he conviniently neglected to give sales figures for all Macintoshes, and ignored Xserve and the Powerbook line, both of which are doing well for Apple. The computers he mentions are also nearing the end of their life cycle. The iBook is in need of an update, and the PowerMac line has not seen a huge jump since the first Quicksilver machines (yes, they have done things like dual optical drives and faster memory, but when it comes down to it, they are very similar). Only recently were the PowerMacs updated with Firewire800 and Bluetooth.
He also neglects to mention that, according to most analysts, Apple is weathering the recession a lot better than most other tech firms.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I ihate iall ithose inames ithat icome iwith I.
Iapple ican idie.
macromedia and adobe both commit to the mac, and both have major upgrades of their flagship products, all designed to run on os x. even ms office is native to os x, and is superior by many reports to office xp (though i cannot attest to this, my office experience stopping around 97/2000 era). isync works very well with the palm. but maybe the fact remains that palm is having some problems competing against the pocket pc and other pda's. CS departments are adopting macs, er, pretty unix boxen, and there are plenty of apps. windows is full of crappy, vb shareware apps. (and yes, linux has its share of crappy gpl apps) but, for serious work, the mac is not only equal, but far superior to windows in several categories.
The problem with lacklustre third party development has prompted Apple to create its own browser, which it calls Safari.
pure FUD. apple has decided not to put its lot with m$. IE is full of holes, even on the mac. keynote is designed to take on powerpoint, and apple is even pushing OO.org/X on its site.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Look Apple lovers can't bear the thought that their favourite computer company is dying. Yet those buyers just like PC users cannot buy a new computer every year. Given twelve months and good solid hardware, enough of the initial iMac crowd will buy another to prop up Apple. In the end though unless Apple begins to make huge inroads they will die.
This article is news in that yet another journalist is getting sick and tired of a second smaller tier computer platform and the lack of third party love and consideration. Remember when they media swooned over a game called Myst and helped propel it to greatness? Even then part of that was the lack of Mac games to choose from versus their IBM compatible counterparts. If Apple loses the media, they may well lose everything. Media used to be Apple centric but it is moving toward the commodity IBM compatible PC.
The other thing that keeps most of the big computer makers in business is spin. Yes the real thing that keeps them in business is sales but in a commodity market spin determines whether I buy a computer from you or your competitor. Each will do the same. Further this article again points to the lack of inroads that Apple is making into corporate offices. Why the heck is this reporter's company getting a budget iBook instead of a higher priced product targeted at journalists? Why the heck don't they have a Palm based PDA that rocks and is compatible. I mean even Sony has been able to do this and it is still a growing market that businesses will buy into. And it's not just the portable market that they have problems with corporate sales. Despite a markedly better OS they still have not really got onto the corporate radars with a compelling solution for servers, storage or services (like email). Until they think of some good marketing and launch with a fair bit of fanfare to promote new business solutions and get them adopted they will lose even more market share.
Apple is not dead yet, but they aren't growing and are losing market share in every segment they are in. It is not enough for them to have another iMac launch, they need a coherent strategy that is both flashy and compelling.
The only two choices are continue to lose or expand.
pingmeep
Damn, you beat me to it, I was going to point out iSync. Palm is a special case, their engineers are primarily some ex-Apple employees, and they hate Steve Jobs. They deliberately botched Mac compatibility. So Apple stepped in and fixed the problem with iSync. And it's FREE.
But it doesn't seem like iSync is this guy's solution, he sounds like he's running OS 9. Yes, OS 9 is dying, but not Apple. By this same logic, Microsoft is dying because Windows 95 is losing market share.
--No, author used old PowerMac until the day his iBook came in.
Author gets new iBook.
--Just so; very good!
Author can't run Palm 515 software on new iBoook.
--Correction: author can't get Palm 515 software to run properly on new iBooook. But he sees enough to know it doesn't "just work".
Author sees release of Safari. Author extrapolates that since Apple is releasing own web browser, Apple can't get decent third party software support.
--Actually, author sees that Apple can't get decent third-party support, considers Safari evidence that Apple sees same problem.
Author sees this as imminent demise of Apple.
--Right again! But it's only one man's opinion.
It's interesting that so many true believers rise to the bait yet again. Don't you people have any faith?
To paraphrase the article:
I don't know how to use the computer that my company bought for me, so l'll go write an article about how Apple is going out of business. That'll teach 'em.
Losing. Market. Share. Is. An. Indication. Of. A. Company's. Failure.
.5% or even lower, but that doesn't make it a non-issue.
Why can't you understand this? If Apple loses all of its market, it will no longer be in business. Profit isn't some magical thing that comes from the profit fairy, it's produced by doing business. If Apple stops selling stuff, it will go under.
