What is it about movie rental service that you don't understand? When you rent a movie, you have to return it the end of the specified time period or pay a fine. Surely you don't mean that you should be able to pay a rental fee and get to keep the movie file forever? So what, exactly, is wrong with DRM that enforces a rental agreement? As someone else posted, if you don't like the rental terms, then don't rent the movie.
Secondly, nobody is even making the slightest suggestion that this time-limited DRM would apply to songs (but see point four below).
Third, the only area where there has been any "DRM creep" is the reduction in the number of times a playlist can be burned from 10 to 7. You fail to mention that DRM was simulatneously liberalized to allow a person to play their iTMS purchased music on 5 computers instead of 3. A slight, practically meaningless, restriction on the one hand, a somewhat meaningful liberalization on the other. You can't even claim "creep" because there is no trend. It is just a fiction.
Fourth, one of the most common complaints about iTunes is the lack of a music rental service, like the one offered by Napster or Yahoo!. If Apple were to respond to this complaint and offer a music rental service, they would have to do something like Microsoft's Janus DRM that causes the music to become unplayable if the user does not check in to show the subscription is current. By your reasoning, Apple's response to this demand is just DRM creep. They can't win, apparently.
According to the various rumors on this subject over the past few months, Apple was trying very hard to get the movie studios to agree to just what you describe: customers would buy movies rather than rent them. The studios strongly prefer the rental model and, it turns out, they own the content. That's why the original article describes this as a setback for Steve Jobs.
Personally, though, I am not interested in owning a bunch of low-resolution movie files. The rental model makes much more sense for movies than for music. It is a very rare movie that I want to watch more than once.
Seriously, the companies that have to be the most concerned about this announcement today have names like these: Creative, Sony, Napster, Yahoo!, MTV and Real Networks. These are all Microsoft "partners" whose business ventures are now going to have to be in direct competition with Microsoft's own player/store. Some of them have been losing money trying to compete with the iPod/iTMS, such as Creative and Napster. What are their future prospects now?
Apple will do fine. They have dominated the mp3 business far in excess of anyone's expectations, and for far longer. Even if they fall back to a 40% market share; that will still be a large and successful business.
Actually, this is precisely what Steve Jobs predicted in January in an interview with Newsweek.
"The problem is, the PC model doesn't work in the consumer electronics industry, where you've got all these companies and some does one thing and another does another thing. It just doesn't work. What's going to happen is that Microsoft is going to have to get into the hardware business of making MP3 players. This year. X-player, or whatever."
Low market share is not the only reason Macs are safer. Note I did not say invulnerable, I said safer. Nor did I deny that low market share is helpful.
Microsoft is making a huge marketing push with the architectural changes in Windows Vista that are supposed improve security. Chief among these is User Account Control. This will be an important improvement for Windows, since malware can too easily take control of the system. Of course, *nix systems have had this for ages, and the Mac OS has thus had it for years now. If User Account Control is an important security step for Windows, as it is, then one should not dismiss the advantages of the Macs architecture right now.
Case in point: the Sony root kit fiasco. Unaware Windows users could get infected with this simply by inserting one of the Sony CD containing the software. On the Mac version of the rookit, users had to double-click on the installer app to run it and then enter an administrative password to install it. That is not a false sense of security. That is real.
People have been talking about the malware coders going after the Mac for quite some time now. There of course will be vulerabilities that emerge and get patched, but don't hold your breath waiting for some big virus that is going to take down Macs across the net.
Suppose you are completely right, however. Windows systems are battle-hardened, well-armored warriors while Mac systems are naive little kids in t-shirts. The difference is only that the Windows warriors are patrolling Fallujah and the Mac kiddies are playing in their comfortable suburban backyards. The Mac kiddies are still "safer" even if more vulnerable.
For me, movies are fundamentally different than music. I'll listen to a great album dozens of times easily, but it's really rare that I want to watch a movie more than once. There's little chance I will buy any movies for myself at $9.99 a pop, especially lower-quality movies that can't be burned onto DVD media. If they would offer a subscription plan, however, I would probably bite. In short, I want to own music and rent movies. My kids, on the other hand, watch the same movies repeatedly. I might buy movies for them.
I realize that DVD sales have been huge for the movie industry, so there are plenty of people out there who do like to buy movies. Netflix has gotten pretty huge too, however. Apple should not just copy it's music model when adding movies to the ITMS. Unlike with music, people are quite used to the rental model for movies.
Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"
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Apple Sues Creative
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· Score: 4, Informative
It seems to me that Apple, in contrast to the opinion of some, has priced the iPod very competitively. Creative is losing a ton of money by trying to maintain slightly cheaper prices for its competing lines. In some cases, actually, the iPod is priced just the same or slightly less. It is a losing battle for Creative because they do not have the economy of scale that Apple has with the iPod, so they lose money at these prices while Apple does well. In this case, Apple has a Dell-like supply chain.
This article, from over a year ago, says it all: "Creative Responds to iPod Price Drop." Apple took the offensive by cutting prices, and it has continued this strategy. As an analyst in the article says, "Apple has left little room for other music vendors to compete on price." Creative followed that strategy nevertheless, and the results are very clear: Creative cannot sustain a price battle with Apple and stay in business. Their third-quarter sales fell to $225.7 million compared to $333.8 million for the same quarter the previous year. Their net loss for the quarter was $74.7 million. For the past three quarters, it was $105.4 million.
