Apple Dominates "Premium PC" Market 475
itwbennett writes "Macs made up a whopping 91 percent of the $1,000-and-up computer market in June. Not so long ago, $1,000 got you an entry-level machine. Today the average computer sells for $701, while the average Windows machine sells for only $515. Still, Macs only make up 8.7% of PC sales. But is that really such a bad position to be in? Consider an Apples to Apples, that is, Macs to iPhones comparison: the iPhone takes only a sliver of the phone market but a much larger share of the profits."
Coming soon... (Score:3, Funny)
Windows 7 "Premium" Edition - $1000
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Coming soon... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe Microsoft will start selling the Windows 7 "I Am Rich" Edition for installation on Apple hardware?
Snow Leopard upgrade is $29, Snow Leopard is $129. Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade is $119, Windows 7 Home Premium is $199.
It seems MS already has the "I Am Rich" edition of Windows, and it's the their entry-level home edition!
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Well, you're entitled to your own opinion. Snow Leopard is laying the base for future versions of OS X. There won't be a lot of visible enhancements in Snow Leopard, but there are changes under the hood. Plus the OS gets smaller.
Premium price, not premium PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple dominates the premium priced market, not the premium PC market.
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:4, Insightful)
easy removal of power connector in case of tripping
accelerometers to shut the hard drive off if the laptop falls
backlit keyboards that have a sensor to automatically come on
automatic screen dimming at low light levels
single piece aluminum frame construction for less stress on the motherboard (the most common point of failure of a laptop, in my experience)
custom battery arrangement to maximize useful lifetime but leave a smaller dimensional footprint.
I'm sure there are others that I'm missing but the very idea that mac laptops aren't "premium" is ridiculous. You can argue that the set of features that you get are not worth the price, but one can make the same argument about "premium" cars as well and has nothing to do with if the object itself has a feature set above and beyond the average.
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The article says that Apple dominates over a certain price point. That's exactly what I said.
I didn't say that some Mac's shouldn't be considered premium, I was merely correcting the article title.
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Probably the most cogent analogy I can think of is cars. For the most part, an Acura is a Honda. Indeed a good majority of Acura parts are actually Honda parts. Bu
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Erm...all the automatic features have a manual override obviously.
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:5, Funny)
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Bad assumption. Macbook is 3 screws to remove cover, and drive slides out. Then there's the usual 4 screws holding the drive rails on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2CxSAVwFqE [youtube.com]
MacBook pro is even less. 1 Screw to remove the drive. Then the usual 4 screws for the drive rails.
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/09/07/ [slashdot.org]
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:4, Informative)
"Unless you habitually trip over your power cord a barrel connector is going to last a lot longer, and it can carry more current."
I kill magsafe connectors in about a year. My current one is still going after a year and a half, which is impressive.
I used to kill barrel connectors at about six month intervals.
I don't see any reason why the magsafe connector should be less durable. They never fail in the connector anyway, but rather where the wire enters the connector. If anything, since the majority of people don't seem to follow mom's "never pull on the cord when unplugging something!" advice, the magsafe probably results in less wear since it takes less force to pull it out.
Plus it's saved my present notebook from at least half a dozen plunges to the floor. And the one before that from a few as well.
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:5, Insightful)
custom battery arrangement to maximize useful lifetime but leave a smaller dimensional footprint. - Laptop manufacturers always make the enclosure, it's just the cells that are outsourced. There's nothing inherently more customized about Apple's battery arrangement than Dell's, although Dell is more likely to use a conservative design.
Apple's cells aren't outsourced, and there is something "inherently more customized about Apple's battery arrangement than Dell's." You should really read up [anandtech.com] on them since it's one of their major differentiators from competitors at the moment. They generated quite a bit of surprise [anandtech.com] earlier in the year when the actual results seen by the media and individuals met and exceeded Apple's stated numbers for the expected charge time [apple.com]. More or less, your assertion regarding Apple and Dell's batteries is entirely incorrect.
Thinkpad isn't going to vent its heat directly into your groin, while an aluminum Macbook will.
