The annual Macworld Conference & Expo is being held this week in San Francisco. Apple traditionally makes its big product annoncements during the conference. It receives plenty of publicity - Steve Jobs shuns CES so Apple gets more focused coverage in the media and publicity with this conference.
Bill Gates endures computer crash during CES keynote speech
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on the side topic of stability, I'll throw in my 2 cents worth, having spent 25 years in the computer business:
Apples are very solid machines. They tightly control via licensings anything that claims any degree of Mac compatibility. Their pricing allows them to overengineer the product and still maintain healthy profit margins. Realistically, they have no competition.
If the non-Apple PC industry could do the same level of compatibilty testing (or force the suppliers of aftermarket stuff to do it actually), the PC world would be likewise rather solid.
However, since any Tom, **** or Harry can make anything they want and call it "compatible", software, hardwawe, drivers, etc; there is no guarantee that it really is compatible in the least.
Why don't purveyors of junk target Apples? Easy; if you are in it for the quick buck, why fight and pay royalties, licensing fees, validation testing, etc for the priviledge to sell to 1-5% of the total computer market, when you don't have to do anything to sell to the 95-99%?
Apples are very solid machines. They tightly control via licensings anything that claims any degree of Mac compatibility. Their pricing allows them to overengineer the product and still maintain healthy profit margins. Realistically, they have no competition.
If the non-Apple PC industry could do the same level of compatibilty testing (or force the suppliers of aftermarket stuff to do it actually), the PC world would be likewise rather solid.
However, since any Tom, **** or Harry can make anything they want and call it "compatible", software, hardwawe, drivers, etc; there is no guarantee that it really is compatible in the least.
Why don't purveyors of junk target Apples? Easy; if you are in it for the quick buck, why fight and pay royalties, licensing fees, validation testing, etc for the priviledge to sell to 1-5% of the total computer market, when you don't have to do anything to sell to the 95-99%?
Apple is having a show this week. According to the rumor sites there is supposed to be a new low cost Mac introduced and also a new word processor that is supposed to be fully compatible with Microsoft Office. I don't know of course if any of this is true or not, but we will soon find out.
Let us say all of this stuff IS true. A Mac Computer for something like $499 (minus a monitor) with software like a new word processor, iLife, Garageband, etc. supplied with the computer? A monitor of reasonable size does not cost that much. So you get a new computer with most of the software that you need and you get a computer that is much safer from computer viruses and spyware. That sounds like a winning deal to me.
The ONLY problem with Macs in the past was that they were expensive.
Let us say all of this stuff IS true. A Mac Computer for something like $499 (minus a monitor) with software like a new word processor, iLife, Garageband, etc. supplied with the computer? A monitor of reasonable size does not cost that much. So you get a new computer with most of the software that you need and you get a computer that is much safer from computer viruses and spyware. That sounds like a winning deal to me.
The ONLY problem with Macs in the past was that they were expensive.
A lot of PC crashes are due to cheap hardware. My last PC, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, Gigabyte 7N400Pro motherboard, Windows XP, ran for a couple of years without a single crash. My current PC, Athlon 64 4000 on Asus A8V Deluxe, Windows XP, has been running since last October without a single crash (except when I tried a beta nvidia 6600GT driver). These PC's are running prime95 24/7, web server, ftp server, streaming sound and video, scanners, printers, TV/VIVO cards, multiple monitors, RAID arrays, gaming, vmware multiple OS's, .....
If the PC crashes even once, I'll be looking to replace what's broken (hardware or software). Windows XP, and 2000 before that, are very reliable. The PC world made a huge leap forward with Windows 2000 and XP. (NT also, but that wasn't very home user friendly).
I just got back from CES2005. Never seen so many big screen displays, and the Samsung 102" plasma was stunning. The Sharp 65" LCD was killer. Seeing "Attack of the Clones" on the top of the line Runco front projector was the highlight (private showings only at The Beach).
Apple weren't even there, kind of odd considering that the ipod is the consumer hit of 2004. Perhaps they don't want to be in the same town at the same show at the same time as Microsoft.
