Interest in the machines seems pretty high, but I think Steve et al want to cover all bases by actively pushing them.
The best way to judge the success of the program is to notice that every company I've heard of that makes Mac software has been enthusiastic, from Microsoft and Adobe to Delicious Monster and beyond.
What I don't like about the program is that you're leasing the machine instead of buying it, and have to return it at the end. I hate to pay $999 for something I can't even keep!
You're not alone. I've always wondered the same thing; Microsoft doesn't really back their product, they just charge ghastly per-incident support fees if you need help, and usually the Internet's just as effective for solving problems if not more so.
mySQL has support policies similar to Microsoft's. When I was really stuck on a problem, which wound up being incompatible library versions, we got the support contract and we got first-class, highly professional support. Much better in my view than what Microsoft offered. But to be fair, it was pricey.
The original poster's idea still stands, though - if you want the comfort of Word compatibility, it's a lot simpler to just give people the Mac + Word as a Windows replacement than trying to get Linux on the desktop to work and satisfy garden-variety users.
In order to get money, as a general rule, you have to assume responsibility for something. This can create tension and misery and chew up so much of your time that it creates more unhappiness than the original lack of money did.
Oddly enough, the record of lottery winners and other people who have gained sudden riches is mixed at best. This seems to be mainly because you acquire a retinue of begging "friends" who change your life in ways you might not appreciate.
Happiness doesn't buy money, and money doesn't buy happiness. They are two separate things.
I've had the mid-bucks, and not had the mid-bucks, and far as I'm concerned I'm a lot happier when money is available than when it's not.
But I would not make fun of someone who's happy with his life and who he is. There are all too few people like that nowadays. The unhappy folks I know are just waiting for an explosion.
I know, because I've seen more than one of them explode.
Adobe and even Apple charged for the upgraded versions that transitioned to native MacOS X. You paid for the version of Photoshop that upgraded, and you paid for the version of Final Cut Pro that upgraded.
But you did get a lot of cool features. I don't remember too many complaints, more a mad thundering rush of credit cards escaping wallets and being taken out for a spin.
Well, part of freedom of computing is freedom to choose a proprietary platform if, well, we like it better and it suits our needs better.
But rest assured that there are plenty of people like you who advocate Linux and open source, and there are plenty of people like me who hate Windows and want a "designer computing" experience.
You get Linux, I get the Mac, and everyone's happy.
In my view, there is ample room for both groups -- and the real enemy is Windows.
DRM is always going to be an extra step. It will always be easier to distribute music DRM-free.
And if Apple stops allowing iTunes to play unprotected music, I'll stop using iTunes and the iPod. Apple knows this, so they'll never take that step.
I'm working with an artist on his album, and I have told him the advantages and disadvantages of piracy. The plan is, quite reasonably, to keep the music DRM-free until and unless he hits the big time, or at least thet mid-time, and can get his music on the iTunes store or equivalent. That way, people can pirate the music and his name will spread.
I'm 43 and I've done all of these things in the past year or so.
I burn CDs and DVDs to transfer data between computers.
I use AIM to keep in touch with colleagues.
I've heard of Google Earth but haven't tried it yet.
I think Wil is right in that Mac users tend to like the companies that develop for us, and we tend to buy software at a much higher rate than Windows users. I, for example, have purchased a copy of OmniWeb and use it daily. Omni, for those who don't know, was Wil Shipley's former company.
I'm a very loyal Mac user, so I guess little of this makes much difference in the Mac vs PC battle.
Well, yes, I suppose you have me there. Both that and.mac can get annoying. At least those are Apple-affiliated products, not third-party pitches. For some reason, maybe the jarring color schemes or the rather loud feel to it, it seemed a lot more annoying on the Dell.
I own Final Cut Studio, which includes a free courtesy license for QuickTime Pro. That helps.
Actually, no. Different clothes are good for different people.
I have a model-beautiful friend who wears bare-midruff tops. They make an already stunning woman look even more breathtaking.
There are plenty of women who would look absolutely terrible in the identical top she wears with such pride.
I'm not sure how individuality is important when so many people are wearing the exact same thing, or close enough to it.
In this thread, we've already encountered someone who likes the "gloomy gus" look of the Windows 2000 interface. It makes me think that someone just died, and the sombre colour scheme was invented in honour of the funeral.
Creativity is someone finding a need and trying to satisfy it. Uncreativity is someone thinking that what was done yesterday was perfectly fine for yesterday's people, and we shouldn't change it. In that sense, it was indeed a creative act to put a laptop charger in an airline seat, or to put a TV screen in your seatback.
