“Instead of a hot new model, Apple needs a new manufacturing process that will enable it to compete price-wise with Windows. Of course, the G5’s release instantly lowers the price on the G4. And those G4 Titaniums are still looking good.” Read the editorial at OSOpinion by James Maguire.
Mac G5: Too Little, Too Late
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
http://osopinion.com/perl/story/21715.html
It just points back to osnews.
I’ve read up on why Steve Jobs thinks Apple should maintain their prices but this is a new era, and they NEED to come down if they are to survive. I’ve played with the new macs and I’m sorry but they just don’t have enough geewhiz for me to pay those kinds of prices. Now the used market OTOH……..;)
Too Little to Late? If the title is refering to the preformance of the PPC970, I would say that it is more than enough. It’s on par with the P4 3.06GHz. Not that bad for a Mac.
… as much as bus speeds
The problem is that offering the highest quality product — which is what Apple has always done — is not enough.
I guess that’s a joke. Hardware-wize Apple has been lagging behind. They’re probably two years behind the PC technology now. Incorporating each computer with firewire seems to me like fitting one of those old Russian cars with a race car exhaust system. It does not make them any faster. They just use “Firewire” term to boast Apple leads technologywise which is utterly deceptive.
Rolls Royce is still in business, even though it only has about a .0000001 market share.
Yes. So is Cray. But Apple contends in the mass market. So this is irrelevant.
I think this quote best describes the Apple’s position to me:
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
“… as much as bus speeds”
Which is good, since the PPC970 has a higher bus speed than any other desktop processor, including Intels new 800MHz machine. Not to mention running at far lower power ranges, and since the PPC970 bus scales with processor speed, the bus will be even faster on faster processors.
Porsche has way less market share than Apple, but who says Porsche is going out of business. No one suggests that Porsche come out with an economy model… BTW, I heard a rumor that after the 970s come out, a sub $600 G4 tower will become available. That would be just what the doctor ordered. Then just buy a sub$200 17″ CRT monitor and you have a great low cost machine… er, oh, that is what the eMac is. Oops. Guess you guys just missed the boat. Nobody expects to pay $200 for a computer and have it run any of the latest software… gimme a break.
Which is good, since the PPC970 has a higher bus speed than any other desktop processor
Numbers please? And also there’s no Apple with PPC 970 *yet*. There’re always so many rumors about what technology Apple is going to adopt. Unless it is confirmed by Apple, it’s all speculation. And even if it’s true, we don’t know the hardware properties of upcoming Apple PPC computers. Other IBM PPC computers are designed for the server market and their bus speed has no relevancy in the discussion.
But we know the bus speeds of iMac and eMac computers (check Apple’s site). They’re 133Mhz and 100Mhz. Even my 2.5 year old Athlon has 266 MHz bus.
Apple has never competed with Wintel, AFAICT, simply because their hardware has never been price competitive. Apple doesn’t care, either. Large market share is not a priority because Apple caters exclusively to computer illiterates with larger disposable income.
Processor speed/usefulness hardly enters into the equation when one considers that Apple users don’t particularly care about performance relative to the aesthetics of their hardware. An analysis of Mac vs. PC over the last eight years or so should clue anybody in: Mac is about show, not go; ease of use trumps everything.
Apple is a designer company, whose appeal diminishes with every percent of market gained – much like Jaguar, the perception is what really sells.
In the long run, the processor is irrelevant. Hasn’t the last decade proven it?
¨Give me more, cheaper¨ and ¨Dell costs less than Apple¨.
I have heard this kind of crap a thousand times.
There is nothing wrong with Apple´s manufacturing process. Like Dell, they have some of their production in Taiwan and elsewhere to keep costs down. They also have a different cost structure. Dell uses commodity technology developed by Intel and others, and slaps M$ software on top. They spend very little on R&D.
Contrast that with Apple.
In fact I think Apple provides a lot of value for the money to the average user. The quality of their hardware is on par or above anything one can find in PCs, and their design is great.
They have led the industry for many years and they´ll soon introduce commodity 64-bit workstations with the PPC970.
This is just standard fare. Yet one more person who thinks the Mac is really cool, but suffers from a financial situation that does not allow them to purchase one. So they whine about how Apple needs to reduce the price, not because Apple needs to do this from a business perspective, but so the whiner in question can go buy one.
It is just like any other item. I happen to love Ferrari’s, but I can’t afford one. Is it Ferrari’s fault? No, it’s mine. If I want one, I don’t go whining to them to lower the price. I find a way to generate the cash that allows me to purchase one. I do think that Dodge Viper’s are overly expensive. If they were 30,000$ I would probably get one, but they aren’t. I don’t ask Dodge to lower the price, I just don’t buy one and let those who do think it is a good deal go buy them.
There are alot of us who are happy with the Apple computing experience and are quite willing to pay their price. This is because the cost (not financially) of going back to Windows is to great. (Same thing for Linux.)
– Kelson
The larger the market share a system has, the more value it has. More software will be written for it and demand will increase. Keeping a small, elite segment as Apple does, keeps the overall value of that market low. Apple has created a strong interest and thirst for its products. It needs to stop being elitist about its market share and profit margin and ship more. Profit percentages can be slimmed down as production goes up. It can only be a good thing.
