i own a macbook. I work at an apple authorized reseller. I'm not planning on buying an iPad. But they aren't a worthless device, as people seem to be desperate to convince themselves. They're a very good choice for the demographic of (mostly elderly) people who have never owned a computer. For these people, even a Mac is unnecessarily complicated. These are people who double click on URLs because hey, they want it to open, and you double click to open, right?
iPads are perfect for these people. All they want to do is read the news online, read email their grandkids, and watch youtube videos that make fun of Obama. The fact that it's so simplified is a virtue for them.
What I don't get is why there's no ads at the bottom asking me if I want to buy the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack on iTunes. Maybe they're already in cahoots with the RIAA. WE'RE DOOMED.
I don't see the complaint against Mac OS
on
The Apple Two
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· Score: 1
I understand and even agree with the complaints over the itunes/app store model. I understand that controlling the distribution of software and prohibiting the sale of apps that compete against Apple's bundled iPhone apps like safari DOES stifle innovation and competition. I hate that system too.
But I don't get the argument against Mac OS here. Is the complaint simply that not every layer of the OS is fully open source? That seems like a nitpick to me. It's hardly fair to call Mac OS "more closed than Windows" when every new machine and copy of their OS includes the full developers tools. I'm not aware of any Apple-imposed barriers to prevent any old hacker from building the next big app in his garage.
So is it just the hardware lockin we're mad about? It seems to me like tinkerers have little else to complain about with Mac OS. You're really just nitpicking about the fact that Apple has a few feeble mechanisms in place to prevent you from running OSX on generic hardware because their business model relies on hardware profits and not OS licenses (which, coincidentally, is also the reason that OSX Client licenses are essentially distributed on the honor system.) In short, you're complaining that Mac OS X isn't Linux. Fine. It's not Linux.
Or is it really just that you want to have your cake and eat it too? You want Apple to get out of the hardware business and sell a fully open source version of Snow Leopard for a price that will sustain their business model? You want a company to make exactly the product you want and no more, at exactly the price you want and no more, so that you can get exactly what you need without having to pay any extra to subsidize whatever other stuff that company might choose to spend their money on.
Well Gee, I'd like for Honda to make a car that included bluetooth audio without me having to upgrade the whole package and spend $3000 more on chrome exhaust pipes and a sunroof, but now I'm not talking about "freedom" anymore, I'm talking about subverting a manufacturer's ability to design and price their own products and servers, which is the opposite of freedom.
I'd much rather just be able to say that a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes is a thousand kilobytes, than have to explain to granny who wants to burn a CD with her grandson's birthday photos on it what a "kibibyte" is.
We live in a base 10 society. I don't see why we need to encourage usage of the new base-2 terms outside the world of computer science.
and I expect that, like the iPhone, competitive advantage the iPad will have is a slick, responsive interface that is well thought out and elegant. That said, I'm extremely, extremely skeptical about it overtaking the Kindle, let alone printed books, because it's just not as comfortable to read off of a backlit LCD as it is to read a high quality reflective display like the one the Kindle uses.
Standard Disclaimer: I support and repair Macs for a living.
Interesting that a large enough group of that HALO crowd was interested enough to participate in the HALO 2 ARG, which many wrote off as viral marketing, but it was actually an incredibly elaborate meta game which was driven primarily by solving word puzzles. There was at least one that nobody ever figured out till after the game ended. Mind you, this is the drooling crowd of wii-hating FPS lovers.
I work in an apple authorized retailer. We've sold hundreds of Leopard copies. The vast majority of the feedback we've had from customers has been positive. The complaints we have had are almost all related to broken third party apps, usually people using older stuff like Photoshop 7.0. I myself have had no problems with it on any of my machines. Setting aside some of the dumber UI "innovations" like stacks, I've found little to complain about and a lot to like.