I think you're overstating or fabricating an issue that doesn't exist. For instance, on my (ancient) Aluminum PowerBook G4 (remember that the G4 chip was notorious for its heat issues), I have vents along the backside of the computer and along both sides (all of which are hidden from view in normal use). In regular practice I can easily max out the CPU for extended periods of time (heck, running Azureus and watching a movie will do that these days), yet it never gets hot enough to warrant concern, due to the proper venting. So while the thermal properties of other metals may be more favorable, it's not an issue if the heat is properly vented, which it is (otherwise, we could make the argument that every computer should use liquids for cooling since they have better thermal properties than air, which would entirely miss the fact that liquid cooling is simply unnecessary in many cases). And last I checked, the current laptop lines from Apple do not have vents in the region that would be directed at the groin.
backlit keyboards that have a sensor to automatically come on - My Thinkpad has an overhead light so I can read papers as well as the keyboard.
Totally missing the point. An overhead light is a ridiculous feature that bothers others around you and is total overkill for the problem. What makes Apple's backlit keyboards a "premium" feature are ideas like the use fiber optics to relay a light both through the character glyphs on each laser-etched key, as well as around the keys. Plus, most people are comfortable purchasing a $5 USB attachment if they really wanted an overhead light. Backlit keyboards are not something you can tack on for $5. It's that sort of difference that was being pointed out as a premium feature of Apple laptops.
Also, as has already been pointed out, the ThinkPad is by no means a commodity laptop. It's most certainly a premium line as well (aimed at a different audience than Macs, but premium nonetheless), and it demands a premium price, so pointing out that your ThinkPad carries similar features is a self-defeating argument if you were trying to suggest that some of Apple's laptop features were common in regular ol' commodity laptops.
Monster Dominates "Premium Cable" Market (Score:5, Funny)
Again, you are missing the point. The criteria of this "study" was NOT the feature set. The "premium" tag was about the price, not features.
GP might understand your argument better if you used a Monster cable analogy.
ie "Monster gold cables made up a whopping 91 percent of the $1,000-and-up cable market in June"
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Apple dominates the premium priced market, not the premium PC market.
Indeed. I suspect most of the premium PC market is taken up by self-build gaming PCs, which of course don't show up under any PC manufacturer's sales figures. A sub-$1000 PC covers everything that most home and office users want; people who need something more tend to know exactly what they want, and don't mind fitting it together themselves.
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Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:5, Informative)
So you can buy 50 Dell workstations for $1100, and along comes someone buying 12 high end Mac Pros for, say $5,000 (not a price comparison, don't go biting, fanboys) and voila, according to this study they have "more share" than Dell, as a result?!?
I think not.
Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:5, Insightful)
...12 high end Mac Pros for, say $5,000...
Last I checked, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Mac Pro was closer to $23,000.
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But at that point, it's no longer a "Premium PC." You'd have a server (with server OS) that for some reason had 4 dual head video cards, two 30" monitors, video editing software, and a wireless keyboard/mouse.
Apple doesn't sell kitchen sinks (Score:5, Funny)
But there's an app for that!
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After you jailbreak.
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Re:Premium price, not premium PC (Score:4, Insightful)
I have pumped WAY more than $1000 into my home-built, and I strongly suspect it doesn't show up in anybody's statistics.
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"You're losing $100 on every sale!"
"That's okay - we'll make it up in volume."
Kind of evokes the dot-bomb era ...
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*slashhole
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You claimed "it's not like there aren't PCs like that too." And when challenged the best you can come up with is a PC from the 1980s/1990s from a company that doesn't even make PCs any more. So that shows categorically that there AREN'T any PCs like that. Only Macs have that sort of build quality these days.
Bullshit. The usually upgradable parts are standard c
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Yeah, see, that doesn't work when you're asking for something that's right on Apple's Website [apple.com] and fits into the readily-proven common knowledge category as the far side of the moon always facing away from the surface of the earth.
All you're really doing is saying "I don't have a shred of proof for my argument so I'm not even going to tell you what it is, or even which part of yours I disagree with, I'm just going to say 'i demand proof' generically and pretend that it makes me intelligent and trendy".
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Actually saying, "I don't believe you; show me some facts to back-up your claim," is the best place to start. All of modern-day science is based on that premise.
