Is there no larger contingent of armchair corporate CEOs than Apple fanatics? Let's examine the so-called wealth of opinion out there and see how it measures up.
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Apple is absolutely a business, and its most important responsibility is to the shareholders.
However, this doesn't mean this analysis is correct. I strongly disagree that "iCheap" would be a bad policy, and there are many rewards to be reaped by a larger user base.
In fact, in one form or another I partly or totally disagree with almost all of these points, and still from the very same perspective: Apple is a business with a responsibility to the shareholders.
I agree with it all, It seems more and more people want something with high quality yet want that high end product to be free, or at low quality level prices.
While this is good in theory it just doesnt work to sustain a company over long period of time due to fluctuations in the economy.
That's an old Myth.
It's NOT true.
Each Cloner was paying a license to Apple. Each Cloner through it's sales was expanding the Macintosh Market. Apple's Marketshare EXPANDED when they had Licensed cloners.
Why they were shut down, was because they were eating Apple's Lunch.
They were producing BETTER Macs, cheaper.
After shutting down the last cloner, Motorola. It took Apple over a year to produce a Power Mac that beat the performance of the High End Power Towers and StarMax systems.
This was NOT about Money. Apple was making money on EVERY sale of a clone, and not incurring ANY cost.
And making more money as the expanded base bought MacOS Upgrades. My Power Computing PowerCenter 132 came with MacOS 7.5.2, I bought MacOS 7.6 through 9.0 for it as they came out.
Apple made money every time.
And if that computer could run MacOS X, I'd have bought a copy of THAT for it too.
Microsoft is NOT a Computer Company, and they are the pretty darn successfull, with decent margins.
Apple has never learned the Free Market adage of making less profits on MORE unit sales. They prefer to have high margins on low unit sales. OK.
Just don't lie and say clones were killing Apple.
Apple was killing Apple by not licensing back their better Power Mac Designs, or competing with the cloners on the open market.
Their idea of winning the competition was sinking all the competitors by pulling their license.
We have less advanced Macs than we might have, thanks to that.
Cloners would have pushed Motorola and IBM (not to mention that Processor Company Apple bought shares in and shut down), to come out with faster processors.
We might easily have PPC Chips as fast as Intel, if we had manufacturers to sell them, and push for their development.
That processor company was Exponential, and I'm an Apple Stock Holder.
I agree with you Phuqker. Last year I wrote this: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4037 and I still believe that it might be a good idea to use an off-shoot spin-off company to deliver cheap "Mac-like" PCs with OSX for the masses (with updated specs of course, that article is a year old). Kinda like bringing back the "clones", however under a very pre-defined and Apple-driven company, taking decisions that wouldn't put the higher end Apple products in danger.
Here are updated specs for that last year's article:
Low End
1 GHz G4 + 128 KB cache (that's the new G3 with the G4 instructions)
256 MB SDRAM PC2700
32 MB ATi Radeon 7500 AGP 2X
30 GB ATA-100 Maxtor disk
2 USB 2.0 + 1 USB 1.0 on keyboard
1 FW 400
USB keyboard, USB optical mouse with wheel and 2 buttons
built-in stereo speakers, line in, line out, mic, onboard audio
24x-dvd/cdrw (combo drive)
56k modem
ethernet
2 free PCI slots, 1 occupied AGP
slot for airport extreme
US $299
Higher End:
1 GHz G4 + 256 KB cache (that's the new G3 with the G4 instructions)
256 MB SDRAM PC2700
32 MB GeForce4-MX AGP 2X
40 GB ATA-100 Maxtor disk
2 USB 2.0 + 1 USB 1.0 on keyboard
1 FW 400, 1 FW 800
USB keyboard, USB optical mouse with wheel and 2 buttons
builtin stereo speakers, line in, line out, mic, onboard audio
32x-cdrw-dvd (combo drive)
56k modem
ethernet
2 free PCI slots, 1 occupied AGP
built-in WiFi/Bluetooth antenna + slot for airport extreme
US $399
I had the impression, after discussions here and there, that it was mainly PC users who were dying for these things.
You have any links or prooof of these claims, or should i just take your word for it?
I am curious how you think that Apple could make money selling such a system when other companies are losing money selling computers with the same configuration but at a higher price?
Have you looked at what you can get from Dell or HP for $399? It's pretty much nothing.
Well mostly, you stated the obvious truth but the comments you make sound more like a non Mac users. Most Mac users defend the price of the hardware and usually state that the yearly updates are well worth the money (which they are).
You misunderstood. You didn't read the article that I link. These "PCs" would NOT be by Apple, they would be by a spin off company under the supervision of Apple. And they WON'T be Dell/Apple-quality, they would be white box PCs pretty much, but just with a bit of polish. That article was written last year when the Switch campaign was on its forte. It was suggestion on how to get more PC users to switch.
Please use the right subject line when replying.
iCheap would mean a bigger market share, not necessarily a bigger revenue for Apple because of the lower margins. Market share is more important in the long term, bigger revenue on the short term.
I hope Apple will also think in the long term if it wants to attract cocoa developers.
I don't agree on the Fairplay issue. If Apple's goal is to sell more iPods surely having more music available would be good for them, no? And since they have publicly stated that they lose money on every song sold through iTunes, why not let Real incur some of that cost? The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't want to do this is that they feel that Real's service is not up to the Apple standards.
That's precisely what we do best: minding other peoples' business.
"This is what Arsenal / the Labour Party / Apple / your sister should do."
It's a sign that a lot of people care, which can only be good.
IMO lots of non-Mac people are vocal with their Apple-advice too, so it's not fair pointing your finger at the Mac lovers only.
Apple can build an OS that can compete in both server and desktops, using linux 2.6. There are a lot of demand for this outside USA.
Along with this:
Cheap IA32 machines, to compete with Dell/HP.
Powerfull IA64 servers, including aplications servers.
Apple Softwares.
Apple can take 95%, if not more, of linux market. Just take a look at their server and compare it with both Red Hat and SUSE. If I had an Apple Linux, with all their easy to use tools and great desktop, running on pc hardware, that's what I would recommend to our customers/clients. If I had to replace an old server, well, I would put an Apple at first place. They would loose to Dell/HP just if the price was too high.
They have the chance now, they have Unix expertise, they have Aqua, they have de development tools, they have a lot of good apps and they have the muscle to do that. If they want to recover the market share they had once, the time is now.
If they do nothing or refuses to do that, well, I think that they will be in troble. In one side you have Microsoft, the almighty of computing. At another corner you will find linux, growing fast. And when you talk about hardware, outside USA (mainly in development countries), Mac hardware if virtually unknow.
Apple has nice computers and software that have failed in the market.
Apple has nice media toys that have been a stunning success in the market.
In the future they will be making more of one and less of the other. You figure it out. You do not need a Mac to use the iPod. That should be your first clue as to where they are headed.
Jobs sees the writing on the wall - digital media, not computer hardware. Think about it - what is his other job?
Mac fans will soon join the ranks of Amiga and Be oddballs, clining to "what coulda been".
...and I'm sure lots of others do too. Apple has to change their luxury PC strategy because their market share is slipping fast. A cheap, headless eMac priced between $499-$599 would be an excellent way to increase their userbase, and therefore increase OSX upgrade sales, iSight sales, .mac subscriptions, iPod sales, Pro Suite software sales, Apple monitor sales, etc. They have to start thinking about their hardware kind of like digital satellite providers and cell phone providers and game consoles and printer manufacturers do; razor-thin margins (sometimes even a loss) on the hardware in order to sell add-ons and services.
That's my armchair CEO advice for the day.
And why would Apple go in for this? What immediate advantage would Apple get for using linux over darwin?
not only that, but it is possible to cut costs and pass those savings to consumers by using generic parts
imagine what it would cost to build a clone Mac with a motherboard in generic ATX form factor, generic ATX case, ATX PSU, socket 370/athlon heatsink and fan, with 7 PCI slots, generic USB peripherals like keyboard and mouse?
but boots OS X, royalties paid to Apple.
apple would still get $ for the OS X sold on it (and moto and ibm for the powerpc sold on it).
i don't think anyone remembers it now, but i do remember there was a company attempting to introduce POWERPC 603 at super fast speeds for the time -- and cloners were willing to buy it but apple closed the cloners.
Some of us don't care for sugar coated cases.
if Palm could split to hardware and OS it's too bad Apple didn't follow suit.
NO ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT HP/COMPAQ IBM and EMACHINES would sell AMD processors.
maybe today first tiers like Dell, IBM, Emachines, etc. would be offering Mac clones
> Apple can build an OS that can compete in both server and desktops, using linux 2.6.
No thanks.
Eugenia, So you are referring sub-brand spinoffs like Dimension by Dell and IBM's Ambra line.
That model has a proven track record for failure. Dimension was reabsorbed back into Dell and name was used for their consumer model. IBM completely axed the Ambra company and I believe they laid everyone off.
I certainly hope Apple doesn't go down that road.
"Is there no larger contingent of armchair corporate CEOs than Apple fanatics?"
Yes, Apple haters and wannabees.
1. iCheap -- People who are too cheap or too poor to buy a Mac.
2. Licensing FairPlay -- people who claim the iPod is too expensive or no good but still want the power of the iPod, iTMS, and iTunes
3. OS Upgrades -- this complaint I hear most frequently from PC users who have no clue. They think XP is significantly different than 2000 but that Jaguar and Panther are just Service Packs. They think we are charged for security updates, that updates are always restricted to new versions, that we are forced to upgrade, etc...
Basically, this article is crap. You act as if you've come up with some new angle on preaching what Apple should or should not do... when really this is a thinly-veiled and poor rationalization for being an armchair CEO yourself. What's the point?
From: Joerlei P. Lima
And when you talk about hardware, outside USA (mainly in developing countries), Mac hardware is virtually unknown.
It's probably not unknown. However, in a lot of countries outside the U.S., the cost of purchasing a Mac - once exchange rate *and* reasonable overheads are factored in - is many hundreds of $ extra. Whether it's reasonable profit or not is beside the point, in that rather than doing up a PC with the same specs and getting a similar price, the PC ends up costing less - sometimes a lot less.
Now despite that, Apple makes a fair % of their revenue on international (outside U.S.) sales. Which shows that Apple is a U.S. company with U.S. centric issues. Their units around the globe only have a small amount of latitude to market and distribute Apple's products differently than in the U.S., which is likely a big factor in their continuing lack of success. This is changing, but too slowly.
This armchair's comfortable...
Apple's overall OS market share took a dive as part of the incredibly poor quality of the clones. The only one that came close to having decent systems was Power... and even those systems were horrible. We tried them instead of Macs from Apple and they were a constant source of crashes and bombs.
Apple's computers from the same period were very stable in contrast.
The clone debacle was just that. Licensing fees aside Apple was and is FAR better off without them.
> incredibly poor quality of the clones.
That's why my suggestion is about an Apple-derived company, directed by Apple and helped by Apple engineering.
computers. they are already on the verge of being relegated to a niche machine. 1.8% of current sales worldwide is niche.
10.1 was not free unless you met certain circumstances.
Apple did not provide it for download free. You had to pay 19.99 to order a cd or some select retailers got a limited distribuition of discs they could give out for free.
that did not help folks living in areas with no access to a store that had them...or the folks that made it to a store after they ran out of the free copies.
For a minute there I thought you were Joking!
The Linux Kernal is great because it is GPL, it supports lots of hardware, and is free, but for apple to dump Mach in favour of Linux would be suicide. Mach/Darwin provide an integrated MicroKernal for OSX, while Linux is a Monolithic Kernal with Modular Drivers. I know what I'd prefer.
If Apple really did want to head down the GPL path, they'd be much better starting with HURD, since it is closer to Mach than Linux and can be scultured in a way that Apple Requires simply because it is less Mature than Linux.
But why would they want to head down the GPL path anyway? Darwin with Mach is OpenSource, and although the Licence is more Proprietory than BSD or GPL, it still garners development and improvement from the OpenSource community.
Most of the Linux Market is the domain of System Operators who want a reliable system that They have complete control over. A company like Apple would not only not be accepted, they would be completely rejected, except for a few "Linux for the Desktop" Groupies.
Also the whole OpenSource Philosophy is "Diversity". Without Diversity the OpenSource Movement would stagnate to such a degree that people would stop upgrading thier computers and the whole industry would colapse; just like what Microsoft is Heading towards.
Apple is doing a classic shift to a high-end niche market in response to the rising quality of commodity products.
they have clearly taken the decision that they will not compete with low-end vendors (i think Steve Jobs said this in a conference call recently), so where can they go?
come on, this is old buisness school stuff: when commodity products improve, the high-end products must shift themselves up-market to maintain a differentiation.
this is why it was so important for Apple to trumpet things like 64-bit computers. they help them move higher up and further apart from those less expensive (but pretty darn good) Dells.
when Dells go 64-bits, Apple will have to think of somethign else to move up-market again. etc. it is neverending.
the problem (read "The Innovator's Dilemma") is traditionaly that consumers will stop moving upward with the high end vendor. they'll switch down to something that is still cheap, and has gotten pretty darn good.
even today ... how many choose Dells and how many choose a dual G5?
"computers. they are already on the verge of being relegated to a niche machine. 1.8% of current sales worldwide is niche."
In this regard, you are speaking off them as strictly a hardware manufacturer, yes?
1.8% worldwide is not niche. It is sixth place. Dell and HP lead. IBM, Gateway-eMachines, and Toshiba follow. Then Apple. Everyone besides Dell adn HP are in single digits for marketshare %. And all other vendors are in the fractions of a percent.
