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Apple Confirms G5 Based iMac to Ship in September
evn writes "Apple Insider and Yahoo News are carrying stories about Apple's 3rd quarter report including confirmation of a G5 iMac during Apple's webcast conference call to discuss the filing: 'IBM's manufacturing problems have also impacted our next generation iMac. We normally don't talk about unannounced products but we feel you need to know about the current situation. The new iMac is based on the G5 processor. We could not secure the necessary supply of G5 processors to launch our new iMac on schedule: and as we indicated a few weeks ago, we now plan to announce and ship it in september.' Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04 and had the highest CPU shipments in three and a half years."
Apple pre-announcing a product, that is. Combine that with the Garfield movie, and I think we're only one very short step away from Armageddon... (but then, with such things as the Garfield movie, Armageddon can only be an improvement.)
This should clear up some of the speculation surrounding the new iMacs, and leave less people ticked off and whining about them announcing the release of them and then pushing it back.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
What Jobs didn't announce was that they had started a new initative called "iSoul" where for a small "fee" you can have a G5 imac.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Its amazing how shallow their profit margins are, even with the common perception that "Apple is price-gouging" and whatnot. But hey, kudos on the $2bn gross revenue!
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
Cooling issues are at the heart. For those who did not catch it, Apple unloaded on IBM today during the Q3 conference call for delays. IBM promises to have its wafer problems fixed by Q1.
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Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this mediocre?
Generally if a company is continually making profits, they can keep things up for oh... just about forever.
What makes you think this is a BAD thing for Apple?
I'd say for a pretty damn long time according to this line: Apple remains a debt-free company with $4.96 billion in cash.
Look what Apple comes out with on its resources. What does that say of other companies' R&D?
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
I just can't figure out what's causing Apple to be so damn candid about this shortage. In the past when things like were suspected (cough) G5 (cough) there wasn't a peep out of Cupertino.
What's causing this newfound openness?
Hopefully the new iMacs will be able to offer a less expensive alternative to the current models. I have been saving for a decent mac for some time (I'm a pc user, but want a mac for digital photography.) The inclusion of the monitor in traditional iMacs will drop the price considerably but how much is the question. Hopefully it won't be a long wait until the G5 laptops come out so I can get a mobile G5. Will the new G5 powered iMacs drive the price down on the current G5 models, or will they simply be a lower cost alternative? And what effect will this have? :-)
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
No matter what they do Apple can't seem to get a supplier who meets their needs. This Reminds me of the G4 roll out. They had hoped for so much but had to back-pedal due to motorola.
$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
What R&D exactly? Did it cost them $70M to make a bunch of cheap parts overseas, throw them in a black case, and slap DELL on it?
> That's a miniscule amount when you look at the profits of just
> about any other tech company. $61million in profits can
> barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
>
> Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this
> mediocre?
Well with nearly $5billion cash on hand, and making profits... that means they'll be down to $zero in...
no, you tell me. you do the math. $5billion plus a positive number, repeatedly, and tell me when you get to zero.
I wonder if Microsoft is regretting the choice of IBM to supply chips for the next XBox*?
;-)
Or maybe it's some machevellian plot whereby MS is paying IBM big $$ to stockpile chips for them, hence reducing Apple's supply?
Or am I totally off track and neXtBox chips are fabbed at a different plant?
*NB: There's no way I'm calling it XBox2, because MS are never going to have an *2 competing with a *3 (e.g. PS3).
gadgetophile.com
Dell has a minuscule R&D budget. Dell is pretty much an Intel Distributor and leaves Innovations to Intel
This is a good strategy for them but somewhat of a problem for the Industry as the competitors needs to follow this route to maintain market share.
The result is almost no innovation in the whole PC sector.
Help fight continental drift.
Just for reference, what were the profit numbers for Gateway, say in the last two or three years? Hint, look below the X axis of the chart...
$61 million is what Apple had left AFTER costs, which include all the R&D that they do. Whether it's 6 million or 600 million doesn't tell you how big the R&D budget was.
So July brought Apple 100,000,000 itunes song sales and September will bring new G5 iMacs, but according to this article, August will bring the first newly designed iPod, which will be similar to the Mini (scroll wheel with built in buttons?) but with the feature set of the non-mini iPods and capacities up to 60 GB.
