A Six-Step Plan for Apple 773
An anonymous reader writes "Open letter from Alex Salkever to Jobs. One thing in particular strikes me: 'The latest round of attacks on Microsoft software is terrifying. If using a Mac means servers in Russia are less likely to harvest my passwords and offer my identity to the highest bidder, I think that's an offer I'd like to hear more about.' I think he's got something there."
Finally! Step 2 (Score:5, Funny)
servers in Russia are less likely to harvest my passwords and offer my identity to the highest bidder
Step 1: Create Server (in Soviet Russia no less!) that harvests passwords
Step 2: Offer harvested information to highest bidder
Step 3: Profit!
Now, to create these password harvesting servers... off I go! Oh wait, he said something about a six step plan! Damn't!
Re:Finally! Step 2 (Score:4, Funny)
No worries mate!
Step 1: Create password harvesting server.
Step 2: Offer harvested information to highest bidder
Steps 3-5: ???
Step 6: Profit!
Re:Finally! Step 2 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally! Step 2 (Score:3, Funny)
No, silly; he's a dancer!
Re:Finally! Step 2 (Score:3, Funny)
Shouldn't that be a Beowulf cluster of computers in Soviet Russia?
(Cue the hot grits, you insensitive clod!)
Re:Finally! Step 2 (Score:3, Funny)
... that creates you.
Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I type from within one I must say!
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
That whole IE Zones thing has got to go, every other exploit seems to work by confusing IE into think it's the local machine zone. This is a badly designed security mechanism, and it's just the tip of the iceberg of very poor decisions made by Microsoft.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct -- providing that one company does not hold a stranglehold over the marketplace.
But even so, I think the seeds of Microsoft's destruction have long been sown. Their prices are too high and their movement too slow. Today I think the best developers and computer scientists work on open-source software, which is often portable. From there I think the great generalized applications of tomorrow will spring.
Although I hate to sound like a buzzword bullhorn, I think Linux will ultimately prove to be less expensive, more flexible, expandable, and all-encompassing: one can run it on the servers, the clients and the portable devices, and run it seemlessly without regard to lisencing costs. Those seeds I mentioned earlier are still saplings, but unlike commericial competitors Microsoft cannot kill them by purchase or by might alone.
One can see this occuring already in the third and first worlds, and among cost-conscious businesses. This is coming from someone typing on an XP box using Mozilla (Linux does not suit my needs -- yet), but I think the mists of future show a world far more open than the one today.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_window
Addressing the common line about mac's being more secure only because no one uses them He had the following to say:
"------
The reason this argument is so popular with Windows apologists is that it's a convenient bit of rhetoric. They say it's so, we say it's not. You can't get past this argument, because it can't be disproven without the Mac OS actually attaining a Windows-like market share.
So, let's concede the point, just for the sake of argument: OK, fine, if the Mac had the same market share as Windows, the tables would be turned and there'd be just as many Mac security exploits as there are Windows exploits today.
Now what? Given that the Mac is never going to attain a monopoly share of the operating systems market -- that merely expanding its share to, say, 10 percent would be universally hailed as an almost-too-good-to-be-true success -- isn't it thus only logical to conclude that the Mac is forever "doomed" to be significantly more secure than Windows?
------"
Of course you would be hard pressed to find someone to grant in reality the points he grants for argument's sake, but it is an interesting comment on the argument itself.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
This is consistent with how SUID is designed to work.
-Rusty
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:4, Interesting)
By default, /Applications is only writable by administrators (and root). If you wish for it to ask for password when you drag the files, you could always change the permissions to 755 (this works only on Panther). But the question remains; why do you run as admin? Administrator account is meant for administrative tasks and not for web browsing. You should treat the OS X administrator account as a root account with a extra security check.
Yeah, except that no. (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing magic about this, just good old unix permissions. The closest thing to magic is that if I attempt to drag something in there as a non-admin user, the Finder won't just fail with an error; it will pause, ask me for an admin user's auth, and proceed if I can supply it. Which of course is not technically groundbreaking, just good design.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it hasn't. I have avoided Windows for some time now, but occasionally I have to use it. The big difference I've seen between Mac OS X and Windows is that your programs run fine in OS X with minimum privileges, while most of the applications on Windows require administrator privileges to run. A non-admin account is practically unusable for anything else than reading e-mail and web browsing.
