1 Million Windows to Mac Converts So Far in 2005 891
UltimaGuy writes to tell us AppleInsider is reporting that according to one Wall Street analyst over one million Windows users have switched to Mac in the first three quarters of 2005. It is speculated that these numbers are a direct result of the popularity gained through the iPod and related technologies in addition to security concerns from Microsoft. From the article: "According to checks with Apple Store Specialists, Wolf also said a larger than expected percentage of Windows to Mac converts appear to be purchasing Apple's higher-end systems and that their transition is fueled by the epidemic of viruses and malware on the Windows platform."
"switched" or "also bought"? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA:
TFA seems to be using "switched to" and "converted" interchangably with "purchased", implying that every Windows user who bought a Mac was turning his or her back on PCs. I don't think that has to be the case at all. If we assume that TFA is right about the reason for such good Mac sales (derriving from the strength of the ipod), then isn't it reasonable to assume that a fair number of those are people who are buying Macs not as their exclusive computer, but possibly in addition or in complement to their PCs?
Maybe the real signficance of this (assuming the numbers are correct) is that it's no longer uncool to own more than one computer!
Is it because I bought a Mac? (Score:2, Informative)
I seriously hope that I'm not lumped in that 1 million figure.
Minimal issue now... (Score:3, Informative)
Now what do those people do? Hmmm. Word processing maybe, Internet (probably AOL), listen to music / watch movies (covered), etc. Years ago I think you'd be right about this. If you wanted a simple calculator program or even wanted to play a CD you had to buy a program to do it. Nowadays, all of that sort of thing is included with most computers - particularly Apple ones.
I've converted my own school's dorm machines to Mac Mini's (all 35 of them) this year and the main reason was the security issues associated with Windows. Well... That, and the girls just LOVE those things!
Re:Onlly reason I haven't... (Score:5, Informative)
No because it's not an issue (Score:3, Informative)
And software that doesn't let you convert either is replaced with software that ships free with consumer Macs (like iLife with iPhoto and iTunes and iMovie), or is easily replaced by other low cost or free Mac versions.
What software to casual computers have that would prevetn a switch? It's not like the whole world is running AutoCAD.
Re:The Mac Experience - not all its cracked up to (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a Mac user (Score:1, Informative)
And yes, Apple is currently growing faster than the industry standard. Wake me when they get back to their numbers from 2000.
Re:No Surprise Here (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Analyze this! (Score:5, Informative)
Not really.
http://www.tortoisecvs.org/ [tortoisecvs.org]
Re:Analyze this! (Score:1, Informative)
Erm... Isn't that why Camino [caminobrowser.org] exists?
Just another Apple myth (Score:0, Informative)
(nice try, all you apple fanbois mod each other up anyway)
Dell revenues down?
Dell revenue keeps going up [yahoo.com].
Apple's keeps going up?
they had a loss two years ago [yahoo.com].
Why deal with the truth when you can live in reality distortion field?
Costa Rica... (Score:2, Informative)
Switched yes, but not because of iPod (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Mac Experience - not all its cracked up to (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As a Mac user (Score:4, Informative)
My first Linux box was before TCP/IP worked reliably on it... before X Window worked. ST-506 drive (hundreds of MB!) and 256KB memory modules.
My first Mac box was a Mac Plus (well, I also had an Atari ST that had the Mac emulator running on it).
I've always liked the Mac software, but got drawn in (and still am drawn in) to the Open Source / freeware / "All Software Has To Be Free" mantra.
For fourteen years, I did my damnedest to make my Linux desktop experience as good as it could be.
Then, I decided to go Mac again. Mac Mini... 512MB.
It's not the fastest platform, nor is it the most programmable. However, it is the most consistent one that I've found. I'm back with a Mac, and use Linux as a server O/S and firewall.
I wonder what would happen if I got a G5 system, or, peraps, should I wait until the Intel Macs arrive?
If I have to design my own system (motherboard, case, RAM, etc.) then it's a no-brainer... Linux wins. If I have to purchase a complete system (or one for a non-computer person), it would almost definitely be a Mac.
I'm really happy that the state of the art has gotten us here!
