Apple's Device Model Beats the PC Way

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Walt Mossberg argues in the Wall Street Journal that Apple's model for PCs and devices is beating Microsoft's. In early battles for dominance of the PC market, Microsoft's component-based platform crushed Apple's end-to-end model, he says. But in today's post-PC era, where the focus is on music players, game consoles and cellphones, the end-to-end model is the early winner. From the column: 'Even the Mac isn't as closed as its critics charge. It's still designed to work with Apple's own operating system and software. But it can handle all the common files Windows uses, can network with Windows machines, and can use all of the common Windows printers, scanners, keyboards and mice. The Mac gives you the same access to the Internet as Windows. Heck, the newest Macs can even run Windows itself.'"

Comments

History Repeats Itself

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

The jury is still out on whether the end-to-end model will prevail in the long term. Many at Microsoft, and some outside analysts as well, believe the new devices will eventually succumb to the component model, and that Apple's success with the iPod will fade, just as its early dominance of the PC market did.

I'd have to disagree with the above, based on the following observation:

I believe we're seeing an evolution of PCs and electronic devices that closely parallels the evolution of the electric motor. When electric motors were first available to the public, it was in a general-purpose, component model. You could buy an electric motor, and it would normally come with different belts or chains allowing you to attach them to a wide variety of other devices. Nowadays, electric motors are much more within the end-to-end model, in which they are made for a specific task and embedded in the end product.

Computing devices seem to be following that same general curve...becoming more specialized, embedded, and specific-to-task (one example: console games vs. gaming PCs). Given this inexorable movement away from the general-purpose to the application-specific, I'd have to guess that the end-to-end model will be excercising progressively more dominance in the market as time passes.

Re:History Repeats Itself

[BasilBrush]

The electric motor analogy to computer devices is one of the key arguments in the book "The Invisible Computer", by Donald A Norman in 1999. Coincidentally he used to work for Apple. Which probably made the book and his theory rather popular there. Perhaps it even provided the catalyst for Apple deciding to do the iPod. It's probably one of the best example of the kind of "invisible computer"/"information appliances" he described.

It was a good book, and probably worth reading again now to see how his predictions are going.

Re:History Repeats Itself

[amliebsch]

I think your analogy only works for "computers" to include any turing-complete integrated circuit. In that case, computers, just like motors, are already manufactured in a dizzying array of form factors, capabilities, and functions. Specialized computers are manufactured for practically every consumer product that uses electricity.

But a PC is intended and designed to be as general-use as possible. The very concept of software is to enable the device to perform functions that were not contemplated at the time of manufacturing. To the extent that the PC is modular, it fills that role better, because increasing the functionality beyond the design conception is cheaper and easier. Perhaps some people would be willing to give up the flexibility of a PC in favor of something like a game console: slicker, better at doing what it was intended to do, but limited to its designed functionality. But I think many people are attracted by the open-ended nature of possibilities created by a general-purpose PC.

Re:History Repeats Itself

[be-fan]

Being happy about being able to run Windows isn't out of any thrill of running Windows. It's a pragmatic issue: now, we can run software we can't find on OS X on the Mac. Better yet, with virtualization, we can run that software in a comfortable OS X environment. The net result is that we no longer have to keep a PC around if there is some piece of software we need to run occasionally.

Re:History Repeats Itself

[Skreems]

Actually, I think looking at things that way yields somewhat different conclusions. Look at the early PC market, for example. Apple sold completely pre-fab systems. Yeah, they came in a number of flavors (different speeds, different add-in cards) but essentially you were buying one complete system. The parts used to make such systems weren't available, even to businesses; Apple was the only one who could put together an Apple PC.

In contrast, x86 machines were built from modular components. If you wanted to, you could order different components from vendors and assemble the machine yourself. More common, though, you would pay someone else to assemble the components for you. Gateway, Dell, HP, whoever you picked, they could get the same components as every other manufacturer, and put them together, then ship it to you. You got a fully functional system, but since it wasn't proprietary you could easily swap out parts, and the competition in who was providing these pieces meant lower prices and (sometimes) better performance.