Simply put, Creative is in serious financial trouble. The recent legal action against Apple smacks of a desperate strategy to use their trump card -- their GUI patent -- to shore up their finances. Their problem is that this patent is being challenged and there is a very good possibility that it will not stand. A hierachical system for organizing a music library is just too obvious to be the intellectual property of any one company. Apple has the legal team to drag out the process as long as possible. Their countersuit is just the first step in this process.
If you like the Zen better and hate iTunes, fine. The nice thing about consumer preferences is that everyone can be right.
To assert, however, that buying a Zen means you don't have to put up with "DRM issues" is just plain silly. As long as you rip from CDs (or get illegal downloads) *nobody* has to deal with DRM on any player. If you really think that using an iPod requires you to use DRM, then you are not anywhere near as familiar with iPod and iTunes as you claim.
As for my own opinion, I don't see that drag and drop via the desktop is any great advantage. Plug in an iPod and iTunes opens automatically. The iPod syncs. Done. If you prefer to drag and drop, then dragging and dropping from an iTunes library to the iPod is no different inside iTunes, except that you have the addition of easy filtering of the music library by keywords. I manage my iPod shuffle through drag and drop. Big deal.
Suppose, for sake of argument, that your premise is basically correct: nearly all Windows users are "happy enough" with Windows that they wouldn't switch to the Mac. Let's say that 95% of Windows users can be described this way. Suppose the other 5 are not happy and can be persuaded to switch to the Mac.
If Apple can convince even this small percentage of Windows users to switch, the marketshare of the Mac would basically double, giving Apple billions of dollars in new sales. The implications for Apple are huge.
Some people seem to think that Apple's objective with Boot Camp and its advertising campaign is to somehow "beat" Microsoft in the OS marketshare overnight. Of course Steve Jobs would love to do that, but it is not within the realm of reality. Apple will do extremely well just getting incremental gains in marketshare. Picking up 1% of marketshare per year over the next ten years, for example, is not "absurd" or a "fantasy." Vista will bring Windows many of the features Mac users have enjoyed with Tiger for over a year now, but the Mac OS is a moving target and Apple is moving faster. Looking ahead five years, it is not hard to imagine Microsoft struggling with its next generation OS while Apple has come out with three significant revisions.
Apple, furthermore, has resisted entering the low-margin wars waged by the other PC manufacturers. Only Dell and Apple have made money consistently over the past few years, and Dell seems to be struggling a bit having reached the limits of its strategy of pursuing marketshare gains through cost-cutting. A percentage point gain in marketshare for Apple thus adds more to the company's bottom line than it does for Dell because Apple does it throuh product differentiation rather than razor thin margins.
Good question! Where Mac software exists -- like Keynote, Office, etc. -- it is great. There is no advantage to Windows, but the comparative advantage of Macs is lower compared with multimedia stuff. The range of business software for Windows, additionally, makes it a requirement for many people. Connecting to my wife's workplace, for example, requires a proprietary Windows software package, so we run Virtual PC. The association of PCs with work and Macs with more fun stuff is not so bad for Apple, although it does give a bit of a wrong impression.
Actually, being a longtime Mac user who has run Windows-based computer labs, I am total agreement with you. Excel on the Mac is just as good, if not better than, Excel on Windows, for instance. I only raised the point because I wanted to dispute the parent poster's claim that the ads demonstrated a really negative attitude towards PCs.
I think that the "spreadsheets" comment in the ads was more metaphorical (since PCs are what most people have at work) than a specific statement about spreadsheets or about work-related software in general. The idea is that PCs are fine for work but Macs can offer much more.
Yes, Apple did reduce the number of times a playlist could be burned from 10 to 7. This would apply to people who update their iTunes software and accept the new licensing terms. You are under no obligation to do this, of course. If the DRM change was so terrible, it wouldn't be worth updating iTunes.
The changes have not been terrible, however. FairPlay has been around for a few years now and this is the worst example you can come up with? The restriction is completely trivial to anyone's "personal use" of the music. Slight changes to a playlist resets the counter on the number of burns. Hell, add a "song" that has two seconds of silence and you've got a new playlist. It is just not worth complaining about. How many copies of a playlist do you need?
Moreover, you conventiently forget to mention that Fairplay was at the same time liberalized to allow a person to play their music purchased from the iTMS on five computers instead of three, something that is helpful for people who want their music at work and on multiple machines at home. It was a trade, in other words, that liberalized a restriction that people *did* face and tightened one that people rarely face. Evil Apple.
Well, that may be a nice gift for a bridal shower, but giving copies of music to other people is not "personal use." You have no legal right to give away music ripped from your CDs without paying licensing fees to the rights holders. I realize that this restriction is routinely violated, but the point is that Fairplay is not taking away some "right" that we currently have.
In those cases where an application does put stuff in non-standard places (thus violating Apple's developer guidelines), the software company ought to provide an uninstaller. Some of them do, in fact. It should not be your responsiblity, or Apple's for that matter, to hunt down random files. By the way, you could just leave them there. They won't hurt anything.
