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Apple CFO Gives Info on Company Direction
osViews.com writes "Mac World is reporting a recent talk given by Apple's Chief Financial Officer (Peter Oppenheimer) at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium. The article illustrates several things about about Apple's business plan, much of which is totally new information about the company's current and future direction. Here's the nutshell summary: iPod "Halo" effect is causing some Windows switchers, little demand for satellite radio/iPod integration, iPod shuffle margins below HD ipods, happy with rate of growth - no plans to license OS X, margins on Mac mini equal to eMac (both below corporate average), retail store to expand to 125, no plans for media center PC - prefers to stream multimedia to TV from primary computer over wireless network, no video for iPod, portable media centers a failure."
That stubborn and insanely stubborn backward mentality is what's finally going to sink Apple. Apple needs to expand to the PC world and the PC world needs OS X.
Considering Linux and all, OS X is the only real desktop alternative.
Kudos to the submitter and the editor for posting a useful and interesting story with a useful and concise summary. I wish we had more stories done exactly like this one.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Hook up near a TV, plug in your S-Video+Optical out, and you have your 'media center pc-less', or something.
So for $189 you have a base station, streaming music, streaming video, a print server, and no need for another computer.
Any bets on whether we'll see something like this soon?
GPL Deconstructed
...what we've already known either because the products are out or because there have been pre-release photos of real equipment.
As much as I'd like Apple to diversify and build more products suitable to my needs, a 17" wide "pizza box" of an entertainment center computer isn't very likely and probably wouldn't sell well enough to pay off development costs. I'd buy one if it were less than $800, but the odds of that are small.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I agree 100%
I wonder why anyone would be willing to watch tv on a micro screen
limit to portability are not in the device size, but in the UI size!!
Why do you think that, of all things, is going to sink Apple?
If anything I would have thought their intensely secretive nature would kill them.
Their iPod and iTunes products are exactly how they are expanding to the PC world.
Their mini is exactly how the PC world will get OS X.
If OS X is the only real desktop alternative, nothing is stopping people from buying Macs you know.
GPL Deconstructed
Halo wasn't even that good, but it's being given now not only credit for the success of the XBox but the success of the iPod??
Something is seriously wrong with us as consumers if we are so reordering our world for such a mediocre FPS.
But it's still successful, because of "the Halo effect"
running OS X on a piece of shit Fry's discount x86 box doth not a Mac make.
This is somewhat believable. I'd wager that average college students would be a prime target for the Mac Mini, as well - unlike Apple's laptops, it doesn't cost a mint, and its size would be a great advantage for students living in space-challenged dorm rooms. Most of the software they'd need would be on it, too. Your usual non-computer-geeky college kid would play games on their console, not their computer, and the Mac has Microsoft Office and fine Internet capabilities. Colleges use plenty of specialized software (e.g. statistics packages) but most kids go to the labs to use that stuff rather than bothering to acquire their own copies. If the Mini can make a successful tie-in with the iPod in the minds of this particular target audience, then Apple stands a fighting chance of boosting its market share at least with that segment.
Apple is very good at marketing perceived value (iMac, iPod, etc.) as opposed to embedded value (the way Microsoft pushes most of their products). I'd say that perceived value is what matters a lot in the impressionable minds of young students.
The coolest voice ever.
I don't buy that Apple will buy Tivo, but I can see them creating a Tivo-like device with these abilities:
DVR with free remote control service (why free? wait a second)
Ties right into the iTunes Movie store.
Right, Movie store. Imagine Jobs going to the MPAA and saying "Hey, remember all the problems the RIAA had with downloading? Lawsuits didn't help enough - but now we have legal music, and people are buying music online, and look how many songs I've sold.
"Join with me, and we can end this pointless conflict, and bring order to - *cough*, I mean, we can sell movies."
The PC/Mac will still be the hub - use iTunes to buy music, or buy a movie. You can put either on a new iPod, but for the movies, the iView (just a name I threw in) will be the best way.
