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Apple's Leopard Strategy to Kill Microsoft and Dell?
RX8 writes "A Digital Trends article suggests that Apple's Leopard agenda is to get Windows users to use Apple hardware then convert them to the Apple camp and that Apple will also be directly targeting Dell by offering a better experience when it comes to media and related tasks. Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006. 'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'"
then compete on price.
you claim you already have the OS and features I need and should want.
Now just deliver them for a price I want.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Price.
People buy Dells because they are cheap, and they work.
They're not particularly good computers, but they do the job.
They're not even in the same market: Apple isn't competing with Dell's primary market to begin with.
And here I just purchased my first Mac (MacBook, black) and now you tell me it'll be obselete 2 weeks after I just bought it?
Too bad the warranty doesn't cover that!
Sugapablo
...Apple will also be directly targeting Dell by offering a better experience when it comes to media and related tasks.
Until those converts from Windows run into how OSX handles Windows Media Video files and end up comparing it against what they saw when they used Windows instead. Don't forget about one of the largest multimedia formats, and how poorly it runs under OSX. I haven't seen Jaguar, yet, so I don't know how good it's WMV handling capabilities are, but I do know watching a 640x480 WMV on OSX is like upsampling a 160x120 video into 1080 high-def - UGLY.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Apparently, you missed it. Apple's new Mac Pro is cheaper than a comparatively configured Dell workstation machine.
But, on the overall, I agree; Apple's not fighting for the bottom dollar, Apple's positioned themselves as just a tad bit more expensive than the baselines from the Big Three, but with an enormous amount of extra features that make it that "bang for the buck". That factor alone could be considered a part of the "pricing war"; for all you get with an Apple computer, it'd take you not only longer to find a way to configure a competitive machine, but it's unlikely you could do it for cheaper without a ton of rebates, mail in coupons, etc.
So really, it is the price. Apple won't beat Dell at the bottom, but in the middle and top, Apple's already got them beat.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
about being the subject of an SEC investigation over company stock options.
Of course apple is trying to convert users away.. However, why would they expect people to run Windows on Apple hardware? People switch to a Mac mostly for OSX (Altho the hardware is nice looking).. In addition, Dells market is very different from Apples, Dell is cheap to the masses, Apple is for the few...
Apple has made forrays into the cheaper market (the mini) and Dell takes a poke at the top end (thier quad graphics solutions/purchase of Alienware), but they both have primarily differnt markets.
People shouldn't assume that Apple want's to be the dominant controller, just because other companies think that way, there is much profit to be made by being select too (I would imagine Apples profit per unit sold is much greater then Dells, much like Nintendos standard "make a profit not control the market" stance grants them)
'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'
It really is very delicious Eve, I promise you, after you take a byte, well, just a nybble perhaps, you'll know everything about We . Then you'll know everything about good and evil and never be allowed into the garden again. We will make sure the angels put up some fiery walls so you cannot enter again.
There are Apples and oranges and pears and plums lying around, just beware of the Micro- scopically-soft ones, they may give you a tummy-ache.
Ain't got scratch enough.
I must say, however I do like what I've seen. And I've spent enough years fighting with Windows, it only helps the Apple cause.
most secure operating system, ever! please stand by for 6,000 critical security flaw patches...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
woa, wait a second! one business is trying to get the biggest market share possible!? NO WAY!!!
sorry for that sarcasm, this is one of those "no shit" moments.
"get Windows users to use Apple hardware then convert them to the Apple camp"
I think Apple might actually be on to something with this strategy!
The real question is why hasn't Apple tried 'to get Windows users to use Apple hardware' before? Oh, wait...they have for the past decade...
"Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006"
Yeah, the WWDC keynote did suck.
So, to sum up:
Apple's worldwide marketshare continues to slide lower and lower but the Windows world is about to defect to Apple any moment now...
Wait for it...
Here they come...
Any moment now...
move away from one closed system to an even more closed system. With Apple I'm not only stuck with their OS, but I'm also stuck with their hardware.
However I wouldn't purchase anything Apple again unless OSX runs on generic Intel hardware out of package without tricks or scams to get me to purchase overpriced Mac hardware. I purchased the eMac 2 years ago, and with over 1700 USD in repairs (paid for under warranty), it tells me a LOT about quality control at Apple. The basic premise for me is that 'features' or not Apple quality is bad at best and they don't deserve my money again unless they include 3-5 year warranty standard on all devices and hardware, and at least 1 major upgrade for free on an OS that is basically 18 years old in the making. Then and only then will I purchase 'features' in a commodity market place saturated with also-rans.
So, uhm, Apple is, uhm, trying to compete, uhm, with, uhm,their competitors.
Thanks a lot for this insightful article Mr. Enderle....
Don't forget that the author is Rob Enderle, who tends to defend Microsoft and SCO with all his heart and bitches regularly on Apple and Linux... Do a quick Google on him...
This is an article written by pundits, not Apple. If you disbelieve the premise, attack the pundits, not Apple.
Like a lot of these types of articles, it's all supposition and theorising. Nothing concrete, just ideas. These are the same people who confidently predict the iPhone is coming soon, or for years predicted the imminent demise of Apple (any day now!) so they've got little to no credibility in my eyes.
As I rambled myself there exists at least one obvious segment of the market Apple is not currently servicing with the extreme distance between its AIO solution and its Mac Pro. The value of the Mac Pro is quite good with respect to similar platforms, however the utility of such a platform appeals mostly to a high-margin low-volume userbase. Apple clearly cannot supplant Microsoft or Dell so long as it does not cater to the same markets. While I focused on the existence of a middle ground that still had significant requirements for flexibility since servicing it does not require a fixation on low margins, there are obviously those areas where "boring little boxes" at a low price-point have value in industry. It doesn't stand to reason that Apple needs to compete with Microsoft and Dell for this market, and to some extent their advertising makes this market seem too unhip for the cool kids, but without addressing the market then it's clear that no added functionality to Leopard will paint a strategy of supplanting Dell and Microsoft.
FTFA:
"However, Steve Jobs is the master of being your best buddy while planning to stab you in the back. His biographies are filled with stories that do more than suggest that if he wants what you have, you'd better grab it and run for the hills."
Please. History is littered with the corpses of companies with which Microsoft formed a "strategic partnership"-- The MS people stick around and play nice for a while, then one day the other company gets notified that Microsoft wants to go in another direction so the partnership is over. Then a couple months later Microsoft unveils a competing product and kills the company with which they partnered.
The best historical example I can think of is Go Corp in the late 80s/early 90s-- Microsoft partnered with them, stole their stuff and created Pen Windows to crush them. You can get accounts of it from both sides if you read these two books. However, Microsoft is doing the exact same thing right now: They are desperate to take marketshare from iPod/iTunes. To that end, their partnerships to make portable players and sell music under the "PlaysForSure" moniker have been miserable failures-- so now, they are screwing their partners and rolling their own solution in-house, Zune, which is stated incompatible with all the PlaysForSure stuff.
~Philly
"If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year."
Doubtful, just look around the office (assuming a non-tech business). How many do you think read Slashdot or similar sites for news to plan ahead?
That's the job of Puma.
Then Ocelot will take out HP.
Marmoset, once released, will end IBM.
Finally, Mr. Whiskers Boddington (the name of Jobs' childhood cat) will make Google irrelevant.
Then we'll get those full-screen iPods everyone's been wanting. wheeee
A very well thought-out article with one big problem - perspective. Apple will certainly make inroads with the PC world the way they are going, but the end result is ridiculous. Even assuming Apple did lure people with BootCamp, etc., most people still won't want the bother of choosing an OS at the start. I'm guessing the problems between systems would be incomprehensible. A good friend of mine, a smart person, couldn't really understand why you couldn't run a Mac program on a PC and vice versa.
The other nail in the coffin is the third world runs on pirated Windows. Since IBM bailed out to Lenovo there will be billions of users who never even see a Mac.
On the third point, possibly Steve saved some good stuff in Leopard for later. But what we saw was not over-impresssive. He certainly knew about the SEC news yesterday and making a bigger pronouncement would have taken some of the sting out of that in the stock price. My guess is that this financial stuff is why he looks pale and drawn right now.
This login name for sale.
Could you please flag articles by this unmitigated idiot so I don't wast the click. Reading his drivel is not worth anybodys time.
Considering Apple has experienced a 15% INCREASE in market share I think its actually much more likely now that theyre running on Intel hardware.
One of the main reasons why Microsoft Windows has the market share that it has is because of Dell. It would take a lot more than promoting Windows on a Mac to make consumers want to start preferring Apple computers over Dells. Also, lots of people get Dell because they are able to sell computers at very reasonable prices, and everyone here knows that Apple isn't exactly the best at doing that. Also, from what I've noticed, I think that most people buy Macs more to find alternatives to Windows. A lot of Mac buyers that I have talked to over the years have bought Macs because using OS X was easier than using Windows, or that Windows was too insecure for them and they were looking for options that were not Linux. Even though having a closer PC feel by integrating Windows will attract a few members of the PC target audience, I don't think it's going to cause a massive swing in the opposite direction. Macs are not iPods; these are $1000+ computers that can do and perform the same things as a regularly-priced Dell PC. I don't even think that putting themselves in direct competiton with Dell or any other major PC retailer is part of their plan; I think that if they really wanted to do this, they would have made the switch to Intel earlier and started diversifying their hardware base to make prices more flexible.
Walmart
Wow, that's a stunning endorsement for PC's. How stupid of me. I guess I'll have to ditch my Mac kit, because Walmart sells PC's...
p.s. news for you kid, not EVERYONE uses PC's. Get ready to get jumped on by heaps of Linux and Mac users...
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
The article is written by none other than Rob (I wannabe John Dvorak) Enderle, the same clown who supported SCO's claims in their ongoing lawsuit against IBM. He now appears to be trying to get page hits by trolling the user communities of both Microsoft and Apple with outlandish opinions.
The whole idea that Apple could 'kill' Microsoft or Dell is too far-fetched to even consider. The only way either company could die is by suicide.
