Re:Slightly offtopic but re: XP, Vista and Linux U
on
The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 1
I forgot to add that XP gets progressively less responsive the longer you use it as it slowly gets mucked up with spy/ad/malware and thousands of unused lines of code added by long-gone apps that the "uninstall" feature failed to clean up. The can't be said about Mac OS X. You don't hear OS X users talking about doing "clean-installs" of the OS because their systems have just grown unresponsive. People can make all the excuses they want (larger market share so a bigger target, users are to blame, cheap 3rd party add-ons, blah blah), but the fact remains that Windows OSes seem unresponsive right out of the box and grow progressively worse with use.
Re:Slightly offtopic but re: XP, Vista and Linux U
on
The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 1
You are not alone. Most people I know have just grown to accept the GUI lag factor with Microsoft builds. It is so prevalent, that they assume it exists on all platforms, and have poo-poo'd Mac OS X's interface for years. Afterall, if big bad Microsoft can't throw enough money at it to fix it, how could little Apple, Inc. do it? It MUST be a natural side effect of a beautiful, elegant GUI, no?
In my experience, once I introduce Mac OS X to people with this prejudice, most of them realize it is just sloppy engineering on Microsoft's behalf (or lack of caring, or maybe they've eeked every last ounce of performance out of an outdated platform, who knows). Obivously, Apple has figured it out, so it is possible.
My point being, you don't have to settle for unresponsive GUI and there should be no asumption that any other GUI will be plagued by poor response, just as every MS OS has been.
Time will tell. I'd love to see OS X for PC. I'd still buy Apple hardware, but I'm sure many people would opt for boring (cheaper) black Dell boxes. Where Apple could make up the deficit in lost hardware sales would be in licensing OS X to the big vendors like Dell, Sony, HP, etc.
The Apple media should forget the concept of "Mac Clones" and concentrate on the marketing and wording as such to communicate: OS X for PC. This way, people aren't scared in thinking they have to have a Mac (or a clone) and that they can use their own existing PC hardware or new PC of their choice.
Keep in mind that Apple has no copy-protection scheme on the current OS X release and would lose lots of revenue to illegal copies of OS X. I could (well, can actually, with a few hacks) put OS X on a core duo PC for free using the OS X disks that came with my iMac and my MacBook. No, it wouldn't be legal, but would Steve Jobs put his trust in the good intenetions of users not to pirate OS X for their PCs?
It is a slipperly slope indeed. Open up OS X to millions of potental PC customers at the expense of new hardware sales? A new Mac costs $800-$3500, whereas OS X runs $129 per copy...how many millions of OS X copies would they have to sell to replace the lost hardware revenue? I'm sure there would be a fairly large demand, especially if they were able to get the driver support going for the multitude of computers they are trying to reach. It would do more harm than good to sell OS X and have all the compatibility headaches that have always plagued the PC platform. Is it all worth it? That's up to Steve Jobs to decide.
Xbox Live is nothing like any sort of PC multiplayer gaming. We're talking about a service that integrates user preferences, statuses, and *everything* between *all* games. This is impossible on the PC for obvious reasons, but in the MS was still the first to do it.
Erm, Bungie.net had most of this. I wonder what ever happened to them? Last I heard, they were developing a cool game called Halo for the Mac.
Even companies that weren't bought out by Microsoft had similar features...Blizzard's service comes to mind. So yet again, Microsoft merely took someone else's good idea and either bought them straight up (Bungie) or just threw a lot of money at it to become the de facto standard. Not that I'm complaining, because Xbox Live is very good, but let's not pretend Microsoft invented it.
I lament the loss of Firewire iPods, especially now with video and photo capabilities. My old iPod (2nd gen?) had firewire and the songs transferred faster than 1 song per second. My latest USB-2 2Gen Nano doesn't come close to the one-song-per-second rate of my old-ass firewire iPod. Maybe they dumped firewire so we'd all have to buy docking accessories to charge our iPods at our computers?
I like my iPods because they AREN'T phones. Someday I might be important enough to need a cell phone. Until then, I don't want my half-marathon training interrupted by a phone call. Maybe someday people will learn they aren't half as important as they think they are and they'll leave their cell phones off (or better yet, at home).
Ford wanted to win the World (LeMonde)? Please complete your analogy, because it doesn't make sense. Audi S4 vs. a Ford GT? Audi S4 vs. a Ford F-150 truck? I'm a huge fan of German cars, and particularly the S4, but I don't understand what you are trying to say. Oops, sorry, getting off-topic.
