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Apple Businesses

Jobs Plays It Frank 254

Posted by Hemos from the what's-gonna-with-appl dept.
Siqnal 11 writes "Wired has a feature about Jobs meeting with resellers at the expo, and how honest he was with them. To quote the article 'Jobs gave frank and honest answers to tough questions in this time of trouble for the company and its partners, they said. "
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Jobs Plays It Frank More

Jobs Plays It Frank

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  • My point exactly. Who cares if someone says fuck? Would it be newsworthy if he beat his wife? Maybe, but saying fuck? Nah.
    --
  • We have these all over Australia, they're called Apple Stores... I just assumed you guys would have them too... Shops full of candy-apple colours and funky translucent things... Every time I waslk past that store I swear to myself "My next pc will be an apple" but each time I do buy a new pc, general price/power wins out over looks and photoshop, and I get the PC...

    of course I'd sell my left testicle for a 750mhz cube with the cinema display... Seriously... Anybody want a testicle?


    --Gfunk
  • Too bad this honest CEO must be ruined by his obession with one-button mice. /sarcasm>

  • "Of course, yeast is technically an animal..."

    No. Yeast are fungus. Unicellular fungus. As different from animals as plants are.
  • I'm not sure what you're saying, here. Apple builds-in a feature that otherwise has to be added at the expense of $399 and one PCI slot, and the user should only consider it to be worth $30 because it's built-in? Are you saying that they should compare a $1570 10/100 PC with a $1600 10/100/1000 Mac and buy the best one regardless of ethernet and then add gigabit ethernet to the PC themselves for $30?

    I mean ... what's your point?

    To me, being able to buy a 10/100/1000 machine with AirPort, FireWire, 2 USB busses, easy-access case, four empty PCI slots, and a good AGP graphics adapter with both analog and digital outputs for $1600 is a steal. It's got an amp built in as well that hooks up to some really nice Harmon-Kardon $59 speakers. It will also power and feed USB to an Apple display (LCD or CRT) through the video card, and has three empty hard drive bays and one empty removable bay. And a CD-RW built-in. And a nice keyboard and an optical mouse. And it will take 1.5 GB of RAM. Sweet. CPU's are also upgradeable. And it comes with iMovie, iTunes, and CD-RW writing software included. Probably a free Mac OS X upgrade, too.

    Or, you could get a $1200 PC and add 10/100/1000 to it for $400 and forgoe the FireWire, AirPort, optical mouse, etc. Personally, I like it that all this shit just shows up, ready-to-use, in each new PowerMac I get.
  • Ian, I hate the fucking grammar police.

    I think I speak for everyone when I tell you to go fuck yourself, you fucking miserable fuckwad :^)

    Eric, who was once told by a crewmate "You like that word, don't you?"

  • From the story:
    Steve Jobs vehemently denies these claims as well as the claims that the millions of dollars that Microsoft had supposedly invested in Apple were actually just stuffed down his pants by Bill Gates the night before.
    That's someplace I didn't want to go. As long as I had to suffer I figured you should too.
  • up until now, mastering DVDs (that can play on consumer-level players) has been prohibitivly expensive. now Apple has made this available to a huge market for a measly $3500. i personally know many people at advertising agencies and training firms that would love to put their material on DVD as opposed to VHS, but have been holding off until the price comes out of the stratosphere.

    DVD mastering is expensive now, but it isn't *that* expensive. Agencies like the one I work in can well afford the $20k it would take to setup a basic mastering station. Hell, the whole idea is to bill the clients so if it generates revenue it doesn't matter if it costs $40k.

    I think right now the lack of demand by clients (*everyone* has a VHS deck and a lot of have Beta decks) -- you can master DVDs, but nobody wants them. Plus it has a one-off element to it; we have a gang of 6 Beta decks that can be turned into a dupe farm and generate a lot of 2 minute reels with little intervention. Doing DVDs one at a time for even a dozen count would get tedious..

    I agree fully though that the ability to simply make DVDs on the desktop is a pretty cool thing. I just wonder if Apple will be able to keep it an exclusive for long.
  • One bit o' info about the DVD mastering process- with AltiVec the compression time needed is something like 1/10th that of other processors. I think the spec was reduced from 25 times the video length to 2 times the video length. Of course, the 25 times spec was probably for a 386 ;).

    Finally, a good use of the G4!
  • Doesn't Apple use resource forks, making formatting pretty much useless? I thought their block structure was held in the same way unix is..
  • > I would much rather see someone be honest and open about who they are rather than have them to kowtow to what is "publicly acceptable".

    How do you know he didn't put that front on to get exactly the reaction you have? He had to know that it would get out.

    -Jason-
  • the fact that Wired felt the need to highlight Jobs saying "fuck", and Slashdot following suit, is really just about as profound as someone proclaiming "Slashdot trolls post stuff about Goat Sex!".

    This is not news. The rest of the article was news - it actually highlighted some truly interesting points from the conference. But this? Oh, no, Steve said bad words... I'm gonna tell his mommy. Get over it people. That was not, nor should it continue to be the focus.

  • No, you'd still have to bitch at Apple. Apple sells to retailers at higher prices than most PC manufacturers and then undercuts them at the Apple Store. The retailers are left trying to sell a product (that they're not allowed to support) on even thinner margins than normal. I've seen stories at macintouch [macintouch.com] that explain this (although I can't find them through the search feature).

  • Re:Which is exactly his point. (Score:3)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @11:23AM (#504014)
    However, the biggest problem with computers is that as "big box" items (or at least, they're conceived as such), customers think that there's hundreds of dollars of profit built into the price and suppliers seem to think that computers are sold based on competitive advantage.

    We had a Dell rep come in once who offered us pen-knives and T-shirts and told us how wonderful, reliable, excellent, etc. Dell products are to which we said "sure, but we'd personally go bankrupt recommending them over other boxes that actually have a markup." The guy was stunned.

    If your business model is based on volume, (in actual fact, you make more on ringing up that $40 game than you do the box it runs on) don't expect just because the guy who's selling at the store is forced to wear a suit or uniform, that he actually cares about sitting the customer down, getting him or her herbal tea, and chatting ad nauseam about the benefits of L2 cache vs L1 cache or whatever. In fact, the most successful salespeople there are totally ignorant of computers, they just go "want fast? Buy the P4!" - cause the computer is mostly sold on enthusiasm and how much the salesman smiles and nods his head - cause for him, there's a big margin, and the clueless customer doesn't know any better (otherwise he'd be putting his dual Athlon machine together himself) it's supposedly a win-win situation. I couldn't live with myself anymore, so I quit.

