Some iPod Fans Dump PCs For Macs

dereklam writes "The popularity of the iPod could be boosting Macs' popularity as well. News.com reports that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey." I wish the linked story had more details; it's not clear from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.

Comments

Still a small margin

[Trigun]

Personally, I choose my peripherals based on my OS/Hardware, not the other way around.

Re:Still a small margin

[InternationalCow]

Well, if the peripheral is cool enough, the OS/hardware may not be that important. Ease of use and coolness factor count for a lot in the choice of gadget, you know. I do know for myself that the iApps (mostly iTunes these days, Picasa is quite good) are keeping me on the Mac. Although I wonder if the opposite happens: people who "defect" to Windows because iTunes/iPod also work with Windows and you can buy a hell of a lot more hardware four your dollar/euro in Intel/AMD land than in Applistan (example in point: my powerbook costs 3500 euro. I can buy a fully decked out Hypersonic EX7 for that amount of cash....). Anyone??

Re:Still a small margin

[newrisejohn]

That's because you're a geek, and not representative of the general consumer.

Re:Still a small margin

[slash-tard]

I get the point but a lot of peripherals work better on a Mac. The iPod syncs better, importing and editing video is easier, and if you want to use iPhoto its a lot smoother than anything Ive seen on a PC. On top of this bluetooth and iSync.

The x86 PC has more options and cheaper options but I would rather have something work better than it be a few bucks cheaper and be a hassle in the long run.

Re:Still a small margin

[misleb]

Sure, but what if you weren't already familiar with Apple products and thought the iPod was cool enough to investigate further?

-matthew

Re:Still a small margin

[Mik3D]

That is why you will never be in the "main stream". Most people choose the tools that allow them to do the task they want... be that graphics design, web surfing, or listining to music.

I fear the Slashdot crowd is more inclined to choose tasks based on the tools they want to use, the oposite of the "main stream".

Re:Still a small margin

[cbiagini]

You're missing the point.

The iPod is just bringing Apple into the public eye; the computers are selling themselves.

Re:Still a small margin

[bombadillo]

Personally, I choose my peripherals based on my OS/Hardware, not the other way around.

Most people choose Wintel because of games/software. A peripheral such as an Ipod is really a part of usability like software. Only the geek choose a platform based soley on OS/hardware.

Re:Still a small margin

[Fulcrum of Evil]

you can buy a hell of a lot more hardware four your dollar/euro in Intel/AMD land

For $2500, you can get a very nice G5 PowerMac running OSX. You can pay less for a Dell (corporate versions only, please), but the G5 will likely last longer, and the OS will be less screwed up after 2 years. Hardware has gotten to a point where good enough is comparatively cheap, but software is still a large differentiator - my next computer will be a G5.

Re:Still a small margin

[Gleef]

I think it's less a choice to go to a mac because they have an iPod, but more the whole iPod thing gets them going into the Apple Store, or the Apple Website.

While they're there, they notice the other nifty things (like computers), and get pleasantly surprised by the price and/or cool factor and/or features. And then they think about switching.

Personally I'm happy running my Linux on my frankenstein's monsters, but having been in an Apple Store I can see the appeal.

Re:Still a small margin

[ccharles]

I had a friend who bought a car because it had a 6-CD changer. Don't underestimate the idiocy of the masses...

Re:Still a small margin

[nospmiS remoH]

I'd say most people choose to buy a computer. In general, people have tasks they want to do such as email, internet, word processing, etc. They will get the least expensive solution to get these things done. The cheapest solutions are Wintel, so that is what they get without having the slightest clue what "Wintel" means.

Re:Still a small margin

[Gyorg_Lavode]

for $2500 I'm having a rack-mount 1TB SATA RAID5 linux server built for home use.
For $1300 I can build a top of the line gaming machine. (I guess I could spend $2500 and get Alienware or Dell stamped on it.)

Re:Still a small margin

[hendridm]

Personally, I choose my peripherals based on my OS/Hardware, not the other way around.

Hard to say. I think it has more to do with brand recognition than the desire to buy a computer that more "natively" supports your iPod. Because their purchase of the iPod has increased their brand recognition of Apple and also made them think, "Hey, this Apple company makes some cool stuff. If their computers are half as cool as this, it's sure to be pretty swell."

It doesn't really matter what OS/hardware the average person uses to surf the 'net and check e-mail. The user interface and experience may be more useful to these people, something that Apple is good at.

Re:Still a small margin

[Trigun]

No, he bought a $30,000 dollar cd changer that came with a free car.

Re:Still a small margin

[iamacat]

So? You chose a top-of-the line professional model. Current Intel 17' notebooks are also >2K (PowerBook is $2700 in US). Otherwise you can "make do" with an $1300 14' iBook. Actually my friend is looking for an Intel notebook with comparible price and features. Here is what he wants:

• Reasonable weight. No 8 pound monsters, please
  
• 3D graphics, TV output
  
• Built in wireless and CD burner
  
• 5 or more hours battery life without swapping
  
• Pleasent, big keys on the keyboard
  
• No sharp edges or breakable components on the outside when folded
  
• A sturdy case in some color other than black or "Windows XP Space theme". Please no Dell black plastic"
  

So where is the superior, cheap Intel hardware?

Re:Still a small margin

[ZorinLynx]

Don't be so sure he's an idiot... When you can't decide among several choices, because they're all good cars, sometimes little things like a 6-disc CD changer or XM radio can be the hair that balances the scale toward a particular model.

I know if I drove two cars with similar handling, price, and appealing appearence, the presence of something like an in-dash MP3 player or GPS navigation system would seal the choice. }:)

-Z

Re:Still a small margin

[colin_n]

I used to buy peripherals based on os/hardware. However, I bought an iPod for my commute into NYC last summer. As a result of my positive experience, I purchased a powerbook last november, an iPod Mini for my girlfriend last February, Airport Express a couple of months ago, and I advised my Mom to get the iMac G5 about a month ago (which she loves by the way better than her previous PC running winxp).
So lets see... after spending 500 bucks for an iPod, Apple has received a further $3500+ purely because I liked their little white music player. Case in point. I dont know how many others

Re:Still a small margin

[Fulcrum of Evil]

for $2500 I'm having a rack-mount 1TB SATA RAID5 linux server built for home use. For $1300 I can build a top of the line gaming machine. (I guess I could spend $2500 and get Alienware or Dell stamped on it.)

Whereas I will spend $1300ish on a 1U rack server and $2500 on a 15" powerbook or a dual 1.8G/2GB G5 powermac. All hail the cheesegrater.

Re:Still a small margin

[Frizzle Fry]

There is no "general consumer". There are millions of people and they are all different. I know that you like to think that the world consists of identical sheep and everyone here is different and unique and brillant, and that all marketing is aimed only at the rest of the world. But that's not the case. You're saying that he is not representative of the target market, but there is someone else who is? Who? I would guess that the typical slashdotter is a white male in the 16-35 age range with disposable income that he spends on technology (or maybe he gets family members to spend theirs for him). This isn't the general consumer they are aiming at? So would a high school dropout single black mother be the general consumer here? Is my grandfather the general consumer they are targetting? A guy on a rural farm with no internet access? Or is it, maybe, the geeks like us who are spending our time on a page with ads for tech companies discussing advertisingish "news" about cool trendy consumer products like the iPod and G5 laptops?

Re:Still a small margin

[hey!]

Well, why there is probably less to this than meets the eye, there is probably more to it than you suggest.

It isn't about choosing your computer to suit your peripherals -- you can use an iPod with a Windows box. I think it's more like this. Maybe you had a flash based player before. Clunky, inelgant, with a totally brain damaged idea of what "style" entails. You get an iPod, and realize that it is everything your old player ought to have been: convenient, elegant and sleek.

Then one day while you are listening to your iPod and working on your probably popup infested computer, you have two epiphanies.

Epiphany 1: Windows is clunky and inelegant and ugly.

Epiphany 2: Apple makes computers.

Re:Still a small margin

[XnetZERO]

Personally I'm happy running my Linux on my frankenstein's monsters

Hey! You know the difference between Frankenstein and his creature. Most people confuse them as the same thing! Give this man some karma!

Re:Still a small margin

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I hope most of the Slashdot crowd is able to do all the task they choose on any given tool. So we will most likely choose the most powerful, cheapest, politically correct or whatever for the job.

Re:Still a small margin

[robertjw]

For $2500, you can get a very nice G5 PowerMac running OSX. You can pay less for a Dell (corporate versions only, please), but the G5 will likely last longer, and the OS will be less screwed up after 2 years.

Are you kidding? I can buy a brand new Dell for $499 (not a corporate version, but who cares)with a 15" flat screen. Sure, it's not as fast or as good as the G5, but I can buy a new one every year for the next 5. Don't tell me you will use that G5 longer than that, and I'll have the latest tech every two years.

If I'm standard home user, that's a great option - comes with Win XP Home which is good enough. If I'm more of a Geek (and I am) I run Linux and my OS is NOT screwed up every two years.

I totally appreciate what Apple does, the quality of their machines, the stability of their OS but to say that a PowerMac is a viable option because it's only $2500 isn't very realistic. Even if I did have $2500 to drop on my next machine I would much rather have 3 or 4 x86 boxes than one G5.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind that the G5 weighs a ton (it is the heaviest machine I've ever lifted, outside of a 4U rackmount server with 8 hard drives), has room for 1 optical drive and 2 hard drives, comes with a 64 mb video card and has no dual-channel DDR. For the same price I could build a kickass single CPU AMD FX-55 (I believe just one of those would heavily challenge the 2 ghz dual g5) with dual-channel DDR, a kickass 128 mb high end gaming video card, multiple times the storage, and the weight of the machine wouldn't break my back (probably 1/10 lighter). I might even have money left over for a 17" DVI LCD. Then I'd load up linux or FreeBSD and I'm good to go.

Re:Still a small margin

[Mik3D]

True, the slashdot crowd often have the imagination and technical skill required to create a solution using the tools they choose, or have on hand.

My point was that this drive to roll your own solution and the skill to implement that solution is not in the "main stream". Buying the tool that will allow one to accomplish a task with the least ammount of effort, time, or bother is.

Re:Still a small margin

[rwiseman63]

The cheap "Intel" hardware is found at AMD. Check out the latest eMachines notebooks. They are decent machines for around $1300-$1400.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fronkensteen

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we put to rest the "Apples last longer" lie? There is way to much evidence out there to suggest it is just not true. Even if Apple hardware did last a little longer, does it matter when they both last until they are obsolete?

Re:Still a small margin

[Jozer99]

I hate to tell these 6% of people, but I did this, and it was a mistake. Apple purposely made the Windows version of the iPod driver and iTunes slow and buggy. I had to reinstall XP twice to get the iPod to work (for you *nix people waiting to troll, that is 2 more times than usual for hardware). I have to say I am disapointed with the Apple Hardware and software. The hardware is expensive for what you get (G4 eMacs are slow compaired to a PC of the same price), and Mac OS X freezes so much more than XP. There are so many obvious problem that make you wonder about the "supior engineering of Apple Products". For instance, those snow white keyboards that look so cool when you take them out of the box. For those of you who have seen snow, you know how it looks after it has sat for a couple of days. The white keyboard is like that now. Beige and black hides the dirt so much better. Also, putting the power button on the back of the machine?!? Mr. Jobs, we like to turn our computers on and off too, just like PC people. Also, guess what, the iPod does not work that much better on the Mac! Half the time it does not mount. I have already sent one iPod back to Apple. People, buy a Creative Zen and a mirror, and forget the nice white and stainless steel finish of the iPod.

Re:Still a small margin

[The Infamous Grimace]

...I can buy a new one every year for the next 5. Don't tell me you will use that G5 longer than that...

I use a 6-yr old G3 PowerBook daily. Runs 10.3.6. Not the quickest, but works fine for writing code and browsing. Same goes for the 5-yr old iMac.

and I'll have the latest tech every two years.

The $499-after-rebate Dell desktop runs a 2.8 GHz P4. Fast, but by no means the 'latest technology'.

(tig)

Re:Still a small margin

[packslash]

Don't get me wrong I'm writing this proudly from a G5. But Not many ppl get pleasantly surprised when they see apple's prices.

Re:Still a small margin

[Deviant]

I recently had the good fortune to catch a deal on a Dell Inspiron 8600. There was this amazing near 50% off deal Dell ran for a day or two where a laptop costing at least $1500 you could get for as low as $750 (check out http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041019-4330 .html for details).

So, for about $1000 I got a 1.7Ghz Pentium M Dothan with 512 MB ram, a DVD burner, a 15" wide aspect screen, bluetooth, 802.11g, 40 gig HD (upgraded it to a Hitachi 60GB 7200RPM), a second battery that can be swapped out for the DVD burner, a ATI Radeon 9600 w/128M and a 3 year warranty. This laptop and the Pentium M amazed me, with the two batteries I get over 6 hours battery life under normal usage. It even can run all of the latest games better than most new desktops.

Everything about this compares favorably to a $3000 PowerBook, if not exceeding it - especially in CPU performance, and it was 1/3 the price and 3 times the warrenty. It may have not been the case a year or two ago but Intel really closed the gap with the Pentium M/Centrino and battery life and form factor are now more than comparable with Apple at lower prices and better options.

I do own an 20GB iPod, by the way, and I love it. I have no desire to by a Mac, though, so this iPod to Mac conversion doesn't hold true in my case at least.

Re:Still a small margin

[mrchaotica]

I guess I could spend $2500 and get Alienware or Dell stamped on it.

And that's exactly why the "Macs are overpriced because I can build my own box cheaper" doesn't hold water. When you buy a name-brand computer, you get all the guarantees, service, and convenience that go with it. Is it worth the extra cost? Maybe, maybe not. But as a person who has both built my own computer and bought a Mac, I believe it most definitely is. Of course, my Mac is a laptop -- if I were considering a Mac desktop (and I am, but not for a while) it might be less worth it (but still worth it).

Oh, and I don't mean to say that all name brands are worth it, and I wouldn't even consider a Dell or Alienware, but between the unique stuff Apple offers (OS X, for one) and their excellent support (e.g. fixing my iBook with a ~5 day turnaround with free overnight shipping, including shipping me the box to pack it in), Macs are absolutely worth their price.

Re:Still a small margin

[Randy Wang]

Likewise, I'm using a 5-year old iMac as my primary machine, running 10.3.6. It's little slow, but it's not like I expect any more of it.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur with you, but I bet most OS X users do. But this PoV is not very popular with the /. crowd simply because these crowd like to tinker with their hard/softwares. So for most /. people, x86 is the way to go: It's cheaper, it has more options, and you get to open up the case and tinker with them as you will.

That is why most of the time, the cost argument of buying Apple vs. assembling own PCs doesn't hold water here. Time to assemble does not translate monetarily because it's more like a hobby, not part of a labor cost.

Re:Still a small margin

[Omega1045]

I think you have a good point. I think think I would have ever set foot into the local Apple store if it hadn't been to look for a case and a power cable for my new iPod that I bought elsewhere.

Re:Still a small margin

[spacepimp]

elegant and sleek.
are these the criteria that make a computer good?
buy a computer not an image. if paddingyour self esteem by buyingoverpriced devices, makes you feel better about yourself, then do yourself a favor an realize that is your shortcoming. i for one, dont need an ipod to feel sleek and elegant. stop posing and bringing the world to the lowest common denominator.

get past your ego.

Re:Still a small margin

[ytsejam-ppc]

As a recent switcher, I'm disappointed the slashdot moderation system only goes to 5. Parent is dead on.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

You got a deal, that isn't common practice.

The CPU performance is not going to vary much compared to the 1.5 G4 the powerbook has. The powerbook has a 9700 which will easily outclass your 9600. The powerbooks also come with better highend connectivity such as gigE, FW800 and DVI. All the rest of the stuff you mentioned is easily matched by the powerbook.

For $2850 (US retail) you can get a powerbook with
1.5GHz G4
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
Radeon 9700 Video Card
DVD Burner
15 Inch Widescreen
Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g, Bluetooth, FW800, USB2, DVI
3 Year Warranty with tech support that can actually speak english and knows their systems and routes to fix things other than "format and reload"

The dell is about the same price with those options other than the better graphics card, DVI, gigE, FW800 and the software such as garageband that just isn't available from them.

Time to stop being a fanboi and just compare apples to apples (small pun intended).

Re:Still a small margin

[Synbiosis]

Actually deals are extremely common if you're shopping for a laptop. If you don't buy one under a deal, you just fail at laptop shopping.

Re:Still a small margin

[d34thm0nk3y]

A sturdy case in some color other than black or "Windows XP Space theme". Please no Dell black plastic"

wow, the fact that the color of the case is even in that list means he probably should go with a mac. Give me the specs first, if the thing is THAT ugly i will get a can of spray paint at the hardware store!

Re:Still a small margin

[waynelorentz]

Comparing eMachines to Apple is like comparing a Cavalier to a Jaguar. Both do the job. One is built better, works better, and does does the job with style.

Re:Still a small margin

[MightyYar]

Personally, I choose my peripherals based on my OS/Hardware, not the other way around.

If you think about it, that's probably not entirely true. Many people really like the Mac/Linux/OS2/BeOS/etc. platforms, but are dissuaded in the end because of a lack of good drivers or software. Your choice of OS was almost certainly either thrust upon you, or a conscious choice based on several other factors, probably including available hardware.

Re:Still a small margin

[FiveRings]

a lot of peripherals work better on a Mac. The iPod syncs better, importing and editing video is easier, and if you want to use iPhoto its a lot smoother than anything Ive seen on a PC. On top of this bluetooth and iSync.

Wouldn't that be because 90% of peripherals for Macs are put out by Apple? You essentially have "Apple code" throughout so compatability isn't much of an issue. If you want an "AirPort" you're not going to get one from Linksys or DLink or Belkin, you're getting it from Apple at the Apple Store. You're sacrificing variety and options for compatability.

Re:Still a small margin

[hey!]

elegant and sleek.
are these the criteria that make a computer good?

Dude, you are talking to a man who in twenty years never failed to lose the case of his computer, at least until I switched to laptops.

That said, you should come down off your high horse. Good design is better than bad design. And poseurs in my experience tend to gravitate towards the latter (SUVs like the Hummer being a case in point -- a more perfect match of ugliness, stupidity and appeal to insecurity has never graced the road).

Good design is more than skin deep: it complements, and in some cases even enhances functionality. My family always drove Buicks when I grew up, and they always had overwrought (bad) instrument panels. I remember my mom muttering as she struggled to set the temperature with a ridiculous thumb wheel control that required something like ten turns to go from one extreme to another so that it could drive a stupid bar graph indicator gadget.

Why pretty much epitomizes bad design: slap some chrome or some gimmick on as an afterthought in order to make a statement.

By contrast, the instrument panel in my accord is almost zen like in its simplicity. It is logical, well laid out, and doesn't have anything that is unnecessary. But it manages to be elegant and is a pleasure to use.

Which epitomizes good design: logic, efficiency, organization and a concern for the user.

Re:Still a small margin

[arminw]

...buy a brand new Dell for $499...

I'd much rather buy two $1300 G5 iMacs built into a 17" flat display in a little over two years than the rock bottom, stripped down Dell for which you give no model number or other info. Also,buying four bottom of the barrel Dells does in no way even come close to one $2000 dual processor G5 tower.

Also, you know enough about computer to be able to not have to suffer with Windows and are able to deal with Linux. However, I suspect you aunt or grandma would not make it through a typical Linux install and be able to e-mail you about their success. They'd likely get stuck somewhere in the process of getting their cheap Dell running and in their frustration call you for help.

Re:Still a small margin

[superpulpsicle]

Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.

I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last point is a purely Apple materialist thing. Stick with an Apple if you're going to be a lackie.

Re:Still a small margin

[PsychoSid]

If you could run the Macromedia/Adobe, and maybe even Apple Motion, Final Cut etc on Linux then Apple would probably be up shit creek. Until then the status quo (Windows, Linux, OSX etc (is maintained.

Re:Still a small margin

[Toraz Chryx]

"and has no dual-channel DDR. "

You were headed towards a point until you got to that..

All PowerMac G5's have dual channel DDR400 (except for the 1.6Ghz Rev A's which have dual channel DDR333)

Re:Still a small margin

[geoffspear]

Umm, no. Apple has never made a DV camera, digital camera, or bluetooth cellphone. They haven't made a printer in years. They don't make a mouse that any serious user is going to use, and they don't make a tablet for the more artistic users. They don't come CLOSE to making 90% of the peripherals. But the ones made by other people tend to just work when you plug them in.

Re:Still a small margin

[Piranhaa]

I agree. I purchased an iPod a year ago now, and an iBook a few months back. The iPod never influenced my decision at all to buy the iBook. I always like trying new hardware and operating systems. In my posession, I have i386/P4(a few), sparc64, and macppc ... It's nice having various platforms to fool around on and try!

Re:Still a small margin

[geoffspear]

Not many people are pleasantly surprised by Porsche's prices, either.

Some people are willing to pay more for what the perceive to be a better product. Others will point out that a Ford Focus is cheaper and can go as fast as you can legally drive anyway, and thus conclude that Porsche will be going out of business any day now.

Re:Still a small margin

[robvs68]

"Most people choose the tools that allow them to do the task they want... be that graphics design, web surfing, or listining to music."

No. Most people (buying a home computer) buy winTel out of ignorance, fear, or lemming mentality, not because they've determined that it is the best tool for the job. (Yes, there are plenty of "smart" people that buy winTel because they like it - don't get your panties in a twist)

People who buy out of ignorance just don't know any better and are not interested/too lazy to look at other options. People who buy out of fear, do so because they are afraid of change and just want to stick with what is familiar to them. And the lemmings, of course, buy winTel because "if that's what everyone is buying, it must be the superior product."

Most typical home computer tasks are handled as well or better on a Mac (web, email, word processing, digital photography, digital video). The only common "task" that a winTel may handle better is games, but only because of availablity of certain games, not useability.

Re:Still a small margin

[geoffspear]

Wash your freakin' hands once in a while and your keyboard won't be so dirty.

Re:Still a small margin

[hawaiian717]

I just checked the eMachines site. eMachines Athlon 64 notebooks look like a great deal. But they weigh 7.5 lbs. A friend of mine has one, and I noticed it was much heavier than my 4.9 lb iBook.

Re:Still a small margin

[robertjw]

However, I suspect you aunt or grandma would not make it through a typical Linux install and be able to e-mail you about their success. They'd likely get stuck somewhere in the process of getting their cheap Dell running and in their frustration call you for help.

Good point, but my aunt, grandma, mother any other relatively untechnical friend or relative would balk at paying $2500, or even $1300 for a computer. Most people I know at that level are using 5 year old PCs - and it's painful, but they won't spend any money to upgrade when they are just sending some email.

Re:Still a small margin

[iamacat]

Well, this thing will appear in various prominent spots of your house/appartment for several years. Do you really want an eyesore?

Besides, if I am paying $3K for something, I expect I can get it in any color/design/material that pleases me. Handcrafted leather case is only like $200 and electrolytic gold cover can not be that much :-)

Re:Still a small margin

[packslash]

Right and I was willing to pay more for what I consider a superior product. Still I was refuting his statement that people are pleasantly surprised by apples pricing? clearly they are not what is your point?

Re:Still a small margin

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.

I'm getting to the point that I'm happy to play games on a PS2 or Xbox. The Mac is for software development - I can't really see loading a box with 2GB just to play a game. The positive side to all this is that that monster box (no, not really) will last for more than 5 years.

Re:Still a small margin

[iamacat]

All right, you got an ugly 7 pound notebook which is probably slower than an iBook (1.33Ghz G4) and has a more expensive retail price. The second battery probably either has to be swapped or goes into DVD slot, adds weight beyond 7lbs and has an unreasonable charge time.

If it does everything you need, good for you. But Apple notebooks are still competitive in many cases, especially if you get a 50% off deal :-) I just wish x86 notebook makers stopped being so lazy and feeled these gaps as well.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

What OSX are you using? I have Panther (10.3) and have not had a crash in the whole time I have had my computer, more the six months now. Secondly, the reason the power botton is put on the back is you do not have to turn off UNIX based macs nearly as often as PCs. Put them to sleep, this uses little power and allows them to respond quicker. Finally, I have used ipods and I found them ridiculously easy to use.

Re:Still a small margin

[waynelorentz]

Sorry. Not everyone lives in their mom's basements. Some of us live in the real world.

Your argument is invalid because all of its points have been refuted successfully in this thread and elsewhere on Slashdot, the internet, and the real world.

Apple managed to make a computer that is both elegant and good at its task. Get over it.

There are people in this world with more money than you, and the right to spend it the way they want. Get over it.

Apple's products are not overpriced. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, it's simply not true. Get over it.

Some people have different product requirements than you do. Get over it.

In summary: Get over yourself.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

> Everything about this compares favorably to a $3000 PowerBook

While the system you got for $1k is a great deal, I wouldn't say that compares to a $3k Apple. The 15" PowerBook is $1999 list

> with the two batteries I get over 6 hours

With my single battery in my iBook, I get over 4 hours! Do I get a prize. ;)

Re:Still a small margin

[Deviant]

If you with a straight face can say that a 1.7Ghz Pentium M Dothan (Which is the speed eqivilant of about an AMD Athlon 64 2800+ or Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz - see link below) is slower than a 1.33 Ghz G4 then it shows then I don't think we even can have an intelligent conversation because you, sir, are a zealot. Not to mention your iBook's RAM is only 266Mgz vs the 333Mgz stuff in the Inspiron. You can argue Apple on aesthetics but, with the possible exception of the dual-proc G5 tower, you certainly can't on performance and raw power - especially with their notebooks.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=212 9

Re:Still a small margin

[Cmdr-Absurd]

$499 will never buy you the "latest tech." It will buy you shared memory for graphics, a 'fast enough' chipset, and maybe a bargain basement 15" lcd. you can buy an emac for $1000 if you want last year's tech (that you define as the latest) You can even get an iBook for $1000. And it would come with a dedicated graphics card that doesn't share system RAM. If you really want to get a Dell comparable to a dual G5 tower, you need to look into the Precision Workstation line. And I think you will find that you will spend more $$ up front for a Dual processor intel box in that case.

Re:Still a small margin

[pilgrim23]

You have point set game and match there bub.... 35 years in IT. Experience with Mainframe, Min-computers, PCs Macs, Other (C=64, Apple II, every S-100 beast built, etc etc). 15 Years in PC support. Familiar with almost every operating system from CP/M through many Linux distros, every Win and all MacOS. Long long time PC user. Current OS of choice? Mac OS X 10.3.6 because it is just......better. If it can impress an old dog like me, it must turn younger heads fairly well..

Re:Still a small margin

[waynelorentz]

For instance, those snow white keyboards that look so cool when you take them out of the box. For those of you who have seen snow, you know how it looks after it has sat for a couple of days. The white keyboard is like that now. Beige and black hides the dirt so much better.

Fortunately, the rest of the world has better hygene habits than the average Slashdotter.
For instance, my wife has been using her snow keyboard for over a year and it is still perfectly white. You might try washing more often.

Re:Still a small margin

[Don Negro]

The Quicktake was a digital camera made by Apple, though it was discontinued a long time ago.

Re:Still a small margin

[mrchaotica]

Not many ppl get pleasantly surprised when they see apple's prices.

I was, but then again, I bought an iBook.

Re:Still a small margin

[Mik3D]

No. Most people (buying a home computer) buy winTel out of ignorance, fear, or lemming mentality, not because they've determined that it is the best tool for the job. (Yes, there are plenty of "smart" people that buy winTel because they like it - don't get your panties in a twist)

Right, but those computer shopers weren't really buying a computer to do a certain job. They were buying a computer because they thought they needed a computer.

What I was saying is that "main stream" iPod owners bought a tool (iPod) do do a job (listen to music) and they are now discovering that another job(managing music collections) is easier with a new tool (Mac).

-btw Mac owner since LC520... System 7 Baby!

Re:Still a small margin

[tonejava]

I would recommend you give a mac a try. I got mine also for development purposes and haven't looked back since (12" PowerBook). Again linux is a cheaper alternative but keeping the Mac up to date is much simpler.

Re:Still a small margin

[geoffspear]

Ok, add digital camera and PDA to the peripherals Apple used to make, but hasn't in a very long time.

Doesn't take away from the point that they don't make most of the peripherals people use with Macs, or how well they work out of the box.

I can plug in my HP photosmart without installing any drivers and iPhoto can deal with it just fine. Using the Apple camera with my mac would require, well... a SCSI port for one thing. I'm guessing iPhoto wouldn't know what to do with it even then.

Re:Still a small margin

[elemental23]

Also, putting the power button on the back of the machine?!? Mr. Jobs, we like to turn our computers on and off too, just like PC people.

Apple menu -> shut down

That was easy.

Re:Still a small margin

[mgv]

Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.

I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.

This is an interesting turnaround. Because if you feel that way about an iPod, and a lot of people do, then you suddenly realise that in one area having an apple computer will be better. In fact, the area which apple excels in (no pun intended) is the iLife series. I have a friend who bought a powerbook solely for iMovie/iDVD, and others for GarageBand.

What it says is - as a PC user, if you like this stuff, you will always be on the back foot getting this stuff. Sure, it will come to the PC eventually (as the iPod did), but it will still be a second rate port. The best example of this at the moment is the iPod photo, and how they had to mangle in the photo support into iTunes for the PC users. But it still won't be as good as iPhoto.

And the likely hood that Apple will drop their platform and become a PC software vendor? Close to zero - they are a hardware company.

So, if you like using technology for most multimedia stuff, which includes music players such as the iPod (or airport express for the home music center) your choice is this:

Get a mac, or become a late adopter as stuff filters through to the PC. Sure, you will get games and business software first on a PC. But if you like playing music more, the most popular music player is the iPod (based on sales), and that will drive you to buying an apple computer first.

I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.

Michael

Re:Still a small margin

[elemental23]

Keep in mind that the adjective elegant can also be used to describe software.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

No, probably just richer than you (for good reason, no doubt), so have the choice.

Re:Still a small margin

[TheLittleJetson]

eMachines is the Mercedes-Benz of computers.

Re:Still a small margin

[Don Negro]

Damn, I wish I had a quicktake, just to see what iPhoto would do with it.

I just have this ridiculous store of Apple trivia, and like to bust it out occasionally.

But you're basic point is well taken, I've never been happier with Apple's OS team than when I plugged a smart card into a USB smart card reader connected to a machine running 10.0.2, and the card mounted as a disk image without my having to touch the keyboard or the mouse.

Apple had the 'It just works' philosophy a long time before they had the 'It Just Works' technology. If there's one thing that Steve Jobs brought to Apple other than NeXTStep, it was a zero-tolerance policy for crap. Good intentions counted for a lot more under the old management.

Re:Still a small margin

[qqaz]

more like some people are willing to pay more for what they perceive to be a cuter product

am i rite

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

I own both an eMachines AMD64 notebook and 1.5Ghz G4 Powerbook.

The eMachines notebook is very powerful, but heavy at 7.5lbs. It averaged about 2.5-3hrs of battery life. I lugged it around for a semester at college, but now I use it as a DTR only. It includes 54mbps wireless, plenty of usb ports, an excellent screen, firewire, etc.

At first I was concerned about reliablity from an eMachines product, but I've been pretty happy with the purchase thus far. Although, I have yet to take full advantage of the AMD64. XP64 is still in beta and not all drivers are available. 64bit linux kernels have become stable, but there are equal driver issues. For now, I have a dual boot with XP Pro and Mandrake 10.1 both 32bit.

I bought a new 15" Powerbook using Apple's Student ADC program ($2k) about 4-5 months after buying the eMachines notebook. I also bought an IPod as an accessory with it, or was it the otherway around :).

The Powerbook is much thinner and lighter. Its looks about 10x sleeker than the eMachines (thought the eMachines notebook does have some neat blue leds). It gets about 3 - 3.5hrs of battery life.

The Powerbooks power saving and management features are far superior. It can be put to sleep within a second and equally wake up just as fast. When you close the screen, it goes instantly to sleep. In the short time it takes to flip open the cover, it will be back on and your application are just as you left them. Although this is possible on a PC, it takes signicantly more time and has a hand full of compatibilty issues that may prevent it from working at all. Apple did an excellent job engineering their hardware and operating system to get the optimum performance. Its also pretty efficient in sleep mode. I've had my powerbook sleeping for a couple days, and when I woke it up, it was still at 99% charge.

Some other neat feature Powerbook include the back lit keyboard, built in mic, firewire 400/800, and bluetooth. It also has a sensor to detect ambient light. During low light situations, the screen will dim and the keyboard will light up automatically.

I primarly bought the Powerbook to play with OSX, and I've been extremely impressed with it. Its very stable, and I've rebooted only when forced to for software updates (uptimes usually span weeks). The UI in general just seems more refined. The dock and finder are just capable if not more than XP taskbar or KDE/Gnome eqivalents. I particularly like Expose (an extremely easy way to switch between open tasks). It also has a unix backend. You can open up a terminal and many familiar tools from *nix are available. Its also easy to develop crossplatform code for other unix like systems, which is something I've used for some of my computer science classes

After buying my Powerbook, I've definetely become a believer in Apple products and OS X. Though, I still wouldn't be able to make a complete switch. There are still many things you can still only do on a PC. For example, certain games are only developed for the PC. Though, there seems to be more and more games being released for both. Theres also some application that only work on PC. However, this is less of an issue since Microsoft has released Virtual PC for Mac. But what I'd probably miss the most is plethora of options/peripherals available and the resulting prices in the PC market.

I think you can defintely find better deals in the PC market because of the competition there. The 50% off Dell notebooks is a perfect example. You pay a premium for the Powerbook and Apple hardware in general, but I think its worth it. But if you're just looking for a notebook or computer that gets the job done, you can probably find PC that does it for less.

Re:Still a small margin

[geoffspear]

And some people will type in all lowercase and spell things in a way they think is cuter.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

In a number of real life comparisons, at the dell store where I work, I've done some things on a 1.6ghz 8600, such as converting a DVD into a DiVx movie, and done them also on my 1ghz ibook. I have 256mb of ram, the 8600 has 512mb, and my ibook was done in 5.5 hours, the 8600 took more than 6. When you compare optimized software to optimized software, those high end intel chips aren't any better than the G4.

Re:Still a small margin

[soft_guy]

I have a QuickTake 200 which is the last one they made. It does not work well at all with iPhoto. It required special software to access it - software that ran on the old MacOS, not Mac OS X. The proprietary cable that you use to plug in the quicktake also plugs into Macintosh serial port - a port not available on any Mac built since 1997.

The QuickTake 200 could take maybe 30 or so pictures before running out of space on its memory card. The memory cards it uses are similar in form factor to smart media cards, but they were a different voltage. So, the upshot is that it takes a special memory card that was very expensive to buy at the time and are hard to find now. You could preview the pictures and delete bad ones, though.

The other two problems with the QuickTake: it requires four high energy lithium AA batteries in order to operate it. These batteries (at least used to) cost about $25 and lasted long enough to take maybe 50 pictures. The last problem wiht it I will mention is that the pictures the QuickTake tends to take are blurry unless you are taking pictures of something that is not moving. Most of the pictures of my child I tried to take with it ended up being blurry because she was too young (then) to understand the need to stand still for the camera.

I'm not trying to rip on the QuickTake. It was a good camera for its time. I believe that the QuickTake was one of the first consumer level digital still cameras available. For certain applications (real estate agents) it was a god send.

That said, there was a point in time - around 1999/2000 when the cost and convienience of digital photography surpassed film cameras. Today, I have a Cannon digital Elf camera and a 128MB CF card. I can easily take >100 pictures at a time before having to import them into iPhoto. The camera has a nice optical zoom and a flash (the QuickTake had neither) and produces pictures that look as good as film pictures (to my untrained eye.) I can easily import my pictures into iPhoto directly from the camera (you can't do that with the QuickTake). My current camera is my "nicest camera so far" that I have owned. My QuickTake - even back in 1995 - was not.

Re:Still a small margin

[qqaz]

whoa nice observation there dudeman

Re:Still a small margin

[AddressException]

Well, now that we're getting bitchy.... you sir are an idiot. What the hell is Mgz?

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, if we can put to bed the "Windows PCs are cheaper" lie.

Re:Still a small margin

[NeoBeans]

elegant and sleek. are these the criteria that make a computer good?

Have you looked at any of the themes for Mozilla, Windows XP, Gnome, or KDE?

A PC may come in a bland beige case, but every user interface (or "touch point") for the customer has progressively become more elegant and sleek, though not necessarily more user-friendly.

Re:Still a small margin

[NeoBeans]

. If you want an "AirPort" you're not going to get one from Linksys or DLink or Belkin, you're getting it from Apple at the Apple Store.

I've been running a D-Link DI-624 for over a year with an AirPort equipped Powerbook G4. I don't think I lack a variety of options. :-)

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being that Windows PCs are cheaper. If this is confusing you, I suggest you take a second-grade math course.

Re:Still a small margin

[TrancePhreak]

Epiphany 3: That touch scroll really really sucks.

Epiphany 4: Because of this, Apple must suck too.

Epihpany 5: All the previous Epiphanies are probably not true.

Re:Still a small margin

[LikelyStory]

That's just entirely wrong. Linksys, DLink, etc are 100% compatible with Apples, no problem. No need to buy AirPort whatsoever. Of course you can if you like. Other peripherals not made by Apple, that work very well, include scanners, printers, cameras (still & digital), external Firewire drives, etc etc... and, last but not least, three button mice!. ----------- If you want an "AirPort" you're not going to get one from Linksys or DLink or Belkin, you're getting it from Apple at the Apple Store. You're sacrificing variety and options for compatability.

Re:Still a small margin

[NeedleSurfer]

I switched to a PC to play more games in a better way, I sadly believed the people telling me there weren't any significant difference between Mac and PCs as far as plug and play, stability and speed was concerned nowadays.

A little hint to all those saying this like parrots: it's not true, at all. Pcs crash a lot more, fail more often, cost more for the same power (SAME, not number wise but real-life wise) are constantly being attacked (my anti-virus keep finding stuff about every day, adaware doesn't even remove all of the spyware I get...) and need protection software constantly monitoring the computer for malware, which in turn seriously slow it down and interfere with your normal operations (and YES I use firefox before some fuckin Linux asshole point his wisdom to me). The OS is still clunky as hell, you still have to press start to stop the OS and the interface is built around the concept that you want to work with the computer not on your creations.

In short I deeply regret my switch, I play games on my PC but have switched back to my old iBook dualUSB 500MHz for everything else, this little fellow let me do more stuf in a much more stable way than my 3.4GHz 1GB ram monster PC which cost me 4230$Canadian, monitor included.

Re:Still a small margin

[Agent__Smith]

While I understand that you choose your peripherals based on your hardware, and not the other way around, in my case there was more that played into the decision than mere hardware. In May of this year I purchased my first Apple product ever... a brand new silver iPod MINI. I liked the size and relatively large capacity. I found it to be very intuitive and extremely convenient. Then the unthinkable happened... The little touch scroll wheel stopped functioning. This was less than a month after I had received the item. This also happened to be on a Saturday, so there was no one to call to get this resolved.

I logged into the Apple site and proceeded to fill out the little trouble ticket online. I received an email within 5 minutes, telling me to expect an empty box to ship the unit back in, within 5 business days, and that a new unit would be sent my way within a week of them receiving my broken one.

Monday morning, 8am, DHL shows up at my door with a box. I opened it planning to box my defective unit, and much to my surprise was a brand new unit still sealed. I was without an iPod for less than 48 hours, and reported the problem on a weekend. They never asked for a credit card to secure shipping the new unit first, or anything else. They just shipped it out, and minimized my inconvenience. At that point I decided to take a serious look at the Apple computers.

I am now the proud owner of a G4 Powerbook running Panther. It is the most intuitive and best designed computer I have ever owned! Judging from what I have seen around, it will probably have 2X the useable life that my last ThinkPad had. I have seen on many of the message boards, people with an Apple machine 3 generations old still able to run the newest OSs and software. Maybe slower, but it works! Try running XP on a 3 year old lap top and see how far you get!

For me it was the exceptional customer service that tipped the scales enough for me to take a serious look at the Mac. I can assure you that it would take a lot for me to consider switching back. My MAC experience has been all positive, and I couldn't be happier. Coincidentally, I have also recently acquired a second iPod, a 20 GIG this time, which I use largely as a back up drive. I would think that the type of experience I had would make a loyal customer out of just about anyone. I certainly cannot think of another customer service experience with any company of any type, which has been this positive for me.

Re:Still a small margin

[DownloadTHIS]

I'm still using my 5 year old iMac too. As a doorstop.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea me too! Works, but whoever designed the DLink GUI needs to be shot.

Re:Still a small margin

[FrYGuY101]

Considering my experiences with Jaguar, I think you just either insulted Mac or complemented the Cavalier...

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the problems with the American culture; they're willing and able to spend $300+ for a device that does nothing more than play music and it's apparently worth it because it's "elegant and sleek". OOOHHH AAHHH. Looks like the Michael Jordan shoe line concept has taken effect once again. What a freakin' joke. I just spent $198 grocery shopping to feed my entire family guest list of 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. My personal opinion is that tomorrow will bring better memories for me and my family for 2/3 the price than an iPod could ever give me for the rest of my life. Achh, but what the hell do I know.

Re:Still a small margin

[TruePaige]

When you purchase an Alienware computer, it surely isn't a different price bracket than Apple is in, but you also get features from Alienware that could never be imagined at a copycat line like the Dell XPS series. For example, Alienware currently offers the only PCI-E laptop, with a 6800 To Go chipset, running at 256 MB. You pay for what you get.

Re:Still a small margin

[iamacat]

Nice benchmark method:

"In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser."

I would bet anything Apple users would bit Windows ones by far by having a more pleasent/intuitive UI, better written productivity apps, Applescripts to automate repetitive tasks in documents and lack of viruses to scan for. But what does have to do with processor performance? I don't see how these tasks would be CPU bound for either 3.2GHz P4 or 1.33Ghz G4.

If you look at DivX benchmarks, the fastest Pentium M lags behind the fastest P4 by about 20%. This is to be expected - if Intel could make a faster processor all around, they would just dump P4 and put M on desktops and servers. It's more likely that P4 has unacceptable power usage at full speed and notebooks shut it down for a while or run it at reduced speed, letting it ekk out 3 hours on one battery charge but making performance really bad. While Pentium M still only lasts 3 hours on one battery, but at least runs at it's natural speed.

How do you know iBooks have exactly the same power problems? 5-6 hours on one charge that they get might suggest the opposite. If both G4 and Pentium M are allowed to run at full speed, and G4 is more efficient in terms of instructions/program (more registers!) and clocks/instruction, are you sure your notebook is still faster?

Re:Still a small margin

[toddestan]

It's only because of the crazy amounts of money that Macs fetch on the used market. You can actually sell a 5 year old Macintosh to someone. A five year old PC is about at the point where you might be able to give it away if you find someone who is willing take it. It really has nothing to do with how long the hardware itself works, or what ancient hulk you can install the latest OS on.

Re:Still a small margin

[zerman]

I cannot think of a time in the past...where there was a specific category of software where apple was better
I can. Graphics design.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

The 50% deals aren't common. Please read the article before posting moronic comments.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

i would like to share my experience as well.

i originally purchased an ibook because i was in need of a new computer for school, i was seriously considering a dell but ultimately bought an apple for several reasons. i liked the look of the OS and the hardware itself, i know it sounds superficial, but i was sick of looking at home grown gray boxes. also when i compared actual features, i found apple gave me more of what i want at the same price range. i was skeptical because i had never used, or really heard much about them before, and because my game collection was now useless, but i was so sick of windows instability (even using comparably more stable 2K pro) so i bought one. i loved the thing out of the box, but what won me over was the first week at school. i watched my new friends machines slow to a crawl under a barrage of virus floating in the lan, i remember going to the schools tech support office with some friends (after i failed to fix their brand new laptops, mostly shut off ports due to viruses, something that needs to be fixed on their end) and saw dozens of pc users cradling their sick PCs, but not a single mac user, i brought mine along to test the wireless card, and when one of the tech people saw it, they came and made sure that i was not having a problem with it, because they said, they never see a mac in for service. infect the only other macs i saw were in the offices themeless. for weeks i laughed at people telling me about their PC problems, thinking of my experience, i was up and running on the lan in about 10 secs, some went 2 weeks with out internet. since then i have appreciated my mac more and more. it has never let me down, has uptimes of weeks, and the only time i have ever seen it crash was with OS9 apps. everything is bugger them macs, and some of my friends are amazed how fast my bottom of the line mac outperforms their mainstream laptops of 2K or more, and even some of the higher end systems (especially with XP and SP2). i now work for the schools tech support team, and i bring my mac with me to fix poor PCs, and most people who have not experienced one before always are so amazed by it (although i see the mac users numbers are growing substantially). after letting them play around with it, and seeing how often they have had problems with their PCs many now plan on a mac as their next computer. compatibility is much better now, and stability is so much better, you can't argue with me on that. granted linux and a few other OSes may offer the same rock solid performance, however the learning curve is much longer, and honestly, after using several distros of linux, i like OSX worlds better. windows software is so flaky, i finally put my pc in a deep sleep (under my bed) when i finally got fed up with with the viruses, and the scanners themeless that seemed to cause more harm then it helped. i miss some of the games i use to play, but i find the ones that are on mac as well run much better on mac then PC to begin with. also if people keep switching, software companies are bound to release everything in both pc and mac versions (i commend blizzard for being one of the best about it). my final word is that using a mac is much less stressful. i like a challenge of a stubborn PC..... for my work..... for my own computer, i like a machine that is thought free, not only in stability, but every little job seems to take less time because everything is more user-friendly. i used windows almost all my life, and to this day i still have to hunt for what i want, i have used a mac for 5 months, and i have never had to consult a help file, or look for anything for more then a few seconds.

so i'm sorry if your a PC person (i was too, big AMD fan, still am as far as the pc world goes), but macs are better machines. they may cost more, but you get what you pay for. macs come out of the box ready for anything with quality grade apps. a lot of users go for the MS branded office for their new PC, and i will say, it is decent (yes i know there are free alternatives, but i have

Re:Still a small margin

[loraksus]

it is the heaviest machine I've ever lifted

Well, it is made of pretty think sheet metal.
Just curious, why is this a concern? Do you move your computer often? A Dual G5 isn't something you drag to lan parties - even if it has steal-me handles.

Re:Still a small margin

[dave420]

If you have that much trouble with a PC, go back to a mac - it might just save your life. Also, next time you try and tie your shoelaces, slow down and take it easy - by the sound of things, you might throttle yourself and those near you.

Seriously, windows isn't that hard to use. It's not hard to keep it clean, to keep it crash-free. First of all, your drivers are most likely screwed. Unlike Macs, PCs have a LOT more hardware to support, so drivers come in all shapes and sizes. Microsoft certifies drivers for use with Windows, so only get WHQL-certified versions - they won't crash.

As for the OS being clunky as hell - you can make XP look EXACTLY the same as OSX. Clicking "start" to close the computer? Only someone pushing an agenda can turn that into a valid criticism of an operating system. I could argue the use of happy Macs on OSX is silly, as using OSX is anything but a happy experience. See? It's easy to be a dick.

Monitoring your computer for malware does NOT slow it down enough for you to notice. You're talking about a 3.4ghz PC. It can monitor processes without you even noticing.

I'd cry "fanboy" at this point, but I fear you'd fall off your chair in rage, and choke to death on your mouse or something.

peace.

Re:Still a small margin

[steeviant]

"Are you kidding? I can buy a brand new Dell for $499 (not a corporate version, but who cares)with a 15" flat screen. Sure, it's not as fast or as good as the G5, but I can buy a new one every year for the next 5. Don't tell me you will use that G5 longer than that, and I'll have the latest tech every two years." ...and in 5 years that brand new bottom-of-the-line $500 Dell computer finally will be as fast as the 5 year dual G5.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, windows isn't that hard to use. It's not hard to keep it clean, to keep it crash-free. First of all, your drivers are most likely screwed. Unlike Macs, PCs have a LOT more hardware to support, so drivers come in all shapes and sizes. Microsoft certifies drivers for use with Windows, so only get WHQL-certified versions - they won't crash.

It's not actually easy to keep Windows spyware free. I know people who are not stupid, people with university degrees who design large civil works, or are responsible for many people's jobs who have problems with spyware and viruses.

And don't even get me started on drivers, just because Microsoft has certified them doesn't mean that they've waved a magic wand over them to make all the code perfect and crash-free. Even people far more experienced than me in the ways of Windows drivers still have problems with them if they're working with a lot of different hardware.

You really have to have more than a passing interest in the inner workings of a computer to be able to keep a Windows box running smoothly for more than about 6 months. I'm sorry that you don't like to hear that, but I'm certain I can find a bevy of people to back up my personal anecdotal experience.

Your post makes me wonder if you've ever actually used OS X. Believe me, the reason I bought a Mac has nothing at all to do with how the OS looks and everything to do with how it works. I turned off as much of the iCandy as possible.

I've made XP look almost like OS X for fun before, but it doesn't actually put the applications' menu bar on the edge of the screen (even though it may look like it), it doesn't make all applications use an MDI interface, it doesn't have app bundles, and it doesn't have a real Unix OS underneath.