I assume uninstalling Parallels will get better once it comes out of beta.
Apple does not build uninstaller functionality into its OS because it is not needed. This is absolutely not a deficiency on Apple's part. It is a terrific feature. The ability, for instance, to install an app just by dragging it into the applications folder is awesome. One can even install Microsoft Office that way, for example. How is that a deficiency? Don't like an app, trash it! It couldn't be simpler.
Windows users have been hit over the head with the idea that trashing an app is bad because, in Windows, it is. I think *that* is the deficiency. You still have some Windows instincts. Just let go!
Glad to hear that you like your new iMac, but I disagree with some of your points.
First, I disagree that Apple is showing "contempt" for potential switchers. Instead, the ads highight Apple's strengths in iLife and the problems with Windows that frustrate users the most. In fact, if you watch some of the ads, they clearly say that Windows PCs have their role. Great for running spreadsheets, for instance, but Macs are better at multimedia.
Second, the Start menu is a mess. Apple should not encourage people to rely on it. Just configure the dock with the apps you use the most. Alternatively, if you really want Start-menu like access to apps, just drag the Applications folder into the dock on the right-hand side of the little vertical line next to the trash can. Click and hold on this icon to get access to all apps. Better still, get LaunchBar or Quicksilver to get access to everything with just a couple keystrokes.
Third, Apple should not suddenly change its shortcut key combinations -- many of which have been part of the Mac OS for decades -- to the Windows way just to accomodate switchers. You say that what is Windows is "standard." By that definition of standard, Apple should just do everything that Windows does the same way Windows does. Adjusting to the Mac way of doing things will take some time, but it is just different not "non-standard." Once the key combinations become second-nature, and you use Expose and the application switcher (command-tab) to move between apps, working on the Mac is very efficient.
Fourth, if you want to right-click just get a two-button mouse. They are not expensive and right-clicking works just the same.
Fifth, Windows has an uninstall function because it needs it. Windows installers put all kinds of files all over the place. The Mac OS doesn't, since app files are really containers for all the components (except preference files). This can be really hard for Windows users to believe, but you can just throw the app in the trash. That's it. Why on earth would Apple want to copy Windows in this respect? That would be a huge step backwards.
So I would not ask Apple to court switchers by runing some of the nicer parts of the Mac experience by making them more Windows-like.
"right now there is no sub 6 lb. Apple laptop . . . Too bad"
Try doing some research before making claims like that. The 15-inch MacBook Pro weighs 5.6 lbs. Besides, your counterexample has only a 12-inch screen. It's not really fair to compare its weight vs. that of a 17-inch machine and then call the latter "porky."
Why is this modded insightful? I think it would have to show some insight. Instead, we get a t-shirt analogy that reveals simplistic logic rather than insight.
The poster's assumption is that all machines with Intel guts are identical, like the frabric of the t-shirt. Just slap on a case, or label in the case of the t-shirt, and ship it out. Obviously, that is not true. Manufactures make all kinds of component and design decisions that affect the quality of the product. Case construction varies greatly, as does screen quality, keyboard quality, and so forth. To pretend that these component decisions mean nothing is silly. If all machines were identical, there would be little or no variance across brands in terms of failure rates, but every study out there shows that variance does exist. Take the recent Consumer Reports reader suveys with a sample size of 134,000 machines. Over 20% of Gateway desktop machines had serious problems. In contrast, only 11% of Apple desktop machines did. The second best was Sony with 14%. Dell had 16%. Did those Gateway buyers really do themselvs a favor by getting a cheaper product?
By the poster's logic, an Intel Core Duo laptop is the same, regardless of which manufacturer it comes from. Apple's MacBook Pro weighs 5.6 pounds and is 1 inch thick. HP's dv5000t can be had for less money, but it is 16% heavier and 38% thicker. If the engineering required to make this happen is trivial, why don't all manufacters do it? For that matter, why are most PC's so ugly? Price. Manufactures cut corners where they can. This is not a t-shirt after all.
Manufacturers are smart. They know people buying technology love to look at numbers. Intel spent years emphasizing megahertz for a reason. Typically, we compare chip speeds, hard drive size, amount of RAM, etc. So, manufacturers oblige us by pumping up the commonly used specs and cutting costs elsewhere. Things like screen quality, weight, keyboard quality, quality of power supplies, and case strength are more likely overlooked by consumers. We may not see it up front, but over the life of the computer these cost-cutting decisions take their toll.
To put this in perspective, Firefox is a great browser and it's free. Yet, only 10% of web usage is done through Firefox. Additionally, a very high percentage of people don't even upgrade to the most recent version of Windows. They just use whatever came on their computer.
Realistically, then, what percentage of people would pay $200 to put Mac OS X on their Dell or other non-Apple box? My guess is not that many.
This article is just one of many that makes the mistaken assumption that a device with more features, in this case a phone that does nearly everything, is superior to one that has fewer features but does them well.
We see this argument frequently from iPod competitors, who contend that their device is better because it has X feature, while the iPod does not. "Why would anyone buy an iPod when the:MK5-2A player has an integrated FM tuner and takes voice notes?" The assumption is that the quality of product is in the sum of its features, regardless of the fact the addition of these features usually increases the complexity, and reduces the usability, of the device.