I would broaden it even further and say they want to "kill" the rest of the computer industry not just Dell and Microsoft. The keyword is want. Imagine marketshare where you control both software and hardware. That is what Apple has and is continues to aim for. 1% of Apple marketshare is probably worth more than 5% of Microsoft/Dell marketshare. Apple will continue to pursue this goal until they get really beat down. At this point, they will either morph into a software company (license OSX) if they get beat by Dell, HP, etc, or morph into a hardware company that doesn't make most of their software. More likely scenario of course, is probably just more of the same without overextending where they implode.
Apple's Leopard Strategy to (Fucking) Kill Microsoft and Dell?
Does this strategy by any remote chance involve chairs?
Most users simply hate changes on their system or the way the work - so they will stick to what they have known for years. XP and Office will do the trick for most, so will a 'normal' laptop from 'traditional' PC vendors.
A dual boot option would confuse most users and create unnecessary work / something new to understand. Tech people don't seem to understand that Mr. or Ms. Office just wants her work done - and they don't give a damn about fancy designs, Mac OS or any new geekery.
Two problems:
(1) I don't want to buy a 32-bit processor. Yes, I know that 32-bit is good enough for a long time now. But 64-bit is just what I want. It'll make me feel better.
(2) First-release Mac products are often rife with problems. The first-release aren't out yet. So I'm going to end up waiting at least 6 months for Apple to get most of the bugs worked out of the hardware.
Once that's all taken care of, I'll be getting a light Mac notebook.
First: What is the actual differences with a Dell notebook? I have a E1705, and it's basically a Powerbook. The differences are so minor, they are superficial (in my opinion) Second: Everyone says Apple is a hardware company. Then why is Apple not releasing their OS as open source? They are actually a software company. Apple should sell the OS as a competator to Microsoft, and then they would have a large market to grow into. Anyone can make a Intel box. Geez.
i hate so-called Internet 'experts' who are nothing more than trolls
Apple's Leopard Strategy to Kill Microsoft and Dell?
Yeah, that's their strategy. I was talking about it with Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa over breakfast from the alien spaceship this morning. The next thing I knew, the cow had jumped over the moon and Mao Zedong was trumping up capitalism.
Then I woke up and swore never to eat pizza before bed again.
FTFA:
Another of the primary reasons Apple isn't being forthcoming about Leopard is the fear that if people get too excited about a product coming early in 2007 they will stop buying in 2006"
Uh, yeah, that might apply when you're talking about an expensive product. Mac OS X costs $129, and Leopard will run on any Mac sold in 2006 (and probably several years previous). Anyone who is paying attention to what's coming out of WWDC knows that and can likely afford $129 to upgrade. Everyone else who's interested in a Mac now will happily buy a Tiger system and probably not even notice when Leopard ships.
Furthermore, Microsoft has been talking up Vista for five years. You didn't see Dell or HP go out of business for lack of sales because people are waiting for Vista, did you?
~Philly
Because they are cheaper.
Umm... No. A Dell with the same hardware as a Mac pro is more expensive.
They run the same applications. They run more games.
Um... They can rame the same applications and technically the Mac can run more games because not only can it play Mac OS X only games but it can also boot into WinXp and play any windows game there.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Even if Apple does kill Microsoft/Dell where will all those 3rd party companies go? Apple likes to run a tight and closed ship with finite hardware options and regularly copies 3rd party apps into their OS. Most of these companies would not be accepted by Apple, and would simply turn to another OS and prefab computer company. I doubt Apple will kill Microsoft or Dell just because their OS is flashy, they would have to provide a much more flexible environment to foster outside development.
--postmodern
Back in the days of the original iMacs, iBooks and the Blue-and-White/Graphite minitowers, everyone bagged on Apple for building "Fisher-Price" computers out of that thick ABS you used to only see on toys. Guess what? Those machines wore like iron. My iBook and my Blue-And-White were both purchased in 1999. Guess what? They are still 100% functional and run modern Mac OS X. I also was able to acquire a third-generation iMac from around the same era. Aside from a couple of pen marks, it was pristine.
And the thing about Apple is that the inside of these machines are just as good as the outside. The Apple Minitower design that was only phased out in favor of the aluminum "cheese grater" minitower was amazing. You unlatch one of the sides and pull it down, and you are inside the machine. No stupid sheet metal slidy doors or inverse-u shaped cowlings that are a bitch to tear down and even more of a bitch to replace right. And the parts used are good, sane parts. Not "hacked by Chinese" crap. You don't hear about explodey caps or random shorts with regard to these old machines. Yeah, you hear about explodey batteries on laptops, but let's face it, everyone except IBM has had problems with LiIon batteries, and I'm waiting for the reports of burning Thinkpads that I know will eventually come.
Apple builds to last with good solid parts and also by patronizing good facilities. Foxconn, ASUS, they don't deal with the Elitegroups of the world. If a top-tier Asian facility is unavailable, Apple has its own factories run to their standards.
Hell, people still use Mac SE30s after all these years. Why? They are BUILT.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Yeah, but does a out-of-the-box PC have the same quality of applications (iLife, iTunes, iCal, Mail.app, etc) with the same level of seamless integration? Sure PCs come with Music Match, some basic calendar app, Outlook Express, and other bundled software, but it is nowhere near the quality of the Mac's bundled software; in fact, some of that bundled software may be spyware. Does an out-of-the-box Windows PC have the same security as OS X's out-of-the-box security? Once again, if I bought a Windows PC, I have to worry about installing anti-malware tools (which is basically a high memory tax), installing Firefox, and keeping up to date with every little Windows update. And don't get me started on Windows default admin mode, lack of full multiuser support, lack of user permissions (that work the same way as Unix permissions), and other stuff.
Apple doesn't compete on the low-end scale, so that is the reason why PCs are much more common; you can buy a nice Athlon 64 box for $600 or more (depending on the specs), or a decent Celeron M laptop for the same price. They are quite capable machines, and they run Windows/*nix very well. Apple would make a big sweep if they competed on the low end (imagine a $300 Mac Mini to counter those Dell $299 specials, or a $699 MacBook with a Core Solo processor). Not everybody needs a dual core laptop, for example. However, when configured at the same price, the Mac is usually a better deal, unless you must need Windows for your job, or you are a serious gamer (I admit, I'd rather game on Windows than OS X; my favorite game, Sim City 4, costs $60 on the Mac but $20 for the exact same version for Windows. Eh?).
PCs may be more popular, but there is a reason why Mac users buy Macs. It comes with a well thought out package of software that complements each other quite nicely with no hiccups.
Apple ought to go on and market its OS to regular PCs, they could probably gain market share this way as well, which will make Mac OS X a much more prominant platform and encourage software companies to develop products for Mac OS X since it has an increased user share. There are many users who would not purchase a Mac computer but who would purchase OS X to install on their PC. I do not understand at all why Apple is actually taking efforts to prevent Max OS from running on PCs. This is pathetically stupid and makes no sense. Apple could probably make a much greater profit margin from selling the OS than they would be selling an entire computer system.
I also think it would also help for Mac OS X to support FreeBSD drivers or even Linux drivers, so Mac OS X users can be benefit from the drivers on those platforms, and of course, an underlying Unix and X11 environment to allow Mac O S X users to benefit from being able to run Unix software, which they haev done but it should be installed by default. I believe the only way we can beat Microsoft is instead of thinking along the lines of trying to dominate the OS market and take Microsofts position, instead to realise that we need to encourage source compatability of applications between different OSs and the best way to do that is through following Unix conventions, it is already the most common and popular shared convention on APIs, libraries, command line and development environment. I dont think one OS can overtake Microsoft, but I think a community of OSs sharing the same application software and even hardware device driver community can. This is the right thing to do as well, since people deserve a right to decide what OS to use and computer to use, they deserve the freedom to have choices to choose from, and OS developers and Computer manufacturers should also be able to have the freedom to offer their products as well. In order to have choice of OS people must be able to run their applications and hardware on any OS they choose. Source compatability is where each OS supports the same APIs allowing software to be compiled without modification even if it was written on another OS.
Each OS and computer manufacturer often does well on focusing on a certian niche, and giving users the choice to choose the OS that best fits their needs while allowing them to use the same apps and drivers no matter which one they use would tend to I believe create stronger opposition to Microsoft. I think the OS are better off being intercompatable and feeding off each others inertia rather than putting up walls of incompatability. Microsoft can conquer by keeping its opposition divided in the area of compatability, and thus true user choice and freedom, and thus posing no real challenge to it. Compatability and freedom to choose ones OS live together well.
WMV's look identical on the Mac as they do on Windows. Its the exact same file. They can be played through QuickTime using Flip4Mac, VLC, or mplayer without problems.
WMV and Real are just as good on the Mac as they are in Windows.
For proof that this post is rubbish, look at the fact that the poster refers to "Jaguar" That was the code name for 10.2. That was many years ago.
Debunked.
I don't like the way they're going about this. I'd prefer they offered deals including cheaper upgrade paths rather than just not tell people about Leopard in order to increase 2006 sales. Buy our stuff now, and get a damn cheap upgrade later! I assume it's easy to actually upgrade from one to the other relatively painlessly ;)
>Apple's Leopard agenda is to get Windows users to use Apple hardware then convert them to the Apple camp I either spend retarded amount of money on a Mac system with a snazy OS or I stick wth my current hardware setup which is running Win200K and download a free Linux distro to replace Windows.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
what does this say to anyone at all, not much, apple have always sold macs, just because they are now intel-based, everybody seems to be making a fuss, if they had chosen to go over to the sparc there wouldn't be "apple tries to kill sun" news would there? So could someone explain to me why this is news?
Waits for audience applause... not a sausage.
Because Apple is a hardware company first and foremost, and many of Mac OS X's strengths stem from limited hardware diversity.
Read more about it.
~Philly
Still waiting to buy my first Mac.
I want something between a Mac Mini and Mac Pro. There is an extemely large gulf between these that really needs a mainstream model that will at minimum accept a video card and regular size HD.
I am not interested in a built in monitor mac. I am picky about screen types and run dual screens, so this doesn't fly for me. Fine for my Mom when I get her a new computer, but not for me.