Now move to the software analogy. With Windows, Microsoft builds a bunch of pieces that they assemble into an operating system. They sell it in several different styles, and you can pick which one you want; but the pieces they use to make those systems are not available to anybody else. Another company cannot just come in, buy the parts, and assemble a version of Windows to sell to you. It's a closed market.

Linux, on the other hand, is nearly identical to the x86 market. The system is composed of a bunch of pieces that fit together in standardized ways. Many different people or groups have taken a stab at building versions of these components, though. You can take kernels patched and tweaked in any of thousands of different ways, different device systems, different GUIs, etc, and assemble them into a functional system. Individuals can do this themselves, but more often they will get a full package from some company that has taken these widely available pieces and assembled them.

The situations are parallel to a striking degree. And the results are nearly the same as well. Apple makes computers in which all the parts work together. You don't have to worry about the CPU overheating and frying the motherboard. All the parts are quality controlled, and while they may not be the very best on the market, you know the system is going to Just Work (tm). Windows is the same. You can't swap out the chron manager or the system logger if you want different functionality, but you also know that one piece of the OS isn't going to eat the rest of it. With Linux, you have a huge range of choice in which components you assemble, but that comes with the added risk that some available components are much lower quality than others, and some may be incompatible with each other; exactly the same way with assembling x86 components yourself.

In the end, who won? Well, it's not a perfect parallel, but it seems that in the long run, interchangeable parts and systems with more options won out. It took companies who would hide that abstraction from the user to do it, but Linux is getting there. Fedora, Suse, Linspire, etc are all catching on more and more, and as people start to realize that "computer" is not synonymous with "Windows", they'll continue to do so.

Re:History Repeats Itself

[BasilBrush]

But a PC is intended and designed to be as general-use as possible.

But that's just what they said about the general purpose electric motor. That's the whole point of the analogy.

As an extreme example, take Word Processing and Spreadsheet use. You may think that the same general purpose computer is best adapted to both tasks. But it's not:

Word processing on a PC is compromised because the screen is the wrong shape to fit a representation of a piece of paper on. A portrait orientation would work better. Yet for spreadsheets, landscape is better.

Likewise the keyboard is not optimised for either task. Instead of anonymous but general purpose buttons market F1-F12, and relatively arbitrary control and alt key combinations, which vary from application to application, there should be buttons marked perhaps BOLD, CENTER, STYLE etc. on the word processor and ABSOLUTE/RELATIVE or SUM on the spreadsheet.

Who knows, perhaps the spreadsheet would be better with different pointing scrolling controls. Perhaps a trackball purely for scrolling.

Perhaps the word processor should have a scanner/ocr built in. Because it doesn't need anything more than a cheap embedded CPU and no fancy 3D graphics it could have extras like that and still be a fraction of the price of a general purpose PC.

BTW, don't argue with any of the specific suggestions here. They're out of my hat and for demonstration purposes only. The point is that looking at each application separately, hardware can be designed to support a specific problem far better than the general purpose machine can. Those optimal designs would certainly be different from my examples.

I am SHOCKED!

[10Ghz]

Walt Mossberg things Macs are better than PC's?!?!?! Impossible!

Re:I am SHOCKED!

[jcr]

The man has long exhibited a keen grasp of the obvious.

-jcr

post PC era?

[a_greer2005]

when did the PC die? Netcraft never mentioned that!

What?

[Luscious868]

The Mac gives you the same access to the Internet as Windows.

What? Then please explain the following:

http://television.aol.com/in2tv/
http://www.movielink.com/
http://www.vongo.com/

There are still quite a few things on the Internet you can not do with a Mac. Leopard, if it includes built in virtulization, can't get here fast enough.

Re:What?

[rritterson]

That's only a DRM issue and has nothing to do with the platform itself.

As a slashdot user, I'm disappointed you didn't go on a rabid rant about how DRM is evil and will destroy everything we've ever worked for.

Re:What?

