For the first time since the introduction of the “top sellers” section at Apple’s online store, there is not a Macintosh among the 20 top selling items. Just before the x86 transition announcement there was an iMac in that list (while there were 3-4 Macs listed consistently each week a few months ago), but after the announcement, the Macs have dissappeared from the top selling list. The only Macintosh-related products in the list now are iLife and OSX Tiger. The rest are all iTunes/iPod products. The lower desire for PPC systems after the x86 announcement was predicted by some analysts. Update: Either OSNews’ Mac advocates just went out and bought a bunch of computers to skew the results, or the “Top Sellers” data is very dependent on the time of day. Because as of 2:00pm EST, Macs are well represented in the list, at #1,3,4,5,6,7,9 (but this is the Amazon list, not Apple’s store).
The Macintosh Not Among Apple’s Top Sellers – Updated
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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For those of us with small fortunes invested in licensed PowerPC Mac software, this is our last chance to get a Mac that will run them natively. Maybe I’m being short-sighted, but personally I am planning on picking up a new G5 soon. I would guess I’m in the minority though.
so then seperate out the application code from the communication code.
actually, in reply to myself, The PPC can do Big or Little endian byte storage, so just change to little endian and compile.
>I mean, people who think Apple is going to go down
>like the Hindenburg are going to see minor
>fluctuations as proving them right.
I don’t know what you are saying. I see Apple having a great time in the x86 platform. I see them flourishing. That doesn’t mean that they are able to sell PPC macs though.
“‘Hostage’ means retained somewhere against will of the owner. It may involve guns when it’s people, but not always. For data, it’s usually some file format.”
If it is against the will of the owner, that the owner ought not to use a file format of his liking. Nobody is forced, practically and legally, to use Microsoft’s format. Most of my documents made within the last 6 months have been in OpenOffice.org format simply because I prefer using it.
Yes, it is an inconvinience. If I choose to use MS Office’s formats, whatever reason it may be – perhaps it is what most people use and I need to collaborate with others – the fact remains that it is a choice.
In a capitalist system, all products (in this case) aren’t perfect replacements. Each has its own weaknesses. In the case of file formats, other competing file formats have more weaknesses than MS Office’s formats.
“No. They must use what plays well with others or the reverse. ”
That is a choice. I can choose to collaborate only with those using my file format, I can choose to work for a company using my file format, I can choose to only deal with those using my file format. You still have choice. Just because all the alternatives aren’t attractive in the market doesn’t mean consumers don’t have a choice.
“The issue is the liberty of users – the liberty to make their choice* based on the advantages of a product.”
The advantage of the product lies very much in the hands of its file format. A lot of the new features of each successive version of Office and its competitors involves the formating – thus affecting the file format. Microsoft had WordArt before WordPerfect had an equilevent. WordPerfect have been having bi-directional text support years before KOffice was even created, no less actually having such support. Keynote has many more choices in the animation of presentations than PowerPoint. The lists goes on and on.
All these affect the file format. The only way a standard, by government-mandate, file format can support such innovation is for each product allowed to add non-standard elements. In the long-term, it would make such a standard moot. Any manner of reducing such freedoms to the producer would discourage innovation, depending on what measure is taken. Besides, just say such a standard uses XML files with PNG graphics encolsed in a TAR container – what happens if there is new innovation that surpasses all those three in features that has demand in the market? The government would again inhibit innovation.
“To allow a product to succeed on anything other than its real or perceived merits is anti-capitalist and un-democratic, not to mention bad-faith. ”
The merits of office suits depend very much on their file format. Having different producers and firms having their own formats is “un-democratic”? We live in a very undemocratic world indeed.
“(*) actually not to have to make one and be able to use several products at the same time.”
I can’t visit two bookstores at the same time. Should the government make sure that all bookshops have entrances to their competitors to, you know, ease competition? What about frequent flyer miles – why not standardize that too! Imagine – it would be easier for frequent flyers to change airline.
Capitalism means, “An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.” How exactly if having production and distribution that is incompatible with each other “anti-capitalist”?