Of course, the G5’s release instantly lowers the price on the G4. And those G4 Titaniums are still looking good
If you have a titanium fetish, I guess that’s true. But if you want to buy a decent performing computer, even if Apple’s prices are halved that wouldn’t make sense. Compare the price with nForce2 based mobo + one of the latest Athlon processors which would cost < $1000.
Motorola’s failure really hurt Apple. I’m convinced their market share has been dropping due to that and perhaps some other things.
Price – I believe when most of the Macs are 64 bits that Apple really needs to come out with a Mac that is truly entry level in price. It would be a great way to get new buyers. By that time, it could be a single G4 (high on MHz) and pretty much bare bones, but with enough RAM to get started. Bring back the 15″ Studio Display and sell the whole thing for $699 or even $599. They might lose money on it, but gain in the long run. I’ve said this before, but using the Cube would be perfect for these entry level Macs. The design for the both the Cube and Studio Display are already in place – that will cost nothing! And entry level Mac buyers would be getting the most stylish entry level computer in the world.
Kelson:
Please reread the article. He wasn’t whining because he can’t afford a Mac–he owns and works on them. Instead, he was addressing their economic/business model. Just because he doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean he was whining; just the opposite, he was being very rational. Now you, on the other hand, were whining.
atici:
“Numbers please?” (in reference to the claim of higher bus speeds under the new G5 system)
Hypertransport technology, which can push data down pipes at speeds in the neighborhood of 12.8 Gigabytes per second. (a quote from the editorial)
As far as the rumors of the 970 being unsubstantiated goes, you’re right. But you should also know by now that when very specific rumors of this type float around and persist for some time and are not denied by the company involved, they generally turn out to be true.
You know, this arguement that Apple is too expensive, too far behind the technology curve, going to go out of business was old hat in 1983, 1993 and really old in 2003.
Hey guess what, if the new PMAC comes out and I can justify the cost, I’m going to buy it. When the new 15″ PowerBook comes out, I will see if I can justify the cost and I’ll buy it. This is the same tactic I followed when I bought my Apple II, my SE, my 7200, my G4, my 140, 145, 520, g3 233, g3 400 and so on.
I also own PCs. I don’t buy a new Dell because the Mac offering sucks, I buy it because the HP equivalent sucks.
My guess is that this whiner would complain that if the G5’s were priced at $500 a piece, he’d complain he can only afford two.
My advice is to grow up.
Your two year old Athlon runs a 133MHz bus that is double-pumped. It still runs at 133MHz but it has the equivalent bandwidth of 266MHz. It still doesn’t have all the benefits of a true 266MHz bus. Apple has been in a horrible position because they don’t even have a double-pumped bus on their 100-133MHz buses. Anyways, it’s a pet peeve of mine:-) The new P4s have a 200MHz bus but it is quadruple-pumped. The PPC970 will likely have a 400MHz (or 450MHz) bus that is double-pumped, yielding the equivalent bandwidth of a 800-900MHz bus. Let’s not jump on the marketers bandwagon of 800MHz busses. We probably need a new unit of measurement for the marketing folks so they stop claiming that DDR buses are running at double the speed they actually are.
please….
The Hypertransport bus speed in the 970 is very similar after overhead to the speed of the 800 MHz p4. It is not attached to cpu speed.
But does scale with the addition of processors but not completly linearly…
So a 2 way 970 would kill a two way 3GHZ p4 800 MHz if you could buy one. And may compete on integer with a 2 way I2.
As would a 2 way sledgehammer.
There is cross talk with the scaling but in general there is more bandwidth available to the system. Usually you need a OS that understands memory localisation to get the most bang for you buck.
But it could give apple a very cheap 2/4/8 way setup that would allow them to exceed the performance of the 1 way p4 800.
Not sure how it will compare to the AMD64. That may be the more interresting playing ground.
1u 2×970 with cheap apple FC array’s would be very competitive to current pc server offerings.
We probably need a new unit of measurement for the marketing folks so they stop claiming that DDR buses are running at double the speed they actually are
You’re trying to draw a distinction without a difference. “Double-pumped” DDR memories at 400 mHz perform (with proper chipset support) identically to regular memories at 800 mHz… you get two memory accesses per clock cycle instead of one. I wish people would take the time to understand the technical issues involved before they would post about them.
KOMPRESSOR
Okay, a couple of times here recently, i’ve read the claim that Macs are either for computer illiterates, or only for those who care about form rather than function.
This is simply wrong.
I work in a biological research institute, where we do a lot of image capture/processing, DTP and presentations, and run some extremely specialized programs. Out of dozens of computers, there are maybe two PCs on the entire floor, and this is fairly representative of the building as a whole.
We use Macs because they’re better for our needs, and not due to how they look. We have access to fewer peripherals, but the ones we have work far more simply and reliably than the ones hooked up to the PCs around here. We have access to less total software, but we have all the software we seem to need, and have fewer virus problems as the trade off. Lately, we also have access to all the Unix software that powers a lot of biology, too.
