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Return of the Mac
Ben Gutierrez writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on the Return of the Mac which begins with: 'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.' Tim O'Reilly said some similar things in Watching Alpha Geeks . From the article: "My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."
This was said in the early 90's, the mid 90's, the late 90's, the early 2000's and now again. Till Apple has 5% of the market it's rather pointless. Never the less, till they open the OS to the rest of the planet, it's going to be just where it is. And by open the OS, I mean the WHOLE OS, not something I can get from FreeBSD...
Before everyone starts to flame me, let me be more specific.
If there was a sub-500usd new mac (that is including monitor, mouse and keyboard), probably I could fork over the cash for one...
But lets be honest, if I can get an AMD system with a 15inch LCD screen, Sempron 2200 proc, and half a gig of ram for about 450usd, how am I gonna convince my wife that I should buy a 600usd mac mini, plus 250usd for the monitor, plus the keyboard and the silly one button mouse?
Any ideas?
No sig for the moment.
I bet you also voted for whoever your favorite actor told you to.
Sheep. Baaaaaaa! B-a-a-a-a!
Ive been thinking about "switching", but when I looked at what replacing my current hardware with *like* hardware, I was horrified. A laptop configured like my current laptop was about $3200 (I paid 1500$ for mine). Desktops were more humane but still out there. I guess I cant afford yuppie-shic :)
Also, apple seems increasingly like Microsoft, with the anticompetitve behaviour (suing journalists for instance). It seems to me Apple wants to be the next Microsoft, the cluetrain hasn't made enough stops at Apple yet (read the cluetrain manifesto). Im not jumping ship on Linux for a more restrictive enviornment. I want OGG on an ipod :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Or you can pay for Windows and the software that runs on it. That will bring up the cost of that $450US system.
Dell sells $299 all-inclusive systems with Windows and WordPerfect included. Try again.
-mkb
No your an idiot. Dell sells 2.40GHz systems running Windows XP with 17 inch monitors for $299.00. Apple should be able to do something similar. Even if in the short term they only broke even and didn't make a profit, in the long term it would introduce a lot more people to Macs and do a lot to increase their userbase.
p.p.p.p.s. you're insane
Haha, your post was one of the more entertaining that I've read on slashdot in a while.
I can get a Dell with 17" LCD monitor, KEYBOARD and MOUSE, for the same price. Or I could a 14" laptop from compaq. Or I can go cheaper and buy an emachine or compaq for $350. How is apple affordable? Lets talk about about upgrading, since we need to upgrade about every 2 years. Whats the upgrade path of a Mac mini? Ebay and buy a new computer? Apple loves to sucker people, whether its promising upgrades(performa scam) and never coming through or just making the box nonupgradeable/nonfixable(mini, ipod battery). Its the two year disposable product.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I would buy a mac but: 1) I play games 2) I build my own 3) While you can find old Macs for low prices on ebay most of the time people will give you PC hardware just to be rid of it
So all the Hardcore OS hackers are switching to macs. That wil be great for Apples bottom line considering these guys are like .00001% of computer users.
This article is completely retarded too. Much respect to Apple, but Zonk's mother should be punched in the kidneys for even birthing the demi-god who posted this rubbage.
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
OK, great. None of what you said changes the fact that a $299 Dell box comes with useful software and an OS, which is what I was trying to prove in the first place.
-mkb
Use google.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.