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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.
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.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
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.)
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.
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.
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.
You're missing the point.
The iPod is just bringing Apple into the public eye; the computers are selling themselves.
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.
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.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
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.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
So where is the superior, cheap Intel hardware?
I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group
:) 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.
:)
I'm glad you've seen the truth
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.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
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.
GPL Deconstructed
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.
World's tallest building rises in the desert
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.