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."

Comments

Huh?

[Shky]

Didn't Apple die? Wait, that was BSD...

I kid, of course..

Right Track

[qw(name)]

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.

Re:Right Track

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to admit, as a former apple hater, I spent an hour with a friend who has a new G5 and iPod. The G5 is slick, fast, has an OS I felt at home with in minutes, and just looks stunning. Price be damned, I'm buying one.

I also criticized the iPod many times, for its battery life, my distrust of HD based players, and preferance for an iRiver over the iPod, based on cost alone. This one seduced me even quicker than the G5. Hunting through a music library that wasn't even my own was... wow!. I don't know if I can say the build quality is any higher than anything else out there, I didn't spend that much time around it, but if it was revealed that an iPod owner pays a pittance for hardware and hundreds of dollars for a wonderful interface, I would believe it.

And I'd find it worth it. I've already ordered mine.

Re:Right Track

[qw(name)]

Money's money and if I don't have it then I don't get it. :-)

But seriously, if the price were much lower then I probably would splurge for one.

At a Perl conference last year, I'd say the vast majority of laptops were Macs running OS X. That is saying a lot!

Re:Right Track

[Anonymous Coward]

if it was revealed that an iPod owner pays a pittance for hardware and hundreds of dollars for a wonderful interface, I would believe it.

Apple marketing has worked wonder's on you. I havent use'd an ipod but I can firmly say feature's over eyecandy (icandy?) will always win out for me. you pay for pretty playlist's if you like and I'll have a cheaper player with more feature's and more money in my pocket

Re:Right Track

[AKnightCowboy]

I have to admit, as a former apple hater, I spent an hour with a friend who has a new G5 and iPod. The G5 is slick, fast, has an OS I felt at home with in minutes, and just looks stunning. Price be damned, I'm buying one.

I'm torn between wanting the speed of a G5 and the portability of a Powerbook G4. Both would probably end up costing about $2500-$3000 configured at the midrange with decent specs. Still, that's a far cry from the $700 I could pick up an Athlon64 system for.

Re:Right Track

[Frymaster]

But seriously, if the price were much lower...

well, you can at least pick up the new "mini-ipod". only 65 pounds sterling... (source is here)

Re:Right Track

[dcocos]

I also used to think that Apples were overpriced until I stopped comparing apples to oranges (pun intendend).

For example spec out a dual AMD system from penguin computing and a dual G5 system from Apple and you'll realize that the Apple is cheaper.
On the notebook side I recently bought a Powerbook G4 (12 inch) when compared to a similar Dell (don't forget to throw in the cost of a DVD-Burner and Bluetooth) The Powerbook is also less expensive.

I'm not sure about the low end pricing (you are probably able to find less expensive AMD systems, but remember the "EMac" is $799 with monitor included.)

Re:Right Track

[Simonetta]

Hello,

I dropped into an Apple store at the local mall for the first exposure to Apple products in five years. Very impressive: the monitors, the computers, and the store itself. All white and frosted glass and tons of recessed florescent white light. It was like a museum. I was very respectful.

I haven't been trusting or interested in Apple since the RAM expansion debacle of 1984. [If your bought a 512K RAM expansion from Apple, it cost you $400+. If you bought the RAM chips yourself for $80 and soldered them yourself (or had a qualfied technician do it with proper static-proof chip desoldering equipment) onto the motherboard, Apple would not only void your warranty, it would refuse to allow you to have access to ROM upgrades to the buggy first release operating system. This has been their basic corporate attitude since the Mac introduction and is the primary reason why they've never been more than a distant 'also-ran' in the personal computer marketplace (regardless of how beloved they are by their fanatical customers.)

As for 'damn the price', I'd say that too if I weren't one of the millions of technicians unemployed. So when I need to upgrade my 800 MHz Duron, I'll be buying a 2.2GigHz AthlonXP with video, sound, LAN, and USB2 integrated on the motherboard for $100 on PriceWatch.

Thank you,

Re:Right Track

[JeffTL]

With hardware, you get what you pay for. As aqn example, the eMac may be $800, but it's also the sturdiest all-in-one out there and I'll frankly be disappointed if there aren't any in service in eight years.

Re:Right Track

[qw(name)]

At the rate the dollar is falling wrt the pound, by the time I get one the exchange rate will make it ~$250US! LOL!

Re:Right Track

[OmniVector]

i guess it's been awhile since you've used one them. expose has made my producivity skyrocket. combine that with quartz extreme, and you pretty much get things like shadows, transparency, and that "animation" you hate so much for free (free as in almost 0 cpu hit. it's all offloaded to the GPU which is usually idle compared to the cpu).

think your windows xp machine is so fast? try taking a skinned app like winamp and move it around on the screen as fast as you can. you'll see trails everywhere. try it even with normal apps and depending on the speed of your system you might see some moderate redraw errors. now fast forward to today with quartz extreme, and try that in jaguar or panther. that just doesn't happen. that's what you get when you use a modern, accelerated, rendering engine rather than a software engine.

i've heard the "mag guis are slow" arguments before, but the amount of slow down you get is negligable if any, and often times like the example i just gave it beats windows with one hand behind it's back.

as far as word goes, it doesn't hurt that microsoft starts system services that leave core libraries for the office suite in memory. if you want a fair comparison, open word in os x and leave it running in the dock. open a document, and notice how it loads just as fast as windows. besides, if you're doing a lot of serious editing of office docs you'd probably have those apps running all the time anyways.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

The G5 is slick, fast, has an OS I felt at home with in minutes, and just looks stunning. Price be damned, I'm buying one.

In that regard, Apple and OS X are bad for Linux. If the people who lust after flash/substance all migrate over to OS X that means less mindshare for Linux desktops. Windows 2000 already did something similar to Linux when it proved to solve the 'uptime' issue that was drawing people away from Microsoft OSes.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

Since Apple has spent literally decades driving the 'Oranges' out of their market segment (they even sued and ran out of business 'Orange Computer' who made an Apple II clone), I would say it's near impossible to make 'Apple to Orange' comparisons within the Mac market.

But it's refreshing to know that I can build up my investment in software and know it'll run robustly on anywhere from a $300-3000 machine.

Apple's product line doesn't scale the same way the PC Clone product line does, because they're pointedly a single-sourced supplier.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

Steve Jobs openly boasted of the Mac being 'hacker proof' at an early press conference speech I heard on the radio. And he wasn't talking 'hacker' in the terms we use the word 'cracker' for on Slashdot.

He was smugly boasting that the Mac was the machine for 'the rest of us' who (he put it very condescendingly) wouldn't ever open our computer's case.

I, at the time, had a 'Bigboard' Xerox 820 clone running CP/M. It didn't even have a case, just being a single board that sat on the table. I thought 'fuck you, Steve Jobs' and since then the only Apple hardware I've bought (I've got plenty, actually) has been stuff bought for pennies on the dollar used.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

try taking a skinned app like winamp and move it around on the screen as fast as you can.

Why would I want to do that? To justify having spent so much $$?

I'm entering this text in Mozilla on a Pentium Pro 200 MHz machine running NetBSD, even while at the same time compiling native OpenOffice for NetBSD from source. I consider that impressive, not how many layers of corpulent bloat 'skinnability' my hardware will support.

Re:Right Track

[iSwitched]

Bad for Linux?

First, do you have proof that OS X has significantly less 'substance' than Linux? Or is this just an opinion. Let's assume for a moment that I'm not just feeding a troll here.

Linux is a tool, OS X is a tool, some people prefer one, some another. If the number of people preferring OS X begins to outstrip those preferring Linux, then the Linux community has two choices:

It could pull a microsoft, wring its hands, and decry Apple as anti-choice and un-american, or...

It could stop bashing for just one second, examine what is being done that is good and innovative, evaluate why people are making the choices they are, and then compete, hopefully building a better Linux along the way.

How on earth could this be bad for Linux?

Re:Right Track

[dasmegabyte]

Scale? Not really. You're right here. You can buy a $300 machine with a Celeron 1000 to run your PC application. It just won't run it very well. Which is fine if you're writing a simple windows application, or a Point of Sale device, or any client application.

But if you're writing a complex data storage app, or a game, or a server application, you're looking at $800 plus to start. Which is right where the Apple machines start, with nearly identical abilities to their cousins in that segment of the PC market.

And apple's G5s, which round out about $3k, have more bang for your realtime video tools than similarly priced PCs.

So yeah, it doesn't scale from $300-$3000. It scales from $800-$3000...cutting out the no-margin ultra-cheap segment entirely. Which is a good thing...most of the hardware issues we see with OUR apps are with bargain basement PCs. It's enough to make you curse the name "PC Chips."

Re:Right Track

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you try to carve roast beef with a swiss army knife, too.

Features aren't always everything. Sometimes, functionality is its own reward.

Re:Right Track

[afantee]

Several people have reported that 50% notebooks in JaveOne and O'Reilly OSCon 2003 were i/PowerBooks, and that's a lot for a minority platform.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

I don't have a single machine with a processor faster than 800. And quite a number of them run my apps 'very well.'

'Complex Data Storage' app on an $800 Mac? Don't be silly. An $800 entry-level Mac is about equivalent to the PC Clone machines I buy at auction for $15 apiece when it comes to 'complex data storage' apps. And the $15 machines are a better deal, because they're not proprietary so I can mix-n-match pieces out of them into newer boxes.

It scales from $15 to 3000, now that you reminded me, and now that you start talking about 'complex data storage' apps, i.e. server stuff.

Re:Right Track

[dcocos]

An apple system is more expensive when compared to an approximately equally performing AMD/Intel system. If they weren't Apple would have more than its current niche market. A dual AMD system is a much much faster system than a dual G5 system. So servers are rarely Apples. A $400 AMD/Intel system is equivalent to the $800 EMac, so they can't compete on the low end.


Please show me where I can buy a new $400 AMD/Intel system with a 17 inch monitor, 32MB ATI dedicated video card (not the onboard stuff), a modem, ethernet, firewire, usb, a 40GB drive and a CD burner/DVD player and a sound card. I run several linux boxes and would love to have an inexpensive but quality source for them.

Re:Right Track

[dasmegabyte]

Your arguments are really quite impressive. I'm amazed at how much a person can learn about macs and their performance when they've obviously never used one. Can't say that about PCs!

Re:Right Track

[Wesley Willis, RIP]

I guess nobody told you that you can use a 2-button, scroll-wheel mouse with a Mac.

Re:Right Track

[Wesley Willis, RIP]

How large did you "imagine" it to be? I had a dream once where I imagined a 100-foot iPod attacking my city.

Re:Right Track

[selfabuse]

pricewatch

Re:Right Track

[mduell]

Try polywell.com for the Opteron machine.
Dual Opterons (which smoke G5s in SPEC) are about the same price as the Dual 2.0 G5. Single Opterons (which match G5s in SPEC) are cheaper.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

I have been selling Macs on eBay for awhile now. I've been selling Beige G3's, 7300s, a few other PPC Macs. The Macs that I regularly use include my SE/30 and the Beige G3 that I'm holding onto. I have a Quadra 650 that I'm keeping as a collectable.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

I got a 17" monitor a few months ago for free. You'd pay money for a 17" monitor?

The machines I've been buying for $15 are Pentium II 400's, with 128 MB of RAM, 4 gig HD's, integrated sound, etc.

I can buy a lot of other stuff for the extra money I didn't spend. Maybe even a firewire card (shrug)

Re:Right Track

[MoneyT]

I havent use'd an ipod

/discussion

Re:Right Track

[dasmegabyte]

It apprears that I am mistaken. You're right: a Macintosh SE is slightly less powerful than a $300 PC.

I would hazard the Mac would be more reliable, though, should you install Windows on the PC.

Re:Right Track

[rixstep]

I think Apple are close to being on the right track, but otherwise I have to disagree. Apple are not expensive. Others are too cheap. They attract the price-conscious and cut corners on production. Economics 101. Then your Gateway falls apart, and what does that tell you? Worse: I've seen useless Gateway laptops that cost a lot more than almost anything Apple had to offer at the time, laptops that couldn't even work as advertised - and in the showroom. No, I will take quality any day, and if quality costs a bit more, I will pay it, for I profit in the long run.

I am not sure if it's genius on Apple's part to choose Unix, or instead that they knew Steve and Avie had the best system going, the best system ever seen, both for development and for use, and that Steve and Avie already chose Unix - and for reasons which were particular to NeXT, and not Apple.