[amliebsch]

Maybe I misunderstood your complaint

He's not complaining or whining, he's refuting a claim that "everything works the same," and proving by counterexample that the claim is false. "Why" it's false or "whose fault it is" are irrelevant.

Re:What?

[Skadet]

Ok, I'll bite.

he's refuting a claim that "everything works the same,"

Define: straw man
"a weak or sham argument set up to be easily refuted"

The actual claim was:
"The Mac gives you the same access to the Internet as Windows."

Think of it this way:
"The Yugo gives you the same access to the highway system as Porsche."

Pragmatically true. But nobody would claim that "everything works the same".

Mossberg is "high class" infotainment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mossberg is no different than John Dvorac and Robert Cringely: he gets paid to make noise. At the end of the day he's a journalist and doesn't understand technology. If he can get a few extra tens of thousands hits from Mac phanboys dieing to hear that Steve Job's 1984 prophecy that Apple will liberate humanity, then ... hey .. whatever. I guess Mossberg and his readers are happy.

Re:Mossberg is "high class" infotainment.

[syphax]

I don't think that's fair. Dvorak and Cringely have a business model that's based on coming up with crazy shit.

Mossberg is a technologist for the common (business) man. He writes about technology from the perspective of a normal person (what we might call 'user').

There is nothing overly provacative over this particular theory, except that it is probably wrong. In new fields, integrated, proprietary technology usually gets the headstart because it can innovate faster (not having to worry about standards and such). But eventually, as the new field matures, innovation slows and the advantages of standardization and commoditization catch up. Here is an excellent talk by Clayton Christensen at the 2004 Open Source Business Conference. It is really an excellent talk. Christensen may not be 100% right, but he is at least mostly right, and has some great insights and stories.

Apple is kicking butt right now because they developed an awesome family of music players that while proprietary, are not overly so, decent software for managing said devices (iTunes is great at some things, sucky at others, but overall is pretty decent), and the first sane online music store (and kudos to them for their successful negotiations with the record labels). It's excellence of execution more than a winning business model. Plus, the industry's perceived need for some sort of DRM, which will let Apple sustain it's closed system for awhile.

If we ever get past the DRM BS (hah!), we'd at some point be able to buy music from store A and play it on player B. At that point, Apple will lose margin in both markets (stores and players) due to increased competition (right now they are exploiting the oft-talked about but rarely observed concept of 'synergy').

I Like Components...

[Quintios]

I like building my own PC's, being able to upgrade this part or the other, and being able to compare prices so I can minimize my expense as much as possible.

I don't know diddly about Apple. Can someone tell me how upgradable the typical Mac is? If I want to uprade the memory, cpu, hard drives, optical drives, gfx, etc., how easy is it to do this, and what's the longevity of the parts? How do prices compare between Apple and PC for these parts?

When you are the minority player in the market...

[gravyface]

you *have* to be interoperable with the market leader's file formats and software. Chalk this up as a "duh" and move on. Nothing to see here.

Software is the reverse

[ZachPruckowski]

In software however, I've seen a lot of the reverse: Apple's stuff working better because it uses the "bazaar" model, as opposed to MS's "cathedral". Tiger consists of at least a dozen interconnected programs, each of which is removeable and replaceable (including Dashboard, the Finder, Spotlight, Safari, the Dock, etc.) Whereas Windows is all sort of jumbled together and is less seperable or partially replaceable than OS X.

Re:Software is the reverse

[diamondsw]

Ha! Great in theory, but just [b]TRY[/b] to replace the Finder completely, the Dock, or Spotlight. Good luck. They should be easily replaceable (and this was the original vision in the Rhapsody Design documents), but they aren't in practice. It's still very much cathedral style, just like Windows (in that respect, anyway).

Re:Software is the reverse

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

In software however, I've seen a lot of the reverse: Apple's stuff working better because it uses the "bazaar" model, as opposed to MS's "cathedral".

Dear God Man!

If Raymond read that, he would die, bury himself & start spinning.

From wikipedia (as ESR is a nutcase & I won't link to his new book).