Recent research explains why we see this feature creep. In an article called, "Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing," researchers found that consumers responded to sales pitches that emphasized the number of different features. Features, in short, are good marketing. The addition of more features, however, often leads to a less usable product. In this study, once the consumers had a chance to actually use the products for a while and were asked to re-evaluate their purchase, they tended to choose a simpler product with fewer features.
Here is a relevant paragraph from the article: "Consumers can now purchase a single product that functions as a cell phone, game console, calculator, text-messaging device, wireless Internet connection, personal digital assistant, digital camera, MP3player, and global positioning system. However, although purchasing this highly complex product may give the consumer bragging rights, each function the consumer does not actually use adds to the difficulty of learning to use the product without providing any functional benefit."
This research helps explain why the iPod generates such high levels of customer satisfaction. Apple's excellent marketing, and word of mouth from happy iPod users, overcomes the arguments of competitors that the iPod lacks features. Once people own an iPod, they are not overwhelmed by its complexity. It does what they really want and does it well. This is what separates Apple from most consumer electronics companies.
My cell phone is not an mp3 player. It can't even take grainy photos. It makes and receives calls quite well, on the other hand, and the battery life is good. I like it!
Re: they never said it would be impossible
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WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If you are so sure they said it would be impossible, then tell us where did they said it.
The parent message is referring to well-reported statements by Apple's Jobs and Schiller, who both said Apple would do nothing to prevent people from running Windows on Intel-based Macs. See this link: http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5733756-2.html
As the article states, Schiller's words were, "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will. We won't do anything to preclude that."
Critics of the iPod consistently cite marketing as the number one reason for its success. Granted, Apple is very good at marketing, and iPod ads are all over the place, but if it is mostly marketing then why can't anyone else hire equally good ad agencies and grab a big chunk of market share?
The most important factor is that no one else has the whole system (player, software, music store) working as seamlessly as Apple does. Apple has also been aggressive at bringing integration of things like podcasts and, now, video. It works well, and that leads to satified customers, who then become effective marketers for the device. So, yes, people see iPod ads, but endorsements from friends are far more influential.
I remember two years ago reading commentary by some "technology analyst" who argued that Apple's share of the mp3 player market would soon be about the same percentage as its share of the computer market. Wish I could still find the article; it would be fun to see again. Instead, Apple has only increased its market share since then. There have been plenty of opportunities for competitors to use marketing, and larger distribution channels, to stop this from happening. It is not Apple's marketing, for instance, that made Sony completely inept at producing a competitive product. Likewise, Dell did not turn its prowess at low-margin mass-production into making an mp3 powerhouse. Walmart did not, as some predicted, turn its music download store into a dominant player. There is more to all this than marketing.
How many iPod killers have we seen? None of them know how to run an advertising campaign?
I think rental services is a more accurate term as it makes clear exactly what is happening. When you rent, you don't get to keep the product unless you keep forking over the dough.
"Man, if this were a windows box, I assure you that 99% of the the post would be slamming MS w/o a second thought."
If it were a Windows box that were hacked by someone who was given an ssh account on the machine, nobody would be surprised, for one thing. The Windows defenders would be arguing, just like Mac users here, that such a setup does not represent anything like what the average person will use, and they would be right.
Right, because Gateway or Dell users are so much more technologically sophisticated than Apple users.
I realize that personal experieces and anecdotes form powerful opinions for particular individuals, but there are multiple customer satisfaction surveys that show Apple at the top. Here's another one from the American Customer Satisfaction Index Survey at the University of Michigan Business School:
http://www.theacsi.org/second_quarter.htm
So, yes, some people have bad experience with Apple tech support, but the proportion of Apple customers with bad experiences is lower than with other companies. If you want to see some other unhappy folks, trying visiting:
http://www.ihatedell.net/
Re:Expresscard/34 slot no good for 3G/UMTS use
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MacBook Pro Reviewed
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· Score: 1
It really depends upon how long it takes for these services to become Expresscard-compatible. The lack of cards right now surely has more to do with consumer demand rather than technology. It will happen eventually, and perhaps sooner rather than later with manufacturers like Apple using the technology.
Apple has often been on the early side of adopting new interfaces, such as with USB. It has also been on the early side of getting rid of older technology, such as floppy drives. A friend of mine once told me how stupid it was that for Apple to not have a floppy drive in the first iMac. Well, it's true that at the time this caused a problem for some people, but the idea was that the internet would replace the floppy for file transport. Today, in the era of USB drives, nobody cares. The point is that the transition to new, improved technology has to happen sometime. Apple is on the early side, but that doesn't mean the company has "lobotimized" the computer. Others will follow and soon everyone will be doing it.
I am no engineer, so take this a conjecture. My guess is that a build-to-order option is not very feasible financially for something of this kind. It would require a different motherboard, no? Perhaps a different case as well? Correct me if I am wrong, but it's not like installing a higher-capacity hard drive or more memory.
So, Apple took a risk at being an early adopter of this technology. That will surely cost some sales to people who absolutely need PCMIA right now, but others might be attracted to MacBook precisely because of the newer tech.