As for being computer illiterate, i can program in C, Java, and PHP, run database driven websites, etc. – generally, i’m not considered illiterate. You also seem to imply that most of O’Reilley and InfoWorld must be computer illiterates, because they appear to be buying Macs en masse.
Argue about price, argue about performance, but don’t make patently false statements as flamebait.
JT
The Hypertransport bus performance in the 970 is very similar after overhead to the speed of the 800 MHz p4. It is not attached to cpu speed.
I agree. Bashing Mac-owners as computer illiterate is not only an extremely old tactic, but it’s even more inaccurate now than it ever was. I’m a graduate student in computer science and I just recently got fed up with the fragility of my PC laptops and bought an ibook–I’m fluent in C++, Java, Perl, and develop PHP/MySQL and ASP/ODBC sites for a side living while I’m in school.
PC zealots will never understand that Mac users are like them, but are willing to pay a premium for a better computing experience. The better peripheral and application support you mention is one aspect, and the style & interface are the other prominent ones.
KOMPRESSOR.
Are not a good idea. If I buy a porsche or a Rolls it will drive on the same road as any other car. If I buy a Mac I need mac apps. When I drive a Rolls I follow the same rules of the road as any other driver. The controls all follow the same rules etc. Not true with a Mac PC comparison Windows does not work the same way as the Mac.
It is actually comical watching a Windows user try their hand on a Mac. They are lost.
KOMPRESSOR, I almost agree with your comment…
PC zealots will never understand that Mac users are like them, but are willing to pay a premium for a better computing experience.
It’s your opinion.
The better peripheral and application support you mention is one aspect, and the style & interface are the other prominent ones.
Okay, I agree for the second point, but I can’t for the first. It depends on your needs. PCs clearly surpasses Macs for my needs.
again with the same Apple bullshit. OSnews has nothing better to do. Just leave them alone for once and get off Steve Jobs’ dick.
Compare the price with nForce2 based mobo + one of the latest Athlon processors which would cost < $1000.
Sure and you would have to put the thing together yourself, buy a liscense to an OS at retail prices, and have no warranty on your system. Not to mention it would sounds like a rocket engine when it was on. Sure you can build PCs for cheap that are very fast, but that is not an argument against an integrated system vendor. The truth is, the vast majority of people can’t even find the mp3s they downloaded with Kazaa let alone build their own computer. There is something to be said for fit and finish.
Are not a good idea. If I buy a porsche or a Rolls it will drive on the same road as any other car. If I buy a Mac I need mac apps. When I drive a Rolls I follow the same rules of the road as any other driver.
Um.. his analogy was dealing with price versus quality/appearance, nothing else. You could extend any analogy to make it not apply, your argument is just a fallacy.
So does this mean that people in Hollywood, the music industry, scientists, and page layout people are the dumbest of the dumb on the planet?
So does this mean that with Hollywood going away from Windows to Linux that that makes them morons and not illiterates?
I am so sick of these types of arguments from the “SO CALLED” computer experts on these types of forums that it makes me sick.
Work a help desk for a day and you will learn just how “GREAT” that shiny new fast 3ghz Dell has made for even more computer illiterates everyday.
Besides the ‘SPEED’ of the computer does not relate in any way to productivity increases in a humans life.
This is rumor, but is associated with the most credible 970 rumors, that bus speeds might be at 400.
I use windows in my profession. Have been using windows for a long time. I find it to be getting in my way lately anf have been looking for an alternative. The only thing that would hold me back is the price/performance ratio, which the current G4 line doesnt offer me. If the next Mac is even in the ball park I will get one. Reaching your peak efficiency is priceless. The only reason I can see for windows would be gaming simply cause its where alle the games currently are. However, its very low on my list of priorities. This will be one of those cases where Apple hits the spot.
“Price – I believe when most of the Macs are 64 bits that Apple really needs to come out with a Mac that is truly entry level in price.”
Only if they can make a clear profit on each one they sell. Do you think they can, allowing for advertising and support costs, R&D, etc ?
While a supermarket might justify loss leaders, it is madness for a computer manufacturer, because you don’t buy six overpriced items at the same time as one underpriced, as you do in the supermarket.
“Besides the ‘SPEED’ of the computer does not relate in any way to productivity increases in a humans life.”
It does if you are rendering 3D animations, or similar calculation-intensive tasks.
For slow-speed tasks such as writing or design, stability has more effect on total speed. One computer crash can waste hours of time, and make nonsense of higher GHz.
I think Andrew has a point. It’s one thing for Apple to consider itself a “luxury brand”. That relieves it from the pressure of staying price competitive, and it works fine for premium brands like Porsche and Ferrari. In fact I think it’s a good idea to help them stand out.
However, those cars are complete, stand-alone products. They adhere to the two-pedals-and-a-wheel paradigm, burn gasoline, and drive on roads just like any other vehicle.
Apple, on the other hand, is dependent on hardware makers and developers to build a platform that is attractive. They can do just fine with 3-5% market share, because that translates to millions of users. But if BeOS demonstrated anything, it’s that too small a platform cannot support itself. Unlike cars – if I hand-build one car a year and sell it for a million dollars, as long as that’s more than my expenses, I’m doing fine.
