The fact that you can install something on MIPS or 680x0 won't win you any brownie points with desktop users. Little things like "hardware/driver" support will be a bit more important. This includes vendor blob drivers that allow you to actually use your relic to watch videos with any acceptable level of performance.
How quick you an be browsing YouTube is a pretty good metric actually. It covers what the target demographic is actually likely to be interested in.
Android vendors sell through well established communication services. They don't really sell directly to the public. They might market directly but people tend to buy the actual devices from companies like AT&T that are well established monopoly players that predate the entire computing industry entirely.
When trying to replicate something, it helps to actually get the details right.
Apple design is great until someone actually points out an Apple failure. Then the fanboys will try to talk around the issue, marginalize the problem, and marginalize those that are capable of seeing the problem.
A shiny veneer is great, but some of us just want to get stuff done. Apple's designs aren't all they are hyped to be in this regard.
Phone devices are a relatively cheap way to find this out for yourself. Hopefully Apple won't manage to litigate competitors out of the market.
> cost of the time you spent researching components
This is an unavoidable cost in any purchase transaction unless you want to be taken advantage of.
You've always got to know what you are buying if nothing else.
> software costs
Most of which are after market costs anyways.
> and technical support costs for when it breaks.
This is not free from Apple either. It will either cost you even more extra money up front or you will just be SOL.
Your "cheap crappy" PC is likely to last longer than the overpriced Mac simply due to boneheaded design.
> Comparing prebuilt to self-built is stupid
All Apple does is throw some random spare parts together. They may or may not make any sense or work well or even be particularly durable. All of the 3rd party component manufacturers like Seagate, AMD, and Nvidia are doing all of the hard work. The "integrators" are all the same and aren't doing much of any value in terms of "development".
So it doesn't really matter if Dell chooses the random spare parts, or if Apple chooses the random spare parts, or if I do.
It's pretty trivial to get a mini-ITX i5 board and slap it into a corresponding case.
PC makers were doing the whole "low profile" thing long before Apple discovered it.
Some of us "haters" (like ME) were saying that Apple should come out with something like a book PC before they came out with the Mini.
On the other hand, I am not merely limited to choosing between two likely unacceptable options (the Mini or the Pro). I can opt for something in between and it will be much more maintainable and versatile than the Mini while being nowhere near as expensive as the Pro. I can build/buy the sort of Shuttle shoebox system the other guy mentioned.
Macs have a limited number of useful options. Those limited number of options are what tend to make a Mac overpriced for a particular use case, not the game that fanboys like to play of matching up Macs with identically configured PCs.
It's not about the "geeky specs". It's about whether or not it gets the job done.
Based on that, a Mac can easily be 3x or 4x the price of a suitable alternative.
If you don't care about a particular Apple form factor (or actually dislike it), then avoiding it usually makes it real easy to find something just as powerful for far less money.
Why would an IT guy "love" something that is limited and limiting?
We're the people that are ahead of the curve. We're already past where Apple wants to lead people to. Thus we tend to chaffe at the limits they set.
Apple already had a nice implementation of Unix that didn't include any of the draconian Big Brother nonsense. They already disproved the idea that general purpose systems have to be crap and infested with malware. All the screeching that your chains are really for your own good make no sense in light of Apple's previous work.
Of course IT people that like to push tech in new directions are going to get cranky when it starts to get crippled and even crankier when the BS justifications begin.
The problem with "simple software" is that it is likely to be technically incorrect.
iPhoto red eye correction is a nice example of this. Apple doesn't merely present a simplified interface, the underlying methods used are also too simplistic. Their target audience probably isn't aware enough to tell the difference. So it gets tolerated because the end users in question have no taste and no means to realize that they are being fed dirt.
> Eventually you will discover that some "thinking and learning" is entirely pointless - like mastering some piece of software
A computer is a general purpose tool for solving a wide array of problems.
Every program quite literally makes it an entirely different tool.
If you aren't interested in this, why bother having ANY computer at all?
If you can't figure out how some "pointless burden" might improve your life then you have no imagination. You're just another idiot. Any "time you save" on not being burdened by software will likely never be put to any use. You'll probably just end up watching Jersey Shore reruns.
A general attitude of mindlessness likely means that you treat the rest of your life the same way.
Sometimes you just have to be blunt. Not everyone will stay an infant forever. Nor do they want to.
When they finally decide to grow up, they might want tools to accommodate them.