* The Cathedral model, in which source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.
* The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process. He also provides anecdotal accounts of his implementation of this model for the fetchmail project.

Both Apple & MS follow cathedral models - what you're thinking of is a unixy 'lots of useful little bits you can string together' vs 'big monoloithic and single use' models.

The article submitter...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is "Carl Bialik from WSJ" with e-mail address "wsjarticles@wsj.com"
This for an article published on the WSJ web site.
I think that about says it all.

---
This anonymous post was brought to you by the image-protected password "profuse"

Re:The article submitter...

[ObligatoryUserName]

... is "Carl Bialik from WSJ" with e-mail address "wsjarticles@wsj.com"
This for an article published on the WSJ web site.
I think that about says it all.


What exactly does it say? It says that someone working at the Wall Street Journal was one of the first people to know that article was live and knew it would be interesting to Slashdot. (If it wasn't interesting it wouldn't have gotten posted, right? If there was posting-payola involved they wouldn't have made it so obviously submitted by the newspaper, would they?)

That someone from the WSJ would submit their articles isn't surprising is it? Slashdot has been around for quite a few years now and its original mainstream claim to fame was its large audience(Slashdot effect). There might be a hint of impropriety if the submitter had hidden their identity, but as it is, what's the problem?

convert

[xao gypsie]

This is prolly just going to get modded to an oblivion, but i recently found my wife's older g3 ibook. i added some ram, got a new battery (4 hours of life!!!), and put panther on it, and even the g3 run better than my athlon xp 3000 with windows (now it just has bsd).

I am so impressed with the way os x works. it is fast, accessible (through the bsd subsystem) and i can do anything on my ibook than i can on my desktop (no i dont game). After my experiences running a mac, i will never buy another non-mac pc. even if that means that i have to wait to save more money, they last longer and run better than windows machines.

But what about the Games!?

[azcoffeehabit]

Apples end-to-end device model seems to me to only be coming out of Apple's devices. Of course when you make the device, make the computer, make the operating system, and sell the service you are gonna have a good end-to-end device model. If you don't than you have a serious problem within your company.

I don't see any third parties being given access to the Mac's core to provide alternative end-to-end device solutions. Their end-to-end model is nothing more than Plug-n-Play when it comes to third partys.

My critisizm... Where are the games?
One of the biggest reasons new PCs are purchased as well as all of the new componants for the PCs are the games. Video games can be directly attributed to the reason computers are getting pushed faster and faster in the consumer market. Up until vista, the non gaming user would never need a 128Mb DX10 graphics card. People don't need a PPU to use Excel. Heck, even laptops have been hovering at 1.7Ghz for the last 3 years!

Apple has yet to get the support of the gaming development companies. Sure there are a few games getting released now and then, usually months or years after the general PC/Console release.

Has Apple even attempted to get into this market?

Re:But what about the Games!?

[Pengo]

I have been a PC gamer for years and it has been the primary reason that a Mac usually sits to the side of my windows machine, and not in front of it. As I have gotten older and my free time is more and more sparse, I tend to enjoy less and less video games and more and more console games as I can jump on and off and enjoy.

The only game I have played on a computer in the last year is World of Warcraft, which now plays nicely on my MacBook Pro.

The rest of my entertainment from video games consists of an occasional round of Fight Night 3 on my xbox 360 or some hack'n'slash with Oblivion (again on the 360) or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (again on the 360).

My gaming career was on the PC, never gave the consoles much credit as I could build a PC to do much better graphics and seemed to have more fun online playing games.

But , other than my occasional WoW binges, who wants to be cramped in a corner of the house huddled behind a PC when you can spend that time hanging with your kids playing fun games behind a 65" high-def TV with graphics that match what I am seeing on my PC, without any compromise of playing online with other people (via. xbox live for example).

To get to the point of my rant, that's the biggest reason my Mac is now a viable computer for me.. not the interoperability, but more the fact I don't really game on my PC any longer.

Expense is more than cash at the register.

