Slashdot Mirror
iBox Episode 2
coolgeek writes "According to this article on Wired, the iBox (original SlashDot post), later renamed to the CoreBox, has run into some trouble. Their strategy is to clone Mac computers using spare parts from repair centers. Evidently, the supplier of the repair parts was reminded by Apple Computer's Legal Department that supplying to a computer manufacturer was a breach of contract. Consequently, the supplier has chosen to stop supplying parts. More information on at the CoreComputing website, and they say the game isn't over yet..."
I mean who whould have guessed Apple would have threatened to sue their supplier into oblivion?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I was under the impression that every Apple-authorized repair center had a similar contract with Apple, which is why I didn't put too much stock in the original story (I expected this to happen - similar things have been tried before). Where are they going to find reliable suppliers who are not authorized by Apple?
I remember that one of the CPU upgrade makers had a deal where they'd send you a new CPU and daughtercard, and give you a major discount if you sent in your old daughtercard (so they could swap CPUs and resell it, since they had no other way to obtain the daughtercards the CPUs were soldered to). I don't think that strategy would really work in this case.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Dirty-joke-sense tingling.
Stop tingling, dammit.
The coolest voice ever.
Now do you really think good quality parts are just laying around at repair centers?
Great business strategy, buy broken, or unusable parts, build computer out of them, and sell to Joe Smoe who can't afford an Apple, so he'll buy an Apple?
Error 407 - No creative sig found
the supplier of the repair parts was reminded by Apple Computer's Legal Department that supplying to a computer manufacturer was a breach of contract
I wonder if it's okay to supply parts to a (non-business) individual, for 'DIY home repair'? Could be a good way to put together an OS X box on the cheap.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
low-cost, configurable Mac clones based on older motherboards from Apple.
Dude, I wonder why when I booted up my Mac it said:
APPLE ][
]_
The coolest voice ever.
Uhm, yeah, they do say that, what's your point?
I assume that your point was that Apple is being monopolistic in this case. That's complete BS though.
I could just see it, a few hours after the Apple store closes, the dumpster divers show up and root through the trash.
Thanks to their hard work, you can buy an iBox, no two the same. Today they are offering a special on an iMac hybrid that has a modern flat-screen stuck on the front of an old bulbous blue first-gen iMac that has an orange mouse.
Tomorrow, they expect to have a "PowerBox" PowerBook made from notebook guts obtained during a particularly successful dumpster-dive installed into the toilet-seat discarged by the plumbing place next door. The local wildlife was restless that night: this machine has a live mouse.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Begun, this Clone War has....
"He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once." - Steve Jobs on Bill Gates
What is going on!!??
One has to wonder what would happen NOW if Apple suddenly allowed clones.
I guess it doesn't fit into their ultimate scheme of things. They don't really seem to care about overwhelmingly taking a huge chunk of the market (only enough to be "profitable")...err, only enough at their pace.
Colossians 2:8
Really? Who are these people? I support Open Source and have an extremely dim view of Apple. As I see it, Apple is acting exactly like Microsoft would if they also were able to monopolize the hardware...
And they say that microsoft is monopolistic.
That's because they ARE a monopoly-- they were convicted of it in court, you fucking tool.
Apple is doing nothing more than holding someone to the terms of a preexisting contract, which both parties agreed to.
Really. And why is that?
and it works great. I picked up a copy of OS X on ebay for $50. It's not the fastest system (800mhz) but it's a great music jukebox.
I'm sure most people familiar with this product aren't surprised that Apple took this route. This company should've taken a different strategy and market this as a PPC box that could run Linux and then leak to Mac sites that this could also run Mac OS.
The iBox would devistate sales for Apple if it went off without a hitch. A fast, cheap, and easily upgradable box might be exactly what consumers want but that doesn't matter. Mac OS X costs more to make than Apple charges for it. Most people would buy an iBox to suppliment their current machine (server, etc) and would probably not even buy a new license of OS X.
So you get a nice cheap box, but at what real cost? The degradation of OS X? The death of Apple? Wake up, the iBox would be bad for everyone in the long run.
Yes, I guess it is. Every once in a while someone gets up and says "hey, Apple is the only one making Apple computers! HOW DARE THEY! It's my God-given right to make and sell anything I damn well want! Apple are a bunch of bastards!"
How dare Apple make a great OS, then put it on machines only they make. How dare they try to make a little cash and stay afloat. They should just give away their hardware and software for free!
Ok, a little drastic, so they should just licence their OS to anyone and forget about hardware? Well, they're in a great position now. If you want to use their OS, you have to buy their hardware. Simple enough and tons of people are doing it. No where near as many people as on Intel computers, but still a good chunk of people who enjoy using OSX.
Someone comes along and tries to get around this and of course, Apple tries to protect itself. But with Slashdot of course the main theme is "How DARE you try to protect yourself! You just sit there and take it!"
Maybe if Apple were to build in protection to their hardware that would blow itself up if someone tries to build it from scratch!
Hang on, gotta go call Sen. Hatch.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Because Microsoft is Microsoft and Apple is Apple.
Sure, their policies aren't all in line, but at least we have seen some attempt at being OSS friendly (eg. parts of Darwin opensource). But even if this weren't the case, you can look at it from the point of view of who is the bigger threat?
Apple's OS market share in general (roughly the same as Linux's) isn't enough to dictate the direction of industry as strongly as MS's 90% OS market share does. True, they would like to be like MS (and worse) if they could, but the fact is they're not. They have more of an incentive to be compatible with other software even though they're strict about their end-to-end hardware solutions.
Besides, their stuff tends to work better and shows better design that MS =)
Just wait until Apple has market share. You think this is bad? This is nothing.
When/if apple has more market share, it won't be as bad since they won't be at a cut-throat position (vs microsoft), they don't want to loose what little they have against a clone that is 3x less the price of this, if they did however have more market share, they could afford to build a cheap box like this one.
Oh no!
Sincerely,
Apple Computer
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
is it more acceptable for hardware manufacturer to fence off competitors? eg Apple restricting parts to be used on Apply-Only machines, while everyone's crying foul when MS is trying to install its own browser on its own product (and still allows competing browsers to be installed).
imagine what would happen if Ford only allows its "rolling" tyres to be fitted on its cars...
monopoly: Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.
a monopoly of their own product? freaking duh. what do you expect? for them to throw their company out the window by allowing someone to intrude on their copyrights? okay, sure. they're monopolistic. whatever.
" Now do you really think good quality parts are just laying around at repair centers?
/// that really smells burnt when someone plugs it in.
They aren't lying around. They are in those cardboard boxes in the basement, tossed in with pieces of Apple II shells that have gone a rich brown with age, 60 pin ribbon cables, the occasional Sinclair TS-1000 taken in on trade, and that Apple
Ah, Slashdot logic.