As for Apple's luxury market:
I'm glad they are doing so well, but remember a lot of luxury carmakers went bankrupt during the 1930s depression, and they are going bankrupt now too. When times are hard people turn their back on luxury and go for lower-priced options. Apple may find itself dominating a high-priced over-$1000 market that has few cus
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Those scientists usually tell you which part of your claim they don't believe AND what they believe in return. [Citation Needed] is just a pathetic attempt at a thought-terminating cliche used as a bare assertion fallacy.
Little off topic.. (Score:3, Interesting)
but Mac has no real "economy" option. Part for part, as many mac fanboys will tell you, mac hardware is around the same price as PC. The difference is that you can buy stuff that is a few months old (still very good hardware, but not the latest and greatest) and save a lot of money.
I guess you could call that the "premium pc" market.
I equate it to designer sunglasses. People will spend $300 for this years sunglasses, passing over last years (now priced at $20). I think mac appeals to this market.. people who want the absolute latest and greatest regardless of how much actual added value they are getting.
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As far as I can see, development of new faster hardware has pretty much stalled. There is the Core i7, but I see very little of them around despite the fact they were relased 9 months ago. Most of the new development seems to be based around reducing costs at the expense of pretty much everything else, which I guess is what you expect to see in a recession.
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Also, people no longer need very fast computers. Some years ago, PCs were slower, couldn't work with many applications running and so on. Now even a cheap computer wil be able to run Office, Firefox and some other applications for work, so there is no need for faster PCs for those people.
People who buy expensive computers do so because
1) They have money and buy it to have the latest and greatest. They can buy PCs or Macs.
2) They want to play latest games on highest settings. These will buy PCs and usually m
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Just like 640KB was enough for anybody at the time. Yes, I believe that programmers will come up with more bloated applications that do exactly the same their previous versions did, but consume more memory and are slower, but for now, for most people inexpensive PCs are enough (if Apple makes up for 91% of >$1000 market and only 8.7% of the whole market, it means that >$1000 computers are about 9.5% of the whole market. This should mean that for 90.5% of people $1000 PCs are enough.
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As far as I can see, development of new faster hardware has pretty much stalled.
Are you kidding?! That was the case during the Pentium 4 / Athlon XP/64 years, but since 2006, mid-high range Intel systems have gone from strength to strength - Core Duo, C2 Duo, C2 Quad and now i7 all had pretty decent speed bumps. We're beginning to see quad-core laptops, for God's sake!
In my own video encoding (Handbrake) benchmarks, a Core i7 at 2.6GHz (May 2009) beat a Core 2 Quad at 3.3GHz (March 2009) by 70%...
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Yes I know there is a Core i7 and it is much faster than the Core 2, but there are hardly any of them in the shops and very few people are buying them.
I bought a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook two years ago as an ex-display model - so certainly not the latest and greatest available at the time. The currently shipping latest MacBook has a slightly slower 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, but more RAM and a better graphics card.
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...there are hardly any of them in the shops
But your comment was that development of new faster hardware has pretty much stalled. I strongly disagree with that.
It's true that laptop chips haven't done very much - I have the same 2.16 chip as you, in a late 2006 15" MBP - but the hardware has come a long way elsewhere, especially inside Apple. Just about everything other than the CPU is significantly better on the current versions of our respective laptops. Better screens with LED backlight, much faster graphics, huge multi-touch trackpad, and check
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The Mac Mini isn't an economy option, especially refurbs as low as $419 on the Apple Store? Granted, you could build a cheap PC for less, but I'd hardly call $419 expensive, or even $599 expensive, putting aside arguments of what you get for the money.
The difference is that the $599 PC comes with everything you need to use it (keyboard, screen, etc), while the Mac Mini still needs a couple of hundred spend on it before it can be more than a paperweight.
The PC will also have roughly twice the specs.
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but Mac has no real "economy" option.
They have tried, through various schemes, to compete in this market and have come up bubkis.
I equate it to designer sunglasses. [..] people who want the absolute latest and greatest regardless of how much actual added value they are getting.
This mac is over three years old. You might do better if you at least assumed all of those people with all of that money aren't stupid, but for many slashdotters this seems to be the only possible explanation.