Slashdot Mirror
What is it about movie rental service that you don't understand? When you rent a movie, you have to return it the end of the specified time period or pay a fine. Surely you don't mean that you should be able to pay a rental fee and get to keep the movie file forever? So what, exactly, is wrong with DRM that enforces a rental agreement? As someone else posted, if you don't like the rental terms, then don't rent the movie.
Secondly, nobody is even making the slightest suggestion that this time-limited DRM would apply to songs (but see point four below).
Third, the only area where there has been any "DRM creep" is the reduction in the number of times a playlist can be burned from 10 to 7. You fail to mention that DRM was simulatneously liberalized to allow a person to play their iTMS purchased music on 5 computers instead of 3. A slight, practically meaningless, restriction on the one hand, a somewhat meaningful liberalization on the other. You can't even claim "creep" because there is no trend. It is just a fiction.
Fourth, one of the most common complaints about iTunes is the lack of a music rental service, like the one offered by Napster or Yahoo!. If Apple were to respond to this complaint and offer a music rental service, they would have to do something like Microsoft's Janus DRM that causes the music to become unplayable if the user does not check in to show the subscription is current. By your reasoning, Apple's response to this demand is just DRM creep. They can't win, apparently.
According to the various rumors on this subject over the past few months, Apple was trying very hard to get the movie studios to agree to just what you describe: customers would buy movies rather than rent them. The studios strongly prefer the rental model and, it turns out, they own the content. That's why the original article describes this as a setback for Steve Jobs.
Personally, though, I am not interested in owning a bunch of low-resolution movie files. The rental model makes much more sense for movies than for music. It is a very rare movie that I want to watch more than once.
Seriously, the companies that have to be the most concerned about this announcement today have names like these: Creative, Sony, Napster, Yahoo!, MTV and Real Networks. These are all Microsoft "partners" whose business ventures are now going to have to be in direct competition with Microsoft's own player/store. Some of them have been losing money trying to compete with the iPod/iTMS, such as Creative and Napster. What are their future prospects now?
Apple will do fine. They have dominated the mp3 business far in excess of anyone's expectations, and for far longer. Even if they fall back to a 40% market share; that will still be a large and successful business.
Actually, this is precisely what Steve Jobs predicted in January in an interview with Newsweek.
k /
"The problem is, the PC model doesn't work in the consumer electronics industry, where you've got all these companies and some does one thing and another does another thing. It just doesn't work. What's going to happen is that Microsoft is going to have to get into the hardware business of making MP3 players. This year. X-player, or whatever."
The link is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10853916/site/newswee
Low market share is not the only reason Macs are safer. Note I did not say invulnerable, I said safer. Nor did I deny that low market share is helpful. Microsoft is making a huge marketing push with the architectural changes in Windows Vista that are supposed improve security. Chief among these is User Account Control. This will be an important improvement for Windows, since malware can too easily take control of the system. Of course, *nix systems have had this for ages, and the Mac OS has thus had it for years now. If User Account Control is an important security step for Windows, as it is, then one should not dismiss the advantages of the Macs architecture right now. Case in point: the Sony root kit fiasco. Unaware Windows users could get infected with this simply by inserting one of the Sony CD containing the software. On the Mac version of the rookit, users had to double-click on the installer app to run it and then enter an administrative password to install it. That is not a false sense of security. That is real. People have been talking about the malware coders going after the Mac for quite some time now. There of course will be vulerabilities that emerge and get patched, but don't hold your breath waiting for some big virus that is going to take down Macs across the net. Suppose you are completely right, however. Windows systems are battle-hardened, well-armored warriors while Mac systems are naive little kids in t-shirts. The difference is only that the Windows warriors are patrolling Fallujah and the Mac kiddies are playing in their comfortable suburban backyards. The Mac kiddies are still "safer" even if more vulnerable.
For me, movies are fundamentally different than music. I'll listen to a great album dozens of times easily, but it's really rare that I want to watch a movie more than once. There's little chance I will buy any movies for myself at $9.99 a pop, especially lower-quality movies that can't be burned onto DVD media. If they would offer a subscription plan, however, I would probably bite. In short, I want to own music and rent movies. My kids, on the other hand, watch the same movies repeatedly. I might buy movies for them.
I realize that DVD sales have been huge for the movie industry, so there are plenty of people out there who do like to buy movies. Netflix has gotten pretty huge too, however. Apple should not just copy it's music model when adding movies to the ITMS. Unlike with music, people are quite used to the rental model for movies.
It seems to me that Apple, in contrast to the opinion of some, has priced the iPod very competitively. Creative is losing a ton of money by trying to maintain slightly cheaper prices for its competing lines. In some cases, actually, the iPod is priced just the same or slightly less. It is a losing battle for Creative because they do not have the economy of scale that Apple has with the iPod, so they lose money at these prices while Apple does well. In this case, Apple has a Dell-like supply chain.
This article, from over a year ago, says it all: "Creative Responds to iPod Price Drop." Apple took the offensive by cutting prices, and it has continued this strategy. As an analyst in the article says, "Apple has left little room for other music vendors to compete on price." Creative followed that strategy nevertheless, and the results are very clear: Creative cannot sustain a price battle with Apple and stay in business. Their third-quarter sales fell to $225.7 million compared to $333.8 million for the same quarter the previous year. Their net loss for the quarter was $74.7 million. For the past three quarters, it was $105.4 million.