Want to watch a movie? Forget Netflix - just use the iTunes store. How about a documentary (independent movie makers who have limited releases would love this - what if you could pick up a documentary for $10, and around 50,000 people all wanted to - now that little indie project just broke even).
Miss a TV show? Why DVR it (though you have that power) when you can go to your computer, type "Battlestar" or "Babylon" to get the entire current archives (including commercial), and for $3 (or $20 for the entire season), you can watch your movies *now* (or, with broadband and figuring about 300 MB per 30 minutes, about 30 minutes or so).
The biggest thing of this is what it turns Apple into. With the iPod and the iTunes Music store, apple is moving away from hardware systems, and going towards hardware accessories and services. Eventually, I can see a Linux client - but in the end, Apple won't care what you run as long as you buy an iPod and use their iTunes store for movies and music - they still make money (though they'll still tell you a Mac will work better, and as the services do well they'll sell more Macs along the way).
Anyway, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
OSX is in fact irrelevant to Apple's future, as are most other major operating systems to their creators. What is the future, and the iPod and Nokia's 200million per year mobile phone sales prove, is that various interconnected devices that confirm to industry standard protocols are the way forward. The electronic musical instrument industry has proven this thanks to the amazing success of MIDI which binds most instruments, yet each instrument is based on it's own unique software/hardware. OSX will become a server OS and Apple will eventually tailor software to suite the client device - as per the iPod which communicates with it's host using standard protocols (USB, MP3, Firewire etc). And if Apple don't (continue) to do this, an as yet unheard of (unformed?) company will, and they will sell products in the sort of quantities Nokia do, which dwarf even sales of the iPod and Mac. Ironically, Nokia could become the all powerful mega entity that networks our world. After all, the future is all based on communication and sharing.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
And, unknown to most, Powerbooks are actually mint flavored. Yummy!
Very nice and concise summary of the story.
Thank you.
I mean front page? Come on. Anyone who trades tech stocks knows that companies are constantly participating in various financial conferences where these sorts of presentations are given.
Are we now going to get financial info for AMD, Intel, Sun, SGI, IBM, Novell, RHAT, NVDA, ATI, etc?
Yeah, Apple is re-inventing itself. Good for them. But news of their shifting margins is boring.
Used to like Apple, moved to PC for customizability/etc (in mid 90s). Never considered moving back because the more I learned, the more obviously out of date the Mac OS was. Then I learned Linux and fell in love with Unix. Add to that the hate and distrust I've gained in MS and I was ready to jump ship (and I knew it wouldn't be too hard for me, unlike some people). Linux didn't seem "there", I wanted something more mainstream. When OS X came around (and I got to try it on my brother's PB) I really liked it, and started following it. I got an iPod, which did serve to remind me of Apple's quality. Then when my current computer (a Dell laptop that served me well for 4+ years) became too slow for my needs I waited until new PowerBooks were announced and I bought one. The whole (longer) story is in the site linked to in my sig.
So as for "the halo effect", I'm not so sure. It might happen for some people. I used to love Apple so I was really just finding them again. And even without the iPod I would have switched because of OS X. I have three observations on all of this. First is that iTunes really showed me how nice Apple software was these days (iTunes on Windows was the first Apple program I'd used since leaving my old LC II in about 95). Second was if OS X was available on a PC (as some want it, and as some other companies have been asking Apple) I doubt I would have switched (why switch processor architectures when you don't have to?). And third, I had been wanting a Mac to try OS X on for the last few years, but even used Macs were expensive (for what you got). Had the Mini been available 2 years go (the equivelent kind of computer, at that price point, not neccessisarily that size) I would have bought one as fast as I could and I may have switched earlier.
I'm not the "typical" switcher (someone relativly new to computers and raised on Wintel that went to Apple) since I'm a power user (used the OS 7 back in the day, Linux, most flavors of Windows, etc); but I switched and I am VERY happy with my new little Mac. Next step: evangilizing when people ask me about what to buy for their first computer!
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Miss a TV show? Why DVR it when you can go to your computer, type "Battlestar" or "Babylon" to get the entire current archives, and for $3 (or $20 for the entire season), you can watch your movies *now*.