    Apple should get out of store sales ALTOGETHER and just send salespeople into graphic design stores and elementary schools every now and then, with web presence and demo days.
  • I hear a LOT more profanity than that every day at work.

    On a related note, most computers here still run Windows 95.


  • Jesus fucking Christ! This fucking page [makeitsimple.com] will show you how to fucking make a fucking xover cable in 5 fucking minutes!

    Fuck.

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • One quote from Jobs that I find interesting:

    buying a car is no longer the worst purchasing experience. Buying a computer is now number one.

    This statement isn't true for me (nor most geeks), but I suspect it is probably true for many. Undoubtedly, bad salespeople have a lot to do with this, but equally to blame are uninformed consumers.

    Consider the process most people go through in buying a new car. For most, it's a process measured in weeks and months. They read Consumer Reports, they shop around for different makes/models, they ask people who own similar cars what they're experiences are. When it comes time to buy, they visit several dealerships, not hesitating to drive out of town in many cases.

    Now, buying a computer. There are some who go to great lengths to get informed, but the vast majority don't. They see an add for a cheap HP in the Sunday paper. Maybe they call their nephew "who knows about computers" to get his opinion. But usually, the first words out of their mouth when they meet the salesman are "Is this a good machine?"

    My point is that people still rely too much on computer salesmen for their buying information. Most people don't trust car salesmen any farther than they can throw them: why should it be any different with computer salesmen?

    In the end, this will all probably work itself out anyway. Customer service is a commodity, driven by supply and demand like everything else. If customers aren't happy with the service they're getting, they'll take their business elsewhere. Retailers will respond in kind.

  • Re:Smart Ethernet Port (Score:3)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:43AM (#504018) Journal
    This is the best (fucking) idea I've seen in weeks. Crossover cables are one of those vestiges of a day when you needed a Ph.D. to set up a LAN - and they just make no sense in the day of auto-sensing ethernet cards. Get rid of 'em! That helps us move to the day when more stuff connects via ethernet, which makes impeccable sense.
  • The first superdrive was Apple's 2MB Floppy

  • He's right (Score:3)

    by jaysones ( 138378 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:43AM (#504020)
    If anyone here doesn't think the service at CompUSA is worth swearing about, they're just wrong. I think most, if not all, /.ers are too knowledgeable to ask buying advice from a CompUSA salesperson, but try it sometime. I've overheard the most ridiculous things from the people. Quote: "This computer has 64 RAMs of emm-bee." Would you buy a computer from this person?

    Jobs was talking about first time buyers' experiences. These superstores can't afford to hire anyone with sufficient knowledge because there's not enough money in retail to keep them. I challenge you to walk up to the first rep you see in CompUSA and ask them the difference between a Mac and a PC and post the response you get. Jobs is the CEO of a company whose products are being terribly represented in the largest retail market in the field. I'd swear too.

  • Excuse me, that doesn't make it ok, that requires both hands for what should take 1. Sorry, try again.

    -----------------------

  • It's news because it's such an unusual event. Jobs and Apple generally don't do a lot of face to face dialog with their vendors. And when was the last time you read anything about Jobs admitting that he fucked up? Apple usually cruises along with it's head in the sand, ignoring the simplest requests from it's users and vendors. The second round of I-mac releases (the first time they released the Imac in multiple colors) was a disaster for them, vendor relations wise. They wanted to sell the machines to retailers in packs, one of each color to a purchase unit. It was great for Apple becuase they got to move a lot of units and shitty for the vendors because the had to slash prices on yellow Imacs that no one wanted. I'm glad to see that Apple is at least talking to its dealers instead of creating some dumb plan that works solely to Apple's advantage and telling the resellers to take it or leave it.

    Chris
  • Yeah, and it's a fucking good idea. I fucking lost 4h today to get a fucking cross fucking over cable to link a fucking cisco router into my fucking OpenBSD firewall. That fucking sucked.

    --

  • Use of profanity... (Score:4)

    by DocStoner ( 236199 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @08:27AM (#504029)
    I think all of you are being too harsh about his language. He used "fuck" as an adjective, a verb and an adverb. I congratulate him on the wide use of his limited vocabulary.
  • Even the $1700 dollar model. I think a typical Gigabit card costs about half that.

    Gigabit ethernet cards are $399 on pricewatch, and I'm sure gigabit ethernet chips, when bought in bulk, are probably about $30 or so, if that. The logic itself costs next to nothing, that's why ultra160 on a motherboard adds barely anything to the price of the board, whereas a U160 SCSI card from Adaptec will set you back $300.

    Now is a great time to shop around. . .

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • Either it's just the fact that a computer guru got up in front of buyers and other people of the industry and added colourful language every sentence, or they just find the word "fuck" funny.

    Who knows? But I do agree, the only meat to the story was the new Titanium and the digital capture to disc standard for the DV Macs. Why in the world nearly the entire first page was devoted to Jobs swearing, who knows?

    Both Wired and Slashdot felt the need to make that bigger news than an all-digital video presence in the consumer computer market.

    Dragon Magic [dragonmagic.net]
  • considerably faster than a P4
    So does a AMD Thunderbird.. how does the G4 compare there?

  • Re:Use of profanity... (Score:5)

    by edremy ( 36408 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:54AM (#504046) Journal
    Hey, Fuck is one of the most versatile words in the English language. Witness the following translation from an army NCO

    "Rats. I am most displeased with the repair job depot maintenance did on this jeep." translates cleanly in NCO jargon to

    "Fuck! The fucking fuckers fucked the fucking fuck up!"

    Eric Fucking Remy

  • Fucking Jobs (Score:4)

    by tak amalak ( 55584 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @08:08AM (#504050)
    That's how a fucking CEO handles stuff. He isn't a fucking pansy that prances around what he really wants to say. Fuck ya! Fuck!
    --
  • Foreword: I'm a die-hard Mac user, since 1986. I own more Apple (and NeXT) machines than most of you probably ever saw in a home.

    But, is this story even remotely on topic for Slashdot? I fail to understand how this is "news for nerds". Less even "stuff that matters".

    This is National Enquirer material. Cut it out.

    Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.

  • Re:Honesty is now news? (Score:3)

    by Bearpaw ( 13080 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @08:29AM (#504059)
    The world of Steve Jobs is so topsy-turvy that being honest about Apple's fortunes, and answering questions directly, are both now news.

    Not quite. This is news because being blunt and honest is nearly unheard of in the corporate world in general. (If Jobs was actually doing that.) Try to imagine Gates (or Steve Case or Ivan Seidenberg or W. C. Ford or whoever) talking without sounding like he's running the latest version of MS CorpSpeak 2000.

