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A Look Back at Apple's 2003
Samvit writes "The end of the year is upon us, so it's naturally time for those retrospectives to start coming in. Ars Technica has a fantastic look back at Apple in 2003. 2003 was one of the biggest years for Apple, arguably the biggest in a very long time. Still, Ars is typically fair, so the author lays down not only the good in 2003, but also the bad and the ugly. There's a bit of prognostication going on too--a little something for everyone."
Didn't Apple die? Wait, that was BSD...
I kid, of course..
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Apple appears to be on the right track. Their problem is still expensive hardware but going to a Unix-based OS was insight indeed.
If I had the money, I'd purchase a new G-5 dual cpu system.
is up over 20% from may's @ $15 to $25
so iam sure they are pleased, lets hope they keep it going
but don't look back on SCO's year, or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.
This is also the first year that Apple has had some real competition in the PowerPC market since the 90's. Genesi's Pegasos I and II along with Eyetechs AmigaONE motherboards shipped in volume this past year, giving Apple something to directly threaten their position, even in a very remote manner.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Apple has not been completely succesful this year, but who can deny that it is the most ambitious computer maker? Apple constantly pushes the envelope forward with newer features (FW 800, bluetooth, 17 inch laptop), and the rest of the pack try to clone their offerings in a Windows world. When's the last time Apple had to copy a Dell or Gateway design to stay current?
I actually think next year will be even more interesting, as Apple pursues their music / video strategy. There's rumors of a Pro Tools killer on the way. Go Apple!
As I read through the article, I saw lots of ooh's and aah's over the cool toys and services they are offering, as well as the integration to certain systems. The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.
Ok, so they have all of this cool technology and neat services. So, now what? How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market? It's one thing to shore up the market you have, but when that market is relatively small, that leaves one to wonder how to expand. What do they intend to do about a limited market share? The article does not say that. iTunes might be making money for them now, but how will they keep it on top with new competitors emerging?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
I must say the biggest deal for Apple this year has been the advent of the G5 with significant help from IBM. Throughout the G4's life, I had been a supporter of Apple and in particular OS X because of the efficiencies that the OS provides. However, in raw number crunching power, the G4 simply did not scale in performance leaving me to do much of my hard core scientific computing on Intel or AMD hardware. However, now we have G5's, there is simply no comparison. I can now have the most efficient OS and the fastest CPU available in one platform. Apple needed the G5 and that I would say is the single biggest product Apple has come out with this year.
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We actually paid for a call to mac tech support to get help, and after 20 mins on hold while the tech looked for a fix, nothing. In the end, after 5 hours of attempts, patch downloads etc, we just went to a library, and I had my email answered (in english, lol) within 15 mins (after a 20 min wait for a free machine, but still). There is a way to read the text in OS X, but it involves copy/pasting into a text editor, which wouldn't work for HTML forms, of course. which button was 'clear' and which was 'send'? I found out the hard way 3 times. Now that I read more of your message, I realize you said Hebrew 'might not work'. oops! This seems wierd to me, as a very high percent of israeli homes have computers, and there (used to be) a small but decent mac market here. Strangely, it died a bit after the release of OS X, as I recall. I wonder why...
I also know for a fact that many middle eastern languages have the same problems in OS X, though certainly not all.
That's a major fix Mac will need to make if it ever plans to get popular with businesspeople on an international scale (and on a major level, even on a domestic scale).
My head of IT stating that "Apple will be out of business by Christmas."
That was in 1997.
As long as Apple keeps innovating and forcing everyone else to play catch-up, they'll stay in business for many Christmases to come.
One thing Apple has done well is pushing UNIX to the next-level down user, people that might not ordinarily touch the command line.
Since I started working with OSX, I've gotten much more used to dropping into the Terminal to do stuff. It started with ls -aR and now I'm grepping ifconfig to determine my MAC address. It's fun.
Thank you, Apple, for bringing out the inner Unix sysadmin in me. Now all I have to do is grow my hair long again.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Fortunately for all of us, it lives in peace with the penguins and daemons of the wild.
That's their gripe on the software front? I'd say _THE_ single biggest screwup for 2003 was destructive software upgrades. The number one selling point for Apple is that things just work and you don't need to worry about them. Whatever they've been doing for QA on their upgrades, it needs to be massively revamped.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Great article.. But no matter what, I am happy with... My iPod ... My preeecioussssss...
Together with the Cognac add some chopped sour cucumbers.
And paprika on boef stroganoff is just pervert.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Moderator Licencing Agreement : By moderating this offtopic, troll, flamebait or overrated, you ACKNOLEDGE THAT APPLE FUCKING SUCKS! If you disagree, moderate 5, insightful!
Is it me, or can you always tell when school is out for the holidays?
Ah, well. I'll wait a few weeks for the artful trolls to return.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Curious how there is no mention of the Beatles-Apple lawsuit in the piece. It has been covered on Slashdot previously: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/11/ 232230&mode=thread&tid=107&tid=141&tid=187&tid=188 . In a nutshell, the Beatles Apple Corp. and Apple Computer had an agreement where Apple Computer would never get in the music business. It seems Apple has blatantly violated this and wants to give the Beatles free money.
I figure this is a good a place as any to bitch about a few things that have been bothering me lately...
(referring to the PC Version)
1)iTunes does not play nice with other burning software. Many times iTunes burning/playing cd capability suddenly doesn't work. If I re-install iTunes, it starts working again, but who knows for how long. I think this has something to do with me installing other software that has CD-Burning capability after iTunes is already installed. I just got a new DVD Burner for xmas, after installing it, iTunes gives me an annoying message when I start it (telling me to re-install iTunes) and doesn't burn CDs. I have yet to re-install iTunes out of fear it may screw up my dvd burning software (roxio).
2)iTMS needs more indie music. I know they are working on this, and I know it's hard to filter out 'crap' indie music from 'good' indie music, but more is needed.
