Slashdot Mirror
Apple Reaches 12% Market Share In U.S. Notebooks
bonch writes "Apple's U.S. notebook market share has doubled to 12% after shipping 1.33 million Macs in the quarter. Apple also shipped 8.11 million iPods, topping analyst estimates, for a net income of $472 million. Remember when Apple was dying?" From the article: "The iPod shipments appeared to calm investors worried that growth in that red-hot business was slowing and Apple's results topped what analysts had said was a conservative forecast. Shares of Apple were down some 24 percent since early May. 'Apple looked good,' said Jane Snorek, technology analyst with First American Funds. 'The PC numbers were great, too.'"
Good news for Apple, great news for ubuntu and of course Excellent news for lovers of fried eggs :-)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
From TFA:
"Based on Tuesday's closing prices, Apple shares this year had declined 26 percent, compared with a 12 percent decline in the Morgan Stanley High Technology Index , of which Apple is a component. Apple stock more than doubled in 2005, after tripling in 2004, largely on booming sales of the iPod."
That a sharp drop in share prices after 2 years of huge growth. Altho their revenu and profits are good, why is their share price going down?
I think its the fact that people realize:
a) You can only sell so many ipods, as more products come out, and more people already have them, they will sell less and less ipods
b) Intel Macs are over prices, and i belive that sales will slow once the "newness" passes.
Profits are good, but when your stock starts to fall after 2 years of going up sharply, that has to be a sign of something t come?
-EL
Timber!
They're blaming a "global economic slowdown" but it looks to me like Apple are eating Dell's lunch.
More
Apple makes an OS that is very good for portable computing especaly when used as a secondary machine. Plus while they charge a bit more than market they make up for that with design and included fetures not often found on the sub $1500 range (oviously talking Macbooks here).
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
Apple might only have 12% of the market share in US Notebooks, but it's the top 12% :)
John
The top goes to free Unices.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
This is great news for Apple and all, and I want to see their market share increase as much as the next guy, but this estimate of marketshare is based on units *shipped*. Doesn't Sony use the same kind of logic when talking about PSP market share? Shouldn't we be looking at units *sold*?
Apple does a great job of making products people want to buy.
With the iPods, they seem to be unstoppable. No matter what other companies offer, people want the iPod + iTunes more. With laptops, they make a sexier product than almost anyone else. Even the die-hard Windows folks I know are buying Apple laptops, running OS X + Windows via BootCamp or via Parallels.
To top it off, they do all this with higher profit margins than any other company. It's no surprise that their market share, and their stock, are both on the rise.
The bigger Apple's market share, the more we'll see:
Competition. Microsoft has been lazy because they dominated the market for so long. If Apple becomes a serious competitor in the business world (where they're just really beginning to scratch the surface) then MS will feel the pinch and be forced to raise the quality of their product. We've seen nothing but good results from the CPU and video card races and price wars.
Realism. As Apple becomes more mainstream and falls into the hands of less competent users, we're going to see a lot of the myths about Apple go away. Its vaunted security comes at the price of ease of use, and I think we'll be seeing a lot of people wondering why they can't do on their Mac what they could do on their Dell...the answer is because they shouldn't have done it on the Dell to begin with, but that's beside the point. I've long said that for Apple to make a play for market dominance they'll have to dumb down their OS the way Microsoft did, and that will make them vulnerable, the same as Microsoft.
Less hypocrisy. Right now I see people on just about every tech site that will tear into Microsoft for packaging a browser with Windows, but praise Apple for packaging an OS with every PC, and dozens of applications with every OS. If Apple takes a large chunk of the market, we're going to have to hold them to the same standard we do Microsoft, meaning that we should be demanding an end to their anticompetitive practices of bundling their own software.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Laptops have always been something that Apple has done well. They are sleek, fast as hell and other than the heat issues with the current crop (I'm running a MacBook Pro right now and cooking breakfast) as stable or more so than most other offerings. Will this thread start a flame war? Probably. But for crying out loud, they are tools, not a religion. I'm running both XP and OS X through Boot Camp. I wouldn't have gotten a mac laptop if that weren't possible. Their sales will go up because of this, but probably not anything that Dell needs to worry about. OS X's strengths tend to lie in niche groups (Music, Video and Graphics) or the arcane (command line *nix world). Win XP does everyday business tasks in a more comprehensible manner for most folks because most folks have been trained that way. Having both is a great thing for geeks. I know I'm happy about it. Apple saw this and is embracing it, but it won't give them the market share most are saying it could. They still will be, for the foreseeable future, a small segment.
"It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
If you think about it, Apple's laptops really are the top 12%. I've gone through two laptops in twice as many years, and having worked on/with a ridiculous variety of brands & models, I've finally come to realize that all laptops are crap. Not only that, all laptop manufacturers are crap, too.
Except, of course, Apple, and possibly IBM/Lenovo. Apple makes decent machines, only slightly overpriced, and when they break (as practically every laptop I've ever encountered has done within two years of use, some spectacularly so) Apple has a history of going to great lengths to fix their mistakes. Remember the iBooks with faulty motherboards? How many of those did Apple replace with newer models (models with double the RAM and disk space)?
They have their faults, and their mistakes, but by-and-large I'd say Apple is one of the few laptop manufacturers whom I'd trust well enough to buy from.