PS. Show me one OS, whose default user is NOT an administrator. How could you do anything, if there is NO user with administrator rights, eh?
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
free screensavers???!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sure (Score:4, Funny)
Sure, my password is, oddly enough, your birthday and my ip is 127.0.0.1
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm speaking from a linux point of view; I would guess the Mac is similar.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want more security, you can use a separate partition for
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm... I was about to talk about ~/Library/Scripts too, but it appears that Applescripts just get opened by other programs, and aren't executable by themselves.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Umm... If you use Win2K+, it DOES have this safeguard. Unless you are already logged in as administrator, running a setup program brings up a prompt for the admin password.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
"Admin" users on OS X are like regular users in the wheel group, while Admin users on Windows are like root.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, it is not just security througth obscurity. Try portscanning a Windows box and a Mac with a default install.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm wondering where they got these statistics. I couldn't find any discussion of this on the site. They don't seem to jive with the Google Zeitgeist. In the Google Zeitgeist, all Mozilla variants seem to fall into the "other" category. At the May 2004 point, the other category seems to have a lower percentage than both IE 5 and IE 5.5 on Google. In contrast, the w3schools statistics say that Mozilla
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a well known factoid that IIS web servers provide the vast majority of the content available on the Internet. As a result they have been targeted by virus writers and script kiddies the world over for attacks.
On the other hand there is an open source web server that has a very low volume of sales, known as Apache, that because it provides such a low volume of the content of the Internet, has remained of little interest to virus writers and script kiddies.
Should Apache ever take off and become popular, it is likely that it will become a significant target of attack.
What's that you say? Apache actually serves more than half the content of the Internet? Damn! There goes this bit of evidence.
-Rusty
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:4, Informative)
John Gruber effectively demolished that claim in this post [daringfireball.net].
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
Conveniently, this philosophy has spread into many operating systems, such as all of the BSDs, Solaris, Linux, etc... and given that MacOS is based off of BSD, that means it falls into this category.
Windows, on the other hand, does not. Windows was designed to be idiot-friendly, such that an admin can read a 1-page sheet of instructions to get their server up and running. Features were piled on such that when you download files off of the web, they should be automatically opened... why else would you have downloaded it?! I can keep going on, but there's really no reason to - anyone who claims that Windows is more secure, by default, than MacOS/Linux/etc is on crack.
Try and make a worm that propagates through MacOS X, or Linux, or anything other than Windows and we can talk. Until then, accept what most of the world already has - Windows is not a secure operating system, regardless of how many people are using it.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is such a tired, over-simplified, and patently false rant I'm surprised it rates an insightful...Yes, lower market share will result in fewer exploits. But giving half a thought to basic security precautions will too. Between the two of them you end up with an operating system which currently has 0 viruses in the wild and very few exploits which affect the default installation.
It is also inane to suggest that all of a sudden, everyone will switch to a mac and suddenly get viruses. The point is that with a diversified eco-system (linux, freeBSD, Solaris, MacOS, Windows, etc.) all using different client and server software, the threat potential goes down for everyone because it makes it that much harder for a worm or virus to spread.
Explain how Apache is the most popular web server, and yet the server which gets holed by worms on a regular basis is IIS
Good point, but one flaw in logic (Score:5, Insightful)
The lack of viruses was almost bad enough that I thought I should write a virus that'd execute on the Mac just to say we'd had a good one (other than that silly "bootable CD" scare under OS 8-9). It's not like it'd really take any time. Most viruses seem to be ones that people are silly enough to click on in their email to start the infection. You'd have a harder time writing one that exploited a flaw [without taking that extra time finding one, which is where the real genius comes in, of course], but just so that Mac OS X could say there was one, I thought I'd hack a quick REALbasic or Java or Applescript dohicky and "socially engineer" it to look all clickable in an email sent from the infected box. Heck, I get enough free spamable addresses in the spam I get myself these days even finding the first few hundred hosts wouldn't be a problem.
But your position then is something akin to malaria in someone with sickle cell -- you have to find enough hosts, not only initially but continually, to keep you alive to keep finding more hosts. Without them, you die out.
