'Perfect Storm' of Mac Sales on the Horizon?

fkx writes to mention an eWeek article suggesting that, finally, the PC-using public is going to 'get' the Mac. According to the article, the new advertising, increased functionality of OSX, and Intel-based machines are all raising the profile of Apple's machines to new heights. From the article: "However, this cycle isn't your usual processor upgrade cycle that comes every time Intel or Advanced Micro Devices tweaks a process. This is a major shift that affects all parts of the Mac customer-developer-vendor ecology. Longtime Apple watchers can count two earlier events of similar magnitude. The first such transition occurred in March 1994 with the arrival of the PowerPC architecture. The Motorola 680x0 architecture that had served the Mac platform for a decade was quickly supplanted by a set of new, more powerful machines. "

Comments

Re:Competition

[Nicholas Evans]

Yes, the Mac is more fashionable but the big point is going to be OS X -- will the general public (i.e. -- not Apple fanboys) be willing the make the switch at a 30% premium?

An interesting question!

I don't exactly qualify as 'general public' having been using Linux exclusively for the past few years, but I have finally decided to check out what all this talk about OS X is. And I grew up on PCs - I remember when I was like four years old and fucking around at the DOS prompt (like I knew what was going on =P).

A few of my friends have Apple hardware, and they really like how 'OS X just works'. So after months of seeing my boss' Macbook Pro, I've decided to get one myself (after the conference, of course).

And I realize I'm paying a *lot* for a Macbook Pro. I could get something almost as nice for 30% cheaper, as you pointed out. But I am willing to pay the premium for OS X, after not spending *any* money on Free software for the past few years.

Re:Competition

[dhovis]

And I'd be willing to bet that Compaq is at least 30% bigger than the Macbook. Find one with similar specs and dimensions and you'll find the price will go up. You pay for miniturization.

Odd you picked Compaq. Ususally people find some Dell to compare it to and neglect to point out that the Dell is 70% greater volume.

Re:They're Right

[Ash-Fox]

I'm tired of ridiculous Windows behaviors (disk defrag inadvertantly deletes required system DLLs...nice)

I can't find any information on this from my sources. :(

Re:They're Right

[MBCook]

You'll love it, especially if you love the command line environment of Linux. Being able to have both the great GUI and name applications (like Photoshop) as well as a true Unix subsystem and command line you can use were a big factor in switching to the Mac for me.

You mention defrag, and that is one thing I've never understood. In the time I've been using Windows, it has never run well without 3rd party software. In the 95/98/ME days defrag was probably important, but I found that a little program called MemTurbo make the system feel like it just booted all the time. It would somehow clean up leaked memory, or force specific things to be paged, as well as defragment the memory allocations.

Then Windows 2000 came along and it no longer needed that program (hooray!). But NTFS just gets SO fragmented SO fast. Without a 3rd party program (Disk Keeper, set to defrag during screen saver) then any system that gets quite a bit of use will slow to a crawl pretty fast in my experience.

Vista is supposed to have that built in, so I wonder what users will need next to keep the OS running smoothly.

Re:Again, the public....

[Shag]

If you're talking about desktops or towers, then yes, the public couldn't care less. And Apple has woefully small market share in that area - probably around, what, 3 percent?

When it comes to laptops, though, there are different factors. Suddenly size, weight, battery life, and even appearance (well, for the fashionistas among us) come into consideration. And do I need to point out that a 17" widescreen notebook from Apple weighs about a pound less than one from anyone else?

This January, Apple's share of the US laptop market stood at 6% - about double its share of the desktop market.

This July, Apple's share of the US laptop market stood at 12% - double where it was in January.

Apple has projected that as universal binaries of more applications for "creative pros" become available, that share could go higher.

Maybe they'll continue to do better in notebooks than desktops.

Doesn't Anyone Know What Proprietary Means?

[good soldier svejk]

Along with the CPU came the PCI expansion bus, which replaced a wonderful, but proprietary, bus called NuBus that Apple had used for ages.

