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How Apple Had a Spectacular Year
Hugh Pickens writes "John Boudreau writes in the Mercury News that during its just-completed fiscal year, Apple broke four consecutive quarterly revenue and profit records and amid the worst recession in decades, hired thousands while others cut jobs, but what most distinguishes Apple is that while other tech titans spent 2010 cutting costs and acquiring new technology through mergers, this $65 billion company has been relentless in innovating like a startup and ruthless in promoting technologies that disrupt its own product lines. '"It's been an awesome year. The frequency of new stuff just boggles the mind," says Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Co. "There is no company that is remotely close to what Apple is doing. They are the Energizer Bunny." In September 2005, Apple killed off the popular iPod Mini to make way for the the iPod Nano; Apple openly acknowledges that the iPhone is cannibalizing its iPods — and they don't seem to care; and the iPad tablet could ultimately threaten its core laptop business. "[Apple] has a different cultural mind-set," concludes Wolf. "They are acting like a startup, though they are becoming a $100 billion company."'
Lets call this what it is. . .Apple products SOLD in 2010.
I never bought into Applethink, and after every product annoucement I falsely predict they've finally blown it and nobody will "fall for it" this time. Meanwhile they're approaching $100e9 and probably wouldn't give my resume a second look. You win.
The ipad, the ipad screen, the ipad power on/off button - these are all new, innovative and revolutionary technologies for slashdot and other apple fanbois.
With all the ongoing lawsuits, the cashflow is certainly needed.
Some of the patent trials will eventually go south on their part and the compensations are calculated in billions.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Why wouldn't you release the iPhone, a beefed up iPod + phone service, which gives you much larger profit margins, and having everyone who bought an iPod upgrade for a significant extra outlay? I'm confused.
Again, how does the iPad, which can't connect to a printer, run multiple apps at once, connect to most peripherals easily cannibalize your laptop sales? It's like saying when Sony introduces a new netbook or ultralight laptop model they are cannibalizing their other sales. This sounds like apple worship. Give credit where it is due, don't start acting like they are doing things no one else does with their business lines.
and where do they get 65 billion from? the market value is 250 billion+.
Do you know why they "don't care"? MARGINS!
Big, fat, juicy margins...nothing to do with start-ups.
Apple openly acknowledges that the iPhone is cannibalizing its iPods — and they don't seem to care
Should they care or should they celebrate? The iPhone offers a superset of iPod functionality and the iPhone generates greater profits.
... I get a crisis every time I touch one of my beloved Apple gadgets!
Is that what you gay hipsters call erections?
the iPad tablet could ultimately threaten its core laptop business
What? They're going to lock down their overpriced laptops so that you can't load Flash, Shlockwave, Java, Silverlight, and programs that don't come directly from the AppStore? There's a place for the iPad and there's a place for their overpriced laptops. I wouldn't use the laptop in bed for surfing and reading books, and I wouldn't use the iPad for real work.
You care so little you had to tell everyone.
no way office or photoshop will be in the appstore as the rules are now.
The 5 systems per buy and 30% cut will fly with MS or adobe.
I'm a fan of Apple - but this submission is embarrassing. C'mon - it's news that Apple had a good year? That's like saying it's news that Windows Phone 7 has failed to garner much interest.
#DeleteChrome
From TFA: "Apple has had a string of successes. The question is, can Apple continue to do that? History says probably not."
That's just dumb. Really, it's Steve Jobs who has had a string of successes. Maybe sometimes success happens by accident, but quite often it's the result of deliberate actions. I don't think Steve Jobs'/Apple's success is by accident.
Excuse me, Mr. Boudreau, Mr. Wolf? You've got something white and gooey on your chin...no...on the other side. That's it.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Perhaps he's "getting a raging clue."
Or perhaps, he's just a douchebag hater. You don't wanna buy Apple, it's real easy. Just like an abortion. Don't like em, don't get one. FFS.
To stay extremely profitable you can't be in the race to the lowest price. This is where most other tech companies epically fail as they march forward on thinning margins until they go broke "making it up in volume".
As margins decline, you end up with capacitors that are substandard and covering up that fact as your customers leave in droves (DELL). Apple's success has always been about standing out from the rest of the Tech crowd, which allows them the comfort of profits most other companies would kill for. But most other companies love resting on their laurels (Microsoft) or attacking their customers (Oracle, SCO) in the drive to create margins.
What Apple does better than anyone else is taking existing ideas and making them better than anyone else. Slashdotters make fun of iPods, iPads and iPhones for being "lame", and not having the greatest specs, but they aren't Apple's customers, and Apple doesn't listen to them, and it shows up in the bottom line. For every slashdotter that cries "lame" there's a couple hundred average people saying "cool".
Before iPods, MP3 players existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPhones, "smart phones" existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPads, tablet computers existed but Apple did it better (and beat price expectations) (No table exists that is better even now).
Apple will find some other area that is lacking a polished product, introduce a iWhatever with a polish that is missing, and the slashdot community will cry "lame" once again. The price will be higher than "comparable" whatever, and Apple will sell gazillions in spite of what slashdot community thinks.
Apple knows how to make a profit where none seems to exist, in a market that looks like it is wallowing, in an economy that sucks. Apple will become the largest market cap company in the next 12 - 18 months. And slashdotters will say "lame" and still not get it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There are already a few "office" equivalents in the App store...one of them written by Apple called iWork... You can buy the individual apps for $10 each. There are also a couple of 3rd party equivalents.
If MS decided to write an office varient for iPad, they could certainly put it in the App Store.
Same for Photoshop. There is already a version of Photoshop in the app store. It really only supports very very basic photo manipulation and isn't the full photoshop suite, but there is nothing about photoshop itself that would prevent it's inclusion in the App Store if Adobe decided to put it there.
Industrial product design matters. Marketing too. I'm not a fan of Apple's policies, but they get quite a few things right while the competition seems mired in stupidity and copycat disease land.
- Decent quality control (iphone4 attena aside)
- Great marketing/PR/Hype
- Extremely nice looking products
Apple does these things well and makes great devices. They now even have an army of good developers thanks to a platform that caters to people willing to spend money. In the meantime, the competition seems to sometimes innovate, and other times gets stuck copying, confused, and greedy. Looking at the Nexus S -- it looks to be almost a clone of an IPhone 3G? What is Samsung thinking? At the same time Samsung has the tablet which looks to be pretty nice and more original. Verizon is a great example too: first they hyped the Droid to huge success, but then they decided to start putting Bing on phones and open their own app store.
Still, it's great that Google seems to be adding serious competition to this market, but they seem to fail to grasp that they CAN'T hand control back to carriers and win this race. Giving up on the Nexus One right out of the gate was a bad move. Consumers dont want to go back to the flip phone days with $2.99 30 second vcast ringtones.
Apple will see continued success due to all these issues regardless, at least in the near future. However if Google steps up it's game and does the following:
1) Streamlined patch/update process
2) Making manufacturer skins removable
3) limitation on how manufacturers and carriers can lock down devices. (ie no forcing specific apps on the user).
That's when things will get interesting. If Google can silence the fragmentation trolls, and keep the carrier greed in check, there is hope for this market, and especially a bright future for consumers. There is even room for carriers to still add value. But if they FORCE it on people, they will all lose to Apple.
meep
No, it's an admission that most people buy laptop computers to access the Internet, play music and films.
Computer ownership accelerated when the Internet became popular. Hence it is the "killer application" for most users.
I mean porn supposedly pushed sales of VHS so I guess the internet could accelerate computer ownership for the same reason.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Doesn't matter.
Most people don't care about Office or Photoshop for a home machine. Sure, they'd like both, if available, but that's not why they buy a laptop or netbook. It's to watch films and check facebook.
As it happens, there is already some Adobe software on the AppStore. iWork is "good enough" for the majority..microsoft may wise up, or not. Doesn't really matter.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
Or hey, the "all apps must have a full screen mode" that just makes little to no sense with the applications Adobe and Microsoft are making... or most applications really...
Apple's success is not about new technology (tablets and smartphones already existed before the iPad and the iPhone, respectively); it is about creating a new market -- they transform a niche market into a maintream market. They have been incredibly successful in doing that because: 1) they make technology accessible and, more importantly, 2) they create awareness. They manage to create awareness not only with excellent marketing but, and this is their very unique advantage over any other company, because all eyes are on Apple. Whether it's tech media or maintream mass media, whether it's the Web, TV, newspaper or radio, every media is following and reporting Apple's every move. Any company can make technology accessible, very few, if any, can create awareness like Apple can.
You think THAT was something, wait till they release iPad nano. It's gonna blow you away.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Apple doesn't generally treat customers like crap...and their website is checked thoroughly for accuracy. HP is more like this most recent one: http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/hewlett-packard-c395157.html
I looked at my usage patterns (mostly word processing and web browsing) and looked at my options for a replacement. After considering prices, weights, form factors, keyboards, and availability of software that does what I need software to do, I purchased an iPad.
Certainly, there are tradeoffs. Printing isn't that big of a deal for me. I just save my papers on Google docs and print them from a different terminal. The time spent printing, after all, is an insignificant fraction of the time I spend writing a paper. And, given that the iPad is a full pound lighter than the lightest of the alternatives and has a far better battery life, needing to log in to a different machine to print is a mild inconvenience.
The only think I really miss is that I used to play a flash version of a Scrabble clone with my mother. The iPad doesn't do flash so I can't do that anymore. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a huge loss. Far more relevant to me is the ability to spend an 8 hour session working on a paper no where near an electrical outlet.
But that's the way I use a computer. Not everyone has the same wants and needs as I do. For those that don't, an iPad may not fit their usage patterns. In those cases, I suggest those users look elsewhere. But for me, an iPad is a fully functional desktop replacement.
http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/faq/language/g09.html
Which is correct: I could care less or I couldn't care less?
The expression I could not care less originally meant 'it would be impossible for me to care less than I do because I do not care at all'.
It was originally a British saying and came to the US in the 1950s.
It is senseless to transform it into the now-common I could care less. If you could care less, that means you care at least a little.
The original is quite sarcastic and the other form is clearly nonsense.
The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only here, recorded in print by 1966.
The question is, something caused the negative to vanish even while the original form of the expression was still very much in vogue and available for comparison - so what was it?
There are other American English expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of an apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means 'Don't tell me about it, because I know all about it already'.
The Yiddish I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often 'I have no hope of being so lucky', has a similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning as does I could care less.
I am a Opensource promoter, RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) and an all around techie. Awhile ago, I wrote a sensible article on my four month experience as a MacBook Pro user and received viscous comments like, "The almighty doesn't even get reviews like this from the pope."
I feel very vindicated by this article and have but one thing to say, "IN YOUR FACE, I TOLD YOU SO!"
ok... sorry, that was immature, but the Apple stuff is innovative, solid, and amazing. If you are still not convinced, go down to your local OfficeMax and spend some time with a droid tablet or try to edit AVCHD Video on WIndows 7 PC. Really, I am not an Apple fan-boy. I am just really busy and need my technology to work NOW!