As for September G5 iMacs, there was some blurb about them being able to hang on the wall. Apple's new 20", 23", and 30" displays can (see "Mounting Kit"). Wonder if this is a mixed up rumor or for real.
It would appear, as Apple's PowerMac line is all Dual G5, that some capacity has increased and it would follow that the iMac line will all be single processor.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
That said, what I'm really waiting for (along with half of Slashdot probably) is the G5 PowerBook. My old laptop (a 900mhz PIII) is starting to show it's age and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out. I'd be happy even if the processor was only 1.4 ghz, that would be more than fast enough for me. The other thing I'd like would be an integrated media slot (to take SD cards, maybe memory sticks, or CF) as many notebooks seem to have these days.
So my question to the great and knowledgeable (don't snicker) Slashdot masses is: when do you think we might see a G5 laptop from Apple?
Personally, my expectation is that it will be announced sometime around X-Mas (possibly January).
I think that with lower clockspeeds (and the improvements that may show up by then) it should be possible to put a G5 in a laptop. I would REALLY like one, but I'm not sure I can hold out that long. If not, I'll buy a G4. I'm not sure I can hold out untill this time next year.
So knowledgeable /.ers, what do you think would be the most likely timeframe for a G5 based laptop from Apple?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Which could be used by 2, or more, users.
There was a story here on Slashdot about how some poor areas in Africa were getting 4 headed PCs running some *nix variant. (4 monitors, 4 sets of keyboards and mice, 1 CPU/box)
If Apple could allow people to use their own monitors and produce a headless iMac that allows wireless keyboard and mice to hook up to it (yeah. I know it would need at least 2 video cards and not the onboard, built in type Apple's consumer line always seems to have) then that would be a great product. OSX would have to be able to handle this, if not now, why not?
Think about it, it would reduce the price of the computer for families. Maybe people couldn't play Doom 3 together...or....could they with a g5 and the right hardware? But hey, it would
be cool and even at plus 1000bucks it would be cheap for the end user.
Just a thought..
Just curious, what do you do with your computer that so that a dual g5 would be replacable for a dual opteron?
I'm pretty much OS agnostic myself, but when I have a specific task in mind I have a specific OS in mind. If what I do could be done with a PC instead of a Mac, I would do it on a PC. It would certainly be a lot cheaper.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
I was with you until you mentioned "eunuch"... :-)
I hope (fingers crossed) This. I doubt it though, Apple seems tied to including a monitor with thier consumer line :P
Linux is unix training wheels, while BSD *is* unix.
For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $61 million, or $.16 per diluted share. These results compare to a net profit of $19 million, or $.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $2.014 billion, up 30 percent from the year-ago quarter. Apple has done very well setting themselves up in several markets. First off, apple has the iPod, which brings in revenue, as well as iTunes, another device to bring in money. But Mac's best move was to jump into education, and art. Apple markets its products aggressively to schools, and from my experience with high school computer labs, as well as colleges in my area, most are Mac based. Apple has pushed "laptop schools" and has been the driving power behind them. Many universities are clustering powermacs to create low cost super computers.
The second market is art. When it comes to digital photography, the number one computer I hear reccomended is the iMac. Digital Photography is not a huge market but it is a growing one, combine that with Mac's iLife suite, iMovie and final cut pro.
iTunes, the iPod, marketing to education and towards the arts are in my opinion, a solid footing that despite "low earnings" will keep Mac around for some time.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
If by "other products", you mean the iPod mini or iTunes, sure, but otherwise, I'm just not sure about that. The iPod is a digital jukebox that ended up catering to Windows users for the sake of market dominance. Windows users who come to the ipod are not forced to unlearn old habits, or give up a selection of software for the sake of having a superior MP3/AAC player, but that's exactly what you have to do if you convert to Mac. Many of my Mac friends came from a broken Windows home, and migrated because of the simplicity and stability. Generally speaking, "stability" and "simplicity" or anything else like that aren't really big issues with things like MP3 players, since most MP3 players are created equal. Not Mac bashing at all, (very happy with my iMac
In any event, I'll have a new Mac to lust over for the next few months, which is just what I needed. After all, idle hands inadvertently install Windows ME, and you know how much God hates that.
"You and your third dimension."
Funny, I'm responding to this post on a four-year-old Mac which will probably stay in operation as a server until Ethernet becomes obsolete. What's this about throwing computers out?
