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The Media's Crush on Apple
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports: "It's the first time in my memory that a product announcement by Steve Jobs has caused the AP to send an alert -- especially since this development was fully expected. And it says a lot about the intensity of media attention Apple generates. When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action."
When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words [...] Bill Gates?
Last week after the CES keynote, during which he didn't launch any new products at all, and instead talked about the same thing he's talked about for the last three years but still hasn't shipped, and a product that came out last year.
In contrast, Apple actually announced new product that was a signifigant shift from their previous strategy, and has a business impact beyond the doors of Apple itself.
Which company gets an unusual amount of coverage?
Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. He's a brilliant businessman but I do not think his job function entitles him to media attention like Gates or Jobs. Dell sells computers, they don't invent them or the software they run. His expertise is reliability and customer support. Definitely an important figure head in the sale of computers but not so much the invention side.
I should point out that Gates won that probably because of all the money he and his wife donate to charities. The guy is a vaccine giving maniac no matter how much you hate his software. Oh and he is hott .
My work here is dung.
Of course not.. the fact that the majority of media workers use apples does NOT make them biased.. of course not...
Clearly the news media is dominated by people who use Apple computers. This is a well-known fact, and I actually recall reading an article a while back about the fact that Apple gets a disproportionate amount of computer press when the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple, much less actually owns one.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates?
When was the last time either of those guys released an interesting, innovative product?
JOhn C Dvorak wrote an article in PC Magazine about this back in October.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
and his tears cure cancer.
Neo: Hmm. Upgrades.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
I think the bias is warranted. I mean, how many OSes do you know that can interface with and take down an alien ship's computer using a virus?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Can't the slashdot editors answer this one? Why do you have half of the front page filled with apple stories?
no comment
Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs has cultivated a media persona that is the envy of many CEOs. He is the master of manipulating the media for his companies benefit. He is effectively the head saleman at Apple. He sets the tone for all the marketing that is done. Neither Gates nor Dell has the charisma to pull that off.
The Apple brand, while always considered hip and cool, has exploded in over all popularity due to the iPod. That is why this years Macworld has dominated the headlines. Jobs has been very careful to maintain that hip and cool vibe with respect to Apple. It has served them well in the past, and is paying off nicely now.
At Slashdot, anytime Apple farts it makes the main page.
By the looks of it, Apple ate at Taco Bell last night.
I thought it was Linus that floated one inch above the ground.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Apple's fascination by the media has to do with 3 things:
1. Dominance in entertainment (graphic artists, movie makers, etc). So when most journalists who interact with their geeky movie making counterparts, odds are they're going to see a Mac, no matter what they may be using. So Apple news has a direct impact on these people.
2. Steve Jobs has charisma. You look at the interviews with Bill Gates, or Ellison, or McNealy, and I'm sorry, but these guys are just not photogenic. They hardly sound interesting, and they talk about boring stuff. (More on that in a moment.) But at least Jobs - and the drama of his life, the "rags to riches" story, is at least interesting. Even with his mistakes, at least he makes them *big* and bold.
3. Most technology news is boring. Routers? Boring. Enterprise management? To the usual person, boring. New computer that lets you make movies? Well, that's kind of interesting! Music? That's something people are interested in, not "We can get 10,000 people to use a server to access a database!". My wife gets music - she could care less about using LDAP calls to Active Directory.
The rest of it - the fascination the tech industry has with Apple - is because usually their the first ones to do things in an interesting way. Not all of the ideas are really unique - like the iPod, or cameras on a computer. But they put it on with a style that few companies save Sony perhaps can match, so it feels like it's innovative - and sometimes, the way that Apple does it, it is.
As the article mentions, will this translate into bigger sales? MS dominated thanks to their IBM deal and focusing on business, while Jobs focused on the home. Gates won that part of the war. But now the war is moving into the entertainment business, where Microsoft keeps pushing their product but making slow headway while Apple is embraced by the same media who is fascinated with them.
Eh - so who knows about the future. I know I'll probably pick up a Macbook Pro sometime in the future and try it out, probably put a Windows partition or just use Cedaga for OS X whenever that arises. But I'm sure the fascination with Apple will continue as long as Jobs continues to be interesting.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's all about branding my boy! Branding! Also, it leaves room for Apple to put AMD chips or anything else they want. They still can do that with the label on, you say. Ah, Apple is Apple. That's the only brand that Jobs wants you to see. And, I think there may be a time in the future where the end consumer will not know what the CPU is. It could be anything. Who cares? You're buying an Apple and that's all that matters. Do you care what the chips are in your monitor, TV, iPod, or your router? I don't. As long as I get something that works.