Hint: It isn't a synonym for uncommon.

NuBus is hardly proprietary. It is the IEEE 1196 standard originally developed at MIT.

Re:It's too late for the public...

[SanityInAnarchy]

The Mac is a LOT more expensive - as in, three times as expensive as a comparable PC. Then you have to repurchase all the software.

Someone did the math awhile ago, I can't find the link, but you're just plain wrong. The Mac is maybe $50 or $100 more than a comparable PC. And you'll be repurchasing software with Vista anyhow -- or living through the hell of the security dialogs.

That's assuming you actually have lots of software which can't simply transfer a license to the Mac.

A lot easier to use? Not if you've been using a PC for twenty years.

And for twenty years, they've been changing things. You're going to have to retrain about as much to learn to use Vista as you will to use a Mac.

Then, once past the learning curve, there's a whole slew of brand spanking new problems.

I admit there are problems, but would you like to tell me which one you think makes a Mac worse than a PC?

Plus a closed architecture.

Sorry? It's not as open as I'd like, but as far as I know, you don't get ANY source code with Windows.

And if by some miracle the Mac ever starts to get a mass audience, it will be a target for all the same viruses the PC currently is.

Target, yes. But it really is more secure. Prove me wrong, though, if you dare. I'll put my Mac on any network you like and let you hit it with anything you want.

Vista is just now starting to do some of the things that OS X has had for years, in terms of security.

But out of all those, the first two - the initial overpricing and the repurchasing of the software you already own - are what will keep the vast majority of computer users from making a useless switch.

The vast majority of computer users own less than $100 worth of software, and the price difference is also less than $100. Geek Squad charges $129-229 every time you screw up your PC. After just a couple of those, it's already cheaper to make the switch.

Personally, I don't think it's as useful as, say, a mass exodus to Ubuntu would be. But at least I can easily set up SSH, use Perl, and all that good stuff without hours of hassle, so I'd be happy with people using a Mac.

Anyway, get back to Digg. Your 12-year-old MS apologist friends miss you.

Re:evidence?

[Stormwatch]

Usability is something that can be measured and quantified. Where has anybody ever demonstrated that the Mac is actually easier to use than Windows, KDE, or Gnome?

I know two sites you might want to check: a really old one, Mac Ki Do , and a more up-to-date one, XvsXP .

Re:Its probabbly true.

[alittlespice]

The issues are minor. Apple does fix stuff. And with the retail stores, it's even better. I've been a PC guy forever, but I just switched to Mac. Got a 15.4" MacBook Pro. Then my battery did the expanding thing. More than doubled in size. I took it back to the retail store (Yorkdale in Toronto), and got a whole new machine, no problem at all! Was back up and running in no time. If I had bought a Dell and something went wrong (and lets not kid ourselves, every company has issues occassionally), it would have taken ages to get the part fixed, including likely having to ship the machine somewhere and going without a computer for days. Every manufacturer of anything, computers, cars, and even pens, occassionally makes defective stuff. What's important is how the treat you when it happens. I couldn't be happier than with the staff at the retail store. Oh, and the computers aren't really that much more expensive. Considering you getting the top of the line chips etc, not old out of date Pentium M's or anything. Compareable hardware from Dell, Toshiba, etc has a compareable price.

Re:Its probabbly true.

[JonathanBoyd]

I've been running OS X on a first gen white iBook for years now. Sure, you don't get all the whizz-bang fancy effects, but it's quite usable. The first gen G4 iBooks had a few logic borad problems, but the first gen G3s were soid wee beasts. All you needed to do was stick in a bit more RAM. Couldn't believe there was a 64MB option, but Low-End Mac confirms it. I started with 384MB and it worked like a charm. The bus did suck though. The next revision ripped CDs almost twice as fast with a CPU boost of only 100 MHz; it was the bus upgrade that made all the difference.

