XP 1984, X.1 the future.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Talk about "Big Brother"...

I already knew that XP users had to register their new OS after about a month of use - just to make sure that it was purchased legitimately.

But I was surprised to find that the registration process secretly takes a list of the components of the system, i.e. the motherboard, drivers, peripherals, etc., and sends them off to Microsoft to be stored for future referral.

The reason behind this is to (apparently) prevent piracy, because the OS limits you to only expand your system around 6 times before you have to reactivate XP thru the Microsoft website.

We should thank our lucky stars we didn't buy OUR OS from such a paranoid, controlling, dictating and untrusting company.

[spikey]

I have heard it is only 3 times.

Someone will make a script to add & get rid of it sooner or later though.

atleast i hope for my PC buddies someone can.

[spikey]

XPs GUI sucks, it looks like fisherprice stuff.


But it has a nice dating system thingy.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Someone from work was looking thru a P2P today and discovered the first of "many" patches - but could you really trust them? How'd they test it out?

The last thing you'd want if you were a hacker would be the pirate police kicking in your door!

I checked out XP Pro the other day - we've definitely got the better deal with OSX.1

It's a better ride.

[spikey]

Without doubt, XP just isnt as good as 10.1
Its decent, but it just aint as good.

As for the patch, well find a ******* PC like an old 166. and use the patch one that for a while. see how it goes.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I don't think that XP works on anything less than a hefty piece of PC hardware (I'm still thinking a Boat Anchor)

[jefhatfield]

...until spikey referred to it as fischer-price

wow, that really is what it looks like!!!

i just hope the engineers at microsoft are not still breastfeeding

no matter what i think i know, i always learn something new every time i log onto macrumors.com whether its from john123, spikey, kela, bill.data, oldMac, blakespot, monkeybusiness, or any other of the frequent or not so frequent posters

i have been spending weeks telling people how great XP looked because it borrowed so much from the OS X playbook, now i am not sure what to think of XP now that i will see fischer-price every time i boot up with XP on a PC

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-05-2001 at 02:56 PM]

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I can hear the jingle from "The Magic Roundabout" every time I walk into a PC-World...

By the way, jef - one more post, and you've made the 200 mark... ;)

[spikey]

I havent used XP on a bad machine so i wouldnt know.

well done jef, its your double century. ;)

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I've been using macs since they came out in NZ back in '84 - and I've always thought that Windows 98 was like Mac 87.

Now, even after looking at the OSX Beta for over a year, Microsoft STILL don't quite have it beat.

[jefhatfield]

thanks for reminding me but i will never catch up with mac gods john123, spikey, kela, and monkeybusiness since i don't know macs more than an intermediate user level and i am only a pc networking techie

i will only get more good posts and not so much filler like i have been putting in if only a pc zealot happens to fall into this forum

...now if they are a fellow pc techie and they hate macs without knowing them, then i can pounce on them

there are not too many people to pounce on here since the posters are smart and only disagree with smaller issues like DVD vs CD-RW, Mac color schemes, a 399 ipod or a 299 ipod, and the like...if only the pc world were that problem free!

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-05-2001 at 03:09 PM]

[spikey]

There is a fine line between OSX's class and the fischer price XP. Thats why it seems like a cheap imtiation.
But when i start up XP on my machine i just try to enjoy the colours, and try not to put it next to an OSX machine so as not to feel inferior (and about 5 years old).

But i still enjoy XP, its nice not to crash every few seconds.

[Edited by spikey on 11-05-2001 at 03:17 PM]

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Unfortunately, I'm more or less surrounded by PC Pagans, as the computer of choice for our newsroom are all PCs running NT. I'd like to think that I've changed things a bit - I've converted a few infidels, and now we have a small band of loyal followers - touting our imacs, cubes, Quicksilvers and G4 Powerbooks in full view of our PC colleagues.

At least the mac market has increased in London. Now, if only we can nab some of that PC software...

[akuma]

Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
Unfortunately, I'm more or less surrounded by PC Pagans, as the computer of choice for our newsroom are all PCs running NT.

