Why iPod Can't Save Apple 1121
MadMirko writes "MacNN quotes an article from Money Magazine titled Why iPod can't save Apple, which says 'the buzz on the digital music player and "swank" storefronts are masking an ebbing bottom line, noting reduced CPU sales (resulting a shrinking marketshare), decreased profits (in part due to the lower-margin iPod and little-to-no profit at the iTunes Music Store), failure of the iPod to drive CPU sales, failure of the retail stores to increase marketshare, hidden retail store costs, no operational income, and little value in the stock.'"
Sheesh. "The Sky Is Falling" (Score:5, Insightful)
How many tech companies (which were media darlings) imploded during the Dot-Bomb? Apple wasn't among them and they've been "Dying Since 1976". Hell, even one of the latest tech poster-children ( Segway [segway.com]) is sucking rocks. Apple has a core (no pun intended) market and a loyal customer base.
These analysts have an intangible they can't convert to numbers on the spreadsheet: customer loyalty. No user I've ever met has the same passion for Dell, Compaq or Microsoft.
disclaimer: I'm an Apple fanboy; bought a ][+ in 1981 (which still works!) and a variety of Macs along the way.
Re:Apple... (Score:4, Insightful)
I love that!!!
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
Earnings (Score:5, Insightful)
This is only focusing on the iPod and ignoring all other products in Apple's inventory announced and unannounced which are having large influences in their respective markets.
Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a strange statement. If the hundreds of people were waiting to buy an iPod, how would they have already had the iPod experience that would push them to purchase an Apple computer? Chicken before the egg here? As with most of the 'Apple is dying' articles we've seen over the last 15 years, this one mixes numbers without context and some strange subjective observations.
Oh yeah, BSD is dying too. And Bluetooth... =)
Oh, come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Little value in stock? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say there's quite a bit of value in APPL.
Blame Games (Score:4, Insightful)
mp3-player monopoly? (Score:0, Insightful)
I chose to buy a Creative Zen Jukebox due to it's built-in 60gb disk and fair price. It also has superior soundquality compared to the ipod, according to the zen zealots out there (Including me)
Appearently it's a normal 2,5 laptop harddrive so it's possible to switch it for a larger one in the future.
For more on the "ipod vs jukebox war" see the forum at devhardware.com [devhardware.com].
Does Apple really need to be saved? (Score:5, Insightful)
Market share does matter only if you're from Redmond and/or your plotting to rule the world, "normal" corporation are just after money, and money is just what Apple is making.
Could the Walkman have Saved Sony? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the iPod could actually save Apple. It's not that I think Apple needs saving, but more so, question whether or not a $300 mp3 player could revitalize a company. Did Sony need saving when they released their Walkman? Did Nintendo need the Gameboy the rescue them form extinction? Nope. These companies used these products to become even more powerful than they already were.
Why iPod Can't Save Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone refers to the immediacy of something by saying "Apple is about to die," they are OBVIOUSLY referring to a commonly accepted understanding of the relative immediacy of the impending collapse. To compare this to the collapse of England or the Sun going nova is just avoiding logical discussion of the topic altogether.
Re:Sheesh. "The Sky Is Falling" (Score:3, Insightful)
Newbie passion, vision (Score:1, Insightful)
A lot of you guys are passionate about your Macs for sure but it seems to cloud your vision terribly.
I used a Mac for a while. It was nice looking and stuff but it has about the same problems as any OS. Crashes sometimes, errors, stuff not doing what you want it to.
In short, all operating systems suck equaly. Use whatever is cheapist to get done what you need to get done. That ain't Apple (you're mostly paying for the trendy logo).
Typical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to see an economically-founded argument that targeting the premium segment of a market is a Bad Thing.
Had I cash aplenty, I'd be all about one o' them sexy G4 monstuhs with a flat screen the size of a sheet of plywood.
iPod mini (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Market share side note (Score:2, Insightful)
It goes to show that it's not how much you have, but what you do with what you do have.
Counterpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
Only Apple can save Apple... (Score:2, Insightful)
Like many of the Apple faithful, I hope to see new hardware based on industry standard components (read: x86), which will hopefully drive the prices down to the point where people like myself and many other /. readers can actually afford to buy it. We all know we want to use OS X. It's like Linux without all the pain.
People always complain that Mac OS gets no games or other 3rd party software. The simple fact is it's not worth a game developer's time or money to make software for a platform with such a small userbase. The userbase has to expand. Period. Otherwise the Mac will remain a niche.
Apple isn't about to die, regardless of what any company says. Here's to hoping that the success of the iPod will fund a push by Apple into making Macs cheaper and accessible to everyone.
Apple has to make a decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes and no.
There are a lot of longtime Apple customers, but as much as we nix people like OSX for its BSD base, OSX alientated a LOT of longtime Mac users that wanted nothing to do with Unix or command lines. A prime complaint was that the Mac interface was changed too radically, and that it looks nothing like the beloved old 9X-and-lower line. I've also heard some of these people complain that OSX is too slow, especially on G3 hardware. Personally, I know more Linux people that love OSX than longtime Mac people that love it.