[ January 10, 2005, 01:15 PM: Message edited by: keith ]
If the PC crashes even once, I'll be looking to replace what's broken (hardware or software). Windows XP, and 2000 before that, are very reliable. The PC world made a huge leap forward with Windows 2000 and XP. (NT also, but that wasn't very home user friendly).
I just got back from CES2005. Never seen so many big screen displays, and the Samsung 102" plasma was stunning. The Sharp 65" LCD was killer. Seeing "Attack of the Clones" on the top of the line Runco front projector was the highlight (private showings only at The Beach).
Apple weren't even there, kind of odd considering that the ipod is the consumer hit of 2004. Perhaps they don't want to be in the same town at the same show at the same time as Microsoft.
[ January 10, 2005, 01:15 PM: Message edited by: keith ]
Speaking of Spyware our company (IT) has been having major sucess with a new product from CA. PestPatrol is an industrial quality product and cheap as. It's really worth having IMO.
... and they don't run the same Windows PC software that everyone uses. (yes, I know about wacwindows, etc..).
Mac has 2.7 percent market share (less than Linux) - and it's declining. 2.7% isn't bad market share for one company, but 2.7% for the whole platform is pathetic.
Grim Macintosh Market Share
Apple have a chance, maybe the last chance, to boost market share by introducing the $500 Mac and bootstrapping to the ipod fad. A $500 Mac at CES2005 would have been quite a hit and seen by about a bazillion more people than at an Apple-centric show.
Don't bury Apple yet. That is probably at least Dvorak's 20th annual "Why the Mac is doomed" article. I like Dvorak for the most part, but he really seems like Captain Ahab and Apple is his Moby ****. The Mac community alternates between laughing and breaking out pitchforks when he writes about the Mac; for his part, Dvorak continues to get a good laugh from the exercise.
The Mac community is fiercely loyal - Apple hasn't worried about getting more than 3% of the market since Jobs killed off Amelio's PowerPC licensing scheme around 1998. Most folks thought Jobs was making a huge mistake for killing off licensing to the likes of Motorola et al., but Jobs' sense was that expansion diluted the Mac experience/mystique and would doom Apple. Perhaps a good analogy is that while GM has a crushing lead on BMW in terms of market share, BMW still manages to be more profitable by focusing on a niche market. The jury may still be out, but fact of the matter is, Apple's PC business model has proven to be more profitable than those used by IBM, HP, Compaq, Gateway, etc.
For parts of their business model, Microsoft, Sony, Dell and HP are cribbing from Apple's digital lifestyle playbook. They may wind up being more successful, but Jobs has been masterful at defying predictions of extinction since 1983. Apple continues to rank high in Fortune magazine's most admired computer companies, the Mac garners effusive reviews from the Wall Street Journal ("(t)he company's new iMac G5 model is the single best desktop computer I have ever reviewed...is surprisingly affordable"), the Ipod has 42 per cent of the US digital music player retail market (translates to 82 per cent when you focus on the hard drive segment) and some analysts predict an upcoming target price of $100/share .
With results like these, I won't be betting against Jobs or his decisions like to avoid the CES any time soon.
Apple make nice products. It's a shame they don't make a Windows PC
My Mac experiences ended a couple of years ago when my employer dumped all its Mac's and got PC's (claimed to be PC lower TCO - total cost of ownership). That was a huge change for a $1B+ revenue corporation with many thousands of PC's.
Apple's approach paying off, is selling computers at twice the industry growth rate?
Patman
Staff member
I ordered a new Apple eMac yesterday! I just got the basic one and upped the ram to 512mb. I ordered it directly from Apple and it should be here next week hopefully.
The Mac mini was just too basic for me, I like how the eMac is one complete unit ready to go, with all the stuff I need already pre installed on it.
The Mac mini was just too basic for me, I like how the eMac is one complete unit ready to go, with all the stuff I need already pre installed on it.
Patman, the Mac Mini comes with all the same software installed that the eMac does. The idea behind the Mini is that when you decide to upgrade computers, you only have to buy the computer and not the monitor as with the eMac where you throw the whole thing to the dogs.
The Mac Mini would be more tempting if it had a G5 processor. But it does make sense to be able to just buy a new computer and keep using your monitor if it is still good. I also think the keyboard and mouse should come with the Mac Mini.