Shiny happy interfaces don't necessarily have to be for simpletons only or for just very light duty. However, your brand of anti-intellectualism pretty much ensures that this will tend to be the case.
This leads to absurdities like some n00b exporting their photos from iPhoto and onto CD so that they can organize them better.
My current "oldest box" is a Compaq I bought because it was the cheapest thing I could lay my hands on at a regular B&M store at the time.
It has outlasted 2 generations of Mac Minis without a single bit of trouble while the Mac Minis in question have suffered partial or complete hardware failures.
> How often have you set up a Linux box without the need for any tweaks/configuration that's not harder to do (or figure out/find!) than changing a BIOS setting?
That describes pretty much every machine I've installed Linux on in the last 10 years including laptops, low profile HTPCs, and multi-core desktops.
The closest thing to what you are trying to claim would be booting up a MacOS install disk so you can re-partition your system and have it boot in BIOS mode.
So you seriously expect us to believe that the company that was sued repeatedly by the US and other governments for abusive monopolistic behavior is not going to exploit something like this to their advantage?
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that you can install something on MIPS or 680x0 won't win you any brownie points with desktop users. Little things like "hardware/driver" support will be a bit more important. This includes vendor blob drivers that allow you to actually use your relic to watch videos with any acceptable level of performance.
How quick you an be browsing YouTube is a pretty good metric actually. It covers what the target demographic is actually likely to be interested in.
Are you nuts? Are you suffering from a Cupertino induced delusion?
Android is doing better than iPhone in the market,not worse. So clearly those flim flam infested ads aren't hurting Android any.
The idea that those things are an attempt to "market to geeks" is just nonsense.
They are no less mindless then Apple ads that are just a string of disjoint screenshots.
What Linux vendors?
Android vendors sell through well established communication services. They don't really sell directly to the public. They might market directly but people tend to buy the actual devices from companies like AT&T that are well established monopoly players that predate the entire computing industry entirely.
When trying to replicate something, it helps to actually get the details right.
Apple design is great until someone actually points out an Apple failure. Then the fanboys will try to talk around the issue, marginalize the problem, and marginalize those that are capable of seeing the problem.
A shiny veneer is great, but some of us just want to get stuff done. Apple's designs aren't all they are hyped to be in this regard.
Phone devices are a relatively cheap way to find this out for yourself. Hopefully Apple won't manage to litigate competitors out of the market.
The aggregate market share of all Android phones benefits ALL Android vendors.
It's just like the PC. Everyone benefits from being part of the largest segment of the market. It's the flip side of "fragmentation".
> cost of the time you spent researching components
This is an unavoidable cost in any purchase transaction unless you want to be taken advantage of.
You've always got to know what you are buying if nothing else.
> software costs
Most of which are after market costs anyways.
> and technical support costs for when it breaks.
This is not free from Apple either. It will either cost you even more extra money up front or you will just be SOL.
Your "cheap crappy" PC is likely to last longer than the overpriced Mac simply due to boneheaded design.
> Comparing prebuilt to self-built is stupid
All Apple does is throw some random spare parts together. They may or may not make any sense or work well or even be particularly durable. All of the 3rd party component manufacturers like Seagate, AMD, and Nvidia are doing all of the hard work. The "integrators" are all the same and aren't doing much of any value in terms of "development".
So it doesn't really matter if Dell chooses the random spare parts, or if Apple chooses the random spare parts, or if I do.
It's pretty trivial to get a mini-ITX i5 board and slap it into a corresponding case.
PC makers were doing the whole "low profile" thing long before Apple discovered it.
Some of us "haters" (like ME) were saying that Apple should come out with something like a book PC before they came out with the Mini.
On the other hand, I am not merely limited to choosing between two likely unacceptable options (the Mini or the Pro). I can opt for something in between and it will be much more maintainable and versatile than the Mini while being nowhere near as expensive as the Pro. I can build/buy the sort of Shuttle shoebox system the other guy mentioned.
....except a free market doesn't work that way.
A MacBook Pro has to compete and be compared with everything including many alternatives that are built with different tradeoffs in mind.
> Stop thinking of them as laptop replacements, because that's not what they are.
Tell it to the fanboys that have been repeating this "post PC" nonsense since Jobs himself started spouting it.
That's just someone's dressed up attempts at advocating Marxist wealth redistribution.
"Too much choice" happens. It happens naturally because people are free to do what they want.
They are free to enter the market and make what they want and sell it to whomever is willing to buy.
On a level playing field, even niche players can continue to thrive despite the likes of Kraft and Apple dominating the market.