I checked my own iPod and I don't see any sharp edges, so your comment on that seems a little odd. I have the 40gb model from a year or so back.
Applications that behave consistently are indeed good things, in most instances. That's probably the major reason why the GIMP has never gotten much traction over Photoshop. It simply does not have an interface most people are comfortable with, since it's radically different.
At the same time, creativity within the conventional bounds, as practiced by Apple and others, has created wonderful things, and that should not be understated or ignored.
There is a procedure called "badging" where, if an off-duty copy is pulled over, he shows his badge and is normally let off.
It's a sort of brotherhood of cops, to put it nicely.
I don't like speed law enforcement because I don't think speeding is dangerous if it's done with reasonable prudence (i.e. with due consideration of traffic conditions). I would prefer seeing more competent enforcement of other dangereous driving practices such as unsafe passing behaviour.
Don't underestimate the artistic aspect of the experience.
The careful thought put into every pixel on your screen, the whole designer feel of the experience is something impossible to quantify, but it definitely makes late nights with my computer a lot more pleasant than they are under Windows.
I recently set up a new Dell for someone, and despite a pretty nice flat panel monitor it was a pretty drab experience. Of course it didn't help that every piece of software on the machine was trying to sell me something...
You are just not being creative and thinking out of the box.
If you can define productivity or quality in some way, tell everyone you'll buy a free weekend with a pliant hooters girl for the person who did the best job and just watch people working their nights and weekeends to make it happen. Well, as long as you have an all straight male crew, but that' s a minor detail.
You just have to use the tool in the right way to get productivity.
I think you underestimate the power of the human touch, or nobody would amp up their Peterbilts with 12,000 watt lights, which of course actually detract from performance. But they soothe their owner's egos and make life more fun for them. When your whole life is spent in that truck, I'd call that important.
Besides, I like seeing it. Any kind of creativity lightens up a long road trip. that has to be shared with those huge and often scary vehicles
If inspiration and brilliance of design were not in some way important to people, we would all wear Mao suits or prison garb. Much more practical, you know. Easily interchangeable. No reason to have different designs just because there are two sexes.
When I flew to Cuba, I rode on a Soviet jet, something called a Yakolev YAK-42D. It felt like something from the 1950s. I later learned it was a 1950s design that they only got around to making circa 1981.
A Soviet product is just what you want. If a Soviet plane takes off, flies for a time and lands successfully, it has done its job. There's no need to make the flying experience pleasant. Flying is for those evil bourgeois chaps who can afford to fly anyway, and there's no reason in the world to coddle them.
On-seat power outlets for your laptop? Forget it.
Seatback TV screens? Not even close.
Comfy leather seats? Those are decadant luxuries of the West, don't you know.
Well, I'm sorry.
I'm a decadant, luxury-loving product of the West. I like my Mercedes-Benz automobile, because it was carefully and thoughtfully designed. And I love my PowerMac G5 and PoweBook for the same reason. Carefully and thoughtfully and elegantly designed products are a good in and of themselves; millions of iPod users sense this even if they don't quite realize why.
Maybe a factory punch press isn't something you can design this way, although perhaps that's because nobody's even tried. In any event, we are not working in a factory, and when we work on computers all day, our comfort is essential. If the more creative software vendors realize this is most true on the Mac, and cater to it, it simply means I've chosen the right platform.
The one designed for people like me.
You can have your gloomy gus Windows 2000 interface, as long as you don't make me use it.
I should have mentioned that during those 15 minutes the machine was barely usable.
Sure, if you have enough code any machine will take a while to grind through it. But back in the day, your text editor would run in fits and starts while compiling.
Now you could probably edit video and not even notice the load on the system from compiling.
It has no numeric pad so no number buttons. So I guess you have to use the scroll wheel to dial, which I think might be a bit of a mistake.
Why are designers so allergic to making these things larger, anyway? I like my phone big enough so it's harder to lose than the micro-phones we have nowadays.
Oh, come on. The Lord of the Rings saga didn't make much at all. You know, the zero box office, the complete lack of anyone even vaguely interested in the DVD. I'm sure there's no movie studio in the world who would be interested in picking it up.
Seriously... if this guy wants to make anything involved with Middle Earth, it will get made. Heck, if he wanted to film an earthworm orgy it would probably get made, because he has a track record of doing Great Things. When you have that, your movies get made.
Besides, $200m is enough to make it on your own, without interference from studio suits.
I used a PowerBook G4 1ghz as my primary machine for about a year and it worked great for everything I wanted to do, including compilation and video editing. That's a significantly slower machine than the Mac Mini.