  • If Apple dies in the process

    You make this sound as if this could actually happen anytime soon. They have $4 billion in the bank

    Steve is dealing with a changing world that is not bending to Apple the way it used to because the younger generation doesn't remember the "old" Apple and, frankly, couldn't care less

    I would agree with you, to a point. The catalyst, though, is Mac OS X. It's drawn interest from all sorts of people that didn't give a thought to Apple before. Maya is certainly one of the most visible, and had quite a sizeable/packed booth at Macworld Expo last week. But I was also quite surprised to see Roxen [roxen.com] there!

    With Mac OS X and software like iDVD, Apple has a much more compelling story that it has had in some time. And except to see the advertising change accordingly. After March 24, there will actually be very good reasons to own a Mac beyond it just sucks less than Windows.

    - Scott

    --
    Scott Stevenson
    WildTofu [wildtofu.com]
  • Look at his history. He always and ever acts solely in his own interest.

    I bet he also eats spotted owls and pushes old ladies into oncoming traffic.

    This is just silly. The guy doesn't even take a salary, and didn't even have stock for some time after he came back to the company. He doesn't need money. He works at Apple because it's his baby. Anything eccentric thing he has done as the head of Apple's has been a function of that. I wish the CEOs of other large corporations cared half as much about their company's products as Jobs does about Apple's. It's an extremely personal issue to him.

    The worst thing you can say about him is that he is fanatical about people experiencing Apple's work as he intends. He holds contempt for retailers that do a poor job of displaying Macs, or rumor sites that announce products outside of the context of an event. Though, if I was involved in such a project for 12-18 months, I would probably feel the same way.

    - Scott

    --
    Scott Stevenson
    WildTofu [wildtofu.com]
  • It's easy to fault them for taking so long with OSX, until you see the newest build in action (the one at Macworld). Then you see what they've been doing all this time.

    And in reality, OSX shipping last fall wouldn't have done anyone any good. There were virtually no native apps at the time. The press would have slammed Apple hard for that one. At MWSF, though, there were plenty of booths running native software.

    - Scott

    --
    Scott Stevenson
    WildTofu [wildtofu.com]
  • I think he's saying that PC manufaturers are more generous with margins and sales people incentives than Apple, and thus Apple should not be surprised that they prefer selling stuff they actually make money on.

  • not just talking about apathy (Score:4)

    by crayz ( 1056 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @11:45AM (#504073) Homepage
    I'd thank God if we were. I have many times seen with my own eyes salespeople go up to people asking a question about a Mac, tell them incorrect information about its specs, and then steer them towards a PC.

    I heard a guy one time tell a lady that the iMac didn't have Ethernet, and would she be interested in a PC that does?(hint: iMacs have always had 100mbit Ethernet) Also, I constantly hear salespeople tell customers that Macs have no software.

    The other thing is that apparently no one in the entire store knows how to use a Mac, so they always sit there frozen or turned off. I have personally intervened probably five times where I overheard salespeople telling a customer something completely false about a Mac, and felt the need to say "actually..."

    My guess is Apple retail sales would increase by at least 15% if salespeople would learn how to use a Mac, and stop criticizing them constantly.
  • I was in Circuit City over the weekend looking at Macs with my girlfriend (who wants an iBook). There was a guy there that said he worked for Apple as a Mac-demo guy on the weekends and is a graphics design guy during the week. He was really very helpful even though he was more at home with Apple's higher end boxes than the consumer-oriented stuff they sell at Circuit City.

    I was impressed.


    Refrag

  • I have said it before, I'll say it again. Apple doesn't do a lot of marketing research. Apple produces what Apple thinks is COOL -- "insanely great," as they say.

    Sometimes, Apple produces products that the world is ready for -- things that are cool AND useful. For example, the iMac, the original LaserWriter, and maybe now the cheap DVD authoring. Good stuff. Clever stuff. Useful. Foresighted.

    But sometimes, Apple produces something that is cool, but NO ONE WANTS. Best example: the Newton. Foresighted. Clever. Crippled by price and size. They were impressive toys, especially the 2000 series, but they were too early and too expensive. No one outside Apple understood PDAs until later. Even Apple didn't understand them totally.

    Apple stays in business ONLY because their instincts about what's cool/useful overlaps with what people WANT often enough to turn a profit.

    If Apple ever got their act together, they'd be a real force in the market, instead of a niche player. But they haven't learned yet that they can't force us into something we're not ready for. (OK, *I* was ready for the Newton, but most people weren't.)

  • Here's a good description of the QT 4.0 problems form the Interface Hall of Shame:

    http://www.iarchitect.com/qtime.htm

    The issues with the other products are similar.

  • Re:MacCentral had much better coverage. (Score:5)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @10:04AM (#504082)
    As someone who once worked for a hell-hole Canadian version of those big box stores, let me put it to you this way -

    As a salesperson, there is ZERO point to selling Macintosh.

    I don't know what kind of moron Jobs is where he thinks salespeople have the time and trouble to sit there and demonstrate a product. In order to make anything over $27,000/yr you basically need to run around, ringing up anyone you see carrying a box - you don't get paid a percentage of the sales price, you get paid a small percentage of the "profit". $25 profit on a $2,000 computer is $2.50 in your back pocket, so to make min wage you have to sell two an hour. I only know one person who made a decent living at it, and he basically just went up to people and said "are you buying that" and if they said no, he'd leave and sign up the next guy, leaving customers who WANTED attention to poor stiffs like me who'd yap for an entire hour to some geriatric sod who expects $400 off his machine cause he's a good haggler, not realising that all Macs are basically sold under cost, which means NO commission, no pay, your profitability numbers go down, and you lose your job.

    You see more Macs sold when they're being liquidated, cause you're paid a percentage of the selling price, not the profit, and at Christmas, where you pay a "spiff" of $75 to get someone to buy a Mac. But it's damn hard, cause people are like: "But it won't run Windows" and you suddenly realise you could just unload a PC on these people and sell two more in the time it takes to get over the sales resistance on the Mac and actually make a living.

  • Re:not just talking about apathy (Score:3)

    by Refrag ( 145266 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @11:52AM (#504083) Homepage
    It's stuff like this that makes me think perhaps Apple should start opening some stores like Gateway has. They could stock iMacs and iBooks and everything else could be mail-order, but at least the customers would have someone that knows something about Macs answering their questions and working computers to test out. (all of the computers at Circuit City run a demo program that you can't quit unless you know the key sequence)


    Refrag

  • Re:it's a shame (Score:5)

    by Darchmare ( 5387 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @10:07AM (#504084)
    Obsession? He just prefers them, and has some HI research to back him up on it.

