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A Look Back at Apple's 2003
Samvit writes "The end of the year is upon us, so it's naturally time for those retrospectives to start coming in. Ars Technica has a fantastic look back at Apple in 2003. 2003 was one of the biggest years for Apple, arguably the biggest in a very long time. Still, Ars is typically fair, so the author lays down not only the good in 2003, but also the bad and the ugly. There's a bit of prognostication going on too--a little something for everyone."
Didn't Apple die? Wait, that was BSD...
I kid, of course..
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
This is also the first year that Apple has had some real competition in the PowerPC market since the 90's. Genesi's Pegasos I and II along with Eyetechs AmigaONE motherboards shipped in volume this past year, giving Apple something to directly threaten their position, even in a very remote manner.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Apple has not been completely succesful this year, but who can deny that it is the most ambitious computer maker? Apple constantly pushes the envelope forward with newer features (FW 800, bluetooth, 17 inch laptop), and the rest of the pack try to clone their offerings in a Windows world. When's the last time Apple had to copy a Dell or Gateway design to stay current?
I actually think next year will be even more interesting, as Apple pursues their music / video strategy. There's rumors of a Pro Tools killer on the way. Go Apple!
As I read through the article, I saw lots of ooh's and aah's over the cool toys and services they are offering, as well as the integration to certain systems. The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.
Ok, so they have all of this cool technology and neat services. So, now what? How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market? It's one thing to shore up the market you have, but when that market is relatively small, that leaves one to wonder how to expand. What do they intend to do about a limited market share? The article does not say that. iTunes might be making money for them now, but how will they keep it on top with new competitors emerging?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
I must say the biggest deal for Apple this year has been the advent of the G5 with significant help from IBM. Throughout the G4's life, I had been a supporter of Apple and in particular OS X because of the efficiencies that the OS provides. However, in raw number crunching power, the G4 simply did not scale in performance leaving me to do much of my hard core scientific computing on Intel or AMD hardware. However, now we have G5's, there is simply no comparison. I can now have the most efficient OS and the fastest CPU available in one platform. Apple needed the G5 and that I would say is the single biggest product Apple has come out with this year.
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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.
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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.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
That's their gripe on the software front? I'd say _THE_ single biggest screwup for 2003 was destructive software upgrades. The number one selling point for Apple is that things just work and you don't need to worry about them. Whatever they've been doing for QA on their upgrades, it needs to be massively revamped.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Great article.. But no matter what, I am happy with... My iPod ... My preeecioussssss...
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.
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!
Fire, The Wheel, The Industrial Age, Xanadu, The Information Age, and finally, in 2004, the Brushed Metal Age.
If there's any merging catch phrase this year, it's probably the use of "embattled" and "under siege" to describe Microsoft's ongoing war with Linux and security problems. You'll probably also begin to see the use of "oft-delayed" to describe Longhorn pretty soon.
OS X claims to support:
That would be the default install of 10.3. One of the intall disks for Panther is basically full of the international options; lots of users turn it off when they do the install, to save space on their hard drives.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
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.
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.
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.
It's an Intel technology, but its uptake was pathetic until the iMac brought it to the masses.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
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?"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
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!)