How many Mac users themselves have a large percentage of Mac users in their address book? Most of my friends use Windows. Even if I got a few Mac users to click and execute an application-virus, giving me pretty free reign on their system, what are the chances that sending the bugger to every email I could cull off their system would keep the outbreak alive? I've got to think pretty small.
So there's more to a virus than just lack of hackers -- what's the payout, even for a good virus? Pretty small as long as, as the original post points out, the market share is too.
Which brings us to...
If everyone gets the same idea to move to a mac, virus wirters will shift their attention to macs.
I'm not saying the Mac doesn't have these flaws -- nor that it doesn't. But OS X'd have to have the flaw in addition to the market share to really cause the havoc Windows has.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Funny)
confusing design and technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think that when Apple talks about 'superior design', they aren't talking about color, but the OS and user interface? When Alex says 'technology', and Apple says 'design', I think they are talking about the same thing.
People don't pay premium prices because of a Mac's color, or shape, but for the OS and interface. They expect the nice 'design' (in the "looks-nice" sense) because of the premium price, but are not paying premium solely for its looks.
Re:confusing design and technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Her #1 use for the thing was
Apple knows what they're doing. To most people, a computer is a computer--and without their smooth design Apple is just as much a part of that commodity market as anyone else.
Actually (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:confusing design and technology (Score:3, Insightful)
And Apple has good design wired.
Re:confusing design and technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarly (Score:3, Insightful)
That may be a minority of thier sales, but don't put too much faith in the consumer.
Yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh nice! I was getting worried! (Score:5, Insightful)
Story contains the same thing over and over and over and over we've heard now for what...20 years now? Lower their prices, focus on what they do best, lower their prices and lower their prices.
The only thing new here is focus on security, which seems like a good thing to focus on, but only if Apple can TRUELY deliver a resonably secure system. Hopefully they can.
But it's good to see some things never die, like these articles that try to show Apple the error of their ways.
Re:Oh nice! I was getting worried! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh nice! I was getting worried! (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I mean, you wouldn't write an open letter to Harley Davidson telling them a six step plan to getting a Harley in every driveway in America, would you?
I think it is great that there is a premimun software and hardware vendor out there like Apple. I see "premium" PC vendors, like Alienware, but they're offering a more expensive version of the same old shit. At least you get premium quality when you pay premium
Re:Oh nice! I was getting worried! (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the barriers for switchers is financial: they have peripherals, software and other things that they won't be able to bring from Wintel to the Mac.
Adding a financial incentive to switch is, IMHO, much better than the current "it makes your life easier" approach (look at the switcher ads and they all have this common theme.)
Also, the "test drive" suggestion is really good -- spending some quality time with a Mac is the best way to fall in love with it. The Apple Stores are a great environment to try the product out, but it pales in comparison to the comfort of your living room.
Such a promotion would also drive foot traffic into the Apple Stores -- always a good thing from a retail point-of-view.
-ch
That's It? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's nothing new or interesting in the article.
It's just the same old mantra of cheaper, more modular, etc.
Jobs would read this, rightly conclude that it's just another tired summary of the market forces and contray opinions he's been aware of and dealing with for his entire career.
I understand why it's news on Slashdot; I just can't figure out why it would be news anywhere else.
Test Drive a Macintosh (Score:5, Insightful)
So, my gut reflex was that this program would be a good idea. But then again, 2004 isn't the mid-80's. Back then, the program was a great idea because virtually no one knew about Macintosh. Now, you would be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn't know a Macintosh owner. These potential converts already have a "test drive" program: They just go over to their friend's house. And Macintosh owners have no shortage of enthusiasm for showing off their computer....
Re:Test Drive a Macintosh (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to disagree here. I don't know any Mac owners, and nobody I know has a friend with a Mac either.
You are correct that Apple does have a "test drive" program though, the shiny Apple Stores in malls around the country. People play around with the display models, and that increases public awareness. Now it's not as good as bringing it home to try out, but it's a start. They just need to get better at convincing Average Joes WHY they should pay a premium for a Mac.