Re:Just another Apple myth (Score:3, Informative)
Why do asshole posts like the one above get modded up?
If you want actual evidence showing the relative success of the companies (and thus proving the parent has his head up his ass), click this [yahoo.com]
Full page here [yahoo.com]
Re:No Suprise Here (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, you may counter that we have yet to see what nefarious powers OSX malware one day may have. And I'll concede the point that even though there has been no malware, spyware, adware, or viruses for OSX in the five years it's been around that doesn't mean there won't ever be those sort of apps gunning for OSX security. However, my experience on both platforms has shown me that Apple's OS is fairly robust, their attitude about security exploits is very aggressive, and there aren't the same available vectors for attack in OSX that make Windows so attractive to phishers, crackers, and other binary scum...
Re:Analyze this! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"switched" or "also bought"? (Score:2, Informative)
Scroll down to the table that lists 2005 Q3 year over year growth.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/mac_sales.html [systemshootouts.org]
All vendors - 17.1%
Apple - 47.8%
Re:As a Mac user (Score:2, Informative)
Better go take a look (no, that would be harder than just assuming it's a pile of crap and feeling all smug and big). Since before OS X 10.0, ditto could be used to duplicate a drive exactly (including resource forks). In 10.4, cp, tar, cpio, etc join it. Want to make a bootable copy? bless. Been there for years, command line only as you say.
Oh, but ditto and bless aren't standard unix tools? Neither is your beloved grub or lilo. Same fucking thing. Standard tools completely duplicate a drive and one more makes it bootable again.
Now run along and find some other reason to hate that which is different and therefore threatens your fragile ego.
Re:Onlly reason I haven't... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. The employer purchases the machine on the employee's behalf, and then subtracts the amount from the employee's before-tax salary, spread over a number of salary cycles (ie: paychecks) specified by the employee (up to a certain amount, I think it's 3 - this is why the opportunity is generally only relevant to those on relatively high salaries). Additionally, since the purchse is being made by a business, they don't pay GST (sales tax) and the GST refund goes to the employee.
Basically, it makes the entire cost of the laptop a tax deduction, and the employee immediately receives a 10% GST "refund". The downside is the employer must be prepared to do it, the employee's paycheck will probably be substantially less while the payments are deducted from it and it's only applicable to laptops.
Employees are allowed to do this once a year (technically, a "Fringe Benefits Tax" year, which is slightly different to a "Taxation" year). The "rort", of course, is employees who do this every year and then immediately on-sell the laptop on ebay (or similar). If you buy, say, a $4000 laptop and resell it for $3500, you'll make about $1000 out of it (from memory, it's been a while since I did it, and I was on a different tax bracket back then).
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a Mac user (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Analyze this! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.caminobrowser.org/ [caminobrowser.org]
Congratulations Camino team!
Re:Analyze this! (Score:3, Informative)
I only have one left, and it is going into retirement tommorrow when I replace it with a Mac Mini. The only thing I like better than a SPARC station is an Indy 2, and those are pitifully slow now. The mini was totally worth the money, and was about 3k cheaper than a new SPARC. No, an AMD wouldn't do, since the main reason I used SPARC was for binary compatibility. It's just simply not worth the grief anymore.
Someone else posted that Cygwin on Windows does all they need. Good for them. Cygwin on my Thinkpad is a DOG. PuTTY is nice and all, but the SFTP totally sucks ass. No get * support? Puhleeese! I really love Solaris 10 with KDE, but I just can't afford to upgrade it. The box is already maxed out, and I can't afford a new one... or even a nearly new one. I got a nice mini cheap, though. The only app I will miss ( a LOT) is KATE. Pretty much the best editor since TPU.
Oh, and hey... the terminal transparency actually works
-WS
Re:The Mac Demographic (Re:Is it because I bough.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Time Value of Money (Score:5, Informative)
You're deluding yourself if you think MacOS X doesn't require just as much tinkering. I'm a long suffering Mac user who has recently spent a few weeks with Tiger. I've easily spent 20 hours in the past month installing third party software like VLC because Tiger won't play DivX, finding various tweaks on macosxhints (eg, disable dashboard which is a memory sucking vampire), hunting down a crashing issue with ARD (had to replace it with OSX VNC), mucking about with configuration settings that have retarded defaults, and so on and so forth.