"10.1 was not free unless you met certain circumstances."
Yeah, if you owned 10.0. Oooh... what horrible requirements. Did you expect it to be free if you hadn't bought 10.0?
"Apple did not provide it for download free. You had to pay 19.99 to order a cd or some select retailers got a limited distribuition of discs they could give out for free.
that did not help folks living in areas with no access to a store that had them...or the folks that made it to a store after they ran out of the free copies."
What are you blabbering about? Something from almost 3 years ago that was very equitable is going to kill Apple's future? Whatever.
Why would people be even interested in using this? Most people would discard a linux-based x86 MacOS as being incompatible with Windows straight away, and ignore it. And among linux users, there's plenty of people who actually believe in the whole open source philosophy, who wouldn't touch it. Then there's people like myself who despise Apple's application-based GUI (with shared menu bar, etc), who wouldn't touch it with a forty foot pole. I'm perfectly happy with my Debian linux system - I've got all the software I want or need, I've got a fast, powerful, customizable desktop, and I've got it all for zero cost. Now Tell me what advantage paying a few hundred dollars per year in updates would provide to me, or any other linux user out there, compared to what we've got now.
Well, in many ways I agree with him on the various topics but this one i have a problem with. This icheap thing needs to be split into two seperate things, because their is 2 seperate issues here.
A large group just wants a headless imac (a new cube if you will). A basic computer like the imac or emac without a monitor. The arn't looking for it to be massively cheap. Something in the 750-1000 dollar range, same as a current emac or above, just no monitor, they arn't shooting for it to cost less. It's just that the monitor with it is a huge negitive, especialy with the emac.
The other side is those who want the cheap mac. This would be similar to above but insanely cheap. I support the computer above (miniPowermac) but not so much the cheap computer. Apple like you say is a business. Though this is why it would make so much sense for either. Those who are the armchair types like he was talking of, those who are the elitest mentality, don't want to see either. From a business standpoint you cannot argue against it. A dip in sales from your other product for a massive growth in another is worth it. Also as was hinted by the author apple has said they want to hit 5% in sales. Such a model is the only way to achive that. Also he some how brought the clones into this which had nothing to do with it. Apple is still making them. The only reason why the clones hurt them is because they were not making money on hardware, which after all is what apple is, a hardware company.
At any rate you should not mix those who want a headless imac with those who want a cheap mac, because though often the same they are very much not the same group.
The rest of his comments where solid.
"Fortunately, this baby is doing just fine, thank you. Having made it through the recession as the only computer company (along with Dell) to turn a profit"
how can one write such patently false material.
one, dell and apple are not just computer companies: they are retailers that sell software from third parties, they sell services, they sell entertainment devices, they run stores, etc etc etc...in addition to making and selling computers.
so, of all the major corporations that sell computers as a major element of their business, only those two made a profit during some recession that the writer refers to.
the recession in japan? the tech downturn after the massively inflated spending that led up to the Millenium? be clearer please.
profit? as in yearly profits? quarterly profits?
so the writer is a thorough industry analyst that is telling us that the following have not had profit "during" some recession...(I presume recently):
IBM: wrong they have had profits
Fujitsu
HP
Siemens
Acer
Toshiba
Panasonic
Emachines
Abspc.com
Polywell
Unisys
the point is there are many computer companies that made a profit in most of the quarters in recent years.
Dont spread distortions.
Your peevishness is so telling.
This comment is frequently made and frequently udnerstood by most everyone but you. Why?
To clear up your questions: US recession of course. Retaling software and services has nothing to do with it. Yes, we are talking major players.
At the time (we have gotten past the recession you realize), eMachines was both unprofitable and not major. Unisys is not a PC manfuaturer, they are a systems integrator. Panasonic is not a PC manufacturer, they are a consumer electronics company, etc...
The point you are missing is that in the past decade when everyone has been predicting Apple's demise, we have seen tens of PC manufacturers come and go.... We are getting down to just 4 of them soon...
actually yes,
"What are you blabbering about? Something from almost 3 years ago that was very equitable is going to kill Apple's future? Whatever."
it already has (along with many other bad moves).
there has been much discussion over recent years about the cost of going to OS X. For a classic mac os user, you had to pay to get the beta....apple did not provide it free.
if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid.
you have paid each year to get updates.
you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x.
you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues.
you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x...especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc.
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
not, major? Emachines sells more machines than Apple.
When exactly was this recession you speak of? Please provide a beginning and end date.
And all of the things that apple does matters: in fact if Apple did nothing but collect investment returns on their 4 billion dollar hoard of cash they would make more profit than they have been in recent years from all of their other operations combined. the fact is they have many divisions that are losing money...Macs now being the main one most likely. they need that cash/investments just to cover other losses.
ipods saved apple this previous quarter, not mac sales.
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
You obviously know nothing about marketshare. Apple could sell the amount of computers year over year and if the computer market swells without them getting much of the increase, then their own marketshare goes down because of it. This has no affect on their actual installed userbase. Apple has maintained a 3 million plus in Macs sold year to year these last few years. The Apple Stores have claimed that %50 of their sales go to new (previous Windows) users. So I would venture to say that the Switch campaign worked out as planned.
The Windows marketshare will fall to that of Linux in the end. Consumers always go for the cheapest alternative and Linux is "good enough" for daily computer use today!
Jobs during the last shareholdes meeting says clearly that the concept of a cheap portable computer for Apple is stupid, so they develop iPod.
Than, Apple already has an iCheap product: iPod, that it sells better than what f***ing portable computer and/or digital media player of other companies.
The primary differect between Apple and any other computer companies is this: JOBS IS A GENIUS! :-D Nothing more, nothing less. Not Carly Fiorina, not Michael Dell (bleah...).. Bill Gates in any way. :-)
The only thing that other companies (and their users, like you) is a GREAT ENVY! Big smacks for all! :-*
PS Yes, I'm a Mac Zealot with a new VERY CHEAP iBook 12"! :-D
Actually you are quite wrong.
Apple sold more macs in 1999 than they did in 2003.
their volume is going down in macs as well as their share of the overall market.
"Apple has maintained a 3 million plus in Macs sold year to year these last few years. The Apple Stores have claimed that %50 of their sales go to new (previous Windows) users."
actually, those two things together seem to say that people are leaving the platform about as fast as they arrive (to maintain the recent 3m rate, down from the highs of iirc 4.5m).
i think it is likely that they are trading users at this point. value shoppers have probably gone to dells, and some new affluent buyers have arrived to might the high-end products.
but this niche will have to move too. combine a slightly better linux (or 64 bit windows) with a slightly faster opteron and the G5 stops looking so extreme.
it might become a bit of history repeating itself, as apple waits for the g6 to move them upmarket again ... or?
i wonder what happens when the pc side gets fast, cheap, and supported 64-bit machines ....
@Author: YES, I AGREE APPLE IS BUSSINES
Conclusions:) (:as from NOT Apple loving person:)
1. Apple customers agree to buy broken product more than once.
Apple releases OSX versions in very quick fashion. 10.0 and 10.1 never worked as it should (And the only way to fix them is upgrading to new major release, where software you used is found likely to be incompatible). But Apple still charges for new release (???$). Cycle of upgrade is shorter than one year.
2. Apple customers are still thinking that Apple is open source, I for once agree with the author: APPLE IS BUSSINES
No, it's not. The only things Apple made open sourced are Darwin (should be PC compatible, but supporting only few very old and obscure PC hardware, chances you find compatible machine are close to 0%) and Quicktime Streaming server (which I once even thought to use but as I was reading license I stoped at 1/4 where license become even more ****ed up than M$ EULA), and few parts of contributions to KHTML, which I still think were the parts that they felt that they will make their life easier with using base KHTML in future
They haven't opensourced Aqua, Quicktime (sorensen) or any patented technology (nor should they, at least I compliment them for that, that fact really makes me happy).
Sooo, is Apple even a little OSS-friendly? Hell, no. Not even a bit more than in times of OS9.
3. I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected
Apple users probably think that Apple cares about them. Face it, author said it,...
That story made me laugh. Thanks:)
I don't know what author expected going into company. Cake and cookies maybe, along with a nice chat with mr. Jobs???
4. iCheap?:)
Yeah, and what it will run? Probably not OS9 (This one is now OS DEAD). OSX is still dog slow on machines with specified characteristics. That would make very bad publicity for Apple, there's a little life fact that says that people mostly buy cheapest. Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)
But then again, wait year or two when current G5 is outdated (and including the fact that it would be decent to run OSX version being current in that time). iCheap would be possible.
---------
This is just a little rant from a ex-longtime Mac customer, who is now happy (or Macless) and very amused with such logic as it was shown here
btw. Apple made more patent and other legal confusion than any other company (M$ included).
"Jobs during the last shareholdes meeting says clearly that the concept of a cheap portable computer for Apple is stupid, so they develop iPod. "
wouldn't that be the iBook? for a cheap portable computer.
I don't think anyone is connecting cheap and portable together for something they are looking for. If it's a desktop it stays on the desk, if it's a laptop it moves around. Is there some group planning lan parties with macs or something?
I would agree with Jobs that a cheap portable computer would be stupid, but no one has asked for one far as I know. Cheap computers yes (some have asked). Lesser function computers yes. Portable, well they have laptops. Though a iBook hooked into a real monitor and keyboard might make a nice slim computer.
"if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid."
No, I got it free. CompUSA and every Mac reseller in my area were burning dics.
"you have paid each year to get updates."
No, I haven't. I didn't pay for 10.1 and I haven't paid for 10.3 yet.
"you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x."
No, I didn't. I abandoned anything pre-G3 way before OS X. I still run OS X on a 400 MHz iMac DV edition by the way.
"you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues."
No, I didn't. I have slowly bought new applications as I felt they were worth upgrading for. Otherwise, I ran alternatives that were free, used Classic which I never experienced major problems with, or I rebooted into 9.
"you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x...especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc."
No, I didn't. SCSI was abandoned long before OS X, buddy. Even with 10.0 the only device that I had that didn't run properly was a FW CD burner. I bitched at the manufacturer and 3 months later, they had a driver. When 10.1 was released, the OS included a better driver. I have 2 printers, a scanner, 2 external HDs, an external CD burner, and a few other peripherals by the way.
"Emachines sells more machines than Apple."
No sh!t, they just passed them this year. Where are you from? The recession was in 2000.
"And all of the things that apple does matters"
huh?
"in fact if Apple did nothing but collect investment returns on their 4 billion dollar hoard of cash they would make more profit than they have been in recent years from all of their other operations combined."
And? What's wrong with that? Although it's not true, but whatever...
"the fact is they have many divisions that are losing money...Macs now being the main one most likely. they need that cash/investments just to cover other losses."
What divisions are you speaking of? They don't have a "Macs" division. They don't have losses, right now, fool.
Actually you are quite wrong.
Apple sold more macs in 1999 than they did in 2003.
their volume is going down in macs as well as their share of the overall market.
Actually you're wrong. Apple has been pretty consistent (with the numbers on most of their product line shifting) selling anywhere from 700,000 to 800,000 units per quarter year over year. 1999 stands the fact of the iMac craze and nothing more. Look at the sales of iPods, they're phenomenal, but that too will subside eventually.
"1. Apple customers agree to buy broken product more than once."
Nope. Never broken for me. I research what I buy, I know what I buy, and I have been satisfied with everything I have purchased from Apple except that crappy LC back in '93.
"2. Apple customers are still thinking that Apple is open source, I for once agree with the author: APPLE IS BUSSINES"
Don't know what the hell you're talking about. I always knew that Apple wasn't open source and I accurately perceive the benefits/disadvantages of incorporating OSS into proprietary code.
(Do you even know what you are trying to talk about? You do know that Apple goes back to the seventies, right? That most Mac users didn't give a crap about OSS until 2000, right?)
"3. I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected"
I have never felt that Apple or Jobs have any feelings for me. They just happen to make the products I want, have the best philosophy, and I like them. I've never expected or felt they should feel anything in return.
Are you sure you aren't laughing at yourself? These views do not seem typical. They hardly seem stereotypical... hardly rational...
"OSX is still dog slow on machines with specified characteristics."
Nope. No problem running 10.3 on a 400 MHz G3 iMac. It keeps getting faster.
"there's a little life fact that says that people mostly buy cheapest"
No, cheap people buy cheapest. Smart people buy the right product for their needs.
"Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)"
What are you talking about? There is no proof of this. In fact, what proof there is suggests the oppostite -- frequently the highest end G4s sell out quiker than the low end, same for PBs, etc...
You don't seem to know Apple the company very well at all.
of course icheap is a bad idea!
the lower emac that business's looking to replace wintel boxes could consider is dirt cheap. the only place a cheap box would fit in would be the hacker at home
CompUSA and every Mac reseller in my area were burning dics.
???? 
:D:D Thanks, this is a good one.
I still run OS X on a 400 MHz iMac DV edition by the way.
To translate this in PC language. Yeah, my WinXP are running great on my Celeron 233.
SCSI was abandoned long before OS X
Yeah, right, tell that to the owners of those big Linotype-Hell scanners or those with having older (but not really old) green Protools (not free, those with hardware).
read apples own sec filings and you will see that their low end imacs and ibooks always outsell the pro models.
come on.
1999 with onboard scsi.
that was just a few months before the release of OS X and those mac models were supposed to be supported fully by os x.
apple was sued over this issue and settled to the favor of the other party.
i owned a beige g3 with scsi onboard and it never worked in os x.