Yeah, the Mac market doesn't work like the Wintel side of the fence. Thanks for trolling, though.
I'm wondering if there's any chance of seeing an iMac with a no-monitor option. Given the choice, for the money I pay, I'd rather not have an attached monitor. I already own a nice 17" LCD monitor.
Its nice to see them coming out with one for September. I have a P3 based system and, frankly, the new Intel and AMD lines, IMO are nothing to drool over unless you play games. Processors nowadays are so powerful that applications and the OS dictate what *you* want to do with the computer.
Windows doesn't have the versatility I would like in an OS and is too slow to come out with features. Linux -despite being fairly computer literate- is too hard for me to setup for desktop use. I'm really looking forward to see what price range Apple wants to price their iMacs at.
This from a maclover, so please don't kill me or something.
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"I was with you until you mentioned "eunuch"... :-)"
Wasn't OSX based on eunuchs?
"Derp de derp."
$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
This will probably give you Accounting 101 flash backs but your R&D is an EXPENSE which is subtracted from your Gross Revenues, along with all other expenses, which gets you net profits.
Repeat after me: Profits =/= R&D
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
If you're really in such a hurry, you could lift a finger to try to speed things up.
I just went to www.apple.com/store and clicked through the configurator for the 3 featured G5 configs. No changes, just Select->Continue->Continue from the store main page to get to the shopping cart where there's a ship time estimate.
The dual 1.8GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2.5GHz: 4-6 weeks.
Changing the configuration delays things a bit, but not much. I took the dual-2.0GHz G5 and maxed out the RAM, HD, and video card options, and now it says 7-10 business days.
It looks to me like only the dual 2.5GHz G5 is in short supply (not surprising since it's probably the one that IBM is having the hardest time making the CPU for, though that's just my speculation). The other models aren't. Cancel your order for a dual 2.5 and get a 1.8 or 2.0 dual G5 instead, and tweak the config to your heart's content. Or, if you really really need that 2.5, wait. If you're in a tearing hurry, you could probably walk into an Apple retail store and walk out with one the same day.
Alternatively, you could buy your G5 from MacWarehouse or Outpost.com. Some of them will add RAM and stuff for you; others might not. Outpost.com says they can ship the dual 1.8 and dual 2.0 same-day. CDW says they have dual-1.6 G5's also available same day. This is right on their search results page. I didn't even pick up the phone to find this out. I searched for "G5" on Outpost.com, and MacWarehouse had a link to the closeout 1.6GHz model on their home page.
Using C|Net shopper to find the best price on a dual 2.0GHz G5 shows a list of merchants in which every single one claims to have this model in stock now.
This took me about 10 minutes of surfing to find out. Maybe you should spend a few minutes yourself since it's your computer order?
Hrrm but the PS3 chip is a totally different concept - that 'Cell' thingy - isn't it? So it's probably designed and fabbed by a different team.
As far as I know, MS will be using a near-standard PowerPC chip in the XBox (like the original XBox chip was a standard x86 jobbie). Not sure if it's actually a G5, but it would make sense for it to be.
I imagine MS would ask for (as opposed to actually sell) an order of magnitute more volume from IBM than Apple uses. Question is, if IBM had trouble supplying Apple, how can they supply MS?
gadgetophile.com
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
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I hope they don't count a dual G5 as 2 "CPUs" in their sales report. Talk about a way to skew numbers. Technically it would count as 2 cpus, but it would be very easy for Apple if they had a bum quarter, to switch the units from "computers" to "cpus" so they could double the numbers on all their dual processor stuff.
"Its amazing how shallow their profit margins are, even with the common perception that "Apple is price-gouging" and whatnot."
I wonder if it's more a situation where Apple took a lot of one-time charges against a good fiscal period. Minimize taxes while simultaneously "expensing while the expensing's good".
Re: the common perception of "price gouging" (not yours of course), today yet again my Gateway wintel box crapped out. 4th time in 3.5 years. Hardware failure. The Dell next to it crapped out a few months earlier. 3rd time in 1.5 years. Meanwhile my 1999 PowerMac G4 and 1995 PowerMac 7600 have chugged along without a hitch to this day.
Those rock-bottom priced consumer PCs are no bargain at all. Good components cost $$$, and on average you get what you pay for.