Compiling programs works fine in the background of any modern Mac. It's been years since compiling software was a truly taxing task for a modern computer. I remember well when it took 15 minutes to compile and link my Unix-based BBS software on a 286. Thank goodness those days are long gone!
On games, though, you win. I don't like games, so it doesn't bother me, but I understand that's a problem for many. Hopefully the new Macs on Intel will change that. If Steve's really smart, he'll add some version of the DirectX API to the MacOS, since this seems to be the top objection of people considering the switch.
I suspect he's like me, hates the violence in video games and doesn't want to support it. But who knows? Maybe he's just arrogant and doesn't want to use other people's standards.
I dealt with spam by just letting my home computer process my email. The rules I've set up with Apple mail then forward "interesting" messages to my mobile mail account. They actually "redirect" the mail so it appears to be coming from the actual sender instead of my email address.
I have a friend who needed to buy a new connected cellphone. We looked at the Treo 650 and the Blackberry.
The Treo was the nicer looking device and had the better display, but its pretty-looking keyboard was horrid to type on, and the user interface for web forms was clunky at best.
The Blackberry really is the best device on the market right now, with the possible exception of the T-Mobile Sidekick, which I have. Unfortunately, the Sidekick relies on T-Mobile's rather questionable network, and that limits its competitiveness.
One analyst in the article says that Asian manufacturers would eventually eat Blackberry's lunch, but that seems odd because I'm almost certain the Blackberry is made by a Chinese contract manufacturer, just like everyone else's stuff. Apple can stay competitive with the iPod designed in California but made in China. I would think RIM would do just fine with the same model.
The Blackberry, incidentally, is cheaper than the Treo and the same price as the Sidekick.
Slashdot Mirror
Interest in the machines seems pretty high, but I think Steve et al want to cover all bases by actively pushing them.
The best way to judge the success of the program is to notice that every company I've heard of that makes Mac software has been enthusiastic, from Microsoft and Adobe to Delicious Monster and beyond.
What I don't like about the program is that you're leasing the machine instead of buying it, and have to return it at the end. I hate to pay $999 for something I can't even keep!
D
You're not alone. I've always wondered the same thing; Microsoft doesn't really back their product, they just charge ghastly per-incident support fees if you need help, and usually the Internet's just as effective for solving problems if not more so.
mySQL has support policies similar to Microsoft's. When I was really stuck on a problem, which wound up being incompatible library versions, we got the support contract and we got first-class, highly professional support. Much better in my view than what Microsoft offered. But to be fair, it was pricey.
The original poster's idea still stands, though - if you want the comfort of Word compatibility, it's a lot simpler to just give people the Mac + Word as a Windows replacement than trying to get Linux on the desktop to work and satisfy garden-variety users.
D
Well, actually ... here it is.
D
In order to get money, as a general rule, you have to assume responsibility for something. This can create tension and misery and chew up so much of your time that it creates more unhappiness than the original lack of money did.
Oddly enough, the record of lottery winners and other people who have gained sudden riches is mixed at best. This seems to be mainly because you acquire a retinue of begging "friends" who change your life in ways you might not appreciate.
D
I'd call money a tool. It can expand happiness if used properly.
But if you had a rotten relationship with your wife, all the Ritz-Carlton stays in the world wouldn't be able to help.
D
Happiness doesn't buy money, and money doesn't buy happiness. They are two separate things.
I've had the mid-bucks, and not had the mid-bucks, and far as I'm concerned I'm a lot happier when money is available than when it's not.
But I would not make fun of someone who's happy with his life and who he is. There are all too few people like that nowadays. The unhappy folks I know are just waiting for an explosion.
I know, because I've seen more than one of them explode.
Not a pretty sight.
D
Adobe and even Apple charged for the upgraded versions that transitioned to native MacOS X. You paid for the version of Photoshop that upgraded, and you paid for the version of Final Cut Pro that upgraded.
But you did get a lot of cool features. I don't remember too many complaints, more a mad thundering rush of credit cards escaping wallets and being taken out for a spin.
D
Well, part of freedom of computing is freedom to choose a proprietary platform if, well, we like it better and it suits our needs better.
But rest assured that there are plenty of people like you who advocate Linux and open source, and there are plenty of people like me who hate Windows and want a "designer computing" experience.
You get Linux, I get the Mac, and everyone's happy.
In my view, there is ample room for both groups -- and the real enemy is Windows.
D
There's no reason for Steve to do the iCar with the Mercedes iPod interface looking pretty darn cool.