AAPL Market Cap: 288.95B
GOOG Market Cap: 188.67B
I think it is more likely for AAPL to buy Google, but the market and the feds would resist the creation of such a large company with anti-competitive potential.
That Apple had a good year isn't news. (Or at least it hasn't been news since the nineties.)
What is news is why it is that Apple had a good year when many other companies haven't had good years. At many companies, if releasing product line y will kill off sales of product line x, then y never goes to market. The Apple of today seems to not be scared of that even though the Apple of yesterday was enormously conscious of that. Consequently, Apple seems to be a rare breed in allowing for disruptive technology to disrupt its own product line.
IF that is what Apple is doing, I would like to see more companies do that. But I'm entirely convinced that Apple is actually doing that. As others have pointed out iPhone (and iPod Touch) sales aren't canabalizing iPod sales. Rather they are an upsell with increased profit margines. On the other hand, it may very well be the case that iPad sales are canabalizing Mac Book sales. I don't know enough about the respective profit margins of those two lines to determine if "canabalization" is the correct term. (FWIW, I bought an iPad to replace my G4 Powerbook that was stolen in late spring.) It could be that, long term, App Store revenues make iPads much more profitable than the Mac Book line. If so, then it isn't a case of canabalization but of upselling.
That said, the latest iteration of the Mac Book Air almost makes me wish that I had waited before buying an iPad. Yet, the iPad still offers far better battery life and a better form factor. (And with a bluetooth keyboard, a better keyboard.) Not to mention that I think Toshiba is on the right track with the AC100. If it had a touch screen, I think it would be a potential iPad killer. But it doesn't and Android is a rather user unfriendly platform when one doesn't have a touch screen.
Apple openly acknowledges that the iPhone is cannibalizing its iPods — and they don't seem to care...
Oh no! Sales of a product we make are being cannibalized by sales of a more expensive product we make that, save a few chips, is virtually identical! What will we do?
...and all of their products are made by modern Chinese slaves working an absolute minimum 80 hour week. I've thought about upgrading to iPhone 4 or getting an iPad but my conscience keeps getting in the way of my technogeek hard-on.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The company that i like made more money than the company that you like? really? I like my products for their merits, not how much money I just gave to the company that made them. And yes, the droid tablet (galaxy) is nice, you can. . . gasp. . . .save files to . . . gasp. . . folders on the device. Try that on your iPad.
It's better for you to cannibalize your own products, than for your competitors to do it for you. There was a recent quote from El Jobso (can't find off hand, sorry) saying that (in his absence) Apple just sat on the top end of the market with the Mac, got greedy, failed to innovate, and suffered. Their success with the ipod seems to support this. They cover nearly the whole market while still remaining the high end brand.
That is Apple's biggest innovation with the iPhone, and they know it (see Mac App Store). The App Store is why the iPod touch has such high appeal, why people put up with AT&T's horrible service with the iPhone, and why the iPad is so versatile.
On the flip side, Android Market is crippled by the requirement for 3G service devices (ie, no Android iPod Touch competitor any time soon), a drive to push free/ad-driven sales model and a lack of curation (see DVD Jon's appeal to Google to put some quality/curation into the Android Market). As a consequence numerous other Android app markets are cropping up, adding confusion and complexity to the act of developing and buying apps for that platform.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
wow got anything better then 3 typical non descriptive buzzwords?
I actually like apple products but am not in a position to buy their typically overpriced and under powered products, and I get them last gen (if I am lucky) but if your going to sell anyone on something that has a tiny fraction of a brain your going to have to come up with something better than a used car ad
Why is it innovative? pocket pc's and all in 1 units have been around for decades, explain
Why is it solid? are you talking about build quality? and which models? the Imac seems very solid, the macbooks seems a little flimsy, the mini will crack if you look at it funny, explain
Why is it amazing? Looks, maybe but that apple look has been around for a while now and its starting to look dated, OS same, user experience, sorry but I get just as aggravated at OSX as I do any other OS, just in different ways, explain
You need your tech to work now? I dont see a problem my mac takes just as long to cold boot as my windows 7 machine and linux mint beats them all by seconds, applications well if its not in box on OSX I typically spend more time and more money hunting down something similar to whats already out there in windows land, explain (and quit buying crap computers at office max)
I rode aapl from less than $100 to $200 in 2007 and stuck with aapl all through the crash to $89 in 2008, and even used it as an opportunity to load up. It was a great ride, but the time has come to reduce my exposure. I am not a smart investor, I just got lucky. It's finally time to cash in the chips and walk out of the casino. Apple may continue to rise, but a wise investor once said, "a dollar not made is still a lot better than a dollar lost."
My two cents analysis that Apple has a lot of potential, but Apple carries a lot of risk. I am not sure if the market can sustain an Apple valued as highly as Exxon for example. Apple is a very difficult company to value because it is very difficult to predict future earnings. A lot of it depends on the public's reception of Apple's latest gadget. If the gadget is a new type of device, it is very difficult to accurately predict its acceptance. I had doubts about the iPad, but am glad it is selling like gang busters.
I am neither a fan boy nor an Apple hater. I am just an ordinary guy trying to get a good return on his savings after the banks cut interest rates to nil. Apple seemed like a good investment at the time. Which brings to mind another risk. If interest rates on savings rise again, expect people like me to take money out of the market, which will reduce share prices. I will keep an eye on Apple though. If it has another sharp drop in the next couple of years, I may use it as an opportunity to load up again.
sorry, that was immature, but the Apple stuff is innovative, solid, and amazing.
No, it really isn't.
At best, Apple products are "innovative" in the way that Halo was "innovative": by combining second-best implementations of many features that have already been implemented separately (and usually better) in other devices. But that's not real innovation; that's a Greatest Hits album.
If you are still not convinced, go down to your local OfficeMax and spend some time with a droid tablet or try to edit AVCHD Video on WIndows 7 PC.
Do you have any more to add to that statement? For example, is there any reason to think an Android tablet wouldn't offer the same advantages over the iPad that Android phones already offer over the iPhone? Have you actually encountered problems using video editors on Windows? Or are you just blustering?
Really, I am not an Apple fan-boy. I am just really busy and need my technology to work NOW!
If you think the only way to get your technology to work NOW! is to buy from Apple, then yes, you are an Apple fanboy.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I was going for Funny but no people who see the joke here.
And all the other electronic stuff you buy is also made by Chinese slaves working 80 hours a week minimum, so good luck finding something that your conscience can handle. China is in the 19th century concerning labor legislation. Give it time, it will resolve itself. I don't believe that we as Western countries help them by not buying their stuff.
-- Cheers!
Roland Piquepaille clone...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I dunno about the whole 'just works' thing. A friend of mine is a big mac user (non-techie), she seems to have the mac equivelent of BSOD several times a week. Graphics designer, so the mac is needed.
I gather that this is pretty standard in the Mac world.
Haven't seen BSOD in Windows for a long while.
citation please.
Contradictory reports:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ipodreport/
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58011
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/10/apple-supplier-working-conditions-increases-prices/
http://www.chinatechnews.com/2010/05/28/12117-apple-hp-dell-looking-into-foxconns-working-conditions-in-china
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060629_008337.htm
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2264025/apple-defends-factory-working
http://www.policynetwork.net/blogs/article/apple-demands-improved-working-conditions
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5079590.stm
Or would you rather have the new iPod nano be bigger?
You are obviously not a designer.
Consider the AppleCare approach; for $269 I can get 3 years of mail-in service, or having to take my Macbook to their store, and leave it with them for weeks on end to get fixed. Somehow that is considered better and more convenient than what Dell, HP, and most others offer - $199 for a technician to come to ME with replacement parts, to fix it the next day, at my convenience. Paying more for less service is desired, and I think it's because Apple has built the reputation of their stores as shrines to all things Apple. It's like a mini-pilgrimage and you should feel grateful for the opportunity to let the priests of Apple pray and heal your iDevice.
Eventually, the fad will fade, the religion will implode and Apple will slink back down.
PS: really want to watch a Macolyte go nuts? Tell them for all that revenue, Microsoft still makes more profit, and has a higher profit margin...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And, no one else makes things remotely close.
But let's make it clear: Apple is a systems company.
The fact that you are trying to figure out whether it's a software or a hardware company means you don't understand systems-level design.
They don't make Silicon, they make CPU's. The don't make CPU's, they make motherboards. They don't make motherboards, they make the computer. They don't make computers, they make a system. Etc..
I dunno. What will a Mac do if that AVCHD video did not come straight from the camera?
I can tell you what it does with MPEG2 that touched any sort of intermediate source. It BARFS.
Unix indeed...
I am a Certified Solaris Admin. That doesn't mean that I am not a Linux Zealot. ...and I am not sure I would want to edit video on ANY laptop.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
For instance, if Apple really was acting like a startup and willing to "cannibalize its own products" as it were, we would have seen a CDMA iPhone a while ago. However, if Apple released one of those they may lose their choice revenue sharing with some of the exclusive iPhone carriers. So instead they stuck with GSM which means thats in two of the most important markets on the planet, US and Japan, the iPhone is relegated to the shittiest carrier. When Apple was pretty much the only major player in the all-touch smart-phone market that may have been ok, but if Apple made a huge mistake not taking Android seriously and releasing a CDMA compatible iPhone. Instead it allowed Android to get a huge foothold in the market because while many people wanted an iPhone they were unwilling to switch to the shittiest carrier to do so. So now there are people standing in line just to play with Androids that will run on the AU(the second biggest carrier in Japan) network. I'm an Apple fanboy and even I wish I hadn't bought the iPhone when I moved to Japan. I had no idea just how horrendous the Softbank network really was, and they obviously show no interest in improving it.
iOS will eventually lose to Android, and really Apple will have nobody to blame but themselves.
Monstar L
Another, less nice, way of putting it is they over charge. Obviously they aren't over charging in the supply/demand sense but they are overcharging in the market sense. Now good for them if they can pull it off, and it is one of the things they note on their investor page. Now if you are an investor that's wonderful, you want companies with margins as high as possible. If you are a consumer, it is a bad thing, because it means you are paying more for a product and not really getting any ROI, the money isn't going to R&D or parts or whatever, it is going to profit.
Also if you look in to this, you find out why: Apple is in the fashion industry, as well as the electronics industry. They produce devices that are hip to own. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, nor did it do something amazing that none of the others did. What it was was a fashion accessory. It was cool to own one, it was (and still is) a status symbol. The white earbuds are a great example of this. When the iPod came to be a demand grew for high end white earbuds. This hadn't existed before because black is more understated and less obvious. However that wasn't the idea. People wanted the visible white to show the status of iPod ownership, just with better quality sound.
