- Cult of Mac: How the Editor of Windows Magazine Became an Apple Fanboy
A lot of us Mac users started off as hardcore DOS/Windows fans. - Wikipedia: Full moon names
There are special names to refer to the full moon in every month. August's is the "grain moon," April's 's the "egg moon," February's is the "snow moon," etc. Different cultures have different names. Then there's a "blue moon," which once referred to a fourth full moon in a given season, but has come to refer to a second full moon in a given month; either occurs every 2.7 years. - The Guardian: Paris gets its first 24-hour baguette dispenser
The machine stores partially cooked baguettes and, upon the insertion of €1, it spits out a hot, fresh(ish) baguette.
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My first personal machine was a PowerMac circa 1995, before that it was mainframes, terminals, and in the dark past, punchcards. They all sucked. So I buy on price and toss it when the full-support warranty expires.
Anything built to the current IT industry, Microsoft-created business model; ‘Customer Support is For Losers’, sucks, so I/we only buy hardware from robust orgs that can provide high quality tech support. Currently Dell That leaves out the software. Apple or PC it don’t matter, the business software is Microsoft, and their customer support, sucks. None of that will change until someone proves that Microsoft is the losing model. Apple hasn’t made the case…yet. Just try to get a tech support phone number for iTunes.
I too bought my first Mac back in the dark days of 1995, a Performa 6214 purchased from the UVA bookstore.
That was back in the days when Apple was never mentioned in the news without the preceding adjective “beleaguered.”
Now I read that they have the biggest market cap in the world. My, how things have changed.
The guy’s on crack when he suggests that Macs are comparable to PCs on price; I strongly considered a Macbook for my spouse for Christmas 2010 instead of a PC laptop; the pricing was laughably far apart for what we needed. It made the decision for me.
Macs are comparable to comparable PCs. You can buy a laptop for $300, but then you own a $300 laptop. It’s a bit like buying a $3,000 car—if that’s all you need, great, but you can’t compare a 1996 Camry to a 2011 BMW on an assumption that the quality is the same.
For instance, consider the MacBook Air. Wintel companies just can’t make a comparable laptop for $999. And the MacBook Air is kicking their ass in the marketplace. So Intel has had to design a competitor themselves, creating a reference design for system manufacturers to build themselves. But they still can’t get the price below $1,000, so Intel is going to subsidize them until the prices come down enough. These companies just can’t compete with Apple on price.
Sorry Waldo, I love ya, but I’m not buying what you’re selling. The spousal laptop wasn’t like buying a used car because it wasn’t a used product. I’d accept a Honda Civic comparison versus an Acura RL. But then, most people don’t need Acura RL’s. We didn’t, either.
$400 for a decent HP PC laptop was all we needed to run a non-IT related small business. Word processing, Finale software, some basic billing/invoice software, Office, and email; that’s pretty much it. He might use the webcam to do a lesson remotely someday. We’re happy we didn’t have to spend $999 – Apple doesn’t make what we needed for the job at hand. It was disappointing, as I was open to buying one.
This all confirms why Mac’s market share can’t seem to bust about 5% when one strips out iPhone, iPad and iPod from the numbers – it’s not built to. That’s totally to be expected with a niche product like an Acura RL.
And which 1996 Mac or PC, sitting out in your driveway all these years could we rely upon to start, run, and do what it was designed to do?
No other automotive comparison is possible, because people have figured out that a $4,000 car isn’t a very good (new) car, so they won’t buy it.
You’re actually agreeing with me (and the author of the original article). What I’m saying is that a $999 Apple laptop is a stunningly good machine, and that a comparable Windows laptop will cost more. You can’t get a Wintel laptop even approaching the MacBook Air’s specs for $999. You’re saying that you and Chris just wanted a cheap, simple laptop. You got one. That’s great. But what you got is significantly behind, technologically, anything that Apple sells.
Strips out…iPads? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying that Christianity isn’t very popular, once you strip out Protestants, or that cookies aren’t very popular, once you strip out ones with chocolate. :) My laptop is an iPad, for instance. I use it in all of the ways that anybody would use any laptop. The only difference, I guess, is that the keyboard is optional and wireless. You’ll note in recent laptop trends that everybody’s market share is declining, but not Apple’s—theirs is climbing.
At 21%, Apple is the country’s leading vendor of portable computers, and by a long shot.