    Obsessive is a bunch of non-Mac users instinctively complaining about the lack of multiple buttons on every single Slashdot story that comes up dealing with Apple. Like one of Pavlov's dogs, really.

    Who's obsessive now?

    - Jeff A. Campbell
  • I think Jobs' frustration with Apple retailers is a legitimate topic for Slashdot, especially since retailing seems to have gone in the clueless "big box" direction for some time.

    I don't care about Jobs' mouth; I do care about the problems with retail. He has my sympathy for them.

    D

    ----
  • Gateway Country stores are a front for Gateway's online store essentially. However, over the holiday season they decided to keep some stock in the stores on three of their most popular default configurations.

    That's why I think Apple stores should carry stock on at least iMacs and possibly iBooks. There's very little customization going on on those two products to begin with, so they make perfect sense.


    Refrag
  • I wish I could mod you up... :)


    Refrag
  • According to the grapevine, Apple retail stores should start opening up soon. I'm surprised no announcements were made at MacWorld SF. Apparently one will be in downtown Palo Alto.

    No better way to sell a sequestered OS and hardware to sequestered customers than through a sequestered store (read: no competition).
  • LOL, you are either being insanely sarcastic or have little experience shopping for a car!

    Honda didn't show me a VW. Honda didn't try to make my wife look at an accord rather then a Civic. They did try to convince her to buy a 4 door rather then two door, and the "wrong" color. But not very hard. (they had no two doors in the lot in the trim line she wanted, and they only had the wring color too). [of corse I'm guilty of making my wife look at things other then the Honda Civic]

    Volvo didn't try to sell me a VW or Audi even though they were in the same dealership (in the same big room even). They didn't even point me at a diffrent color or trim line. Then again I actually wanted something off the lot.

    Of corse the last time I bought anything (modestly costly) at a retail chain they questioned my choice. I bought a DISH reciever to replace my existing one, and they wanted to sell me DirectTV. I wanted the Phillips 60hr TiVo and they wanted to sell me a Sony 30 (or the Sony + DirectTV 35).

  • Which is exactly his point. (Score:3)

    by MO! ( 13886 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @10:14AM (#504113) Homepage
    Your explanation of the wonderful environment that "big box stores" have is appreciated, yet you don't seam to realize that that is exactly what he's complaining to them about.

    It's the execs at the meeting of topic that created the environment you describe - so who better than them to bitch at?

  • Re:Apple are an evolutionary dinosaur. (Score:3)

    by gig ( 78408 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @02:51PM (#504115)
    On one hand, your post infuriates me, because it's full of the same old MS-brand FUD I've seen a million times before, although you mixed in some Be-brand FUD as well, for spice. On the other hand, Mac OS X won't ship for another two months, so I can't blame you too much for not understanding where Apple is headed. Everything that they are doing revolves around Mac OS X. Even the Cube, which some like and some dislike, is a radically different proposition if it's running Mac OS X. A silent, 8-inch square computer with gigabit ethernet and AirPort, running a Unix-based super-GUI OS that never crashes and has Apache built-in is an attractive proposition. Reaching under the box to hit reset on Mac OS 9 is not worth $1600.

    As far as being stuck in the 1980's and a control freak, I think you have aptly described Microsoft. Here in the 21st century, we don't have to be limited to one OS and one application platform just to have compatiblity. We don't have to be limited to one word processing program to share documents. We now have this thing called the Web, and you can have any OS you like, as long as it also speaks TCP/IP. If it speaks Unix as well, then that's better still. Given that, wouldn't we work towards more diversity, rather than less? Why would we want to throw all of our eggs into the Microsoft basket? Especially now?

    As far as open software and hardware, the hardware developer notes for the new 2001 pro models were released today. They use standard stuff like AGP, PCI, gigabit ethernet, USB, FireWire, standard RAM, ATA hard disks, yada, yada, yada. What is so hard about this stuff? Even the "Mac BIOS" is open ... in fact, it's called "Open Firmware". There are at least six Linux distros for Macs, as well as BSD. AND -- note this well and think about it for a minute -- the entire core of the new Mac OS is open source (it's called "Darwin"). Everything you need to boot and root the new Mac OS is out there in plain text. Surely, even if the hardware were somehow closed, a person could tell what's what by looking at the source to the Mac OS? Especially when Mac OS is based on such well-documented, open source, community projects like Mach and BSD.

    I can't believe you want Apple to drop PowerPC CPU's in favor of Intel CPU's in the same post where you accuse them of being stuck in the 1980's. First, there would be no 1" thick, 5-hour battery life PowerBook G4 if Apple used Intel CPU's. Maybe you are happy running a slow Intel notebook on wall power all the time, but I really prefer not plugging in my notebook at all. Why do you think Apple took the lead in wireless networking? Because they have been shipping notebooks with 5+ hours of battery life for years ... you don't need to plug them in to use them, and they don't automatically slow to half-speed when on batteries. The PowerBook G4 is the fastest notebook ever (even when running Mac OS 9), and it has the longest battery life. That is a fact. Go and compare benchmarks for desktop and "mobile" PIII's on Intel's site ... it will be hard to do, because they use different benchmarks and conventions for each to hide the fact that the mobile ones are so crappy. 15 watts and they're still crappy. The CPU in the PowerBook G4 requires only 7 watts at full speed.

    I don't know about you, but to me, big, fan-cooled boxes with monster CPU's and serial and parallel ports seem anachronistic ... positively 1980's. The empty MHz of the 50 watt, 1.5GHz, paperback-book-sized P4 might make you feel like you have big balls, but it's not even close to twice as fast as a 10 watt, 2-inch square 733MHz PowerPC chip that now has two Altivec co-processors. Most of Apple's computers don't even have fans, and the ones that do are set to turn the fan off below a certain temperature. Apple gets tech support calls where people describe that their year-old PowerBook is making a funny noise and it turns out that the fan just went on for the first time ever. That is much, much, much more the future than the fan noise and dust bunnies of a typical PC.

    As for a .NET initiative ... Apple has WebObjects and iTools, both of which are out already and just waiting for Mac OS X to really get going. Mac OS X is two months away, and it's the first consumer Unix, the first consumer multi-user system. The average Joe will be doing remote desktops in no time, and running Java2 or other applications off the Web as well. Apps in Mac OS X are self-contained "bundles" that appear in the GUI to be just one file ... everything the app needs is right there. Copy the app to another machine to install it, or run it over the network, it's all the same.