Well this is also a reason the margins work so well. Fashion is one of the industries where normal price sensitivity doesn't apply, and in fact a higher price can even be desirable. You have only to look at things like Ed Hardy t-shirts to see this. So Apple's position as being cool, fashionable, allows them to charge higher prices for their products. People will buy them because they are what is cool to have, even if there is a cheaper alternative because in fashion, an alternative isn't unless it is also cool.
Now that's fine, Apple can do whatever they want and whatever makes them money. Their investors should be cheering this on, as it means higher stock prices, better returns. What annoys me is when consumers cheer this on. This is all done at the expense of the consumer, it is done by taking more money from the consumer than they should. From a consumer's standpoint, all companies should always be operating on razor thin margins. When they are, it means that they are selling things as cheap as possible, and their money is going to their employees, materials, development, and so on.
Now please note that doesn't mean everything needs to be cheap shit, just that it should be as cheap as it can be given the costs, that profit margins shouldn't be high. It is the Henry Ford maxim: "Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible." So in a case where you have a company with high salaries, lots of R&D, and expensive parts, well it can mean an expensive final product. However it should be expensive because of those costs, not just because it can be, at least in terms of what is best for the consumer.
So I'm not going to hate Apple for wanting to make obscene profits, I'll just note that is one of the things people love to hate MS for (their margins are also really high). I'll note that as a consumer you shouldn't be cheering a company with high margins. It is fine if you use their products, the best tool for the job and all that, but you should say "Look how great they are that they take much more of my money than they should!"
exactly my sentiments.
I've used Linux since Slackware 1.1 (on Floppies) and like you am an RHCE.
I gave up on Windows almost three years ago now (But I have tried W7/Server 2008) Now, I use a Mac Book for my emails & web browsing. I just got fed up with AV Software making the system run like a dog, WGA implying that I am a software pirate if I change the Motherboard in a server. Don't even get me started on the builtin policies on Windows 7. Everything I want to do seems to get in blocked by the UAC whereas, with Server 2003 it didn't. Sorry MS you have gone backwards in your user experience especially when compared to Apple and even some recent Linux releases (F14 is pretty good).
As a result, I develop all my commercial software on Linux. I have 5 CentOS or Fedora servers and one remaining Windows Server 2003 system left (oh, and two Solaris Servers in the Garage)
As a Mechanical Design Engineer by Profession, I have to appreciate the work that Apple does on its whole user experience. Microsoft should be ashamed in comparison.
I tried a Windows Smartphone the other day. It made me wish for my old Nokia 3310 it was so awful. Sorry, MS, thr world has moved on any frankly ain't....
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
That's like your opinion man. I personally like the design of Motorola products more. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Functionality on the other hand is something we quantify.
No. They don't. And more often than not they won't work at all while the 'other' brand has no problem doing 'that'. And it doesn't have anything to do with technological limitations, it is always political (Apple doesn't like that) or capitalist (Apple wants your money). I think people often get confused between the words "better" and "easier". Just because your grandma can figure it out does not make it better. If we were to judge technology based on what is easier I think we all can agree the first dial pad phone was the best because they were much easier to operate. In reality ( a place Apple fears to tread) people don't want their devices fettered by Steve Jobs argument with Adobe or Apple's intense desire for your money. How long until pushing the power button is tied to your pocket book? Which Apple fan would complain(or not see it coming)? More likeyly they would spout off about what a great added value it is to have to pay to turn your device on.
I cannot recall a vendor that has put up as many roadblocks to creating applications as Apple has. They make you buy their SDK. They make you buy a license to publish software on their device. Then they can at a whim and without any declared reason reject your application. Nothing is more like "big brother" than Apple. Please watch Apple's famous 1984 ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8 . Now listen carefully to the speaker in the video. He is saying, almost verbatim, what Apple really does! "[inaudible] A garden of pure ideology [inaudible] secure from the pests of a very unpredictable [inaudible] “ This is really the punch line to what Apple has become in the last 15 years. A mockery? No! The antithesis of its former self.
Nobody does "I'm a big company so you can go fuck yourself" like Apple does.
Nobody does "I can get you to pay me for "it" so why should I just give it to you for free?" like Apple does.
Nobody does "If you try and backwards engineer our products we will crush you." like Apple does.
Nobody does "Re-release old technology as if it has never existed." like Apple does.
Nobody does "After years of bashing your hardware platform (x86) I'll switch to it without getting any egg on my face." like Apple does.
Nobody does "We'll buy a windows handler for BSD much like KDE, and have the audacity to call it OSx." Like Apple. It's just Free BSD! Geesh!
Nobody does "We'll trade you our worthless software patents that took us $7.00 and a box of Skittles to develop for your hardware patents that took dozens of years and billions of dollars to develop and when you say "no" to the deal we'll use your patents anyway and then cry foul when we get sued for it." like Apple. And really - who does that?
Nobody does "We'll sue you if you try and make clones of our computers." - while they make cheap PC clones!
Now that takes some real intellectual dishonesty. I mean, your entire hardware and software platform was stolen (because you claim they are yours) from everyone else. You can't claim the hardware, that's Intel's. You can't claim the software, that's BSDs/AT&Ts! What exactly are people copying from you when they make a "Apple"? The fucking logo? Your windows handler? Everyone else gives their windows handler away for free! Oh ya, you're Apple, I forgot the "Why should I give y
Spectacular? I think you mean fabulous, sweetie!
If you are still not convinced, go down to your local OfficeMax and spend some time with a droid tablet or try to edit AVCHD Video on WIndows 7 PC.
I'd love to see how well that iPhone or iPod or iPad plays one of the thousands of lossess WMA and FLAC audio files I have. I mean, if I can't consume the media, why the heck should I even worry about editing it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Better stop buying 85% of products sold in America. It's sad, but unfortunately true.
On which planet is iWork an equivalent to Office? More like an MS Works equivalent, at best.
Again? Why has slashdot become a marketing platform for apple? They sell overpriced, inferior products to idiots that don't know any better. How many people do you know that own an Ipone? Now how many people do you know that own a blackberry? The only reason Apple is doing well at all is because they are able to sell a $200 for $500 because people like their commercials. This isn't news for nerds, it's news for yuppies.
The reason Apple is hard to predict future wise is because they are a fashion company. For some reason Mac fans hate that idea but it is the truth. They don't just sell technology, they sell FASHIONABLE technology. Their gadgets are cool to own. That's wonderful for Apple and their investors presently because their gadgets are cool. That not only means they sell a lot, but that they can sell them for a higher margin than normal. Fashion doesn't obey the extreme price sensitivity that regular electronics does. Doesn't mean they can charge anything, but means they can charge a lot more than normal, all of which is pure profit.
However the risk is that fashion is one of the most fickle things there is. What is cool now has no bearing on what is cool tomorrow. Something can become cool and remain cool for a decade or more, or it can become cool and then be forgotten about in a month. What that means is that for a company that plays in fashion there are two big things they have to contend with in terms of making high profits:
1) How long a product stays cool. Does it stay trendy long enough for you to make a killing, or does it go out of style before you've recouped your R&D and production costs?
2) Can you successfully introduce the next cool thing? When things shift can you be on the crest of that wave and introduce the next "gotta have" hip, fashionable product and keep making money, or will you miss it?
In Apple's case, well who knows? They've been amazingly successful lately. They've had very few products that haven't done well, and more than a few products that have done extremely well. However not but 12 years ago they were in rather dire straights, having difficulty moving products, needing help from a competitor (MS invested in Apple back in the 90s to keep them solvent). It could go many ways. They could continue to be strong, continue to dictate what is fashionable in consumer electronics. They could stagnate and continue to sell devices, but either not as many or not at the same margins and do fine, but see a big profitability and stock price drop. They could completely miss the boat and get outdone and see their market collapse and be back in to a dire situation again.
There's no way of knowing and it is a more volatile situation than many. While it is true any company can move up or down profit wise, you get some like IBM that are pretty stable and you have pretty good long term indications on. Good chance they aren't going to take off, also a good chance they aren't going to plummet.
Just a quick comment from a former Apple employee; most people are familiar with the old saw, "Perfect is the enemy of good enough." I.e., instead of trying to get something perfect, you should get it good enough and then ship it. Within Apple the perspective is slightly different. There, it's more along the lines of, "Good enough is the enemy of great." I.e., good enough isn't acceptable -- for an Apple-branded product we're going to look for the next level of polish and care that differentiates our stuff from everybody else's.
I think this comes from the fusion of NeXT and Apple engineers. Most people recognize that NeXT brought a heckuva foundation for Apple's next generation operating system to the table in 1997. However, few people recognize what Apple brought to the table -- an engineering culture that regards rough edges as anathema. There was plenty of NeXT software, but much of it was very rough; it wasn't easy to pick up for the new user, was missing essential features, crashed often, or all of the above. This was a direct consequence of the fact that Foundation and AppKit allowed you to create apps quickly and easily, but then as a software developer you still have to trap errors, check for corner cases, add documentation, tweak the UI design so that common tasks are easy to accomplish, etc. This can easily take three to four times as long or more as standing up the initial core functionality. Most NeXT apps never went through this stage and so they lacked the polish for mass market users. Once the NeXT technology went through the polishing process (and it took four years before the first consumer release, really five years and 10.2 Jaguar before it was truly ready for my mom!), the new OS was a completely different animal from OpenStep 4.2 -- much more polished and suitable for mass-market consumers.
--Paul
...or try to edit AVCHD Video on WIndows 7 PC. Really, I am not an Apple fan-boy. I am just really busy and need my technology to work NOW!
I don't have any trouble editing AVCHD/MPEG4/AVC on WinXP/Vista/Win7. Just buy a cheap copy of Nero Vision or TMPGEnc Xpress and you're all set. With all the money you save by not buying Apple surely you can spare a few bucks. Wait, you're a "techie" but can't be bothered to install a simple piece of software? I think you're placing your credentials at serious risk by saying things like that.
Gasp! Saving files to folders != getting work done.
You're pretty typical of the sarcastic, bitter Apple-haters who can't stand it when people are excited and passionate about something. I bet you also reference Steve Jobs by name in your anti-Apple rants as if he can hear you, complete with a mention of "RDF" or "white plastic." You're the guy at parties who stands in the corner of the room with your arms crossed while others dance and have a good time.
Oooh ooh, I can do a counter-anecdote. My four year old macbook has never crashed on me. By contrast, the new ThinkPad with Win7 I got with work has BSODs about once a month. And the fucking trackpad doesn't consistently work.
Bullshit.
BSOD on a Mac almost always means there's a hardware problem, usually RAM. Knowing graphic designers, I'm sure your friend bought the cheapest RAM possible and it's now giving him issues.
And, no, it's not pretty standard in the Mac world. I regularly service people still running hardware 7+ years old, with equivalent OS and it still lets them work every day. Most of the time, they just want me to make their computer faster. Which is hard with 7+ yr old hardware...