I have an Apple Duo 280c—which came out in 1994—that works great. It’s been sitting in my metaphorical driveway since I replaced it in 1999, but it works as well as it ever did. Though it’s been a couple of years since I’ve asked, last I checked, my original Bondi Blue iMac—bought in 1999—is still in service twelve years later as a gaming computer for my niece and nephew, still running like a champ. In 2001 I bought a G4 PowerMac that still works fine. I gave it away three years ago to a friend, and it’s now the primary computer for him, his wife, and his toddler daughter. I replaced that with a Mac mini in 2005, and that still works—it’s serving as my home media server now. Now that I think about it, the only Apple that I’ve ever owned that no longer works is my 12″ G3 iBook, bought in 2001. The motherboard died on that in 2007, but I was still able to sell it for parts on eBay for $129.01.
Apples just last and last and last. That’s not to say that they never break—they have a failure rate, like any other computer, but that failure rate is way lower than on any major manufacturer of Wintel machines.
W – I and my multiple iPhones and iPods are certainly not anti-Mac. As I said, I was actually leaning toward purchasing a Macbook until I got sticker shock. It’s unfortunate Apple isn’t able or willing to offer anything in the Civic/Corolla range. And I stick by the car reference as your $4000 number was made up out of the ether and is nonsensical – there are no new cars for $4000. A Civic costs about 20k. An Acura RL costs about 45k. The ratio and (perceived and/or actual) quality increase is entirely consistent with this example of $400 for a Civic laptop and $1000 for an Acura MacBook. There are no Civics out there in Apple-land for laptops, and that’s unfortunate.
I understand *you* use your iPad as a laptop, and that’s cool. Most folks I know categorize tablets as a separate product category, though. Your article makes a big deal from the subject line on down that it’s including the iPad, as it’s not customary (right now) to do that.
You’re missing a very big difference between iPads and traditional laptops – USB slots. That alone, very specifically, has prevented my not-entirely-small firm from permitting them to be purchased by IT/procurement and used in place of traditional laptops for us folks who travel to rural America. Which is a bummer, as I wanted one.
Finally, your article used the term “mind-share,” which made me throw up a little.
That’s my point. :) Laptops are an arena where people are somehow willing to accept very low-quality goods that are near-disposable. In my world, $10k is the baseline for a decent (albeit used) car. You go below that, you’re not going to get much of a car. That corresponds nicely to the $1k that’s the baseline for a decent laptop from any manufacturer.
I don’t think it’s at all unfortunate. Laptops in that price range are poorly made. The soldiering is lousy, the parts are inadequately tested, and they just don’t last. Apple doesn’t want to go down the road that HP, Compaq, Toshiba, etc. all did, in trying to compete on price. None of them are known as makers of quality consumer equipment any more, and rightly so.
Then you probably don’t know a lot of IT industry analysts. :) Folks who put them in a different category do so only because of weird, arbitrary rules like, as you say, “there’s no USB plug.” Well, so what? It’s got Bluetooth—functionally USB, but wireless. That’d be like saying that the Macbook Air isn’t a laptop because it doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive. Well, who made up that rule? :) One might as well say that mobile phones aren’t real phones because they don’t have a dial tone. Technology marches on, and it loses the vestiges of older technology as it goes.
Point being, saying that Apple has less than 5% of the portable computer market share if you ignore iPads doesn’t really tell us much. Not only do they actually have more than 5% of the non-tablet portable computer market share, but if one includes tablets because there’s simply no reason not to, then they’re crushing their competition.
Anyhow, you want Apple to sell a cheap laptop, and they do—they call it the iPad. :) It does everything that you wanted a laptop to do, for the same price. Not bad!
OK, real world check; in New Madrid, Missouri, they just figured out USB slots about 3 minutes ago. It’s just not sellable to expect the folks I work with to bounce to Bluetooth seamlessly. 95%+ of the folks in the market I serve have never heard of Bluetooth.
**In my workplace’s largely rural market, 35% of the employees I advise do not own a computer and express no interest in buying one, when polled (by phone, of course) on the subject.**
USB functionality in the market I serve and the instant backup ability for presentations I need is vital. All of the above make the iPad a nonstarter, unfortunately.