    Apple is in great shape for the future. It's the present that they are having trouble with, as they lead up to Mac OS X's release. How many Windows users are going to rush out and buy new Windows 2000 machines two months before Whistler comes out? How many bought Windows 3.1 machines two months before Windows 95 came out? Not too many. Apple is in that situation right now. If they had been able to release Mac OS X on time, perhaps it would be a different story and they wouldn't have their first unprofitable quarter in three or four years and we wouldn't be condemned to hear Wintel know-it-alls pronounce Apple dead again. Like Compaq never had an unprofitable quarter! Ha.
  • Pretty good record.

    I have a Cube (Serial no 2784) with NeXT Dimension board (to a black Fimi monitor), sound box, a N2000 printer, and a NeXT Station Color ("color slab").

    I have recently cannibalized the HD and memory of the color slab (and some from an old Mac II, rev. A) to make the Cube work. The Cube was salvaged from a computer scrap yard-like store.

    The Color Slab is in super-mint condition, and am holding on to it for the day I'll find/get more hardware to make it run again (it was my main NeXT box 'til I got my Cube).

    Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
  • With what? Their $150 million dollar investment? Not likely. Even for the old 'poor' Apple that wasn't much.

    Jobs saved Apple by coming up with something other than beige boxes. You may not care what color your computer is, but they reinvigorated sales like you wouldn't believe.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
  • He's fired most of his HI guys, I don't know why he'd listen to them for this one thing. When Jobs came back to Apple the Human INterface group was one of the first to be axed. I mean you can tell.. QT, Sherlock II MacOS X, all have serious UI problems...

  • Re:MacCentral had much better coverage. (Score:3)

    by staplin ( 78853 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @10:27AM (#504126) Homepage Journal
    That buying a Mac at CompUSA and Sears et al. is an exercise in futility and frustration. If you go to a car dealership, they don't steer you away from the model you ask for to show you another brand and try to bullshit you while they do it.


    Actually, I just recently picked up one of the new iMacs at a CompUSA. While it was frustrating, it was not for the reason you gave...

    In my experience CompUSA has very few Mac people. So I was free to wander in, put an iMac box in my cart and wander up to the cash register without being bothered by a single sales person. But my problem was that I had to find the model I wanted in a huge stack of boxes with mixed colors and models.

    I'm actually suprised no one approached me when I started shifting their tower of iMac boxes across the showroom floor to dig the one I wanted out!
  • Actually, before Imation, Apple had a "SuperDrive" that was a (Apple-led and then-) standard 1.44 MB floppy drive which could read both PC and Mac format floppies.

    "The wheel turns, does it not, Ambassador?"
  • .. as an investor to take the truth and know what the company is going to do about it. Basically if I were a mac investor I would be glad to hear steve jobs say they fucked up and plan to fix it. Because if he doesn't, in the way I look at it; I'll be saying they fucked up AND that the CEO is a son of a bitch for trying to sugar coat it.

    So he said a couple of expletives. I'd rather that than the fucking shpeel about how they screwed up and what the future holds in a candy wrapper. Steve Jobs in essence has probably done the best thing he could have ever done. He's showing that he has balls and is not afraid to say when fuck ups occur. The odd thing is that I've never ever liked Mac's but their recent boxes have got my mouth watering; from now on I'll keep an eye out for Apple. It sounds like shit will be going uphill soon.
  • [laugh]

    Though to be fair, Dean Kamen hisself has said that the whole Ginger thing was blown out of proportion [yahoo.com].

  • I don't think Jobs drinks.

    If he won't put any meat or meat byproducts into his body (militant vegan) - it's a reasonably safe bet that he doesn't drink either.

    Perhaps a lack of critical protiens has set his brain chemistry off-kilter?
  • Nobody at Apple would bat an eyelash at that kind of language from an employee unless said employee used it on the phone with a support customer.

    Any manager who took an employee to task for it, especially in public, would be ignored.

    Don Negro

  • "We fucked up. We fucked up big time." --Steve Jobs

    The moment an important leader utters references to profanity, the rules of communication change and a whole new media game starts. Reporters may feel a bit more free making comments about Jobs. I would say, "shit is going to hit the fan."
  • The simple flaw in your wonderfully crafted instantiation of Godwin's law is that most modern day /.'ers dont even know what usenet is anymore.

    Back in my day...

  • [Profanity] is a weak mind trying to express itself in a fucking forceful manner.

    Generally agreed, though I honestly have trouble labeling Steve Jobs as "weak-minded", regardless of what I think about how he runs Apple...

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • Re:Fucking Jobs (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @03:08PM (#504141) Homepage
    There are, I think, two ways to view Jobs' comments:

    Either he was truly shocked and disgusted with the situations he was encountering...
    OR
    He was trying to re-invent or re-market himself.

    If truly the former, I think I'd buy stock in Apple: that kind of reaction to idiocy should result in him digging deeper, kicking ass and making things Right.

    If the latter, then I'd run from the stock: nothing will change, he'll lose respect, and the whole thing will go down the crapper.

    This is Jobs we're talking about... so *either* scenario is equally likely. How much do I feel like gambling today...? :-)


    --
  • > That $15 mouse cost you $75, since you pitched
    > the bundled $60 mouse that came with your
    > computer. Go to the Apple store and check the price.

    And how many copies of Windows have you paid for but never used? That kind of stuff is always a wash. Most PC's (including previous Mac models) come with atrocious mouses and/or keyboards and many, many people replace one or the other. Besides, Macs have such good resale value, he can sell that Pro Mouse on eBay and probably get $50 for it.

    And what are you doing at the Apple Store, anyway? Are you one of those sad and lonely closeted Mac users who runs Wintel but drools over Macs and then says "if only they had a two button mouse"?
  • At least Wired were grown-up enough to actually print "fucking" rather than the "f---ing" that was used in other stories. Gimme a break. If some people would just grow the fuck up, they would see this for what it is: a bunch of Apple partners were pissed off at this and that, and they wanted to know if Steve Jobs was also pissed off at this and that. Steve came in and said "yes, I am pissed off at that, too", which is exactly what they wanted to know.

    Who cares if he spoke Swahili or did a jig in order to communicate more effectively with them? So what if he swears?

    Sometimes I really worry about what our newfound abilities to record almost EVERYTHING will do to us when some of us don't like what they see in our new digital mirror. How free are we when a guy says fuck a few times and 50 other people on Slashdot condemn him for being "unprofessional" and "vulgar"? C'mon.
  • I meant, "I said recently that I'd quit" not "I said I quit recently" I quit that kind of job in the early 90s.
  • When I wanted to buy a G4 dual 450, I went to MacUniverse, a small independent, instead of Fry's or CompUSA. I got better service and a slightly lower price.

