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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."
He's right on target about developer training & documentation. It sucks big-time: poorly categorized and there is lots of missing information.
When I'm looking for an answer to a technical problem, I typically find answers at sites like Mamasam or CocoaDev. The Cocoa Dev Central site is a good source of sample code, too. Many more resources are listed here
Historically, Mac developer's have been very picky about this: Inside Macintosh is wonderful. It's an excellent technical reference presented in a consistent and easily readible format.
As an admitted Apple zealot, I used to get so pissed off about finacial analysts getting thier collective panties in a bunch about Apple going out of business within a year or so... Now I just don't care what they say. Apple is a good company, they respond quickly to market trends, and often are the ones setting trends, but they are not too quick to create a stupid PDA that nobody wants (anymore). They have about $4 billion on paper, the good kind of paper, CASH. For a company as relatively small as Apple is, they innovate and create or help to create more standards they just about anyone out there.
One last thought, just to show I'm not a completely blind follower of Lord Jobs. Had Apple not gotten OSX so gosh darn right, I would have bailed, OS9 was showing it's age and starting to get real flakey under stress. I'd either be running a user-friendly (although OSX has taught me a good deal of under the hood UNIX stuff) or, shudder to think, Win2K. However, I believe they did get OSX right, in my opinion, besides the first Macintosh, it's the greatest thing Apple has ever done.
Apple needs some fast processors from IBM and the education market back.
They will be fine.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
I guess I was out of touch with the analysts of late, because I didn't know they thought things were so bad. Still, it's a good thing I wasn't paying rapt attention to them, or I would've sold my PowerBook and bought it back about 5 times in the past two years.
What I don't get it why they haven't figured it out yet that Apple is strong and steady, unlike its counterparts. The blips on the rader are just that, blips. I find it quite ironic that the people who are supposed to have this figured out are the ones who understand it the least.
Boom Shanka
Apple is still a computer company to watch, although it may be of lesser interest to stockholders today. Still, if you were to bet on any one personal computer company to make something that would transform a process, Apple is a safe bet.
Apple is where it is now for several great ideas and collossal screw-ups, many of which determined the company's present destiny.
(My history highlights come from Apple History to make my point easier, and for your reference.)
1977: The Apple II is born, beginning the personal computer boom in earnest. Apple develops, by some estimates, a 75% market share.
1984: Apple develops a successor to the Apple II line, the Macintosh. It used a graphical interface and mouse and was the first computer with a GUI to become commercially successful. Apple boneheads the initial fate of the Mac's success by: (1) failing to make Apple II apps work with the computer, (2) making the system underpowered until 1986, (3) making the computer with a 9-inch screen that was hard on the eyes, and (4) making the Mac very expensive ($2495).
1986: Apple updates the Macintosh with the Mac Plus, with more RAM, external SCSI support, and a true hierarchial file system update for the OS. A software company, Aldus, creates PageMaker, which takes steam as the first desktop publishing program. Apple soon offers the LaserWriter, one of the first laser printers. A good move by Apple that still gives them the lead in DTP and prepress work today.
1985: Bill Gates sends a memo to then-Apple CEO John Sculley (having been hired by Steve Jobs and then, shortly, has Jobs ousted from Apple). Gates recommends that Apple license the Macintosh (warning: PDF) to make it a standard computer operating system. Gates recognized that Macs were great but weren't reaching critical mass. When Apple refused, Gates requested a license to duplicate the look and feel of some of the Mac OS in a product he was considering with IBM. Biggest bonehead move of all for Apple as this would've made the landscape completely different from the OS world we know today.
1988: Apple finally offers a Mac with internal hardware expandability, including a larger screen: the Macintosh II. It was too late for those who chose a more expandable IBM PC. This moves breathes life into its products, and vendor support improves.