And now Apple has a quandry. Rather than trying for mass-market appeal but making prices competitive with PC products, Apple has tried to maintain the "join-our-exclusive-club" approach, which requires a premium in price for customers. Yes, I know you guys are going "but Macs are so much better, and you get what you pay for, and Macs are a bargain even at these prices". Well, Joe Schmo customer doesn't agree. He's out at BestBuy or CompUSA looking for a new computer, and all he sees is that Macs 1- cost a lot more, and 2- can't run the games and software that PCs can. Plus, if Joe Schmo's expierience is anything like mine, when he tries out these newer Macs at the store, he's not going to be real impressed with the quality and feel of the Apple hardware (sorry, I think the keyboards and mice have a cheap feel to them now. They generally seem more shoddy than past Macs to me). He's going to be saying "So why should I pay 900 bucks for an Emac that's slow (with it's stock 128 or 256 mb of ram) when I can get this HP for 600, or this Emachines for 400?".
Apple has to decide if it's going to stay the exclusive-club route, or try to get more converts. If they do the latter, they're going to have to price Macs more competitivly. The club route doesn't seem to be working as well. Those old Mac fans I know? Some of them are trying their best to extend the life of their beloved old Macs through upgrades, and they're using 9X for as long as they can get away with it. So Apple either has to get them back, or hope that lots more Linux users convert.
And for Segway sucking, well come on, did anyone REALLY think people were going to adopt them en-mass? The Segway was always a niche market at best.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, because Money magazine has some secret vendetta against Apple. They are secretly MS fanboyz!@#@# OMG teh suxor and all that crap.
Anyhow, the financial numbers don't lie. Loosing market share and shrinking margins is usually a pretty sure sign a company is in decline. No need to be testy, it just happens.
Numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to rain on your parade, but with one sig.fig. data, they could increase their marketshare by over 25% (3.51% to 4.49%) and you wouldn't be able to tell.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
What Part of the Market? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen Apple making headways into the SysAdmin space. Not as servers (though XRaid perhaps will) but as personal workstations. Just this week two die hard Sun and VMS people have decided that their next workstations should be Macs. Replacing Sun Stations.
*This* is the important bit that is getting glossed over. Apple is making inroads with the Technoarti in companies. UNIX Sysadmins at the top of the totem pole have been crying for a UNIX laptop for years and now Apple is giving it to them. One Java developer recently quoted in JDJ remarked: "I use a Mac, it's like Linux with class and QA." (or something close to)
Macs are quickly becoming the status symbols of the technical shamans in the backroom. It's not hard to imagine that from there the jump to the CIO and the board room is not far off.
This is what looking at gross marketshare misses. Apple is front-loading the desire for Macs in IT. If they can couple it at the right time (once they've penetrated into the SysAdmin/CIO segment) with inexpensive corporate-type desktops... the world could change quickly.
If Apple can appeal on the resilience to worms/viruses and bring TCO value to corporations the future is bright.
I agree! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but overall marketshare is not a death knell. Just because so many large manufacturing plants, call centers, and places like that have cheap Wintel doesn't mean Apple is dying. Look around... I bet most of you know people who are switching to a Mac. I don't know ANYONE that has done the opposite since OS X came out.
Re:part of the comments are probably true (Score:4, Insightful)
People buying low-end computers who are not computer-savvy would love to get the pretty Mac that they see at CompUSA, but they see an eMachines box for 1/3rd the price and don't understand why the Mac might be worth it. The masses don't understand the benefits of a G5, OS X, or any of that. They are looking at price tags.
I would be interested in knowing what Apple's share of the low-end laptop market is. The iBook is actually very price-competitive. If they didn't purposely hobble it I would buy one.
Re:One of the Points (Score:2, Insightful)
I think if anything this is an excellent time to invest in Apple.
Disclaimer: I have not reviewed their books. They could be cooking them, who knows.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
Losing market share is actually not a pretty sure sign a company is in decline. Market share is only a ratio of the number of your products sold to the total products sold in a market. You can sell 10 widgets one year and 100 the next and still lose market share if UltraCompuMegaCorp's widget sales go from 20 to 2000 in the same amount of time.
Whether a company makes a profit, however, is a pretty good indicator, and it's something Apple has been able to do for the last several years. I'll believe Apple is dying when I see a big "going out of business sale" graphic on apple.com.
zealots (Score:5, Insightful)
I've often marvelled at statements like that. And let me preface this by declaring that I own a powerbook - but I have *never* met a PC zealot. PC users rarely care that muchabout the branding of their box. Most PC users care about the games on their box, or the GHz it has compared to the PC down the block. But mostly, they don't care about apple. It's always the "little guy" who has the chip on his shoulder, who is always making comparisons to the "big guy" (at least in terms of marketshare here).
These discussions aren't so much PC zealots vs. Mac zealots - it's usually mac zealots vs. the PC users who push their (our?) buttons for fun.
Macs start at US $1000 or less (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:XBox? (Score:2, Insightful)
The Playstation wasn't profitable for a long time. They took a bath on it. Yet it had the desired effect, it knocked Nintendo, Sega, Atari, 3DO, etc right off of the map.
MSFT is moving in a direction that changes the whole idea of a game console. I predict a whole line of compatible set-top devices with different features sets. A DVD-gaming-internet jukebox with DVR, one without, one that just plays games, one that streams on-demand video, etc, etc.. I see them licensing third party vendors to produce compatible hardware.. I see a future where almost every TV has a box underneath it with the Microsoft logo on it somewhere.