And yes, I realize there are quality Intel/AMD boxes out there. They also cost a good bit more than your average Dell consumer bargain box.
Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04 and had the highest CPU shipments in three and a half years
That's a miniscule amount when you look at the profits of just about any other tech company. $61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
R&D costs are, well, costs. Profit is what you're left with after you've paid your costs. Like R&D.
According to AAPL's SEC filings, it spends about $120 million every 3 months on R&D (or about 480 million dollars per year).
Dell spent LESS than that, at $464 million for R&D, even though their turnover is 6 times Apple's, and their profit is $3 billion. Relative to Dell, Apple spends wild amounts of money on R&D.
Of course, all that pales in comparison with IBM's $5 billion R&D budget, but then, IBM is also in the business of researching things that Apple uses in its products, like the G5 processor for example (hard to miss that one, really..)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
You pay in terms of choice. No, you'll likely not see a monitor option. iMacs are all-in-one systems, and that seems to be what Apple wants.
What you REALLY want is a consumer desktop/small tower. I know many, many Mac users who have been asking for the same thing for a long time. Your choices with Apple are either an consumer level all-in-one, or a workstation level tower. Those are both fine, but I do know many like you that would like a lower end tower (smaller case, less CPU, no PCI-X, etc).
However, choice is one of the things you sacrafice going to Macs. Their philsophy since, well, as long as I can remember has been they design the whole system, hardware and software, and present the package to the consumer. Means a limited number of choices in packages.
I don't find it likely Apple will change their lineup or their bussiness strategy so no, you probably won't see a no monitor iMac. If the issue is price, not space, you might want to look at buying an old G4 tower, they still sell those. At this point, the enter at about the same pricepoint as the iMac, but with no monitor (better internals though).
Apple is spending on R&D obviously. They took in 2.01 billion $. They spent most of that on bussiness expenses (including R&D). and were left with 61 million. While not great, they didn't loose money.
When I was in research, IBM was spending 6 billion on R&D. But IBM is significantly larger than apple (and had some old apple employees on the payroll).
Dell and Gateway do very very little R&D. They're more business companies that package. There was an interesting article comparing HP / Dell in terms of RD.
Apple does a lot of interesting inovative stuff considering what they spend.
Where did all this snow come from?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
I was one of those PC biggots who has been kicking around getting a Mac for the past 6 months. Speaking with Mac savy friends, they recommended against getting any Mac product in its first generation.
According to the rumor rags, IBM just got a low power version of the G5 going 3-4 weeks ago. So, assuming that Apple can crank out a power book by years end, would you want to get a first generation product?
I thought about this, and figure it will be at least 12-18 months before there is a chance of a Powerbook that I would want to purchase.
I bit the bullet, and hit the Apple store. Picked up a 15" 1.5GHz powerbook, 5400RPM hard disk, 1GB RAM, 128MB video RAM.
Completely happy with it. Have not turned my PC back on since I copied my data files from it.
Moral to the story: If you want the computer, and have the cash, buy the thing. You will probably purchase a new machine in 18 months anyway.
The last Apple product that I used until recently was an Apple 2, and that was 20 years ago. Ever since 1983, I have been using PC's. Hard core. I hated the Mac.
Got an ipod in February. It's simplicity made sense, and I thought that PC devices should be more like it. In fact, my "pc sense" of "gee, new device, lemme get the new drivers before I use it" messed up my first installation.
I had been mulling over getting a Mac since that purchase, and finally bit the bullet and got it last weekend.
Essentially, my experience with an ipod encouraged me to look at the computer products in a new light, and I purchased one.
There are some things about the Mac that I am impressed with, and some things about it that make me shake my head in disgust.
Overall, I am happy with it.
I know at least 5 other hard core "PC biggots" in the same boat.
just like powermac has always been very expensive and headless
The G3 All-In-One basically became the iMac.
The 20th Anniversary Macintosh could also be thought of as a relative of the modern LCD-equipped iMac.
Others to look at would be the Performa/Power Mac 5000 series.
Apple's been making all-in-ones since long before the iMac. The first Macintosh systems were AiO models.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Wireless Monitor.
It will have bluetooth built in so it will sync with wireless mouse and keyboard, but the monitor will not be wired to the box. Monitor will also have a built in trackpad.
User input will be sent (via airport-like dingus) to the box, and video will be sent back to monitor in the same manner.