There's been speculation about whether Apple should have chosen Be, but after peeking inside, I think it's obvious to anyone that Apple made the right move there.

Re:Right Track

[IM6100]

My Macintosh SE/30 (please don't accuse it of being a mere SE) runs NetBSD some of the time, which makes it vastly more powerful than an ordinary $300 PC. At least under the right operator, it does.

But I run MacOS 9.2 on the Beige G3, which you chose to ignore in your reply.

Stock price

[Anonymous Coward]

is up over 20% from may's @ $15 to $25

so iam sure they are pleased, lets hope they keep it going

Re:Stock price

[javiercero]

Well $15 to $25 change is equal to an increase of 75% so yeah you are right they are over 20% increase :), but just by a cinch.... :)

Re:Stock price

[javiercero]

rats... I mean 66%

looking back on Apple is fine

[Savatte]

but don't look back on SCO's year, or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.

Re:looking back on Apple is fine

[mhore]

but don't look back on SCO's year, or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.

I don't think we're allowed to look back on SCO's year. That is their IP, I believe. They may be offering licenses to do that, though, at US$1599.00 per eyeball.

Mike.

Re:looking back on Apple is fine

[JudgeFurious]

YOu CAN'T look back on SCO's year without in some way incorporating their IP in the article. Doing so means that SCO owns the article and thus the website it's published on, the servers that run the website, and so forth.

Nobody in their right mind would risk doing a look back at SCO's year article.

Very interesting

[downix]

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.

Re:Very interesting

[prestwich]

Haha - Amiga - oh yes that thing.

Sorry, this is the 21st century - move along.

Re:Very interesting

[kin_korn_karn]

you mean my TI-99/4A is obsolete?

Re:Very interesting

[JudgeFurious]

I don't think so.

All of that may be true but since the total number of people who even know that these products (or company's for that matter) even exist can be numbered in the dozens it's safe to say that Apple doesn't real spend a lot of time worrying about their new "real competition".

Re:Very interesting

[Creedo]

Funny, I have a TI 99/4a dissassembled on my work bench. More scratchpad ram(fairly easy to add, since it doesn't fully decode that segment of memory). And I am working on an Z80- based ISA card which enables me to use a passive backplane to access old ISA expansion cards. Long live the TI!

Re:Very interesting

[proj_2501]

Only when Alpiner and Parsec are ported to something else, man. Keep on keepin' on.

Re:Very interesting

[bhtooefr]

Not much competition. The Pegasos boards? I haven't even seen a PICTURE of them. The AmigaONEs? I've found pics, and even submitted a story about a Mini-ITX AmigaONE to here, but not much. BTW, if there were a way to get an AmigaONE board to use Mac OS X without Mac-on-Linux, I just might build myself a Mini-ITX box ;-)

Re:Very interesting

[TheRaven64]

I don't think there is such a thing as the PPC market (or if there is it's in the embedded arena, not near Apple). Very few people buy a Mac because they want a machine to run PPC Linux (for example) on, they buy a Mac because they want a Mac. The only thing more people shipping PPC systems will do to Apple is increase the volume of PPCs sold, which will make the prices drop and help Apple's profits.

Re:Very interesting

[downix]

You haven't looked very hard either then:

http://www.pegasosppc.com

Loads of pictures.

Re:Very interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure is funny to see Mac users gloating about market share.

Applause

[blackmonday]

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!

Re:Applause

[BWJones]

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.

Not only these products, but we have Apple to thank for Firewire, being the first to install built in networking in their computers, the first to include CD-ROM drives in computers, the first to include GUI in consumer computers, the first to include plug and play hardware configuration (remember setting all those damn switches when installing hardware cards?), the first to include color support in their computers, their first to......well, you get the idea. One could go on and on here, but I agree. If any company has been responsible for driving growth in the personal computing market, it has certainly been Apple.

Re:Applause

[Ohreally_factor]

Not to mention Rendezvous aka ZeroConf.

BTW, I thought MOTU already was a ProTools killer. =)

Offtopic: I'm getting an error page when I use the Black Monday contact page.

Re:Applause

[Piquan]

the first to include color support in their computers,

If you're talking about the Mac, then perhaps you've forgotten CGA and EGA. If you're talking about the Apple ][, then you're pretty much right: Apple was the first to build color capabilities into a complete, ready-to-use home computer-- but they were the first ones to build a complete, ready-to-use home computer, so I don't the the color capabilities are the significant part.

Re:Applause

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple may have been the first to include firewire, but the fact that no one uses it shows it is not innovative

So, I'm going to guess you don't have a MiniDV camera, huh?

Re:Applause

[Frymaster]

my favourite "firsts" for apple:

1984: first to include 3.5" floppies
1998: first to ship a machine without a 3.5" floppy

Re:Applause

[The Infamous Grimace]

"...First doesn't mean shit apparently because Apples are only used by homos and hippies..." ...said the anonymous, closet-confined long-hair.

(tig)

Re:Applause

[Quarters]

If you're talking about the Mac perhaps you've forgotten the Amiga and the AtariST. Both of those had color by default in their most earliest incarnations (1985). Back when PCs were mono-green and macs were B&W.

Re:Applause

[daviddennis]

I wouldn't mind owning this "dying" company.

It's profitable, and software developers continue to write software for it.

Therefore, it's not dying.

Sorry.

D

Re:Applause

[bhtooefr]

AFAIK, weren't Macs in color in '86? Or was the LC later?

For that matter, he must have forgotten the Commodore 64... or Apple's own Apple ][...

Re:Applause

[TheRaven64]

I recently edited a video for our annual colloquium. I was given the camera and a load of leads (composite, s-video, etc). There was also an i-Link cable (FW400, with a strange connector), but the owner of the camera didn't know what that was for. He explained how to connect it to a PC capture card, how to capture an AVI, etc. I nodded and smiled.

Once he had gone away I tried plugging it into the FW400 port on my PowerBook. iMovie started and imported all of the footage (breaking it into clips automatically).

That's not the thing I use FW for most often though. At least once a week I plug my iPod in to my PowerBook's FW400 port and run a backup.

To say that no-one uses FireWire is pure nonsense.

Re:Applause

[BandwidthHog]

In '86 Macs were still 1-bit b/w. The Mac II (68020 in a *large* desktop case) was the first color Mac. The LC were a generation later, I think they came out around '91.

Of course, you could hit everymac.com or lowendmac.com to find out for sure, but I'm apparently a bit motivationally-deficient. (As evidenced by me posting this rather than futzing with SWITCH statements in Access queries like a good employee would be.)

Re:Applause

[tonydiesel]

ProTools killer? They already own eMagic which makes Logic. Sure, it doesn't do the hardware, but it has the software side down! Get whatever digital input you want (I recommend a PreSonus Firestation myself) and you are business.

I would like to see a cheap ( $200) or free 8-16 track mixing/recording package though... that would encourage a whole new group of people to get into experimenting with music...

Re:Applause

[bhtooefr]

D'oh! I had thought the LC came before the II, but I was obvioulsy wrong. The Mac II came out in '87, the LC in '90. LEM is a VERY good resource...

Re:Applause

[Branka96]

Here are some examples of Apple playing catch-up.
USB-1, Dell shipped USB in their Dimension line more than 9 months before Apple introduced the iMac.
Firewire, Sony shipped computers with Firewire (iLink) more than a year before Apple.
Portable computers. Apple was late to the game. The first portable was a joke because of its weight.
First portable computer less than one inch. Toshiba's Portege 2000 is just 0.6" thick. Apple has yet to ship such a product.
USB-2, Apple late by more than a year.
PCI cards, Apple late by more than a year.
Wireless keyboard and mouse, Apple late by more than a year. Even Microsoft beat Apple.
Wireless networking, Apple wasn't even the first to have a solution for their own computers. Of course wireless computing has been around since the early nineties.
CD-burner, even Steve Jobs admitted that Apple missed the boat on that one.
Memory architecture, in general Apple has been behind the PC industry by a generation.
CD speed, in general Apple has been behind the PC industry be more than a generation.
Hard drive speed, in general Apple has been behind the PC industry.
Easy access to hardware. I can install a new PCI card in my Dell without using any tools. In my G4 I need a Philips screwdriver.
CPU with DSP instructions. When Intel introduced MMX, Apple's claim was that they didn't need that because they were using a RISC processor. When Apple eventually caught up with Altivec, it, of course, claimed it to be superior although it lacks double-precision floating-point support.

Personally I find the whole debate irrelevant. Who is the most innovative car manufacturer? Who was the first with four-wheel drive on command? Who was the first with air-bags or ABS? Do you know? Do you care?

Re:Applause

[afantee]

You do realize that you are comparing Apple against the whole computer industry, and there is no single box maker in the Wintel world that is remotely as innovative as Apple.

The original iMac is the first legacy-free PC with built-in USB, Firewire and wireless, and its industry design has inspired not only computer makers but also designers of a wide range of products from mobile phones to printers. AFAIK, no consumer PC in 1998 could match the iMac in features, and it actually took the industry 2 to 3 years to catch up with Apple.

Dell is a cheap copycat with zero software and insignificant hardware engineering compared to Apple. Apple is 40x smaller than MS, but its software portfolio is comparable and often better than MS products.

Re:Applause

[Branka96]

The original iMac did not have Firewire or wireless networking. In terms of extensibility, the iMac was and still is way below the industry standard. The industry has no desire to follow Apple.
Take a look at your computer (hardware). What exactly did Apple invent? Hardly anything. Firewire being an exception. What box make was first with a certain feature, I find it irrelevant. If you sell a computer at prices significant higher than the industry average, you can of course include more features. Just like Mercedes can include more features.

Re:Applause

[poot_rootbeer]

the first to include color support in their computers

Unless you're referring to the IIc, I wouldn't award this point in Apple's favor. In the mid 1980's PCs and their clones progressed from 4-color CGA to 16-color EGA to 256-color VGA, while Macs stayed in the realm of black and white...

(OK, the Mac displays generally had better resolution. But IBM had larger CRTs. So let's call that one a draw.)

Re:Applause

[jcr]

Dell is a cheap copycat with zero software and insignificant hardware engineering compared to Apple.

Dell is not a computer company. They're wal-mart without the storefront.

-jcr

Re:Applause

[fyonn]

that reminds me of the film "the commitments"

"you were the first to have the 'frankie goes to hollywood' album, and you were the first to realise they was shite!" :)

good film that

dave

Re:Applause

[Piquan]

If you're talking about the Mac perhaps you've forgotten the Amiga and the AtariST.

I wasn't talking about the Mac. As far as I could tell, the Apple ][ was the first ready-to-use (ie, non-kit) computer to support color. This was mostly because it was the first ready-to-use computer of any sort.

I only mentioned CGA and EGA because this seemed to be primarily a Mac v. PC thread.

But yes, many, many machines supported color before the Mac, including the PC, Amiga, ST, and scores of bitty boxes.

What about their bottom-line strategy?

[GeckoFood]

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?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering iTunes itself is free, then all they need to do is be higher quality than their competitors. And that is something Apple has a lot of experience doing.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[GoofyBoy]

There are two ways to go about doing business.

You can be the big, for-the-masses, beat-them-with-price company. Examples of these are Wal-Mart and McDonalds.

You can be the small, speciality, beat-them-with-loyalty/quality company. Examples of these are Gucci and Apple.

As long as they steadly increase profit each year, why should Apple change their ways?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Frymaster]

How are they working to increase market share

and market share is important because why?

the goal of apple is to be a successful, profitable company - not to "beat" windows. bmw and mercedes-benz are successful car companies. and you don't hear the shareholders whining that they're not beating ford on the market shart front...

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[ScottGant]

How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?

Perhaps they're not even trying to compete anymore. I mean, they've shown they can co-exist with other computers in the world. I know many people that have both systems at home and work with both systems at work. It's no longer a "one or the other" problem for people. They've been going and going and going for decades. Decades! They may not have huge marketshare, but they're also not trying to take over the entire market like other companies.

Perhaps it's Nash's Equalibrium at work? Just a thought

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[tbone1]

This is a legitimate question, and the honest answer is "I don't know". I don't think anyone outside of Apple knows. However, they have been positioning themselves for a big strike at market share; certainly they are better poised for that now than, say, five years ago. In fact, one never know about this. When the iPod was introduced, I yawned like most people. Now I own one, wish I'd gotten a bigger one, and it is proving to be a "killer app" on the hardware side, when coupled with iTunes. That combination allowed them to create and dominate a market, pay for downloadable music. (Admittedly, it's still early for that market, but still.) That may be levereged for other things; who knows?