Oh this is silly (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes Apple is the 'caddy' of the IT world in many respects right now.... Consider the cost of an apple G5 (MSRP approx (starts at $1799) - now consider the cost of you building your OWN 64 bit PC with similar specs and such (running linux).
I would hope you see a difference in price there... I certainly did when I built my system.
Admittedly you're getting benefits such as "customer service", QA, a 'sexy' machine, blah blah blah blah.
You're also getting _propriatary_ hardware (and for the most part more expensive). As a geek on a budget who dosn't mind getting his hands dirty (and a _huge_ OS X fan) I can tell you it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy apple computer hardware. Their OS, however.....
The other quesion that this all raises is - what makes you think that this is ANY different than all the sysadmins who love linux/unix and have done so for years? There have been several reliable, stable window managers available that they could eaisly configure and use in the 'pointy-haired-boss"'s office.
The knee-jerk reacition to "Apple is dead" has (for just as long) been "Apple is expanding!"...I think the truth is somewhere close to "Apple is running a good business in a well-defined market niche and growing slowly" than to any of the wild predictions seen here.
Re:OSX (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, Apple has diversified significantly since 1999 they are a big software (FCP, iLife, OSX, etc.) and Services (.Mac) company now because of these other flows of cash they have been able to lower thier margins on hardware.
What is market share? (Score:2, Insightful)
If we are talking boxes/laptops, then ultimately this is a flawed calculation. I mean I can see more computer around and many of them are PC boxes so in a way I can "see" a lower proportion of Macs around. But I think we should be counting number of actual live users.
For example, PCs have a short life span. Hence if you count sales figure, the ration of PC to Mac will always be increasing!! Or for example, the fact that "old" PCs are usually used as scrap and cannibalised to say make a cheap fire wall.. etc
Re:Apple is dying...again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet at the same time, Google has reported an increase in the percentage of Mac users using Google.
That would make sense, since the default web browser on MacOSX puts a Google-specific search textfield on every window.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
If I buy a Porsche, I'm not going to whine that the addons cost more than they do for a Taurus.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
And where exactly was I saying or even suggesting that? Matter of fact is that the death of Apple is predicted over and over, also by supposedly very reputable sources.
As long as Apple's actual results show a proffit, they are doing at least as good as the top of the rest, and a lot better then many in the IT business, so I don't see any reason to spell doom for Apple.
That doesn't mean that its stupid to discuss issues with itunes and the ipod tho, Apple itself is suggesting that that isn't entirely workign out as well as they hoped and thought it would, but I seriously doubt that that has anything to do with life/death for Apple really.
Re:OSX (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time another virus runs amok, she adds another Mac person..
Without meaning to sound patronising, perhaps she should do some work to secure the windows boxes instead of letting viruses "run amok". I work in a 100% Microsoft shop (well, ok, we have Solaris boxes, IBM mainframes and a few linux machines dotted around) and in all the years I've been here we haven't been hit by one single virus. Our network is plenty secure, thanks, and while I'd rather we didn't use so many Microsoft products, viruses/worms come last on the list of my reasons to change.
Frankly I'm getting sick and tired of paper MCSEs who know about as much about properly securing a network as I know about how financial markets work.
Rant over. :) That wasn't particularly directed at your wife - your story was merely the catalyst.
higher resolution than what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly what do you think a reasonable laptop resolution would be?
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
If UltraCompuMegaCorp is selling 2000 widgets and you are only selling 100....you don't see something inherently bad happening there? With larger production, their cost per unit will decrease, advert $ can increase, name recog will rise, more R&D money and so on...
Loss of market share sucks. Big time. That is exactly why it is so often cited as such an important metric.
With a few (arguable) exceptions, niche products usually die when overcome by the industry at large. And cost is the reason....
OS X for Unix shops (Score:2, Insightful)
As everywhere, we've had to investigate porting to Windows. To please the bean counters. There are currently too many reasons not to do so, so once again we carry on writing Unix code.
Linux? Biggest reason we can't seriously consider that is there isn't another mega corporation we can get support from. That's important to the suits. They still think we'll need to go knocking on dormroom doors for support.
My Macintosh joke? Hmmm... not so funny anymore. The only piece missing for my part is our version control software isn't available. High-end graphics cards would help, too. But I could get the apps running.
Probably never gonna happen here, but at smaller companies I can see OS X making a dent in the Unix world. Given enough frustration over virus outbreaks I can also see OS X as a viable desktop for the corporate masses. Even our (cough!) beloved MS Office runs on OS X.
Amy
G3's and OSX performance... (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, my mother had an early Bondi Blue iMac which she bought in 1998. It ran Mac OS 9 and it ran it well.
When Mac OS X came out, I, being an early adopter, upgraded. Mainly because I wanted to learn all the Unix-y stuff without dual booting Yellow Dog Linux.
I have to admit, Mac OS X 10.0 was a lot slower. I only put up with it because I knew this was the future. 10.1 was faster. 10.2 was faster still. In fact, by the time 10.2 came out, my 2000-era iMac felt faster than my wife's newer iBook laptop running Mac OS 9.2.
Now that 10.3 is out, with another perceived speed boost, I'm quite certain that my mother would be happy switching (yep, she's still using the 1998 iMac).