They can't make a profit otherwise. Furthermore, there is a limit to the minimum profit a company can have in the computer industry because expenditures aren't zero, so there is a minimum market share.
The question, as always, is how close Apple is coming to that line such that they will no longer have the funds to compete?
I personally think it's closer to
Also, there's the question of third-party support which is invariably tied to market share, except for in a few cases. Take Linux, for example. How many software manufacturers put out a Linux version? Very few because there is a negligable market share in Linux, but its usually the apps that make the system desirable.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
No, Macs are not blatantly overpriced, because PCs are a commodity whereas Macs are not. A commodity, as you and the entire Slashdot community are well aware, I trust, is a product differentiated only by price. Like PCs. Whereas a Mac is an entirely different beast.
must... stay... awake...
The average joe will never understand why he isn't getting a good deal when he spends less than $1000-$1500 on a computer. Remember, computer usage is an alternate dimension unto itself where all of the basic economic rules like "you get what you pay for" don't apply. If you want quality hardware, tough luck getting it for less than a few grand off the shelf.
My parents paid $2000 for a new Dell PC because they were terrified that a new PowerMac or PowerBook would not have been compatable with my unversity's software requirements. Ironically, my PowerBook G3 which runs at 333mhz is a better development box for my school work than my PC. I know many geeks that want a Macintosh so badly they can't stand it.
Projects like OpenOffice will make the PC irrelevent as a platform. I predict that OpenOffice, Mono, Java and Mozilla will go a long way toward getting people off the Microsoft plantation. What I think will be the watershed moment for Apple's reemergence will be the first major roll-out of Palladium PCs. Microsoft is trying to force users to upgrade both the OS and the hardware, how is that __any__ different from what they say is the biggest problem with buying Apple? Apple doesn't fistfuck its users with concepts like Palladium which are blatantly anti-individual property rights.
My parents are perfect examples of users who "don't care" about technology. I described to them what Palladium is really about and asked them if they'd buy a PC like that to which they replied "Hell no!" Microsoft is seriously underestimating how much its users like their freedom. We have a whole generation of up-and-coming users who will have major purchasing power in the next few years. Microsoft would do well to remember that most of the Napster crowd is in college now, getting ready to leave college or has been out for a while. Those users believe, and rightly so, that it is their God-given right to listen to MP3s that they have. I wouldn't go so far as to say they have a right to get them for free, but I'll be damned if I'll give Valenti the time of day when he says that I can't view my movies and music anywhere and however I choose to.
Microsoft cannot and will not sell the average user on why they need DRM. If people really cared about audio quality they'd be using DVD-Audio over CD-Audio and would be ripping their own CDs at no less than 192kbps VBR. The content cartels and Microsoft as I said, will not be able to justify why the "sharecropper" model of IP ownership is better than the (Classical) Liberal system we currently enjoy where you have a de facto ownership of the IP in your possession.
The last time I checked, the CBDTPA was not even before a committee to vote on because it still has such an extreme taint of public hatred on it that makes most Congresscritters squeemish about even looking at it. Palladium is a voluntary enforcement of the CBDTPA. It won't keep aunt sally from getting Outlook worms because crackers are invariably more resourceful than their adversaries at Microsoft. And in all of this there is still one issue where Microsoft just doesn't get it. Hardware can have problems, look at some of the early Pentiums and some of Intel's PIII chipsets. You can't say "oh I'm sorry" and release a "service pack" for the hardware unless it's something like a ROM that needs patching. Palladium PCs will probably have hardware problems communicating with a wide-variety of peripherals and that will negate the biggest "advantage" PCs have: that you can buy components off the shelf and use them instead of buying from a select few vendors.
If anything Apple's star is getting brighter. I'm writing this from a box running OSX and I've used Linux for 4 years off and on. I recently used KDE 3.1 and RedHat 8.0 which anyone with a basic sense of reality knows are now for all intents and purposes the vanguard of Linux in the mainstream. KDE 3.1 can't hold a candle to OSX on the desktop. RPM and RedCarpet are jokes compared to Apple's updater. Java on Linux compared to OSX? Puhlease! Almost every UNIX geek I know locally now uses or plans to use OSX as their main OS. There is something irresistable about being able to run GCC in one window and WC3 in another. The nerds that think that blackbox, windowmaker and afterstep are real desktops aren't on Apple's radars and they shouldn't be. They're a waste of time for a company that makes a real desktop platform.
