Poll:Where do you think Apple should invest more money in?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll:Where do you think Apple should invest more money in? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=65&ref=forums.macrumors.com)

[beez7777]

First to vote!
First post!
i think this is a no brainer. the need to bring their hardware up to par to encourage more switchers and to keep those already in the mac community in the mac community

[Nipsy]

Poll topic grammar advice for their loyal fan sites?

[irmongoose]

Well I have been seeing quite a few Switch ads here in Japan.. but I think they need to do more advertising OTHER THAN TV.. I mean, I see Sony poster ads all over the place.. why can't Apple do something like that?

On the other hand, there is the hardware issue. I feel that you don't need the fastest processor on earth if you have excellent hardware supporting it. Even if IBM provides Apple with fast processors, it won't be as fast as the new Pentium crap. But, if they make everything inside like the motherboard and stuff perfect, it would make it top-class hardware. And, if they combine that with Apple's great design, it would be the perfect machine. I would much rather have a computer which is well-rounded.. a machine which has good speed, great hardware, a great OS, and a great design. PCs only have one of those.. good speed.

See what I'm getting at here?



irmongoose

[vniow]

. More TV advertising.
Nice idea.
Although the switch ads have gotton quite a bit of airplay, there aren't many ads for other things anymore, iMacs, eMacs, Powermacs blah blah blah.....
I'd like to see some ads for OSX.
I remember all those stupid XP ads with people flying all over the default background and while I hated it, I wish that Apple would advertise the OS more, it's one of the shining features of a modern Mac no?

. Outside R&D into such technologies as OLED, Magnetic RAM, Motherboard architectures .
Not the best idea at the moment. They need to concentrate on improving existing hardware, not spending ca$h in new, unproven tech. Leave that for other companies.

. Improving the internal components to best-of-market (hard drives, burners etc.) .
I don't mind the specs of their current hardware (CPUs aside) but I would like to see a 40x burners, IBM drives and better graphics in the consumer line.

. More Apple Stores .
Good. In the Midwest all there are is CompUSAs and Gateway stores. Something like an Apple store In Oklahoma would be great, they could put it in Bricktown, near the new Canal, hell maybe in the Myriad Gardens, although it would be kinda humid....
What they really need to concentrate on is global stores though, Steve can't seem to think outside the US for some reason.

. Buying more companies to improve market share in hard markets .
I remember a rumor awhile back about Apple buying SGI and while I didn't think that would be a good idea at the time since they are competitors and competition drives innovation, but I've seen SGI just go farther and farther away from a good price/performance ratio and now I think that it may not be a bad idea at all.
If Apple's going to buy out more companies they need to figure out where they are lacking and go after that segment. They're already widely used in multimedia departments, that's one reason why you see them so often in TV and movies and such, they just have them around for props.

I didn't vote for any cuz I think the one thing they need to concentrate on is value.
Processors can wait since they aren't ready yet. In the meantime though, Macs are just not a good deal when you compare them to similarly equipped PCs, price/performance wise.

My thoughts.

[Bear]

Originally posted by edvniow

. Improving the internal components to best-of-market (hard drives, burners etc.) .
I don't mind the specs of their current hardware (CPUs aside) but I would like to see a 40x burners, IBM drives and better graphics in the consumer line.


- Faster burner - Yes, but actually anything faster then 24x is asking for trouble on the burn side.

- IBM Drives... NO WAY. Have you read the specs for IBM drives, the 3.5" IDE drives have a limited duty cycle. So no heavy duty usage, and no servers with these drives. [Note: IBM 2.5" drives for laptops are much better then their 3.5" drives.]

- Faster CPU - Of course. However remember the clock speed from a G4 to a 970 to a Pentium IV are not comparable due to the differences in how the chips operate.

[BenderBot1138]

Four Words... "APPLE - the Motion Picture!!!"

[springscansing]

Originally posted by Bear


- Faster burner - Yes, but actually anything faster then 24x is asking for trouble on the burn side.

Eh.. who cares.