Eh it is a combination of rooting for the underdog, and picking the lesser of two evils. If the situation was reversed and Apple had the overwhelming majority of the market, people would be crying foul over iTunes' DRM and their tying of software and hardware together. As it is, Apple is less of a threat than MS is thought to be, so they must be 'good.'
I see nothing wrong with someone who designs a machine taking exclusive rights to use the parts of that design.
What would be monopolistic is if you failed to reveal enough information to someone else to design an alternate computer to run the software on another platform.
Unfortunately that's the general rule, unless you stick with open-source software. It would be a great rule for the FTC to impose.
Requiring product developers to make a market in each and every one of their component, however, would be an unreasonable burden. How would you prevent a competitor from sabotaging your supplies by buying up one minor part? How would you apportion your R&D costs fairly to each element of the design? Wouldn't you be at risk of underpricing one element and giving something away to the competition? Who is going to generate the specifications for each part that are adequate for another assembler to user? Are you obligated to not change the part?
Making a market for a product has overhead. It would be unreasonable to require anyone who develops a composite box to document and market each piece of their design.
Keep in mind that the economics of manufacturing overwhelmingly favor non-unique parts already. The premium of a custom part is not something that will ever be justified just to block clones.
These are Apple spare parts. Apple has a limited stock of these to be used as replacements. They expect the part it replaces to be sent back so it can be reworked. There is not some magical motherboard fairy that creates an endless supply for someone to leech off and resell as new.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
Apple has screwed over a number of companies in their time. They lost one of their biggest chip makers a while back because they insisted that they were the only ones who could buy the chips when the manufacturer was depending on the sale of chips to clone outlets to sell enough chips to make them profitable.
Well, that's not to suprising.
I wouldn't imagine it would be to hard to get OSX running on some other PPC platform with enough emulation, something like VMWare. or even an intel box with even more emulation.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
(As an aside, try saying that quickly three times.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If I were an Apple customer and wanted to buy a cheaper, better alternative to a Mac, I'd disagree with you. If I were someone trying to sell a cheaper, better alternative to Macs I'd also disagree with you.
But let me see if I get this right - Apple is not a monopoly because they don't have the market share, right? They're not "technically" a monopoly event though they engage in the same practices as "convicted monopolies". So I shouldn't fear them now, I should fear them later?
huh? iBox? X-Box??
cycles and cycyclecles
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
How is it any more underhanded then reverse engineering the IBM BIOS from scratch? Just because you made an agreement doesn't make the agreement right. How is what you're talking about any different then the contracts Microsoft signed with clone-makers in mid-90s to squelch OS/2?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yeah, the reaction would be "Microsoft doesn't make computers".
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
If you aren't happy with the prices for the specs, do a BIY at the apple store, leave out the RAM and big hard drive, and buy your own from a third party. Since apple's hard drives and RAM are too expensive, you will get a major discount if you leave them off.
Apple 1) gouges on hardware to subsidize their software and 2) charges for the convenience of getting a system with all the stuff you want preinstalled. As a consumer, you can't get around 1. You can get around 2.
It's very simple, really.
Apple sells hardware at a premium price. The profits go on to fund interesting software like the iLife apps, iCal, iSync, Safari, Quicktime, a full development suite, and even an accelerated X11 Server. These software are made available for free to Mac users, because they already paid for it. In fact, if you use many of these applications, you'll realize that the original hardware price tag isn't that much steeper when you consider software costs.
Now, allowing people to buy parts and build cheaper Apple clones messes this up somewhat. Who will pay for the free software? The alternative for Apple must then be either to charge for the software, or to charge so much for replacement parts that it's impossible to build a cheaper clone. Realize that both alternatives are bad for loyal customers who actually buy from Apple. Additionally, it keeps the resale value of Macs high, which is also good for the Apple customer.
Apple's involvement in open source is among the best, but it is very carefully limited to areas that Apple isn't competing in. For example, Apple doesn't feel that there is any competition in the OS kernel space, so Darwin is open source. Safari is a capable browser, but Apple is not planning to win any browser wars, so Apple's chose to participate in KHTML development. However, Apple is holding back core technologies so that nobody can build a OS X clone for x86, which would put Apple customers back in the same situation of paying for people who would rather not pay Apple.
You may disagree with their business plan, but all in all, Apple's strategy is internally coherent, and appears to still work.
Do you think Sony would allow a repair center to resell PS2 components to a third party, who would in turn sell something called a "Play Stashun?" Is anyone jumping down Sony's throat for not allowing cloning of PlayStations?
Perhaps we can consider that not every platform benefits from being cloned.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Not because of better hardware (since even their "new" machines will fall woefully short of a PC with a mid-end AMD)...
Wow, I didn't even know there was a mid-end. I knew about the high end, and I knew about the low end. but this mid-end concept is totally blowing my mind. Is it anything like the 'mid-range'?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
An Apple monopoly depends on what level you look at the situation. What is Apple's market? Macintoshes (specific) or Personal Computers (general). I tend to view this in the general form, because I know damn well that it wouldn't be too dificult at all for me to switch to a Dell tomorrow if I were so inspired.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Okay, any other ex-Spry employees here that, when they see 'ibox,' think 'Internet in a Box'? Yikes. Time for some therapy to re-supress THOSE particular memories...
Apple is acting like a company that wants to stick with a business model of making most of its profits from hardware sales. These profits subsidize many interesting applications, which Apple gives away to its customers freely because they've already paid.
Now, should Apple not count on hardware profits and charge $500 for a copy of MacOS X? What difference would that really make in your opinion? How about if they raised the prices of their replacement parts, so that any clone built from those parts will cost even more than Apple branded computers? (Think a little and realize that both of these alternatives hurt Apple customers.)
Or did you just want Apple to lose hardware sales, but still provide the high quality applications for free?
Apple produces spare parts to replace broken parts for machines it has manufactured. There's quite a high overhead of maintaining these relatively small quanties and their distribution is relatively complex, so it's fair to suggest that these parts aren't sold at much of a profit, if any. When Apple sells a computer, it expects to make back enough money to cover both the parts and the development of that machine. When Apple sells a part, chances are the cost charged to the end-user, if any, will reflect the shipping and manufacturing cost of that part, only.
The upshot is that if Apple were to sell its own parts to competitors, it would be subsidizing those competitors because the cost of selling those parts wouldn't cover the costs of developing them and marketing the overall product built from them, costs Apple still incurrs.
Now, as far as Microsoft goes - do we expect Microsoft to subsidize Linux? I mean, on a moral level. Slashdotters fume that Microsoft signs restrictive contracts that force people who buy PCs to, ultimately, pay for Microsoft's marketing and development costs regardless of whether we want to use Microsoft's design, but do we actually want some extreme opposite? Have you ever heard anyone complain that Microsoft should? If Microsoft objected to a port of Internet Explorer to WINE, do you believe Slashdotters would be up in arms about it?