3)I can't move my iTMS songs to my 2 portable (non iPod) mp3 players. I know, burn and re-encode as mp3, but this is annoying, and I am worried the loss of quality will be unacceptable. I wish apple would license their DRM to other hardware companies. Actually, I wish Apple would lose DRM altogether...
4)iTunes can not 'auto-tag'. This feature in MM Jukebox was very handy, no reason why iTunes can't do it.
5)iTunes chokes on some mp3s that other software plays ok. Really annoying when your blasting music and all of the sudden your computer sounds like its going to explode.
6)Are there hot-keys to easily rate a song while its playing? It'd be nice to press CTRL-(1,2,3,4) to quickly rate a song as it plays, rather than futzing with the mouse. (I could just be ignorant here).
Fire, The Wheel, The Industrial Age, Xanadu, The Information Age, and finally, in 2004, the Brushed Metal Age.
If there's any merging catch phrase this year, it's probably the use of "embattled" and "under siege" to describe Microsoft's ongoing war with Linux and security problems. You'll probably also begin to see the use of "oft-delayed" to describe Longhorn pretty soon.
This was a huge year for apple, for us linux geeks.
Jaguar got me hooked on the OS, but the hardware was lacking. The 12" powerbook is what has finally hooked a lot of my friends (almost 5 that i can count now) as the first affordable powerbook.
- tristan
You can get an Athlon 64 system for $43?
OS X claims to support:
That would be the default install of 10.3. One of the intall disks for Panther is basically full of the international options; lots of users turn it off when they do the install, to save space on their hard drives.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If you're going to troll, could you at least be creative. Some of us like to be entertained.
But, overall, Apple, great job in 2003!
or maybe "First Po-t(roast)"?...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
You're right on with the "expensive" comment. I used to use Macs in college and really liked them, but they're pretty dang expensive for what you actually get. If the price could push down into the PC category OR (like we used to) I could build my own on the cheap, I'd definitely get back into them especially for music production.
This space for rent.
I would like them to continue but they need to stay on the edge and that is a very risky place to be.
I am just glad that they are currently on the safe side of the edge. Too often in the past, it has looked like they were about to disappear forever.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39710-20 03Dec29?language=printer
This is probably teetering off topic, but I am the proud owner of a new PowerBook 15". What's the big deal? Thanks to lots of recent posts on /. regarding the good, the bad, and the ugly, I made the decision to purchase the AppleCare package along with the PowerBook.
/. reader and a long time Mac owner and no longer see the platform flame wars of old. Thanks for the world-class open forum that is entertaining, informative, and truly valuable.
I read all about the white spots, the hot cases (obviously not lap cat owners), battteries, etc. But nowhere did I read anyone posting that AppleCare wasn't worth it.
Most of all, it's nice to be a
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
At the moment, no, there's no reason for Microsoft to be worried. Well, except that Windows virii have gotten so bad that the typical Dell purchaser will get nailed by several before Windows Update has finished running for the first time. But otherwise PCs are less expensive and generally much faster for the price.
.net-based OS, and changing lots of core components at the same time. And the minimum system requirements are going way up. None of the Longhorn features are battle proven yet. It will be a long time before we know how it will hold up.
But lets look a few years down the road. The next update to Windows is a huge one. Microsoft is essentially switching to a
On the flipside, the Mac already based on proven UNIX technology and security. The GUI is fully hardware accelerated. The core CPU line looks to be in a much better position for moving forward in performance (Intel has been very vocal about the power issues they're running into), and PowerPC's run cooler, which is getting to be an important issue.
All told, I can see a lot of people jumping ship to Apple in the next few years, especially if the hardware and OS X improvements continue at the rate they have been.
a lot of bussiness advice from unemployeed hacks.
example:
1) They've got to go after wintel!
2) They should only focus on software!
3) Sure there good now, but what about the FUUTUUURE!
blah blah blah.
Don't give business advice to a company that has 8% of the computer market.
I'm sick of this, and I don't even use a MAC.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From the article: The largest complaint about the mini AlBook was heat. There was lots of it.
But it was never any problem for me... however Apple recently released a battery update for it to make it run cooler. Well, it does, but now I do have a problem: the fscking noise, when fan is running most of the time, although quite slowly, but still. (It starts every time the temp will rise over 52 degrees C, and won't stop until it has fallen back below 47 - the pre-update numbers were 64 and 59.)
Previously, it ran only during high CPU load, but now it runs during regular web browsing etc. This really sucks, I truly wish I could somehow remove that damned update! But I don't think there is any clever way to do it.
Any similar experiences?
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Forged in the firewire of Mount Doom
And just what the hell do you drive? The Honda CR-V is a fine vehicle and beats the hell out of anything America makes. And those 7 dead teens were driving a DODGE Intrepid, were from North Carolina, and were very likely white trash scum like yourself.
Not only is Apple alive, they should have some interesting new stuff coming out the beginning of the New Year. The MacWorld keynote is January 6. Rumors are circulating of new, smaller iPods with 2gb and 4gb capacities and a lower price. There are some mockups and pictures here.
music, video, games, recipes, forums -- earth2willi.com!
HA HA HA. VFMF.
If you really want to talk about people using PowerPC chips in volume, you have to look at the guys over here.
it's been a few years migration, but without a doubt the biggest advance for Mac has been the migration to a Unix platform, thus bypassing the M$ fanboyz and appealing to the /. crowd--thanks to everybody who's fought thru the FUD and checked out the difference for themselves...Mac is Back!;>
I am willing to admit that apple's top offering is generally neck-and-neck with the fastest x86 of the world. This may or may not be technically accurate, but let's concede it. The fact remains that on a flops-per-dollar basis, you're better off buying x86. VaTech aside, you don't build a supercomputer with apples. (Don't expect any sympathy for tech from me -- wahoowa!)