It's amusing that the GP commented on the multimedia keys, because attached to this Mac I have a Logitech keyboard and the multimedia keys don't work. Not even with the official Logitech drivers. Yet they work perfectly on Linux and Windows.
So don't give me any crap about Macs saving you "time and money". I use all three of the holy trinity quite heavily - Windows, Linux and Mac - and they are all about as sucky as each other.
Re:why don't you.. (Score:1, Informative)
Another neat trick. You can change the battery while it's on :-) Close lid, swap battery, open lid, go. I don't know if that's common knowledge and can be done on every laptop (Mac or PC), but I was pleasantly surprised by it on my 17 inch pb.
Not surprised (Score:3, Informative)
Just last night I was in a MobileMonday -meeting at a local bar in Helsinki. It used to be a meeting for nerds interested in mobile stuff, but it has been overrun by marketdroids and you rarely see a nerd there any more.
Anyway I was talking to a business contact, who is a partner in a management consultant company. His comment last night was that Microsoft is the sales department for OS X. They trashed all their PCs and switched totally to OS X -environment as XP's ServicePack 2 came out. They just couldn't get their PCs to co-operate with that pack. What amazed me was that this came from a guy that's allways used PCs and is in no way interested in geek-stuff - he is a management consultant after all. And this happens in Finland, that's propably one of the most pro-PC countries in the World. Three years ago I used to know only a couple of people who used Macs. Now it seems that number has well over trippled, and that's mostly converts.
Personally I do use PCs, Macs & Unix boxes (HP & Sun), with major OSs. But as a for my laptop, the choise has been clear for years. Apple's laptops were far ahead in battery life for years. Nowadays there's not that much difference, but the usability, stability and connectivity is still there...
Re:As a Mac user (Score:4, Informative)
But after hearing all the fan-boys on this and other sites, and doing a fair bit of research into Mac OSX, I figured it was time to try out a powerbook.
After a few months of using it exclusively, I can't stand working with Windows or even KDE/Gnome now. A stock OSX Tiger install is incredibly useful (Exposé, Spotlight, iLife, Dashboard, and all that BSD goodness through Terminal.app). But after installing a few amazing (and free) utilities, it's the closest to desktop utopia I've ever been:
Never thought I'd say it, but I guess I'm one of the fan-boys now.
I still have a Windows box for gaming (although I have to admit there are far more games available for OSX than I imagined), and a few Linux boxes for serving, development, routing, etc. Although I now have all my development stuff running locally on my powerbook, so the linux boxes are less useful these days.
My message to people on the fence about switiching: give it a shot. It's not perfect, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of anything else.
Re:Dell vs Apple pricing (Score:3, Informative)
I am a dyed-in-the-wool Sun guy who just got his first XP tablet/laptop last night (I use '98 on my desktop... hey, at least it's the devil I know). It has a half a gig of RAM, and swaps constantly, even after turning off all the eye candy. It's worse than Solaris 9!!!
Oh, yes, the only application I'm running is "Windows Explorer". Whoo!
This XP "experience" has been wonderful. When I first got it, "fresh" from the factory, it even had a virus! And the XP installer had yet to run! (No, I don't have a WiFi AP, No, I didn't even plug it into the 'net yet).
Needless to say, I Knoppix-nuked the disc and did the factory restore instead of trying to clean it..
Re:Analyze this! (Score:3, Informative)
My experiences with TortoiseCVS have been very mixed. It is easy for beginners to learn, better than WinCVS anyway as it does not confuse them with multiple views of the same files. At the same time I've had it die trying to do checkouts because it can't write some file to disk for some unspecified reason, which kills the rest of the checkout as well. Also, while it might have the very basics down, it provides no easy way to do more complex CVS options, except using a pseudo CLI. When it comes to piping, diffs, and scripted jobs, it sucks and it just does not have the flexibility, speed, or ease of the CLI for an experienced user. I've installed it for some Windows using co-workers, but to suggest it as a replacement for someone already familiar with the CLI version is a mistake.