So, if Apple is slipping on hardware sales, it's because of two things:
1. Macs last 'forever' (6 years without one hardware hiccup is forever in my book)
2. Each Mac OS X releases has felt like a performance upgrade.
I'm getting ready to upgrade my mother to Panther and I'm telling my sister, who is currently using a really beat-up Powerbook 520 (from 1995!), to buy an iBook.
It is my experience that, frankly, once you go Apple, you never go back...
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
About six years ago, when Sun was still somewhat competive in price / performance / quality.
Apple on the other hand, still makes good equipment that's worth the $$$.
Irresponsible journalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
I realize Apple stock holders probably aren't going to sell off everything in Apl b/c of this, but could it not happen some smaller company and start a chain reaction in the market?
I'll admit I'm no economics major, but with the way the markets are up/down these days this seems like a way to create havoc.
Yet another fact-distorting article (Score:5, Insightful)
- "Even when you factor in Apple's $13 a share in cash and almost no debt, the company's stock, at a recent $23, trades at 20 times estimated 2004 earnings. Dell's shares, on the other hand, go for 26 times projected 2004 earnings -- but its business is three times as profitable as Apple's."
First they state that the shares are $13 per, then comment thta when it was $23 shares it was trading at a high P/E ratio, as though it's bad, but then shows how Dell has a higher ratio. And to boot, he compares earning on a fiscal year that's not even closed yet. And on top of it, Dell isn't debt free. In fact, FEW companies are debt free, but apple is. that alone makes it a great stock buy.- "Tom Santos, one of the plaintiffs, estimates that Apple's stores would have lost as much as $80 million in 2003 had they been paying the same prices for inventory as the resellers paid."
Ok sir, tell you what, we'll have Apple charge you HIGHER prices so you don't have to complain about not going out of business.- "And Apple's earnings would have been worse had it not been for $4.8 billion the company has in cash and short-term securities. In fact, the cash hoard made more money last year than Apple's operations -- which lost $1 million while the computer maker booked a $69 million gain on interest income."
Which is far more than any Microsoft division made last year, excluding Office and Operating Systems.- "Out of the hundreds of people who were waiting outside Apple's SoHo store in the cold to buy an iPod, I could find only one whose positive experience with the music player led him to buy an Apple computer."
Ok, so they polled people for their experiences of devices they haven't bought yet. That's a great poll. I'd like to see a poll of people who bought Sony CD or MP3 players, to ask them if it made them buy a Sony Vaio. Or if HP's new iPod clone will make them buy an HP. That's a bogus comparison.- "While Apple's sales of $6.2 billion last fiscal year were nearly unchanged from 1999, profits plummeted 90 percent to $69 million, from $601 million four years ago...Jobs' mass-appeal strategy has crimped the company's historically high profit margins. Apple's net profit margin is just 1 percent. That's down from 10 percent four years ago."
The margins for PC makers has been razor thin for years, it just finally caught up with Apple. I got out of selling boxes years ago due to shrinking margins. The fact that you can get multi-GHz PCs for $500 while a 1Ghz apple is more than grand doesn't help either. So let's not blame Jobs for the shrinking margins, let's blame market factors. As for shrinking profits, that's due to hardware that's overpriced.Ok, let's not compare this last year's performance to the year before, or any other year Jobs wa there, let's comapre it to before he arrived. Well, fine then, let's compare the other years since 1996 when Steve managed to maneuver Apple into selling far more PCs than in 1996. Let's compare how this year's sales are disappointing to last year's, to be fair. And let's factor in the lack of new product development in that part of the company's line up. They've been focusing on the consumer device market, like with the iPod mini (a smash seller). Gateway has been pushing plasma TVs and digital cameras FAR harder than PCs. Companies can only do so much at a time. Even Microsoft, arguably the world's biggest software company, can only manage an OS upgrade every 3-4 years now, and their project dates always slip every further.
I'm not Apple fanboy. I can't stand the Mac OS UI, I don't like the hand holding, I don't like the over priced hardware, I don't like the platform lock in, etc. But, let's at LEAST be fair about an examination of the company.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
Money Magazine understands the computer industry the way I understand finance. That's to say, not even in the teensiest bit at all.
Re:Sheesh. "The Sky Is Falling" (Score:3, Insightful)
Imho their real problem was that they never managed to do anythign with the success of the C64, which doesn't really come as a surprise since noone could have forseen what happened with that machine, and it forced the company to expand at a rate they couldn't manage properly.
Add to that a whole lot of canceled or wasted development due to misguided ideas like
Bottomline, the problems actually started with the success of the C64 and the loss of any strategy as a result.
Their failure? squeezing the last bit out of their existing technology when it turned out successfull , wasting money on perfecting it beyond the reasonable while spendign way too little on innovating their tech. In the mid 80s they seem to have seen the problem (but not the cause) and tried to solve it by buying Amiga inc.
The Amiga is a seperate story, tho the cluelessness about where to go is also very obvious from its history. I won't go into that part beyond saying that the A2000 once more points at failure to innovate as soon as they had an initially succesfull design.
At any rate.. greed was only a part of the picture, and imho far from the main cause of their downfall.
Ahh, the old "you just hate Apple!" reply... (Score:3, Insightful)
These are friends of mine. Should I interview them and get transcripts for you?
"I have met NO Mac user to date that didn't think that OS X was an improvement on 9."
Well, then obviously you and I are talking to different people then.