Simply put, Creative is in serious financial trouble. The recent legal action against Apple smacks of a desperate strategy to use their trump card -- their GUI patent -- to shore up their finances. Their problem is that this patent is being challenged and there is a very good possibility that it will not stand. A hierachical system for organizing a music library is just too obvious to be the intellectual property of any one company. Apple has the legal team to drag out the process as long as possible. Their countersuit is just the first step in this process.
If you like the Zen better and hate iTunes, fine. The nice thing about consumer preferences is that everyone can be right.
To assert, however, that buying a Zen means you don't have to put up with "DRM issues" is just plain silly. As long as you rip from CDs (or get illegal downloads) *nobody* has to deal with DRM on any player. If you really think that using an iPod requires you to use DRM, then you are not anywhere near as familiar with iPod and iTunes as you claim.
As for my own opinion, I don't see that drag and drop via the desktop is any great advantage. Plug in an iPod and iTunes opens automatically. The iPod syncs. Done. If you prefer to drag and drop, then dragging and dropping from an iTunes library to the iPod is no different inside iTunes, except that you have the addition of easy filtering of the music library by keywords. I manage my iPod shuffle through drag and drop. Big deal.
Suppose, for sake of argument, that your premise is basically correct: nearly all Windows users are "happy enough" with Windows that they wouldn't switch to the Mac. Let's say that 95% of Windows users can be described this way. Suppose the other 5 are not happy and can be persuaded to switch to the Mac.
If Apple can convince even this small percentage of Windows users to switch, the marketshare of the Mac would basically double, giving Apple billions of dollars in new sales. The implications for Apple are huge.
Some people seem to think that Apple's objective with Boot Camp and its advertising campaign is to somehow "beat" Microsoft in the OS marketshare overnight. Of course Steve Jobs would love to do that, but it is not within the realm of reality. Apple will do extremely well just getting incremental gains in marketshare. Picking up 1% of marketshare per year over the next ten years, for example, is not "absurd" or a "fantasy." Vista will bring Windows many of the features Mac users have enjoyed with Tiger for over a year now, but the Mac OS is a moving target and Apple is moving faster. Looking ahead five years, it is not hard to imagine Microsoft struggling with its next generation OS while Apple has come out with three significant revisions.
Apple, furthermore, has resisted entering the low-margin wars waged by the other PC manufacturers. Only Dell and Apple have made money consistently over the past few years, and Dell seems to be struggling a bit having reached the limits of its strategy of pursuing marketshare gains through cost-cutting. A percentage point gain in marketshare for Apple thus adds more to the company's bottom line than it does for Dell because Apple does it throuh product differentiation rather than razor thin margins.
Good question! Where Mac software exists -- like Keynote, Office, etc. -- it is great. There is no advantage to Windows, but the comparative advantage of Macs is lower compared with multimedia stuff. The range of business software for Windows, additionally, makes it a requirement for many people. Connecting to my wife's workplace, for example, requires a proprietary Windows software package, so we run Virtual PC. The association of PCs with work and Macs with more fun stuff is not so bad for Apple, although it does give a bit of a wrong impression.
Actually, being a longtime Mac user who has run Windows-based computer labs, I am total agreement with you. Excel on the Mac is just as good, if not better than, Excel on Windows, for instance. I only raised the point because I wanted to dispute the parent poster's claim that the ads demonstrated a really negative attitude towards PCs.
I think that the "spreadsheets" comment in the ads was more metaphorical (since PCs are what most people have at work) than a specific statement about spreadsheets or about work-related software in general. The idea is that PCs are fine for work but Macs can offer much more.
Yes, Apple did reduce the number of times a playlist could be burned from 10 to 7. This would apply to people who update their iTunes software and accept the new licensing terms. You are under no obligation to do this, of course. If the DRM change was so terrible, it wouldn't be worth updating iTunes.
The changes have not been terrible, however. FairPlay has been around for a few years now and this is the worst example you can come up with? The restriction is completely trivial to anyone's "personal use" of the music. Slight changes to a playlist resets the counter on the number of burns. Hell, add a "song" that has two seconds of silence and you've got a new playlist. It is just not worth complaining about. How many copies of a playlist do you need?
Moreover, you conventiently forget to mention that Fairplay was at the same time liberalized to allow a person to play their music purchased from the iTMS on five computers instead of three, something that is helpful for people who want their music at work and on multiple machines at home. It was a trade, in other words, that liberalized a restriction that people *did* face and tightened one that people rarely face. Evil Apple.
Well, that may be a nice gift for a bridal shower, but giving copies of music to other people is not "personal use." You have no legal right to give away music ripped from your CDs without paying licensing fees to the rights holders. I realize that this restriction is routinely violated, but the point is that Fairplay is not taking away some "right" that we currently have.
In those cases where an application does put stuff in non-standard places (thus violating Apple's developer guidelines), the software company ought to provide an uninstaller. Some of them do, in fact. It should not be your responsiblity, or Apple's for that matter, to hunt down random files. By the way, you could just leave them there. They won't hurt anything.