    I think many people feel the big boxes are cheaper just because they're big; in my experience, this is simply not true.

    I do, however, love to go to Fry's, where I can find ten different brands of, say, PCMCIA ethernet cards all under one roof.

    D

    ----
  • I think the car dealer thing meant that you don't see a Volkswagon bug ad and go in to a dealer and ask for one and have them take you across the street and try and sell you a Ford minivan.

    Apple has a pretty strong brand identity, and people go into CompUSA asking about Macs and they don't get answers to their questions or a demo of the features, they just get told "you don't want one of those, come over here and buy a Compaq". That's not good customer service. For the first-time buyer especially, this is damaging for them and for Apple.
  • Microsoft, Compaq, IBM et al are not control freaks
    Really? In which alternate dimension do you live? I don't know about Compaq, but IBM fit the definition of "control freak" perfectly, and now MS learned from them and did it even more so. Consider, while MS lets external companies develop things for Windows, it buys them out if the product they make does well. MS can't stand the idea of a useful product being outside their control.

  • MacCentral had much better coverage. (Score:5)

    by crovira ( 10242 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @08:48AM (#504161) Homepage
    This [maccentral.com] article at MacCentral had much better coverage. Rather than focussing on the language that Jobs used to skake his audience into paying attention, they covered what he was actually fucking saying:

    That buying a Mac at CompUSA and Sears et al. is an exercise in futility and frustration. If you go to a car dealership, they don't steer you away from the model you ask for to show you another brand and try to bullshit you while they do it.

    I think Apple should sell on the Web and exclusively through its Mac retailers like MacZone, MacMall.

    Screw the pimply-faced, rat-assed, pig-ignorant kids who try to screw the Mac customer for the sake of an idiotic loyalty to someone who has ripped off their parents out of of billions of dollars.

  • Much better take on the story here at MacWeek: (Score:3)

    by Spatch3 ( 47581 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:07AM (#504163) Homepage
    MacWeek Article: Jobs slams computer retailers [macweek.com]

    It's interesting how the story on MacWeek focuses on Jobs blasting retailers treatment of Mac customers, whereas Wired's story focused on Jobs's cussing.

    Every rule has an exception, and this is the only rule with no exceptions! Huh? -- Spatch
  • This MacCentral Article [maccentral.com] has better notes on the meeting. [Jobs] concentrated much of his address to the "customer experience" at retailers such as Circuit City, telling the dealers that, "buying a car is no longer the worst purchasing experience. Buying a computer is now number one."

    Jobs gave only one example of a specific retailer -- that of Circuit City -- in which Apple had verified customer experiences where sales people had deliberately steered customers from the Apple store-within-a-store area and toward Windows-based products. Jobs called such situations "unacceptable."

    The independant dealers were actually pretty pleased to have this meeting. This was not a challange to them. Many of the smaller independent dealers give good service to Mac customers. Its the big box stores that don't know crap about computers, but we already know that. This really aimed at John Q. Public who doesn't know much about computers and is looking for an easy to use first computer.

    POIU

    ---

  • If you go to a car dealership, they don't steer you away from the model you ask for to show you another brand and try to bullshit you while they do it.

    ***spit take***

    LOL, you are either being insanely sarcastic or have little experience shopping for a car!

  • not really news but ... (Score:5)

    by iso ( 87585 ) <slash@warpze[ ]info ['ro.' in gap]> on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:09AM (#504168) Homepage

    as everybody has been saying, what Jobs said in his meeting with resellers isn't really news for slashdot. however if you read the rest of the article, especially the 2nd page, there are some good quotes about the importance of the DVD burning capabilites of the high-end G4s. this actually is interesting news.

    it hasn't really been talked about much, as burning DVDs is not something any of us would be planning on doing (unless we're pirating DVDs). but if you look past the WaReZ kiddies, you'll realize that this is actually an important technology.

    from the article: "I'm starting to think this is as important as the LaserWriter was to desktop publishing.... It's revolutionary." while i hardly think it's "revolutionary," it is important.

    up until now, mastering DVDs (that can play on consumer-level players) has been prohibitivly expensive. now Apple has made this available to a huge market for a measly $3500. i personally know many people at advertising agencies and training firms that would love to put their material on DVD as opposed to VHS, but have been holding off until the price comes out of the stratosphere.

    considering the fact that in the past Apple has had the highest markup on their most expensive machines, i think they're going to rake in a lot of cash from this machine. this is also a great use of the Alitvec engine on the G4, and one of those (few) situations where it really does run considerably faster than a P4. at any rate, it's a good move for Apple.

    - j

  • Right, so what you're saying is that over five years ago, when Apple was beginning its major decline in market share and profitability, its retailing sucked. What you said doesn't necessarily have any bearing on its current situation.
  • That's what Apple is apparently doing in the San Francisco Metreon mall, where there is also a Microsoft store (gads) and a Sony store. It will be a place to go and get educated a bit about Macs, as well as try them out. I don't know if they'll have much stock on hand, or whether it will be a front for the Web-based Apple store, and you just get your custom-built box delivered a few days later. They'll probably have stock configurations available to take with you, and custom ones come a few days later by UPS.

    They definitely need to do something to counter the general ignorance that people have about Apple. They've changed a lot in the past few years, and with the release of Mac OS X, the remaking of the entire company will be complete. A 2001 Mac running Mac OS X is almost entirely a different machine than a 1997 Mac running Mac OS 8.1 or whatever it was. Different OS, different peripherals, support for all kinds of standards rather than not. They need to say "come in and meet the new Apple" with these stores. They have great brand identity. I heard that the new stores will just have big Apple logos on each side of the door, products in the windows, and no text.
  • > For your pleasure, we will offer Planet of the Apes
    > Trailers in QuickTime while you wait.

    That is just so funny. I laughed a lot at that.

    Many Slashdot readers won't know that there were movie trailers in the Mac OS X Public Beta install. The other one was Charlie's Angels, I think.

    Yes, get OS X out there. I hope they offer it as an optional preinstall in March. Get with it. I know five or six people putting off a regular Mac purchase, waiting for OS X. No wonder their sales are down. They fucked up. They fucked up big time.

    At least it is really, really good (I've run Public Beta and a couple of Developer Previews before that).
  • You know what the difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is?

    The car salesman knows he's lying to you!

  • The irony is that their target audience is the new computer user, or the artsy type who just wants to record or digitize or publish something, somebody who wants to get a Mac so they can just plug it into the wall and access the internet (as described in commercials)...the catch-22 is, of course, that *these* people aren't going to be buying Macs (with which they need to get online) online. Although I'm not one of these people, I'd make a wild guess that it would be easier and give them a higher warm-fuzzy factor, to go into a real store, and talk to a real person.
  • I think you're wrong about there not being much demand for DVD making. For $20,000, you can get six high-end Macs and replace your gang of beta decks.