The answer of course is no. Apple may be shooting themselves in the foot by not creating a mechanism that allows third parties to contribute to their costs in exchange for the ability to produce machines independently, but it's hardly immoral for them to do so. And it's certainly not immoral for them to tell their resellers that goods that are intended for the exclusive use of Mac buyers - people who've paid money to Apple and expect service at a reasonable cost - be only supplied to Mac buyers, on pain of Apple dropping them.
Microsoft's business tactics are well documented. Apple's are not in the same ballpark. And neither company should have any obligation to subsidize a competitor, except possibly as compensation for those cases where illegal actions by that company has damaged that competitor. I don't see any case where Apple has to compensate anyone.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The only flat panel iMac I see listed at store.apple.com that has a 60GB hard drive runs $1299. So that particular incident is all Micro Center. But all of this is really beside the point.
When you buy an Apple machine you're not buying the box, you're buying the overall product. Apple thinks of the computer as a whole, not processor, firmware, software. If you don't care about any of this and just want a cheap generic DIY box, then why are you interested in Macs at all? Just for the transparent windows?
Much of Mac OS X's value comes as result of Apple's approach to product design. The ease of use, peripheral connectivity that "just works", seamless integration and low maintenace don't come for free -- they come as a result of looking the computer as a whole product, not various disperate pieces slammed into a box ala Dell. You can't have both.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Here's a newsflash for you, nimrod: if yer buying an iBox, yer not buying an iMac. Ergo, you are not an Apple customer.
He was manufacturing clones from Apple parts purchased through a repair center. Of course he was going to get his supplier shut down. That was a stupid idea. He should have been buying gnereal PPC componenets and getting OS X to work on them.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Let me guess? You're 15 years old and you think it's cool to spout off crap like Jobs is worse than Gates?
Go away, you're too stupid even for Slashdot.
If this has taught us anything, it's that we fail to grasp history. PowerComputing, UMax, and other companies legally got parts from Apple and made clones. All of this happened with the blessing of Apple during the Gil Amilio days. What happened? The clones killed Apple's sales (cheaper and better will always sell better), along with Apple's crazy product line that had way too many models almost killed the company. This would be no different. However, Apple should take a good hard look at what John Fraser accomplished. He made an upgradeable system (albeit a older, slower system) that could run OS X with a G4 processor. The people sure seemed to like it.
With the impending release of the PPC 970's, Apple will have a bundle of G4 processors left. Why not create a "low-end" system that's upgradeable for the folks who want to customize their own systems but don't need the gee-whiz speed of the high-end systems. The eMac is still the best G4 deal in town, but if you make a system without a built in monitor, it's a whole lot cheaper. Sure, Apple's generous 30% profit margins would take a hit on this one, perhaps into the industry standard 15-20% range, but it would be a profitable system. Hell, hire Fraser, he's already got the design and the buzz. I'm sure he and Jonathan Ive would come up with a killer system. By using Apple's resources, he and Ive could focus on making the CoreBox/iBox what it is visioned to be. We all saw this coming, however, I thought Apple would go straight to Fraser and cut off his company. Apple is saving it's own ass here, it paid attention to history and learned from it VERY quickly.
Apple has strict, legally binding contracts with the vendors who sell their systems and service parts...so I can understand them wanting to enforce the contracts (otherwise precident is set).
;-)
But, it's a shame that a young guy's business is being affected. Based on the press I've seen, he just wanted to do something cool and really wasn't just in it for the money.
But, let's face it, I'm sure BMW or Mercedes would be a little perturbed if you started building cars based on their parts and not exactly hiding the fact that many of the parts were comparible -- just the body was different
-psy
And we all know the infallibility of the US justice system
You say you want a revolution....
Steve Jobs shoots Apple in the foot once again. MBA classes all across America probably use Apple's poor business decisions as examples of how to offend customers and how *not* to grow business
Please enlighten us as to how allowing a third party to distribute a cheap knockoff of a design that Apple spent years creating will bolster Apple's image of quality and help them increase revenue.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
will this decision eventually affect 2nd hand parts as well? ie you cannot savage old Apple parts and use it on another machine, or build a new (non-apple branded) machine out of old parts?
This is kind of the same issue of why BSa has no problems pissing off software pirates (yes, we all hate that name). If you're not going to buy their product, you're not their customer!
Mod point free since 2001
MY COMMODORE 64 WILL SMOKE YOUR POS
APPLE ][!!! IT CAN PLAY ALL THE LATEST
GAMES LIKE BATTLEZONE, AND GEOS BEATS
ANYTHING APPLE HAS. AND IT CAN USE A
TAPE DRIVE FOR MASSIVE STORAGE.
WHERE DO YOU EVEN PLUG THE JOYSTICK
IN?
_
_
please ignore the code at the bottom. i needed it to get past the lameness filter.
----
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
while (count-- && (*dest++ = *c_msg++) != 0);
Take a look at http://www.emulators.com/softmac.htm
though it only goes up to Mac OS 8.1
Are you suggesting... Double Secret Emulation?!
Game... blouses.
I understand the mindset of the Apple fanatics.
When Apple makes a move to shut someone down, they are doing it because they have to in order to survive. After all, they have less than 10% market share. They need to be a lot more defensive of the position that they have.
Namely killing off PPC Mac clones, Purchasing NeXT instead of Be, Refusing to give Be the engineering specs that they needed to support the Be OS on post 9600 Macs, Killing off the iBox, whatever it happens to be.
Steve Jobs understands that people who seem themselves as David, fighting for survival against a monsterous Goliath will give more and tolerate more than other people. "Sure we have to pay a premium for Apple hardware, but when they gain market share we will be able to reap the rewards. Economics of scale always applies, so even though I overpaid for this G3 tower, by the time the G5 is out, the prices will be lower."
The mentality that leads to "One platform over all others." is one that is filled with logic defects. Listen to a Mac user who will slam someone who chooses windows because of availability of games, but they jump up and cheer when Apple uses a gaming chipset for the graphics cards in their new model. They did this with the ATI Rage, and GeForce cards as they were introduced.
Take it from me, I used to be one of them. You can't save them. You can't convert them. All you can do is not tease too much when one of them wakes up and decides that his wallet is the best place to find most of his money and that not being able to run a program is not the same as not wanting to run that program.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
These boxes weren't exactly cheap. They were yesterday's hardware for apple (which since so many bitch about the outdatedness of current apple hardware, is a bad thing). If you want to buy yesterday's mac, there are plenty of resellers that sell the old models. And at least those still come with waranties.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Do you think Apple dosn't profit on its $600+ replacment motherboards? How much profit should a company be entitled to before you think their ripping you off? You do know that Apple has 30-50% mark ups on hardware don't you?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Well, This policy doesn't seem so far out of line if you compare it to just about any other corporation in the known universe.