I will say this, from what I've seen Apple has the infrastructure and processes in place to make that strike, which I didn't see them having in years past.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple had lost a lot of its luster going back to pre-2001. I would have never dreamed of using an Apple before OS X.

I think you miss the point that Apple is getting a lot of publicity and that in the next 5 years... Most computers being used now will be replaced. All Apple has to do is to be a "choice" when people buy computers. Before 2001 they were barely a thought. Now... I see everyone giving Apple a chance. Lets not forget about the moves that Apple has made back into the Educational area. Thank god... they have displaced Dell as the big provider.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[droleary]

The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.

Kinda hard for that not to be the case: they sold an infinitely larger percentage of music this year compared to last. :-)

How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?

What makes you think they have to? It's like you're saying that BMW needs to compete with Toyota's numbers for "road share". Apple makes a profit and does so while innovating ahead of the curve. With that business plan, they'll be around for a long, long time.

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?

Now you're just being moronic. The reality is the exact opposite of what you suggest. Apple is a success with 5% of the market; it has 95% of its potential market untapped. Microsoft has 90% of the market; it has just 10% of a potential market left. If you need to worry about how any company can capture a larger marketshare, worry about MS.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[meta-monkey]

I'd say the cool toys are helping with that. Prior to OS X, I hated Apple. I still hate pre-OS X apple products. Then 10.2 came out. Then they released the 17" Powebook. I had to buy one, and I did. Then I saw an iPod, and drooled, and bought one. Then the G5 came out, and I bought a dual 2GHz G5 and a 20" Cinema Display (which I'm using right now...gorgeous). So, looking back and 2003, Apple got me, a life-long Mac hater, to buy a 17" PowerBook, a 15GB iPod, and a dual 2GHz G5 with a 20" CD. Not bad, Apple, not bad.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[sbma44]

marketshare *is* essential. It puts you in control of your own destiny. You don't have to have >50%, just a competitive share.

Interoperability is essential for computing. It's like language: english may not be the most efficient thing we could use on slashdot, but interoperability is the deciding factor.

Given that, if you only have 5 or 10% of the market, you will always be at the big guy's anticompetitive whim as they decide on some new proprietary standard that locks you out. Then you suffer losses for 12 months until the courts tell them to stop.

Apple doesn't have to be bigger than MS, just big enough that MS has to ensure they're products work with apple, the way apple has to be sure their products work with MS.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[rinkjustice]

You can be the small, speciality, beat-them-with-loyalty/quality company.

Apple is squandering both, by screwing their own loyal customer-base with lack of support (to force upgrades) and products that are grossly overpriced and simply don't last (re: the older 5 gig ipods in particular have a terminal problem with the rechargable batteries).

That's two (possible) class action lawsuits from Apple's own hardcore users!

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[JonathanBoyd]

Apple is squandering both, by screwing their own loyal customer-base with lack of support (to force upgrades) and products that are grossly overpriced and simply don't last (re: the older 5 gig ipods in particular have a terminal problem with the rechargable batteries).

That's two (possible) class action lawsuits from Apple's own hardcore users!

The first has been settled already and the second can't go anywhere because anyone who bought an iPod expecting the battery to last forever, or for Apple to change it for free, when they had said nothing of the kind, is an idiot.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[tealover]

...the second can't go anywhere because anyone who bought an iPod expecting the battery to last forever, or for Apple to change it for free, when they had said nothing of the kind, is an idiot.

Bullshit.

18 months is not "forever". For Apple to suggest that the best recourse of action was to just buy another iPod was absoultely ridiculous and they rightly were excoriated by the kid who made that famous video.

After Apple got a lot of negative press on the issue, they miraculously came up with a batttery replacement plan. Why? Because they knew they had been caught in the wrong.

The thing about this issue that repulses me and will prevent me from ever buying an Apple product is this was nothing more than planned obsolescence. Apple admits that they make no money on selling music. Their money is made from pushing iPods. They made a clear business decision to not provide a battery replacement plan because they wanted people to buy more iPods.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[calyphus]

the 17" Powebook. I had to buy one, and I did. Then I saw an iPod, and drooled, and bought one. Then the G5 came out, and I bought a dual 2GHz G5 and a 20" Cinema Display

...damn! I wish I was still employed...

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[filth grinder]

Maybe it is my fault for reading the article but:

The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.

Is clearly false. From the article:

In Apple's annual analyst conference call, Jobs admitted that iTMS was a loss leader for them. Apple's goal in getting into the music business is to sell more iPods.

Apple only offers the iTMS to sell iPods, the number 1 selling mp3 player. Apple takes a loss on the service to make up the money on the iPods. Also the iPod is Apple's venture into the consumer electronics market (different from the computer market). Apple already said they wont be doing flat screen TVs or cell phones, but other consumer electronics are on the way.

So, keep in mind, Apple is losing money with the iTMS, but making it up on the iPod. Now, if Apple is losing money on iTMS, I wonder how Walmart and Napster are fairing.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[tubadood]

In control of one's own destiny? So Apple's innovation is at the mercy of the bigger fish? Doesn't appear that way to me...

Apple doesn't seem to be doing to badly on the interoperablity front right now. There's just not much that I need to do on my Windows machine that I can't do on my Mac.

And who's really getting locked out of a proprietary format? I'm fine with the limited viewing of WMVs on my Mac - there always seems to be a workaround for such limitations. Many translators/hacks for other formats as well...

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[sacrilicious]

As long as they steadly increase profit each year, why should Apple change their ways?

Actually, just maintaining profits should be adequate to ward off the need for change. Ever-increasing profits is an unsustainable model for any company, and therefor guarantees eventual change for the worse.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[fermion]

The McDonalds example is particularly apt. For a long time McDonalds stood on reasonable quality food, served in reasonable stores, by reasonable people, that a reasonable family could feel comfortable eating, at a reasonable price. This is how they built the company. You could get better food, but it would not necessarily be of the consistent quality. However, as they got huge the quality issues suffered and they slowly started allowing their competitors define the marketplace as one in which price was a prime factor. So, today Mcdonalds is just one of many stores trying to bring in customers with the cheapest tolerable foodstuff.

Which is what Apple avoided. When they were losing the PC battle of the 80's, they could have participated in the drive to the bottom levels of hell. They did not. The developed a Brand that enough people were willing to pay for. Though the results have been mixed, I think it s why Apple is still around.

So now Apple again has products that might take off and give then a significant market share. We have $800 iBooks and maybe $100 iPods. I hope these products do not indicate they are going to make meeting a low price point their primary design goal. I would hate for Apple to just one of several vendors offering crap.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[overunderunderdone]

How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?

The stated goal of the Apple stores is to increase their share of the consumer market by getting their products in front of consumers.

Aside from that they are using apple produced, mac-only software to expand their presence in various niches: creative consumers (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD); Music production (Logic); Film & Video production (FinalCut Pro, FinalCut Express. Shake, Soundtrack, DVDstudio Pro); and Education (PowerSchool, eMac, iBook). They are also interested in science (BLAST, 64 bit CPU's & clusters).

An Apple executive once said something like "if you own all the niches, you own the whole market". It seems that Apple is looking to expand it's marketshare by going after more, and more niches. If they are successful in dominating the ones they are currently targetting I'm sure they will start to look at others where they either have footholds or that overlap with the ones they already dominate. For instance: 3D modelling, architecture, law firms & other soho businesses. I wouldn't be suprised to see Apple do the same kind of thing they did with Logic and Shake in new markets. Buy a software developer that dominates a small niche - Upgrade the product, drop support for Windows, and drop the price to encourage the entire niche to 'switch'.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Bytesmiths]

How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market? ... What do they intend to do about a limited market share?

Ah, yes. The old "market share" argument.

That's why Porche, Leica, Gucci, Hummer, Rolex, et. al. are all going out of business. That's why rich people buy posters at Wall-Mart instead of original art or even (gasp!) pseudo-originals like Thomas Kinkaid reproductions. That's why there are no houses on the market over about $250,000 or so. That's why fine dining has gone out of style, and the hoi-poli are all eating at McDonalds.

But it gets even better -- a Hummer costs at least 4x the price of a Kia, yet they will both get you to work in the same amount of time. A Rolex costs thousands of times more than a watch at the Dollar Store, but they both tell the same time.

But the new G5 is within a few percent of the price of an equivalent Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc.! So YOU can be part of the hoi-poli on a budget!

Chasing "market share" is not an innovator's game. (Look what it did to Apple under Sculley.) The masses (Geoffry Moore's "mice") will always choose a product for reasons other than technical innovation. It's the "gazelles" that drive innovation, and they are always a minority, almost by definition!

So leave the market share game to those whose specialty is super-efficient manufacturing and marketing. And if you want the absolutely cheapest computer that everyone else has, it's a great time to own a Wintel machine! :-)

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Jaysyn]

"You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to"

LOL, your sig is appropriate to your post.

Jaysyn

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Selecter]

I believe that mind-share is a lot more important than market share. Right now, really ever since the introduction of the G5, Apple has a growing mind share that manifests itself in one simple truth: Apple is not a JOKE anymore. Even those that dont buy mac know this.

A year ago, macs were viewed as computers for the cultists. Now, macs are the uber cool computers on the market. They got that way by growing mindshare; putting out a computer (the G5) so far ahead of where they were that even Apple haters had to admit that Apple had a machine that equaled anything in the PC world.

And now, even faster ones are less than a week away.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[poot_rootbeer]

Given that, if you only have 5 or 10% of the market, you will always be at the big guy's anticompetitive whim as they decide on some new proprietary standard that locks you out.

Apple's been at 5-10% of the market share (if even that) for like 10 years now. What examples of them being damaged by the "anticompetitive whims" of the "big guts" can you cite?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[soft_guy]

As Linux gains marketshare, Microsoft will be forced to lower prices on their cash cow products - Office and Windows. As they do this, they get squeezed because all of their other products such as MSN and xBox, and others are real dogs - consistently loosing money. This will quickly put Microsoft up against a wall. Apple, on the other hand, will be able compete against Linux based on quality and a better user experience (i.e. being at the cutting edge). There will always be room for Apple in the PC market if they keep doing what they are doing. But will there be room for MS? How will they compete against Linux? Sue everyone? Continue to release insane and nonsensical position papers?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[JonathanBoyd]

18 months is not "forever".

Apple never promised even 18 weeks, let alone 18 months. And most people's iPods are still working fine after 18 months. They're behaving exactly the way you would expect a device with a Li-Poly battery to behave. No-one is being misled here.

For Apple to suggest that the best recourse of action was to just buy another iPod was absoultely ridiculous and they rightly were excoriated by the kid who made that famous video.

So you think they should be sued for wanting to make money? No-one who bought an iPod was promised that they'd be able to replace the battery. To sue Apple as if they had promised it would be sheer stupidity. We knew they were Li-Poly cells. We knew there was no quick and easy method to replace the battery ourselves. Who exactly did Apple mislead here and how? What did they do that they can be sued for?

After Apple got a lot of negative press on the issue, they miraculously came up with a batttery replacement plan. Why? Because they knew they had been caught in the wrong.

That's possible. Then again, knowing that someday the batteries would run out and people would want replacements, they were planning on offering them. Given that Li-Poly batteries should last a couple of years, why would they spend money running a replacement service before any batteries actually fail? Surely it makes more sense for them to plan such a service to be launched around the time when they expect batteries to stop working? Like now. Maybe it happened the way you say, maybe it happened the way I say. We don't know. It's not something they can be sued over though.

The thing about this issue that repulses me and will prevent me from ever buying an Apple product is this was nothing more than planned obsolescence. Apple admits that they make no money on selling music. Their money is made from pushing iPods. They made a clear business decision to not provide a battery replacement plan because they wanted people to buy more iPods.

What, you can suddenly read their minds now and know they planned on never offering them? Please. I think they'd realise people would want them replaced at some point. Take off the tin-foil hat. And remember, they never promised to replace the batteries or even make them user serviceable.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[sbma44]

crippled MS software -- wmv not being available on apple, MS's option to pull a software product line's mac support if apple ever gets too popular. Getting games written for directX. Proprietary NTFS being the standard format for drives. Pushing custom MSSQL database connectors in all of their development products to increase development costs for other DB platforms.