Oh, and those spectacular failures?I'm considering buying a new laptop and Apple ones are looking pretty interesting right now. However, I have some rather strange requirements: I want it to run games (meaning a "real" graphics card), I want it to run Linux (for school work), and I'd prefer if Linux could take full advantage of the graphics card (since I'm helping develop a 3D game for Linux). How easy is it to set up Linux on a Macbook (including Wifi), and how good is Linux support for the ATI video card in Apple laptops? Also, is there some non-Apple laptop you would recommend for games which is not insanely hot or noisy? I was thinking of Dell's gaming laptops but I'm sure they must have some competition.
...but it will take time.
And, Apple will always be a niche competitor. To me, that's a good thing...it will keep them more nimble and focused on innovation. If Apple;s marketshare culd top out around 10%, it'd be prefect. Large enough that software developers would be hesitant to ignore the market, but small enough so Apple could keep up the pace of improving the OS's foundation rather than focusing as much on backward compatibility as Microsoft.
It seems like everyone wants this iPod "halo effect" to happen immediately, but sea change will not happen in the computer industry overnight, and Microsoft will remain top dog. In fact, many new Apple users will be running Windows on Apple's hardware...
gameDB
Altho their revenu and profits are good, why is their share price going down?
I think a better reason is that the overall computer hardware business has fallen nearly 30% over the last two months:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5ESOXX&t=1y.
my blog
As of this morning, Apple was at $52B to Dell's $50B. Right now, Dells down to $43B. Dell should sell off the company's assets and divide the proceeds amongst shareholders ;)
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Retail does NOT include corporate or contract sales.
12% of Retail sales is impressive, but Apple also had the advantage of all new products.
Lets see what it looks like this time next year.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
For those who can't remember...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Problem is, computer sales themselve are way down. I beleive this is a fad shift. Don't get me wrong. Apple makes a beautiful desktop, but the hype around iPod and the hype the music/movie industry is giving Apple is really giving them a boost. Software wise it's still lacking desktop wise to Windows and server wise is lacks to both Windows and Unix/Linux. It is beautiful and what it does it does well. I just find that it doesn't do enough. Then again, thats just me and why I dual boot Linux and Windows. (actually virualize these days)
btw, I want to punch that "Mac Guy" in those new Apple commericals more than I ever wanted to punch the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" guy. Something about his attitude just grates me. The exact attitude you would expect from Steve Jobs hah.
"If Apple takes a large chunk of the market, we're going to have to hold them to the same standard we do Microsoft, meaning that we should be demanding an end to their anticompetitive practices of bundling their own software."
If I wanted some random PC components without worrying about software, I'd buy some random PC laptop or the nice, naked Linux laptops that are out there. Apple's software is the value-add that makes the laptop worth buying. I'd never submit to having a Linux or a Windows laptop because the OS X experience is so good -- when you have the same people making the hardware as writing the software, things Just Work (TM). Not like when you have random 3rd-party OEMs writing broken drivers for a closed OS, or patient programmers desperately trying to reverse engineer specs for hardware which also has undocumented bugs and problems!
MacOS X is why I buy Apple equipment.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
You know...I feel bad for those in those conditions, but, if it weren't Apple they were working for, it would be for someone else. The 'sweat' isn't going to go away...if no one employed them...they'd have no money coming in and NO jobs...
Would that actually be better? If we all just stopped buying products that were made it places like this...I doubt that would spawn better working conditions...actually probably worse, since they would have no source of income...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The more jobs that go overseas to low-wage workers...
The less people over there that are unemployed...
The more demand there are for workers there...
The more those workers are payed.
Economics like this actually works. I was reading recently in Time or Newsweek that India is outsourcing some of the jobs that have been outsourced to them. Indian jobs are moving to China and Vietnam because the demand for workers in India has increased the wages there.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
The more people use macs the less we'll see fewer and fewer "internet explorer" only web sites. This has been a good trend.
With firefox and the fact that most people use the web alot for everything, it makes a transition from windows to linux on the desktop easier.
And China is simultaneously experiencing rising wages and labor shortages.
I don't know why labor protectionists are determined to raise trade barriers (fair trade?), but I think it is rooted in racism.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Apple traditionally does not keep much inventory around, they have a few in stores but mostly laptop sales come online where they build to order.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With apple computers I can choose not to use OS X on any of the computers they ship.
If I don't want to use iPhoto, or Safari I can just remove them.
With IE it's very hard to entierly remove it from the system.
Merely including a program with an OS is a far different matter than intractibly binding it in the deepest layers of the OS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What Mr. CFO did not do, was define exactly what the bold-faced phrase in his quote actually means. I accuse him of jockying with the statistics. I suspect that the "U.S. retail notebook market" excludes Internet-direct sellers, like Dell, and probably corporate sales as well. I would imagine this is looking at only brick-and-mortar (or glass in Apples' case) retail stores.
The Macbook has the intel integrated graphics, so it's not as good for gaming as the Macbook Pro, which has a pretty decent Radeon x1600.
Also the Parallels virtualization people are working on getting that to have a direct passthrough for DirectX, right now you have to use Bootcamp and reboot for games. Then again, a dedicated gaming partition is a good idea anyway I think so you can tweak they hell out of it without affecting everyday system stability.