A column not too long ago (don't ask me to recall who or when or where) discussed this sort of thing in light of sites like "Homestar Runner". The case was that this is the future of video entertainment -- visit the show's web site and download and watch any episode you like, in any order, at any time, rather than wait for your favorite episode to reach syndication or buy the whole season on DVD.
The bandwidth, I think, is still the biggest problem, but that's just a matter of time and R&D. And the difference in quality from downloadable video vs. HDTV will, like the difference between MP3 and CD quality audio, keep the downloadable format from completely replacing TV broadcasts or DVD sales.
All we (and Apple) need is the device to do it, at a price point people can afford. That too is a matter of time -- iPods arrived costing, what, $400? $500? Now you can get a Mini for $200 and a Shuffle for even less.
I think Apple would like to sell just what it described in the article: a program that lets you download and view video on your computer, but supplemented by a small remote-controlled set-top device that streams it wirelessly to your television set, a la Airport Express. Video on an iPod-sized device is impractical by any measure, but video on your television set is a given -- but it has to be as easy to use as a DVD player. Fortunately, that sort of ease of use is Apple's specialty.
I perceive this as a certainty, not a possibility -- it's just a matter of when.
I can confirm that anecdotally. Last night I got a call from my uncle and my cousin the college student. She has yet another broken Windows laptop (it'll cost several hundred bucks to fix it), and they wanted the family geek's advice on what kind of computer to get to replace it. Without me even having to suggest it, she (an iPod owner) had already been looking at Apples. So I just steered them toward the 12" iBook with AppleCare. Talking to her, I added that it'd match her iPod; to him, I explained that it was the best bang for the buck of the Apple line, and AppleCare would be cheaper than any repairs that might be needed.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
What about a video-out port so a consumer could play movies on a TV? There would even be no need for a color screen, and it would only increase the size very little....
And the article even mentioned Battlestar.
e .html
Well, great minds think alike - and since you're a Coward, here's the link to the article that talks about the same kind of thing I did:
http://www.shapeofdays.com/2005/01/the_movie_stor
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
You all know the difference between an application and the files it creates. She doesn't get that. She doesn't understand the concept of the drives having a top level and sub directories. When she saves an email attachment, she has to go into the file search function to find out where it wound up becuase she can't grasp the save file browser. And she uses AOL
Apple needs to come out with "Mac OS Lite". There's quite a number of people like my friend's mom. The basic computer concepts we take for granted are inaccessible abstractions to them. For example, if they get a ".doc" attachment, this computer would tell them it's an Office Word file, and what they need to do to open it, and so on.
There's a large chunk of the vocal PC userbase who use the thing as glorified nintendo- it's really (imo) the ONLY area where the PC has any kind of advantage over the Mac.
The Mac mini is just the right size to fit a GameCube on top of it. The only thing keeping Macs from having a lot of games running "on" it :) is that very few consumer 17" monitors can display both Mac mini's 768p DVI/VGA output and the GameCube's 480i S-video output (the component cable is nearly unavailable, and newer Cubes don't even have the jack for it).
I want to play Pirates!, HL2, and Doom 3. That's basically it. Pirates! will get ported (I'm guessing, but it's not that important)
Pirates! is already ported, provided that you run the game in an emulator for one of the systems that the original version ran on. If you still want to play pirate, I'm pretty sure that eDonkey and BitTorrent clients are available for Mac OS X.
Thought there were going to be some big plans for a digital hub. Seems that a unit capable of displaying digital pictures (iPhoto), digital tunes (Tunes), digital movies (DVD player, Quicktime), and digital TV shows (through their own means or if they acquired TiVo) would be at the top of the digital hubs. I thought the Mac Mini would've been a great digital hub item, but it's missing a digital audio out.
There's never enough when you have too little
I've got not only a one hour train commute, but also an Archos AV400.
I'm an American finance geek living in London, so every morning my handheld PVR records the overnite BBC Business News at 3:45AM. I watch the 45 news broadcast while I'm headed to work at 5:51AM damn early in the morning!