- IBM Drives... NO WAY. Have you read the specs for IBM drives, the 3.5" IDE drives have a limited duty cycle. So no heavy duty usage, and no servers with these drives. [Note: IBM 2.5" drives for laptops are much better then their 3.5" drives.]

IBM makes good hardware... I don't know any HD manufacturer who claims an unlimited duty cycle. For desktops they'd be fine.

- Faster CPU - Of course. However remember the clock speed from a G4 to a 970 to a Pentium IV are not comparable due to the differences in how the chips operate.

Well I doubt he's dumb, I'm sure he knows this. :-) The bottom line though is that if the P4 gains another Ghz, it's gonna be tough competition for the 970 in a lot of things.

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by springscansing


- IBM Drives... NO WAY. Have you read the specs for IBM drives, the 3.5" IDE drives have a limited duty cycle. So no heavy duty usage, and no servers with these drives. [Note: IBM 2.5" drives for laptops are much better then their 3.5" drives.]

IBM makes good hardware... I don't know any HD manufacturer who claims an unlimited duty cycle. For desktops they'd be fine.[/B]

The previous generation of GXP drives were lemons of a bad odor. They had something like 30 percent failure rate as new, and many blamed this on a limited use line in an IBM PDF.

IBM's current 120GXPs are really outstanding, and the particular item about usage has been rebuked by IBM themselves as not applicable to these drives.

Every manufacturer makes a big fat oops once in a while, and the 60GXPs was on of IBMs.

As for duty cycle, HDs are measured in MBTF hours, and most drives have similar rated specs, SCSI better than IDE.

[barkmonster]

I think apple not only need to buy more companies to increase their profit margins but they need to start seriously upping the specs of the G4s.

Ignoring CPU speeds for a second, the new Moto chips that have been discussed have a 200Mhz FSB, that gives us more bandwidth to play with.

If an earlier model Pentium 4 (not the new 133Mhz FSB versions) can work through a DDR controller at 266Mhz then apple should adapt the system controller so it can step down from 333Mhz DDR to 200Mhz at the cpu. At least we'll get 1.5Gb/s of bandwidth.

They should up the standard amount of RAM to at least 512Mb on all G4 models, standardise on the PC2700 motherboard on all models so they've all got 333Mhz DDR.

If they use the new IBM 180GXP or the Western Digital "Jumbo Buffer" drives as standard on all models that will decrease load times of all software including the OS.

They should have the radeon 9000 as standard, no half baked 32Mb card on the entry level model.

They should put a superdrive on all G4 models with faster superdrives on the top 2 models.

They should bundle appleworks and some other useful software with the towers to make them more attractive to newbies.

with all that and no price increase, the towers should be competitive on price/features and the only remaining problem would be the speed, that's not as important to some people as others and I imagine a lot of people being so blown away by OS X, the iApps and the built-in superdrive that they'll buy one anyway. It would also make us picky mac owners a little happier if we're not rich enough to afford the mid range or high end models and a CTO entry level seems like a waste of money.

[Frozone]

Personally I think that Apple needs to get there products into more stores like Office Depot...There aren't many places to buy an apple computer except for on-line, from and apple store, or from CompUSA...And Apple stores are mainly in big cities or on the outskirts of the big cities...CompUSA are in the medium sized cities like Tallahassee, FL and bigger cities...And some people just don't like to order things from the web...I think that if Apple was to put there products into stores like Office Depot then they would sell more products simply becuase there are a good amount of Office Depots around and if your city doesn't have one then you shouldn't have to drive that far to get to one...

Another thing they need to work on is advertising...I wouldn't even know about apple if it wansn't for The Screen Savers (a show that comes on TechTV)...For a while i saw the Flat Panel iMac commerical about once or twice a week...And i used to see those Switch commericals...But i haven't seen an apple commerical in a couple of months now...And they need to start showing there computers instead of having people get up there and say 4 or 5 words...

Some faster machines would be better...I know that when i started looking at Apple computers and i saw that they were still in the hundreds or mhz it made me stop and think...Most windows peopl are used to the 1ghz and higher and when they see those low numbers they think that Apple can't keep up...But most people don't stop and think that they are different processors and they are working with two different OS's...