Bottom line – the “luxury brand” strategy can work for computers, but it’s much harder than in other kinds of products.
This was such a lame article I got bored
I haven’t even heard about a G5 shipping or as to who is the company manufacturing it. Is it Moto or IBM and what is it?
Surely the IBM PPC970 isn’t the G5 is it? The PPC chips Moto announced last week didn’t mention the G5 monicker.
So what is this guy talking about?
Vic
A lot of people say that it is significantly cheaper to build a PC than to buy a Mac. This is not entirely the case, however. It is possible to build a run-of-the-mill PC for less than a Mac, not a top end PC. I actually tried this a year and a half ago.
The Mac I wanted was priced at $1700. I decided to try building a commodity PC to see if I could do it cheaper. I used standard parts that I got at the lowest prices I could find. I didn’t use the newest tech, just the stable things (GeForce 2 Ti instead of GeForce 4, P4 1.4 instead of P4 2.0+). My final cost was approximately $1500 and several hours of poking around to figure out why such-and-such wasn’t working. It would have cost even more, but I skipped on the FireWire card.
So the upshot is that including labor and some parts I decided to forego, the PC was insignificantly cheaper than the Mac. And I like OS X alot more than XP.
Let’s put to rest all of your statistical claims people; true, apple’s market share has shrunk for personal computers, however, at the same time, that market share total number has grown in terms of all pc’s sold because there are just more pc’s sold now relative to previous years. So by that token, I’d venture to guess that their 3% or whatever market share is still selling more than they did 10 years ago or even 2 years ago.
Do you know how much dell inflates the pc market share total? They probably sell 6000 pc’s to merrill lynch instead of the 600 that they would have done in 1996. Market share is irrelevent, not what some stupid fellow suggested, “Yes. So is Cray. But Apple contends in the mass market. So this is irrelevant.” What statistical data *is* important then?? Well, how about profits and margins? I see great margins from selling G4s. They’ve been around for a long time (in terms of processor lifetimes), so their manafacturing process is probably fairly streamlined and cost effective. If not, you’d probably hear in the news about how Apple missed its forecast numbers and that it’s in the red, they probably wouldn’t be able to execute the itunes music store either and put all this press about wwdc.
Read a book on sociology, statistics don’t mean squat because they’re often times biased. Remember those commercials back in the 80’s selling toothpaste? The ones that said “9 out of 10 dentist recommended”? Well, it’s very easy for me to claim that, I’d just pick 10 dentists out of the whole country, 9 of which recommend my toothpaste, and I wouldn’t be lying now would I?
I think the eMacs are a good start in the price-conscious neighborhood, still not cheap, but relatively affordable by people who require computers (not you hardcore gamers). Apple will probably start selling G3’s at walmart sooner or later, don’t worry guys-that-can’t-yet-afford-macs, your time will come, just not now. So be patient, and don’t be so flustered. It’s got to happen gradually, you can’t take on microsoft unless you do it slyly, over time
look at linux, it’s taken them sometime to make inroads, but they’ve done it and they can’t be squashed like os/2 over night ;p <ducks quickly>
Apple also wants you, but there are bigger forces keeping them from you, if anything, you should be whining about microsoft, they’ve changed the whole landscape of the computing business with their might. might is not right, but that’s just how capitalism works.
peace guys.
The Hypertransport bus speed in the 970 is very similar after overhead to the speed of the 800 MHz p4. It is not attached to cpu speed.
Incorrect. Unlike the Clawhammer/Sledgehammer, the PPC970 does not contain an integrated HyperTransport controller. The PPC970’s bus is synchronous and bidirectional, and will scale up to 900MHz, although it’s not known if it will initially debut at 900MHz or 800MHz. The actual clock speed of the bus will be half those number of course, 450MHz and 400MHz respectively, sending two bits per cycle (DDR).
HyperTransport will come into play in the chipsets for the processors (most likely designed and manufactured by AMD). This chipset will be what communicates with the processor, and will also contain the memory controller and HyperTransport bridge. HyperTransport will allow other processors in the system non-uniform memory access (as, after all, HyperTransport is essentially NUMA) which will allow for SMP scalability well beyond what Macs are currently capable of.
Another chip (or two) will provide HyperTransport bridges to the AGP and PCI busses. Thus HyperTransport will play a very small role in uniprocessor systems (merely providing an elegant way of multiplexing the AGP and PCI busses) but its role will be critical in SMP systems.
Due to the use of HyperTransport, it is expected that Apple will release, at a minumum, a 4-way system.
It seems extremely likely that Apple will call this chip the “G5”, although there’s no official configrmation at that.
PPC970 systems will cause Apple to drive down the cost of G4 systems, until they are in a more acceptable price range for the average consumer.
“It is actually comical watching a Windows user try their hand on a Mac. They are lost.”
First time I used an iMac I had it set up and online with the settings from the owners PC ( She asked me to set it up for her ) within 20 minutes.
Weird yes. Difficult, or counter-intuitive, or nullifying my existing experience? Definitely not.