[Skadet]

I like building my own PC's, being able to upgrade this part or the other, and being able to compare prices so I can minimize my expense as much as possible.

You end up paying one way or another. How many of us have found/been given a part (a 28.8 modem in my case, when the 14.4 was king) and spend hours getting it to work? I suppose if you don't value your time at all, your argument makes sense. But more often than not, you can either 1) buy a quality component that Just Works but costs a lot, or 2) "shop around" and "minimize expense" (at the register) and spend a few days tweaking it to work, costing you time with your wife/girlfriend/kids/dog.

My roommate, for example, bought an MB/CPU combo from Fry's along with the rest of the components necessary for a working computer. By all accounts, the thing should be cranking away, but Windows won't get through setup. For the heck of it I tried installing an old version of RH I had lying around, no luck there either. Long story short, he's wasted TONS of his own time and countless hours of mine all in the name of saving a few bucks.

By the way, the 17" Powerbook that's on my desk -- picked it up about 5 months ago. Never crashes. Installed a bluetooth KB & mouse without having to reboot(!). Running an external monitor, and it remembers that if I have my second monitor hooked up, I want the LCD's rez to be lower, but if I don't have that second monitor hooked up, I want full rez on the LCD. Point being -- the stuff just works.

I don't know diddly about Apple...

Maybe if you spent less time shopping around you'd have time to relax and read about Apple or some other tech that interests you? (BTW plenty of good resources to answer your questions above on the web).

Re:Expense is more than cash at the register.

[Golias]

The other Macs really are difficult to upgrade. Just take a stroll into an Apple store, pick up a Mac Mini and see if you can tell how to even open the case.

What is the deal with this fear of the Mac mini?

Hard-core overclocking freaks, who think nothing of sinking an entire $1500 game PC into a bath of cooking oil as a solution to keep the processor cool at 112% of the reccommended clock speed, are suddenly terrified of using a putty knife to back a few soft plastic clips on the CASE of a $600 computer.

"Woah! d00d, I heard a rumor on Slashdot that Apple might void your warranty if you even add memory to it! Better just put it up on a pedistal and never even look directly at it, or it might a'splode! I'll call a Certified tech to get this keyboard plugged in."

All I can do is shake my head in disgust.

Macs can network; Windows boxes can't.

[mrchaotica]

The problem is not that Macs don't support Microsoft's proprietary technology; the problem is that Windows doesn't support real standards like NFS and Kerberos!

Ultimately, Apple only needs a solid minority...

[Stick_Fig]

...to come out a winner long-term. The PC market is huge, and as long as Apple keeps its niche comparable to the market share that other hardware companies have (i.e. its market share should be compared with HP and Dell, not Microsoft), then they've succeeded in the market.

Let's stop making this a Apple v. Microsoft fight, because it hasn't realistically been one for a while.

Re:macs are great

[Wizard Drongo]

I call bullshit. My pal has a MacBookPro. It's damned cool. If I had £1500 I would have one too. It runs every game you can think of for Windows very well. Doom 3 plays flawlessly at native res, with all the options. So does HL2, GTA3, Tomb Rider Legend, and a whole shitload of older games. I don't think it can currently play older DOS-based games, but that's more that XP can't do them old games, and the MacBookPro won't run anything older than Win2k. No matter whether you love or hate Mac's, or your opinion of the switch to Intel, there is no excuse for the FUD you spouted. Now, the old PowerPC macs, yeah, due to the limitations of virtualisation couldn't do 3D, but that wasn't Apple's fault. They didn't write VirtualPC. Microsoft and before them Connectix did. But the new Macs run games exceptionally well. So much so that when the MacBookPro was launched, it was (famously) the fastest windows laptop you could buy! Please get it right in future!

Missing the change...

[alexhmit01]

Here is the thing to remember...

1985, Apple's offering is about $4000, the IBM offering is ONLY $3000... A few years later, Apple's offering remains about $3500, IBM compatibles are $2000...

