Slashdot Mirror
Leopard Vs. Vista
Rockgod writes to point us to an ongoing series of articles, "Leopard vs. Vista," by Daniel Eran. The latest is part 4, Naked Sales, and it's a meditation on hardware without Windows, Apple's strategy of hardware-software integration, and the dissatisfactions that arise from the creative tension between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. (The earlier articles in the series are linked form this one.) From the article: "The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all name brand PCs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase 'Dell recommends Windows XP Professional,' as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance... Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."
it's hard getting anything naked.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I'm aware of their old contracts, but are they still in effect? Can't they be renegotiated?
I'm surprised that Dell, Gateway and HP would still be taking it up the rear. Ubuntu is a good enough system for a lot of homes that only need to do email, web, and type grade and high school papers.
Why would they still be subject to such ridiculous terms, especially after MS has been convicted of abusing their monopoly status?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
From the original Mac, back in 1984, to the iPod, Apple has always been about integrating hardware and software into one seamless experience. They certainly haven't always hit the mark, but it seems they have an advantage in an era where experience design continues to become more important.
Discussion about whether Apple is a hardware company or a software company has been going on for ages, but Apple has always been a systems company. Microsoft has subordinated hardware to software, and the PC industry has developed according to that dictate. Maybe that is why so many people immersed in the Windows world have a hard time understanding how the Mac is different.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
From the article:
Macs aren't more expensive because Apple ships them with an OS, just as Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer does not raise its cost for Windows. Windows would not be cheaper if the company removed IE, just as Apple wouldn't save any money by shipping Macs without Mac OS X.
Err...well, yes Macs are more expensive because Apple ships them with an OS. That's because Apple has to recover the cost of developing that OS through sales of Mac hardware. Note that I'm not comparing the cost of Macs and PCs here, I'm talking about the cost of a Mac as an absolute. A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X. Whether it would be worthwhile for them to do that I leave as a (rather obvious) exercise for the reader.
Cheers,
Ian
Not apologizing for Windows, but when you only write for specific h/w, you 'should' be able to get it right. Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX '86 all suffer from the crappy h/w syndrome.
;P
I built a Smoothwall firewall last week, that kept crashing. I finally tracked the problem to a bad NIC (that was just good enough to run in Windows and to not to generate error messages in the log).
Does that make Macs better than SW? maybe h/w-wise
Do I blame SW for the crappy NIC? I shouldn't, although I cursed them repeatedly while trying to find the problem
Do I blame Microsoft for the crappy NIC? of course, this is Slashdot
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It was deemed illegal to have "per-processor" licenses. So they don't have them any more.
But it is still "legal" to pay Dell to be part of your "advertising campaign". Which, in effect, reduces the cost Dell pays Microsoft per license. Those who do not want to be full partners in the campaign will be paid less than those who do.
Logical, isn't it? So if you push Windows instead of Linux, you pay less for Windows than if you did not. And the profit margins are so slim on computers now that the OEM's will take whatever deal is offered in order to increase their profits.
And since Microsoft still has the monopoly on the desktop, all the OEM's have to offer Windows. Even if they don't like the terms of the deal.
Today I watched my dear father struggle for four hours (4! whole hours) trying to make his complicated new digital camera work with Windows XP. I could not believe the complications he experienced. On a Mac, this would have been simple, easy, intuitive. What amazed me was his persistence. That's what Windows people do, they persist. See, the Windows experience is not just an OS experience, it is an application experience. So f***ed up. Like most fans of the Mac, I let fanbois of the Mac do my talking for me. I sit back and keep quiet. I am more than a little pleased when they go overboard. As electric as they get in their praises for the Mac, I am silently even more electric. On a Mac, you hook your camera up to the computer and you're done. On XP, you persist for 4 hours. What a difference a sixth of a day makes. So the "Mac user experience" is about how not to waste time. My dear old dad is in his 70s and won't switch to Mac. I enjoy watching his frustrations, actually, because his comments are priceless, and he doesn't have that much to do. But seriously, who would willingly accept Windows as the way to experience the wonders of modern CPUs? People with a lot of time on their hands.
It's not racism -- PCs aren't people -- it's bias, but I'm with you. The whole argument is tiresome and really quite pointless. Get what does the job and forget the platform bigotry.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
> A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X.
Of course it wouldn't be a Mac either.
no taxation without representation!
