Computer hardware gets cheaper every year. For some users, it's easier to *not* learn security, to *not* scrub clean a pwned box. For plenty of non-geeks, time and money make it easier to buy a new box every other year. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Apple's interested in profits. When market share is *the* way to get profits, they've gone that way. See especially their iPod.
Right now, the market is full of computer hardware manufacturers who veer between narrow profit margins and losses, all beholden to Redmond. Apple's not interested in joining anyone's race to the bottom.
Geeks of all people should know that software has value, that bundling software with hardware has value for non-geeks.
"Why the world has focused on these unqualified 'spokesmen' to be cheerleaders for their differing sides of the global warming debate is beyond me."
The world pays attention to ambitious people, especially ones with Harvard degrees. Haven't you listened to Tom Lehrer? Yale grads limit their pronouncements to the one true area of their expertise: mine is janitorial science.
Drivers who are intimately familiar with (and bored by) a particular commute are certainly more likely to tailgate on their "home" roads than those drivers who are new to those exact same roads. The familiar drivers project their expectations for speed upon the unfamiliar drivers.
Drinkypoo sounds right to me. I'm using an ancient StarTac and studiously avoiding all upgrading: it's the only phone I've ever been able to drop three times a day *every* day (I'm a klutz) and it still keeps on ticking. John Cameron Swayze, where are you?
Plus, it's not so much the price of a new phone, it's the aggravation of re-deploying all the new accessories (the hands-free sets for the cars, the chargers for the home and weekend home and office and travel bag). And I still use the StarTac's tri-modes, especially the mode that provides for analog service, useful for jerks like me who persist in travelling to the fewer and fewer rural areas that haven't yet rolled out digital cel towers, useful as well in analog mode whenever another terror rumor oveloads all the digital channels on the local cel site and my Star Tac automatically switches over to one of the few remaining analog channels. And Verizon's hopping mad: I signed up six years ago for their no-longer-offered-at-no-additonal-cost "minutes of use" versions of their "Quick2Net" and "National Access" data services, services that only debited my voice minutes. I use them for free after nine o'clock and on weekends when travelling with my iBook in digital areas, for checking pop and imap e-mail. Verizon badly wants me back in a new plan, but I'm sticking with the month-by-month version of the old plan.
Drinkypoo's right, though, most folks should get a new phone as often as possible.
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Last time I checked, Apple's laptop/desktop business *alone* would put Apple on the Fortune 100.
Computer hardware gets cheaper every year. For some users, it's easier to *not* learn security, to *not* scrub clean a pwned box. For plenty of non-geeks, time and money make it easier to buy a new box every other year. Rinse, lather, repeat.
"NOTHING in the world can make you feel as old"
I gotta fix that old Western Union telegrapher's key covered in sawdust in my barn.
Apple's interested in profits. When market share is *the* way to get profits, they've gone that way. See especially their iPod.
Right now, the market is full of computer hardware manufacturers who veer between narrow profit margins and losses, all beholden to Redmond. Apple's not interested in joining anyone's race to the bottom.
Geeks of all people should know that software has value, that bundling software with hardware has value for non-geeks.
Invoked 'em both first!
"Why the world has focused on these unqualified 'spokesmen' to be cheerleaders for their differing sides of the global warming debate is beyond me."
The world pays attention to ambitious people, especially ones with Harvard degrees. Haven't you listened to Tom Lehrer? Yale grads limit their pronouncements to the one true area of their expertise: mine is janitorial science.
Drivers who are intimately familiar with (and bored by) a particular commute are certainly more likely to tailgate on their "home" roads than those drivers who are new to those exact same roads. The familiar drivers project their expectations for speed upon the unfamiliar drivers.
Drinkypoo sounds right to me. I'm using an ancient StarTac and studiously avoiding all upgrading: it's the only phone I've ever been able to drop three times a day *every* day (I'm a klutz) and it still keeps on ticking. John Cameron Swayze, where are you?
Plus, it's not so much the price of a new phone, it's the aggravation of re-deploying all the new accessories (the hands-free sets for the cars, the chargers for the home and weekend home and office and travel bag). And I still use the StarTac's tri-modes, especially the mode that provides for analog service, useful for jerks like me who persist in travelling to the fewer and fewer rural areas that haven't yet rolled out digital cel towers, useful as well in analog mode whenever another terror rumor oveloads all the digital channels on the local cel site and my Star Tac automatically switches over to one of the few remaining analog channels. And Verizon's hopping mad: I signed up six years ago for their no-longer-offered-at-no-additonal-cost "minutes of use" versions of their "Quick2Net" and "National Access" data services, services that only debited my voice minutes. I use them for free after nine o'clock and on weekends when travelling with my iBook in digital areas, for checking pop and imap e-mail. Verizon badly wants me back in a new plan, but I'm sticking with the month-by-month version of the old plan.
Drinkypoo's right, though, most folks should get a new phone as often as possible.