The question to ask is really why you'd get any other laptop, when the Macbook Pro can run OS X and Windows (together or seperate boot) and even Linux under virtualization, whereas with any other laptop you can only run Linux and Windows. Give yourself the maximum flexibility.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Durh...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
you mean i can stop upgrading my powerbook 1400?
If Apple became the dominant computer manufacturer then not only would you be stuck with a single OS, but also a single hardware manufacturer as well! As a system builder I can choose a variety of parts. But if Apple was in charge that would all come to an end. Don't let those little piss ant Apple fanbois fool you, if you want real freedom switch to Linux or *BSD. In fact the world is much worse off with Apple in charge.
This is only true when you can't just go further overseas. Eventually it will be true, but the whole fucking world will be heavily industrialized by then.
See, if all this is so true, why are the Maquiladoras still owning Mexico? And why have [a couple] plants been closed down there, and replacements opened elsewhere?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What's wrong with the whole world being pulled out of abject poverty and living in industrialized nations? That's pretty much the whole point, isn't it?
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Apple seems to be doing well with market share in the US, whatever the 12% figure really means (retail vs. total computers, etc)
...but also, because Apple still has yet to even try to make offerings at the
truly low level of computing... ,
:-) but if you look at, say, the MacMini they're using Core Duo's, those are NOT what's going into the 300 or 400 Dells and whiteboxes, but is more of a mid-level processor...
but what they really need to look after is their world wide numbers...
If you go to any country thats not in the USA-Western Europe-Australia-Japan club, macs are ridiculously rare...
And EVERYONE uses MSN messenger, etc... (I just got back from Mexico)
In many cases, this is partly the fault of bad distribution, which means alot of mark up by the local (non-Apple) distributors
(yes, in the modern, global, internet era, if you don't have US/EU credit card, you don't count)
Now with MacIntels, you can compare Apple to Apple
...hopefully, once the next gen Conroes and Meroes are standardized, Apple can continue offering the Core Duo machines at a lower price point to compete in the true low end market...
I really think they just decided to standardize completely on the Core architecture, including SSE3, so hopefully as the current Mac mini Core Duo CPUs are dropped in price by Intel, they can keep offering the same power level at lower and lower price points.
>> Notice that every year except 2002, the stock price started accelerating after WWDC. Apple stock, therefore, is usually flat or slightly downward trending for the first half of the year.
You claim the years of 2003, 2004 and 2005 demonstrate a cyclical trend of AAPL, which should presumably carry through 2006. Notwithstanding the tiny sampling of three years, you're pulling something out of nothing. In 2003, the share price was increasing quickly several months before WWDC, and growth actually slowed immediately after. In 2004 overall growth was strong throughout the entire year, there is no flat or downward trend prior to WWDC. In 2005 lies your only possibly valid example of any "WWDC effect." One data point obviously cannot establish a trend, and the downward movement of the stock nearly centered on WWDC. There weren't 6-months of stagnation before June 6 followed by growth. It went down for 2 months before WWDC, then down for another 2 months before it turned up. There's no 6 months of falling, 6 months of rising anywhere So where's this cyclical you're talking about?
Well, I don't know about racism. While some may have racist reasons for protectionism, I don't think the majority do. I tend to think these kinds of things are more based on a shortsightedness of the situation. Sure, jobs may go overseas, but at the same time, your cost of living has decreased because you can now get Product X cheaper. And if you really wanted that job so badly, why weren't you willing to be paid less to do it (of course that's a whole 'nother issue)? Not only that, but let the living standards increase in other countries, and they'll be able to afford to buy all of our luxuries Made in the USA. And if somebody can do it better than us, well then we'll just have all the more reason to apply some American creativity to do it cheaper, better, or faster. Protectionism is actually sort of the reverse of racism, because if you support protectionism, you're actually saying that your country is weak and useless without help.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
In my view, there are two good reasons for opposing off-shoring of jobs:
1. Most of the countries these jobs are going to don't have labour standards we (in Europe, for example) would consider tolerable. The way they treat their workers is simply wrong, and allowing jobs to move there is effectively saying to workers that if they want such jobs, they must agree to give up all of the hard-won labour rights/privileges past generations struggled so hard to achieve.
2. When strategically important industries are off-shored is to corrupt, non-democratic regimes, there is a risk of allowing our own countries to fall under the influence of the corrupt dictators who run them. Such policies thus effecively undermine our hard-won democratic freedoms.
Put another way, if you truly believe in things like democracy, human rights and labour rights, you must be against supporting those who oppose such concepts. Buying goods from those who behave in ways which would be considered wrong/criminal in our own countries is no more moral than buying stolen goods from organised criminals. If you value cheap goods over morality, so be it, but at least admit this is your motivation.
Altho their revenu and profits are good, why is their share price going down?
Stock price is about expected future growth, not current revenue. The current iPod results were *expected* and already built into *past* stock prices. In other words, outstanding iPod sales is why Apple was around 60 a week or so ago rather than around 30. Meeting those great expectations keeps the price stable, it does not raise it. To raise it you need an expectation of future growth.
Hey, if there's hope for Apple, maybe there's still some hope left for BSD!