I get a lot of utility out of time shifting the BBC, and would dump my iPod(s) (3G 20GB, 1GB Shuffle) in a heartbeat if my Archos (it also plays MP3's with cover art) matched half my iPods battery life. At present I get three hours tops.
I own ten Mac's (two G3 iMacs, a ClamShell iBook, two SEs, a MacTV, a PowerMac 5500/275, a G4 TiBook, a 15" G4 PowerBook, a G4 Cube) and still use the OS X capable machines daily. Even though I grok Apple deeply, they'd better put together a PVR solution ASAP.
It's their market to lose. I only own two iPaqs because my Newtons were getting long in the tooth.
A message from our sponsor
You'll fit right in.
When is he being sued?
Sorry, couldn't resist
so does that mean that anyone can have a tv station -- all you need is an ip address and the new Airport will stream to the little box that's hooked up to the TV - video content from the web? everyone will be v. happy to watch their "tv" on their tv like they all seem so die hard about.
with enough viewers (advertisers will love the registered hits stats) we might see advertising dollars going to some nice startups of whatever kind -- a nice departure from what the networks and cable companies have set up now. iptv would be nice.
too bad the portable video device is a no go impossibility (is it?). iptv would work great on an ipod with a wireless card - you could watch CNN at Starbucks on your ipod! weee, that would be fun.
The mini is the repository of everything and it gets beamed to the Airport Express. It already works nicely with music. Apple is going to skip the whole DVR in the living room which will always be a commodity and keep it all coming off the PC wherever and however you want. Brilliantly efficient, simple, and they control the front end of the media delivery. No one is ever going to make money with something like TIVO.
OS X's built in 'Simple Finder' mode lets you set a user account (or heck, a thousand user accounts) to run in simple mode. and yes, I believe the default save location is '~/documents.' Simple Finder really doesn't let you browse the hard drive, and the only applications that the user can access are ones that the system administrator(s) have allowed access to. Even a friend of mine, who is an artist (not the deisnger kind, the painty kind, no need for a computer and no interest in learning) was able to use my computer for six weeks this summer when I loaned it to her. she had big fat buttons for AIM, Safari, DVD Player and Word on the dock, and that was it. She was fine. I didn't have to explain a thing.
Dude, welcome to Slashdot!
;-)
*pulls out Logic And Reason Remover(TM)*
This will only hurt for a second...
Formerly GNU/Anonymous Coward. This message has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
Almost all the post OS X switchers I know, are 'power users'. All the other power users I know want to try OS X at some point.
Most of the new to computers folks I know still use Windows.
I meant the brand new "Sid Meier's Pirates!" that just came out on the PC.
The original version of Pirates! (1987) and Pirates! Gold (1993) were designed by Sid Meier as well. I've played the original Pirates! on the Apple IIGS, but I'm unfamiliar with the new iteration. So that I can understand the strength of the demand for a Mac port, what was added to Pirates! (2004) other than the obligatory 3D facelift?
A while back I got irritated by some troll on slashdot trotting out the standard 'apple computers are slower and more expensive' line -- mainly because they were low-id rather than an AC, but I digress.
Anyway, I compared two machines, a 20" iMac and a dual 2.5GHz G5. The iMac was there because they wanted to see a budget range computer, and the dual G5 because they claimed AMD was faster.
The rules were pretty simple, configure a roughly similar machine at newegg and compare the price to apple's. Components had to be of acceptable quality (it isn't like apple uses $50 cases), and the same spec (speed, size, whatever) but within that I chose the cheapest I could at newegg and took advantage of any on-the-day deals.
The end result was apple came out cheaper for both machines (though it would've been slightly more if I'd done a 17" imac). The dual G5 was a lot cheaper since dual proc PCs are considered workstation-class and therefore have a huge markup, especially when you want a processor the same speed as the 2.5GHz G5 (I used an athlon FX-55 IIRC).
There are still price points where apple gets beaten by newegg -- e.g. without comparing properly, the powerbooks look lousy value to me -- but you can be sure that anybody claiming Apple is more expensive has had their head buried in the sand for years now.