I don't think any of these are really critical. What's going to be is whatever proprietary DRM scheme Microsoft introduces. If they win that battle, everyone will end up having to use an MS OS to use media on their PC.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Hrothgar The Great]

Apple really dropped the ball on the battery deal. Everyone drops the ball now and again - it's not indicative of Apple necessarily as a buisness in an overall sense. What CAN be generalized in this situation, however, is that people like you will always, in every possible situation, always believe that Apple is in the right, and refuse to ever think that they could do something stupid and/or unscrupulous, EVER. Your post above is a textbook example of this. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[jcr]

Apple takes a loss on the service to make up the money on the iPods.

Umm... That's not quite what the man said...

-jcr

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[JonathanBoyd]

Apple really dropped the ball on the battery deal. Everyone drops the ball now and again - it's not indicative of Apple necessarily as a buisness in an overall sense. What CAN be generalized in this situation, however, is that people like you will always, in every possible situation, always believe that Apple is in the right, and refuse to ever think that they could do something stupid and/or unscrupulous, EVER.

Then again, there are those who will always assume the worst of Apple. Or assume that any positive thought about Apple means that person in a fanboy. I actually have issues with them - like the poor design of laptop AC adaptors that means a slight break in the wire near the connector means that you have to pay 60 for a new one, instead of 1 to fix it yourself. That is something they dropped the ball on. I'm also a little irritated that lots of the the new iPod gadgets are only available for the latest generation, rather than the first couple. As far as I can see, all it would take is a slight reshaping of some of the stuff and maybe a firmware upgrade for older iPods. It's a classic example of trying to get people to upgrade and something I"m not at all happy with them for.

Anyway, we don't know whether they already had a battery replacement planned or not. Would make sense to have one available, which is why I think they do. Either way, it's not something they can be sued over, which is the main point I was taking issue with.

Your post above is a textbook example of this.

Yes, that would be why I said:
'Maybe it happened the way you say, maybe it happened the way I say. We don't know. It's not something they can be sued over though.'
indicating that I believed it was possible that Apple had actually got it wrong.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Generally speaking, when ad hominens start being thrown at you, it's the other guy's argument that's in trouble.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Hrothgar The Great]

Generally speaking, when ad hominens start being thrown at you, it's the other guy's argument that's in trouble.

GENERALLY SPEAKING, you're being kind of annoying and this isn't the fucking debate class, chief.

And yes, we do know that Apple had no battery replacement plan in place because they TOLD the guy in the aforementioned article that he should BUY A NEW IPOD because it would be too difficult/expensive to replace the battery. As you pointed out, no one expects a battery to last forever, but people DO expect battery powered products to have some method of replacing the battery so that said product does not simply become a heap of junk at the end of 2 years. This is an entirely reasonable expectation, although I agree in as much as there is no way anyone will be able to sue Apple over this.

The fact that you think that I always only think the negative of Apple makes me wonder if you read my post. I SAID right in there that I didn't think this was indicative at all of their general business practices. Most of the Apple detractors on Slashdot wouldn't even give them that much credit.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[JonathanBoyd]

And yes, we do know that Apple had no battery replacement plan in place because they TOLD the guy in the aforementioned article that he should BUY A NEW IPOD because it would be too difficult/expensive to replace the battery.

I didn't say they had a program in existence, I said it was possible they were planning on introducing one at some point further down the road. Until introduced, however, their best advice would be to buy a new iPod.

The fact that you think that I always only think the negative of Apple makes me wonder if you read my post. I SAID right in there that I didn't think this was indicative at all of their general business practices. Most of the Apple detractors on Slashdot wouldn't even give them that much credit.

Actually I was hoping it would make you realise how ridiculous ti was to accuse me of the opposite. Perhaps you understand your error now?

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Hrothgar The Great]

I see what you're getting at, but there's no error here from where I'm standing.

I wasn't surprised that people in the forum we're referring to rushed to defend Apple despite the fact that they engineered the device in question in such a way that the average consumer would be unable to replace the battery, and had no program in place to do the work themselves until it was too late for the guy in the article.

It does, however, disturb me. Why anyone would think that's just perfectly fine and that it doesn't reflect badly on Apple in any way, I just have no idea. It really was either very shortsighted or an intentional attempt to get consumers to buy more iPods (which I doubt) but either way it wasn't good customer service.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[JonathanBoyd]

I agree that it's a pain not being able to easily access the battery, but I don't think the motives are quite as nefarious as you think (though I concede that as a business out to make money, it's entirely possible). The iPod was designed to be small and durable. Taken in conjunction, that means that it's not going to be able to use a standard battery (so consumers will be unlikely to be able to get hold of one) and access to the innards will have to be difficult in order to keep them safe from harm. Apple could either make something small and durable or make something where the consumer could easily replace the battery. I don't see an affordable way to combine the two. I thought about this when I bought my iPod and don't look forward to the day when the battery will die, but I knew what I was getting myself into and the current situation, with AA battery supplies, 3rd party battery replacements for sale and Apple's own replacement policy seems quite reasonable for anyone thinking of buying an iPod now.

Of course it's also possible that Jobs fell victim to his own reality distortion field and forgot that most people can't afford to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars every few years to keep a functional music playing device. That said, after 3 years, the new iPods would be considerably better than the old ones and people may well feel its worth their money to invest in a new one and leave the old plugged into the wall, hooked up to a Hi-Fi. It would be daft not to offer the option of replacing batteries, but if they really did drop the ball, maybe that was a part of their logic. I'm envious enough of the newer ones just 18 months later.

Re:What about their bottom-line strategy?

[Hrothgar The Great]

I agree that their replacement plan seems pretty decent now - it's designed the way it's designed, they've got a relatively decent service price, etc. If I had tons of spare cash laying around, I'd probably think about getting one, but portable mp3 players are on my low priority list as it turns out.

G5!

[BWJones]

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.

Re:G5!

[poot_rootbeer]

I can now have the most efficient OS and the fastest CPU available in one platform.

How'd you get MS-DOS 3.1 to even run on a G5 chip?

My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

My problem with OSX is it's lack of support for international application. I was recently in the US, and couldn't send email in Hebrew, because OSX didn't support it. Not only that, but it displayed hebrew webpages as gibberish. Now, I could figure out what to do to log into my webmail account from back home (Jerusalem), but I couldn't tell which form button was 'Clear' and which was 'Send' on the compose page!
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).

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

I should note that that experience was pre 10.3. Not sure if 10, 10.1 or 10.2 because I'm not a mac person.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

What browser were you using? I just looked in IE, and for some reason Hebrew is not listed under the character sets. Hebrew is selectable as a text encoding in Safari though. Would this be a problem with IE? Gee...I wonder why Apple made their own browser.

Re:My problem with OSX

[EvanTaylor]

must have been 10.0, I've had no issues displaying any of the right to left languages on 10.2, and my friend used mellel to write in hebrew on 10.1.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Otter]

This sounds like more a problem with Mac Internet Explorer than with the platform itself. Hebrew and other middle-eastern languages display fine in Mozilla with no tweaking or additional installs required. I believe the same is true for Safari, and maybe there's some setting that would make IE do it as well.

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).

This issue aside --yeah, there's a lot Apple needs to do differently to sell to businesses.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

IE, Safari and Netscape were all tried. We did use an old comp with OS 9.x and it worked fine...... lol

Re:My problem with OSX

[imadork]

The lack of Hebrew support is a well-known "bug" in IE (and apparently most of Microsoft's Mac products). The Register has been following it for some time, I found a good article here.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

mmm, tried with safari and netscape too, with the support of Mac tech support, but to no avail.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

wasn't the right to left. It aligned and ordered the giberish properly. it was the encoding. It was also the most recent version available as of March '03. that I'm 100% sure of.

Re:My problem with OSX

[BlueGecko]

My problem with OSX is it's lack of support for international application. I was recently in the US, and couldn't send email in Hebrew, because OSX didn't support it.

I am a bit confused by parts of your post which application you were using, but OS X definitely supports Hebrew. TextEdit, which comes with OS X, provides strongly Hebrew support for writing documents, and if you want a stronger solution, Mellel is a superb application developed in Tel Aviv that not only supports numerous RTL languages including Hebrew, but is also a strong word processor. Mail, which is what I use to check mail, supports Hebrew input, as does the Safari web browser. The only applications that don't, as a general rule, are Microsoft's. As long as you stay away from them, you should find support for Hebrew (and Arabic and many other languages) is just fine.

Re:My problem with OSX

[bdrago]

Most likely the Hebrew support was unchecked during installation (it's installed by default), or something was corrupted on the system.

On a clean 10.2 install pages like DEBKAfile display just fine with Safari and Mozilla. I get the "gibberish" in Internet Explorer though.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

Sure, except....
That doesn't help me reading gibberish form buttons, which was my primary problem. Read the rest of my posts in that thread and you'll see that it wasn't just microsoft. It wasn't the writing, I had no need to do that, not to mention no hebrew keyboard. It was the READING of the FORM.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

Forms were the problem. Forms, I say! I've said it before and I'll say it again! Forms! read the rest of my posts in this thread to understand. Forms!

Re:My problem with OSX

[bdrago]

Yes, forms!

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

Bad Hebrew grammar aside, what OS version was that? as my other posts state, this was a while abo... early 2003.

Forms!

Re:My problem with OSX

[BlueGecko]

I understood your form problem, but I just don't have it. This screenshot, which I just took under Safari on Haaretz' website, has some form components with Hebrew characters. It looks perfectly fine to me; the control's labels are properly aligned and correspond to the controls, and the controls themselves display the Hebrew text just fine--even mixing the Latin and Hebrew character sets within the list. If there was a specific site you were having a problem with, I would be happy to check it out and file a bug report with Apple if the problem persists, but otherwise, I suspect the system you were on is misconfigured, or I am simply not understand the issue you were experiencing.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

I would, but the computer in question is 30000kilometers away (Jerusalem to Baltimore). The problem was also a while ago (March 2003) and thus wasn't OSX 10.3. You seem to understand the issue completely. Here's what I know: We called Mac tech support (in a pay call, btw, she payed for prefered service I believe), and after 20 mins on hold while the tech looked and looked for a solution, we were told that they just 'don't support' it. Ah well. We went to a local library (for nice win machines), and my cute 3 year old nephew (cheers to Kevin! ;) got a book which I read to him that night. He kept assuming I was done and turning the pages. a good time was had by all, except a morning wasted looking for fixes...

Re:My problem with OSX

[dustmite]

OSX definitely supports Unicode, so the problem probably was more likely caused by the correct codepages/fonts not being installed, or this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/25742.html .

Don't automatically blame Apple ..

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

As I've said in 4-5 posts, We also tried netscape and safari at the guidance of mac tech support to no avail, finally being told there was 'no support'.
So ha.

Re:My problem with OSX

[ITR81]

OSX 10.3.2 supports Hebrew though Mac Office from MS doesn't and so far they don't look like they'll be adding it anytime soon.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

As I've said now SEVEN TIMES, it was PRE 10.3! READ THE DAMN POSTS! AUGH! why am I even replying anymore? ;)

Re:My problem with OSX

[FosterKanig]

What version of the software were you using? And did it involve forms?

Re:My problem with OSX

[ducomputergeek]

Maybe in Hebrew, but I use my mac in Germany all the time. In fact I have a button on the top bar where I can switch my keyboard layout from US English to german with a click of my mouse.

When I was in germany studying two years ago, I was the only person with with a Mac. Almost everyone at the Fachhochschule had dual boot Windows/Linux machines. Even the college had Linux tech labs.

I was the only one with a Mac. The comp-sci students used to laugh until I booted up Win 98SE via virtual PC. Then they would boot up Linux and I would just open Terminal and remark, "Ah Linux, the Unix-clone. Meet OSX/Darwin...based on FreeBSD Unix. That's right it real Unix, not Unix-like. Top galking and move along". Well maybe not in that way, but it turned a few heads when I could run basically everything they could and more all on one machine.

Also, they liked the placement of my Airport card, nothing hanging out, nicely tucked away under the keyboard. Kudo's to Apple for nice design work.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

I love you Kanig :D

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

German is a far more widely used language than hebrew, is Latin charachter based, has similar grammer, has many USians fluent in it, is a major economic language and is left-to-right.
All this considered, I would be SHOCKED if German was not supported.

Re:My problem with OSX

[afantee]

Actually OS X has much better international support than Windows. It works perfectly with Chinese out of the box, both for display and input. Some third party app (such as IE) may not have the correct UI for every language, but every single Apple I tried has Chinese interface, including Mail, Finder, Address Book, iMovie, iTunes, iCal, iChat AV, TextEdit, even Terminal.

