“Remember Steve Jobs’ “sand” concept for the creation of personal computers? About the time he lent his star power to the creation of the original Macintosh back in the early ’80s, Apple’s founder famously described his dream factory: an oceanfront site that would haul raw beach sand in one end, cook up its own silicon and deliver fully configured PCs out the other end. This vision of vertical integration and rugged self-sufficiency is a cornerstone of Apple’s culture that has informed the company’s every move during Jobs’ two tenures there. (It’s telling that the only time Apple ever seriously toyed with opening up its hardware and software specs – porting the Mac OS to Intel processors and allowing a short list of third-party vendors to create a tightly controlled roster of hardware “clones” – was during Jobs’ exile in the late ’80s and early ’90s.)” Read the rest of the editorial at ExtremeTech.
Mac Market Built on Sand?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
When has Extreme Tech ever said anything good about Apple and the Mac?!
Apple has always been a “lone wolf”. I admire their independence, but they do too much by themselves. I think the Mac could be great, but it’s just not reaching out to enough people and not enough penetration in the big league. Mac OS is designed to be simple and user friendly, what I’m about to say is not intended to be an insult: If you design a system for idiots, that’s what you’ll get, a bunch of idiots using your products. That statement sounds kind of harsh, and I’m sorry. But Apple has done great things to please simple minded users, and appeal to “professionals” in the graphics industry. The graphics industry isn’t just made up of ad agencies with Photoshop artists that warp photos, and it certainly isn’t just print and layout designers. There’s a whole new category of graphics that use digital media. I have yet to see an actual “professional” 3D graphics card for the Mac. The Radeon 8500 and GeForce 4 are great cards, but they’re more of a gamer’s card than professional 3D.
I have no sympathy for Apple when I hear they only have 5% market share. If you show up to a party and just stand in a corner by yourself, you’re not going to meet anybody. You have to go around and meet people, ask that girl/guy to dance with you. Point is, not only does Apple need to reach out for variety in technology – meaning get more developers making hardware/software for them, and don’t sand box themselves in proprietary designs – they also need to get more products out there and in store shelves. I walk into a store and I see PC games and software everywhere. But in a dark corner is a square bin. Not attractive. Hell, I even see Quake 3 Arena for Linux (!) sitting on a shelf on the wall that’s more visible.
>I have no sympathy for Apple when I hear they only have 5% market share.
According to the latest stats, it is between 2.9% and 3.2% (depends on the source).
>>You have to go around and meet people, ask that girl/guy to dance with you. Point is, not only does Apple need to reach out for variety in technology – meaning get more developers making hardware/software for them, and don’t sand box themselves in proprietary designs – they also need to get more products out there and in store shelves.<<
Of course my comment above was extremely sarcastic, the article had some valid points and I agree on some of the guy’s analysis. Apple has been doing alot better with open standards than they use to be. The foundation of OS X is open source thanks to the Darwin initiative. Apple is alittle more passionate with third party developers than Microsoft is. Apple is a hardware company, so competing with other software developers is not in Apple’s best interest… Microsoft on the other hand is not a team player, though tries to make it look good for the press!
>>I have yet to see an actual “professional” 3D graphics card for the Mac. The Radeon 8500 and GeForce 4 are great cards, but they’re more of a gamer’s card than professional 3D.<<
What graphics cards are you looking for and which PC makers are carrying them? I usually see similar hardware venders carrying the similar cards usually?!
>>What graphics cards are you looking for and which PC makers are carrying them? I usually see similar hardware venders carrying the similar cards usually?! >>
For example, nVidia Quadro chips, which had Elsa making graphics cards for them. 3DLabs Oxygen chips. Ethan & Sutherland is anothe one, though not as popular.
T Ly….have even used a Mac before? OS X?
Mac OS X would have been better off beos rather than the slow
and unremarkable nextstep?
>>Mac OS X would have been better off beos rather than the slow and unremarkable nextstep?<<
Though I love BeOS as much as I love Mac OS, including X… I think Apple made the best decision, for one they got Steve Jobs with the deal (he’s a visionary and a maniac)… and two they got some outstanding technology from NeXT that Be (other than BeOS) didn’t have!
As for the ‘slow’ myth… it was true for Mac OS X 10.0, but not for 10.1. I am running it ona G3 without any problems 🙂
BeOS was remarkable, NeXT/OPEN Step was remarkable too, for its own reasons. It wasn’t always blazing fast, but it introduced new development and user interface ideas to the market, which many have been quick to copy. Heck, they even created Objective C simply because C++ was nowhere NEAR a standard yet (and it’s NOT THAT hard to learn, if you already know C or C++).
-JM
Apple’s founder famously described his dream factory: an oceanfront site that would haul raw beach sand in one end, cook up its own silicon and deliver fully configured PCs out the other end.
——–
This is his goal? Well, Apple is outsourcing production to the cheapest Taiwanese/Korean manufacturers and make nothing themselves the last time I checked, so I’d say he’s got a long way to go.