[wdlove]

R & D is the future. A better product with lower prices is what will bring PC user to Apple! :)

[Frozone]

It would be nice if they...

Upgraded the PowerBook big time...Give it 1500+ mhz...60+ gigs...Top of the line video card...SuperDrive...1+ gigs of ram...Top of the line sound card...For under 3000 dollars...

Upgrade the iBook to 1+ghz...30+gigs...give it a 13inch screen...Combo Drive...Give it a pretty good video card so that games like Ages of Empires and actiions games perform well(but not the top of the line video card)...256mb ram+(make this the lowest it comes with)...All this for under 1600 dollars....

Introduce another laptop that can be used for education kinda like they did with the eMac except for may call it the eBook...That stays near the 1000 dollar mark or a lil lower...But make sure they give it at least a CD-RW or a dvd drive...if not a combo drive...and screen size wouldn't matter so that it is no smaller than 12 inch...

If you don't get what i'm saying it will be like this
The eBook would be kinda like the eMac
The iBook would be kinda like the Flat Panel iMac
The PowerBook would be like the PowerMac...

It would also be nice for them to introduce a PDA...And create a new operating system for it so that it is kinda like the Mac OS...And make it look nice which i know they can do...

What do ya'll people think???

Also it would be nice if when you buy a PowerMac you can get one of the 17" monitors for a very low price...It's just crazy how much you can spend on just a powermac and the top of the line monitor that apple makes...You would probably in the end spend over 10,000 dollars on the best powermac and the best montor from apple...

[beez7777]

i think that if they did introduce an eBook, a subject that has been talked about numerous times here, it should have nothing more than a cdrom drive for 2 reasons- keep it cheap and simple, and there isn't really any need for a dvd or cdrw drive. while an eBook may be a good idea, i don't think that apple will introduce such a product.

[Frozone]

But lets hope they do...It would be for the best if they did...In my opinion they don't give customers enough choices...They only make 3 desktop(4 including the old iMac) and 2 laptops...Now i'm glad there not like dell and gateway who have so many computers that you can't count but maybe adding one or two more computers wouldn't hurt...And i personally think that they should upgrade the old iMac to a better machine but keep the monitor the same and keep it under a thousand dollars...Maybe give it a better g3 processor or even a g4 and give it a lil more ram...

[theaz]

For a long time I have felt that money needs to be spent on market infiltration. Sadly, but truly, we know that poorly spec'ed PCs will be sold to most markets in preference to well spec'ed Apples, even though their final cost is similar (after upgrades to faster/bigger hard drives, DVD-R technology where needed, RAM upgrades, OS software licensing issues etc). Somehow Apple needs to reverse this trend.

My suggestion is to spend money giving away small numbers of Apple systems to targeted markets. They won't turn it down if it is free. And once they see how much more pleasant it is to drive cf Microsoft and other UNIX based systems, i suspect there is a fair chance many will buy further systems themselves. Every further system sold in corperate environs will have a flow-down effect into home markets, where users in the corperate environ decide to buy at home what they have at work.

Of course, this is a rather radical idea. Perhaps not one that a well-established corperation would embrace immediately. Do you think it would work?

[jelloshotsrule]

1.5 ghz powerbook?

umm..... the desktops don't even have 1.5 ghz yet.......

dreaming's cool though. ;)

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by theaz
Of course, this is a rather radical idea. Perhaps not one that a well-established corperation would embrace immediately. Do you think it would work?

i think people have suggested doing that before, and i think it would work in schools best. sell macs to schools dirt cheap. make the offer too good to turn down... then. johnny and jane come home from school and don't want to use their pc, but rather a mac like they have at school... it's much nicer looking, etc.

of course, not necessarily the "right" reasons to like a mac, but they're kids, so eventually they'll realize the good reasons and will already be hooked....

in theory.

[scem0]

Definitely hardware/internal stuff. I don't think that apple should be improving them as much as they should be lowering prices. Apple's are way to expensive, and they don't have very new (or fast) technology. Apple needs to fix this problem before anything else. Switching to IMB is a big step - but a good one. They should have done it a long time ago though.