Re:My problem with OSX

[FosterKanig]

See, who need the Slashdot personal ads. A love connection was made here for FREE.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Branka96]

It was Apple who did not provide support for Hebrew and Arabic and a lot of other languages in OS X 10.0. The first version of Office for OS X targeted OS X 10.1 which did not have support for Hebrew and Arabic. 10.1 was released 9/25/2001. Office X was released 11/19/2001. It wasn't before Apple release OS X 10.2 (8/26/2002) that the OS had support for Hebrew and Arabic. There is no reason to believe this is more than an engineering decision. Delay support for a feature until the OS supports it. I would be surprised if the next version of Office for the Mac does not support Hebrew and Arabic. Yes, I know it is fun to blame Microsoft for everything. However in this case, if you want to blame anyone, it should be Apple.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

except.... I don't need chinese, and neither does the multibillion dollar israeli computer industry.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

I'm gonna make a wild guess here, and use my usual rejection line for men:
Sorry, you have one penis too many
hey, it was fun while it lasted!

Re:My problem with OSX

[dustmite]

NO program will work if the appropriate codepages or fonts are not installed.

Re:My problem with OSX

[dustmite]

NO program will work if the appropriate codepages or fonts are not installed. Who's blaming Microsoft? I know it is fun to shoot down anyone who appears to be "just blaming Microsoft for everything", but I simply listed them as a possible cause for the problem, WHICH THEY WERE AND YOU CAN'T DENY THAT, so what is your problem? Grow up. Someone with an iota of technical literacy would understand that there are many possible causes for a problem like this, (no RTL text support in Mac, no RTL text support in the software used, correct codepages/fonts not installed, no proper Unicode support, etc) and the list of potential causes of the problem INCLUDES MICROSOFT, whether you like it or not. What you just did is remove Microsoft from a list of potential causes NOT because of sound technical reasons that they are NOT to blame, but because you like to shoot down anyone who appears to be criticising Microsoft (in your opinion). The poster did not say in the original post that he tried anything other than IE, so OF COURSE Microsoft belongs on the list of possible causes for the problem.

It's not about "blame", good heavens grow up, it's PURELY a technical issue of finding the cause of the problem. Not "blame". Honesly, how childish.

Re:My problem with OSX

[FosterKanig]

Wow, this was one of my longer relationships. And with just as much sex. :)

Re:My problem with OSX

[Branka96]

Before you start using ALL CAPITALS, you may want to educate yourself a little. There are no codepages on the Mac. And no, Office for OS X is not a port of Office for Windows. The two products share only two things, name (for branding) and file format. They are done by two entirely different groups located at different location.
Microsoft wasted thousand of man-hours porting IE and Office to OS X from OS 9. IE was available to beta versions of OS X 10.0. Development of Office started long before OS X 10.0 was released. Microsoft had to redo many things to work around bugs in the prereleases of OS X, as well as when Apple changed the underlying code. Microsoft had advanced knowledge of the features in OS X 10.1. They knew it would not have support for Hebrew and Arabic. They had no knowledge of when Apple was going to support them. Yes, Microsoft could have hacked their own support of Hebrew and Arabic. But they knew they would have to redo it when Apple provided support. It would have been a waste of engineering resources.
Apple had support for Hebrew and Arabic in OS 9. They did not have support in OS 10.0 and 10.1. It was Apple who removed the support. Not Microsoft.

Re:My problem with OSX

[afantee]

OS X does support a long list of other languages other than Chinese, although I am not sure about Hebrew.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

Thanks, that's real helpful, lol. Read the rest of the darn posts ;P (seriously, you're a dear for writing that)

Re:My problem with OSX

[dustmite]

There are no codepages on the Mac

Wow, what a clueless statement. Google for "mac codepages" and figure out the rest.

Heck, even Windows has the option to install dozens of Mac codepages within Windows.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Branka96]

I would have been a little more impressed if you had done a search on Apple's developer site.

Mac OS does not have codepages. There are ways of translating between codepages on Windows and the Mac. That is what the "install dozens of Mac codepages within Windows" is about. Those are codepages on Windows that does not require translation (or only very simple translation) when converting a document to the Mac. Hence you get visually exactly the same document. But those (codepages) are descriptions for Windows .

Re:My problem with OSX

[dustmite]

You really just don't understand it, do you? If there were "no codepages" on a Mac, i.e. basically either only one codepage, or straight Unicode, then WTF would you need multiple Mac conversion tables on Windows?

Windows supports a number of "encodings", which is a table mapping code points (integer values) to characters (glyphs). These integer values are what are stored for a particular character when you type that character, and differ depending on the "encoding" (or "code page"). For example, when you type an "e" on Windows, it may correspond to value 130 on Windows-1252 codepage, but to a different value on a Mac, depending on the codepage. When you load a Mac document on Windows, or vice versa, each OS has to be able to translate all the integer values depending on the codepage of the OTHER OS so that the end-user sees "e". Typical Windows codepages include the common "1252", which is an extension of ISO-8859-1. Mac ALSO has a number of "encodings", mapping integer values to glyphs. These are the "codepages", and including support for the Mac codepages on Windows allows Windows to convert the various integer values that correspond to specific glyphs to the integer values within the Windows codepages that correspond to those glyphs. That is when you get "exactly the same document", or rather, see the same document.

If those were, as you say, "descriptions for Windows", then it would be only the other way round: Mac would have support for a list of Windows codepages, but Windows would not have support for a list of Mac codepages.

Re:My problem with OSX

[Branka96]

You couldn't find any documentation about codepages on Apple's developer site could you?
Yes, the Mac has different "encodings". But they are not called codepages. So, my statement that there are no codepages on the Mac is correct.

I recall..

[Guano_Jim]

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.

Re:I recall..

[AKnightCowboy]

My head of IT stating that "Apple will be out of business by Christmas."

That was in 1997.

Actually if Jobs hadn't taken over the company again and resurrected Apple with the iMac that may very well have been a true statement. Apple's management was piss-poor on 1997 if I remember correctly. I'm amazed they weathered 10 years of horrible products and a massive egress of users to the Wintel platform as well as they did.

Still, I won't be buying anything from Apple until Macworld in January.. hopefully they'll announce a new round of price cuts so I can finally afford a low end G5. :-)

Re:I recall..

[Anonymous Coward]

pushing UNIX to the next-level down user

Shouldn't that be "to the NeXT-level down user"?? :)

Re:I recall..

[tyrione]

I'll have to say if you can't afford a $3,000 computer system you have more issues with your finances than the purchase of a computer.

If you can't qualify for a loan or don't trust yourself to make the payments than once again you have more issues with your finances that a price drop in a computer isn't going to improve.

Re:I recall..

[jcr]

In '97, that wasn't an entirely unreasonable conjecture..

Apple was in very serious trouble then, and if it weren't for the Apple/NeXT merger, both companies probably would have vanished.

Since then however, the iMac, Mac OS X, the iPod, the G5, the iApps, the pro apps, the laptops, etc, etc, all make me pretty confident that it's time to quit talking about "troubled Apple Computer", and start talking about "resurgent Apple Computer." ;-)

-jcr

Re:I recall..

[jcr]

now I'm grepping ifconfig to determine my MAC address.

Why would you want to do that the hard way? Apple menu, "About this Mac", hit the "More Info" button to run System Profiler and then pick "Network" from the list on the left side of the window.

It's fun.

Ok..

-jcr

The Panther is hungry

[burgburgburg]

It can't wait to go hunting after that long delayed Longhorn.

Fortunately for all of us, it lives in peace with the penguins and daemons of the wild.

Re:The Panther is hungry

[qw(name)]

It can't wait to go hunting after that long delayed Longhorn.

Indeed. LongBorn will be Stillborn with much fanfare when it eventually emerges from it's tomb...womb.

Fortunately for all of us, it lives in peace with the penguins and daemons of the wild.

Penguins are fun; Longhorn cattle are not. They're just oversized cows with amazingly wide horn-spans. Longhorn burgers are good though! ;-)

Re:The Panther is hungry

[JudgeFurious]

Actually no, Longhorn burgers are not good. Nobody raised Longhorns because they were "good eatin!". They raised them because you could stick one out on a range and ignore it for most of it's life and it wouldn't die. They were tough and there were tons of them in the wild at a time when the east was clamoring for beef so all that needed to be done was to round them up and drive them to the railheads.

As soon as it became practical the Longhorn was replaced with better breeds that maybe required a little more maintenance but yielded much more (and better) beef.

Re:The Panther is hungry

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

It was offtopic, true, but still interesting! It'd surprise me if /. did an article about WinMe soon... :P

Re:The Panther is hungry

[qw(name)]

Maybe it's because I grew up eating Longhorn beef (burgers and steaks) that I like it. I'm speaking from experience. The same goes with buffalo burgers. It's all how you prepare it.

Re:The Panther is hungry

[jcr]

Panther will be just a fond memory by the time Longhorn comes out.. There's enough time for two, maybe three major releases of the Mac OS by then.

-jcr

iPhoto performance?

[Otter]

The ugly: iPhoto performance with large photo libraries

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.

Re:iPhoto performance?

[gunnk]

I've run each iteration of OS X from 10.1 to 10.3 on multiple machines and have *never* had my dock crash. I have heard of it happening to people (especially in the early versions), but have never seen it first-hand. I'd suggest you look more closely at your system -- sounds like something is corrupt. A clean system install may fix your problem if you want to "take a hammer to it" as a fix.

Safari isn't perfect in standards-compliance, but it still does a great job overall. My only dissappointment with Safari is that I can't set site-based image blocking to make annoying animated ads go away.

You're right that Apple has had a couple of updates that could have used a little more work, but I expect Apple to put extra energy into that from here on out: Apple sells things that "just work", so their image is tarnished badly when they miss -- "just works" is a big selling point versus Microsoft. They'll give this extra review in the future.

Finally, the fast user switching is really nice if you share a machine (like I do at home). The ability to check my email without closing out the three documents my wife has open with unsaved changes is really nice. The "looks cool" rotation of the desktop was simply a nice touch -- the Quartz rendering engine makes the image manipulation fairly trivial, so why not?

Re:iPhoto performance?

[rocker_wannabe]

I have to agree that the biggest thing that the Ars Technica article missed was some very broken software from Apple. I personally lost a lot of files in my home directory, including the iTunes library, by turning on FileVault. Turning on FileVault locked up my eMac and forced me to power-cycle the computer.

Re:iPhoto performance?

[meta-monkey]

I thought there was only one "bad" upgrade. Was it 10.2.6? It got removed immediately and reverse-patched. It was bad, but it was only one incident, and it wasn't like it was terminal cancer or anything.

Re:iPhoto performance?

[Otter]

There were at least two updates that did some serious damage. Agreed, that still isn't terminal cancer (although someone here a few days ago was claiming that binary-only Nvidia drivers are "worse than slavery") but it's not acceptable for what Apple is supposed to be doing.

The good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great article.. But no matter what, I am happy with... My iPod ... My preeecioussssss...

Re:The good news!

[the Man in Black]

My iPod ... My preeecioussssss...

Give us that, love. It's me birthday...

Though I'll definitely be getting one when the mini iPods are out. 4GB firewire hard drive that fits in a pocket and has a built-in mp3 interface? For $100!?!?!? Yes, please!

Re:The good news!

[plj]

Give us that, love. It's me birthday...

By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair, you shall have neither my iPod nor me! That was appointed to me! That's my iPod! My own!

OK, who's turn next? ;-)

Re:The good news!

[mog]

I got my iPod a few weeks ago. Within a few days I realized that I would just sit and play and stare at it, thinking "my precious". I need therapy.

Re:The good news!

[GizmoToy]

I do the same thing to my new 12" PowerBook, so don't worry, you're not alone. There are others who need therapy.

Beatles-Apple lawsuit

[IgD]

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.

Re:Beatles-Apple lawsuit

[JudgeFurious]

Yes, half of them are dead. I think it's almost going to be a slam dunk that Paul dies before Ringo and then, because the world is a funny place, the last remaining Beatle will also be the least talented of the lot. Figures.

Apple Corp needs to be destroyed. It's a company that produces nothing and merely waits around for someone to do something that they can sue over. Completely worthless legal leeches.

Re:Beatles-Apple lawsuit

[mr_mischief]

So when do they merge with SCO and get a huge foreign investment to pump up the stock prices?

Re:Beatles-Apple lawsuit

[soft_guy]

going to be a slam dunk that Paul dies before Ringo

And you base this assertion on ???