Yes, CompUSA and Mac resellers WERE burning dics, buddy. If you missed out on it, that's not my problem.
You claimed current Apple hardware still could not run OS X properly, I told you that my Mac (which is the lowest supported device) runs it quite well. I could care less about what you run.
And I could careless if you bought an expensive Linotype scanner... That you've been stuck with for, what?, 15 years... That's your problem. However, Apple's hardware had abandoned SCSI well before OS X. Because the company making your ancient scanner couldn't produce a driver, that has nothign to do with the validity of my statement: SCSI was already deprecated in the Mac world by then.
So what is your point? That you have a personal issue. You claim this is no longer your issue, but all Apple users. I'm telling you: i don't have any of your issues and you still seem to cling to your's.
SO what?
They had already deprecated it? The drives were no longer SCSI. Yes, they cater to the graphics market... But anyone in the graphics had 5 years to consider moving away from SCSI peripherals.
people often go by the seat of their pants. they think that apple should (or should not) produce a low-end box without any hard numbers. people who don't trust apple tend to think apple is wrong (again) in not producing a low-end box, and people who trust apple take apple's very decisiion not to make a low-end box as proof that it would never work.
but what if ....
what if apple did some really good market surveys and discovered that the size of the mac market is just stable at 3m units a year?
the logical move then would be to shift those 3m units up market a little bit and make more money on each one. charge those committed few (it _is_ a business after all) just as much as they can bear.
those other folks aren't going to "switch" anyway, so lowering prices would just lower the bottom line.
(but that's just a what-if. i tend to think that the market is somewhat elastic, and that it would be possible to sell more low-end G4s without canibalizing high-end G5s)
imac bubble or not
in 1999 apple sold over 3.5 million macs
in 2003 they sold just over 3 million
http://www.macminute.com/2003/12/20/10k
"Mac sales declined 3% year-over-year to approximately 3 million units"
so they sold less than they did in 2002 as well.
all of this well past the recession of 2000 that someone mentioned.
mac sales are declining against their own historical norms and they are shrinking even faster against worldwide pc sales.
From: TheSeeker
there has been much discussion over recent years about the cost of going to OS X. For a classic mac os user, you had to pay to get the beta....apple did not provide it free.
The Mac OS X Public Beta (announced September 13th, 2000) cost US$29.95.
Now, while Mac OS X 10.0 was arguably beta quality, it was not released as a beta and cost US$129.00 for all users. That's an important distinction; I feel that 10.0 was beta quality as you do. But since it's not in my prerogative to make such decisions - because I don't work for Apple and Mac OS X is not my product - I'm not terribly upset about it.
So, had you bought both the Public Beta and then Mac OS X 10.0, your cumulative cost at this point is US$158.95.
if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid.
Mac OS X 10.1 shipped on September 25th, 2001. The US$19.95 was a blanket shipping + handling charge for those that didn't get free copies from a dealer (and ordered it online or over the 'phone). The issuing of free copies to dealers was not executed correctly by Apple, resulting in some dealers giving out all their copies within minutes of opening on the 25th... and others not getting any or getting pathetically low amounts.
That the upgrade was free - or essentially free - was seen, and still is seen, as an admission by Apple that Mac OS X 10.0 was not up to scratch.
Cumulative cost now US$178.90 (assuming that you paid to get the CD).
you have paid each year to get updates.
Incorrect. Apple has already made it clear they have perverted the accepted versioning system to preserve the 10.x major version number for as long as possible, for marketing reasons. As such the each 10.x revision is a new major update to the OS.
This standard was incidentally first set by Microsoft with Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0) and Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1). Now, they had upgrade pricing (which Apple has not had for Mac OS X major releases to date), but also, Windows (non-upgrade edition) costs somewhat more.
This perversion means that all "service packs" and other updates are point releases (10.x.y), which are free to download and always have been to date with Mac OS X.
Whether you're an individual or a business, you only upgrade because you want to upgrade, or because applications you need drive you to upgrade. There are happy 10.2.8 users out there that will likely continue to be happy for years, because they have no need to upgrade.
Cumulative cost - assuming you have bought 10.2 and 10.3 - is now US$436.90.
you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x.
This is despite reports of the large body of OS 9 users out there, that last I checked outnumbered OS X users.
"You paid in many cases to upgrade old PCs so that you could run Windows XP, and will do so again so you can run Windows Longhorn if the rumoured specifications are true."
It's easy to _say_ it, but...
you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues.
I have heard a quoted figure that 85% of OS 9 software runs in Classic with either no issues or only minor issues. Of course, the old adage applies here as a disclaimer: "lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Upgrading to carbonised - or even rewritten - versions of software for Mac OS X was an extra cost of upgrading - and a very significant one in professional software - in stark contrast to other platforms to date. However, since Mac OS X is a completely different operating system from Mac OS 9, I'm not sure how this could have been avoided.
you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x...especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc.
Can't argue with this one. A lot of support, even for non-legacy devices, went away in OS X and still hasn't come back. SCSI was a particularly sore point in Mac OS X until the latter 10.2.x releases, and even then it's not exactly improved back to 'OS 9 standards'.
Apple lost a number of customers - publicly - over this move. Hopefully a move that they will not repeat. But I'm cautious to watch MacFixIt for a little bit after a major OS update from Apple to know what I'm getting into...
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
You can disagree with me, but I believe that Apple's marketshare % will remain in the doldrums for the next few years, but then - provided they continue with their good work on Mac OS X, and depending on the state of Longhorn - will be able to increase it. Because with a few more years of work, Apple will finally be in a position to offer all their products competitively.
Of course, whether they _will_ increase it or not is another matter, and Apple have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory more than once before...
os x came out supporting g3 macs back to the beiges.
so you do not own the oldest mac supported (maybe for the current version of os x, panther 10.3...that i have lost track of).. 233mhz g3's were supposed to be fully supported by os x and apple told those buyers that when they bought in 1998 and 1999. it was untrue. apple implemented features like a dvd player and quartz extreme that left those users with the slowest os gui on the planet. and again, folks that bought big macs in 1998 and 1999 were told they would have support for scsi and did not get it.
they are abandoning apple because of it. i am one of them. i know many more personally. and market stats show the grand trends as well.
Apple is repeating the mistakes made by themselves and others before : they think they can create a market of their own on products that are becoming commodity very fast.
ipod is great little device but plenty of other devices do just the same thing : it plays music files. With more of this devices being released every month, iPod will eventually get real competition. There are plenty of designers out there and they don't all work for Apple.
For the moment Apple think it can become the MS of music distribution thanks to the ipod and the store ? They don't realise that the market is just one year old, that they are open to the US only and that similar services are being started everywhere, distributing the same thing. How long do you think it will take for Microsoft to offer compatibility with their format to everyone ? It's done already. What is going to happen to Apple market dominance ?
Also, what choice do you think the music industry will do ? Depend on one distributor only or multiple distributors that compete by compressing their margins ? That was an easy one. Remember, they own the content.
Furthermore, competition will also come from devices that apple won't be able to compete against like 3g(or wifi) phones, streaming flat fee (or ad funded) music stations, displaying album covers and allowing to order the tunes to dowload on the device or at home on the Windows PC. Apple will be on its own, fighting against a whole new market.
It's happened before to Apple itself but to others as well. Palm has escaped irrelevance by accepting that handspring and Sony (and others) compete with them, and Psion has done the same by escaping the device market (where they didn't license early enough) to the mobile OS market where they live essentially of license fees. Why ? because Microsoft has flatened their dominance by letting others do the device design work, making colour and high res screen happen faster than Psion and Palm could afford to do.
iPod is on a market where the current dominance will be impossible to maintain, especially if everybody else does the same around a different standard. Where is the differentiation ?
Apple faces a similar challenge on the PC market. Linux already offers to people like wallmart the sale arguments of "rock solid OS" and new announces of new linux preloaded makers are increasing in frequency, with the push that Linspire and others are making on the OEM market. But even if Linux doesn't happen, Windows alone will do it : it can now run in units that look like VCR or Hifi (thanks to Shuttle and others) and offers a range of hardware price levels that Apple will never be able to match, being on their own !
I use a Powerbook because it's a fine machine that didn't have matches (imho) a couple of years ago, but last time I got in a shop, there were plenty of laptops looking just as good, doing just the same, as similar prices, cheaper or more expensive.
Apple doesn't do such a good job for share holders because it's not creating the right conditions itself to be there for a long time. It will soon have to rely on a creative gamble to avert the effect of strong competition on all its markets. its making a lot of money now but also the same mistakes as during their golden age number one : there is nothing that they do that cannot be done by someone else.
what if you live in Burundi Northern Finland?
what about tens of millions of Americans that live in relatively rural areas without major retail stores around?
the closest store to me that sells apple products is about 90 miles away. a 180 mile drive roundtrip versus a free download? guess what i would pick? apple chose not to make the dl available free to save money to preserve shrinking profits.
right now anyone can go to ms site and download the full beta of windows xp 64 bit edition free. Free.
i can dl dozens of linux distros free.
apple did not provide me with a free 10.l upgrade. I had to pay 19.99 to order a cd to avoid a 180 mile drive.
Quit quibbling and dont buy all the marketing smoke and mirrors.
ipod is great little device but plenty of other devices do just the same thing : it plays music files. With more of this devices being released every month, iPod will eventually get real competition. There are plenty of designers out there and they don't all work for Apple.
For the moment Apple think it can become the MS of music distribution thanks to the ipod and the store ?
actually, i think they are ahead of you. i think they (steve jobs) know that they will lose control of the segment, and are just trying to maximize profit before they do.
the ipod (like the mac8375has become a cach cow, and they are milking it.
Sorry for another answer:)
Nope. Never broken for me. I research what I buy, I know what I buy, and I have been satisfied with everything I have purchased from Apple except that crappy LC back in '93.
So, nothing good after iMac 400DV. I see.
Don't know what the hell you're talking about. I always knew that Apple wasn't open source and I accurately perceive the benefits/disadvantages of incorporating OSS into proprietary code.
First, sorry if you felt offended. I was reffering of the most Mac users that appear on forums (they always argue about OSS). Author was the first one to point clearly the fact that APPLE IS BUSSINESS.
(Do you even know what you are trying to talk about? You do know that Apple goes back to the seventies, right? That most Mac users didn't give a crap about OSS until 2000, right?)
No, I was only there from Quadra to G4 (last models of them)
I have never felt that Apple or Jobs have any feelings for me. They just happen to make the products I want, have the best philosophy, and I like them. I've never expected or felt they should feel anything in return.
Sorry if you felt offended, ... again.
Again, most of the other mac crowd on forums do resemble this author.
Are you sure you aren't laughing at yourself? These views do not seem typical. They hardly seem stereotypical... hardly rational...
I'm a happy person, always laughing, but never to my self:)
Maybe ending of my message was not clear enough. Yes, I probably should include "my personal views"
Nope. No problem running 10.3 on a 400 MHz G3 iMac. It keeps getting faster.
:) If you're happy, I'm happy. I will just forget that Quartz needs some graphics hardware that your computer hasn't got. And the fact that Quartz powers the OSX.
p.s. I still work on Mac G4 Dual 1.25 OSX 10.3 (not mine, I realised that it comes cheaper to rent them for that little need, and I have success in avoiding most of the Mac related jobs), and I can say for sure. THAT G4 IS DOG SLOW.
But I believe you, your computer suits your needs.
No, cheap people buy cheapest. Smart people buy the right product for their needs.
What are you talking about? There is no proof of this. In fact, what proof there is suggests the oppostite -- frequently the highest end G4s sell out quiker than the low end, same for PBs, etc...
Hear, hear. That comes from a guy that bought iMac 400DV
errm,... well,... sec filings, most of the mac owning people I know.
You don't seem to know Apple the company very well at all.
Yes, I see I should ask expert as you. Being a Mac fan (like you) until I got burned pretty hard.
Unboard SCSI -- SO what?
You obviously don't know how costly this hardware is. And being left out of the time with such a money waste is preety hard for a person.
But you as the proud iMac 400DV owner with two printers, two FW harddrives and a scanner (you gotta have big table or are you hanging these peripherals on the wall:) WITHOUT LEGITIMATE OSX (beta, was sold as beta and if some retailer burned you a copy, well... it was illegal) would really have trouble to understand such little thing.
Apple doens't need a sub-$500.00 mac, they have the iPod. Let Dell and eMachines make the sub-$500.00 crap.
If market share is about selling low-end under-powered pc's, then let it be Windows based. Add in viruses associated with Windows, and the lack of fun multimedia software makes not worth it.
If you bought the DP for $29.99, you got 10.0 for $100 (they dropped the 29.99) so you need to recalculate a little.
As I said, the point remains, the article begins complaining about armchair CEOing and most of you are fully engrossed in it again. Retarded.
As I said, the point remains, the article begins complaining about armchair CEOing and most of you are fully engrossed in it again. Retarded.
some people watch football.
Apple sold the following in each year:
93 3.3 million
94 3.8 million
95 4.5 million
96 4.0 million
97 2.8 million
98 2.7 million
99 3.5 million
00 4.5 million
01 3.0 million
02 3.0 million
What does this tell us? Apple isn't dying off. They are preserving essentially the same sales but experience natural cycles in hardware and software which means that some year they will have sales spurts and others they will have shortfalls. However, these numbers do not indicate any decline.
i am not trying to run apple
i am commenting on history and trends.
i am not recommending any course of action.
apple is probably doing all it can to milk their name as long as they can.
fact remains they are out at sea in the Doldrums when it comes to a future in making hardware computers.
i sure hope they are working hard at porting their software to other platforms is all i would say.