Now, remember we have 20+ years of inflation... That $4000 machine from Apple is like spending $10,000 in today's dollars ($8000 from inflation, another $2000 from income increases)

For a while, the price differential was huge.

Now? The "Apple is expensive" crowd is sounding increasingly absurd. The Mac Mini is like $500-$700, the Dell is $400-$600... Sure there is a price differential, but it's now small. $100-$200 difference is NOTHING compared to the $1500 ($3000-$3500 in today's dollards) difference.

A family today often has two computers, maybe more. My Apple //c was the family computer for 5 years, because even the cheap Apple was expensive.

Five years ago, the idea of a central home computer with WinTerms seemed like a possible future. Now, why bother, the workstations are basically free. We don't have modular systems, we have digital hubs...

10 years ago I went to college with a computer containing: a motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, 3D acceleration card, ethernet card, SCSI card, sound card, 2-3 hard drives, CD-ROM, CD-Recorder, etc....

Now, I use a MacBook Pro, but it wouldn't matter if I had a PC... I'd have a machine with a keywork, mouse, monitor, and box. Upgrades? Everything is on-board, USB/Firewire peripherals add my expansion. Do I need to upgrade a video card? Why bother, when you can get an entire computer for $400-$600 why do I need replacable parts? Only on laptops where a $2k-$3k replacement cost may matter do I even think about how nice it would be for a speed up.

Computers are cheap and disposable.

Alex

It's not an end-to-end model.

[Inoshiro]

Capitalism is a funny system because of a few basic assumptions it needs to function well. One of those assumptions is that users will know things, like what is a better product to buy. Because of this, people who sell shoddy equipment on unreliable gear will not succeed.

Now let's apply this. I have a PowerBook that is very reliable. I also have a desktop that's very reliable (in fact, 3). However, these desktops are component-based machines; they run Linux. How is it that these component-based macchines are as reliable as my end-to-end model PowerBook? I bought components which aren't garbage. AMD CPUs, Kingston lifetime warranty RAM, Enermax power supplies, etc. It's more expensive than what most people probably buy, but I've never had a peap of trouble. I know what components to buy because I take the time to look into it, and because I only buy components that the Linux kernel supports (which, for some reason, happen to me more reliable than random Taiwanese garbage).

With Apple's model, we skip this step. Apple themselves takes the time to try and get quality components that work reliable with OS X. Since they vend the machine and the hardware, they can't hide behind the "Windows sucks" excuse the way cheaper component suppliers can. However, and this is important to note, they're still interested in shrinking costs as much as possible to maintain their fat margins, and they still like to charge a high markup. Plus, they're not immune from mistakes (note the GOBS of heatsink goo on the heatpipes of the 15" MacBook Pros). This means they don't always do as good a job as someone who knows what I do.

Really, it's just moving the burden of choosing chocolates from shit from the consumer up the chain a bit, but even then it's not perfect. If you want thinks done right, do it yourself -- learn about PC construction, or pay someone you trust (be it Apple or your friend). If you just go buy the cheapest thing you can, you're on a roller-coaster ride to the bottom in terms of quality and consistency -- that's why Wal-mart's stuff is different (they have different product badged the same to cut costs), and also why Wal-mart is not always the best place to shop.

Adam Smith's invisible hand requires you to do research!

Re:Modularity was because things broke easy

[cmacb]

"Heck, you can't hardly find a mother board these days without sound and network not built in."

I won't not fail to come back and not read this post when I don't have less time on my hands to not figure out what it doesn't say.

Or something.

Busted

[SuperKendall]

Sounds to me like he had your number on that first email, and I'm afraid your rambling was a bit too much to take on the second, I couldn't finish reading it so I rather doubt Walt did as well.

Accusing someone of corruption is a pretty easy path to take when you lack the intellect to come up with real counterarguments.

How is that closed?

[jejones]

From TFA: "Critics attack the iPod and iTunes as 'closed' and 'proprietary'...but..iTunes and the iPod work on Windows computers, not just Macs. So how is that closed?"

From The Blues Brothers: "We have both kinds o' music here—country and western!"