To be fair, most people who lost their jobs because the company moved the job overseas weren't asked "would you be willing to take a [whatever percent] paycut to keep your job". There was even a case reported on Slashdot of a programmer who, after being told his job was going to India, tried to keep his job by offering to MOVE TO INDIA and take a paycut. The reply he got was "we don't hire americans".
On a macro level, I agree with what you are saying, but I still have sympathy for individuals who lose jobs through no fault of their own.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I think a lot of the problem is that corporations are using offshoring as a way to dodge the worker and environmental protections we have in the US and Europe.
Last quarter's income for Apple: $410 million
Last quarter's income for Dell: $1 Billion
Enough said.
$1,000,000,000 in income dosn't mean squat if you spent $1,000,000,001 to make it.
I recently bought my first Mac, a 2.0 Ghz MacBook. I've admired OS X from afar and during visits to the nearest Apple retail store for a couple of years, but I finally took the plunge. Why'd I finally do it? 1) Intel chips are fast enough that a Mac is performance/price competitive 2) I can dual boot to Windows or run Parallels Desktop if I want to 3) I'm sick of Microsoft's B.S.
So now that I've logged some time on a Mac, doing the types of things I used to do on my windows box, I can honestly say it was worth every penny of the "premium" to own an Apple machine vs. a Dell/HP/Compaq. The hardware is beautifully designed, the included software is actually USEFUL, and OS X is to die for (a geek's dream come true).
While I'm head and shoulders above the "average computer user" (read: drooling moron), I'm a fairly typical Slashdot reader. If the Mac lineup is compelling enough to make me switch, there has to be hundreds of people reading this that are thinking of switching too. My advice... do it, you won't be sorry.
I think a lot of the problem is that corporations are using offshoring as a way to dodge the worker and environmental protections we have in the US and Europe.
And why is that a problem? Those policies are the will of the people? Nobody is yelling at China or Russia to sign Kyoto despite their huge share of the production pie.
The opposite of progress is congress
When it comes to Apple, all anyone wants to talk about these days is hype. Hype with iPods. Hype with Intels running on Macs. Steve Effing Jobs.
/.-ers will point to a few bad Apples (ha!) that slipped by QC, but by and large they work, and work better. That's why Apple is doing well.
Does it ever occur to you that people buy Apple because the products work? Sure,
If hype sold product we'd all be running into each other on Segways. Get real.
Should I wait, or buy an iPod now?
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
The more people use macs the less we'll see fewer and fewer "internet explorer" only web sites (score: +3 Intersting? Try score: -1 revisionism)
When Bill Gates rescued Apple from bankruptcy, part of the deal was that Apple would
attack Netscape and only support Microsoft Internet explorer. Evidence here.
Truth hurts, I know. Fanboys need to suck it up, though.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
...But I'm waiting for the day when *somehow* IBM/Lenovo sticks OS X on their laptops.
That'd be one fucking sweet laptop.
Not only could you "safely go on the internets" but you can do so while you're beating someone on the head with it! Indestructable both inside and outside!
Perl, n. A language spoken by Eskimos.
Yes, but it will be a long time coming and in the meantime we are shitting on people. We could all get there quicker with a little cooperation. Not that I expect it or anything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Look at the history of labor in the US or any other industrialized nation. Every country has growing pains when it industrializes. To expect that every other country will just suddenly pop up to where we are with worker's rights, etc. overnight is naive. There are also cultural considerations. Every country has to go through its own process at developing.
I'd say I'm on the side of morality, because I can see in the future the world where people have living wages no matter where they live. It's better for somebody to be working 15 hour workdays for almost nothing than to have no job at all, and a greater demand for labor only leads to companies giving in to worker's demands. Someday down the line when every 3rd world country has too many jobs and not enough laborers, you'll see why what I'm saying makes sense.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Additionally, there is the phenomenon in the market of buying on the rumor and then selling when the facts are out. It's a subset of market timing strategies.If you look at the last 8 or 9 years or so, I bet that you'd find a lot of buying just prior to MWSF or WWDC with lots of selling right after the keynote. This might have changed slightly in the last year or so, as more people have become interested in Apple as an investment.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
How exactly are we "shitting" on them? I mean, we're giving them jobs they wouldn't have otherwise, or they'd be in those jobs and not the crappy ones we're outsourcing, right? These people aren't stupid. As far as they're concerned, they at least have a job, unlike many many of their countrymen. And they're also spending their wages on food and necessities, they don't (yet) have the taste of your typical American (I'd argue human) greed for luxuries. They're still in poverty, sure, but they're better off than they were before whatever big corporation came in there. And if people in wealthy countries keep spending money on things to create more jobs in these poor countries, then your supply-and-demand will kick in, where the workers are what's in demand and in short supply.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
What I want to know is who picks the Mexicans lettuce?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Well, in the case of Mexico, we actively work to fuck up their politics so that they never recover, and we can keep exploiting them.
But the most significant aspect in many cases is pollution. A big part of the cost savings is that these companies can go someplace they can pollute all they want. When the country becomes more wealthy and the laws change, they pull out, sell most of their equipment for scrap and ship it out of the country so no one can use it, and leave behind a big dirty smoking hole full of pollutants.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NT
>>They may have cancelled the eMac, but they introduced the Education iMac. eMacs never! I am a diehard vim user.
eom
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
That Dell has an X1600? And OS X? And all the niceties of Apple's design? And the same quality display? And keyboard? And I'd like it just as much? And it'll hold its value just as well for when I want to sell it in two years? And it has the same quality support? And I can just take it down to the local Dell store two blocks away if it breaks (yeah right)?