>>According to the latest stats, it is between 2.9% and 3.2% (depends on the source).
Eugenia, I use 5% because lots of other sites round. They say “the other 95%”. I’m giving Apple the benefit of the doubt. But you eliminated any doubts.
//T Ly….have even used a Mac before? OS X?
Simple minded user,
No I haven’t really used it for more than 5 minutes, I did go to the Apple store at a nearby mall and played with OSX briefly. I’ll have you know, I am planning on buying a Mac. Most likely a PowerBook or iBook 14″ screen.
I object to the characterization of Mac users as “idiots”. I could say that same about those of you who willingly suffer thru Win2000 or WinXP just because that’s what your friends use! I would characterize Mac users more in the professional category– graphics artists and scientists mostly.
As for marketshare– I never think those numbers take into account the fact that Macs tend to last longer than PC’s. You ever hear the one about Mac users constituting 2% of web surfers? Jeez– 60% of web pages are CODED on Macintoshes!
And I also believe that the past is the past. OSX changes things from Mac vs the world to UNIX vs legacy OS’s (read Windows). I think I’ll put my money on UNIX….
Oh– regarding my synopsis– “speed”. the other point I wanted to make was that you could wait a hundred years for PC box makers to do anything innovative, they are SO focussed on dollars and cents. USB was an INTEl invention and it took APPLE to make it popular. Floppies have been useless for YEARS, but Apple is about the only company that has figured this out. Many PC’s STILL ship without network cards.
And even open source types have their gaffes: Linus Torvalds was calling Firewire (1394) uninteresting as recently as last year.
>>I could say that same about those of you who willingly suffer thru Win2000 or WinXP just because that’s what your friends use! I would characterize Mac users more in the professional category– graphics artists and scientists mostly.<<
Well I suffer none from win2k/XP but do suffer from using macs. Basicly, People use the one cause they find the like to one over the other in most cases. There are idiots on both sides and both OS’s have been idiotified. Though I would rather take a idiot OS over a need a CS degree to use OS. When done right idiot proofing has no effect on the non-idiot user experiance. Just means it will work and work easily which most people have no problem with.
Far as you mac people are more professional comment. Thats a very snobby comment and something that can turn people off from something like macs if mac users act that way. I think there are more professional people using windows than mac. Also most science type people tend to use windows, larging for the vastness of tools. And many of them use Suns.
IIRC, SAND was the acronym Steve Jobs used in the early development of the Macintosh. It stood for Steve’s Amazing New Device.
Brad…
>>Thats a very snobby comment and something that can turn people off from something like macs if mac users act that way. I think there are more professional people using windows than mac. Also most science type people tend to use windows, larging for the vastness of tools. And many of them use Suns.<<
Well not all Mac users are snobby, but they are probably out there somewhere, the same as there are Windows users with a snobby attitude… you have them for almost anything relating to competition… Dallas Cowboys -vs- Washington Redskins, Chevy -vs- Ford, Heavy Metal -vs- Hip Hop, Jocks -vs- Nerds, etc… Science people don’t care what they use, as long as it gets the work done! I do know NASA is using Macs for various projects like the ‘Helios’ and so forth. To be honest there is so many different computing platforms out there that we’re not exposed to that we don’t know who is using what?! Most assume that everyone uses Windows and owns a PC, it’s an assumption, and you know what that means?… assumption is the mother of all ‘bleep’! You’d be surprised of what computer users are probably running these days… from PCs to Macs to Amigas and Ataris, from A-OS to Z-OS to 123-OS! It is almost like spoken languages… not everyone speaks English as some would like to assume, so we have a diversity throughout the world, or better yet, ‘Individuality’ and I like that. Just be yourself, be different and follow your own lead… and if people follow behind you then great, if they don’t, who cares as long as you made the most of what you are and made a difference in yourself!
I am a Mac user and darn proud of it 🙂
CattBeMac,
You have some really good points there. Excellent post. Microsoft’s world domination really is just a What-If. It’ll never happen because there’re too many individualists who stick to their old ways and don’t care what the trend is.
How come there is no follow ups on the missing screens ?
On the other hand is steve under a contractual arrangement with the screen manufacturer ?
Surely there are other ways, in the first instance what are the comparisons of the new imac screens and the other 3 screens that apple has available, in other words are these new imac screens eyepoppingly different from the 15″, 17′” & 22″ ?
The shortage of new iMac2’s is due to the lack of LCD screens, further more these LCD screens made for the iMac2 supposedly have higher technical specifications which means it’ll take longer than regular LCD screens.
I don’t like Apple’s attitude with the “ghost pixels” problem found in their LCD screens (probably other brands as well). Apparently Apple is saying “tough sh*t”. I’d rather buy a PowerMac and add a Radeon 8500 with DVI and get my own LCD screen elsewhere, perhaps with at lease a good return policy.