And most people still run WinXP, which still regularly gives BSODs, especially when it's virus infected.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/windows-7-surpasses-10-market-share.ars
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I realize this is just a frothing fanboy rant, but I've got to respond anyhow in particular to "or try to edit AVCHD Video on WIndows 7 PC."
Well in fact I'm doing that at work and it works great. Easy as can be. I have Sony Vegas and it performs fantastically with AVCHD video. You can dump it from the camera via USB, or simply copy the files off the SD card. Once loaded in to Vegas, that's it. Unlike Final Cut, Vegas does native editing. No need to convert to an intermediate format like ProRes. As such there's no quality loss, and it takes much less disk space. Everything is non-destructive, of course, you work to create all your edits, effects, and so on with an extremely easy to use timeline (audio and video are just clips that you can move, cut, join, etc, and are treated the same) and more or less create a very complex edit decision list. Vegas will then render that down to the format(s) of your choosing.
It is a wonderful workflow, and dead simple to use. What's more, the Vegas line is very intra-version compatible. So they have a cheap version that a home user can get, that has a number of limits, and go all the way up to a pro version that I use. However I can load up a Vegas file from the home one and edit it, no problem, and the interface is the same on the various versions so learning on the home one directly applies to the pro one.
Easy to use, powerful, and only for Windows. Sony has not chosen to make a Mac port of Vegas. I imagine they could, but there you go. A pity for Mac users, as Vegas is by far the easiest NLE I've ever tried. I don't like Sony, but I do like Vegas (I was introduced to it back when Sonic Foundry made it, before Sony purchased them).
So editing on Windows 7 is very easy. That this is one of your points to me speaks of fanboyism. You got your shiny Mac toy, decided it was cool, tried something that worked well, and then decided that Windows sucks because of it.
Or, if this is intended to be about what is included with the OS you should recognize that as equally silly, since it is no problem to find something that OS-X failed to include. As a video example, OS-X can't natively edit XDCAM or REDCODE. No problem, you can get converters, but out of the box it won't handle it (neither will windows of course).
As for the vitriol tossed your way, I'd say the zealots from any camp are quite tiresome. Perhaps some fellow open-source friends/colleagues felt betrayed? Their problem...
A professional knows the value of using the right tool for the job at hand. Some tools transcend utility and become inspiring in and of themselves. It has to be experienced, and by someone who can appreciate it. The haters know they're missing out on something - it fuels more hating...
I'm amazed that so many ordinary Americans will actually pony up for superior products. Perhaps there is still hope for a better future? [nah, crazy talk]
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
Except, now, he can print from the iPad. Software can be upgraded you know.
Why can't you simply accept that he has other needs than you? He's fine by his own admission, at least I don't question his honesty. The only one talking nonsense appears to be you.
Using weasel words like "magic" to subtly insult him and other users of Apple products is hardly neccessary. I guess it says a lot about you and your attitude to people that are different from you. I really don't understand people that get upset or care about any brand of products.
You'll learn to ignore the Apple-haters. They form a contingent of Slashdot posters who carry a psychological need for Apple to fail. It makes them feel independent and too-cool-for-the-room to bash something that's popular. They're way too awesome and independent to like an Apple product. You see, awesome, independent people spend their time on forums making one-button mouse jokes.
This story is part of the yearly vindication cycle for Apple. Every year, the haters claim that Apple is failing in some way. This year, people shit on them over the phoney iPhone 4 antenna controversy, and they shit on them for blocking Flash in the app store. Yet here we are at the end of another year with Apple being amazingly successful. It is the way of things on Slashdot.
Her, and she doesn't even know what RAM is let alone how to upgrade it. The Apple Store have done everything for her.
Not sure what version she has, but her macbook's about 18 months old.
Apple openly acknowledges that the iPhone is cannibalizing its iPods — and they don't seem to care.
Oh noes, our premium high margin product is eating into sales of our cheap lower margin profit. We must stop this at once!
Yea, I'm sure Apple is upset that people are buying the more expensive iPhone which nets them monthly income from AT&T rather than buying the iPods which are cheaper and have no monthly payout ...
I don't know about you, but most companies who roll out new products that are more profitable per item and provide recurring revenue when the previous product didn't ... are rather happy to have such a great thing happen.
I hope my company does the same thing next year.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The first time Steve Jobs left Apple the company still managed to survive, but barely, it was a different market after all. Today computers really are for everyone, so I'm not sure if it would have gone the same way.
However I doubt you understand the nature of Apple, its products and customers. Steve Jobs is an icon, but very few customers actually know or care about him. He's not the one that makes Apple products cool and interesting. The designers and marketers make Apple what it is. Steve Jobs is a great leader obviously, but he's not alone, and he has a lot of people on his team.
When he got sick and took leave the company did just fine, the transition was handled flawlessly, and you probably don't even remember it happened. Timothy Cook, executive vice president for worldwide sales and operations, oversaw day-to-day operations.
Apple's board of directors has discussed the issue and they have a list of people of at Apple that could and will replace Steve Jobs the day he leaves. It's no secret.
To conclude; it's not a "cult of personality" as you claimed, if anything the cult is the brand.
Thank God for Apple stock (for me at least :).
I remember in ~October of 1998 thinking of buying AAPL. It was floating around $5/share I believe.
Everyone was telling me to buy Microsoft. By this point I was becoming a "ABM" system administrator. They're stock was floating right about where it is today (~$25/share)...
The only stock I'm interested in is companies I believe in that produce something I like. Day trading in some chemistry company I know nothing about does not Interest me.
I hesitated (and was second guessing myself in those days). I could have tripled my money in that one year with AAPL.
In that same year there was a MSFT split AND they nearly doubled their price. They've been dead since...
Bottom line -- a decade later and both companies have each had two splits. My $15 APPL stock is worth over $315 (today) while MSFT is still at ~$25/share. There is a reason for this. Microsoft has forced people to use their crap and those days are seriously numbered. Apple, OTOH, gives their customers what they want. Thus they become foaming at the mouth Apple loyalists like myself. I understand now (and am laughing all the way to the bank).
In looking at these two companies Apple has pretty much always been innovative and led the pack. No floppies with a Mac? People laughed. See many floppies today? Microsoft has historically always been a "me too" company (with very few exceptions).
The ONLY product that Microsoft has done that makes me shake my head and wonder why Apple didn't do it is the KIN. Cool idea. Problem: WHERE is Apple's gaming console???
...and they would then like have boxes that said iPod on them... but it would be like changed to iPad... like with a pencil! Hunh-hunh!
And then there would be "for real" and "nano" added right next to that!
And the pencil would be all dull like and stuff... and then they would have to sharpen the pencil!
But it would be like too sharp now and it would like PIERCE the box... Hunh-hunh! And that would be SOOOOOO funny... cause THE BOX WOULD HAVE HOLES IN IT!! Hunh-hunh-hunh-hunh!!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The same planet where Keynote makes Power Point look like it has down syndrome. I believe it's called earth. You make have heard of it.
a systems company that manages to reach demographics that most other technology companies (systems or not) don't target and/or don't reach, making them uniquely profitable.
So often the discussion on Slashdot is simply a matter of comparison: "The Apple ____ is similar to the Microsoft/Sony/HP/YouNameIt ____ but with a very narrow focus, therefore it is insufficiently flexible, particularly at a premium price point."
This kind of logic is often couched in "objective" terms but in fact represents a very particular value seen primarily in the technology/hacker community: general applicability/maximal flexibility. In this community these values are claimed to be "objective" goods, while other values like ease of use, system(s) integration, industrial design, simplicity, and even inflexibility (which is often, frankly, a need) are openly mocked as "objective" negatives.
In fact, what's at work here is a difference in users' value orientations. Apple often care less about flexibility/generality than other things, and there's nothing wrong with that just as there's nothing wrong with Slashdot geeks caring more about flexibility/generality than other things.
But it is not a stretch to say that the rest of the world doesn't see it as particularly "cool" that a single handheld device can (a) multi-boot four operating systems, (b) provide a remote login for multiple root accounts textual and graphical, (c) act as a remote control for multiple household entertainment systems, (d) be dropped into a Toyota as an engine ECU with real-time wireless reprogrammability, (e) be used as a logic probe and oscilloscope by plugging in optional cables, (f) receive HAM radio signals and run a version of KA9Q, (g) simulcast FM and Internet radio on/from user-chosen frequencies/addresses, (h) provide access to IMAP email and the mobile web, (i) act as a flashlight by turning the screen white, (j) offer a built-in high-resolution CCD capable of being programmed to operate as a scanner, as a camera, or in AI research for visual perception experimentation, and (k) with the addition of a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, act as a complete general-purpose computing system capable of playing all of the latest FPSes available to the operating systems mentioned at the start of this list in (a), all while fitting in a shirt pocket and light enough to be put on a keychain.
For a Slashdot user, this description is of a kind of "holy grail" device. For a non-Slashdot user, this is an incredible constrictive description of a device that likely requires extensive programming, extensive management, long and detailed user interface interactions to accomplish even simple tasks, low task parallelism, and a risky concentration of many functions into a single, no doubt highly expensive, device.
The goals are different. Apple is amazingly able to grok and fulfill the particular goals of one class of very productive user that does not happen to be the Slashdot user by designing fully integrated, high-usability, cost-effective systems to suit their needs.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This is just bullshit. Final Cut may be popular but it's not the only NLE product on the market. There's plenty of work done on Avid, Premiere, or even Vegas. All of which run fine on any mid-range to high-end PC laptop. There is no magic secret sauce that Apple products have here.
As for 'droid tablets' (presumably you mean 'Android tablets', since 'Droid' is a brand used only by Verizon for their Android products), there is no doubt that the $200 tablets on the market suck. Of course they suck. Google hasn't even released a tablet version of Android. The fact that some manufacturers have chosen to release products prematurely is no surprise.
I briefly owned a 11.6" MacBook Air, which I returned. It was a beautiful piece of hardware. But:
- I can't deal with clickpads. They make simple operations like dragging or right-clicking far more complex and error prone. Forget something like middle clicking unless you feel like doing some crazy multi-finger tap. It's also noisy, which can be annoying when you're trying to use it in class. My T400 has real buttons - left, right, and middle - with real tactile feel and quiet operation.
- The keyboard is annoying. With a T400 I get buttons like Page Up and Page Down, Home, End, and Delete. These work consistently and don't require FN shortcuts. On Mac laptops, Home and End are FN+Left Arrow and FN+Right Arrow. Unfortunately they aren't consistent at all. Sometimes they take you to the beginning or the end of the line, sometimes they take you to the beginning or end of a document. Sometimes you can use Command+Left Arrow/Right Arrow for cursor movement on the line, but then sometimes (e.g. the terminal) it doesn't work.