Linux desktop developers should quite frankly give up and ask the OpenBeOS team how they can help if they really want a good OSS desktop. Linux isn't faster than either OS X or WinXP on the desktop and only BeOS is arguably archetecturally superior to all of the above. All too often I've found that the only people who really think that Linux or BSD is the universal hammer fit for every nail mankind encounters are people whose boxes are running Mandrake, with graphical login and never touch the command line. Don't get me wrong, Linux is great for a lot of things, but it shouldn't even try against OS X. It's a battle Linux will lose before it even gets to the start line.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I don't understand either. I'm currently looking for a notebook myself, and although people claim that a similarily configured PC is much cheaper then an Apple system I just am not finding those prices.
In fact, not only can I not find Windows based notebooks for half the price, but I'm not even finding them cheaper. I just priced a Dell for comparison. Even with Dell's rebates and free upgrades right now, their Inspiron 4150 sells for $1,813.00, compared to Apple's iBook for $1,728.00. And the iBook *still* has an extra 128 meg of RAM.
If you compare desktops the numbers are slightly in your favour. A comparetively priced Dimension 8250 is priced at $1,397 after all the rebates and free upgrades available. The G4 goes for $1,599. Although that's just a tad over $200, I would not consider that 'blatently overpriced.' Also, I would guess that the hardware that Apple uses is slightly higher-quality then Dell's hardware. Enough to make the $200 worthwhile anyways.
I'm not sure if I will buy an iBook, but based on price alone, Apple seems to stomp anything that the PC world can provide. I'd like to see Dell or someone massively undercut Apple, because I like good deals too, but until now I haven't seen it.
-BrentIt's important not to exaggerate when you're advocating something. In this case, exactly how many thousand of these Qt/GTK apps are useful, unique, and stable?
They don't realize that while the Mac costs twice as much, it also remains a viable computer twice as long (or longer)
I'd like some justification as to why and how an Apple laptop remains viable "twice as long or longer" than a non-Apple laptop. The technology is going to get faster and larger no matter what platform you use. Furthermore, let's keep this non-OS specific.
"Schools are throwing out their apples..."
"...new computer users seldomly even think of Apples anymore;..."
"...the only new people moving to Apples nowadays are geeks..."... etc., etc., etc...
These statements are unsubstantiated to say the least. Where do you get your numbers? (2%, 10%, etc.)
Apple is in fact becoming more and more of a performance competitor for the PCs, they're getting cheaper (actually, pretty comparable in price to PC-clones considering what you get for your money in laptops: battery-life, design, weight, screens, well-functioning software, connectivity to external devices, etc., etc.); and with OS X and X11/fink/OroborOSX, it also has access to a vast amount of open source software (M$ doesn't).
Newsflash: National Enquirer and Penthouse both have better journalists than the New York Times!
A columnist can say whatever he wants, but the best kind of journalist reports the FACTS. Too bad if it doesn't get read by the masses; more often than not the problem lies with the masses that anyway (proof: Joe Millionaire).
Thanks for the great laugh. Apple has $4.2 billion (4,200,000,000 = 10 digits) in cash and cash instruments. They have about $400M in obligations. They also own a big piece of Akamai, still have ARM Holding stock, and have small holdings in many other firms which may still result in something more than their minimal early investments.
If you take the last few recession years, Apple has, overall not lost money, even though they've had small profits some quarters and small losses others. Even during the time they were investing heavily in research and development.
So how long does it takes a company with four billion dollars and no losses to go out of business? My calculator can't figure it out, but I'm off to use iMovie and Safari and iSync and AppleWorks and figure it out.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Slashdot critisizing bad tech journalism? Talk about the speck in your brothers eye! I can't count the number of biased, duped or outright false submissions slipping past the editors during the last months. Makes me wonder about what submissions they reject.
Honestly, I'm mostly here for the comments. For tech journalism, see El Reg
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
My new iBook won't crash ever, it works perfectly with Microsoft Word and my Palm worked first time I plugged it in. Software support for it also seems to be on the increase. Therefore, due to this "great" journalists help, I have come to the conclusion that my iBook has something seriously wrong with it. Oh well, I'm off to call Apple and get them to break everything for me! :-)
... was this statement:
Unlike competitors Hewlett-Packard Co. or even Dell Computer Corp., Apple relies primarily on personal computer sales, often to graphics and business professionals.
OK, I buy this for HP because they make a ton of crap from test equipment to computers. But Dell doesn't rely primarily on personal computer sales? Let's see about that...
According to Dell's 10-k for fiscal year 2002 (page 54 in the PDF version, page 53 here we see the following (total net revenue broken down by product group):
Desktop computer systems: $ 16,516
Notebook computers: $8,829
Enterprise systems: $5,823
Wow, you're right Robert. Dell doesn't rely on PC sales. And 2+2=5.