Not a day goes by that I don't have a customer asking me if "I know about the problems that Apple is having with ____ product". More often than not its not a widespread problem at all. It's an isolated incident that has happened to a handful of people who have found eachother on Apple's support message board. By far the most common of these loaded questions i frequently receive is "Has Apple fixed the problem with the laptops running unbearably hot?"
The most common "widespread" problems that I see (and I work at an Apple authorized service provider) are bad power supplies on G5 iMacs (and this is extremely widespread), bad logic boards on G3 iBooks, and swelling batteries on 17" Macbook Pros. All of these problems except the iBook logic boards are still covered under warranty extension programs whether or not you paid for the extended warranty.
The wii and the 360 are apples and oranges.
The 360 and the ps3 are oranges and oranges.
Lots of people own both a Wii and one of the other two systems, but you'll find very few who have a 360 and a PS3, because theres a lot of redundancy there. The wii, however is unique enough to be worth owning for anyone who can possibly afford to have two consoles. And by the same token, it's worth having a 360 in addition to the Wii if you're at all interested in "gamer" games.
Just because nintendo has managed to break out of the industry's rut and appeal to the non-gamer crowd doesn't mean that there isn't still plenty of money to be made in the tried-and-true rut. The rut, after all, is where the every system other up until now has made plenty of money. There are an awful lot of outstanding games that are available on the 360 and/or PS3 that aren't going to be available on the Wii. Assassin's Creed and Bio Shock come to mind.
As innovative and fresh as the Wii is, there are a lot of games that appeal to a lot of people that the Wii isn't really suited for. There's still a market for traditional (and more powerful) consoles. That's what Sony and Microsoft are fighting over, and Sony is unquestionably losing.
The demographic that the x360 and ps3 both cater to is in no danger of going away. Sure, it's smaller than the demographic that the wii appeals to, but the biggest threats Sony and Micosoft are facing are each other, not Nintendo. They're in an entirely different league.
Put it this way. Say you don't care about brands, you just want to play the best games. You can buy a Wii, and that gives you a decent selection of fun games to play, and assurance of plenty more in the future since so many Wii units have been sold.
In addition to that Wii, you can also buy one of the other two consoles, either a 360 or a PS3, and that opens you up to a very different selection of titles which may appeal to a smaller audience, but are also excellent games.
But once you have the Wii and one other coonsole, there isn't nearly as much to be gained by buying the third. Especially if the third is the Playstation, which is pretty weak on exclusive titles and also pretty expensive. Wii's are $249 and 360s start at $279. Cheapest Playstation 3 is $499.
TO put it another way, if you're not a gamer, the only system you care about is the Wii.
If you are a gamer, you want a Wii AND an xbox 360 OR a Playstation3.
From a business perspective, Nintendo is in a great position. But at the same time, not many folks who were going to buy an xbox 360 are going to NOT buy one just because they also want a Wii. They're too different. I don't think the sucess of the Wii is a direct threat to Sony or Microsoft. I do think that the success of microsoft is a threat to sony, though.
Then you also have Nintendo and Sony's portable systems, which are in direct competition, and you have the DS obliterating the PSP. Cheers, say I. I love my DS.
Disclaimer: I work in a store that, among other things, sells and installs high def sets.
In 2009, the FCC is mandating that broadcasters switch over to a 100% digital format. This does not necessarily mean that all channels will now be in HD and it does not mean that everyone will have to purchase a hi-def set, and it certainly doesn't mean that you'll be able to get an HD set for $300.
What it does mean is that if you have an older SD set you may need to purchase a digital capable tuner. If you have a set with an ATSC tuner or are a subscriber to digital cable or any of the satellite services, you are already in compliance with the 2009 mandate.
2009 isn't really going to change anything with regards to HD adoption, other than people who may be misinformed into thinking they need to have an HD set by then.
Lastly, I don't think that HD compliance is the big determining factor between buying a wii or a 360 or a PS3. It is my opinion that the Wii is selling so well mainly because it appeals to a much broader audience than any other past or current consoles.