Apple should start buying commodity hardware from the wintel world. Keep building your own cases; write your own driver software to make it bulletproof. Let Panther install on a pentium machine. The only hardware they should make: gadgets (ipod is clearly apple's foot in the door of popular adoption), and, as bad as it is for the consumer, proprietary widgets for their cases. Stuff that lets your ipod do things it couldn't otherwise; or that makes DVD authoring easier. Most of this will be crippleware -- disingenuous measures that enable functionality that everyone *could* have, but that they only give to owners of apple cases.
You can still charge your premium, but it has to be less -- and you can afford to do so, if you start buying from the same guys Dell buys from.
Now is the time to strike. Microsoft has a mature (read: stagnant) OS out that will not be replaced for 12-18 months. The recent rise of malware and spam has extended for a generation the idea that windows is an substantially inferior product, even as their OS offering is actually the most competitive it's ever been. If you can attack it sufficiently to weaken adoption of Longhorn, you will have made a huge gain.
You have a tremendous amount of credibility with your existing fanbase, with *nix geeks since redoing your OS, and with windows users as they discover ipod/iTMS. If you let windows users switch to your OS without buying a new computer, you could actually establish sufficient marketshare to challenge MS for market dominance in the next 5 years.
Looking around a little, it seems like OS X didn't support Hebrew until 10.2 -- "Jaguar."
Just one of the many things that OS X plain didn't have going for it on release. (Personally I've never thought the Finder was up to the design standard of the pre-X OS. "Panther" does a lot to smooth that out; all the little perceived speed gains mean as much as Expose for me.)
Looks like Apple only claims two new "international" features for the Panther release:
Both Arabic and Hebrew were on the "broad support for" list as of 10.2 -- whatever "broad support" may mean... If you were using 10.1 or earlier, it claimed no Hebrew support to speak of.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
A distressingly large number of iBook owners have suffered logic board failures.
Yes, indeed. My own iBook died 13 months after I purchased it -- just one month after the warranty expired. I brought it to my local Apple store. They told me that it would cost over $700 for a new logic board. At the time, laptops similar to mine were selling for just $900 on eBay.
I refused to pay for it. I told the manager that I'd replace it with a PC. That was no bullshit... I was really prepared to do exactly that. However, she gave me a phone number to call. I guess it was their pissed-off-customer hotline. After some discussion with the phone rep, he agreed to cut the price down to about the cost of the AppleCare plan. So I bought the repair.
The repair was nice and easy. Less than 72 hours after I put my iBook in the mail, I got it back. Still works great today -- over 15 months since it was fixed. With service like that, I almost forgot any bad words that I ever said about Apple.
They lost money as they usually do in the computer "operating income or loss" portion of their company, eeking out a meager profit by way of shrewd investment of their cash. The stock seems to rise on the constant promise of something *big* from Jobs, and it NEVER materializes.
Oh, but MAYBE THIS YEAR. Hah.
Yes, i have this problem. It's not the battery update that caused it, but 10.3.2. The complaints for the 12" 867 powerbook's heat were so widespread that apple lowered the temperature at which the fans activate. you can fix this, if you like, by downloading Silent Night at version tracker. I personally don't mind, since my powerbook's never hot anymore and the battery doesn't seem to be affected by it much either (which to me is more important than noise).
- tristan
My wife just got a brand-spankin' new CR-V, courtesy my mother, for Christmas. One of the main selling points for her was that it received a 5-star safety rating. Pretty impressive little ride.
'Course, my old Exploder (Ed) still goes more places.
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
A byline states the author's name. The headline states the main topic. The tagline is the smaller print beneathe the headline and above the byline typically. "The Death of Apple(?)" would most likely be the tagline, or without the interrogative the headline, but I doubt any author is name "Death O. Apple".
Now, calm down. It's meant to be funny.
They just have more spare time, saved from having to continually reinstall an OS,
remove virii, or (oooooh!) rebuild the kernel.
Granted Apple has had a great year. Many converts (including myself) and cool new products. Having recently jumped on the Apple bandwagon though I find that everyone likes to be a cheerleader for the company. Few users and fans ever point out some glaringly obvious downfalls of using Apple products.
i D1 aR7gq6B.1@.599b3149
First and foremost in my mind is an unbelievably shoddy quality control system for new software releases. The much-touted new operating system Panther created about as many problems for its users as it has new features. This is after replacing a buggy 10.2.8 OS that never has been patched up for users that did not upgrade! Before flaming my Karma, take a look yourself, at some of the threads on Apple's own support website and read about long startup times, the dock disappearing, Powerbook backlight dysfunction's, printer's not working, etc, etc... Here's the link:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?13@112.t
These are obviously not one-time issues affecting one or two users, here and there. They affect everyone, including myself. I have spent I don't know how many hours scouring these discussion boards trying to figure out how to fix one bug or another that Apple's "new and improved" software has caused on my system.
The fact that this happens in the first place is ridiculous. Even more frustrating though is that this unfriendly user experience does not get any limelight. So far in my Apple software is as bug prone and glitchie as windows. The only consolation is that you can look over discussion boards to try and figure out how to fix it. One would hope that Apple would have fixed it before releasing it in the first place though, and that those who buy and upgrade to their products would not need to go through these headaches!
Then comes the hardware. You pay a premium price for Apple products, why then are there so many complaints about this problem or that. Again I will refer interested readers to Apple's own discussion boards where users talk about display problems, poor working latches, loose laptop lid's, dissatisfaction with G5's, and all sorts of other problems on their top of the line, ultra expensive Apple toys. Here's the link (dig down into any thread):
http://discussions.info.apple.com/
These problems abound and hopefully Apple will get their act together to resolve them. Unfortunately at this time I do not find Apple to be any more stable or less of a headache than windows. Rather it is like a shinny new sports car that one loves to show their friends, but that winds up breaking down and sitting in the shop more than they will ever admit.