I suspect Leopard will be here before Apple build me a mid range mac. Someone at Apple must see this gap in the product line. The mini is just too underpowered with integrated graphics and laptop Hard Drive; The Pro is total overkill (and overpriced) for my needs.
Hey Apple. I am ready. Build me a machine.
Why do people still think there is a real microsoft killer out there. Windows users, by and large, are not interested in leaving the OS. Point blank. This isn't to say that other OSs are better or have more to offer but Joe is in his rut and he knows what he wants to know and it's getting the job done. End of statement.
And until I can readily get a tech job with only apple knowledge like I can with only windows knowledge I'm afraid Apple is out in the cold for my part.
I've been hearing this same exact babble from the Linux camp for years. When are people going to wake up to these facts and stop proclaiming that a vendor with what, 5% of the desktop market is going to be taking on #1 hardware and #1 software vendors and get away with it. I have more hopes of the Commodore Amiga making a comeback to 1% of the marketshare.
It's about the applications. I've played around with Knoppix, and set up a RedHat box a couple of years ago. And you know what...I can't do productive shit on them. Apple is the same way.
/. just covered it). Or I could pay someone (who is reliable) five figures to come in and do the testing for me. Sad part is, I can't afford either. I can't imagine a system so legacy-burdened and OS-entangled as (for example) AutoCAD running reliably, every day, without a possible hiccup, with all the little goofy add-on shit it needs to be functional, on something other than native MS. Hell, it's not completely stable in it's native environment. Is it worth losing a client worth 20% of my gross income just so I can have a pretty machine on my desktop that is slightly less likely to be totally wiped out by a virus? In 25 years of using IBM PC systems, I have yet to have an unrecoverable failure due to virus. Sorry, betting my salary, plus guaranteed loss of two years of company profits to re-buy and retrain me and my employees in new apps, against something that hasn't happened in that long doesn't make financial sense.
You see, it has nothing to do with the 10-30% price difference in an Apple, or the fact that Apple (C)Won't compete in the entry level systems (my small office runs on a $200 dell server that's three years old an hasn't so much as sneezed in all that time). I can't use Apple (or Linux) because I can't afford to (a) relearn how to manage the OS, (b) relearn all new applications for my technical work, (c) force all my clients to figure out how to interact with my non-industry-standard applications. Most of that stuff is MS only. Oh, sure, I suppose I could spend a few months figuring out if every single one of my dedicated engineering apps works with Wine, or (um, shoot, can't remember the Apple one...
I'm stuck with MS at work because most of the vendors only write for MS. I use MS at home because I use MS at work. I can't afford to re-buy my apps for home. I use the same apps both places (mostly in conformance with the EULAs, by god damned fair use if not). When that changes, we'll re-evaluate.
Tell Steve he has more work to do.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Suicide is not an option. It would only result in a corporate zombie.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
From my original post:
"So really, it is the price. Apple won't beat Dell at the bottom, but in the middle and top, Apple's already got them beat."
And of course, there's the fallacious point of "Apple's computers starting at $1000". Apparently you haven't heard of the Mac Mini, coming in at $599, just $199 more than Dell's "Bottom Line" and offering a ton more features.
Price is only the deciding factor right now because Dell set that one up a couple years back. Now Dell's cut so many corners on their machines their profits are beginning to fall, they're on the other side of the price slashing curve where quality isn't beating out quantity anymore. Apple's only cut margins slightly, and completely rebuilt their platform to make their machines entirely more marketable. All they have to do is show you the differences and let you play with the machines a bit.
With 50% of new purchasers being new to the Mac, we can assert their plan is working.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
There are Mac OS X only games? Somebody has a stunning business model...
I am probably a typical switcher and I am not looking back. I admit, I only bought a mac since it is an Intel machine and i _could_ install Windows (my primary platform) on it if i wanted to. And I am sure I am not the nly one going this route. So i gave OS X a chance and it's probably one of the most polished OSs out there. The BSD core even satisfies the geek in me while the GUI is just tight. I have tried switching comepletly to a linux desktop but i have just not found myself to be productive in it. Too many little quirks to work out to get everything working, which just costs: time. So for now and the near future, count me in in the Apple camp. Hope i don't sound too fanboyish ;)
The writer of that statement, in explaining why Apple must have dumbed-down their product announcements of late, attributes strategic genius to Steve beyond the pale. The suppositions behind such a statement is that
- Apple could never release a dud
- Steve is incapable of a less-than-stellar product introduction
Therefore, the thinking goes, it is master strategy to sell more this year so that people won't tank the stock (*ahem*) this year by not buying current inventory. Problem with this is that Apple has always led with its best foot forward: they announced the move to Intel before there was an Intel-based product offering, as a case in point.Attributing a master strategy as the reviewer in question has done is akin to Coca Cola aficionados who attribute New Coke as a masterful ploy to boost "Classic Coke" sales and loyalty over Pepsi Cola. Yeah, it turned out that CC pulled their butts out of a tight spot with the re-introduction of Coke Classic to appease the revolt, but calling it master strategy is revisionist history at best.
Let's just leave it at this: Apple has broken its string of amazing announcements (amazing in the marketing buzz generation sense) with a slight dud; expect more goodness in the future as Apple redoubles its efforts to overwhelm us with goodness.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I've had more than enough of all these Apple vs Windows and vice versa stories. All this speculation is good for nothing. As long as the software is vapourware I'm not going to let myself be made crazy. I'll wait for Bill and Steve to show us their stuff.
-- Cheers!
I suspect that they see the iMac as the piece that fits between Mac mini and Mac Pro. Even though the integrated display makes the iMac a turn off for you, the reality is that it sells quite well. For many years now Apple has intentionally limited the number of products they make so that there will be clear divisions for people to find the product they want.
If anything, Apple is increasing this simplification: the MacBook replaces BOTH the iBook and the 12-inch PowerBook. The new Mac Pro has ONE standard configuration. There's no more eMac, instead there's a lower cost iMac for education.
The Mac you want doesn't exist. If it did, would it be more expensive than the iMac (due to the ability to customize video, etc.) or would it be cheaper than the iMac because there's no display? How does Apple position such a product so that it does not cannibalize sales of the Mac Pro?
...since their ads focus on everything you can do with a Mac with just its included applications: Buy it, take it home, spend five minutes hooking it up, and then make a movie. Or burn a CD. Or create a song. Or make a web site. Or write a paper. Part of the message of the ads are: If that's what you can do with just what ships on the machine, imagine what else must be out there!
As for your argument that you have Windows-only stuff, part of the reason Apple is playing up virtualization is because it lets you move to a Mac and take your Windows-only stuff with you, if you must. Parallels Desktop kicks ass, runs at nearly native speed, and the VM runs all the Windows productivity apps my clients have thrown at it like a champ. I have more people asking about it every day.
~Philly
I would love to buy another mac, but a Mac Pro is just too much (money & power).
I was hoping Apple would have produced an in-between system. Maybe using a single Core 2 Duo chip and calling it a Mac2Pro (two core). Then the quad core one just introduced could be named Mac4Pro.
There are many users who would not purchase a Mac computer but who would purchase OS X to install on their PC. I do not understand at all why Apple is actually taking efforts to prevent Max OS from running on PCs. This is pathetically stupid and makes no sense.
Well then, let me clear it up for you.
Apple is not a software vendor, Apple is also not a hardware vendor. Apple is an experience vendor.
To get you the "Macintosh Experience" for which you're paying the big bucks they need tight control and integration between the hardware and the software. The reason why MacOS X is able to give a better useability experience is because Apple knows exactly what hardware it'll be running on unlike Microsoft does with Windows.
With a PC there are thousands upon thousands of motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, video cards, sound cards, network cards, etc, etc, etc. The combinations are endless and people expect Windows to not only work, but work well, on every single combination.
I would be surprised if the number of macintosh computers that are currently supported in Tiger reached beyond double digits but even if it did it is still a lot smaller than infinity. Because Apple knows exactly what hardware the OS will be running on they can take full advantage of it whereas on the PC side of things you still have for example: 64bit CPUs running 32bit OS's and the latest version of Windows not even supporting SATA, a 3+ year old technology, out of the box.
Think consoles: PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc. They are severly underpowered if you compare them to a PC, yet they can push out graphics rivaling them, why? Because the developers know exactly what hardware they are coding for and can take full advantage of it.
That is why Apple prevents OS X from running on just any beige box. It wasn't designed to, so if they allowed it people would try it, it would crash, not work right and people would say that MacOS X sucked.
That business model (Mac-only software vendor) does quite well. Those vendors typically understand how to make Mac software more..."Mac like" than say, a primarily Windows software vendor who ports their software over to work on a Mac. Many Mac users like the specific user experience they get with a Mac because of the particular way the software interacts with the O/S. There a lots of companies (ex; The Omni Group) that do well because they specialize in that market. Nothing wrong with knowing and specializing in a particular market. Not every software vendor has to be a supersized-take-over-the-world-large company to be successful. I for one, look to Mac specific software companies for software first, as they will typically implement it in a way that is more useful to me, as a Mac user.
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
It's not that simple. One of the best things about Macs are that "they just work"... If they suddenly had to run on any old piece of hardware, using drivers from god knows where, they are going to lose one of the big edges they have over Windows/Linux based machines
and the new Leopard will feature BOOBIES, and put women out of business...
Why then hasnt someone written a plugin for mplayer or mpg123 or when open source implementations of MPEG4/h.323/whatever it is exist?
And dont answer "patents", all those flavors of MPEG (including MP3 audio) are patented and the open source players implement those so I see no reason "patents" would stop them implementing VC-1 too...
'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'
What a strange comment. Are there features of Leopard that need special hardware support, features that prevent Leopard from showing it's true potential on all Macs except 2007 models? I seriously doubt it. So buy a Mac whenever you want, then upgrade the OS when the next version is available. Sure, it will cost you $129, but that's little compared to the cost of a new Mac notebook (plus AppleCare, which is a requirement these days).