After all, the hardware half of a Macintosh is just a PC.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
But that's not really a wise way to "measure" it. Apple is a hardware and software company. Where would Apple be without their OS and software? It's integral to their strategy. The original Mac was revolutionary because of the software design in the OS, not the hardware (although there were hardware innovations as well.)
Same with iLife, iWork, etc... all of the consumer level offerings are not serialized.
But Apple sells a lot more than just consumer-level software. Final Cut Pro, etc. Logic Pro is not just serialized, you need a hardware dongle to run it.
They are a hardware company. They sell Macs and iPods (soon to be phones). People buy Macs because of the software, not the other way around.
If people buy Macs because of their software not the hardware, then isn't that an argument that they are a more software-driven company than hardware-driven?
... and then they built the supercollider.
E-nuff already - just buy what you like!
Hmmm, how about a nice Dell Power PC, preloaded with Debian? What, I can't buy such a nice hardware and software combination from the world's bigest PC maker? What gives? Oh yeah, the M$ monopoly I had almost forgoten about.
The market is not free to provide people what works best or even what they want. The Mac people, like everyone, puts up with the higher costs and intentional waste of M$'s dirty little tricks. It's worth documenting, but it won't last forever. The price is so high that people are looking for alternatives. M$ won't last much longer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Windows may eventually topple as the operating system of choice, but no time soon. Even if companies like Dell could freely advertise other OS's without penalty, I doubt it would make a dent in their sales of Windows PC's. Say what you like about MS, they have built remarkable brand name recognition. To erode that in the minds of people who say "the internet is broken" when IE won't launch is going to take a long time. Apple too, while having strong brand name recognition is seen often as cool, funky and not serious. Do they build a superior platform? Absolutely! Apple has always had superlative hardware and the easiest to use OS. I don't know why anyone would buy a mac and put windows on it, expect maybe to play games. There's an irony, Apple is often viewed by the general public as not serious and yet they have a superior suite of work applications while not having anywhere near the number of games available for windows. Windows is seen as the machine for work while having a mediocre suite of work apps and a killer selection of games. Apple has made inroads into the mass market, but with the iPod. At the rate macs are penetrating it is going to be ages before they make Bill Gates sweat buckets on the OS front. Right now he's laughing. In the PC wars, so what if a mac is a better windows machine? So much better for his market share.
Linux, Ubuntu is a step in the right direction, but until you no longer need to be an ardent computer hobbyist or know one to set it up, it ain't happening fast either. What Linux really needs is some kind of mature plug and play especially because people keep buying crap to hook up to their computers and they want to use it. There's lots of good software, the hardware link is what's needed if Linux is ever going to have a "Year of the Desktop".
In any event, in terms of manufacturer's offering an OS, it's going to be a Windows world for them for quite a while. There is no incentive for them to upset the apple cart until MS brand recognition go south. Geeks and their friends may think it has, but not enough to make a difference. In the meantime, all people who favour a particular OS or platform can do is enjoy their difference and show their friends. Someday it will make a difference.
If Apple's hardware is so fantastic,
why do they feel that the only way they can compete is by
forcing people to use it? What are they afraid of?
1) Piracy. By making you buy complete Macs they know they got paid for OS X as well, the hardware is the biggest and most complex dongle possible.
2) Support. By having just a few fixed configuration, testing and support is much easier. Many crappy experiences with Windows is due to crappy hardware and crappy drivers.
3) Image. Apple wants to have an image, for example they've never released a low-end machine. The iPod was built on image, like "You can have any color you want, as long as it's white" which most people thought died out with Henry Ford. They're not going to give up on their hardware image easily.
4) Pricing. Apple doesn't really charge a fixed price for OS X, they can price-gouge you based on what hardware you intend to run it on. If they had to offer one price that'd run on anything from Mac mini-class to Mac Pro-class machines, they couldn't.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I've recently got a Mac Mini and it's kind of handy, though I'm undecided as to whether my PC will get upgraded, or replaced, or if I"ll stick with Macs. What I do know is that I won't be plumping for vista given the high system demands it's got. 1GB memory at least? Er, no. What Leopard has going for it is that it doesn't require a significantly higher spec than a Mac running OSX 10.4.