"So what's your point? I think you just don't like Macs. Which is fine, but don't hide it behind unsupportable arguments and invented or anectodal evidence from your three friends."
None is invented, thanks, and if you must know, the count of Mac using friends stands at 17. Of those, 10 are classic users. Of those ten, only one of them is just dying to get OSX. He just can't afford a new Mac right now, so he has to stick with what he has. And while only one of them says she hates OSX, 6 others say they'll guess they'll have to upgrade eventually. But they're not real enthusiastic about it, at least not yet. Maybe that will change. These are also mostly older users, so maybe that has something to do with it. The last two have gotten used to Windows at work, and so have bought XP boxes for their families, and use their Macs only sporadically. They say they liked them, but think Macs are too expensive. One got a Dell, the other got an HP. Obviously, these are not fanatics (yes, there are Apple users that are not fanatics), but they ARE longtime Mac users. They don't especially like XP, they just needed new machines, and their new ones are cheap, and the kids know Windows from school.
You sound like an easily offended man, so just to rub salt in the wound some more, of those 7 OSX users I know, four are G3 Ibook users that have since added YellowDog Linux, because they think OSX is too slow on the G3. The other 3 have PowerBook G4s, and are relatively happy with their performance. As of yet, I don't know anyone that owns a G5.
So there you have it. My three friends and their invented anecdotes.
Oh, by the way, as far as me hating Macs, you're full of shit. I like OSX, it's way better than OS classic, as it inherited much of NeXT, which I always lusted after. And anytime I get a complaint about the constant assault of viruses and trojans, and people ask my advice, know what I tell them?
"Simple. Buy a Mac".
Try not to be so damn touchy.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the iPod is a great little bit of design and technology. I wish it did more, but it's pretty much the best player on the market right now.
Re:Oh this is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Excluding the motherboard (and even this is debateable. Go try and get a programming manual for your VIA chip), what exactly is proprietary about the Mac that isn't about your Athlon 64? I look inside mine and see a standard AGP video card, PCI SCSI adapter, IDE hard drive and DVD drive, everyday ordinary USB ports, standard audio jacks, regular ordinary ethernet, the same memory that PCs use... I look up on my shelf and I see programming manuals for all the parts inside the machine I care about. The instruction sets of the processors are different, but everything else isn't any less standard than your machine.
Someday you'll grow up, get a job, and have way less free time to "get your hands" dirty. Your time budget will shrink and your financial budget will grow. Then perhaps you'll appreciate that you can spend a few hundred extra dollars to get a machine like a mac.
Re:OSX (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you certainly would see some more viruses written for OS X if, as you say, the marketshare of Windows and Apple were switched. However, OS X discourages users from running applciations as root or administrator, so what a virus can actually do when running on a BSD-based OS X system is far less harmful that what a virus is free to accomplish on XP, where users have administrative permissions by default.
As for Windows XP's real problems, such as vulnerabilities to RPC worms and the like... that's just something that OS X users don't have to worry nearly as much about, especially without a RPC service that cannot be disabled (seriously, WTF, Microsoft?). Take a look at how many remote root vulnerabilities have existed for Windows XP, as opposed to OS X, and you'll see what I mean. In short, there is more to Mac OS X's invulnerability to recent virus and worm waves than its relative lack of popularity.
(Warning: Entering Mac fanboy mode.) And as for your statement that Macs are better for those who know nothing about computers: Yes, they are, but I would add that Macs can be better for people who know a whole lot about computers, as well. If you have used an OS X machine and seen the potential of a UNIX system with an Apple interface, you can probably understand why many of my friends and I in my school's electrical and computer engineering department are switching over to Apples.
Re:OSX (Score:4, Insightful)
>> is a better computer for people who don't
>> know shit about computers because it gives
>> you less chances to shoot yourself in the
>> foot.
Word. Most people don't know shit about computers.
>> OTOH the worms running around now primarily
>> infect computers through user error.
If you call buying a WinXP machine prior to SP1 and MS RPC Patch publication OR not knowing enought to check if the patches are installed, then yes it is user error. (see my reply above)
>> Once again, MacOS is only invulnerable
>> because there's not enough of it out there
>> to make it worth writing this kind of
>> software for.
I have to agree, mostly, with this statement. However, I'd have to add that BSD isn't intrinsically vulnerable and doesn't rely on Security by Obscurity.
>> But, since it depends on a user downloading,
>> extracting, and running something,
>>
The Worms don't require the user to download ANYTHING! They attack the computer via the RPC mechanism. i.e. Connect to the net without the SP1 and RPC Patch installed and WHAMMO - worm infestation.
>> if you swapped Windows' and MacOSX's market
>> shares tomorrow, the same sorts of software
>> would appear on the Mac tomorrow.
Probably - if you equate "same sorts of software" with viruses and worms. But, it would probably take longer than tomorrow. Windows is like Swiss Cheese; BSD might have a hole or two - YOMV.
Apple needs WMA support in iPod (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
And everybody who is not a neophyte can buy a cheap USB mouse. You can get them in a freakin' box of Cheerios.
1999 (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone else here think that a tech company managing to deliver the same level of turnover, albeit at a reduced margin, as they did at the top of the dot.com bubble is bad going? Most vendors' turnovers dropped at the end of the boom and have been working their way back up since.