Re:Test Drive a Macintosh (Score:3, Insightful)
Very true.. and I have to admit that within a few weeks of getting my old iBook, I started taking it with me places when fixing Windows machines as I could use it as a large file and document storage device as well as a machine that wouldnt be taken down when attached to an infected Windows box... and I started passing it to Windows users to give them something to play with while I debug their personal machines. (Always ha
As a self-appointed representative of ... (Score:5, Funny)
Are we phishing for passwords? Yes. Are we preying on the gullibility of millions of computer users? Yes. Are we using the information that we're receiving to access as much cash/credit from the end-users as is possible, probably ruinging their credit and their lives? Yes.
But we're doing it all to fight terrorism. Didn't anybody watch our recruitment movie, Swordfish [imdb.com]? We're the good guys. Now give us your passwords and leave us to fight the good fight.
Re:As a self-appointed representative of ... (Score:5, Funny)
Are we phishing for passwords? Yes. Are we preying on the gullibility of millions of computer users? Yes. Are we using the information that we're receiving to access as much cash/credit from the end-users as is possible, probably ruinging their credit and their lives? Yes.
There it is.
No money means you don't go out.
Not going out means you don't meet any people.
Not meeting any people means you don't meet people of the opposite sex.
Not meeting people of the opposite sex means you don't breed.
Ergo, these people are thinning the herd, darwinistically removing the gullible people who stupidly let terrorists into our fair lands.
Let them be, says I.
Soko
Err... (Score:5, Insightful)
What an stupid idea. All but the crappiest two-year-old computers are still worth more than $200, especially laptops. Only a complete idiot would take advantage of that offer.
Re:Err... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is why most companies give them to charity - it is easier to do that then to sell them.
If you go to a computer reseller instead of an end-user, chances are he won't offer you more than $200 for a two year old computer.
Re:Err... (Score:3, Funny)
Right here. [ebay.com]
(see, I can *almost* be funny...)
You've argued with a Mac-o-phile right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hence, my critique of these points:
My 2c.
He's just another sheep (Score:5, Insightful)
His first 4 recommendations are basically to be like everyone else:
So basically, he's another of those people who thinks that, of course, Steve must be trying to maximize his market share at the expense of everything else! And, of course, the best way to do that is to make Macs cheap, like Dells. Because Dell sells a lot of units! ....Which is true. But it's not the point.
Apple's purpose is not to maximize marketshare but to maximize money. They do that by selling with high margins. Removing the high margins would make Apple unable to function, basically. They are not another assemble and resell outfit. They are not another Dell.
Why do so few people realize that?
As for making a headless "iMac," first, that wouldn't be an iMac, and second, that's not what Apple needs. They have a whole bunch of headless machines--what the heck do you think a PowerMac is??? And if I'm not mistaken, the PowerMacs come with iLife installed. So....he wants them to make a PowerMac. Yay! They're already doing that!
Why do people keep insisting that the way for Apple to dominate the market is to become another low-margin box-assembler? They're doing just fine the way they are. They're not in any trouble. Their stock price is higher than it's been in years--granted, it was higher a couple of weeks ago, but it always rises before and tanks after a major show.
My six steps for Apple?
Dan Aris
Re:He's just another sheep (Score:5, Interesting)
The target for this machine would be the digital hub that Steve Jobs keeps going on about. It would sit in the living room, play DVDs, play music (either ripped from CD or bought from iTMS), show photo albums on the TV and (perhaps most importantly) be used as a PVR (capturing either an analogue or FireWire input) with the option to burn recorded movies to DVD (using iDVD). It could also be used for email and web browsing, especially when combined with a HDTV.
This machine would not be sold as a computer, it would be sold as an appliance (which also happens to be a computer) much like the iPod.
Re:He's just another sheep (Score:3, Insightful)
Buisness is about offering a product or a service at a fair price. For a higher quality product o
Headless cheap Mac... (Score:3)
Peace
Re:He's just another sheep (Score:5, Informative)
First--you're making the far-too-common mistake of equating "market share" with "installed base". They're not the same. Market share means what percent of computers being sold are Macs. Installed base means what percent of computers being used are Macs. The latter number is much higher than the former. This is largely because Macs last longer than PCs.
Second, perhaps you should think about just what "sheep" means. It means following the majority opinion without thinking for yourself. Your answer sounds very much like the majority opinion--speaking of a 1% marketshare, when most unbiased estimates put it at at least 3 to 4 times that, saying that raising marketshare is the only way to "save" Apple--and most importantly, thinking that a low marketshare means that Apple needs to be saved.