Maybe I am wrong.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Dell announces new systems built using AMD processors. Declares that customers should have a choice of the best systems available at the best prices available with full Dell support.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Not only does Steve Jobs have a dynamic personality, but he KNOWS he does and can promote himself and his company accordingly. On top of that, Apple is the true innovator in the industry -- they produce must-have products, and those products almost unfailingly work extremely well.
By comparison, Bill's personality doesn't have the dynamic, charismatic element that Steve has. Bill certainly has the intellect, the will, and the drive, but he just comes across differently than Steve in a public setting.
It's like comparing Scorcese to Bruckheimer. Critics love Scorcese more and everyone will agree that Scorcese makes a superior product, but Bruckheimer is the one with the blockbuster hits.
Rightly or wrongly, most people see the future in Apple products. Microsoft's slogan is (was?) "Where do you want to go today?" and for a lot of people that's "wherever Apple takes us". Apple's the company that *tries* things. And, the Cube notwithstanding, they have been pretty much on the mark. I'm not saying they invent everything, mp3 players were around before the iPod, but they were the ones who made its appeal universal. OSX is clearly standing on the shoulders of giants, but Apple was able to take it just that bit further that I could give my folks a Mac and walk away without worrying about whether they'd be able to use it.
Compare this to Dell, whose mantra is "as cheap as possible" or Microsoft, whose mantra changes from day to day.
To be fair, both Dell and Microsoft have problems that Apple would probably love to have (massive volume). But since Apple doesn't have said problems, they're more free to do whatever they want, and what they want is to sell more of their own stuff which looks farther afield from the rest of the industry.
...that the 4th apple story in the last 24 hours is entitled The Media's Crush on Apple. =P
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
There are, of course, people at work who use Macs at home, just are there people who use Linux. But there is not great Apple conspiracy at work here, I'm sorry to say. Apple just puts on a better show than the others. And, in contrast to Microsoft, when they say the will bring out a new product, they actually do. Still waiting for Vista here.
You must be new here - Welcome! We've been fascinated with Apple for a long time.
Even non-apple users are interested in what Apple announces, because their products tend to set industry trends from time to time.
While it was noteworthy that Apple showed their first Intel power products. Overall, I don't think these new announcements were that impressive. All of the big wintel manufactures announced duo products last week at CES. There are really no unique features with these new items from Apple.
While Apple is gaining a lot with the Intel switch, it is losing a lot of its uniqueness in terms of hardware. Then again, most people are purchasing Apple products for the software features of OSX, not CPU.
Of course not.. the fact that the majority of media workers use apples does NOT make them biased.. of course not...
Well, it cuts both ways. I remember back in the early 90s reading over the shoulder of a sub at PC Format magazine (one of the more entertaining UK titles). He spent a few paragraphs dissing Marathon as a loser game and Bungie as an inept developer for 'something called the Macintosh', which he claimed he had never heard of, despite the fact that he was typing all of this on a Quadra 900.
Does "the media" entail /. ? Just wondering... because I just saw 5 Apple-related stories on the front page.
I mean, I guess it is an Apple story from the perspective that Steve Jobs made the announcement, and it is Apple hardware and software being showcased.
But the real star of the story is the Intel chip, who has broken through the Apple-Motorola-IBM blue wall of the PowerPC.
Intel breaking into the Apple market is a bigger story than Apple bowing to Intel market pressure.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Other than being technologically interesting (but no more so than going from the 68XXX to the PowerPC) what's new?
Quite honestly, I think that just the new power connector alone was worth the press. It certainly was worth the press if you consider how much press the detachable cables from the original Xbox controllers got a few years back. What's the last thing Dell has added to a notebook computer that wasn't a 'Me Too' feature? IBM and Apple are the only innovators in the notebook market space, and they deserve the press more than Dell or Microsoft.
because I am not much of an apple fanboy, and saying this makes me feel dirty -- however, they usually seem to deliver pretty well lately on the hype they are generating. Micro$oft has a tendancy of the "cry wolf" syndrome or vaporware, or delivering less than what was hyped. Apple seems to be able do live up to the hype.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Are you saying this Dell Inspiron is priced too high? Because it looks somewhat comprable to the specs of the MacBook, except that it includes much less software ( nothing at all like iLife, for example ), no Bluetooth, and that $1999 price doesn't give you a DVD-R drive even. I mean, you can quibble about the details, Apple's ATI X1600 vs Dell's Invidia 7800, etc, but... they look like comprable offerings at... the *exact* same price!
Did I check that right? I can order either a Dell top-of-the-line notebook, or an Apple top-of-the-line notebook, and they cost EXACTLY the same amount ? Damn, now what do I do?!?