The problem was that those solutions were very expensive, and what MS did was decouple the OS from the machine to create a myth of an equally powerful cheap machine. I say myth because if all the costs were factored in, the savings often were not that great. What was the benefit is that a person could buy a much more flexible machine, and if they were on a budget, but a lower quality machine than would be available from a company that actually cared about reputaion. As time went on, MS forced it's OS onto every machines, and created the monopoly. Any OEM, really system integrator that actually provided support to the end user, was forced to supply only MS OS, while MS could sit there raking in the profits while doing comparatively little.
But the front line is still, and always will be, the system company. These are the people that provide the front line support. The problem with the PC industry is that though they provide the front line support, they do not in fact reap very much of the profit. MS, who does relatively little, get the money, while all the real producers are fighting for the crumbs. But it is thier decision.
The point is that the long term successful companies are system companies that keep attuned to the users needs. IBM is a good example. HP is a good example. Apple is a good example. In fact, when Apple tried to be a hardware company, with spin off of Claris, the Newton that did not integrate, and a failing OS, the company floundered. It bought into the idea that hardware companies were more viable than system integrators. As much as people wish for Apple clones, supporting every cheap piece of trash on the planer comes at too high of a price.
Even MS is going to be a systems company, if it will survive. It will survive on the XBox, which is an intergrated product. It will survive on phones, if it will ever just make one instead of trying to force the phone companies like it did the computer OEM. Otherwise it will just be a speciality shop, serving legacy machines.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Something Mac only:
Delicious Library
Comic Life
Grid Computing out of the box
Handbrake (although I hear there's a Windows beta now)
MacTheRipper
iLife (iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, iWeb)
Shake
Logic, and Logic Express
Final Cut Pro
This list of Mac-only software was written from my memory in less than 30 seconds. I'm of the very strong belief that tides have turned, and now OS X has the strongest line-up of software available on any platform at any price. Sure, there may be 10x more contenders for various tools (like DVD rippers, editing software, etc.) but the best in class is on the Mac. And it keeps getting better all the time due to technologies like Core Data, and Core Image, (and now Core Animation) that means that one person developing for the Mac can produce something that would take ten people to do the same on Windows.
This sig has been deprecated.
I feel like a broken record. Apple is not a hardware or software company. Apple is a technology integrator. They buy (or get for free like BSD) technologies, integrate them, pretty them up, and sell them for a huge markup. They don't manufacture their own hardware. They didn't develop the vast majority of their OS. They didn't invent the portable music player or the online music store. They integrated technology in a way that the mass market finds useful.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Yeah, but hardware is at least half of why I haven't gotten a Mac. I don't *LIKE* the touchpad, I have both the touchpad and the clitmouse on my laptop and I finally disabled the touchpad because it got in my way more than I used it. I also have a built-in fingerprint reader, and am quite fond of using it for 2-factor authentication. For anything but play, I wouldn't go back to a machine without it. Sure, I could carry a mouse and fingerprint reader, but I don't *LIKE* mice, and really don't need more crap to carry.
I prefer mice to touchpads but as for clitmouse, I don't recall ever hearing of them. Years ago when I had a working laptop, now that Apple has released the Macbook Pro with Core 2 cpus I'll get one, I had a second mouse I kept in the laptop case to use when away from home. Sometimes I even carried a keyboard. Now, when Apple is actually shipping MacBook Pros, I may get a graphics tablet with it. Of course if so I'll run into the problem of being able to carry it all in one case.
I know that Apple wants to both simplify their software support requirements, and continue to get revenue from hardware sales. However, they're cutting themselves off from software revenues by requiring it to be used on their hardware. I'd have bought and tried on a spare laptop already if I had the option.
Apple isn't just a hardware or a software company, as someone noted earlier in this thread Apple is a systems company. If Apple were to release OSX for generic PCs, to tell the truth I'd like to see that, then they woud run into more than one problem. First Apple would have to support more than just one hardware system or a multitude pieces of hardware. Then if for whatever reason, a computer system or hardware didn't work, Apple would get blamed, it wouldn't "just work". Two, Apple would see a decline in hardware sales. And conceivably the biggest mistake is that they would run smack dab right into MS's territory, the commodity desktop OS.
It boils down to this: If Apple's hardware is so fantastic, why do they feel that the only way they can compete is by forcing people to use it? What are they afraid of?