Here's a hint: it doesn't.
Apple's doing just fine.
Dan Aris
Step Seven (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I can buy one, but I shouldn't have to for what I'm paying. And what about for my Powerbook? $3000 and no means to add a button to the touchpad = annoyed me.
Re:Step Seven (Score:5, Interesting)
I also have yet to find a multi-button trackpad I consider even remotely usable (and, believe me, I looked). The single button trackpad, combined with an OS and apps that only need one button, was one of the features I rather liked about the PowerBook. Maybe a design with a button at the top and one at the bottom would work (index finger for one, thumb for the other), but every PC laptop I've seen puts two buttons at the bottom (or occasionally, in a fit of insanity, at the top), where they are all operated by the thumb, making it far more awkward to press the right button than it is to press the left button and hold down a keyboard modifier (assuming that the other hand is on the keyboard, which it usually is).
The man has a point (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a couple of friends (Ely and Annette) who've been brought to their knees with security intrusions into their MS PC. They're both very ordinary people with ordinary jobs and neither of them are particularly computer literate, and treat their PC very much like any other home appliance. They don't read computer publications or news bulletins, so they mostly remain unaware of the latest security holes, only discovering they should have updated something when their PC starts misbehaving.
They're totally sick of the computing experience they've had so far. So when I popped in to see them one day I took my PowerBook with me and spent a few hours showing them what it could do. They were really impressed, but what totally got their attention was when I told them I didn't need to run any anti-virus software because a) there are no known viruses out the for Mac OS X, and b) the system is inherently more secure than MS Windows by design. Right away they wanted to know where they could get one and how much it would cost.
(NB: My domain/mail hosting company anti-virus scans all email for me, so I'm still being a good neighbor to my MS using friends)
I showed them the range, asked them some questions about their budget, and then advised them to get an eMac because that best suited what they could afford. But they didn't want a large CRT based system and were really taken with the iMac design.
That was 4 months ago. They've still not updated their PC and still haven't' brought a Mac. The reason why? They just can't afford it at the moment. Various other things keep cropping up in their lives and home that stop them from accumulating enough cash to buy the system they want.
Apple really needs to cut the prices. If they can't do it on existing systems, then they need to produce a bare bones design that can initially be pitched at those people with smaller budgets, and then later expanded and upgraded if people need the extra functionality.
I'm a Mac switcher of 2 years who has no intention of going back. And I've met SO many people in that time who've never seen a Mac up close before and have left, lusting after mine when they see up close and personal just how good it is. But they're always put off by the perceived high price. I know that you get so much more for your money with a Mac, but it seems difficult for people to relate to that (don't ask me why).
This is a bullet that Apple are just going to have to bite on if they want to grow their market share some more. Do they have the corporate courage and desire to make this happen? Time will tell, but I sure hope so.
I'll be shopping at an Apple Store Tonight (Score:5, Informative)
Surprisingly a lower price than other light weight notebook competitors. With her student discount she will get a 1ghz G4 ibook with 12" screen, 512 megs of ram, 60 gig drive, combo DVD-ROM/cd burner, 802.11g, firewire, usb, etc. for just over $1200. It's unfortunate that Apple doesn't have competitive pricing for desktop models and other notebooks like they do for the 12" iBook. It's really the best bang for the buck in the light weight market now.
Less aggravation and thus lower TCO- On her current aging PC I had to clean viruses and spyware off at least a half dozen times. She just can't get it on the iBook(at least not yet at any rate). My experience with modern macs has been that once they're configured they work and stay that way. Her sister's iBook from three years ago is heavily used but still works just as good as it did on day 1.
Awesome MS Office ImplementationThe latest Office edition rocks and it's cheap for students too ($149). Completely compatible, and a lot more slick too.
It runs Unix :)
Apple would be best advised to begin touting the fact that these machines are really immune to the tons of crap that are being heaped on Windows units. If they can get their prices in line with the market, they'd have a slam dunk on their hands.
Before you buy (Score:5, Informative)
She was initially opposed to the mac until she looked at the following benefits
Before you buy, consider this. My girlfriend recently switched from PC to Mac, too. She had about $1300 and got an old-model refurbished (they call them "refreshed" at the Apple Stores) 12" Powerbook. Faster bus, better screen, and same 60G/512MB as the iBook your girlfriend is contemplating.