I assume uninstalling Parallels will get better once it comes out of beta.
Apple does not build uninstaller functionality into its OS because it is not needed. This is absolutely not a deficiency on Apple's part. It is a terrific feature. The ability, for instance, to install an app just by dragging it into the applications folder is awesome. One can even install Microsoft Office that way, for example. How is that a deficiency? Don't like an app, trash it! It couldn't be simpler.
Windows users have been hit over the head with the idea that trashing an app is bad because, in Windows, it is. I think *that* is the deficiency. You still have some Windows instincts. Just let go!
Glad to hear that you like your new iMac, but I disagree with some of your points.
First, I disagree that Apple is showing "contempt" for potential switchers. Instead, the ads highight Apple's strengths in iLife and the problems with Windows that frustrate users the most. In fact, if you watch some of the ads, they clearly say that Windows PCs have their role. Great for running spreadsheets, for instance, but Macs are better at multimedia.
Second, the Start menu is a mess. Apple should not encourage people to rely on it. Just configure the dock with the apps you use the most. Alternatively, if you really want Start-menu like access to apps, just drag the Applications folder into the dock on the right-hand side of the little vertical line next to the trash can. Click and hold on this icon to get access to all apps. Better still, get LaunchBar or Quicksilver to get access to everything with just a couple keystrokes.
Third, Apple should not suddenly change its shortcut key combinations -- many of which have been part of the Mac OS for decades -- to the Windows way just to accomodate switchers. You say that what is Windows is "standard." By that definition of standard, Apple should just do everything that Windows does the same way Windows does. Adjusting to the Mac way of doing things will take some time, but it is just different not "non-standard." Once the key combinations become second-nature, and you use Expose and the application switcher (command-tab) to move between apps, working on the Mac is very efficient.
Fourth, if you want to right-click just get a two-button mouse. They are not expensive and right-clicking works just the same.
Fifth, Windows has an uninstall function because it needs it. Windows installers put all kinds of files all over the place. The Mac OS doesn't, since app files are really containers for all the components (except preference files). This can be really hard for Windows users to believe, but you can just throw the app in the trash. That's it. Why on earth would Apple want to copy Windows in this respect? That would be a huge step backwards.
So I would not ask Apple to court switchers by runing some of the nicer parts of the Mac experience by making them more Windows-like.
"right now there is no sub 6 lb. Apple laptop . . . Too bad"
Try doing some research before making claims like that. The 15-inch MacBook Pro weighs 5.6 lbs. Besides, your counterexample has only a 12-inch screen. It's not really fair to compare its weight vs. that of a 17-inch machine and then call the latter "porky."
Why is this modded insightful? I think it would have to show some insight. Instead, we get a t-shirt analogy that reveals simplistic logic rather than insight.
The poster's assumption is that all machines with Intel guts are identical, like the frabric of the t-shirt. Just slap on a case, or label in the case of the t-shirt, and ship it out. Obviously, that is not true. Manufactures make all kinds of component and design decisions that affect the quality of the product. Case construction varies greatly, as does screen quality, keyboard quality, and so forth. To pretend that these component decisions mean nothing is silly. If all machines were identical, there would be little or no variance across brands in terms of failure rates, but every study out there shows that variance does exist. Take the recent Consumer Reports reader suveys with a sample size of 134,000 machines. Over 20% of Gateway desktop machines had serious problems. In contrast, only 11% of Apple desktop machines did. The second best was Sony with 14%. Dell had 16%. Did those Gateway buyers really do themselvs a favor by getting a cheaper product?
By the poster's logic, an Intel Core Duo laptop is the same, regardless of which manufacturer it comes from. Apple's MacBook Pro weighs 5.6 pounds and is 1 inch thick. HP's dv5000t can be had for less money, but it is 16% heavier and 38% thicker. If the engineering required to make this happen is trivial, why don't all manufacters do it? For that matter, why are most PC's so ugly? Price. Manufactures cut corners where they can. This is not a t-shirt after all.
Manufacturers are smart. They know people buying technology love to look at numbers. Intel spent years emphasizing megahertz for a reason. Typically, we compare chip speeds, hard drive size, amount of RAM, etc. So, manufacturers oblige us by pumping up the commonly used specs and cutting costs elsewhere. Things like screen quality, weight, keyboard quality, quality of power supplies, and case strength are more likely overlooked by consumers. We may not see it up front, but over the life of the computer these cost-cutting decisions take their toll.
To put this in perspective, Firefox is a great browser and it's free. Yet, only 10% of web usage is done through Firefox. Additionally, a very high percentage of people don't even upgrade to the most recent version of Windows. They just use whatever came on their computer.
Realistically, then, what percentage of people would pay $200 to put Mac OS X on their Dell or other non-Apple box? My guess is not that many.
This article is just one of many that makes the mistaken assumption that a device with more features, in this case a phone that does nearly everything, is superior to one that has fewer features but does them well.