In my mind the wii is barely even competing with the other two consoles. If you're a "console gamer" and you're on a budget, you're going to be buying a wii for the entertaining niche it fills, and then you're going to be deciding between a 360 and a PS3 as your second console. The real competition is between sony and microsoft. While you could argue that they are really fighting for second place, it's also worth noting that 2nd place is an established market of gamers who both sony and microsoft know they can make money off of in the long run. The Wii, well who knows if the "novelty will wear off" as it's detractors love to claim.
Armchair game industry analysts can talk about blue ray and graphics power and hardware features, but the gamers know what really decides the success of a console. It's the games. The original xbox was technologically superior in every way to the Playstation 2, but the PS2 had a much larger library of games. Which, incidentally, is why the PS2 is still outselling the next-gen systems. Sure it's old, but it still has a lot of content to offer. Even among "hardcore" gamers, graphics only count for so much. Although, interestingly enough, the PS3 is only marginally more capable of producing pretty graphics than the 360 is.
After their "price drop" sony still fails to outsell their primary competitor, who has also had a year for it's novelty to wear off AND is rife with hardware failures. This month, Microsoft rolled out a real price drop for their console (one which actually means you can own a 360 for less money than before) and you have a lineup of highly anticipated games coming out for the 360 in the next few months. Compare that to the sony offerings, which mostly set for Q1 2008.
Lucky for sony Blue Ray seems to be pulling ahead. And lucky for microsoft that their entire strategy isn't staked on the success of HD-DVD
Personally, I expect this to be the closest Sony comes to matching the 360 for the rest of the year. With the price drop and the avalanche of must have titles coming out for the 360, I think Microsoft's console sales are about to see a big spike.
I also think the Wii, with it's broader appeal, will continue to outsell both other systems. But A wii sale is not something that is likely to be mutually exclusive with the sale of one of the other two consoles, whereas an xbox sale probably is.
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i own a macbook. I work at an apple authorized reseller. I'm not planning on buying an iPad. But they aren't a worthless device, as people seem to be desperate to convince themselves. They're a very good choice for the demographic of (mostly elderly) people who have never owned a computer. For these people, even a Mac is unnecessarily complicated. These are people who double click on URLs because hey, they want it to open, and you double click to open, right? iPads are perfect for these people. All they want to do is read the news online, read email their grandkids, and watch youtube videos that make fun of Obama. The fact that it's so simplified is a virtue for them.
What I don't get is why there's no ads at the bottom asking me if I want to buy the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack on iTunes. Maybe they're already in cahoots with the RIAA. WE'RE DOOMED.
I understand and even agree with the complaints over the itunes/app store model. I understand that controlling the distribution of software and prohibiting the sale of apps that compete against Apple's bundled iPhone apps like safari DOES stifle innovation and competition. I hate that system too.
But I don't get the argument against Mac OS here. Is the complaint simply that not every layer of the OS is fully open source? That seems like a nitpick to me. It's hardly fair to call Mac OS "more closed than Windows" when every new machine and copy of their OS includes the full developers tools. I'm not aware of any Apple-imposed barriers to prevent any old hacker from building the next big app in his garage.
So is it just the hardware lockin we're mad about? It seems to me like tinkerers have little else to complain about with Mac OS. You're really just nitpicking about the fact that Apple has a few feeble mechanisms in place to prevent you from running OSX on generic hardware because their business model relies on hardware profits and not OS licenses (which, coincidentally, is also the reason that OSX Client licenses are essentially distributed on the honor system.) In short, you're complaining that Mac OS X isn't Linux. Fine. It's not Linux.
Or is it really just that you want to have your cake and eat it too? You want Apple to get out of the hardware business and sell a fully open source version of Snow Leopard for a price that will sustain their business model? You want a company to make exactly the product you want and no more, at exactly the price you want and no more, so that you can get exactly what you need without having to pay any extra to subsidize whatever other stuff that company might choose to spend their money on.