The difference being that Apple actually believes in the products they produce, whereas Microsoft is the newest Johnny-come-lately, half-assed version to hit the scene. In the Microsoft view, the Zune is a market opportunity to make a few dollars in a hot segment. Even the lame Zune is bound to make a couple of bucks for Redmond.
There is something to be learned from a company like Apple that makes products that they themselves want to use, versus pumping out bland high-profit margin crap that they can only sell by tricking people with marketing ploys.
Like most Apple products, the iPod sells its self because it works well, looks good and is fairly priced.
I don't understand the iPod-as-status-symbol claim. Such claims are best reserved for ridiculously priced and mostly useless items such as sunglasses, purses and shoes. Does anyone over the age of 18 really think they are cool because they own a $75-$250 electronic device?
The reality of the iPod success is based in how well the product works, which is a refreshing change in consumer mentality.
14% of the 15% of Apple PR you mention are probably just really satisfied customers like myself. I believe insecure people call us "FanBois" or something of similar intellectual emptyness.
Apple is counting the days until Microsoft stops shipping OEM XP. For that will be a time when millions of fence-sitters will finally take the OS X plunge. Just a prediction...4th quarter Mac sales will be insane.
Agreed. My harddrive based video iPod seems archaic in comparison. My 8Gig flash-based iPod is more responsive, makes no noise and the battery lasts forever. I think harddrive based players are DOA. I'm eagerly awaiting affordable flash drives in my computers!
I'm 37 and my wife is 28. We own three iPods. We are not "pre-teen" or "teen", so I guess that makes us yuppies?
Re:"Sold" probably includes them all
on
100 Million iPods
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· Score: 1
The iPod adds in the London tube are pretty sweet. I don't think I've ever seen so many large, high-quality prints used for advertising in one location before.
You are the one claiming inaudible headphones are more of a nuisance than people using cell phones in public. I simply stated that you must be one of those people who doesn't seem to understand that blabbing away on a cell phone on a crowded plane is incredibly rude and annoying to those who paid a lot of money and have no escape. You probably aren't really that obnoxious, but how else are we to accept your logic? Reclining seats is all you got?
The day a carrier allows cell phone usage in flight is the day they lose me as a customer. It really is that simple, and this author is dead-on with the 'crowd control' comment. It is already unbearable enough with the amount of cell phone chatter just during boarding. Some day people might actually realize they aren't quite as important as they think they are and they might actually turn off their stupid phones.
You must be one of those loud, oblivious public cell phone users that many of us despise if you can't understand that we don't want people yapping on a cell phone in mid flight.
I'm just guessing that Apple worries more about people hacking their hardware and getting it to do things they didn't design it to do than they do people using their Mac OS X cd from their iMac on their Mac TV.
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I forgot to add that XP gets progressively less responsive the longer you use it as it slowly gets mucked up with spy/ad/malware and thousands of unused lines of code added by long-gone apps that the "uninstall" feature failed to clean up. The can't be said about Mac OS X. You don't hear OS X users talking about doing "clean-installs" of the OS because their systems have just grown unresponsive. People can make all the excuses they want (larger market share so a bigger target, users are to blame, cheap 3rd party add-ons, blah blah), but the fact remains that Windows OSes seem unresponsive right out of the box and grow progressively worse with use.
In my experience, once I introduce Mac OS X to people with this prejudice, most of them realize it is just sloppy engineering on Microsoft's behalf (or lack of caring, or maybe they've eeked every last ounce of performance out of an outdated platform, who knows). Obivously, Apple has figured it out, so it is possible.
My point being, you don't have to settle for unresponsive GUI and there should be no asumption that any other GUI will be plagued by poor response, just as every MS OS has been.
The Apple media should forget the concept of "Mac Clones" and concentrate on the marketing and wording as such to communicate: OS X for PC. This way, people aren't scared in thinking they have to have a Mac (or a clone) and that they can use their own existing PC hardware or new PC of their choice.
Keep in mind that Apple has no copy-protection scheme on the current OS X release and would lose lots of revenue to illegal copies of OS X. I could (well, can actually, with a few hacks) put OS X on a core duo PC for free using the OS X disks that came with my iMac and my MacBook. No, it wouldn't be legal, but would Steve Jobs put his trust in the good intenetions of users not to pirate OS X for their PCs?