What is the point of all these comparisons? There are so many variables that such things are completely useless. You don't compare a BMW and a Chevy on horsepower, torque, size, and weight alone. I'm not making any value judgments here -- the Dell can be the BMW for all I care -- But my point is there are dozens of issues to make comparisons on, not just the four or five biggest numbers.
hahahahaha /rolls eyes
Most industries are not dominated by one company the way that desktop computing is dominated by Microsoft.
This report is good news not because Apple is more in charge, but because Microsoft is less in charge. The ideal situation would be 33% each Apple, Microsoft, and Linux desktops. That would provide max choice, max competition, and therefore max innovation and min prices.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Good thing the Chinese are already smarter than that, with every business partnership in China having a majority Chinese ownership, good luck selling your "equipment for scrap", they will simply get rid of you and find another willing partner.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Yes. China is being smart about it. Too bad they have no respect for human life, and are only trying to make sure that the powers that be in China get to fuck over the Chinese, instead of global corporations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ironically, I bought my MacBook because I was tired of dealing with crappy WinTel hardware, with the most recent problem being ... it randomly turned off. Sigh.
And if you really wanted that job so badly, why weren't you willing to be paid less to do it
Perhaps the cost of living is higher than the country being offshored to.
Not only that, but let the living standards increase in other countries, and they'll be able to afford to buy all of our luxuries
And they will demand higher wages, and eventually we'll be back where we started. In the meantime, they won't be able to buy our luxuries, nor will the workers who have been laid off.
Of course those websites and reports make it seem like it's worse than it really is. With the internet and people posting their rants to numerous websites, things like that get blown up making it seem like it's a huge problem when really it's not. Apple solves any problems with their products and people get their problems fixed usually for free in most cases.
of course they ratified (signed) it. It basically says "USA needs to stop polluting, nevermind the rest of the world." Just like I'd vote to raise your taxes.
The problem is, that once those countries become industrialized, their citizens get to live in 3 bedroom, 2 car garage houses with a yard, and all that waterfront real estate and beer prices go sky high for the rich American, Canadian, and European tourists who like to frequest economically depressed areas.
Well, in the case of Mexico, we actively work to fuck up their politics so that they never recover, and we can keep exploiting them. How? Good thing you don't have any money to put where your mouth is, because I just called your bluff.
They use cilantro. And most likely import it from the USA, where it can be grown cheaper.
I wonder how much of this increase has been due to the ThinkPad line moving from IBM to Lenovo? IBM ThinkPads were often cited as the most reliable notebooks after Apple, but many people (rightly or wrongly) don't seem to feel the same about Lenovo's ThinkPads. And now that Apple notebooks can run Windows...
What's wrong with the whole world being pulled out of abject poverty and living in industrialized nations? That's pretty much the whole point, isn't it?
Yes. Like much growth and improvement, it is temporarily disruptive and painful, particularly to those who have entered a 'comfort zone' based on the status quo.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Look around at the other responses moderator and try to find one that says anything I am.
Good luck in metamod.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There will always be some moron from the press (columnist probably... they are the worst) that will say Apple will be out of business in two years.
And you end up spending as much on a cheap PC cause you have to buy all this crappy software. Or hunt around for crappy shareware, and hence, get viruses.
I made my mom get a Mac cause I said I wouldn't help her fix her PC (I do not want her calling to ask me what an interrupt channel is). Now she amazes her friends that she can send picture (properly sized ones), make DVD's of her own movies with transitions and credits and everything, download video podcasts, etc. Her friends can send mail, as long as it's web-mail, and perhaps listen to music. They're all talking about getting Macs now.
Maintenance:
The above easily makes up the price difference.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
That's why IE for Mac is a dead end that hasn't been updated for years, while Apple's own web browser is based on a Linux HTML engine.
Clear, Dark Skies
I'm not surprised that Apple's notebook share rose sharply. I knew something big was coming to replace the G4 PowerBooks, and I waited a good long time to replace my Pismo (which was still working perfectly after over 5 years of service). I couldn't be happier with the new machine, and I'm very glad I waited. MacBook Pros do get warm (especially when working the graphics card hard), but it has never gotten to the point where it was uncomfortable or dangerous to the machine. My CPU is currently at 77 degrees F after about 1 1/2 hours of "normal" use. I don't know what those people are doing to be able to fry eggs on their machines... that's not my experience at all.
Those are great operating systems, and if I had more than a nugatory choice of commercial applications for them I wouldn't have even considered OS/X.
But I ran Windows on my Thinkpad despite being a FreeBSD developer since before FreeBSD was FreeBSD, because (like most people) I run operating system on notebooks in order to actually DO things... and while there's a lot of stuff you can do without deigning to sully yourself with commercial software there's a lot you can't... even if you're dedicated enough to free OSes to pick the underdog.
Even if they were as easy and troublefree to install and maintain as Windows (let alone OS X) that's a deal breaker for most people. Even OS X is fighting an uphill battle there... BSD and Linux aren't in the same league. They're not even playing the same game.