So while you're branding the grandparent poster as a fanboy and an idiot, at least he has probably used Windows enough to know something about it, unlike you. By the way, I haven't seen a happy mac in the last two years, yet more evidence to suggest you don't have a clue what you're on about when you talk about OS X.

Not everyone in this world wants to know enough about their computer to even spend five minutes a day to do some basic maintenance. We're all guilty of a little selective ignorance in our lives. When was the last time you checked the brake pad wear on your vehicle? Most people just wait until their brakes start squeaking before they do anything about them, even though it causes unneccessary wear on the brake disc/drum.

Your average Windows user sees paying someone to come and correct problems with the OS as an ongoing cost of computer ownership, if you're a person who probably makes money out of that situation, I can see why you might be a little overzealous in your defense of Windows.

Re:Still a small margin

[Ohreally_factor]

Same here. In fact, all my network equipment at home is linksys and has been for over 4 years.

Re:Still a small margin

[mcbevin]

The point is choice. They may be worth their price to you, but not to people with smaller budgets.

With normal PCs, I can choose if I want to pay more and get better service etc, or pay less and build it myself. With Apples, I have a much more limited choice as I have only the one manufacturer to choose from. Apple has doomed itself to a small marketshare by being the Sony of the computing world.

Re:Still a small margin

[NeedleSurfer]

For my job I install studios and shows, I work in AV, I am an audio consultant, a senior tech in video, I've been a teacher in a sound design school. I know technology very much its my life and I love my job. I know about audio, video, lightning, computer, networking and so on, and you know what I didn't answer his rant to point him out he was implying stuff that wasn't true. When I install a studio or live rig, it works, smoothly and securely, when I built a studio it doesn't have bugs and idiotic configuration are not part of it, it's a LOT of work but one I'm proud of. My philosophy; why computers can't be the same, why do we agree that it's good enough when it's not, I want people who built computers to be as picky as me when I build a studio, it has nothing to do with inexperience. It was no use telling him all I've done in my life, the poor win fan boy got hurt and had to retaliate, posing me as some dimwited newser, when that happens don't bother answering the flamebait.

I use several OS (Win, MacOSX, Linux knoppix, freeBSD-on its own-) and my experience with the switch is as stated above, some people won't like the truth they never will, don't bother explaining it to them...

Re:Still a small margin

[bmxbandit]

Though this has been explained time and time again, people still don't seem to get it. The truth is Apple are NOT a niche company. They are in fact one of the biggest, and certainly the most important PC company in the industry ever since they invented it. The misunderstanding is created (and heavily milked by toy companies such as Microsoft) because nobody stops to think about what a computer user actually is. The vast majority (in my experience) of Windows users are not computer users, or at least they are people who do not rely on a computer to do their work. If they did they would not be able to afford the constant patching, rebooting, viri or worse (MS patches and software). Most MS customers use computers for tasks that could be accomplished by an Amstrad Word processor 10 years ago (email/word proceccing). Of course I'm forgetting gaming. MS also appeal to people who spend over a grand on a games system thats almost as good as a $100 PS2, once you've spent an hour installing it. The hard truth is Electrical chains will continue to push joke technology such as Windows and office, as long as there are people dumb enough to buy it. That's because they can sell them a $300 computer for $1500, and know for a fact that they will need a new one in 6 months. My point is, these people are badly informed consumers, NOT computer users. Computer users are Publishing Companies, Design Agencies, Aircraft Designers, Recording Studios, ... the list is endless, but you'll probably find all of these industries dismissed by the so called computer press (ie MS press) as 'niche' industries. How convenient.
I challenge anybody to name a single MS innovation since they ported somebody elses code to the Altair. Not much of a record for a so called 'Industry Leader' hah.

Re:Still a small margin

[bmxbandit]

You say you'll have the 'latest technology' every 2 years. Are you referring to Dell's 15 year old sytem architecture, The joke operating system it ships with or the classy plastic case? I bought a revB imac in 1999 and have a Dell Precision (this years) and a P3 Lattitude laptop at work (I'm an IT manager at a large Publishing House) as well as a G4 PowerMac (for when I actually need to do some work quickly). When it comes to finding a file on the hard disk and launching the application to edit it, my old OS9 imac still DESTROYS anything running Windows. To compare a modern mac with anything running Windows is a total joke.

Re:Still a small margin

[Jozer99]

I do wash my hands. You do know that your hands secrete acidic oils that can combine with plastic to make it look dirty? That is why they don't let even the most hygenic museum goers to touch paintings and statues.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

it's all about how well the hardware is controlled, sure you can have the power of the sun (not sun microsystems..... the star itself) in a computer, if the software is crap it will never reach it's full potential. PCs tend to be cures with things like adware, spyware, and viruses that make them unbearably slow. i know someone earlier said if you can't defend against such things, you are an idiot, however there are so many of these things and so easy to get in the PC world (and of course i don't open e-mails with attachments, or even any e-mail from people i don't know, never click on links in IM apps w/ asking what the file is etc.) but they happen. it's like in real life you can wash your hands every half hour, eat nothing but veggies and carry around a bottle of disinfectant and still get sick (my microbio teacher is an example of this.).

however one of the biggest drawbacks to performance in PCs are poorly written apps. sure they exist on all platforms, they just seem to be worst on PC. ever spent a quauntable amount of time gettign something to work right on a PC? all the power in the world can't make something work....

but for all of you PC fanatics, i will praise them, for they are superior at things such as heavy gaming and processor heavy applications. the "brute force" of some of Intel's and AMD's chips will get the job done faster, i just feel they lack the delicate touch to do anything well constantly. You can have all the horsepower you want, but if you don't have the drive train to deliver the power, your going nowhere fast.

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah deals are common, but the ones i tend to see form say dell, are on crap, like worthless celerons. or they give u a free piece of shit like an all in one printer am an educated consumer, and spent at least a month researching what laptop to buy, and looking for deals both online and in brick and mortar, and i still bought an apple. sure it was not 25% off or anything, but i would rather get $175 off and a free ipod then any of the dell deals. sure there may be some good ones in the higher end range, but i can't afford that. am ia na idiot because i can't afford a high end machine? slashdotters seem to think everyone is an idiot for something.

Re:Still a small margin

[mrchaotica]

And if you want to hear a less trollish response than the other guy's:

I think Apple's product line is pretty broad as it is. Sure, they sell $3000 PowerMacs, but they sell $600 eMacs too. They sell $3000 PowerBooks, but they also sell $1000 iBooks.

You may be able to build a PC + monitor for less than an eMac, but it won't be much less, and the eMac's CRT isn't a disadvantage since the PC wouldn't have one either.

Re:Still a small margin

[bursch-X]

Even Video editing nowadays. Especially if you're in low budget, Final Cut Pro beats everything in this price class hands down, and if you need more high end equipment get a card from Blac Magic etc. or an breakout box like the AJA and it'll scale up to HD and Film.

Re:Still a small margin

[bursch-X]

"Most people I know at that level are using 5 year old PCs"

Well then get your granny a used Mac. They're not that expensive and a used iBook or iMac is still far enough for your granny.

Re:Still a small margin

[bursch-X]

Not until Linux will finally get drag and drop and cut an paste working properly universally. Then they'd need a EASY way to install and remove apps. Like, drag-and-drop.

See? It's not only the apps it's the whole enivronment. Also They'd have to come up with something comparable to ColorSync and QuickTime (I don't mean the player, I mean the whole media/codec/authoring environment). And much more.

Re:Still a small margin

[bursch-X]

You're too optimistic. ;-)

Re:Still a small margin

[Synbiosis]

This is a bit late, but most deals allow you to make upgrades on them, especially Dell deals. That's how I got my laptop. My only real complaint about it is that Dell Keyboards are terrible, but I'm satisfied with what I got for the price. I never considered an Apple, but I haven't seen any iBooks with 64 MB of VRAM. I'd have to say that Apple laptops are nice. I may get one in the future when I have a lot of money to spare, but if I'm forced to have one computer, it's definitely going to be an x86 for flexibility alone.

Re:Still a small margin

[grahamlee]

I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.

Hold on a sec...you're saying that you can't think of a time when Apple were better, except when the competition weren't as good as them? Deep.

Re:Still a small margin

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I have left over monitors. They do not need to be included in the price of the computer just because macs come w/ them.

Re:Still a small margin

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I actually shopped alienware hoping to get a close-to-top-of-the-line computer but I realized that they didn't even offer top of the line and I'd have to build to get the features I wanted.

Re:Still a small margin

[reso]

i've heard bad things about Jaguars too. Let's pretend he meant a high-end porsche ;)

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

"Right, but those computer shopers weren't really buying a computer to do a certain job. They were buying a computer because they thought they needed a computer."

No, it's not that.

They decide they want to do a certain job (manage digital photos, print them, and share them) and know they should buy a computer to do this, but their mental set for 'computer' simply doesn't include anything but Windows PCs.

(Or, if they are aware of the Mac, it may be stuck in a different set, as if it cannot do the things a 'PC' does. Maybe people put them in completely different categories, like they put 'oven' and 'dishwasher' in different, incompatible categories of appliance.)

If my theory is correct, the iPod and its media ubiquity might lead to a fresh reintroduction to Apple's products, producing a softening of people's mental sets, allowing a certain amount of reconfiguration in which 'Mac' joins the set in which 'Windows PC' has been taking up all the space.

Re:Still a small margin

[guet]

As for the OS being clunky as hell - you can make XP look EXACTLY the same as OSX

Windows is not clunky because it doesn't have nice pulsating buttons or shadows on windows. All that stuff is very nice but ultimately incidental. It's clunky because of some basic flaws of methodology:

• Wizards that present you with an unending series of screens with one text field or some default options (already filled in) and a 'next' button.
• Lacklustre sleep support
• Lack of HI Guidelines and resulting lack of consistency between Applications (though Apple has some work to do on this front)
• So many alerts that it's difficult to pick out the important ones
• Preference dialogs which have 15 tabs, that jump around as you switch between them so you never know where they are.
• Those annoying anthropomorphic animals/paperclips attempting to make it more friendly and just getting in the way.
• Menus in windows, so the menubars are in a different place every time.

Windows has some nice features, and had some (like previews of images in the 'Finder' I think...) before OS X, so in some ways it's better, but in so many ways it makes life more difficult rather than easier...

PS - imagine if there was an OS where you didn't have to 'keep it clean'; Wouldn't that be nice?

Re:Still a small margin

[dave420]

What's wrong with the wizards? :) It asks you a series of questions, progressing through different scripts, to sort out/implement something. I've never once thought of them as troublesome.

Lacklustre sleep support? Eh? My notebooks work fine with XP. It can sleep/hibernate/suspend/power off fine, recovering perfectly. I can't even remember that being an issue since 2000.

Lack of consistency between apps? Well, sure there are no documents to my knowledge outlining it, but as Microsoft releases their GUI control libraries to developers, we can all make apps with microsoft's toolbars, status bars, insert-latest-graphical-control-here.

So many alerts? What do you mean "alert"s? Message boxes? You get maybe one an hour, and it's pertinent information, relating to something you're doing. Is your speedometer in your car bad for telling you the speed? Nope :)

Preference dialogs with 15 tabs? the closest I've seen is in user settings in an active directory, and seeing as they're added on a modular basis, is hardly a fair criticism of an OS. I could write a shitty app for OSX and claim the exact same thing :)

What animals/paperclips? You turn them off the first time you see them, and never see them again. For some people, don't forget, they're actually useful. When you outgrow them, you disable them. Saying they're inherently bad in themselves is like saying training wheels for bikes are crappy, as you can ride one without them.

Well, for me, menus in windows makes much more sense than menus in one place on OSX. To me, the menu bar at the top isn't associated with any specific application. Having it change in/out for each app selected is disturbing.

All of these are purely matters of opinion. Arguing them is pointless.

PS - imagine if there was an OS where you didn't have to read the "minimum requirements" before buying hardware/software/games; Wouldn't that be nice? :)

Re:Still a small margin

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a very bitter little mac user, aren't you?

Re:Still a small margin

[MemoryAid]

That old saw about Windows crashing more than Mac OS is just about laziness. I can truthfully say that I can get my Mac (running Panther) to crash at least as often as my work PC, running Windows 2000, because I put effort into it.

I will admit that I don't use them the same way, but I strongly feel that you can get any computer to be unstable if you try hard enough. The virus stereotype is true, though.

Yup.

[niko9]

I gues it was a smart move for the iPOd to work with Windows and Macs?

Works great on my Linux box BTW. Whew. Good thing too, girlfriend would think I was giving her a line of poop trying to explai why she's got to get me a different gift.

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

you have a girlfriend?? whats that like??

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops I ment boyfriend!

Re:Yup.

[DJayC]

What did you do in order to get it to work under Linux? Is it still compatible with iTunes on a Windows/Mac PC after writing to it with whatever you use?

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out gnupod, gtkpod and some others. Google for "ipod linux" and ignore the links about installing Linux on your ipod.

It's just a Firewire harddrive, so the songs just get stored in folders that are hidden on mac/pc.

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

warm apple pie.

Re:Yup.

[AugstWest]

Check out gtkpod.

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

Warm apple pie with mood swings, an insane family, and twisted view of reality.

Well...

[CdBee]

Looks like that marketing plan paid off after all. I always suspected Microsoft was wrong when they thought that capturing the media player market was significant to overall market-share.

I'd say I've been proved wrong.

Re:Well...

[sleepingsquirrel]

I notice that the article doesn't mention any people converting from apple to microsoft. Is this number zero? Or just not reported? Does nobody ever switch away from apple? If 6% of OSX users switch to XP because itunes is available on win32, the situation is pretty much a wash.

Re:Well...

[gekko513]

The number of people converting from apple to microsoft is not zero, but I doubt that people switching from microsoft to apple do it because of the iPod.

That's why this isn't discussed in the article about the survey, because the survey only asked iPod users.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never used any OS seriously than what Microsoft offers. I've used VMS, Unix variants (on 5 different hardware platforms), p-system, AppleII (whatever their os was), MacOS, MacOSX, BeOS, DOS and Windows*.

If you've used Mac OSX for any length of time, I'd say there's a better chance of you hitting the lottery than you wanting to switch to a Windows OS. That is unless your idea of an OS is an application that lets you change your window theme to match your outfit of the day.

Re:Well...

[yardbird]

Well, it's not zero -- one of the more hardcore Mac users I know switched to Win XP because she's a web developer (if most of your users are on Windows, it makes sense for you to be) and has remained there ever since.

Of course, one of the more hardcore Linux guys I know now has an iPod...

Re:Well...

[kelzer]

I notice that the article doesn't mention any people converting from apple to microsoft. Is this number zero?

Well, there's at least one!

Re:Well...

[merdark]

If 6% of OSX users switch to XP because itunes is available on win32, the situation is pretty much a wash.

First, I don't know the actual stats on people switching the other way. But even if 6% did switch the other way, it's still not a wash.

Why? Because the number of OS X users is different than the number of ipod users. Assuming (again, don't know the numbers, but it seems reasonable), that there are far far more ipod users than OS X users, 6% of a large number is much much more than 6% of a small number.

Re:Well...

[millahtime]

Web development on a mac if you do it right makes no diff than on a pc. Problem is most web developers have very poorly coded pages. If they are right they should show up fine in any browser. I know mine all do and so do my friends who develop on a mac.

Re:Well...

[yardbird]

I agree in terms of the development itself, but if it "makes no diff", and you want to know for sure how it looks on Windows, why not? I'm all for browser-agnostic development, but at the end of the day, browsers still display things differently, and IE has the most users.

Re:Well...

[kalidasa]

You're talking about old Mac OS; we're living in the age of OS X (i.e., NeXTStep). OS X doesn't hide things from users unless they want them hidden. I wouldn't switch until I heard that Apple had picked up NeXTStep; then I started saving up for a Mac.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple certainly is doing something right. I'm not sure if this is the right thread, but I've been dying to get this out. So here goes...

I've been a longtime alernative OS user. During the win3.1 days, I was always trying new stuff. I ran OS/2 Warp for a while and loved it for the same reasons a lot of people love Linux. It was different and it was a lot of fun to tinker with and hack around on. Since that time, I've used every windows os, linux for about 7 years, and freebsd of late. I recently went out and bought a new 17 in G5 Imac. I'm a professional software developer working on several unix variants, primarily freebsd as of late. I thouht mac is kinda unix the ui rocks, etc. I fell for the marketing and styleing of the mac, which brings me to my point. The mac is this... It's really cool looking (and we all know that matters to a lot of us). It's no where near as blazing fast as apple would like you believe. I'm not talking floating point arithmetic or fucking bus speeds. I'm talking normal shit we all do every day. Compile software, burn CD's or DVD's too. Listen to tunes while we're hacking. Surf the web, manage photos, play some games. And I really can't think of anything more. The mac does all of the above exceptionally well. Like I said, not blazingly fast. Your neighbors new commander-x pc he bought off of some build it yourself webiste for 1200 bucks will likely smoke it in terms of video game performance, buring cd's and ripping music. I really couldn't tell you why, but trust me. My two year old AMD 1200 with a 12 speed cd burner can rip and burn faster than this thing. But you know what. It's not a hinderance at all to me. It's a real pleasure to use. The most soought after tasks are very easy to accomplis. I made a slide show and burned it to a DVD for my father-in-law in the time it took to select the pictures I wanted and press the "burn" button. I know PC's have software like that too, but it's not as nice as the iLife stuff. Which reminds me, all my music is in .ogg and I have yet to get iTunes/Quicktime to play a single ogg file. It's really pissing me off. Bottom line, I paid 1500 bones for a really cool looking machine that's much more pleasurable to use than any other OS I've ever seen. gnome and kde aren't even comparable in turns of stability or eas of use or eye candy. i'm sure you all know the mac has lots of that. you're gonna pay for ms-office unless you steal it. it comes with appleworks, which is like comparing notepad to emacs.

To be totally not off topic, I think a lot of pc switchers are going to be disappointed. I think pc users are used to getting most if not all of their software for free from the buddy network and not many buddies have macs so your dishing out hundreds for apps, not to mention a 100 or more for OS upgrades. You lose the "I got the vin diesel signature series" nVidia card, what do you have" aspect, because the imac and mac's in general don't have the selection of video cards. the imac even has a stigma surroungind it because it's not loaded with the latest and greatest display adapter. it has an AGP GeForce Fx5200 with 64 kegs or memory.

Conclusion: If you really love that something different to learn and hack around on and have 2 grand to spend on a computer, get a 21 inch imac. When your feeling like you have a small pecker because your neighbor wont stop busting your chops about his 500 video card he's just wasted 450 dollars on, and you have clockspeed envy, don't say I didn't tell you so. Other than that.

Other than that, I think it's just a matter of marketing for mac to replace windows as the desktop of choice for home users.

Re:Well...

[Rasta Prefect]

I should mention that photoshop was rather cool, and once it came out on PC, I had no reason to ever look back at Macs.

My take now is that it's all just a pretty face on a mountain of code. The more stable the code is the better. I'm not very happy with certain aspects of XP, but I'm stuck due to the availability of certain apps which are ONLY available on PC.

I had the same experience with Macs prior to OS X. Now I've got one for work, and support about 50/50 Macs and PC's and love the Macs. I find that from the POV of getting over my prior loathing of the platform, it helps to think of it as just being NextStep 5. It's easy to do when you program in Cocoa and everything derives from NSObject.

Re:Well...

[siriuskao]

What a troll, parent is talking about OS X not the old Mac OS.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

when you code pages like you do which are simple enough that my 3 year old can do, it is more difficult to code wrong than right. I saw your "current project".

troll

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

ut I'm stuck due to the availability of certain apps which are ONLY available on PC.

Such as the vastly larger number of spyware and malware titles available on the windows platform.

Re:Well...

[WestonB]

Actually, it doesn't make as much sense as one would think.

Since you really can only test a single version of IE at a time with Windows, you usually have to resort to a series of virtual machines, using Virtual PC or VMWare. That will allow you to test older versions of Windows/IE and also Linux browsers like Konqueror, but not MacIE, Safari, or OmniWeb.

The Mac is the one platform where you can test almost any browser in existence. It also has the same array of professional web developer tools that Windows has.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, this is /.

We are never wrong, we are just differently informed...

Re:Well...

[System.out.println()]

Here's the thing: they do switch away, but it's usually out of necessity: they need X program to run (often a game, or something for business), or.... actually that's the only reason I've ever heard of anyone switching away from Mac OS. (Not counting the dark years a while back, when Apple licensed everything out and everything sucked... that would be an excusable switch IMO.)

Re:Well...

[Sarin]

Switching people might not be so bad for microsoft after all.

People that switch and many native OSX users, use a package called 'virtual pc' to run apps that are only available under windows.
This software is made by microsoft, you can buy it with or without winxp if you already have it.

So if you switch and buy virtual pc because you 'still need windows' for something, microsoft is actually making more money on you than had you decided not to switch at all!

I've seen the latest version of 'virtual pc' running xp sp2 on the latest g4 powerbook and it worked good and about as fast/slow as a PIII 400-450.

Re:Well...

[rb4havoc]

Well, it's not zero -- one of the more hardcore Mac users I know switched to Win XP because she's a web developer (if most of your users are on Windows, it makes sense for you to be) and has remained there ever since.

Commercial web development for the Mac here.
Open source programs for web development here, here, and here.
Now, that doesn't include by any stretch all the open source programs, and the only thing that Windows has over Mac web development is .NET, which sometimes has difficulties working for other browsers besides MSIE6.

Re:Well...

[soft_guy]

I'm sorry that someone modded you down so far.

I'm a rabid Mac fan and have been since 1993 when I switched to Mac from the Atari platform. That said, I understand where you are coming from.

From your post, it sounds like you used a Mac circa 1988-1992. Am I correct?

So, I kind of agree with what you are saying. When I first looked at a Mac in 1984, I was not impressed at all. (Of course, I was equally unimpressed with the IBM PC I tried in 1981.)

The point being that I had an Atari 800 whicih was a decent computer for the time (arguably had the best graphics available). I looked at the Mac and couldn't understand why they had the fastest processor you could get at the time (the Motorola 6800) and then slowed the machine down to a crawl with the graphical OS. As far as getting things done, I could do more pratical things much faster on my Atari and the idea of a graphical OS seemed cool, but kind of unrealistic given the degree to which the machine was slowed down by it (at the time).

IMHO, the tipping point for the Mac to be more useful than command line interfaces did not happen until System 7.1 and the 68030 Macintoshes came out which would have been high end Mac hardware in 1993. So, if you do the math, that's 9 years where the Mac was probably the most approachable computer, but not the most practical for the experienced user unless you were doing desktop publishing.

The reason I ended up switching to the Mac was that it so happened in 1993 that I needed a new computer and the Mac PowerBooks were seriously the best thing going at the time. The MacOS easily had 10 years of maturity over Windows by that point. OK, a lot has changed since then (MacOS X, etc.), but I have never felt like there was a good reason for me to switch to PC. The only time I ever seriously considered the PC platform was when it first came out. Since then, I have not been able to approach it with an open mind.

Re:Well...

[ferret-slayer]

IMHO, the tipping point for the Mac to be more useful than command line interfaces did not happen until System 7.1 and the 68030 Macintoshes came out which would have been high end Mac hardware in 1993

The SE/30 was not "high-end" for 1993. It was introduced in January 89, and discontinued in October 90. System 7.1 didn't add many features over 7.0 (can you name any?), so it sooks like your tipping point was closer to May 90 (when 7.0 was released).

Re:Well...

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. MacOS Classic had a nice UI, but was let down by (more or less) everything else. No preemptive multitasking. No protected memory (mind you, Windows 9x didn't have this). A hideous API (Carbon is almost as bad. I can't believe there are people who actually choose to use it instead of Cocoa). NeXTStep had a UI with a nice feel, if a dated look, a solid BSD back-end and an API that was a real joy to use. OS X to me is really just the OpenStep with some eye candy. It's a nice UN*X platform for everyday use and it retains all of the traditional Apple goodness when it comes to video editing (something I've started doing fairly often since I bought a PowerBook. Final Cut Express is a joy to use). The platform really shines when you start developing for it though. GNUStep is close, but XCode / Interface Builder is an amazing combination.

Re:Well...

[soft_guy]

You're right. I was arguing mainly based on memory, not on looking up actual facts. I remember the 68030 being current on that time on PowerBooks.

Some features from System 7.1 include the Fonts folder, QuickTime, and also the Text Services Manager.

However, you are correct.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.

Might be perfectly possible that these two numbers match, roughly at least.

And don't forget that still more than 50 per cent of the installed Macs worldwide do not yet run Mac OS X. This might be easily total to a number of 12 or 14 million.

Where will these current Mac Classic (OS 9 and earlier) users turn to when their machines will have to be replaced eventually by newer ones? To Mac OS X, all of them? Not necessarily. To be more specific, nobody knows.

As to iPod usage: With iTunes for Mac OS 9 more than two years old now (at v2.4 or so), these existing Apple customers have learned what deliberately bad support looks like. :-(

Re:Well...

[Overzeetop]

I'm an engineer, and 95% of my clients use AutoCAD. I can't afford to have incompatibilities. Hell, I had to upgrade recently just to read the new @#$!@ 2k4 format. I didn't say I was happy about it. And I have very little malware lying around. Then again, I don't use IE.

But, of course, all the mods surfing on macs thought I was trolling, so just mod me down for pointing out reality, even if it is from a localized viewpoint.

As for another posters comment about "saving up for a mac." Well, that's my second beef. Of course, if I had 5 bills laying around to snatch up the latest iPod and associated accessories, I might care less about the cost as well.

Re:Well...

[Overzeetop]

You have the dates waaaay too accurate (dons tin foil hat).

I was in college from 87 to 92, with practically all my Mac usage during that time. Of course, by 93, I had all my PC software I'd gotten in college (programming tools, cad tools, office apps, and misc apps) on my PS/2, and the division at NASA where I worked was strictly PC on the desktop (we ran VMS on a VAX-somehting, and AIX on a RS/6000 for heavy duty computing). I think one of the guys had a mac in my building (I know there was a group in another division that was mostly macs). I remember thinking "Wow, neat looking interface. But I've got no apps, and no cash to re-buy" Of course, I though the same thing about OS2 when I saw it for the first time.

Oh, and the Atari800 was my dream machine for a while. I go to the store and play with the floor model for hours on end. Real keys and everything. How much cooler could you get.

I learned to program on an apple II+, and I got an ACE1000 (Apple IIe with a bit more memory), and used that to learn assembly on the 6502. Of course, I couldn't afford a complier, so I complied to machine code by hand. Not pretty, or fast, or - for that matter - very fun. But I got a couple of (very) simple programs to run, and learned a heck of a lot about computers.

I'll be honest that I've never had the kind of disposable cash it takes to keep a Mac as a hobby. Heck, it pains me to spend $400 on a Dell PC, and my monitors are last-century 21" Hitachi CRTS that I got for $100 from my old company's surplus sale. My last brand-new laptop, from two years ago, was under a grand, and I only got it 'cause I got a desktop practically for free. I can't walk into and Apple Store without thinking I'm walking into an art gallery, with cool looking items and pricetags which generally qualify them as "too expensive for something I'm not going to display in my living room".

Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[RandoX]

I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group until I started using the iPod. It was an upgrade from my older iRiver player. I'm far too entrenched in my PC to switch, but I'll admit that I'm Mac-curious now.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[TPIRman]

I'll admit that I'm Mac-curious now

Y'know, some people swing both ways. Don't be afraid to get in touch with your OSX-uality.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[gilesjuk]

Thing is, if you bought an iPod it shows you're more inclined to buy well designed (visually) simple products.

The fact that you bought an iPod and not some of the more feature rich players shows that you wanted something that did the job with little fuss. Macs do this too.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[the_2nd_coming]

so then ADD to your computers. who says you have to be on only one platform?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother. I 'switched' to macs when I bought a low spec G4 to use after I got one of the first iPods. It took all of 6 months for the machine and OS to drive me insane.

I still have the G4, but it's running a much more sensible OS - Linux - and I can use my new iPod on my main Windows box.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[iJed]

I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group

Err...we are a rabid elitist group! Its because most of us Mac users strongly believe that we are using the best desktop computing products in the world and we find it difficult to understand why anyone would actually use Windows XP out of choice.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[lamz]

The fact that you bought an iPod and not some of the more feature rich players shows that you wanted something that did the job with little fuss.

Name 3 features which are missing from the iPod, but are available in a competing product.

For a bonus point, prove that doing a job "with little fuss" is not an important feature.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

But iPods (and Macs) are not only more visually appealing but are typically more feature rich as well. Your response went only half way.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[kidgenius]

OGG playback, FM-Radio, and remote. Those all exist in my iRiver iHP-120.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly it's the truth we really feel that way.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[TheKidWho]

video playback, onboard audio recording, better battery life, Thats all I can think of at the moment. But, the way it is, the iPod offers better connectivity with the desktop ala iTunes, better interface ala the scroll wheel, and a more visually pleasing and tactile pleasing look.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, win at Teh Intarweb.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod has a remote.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[dirtyboot]

The correct term is "iCurious."

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[rasqual]

Macs are, therefore, properly construed as conservative. ;-)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[jedidiah]

...all of which are of quite dubious value.

Now Photos, video, gobs more space, games or an svideo output are thing to get excited about.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[jd142]

ogg playback
fm broadcast
fm receiver

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[saintp]

And Mac users are obviously the only rabid elitists on /., too....

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[sokoban]

Just be careful, and make sure you get the right mac for you. It is unwise to be hasty and just go out and buy the cheapest new computer available that runs OS X. I have known a few people who bought a new macintosh computer, only to find it didn't suit their needs. So, consult with your mac zealot and you too can overcome premature eMac-ulation.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[kidgenius]

I will agree that remote and FM are dubious, but I use OGG regularly.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Fulcrum of Evil]

OGG playback, FM-Radio, and remote. Those all exist in my iRiver iHP-120.

OGG is not important to me, I hate radio (use my iPod in the car, so it's irrelevant anyway), and I do have a remote - it's just not wireless.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[kidgenius]

It does not come with one. That is an accessory that must be purchased seperately.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Zelet]

You and the other 6 guys don't buy too many music players anyway. I'm not sure apple cares about that market.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[aldoman]

Because Windows XP + Firefox, Thunderbird and various other OSS apps is a very competent system, and can be had for about 1/2 of the price of the lowest eMac, and if you want you can install Linux very quickly (or dual boot)?

Oh, it also plays games too. New games, like Half Life 2 *gasp*!

I own an iBook by the way. It's ok, but OSX is getting really tiresome. I think I will soon just install Linux over it, especially at the pace that Linux is maturing at..

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ColMustard]

Actually, there is a remote. It doesn't come with the iPod, but it's there. That's one good thing about the iPod, accessories galore! Yeah, most of them are over-priced, but oh well.

Also, you just need to face the fact that Ogg support just doesn't matter to 99.999% of the general population. Just be glad like we all should be that the iPod isn't the only choice we have. If/when ogg gains acceptance by a lot more people, then I think it's a given that the iPod will support it. FM-radio on the other hand would be a great feature. I do wish it had radio.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[AKnightCowboy]

And Mac users are obviously the only rabid elitists on /., too....
--
Election 2004 results: 99% of Americans agree, 50% of Americans are idiots.

Obviously. :-/

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[radish]

Gapless playback, ethernet connectivity, decent (i.e. full 5 band parametric) EQ. Can I get extra credit for more? OK :) Vorbis playback, FLAC playback, WMA playback, 20 hour battery life.

Now before you tell me how little those features matter to you, save it. They do matter to me, and that's why I haven't bought an iPod.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ColMustard]

Gotta love the fact that Linux and other free operating systems (yeah linux is a kernel blah blah blah) give you the power to choose. Fortunately for Apple, however, most people (who have used it) really like OS X.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. It's looked exactly the same each time I've installed it to try it out over the past few years. I guess the two of us have different ideas of how fast software should "mature."

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[generic-man]

Have you seen the iRiver's remote? It has a separate backlit LCD that shows you the track that's playing, time, etc. You can even navigate the menus through the remote. It's very useful if you're in a confined space.

The iPod's remote, by contrast, costs $40 and has six buttons and no display. I wouldn't consider it in the same league.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[plazman30]

So, you have 20-40GB of music on you at all times and you want to listen to the RADIO??

Ok, ok, I guess some people might want to do this, but I would think they are a minority, hence why the iPod sells better than the iRiver.

I too, think the iPod should do OGG, but I don't see it happening any time soon. If Apple were to add OGG support, they'd have to release the source, which I think they would be lothe to do for firmware.

The other issue with OGG is that, the chip in the iPod can decode MP3, AAC and WMA (WMA is not implemented in Apple's firmware), but to decode OGG, they would have to do the whole thing in Firmware/Software. You'd probably have to decode the OGG file to AIFF, drop it on the HD and then play it. This would seriously kill battery life. Ever notice how the other players out there that do OGG all state that playing OGG files decreases battery life?

Andy

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Tantrum420]

>Name 3 features which are missing from the iPod, but are available in a competing product.

>For a bonus point, prove that doing a job "with little fuss" is not an important feature.

It looks like everyone else already has three missing features down pat. Myself, I would purchase one if it had but one important feature...

I want to copy music to/from it through the file system.

I don't like iTunes...at all. I don't like players that try to make me use their software to load / unload music to my device. I don't like DRM.

I want the iPod to connect to my machine and map itself as another drive so I can put whatever I want on it. If it happens to be music, great! Play it. If not, ignore it.

I haven't checked in awhile... Maybe this functionality is available with some hacks. But that sure takes the "little fuss" feature out of it, doesn't it.

While I'm on the subject, "little fuss" means different things to different people. To some, that means iTunes and having everything already set up for you by some "usablity" weenie who thinks he knows how you want it set up.

To me, "little fuss" means let me customize it the fucking way that I want without having to jump over every hurdle that you've attempted to put in my way.

Then again, most people that I know of that have these things cannot handle browsing their harddrives through Explorer or Finder...

My $0.05 (keep the change),
T

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Err...we are a rabid elitist group! Its because most of us Mac users strongly believe that we are using the best desktop computing products in the world and we find it difficult to understand why anyone would actually use Windows XP out of choice.

Games. Having several hundred in extra cash is kinda nice too. Not having to deal with or belong to a culture of insufferably smug hipsters is another bonus.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[nospmiS remoH]

There is also this remote. Unfortunately the cheapest model of this remote starts at about $30,000.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Elementalor]

The iRiver H320 and H340 display photos on its 2" 262K LCD screen (BMP and JPEG).

Also upgrading to the latest 1.20 firmware, they play XviD videos restricted to these settings:

File format : AVI
Video Codec : XviD MPEG4 (recommended XviD 1.0.2 codec)
Resolution : 220 x 176 only
Frame Rate : 10fps at Maximum
Bit Rate : 500Kbps at Maximum (recommended under 450Kbps)
Audio Codec : MP3
BitRate : 128Kbps, 44.1KHz

It's not much until you begin converting videos and series episodes and you take it wherever you want :)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Center leaning, happily married heterosexual, electrical engineer (read that analytical, highly verbal, killjoy).

Nope, I guess it doesn't.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

1) Ogg Vorbis support
2) Gapless playback
3) 10+ hours between battery charges

That's why I bought a Karma instead..

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Can you boot an emergency copy of your OS off of your iRiver?

No joke, one of the documented installation methods for a headless Xserve is via an iPod.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure you are not just an apple fanboy doing some astroturfing?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a bumber sticker is in order: "Mac users do it with less than 3% of the market"

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

" I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group until I started using the iPod."

They are. Just because there's sometimes merit to their claims doesn't make them any less annoying.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple were to add OGG support, they'd have to release the source, which I think they would be lothe to do for firmware.

Not true. See http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp#com for more on the vorbis license.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Cloud K]

I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group

I'm glad you've seen the truth :) I thought similar until about 6 months ago when I bought an iPod. The sheer quality and superb design work... when I look at it, I picture a team of dedicated designers who love what they do and are proud at the masterpiece they've created (so much so that they set their prices a little higer than others). I'm sure that's Apple's intention.

About a week or two later, I went out and bought a Powerbook, first Apple computer I've ever owned, and from my experience so far it defeinitely won't be the last :)

Back to the original point though, since getting the Apple products I've asked (after research of course) numerous questions to the Apple community on the official community boards at apple.com (Dr Smoke rocks) and mac-forums.com - both have resulted in very kind, helpful answers, usually perfectly presented/formatted, in clear English and backed up with facts+links. I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be.

You know, at the risk of sounding mildly troll-ish, some areas of the Linux community would really benefit from that kind of attitude. It could push Linux forward a long way.

There is a little elitism and OS-mockage in some of the posters, just like with any other OS, but no more than others.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[AugstWest]

Not necessarily, but be careful -- you could soon find yourself driving either a Jetta or a new Beetle, and thinking about buying either a mountain bike or a kayak.

It is only a matter of time before you find yourself stopping at a florist on the way to work to make sure there's a fresh flower in your dashboard vase.

Macs will infect you pretty quickly. The only real antidote is going broke.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[PeterChenoweth]

I have an iRiver iHP-120 as the others do. My wife has a 3G iPod. I've played with them both (the iPod and the iRiver that is, playing with my wife is none of your business).

1. The iHP has both optical and analog inputs and outputs. Headphones, Input and Output ports built in. I/O ports can be switched from either analog or optical. Very handy for playing mp3's over a home stereo with one simple and better-sounding TOSLINK connection than a miniplug-to-RCA adapter. No, I've never used the optical input for anything, but it's there.

2. The iHP can record. On it's own. Simple enough to hook up my iHP to my XM radio, record a couple hours of streaming audio for playback at the gym. You can't do that with an iPod.

3. Drag-and-drop on most any computer (XP, 2K, Apple, Linux) with no driver installation necessary. MP3's are just a drag-and-drop away from being placed on my iHP, and so are any other type of file I want. I know that iPod's work the same way for non-music files if you install the right software, but my iHP is invaluable for transporting large files and documents without having to install extra software on either PC. My iHP has been invaluable for transporting huge driver updates to a relative's PC who does not have a broadband connection.

4. Battery life. It's hotly debated, but in my experience our iPod may have a problem. My iHP is about 13 months old, and I get the same battery life that I did when it was brand new. My wife's iPod is about 8 months old, and we think that its battery(ies) are starting to fade, as she must recharge the thing every few days, instead of a week+ when it was new. Same listening conditions, volume levels, etc. Leave it turned off and unused for two weeks and the batteries are almost drained. My iRiver can, and has, sat for almost a month unused and the batteries were still fully charged when I powered it back on.

My $.02 anyway...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Frizzle Fry]

The ability to listen to the radio is of dubious value?! I can understand that not supporting every music format (ogg, wma, etc.) is fine because you can get the same songs in the format it does support. But without a radio tuner, if you are outside and you want to listen to a sporting event as it happens, or to the news, or to talk radio, you just can't (not to mention the ability to listed to music on the radio if you want). A radio tuner would cost them a dollar to put in their. I'm certainly not going to carry around two different portable audio devices. The omission of a radio tuner is just stupid on Apple's part; I've heard a lot of people complain about it and cite it as a reason not to get an iPod.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[b-baggins]

George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh are both Mac users.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Brakz0rz]

Also, you just need to face the fact that Ogg support just doesn't matter to 99.999% of the general population.

Like Linux? I think that's a bad arguement to sport aroud here.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[robertjw]

Does this mean that an IPod can turn you gay? :)

The only person I know with an IPod is definitely the gayest straight man ever.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Bombcar]

You can use the iPod as a hard drive.

However, using a FAT filesystem from a battery is time consuming and wasteful. If the iPod had to find all music files on your drive every time it started up, it would waste much energy.

So if you copy music, they won't play. But if you use iTunes, you will find hidden folders that have all your music in it. There are programs like ephpod that allow you to copy the music back off.

I also hated the idea of iTunes organizing things for me, until I started using smart playlists. That's letting the computer do what it is good at - keeping track of files. Now I just have to add album titles to 13,000 songs. :)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[hchaput]

Like the iPod, Apple now sells color versions of iCurious. I just ordered iCurious (Yellow).

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is, if you bought an iPod it shows you're more inclined to buy well designed (visually) simple products.

Thing is, buying an iPod has more to do with needing a different feature set. Design and simplicity mean fuck-all if the thing won't meet my basic needs.
Example: I want an MP3 player with radio. However, by your argument, this means that I am somehow less inclined to buy "well designed (visually) simple products."
And my need of the radio shows that I want something to do the job with extra fuss.

In reality, all I want is something like the iRiver. It's simple, well-designed, and meets my needs. But you probably don't understand all that.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Psx29]

Don't forget to mention that the iRiver has more language support than iPod, and also it has video playback with the new firmware...and also! it has *drum roll* (the single most important thing for me) directory browsing!!! Oh and no dirty hacks to download music off the iRiver onto your computer (Yes I just bought one and like to feel like I made the right choice...although I do like the look of the iPod...they look so sexy...ok that's enough...mst loook away..ahhh!)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[FunWithHeadlines]

"I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be."

Me too. Oh sure, in any large group there are the trolls and rude people. But by and large you get very helpful responses from the Apple community. I think part of it is the perceived niche status. People who feel they need to stick together to help each other out often do try to be more helpful.

Another part of it is there are fewer resources available for the Apple crowd compared to the Windows crowd, so there seems to be a feeling of 'Well, this site is fairly rare, better make it a good one.' So you get fewer resources, but often the quality of them equals the best of the Windows resources. End result: You have what you need.

And there has to be a sociological aspect to it as well. Apple users must be a self-selected subset of society, a group that is similar to, say, BMW or Mercedes buyers. People who like well-crafted machinery, good performance, ease of use. The kind of person who is drawn to these qualities may also tend to be helpful to their fellow Apple- (or BMW-) owner.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[loid_void]

Being into to Marketing, I've wondered what if Apple made powerbooks to match the mini iPod, you know, perhaps 12' powerbooks, would that add to the "cool" factor for many to be brought over to the "dark side." My thought is that the young crowd might just think about it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[User 956]

OGG playback, FM-Radio, and remote. Those all exist in my iRiver iHP-120.

Ah, yes, the iRiver is a great player, that's why it's also known as "the ipod for smart people".

You better watch out-- those that have too much common sense around here get modded 'troll'.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ColMustard]

Probably true, but I've never put much stock into slashdot karma. I just say it how it is. I'm sorry if it happened to offend you.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[User 956]

So, you have 20-40GB of music on you at all times and you want to listen to the RADIO??

Unless you know of some other way to get Howard Stern on your portable in the morning.

Oh, that's right. I forgot-- because your ipod doesn't do it, that immediately makes the feature useless for everybody.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be.

Goes to show how effective FUD can be. It has been that way for almost twenty years now. Back in 1990 or so I was online(with my mac IIx) and the vast majority of software for the mac was freeware. Many of the authors didn't ask for any money at all, and they would have no problem accepting a check. Probably because it was the only way to pay back then. The pc software writers on the other hand rarely wrote freeware. Must be a "west coast-east coast" thing.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[fafaforza]

I do not understand why AM/FM is of "dubious quality" to so many people. Doesn't anyone listen to Stern? NPR? AM talk? News, sports and weather? Random and unexpected (mostly) playlist?

Why be closed off to your static playlist of songs you've heard dozens of times before?

With 40 or 60 gigabyte players, what's a more enticing feature at this point; an additional 10% of space, or radio reception? I realize that some have large music libraries, but you don't have to carry it all with you everywhere you go. USB or Firewire are fast enough to add songs on the fly. And adding radio reception is not a great difficulty for manufacturers. That is why I stick to my CD mp3 player, though that too only has FM.

No iPod for me cause of no radio.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

but I would think they are a minority, hence why the iPod sells better than the iRiver.

Great! We should eat more shit! Millions of flies can't be wrong!

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[d3kk]

That's funny, because my iPod came with a remote. I know because remotes for these devices are entirely useless and I otherwise wouldn't have one.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ViolentGreen]

Now before you tell me how little those features matter to you, save it. They do matter to me, and that's why I haven't bought an iPod.

Exactly. It's a personal choice which is why all this arguing over whether the iPod is a superior or inferior product is pointless. "Better" is a relative term.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

aaaaahahahahahaahaHAHAHA... you predicted that one a mile away. speak the truth and mac faggots hate you for it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[hyungpower]

iCurious?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=iCurious
Hmm..

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ViolentGreen]

I think you are missing the point of his sig...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[lubricated]

> So, you have 20-40GB of music on you at all times and you want to listen to the RADIO??

yeah, I also have 20-40GB of news saved on my mp3 player, oh wait I don't, that's why I have the "RADIO??", I also like to listen to traffic reports, game scores, and other LIVE content on this
"RADIO??"

My neuros does fine with playback of ogg. I don't care what excuse apple has for not supporting it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[NoOneInParticular]

Let's see, I use a laptop running linux, just got an ipod mini (thanks IBM!). The hfsplus kernel-module allowed me to mount the ipod filesystem without needing to go to FAT and the ipod charges itself through the USB 2 port on my laptop. I use gtkpod that maintains a music DB that the ipod seems to be perfectly happy to use, I can upload and download music without breaking a sweat. No iTunes though, just listening to my own CD's. And If I want to I've got a carry on HD of 4 Gig that is powered through the host. I don't see many disadvantages here, am I missing something?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

It may only cost a dollar to put it in, but what about the other cost: form factor? Have you considered that many people may buy iPod if it has a radio functionality but many people decide against it if it does? iPod has 90% of HD MP3 player market, so the iPod designers can't be too wrong in its design decisions.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[PasteEater]

So you get fewer resources, but often the quality of them equals the best of the Windows resources. End result: You have what you need.

Oh, you were still talking about the community! I thought you were talking about the software available. =)

In all seriousness though, there are still people out there who think that they can't get certain functionality because they can't get program X for the Mac. What they don't seem to understand is that the functionality is there, the program just has a different name. Of course there are exceptions (CAD leaps to mind) but for the most part, the software is as good or better than most of the stuff available for Windows.

Software availablity is, IMHO, the greatest hurdle Apple has to overcome.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it come with the skirt or did you have to buy that seperately?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Frizzle Fry]

Radio tuners take up to real room. I don't think they would noticably affect the form factor. I don't agree that because they have large market share means that they have made all their decisions well. That's just silly. They may be good enough for most people and better than their competitors, but that doesn't really prove that radio wouldn't make it better.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

The exception that proves the rule.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[anjrober]

that is crazy logic. MS has 90% of the market, do they only make correct decisions in any category?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[oingoboingo]

I do not understand why AM/FM is of "dubious quality" to so many people. Doesn't anyone listen to Stern? NPR? AM talk? News, sports and weather? Random and unexpected (mostly) playlist?

No. The complete and utter shit that is played on almost all radio stations was one of the primary reasons that I bought a large-capacity MP3 player in the first place (in this case, an iPod).

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got XP, OSX and Mandrake at home. GUI-wise OSX wins.

Does that make me OS-tri-sexual?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ThousandStars]

About a week or two later, I went out and bought a Powerbook, first Apple computer I've ever owned, and from my experience so far it defeinitely won't be the last :)

You may want to check out Ars' Mac forum, the Ach. I bought my PowerBook a few months ago, and the advice given there was indispensable. I was "truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be."

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[waynelorentz]

Aren't Mac people more likely than the general population to be artsy-types, socially-liberal, and homosexual?
Does this mean that an IPod can turn you gay? :)

Just like Windows users are more likely to live in their parents' basements and work at the 7-Eleven on the corner.
Does this mean that Windows will make you a failure? ;)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[radish]

Indeed, couldn't agree more. I think you're the first person to ever respond to one of my posts about iPod/iTunes/iTMS/Apple without trying to incinerate me. That's the problem...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[waynelorentz]

Not true. Some iPods come with remotes. It depends on which model you buy.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Moofie]

It's obviously not a big issue to all the people who bought iPods.

You do know that lots of people have bought iPods, right?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Moofie]

Your Neuros is also the size of a lunchbox. My iPod fits in my watch pocket.

There are other players that are more feature compliant than the iPod. I still wouldn't buy any of them.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Porsche owners have switched to BMWs because of their Ipods?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Cloud K]

That's cool to know, thanks for the pointers.

Actually, no, no thanks at all! I'm a huge forum dweller, and pointing me to even more forums means I'll get even closer to getting no work done whatsoever ;)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Moofie]

The killer feature of iTunes and the iPod is the music database, and the smart playlist functionality. I haven't given a moment's thought to my MP3's file system structure in a year.

It wasn't something I thought I was missing until I understood it. Now, managing the contents of an MP3 player on a file by file or folder by folder basis seems like writing on wet clay with a pointy stick.

What don't you like about iTunes? I'm curious. I mean, you don't have to use the iTMS (I don't) and just because it's made by the same company as the player doesn't mean it sucks.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Bombcar]

You're seriously missing the fact that you're supposed to send that iPod Mini to me right away. :)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[User 956]

You do know that lots of people have bought iPods, right?

And as the man before me has said, that must mean that we should all eat more shit-- after all, it's popular with millions of flies...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Moofie]

You're making the wrong correlation.

You're saying the iPod sucks because it doesn't have features that are not important to you. I'm saying that the features that are important to you are (demonstrably) not important to iPod owners.