My modern macs have nothing on the life of my old macs. I have an Apple SE, a performa, a first model imac - they all still work as good as the day I got them. I never had a single hardware or software problem that wasn't of my own creation, and the technical service helped me fix any of those quickly.
My newest imac and ibook are not so lucky. My imac started breaking down, having strange random problems, occasional kernal panics and lots of crashing programs just after it went out of warranty. I did a clean install and it ran smooth for a week before acting up again. I took it to an apple store, some people looked at it - and they said they couldn't find any hardware problem, and the only thing they could tell me to do was do a clean install. But in the end "it's an old mac" they told me, "you should think about upgrading." Sure, I want to upgrade, I want an Intel mac someday, but I buy apple with the expectation of top quality.
I had some trouble downloading things on itunes, I wrote apple about it. Commendably, they replied to me very quickly, however they were completely unhelpful. I told them my mac operating system, and that my software was up to date, and gave specific error codes that I recieved. in response they pointed me towards an article tellling me how to solve problems in WINDOWS Itunes for a different set of error codes - the solution in the article being the installation of the newest itunes, which I told them I already have.
Just this week my ibook battery rapidly lost power and now seems dead and the mouse and keyboard started having trouble functioning for several minuites after startup, along with other quirky behavior - though it is still under warranty, so I'll get it checked out.
Between my own experience and some horrible encounters with customers I've heard in the Apple Store (people having their computers/ipods replaced 3 to 4 times, only to recieve defective replacements). I worry that Apple doesn't quite realize their own success, it's not pretty boxes or trendy ads that keep mac fans coming back, it's the performance and value. I'll give them one more chance on the intel mac next time I upgrade.
I will agree with alot of people saying that if i was going to buy a laptop then i would most likely buy a Mac because the prece difference really isnt that great. But as far as desktops go, i am never going to buy one from any company i would gladly build my own and save hundreds of dollars. For Example, My current Machine cost me $600 similarly built dell or apple costs well over $1000 (although student discount on OS helps). Macs are PCs, they are both interchangable so if you want a laptop i say go with mac all the way but with desktop (if you know how) build it yourself, otherwise go with the cheapes dual core pc and install OSX on it if you really want.
I hope they dont sell OSX for any old PC. My Mac works out of the box because the OS is part of the box. I for one would hate to back to the windows driver/upgrade hell that caused me to go mac in the first place.
It's not about you, games and DIY are not the market force - corporations are.
Market-share figures includes sales of computers to corporations, which buy hundreds of PC's at a time. And the corporate world long ago standardized on Windows. It makes no difference how superior Mac OS X or Linux may be; the world's I.T. staffs will switch their entire companies away from Windows the day Rush Limbaugh votes for Hillary Clinton.
After all, the I.T. people know where their bread is buttered. If Macs are indeed less trouble-prone and complex than Windows PC's, they're doomed in corporations; the last thing the I.T. guys want to do is obsolete themselves.
The only legitimate fight, therefore, is for the souls of individuals and small business owners who actually have a choice of platform--people whose computer choice is not dictated by their corporate employers. But these are just market-share scraps.
Apple does seem to be winning the scraps, by the way; Macs have actually picked up a couple of points of market share recently (esp laptops).
But big companies will always buy Windows. The die was cast the day I.B.M., supplier to corporate America, chose Microsoft decades ago. And when you accept that fact, this crap about an Apple-vs.-PC feud is masturbation.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Easy. Make it suitable for the living room but with far greater IO capability than a mini. Use a Merom to keep it silent and it won't compete with the Mac Pro. It may destroy the market for the mini but the mini isn't that great anyway.
The problem with Apple's headless solution is that it doesn't have sufficient IO. The size of the mini isn't sufficiently attractive to make up for that. If it were, Apple could afford to offer both machines. As it stands, Apple doesn't have a media PC offering at all.
Apple's US market share increased to between 4.6-4.8%, depending on who you ask.
Irrelevent to me either way, but if you are going to spout numbers please try to get them right.
Is anyone else tired of hearing the hardware comparisions, with umm no you are wrong attached to them? Some one please PROVE your comment. Apple computers are more expensive by Dell every time that I compare them. No matter what machine you are talking about. I just priced up a an Inspiron 6400 vs Apple MacBook Pro base model. Same basic stats except that Inspiron only would a min of 1GB RAM and 120GB HD and I upgraded the video and display so it would be closer:
Apple MacBook Pro $1999.00
Inspiron 6400 $1212.00
I don't see this Apple is cheaper with same equipment comment. Looks like I save $700 dollars with Dell. And if I don't care about the 128MB ATI video card and Ultrasharp monitor it drops to $1073. I could even throw in Windows XP Pro to really even the OS and I still save $550/$750.
Am I missing something?
Pricing as similar a machine as I can (replacing the ATI card with a quadra FX 3450, match RAM, lose monitor, add DVD-RW, add ethernet) I get $6282 before tax.
So, are Dell gouging an extra $2033 (or 47%) profit from their customers ? Or is it what the market will sustain for them ? Or is it that this time Apple managed to get a better deal on parts ? Who knows... It's pretty certain that if it were the other way around it would be Apple's "high prices".
Now my pricing includes a small discount, but since it seems Apple have to compete on price against Dell's discounts normally, I'm sure no-one will object to me using Apple's discounted prices against Dell, yes ? Even with the discount removed, it's still almost $1400 difference in Apple's favour.
My point is that you have to compare like with like. Sure there's no low-cost tower. Deal. If they don't sell it, you can't buy it - though in fact I'd be surprised if the gap wasn't filled soon enough... I'd expect Apple to launch the high-end towers first so there's a good population of high-end machines out there, and to exploit the pent-up demand. As soon as that demand starts to wane, I (if I were Apple
Simon (who can't wait for his new machine to arrive
Physicists get Hadrons!
On the long run I do not think Apple's Operating Systems will survive. If the Open source community chose GNUstep instead of GNOME Apple would be history or liberated today.
You, sir, have just said that "Apple is beleaguered" and you are not the first person to do so. But I will remind you, and everyone else like you, that this is 2006 and Mac OS X (beta) debuted in 1999. Macintosh has been around since 1984.
Apple's Operating Systems will be around for a lot longer than you think.
You can get Tiger *now*.
...brought to you by the same people who may be getting Apple delisted from Nasdaq.
Apple Computer Inc. maneuvered Friday to keep its shares listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market after reiterating that its mishandling of past employee stock options will cause it to miss a regulatory deadline for filing its latest quarterly results.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of iPods and Macintosh computers said it will ask for an administrative hearing in response to a Nasdaq letter formally warning of a possible delisting because of the company's delay in making its quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report covers the three months ending July 1, a period in which the company has previously said it earned $472 million.
It is far from that simple. Getting the average person to install a new OS on his or her existing machine, wiping out existing software in the process, is asking a lot. Most people just use what came on their machine and stay with that. Microsoft knows this well, as the biggest competitor for Vista by far will be Windows XP, and in that case people wouldn't even lose software compatibility when upgrading. Or think of it this way. Firefox is a free download, and there are a lot of reasons to use it over Internet Explorer. Yet, what is the browser share of Firefox? About 10%.
So I doubt that there is any immediate gain in unleasing OS X for sale to any random combination of PC components out there. Support costs would be very high, and those who install the Mac OS on their Dell are not going to get help from Dell, now are they? It is far better for Apple to just sell them a new machine with known, tested components.
As much as I loathe Apple's manufacturing and QA practices, if you bought an Intel Mac, you could easily run Windows XP without resorting to VMWare or VirtualPC to do it. So, your complaints seem largely baseless in light of the new generation Apple computers being able to run Windows natively.
If your engineering applications require hardware specifications an Apple can't offer, okay. Use Windows, please; nobody is twisting your arm. I use both Windows and Linux myself, but I can meet my Windows needs by running Windows inside of VMWare Player or QEmu, and I use Linux for my day-to-day computing. If Linux couldn't meet my day to day computing needs, I wouldn't use it; it's that simple.
Your experience doesn't represent how all Apple hardware works. I have a 1Ghz G4 which has only kernel panicked twice and nothing else.
The claims against low end Dells are not accurate either. I've seen dozens of $300-400 boxes that have run just fine for years. Some in low end roles and that have remained as equipped at the factory, RAM upgrade excluded. Other that were essentially purchased as barebones and had RAM and video upgraded, some hard drive too, USB 2.0 added, etc.
This is indeed a valid point. Supporting a vast array of hardware is a daunting challenge for an OS. Indeed, I mentioned this in my post, that one of the things that prevents people from having OS choice is the fact that most drivers are written for windows. This is a pity, since the hardware cannot be used on any other OS. Perhaps there should be a universal device driver API of some sort. I suppose different kernels have different internal designs so it may not be practical to try to implement a universal kernel API, but perhaps some compatability layer could be devised? Perhaps each OS could have its own native kernel API but also a universal API that is built on top of that. This way, manufacturers would have one API to program for all OSs. There might be a performance hit or, perhaps not. A manufacturer could still write versions of their driver for certian native APIs as well as the universal API. I say, however, it is better to have complete good quality hardware drivers that may be a little slower, than none at all.
Wrong. A sale is a sale, no matter when it happens. Apple won't go out of business in the next 6 months just because some users delay purchasing until next year.
Sure, you make more money if someone buys a new Apple today and pays for the $150 upgrade next year, but a good product is a good product, and software enhancements aren't a valid reason for putting off a purchase.
Apple's strategy is much more focused on building loyal customer relationships, not just making a one-time sale. Actually, all companies worth their salt have that strategy.
Excerpt the article: So, while initially Apple will likely promise Microsoft that their OS is safe, the actual plan will probably be more like this: once customers are comfortable with the Mac UI, they will gradually train them to use the MacOS exclusively, and then use the then very robust emulation technology to run a declining number of Windows applications without running Windows. Of course this depends on Microsoft not seeing the plan coming and, given the history between the two firms, Microsoft will probably be skeptical to begin with. But, even seeing it coming, given the European Union problem what can Microsoft do about it? ________________________ What I think will happen is users will demand and receive most of what they need in Native OS X applications. M$ will OEM XP/Vista to companies like Parallels for about the same discount that Dells receives. Wine which uses API to replace XP OS will never get past the hobby I tried it stage. M$ is probable using Office profits to pay for the development of Vista. Besides what can M$ do? Block it from running on Apple hardware because they know once people have had the OS X experience, they will never settle for anything less? I don't think they are ready to admit the possibility. It is probable starting a trend but M$ will be the fat cat for many years to come and about the only change will be that MacBU will make more profit for M$.