Same components, same form factor, available now, cheaper, faster processor, double the ram, more hard drive space compared to the MacBook.
The media, along with Apple, is delusional.
What worries me the most about this latest Apple announcment is that the media seems to be both shocked and amazed that Apple was able to switch to Intel only 6 months after they announced the partnership.
This comes from media sources that claim to be in the business of reporting technology.
Why isn't this really all that shocking?
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it. There is no technological miracle involved in Apple getting an Intel CPU to work in a notebook formfactor, especially one designed by Intel to work in notebooks. I give a slight nod to Apple for putting it in a slightly thinner and lighter enclosure then the Acer Travelmate, but are we to believe that Apple spent the last 6 months designing the MacBook or iMac? Remeber that both the iMac and Mac mini use notebook components, so even those models are not technological miracle's as the media would have you believe. The fact that Apple moved to the Intel platfrom is not earth shattering from a hardware perspective.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX. There has always been some form of OSX avialable on some form of PC hardware. Apple hedged their bets that IBM's PowerPC may not take them everywhere they want to go, and with Wintel dominating 95% of the market, I would have been fool hardy for Apple not to recognize the potential to run their OS on an x86 based computer. Also, given that fact that Apple did not start development fresh at the moment Apple and Intel announced their partnership. Chances are, Apple already had much of this development up their sleeves. The fact they moved to the Intel platform is not earth shattering from a software perspective.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform. Apple's real design work came 3 years ago when they first created the Powerbook Aluminum line, Apple simply recycled components from the Powerbook, they didn't even change the case much except to correct weaknesses in that original design. These people foolishly believe that Apple redesigned OSX from the ground up to work on Intel hardware, but all they did was make it official.
The media hypes about Apple because Apple hypes about Apple. I will give it to Steve Jobs that he as a charisma that few other CEO's in the computer world have, or is it arrogance. It is because of that that Apple gets ANY newsplay for what they do. Remember that Apple is the underdog. The reason why there isn't any news alert for anything Bill Gates does is because there is no need to hype about Microsoft, Microsoft introduces new technology and 95% of the computer world uses that technology the next day or next month. There isn't any news alerts for Dell, Dell comes out with a new product and millions are sold the next week.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel. Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has in the computer world, zero! The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it. Its because millions will buy the Acer Travelmate and the HP dv1000t and a slew of other Intel Duo Core notebooks without a second thought.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Now that is just plain loopy.
It isn't the processor that gives Microsoft ninety-five percent of the market. It is a twenty-five year presence on the home and office desktop. It is the $600 Dell home-delivered with DVD burner snd flat-panel monitor that competes with a headless MacMini.
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SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 8, 2004 (AP)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/08/tech/ma
[about the announcement of Windows Media Center Edition 2005, not the Xbox]
Microsoft Unveils New Xbox 360
REDMOND, Wash., May 13, 2005 (AP)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/13/tech/ma
Xbox 360 beats PlayStation to Japan stores
HANS GREIMEL
Associated Press (Posted on Thu, Dec. 08, 2005)
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/133
Gates Highlights Windows Vista Program
By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer Thu Jan 5, 3:53 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060105/ap_on_hi_te/g
MTV, Microsoft team up for online music
ALEX VEIGA
Associated Press (Thursday, Jan 12, 2006)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entert
That's just from 5 minutes of Googling. Someone with a Lexis account could produce pages and pages of AP stories about Microsoft products.
Sure, the media likes to ooh and ahh over Apple, but the media likes to ooh and ahh over everything. It's ridiculous to suggest that a similar product announcement from Microsoft wouldn't go out over the AP wire.
FTA:
"Here's another good question: Why is Apple turning down Intel's marketing subsidies that go to other PC manufacturers such as Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and others? There are no "Intel Inside" logos on the new Macs, save for marks on the outer packaging for which Apple isn't being paid. A slick, new TV ad will promote the new Apple-Intel collaboration. But if Apple is leaving money on the table, wouldn't shareholders want some pointed questions asked about that?"
Here's a good answer: Because Apple is one of few companies that cares enough about the appearance and packaging of its computers that it doesn't want to make them look like stock cars by covering them with the logos of third-party parts manufacturers. And because Apple itself is a more prestigious brand than Intel, and they wouldn't have anything to gain by slapping "Intel Inside" on everything. And, oh yeah, because Intel ITSELF is phasing out the "Intel Inside" logo on the new Yonahs, if I remember correctly.
Seriously, who is the guy writing this article? This question in particular seems pretty darned obvious, at least to me.
