“Apple would like more market share, but making the ‘best personal computer’ is top goal”, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said recently. Additionally, the Mac OS X 10.2.8 update was released internally late last week, sources confirmed to ThinkSecret. Sources also speculated that the update will be provided to users Monday or next week. Separately, Apple seeded build 7B72 of Panther Server to developers on Thursday, posting two installation discs as well as a Server Admin CD.
Steve Jobs: Apple Would Like More Market Share; Panther Gets Closer
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“”The eMac 800 is a joke, but because they only include a CDROM, which is ridiculous for a machine that costs more than many good PCs.
BUT: the 800 MHz G4 is comparable to a P4-1700 maybe and takes less than 20W compared to 60-80W for a P4.”
Sure I like Macs but to state “800Mhz is comparable to a 1700Mhz P4″ is rubbish to say the least. If you are going to be completely honest, it would be more comparable to a PIII 1.2Ghz (1.5x clockspeed).”
I’d say, the P4 is rubbish. Isn’t the P4 @1700 about as fast as the P3 @1400? (ok then I might be wrong by 200 MHz, but I heard many claims by Mac users that G4 is about 80% faster than a P3). I don’t know about benchmarks, though.
“”Once I bought the iMac, I found out, the 15″ version didn’t even have tv-out graphics (only optional VGA-out), and programs were more sluggish than on Windows even (i.e. opening terminal windows, finder windows, etc.). So I simply thought, for _1200 Euro_ I’d expect at least an increase in productivity, so I resold the iMac and upgraded the PC for 200 bucks (all in all I ended up paying 500 for the PC).”
Why didn’t you research it first? it clearly states that on the website, which has now been updated for the latest iMac which includes that feature for the whole range.”
Since my Radeon (9200, price: 70 euros w/ 128MB DDR RAM) had tv-out, I was absolutely positive that a 1500 Euro(Apple germany price) also included that feature.
The new iMac (1GHz) AFAIK has it.
“What do you use the computer for then? for me I use on a regular basis Netbeans, Corel Draw, Corel Painter, Freehand MX, Dreamweaver MX (with 6.1 update), and I find it “plenty fast for me” (yes, I really hate that George Bush’ism).”
Oracle JDeveloper (which I didn’t find much faster on the Mac compared to my PC), Open Office, and Mozilla(Firebird/Thunderbird). Firebird seems about as fast as Safari.
“I would be interesting in what version of MacOS you were running as I found when I updates from the pre-installed version, 10.2.4 to 10.2.4, there was a decent speed increase and improvement in responsiveness.”
I immediately upgraded to 10.2.6
“Here is a question. Have you EVER ran business? have you EVER looked at OEM pricing structure? costs associated with running a business? do you think that out of the blue Apple can just suddenly drop the price and magically they still turn a profit and everything is nice and dandy? have you ever thought about uncontrolled costs such as currency fluctuations? yes, one can currency hedge against those sorts of fluctuations, however, that is not a long term plan.”
I’ve heard that Apple has _big_ margins on their hardware, and if you consider prices for RAM, disks, drives, and even processors (AFAIK the G4 in 1000 quantities costs about 200), that makes sense. Only the mainboards are developed by Apple, I think. Apple really needs some competition. Maybe the Pegasos PPC boards will provide this in the long term (more power to them!). PCs are available as components, Macs aren’t, thus the prices.
As I said, Apple notebooks are fairly priced considering their quality, desktops aren’t, considering their noise and speed.
I’d like to have a Power Mac (or better: Cube) for maybe 800.
I’ve heard that Apple has _big_ margins on their hardware, and if you consider prices for RAM, disks, drives, and even processors (AFAIK the G4 in 1000 quantities costs about 200), that makes sense. Only the mainboards are developed by Apple, I think. Apple really needs some competition. Maybe the Pegasos PPC boards will provide this in the long term (more power to them!). PCs are available as components, Macs aren’t, thus the prices. As I said, Apple notebooks are fairly priced considering their quality, desktops aren’t, considering their noise and speed.
Apple made around $400+ million, HOWEVER, the $400+ million is complete injected back into R&D and subsidising development of the operating system. You cut the price of the hardware, you have a smaller profit, thus, smaller R&D and smaller amount that can be spent on developing the operating system. I would be VERY surprised if Apple made a small profit off their operating system, even on a really good day.
So in otherwords, you want a cheap computer with a crap operating system? that is basically what you are requesting. What do you want? a quality operating system and hardware or do you want yet another poor quality computer with an inferior operaring system?
What makes a Mac a Mac is the operating system and the integrated development process between the hardware and operating system engineers. That is the benefit of the vertical development model.
As for their hardware, there is nothing stopping a vendor from purchasing motherboards and processors off IBM or Motorola, and selling a PowerPC based computer, however, there Apple would then have to ask, should they charge more on their retail operating system so that it can turn a profit. Wouldn’t that simply end up killing off customers who may want to upgrade?
So according to your logic, we would have computers priced at AUS$1000 for a eMac and AUS$500 for a copy of MacOS Retail. Sure, that is REALLY going to encourage people upgrade to the next version and am sure ISV’s would just *LOVE* to see so many people being sucked dry for operating system upgrades, thus less money available for third party software.
From: SmartPatrol @ kuwait.army.mil (2003-09-22 12:25:43)
Not only do you pay a premium for the hardware you have to pay no less than $500 each for most decent applications not to mention the hardware perhiperhals.
Why are you trying to mislead people with this statement? In the early 1990’s, you would have a case. This is the early 2000’s. You can pay a little, or a lot, for software that does the same job. The same for third-party peripherals and value-added hardware.
I can pay a little for a USB eye camera, or a lot for an iSight. I can pay essentially nothing for OpenOffice, pay a little for AppleWorks, or pay a lot for Microsoft Office. I can use iTunes and Safari for free, or pay to use Audion and Opera.
This is identical to the Windows world, except that the names are different. To suggest it isn’t is a patent falsehood.
I just bought a 15″ PowerBook and thats all that matters.
Incidentally DELL was cheaper and so was a few others…
dude your talking out of your azz. Mac and PC apps cost the same! A Lacie external USB2 or FireWire HD costs the same on either platform. Memory costs are the same. Ridiculous assumptions…
Why does it matter so much to people that hate Macs that they can’t afford them?
everyone likes to compare specs but unless you get a Dell there’s nothing that can match the quality and reliability of a mac. I bought a HP Pavilion and it didn’t boot the first time I used it. I didn’t even get a chance to ruin it
I had to send it back for them to fix it and send back to me. Where’s the quality control??? And this is HP the biggest computer company in the world so I can only imagine how crappy the pc’s you can get from some screwdriver shop
..addressed my point, but I did as one poster said I should and I went to the Apple Store. Here’s what I can get for $1000:
EMac
$999.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive
Here’s what’s wrong: I don’t want ANOTHER 17″ monitor. I already have two 19″ monitors. I don’t want a combo drive, because I don’t care. There is room here for Apple to sell a small desktop box, with a G4, all these accoutrements, minus the screen and the combo drive (or just a CD), and make good money on it.
People who have PCs under their desks, who don’t want to use Linux or Windows anymore, could easily drop this in its stead.
I’m happy to pay, I just don’t want to be FORCED to buy peripherals I don’t care about. Apple is willing to sell a $1000 box, just not to me.