You can want whatever features you want. Nobody's telling you you ought to buy an iPod. I wouldn't put up with anything with an inferior (IMO) interface, regardless of its feature set.

iPods aren't shitty because they're popular. Your MP3 player is not shitty because it's not as popular. Quality and popularity are orthogonal.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[djpig]

I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be.

Hmm, the correct term should probably be "MacOS Community", otherwise people running Linux on Apple might not know where they belong...

We're the real minority here ;)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[fafaforza]

I agree that music stations really suck. Between the commercials and shallow playlists.

But why not give consumers the option and the alternative? There's the occasional gem on the radio, whether it be a song you haven't heard in a long time, or ever, and like, or a celebrity being a guest on a talk show.

I don't get it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Dixie_Flatline]

I didn't have to install any special software to use my iPod as a hard drive. I'm using it on a Mac, though.

The downside to dragging and dropping MP3s as opposed to using something like iTunes is I bet my playlist creation is somewhat easier than yours is. I couldn't live without smart playlists anymore.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I am officially a solaris admin with 14 odd years experience and 8 years windows admining under my belt. I have just moved to an fair sized all mac shop and its sweet. The 17inch powerbook is a lovely machine and the OS is a joy.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[zecg]

The only real antidote is going broke.

Shouldn't take long, with iPod socks available in so many colors.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Cloud K]

Well if we're that picky, it might have to be "MacOS X Community"... or given the likes of PearPC or the evil CherryOS, the "MacOS X Running on Apple Hardware Community" which is a bit of a mouthful :)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[lubricated]

That's why you pick and choose based on your needs. The neuros is slightly smaller than a walkman, and the way i've dropped it from 5 feet onto concrete as solid as a brick. Yeah smaller would be nice, but it was a smaller consern than ogg support, fm broadcasting, price, and fm radio. All of these features the neuros smokes the ipod.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[dcstimm]

I sell ipods every day, not once have I been asked if it lets me listen to the radio, PLUS you can get a little inline radio for your headphones anyways, hell they are so damn tiny and cheap, so stop complaining.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[lew3004]

They still are, however if you switch now just because of a music player you're just plain off your rocker. Seek help or better sources of information other than an iPod.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[ManxStef]

I'd strongly recommend the "iCurious" check out MacRumor's Buyers' Guide, it's invaluable for helping you not to make the dreaded "but you were so right for me, then they brought out the newer sexier model" mistake!

Particularly of note are the warnings not to buy Powerbooks right now, as it's very likely they're be new ones in Jan/Feb (and the 12" is currently a rip-off compared to the latest 12" iBook). There are also rumours that the eMac'll be updated to a G5 soon, though this gossip does appear to have been quashed today due to low-end G5/PPC970 chip shortages from IBM. Though, as always, if you _really_ need it, just buy it -- the Apple store tends to automatically upgrade if a new product's announced, and even if your toy arrives just before the new announcements if you ring Apple they may be able to sort you out with something to make feel you a little less gutted. At the end of the day, even if you Apple is superseded tomorrow, it's still no less useful...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[lew3004]

Point, set and match.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Frizzle Fry]

Eh, I'm not losing sleep over it. I'll just continue to not buy an iPod, just like many other people I've talked to.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Omestes]

Amen. I just bought my first Mac, and am dreadfully impressed. I own a nice modded PC, dual booting WinXPpro and Suse, very nice, very expensive, very high upkeep. Over the summer I coughed up over $300 on it, first new 160g HD, then new radeon (doom3!), then a new PSU to keep up with it. I was about to buy a new athalon for it, but then it fried. I realized that I'm hemoraging money on shit, so bought a Mac instead. I tell you, I regret my whole childhood of Mac bashing. OS X is better than any OS out there, my computer is actually pretty, without any kludgy modding, I don't have to worry about community support since the Macfolk are VERY freindly, with hardly any 1337ists.

For the first time in my life I own a well designed machine that does EXACTLY what I want it to do, without delving into the registry once a week, and without defragging once a week. I'm too old to be messing with my computer, it should just work.

I also had a little memorex MP3 player, in which I had to fiddle with directories all the time. And now with my iPod, I can just plug it in, and *poof* everything is there. Very nice. I don't have to cull my music collection everytime I leave my house.

I must say that Mac has won my respect. I'd rank OSs with OS X, Linux, DOS 6.11, then Windows of all calibers. Now.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[gilesjuk]

WMV/ASF

Radio

Mic Recording

Direct encoding (line in)

LCD remote

FLAC codec

OGG Vorbis codec

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[gilesjuk]

Are you sure?

Most branded PCs these days ship with a two button wheel mouse, USB2, Firewire, TV-Out, 5.1 audio outputs, 100/1GB Lan, TFT screen, DVD writer.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[gilesjuk]

Games, photos etc are of dubious value. I can play games on my mobile phone, view pictures on my PDA (which has a 4 inch VGA screen).

TV output but no digital audio output? crazy!!

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Ohreally_factor]

How much do you want to bet that Apple releases an iPod with Satellite radio? Maybe have Howard to an iPod commercial. =)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Ohreally_factor]

Have you seen the iRiver's remote? It has a separate backlit LCD that shows you the track that's playing, time, etc. You can even navigate the menus through the remote. It's very useful if you're in a confined space.

I was just saying to myself last week, after I had locked myself in the trunk of my car (again!), "Damn! I wish I had one of those iRivers with the cool remote."

=)

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Ohreally_factor]

Let's see. You can get an emac off of the apple store for as low as $529.

Is there really an XP PC that will play HL2 for $265?

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes (it's just a UMS).

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Brakz0rz]

hehe no offence here. I won't touch linux until more game developers of merit write for it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[bwalling]

The correct term is "iCurious."

I thought that was the word for a straight guy that looks at gay porn.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[plazman30]

Well, since I don't listen to Howard Stern, I could give a rats ass about him. Personally, I don't need radio in my portable. If you do, then the iPod is not for you.

Simple and sweet. I'm sure Apple's marketing determined that only a small group of people actually required FM in their player.

How many players out there do AM? If they don't do AM, all those Rush Limbaugh fans aren't going to buy an iPod....

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[plazman30]

Well it would appear that most people really don't care about having a radio in their portable player, hence why Apple did not add one. And if you want a radio AND an iPod, there are addons.

But anyway, I think there's a player out there for everyone. I'd like Ogg support in the iPod very much, but I like the iPod form factor and I like the interface a lot. I also like the price tag (it was a gift for Father's Day). I've tinkered with a lot of other players and the iPod's interface is just better and easier to use.

As usual, YMMV. To each, their own...

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[plazman30]

This isn't like MS Windows. No one is forcing you to buy an iPod. People are buying them because they LIKE them.

Admittedly, Apple has done some damn fine marketing with the iPod, and many people don't even know there are other players out there, but I would think people buying such an item would look into these things.

Now if you don't like the iPod, that's fine, but don't get mad at the rest of us for liking it.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[jedidiah]

Games on a mobile phone? Pullleeeze. Talk about a total ergonomic disaster.

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[Anonymous Coward]

happily married heterosexual

Oh sure you are, "Skippy."

Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday

[generic-man]

I was thinking of spaces more confined than your car trunk, such as a New York City subway car during rush hour.

But hey, whatever's convenient for you...

Only a study of 200 users!

[datbox]

They ran this same story on OS News.


http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8945 [OSNews.com]

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[XxtraLarGe]

200 is a decent sample size for a survey. Most political polls range from 600-1000, and that's for the entire country. What would be more important to find out is if these people were solicited for their responses, or if they volunteered them.

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[__aaitqo8496]

Slashdot: a mishmash of stories you read elsewhere ;)

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good enough for Slashdot. Anything to whore for Apple. I can just see a pimped up Steve Jobs bitchslapping CmdrTaco and crew around. "Yo bitch, post this article!!!"

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[general_re]

200 is a decent sample size for a survey.

Depends on what you define as "decent". At a 99% confidence level, a sample size of 200 means that the margin of error for this survey is +/- 9%. Even if you open it up to a 95% confidence level, the MOE is still +/- 7%. If you wanted to drop the margin of error down to +/- 3% at a 95% confidence level, you'd need a sample size of just over a thousand respondents.

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[Erwos]

I've done a lot of statistics in school, and, yeah, the 200 number is fine - the issue is more whether the 200 people were a truly random sample from the population of the US.

In order to actually determine what was going on, I went to Piper Jaffray's website. The only iPod news release they've got is from early October - and that's a survey of only students. I would like to see more details about this survey.

-Erwos

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[corbettw]

Slashdot: a mishmash of stories you read elsewhere ;)

Yeah, right, like you read Slashdot for the articles.

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[nzkoz]

Well, there are several comments from slashdotters (myself included) who have switched. So, it's definitely not completely off base.

In my case, I bought my iPod 18 months ago, and became 'mac curious' immediately, as the US deficit drove the Dollar into the ground, it became more and more economical for my to buy a mac. When I decided to buy a laptop, I didn't hesitate for a second to pick up a nice 12" powerbook, though I did bump up the ram.

I love my mac. I don't know if I'd buy a mac desktop yet. But I'm now mac-desktop-curious, and I know what happened last time I got curious .....

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[LilMikey]

So the number of switchers is less than the margin of error? Nice...

Re:Only a study of 200 users!

[Ohreally_factor]

I know what happened last time I got curious .....

You woke up face down in a pool of puke in an alley and your butt hurt? Man, I hate when that happens.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. =)

Of course

[Donut2099]

I bought a Sony Vaio because it has a special connection that allows me to plug my walkman into it and play cassettes through the speakers!

Re:Of course

[Frogbeater]

As was mentioned above, it is not the technical compliance with the machine that would cause the switch (ipod already works with PCs,) it is the "ease of use," fit and finish, attention to detail that makes PC users "mac curious."

My ipod is the only gadget I own that I can let someone play with and have them understand it immediatly and enjoy the the design of not only the hardware but also the software. My amazing phone doesn't have that effect on anyone or my amazing Clie. This creates a link between the Apple brand and a concept of easy to understand, elegant technology.

I blame Apple for the change in my attitude away from "bigger is more impressive" to "hide the technology and make it look like magic" mentality. The computers I used to build were big and obviously demanding of attention, my favorite machine now is the one that people don't even notice in the living room.

Re:Of course

[Flashbck]

Isn't that called the Line-in jack? I could swear that my old SB16 card on my 486 did that too

Re:Of course

[User 956]

As was mentioned above, it is not the technical compliance with the machine that would cause the switch (ipod already works with PCs,) it is the "ease of use," fit and finish, attention to detail that makes PC users "mac curious."

The "fit and finish" that causes the cheap-ass titanium paint on the TiBooks to flake off after two weeks?

Or the "attention to detail" lets through serious defects in the screen? And what about the high rate of premature logic board failures?

My ipod is the only gadget I own that I can let someone play with and have them understand it immediatly and enjoy the the design of not only the hardware but also the software.

Which, of course, explains why iTunes should crash repeatedly when syncing a 40gb ipod on a four-month-old powerbook. And why Applecare won't help the guy, because his 4-month-old powerbook is now "out of warranty."

Yeah, these thousands of people are probably just doing something wrong. Their problems aren't Apple's fault, with their "beautiful hardware," and their "joyful software." After all, everything JUST WORKS, right? Right?

Re:Of course

[Frogbeater]

iPod. It's a trojan horse. iPod insinuates into the hands of PC users and gives them a taste of what Apple wants them to taste.

Please, buy a Dell if you are concerned about the problems with Apple's hardware and software, but average consumers will continue to touch iPods as there first contact with Apple, they will continue to consider that the quality of the iPod as representative of Apple products.

For each of the problems you cite, I present 20 years of using macs and a very satisfied 20 years at that. My Ti paint is perfect. My Al book screen was fixed for free when the white spots appeared.

Can Google even count the number of problems people have had with PCs? The number of "out of warranty" PCs that crash? The screen defects in any consumer electronic device?

What was the Apple product that failed you?

Re:Of course

[User 956]

Can Google even count the number of problems people have had with PCs? The number of "out of warranty" PCs that crash? The screen defects in any consumer electronic device?

PCs don't market themselves as being flawless pieces of made-by-god-himself equipment that "just work", and will solve all those problems you have using computers.

That's the fucking difference.

Every computer will have problems; every computer will crash now and again; every computer will lose your data at some point--because they're made by human beings, and as far as I know, human beings are not yet perfect. Anyone who tells you anything different is a liar or a moron.

Which are you?

Re:Of course

[Frogbeater]

Ahhh. Marketing. Apple lies. Now I understand. HP doesn't lie. Dell doesn't lie. Microsoft doesn't lie. Red Hat doesn't lie. Only Apple.

Is this about marketing? PCs market themselves as being cheap. Apple markets design.

It's all about drinking the Kool-Aid. Who do you believe?

I'm a liar or a moron? Settle down. Rage against whatever it is that's itching you, not against why iPods are causing people to think Apple make good products. Explore why it's happening, not why it shouldn't.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. And I thought the apple fanboys were stupid...

Re:Of course

[Matey-O]

Their problems aren't Apple's fault, with their "beautiful hardware," and their "joyful software." After all, everything JUST WORKS, right? Right?

As well as or better than most unix installations I've been involved with. About the _only_ thing I've run into is: OS X doesn't like to lose a network connection to something.

Other than that, my iBook has been rock-solid-stable for the last two months I've owned it. That's doing 3d rendering, Snort Log reporting, some games, a ton of music stuff.

Now, I preferr Pinnacle Studio to iMove, but face it, software you pay extra for SHOULD be better.

Now, since I'm up to my armpits in network security, and live every day with well tuned XP, Suse, and OS X boxes, I can honestly say I've had less pain dealing with OS X than I have with the other two major flavors.

The things you're listing are individual cases. Apple's not perfect, they've had problems (ibook logic boards), but they're a damnsight better than the last two new laptops I've dealt with. (Sony and Compaq) One won't take a service pack, and the other required a BIOS flash to work with WiFi...an update I couldn't do at home unless I bought a USB floppy drive.

Now, do ya wanna keep getting militant, or can you realize that there JUST may be something to what you're hearing, seeing as how you must be hearing it ehough to piss ya off?

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

HP and Dell don't have a hundred thousand messageboard toadies lying for them.

Re:Of course

[Moofie]

If you sell millions of computers, and have thousands of unhappy customers, you still have millions of satisfied customers.

If you have data to show that Apple's customer satisfaction and build quality are lower than other manufacturers', I'd love to see it.

Note: They haven't been painting powerbooks for a number of years. Mine is silver anodized aluminum.

Re:Of course

[User 956]

The things you're listing are individual cases.

That's just it.... they're individual examples of widespread, continual problems with Macs... It's not one guy that had white spots on his powerbook screen, it's the majority of people. The paint flaking is common enough for a market for "touchup kits" to spring up.

And it's all compounded by the common experience of poor support from Applecare.

Not for techs

[flibuste]

The article clearly states that those people are not techs but "people with money". The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if you can afford an expensive computer and you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer. I fail to see exactly where is the impact of the IPod here. Is that because it's the same "people with money" who can afford to buy one?

Clearly the article lacks meaningful statistics

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

By "techie" I assume you mean Windows techie?

OS X runs on a BSD kernel, if you want to play Unix geek with it there's plenty to do.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be true if Macs were expensive.... When a PC is equipped with the exact same components in hardware and software, the Mac is typically less expensive.

Re:Not for techs

[TheKidWho]

If by people with money, you mean people who don't work at mcdonalds for a living, then I agree with you. Seriously Macs aren't that expensive plus they last a very long time. This ibook im typing on is over 2 years old, yet it still works like a charm! I even prefer using my 2 year old 700mhz ibook over my 2.53ghz PC! I would say that it has been a rather good investment, the only thing my ibook doesn't do well is play new games.

Re:Not for techs

[norkakn]

techs and hardcore gamers are a pretty small subset. If John Q manager buys an imac next, things are good for apple.

Re:Not for techs

[misleb]

Perhaps the iPod serves as an introduction to Apple products where many PC users have never even seen an Apple product. They might say, "hey, this iPod is really slick. I wonder if their computers are this cool...." I can see it happening.

-matthew

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that the ipod has made people more aware of Apple as an alternative worth looking into.

If you don't know much about computers and have the money (though they are not that expencive, really), Apple seems to be a natural choice.

However the problem is that the people don't know much about computers, so they might not even be aware of that choice. But know that they have this great little ipod, that works so well and easy they might just look into Apple the next time they buy a computer.

Re:Not for techs

[Shisha]

Indeed and "without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion."

Go on Slashdot crowd, none of you have the data, but I'm sure you all have an opinion.

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

yeah because 799 is SOOOO expensive.

Re:Not for techs

[maxwell demon]

This ibook im typing on is over 2 years old, yet it still works like a charm!

So what? My PC is four years old and I still don't see an urgent need for upgrade. Ah, yes, it's 700 MHz, too :-)

Re:Not for techs

[jav1231]

Are you on crack? No, I know it's OT, but are you?
Just price their LCD monitors alone and your theory is easily quelled.

Re:Not for techs

[revscat]

The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if you can afford an expensive computer and you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer.

Gamer I'll give you, but hard core techie? No, don't think so. If you are are a techie the Mac opens up world's of *nix possibilities to you, and if and when you get tired of dinking with X Windows, etc, you have a great GUI for use.

But I personally use my Mac as a fileserver from which I serve video to our other systems (one iBook and an older PC), have a webdav server which we use to consolidate and share calendars, and the UW imapd server setup just for the hell of it.

And now that I think about it, even if you do mean "hardware techie", you can still get your jollies that way, too. When I switched to the Mac I hooked up and successfully mounted the NTFS drive from my old system and was able to get all my old crap off of that. (Can't write to NTFS, but you can read from it.)

No, the Mac satisfies my tinkering desires quite nicely, thanks.

Re:Not for techs

[codegen]

This ibook im typing on is over 2 years old, yet it still works like a charm! I even prefer using my 2 year old 700mhz ibook over my 2.53ghz PC

I'm still using my 3 year old 400 MHz Tibook and I prefer it over my 2.4 GHz PC.

Re:Not for techs

[Refrag]

I think the point you tried to make is obvious. Technically minded people are switching to Macintosh because of OS X. However, it is significant that non-technical people have been prompted to switch because of the Ipod.

Re:Not for techs

[tylersoze]

Uhh, not for hardcore techies? Hardcore techies prefer Windows over UNIX? Wow that's news to me. Man, somebody should've told me, I'm a rich game developer that writes all my code (cross platform) on OSX. :)

Re:Not for techs

[IronChefSysAdm]

Yeah I can't say I understand the "obvious choice if you're not a big techie" comment... I can't see many big techies that are really that in love with Windows. I'd say more so we deal with it when we have to.

Certainly for gamers Windows is the platform of choice. But I like my Macs best for the technical work I do. They have a lot of features built into the OS that are commercial add-ons for Windows (Encrypted disk images) and the UNIX-core underneath is great for a UNIX admin.... natively being able to rsync, scp, use X, etc. Especially in a 1" thick laptop that weighs less than 6lbs and has built in wifi, bluetooth, widescreen....

I've used Linux on and off for years, but I've found in several cases that the power management and portability features just aren't as good as with OSX. And even for a UNIX admin, installing applications on Linux while simpler than other UNIX's is nowhere near as simple as on the Mac. Just drag to your Applications folder. To delete, just drag to the Trash. What dependencies? :) I'd rather take the "work smarter, not harder" approach to managing things like that so I can dedicate my time on the computer to doing the stuff I really enjoy doing or need to do instead of going on some dependency/compatibility wild goose chase.

I'm not talking about using Macs or OSX in a production environment, by the way. I'm just saying that in my opinion for personal usage nothing beats the portability and performance of the mobile UNIX system you get out of a Powerbook and OSX.

Re:Not for techs

[TheKidWho]

but Apple's LCD monitors have sex appeal!

Name any other LCD that can get you laid!

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

So, umm...then you're not really a techie, are you?

Re:Not for techs

[jedidiah]

Except this isn't at all true.

Even if it were, PCs have the advantage of being able to tune the hardware features to individual requirements. Expensive components that may only collect dust can be dispensed with.

Plus you can shuffle around things so that you get even BETTER components for those things that really matter too you while still being cheaper than Apple.

Re:Not for techs

[archen]

The difference is that you can get a cheap shit PC for a really low price. This is unfortunatly what a lot of people buy, only to end up with a lot of problems due to lack of quality. Even so, if you wanted to spend money on a good quality computer, which wasn't going to become obsolete (since OSX only gets faster with every release), then an emac/imac might be a good choice.

Even if I build an uber PC I think I'd have a hard time reaching the price of the average desktop Mac. The only place that apple really shines is with the iBook. The iBook hands down spanks all other laptops as far as quality/price.

Re:Not for techs

[jedidiah]

For the vast majority of people within slapping distance of the audience, $799 is infact expensive. More importantly however, this number is larger than it needs to be and larger than that same value for PC hardware.

Re:Not for techs

[uvsc_wolverine]

The whole "macs aren't good for games" arguments are becoming pretty passe now. Most popular games come out for the Mac within a little while of the PC release (I can stand to wait a while for the newest game, I usually do anyway just so I don't have to pay full price). Yes, there are quite a few games that are not available for OS X, but there are plenty of games out there. BTW UT 2004 screams on my dual 1.8 Ghz G5.

Re:Not for techs

[CommanderData]

I *am* Data, but I have no opinion. ;)

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if ... you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer.

Don't be so dismissive of the techie set (I don't have any mac games -- but that's what the ps2 is for). I have a heterogenous network of Linux machines (dual-nic firewall, dual cpu file and multiple dual cpu compute servers), Windows machines (mainly work laptops and a desktop for financial stuff) and a Mac Powerbook. I'm not sure if I'm "a big techie" in your sense, but I happen to love working with my mac laptop. It's got all the things I love about unix and it has a decent set of applications that I need to run for day to day business stuff. It's the best of both worlds! I'm going to slowly start to phase out any Windows boxes and will probably only purchase Apple or Linux/BSD machines in the future.

I bought an iPod last Christmas for the girlfriend and then bought myself this powerbook this summer ..... seeing the quality level of the iPod (and the large percentage of apple users amongst the NoFluffJustStuff set) made me think about going to the mac for software development.

I love my mac and am not looking back. Mmmm ... I don't buy your argument about apple products only being for people with money .... compare how often you need to upgrade/replace wintel machines versus the apple side. It's my understanding that you'll pay a little more up front for the apple, but it won't become obsolete in a couple of years because of a new bloated OS. But even without that, the extra cost is worth it for me in a heart beat because of my extra productivity ... my time is much more valuable than what they charge in terms of price premium .... YMMV.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is true and it's been beaten to death. I agree with you. But we (in the US) live in a Wal-Mart nation. People will buy the shittiest piece of shit imaginable just to save a few bucks. That will never change, so your argument is meaningless.

Re:Not for techs

[Refrag]

Apple's LCD monitors are superior to almost all others, and they're fucking cheap in comparison to Sony's.

Macintoshes aren't expensive, Apple just doesn't build cheap pieces of crap like other PC vendors.

Re:Not for techs

[Wdomburg]

Considering it's more than twice the cost of an entry level Dell with comparable specs, yes. It always amazes me how many people are so sheltered they don't get that even a $350 PC counts as a major purchase for a lot of people, and blowing an extra $450 for a different machine that doesn't really do more (and in many cases does less, because a fair amount of software is unavailable) is needless extravagance at best.

Re:Not for techs

[Too Much Noise]

What you fail to see is the "what will I do with it?" factor. For small things (net surfing/mail/ripping CDs for the iPod/etc.) $800 is WAY too expensive, especially when a $200+monitor PC would do just fine. Or, still for about $800 or less, you can get a notebook with the associated mobility as a bonus.

It all depends on what you intend to use the computer for - and for quite some uses a $800 eMac is too expensive. Of course, if what you really want is OSX, then it's rather cheap :-)

Re:Not for techs

[aldoman]

Steve Jobs reguallaly bashes Linux for no good reason. He often does this on his Keynote's. However, I don't think people realize how little of OSX is actually Apple's:

Kernel.. nope, thats FreeBSD derived.
Safari.. nope, that's KHTML derived.
Printing.. nope, that's CUPS derived.
Shell.. nope, that's bash/tcsh derived.
Compiler.. nope, that's GCC.
Windows Networking nope, that's Samba.

What does it leave?

Re:Not for techs

[sjaskow]

Got you beat, my PC is close to 6 years old (home-built in early '99) and only a Celeron 400. :) The only reason I'm thinking of upgrading is to be able to play Doom III and HL 2.

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

what you fail to notice is that most computer sales fall in the 700 - 1500 dollar range.

MOST people who buy a computer do not buy the entry level crap.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not true. I matched each one of Apple's computers to an exact equal equipped DIY PC in both hardware and software and the PC is always more expensive. A PC allows you to buy less and pay less, but that does not make the PC less expensive. it makes it more configurable.

Re:Not for techs

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I dare say after 10 years on the net, most of them adminning linux boxes, I qualify as a big techie.

I'm posting this from my iBook, which is currently running a perl script to migrate about 200 users from an old Gentoo imap server running Courier to an Xserve running cyrus.

If that doesn't qualify me as a techie, then how about the fact that 2 days ago I didn't know Perl. (I normally hack in TCL.)

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

yeah... right... consider the fact that most PC sales fall in the 700 - 1500 dollar range you statistic is kind of pointless.

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

hardly.

most computer sales are in the 700 - 1500 dollar range.

and unless you are a moron and think more clock = better experience the only difference is a clock speed number that you cannot directly compare anyway because the chips are different architectures.

what I do know is that my 400 Mhz Power Mac ran smoothly while doing lots of multimedia activities while my 1.5 GHz PC ran like crap doing the same things.

Re:Not for techs

[Refrag]

The kernel is Mach which Apple has been using since Next.

Safari uses the KHTML engine which has benefited largely from Apple's improvements.

Printing uses CUPS, but it is much easier to setup on a Mac.

The shell is bash, but most Mac users never touch it.

The only part of Linux that gets "bashed" by Apple is the kludginess of the GUI, utilities, and applications. Apple has never said Linux or BSD is based on poor foundational technologies. They just don't have the user experience down.

Re:Not for techs

[ColMustard]

Well my PowerMac 7300 (180Mhz) is still running like a champ and it's about nine years old. Granted, Mac OS isn't very fun to use on it, but NetBSD works fine.

Re:Not for techs

[WIAKywbfatw]

Presentation and design, perhaps?

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

> What does it leave?

Quartz and Quicktime, mostly. But Steve has nothing against the underlying technology, he simply derides the "some assembly required" philosophy of Linux, describing that requirement as a good deal more than just "some". You must admit, Apple has done a heck of a good job on assembling things into a very consistent and usable package. Frankly, I think KDE has as well, but it has far more rough patches that they just don't have the resources to iron out (as well a few places where they just don't even try very hard to do so).

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

If that doesn't qualify me as a techie, then how about the fact that 2 days ago I didn't know Perl.

Dumbass. Not knowing perl until recently instantly DISqualifies you as a techie. Turn in your nerd t-shirt now!

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

> The only place that apple really shines is with the iBook. The iBook hands down spanks all other laptops as far as quality/price.

Bah .. you can't even tap the trackpad to click. If this makes the trackpad more mechanically reliable, then great, I can live with that (my vaio's trackpad developed tracking problems within a month). If it's some weird interface decision that has to be justified with some half-assed HCI theory, spare me: I like tapping.

Re:Not for techs

[gekko513]

People like the sign outside/banner on the front page that says they can get a PC for $350, which is true in a way, but to get what they really want they end up with a $700+ set up anyway.

People are very good at believing creative marketing.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I still use my 6 year old Beige G3 233Mhz. I'm not entirely sure I'd say I 'prefer' it to the overclocked Athlon 3000+ sitting next to it, but I'd probably give up the Athlon box first if I had to loose one of them.

The Mac's OS (10.2.8) and interface are alot nicer imho, and it actually seems to handle multitasking a lot better, but the general interface slugishness is kind of annoying, and it's not up to playing high res video or most games.
So while the relative speeds are a big factor, the Mac is still more central to my work patterns, and holds all my really important files, while the Athlon tends to handle my videos, games, and idle web surfing.

I'd love to just get a nice new Powerbook or G5, and replace both of them with one machine, but I'm an unemployed college student at the moment, so I can't afford to just yet.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

flibuste wrote:
"Clearly the article lacks meaningful statistics"

You, Sir or Madam, have just defined 99.999% of all media in print or online. Good Job! Now copy this statement and apply it to everything you read, and see how accruate it is. 2 to 1 says I'm right.

Re:Not for techs

[MachineShedFred]

What does it leave?

Well, a windowing environment that is useable, and applications that most users would consider actually using.

(hint: most non-slashdot reading users don't know of the existance of OpenOffice.)

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if you can afford an expensive computer and you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer.

The iBooks are pretty darn reasonable if you ask me. Probably the most reasonably all-rounded laptop available on the market today.

Also, please stop the whole "there are no games for the mac" thing. There are games, they just come out later. See http://www.apple.com/games

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

apparently so are the people who argue that 799 is to expensive.

though, those people probably have never bought a 350 dollar PC for their primary system.

Re:Not for techs

[jurv!s]

You're wrong. The touchpads are made by Synaptic and are tap-sensitive. Taps are turned off by default and can be enabled in System Preferences.

The "half-assed HCI theory" is there to discourage ambiguous input. When I have taps enabled, far too often I find touching the trackpad selects/deselects something when I didn't want it to. This is esp. annoying when my big ass hands are typing in a text field and my thumb knuckle grazes the trackpad. This switches the window- unacceptable! I'll take the unambiguous mouse click over taps everyday and am glad that it's disabled by default.

Re:Not for techs

[neko9]

my other box that is connected to interweb is home-built in 1998. k6 200. with seagate hdds from 1994 and 1995. so there :-)

Re:Not for techs

[Wdomburg]

The latest figures on average desktop price is $721, up from $705 in January 2003, but still below the cost of even the cheapest model Apple offers.

Re:Not for techs

[electricsheep7]

Kernel.. nope, thats FreeBSD derived.

Actually it is osfmk derived, which Apple did a considerable amount of development on before OS X even existed. (MkLinux, Copland) The BSD layer is mostly FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Safari.. nope, that's KHTML derived.

Which Apple contributed a lot of code to.

Printing.. nope, that's CUPS derived.

Same as above.

Shell.. nope, that's bash/tcsh derived.

It's just bash and tcsh. Not derived.

Compiler.. nope, that's GCC.

Again, Apple has made numerous contributions (autovectorization, etc.).

So... from what open source project do you think Quartz is derived? Cocoa?

Re:Not for techs

[Wdomburg]

An entry level PC is just dandy for a lot of people's needs. Both of my primary machines are actually slower than a current entry level desktop would be by virtue of their age (4+ years on both) and I'm not feeling any real pressure to upgrade just yet.

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

that does not negate the fact that no one buys them.

Re:Not for techs

[Wdomburg]

Really... Interesting how most industry analysts have been saying for years that plumetting entry level prices are largely responsible for growth of the PC market.

Find me a credible source that explains why the major manufacturers have been clamouring to underbid one another for years, how a budget machine manufacturer managed to become the third largest computer manufacturer in five years, and why the white box (largely budget) market is so large (~ 44% of worldwide desktop shipments).

Even if we posit people are likely to spend more than bare entry level (assuming they have that option), a lot of people are going to forego an eMac with no add-ons for a Dell with an LCD screen, DVD burner, double the disk space, faster processor, and a free printer to boot. And yes, there is a signifigant segment of both the realized and, more importantly, potential market that won't or simply can't budget $800 or more for a computer. Or, as trends seem to be indicating, will opt for an entry level laptop instead.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

For the vast majority of people within slapping distance of the audience, $799 is infact expensive. More importantly however, this number is larger than it needs to be

This is fine. Some people may not be able to afford $400 more on a computer. Some people may use it only for emails and see no reason to pay more for it and can live with viruses and worms.

and larger than that same value for PC hardware.

This part, however, drives me crazy. An eMac has a much better value than what a $400 piece of crap gets you. Value can't be justified simply by $ number. A pound of fillet mignon maybe much more expensive than a pound of T-bone steak, but that does not mean it has less value. Form factor, user experience, quality, etc. contributes more than you realize. When you are comparing value, at least you have to have the same features to begin with from a $400 Wal*Mart PC and an eMac, and they certainly don't.

Re:Not for techs

[aristotle-dude]

What does their LCD monitors have to do with it? You do know that they will drive any DVI or VGA display don't you?

If you compare laptops feature for feature, the mac will either be cheaper or around the same price as the PC but it will have a bunch of bundled software. If you added the equivilent bundled software to the PC laptop, it will be much more expensive than the mac laptop and it will not integrate with each other like iLife apps would.

Re:Not for techs

[Anonymous Coward]

What does their LCD monitors have to do with it? You do know that they will drive any DVI or VGA display don't you?

If you compare laptops feature for feature, the mac will either be cheaper or around the same price as the PC but it will have a bunch of bundled software. If you added the equivilent bundled software to the PC laptop, it will be much more expensive than the mac laptop and it will not integrate with each other like iLife apps would.

This is Donald Rumsfeld isn't it? Damnit Donald, we all know you're full of shit. You screwed up Iraq and now you're coming after technology as well? Please limit you bullshit to a single disaster!

Re:Not for techs

[LilMikey]

I think that's the point a lot of 'techies' are getting at: "Wow... you did all that crap. The same crap you could do on a $250 i386 Linux box. So you're paying $2000+ for the GUI?" Most hardcore techies outpace what the GUI offers them which is why KDE and Gnome were so poor for so long. They'd rather buy 8 $250 boxen, do 8x the crap and deal with the less flashy but still flashy enough lights.

I'm not saying it's right, just how it is. I must admit, if money weren't an obstacle I'd splurge on the pretty pictures too. But since money is always an obstacle my 6 x86 boxes will have to do.

Re:Not for techs

[ThousandStars]

What does it leave?

A consistent API (or Framework, as Apple calls it) for development that means most programs act the same way and are easier to write.

I can buy an OS X laptop and everything will work out of the box. The OS will be tightly integrated with the hardware. I can run Linux if I want. Or Windows.

And that laptop will be well-designed, rugged and attractive. I won't have to struggle to get wireless networking, printing or peripherals to work. It sounds to me like some people don't realize how much "of OS X is actually Apple's."

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

umm, that is the average price of a PC, not the range that PCs are purchased in. are you stupid or what?

Re:Not for techs

[the_2nd_coming]

because the growth of the market outside the US is responsible for the growth of the market in general. Yes, 3rd world countries buy super cheap PCs. that is where they are sold. in the US and western Europe, PCs sell between 700 and 1500 Dollars US.

Re:Not for techs

[westlake]

The article clearly states that those people are not techs but "people with money."

The article also warns that this is a market driven by short-lived fads, the latest styles and designs. Remember the lemon-lime and strawberry flavored i-Macs? You can win big and you can lose big trying to be up-scale and trendy.

Re:Not for techs

[bzImage8]

Im a tech ?

Don't know.

I have been using computers for +15 years, woking as: programmer, tech support, tech support manager, software architect, security consultant, freelance and many other hats.

I have Cisco, Microsoft, Novell and RedHat Certifications (and not the basic ones, im MSCE, CNE, RHCE, etc.).

I have been using Unix and Linux for more than 10 years.

I have been using/administering/fixing all kinds of computers: Pc's, Bull systems, Tandem, Data General, Digital, IBM, Hitachi, etc, etc, etc

And after all that.. YES I DO USE A MAC and love the command line (yes i also have a gentoo linux server at home)

Who are you to tell me that this machine is not good for me ?

Re:Not for techs

[qqaz]

so hows your electric bill looking there?

(its ok, i'm the same way)

Re:Not for techs

[gordgekko]

Baby, you're a rich man!

I still use my 1996 IBM Thinkpad 760E. 32MB of RAM with a 120 Mhz processor.

Re:Not for techs

[DeadScreenSky]

Speaking of stupid, if the average price of a PC is a little over $700, isn't your range of "most PC sales" being between $700-1500 a little misleading or even (dare I say it) wrong?

Re:Not for techs

[Ohreally_factor]

I'm a casual gamer as well, and I can stand to wait for the Mac ports. And while I'd like to have all the choices that PC gamers have in titles, it's not that big an issue.

But to the serious gamer, a Mac is just not an option. It's just not. Why? Because a Mac is not as good for the graphics intensive games as the Windows equivalent.

Re:Not for techs

[Ohreally_factor]

Yeah, I remember. I also remember that taken together (each color was considered a separate model), that generation of iMacs was a best seller.

Apple might not be batting a thousand, but their batting average for innovative design is pretty high. Hell, even their marketing flops (the G4 cube) have become cult objects that fetch top dollar on the used market.

Re:Not for techs

[aldoman]

Ok, so the Kernel is technically Mach. However, it's getting more and more like FreeBSD, and I have no doubt they have ported some of the 'improvements' from FreeBSD to Mach.

There was no real reason to use KHTML over Gecko for Safari. Firefox is very nearly as fast as Safari (on my iBook 800) now, and is compabitable with far more websites than Safari, due to Gecko having a lot more real world use than KHTML ever will. 7 vs 1-2%.

As for CUPS, I disagree. The gnome-cups-* set of packages are absolutely fantastic on GNOME 2.8. I found Apple's printing setup applications much slower and less intuitive (especially with networked Windows printers) to use.

I'm not saying OSX is a bad OS, it's just that Apple haven't really made much of it themselves.

They bought Next which gave them Obj-C, Cocoa, Interface Builder (and basically XCode), Kernel, Postscript based display...

All I am saying is that Apple is regarded as the world's big computer innovator - they don't really innovate whatsoever. They are good at packaging stuff up neatly and doing silver sprays on laptops, but that's about it.

I mean even the iPod, something I will be sure that Apple will go down for as the great digital music innovator is all bought-in components. They got the HDDs from Toshiba, the software + interface design that is so amazing from some small company that I can't remember the name of, and bought iTunes from another company I can't remember the name off.

What technologies has Apple actually 'innovated' in, apart from packaging up other people's work? Not many, that's the answer.

Re:Not for techs

[uvsc_wolverine]

But to the serious gamer, a Mac is just not an option. It's just not. Why? Because a Mac is not as good for the graphics intensive games as the Windows equivalent.

I have to absolutely disagree. I was just expeiencing this last night. I tried running Unreal Tournament 2003 on a 3.06 800 FSB P4 with a Radeon 9600 - it ran fine. Then I played it on a dual 2.0 Ghz G5 with the same video card. No comparison. The G5 was way smoother, and the graphics were sharper - even at the same resolution. I have the machines on a KVM switch, so I could switch back and forth to look. The colors were brighter, and the textures were much more...3d-ish. There was more of a sense of depth on the dual G5.

Re:Not for techs

[Refrag]

There was no real reason to use KHTML over Gecko for Safari. Firefox is very nearly as fast as Safari (on my iBook 800) now, and is compabitable with far more websites than Safari, due to Gecko having a lot more real world use than KHTML ever will. 7 vs 1-2%.

Seeing how Dave Hyatt has participated significantly in the development of Firefox and was also one of the key people at Apple in making the decision to go with KHTML, I'd say the decision was more well informed than you think. Apple has said before the main reason KHTML was picked over Gecko is that the code-base is more manageable and it will be better for the long term.

Re:Not for techs

[Refrag]

They bought Next which gave them Obj-C, Cocoa, Interface Builder (and basically XCode), Kernel, Postscript based display...

They didn't buy the Next technology. They bought the Next company. The people in charge of Mac OS X development at Apple came from Next. So, it's not like they're standing on the shoulders of giants. They are the giants in this case. And, just in case you didn't know, both Apple and Next were founded by Steve Jobs.

All I am saying is that Apple is regarded as the world's big computer innovator - they don't really innovate whatsoever. They are good at packaging stuff up neatly and doing silver sprays on laptops, but that's about it.

You need to do more research if you think Mac OS X is Linux with a different skin. And the laptops are anodized aluminum, they aren't sprayed.

I mean even the iPod, something I will be sure that Apple will go down for as the great digital music innovator is all bought-in components. They got the HDDs from Toshiba, the software + interface design that is so amazing from some small company that I can't remember the name of, and bought iTunes from another company I can't remember the name off.

I suppose Linux users craft their own hard drives from iron ore?

The OS for the iPod comes from PortalPlayer, but the interface and application design on top of that (including the fonts) are the work of Apple. Apple hired the guys that developed SoundJam and had them create iTunes. I honestly don't know how much SoundJam code was in iTunes 1.0, but I would imagine it was pretty much solely the low-level libraries because the applications looked very different.

What technologies has Apple actually 'innovated' in, apart from packaging up other people's work? Not many, that's the answer.

First non-legacy PC, FireWire, Rendezvous (ZeroConf), windowed GUIs, iPod, iTunes Music Store, ADC, ADB...

Re:Not for techs

[LilMikey]

Not as bad as one would think. Most of the machines just kinda fall asleep after a while. The notable exceptions are the Myth box which spins 24/7 and, if torrents are downloading, the box with Azureus on it. I'd say we lose more money the day I forget to turn off the 1500watt heater before bed than a week of a constantly sleeping machine.

Re:Not for techs

[codegen]

Not my money. My employers.

Re:Not for techs

[aldoman]

Oh absolutely, I'm just questioning the logic of having 2 open source rendering engines, when both are moving towards each other - Gecko is getting slimmer and better managed, and KHTML is bloating and losing management due to just having all the new components in it. I tihnk we'll end up with two very similar rendering engines when we could of just pooled efforts.

Apple could of got a lot out of using XUL. Apple could of wrote an Applescript (ie: very easy)-style GUI builder and IDE, and you would be able to deploy cross platform apps with one click. Instead we'll probably see a rushed effort for either Apple to make their own XUL/XAML style language or them hurriedly adopting XUL. XAML is going to be a big bastard for Apple, and it's probably going to be the end for Apple to get into the corperate market - which will probably end their server hopes in it. Shame really, but that's what you get for being complacent. Market share is dwindling. Apple needs to make it _very_ easy to port Windows apps over if they want to reverse this trend.

Re:Not for techs

[Wdomburg]

The figure I quoted was for the US market. Try again. You might want to provide a cite, rather than just conjecture.

Re:Not for techs

[jedidiah]

That's absurd. Of course overpriced, overhyped cuts of meat posses no inherent value over their cheaper counterparts. The price differential is merely a side effect of the herd mentality and nothing more.

You are attempting to confuse luxury and value. Luxury has zero inherent value for most people that have to scrimp and save in order to merely get by. Luxury doesn't even necessarily have inherent value for those that can retire early.

Odd correlation

[Dan East]

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers? How different is this from, say, people switching from Mac to a Sony Notebook because they like their Sony DVD player?

Dan East

Re:Odd correlation

[spirit_fingers]

Well, for one thing, the iPod is a computer peripheral. You need a computer to use it. Unlike your typical DVD player.

Re:Odd correlation

[Chundra]

iTunes for windows pretty much sucks. I had all kinds of problems with it. iTunes for Mac works great. I own several pcs and a mac, and don't quite understand why someone would switch to a mac just because of this. However, I also realize a lot of people are idiots so it doesn't surprise me.

Re:Odd correlation

[fireduck]

people buy apple music player thingy. realize how ridiculously easy it is to make it work. see that the computer they are using isn't as ridiculously easy. think "maybe it should be easier. maybe apple can make it easier" and go out to buy an apple computer.

the ipod interacts directly with the computer, so you have the direct comparison between the 2 in front of you. (that and there's the whole software + managing mp3 files on your computer aspect, further strengthening the tie between the 2 items.) your dvd player is in the other room and never interacts with your laptop, so you'd never think to compare them.

Re:Odd correlation

[TheKidWho]

Because if you remember, there used to be a pretty big stigma against macs. People would go "Macs suck!!" without even researching anything about them. Hell, I even did it to and now I love my ibook. What the iPod has done though is increase awareness among the consumer that Apple products aren't that bad and that they are actually very good. Because of that more people have become curious of macs. -jadam

Re:Odd correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all because they like this product (the iPod) that is from the same company who makes computers they think they would like... all because they tasted Appls branded quality...

Re:Odd correlation

[iJed]

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers?

I'd say it comes down to integration. Yes an iPod works with Windows, and using iTunes no less. On the Mac, however, the experience is very different: iTunes is only a single part of the puzzle. Every one of the iApps, from GarageBand to iMovie, integrate together to make doing any of their tasks hugely easier. It is this that makes using the iPod on the Mac a far nicer experience than it is on Windows.

Re:Odd correlation

[Secrity]

It's more like switching to Sony televisions/ monitors because they like their Sony DVD player as the two products work together.

Re:Odd correlation

[ashooner]

I would say it has to do with the iPod giving people permission to look at an Apple. If you own a better, but way more expensive peripheral, then it's a psychological foot-in-the-door to let you walk into the Apple store and take a look at all those cool expensive computers.

Re:Odd correlation

[bombadillo]

Does a Sony DVD player integrate with your computer and allow you to sync your calendar, contacts, music and photo's. The Ipod is a killer product because it can integrate into many facets of your digital life and you can put it in your pocket.

Re:Odd correlation

[gstoddart]

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers?

Because people are deciding that a company which has given them such an easy to use piece of hardware that just works merit some consideration in the next computer. Not having seen the iTunes software, that may have been a factor.

Remember, people synch their iPods from their computers.

How different is this from, say, people switching from Mac to a Sony Notebook because they like their Sony DVD player?

Only if their Sony DVD player is so much more than an incremental improvement that they want to gain all of the rest of the benefits. In this case, people apparently feel that the iPod and its software so much better than what they've come to expect that, that they really want to get that benefit across the board.

And, if anywhere near 6% of the people who have bought iPods make this decision, that begins to represent one hell of a lot of new Mac users.

Re:Odd correlation

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Not to be at all confused with the people who buy a Honda Civic because they like their Honda Portable Generator.

Join the non-sequitor club. We don't make sense, and who wants pizza?

Re:Odd correlation

[SpamJunkie]

what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers?

Well, you have to plug the former into the latter to use it. Obviously.

Re:Odd correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...let's see...

/flame
Apple - integration good
Microsoft - integration bad
/*flame (so shut up, you silly bitch. I'm just having a bit of fun)

In truth, I do understand that Apple's integration is more about the interface(the part that is important to the user)than actual program integration like IE.

Re:Odd correlation

[NoOneInParticular]

Up until OS-X, Macs did suck, hard. Imagine an operating system that still did cooperative multi-tasking in the 21st century, meaning that if one application would hang, the entire machine would need a reboot. MacOS is dead and good riddens. My next laptop might very well be a Mac.

Re:Odd correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

How different is this from, say, people switching from Mac to a Sony Notebook because they like their Sony DVD player?

Sorry, this is not true. No one likes Sony products any more.

In related news...

[k4_pacific]

In a related story, it was found that 7% of all people who have recently purchased a vintage reel-to-reel player would be willing to purchase a used PDP-11 if the price was right.

Re:In related news...

[nevercalm]

In a related story, it was reported that 87.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just funny... RCA Reel Media Center Reel-To-Reel Recorder/CD Player

Re:In related news...

[bennomatic]

I used to work at a shop where we built small cyclotrons (for medical use--generating tracers for use in CAT/PET scans) and the controlling units were PDP-11s. Of course, that was before my time. But the evidence was still there when I arrived there. I saw a PDP-11 chassis apparently linked to one of the new machines in my first few days there, and I thought, that's odd. Looked around the side and saw that there was a stack of three or four 486s in there (this was in the late mid-80s).

Don't know what they did with the guts of the thing, but they certainly got a bunch of use out of the chassis.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but where can I get an Edison cylinder phonograph and matching abacus?

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! I'm a mac user who has a reel-to-reel tape player, and a small collection of slide rules... and I most definitely would use a PDP-11 if the price was right :)

It makes sense...

[Anita Coney]

Apple survives on getting people to pay very high prices for cool looking products. Once Apple gets people buying iPods, it would only make sense that those same sheeps would also start buying overpriced but pretty Macs.

Sure it's flamebait, sure it's troll, but it's also true... and you know it.

Re:It makes sense...

[palad1]

iBook, expensive?

Build a dell with the same amount of functionnalities (not the first entry-level $300 machine), add the software that's bundled with the iBook (I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) and then compare the prices.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sheeps"? That's a lotta sheep.

Re:It makes sense...

[antifoidulus]

Ya, maybe if you would stop maligning them for a second and actually think about what people other than yourself look for in a computer, maybe you would see why. You may not like Macs, thats fine, but guess what, you are not the ultimate authority when it comes to what people should like. Different people have different tastes. Oh, and as for overpriced, maybe you should look at an iBook sometime. They are very competitive with the rough equivalent of the pc notebook, so much so that a lot of people buy iBooks and put Linux on there(I can tell you are a Linux fan by your sig)
You are partially correct, it's flamebait, but it's not true.
Grow up.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just switched to a dual G5 after being a PC user nearly all of my life. Sure it was expensive, but it wasn't it's cool looks that got me..it was the fact that they switched to a Unix backend. Probably the best decision that company made.

Re:It makes sense...

[Tibor the Hun]

overpriced, perhaps; pretty, yes; pleasant to use, fuck yeah.