$675 is the lowest my institution (a very large state institution using a "State Aggregated Purchase Initiative"/Contract) pays for a for a GX620-820/1GRam/80GSata/16xDVD+/-RW/17inch/XPPro/3 yLimWar.
How big should the "bulk" be to get a $300 machine?
"That's cool, I can't wait to get my new mac and start playing..oh..uhm. I guess I better buy a console or something to go with it."
* Bootcamp, Parallels, etc.
* Xbox360 is the same as a video card that plays Oblivion decently, and it'll also play Oblivion decently (as well as other PC titles, since Xbox360 == little PC).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Opera vs. Firefox
Although in the first example, this battle isn't over yet.
Dell has a $485 laptop. With a 1.6 Celeron. And a 4-cell battery. And XP Home. Will ship ten days from now.
Please.
No one here would tolerate this machine for more than three days.
No one here would recommend it for anyone they don't want to hear from a week later and every week after that.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
If you get their cheapest Mac, you can still rest assured it will be an awesome machine in its own right.
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH.... Good one!
This is what is so absurd about all these price complaints... SIMILAR SPEC'D MACHINES from Apple aren't any significant amount more than other OEM PCs (and certainly ONLY comparing to Dell is absurd, given that the majority of PCs are NOT Dells (still), and IBM/HP/Toshiba continue to do OK)
The only difference is that Apple is ONLY using Core Duo chips (and now Woodcrest), which is definetly a MID-RANGE chip. It is obvious that there was a decision at Apple to standardize on Core architecture, with SSE3 instruction set
(if you check out the x86project, they need all sorts of hacked patches to run OSX on pre-SSE3 chips (which they do anyway)).
and until then, feel free to check out osx86project for PC models that have high OSX compatability!
as per steve ballmer
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Windows is very easy to get for free, and as far as I know, Apple software is less so, so I'll keep on using my free shitty windows as long as I am paying for college (that basicly means the rest of my damned life, god damnit U of Redlands is expensive!). Also, Apple software needs Apple hardware to run on, and as we all know (but perhaps fail to admit) Apple hardware is way overpriced. If someone can tell me how to get Leopard to run on a PC, and can tell me how to get it for free, I'll consider using it, untill then, fuck you Apple!
I've built my last 5 systems, and unless Apple plans to open up OS X so that I can do so with their OS, they're SOL! I'll switch to Ubuntu before I switch to DRM shit filled OS X! Oh, Apple fanbois that reply to this can go fuck themselves!
Wait a minute...
Mac Pro
dual 3.0Ghz Xeon woodcrests
16 Gigs RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 4500
23" cinema display
Mac OSX
$11,648
Dell Precision Workstation 690
dual 3.0Ghz Xeon woodcrests
16 Gigs RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 4500
24" widescreen flat panel
Windows XP x64 edition
$9,908
Guess it depends on how you configure them, doesn't it?
If Apple truly wishes to take over the market, they'll need to embrace the Open Document Format. Their current proprietary formats just can't do the trick.
I make my living supporting businesses that use or want to migrate to Macs
So you make money by helping people do on Macs what they used to do on (insert other OS here, but we all know which one). If Macs were really that easy, they could do it themselves, couldn't they?
Apple has no incentive to beat the lowest price point that Dell can produce (with a Microsoft OS).
Dell makes decent machines (for the most part). From my experience (4 Apples, 2 Dells), Apple makes machines that last longer. Apple sells machines that work fine out of the box. With an Apple, there is no need to create a clean install to remove the pre-installed crapware (which incidentally partially subsidizes the Dells).
If you are going to compare a $300 Dell with the cheapest Apple, you will need to calculate an hour and a half of my contractor's rate (no "family discount" for this one). A more fair compairson would be to start with comparative hardware on one of the Linux-equipped (a free distro or an unformatted HD) Dells then add the cost of the newest MacOS X.
MacBookPro is a single Core Duo chip (for now). I wrote I wanted a Core 2 Duo chip. A few more bits there. Also, I do not want a compact,portable,all-in-one,desktop (formerly called laptop) computer. I want the tower with the all the bells and whistles that come with it (no shortcuts for portability, exploding batteries, ignitable external power connections, etc.).
Often Windows systems come with the most popular software, such as Nero burner, Cyberlink DVD player, Photoshop pro, Microsoft Office etc. They might not be very well integrated with each other, but they aren't just some knock off applications either.
On the other hand, we have Linux systems, that generally come with everything (bloated installation unfortunately, but at least that can be changed easily) which includes proprietary drivers/software too (Often the reason why people 'diss' Linux distros for not having on the install cd funny enough).
Then there are those smaller companies, which provide cheaper computers, but are also the minimalists. Probably at most you get is Windows, OpenOffice, Firefox (and other free software) with these.
I think most newly sold windows computers have somewhat decent security out of the box, they come with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewalls, while Mac, just comes with a Firewall. Currently it's a bit behind Apple, because users still run as administrators, but that's going to change in Windows vista.
Most new computers do come with the majority of those programs (usually Opera instead of Firefox in my experience), and windows update is automated (like the update manager on MacOSX).
As for the high memory-tax, avast doesn't seem to be taking much here.
Don't worry, thatll be gone in VistaSorry, no idea what you mean by lack of 'full' multiuser support, example please?You do know that POSIX's permissions system is more primitive Windows's. It's why there has been so much work on compatibility hacks with ACLs, trying to get them working nicely on *nix filesysems. My favorite issue.
How about that PCs come from more than just one vendor. I also don't see many low-end scale PCs often. Another interesting thing, is that HERE, where I am located -- the people who know what windows is, have probably heard of Linux, but most have never even heard of a company called Apple.
There's a reason why I still buy Amigas...My Mac experiences were not so enlightening.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Configure a Mac Pro and Dell with the same specs including an upgrade to a more expensive Quadro which Apple does provide as an option. Notice the price? The Mac Pro is still cheaper and it includes more media software. Now add three year Apple care or Call Apple up and inquire about Procare. Is the the Dell cheaper? By how much? Is it 50 bucks or less? Is it really cheaper when you consider the bundled software?
The low end quadro is irrelevant and probably no more powerful than the gamer card even with CAD apps. I think you fell for marketing names and buzzwords.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Kill Dell? Hell, yes. Kill Microsoft? Not so fast. All this bickering about who copied what from who. It all misses the point. There is a methodology to this apparent mimickry. It's part of a vast Cupertino/Redmond conspiracy. Vista's introduction is intended for one purpose only: To transition Windows users to a Mac-like environment. Likewise Leopard. The underwhelming feature array announced at WWDC carried within it a common thread: These are all features linked to Vista past, present and future. Are you starting to get the picture? That's right. Vista is merely a bridge OS to Microsoft's radically new operating system that will follow not too long on its heels. It is called Microsoft OS X. And it will be virtually indistinguishable from Mac OS X 10.x. And it will run natively on all dual-core Intel-based machines. And it will be manufactured and marketed by one of the three post-Gates companies formed by the breakup of Microsoft. And it will ship with every new Dell, HP, Sony....and Mac! And it will usher in a golden era of unified platform computing. And why, you ask, would Apple ever hand over its crown jewels OS code to Redmond? For one reason only: To elevate the Macintosh's market share to rival that of the iPod. The long and dreary Mac vs. PC debate will soon be rendered a quaint historic artifact. With Apple dominating the desktop and laptop hardware industry, iPod-style, and Microsoft cranking out the system software, they would quite simply rule the world. But how will Apple lure buyers away from Dell & HP if OS X is now available for one and all? That's where iLife, iWork, Safari, iCal, etc. come in. Apple's iApps will run on all machines, but they'll be bundled free and supported free with every new Mac. And finally the industry will come to understand why system software ought to be standardized while application software, and hardware, should compete in the marketplace. It's the future and you can see it coming...just over the hegemony and just beyond the Vista. -- Peter Weisz Weisz Marketing Services Carmel, Indiana USA www.peterweisz.com
Peter Weisz Weisz Marketing Services Carmel, Indiana USA www.peterweisz.com
There has been talk of the elusive "killer app" for years on the internet but I believe that these new frameworks (Core Animation), existing frameworks (Core Image/Video, Data and Audio) will usher in a true "killer app" that developers will struggle in vain to reproduce on windows and other linux. Some may manage to create a pale copy of it but it will not be so tightly integrated into the OS and you will not be able to easily share data with other apps. I would also venture that it would take 10X as much time, money and manpower to develop.
We can all "oooh and ahhh" all we we want about the flashy features in OS X or Vista how easy it is to implement innovative applications in a particular OS will determine which one has the attention of the public and media IMO.
I think the keynote only scratched the surface of the power the collaboration features in Leopard will have on the development landscape.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If Vista ships with a full iLife suite the posters here will be crying foul. Wah! It has an integrated browser! Wah! It has a media playe!
But you don't buy the Vista PC because it ships with a calendar app, you buy it because MSDOS and Windows have been in your home and office for as long as twenty-five years.
The availability of hardware, software and peripherals is unmatched. You can buy or build a Windows PC in any configuration imaginable and at any price point and customize it to your heart's content.
You can pay full retail list for the latest and greatest FPS, or bag Fallout and System Shock at a garage sale for 50 cents.