To borrow from an unknown speaker, Apple should look to the following guidelines to increase their 12% retail market share in the US:
1. Continue to earn my trust -by putting out products that I know I can rely on. If there are "heating issues" then admit to it and fix them. If all G4 iMac's get video problems, then fess up in the forums or fix it. Honesty, and without fine print, is what keeps me coming back and choosing Apple or Dell. [Aspire to be IBM or better]
2. "Make it easier" - has kind of been Apple's moto over the years but their innovation in usability must continue to outpace the competition.
3. Work on "Fair Play" - as the whole iTunes (and other applications) DRM ties one into iPod only solutions. Customer's want "fair play" and just because iPod's are #1 now doesn't customers won't backlash once they find out iTunes locked their money away for life. Remember, you're not Microsoft.
4. Keep inspiring me -by putting out products that stand above the competition and dare me to use my full potential as a technology-user.
5. Listen to me and remember me -by taking what trends work in Windows and Linux and mixing them with questions and issues real users have. Maybe that means there is a "Pro desktop" (uber-user only) and a "Beginner desktop" (standard OS X features) such as the KDE and Gnome desktops are looked at in the Linux world.
--- The last item is so important that there is no number good enough ---
Overdeliver - by exceeding my expectations and remembering that the little things can mean a lot.
These are items all companies should strive to meet but especially Apple at this pivotal stage in their rebirth. 12% retail market share is nothing to laugh at and I hope they continue to climb as all consumers win when more choice and competition are available (typical American viewpoint I know...).
As well as IBM.
Why? Unless they do it through illegal means (and threatening to not sell your product is not illegal) why shouldn't Microsoft be able to dictate terms of sale like that. Neither Dell, nor HP or Gateway were forced to not bundle or install anything else, the only reason they didn't was because they were afraid.
If you look it up, you will see as part of the proceedings that Microsoft actually threatened to withhold Windows licenses to Compaq for bundling Netscape. So in effect, Compaq was FORCED to not bundle otherwise they could not sell PCs, as at the time in 1995 there was no competing OSes for them to license.
In addition Microsoft also applied pressure to IBM because of OS/2, in a very similar manner. IBM just ate the cost difference in licensing, but it was still pretty heavy handed of Microsoft.
You seem to think this is okay, which is fine, but we actually have laws set up to protect the consumer, the country, and the marketplace against this kind of tactic. By some measures this is called extortion; it is also called anticompetitive, because Microsoft is wielding it's Windows monopoly to squash competitors in the web browser market. The laws in place are the Sherman Antitrust Act and it was drafted in 1890 because of Standard Oil.
GPL Deconstructed
Apple has a looming disaster on its hands with MacBooks suddenly powering off after a month or two of working just fine. 16000 page views and 500 posts on the support discussion board tell the story:= 544012&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID
This is NOT some whiny cosmetic complaint about stains or "moo"ing or heat. When computers suddenly can't stay on for minutes at a time and require the main logic board to be replaced, it is going to be costly, both for owners and for Apple.
If it's true that they sold a load of MacBooks shortly after intro, they're going to be taking a big hit as these problems surface over the next few weeks.
Okay, I lied in the title. I really dunno about Joe Sixpack, but I do know that a lot of people I know use iMovie. Non-technical people. My mom regularly makes movies with iMovie, for example of school plays. My girlfriend recently made a movie of her cats, complete with GarageBand sound and an iDVD DVD for her relatives. My sister regularly makes movies of her girlscout camps and events. My little brother makes little zombie movies complete with fake blood and flying knives.
The interesting thing is that I never told my mom about it. Five years ago, she called me every day because she couldn't figure out how to eject the floppy disk. Then she got an iMac. Now she's making her own fricking DVDs.
That's the difference between Macs and PCs, and it's happening, even if PC users don't really understand or believe it.
I don't think anyone is rooting for Apple to become the new Microsoft. We want three or four operating systems that have similar market share and compete against each other fairly.
Economics like this actually works. I was reading recently in Time or Newsweek that India is outsourcing some of the jobs that have been outsourced to them. Indian jobs are moving to China and Vietnam because the demand for workers in India has increased the wages there.
Horsepuckey! Any time workers make low wages, things end up getting worse! According to Anti-globalization economics, Americans have been making $12 an hour since 1830 and only NOW have the wages gone down due to EVIL CORPORATIONS.
Things never get better, anywhere, EVER! It's just a FACT! Just look at China: 40 years ago, Mao had a happening utopia going on and everyone got fed. Now people are forced to work for MONEY. Despicable.
If America had been cursed with child labor and an industrial revolution at some point, maybe we'd understand their plight. But noooo, all Americans think about are lower prices and being EVIL!
Latewire
Yes OS X includes Webkit for ease of development in other applications.
Finder however does not use webkit. Nor does any other part of the OS. It's just there as a helpful library for developing applications, in a way that IE in Windows is not... IE is more deeply embedded and is thus a far greater security risk. You need to understand how deeply integrated in the system IE is in Windows in comparison to Webkit which is, again, just a library.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you're saying that protectionist trade policies are actually doing workers in poor countries a favour by denying them work?
This sig is false.
Nor does Explorer if you remove the neccessary registry keys.
I can take out other parts of OS X that come by default too, but I don't have to bother with OS X. It's like buying a reverse kit, "some dissasembly required".