Apple put out Safari to show the finger to Microsoft in not one but three ways: 1) It's not OS X that causes crappy IE performance. 2) We don't need you to make our browser for us. 3) BTW, it seems a vendor of proprietary software CAN INDEED benefit from using software released under GPL. I suppose the clueful may read in there something to the effect of M$ can't even write tight code on a good OS. Anyway, all three of these fingers are designed in a very calculated way to discredit Microsoft and send their PR guys scurrying back to their secret contingency regroup coordinates. That's the real story here.
cat
It's important not to exaggerate when you're refuting an argument. In this case, exactly how many thousand of these Windows apps are useful, unique, and stable?
The argument goes both ways.
And the iBook doesn't play well with a lot of things that are part of the Microsoft world.
I really don't want to turn this into an anti-microsoft rant, but here goes.
The reason that Mac products don't bode well with Microsoft stuff is not because Macs have a problem dealing with Microsoft but because Microsoft has a problem with dealing with everything else.
Let me give you an example:
I recently finished a course in Software Engineering. As many of you who actually work in the field of Software Engineering, it's basically teaching you how to cover your tracks whilst your coding. In essence, building a system for a customer, which requires Status reports, estimations, schedules, meetings, prototyping, etc. etc. etc. etc. Basically, a whole bunch of business stuff.
Now, Our professor wasn't actually a professor but a sessional lecturer who regularily works as a Software Engineer with IBM. Great! No problems there.
The one thing that bugged us was his preoccupation with Microsoft formats. We were told our coding could be done in any format we wanted to... whatever language we wanted... In the interests of our team (consisting of 3 Windows users, 1 Mac user and 1 Linux user) we decided to develop in Java what with it being cross-platform and everything.
The catch was all our documents had to be handed in in Word format.
Now, in most cases, this shouldn't be a problem. The three windows users each had respective versions of Office, the Mac user had Office for Macs, and the Linux user could make do with OpenOffice and just send documents to the others to verify that it looked good on their comps.
Great, wonderful... no problem whatsoever.
So we get going into the term, and eventually the assignments (paper-deliverables in the Word format) get more and more complicated and demand more and more of Word's "features" to get the right look.
About halfway through the semester, the lecturer puts up an example for one of the assignments and says "Go at 'er"
So we download.
4 different versions of Office gave 4 completely different looks of the same document. The Mac version was different than Office2k, which was different from Office 7 (I think) which was different from OfficeXP... And apparently this was written in some version of office. The most annoying thing about it was the fact that nobody got a perfect representation of what the lecturer had originally intended. In fact, the closest to what was intended (and still not perfectly accurate) was the OpenOffice version.
What did we learn from this? Microsoft file formats bite because they don't like communicating with Microsoft products even well. We tried to configure some of our files to look nice despite the Office version, but the only program that would allow anything like that was in fact OpenOffice...
Now I'm not here to sing the praises of OpenOffice at all... The point I'm trying to make is that saying that a product is bad because it can't interface well with Microsoft products is like saying someone is a bad parent because their kid has down's syndrome.
Anyways. I'm sure I'll get a bunch of "Typical slashdotter Anti-Microsoft propoganda" flames, but this isn't based out of my pre-biases with Microsoft (of which I have many). This is very simply an experience I've had that was made ten times more difficult than it had to be thanks to Microsoft.
Karma: Non-Heinous
The average joe will never understand why he isn't getting a good deal when he spends less than $1000-$1500 on a computer.
.NET development for much longer than everyone else has been. MS has the jump here, and it will be tough to catch up in both performance and compatibility.
Err...yes, for some things a $1200 computer is insufficient. For other things, it's a very good deal. As a matter of fact, given the continuous and rapid increase in bang/buck, there's a reasonable argument that deviating too strongly from the increasing value curve (i.e. spending a relatively large amount of money on a computer when the value rapidly depreciates) is a bad idea.
Furthermore, simply because Apple does not cater to low-cost computer buyers (nothing wrong with that -- you don't hear me going after Porche or Rolex) does *not* imply that one cannot purchase a high-end x86 machine. There are very, very many systems builders that will be happy as a claim to throw as much money as you want to into a computer. Want three times as much power as you need, with redundant power supplies? Quad processors? A UPS? Hardware SCSI RAID, Firewire, 8 USB 2.0 ports, a GeForce 4, 2 gigs of RAM? Perhaps large plasma gas or projection display? Enormous speakers? Joysticks that are clones of their fighter-jet originals? Whatever demands you have can pretty much always be met.
Remember, computer usage is an alternate dimension unto itself where all of the basic economic rules like "you get what you pay for" don't apply. If you want quality hardware, tough luck getting it for less than a few grand off the shelf.
You know, "inexpensive" does not necessarily imply "shoddy".