    Thing is, the video is already digital, and you edit it digitally, so going real-time to analog stuff is very, very un-hip. Once you've encoded the data, it's just a matter of loading in blank DVD's, or go to an outside service for that ... just give them a master DVD to duplicate. The DVD's last longer, are easier to store, and easier to FedEx to someone.

    Everybody I've talked to in creative media wants one NOW. I already ordered one. Jobs is right about it enhancing the utility of the digital video stuff you already own. Digital camcorder and DVD player are now united by a SuperDrive Mac, no outside help required. No expertise even required if iDVD fits your needs. I'm sure DVD Studio Pro will be pretty easy for anyone who knows video or multimedia, as well.
  • Before the parent poster gets moderated down by people who didn't read the article, I feel like posing some Job quotes from the article:

    Here's Jobs on the experience of buying a computer compared to buying a car: "At least you can go to an auto dealer and test drive a fucking car," the dealers reported him as saying.

    On Apple's (AAPL) poor education sales this year: "We fucked up. We fucked up big time."

    And when told by dealers that Apple changed a policy (only 3 years ago) of allowing resellers to reprint Apple's ads in local papers, he said, "You're fucking joking?"

    Unless he really was a troll... ironic if he was...

  • The vegans I knew back in college were vegans because they bought into the whole hindu "we're all one with the universe" thing, and none of them would drink. Smoking hash was another matter entirely.

  • Jobs' views are crucial in a profitless PC market (Score:4)

    by lwagner ( 230491 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @10:54AM (#504189)

    Let me tell you from experience that the PC market, Apple included, is almost profitless at this point. There are so many reasons not to sell computers, which is why I think that Jobs has to get into reseller's heads that selling Macs is not a losing battle.

    Most of the people who sell Macs don't make a lot of money from it, regardless of the markup. People are not willing to pay for PCs with inadequate anything right now, no matter how revolutionary Apple is.

    Jobs' presence was made because he wants to assert people that he is trying to do his best to get Apple back into shape. If Apple dies in the process, he wants history to remember that he gave it his best shot, even risking a PR nightmare by using profanity in front of his dealers.

    He's a smart guy; those of us who have seen Apple's latest reports know that Apple is in a little bit of trouble. Steve is dealing with a changing world that is not bending to Apple the way it used to because the younger generation doesn't remember the "old" Apple and, frankly, couldn't care less. It's an uphill battle, but, if he can't do it and fails, I don't think anyone could have done it better.

    --

  • Well, not that I appreciate him cursing, but I don't think the article was very fair towards him. I mean... the questions Jobs was answering weren't questions like, "Isn't today a nice day?"

    First statement about the car - no context, so I can't judge that.
    Second statement about Apple screwing up big time - sure, I'm sure he'd be upset.
    Third question - it was a pretty ridiculous question.

    So... let's be fair. He's not being quoted, and he's casually chatting with people, and he's talking about how his company screwed up big time, and also replying to a rather ridiculous question. Sheeesh...

  • Hah! Tee hee! Hoo! Okay. I was buying into this post at first. Then, I got to this part:

    Look at the succesful companies in the industry. Microsoft, Compaq, IBM et al are not control freaks,

    Hee! Right. Microsoft, which pressures OEM's not to change the bitmap displayed on boot, and not to load competitors' software at the factory, isn't a control freak. Bill Gates, as notorious a micromanager as ever has worked in tech, isn't a control freak. IBM, I'm suspicious of. Compaq, couldn't tell you. But Microsoft?

    [Apple needs] to adopt the more socialist methods... of MS, IBM and so forth, who are unafraid to compete in an open market, with open standards.

    Hee hee! Hee. Hoo. Microsoft, the company that broke Kerberos [linuxworld.com]? The same company that threatened to sue a competitor for benchmarking them [zdnet.com]? Okay. With my Rod of Lordly Moderation, I dub this post -1 Troll, +4 Funny. Take the net gain to your Karma and go back under your bridge.

  • <pedant>
    Apple has never made a yellow (lemon?) iMac. It was the strawberry ones that no-one wanted. They're selling them as aquariums [redlightrunner.com] now.
  • I've long heard that as a person he's a real jerk. But when it comes to marketing, he's a fucking genius, goddamnit!

    Sounds to me like the fucking profanity was as much as anything else a sign that Jobs was fucking serious about being fucking honest.

  • Part of what made/makes Apple great is innovative technologies. This goes back to the original line of the product being "Insanely Great", and earlier.

    Now some of the strategies may go back to the 80's. Personally I do not care. If it still works, why drop it?

    True, you have to watch the new technologies, and make sure you do not get obsoleted out. But I wonder if part of Apples' problems came from some sort of departure from the original core idea of "Insanely Great" etc. i.e. - Focusing on innovative, almost inspirational technology.

    There is this weird possibility too, that if MS goes forward with the .NET strategy, in effect abandoning Windows as a desktop only product, that companies like Apple may wind up owning the desktop. A long shot, to be sure, but weirder things have happened. And Apple does not have to abandon the desktop to expand as a company.

    In the weirdest of all scenarios, Apple could survive MS.

  • SuperDrive? (Score:4)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @09:16AM (#504204) Journal
    So they are calling the combo DVD/CD-RW drive a SuperDrive? Does this mean I can insert a Super Disk [imation.com] into it?

    I'm a confused consumer. Imation better sue Apple...

  • Re:OK but the 'See Also' is the Real Keeper (Score:3)

    by gig ( 78408 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @04:30PM (#504210)
    No. Right now, Office exists for the Win32 API, and the Mac Toolbox API. The Mac Toolbox version will be replaced with the (very, very similar) Carbon API (Carbon as in carbon copy of the Mac Toolbox) version for Mac OS X.

    Office on OS X was always a no-brainer. Some in the media have tried to make an issue out of it, but it's not. Microsoft make a TON of money off of Mac Office. If they killed a very profitable product, they would have to give a reason why, and if that reason was to drive people to Windows, that's not good for them, legally.

    A couple of years ago, MS dropped their program of trying to convert Mac users, and since then, have created some really good software for the Mac. IE 5 for the Mac is head-and-shoulders above the Windows version. It's really good. Office 2001 is much-improved from 98 as well. The extra time they're taking on the OS X version should pay off in it being a really well-behaved OS X app that follows all the conventions.