Go see if you can find someone to sell you some Coca Cola syrup so you can sell Coke and undercut their prices. Or try to find someone willing to sell you authentic Chevrolet parts for a Corvette that they have assembled themselves and are advertising at 1/3 the price of a Corvette's sticker price.
Now if you find someone willing to do either of those things whip out your stop watch and see how long it is before lawyers from Coca Cola or Chevrolet show up to put a stop to it.
It's always business. Never personal.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Regarding replacement parts, how much more could they possibly charge for them? A coworker had his power supply go on his Powerbook yesterday, sat there all day sans computer since the "Mac stores" in town were closed Mondays, then today had to pay $179 for a replacement power adaptor. That's reasonable? Or is he "subsidizing" software with that? Why the hell should he "subsidize" anything? There's this real interesting concept. It's called buying what you use. If he's not using it, why pay for it? I buy a computer, I want to get email, surf the web, shell into my Linux servers and play a couple games. Do I care if I can make a movie on it? No. That's why I don't have Adobe Premiere or anything else like that built into the price (iMovie) of the box. If I wanted it, I'd buy it.
I run XP on my desktop, but I use OpenOffice. Should AMD, Intel and Microsoft all get together and jack up the price of CPUs by $200 a unit just so that the price of Office XP can be brought down? Of course not.
> Don't you realize that you are pissing off customers such as myself!
No they arnt. You said so yourself!
> Screw the G5; I'm buying a dual opteron!
See? You are not a customer.
Besides, if you believe its perfectly ok for you to make demands of apple such as "I want you to do things with your stuff that *I* want even if you dont want to" then its only fair they do the same in return to you. So while you think apple should be forced to hand over cheap hardware, what if they felt you should be just as forced to hand over 4-5x the cash the rest of us would pay for the same mac?
Dont like that idea? They will just do what you are doing and take someone elses money because "DAMN you expecting to be able to do with your money as you see fit!"
But im sure you will bitch and moan that "Hey, thats the same thing! Its not fair!" somehow.
What criticism is it that I'm rationalizing away? That Apple is a company in business to make money, and they expect their repair shops to live up to their contracts? That should be obvious to anyone and is nothing for them to be ashamed of.
BTW, I don't own any Apple computers. I'm typing this on a laptop running Windows XP and at work I use Linux, so I'm not sure what 'faith' I'm supposed to be defending.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Microsoft was convicted of being an illegal monopoly, and for using that power to do bad things.
Apple in this case is a *legal* monopoly. Controlling their own product is entirely within their rights.
domc
Well if you're asking me, I'd rather you just don't.
You're 15 years old
Nope.
and you think it's cool
Nope.
to spout off crap like
Nope.
Jobs is worse than Gates?
Nope.
Go away
Nope.
you're too stupid even for Slashdot.
Most definitely nope, since I've been reading through your posts.
"If I were an Apple customer and wanted to buy a cheaper, better alternative to a Mac, I'd disagree with you." Yeah, buy a PC, its a cheaper, better alternative. Apple aren't stopping you from buying any computer you want. They're stopping you from buying unauthorized Mac's, which is THEIR product. I cannot understand how you came to the conclusion Apple are monopolistic, after they are just trying to control THEIR OWN line of products. Disclaimer : I do not use any apple products, as i believe they are shit.
These guys have G3 logic boards starting at $199 and G4 logic boards starting at $249, both sans CPU. One could roll his own PPC box at a reasonable price.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It is literally a case of Apples and Oranges here. Mac clones at the time that x86 clones came about would have put Apple in a position to pull a Microsoft and become the giant OS company leveraging it to whatever end it chose.
Mac clones now only serve to take market share from Apple. That's easy enough and obvious enough to understand I would think.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Just like Honda monopolizes the Honda car brand. What?!? You want to buy refurbished Honda parts and then market it as a Honda-compatible iCar?
s/Honda/(any other car manufacturer)/
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"Don't you realize that you are pissing off customers such as myself!"
How?
Apple has a contract with a supplier of their parts. The supplier was selling these parts unauthorized to other parties, and this was against a pre-arranged agreement with apple. They didn't sue any end-users, they didn't hurt anyone, they merely told a supplier they have violated a contract clause and thus the supplier pulled itself into line.
Im confused why everyone's angry at apple, what did they do wrong?
(Yes i realized you were mainly having a joke.)
But what happens when you try and use your Linux box to visit an Internet Explorer-only website, such as an online bank. Or what happens when you try and get your Linux box connected to the Exchange server at your office. What happens if you want to code something in Java and actually want it to run properly on the JVM that ships with Windows?
While I know that you could use Camino (or your flavor of Gecko) much of the time to access IE-only sites, and I believe there are open-source workarounds for Exchange, the point is that M$ has illegally used their monopoly in the desktop OS market to try and establish monopolies of other sorts. Under United States antitrust laws, this constitutes an abusive monopoly. Unfortunately, the DOJ has no balls to give them the legal smiting they deserve, so we must continue to work around the problems that Redmond creates in an effort to get everybody to use their products.
On the other hand, Apple doesn't want anyone else selling Apple computers, just as Ford doesn't want anyone else selling Ford cars. Of course, I don't suppose that Ford has a monopoly on the automobile market, do they?
...Well anyways when he starts trashing our computers I'm sure there will be 3 more people trashing his back.
dammnit. - should be in the sen hatch bashing thread.
Google cache.
Buy one now.
Forums.
So you're saying that it's impossible for a business to create quality apps that don't cost anything? You'd say, for example, that the linux kernel isn't quality unless it is subsidized by every hardware company in existance? Hmmm... Apple has enough $$$ that they can afford to make the apps and STILL not overcharge by 300% on anything. Be like PC makers and only overcharge by 200%, please.
My Systems
Unlike Microsoft, Apple is not dominant in its market, and is not in a position to stifle competition on a scale that would require intervention by public authorities.
It's always funny reading the Apple appoligist, defending every lawsuit they do, defending their overpriced systems, what have you. I'm going to put straight these myths now.
.mac ? People flip out when they buy out an anti-virus company to assumably integrate it with Windows Update.
