New Apple products seen broadening reach [Archive]

Mainyehc

Jan 7, 2005, 07:43 AM

"Selling just the system unit would cut significantly the cost to switch," Milunovich wrote, adding that such a device would expand Apple's "digital living room" strategy, which it kicked off with its AirPort Express gizmo, which transmits songs from an iPod to a home stereo system.

You don't need a Mac to use Airtunes... Just a WiFi enabled PC and iTunes 4.7 plus an Airport Express... Even though the man has a good point, since having a whole Apple setup makes things much more seamless, he could mention the fact that Apple has made a huge investment in interoperability. Since I'm tired of hearing that "Macs lack compatibility" crap, and "ooooh, but the iPod only works with the iTMS" (I'm not saying that this guy was saying any of that... It's just that there are still too many people saying that kind of stuff), Apple should definitely clear things out, take advantage of that interoperability, and aggressively market their products. Windows users LOVE interoperability more than anything else, and if it they get to know they can have it without all the hassles of using Windows, they may actually switch.

Not only there is a lot of software avaliable for the mac, iPods are actually compatible out-of-the-box with both Windows and OS X, as is iTunes. Is there any WMA music store out there that is compatible with the Mac? Are WMP 10 and that "Plays for Sure" technology avaliable for the Mac? Who is playing foul here?? Not Apple, IMHO. A lot of Windows users are finally learning about the Mac, so the iPod has a big plus here. If you have a PC and an iPod, you will have no problems with switching, since a FAT32 iPod is fully compatible with a Mac. And the iPod doesn't lock you to iTMS (you can always get good ol' physical media), but if you decide to lock yourself to it, it doesn't lock you to an OS, unlike all its competitors.

Apple should be given high praise on this. Looking back, Apple is actually playing VERY NICE... Remember USB? And what about floppy drives? Even when some compatibly issues arise, sometimes their competitors adjust themselves to new standards or good solutions appear (like the USB flash memory drives). Apple is now, more than ever, setting the trends in the industry, which is great. If they are wise enough and manage to solve their widely known supply and distribution issues, they could take the markets they're into by storm.

While I'd like to see Apple dominating the PC market (even with all kinds of malware appearing for OS X) I have nothing against x86 hardware. Sure, it's ugly, but it can be preety sometimes. I remember seeing some mini-ATX based designs that looked sweet, like a computer called Cubit, that resembled a G5 tower (way before that was even introduced), only very small and made of coloured anodized aluminium like the iPod mini... [edit: they updated that model and introduced a new one, check http://www.hoojum.com/html/product.htm ] If HP, or even *gasp* DELL tried harder, they could produce designs as cool and well built as Apple's, since some companies are already doing exactly that. You can't, of course, force a change in the corporate culture of a company in no time, but if you have the right design team, who knows...

What I can't stand, and I'm damn sure most of you are with me on this one, is Micro$oft. Just like Apple, they're in the business for money, but with the huge difference that they don't strive for perfection nor real innovation, and don't know what "excellence" or "quality" mean. No, they don't, period. Just see what they did with the Windows platform in 20 years, and compare it to what Apple is making in only 5... Still have any doubts about which is the most innovative? I don't. Maybe the best thing they produced was the XBox... Eh, a games console. Also, PCs are better for playing games than Macs, yet, some Windows users still consider Macs as "toys" :rolleyes:

That being said, I know x86 will *always* be around, and may dominate the market for many years to come. Thus, if Apple keeps playing nice, whether with Windows or Linux (I can only hope :D), that will be a Very Good Thing. Now bring that headless Mac on so I can convince my family to buy one. Last night I set up an account for each member of the family in my iMac, so they get used to that concept. So it's all set, whish me luck because they are very resilient. I'm not usually obsessed about getting people to switch, but with my family it's a different case, I don't want to look over a Wintel box anymore, especially if it will be running XP :eek:. Nor do I (or they, for that matter) want them to use my iMac every single time they need to surf the web ;)