He is right in saying that apple needs cheaper products. he is wrong in saying they need a new manufacturing process. IBM has a very good process. Apple has high margins as is, they just need to tune it down. Apple needs volumes, pure and simple.
the problem with this argument is that they can’t get volumes without taking a very risky step for them, vastly reducing margins and pricing. The rise in volumes may or may not make up for the lower prices. Revenues could tank, margins would definitely tank. What apple needs then are alternative revenue streams to accomodate for reductions in pricing on desktops. ironically apple needs to eliminate its reliance on desktops so that it can attain more share in that market.
i cant believe that a few seconds of youre life is that precious that you need the FASTEST computer on reduce this time WASTED this goes for the majority of you.
but yes it is nice to have a fast computer!
“Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others.”
— Dr. M. Scott Peck
Apple are NOT competiting with the PeeCee per-say. Just look at the people who DO buy the $299 computers, would you want them as your customer? hell no. They’re the type of person who’ll buy this $299 computer and pirate the rest of their software because they’re too much of a cheapskate to by the legal versions.
Apple is going for quality, style and integration. Their customer base are those who don’t mind spending the extra amount of money. Just take televisions for example. One can either get a cheap LG TV or a more expensive Grundig. Same situation with the Mac. They can either get a cheap PeeCee and a poorly integrated software solution running on top, or they can spend the extra cash and get a computer where the operating system and software are designed to work with the hardware.
Regarding pricing compared to the competition. I’ve gone into Dick Smiths (Aussie retail chain), and compare a HP to a eMac. I’ve spotted consumers who come into the shop and the first thing they ask abot ISN’T the clock speed but the price and what software is included. What Apple need to do is get their computers into computer retail chains so that consumers see them sitting side by side to a PC and thus draw them to their solution.
If you have a look at what is included with a standard eMac, they’re pretty good value for money.
I can practically make one dance and sing. I broke into computing starting with macs. Using a mac is like using any other computer, either you can make it do what you want it to do…or you are one of those making excuses, critizing every point under the sun. If you don’t like them…DON’T BUY THEM.
All you nay sayers and whiners can go to h*ll in a hand basket, what do any of you know? That’s right.
Jack Sh%t
-Proud owner of 10 PCs running FreeBSD 5.0 CURRENT & 4.8 STABLE, XP Pro SP1, and Redhat 7.3,8 & 9.(that’s right, not a single Mac…but don’t let that fool you into thinking that i have some kind of alliance with idiots who keep mouthing off “macs suck, pcs rule”)
An 800 DDR (400 MHz x 2) bus is not the same as a 800MHz bus. Here’s an article that is a nice synopsis of a university course that involved this sort of thing that I took. I suggest you read it. The link in question speaks specifically about DDR vs SDR. http://www.arstechnica.com/paedia/b/bandwidth-latency/bandwidth-lat…
I spoke of an entry level Cube and Studio Display and how it might not make money, but would bring more people to the world of Apple. About R&D costs – that’s the best part of this, the R&D has already been done on both items.
yet another whine from yet another lazy american
You mean the lazy Americans who, on average, work more hours per week than workers in any other industrialized country in the world (according to multiple studies)? Or do you mean the lazy Americans who built and maintain the world’s largest economy? Or perhaps you were referring to the lazy Americans who created virtually all of the technologies that are discussed on these pages. Could you please clarify?
re: newsflash
Well I do know quite a bit about computers – I used Linux for graphic design and writing for several years and that was in 1999.
I use the Mac because the performance is much better than my PC that I just bought a year and a half ago. Performance was so poor on the computer as well as the constant threat of data loss. Programs couldn’t be opened simultaneously because they some how conflicted with each other, Adobe Acrobat Reader didn’t work right as well as my DVD player. I tripled the RAM and there was no difference in performance. I have triple the RAM my mom has on the same model and there is an incredible difference in performance. I personally would run an SGI machine if it had the hardware and software compatibility at the right price.
3d renderings
Yes, I just bought a 3d rendering and modelling program and yes stability does matter – it increases speed as I can actually multitask while it is rendering and the longer it takes to complete, the less you want to start all the way from scratch.
I am referring to the millions of Lazy Americans in the technology industry that are losing their jobs to foreign countries because they are a bunch of whining geeks who think an hour or two of real work a day is a full day of work. And because they absolutely hate learning new things or doing something a different way and always insist that for some unknown reason they are always right about everything. And furthermore because these Lazy Americans rarely check their facts, have poor educational backgrounds, and are rude and uncivil most of the time.
And according to a number of studies, American software developers and technologists are arrogant and lazy.
Not to mention all the unofficial studies of the typical American technologist:
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/
Some Lazy Americans are so stupid that they think the World Wide Web was invented by an American. Tim Berners-Lee is British, although he does work at MIT these days.
I’m not against Mac’s. I am thinking of getting a Powerbook for my next PC, but really enjoying XD2 right now.
Anyway, we have a new graphic design guy at work. He is used to OS9 and has a Windows PC at home. He is clueless when it comes to doing anything other than click an icon to load Photoshop or whatever. He actually struggled for a while getting used to it.
We have another guy right now who is product manager of a CMS product. He got an ibook to test browsers on the Mac. He has called me a few times because he can’t find his way around.