Further, Apple doesn’t sell a cheap laptop called the iPad, even if I grant you that laptop = tablet. The iPad isn’t cheap even by cheap laptop standards – I’ve yet to see one in the $400 range, and my little netbook was $199. This is not “the same price.” Mind you, I’m not looking to still be using the same netbook in 15 years, but I think you’re discounting how quickly PCs turn into bricks versus Macs. After all, if I can buy 2.5 PCs for every Apple, that means if I don’t have to replace my PC (going on 4 years and totally fine; I’ve updated a couple things along the way but nothing significant) more than 2.5 times as frequently as a Mac would need replacing, then I’m ahead.
I should also mention that my iPhone is threatening to turn into a brick a mere 3 years after I bought it; nor would it be the first iPhone in the family that bricked out. PC manufacturers aren’t the only ones who have done the planned obsolescence game.
The most frustrating thing about all of this is how predictable anyone who’s enthusiastically into Macs/Apple is about defending the company and their products *as if it were a personal affront to not like something Apple does.* Look, I like a lot of what Apple does. I own some of their schwag, and will probably buy more. They’ve transformed the telecom and portable devices industries for the better. I’ve never been one of those folks viciously slamming Macs with arms-a-waving back in the 1990’s like we both remember. Those folks have made Apple devotees instantly defensive even in 2011, and that’s unfortunate. But there’s plenty they don’t do well, and not being capable of offering a laptop under a grand is one of them. It made my purchase decision for me.
Hey, my 1996 Micron PC laptop will still turn on and run, it just won’t do anything – the manufacturer of the OS refuses to repair their product, it can’t safely negotiate the internet highway, and you can longer buy tires and belts (peripherals) for it. Planned obsolescence raised to high art!
I’m in the process of replacing virtually all our peripherals because they are incompatible with Windows 7. Perfectly useable printers, scanners, copiers.
I think this is (much like, say, pants :) premised on an issue on which we disagree. I think that companies should find a narrow market, make the best products that they can for that market, and stay out of other markets. The fact that they don’t make a product for other markets isn’t a a case of doing something badly, it’s just embracing the reality of the limits of their line of business. Apple cannot make a good computer for $400 because nobody can make a good computer for $400 (yet)—customers may lower their expectations, but they wind up lowering their esteem for the entire brand. Apple doesn’t know how they can sell a quality laptop for less than $999 or a quality desktop computer for less than $599, so they don’t. I chalk that up as doing something well, since the alternative is doing something just as badly as everybody else is doing it now.
Of course, by that logic, I’m doing really well by not making or selling any computers at all. :)
Oh, Waldo, Waldo, Waldo.
1) I cannot accept your argument that Apple as the 1st or 2nd largest cap company in America is developing for a narrow market. It’s just too big a company now for that argument to be feasible. I’ll grant that in the 80’s and 90’s past that was true, but that’s clearly not their business model now for most of their product line. And they’re better for it.
2) Apple revitalized itself from the early 2000’s on specifically because it started expanding its product line to cater to larger crowds. iPods, iPhones, and even iPads are *not* narrow market products, and weren’t meant to be. Why couldn’t they ever have done this with the laptop market? Alls I’m saying is that it lacks an explanation beyond “I don’t wanna,” and that it removed them from consideration for this one purchase of mine.
3) Being clearly pleased with a 21% market share in the combined laptop/tablet co-markets and declaring the company to be focused on a narrow market are incompatible with one another. If you really want Apple to stay/revert to be narrowly focused, that 21% share must be horrifying, yes?
4) We clearly have different definitions of “good.” The spousal unit $400 laptop computer does everything that said spouse needs for the small business as well as personal stuff, is reasonably quick, and nothing has broken or bricked out. How is this not good? Again, this is like saying Civics aren’t good because Acuras are better.
I actually spent a fair amount of time researching iPad for personal use yesterday, as I’m highly open to buying one for the personal use part of my business travel. I don’t personally have the same hangup as my company does over the USB issue; I know I can just dropbox all my important stuff for immediate access. (Someday, they will too; just not now.) My main hangup is the lack of a wired ethernet connection port. A full 40% of the small town hotels – yes, even the chainy ones – that I frequent have wired connections only in the rooms. Heck, even the Luxor Las Vegas a couple weeks ago was wired-only. I know I could buy one of those AirPort critters, but that’s $100 extra and another piece of equipment to lug around and keep track of, that I don’t currently have to. The “keep track of” is more of an issue than “lug around.” That, and I’d be rolling the dice that the rural hotel chain network would play nicely with the AirPort. Bah. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s a barrier.