Re:Little off topic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They have tried, through various schemes, to compete in this market and have come up bubkis.
I believe the reason for this is it's hard to compete in the low AND high end markets at the same time, at least under the same brand.
Dell tries to do this, but the world knows dell for cheap PCs.
Cisco/Linksys is my favorite example. They keep those two brand names very separate for a good reason. What IT dept would shop Linksys for their company firewall, and who would imagine they could afford/use a Cisco at home?
Apple is known for quality, longevity, and higher price. There's nothing to gain from them trying to get any sizable portion of the low-end market. The only reason they sell the mac mini is to get PC converts, not because they want a foot in the low end market.
Re:Little off topic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's common in the car market, too: Japanese car firms have done very well with their pairings of Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infiniti.
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but Mac has no real "economy" option.
You sure about that? [apple.com]
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So the imac is taking a laptop and giving it the portability of a desktop, and this is taking a laptop and... what, removing the integrated screen and desktop?
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I think it compares more with the luxury car market. You pay more for a car that will last longer, look nicer, and run better. It's the same thing with computers. Apple only sells premium models so I know any Apple product I buy will be high quality. Last year's Mac hasn't devalued the way last year's PC has because people know the Mac isn't going to need replaced every other year.
Ob. Car Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
BMW has about 5-8%* of the auto market, but they make a lot of money in that little niche. You don't have to dominate the world to be profitable.
And yes, this does go to show that Microsoft is right in the laptop hunters ad -- Macs *are* pricier. But to those that buy them, they get something of value for that extra $$$.
*I just made that up.
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Lol. I wonder why those "laptop hunters" ads are mentioned so much. I mean do those who mention it, really believe, that there is any single human out there, stupid enough, to take those cheesy, completely stupid, and all around ridiculously horrible ads seriously? What are you smokin'?
De-spinning. Again. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, what a clever manipulation of statistics. Somehow people who spend less than $1,000 don't have "premium" computers? How does that even work? I mean, I blow $1,500 on hardware but no software and it's "premium", but if I'm a poor graphic designer and buy a PC for $700 instead and spend the rest on Adobe's atrocious licensing fees, that makes me "not premium"? This doesn't say anything about "premium" or "not premium" -- this DOES however say a lot about how much people are willing to blow on Apple products. Answering why they're doing this is left as an excercise for the reader.
Re:De-spinning. Again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:De-spinning. Again. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right. When comparing the price/value of computer hardware, the cost of software does not matter. Your $700 mid-range (or upper middle or however you want to measure it) hardware is $700 worth of hardware regardless of how much you spend on software.
For the obligatory car analogy, if you buy a cheap second hand car and then put a $50,000 sound system in it, you still have a cheap second hand car. It just has a nice sound system.
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That's right. When comparing the price/value of computer hardware, the cost of software does not matter. Your $700 mid-range (or upper middle or however you want to measure it) hardware is $700 worth of hardware regardless of how much you spend on software.
Hey, captain obvious called -- something about the "total cost of ownership"? I'm saying "premium" is a weasel-word. It's meaningless.
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I think he's actually referring to OS X, which (theoretically, anyway) only runs on Apple hardware? You might not agree that OS X is worth the premium, but most Apple purchasers apparently do.
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I think that, in your example, they've passed ludicrous - they've gone plaid!
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If you buy a cheap PC most of the time it's components aren't as high quality as a Mac. It may be cheaper but it probably isn't going to last as long. My experience is that cheap PCs last me about a year where a Mac lasts me about five years under the same level of (ab)use. I count my hassle of switching systems (moving files, etc) as a cost. I count loss of data when a system dies as a large cost. Add that the Mac is cooler (not as hot) so I can use it on my lap, bed, etc without worry and easier to use (m
Are there $1,000+ PCs? (Score:2)
Apple Dominates "Premium PC" Market (Score:2)
This article only proves that Apple's are expensive. That's it.