That is one difference.
If you consider Dashboard, Help Viewer, Software Update etc. not parts of the OS, you're right.
How are they parts of the OS? Each is a seperate application.
Again you are not underdstanding the places the IE DLL's get used internally and the vast difference.
In what way? I'm currently typing on a Windows 2003 system that does not have Internet Explorer, or MSHTML's components. Explorer works fine, all my control panel items work fine. The only things that don't work which I never use: Windows's CHM help, Outlook express, WMP's media guide thing.
If you have not removes the IE DLL's and left yourself with a functioning windows system, all of what you have said means squat.
Technically, all a active x component is, is a library. Other than what I have already stated and IE having a lot of settings hidden in the registry, I don't see really much more 'integration' than that.
Yes it too is a library but it's a question of what parts of the OS rely on and would freak out if you remove that library altogether. I can boot if I removed Webkit, could you boot if you removed the IE ActiveX libraries?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is this a joke? Since when is "choice" a nightmare for the consumer?
And, not trying to insult you, but I guess you don't write code for a living. If there were three or four equally strong operating systems, standards like OpenGL would have it way easier. Which means that writing an application which runs on several systems would be what most developers would do, and hece wouldn't be much harder than targeting a single OS.
The problem right now is that, as an example, most PC games devs target DirectX and Microsoft's proprietary technologies. This means that porting those games to other platforms like Linux or the Mac is a nightmare. That would change, and in the end, it would be a lot easier on many developers.
And if MS had some actual competition, you sure as hell wouldn't have to wait a decade for a crappy update to a crappy OS anymore.
So I guess what it boils down to, is that like with so many other aspects of OSX it comes secure by default where you have to go through extra work that almost no-one does to secure Windows.
Still, good to know you can actually get rid of the IE controls from within the sysem altogether.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Grandparent specifically mentioned the MacBook and noted that the MacBook Pro was overpriced.
I think it's time people finally realize there really is no meaningful competition for Apple in music players and there never will be.
Seriously? Never? Never, ever? not in 5 years? 20? 500? That's one bold statement.
It's going to take a paradigm shift in the way people listen to music to dislodge the iPod, but the current war is already won.
Oh, so it can happen. So, there will be competition. I'm sure you're intelligent, but I don't think I'll be asking you for any finacial advice anytime soon. You might wnat to look into a career as a cable TV news anchor.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
How does windows explorer having the ability to browse websites introduce any new security issues?
Why don't you ask one of the few hundred thousands of spyware writers that question? They hseem to have figured it out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I haven't seen one spyware writer that used a exploit that was specifically caused by having a webbrowser available in windows explorer. What I have seen is they have used exploits in the webbrowser component.
Not only are those contradictory statements (the webbrowser component being used by Explorer) How do you know what vector each of the hundreds of thousands of bits of spyware make use of?
You made my point, which is that the web browsing component in Windows is ubiquitous and deeply embedded, so there are many avenues for malicious code to reach said component and do what it was designed to do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, I also remember when webkit did widget auto-installation crap, no questions asked and it took forever for Apple to even fix it -- This effected all applications that used webkit
Yes, one of which was not Finder - again my point is that Webkit use is not as widespread by the underlying OS itself.
Oh, I don't know, maybe because I spend a lot of time securing systems against the possibility. I've certainly dealt with hundreds in my lifetime.
So do I which is why I bought a Mac.
Those apps are either considered part of the OS or aren't.
Which apps? There is no contradiction in what I am saying. In my mind one of the differences is between libraries being used more in a static or dynamic sense, where Windows apps are more relying on a global instance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Returning to my original point, how does having the MSHTML component available in Explorer create new unique exploits? You never gave any valid points.
Avenues of exploits, it's another path by which something can trigger an exploit, by preview of things in Explorer or by other means of tricking the Explorer into looking at HTML with an embedded attack.
Mac doesn't do a lot of things, which the company I work for needs. It's also a security risk, since there isn't really any good comparable central management systems for MacOSX at the moment (even I need this at home because I own more than just one computer).
What central management features do you think are lacking? There are tools to push out updates to multiple computers.
I've already mentioned Dashboard, Help Viewer, Software Update.
Yes, those are not part of the OS. Explorer is a part of the OS, as in Finder, in the degree of integration into the system. I can delete Dashboard and the Help viewer and the software update application and still live without them, delete Explorer from XP...
That pretty much covers the main case, but you are ignoring the difference between possible corruption in a centrally loaded shared library verses a library that is used more on an instance basis.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You also ignore the very real fact that there are many hundreds of thousands of programs making active use of exploits for Windows (even some for Vista) today, whereas there are NONE on the Mac. You can try to weasel around with terminology all you want, but it's all rather a case of not seeing trees or the forest because you are looking at your feet. Fundamentally your arguments make little sense because of the reality of what is all around you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You do realise that Apple stuff isn't really a interesting target?
By what definition is 10 million+ potential zombie computers "not interesting". Not to mention that in theory they are more homogenous.
Sending dynamically generated encrypted archives that require a password to be opened (so anti-virus scanners don't catch it), with the password specified in the e-mail. The user opens said archive, executes binary in there, that has the executable flag...
Yes, and then what. It affects the user account but needs a further password to affect the system itself. Security in depth is the key which OS X holds and Windows lacks.