>actually, i think they are ahead of you. i think they (steve jobs) know that
>they will lose control of the segment, and are just trying to maximize profit
>before they do.
>the ipod (like the mac8375has become a cach cow, and they are milking it.
Of course you are right. So they are even further down the curve. So either something really exciting comes out of their labs or they will soon find some use for their cash pile.
and in technology it certainly is.
in the same time frame Dell has moved to being $40 billion dollar company
MS was a $1 billion company in 1990 and is over $30 billion now.
to sell fewer Macs in 2003 (3 mil) than they did in 1993 before the internet revolution, is a pretty hard failure.
It makes Apple irrelevant in computing technology.
a steady decline from 2000 to now is not a cycle, it is a disturbing trend and the main reason Apple is doing all it can to rebrand itself into an entertainment company.
What does this tell us? Apple isn't dying off. They are preserving essentially the same sales but experience natural cycles in hardware and software which means that some year they will have sales spurts and others they will have shortfalls. However, these numbers do not indicate any decline.
fwiw, the average for the ten years you quote is 3.5m
so they are below their own ten year average, even now, with the strongest product (G5) that they've had in years. if this isn't a decline (as you say), and they are going to pop back up above 3.5m ... what is going to do it for them?
they've got everything an apple loyalist would say they need (a completed Mac OS X, cool lcd imacs, powerful g5s, competitive notebooks).
if you aren't going to try low-end headless macs, what are you going to do?
(i personally think they are accepting a slowly shrinking niche, as long as it lets them maintain high margins.)
how many people have bought macs because they were educated in school, high school, and college on macs?
if apple isn't in schools they will have what as a base left?
apples share in american schools is now below 15% and most of that is at the elementary school level.
so go off to 7th grade through high school and college and get a job and buy a computer you are going to buy a mac like you used when you were 12 yrs old or are you going to buy the Windows PC you have used for the last 10 yrs?
keeping a stagnant sales volume has devastating real world implications.
"So, nothing good after iMac 400DV. I see."
Who said I haven't purchased anything since? I named my low end system, presumptious one.
"First, sorry if you felt offended."
Don't know why you think I'm offended. I just think you're wrong. Could care less.
"I was reffering of the most Mac users that appear on forums (they always argue about OSS)."
Still I don't think it apples, even if you aren't referring to me. Most Mac users don't care. They may add it as a benefit, but they still rationalize udnerstand the mixture of proprietary and OS.
"Author was the first one to point clearly the fact that APPLE IS BUSSINESS."
So what? It's not relevent to my critiques of your comments.
"No, I was only there from Quadra to G4 (last models of them)"
Right, which is way before any OSS, so why do you think most Mac users consider it the second most important argument?
"Sorry if you felt offended, ... again."
Again, not offended. Why do you think my disagreeing with you belies that I am offended.
"Again, most of the other mac crowd on forums do resemble this author."
Baloney. Ask Mac users if they think Jobs and Apple owe them something and they will provide the rational answer: NO.
"I'm a happy person, always laughing, but never to my self:)"
You don't sound happy
"I will just forget that Quartz needs some graphics hardware that your computer hasn't got. And the fact that Quartz powers the OSX."
Quartz doesn't power the computer, fool. Are you one of those people who just looks at looks? I have most graphic effects turned off.
"Hear, hear. That comes from a guy that bought iMac 400DV"
Now you are claiming I'm cheap because I bought an iMac in 97? You don't know sh!t. It's not my only machine. I purchased it so that a freelancer I was using at the time to support my graphic design studio could assist me. it was the right machien for the job, clueless one. And it still serves well for basic needs.
"errm,... well,... sec filings, most of the mac owning people I know."
SEC filings have never broken out individual models of Powerbooks, iBooks, and PMs so you are simply lying. What we do know is via availability reports and such... adn it's usually the high end which is less available.
"You obviously don't know how costly this hardware is. And being left out of the time with such a money waste is preety hard for a person."
I do know exactly how costly it was. I was advising for/against, laughing at, and bewildered by some of the ludicrous hardware fellow graphic designers were buying in the mid to late 90s. Sorry you don't know how to purchase well.
"But you as the proud iMac 400DV owner with two printers, two FW harddrives and a scanner (you gotta have big table or are you hanging these peripherals on the wall:) WITHOUT LEGITIMATE OSX (beta, was sold as beta and if some retailer burned you a copy, well... it was illegal) would really have trouble to understand such little thing."
That's JUST what I've got on the iMac. I have 2 G4s and a PB too. No, it was not illegal buddy. You simply showed up with a blank CD and proof of purchase and they happily burned it.
why call people fools when you claim to have bought a iMac 400DV in 1997? imacs werent even made in 1997, much less a 400mhz dv version.
sec filings from apple do break it out into
powerbooks
ibooks
imacs and emacs
powermacs
so wrong again.
now who would be looking ****ish now?
For those of you who are saying Apple is dead because it sold a few more Macs in 1999 and 2000 than they did in 2003, I just have to wonder, do you follow the economy at all? Consumer spending is down in all industries since those heady "it's a new economy!" days. The American economy sucks right now.
"to sell fewer Macs in 2003 (3 mil) than they did in 1993 before the internet revolution, is a pretty hard failure."
So now you are abandoning the declining market theory, I see....
"It makes Apple irrelevant in computing technology."
That's a funny one. Please poll anyone and tell me how many people agree that Apple is irrelevent in computer technology.
"a steady decline from 2000 to now is not a cycle, it is a disturbing trend and the main reason Apple is doing all it can to rebrand itself into an entertainment company."
Hup, spoke to soon... the decline theory returns! Baloney! It is a normal cycle. It's actually quite conformant with 3 years up, 3 years down, 3 years up...
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/04/14/unitsales/?lsrc=mcrs...
"iPods up, Power Macs down
iPods continued to represent a huge success for Apple, both sequentially and year-over-year. Apple sold 807,000 iPods during its second quarter, 909 percent more than the same quarter a year ago and 10 percent more than it did during its last record-setting quarter. That provided a total of about $264 million in revenue for Apple.
Power Mac sales, which includes Power Mac G4s, Power Mac G5s and Xserve boxes, did not quite match expectations. Apple had hoped when the Power Mac G5 shipped last year that it would be able to sustain about 200,000 units sold per quarter -- they exited the quarter with 174,000 Power Mac units sold. Power Mac unit sales were up year-over-year by about 12 percent, although they dropped 19 percent sequentially. Apple attributes that low number, at least in part, to backlogged orders of the Xserve G5. If supply had not been constrained, it would have been closer to 190,000 units for the quarter, according to Apple -- about 5 percent off its 200,000 unit goal.
PowerBook sales totalled about 157,000 units -- $336 million all told. Forty-eight percent of the Macs Apple sold during the second quarter were portable units, between the PowerBook and iBook. Those PowerBook numbers did represent a 19 percent sequential drop, however, and a 5 percent year-over-year drop.
Consumer sales good and bad
Apple sold 217,000 iMacs and eMacs for the quarter, racking up about $252 million in revenue. That's down four percent from the holidays and off 15 percent year-to-year. Apple's hoping that its new eMac system -- updated with a host of faster components and an improved architecture -- will have a positive effect as the company begins to court the back-to-school market.
The iBook sold very strong for the quarter. Unit sales were flat sequentially, which is a victory, as calendar Q4 sales usually uptick with holiday and end-of-year shopping. That still translated into 201,000 iBooks sold for the quarter, worth about $223 million in revenue, up 51 percent year-over-year. Apple attributes the strong iBook market to continued demand for systems equipped with the PowerPC G4 processor.
Peripherals and other hardware not directly CPU-related contributed $272 million to Apple's top line revenue, while software -- Panther, iLife '04, and Apple's professional applications, including FileMaker -- totaled about $213 million in revenue.
Where in the world ... ?
Predictably, the Americas were where Apple saw the most units sold and revenue. Combining North and South American revenue figures, Apple made $881 million in that region with 361,000 units sold. That's a seven percent unit sales uptick compared to the same quarter a year ago, and a 29 percent revenue improvement over the same time last year.
Europe was Apple's second biggest regional market, moving 187,000 units and contributing $449 million to Apple's bottom line. Unit sales grew seven percent compared to the second quarter of 2003, with a 33 percent revenue improvement.
Japan continued to slide, however -- Apple sold 76,000 units in the region for the second quarter, worth about $173 million in sales. Sequentially, Apple's sales almost stayed flat, but year-over-year the company saw a 29 percent drop in unit sales. Apple Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook told analysts that he's not happy with those numbers and said that Apple's taking steps to help sagging sales in the Japan region.
Apple's retail operations pulled in 70,000 units for the quarter, contributing about $266 million in revenue. That's 25 percent better unit sales than the same quarter a year ago, with 43 percent higher revenue for the same period. Apple will continue to open new retail locations throughout the year, bringing its total number of retail stores to 88, including a new location in London, England."
do you think that comes from outer space? as a corporation, apple has a duty to report to shareholders and the market what they do to some degree of detail.
they reveal sales by category and they also break down sales by region etc.
all of that data in that article comes right from Apples SEC filing.
"fwiw, the average for the ten years you quote is 3.5m"
yes
"so they are below their own ten year average, even now"
yes
"with the strongest product (G5) that they've had in years."
And it's limited in availability, experienced delays, manufacturing, and support issues. The G5 doesn't change Apple's sales numbers. The cycles and the strength of Apple as a whole does.
"if this isn't a decline (as you say), and they are going to pop back up above 3.5m ..."
THis is what I say it is... the low end of a cycle.
"what is going to do it for them?"
Continue to keep them a profitable thriving company.
What's Gateway's merger with eMachines going to do for them? Kill them quicker.
I would love to see a low-end mac! It seems that there is a hole in their existing product line because of this. Many people do not want to buy another monitor if they already have one, but that is exactely what they have to do if they get an eMac/iMac. There is no other Mac at the low-end that does not include an integrated display. If there was a single cpu g4 with 512mb of ram that cost around $799, I would buy it and I think alot of other people would as well. Since there isn't, I had to buy a powermac, but I dont think all consumers would have done the same thing.
so go off to 7th grade through high school and college and get a job and buy a computer you are going to buy a mac like you used when you were 12 yrs old or are you going to buy the Windows PC you have used for the last 10 yrs?
If you know anything about computers at all, you wouldn't worry about such silly nonsense. Computer illiterate folks might use that analyses to make their purchase, but the more wiser folks would make an intellectual decision on a computer purchase based on their needs, not what they used in school or at work. Are you telling me that since you learned how to drive with a Ford Tempo in Driver's Ed Class that you'll base your car purchase on that experience? I think not!
Anyhow, the Mac is not going anywhere the same as Windows is not going anywhere the same as Linux is not going anywhere and son on.
And it's limited in availability, experienced delays, manufacturing, and support issues. The G5 doesn't change Apple's sales numbers. The cycles and the strength of Apple as a whole does.
earlier you said that "natural cycles in hardware and software" drive sales numbers. i agree (leaving aside the word "natural" because it isn't determined by rainfall or anything, but by business planning).
so i was wondering, i am still wondering, if they are going to go back up what product will do it for them?
"why call people fools when you claim to have bought a iMac 400DV in 1997? imacs werent even made in 1997, much less a 400mhz dv version."
97, 99 whatever. I'm a fool not not caring what year it was? You are stupider than you sound.
"sec filings from apple do break it out into
powerbooks
ibooks
imacs and emacs
powermacs
so wrong again."
Dumbass, I am discussing Somebody's orginal comment: "Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)" So I fully understand that Apple breaks out PBs, iBooks, iMacs/eMacs, and PMs, but he said not to compare them. So I thought you were saying high end PM to low end PM, high end PB to low end PB, high end iMac to low end iMac.
In which case I am 100% right. They aren't broken out. And the high end is usually a bigger seller than the low end.
As Somebody says: there is no good reason to compare iBook sales to PBs... they are different markets and do not reflect the cost factor in a consumers purchase.
Stay with the discussion, man.
I might acctually consider getting a Mac if I could test out the development tools that come with it. Since I don't have any friends that own a Mac I can't ask them. And when I have gone to stores they always have the Macs locked down for obvious reasons. Also I have gone to an Apple store to see if I could try it out but they would not install the Dev tools for me. I don't know if this is normal or just one unhelpful sales person. Anyone have any suggestions on ways to get sales people to open up the systems for poking around?
Damn, you guys have a lot of free time to spend on your favorite company to 'hate'!
LOL!
"so i was wondering, i am still wondering, if they are going to go back up what product will do it for them?"
It's not one product. It has to do with software upgrades.. maybe not even their own (like Office, or Photoshop, or Quark). Or maybe it is an OS update. Or maybe it is their software.
It also has to do with pricing.
It also has to do with hardware as well... but it doesn't bounce down because of a bad product... and it doesn't bounce up because of a good product.
If you get a large number of users upgrading one year, and a killer product comes out the next, that year may not be good because many have already upgraded. So the rebound and decline has as much to do with 3-5 years ago as it does right now and tomorrow.
Not to mention that these cycles can be affected by the strengths and weaknesses of other alternatives. It isn't one strong product or one bad product... These are regular ups and downs with many, many factors.