(Click through to the MBUSA site and check the Flash demo for details; it's one of the few really cool uses of Flash I've seen).
D
Not only that.
The public relations issues of going down from an existing 2.7ghz chip to a 2.5 are just plain horrendous.
I know the 2.5 will be faster and I'd enjoy owning one, but that's really a bad position public relations-wise for Apple.
Wow.
No wonder Steve switched.
D
That doesn't make sense.
DRM is always going to be an extra step. It will always be easier to distribute music DRM-free.
And if Apple stops allowing iTunes to play unprotected music, I'll stop using iTunes and the iPod. Apple knows this, so they'll never take that step.
I'm working with an artist on his album, and I have told him the advantages and disadvantages of piracy. The plan is, quite reasonably, to keep the music DRM-free until and unless he hits the big time, or at least thet mid-time, and can get his music on the iTunes store or equivalent. That way, people can pirate the music and his name will spread.
D
I'm 43 and I've done all of these things in the past year or so.
I burn CDs and DVDs to transfer data between computers.
I use AIM to keep in touch with colleagues.
I've heard of Google Earth but haven't tried it yet.
I think Wil is right in that Mac users tend to like the companies that develop for us, and we tend to buy software at a much higher rate than Windows users. I, for example, have purchased a copy of OmniWeb and use it daily. Omni, for those who don't know, was Wil Shipley's former company.
I'm a very loyal Mac user, so I guess little of this makes much difference in the Mac vs PC battle.
D
Well, yes, I suppose you have me there. Both that and .mac can get annoying. At least those are Apple-affiliated products, not third-party pitches. For some reason, maybe the jarring color schemes or the rather loud feel to it, it seemed a lot more annoying on the Dell.
I own Final Cut Studio, which includes a free courtesy license for QuickTime Pro. That helps.
D
Actually, no. Different clothes are good for different people.
I have a model-beautiful friend who wears bare-midruff tops. They make an already stunning woman look even more breathtaking.
There are plenty of women who would look absolutely terrible in the identical top she wears with such pride.
I'm not sure how individuality is important when so many people are wearing the exact same thing, or close enough to it.
In this thread, we've already encountered someone who likes the "gloomy gus" look of the Windows 2000 interface. It makes me think that someone just died, and the sombre colour scheme was invented in honour of the funeral.
Creativity is someone finding a need and trying to satisfy it. Uncreativity is someone thinking that what was done yesterday was perfectly fine for yesterday's people, and we shouldn't change it. In that sense, it was indeed a creative act to put a laptop charger in an airline seat, or to put a TV screen in your seatback.
I checked my own iPod and I don't see any sharp edges, so your comment on that seems a little odd. I have the 40gb model from a year or so back.
Applications that behave consistently are indeed good things, in most instances. That's probably the major reason why the GIMP has never gotten much traction over Photoshop. It simply does not have an interface most people are comfortable with, since it's radically different.
At the same time, creativity within the conventional bounds, as practiced by Apple and others, has created wonderful things, and that should not be understated or ignored.
D
There is a procedure called "badging" where, if an off-duty copy is pulled over, he shows his badge and is normally let off.
It's a sort of brotherhood of cops, to put it nicely.
I don't like speed law enforcement because I don't think speeding is dangerous if it's done with reasonable prudence (i.e. with due consideration of traffic conditions). I would prefer seeing more competent enforcement of other dangereous driving practices such as unsafe passing behaviour.
D
Don't underestimate the artistic aspect of the experience.
...
The careful thought put into every pixel on your screen, the whole designer feel of the experience is something impossible to quantify, but it definitely makes late nights with my computer a lot more pleasant than they are under Windows.
I recently set up a new Dell for someone, and despite a pretty nice flat panel monitor it was a pretty drab experience. Of course it didn't help that every piece of software on the machine was trying to sell me something
D
You are just not being creative and thinking out of the box.
If you can define productivity or quality in some way, tell everyone you'll buy a free weekend with a pliant hooters girl for the person who did the best job and just watch people working their nights and weekeends to make it happen. Well, as long as you have an all straight male crew, but that' s a minor detail.
You just have to use the tool in the right way to get productivity.
I think you underestimate the power of the human touch, or nobody would amp up their Peterbilts with 12,000 watt lights, which of course actually detract from performance. But they soothe their owner's egos and make life more fun for them. When your whole life is spent in that truck, I'd call that important.
Besides, I like seeing it. Any kind of creativity lightens up a long road trip. that has to be shared with those huge and often scary vehicles
D
If inspiration and brilliance of design were not in some way important to people, we would all wear Mao suits or prison garb. Much more practical, you know. Easily interchangeable. No reason to have different designs just because there are two sexes.