Well Gee, I'd like for Honda to make a car that included bluetooth audio without me having to upgrade the whole package and spend $3000 more on chrome exhaust pipes and a sunroof, but now I'm not talking about "freedom" anymore, I'm talking about subverting a manufacturer's ability to design and price their own products and servers, which is the opposite of freedom.
I'd much rather just be able to say that a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes is a thousand kilobytes, than have to explain to granny who wants to burn a CD with her grandson's birthday photos on it what a "kibibyte" is. We live in a base 10 society. I don't see why we need to encourage usage of the new base-2 terms outside the world of computer science.
and I expect that, like the iPhone, competitive advantage the iPad will have is a slick, responsive interface that is well thought out and elegant. That said, I'm extremely, extremely skeptical about it overtaking the Kindle, let alone printed books, because it's just not as comfortable to read off of a backlit LCD as it is to read a high quality reflective display like the one the Kindle uses.
Standard Disclaimer: I support and repair Macs for a living.
It's no longer the case, but in the first few days of Bing, typing in "Microsoft Sucks" would suggest "Microsoft success stories"
Whalers on the moon!
Interesting that a large enough group of that HALO crowd was interested enough to participate in the HALO 2 ARG, which many wrote off as viral marketing, but it was actually an incredibly elaborate meta game which was driven primarily by solving word puzzles. There was at least one that nobody ever figured out till after the game ended. Mind you, this is the drooling crowd of wii-hating FPS lovers.
Where I work, we call that keyboard the dustbin, since it's open top design has the unfortunate tendency to gather dust and debris.
I work in an apple authorized retailer. We've sold hundreds of Leopard copies. The vast majority of the feedback we've had from customers has been positive. The complaints we have had are almost all related to broken third party apps, usually people using older stuff like Photoshop 7.0. I myself have had no problems with it on any of my machines. Setting aside some of the dumber UI "innovations" like stacks, I've found little to complain about and a lot to like.
Not a day goes by that I don't have a customer asking me if "I know about the problems that Apple is having with ____ product". More often than not its not a widespread problem at all. It's an isolated incident that has happened to a handful of people who have found eachother on Apple's support message board. By far the most common of these loaded questions i frequently receive is "Has Apple fixed the problem with the laptops running unbearably hot?"
The most common "widespread" problems that I see (and I work at an Apple authorized service provider) are bad power supplies on G5 iMacs (and this is extremely widespread), bad logic boards on G3 iBooks, and swelling batteries on 17" Macbook Pros. All of these problems except the iBook logic boards are still covered under warranty extension programs whether or not you paid for the extended warranty.
The wii and the 360 are apples and oranges. The 360 and the ps3 are oranges and oranges. Lots of people own both a Wii and one of the other two systems, but you'll find very few who have a 360 and a PS3, because theres a lot of redundancy there. The wii, however is unique enough to be worth owning for anyone who can possibly afford to have two consoles. And by the same token, it's worth having a 360 in addition to the Wii if you're at all interested in "gamer" games. Just because nintendo has managed to break out of the industry's rut and appeal to the non-gamer crowd doesn't mean that there isn't still plenty of money to be made in the tried-and-true rut. The rut, after all, is where the every system other up until now has made plenty of money. There are an awful lot of outstanding games that are available on the 360 and/or PS3 that aren't going to be available on the Wii. Assassin's Creed and Bio Shock come to mind. As innovative and fresh as the Wii is, there are a lot of games that appeal to a lot of people that the Wii isn't really suited for. There's still a market for traditional (and more powerful) consoles. That's what Sony and Microsoft are fighting over, and Sony is unquestionably losing.