The only thing that pushes Apple to produce newer products are the investors that threaten to dump the stock.
Apple has no competition, so naturally it marches to the beat of it's own drum.
(hmm I can't hear anything)
So, did anyone else read through the threads about noise issues on the G5? I don't have one (just my blueberry iBook which refuses to die or become useless, damnit!) so I can't reproduce the issue or fiddle with it, but it was interesting to note that there were two distinct issues:
1. Analog hissing/humming due to what is probably a ground loop issue
2. Firewire crackling / popping due to ???
The analog issues can be contained with cabling and ground isolators, from the posts in the forums linked above. I'm more intrigued by the digital "popping" and "chirping" from the firewire ports. This sounds more like an electronics / software issue, possibly with an amplifer somewhere "falling asleep" and then getting powered back up. I'm fairly certain that's what this "CHUD" --> "Nap" thing fixes, but didn't find much information on it. Does anyone with a G5 (or without one for that matter) have any insight from a EE / software engineering (I'll even take 1337 haxors since you're out of skewl at the moment) perspective on these problems?
I've been known to make rather naive statements before. If I'm wrong, tell me. Otherwise, continue enjoying the holidays.
Michael C. Hollinger
Yes, Apple was a pioneer in bringing innovation to the masses, but not everything on that list can be attributed to Apple.
Macs may have been the first that could be bought with an integrated CDROM (I can't say either way) but my first encounter with a CDROM was on PC based hardware (a big external SCSI-based beast that ran at 1x speed--same RPM as audio CD players if I recall) and those 3DO boxes were early examples of non-audio CD applications in the consumer market.
Apple was also most definitely NOT the first to offer colour support on their computers. Colour graphics adapters for the Altair and other S100 bus PCs predate the Apple ][ (Apple's first colour computer). Atari also released the 800 close the same time as the Apple ][ came out and I would argure the Atari 800 was more technologically innovative. I'd say the Atari 800 (and later the Commodore Vic-20 and 64) were the PCs that really drove the early growth in personal computing "multimedia". The 800 had a real chipset, with dedicated graphics and sound processors (CTIA and POKEY and so on). On top of that, it ran at an 70%+ higher clock speed, had better sound, higher resolution and 128 colours vs 8 on the Apple of the time.
That being said, the Apple ][ was a much more elegant design--simple, consistent and open--much more so than the Atari. Kudos to Woz for inventing such a fine machine. Hobbyists and engineers could much better appreciate and understand the Apple ][ and if one so wished he could engineer his own fancy graphics and sound boards as it had a proper expansion bus and internal slots rather than some unused, undocumented, external "bus" port hanging off the back like the Atari...Although I'd have to say the Atari 2600 has to rank right up there with the Apple I and ][ for elegance, simplicity and sheer cleverness in electronics design.
*sigh* those were the days...
My impression is that Apple hardware is more stable becauset they have maintained more control over the hardware. My first computer was a Mac 512, way back in the 80's. That computer never crashed.
However, they are still lacking one thing, Applications. I am a Civl Engineer by trade, and just about every piece of software I use is made for windows. It is the old chicken and the egg situation, If they sold more Apples, you will get more applications, you won't sell more Apples until you have more application.
You see, I've always loved Apple and Macintosh. Ever since the beginning, and I still do; and I still hate Windows just as much as I did then. Now Macintosh is a whole lot faster and more modular than before-- what could be better?
-[EPSILON]-
I laugh simply because Apple is the leader. Did anybody else notice that as soon as Apple let their colored ('flavored', sorry) iMac's off the line, every hardware company rushed to make more colored gadgets! Ha ha!
That shows you who's really in charge.
-[EPSILON]-
I find the application specific Expose incredibly useful (at least, I use it all the time) and use the full expose a bit less (for that I do usually find it easier to click on the dock or Cmd-tab between apps since I know the app I'm hunting for).
Instant desktop access is kind of nice as well...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Probably the same reason that fat, 13 year olds with computers like you are so annoying.
Seeya around, chubby!
in the last 20 years apple has: a cult following, nearly been forced into chapter 11 in as much time, never had more than 5% of the market, increased prices,proved the neotradional economists wrong (ie you can get increased returns), and still riped people off on price::performance. Oh yeah and: Pissed off 90% of the computer industry pissed on any inovation, lost major printer and network support, failed to comply to standards, and have some of the most ugly and elogant computers. Way to go steve 'im a giant fucking dick head' jobs! what's next in 10 years: File chapter 11, make a over priced rubermaid container and cheese grater, no significant improvments piss on async computing POS Java support, and their big dream: Gaimes. WTF is that motherfucking no good shit. They better get some inovations other than color coded iShit.
I've never had one of those problems mentioned, because I did an Archive install for Panther - and before that I always used upgrade and never had issues. Sure if you look on a support board you are going to see a lot of wierd things but that does not men it's the predominant user experience.
I even had that "cursed" 10.2.8 upgrade installed and didn't have problems with that!! I think a poll on MacSlash revealed that not many people had issues with it.
I have to admit the FW800/HD bug was pretty evil though and should never have seen the light of day.
Regardless of the problems however, I still have very few qualms about letting Apple patch my system instead of a Windows update (at work my Powerpoint segfaults when you try to open any presentation after a recent update. Thanks!).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...but instead chose to a
Apple could probably be credited with being the first to return to the era of OPTIONAL floppy drives, but as far as being the first with 3.5"...it's another innovation falsely credited to Apple.
IBM invented the floppy in the 70s (or late 60s?)--it's creation was 8" and was truly floppy. A few years later a company called Shugart made a mini version--5.25 also in a flexible envelope. This is when floppies became much more popular (Shugart drives were coveted by Altair/S100-based PC owners who had the cash for them).