Anyway the point is that when you become used to one OS or have only ever used one OS you really struggle using new OS’s.
I have been fortunate in that I have spent some time in DOS, all versions of windows OS 9, OS 10, BeOS, KDE, Gnome. Not that that is impressive or that I am en expert at all, but just that when you have a bit of experience you can adapt more easily as I am sure is the case with you.
Oops the response above was a response to your post.
You know, this arguement that Apple is too expensive, too far behind the technology curve, going to go out of business was old hat in 1983, 1993 and really old in 2003.
Yeah…. I can imagine a lot of people saying that in 1983… NOT. But in 1993, Apple was indeed bankrupting. They didn’t have a profit in years, just kicked out Jobs, facing stiff competition with new companies, loosing market share quickly, etc. 1998 they turned around, but would they go back in the same path?
And besides, the article didn’t say that Apple would go out of business. To quote: “Rolls Royce is still in business, even though it only has about a .0000001 market share. ”
Hey guess what, if the new PMAC comes out and I can justify the cost, I’m going to buy it. When the new 15″ PowerBook comes out, I will see if I can justify the cost and I’ll buy it.
The problem is how many people would continue justifying the cost?
My guess is that this whiner would complain that if the G5’s were priced at $500 a piece, he’d complain he can only afford two.
He is not complaining that he can’t afford the new so-called G5. He is saying that unless Apple reduces prices, it would loose more and more market share.
My advice is to grow up.
Heh, now I can’t use that phrase back at you, it would be rude 🙁
I have often read Macs being described as the BMW’s and the Rolls Royce’s of computing, hence part of the justification for the pricing. If that is truly the case then Macs shouldn’t be compaired to Windows because nobody does a compairison between a Rolls Royce and a Toyota ECHO. And it seems to indicate to me that if Apple is aiming for a higher price category then they have no justification to feel vicitimized by Microsoft. After all no BMW owner is going to feel slighted because more people are driving Hyundais.
Daniel Switkin:
They adhere to the two-pedals-and-a-wheel paradigm
Real cars (especially Porsches and Ferraris) have THREE pedals and a wheel. Unless your ride has a paddle-shifter and penumatic actuation.
Anonymous (IP: 206.208.110.—):
that’s right, not a single Mac…but don’t let that fool you into thinking that i have some kind of alliance with idiots who keep mouthing off “macs suck, pcs rule”)
Very well said Anon! I’m in the exact same boat. Then again, if anti-Mac zealots were to mysteriously stop their belly-aching, I’d have no outlet for my pedantry
Sick of his fellow PC users making asses of themselves,
GG
This is the problem with Mac persons. If every process, I save 30 seconds, and every hour therefore I save 5 minutes if I run the process 10 times during that hour, and therefore in a working day, 40-60 minutes saved. That’s a lot of time if you ask me. People don’t come to work, on their computer, open (for example) AutoCAD, do one process, go back home.
Meanwhile, notice how you tapped your table inpatiently while something is rendering on your computer? Where every second looks like an eternity? If you aren’t like that, a lot of people are. The closer to 0 the time used, the better.
Huh? You mean the American companies that are still coming up with more innovations in the tech world than any other single country are losing out to non-American companies? Gee, I thought the sagging world economy was responsible for the downturn in the tech world.
And a single person invented the World Wide Web? Funny…I was always under the impression that early incarnations were the work of the US Defense Department (with input from AT&T, other corporations, and, if I’m not mistaken, some part of the Canadian government–sorry Canada, don’t remember who it was).
What was that about the US educational system? Funny thing: I just saw Tony Blair on TV quoting statistics proving that more and more British students were studying in the US because the British university system was lagging behind. And these students are paying for this out of their own pockets. Odd.
And who’s being rude?
Please grow up and quit your useless bitching. If you have some sort of proclomation to make, back it up with something more than “nya nya nya.” Even though I saw “Dr” in front of your name, you act like you were in junior high. I’ll pass you a note in gym class!
“Huh? You mean the American companies that are still coming up with more innovations in the tech world than any other single country are losing out to non-American companies? ”
Please let’s stop with the jingoistic and anti-American blinders. Sure American companies dominate CERTAIN aspects of high technology. Do they come with more innovation overall, nope sorry. Assesments like those are plain wrong, sure they are coming with more innovations if you ignore Japan, Taiwan, and the whole western Europe.
” And a single person invented the World Wide Web? Funny…I was always under the impression that early incarnations were the work of the US Defense Department (with input from AT&T, other corporations, and, if I’m not mistaken, some part of the Canadian government–sorry Canada, don’t remember who it was). ”
Sorry you are confussed about the INTERNET (i.e. DARPANET) and the WWW, the WWW runs on the Internet of course. Again, let’s be all grown ups here, the American scientist did wonderful research, so did other scientist around the world. Deal with it….
” What was that about the US educational system? Funny thing: I just saw Tony Blair on TV quoting statistics proving that more and more British students were studying in the US because the British university system was lagging behind. And these students are paying for this out of their own pockets. Odd. ”
Well if you go to most top US engineering schools, at least at the graduate level, you will see that the number of actual American students is quite ridiculously low. American Universities are top notch, American highschool system (Which is what usually is meant by educational system) is subpar to say the least. The level of American students graduating with engineering degrees is relativelly small compared to other industrialized nations. So America has a great university system for technology education which is taken advatage of by mostly international students…..