When I flew to Cuba, I rode on a Soviet jet, something called a Yakolev YAK-42D. It felt like something from the 1950s. I later learned it was a 1950s design that they only got around to making circa 1981.
A Soviet product is just what you want. If a Soviet plane takes off, flies for a time and lands successfully, it has done its job. There's no need to make the flying experience pleasant. Flying is for those evil bourgeois chaps who can afford to fly anyway, and there's no reason in the world to coddle them.
On-seat power outlets for your laptop? Forget it.
Seatback TV screens? Not even close.
Comfy leather seats? Those are decadant luxuries of the West, don't you know.
Well, I'm sorry.
I'm a decadant, luxury-loving product of the West. I like my Mercedes-Benz automobile, because it was carefully and thoughtfully designed. And I love my PowerMac G5 and PoweBook for the same reason. Carefully and thoughtfully and elegantly designed products are a good in and of themselves; millions of iPod users sense this even if they don't quite realize why.
Maybe a factory punch press isn't something you can design this way, although perhaps that's because nobody's even tried. In any event, we are not working in a factory, and when we work on computers all day, our comfort is essential. If the more creative software vendors realize this is most true on the Mac, and cater to it, it simply means I've chosen the right platform.
The one designed for people like me.
You can have your gloomy gus Windows 2000 interface, as long as you don't make me use it.
D
I should have mentioned that during those 15 minutes the machine was barely usable.
Sure, if you have enough code any machine will take a while to grind through it. But back in the day, your text editor would run in fits and starts while compiling.
Now you could probably edit video and not even notice the load on the system from compiling.
D
Actually, I guess it is.
It has no numeric pad so no number buttons. So I guess you have to use the scroll wheel to dial, which I think might be a bit of a mistake.
Why are designers so allergic to making these things larger, anyway? I like my phone big enough so it's harder to lose than the micro-phones we have nowadays.
D
Oh, come on. The Lord of the Rings saga didn't make much at all. You know, the zero box office, the complete lack of anyone even vaguely interested in the DVD. I'm sure there's no movie studio in the world who would be interested in picking it up.
... if this guy wants to make anything involved with Middle Earth, it will get made. Heck, if he wanted to film an earthworm orgy it would probably get made, because he has a track record of doing Great Things. When you have that, your movies get made.
Seriously
Besides, $200m is enough to make it on your own, without interference from studio suits.
D
I used a PowerBook G4 1ghz as my primary machine for about a year and it worked great for everything I wanted to do, including compilation and video editing. That's a significantly slower machine than the Mac Mini.
Compiling programs works fine in the background of any modern Mac. It's been years since compiling software was a truly taxing task for a modern computer. I remember well when it took 15 minutes to compile and link my Unix-based BBS software on a 286. Thank goodness those days are long gone!
On games, though, you win. I don't like games, so it doesn't bother me, but I understand that's a problem for many. Hopefully the new Macs on Intel will change that. If Steve's really smart, he'll add some version of the DirectX API to the MacOS, since this seems to be the top objection of people considering the switch.
I suspect he's like me, hates the violence in video games and doesn't want to support it. But who knows? Maybe he's just arrogant and doesn't want to use other people's standards.
D
A Mac Mini is $499, so does this mean you wouldn't switch unless Apple paid you for it?
(I know it's not $499 because of the extras you have to buy, but I'm betting you have a keyboard, mouse and monitor lying around).
D
I dealt with spam by just letting my home computer process my email. The rules I've set up with Apple mail then forward "interesting" messages to my mobile mail account. They actually "redirect" the mail so it appears to be coming from the actual sender instead of my email address.
That's worked just fine for me so far.
D
I have a friend who needed to buy a new connected cellphone. We looked at the Treo 650 and the Blackberry.
The Treo was the nicer looking device and had the better display, but its pretty-looking keyboard was horrid to type on, and the user interface for web forms was clunky at best.
The Blackberry really is the best device on the market right now, with the possible exception of the T-Mobile Sidekick, which I have. Unfortunately, the Sidekick relies on T-Mobile's rather questionable network, and that limits its competitiveness.
One analyst in the article says that Asian manufacturers would eventually eat Blackberry's lunch, but that seems odd because I'm almost certain the Blackberry is made by a Chinese contract manufacturer, just like everyone else's stuff. Apple can stay competitive with the iPod designed in California but made in China. I would think RIM would do just fine with the same model.
The Blackberry, incidentally, is cheaper than the Treo and the same price as the Sidekick.
D