People are negative about a lot of apple stuff because a lot of what they've done doesn't fit with common wisdom. So they're comparing Apple with Dell or Gateway, and the comparsion doesn't exactly fit. It was closer to Commodore or Atari, or niche vendors, but those guys went belly up when most of these analysts were still in day-care.
That said, I find the constant cheerleading by apple fanbois irritating to the extreme. The Powerbook line currently sucks right now, and the fanboi-base says "These computers are fast enough".
No, they aren't, and anybody buying a Powerbook right now is deluded. ANd you're talking with a guy willing to shell out for a powerbook this evening if Apple came up with something worth buying.
"That little fantasy you all have of buying "Mac OS X for x86"
Mac OSX for x86 would be a perfect fit.
But here's the key part that most fanbois don't get:
Just because it uses an X86 doesn't mean it would run on a whitebox PC, or Dell, or Gateway.
Apple should still use proprietary hardware, but the PPC line has never lived up to the potential. I'd rather see Apple switch their stuff to X86.
You're dead on with your analysis of why OS X wouldn't be so hot on generic X86 equipment. But the PPC line is in a deep funk right now; the x86 is close to twice as fast, and when you come to mobile chips, Apple is an entire generation behind right now.
Because they rely on the PPC chip.
The milk rushed out of my nostrils, far too quickly!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
why do college students preface their statements with "Bullshit"?
I can't decide if this is a lame troll, or if this poster is in sort-of a reverse Jobsian reality-distortion-field.
./configure then make. Despite the ease-of-use and pretty front end, though, it has all the command-line goodness and power that Linux zealots take pride in (not that this matters to the hardcore it-sucks-if-it-ain't-a-(sorta)-monolithic-kernel, or the hardcore it-sucks-if-I-didn't-compile-it-myself crowd)
OS X is obsolete? In what way? As a workstation and end user PC, it's an infinitely more polished (read, "your grandma can use it") than any Linux distro with any desktop environment, and there is much more software available for it than Linux, including about 99% of what exists for Linux, if you don't mind typing
Yeah, there are more applications out there for Windows, but most of what's out there for Windows is crap. And there are relatively few kinds of applications that there isn't at least one really good package for the Mac, plus we've got a lot of the big names from the Windows world. On top of that, there are some best-of-breed applications that only exist for the Mac now - Final Cut Pro, Motion, Shake. There are features that have been standard since OS X first came out that won't appear in Windows till Longhorn rolls out in 2014 or whenever. The next release os OS X (Tiger) will widen that gap even more.
Oh, yeah, also... unlike Linux, we can play DVDs without violating the DMCA. =-)
Now, don't get me wrong. I've got a Linux box under my desk and a FreeBSD box next to it. I've got machines in the house that run Windows XP, 2000, NT, and (though I loathe to admit it) one running ME. I can use them all comfortably. They all have their merits (well, except the ME box). But when I sit down on my own time, or when I really need to get something done in a hurry, I invariably sit down at my 17" Powerbook. If stability and efficiency are obsolete, then I'll have to agree with you.
Oy. I don't know why I get sucked into these things, though. People have been claiming Apple was going to die at least since the late eighties. Since they didn't die in the mid-nineties (when they damn well should have), forgive me for scoffing at your pathetic belief that the polished OS X is going to be exitinct in a few years, while the amalgamation of distros and desktop environments that makes up the Linux "world" will somehow skyrocket to the top of the heap and become a tour de force in end user computing.
Remember Steve Jobs saying why would anyone want a Flash Based MP3 player?
9 months later Apple Prefects the flash based MP3 player with the shuffle and now they cant get enough to the customers hands
Now Apples says No to the Media center
wait 6 -9 months and Maybe we will see a Media Player that the World will Kill for
just my thoughts of the day
"97% of the market is not, and will continue to advise people to get what THEY know."