The demographic that the x360 and ps3 both cater to is in no danger of going away. Sure, it's smaller than the demographic that the wii appeals to, but the biggest threats Sony and Micosoft are facing are each other, not Nintendo. They're in an entirely different league. Put it this way. Say you don't care about brands, you just want to play the best games. You can buy a Wii, and that gives you a decent selection of fun games to play, and assurance of plenty more in the future since so many Wii units have been sold. In addition to that Wii, you can also buy one of the other two consoles, either a 360 or a PS3, and that opens you up to a very different selection of titles which may appeal to a smaller audience, but are also excellent games. But once you have the Wii and one other coonsole, there isn't nearly as much to be gained by buying the third. Especially if the third is the Playstation, which is pretty weak on exclusive titles and also pretty expensive. Wii's are $249 and 360s start at $279. Cheapest Playstation 3 is $499. TO put it another way, if you're not a gamer, the only system you care about is the Wii. If you are a gamer, you want a Wii AND an xbox 360 OR a Playstation3. From a business perspective, Nintendo is in a great position. But at the same time, not many folks who were going to buy an xbox 360 are going to NOT buy one just because they also want a Wii. They're too different. I don't think the sucess of the Wii is a direct threat to Sony or Microsoft. I do think that the success of microsoft is a threat to sony, though. Then you also have Nintendo and Sony's portable systems, which are in direct competition, and you have the DS obliterating the PSP. Cheers, say I. I love my DS.
Disclaimer: I work in a store that, among other things, sells and installs high def sets.
In 2009, the FCC is mandating that broadcasters switch over to a 100% digital format. This does not necessarily mean that all channels will now be in HD and it does not mean that everyone will have to purchase a hi-def set, and it certainly doesn't mean that you'll be able to get an HD set for $300.
What it does mean is that if you have an older SD set you may need to purchase a digital capable tuner. If you have a set with an ATSC tuner or are a subscriber to digital cable or any of the satellite services, you are already in compliance with the 2009 mandate.
2009 isn't really going to change anything with regards to HD adoption, other than people who may be misinformed into thinking they need to have an HD set by then.
Lastly, I don't think that HD compliance is the big determining factor between buying a wii or a 360 or a PS3. It is my opinion that the Wii is selling so well mainly because it appeals to a much broader audience than any other past or current consoles.
In my mind the wii is barely even competing with the other two consoles. If you're a "console gamer" and you're on a budget, you're going to be buying a wii for the entertaining niche it fills, and then you're going to be deciding between a 360 and a PS3 as your second console. The real competition is between sony and microsoft. While you could argue that they are really fighting for second place, it's also worth noting that 2nd place is an established market of gamers who both sony and microsoft know they can make money off of in the long run. The Wii, well who knows if the "novelty will wear off" as it's detractors love to claim.
Armchair game industry analysts can talk about blue ray and graphics power and hardware features, but the gamers know what really decides the success of a console. It's the games. The original xbox was technologically superior in every way to the Playstation 2, but the PS2 had a much larger library of games. Which, incidentally, is why the PS2 is still outselling the next-gen systems. Sure it's old, but it still has a lot of content to offer. Even among "hardcore" gamers, graphics only count for so much. Although, interestingly enough, the PS3 is only marginally more capable of producing pretty graphics than the 360 is.
After their "price drop" sony still fails to outsell their primary competitor, who has also had a year for it's novelty to wear off AND is rife with hardware failures. This month, Microsoft rolled out a real price drop for their console (one which actually means you can own a 360 for less money than before) and you have a lineup of highly anticipated games coming out for the 360 in the next few months. Compare that to the sony offerings, which mostly set for Q1 2008.
Lucky for sony Blue Ray seems to be pulling ahead. And lucky for microsoft that their entire strategy isn't staked on the success of HD-DVD
Personally, I expect this to be the closest Sony comes to matching the 360 for the rest of the year. With the price drop and the avalanche of must have titles coming out for the 360, I think Microsoft's console sales are about to see a big spike.
I also think the Wii, with it's broader appeal, will continue to outsell both other systems. But A wii sale is not something that is likely to be mutually exclusive with the sale of one of the other two consoles, whereas an xbox sale probably is.