- Apple wants $80 for a MagSafe power adapter and sues anyone who tries to make a compatible adapter. You can get genuine ThinkPad power adapters for $30 or less on eBay, which means I can have 4 (couch, bedroom, desk, one for on the go) without breaking the bank. It's a hell of a lot more convenient to just plug in than it is to pull out and uncoil the adapter every time.
- Mouse acceleration is totally screwed up in Mac OS X. The curve is not really a curve - it starts out extremely slow and then abruptly jumps to very fast. This makes cursor control with a high-resolution mouse (like my Logitech G5) extremely difficult.
- X-buttons (back/forward) on a non-Apple mouse don't work. The only way to get them to work is to install third-party software, most of which costs money.
- Scroll wheel acceleration. I don't know who thought it was a good idea, but it seems to be impossible to disable.
- You can't make the machine stay awake with the lid closed without kernel extension hacks or plugging in a monitor.
- There's no full disk encryption. Home directory encryption is not the same thing.
- Window organization is annoying. There are no snaps (like in Windows 7 or KDE) and you can only resize windows from one corner. The zoom button is supposed to 'fit contents' or 'fit screen area', but in reality it seems to be completely arbitrary depending on the application. Maximize is useful and consistent.
- Lots of screen space is wasted. Panels (in GNOME or KDE) or the Taskbar are usable with under 30px of height. The Dock is useless at that size and realistically needs to be more like 50-60px. Most people get around this by hiding it, which drives me nuts because it's too easy to inadvertently activate and not there to notify you when you need it. Then there's the menu bar, which takes up more of your screen space, even in applications that don't need menus (like Google Chrome).
- You can hide a menu by clicking in it. There is 'dead space' between menu items that not only does nothing, it also closes the menu. This is another thing that makes absolutely no sense to me.
- OpenGL performance SUCKS. I know that Apple has been working on t
The fact that someone of your... capacity, has had the intended jokes in both my posts above whooshing completely above their head...
Well.. not only does that mean the world to me, but it also indicates that I had "hit the nail right on the head" so to speak.
Oh, and I'm taking whatever your mom had in her purse last night. Didn't have the time to pick up any of mine cause I was busy fucking her all night.
Say "Hi!" to the old broad from me when you see her.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So basically the haters are the hippest hipsters of the geek crowd.
There are a lot of companies talking about quality and innovation, while making more or less the shame shit as the competition. What makes a company shine these days, is not doing something different (some detail that no real person actually cares about) is the "wow" factor and Apple still has it, Microsoft is just as sexy as porridge. HP, Acer, Microsoft, etc. No excellence in imagination in a constant way.
So how does Apple has that? They have been about design of their products for decades. The old days when people where only still saying "wow" by seeing a computer. Now that we are past seeign those dull grey boxes that they called pc's, when companies act as if they have forgotten what the first p (personal) means. So why a grey dull box in the living room, working exactly the same way as we would use them on their work? Why not something that blends in nice with what people do in their lives, also besides working? Why not something that has a very good user experience and in some caes is even fashionable? Apple thought of that decades ago. Now it seems to work.
But now I see an Apple drunk of its success during their last presentations. I really lost the count of all the superlatives they used in their keynotes to appraise their own products. People will eventually get tired all these superlatives. When superlatives are used to decribe things that people don't care anymore about, then Apple becomes porridge too, maybe not grey but apple white. I don't care about some AA battery from Appel with included loader, and even less to hear superlatives about that.
I only hope the money and the power doesn't kick out the imagination, fantasy and innovation of Apple. That they will not become porridge. I rather see them making products with some technological child deseases than becoming a design company for AA cell batteries
Have you actually used keynote? Don't you find that the size of the files it produces are a little bit, shall we say, excessive?
As for using people that are born with disabilities as ammunition in your attempts to justify the incredibly ignorant purchasing decisions you've made... well the kindest thing i can say is that you have my sympathy.
Some Apple products are Apple exclusive in non-trivial ways. The iPad is an example. There is nothing else like it. All the other tablets I know about are full blown laptops, and thus far more expensive. They are the only $500ish price tablet.
However many of their other products? Not really special in any way. Yes, yes, Mac users find all kinds of trivial things to jump on but we are talking real, meaningful, differences. Their laptops are a good example. They are fine laptops but nothing special. Their price is justified by their status symbol, not by their technology. The things that Maccies point out about making them better are trivial at best. For example a frequent one is that they are built out of metal. Ok well for one, I can get other metal laptops if I want (the MSI I bought has a metal top and keyboard surround, and a plastic base) but more than that it isn't a real advantage. It looks nice but doesn't gain you anything. Now if you want the looks, fine, but don't try and sell it as being better hardware because it isn't. As a practical matter, all Apple's PC stuff is commodity hardware. Intel makes their CPUs and chipsets, Foxconn their motherboards (under Intel's direction), WD their drives and so on.
Or take the iPhone 4, a rather disastrous item from the hardware quality. There is the antenna problem, of course, which was a case of form over function. That particular problem with an antenna is known, our antenna researchers at work can tell you why it happens, show you what happens in HFSS, and so on. That the design was done that was was for aesthetics, not performance. Then there is the shatter prone glass case. Again, form over function. The glass they use is very tough, but that also implies brittle. It is the same kind of things with ceramic knives: Much stronger and resists flexing and scratching, until a point and then it fails catastrophically. In the case of iPhones, it means a drop that would scratch, or at most crack, another phone causes it to shatter completely.
So sorry but I just don't see the quality that is spoken of. What most people talk about when they bang on with quality is looks. A Macbook Pro LOOKS really slick so that makes it high quality... No that makes it slick. That's fine but let's be straight about what we are talking about here. If you are buying something for the looks, the presentation, you are buying fashion. That's fine but don't try and spin it then as quality. That's a different thing.
She might have one of the ones with dual video cards (Intel for efficiency, Nvdia/ATi for power). By default the Intel card is selected b/c you get better battery life (it can be changed in 'Energy Saver') but the Intel card can be fickle with high-end graphics/video programs as well as video games.
RAM is a possibility as well, but from my experience that would just slow Photoshop down rather than make it freeze (unless she has a totally unacceptable amount). You might also want to introduce her to "Force Quit" and the hotkeys that bring it up. Usually when novice Mac users think their computer has crashed it's just a single program.
Washing machines "just work" as well, but despite all his education my father still claims to have no knowledge of how to use one. No one's showed him how to use one and he doesn't care to learn.
Being able to save attachments, or have a slew of files organized does get work done. Browsing to network stares gets the work done. Having an Office suite out of the box gets work done. Free tethering and real multitasking, flash and huge file storage, Video chat and a camera, these get the work done. being able to buy a million games does not get the work done.
it's making products that work
This whole Apple-products-just-work spiel is plain marketing BS.
Two months ago my sister bought my dad an ipad. Guess who got to spend 5 hours this past weekend helping him try to get it working in various ways. That's right, me.
First he wanted to update the OS. So I read the instructions:
Hook your ipad to a computer and then run iTunes. Follow the instructions from there.
That's it. Well iTunes is a program on my father's ipad, it is a web site from which Apple sells music, and it is a program that one can get for their desktop machine. WTF are they talking about? In their effort to simplify everything for stupid people, Apple has named everything "iTunes", creating substantial confusion. iTunes is a program that gets music from Apple, it syncs your device's content, and it is used to update your device's OS. Of course.
So after my father realizes he forgot his "Apple ID", we play 20 questions to get a new password. ("This is like taking a God damn exam. Why can't I just get the update software?") Then the software starts downloading. An hour later we get "Unknown error 1602." Shit. Disconnect ipad. It won't run. It is foobarred. Our only option is to "Restore" the ipad, which it tells us will wipe all programs, books, videos, photos and music from the ipad. WTF!? Apple didn't put the OS on a different partition from the media? Are you serious? So we wipe the iPad and my dad spends a couple more hours putting stuff back on it.
Then he wants to hook the iPad to my TV set. So we go to a store for a video connector, because the video cable is nonstandard. (Good idea, buy a device with a nonstandard video out, mumble, mumble.) Store is out of them. Drive to another store. Pay an absurd amount of money for a six inch cable. Hook iPad to TV. Nothin'. Check cables, etc. etc. An hour later, read on web. It turns out that only certain programs can be displayed on the TV out. WTF?! Who would buy a device that limits what you can see on an external monitor? Apple is making Microsoft look good here. After another hour of mucking around with the device we finally get it to show the Netflix video on my TV. It looks like shit. The video is only half the size of my screen.
My dad is typing an email. He gripes about the screen not being easy to type on, but says you can get a keyboard for it. I say, I have keyboards! But, hey, there is no USB connector on the device! Are you serious? You can't just plug in a keyboard or mouse? WTF?
People buy Apple products due to hype, marketing, and they think the products make them look cool. That's it. I have fewer problems with my Linux laptop. It just works.
Apple managed to make a tablet that people not only use, but buy in droves.
You can argue the tablet is not new (and in fact Microsoft has been trying to make them for a decade) but you dismiss too readily how making technology that people want to buy is as part of the design as the chip or display.
So, Apple basically re-made the tablet market. That was new.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have an iPHONE (not iPod) and the antenna works just fine thank you very much, without case.
In fact because of the design it's probably stronger at receiving signals than your phone. Why is it not a valid design choice to introduce one point where the signal can be weakened when the upside is better overall reception? All I know as a owner of the device is that it gets better reception than the previous version of the iPhone. Is that not the most important thing?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your definition of "touched by" is probably what other people would call "munged" if it won't work on an Apple.
Wy is every major, mid sized, and minor video production house, from people shooting birthday parties to people shooting major motion pictures using Apples and Final Cut Pro if it doesn't work?
I can understand your bitter attitude, though, having no certain future for your Solaris training.
Are you serious? You can't just plug in a keyboard or mouse? WTF?
TF is that you can use any bluetooth keyboard with it. Not Apple's fault that you are using an ancient keyboard.
Or if you must use that old USB keyboard, you can buy the camera connector kit which comes with a USB adaptor...
The rest of your statement is probably all you. If your dad had done it I'm doubting there would have been issues, because I've never had any of the issues you describe with the iPad (although I don't use video out).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unfortunately, the iPad is intentionally limited when it comes to doing all of those "basic killer app" type things.
I can buy video right on the device (including rentals), and easily move it to the device from a computer if I wish (or the other way).
This is especially true for the web.
I have to configure other browsers to turn off Flash; the iPad comes this way by default. In that way it's more advanced. The lack of Flash does not matter for any sites I use or most sites I visit. At this point any serious website that uses Flash also provides an iPad alternative.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And some day, Steve Jobs will die. And without the cult of personality driving the marketing, slowly Apple will fall away...
I'm sure it will cool off to some extent, but at this point Apple has Jobs' philosophy firmly ingrained in the entire top layer (and probably much deeper) of executives.
Jobs was already out for around a year for health reasons - do you know when? Neither do I because it didn't slow down Apple.