My parents paid $2000 for a new Dell PC because they were terrified that a new PowerMac or PowerBook would not have been compatable with my unversity's software requirements. Ironically, my PowerBook G3 which runs at 333mhz is a better development box for my school work than my PC. I know many geeks that want a Macintosh so badly they can't stand it.
[shrug] So your parents made a choice that you feel was suboptimal for your situation. That may certainly be true, but it has little bearing on whether the product you want is ideal for everyone else.
Projects like OpenOffice will make the PC irrelevent as a platform.
You *do* mean Windows, not "the PC", where I'm assuming that "PC" refers to "x86-based machine", right?
OpenOffice will help level the playing field. And Microsoft will have to compete more on price, features, and service more than it did, and give up some reliance on "compatibility".
I don't think that you can simply claim that OS X is the end-all and be all of desktop environments, disregarding Linux, BSD, and yes, even Windows. Apple's always had some good ideas and some completely stupid ideas (stupidity ratio increasing in recent years with many of their UIs (think Quicktime) and Jobs' insistence that people were *still* sufficiently unfamiliar with two-button mice to be allowed to purchase machines equipped with them).
I predict that OpenOffice, Mono, Java and Mozilla will go a long way toward getting people off the Microsoft plantation.
I hope so. OTOH, let's break this down:
OpenOffice is a major jump, and the beginning of a war on features more than comptibility. However, the onus will be on the OpenOffice folks to prevent Microsoft from successfully creating format compatibility issues, which they are *sure* to start doing.
Mono is a nice idea, but a long, long way away from where Microsoft is. Microsoft purchased some very good languages and compilers people, started design well before everyone else, and has been putting resources into
Java is interesting (and certainly useful against Microsoft in some areas), but has long since turned out to not be what it once was billed as -- a write once run anywhere solution for all applications, including desktop computing. There is a very obvious lack of horizontal-market Java applications, stemming from issues with the Java standard itself, including a lack of templated container classes, and poor performance and memory footprint. Remember that Corel spent a *huge* amount of money porting their suite to Java, and at the end (and I'm *sure* that after that kind of resource expenditure, this was not done without much agonizing consideration) the entire thing was scrapped.
As for Mozilla -- Mozilla is very nice. It was pushed into a production a bit early, but still a major strike against Microsoft. However, it is *not* the impossible-to-quash piece of software that some other projects are turning out to be. AOL/TW is undergoing a lot of upheaval, and funding and support for Mozilla may not be around forever. Apple has already distanced themselves from the Mozilla project and gone the way of KHTML (the cynic in me wants to think that this necessity was a result of Apple wasting so much memory and so many cycles on the basic UI that they needed to cut corners in the area of their browser).
What I think will be the watershed moment for Apple's reemergence will be the first major roll-out of Palladium PCs.
Ridiculous. A lack of Palladium support makes zero difference to the end user in an environment where it exists at all. It can be disabled by the end user. You feel that content will *require* Palladium to be used, and that content distribution companies will be comfortable leaving Palladium-disabled users out of things, perhaps? The same goes for the Mac. If such costs are deemed acceptable by content distribution companies (and Palladium *is* such a crucial issue), then the DRM-less Mac runs precisely the same risk -- of being ignored by said content distribution companies.
Frankly, I don't think Palladium will ever take off -- that's essentially a placebo to allow Microsoft better political positioning in the lucrative content distribution and management field with a horde of increasingly desperate content distributors. It only takes a single break in a Palladium-enabled system for *all* content distributed up until them to be redistributed in a DRMless manner. x86 architecture hardware has never been designed around being particularly secure. We will, of course, see, but my bets are that Palladium is going to be primarily useful from a political standpoint, not a technological one.
Microsoft is trying to force users to upgrade both the OS and the hardware, how is that __any__ different from what they say is the biggest problem with buying Apple?
Well, resource requirements generally increase so much over new releases of Microsoft software that one is required to purchase new hardware anyway. Such is life. A major difference is that Apple charges much more for their hardware than x86 manufacturers.
Apple doesn't fistfuck its users with concepts like Palladium which are blatantly anti-individual property rights.
Do tell? Perhaps you'd like to explain the presence of the "Copy Protection" flag that Apple introduced *long* before MS was trying to do DRM. It was unpopular, and fell into disuse -- much as I feel Palladium will (and this is in a world where the company trying to impose DRM controls both the hardware and software platforms).
My parents are perfect examples of users who "don't care" about technology. I described to them what Palladium is really about and asked them if they'd buy a PC like that to which they replied "Hell no!"
Did you *really* explain this to them -- that by disabling Palladium, you have (at least from a DRM standpoint) nothing more and nothing less than a Mac? No?