Besides, isn't Pete Best still alive?

Re:Beatles-Apple lawsuit

[JudgeFurious]

I base this assertion on nothing more than the observation that the last guy standing always seems to be the one who did the least and tells the tallest tales. When it's all said and done Ringo will be alive, Paul will be dead (despite years of living healthy) and nobody will be around (at least nobody who was really one of the Beatles (Pete Best honestly counts for nothing) to contradict him. Our children will be reading his account of the day he woke up and the words to "Yesterday" popped into his head.

Apple has brought us to a new Era

[morelife]

Fire, The Wheel, The Industrial Age, Xanadu, The Information Age, and finally, in 2004, the Brushed Metal Age.

Re:Apple has brought us to a new Era

[GoofyBoy]

What about the Shiny Coloured Glass Age?

One missing adjective...

[One Louder]

This is probably the first year in decades where the press hasn't automatically prepended "beleaguered" in front of any mention of Apple. This is most likely thanks to the success of iPod and iTMS that the press simply couldn't ignore - Apple needs to totally dominate a market to be considered successful by the media, whereas other companies merely have to stay in business.

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.

Re:One missing adjective...

[soft_guy]

Give me a fucking break. They quit saying beliegered when the original iMac came out and the company announced a profit.

(Actually they were still saying it but they started saying it about Gateway and then Compaq and then Gateway again.)

Re:One missing adjective...

[jcr]

I beg to differ.. I was still seeing "beleaguered" and "troubled" Apple computer for at least two years after the iMac hit the streets.

-jcr

12" powerbook

[OmniVector]

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.

Re:12" powerbook

[geekoid]

the real test is if they are still your friends next year.

Re:12" powerbook

[ducomputergeek]

The 12" powerbook is on my rewards list from my company next year. I have an 18 month old iBook that I purchased during college. My business partner has one of the 12" powerbooks and its great with the superdrive et. al.

I am doing quite a bit of flying between our HQ and clients in Germany and Europe. Sometimes I've been known to steal his notebook for the trip. While I like the larger 14" iBook I have for daily use, when travelling, the 12.1 is lighter and fits on those tray tables quite well.

I keep seeing more and more business travellers with iBooks and powerbooks all the time and they all say two things: better battery life, and damn good laptop. Why hasn't everyone copied Apple's notebook designs?

Re:Panther : The worst OS X ever (NOT FLAMEBAIT)

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get an Athlon 64 system for $43?

OS X claims pretty good "internationalization"

[ianscot]

I've seen people using the OS to browse and do basic office stuff in Japanese, anyway, in OS X -- they were using what (scrounging on Apple's site) Apple seems to call the "advanced predictive input method for typing, which guesses which character you want based on context." Said it was handy.

OS X claims to support:

"localized versions of English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Brazilian and Portuguese

with broad support for:

many additional languages, including Thai, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Cherokee, Hawaiian, Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, Armenian, Russian and Greek"

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.

Re:OS X claims pretty good "internationalization"

[Naomi_the_butterfly]

as I said, it was pre 10.3 and, even if it supports all those, Israel and other countries that I've heard have problems are major parts of the computing world. For examply, Intel's first non-US chip factory was in Israel. Not that I love Israel (I'm just an American stuck here), but their computer per capita levels are HIGH (don't remember numbers) and their competency levels among 20-somethings is impressive (I know this teaching basic use and as a technician here.

15" AlBook display issues

[n0mad6]

As a recent purchaser of a 15" Al PowerBook, I have to say that the display issues with this model have been pretty ugly. While the "seriousness" of the problem may not be as bad as the logic board faliures on the iBook, the white spots have plagued many who bought these very long awaited and otherwise beautiful laptops. While it is nice that Apple acknowledges the issue, it's not so nice that many users waited weeks for their laptop to be repaired/replaced only to recieve a system that again develops these spots.

But, overall, Apple, great job in 2003!

Re:15" AlBook display issues

[AKnightCowboy]

As a recent purchaser of a 15" Al PowerBook, I have to say that the display issues with this model have been pretty ugly. While the "seriousness" of the problem may not be as bad as the logic board faliures on the iBook,

Hmm, so I guess I'm not the only one who had their 800MHz G3 iBook go tits up? "Well, it doesn't lock up as long as I don't touch the wristwrest here.. GOD DAMNIT". I really wanted to upgrade to a 15" Al Powerbook when they came out and give the iBook to the wife, but the problems with build quality, displays, and battery life on the Powerbooks have really put me off. Maybe I'll just save my money, keep using the iBook for another year and buy a G5 desktop instead.

Shouldn't that be "First Roast"... ;)

[ErnstKompressor]

or maybe "First Po-t(roast)"?...

It's definitely the price

[TheGrayArea]

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.

Re:It's definitely the price

[Nexum]

No No No.

Apple Machines are not more expensive

The above is a link to a recent set of comparisons. Yes, you can always get a cheaper PC than a Mac, but if you spec the machines to be as equal as possible the Mac is cheaper. And that is withouttaking into account the unquantifiable benefits of OS X, no viruses, very few security problems etc. etc. etc. etc.

Let is stop here, Macs are not more expensive, but they are generally higher specced than most of the bare bones crap you see advertised for so little.

Re:It's definitely the price

[soft_guy]

Unfortunately, with the $600 basic system - that's all you'll ever do. With a Mac, even a lower end Mac for just a little more money, you'll find yourself doing things with your computer that you hadn't anticipated.

Re:It's definitely the price

[alienw]

Sure, if you're willing to pay $5000 for a machine, maybe Apple is pretty competitive there. Most people out there buy something in the $1500 neighborhood (for a desktop) and there PCs clearly beat any of Apple's offerings.

Also, you have to look at how contrived the guy's examples are. He compares the desktop G5 to a server-class Intel Xeon. Obviously, the two are extremely different. The Xeon is an order of magnitude more expensive than a desktop processor. Comparing the G5 to an Athlon 64 or an Opteron would be more appropriate. Then, he goes on to compare a low-end Radeon 9600 to an Nvidia Quadro, a professional card! Then he goes on to bitch about how the soundcard sucks, and so on, when he could easily get a different one. It's more a comparison of Apple versus Dell. Which is not fair; the two serve completely different market segments.

Re:It's definitely the price

[jcr]

you have to look at how contrived the guy's examples are. He compares the desktop G5 to a server-class Intel Xeon. Obviously, the two are extremely different.

Would you prefer that he compare the G5 to a 32-bit machine?

-jcr

Re:It's definitely the price

[10Ghz]

Uh, Xeon IS 32bit CPU. Opteron/Athlon64 is 64bits. and the "bitness" of G5 is pretty irrelevant, since it's running on a 32bit OS.

Can they keep it up?

[mr_lithic]

Apple has been here before. The history of the Apple is one of dramatic rise and crushing fall. They seem to do this more than your average corporation. This is so common that the "Death of Apple" has been one of the most-overused bylines in the computing press.

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.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[Pendersempai]

The history of the Apple is one of dramatic rise and crushing fall. They seem to do this more than your average corporation.

Let's count. I remember one fall: the Gil Amelio days, before the age of iMac. And the rise happened right after when Jobs took over.

Is this your history of rise and fall? Am I forgetting some? You make Apple sound like a goddamn yo-yo dieter.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[Lars T.]

For crying out loud, will you people stop blaming Amelio for Apple's problems in the 90s?

And there was a huge drop after Apple reported the losses in Q3 (financial) of 2000.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[soft_guy]

Yes, you are forgetting several.

Rise: Apple II
Fall: Apple III

(Some doubted Apple could survive this flop.)

Rise: Apple IIe
Fall: Lisa

(I seem to recall the press having a field day with this one.)

Rise: Mac
Fall: Mac (sales stagnated after about 90 days.)
Massive bad times and predictions of Apple's demise: 1985 - 1987

Rise: Mac II
Good times!

Fall: Introduction of Windows 3.1
Massive predictions that it was the death of Apple.

Rise: PowerBooks introduced - Apple, a latecomer to the world of laptop computers takes it by storm and becomes #1 in portable computers

Fall: Lead up to and launch of Windows 95
Although Apple had its best year ever in 1995, the press started (continued) a drumbeat of noise about the Death of Apple.

1995 - 1997 Bad Times. After outsting Sculley, Apple's board struggles to find someone who can build Apple's marketshare - or else sell Apple to Sun or whoever. Eventually they succeed in sacrificing profits for Marketshare, bringing on a massive crisis.

1998 Steve Jobs returns, fires Apple's board, rebuilds company, correcting the massive mistake Apple made in 1985 by firing him and going with Sculley.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[mr_lithic]

Good one.

You remembered several I had forgotten.

Also included in that are the projects that were thrown away. One prime example is the Newton.

Isn't an iPaq and Palm just an advanced Newton?

All Mac Users know that if things had been different that they could have lived in an Apple world - and it would have been a better one.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[mr_lithic]

Rise: PowerBooks introduced - Apple, a latecomer to the world of laptop computers takes it by storm and becomes #1 in portable computers

You forgot the fall after the first powerbook. The first one was incredibly heavy and considered only for users who had to have a Mac machine with a portable screen. It was thought at that time by the Mac Media that Apple could never develop a reasonable portable machine. The next one proved them wrong.

Also there was the flaming Apple laptop, when they used the new batteries which tended to catch fire. It nearly killed the powerbook line.

Finally I just remembered the hardware licensing wars. This was when Power Computing and such started to produce Macintosh Hardware under license from Apple. Apple eventually pulled it back but the stranded purchasers of those machines and the companies left in the lurch were not happy. That was a critical time for Apple and Steve Jobs decision to retain hardware development and manufacture was the right one.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[soft_guy]

You forgot the fall after the first powerbook. The first one was incredibly heavy and considered only for users who had to have a Mac machine with a portable screen.

It wasn't a PowerBook. It was called the Mac Portable, there were two version of it and it pre-dated the PowerBook line.

Yeah, the Mac Portable sucked, and it certainly wasn't a high point for Apple, but I consider it to be more like the MacTV - an experimental model that didn't pan out and should have been killed before reaching customers.

Also there was the flaming Apple laptop, when they used the new batteries which tended to catch fire. It nearly killed the powerbook line.

Again, the problems with the batteries on the 5300 series were certainly bad for Apple, but no one I know who serious watches Apple ever thought it would mean that they would stop making PowerBooks.

Finally I just remembered the hardware licensing wars. This was when Power Computing and such started to produce Macintosh Hardware under license from Apple. Apple eventually pulled it back but the stranded purchasers of those machines and the companies left in the lurch were not happy.

I had a PowerComputing machine. It was great. I fail to see, though, how customers (like myself) were "left in the lurch". Apple purchased PowerComputing and supported the machines. If I still had the machine today (it was owned by my employer), it would be out of warranty, but I could still take it to an Apple Authorized Service Center have it repaired so long as I would pay the bill. I was perfectly happy with the Power Computing machine. I was also perfectly happy with the rev B. iMac I bought shortly after Power Computing was purchased by Apple.

Re:Can they keep it up?

[mr_lithic]

Yeah, the Mac Portable sucked, and it certainly wasn't a high point for Apple, but I consider it to be more like the MacTV - an experimental model that didn't pan out and should have been killed before reaching customers

It was also the first Mac Portable machine and was introduced when there were several reasonable Windows Laptops about. The lack of power, size of the screen and the weight had the Mac Press shrugging their shoulders in resignation, certain that Apple would not produce a credible laptop. They believe that this was due to the highly competitive marketplace of the Windows laptop, not being present for Apple. Of course, they had missed that it was Windows Laptops that Apple aimed at with their second attempt at a Portable computer.

Again, the problems with the batteries on the 5300 series were certainly bad for Apple

The 5300 was the only Powerbook available at the time and the product line was a bit thin. Several models had been tried and it was looking like Apple Powerbooks were running to the end of their evolutionary timeline. That changed with the next set of PowerBook models, but considering that the majority of Apple revenue at that time was from the PowerBook line, any threat to that set of products was another opportunity to call for the "death of Apple".

I fail to see, though, how customers (like myself) were "left in the lurch".

My comments were not about customers who were left in the lurch, rather it was the licensed ocmpanies that were alienated, or as Steve Kahng and Joel Kocher from PowerComputing stated the allegedly repeated attacks from the "hand that fed them".

But I also think that some customers did feel stranded by Apple. PowerComputing customers were maybe one the of the better treated license buyers. I know several Umax and Pios systems purchasers who only received support for the OS that was on the machine and then no support beyond that. Apple washed their hands of the people had had bought licensed products and it left several first-time Apple purchasers with a bad taste in their mouth.