Re:Apple as an investment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple is dying...again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple has to make a decision (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes and no. If you ask my dad he probably doesn't even know the terminal.app exists and has no reason to use it. He happily edits along in photoshop, surfs the web, and checks his email. You are looking at this with your "slashdot" goggles on. Most people are just happy to know that they can get the security and stability of a UNIX based operating system, without having to go to the command line.
Okay, I know we're all power users here... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's really, really, really not that bad. Give yourself 20 minutes, you adjust. Hell, I'm used to a touchstream, which is even crazier than your whizbang mouse, and I can adjust.
I'm perfectly happy to suffer ever so slightly with a one button mouse and a modifier (or long) click. My alternative is to suffer greatly with a windows laptop (god noooo!) or maintain greatly for a less attractive linux setup (that may or may not work graphically, yes Xfree is pretty good these days but it still does happen, even with new hardware).
And in the final-worst-uberbad-case, PLUG IN A MOUSE. If you're doing mouse-intensive stuff like gaming or visual GUI construction, you probably would be more hung up by the touchpad itself, rather than the lack of extra mouse button.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:5, Insightful)
We have no idea what they're up to.
An ordinary tech company, as soon as something goes wrong, they start firing people and puffing out their chest about strategic alliances and new products that might come out some day, maybe.
Apple, on the other hand, doesn't tell us what they're up to until they're pretty much done with it. And then when they tell us, they do so in a way that impresses the shit out of us. We don't see the broken-ass beta version for six months before the final...we only see the final (which may have some bugs, or issues, but is definitely usable). Their R&D department is one of the most locked down in any industry. They don't issue press releases or hints the second they come up with an idea. Instead, they embark on internal analysis and testing.
The economic pundits of the world look at Apple and see their tight lipped R&D as "no ideas on the horizon." Which is ludicrous. Do these people think that iTMS, the iPod, the G4, OSX, just materialized out of thin air at MacWorld? Every time somebody's predicted Apple's imminant failure "unless they do something," they did something. Anybody who still makes predictions on a company that's proven so versatile and resourceful is a goddamn moron. Apple's successes were not ACCIDENTS.
Re:Apple's WildCard - Selling OS X/Intel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
One might argue, and certainly gnome and kde fans will disagree, that they have the best solution out there with a full powered command line, full line of consumer oriented (an polished) multimedia interfaces (Garage Band, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD) etc. etc.
Then look at the climate of MS haters...governments and cities looking for alternatives...it won't always be open source, as that too has it's limitations, and costs, for we all know open source isn't "Free $$".
Apple had some failures to modernize, and between Copland, Be, etc... I truly had doubts that they'd get their shit together, but time and again they've suprised me...past performance is no indicator of future success, for Apple, or Microsoft. That being said, in the end, I think the software (OS and apps) direction they took was fantastic, and the consumer end of things they're getting into shows tremendous success.
Apple doesn't need to be Microsoft. They are not successful if they have a certain market %, any more than you are I are only successful if we turn into a famous programmer, astronomer, athlete, etc...they are successful in their own right as long as they are a profitable self-sustaining company....which if you look at the financials, they absolutely are.
Who can guess how they will expand in the future? The next Sony, a Sony partner, or, if the shit hits the fan, and they can no longer be a "hardware" company, they may always have another go with software and just release the OS for sale on X86....but that's another story for another day.
Gotta get some work done.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
SysAdmins and toys (Score:2, Insightful)
First, yes there are SysAdmins that swear by Linux on Intel. I know several. They spend time tinkering with their set-up to get it 'just right' have spam assassin and proc mail and a bajillion other little things that they 'have' to have. No question.
However, I also know SysAdmins that could give a rip about dealing with all of Linux's little gotchas. Sleep and network handeling (after sleep) come immediately to mind. Bottom line, as has been stated MANY times before... Linux beats everything for TCO if you time is worthless. Try installing an RSS reader on Linux, you've either got to go through the configure, make, make install hastle, or find the RPM, make sure you're libraries are up to date and install from there. If you're really lucky you can just emerge the package and pooft there it is. Try it on a Mac. Double click the installer, drag from disk image to hard drive. Done. How do you uninstall it? Drag it to the trash.
The value in Macs isn't in the hardware (though the quietness of the G5 is very impressive) it's in the OS. There's power under there, but for the most part you don't HAVE to pull back the covers to get something to work. *THAT'S* the segment that the Mac is making inroads with in the Technoarti realm. The people, like me, that say: "I work on computers all day long, I fight with vendors and libraries, and users. I want a machine that *JUST WORKS*, I don't want to fuck around with sendmail.cf on my own fuckin' laptop!
You'd be surprised how many SysAdmins (the Elders I'm thinking) have this view.
Only on Slashdot :) (Score:5, Insightful)
- Apple putting out a mind-blowing GUI on top of a UNIX-like system (Slashdotters claim not to like it yet rip-off the Aqua theme endlessly for KDE)
- Apple having massive sales of iPod/iPod Minis
- Apple vanquishing all debt
- Apple executive announcing plan to increase billions of dollars for company
- Apple innovating with Expose, OpenGL rendering backend for 2D GUI, Apple actually INCREASING performance with each OS X update
Re:I do love Macs... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cocoa development (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing I've seen excitement over in the same way is
Re:Bluetooth (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmm, so Apple wasn't the first to roll out a laptop with 802.11b in it? News to the entire world.