At some point when you are large enough and you have enough people that share the same vision, a company can live without one star. I'll be Oracle could carry on without Ellison too, if it came to it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How the heck is the ipod easiest to use? I bought an mp3 player and it just mounts as a volume
It's easier because most people suck at Finder/Explorer.
Even I, I can navigate a file system with ease - but I still prefer that the device simply syncs new music when I plug it in. That's why I don't buy alternative players like the Sansa.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have you seen how many tablets were at CES last year?
Yes, most of them were reactions to the rumored tablet Apple was working on (a rumor that had been going for some time). It's telling that we don't talk about any of them now, because they were building something to compete against an OS X tablet, not a tablet that people wanted to use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A kernel panic on OS X?
Hardware failure, probably a dodgy RAM stick.
I have 3 personal Macs, look after 8 others in the immediate family, 3 more with close friends, and another 12 or so in a company setting that I haven't seen in some time but spent a couple of years with.
The only time I have seen kernel panics on any of them has been due to RAM issues. Swap out the stick, problem solved.
So, "from what I can gather", it's not at all common in the Mac world.
Your anecdote vs mine.
(In reality, they are computers like any others, and can have all sorts of gremlins. A kernel panic on OS X is a sign of a very severe gremlin - if you see one, you don't just shrug it off like a windows crash, it's normally indicative of something serious happening).
If the Apple store have done everything in their power already then they have changed the RAM, reinstalled the OS and checked for obvious damage. If it has been sent away by the Apple store, they may have done everything up to replacing the entire logic board.
If it's 18 months old she can buy Apple care (can be bought at any time after purchase to extend the 1 year Applecare to 3 years from date of purchase) and have it sent off. If it is sent in for Applecare repair 3 times for the same fault and still reproduces it, they will issue her a new laptop instead.
If it is having a kernel panic more than once every 2 years or so then I suspect it is a lemon with a manufacturing defect in it somewhere. They happen from time to time.
The MPEG2 I used to shuffle around Final Cut Pro didn't seem to make it "BARF". Used to spend many an hour with old DVDs from clients wanting specific bits pulled off old disks they had to be included in various training vids/demo stuff. The Mac(s) - used more than one - didn't seem to care at all that it was MPEG2, often touched by intermediate sources.
It even handles Sony's slightly modified HD format that the XDCAM units record onto modified BD cassettes/cartridge disks (remember those old school CDROM caddies? they're back!).
I hesitate to say this to a Certified Solaris Admin (ooh), since you *clearly* know what you're doing, but did you have the right codecs installed?
You had me until
I have fewer problems with my Linux laptop. It just works.
Really? Of all OSes and devices, Apple's have given me the least number of problems. All high tech gadgets and computers have their own issues - just think if you'd given your dad a Linux or Windows machine. You'd be getting at least twice the amount of tech support calls about incomprehensible error messages, hardware incompatibilities, etc.
If you really believe yourself, why don't you give him a Linux laptop and tell him "really, Dad, this will not give you as many headaches as the iPad and is easier to use, too!!". Otherwise, your whole post is pure BS Linux marketing...
I can understand your bitter attitude, though, having no certain future for your Solaris training.
:)
That's just harsh man. Solaris is an excellent O/S in the server/database space. I used to have a Solaris 8 certification as well, but time has marched on and Oracle is now at Solaris 11 (I think). Worst case scenario, if Solaris loses market share, Linux will surely gain and in the world of virtualization, skills transfer fairly easily from Solaris to Linux to even windows.
Sun was an impressive company as well, producing their own CPUs and tightly integrated O/S similar to Apple, however as commodity hardware got faster and faster, they started to lose market share as the lower-cost Intel chips with Linux gained group.
Fun Fact: The Solaris PROM bootloader runs a language called FORTH
The hardware isn't special because it’s made by other people. Sure apple has a few tricks to lock down the technology for them self but it’s not special. Intel makes their cpus; Samsung make the a4; they haven’t got a clue about graphics so they use NVIDIA or Intel integrated. Maybe if they still had wozzi onboard they could bring out a 128bit cpu or something, but I think those days are gone and apple will continue to be almost cutting edge.
TF is that you can use any bluetooth keyboard with it.
Wow, I'm sure everyone gets excited with bluetooth when the pad crashes. And it does. And bluetooth doesn't work so great when the equipment won't boot. Just like my Macbook and Mac Pro.
Apple sells glamorous products, but their operability is no better than anyone else's. They go catatonic from time to time after updating - so you have to either reinstall or take it to the store. The iPod crashes frequently too, or won't be recognized by OSX. (But Ubuntu figured it out, and even allowed me to repair the damn thing while OSX couldn't even mount it.) And don't get me started on their hardware, because as of late half of what's under the hood is shit.
Now, I wouldn't even bother with Windows, but then again, I'm not inclined to pay Apple's steep prices for their bull crap. And what's the deal with their steep prices anyway? It used to be, you paid more money for something that had a quality build. Now, you just pay more money for the looks, I guess. It's marketing, pure and simple.
I know a lot of people don't want to believe it, but Apple has been ignoring quality for a while.
I tried a Mac as well, bought one a couple of years ago as an experiment. Sold it about a year later, haven't regretted that for a second. It was a decent system for sure, but it wasn't for me. Too many things about the OS annoyed me, too many things about the hardware annoyed me. It certainly wasn't any more reliable than any of the other systems I use on a regular basis.
It's really great that you like your Mac, happy for you. But I wish people would drop the "there is one solution that works perfectly for everyone, you just have to realize it" mantra. It isn't true. Win 7 meets my needs pretty much perfectly - nothing else that I'm aware of does. Mac meets your needs, and Linux meets someone else's needs. That doesn't make any of us stupid, or ignorant, or inexperienced, or fashion victims, or anything else other than different.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
As the original poster of this sub-thread, I say that you sir make excellent points and deserve modding up. Everything you said is true, especially about the keyboard and mouse. I did find that to be annoying and remapped some of the keys because I couldn't retrain my brain not to use the CTRL key. I use an external Logitech keyboard and magic mouse when working at home. BTW, the Magic mouse is really cool :) The sharp keyboard edge is also annoying. I rounded mine off a bit with a de-burring tool.
My other laptop is a Thinkpad T-series and agree they are the absolute best in the PC world.
But getting back to your coke story, did your T-61 survive the incident? Did the drain holes work?
I agree and disagree on the magnetic power adaptor. Right after diet coke spills, the second biggest cause of laptop destruction is the power adapter yanking the laptop to its death or cracking the solder joints in the motherboard. The Apple design solves both of those problems.
As for for the lack of a trackstick vs. gesturing on the touchpad, it is simply retraining the brain. In the beginning, I was still cheating and slipping over to the PC to do development work, because it was a faster interface. Now I have made friends with the Mac and installed MagicPrefs and and made a few other customizations and workspeed is about the same.
Excellent points... All of these should go directly to Apple R&D for fixing. However, while the Thinkpad has the Thinklight, the MAC has the backlit keyboard.
The hardware isn't special because it’s made by other people.
Non sequitur. Just because someone else makes the hardware doesn't mean it's not special. The 320M was made specially for Apple. The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them. I don't know who makes the retina display, the glass trackpad, their new notebook batteries or the unibody aluminum cases, but these are all unique to Apple.
Even if Apple didn't have unique individual components (but they do), and even if all the parts were simply standard off-the-shelf components (they aren't), even then, the unique combination counts as special.
Not only is Apple more technologically involved in their products' development than most Slashdot types seem to think, it's difficult to think of a single company that is more technologically interesting than Apple. Dell? HP? Cisco? Sun/Oracle? Intel? AMD? Nvidia? WD? Acer? Asus? None of these companies come close.
Although of the lot, Asus does tend to make a lot of interesting prototypes which, ironically, tend to be the "neat, but doomed to failure" duds that Slashdotters claimed products like the iPod and iPad would be.
Windows users can use DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, even Linux has OpenGL 4.1 support, Apple is stuck with OpenGL 2.1....
here's what an expert says:
starstonesoftware.com/OpenGL/mac.htm
Wall Street and Apple had a good year, unlike the American people at large. Imagine how much lower unemployment would be if Apple's (and their competitors) manufactured their products in the US instead of China? Just sayin'...
Actually, it's anything but certain that Apple would let them put it in the App Store--which is exactly why Microsoft are unlikely to throw the resources into developing Office for iPad. In general, the closed and bureaucratic nature of the App Store, combined with the lockdown on the iPad and iPhone, discourages large and complex software products from anyone other than Apple.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes. I have quite a few over 100 MB power point files and so for this years physics conference I did it in Keynote and the file size was only 14 MB. I switched because power point would choke whenever I imported a PDF of a plot with over a million data points. Keynote had no problems. Plus the alignment guilds actually work in keynote. Plus when it came time to print it out it actually printed out correctly unlike power point.
To me at least, my iPhone is an iPod. I would put them under the same umbrella.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Wow, I'm sure everyone gets excited with bluetooth when the pad crashes. And it does.
Mine hasn't, and I'm seriously doubting you have any hands-on experience.
Apple sells glamorous products, but their operability is no better than anyone else's.
If that were true then they would not have had the growth in laptop sales they have seen.
There are issue to be sure, but the very real life boon to productive and uptime is a huge reason why people choose Apple products. If you're too full of hate to see that and take advantage where it makes sense, then are you really a technically informed buyer you may think you are?
I prefer to buy products not because of a brand name it may or may not have, but because of how they function. Frankly any other way of living seems absurd to me, but suit yourself.
And what's the deal with their steep prices anyway?
I wouldn't know since it's been years since that's had any truth to it - pretty much since they moved to Intel. Again you display a rather willful ignorance, that would be so easy to self-correct..
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...tells us that you really have no understanding of cpu technology at all.
And btw, Apple is doing a lot of cpu development internally now.
by your definition.
It will be fun watching you embarrass yourself.
examples of new products, perhaps built on some previous technology--but impressive iterations. I fail to understand how the latest Windows phone or Adobe CS5 is any more revolutionary than the first successful tablet computer in the history of mankind--for example.
Oh God No! This article is a red rag to a bull - or multitudes of bulls - as pro-Apple and anti-Apple forces line up on Slashdot to opine on their consumer whims and whines and fantasies. Apple's cleverness is to make you the consumer believe that you are a superior being owning their products, get you to part with your cash at a higher price than any competitors, and leave you with a smug smile on your face, having done so.
Counter counter anecdote. My uncle's mother (no actual relation) bought an Apple laptop of some kind and couldn't get it to connect to the wireless network. I had a look at it and it was spouting off some absolutely meaningless error that I only found a solution to on the third or fourth page of Google results - turns out that OSX, or at least this version of it, simply can't use WEP. I think it was WEP, anyway. Had to change the network over to WPA2 to get it to work. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but my god, these things are supposed to Just Work. My arse. The tech-retarded user that's supposed to be the big target market here would have had absolutely no hope of getting online with that machine. They're pretty toys with whooshy zoomy graphics when you do things and an awful multitasking paradigm. The window control buttons are in the wrong corner and the menu bar is at the top and it's all just absolutely awful. Also their touchpads feel fucking dreadful. I actually hate using Macs.
iPods are okay, though! Just okay. So long as you fuck with them to avoid iTunes, which is just awful.