More importantly, it was a critical time for Apple. They had assumed that they could produce Macintosh systems better than anyone and then suddenly PowerComputing was putting out higher performance machines than they were. They had lost the hardware edge and were unable to survive on operating system sales alone. They pulled the licenses and paid out millions to these companies. At the time the media were stating the "death of Apple" again due to the lack of competition for Apple Hardware. This again proved to be false.

It's nice to hear good (or mixed news)

[your_mother_sews_soc]

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.

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 /. 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.

An alternative to Longhorn...today

[Junks Jerzey]

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.

But lets look a few years down the road. The next update to Windows is a huge one. Microsoft is essentially switching to a .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.

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.

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[the_rev_matt]

I've been hearing the "PCs are cheaper" argument since the early 90's at least. One problem: It's never been true. Sure, you can buy a PC for less than you can buy a Mac. But you cannot buy a PC of *comparable quality* for significantly less.

After college I sold computers for a few months at Good Guys. The was when the pentium processor was first introduced. A decent IBM (actual IBM, not a cheap crappy clone) was about $1400. A comparable Performa was about $1600. But the Performa came with a nice monitor, which was worth about $200. Gee, same price after all. You could pick up a Packard Bell for 1100, but they were pure garbage and got returned as defective more often than not.

These days you can buy a low-end computer for as little as $200 from Wal-Mart. By this logic, no one should ever buy a Dell or Gateway, because they cost more than the Wal-Mart PC. It's cheaper for a reason. Try it yourself. Look at the specs for an iMac or eMac and then spec out a Dell or Gateway of comparable power and quality parts. I doubt you'll find a difference of more than a few tens of dollars.

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[ubertote]

You know you forgot the cost of the monitor, right? :D

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[TrancePhreak]

Except that Dell generally ships their computers already patched and up to date.

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[poot_rootbeer]

In fact, I did price out Macs and PCs of comparable power not too long ago -- my specs included some accessories like TV tuners and high end sound cards that don't normally come standard.

A headless dual-G4 (cheaper than the lowest-end G5 available) config would have cost me $1800. HP priced a comparabkle P4 package at $1300. I'm running XP instead of OSX as a result.

Perhaps for general purpose computing, the price rift is minimal. But if your needs differ at all from what Apple's hardware focus is on, the gap can open right back up.

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[Junks Jerzey]

I've been hearing the "PCs are cheaper" argument since the early 90's at least. One problem: It's never been true. Sure, you can buy a PC for less than you can buy a Mac. But you cannot buy a PC of *comparable quality* for significantly less.

In my experience this isn't true. Sure, the bottom end of the PC market is full of junk, but the "mid-range"--which these days is 85-95% of the supposed "high end"--is much more inexpensive than Apple's offerings. Look at the price of the lowest cost G5. Then go to Dell or abspc.com and put together a 2.8GHz P4 with the same amount of memory. If you ignore the goofy "gamer systems," you can put together a very nice system for under $1000 from ABS, and maybe $1100-1200 from Dell. You don't have to try very hard at all. The resultant PC will compare favorably to the G5 performance-wise.

Note that this is ignoring the latest and greatest video card, which is completely irrelevant to all but a handful of people. You get a "slow" GeForce FX standard, but you have to pay $250 or more to get a Radeon 9800. But for most people this is like arguing about one commercial airliner being faster than another: they're much faster than a car. But even if you go for the Radeon 9800, you'll still get more system for your buck than with a G5.

That said, my next computer will likely be a Mac.

Re:An alternative to Longhorn...today

[oconnorcjo]

I've been hearing the "PCs are cheaper" argument since the early 90's at least. One problem: It's never been true. Sure, you can buy a PC for less than you can buy a Mac. But you cannot buy a PC of *comparable quality* for significantly less.

My fastest computer is an Athlon XP 2000+ and my other one runs at 1 ghz with almost a gig of ram. I have not bought a new computer in four years (since 1999) and I don't ever intend to buy a new computer. In four years I have bought many CPU's, motherboard's, graphics cards, hard drives, monitors, cdroms and etc. I spend about 200-600 dollars a year on computer hardware and software but I never buy a new computer. The advantage of this is that it cost much less to have a great system that matches my needs. Apple might provide alot but much of what is provided may not be usefull to the user and what is REALLY needed might cost a fortune to add. I can easilly upgrade any component in my PC for far less than having to go out and buy a whole new system. When I build systems for friends and family, I usually put together a decent system for about 600 to a 1000 dollars (including a nice 17" LCD monitor) and I tell them "if there is anything you want to add to this system later, I will be more than happy to do it." I get VERY few calls for system upgrades because most people are happy with what I speced out for them in the first place, but if they need something better later, it is easilly done. Apple can't compete with this flexability or price.

I predict

[geekoid]

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.

Re:12" powerbook... and it's cooling

[plj]

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?

One iPod to rule them all?

[burgburgburg]

Forged in the firewire of Mount Doom

MacWorld 2004

[williwilli]

Didn't Apple die?

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!

the PowerPC market

[frankie]

real competition in the PowerPC market since the 90's. Genesi's Pegasos I and II along with Eyetechs AmigaONE

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.

not bad for a 'toy'...

[mojoNYC]

as an Apple user for over 20 years, it's been very satisfying to watch the worm turn...what used to be a 'toy' OS not suited for 'serious' computing tasks has evolved into something wonderful and very powerful indeed...

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!;>

Re:not bad for a 'toy'...

[TheRaven64]

as an Apple user for over 20 years, it's been very satisfying to watch the worm turn.

MSBlaster?

apple should get out of the PC business

[sbma44]

What does apple do best? Design. It specializes in excellent, intuitive software and superb design on its hardware. What doesn't it do well? Produce PC hardware that is a good value for the money. Okay, I know they subcontract this stuff out, and I anticipate plenty of flames about how fast apple's processors are. I admit this. The G5 is very nice.

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.

Re:apple should get out of the PC business

[presearch]

Although this has been beaten to death, let me take a quick whack once again.

x86 OS X makes little sense. PC people just want cheap compatibility with other
cheap Windows compatible people and workplaces.

Apple would sell less boxes if all they could compete on was design.
They would eat up any profit by attempting compatibility with the umpteen
billion PCI cards out there. Any profit that would be left would be eaten up by
dummies asking why the Windows game they bought doesn't work.

Slashdot would be full of comments on how you should just run Windows
instead of the emulation layer.

Current users of Mac stuff would have no end of fat binary grief.
All Mac developers would have to ship fat binaries and double
the support load in addition to the size of the distribution.

Things are fine they way they are for now. Let x86 die the quiet death it deserves.
And Windows with it.

Re:apple should get out of the PC business

[sbma44]

Things are fine they way they are for now. Let x86 die the quiet death it deserves. And Windows with it.

It's a lovely dream -- do you really see any signs that this is happening in the consumer space? The ipod's support for Windows has been a runaway success. Apple should make it possible for MS users to use more of their products. The switch campaign failed. It's too big a leap of faith to ask.

Nobody's saying apple needs to support every winmodem out there. They can just provide some "apple approved!" stickers to the PCI device makers with the biggest marketshare, and support those. Giving consumers choice is a good thing, but you don't have to let them use *everything*. Just stuff they can get at BestBuy, and that you're willing to write drivers for. If the strategy works you can adopt the MS model (hopefully with stricter QC) and let the vendors write the drivers.

The game market is lost for the foreseeable future. But the netapp market is huge -- there's finally an ease of OS use and critical mass of (somewhat) tech-savvy adults that you don't have to be able to play anything more complex than solitaire for people to buy your PC.

Re:apple should get out of the PC business

[JeffTL]

What you fail to understand is that well-designed, quality Apple hardware is at least half of the reason people buy Macs. I bought an iBook because all the other low-end affordable laptops look like junk in comparison, and frankly, before that day I'd never actually owned a Mac, or used one in a truly heavy manner. I heard that OS X was better than XP, and was a Unix so the command line would more or less feel like the Linux I know and love, but mainly I wanted a nice, small lightweight laptop with a good battery and a price tag fitting of its capabilities. As of today, Gateway doesn't even make 12" laptops (they made a $1600 or somesuch at the time) and neither does Dell or HP/CPQ. When you are moving around a university campus with a bunch of textbooks (that are, shall we say, lightweight in content alone if at all and plenty bulky), you don't want to also carry a 15" computer.

Re:apple should get out of the PC business

[tgd]

This is real simple, for the 10,000th time its been stated on here.

Apple writes an OS to put on its hardware. It makes its money on the hardware. There's no reason for it to run its OS on anything else, because its not in business to sell software.

Its identical to Apple selling music to get people to buy iPods. Apple isn't in business to sell music, they're business to sell hardware.

They always have, and very likely they always will.

Re:apple should get out of the PC business

[soft_guy]

What doesn't it do well? Produce PC hardware that is a good value for the money.

I call troll. Apple's hardware is a good value for the money and it pretty much always has been at least since I've been using Macintosh (since 1993 - prior to that I was using Atari).

The advice you are giving Apple is to commit suicide.

Don't believe me? It right out of the BeOS playbook. Microsoft can effectively kill any non-free OS competition at will by threatening the OEMs.

If Apple stopped designing and building hardware, or tried changing to an x86 chip at this point, that might kill them and would certainly be a very bad move. You can't go from being a multi-Billion dollar hardware company to being a multi-million dollar sofware company without massive losses of money and credibility. Ask IBM. Ask Be. Ask some Amiga users.

And the fact is, Apple doesn't need to do this. They only hope for Apple - long term - is to keep doing what they are doing. Keep quality up. Keep customers happy. Provide a user experience that is worth paying for. Capture the high end. Take sales away from companies like Silicon Graphics and Sun.

Change from 10.x to 10.3

[ianscot]

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:

Keyboard Viewer Palette
View keyboard layout and enter text with mouse clicks via system floating palette.

Unicode 4 Support
Take advantage of support for new languages as defined by the latest Unicode standard.

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.

Re:Change from 10.x to 10.3

[mooredav]

all the little perceived speed gains mean as much as Expose for me.

Do you really find Expose useful? I think it's easier just to click on the application icon in the dock, then look within the windows of that particular application (for example, by using the Window menu). Everything is where I expect it to be... not randomly placed into tiles.

Logic Board Failure

[mooredav]

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.

Re:Logic Board Failure

[AKnightCowboy]

Yes, indeed. My own iBook died 13 months after I purchased it -- just one month after the warranty expired.

Heh, mine died 11 months after I bought it so it was still under the original warranty. They really do NOT want to talk to you though unless you buy AppleCare and want to charge a per-call fee just to take your details. That kind of pisses me off. I ended up buying the $250 applecare warranty since I'll probably have the laptop at least 2 more years so it'll be worth having the protection in case the board dies again. So I guess the moral of the story is, buy the applecare warranty or you will get screwed when (not if) your Mac dies.

Re:Logic Board Failure

[Blakey Rat]

Considering that the cheapest replacement part for the iBook is *far* more than the $250 warranty, you'd be stupid to not get the warranty in the first place. I had to get the logic board in my iBook replaced, as well, but I didn't get mine back as quickly as the grandparent.

That's true of most, if not all, laptops and other small-but-expensive electronics, like iPods.

Re:Logic Board Failure

[alienw]

Except that very few laptops fail after 11 months. Apple should improve quality control or something.

Re:Logic Board Failure

[Lars T.]

Very few iBooks fail after 11 months, but don't let that get in your way.

Re:12" powerbook... and it's cooling

[OmniVector]

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).

Re:HOORAY FOR YOU!

[The Infamous Grimace]

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)

Re:who cares?

[presearch]

They just have more spare time, saved from having to continually reinstall an OS,
remove virii, or (oooooh!) rebuild the kernel.

Unseen pitfalls

[dynamicfigure]

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.

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.ti D1 aR7gq6B.1@.599b3149

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.

Re:Unseen pitfalls

[DharmaDog]

These problems do not effect everyone. They have had zero impact on me. I have had no problems with the OS since 10.0 on my dual 533. I am running 10.3.2 now and still have no problems. I did have 1 problem on my iBook 700. My user account got corrupted and I could not log in no matter what trick I tried. Had to format reinstall. But that is the only problem I've had across 2 Macs over almost 3 years since 10.0. I'd say that's pretty damn good actually.

