Ah, well that's easier to tackle! The Mac market is not the PC market, while the PC market is the Mac market. One is a strict superset of the other, so correlations in one may indicate correlations in the other, but not vice versa. In other words, prices falling in the PC market is not indicative of prices falling in the Mac market because a comparable PC has LCD, DVD-R, firewire, and movie editing capabilities. No $300 PC can compete. It's like comparing a $300 motorcycle with a $900 compact coupe. Apple (whether smart or not) decides not to build $300 machines because there is no profit margin in them. Rather than building faster and more capable G3 iMacs (which can scale up to PC200DDR and 1.4GHz if they wished) with 17" CRTs, they adopt instead G4s to keep the margin up. Sound financial/business decision, possibly stupid market/business decision. Compare the high end, however, and you find that Macs cost the same as comparably *featured* PCs, but offer less computation power.
However, the trend of falling prices and increasing functionality holds true for the Mac as well as it does for the PC. A Mac today vs a Mac two years ago: OS X is more stable than OS 9, OS X does more than OS 9, and OS X has more potential than OS 9, while at the same price point. You gain iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, Mail, iTunes, iChat, iCal, iPhoto Apache, FTPd, SMBd, Rendevous, Ink, and Quicktime for the same price where two years ago you only got iTunes, iMovie, and Quicktime.
Hardware, unfortunately, has only increased by a smaller factor: More MHz and more memory. The difference between the PC and Mac market would be a function of scale, really, but the only thing new in the landscape might be DVD-RW available in 3/4 of the product line, and dual CPU in half the product line... Oh, and LCD displays in 3/4 of the product line. Hardware, on both sides of the fence, hasn't really changed all that much. Bluetooth is a possibility, as is new form factors, faster USB, faster Firewire... Oh, I guess I forgot wireless networking, but again, Macs have been doing this for nearly 4 years now (Firewire, wireless networking, gigabit Ethernet, are fairly old on the Mac). DDR is new, but PCs have had it for a while, on the flipside.
So 'prices' in Macland have fallen dramatically. What cost in PC land $10k now costs in Macland $1k (Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio, OS X unlimited server), or $5k (Shake), or $100 (iMovie and iDVD) with similar price falls for Logic Audio, RayZ, in the near future.
When OS X first came to sale, XP didn't exist. Windows 2k did.
Windows2k cost considerably more than XP Home and XP Pro. Even today, I think Win2k costs more.
But yes, you are quite right that XP Home and XP Pro are 'in line' with OS X, but the $199 price for XP Pro are higher than OS X. There is no 'XP Home' version of OS X, since OS X is multiprocessor out of the box, it has all services and servers that XP Pro does, as well as networking functionality, and it has the full suit of security features, whereas XP Home does not but XP Pro does.
OS X's equivalent to Windows 2k Server, OS X Server (10 client license) costs $499 to Microsoft's $900 on Pricewatch. Windows 2k Advanced Server, with 25 clients, is $1200, while OS X Server *unlimited* license is $1k.
In all feature for feature price points, Apple is priced less than Microsoft. XP Home is an anomaly because there is no stripped down version of OS X comparable to home. Microsoft makes the home/business distinction, and Apple does not.
Finally... you didn't seem to understand my point about used Macs.
There are whole years where Apple sold Macs *without* OS X 10.2, 10.1, 10.0, or OS 9. You claim then that all boxes of OS X are upgrades, rather than full versions.
Look at PowerMax and you'll see a whole catalog of older Macs that never had OS X; perhaps you claim all these machines, running OS 9.1 or OS 8.6 or whatever, merely 'upgrade' to OS X?
In which case I think that's a semantic difference, the same way that I would claim then that installing Linux on a Windows 95 PC is an 'upgrade' too.
Um, right. I thought it was clear that 'onboard sound hardware' is sound synthesizers, but I suppose you could have also interpreted it as hardware mixers, encoders, decoders, amplifiers, DSPs, and microphones....
In which case, I don't know of any PC that ships with onboard hardware DSPs, decoders, encoders, or mixers; I know some Macs have microphones, and the PowerMac and iMac now have amps for the special Mac speakers...
1: Programmers are no more cheap than any other employee in a design and engineering capacity.
You mention a USB chipset: that entails silicon, packaging, and fabbing (possibly), as well as integration and testing.
The end result is that all processes (software and hardware) have their costs. Hardware costs drop as hardware becomes commoditized, formalized, and common. Software prices may not *yet* be cheap because it is still an evolving art.
Programmers are not yet the equivalent of technicians: Give them a spec, a blueprint, and have them pop out a product. Eventually they will, when software creation == software engineering, but right now it is not.
2: The price the market will bear is dictated by Microsoft defining the market, I speculate. If not for Microsoft setting the price for XP and 2k at $150 for upgrades and $250 for full versions (or whatever the price really is), then Apple and RedHat would not price the way they do.
To use an example, Sony prices at $400 for a TV. JVC wants to sell a TV, but because it doesn't have the name Sony does, it has to price lower in order to make any sort of sale, for similar features. Analogy breaks because TVs are commodoties (and thus interchangeable) where PCs and Macs are not (yet).
There are Macs that don't come with OS X 10.2, 10.1, 10.0, or OS 9.
For those Macs you need to buy a boxed copy. Pretend that the microcosm of Mac hardware is similar to PC hardware, but instead of different manufacturers (Gateway, Compaq, HP, IBM, Dell, Sony), you've got different years, models, and makes. Apple 10 years ago was different than Apple 5 years ago than Apple today. Yet (I'm not joking), all of them can run OS X 10.2
If you bought a Mac 1 year ago, you get OS X 10.1 2 years ago 10.0 3 years ago 9.0 4 years ago 8.6 etc, etc, etc.
3: All I'm saying is that if I sold you a dollar bill for $0.40, you would be silly not to resell it for the full $1.00, and likewise if an OEM can get Windows for below market value, it is to their advantage to sell it as close to market value as they can and reap the profits.
1: You're right. It's much, much, cheaper to 'manufacture' software than it is to 'manufacture' hardware. The cost of design, development, and test are probably similar however.
2: Why do you believe OS X and Redhat are priced that way? Perhaps because Micrsoft, as a monopoly, has 'fixed' the price at which an OS sells for? Oh, btw, I bought a full version of OS X 10.0 and 10.2, and both worked fine on my PowerBook *and* my PowerMac; and yes, I actually own multiple copies, but I was lazy and didn't open the version that cam with my PowerMac, so there are indeed full versions of OS X.
3: I think $100 was chosen because it's even, it's round, and it's pretty. It's more likely consumers would pay $150 for a box of W2k or WXP, anyway, no? So it would be stupid for Dell, Gateway, et el to not charge close to market value and reap every percent of margin they could.
Until Windows 95, you really had no choice except a Mac to do desktop graphics and printing.
Macs had high color Macs had multiple monitors Macs had TrueType and PostScript Macs had color management
So it took until 1995 for a PC to catch up for that (you use Photoshop in Classic Mode, so there's your history for you). So if it was the year 1994 and you had to do graphics, there was no alternative except a Mac... Oh, sure, you could use Windows NT 3.51, actually, but... people didn't.
So until 1995, realistically, Adobe had to survive on Macs and Windows NT. You couldn't have your Photoshop on your Windows 2000 computer without Adobe thriving on the Mac. So say thank you to all the Mac users who kept Adobe alive long enough for Windows to catch up enough for a Windows port to be possible.
What else... Mac OS released without any truly innovative ideas? At the time a mouse, a windowing system, and a desktop metaphor was pretty innovative. Photoshop, released in 1990, couldn't have existed on the PC since Windows 3.0 wasn't available until 1990! The first graphical Mac was unleashed in 1984... of course Windows 1.0 was available the very next year in 1985...
So what else does that show us? Word 1.0 for DOS was available 1983, Word 1.0 for Mac was available in 1985, and it wasn't until 1993 that Word 6.0 (for Windows) was released. Word for DOS had or Word for Mac had only been available up to that point.
Then there's Quicktime...
Okay, so all that is OLD hat. Microsoft (eventually) will catch up, history is showing us.
So what did Apple do new with OS X that is innovative, you ask?
How about security? Of course security is a nasty beast to define, because it is only visible through the lack of exploits. No exploits, no news. Do I think OS X is more secure than Windows XP? Yes. Why? Partially because the core OS is open source, partially because the core OS is heavily related to BSD, and partially because the core OS has been in use since 1989 with the release of the first NeXT workstations. Windows, while similarly old, is not similarly aged, with IE exploits, IIS exploits, ActiveX exploits, and other exploits. OS X gets around IE exploits by not integrating IE, though there is an HTML library available. It gets around IIS exploits by relying on tried and true OSS servers such as Apache, BSD-telnetd, BSD-sshd, and BSD-ftpd. It gets around ActiveX exploits by relying on a scripting technology, AppleScript, that has been used successfully since 1993 to automate prepress, print, publishing, and graphics businesses. Oh, and they don't integrate AppleScript into the html rendering engine, though there is a third party AppleScript plugin available. Yes, there have been AppleScript viruses, just like there are VisualBasic viruses...
But Apple doesn't suffer nearly as badly because Mail doesn't auto execute AppleScript viruses which aren't embedded into the HTML that s rendered by the preview pane.
Alright, so this is sorta cheap, innovation by not being as *bad* as Microsoft.
There's legitimate innovation as well.
OS X 10.0 had it's compositing engine. Vector based, PDF based, output independent. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a continuation of NeXT's PostScript based DisplayPS. Windows already has something called GDI+ and WMF, but I do not believe they are currently used.
OS X 10.0 introduced iDVD, to match the earlier release of iTunes and iMovie, allowing the sufficiently well of Mac owner the capabillity to make DVDs within 20 minutes, though burning them probably took an hour or so.
OS X 10.2 upped the stakes with *hardware* accelerated display technology. Big deal, you say? It's 3d hardware accelerated. Microsoft is hoping to catch up next year with Longhorn.
OS X 10.2 also added new networking technology that doesn't yet exist on Windows, though UPnP is close. Rendevous, otherwise known as ZeroConf, is a peer to peer network discovery protocol.
OS X 10.2 added bluetooth support, which Windows XP adds later this year.
Anyway, it's really only your loss, not mine, if Apple OS X doesn't somehow suit your needs, and likewise your gain if Windows XP can suit yours (but not mine)
Nothing is stopping the use of this OS X for beige PCs, except lack of Apple support.
In this way Apple may still retain high margins, or even higher margins, due to lower cost of x86 CPUs per performance, but the lack of drivers and support might very well stop someone from using this incarnation of OS X for their beige box.
Not that it stopped people without Macs from buying iPods; third parties wrote drivers and software to enable iPods to work wiht Linux and PCs, after all.
As long as Apple stakes out new and difficult markets and makes them easy (Video, music, biology, servers, authoring), they stand to hold the high margin ground. Giving up commodity markets makes sense if you cannot gain the volume crown. Quality, not quantity, after all.
There's an alternative you haven't considered.
x86 Macs.
10% cheaper than than PPC Macs, 20% faster than PPC Macs, 5% slower than PCs, 90% compatible with existing software, (possible) 90% compatible with PC software (with Connectix VirtualPC)...
In which case, you still won't see OS X86, it'll just be OS X, same as usual, and it'll just be Macs, same as usual. Macheads will see faster more competitive computers, and everyone else will still be left out of the sandbox. And still on OS X for your beige box.
However, when people *learned* programs like Photoshop, the only market around may have been Macs...
Because Macs were first, before DOS and Windows, for GUIs and color correction and color management and font tools, etc, etc, etc.
In the same sense, you can get a $5k DVD authoring or movie editing studio from Apple. Until now it was the province of Avid.
For $2k you can get a consumer level DVD authoring or movie editing studio from Apple. By next year perhaps it will drop to $1k. Which PC manufacturer sells a DVD authoring solution for $1.5k (compete against the eMac)? Or a DV movie editing solution for $1k (compete against the iBook)?
Specific solutions are still very Mac centric and Mac specific. Yes, eventually Microsoft will catch up with Microsoft Movie Maker 3.2 or Microsoft DVD Maker 2.1, but for at least a short while, Macs do hold some superiority in those markets.
Your examples are mature markets; Microsoft eventually did add Truetype, color management, high color displays, and multi monitor support to their OS, years after Macs made it possible to make money using those tools.
Likewise in a few years Microsoft will add the DVD authoring and movie editing functionality in their OS, but only after Mac users have been enjoying these fruits for at least 3 years, assuming the next revision of Windows next year has these features.
So no, there is *nothing* inherent now because Microsoft has caught up. Just like 2 years from now there won't be any security disparity because Microsoft has caught up. Etc, etc.
Your logic escapes me. Your assumptions, especially, seem unfounded.
Why is it better to have an unknown share of a growing market? As it stands now, they would need much more than 5% of the PC market to make any sort of profit, which is what they are doing now. They actually pull profit, though not every single quarter.
You proclaim they have a dying market. On what basis? It's a market that makes them money, is that dying? It's a market in which they've got strong roots: desktop publishing, prepress, video authoring, dvd authoring, music, and they're actively pushing in new markets such as small desktop workstation, Unix rackmount servers, biological sciences, with renewed effort in the movie, video, and audio markets.
In terms of shrinking marketshare, so has Gateway, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and IBM, compared to the machine that is Dell and the beast that is Compaq-HP. Perhaps it's more apt to say that the PC market is growing faster than Apple marketshare is, rather than to say that Apple's marketshare is shrinking?
Though I still have go go back to your belief that it's better to have an unknown share of a growing market... isn't it better to have a profitable business?
I'll point at the small mom and pop business bakery that does catering. They're profitable and they're growing each year, but compared to Togos or to Albertsons they're small fry. Is it better for the small business bakery to stake an unknown share of a growing market, such as repackaging deli meat to take on Oscar Meyer in the cold cut section of the supermarket, rather than stay in their profitable and growing niche?
Wow, you think Apple could grab 20% of the PC platform by releasing OS X86?
Right now they have (generously) 4%, on margins *like* 25% on their hardware. However, that 25% is based off of $2k average price for their machines, meaning $500 per Mac.
Selling a OS X86 for $130 would garner them, possibly, 50% margin (lets be generous), or $75. So they *have* to sell 7 copies of OS X86 to make up the difference, and gain an improvement.
That means they need to sell to, instead of 4%, 28%
Of course they could have higher margins, meaning less necessary sales... but higher margins necessarily means charging more for the product, right?
Or they could have lower margins, due to costs I cannot account for, in which case... 20% or 30% of the market isn't sufficient.
It probably means bundling 'free' iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto would have to stop, or at least start charging, to make more money. $30 per product would mean OS X86 would cost $250... which makes it much less attractive.
I don't think Apple is 'good' in any abstract moral sense.
I think Apple is 'good' because they address my needs and wants at a price I can (barely) afford.
I think Microsoft is 'bad' because they perpetuate actions that actually interfere with my computing experience. Virus-spam, viruses, infected computers at work, DOS due to viruses, security exploits, not to mention pushing D3d over OpenGL, which I like because I can program it (personal bias, I admit), as well as Netscape over IE because I build Mozilla source (again, personal bias).
If I figure out how to build OpenOffice, I will probably push that over Office, as well:)
Well perhaps I suffer from cognitive dissonance or what.
I got 10.1 free, and bought 10.2 with only slight complaint.
Of course I had received Windows NT 4.0 for $50 at school, so it's more a matter of acclimation to buying an OS than anything else. Windows 2k upgrade, I do believe, did cost me $189 or something like that.
Things about 10.2 that I thought was worth the purchase price: Quartz Extreme, recompiling with gcc 3.1 (and concommitant G4/G3 optimizations), iChat, Mail, and iCal, the new AddressBook, the better networking (SMB browsing essentially), vastly improved printing, and did I mention the performance boost?
So of course people who don't think performance, optimization, 3d graphics rendering, new networking functionality, new printing functionality, and new applications are worth $129 are welcome not to buy 10.2
If Apple had given 10.2 a bigger number, like 10.5, less people would complain. If Apple had waited 10 more months to release it, less people would have complained. If Apple had given a 10.1->10.2 *upgrade* path, less people would complain.
*However* 10.5 is just another number. People would have accused Apple of manipulating version numbers to make their product look 'bigger'.
If Apple had waited longer, people would complain that Apple wasn't releasing fast enough. We have journaling (10.2.2) now. Apple doesn't seem to wait on it's products very much.
Apple released 10.1 as a free upgrade CD(available at Fry's, CompUSA, or Apple Stores) or available for $19.99 online. Logic? They charge $20 for a point release, they charge $129 for a full release, and Apple doesn't otherwise do upgrades.
Microsoft, in comparison, released Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME every two years and charged you for it. This is different how? Because Microsoft didn't relelase a Windows 96 for $20, it's okay? Because Microsoft didn't call them Windows 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3? You do know the code name for Windows 2000 was Windows NT 5.0 right?
Developers already develop only for PC as it is; Corel killed Wordperfect for Mac, Half Life was never released for Mac, etc, etc, etc.
Mac versions for many products just don't exist. Why is it economically unjust for Apple to stop producing an unprofitable PC version (since it doesn't sell Macs and since it's only got 500 licenses compared to Linux) when it's okay for Corel to stop producing an unprofitable Mac version? Or are you complaining about Apple *buying* good software, instead of producing it from scratch?
In my engineering background, I've heard that there are only two solutions for any problem. Buy or build. Microsoft bought Bungie (an in the process has denied thus far the PC and Mac versions of Halo). Are you supporting Microsoft by using Microsoft powered PCs? That would be slightly hypocritcal of you. Microsoft bought IP from SGI, relating to 3d technology. Do you use DirectX? Do you deny Microsoft wants to minimize OpenGL? It hasn't succeeded in killing OpenGL yet, fortunately. Or how about how the fact that Microsoft bought Spyglass Mosaic instead of writing their own browser, and always release IE years behind on the Mac version, as well as killing Netscape in the process?
Everyone plays the same game. Refusing to buy a PowerBook (and buying what, a PC instead? Or will you use Linux?) is only denying yourself access to stuff. If you use a Microsoft PC then you only foster the same behavior from Microsoft. If you use Linux, well, then good luck, cause it is Linux.
Right now, in our reality, he is the greater of two evils.
*If* Apple were in Microsoft's position, they *might* be the greater evil. Since they are not, they *aren't* the greater evil, only the *lesser* evil.
Apple Communication and Apple Computers both sell web space, email addresses, and online storage. Whether that's enough to litigate over, I won't decide since I am neither Apple company.
However, Apple Computer did eventually infringe on Apple Records by allowing Macs to operate as recording studios. Apple Records and Apple Computers came to an agreement, as have Apple Computers and Apple nee iGreen. If, later, iGreen 'flaunts' the agreement as Apple Computers did, that's up to iGreen to face the consequences, isn't it?
But Apple Computers *did* settle with Apple Recording, after all. Don't forget that bit.
Apple Computer sells webspace, email services, backup (limited), file sharing, and online storage for $99 a year, along with other associated services such as photo album generation, synching between computers, calendar hosting, etc, etc.
Arguably Apple in Australia had the idea before Apple Computer unleashed iTools. Arguably Apple Computer had the name before Apple in Australia (now iGreen).
You talk about Windows and windows. Except Apple and Apple both sell web hosting space, online storage, and email services, among other things. iGreen, however, also sells internet connectivity to go with it while Apple sells you a computer, instead.
Then you bring in Nothing Real, RayZ, etc, etc. Which is a whole nother can of beans. They haven't killed of the Linux versions, though that may be in the works. They have killed of the Windows versions, effectively, past the current release. That seems to be good business sense to me, and not just about being anti Windows. They dropped the price in *half* for the Mac version, to increase sales volume and attractiveness.
The other shoe was that, IIRC, there are only 500 licenses out there for the Windows client for Shake.
So, yeah, they 'make' you buy Apple hardware, at over half the price of maintaining a Windows license, all 500 of them. You save money by switching to OS X and buying a brand new computer. Gee, that's so horrible.
If you don't want to switch? Keep using Windows and keep paying the perpetually *higher* license fee, though upgrades stop. It's not Apple's fault that Nothing Real charged more for Windows ($10k) than Apple is charging for Mac ($5k)
Both offer webhosting, email addresses, online storage....Mac
Now, arguably, Apple Computers had the name first but Apple nee iGreen had the service first, but Apple does offer something called.Mac, and it does things such as file sharing, email, web hosting, backup services, etc... Everything except the actual dialup connection.
Is Apple computer in the right? Well, they do have an obligation to protect the name/trademark or lose it. Is Apple Computer being a bully about it? Possibly, I don't know the full story, other than the article.
But Apple Computing is more than just computers, you know. They do video editing, DVD authoring, MP3 players, computers, rackmount servers, Unix, office productivity, internet application servers, homepage hosting, email services, backup services (limited), online storage, and file sharing now, all for profit.
So anyone making MP3 players calling themselves Apple has a problem. Anyone making video or DVD software calling themselves Apple has a problem. Anyone making rackmount servers calling themselves Apple has a problem. Anyone selling a Unixed based OS for home computers calling themselves Apple has a problem. Anyone selling web services calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Why do you think Apple isn't in the ISP business?
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The Apple Name Game
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· Score: 2
Apple sells online storage, file sharing, web hosting, email addresses, photo albums, and backup services.
Apple.Mac
It's not a pretty law, but Apple does have an obligation to shareholders to protect the name and brand that Apple has developed for the last 26+ years, or lose the trademark.
What's your name? Your real life given name? What would happen if someone else just 'took' your name and got a new credit card? The basic idea is the same, identity fraud and riding the coattails of someone else with a good name, rather than using your own. Apple may not have a choice in this, just like you wouldn't have a choice in defending *your* name.
What's missing that you want HFS+ to go away or something?
It's got metadata, which Microsoft only *added* with NTFS It finally got journaling with 10.2.2 It spans, quite comfortably, 180GB hard drives File sizes can be larger than 2gb, and I believe up to 2TB (2^63 bytes per file)
Is there something missing? Perhaps encryption? Apple already has support for encrypted volumes...
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, well that's easier to tackle! The Mac market is not the PC market, while the PC market is the Mac market. One is a strict superset of the other, so correlations in one may indicate correlations in the other, but not vice versa. In other words, prices falling in the PC market is not indicative of prices falling in the Mac market because a comparable PC has LCD, DVD-R, firewire, and movie editing capabilities. No $300 PC can compete. It's like comparing a $300 motorcycle with a $900 compact coupe. Apple (whether smart or not) decides not to build $300 machines because there is no profit margin in them. Rather than building faster and more capable G3 iMacs (which can scale up to PC200DDR and 1.4GHz if they wished) with 17" CRTs, they adopt instead G4s to keep the margin up. Sound financial/business decision, possibly stupid market/business decision. Compare the high end, however, and you find that Macs cost the same as comparably *featured* PCs, but offer less computation power.
However, the trend of falling prices and increasing functionality holds true for the Mac as well as it does for the PC. A Mac today vs a Mac two years ago: OS X is more stable than OS 9, OS X does more than OS 9, and OS X has more potential than OS 9, while at the same price point. You gain iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, Mail, iTunes, iChat, iCal, iPhoto Apache, FTPd, SMBd, Rendevous, Ink, and Quicktime for the same price where two years ago you only got iTunes, iMovie, and Quicktime.
Hardware, unfortunately, has only increased by a smaller factor: More MHz and more memory. The difference between the PC and Mac market would be a function of scale, really, but the only thing new in the landscape might be DVD-RW available in 3/4 of the product line, and dual CPU in half the product line... Oh, and LCD displays in 3/4 of the product line. Hardware, on both sides of the fence, hasn't really changed all that much. Bluetooth is a possibility, as is new form factors, faster USB, faster Firewire... Oh, I guess I forgot wireless networking, but again, Macs have been doing this for nearly 4 years now (Firewire, wireless networking, gigabit Ethernet, are fairly old on the Mac). DDR is new, but PCs have had it for a while, on the flipside.
So 'prices' in Macland have fallen dramatically. What cost in PC land $10k now costs in Macland $1k (Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio, OS X unlimited server), or $5k (Shake), or $100 (iMovie and iDVD) with similar price falls for Logic Audio, RayZ, in the near future.
When OS X first came to sale, XP didn't exist.
Windows 2k did.
Windows2k cost considerably more than XP Home and XP Pro. Even today, I think Win2k costs more.
But yes, you are quite right that XP Home and XP Pro are 'in line' with OS X, but the $199 price for XP Pro are higher than OS X. There is no 'XP Home' version of OS X, since OS X is multiprocessor out of the box, it has all services and servers that XP Pro does, as well as networking functionality, and it has the full suit of security features, whereas XP Home does not but XP Pro does.
OS X's equivalent to Windows 2k Server, OS X Server (10 client license) costs $499 to Microsoft's $900 on Pricewatch. Windows 2k Advanced Server, with 25 clients, is $1200, while OS X Server *unlimited* license is $1k.
In all feature for feature price points, Apple is priced less than Microsoft. XP Home is an anomaly because there is no stripped down version of OS X comparable to home. Microsoft makes the home/business distinction, and Apple does not.
Finally... you didn't seem to understand my point about used Macs.
There are whole years where Apple sold Macs *without* OS X 10.2, 10.1, 10.0, or OS 9. You claim then that all boxes of OS X are upgrades, rather than full versions.
Look at PowerMax and you'll see a whole catalog of older Macs that never had OS X; perhaps you claim all these machines, running OS 9.1 or OS 8.6 or whatever, merely 'upgrade' to OS X?
In which case I think that's a semantic difference, the same way that I would claim then that installing Linux on a Windows 95 PC is an 'upgrade' too.
Um, right. I thought it was clear that 'onboard sound hardware' is sound synthesizers, but I suppose you could have also interpreted it as hardware mixers, encoders, decoders, amplifiers, DSPs, and microphones....
In which case, I don't know of any PC that ships with onboard hardware DSPs, decoders, encoders, or mixers; I know some Macs have microphones, and the PowerMac and iMac now have amps for the special Mac speakers...
It's a personal pride thing, though :)
Being able to build my own copy gives me an incentive to use, debug, persist, and advocate.
1: Programmers are no more cheap than any other employee in a design and engineering capacity.
You mention a USB chipset: that entails silicon, packaging, and fabbing (possibly), as well as integration and testing.
The end result is that all processes (software and hardware) have their costs. Hardware costs drop as hardware becomes commoditized, formalized, and common. Software prices may not *yet* be cheap because it is still an evolving art.
Programmers are not yet the equivalent of technicians: Give them a spec, a blueprint, and have them pop out a product. Eventually they will, when software creation == software engineering, but right now it is not.
2: The price the market will bear is dictated by Microsoft defining the market, I speculate. If not for Microsoft setting the price for XP and 2k at $150 for upgrades and $250 for full versions (or whatever the price really is), then Apple and RedHat would not price the way they do.
To use an example, Sony prices at $400 for a TV. JVC wants to sell a TV, but because it doesn't have the name Sony does, it has to price lower in order to make any sort of sale, for similar features. Analogy breaks because TVs are commodoties (and thus interchangeable) where PCs and Macs are not (yet).
There are Macs that don't come with OS X 10.2, 10.1, 10.0, or OS 9.
For those Macs you need to buy a boxed copy. Pretend that the microcosm of Mac hardware is similar to PC hardware, but instead of different manufacturers (Gateway, Compaq, HP, IBM, Dell, Sony), you've got different years, models, and makes. Apple 10 years ago was different than Apple 5 years ago than Apple today. Yet (I'm not joking), all of them can run OS X 10.2
If you bought a Mac 1 year ago, you get OS X 10.1
2 years ago 10.0
3 years ago 9.0
4 years ago 8.6
etc, etc, etc.
3: All I'm saying is that if I sold you a dollar bill for $0.40, you would be silly not to resell it for the full $1.00, and likewise if an OEM can get Windows for below market value, it is to their advantage to sell it as close to market value as they can and reap the profits.
1: You're right. It's much, much, cheaper to 'manufacture' software than it is to 'manufacture' hardware. The cost of design, development, and test are probably similar however.
2: Why do you believe OS X and Redhat are priced that way? Perhaps because Micrsoft, as a monopoly, has 'fixed' the price at which an OS sells for? Oh, btw, I bought a full version of OS X 10.0 and 10.2, and both worked fine on my PowerBook *and* my PowerMac; and yes, I actually own multiple copies, but I was lazy and didn't open the version that cam with my PowerMac, so there are indeed full versions of OS X.
3: I think $100 was chosen because it's even, it's round, and it's pretty. It's more likely consumers would pay $150 for a box of W2k or WXP, anyway, no? So it would be stupid for Dell, Gateway, et el to not charge close to market value and reap every percent of margin they could.
You're clearly talking about 3d graphics and I'm clearly talking about desktop publishing.
Unless you know more than you're saying in your 5 words? Did SGI have a thriving desktop publishing division in 1994?
Forever suck?
Mac OS has not *always* been inferior.
Until Windows 95, you really had no choice except a Mac to do desktop graphics and printing.
Macs had high color
Macs had multiple monitors
Macs had TrueType and PostScript
Macs had color management
So it took until 1995 for a PC to catch up for that (you use Photoshop in Classic Mode, so there's your history for you). So if it was the year 1994 and you had to do graphics, there was no alternative except a Mac... Oh, sure, you could use Windows NT 3.51, actually, but... people didn't.
So until 1995, realistically, Adobe had to survive on Macs and Windows NT. You couldn't have your Photoshop on your Windows 2000 computer without Adobe thriving on the Mac. So say thank you to all the Mac users who kept Adobe alive long enough for Windows to catch up enough for a Windows port to be possible.
What else... Mac OS released without any truly innovative ideas? At the time a mouse, a windowing system, and a desktop metaphor was pretty innovative. Photoshop, released in 1990, couldn't have existed on the PC since Windows 3.0 wasn't available until 1990! The first graphical Mac was unleashed in 1984... of course Windows 1.0 was available the very next year in 1985...
So what else does that show us? Word 1.0 for DOS was available 1983, Word 1.0 for Mac was available in 1985, and it wasn't until 1993 that Word 6.0 (for Windows) was released. Word for DOS had or Word for Mac had only been available up to that point.
Then there's Quicktime...
Okay, so all that is OLD hat. Microsoft (eventually) will catch up, history is showing us.
So what did Apple do new with OS X that is innovative, you ask?
How about security? Of course security is a nasty beast to define, because it is only visible through the lack of exploits. No exploits, no news. Do I think OS X is more secure than Windows XP? Yes. Why? Partially because the core OS is open source, partially because the core OS is heavily related to BSD, and partially because the core OS has been in use since 1989 with the release of the first NeXT workstations. Windows, while similarly old, is not similarly aged, with IE exploits, IIS exploits, ActiveX exploits, and other exploits. OS X gets around IE exploits by not integrating IE, though there is an HTML library available. It gets around IIS exploits by relying on tried and true OSS servers such as Apache, BSD-telnetd, BSD-sshd, and BSD-ftpd. It gets around ActiveX exploits by relying on a scripting technology, AppleScript, that has been used successfully since 1993 to automate prepress, print, publishing, and graphics businesses. Oh, and they don't integrate AppleScript into the html rendering engine, though there is a third party AppleScript plugin available. Yes, there have been AppleScript viruses, just like there are VisualBasic viruses...
But Apple doesn't suffer nearly as badly because Mail doesn't auto execute AppleScript viruses which aren't embedded into the HTML that s rendered by the preview pane.
Alright, so this is sorta cheap, innovation by not being as *bad* as Microsoft.
There's legitimate innovation as well.
OS X 10.0 had it's compositing engine. Vector based, PDF based, output independent. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a continuation of NeXT's PostScript based DisplayPS. Windows already has something called GDI+ and WMF, but I do not believe they are currently used.
OS X 10.0 introduced iDVD, to match the earlier release of iTunes and iMovie, allowing the sufficiently well of Mac owner the capabillity to make DVDs within 20 minutes, though burning them probably took an hour or so.
OS X 10.2 upped the stakes with *hardware* accelerated display technology. Big deal, you say? It's 3d hardware accelerated. Microsoft is hoping to catch up next year with Longhorn.
OS X 10.2 also added new networking technology that doesn't yet exist on Windows, though UPnP is close. Rendevous, otherwise known as ZeroConf, is a peer to peer network discovery protocol.
OS X 10.2 added bluetooth support, which Windows XP adds later this year.
OS X 10.2 added full tablet and handwriting recognition, which doesn't appear until . Also, you will probably need a new PC, where OS X only requires a tablet, such as a Wacom tablet, instead of a new computer.
Anyway, it's really only your loss, not mine, if Apple OS X doesn't somehow suit your needs, and likewise your gain if Windows XP can suit yours (but not mine)
Nothing is stopping the use of this OS X for beige PCs, except lack of Apple support.
In this way Apple may still retain high margins, or even higher margins, due to lower cost of x86 CPUs per performance, but the lack of drivers and support might very well stop someone from using this incarnation of OS X for their beige box.
Not that it stopped people without Macs from buying iPods; third parties wrote drivers and software to enable iPods to work wiht Linux and PCs, after all.
As long as Apple stakes out new and difficult markets and makes them easy (Video, music, biology, servers, authoring), they stand to hold the high margin ground. Giving up commodity markets makes sense if you cannot gain the volume crown. Quality, not quantity, after all.
There's an alternative you haven't considered.
x86 Macs.
10% cheaper than than PPC Macs, 20% faster than PPC Macs, 5% slower than PCs, 90% compatible with existing software, (possible) 90% compatible with PC software (with Connectix VirtualPC)...
In which case, you still won't see OS X86, it'll just be OS X, same as usual, and it'll just be Macs, same as usual. Macheads will see faster more competitive computers, and everyone else will still be left out of the sandbox. And still on OS X for your beige box.
However, when people *learned* programs like Photoshop, the only market around may have been Macs...
Because Macs were first, before DOS and Windows, for GUIs and color correction and color management and font tools, etc, etc, etc.
In the same sense, you can get a $5k DVD authoring or movie editing studio from Apple. Until now it was the province of Avid.
For $2k you can get a consumer level DVD authoring or movie editing studio from Apple. By next year perhaps it will drop to $1k. Which PC manufacturer sells a DVD authoring solution for $1.5k (compete against the eMac)? Or a DV movie editing solution for $1k (compete against the iBook)?
Specific solutions are still very Mac centric and Mac specific. Yes, eventually Microsoft will catch up with Microsoft Movie Maker 3.2 or Microsoft DVD Maker 2.1, but for at least a short while, Macs do hold some superiority in those markets.
Your examples are mature markets; Microsoft eventually did add Truetype, color management, high color displays, and multi monitor support to their OS, years after Macs made it possible to make money using those tools.
Likewise in a few years Microsoft will add the DVD authoring and movie editing functionality in their OS, but only after Mac users have been enjoying these fruits for at least 3 years, assuming the next revision of Windows next year has these features.
So no, there is *nothing* inherent now because Microsoft has caught up. Just like 2 years from now there won't be any security disparity because Microsoft has caught up. Etc, etc.
Your logic escapes me. Your assumptions, especially, seem unfounded.
Why is it better to have an unknown share of a growing market? As it stands now, they would need much more than 5% of the PC market to make any sort of profit, which is what they are doing now. They actually pull profit, though not every single quarter.
You proclaim they have a dying market. On what basis? It's a market that makes them money, is that dying? It's a market in which they've got strong roots: desktop publishing, prepress, video authoring, dvd authoring, music, and they're actively pushing in new markets such as small desktop workstation, Unix rackmount servers, biological sciences, with renewed effort in the movie, video, and audio markets.
In terms of shrinking marketshare, so has Gateway, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and IBM, compared to the machine that is Dell and the beast that is Compaq-HP. Perhaps it's more apt to say that the PC market is growing faster than Apple marketshare is, rather than to say that Apple's marketshare is shrinking?
Though I still have go go back to your belief that it's better to have an unknown share of a growing market... isn't it better to have a profitable business?
I'll point at the small mom and pop business bakery that does catering. They're profitable and they're growing each year, but compared to Togos or to Albertsons they're small fry. Is it better for the small business bakery to stake an unknown share of a growing market, such as repackaging deli meat to take on Oscar Meyer in the cold cut section of the supermarket, rather than stay in their profitable and growing niche?
Wow, you think Apple could grab 20% of the PC platform by releasing OS X86?
Right now they have (generously) 4%, on margins *like* 25% on their hardware. However, that 25% is based off of $2k average price for their machines, meaning $500 per Mac.
Selling a OS X86 for $130 would garner them, possibly, 50% margin (lets be generous), or $75. So they *have* to sell 7 copies of OS X86 to make up the difference, and gain an improvement.
That means they need to sell to, instead of 4%, 28%
Of course they could have higher margins, meaning less necessary sales... but higher margins necessarily means charging more for the product, right?
Or they could have lower margins, due to costs I cannot account for, in which case... 20% or 30% of the market isn't sufficient.
It probably means bundling 'free' iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto would have to stop, or at least start charging, to make more money. $30 per product would mean OS X86 would cost $250... which makes it much less attractive.
I don't think Apple is 'good' in any abstract moral sense.
:)
I think Apple is 'good' because they address my needs and wants at a price I can (barely) afford.
I think Microsoft is 'bad' because they perpetuate actions that actually interfere with my computing experience. Virus-spam, viruses, infected computers at work, DOS due to viruses, security exploits, not to mention pushing D3d over OpenGL, which I like because I can program it (personal bias, I admit), as well as Netscape over IE because I build Mozilla source (again, personal bias).
If I figure out how to build OpenOffice, I will probably push that over Office, as well
Well perhaps I suffer from cognitive dissonance or what.
I got 10.1 free, and bought 10.2 with only slight complaint.
Of course I had received Windows NT 4.0 for $50 at school, so it's more a matter of acclimation to buying an OS than anything else. Windows 2k upgrade, I do believe, did cost me $189 or something like that.
Things about 10.2 that I thought was worth the purchase price: Quartz Extreme, recompiling with gcc 3.1 (and concommitant G4/G3 optimizations), iChat, Mail, and iCal, the new AddressBook, the better networking (SMB browsing essentially), vastly improved printing, and did I mention the performance boost?
So of course people who don't think performance, optimization, 3d graphics rendering, new networking functionality, new printing functionality, and new applications are worth $129 are welcome not to buy 10.2
They can wait for 10.3, I suppose.
There's also this on the Pete Dick site, but I don't actually know what's there since I'm not a member of that group.
It's another semantic name game here.
If Apple had given 10.2 a bigger number, like 10.5, less people would complain.
If Apple had waited 10 more months to release it, less people would have complained.
If Apple had given a 10.1->10.2 *upgrade* path, less people would complain.
*However*
10.5 is just another number. People would have accused Apple of manipulating version numbers to make their product look 'bigger'.
If Apple had waited longer, people would complain that Apple wasn't releasing fast enough. We have journaling (10.2.2) now. Apple doesn't seem to wait on it's products very much.
Apple released 10.1 as a free upgrade CD(available at Fry's, CompUSA, or Apple Stores) or available for $19.99 online. Logic? They charge $20 for a point release, they charge $129 for a full release, and Apple doesn't otherwise do upgrades.
Microsoft, in comparison, released Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME every two years and charged you for it. This is different how? Because Microsoft didn't relelase a Windows 96 for $20, it's okay? Because Microsoft didn't call them Windows 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3? You do know the code name for Windows 2000 was Windows NT 5.0 right?
Sorry, the best I could come up with:
Apple releases Mac II with synth chip
The result of the lawsuit? Even today, no Mac ships with onboard sound hardware.
Then there's this crappy tidbit:
Pete Dicks which I found because of Apple's Grammy.
ZDNet says Apple Computer paid Apple Records.
Now of course this is all hearsay since I was never involved.
But think of this logic:
Apple Records sues Apple Computer.
Three possible outcomes: They settle. Apple Records win. Apple Records lose.
They didn't win, since Apple computing still exist.
I do not believe they lost.
I'm wrong, actually.
Apple killed it's eWorld online service years before Apple nee iGreen went into business, so I guess Apple *was* there first.
Microsoft doesn't have to buy *anything*.
Developers already develop only for PC as it is; Corel killed Wordperfect for Mac, Half Life was never released for Mac, etc, etc, etc.
Mac versions for many products just don't exist. Why is it economically unjust for Apple to stop producing an unprofitable PC version (since it doesn't sell Macs and since it's only got 500 licenses compared to Linux) when it's okay for Corel to stop producing an unprofitable Mac version? Or are you complaining about Apple *buying* good software, instead of producing it from scratch?
In my engineering background, I've heard that there are only two solutions for any problem. Buy or build. Microsoft bought Bungie (an in the process has denied thus far the PC and Mac versions of Halo). Are you supporting Microsoft by using Microsoft powered PCs? That would be slightly hypocritcal of you. Microsoft bought IP from SGI, relating to 3d technology. Do you use DirectX? Do you deny Microsoft wants to minimize OpenGL? It hasn't succeeded in killing OpenGL yet, fortunately. Or how about how the fact that Microsoft bought Spyglass Mosaic instead of writing their own browser, and always release IE years behind on the Mac version, as well as killing Netscape in the process?
Everyone plays the same game. Refusing to buy a PowerBook (and buying what, a PC instead? Or will you use Linux?) is only denying yourself access to stuff. If you use a Microsoft PC then you only foster the same behavior from Microsoft. If you use Linux, well, then good luck, cause it is Linux.
Except Gates *isn't* the lesser of two evils.
Right now, in our reality, he is the greater of two evils.
*If* Apple were in Microsoft's position, they *might* be the greater evil. Since they are not, they *aren't* the greater evil, only the *lesser* evil.
Apple Communication and Apple Computers both sell web space, email addresses, and online storage. Whether that's enough to litigate over, I won't decide since I am neither Apple company.
However, Apple Computer did eventually infringe on Apple Records by allowing Macs to operate as recording studios. Apple Records and Apple Computers came to an agreement, as have Apple Computers and Apple nee iGreen. If, later, iGreen 'flaunts' the agreement as Apple Computers did, that's up to iGreen to face the consequences, isn't it?
But Apple Computers *did* settle with Apple Recording, after all. Don't forget that bit.
You're talking about 3 different things here.
Apple Computer sells webspace, email services, backup (limited), file sharing, and online storage for $99 a year, along with other associated services such as photo album generation, synching between computers, calendar hosting, etc, etc.
Arguably Apple in Australia had the idea before Apple Computer unleashed iTools. Arguably Apple Computer had the name before Apple in Australia (now iGreen).
You talk about Windows and windows. Except Apple and Apple both sell web hosting space, online storage, and email services, among other things. iGreen, however, also sells internet connectivity to go with it while Apple sells you a computer, instead.
Then you bring in Nothing Real, RayZ, etc, etc. Which is a whole nother can of beans. They haven't killed of the Linux versions, though that may be in the works. They have killed of the Windows versions, effectively, past the current release. That seems to be good business sense to me, and not just about being anti Windows. They dropped the price in *half* for the Mac version, to increase sales volume and attractiveness.
The other shoe was that, IIRC, there are only 500 licenses out there for the Windows client for Shake.
So, yeah, they 'make' you buy Apple hardware, at over half the price of maintaining a Windows license, all 500 of them. You save money by switching to OS X and buying a brand new computer. Gee, that's so horrible.
If you don't want to switch? Keep using Windows and keep paying the perpetually *higher* license fee, though upgrades stop. It's not Apple's fault that Nothing Real charged more for Windows ($10k) than Apple is charging for Mac ($5k)
Both offer webhosting, email addresses, online storage... .Mac
.Mac, and it does things such as file sharing, email, web hosting, backup services, etc... Everything except the actual dialup connection.
Now, arguably, Apple Computers had the name first but Apple nee iGreen had the service first, but Apple does offer something called
Is Apple computer in the right? Well, they do have an obligation to protect the name/trademark or lose it. Is Apple Computer being a bully about it? Possibly, I don't know the full story, other than the article.
But Apple Computing is more than just computers, you know. They do video editing, DVD authoring, MP3 players, computers, rackmount servers, Unix, office productivity, internet application servers, homepage hosting, email services, backup services (limited), online storage, and file sharing now, all for profit.
So anyone making MP3 players calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Anyone making video or DVD software calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Anyone making rackmount servers calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Anyone selling a Unixed based OS for home computers calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Anyone selling web services calling themselves Apple has a problem.
Apple sells online storage, file sharing, web hosting, email addresses, photo albums, and backup services.
.Mac
Apple
It's not a pretty law, but Apple does have an obligation to shareholders to protect the name and brand that Apple has developed for the last 26+ years, or lose the trademark.
What's your name? Your real life given name? What would happen if someone else just 'took' your name and got a new credit card? The basic idea is the same, identity fraud and riding the coattails of someone else with a good name, rather than using your own. Apple may not have a choice in this, just like you wouldn't have a choice in defending *your* name.
What's missing that you want HFS+ to go away or something?
It's got metadata, which Microsoft only *added* with NTFS
It finally got journaling with 10.2.2
It spans, quite comfortably, 180GB hard drives
File sizes can be larger than 2gb, and I believe up to 2TB (2^63 bytes per file)
Is there something missing? Perhaps encryption? Apple already has support for encrypted volumes...