Dude, check the facts on the $150,000 investment Microsoft made in Apple. When that happened, Apple had something like $4.5 billion in cash in the bank. CASH. Check it. They could have kept running the company for two or three years and not sold anything. They didn't NEED $150,000 to survive. It was a settlement to keep Apple from suing Microsoft over stolen QuickTime code and other things. Apple also wrested the continued development of Office for the Mac for 5 years in exchange for planting Internet Explorer on shipping machines. If that software swap didn't happen, Apple may well have tanked because there were few viable alternatives. That $150,000 didn't save anything except a lose-lose court battle. So far as market share, I've seen nothing but people drop kicking their home PCs left and right and buying Intel Macs. I know this because several times a week, I'm helping someone move their Outlook Address Book to their new Mac and training them how to get around it. Apple is also meeting the software community half way and creating machines that will support virtualization more easily. When Crossover Mac comes out in a month, that's when I'm completely switching and dumping Windows all the way.
Most of the stuff on
"they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006."
Why would any one wait to buy hardware for an OS update? Its not coming for atleast 6 months.
This is you if you owned a game development company:
crossmr: We're only going to develop this game for PC only.Lead Developer: We've already developed it. In fact, we developed it in a way that allows us to port it to other platforms quite easily.
crossmr: That's unpossible! Did I ask you to do that? No! PC only! And who's he?
Guest appearance by Steve Ballmer: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS...
Your comment is a perfect example of why I think the Mac community has been compromised by using Office X, and other products from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. As I have mentioned here before, I do not trust PC-type people. They do not think like us. They are not like us. They are as close to "alien life forms" as we can get without having to leave this planet.
/Applications folder, none of them pledge allegiance to a corporate master churning out horrifying simulacra of Mac users' innovations. On top of that, given that they are run by Windows users, how easy would it be for one of them to allow a "friend" to dummy up a Trojan, have another "friend" port it to the Mac, and then allow another "friend" to unleash a remote controlled hell on our private Bonjour-configured LANs? After all, they are "blood", right?
Seriously, they do not share our values. They hate that we have good taste. They like to keep their windows maximized and their ligatures uncombined. They think gray is a color. Hell, most of them are perfect little squares in perfectly square holes and if you go to PC strongholds like Staten Island you'll see most of the media they consume is produced by Mac users, as the Windows demographic is incapable of creativity in music, the arts, interior design, etc.
They are backwards. They live in the 1980s. They've contributed nothing meaningful to humanity for decades and decades. While we different thinkers are out writing AppleScripts, making HyperCard stacks, mixing in Logic Pro, editing collaboratively in SubEthaEdit, proofing rainbow banners in Illustrator, creating wealth through a variety of postmodern/postindustrial models and winning Nobels and Pulitzers and Grammys and Tonys and Oscars and Pritzkers along the way, the PC users are sitting on their asses downloading the fruits of our labor (how else do you explain so many being able to reference Futurama, bash the New Yorker, etc.?) The only thing they have in their favor is old, fat, white-bread bankrolls accumulated on slavery and imperialism and, personally, I wish their inherited wealth would run dry. Sure, we'd have a hell of a headache funding our next indie production, but so would the whole world, and when faced with adversity the ingenuity of Mac users truly comes to the fore.
Anyway, back on point. Why don't I trust the Mac Business Unit?
Because to have PC-type people writing software to help us finance our projects, communicate with our studios, write our manifestoes and organize our political protests, is a disaster waiting to happen.
Whereas we may allow products from other dull, dogma-bound companies into our
Which leads me to how some in our own community are encouraging PC-type people to switch to the Mac.
If you go back and do some checking of stories, you will see that in most cases where lifelong Windows users suddenly buy Macs, or people who are Linux to the core suddenly pirate Intel OS X from the internet, it is almost all done in cahoots with another recent switcher (read: poseur) on the "inside" or one that "knows" someone on the inside.
So if we have these so-called "switchers" from Linux and Windows in the Mac community, facilitating crass, classless ass-pickery on our platform by encouraging more PC-type people to switch, just how far a stretch is it to say the PC users in charge of the MBU won't do the same when it comes to our applications? HMMMMM?!?!?!
PC hardware is commodity. If you don't like Windows, run Linux. Apple is a holdover from the bad old days when computers first got to the consumer level. We had Ataris, Commodores, Apples, etc. You had to port for all that stuff. Add-ons cards? They had to be designed for the hardware.
I trust Apple about as far as I can throw it. Bitch all you want about MS, but at least you can install some other OS on open, commodity hardware with a well known BIOS interface. If Apple wants my business, they'll have to drop their proprietary hardware model and play fair. I don't think they will though. As long as they can hide behind their proprietary hardware, they don't really have to compete with the gorilla from Redmond. This is probably a smart move on their part, because the gorilla throws some mighty big feces. So. They've got their business from people who don't care about the hardware being closed. Best case scenario? Someone figures out a way to clone the Macs legally, then Mac becomes the new PC and MS has to port Windows to run on Macs natively. But then it's just "full circle". In effect, it would be the same as Apple competing directly with a PC version of their OS.
If anybody can compete with MS, it's Apple, but they won't do it. I understand why; but it's still a shame because it would be a great tech story--much more interesting than the Intel switch.
Anyway, with commodity hardware, a bunch of hackers can rebell against the monopoly. Rebelling against a monopolized proprietary hardware vendor would be much more difficult, and that's why I shun Apple.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"Just $199 more" = 50% more than $400. In other words, "just" is not an appropriate term for it. As the other poster said, you still need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Also, from your original post that got modded higher than its parent for some strange reason:
It truly doesn't matter whether Apple wins the high end. Most of Dell's market is low end. Apple could dominate the $2000+ market, and they still wouldn't make a dent in Dell. We can talk about Dell Precisions all day, but the fact is, most consumers don't even know what a Dell Precision is.
Now you can have four hard drives in your Mac. No shit! FOUR hard drives!
I disagree - I, for example, value the hardware customization you can get with a PC (not just a Dell - or rather anything but Dell), while you seem to value the software suites Apple bundles with their Mac systems. It's all a matter of personal preference - again, since I don't give a crap about having iMovie and the rest of the iLife junk (it's junk to me anyway) adding to the cost of a machine, so it would simply seem like overpriced hardware.
So for me, I consider my HP Pavillion a1129n ($7xx when I bought it, now about 12xx or 13xx): Athlon 64b 3400, 512ram (+1 gig), the Geforce 7900gt I dropped in, 200gig default HDD (+300gig secondary I dropped in) - is far better than any of the entry level Mac desktops (not the Mini) would compare to at the same price. And another thing - since I value hardware so much, you can probably see that I'm a gamer. So I'm actually happier with WinXP than I would be with OSX since just about every game I have or could want from over the past 8 years or so (hell, even the ones I run away from) require XP. How many apps and games are compatible with Mac compared to XP?
However, I gotta say, the only thing that has me thinking of switching to Mac is when I took a look at Vista about a month ago - theres no other way to describe it other than I hated pretty much everything about it (I'm sacrificing how much of my CPU or GPU for those half assed transparent windows??? I think not...)
Apple's new Mac Pro is cheaper than a comparatively configured Dell workstation machine.
Please configure a Dell 690 and an Apple Pro machine, then post the pricing of the two. Don't talk shit until you've actually compared the two!!
You may want to check your power to those machines. I don't doubt that you have problems with them, but that number of problems for that few machines seems odd to me - and I've managed an account that had thousands of Macs, thousands of Windows machines, and thousands of various UNIX machines in one facility. My statistical analysis of the reliability of the various machines/OS environments leads me to believe that you suffer from some bad power to those machines (low voltages, dirty, etc.).
I for one can't wait for OS X 10.9 Pussy to hit the shelves. I hear it will be dead sexy.
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Um. David Pogue's latest _Circuits_ newsletter in the NYT reads: "Why? Because the market-share figures includes sales of computers to corporations, which buy hundreds of PC's at a time. And the corporate world long ago standardized on Windows. It makes no difference how superior Mac OS X or Linux may be; the world's I.T. staffs will switch their entire companies away from Windows the day Rush Limbaugh votes for Hillary Clinton. After all, the I.T. people know where their bread is buttered. If Macs are indeed less trouble-prone and complex than Windows PC's, they're doomed in corporations; the last thing the I.T. guys want to do is obsolete themselves. The only legitimate fight, therefore, is for the souls of individuals and small business owners who actually have a choice of platform--people whose computer choice is dictated by their corporate employers. But these are just market-share scraps. Apple does seem to be winning the scraps, by the way; Macs have actually picked up a couple of points of market share recently. But big companies will always buy Windows. In my view, the die was actually cast the day I.B.M., supplier to corporate America, chose Microsoft decades ago. And when you accept that fact, this business about an Apple-vs.-Microsoft feud for dominance looks purely symbolic." Apart from the change in the last line, it looks like a pretty close correlation. Who needs Pogue when we have the /. transcription service?
In the New York Times, David Pogue makes the argument that Apple will NEVER win the desktop war, because MS went for the IT departments of the world, the guys who can buy 100 or 1000 systems at the same time. MS has saturated the office desktop, and that's not about to change any time soon. They are poised for a major jump in market share, but they can't take the main market for Microsoft, the computer every clerk for the DMV has on his or her desk. "Name?" Type, type, type. "Birthday?" Type, type. "Wait for a minute, sir, it's stalled a bit." "Oh, I see. Is your first name Glen?" "No." "Is your birthday in 1992?" "Nope." Etc.
That computer is running Windows. It will be in the future.
Long term, Microsoft will choke on its own tongue. Just like IBM, which dominated computing for a generation.
When I look at the home market, I cannot figure out why everyone tries to shoehorn a "business" PC into the home. Why did the IBM PC and compatibles take over the home? It's not like they were better suited to the home compared with the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. If fact, they were the least suited to "home" applications.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Way to go, grandparent. Was it just not possible to read the article, internalize it, and present your own opinions instead of ripping off the printed page?
> Apple computers are more expensive by Dell every time that I compare them
You're forgetting the _software_ that actually makes the machine usefull...
1. How much would you have to pay for iLife equivalents on Windows though? GarageBand? iDVD? iMovie? iPhoto? Disk Utility?
2. I'd take Finder's ability to drag any folder onto the Toolbar _any day_ insead of the stupid hard-coded locations in a Windows Dialog Box: Recent Docs, Desktop, My Docs, My Comp. I'd take having ONE menu bar at the top with "infinite" height, then wasted screen estate for _each_ application wasting space for a menu bar. I'd rather have Expose that moves all windows out the way to show the desktop, then stupid Explorer Its touches like this, that need to be factored in, and how much _time_ you save using the machine.