Michael Dell is a HUGE figure in B-school, because he turned supply-chain management on its head. He took a business that was becoming a commodity, COMPLETELY commoditized it, and makes money while squeezing everyone else out.
He gets LOTS of coverage... in the business press.
Apple is arguably the most innovative company in consumer computer technology. The CORE focus on the mainstream "technology" press is the consumer computer technology. Therefore, Apple gets covered.
Note: celebrities get lots of coverage in lifestyle, but not the business section.
Very few companies play in the consumer tech space, Apple is one of them, Apple gets coverage. Other players, Sony, Symantec, anti-spyware company of the week, etc. Apple is a $6b company, which isn't small. I don't understand how on Slashdot a multi-billion dollar company in the top 200 of the Fortune 500 list gets treated like its a 5 man company in their garage, while treating random $5m tech company like a global dominating force.
Alex
Apple sells a brand. Microsoft and Dell do not. They sell software and hardware.
The Bill Gates story was an article. AP generated dozens of them from CES alone.
The Apple piece in question was an alert: a one-sentence "breaking news happening now!" thing that AP passes on to its subscribers. For example, if a UFO lands in Detroit, there will be an immediate alert, followed later by a detailed story.
Just so you know.
I can't be bothered to slog through the post to see if some one has said this ... but ... Apple has more impact in both a finical and design sense than ANY OTHER COMPUTER COMPANY because they take risk and think out side the preverbal box. Lets go through a brief list of major changes to the industry Apple has brought about.
1. USB, iMac was the first main stream machine to ship with USB and no serial.
2. Desktop digital video editing, the inclusion of FireWire on DV Cameras and Macs brought video from the $1 million editing suit to the $5000 desktop.
3. Not Beige. iMac thats all I got to say.
4. Mouse. First consumer machines
5. GUI. First consumer machines
6. DTP. Changed the industry with the WYSIWYG and high quality outline fonts
7. WiFi. First major machine to do WiFi
8. MP3. iTunes, iTunes Music Store and iPod legitimized and simplified MP3 and brought digital music to where it is today. 14 Million iPods don't lie.
Many people are quick to point out that Apple wasn't first to market with many products. But that doesn't matter. First to market only matters if you actually move the product. Apple's business practices in the last 5 years are second to none. The produce a product people want, at a price the market will bare and continue to innovate. They also continue to expand their market. All this while turning profit in a very competitive market place. This is why the get press. Their "Think Different" campaign was right on the money. They do think different from other computing companies.
Now, other firms could easily due the same things, but no other LARGE company seems to do them. I would love to see some examples of other computing companies that actually do though.
I don't think the media has that much of a crush on Apple. For a whole decade, they proclaimed them dead repeatedly. When OS X Tiger came out last April, nearly all the mainstream reviews kept referring to this weird "Windows Longhorn" thing as though it existed for comparison. They were actually comparing a shipping product to a future release that wasn't due out for another two years. It was really odd.
Last week, Bill Gates was Time Man of the Year, his CES coverage was in the news, and XBox 360 is all over the place, even MTV.
The media has done a few stories about Windows viruses lately thanks to WMF, but still refers to OS X as having "fewer viruses" instead of correctly pointing out that OS X has, since its inception, had ZERO spyware or viruses. Absolutely none.
Mostly, the difference with Apple's press coverage is that people actually pay attention to them, because their products kick ass. Nobody will remember Bill Gates' speech at CES '06. But the keynote where Apple actually released Macs that used INTEL x86 CHIPS?! Everyone will remember the MacBook Pro's introduction.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 8200
For the last umpteen years I could buy an intel machine and run Linux or Windows or Solaris or a BSD. I could also buy a PPC laptop that ran OSX or Linux or BSD. What I wanted was a Laptop of either variety with reasonable speed that could run Linux and Windows and OS X. As of February I may be able to buy such a laptop. This is different and is news. I'll read an article about this. I don't care about articles about other random laptops unless they can run OS X.
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it.
Pretty much. They also created a bluetooth remote control and incorporated a camera, in the laptop.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX.
Well, that and they created an EFI implementation, the first in a laptop I know of. Oh, and they tested things and got them working smoothly on 32 and 64 bit PPC at the same time as 32 bit intel. Oh, and they got all of their core applications working on the same. Oh and they announced they will have all their pro applications upgraded by march.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform.
You've missed the point entirely. News is not just when someone does something very well, it is when someone does something that changes things. Anybody can pull a trigger, but When John Wilkes Booth did it the news reported it constantly. Everyone knew Apple could release for the intel platform, but it is still news that they have done so.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose[sic] needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel.
Do compare what Apple has released lately to what MS has released. The press reports on what there is to report on. Apple releases new things. They report. MS releases nothing, they try to make up something and end up publishing articles that don't have any news in them.
Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has[sic] in the computer world, zero!
Actually, I use Widgets regularly. Every day, I press a button and see the weather, doppler radar, traffic reports. Many days I use the quick yellow pages, google map widget, or the simple timer to send me an alert in time to meet people for lunch. They impact my life, much more so than some random laptop I have no interest in buying.
The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it.
Yeah, but they aren't cool. They don't run OS X, just crappy old WinXP. They don't have a cool remote. They don't let you do new things. You just don't get it. Apple moving to intel is the news. It changes the industry dynamic and will change the way a lot of us work. I might be able to finally be down to one workstation. Who cares if there is a Windows box with the same specs, it isn't challenging MS's stranglehold on the market and it isn't going to fix the industry so that we can have competition and reasonable progress again. It does not carry with it the hope for an end to these computing dark ages. If Einstein had a brother who looked just like him, but would work for cheaper, would it make news?
Not to be picky but you're comparing the 1.83MHz Inspiron to the 1.67MHz MacBook, so it's not an even comparison: a more proper comparison is to compare the same size notebooks: $2499 for the 1.83MHz MacBook Pro 15.4" Screen $2173 for an equivalent Inspirion 17" Screen (Adding a DVD-R drive, Bluetooth and upgradeing to a 100MB HD) Of course the Dell still lacks the Apple software suite.
------> Insert Sigline Here
Cheaper LCD production costs.
Orientation/Movement sensors for parking hard drives before damage occurs.
Higher density disk platters.
That took about 3 seconds for me to come up with (and no research). IBM patents more new technology each year then your average 10 tech companies combined.
The reason people are excited about Apple switching to Intel processors is because people who use Apple machines for OS X now no longer have to compromise hardware performance. There is also the potential of running Windows at full speed in VMWare, greatly reducing the software-related hassles of switching.
As for gamers --- who cares about gaming? That's not Apple's market, and it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to persue it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I just kinda screwed up and gave the lower-spec Inspiron page... it looks like you can't really get the 'full specs' page for the higher-end Inspiron on it's own. Very much to Dell's credit, probably ( though I know some like their notebooks smaller, and MacBook is smaller ), it has the larger screen size in fully-decked-out-mode. But it is also actually more expensive, by over $190, and I'm not sure everyone would agree that the larger screen and 4 more USB ports are worth that, especially if you factor in the OS X/iLife difference...
But my point is this: as much as many of us think of it as expensive, it's not. It's *exactly* comparable to a similar laptop from Dell. It's time for folks like the original poster on this thread to wake up and realize that Apple is simply re-branding Intel hardware like everyone else, and surprise, surprise, charging the same mark-ups on that hardware as everyone else.
BTW, I'm not overly fanatic about Apple *hardware*, although I do think it's above-average; I'd be very happy for someone to point out a Core Duo laptop with all the stuff the MacBook has for less. It's just that I saw the OP's claim, noticed that it lacked anything to back it up, and decided to check Dell's website for Core Duo laptops... and did not find anything that made the MacBook look really overpriced. Really, I'm a bit shocked I found that to be the case... I thought for sure the Dell would be $200 cheaper, not $200 more expensive.
What's really interesting to me is that both Dell and Apple have exactly one laptop using the Core Duo processors ( the Inspiron and MacBook, respectively ), and that they're priced almost identically in two different configurations ( $1999 and well, almost identically : $2690/$2499 )... the only difficulty in comparing the laptops really is that the Dell has a larger screen, doesn't come with DVD+-R in the $1999 version, uses only the 1.8Ghz speed, and... who needs six USB ports on their laptop, what's that all about??
In the end, the truth is, comparing 1.8Ghz Core Duo laptops from Apple and Dell... the DELL is more expensive, even though it gives you less software! All that you can say in Dell's defense is they give you a larger screen ( and a heavier laptop ) and more USB ports... am I missing something, or are those the differences ?
I couldn't give a damn about the Acer travelmate laptop or any of the other windows based Intel Core Duo laptops. As long as they come with windows, they are worthless to me.
You can't directly compare Apple to the other computer manufacturers just because they now use Intel chips. Apple make the operating system and the applications. _That_ is where they are *lightyears* ahead of anybody else. MS is trying desperately to catch up with Vista. Yes I watched the video of Vista at CES and all I can say is *yawn*, I've seen this all before, on OS X Tiger and Panther. Except of course, OS X is classy and doesn't have an interface that resembles a dog's breakfast.
Bottom Line: OS X, iLife, and everything else that constitutes the "Apple Experience" is worth a premium and is far more advanced than anything else available.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!