> First he wanted to update the OS
May be the iPad 'just works' for all those average users who don't even understand what updating the OS means? There must be some of those, too.
Apple wins because Apple's management is focused on driving Apple forward into the future with the expectation of profiting thereby. Most of the rest of America's corporations, however, are lead by those focused upon enriching themselves in the most expedient manner possible - which is typically through cost-cutting and offshoring. I.e., Apple builds, while the rest? They destroy. I should note that the former is harder than the latter, and requires far more competence and intelligence. I reckon Apple will be around longer than them...easy to outlive something that is eating itself.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them..
That’s like saying I design computers because I built my desktop pc and I chose all the parts. The a4 is a hummingbird cpu unless you have drunk far too much cool aid; and the next ios apple cpu will be a Samsung Orion.
I will admit their products do make for a nice package but the fact it’s a unibody design or they have a glass trackpad is hardly being hardware experts it’s more of a design asset. This is apples strong point they have good design in thier product and the software. Personally I see it as too much form not enough function but some people like a simplistic approach.
NVIDIA; asus; Samsung (flexible oled phone screen coming soon); arm; synaptics; ti; are all more interesting hardware wise. Its just their products aren't wrapped in glass and alloy so you properly don't ever read about them. When apple comes out with something as advanced as NVIDIA’s tegra 2, and ahead of its time then consider me converted; till then they are just a design company rehashing age old concepts with newish tech (and its working like a dream).
Name some Apple hardware that works with third-party software.
All of it.
Name something that doesn't, and I'll disprove you.
Hint: There's third party software that allows you to mount an iPhone as a drive, so you can't start with an iOS device...
Now name some Apple software that works with third-party hardware.
Works with, or runs on? There's a pretty large difference because a lot of software (like GarageBand or any photo app) that works with a ton of third party hardware.
Even with runs on, you are in peril because of course there is the Hackintosh which runs OS X just fine.
Be amazed at how they can use custom software to drive sales of expensive, profitable hardware.
I would be amazed except the way Apple succeeds is through deep interoperability paired with solid software and hardware, and they haven't been that expensive for years.
I am more amazed that no other company has managed thus far to copy what Apple is doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You didn't see Steve on stage saying "oh yeah, we removed the camera, and the Contacts App and ..."
Nope. Why should he? Who would expect something like those features included in a music player called the "nano"?
That's why they were moved into the device that made sense, the iPod Touch - a more general purpose device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
just think if you'd given your dad a Linux or Windows machine. You'd be getting at least twice the amount of tech support calls about incomprehensible error messages, hardware incompatibilities, etc.
I setup both my non-technical uncle and my wifes non-work computer with Ubuntu.
To say that Linux 'just works' is an understatement.
New printer/scanner combo? Just plug it in.
New updates? Click 'okay'.
It's been about two years in my Uncles case -- I see his wifes windows computer about every two or three months. Every time he brags about how great Ubuntu is (he hasn't had a single problem yet).
I've seen his daughters MacBook twice over the same period for various problems (not that any iFan will believe that).
My wife hasn't had a single problem with her Ubuntu machine either -- though I do have to keep the maintenance up on her work computer (which is running windows).
Required reading for internet skeptics
The typical flare for styling present in apple devices doesn't seem to exist in that phone. It's all retinal display, megapixels, video calling, etc..
Retina display really means something though. A high quality display is great for reading text and viewing photos. The ease of reading text alone makes it a very solid feature, not just something tacked on for a checklist (which is where I think you're going with the whole HTC thing).
On megapixels - actually Apple didn't go there. They didn't stuff a 12MP sensor in a phone as others are doing. Instead they jumped it up a bit to a very rational 5MP but are using a sensor that handles low light much better with a back-illuminated sensor.
The video calling is eh to me but the implementation is very good and works well. But more than that people really, really like a front facing camera. I've seen way more people using that than I ever thought I would, basically for a kind of "photobooth anywhere" kind of thing since the camera is very low res. But the wide adoption shows it's not just another feature but something people really value.
Then again I dislike apple products for a host of reasons.
Oh, I guess then that explains the completely irrational analysis of the iPhone 4, especially the design... what were you thinking? Anyone who has held one would call you insane just for that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In general, the closed and bureaucratic nature of the App Store, combined with the lockdown on the iPad and iPhone, discourages large and complex software products from anyone other than Apple.
In general, you're exactly wrong. As noted there are already many other word processors and other office applications in the AppStore. If any big company is reluctant to go in, it's more because they are dithering to wait and see if Android Pad-devices catch on as well - and will have a rough uphill climb against some very nice existing apps.
I have no doubt though that Microsoft has been working on an Office suite for the iPad, I think we'll see it next year.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Remember when you refactored a 500-line program to 300? How about to 100? Harder or easier?
The same applies to hardware. What looks simple on the outside is very, very, very hard to come up with.
Look cursorily over an Apple product, like the MacBook Air, and you won't see anything mindbendingly "innovative." What? It's rather plain. No fancy flowers laser-etched into the chassis. Quite the opposite. It's even out-austerizes Bauhas in its austerity.
Or the iPhone. What? It has, like, zero buttons on its face, and I am surprised to find any, by what I know about Steve Jobs.
And what is one thing I know about Steve? I've never met him, but I know that he's like me: a Minimalist. Steve Jobs's minimalism is the reason (insert your needed jack here) is not on the side of the MacBook. It was his minimalism that took away the floppy disk drive from the Mac in 2000 (when I bought it, and sorely needed it). His minimalism dates back to the early Macs and that's why there was not a separate numeric keypad on the early Macs. It's because Jobs hates buttons. Because Jobs is a minimalist. Understand that, and you understand his design decisions a lot more.
But that would just get you to understand Jobs, and Jobs is just one person at Apple (albeit the CEO). But that's just it. The second thing about Apple that's different from most companies is the CEO's involvement in design. Jobs is a micromanager. Google it and I'm sure you can find the articles I've read about Jobs's specifiicity about the colors of those candy-colored iMacs, or about the exact brightness of the lights at the latest Apple Expo. He is an employee's worst nightmare about micromanagement --- except for the fact that he happens to be a smart person. I mean just in general, of course, but also as a designer. He just is. I don't know why, but Steve Jobs is a good Designer. He just is, mainly because (A) he's smart, and (B) he likes it. I honestly believe that he cares slightly more about Design than about Money. That is, given the choice between between being richer with a mediocre product line or poorer with a superb, awesome, spectacular, well-designed product line, he would choose to be the poorer. Why? Because as any artist knows, the pleasure of looking at your superior product is more satisfying than money. This does not apply to all people, but artistic people really do derive more joy from making good things than by making money.
I think it is, in part, happenstance, that Apple is successful. It just so happens that people like the iPhone. After all, the Mac OS 7 was better than Windows way back then, but people bought Windows. Why are they paying Apple more now? I don't know. Maybe the oddity was back then, and the normal is now. Good design wins. Back then, it didn't for freakish, once-in-a-long-time circumstances.
More about good design: Taste for Makers, by Paul Graham.
The thing about Apple is, they have a lot of very solid streams of revenue at this point. Lets say the iPod falls out of fashion for music playing. That doesn't mean the iPhone or iPad will have issues. Or if those things have issues that doesn't mean laptop sales will cease to grow.
How much money are you going to realistically get from a stock sale at this point? When leaving Apple you are leaving a company with a huge cash reserve and a proven ability to generate new revenue streams where none existed before (iPad).
The thing is, all of the revenue streams they have increase the values of all the others - Although as noted one stream going soft doesn't mean another will fail, but it's not true the other way around - purchase of Apple products does in fact seem to inspire purchase of other Apple products, and they all reinforce each other in a virtuous circle. Someone liking an iPad or iPhone may well buy a Mac laptop. A whole other layer is that someone liking the App Store is probably pretty inclined to buy stuff from the Mac app store too. And someone buying media from Apple is likely to purchase any one of a number of devices, because it's easier to play it back on (even though there are a lot of third party devices that could play back music from the iTunes store).
Personally, I think Apple is near an inflection point where you are about to see this virtuous circle really take hold and increase revenue. I think the current pricing doesn't factor in what happens when a company finds a great balance between a lot of different market segments. I think it's well worth holding on to stock, at least some of it, and see where the rocket goes once it leaves atmosphere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have to configure other browsers to turn off Flash;
Have you tried NOT installing Flash? It's way easier.
Oh, it was pre-installed? Well, just uninstall it.
There isn't any need to muck about with the browser.
the iPad comes this way by default. In that way it's more advanced.
I didn't realize that NOT having features made a device 'more advanced'.
I have a rotary telephone in the hall -- I guess its lack of common features (like touch-tone) makes it one of most advanced phones around.
Required reading for internet skeptics
you fool i mention 128 bit because when Steve Wozniak was at the company they were pushing boundarys with the first 64 bit computer. I was trying to reference that by saying the next step for innovation in the same area if apple still cared. True they didn't make the 64 bit chip either amd did but at least they were the first. what can they say now we were the first to put a big screen on an iphone. Which they weren't because a Chinese iclone company beat them to that boat by about 6 months. The fact that you fail to understand my wish for apple to be as innovative as they once were tells me your just another iphan follower happy with whatever crap jobs throws at you. I'll try to make this more relevant to you. I know the ipad is very popular and it makes a huge amount of money (partly due to how cheap they can make it), but wouldn't you of liked a dual core 3d screen beast with front and rear cameras even more.
Someone explain this?
Everything else aside, I can not understand people buying their laptops. Maybe I am missing something. Every week Best Buy has one of the MacBook Pros in their ad every time on the same page or page before I see where I can buy 2 or 3 Sony, Dell, HP, etc Laptops with equal or better specs for the same price.
This week on the same page:
Apple® - MacBook® Pro / Intel® Core2 Duo Processor / 13.3" Display / 4GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive $1499.99
Sony - VAIO Laptop / Intel® Core i5 Processor / 13.3" Display / 4GB Memory / 640GB Hard Drive - Silver $799.99
HP - Pavilion Laptop / Intel® Core i5 Processor / 14" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Brushed Aluminum $599.99
Samsung - Laptop / Intel® Core i3 Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Black/Red $549.99
I can not understand that at all. If that MacBook was a Sony, HP, Dell, etc it would be like $499.99 in that same ad..
But they sell.. Is it a status thing? Is it people do not know any better or care? Is there something huge I am missing? I just took the time to get a price from Alienware..