1) the "BMW" of computers. Macs are PCs, and cheaply made ones at that. The only thing that makes a Mac a Mac, is a case, cpu, and board. Their boards are at least 18 months behind x86 tech, their cpus, albeit a better design lag behind current x86 preformance. Their cases are also too small to put much more then another harddrive. The overall quality of Apple computers isn't even up to snuff with the x86 world. Read some forums about dented and pain peeling of Powerbooks, noise issues of Powermacs, keys falling off cheeply made iBooks, and you get the picture. The myth of "Apple quality" is greater then their "mhz myth"
2) OSX is the greatest OS since sliced bread. This comes from the fast that it's a "UNIX-based" OS that's "for a consumer". Well, if you want to compare feature for feature of the OS, Windows XP beats it hand down. I can also show you a couple linux distros that easily compare. Yes it's pretty, then try to do something useful with it, and you find that the OS doesn't do it, and it's a $20 shareware application to get it to work(joysticks anyone?). You buy a $2000 computer, and you still get nag screens with their media player asking for $20. You want a real unix, install a linux disto or a real *BSD. And OSX isn't cheap either, every year, they have a new $129 that kills backwards compatability(you want new iTunes? buy 10.2 for $129) And people complain about Mircosoft's "forced upgrades"? How much would Mircosoft be bashed if they started to tie payed services into XP like
3) Apple is a "friendly" company. Apple will sue anyone and everything. You have a theme that remotely has circular buttons? Apply legal will be on you like flies on manure. You want to talk about Microsoft buying competition, ask current Emagic customers about Apple. Mircosoft buys Virtual PC for a valid reason(server virtualization), Apple buys Emagic to lock their customers into expensive hardware. Mircosoft sues to stop RealPC because the company sold the rights to the program years ago(to the company MS bought BTW). Apple sues a company for making their systems for 1/2 the cost. If Joe Bag O'Donuts can make Macs for 1/2 price using Apple parts, how much is Apple REALLY overcharging for their systems?
4) "Consumer" vs. "Pro"....the whole idea that "consumers"(and boy I hate when I'm refered to as a consumer) need crappy integrated systems and slow hardware comes from Apple. Apple for years hasn't been able to offer workstation level proformance on systems, so they decide "consumers" don't need to do things like upgrade. And to make matters worse, they intentionally cripple their low end of their lines, to not comptete with higher priced offerings. An example is monitor spaning on an iBook..although the video chipset is capable, they intentionaly disable it, so if you want it, you have to buy a higher priced Powerbook. Wouldn't be needed if they could offer REAL reasons to buy higher priced Powerbooks, then to get functionality that they crippled on lower systems. Apple lovers even AGREE with this, because "that's what Apple has to do" As a computer buyer, I want the best for my money, and I don't want intentionally crippled hardware...Apple users disagree.
5) It all "just works" Yes, and my PS2 and Gamecube all "just work" out of the box as well. You stray from what you get via default from Apple, and it's less then 50/50 that it will "just work" Plug in a video cam? Hope it has OSX drivers. I've had better luck with things that "just work" in Mandrake Linux better then in OSX.
I could go on about Apple....but one major question remains....Why is it exactly that people support such a company to such great lengths?
I'm not gonna get into the debate over what Apple should or shouldn't be doing, but I've seen some in this thread wondering how it works, these contracts with service providers (AASPs, Specialists, and Self-servicing Providers).
/. crowd interested. :-)
In a nutshell, here's how it works:
There are two ways you can order parts from Apple, essentially:
1. You can "service stock" the part. With this method, you buy it at the highest price. Apple doesn't expect anything back, since it's an order for something you want to stock, generally. It has other uses, but this is the main use.
2. You can order an "exchange part", where you send back the defective or failed part upon completion of the repair. Using this method, the part's cost to you is cheaper, and thus cheaper to your customers (ideally). Exchange orders are typically the most popular types of orders.
When I say cheaper via the exchange method, I mean it. Contractually, I can't disclose the difference(s)--it's essentially NDA information--but it's enough to warrant ordering exchange parts when you can.
However, if you don't return the failed or defective part within a certain time window, you get invoiced for the full price of the part you ordered. This acts as a pretty decent fraud deterrent, since if you wanted to pay full price, knowing about the return date ahead of time, you would have stocked the part to begin with. (And you wouldn't have taken a hit on your service provider rating because you failed to return something to Apple.)
Service providers are NOT allowed to buy most parts from Apple and resell them directly to others; non-CIPs (so-called "customer-installable parts", such as RAM and rechargeable batteries) must be installed by a service provider or returned to Apple.
Just some info for the
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Nobody will read this far down in the discussion but I just want to put this bit of truth out into the ether:
...eventually.
1. Apple isn't evil because of "going after" this parts supplier. The supplier is in obvious breech of contract. Duh. There's plenty to criticise in the Apple company and in the Mac platform; pick a reason, just make it a valid one, okay?
2. Clones are bad for the Macintosh platform. Bad, bad, bad. Any strategy which erodes their ability to leverage OS/iApps/Hardware into a seamless, second-to-none user experience will be death to the platform. It is not good. It is bad. It will kill the one, single unique thing about this company and they will be swallowed up into the sea of mediocrity that is the rest of the PC industry. Nobody should want that, as even PC users benefit from Apple's R&D.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
The problem with Mac emulation is that no one has been able to make a decent PPC emulator for the x86. There have been efforts, but they're all very slow. As a consequence, all mac emulators (including the much, much better Basilisk II) only have 68k emulation code, and can't do anything more. The only known way to emulate requires a hardware PPC card somewhere in the system, instead of software.
apple defends it's products, which include the hardware as well as the software. while i don't always agree with the way they defend their IP, it is understandable that they do so in order to provide a consistent experience to ther entire product line. imagine if you had a bad experience with a mac clone that was bodged together from older(and very likely used) parts. unless you are tech saavy, you might blame the entire computer(hardware and software) instead of just isolating the blame to the hardware. what happens in this instance? you blame apple, even though they were not responsible for the end package. until there is an "apple certified" used component clone manufacturer( like car manufacturers re-certifying used/out of lease cars, outfits like corecrib will likely be pushed out of business...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
You might have accidentally added an extra $100 to the cost.
It's $79. If your friend had to shell out $179, then he got ripped.
http://www.smalldog.com/product/42645
BMW *will* let you buy all the spare parts and make your own, because you'll find it way cheaper to just buy a new BMW.
Because Apple is nowhere near a MONOPOLY. Many practices that are *fine* in the normal business world become not fine when you are a monopoly. Microsoft is a monopoly, apple is not.
Okay, I understand the fact that Apple's revenues come frome selling hardware. You pay more for the hardware, and you get high quality software as added value.
:)
But the problem lies with people who own a PC right now and are considering upgrading to a Mac. What if they recently purchased a nice 17" or 18" TFT monitor (or higher), which they'd like to keep? An expensive super-fast NVidia or ATI videocard, a high-capacity/high-speed harddrive and so on.
The most affordable Macs are Imacs, and they come with an integrated monitor and inferior 3d graphics (they are still based on the equivalent of DirectX 7 technology). Now the only option for people wanting to keep their monitor and expensive videocard (yes, I know, you'd have to fool around with firmware updates to get the card to work on a Mac, but it's possible) would be to purhcase a PowerMac G4. These things are damn expensive, even used ones!