Re:Family

[quacking duck]

Anyone who already knows how to setup and administer/maintain Windows and its programs is smart enough to easily figure out the equivalent steps on a Mac once sitting in front of one, especially with Google at your disposal.

Take it from someone who learned Mac administration by myself first, and only started for Windows in 2000. By all rights it should be much harder for a Mac guy to pick up Windows admin skills, but I did, and without any MSCE certification courses either. I picked up most of these skills with no Windows PC of my own, so my situation is like yours, in reverse.

Your concerns about not being able to walk your grandmother through stuff is valid, but possibly misplaced given your examples. If you're physically at your grandmother's, as I said you'll figure them out fairly fast.

If you mean *talking* her through stuff over the phone that's different, so here's my suggestion (applies for Mac or Windows); I've set up and used the free (as in beer) and very user-friendly Bosco's Screen Share (http://www.componentx.com/ScreenShare/) with my friend's mom the couple of times she's needed help. It allows me to see or even control her screen (I set it up so she must click OK these requests; I can't just login any time I want). Much more efficient than describing a problem by words alone.

Re:Its probabbly true.

[Millenniumman]

1. Those cases are rare, and I believe Apple covers both of them.
2. They will fix them for you. If you have a problem, call them. They aren't very public about it, but what good would that do anyone, since they fix them?
3. I have a MacBook Pro, rather than a MacBook, but it doesn't seem to run very hot to me. I'd think the MBP would running warmer.

I had one of the first MacBook Pros, and the only issue I had was my battery went bad. They sent me a new one without a problem.

Re:Here's some evidence

[Space cowboy]

I dunno, maybe because all three are bloody obvious ?

1) "Fitts' law is a model of human movement, predicting the time required to rapidly move from a starting position to a final target area". Unless you never select anything from the menu, it applies. For every GUI-user you show me who has never selected a menu-item, I'd be able to find hundreds who had.

2) Did you get the bit about "infinite depth" ? That the edges of the screen make it easier to locate the mouse because of no possibility of overshoot ? Seems completely obvious to me, but hey! Actually it seems bloody obvious to others, too

Question 5

Explain why a Macintosh pull-down menu can be accessed at least five times faster than a typical Windows pull-down menu. For extra credit, suggest at least two reasons why Microsoft made such an apparently stupid decision.

Microsoft, Sun, and others have made the decision to mount the menu bar on the window, rather than at the top of the display, as Apple did. They made this decision for at least two reasons:

Apple claimed copyright and patent rights on the Apple menu bar
Everyone else assumed that moving the menu bar closer to the user, by putting it at the top of the window, would speed things up.
Phalanxes of lawyers have discussed point 1. Let's deal with point two. The Apple menu bar is a lot faster than menu bars in windows. Why? Because, since the menu bar lies on a screen edge, it has an infinite height. As a result, Mac users can just throw their mice toward the top of the screen with the assurance that it will never penetrate and disappear.

Unless, of course, I'm testing them at the time. I did a test at Apple where I mounted one monitor on top of another, with the menu bar at the top of the lower display. The only way the user could get to the top monitor way by passing through the menu bar enroute.

I then gave users the task of repeatedly accessing menu bar items. When they first started out, they penetrated into the upper screen by around nine inches on average, just because their mouse velocity was so high. Then they learned they had to slow down and really aim for the menu. By the time they adjusted, their menu-access times became so ponderously slow, they took around the same time as the average Windows user.

The other "advantage" usually ascribed to a menu bar at the top of each window is that they user always knows where to look for the items pertaining to the task they are carrying out. This is silly. Users may do various tasks within a given window, and the menu items may change. Not only that, but a great many perverse applications exist, particularly in the Sun world, where the menu bar you need to access is not even in the window in which you are working! That is truly bizarre and mind-bending.