Re:It makes sense...

[YetAnotherName]

For me, it was the other way around.

I'd been stuck on Windows for the longest time because I had to interoperate with clients who insisted on exchanging Micro$oft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and so forth. On top of that, I was doing Java development for those clients. (Star Office didn't cut it, at the time.) Yes, it was a living hell, especially for someone who was nursed on SVR3.

Finally I played with a PowerBook: it had genuine Micro$oft Office from the Redmond behemoth itself. It had a killer Java virtual machine. But best of all, I could pop up a bash shell and run vi on my files. And all with glistening eye-candy.

I was in heaven.

So, I've got two of the systems. Yes, they're overpriced, but they're also damn stable and they stay out of my way, like Windows, but I can get in the way, unlike Windows.

(Oh, and it was after that that I got the iPod. But I'll never go back to Windows. And zealots out there, relax, I've got two Linux systems (and even a FreeBSD system) in my server closet.)

Re:It makes sense...

[neverutterwhen]

ibooks are cheap. But they are still overpriced. The featureset is limited, the speed laughable, and the build quality on the ibook, while decent, is not up to Apple standards. Don't get me wrong I like Apples, they look cool, the software is deliciously simple but they are too expensive.

Re:It makes sense...

[Auraveda]

(I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) How about this? I've never used Garage Band, so I can't really compare, but FL Studio seems like a good candidate. http://www.fruityloops.com/

Re:It makes sense...

[the_2nd_coming]

very high prices? I don't think so.

you pay a fair market price for the package. when you compare it feature to feature with a PC that is built similarly the prices are almost identical... sometimes cheaper in the case of the mac.

the difference? the PC can be made to fit a user's needs so they do not have to buy something they do not need. apple has a fixed product line. so a PC CAN be (but not always is) less expensive for a user because it is configured with fewer things.

Re:It makes sense...

[k0ft]

Apple survives on getting people to pay very high prices for cool looking products. Once Apple gets people buying iPods, it would only make sense that those same sheeps would also start buying overpriced but pretty Macs

I have several macs, and while many people may buy them because they look cool, theres a lot more to it than that.

1) I have yet to get infected with spyware or viruses in 2 years with OSX
2) I can tool around the web without having to worry too much about getting owned
3) I can get freakin email with out having to worry too much about getting owned
4) OSX shipps with XCode for free, a fully functional development environment with excellent documentation
5) Graphics acceleration at the presentation layer far exceeds any other OS out there at the moment
6) Apple hardware retains a higher resale value than just about any other manufacturer out there, check out ebay to see for your self
7) The construction of the circuitry is of much higher quality than most of the competition, just take a side by side comparison of several pc motherboards to apple motherboards


Apple hardware isnt everything, and it's not for everybody, but if you care about quality, value, security and service, a mac is definatly worth taking a look at.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

What neither yourself nor anyone else sees are two things:

1) Apple has never had a $400-$500 computer a'la Dell or Compaq... Macs are often "overpriced" yes (and that's not a debate to open here), but suddenly apple now has a product that is selling like hotcakes and definately hitting that price point and hitting it hard. It's called good business.

2) Try using an iPod sometime. Thanks for calling me a sheep because i have compared a product to every other product on the market and purchased one that is superior. TRY putting any other *.mp3 player in your pocket as easily as you can an iPod.

Re:It makes sense...

[MouseR]

BS

Apple survives because SOME people, albeit a minory, are willing to pay high price for high-end equipment that works. The added bonus is that they're designed like someting you'd want to own.

Nobody bought Yugo cars precicelly they weren't that: nice and functional.

Same old FUD. Get yerself a Wintel box that as well equipped as a Mac (right down to bus speed and everything) and you'll end up with a machine that's as expensive and in some case, more expensive.

iPods are kind of an exception to this. They're pricey (too much for even a hard core Mac user like me) but they provide what other players dont: and easy, hassle free usage workflow, from importing music in iTunes down to syncing with their iPods, with the added bonus of a permissive, thought-free and cost-consinstsnt and license-consistent online music store.

Re:It makes sense...

[iMaple]

Apple survives on getting people to pay very high prices for cool looking products. Once Apple gets people buying iPods, it would only make sense that those same sheeps would also start buying overpriced but pretty Macs.
Sure it's flamebait, sure it's troll

And it's also mis-spelt u either meant sheep or ships , I guess. And u could appply the overpriced argument to iPods too, and iPod is more expensive than other similar capacity players. So its not like Apple is giving out iPods free to tempt PC users to switch (though that would be cool).
I myself have started liking macs after I bought my iPod (though I havn't bought one yet), I think u start appreciating the effort Apple puts in their UI design once u use any of their products.

Re:It makes sense...

[Dixie_Flatline]

Arguably, they're not overpriced. Not only did you pay for them, you seem really happy with them. Isn't that satisfaction and productivity worth the price?

I know it is for me. :)

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

iBook, cheap?

Build an iBook with the same amount of functionalities (as the first entry-level $300 machine) and then compare the prices.

The mass market isn't in it for performance; they're in it for price.

Re:It makes sense...

[Refrag]

Feel free to price-out a cheaper, comparative computer to the following Macintoshes from any major PC vendor. State which Macintosh you're targeting. I bet you can't do it.

Emac
Ibook
Imac

Re:It makes sense...

[aldoman]

I use Ubuntu Linux. I 'switched' from Windows XP (which I still run on another machine, but not on my primary one anymore - mainly down to Fireworks. Can't find an app similar to it at all on the linux side, and no, GIMP/Photoshop is not similar, whatsoever)

1) I have yet to get infected with spyware or viruses in 2 years with OSX
2) I can tool around the web without having to worry too much about getting owned
3) I can get freakin email with out having to worry too much about getting owned

Me neither, with Linux.
4) OSX shipps with XCode for free, a fully functional development environment with excellent documentation
Eclipse, Glade and your assorted command line utilites are all on Linux. Python, Perl, PHP etc. Very good stuff.
5) Graphics acceleration at the presentation layer far exceeds any other OS out there at the moment
You need to check out Xorg. Their hardware compositing is very, very impressive.
6) Apple hardware retains a higher resale value than just about any other manufacturer out there, check out ebay to see for your self
This is just because they are more expensive and updated less. Also you pay a lot more at the start with Mac.
7) The construction of the circuitry is of much higher quality than most of the competition, just take a side by side comparison of several pc motherboards to apple motherboards

I would, but I can't seem to find Apple motherboards anywhere. Oh, you mean the propetiary ones that no-one else but Apple can buy? The same ones that have had thousands of defects in iBooks?

The Motherboard is the only part Apple makes themselves AFAIK. Even then it's mainly other chipsets on it. CPU, HDD, RAM, GPU, PSU - all just generic components

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

am i the only one who was unimpressed by the eye candy.

for all the hype about it, i thought it was just, lame

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not the only one.

Re:It makes sense...

[anglete]

One of the reasons i did not buy a mac laptop is because none of them come with high density screens. I'm very specific, i admit, I bought a laptop with an SXGA+ screen (1400x1050) in a 14.1" package. I'm sure i'm not in the majority, but thats not the point. Apple computers are for a lot of people, but not everybody.

Re:It makes sense...

[CAlworth1]

Amen, brother. I bought a dual 1.8 G5, and as a college student, that was a little out of my range, but its so damn stable and useful, I don't care. If it wasn't for the power outages (some guy down the hall feels the need to hit the breakers once a quarter), my uptime would get a lot higher than then 50 days it was at as of last week.

Yes, I didn't bother to do any updates until it had to go down. I just want to know how long this machine, just over a year old, can go without a restart!

Paid a lot, but for a quiet, fast, and reiable machine that can bend over backward to run about anything i want, I'd say its a fair deal.

Re:It makes sense...

[Mr_Silver]

Build a dell with the same amount of functionnalities (not the first entry-level $300 machine), add the software that's bundled with the iBook (I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) and then compare the prices.

Mac's are more expensive that PC's if you already own a PC and have invested significantly in the software for it.

If you don't have a PC, then purchasing a Mac with Office Photoshop is about the same price as a PC with the same applications.

However if you already have a PC with those two items, it's significantly cheaper to upgrade your motherboard, CPU and/or graphics card than it is to buy a Mac and then replacement versions of all your software.

A Mac is too expensive for me, because I have a lot invested in software which I'm not willing the throw away and re-purchase for another platform. I could use emulators and alternatives, but it isn't quite the same experience.

Re:It makes sense...

[DavidLeblond]

Thats easy, you can't.

Of course you can't buy an entry-level Dell laptop for $300 either. :P

Re:It makes sense...

[sicking]

I could pop up a bash shell and run vi on my files. And all with glistening eye-candy.

Bash and vi with eye-candy? I didn't know hell had frozen over!

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Build a dell with the same amount of functionnalities (not the first entry-level $300 machine), add the software that's bundled with the iBook (I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) and then compare the prices.

So you're saying the cost of the software is bundled in? Please stop forcing me to buy software I don't want. That reminds me of a story my friends tells about a college roommate he had. The guy ran across a bargain on produce at a local stand, and brought back to the apartment 3 bags filled with it. He got a great price, but none of the guys in the apartment really ate any vegetables. It all rotted. Good deal, though.

I'd like a iBook deal that costs less and doesn't include iDVD or iMovie. If the cost is bundled in, and I'm not going to use it, it's not a good deal for me.

Quick comparison:

Lowest price preconfigured iBook I can find at the Apple Store:

1.2GHz PowerPC G4

512K L2 cache @1.2GHz

12-inch TFT Displays

1024x768 resolution

256MB DDR266 SDRAM

30GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Mobility Radeon 9200

32MB DDR video memory

AirPort Extreme built-in

Cost: $999

Dell Inspiron for same price, from Dell's site:

Intel® Celeron® M Processor 340(1.50GHz/400MHz FSB)

15.4-inch TFT display

1280x800 resolution

512MB DDR SDRAM (333MHz)

60GB Ultra ATA drive

24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive

NVIDIA® GeForceTM FX Go5200 (ATI Mobility Turbo is an option)

32 MB DDR video memory

Intel® ProWireless 2200 (802.11b/g) mini PCI wireless card

Cost: $999

So, for the same price, the Dell gives you a bigger display, with higher resolution, twice the memory, twice the HD space... but the iBook isn't expensive because I get iMovie and Garage Band?!?

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot, Dell's throwing in a printer for free... but it's likely worth exactly what you pay for it. I'm guessing it's designed primarily for it's ability to lock you into Dell ink for the rest of eternity.

Re:It makes sense...

[prockcore]

I love how everyone defending Apple's prices compares it to Dell.

We think Dell is overpriced as well! Oh look, if you compare Apple with the most overpriced PC vendor, it doesn't look so bad.

Try comparing to eMachines AMD64 Laptops, which are amazing.

Re:It makes sense...

[prockcore]

How about this? I've never used Garage Band, so I can't really compare, but FL Studio seems like a good candidate.

Fruityloops is significantly more complicated than GarageBand, but it's also significantly more powerful.

I think a better comparison is SF Acid. Acid is easier than FL, just as easy to use as garageband, but still more powerful. GarageBand can't even keyframe effect levels.

Re:It makes sense...

[NickV]

Me neither, with Linux.
4) OSX shipps with XCode for free, a fully functional development environment with excellent documentation
Eclipse, Glade and your assorted command line utilites are all on Linux. Python, Perl, PHP etc. Very good stuff.
Fortunately, all those tools ALSO work in OSX. The nicest part is they actually work out of the box (no need to install configure apache, etc...) And the OSX implementation of Swing is sweet... I dare say sweeter than ANY implementation (hardware accelerated Swing? Sweet!)

5) Graphics acceleration at the presentation layer far exceeds any other OS out there at the moment
You need to check out Xorg. Their hardware compositing is very, very impressive.
Ok Ok... I have a gentoo box on my desk running the newest xorg (6.8) with compositing... First of all, aside from the fact that I had to rip out my ATI card and put in a nvidia card to get it to work... comparing an ENTIRELY VECTOR BASED WINDOWING SYSTEM to a compositing engine is insane. Drop shadows? Transparency? How about on the fly real deformation of ANY window in any way? You can't even compare the two.

6) Apple hardware retains a higher resale value than just about any other manufacturer out there, check out ebay to see for your self
This is just because they are more expensive and updated less. Also you pay a lot more at the start with Mac.
Ok, you don't pay ALOT more nowadays to start with a Mac, many people have disputed that. However, the resale value is greater and that has nothing to do with less frequent release cycles... I don't actually know why they do (more reliably built? it just works?) but they do.

7) The construction of the circuitry is of much higher quality than most of the competition, just take a side by side comparison of several pc motherboards to apple motherboards
I would, but I can't seem to find Apple motherboards anywhere. Oh, you mean the propetiary ones that no-one else but Apple can buy? The same ones that have had thousands of defects in iBooks?
The Motherboard is the only part Apple makes themselves AFAIK. Even then it's mainly other chipsets on it. CPU, HDD, RAM, GPU, PSU - all just generic components

Ok Ok... generic components. Apple INVENTED FIREWIRE. The G5 SYSTEM BUS was INVENTED at Apple (yes, they worked with IBM on it... they were part of the team that invented it.) I doubt you've even looked inside a G5, it is an amazingly built machine. The fact that the fans haev processing units to determine when they should turn on is just one of many subtle touches that Apple engineered. The dual independent 1.25ghz system buses (yes, invented AT APPLE) is pretty freaking sweet too.

You know what I also don't get... people bitch about Apple using propreitary hardware in the past, and now they bitch that Apple uses generic components. I like the fact that there is a standardized AGP/PCI-X bus (which was around on the G5 for over a year already) and everything else is a standard component.

But please, Apple is probably the ONLY mainstream computer company that actually architects their own machines... do you think Dell does?

Re:It makes sense...

[Gear_Media]

And the regular price for that model is $1599.

You can't use a model that's on sale for a comparison like that!

Re:It makes sense...

[pyrros]

Dell can't even be bothered to mention the full weight:
Weight: starting at 6.9 lbs. (2.96 kg) with travel module, 9-cell battery and hard drive1


(Travel module means no optical drive BTW)

OTOH, the 12" ibook is 4.9 and the 14", for comparison 5.9, WITH the optical drives.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon are doing a $150 rebate on ibooks (maybe PBs too)

Re:It makes sense...

[nuxx]

Any idea on the battery life on those eMachines? I've seen quotes of ~3 hours under Windows floated around.

The eMachine laptops also weigh 7-8lbs, compared with the 4.9 and 5.9lbs (12" and 14", respectively) of the iBooks.

Re:It makes sense...

[iminplaya]

Sounds like capitalism at its very best. Don't you think? Sure, it may be like selling refrigerators to the eskimos, but I, for one...like to look at pretty things. It makes the day more pleasant. The fact that it works well doesn't hurt. Don't let the price be the only factor when purchasing a product. I buy many things based on esthetics(sp?), form factor, whatever, and I really don't see anything wrong with that. In regards to sheep, I would think that most people buy windows machines simply because that's what everybody else has.(heh...which came first?) It's what they use at work, etc.

Re:It makes sense...

[easter1916]

Prêt à tout pour avoir le mot de la fin, depuis 1977.

Ready to have the last word, since 1977? Just curious.

Re:It makes sense...

[Queer Boy]

We think Dell is overpriced as well! Oh look, if you compare Apple with the most overpriced PC vendor, it doesn't look so bad.

I think being the #1 PC vendor warrants the comparison. I always find it fascinating when people find a product flawed because they can't afford it.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confused by Apple's strict pricing model. The rest of the world routinely lists a much higher 'msrp' and a 'sale' price. Fool.

Re:It makes sense...

[Rew190]

it would only make sense that those same sheeps would also start buying overpriced but pretty Macs.

If you look at the average user and the benefits that the OS (which everyone loves to forget about when talking about price) gives them, then yeah, it's worth it.

Your post is indeed flamebait because it doesn't take into account the utter superiority of the OS to Windows (barring some things, such as games).

Watering the whole thing down to people buying Macs because they're sheep who are only investing because it's pretty is laughable to anyone who actually uses Macs and PCs daily. Are they pretty? Yes. Is that a bonus? Absolutely. Is it the only reason people like Macs? You might think so if you've never given a Mac a good trial run and witnessed how much easier and generally nicer it is to use one. For the rest of us, though, that answer is laughable.

This isn't coming from a mac-fanatic, either; I use a PC most of my day and it's still my primary machine at home, but I also love my Powerbook.

Sure it's flamebait, sure it's troll, but it's also true... and you know it.

No, it's not, but the way you paint a picture of a Mac user is a good indication that you're probably rabidly anti-Mac enough to indicate that you actually believe what you're saying and think you have it all figured out.

Please.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

...insisted on exchanging Micro$oft Word documents...

Micro$oft... That alone makes you a dick not worth listening to.

Re:It makes sense...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Such screens have the wrong dot pitch, making everything look funny. I'm sure you have your reasons for preferring them, but you'd do well I think to remember that they have significant disadvantages as well.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is also including a free printer with every Mac (Epson C86, to be precise, although I guess is as crappy as the one Dell gives).

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Humm... the Dell doesn't have FireWire or some way of adding it.

Furthermore, it's on sale. The "regular" price is $1,559 (which means that Dell normally sells it at $1350, still much higher than the iBook).

Heavy, bigger (less portable, although with a better screen), Celeron, not as tough (physically) as the iBook, etc. These are not comparable machines.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

The wrong dot pitch? Everything looks funny? WTF are you talking about? Everything looks just fine at 1400x1050

Re:It makes sense...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

A 1400 by 1050 screen (actually 1440 by 900; a 4:3 aspect ratio is just wrong) should be about 17" diagonally. That comes out to around 100 dpi. (Give or take; anything from 90 dpi to 110 dpi is what I'm talking about here.) If you cram all those pixels into a 14" (diagonal) screen, the pixels are much too small. Software expects the screen to have a dot pitch of about 100 pixels per inch. So If you cram too many pixels into too small a space, you end up with a computer on which everything looks funny and wrong, like it shrunk in the wash.

The absurd limit of this, of course, is the old IBM "Big Bertha" monitor which had a dot pitch of over 200 dpi, which meant if you hooked it up to just an ordinary computer, everything displayed on it was half the size it was supposed to be. Completely screwed up.

If the day ever comes when computers are commonly able to adjust their on-screen graphics to compensate for the monitor's actual dot pitch, great. But until that day, stick to standard 100-dpi screens.

Re:It makes sense...

[palad1]

Quite,

Will do anything to get the last word, since 1977 :)

Re:It makes sense...

[lisaparratt]

Personally, I'd pay good money to have a decent quality 12" screen over your "superior" bigger screen. I *like* being able to carry around my laptop between one finger and one thumb.

Re:It makes sense...

[Senjaz]

Windows does allow you to adjust its on screen graphics for higher resolution screens. You can change the DPI setting for the font engine: Control Panel ->Display -> Settings Tab -> Advanced

You can also set the size of Windows widgets in the same Display control panel -> Appearance Tab -> Advanced.

Mac OS X has similar window and UI scaling functions built in but not available for the user to change, for now it's 72 dpi, same as it always has been.

Problems arise from two things: sloppy programming on the Windows side assuming that 1 twip = 15 pixels (a 96 dpi resolution) meaning that control layouts get buggered up when set to any other resolution.

Second clueless web page authors. Most will mix unit types on pages and use resolution independant units such as pixels for images and resolution dependant units for fonts such as points. This means when the resolution setting is anything other than 96 dpi the layout gets screwed. Thanks to this almost all Mac browsers assume 96 dpi for web pages so they don't look like ass when the system default is 72 dpi.

I think the main thing holding us back from a resolution independant interface for a desktop OS is the pull of having to provide support for legacy apps.

Re:It makes sense...

[Ohreally_factor]

Yes, I didn't bother to do any updates until it had to go down. I just want to know how long this machine, just over a year old, can go without a restart!

You need to buy a UPS!

Re:It makes sense...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Mac OS X has similar window and UI scaling functions built in but not available for the user to change, for now it's 72 dpi, same as it always has been.

It's been years since Apple sold a 72-dpi monitor. Everything in their product line today falls somewhere between 90 dpi and 110 dpi.

Re:It makes sense...

[easter1916]

Thanks palad1! I was stumbling over the "will do anything" part. Haven't had the opportunity to speak French regularly since 1993, when I was lucky enough to live in Paris for a year.

Re:It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

One alternative to garage band is "Arturia Storm" and is in version 3. When you purchase it you get both Mac and windows versions.

Causality

[Concerned Onlooker]

it's not clear from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.

Wallstreet seems to think there is.

Re:Causality

[tekunokurato]

I assume you didn't rtfa--the study was conducted by a Piper Jaffray analyst, i.e. on wall street. So yes, in fact, wall street does think there is.

However, if what you meant was that the market consensus is that there is causality, don't be so sure. The number of switchers alone, regardless of the cause, is probably enough to move the stock like that; historically it swings wildly on market and mindshare reports, rather than on eps.

Re:Causality

[pete-classic]

Wall Street, that bastion of cool, level headed, dispassionate, scientific thought.

Oh, or were you talking about the one on Earth?

-Peter

Re:Causality

[Mattintosh]

He said "Wallstreet", which obviously refers to the 1998 model of PowerBook.

Re:Causality

[toby]

Since Bush has won it's time to put away our differences and support him. Just like the Republicans did for Clinton.

Crap. A bad idea in power is still a bad idea.

(The word "bad" just doesn't cut it, though.)

Re:Causality

[aaarrrgggh]

The number of switchers alone, regardless of the cause, is probably enough to move the stock like that; historically it swings wildly on market and mindshare reports, rather than on eps.

Agreed. The sample size was only 200 people. However, looking at the EPS trend for apple, the analysts aren't really doing much work at estimating future EPS. For the first quarter since its introduction, their sales aren't constrained by supply problems on the iPOD and mini; sales for both are expected to double for the current quarter. Furthermore, they actually have a consumer computer (also not supply-constrained) for the entire quarter.

For Apple to justify the PE of 90, they have to introduce (and make available) new laptops next quarter. Who knows what will shake out in the next 12 months, but Apple has to be positioned well for at least that long!

Re:Causality

[tekunokurato]

Don't forget the phones. I don't know if there'll be much adoption, but it could be the first really big phone trend in two years. Or it could drive people to get utterly sick of white apple plastic. Who knows?

Re:Causality

[Raffaello]

Did you read your parent?

Just like the Republicans did for Clinton.

See, this is a joke. The Republicans impeached Clinton. So your parent is suggesting that we "support" W the same way the Republicans "supported" Clinton - by impeaching W.

Of course..

[jamesdood]

The IPod interfaces well with the Mac, I have used both versions, and iTunes on the Mac is much faster and more consistant with MacOSX. I still have an x86 machine for running windows, but my most of my work is done on my Powerbook. Once you have tried the Mac it is hard to go back to the Windows box.. So from personal experience, I believe this could be true.

Re:Of course..

[hellRaven]

It's the same with me. I still have a PC but used it maybe 4 times during the last two months. Thats because of my PowerBook. I own a 2nd generation iPod for over two years now and since then I've completely changed my mind regarding Apple (I've hated them before because of the stupid and colorful CRT iMacs...) The PowerBook is by far the best Notebook I've ever seen and the screen is great. BTW: I don't have much money and I'm a student of IT. I just wanted a Unix on nice hardware and it just had to work (which it does). If you compare PowerBooks or iBooks to _good_ PC notebooks the Apples are only a little more expensive. And you get a Mac! Maybe after all I was just sick of all the people asking me if I could fix their computers. "I mean, you are an IT student..."

as soul coughing said

[dslknowitall]

correlation is not causation...

Re:as soul coughing said

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and while we're at it, coincidence is not irony. God I hate that!

Re:as soul coughing said

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in, A new study shows that 0.0005% of people who purchase apples or apple pie will purchase an apple computer in the near future.

Tune in for more information at 11:00.

It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[saddino]

This article seems to miss the obvious: all iPod users are iTunes users, and although the iPod interface is a joy, it's the iTunes interface that introduces the "look and feel" of OS X to PC iPod users. The fact that Apple broke with UI guidelines on the PC, led many to argue that iTunes for Windows was bloated and slow. But now it seems clear that for Apple it was paramount to keep the iTunes experience as close to OS X as possible.

If these numbers are correct (and pan out) then Apple's "gamble" turned out to be correct.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[FuzzieNorn]

You have a fair argument in the latter half of that, but, no, I'm afraid not all iTunes users are iPod users, as much as I'd like Apple to start bundling iPods with the free iTunes download..

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gambles don't turn out to be correct, they pay off (sometimes).

Hunches turn out to be correct (sometimes).

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[radish]

Why does everyone love the iPod interface so much? My GF has one, and to me it's kind of annoying, and very plain looking. The touch wheel thing makes it hard to select stuff, and the lack of an "off" is weird. I'm not flaming here, just curious. It strikes me as very average indeed.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Refrag]

I'd argue it is both Ipod and Itunes that are luring people to the Macintosh. They see that Apple is really good at designing the whole widget and think that maybe that could be better than their current Brand X computer with Windows on it.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[McChump]

I can't STAND ITunes. I refuse to use it.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[ickoonite]

I am not normally this brusque, but I think the occasion so merits. Are you misinformed or simply incredibly stupid?

I simply cannot understand how all iTunes (a free download) users could be iPod users (an expensive peripheral). Given that iTunes is bundled with the iPod rather than vice versa, and that unless you are particularly political in your choice of OS, the iPod as-good-as requires iTunes as its computer-to-peripheral interface, how can iPod > iTunes?

Further, you seem to suggest that iTunes requires you to buy all the music stored therein. I am worried that their are people reading this site who are this uninformed. My iTunes Library is full of >20Gb worth of MP3s, mostly ripped from CDs - I have one iTunes Music Store-bought AAC file. Therefore those who "choose not to pay fees to download music" (i.e. those who download MP3s) will find iTunes an excellent interface for their "borrowed" collection.

Sorry for the tone, but sometimes...

iqu :@

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Rude Turnip]

I used iTunes (on Mac and PC) for almost a year before getting an iPod. I would just listen to music on my computers or burn CDs for the car. The number of Linux users using iPods is IMO immaterial compared to the market at large.

Also, you don't need to use iTunes Music Store to use iTunes...in fact the music store came out well after the release of iTunes. The preferences menu lets you hide the Music Store button if you don't want to use it ever.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[TylerL82]

The great thing about the touchwheel is the ability to accelerate and decelerate at will. After a few minutes (or even a few seconds), it makes perfect sense when you have a large list to browse through.
Also, hold down the Play/Pause button for a few seconds to turn it "off".

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine there are quite a few iPod users that don't use iTunes at all (i.e. Linux crowd, plus people that choose not to pay fees to download music)

iTunes != iTunes Music Store

It's perfectly easy to use iTunes to manage your current MP3 library without 1) purchasing an iPod and 2) paying "fees to download music."

No way is it even remotely possible that all iTunes users (free download) are iPod users (big $).

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[josiebauer]

I disagree with you there - I use iTunes to catalogue all my music, but I don't own an iPod - I bought a far cheaper MP3 player than the iPod. I'm sure there are a lot of people that love the free software, without wanting to spend several hundred dollars on the hardware.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[jurv!s]

Where is the hardware poweroff button on your PC? Same as the poweron button- you just hold it down longer. Since input to any button will turn the iPod on, Apple chose to make holding down the Play button the poweroff button. RTFM.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[drix]

Uhh, ::ahem::... (raises hand) I don't use iTunes. Maybe I will in the future, although that's doubtful. Basically when I got my iPod last month, I filled it up with the many thousands of MP3s I've downloaded over the years and never listened to. (I download MP3s compulsively and I probably listen to about 1/10th of what I download.) Canciones aleatorias/random shuffle has been a fun and enlightening experience, indeed.

Maybe it's just because I'm in college, but no one else I know uses iTunes either. And I go to Berkeley, where judging just by a stroll through campus, we have a higher iPod:student ratio than maybe any other school in America. Like probably 1/3 or something.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[krouic]

Hey, watch out, no one dares characterize the iPod UI with other words than "slick", "excellent" or "superior".

Failure to comply will expose you to the risk of being labelled as a "iRiver/Rio/Dell/Creative employee" or "envious that can not afford an iPod (yet)".

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Queer Boy]

Windows has UI guidelines?

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't use iTunes? How do you sync all those MP3s with your iPod? How do you build playlists? How do you manage/sort all those MP3s?

I didn't know there was decent third-party MP3 library solution for the iPod other than iTunes, so please...what do you and everyone you know use instead???

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[elemental23]

So how do you put music on your iPod?

iTunes != iTunes Music Store

I've never bought anything from the iTMS, but I use iTunes all the time for both managing my iPod and playing music directly on my computer.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Kris_J]

I don't know about the parent, but I still use Musicmatch that was shipped with my (windows) iPod. I tried iTunes one time and it was awful. It did so much I didn't want and made the simple act of having a library of files that are periodically synced with the iPod very painful. That's when I found that installing it broke Musicmatch's iPod interface and I had to re-install it all. Certainly nothing there making me want to move to the Mac.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Moofie]

You like Musicmatch but don't like iTunes?

I think you're insane. Musicmatch is one of the worst packages I've ever seen. The interface is hideous, it breaks if you look at it crosswise...it's just EWW.

I was pissed that iTunes rearranged all my MP3's...until I discovered smart playlists. Now I don't care if a given track is stored on Mars...I can still play it.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The poster whom you so rightfully upbraided is confused. He thinks that iTunes and the iTunes Music Store are the same thing.

On the one hand, go easy on him because he's merely ignorant. But on the other hand, suffer not a fool to live.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Kris_J]

Musicmatch behaves exactly how I expect. Play, Next, Library, Rip, Sync. I only use it to manage the files on my iPod. I don't know what iTunes thinks its for.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Moofie]

I didn't know it was self aware, but I think iTunes is for managing and cataloging my collection. It's just way too useful.

I've been shopping for a good id3 tagger for years. None of them work as well as iTunes.

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[Ohreally_factor]

On the one hand, go easy on him because he's merely ignorant. But on the other hand, suffer not a fool to live.

So you're suggesting we kill him quickly and painlessly? I brought the jumper cables for nothing?

Re:It's iTunes, not the iPod.

[ickoonite]

But on the other hand, suffer not a fool to live.

Precisely! This is what I am talking about! We need to start killing these people. Once the death toll rises, they will listen.

Who's with me?

iqu >:D

I KNEW IT!

[fullmetal55]

I knew they were planting subliminal messages in my mp3s... because as soon as I got my ipod I started craving other mac products, like an ibook, or an imac. *puts on tinfoil hat* It's a conspiracy and this "study" proves it's working!!

Imac

[AyeFly]

I personally have 3 PCs
Gaming PC
3.0GHZ work / gaming laptop
AMD snapstream media pc.

Im thinking about getting an IBook though, since they are so small, and just running the dreamweaver suite/photoshop on it. is photoshop 7 too powerful for the 12 inch Ibook?

also, how long does the battery last watching a movie on an airplane?

and yes, i do have an Ipod and it indirectly got me looking at Macs... since i had to go into the mac store to get a Griffin Itrip

Re:Imac

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought the 12'' iBook w/ $150 rebate from Amazon. It was def worth the money. My battery lasts a little over 5 hours. You'll have enough time to put in two movies on a flight.

Re:Imac

[virex]

i get about 2.5 hours watching a dvd on an old powerbook g4, which apple claimed had 5 hours of life(i get 6-7 when i'm doing other stuff) since apple claims 6hours for the ibook you should get atleast that. and it's pretty easy to switch batteries too, since mac laptops can switch batteries while sleeping...so just close the lid, switch the battery, open it up and you're good

Re:Imac

[LEgregius]

As long as you have 640-768MB of RAM, photoshop and dreamweaver will run fine. I don't know about the current iBooks, but older ibooks had just enough battery to watch one whole movie. There are more battery saving options in the DVD player now, and you can go into the power options and set the CPU speed to "reduced." That would keep the battery going longer.

Re:Imac

[TheKidWho]

Id say photoshop would run fine on the new 12" ibooks. I have a 700mhz G3 ibook(a bit over 2 years old) and it runs photoshop 7 pretty well even with 256mb RAM. As far as watching movies go, my battery died a while ago due to me not charging it for 3 months when it was dead, and well I get enough juice now to put the laptop to sleep for a day or two. But before my battery died, When watching DVD movies I would get around 4 hours of battery life, so its about enough to watch 2 full movies. The newer ibooks get 5 hours of battery life so it will probally be even better with those!

Re:Imac

[revscat]

I'd recommend that setup, especially if you game. We have a setup similar to yours (PC for gaming, G5 for my home work box, and a slightly older 15" iBook for my wife). We just got back from a trip and took the iBook for the first time. The battery lasts long enough to watch a movie, but not much longer. (If we'd had a car lighter adapter we would have been able to charge it on the plane.)

But it really shined as an easy dump-off point for my digital camera. Plug in the CF, import, drag CF card to trash, put back in camera. Done. (Not wild about the photo iPod thing...)

Re:Imac

[bedouin]

also, how long does the battery last watching a movie on an airplane?

I have an older iBook without a DVD drive, but I've had no problem loading it up with DivXs to watch while traveling. If you still want DVD quality then rip the DVD to the hard drive; you'll get much longer battery life than with the optical drive spinning.

Dreamweaver and Photoshop run fine (simultaneously) on my 800mhz G3 and G4 machines, so you should have no problem on iBooks that are now 1ghz+. The key is RAM.

Re:Imac

[WombatControl]

I bought the 12.1" iBook, and run Photoshop CS on it. The biggest drawback isn't the horsepower of the machine, it's the size of the screen. You have to hide most of your palettes to get a decent-sized work area, and it still requires some squinting. Other than that both Dreamweaver and Photoshop run just fine on an iBook. I do highly recommend upgrading the RAM to 512MB, either through Apple or through a third-party dealer. 256MB isn't quite enough.

As for movie watching, you should have no problem getting at least 3 solid hours of battery life with the DVD player running. I routinely get 5 hours of battery life without using the CD drive, even when using wireless networks.

Re:Imac

[TheRaven64]

Watching DVDs absolutely kills the battery life of my PowerBook. Fortunately, the included Disk Utility tool can create a .dmg (disk image) from a DVD with a couple of clicks. When you double-click on this, it automatically mounts and opens the DVD Player. As an aside, I've found that this also works with a couple of games that claim to require the CD in to play - they work fine with an image of the CD mounted.

Re:Imac

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on what you mean by "too powerful." Of course it'll run Photoshop just fine. The 1.2 GHz processor is no slouch, and for the money, I'd pick that over an expensive 1.5 GHz PowerBook any day. The PB is niiiice (I have one for work) but the iBook is barely any slower and way cheaper. Still, it's no dual 2.5 GHz G5, but you knew that. It'll be fine. Put it this way, my 600 MHz G3 iBook still runs like a champ and I don't feel like it's too slow for me. That's just me, though.

As for movies, you'll do just fine if you rip it to hard drive first (search for DVD Backup or MacTheRipper). That optical drive will suck a lot of juice, but you'll get plenty of time without it spinning. I still get upwards of 4 hours on my 2 year old iBook, and I imagine a newer batter would do better. Though playing DVD isn't the lightest task, so you'll take a bit of a hit for that. But I'd guess at least 3 hours of DVD time.

Ramble, ramble, ramble, look at me, I'm a gay Mac fag! Whoopie! Join us, drink the Koolaiod, Steve Jobs is God, Apple can do no wrong!! Weeeeee!!!

Re:Imac

[w3weasel]

is photoshop 7 too powerful for the 12 inch Ibook?

The iBook has plenty of muscle for even heavy duty (40MB+ files) photoshopping... of course, it doesn't compare to a desktop, but it is quite capable of doing the job. Just make sure you have ample memory (512MB+)

In other news...

[GillBates0]

6% of fresh fruit consumers have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent of the apple eaters said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine; it's not clear, however from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.

Re:In other news...

[runderwo]

Yeah, the statistic the article left out is that 6% of Mac users also decided to switch to PC citing lower hardware costs and more universal application support, rendering a net effect of zero.

Re:In other news...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

While there may me no causal relationship, we find a casual relationship. Indeed, some relationships have even gone beyond casual into friendly, or downright intimate.

Man bites dog

[Eevee]

I kinda think that's the point of the story. People finding the iPod a sufficiently good reason to switch their OS is not a run of the mill event. How many people switch just because there's a neat new scanner out on the market? Or for a new printer? (Not counting high-end RIPs, of course, since they're pretty much stand-alone.)

Re:Man bites dog

[Mattintosh]

Which is why I would like to point out that this should be from the "It's-working!" dept.

This was the plan all along. Build the bestest gadget, get mindshare, get marketshare. And /. (as a whole) fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Welcome to the cult of the Mac.

Re:Man bites dog

[adamh526]

I agree that it's not a run-of-the-mill event, but I'm having a very hard time thinking that this was really "unexpected," as the article says. I think this was more or less the idea, or at least the hope, behind the iPod.

Is it really impossible to think that Apple created the iPod to increase its brand awareness and better it's company image, to eventually increase the Mac's market share? I had always thought that Apple's business model was more or less centered on the Macintosh. I realize Apple has a separate iPod division now, but I still think every move they make is in the Mac's best interest first.

Re:Man bites dog

[Anonymous Coward]

My how cynical we've all become when we look upon companies with disdain for actually producing good products that work the way we want. Bah, that's all just part of their master plan to take over the world we say.

Better we stick with dysfunctional Microsoft. They're just as power hungry, if not moreso, but their incompetence in producing good, working products will ensure that we can keep them in check.

If a company dares to think differently and deliver to a higher standard, we shall give unto them the label of cult. How dare they bring their heretical ideas into our MSChurch!

Re:Man bites dog

[Col. Bloodnok]

cult: a small unpopular religion.

religion: a large popular cult.

OS X is selling Macs

[RayDude]

It isn't the iPod's doing. Its OS X. Its GUI Rocks. I'd run it too if I could get it for x86 processors. The amazing thing is, now that Processors are fast enough for the average user, the raw power of the CPU is less important and the GUI matters more. That's why people are _contemplating_ Linux or switching to Mac.

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[cyfer2000]

The fact iBook is cheap, especially after educational discount is also important I think.

Aren't there many students who own ipods?

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[RayDude]

When I was in High School, Apple was practically giving away Apple IIe's. When I was a senior the library got its first Mac. I was blown away by the resolution of the monochrome display.

Apple got market share back then by supporting students, and it looks like they are moving back to that model.

To be honest, if they wanted to scare the crap out of Microsoft, they'd port OS X to x86 and sell it for $50.00.

If they wanted to bleed MS dry, quickly, they'd open source the OS X GUI and guts.

But this is off subject now...

Raydude

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[TylerL82]

To really scare the crap out of Microsoft, Apple should make a Keynote-quality answer to both Word and Excel that can read/write the respective MS Office formats.
Develop it for Mac and Windows just like iTunes.
Give it away for free.

Sure, it'll cost tens of millions of dollars, but you undercut Microsoft on their #1 breadwinner. That's gotta piss them off even more.

There'd be more of a halo-effect with that than with just iTunes, especially if Apple bundled in a lot of exclusive OS X-style integration features into the Mac version.

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[RayDude]

Someone could port Open Office to OS-X, and Apple wouldn't even have to have a part in it.

I'll bet this is already happening.

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[RayDude]

Here you go:

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_download s.html

Re:OS X is selling Macs

[Ohreally_factor]

I think he meant a native port, not something that runs under X windows.

Maybe Apple could give some developer a grant or fellowship to write a native port.

I love my iPod but...

[jmcmunn]

For the same money I would spend on a top of the line Mac, I can get a hell of a lot more PC. Don't get me wrong, the Mac is beautiful and the hardware is great...but the cost is (in my mind) outrageous in the day and age where I can go to Dell and get a brand new 3Ghz PC with a 17 inch flat panel for less than $700.

My iPod is great, I love it to death. But I only had to pay a small amount more for it than for the competing Mp3 players...there is a larger price difference between a PC and a Mac.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you see a Mac costing more than a PC its because you're getting more.

Whenever you match a CPs specs to match those of any Mac in both hardware and software, the price evens out (at worst) and at best... the Mac is typically less expensive.

Sure the PC allows you to buy just the components you want, but that does not mkae the PC less expensive... it makes it more configurable.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[Capt_Troy]

I don't know...

I my work machine is a Dell and it's fairly equilivalent to a top of the line G5. The prices are about the same.

You're getting a really crappy dell for 700 bucks (with screen). Everything on the MB and shared memory. You really can't compare that to the higher quality innards of the mac.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[JudgeFurious]

I question that. Not the "hell of a lot more" part literally but the definition of "hell of a lot more". A lot more what exactly? A lot more hard drive space? A lot more RAM? Maybe it's a lot more Mhz? Yes it's good to get more for less but at some point you cross a level called "enough" and in my mind both PC's and Macs are pretty far past that now. In fact for most uses they're well into "more than enough".

It's a "use what you like" type of thing. I've spent years with x86 machines and now a couple of years with Macs. I still have and use both. I liked using the Mac and OSX enough on an old beige G3 to lay down the money to get the (then) top of the line G5 last year. My advice to anyone who doesn't want to get "infected" with the desire to run OSX is to stay away from them. It doesn't take long to get you thinking that it's worth it.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[jmcmunn]

I am not saying that the hardware is all of the best quality, but it will let me do what I need to do. With a $50 video card upgrade (not from Dell) and some extra RAM (also not from Dell) I can easily have a pretty rocking game/work machine for less than $1000.

Here at work (granted we get about 20% discount from the local computer shop) we get all intel machines, about 3Ghz, decent vid card, and at least 512 RAM all for about $800. This machine runs all but the mighteiest games with no problem. Now add a 17 inch flat panel on slickdeals for about $200 and we're back to the $1000 price point. And this is a high quality all Intel machine. Now I know that doesn't mean it is better hardware than the Mac, but it is a good solid machine that will do most everything that an owner would want, and for much cheaper than the Mac.

Unless you just don't like Windows (which I can understand for a lot of people) there is no real reason to pay the extra for the Mac other than their admittedly great style.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a Mac basher. They are great machines if you have extra money...but most of us do not.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[MyDixieWrecked]

One thing that the PC world has that apple really needs to do something about is inexpensive machines. Sure, you can get a Dell for 700$ with overall impressive specs and performance, you can't get something that compares, or even gets close without spending at least double or triple that.

Generally, I suggest getting a PC (a 1200$ Dell, in fact) to most people when they ask me what computer to get. Sure, you can get a 1ghz G4 eMac from apple for like 800$, but it's a piece of shit compared to a Dell that you could get for the same price.

Although, for 4000$, I think the PC you could get (pre-built, not built yourself, at home, mind you) are pretty close, and which is better is decided by your own OS preference/needs.

I say this as I'm typing into safari on my 800mhz, custom built G4 with 1.25GB RAM and it's struggling to keep up... but I'm downloading 6 torrents and have a 400mb photoshop file and a multi-page inDesign document open, not to mention countless other apps. I've considered many times getting a 2000$ Dell workstation, but it wouldn't fit my needs enough, and I can't stomach the idea of using windows at home. I feel 1000x more comfortable in OSX.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[misleb]

Is this type of post obligatory or what? How many times do we have to hear this age old argument about Macs being more expensive? Really, the price difference isn't that great considering that this is a relatively long term purchase and that you will presumably be using it a lot. How long are you going to keep your computer? 2, maybe 3 years at least? Does a few extra hundred dolars really make that much difference? Also, consider the resale value. PCs aren't worth shit in the used market. They are practically disposable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a PC user myself. But that has a lot more to do with the fact that I run Linux and don't really care about having slick, easy to use gear. I also tend to upgrade my way to the latest CPU rather than purchase whole systems. My wife, on the other hand, just bought a new iBook for $1000 and couldn't be happier. Her old Mac lasted her nearly 6 years.

-matthew

Re:I love my iPod but...

[aldoman]

Dell is overpriced. They are very good if you have a few thousand machines to order, but not if you are just a home user. Build it yourself. You _can_ get a hell of a machine for the price of a 17" imac.

Re:I love my iPod but...

[misleb]

One thing that the PC world has that apple really needs to do something about is inexpensive machines. Sure, you can get a Dell for 700$ with overall impressive specs and performance,

First of all, Apple can't compete on price because they don't have the volume. Second, they don't need to. Their niche is delivering quality products for people who like their computers. Third, at some point enough is enough as far as specs and performance go... for most people. Sure, your hardcore gamers are going to get the cheapest, fastest hardware they can, but I think, more and more, we are going to see people giving up on the MHz rat race and settle for a computer that is simple and easy to use and will last them for a while. Apple is on the right track, IMO.

Generally, I suggest getting a PC (a 1200$ Dell, in fact) to most people when they ask me what computer to get. Sure, you can get a 1ghz G4 eMac from apple for like 800$, but it's a piece of shit compared to a Dell that you could get for the same price.

Or $1000 for an iBook which isn't a piece of shit compared to a Dell of the same price. I think you may be doing people a diservice by recommending computers based on price/performance alone.

I say this as I'm typing into safari on my 800mhz, custom built G4 with 1.25GB RAM and it's struggling to keep up... but I'm downloading 6 torrents and have a 400mb photoshop file and a multi-page inDesign document open, not to mention countless other apps. I've considered many times getting a 2000$ Dell workstation, but it wouldn't fit my needs enough, and I can't stomach the idea of using windows at home. I feel 1000x more comfortable in OSX.

What makes you think all these people asking you what computer they should buy want to stomach using Windows at home?

-matthew

Re:I love my iPod but...

[Capt_Troy]

No man, I get you! I think the thing with Apple is that they use the best stuff, which, as you pointed out, is overkill for most people, and always more expensive because the components are new.

I wonder how much a PC would cost if you used dual 64 bit chips from AMD, top of the line Nvidia cards, etc. I wonder if they would come out at about the same price as the dual G5 or not...

Oh, and why was I modded "Offtopic" on that? I was just responding to you...

Oh well.

Count me in there...sort of

[yetanothermike]

Since I purchased my iPod I have recognized the elegance, style and simplicity of Apple products. Even the packaging is sexy!

I would not purchase one of the devices for myself, but I would recommend them to others who don't need to upgrade a lot or tinker. For those who aren't power users, they are a nice package.

Before the iPod I wouldn't have even considered recommending Apple machines to anyone though. So I'm sort of on board.

Re:Count me in there...sort of

[EMiniShark]

I would argue that from the ubiquitous integration of Cocoa with various common scripting languages that slashdotters love, along with the FreeBSD userland, its a nice package for those that ARE power users too ;)

Dangers of the iPod (or "iPod Madness!")

[BlueThunderArmy]

Does this make the iPod a gateway Mac?

Re:Dangers of the iPod (or "iPod Madness!")

[White Roses]

Never, ever, ever use the words "Gateway" and "Mac" in such close proximity.

Re:Dangers of the iPod (or "iPod Madness!")

[BlueThunderArmy]

I take it you didn't pick up the lovely "Cow flavored" iMac, then?

Re:Dangers of the iPod (or "iPod Madness!")

[crovira]

No, Gateway does not make an iPod. They're seling (pre-selling really,) a $250 MP3 player though. Stores up to 1,000 songs. Yawn!!

Mac-curious you say?

[Tibor the Hun]

No problem, meet us on the corner of 27th and St. James on Wednesday at 10:00 pm.
Bring your iPod and leather boots...

What's th Difference?

[Evil W1zard]

I have to admit that I have never used a Mac and I really don't know much about them... Saying that can anyone give me a quick/fast explanation of the major difference between Macs and PCs? If I am going to pay a lot for a PC then I am gonna make sure that I am paying because the functionality is there (like buying Alienware of FNW for gaming), but it seems to me that people are inclined to say Macs are just more expensive because they are Macs?

Re:What's th Difference?

[topham]

You pay for the engineering.

I bought a Mac (G51.6) a yeah ago, the current OS runs a Mach kernel with a BSD layer for Unix compatibility.

It means you get the benfits of a microkernel in a Unix-like environment. (device drivers don't require a re-compile / linking, etc).

An accessible Unix like environment, with a large level of compatibility for open source programs.

A GUI that was designed to be used, not just look pretty. (It does though). A base set of applications that are strong enough for daily use, and easy enough for the casual user.

A programming environment that makes putting together a small application, with nice looking windows easy.

The next version of the OS (Tiger) adds in some system-wide features which will make the playform even sweeter.

Most of what I've grown to like about the Mac is that is appeals to the technical side of me in it;s clean design without limiting it's functionality.

(now if they can just fix openGL to not suck as bad as it does right now... )

Re:What's th Difference?

[kidgenius]

What's the difference? Hard to say, except you need to experience it. A Mac first look beautiful (IMHO), but using one is definately an experience. It's amazing how things just work, look, and interoperate on them. You really should try to find an official Apple store, Fry's Electronics, or CompUSA and sit and play around on one for about 15 minutes. It's a bit different than Windows. You are in part paying for the art of the design of the hardware. The functionality is different. It's there, but it may not be what you are thinking. It's simple, but not dumb. It's easy, but can allow control if you want (it has a CLI that you can use). Like I said, you really should just try one out.

Re:What's th Difference?

[IamGarageGuy 2]

It works - that's been my big thing. You tend not tinker with them as much as with a Windows machine. It is put together as one piece and works great just as it is. You pay a bit more for elegance.