Apple doesn't force anyone to use thir hardware, I'm using an HP PC so Apple didn't force me to use a Mac. Yes, if you want to use OSX you have to use Mac hardware but that's a choice, you don't have to use OSX. Simply if you use OSX on a Mac then you know it's going to work, Apple couldn't guarranty that if they allowed OSX to run on any old computer, on top of which as stated above Apple would see a decline in hardware sales.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That is equivalent to MSFT partner programs which cost a lot more than three and a half grand. It gives you access to compatibility labs at Apple and other perks including discounts on hardware and early access to the next version of OS X seeds. None of MSFT's programs offer that.
Compare that to Microsoft's approach to developers, which is reflected by Steve Ballmer's comic "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" dance. Eg. Microsoft gives away free versions of Visual Studio.NET, you can downlad all the SDKs for free, etc. Visual Studio is by far the best IDE out there. The other ones don't come close to it in long-term usability (as Carmack said on his blog some years ago).
Right.... MSFT gives away lite versions of their expensive VS.NET product which you cannot be used for large projects. Apple includes gcc, all the SDKs for shipping and previous releases of OS X, Xcode and interface builder with every release of OS X on the DVD. Anyone can sign up for a free account to download free updates to the tools and SDKs.
Speaking of MSDN:
Sorry, but you are going to have to try harder. I have the top tier MSDN subscription through work.Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It's a common misconception that Apple computers are more expensive than similarly priced computers from other Windows VAR's (Dell, HP, IBM, ect)
Naw, really?
As an Apple user, I am guaranteed that OS X will run perfectly on Apple's hardware - you don't have to think about it... it just works. If Apple were to give up control of the hardware spec, they would have an exponentially harder time making changes to the OS without breaking this seamless user experience.
As much as I would like to save some cash on my next computer purchase, I'm not prepared to sacrifice stability to do this.
As for the cases themselves, they're not just good looking, they're well engineered and well constructed. Remember, it wasn't until Apple showed the industry that case design mattered that PCs had anything other than big beige boxes with noisy fans.
First of all, you have no idea what "TurboCache" means, do you? Let me enlighten you -- it's Nvidia marketing-speak for "fake memory." The "256MB Quadro NVS TurboCache" doesn't have 256MB of memory; it's named that because it can use up to 256MB of system memory. It's not actually much better (if at all) than Intel's integrated video. And it certainly isn't comparable to the MacBook Pro, "with up to 256MB of dedicated graphics memory!"
Second, the MacBook Pro is also most likely better in several other ways, so you'd have to upgrade all those other things on the Dell to make it comparable. You can't go around saying "Macs are more expensive" when you're cherry-picking particular aspects of the machine -- they have to be comparable in every aspect, not just (for example) graphics.
So, in other words, your argument is both wrong and stupid. Have a nice day.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Control Panel -> Sharing -> hit the 'XGrid' checkbox. Done. I guess that qualifies as "best in class".
The parent poster's argument was that a lot of the Mac apps are "best in class", and I think he has a point. Certainly nothing you've said has managed to disprove it. As for "the only reason people buy
Physicists get Hadrons!
When you buy a Mac, you're not just buying a computer. You're buying an experience.
When you lay down the cash for that shiny new MacBook, you're not just paying for the hardware. You're not just paying for the OS. You're paying for it to Just Work (tm).
Apple has quite the reputation to live up to in the Just Works department. Even if they released a 'generic x86 OSX' with the disclaimer of 'don't expect it to work at all,' people would still expect it to. Apple would still get bad press over it. That's not what they want.
Well, actually, what they did was build their own and then build their own OS on top of it. So I don't think that anyone is stopping you from building your own computer and your own operating system. By all means, GO FOR IT! Maybe it will keep you occupied enough to stop making stupid posts on slashdot.
I mean, does Apple advertise, "This is waaaay better than you could ever do it!" No. Again, nothing is stopping you from posting your 1337 r0x0r new system (d00d, with picz!) on the intarweb. I don't see what that has to do with Apple, or to the other guy's post.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
Macs are a bit more expensive by design, I believe. Cultural exclusivity plays a small part in the pricing and marketing. But a strong economic reason for Macs being (a) perceivably better and (b) more expensive is that by narrowing their choice of common components down to a single set that they know integrate well, they are opting out of the competitive race that drives the costs and quality of a typical Windows PC down to least-common-denominator.
BTW I've worked for both Apple and Microsoft. Apple's reality distortion field was way nicer.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear