Anyway, we're comparing the iPod MSRP with the Gigabeat MSRP. You can find the iPod for up to $20 or $30 cheaper, or even $100 when bundled, but the point is that Toshiba is selling (www.shoptoshiba.com) the 2gb disk for $299 and the 5gb disk for $399 right now, which in now way makes the Gigabeat price competitive with an iPod of the same size.
What does the fanaticism of Apple users have anything to do with the rest of the world wanting to switch to Mac?
People *do* want to switch to Mac, that's not the hard part.
The hard part is that it's more expensive to own a Mac than it is to own a PC.
iPods *have* been selling Macs.
People go in to look at the iPod and see a Mac. People see a Mac and think, "Wow!"
Macs really are all that, except that you pay more (about, what, 20% more?) for less performance.
But if you aren't a gamer, you won't notice the loss of performance.
And if you're into scientific or engineering fields, the OS X Unixy goodness makes up for the loss of performance. Besides which you'd just ssh into your big iron anyway.
Well, you do know/realize that your timeline coincides nicely with the fact that from 1984 until 1995 Microsoft was catching up to Mac OS?
And from 1995 until 2002 they've been trying to catch up to NeXTStep and OS 2?
NeXTStep was out in 1989. was rereleased in 2001 as OS X, and has set the bar for Longhorn to be released in 2007; check it out, OS X really is all that and a bucket of beans.
c) has a particularly inefficient and inflexible filesystem
That's right, you can move files around on a Mac because most file references are to the file and not it's path!
One of the benefits of metadata; the file name, the file path, and all the file attributes are aspects of a file that can change without affecting the file itself. Very useful and worth more than just a piracy tool.
Hmm, you list $499 for the 10gb iPod, $30 for the firewire card, and $30 for the software.
You do realize that the Gigabeat from Toshiba is only 5gb? If you want 10gb you need to buy a removable 5gb PC disk drive for $321?
So it's now $559 vs $725? The iPod is cheaper.
And if you're comparing to the 5gb version? Yeah, it's $459 vs $402. A $57 advantage to the Toshiba, which is bigger and bulkier, so you can say, you're paying for the size convenience.
Apple got them to recalculate the stats in their favor because their earlier algorithms were, um, erroneous.
Then think about this quote, from Mark Twain I believe. "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Statistics is all about taking raw data and making predictive or explanatory statements from them.
How can you count Quicktime usage?
How about downloads per month? How about upgrades per release? How about hits to Apple.com/quicktime per month? How about number of.movs downloaded per month?
All of them are reasonable.
Would you believe, that until now, Quicktime.movs streamed to web browsers weren't counted? That's what Apple convinced Nielson to do. Count embedded.movs.
I understand the law is a pointless one, because Darwinian selection (those who belt up survive more accidents than does who don't) will work perfectly in this situation.
I still don't think the idea is stupid (Everyone should buckle up), even if the enforcement is (Fine everyone who isn't buckled up)
Anyway, I hope I don't run into you sometime in traffic. You know I'll be buckled up at least.
A few hundred hundred grams is a big deal, you know. Especially when the iPod is *only* a few hundred (185) grams in the first place, so a 235 gram Gigabeat is nearly a quarter as heavy as the iPod.
So I can agree 50 grams isn't a deal breaker, but nor is it inconsequential.
Same with size; it's still smaller than the competition (Archos and Nomad), but the iPod is smaller still.
As per the FireWire charging, I own an iPod and I can tell you how it works.
AC adaptor has a firewire port.
iPod has a firewire port.
Plug iPod into any powered firewire port or the AC adaptor.
Excuse me, I hardly think USB2 or Firewire is slowing down the transfers. The theoretical limit is about 50mbps; that's nearly 2x faster than *most* of the fastest IDE hard drives out there, much less a pidly little PCMCIA hard drive.
The funny thing is that in terms of competition, no Toshiba drive will outsell an iPod to *Apple* users because of lack of USB2... As for PC users, if I'm not mistaken there's still a larger installed base of FireWire than USB2, so until Toshiba makes a FireWire drive, Apple still has the advantage there too.
You mean the kind of innovation where you find a product superior to yours and then copy it because you couldn't figure out how to invent it yourself?
Of course *Apple* and *Microsoft* tend to *pay* the innovators by purchasing the software, instead of copying it (iTunes was purchased, as was DirectX)
I couldn't tell if you were sarcastic or not when you mention 'open-source innovation'
You do know that the iPod is ~$3 cheaper, and has been available for over 8 months now?
You've been waiting 8 months for, um, a $3 cost saving?
Or do you mean you don't want to buy the software that enables you to use the iPod on Windows machines? I guess to be fair, I guess official Windows support still is in the beta stage. The Gigabeat will probably reach US shores about the same time Apple updates to a 20gb iPod and official Windows support
--it's cheaper than the comparable sized Gigabeat (by about $3)
--it's available now. It's been available for over 8 months now. It's compatible with Windows, but requires a FireWire card and a program to read HFS+ volumes
--it uses Windows Media Player on a PC, strangely enough, and iTunes on a Mac. It takes about 5 seconds to load 4gb of music on my G4-400, but then again why close iTunes? 0% CPU usage when idle.
Apple will probably drop the price as it unveils larger versions (20gb models) since the design has already paid itself off, and maybe even unveil a cheaper 2gb version to accomodate Toshiba's 2gb discs.
Oh, and the iPod *is* smaller and lighter, as well as easier to use, if that means anything.
I'm quite happy with iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, the iPod, etc, etc:)
If you want the software, feel free to buy it. I think it only costs, erm, $1199 to get access to iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, the iPod, iDisk, the iTools suite, etc, etc. If you get an older model, the price drops down to a much more reasonable ~$800.
I dunno, I suppose being able to encode metadata, boot off the drive, retain permissions (another form of metadata), and a few other things, makes the argument for HFS+
Oh, and perhaps compatibility with over, what, 10 years of legacy might have helped too.
HFS+ is interoperable, it's just that Microsoft doesn't implement HFS+, so yeah it's a pain to pay someone $40 to implement HFS+ support for you, but then what do you think Apple users have to deal with when buying PC oriented products?
Let's see how Apple responds to a *little* bit of pressure?
I say a little because it's USB 2, meaning it won't work with Macs right off the bat (connecting at USB1 speeds is a horrible idea).
$402 vs $399 means that they are *exact* price competitors for each other, where one has FireWire support and the other has ejectable disc support.
I suppose this means I can plug into my PC card slot and use iTunes (or the Finder) to update it at PCI speeds. Of course the laptop or PC card drive is still the speed bottleneck.
I wanna see if Apple ignores it (possible, since it isn't cheaper or exactly platform compatible) or 'improves' the iPod. It's plausible that the pricing of the Gigabeat is because the market will 'bear' the price of a $400 iPod:)
The real question is why you think Apple is doing something wrong?
Point by point:
It seems that Apple is positioning itself for a monopoly.
Having a monopoly isn't wrong, it's abusing the monopoly and hurting the market that's wrong.
I say this because they are trying to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors...
What's an unfair advantage? You mean they are trying to gain an advantage over their competitors?
by making it so that if people want to use compositing software then they also have to buy a Mac.
Why is that an advantage over their competitors? If the competitor runs on 5 flavors of hardware and Shake and RAYZ only run on four (Mac OS X, Linux, IRIX, and Windows), you think Apple has the advantage?
To make my point: Apple's track record with iDVD, iMovie, FCP, and DVD Studio is to buy a product, make a consumable version, lower the price of the product, and polish the product until it glows.
So the 'advantage' Apple gains over the competition:
More refined product. Easier to use product. Cheaper to own and purchase and use product.
Disadvantages? It only runs on Mac OS X.
If Apple stays true to form, we'll see the price drop. This is bad? We'll see better integration and performance. This is bad? We'll see increased usability. This is bad?
If, through the actions of Apple, the consumers *win*, what is Apple doing wrong?
I think, given your three points, that it would have been highly frustrating for you to have owned a Mac *until* March of last year when OS X was released to the public at large.
Really, it wouldn't have helped you to own a Mac, as a consultant, game player, or developer without OS X.
Count me as a rational Mac evangelist; it's really nice and pretty cool, and unusually powerful at a high premium.
Apparently you "do 3d", so you're concerns are valid even as your points *may* not be.
Meeting deadlines is important. Nothing says a G4 cannot meet deadlines. Without Shake or Nothing Real, is there software available on the Mac that even allows you even consider Apple?
A 1GHz G4 vs a 1.6GHz AMD is *not* a hands down victory for the AMD any more than a 1.6GHz AMD vs a 2.4GHz P4 is a hands down victory for the P4; just on simple analysis, the G4 has a SIMD unit *twice* as wide as the AMD solution, and has 4 of these Altivec units to the Athlon's 3 3d!Now units.
So more than anything else, a G4 is memory starved, though the new XServes help a bit with their DDR chipset.
Just on a stupid upper limit, at the same clock a G4 can process over twice as much data, Altivec vs 3d!Now. If anything *both* of these processors are memory constrained.
So the G4 *already* keeps up with the AMD, and the AMD *already* keeps up with the P4, excepting the fact that there doesn't exist the software parity between the platforms... which Shake and RAYZ may help alleviate.
Yes, you have the advantage of experience in this arena, so I'm largely arguing *possibilities*, but the whole point of Apple buying Nothing Real and Silicon Grail is about possibilities and Apple's execution into reality.
Add on top of this that Apple does have Darwin->x86 render nodes, XServe render nodes, *and* G4 optimizations up their sleeves, and it's not as *hopeless* as you make it up to be...
Slashdot Mirror
Um, you mean like people in Japan?
Anyway, we're comparing the iPod MSRP with the Gigabeat MSRP. You can find the iPod for up to $20 or $30 cheaper, or even $100 when bundled, but the point is that Toshiba is selling (www.shoptoshiba.com) the 2gb disk for $299 and the 5gb disk for $399 right now, which in now way makes the Gigabeat price competitive with an iPod of the same size.
So you can ssh in when there's a problem, and when there isn't your Grandma can use Netscape and IE and Word?
Because personal information is priceless.
:P
What does the fanaticism of Apple users have anything to do with the rest of the world wanting to switch to Mac?
People *do* want to switch to Mac, that's not the hard part.
The hard part is that it's more expensive to own a Mac than it is to own a PC.
iPods *have* been selling Macs.
People go in to look at the iPod and see a Mac. People see a Mac and think, "Wow!"
Macs really are all that, except that you pay more (about, what, 20% more?) for less performance.
But if you aren't a gamer, you won't notice the loss of performance.
And if you're into scientific or engineering fields, the OS X Unixy goodness makes up for the loss of performance. Besides which you'd just ssh into your big iron anyway.
Well, you do know/realize that your timeline coincides nicely with the fact that from 1984 until 1995 Microsoft was catching up to Mac OS?
And from 1995 until 2002 they've been trying to catch up to NeXTStep and OS 2?
NeXTStep was out in 1989. was rereleased in 2001 as OS X, and has set the bar for Longhorn to be released in 2007; check it out, OS X really is all that and a bucket of beans.
c) has a particularly inefficient and inflexible filesystem
That's right, you can move files around on a Mac because most file references are to the file and not it's path!
One of the benefits of metadata; the file name, the file path, and all the file attributes are aspects of a file that can change without affecting the file itself. Very useful and worth more than just a piracy tool.
Hmm, you list $499 for the 10gb iPod, $30 for the firewire card, and $30 for the software.
You do realize that the Gigabeat from Toshiba is only 5gb? If you want 10gb you need to buy a removable 5gb PC disk drive for $321?
So it's now $559 vs $725? The iPod is cheaper.
And if you're comparing to the 5gb version? Yeah, it's $459 vs $402. A $57 advantage to the Toshiba, which is bigger and bulkier, so you can say, you're paying for the size convenience.
Sure, burn yourself 10 CDRs and you're set :)
Or 18 CDRs for the 10gb version.
Oh, but you're not talking about an MP3 CD player.
Um, okay, then you're actually talking about 50 CDRs for the 5gb version, and 100 CDRs for the 10gb version.
I have to admit it's a luxury to be able to cart around 5gb of music around. I only have 3.5gb myself, but it's a real joy to use.
Read the article.
.movs downloaded per month?
.movs streamed to web browsers weren't counted? That's what Apple convinced Nielson to do. Count embedded .movs.
Apple got them to recalculate the stats in their favor because their earlier algorithms were, um, erroneous.
Then think about this quote, from Mark Twain I believe. "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Statistics is all about taking raw data and making predictive or explanatory statements from them.
How can you count Quicktime usage?
How about downloads per month?
How about upgrades per release?
How about hits to Apple.com/quicktime per month?
How about number of
All of them are reasonable.
Would you believe, that until now, Quicktime
Yeah, I'm sure you want to be unbuckled.
I don't.
I understand the law is a pointless one, because Darwinian selection (those who belt up survive more accidents than does who don't) will work perfectly in this situation.
I still don't think the idea is stupid (Everyone should buckle up), even if the enforcement is (Fine everyone who isn't buckled up)
Anyway, I hope I don't run into you sometime in traffic. You know I'll be buckled up at least.
A few hundred hundred grams is a big deal, you know. Especially when the iPod is *only* a few hundred (185) grams in the first place, so a 235 gram Gigabeat is nearly a quarter as heavy as the iPod.
So I can agree 50 grams isn't a deal breaker, but nor is it inconsequential.
Same with size; it's still smaller than the competition (Archos and Nomad), but the iPod is smaller still.
As per the FireWire charging, I own an iPod and I can tell you how it works.
AC adaptor has a firewire port.
iPod has a firewire port.
Plug iPod into any powered firewire port or the AC adaptor.
We don't really know how the Gigabeat charges.
Easy enough. The iPod's included AC adaptor has a powered firewire port on it :)
Excuse me, I hardly think USB2 or Firewire is slowing down the transfers. The theoretical limit is about 50mbps; that's nearly 2x faster than *most* of the fastest IDE hard drives out there, much less a pidly little PCMCIA hard drive.
The funny thing is that in terms of competition, no Toshiba drive will outsell an iPod to *Apple* users because of lack of USB2... As for PC users, if I'm not mistaken there's still a larger installed base of FireWire than USB2, so until Toshiba makes a FireWire drive, Apple still has the advantage there too.
Well, with ephPod and XPlay
Yes, but CD-RW media by itself isn't terribly useful.
You need, um, a portable CD device, with, um, USB, SCSI, or FireWire, and those, well, are pretty big.
And you don't get the storage capacity unless you have a portable CD-RW device...
You mean the kind of innovation where you find a product superior to yours and then copy it because you couldn't figure out how to invent it yourself?
Of course *Apple* and *Microsoft* tend to *pay* the innovators by purchasing the software, instead of copying it (iTunes was purchased, as was DirectX)
I couldn't tell if you were sarcastic or not when you mention 'open-source innovation'
I was a tad testy in my reply.
Anyway, yeah, it's an expensive proposition, and it's tough for some to swallow.
But really, iPhoto+Mac+Canon Powershot or iTunes+Mac+iPod or iMovie+Mac+Sony Handycam or iDVD+Mac+iMovie is really, really, really cool.
It's not worth it for just one of them, but all of them combined is really, really, nice.
How about portable storage?
The ability to boot off the device?
The ability to keep in your pocket?
The ability to transfer at ~10MBps?
How much is all that worth?
You do know that the iPod is ~$3 cheaper, and has been available for over 8 months now?
You've been waiting 8 months for, um, a $3 cost saving?
Or do you mean you don't want to buy the software that enables you to use the iPod on Windows machines? I guess to be fair, I guess official Windows support still is in the beta stage. The Gigabeat will probably reach US shores about the same time Apple updates to a 20gb iPod and official Windows support
--it's cheaper than the comparable sized Gigabeat (by about $3)
--it's available now. It's been available for over 8 months now. It's compatible with Windows, but requires a FireWire card and a program to read HFS+ volumes
--it uses Windows Media Player on a PC, strangely enough, and iTunes on a Mac. It takes about 5 seconds to load 4gb of music on my G4-400, but then again why close iTunes? 0% CPU usage when idle.
Apple will probably drop the price as it unveils larger versions (20gb models) since the design has already paid itself off, and maybe even unveil a cheaper 2gb version to accomodate Toshiba's 2gb discs.
Oh, and the iPod *is* smaller and lighter, as well as easier to use, if that means anything.
I'm quite happy with iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, the iPod, etc, etc :)
If you want the software, feel free to buy it. I think it only costs, erm, $1199 to get access to iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, the iPod, iDisk, the iTools suite, etc, etc. If you get an older model, the price drops down to a much more reasonable ~$800.
I dunno, I suppose being able to encode metadata, boot off the drive, retain permissions (another form of metadata), and a few other things, makes the argument for HFS+
Oh, and perhaps compatibility with over, what, 10 years of legacy might have helped too.
HFS+ is interoperable, it's just that Microsoft doesn't implement HFS+, so yeah it's a pain to pay someone $40 to implement HFS+ support for you, but then what do you think Apple users have to deal with when buying PC oriented products?
Let's see how Apple responds to a *little* bit of pressure?
:)
I say a little because it's USB 2, meaning it won't work with Macs right off the bat (connecting at USB1 speeds is a horrible idea).
$402 vs $399 means that they are *exact* price competitors for each other, where one has FireWire support and the other has ejectable disc support.
I suppose this means I can plug into my PC card slot and use iTunes (or the Finder) to update it at PCI speeds. Of course the laptop or PC card drive is still the speed bottleneck.
I wanna see if Apple ignores it (possible, since it isn't cheaper or exactly platform compatible) or 'improves' the iPod. It's plausible that the pricing of the Gigabeat is because the market will 'bear' the price of a $400 iPod
So cry foul yourself.
The real question is why you think Apple is doing something wrong?
Point by point:
It seems that Apple is positioning itself for a monopoly.
Having a monopoly isn't wrong, it's abusing the monopoly and hurting the market that's wrong.
I say this because they are trying to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors...
What's an unfair advantage? You mean they are trying to gain an advantage over their competitors?
by making it so that if people want to use compositing software then they also have to buy a Mac.
Why is that an advantage over their competitors? If the competitor runs on 5 flavors of hardware and Shake and RAYZ only run on four (Mac OS X, Linux, IRIX, and Windows), you think Apple has the advantage?
To make my point: Apple's track record with iDVD, iMovie, FCP, and DVD Studio is to buy a product, make a consumable version, lower the price of the product, and polish the product until it glows.
So the 'advantage' Apple gains over the competition:
More refined product.
Easier to use product.
Cheaper to own and purchase and use product.
Disadvantages? It only runs on Mac OS X.
If Apple stays true to form, we'll see the price drop. This is bad? We'll see better integration and performance. This is bad? We'll see increased usability. This is bad?
If, through the actions of Apple, the consumers *win*, what is Apple doing wrong?
I think, given your three points, that it would have been highly frustrating for you to have owned a Mac *until* March of last year when OS X was released to the public at large.
Really, it wouldn't have helped you to own a Mac, as a consultant, game player, or developer without OS X.
Count me as a rational Mac evangelist; it's really nice and pretty cool, and unusually powerful at a high premium.
Power != MHz in this discussion.
Apparently you "do 3d", so you're concerns are valid even as your points *may* not be.
Meeting deadlines is important.
Nothing says a G4 cannot meet deadlines. Without Shake or Nothing Real, is there software available on the Mac that even allows you even consider Apple?
A 1GHz G4 vs a 1.6GHz AMD is *not* a hands down victory for the AMD any more than a 1.6GHz AMD vs a 2.4GHz P4 is a hands down victory for the P4; just on simple analysis, the G4 has a SIMD unit *twice* as wide as the AMD solution, and has 4 of these Altivec units to the Athlon's 3 3d!Now units.
So more than anything else, a G4 is memory starved, though the new XServes help a bit with their DDR chipset.
Just on a stupid upper limit, at the same clock a G4 can process over twice as much data, Altivec vs 3d!Now. If anything *both* of these processors are memory constrained.
So the G4 *already* keeps up with the AMD, and the AMD *already* keeps up with the P4, excepting the fact that there doesn't exist the software parity between the platforms... which Shake and RAYZ may help alleviate.
Yes, you have the advantage of experience in this arena, so I'm largely arguing *possibilities*, but the whole point of Apple buying Nothing Real and Silicon Grail is about possibilities and Apple's execution into reality.
Add on top of this that Apple does have Darwin->x86 render nodes, XServe render nodes, *and* G4 optimizations up their sleeves, and it's not as *hopeless* as you make it up to be...