Which in turn infects them with a virus that e-mails all their buddies or something. MacOSX doesn't even get THAT attention, even though that Mac users would be the perfect target (applying stereotype here -- take no offense): over confident in security, not very good at computers.
How am I not supposed to take offense at an applied stereotype? I switched to the Mac because I was tired of customizing Linux ethernet drivers that didn't quite work with crappy 3COM cards. All of the mac users I know are of a similar level of experience, some of them former mainframe guys.
The sterotype is not only offensive but is wildly inaccurate.
My steroetype of windows users (take no offense) is the ones too stuck in a rut or unable to see what moving on or simply to simple technically can do. I would say the vast majority of people who really know nothing whatsoever about computers mostly use WIndows - because that's what everyone else does. You have to have a certain level of comfort with computers to even know you might want to consider a Mac.
Also, how is it considered to be overconfident in security to point out the blindingly obvious fact there ARE NO VIRUSES ON THE MAC. That's the elephant in the room every windows user seems fit to ignore - yes I know there could be viruses but with many millions of macs around to the infect the numbers game is quite simply grasping at straws that will draq no liquid.
Mac software is generally preferred to be very integrated with the rest of the system, Aqua UI elements, system services, libraries, frameworks. It's more orderly for someone who wanted to write malware or such for the platform. This is the very thing you complain that's bad with Windows (Windows doesn't yet have the amount of integration you have on MacOSX when it comes to UI widgets).
Here again you lack understanding of my issue with the IE embeddedness. It's all too easy for an exploit using IE or any other system component to get deep into Windows, because most users have to run as admin. OS X also comes sensibly with no open ports to eliminate that hole.
The integration can make things easier for a virus once it gets in.... but getting in and stayng in are two different things. The majorty of issues now are spyware and on Macs it's far harder to hide software in nooks and crannies of the system than in Windows. Again my issue with IE is that if you affect the explorer stuff in memory, you've got everything across the system. In OS X you'd have to infect the system Webkit framework to do the same and that is much harder.
The biggest ones for me are software policies/restrictions. But I also have plenty of problems with software management (install/uninstall/upgrade -- Some software need far more than just copying the application folder. Automating it is a lot of manual work for me for each package), backup management (I did make a few workarounds, but they're not great), roaming profiles (the way windows does it, it just doesn't exist. I can do it on Linux, but you can't do it out of the box unfortunately).
Very little software needs more than just Application entries - those that do are usually in a specific place in the library. And it's just as easy to use any number of cloning tools to clone a goo configuration and deploy that. Since the home directories totally se
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You too, second moderator! Prepare to face the meta-wrath of the collective Slashdot for your grave misdeeds!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Malware writers, virus writers etc. are not interested in MacOSX, you cannot deny that.
Sure I can deny that. They are interestested in zombie computers, period - and don't care how they come by them. As I said the numbers are already enough (10 million plus mMac in the amrket today, probably much more) that anyone looking to get zombine computers cannot help but look at that and be enticed.
It all begins and ends with that. Macs are a target but no attacks are forthecoming. Macs are like a car with the windows rolled up and an alarm enabled while Windows boxes sit there with the windows down, engine running and keys in place and a Craigslist post giving GPS coorditaes to the parking spot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If they care about numbers, they're going to go after Windows anyway.
Yes, and macs - after are there are over ten million of them and that fetched s tidy sum on markets (there are large grey markets that sell access to these botnets).
They maybe a target, but nobody is interested in targeting them. I certainly have enough programming knowledge and knowledge of MacOSX to write malware/viruses for the platform, however I'm not in that business. But, assuming I was, I would target Windows platforms over MacOSX, since the numbers are much bigger.
Of course they are interested in tageting them because there is financial incentive to do so. You argument relies on the people writing Malware not to care about money. That's whay although neither of us can proove our case, I know I am correct. My argument relies only on people being greedy, not on people ignoring the macs for no good reason whatsoever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I didn't want to get a Macbook, I wanted to get a GOOD laptop and run OS X on it, but Apple's still trying to be a hardware company and I'm not prepared to go the "pirate domain" route.
Laptops have always been something that Apple has done well.
When was this? Toshiba and IBM have always made better and more reliable laptops, and Sony makes "cooler" and "sleeker" ones. Apple's best laptop of the '90s was done in conjunction with IBM, for that matter.
* Lousy keyboards. The last decent keyboard Apple made for desktops OR laptops was the Apple Pro II keyboard on the Beige G3s. The keyboard on my Macbook Pro makes my wrists and arms hurt after less than half an hour of use. I had a better keyboard in the Stowaway folding keyboard I got for my handheld than the one on my 'book.
* One-button mice/trackpads. The "Mighty Mouse" tells us that Apple has accepted that one-button mice are a mistake, but they're not willing to go so far as to produce a real multi-button mouse or trackpad.
* Style over substance. I'd rather have a half-inch thicker and half-inch narrower laptop that DIDN'T overheat and had room for a real keyboard with bevelled keys and a decent throw. And the style ain't all that great... the Thinkpad's Lamborghini brutality isn't the same kind of style as Apple's Porsche sleekness, but it's not necessarily bad... just different.
It's the software that's selling the laptops. If the laptops were as well designed as the software that runs on them they'd have no competition.