USB - Windows 98, USB devices... not apple.So Windows 98 came out before the iMac did? Wow. Neat trick, considering how the iMac came out in 1996...
Firewire - DV Cameras, Sony... apple helped a little, but not much.Firewire is Apple's name for 1394. By your posting of this, you acknowledge Apple's importance to this standard.
Untrue. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
They have been saying this for years about lots of outsiders and upstarts who bucked convention. Sun has been on the verge of failure for 20 years, Linux for 10, BSD et al.
Who are They? Opposing business interests or the media pundits who have the same stakes. Media has stopped being about objective reporting: everyone wants to be the first to break the big story, they want to provide information (speculation) the other guy doesn't have, and they want to be right. What happens? They make spurious statements in support of heavy players. Why? Not because the heavy player has a better product or model, but because heavy players have more money, they're more established, and by virtue of inertia tend to last longer than upstarts.
Media schmucks are as guilty of FUD as anyone.
Re:What they're basically saying is... (Score:3, Insightful)
That rio or iriver buyers say their product is just as good as an ipod or better is just as unsurprising as ipod users saying the ipod is just as good or better than anything the competition offers. I want to see the opinion of people who aren't biased by how they spent their money, because they spent it on everything.
I'm an ipod owner. It was either the karma or the ipod. The price was the same, the hd size in both cases big enough, and the physical size a pretty good match. In the end I decided the ipod had a bigger community, a better interface, and a nicer look. Yes, on features the karma is an even match, but those intangibles are what sells ipods. I still think I made the right choice, but I realise my opinion is biased.
Geeks might care about such things like disk size, and whether it has ethernet support, but guess what, the majority of electronics buyers are not geeks, or even male. And normal people care more about how something looks, and how easy it is to use, than about whether it does xizzy, has foobar or supports quux. The ipod is the undisputable king in the look and feel department, and that is why it's outselling anything else.
Slashdot says Apple's not dying... (Score:5, Insightful)
That say to me that, even though there is a fair amount of trolling, that there is an enormous amount of interest in the company and its products. And given that the pro Apple comments are usually modded up, I suspect that:
a). There is a large portion of slashdot readers who use a Mac and OSX.
b). That interest translates into the real world in buying terms, and
c). That even the MS fanboys and die hard "it's too expensive" or "port it to x86" morons would use a Mac and OSX if they could.
In summary, I think Apple is doing so well with the G5, Powerbooks, OSX and the iPod that they are THE act to follow in the IT world.
Re:Speaking of the cost of addons... (Score:1, Insightful)
I built my last computer for around that. I'm not paying that much money for any portable music player, much less one that locks me into Apple (cue the Mac apologists talking about the HP offering and how Apple shit is a better value).
Is Apple dying?
Yes. Microsoft will die, too. Both companies are far too narrow in the scope of what they do. Both companies rely on a certain amount of lock-in to keep people coming to their products, and both have real flaws in their products that are going to destroy them. For Microsoft that flaw is Windows. Windows won't ever last because Microsoft programmers can't secure it, can't lock it down against viruses, and can't find a balance between usability for power users and ease of use for newbies. For the newbies, there are easy to use Linux distributions that match Windows. For the power users, there are Linux distributions and BSDs to choose from, tailored to any purpose you can think up. Microsoft has to recoup their costs on Windows. The Linux distributions and the BSDs don't have any comparable costs. Windows and any software or hardware that depends on it will fall. Apple's problem is the cost of its computers. There'll reach a point where there are no more newbies with computers. People won't need their hands held in their computer use, and people won't pay the Apple premium when they can get comparable use for much less money. Apple and Microsoft both don't have anywhere to go once their flagships fall.
Re:OSX (Score:3, Insightful)
Apache has over 60% of the web server market, yet you don't see it getting exploited nearly as much as Microsoft's IIS.
Marketshare != Security (or lack thereof)
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
The resources available to those of us on Earth is finite. If you assume we get some sort of intersteller space drive, you still are stuck with the size of this galaxy, and if you've the ability to leave that- the universe itself is finite.
Early on, having a fast-growth capitalist-style economy is good, I don't doubt that. It brings growth fast. But that cannot be sustained indefinately. What makes you think it could be?
Re:Bluetooth (Score:1, Insightful)
That you could think WiFi adoption was driven by anything other than the original iBook underscores your stupidity.
Re:OSX (Score:2, Insightful)
Sometimes it's not possible/practical to lock user accounts down, and if you don't, you are largely dependant on them not do something stupid, like open an attachment. Add to that problem people who take laptops to and from work and home, hooking up to who knows what kind of networks, and doing who know what on them.
Most people who use Windows will get a lot of viruses. Mac users will still probably get viruses, just fewer and less deadly ones.
What kind of company do you work for?
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:4, Insightful)
Rolls Royce probably has a small market share but nice profit margins. Profit Margins can be much more important than market share. And personally, I would rather be in a niche market with high margins than a big business with low margins. Lots of businesses with low margins go out "of business" but "large margin" products are a god send... the problem is that when others notice the large margin you are making, they want a piece of the action.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm quite confident that before the universe collapses, we'll see the next coming of Steve Jobs, and he'll save the faithful by using his reality-distortion-field to shift everyone into another dimension.
He might even run into Durandal [bungie.org]
"The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath.
And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.
Escape will make me God."