I could have written a article stating "Lamborghini made up a whopping 91 percent of the $200,000-and-up automobile market in June". Duh, because how many cars are over $200,000? But who'd you rather be, Lamborghini or Toyota? In 2007 Lamborghini sold 2,406 cars and made a ~70 million dollar profit [telegraph.co.uk]. Toyota sold 2.6 million vehicles [jalopnik.com] and made 14.9 billion dollars i [detnews.com]
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Easy, when I built my main PC 2 years ago, I quickly reached this:
Let's see:
2x AMD Opteron 270 (server class CPUs)
Tyan Thunder K8WE
4x512MB DDR1 ECC REG RAM
ATI Radeon HD2900XT (I had to preorder it)
Rackmountable E-ATX case.
Yes, it was more than $1000, and no games that I tried (at the time) supported 4 processors, at least now my PC is still good (I can play new games at 1600x1200 resolution).
Uninteresting (Score:2)
So, if I sell laptops for $10 000, I can get 100% of the Exclusive PC-marked? Woohoo!
We've done this before, it's not very interesting. It could be interesting to look at the profits they make, but the percentage of some arbitrary set point?
Bah!
M.
It's a wakeup call to PC Developers, what is... (Score:2)
People that are willing to spend more than a $1000 on a PC are probably your key software buyers... I would think at this point that developers who point to Windows masses might be redirected towards those Mac users, that actually have money.
Apple doesn't suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't buy branded PCs. If I need one, usually for a Linux server, I build it. If I want a desktop computer I buy Apple. The hardware is better quality than most branded PCs and is highly similar between units so it can easily be tested and relied on. It also happens to look nicer and come with an OS that works a whole lot better. We use VMWare Fusion for those who need Windows or Linux desktops.
My Dell, which has a bigger screen and faster CPU than my MacBook, is mostly used by my wife and she is wanting to switch to a MacBook because it is so much easier to use and doesn't get to hot when used on your lap. My sister recently switched from PC to MacBook too.
A couple hundred dollars of cost upfront is a lot cheaper than TCO on a PC and in almost every way a Mac is better,
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A couple hundred dollars of cost upfront is a lot cheaper than TCO on a PC...
Only if you stick to OEM computers. My $350 whitebox is a little better spec'd than a Mac Mini, for just over half the cost and shows no signs of dying just yet. If I decide to upgrade it, the relative savings goes up almost exponentially. If my computer completely dies ~2/3 of the way through the Mini's life cycle and I build a new one for the same price, not only will my TCO be lower but the new one will also be much better than it's predecessor.
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I don't think you're understanding the concept of TCO. How much time are you spending building, maintaining, and upgrading? How much data loss and time down do you suffer when your PC dies?
You may not use your computers near as hard as I do either so maybe for you computers don't wear out near as often. If so then a cheaper computer may work fine for you.
And I do still build my own servers although in that case I usually go with really high-end hardware so the Mac might actually be cheaper. (I have an AIX s
9/10 Dollars, not 91% of computers (Score:2, Informative)
Brick and mortar only (Score:5, Informative)
These numbers only reference brick and mortar retail sales. 3 out of the last 4 machines I bought were purchased from the manufacturer's website, customized to my specs, and only one of those was under $1000. They wouldn't have been included in these sorts of 'selective statistics'
As for $1000+ machines, it doesn't cover servers/workstations either (which you wouldn't buy over the counter anyway).
What this says to me:
1) Apple has a decent retail store presence :)
2) Macs are frakkin' expensive
3) By selectively applying filters to your stats, you can say whatever you want. Ladies, I have the biggest dick you'll ever see (in this room/of all males within a five foot radius/for the next five minutes).
A $1,000 PC is not OEM (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree! OEM's put very high premiums on any changes to standard config. So, if you want a better vid card or a mem upgrade (two easy ways to bring a PC over 1000$) It's cheaper to buy the components than to get it from the Dells or HPs pre-installed
My Time is worth something (Score:5, Informative)
Both at work and at home. I don't have to reinstall my OS at least once a year, run defrag on a monthly basis, worry about anti-virus updates every week, or spend hours trying to find and compile drivers for some piece of hardware as I always seem to with Linux even today. It just works. That's what I want, and I'll pay the price difference upfront. I got a good 4 years out of my old PowerBook. It needs a new power adaptor (fell on a ceramic tile floor and busted). but should still work and my QuadCore PowerMac G5 is still going strong and it's 4.5 years old. Most I've done to it is add an extra 500GB internal to store video files for video editing. (before external drives came down in price).