Microsoft applications are beginning to offer the possibility, in full-screen mode, of a menu bar at the top of the display. Try this out in Word or Excel. It is much faster. Microsofts general cluelessness has never been so amply displayed, however, as it is in Microsoft Visual Studio, which has a menu bar at the top of the screen with a one-pixel barrier between the screentop and the menu. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

3) If it's easier to do something, that's a better usability. End of.

Game, set, and match.

Re:Its probabbly true.

[Graff]

I've still got three dmg's mounted on my machine that complain whenever I try to unmount them. This is a serious question - I don't know how to get rid of these things.

If you can't close a disk image it's because of some file on the image that is in-use. You either opened a file on the disk or ran an application from the disk. Try closing open applications that may be the culprit. If that doesn't work then restart the machine.

Not allowing you to eject a disk that is in-use is safer than allowing you to eject a disk with an open file. This helps to avoid file and disk corruption.

let's try renaming a file under OSX. How do you do it? Click the file name, then click it *again* (but not too fast, mind you, or you'll open it!) and hold for 2 seconds.

Select the file, hit the return key, type in the new name. It's pretty simple and quick to do. The problem is under Windows hitting the return key OPENS the file so you probably never thought of trying this.

had to select about 50 QuickTime files, then un-select about 10 of them peppered throughout the list. I have my command key mapped to control (to stay consistent between my Mac and PC), so I did a shift-select, then a ctrl-select to de-select the files I didn't want. Easy on Windows. Of course, try this on Mac and if you click the wrong place on the filename, you end up trying to simultaneously open 50 different QuickTime files.

I'm unable to duplicate your problem. I shift-selected a ton of files and then went back and command-clicked on the ones I didn't want selected (I'm using the standard key settings for a Mac here). At no point did my selection changes open any files no matter where I clicked. You say you re-mapped your keyboard, maybe whatever you used to do that messed around with something. The control key on a Mac usually simulates a right-click when used in combination with a left-click, perhaps in remapping things you managed to provoke some sort of odd behavior.

As both a Mac and a PC user I find the Mac interface to overall be more intuitive to use. However, this can be completely different if you are ingrained in your old PC habits and ideas. Old PC habits are hard to change and that can turn the Mac experience into something you are fighting against daily.

Re:They're Right

[NMerriam]

That sounds great! Although I already have both things in kubuntu and it is free can run WINE (so If I want photoshop I can use it) and that's for free. Not saying that Macs are bad or anything just that you can find those features elsewhere so better focus on the other advantages macs have.

The thing is, he WAS talking about things that are specific to the Mac, it's just that what you're seeing as two functionally separate things are, on a Mac, a single integrated feature. Yes, under a good Linux you can jury-rig a major app to run under Wine, and you can run unix command line tools.

But on the Mac, you can run that major application, and a command-line tool, and they interact with each other in a completely supported manned. You could script Photoshop using normal Bash commands (via OSAScript) under OSX, and you could write an Applescript to export information from Photoshop directly into four different ImageMagick processes running in separate terminal windows. Of course there's much more mundane stuff, like dragging and dropping between applications and command lines.

That's the sort of thing Mac users mean when they say how great it is to have a real Unix with great commercial software together on the same box. It isn't just about the convenience of not having to SSH or KVM to another system to run the full variety of apps you may need during a day's work, they become an actual SYSTEM working together in a unified way that no other OS I know of can match with any amount of hacking.

Re:Its probabbly true.

[gig]

> It's not perfect though. Uninstalling by dragging to trash still leaves little folders and files in the Library folder,
> including in the Cache folder and Preferences folder in most cases.

Yeah but they are text files with stored preference settings. Leaving them there is much less harmful than accidentally deleting something you need later. If you want to get rid of them, though, it is easy to identify them either manually or with Spotlight (by searching for the trashed app's name or developer).

Also when you run an uninstaller in MS Windows it still leaves cruft in the Registry which is more potentially damaging to the system than the left-behind preference files on the Mac. And just the fact that you're not dealing with an installer on the Mac means one less app that can mess with your system.