Again, I understand the fact that Apple's source of income lies in its hardware sales. But it would be really cool if Apple just released an ATX form factor motherboard with a G4 CPU on it, and bundled with MacOS X. Leave the case, power supply, DDR memory, videocard, harddrive, monitor and everything else to the buyer (or perhaps even clone system builders).
To make selling such an "upgrade kit for advanced users" sufficiently interesting, Apple would have to sell it with a higher profit margin. That's okay. Add another 100 or perhaps even 200 euro's/dollars to the manufacturing and distribution costs and it might still be interesting for quite a few of us.
But please allow us the choice in the rest of the hardware. All the Apple stuff that we would be interested in would be the architecture and software.
Anyway, since Steve Jobs is obsessed with providing Apple customers with "the complete experience", a product like what I just described would probably be out of the question, even if it would be sold beside the complete Mac solutions, wich many people would still buy, and even if they sold it at a price which would make it economically profitable for Apple (and would perhaps even lead to a substantially increased marketshare). Too bad. I'd really like to try out MacOS X.
Now I think of it: just allowing the 3d subsystem in new Imacs to be upgraded with a regular AGP-card would already make such machines more interesting to me.
Oh well, at least Linux is looking better and better every day. It will get there. I'm particularly excited about state-of-the-art GUI projects such as DirectFB and Fresco/Berlin.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
to as much profit as they want. If you want a new board because you broke yours, and your computer is old, and they want to charge you $10,000, that's their perogative. If they do bad business, they lose marketshare. If they do good business, they can gain more.
IF you feel they are ripping you off, there are other choices.
Yes. Businesses don't have a huge team of open-source volunteers coding at their every whim. In any case, the open-source movement has never managed to come up with an OS as good as OSX (for desktop use) or apps fufilling the function of iMovie, iDVD, iTMS, etc.
Apple has enough $$$ that they can afford to make the apps and STILL not overcharge
And where do you think they got the $$$? By charging what they do.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
The problem is not the hardware or the vendor, but that the logic is hardwired into a bunch of silicon chips.
A single gp processor on an fpga is not going to outperform a PPC or a Pentium, but with affordable gate array sizes increasing into the tens of millions over the next few years you could add as many processors as you want and outperform any hardwired single cpu.
At that point, who needs to be restricted to any hardware vendors hardwired logic implementation.
Of course then we can complain about Xilinx and Altel ruling the world instead of the IBM, Microsoft or Apple.
Evidently these guys have been doing it for quite some time.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Microsoft has been legally found to be a monopoly. "Fine," say you. "That doesn't make them evil."
If you haven't been paying attention, there are a few other things they've done that put them beyond the category of aggressive competitors. For example:
- They committed perjury by faking video testimony.
- They're still under investigation in the EU for displaying a pattern of illegal monopoly protection.
- They've done quite a few other things that could qualify as nasty.
You may think Apple, Sun, Red Hat, et. al. engage in practices that sometimes benefit themselves over the needs of their users. But it is one thing for a company to make an occasional mistake in the attempt to profit, and another thing entirely to have a corporate culture of complete arrogance, unfettered greed, and deceit.All companies are not the same.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
So now order some, put it in cans, and advertise it on the web as real Coke Classic but in an unmarked 12-packs for 1/3rd the price of real Coke Classic.
I don't think that competition with Coke is what "these guys" have in mind.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadillacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
CHORUS: I'd get it one piece at a time, and it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.
Now, up to now my plan went all right
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53, and the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an adaptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
CHORUS: I got it one piece at a time, and it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER this is the COTTON MOUTH in the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH and negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER, you might say I went right up to the factory and picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?
Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56 '57, '58' 59' automobile
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67 '68, '69, '70 automobile.
---------------
P.S. The slashcode lameness filter should be modified so it doesn't flag song lyrics as too few characters per line. I'm writing this long, irrelevant sentence to kick up the chr/line average above the lameness limit. It doesn't seem to do much to the average, but maybe this additional sentence will do it. Apologies to Johnny Cash for mangling his liyric punctuation. Damn you Taco! Goddammit, I've added line after line and the average is still to low, WTF is it with this lameness filter? It's lame. Dont' bother reading this, it's just irrelevant filler. And this is even more irrelevant filler. Is this how a lameness filter is supposed to work, in a totally lame way? Goddammit, now I'm getting really pissed, I keep checking and I'm still below the char/line limit. Couldn't lameness be indexed to karma so good posters don't have to mangle a short, succinct message with a load of BS to get past the lameness filter?
"Why? Why shouldn't people be able to assemble their own cars from spare parts? The contract is just a way to get around the fact that once you've sold a part, you don't have control over it."
The United States of America is a Neoliberal economy, we practice a philosophy of free market.
Repeat that 100 times before you go to bed each night, until you understand what it really means and what it does not mean.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
So my Apple iBook must be a pirated copy...
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
" I admit, I don't know much about Apple, their computers or their business model. But their corporate policies sure do not seem to be in line with the same ideals associated with Open Source."
Perhaps because Apple is a "business" trying to make a "profit"?
Seriously, where do you get off with this religious conviction that everyone should open their source to the world and think that they could still afford to stay in business?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I'm no longer a potential customer.
The Apple iBook I bought doesn't count because it's in the past and only future sales matter.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Have you heard of Mac-on-linux? It allows you to run OS X on any PPC boxen that is running linux. This means that there isn't a need for the rom that usually causes problems for those trying to run Mac OS on a non Mac box.
And that's why Apple will never have a shot at gaining market share against Microsoft, unlike Linux and *BSD.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
The iBox wasn't advertised as a real Mac.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Quality? Yes. Industry-leading polish and ease-of-use? No.
Apple lives and dies by its aesthetics. Since they seem to not be dead, there seems to be something to their business model.
As far as overcharging by 300%, that number is an utter fabrication.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yeah, it sure was. It was advertised as a genuine Apple motherboard and honestly, out of all the parts inside a Mac which one do you think makes it a Mac?
It was advertised as being able to run OSX and what other kind of computer out there can run OSX other than a real Mac?
It was advertised as Apple hardware in a generic case for a fraction of the price of a new Mac.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Mac's high price must have hurt them. I bought my first computer in 1991. I wanted a Mac and I wanted a color screen for games. As it turned out, I could have either a Mac, or a color screen, but not both. So I got the only thing I could afford and still have color capabilities - a PC.
... but they're still so overpriced. Even used Macs on ebay seem way out of line.
Here's the thing, if a Mac with a color screen was $2-300 less in 1991, I would have bought it (and most likely 4 more in the last 12 years). If Apple was just a little less greedy, they could have had five purchases out of me - instead they got zero.