It is a slipperly slope indeed. Open up OS X to millions of potental PC customers at the expense of new hardware sales? A new Mac costs $800-$3500, whereas OS X runs $129 per copy...how many millions of OS X copies would they have to sell to replace the lost hardware revenue? I'm sure there would be a fairly large demand, especially if they were able to get the driver support going for the multitude of computers they are trying to reach. It would do more harm than good to sell OS X and have all the compatibility headaches that have always plagued the PC platform. Is it all worth it? That's up to Steve Jobs to decide.
Even companies that weren't bought out by Microsoft had similar features...Blizzard's service comes to mind. So yet again, Microsoft merely took someone else's good idea and either bought them straight up (Bungie) or just threw a lot of money at it to become the de facto standard. Not that I'm complaining, because Xbox Live is very good, but let's not pretend Microsoft invented it.
I lament the loss of Firewire iPods, especially now with video and photo capabilities. My old iPod (2nd gen?) had firewire and the songs transferred faster than 1 song per second. My latest USB-2 2Gen Nano doesn't come close to the one-song-per-second rate of my old-ass firewire iPod. Maybe they dumped firewire so we'd all have to buy docking accessories to charge our iPods at our computers?
I like my iPods because they AREN'T phones. Someday I might be important enough to need a cell phone. Until then, I don't want my half-marathon training interrupted by a phone call. Maybe someday people will learn they aren't half as important as they think they are and they'll leave their cell phones off (or better yet, at home).
Ford wanted to win the World (LeMonde)? Please complete your analogy, because it doesn't make sense. Audi S4 vs. a Ford GT? Audi S4 vs. a Ford F-150 truck? I'm a huge fan of German cars, and particularly the S4, but I don't understand what you are trying to say. Oops, sorry, getting off-topic.
There is something to be learned from a company like Apple that makes products that they themselves want to use, versus pumping out bland high-profit margin crap that they can only sell by tricking people with marketing ploys.
Like most Apple products, the iPod sells its self because it works well, looks good and is fairly priced.
With $11B, Apple could equally buy out any number of other companies. What's your point?
The reality of the iPod success is based in how well the product works, which is a refreshing change in consumer mentality.
14% of the 15% of Apple PR you mention are probably just really satisfied customers like myself. I believe insecure people call us "FanBois" or something of similar intellectual emptyness.
They do have a revolutionary new surface. It is brown.
Apple is counting the days until Microsoft stops shipping OEM XP. For that will be a time when millions of fence-sitters will finally take the OS X plunge. Just a prediction...4th quarter Mac sales will be insane.
Agreed! Microsoft will forever be exhonerated by the masses of people who don't take a few moments to explore other options.
Agreed. My harddrive based video iPod seems archaic in comparison. My 8Gig flash-based iPod is more responsive, makes no noise and the battery lasts forever. I think harddrive based players are DOA. I'm eagerly awaiting affordable flash drives in my computers!
I'm 37 and my wife is 28. We own three iPods. We are not "pre-teen" or "teen", so I guess that makes us yuppies?
The iPod adds in the London tube are pretty sweet. I don't think I've ever seen so many large, high-quality prints used for advertising in one location before.
You are the one claiming inaudible headphones are more of a nuisance than people using cell phones in public. I simply stated that you must be one of those people who doesn't seem to understand that blabbing away on a cell phone on a crowded plane is incredibly rude and annoying to those who paid a lot of money and have no escape. You probably aren't really that obnoxious, but how else are we to accept your logic? Reclining seats is all you got?
The day a carrier allows cell phone usage in flight is the day they lose me as a customer. It really is that simple, and this author is dead-on with the 'crowd control' comment. It is already unbearable enough with the amount of cell phone chatter just during boarding. Some day people might actually realize they aren't quite as important as they think they are and they might actually turn off their stupid phones.
You must be one of those loud, oblivious public cell phone users that many of us despise if you can't understand that we don't want people yapping on a cell phone in mid flight.
A quiet zone on a plane is akin to a smoking non-smoking section at Denny's.
Here's a better idea: how about turning your freakin' stupid cell phone off in croweded, public places?
I'm just guessing that Apple worries more about people hacking their hardware and getting it to do things they didn't design it to do than they do people using their Mac OS X cd from their iMac on their Mac TV.
Uh, isn't hacking a Mac TV a bigger legality issue than using my MacBook or my Intel iMac install cds?