  • Copyright Violation the last reason I'd use DVD-R (Score:3)

    by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2001 @12:28PM (#504211)
    First, I am not a particular fan of Apple or Macintosh, and have never used PPC Linux (though I'm open to the idea).

    up until now, mastering DVDs (that can play on consumer-level players) has been prohibitivly expensive. now Apple has made this available to a huge market for a measly $3500. i personally know many people at advertising agencies and training firms that would love to put their material on DVD as opposed to VHS, but have been holding off until the price comes out of the stratosphere

    Here you hit the nail right on the head. Copying DVDs is very uninteresting (except for my legally purchased copy of Galaxy Quest given to me for xmas, in which I'd like to incorporate the "cutting room floor scenes" into the main movie, a "FreeUser's Cut" if you will). BUT I have a lot of footage I've taken over the years which I'd like to do some NLE on and then save to DVD, with english subtitles on portions in languages most of my friends don't speak.

    Then there is the recording of television broadcasts direct to hard drive via a sony media converter, which I can then edit the commercials out of, save to DVD, and put in my video library. I would never buy each and every episode of Babylon 5, but if I can simply record and burn them, four episodes to a disk, I'd much rather do that than use Hi-8 or VHS, or even miniDV (which is also susceptible to dropouts over time).

    Recordable DVD is way, way overdue, and I may well run out and buy a high end G4 when it hits the street. In fact, I would have done so already, if I could have had it shipped overnight instead of in "7-10 weeks" according to applestore.com.
  • The 733MHz G4 in the SuperDrive PowerMac is a new PowerPC 7450. The original G4 was a 7400, and there is a low-power (same speed and features, though) version of the 7400 called the 7410, which is what's in the new PowerBook. The new 7450 has two Altivec units instead of one, and has an on-chip L2 cache (256k) that runs full-speed, as well as an off-chip L3 cache (1MB), wheras previous G4's had only an off-chip 1MB L2 cache. Considering that the 500MHz G4 7400 has held its own for most tasks against PIII's at 1 GHz and the 1.5 GHz P4, the new 733MHz G4 7450 probably compares quite favorably to the Thunderbird. The new PowerMacs also have a 133MHz bus and RAM, very fast new PCI controller, new nVidia cards, etc.

    Worth noting that the PIII 1 GHz requires about 45 watts, and the Athlon 1.2 and P4 1.5 require over 50. The G4 7410 needs 7 watts at 500Mhz and the 7450 needs 10 watts at 733MHz. That's why Apple doesn't have to put fans in their boxes. These are really nice CPU's ... small, cool, low-power, and designed with tasks like encoding and encryption in mind. When you take the power and cooling requirements into consideration, you can see why Apple doesn't want to switch to x86 anytime soon, even if it were easy to do so.
  • Says he was drunk. Let's face it...it's much harder to lie (at least well) when you are drunk...and most people tend to curse a lot more.

    C'mon Bob...pull into the expo...I wanna check this out.....

  • Give me a break. No substantial meat in the article and I could care less if Steve Jobs says fuck. Slashdot editors should get off their asses and post better articles.
  • Geez, that's a stupid fucking remark. What the fuck does how much profanity a person uses have to do with whether they have good fucking morals? I have known people who never let a four-letter word pass their lips who were anti-social bigots, and others who can't say two words without swearing, who are down-to-earth, peaceful people.

    Besides, how much you can swear without offending anyone is very country-dependent. Brits swear like it helps them to breathe, while in the US, one swear word raises every eyebrow (then the killing starts ... ha ha).

    Jobs was speaking in a situation where the people he was talking to just wanted honest, direct, from the heart opinions to help guide them through a time when sales are lagging at Apple (no Mac OS X yet is the big thing, I believe) and throughout the industry (also Windows Me malaise while people wait for Whistler). It's quite likely that his willingness to open up and talk frankly impressed them as much as the content.
  • From the article:
    The machine also has an intelligent Ethernet port that can tell if it is plugged into an Ethernet network or directly into another Mac, which ordinarily requires a special "cross-over" cable.

    I think this is pretty amazing, as I have never heard of this before, but I am not super up-to-date on network hardware.

    Is this actually common?

  • I guess maybe Apple should have printed your page of instructions on how to make a crossover cable and included THAT with their new notebooks instead of just making the thing auto-sensing.

    I mean ... c'mon, buddy. We're talking about a notebook here ... you take it places and connect it to things ... if you have to carry both a regular and crossover Ethernet cable, that's a drag ... if you go to someone else's office and they only have a regular Ethernet cable and you need a crossover, that's a drag. If you don't know about crossover cables, and you hook up two machines with an Ethernet cable and it doesn't work, that's a drag. I've heard all of these horror stories and more from friends. I have a friend who bought her first Mac after seeing a demonstration of two Mac notebooks hooking up to each other over AirPort with the click of one software button. This stuff counts.

    Also, Apple's towers all come with gigabit ethernet (for the past six or eight months), and gigabit ethernet is auto-sensing. Even though they haven't fit gigabit ethernet into the 1" thick notebook, it's nice to see the auto-sensing feature make things simpler for the future.
  • "If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to electronic music"

    I think it's called "raving"...
  • It's not that he's obsessed with it; I think he has to keep with the model because it's something that Mac users can point out as different/better. To get rid of them would be like getting rid of all the transparent cases.
  • Yes, all fucking companies and their fucking CEO's ought to be taken to task for things the company did 8 years and three fucking CEO's ago.

    It's worth noting that a PC from the same era as your Quadra probably won't have any kind of networking, or it may have Token Ring instead of Ethernet. Or it may have only the slow Ethernet.

    Fact is, every Apple computer for the last year or so has had two built-in networking systems, Ethernet and AirPort. Both are standards. Before that, they had Ethernet alone for three or four years. They are very easy to network with each other and to get on the Internet.
  • > what's wrong with putting a few PCI slots in there?

    Dumbass ... we're talking about a 1" thick notebook computer here. Magma does make a six-slot PCI box that hooks up via a PC Card, though. But in general, FireWire peripherals are more common on the Mac than PCI ... we've moved on.

    By the way, the tower Macs have four empty PCI slots, an AGP slot for the graphics adapter, and a modem slot that comes with a 56k modem, but can also take specialty peripherals (like an old-style serial port). Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, 2 USB busses, 802.11 wireless networking, and sound (including an amp) are built-in and don't take up slots. The PCI slots are all 64MHz, 64-bit, and do over 200MBs. What is there to complain about here, really? For most people, that would be four empty slots that just stay that way. For audio or video people, it is plenty except in some special situations, and you can get a Magma expansion chassis to give you six more slots in that case. One of my PowerMacs has a SCSI card added, and one has a Pro Tools card ... all the other slots are empty.

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