Those users believe, and rightly so, that it is their God-given right to listen to MP3s that they have...I'll be damned if I'll give Valenti
Uh, huh. I don't see even the evil-mogul-looking Valenti trying to prevent *anyone* from listening to MP3s that they have. As a matter of fact, Phillips (frequently cited as a "good guy" in the DRM wars) did actually pursue this patch.
no less than 192kbps VBR.
Bit of a nitpick, but this makes no sense.
model of IP ownership is better than the (Classical) Liberal system we currently enjoy where you have a de facto ownership of the IP in your possession.
I'm sorry? The "classical liberal" system that you're talking about certainly does *not* give you ownership of said IP. Try running off 10,000 copies and selling them on the street tomorrow and see how far you get before getting handcuffed. That's nothing new at all.
It won't keep aunt sally from getting Outlook worms because crackers are invariably more resourceful than their adversaries at Microsoft.
Yes, yes. Microsoft is full of hype and deliberately misleading when it comes to DRM. This is nothing at all new. Microsoft does this with *all* of their new products, and has for years. Most software companies do--heck, most *companies* do, though not as much.
And in all of this there is still one issue where Microsoft just doesn't get it. Hardware can have problems, look at some of the early Pentiums and some of Intel's PIII chipsets. You can't say "oh I'm sorry" and release a "service pack" for the hardware unless it's something like a ROM that needs patching. Palladium PCs will probably have hardware problems communicating with a wide-variety of peripherals and that will negate the biggest "advantage" PCs have: that you can buy components off the shelf and use them instead of buying from a select few vendors.
I think you've got a few misconceptions. You can certainly use a non-Palladium-aware device in a system and use Palladium -- you just won't be able to use Palladium features with it. [shrug] Same was true for old PCI video cards (couldn't do AGP texturing), old sound cards (couldn't do digital output), old mice (no scrollwheel -- couldn't use scrollwheel features), yadda, yadda, yadda. This applies to every PC component I can think of.
If anything Apple's star is getting brighter.
Well...yeah. No kidding. They actually have a modern OS, after six years of false starts. They couldn't *possibly* be worse off than they were.
I'm writing this from a box running OSX and I've used Linux for 4 years off and on. I recently used KDE 3.1 and RedHat 8.0 which anyone with a basic sense of reality knows are now for all intents and purposes the vanguard of Linux in the mainstream. KDE 3.1 can't hold a candle to OSX on the desktop
I'm not a tremendous fan of KDE. I do like a few things about OS X, but I really don't see the overwhelming advantages you're claiming. OS X's primary interesting feature is a significant amount of eye candy. While once I was deeply impressed with the HCI strictures Apple laid on their platform, more recent ones (one-button-mice only, Quicktime's interface, etc) are less impressive.
RPM and RedCarpet are jokes compared to Apple's updater.
Mmm...Apple's bundle packaging system is kind of interesting, though retrofitting it onto UNIX would be ugly. I personally wouldn't give up RPM, which offers a wider array of analysis and ease of automating tasks, but I can see how many less technically adept users would prefer the simpler UI to their package system Apple exposes. You are certainly right that I'm not a tremendous fan of Red Carpet, but that's a Ximian thing, not a Red Hat thing -- I believe you're thinking of up2date, which sucks very, very much. However, apt for rpm is available (try Freshrpms), and the even better yum is also available. And yum really *is* stupendously good.
Java on Linux compared to OSX?
I tend to feel that Apple's rather behind Linux in this field, actually. The best performing of all JRE/JDK implementations that I know of (*including* native code compilers, surprisingly) is IBM's JRE/JDK. This is not available for OS X, though it is freely downloadable for Linux. Cocoa is nice, though, I will give you that.
Almost every UNIX geek I know locally now uses or plans to use OSX as their main OS.
[shrug] I know a bunch of UNIX geeks, and none of them are particularly interested in switching to OS X. As a matter of fact, I know very few technically oriented people on OS X (though I certainly expect plenty exist, they aren't present where I live).
There is something irresistable about being able to run GCC in one window and WC3 in another.
Oh, for Chrissake. A *Windows* user can do that. That's not much of a metric.
The nerds that think that blackbox, windowmaker and afterstep are real desktops aren't on Apple's radars and they shouldn't be. They're a waste of time for a company that makes a real desktop platform.
Uh, huh. Aside from the "what about the actually *mainstream* WMs you left out like metacity and kwin (forget the current KDE WM)" argument, what then is your criteria for a "real desktop platform"? A "genie minimize"?
Linux desktop developers should quite frankly give up and ask the OpenBeOS team how they can help if they really want a good OSS desktop.