A lady at work wanted to buy a graduation gift for her daughter, I suggested she get a Mac if she did not want to do tech support or hear her daughter could not get her paper done because a virus at school. At that time I was a 90% Windows user and 10% Linux user, what did she buy? 12" iBook for her daughter.
A few weeks later the Mac Mini was introduced. What did I buy the same day it was announced? A Mac Mini!
I know a few other employees at work that are fed up with Windows and have already purchased Mac computers in the last 30 days...
Mac OS X, the ONLY version of UNIX your garandma can use!
Your Average Joe
I think it was a wise decision for the regularly tight lipped CFO to give some insight from the company. Here's why:
(1) Usually it is Jobs that announces any sort of strategy or "feelings" Apple may have on a technology. This helps investors feel like someoen other than the CEO is running the ship.
(2) With iPod obviously so huge, it is important to know if Apple is seeing itself as a music playrer company or what. Also, with TIVO rumors abounding, it is important for Apple to stake out their position on the DVR battle field.
(3) Stating the intent of the Mac mini. Obviously people are seeing cool applications for the Mac mini and as the CFO said, some people will try to use it as a home media PC, but he clearly states that it isn't that which helps to determine what the thing IS - a Windows Switcher PC.
(4) A glimp into Apple's crystal ball. It is interesting how he proclaimed the death of the personal video players. Jobs has said this before but with people trying to make the iPod Photo into a video player, it is interesting to hear another cheif reiterate the position.
(5) Points 3 (Mac mini not a PVR) and 4 (iPod Video not in the future) help us to see Apple's implementation of the Digital Hub more clearly. At home, the Mac becomes a dual purposed iLife Workstation as well as a media server. Using products like AirTunes to stream audio around the house and one day perhaps AirFlicks (FireFlicks?) to deliver a 21st century family slideshow, streaming video from DVD, or even PVR style recordings.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
You are full of shit! She does not have a Mac! You are a troll!
./ers to think that the Mac OS is hard to learn. I bet you work for Microsoft.
Here just to spread FUD. You want these other
Go away asshole.
Your Average Joe
The PC is NOT sitting by the TV.
The PC is in the PC room. The Airport Express 2 is sitting by the TV. (And Airport Express is about as big as any standard Apple power plugin.)
That's the whole beauty of it -- the PC is wirelessly streaming audio and video to the TV through the proposed Airport Express 2.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
or as low as $99 for OEM Home XP.
I wanted to try Mac OS X, so I had to pay $500 in tax and it included the hardware to run it. Not bad. Now I do not have to worry about all the viruses, security issues, back doors, malware, spyware, adware and trojans that cannot be detected.
If you can't figure out how to admin your winXP box I suggest you buy a Mac. Now when I make that suggestion I just say that the Mini will plug into your monitor, keyboard and mouse. The user just needs to buy the Mini.
I no longer work for free, I suggest that the user buy from a company that has a better quality product, buy an Apple...
Your Average Joe
(or is it hear hear? Anyway...)
I agree that using industry standards to interconnect is the wave of the futuere. As long as software interconnect standards like XML (and XHTML) are used, who gives two bits whether the server is OS X, Linux or XP as long as the content is delivered in a common format.
Already I can copy a MP3 from a Mac to XP and then over to Linux so who cares about the platform? I can't "share" my software but in the end, wouldn't the software companies prefer that?
I love my Mac. I have MS Office, I have Firefox and I have iTunes. I can play any music I want while I connect to my POP3 or IMAP mail server and browse as many HTML documents as I want with whatever Javascript, Java, Flash, Shockwave, what-have-you and it all just works (without spyware and viruses too!)
Yeah Apple.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I know this is going to get modded -5 Troll but I don't care.
The only thing Apple could do to get me back is announce dual-boot support for their new machines and bring the OS9 Finder up to 128 character filenaming. Until then, I will stick with OS9 on my old hardware and be more productive than doing the same thing on OSX with newer hardware. For my personal work I switched to Windows 2000 and have had more success than OSX - it's faster (by a wide margin) at the tasks I do daily. It's also cheaper, but still not as nice as OS9 when using Photoshop or Illustrator.