:MK5-2A player has an integrated FM tuner and takes voice notes?" The assumption is that the quality of product is in the sum of its features, regardless of the fact the addition of these features usually increases the complexity, and reduces the usability, of the device.
t icle%20-%20Feature%20Fatigue.pdf
We see this argument frequently from iPod competitors, who contend that their device is better because it has X feature, while the iPod does not. "Why would anyone buy an iPod when the
Recent research explains why we see this feature creep. In an article called, "Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing," researchers found that consumers responded to sales pitches that emphasized the number of different features. Features, in short, are good marketing. The addition of more features, however, often leads to a less usable product. In this study, once the consumers had a chance to actually use the products for a while and were asked to re-evaluate their purchase, they tended to choose a simpler product with fewer features.
Here is a relevant paragraph from the article: "Consumers can now purchase a single product that functions as a cell phone, game console, calculator, text-messaging device, wireless Internet connection, personal digital assistant, digital camera, MP3player, and global positioning system. However, although purchasing this highly complex product may give the consumer bragging rights, each function the consumer does not actually use adds to the difficulty of learning to use the product without providing any functional benefit."
This research helps explain why the iPod generates such high levels of customer satisfaction. Apple's excellent marketing, and word of mouth from happy iPod users, overcomes the arguments of competitors that the iPod lacks features. Once people own an iPod, they are not overwhelmed by its complexity. It does what they really want and does it well. This is what separates Apple from most consumer electronics companies.
My cell phone is not an mp3 player. It can't even take grainy photos. It makes and receives calls quite well, on the other hand, and the battery life is good. I like it!
The study I cite is here:
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/marketing/pdfs_docs/Ar
If you are so sure they said it would be impossible, then tell us where did they said it.
The parent message is referring to well-reported statements by Apple's Jobs and Schiller, who both said Apple would do nothing to prevent people from running Windows on Intel-based Macs. See this link: http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5733756-2.html
As the article states, Schiller's words were, "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will. We won't do anything to preclude that."
Critics of the iPod consistently cite marketing as the number one reason for its success. Granted, Apple is very good at marketing, and iPod ads are all over the place, but if it is mostly marketing then why can't anyone else hire equally good ad agencies and grab a big chunk of market share?
The most important factor is that no one else has the whole system (player, software, music store) working as seamlessly as Apple does. Apple has also been aggressive at bringing integration of things like podcasts and, now, video. It works well, and that leads to satified customers, who then become effective marketers for the device. So, yes, people see iPod ads, but endorsements from friends are far more influential.
I remember two years ago reading commentary by some "technology analyst" who argued that Apple's share of the mp3 player market would soon be about the same percentage as its share of the computer market. Wish I could still find the article; it would be fun to see again. Instead, Apple has only increased its market share since then. There have been plenty of opportunities for competitors to use marketing, and larger distribution channels, to stop this from happening. It is not Apple's marketing, for instance, that made Sony completely inept at producing a competitive product. Likewise, Dell did not turn its prowess at low-margin mass-production into making an mp3 powerhouse. Walmart did not, as some predicted, turn its music download store into a dominant player. There is more to all this than marketing.
How many iPod killers have we seen? None of them know how to run an advertising campaign?
I think rental services is a more accurate term as it makes clear exactly what is happening. When you rent, you don't get to keep the product unless you keep forking over the dough.
"Man, if this were a windows box, I assure you that 99% of the the post would be slamming MS w/o a second thought."
If it were a Windows box that were hacked by someone who was given an ssh account on the machine, nobody would be surprised, for one thing. The Windows defenders would be arguing, just like Mac users here, that such a setup does not represent anything like what the average person will use, and they would be right.
Right, because Gateway or Dell users are so much more technologically sophisticated than Apple users.
I realize that personal experieces and anecdotes form powerful opinions for particular individuals, but there are multiple customer satisfaction surveys that show Apple at the top. Here's another one from the American Customer Satisfaction Index Survey at the University of Michigan Business School: http://www.theacsi.org/second_quarter.htm
So, yes, some people have bad experience with Apple tech support, but the proportion of Apple customers with bad experiences is lower than with other companies. If you want to see some other unhappy folks, trying visiting: http://www.ihatedell.net/
It really depends upon how long it takes for these services to become Expresscard-compatible. The lack of cards right now surely has more to do with consumer demand rather than technology. It will happen eventually, and perhaps sooner rather than later with manufacturers like Apple using the technology.
Apple has often been on the early side of adopting new interfaces, such as with USB. It has also been on the early side of getting rid of older technology, such as floppy drives. A friend of mine once told me how stupid it was that for Apple to not have a floppy drive in the first iMac. Well, it's true that at the time this caused a problem for some people, but the idea was that the internet would replace the floppy for file transport. Today, in the era of USB drives, nobody cares. The point is that the transition to new, improved technology has to happen sometime. Apple is on the early side, but that doesn't mean the company has "lobotimized" the computer. Others will follow and soon everyone will be doing it.
I am no engineer, so take this a conjecture. My guess is that a build-to-order option is not very feasible financially for something of this kind. It would require a different motherboard, no? Perhaps a different case as well? Correct me if I am wrong, but it's not like installing a higher-capacity hard drive or more memory.
So, Apple took a risk at being an early adopter of this technology. That will surely cost some sales to people who absolutely need PCMIA right now, but others might be attracted to MacBook precisely because of the newer tech.