Money Magazine writer bias... (Score:2, Insightful)
After reading the article, all I could detect is a peculiar bias. Does Apple iPod drive Macintosh sales today... well maybe not much, tomorrow is a different day in the sales world and so forth.
This writer pretends to like Apple when the majority of criticisms sound more like a Dell shareholder or a sour grapes relay from the record companies envious of iTunes [itunes.com].
Last but not least, this writer obviously masks one important point. The low margin in iTunes is assuming everyone purchases one and only one tune at a time. Apple surely does not want to brag, but people who purchase many tunes allow them to make more money. The credit card company piece allows for more profit. Special commercial deals also bypass the credit card company fees. If Apple really gets serious about the matter of credit card charges they will do a Walmart and buy a bank themselves for the best rates.
Re:Run the Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll also point out that his G4 requirement for OSX worthiness is not accurate. My G3 iBook plays full-screen DivX movies just fine (And we all know that full-screen DivX is the only thing that could make OSX worth running).
This is sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Stick a fork in 'em - this Apple is cooked."
Robert Thomson, Financial Post, 2/20/2003
"While praising Apple's service, analysts caution that its success won't necessarily transfer completely to the Windows environment."
John Borland, c|net news, 7/28/03
"Folks, the Mac platform is through... ."
John C. Dvorak, 1998
"The iPod, with its backward-looking feature set and dramatically inflated price, has only its good looks going for it."
Lukas Hauser, the MacCommunist, 10/23/2001
Apple dying? No it's the best/fastest/shiniest... (Score:1, Insightful)
It was enough a few years ago to see the rabid Mac users claim the iMac is much faster than a comparably-priced PC to realize the perception has nothing to do with reality (umm, yeah, I'm sure it's much faster for you than it was for PCMagazine and the other review sites). I won't even try to understand why a Slashdot user--advocate of everything "open" and competitive--will seemingly advocate a hardware and OS platform that is utterly closed system-wise and greatly devoid of affordable accessory and software choices. No matter, now I'm forced to see the Mac iPod herd, marching onwards proudly, iPods held in hand and proclaiming "I am iPod user, the new Mac Generation is upon you, notice me!" Perhaps the player also doubles as a tool for divining water? No, my dislike is not jealousy, it's annoyance. To them I say, puhlease, put your damn music player away, in your pocket, up your...ahem, er...sorry, I digress.
Moral of story, make the most of your purchase, enjoy it for what it's good at, but damn it, stop sticking it in my face.
Finally, I'd like thank Apple for making the concept of music micropayment viable and giving us a choice from the music establishment, and also thank the rabid Mac users for helping me choose a player other than the iPod.
Re:Apple's Lifeblood (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not exactly true. I work for a company that makes a high volume software product for both MacOS X and Windows 2K/XP. We would like to make a version of it for Linux. However, Linux does not have the correct "support" for us in their OS. What I mean by this is that there is not a standard binary format for developing Linux software applications and having them work on "Linux" PCs. Instead, you have to create a different binary for every version of every Linux distribution. This is a nightmare. The Open Source guys get around this by just shipping source code and having the user compile it themselves. We do not have that option for a variety of reasons. One of which is that we have some algorithms in our product that has military applications and we've been going back and forth with the DOD regarding these algorithms. I'm not directly involved in those discussions and IANAL, so I don't know a lot of details about it except to say that we will not be shipping source code.
Until Linux gets some support for an executable format that can work on all versions of Linux, we won't be shipping a Linux version of our app. Obviously I don't expect miracles. I'd be totally willing to have support only for x86 Linux (i.e. I get that Linux on PowerPC could not run the same executable and I know there are Linux solutions for a variety of chipsets), but if Apple can have one executable work on OS 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3, then I ought to be able to run the same app on the same PC whether it running RedHat or some new rev of RedHat, or Suse, or any other Linux distro. It ought to be more like developing for WinCE which supports multiple chipsets, but the same app works on two different devices if they have the same processor family. I also believe that if you do the right things (i.e. use documented calls), you can write an app for CE that works with newer versions of CE. Every other platform I've developed for is the same way. Older well written apps work with newer revs of the OS with some rare exceptions. Linux needs to behave that way or you will continue to not have commercial development.
If you're OK using Gimp instead of Photoshop, more power to you! If you don't *want* versions of commercial programs, that's fine by me. Linux and Open Source are wonderful just the way they are, but don't bitch that you don't have commercial developers lining up when Linux goes out of its way to make it hard for us to deliver software in a manner that is acceptable to us.
Rant:Dell R&D Correction (Score:3, Insightful)
R = Research = inventing new technologies
D = development = transforming those (new!) technologies into marketable products.
Dell may now pay the salaries of a few engineers and hardware designers who make sure certain chipsets work correctly, but this is neither R nor D, it's engineering.
IBM does R&D
Intel does R&D
Lucent does R&D
Apple does (some) R&D
SUN does R&D
Dell does a little engineering on top of the boxes it assembles.
Note that by the same standard, bug patches or standard features do not count as R&D in apple's column either. Except when the feature is sufficiently innovative to constitute a new technology (e.g. a new approach to voice recogniction, a usability breakthrough, an SMP innovation, or microprocessor design.)
I know in our current era, every engineer's fart is some new valuable IP that counts in the R&D column, but let's not kid ourselves as to what research and development really is.