Re:What's th Difference?

[Evil W1zard]

How well do they interoperate with most software and are they as easy to upgrade?

Re:What's th Difference?

[cyfer2000]

I haven't restart my G4 since last update. It's about 20 days.

I reboot my Notebook with WinXP every week.

Apple could find printers on the LAN automatically.

I have to configure those printers by typing ip address of printer with my fingures on PCs.

We are running a apache webserver with tomcat and mysql on a 350MHz G3 Blue and White.

We dump all of the PCs with speed slower than 500MHz unless it is running linux.

I didn't see any real virus on my Mac

I was told to clean virus on PCs this morning.

Re:What's th Difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs are for fags and PCs are for real men.

Re:What's th Difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

>It means you get the benfits of a microkernel
>in a Unix-like environment. (device drivers
>don't require a re-compile / linking, etc).

Mac OS X is not a mikrokernel design. Mac OS
only uses Mach as hardware abstraction, much
like Windows uses HAL. Everything from device
drivers to filesystems run in kernel mode.
From what I know, the message passing routines
of Mach is not used.

Device drivers don't need recompile on either
Windows or Linux, none of which are micro
kernel designs (NT 3.51 was kind of
mikrokernelish, but the graphical subsystem
was moved into the kernel in version 4.0

Re:What's th Difference?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"How well do they interoperate with most software and are they as easy to upgrade? "

Wow, that is a pretty broad question. The answers are well, ok, and not at all for the first question and yes, sometimes for the second question.

Macs are not binary compatible with windows software, without a third party emulator. All that pre-compiled software you may have will not work. On the other hand, most major applications have a version compiled for the mac. Smaller applications, or niche applications may have a mac version, or may not. There may be an equivalent program, or there may not. On the other hand, Macs have quite a few applications, not available at all on windows (some of which have functional equivalents). Also, Macs can compile and run the vast majority of software written for Linux or the BSDs. I suppose you just have to figure out what you want to do, then look into what is available.

As far as upgradeability goes, some macs are compact all in one units, or laptops, and are about as upgradeable as pc equivalents. Their towers are probably easier to upgrade than most pcs with a few caveats. Mainly not all hardware has drivers, or is compatible with OSX, and finding out which is not always easy. I've never had a problem, personally, but I always do a little research before making any new hardware purchases.

Re:What's th Difference?

[Spyritus]

Couple of sites to look at to see if what you want exists.

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
Macintosh Products Guide
Apple's Mac OS X page

Number's not surprising

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I saw this article a while ago, and then ran a few numbers in my head. Given the number of ipods Apple sells is a little under the number of computers sold, in an average quarter, this is not really surprising at all. I don't think the correlation is really meaningful. Slightly less than 6% of Apple's new computer customers have also bought ipods. Given the overlap between people into high tech gadgets and people with enough money to afford an ipod or a mac, I'm surprised these numbers aren't higher.

Re:Number's not surprising

[oneishy]

Except that the numbers are the other way around. They are of ipod owners (current pc users) who purchased a mac [or plan to] AFTER buying the ipod. The percentage of mac owners bo purchased an ipod second is in addition to the 6% and 7% mentioned. That is why it's a big deal. Remember also that the 7% is of those who plan a purchase in the next 12 months. That says nothing of those who plan to purchase in the next 12-24 months which is most of the people i know. Apples price point is high for many, but there are those who are willing to plan and save to make it happen.

You are also mistaken that apples sells more computers than ipods. They shipped 2 million ipods in 4q and only 836k cpu's. I would also expect the number of ipods shipped to double or tripple for the 1st quarter. At that rate (15 million ipods a year) 7% turns into a million new cpu sales to those who previously were pc users. I know i'm reading into it and guessing but it's what I think will happen.

Re:Number's not surprising

[shawnce]

You hit it on the head...

If the "halo" effect is just 1% of _new_ iPod owners switch to using a Mac you are looking at around 30,000 (being conservative) extra Mac sales this quarter (assuming around 3 million iPod sold this quarter). That by it self represents a 3.5% increase in Mac sales over the prior quarter.

If the numbers are closer to the 6% (as the survey appears to imply) then we are talking greater then 20% increase in Mac volumes coming from the halo affect in just one quarter (which is something like over 220 million in revenue).

This is what some company analysts are starting to see if the crunch the numbers.

Will it happen and will it continue? Who knows but I do believe at least some halo effect is and will continue to take place and it will help Apple's mac sales.

Re:Number's not surprising

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

OK, you're right my numbers were off a bit. Even so, I'm not sure that the number is really very large. The "people who plan to buy" number is meaningless. You can't do a survey of people who plan to do something because most people have unrealistic expectations. so that leaves us with 14ish percent of mac machines being sold to someone who used to own a pc, and who bought an ipod. What percentage of those people switched because of their like for the ipod? That number is not provided, but it is probably not most of them. Most of the people I know are switching because of OSX and it's UNIX abilities, or because they are sick and tired of worms and spyware. I'm not saying that ipods are not working as a sales tool, but considering that they are only currently an unknown portion of 14%, I don't think it is a huge motivator.

On the other hand, I think that most estimates of how many people are using macs, is generally quite a bit lower than reality. Most are based on mac sales versus pc sales, and don't account for how long machines are used, or how many of those pc's are used only very occasionally, or not at all. I know here in the office they have about a 50% share and a similar share for people's personal systems.

Myth?

[lamz]

Once you try Mac...

So sick of iPOD

[netsavior]

ok lets settle this... the iPod is not the only way to listen to music, and the mac is not the only way to use an iPod. I wish most users could understand this. Of course I guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod you might as well also throw in a $4,000 computer to go with it.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[saddino]

Of course I guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod

ok lets settle this...purchasing music from iTMS or "stealing" music from P2P is not the only way to fill an iPod. Of course, my CD collection might be a tad larger than yours.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[cplater]

Assuming you mean $10,000 for 10,000 songs. If you buy CDs w/ an averate of 15 songs on them for $9.99 at Best Buy / Circuit City, you would have at least 667 CDs, which would have cost $6663.33. In the process you be careful, and only buy from non-riaa labels, and feel good about helping out some of the artists. It might be hard, but you could do it.
I fail to see why people think the only way to legitimately fill up an iPod is w/ iTMS singles.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[n3k5]

Of course I guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod ...

ok lets settle this...purchasing music from iTMS or "stealing" music from P2P is not the only way to fill an iPod. Of course, my CD collection might be a tad larger than yours.

Rrrriiiiiight. And you got all of those CDs for free.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[RatBastard]

Of course I guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod

And then there are those of us who have 500+ CDs sitting in our media center shelves. After a decade or two you can build up a large music collection. Not every iPod user is 17 years old.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every iPod user is 17 years old.

I'd wager that's closer to Slashdot's average age... in a few years. ;)

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Rrrriiiiiight. And you got all of those CDs for free.

That money's already been spent. I only have about 200 CDs, but that's enough to fill a 20G iPod and then some. Only 2 tunes are from iTunes, and about a Gig is anime music that isn't really available anymore.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[morcheeba]

I'll second that. A don't forget, an ipod can store more than just music.

(and, yes, I've dropped over $4k on music over the last 15 years, and don't consider myself much of a music collector)

Re:So sick of iPOD

[celerityfm]

Not only that but when you DO encode those CDs you have all that extra room to go for Apple Lossless.

Top it off with backing up gigabytes of data off of your hard drive (my digital camera photo archive for one) and you've filled your hard drive faster then you can download your favorite song off of Kazaa.

Pair it with the Radioshark and a bunch of podcast streams and you'll be wishing you had the 60gb iPod photo!

Right?

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Mr_Silver]

ok lets settle this...purchasing music from iTMS or "stealing" music from P2P is not the only way to fill an iPod. Of course, my CD collection might be a tad larger than yours.

UK copyright laws are actually more draconian than the US and there is no concept of "fair use".

In short, this means that the CD you bought gives you the licence to listen to it on that medium only.

So, in the UK, the only way to legimately fill your iPod is to actually drop £15,000 (we pay more than you lot) to fill it up. Sticking your CD's onto it is actually not allowed by UK law.

(of course that doesn't stop people doing it and the music industry would be blowing off their nose to spite their face if they ever did try to bring it to the courts ... but you get what I mean)

Re:So sick of iPOD

[n3k5]

That money's already been spent.

The point of the original poster was that while Macs do cost lots of money, legitimately collecting enough music to fill a state-of-the-art harddrive also costs lots of money (unless, by a big coincidence, all the music you like happens to be under a creative commons or similar license). Of course you spent money on music, and not for the purpose of minimising your iPod's free disk space. This is true, but irrelevant, just like the fact that you don't have to purchase your music through the iTMS is true, but irrelevant. I can't see why the comment pointing this out got moderated up so much.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The point of the original poster was that while Macs do cost lots of money, legitimately collecting enough music to fill a state-of-the-art harddrive also costs lots of money (unless, by a big coincidence, all the music you like happens to be under a creative commons or similar license). Of course you spent money on music, and not for the purpose of minimising your iPod's free disk space. This is true, but irrelevant, just like the fact that you don't have to purchase your music through the iTMS is true, but irrelevant. I can't see why the comment pointing this out got moderated up so much.

And my point is that those of us who like our music already have a pile of it. The fact that buying it afresh would cost a ton is irrelevant - we already have it, it's just in a convenient carrying case right now. If, on the other hand, you don't like music, why buy an iPod at all? Even if you do, you're not required to fill it up.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[netsavior]

ok so how much do you make per hour and how long does it take to rip each CD? Now how much did it cost to fill your iPod?

Re:So sick of iPOD

[AvantLegion]

guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod

www.epitomic.com
www.garageband.com
www.iuma.com
Podcasts at iPodder.org

Just because YOUR concept of music doesn't go beyond your little RIAA world, doesn't mean that nobody else's does. And just because you can't figure out how to use the MP3 format for anything other than pirating music, doesn't mean that no one else can.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[netsavior]

again that is why I said most users. and I use the mp3 format to pirate audiobooks too... geez the nerve.

Re:So sick of iPOD

[easter1916]

Jesus! GBP 15,000? At current exchange rates, that's, what, US$28,000? You are most certainly getting the shaft. In general, the cost of living in the UK has become outrageous... (visited there over the summer for my brother's funeral).

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Pffft! What a lame comment. Many of my friends, myself included, own hundreds of cds spanning a decade or two of interest in music. You seem to be missing the whole freakin' point of an ipod (or other large-storage mp3 player) - you buy it to fit your music collection into your pocket. Only an absolute moron (such as n3k5 perhaps?) would assume you'd buy an ipod and THEN go find some music for it. Your inability to realize this, and subsequent post spinning semantics, really don't portray you as an intellectual giant. What a yutz!

Re:So sick of iPOD

[mibus]

.au is the same... but the record companies here have publicly stated that they're not interested in "private use" copying. (And nobody has ever been charged for it here).

Doesn't stop me from being miffed at a bad law though :)

Re:So sick of iPOD

[Ohreally_factor]

Right, because when I rip a CD, I stop doing everything else and just sit patiently until it's done.

Hmmmmm. . . I make $60/hour. My god! I just wasted $480 sleeping!

Macworld Link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10 252&Page=1&pagePos=1/MacWorld Article

Re:Macworld Link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10 252&Page=1&pagePos=1

Share Target Price…

[cplater]

This "halo effect" is part of the reason why Piper Jaffray raised thier target price for AAPL to $100 a share.

I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[beef curtains]

...if only I could afford to. $1500 for an iBook is a tad steep when you can get a P.O.S. HP or Dell laptop for $700, tops.

Especially considering that, as my "personal-use" computer, all it's ever used for is iTunes, Firefox, Thunderbird & MS Word...nothing that warrants gigaflops of raw processing power.

Maybe if Apple brought out one or two low-low-end products that could compete, price-wise, with all the mass-market, Windows-running junk out there, they could really pick up some market share...the challenge would be figuring out how to do this without undermining their brand image.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[zaren]

...if only I could afford to. $1500 for an iBook is a tad steep when you can get a P.O.S. HP or Dell laptop for $700, tops

?!? You'd settle for a (in your own words) P.O.S. Winbox when for $300 more you can get a "P.O.S." iBook? The top of the line 1.33 Ghz (with CD-RW/DVD-R) 14 inch iBook is $1499, while the 12 inch 1.2 Ghz iBooks are listed at the Apple Store new for $999 (with free shipping), or you can hit their "Special Deals" section and get a refurb 12 inch 1 Ghz iBook for $799... or a refurb 1.25 Ghz eMac for $649 .

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[Anonymous Coward]

iBooks start at $1000... and they give you MUCH MUCH more than the POS HP.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[reiggin]

where do you get the extra $500 from? http://www.apple.com/ibook/ That's $999 for a machine with 802.11g built-in, a rock-solid OS, Firewire, USB 2.0, a great mobile GPU, DVD/CD-RW, iLife '04, and craploads more. Not to mention 6 hour battery life (real-world by my own tests) and a lot lighter than that HP or Dell you're comparing it to. So where's the catch? I see none.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[kidgenius]

To defend Apple here.....you may get a P.O.S HP or Dell for $700, but your iBook that you get for $1500 is not a P.O.S. They arent' going to bring out low-low-end products, because to do so, Apple would have to make a severe sacrifice in quality of product.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[happyemoticon]

...if only I could afford to. $1500 for an iBook is a tad steep when you can get a P.O.S. HP or Dell laptop for $700, tops.

Yeah, you're mostly right . . . Except you can get a starter level ibook for $1000. That is a price point. Also, factor in the average user looking at all of the options of PC laptops (especially because laptops are so prone to break down), and then they look at the apple website. Also, if they started putting out a bunch of shoddy products, it would destroy their reputation of reliability.

Personally, I'm getting an ibook because I want to know how to fix and maintain a Mac, and because of the unix underbelly. I'm recommending ibooks to all of my friends because 1) I can't recommend somebody putting their butt on the line with an inferior, insecure OS and 2) I'm sick and tired of trying to phone-support my parents. I would love it if I could just ssh in and fix it for them. Can you do that with macs?

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[danigiri]

"$1500 for an iBook [...]"

WOW! Somehow Apple must be in error, there is a $999 iBook G4 on Apple's website! Quick! Email them to correct this outrageous inaccuracy!

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[Secrity]

Didn't Apple already bring out low end Mac's? I think that the low end desktops were one piece and came in orange, blue, and other colors. I think that the low end laptops came in assorted colors and looked like Barby Doll cosmetic cases. I seem to remember that certain colors of the colored desktops did very well and that certain colors did not sell at all. I am not sure if the colored laptops did very well overall, although I seem to recall that they were popular among school age children.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[RatPh!nk]

This may be redundant, but have you looked recently?

Free Shipping:

• 1.2GHz PowerPC G4
• 512K L2 cache @1.2GHz
• 12-inch TFT Displays
• 1024x768 resolution
• 256MB DDR266 SDRAM
• 30GB Ultra ATA drive
• CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 w/32MB dedicateDDR video memory
• AirPort Extreme built-in
• 2 USB 2.0 ports
• 1 IEEE 1394 port
• 1 Video out port (for mirroring*)
• v.92 56k + 10/100 video
• lots of bundled software
• X11 with lots of ported software (Fink, Darwin Ports)

• Cost? $999 Lower if you are a student or developer.

  Build a Dell or HP with those specs, and you will find them priced similarily. You may find the Mac is less expensive.

  * - but there is a hack for dual display
  ps-save the coupld hundred bucks and do not go with the 14" screen. The 12" an 14" have the same resolution (and that bugs me :))

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[macwhiz]

Maybe if Apple brought out one or two low-low-end products that could compete, price-wise, with all the mass-market, Windows-running junk out there, they could really pick up some market share

Let's reduce the verbiage in that sentence:

Maybe if Apple brought out... products that could compete... with... junk, they could... pick up some market share.

Perhaps even reduce it to

Maybe if Apple brought out junk, they could pick up market share.

Apple's a profitable company. Their stock is doing quite well considering the state of the industry. They've gotten to this point by releasing high-quality products with excellent design. Meanwhile, how are the "junk" makers doing? The various PC vendors are all trying to eke out a living on thin margins. Some are doing better than others; often, the ones doing better have other businesses to keep them afloat.

Maybe Apple could gain market share briefly by selling junk. It wouldn't gain repeat customers, and it wouldn't work for long.

The whole point of the iPod-to-Mac phenomenon is that many people do not want junk. If they did, Creative or iRiver or Nike or Sony would hold the portable-MP3 crown. People buy the iPod because it's anything but junk. They then wonder, "say, if this iPod isn't junk, I wonder if Macs are not-junk as well." They go to an Apple Store, and find that Macs aren't junk. They're made with good, solid design and parts, instead of bargain-basement components.

Macs may appear to be more expensive, but that's only if you're willing to accept junk. Some people have learned the lesson that you get what you pay for -- that $5 toaster won't last as long as the $30 name-brand one, the free-after-rebate CD-R won't hold a readable backup anywhere near as long as a $1.50 medical-grade CD-R, the car doesn't always start on a cold morning when you pass by the Mobil to fill up at Jim-Bob's Gaseteria.

In short, to some people, "no hassles" is worth some extra money.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[b1t r0t]

Maybe Apple could gain market share briefly by selling junk. It wouldn't gain repeat customers, and it wouldn't work for long.

Apple did used to sell junk. Although they didn't try all that hard to compete on price. Ever hear of "Performa"? The 6100 series was probably the worst Mac that Apple ever made, and the 475 wasn't much better.

I don't see anyone suggesting that BMW or Cadillac should make cars to compete with Hyundai.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[b1t r0t]

Correction... I just remembered the 4400. The 6100 may have been like using a computer that ran on molasses, but the 4400 was just plain crap. It was also the only model to use its particular type of RAM.

Re:I'd love to be one of those statistics...

[vingt]

I would love it if I could just ssh in and fix it for them. Can you do that with macs?

You most assuredly can. Just turn on "Remote Login" in the Sharing pane of the System Preferences. Of course, you should establish an admin account for yourself on their machine first.

You can also install a VNC server on their machine for a GUI control method.

Apple Brand Going Strong

[visionsofmcskill]

As apple has said time and time again, they had hopes of the Ipod's influence leading towards more PC to Mac converts.

While initialy this hardly proved true, it's a very strong sales pitch to have a constant companion with an apple logo on it.

The near ubiquity, and total inunduation of ipods being everywhere also goes a long way towards making apple look like a damn good brand (if they do the ipods so well, the must be good at computers)

I think if apple keeps hammering away at highly tailored and very well-made digital appliances, there computer market share will continue to grow as people put trust in their products.

Though id rather see the specifics of this data to see whether it has any real merit.

Probably a much more intresting question is how apple is going to be able to increase their market share outside the US/japan. While your typical developed high GDP citizen can afford apple's products, getting apple products into the hands of less wealthy countries is a big stumbling block that needs to be addressed if they want to get their hands on the largest emerging computing markets.

we shall see

Re:Apple Brand Going Strong

[easter1916]

They're selling like hotcakes in Europe, too -- plenty of well-off individuals there too.

It happened to me, but the other way around.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently purchased my first mac, a 12" ibook, and fell in love with OSX and the entire Macintosh experience. Powerful _and_ userfriendly. After seeing how solid the UI was, I decided to give the iPod a try, and purchased a 4thG 20GB iPod and was blown away with the absolute near perfection of it's user interface compared to other mp3 players.

I'm not sure why Apple is the only one to make such common-sense hardware, it's not such a giant leap between quality, user interface and design aesthetics, but other companies maybe excepting (Panasonic's laptops) just keep screwing up their entire process and rely on marketing newspeak to appear worthwhile.

I feel vaguely nauseated now every time I use windows.

Re: It happened to me, but the other way around.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm not sure why Apple is the only one to make such common-sense hardware"

Probably because another major company tried to turn their competing software into something more "common-sense", and got themselves sued for it.

Apple isn't exactly the most friendly company in the world. I'm not sure why slashdotters are so OK with them.

In other news......

[BorisSkratchunkov]

I just saved a ton of money by switching to Apple!

(And you were expecting car insurance!)

Re:In other news......

[gellenburg]

But in a round about way you COULD save money on car insurance, since you're less likely to drive like a mad-man given all the so-called "expensive" Apple gear you're hauling with you.

And if I read another uninformed comment that Macs are more expensive than PCs why ... I'll ... I dunno know what I'd do because a PC just frankly ain't worth it.

Re:In other news......

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're less likely to drive like a madman since you haven't been wrestling with Windows all day.

I have

[Richard_at_work]

2 years ago I purchased an Ipod, 3 weeks ago I purchased an old B&W Powermac to try out OSX before I replace one of my systems, and today I received my brand new 1.2ghz Ibook. While I still have a PC around for gaming and other things, Im definately switching most of my usage to the Mac, its just so .... pleasurable to use. I cant say my Ipod purchase influenced my Mac purchase, but hell, its still a good peripheral. All of my current kit works with OSX, so Ive lost nothing.

Im one happy switcher.

One Right Here

[WombatControl]

I'd used Macs for web development in a previous job, and had always liked OS X. I was ecstatic when iTunes was released for the PC, as it was the singularly best program for managing large music collections I'd ever seen.

When I got my new job, one of the first things I did is shell out for an iPod to replace my crappy car CD changer. The Apple design philosophy appealed to me, and the incredible ease-of-use of both iTunes and the iPod were a big factor.

Last month I bought an iBook - the fact that they dropped the price, bumped up the CPU speed, and added AirPort Express for free was enough to get me off the fence. I wanted a laptop that was lighter than my old Compaq which weighs more than Kirstie Allie after camping out at a Royal Fork for a week. The iBook was light, priced competitively, and had all the features I want.

I had been trying to get my WinXP Home laptop to connect to the shared files on my XP Pro desktop for days, and finally just gave up. The iBook not only saw the network, but just asked for the password to connect. That was it. No hastle, no fiddling with network setup, no hunting through poorly documented and frequently useless configuration pages. AirPort has no trouble connecting to any wireless network I can throw at it.

My next machine may well be a Mac. It runs the software I need to be productive, the UNIX underpinnings mean that I have not only all the UNIX tools I'm used to from vim to Apache, but I also have a beautiful and usable GUI to go with it.

I hated Macs before. The "classic" Mac OS never appealed to me in the slightest. But Mac OS X is a dream to use, from running Photoshop to using it as a test server with the built-in copy of Apache.

OS X just "gets it". It is by far the best OS I've used, and iTunes gives Windows users a preview of how well Mac software works. The iPod and iTunes are the perfect "gateway drug" into full-fledged Mac addiction. Macs have always been a niche product, and Apple has always been a niche retailer. But if the iPod helps drive even a small number of PC users towards the Apple platform, it's a net gain to Apple on top of the incredibly strong sales of the iPod line.

Re:One Right Here

[rackhamh]

Steve, is that you?

Re:One Right Here

[x.Draino.x]

I'm a switcher too.. couple months ago I was about to build a new box.. last minute I walked into an Apple store and bought a 12" Powerbook. Liked it so much I sold my Dell laptop and bought my wife a 12" iBook. A month later an iPod.. I'm addicted. Everything just works. I still have my Unix, and an awesome GUI.. what more can you ask for? People don't realize that it's not just the eye candy. OS X has the best features. period. I can drag and drop text from anywhere onto anywhere, same with pictures. Spell checking is used throughout almost every application. And a lot of applications integrate with others, like iCal, etc.

Re:One Right Here

[brauwerman]

Correction: The iBook Comes with AirPort Extreme (802.11g card: $80 "value"), not AirPort Expresss (802.11g repeater: $130 "value").

Re:One Right Here

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realise that's well over 95% of the human race?

Re:One Right Here

[llin]

Definitely give Fink a try for handling most of the packages that OS X is missing. I haven't tried Gentoo for Mac OS X yet - it writes directly into your / instead of /sw so I might wait until it stabilizes a bit before giving that a try.

ServerLogistics' Complete * packages are also great.

Re:One Right Here

[Anonymous Coward]

jesus christ, did you have an erection while typing that by chance? It's so peppy it reads like a commercial.

Re:One Right Here

[Anonymous Coward]

95? That would leave about 300,000,000 of us who can set up Windows/Linux correctly. I'm guessing it's probably more like 99.999%, with the number of 9's after the decimal as the point of debate.

Re:One Right Here

[ThousandStars]

I feel the same way. I advised another poster here to try the Ars forum. I hated Macs in the bad old OS 8-9 days, but love X. It's a new world.

Re:One Right Here

[lew3004]

I'm not trying to troll but what features have you mentioned that are NOT available in any Windows apps?

Re:One Right Here

[x.Draino.x]

Ok, try this.. drag the Slashdot logo into AOL instant messenger.. That should create a link to the picture of the person you were IMing. Now try highlighting this text and without copying and pasting, put it into Microsoft word.. All I have to do is highlight and drag it over.. how about this, when your reading your emails do the people who are signed onto AOL instant messenger have some sort of a notifier next to their name to show they are online? I'm barely scratching the surface here.

Re:One Right Here

[AlephNot]

From the README inside the installer:

- collision protection

Gentoo by default installs software to the root directory of your Mac OS X
installation. This makes linking your own software to packages installed by
Gentoo really easy. It also allows us to provide our own ebuilds for packages
such as the Mac OS X kernel.

Before a package gets 'merged' with your system, it undergoes 'collision' testing.
This optional feature (enabled by default) checks whether the application to be
merged overwrites or collides with applications portage didn't install itself. If
the application to be merged collides with other applications portage didn't
install itself, the build process aborts cleanly.

So it looks like you don't have much to worry about.

Re:One Right Here

[lintux]

And also, it's quite cool that with some applications you can save a document by just dragging their icon in the title bar to the desktop (or any other location).

How about this correlation

[matth1jd]

Now of course I know correlation != causation but I had this thought.

I'd imagine a small percentage (say 10%) of iPod users probably bought the most expensive model at the time be it the large 40GB iPod or the new iPod Photo. Whereas most of us don't have the money to drop on the latest and greatest iPod this group could purchase 1 or more if they so desired.

As another post pointed out it's probably people in this group (fat wallets) who are making the switch. "I can afford the $500 dollar iPod might as well as get the computer that goes along with it". So there's your 6%.

Personally I'm too entrenched in my Windows box, and I can't afford an iPod let alone a whole computer from Apple. Anyone want to get me an early Christmas Gift? Heck a belated gift if it's an iPod :)

--J

Gotta Agree...

[jayloden]

I really hated Apple products, until I got my iPod. Then I started to notice that it was pretty well engineered and thought out. (Little things, like when you pull the headphones out of the jack, it pauses the music). Eventually, I started to talk to our resident Mac fanatic at work, and he kept showing me similar examples of "coolness" on his PowerBook, and eventually it added up to sell me on buying a PowerBook for my next computer purchase. I'm sure I'll have Linux on there as a dual boot, but I have to agree that without the iPod, it would have taken a lot to get me to give OS X and Apple a chance.

-Jay

In other news...

[mzwaterski]

some other people have done something else...film at 11

PC vs PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does anyone else get confused when people use PC to say IBM Compatible. I consider the mac a PC and I find it hard figure out that people are excluding Macs when saying PC. Maybe thats why I am much better at C than most people, but not Java.

Re:PC vs PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just you.

maybe

[grocer]

Find me a PC laptop that comes out of the box with firewire, USB 2.0, 4+ hours battery life, small form factor, runs office natively, offers X windows support, intergrates all the GNU tools into the OS, and does it all for less than 1200 bucks out the door...Apple builds the best notebooks, IMO, because they offer the best form factor/battery life/software package out there.

Re:maybe

[jedidiah]

None of that is particularly interesting actually. Your PC laptop information seems to be rather out of date.

Re:maybe

[yamla]

I just priced out a Dell Inspiron 1150 with the extended battery for $750. Add an additional $30 for a PCMCIA firewire card and I think it meets your requirements. X Windows support, etc. is of course available in Linux or FreeBSD, both of which are free. Or use cygwin in Windows.

Now, you can certainly say that the Inspiron 1150 isn't up to the level of quality of the Apple laptops. You may have a point, though Dell hasn't been hit with as many class action lawsuits over their laptop quality recently as Apple has.

You may say that the Apple laptop is better at something or other than the Dell. That may be, but note that the Dell laptop has a MUCH more powerful processor.

You may say that the Dell laptop doesn't get as good battery life. I would debate that. The iBook and TiBook laptops I've used didn't get any better battery life than a Dell laptop with the regular (single) battery, let alone the larger battery, and I was quite disappointed by that. But it may be that 96 WHr on the Dell doesn't provide as much life as the 50 WHr Apple battery does for the Apple.

Dell undoubtedly has a better warranty available on their laptops, in the guise of the CompleteCare coverage. This is simply a fact. However, it may be that you need to use the warranty more often if you buy a Dell.

Now, I certainly wasn't pricing out Dell's cheapest laptops. There is a cheaper model available, so I could likely knock off another hundred dollars or so, but I was already coming in well under a third below the price you listed.

Re:maybe

[prockcore]

Find me a PC laptop that comes out of the box with firewire, USB 2.0, 4+ hours battery life, small form factor, runs office natively, offers X windows support, intergrates all the GNU tools into the OS, and does it all for less than 1200 bucks out the door

An eMachines AMD64 laptop with Linux preinstalled? Oh, did you mean MSOffice? I thought you meant OpenOffice.

Just a Straw on FUD's Back

[charlieOReilly]

I believe the underlying issue at hand is the declining usability gap between Microsoft products and all others. Not only are the other technology companies getting better at catering to the average customer, but the average customer is getting more and more savvy. All it takes is one glimpse of the other side of the coin to realize that there are wonderful products out there that don't include M$. That glimpse could be Firefox, iPod, KDE or VI... well... maybe not KDE.

Piper Jaffray already knew it

[the pickle]

That's why they raised their price target on AAPL to $100 (and also why AAPL gained six bucks a share two days ago).

MacWorld UK has a related story today.

No matter how you look at it, if the "halo effect" is real, it's a Good Thing(tm) for Apple, and probably for the industry in general, because it proves that there are legitimate alternatives to Windows for the non-techie crowd.

p

Re:Piper Jaffray already knew it

[Capt_Troy]

I bought 30 shares of AAPL at 26 dollars early this year. I did it because I like their products and I like their direction. So far, I'm up over 100%.

Re:Piper Jaffray already knew it

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Halo, when is Bungie coming out with another Marathon game for the Mac? The Mac desparately needs more games (and yes, I've seen the stats).

Re:Piper Jaffray already knew it

[the pickle]

Never. Because Bungie is owned by M$. You knew that, and were just trolling, weren't you?

p

Re:Piper Jaffray already knew it

[the pickle]

Bought 50 @ $20.25. I'm lovin' it too. I'm also wishing I had had another grand or two to spare at the time...

AAPL might be the Coca-Cola of the 21st century. In another 40 years* I might be able to retire on those 50 shares. ;)

* Yeah, yeah, everyone "needs" sugar water, but the computer industry changes constantly. Well, everyone needs computers a lot more than they need sugar water now, and Apple has managed to survive longer than most of its competition. I'm sticking by my prediction.

p

Re:Piper Jaffray already knew it

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking bastards. I was contemplating buying a shitload at $14 but didn't because Wallstreet is so fickle and I figured they'd never "see the light" of why Apple is so cool. Bastards.

Oh boy - The things that make the news these days.

[silas_pc]

HAHAA - Tell us something new.

How do we exploit this lesson?

[Noksagt]

I agree that this study is rather dubious, but I also think that winning the embedded market does win desktops with it. So how should Free OSs exploit this? You can make something as "cool" as a zaurus, but you will only attract the uber-nerd. What kind of embedded devices can be made with elegant interfaces like the ipod with great support on Free OSs? Should someone be pushing for an embedded handheld linux video player?

Funky calculations

[sdo1]

According to this article, Apple sold 2.01M ipods in a single quarter recently. At 6% that the parent article claims, that would be about 120K new Mac users per quarter? According to this article, their total computer sales are 836K for about the same time. Ipods driving 14% of their total computer sales? Seems high.

-S

Ookay..

[jx100]

Why is this story listed under OS 9? If you're going to put a Mac OS there, shouldn't it be OS X?

Subliminal messages..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how they're doing it - iPods overlay "buy a mac - you want to buy a mac - buying a mac will make you ubersexy and desireable - buying a mac will make you a better person - vote bush." over your music as you listen to it...

Paranoid Ramblin's...

Increasing Mac use

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.a sp

There was a story the other day about IE losing market share to Firefox. There were also stats about operating system market share. The above link has the statistics. Basically, Mac and Linux are both slowly gaining market share at about the same rate. However, if you add them both up, they only amount to about 6% of the market that was surveyed.

I'm not sure how important this is. The overall use of Macs seems to be pretty small.

I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[dcarey]

I don't know if this article is believable, but one thing that I've experienced that adds to its credibility at least to me is that I've noticed how many people out there will not download or try itunes. It's a free program. It runs on PCs. It has killer cataloging capabilities, localized network streaming capabilities (I run an iTunes streamer for all my mp3s at home to my stereo). The music store has TONS of 'indie' level bands, so phat chance of not finding something. And the burning and sound effects as well. Sheesh.

Yet I know people who are so simple minded they will not even try the thing. One guy I know, who won't d/l it told me to run out and buy this album by killswitch engage. I told him I'd catch it on iTunes. He of course dismissed this idea, saying they'd never have that kind of album. Well we did an indie band run down of his entire collection, chose 10 bands, and 8 out of ten was on iTunes.

I guess my point is, that, from a computer scientist's viewpoint like my own, I don't care what you run, as I XP, Linux, and Macs, and love them all equally, but if you're going to badmouth a product, at least have the nuts to TRY the thing ... especially if it's frigging free. How about just try it, Scott?

But back to my original point ... it's that move that makes the person switch, not the actual performance of availability of software or other crazy usual analyses. They don't care if it's better or worse. People stick to computing platforms as if they are political ones oddly (ok THAT doesn't make sense either, bad example), regardless of whtether or not the platform actually suits them 100%. I know musicians using PCs who won't use macs. I know business majors who use Macs who won't use PCs.

Am I odd for trying to see the good in every platform? Sheesh, you should see my political beliefs ...

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[grazzy]

And its because those two out of ten the rest of us are still using p2p.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use iTunes because Winamp does everything I want from a media player in a quarter the memory footprint and I pay for compressed music online. How's that? Just because I don't care for iTunes only means I'm too stubborn to use software that doesn't get it done for me.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[radish]

How about this for a reason. I'm not interested in iTMS. I'm not interested in AAC. I have ripping & burning software (EAC & Nero) which both do a better job than iTunes. I already have organisation software (JRMC) which both integrates with my portable device of choice, and supports my file format of choice (Vorbis).

Why again should I try iTunes?

Actually, I have tried it on my GFs machine. It was OK, nothing spectacular. The import process is a pain in the behind, it's a bit of a resource hog, and the interface is nicely non-standard. No thanks.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[scrod]

How does P2P music sharing preclude the use of iTunes? It's not as if you have to buy things through Apple's music store. iTunes was a fantastic MP3 player and organization tool for years before it ever had a "music store". I have not a single iTMS-purchased song among the 24 gigabytes of music that I organize, play, burn, and have ripped with iTunes.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[WinterSolstice]

I fully understand what you mean. I use (and enjoy) just about every platform I can get my hands on!

At home:
2 Sun SPARC boxes (NetBSD and Solaris 5.9)
3 Apple G4 Macs (OSX 10.3.5)
1 Apple Mac Plus (800k drives... real PCs don't have harddrives ;) )
8 x86 PCs running FreeBSD 5 in a render farm

At work:
Solaris 5.8, 5.9, 5.10
VMS 7.3
AIX 5.1
Windows 2000

I have found delightful things about all of these platforms, areas of total supremacy. I have found horrible flaws in all of these platforms, that just make me pissed off.

I am not surprised that people are looking at Apple after liking the iPod. I typically "inherited" a new platform, as people were laid-off, but I have grown to love all of them. Once you break the seal and try a new platform, you typically will find something nice about it.

For me, the biggest things are editors... I write a lot every day (email, code, scripts, SQL, etc), and so editors make a big difference to me. The finest editor I have ever used is probably LSE or EVE on VMS, followed closely by TPU. Then, Vim and Emacs following along. However, NetBeans is also very nice (though language specific). Dead last would be XCode... possibly the worst code editor I have ever used.

But anyhow, the point of this was that it is important to be platform agnostic, and go where the tools or money are. Spending your life on one OS is like living in one town forever. BORING.

-WS

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if this article is believable, but one thing that I've experienced that adds to its credibility at least to me is that I've noticed how many people out there will not download or try itunes.

iTunes is a relatively good player, close to the best, but Winamp 5 kicks its ass all over the place. I can't believe that people won't download and try Winamp 5.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[dcarey]

>

Fortunately, there's a converter built in. Convert from AAC to Mp3, Mp3 to Wav, Wav to aif, whatever your compression 'interests' you have. Do some clicking around in there, you might just find something you didn't think was there previously. Unfortunately it does not support your Vorbis. Maybe one day? I kinda wish it did.

>

You can't be serious? I watched the poor soul mentioned in the grandparent post waste away 10 minutes with Nero unsucessfully until he just said screw it and used Roxio's program instead. What part of the iTunes "click the friggen burn button" did he not understand? Dunno.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Johnathon_Dough]

I have ripping & burning software (EAC & Nero) which both do a better job than iTunes. I already have organisation software (JRMC)

If you wanted one basic app do do all of the above list you would want iTunes. You != Everyone, in particular Everyone != tech savvy.

The import process is a pain in the behind

You put in a CD and push the button on the top right hand side that says import. Or, if you are particularly lazy, you set the preference that says "import songs on CD insertion". How is this a pain in the behind?

It's a bit of a resource hog

Does it hog more resources than EAC, Nero, and JRMC all running at once? Genuinely curious.

and the interface is nicely non-standard

Or if you wanted too look at it differently, Windows interface is non-standard. As many other comments have pointed out, this is an Apple product ported to Windows made to function as closely as possible to OSX, so, the interface is actually pretty close to "standard" to OSX.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

Winamp works, and I don't want that memory hungry bloated eye candy app fucking up my ID3 tags, track names, and folder settings.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes supports MP3's. If your music is already mp3 it will just leave it like that. You don't even have to rip in their format, you can choose mp3 or some others if you want. The big deal about iTunes is that it brings all of those separate but related tasks together in one seamless package. and it's free. and it also integrates the itunes music store. and... you should probably run it and find out.

Or you could continue to complain about a perfectly good software package you dont use out of ignorance.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Epistax]

Well my stance is philosophical really. Mac represents the ultimate in proprietary. However much they might use various open techniques, at the heart it only exists because it is different. Let's say every PC user gets fed up with all this crap and says "fine"--everyone moves to mac. We are now under the command of one company. If you don't like it, tough. If on the other hand every mac user ditches macs, we still have every PC manufacturer and operating system open to us.

I do not want to live in the world of a single OS (well with different versions of course), a single computer manufacturer, etc. Not only do I want choice but also I have chosen to be able to choose in the future. It's kind of like electing a despot. Sure, you have a choice now, but if you choose one option you won't have a choice later on.

To the "what the hell are you talking about" people: stuff it.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[runamok1]

Hmmm. This is slightly off topic. I've always been really annoyed with small things Apple does with their software.

In the windows 95 days if you installed Quicktime player, it would change all your .jpg associations to use their shitty image viewer. You could change the associations to your preferred choice BUT every time you ran quicktime, it would change the associations.

The workaround? You had to edit an .exe file and remove the reference to .jpg and .jpeg and replace them with something nonsensical like .jjj and .jjjj.

So. Fast forward to today. I had two non-technical friends say, "Hey Mike, how come I can't see flash movies on webpages now that I installed the newest version of quicktime? It just shows a broken Quicktime icon..." I said "Gee, Apple OSX user and Windows XP Home user, I don't know. Let me look into it."

Well folks, apparrently the default setup for quicktime makes quicktime the default plugin for flash content on webite. AND it doesn't work.

So I had to go into Quicktime Preferences, Browser Plug-in and click the "Mime Settings" button. REEEEEAAAAAAL intuititive for the average user.

So thats why. I guess I simply distrust Apple. I am curious what TSRs (qttask.exe anyone?) will be loaded and file associations will be co-opted if I did install it.

Even MORE off topic:
Oh yeah, and most apple users (in my experience) are so damn snide. That too. My co-worker has an Apple IIe or some such ancient shit at home. Admittedly he is whipped, but his wife won't let him buy an el cheapo basic dell to do things like email and web because she is a graphic designer and wants a G8 (kidding...) with cinema display, etc. The zealot thing just irks me at the end of the day. I almost yearn for the day that Apple gets serious market share so the virus writers start paying attention to them. I just don't have confidence that the average graphic designer / musician / artist will patch their machine regularly.

That said, Apple makes very pretty things.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[eclectic4]

"Why again should I try iTunes?"

So... you haven't even tried it yet and yet here you are denouncing it? Yikes...

Here's one... all of those features you want, are in one place. iTunes. How is that not better? Interesting ideed...

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac represents the ultimate in proprietary.

Huh?!? I would have agreed with you in the past, but I'm not sure that I agree with that stance today. The processor is a PowerPC chip manufactured primarily by IBM. OSX is proprietary, however, since the chip's specs are well known you're able to run Linux or BSD on the machine if you so choose. The drives are standard IDE drives, the memory is standard. In fact, probably the only thing left that is proprietary is the copyrighted name and OSX implementation. No other hardware vendor has the information or ip rights necessary to replicate a Mac machine that is capable of running OSX .... but that's true of Windows also.

On the open standards front, the Mac openly communicates with other platforms .... not something I can say about Windows. I don't think Jobs is foolish enough to believe that everyone in the world will switch to Macs ... there's a place for intel/linux, amd/bsd, etc. Hell, OSX is built from BSD.

People buying macs will not lead us into a single OS world. Continuing to pay the Microsoft tax on new hardware will fuel their ability to lock out other OS's at the hardware level -- then you will see one OS ... the one approved by Bill G.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[radish]

If you wanted one basic app do do all of the above list you would want iTunes. You != Everyone, in particular Everyone != tech savvy
I never said I was everyone. The poster was asking why people didn't want to use iTunes, I was giving my reasons, which are just as valid as anyone elses (for or against).

You put in a CD and push the button on the top right hand side that says import. Or, if you are particularly lazy, you set the preference that says "import songs on CD insertion". How is this a pain in the behind?
I said "import" not "rip". I have 50gb of albums already ripped to Vorbis. My GF (who uses iTunes as she has an iPod) has a bunch in WMA from her old player. Importing the albums is not something she (as a very non-tech-savvy person) finds obvious. I had to figure out how to tell it to import existing files, and then show her. It could be improved.

Does it hog more resources than EAC, Nero, and JRMC all running at once? Genuinely curious.
Doubt it, but then how exactly, with the single optical drive in most computers (and almost all Macs) would you rip and burn at the same time? Whatever happened to the Unix/Linux principle of KISS, doing one thing and doing it well?

Or if you wanted too look at it differently, Windows interface is non-standard. As many other comments have pointed out, this is an Apple product ported to Windows made to function as closely as possible to OSX, so, the interface is actually pretty close to "standard" to OSX.
Well wonderful. Thing is, I'm running it on Windows. So anything which doesn't look like windows is, in my world, non standard. It's like saying that a Winamp skin of Aria Giovanni is "following the Aria Giovanni UI standards". Yeah.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[radish]

If you read all of my post you'd see that in fact, I have tried it (although not on my own machines). My first impressions weren't great, so I didn't bother trying it further (which would have been a significant investment of time). But even that misses the point of my post, which was answering the question "why don't people try it?". The most obvious things (has redundant functionality I don't want, doesn't play my files) I knew without every touching the app. That's why I didn't want to try it.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[radish]

Fortunately, there's a converter built in. Convert from AAC to Mp3, Mp3 to Wav, Wav to aif, whatever your compression 'interests' you have. Do some clicking around in there, you might just find something you didn't think was there previously. Unfortunately it does not support your Vorbis. Maybe one day? I kinda wish it did.
Lossy to lossy conversion? Yeah. Like no thanks, my ears work.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[RedWizzard]

Or if you wanted too look at it differently, Windows interface is non-standard. As many other comments have pointed out, this is an Apple product ported to Windows made to function as closely as possible to OSX, so, the interface is actually pretty close to "standard" to OSX.

Do Mac people enjoying using Windows apps ported to OSX, but made to look and feel like XP? No. Interfaces should be made to conform to the standards of the platform they run on, and ported software in particular should not retain the look and feel of the platform it's comming from. I understand Apple's reasoning in deciding to retain the OSX look and feel, but they should expect criticism all the same.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Johnathon_Dough]

I understand that Windows has some form of guidelines for a look and feel, however, from my experience with many apps, they are exactly that, guidelines. Last time I used my dad's PC and fired up Easy CD Creator, I got some mish mash of a UI that looked nothing like any other windows app. In fact my first thought was it looked like some sort of web site.

Now if apple had found a way to create a menu bar at the top of the screen that was only there for iTunes, that would be definitely breaking the Windows UI standards, and if iTunes didn't quit when you closed it's main window, that too would be breaking the UI. Instead, people feel they should be criticised for not using that Windows skin? I am not sure about the windows version of iTunes but ResExcellence has a whole section on iTunes skinning (not supported in the least by apple). So, my response to any Windows user who doesn't like the Aqua/Brushed Metal look, would be to figure out how to change it.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Moofie]

Windows has UI standards? Who knew? Has anybody told Microsoft?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Moofie]

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Todesmetall]

Can you say "vendor lock-in"?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[G-funk]

Definitely. As a (very happy) iPod owner, I have to have iTunes installed on my pc. And it sucks. It's badly threaded, the interface is horrible (I don't care if it's mac-standard, the windows version should play like windows), and it thinks it should be in charge of everything. No matter how many times I tell it not to, no matter what settings I have in the intellipoint software, every now and then iTunes simply takes over the media keys. Even if I don't start the damn thing, sometimes plugging in the iPod for a charge is all it takes. So I come home, sit down and hit play, and winamp starts doing its thing. Then 45 seconds later iTunes pops up and starts playing. Annoying much?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Large Green Mallard]

Whatever happened to the Unix/Linux principle of KISS, doing one thing and doing it well?

It becomes non applicable once you start talking about full GUI apps that you can't do IO redirection from.

I seriously can never understand how anyone can think using 3 or 4 different programs and ferreting through hundreds of directories and playlists to manage their music collection is better than iTunes. It's not just you, I've met a few people who seem to like doing things the fucking difficult way. iTunes - Import, manage, burn, play from one program - and it does it all well.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Moofie]

Vendor lock in.

By Apple.

I mean, anything's possible, but I'm holding out for the dinosaurs attacking San Francisco.

I love my Powerbook, but it would be a freakin' MIRACLE if Apple ever has more than 10% marketshare.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Twirlip of the Mists]

This is true only to the extent that the "standard" in question is a good one. Adherence to a bad "standard" is no virtue, and rejection of such a "standard" is no vice.

(I keep using scare-quotes because, in fact, Windows has no UI standard or guidelines. Little known fact.)

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[TrancePhreak]

And by fact you mean fallacy?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[TrancePhreak]

Linux has trolls? Who knew? Has anybody told Linus?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Moofie]

What's Linux?

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[TruePaige]

I said "import" not "rip". I have 50gb of albums already ripped to Vorbis. My GF (who uses iTunes as she has an iPod) has a bunch in WMA from her old player. Importing the albums is not something she (as a very non-tech-savvy person) finds obvious. I had to figure out how to tell it to import existing files, and then show her. It could be improved. How could it be any easier? If they are in a non-compatible format and you want to conver them, right click and hit "Convert to Doubt it, but then how exactly, with the single optical drive in most computers (and almost all Macs) would you rip and burn at the same time? Whatever happened to the Unix/Linux principle of KISS, doing one thing and doing it well? It is impossible with any program to rip and burn at exactly the same time on one drive, you can't rip from a disc your burning to. Nero simply makes a disc image, iTunes imports and burns, it's bassicaly the same.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Todesmetall]

Of course there's no danger of this at the moment. But the parent poster was talking about a hypothetical situation where Apple would have a similar market share like MS today. I agree with you that this is extremely unlikely to happen in the market for desktop PCs, however Apple has a dominant position when it comes to digital music services and portable players.

I want to have choices, so I think it's a good thing when Apple is doing well with their Macs, and Linux, *BSD and whatever else there is that competes with MS in the OS market. On the other hand, I would like to see competitors like iRiver, Creative etc. catch up to the iPod.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Anonymous Coward]

How does tearing a new asshole preclude the use of iTunes? Its not as you HAVE to be an asshole to listen på music.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Moofie]

See, that's just it. In the high-capacity MP3 player market, Apple has just about zero "power" in the market. They have a great player, and they have a great service, but they have no way to make people do business with them.

I'd love to see iRiver and Creative do as good of a job as Apple, but I just don't see that happening. They're too busy chasing the bottom line to come up with really usable designs.

UI design is hard. That's why so few people do it well.

Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness

[Scudsucker]

In the windows 95 days if you installed Quicktime player, it would change all your .jpg associations to use their shitty image viewer. You could change the associations to your preferred choice BUT every time you ran quicktime, it would change the associations.