More interesting to me right now is some of the new software that Apple has. The iWork program is interesting-a word processor compatible with Microsoft Word and it even has page layout capability. Plus Keynote. And the new iLife program is a heck of a buy for $79.00. People who don't know much about Macs do not have any idea how much software is included in this. iPhoto along is now approaching the capability of Photoshop Elements. Plus you can store and find all of your photographs. iWord is $79.00 and to some extent can replace Microsoft Word. How much do you pay for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office?
Apple is coming out with great software in addition to great hardware. It is reaching a point where some people could get by with just the Apple Software except for their printer software, scanner software, etc.
More interesting to me right now is some of the new software that Apple has. The iWork program is interesting-a word processor compatible with Microsoft Word and it even has page layout capability. Plus Keynote. And the new iLife program is a heck of a buy for $79.00. People who don't know much about Macs do not have any idea how much software is included in this. iPhoto along is now approaching the capability of Photoshop Elements. Plus you can store and find all of your photographs. iWord is $79.00 and to some extent can replace Microsoft Word. How much do you pay for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office?
Apple is coming out with great software in addition to great hardware. It is reaching a point where some people could get by with just the Apple Software except for their printer software, scanner software, etc.
The competition is good to have, even for those of us not considering an Apple.
Patman
Staff member
I was wrong, the computer came today! That's a 48 hour timeframe from when I ordered it until it arrived, and it came from California too!!
I love it! It's so much better than my old PC. I feel right at home on the Mac, I wish I got one sooner.
No more worrying about virus's or spyware for me! Take that hackers!
quote:
Originally posted by Patman:
No more worrying about virus's or spyware for me! Take that hackers!
Patman, I know just how you feel. My very first home computer was a Windows 95 machine. It was nice. But until somebody gives a Mac a test drive it is just very hard to explain the difference between a Mac and a Windows computer. There is a feel to a Mac that just has to be experienced-I don't know how to put the difference into words. A Microsoft Windows computer often seems to get in your way. A Mac gets out of your way and lets you do your work.
If you have any problems with a Mac there is one piece of software that I recommend after years of using Macs-DiskWarrior.
In this day and age you do have to worry about 'crackers' (let us not call them 'hackers') and virus writers and so forth. But so far the threat to Macs is much less then a Windows machine. There is anti-virus software, firewalls, and anti-spyware software you can buy. Plus the Mac with Mac OS 10 comes complete with its own firewall. Remember that underneath the Mac GUI is basically a Unix (or BSD) operating system.
Once you experience a Mac I don't think you will ever want to go back to Windows computers, A Mac is a natural computer. It just feels right-like the Apache warriors of the past were natural warriors and one with the terrain. A Windows computer seems clumsy in comparison.
If you have any problems with a Mac there is one piece of software that I recommend after years of using Macs-DiskWarrior.
In this day and age you do have to worry about 'crackers' (let us not call them 'hackers') and virus writers and so forth. But so far the threat to Macs is much less then a Windows machine. There is anti-virus software, firewalls, and anti-spyware software you can buy. Plus the Mac with Mac OS 10 comes complete with its own firewall. Remember that underneath the Mac GUI is basically a Unix (or BSD) operating system.
Once you experience a Mac I don't think you will ever want to go back to Windows computers, A Mac is a natural computer. It just feels right-like the Apache warriors of the past were natural warriors and one with the terrain. A Windows computer seems clumsy in comparison.
Mystic, very well put. surely beats my "mac is better" rant LOL. Its true that you just don't understand until you turn from the darkside.
Patman, if you ever need any tech support pm me as I have been using macs since inception. I have a pretty good handel on the OS.
Patman, if you ever need any tech support pm me as I have been using macs since inception. I have a pretty good handel on the OS.
Patman
Staff member
Thanks Frank! I do have one quick question. I usually leave my computer on 24/7, and was wondering how often you recommend restarting it now that I've got a Mac at home. At work we shut them down every night when we leave, but I like leaving my home computer on. Before with the PC and Windows 98, I found it ran brutally slow and would need to be restarted at least once every 24 hours. Is that necessary with the Mac, or can I just leave it going without a periodic restart?
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