OpenBeOS is an interesting project. I kind of wish I had been able to play with BeOS at some point. It's also much, much farther away from being competitive than Linux native desktop environments.
Linux isn't faster than either OS X or WinXP on the desktop
Okay, now that is just ridiculous. From an application standpoint, and ignoring the fact that OS X generally runs on slower software, no, there is no hard restrictions. However, OS X has the heaviest GUI overhead of the three, in cycles and memory. If you're trying to sell OS X, resource usage is not a stance I'd try taking.
and only BeOS is arguably archetecturally superior to all of the above.
Uh, huh. Ignoring the question of exactly *what* the relationship is between "architectural superiority" and "end user appeal", why do you like BeOS so much?
It's a battle Linux will lose before it even gets to the start line.
Well, it stands to be interesting, atthethethe least.
May we never see th
This article is the journalistic equivalent of flamebait. Pay no heed.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Only place I know that sells their laptops for cheaper than their desktops. Can you even buy a desktop that isn't an uber overpowered maniac machine? I can't afford the price tag, don't want a laptop.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
And as important for Apple, the niche market Apple has has been slowly eroding. New customers didn't appear at a high enough rate to compensate for those that disappeared. So growing into new markets is not al luxury for them - it's a necessity, both to get customers in new markets, but also because the perception of growth is necessary to keep the customers in their current niche.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Apple has $4.2 billion (4,200,000,000 = 10 digits) in cash and cash instruments. They have about $400M in obligatio
Again with the fake numbers. Why does everybody do this? You're flat wrong. Apple has $2.6 bil in cash, and $1.6 bil in obligations. Jesus, what's so hard about checking one of a million financial websites out there to get your facts straight? I mean shit, I'm on dialup, and it took a whopping 30 seconds.
I've been using Linux since '94 too, but always in conjunction with another desktop OS, since at work I've always needed to run certain proprietary software apps that don't run under Linux. My transition has been Linux plus OS/2 then Windows NT then Win 98 (thanks to a job change) and now OS X (thanks to a job change that let me get a whole new system). I still use a Debian Linux box as a server, and for running various apps that haven't been packaged for Fink & that I don't have time to adapt and compile.
The combination of OS X + Linux is a pretty unbeatable work environment. I'd guess there are a lot of Linux "adders," maybe more than "switchers."
I hear a lot about apple machines lasting longer than PCs. Does anyone know why this is?
Windows code bloat, and the fact that Macs have much tighter integration of hardware and OS.
A Mac purchased new in late 1996 would have shipped with Mac OS 7.5.3 or 7.6. From then until now that Mac could have had its OS upgraded about six times (8.0, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1) throughout the life of the machine, with little more than a RAM upgrade from the stock configuration. Just for argument's sake, we'll call it three major OS upgrades-- 8.0, 8.5, and 9.0. At any rate, the OS upgrades would not have much overall impact on the speed of the machine as perceived by the user, i.e. it wouldn't seem too much slower. The only place where this doesn't hold true is with the last beige Power Macs, which are unsupported when it comes to running OS X.
The average Windows PC from 1996 would've had about a Pentium 200, and been running Windows 95. Good luck upgrading that through 98, 98SE, and ME. The code bloat would have slowed the computer to a crawl, and I don't even want to think about trying to find new drivers for the components in the old PC that were probably discontinued by early 1997.
This is why Macs have historically retained high resale values-- they're still useful years after manufacture. Don't believe me? Try looking on eBay for Two Power Mac models: 8600 and 9600. They are very upgradable (to G3 or G4), lots of drive bays, etc. You can add FireWire and USB with a PCI card, and generally get a pretty good approximation of a recent Power Mac. They also make fantastic servers. I have three 7600s in my house performing various server duties, and they are more than capable of doing what I ask of them.
Hey you! Heard of Maya? Did you know it's been ported to Mac OS X? Yeah that's right, there's even a free learning edition. Hmmm... Adobe Premiere and After Effects? Those run on the mac too, and there's even more video related software coming for Mac OS X, not to mention film gimp.
WTF do we care about "Wise Installer"? That's like saying "yo, I got installshield on my PC man". Many mac apps don't even need an installer. If you're referring to a installer-making app, the OS X developer tools include a package making utility.
Visual Studio is a payed-for package. Mac OS X comes with a developer tools CD in the box, or you can download the stuff online, and it's based on GCC.
Out of curiosity, how big (physically) is that display? How long does your battery last? Do you have firewire built in? How about DVI?
I know nothing about video cards, so I won't compare the FireGL to the PowerBook G4's Radeon Mobility 9000 or NVIDIA GeForce4 420/440 Go with 32/64MB of video ram. I'll leave that to a video-card geek.