When you get to the store, make sure to ask about the refreshed units in stock. They, too, qualify for the educational discount and have the same standard 1-year warranty. With the money she saves, she can get 2 years of AppleCare if she's nervous, or a copy of Office or something.
As a side note, one of my friends got a 15" PowerBook from the same Apple Store. It was the model before the 1.5 GHz speed bump, so it was like $200 less. The Apple Store also knocked an additional $100 off because, get this, the packaging was damaged.
Security... (Score:5, Interesting)
I talked to the marketing head of Apple in Norway about why they did not use the awful track record of Microsoft as an advertisment opportunity. He stated that it is not that easy, and if a similar problem was to surface in MacOS X, they'd lose any credibility they had harvested from the PC community.
Open letter to Maurizio Parlato (Score:5, Insightful)
From: Joe (You know who I am)
Re: Expanding the Ferrari market
Dude. You don't sell that many cars.
Here is my "Six Steps to a Bigger Ferrari Market."
1) Price trumps style in the car market
I know this may be hard to admit for a guy as innovative and design-conscious as you. But Ferrari charges too much for its cars. The car market's benchmark price level is sinking quickly below the $21,000 mark -- turf where Ferrari has been loath to tread.
2) Make 'em cool and cheap
You've been to Target (TGT ), right? You probably seen the terrific product designs such as well-known architect Michael Graves' line of stylish housewares -- offered a budget prices. Heck, Blue Light Specials at Kmart (KMRT ) haven't been the same since Martha Stewart's line of kitchen gear, sheets, and towels hit the aisles several years ago. Dumpster-diving debutantes can't get enough of them. Even sportswear designer Mossimo makes great threads for fiscal lightweights.
We're in the era of cheap chic, Maurizio. And I have no doubt that Ferrari can play that game with the best of them. Give us a really cheap, really cool car, and watch them fly off the lots.
3) Ditch the all-in-one mantra
Your expensive convertable sports cars have never taken off compared to sedans. You should make sedans.
OK, thats enough you get the point.
This guy is a fucking idiot.
This man is a fool (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they wouldn't, you idiot. They'd be dell. Apple's bundling allows them to hide how much they charge for commodities like RAM and hard drives. Their high prices let them survive with a small marketshare (R&D is NOT CHEAP!). This is what makes the company what it is.
I own an iBook. It cost me $1200 or so. PC laptops are probably cheaper. I would never, in a million years, bother with one. The iBook was worth every dollar because of its fantastic software, ease of programming (yes, that's key for me), reliability, good tech support (remember, you don't just buy an iBook, you buy an Apple), small size, durabilitiy, battery life, and a million other things I won't even mention.
Apple knows what is best for Apple. They have known what is best for Apple for a long time, which is why they continue to have large amounts of money. This guy does not know what is best for Apple. Of course, looking back, that should elicit nothing but "Duh?"
My one-step plan for Apple- N E W T O N (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep this man away from my AAPL (Score:5, Insightful)
I bought AAPL [yahoo.com] at 21, it's at 30 today. Get this dumb-ass away from my portfolio.
Seriously, every couple of months we get another MBA-bot posting his (never her) Grand Unified Plan for "saving" Apple, usually based on dumb ideas that have already failed (competing against Dell on price - look how well that went for eMachines and Gateway), are failing (tablet PC's do everything users want... really shittily), or are obviously going to fail (taunt virus/worm writers and script kiddies with boasts of Mac's invulerability).
Enough of the madness. Seven years ago, Wired ran a piece called 100 Ways to Save Apple [wired.com], most of which were stupid (#76, "Make damn sure Rhapsody runs on an Intel chip"), fucking stupid (#81, "Merge with Sega"), or so fucking stupid it blocks out the sun (#61, "Ink a promotion/development deal with Shaquille O'Neal"). The item that looks best in retrospect is #101: "Don't worry. You'll survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about."
Slashdot and other sites with a collective IQ greater than that of a turnip should pass on these articles in the future. They're utterly garbage, have been for 20 years, and probably will be in another 20.
--realinvalidname
Didn't work for Sun... (Score:5, Insightful)
It did nothing, changed nothing. He lost more and more mindshare until he got bought off to stick around on life support and keep his mouth shut.