You'll be able to take the monitor (via built in handle) to your couch and surf wirelessly.
Monitor sets into the base station (box) to get charged and become a sharp looking desktop machine.
Monitor might be able to travel and connect to other macs wirelessly (eg: log into an wifi-equipped laptop).
Ok, that's my dream. Make it happen.
My father is a blogger.
No, it takes Billions to make a modern fab..
But more importantly it takes the expertise to come up with a cutting edge process.
It's not like Apple could have a fab built and just start running chips off.. like they were silk screening t-shirts or something.
I'm not feeling witty so bite me
What I also found really interesting was the fact they shipped 13000 Xserves (a quarterly record), in a time when they were dealing with IBM's 90 nm teething pains.
A good 40% of those Xserves were destined for clusters too.
$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
IANACPA, but I'd expect that a corporation would count R&D as an expense, and therefore someething that's deducted from revenue along with all the other expenses like payroll, raw materials, rent, equipment, taxes, beer bashes, corporate jet, marketing, legal expenses, warehouses, etc. Profit is what's left over after you subtract all those things from revenue.
According to it's annual report, Apple spent $471 million on R&D in 2003. I couldn't find any statement of R&D expenses in Dell's 2003 annual report, but I did learn that Dell had about $35 billion in revenue for that year. Fool.com tells us that Dell spends about 2% of sales on R&D, and if we agree that most of Dell's revenue comes from sales, we can guess that Dell probably spends around $700 million a year on R&D.
So yes, Apple's $61 million profit for the quarter wouldn't put much of a dent in Dell's R&D budget, but neither would it come even close to covering Apple's R&D.
Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this mediocre?
If they want to run the company like a Dell, not very long at all. But given that Apple is not Dell, and that people have been unsuccessfully predicting its demise since the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, I think they can keep it up for quite a while. And I hope they do, as Apple has been the most important innovator in the personal computer market for the last 28 years.
You realize that Jobs has gone on the record as saying that he expects Mac users to be on a 4-5 year refresh cycle, right?
Go play in the street, Timmy, and let the men talk about the big things that make your brain hurt.
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
Wonder at what? Staying in business for over 25 years?
GPL Deconstructed
There is no Mac article without post mentioning Macs are expensive. Sometimes, I gotta wonder if people only look at dollar amount only to decide if something expensive.
Is a $50K Lamborghini expensive? Certainly, it costs more than a KIA
Is a $20 fillet mignon expensive? After all you can get a T-Bone for much less
Is a $200 diamond expensive if you can get cubic zirconia for $100?
Isn't expensiveness relative to what you actually getting? It's shown over an over that Apple hardware can have a good price/performance/feature ratios. One just need to find comparable laptops or desktops to Powerbooks/iBooks or PM G5 to see the value. Okay, so they need to work on the iMac line. But one should not compare Macs to $200 piece of junk since Apple doesn't make low quality computers.
Isn't it funny how SFF machiens are back in style? Several Macs would be considered SFF these days. Hell, I just puled a Quadra 660AV from the curb and it's a lot more compact than most PCs today.
I'd love to strangle the idiot who came up with the idea that everyone wanted six PCI slots, especially since integration has been getting better and more pervasive for the last decade.
I consider myself a geek, but my box is only using two slots of six right now (AGP and 1 PCI). I was actually looking for a micro-atx (3 PCI slots) board but none were available with the chipset I sought.
It would be nice if Apple came out with an SFF system with standard ports, or an SFF system that could operate withthird-party monitors but also came with a kit to mount on the rear of their own displays.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Operating expenses:
Research and development
3 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $123,000,000
3 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $119,000,000
6 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $242,000,000
6 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $240,200,000
And last quarter's profit was $46 million with revenue for the quarter was $1.909 billion $4.6 billion in cash and no debt
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
Actually, Apple has been a serious alternative to Wintel for... well, longer than there's even been a "Wintel". Just ask the millions of people who have used Macs at homes, schools, and businesses for the last 21 years.
The demise of the Mac and Apple has been predicted pretty much like clockwork over all of those 21 years. No amount of good fiscal or technology news for Apple can seem to dislodge the legions of doomsayers who see Apple's immenent destruction.