Correct me if I’m wrong Tom but isn’t unix even older than dos? And hasn’t dos been abandoned by ms? So wouldn’t that make unix the legacy os? As for your grand visions of unix taking out windows realize that until all the *nix flavors realize joe user wants ease of use and compatability, not the ability to leave his comp on for 6 months ms will continue to trounce *nix. btw I love how apple enthusiats are all hyped about osX using a *nix as a core when the only reason apple went that way was to save money on development and recapture some marketshare (all the *nix combined had mac os beat % wise, according to computer user may 1999). I’m not saying osX isn’t great (I’ve only used it for limited amounts of time, but I thought it was very nice, nice enough for me to switch my os? no, but nice none the less, I’m also not saying *nix isn’t great but no os that requires that much effort to add drivers and programs will control major market share as long as there is an os that only needs a double click to install).
>>as long as there is an os that only needs a double click to install).
And one more click for the license agreement (in some cases) and another click when it’s done, yet another click to allow it to reboot your computer. And when the drivers don’t work then what do you do? (don’t answer that, I already know).
I can’t blame a person for wanting an OS that’s easy to use. But my experience with Windows in the past has been: try to get as much work done in between system/application crashes. If I can get longer uptime on my computer I wouldn’t mind all the extra effort needed to do common tasks.
Actually, if you want to get technical on the subject… as you know, Windows XP is derived from Windows NT, which is derived from VMS that was started by DEC in the mid 1970s. So to be honest both operating systems have legacy built into them. Check out a website here for more on the history of VMS and NT…
http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=4494&pg=2
Enjoy 🙂
http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=4494&pg=1
I was under the impression that Microsoft was working with IBM on OS/2. The two could not play well together so MS split and made Windows NT to spite IBM.
>>I was under the impression that Microsoft was working with IBM on OS/2. The two could not play well together so MS split and made Windows NT to spite IBM.<<
IBM fits in the middle there somewhere. Have you read the book ‘Accidental Empires’? It is excellent, and I recommend for a good read and a laugh 😉
If your talking derived then ya xp is from 1970 but honestly how much of vms is left in xp? Very little as opposed to *nix which is still based on unix (btw based is completely different then derived, your analogy means a brand new half a million dollar ferarri is damn near the same as a model T). btw T Ly sorry you had such shitty experiances with windows but you have to admit your listing a total of, what 5 clicks, to install an app or driver still takes a lot less time and efforet then the *nix way of doing it. And a good install of windows on decent hardware is no where near as unstable as some *nix users would like to claim (I’m not saying its nearly as stable as *nix, but if a desktop pc can go 4 or 5 days without a reboot (which a good install can with no problems) then its stable enough). How much uptime do you really need? A month? A year? A decade? When does the time trade off quit making sense (if your up for a whole year but you take say a total of 72 hours to do stuff that takes a windows user 3 hours and they waste maybe 50 hours with downtime who wins there?).
>>If your talking derived then ya xp is from 1970 but honestly how much of vms is left in xp?<<
Well from what I gather, there was alot of VMS in NT and I suspect that there is alot in XP since XP is NT with a few new hacks! And just like XP getting new code, UNIX gets new code added as well… BSD and all other UNIX variants are still evolving, take Darwin in Mac OS X, it is quite new judging by the release numbers and is a baby in the UNIX family. So there is no difference! VMS (offspring included) and UNIX (offspring included) are both evolving, so your argument is invalid I must say!
I will admit that I did struggle to get a Linux system working to meet my needs (hardware OpenGL, KDevelop had trouble compiling my Qt apps, and when I got both these items working, my “test” app using OpenGL & Qt crashed for no apparent reason) and I finally gave up because I could not figure out why I can’t get a stupid Qt program to create a main window, then create a child window for OpenGL context. It would crash everytime I close the program.
I do recognize Linux as a powerful OS, and despite my bad experiences, I would not say I dislike it simpily because it didn’t work for me.
I do recognize Windows as a decent OS, and after 5 years of using it, when I look into the future I see that Windows will no longer work for me, which is why I’m going to give Mac OS a try. I say that Windows will not work for me anymore because of the way MS designed Windows XP, and the onslaught of .NET is like a kick to the head for me.
You are right when you say a good Windows installation on good hardware will produce a solid, stable system. I know exactly what you mean, because I spend weeks researching hardware, I read reviews and articles on hardware websites to see what components have issues or quirks, what doesn’t work with what, and finally I come up with a configuration that I feel is best of breed. With hardware aside I can only pray that the Windows installation will be a good one. Sometimes it takes me several reinstalls to get it right. I will miss that when I leave the Windows world, but I will be running muliple computers with multiple OSes. But in a matter of years they’ll grow old and I’ll have to move on. It’s like the transition from Windows 98 to 2000. But the future versions of Windows do not look well to me.
applelinks.com has run two different stories on two consecutive days. Yesterday someone wrote that the glass (particles or whatever) that is used in the new screens is in short supply. Apparently its this new type of glass merits the viewable clarity of the screens, I just wonder about this ‘glass’ is it a new hi-tech receipe ?
Today the story is that most of the current shipment of new imacs in their cardboxes are stacked in huge walls at the Japanese Expo !