OS9 was killed prematurely. Take a look on eBay at the price of fast OS9 bootable machines - they are being bought for more $ than brand new G5's. This is a clue, Apple. It means many Apple users have seen the future (slow-ass OSX with bad driver support and a UI that is stupid looking) and they don't particularly like it. How about focusing on your long time customer base for a change? You know, the people that kept you in business when the "e" was being engraved on your tombstone back in 1996.
The article states that Apple "hasn't seen much customer demand" for satellite radio + iPod integration. I wonder what metric they use? The term "demand" is usually used in a market sense to indicate consumer preference, measured by their willingness to buy (units sold relative to price). Since there are no such units available, I wonder what "demand" means to Apple. Not enough people have written asking for it? Focus groups not interested? Just curious...
Currently hooked on AMP
The article mentions that portable media players have "failed in the marketplace." It cites the reasons of a small screen coupled with a largish unit relative to the very portable iPod. It occurs to me that the small screen problem could be fixed with high-resolution glasses/goggles, but I don't know if high enough resolution is available in such units, and even if they are, they are probably very pricey. The portability issue is the remaining real problem, technologically speaking. But imagine a device the size of an iPod with such goggles... hmm. Cool!
Currently hooked on AMP
The only thing the modern world could do to get me back is announce support for the abacus. Until then, I will stick with my abacus on be more productive than doing the same thing on that newfangled computer with bad support for beads. For my personal work I switched to a TI-32 Plus - it's faster (by a wide margin) at the tasks I do daily, but still not as nice as my abacus.
The abacus was killed prematurely.
Apple isn't stupid. They know they have a hot one in the iPod right now. Why would Apple dilute the value of the iPod and this whole new market segment at a time when the music industry and consumers are still being converted to the Apple way of doing business? Why would Apple introduce a radio-enabled iPod that would distract consumers from buying product at the iTMS (iTunes Music Store)? I don't believe Apple has a clear idea right now of how to distinguish itself (ie, compete and dominate) in the portable media player market, because the content isn't available. When you see a broad selection of video content available to consumers as readily as music content has been, then there will be an opening for iTMS-like video services. Why should Apple fragment its expertise now, though, and jeopardize the success of the one and only market it currently dominates?
So I don't think we'll be seeing a media center PC from Apple any time soon. But I'm sure we'll see many things that make it easier for 3rd parties to add such stuff.
But yes, It would have been nice of them to have included digital audio out. I'm guessing the only reason they didn't was because the mini is supposed to be a low-end Mac, and many people still don't use digital audio yet.
Since we've just learned that the margin for the shuffle is 40%, I find this fact to be pretty fucking amazing.
Actually, the trend I've observed via news articles on Mac-centric web sites and so forth is, the schools are currently most interested in using iBook laptops - rather than buying up more eMacs.
Apple even offers a whole package with a rolling cart full of iBooks and power strips to recharge their batteries as they sit in the cart, etc. It's sort of a "mobile computer lab".
The iBooks are fairly inexpensive, and can be doled out as-needed to students to use right at their desks - instead of requiring an actual dedicated computer lab.
I also question the accuracy of Apple's marketing research if they really believe fewer than 1% of non-business Mac owners own more than 1 Macintosh! I've been to the local Mac users' groups and practically everyone who shows up there owns several Macs. When I go to the local Mac stores and talk with people, I get the same feedback from their sales staff. "Yep - I think just about everybody that comes in here has a spare, older Mac around the house someplace!"
In fact, until the fairly recent "switcher" phenomenon, most individual Mac users were pretty fanatical about the machines, and kept buying new models every so often, while hanging onto their previous models. That's one big reason you see better resale value on older Macs than older PCs. The older Macs tend to still see regular use up until the time they're finally resold, so their owners believe they should fetch a higher price. (If your old Windows PC just sat in the closet collecting dust for 2 years and you finally went to sell it, you're probably just letting it go for peanuts because you want the space back and just want to see it go "to a good home".)