I now have a MacBook Pro provided by work. Does everything I want and can even boot into XP if I need too for testing (or to play an occasional old game from my PC collection).
Re:My Time is worth something (Score:5, Insightful)
And windows users don't have to do any of those things either. Every piece of anti-virus software under the sun updates itself, completely without any human intervention, at some god awful time of night so as to avoid doing it while you may be using your computer. Similarly, right out of the box windows runs a scheduled weekly disk degrag at something like 3 am every wednesday or some other silly time. These things happen and I do nothing to cause them, I didn't even set them up originally -- they were just pre-configured that way and if I don't like them I can change them.
Nor do I have to reinstall windows yearly -- Vista on this machine has been installed for 18 months and everything is as snappy as the day I brought it home.
Try to understand, when you buy a mac you're not choosing between OS 10.5 and Windows 95. There's really major selling point of Mac over Windows at this point other than simple preference.
If you PREFER MacOS, by all means by a Mac -- but don't kid yourself into thinking you're getting something the rest of us aren't getting. We're all getting the OS of our choice and more or less the same feature set. Your preference costs more, but if you prefer it, and are willing to pay the money, then go for it.
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Every piece of anti-virus software under the sun updates itself
Until the subscription runs out. Antivirus software with a better detection rate than ClamWin or Avast costs about $30 per year.
completely without any human intervention, at some god awful time of night as to avoid doing it while you may be using your computer.
I thought we were supposed to be green by turning off the PC at night. Does antivirus software boot the PC or wake the PC from hibernation to complete the update?
Hang on to your old XP machines. (Score:2)
And worth every penny (Score:5, Interesting)
The Macs I've owned over the past few years (starting with a Powerbook for my wife) have been excellent. The hardware and construction are top-notch. The design (worth a little bit, anyway) is superior to pretty much everything produced in the Wintel arena.
Most important, though, the OS kicks ass.
Using a Mac is not just a neutral experience. It is pleasurable. Combine the excellent hardware engineering, and the superior UI design of OS X, and you have a machine that is worth the extra money. (Which really isn't extra. As others have pointed out, a comparable Wintel machine is in the same price range.)
Me, I still gravitate to Linux. When my wife ran MS-Windows, though, I had to either lock her machine down and manage it myself, or let her manage it, but re-install the OS every six months. With OS X, she can manage the machine herself, and I don't have to lock it down or re-install all the time.
My sig still holds. MS-Windows (and the machines it typically runs on) is like Budweiser. Cheap, but not worth the price. Once you get used to the good stuff, it's hard to go back to the shit peddled as "The King of Computers."
A US-only thing (Score:5, Interesting)
As usual, this is a US-only thing.
In Europe, 1,000 EUR (1,422 USD) and more computers are commonplace, and Apple is not any more expensive than the other computer manufacturers (on the contrary, for laptops, they probably offer the best deals at the moment).
Yes, we are being exploited.
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WTF?
Do you live in the same Europe I do?
Most people want the cheapest solution availiable, that is why all those netbooks are huge in Europe and you've got lots of discount PCs for 250-300 Euros.
Only crazy gamers pay more.
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WTH? Even in so-called "rip-off" Britain, mainstream desktop PCs are below £500 (and in many cases far less), many laptops are also now also below £500 with netbooks even cheaper.
But Macs? Nowhere to be seen. I believe the cheapest starts at £500, with a bottom of the range Mac Mini, featuring outdated laptop specs.
Yes, prices may be more expensive here in Europe, but everything is inflated, including Apple.
Car comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
I spend much more time in front of my computer than driving my car. Hence, I am ready to spend a little more to have a luxury computer...
Linux laptop is probably next for me (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been using different GUI front ends for programming and work for over 10 years now - and Apple laptops for the last 5 years of so.
Open office is now a fully acceptable spreadsheet and word processor. Gimp is fully functional for photos. Most other services are web based. VLC, media playing, etc are all working on Linux too. Issues that used to be common are now well supported in the open-source community with networking, video acceleration, disks, USB, drivers, etc.