There is absolutely zero value in "with literally one cable running up into it".
Not that this is really true even for a Mac once you start considering little things like printers and cameras and phones and decent speakers.
That fanboy "cable" argument is really stupid.
iMovie can't even handle a random video file without subjecting the target user (expected to be a total rube) to a lot of file conversion nonsense.
As a basic "n00b's NLE" it is grossly inappropriate.
iPhoto has similar "creative user" problems.
Macs have a limited number of useful options. Those limited number of options are what tend to make a Mac overpriced for a particular use case, not the game that fanboys like to play of matching up Macs with identically configured PCs.
It's not about the "geeky specs". It's about whether or not it gets the job done.
Based on that, a Mac can easily be 3x or 4x the price of a suitable alternative.
If you don't care about a particular Apple form factor (or actually dislike it), then avoiding it usually makes it real easy to find something just as powerful for far less money.
Why would an IT guy "love" something that is limited and limiting?
We're the people that are ahead of the curve. We're already past where Apple wants to lead people to. Thus we tend to chaffe at the limits they set.
Apple already had a nice implementation of Unix that didn't include any of the draconian Big Brother nonsense. They already disproved the idea that general purpose systems have to be crap and infested with malware. All the screeching that your chains are really for your own good make no sense in light of Apple's previous work.
Of course IT people that like to push tech in new directions are going to get cranky when it starts to get crippled and even crankier when the BS justifications begin.
The problem with "simple software" is that it is likely to be technically incorrect.
iPhoto red eye correction is a nice example of this. Apple doesn't merely present a simplified interface, the underlying methods used are also too simplistic. Their target audience probably isn't aware enough to tell the difference. So it gets tolerated because the end users in question have no taste and no means to realize that they are being fed dirt.
This kind of thing goes far beyond computing.
> Eventually you will discover that some "thinking and learning" is entirely pointless - like mastering some piece of software
A computer is a general purpose tool for solving a wide array of problems.
Every program quite literally makes it an entirely different tool.
If you aren't interested in this, why bother having ANY computer at all?
If you can't figure out how some "pointless burden" might improve your life then you have no imagination. You're just another idiot. Any "time you save" on not being burdened by software will likely never be put to any use. You'll probably just end up watching Jersey Shore reruns.
A general attitude of mindlessness likely means that you treat the rest of your life the same way.
Perhaps cartoons are not the best source of information regarding things you clearly have no experience with.
You may be missing the real joke there.
If the shoe fits.
Sometimes you just have to be blunt. Not everyone will stay an infant forever. Nor do they want to.
When they finally decide to grow up, they might want tools to accommodate them.
Shiny happy interfaces don't necessarily have to be for simpletons only or for just very light duty. However, your brand of anti-intellectualism pretty much ensures that this will tend to be the case.
This leads to absurdities like some n00b exporting their photos from iPhoto and onto CD so that they can organize them better.
The only advantage MacOS has over Linux is commercial software and MacOS pales in comparison to Windows in this regard.
> - Who the f*ck cares, as long as it works.
Except it doesn't. That's the real underlying problem here. It doesn't "just work".
It only "just works" if you are willing to make considerable compromises.
My current "oldest box" is a Compaq I bought because it was the cheapest thing I could lay my hands on at a regular B&M store at the time.
It has outlasted 2 generations of Mac Minis without a single bit of trouble while the Mac Minis in question have suffered partial or complete hardware failures.
Warranty? Who cares. Those tend to suck anyways.
> How often have you set up a Linux box without the need for any tweaks/configuration that's not harder to do (or figure out/find!) than changing a BIOS setting?
That describes pretty much every machine I've installed Linux on in the last 10 years including laptops, low profile HTPCs, and multi-core desktops.
The closest thing to what you are trying to claim would be booting up a MacOS install disk so you can re-partition your system and have it boot in BIOS mode.
> in a dept store, the laptops all have the same features, save for some corner cases.
No. No, not really.
Laptops in truth have a wide array of features and hardware differences that each can be very significant.
If nothing else, you have to worry about "build quality".
DRM doesn't lock out anything, or rather lack of DRM doesn't mean anything.
MacOS is a pretty good demonstration of this. So is Linux.
"The lowest common denominator" argument is just retarded. There's plenty of Atari malware that demonstrates this.
So you seriously expect us to believe that the company that was sued repeatedly by the US and other governments for abusive monopolistic behavior is not going to exploit something like this to their advantage?
Why are you making excuses for a thug?