I've had my latest XP box for only 8 months and have had to reinstall twice. I guess no one bitches about Windows anymore because it's just a given that it's a nightmare. ;)

Re:Unseen pitfalls

[afantee]

I have never ever had any problem with Apple Software Update with any of my 4 Macs since 10.0. However, one of my iBook had to be sent back for repairing due to the black screen problem.

Re:Unseen pitfalls

[MoneyT]

Ok, you're problem is, you're reading the tech support forums to find out how many people are affected by problems. That's like going to a doctors office to see how many people are sick. Of course everyone or mostly everyone at the tech forum is having a problem, but that doesn't mean that it's wide spread at alll. I know half a dozen mac users, no including myself, that have not once had any problems with their computer worse than the power adapter shorting. I read some of the posts in those tech forums and wonder to myself if these people chuck their computers against the wall to boot it up in the morning.

Noise Issues in the G5, from an engineering angle?

[Hollinger]

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.

Apple credited with everything

[WebCowboy]

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...

Re:Apple credited with everything

[BWJones]

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

Also, each Apple ][ came with complete schematics and diagrams showing the design. Talk about open source! I remember thinking how cool it was that I could simply build my own if I wanted or build cool light boxes driven by my computer or make a robot with my Apple ][ as the brains (the mind of a 12 year old at the time).

Re:Apple credited with everything

[phillymjs]

Macs may have been the first that could be bought with an integrated CDROM (I can't say either way)

I can. External SCSI CD drives were around for the Mac for a while (I can remember the first one was 1x, and how big a deal it was when the 2x models came out), but the Mac IIvx circa 1992 was the first personal computer to ship with an internal CD-ROM drive (in at least one of the 'stock' configurations, anyway). That's about the only truly notable thing about that computer, because it was a piece of crap. Within three or four months of its introduction, Apple also introduced the Centris 650, a machine that was much more capable and cheaper, pissing off many IIvx buyers.

~Philly

Its the Apps...

[C. Alan]

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

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.

Re:Its the Apps...

[adamfranco]

Don't forget, just about the whole of the world of OSS is now availible on a Mac. I just opened up Fink Commander and it shows 1136 apps ready for install. All Free, all just a (double) click away.

I'm currently running Gaim, Umbrello (a UML modeling tool), wget, mysql, cvs, xmms, tetex, and a host of other CLI and X based apps. So far it seems as if it runs in Linux, it'll run on a Mac. Plus, with the Mac you can use various specialized AV apps if that is your deal.

I've never looked for engineering apps, but if a *nix version was made, it would work on a mac, as well as various x86, sparc, etc workstations. This is a pretty huge advantage as the underlying architecture becomes less important if you have a unix-like environment and X. Heck, most of this stuff will run on Windows under Cygwin. For any app it could be One Source to rule them all, One Source to Free them, from the shadows of architecture dependence.

Re:Its the Apps...

[TrancePhreak]

And in the darkness GPL them.... or something...

Well, I had an Apple

[epsilon_alpha]

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?

I LAUGH

[epsilon_alpha]

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.

I find it very useful

[SuperKendall]

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...

Hard to deterimine how common problems are

[SuperKendall]

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!).

Re:Things about iTunes / iTMS that make me sad

[physicsnerd]

With regard to issues number 1 and 5 have you sent in a bug report to Apple about these? Apple's very good about fixing problems with their software quickly. But like all software developers they need user input to track down problems.

S100 video card: Cromemco

[maynard]

...but instead chose to a

about 3.5" drives...

[WebCowboy]

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.

Re:who cares?

[DharmaDog]

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.

yes... it was a very good year

[wheatking]

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.

Re:yes... it was a very good year

[MoneyT]

They are focusing on the overlap between computers and the consumer products, but here's a hint:

being able to control all parts on a basic level makes it easier to integrate.

Why do you think that OS X and mac systems work so flawlessly? Because Apple controlls the hardware and the software. That isnt' to say that others can't play, but they have basic control, which allows for a common system across all units.

The same applies to overlaping computers and consumer products. You need to be able to control both to give the best experience possible. You don't have to lock anyone out, but you do have to have control over your own implimentations.

S-100 graphics card: Cromemco Dazzler

[maynard]

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

Re:S-100 graphics card: Cromemco Dazzler

[scottgfx]

I used to use a Z-80 Based Cromemco that was used for television weather graphics. The turn-key system was sold by a company called ColorGraphics. I later used a MC68020 based Cromemco that ColorGraphics called the "ArtStar 3D Plus" Dual 32bit color frame buffers, 3D and 2D animation and paint. Oh, and it could also do weather graphics as a LiveLine-V. All this from 1987-88. ColorGraphics now exists as WeatherCentral. www.wxc.com

Ask any TV engineer about the ArtStar and you will hear the horror stories. I can't complain though, I learned a lot about 3D animation from it... I spent hours trying to smooth out motion paths with TBC controls, and you could never get it quite right.

You know you've had a good year when...

[phillymjs]

...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

Re:You know you've had a good year when...

[burns210]

Dell sells the Macs to the NYC schools because of the contract they hold. The deal is that all computers will be bought through Dell, however, if Dell cannot provide a computer the Schools want to buy(a Mac, for instance) then the contract is off. SO, Dell takes it's lumps, sells a few emacs and powermacs to the schools (+ a small % for profit) and happily sells the other 99% of the computers as Dell black box workstations like anything else...

Re:Noise Issues in the G5, from an engineering ang

[Blakey Rat]

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.

Excellent Asian language support

[amake]

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*).

Don't forget USB

[BandwidthHog]

It's an Intel technology, but its uptake was pathetic until the iMac brought it to the masses.

Re:Don't forget USB

[jcr]

The iMac had sort of a "crystalization" effect on USB. Before the iMac, getting USB devices to talk to your computer was a bit dicey, but after the iMac the question became: "Does it work on the iMac?", and the marginal devices that didn't quite meet the USB spec were quickly off the market.

-jcr

Re:Begin Troll

[DharmaDog]

Another enlightened mind.

Did Apple piss in your cereal this morning?

What's your take on AppleJacks? 'Cause they're pretty good.

Re:12" powerbook... and it's cooling

[plj]

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.

But the resale value is 4 X higher than PC's....

[Selecter]

Yes, Macs cost more. But I've not heard once the truth that Macs are at minimum able to hold their value around 4 times longer when it comes time to sell. I bought a new Quicksilver model 733 when intro'ed, didnt like it compared to my PC ( at the time, OS X was 10.1 and slow as cold honey dripping out of a jar) but I sold it on ebay combined with some software and games for exactly $125.00 less than I paid for it, after using it for 13 months!

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.

What is #4? (Auto-Tag)?

[SuperKendall]

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?

Re:What is #4? (Auto-Tag)?

[soft_guy]

Maybe he means lookup of the CD through CDDB? If so, maybe his firewall is blocking that port because this does work in iTunes.

Re:What is #4? (Auto-Tag)?

[SuperKendall]

I was wondering if that's what he meant but it seemed unlikley since that feature is so obvious, so claiming it did not exist was unlikley... I figured it was some other mysterious feature that was related.

Markets

[Llywelyn]

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.

RE: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[King_TJ]

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!)

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Me Too post....

[Jaysyn]

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

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[adamfranco]

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>

After 10 years, I still don't have an excuse

[Lemberg]

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

Re:After 10 years, I still don't have an excuse

[TrancePhreak]

Ninja Gaiden, DOA Online, Halo 2

Wireless Firewire

[afantee]

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!

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[soft_guy]

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.

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[adamfranco]

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.

Re:Mac OS X sucks MOD FLAMEBAIT IF YOU AGREE!

[Lars T.]

Bozo, you forgot Redundant.

Re:Looking back at Apple, Still Rotten

[soft_guy]

Microsoft can't (and doesn't)(and doesn't have a clue on how to) make a top selling router.

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[King_TJ]

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.

Re: on shareware

[King_TJ]

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

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This report removed from Apple forums

[embill]

Today I posted a portion of this report (the Laptop) section to the Apple forums as I am one of the many with a dead iBook. Specifically, the iBook (dual USB) display forum. I posted it this afternoon and was just informed by their forumbot that it was removed:

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?

Re:This report removed from Apple forums

[MoneyT]

I don't suppose it could have been removed because it could be construed as any of the following:

an advertisement
speculation on future decisions
not directly related to a technical support issue

After all, what did the Ars article say that hasn't been discussed as nauseum in any of the numerous discussions on it in the forum already?

PEOF physical end of file

[donsaklad]

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?...

AppleCare

[donsaklad]

Apparently when AppleCare runs out after 3 years it can not be extended or renewed.
Customer support is problematical for apple consumers.

Re:20 years of apple

[MoneyT]

Of course they also recovered from nearly filing chapter 11 and being a debt to turning a substancial profit in less than a year, improved price and performance, made USB into a real consumer product, created the first home user accesable UNIX based OS, helped advance countless technologies, fully complied to standards to the point of it being considered a security flaw (see the DHCP hole), increased all printer and network support (in fact, I don't recall them ever losing it), generated a real and succesful music service, built their own web browser that in it's first official release beat IE and many other browsers, established and implimented a working zero-conf system, introduced some of the best software in the creative industries, turned sucessful quarters during the tech market crash when all other companies were losing money, introduced one of the best selling and best designed portable music players and otherwise revolutionized and changed the computing industry for years to come.

The most amazing thing for Apple....

[bobalu]

... 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.

Re:Yeah I know this is offtopic but I gotta rant..

[MoneyT]

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

Are any of them 970-ready?

[caveat]

Wake me when they are...and when PPCs are available boxed, cheap.

Flamebait from hater

[SailfishMac]

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.

Re:Flamebait from hater

[L10N]

And not to be rude, I do not mean this way, but your post is an emotional reaction his flame. It doesn't do much more than toss some gas on the flame. Maybe my post is doing that too so I will shutup now. But remember, do not feed the animals. =)

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[jcr]

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

sigh

[Scudsucker]

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?

Complete with schematics

[SgtChaireBourne]

Also, each Apple ][ came with complete schematics and diagrams showing the design. Talk about open source!

Ah the nostalgia. That really was a great feature. Adding peripherals like stepping motors was possible. I made game paddles for myself and my friends and even hacked some joysticks originally designed for some other system. Some of them even added rapid fire to the buttons.

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.

Lock out

[SgtChaireBourne]

What examples of them being damaged by the "anticompetitive whims" of the "big guts" can you cite?

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.

Re:Lock out

[fyonn]

too many non-technical people (e.g. CTOs and CIOs)

you know, phrases like that are a worrying sign of modern business. does it strike anyone else as odd that a cheif *technical* officer should have no technical background?

I'm sorry but I've seen to many fuckup's by middle management in charge of high technical fields that know nothing of the field. and I think it's a big problem. I don;t expect managers in technical departments to know everything in detail, but having a good overview and some of the skills I would think ought to be a pre-requisite.

dave

Re:Lock out

[wkcole]

too many non-technical people (e.g. CTOs and CIOs)

you know, phrases like that are a worrying sign of modern business. does it strike anyone else as odd that a cheif *technical* officer should have no technical background?

Being 'non-technical' in 2003 and 'having no technical background' are rather different things. CIO/CTO jobs in older companies are likely to be filled with people who were technical stars of some IT department in the 80's. The relevance of that technical background to current technical issues varies, but it is useful for people toiling in the trenches (and for companies like Apple trying to retain headshare and regain a foothold in business environments) to remember that today's IT decisionmakers are more likely to think in terms if being a "$VENDORNAME shop" than they are to consider issues of interop at all, because interop anywhere above the lower network layers is still something of a novelty in large environments. Fortunately (for the folks in the trenches and for non-MS platform vendors) people who have some hands-on with *x systems as *x systems (i.e. Unix-ish systems working smoothly with each other) are starting to make it to the upper layers of IT management, replacing the retirees whose last technical experience was pre-PC.

Nonsense.

[jotaeleemeese]

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.

Less than I expected to, to tell the truth

[ianscot]

Expose would sure clean up my working experience -- W2k, ugh, ugh, ugh -- but to be honest I've never had that much trouble poking around on my home Macs.

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.

Re:Right on, bro (fellow DeeCee driver)

[MerlTurkin]

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.

Re: Ringo'll go before Paul

[graikor]

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.

Not the machine I was referring to...

[WebCowboy]

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.

Why I may finally get a Mac in 2004

[shantipole]

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.

Re: Apple "haters" are quickly changing course...

[kchayer]

I've been in the category of "Apple hater" for quite some 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.