You don't sound happy
But I am. I'm Macless now:))
btw. Higher end models get sold out before low cost mostly for two reasons. Low cost models are bought on stock while higher models are bought in precalculated lower number. Believe me, I know more than one reseller. And I had history with waiting preordered higher-end Macs always listening to the same old story.
So now you own 2 more Macs. Yep, and every ./ geek is big (:and dates a lot:) when it comes to punch talk.
@Jargon: LOL. That's the nicest part of the day before going home.
actually you are a bit off
2003 was one of the greatest years ever for all american stock markets.
our economy grew at over 4% for the year
it grew at 8% in the fourth quarter.
unemployment is at 5.4%, less than the average since oh about 1960 or 1970.
PC shipments are up 16% year to year currently. apples are down 3%.
the slight downturn we had in the USA is over my friend...long over.
The real point of this whole post (and forgive me if someone already said this I couldn't bear to read much past 40 something post) is that its fun to speculate about what Apple should have done or should do. There are so many points in the past where you can say they missed a great opportunity where they could have dominated the market - or if only they would do this or that now they could dominate the market.
I have my own thoughts of course about what Apple should do - but really what is interesting is how fasinated we are all with Apple. If only every person that feels compelled to post their opinion would buy an Apple they would have a huge market share. Of course I am waiting for the 3 button mouse G5 power book...
unemployment is at 5.4%
LOL, it would take for our whole country to be unemployed several times to get to this number:) (:sorry, couldn't resist:)
btw. It's sad the nuber is too huge. And whole outsourcing might make it bigger.
I wouldn't laugh.
Unless you live in Cuba, I'm almost certain whatever country you are from you have a much higher unemployment rate. Just because 5.4% of 290 million is bigger than your whole country doesn't mean anything. It is the percentage of your whole workforce which is unemployed that is significant.
Boy, can't believe I've been arguing with someone about technology who laughs at America's unemployment rate.
"actually you are a bit off
2003 was one of the greatest years ever for all american stock markets.
our economy grew at over 4% for the year
it grew at 8% in the fourth quarter.
unemployment is at 5.4%, less than the average since oh about 1960 or 1970.
PC shipments are up 16% year to year currently. apples are down 3%.
the slight downturn we had in the USA is over my friend...long over."
You have to be kidding me. You have to be a die hard republican to think the economy is great and their isn't an un-employment problem. Go to a college career fair and see how great things are. There isn't companies even there. I'm graduating with an engineering degree from a top university, and unless I want to go into sales their isn't crap for jobs. Those who graduated over a year ago often still have yet to find a job. I probably won't find a full time permanant job till all those who have been laid of over the last 3 years get jobs and the market opens up for grads.
Things have got better, but the economy and employment rates still suck massively. Just because some people are making lots of money doesn't not mean everyone is.
Actualy it is higher, 8% (if that report was accurate), as I researched just now.
Boy, can't believe I've been arguing with someone about technology who laughs at America's unemployment rate.
Boy, you are stupid aren't you. What I was reffering was "large number of people being in such small percentage and size of our country".
if you all cant read statistics than i dont know what to say for your engineering degree.
5.5% unemployment is fantastic and few nations have it that low. we have historically been higher ourselves.
if you dont have opportunity where you live than move somewhere else. there is no santa claus that gives out the goods just cause you make a list.
are you in PA?
move to VA. its 3.4% in VA. many parts of the state are at 1.9%.
the fact remains 2003 was a banner year for the american economy, wether it was recovering or not. the major stock indexes had one of their highest yearly increases ever.
Question: how many of these iCheaps are willing to purchase software. These people are already too cheap to purchase a full priced eMac or iMac, what on gods green earth is going to make them buy the software when they can download it from the local warez site?
The fact is, there is no use having a massive user base without a decent number of users who are not only willing but able to purchase the third party software off vendors who provide it.
The Windows base is large enough to have a huge number of cheapskates because there is also a large number of companies who are willing and able to pay for software, also, you have a reasonable number of users willing and able, but even so, that still doesn't get away from the fact that the vast majority of software used by people in the Windows world is pirated.
please dont toss out oddball opinions without some data to back up your wild assertions
"the vast majority of software used by people in the Windows world is pirated."
where is there any evidence of that?
where is the evidence of any major software company being put out of business due to pirating?
how is that all of the major software houses and game houses etc turn such handsome profits and have such humongous sales figures if the "vast majority" is stolen from them?
be realistic.
That 5.4% unemployment number was manufactured by reclassifying sectors of the population that used to be considered unemployed. And even with that reclassification, long-term unemployment remains at its worst in 40 years. (Here's a source http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040426/topstories/35917.shtm...)
Consumers just aren't spending as much money on computers as they were during the dotcom boom, that's natural and an obvious link to lower Macintosh sales. With gas prices rising (and vehicle gas mileage dropping), now isn't the time for consumers to drop $1600 luxury computer. (Yet they'll gladly plonk down the money for a 10 mile per gallon road tank, go figure.) Maybe the key is advertising. SUVs are aggressively advertised, you can't turn on the TV without seeing an endless stream of commercials telling you that you absolutely need an 8,500 pound tank to haul your latte and cell phone to the office...oops I mean through the Amazon rain forest and up the side of Mt. McKinley...yet most people I talk to about computer purchases have no idea what Apple is offering and have never even seen the iMac. When I show them pictures of it on the web they are blown away, but why should I have to show them? Shouldn't Apple put some commercials together to let people know what's out there? Those "switch" ads didn't even show the computer or the OS at all, just some strangers blathering about how great it is. (Remember how much success OS/2 ads had with that same strategy?) If they would put together some commercials that show how awesome the iMac is and the sleak, oozing window effects of the Dock and Expose and Fast User Switching, people would be a lot more interested than they are. Just put one ad on during Friends each week and the other on during Survivor, and you've pretty much got the entire TV viewing audience informed of your products. Apple is doing a terrible job of this right now. Nobody but followers of the industry know what Apple's up to with its PCs. If all they're advertising on TV is the iPod, is it any wonder why Mac sales are down?
I'm not too cheap to buy an eMac, I just hate CRTs and don't want one in my life. The eMac's CRT is small (16 inch viewable) and it's a freakin CRT, yuck. I would actually buy an eMac if it were exactly the same price but didn't have a monitor and I could plug it into the 19 inch flat panel I already own. I am willing to pay $799 for an Apple without a monitor, but right now Apple requires me to pay at least $1,200 to get one. That's stupid. And that's a big difference to someone who doesn't have a lot of extra money.
@ Homer...a bit off topic but this should help you a lot.
"The bare minimum for our economcy to be sustainable is 3.5. Big deal. "
Your statement is simply not true. Our population growth is NOT, repeat, NOT that high. Ordinarily, I wouldn't get into an argument about this, but our population growth over the past 10 years has been about 1% per year (do the math). 1% real growth could sustain us. Easily.
As for the article, it was just flamebait. This guy has zero credentials to tell us whether Apple's strategy is good or not, and has no information to point to. The issue is immensely complicated from an economics standpoint, and he's given us excuses, not information.
I could just as easily say:
1. iCheap wouldn't siphon off existing computers. (why not? Because I said so!)
2. Licensing FairPlay would sell MORE iPods, thus increasing their bottom line.
3. Microsoft's model works just fine for selling an OS. Why can't Apple use it?
What I just wrote has just as much justification, and just as much proof. The article quality of OSNews is hitting roughly the same level as the comments.
-Erwos
We've all (all us Mac fans) got ideas about the product that would be perfect, that Apple has to make. I wish they would take whatever quantity of the fastest G5 they can get and make a super fast super expensive workstation. Certainly there are people that don't care about the cost and aside from that we'd get bragging rights. Others want a headless iMac and swear that they'd buy one and millions of others would too. The fact is that if Apple makes that headless iMac or the super fast workstation, most of us proponents won't ACTUALLY fork over cash and buy one. Even if they did, they have to make money on it. Apple is a business, like the article so eloquently pointed out, and they do have people who are paid the big bucks to figure out what to make and they generally know their business quite well.
Anybody see the "I Love Lucy" episode in which Lucy and Ethel get in the salad dressing business? They're selling great salad dressing but they're not paying attention to the bottom line. They're actually selling at a loss. Ricky asks how they'll make money and the answer is, "volume." If you're selling something at little or no profit, volume only magnifies the mistake. That was clones and that might be what happens with a headless iMac. They're rumors about one of those and if Apple can put huge margins on it, maybe its a winner. But it has to make business sense. The eMac obviously took lots of buyers from the iMac, it had to make sense.
>>The eMac obviously took lots of buyers from the iMac, it had to make sense.
The eMac was a product Apple (Jobs) did not want to make and once they made it, they did not want to sell to consumers. Before the eMac was created, Jobs proclaimed the CRT was dead. But the 15-inch iMac was too expensive for many schools to justify and they complained loudly, so Apple grudgingly obliged by creating the eMac, and even then they ONLY sold it to educational institutions. It wasn't until they were deluged with consumer demand for one that they opened it up for sale to the masses. The case of the eMac proves Apple (Jobs) is not above missing the obvious; he had NO idea the eMac would sell as well as it did. He may be a genius but he does often live in an ivory tower that's isolated from the wants and needs of the public.
10.0 had problems with SCSI. We found that our SCSI devices worked just fine with 10.1 and above...so I really don't know why there are a couple of complainers here spreading fud about failure to run scsi on X.
Many manufacturers, Adaptec being one, actualy had provided some 10.0 drivers as well.
"i owned a beige g3 with scsi onboard and it never worked in os x."
Actually the requirements for 10.0 stated G3's except for the beige models. I actually have a 10.0 box laying around somewhere that lists that on the side panel.
who's grown tired of these comments sections when it's an Apple related story? I saw 10-20 posts (and I'm being generous here) that were on topic, the rest was just a bitchfest. There used to be quality discussions on OSNews comments, gone are those days I suppose.
We all wish we could have more control over companies, and you'd think shareholders would. Unfortunately the end goal is not to please the customers, the general population, nor the shareholders. The end goal is to make money, if money makes shareholders happy, then the shareholders are pleased.
Are Apple's products perfect? Certainly not. Did this iBook cost them nearly as much as it cost me? Of course not. Does that make it not worth it? OSX has not cost me a dime yet, and I've grown to like it, possibly more than Linux even. The integration between the OS and the hardware is intense, making the whole system seem much more complete.
As for the slow dual 1.25ghz g4... oh come on. It'd run circles around this ibook, and I have NO speed problems with this thing (except maybe bootup).
kaiwai: Question: how many of these iCheaps are willing to purchase software. These people are already too cheap to purchase a full priced eMac or iMac, what on gods green earth is going to make them buy the software when they can download it from the local warez site?
Question: How many people after buying an "expensive" computer have enough money left to buy software?
Honestly... Different people have different needs, desires, and resources, just because they don't want to buy an "expensive" computer doesn't mean that they can't afford one or that they don't want to pay for software. They may have a certain amount "preset" for themselves for how much they can (or will) spend on software/hardware.
As a result, if they spend too much on hardware... They can't (or will choose not to) spend much (if anything) on software.
Also... Just because a person is cheap (because they can't or won't spend money) doesn't mean that they'd do something illegal. (Like pirating software)
For example, with the people I know, the people who are the most likely to pirate stuff are the people who are always buying the "expensive hardware", because they don't have enough money left to buy software. The people I know who buy cheap computers are frequently (not always) pretty wealthy but have a set amount they are willing to spend. However, they also always pay for their software.
So there's an example of it being the other way around.
you are patently wrong.
i owned a beige g3 266mhz and each and every os x from apple up to os x 10.2.4
the beige was supported by earlier versions of os x...at some point the passed onto requiring a g3 with usb ports which the beige did not have.
You do not have a box that says that. In fact the manuals talk all about how you have to install os x in the first 8gb of the first partition that cant be over 8gb with the beige g3s.
why would you make something like that up?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25176
that talks clearly about installing os x on beige g3's but only adds support for pci based scsi cards....not onboard scsi.
wow people will say just about anything i guess. your fud is exposed.
One of the reason for the bitching is the jealousy.
Some guy actually argued with me because of my purchase of an iBook. That same guy drove a Grand Cherokee Iraqy oil guzzler. Mac basher are pathetic trolls and nothing more.
complete fud exposed in depth
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=43125
"Title
Power Macintosh G3 Mini Tower: Technical Specifications Article ID: 43125
Created: 2002-01-04
Modified: 2003-12-02
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
Topic
Technical Specifications for the Power Macintosh G3 Mini Tower (introduced November 1997) from the AppleSpec database.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
Discussion
Power Macintosh G3 Mini Tower
Mac OS
Supported: 8.0
8.1
8.5
8.5.1
8.6
9
X (10.0 through 10.2.8)
so supported up to just short of Panther.
please disregard the patently false assertions by Jason.
People want an eMac with the monitor removed. That is all. It would have an even BETTER margin! People do not like having to buy a monitor with every computer purchase.
....responsibility is to the shareholders .....
> Primarily it should be towards its customers and not towards the shareholders. Unfortunatly this is not te case anymore, and this the reason why so many products and services have become so bad.
...I've got to say that for what they sell, there's not (relatively) a whole lot between Macs and PCs, particularly PCs and eMacs. And you do get a more coherent package with a whole lot more out of the box (take a look at the prices for 64-bit Opteron systems, heck, even high end P4s).