Jobs is smarter than McNealy. He won't push Apple marketshare by basing Microsft security, and he knows it. He will do it by expanding what Apple's are. By going heavily into the portable computing space, making ergonomically pleasing Apple appliances, under the iBook, iPod and other product iMonikers. Video playback, capturing, music players. He knows to become strong, his competition is not Microsoft, but Sony. There is nothing to be gained by jumping on the open source bandwagon, there is much money to be made in licensing content distribution methods.
If I'm a distinguished engineer at Apple (and I'm not) I would be working on a movie projector that can download films in Quicktime format and display them with the quality of movie film projectors. I hook these projectors up to theater chains with broadband, and start competing with Sony, who invented this technology [asia1.com.sg] but only have penetrated a limited market with it.
But, hey what do I know...
comparing ipods to OSes (Score:5, Insightful)
From the most infamous recent "Save Apple" article (Score:4, Interesting)
100 ways to save Apple.
Let's go through the top 20, shall we?
1. Admit it. You're out of the hardware game. Okay, this didn't happen.
2. License the Apple name/technology to appliance manufacturers and build GUIs for every possible device. Or build the killer app for listening to music, the iPod.
3. Start pampering independent software vendors. The open-source roots of most of OSX and related items fills this need quite well.
4. Gil Amelio should steal a page from Lee Iacocca's book - work for one year without a salary, just to inspire the troops. Jobs' salary is still only a dollar a year.
5. Straighten out the naming convention. eMac, iMac, iBook, Powerbook, PowerMac. Done.
6. Apologize. You've let down many devoted users and did not deliver on the promise of the Macintosh platform. Hmmmn, hard to call this one.
7. Don't disappear from the retail chains. Two words: Apple Stores.
8. Buy a song. Or build the first sucessful online music store. Whatever.
9. Fire the people who forecast product demand. Still a problem, given the recent iMac troubles.
10. Get a great image campaign. Switch. The colored iPod ads. The spinning iMacs. Done.
11. Instead of trying to protect your multicolored ass all the time, try looking forward. Done.
12. Build a fire under your ad agency. Given the Clios and other awards that recent Apple campaigns have one, I feel safe in calling this one done.
13. Exploit every Wintel user's secret fear that some day they're going to be thrown into a black screen with a blinking C-prompt. Advertise the fact that Mac users never have to rewrite autoexec.bat or sys.ini files. See: Switch campaign.
14. Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourselves from the pack. Done. Oh boy, is this one done.
15. Dump (or outsource) the Newton, eMate, digital cameras, and scanners. Done.
16. Take better care of your customers. You need every one. Make customer service a point of pride. Many Mac users feel alienated and have jumped ship. Done.
17. Build some decent applications that the business community will care about. Maybe not business-related, but the iLife series trumps anything out there in the Wintel world.
8. Stop being buttoned-down corporate and appeal to the fanatic feeling that still exists for the Mac. Power Computing's "I'll give up my Mac when they pry it from my stiff, dying fingers" campaign hits the right note. In the tech world, it's still a crusade. Support the Mac community, and the Mac community will support you. Done.
19. Get rid of the cables. Go wireless. Done. 802.11, Bluetooth, you name it.
20. Tap the move toward push media by creating a network computer with state of-the-art technologies, e.g., videogame support for Nintendo 64, top notch graphics such as QuickDraw 3D, and the best possible bandwidth. Okay, is anybody supporting push media now? Let's just cross this one off the list, k?
So, all in all, they've done 17 of the first 20, with 2 maybes and a no. Not bad.
3 steps for telling apple what to do (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1: State that Apple's small market share is a sure sign of impending doom.
Step 2: Suggest that apples competitors have the right idea and that Apple should also make low cost, shitty computers that crap out in a couple months just like everyone else.
Step 3: Complain that apple won't sell you a really cheap computer like you want them to, point out several other complains that make shitty products and again state that Apple should do the same.