Sure, but Apple were hardly the only ones who did this.

So. Fast forward to today. I had two non-technical friends say, "Hey Mike, how come I can't see flash movies on webpages now that I installed the newest version of quicktime? It just shows a broken Quicktime icon..." I said "Gee, Apple OSX user and Windows XP Home user, I don't know. Let me look into it."

Uh, yeah, not sure how you guys managed that one. I've done buttloads of XP and 2k installs with Flash and Quicktime and have never seen that happen.

Oh yeah, and most apple users (in my experience) are so damn snide.

Pffft. And there are no snide PC users? Please. And there is one important distinction to make: 90% of Mac user's distain for PC's is for Windows. How many PC users that you know, snobbish or otherwise, actually like Windows?

12%

[Refrag]

The analyst actually saw a conversion rate of 12%, however he halved the number to be conservative before calculating his valuation of AAPL.

Goes the other way as well

[bigdave42]

I have been idly contemplating buying myself a mac box for some time now, however after seeing Apple's increasingly Microsoft-like stance, I'm going to stick to what I know.

It appears to me that Apple are resting on their laurels with the iPod. There hasn't been any major innovation for some time now - sticking on a colour screen doesn't count as innovation I'm afraid. And personally I dislike the interface - for example, if someone needs to tell me how to turn the damn thing off, that's not a good design. So basically, Apple have got the dominant position, then stagnated. Exactly what happened with Internet Explorer.

The fact that Apple doesn't license their DRM scheme to anyone is surely exactly the type of behaviour that caused such hatred towards Microsoft?

I'm sorry, Apple are far too much like Microsoft nowadays. I will not be buying a Mac.

Re:Goes the other way as well

[TheRaven64]

for example, if someone needs to tell me how to turn the damn thing off, that's not a good design

You don't turn an iPod off. You just stop using it. The same is true of an i/PowerBook - you rarely turn it off, you just close the lid. Any device that needs to be told when you are not using it seems to me to be bad design...

Re:Goes the other way as well

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that Apple doesn't license their DRM scheme to anyone is surely exactly the type of behaviour that caused such hatred towards Microsoft?

Except that Apple *is* beginning to license their DRM scheme! A few months ago, it was announced that next year, Motorola cell phones will have their own version of iTunes. If this is successful, I suspect it will only be the beginning.

Too bad so many people just don't know the facts.

China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

The victory euphoria in Cupertino, California will be shortlived. Once the Macintosh makes any significant comeback, the Chinese will quickly make illegal copies of the Macintosh and MacOS.

The Chinese currently steal what they do not want to buy. China has a huge open market, not black market, for pirated software and hardware. The stuff is not even in the black market but is in the open market, for most Chinese support the idea of ripping people off. The police even condone the behavior.

macs

[JediLuke]

i didn't dump the mac for pc hardware because of the iPod, but the attractive little doodad certainly didn't take away from the decision. i switched from my linux PC (amd Athlon XP2000+) to a dual G5. I love the eye candy and ease of use of the GUI, but the power of what lies under the hood. Honestly i'm am very pleased and i can't say i'm going back any time soon.

os/car similies*:
Windows - Honda Civic, no torque, but somewhat stylish, everyone has one, moderately priced
Linux - 80's 5.0 Mustang, so much power, iffy on looks (sometimes someone does one up nice), cult following, find one for almost nothing
OS X - Aston Martin Vanquish, sexy, powerful, small cult following, priced out of this world!

*meant to be taken as a joke

Re:macs

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows - Honda Civic, no torque, but somewhat stylish, everyone has one, moderately priced

Except if Civics had the reliability of Windows ... Honda would be bankrupt by now. I equate Windows with a kit car: frame by Ford, engine/drivetrain by Yugo and body by BMW.

BTW, after several months using OSX on my powerbook, I definitely agree with the Aston Martin. Now I wonder if they sell those on the Apple website ...

Re:macs

[JediLuke]

Now I wonder if they sell those on the Apple website ...

at an academic discount to boot!

WRONG

[AnusesCheeses]

OS X runs on a Mach kernel.

Re:WRONG

[Refrag]

Mach kernel, with BSD userland.

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Xnu is a hybrid, asslicker.

Re:WRONG

[AnusesCheeses]

BSD userland != BSD kernel.

Re:WRONG

[Refrag]

I never said it was.

Clearly, these switchers are spending so much time

[Anonymous Coward]

...listening to music, they no longer have any time for gaming.

Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

They will quickly learn what you CAN'T get with a Mac.

If it's a gamer, they will learn what games DON'T run on a Mac, versus what does.

If it's a song swapper, they will learn what P2P DOESN'T run on the Mac.

Granted, they can shell out more money for the emulation software.

I have yet to get a Mac, and the only reason why I want one is for web development testing, to make sure it works for that 3-5% market share of Safari users using a browser that might still have bugs or features not yet implemented. The main thing stopping me from getting a Mac... Price.

House or a Mac.... hmmmm I chose the house. ;=) My home directory can't protect me from hurricanes.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[computerme]

so let me get this straight. Don't buy a mac since you can't "play" with your little "nintendo" shoot'm up games and you can't infringe (steal!) copyrighted material.

how's that spyware working out for you?

Ever think people that don't play ataris anymore or who do not steal music don't see a problem with that?

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[presearch]

The main thing stopping me from getting a Mac... Price.

Or ignorance more likely.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[marika]

p2p works on macs. Torrent works on macs. Gnutella works on macs. But what do I know I actually buy my nintendo games. Read before you bash.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever think people that don't play ataris anymore or who do not steal music don't see a problem with that?

Hah. Those people don't exist anyway. Or at least if they do then I'm not interested in their opinion, since they're clearly morons.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[goMac2500]

And uhhhhh... what P2P doesn't run on Mac exactly? There are tons of 3rd party P2P clients on Mac.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[ravenspear]

and you can't infringe (steal!) copyrighted material

Who says you can't infringe on the Mac? Ever heard of Poisoned or Xfactor?

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Anonymous Coward]

"If it's a song swapper, they will learn what P2P DOESN'T run on the Mac."

Yes, because Lord knows we don't have BitTorrent, LimeWire (Gnutella), Freenet, or MLDonkey (Overnet , Bittorrent , Gnutella, Gnutella2, Fasttrack, Soulseek, Direct-Connect, and Opennap).

Oh, wait, yes we do.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[CapnRob]

Er, sparky ... if you have a PC, you *also* are learning what games don't run on YOUR platform. Halo 2 isn't there, and I haven't heard of any plans to put it there. Ratchet and Clank won't run. Star Ocean won't run (the modern one), Onimusha won't run. Viewtiful Joe won't run, Baiten Kaitos won't run, Metroid Prime won't run, Katamari Damancy won't run, etc., etc., etc. Take a look at the shelves at any game store, and you'll see how many A-list titles are console only, and how many budget titles and Deer Hunter-level games are padding out the shelves in the PC area.

I've got a Mac. I also have a PC. I *also* have an Xbox. Guess which gets used for gaming?

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[JoshNorton]

If it's a gamer, they will learn what games DON'T run on a Mac, versus what does.

Well, he has a point. The Mac release of Duke Nukem Forever is lagging behind. (And as a gaming snob, I haven't seen the PC yet that can run GURPS, Spawn of Fashan, INWO or even Paranoia XP. What kind of crap games does this guy play - "I'm'a Gonna Kick Your Ass 4" or "Shooting Rendered Crap 3"?)

As for fileswappers - well, two answers. First off, part of the point is that now there's an easy and inexpensive way to buy your music ala carte. Why cry over a lack of P2P software when it's so easy to buy the music you want? (And trust me, the stuff I want that isn't on iTMS isn't on the P2P networks either.) Secondly, um... Yeah, actually, they do in fact have clients for MacOS. Trust me on this one. ...whistles tunelessly...

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[ObiWonKanblomi]

If it's a song swapper, they will learn what P2P DOESN'T run on the Mac.

Uhm, no. There are many gnutella clients out there for the Mac and quite a few BT clients as well.

For you e-donkey, kazaa, soulseek fans out there, there is mlmac, which supports those protocols and bundle them all in one nice package.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Picard102]

how's that spyware working out for you? None exists on this PC.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[thomasdelbert]

House or a Mac.... hmmmm I chose the house. ;=) My home directory can't protect me from hurricanes.

If you subscribe to iLife, you can mirror your home directory off site using your iDisk and that should keep your data safe from hurricanes.

- Thomas;

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[misleb]

First of all, let me point out that you are a moron (or just a troll)

If it's a gamer, they will learn what games DON'T run on a Mac, versus what does.

Common knowledge. Nothing new here. Move along.

If it's a song swapper, they will learn what P2P DOESN'T run on the Mac.

REAL song swappers use Usenet. You should see the song swapping, application pirating, news client my wife uses on her Mac. Best of all, she is under the radar as far as the RIAA is concerned. But if you are too clueless to figure out how to use Usenet, there are still P2P clients for the Mac.

Granted, they can shell out more money for the emulation software.

Unnecessary.

I have yet to get a Mac, and the only reason why I want one is for web development testing, to make sure it works for that 3-5% market share of Safari users using a browser that might still have bugs or features not yet implemented.

One word: Firefox

The main thing stopping me from getting a Mac... Price.

Go to your local Mac store and check out the iBooks.

-matthew

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[myz24]

Are you sure P2P doesn't work on the mac? Or what about games?

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[RocketScientist]

file sharing

game, specifically the only one your girlfriend/mother/mother in law probably cares about.
more games
games

Of course, this is kind of silly, because if you're worried about saving money you're not playing games on a PC or a Mac. "Let's see, I can buy a whole Playstation 2 with a couple of nice games for $200, or I can buy a new video card for for $200 so I can play Doom 3". PC's are excellent gaming platforms, but they are nowhere near as cost effective as any of the console systems. The games, especially when new, cost about the same (if the PC version isn't a little more expensive). It's almost cheaper to have one each of the "big three" consoles than try to keep PC hardware up to spec for playing the newest video games over any given 5 year span. PC's are also nice, open systems, so for online gaming you get access to the wide world of cheaters, where console games at least have some semblance of sofware control. PC games will look nicer, and probably be a little more of a rich experience, but as far as cost-effective, a PC is really far down.

The Windows PC can't do this, at least without buying expensive software. GarageBand comes with a new Mac, and this is also bundled into a new Mac. The ability to painlessly sync my phone and my computer's contact list is pretty valuable. And I can run most other software too, because I've got X11.

Now, admittedly there are lots of things you can't get to work on a Mac. this isn't available, neither is this, or this, or this. As a side effect, neither this nor this is available on the Mac. So, ya know, you're right, there's a lot of stuff that is much harder to do on my Mac than on my Windows PC, like being a Spambot and reporting my personal information to advertisers.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[crovira]

"The main thing stopping me from getting a Mac... Price."

Thank [insert deity here] you're cheap.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[thejoelpatrol]

Yeah, that P2P sure doesn't run on Mac! Between those, you can connect _really well_ to limewire networks (Next time you are on a Mac, try Acquisition. It's an absolute dream), just fine to .torrents, and perfectly well to eDonkey, OpenNap and Kazaa networks. Boy, I sure wish I could use P2P on my Mac. Yeah, I never download anything...

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[pyrros]

If it's a song swapper, they will learn what P2P DOESN'T run on the Mac.
BT, emule, DC, Gnutella and FastTrack all have mac clients. What am I missing out on?

Granted, they can shell out more money for the emulation software.
Huh? MacMame is free, and AFAIK, Richard Bannister's stuff (nice ports of console emulators) are all free and all you have to pay for is a plugin with extra stuff.

Yes, macs are very much lacking in the games department, but since you're mentioning price, I'd like to point out that you can get a ps2/gc or an xbox for the price of a decent graphics card.

House or a Mac.... hmmmm I chose the house. ;=) My home directory can't protect me from hurricanes.
Yes, but Steve Jobs' RDF can!

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[TrancePhreak]

You clearly overlooked Half-Life 2, WarCraft 3, DOOM 3, World Of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, etc. Not to mention that games that are on PC & Console are often better on PC because they often have more RAM/Vid Card Power/Hard Drives. Consoles are good for console games, but not every game is good on a console.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[bmxbandit]

Though this has been explained time and time again, people still don't seem to get it. The truth is Apple are NOT a niche company. They are in fact one of the biggest, and certainly the most important PC company in the industry ever since they invented it. The misunderstanding is created (and heavily milked by toy companies such as Microsoft) because nobody stops to think about what a computer user actually is. The vast majority (in my experience) of Windows users are not computer users, or at least they are people who do not rely on a computer to do their work. If they did they would not be able to afford the constant patching, rebooting, viri or worse (MS patches and software). Most MS customers use computers for tasks that could be accomplished by an Amstrad Word processor 10 years ago (email/word proceccing). Of course I'm forgetting gaming. MS also appeal to people who spend over a grand on a games system thats almost as good as a $100 PS2, once you've spent an hour installing it. The hard truth is Electrical chains will continue to push joke technology such as Windows and office, as long as there are people dumb enough to buy it. That's because they can sell them a $300 computer for $1500, and know for a fact that they will need a new one in 6 months. My point is, these people are badly informed consumers, NOT computer users. Computer users are Publishing Companies, Design Agencies, Aircraft Designers, Recording Studios, ... the list is endless, but you'll probably find all of these industries dismissed by the so called computer press (ie MS press) as 'niche' industries. How convenient. I challenge anybody to name a single MS innovation since they ported somebody elses code to the Altair. Not much of a record for a so called 'Industry Leader' hah.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[AusG4]

A single innovation from Microsoft? You're joking.

Microsoft BOB! Duh.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

I seriously have no spyware problems on my machine. I run 2 machines at home, a Windows 2000 and Red Hat Linux 9.0

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

Sorry for double posting, forget to rebuttle in the first post.

My comments weren't to say that the Mac is a limited piece of trash, it's a machine limited by it's lack of popularity, and that anyone buying, should at the very least consider the limitation in software options before buying a machine.

You don't buy software based on the hardware, you buy the hardware based on the software you want/need to run. Seriously speaking, without the initial sarcasm of my original post, I hope those who are causally making the switch realize that the range of options they will have on the PC, will not be there on the Mac for a number of things.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

No really, it's the price stopping me from getting a Mac. Why spend $1500 when I can spend $500-750 for a new machine?

Any why is it ever time I say something like that to a Mac person, they always get offended. sheesh. It's just my opinion. You can place my comments in the "Trash can".

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

I have a PC and a PS2, and use both for gaming. Ratchet and Clank (which I love playing) gets alot of time on my PS2. Trust me, I know what games don't run on the PC but when you measure it all up the Mac is the platform with the smallest amount of games. PCs have the widest game selection out there. Some games are only console based so if you want Halo, then you have to get an Xbox. If you want "Ratchet and Clank" or Jak, then you have to have a PS2.

But staying on topic to the original post, the Mac is limited in software options, that's all I'm saying.

Re:Hahahaha.... the fools!

[Alpha27]

Ok I was wrong about the P2P software options.

I apologize to all the Macians.

I'm sorry.

Well I imagine it goes something like this...

[WIAKywbfatw]

1. Buy an iPod
2. Go into Apple Store or browse Apple section of local computer store for the first time looking for iPod-related stuff.
3. Play around with an iMac.
4. Decide you like the iMac experience.
5. Think about buying one.

Seems like a pretty obvious likelyhood to me.

On a not entirely unrelated note, the next version of the MacOS, codenamed Tiger, is nothing short of fantastic. I saw a demo and played around with it a bit at last week's London Mac Expo and I can honestly say that it makes Windows look like something from the Stone Age.

I'm not an Apple fan boy by any stretch of the imagination but Apple really has a fantastic product range now and the best OS out there by miles.

Re:Well I imagine it goes something like this...

[Peyna]

I'm not an Apple fan boy

When you use phrases like:
pretty obvious likelyhood
nothing short of fantastic
really has a fantastic product range
best OS out there by miles

You can't help but sound like a fanboy.

Re:Well I imagine it goes something like this...

[WIAKywbfatw]

I've never owned an Apple product in my life, just as I've never owned a BMW. But that doesn't stop me recognising that Apple has some great products or that BMW has the same too.

But, in the interest of fairness, why don't you point out where I've gone wrong in my "pretty obvious likelyhood" scenario, or any other holes in my reasoning?

Just so that you know, I've used virtually every incarnation of Windows, several versions of Unix, Linux and the MacOS. If you had asked me what was the best desktop OS out there a year ago, or perhaps even a week ago, then there's next to no chance that I would have said MacOS. But having seen Tiger in action and played around with it myself then I find it hard to argue that anything else that I've experienced even comes close, certainly not Windows and certainly not any Linux.

As someone who predominantly uses Windows and Linux, I suppose I could just fall into the trap of blindly cheerleading for those platforms, but why should I? Do people who avidly support the Cincinatti Bengals delude themselves into thinking that their team is the equal of the New England Patrioits?

If recognising that the other guy has the best toys makes me a fan boy, well then call me a fan boy. Personally, I prefer the label realist.

Re:Well I imagine it goes something like this...

[Peyna]

I'm not an Apple fan boy
nothing short of fantastic
fantastic product range

That's really all I was getting at. Apparently, I hit some kind of nerve.

Re:Well I imagine it goes something like this...

[WIAKywbfatw]

So sorry. I'll use my thesaurus next time to find some appropriate synonyms instead, OK?

iTunes User

[CrazyTalk]

I don't have an iPOD (listen to all my music at home, work, or in car, no need for one) but I bought a Mac for the first time in a decade after using iTunes on the PC. The software was so superior to anything comparable in the Windows world that I forgot how enjoyable using a Mac was.

I switched back... then back again

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be a diehard Mac loyalist, going to Macworlds etc until I was about 16. Then I realised not knowing windoze could potentially hurt my future career opportunities. Last year I got an ipod, and then a few months later a G4 powerbook. For a while I was a total convert again, but there was just certain things I couldn't do, and running virtual pc all the time is a pain. Now I'm back to my PC for about 80% of the time. Macs definetly have their advantages, but for making money, you have to use a windows box (artists excluded).

Just wanted to note: It definetly wasn't itunes that made me switch back. At the time it was buggy on the PC and I had to use ephpod. But I am amazed that now I use it on the PC. Its just a great interface, which is why Apple should just do software and leave the hardware to the open market.

Fuck off with the appleturfing

[stratjakt]

seriously.

Some article claims some guy asked some iPod owners if they might want a Mac.. Whoopty fucking do

Seriously, this isn't "news for nerds", this isn't "stuff that matters". This is "yay for Apple hoooray for iPods".

I'm impressed any of you have an iPod that works, considering you masturbate furiously every time its near you, I'd think it would be gummed up with dried zealot spooge.

I don't hate Apple, I just dont particularly see any reason to raise Apple above any other computer vendor. Whoopty do, they have their own incompatible architecture.

Apple is just Dell or Gateway that sell a different architecture. BFD. Where are all the Dell, Gateway and eMachines press releases?

THIS JUST IN!! PEOPLE WHO BUY A DELL TEND TO BUY ANOTHER DELL BECAUSE OF THE AWARD WINNING 24 HOUR TECH SUPPORT!

Re:Fuck off with the appleturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

There are reasons that Apple gets media attention over the other vendors you mention...

Overall, Dell and Gateway don't do anything in the consumer computer space. They package other companies tech and resell it. The design they do is minimal (for a reason - design costs money). These companies excel at distribution, that's it.

Apple designs the hardware and software. They design the motherboards to support the different architecture. They design unique cases (as opposed to just taking a done before design, making it cheaper and putting the company logo on the side). They design the entire OS and much of the included software.

There aren't press releases on the next great thing from Dell or Gateway or eMachines because they don't do next great things. Some other company did the great thing, the aforementioned companies ask the creating company to dumb it down and then build it using cheaper materials.

I always get a kick out of stats on Dell's R&D expenditures. I have no doubt they do some actual R&D. Probably more in the server space. But Dell is not a technical or design innovator. Dell is a distribution and mass production innovator. I'm betting that a lot of R&D is geared toward how to most effectively cut corners and save money. I'm convinced that the Dell box sitting in front of me (work machine) was very carefully designed to use the thinnest possible plastic panels and parts with as little attention to how well they fit together as possible without the whole thing just falling apart. The front panels jiggle when touched, the front port covering door nearly breaks off every time it's opened or closed. I won't get into the problems I have with Dell computers or Windows XP...

The end point is that the media follows Apple because Apple pushes the computer industry forward as much as Microsoft and Intel. Dell and others take these companies efforts and find "innovative" ways to deliver them at reduced prices (sometimes) and reduced quality (most of the time).

Re:Fuck off with the appleturfing

[scottgfx]

I think someone needs a hug.

Re:Fuck off with the appleturfing

[bmxbandit]

Jeez what a tool!

Re:Fuck off with the appleturfing

[Ohreally_factor]

Outstanding. Any trollishness is completely offset by your obvious sincerity. And the "dried zealot spooge" line was great. (Why do you think Apple is selling iPod socks?)

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[Bastian]

I would love it if I could plug my iPod into my computer at work and be able to play songs on it in iTunes. As is, you can see what songs are on the iPod, but beyond that it's a lookee-no-touchee type thing.

Just wait...

[RealProgrammer]

until all those iPods start exploding and giving people brain cancer like cell phones, and getting them arrested.

Then they will see they were wrong for deserting me. Our product is safe: it doesn't explode, give you cancer, or get you arrested. What is security if not safety? I'm the Chief Software Architect, for it, you know.

I'll show you who is right, and then you'll pay -- you'll all pay!

- Bill G

Strong !! Casual !!

[karvind]

How can you have strong and yet casual relationship ? Nerds, by definition, have relationship with a gadget till it becomes obselete. -a

It's the "cool factor"

[H_Fisher]

Perhaps the iPod's stylishness makes people want to have a trendy-looking computer as well? ... And I'd argue (having used both Macs & PCs extensively) that someone who knows how to use a Win XP / 9x machine pretty well can get the hang of a Mac in a decent amount of time, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. You'd need some more in-depth market research to really make claims of iPod-caused migration stick, though - and I'm sure Apple's on top of that. If they're smart, they'll take advantage of this with some saavy tie-ins ("Buy a 40gb iPod, get a $100 rebate towards a Mac system").

I hate the Mac price argument.

[funkdid]

You know who else is expensive, SUN. How come no one ever says "Sun sucks, they need to understand that their products are too expensive. I can build on x86 hardware so much cheaper....Until Sun makes an ultra sparc workstation with a 17inch lcd for under $700 I'll keep using shit."

Re:I hate the Mac price argument.

[presearch]

Sun sucks, they need to understand that their products are too expensive.

Re:I hate the Mac price argument.

[BenjyD]

Erm, I think that argument comes up most times anyone mentions Sun on Slashdot.

Re:I hate the Mac price argument.

[maxwell demon]

Well, maybe Sun should consider selling an MP3 player, too? :-)

I'm one of them

[Anonymous Coward]

I always considered Mac's inferior to Pc's. I even verbally berated my sister for buying an eMac. Then came my iPod mini, now I'm looking at getting one of the iMac g5's with this years tax return. As one poster put it "I realized the elegance of Apple products"

Is This a Surprise Really?

[Cycline3]

The iPod is killer kit. It's well built and easy to use. Who wouldn't look at a Mac after running Windows and then getting an iPod and realizing, "it doesn't have to suck! Wow I never knew that!"

I switched.

[RatBastard]

I switched from PC to Mac after I got my iPod. The iPod wasn't the main reason I switched, but it was the final argument. I was tired of all of the viruses, exploits, etc.. on Windows, as well as all of the other crap Windows users put up with every day. My switch to Mac had been slowly brewing from the day Mac OS X first came out.

And yes, I did try Linux, but I always wound up at the same point after installing it: "Ok, now what?" and never having an answer to that question.

Re:I switched.

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it's because you're a complete sheep.

Re:I switched.

[jay-be-em]

"And yes, I did try Linux, but I always wound up at the same point after installing it: "Ok, now what?" and never having an answer to that question."

And everytime I sat down at a Mac I looked at the screen and said 'Ok, now what?'

Uh, use it. duh.

Re:I switched.

[Anonymous Coward]

as opposed to all those partial sheep running around?

Re:I switched.

[jay-be-em]

Baaaaaamooooo.

Re:I switched.

[e40]

There may be fine reasons to switch from Windows to Mac OS X, but the iPod isn't one of them. I use the iPod just fine on a Windows XP box.

I think the switching can be explained this way:

1. Mac OS X is getting better all the time. It sucked when it first came out--my company spent a lot of time porting software to it and I really hated it, for a variety of reasons (software portability and bugs).

2. Apple is perceived as doing better. This translates into better sales.

3. Windows and Microsoft have taken PR hits in the last year or so. This should translate into more Mac OS X sales.

Re:I switched.

[burris]

And yes, I did try Linux, but I always wound up at the same point after installing it: "Ok, now what?" and never having an answer to that question.

Compile a new kernel, of course.

Re:I switched.

[TrancePhreak]

yo mama

Expensive, maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear a lot of people criticizing Macs for being too 'expensive' lately. Obviously, I can bet most of you have never been an owner of a Macintosh. I've been in the computer/technology industry a long time, and most always the de-facto standard has been x86 and that's what I've used. I've been just like the rest of you, being harsh to Mac users and criticizing them, but it took me the experience to actually see a Macintosh to believe its power.

One of our system techs here brought in a 12" iBook one day (this was long ago, I think it was a 500mhz model), and the awesome design caught my eye at first. It was running the latest and greatest operating system from Apple - OS X (which wasn't so great back in its 10.0 days ;) ) I was definately interested, and we started discussing this new OS X and how it was unix-based, etc and that people like us could really get used to a thing like this. Later, he created an account for me on that machine and told me to go nuts, and I did. I explored all the neat little gizmos it had to offer (the Terminal surprised me the most), and from then on I was sold.

To make an already long story short, I've been an Apple user ever since, and haven't minded paying what they ask. My house is full of them now. I don't even think twice. I'm not a 'fanboy' per-se. I just really feel like with a Macintosh I get a LOT more for my money. I know AppleCare is always there to back me up in case something go haywire with my powerbook, or any of my other computers. I get a quality computer with quality parts -- and I don't mind paying for it. Because honestly, these Macs made computing fun again. Remember that feeling when you first explored a computer? That all came back to me and I was overjoyed and so eager to learn about Macs, and now I am also the lead Macintosh admin here.

I agree -- sometimes they seem pricy, but you have to look at the big picture and see what youre getting. Take for example their Cinema displays. I would never have bought one back in my PC days, because they seemed so expensive. But its the clearest looking and brightest display I've ever used and I couldn't be happier with it.

How many of those people are lying?

[Reality Master 101]

Some number of those people are Apple users already, and I don't think they're above lying to pollsters in order to artificially inflate Mac popularity. The question is, how many? To be honest, I suspect most of this poll fall in that category.

A lot of Mac fans aren't exactly rational when it comes to the Mac.

Re:How many of those people are lying?

[javaxman]

Some number of those people are Apple users already, and I don't think they're above lying to pollsters in order to artificially inflate Mac popularity.

What a weird thing to think. Why would they not just say "oh, I already use a Macintosh"; wouldn't that show their support for the platform more than saying they're thinking about switching?

I think you're not being exactly rational in your bias against OS X users.

Re:How many of those people are lying?

[Reality Master 101]

What a weird thing to think. Why would they not just say "oh, I already use a Macintosh"; wouldn't that show their support for the platform more than saying they're thinking about switching?

No; the poll isn't about how many people already use the Mac. It's not enough that they already use a Mac, they want a perception that people are actively switching from the PC to the Mac.

I think you're not being exactly rational in your bias against OS X users.

Not all of them, certainly, but there is no doubt that there are a LOT of wacky Mac users. The platform attracts that type, for whatever reason. Spend some time in comp.sys.mac.advocacy some time. Those people are nuts.

Re:How many of those people are lying?

[javaxman]

Spend some time in comp.sys.mac.advocacy some time. Those people are nuts.

I'm not sure it's wise to base your impression of a group of people on such a biased sampling. By the same method, I could come up with the notion that there are a LOT of wacky Linux/Windows/Republican/whatever folks out there. Not that there aren't some wacked-out fanatics in any group, but... c'mon, you have to see the problem with thinking folks who flock to comp.sys.mac.advocacy are representative.

the poll isn't about how many people already use the Mac. It's not enough that they already use a Mac, they want a perception that people are actively switching from the PC to the Mac.

What's really wacky is that you think a lot of Mac users were somehow included in this survey of what, 200 people? Statistically, there should be what, four of your "lying Mac users" in that sample? And how would they know what the poll is about? Wouldn't one of the lead-in questions be "what kind of computer do you use"?

Sorry. Nobody lied and said they were Windows users when they weren't. That idea is what is nuts.

So, what's your bias? Why are you so convinced that people saying they're considering switching must be lying, nutty Macintosh fanatics? What's your operating system of choice, Mr. Reality Master 101? Are you sure you might not be biased, just a teeny bit ?

Re:How many of those people are lying?

[b1t r0t]

I've been using Macs since 1985, and I've got to agree that wacked-out Mac fanatics are more rabid and wacked-out than most other computer fanatics, with the possible exception of the rabid Free Software types (the ones who think OGG and the GPL will save the world, as opposed to mere Linux/BSD fanatics).

I still agree that it's a bit farfetched to think that rabid Mac cultists would skew the poll by admitting that they had recently switched from a PC (doesn't fit with their mindset), much less that a poll of 400-600 iPod users would get a sufficient number of rabid Mac cultists to skew it anyhow.

Techphobes?

[essreenim]

Thats what occurred to me at any rate.
I guess these are people that avoided computers generally but like to have portable music (they probably just see the i-pod as the in thing)
They might associate the MAC also as the in thing and want one - if they are prepared to fork out the $$$ for one.

I'm one of that 6%.

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew how lame PCs were compared to Macs, but not first hand. I had a graduation present coming to me and nervously picked a PowerBook...best decision I've ever made. I've got a Masters in Computer Science and I am blown away at how long I waited to discover this platform. I've wasted so much time and headaches in the PC world. There is simply NOTHING that it's lacking. Even the morons that want to use Office still can. The desktop is simply the easiest and most powerful I've ever used. iTunes, iChat, iCal, and the Address applications are unbeatable.

I switched...

[yourexhalekiss]

to Linux after using FireFox for a little while. I think it's entirely possible that someone would consider switching to Mac from PC because of the iPod. It's definitely a killer app.

Re:I switched...

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, given that the Windows version of Firefox seems a little more polished than the Linux one (and much more polished than the Max one).

Apple Can Not Supply...

[DAldredge]

Apple and its suppliers do not have the production capacity to increase production very much. IOW, due to lack of capacity if a lot of people wish to switch in the next year or so, they could not. This is a major reason why F500 corps will not mass deploy Macs.

And before you mod me down why don't you think about responding to what I said? Apple is a company, not a religion and speaking negative things about Apple isn't hearsay.

Re:Apple Can Not Supply...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is a company, not a religion and speaking negative things about Apple isn't hearsay.

No, hearing someone talk about someone else who was speaking negative things about Apple is hearsay.

Speaking negative things about Apple is heresy. ;-)

Same here

[2nd Post!]

That's why I bought my PowerMac, iPod, and PowerBook (in reverse order).

Don't jump the gun yet

[ruiner13]

This was a sample of only 200 iPod windows users. Not exactly a large sample to base a correlation on.

I switched to Mac, THEN switched to iPod

[bobalu]

After an excellent experience with the Powerbook I decided to switch to an iPod when my Creative Nomad died. (They didn't support the Mac, whereas iTunes and the iPod DO support Windows.)

The price came down enough that it didn't really matter and I prefer the AAC format sound-wise.

I'm still not wild about the battery life, but the form factor is a big win. It really fits in your pocket easily.

Not exactly the plan

[MasterVidBoi]

Everyone seems to jump to the immediate conclusion that the iPod and iTMS are tools to try and convince people to switch platforms, but I don't quite believe that's entirely true. While the iPod is earning a lot of cash, I don't think they expected it to do this well. I think the real reason for the music push is fairly simple: not to draw new users to the platform, but merely to maintain it.

Consider, if Apple hadn't gone down the music path: The primary format of every player would be MP3+Windows Media, with WM slowly taking over as people rip CDs in whatever their computer defaults to, or whatever they download/buy. The moment the ability to play Windows Media files goes away (no one providing a player for the next revision of the formats), the mac dies as a multimedia platform. If your platform can't view the content that anyone is distributing, you're toast (very much like the .doc situation). Their entry into the music business was really forced, because no one else would provide the content that the platform needed to remain viable as a multimedia platform (and by extension, a useful desktop platform)

Repeat after me:

[Resident Geek]

Correlation is not causation.

It's just as plausible that sunspot frequency affects stock prices or hem lines.

Jeez, people, think a little more critically. Now, granted, brand quality may be a factor in these users' decisions. But it's a far leap to then suggest that it's the cause.

Re:Repeat after me:

[Warlock7]

Unless that's what the respondants claim when you interview them.

Not Surprising

[ntrimble]

My wife's parents each bought ipods. Less than six months later they both bought macs. The coolest things about the ipods is it made it super easy for my 60+ year old in-laws to rip all their cds and sync them to their players. And all this they did without any help from me. Normally I have to hold their hands for all their computer needs. I was really impressed. The switch from Windows to Mac hasn't been as easy as they hoped but they still like their macs. I'm sure they'll pick it up soon enough.

Just switched

[piGuy314]

I just made the switch yesterday. In fact, I'm typing this post on my new wireless 12" iBook. Like others, I had been thinking about switching for a while. The price was of course the main thing keeping me from pulling the trigger, but I decided to just let my wallet take the hit. Having used the iBook for a day now, I can say I'm glad I switched. OSX is as awesome as awesome as everybody says. It is perhaps the only OS to really succeed in combining user friendliness with power. It's awesome for casual computer use and just as awesome for power computing. I also like the fact that macs tend to hold their value well. Sure, I could have bought a Dell for a lot cheaper, but in a year my iBook will have more market value than a Dell. Plus it's also great that the iBook came with tons of free software; everything from music composition software to development tools. I was a huge anti-mac guy years ago. Back in grade school I even waged an anti-mac campaign (long story). But with OSX, my long standing prejudice was gone. To anyone considering making the switch, I would recommend it. The price may seem high, but you really do get a lot for your money. I think the price premium is worth it for the top-notch hardware and software.

How so?

[MSFanBoi]

All the major OS studies show that the use of MacOS is still in decline... Quite a bit the last two quarters in fact.

Re:How so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back this up...

Re:How so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the use of Mac OS is in decline. Apple is doing its best to replace it with Mac OS X.

No ipod but still making switch

[Sai Babu]

to Mac for my mom. I use Unix (Solaris and Linux) and OSX is closer to what I'm used to. She has an easier time with the user interface. Mac is less susceptible to exploits.

I know other middle aged guys like myself who are moving their parents to OSX because it's easier to maintain. Growth of LInux benefits Apple. Seems so. How much, anyones guess.

And besides,

[Jucius Maximus]

Did they consider the number of people that would switch from Mac to PC now that iPod and iTunes work on Windows?

(No, they didn't. I read this article before it was posted.)

Re:And besides,

[shades6666]

To say that iTunes works on Windows might be a bit of a stretch. It's the only software I've delt with in the past year that can manage to blue-screen XP SP2. It's also quite a bloated p.o.s. at ~35MB, complete with Quicktime for some god forsaken reason.

If anything, the iPod has turned me off Apple software.

Third party apps for the iPod / Windows work well though ;)

Re:And besides,

[b1t r0t]

I was actually thinking about that the other day. Have you noticed how the Windows version of iTunes makes a point of having almost the same "brushed metal" interface as the Mac version? I don't know how well it stands out in XP, but it certainly stands out in W2K. Maybe every time a Windows user sees the iTunes window, he/she can hear a voice in the back of their head saying "if you switch, everything will look this spiffy!"

Re:And besides,

[Jucius Maximus]

Strange ...

Maybe I'm just lucky, but Apple products have *always* worked very well on Windows for me. iTunes, Quicktime, even in the QT 5.0 days. Always rock solid, never crashing, always doing what they were supposed to do. (Well except that windows quicktime won't play variable bitrate video that also has variable bitrate audio, while OSX Quicktime does it just fine.)

Naturally these all work even more smoothly on my OS X machine, but still, I have not experienced the massive problems with Quicktime, iTunes, etc. that other people always talk about. Just lucky, I guess.

Re:And besides,

[martinX]

The first iteration of iTunes on Windows was as slow as molasses on my XP machine, which was disappointing because it's pretty snappy on my Mac.

iTunes on Windows is now OK though. To be expected - 1.0 release and all that.

Re:And besides,

[Anonymous Coward]

WHO in their RIGHT MIND would SWITCH from a Mac to a PC?!?!?!?

old news

[BishopBerkeley]

This story was the reason behind the $6+ jump in Apple's stock two days ago. I own some. I was pleased by the story.

The study was of an awfully small sampling of people, 200, but it comes from Piper Jaffray, which, it seems, is a reputable enough source to make investors listen. The analyst at Piper even felt strongly enough about the study to raise his own target price for Apple to $100 per share. (I'm betting that Apple will hit this price by Christmas, but that's another story.) And, the analyst and Piper Jaffray claim that they have no ties with Apple, financial or otherwise. So, presumably, this is a disinterested study.

The point that nobody wants to tackle is the one about the future of the computer as a home entertainment center. I switched from Windows to OS X over a year ago, but I invested in Apple when Airport Express came out. I actually use Airport Express's audio capabilities, and it works remarkably well for a first generation product. So, Apple already has a functioning, comprehensive, and innovative solution to making the computer the entertainment center, and nobody else is even out of the blocks, really.

The only thing that concerned me as an investor was whether people were ever going to realize Apple's remarkable capabilities and ease of use. What this study suggests is that the word is spreading, and that enough people are changing over to make a huge difference in Apple's bottom line.

I'm disappointed with slashdot. You guys are usually ahead of the market, not two days behind.

This could have been interesting, but...

[mark-t]

... the statistics are incomplete.

It says that 6% of the iPod users are switching from PC to Mac, but it doesn't say what percentage of iPod users were PC users to begin with.

So it's really impossible to make any conclusions from this particular statistic because it covers an over-broad demographic. It's a lot like saying that a human being has, on average, 1 breast and 1 testicle. You can't draw any meaningful information from a statistic like that.

Re:This could have been interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your interpretation of the statistics is incomplete. You know nothing about who the entire group was, which the researchers do, yet you attempt to wax statistical. You know nothing about it, so it's impossible for you to draw your conclusions since you bade your interpretation on assumptions to begins with.

Re:This could have been interesting, but...

[mark-t]

My interpretation is incomplete because the statistics themselves are incomplete. It is impossible to draw any meaningful conclusion from it without _making_ assumptions for which there may be no real basis. That was my point.

Re:This could have been interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The statistics are complete. You're reading a news story about those statistics. It's not their job to do your legwork to verify the statistics that they are reporting on. That's your responsibility. :P

Re:This could have been interesting, but...

[mark-t]

The purpose behind publishing a statistic is so that either a meaningful conclusion can be presented with it that is backed up by those statistics or else the reader of those statistics is left to draw his or her own conclusion from them. However, in the latter case, in order for the reader to come to a sustainable conclusion, one must have more than just a single percentage figure about a demographic without establishing any facts about the nature of that demographic. The person presenting statistics has an obligation to provide those facts with the statistics, otherwise they are no different than Microsoft's "get the facts" campaign which presents statistics without the factual information behind them to allow the reader to draw a useful conclusion.

As for what is missing from the article, saying 6% of ipod users alread switched from Macs to PC's and 7% more intend to carries an _entirely_ different connatation if a majority of iPod users were already Macintosh users than it does if PC users represented a typical cross-sampling of iPod users as they do on the desktop. This is what is missing, and it makes the numbers meaningless.

Re:This could have been interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a news article, not a statistical publication. You are assuming too much. If you want the report, then find it for yourself. It is not the responsibility of the author of the article that is referencing a statistical analysis to provide you with anything other than what they provide you with. It would be nice if they pointed to the analysis itself, but they didn't.

I do not know of where you could find the information that you seem to be looking for. I would also like to know where you could find out the number of Windows vs Mac users that own iPods. But you can bet that there are a multitude of PC users that have them when you consider the sales numbers for the iPods after they became available to Windows users.

If the report is referencing PC and ex-PC users then it isn't referencing long term die hard Mac users. I wouldn't be surprised if the information that you are looking for is available from the actual statistical analysis. So, find the analysis and throw stones at it, but don't attack the "journalist" reporting the story, attack the researcher that has done the study.

There have been numbers mentioned by all sorts of /.ers here that haven't provided the source of their conclusions too, but they haven't been berated by other /.ers for not providing the source of their numbers.

In essence, I see that your real issue here is that you want to see the analysis and you have issue with the "journalist" for not providing you with it, which would have been nice, but that isn't really their responsibility. Most people wouldn't really care as the statistics only seem to add up to 13% of the iPod owning PC users.

Misleading

[XpirateX]

What the article doesn't say is that the sample was of 200 people - hardly enough to draw an accurate conclusion. This is a neat thought, but I'm not putting faith in these "results." As someone else has already posted, this was also posted on OSNews about a week ago.

I'll have to admit...

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the 'switch' to a Mac OS X machine, but not because of my 2G iPod. I bought a PowerBook 12.1" 867 because I wanted UNIX stability in a platform I could use every day (Sorry, but Linux is too "third-party" sometimes, and I use it every day at work.) I absolutely love my Powerbook for everything multimedia; however, about three months ago I bought a Thinkpad X40 because I needed the Windows compatibility when I was doing development for the Palm OS and WinCE. All in all, they happily coexist, and I don't believe I could live without either of them.

I can honestly see the beauty behind switching to a Mac for AIM/Web browsing/music/DVDs etc.; I really believe that the platform is superior for home use (aside from games). However, I can never see myself not having a PC...

Dog pees on man.

[Charcharodon]

Yeah but people are stupid.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[someonehasmyname]

You can. Plug the iPod in. When iTunes opens, select the iPod from the "Source" List, and then double click a track. The track will play fine.

Copying from the iPod is a different story. You'll have to download a freeware (sometimes GPL) app to do that, beacause Apple couldn't make it that easy to steal music and still pull off the iTunes Music Store.

is that a fact?

[Anonymous Coward]

boogers

Money, money, money

[DogDude]

Also, I'd imagine money comes into play. Especially disposable income. iPod's are NOT cheap (especially for those of us who have to work for a living). Thus, I'd imagine that if they have $$ to spend on an iPod, then dropping 4 figures for a pretty shiny new computer that matches their iPod is no big deal.

Re:Money, money, money

[displaced80]

Indeed.

I tend to work for a living so I can buy stuff. Occasionally, that 'stuff' includes an Apple product.

I don't really see what the problem is, especially considering this point wouldn't even be raised if I said I was spending a similar amount of money on nvidia's latest and greatest.

Very odd.

Re:Money, money, money

[DogDude]

I can't imagine spending that much on a gizmo. I use a $10 Sony Walkman. Works great. I also couldn't even begin to consider buying an Apple. People who have that much disposable income are a completely different market segment than the general population. People such as yourself obviously don't understand that (or perhaps are part of that wealthy elite who do blow cash on toys like this). Marketing people do. It's not classism at all.

Re:Money, money, money

[waynelorentz]

I can't imagine spending that much on a gizmo. I use a $10 Sony Walkman. Works great. I also couldn't even begin to consider buying an Apple. People who have that much disposable income are a completely different market segment than the general population.

I can't imagine spending $10 on a Sony Walkman. I hum tunes in my head for free. Works great. I also coudn't even begin to consider buying a Sony. People who have $10 disposable income are on a completely different plane of reality than the general public.

Re:Money, money, money

[Anonymous Coward]

I hum tunes in my head ...

Wow, you're rich. I can't even afford to hum tunes in my head. The RIAA has ruled that's a concert and wants me to pay the broadcast fee since all my other personalities get to hear the tune also.

Re:Money, money, money

[SeanAhern]

Income producers (of which you are one, presumably) are not split into two groups, "wealthy elite" who can buy a personal computer, and the "general population" who cannot. A Macintosh computer does not cost an order of magnitude more than a Windows-based one, so we can combine the two classes to make statements. The average household in the U.S. has a computer. I'd have to do some research to find an exact number, but it's certainly not in the small minority. By your logic, then the "general population" is part of the "wealthy elite". Something doesn't match here.

Macintoshes and Dells and HPs are not "luxury" items on the caliber of Porsches and Gulfstreams that are bought by a relatively small number of people. Personal computers are relatively low-price commodity items that millions of people purchase with their "disposable" income. Some people consider them to be important enough communication devices that they spend "non-disposable" income on them. Coming up with $2000 to spend certainly does not make you part of the "wealthy elite".

And if marketing people "understand" your point that the "general population" wouldn't buy an Apple, why are Macintoshes marketed to the general population?

Re:Money, money, money

[MysteriousPreacher]

It's all right for Mr Moneybags who can afford to be sued by the RIAA for unlawful reproduction of copyrighted works.

Me, I just tap my head with a stick.

So what happens when you want to switch?

[fracai]

I gues it was a smart move for the iPOd to work with Windows and Macs?

My sister has a Windows formatted iPod that I loaded for her (ripped all her CDs to the iPod). This weekend she came over to pick up her CDs. I ripped a couple more for her and was about to update the firmware, but I couldn't. While Macs can read the Windows formatted drive, they can't update the firmware.

What happens when people plug their iPod into their new Mac and find they can't update it?

I guess it's possibly a non-issue because you can transfer songs to the Mac and then reformat and resync. It's still an issue that I imagine the Genius Bar will be dealing with.

Re:So what happens when you want to switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

The above isn't true on new iPod models.

Re:So what happens when you want to switch?

[fracai]

New as in clickwheel? That's what we both have.
You can add and delete songs on a Windows iPod using a Mac.
What you can't do is update the firmware. Unless I'm misunderstanding the dialogue that popped up indicating that the iPod must be updated with the Windows updater.

Re:So what happens when you want to switch?

[lakeland]

Interesting, I'm about to be in the same boat -- my wife got an iPod (last day of the third generation, she couldn't wait a week for the fourth... oh well, her choice). Anyway it was working ok under linux but when she decided she wanted her own computer she ordered an iMac (due next week).

Anyway, I formatted the ipod as FAT32 or whatever the windows one is, just because the linux drivers for UFS and HFS seemed a bit experimental. So when her mac arrives it will appear to be a windows iPod (which is full of songs but has never been plugged into itunes, I wonder how it will cope with that :)

I guess I can always run the old dd trick to corrupt the partition table and convince the mac to restore it.

Re:So what happens when you want to switch?

[topham]

You can convert it yourself.
I can't remember the steps off hand, but it was NOT a challenge. I converted mine from Mac format to FAT32. (I was hoping I could use a stand-alone device to put images onto it, but it failed to work). I really should switch mine back to HFS.

MOD PARENT FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

the GUI matters more. That's why people are _contemplating_ Linux ...

Bwahahahahaha!!!!! Thanks for the laugh!!

strong customer satisfaction

[Twid]

another result mentioned in this article is that 199 out of the 200 people surveyed were happy with their iPod.

That's a pretty incredible result for any consumer electronics gadget.

Also, I believe no one surveyed was unhappy with the lack of Ogg Vorbis support. In fact, when asked about whether Ogg was important to them, the most common answer was "I only like Ogg at Christmas with a little nutmeg on top." :)

Re:strong customer satisfaction

[xutopia]

chicken and egg(nogg) problem. Perhaps the people happy with Ogg Vorbis support have an Ogg Vorbis portable player and aren't using an Ipod. I'm just saying. I have neither.

Re:strong customer satisfaction

[Twid]

it was a joke.

But yes, of course you're right. :)

It's called "foot in the door"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't really convince people to buy more stuff from you unless you've sold them one thing first...

It's downright shocking, actually.

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod is killer kit. It's well built and easy to use. Who wouldn't look at a Mac after running Windows and then getting an iPod and realizing, "it doesn't have to suck! Wow I never knew that!"

I love the iPod. I detest iTunes. If I were to choose my computer based on interface, and the interface of Mac software is in any way similar to iTunes, then clearly the PC is the way to go for me.

iTunes is the most difficult, annoying, inconsistent, and non-intuitive interface for a software program that I have ever seen. I mean, it's just bad. Big time.

So yeah, I find it incredible that people are switching to Mac's, especially if they have used iTunes. I mean, gak!

of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a computer engineer at a large internet company.
I have freebsd and linux for my desktop, and a third machine running windows XP for random windows stuff.

I also have an ipod that I use with the windows XP box, but seeing how nice the ipod is, I've thought more seriously about getting a mac desktop or laptop even.

it doesn't hurt that macs run essentially freebsd too!

Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a Mac

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Maybe a HIGH-END Mac, but:
1) not a laptop- Mac laptops are pretty damn price-competitive with PC laptops
2) not a consumer-level Mac- Prices are also very competitive
3) Not a used Mac- If you want to try it without too much risk, get a used Mac on eBay. You'll likely be able to sell it for not much cheaper than you bought it for, if you don't like it (since Macs hold value much better than PC's). And it thus won't dent your precious mortgage payment.