Lastly - asking customers if "they're interested in purchasing additional computers" is pointless, no matter which company you are. If Dell or HP or anyone asked this in a survey, they'd get a resounding "No!" from the public. Typically, they ask this in some type of survey taken right after you make a purchase, so it's the time you're LEAST likely to be in the market for another computer. But also, you typically don't think you have any use for ANOTHER computer at home until you discover a need/use for it all of a sudden. Then and only then would you answer "Yes" to this type of question. (EG. Kid suddenly starts becoming a heavy computer user due to school assignments, so you decide it's time to buy a new one and just turn the old one over to him/her completely.)
Bandwidth shouldnt even be that huge an issue
Didnt apple build Akamai?
portable media centers a failure." Well yeah, thanks to DRM
Give my girl Lindsay an email
Yes, I am defintly a bottom-of-the-barrel as-far-from-bleeding-edge-as-you-can-get customer...but the nthing, is, in the PC world, I can do this. Until the Mini came out, Mac had nothing whatsoever that even came CLOSE to those kinds of prices.
I don't blame them, its not their market, they are selling quality, not quantity. But if you want to talk hard prices, the cheapest PC is usually half the cost of the cheapest Mac...including the mini.
once you go slack, you never go back
"no plans for media center PC "
Why is this newsworthy? Apple hasn't made any PC's yet, ever.
People who use Linux on the desktop are completely aware of the problems of exchanging files. If they didn't understand it before they installed Linux, they'll find out in the first five minutes after installing it (actually, they don't have to install it, they can just run it from a live CD).
In fact, one of the main reasons people even buy OS X is because it's a UNIX-like system that happens to run an official copy of Microsoft Office. If it weren't for MS Office on OS X, OS X desktop usage would be even lower than it already is.
But you reflect the typical Apple view: "most users are morons, and therefore if they don't buy our products, it's because they are morons".
It would be nice to hear how the enterprise portion of Apple Sales is doing. Our firm has been moving from Windows to OS X for the last 12 months.
I think there is a very real BSD halo effect that when it comes to updating the enterprise, many small businesses are opting for the effectiveness, ease of use and perceived security of OS X. Our low end servers utilize SuSE but even moving to xServes.
I think if Apple can market effectively to these business then they have a huge upside.
Where can I get this? Is the main character named Master Undertaker?
Yes, I understand this. However, I for one, would love a radio enabled iPod. I ride a motorcycle. As such, I would like as few electro'gadgets as possible. it is just a space and control issue. As it is, I just don't bring a radio with me. Most people who do seem to use xM radio. A bit more battery life would be good. I can think of a lot of things that would make the iPod better for motorcycle use (like a secure bracket that can be screwed to something). If course motorcycle riding iPod users is probably a bit of a limited market group (You do see a lot of Ipods being carried by bikers though).
iTunes was fast out of the starting gate with its service. There were only a couple failed experiments before.
If Apple waits for others to show them video works, they will be too late to the party. This is especially true if the competition uses their own DRM scheme which locks out Apple (just as Apple has done with its AAC files).
They have to decide whether they want to be a leader, a follower, or not bother at all. I think they are going to not bother at all, because Apple is a small company and they have to really pick their battles to avoid risk.
"Apple does understand, and they've put it together in a way that works."
It works for only 10% of computer buyers. The rest are better served going elsewhere.
You can't believe a word he says.
A couple months ago he said "Apple isn't interested in competing in the sub $800 computer market." A few months later Apple released the Mac mini.
3) People with newer Macs that want a second machine
There are very, very few of these people. Of those that exist, most are going to want to buy an all-in-one second machine, like an eMac or an iMac.
I have a 10-year-old x86 running Debian and I just bought an iMac G5 last fall. I'm very interested in a Mac Mini. I can think of dozens of uses thanks to its portability, small form factor, versatility, etc.
Looks like they are capturing some switchers, from what I can see--an all Windows shop where I work part-time has acquired two Minis. The in-house guru hooked them up to old equipment he had laying about.
It would absolutely run spyware faster. I'm jealous that you have so much malware to choose from and I don't have any.