Alienware - M15x / Intel® Core i7 / 15.6" Display WLED / 6GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive / etc - $1,599.00
So people are seriously buying that MacBook pro over that.. It makes my head hurt...
s/©//g
i am sofa king we todd did
I'm still "shocked" when apparently leading tech companies fastidiously try to preserve their cash-cows without giving a thought to continuing R&D to replace them. How MBA of them, but clearly they don't get tech. I've seen it happen so much in Silicon Valley in the last 15 years that I've come to realize I can pick winners and losers just using this as a diagnostic. This also is a death rattle of a tech firm when they start acting this way.
It is always better to obsolete your own products than to have your competitors do it for you! You'd think the "why?" would be obvious but to spell it out: obsoleting yourself puts inevitable your market revenue decline in your hands rather than your competitors.
In the case of Apple, which their most excellent sell-on-value and margin, this means they have control of that margin (and profits) to a far greater degree than their competitors who tend to be completely reactive in product development investments and choices. Being reactive means you are always a day late and dollar short.
The A4 is designed by Apple, even though Samsung manufactures them..
That’s like saying I design computers because I built my desktop pc and I chose all the parts. The a4 is a hummingbird cpu unless you have drunk far too much cool aid; and the next ios apple cpu will be a Samsung Orion.
Um, no. It's like saying you design computers if you designed a new CPU and hired another company to fab them. The A4 is a custom Apple CPU.
I will admit their products do make for a nice package but the fact it’s a unibody design or they have a glass trackpad is hardly being hardware experts it’s more of a design asset. This is apples strong point they have good design in thier product and the software. Personally I see it as too much form not enough function but some people like a simplistic approach.
Do you think glass trackpads and unibody cases are simply a matter of design? Do you think custom CPUs and custom motherboards and other custom chips are simply a matter of design? Do you think they just autocaded their new batteries and somehow they just magically gained in lifetime charge cycle count?
As for lack of function, what exactly do you have in mind?
NVIDIA; asus; Samsung (flexible oled phone screen coming soon); arm; synaptics; ti; are all more interesting hardware wise.
They all just make various singular components. Apple makes a whole computer. How can a new trackpad be more interesting than a whole computer? Even a "coming soon" flexible OLED screen? OLED is far worse than LCD in terms of image quality and lifetime and even power usage unless your display is mostly black. But flexible is definitely cool (and has been "coming soon" for a while now), but even an extraordinarily amazing display isn't more interesting than the tech behind something like a MacBook Pro.
Its just their products aren't wrapped in glass and alloy so you properly don't ever read about them. When apple comes out with something as advanced as NVIDIA’s tegra 2, and ahead of its time then consider me converted; till then they are just a design company rehashing age old concepts with newish tech (and its working like a dream).
You just see the glass and alloy and don't read about what goes on inside. That Apple doesn't have an SoC as fast as the Tegra 2 means they aren't as interesting technology-wise as Nvidia? Nvidia's scope is quite narrow. In fact, Apple worked directly with them to come up with custom chipsets for their Core2Duo Macs (and for their Core i5/i7 Macs until Intel sued to block Nvidia's chipsets). Nvidia is interesting in a very small section of the entire arena in which Apple is interesting. That's why I said "a single company" being more interesting than Apple is hard to come up with. Sure, if you take a handful and add them together, they can match the depth and breadth of Apple's hardware design.
There is no technology advancement coming out of Apple, but they sure do have the most polished products out there.
Which is not bad in itself. It actually is very good, because it allows non-technical people to enjoy computers, which is very important for the advancement of society as w hole.
On the planet where most people only use word processors to update their CVs.
Unfortunately, the keyboard drains do nothing when you spill it in the vent holes. I've never tested the keyboard drains but I've seen videos of them working. I would imagine that the keyboard is screwed, although it's pretty easy and cheap to fix.
I use the touchpad actually, not the trackstick. And I do like certain gestures, like two finger scrolling. I use a utility called EnvyTouchPad, which ironically was designed to work around the awful clickpad on the HP Envy series (which is far, far worse than the Mac clickpads).
I have three major problems with the Mac touchpads:
1. It's noisy - considerably more so than even the HP clickpads. Some PC laptops have this problem too, but the ThinkPad is actually pretty quiet. It doesn't seem like a huge issue but it is socially awkward when I'm in class, especially considering that my courses are recorded for remote students and the microphones pick up everything.
2. It makes dragging much harder. Attempting to drag with one finger is problematic because of friction and the deadzone at the top of the touchpad. Instead, you have to use two fingers, which is wierd and error prone. Trying to do something like the right-mouse-button drag (which never appears in OS X but does appear in Windows under Boot Camp) is futile.
3. It's more error prone. If you want to right click, you can either use multiple fingers or assign a touch zone. Neither is as consistent as hitting a different button. The touch zone is not demarcated on the pad and even if it were (as it is on HP clickpads) there is no tactile feel. Multiple fingers work great except sometimes you mess up and rest part of your hand on the pad, causing misclicks.
The bottom line is that I just don't know why this is a good design. The only advantage I can think of is that you get slightly more touch room, but I have never found my T400 touchpad to be too small. Gestures are nice but they do not replace the need for buttons in my opinion.
The T400 (as with most ThinkPads) doesn't have the power jack soldered to the motherboard - it's a separate part that's connected via a wire. The part runs about $12 on eBay and takes about 10 minutes to replace.
I have never actually yanked a laptop off of a table due to the power adapter. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but it just doesn't happen often enough to warrant an $80 MagSafe adapter. I have no issue with MagSafe in particular, what I have an issue with is that the adapters are so expensive and the MagSafe patent prevents anyone else from making compatible replacements.
Actually, the new Air (the one I had) doesn't have a backlit keyboard - it was one of the features that was cut, along with the sleep LED, the IR sensor, and the ambient light sensor. None of these things really bug me - I rarely use the Thinklight on my T400 anyway, since I know the keyboard layout by memory.
You just brought up another thing I hate about most Macs (and to be fair, most PCS) - the sleep light. The Air I had didn't have this issue, but a MacBook/MacBook Pro would - LED indicators should not pulsate or blink. Most of the time, I sleep in the same room as my laptop, which makes blinking (or pulsating) LEDs very annoying. I had to disconnect my (custom-built) desktop's power LED to fix this issue, but it's not quite as easy wit
I know, I was aiming below the belt there.
I like Slaris too, and while I never bothered with any certification for it I used to use it all the time. oracle has pretty much killed any desire for me to use it though.
Openindiana looks good too, but they are two months behind their stated schedule and it may be DOA.
128 bits cpus don't make any sense. Considering a 128 bit cpu the "next step in innovation" indicates that you are a buzzword junkie or a 12 year old, or both.
I didn't realize that NOT having features made a device 'more advanced'.
And THAT... is why you fail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In general, the closed and bureaucratic nature of the App Store, combined with the lockdown on the iPad and iPhone, discourages large and complex software products from anyone other than Apple.
In general, you're exactly wrong. As noted there are already many other word processors and other office applications in the AppStore.
Your first statement is not supported by your second. A few complex non-Apple apps exist in spite of the lockdown, not because of it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is you, not Apple.
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
1999 called. They want their attitudes towards GNU/Linux back. Before you respond to this, download the latest version of Ubuntu and install it. My suspicion is that you'll not find a single significant problem with out concerning either user-friendliness or hardware compatability. Indeed, you'll find it"just works" w with considerably more hardware out of the box than your Mac.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Some mighty fine points there, most of which I agree with. But being a bit of an unapologetic mac fan, I'll address some of them :)
With regard to the 'hard to replace hd' comment, this is no longer true - with the macbook pro next to me I can (and have) replaced the HD by removing two screws. I replaced one on an older macbook pro and it took much longer and exposed lots of very delicate-looking computer entrails. I replaced on in a mac mini too, which required four screws, and the balls to shove a putty knife into the side of the casing. Still, all three of those was more difficult that replacing the HD in my old dell machine (one screw).
Sharp edges, you shouldn't actually rest your wrists while typing, 'cos you'll get the dreaded RSI. Perhaps Apple are trying to save your wrists for your old age? I've got to say that I don't mind that one too much. Also the sharp edges exist only on the new macbook pros, which have the easier to replace HD.
The dead space in the menu exists only on menu separators, but yes, they should not close the menu. That's just irritating now you mention it - but again it's something that I hadn't noticed before.
I don't use a mouse with my machine, preferring the trackpad, but I have noticed the odd mouse acceleration on other macs. Perhaps it's something you get used to. And speaking of getting used to, I have finally got used to the keyboard on my macbook (it took some time, a year or so), but now prefer it to any other keyboard I've used, and certainly far prefer it to any laptop keyboard I've ever used. As you rightly point out, you can plug any USB keyboard into the machine if you prefer.
I haven't noticed the throttling issue either. Would I experience this as the machine not running at 100% CPU? Because my mac mini will run at 100% on both cores when encoding video, and will get pretty hot doing it too (+65 degrees C on some component or other).
I searched for 'wallpaper' and 'picture' and 'background' using spotlight search in System Preferences, and all three took me to the correct place (as in, to the control panel that allows me to set the desktop background).
When hidden, the dock will notify you when you need it by bouncing an icon out from the edge of the screen. As opposed to a hidden windows taskbar (I'm taking of XP here, perhaps windows 7 is better in this respect), which won't tell you anything, and frequently fails to stop a window flashing even when I've attended to its needs.
Lastly though, not being able to get the machine to stay awake when you close the lid is annoying, but not as annoying as my old HP laptop that work lend me when I'm travelling which refused to sleep when I closed the lid, preferring to chew through the battery and nearly cook itself in the process. Again, and XP problem, perhaps windows 7 is better in this respect too?
I was going to write a whole explanation for each of your stupid points, but you know what I don’t care. Carry on intently listening to every word that apples spouts about their super fantastic technological advances in laptop case technology.
Rocket Surgeon.
I work in a mac shop. Of programmers. The macs crash roughly semi-weekly on average. That's neither terrible nor great.
Some OS builds are more stable than others. Some things crash them more than others. For example in 10.5, OpenGL was kind of a roulette wheel of crashing, while that's largely improved in 10.6.
What's easy to criticise is how overly heavy their frameworks are. Loading in/starting up trivial applications can take 20+ seconds. Normal activity produces UI stalls. Spotlight which is the 'advanced launcher' in effect is totally useless for around a minute after the machine boots. The I/O scheduler is garbage, and the paging strategy is poor. Too bad they didn't use Linux.
-josh
A 32b processor is one which has 32b addresses, a 64b processor has up to 64b addresses, a 128b processor would have up to 128b addresses--which doesn't make any sense because there are only maybe 2^80 atoms in the universe and it is very unlikely that we need to independently address each of them.
Another definition is the maximum efficient integer size on the platform--bulldozer is also not 128b by that metric (again, it is absurd).
Maybe you are talking about SIMD width or something? but then there have been machines with 128b (or wider) SIMD units for decades.