The only way price (and I'm just talking the raw dollars) MAY be stopping you is if you build your own PC. But man, if those headaches are worth it to you, then I can't help you. The value of headache-free computing, quality components, and the nice, hassle-free interface should really be experienced to understand.

Is this really surprising?

[Wdomburg]

Does it suprise anyone that people who have $250 to blow on a top end music player are more likely to have spare money to blow on "premium" hardware?

I don't see this as heralding any sort of mass exodus to Apple hardware; just a indication that they're reaching their target market - electronics enthusiasts with large discretionary income. The bulk of the market will continue to be "value" shoppers who will pass over both the iPod and Apple in general because they're too spendy.

Re:Is this really surprising?

[adamh526]

And in other news - advertising may be increasing Pepsi's popularity!

Re:Is this really surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

By "value" shoppers you, of course, mean cheap ass fucks who can't scrape together the cash. And by "electronics enthusiasts with large discretionary income" mean rich mother fuckers that the cheap ass fucks are always jealous of.

What we need now is a return of kids software

[sjonke]

With new Mac users and hopefully increased market share, perhaps we'll see a return of kids software to the Mac. One can hope, anyway. Being the father of two kids, one 3 1/2, the other just turned 2, I was looking for kids software for them this christmas for their iMac, only to find that the two major players in kids software for their age group are now both PC only - Atari bought out the great Humongous which use to be cross platform, but now with Atari at the helm all their new software is PC only. Broderbund, purveyors of Reader Rabbit and more, is now PC only too. The only choice I have is to find old software used, almost all of which is for OS 9/Classic. Is there any company left developing software for 2 to 4 year olds that run on Mac OS X?

On Macs (was: Re:It makes sense...)

[Qbertino]

Apple survives on getting people to pay very high prices for cool looking products. Once Apple gets people buying iPods, it would only make sense that those same sheeps would also start buying overpriced but pretty Macs.

I've been dealing with computers since the mid 80ies. Programming, experimenting, using and depending on them. Since 3 years I've been a Linux/x86 guy only. Half a year ago I bought an 12" iBook. My first Mac. Btw, the cheapest Subnotebook available.

This is a fact: Macs are not any more expensive that equivalent PCs. On the contrary.
If I buy a Mac, I unpack it, plug it into the grid outlet, turn it on and it works. It's got zero-crap hardware in a package that had 5 people thinktanking half a year about how to design the power supply. And an equal effort put into everthing else. It's got an optional widescreen that plain and simply imidiately shuts every PC zealot up the moment he sees it in real life, no matter how expensive it may be. (And those actually *are* really expensive)
It's got a high end industry strength reference grade quality OS with tons of high end industry strength reference grade quality software preinstalled. On top of that, there is not a single multimedia related thing I can't imidiately do with absolutely zero fuss and hassle. I pop in a DVD: It works. I fire up zshell (works out of the box) scp (works out of the box) my python programm from my Linux PC onto my Mac and run it. And guess what: I works out of the box. I scp the jedit jar from my Linux PC (!) put it on my Mac Destop and run it (works... you know the drill). Guess what fuss it took to get Java running smoothly on Linux... And on top of that, Swing on a Mac finally doens't look like someone did doo-doo on my screen anymore. And that without even caring about what Java is.

By now I predict the following: Within the next 5 years we will see a substancial increase of Linux usage (critical mass nearly reached in some countries, germany, f.e.) and an increase in Mac usage. Linux serving the low-cost, full-power no-floss desk and business workhorse enviroment, mac serving the media/sleek and cool appliance market. The MS-PC market will be caught in the middle and, I wouldn't be suprised, probably be squished quite a bit aswell. I actually do expect the MS market to be marginalized by 2010. (and nealy everything I've predicted up to now has come true in one way or the other)

Re:On Macs (was: Re:It makes sense...)

[easter1916]

Swing on a Mac finally doens't look like someone did doo-doo on my screen anymore

You mention in your sig that German is your first language, not English. All I can say is that I wish I spoke German well enough to be able to throw idiomatic phrases like "doo-doo" in the mix...! Good job man.

Re:On Macs (was: Re:It makes sense...)

[Qbertino]

Avtually English and German are both my mothertounge. It's just that I've lived in germany longer. BTW, I actually think my german spelling is just as "bad" as my english spelling. Which I'm actually quite happy with as you can imagine. :-)

GAPLESS PLAYBACK

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes!!!! Gapless playback is my one and only wish for my iPod. I will never buy another one until they fix it.

Think about it this way: a CD player made 20 years ago (ancient in technology terms) can play an album broken into tracks without inserting any gap between them. The iPod CAN'T!! Ugh.

Funny how the iPod is successful

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

because Macs aren't as successful.

They use the same paradigm:
1) High standards
2) Design and user interface are the priority
3) Quality components
4) Style and marketing
5) Priced higher than most competitors as a result

Since both a Mac and an iPod basically seem to use the same business model, why is it that iPods are so successful now? Is it because most people simply find it easier to save up a few hundred bucks for a nice music player versus a couple thousand for a much nicer computing experience? Is it due to the "network effect" of "all my friends have pc's, so I won't get a mac" (hehe "all my friends have spyware and viruses, I guess it's normal for me to also have them")? Perhaps the iPod was able to break out of this network effect and create one of its own? What do you folks think?

Re:Funny how the iPod is successful

[Warlock7]

Only problem is 5.
They're not priced higher than most competitors with comparable features and capabilities.

They're perceived to be priced higher because they don't offer a low-end (POS) to match up against the competition that are driven by the low-end market that those other manufacturers pander to. On top of that, there is no other company that offers the ease-of-use, integration, stability and security that Apple can offer out of the box.


Before the flaming starts, I don't care about what you can scrape together in your home from scouring the universe for inexpensive components because you don't include the value of your own time for those projects, if you did then your "built it myself" boxes are far more expensive than any other machine out there. This is about features and hardware by valid retail/internet manufacturers.

Re:Funny how the iPod is successful

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I think the very fact that Apple is still in business, AND selling non-x86 computers running their own proprietary OS is success enough. Think about how many other computer companies have either died out or capitulated to the Wintel camp.

They don't have to put anyone out of business. They just have to sell a few million machines a year. Comparing Apple to most other computer companies is like comparing a Diamler/Benz to a GM. People by other brands because they need a car. People by a Benz because they want a Benz.

Re:Funny how the iPod is successful

[lingsb]

The network effect for Windows PCs is that people use Windows at work, so that is what they're used to. Therefore, they buy a Windows PC for home use too.

An MP3 player doesn't have that network effect.

Re:Funny how the iPod is successful

[ruyon]

not only consumers buy pcs (in general term), big corps and institutions also buy them. and they care more about budgets ticket prices, and volume discounts. sounds simple to me.

Re:Funny how the iPod is successful

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the network effect has to do with communication not usability. The effect basically states that each additional member of the network increases the value of the network. Conversely, if you have a choice of products to buy, you will choose one which best fits into the network because it will be able to communicate with the other nodes.

Historically, people have been buying windows machines because they can author Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents. Written in a proprietary format, these documents were only valuable if shared with others who ran Windows. So the network reinforced itself. New computer buyers bought Windows so they could share word/excel docs and the network kept getting more powerful with each new word/excel user.

That's why Microsoft spends so much time and energy trying to keep their document formats (.xls, .doc, etc) and network protocols proprietary.

But there are two things working against Microsoft. One is that Word/Excel/etc. are available (for the time being) on MacOSX. That means that buyers can actually choose their OS instead of having the network define which one they can use for them. Secondly, OpenOffice.org has been able to create an office suite that can function as a reasonable replacement to MSOffice.

I think the point is that the mp3 player is currently acting to lower the barrier to entry of people considering an alternate computer/OS supplier. It's getting people to consider something other than what Microsoft & Dell are trying to ram down their throats.

Apple and Open Source

[alistair]

That may be true, but at least apple recognise this and provide some excellent developer guidelines and documentation to boot. For example have a look at

Darwin Open Source where you can download the source and documentation for what is essentially OS X.3.6

or

X Open at the Source

Apple seem to be very good at recognising the Open Source and Free Software tools they build upon, nothing in the GPL / BSD licence says they have to go to these lengths. And lets not forget the good stuff they have donated, from Darwin itself to Rendezvous to their excellent and often overlooked Open Directory toolkits, which should be of interest to far more than the mac community.

netcraft?

[neko9]

has netcraft confirmed taht pc is dying? omg omg my precious boxen don't die on me... i'm too young to you to die!!

The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G5

[SgtChaireBourne]

The iPod brought attention to iBook or G5. They probably bought it, liked it and then thought, "hey, if iPod is this good, I ought to at least check out an iBook or G5." The rest is history.

iBooks are the single best device out there for college students and many others. Excellent form factor, easy to use, even easier to maintain, good bang for the buck. The main drawback is the Microsoft effect, which has convinced users that all computers are slow to start up, slow to wake up, hard to configure, hard to use, virus prone, etc. and all alike and therefore won't look at anything new.

If one gets over that, for whatever reason, then rational though has a chance to. The push can come from an iPod or elsewhere. e.g. I loaned one out for 2 hours to an "MS is good enough for me and I'm not changing" small business owner. At the end of the two hours, he stated that his next hardware purchase will be a Mac. But for most, iPod will be the wake up.

Oxymoron

[Anonymous Coward]

"But best of all, I could pop up a bash shell and run vi on my files. And all with glistening eye-candy."

vi with eye-candy, that's an oxymoron.

Re:Oxymoron

[Fulcrum of Evil]

vi with eye-candy, that's an oxymoron.

What are you on about? vi is all about eye candy. Real programmers use ed.

Re:Oxymoron

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

vi with eye-candy, that's an oxymoron.

What are you on about? vi is all about eye candy. Real programmers use ed.

ed? Sheesh, ed is for people who make mistakes.
Real programmers use cat.
--

Re:Oxymoron

[CoolQ]

You folks think that's funny... when I got my first linux machine in '99, I used ed because it was the simplest editor I had. A year later I discovered emacs, and it wasn't until very recently that someone pointed out pico/nano to me. And vi still gives me the shivers :D

--Quentin

I would try it.....

[jotaeleemeese]

.... but does not run in Linux.

My bad.

Re:I would try it.....

[b1t r0t]

.... but does not run in Linux.

It does now.

Causality or correlation?

[winkydink]

My bet's on the latter.

iPODS are so cool.

[Heliumflum]

:0)

I want one. Becouse they look so neat. Moahah. But they are kindah expensive.

Sorry I don't make alot of sence, I just wanted to try to post here. Becouse it makes me feel so special xDD =)

I'm one of the switchers, thanks iPod.

[PTBNL]

I've been a long-time PC user, and I'm a Windows software developer.

I've been building my own PCs since 1996, which I know makes me a relative noob on Slashdot.

I had a Creative Nomad Jukebox, and it sucked. Traded it away last Christmas, and just from looking at the features and such, I impulse-bought a 20" G4 iMac.

Ok, perhaps it wasn't a complete impulse buy - I spent probably three days doing solid research - figuring out if I could VPN in to work with it (I could), seeing how useful OpenOffice was on OS X (very), and if the GIMP was supported (thanks, Darwin project).

Back to the point, the iPod and the hype surrounding it got me to the Apple web site. The Apple web site got me into the local Apple store, and a personal test drive got me into the driver's seat of an iMac. Just like in the Apple sales seminars, I'm sure.

Almost one solid year later, and I don't regret it a bit, btw. I've become a Mac evangilist to my family.

WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kernel: Mach + BSD derived. Some FreeBSD as of late, but not much.

Your pants aren't so fancy now, are they pretty boy?

As for what does it leave, please. Uhh, the GUI. That's what Linux has been lacking for the last 13 years. It's still light years behind the Mac, and probably will be for the forseeable future.

Apple did it right - take the solid foundation from FREE (BSD-license) open source, and work your ass off to develop the best damn GUI around. All Linux can do is copy, copy, copy, but never getting it right. Never as elegant, never works as well, always in my way.

Long live King Steve! Drink the Koolaid, come to the gay side! Yippee skippy!!!!

Why should we have to turn things off, anyway?

[jevvim]

the lack of an "off" is weird.

Only because we've been trained to turn devices off when we're not using them. But why do we need this? The iPod has a pretty good idea when they're not in use: music is not playing. Leave an iPod alone for a minute without anything playing, and it turns off.

They did add the ability to "turn off" the iPod for those who insist: hold down the Play/Pause button until it turns off.

Most computers will automatically sleep or turn themselves off (via hibernation) if they're inactive for a while. In fact, the iMac G5 works similarly - the power button is on the back, because you're not expected to use it. Just leave the computer on, and let it go to sleep. Move the mouse, click the mouse, or hit a key on the keyboard and the computer wakes up.

The iPod isn't even the first non-computer device I've seen without a power switch - look at a TiVo! The original devices didn't have an "off" button - because the TV did that just fine, and the TiVo was designed for continuous operation.

Of course, this really bothered a lot of people. Later TiVos added a "sleep" mode - and the Sony-branded version even had a power button on the remote! The only thing the power button/sleep mode does, though, is turn off the audio/video out. If you turn a TiVo on, you'll still have the last 30 minutes of video in the live buffer, just like it had been on.

I speak from experience. My household has 2 3G iPods, 1 iPod photo, 1 Sony-branded standalone TiVo, and 1 DirecTiVo (integrated TiVo/DirecTV receiver).

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[__aajqwr7439]

I had the same problem with my iPod; everything showed up as grey and unplayable in iTunes. Changing the prefs for the iPod in iTunes to 'Manually manage songs and playlists' made the songs available.

xox,
Dead Nancy

Re:China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[CdBee]

Interesting link, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with Macs, the Mac OS or illegal clones thereof......

Mac Spyware already a reality

[celerityfm]

Sorry to say but spyware on the mac has already reared its ugly head.

Its only a matter of time before they infect my iPod too!! AIEEEE

iPod is the gateway drug

[jnd3]

I've been a fairly enthusiastic PC user (building and upgrading my own PCs) for a little over a decade. Just over a year ago I was in the market for a digital audio player to get me across the Atlantic Ocean for vacation (I haven't found a drug yet that lets me sleep on an airplane). At that time, a 512MB player was going for about $250. The 15GB iPod was about $100 more. So I figured I might as well future-proof myself.

It was a brilliant piece of consumer electronics -- intuitive, functional, and downright slick-looking. And then they announced the iPod mini, and my wife's lust-o-meter got pegged. We took a trip to the Apple store "just to look" and ended up looking at everything else in the store as well. We didn't go home with an iPod mini, but we did go home with a 12.1" iBook. To share.

Shortly thereafter, we'd saved enough Amazon.com points to get an iPod mini on the cheap. His and hers, now. But the mini meant that the iBook would now be the sync machine of choice ... no more sharing! So we waited around for a deal on PowerBooks and picked up a 12" model. His and hers, and loving it!

So yeah, we're DINK without too many expenses. And I still maintain and use my PC. But I can guarantee that we wouldn't have even considered a Mac if it hadn't been for an iPod. Of course, that's just our personal experience, but how many more must think the same way?

Causal relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty obvious that there is a causal relationship. Given that out of the entire population of US computer users, only 5 percent are Mac users, it is clear that iPod users are switching in higher-than-average numbers, since 6 percent of iPod users have switched just in the time since they got their iPod (not even considering the 7% who plan to switch).

In the general population, not only is the percentage of Mac users lower, but most of them have been using Mac for a long time, and haven't just switched in the past year.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[ZorinLynx]

One of my favorite things about today's Macs running OSX is that they have appeal for both the novice computer user, who wants everything easy, and the geek, who wants to do more advanced thing.

The GUI is there and simple for novice users, and the UNIX shell and environment are there for the more advanced people. It's truly an OS that works for everyone.

I never even looked at Macs when it was OS9 and before, because it didn't provide anything for my geeky self to dig into. But today's macs and OSX are just sweeeet.

I just wish Apple would get more competive, price-wise, with the Intel world. I know lots of people who would buy a Mac in an instant if they weren't so overpriced.

-Z

You asked for it...

[jotaeleemeese]

....

FM Radio.
Sound recorder.
Cheaper MB/$ rate.
Long battery life.
Ogg playing capabilities.
Being Iriver branded. .....

The jedis are in full swing

[Anonymous Coward]

"6 percent of iPod users have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey.""

And if you take the percentages and add real world numbers, it equates to about 10 people out of 1,000,000 who are switching. Hallelujah.

Long live LINUX gurus and Mac Jedis.

Re:The jedis are in full swing

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you take the percentages and add real world numbers, it equates to about 10 people out of 1,000,000 who are switching.

In 3rd grade you'll practice fractions and percentages and won't look so silly. Hint: 6% of 1,000,000 is 60,000 switchers. And 70,000 are "planning" to switch.

Re:The jedis are in full swing

[nek]

Considering Apple has sold MILLIONS of iPods, and are projected to sell 24 million NEXT YEAR, I think 6 or 7 percent is quite a nice chunk of switchers.

Audioscrobbler supports iPods on Macs only

[giveuptheghost]

Audioscrobbler only supports iPod with iTunes Mac currently. (Audioscrobbler is a plugin that records and shares your listening habits and was featured here before). There's an Audioscrobbler iTunes Windows plugin but no definite plans to support iPod yet.

That's almost enough to get me to buy a Mac.

-Scott

PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[otisg]

I bet some of those users were not aware of the freely available PearPC project, which lets you run OS X inside both Windows and Linux.

Here are relevant PearPC and related projects:

http://sourceforge.net/search/?words=pearpc&type_o f_search=soft

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet some of those users do not have the lifespan of a Galapagos Turtle, and hence do not have the time to watch OS X boot inside PearPC.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[33degrees]

Have you tried using it? On my athlon XP 2600+ it's too slow to be usable for anything other than checking out how websites look on safari, and even on a top of the line system I'm sure it would still be frustrating experience.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[celerityfm]

And don't forget about PearPC's impostor perfume cousin, now in cherry scent.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[The MESMERIC]

one question though:

is there any good program that runs on OS X but without an equivalent in Linux?

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[bmxbandit]

...yeah, practically every piece of mainstream software in exsistence. The truth is Apple made a far better OS than Linux in 2 releases, which has all of the Linux advantages (admittedly excluding cost) plus access to mainstream software, vastly superior GUI and a consistent UI across apps (if you don't include X apps of course). Linux users will continue to pretend that Macs are too expensive, and that it's better to build your own computer out of sand, but the truth is their days are numbered. The only reason I can see for running Linux on a whitebox is that it is the closest thing that the Intel world can get to OSX.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[The MESMERIC]

Don't be an idiot - mine was a genuine question.
Obviously you don't know the answer - nor did care to enumerate them.

Some people's interest in Linux goes beyond the iPods and glossy interface. Some Mac users tinkle with Linux - and vice versa. Of course I wouldn't expect that from you - you seem cerebrally challenged somewhat.

Linux will take the third world by storm, and governmental agencies. The other advantage of the OS is that you can refurbish very old PC - for schools, charity work or do what Google did in the beggining - form a cluster. Plus there is the hacking factor, learn about what an operating system entails, and play with embedded devices: mobile phones and gadgets.

I am not aware of any mobile phone or PDA running Mac OS.

Now about the "Linux days are numbered" - you mean your Apple is going to take over?
Even Corel pulled out of Apple. Kids can't get any games. I wouldn't say Apple will die (nor is my wish) - but be aware that
Linux your "enemy number 2" has taken over Apple in terms of world share.

In short: You are not very clever now are you?

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[bmxbandit]

Whooh, Linux man bites... The point I was trying to make, but obviously didn't didn't spell out in simple enough terms is that while hobbyists (such as yourself) will always enjoy 'playing' with technology, this will never drive the industry or interest those of us who have to use our machines to perform 'real world' tasks on our desktops. As for 'My' Apple, nobody has critisised Mac's more than me over the last 15 years (If I'm a zealot, i'm a *nix one!) but I do recognise that they inovate (often to their cost, and the benefit of others). The 'closed' architecture of the mac world is the absolute key to their success as a robust and usable system. The most obvious example of this is the OSX installation procedure, which makes a mockery of Linux installers (though I'm glad to see that they are getting better since the release of OSX). A glance through any current Linux magazine will show every other screenshot sporting a 'fake' OSX theme. My point is, Apple have shown the Linux community what is possible to build onto a *nix kernal, it is now time for them to deliver the same user experience to the beigebox. What you manage to dismiss as a 'glossy' interface is exactly what makes me realise that the people at Apple get computers, and you don't. I'ts like saying that how a car drives doesn't matter, so long as you can get it to rev at 20,000 rpm, and take it to pieces yourself. Your comment's on PDA's etc. running OSX are simply hilarious and show that you have no knowledge whatsoever of the kind of hardware needed to run an OS like the Mac. You remind me of the so called 'IT' people I used to deal with in the eighties, who dismissed the mac because it had no Command line. Talk about not getting the point.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[The MESMERIC]

Yeah I agree its difficult to get "your" point -
you stutter, have answer ready with templates and have no idea what a "kernal" entails.
Come on, one thing is mispelling "decieve","thhat" stuff like that - common typing slips - but "kernal"?? just shows how full of BS you are. Try spelling "Mackintosh" next time.

So you are a *nix zealot? Strange, a while ago I would have sworn you've just condemned one of the *nixes to death.

Every so often I see those way-passed their sell-by-the date IT managers bluffing their way with crap, but departmental staff wouldn't know any better and so the poor things get impressed.
Usually its a Media company - funny that - why do they always hire fogeys? Weird trend.

This is Slashdot - not only most of the people here will obviously know what processor a Mac uses; but it's entire history since Motorola/IBM/Apple joined up and produced the first PPC prototype.
Perhaps you are not aware but Linux can run on a G5 - so what is your point again? - it's alright I get it: pure unrelated frustration.

Re:PearPC - OS X under WIndows and Linux

[bmxbandit]

Apologies for the mispellings. But when your constantly switching between Office, Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, AcrobatPro and your browser it's easy to make mistakes. Yeah running a mac these days is sooo frustrating!!! Have a nice day 'playing' with your Gimp.

Survey says...

[DrewCapu]

If it's twice the size of a Family Feud survey, it must be enough.

switched programming languages because of IDE

[Anonymous Coward]

A number of people I know, including myself, switched from programming in Objective-C / Cocoa to Java, mainly because Eclipse is soooo much better than apple's XCode IDE. Objective-C is a beautiful language with an object model that makes Java jealous, but Eclipse makes XCode look like a feature-limited demo text editor.

Dear, dear Steve Jobs, if you're reading this, please listen to my suggestion: dump XCode and let your XCode team contribute to Eclipse, like you did with bsd/darwin, khtml/safari, etcetera.

Re:switched programming languages because of IDE

[Durandal64]

Eclipse has some nice features, but dear God, I hate the way it handles projects and filesystems, and the UI can just be a confusing mess. What is it with Java apps and putting every god damn thing in the same window? Are multiple windows really that bad?

I can easily manage my Xcode projects in Subversion, but I haven't been able to figure out what the hell Eclipse is doing with its "workspaces" or whatever. I couldn't figure out the debugger either. Xcode was extremely easy to get used to; I don't think you give it enough credit. It's clean, simple and does what it does well. Sure, there are some nuances I'd like to see cleaned up, but it's definitely my IDE of choice.

Re:switched programming languages because of IDE

[tyrione]

Who the hell switches programming languages because of an IDE? Only a novice would characterize and utilize one language over another based upon an IDE.

I'm looking forward to when you switch back after Xcode 2.0 is released and subsequent incremental updates reveals even how much easier Java is to develop in Xcode than Eclipse.

Re:China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

...most Chinese support the idea of ripping people off...

Nice generalization there, racist scum.

Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what we have here are 20-something college students who will switch to a Mac because they're technologically illiterate and can't comprehend minutia like right click/left click?

Great! Then they'll go through college on a Mac and wake up to the reality that they will use an IBM PC in their workplaces until the cows come home.

What do they --honestly-- think they're 'ditching'?

Re:Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they --honestly-- think they're 'ditching'?

Umm, let's see. The crappy OS produced by Redmond, the crappy hardware that is drop shipped by the "investing in technology R&D is for dinosaurs" company in Austin and ultimately to a business model that made great profits by giving the consumers crap that they'd have to pay to patch/replace every couple of years.

Don't be so sure about the Winblows machine being standard in the workplace forever. People (including some pointy haired bosses) are starting to smarten up about the real total cost of ownership for Redmond/Austin machines and it's not a pretty picture.

Dude you're getting a Dud. Enjoy your monopoly while you can, troll.

The other way around

[DropDeadGorgias]

I wonder if I'm weird being in the other boat. I bought a Rio Karma in February, and have had no problems with the device. However, I just bought a powerbook- and now I use it as my primary computer. The problem is that synching with the Karma is a bitch. The big problem for me with switching to an iPod is that the iPod doesn't play OGG, which I've been ripping my songs in for the past year now. It's a house of cards, man.

Re:China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

...most Chinese support the idea of ripping people off...

Nice generalization there, you racist scum.

Re: OSX-uality

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a brilliant if X-uous play on words!

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[Anonymous Coward]

It will. See the second comment for how to set your iPod to do this. HOWEVER, it will not use the buffer, will run directly from the HD, and will get hot. iTunes treats it as an external HD--a shortcoming in the iTunes-iPod integration.

It's better for the iPod to plug it directly into external speakers and play through the earphone jack.

Statistically challenged

[The Ape With No Name]

>I wish the linked story had more details; it's not clear from the
>results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship
>here.

Statistics (Results) show strong correlations, not causation, nicht wahr?

I wish

[Phantasmo]

I wish I could afford an iPod so I could wish I could afford a Mac.

just buy a mac :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only can you be cool, you'll be popular !!!

just buy a mac :-)

Re: OSX-uality

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it is pronounced "Oh Ess Ten", not "Oh Ess Ex". X=roman numeral 10, not the letter X.

7% of iPod users is way below 1% if the PC market.

[Anonymous Coward]

But oh well, let everyone here have their Apple cocksucking contest.

Not like Apple will EVER be serious competition for MS ever again anyway.

I just got done

[Anonymous Coward]

installing my first Mac OS X machine (an iMac, for a friend) and I have to say, it's awesome.

I expected something bewteen linux and windows xp, as I had only seen screenshots and macs at computer stores that are turned on but you can't really use. What I found was a really nice and comfortable OS. Really smooth and everything Just Works the way it should.

It works really quick, taking into account that it's running on a G3 400Mhz (we threw a bit of PC100 extra RAM in it to get my friend's macromedia stuff to work nicely). And the whole system just seems polished. I understand the first few versions of OS X were a bit quirky and slower, but haven't tested them myself.

My gf and I are even considering getting a Mac next time we "upgrade" ... I'll have to dual boot ;-)

I am one of those people

[kendoka]

Normally I would find this story odd, except after I read it, I realized I too was one of those people. =) (Well okay, being a *NIX junkie helps too. =))

It's not Win32.

[RadRafe]

itunes is available on win32

You are confusing apps which run in Windows with apps that are built with the Win32 API's. In fact, Win32 is not necessary. iTunes for Windows is very much a Carbon app, not a Win32 one.

Re:It's not Win32.

[Anonymous Coward]

you're confusing pedantry and wittiness.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[SlamMan]

You can do it from the command line too.

You're kidding right?

[kuzb]

An ipod has to be the dumbest reason to switch from anything to anything else.

Re:You're kidding right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the 2nd dumbest is listening to any advice from kuzb.

Re:You're kidding right?

[tantalic]

Nobody buys a mac becausethey own an iPod. The iPod simply introduces people to the Apple brand (and has done much to change the perception of Apple). It gets people into Apple stores and reseller stores to see and test other Apple products and people like the way iTunes works - "It just works" so they figure they will like the way Macs work.

Re:You're kidding right?

[kuzb]

do you come with an "apple zealot inside"(tm) sticker? ;)

You are lying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium ion batteries max charge decreases over time. This is a fact, and no mp3 player can magically make their lithium ion batteries not lose charge over time. After a year, your battery will have 20% less battery time then when it was made.

Re:You are lying.

[LilMikey]

What? Not all LiIons are made the same and you are a fool if you think every battery of the same composition has the same bleed rate and memory. A blanket 20% is also crap as memory is affected less by properly draining and charging them. Lithium Ion is the most popular battery because it's the most memory resistant without breaking the bank.

Grandparent isn't a liar. He got a crappy battery, end of story.

On the verge of doing this....

[cbdavis]

I have been an Intel/AMD user for long time. I have built, for myself and at work, dozens of PCs. I use M$ crappy OS and good-old linux ( also Be when it was around). But, my next machine will be a G5 or new Apple notebook. I am fed-up with M$ crap. Whats keeping me from doing this now? - damn Apple machines are expensive. What I want will set me back $3k-$4k. And I am not rich. SO, I wait.

Well, the iPod made me switch

[Wabbit Wabbit]

When I decided to buy an iPod last summer, Windoze support wasn't out yet. Despite the fact that I've coded under DOS and Windows since the 2.11 days (and Linux for about a decade) and even worked as a programmer - briefly- for the "evil empire", I was so impressed with how easily everything in the Mac world interconnected I decided to investigate that curious creature called "Powerbook".

You know where this is headed...I'm typing this on a 17" Powerbook in Starbucks, connected via WiFi. I've booted my pc about 6 times in the last year, and 2 of those were from SLAX.

I've sunk about $10k into Mac/Apple hardware and software, and I couldn't be happier. I have NO plans of ever going back.

So yes, here's one case of a techie who really did switch!

Re:Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a

[mfraase]

I'd switch back to a Mac in a heartbeat if:

1. It ran tax software for an LLC (ironic that the leading Windows tax software was originally Mac-only and now has no business version).

2. It ran Visio. Not a work-alike. Visio.

3. It ran Project.

4. Apple were a little less arrogant.

Okay, I'd gladly live with 4 if 1-3 were in the bag.

Mac Envy

[adolfojp]

C'mon, the apple icons on this page alone make me want to switch!!

I want to buy cool too. Its high school all over again.

Cheers,
Adolfo

Re:Mac Envy

[easter1916]

That it's "cool" doesn't take away from the fact that it's a great platform and also has great design. I didn't buy a PB because I wanted to be "cool" (believe me, I abandoned that "dream" a looooong time ago) but because I, personally, loved the OS and the hardware.

Re:Mac Envy

[adolfojp]

I agree completely. Lets just say that I was just making a futile attempt at being funny ;-)

Cheers,
Adolfo

That's not fair at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want the software, I will never use the software, all it does is inflate the price for me. If you compare hardware, dell comes out way ahead, with a higher quality screen (the most important feature for me) and faster CPU and vid card for less money.

Most people

[bs_02_06_02]

There are more people that switch to PC's from Apple due to work environment than there are PC users that switch to Apple because of the Ipod.

Most Apple users, out of college, get jobs and end up buying a PC because that's what they have at work. Or that's what their clients use.

I deal with it everyday. My friends come to me asking questions about getting a PC, ditching their Apple.
They resist... they resist for awhile. But the struggle is there.

I've been an Apple fan sine 1979, I bought my first Apple ][+. Cost me $1707 from a mail order shop in Portland, OR. I bought a 16k memory card as soon as I could afford it. The school district used to call me to get help with their computers.

Simple Reasons.

[jellomizer]

Why is sales up for Apple because of iPod PC -> Mac switchers. It is rather simple, Person has a PC. They buy an iPod. To Buy the iPod they may walk into an Apple Store or an Apple Reseller. While in the store they see the other produducts out there. A percentage of them like the product line and buys a Mac the next time they want to upgrade.

Most people when upgrading there PC they don't even think about going to Mac. I wasn't when I was thinking about getting a new Notbook a couple of years ago. Then while me and my friends were at the mall they wanted to rent a Tux and I didn't so while they were at the Tux store I went next door to the Apple Store and looked at what they had to offer then I decided I like what I saw. Then doing some more reshearch and cost comparison I decided to get the Powerbook because it was the best deal for what I wanted.

So the popularity of the iPod just basicly reminds people when they need a New PC that Macs are a possible solution.

Of Halos & Macs... It's all about the games...

[Starluck]

I am a Graphic Artist and a huge gamer. I work on a mac daily and then go home and play games on my PC. I personally like the interface and smoothness of the mac in comparison, but my big problem here are the GAMES!!! I believe Apple missed a HUGE opportunity in shunning the game market. If I could play the same games on my mac as on my PC I would definately have a MAC at home, but thats not the case. Apple left gamers lying in the mud only to be rescued by one Bill Gates and MS. IMHO there would be a much less of a divide between MAC/PCs if MACS were more gamer friendy... Just imagine if Apple bought Bungi, and Halo was released for the MAC first, I think that would have been more significant than the iPod in bringing poeple to the MAC side. So some1 please explain to me, because I fail to understand apple's stance on not making gaming a significant capability of Macs..

"the iApps"

[paulproteus]

iTunes is only a single part of the puzzle. Every one of the iApps, from GarageBand to...

With examples like that, you might as well have said

iTunes is only a single part of the puzzle. Every one of the iApps, from GarageBand to Safari

You don't know what microkernel means.

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with device drivers requiring recompiling, which is not needed in monolithic kernels either. Its about not having a single big blob of kernel, but instead seperate pieces, like the filesystem, tcp stack, etc would each be their own program, using lightweight message passing to communicate between themselves. It offers no real world benefits, its purely acedemic.

I won't try iTunes

[michaelmalak]

From what I understand iTunes has DRM, and I won't use DRM, no matter how flexible. I, and many others, bought into CDs when they came out in the 1980's in a big way, because it was perfect quality sound on a medium that would (supposedly) last forever -- certainly lacking the degradation of vinyl. I have 500 CD's, with the legal ability to rip them to any player I want. When a Nokia phone comes out with 20GB storage, will you be able to load your iTunes onto that?

Songs are memories. I refuse to let a corporation control my memories. It's a shame that the corporations are still forcing us to buy environmentally harmful atoms just to listen to DRM-free music.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[Johnny Mnemonic]

When a Nokia phone comes out with 20GB storage, will you be able to load your iTunes onto that?

YES. Yes, you will. The only songs that have Apple's DRM on them are songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store; that is, downloaded.

The songs that you rip from your own CDs you can rip to either MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, or even .WAV. None of these formats have DRM, as it would be naturally pretty stupid to encode your own song library with DRM restrictions. Even AAC is an open format; while Apple's store does use a form of AAC, it lays on a DRM that is not standard, and not the same format as what you get when you rip it yourself.

So, to repeat--yes. The music stays your own, and you will be able to put it on anything that can understand your choice of format, be it MP3 or AAC, including a 20GB Nokia phone or a 1TB TiVo. Just don't download anything that you have to pay for.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[mrbrown1602]

First off, the iTunes Music Store has and uses DRM. Anything encoded with iTunes (the application) is open (uses open standards like AAC, MP3, and Apple Lossless) and not encoded with any sort of DRM, and can't be, unlike Windows Media Player which uses WMA's DRM by default when ripping and encoding CDs.

As for your argument that you can only use one device with iTunes (the iPod), this will be changing shortly. As I recall, Apple has partnered with Motorola's cellular division, and they're supposed to release an iTunes (and iTMS) compatible cell phone.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[pretentiousPPC]

As stated hundreds of times before, iTunes would import all of your 500 CDs DRM free, strait into MP3 or AAC, whatever your preference that you like. AAC isn't a DRM product, it can be added to files such as the music that you download from iTMS, but when you import your CDs in iTunes it has no DRM.
The only DRM is in the iTunes Music Store, and if you don't like it you can even turn that feature off too. Via preferences you can remove the store link and the snazzy little buttons, that it adds to the Artist, and Albums to look for more music of its ilk.
One the great features of iTunes is that you can basically set it to auto-pilot, were you would just put one of your 500 CDs in your CD drive, and it automatically imports the music to your already specified bitrate and type, and places the files in an easy to understand artist/album/track directories and then pops the CD out ready for the next. What's better is if you already have a whole bunch of music lying around in a bunch of arcaic places, iTunes can have all those music files copied to one place and set-up as stated before an artist/album/track directories.
In the newest version of iTunes, it goes even a step more in organizing your music and will find all of your multiples of the same tracks, were you might of imported an "Best Of..." and the artist's original album and have multiple instances of the same exact song.
iTunes is great, quit your bitching and try it.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes Music Store uses DRM but iTunes the music playing software and the iPod will happily play non-DRM'd things.

Songs are memories. I refuse to let a corporation control my memories.

Too late. You paid for a license to remember when you bought those CDs. You own a lot of plastic, some aluminium and about 500 paper inserts. The information encoded in the bits is not yours and your license only covers particular uses the corporations (and their subsidury, the government) have allowed you to have.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[dcarey]

When a Nokia phone comes out with 20GB storage, will you be able to load your iTunes onto that?

Not on Nokia (aren't they related to Sony anyhow?), but Motorola phones will be available for such

From what I understand iTunes has DRM, and I won't use DRM, no matter how flexible.

I completely agree with you. I only reluctantly purchase iTunes songs, partly because I'm lazy and dun wanna go to the store.

But that's the music store. At home I stuck 300 CDs on iTunes and there is no DRM in music that you own on CD. Nada. A 300 disc changer is well worth the 'adjusting to the times' and going with putting your CDs on your computer, especially when you want to make a playlist of your 20 disc collection of polynesian dance music to put on shuffle at 3am to drive your neighbours nuts.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[Moofie]

No.

The iTunes Music Store sells DRMed songs that can be played in iTunes.

The iTunes application itself applies zero DRM to anything ever.

Re:I won't try iTunes

[svg]

iTunes music store has DRM. iTunes itself will rip your CD's DRM free. (Note the default format is AAC, which is slightly less compatible, but you can set it to MP3)

Re:I won't try iTunes

[Twirlip of the Mists]

More importantly, Apple has licensed QuickTime to Nokia for their future products, and since FairPlay is a part of QuickTime, the answer is doubly yes.

osx is nice but ...

[White Shade]

OS X *almost* gets it ...

Almost everything in OSX is really nice, but why the F**K did they take all the applications out of the apple menu and stuff them into that weird panel buried in the "go" menu in the finder? Once you know it's there I guess it's alright, but I just don't understand what apple was thinking when they got rid of the nice old apple menu (that microsoft freaking copied from them too, that's gotta say SOMETHING) and made it harder to find things..

Is there actually a Good Reason for them to have done this? Or did they just decide to change things for the sake of changing things and in this case they fucked up a good feature? I'm not trying to troll or anything, honest, I'd just really like to know why they did that.

And is there any way to fix it?

Re:osx is nice but ...

[jhurshman]

Almost everything in OSX is really nice, but why the F**K did they take all the applications out of the apple menu and stuff them into that weird panel buried in the "go" menu in the finder?

The Dock is supposed to be your frequently-used apps launcher, replacing the Apple Menu in that function. Opinions on whether this is a good change vary. Personally, I find the Dock perfectly adequate for my app launching needs.

If you're looking for all applications, that never was in the Apple Menu by default.

And is there any way to fix it?

Sure, there are several freeware/shareware apps which will simulate the Apple Menu in OS X: FruitMenu, XMenu, Classic Menu. Check versiontracker.com for the downloads.

Re:osx is nice but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The simplest one is just to drag Application folder to your dock. Click and hold the icon to open up and navigate the list of the Application/sub folder contents. Click once to open the Application folder. It's a live list, meaning anytime you add/remove/update application, it's reflected in the menu. Actaully, I prefer it this way, the only thing I complained about was the location (down, not up in the corner), but I got used to that in a day and never look back.

Re:osx is nice but ...

[Whumpsnatz]

It's true that you can pull Applications down into the Dock (and even move the Dock over to the left to get closer to that OS 9 look), but one thing I don't see is the blinding speed of the OS 9 menu. The fact that the Applications "popup" is live also means that it's slower.

One thing I used to do a lot is simply start a Classic application, then use the Classic menu. Since I have the hard drive in the Apple menu as well, it's a quick way to navigate, and I was also able to start OS X applications from the Classic menu, after adding an alias to the Apple Menu Items directory. In fact, I think I'll get into the habit again.

The menu's not gone, it's just on a side street.

Re:osx is nice but ...

[Moofie]

This will cure what ails you.

Quicksilver is one sweet app launcher. Give it a whirl.

Reverse converts

[Crouching Turbo]

My girlfriend is a reverse convert. After growing up on Macs, then owning an iMac and an iBook, she became so frustrated with them that she asked me to put together a PC for her. Since then she's upgraded to a Dell 3Ghz laptop and never looked back... I think the Mac to PC converts are rare, however, because most people are attracted to the Old Navy wearing, Jetta-driving hipsters that sport Macs on TV...

Re:Reverse converts

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"I think the Mac to PC converts are rare, however, because most people are attracted to the Old Navy wearing, Jetta-driving hipsters that sport Macs on TV

I agree that PC to mac converts are rare, but I think it is for exactly the opposite reason you suggest. Everyone I know who has gone from a Mac to a PC, did so because they needed a particular application for something they were doing, or because someone in management decided that they needed to homogenize the computing environment for some unreasonable reason. People stay on the Mac because switching to a PC makes one so painfully unproductive. I can't think of anyone I know who uses Macs because they are cool. PCs quite simply, cannot do many of the things I do every day, and what they can do, they don't do as well (in most cases, not all).

I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis. Any task that can be done on the mac is. This is because of all the system-wide features available on the Mac, but not on the PC. Pretty much every Mac user who has used a PC has opened a PDF file, then stared in horror as the whole machine grinds to a halt while the PDF viewer loads and the file opens. There goes anywhere from 2 to 60 seconds of your life. A number of PC users have mentioned to me how much PDFs suck, and how they hate going to a page that turns out to be a PDF. What they don't realize is that it is not PDF that sucks. What sucks is the combination of Window's inability to multitask and Acrobat's horrible slowness. That is just one example, but it is representative. Once you see how much better things can be, almost no one wants to go back. This is why it is not unusual to see people look for different employment, rather than give up their OSX.

Re:Reverse converts

[Anonymous Coward]

Inability to multitask? Machine grinding to a halt? I smell a Mac zealot.

I can happily continue doing whatever I'm doing for the 2-3 seconds it takes me to load Adobe Acrobat when I open some PDF in a tab in Firefox.

There's another thing --

Example situation: Ex-Mac user who used OS 7/8/9 comes on Slashdot, talks about how he/she switched from Macs to PCs because of how much they hated OS 7/8/9. Cue Mac zealots whining that they should try OS X because times have changed.

2nd Example situation: Ex-PC user who used Windows 95/98/ME comes on Slashdot, talks about how he/she switched from PCs to Macs because of how much they hated Windows 95/98/ME. Cue Mac zealots all nodding in agreement.

2K/XP are just as excellent as OS X, with the added benefit that they don't run on overpriced, non-upgradeable hardware.

It's a double-edged sword, fuckwads. If you're going to whine about someone not trying OS X, then at least give 2K/XP a chance without brushing it off as the same thing as 95/98/ME. The two groups are worlds apart.

Re:Reverse converts

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us have given Win2k and WinXP a chance. But they failed at it.

Re:Reverse converts

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree XP is very good. However I really missed Unix under Windows. Cygwin is not quite a replacement. I switched to MacOS X and prefer it, but I have no problem understanding some people prefer XP.

Re:Reverse converts

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

at least give 2K/XP a chance

I my post I clearly stated "I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis." Perhaps that does not specifically state that it was a Win2k machine (it is), but this is Slashdot. I think you can assume for the most part that a poster's machine is running something current.

As far as your other comments go, no I'm not a Mac zealot, although I do prefer it for most tasks, I use OSX, Win2K, Linux, and NetBSD on a daily basis. Yes, PDFs do bring my Win2K machine to a complete halt while trying to open from within firefox. Yes, I have used WinXP, and it is superior to Win2K and OSX in some ways. No, it is not as capable or pleasant to use as OSX for most tasks.

This thread discussed why people do not often switch from OSX to a PC. I seriously doubt you have tried using OSX as a workstation for 2 weeks. If so you would probably not be ranting your overpriced and non-upgradable FUD. Nor would you be claiming that any version of Windows can compete with OSX in general. There just really isn't any contest.

I Second That!!!

[Black-Man]

Eclipse rocks. I even think it is comparable to Code Warrior's IDE and even Visual Studio. The plugin support is phenomonal. This is where Apple needs to focus, adding XCode plugin to Eclipse.

11 billion dollars can't be wrong.

[Starluck]

-You can certainly use file sharing software on a MAC so being able to "steal" is definately a possibility.
-Spyware none here... Thanks LavaSoft
-Games?? Games, you say? Are you talking about the 11 billion dollar industry of video games?? Because if you are, then you surely cannot deny the impact this industry has had on all hardware sales.

Even 7% of 4 million ...

[adzoox]

Say Apple meets it's best estimate of 4 million iPods this quarter. 15 million PCs are sold each quarter - so 7% of iPod users switching is right at 3.5% - whatta you know, Apple's marketshare is right about 3.5% (Quarterly)

Apple's marketshare is increasing [IMHO] because:

- Stores
- Clean stores
- More stores
- No handwritten signs, no gimmicky sales
- People are honestly seeking alternatives to Microsoft
- Linuxheads are finding that the MacOS is just as powerful
- Community/Grassroots support
- Artist bandwagoning / idol worship

i got a PowerBook, but I didn't "switch"

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a desktop PC and a convertible tablet PC, both running XP. I decided this summer to get a 17" PowerBook, despite the $3500 price tag. It's simply the best designed notebook out there, and since I don't run around the world with it, I don't mind it's size (my tablet had a 10" screen). One of the appeals of the PowerBook was that I knew my iPod would work with it flawlessly, and that I knew iTunes was far better than the software available on Windows or (guffaw) linux for this application.

For the person who said that they usually buy their peripherals based on the OS/Hardware rather than the other way around - I think this is the old way to look at things, and shows the PC-centric view of 10 years ago. How much time do you think iPod users spend using their iPod? 2-3 hours a day? More perhaps? How much time do most people spend using their home PCs (other than browsing for net porn)? Most non-programmers I know - perhaps 6-7 hours a week.

Of course...

[frank_adrian314159]

Bottom line, PC's and PC hardware will never be cool. If you drive a truck for your work every day, do you really want to drive a truck going home and around on your free time? No, you want a sports car. More importantly, day after day, you see bunches of snotty IT mechanics having to keep repairing the trucks you drive. When you get back to your sports car, you just want it to look nice and work. The Apple message of style and simplicity, coupled with elegant functionality looks better and better each year as the Wintel hegemony keeps putting on layer after complex layer of crap - even with the additional up-front cost of the Apple.

And, BTW, even though I use Linux at home, it's still not close to a replacement for a Mac. It is getting crufted up enough to be a solid replacement for a Wintel PC, though. But getting back to the comment...

Apple for years has been targeting the audience of simple function that just works, even if it does cost a bit more. The fact that the iPod introduces users to this concept, who then wonder why they have to screw around with Windows is just an extension of this model. In fact, if Apple wanted to make a killing, they'd market an easy to setup and use home media center - combo Mac, PVR, stereo, and display with their famed ease of setup and use. I'd buy one of those.

yep

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense that they would dump their PCs for Macs since Apple was the one who invented the PC... though if they are getting a Mac, they are just getting another brand of PC.

Me Too, From Linux

[WarehouseCU]

I bought an iPod in late July, I've been surrounded by Macs @ work. So, when I bought my PowerBook in late October I'd say it's part the iPod and part the Mac exposure at work. Regardless, I'm happy I went with the Mac (I even stood in line for opening day at the local Apple store that weekend) and I do find myself using my Linux desktop far less. Who knows, maybe I'll use my desktop more often after the coolness of the new laptop wears off.

Re:Me Too, From Linux

[easter1916]

I thought that I'd use my desktops (XP Pro and Linux) once the novelty of my PB 17" wore off... I sold them off realized that I hadn't booted either in a few months. Still going strong with that PB!

Re:Me Too, From Linux

[b1t r0t]

I have three OS X desktops at home. One (a Blue & White G3) replaced my old web server which was an old K6 baby-AT BYO box running Slackware. There's also an 8-year old Power Tower Pro running 10.2.8 for which I have a second B&W G3 to replace it when I get around to it. The other is a "Windtunnel" G4.

I don't use them much any more... in person, at least. Thanks to fixed-IP DSL, 802.11b, and house-wide Ethernet, I find that I mostly use them through SSH or VNC or AFP from my 17-inch Powerbook (aka my "17-inch iPod"). But every now and then I do have to go in there to start a DVD-R burning to archive stuff.

True

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my iPod in June of this year and I am just waiting to save the extra money to get a Mac. I am sure I will have one in the next three months or so.

The iPod ROCKS!

Topical sig

[alc6379]

So... if I sign up for a free iPod through your sig, when are you going to give me a link to sign up for a free iMac?

Relative value...

[runamok1]

I guess after you've shelled out $250 to $400 for an MP3 PLAYER a Macintosh seems like an absolute bargain!

Perhaps I could also try to market a Mac Hammer TM for $500.00 to these folks.

Wait, that's been done.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way I know how to steal music is to break into someone's house and take their discs. Are you saying that it can be done with a computer now? Has it been patented? What do you do? Throw the computer through the window? Wouldn't a crowbar be sufficient? It certainly would be cheaper. Wouldn't you agree?

Have you tried Gentoo?

[bleaked]

As the subject stated, have you tried Gentoo Linux? In my opinion it has by far the best community of users offering their support than any other distro I've used. The forums, newsgroups, and IRC support is astounding. In addition, Gentoo offers some of the most organized and detailed documentation all formatted in beautiful, easy to read, xml/css pages. I highly recommend you check it out.

Re:Have you tried Gentoo?

[Cloud K]

Yes, I ran Gentoo for a while and was highly impressed by it. Although I was put off by the standard Slashdot joke (but truth) about huge compile times for everything, the structure and tidiness of it all is remarkable. It's actually the last Linux distro I was using before I switched to an OSX+Wintel combo. Apart from things like compiling... and the pretty interface... and a few other things(!)... Gentoo's principles at least aren't a million miles away from OSX.

In truth I'm back at the 'evil' Windows on the PC as the only thing I use it for now is online gaming.. and the likes of EQ2 aren't available for the Mac .... or Linux ;)

Hello... You Play to Win The Game

[DustyCase]

The iPod has been the best way to get people to visit an Apple Store. Not just PC users, but Apple users too. All of those iPods didn't get sold by Amazon. People who wanted to see what the buzz was about went to an Apple Store to try one. Most other retailers don't have them out for demo, they just have them in the boxes. Even once the purchase is made the iPod is a de-facto rationale for going into the Apple Store when the owner is shopping at the mall where the Apple Store is located. Accessories, software, nerds! They have it all.

When they get there the might see a very capable laptop with wifi and cd burner for a grand. Or they see a G5 tower that kicks butt on their bottom-feeder Dell box. Even if they don't buy, Apple got into their heads. One of the prime directives of retail is that the first sale is only worthwhile if it leads to repeat business. That is the core of every successful retail operation. If you only sell and iPod and the buyer goes away, you will be going away very soon too.

seriously... does joe 6-pack care what OS?

[johnpaul191]

i'm not trolling... and i mean the average citizen that mostly uses their computer for email/web/IM and maybe to sometimes type up a text document. the person that doesn't buy (or steal) applications beyond what comes on the machine...... do you think they really care what OS they run? you hear a lot of people say they can not really afford to switch because they own all this Windows only software so buying a Mac is the cost of the hardware plus thousands and thousands in software replacement.
if somebody is just using their machine for simple tasks, they can switch when they buy a new machine. i know people that don't even really transfer files when they upgrade hardware. they only care about emails and those are on their AOL account. the less somebody really uses a computer, the friendlier and easier a Mac is going to seem.

the same argument can be used to support the valu-computers with Linux that wallmart sells. if it has a web browser and works.... why not! that's all most people really do. when i say most, i mean people that do not use a computer at work, and do not use it as a tool to do things they can do analog.

Re:seriously... does joe 6-pack care what OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you think they really care what OS they run?

Yes, some people would like to use a computer without having to obsess over keeping it patched or having malware accumulate on it just through normal use.

In April I set up a Dell for a friend of a friend. Nobody in the family is particularly computer literate. It's the guy, his wife, a girl approaching her teens and a boy who's under 10. I set it up with Spybot and configured it to auto-update and run a scan every week. I also had ZoneAlarm on there, and turned on Windows' auto updating.

I returned there last night to fix a laundry list of problems with the computer, all of which disappeared after I spent THREE HOURS using Spybot and Ad-Aware to clean out the hundreds of bits of malware present on this machine. They had Comet Cursor, stupid fucking toolbars, and popup generators EVERYWHERE. I was waist-deep in browser helper objects.

When I put this machine in, I gave them all a lecture about treading lightly on teh intarweb and not installing shit willy-nilly, epecially free gewgaws like Bonzi and lame screensavers and toolbars. It clearly went in one ear and out the other.

Last night they got XP SP2 installed (because even with DSL they couldn't bother to click a couple buttons to do it themselves). I also put Firefox on there, though I'm sure it won't be used. I'm sure the next time I go back there, the machine will be a mess once again.

At $50 per hour for my services, their cheap Windows computer became $150 more expensive when I left their home last night. I'm sure in another 6 or so months it will be choked with crap again, and that will be another $150 gone.

Saving money by buying a Windows computer is false economy, when Windows requires regular, professionally-done maintenance on any machine that sees even moderate use. It seems that more people are finally picking up on this.

Re:Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only way price (and I'm just talking the raw dollars) MAY be stopping you is if you build your own PC. But man, if those headaches are worth it to you, then I can't help you."

What headaches? It's easy to get a computer with FreeDos up and running in 15 minutes without a hitch. I've only had headaches when I've installed Windows on a x86 box. Of course I'm an anti-popular-OS zealot, and hate Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. If you're going to use a computer, at least use a real OS like QNX or V2_OS.

Better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What you can do is get yourself a job, and once a month you will get some money, some of which you can spend on an iBook (or Dell or whatever), so you won't be stuck using a $300 computer.

what is so great about iTunes?

[whiteSanjuro]

i don't understand the popularity of iTunes and iPod. i listen to a LOT of mixed CDs, and the HUGE gaps between tracks in both iPod and iTunes are extremely noticeable and unacceptable. is there some secret way around this, or are these people just ignorant/not care?

Re:what is so great about iTunes?

[gerardrj]

Describe "huge" gaps.
iTunes I think defaults to 3 seconds between tracks. You can set it as low as no gap or turn it up to 5s.

Re:what is so great about iTunes?

[Gear_Media]

iTunes actually also has a function that you can use to crossfade tracks so you can have up to -12 seconds between tracks. Gaps between tracks are not even an issue. iPods on the other hand have a default gap of 1 second and no current crossfade capability, though I'm sure that will eventually change.

Re:China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I dunno. Given that there is an open market for illegal distribution of software, and that the cops don't seem to be enforcing copyright...

If most of the Chinese were against that, then do you really think the cops would be leaving those markets alone, and that they would be doing so well?

I think it's clear that most Chinese are, if not actively pro-piracy, at least apathetic about the whole thing. It's a generalization, sure, but it seems accurate.

As for the "racist scum" bit, well, are accurate generalizations really racist? Discuss among yourselves.

Re:It makes sense... NOT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that price.

Plus. I think a 1.2GHz G4 does not in ANY way compare to a 1.4GHz Celeron. ( CELERON for #(*& sake ).

Even if they where the same in config. I would take OSX over XP any day ( And OSX IS Also inluded in the price )

Retep Vosnul

it's all about the iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

It was genius, really. I hadn't really thought much about getting a mac until I saw & played w/ the iTunes software for windows. Has to be one of the most elegant & powerful interfaces around.

Now all I can think about it picking up a G5... damn you Apple!

Btw, anyone want a free one?

or the photo version

I've been tempted

[magicRob]

As soon as i got my iPod (G2) i thought wow.

As soon as iTunes for Windows came out, i thought, Apple has almost got me. PearPC, no matter how slow, still let me have a bit of a play. And i liked it.

Then they brought out their iMac. Dear lord. I visit the apple website at least once a week trying to convince myself that i need one.

Unfortunately my PC still works pretty well for my current needs. As soon as it's no longer doing that, I'm off to apple land...

Hell i have an XBox so i could care less about gaming on the PC. Plus i can do that on the couch in front of my big screen tv with DD5.1.

I wonder how much longer i'm going to have to wait for this thing to run out of steam, hopefully sooner than later...

- Rob

might be a small margin...

[-O.ster_66]

but those are HUGE computers!

how much do 14'-17' computers weigh? more than 8 lbs i bet :)

You don't buy DVDs?

[2nd Post!]

Because DVDs have css DRM. Do you also ignore VHS with their macrovision (copyright control, not DRM, but the same thing?)

Here's the part where you're ignorant and stupid.

iTunes DOESN'T have DRM.

iTunes Music Store does, but not iTunes.

So the music you rip is DRM free. All the mp3 files are plain mp3 files. All the wavs, aacs, and ale files are unencumbered.

Why aren't you using iTunes then?

elegant and sleek are criteria that make anything!

[2nd Post!]

Since when has elegance and 'sleekness' been bad?

Why do you even assume it's about image and self esteem or feeling better about yourself?

An iPod is undeniably sleek and elegant when compared to everything that came before it, and many that came after it.

The same with Apple computers.

There are TECHNICAL reasons why elegance is a worthwhile attribute for any device, not just mp3 players or computers. Sleekness requires definition, but elegance has it's own context:
Gracefulness.

You can also define things by the inverse, in this case elegance:
Clumsiness.

So if a computer is graceful and not clumsy, I think anyone would agree that it is better than a computer that is clumsy and not graceful.

Apple marketshare

[ruiner5000]

remains at 2% worldwide. How have they verified these numbers? It is not showing up in any computer industry marketshare studies.

Re:China: Knockoffs and Ripoffs of Macintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just a factual statement about the attitude of certain governments toward piracy. Situation is (or at least was last I was there) the same in Korea.

I didn't switch, I added a Mac to the portfolio

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't really switch so much as make a different choice when I bought my new laptop. I still use a PC for a ton of things (using one right now), but I was impressed to hell by the iPod and I ended up buying a PowerBook G4 last summer. Regardless of how great the iPod really is, that still wouldn't have justified the purchase of a Mac as I had been using it with my PC for about six months anyway. I really wanted to use OSX (not quite what I had hoped it would be).

Now I'm all Mac on the portable side of things. I just can't quite afford that Dual G5 tower and wouldn't want to buy one now since Apple doesn't provide a roadmap for their hardware upgrades. That may be something they could look into.

When, if ever, are they moving to PCI-Express?
When, if ever, will there be a G6?
What type of memory will the next machine use?

To a high end PC buyer, not even knowing where you stand vs. future technologies really makes big money purchases seem a bit rediculous.

When I bought the PowerBook, I knew what I was getting, and most laptops are pretty short on the "upgradeability" factor anyway. So, that wasn't much of a concern.

Re:Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is every fucking Apple person a yuppie? Building your own PC is not a fucking hassle. Maybe if yer a noob like yourself then ok.

Re:Of Halos & Macs... It's all about the games

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Just imagine if Apple bought Bungi, and Halo was released for the MAC first,

I agree with your point, for the most part, but Bungie is just one company and buying it would not have made a difference for all the other games not ported. Maybe you should be asking, what if MS, did not abuse their illegal monopoly by buying all the good mac developers up, and killing their products. That said, there have been a number of very good games over the years that never made it to the PC. It's just that since most people use PCs they have never heard of them. Bungie made Marathon 2, the predecessor to Halo which was much further ahead of the curve than Halo is. In fact it was by far the best FPS of it's time with features that did not reach PC games for years. I also think that Apple could do more for game developers and gamers. Building a really nice Playstation 3 emulator (with the help of Sony) into OSX 10.5 would probably do a lot to counter the lack of games for OSX. I'm not a big gamer, and mainly use my machine for work and hobbies, but I play the occasional game. I've never had a problem finding something good to play. Who knows, I imagine Apple has a pretty good handle on the numbers. Perhaps it would not make as big a difference as either of us think.

Never compare the cheapest Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is that Apple does not make cheap computers. Yes. If you pick the cheapest Apple, you're going to find an inequity.

But if you already KNOW you're going to spend $3000, you'll find the Mac is far better equipped.

Also, you need to look at resale value. Macs hold their resale value, PCs' value just evaporates. A three year old Dell is worth nothing, but a three year old iBook still goes for a grand.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[PsychoSid]

I am constantly amazed by this comment about "If only Macs were cheaper".

Do you honestly think that a company the size of Apple would - if they could reduce the cost to ship more units and therefore make money ?

For all their supposed "hippy" leanings they are a company to make more money to appease shareholders.

The bottom line is that they equalise everything to get the most from their product.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[arminw]

...they weren't so overpriced...

The initial price of a computer is only a fraction of its true cost. This is especially true if your time is valuable. For portables the price difference between an iBook and a similarly equipped Wintel system is actually in Apple's favor, especially if you figure in the expense in time and money to get the Wintel system reasonably secure against all the malware it is susceptible to. This is an ongoing effort not needed for the iBook.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[Anonymous Coward]

The new iMac is very price competitive.
The 1.6 Ghz G5 17 inch widescreen is priced at 1300 USD. I got myself a 1.8Ghz and trust me it's a huge value for the price. It has all the top of the line desktop hardware you would want (except the video card is an FX5200 Ultra). On top of it, it's probably the best looking desktop you could find anywhere.

I think apple solved the price issue, now the big problem is getting people to understand that CPU clock speed isn't the only indicator for performance.
P4 3.2 Ghz or G5 1.8Ghz ? The average joe thinks it's an easy choice.

Direct correlation

[2nd Post!]

Because the owner of one realizes that the producer of object produces other objects.

This is totally NOT different than people switching from Mac to Sony because they fell in love with their Sony DVD player. It's the same logic!

If you bought a shirt from Macy's and were satisfied, why would it be an odd correlation if you went to Macy's to buy jewelry or some barware?

Invisible Folder...

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod stores music in an invisible folder. You can search specifically for it and make it visible.

I avoid all video

[michaelmalak]

I did in fact cut done all video watching to the bone when Hollywood started in with CSS, Sony Bono, and now the HDTV broadcast flag. No TV, and only one movie per year on average. When I go to see a movie, I go in with the knowledge that Hollywood may never again allow me to see the movie (an option often exercised by Disney and Lucas). While those who grew up with movies prior to 1980 might not bat an eyelash, I grew up with the DRM-free and copy-protection-free Beta and LaserDisc technologies and I am not willing to make that bargain often.

Similarly, I grew up with CDs, and I am not willing to make the DRM bargain with music.

Re:7% of iPod users is way below 1% if the PC mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like Apple will EVER be serious competition for MS ever again anyway.

If left up to the consumers, it's pretty clear that Apple will crush MS. However, MS has always been the innovator in legal and business maneuvering to herd or force the consumers to their products. In any normal business environment, all things being equal, MS would be a small niche player. But their questionable legal and business actions over time have led them to grow far beyond normal (in many ways similar to a cancerous growth).

Time will tell, but I believe in capitalism and it won't be long before MS is shrouded with a tumor to limit its ability to cause trouble with the system.

Rather infectious, aren't they?

[Warhaven]

Here at my work, it took only one IT member to purchase a 17" powerbook to convert nearly the entire department. Now there are a slew of iBooks & PowerBooks running amok in IT.

I too just picked one up a couple months back. Purchased the 15" powerbook, and I must say, it's a beautiful machine. Unix never looked so sweet.

since when

[ylikone]

has Sun been marketing their computers at the home and business user? how many Sun computer stories do you read on Slashdot? how many Mac stories? case closed.

Re:Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a

[argent]

not a laptop- Mac laptops are pretty damn price-competitive with PC laptops

Assuming you don't care about screen resolution. I can get a Thinkpad with 1400x1150 for the price of an iBook with 1024x768. I realise some people consider high resolution on a laptop irrelevant, but if you're playing fair you have to count things like this.

not a consumer-level Mac- Prices are also very competitive

The entry level eMac goes for $800, with a mediocre 17" display, mediocre video, and an inconvenient design. I was able to go to HP's website and come up with a system with a better video card and a good 15" flat panel display for less than the eMac... a comparable eMachines all-in-one is significantly less.

The iMac is priced like a decent gamer PC. It's beautiful, slick, elegant, efficient... but it's not really in the consumer price range.

Not a used Mac

Even a first generation iMac is over $100, a Blue-and-White Powermac is more like $200. People are advertising, and getting, several hundred dollars for reasonably equipped (for Panther) AGP G4s. A cheap used Mac that can run OS/X well requires getting a bargain on something like a Beige or B&W G3 and then spending a lot of time and money on upgrades... to the point where you're in new-PC territory again. AND you're getting the headaches of a build-your-own.

E-Machines: http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?pr od=eMachines_T2862

$400, 2.66 GHz Celeron, 256M RAM, 40G hard drive, no monitor. A 17" Trinitron from someone like CTX will set you back $100-$200.

For $400 you're going to get an older G4 AGP, maybe around 500 MHz, or an eMac (if you can stand the screen) around 700 MHz. If you want a comparable used PC, maybe 800-900 MHz, you're looking at $150 or less.

Macs hold value much better than PC's

Indeed. I'm not saying the higher price isn't justified, but claiming that price isn't an issue is silly. If anything, it's at the high end that Macs become price-competitive with PCs, because all Macs, even the iMac, are high-end products.

The eMac is really the closest thing they have to a low-end Mac, and it's not exactly cheap.

OT: iSync

[mrchaotica]

There are a lot of great things about the Mac, but iSync isn't one of them -- at least not if you want to sync with a Palm (it doesn't support syncing important stuff like catagories). If you want to cite iSync, wait till Tiger comes out.

Only the rich

[ylikone]

can afford to get Ipods and Macs. I looked into getting an Ipod but found that for the same high price I could get a different brand of MP3 player with a ton of more features. But, regardless, my wife would kill me if I bought a "toy" that expensive, whether it be Ipod or any of the others. Having to support a family, pay mortgage, loans, credit cards, etc.. doesn't allow me to buy fun things.

Re:Only the rich

[pressman]

If having about $600 total in the bank and a DP 1.8GHz on my desk count as rich, well then the economy is in worse shape then I thought!

Re:Only the rich

[The MESMERIC]

have you tried the Salvation Army?

HP nc6000

[Anonymous Coward]

An HP/Compaq nc6000 meets everything there except the case color.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[mrchaotica]

I was completely agreeing with you until I got to the last paragraph. Macs, at least the white ones, are not overpriced. In fact, I comparison shopped for a thin-and-light and ended up buying a 12" iBook because it was the best value, even without factoring in OS X. And considering the fact that to truly equate a PC with an iMac you'd have to price out the CPU plus the 17" or 20" widescreen LCD, iMac G5s are probably a better value too.

Re:Sorry, price isn't stopping you from getting a

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Hey, anonymous asshole, I've been using ALL computers since 1982, including having built a few PC's, and it's always been a pain in the ass, so why don't you sit your guaranteed-to-be-more-noob-than-me ass down?

iTunes != iTunes Music Store

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes: An application for organizing, playing, CD/DVD burning music. You can use it to share music too (not copying) via network on the same subnet.

iTunes Music Store: An internet store to buy music in AAC Protected format (m4p), accessed via iTunes apllication.

iTunes has DRM: Correct
Can you use iTunes without DRM: Yes, just format your music in MP3, AAC Unprotected (m4a), AIFF, WAV, ALAC.
Can you DRM music you yourself rip from CDs: Not a chance.

Unless your Nokia run PPC compatible binaries, you can load your iTunes, but not run the application. You can load and listen to iTunes's AAC files if Nokia supports MP4, but not the one bought at iTunes Music Store.

Saying you won't use iTunes because of DRM is as silly as saying you won't use WinAmp because WMV has DRM.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[argent]

I am constantly amazed by this comment about "If only Macs were cheaper".

Why? People do care about price.

Apple simply doesn't make a machine that can sell into the entry-level market. When Joe User can get a mini-tower PC with a flat panel for less than an eMac, he isn't even going to look at an iMac.

And Joe already has a PC, so upgrading to a desktop Mac is even less attractive, because he's already got a monitor he's happy with: it's almost certainly a better one than the eMac's (which is why the eMac doesn't interest him).

If Apple took the entry level eMac, stripped out the CRT, and stuck the rest in a pretty slab like the NeXTstation... and sold it for $600 (about the price of a good 17" CRT below the eMac) then they'd have something that Joe User could replace their PC with that only seems a little bit overpriced.

And now that Joe's looking at Macs, that iMac looks pretty damned cool.

And Apple would win, because they'd still get decent margins from the G4 "iSwitch" slab: it's still a good 50% more expensive than a comparable desktop PC.

Not just home tasks!

[mrchaotica]

Most typical...computer tasks are handled as well or better on a Mac (web, email, word processing, digital photography, digital video). ("home" excised)

And programming, using UNIX-y software, automating your tasks with shell scripts and Applescript, "just working" in general...

I'm one of them....

[sejanus]

I HATED MACS with a passion - OS7/8/9 were such complete piles of garbage. Give me a PC thanks...

But fast forward quite a few years after that and I bought an ipod to use on the (long) train trip to/from work. It was great. That seemed to get me over the apple brand hurdle and as it was so well made it got me curious.

A few months later the time had come to buy a laptop. I looked at the PC's and they weren't bad - for kicks I looked at the powerbook and it looked very nice thank you. I deliberated for a couple of months over it....then bought a old G4 tower from ebay as a test to see if I liked OS X or not....

Well, I did. I'm a Unix/network admin at my Mon-Fri job and the unix underneath of OS X was great. Installed fink and starting running my unix progs, it was great. I was hooked.

In addition I do wedding photography on weekends, and used iDVD to great success with a wedding DVD. That clinched it. I sold the G4 on ebay (and bizarrely made money on it) and bought a 1.5ghz 15" powerbook with all the fruit including 2gb ram. It did cost a lot but it's probably the best machine I've used, simply trouble free.

Apple hadn't finished with my finances yet. When those airport express units came out i thought that would be very nice and bought 2 to wire my whole house up and stream music to my main hi-fi. excellent.

Then I decided a I needed a nice fat display to edit my wedding photos on, so I bought a 23" cinema display for home, and a wireless kb/mouse to make my laptop a "desktop" at home. It's the best display I've ever used. As it was a lot of money I did look around at different brands but the apple got the nod although it was noticeably more expensive, the quality of it is staggering.

Now my wife wants her own laptop after using mine a bit at night, or an iMac G5. And I want to get a dual G5 2.5ghz as one of the cameras I use for weddings generates 80mb files which does take a little while to load on the powerbook :)

So you can see from an ipod sale apple got a fair bit of money out of me. My wife being a school teacher we bought it all on education pricing but it was still a lot of money.

Re:I'm one of them....

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree with you. I used to be a Mac hater myself but after countless headaches with my Win2k & WinXP PC's I've changed my mind. I purchased my first Powerbook last year and after a rocky start, have dumped my home pc altogether. No headaches, no viruses, no spyware. It just works.

Re:I'm one of them....

[Lord Flipper]

And I want to get a dual G5 2.5ghz as one of the cameras I use for weddings generates 80mb files which does take a little while to load on the powerbook :)

Using the single drive inside the Powerbooks is okay, but to really speed up the file transfers, go for a Firewire 800 external. I did just that [a LaCie 125 gig for about $149, plugged into the PC Cardbus slot on a Ti-667, using an Orange dual-800 card]. The data absolutely flies in and out of it.

So did you read my poast at all?

[2nd Post!]

iTunes doesn't have DRM.
There is no DRM bargain.

You pop in a CD and it rips to unencumbered WAV, AAC, ALE, or MP3 encoded files.

NO DRM.

Mouse buttons

[zaphod_es]

I have the money and I am ready to buy a Power Mac - but first Apple will have to give me at least one more mouse button. And don't tell me to plug an external mouse into a laptop!

Re:Mouse buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold down the Control key and click, behold!

Re:Mouse buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are some big expectations...

Do you honestly expect a PC user to be able to use two hands at one time?

Re:Mouse buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

Power Mac != laptop

So, yeah, go ahead and plug an external mouse into it.

Re:Mouse buttons

[pressman]

Well, you're never going to get a stock 2-button mouse from Apple. The CTRL key does the same thing as a right click 99% of the time. If you absolutely need a multi-button mouse, simply buy one. Pretty much any multi-button mouse is going to work right off the bat.

Re:Mouse buttons

[zaphod_es]

I suppose I should expect any comment the slightest bit critical of Apple to be modded as flamebait but this is a serious point. I could plug in a mouse but I work with a laptop on my knees a lot of the time and an external mouse is not an option for me. The control button is better that nothing but I often have another use for my other hand hand: holding coffee, a pencil, paperwork, picking my nose... and I have not even mentioned watching pr0n! It may be hard to accept but Apple does not have a 100% record when it comes to design and ergonomics. Now mod me down again, I can take it.

Happened to me...

[rediguana]

I got an ipod in July last year. Had been enjoying it, using iTunes on a Toshiba laptop happily, but in the back of my mind entertained the thought of investigating Macs. OS9 and less weren't even an option, but the BSD basis and command line got my attention. I still had ignored the first couple of releases of OSX as they had coverage of being slow as a wet week.

In the end the decision was forced upon me. My laptop HD failed about 3 days before I was heading overseas for 3 weeks. Did some quick research and ended up getting a PowerBook and it has been great.

I hate going back to XP now, I only do it for certain work applications now. Happily connecting to linux servers regularly. Things do just work so much more smoothly and are more reliable. I look after 4 PC laptops in our small business, and windows wireless is so flaky under XPSP2. I have no troubles.

Microsoft Office 2004 on Mac is much better than 2003 on PCs, and interoperates with no problems. And its great being able to open a shell and rsync to backup the important stuff on the servers. I'm starting to find a good range of open source software to use as well. iSync is great as I can sync iCal and Addressbook to my Palm, K700i phone and ipod all at once. Only real downsides I have is that there is no Visio or Project available (otherwise I'd be able to move the rest of our work laptops to Macs as well, Virtual PC is OK but not suitable for my other users) or there is no decent New Zealand mapping software that runs natively. Hopefully these will be remedied over time though one means or other.

Re:Happened to me...

[nicolasf]

You can get OmniGraffle, a diagramming tool like Visio but better. Like you've come to expect.

You can export/import Visio XML files in the Pro version.

Reasonable comparison

[xgamer04]

How many thousands of /. posts have there been about people who still use Windows because it's the only "game" OS? Now when there's some marginal number of people who bought a Mac because they have an ipod, people are all "OMG SO NOT TRUE!11". What's the deal, man?

Some reasons to stay with a PC...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to sound like a troll or anything, but I work in a lab with both PCs and Macs at a University, and Macs bug the hell out of me.

The fact that Macs generally still only have one button and no scroll wheel is so lame, and the fact that you still have to eject discs via software is Bad Design(tm). Apple is all about attracting users via esthetic quality primarily (although they are easy to use too), with much less functionality.

Re:Some reasons to stay with a PC...

[plog]

The fact that Macs generally still only have one button and no scroll wheel is so lame

Uh, every mac I've used in the last 9 years has at least two buttons on the mouse/trackball... no they're not stock, it's a $20 option, kind of like a firewire card on a wintel box usually still is, only easier. And I work in university labs often.

The software eject is Safe design. Disk mounting is careful in OS X, it helps protect data. I hit a dedicated eject button on the keyboard, disc ejects if the files aren't in use. Easier and safer and more consistent. If it gets stuck in there, there's a hardware eject that's hidden from noobs.

with much less functionality.

WTF?? I have access to an enormous range of powerful free software tools, many are industry standard and built-in, plus a solid majority of crossplatform business apps. It all multitasks smoothly and works without significant vulnerabilities or bitrot. Drag'n'drop works properly. Network operations seem an order of magnitude easier and more capable out of the box. Not to mention the experience of anyone who's done a side-by-side comparison of multimedia functionality... you can get a wintel box to work as well as a mac with that DV camera, and manage the resulting media, it's just... difficult or annoying, even for us pros, and the setup never lasts as long.

Not to sound like a troll or anything,

Oops, I fell for it.

my mom is thinking about it

[BigBir3d]

My mom has a Dell Inspiron with Windows XP that is giving her fits (wireless doesn't work, some software does not install, etc). She also has a 3rd generation iPod. She is now thinking about switching to a Mac when she gets her next laptop (14" iBook or maybe 15" Powerbook if she thinks it is worth it). Nothing is definite right now.

Currently, her son (me) uses a G3 800MHz iBook and her son-in-law uses a G4 Powerbook (aluminum I believe).

Last night mom could not get the pictures she had transfered from her digital camera to her iPod (Belkin card reader I think). Being that she is here for Thanksgiving she brought her iPod with her. She gave it to me, with dock, I plugged it in and took the pictures off of it in under 2 minutes.

"Wow, that is so easy... I knew it would be that way."

Pictures have been on the iPod since July....

Not bad for a single woman born in 1951 eh?

enough credit

[guet]

It's clean, simple

xCode is quite a good IDE and getting better but it's anything but clean and simple.

Why have build Styles *and* Targets?? ?!??
Why do you have to set your App's 'version' in 2 different places?
Clicking to create breakpoints while compiling sometimes causes a compiler error.
You have to clean targets when you change build style because the IDE doesn't do it for you.
An errors pane that doesn't get cleaned when a rebuild starts, so you have to wait till the end of the build to see which errors are new (even then sometimes the old errors stay in there).
The type-ahead code-completion is painfully slow. I've had to turn both that and the indexing off to work with it.
When I press 'next file' and 'previous file' I get all kinds of random files from the project. I'm not sure what those are supposed to do.

There are some neat ideas in xCode (and coming up in 2.0) and it's being improved, but it feels like 2 completely different applications were thrown together and then they tried to clear up the mess, even as they are adding heaps of features with every release. There are quite a few unresolved bugs as well (see above).

Any application with 14 menus in the menubar (count em!) can't be called clean and simple in my opinion...

Look & Feel

[jdwegner]

As a former NeXT programmer/admin, I really hated to go back to Windows. NeXTSTEP was just so seamless and, well, pretty. I've eaven tried multiple distros of Linux, trying to get back to the "good ol days". Today, for the money and the apps I use, Windows is still the easiest.

But then I was given an iPod (4G 20GB). Just holding it makes me want to go "ahhhhh". The ease of use and functionality made me realize that Windows is just one big compromise. XP is much better than older versions, but it's just not the same.

My current laptop is a 5-year-old IBM ThinkPad. It has served me well. My next laptop will be a powerbook. I really like the ahhhhhhhhhh...

jdw

Re:Still a small margin...

[mkiwi]

Sorry. Not everyone lives in their mom's basements. Some of us live in the real world.

I resent that.

Don't forget the other features!

[MarcQuadra]

Don't forget the cool system-wide features provided by the NeXT-derived cocoa framework.

Did you know that you can run ANY text control in the system through a spell-checker that shares a common user dictionary? That means that ALL of your apps learn how to spell ALL of your custom words at once.

ColorSync? QuickTime? These are awesome toolkits that make writing apps easy and using them even easier.

What about the entire graphics system running 'display postscript' on top of an OpenGL subsystem? Do you realize the implications of this for Apple when 200dpi LCD displays become available? It will be like moving from regular broadcast to HDTV, you won't even know you're looking at an array of pixels. Microsoft is several years behind Apple on this front.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[citog]

No, you must understand that the purchase price of a computer is all that matters when determining the value of that computer! Damnit ... you ... you ... fanboi. Now there.

In Soviet Russia or something ...

Re:elegant and sleek are criteria that make anythi

[lew3004]

That was probably one of the most useless posts I've ever read. Aesthetic performance of any given product is completely subjective where actual performance of said product is more than likely objective. In other words: would you rather have a player that only held 1 MB worth of data that is completely "cool" over another player that was "ugly" and could hold twice or three times as much? Even if you would, could you justify spending 3x more just for the aesthetics? I think you could; based on your post. Since we're on Slashdot I can say this: there is the technical way of looking at things and the subjective. Most of the time those concepts try to meet in the middle but I can't see how they can in this case. Functional is functional and you pay for the rest. That's not a concept generally accepted on Slashdot; or obviously by yourself.

Some people jump off bridges for fun!

[whoopass]

No kidding! Usually they have parachutes or bungee cords or the like attached.

Ok, this is a troll, mark me down for it:-) But I just love how sensationalism works in the media (slashdot in this case). If one person does some particular thing, we have a headline that says, "Some people do a particular thing!!". Oh goodness. Next thing you know you have the FCC issuing fines to a company after 157 letters (155 of which were photocopies) are recieved about a programme that several million people watched. All because, "Some people were offended." Good grief charlie brown. Take a look at politics, someone is always offended.

If we startle everytime someone does something, we'll never achieve anything.

Re:elegant and sleek are criteria that make anythi

[Anonymous Coward]

It has always been said that form and function are intrinsically linked. What looks good ergonomically (ie: chairs) functions well ergonomically. It seems the human brain doesent have so many issues linking said form and function. =)

Thus the iPod form factor looks good, functions brilliantly, interface (physical and software) is very effective, etc.

Of course its about self esteem and feeling better about yourself amongst other things. We see something that has such appealing form and wish to have it as it makes us feel good using it.

and thats entirely disregarding that fact that apple are the leader in tech innovation in this field at the moment and have bene for a while. everyone is still playing catch-up.

I can confirm this...

[SnprBoB86]

Three of my friends at college have made the switch to OSX over this past summer. One of them told me that the iPod was his "gateway drug" to becoming a Mac user. The other two quickly agreed that they became converts in a similar way. One saw an OSX demo in the Apple section of a Comp USA while buying an iPod and the other was introduced to Macs when asking a friend about his Mac and iPod before buying one.

Seeing as none of them are particuarly computer literate, I've helped a few of them with various applications. As a result I have become a proponent of Macs for technically-challeneged people. They are in a technological bliss I have never seen with the average casual user.

Instead of continuing the Linux crusade, I suggest techies push OSX on people. It will be an easier switch and will eventually help everyones anti-Microsoft cause. In the end it will even help Linux because software will be built with Windows/Unix cross platformity in mind.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[Graymalkin]

I've heard this argument scores of times and it still doesn't make any sense. The crowd that buys the $300 cheapo PCs is not one that any computer company truly wants as customers. They will not likely be repeat customers because they will always go for the best apparent deal. One year they're buying a Dell and the next they're buying an HP at Wal*Mart.

They're also a crowd that isn't likely to buy any peripheral services like extended coverage contracts and the like because they're going for the smallest possible hit to their check book. Instead of investing in something that will save them money in the long term they're trying to save over the short term.

This cheapskate crowd also isn't likely to really do much for the Mac software market. Skimping on their computer means they will do what they can to skimp on their software as well. Someone buying an "iSlab" isn't necessarily adding to Roxio, Intuit, or the Omni Group's pool of potential buyers.

So in the end you've got a bunch of people buying Macs that don't make Apple much money, don't necessarily give them repeat sales, cannabalize existing products, and do nothing for the Mac software market. The cheapskate Mac isn't really a good idea when you work it through realistically.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[Anonymous Coward]

One caveat: your iPod has to be in "Manage Songs & Playlists Manually" mode for the songs to be selectable/double-clickable. A strange requirement, to be sure, but it's only a few clicks to change it if you're in auto-mode if it's ever necessary.

Dude

[StarKruzr]

Give it to me if you don't want it. Comment this and I'll give you my address.

Where are the two pound Powerbooks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple DOES NOT KNOW how to build light. 4.6 pounds for a 'light' laptop is too much. Give me 2 to 3 pounds, like in MM20 , MP30 from Sharp, Sony TR, Fujitsu p1120, etc.
And they call themselves a 'hardware' company.

Re:Where are the two pound Powerbooks?

[iamacat]

You must be below 30. One day you will realize that being able to read stuff on a 10" screen is not forever. Of course then you will probably get a backache from lagging 8lbs laptops. Oh well, the progress keeps moving.

Re:elegant and sleek are criteria that make anythi

[2nd Post!]

Where did you read in my post that I was talking about aesthetic performance, coolness?

You read what you wanted to disagree with. I never said anything about 'aesthetic performance' or sacrificing 'functionality' for 'aesthetic performance'.

My post was about how purely, rawly, supremely functional the iPod is compared to any other mp3 player out there. If functionality was measured by the ability to play music, store music, reach music, and access music, then the iPod and iTunes are unbeatable, and I do believe the market knows this.

The iPod is functional, and that is why there is a price premium. It sacrifices nothing to the cause of functionality; thus the scrollwheel, the uncluttered interface, the effortless interface, the easy interface.

But I'm biased because I own an iPod. Perhaps other MP3 players have reached the same level of competence as the iPod?

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[argent]

The crowd that buys the $300 cheapo PCs is not one that any computer company truly wants as customers. They will not likely be repeat customers because they will always go for the best apparent deal.

Maybe, though a hell of a lot of them are just young and in high school or college and $300 is a lot of money for them now... but if you can get them buying Macs now they'll keep buying them when they can afford to drop a grand on a computer.

But, I don't see what your point is: I didn't suggest Apple sell a Mac to compete with the $300 PC. The price I suggested was, in fact, precisely twice that: $600 is a pretty mainstream price for a PC if you're not going for a hot gaming box.

Still not making sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original poster, but I also have a 1400x1050 14" laptop.

When comparing it to the other monitors I use (17" CRT, 21" CRT, 17" LCD, 19" LCD), I don't have the faintest idea what you mean by "looks funny and wrong".

Everything I've tried on it - coding, writing, many games, webbing, photo albums, etc. - has looked quite nice.

I don't know what problem you had with a high-density laptop screen, but it's certainly not a problem for everyone.

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[Graymalkin]

For college kids scraping pennies together there's Apple credit accounts that work like a credit card. With these you can make minimum payments for as long as you don't have money and then pay down the principal when you do have it. Minimum payments on a ~$1500 computer aren't going to be too ridiculous, if you can save up $300 over a couiple of months you can easily make such payments. These coupled with educational discounts ends up being a decent enough deal if you can't afford a system outright. For high school students there are fewer options they can actualize independently but that's why it pays to keep a good relationship with your parents/family.

Even at $600 an "iSlab" is not a very profitable idea for Apple. The target audience for such a system would be...cheapskates, people wanted an "intro" Mac, and offices wanting a bunch of one-off desktops.

For offices an all-in-one iMac or eMac would be a better deal than a headless system. AppleCare covers the machine and monitor for up to three years, that's essentially an upgrade cycle for many offices. With an AIO systems there's less for the IT people to worry about. There's far fewer connectors to get stressed from squeezing the system into odd places and the systems are much easier in general to position in the first place. The G5 iMacs take up almost no space at all and don't weigh very much and will easily last in an office environment for a number of years.

For the people wanting an intro Mac a headless system is going to be far more hassle than its worth at a $600 price point. The eMac's monitor easily rivals the "free" 17" CRTs that come with some Dell and HP systems after rebates and such. The LCD of the iMacs is really nice and competes well with any third party displays you'd probably hook up to an "iSlab". If you've got a monitor that "you can just use" and want an eMac there's very likely some schools or other such places that would love a free monitor that you can write off on your taxes.

There might be a market for a $600 "iSlab" but it isn't necessarily one worth tackling for Apple. If people buy these and no other Mac software it doesn't entice anyone to make more Mac software. If people want a cheaper system to try out OSX there's a really large used/refurbished Mac market in existance. With a moderate amount of effort you could find a nice Mac for $600 or less that would run OSX nicely (which itself can bre resold to go towards a new Mac).

Games drive computer sales

[Anonymous Coward]

> Don't buy a mac since you can't "play" with your little "nintendo" shoot'm up games

Yes.

Scoff if you like, but that is precisely the reason many people can not and will not buy a Mac any time soon.

Computer games are one of the most rapidly-growing industries in the US, and certainly one of the fastest-growing and most stable areas of CS. Carnegie Mellon - one of the top four schools for CS research in the world - had a presentation to the incoming graduate students which was basically "computer games are driving our industry's future".

Scoff if you like. Smarter people than you are taking games seriously. Macs will never have a wide user base until they have games as soon as Windows does.

Re:Games drive computer sales

[bmxbandit]

I know this has been explained time and time again, people still don't seem to get it. The truth is Apple are NOT a niche company. They are in fact one of the biggest, and certainly the most important PC company in the industry ever since they invented it. The misunderstanding is created (and heavily milked by toy companies such as Microsoft) because nobody stops to think about what a computer user actually is. The vast majority (in my experience) of Windows users are not computer users, or at least they are people who do not rely on a computer to do their work. If they did they would not be able to afford the constant patching, rebooting, viri or worse (MS patches and software). Most MS customers use computers for tasks that could be accomplished by an Amstrad Word processor 10 years ago (email/word proceccing). Of course I'm forgetting gaming. MS also appeal to people who spend over a grand on a games system thats almost as good as a $100 PS2, once you've spent an hour installing it. The hard truth is Electrical chains will continue to push joke technology such as Windows and office, as long as there are people dumb enough to buy it. That's because they can sell them a $300 computer for $1500, and know for a fact that they will need a new one in 6 months. My point is, these people are badly informed consumers, NOT computer users. Computer users are Publishing Companies, Design Agencies, Aircraft Designers, Recording Studios, ... the list is endless, but you'll probably find all of these industries dismissed by the so called computer press (ie MS press) as 'niche' industries. How convenient. I challenge anybody to name a single MS innovation since they ported somebody elses code to the Altair. Not much of a record for a so called 'Industry Leader' hah. The great news for all of us Mac/*nix users is that from a technology point of view, we will always be at least 5 years ahead of the 'wanabees'.

of course it will, you fool

[RMH101]

not the GREATEST tech, but it could be the latest. examples might be forthcoming P3M desktop machines - cheap, aimed at the low TCO corporate market, but new technology. latest does not equal most expensive.

it's not that...

[RMH101]

...it's more that once you've used your ipod, you've also started using iTunes, which looks like a Mac app. you start admiring the interface and thinking "hell, this is nice. pretty too. wonder what an OS like this would be like? is all i really do a bit of internet, a bit of MS office? i could shift to a mac without too much mither. and i'd get cool points too...hmmm"

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[argent]

Let's close that $300-computer red-herring of yours first:

For college kids scraping pennies together there's Apple credit accounts that work like a credit card.

The target audience for such a system would be...cheapskates

if you can save up $300 over a couiple of months...

*sigh*

For a lot of students, a hundred bucks extra a semester means they can afford current textbooks. They're eating rice and beans because cup-a-ramen is too expensive. If a computer was still a luxury rather than a necessity, as it was when I was at college, they wouldn't have one at all. They're not "cheapskates". I'd go on, but I'm afraid I'd start getting sarcastic about your idea of the economic realities for most high school and college students.

Back to the $600 computer that I was actualy talking about.

For offices an all-in-one iMac or eMac would be a better deal than a headless system.

The new iMac, maybe, but it's way over our per-desk hardware budget and getting a machine that's not running Windows into the office is hard enough as it is. The eMac? Give me a break: we've pulled monitors off people's desks that were better than the one in the eMac because people were complaining about their quality.

The eMac's monitor easily rivals the "free" 17" CRTs that come with some Dell and HP systems after rebates and such.

There are a lot of lousy 17" monitors out there, but most of the ones I've seen, including cheap ones, are better than the eMac's. The cheap 17" on my desk right now is why I don't have an eMac right now because I couldn't bring myself to spend $500 on a *used* eMac and risk straining my aging eyes any further.

If people buy these and no other Mac software it doesn't entice anyone to make more Mac software.

OK, I could maybe see this reasoning for your $300 fantasy computer, but $600 isn't a "cheapskate" price for a computer. It's a modest but still "mainstream" price for a computer. A $600 computer and a good monitor puts you at Apple's entry level price for the eMac: a $600 "iSlab" is right smack dab on target for the market Apple's going after right now.

Except it's going after it with something that people are likely to actually buy. Why is that a bad thing?

Mac Trivia

[Ohreally_factor]

The Quadra 900 and the Quadra 700 came out in 1991. Both were powered by a 25 Mhz 68040 CPU.

So I'm thinking he means his tipping point was in '93 when he actually purchased his powerbook. My guess is that he bought a PB 180, which used a 33 Mhz 68030 CPU. The 180 was arguably the finest laptop of it's day.

The first PBs to use the 040 chip was the Blackbird series, which were introduced in 1994.

Re:Mac Trivia

[soft_guy]

Actually, I bought a PowerBook 160 which was very similar to the 180 except that it had a passive matrix screen.

I can't really comment on the System 7.0 vs. 7.1 issue and 91 vs. 93. I just know that if Atari had still been making the ST in 1993 I wouldn't have even looked at the Mac.

Re:Mac Trivia

[Ohreally_factor]

I bought my first Mac in 1993, a Centris 650, but I lusted after the PB 180 that belonged to a friend.

I had two roommates at the time. One owned a SE/30, and I remember that he was very hesitant about upgrading to System 7.1 because of problems he had heard about 7.0. My other roommate had an Atari. It was a really cool machine, but I didn't perceive it as an option, because I was just starting to get into multimedia, and I needed to run Marcromind Director. If I recall correctly, the Atari had the capability to be great for multimedia creation, but the applications just weren't there. That's always a pity and a dilemma, when there just aren't enough apps for a platform because its marketshare is too small, which only further constrains its marketshare.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[TheRaven64]

Or the finder. Command-shift-G then enter the path of your iPod's music folder (/Volumes/iPod Name/iPodControl/Music). You will see your music in a set of directories from which they can be copied. The directory names are not very human-readable, so the best thing to do is tell iTunes to import from this directory and create a new directory structure from the ID3 tags in the files.

Re:If only my iPod would do that

[maniac trek]

Copying from the iPod is a different story. You'll have to download a freeware (sometimes GPL) app to do that, beacause Apple couldn't make it that easy to steal music and still pull off the iTunes Music Store.

If you're running OS X, there's a script that will import tracks from an iPod to your iTunes library. Seemed easy enough to me.

The reverse?

[wealthychef]

I have to wonder, because the article didn't state. Did they ask how many iPod owners switched from Mac to PC during the same time frame? :-)
BTW, I am a Mac lover, but I just hate biased reporting.
Other information I require: How big a difference does this make? If 6% of iPod owners change to Mac, how big a difference does this amount to in market share for Apple? File this under "interesting but useless statistics" without more numbers/context.

Re:The reverse?

[swissfondue]

Probably the same number that switched from the iPod to the Creative Zen: http://it.asia1.com.sg/newsdaily/news004_20041129. html

Ipod and Such

[LurkingStranger]

I had a brief moment of nostalgia for my grad school Mac days when I got my ipod. But the screen died and then it did. Apple is great to do business with and I got replacements speedily. And it was easy to resynch to my laptop. But the laptop was Windows and I would have been SOL without it. So, the nostalgia died and I stopped thinking about buying a Mac. Maybe it is nostalgia that is the link to the new surge in sales. :)

I love my Mac

[TampaDeveloper]

I love my Mac, I love my Apple, in all the world, my Mac is best! I switched a year ago and will NEVER look back. I didn't switch because of iPod. I switched because I bought two or three applications in a row that just didn't run on my PC. PC software companies always have an excuse why their software doesn't work on your computer, "Oh, you bought this video card or that motherboard." Mac software companies have no excuse. And happily, they don't need any. Everything I've bought for my Mac has worked flawlessly. If only I could get full OSX drivers for my Canon MultiPASS F60 all-in-one. Oh well, its a piece of junk anyhow (new print head ever 4 months at $50 or so a pop.. fun fun!!), so maybe this is my excuse to move to an HP or Epson. Now, as a software developer, I wish I could use my .net expertise to develop apps for the Mac. Oh well, Java, Objective-C (Cocoa), C/C++ (Carbon), and RealBasic (after all the terrible comments I heard about RB, I was pleasently surprised with how well it worked, and also with the breadth of features that have been integrated into the language) will have to do. Did I mention that I love my Mac like I have NEVER loved any of my PCs? And I used to build them for a living.

Count me in...

[djallstar]

I am one user who switched to Macintosh because of my positive experience with the iPod.

Although I run PC's at home; i bought my first Macintosh last month (an iBook G4 -- i've used them but not regularly, in the past--OS X being *IX is a HUGE draw for me)

All the subsequent family Computers will now be Macintoshes.

j.

Re:Of Halos & Macs... It's all about the games

[bynary]

I don't have actual statistics (bad, I know) to back this up, but the bulk of Microsoft's, Intel's, Mitsumi's, etc. transactions are B2B. End-user, home sales (for gaming and otherwise) are small potatoes compared to site-licensing contracts with large corporations. Also, I worked at a Mac-only retailer for awhile. The owner decided to start selling games to attract more customers. Number of games sold in six months = 0. Yes, folks, the Mac gaming community is thriving. And we didn't carry things like "Backyard Baseball" and "Clifford gets Mange," no these were titles like "Halo," "Unreal Tournament," "The Sims," and "4x4 Evo." I hate to break it to you, but I think gaming is the last thing on Apple's collective mind (anyone remember the @mark?)

Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G

[Anonymous Coward]

we've pulled monitors off people's desks that were better than the one in the eMac because people were complaining about their quality.

That's wild. At my employer, unless it's one of the owners, the response to those people is "buck up little camper, look in the cube next to you - it's the same damn monitor. Why are you so special?"

If the monitor is obviously failing, that's something else. If they just run at too high of a resolution and it gets fuzzy, pfft, too bad, run at a lower resolution. If they run at too low of a refresh rate and it's hard to read for that reason, we'll show them set how to raise the refresh. But if they just don't like their CRT and want the company to dump money on an "stylish" LCD for them, well too fscking bad.

BTW, if it is one of the owners, they'll actually go out and buy exactly what they want - then drop their old equipment off with us.

As for the mythical iSlab that'll appeal to the Wal*Mart crowd - just buck up and buy an eMac. 'It's the same price if you buy a cheap 17" monitor' = stop being a whiny bitch. The eMac monitor is not that bad, no matter how much crap you want to spew. If you think it's bad, you're at least 5 years out of date on just how bad CRT monitors have gotten. Most of the good CRT mfgs of yore have stopped making CRTs, and a whole lot of crappy mfgs have stepped up to take their place. Oddly enough, most of the bad ones are made in the part of the glode Wal*Mart loves...