Apple with it's BSD-based kernel and more open culture than Microsoft, could openly embrace the open source community, however, it seems to be working actively to prevent open access to a large number of their software-hardware combinations, and refuses to embrace and support the console-using, computer-hacking crowd (like me). It is understandable from a short-term financial standpoint, but long term, I think this is a mistake for Apple. I think taking the position at the genius bar of "if you open Terminal, we won't help you" alienates the most dedicated and supportive users in the marketplace. It is that community that could rocket Apple forward with more contributions and functionality - but now they continue to be pushed to support Linux instead.
It is disappointing to me that we live in a world where large companies like Apple still grow primarily based on marketing, selling and distributing physical things over digital products, or from monetizing the support and services (and maintaining a community) around increased productivity.
The difference in price between all these products is small compared to the value of ones times spent dealing with issue that arise. Regardless of how one values their own time - after any major screw ups taking many, many hours to fix - you have already surpassed any difference in price between the systems. Reliability, functionality, and real security (and how much time you have to spend later to get those) are the real value of owning a laptop for several years, not just the initial price.
But all in all, lack of Apple support for hacking means I'll be looking seriously at a Linux-based laptop (at 1/2 the price and more open standards) for my next laptop.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"Apple with it's BSD-based kernel and more open culture than Microsoft..."
This is the image it has among some, but the reality is that it is far more closed and restrictive and controlling in its culture than Microsoft ever was. Its really mysterious where it gets this impression of openness from. The only analogy I can think of is that among the liberal establishment, Soviet Russia and Communism generally was somehow seen as more humane and decent than Fascism, while indulging in repeated genoicides seve
Why are we argue the definition of "Premium" (Score:2, Insightful)
when surely the bigger question here is who was dumb enough to believe that fucking stupid and clearly made up statistic in the first place? I will eat my PCs if anyone can prove that Apple get anywhere even close to 91% of all PC sales over $1000. Remember folks, approximately 87.93% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Nick
Premium != Performance (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen this comparison a number already here.
Here comes a car analogy.
For me, a premium car has nice interior materials and a good balance of comfort, performance, build quality and a few intangibles.
If I just want pure perfomance, I could get a Mustang or a Civic and slam it out for much less than say, an M3 or an IS.ï
My gaming computer is the equivalent of that Mustang or Civic. I use it run games with everything turned up to 11 but for everyday computing, I vastly prefer my Mac.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're comparing business class machines (MacBook pro) to consumer shit (Dell). Buy business notebooks (elitebook/thinkpad lines for example) and I think they are as solidly built as a Mac. You can also get a better resolution then 1440x900, but I don't think you would consider that a problem.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're comparing business class machines (MacBook pro) to consumer shit (Dell). Buy business notebooks (elitebook/thinkpad lines for example) and I think they are as solidly built as a Mac.
I had a Dell laptop for many years. Corporate grade. It wasn't a bad machine, but it had rather a lot of quirks and there were a number of places where Dell's heritage as a cheap box shifter still shone through (the keyboard was a particular issue). So far, the MacbookPro that replaced it has held up much better, with the exception of two issues. (One was fixed in minutes after taking it in for service, and the other took around a week.)
To summarize, Dell have a bit better quality control (or did at the tim
cen u reed? (Score:3, Informative)
Parent clearly states MacBooks and iMacs. The closest he comes to saying "pro" is when he says "pro"blem and "benefit."
Re:In technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's appeal is that OSX is a generally better OS than Windows, particularly in the area of usability. That, not "marketing" or "aesthetics" is why people will pay more for the same hardware.
I find it amusing that people don't understand that the software itself has value.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget: For a while, PPC *was* better than Intel. And for new users (i.e. anyone who hadn't grown up with using mice), 1 button was less confusing than two. But you know what? Things changed. Intel got off their ass and made great chips (while Moto/IBM sat on their ass with PPC) and the number of people who knew how to use a mouse became a majority of their market.
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Whose ass did you pull those numbers out of?
Upgrades are generally $129. The new OS, Snow Leopard is $29. They generally offer significant enhancements over their previous versions.
