Slashdot Mirror
'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. "
A perfect storm of smug :)
The public is "getting" the Mac now that it has become a total pile of unreliable shit with zero customer support and a ghastly interface and garbage mouse and keyboard. Even Windows is better now.
...from one percent market share to TWO percent market share...
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
The mac will be (slightly) more expensive, a *lot* easier to use, and it'll work a lot better without all those nasty viruses, spyware, trojans, you-name-it.
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.
A lot easier to use? Not if you've been using a PC for twenty years. Then, once past the learning curve, there's a whole slew of brand spanking new problems. Plus a closed architecture.
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.
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.
Why? I'm sorta waiting for Steve Jobs to start giving away free Kool-Aid to all the raving Apple fanbrats.
Macs are proprietary, non-standard, overpriced, and there aren't nearly as many good apps that run natively on Macs as there are on Winblows or Unix/Linux boxes. Yeah, I know what OS/X is underneath the hood...so why would I want to waste money and time buying and using a Mac when I have plenty of PCs that will run better non-Windows OSes that cost me nothing?
When I see the usual suspects raving about the latest new Mac product from Apple, I think to myself, "Go Lemmings, Go!" They never get much respect from most knowledgable, serious computer users, but they sure seem willing to jump off a cliff if Jobs tells them to.
Think about it. Apple gave in to the Unix crowed when it needed a real OS. It caved in to the Wintel crowd when it needed a real hardware platform that would run apps that matter. What does Apple have left? A UI it snagged from Xerox PARC in the 80s and which has stagnated because of some bad design choices ever since.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
You just keep reiterating why you think it's plausible, but plausiblity isn't the same as evidence.
So: where is the evidence?
Ooh .. a Jobs cum-swallower put me on his foes list. I'm so bummed ;(.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
There are three major holes in that: (1) nobody has shown that Fitt's law works here, (2) even if it does, nobody has shown that the Mac design optimizes performance under Fitt's law, and (3) nobody has shown that optimizing this aspect of the UI leads to better usability.
The fact that this work keeps getting cited as an example of how Apple goes about designing UIs only shows how shoddy and unprincipled their work actually is.
Is using the same architecture PC manufactures have been using for over 30 years. Brilliant. Apple hype never fails to amaze and bewilder me.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
In the mean time you could buy a whole new system with a legal copy of Windows XP
Forget XP! The first tyme I used XP, on the first day of a class I was taking in college on brand new Dell, it crashed on me while booting up. Nor do I want MS or anyone else spying on me, or have to deal with Activation! I am sick and tired of having some many problems with PCs and MS software. The used Macs I've bought never gave me some much trouble. And note, I'm typing this on an HP running Windows. I bought it brand new and have had have replaced or replaced myself at least one piece of hardware a year. The harddisk and motherboard the first year, the replacement hd later and ram twice as well as other parts. With the problems I've had with PCs I'm wondering why even try to upgrade this one. Guess because no matter how much trouble I've had with it I hate to waste it, let it contaminate some dump or something.
Thanks for the rest of your suggestions though.
FalconShould there be a Law?