Macs cost only a small bit more. The extra price doesn't cover performance, it covers style. They're sexy PCs! They should advertise that. The real issue with Macs is the lack of an easy source for peripherals and software, something which Mac Stores were evidently meant to fix. But for office or development work, there's not a whole lot between them.
People want an eMac with the monitor removed. That is all.
I don't. I want a 1.8Ghz G5 Cube with an AGP slot (full height, half length), a slot-loading Superdrive (ideally in a standard 5.25" or laptop form factor) and a single SerialATA hard disk (again, in a standard 3.5" cradle).
And I want it for less than $2000 Australian. Or $1200 for you USians.
People do not like having to buy a monitor with every computer purchase.
The gaping hole in Apple's lineup is not for a low end headless machine. People who buy low end machines are mostly buying into the market, or replacing a very old machine with a similarly old and out of date screen. Hence, bundled (or builtin) monitors in this market segment make sense.
The iMac and eMac - apart from their high prices, are very appropriate pieces of hardware for their target market.
The hole in Apple's lineup is for a low cost machine with decent performance. The price jump to a G5 is significant, and they need something to fill the gap. Something with good performance, but without the high end bells and whistles of a G5 appropriate for a professional audience.
Apple already said that they don't want to compete with the low-end desktop market (not even in the corporate desktop market according to Jobs) but instead to focus primarily on the iPod/music business and then in the high-end workstation market.
http://www.osnews.com/article.php?kind=News&offset=70&rows=70
they simply dont have low end prices.
the superdrive emac is $999 and has
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/725...
--17" crt
--1.25ghz g4
--167mhz system bus
--256mb ram
--80gb hard drive
--4x superdrive with (- only standard)
--ati 9200 32mb video card
compare that to a pc on sale this week at Circuit City for just $609....or a huge $390 savings:
an emachines with
http://www.circuitcity.com/bundledetail.jsp?OID=90494&bdlid=326
--17" stand alone crt that can be upgraded or replaced easily if it breaks
--LEXMARK Z705 inkjet printer
--amd athlon xp 3000+
--333mhz bus speed
--512MB ram
--160gb hard drive
--4x superdrive (does both - and + standards)
--a second stand alone cd-rom drive for drive to drive burning
--nvidia geforce4 mx 64mb video card
--an 8 in 1 memory card reader
--5.1 sound card (a sound standard that the mac cannot support)
-- 2 pci and 1 agp and 1 3.5" drive bay are open for future expansion
so with that $390 saved I can get a better PC (double the ram, system bus speed, video card memory, and hard drive storage for starters) with either a bundle of fun software or games or a pda or a phone or mp3 player or a digital camera etc etc etc.
Apples low end simply costs 66% more than a PC that is flat out a far more powerful and expandable computer. Ultimately, that is the biggest reason that Apple is failing in the computer realm.
sorry, this is off topic, but I feel I have to ask
linux is an excellent replacement for windows xp and all lesser variations of it.
I have used mac osx for an hour or two, so I did not really get a feel to the system.
the question is this ....
how close is linux to making die hard mac users want to change over ?
i think the big difference in price (mac vs pc) only happens when you start bargain hunting. if you just go to the front page of a generic pc maker, and hunt for mac-equivalent systems, you'll end up with a mac-equivalent price.
on the other hand, if you go to places like www.techbargains.com and basically wait for a good deal, you'll end up with things like this $359 computer:
"Office Depot has the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion a500n Desktop Computer With AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Processor 512MB/80GB, DVD-ROM, CDRW, MS Works, XP Home $579.99 - $150 rebate (UPC Copy Exp 5/8) - $50 rebate (Exp 7/3) - $20 off Code: 17629519 (Exp 5/31) = $359.99 shipped free.
Canon i250 printer is free after $50 rebate (Exp 6/30), if your area has them."
the trick, imo, is to wait for a sale (a bargain) that matches your needs. the bargains on pcs (not the average prcies) are what leave apple looking expensive.
"Apples low end simply costs 66% more than a PC that is flat out a far more powerful "
Ah yes but you forgot to factor in your subscription fees for NAV every year. Oh and you'll probably want to add a firewire card for video editing, and video editing software. That 8 in 1 card reader is nice though for photos, better add more money for photo organization / editing software.
how close is linux to making die hard mac users want to change over ?
that depends on your vision of "die hard mac users."
i switched in 1996 after using macs pretty much continuously since 1984 (12 years). for me, linux was "the computer for the rest of us" by that point.
on the other hand, i think the mac base is evolving into a luxury, style, premium market. if that is what makes someone "die hard" then they will probably be the very last people to use linux. after all, linux is cheap and for everybody.
yes anti virus should be run but if you havent noticed norton makes the same product for mac and all responsible computer users should run firewalls and av on their machines regardless of the platform....so no savings there. if you dont run av you are irresponsible.
nav is $15 per yr so that is a long time before you use up that $390 savings.
512mb ram and a better vid card and cpu is fine for video editing for a home user using movie maker 2 or some basic pinnacle app.
but yes if needed you have 2 pci slots to add a $19 firewire card.
as for sales yes you can certainly find better bargains and sales for a pc as there are about 1000x as many outlets to buy the machines versus macs. but any day of the week you walk into any major electronics store or office supply etc you will find a wide selection of PCs on sale. Many will be regular price but many will be on sale as well. Deals are not hard to find and are always available either in stores or online.
I don't agree.
I experience NO quality problems with the clones. Many of them used Apple made motherboards, so there WAS no quality difference.
I did have a problem with my first clone, a Power 100. That was due to the wrong heat sink paste being used. Other than that, I've had no more problems (and actually less) with my Clone machines (I own several) than my actual Apples.
I used to be an Apple Certified Tech, and iMacs had MUCH more problems than the Clones did. I would repair 50 iMacs to every clone brought in for repair.
And most of the clones had either bad PRAM Batteries, a Failed HDD, or Software errors.
Hardly the fault of the Clone Manufacturers.
Power Computing was formed by ex Dell Execs, they used the same case suppliers, and I love them. Really nice machines.
Even though my PowerCenter 132 won't run MacOS X (being 7200 based), I will never let it go. It's a nice reliable box, and with a 604e 225 in it, makes a nice spare Internet Box, and file server.
There's a reason people buy Macintoshes when cheaper PCs of "comparable" value are available: As far as they're concerned, the values aren't comparable. There's a lot more to it than merely what hardware is involved. The following (inexhaustive list of) questions come into play:
1. What will the computer be used for?
2. What kinds of applications will be required?
3. How important is style to the user?
4. What is the skill level of the user?
etc.
Although I'm a software developer and use Microsoft technologies at work, I wouldn't part with my 12" PowerBook G4 for anything but an upgrade. I'm a UI snob and style is very, very important to me. I love the tight integration of the technologies on the Mac. That and other reasons are why a PC would not be "comparable" for me.
how close is linux to making die hard mac users want to change over ?
Personally,not very close.
Unless, in 5 years when I need a new computer,the Mac is really expensive, and Linux is much friendlier.
I can run OS X, Linux,Unix.
If you look at it that way, I have better options available to me than someone on a PC.
Sure you can run Linux and Unix,but your other option is Microsoft, which is not an option for me.
As for the kid claiming a PC is 66% less,after rebates.
(I assume MS XP home probably comes with the computer as the OS. Not likely a computer retailer would load up Linux for you, or even be aware that something else exists.)
You left out all the little features, software bundle, cost of ownership, life expectancy, hardware upgrades, power consumption,software compatibility issues,patching,virus protection, and a whole lot of other things.
I'm sure you could find a store with rebates and a free printer or extra ram for the Mac if you looked real hard.
( Geeks are like hotrodders,it always starts off on a budget, but turns into a money pit. They tell you what they paid initially, but never speak about the cost of extras and add ons, or number of man hours involved, because it sounds outrageous even to them.)
If you did all the math, I think the Mac would be a better deal.
I don't know about you, but my time is worth the extra initial outlay of cash, to avoid all those issues.
My old 233mhz iMac, is 6 years old and has had no hardware upgrades other than more ram, cost me $0.00 maintainance, and is still running strong.
I'm going to use it to learn a couple Linux distros.
My philosophy: spend now, save later.
sorry for being vague, by "die-hard" I meant, mac users who have always used macs, through all versions of mac os and would never think of moving to windows.
How close is linux to making that type of user move over ?
Al,
Do you even know how much Apple made on each clone sold? This is a quote from Fred Anderson (Apple CFO) when Gil Amelio (Former Apple CEO) asked him that question. "Around $50". (page 174 from On the Firing Line by Dr. Gil Amelio). That's right Apple made a rip roaring $50 on each and every clone sold by Power, Motorola, Umax, etc... no matter whether it was an entry-level machine or a super high-end rig. Apple sure as heck made siginificantly more selling there own machines. And to make matters worse your beloved Power was busy sniping the lucrative graphics market from Apple instead of growing into new markets like they were supposed to. Sorry to burst your bubble but the clones had to go. As far I'm concerned the only truly innovative clone was the DayStar Genesis with it's dual and quad processors. Power had some of the worst units (but they were cheap). Examples include: Flaky and loud power supplies, cheap cases with sharp edges, and unusable expansion slots due to case blockage since the cases were designed to be used with PC motherboards not Mac motherboards. Good riddance.
Can you please stop posting meaning less price comparisons. Your PC price is with a mail-in rebate. Go to Apples educational discount store and ge the lowest price for the emac.
Second the Nvidia Geforce card has 64Mb (shared), you should mention that in you description.
Second go pick an IBM pc to compare with an apple. It is extremely unfair to pit an entire industry against one manufacturer.
If you don't like apple, good for you, why are you so insecure that you need feel the need to argue your platform descision. Be happy with your choice and let others be happy with thiers. I haven't met one Apple user, recently converted, who is unhappy with thier purchase, to the contrary they are exhilerated. There is just an amazing feeling of having spent the money on a quality product. I have seen just as many dell purchasers unhappy with their purchases constantly return thier laptops for a different model.
Of course Apple's job is to maximize profits, but as consumers, we're supposed to be seeking the best value available. Is it a logical choice if you're in the market for something like an "iCheap" to spend more on an iMac or go with the clone down at Wallmart? Does it make sense to spend ~$100 a year for O.S. updates when you get Operating Systems you pay for once and upgrade less often (Windows) or free (linux, etc.)? I really like Macs myself, but I would never buy one because of these very reasons.
"As for the kid claiming a PC is 66% less,after rebates."
no, not a kid, been using Apples since 1981. I started owning PCs a few years back (all ms oses up to 98 were not usable to me) and got rid of my last Mac late in 2003.
but yes, the inexpensive emachines come with Windows XP home, not linux or XP Pro. Xp home seems to do quite well for most ordinary people...I use Pro as I love Remote Desktop (a feature that Apple sells for $299 http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/ )
i didn't list the bundle for either machine(I did provide links) and though the iApps and Appleworks make for a very nice bundle of software, the emachines likewise ships with MS Works, Money 2004, Movie Maker 2, Media Player 9, Power DVD, Roxio CD DVD Creator 6....
as for software compatability, life expectancy, upgrades etc....we would get into a whole different facet of this discussion with that.
One interesting thing to look at for life expectancy. If you go to Googles zeitgeist at http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
shows all online web surfers that visit google as using the following OSes (google is of course a wildly popular destination and it is reasonably safe to say they have an accurate view of the whole computing world as users connecting to them...at least the computing world that is online.)
mac os 4%
linux 1%
windows xp 47%
windows 2000 18%
windows 98 22%
windows 95 1%
windows nt 3% (windows total is 91%)
other 4%
when i see those numbers for NT, 95, and even 98, it appears there are many many millions of pc users still running along just fine on computers that are at least 6 to 11 years old!
"Can you please stop posting meaning less price comparisons. Your PC price is with a mail-in rebate. Go to Apples educational discount store and ge the lowest price for the emac."
sorry it isnt meaningless, price is big deal to most buyers of goods and services. edu prices are fantastic, but unfortunately I am not a student or staff at a school. In fact the majority of people are not either. But if we all were i would post edu prices for both platforms.
this site is about sharing info on computers and computer oses. if you dont like information that makes you squirm about your decisions, you should hole up and not consume the readings.
ah yes it is shared memory...so take 64 out of 512mb and you wind up with 448mb system memory...still way more than the emac. and the agp slot remains open for a card of your choice whenever you want to upgrade.
i am not arguing my "platform decision", i am sharing my experience and my thoughts on the thread and article at hand...just like everyone else.
and i should have said, yes it has a rebate. if apple offered $350 in rebates on eMacs than it would have been posted.
unfortunately they do not either in their stores or online at their site.
But then if Apple sold the $999 eMac for $609 with double the ram to 512mb, double the hard drive storage to 160gb, and a video card better than a model that compares to cards that started shipping in 1999, I would buy one.
That is what this thread is all about.
You misunderstood. You didn't read the article that I link. These "PCs" would NOT be by Apple, they would be by a spin off company under the supervision of Apple. And they WON'T be Dell/Apple-quality, they would be white box PCs pretty much, but just with a bit of polish. That article was written last year when the Switch campaign was on its forte. It was suggestion on how to get more PC users to switch.
I did read the article you linked when you posted it originally. But I still fail to see how anyone can possibly make money selling machines at those specs for that price. Possibly if the machines came with:
1. No OS
2. No support
3. No warranty
a company might be able to break even with such a machine. But make a profit? I don't think so.
"I've got Apple's 2003 Annual Report on my desk here, and on page 32, it says the company spent $14.7 million developing Panther, and $13.3 million developing Jaguar. You can't just eat that and expect to stay in business."