Capitalism is not the same as a perfect competition system, which you probably want to simulate at least in this sector.
“so then seperate out the application code from the communication code.”
While isolating functionality could reduce complexity and could make the program easier to port, the endianness issues still have to be dealt with explicitly by your program. Depending on the irreducible size and complexity of code, even with isolation, endian-cleanness can be significant development and testing effort.
“actually, in reply to myself, The PPC can do Big or Little endian byte storage, so just change to little endian and compile.”
Existing Mac OSX for PPC does not support the the execution of little-endian PPC programs without jumping through hoops, which is infeasible for normal PPC programs. So infeasible, that there is (only?) one such program, Virtual PC, the version that works on CPUs prior to and including G4, but not G5. VirtualPC is probably using assembly instructions and/or installs a driver to execute little-endian program code under OSX in order to emulate a Pentium x86.
One cannot even use the “-mlittle” GCC option to produce a PPC binary to run under Mac OSX, “-mlittle” is only for embedded PPC CPUs, so “just compiling” is not option at all.
And in addition to the lack of support on part of the OSX operating system software, there is worse on the hardware side with the G5. Pseudo little-endian mode is unsupported on G5. That is what took Microsoft so long to take out a version of Virtual PC for G5.
All in all, there is no “compile and play” way out of endian issues, unless all PPC computers suddenly disappeared. However, they are going to be with us for very long time, and even if they aren’t, it still makes sense to make code endian clean, whenever feasible.
indeed, get a clue.
because you can compile to ppc doesn’t means it will run there. how hard can it be to ensure endian safeness through a couple of thounds lines of code, how hard can it be to be completly free of endian assumptions and that all your more complex data structures will still work well?
it is very hard. but i guess you never programmed yourself apart maybe from php, have you?
Apparently neither have the Mathematica guys.
not needing to worry about endianess does not mean that your programs are not complex.
Someone wrote:
“G3/G4/G5s will be supported for a long time with no problem…”
Uhh. No. G3 beige are no longer supported on Tiger.
Anything with a Printer/Modem ports are EOL.
I have heard that with Xpostfacto
“The beige G3 is not officially supported under OS X 10.3 (Panther), but it does work with 10.2.8 and earlier. Panther can be installed using XPostFacto 3, although built-in video is not currently supported.”
Your milage may vary.
All the doomsaying about the Intel switch is all just so much hot air. Wait for the Q2 figures and I’ll bet Mac sales will be doing just fine.
As for saying Apple should not have announced this… jeeshhh.. do you really think that asking thousands of external developers to keep the secret would be possible??
My son is off to Uni in the autumn and he’ll be taking a Powerbook that will be good for four years and will make a great jukebox after that assuming its replaced by then.
>Apparently neither have the Mathematica guys.
mathematica was always written as a multiplatform app and there already was an x86 and ppc version. as even steve said, that is an very unlikely scenario for nearly everybody else.
Imac is in top 20…there goes the theory. Look at all inexpensive items that are listed. I wish we could go for a top 40 list as I’m sure Apple has many macs in the top 40. Again, this is only the online store. Visit a bricks and mortar store, CompUSA and see what is selling.
Many people want to get older models as they newer ones come in. Viruses…malware…spyware is killing the PC world and they are too blind to know the difference. If you like your boring windoze computers use them. I found this article to be most interesting.
<http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0506intelmac.html>
If you really want to run your windoze software buy an Intel mac when it comes out, stop using Virtual PC, and run those games. Don’t worry someone will make fix or a hack for the video. Nvidia or ATI will do it for sure.
As evidenced earlier in reporting here, check out Forbes latest figures. These are for retail and distribution sales for PC’s. Apple is way up over year to year. This is why one figure of Apple’s online store of sales at one given point is virtually meaningless.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2005/06/23/0623automarketscan02.html?…
One should be compiling data from Apple bricks and mortar stores, CompUSA, independent stores like Smalldog, and most especially all those Apple stores around the world now, Canada, London, Tokyo, etc., etc.