The 3.5" we all know and hate today was invented by SONY in 1980 and used in one of it's own machines the following year--nearly 3 years prior to Apple's introduciton of the MacIntosh.
Sony's machine wasn't much more than a word processor, but I do remember PCs using them a year before the MAC came out (there was a machine in europe that wasn't 100% IBM compatible but ran MS-DOS and used internal 3.5" floppy drives in 1983--I think it was called Apricot or something). Also, there was a rumour in 1982-83 that Coleco almost decided to use them in their ADAM computer but the cost was too high so they went with some kind of odd high speed tape drives.
So yup...3.5" (their creation or inclusion with a machine) were NOT original Apple ideas...they were just good ideas that Apple was the most successful at executing.
peecees suck ass.
and why do pc users have to be so annoying. can't they just get a life?
answer: no, annoying peecee users cannot get a life. they must post annoying comments to rag on apple users.
so why doesnt apple just give up the pretense of being a "computer" design/manuf/sell company (no point chasing a sub 5% market share) and focus on the overlap between computing and consumers a la ipod. i for one would love to buy an apple engineered uber DVR or digital media controller/center which is really a multi-tuner+computer with a terabyte disk array and plays/records HD and SD-tv and burns them to DVD-x and integrates the management of the content with iTV+iPics+iTunes on windows/mac. for $499 by eoy '04.
Sorry about the previous confusing post, hit return instead of shift by accident. Anyway, I was going to mod you up but instead chose to add to your post by offering a quick link to the Cromemco Dazzler, the S-100 card(s) of which you speak. Great card for its time. If I remember correctly it offered 128x128 pixel resolution with eight color support, and output to a normal television using a standard RF modulator. I remember a pretty cool Trek game for use with the dazzler that ran on most 8080/Z80 S-100 systems under CP/M. Played it a bunch as a kid. But I have to admit that Star Raiders on the Atari 800 absolutely blew me away in comparison. The Dazzler, while an amazing early adopter card, just didn't have enough market penetration to supprt a game market like the Apple II, Atari 400/800 and TRS-80 systems did (and yes, the TRS-80 - even with its clunky 128x48 B/W graphics - did have some pretty cool games. Anyone remember Crushg Crumble and Chomp!?!?! Or any of the Big Five games for that matter...) Oh well, thats enough of memory lane for now... :) --M
...your competition is selling your products.
:-)
Now, Dell may not be selling iPods anymore since they've debuted their metoo!Pod-- but Dell is, astonishingly, selling a variety of Macs to the NYC school system. Talk about a bunch of whores who will do anything for a buck, huh?
~Philly
Seriously, the best OS platform idea ever had to be apple switching to unix like OS. I've noticed for the last 6 years or so, when apple comes out with a new system, it has all the great inovative hardware, and is near the fastest if not the fastest machine available for the personal computer market. But, they don't come out with new processors fast enough to keep current(especially in the G1-G3 days).
*nix helps, because it uses resources really well, so you don't notice your running on a slow machine. I have a 450 box running redhat(I know the antichrist of distros) and I have little problem with speed.
I'm a physicist, and everyone in our quantum computing group(the largest in the world that I know of(200M budget) has a nice shinny apple laptop. Can get open source software easily, great OS and UI etc.
I'd be curious to know how the success of OS X is going to effect the average joe user in the long term. I'd imagine it will go a long way to substantiating linux and BSD. Also, it's a nice training ground for users of those systems.
If you don't have one, why do you even care? Why research a problem that doesn't even apply to you? And why post an off-topic post on Slashdot instead of an on-topic post on some Apple hardware discussion forum?
Criminy.
Comment of the year
OS X has excellent Asian language support. More specifically, I should say that I use Japanese and Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I run my system entirely in Japanese, and can switch between Japanese and Chinese inputs on the fly in any app with ease. The only apps that have problems are poorly ported ones (*cough* MS Office *cough*).
Just because you are a "r34l r4cec4r driver, d00d" doesn't mean you know how to drive well on the street. You're reading the text of a two time SCCA ClubRally champion, and ya know what racing taught me? It taught me to slow down when the situation gets dangerous. It taught me that the street is no place to practice my swedish flicks and late braking or cornering techniques.
What you don't realize is that when racing, you're on the track with a bunch of other race drivers who usually have a similar amount of racing experience. If they don't they're black flagged off the course. Guess what? On the street, there are no black flags. There are no other learned race drivers. There are only people who 20 years ago passed a license exam.
In short, just because you have "more driving experience in [your] left foot" than they do, doesn't mean you're a safe driver. It doesn't make you invincible, and it doesn't make you impervious to mistakes.
Basically what I'm saying is that it's idiots like you that give race drivers who know what they're doing a bad name. Time to turn in your license.
Fuck Apple
Fuck Apple Users
Fuck everyone else who thinks Apple makes anything worth paying double the money as an intel based box.
Apple users eat shit and die...
It's an Intel technology, but its uptake was pathetic until the iMac brought it to the masses.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
And yes, the apple ][ had color support when atari was giving me carpal tunnel syndrome in space invaders.
Well, thank you for your information, although I wonder what could be the possible side effects for downgrading two KEXTs... Perhaps I have to hope that someone with better knowledge of Mach will examine if this has any potential side effects.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
You cant do that with *any* PC made, with the possible exception of something like a Alienware 51. And buy then, youre up in the price range of a Dual G5 anyways.
I love my Dual 1.8 and OS X 10.3 blows away Windows XP in any area I look except for games, and my homebrew Barton 2500+ @ 2366 Mhz takes care of them. Windows is now nothing more than a game console to me now.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Auto-Tag", what does that do?
Cna't help much with the others though... it would be nice to have hot-keys for rating. Have you tried just the number keys alone?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What you don't seem to get is that sheer volume of applications wouldn't do it. Applications can be subdivided into the (niche) markets that they appeal to.