Ok what the heck is that? I don't know if those numbers are for real but holy cow, that is an awful lot of money for what they could come up with. I've been a linux user for several years now and I also have an ibook here in my hands running Jaguar and although I agree its a pretty good OS, I still think Gnome wins big time for usability, especially considering virtual desktops and the windows menu (mac OS <= 9.x finder equivalent). And how much money have been put into Gnome?? Well I have no numbers for that but considering it is an Open Source, community-based effort I would tend to believe it's been developped for pretty much nothing...
Anyways, who cares if Apple spent 56 million developping their OS, that's not my problem if they can't come up with something better for much less (which is obviously possible!)... So I don't really get the point of this article except that ended up thinking this guy is just kissing Apple's ass big time or something... Personnaly i'll just stick with my free, linux box running gnome thank you! 
If you were posting this anonymously, I'd definitely say that you are just trying to see if you can start a flame wars, you know like when you ask two guys who is "objectively" the strongest... But come on, you're really trying to get some people mad, here, no?
apple has sales of lets say $6 billion
they make an annual profit of lets say just $50 million
so their costs of all goods they sold and all labor and real estate and the whole nine yards came to a total of $5,950,000,000....so of that $5.95 billion Apple has in annual costs, the mac maker only spends about $15 million per year building that great os?
that is ridiculously silly. I saw it in the SEC filings and I believe it is a clear distortion.
For comparison, MS spent over $6 billion on research and development alone last year. Apple claimed something along the lines of $400 million a yr or two ago.....none of that $400 million goes to os x?
In 1996 Apple bought the Next OS that os x is built on for $400 million.
I can still see in my mind the piles of LCIIs, LCIIIs Centriss and Quadras gathering dust in the corners of the used computer stores. The headless Mac was around for a long time, and made little contribution to the overall sales picture. One of the Mac's greatest strengths is it's fantastic graphics. Allowing people to stick $200 Wal Mart monitors on some new cheapo Mac would do nothing but diminish the Mac's advantages. No, the eMac is a wonderful entry solution for new Mac users, and a bargain to boot. I agree with every point made in your article.
Does Microsoft's Remote Desktop allow you to login to numerous machines simultaneously and easily switch between desktops? Does it allow you to manage those machines similtaneously?
It would surely be nice if Apple would allow for remote desktop login in the OS. But from what I have seen Apple's Remote Desktop far surpasses that provided with XP Pro.
But maybe I just haven't found out how to use those features in XP Pro. So, please, tell me if it does all these things
@Typical
$50.00 a machine? Sounds great! For no work? Even better!
That's what we call "Free Money". It's what made Microsoft a Multi Billion Dollar Company.
It's more than Microsoft makes on a per machine basis.
Dell I think pays around $36.00 a machine for Windows XP Licenses.
The Clones were growing the market. Sorry that Apple couldn't control where they were growing it..
That's how it goes.
Apple refused to compete with the cloners. They simply lied about it, and shut them down.
I noticed none of these "problems" with the clones. I owned several. No sharp corners. No problems with PCI Cards. None of it.
I loved the Daystar Machines, though I never owned one.
Apple could have made MORE money, by having cloners include special offers to buy ClarisWorks/AppleWorks, Claris E-Mailer, Filemaker Pro, etc...
Apple just didn't capitalize properly on the opportunities that the cloners afforded them.
You also forget to mention all the costs that Apple did not have to shoulder for these machines sold by other companies.
Apple did not have to provide any tech support. No Hardware support. No In-Warranty Hardware replacement.
That has to be factored in too.
Not every Dollar above manufacturing cost is profit for Apple. Warranty expenses have to be factored in.
And simply put, Apple only had to collect money from clones. And the clones were growing the market.
I think 10 million machines a year at $50.00 each (and without support costs) is a lot better than 3 million at $125.00 each (and the concomittant support costs).
Apple just didn't want to compete in the open market with companies that were more nimble than they were. Companies that were EASILY eating it's lunch.
That's the truth about it. As least, as far as I'm concerned.
I agree that the figures are probably off. Let's assume that they spent one year writing all the features of the release. Further assume they pay their developers 75,000 per year. That's less than 200 developers working full-time on each OS release. To me, that seems low.
Having not seen the figures you refer to I don't know why that is. One possibility is that they break out things that ship with the OS but aren't "part of" the OS like iLife. Another possibility is that they roll a lot of the work into R&D for accounting reasons.
By allowing cloners Apple basically had to compete on two fronts at once. On the one front, they were competing in the Mac OS hardware market with the cloners. On the other front, they were competing in the platform market with Windows.
They were going to lose the platform market. They were already losing the hardware market to the cloners. Their only choice was to become something of a niche/botique player until they could provide a compelling reason to switch (that being, OS X).
If Apple had become a "software-only" company Microsoft would have destroyed them.
yes you can use rdc to control multiple machines at once...you just open multiple instances of the app and connect. you can move between them as fast as you can do alt-tab or click on different windows....
as for adminnning multiple machines at once, i am not sure if i follow exactly but ms provides tools that can do that via scripting, gui, for free, and for pay depending on what you are trying to do.
if you want to elaborate i could maybe answer better.
sorry it isnt meaningless, price is big deal to most buyers of goods and services.
I would think value is more important. A product is not necessarily a good value if it is cheaper. If I want MacOS X (it's ease of use, out-of-box applications) Apple's industrial design, an extremely quiet machine and a small foot print.
The PC in your comparison would offer me a very bad value, whilst being cheaper.
you are absolutely right, price is just one component of value....probably the biggest one for the majority of people.
as for ease of use...that is certainly a toss up at best but i would go with xp as more people use windows and have windows around them and have windows at work and have more windows users to turn to for help and they can buy hardware and software at more stores easily....
out of box applications.... apple gets a lot of press about the iapps but for the average user: ie, outlook express, windows media player, roxio cd and dvd burning, movie maker, money, encarta, etc all fit the bill with flying colors. (apache and the terminal arent moving a lot of mac boxes i dont think)
quiet....apple has this one won i would say in general though it has changed a lot in recent years...the g5 has what 10 fans in it and two heat sinks that together take up all of the expansion room...about the size of shoe box they are. recent mac models have had power supply fan issues as well so this win for apple is getting shaky. g4s and g5s now run very hot and need effort to cool em like x86 chips.
industrial design----the emac in question, though it does look good, looks like nothing more than a monitor. its coloration is bad for later discoloration though. the emachine does a better job of providing ports on the front of the machine (users love this) and it has a two button scroll wheel mouse that users also favor. the emac does look better but on the value scale few care.
smaller footprint--the emac wins hands down. but you pay a price that is also part of the value equation...little room in expandability and when you do expand everything is external and takes up that much more space on one's desk.
"iCheap" could be done without changing their profit compared to the eMac... by taking out the screen, that reduces cost to make, reduce the sell price by approx that amount... the smaller case also reduces shipping prices.
The reason for many people is slightly reduced cost, and for many die-hard mac users I sell computers to, is their eye-sight is getting worse with time, they want larger and larger monitors, this would allow them to put on the monitor they want, or use an old one until they could get a new one.
re: Al Hartman
the clones had good quality high-end that's true, but the clone project was not "no cost to apple" they still developed the motherboards that the cloners then modified, which required apple to test the OS with it, etc... but the low-end cloners were generally pretty bad quality, I know of many that failed long before similar official apple models on the low-end
More then just Apple found that there was little expansion of their market, the market share dropped (including the cloners) during that year or two there were clones.
out of box applications.... apple gets a lot of press about the iapps but for the average user: ie, outlook express, windows media player, roxio cd and dvd burning, movie maker, money, encarta, etc all fit the bill with flying colors. (apache and the terminal arent moving a lot of mac boxes i dont think)
Have you ever used the out-of-box applications on either platforms? if no, then you have no idea how good the iApps actually are compared to the emachines bundle.
You forget one thing the out-of-box security is much better on MacOS X. Outlook express is evil when it comes to novice users. I am about to go and help a very novice person fix thier XP latop becuase of a worm/virus infestation.
quiet....apple has this one won i would say in general though it has changed a lot in recent years...the g5 has what 10 fans in it and two heat sinks that together take up all of the expansion room...about the size of shoe box they are. recent mac models have had power supply fan issues as well so this win for apple is getting shaky. g4s and g5s now run very hot and need effort to cool em like x86 chips.
I thought you were comparing the eMac, emacs have no fans, or they hardly come on. eMacs are designed for the education market where foot print and noise are a major factor in computer labs. Have you been in a computer lab full of PCs or ever had to do the wire management at one? It is not pretty to say the least. Or have you seen the abuse PCs go throught because people keep moving the monitors around to suit thier need, with wire managment you tend to get broken connectors. The eMac has two wires, one powercord and one usb keyboard, there are two USB ports on the keyboard, one for the mouse.
No G5s don't run half as hot as pentium 4s, the 9 fans and huge heatsinks are meant for acoustic reasons. Have you ever heard a G5? Nine (computer controlled) big, slow temperature controlled fans are quieter than three small fast constantly running fans (typical of PCs), the heatsinks are meant to make it easy to cool the chip with very little airflow (due to running slower fans). To put this to the test try sitting next to an opteron 1u server, it has 8 very small but fast fans an sounds like a jet. Big, slow , quiet more airflow, remember this formula.
the emachine does a better job of providing ports on the front of the machine (users love this) and it has a two button scroll wheel mouse that users also favor. the emac does look better but on the value scale few care.
The emac has most of it's ports in the front that average users use anyway. Also the emachines is too loud to keep on top of the desk at ear height, so that kind of defeats the purpose of the front ports as most users will keep it on the floor. Again Apple's designers put thought into how their machines are used.
Most endusers hardly ever expand thier machines. You can't put a power user's requiement on an end user system just for arguments sake. Most laptops can't be expanded much either, yet laptops are the best selling PCs.
"I think 10 million machines a year at $50.00 each (and without support costs) is a lot better than 3 million at $125.00 each (and the concomittant support costs)."
Why are you arbitrarily pulling out a number like $125? Macs were averaging at least $2500 at the time, and Apple was preserving 30% margins. So that's $750 x 3 million = 2.25 billion vs. 500 million? Easy choice that.
of course ive used the iapps. i used to own a mac. i have not used garage band however.
isnt it pretty easy to see the folks posting that clearly have no idea what they are talking about and are just repeating material they have heard elsewhere?
so anyway, i have a clear idea how the iapps perform as compared to a standard bundle on a pc. safari is buggy and doesnt work on many sites...can anyone speak about how many bank sites had issues with safari? that is not the sort of thing a standard computer user wants to deal with.
x is better out of the box for security than with some pcs that are bought, but as each oem has the power to install software and configure their pcs as they see fit a PC can and some do ship as locked down as os x. does os x ship with anti-virus software?
okay, emacs win in the noise department. but all this stuff about computer labs and power cords is a lot of nothing. apple has sold many millions of computers to schools that have all seperate components. that is a non issue.
what you say about heat makes no sense with the g5: the g5 runs very very hot. all of the fans and giant heatsinks are needed to keep it cool and quiet at the same time. the heat issue is still there, apple just uses a premium method of cooling that will keep the machine quiet. a pc can be built or purchased that has the same high quality fans or can even be liquid cooled to make it quieter. bottom line is macs now have heat issues and use fans and very large heat sinks to cool them. see, i have owned and used macs for a very long time and remember that for the longest time macs had NO fans.
ports on front makes no difference if pc is on desk or beside legs on floor. point remains that ports on front are easier to get to and people love the feature...usb, sound, mic, and card reader all right there to use.
actually i have several friends that supplement their income in a major way doing nothing but doing add-ons/ upgrades for computer users that dont feel comfortable doing it themselves.
but fact also remains that if you go into any mainstream electronics store like bestbuy or circuit city they have aisle upon aisle of pc parts that folks buy and put in their pcs. do they stock that stuff as ornamentation? or you are saying only "power users" get to use that stuff? some buy and install themselves, some buy and have power user friend install for them, and some hire firms or techs to buy and install for them. truth is expansion and upgrading of pcs is a gigantic business and is worth tens of billions of dollars worldwide and employs ooodles of people as well for those that dont do it themselves.
having a computer that is capable of being expanded is a feature many people look for when buying....and its a feature sales people in stores play up as well.
and you are wrong about laptops: laptops are the fastest growing segment of the pc market but they do not outsell desktops yet. not even apple sells more laptops than desktops yet. see http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/04/14/unitsales/?lsrc=mcrs...
hat you say about heat makes no sense with the g5: the g5 runs very very hot. all of the fans and giant heatsinks are needed to keep it cool and quiet at the same time.
Prove it. A PPC970 chip at 2.0GHz chip dissipates 50W a pentium 4 100+ W. You really should stop talking when you have no clue what you are talking about.
or go looking for facts.
apple tells us themselves.
there are no g5 laptops because you cant put one in due to heat.
meanwhile you can buy a laptop from a pc vendor with not only pentium 4 desktop cpus, you can now get them with pentium 4 extreme and athlonfx and athlon64 cpus as well.
when they can refab the g5 and lower heat levels we will see g5 laptops.
until then, they burn too hot.
[i]there are no g5 laptops because you cant put one in due to heat. [i]
Bullshit. did you ever think that apple may need to design a new north bridge for a latop. The one on the G5 tower won't work, that it might be too hot to put in a laptop. There is more to a system than the cpu.