I look at Yellow Dog Linux (windows inside Mac inside linux) and I still want one
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Yeah, right.
He could have purchased a Madsonline MicroAdapter and paid for overnight shipping for less. Or, he could have gotten a genuine Apple Power Adapter from any number of on-line places (MacZone, MacWarehouse, MacConnection, Club-Mac, CDW, etc.) for $79.99 or less and paid for overnight shipping for a lot less than $179. CDW charges $77.19 for it and Airborne next afternoon service costs $11.99, while next morning delivery would cost $26-29. If you live near a CompUSA, you can get it there too for $79.99.
He got ripped bad... or you're mixed up. The retail price for the Apple adapter is $79 and that's what most retailers would charge for it - charging $179 is absurd. But how is this Apple's doing? That place decided to add a $100 markup on top of the standard dealer markup. Plus, how is this situation different from most laptops? Everyone one of them needs a specific power adapter.
Newsflash.
They don't need marketshare.
Move along now.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
yeah. If you don't know enough about the history of personal computers to know how these situations are different, you have no intelligent opinion to base a post on.
Back under your bridge.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
They make software I enjoy using, to let me do things I need to do.
For the same reason I buy Adobe products, like Photoshop Elements.
I don't know if I necessarily support the product, but if I use past performance as an indicator for future expectations, then I *expect* Apple software to 'get it right' and I expect Apple to 'act reasonably' and cater to my needs.
And if they stop catering to my needs, or acting reasonably, or get it wrong, then of course I'll leave.
But maybe I'm not the most zealous of Mac users.
GPL Deconstructed
I own a Mac, and I do buy into the quality argument; I'm also a QA person (I hate to use the term engineer in the software industry), so I believe I have a worthwhile perspective on quality.
The components in a Mac may be the same stuff other PCs are made of, and therefore the quality isn't in those components: but it is in their integration that quality is visible, and in their use.
Let me explain, from my quality background:
A high quality software product is not one with zero bugs or defects. Zero bugs or defects is a low *error* product.
A high quality software product is one that the user enjoys using, or in situations where pleasure isn't a good indicator, the user can do their task effectively, efficiently, and with a minimum of hassle, problems, mistakes, and errors.
So to rephrase those in terms of a Mac, a piece of hardware:
A Mac is not high quality because it has no errors or defects.
A Mac is high quality because the user gets pleasure from it's use, or alternatively they can do the tasks they want, with a Mac, with a minimum of hassle, problems, errors, and setbacks.
So to bring it closer to home, I use a Mac, and I see it as high quality, and I agree with the BMW statement on multiple levels:
Small niche
Affluent niche
Image conscious niche
Quality conscious niche
I enjoy using my Mac. Already one of my metrics for quality is satisfied.
My PowerBook *feels* good to hold. My PowerMac *sounds* good, because it is so quiet. The case on the PowerMac is a pleasure to open, because it is so simple. I like opening it to just look at everything and how well laid out it is, because I like machines and technology. I put together PCs for 8 years, and after owning a PowerMac for 8 months, I wonder *why* no PC case is designed like this.
Hard drives are mounted on the floor on trays, instead of a freestanding cage in the middle of the case. This cuts down on vibration by directing it into the floor, and minimizes cable clutter because all the IDE connectors are at the edge of the motherboard, parallel to the connector on the hard drive. This also increases airflow because the cables and drives run left to right, instead of front to back on every PC case I've seen; so by design the drives are positioned to reduce vibration and increase circulation.
The case is covered in a thick swathe of plastic, and there's a plastic motherboard tray (probably all acrylic), both of which reduce vibration noise a lot. This *also* doubles as an aesthetic device, making the PowerMac more attractive than most PC cases, as well as providing handles to make the PowerMac easier to handle than most PC cases.
The main cooling fan is 120mm, for low RPM and high cooling efficiency.
So as a technofetishist, I enjoy the design of my PowerMac and PowerBook. Elegant and efficient. Pleasure. All metrics for quality, in my book.
So then there's the other bit, about getting the job done; the Mac platform is the most efficient and effective platform right now for me to do what I want to do. Having access to a terminal suits me perfectly fine, because I can work from it. It beats Windows in some areas, and matches Linux. Then there's the applications, which beats Linux in most areas, and Windows in just about all areas. This is purely subjective because people have different needs.
I don't play games.
I make DVD-Rs using iMovie and iDVD, and I haven't seen anything on the Linux or Windows side that matches this combo in ease of use, elegance, and simplicity. 1 day to make a 1 hour iMovie, and 1 day to design the accompanying DVD, and that's because I'm a picky perfectionist bugger. If I wanted to slap something together, it would be 2 hour for the movie (the time it takes to import, plus minor titling and transitions), and 1 hour for the DVD (using stock layouts). These are professionaly looking layouts too, things I am *happy* to use, overjoyed, because when I use them, the people I will be giving thes
GPL Deconstructed
This sounds like good advice, but it's been done before by Apple and it damn near ruined them.
/etc/insert__your_prefs_here file and then rebuild your blah blah blah blah. I don't want to do that. I don't have time to do that. I want to get to my work and not have to futz with the OS at all...I just want to do my work.
Everbody told Apple to licence MacOS so that clone manufacturers could make low cost machines and give people choise. Apple did this and they almost went under because the clones were taking business away from Apple themselves.
So when Steve Jobs came back one of the first things he did was kill off the clones. Everybody said that was the death of Apple...they're sinking and now that they killed off the clones. No way could they survive now.
But now everyone knows this didn't happen. The opposite happened and Apple went throught a rebirth of itself.
It tried cloning before and it didn't gain marketshare against Microsoft then and I doubt it would today. I doubt Linux will gain marketshare against MS on the desktop. It might, but so far it hasn't.
Linux doesn't have the apps I personally use yet. It doesn't have Photoshop for one. Yes, Gimp is nice, but it's no where NEAR as powerful or full featured as Photoshop. Also, it's such a pain in the ass to do anything I do with ease on XP or OSX. Yes, I know I know...you and others like you probably have no problems at all. All you have to do is edit your
I'm sure, one day, Linux will be like that. But so far I haven't seen it. Of course, I'm only using Mandrake 9 on my Linux box...i'm sure if I were to install blah blah blah and configure blah blah blah I will get better blah blah blah.
Don't have the time...sorry.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
No, it's not "how dare they", it's "there's plenty of profit to be made", and "it's not right to sue competitors into oblivion".
It's going to take a full-fledged reverse-engineering project to make a 3rd party Mac system now, and I bet Apple will start so many lawsuits, it would take loads of money up-front to stay alive through the process... Hmm, maybe Microsoft ought to.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If anyone wants to give me a Mac, that would be very nice of them.