1990-1998: Apple creates more good, innovative ideas, such as the PowerBook laptop (whose design elements are commonplace on PC laptops today) and the Newton (the first PDA), but never capitalizes on them as they want to hold on to all rights. This"not-invented-here" policy nearly kills the company as expensive, confusing models aren't clear, and developers find Windows apps more lucrative. Apple's overall market share plummets. Windows 95's debut makes this worse. Apple considers and offers Mac OS licensing, but this only makes Apple's problems worse as 3rd party clones are better products than Apple's.
Apple completely loses its marketing model. Steve Jobs ousts CEO Gil Amelio to return to as company CEO and begins to repair Apple's products and credibility.
In my opinion, Apple's best move would've been in licensing themselves. It may have killed Apple ultimately, but the Macintosh technologies would have survived and improved dramatically as the PC clones have proved out over time.
Is Apple still a force to be reckoned with? Even if you don't know an Apple from a PC, the company history suggests that, if there is a new spin on a computer program or hardware product, Apple usually thinks of it first. Unlike the Apple of the past, however, don't expect Apple to abandon its creations at the first sign of trouble.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Just take a look at this article at www.imaging-resource.com.
...And we'd spent the whole time -- not just a large part of it -- arranging the show contents rather than fighting the program interface.... We were done at 6:26." He said "...the only [really] aggravating part of the whole process [was] getting the blessed cellophane wrapping off the blank DVD. We can't wait to get these in spindles."
This isn't a Mac bigot. This is a guy that completed a slide show project, after much struggle, using DVDit on a Wintel box. "Some helpful souls suggested we'd enjoy life more if we used iDVD on the Mac. So we did."
He started working at 4:50 p.m. Every darn thing he tried just plain worked the way he expected. "At 6:10 we were ready to burn.
Apple's situation has been the same as it always been. Microsoft, like IBM before it, has the hearts and minds of the corporate IT departments and wins all the top-down purchasing decisions.
But everyone who actually has to use the things finds that Apple's hardware and software, overall, are just plain easier, nicer, faster, and more productive to use than Wintel gear.
As long as the people who actually use computers have any say whatever in what computers they use, Apple has a bright future.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
He was at his church trying to use thier windows pc to print the church budget for a meeting. Windows kept giving him the error message that 'either the printer is off or the port is disconnected.' Well it wasn't. It was hooked up and it is usb. My roommate after several tried gave up and hooked the usb cord for the printer up to his ibook. The ibook recgonized the printer, and he was able to print. He was so happy as there was no software installation nothing. Just plug in USB and print.
Now before the mac haters or basher start I wil lsay this. Mac is missing a few things, like drivers for certain hardware. However the hardware that it does have drivers for works easily in my experience. Apple has done a wonderful job with their OS X and if windows was 1/2 as good we would not need as many desktop 'PC = personal computer' (which includes macs) admins. Yes some people would be out of jobs. I now do 0 admin on his machine whereas windows I was was doing lots of debugging because this or that did not work. I love mac's cause that have literally made MY life easeier. Your experience may vary, but I love the macs,a nd as soon as I can afford a powerbook, I'm getting one....
Only 'flamers' flame!
Now, enter iWorks, Apple's forthcoming answer to that bug-laden piece of poorly programmed crap that should still be in Alpha, called MS Office.
Apple is taking on MS on every front. In the enterprise, they're producing powerful, cheap, easy to deploy servers. And now they're producing the clients for those servers.
The day of the desktop PC for personal use is over, and Apple is the only company to see it. Desktops still have uses in the Enterprise, and Apple is poised to take over there as well.
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
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.
Check them out:
http://search.lists.apple.com/
Apple's ADC pages have quite a bit of source code as well I've found invaluable. No its not as nice as the initial volumes of Inside Mac were. However given the work Apple is doing on its development tools, there is too much of a moving target to have a tool like that. Apple's worked with O'Reilly to produce quality introductory materials. They also recognize that, unlike the 80's, most of us use the internet to get "how-to's." So it really is a different environment.
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/
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.