A lot of research in the US is carried out by non-Americans. So this is a symbiotic relationship really.
Ok… But don’t come to me with that very old story that the processors in Macs are faster than PC ones. I ever wanted to try a Mac before I did it. I run number-crunching codes and what I’ve been seing is Celeron (!) and Duron(!) processors doing more FP than G3’s with the same clock. That is maybe not true for some restrict programs… But, please.. Don’t tell me that twice-as-fast-as-Pentium story. That is a lie now (if that has ever been true before).
A lot of the switchers I know and Mac clients that I have purchase Macs for a variety of reasons but price is not the deciding factor.
Apple seems to be reaching for a certain market demographic that has deep pockets. I am not going into if this is right/wrong or if it loses marketshare.
I you look at the results of the iTMS the majority of people using that service run MacOSX, probably have broadband internet connections and have purchased mostly full albums. So you are talking about a Mac user so that is 2-3% of the computer using population that also is running MacOSX which is also a smaller group and then on top of that those MacOSX users with broadband connections. So its a tiny group of people that buying up all this music yet on the PC side no music service has the noteriety or the successof iTMS yet they have access to a market that is easily 10X larger than what Apple has along with at least a year head start.
So the volume of units shipped is important but it seems like to Apple it matters who it sells its computers too. As far as brand recognition and loyalty they are very strong so if they can continue to innovate it seems that people are willing to pay the price premium as long as they can see benefit and value, tangible or intangible in Apple’s products.
I would like to see Macs sell for a lower price point and I do think that they are moving there but at a much slower rate than the rest of the industry while having higher than average margins per unit. If they can remain profitable and innovative and attract users with deep pockets thats fine but they will never achieve double digit marketshare numbers.
Getulio Brasil:
[i]Don’t tell me that twice-as-fast-as-Pentium story.[i]
You’re probably thinking of people who compare MHz-to-MHz, in which case PPC’s higher IPC invalidate the MHz comparison between itself and x86.
HTH,
GG
You can’t compare Porche’s market share with Apple’s marketshare and conclude that because Porche is still in business therefore Apple will remain in business. The reason is, a Porche Boxster is NOT incompatible the automotive products that drive the car. You can go to Shell and buy gas, you can put plain air in the standard Goodyear Eagle tires. The engine uses normal 40W oil. If a Boxster ran only on Porche gas, tires, air, and oil, Porche would not be in business.
Now take Apple, sure you can buy a USB mouse or IDE hard drive and use it with a Mac. But the thing that drives a computer is software, and software is platform dependant. I can’t go buy Visio an run it on my Mac. I can’t buy a WinTV PVR 250 and use it with my G4 even though my G4 has 3 open PCI slots; the drivers are Windows only.
The point I am making is that Apple’s success depends on 3rd party developers creating software products and hardware drivers for the Mac. Am I the only one who sees that?
small penis…..
Aye? are you referring to the same population with an average saving rate of 4% ? the same country that has an ever increasing personal debt? the same one with a government budget running in the red under the illusion of Fabian Socialism.
Also, the latest economic servey has also shown that the growth in the Asia-Pacific region has been above the world average due to a combination of strong savings, good fiscal policy and a comodity prices holding.
“Compare the price with nForce2 based mobo + one of the latest Athlon processors which would cost < $1000.
Sure and you would have to put the thing together yourself, buy a liscense to an OS at retail prices, and have no warranty on your system. Not to mention it would sounds like a rocket engine when it was on. Sure you can build PCs for cheap that are very fast, but that is not an argument against an integrated system vendor. The truth is, the vast majority of people can’t even find the mp3s they downloaded with Kazaa let alone build their own computer. There is something to be said for fit and finish.”
It takes about 1 hour to build a PC and another 2 to install the software. Here in Australia most PCs are purchased from small builders. Normally it takes about 2 hours to have a system built to order. Service is excellent.
An Athlon XP2600+ and Nforce MB costs AUD$300 (~US$200) the memory, HD, CDRW case etc and XP OEM license+labour is about AUD$700 for a total cost of about AUD$1000 (~US $650). A quality 17″ CRT is another US 150. In other words as cheap as a base level iMac, more than twice as fast, better monitor, bigger HD, 4x RAM.
I meant an eMac not an iMac
“Apple are NOT competiting with the PeeCee per-say. Just look at the people who DO buy the $299 computers, would you want them as your customer? hell no. They’re the type of person who’ll buy this $299 computer and pirate the rest of their software because they’re too much of a cheapskate to by the legal versions.”
Or they are genuinely poor. Even in the US, there are many people on very low incomes, who may still need a computer.
The PPC 970 bus speed is expected at 6.4 Go/sec. The latest P4 with “800 MHz FSB” too.
The basic assumption of this article is flawed. Macs aren’t expensive because Apple has bad/expensive manufacturing processes, they’re expensive because Apple has such massive profit margins (the biggest in the computer market, IIRC).