You are in a niche market. Applications such as AutoCAD, Solid Edge (and the other apps in your business) only appeal to a very small segment of the population and that segment is already in the "windows stronghold." Apple would love it if Audodesk ported AutoCAD over, but they know they don't have a shot at capturing that market until the industry standard tools are ported and even then they will be fighting an uphill battle.
This, however, is not true in all niche markets that they appeal to.
Compare with how they are aggressively going after Bioinformatics companies. Or film markets (FCP, Shake). These are markets that they already have at least a toe-hold in (thanks in part to quicktime), are looking to increase their share, and believe they have something to offer.
If you are in one of their "target markets" you have all the apps you need and then some. If you are outside of their scope (such as with Electrical Engineers and Civil Engineers) then you might be able to find apps that work for you, but you are going to be running short in comparison to those fields where Apple already has a notable presence.
Its similar to the Go saying "stay away from thickness." They prefer markets where they already have an in and encourage application development in those areas, rather than in areas where MS (or at least x86 hardware) has just under 100% marketshare.
For me, for my market, I have all of the Applications I need are there, but that's because my market has been on linux for a long time and all of the tools ported easily (most of them being OSS and those that aren't--such as Mathematica--already had mac versions).
So, in short, applications are critical but the lack isn't true for everyone in every market.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I've been in the category of "Apple hater" for quite some time. (Yes, I did briefly go the Apple route, back in '96 or '97, when I started feeling like I really needed to give one a chance instead of bashing something I never even owned. After 3 months with that Performa 6400 tower, I was back to Apple bashing, and unloaded the system A.S.A.P.!)
Well, 2003 has been the year that turned me around! Money has been pretty tight for me throughout this year, but I somehow managed to borrow and scrape up enough money to get a dual 2.0Ghz G5 tower, a Powerbook 15" laptop, 40GB iPod *and* iSight camera. So as you can see, I've VERY MUCH bought into the new Apple product line!
Here's the thing. I've been working in computers and I.T. for almost 14 years now. I can't remember the last time a new computer and/or OS offering really excited me since my first Timex/Sinclair 1000, and my Tandy Color Computer 2 and 3 I owned after that.
(Well, ok - I was pretty thrilled when OS/2 Warp and eventually 4.0 came out - but IBM quickly put a damper on that enthusiasm, with their horrible marketing of the OS.)
This year, Apple has brought out what I consider the near perfect OS, the near-perfect laptop to run it on, and an amazing desktop system to run it on. The iPod speaks for itself, and the iSight.... well, frankly, it's just an "impulse buy" because at $149, you may as well own a well-made camera that matches your multi-thousand dollar Mac systems.
If there's one thing I can justify sinking my money in, it's computer technology. I use the stuff all day long and most evenings too. I make all my money from it. Why wouldn't I want to own hardware and software that impresses me and makes me proud, rather than the same old beige boxes everyone else uses?
It appears it's not just me, either. Two of my ex co-workers from a previous I.T. job both made the switch to Macs and OS X this year - and both would have NEVER considered an Apple system before. (I had no say in their decisions either. I was shocked to hear they both had Macs now!)
The G5 is a nice PC, but the new 15" Powerbook was a disappointment; I was all set to buy except for:
1) Screen Issues
2) Poor battery life
On the other hand, I bought an iPod, so apple did some of my money.
The battery life on the new 15" portable is an astounding 2 hours or less.
It should have double the life (My Pismo powerbook, even 4 years old gets 3 hours), but Apple is sticking their fingers in their ears and says "la la la la la la la no problem la la la la la".
The G4 in laptops is a strategic issue that has to be addressed.
But more seriously, the "white spots" on the 15" screen are a problem, as are the 2-hour battery times on their laptops.
the 15" Powerbook is a major screw-up, but everybody is too polite to say so.
Hell, some apple fanatic up above talked about how crappy his 15" was screwed up, how apple took months to fix it, and his (serious) response was "Nice Job!"
"Money has been pretty tight for me throughout this year, but I somehow managed to borrow and scrape up enough money to get a dual 2.0Ghz G5 tower, a Powerbook 15" laptop, 40GB iPod *and* iSight camera
My definition of money being tight and yours are apparently not the same.
"I'd say that too if I weren't one of the millions of technicians unemployed. "
To be fair, you weren't really *part* of the computer business; you were either one of the guys who fixed computers, or worse "Microsoft Certified".
Here's a job tip...never admit you're microsoft certified. Its worse than useless; it puts the stink of failure and despair on you. Not that microsoft is a failure, but people who get certified are generally people "who heard computers were a good field to get into".
I'd recommend retail or restaurant; if you're presentable, you might be manager within 2 years.
Moderation is intended to weed out posts that detract from the discussion, not as a vehicle for you to express your opinions by suppressing those of others. If you mod a post so it ends up a "1: insightful", you're probably doing something wrong.
End OT metarant.
You're saying 13 year olds give you a chubby????
That's sick dude. Absolutely sick.
I'd turn in my license, but I hate to slow down.
Actually, I did hit 130 MPH on the street last week. Sweet. I always get behind clowns like you doing 35 on that back country roads "because that's the speed limit". Like god is giving you brownie points because you're too lazy to pull over and let real people *DRIVE*.
Here's hoping your front tires blow out at high speed.
I'm right up there with you man, got my Mom a iMac for Christmas & we have both totally fallen in love with OS/X.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I was just given a PowerBook with an iSight, any leads on OSS for connecting to/using the iSight? All I could find are iChat AV and a few $50 "shareware" programs. Something that is scriptable/pluggable would be great. Or drivers for any video capture software... This thing has got to be useful for more than just video conferencing.