You sir/madam, are (most likely) a big fat troll. I bet you haven't even used a mac.
*Sigh of relief* Okay, now that I got that off my chest, let me state that I know I sound like a big fat troll myself, but unlike money_shot, I didn't make a blanket troll statement like "Seriously though, no one buys macs for 3D or business use, which is what most computers for businesses are bought for. That leaves a few flaky designers who are more interested in looking cool than getting work done."
One last thing: Video toaster is back, and guess what? It runs on windows.
Ron Paul 2012
Well, where do you begin to argue with him?
He appears to be totally unaware that Apple is actually one of very computer makers that still turn a profit despite the recession, and draws his conclussion solely based on bad experiences with a Mac "built before the Internet" and the buggy Palm software.
I have been using Mac OS X on 2 iBooks for over 2 years now and can't remember when was the last crash. It's quiet, light, stable, cheaper than a similar Wintel portable, definitely the best system i have ever used.
I prefer one tool that does a job well to a dozen that do it badly.
So is the argument here that Mac has too few apps, or too many that aren't good enough?
Fact is, Mac has about 80%-90% of the functionality of Windows on the desktop and the server. It's missing certain key business segments (I don't think there's any serious accounting software for Mac, for instance - no, QuickBooks is not the kind of serious I'm talking about) and games, and the WP software still stinks (including Office v.X), but it's getting there. It is the platform of choice for design, sub-feature length film, and sound, with apps that have nothing comparable on the Windows platform - no, Premiere is not comparable to Final Cut Pro, and I usually use Premiere, so I know). And since the majority of lusers just want a convenient web surfing station they can also make DVDs and play MP3s on, and the Apple experience - except for the browsers - is superior in all these areas (Mail, iTunes, iChat, iDVD, iPhoto, QuickTime, etc.), I think the argument that Apple can be categorizeed as a collection of a dozen tools that do the same job badly is at best a mischaracterization
Ok, so he's using an outdated PowerMac for who knows how long. Then he gets a spanking new ibook and has problems. Welcome to the world of computers. Many still use and rely on Mac's wares with similar issues and manage to solve them - did he see if there were any OS updates or patches before we decided to go on this journalistic tirade?
.com scrap heap? If a buggy OS were a reason for product extinction then Microsoft should have completely fossilized by now.
Apple is still very much on the NASDAQ radar considering what other high profile computer and technology companies are doing- Apple isn't doing that bad.
So, this guy is basically whining that he bought this ibook, didn't check to see if it was compatible with his pim, or whether any of the software he want would run on it? Sounds more like his firm bought it for him and he didn't want it so he'll write a column to bash it.
And his assertion that due to his experinces, not full compatiblity with previously owned products and buggy OS, is reason that Apple is destined for the
Lovely, now journalist are using their forums to troll - pffft!
What a dweb!
No Wintel box makers have the Apple style drive for perfection and attetion to details - they may use similar components but Apple products always looks and feels better.
...
People are willing to pay extra for a Mac because it just works and makes you more productive. And now Macs are actually cheaper than many top brand Wintel machines.
For me, there is an ethical dimension: Apple has been contributed more to the world than companies that are 10 or 20 times bigger. In fact, Apple is probably the only computer maker left in the industry except perhaps IBM that is still actively innovating, often for the benifit of parasites like Dell. Just look around to see how many things are either invented or first adopted by Apple years before the Wintel crowd: GUI, mouse, color display, laser printer, plug-n-play, speech and hand writting recognition, PDA, digital camera, QuickTime, USB, Firewire, 802.11b, 802.11g, gigabit Ethernet, Rendezvous,
Compared to Microsoft, Apple has a 20 times smaller market share, probably makes 100 times less profit, and yet its software portofolio puts Microsoft to shame: Mac OS X - the best GUI with rock solid Unix, Darwin - the first open source OS by a main stream computer maker, QuickTime Player - grandad of multimedia players, Darwin Streaming Server - the only multiplatform open source media server, WebObjects - the first application server, FileMaker Pro - powerful and easy to use database software, AppleWorks - small and powerful office package, FinalCut Pro - the choice of Holywood movie editors, iLife - the best free software for managing music and photos and movies and DVDs, DVD Studio - professional DVD authoring tools, Shake - leading edge compositing software, Safari - faster and smaller than MS IE, Project Builder and Interface Builder - free and powerful IDE and GUI tool for developing Java or C/C++ or Objective C/C++ or AppleScript applications, and the list goes on.
Dell is a shameless parasite, and by its own admission relies on other companies R&D budgets and then undercut their prices. I will not spend my money to help a clueless box maker like Dell gaining more market and to produce another ruthless monster like MS that would eventually destroy the ecosystem in the computing industry.