I've been hearing this crap like this for more than 10 years, and I'm only 22. I can't believe that pompous assholes like this continue to believe that they know how to run the company better than Apple. People are always complaining "why can't I buy an Apple for the price of a Packard Bell/ Compaq / Dell?". I'll tell you why, those companies make shitty computers and Apple makes quality computers, that's why. And you know what? Apples plan worked a lot better than did Packard Bells or Compaqs(both bought out when they hit hard times). That fact is that business plan only works until everyone has bought one and realized how crappie the computers are. I'm sure that Dell will eventually suffer the same fate, I know about a dozen people that have Dells, and none of them are happy with their purchase. On the other hand, Apple users love their computers, and will continue to be loyal to the Apple brand as long as they live. To bad they only replace their computers every 5 years or so.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just a cheap bastard though.
Re:apple? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not that GNU/linux is hard to install, its that operating systems in general are difficult to install. I bet G/L is *easier* to install than other systems, but I wouldn't know, I've never tried to install XP or OSX.
If all they want to do (or know how to do) is email, IM and download pictures off their cameras, they really don't need the flexibility Linux(or variants) gives them.
If you only
Re:apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the Creative Professional, your options are the Mac, which gets out of your way, and Windows, which goes out of your way to get in your way, but is so stupidly cheap and ubiquitous that the vast majority of young / struggling artists go with it.
Adobe dropped Photoshop for IRIX a long time back, and there's no comprable solution for Professional Image Editing.
(save the Gimp arguments, I've heard them.
Re:apple? (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer: Move along. This is a joke, girlfriend.
Re:apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh, do you also use 2 cars in tandem because one is always broken? It never ceases to amaze me how many people's intelligence gets halved when they are behind a computer.
Re:No Contest (Score:3, Funny)
Vaporware isn't usable. Perhaps I should look for a leaked copy of SP2 on my favorite p2p system?
Re:I just can't see it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that why about 50% of the laptops at the USENIX Advanced Technical Conference [usenix.org] last week were Macs?
Seems like lots of geeks, at least the ones that go to USENIX (people like, er, Rob Pike, who might know something about innovative software) use Macs.
Perpetual Marketshare? (Score:5, Funny)
This leads to the conclusion that Apple must have invented purpetual self sustaining marketshare, a graph of which could make MC Escher proud, and that they must patent this immediately so that they can increase their marketshare to -pi
While there is also some part sensationalism (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, you rarely get "well paid" for that sort of thing. IBM used to make PCs like tha
Re:Perpetual Marketshare? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where would Apple be now if it wasnt for OSX?
My guess is that OSX has redefined the Mac in many ways and opened up new avenues that simply werent viable before. I see Apple growing; and if they dont; open source will keep them alive.
Re:Better but not foolproof (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As if.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Apple could change the world today (Score:5, Interesting)
OS X is a very nice OS, and has some very nice software running on it, and it's got a great API and IDE. As a niche player, it's working great.
Now you make it instalable on any old PC. You're a PC developer and you've got the choice of developing for windows on PC or OS X on PC. Are you going to change your development practises to something new and untested, or are you going to go the safe route with the devil you know and keep on developing for windows PC?
Now, just imaging Apple put something like WINE in with OS X on PC, so that you can run your PC apps as is, but under the new GUI. Now there's no incentive to write specifically for OS X on windows, but without the ability to run existing PC apps, there'd be no sales of OS X for PC.
It would be a disaster for Apple and anyone who bought it, and would only strengthen the Microsoft monopoly. Jobs has more sense than that.
BTW, Macs are not 3x the price. Price up a new G5 and a comparable PC from a decent manufacturer and you'll see that the G5 is really a bargain in the computing world.
What Apple really needs is an affordable entry level machine with no monitor, but can be bought bundled with a lovely flat screen. Fill the hard drive with lots of easy to follow video tutorials and apple will cash in big - especially if they do a "test drive an iMac today" type program.
Re:Use a Mac? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with Apple (Score:3, Informative)
1. Microsoft ships there entire Office suite for MacOS X (this includes Outlook, although it has been changed slightly in a few ways... 1. it works a lot better 2. it's called entourage)
2. Mac's still ship with IE- I suggest using that to connect to your Outlook Web Access
3. If you still feel the need to manage your money with a program like quicken find a more open alternative- GNUCash works really well for most simple operations.
4. The next time a large wor
Re:Self defeating (Score:5, Insightful)
Statements like that are proof positive that those hard working FUD machines can be successful!
Don't you feel proud!
Re:I like Apple the way they are. (Score:4, Funny)