Just because Apple does not dominate the personal computer operating system market does not mean that it is going to die. The PC market as a whole has grown, and the Mac is a solid niche platform with a very active developer base (which has been greatly stimulated by OS X and the excellent programming tools given to developers by Apple). The Mac is making a strong comeback in higher education, has extended its reach in professional creative markets, reached into supercomputing, and even made forays into the business world.
I doubt that the Mac is going to "disappear slowly into the night."
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
who actually owns the ppc arch designs?
Motorola and IBM own the PowerPC architechture. It was jointly developed. Apple did have some say in the design, but nothing significant.
Apple will never get into the chip design and manufactureing bussiness. It is well beyond their expertise. In much the same way that building a spaceship is beyond Apple's expertise.
Part of Apple's problems with the PowerPC and Motorola was because Apple was not a big enough customer. When the PowerPC workstation market failed to take off Motorola became more interested in the embedded processor PowerPC lines then workstation processors. Over a decade ago the theory was that IBM, Apple, and other companies would want to make workstations and servers with the PowerPC chip that Motorola would make. It was hoped that there would be enough smaller manufacturers and demand for the PowerPC to keep prices down. Of the three companies only Apple relied on the PowerPC. IBM was making workstations with both Intel, and PowerPC. Motorola had many other bussiness lines. When the other computer makers did not show up there wasn't enough demand for faster PowerPCs to keep Motorola interested. IBM made a number of machines based on the PowerPC but eventually lost interest when it was clear that WinNT 4.0 on Intel was going to win on the workstation.
It is easy to look back now and say that Apple made a mistake. But at the time the situation wasn't clear. Intel was having a hard time with what would become the Pentium. There was alot of doom and gloom that the i386 architecture could not scale. MS wasn't not yet entrenched on the desktop. MS had also said that their workstation/server OS, WinNT, would be ported to PowerPC, along with Alpha, MIPS, and Intel[1]. PowerPC really did look like the way of the future. It is a shame PowerPC didn't catch on. It is a great architechture.
[1] The Windows NT kernel is actually quite nice, and was designed with portability in mind. Windows NT 4.0 supported Alpha, PowerPC, MIPS and Intel. Alpha support survived to ServicePack 6. PowerPC and MIPS support was dropped earlier.
Probably not, considering that the G5 is based on the Power4 architecture.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Hello! The $61 million in net profit is what Apple has left AFTER expenses like R&D. Apple currently is spending about half a billion a year on R&D, and it STILL manages to be profitable. It would help if you actually understood a quarterly statement before spouting about profits.
Nice thoughts, here's how I see it:
1. There is a lot of goodwill towards them at the moment, however that's a hard thing to capitalize on. However getting more open source projects developed for OSX should help get a lot of people of the fence about switching. One of the main reasons people are afraid to switch is because they'd have to buy all their software again, if there are viable open source alternatives to most of them then that eliminates a major hurdle. That being said, OSX is already very open source friendly.
2. It's been frequently rumored that Apple has always maintained x86 code for OSX just in case. Remember, a big chunk of OSX was ported FROM x86 to begin with. But be careful how you throw that word "platform" around. It's possible that one day Apple might ship boxes containing x86 chips but they will certainly not be the same "platform" that is shipped by the likes of Dell, Gateway, etc. An Apple with x86 chips in it would still be an Apple. You wouldn't be able to install Windows on it and you wouldn't be able to install OSX on a Dell.
3. Keeping the iPod #1 is certainly one of the key things Apple must do to hold onto its mindshare, grow its marketshare, and remain as profitable as it has been recently. It doesn't look like the iPod will really become much of a PDA anytime soon. You're right in that phones are doing so. So how about making the iPod into a kind of PDA helper? Plug your phone in (or connect via bluetooth) and store thousands of addresses on it. Put the yellow pages on it. Snap pictures directly to it. Record ridiculously long movie clips and voice messages on it. I see phones getting more and better functionality in the way of cameras and so on but storage space is still a bit of a drawback. Or am I way off?
4. I'm not really sure what you're suggesting here but take a look back at what each new version of OSX has brought to the table in the last three years and then look at what's coming in 10.4 and I'm sure you'll notice that they're not just sitting around twittling their thumbs. I think you're suggesting that they should work more on their OS and software than on their consumer electronics offerings (iPod). I think it's clear that they are fully capable of doing both. Anyway, doesn't your 4 contradict your 3? And what porting are you talking about exactly?