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Dismal Apple Forecasts Are Wrong
Nutrimentia writes "Tom Yager has a new column at Infoworld disputing poor analytic forecasts of Apple's future, especially based on criticism of Apple's lack of innovation (which seems to me to be pretty easy to refute, but whatever). It's a balanced article that looks at what Apple is doing right and wrong, and he offers some good reasons to pay attention to Apple even if you aren't a Mac fan, namely that the company's approaches to the market help understand many broader trends in effect."
Actually, Windows2K is quite nice. Comparing it to 98,me, or 95 is like comparing OSX to MacOS 9 (or 8). In the last year, I've rebooted my work computer maybe 5 times (4 for security updates, once due to the power dying). MY home pc I hibernate, but don't ever 'blue screen'
In my opinion, Apple's best move would've been in licensing themselves. It may have killed Apple ultimately...
Then how would it have been the best move? Best for whom?
I write in my journal
Apple needs the education market back.
This is gonna be a very painful episode : my kids are in elementary school, and whenever computers have to be purchased, budget is usually limited at 100$ per machine. There's never a new PC purchased, as por that price they can get 5 second hand machines. Macs, being expensive even in second hand, completely falls out of the boat here.
Educational spending on computers is at a historical low in Belgium, and I figure most other contries too since the dot.com.bubble.burst.
No way there's an iMac in a classroom of a small school. Not even an eMac. And as we all now : elementary schools pave the path to highschools. What kids liearn at age 10, is what they want at age 15.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I suspect the implied answer was "for us consumers", but I seriously doubt that would be the case. Initially, users would have benefitted from the Mac's much greater user-friendliness and technical strengths; but after that...
Apple has always been a very different company from Microsoft, and I doubt that they would have taken quite the same money-driven, just-good-enough approach. But without anyone to compete with, would Apple have continued to innovate at the same rate? Would it have been persuaded to work with open standards, interfaces, open source? Would it still be a small, nimble company that could move fast? I doubt it.
In competition, both Apple and Microsoft are producing far better software than either would on their own (whether it's through innovating, or copying the other...) In short, even if Apple as a company benefitted from licensing, I don't think we consumers would have done in the long term.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
amd and intel are also junk proccesors that rely heavilly on marketing. any good engineer would prefer a g4 spark or alpha. and i think faster more powerfull for intell is more marketing than reality.
The personal would be slow to innovate if it weren't for Apple. Apple is the only computer that is willing to think outside of the box. Other have mentioned it before GUI interface, USB, Firewire, Good Design, etc. Does anyone think Dell and the likes would really fork tons money into R&D when they too busy cost-each other? Not really but they will borrow ideas from Apple once they have been proven to sell (wide-screen Insprions, thin and light centrinos with large battery life, gigabit ethernet in ThinkPads, DVD-R everywhere etc.) To tell the truth, I don't think anyone wants to see Apple go because then would have to start innovating for themselves.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
It's not that the drivers are lacking, it's that some hardware companies are making parts for PC's and adding "support" to MacOS on the off-hand without Apple collaboration. It costs a bit more to work with Apple, and that's why. But companies that work with Apple have an advantage over other manufacturers who are giving Mac Compatability as an afterthought...Apple helps you build it into the hardware.
It was one of the best things about the old Macs and I think it's still present in many other Mac stuff. Apple got PnP to work from the beginning by giving third-party hardware manufacturers the method for a hardwired driver. Even if it wasn't the full driver, companies could put a special chip on their hardware to AT LEAST let the hardware function in "safe mode" while you get it working, but most of the time, the chip contains the entire driver set for the hardware. That's why I've never had to install a single driver for any video card I've purchased for a Mac. I only go with companies that bother to work with Apple.
I paid dearly when I bought a cheapo mac Modem (designed for Mac w/o Apple's blessing) that I could never get to work. I bought a GeoPort (before drivers came standard in the OS install) and it worked perfectly!
Of course, I use a PC right now, because I can't afford a new Mac.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
I don't see Apple as a life form. It can die tomorrow and I would not mourn. It's a godless, soulless entity as are all businesses. I just like the tech involved.
Have you ever heard the story of the goose that laid the golden egg? Here's a hint: Apple's the goose.
If Apple were to have ceased to exist as a company in, say, 1988, all the great things that they've created since then never would have existed.
If you like the golden eggs, then you'd better not roast the goose. It would make you a fine dinner, but it wouldn't be the wisest move in the long run.
I write in my journal
I agree with most of your history, save that the clone makers made better products. They had lower prices and faster processors, which admittedly seems to mean better to many PC users, but were cheaply made, relying on Apple to do all the R&D. They nearly drove Apple out of business, yet couldn't survive without Apple.
Even today, Apple couldn't survive another round of licenced clones, as any licencee would have a much lower overhead than Apple, be able to make much cheaper units, and probably still wouldn't attract too many Windows users.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
If you'd said "don't blame the OS for crappy apps," or "don't blame the hardware for crappy apps," I might agree with you. But you specifically brought up the term "platform," which implies that we're talking about the whole package that's actually available to the user. Application quality is extremely relevant to that discussion.
The software you recommend appears to have a list price of $999.99. Compared to iDVD's price of free, that's a substantial downside. For that additional thousand bucks, you could buy a copy of Final Cut Pro, and once again leapfrog the functionality of the Windows software.
Why does the general public think that 5% marketshare is a shameful thing in the computer world?
Why are people threatened to the point of flameage over the simple existence of Mac hardware?
Why does Apple provoke such intense reactions?
They must be one of the most scrutenized companies in the world. And, as everyone knows, the joke is so old its got whiskers: "Sure Apple is going out of business. They'll still be going out of business long after you and I retire."
Is it because MS is the only other mainstream OS provider? I wonder if things would be different, in an alternate universe, where we're buying Atari and Amiga and BeOS boxen.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Try supporting Entourage in a corporate environment. Like every other MS product, it is coded like crap.
Granted, Entourage is much better than most MS products, but it is still a source of many problems in my office. It just isn't coded well. One person might never notice all it's horrible problems, but put 50 not-so-savvy people to work on it, and it's a friggin nightmare. Like it is with all the other MS products we use.
I'm looking forward to having a 100% Microsoft-free office by the end of 2003.
It is more like bad design (where it matters). Sure, the colors get copied by George Foreman grills, but there are the Apple's basic ergornomic failures that PC's are thankfully slow to copy, such as single-button mouse and bent paperclip in a hole media eject system.
Back under the bridge with you, you old troll.
The one-button mouse straw man is older than your
mom and the paperclip eject scheme is on PC
hardware as well.
Other Apple "firsts" do get copied, and the results are unfortunate. PC's used to have large obviously-labelled power buttons. Now they have followed Apple's lead and made this difficult so that yanking the power cable out the back is the quickest way to power down.
You're obviously a moron if you can't find the
well-lit power buttons on most of todays machines.
I guess that explains the low quality of your
trolling skills...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...