Just because Microsoft didn't release an OS in over 6 years, while Apple was busy offering their users better, faster and more secure OS updates in the same time span, doesn't mean you can compare the two and say "see! Apple is more expensive! XP to Vista was $XXX, while 10.1 to 10.5 was $XXX!"
Re:In technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, time will tell.
We've been hearing this line for almost a decade now, and time has told to a tune of nearly 6-fold gain in shareholder value since 2000, giving Apple today a larger market cap than Google, HP, and Dell. I keep waiting for this grand charade to end, but Apple keeps raking in $8 billion dollars a quarter.
They've succeeded by every rational metric of business.
Re:In technology... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is probably more reasonable to talk about the $1.2 billion that they earn each quarter, rather than their revenues:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL [yahoo.com]
For instance, when Google has a good quarter, they make more than that, on 70% of the revenues:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=goog [yahoo.com]
And HP manages to only make a little more than Apple, on 340% of the revenues:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=hpq [yahoo.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While Macs have a certain appeal to them that is aesthetic, their usability has not gone up in the enterprise, nor in the home market.
Where do you get that idea from? My whole company switched to Macs and productivity is up as we spend so much less time on desktop maintenance. In the last few years most of my friends have switched to Macs and they all say they're easier to use. I know one high level executive who's arguing with his IT department to let him use his Mac and iPhone on the corporate network because he prefers their usability and productivity.
Re:In technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you get that idea from? My whole company switched to Macs and productivity is up as we spend so much less time on desktop maintenance.
What desktop maintenance were you spending so much time on? Because if you were spending THAT much time on desktop maintenance you were doing it wrong.
In the last few years most of my friends have switched to Macs and they all say they're easier to use.
Yeah, a new PC out of the box from apple is setup better than same from an OEM. That's not Apple vs Microsoft. That's Apple vs HP and Sony. HP and Sony etc really need to pick up the ball to deliver a much better out of box experience.
They need to dump the shovelware, trialware, and utter crap, and invest in good quality productivity options.
I know one high level executive who's arguing with his IT department to let him use his Mac and iPhone on the corporate network because he prefers their usability and productivity.
And I know one high level executive who switched back to PC after he got tired of having to remote access or virtualize 4/5ths of the stuff he wanted to do because there was no mac equivalent, and it drove him nuts. He'd have his mail running on his Mac, then launch VMware to run the accounting software, pull up a report, and then have to jump through hoops to paste it into his email... because outlook supports OLE and when he pastes the spreadsheet bit in, he can edit it... but not on his mac, where it comes through as an image... so now he gets to copy it from the vm accounting to excel on the mac, tweak it some more, and paste it again to mail...
And now he gets to run Mac OS software update, AND windows update. Productivity dropped into the toilet. Not to mention the burden on IT as they have to handle everything they do with him as separate case.
He curses at it all day, but its what he wanted.
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This is why you always buy from the business line of machines. Dell and Lenovo drop the crapware on their Latitude/Vostro/Precision and
Windows is the wisest choice (Score:2)
Malware doesn't follow the economic rules that normal software does, and the usual market forces that normally make people write software for Macs aren't present. The only marketplace decision is made by you as you write it- not like normal software which has to appeal to actual users. Your customer base is some gang in Suffixistan. Com
Re:Windows is the wisest choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Targeting some of the richest and yet least security-aware computer users could be a very profitable niche indeed.
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That's not particularly surprising considering Macs are (or at least were) about twice as expensive as their comparable PC counterparts.
Nah, the "Mac Tax" is typically closer to 40% than 100%.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Apple most popular among those who like to overspend and don't know the value of the dollar."
Same guts marked up and built for aesthetics instead of being engineered to be solid. Never underestimate the "Oooh! Shiny!" demographic.
I take it that MSCE isn't getting the chicks the way you thought it would?
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Anyone notice the "average" windows machine selling for $515 sucks? If you compare equally powerful machines, you will get _similar_ costs. I would say a mac would still be slightly more expensive, but that's just a guess.
For the $599 a Mac Mini costs, you can get a PC roughly twice as powerful.
For the $1199 a base iMac costs, you can get a PC roughly three times as powerful.
A minimum buy-in point for a usable PC with decent performance (dual-core, 2G RAM, 20" LCD, discrete video card) is about US$600.