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.Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Back in 1996, I had the opportunity to travel with a friend to San Francisco, where he was going to visit Stanford and Berkeley as potential grad school locations. I went for two reasons:
- To leave the early-spring bitterness of Toronto for a five day trip to Paradise;
- To make a pilgrimage to Cupertino, headquarters of Apple Computer!
Admittedly, the second goal was the most important. After all, what kind of Mac Geek would I be if I couldn’t claim to have placed my hands on my own Kaaba?
So it was with great wonder and awe that I approached 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. The headquarters are a ring of six buildings with a central park where well-heeled employees caper and play when they’re not busily manufacturing world-beating computer products.
It wasn’t until I was standing before the receptionist’s desk that I realized my error. In all my excitement and anticipation, I had neglected to plan for this moment. To this day, I kick myself for having been so stupid; I blame it on youth.
Do you have an appointment?’ The receptionist asked.
‘Well, no”, I answered. ‘I’ve come from Toronto to see the corporate headquarters. You don’t offer tours?’
The receptionist looked as if I was the eight millionth person to have come here and asked. Perhaps I was. ‘Do you know someone here?’ She offered, for the eight millionth time.
And that ended it. I was allowed to walk the lobby, take some pictures of the inner sanctum through a plate glass window, and buy some funky trinkets at the company store. It was, when all was said and done, a very dispiriting experience.
I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected.
Well, let’s not make too much of this. I continue to advocate the Mac, and I still respect and admire the company. But these days, it’s for more mature, dare I say, rational reasons.
Apple Computer is a publicly-traded business. The purpose of a business is to generate profit for shareholders. The purpose of a business is not to cater to the needs of a minority of fans.
This distinction appears to be lost among some in the Macintosh community. This is a group of folks who grapple with what they would love to have Apple do, as if they were Apple’s only customer. So without further ado, here is a sample of some recent armchair CEO-ing for your enjoyment… with commentary.
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iCheap. This extensive discussion on Macintouch is just one of many places where Mac users seek an inexpensive ‘headless’ Mac. They cite market share as their primary argument for Apple adding a sub-$500 computer to their product line. Surely, they argue, if there were a very inexpensive Mac on the market, all the fence-sitters and secret Windows-haters would finally make the leap. How many forum-posters have uttered those words, ‘I’d go Mac, but they’re too expensive’?
Repeat after me: Apple is a business. Sure, the iCheap might convert a few Windows users, but it would also convert a lot of iMac and eMac users, and Apple needs those margins to stay competitive. Let’s not forget the clone debacle of the mid-nineties. Power Computing, Motorola, Daystar and others made cheap Macs, and they came this close to putting Apple out of business. The last thing they’d do is risk that kind of danger again.
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Licencing FairPlay. MacRumors.com recently hosted this well-discussed tidbit about RealNetworks’ offer to licence Apple’s DRM software for its music store. As we have learned, Apple has rejected the offer, preferring instead to stand alone as the only service offering protected AAC files for play on the iPod, and for sale online. Many people decry the decision, pointing out that Real will now likely take on Microsoft’s WMA format. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, goes the logic.
Hogwash. Repeat after me: Apple is a business. To quote a recent story on the subject , Apple is the undisputed king of the music download business. Real’s share of that market is so vanishingly small that it’s not even worth mentioning; Napster is the boogie-man in this story.
And let’s never forget the main point of the music store and the FairPlay format: to sell more iPods. And it’s working: Apple is now selling more iPods than all their Macs combined. Because Apple is a business, their focus on making money rather than playing ego games with other companies means they don’t have to dilute the brand with other services. That’s what Apple has always been about.
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Charging for OS Updates. It’s the annual belly-acher’s reunion. Since the introdution of OS X, Apple has released a major yearly update to the OS, and each one has been a solid, clear improvement over the previous version. It started with the original Cheetah release, and went a year later to the free 10.1 release of Puma, which cleared up so many of the initial OS’ growing pains. But with a solid baseline, Apple started improving on the original, with Jaguar and finally Panther, which brought tremendous performance and feature improvements. But the latter two releases cost $129 a pop (and that’s US dollars!).
Repeat after me: Apple is a business. For those who complained that they were forced to pay for these upgrades… grow up. 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.
Most companies can run their business, and the only people who care are Wall Street analysts. For Apple, however, the story is vastly different. As sole guardians of the Macintosh platform, a critical error that puts them out of business means the end of the Mac. So, like a pack of berserking mothers-in-law, we worry and muse aloud about what we would do if we were raising the baby.
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, Apple chose to innovate instead of insulate. The new OS and the iPod are just the beginning; we should all sit back and enjoy our role as spectators more than critics.
About the author:
Aaron Vegh is a newsletter editor and freelance publisher based near Toronto, Canada. His machines include a Fedora server, Gentoo laptop and his beloved G4.
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 http://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!