<rant>
Wow. I've been using Linux for the past 3 years and I completely forgot about the whole concept of shareware. Its sort of like the bastard child of OSS, trying to capitalize on the free as in beer, but then sticking you in the back 30 days later on that and never giving you the free as in speech bit. Does anyone know if shareware actually generates much revenue, or are they all just people hoping for a break?
</rant>
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
To me, the closest product to a Mac is an XBox. Both are flashy, with great features, and I want one. But whenever I'm tempted, I end up spending my money elsewhere. What would I do on a Mac | XBox that I can't do on my Windows PC | PS2? Answer is, nothing... Maybe I could do one or two things better, even with slightly more enjoyment. But I have to have the PC | PS2 anyway, because of the software support. If only Macs | XBoxs did something unique and useful. A killer app that was only available on that one platform. I still wouldn't be able to replace my PC | PS2, but I could buy a Mac | XBox with a clean conscious, and use both. Yet after 10 years | 2 years of waiting, I still don't have the excuse I need. - Sad Geek
Wireless Firewire has just been announced by the 1394 Trade association, and Apple is likely to be the first company to adopt the technology. Imagine wireless video streaming from an iBook to a 30" Cinema Display!
Wow. I've been using Linux for the past 3 years and I completely forgot about the whole concept of shareware. Its sort of like the bastard child of OSS, trying to capitalize on the free as in beer, but then sticking you in the back 30 days later on that and never giving you the free as in speech bit.
Don't like it? Don't use it. Shareware has been around since the very beginning of personal computers - I remember downloading shareware for my Atari 800 back in 1981-2 from BBSes and mailing payment to the author through US mail for programs I really liked.
Does anyone know if shareware actually generates much revenue, or are they all just people hoping for a break?
I know people who make their living off of shareware and consulting. The shareware constitutes very significant income and allows them to continue writing software, attending MacHack, etc.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
The shareware constitutes very significant income...
Sounds good then. If it didn't, it would be a pity that it is closed source as well as not putting food on the table.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
Bozo, you forgot Redundant.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I was ranting more on the point of that BLABBERING CUMSTICKS LIKE MY NEIGHBORS feel it is their DIVINE RIGHT to CRITICIZE MY DRIVING, when it's THEY who don't WRANGLE THEIR OFFSPRING and PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD. I have no qualms hearing criticsm from a fellow race circuit driver, in fact you make some very good points in your reply, and it's later in the day, I've calmed down, had my drink, and I feel better. But when it's JOE AND JANE FUDGEPACK with their DRIBBLING BLUBBERBALL GENETIC MATERIAL ROLLING AROUND IN THE STEET, well, THAT'S when I get pissed off. They don't have ANY SAY IN THE MATTER of my DRIVING ABILITIES when they can't keep their FAT FUCKING TOYATA HIGHLANDER on the FUCKING ROAD without SPILLING COFFEE over their FAT DUMB SELF.
Microsoft can't (and doesn't)(and doesn't have a clue on how to) make a top selling router.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Maybe so - but I suspect it's much more a question of priorities. When's the last time I blew money on going to see a movie, a concert, or a sporting event? It's literally been years.
I prefer saving up my money to "splurge" on the occasional "big ticket" item, instead of blowing it on lots of the little things that add up to draining your finances.
I also only own one TV set, and it's a 27" I bought cheap as a damaged return model, 5 or 6 years ago.
Well, actually, I think often times, shareware programs eventually become public-domain freeware, after the author feels the code is no longer generating him/her enough profit to make it worthwhile to maintain it.
Not everybody wants to expend the effort required to write a piece of software and not even take a shot and seeing if "it's worth paying for". Shareware makes a decent "test bed" to find out if what you wrote is worth money to people or not.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Your post titled "Ars Technica calls iBook flaw Ugly" has been removed from Apple Discussions. Posts including (but not limited to) any of the following are not appropriate:
- Discussions of Apple policies and procedures (including pricing and repair policies)
- Speculations/rumors about future Apple decisions
- Questions/rumors about unreleased products
- Posts in the technical forums that are not directly related to a technical support issue
- Polls, petitions, auctions, or advertisements
- Posts that are only complaints
- Posts which contain or imply abusive or obscene language
- Posts which are abusive to other Discussions users
etc. etc. That's what I get for Thinking Differently. I wonder what Jobs would do if he were in my shoes?On this tray cd load 333MHz 96RAM iMac OS 8.6
there's a disk first aid error notification about PEOF physical end of file
and the disk first aid does not run.
a.
What does the notification about PEOF refer to exactly?...
b.
Could it be a problem with disk first aid and not the iMac ?...
c.
How do you defragment on this iMac?...
Apparently when AppleCare runs out after 3 years it can not be extended or renewed.
Customer support is problematical for apple consumers.
... is that I bought a 12" G4 notebook this year and f*ing LOVE it. Physically it's one of the nicest pieces of equipment I've ever owned. Operationally it has the best of Mac OS and a real Unix system underneath... Kind of what my Amiga 1000 was trying to be, but in a snazzy aluminum case. 80G, DVD writer, $2k. Freedom from Windows viruses and worms - priceless. Highly recommended.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
a) it isn't your street
b) knowing how to race does not mean you know how to drive
c) you kill a cop, and you won't be driving again
d) you kill a kid and you wont be driving again
e) the kids are stupid
f) you're worse
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Wake me when they are...and when PPCs are available boxed, cheap.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
That's all that post was, every line of it. Sure every platform has problems and stupid people do stupid things. But the problems are significantly less than any other platform. And everyone knows this and doesn't believe your post one bit. A few hundred people having trouble is nothing to the millions of very happy people using their Mac's everyday without a problem. So drop dead.
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)
Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
sticking you in the back 30 days later
Cry me a river, freeloader.
BTW, your link to the Howard Dean campaign was a dead giveaway.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Apple is a huge company. Bigger than McDonalds. Routinely one of the top five computer manufactuers. Why, when comparing Apple to the Wintel market, do people lump the 90% of the PC manufatuers together as if they were a single company, like the one that writes their os?