Hmmm.
"but they're still so overpriced. Even used Macs on ebay seem way out of line. "
Look at that the other way around, Macs hold their value well.
I guess this might come in handy if somehow you find yourself face down in the gutter and need to sell your possessions to make ends meet.
Otherwise, what possible advantage is there to this?
Can someone please help me test my assumption that anti-competitive practices and monopolies is bad for economy.
At the moment I feel anti-competition etc should be curbed to favour the smaller companies, that competition should be encouraged to benefit the whole. Overly Marxist?
A blog I run for the wealth
I'd quite fancy something non x86 for a bit of fun.
But is building a clone mac too expensive? Being able to run osX would be nice.
What's the alternative if I forgo osX and accept using Gentoo exclusively?
A blog I run for the wealth
Apple doesn't have marketshare. It has about 3% of the total market. Over the past few years it's flitted between three and five percent.
The comment I was replying to said that if we think Apple's behaviour is bad now (actually, I don't) we should just wait until it has marketshare. I said that that's not going to happen unless Apple produces a cheap (ie low cost of entry) machine. I think that's a reasonable thing to say, and I think Steve Jobs would agree with me. I also think Steve Jobs would say that right now he's not as concerned about marketshare as overall profitability, which is fine, but not relevent to this discussion.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Try to buy a Dell or HP without paying for Windows. That was what (at least part) of the monopoly case was about. MS using their dominant position to push keep Linux off of the Desktop PC through illegal contracts. Yeah, you could switch your Dell to Linux, but guess what - you still paid for Windows.
fuck you.
Except that Apple is NOT a monopoly. They sell Macintosh computers (along with other assorted stuff), which, as you state, is their product. Being the only one to sell your product that you designed and built is not the same as being a monopoly.
:).
Was MS convicted of having a monopoly of the Windows market? No, they were convicted of having a monopoly in the desktop OS market and using that monopoly, again as you state, to do nefarious things (nefarious being a better word then bad
fuck you.
Are you actually implying that MBA=smart?
fuck you.
Yes, it was advertised as Apple hardware in a plain case, but it wasn't advertised as being made by Apple. That's like advertising Coke in cans, but not saying it's the real made-by-Coca-Cola thing.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Yes, they are. They have a monopoly on Apple computers, which is a legal monopoly.
www.m-w.com
monopoly:
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
domc
You don't like Macs, that's fine. Just peachy.
Now take a look around: you are at apple.slashdot.org. Constructive criticism is more than welcome; incessant, whiny, myopic PC quackery IS NOT. So just fuck off with your red herrings and your half-baked arguments.
I'd de-construct your feeble potshots but I just can't be bothered.
(To others - sorry for the flamebait, I just hate posts like these.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Seriously, where do you get off with this religious conviction that everyone should open their source to the world and think that they could still afford to stay in business?
Gee, I dunno... maybe from the fact that they are making money on open source code?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Check out Dictionary.com - they have a much better reference list (plus, they also search m-w).
Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: âoeMonopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individualsâ (Milton Friedman)
The exclusive power, or privilege of selling a commodity; the exclusive power, right, or privilege of dealing in some article, or of trading in some market; sole command of the traffic in anything, however obtained; as, the proprietor of a patented article is given a monopoly of its sale for a limited time; chartered trading companies have sometimes had a monopoly of trade with remote regions; a combination of traders may get a monopoly of a particular product.
-T
and those fuckers at Mercedes won't sell me a standalone engine or sell me a whole car at a price I can afford. What a bunch of jerks.
You know what?
Ford Obviously has an illegal monopoly on the market for Ford Expeditions... the DOJ should shut them down, post-haste
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Buy Mac.. use for a year
sell Mac for large portion of purchase price
put proceeds towards newer Mac (or a hooker, or whatever.)
I'm forced to sell older machines before buying new ones simply because I'm running low on space to put the damned things, if machine A holds it's value better than machine B that's an added bonus as far as I'm concerned.
From a public policy/competition perspective, the consumer has more options for desktop/laptop PCs than just PPC. You can effectively do the same work on a Mac and a Wintel or *nix PC (with some notable exceptions, of course). Antitrust authorities are likely (very likely) to treat the entire desktop PC market as a single zone of competition, and not limit it to PPC devices.
"Gee, I dunno... maybe from the fact that they are making money on open source code?"
No, they are making money on closed-source code which is on-top of open-source code.
Darwin is Open Source but they don't make any money off of Darwin.
Aqua, Cocoa, &c are *Closed Source* and similar are what they are truly selling. It could even be argued that they are selling *hardware* and the reason they don't open their source is that by keeping that source code closed they can keep it on their platform.
I repeat, where do you get off on this idea that they could open all of their source and stay in business?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I buy hardware based upon the hardware's merits and my grudges against the manufacturer.
So technically, I am not a potential OS customer, and I invalidated my own argument. Oh well, I'll win another later.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
And as Apple has made clear they aren't interested in splitting hairs like you and I are doing.
They made the board and they are only going let people who buy those boards from them sell them for the purpose that was stated when they bought it. To replace a part in an Apple computer.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
"...it is wrong for Apple to exert this sort of control over basic hardware, and also to irrevocably tie its hardware to its software..."
While this seems like a valid point it really is not. Let me explain.
Ignoring the fact that Apple does not irrevocably tie its hardware to its software [yellowdoglinux.com] there are many reasons why this is flawed thinking. First of all if I made a product and wanted to sell it for a higher profit above what my competition sells something akin to it for it is my right to do so. If customers don't like it they don't have to buy it. If then I decide to sell parts to replace parts that might go bad in my product and I specify that it's for repair only again it's my right. If people don't like it they don't have to buy it. That's how a free market works: it doesn't matter if it's fair/competitive or not.
I would love for things to be competitive and I agree there needs to be someone to fill in the cheaper market. I don't agree Apple should be cheaper than x86 pc's. The ppc architecture is much better than the x86 one: so much so that I traded straight up my 1.2ghz 512ram x86 hp laptop for 600mhz 256ram ppc iBook laptop and have never looked back. It's not Apple that I'm crazy for and if someone else made decent systems on this architecture I would take a serious look at it (so if anyone knows of a manufacture please tell me). Yellowdog Linux is more than a capable OS for the ppc arch. However that is all personal preference and not at all the point.
The point is that the contract should be abided by or not signed at all. If it's not signed then eventually Apple will have to change it to survive or not survive at all. The customers and sellers have that choice; and some are taking that choice to heart. I feel that the same goes for all MS stuff too even though I loath the company.
/. Heroics - 99.999%
...I didn't follow the case too closely. Still, you get the idea. It's sort of like how Larry Ellison is now arguing that the market for Peoplesoft, JDE and Oracle is larger than just ERM apps, or whatever.