The actual costs of manufacturing, say, a Dual G4 tower would only be marginally more than those Dell have making an equivalently specced dual P4 (Apple do have to meet some of the costs of making their own motherboards & chipsets IIRC – but everything else is off the shelf), the difference is Apple puts a hell of a lot more of the customer’s money in their pocket than Dell does.
Apple price their products to their markets, and reap the benefits thereof. Textbook capitalism in action. You’ll only get a cheaper Mac when Apple deign to sell you one (or if they get desparate enough, but since the Mac zealots managed to keep Apple alive during the mid nineties, Apple have nothing to worry about now at all).
I think some of you must have very little percepion of the world outside middle America to say that someone who thinks Macs are too expensive are cheapskates.
Only 5% of the worlds population live in the US!
In Australia a base level eMac costs AUD$1499 (~US $1000)- that equates to about three weeks after-tax income for a typical university graduate or almost five weeks after-tax income for someone on minimum wages. A dual 1.4 GHZ G4 (the only really fast Mac) costs AU$8009 + monitor or about four months after-tax income for a typical university graduate.
The base model eMac represents about three months salary for an Indian university graduate. In Thailand that eMac represents about the annual income of an average person.
The much derided US$199 Walmart special represents more than the annual income in many parts of Africa.
Apple better snap out of the ‘reality distortion field’ and realise that there is very little future in expensive PCs.
The rabid Mac supporters always bring up the luxury car makers, Rolls Royce, Porsche etc to justify high Apple prices. Rolls Royce last made a profit decades ago, it is now part of the Volkswagen empire and was previously owned by the British govenment and arms manufacturer Metropolitan Vickers. Ferrari and Maserati are owned by Fiat, Lamborghini is owned by VW. Porsche is part owned by the Piech family (controlling shareholders of VW and relatives of the Porsche family).
Luxury cars don’t need a big market share because they are controlled by massive conglomerates which generate most of their profits in other areas.
If Apple was losing market share in the mid 80s to the vastly inferior DOS machines how will it posibbly compete in future with far cheaper and perfectly usable X86 solutions.
The Mac owner is often a bit like the BMW owner who says his car is much better than a Chrysler. If he is comparing a BMW M5 with a Neon yes – if he is comparing his 316i with a Dodge Viper he is just totally deluded.
I just love reading comments by folks who argue out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. For example, if price is the major consideration for buying then I would like to know if the same people buy Yugos for their transportation. If being rich is the criteria for buying an Apple product then stupid and many other descriptors are automatically applied.
How one wishes to spend their time and money is a very personal matter. It determines how we spend both of them on all sorts of things. I am not a spectator sportsman so I would consider it a waste of time and effort to pay to see a game. Others disagree vehemently with that position. I have no argument with them unless they try to apply a batch of uncomplimentary adjectives towards my character and name. Mac users are not necessarily rich and stupid and Wintel users are not misers and love to waste time fiddling with their computers.
Apple will fall when buyers no longer see any value in their product (at any price you would like put on it). Wintel platforms will do the same.
There was a great special on pbs or history channel on Darpanet and the subsequent rise of the internet. it detailed the creation of TCP and spoke to the scientists. The team was largely, if not entirely, american.
as Apple makes a quality product that’s different from a Dell, Gateway, HP or any other PC clone they will continue to have people willing to pay the extra money.
I’m saving right now because (even though they’re expensive) I think they are worth the extra cost. Some won’t agree. That’s fine.
IMHO, if the new units are priced similar to the currently PowerMacs they’ll sell like hotcakes. If they cost $500-$1000+ more for each comparable unit they may have problems.
I didn’t buy my Apple iMac (or my Apple iPod for that matter) because of speed or price. I’m not rich by any means which means that I will be upgrading my computer less often because they cost more.
But what I get for my extra money is the same type of user experience that Mercedes users get and which I can’t afford.
My 800mhz iMac is fast enough for 99.9% of what I do. I support desktop computers at work and most run Windows XP. It’s less lame than previous versions of Windows but it still feels like a Chevy. Some parts look good but fit and finish isn’t that great.
Security. Security sucks on XP. The two biggest security problems with XP are IE and Outlook (we don’t use Outlook thank God). Swiss cheese is solid compared to XP’s security.
I could go on and on but Windows people won’t change their mind so it isn’t worth saying anything more.
As for too little too late. What has this guy been drinking, smoking, or injecting?
I didn’t buy my Apple iMac (or my Apple iPod for that matter) because of speed or price. I’m not rich by any means which means that I will be upgrading my computer less often because they cost more.
But what I get for my extra money is the same type of user experience that Mercedes users get and which I can’t afford.
My 800mhz iMac is fast enough for 99.9% of what I do. I support desktop computers at work and most run Windows XP. It’s less lame than previous versions of Windows but it still feels like a Chevy. Some parts look good but fit and finish isn’t that great.
Security. Security sucks on XP. The two biggest security problems with XP are IE and Outlook (we don’t use Outlook thank God). Swiss cheese is solid compared to XP’s security.
I could go on and on but Windows people won’t change their mind so it isn’t worth saying anything more.
As for too little too late. What has this guy been drinking, smoking, or injecting?