With the help of some eeproms (and an inverter) it was possible to rewrite the parts of the monitor. There was even a hack to add lowercase and the missing ] or [ character.
These days I'm happy with the open source nature of OS X which is the software equivalent of providing schematics.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Well the ODBC error which hinders using FileMaker and MS-Word for Macintosh for mail merge is one. The issue is a bug on Microsoft's side and cannot be fixed by anyone else. The official status is "no plans to fix"
Another is marketing practice -- too many non-technical people (e.g. CTOs and CIOs) don't know that it is possible to have a hetergeneous computing environment.
I'm sure others can point out other examples.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
They keep producing Beattles' compilations that are very successful in the marketplace.
They are suing Apple for a very good reason: Apple promised to never ever get involved with the music business at all as part of a previous settlement. Comes iTunes, Apple (the record company) goes green of justified (IMHO) rage.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Partly I've just got less stuff going on at once, 'cause it's my home machine -- but back when I did graphic design in a Mac shop I was never particularly prone to confusion. (Here in the world of Windows, on the other hand...)
So you're not alone, anyway. It's one okay feature, among several.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Oh man I couldn't agree with you more! These cell phone bastards piss me off SO MUCH I can't even BEGIN to describe the anger that builds up inside me. EVERY SINGLE DOUCHE on the planet seems to just HAVE TO HAVE a cell stuck to their retarded little airfilled pinheads. I hate these people so much you have NO idea. What lifeless pathetic lives these people lead, "needing" to be on theses phones nearly 24/7/365. The asshole driver of that car deserves to die, the other passengers I'm not so sure. The driver is a murderer now, dead or not. I can imagine most of the passengers were trying to get the asshat to just pull over. The driver's parents obviously failed in their raising of the child. Not enough ass spankings and real punishments growing up like most kids the past 20 years or so. Sad, pathetic. "Time out" will lead to time in jail for most of these little bastards. Watch and see in the future. Man I'm glad I don't have any kids.The world is just MUCH too messed up to bring kids into it.
It's just common sense - Ringo trashed his liver in the 70's, and probably did more blow than the late Andy Gibb, but Paul kept his blood pressure low with the sweet green stuff.
As long as he doesn't have a heart attack trying to keep his one-legged wife constantly preggers, he should be fine for some time.
Ehhhhh YES...
This "Hitbit" machine you mention is not the one I was referring to--it was built many years later. And, being it is based on MSX2 standards (not the original MSX) it was released AFTER the original Apple Mac.
The machine I recall had a monochrome display mounted in a portrait orientation and booted up right into a word processing application which I believe was permanently stored in firmware. By all rights it was capable of being a full computer but it was certainly NOT an MSX2 machine and was DEFINATELY meant to be used chiefly as a word processor.
I am probably a typical computer user but not a typical slashdotter in that my knowledge of all things Unix is minimal at best but that's why I'm thinking of getting a Mac. I have tried a bunch of Linux distros that worked OK but were still quite confusing for me. Macs put a friendly face on Unix. It's as simple as that. I have played around with a friend's Mac and the 'nix stuff seemed easier for me to understand. Since I write a little weblog and do some websites on the side I have wanted to get to know Linux/Unix better and I think that the Mac's ease of use on Unix to me is just the ticket. That and the fact that my Windows machine is contantly hanging has given me the impetus to search for something that just works. Macs seem to me to be that computer at this time.
I can't remember the last time a new computer and/or OS offering really excited me...(Well, ok - I was pretty thrilled when OS/2 Warp and eventually 4.0 came out...)
Ha! You just described me! I could have easily been classified as an "Apple hater" as well, and still can't stand anything pre OS X for various reasons. I came across a good deal on a 600 mhz iBook about six months ago, and I figured "hey, I'm getting a good deal on a 12" portable DVD player that just happens to come with a computer." More importantly, it came with a Unix-based OS.
As I started becoming familiar with the thing, I found myself with exactly the same thoughts: I can't remember having this much fun using a computer since OS/2. I haven't totally jumped ship, and would not commit myself to being called an "Apple preferrer." Maybe a closet-mac user. There are things about the usability experience that still gripe me (some of that is fixed with third-party utilities, and I haven't used Panther yet), but the hardware is darn sexy, and I'd by another Apple laptop in a moment!
Count me in.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
"Tomorrow we'll seize the day and throttle it!" -Calvin
g) i kill you, and we never have to listen to your whiny bitch-ass again
It's no surprise that Apple iBook motherboard problems are buried deep in the article and not mentioned by the poster. Everyone's so in love with Apple, they ignore glaring problems. Iguess you can get a different laptop. Oh wait, you can't if you want to run MacOS, because they have a monopoly.
Wish I could mod you back up. Yeah, between the pay freezes and Apple's policy of not hiring/promoting from within, I've had it. 2004 is my year out the door. I'll bet you what will happen (as it has with other people I know) is that I'll leave and THEN all of a sudden I'm seen as more valuable since I'm no longer working for the company and I'll get hired back in for the position I should have moved up to in the first place. Crazy.
What masses? Apple has a 3% market share in the US and less than 1% in the rest of the world.
Who cares about the iMac? Apple has a market share under 1%, and those aren't even all iMacs. What kind of weight do you think those have, globally? 90% of the people in the world don't even know what a Mac is. USB made it because Intel and M$ backed it, it's that simple. And Firewire made it because Sony backed it. Apple doesn't influence anyone anymore. Their new computers have an IBM CPU, an AMD bus, and Intel chipset, JDEC RAM, etc. Not a single piece (apart from the box) is made by Apple or based on technology developed by Apple. Personally I think it's a bit sad that Apple need IBM to make them fast CPUs just to keep them in the market...