3. It's about the integration... Mail.app, iCal, AddressBook, iChat, etc.
--
]PR#6
]CATALOG
DISK VOLUME 254
APPLE ][ FOREVER
*T 001 STUPID FILE/OPERATING SYSTEM DESIGNS
T 001 MS-DOS: NO SPACES, 8.3 CHARACTERS
T 001 WIN XP: NO COLON, CANT END WITH PERIOD.
T 001 *NIX: hello.c != hello.C (WTF??)
T 001 ALL: ' ' not interchangeable '_'
So here's my configuration, going down the page options at Dell's page
Base price is $2358
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 3.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $930]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 3.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $1,279]
4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) [add $870]
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX 3450, Dual DVI or Dual VGA or DVI + VGA [add $525]
500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache(TM) [add $400]
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD(TM) and Roxio Creator(TM) Dell Ed [add $20]
No Monitor Option [subtract $149]
Broadcom NetXtreme 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet controller-PCI Express card [add $49]
Dell Wireless 1450 (802.11 b/g) WLAN USB 2.0 DT Adapter [add $49]
For a total of $6331 - must have missed something last time. I don't see how you can get $3592 with the same specs. Love to see how you did it!
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
you don't know too many BMW drivers, do you?
It is technically possible to port Mac OS X in order to be executable on general cheap Intel-Computers. But they do not want it. You know that GNUstep aimed at creating a runtime plattform for Linux, Windows and Mac. So it should not be a problem for Apple to provide software which makes OS X apps run on Windows but they just don't want it.
Of course Apple doesn't want Mas OS to run on just any hardware. Maybe you're like most people and don't know Apple is as much a hardware company as a software one. At one tyme, from '95 to '98 Apple did license Mac OS to third party computer manufacturers. Here's a list of companies that had clones, MacOS-Compatible System Specs (Mac Clone Specs). This was when Jobs was gone, but when he was brought back he stopped it. Apple was loosing more from the loss of hardware sales than they were making from licensing Mac OS.
FalconShould there be a Law?
here
Now this isn't a consumer device, I want it for development and for FPGA place-and-route work, but still you said "every time"...
In a followup, I detail the exact spec of the Dell I was comparing with (because someone disputed my numbers). As far as I can see, these are pretty much identical machines, and one is $2000 cheaper than the other...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
... it would do all the spell-checking for you without you having to load up Word. It's a system-wide facility for any NSText-derived object...
Sometimes the small things are what make the difference.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
What has the OS community brought into the mainstream?
What has the OS community brought to the mainstream? Let's see, much of the software that runs the net is or originates from OS software. We wouldn't have the PCs and other personal or business computers we have now if OS hardware and software hackers hadn't been there. A big hand is deserved for those hackers who were part of the Railroad club at MIT in the '60s and '70s. Amoung other things they inspired those like the Woz, Steve Wozniac to create the original Apple. If you really want to know some of what open source has been responsible for reading Steven Levy's "Hackers: Heros of the Computer Revolution" will give you an idea.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Isnt there room for more then one OS? People have different needs, and each product serves a different mrket.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But I'm gonna just run bootcamp and windows on it. I don't think I'll ever use the apple side of it. I just like thier hardware look and feel.
They have to do more than appeal to the masses. They need to appeal to game makers as well. Gaming is a big business and arguably what has pushed ahead a lot of computer innovation. People aren't ready to give up on computer gaming and until they are, Mac has nothing.
That brings up two things I keep hearing from those who haven't tried a Mac. One camp says the only thing you can do with a Mac is play games, meanwhile a second camp says there are no games for Macs. Though it's been several years since I've really used a Mac, I have played games on them and used them for productivity. I first started using Macs to write papers for classes back in 1984/5. At the same tyme I was using PCs with MSDOS in a programming class. Now, all the computer science and programming classes used PCs, they didn't teach any programming or information classes with Macs. However Macs were all the art classes such as graphic design. That makes sense, Macs were graphic machines, however I didn't and still don't understand why no programming classes used Macs. As for games, when I got my first computer it was a Mac, in 1992 and I also got some games for it on floppy.
Fact is is there are both games and productivity apps for Macs. Maybe not as many games available as for PCs but there are some. And in many graphics design shoppes you will find only Macs. Other productivity apps? MS has Office for Macs. There are communications apps, DBs, and spreadsheets available as well.
FalconShould there be a Law?
They haven't released the details to any new great features yet. It's because they don't have any. And all they are doing with allowing dual boot, is migrating mac users to windows.
It's funny, because the Mac fanbois at least hate Windows because it sucks and they can give reasons. Apple haters just seem to hate Apple and the logic is missing.
Ok, note how the Mac users are fanbois, and hate windows 'because it sucks' But the windows users are 'Apple haters' and have no logic.
Very subtle, but none the less a good way to twist things around and put you on the defensive.
Learn from your mistakes grasshopper, and remember, he's baiting you because he uses a mac and needs to try and feel superior. It's like little dog syndrome.
Deep down, it's only because he's esentually using a glorified dvd player and thinking it's an actual computer. Kind of like linux users, thinking that Linux-HobbyOS Wicked cool version 2.0 will one day be a real desktop OS that someone outside of IT would actually want to use.
(bow)
The Blue screen of death is also much less prevalent. You might want to look up the definition of FUD. I honestly can't recall the last time I saw a bluescreen...I can it was xmas 2003, I received a bad motherboard for a PC I was building for my father. Before that, I think I was running Windows 98SE.
Your last BSOD was 2003? Same as mine. It was on a brand new Dell running XP. I got a BSOD on the first day of a class in Java. I turned on the Dell when I entered and sat down for class. While it was booting up it froze then the BSOD popped up and I had to pushin and hold the power button for it to turn off. When I rebooted it was fine, so I don't know what happened. It may of been just a freak but it wasn't a good first tyme use of XP.
They need to do more than say "we're better than MS because we don't have viruses and spyware". Somehow I'm betting that may significantly change if they were to suddenly have 50% desktop share.
Agreed! While I believe OSX is more secure than Windows, as Apple's share of computers increase more and more blackhats, crackers, and others will write more malware for Apple. This would be true with any OS that has a significant market share.
FalconShould there be a Law?
All it was was a price comparison of the new Mac Pro and a Dell, why do you people have to get worked up on every little thing? And of course Apple wants people to switch from Windows that's called competing for a market.
--Cheers
I hope I'm not the only one but I don't really want to play games on any computer that much. Though I've bought game software I haven't really been interested in gaming since Tetris back in the early '90s or so. I may be unusual in this but for fun I'd rather go out into nature, say hiking, go scuba diving, rollerblading, or go watch a play in the theatre.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Business men aren't known for being big risk takers, especially when it comes to say switching the entire marketplace.
Some business men are big risk takers, that's why some of them became very wealthy. Like some corporate raiders. But by porting games for Macs and Linux it's not really a switch instead it's expanding your market and any business person worth a hill of beans wants to expand their market.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Also - design. I know a lot of nerds like Apple stuff for that reason, but really - it's awful. All that plasticy white or pale blue. I know iPods are only supposed to last a year, but PCs have to look like they'll survive a few years in an office environment.
It's only ancedote but from my personal experience Macs last longer than PCs. The first computer I bought I bought a used Mac in 1992. It finally bit the dust when the floppy drive died in 2000. Prior to this the only problem I had with it was I couldn't install new software on it after a few years. Since 1997 I've bought 4 pcs for myself. The first one was a Gateway laptop. It's motherboard had to be replaced a few months after I got it. Then a couple of weeks before I had had it a year the hd died. The third was another laptop from Gateway. The lcd cracked around three months after I got it and when I called tech support they said they didn't cover that and this despite the extended warranty I paid for when I ordered it. The HP PC I'm using now is my fourth PC and like the first laptop, in the first year I had it the motherboard and hd had to be replaced. And that was just some of the hardware troubles I've had. Now, the second PC I got, I ordered from Microway is the only PC I haven't had hardware problem with. However the cpu is a DEC Alpha and I wasn't able to install much software on it so I haven't used it much.
After not having any problems with Macs in years of use and with having them with almost every PC within a year has convinced me to make my next computer a Mac.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Did you have to Activate XP? Though by far not the only reason, one reason I, a pc owner/user for more than 8 years, will get a MBP as my next computer is because of Activation amd WGA. All MS needs to know is I paid for it, I shouldn't have to "activate" with anyone what I paid for, nor do I need it to phone home at all when I don't want it to.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And here I just purchased my first Mac (MacBook, black) and now you tell me it'll be obselete 2 weeks after I just bought it?
Too bad the warranty doesn't cover that!
I don't think there is anyplace where a warranty will cover obselesence for a computer. However I was talking about this with someone working in a camera store and explained I was concerned about buying a new dsrl, digital slr, when he explained that if a new dslr with better specs came in and the camera you bought got broken they would exchange it for the new one if it was the same price. And he said so just drop it so it breaks. I didn't do that but of course before I ever did I'd make sure the warranty did cover that.
FalconShould there be a Law?
OK, so I saw people comparing prices earlier, so I figured I'd go do my own price comparison. My goal would be to replace my aging home PC with something a bit faster. Here are my results.
Apple iMac 1.83Ghz Core Duo vs Dell XPS 410
with the following requirements:
Here are what I ended up with:
Differences
Personally, it sounds like the Dell has better hardware. It should also be noted that changing anything on the Apple costs significantly more than changing it on the Dell. For instance, upgrading to 2GB RAM costs $140 more for the Dell, but $200 more for the Apple. Upgrading the processor to 2Ghz (actually 2.13Ghz) costs $50 for the Dell and (along with a 20"ws monitor upgrade) $325 for the Apple.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
People will install Windows on apple hardware, then realise that it has a better variety of software, does not try to force you to do things in the apple simpleton way, and runs lots of nice games. Such users will then delete MacOSX. Out of 5 apple x86 users I know with recent hardware, all of them run windows for what now appears to be the majority of their usage time. The damage appears to be to apple's operating system effors, although there could be corresponding benefits for hardware sales, if they fix probelems like the broken 1 button trackpads on laptops.