Re:The Mac Experience - not all its cracked up to (Score:5, Informative)
This is very interesting. I was going to mod you down, but you are already at -1. Then I thought to myself: "I actually use and LOVE Keynote, but I don't really use Pages, so modding this comment without first hand experience would be unfair."
So I fired up Pages, opened the Three Panel Brochure template (I guess that's what you meant), and noticed that if I replaced the template text, the program would be dog slow. Not as slow as you say: after typing a very, very long sentence, the last character would appear around six seconds after I typed it, which is anyway too annoying.
So I was going to mod you up. But then I saw all the comments saying that they don't experience such a long lag... WTF? So I closed the document and started a new one using the Club Newsletter template, which looks fairly complex. To make things fair, I inserted five different pages all with several columns, pictures, side texts (or however they are called). By the way, everything looks very cool, and far more complex than the Three Panel Brochure. I started editing all over the place, with *absolutely* no delay.
So the problem is actually with the specific template! Apparently it's much more complex than it seems, or the author screwed up, or it uses a particular "feature" that kills Pages. In any case, you can make documents that look much more complex using other templates (although I only tested those two).
Someone please mod parent as "Underrated". I personally thought that describing my findings would contribute more to the discussion.
Oh, by the way: Pages - Just say yes only if you have already tested the template you want to use.
Keynote, that's a totally different story. Keynote rocks!
Re:why don't you.. (Score:2, Informative)
I could say the same about several linux apps on windows as well, but really, who cares? If you really want to work on linux and if those apps really are critical then get a separate system for them and spend the rest of the time where you would love to work. High end audio recording is probably best done on a dedicated machine anyway (in your case).
If you haven't had any trouble with Linux, installation/configuration wise, you either 1) spent a lot of time choosing hardware, or 2) got lucky.Well considering I've been using linux on my work desktop since 1999 and exclusively on my home desktop since 2000 (over plenty of hardware configurations) I think we can safely rule out luck...
As for spending time choosing hardware, sure I spend time doing that, but no more than I ever did researching any other piece of hardware before purchase. I don't like to get ripped off..
That said, I've installed linux on old 486's running off of a floppy disk, on old laptops, desktops old and new. I've got a Dell inspiron 2100 with a cracked hinge that I'm going to try and get linux on once I get the cdrom drive attachment and a quick google search indicated it should work no problem. I'm also setting up my second mythtv box (this one running on a pundit-r) and I just picked up a m-audio delta 66 to do some linux audio work (also well supported under linux).
It didn't really take too much effort to find the information I needed anyway (example [google.com])
Nowadays, most people fitting that description will just check online, find hardware of the type they are interested in that is supported by linux, and buy that, rather than buying the unsupported hardware and doing the work to fix it.I think you greatly under estimate the amount of work it takes these days to get a working driver for hardware. First, hardware is more complicated (2d vid cards were much easier to write drivers for than today's 3d). Next, specs are even harder to come by than they were years ago, and finally a lot of consumer hardware these days relies almost entirely on software. Writing a driver for a win-modem, win-printer or wireless card that does most of its work in software is a much bigger task than with their hardware based counterparts.
Back in 2000 I was probably in a similiar situation to you, I loved working in linux but there were one or two apps that weren't there. To me it wasn't worth it to stay in an environment I didn't like (and pay for the privilege!) so I ditched it and lived without the apps. Today hardly anybody uses those old apps that seemed so critical at the time and I can now accomplish those tasks easily under linux
Re:why don't you.. (Score:3, Informative)
It's nice that your needs are modest and OS X fulfills them. But, in fact, I do own several Macs and use them daily, and it is not a replacement for a Linux or UNIX desktop. Sorry.
Keynote stands head and shoulders above any other presentation software package I've seen - and to bring a mac to a staff meeting for a presentation is a joy.
Let's just take this as an example. I'm sure Keynote appeals to you: it looks clean, it's easy to use, and it makes slides look nice. I use it for quick presentations. But it is primitive and limited compared to PowerPoint or OpenOffice. Check the discussion forums; you'll find plenty of examples.