The internal architure of the G5 relies on a new system controller which is connected by hypertransport to two other chips providing PCI-X slots and Sata drives. May be apple needs time to develop these custom ASICs to work in a laptop. I am tired of seeing people speculate the lack of G5s in a laptop relates to the heat of the cpu rather than the architectural differences in a high performance desktop and a power/heat budgeted portable unit.
No the G5 is not too hot, pentium 4s are twice or almost 2.5 times hotter than a g5. And no there is no cooling problem with the G5 preventing apple from putting it into a laptop, I suspect it has more to do with building the ASICs and a base platform for a series of g5 based latops that is the main issue. Apple needs time to do it, it is a much smaller company than the whole x86 pc industry.
You are out of your league stop spreading FUD.
meanwhile you can buy a laptop from a pc vendor with not only pentium 4 desktop cpus, you can now get them with pentium 4 extreme and athlonfx and athlon64 cpus as well.
No these are desktop replacement units with an hour of battery life if you are lucky and weigh 10lbs. Apple likes to build svelte machines, I doubt they will compress a G5 desktop motherboard and release a heavy ugly powerhungry monster and call it a laptop, like other manufacturers.
Desktop replacements are a niche market primarily catering to gamers. Most consumer laptops (real laptops) use penitum-Ms and mobile ahtlon64s.
you are exposed
one, there is no "mobile" athlon64. there is a mobile athlon xp.
two, the best selling segment of laptops is desktop replacements starting at about 7 lbs.
yes desktop replacements have weaker battery life but your hyperbole saying it is 1 hour again exposes you...they typically get about 3 hours.
there are sleek pc laptops that weigh just a pound more than some of apples models that contain those high end desktop cpus.
the g5 has been shipping for a mighty long time to design a motherboard to use in a mobile application. if apple cant build a mb in 10 months time (longer as they would have lab models for the last 2 yrs or so) I would say they are in deep trouble....but you are wrong. the issue is heat and getting IBM to the 9nm fab process to lower heat output.
from a thread above on osnews linking to apple sec filing
http://www.macminute.com/2004/05/07/10q
"Net sales and unit sales of iMacs were down 17% and 15%, respectively, during the second quarter. Sales of iMacs, which start at $1,299, have been "negatively affected by a shift in consumer preference to portable systems and competitor desktop models with price points below $1,000," according to Apple."
those sub $1000 competitor portable systems are not sleek and elegant light mobile laptops. they are the $700-$1000 desktop replacements sold by HP, Compaq, Dell, and Toshiba featuring Celeron processors and weighing in at 7 lbs. and up.
but you are wrong. the issue is heat and getting IBM to the 9nm fab process to lower heat output.
Care to prove that statement with a technical argument or article. Show me why a 50w cpu is too hot to put into a laptop.
yes desktop replacements have weaker battery life but your hyperbole saying it is 1 hour again exposes you...they typically get about 3 hours.
Again prove it. show me on pentium4 ee laptop getting 3 hours with one battery.
hey are the $700-$1000 desktop replacements sold by HP, Compaq, Dell, and Toshiba featuring Celeron processors and weighing in at 7 lbs. and up.
Show me one laptop marketed as a desktop replacement feauring a celeron.
there are sleek pc laptops that weigh just a pound more than some of apples models that contain those high end desktop cpus.
Show me a laptop with a penitum4 ee weighing 6.6 lbs.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=celeron+desk...
why would you write such a silly request...do a search on google and find dozens....
doh
Why don't you do a google search to prove the other things I asked you to. You seem to make statements and not back them up with facts. Fine you found a desktop replacement with a celeron.
Now prove the other things as well., if you are claiming them to be facts show me the proof that heat issues are causing apple to delay g5 laptops, and pentium4 ee based laptops with 3 hours of battery on a single battery and a p4ee based laptop, which is as sleek and one pund heavier than a powerbook.
the heaviest mac laptop is 6.9 lbs
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html
so the goal is 7.9lbs based on what i said.
the dell xps is 9lbs with p4 extreme....
Alienware Area-51m™ Extreme is 7.5 lbs without battery...
the voodoo envy series with p4extreme and amd64 is 8 lbs.
so as i said, you can get full desktop replacement pc laptops with high end cpus that weigh within a pound of a mac portable.
http://www.acer.com/APP/AKC/INTERNET/AACPubli.nsf/AllDocs/D28B2A874...
acer ferrari 3200
amd athlon64 laptop with great style and elegance and it weighs just 6.6lbs, so less than the mac
im tired of searching out proofs to discredit your repeated challenges that hold no merit.
so the goal is 7.9lbs based on what i said.
the dell xps is 9lbs with p4 extreme....
Alienware Area-51m™ Extreme is 7.5 lbs without battery...
the voodoo envy series with p4extreme and amd64 is 8 lbs.
so as i said, you can get full desktop replacement pc laptops with high end cpus that weigh within a pound of a mac portable.
let's look at this more carefully. 9.0lbs is 2.1 lbs heavier than the 17" powebook that too with a smaller screen(15.4").
7.5 lbs without battery you have got to be kidding me, take the battery off the apple too, again with a smaller screen 15.4".
if you are comparing 15 inch laptops you should have picked the 15.2" powerbook which is 5.6lbs. Then all the examples you gave are immediatly 2.0+ lbs heavier.
You can't massage data to suit your needs. give smaller screen latops without batteries, geez.
there are sleek pc laptops that weigh just a pound more than some of apples models
your specific claim was sleek models one pound more than a apple. the apple is 1.0- 1.1inch thick, which is the marker for sleek. None of the models you described come even close in the thickness, let alone weight.
The voodoo envy is the only 17" laptop and weighs 8.7 lbs not 8.
Hmmm faking data to prove a point is low, very low.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/macos/story/0,10801,...
Dave Russell, director of product marketing for portables and wireless at Apple
"Russell also said Apple "would like" to fit one of its powerful new G5 processors in a PowerBook -- if it can figure out how to keep the machine cool enough to operate reliably"
oh and so sorry if i didnt make my first post on laptop weights fit perfectly into your desires. the acer ferrari takes care of all your quibbling though. i never said a certain size monitor or thickness. i said 1 lb.
the point is pc makers are shipping powerful laptops with top end cutting edge desktop cpus in reasonably sized laptops and in some cases they are sleeker and lighter than macs.
apple cant do the same with the g5 as it is too hot as is said just above.
end of story.
Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 processor 2800+, 1MB L2 cache
Is not the athlonfx cpu you claimed.
BTW
one, there is no "mobile" athlon64. there is a mobile athlon xp.
You own link proved you wrong. I did say that real laptops used mobile atjlon 64s. Your exact reply as stated in italics.
The mobile athlon64 cpu would make the ferrari laptop a consumer grade laptop not a desktop replacement.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/macos/story/0,10801,...
Although Apple officials are generally loath to talk about upcoming products, Russell did say Apple would someday like to offer a PowerBook G5. "We certainly want to do that," he said. "But it's going to be a while.
The main hurdle in getting a G5 processor into a portable is the need to keep the processor cool, he said. "Have you looked at the inside of the G5 tower?"
Russell was referring to Apple's new Power Mac G5s, which have nine fans built into them, a redesigned airflow and other cooling techniques used to keep those machines from overheating.
"Russell also said Apple "would like" to fit one of its powerful new G5 processors in a PowerBook -- if it can figure out how to keep the machine cool enough to operate reliably"
A machine is more than just the CPU. You are assuming that the cpu is the only heat source in a machine, DDR ram gets very hot so do other ASICS.
Russell was referring to Apple's new Power Mac G5s, which have nine fans built into them, a redesigned airflow and other cooling techniques used to keep those machines from overheating.
This is the author of the article making an assumption on what Russell meant, not a quote from apple about the G5s heat.
HeHe He indeed, sorry you are out of you league.
You have no real data just speculation by a computer world author drawin a conclusion on what an apple official said. HA
oh its the chipset or its the ram or oh its not 1 lb. but 1.5 lbs. or oh i will make up anything to deflect reality.
quibble--
To evade the truth or importance of an issue by raising trivial distinctions and objections.
To find fault or criticize for petty reasons; cavil.
You are a quibbler and your arguements hold no merit.
Apple stuck 9 fans and two giant heat sinks in the g5 tower as a design element....i always knew that. And the fans and heatsinks are connected to the chipset and ram not the cpu.
what on earth was i thinking. those heatsinks are so stylish.
get real.
Yesterday, after my last post, a friend, and his brother who is self proclaimed geek, showed up at my place.
We started talking computers and got around to a 5 year price comparison, between Mac and PC, based on the last 5 years of use.
In 1998 both of us purchased new computers.
I bought a 233mhz iMac, that after shipping and taxes cost me $2040.00 CDN.
My buddy bought a similarly spec'd 400 or 450mhz Pentium, and after taxes and rebates paid around $1700.00 CDN.
My Mac had features that didn't show up on a PC for at least a couple of years.
They replaced the computer 2 years later and bought another computer, a used one which they paid $800.00 for.
Apparently someone needed cash fast, and the machine was loaded, as PC's go, and almost new.
That machine died last year and the brother gave them a free machine. I believe it's a 1.2 ghz machine, which they used for a year, and were forced to upgrade.
They bought a new cheapie monitor, a faster proccessor, a cd/rw, and a few little nick nacks.
This upgrade cost $640.00CDN, and the parts were bought at a discount, and installed through the geeky brother.
Now here we are 2 months later, the machine will not work, the brother, the son and all thier buddies can not get the machine working and they have to spend more money.
This is very typical of the average MS/PC user, as I hear about this shit every day at the local coffee shop, and on computer forums.
I spent $2040.00, another $150.00 for ram, to a grand total of $2190.00 for 5 years of reasonably trouble free computing.
( Plus my Mac used an estimated $100.00 less for electricity.)
My buddy spent $1700.00 + $800.00 + $640.00 for a grand total of $3140.00 + an estimated $300.00 for little ad-ons like cables, ram, and such, for a grand total of $3440.00 CDN, and has had downtime that needs to be measured in weeks.
I bought a new Mac last year, and have at least 5 years of trouble free computing ahead of me, and my buddy still has a broken down Windows PC that he has to put more money into, or replace.
He tried to talk his wife and kids into an eMac before the upgrade, but they fell for all the Fud that that gets spewed daily about Macs.
He's comming back today, without the MS fanclub, and he's going for a long test drive on my machine to try and crash the Mac. ( Good Luck )
His exact words, ( "F_ck my family, I'll get my own F_cking computer, and they can kiss my @ss! ")
So someone please show me how a is a PC cheaper or better.
I'm open minded, convince me.
oh its the chipset or its the ram or oh its not 1 lb. but 1.5 lbs. or oh i will make up anything to deflect reality.
quibble--
Are you rambling on about your self. I have carefully dismantled every bit of nonsense you have passed of as fact.
Now that you have not real data to prove your statements, you have dropped to calling me names. Very mature.
Apple stuck 9 fans and two giant heat sinks in the g5 tower as a design element....i always knew that. And the fans and heatsinks are connected to the chipset and ram not the cpu.
What are you rambling about/ airflow cools things, if you look at how the fans are placed, they are not randomly placed, are for a good reason.
Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered seven of the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. Using 21 different sensors, Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4 enclosure.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html
There real data from apples own website, not theories from articles based on speculation and assumption.
If you look at the diagram. The first thing the cool intake air from the outside hits is the memory dimms, The fan is placed behind the dimms so that the intake air, which is always cooler, passes over the dimms first, then the cpus. If as you claim the G5s run very very hot, that would be a bad idea.
The G5s have a huge heatsink because since they don't heatup as much as other cpus, putting a gigantic fanless heatsink is enough to cool it. Adding a fan to the heatsink is required is need to cool hot cpus, and is extremely noisy. If apple can get away with a big heatsink and two big slow moving fant, the g5 does not run as hot as pentium or athlon.
There real facts and a technical discussion, something that must be alien to you.
large fans spinning at lower rpms produce more air movement and are also quieter....see the antec sonata case as example of a quiet case for pcs (it uses larger fans at slower rpms http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/cases/sonata/sonata-1.html )
giant heat sinks are more efficient than small heatsinks.
the fact remains: a senior apple representative clearly stated a g5 laptop would be forthcoming when heat issues are solved.
g5 towers have incredible heat reducing measures put in place because they run very hot.
the whole computing world knows it but Raptor. it has been discussed in detail on this board over and over as well.
if you choose to deny the facts, that is okay. it will not change reality:
apple cant produce a g5 laptop now because they run too hot and g5 towers lost half their expansion capability because of the cooling measures apple had to employ.
it is not related to chipsets and ddr ram. apple uses ddr ram in laptops now. pc makers use ddr ram in laptops. pc makers use hypertransport and related chipsets in amd64 and athlonfx laptops.
as an aside for Raptor, i miswrote what i meant above: yes there is a mobile athlon64....i meant there is no mobile athlonfx (the same cpu is used in towers and in laptops). i made a mistake in my writing....i get those two cpus mixed up at times in my thinking. sorry. but the point there is pc laptop makers are putting desktop pentium 4, pentium 4 extreme, and athlon fx cpus in laptops.
The cooling problem has been solved, and the new G5 powerbook will be out shortly.
http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macdesign/G5_laptop.html
yep and here is the other model:
http://www.mac-pro-audio.de/g5powerbook.html
... i have a business plan sitting here that is down on its knees begging me to execute with a headless mac. this is not consuming other apple purchases this is selling 10s of new units a week into sites that might not use apple hardware ever!