...my Mac feels so much snappier!
"....Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006. 'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'"
Yes, in the same way Bill Gates was holding back Vista and Aero (cough, cough). I don't know about you but my money didn't burn a hole in my pocket.
We have Vista Beta in our office. The OS is a memory and processor hog. Now I know "but it's beta" and all that MS appologist crap, but the same box it is on screams with Linux and is quite capable with XP. All the computer pros in our office who have messed with this Vista Beta are already looking at their existing systems and deciding what all they will have to upgrade to make it Vista compatible.
Bottom line is, a > $500 desktop from Dell isn't going to run Vista for crap where as today you can buy and old Apple iMac on eBay for the same money and you can run Tiger.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Are about gaming machines a lot of the time. Macs don't really hit that spot so well, sadly.
COYBOY NEAL, You really are a troll for the mac fan boys. this has to stop. How about not posting articles which provide no real insights, just plain conjecture and troll bait for the mac fanboys? All of this "macs are the best" stuff really makes me sick.
, X, the letter X has replaced ten for you you poor illiterate fool, you work on a different currency exchange to the rest of us where apples are good value, you would commit suicide if your computer didnt smile at you when you turned it on, you throw stuff in the trash even when it can be recycled out of spite, you make gay little movies on your ilife imovie and it makes you feel smug, and you bastards have clogged up slashdot with cheap retarded jokes in the comments of every article and rants on how you secretly masturbate to pixar films.
Get over it you apple fans, noone likes you, you still live at home, you dont shower, you dont have a job, you cant use a real computer and the mac is some kind of retard sanctuary for you, you dont have any relationships which dont involve your mac, you cant use a mouse, you still use eworld, when you count to ten you go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,7.1,7.5,7.6,8,8.1,8.5,8.6,9,9.1,9.2
Whenever I see threads like this on Slashdot, I can't help but think how sorely mislead the average Slashdot user is. The forum is overwhelmingly pro-Apple and pro-Linux, and they let their emotions cloud their vision.
Often, you see trollish headlines that state "will Apple kill Microsoft?", "Will Apple kill Dell?", "is this the iPod killer?", etc. People here seem to be a little on the artsy/emotional side rather than on the purely logical side. They can't seem to grasp the gravity of a situation; instead they get lost in the details and forget the scale of things. For a forum that loves Star Trek, they sure don't think like Spock.
First of all, people underestimate the massive advantage of being the much larger company. Dell has a huge marketshare advantage over Apple. They have $55 billion a year in revenue vs. $14 billion a year. If worst came to worst, Dell could simply buy Apple. Microsoft could also easily buy Apple, but the US Gov wouldn't allow that. Still, if it were a fight to the death, they could afford to take losses to sap away Apple's marketshare.
I think people should stop to think for a moment before they post these unrealistic headlines, because if it came down to it, the larger company would simply gobble up the smaller company. It's business 101.
I'm not trying to troll here, I'm trying to inject a dose of reality into another one of these irrational threads.
In regard to the actual headline, cheap people will continue to suffer but those who will shell out an extra $200 for a Mac mini will get such a better experience and so fewer hassles I just don't see how the market can't grow. Of course there are a certain number of people out there who put no value on their time and stopped learning the day they left school, but those people deserve Vista and it's very likely poor user experience on their $399 Dell.
at the point that its MacOS X operating system reduces Windows to just another .app that runs in a window on the desktop like any other application.
Sure, it'll cost you a MS license included in MacOS X, BFD. When one subsumes the other and it runs transparently, the point is won, game, set, match.
Dell at that point is left to defend its price/performance/service. Not much of a business plan against Apple hardware.
-r
You know that is nice. Now how about you configure similar Dual Dual Core Woodcrest machines. I will bet Dell has nothing to compare.
Give it less than a month, and I will bet Apple has a midtower Conroe based machine call the Mac. It is obvious considering the large hole Apple has intentionally left in its product line. This is Apple's release season, and we have not seen the end of it, just the beginning!
Just a little more PATIENCE!
I'm positive that Apple has made room for another desktop in its lineup. Why? Look at all of the pro machines. They are all dual processor. Previously Apple had a crippled PM to bridge the distance between the iMac and the high end. Apple has opened a gap here for a minitower, pizza box, who knows what shape computer. This will be the real desktop growth machine. Kinda Prosumer.
You have the:
Mac Mini - Basic computer. Could be used as a lowend desktop or small server in a small business.
iMac - Minimalist desktop, classic Apple all-in-one design. Can play some games, but not a real heavy hitter.
MacBook - Portable Mac mini. Basic laptop, no good at graphic intensive games, but pretty decent machine.
MacBook Pro - Portable desktop machine. As good as a laptop gets.
Mac Pro - Uncomprimising speed demon.
Notice what is the common element in all those names? Mac.
I predict that Apple will introduce the first ever Apple Mac as soon as it gets enough Conroe (Core 2 Duo Extreme) processors from Intel to provide a reasonable level of availablilty.
This'll use a SINGLE dual core processor unlike the dual processor in the Pro. Upgradeable graphics card and maybe one free PCI slot, 2 drive bays instead of 4, 1 optical instead of 2 and 4 RAM slots instead of 4. Top end will be a single 3 GHz (BTO) machine. This should be slower than the base dual 2 GHz Mac Pro at highly threaded apps. This'll be the "gamer"/prosumer machine that people have been asking years for. It doesn't really threaten the workstation class of the Pros, but offers more expandability/monitor size and customizaiton than the iMac.
It'll be aggressively priced to make a dent in the market place. It'll be cheaper than an EQUIVALENT Dell. Bet on that! Look how much effort Apple is putting into its machines to prove that point at the WWDC.
These'll be "available" in Sept., but only really be widely available by the Oct.-Dec. Christmas shopping season (HoHoHo). This'll do for Apple's desktop market share what the MacBook did for the laptop.
For every sob story, there's the other sort. I have used a G3 iBook since it first came out as my daily workhorse. It has only ever had one problem, which was the chafing and eventual breaking of the cable that supplied the screen backlight with power - a common problem on that model apparently. I replaced the cable myself and other than that it has been 100% reliable. Now consider the abuse it has received. Daily use of between 4-8 hours a day for over five years. Travelled between the UK and Australia several times, as well as many other trips. Taken apart several times - first to upgrade the hard disk from 10GB to 40GB. Second to overclock the processor from 500MHz to 600MHz - even soldering the mboard didn't break it. Third time to replace the cable I mentioned. The take-apart and put back together I got down to less than 1/2 hour. It's all about confidence - and not being too precious about losing a screw. Oh, I also replaced the keyboard a while back - not because it wasn't working but because I used it so heavily that some of the letters wore off. Now I just bought a new MacBook to replace it, the G3 will be semi-retired to acting as a music and wireless printer server. It's given me nothing but total service, and hasn't even worn that badly - though it definitely has a slightly used look about it. A great machine, I hope the Macbook will prove as good.
Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006. 'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'
I purchased a Mac Pro. I thought about waiting for Leopard. But then I realized that I still won't be getting rid of my G4 Cube or my Blue & White G3 w/550 MHz G4 upgrade, and I'll be buying a multi-seat license for them just like I did for Tiger. (Buying one 5-seat license is cheaper than buying two single-seat licenses.) By getting a Tiger pre-installed system, I'll be getting an Intel build of Tiger that I didn't have already, and I'll be wasting one less seat when I buy Leopard later. Thus buying now makes more sense to me than waiting, even if all the new features of Leopard were disclosed.
But then maybe I'm special as I have two old machines to upgrade in addition to the new one. If I had only one old machine capable of running Leopard, I could save the expense of the multi-seat package until the next upgrade after Leopard.
The only ways I could lose out is if Leopard is released for Intel only or otherwise not released in a universal package.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The PowerPC architecture was one of the main reasons Apples were more expensive, because it was proprietary
Uhh, no. Google is your friend. The PPC chips Apple used actually cost them less than the current Intel chips. Myth Busted!
I hope you are right. There is a big gap here and it is only from this gap where I will purchase a Mac. I am a potential switcher.
Apple can't count on forcing people (like me) into only the high end (Mac Pro) or the low end(Mac Mini), as others have suggested. That might work on the faithful, but it only creates another barrier for entry for potential switchers. A year from now even low end Dells will have dual core conroes.
If they are getting serious about market share they need something with more potential than a Mini that is affordable and competetively priced with PC offerings.
It doesn't have to be cheaper than Dell for me. It just needs to be close.
... not just to Tipperary (as the Irish say).
In the meantime, don't hold your breath.
Apache has a far larger market share than IIS yet it has almost no serious security threats. So using your logic above how can that be?
True, Apache runs half or more of the web servers but it is more secure therefore there aren't as many attacks on it but there are some. That's one of the good things about FOOS, with so many people working on them when a flaw or vulnerability is found someone comes up with a fix relatively quickly. For the most part this makes Apache even more secure. That is a big reason I believe OSs, servers, and such should be open source. The market is big enough for both closed and open source software and places where one is more appropriate than the other. As FOOS grows there will be less need for closed software though. I also agree with you on MS. They didn't pay much attention to security and are suffering because of it so now they're working on it some.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Look, what the hell is your point? This is utterly pointless. Yes, dear, I realize that Macs are "Personal Computers". I also realize that 99% of all people use the word "PC" to denominate what we used to call "IBM compatible PCs". Everyone understands what is meant when you say "Macs and PCs". Get over it.
Yes, for every Mac, you can probably find a PC that is cheaper with similar specs. The same applies to every PC. I said "Macs are priced similarly to PCs", not "You can't find a PC priced cheaper than a Mac". The point here is that you don't pay a huge premium for Macs anymore, compared to PCs. Macs aren't by definition more expensive than PCs. The canonical example is the Dell comparison simply because Dell offers cheap prices at acceptable (at least to some people) quality levels.