"PC Pagans" -- haha.
When I first started my current job, i was asked if I had experience using Windows and PC's. I of course said yes ;). But I also added that most of my knowledge was with Apple computers. My boss then matter-of-factly said "well, welcome to the real world."

(I have since managed to get him to at least think of Mac's, but its been an uphill battle against the other PC pagans around here....)

[Gelfin]

I have resolved not to go XP on my Windows machines, just on general principles. Microsoft is obviously using monkeys as UI engineers, and not because of the Fisher-Price appearance. I mean how everything is now harder to find, and takes more clicks to get to even if you know where it is. They've violated the most basic rules of good UI design. In essence, they've made the UI more complicated in the name of making it merely appear less complicated. And then they make the default GUI look like an infant's toy in the hopes that it will seem less threatening.

I think the problem is that MS has done user testing with the most computer-phobic idiots they could find and designed the UI with those people in mind. Before XP I'd never seen an OS that feels like it's trying to be condescending to its user.

OS X is obviously trying to appeal to my sense of aesthetics, which is arguably a feature of dubious value (though I personally value aesthetics), but it doesn't insult me.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Narrow-mindedness is one hell of an obstacle when dealing with Mac-haters. I just proved to them that you are only threatened by what you don't know.

And with this in mind, during one nightshift I proceded to install the Mac 680x0 emulator, Basilisk II for Windows NT, onto as many computers at work as I could, and booted up System 7.1 in full screen mode. Then I went home.

Nasty, huh?

[eXistenZ_ng]

The XP ads on Tv just arrived to Norway, but i cant figure out why this guy is flying all over the place, i think it looks rather stupid. MS has finally made Xp look like a toy that you can use for everything except serious buisness. But still people are buying it.


The only thing missing now is apple ads here in Norway, that could make many users change platform.

[SPG]

The flying is due to a nervous breakdown.

[SPG]

Hey Jef, Since you're using the stuff you might be able to answer this. Does XP actually come with enough tools out of the box to make even simple DV edits? Anything like iMovie or iTunes on there? How does it compare in your opinion?

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Nah - the guy's flying because he's an AIRHEAD...

[jefhatfield]

i have not gone that deep yet

i have worked on a client's pentium 2 with the new windows XP browser, internet explorer, and it was so RAM hungry and slow i had to download netscape 6.1 which is faster

it is hard for a windows NT and 2000 tech like me to find my way around it (XP)

i don't think the jury has made up its mind on XP

windows 95 started as a real dog but futher revisions has made it better since then

i just know this, XP better be a multimedia OS or else they are missing the huge trend these days

windows me had an ok video editing thing for beginners

[Buggy]

A friend of mine makes wedding videos on a PC. She paid someon to come and install XP into her system. Now it won't work. I don't know how friendly that sounds.

OSX actually worked better in connectivity to my camera and quicker in iMovie render times.

Still waiting ofor FCP X.

I also plugged in another friend's Nomad without any software just for fun....and it worked!, in iTunes.

Digital cameras download into users picture files without software...

Jobs' digital hub stragety seams to be at work here.

I don't remeber all of the details, but the XP commercial is running a different song then first intended. After Sept 11 they changed it. But I forgot what the original song was.

[ThlayliTheFierce]

I've got a Windows-loving friend who hates Macs mostly because she doesn't know about them. She just got a Vaio laptop running XP. I told her that MS stole the UI from Apple, and her comment was, "that must by why it sucks". I finally got her to admit that they really aren't bad computers and that she doesn't care about them because they aren't useful in the Networking world. So now I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy a TiBook next summer (I've been wanting one ever since they came out). Hopefully I can make her see the light. Any suggestions? It'd be good to hear how people have dealt with the "pc pagans".

[eXistenZ_ng]

Remember to put much ram in it, and show her all the cool stuff in osx, and you can just connect your powerbook to her vaio and show her who got the best networking compability.

[Gelfin]

Personally, I don't do much of anything to lure the MS masses away from the Dark Side. I just sit around with my PBG4 doing what I would be doing anyway, and they just kind of notice. There's something in there to make just about everybody take notice, whether I'm listening to music, watching a DVD, working at a shell prompt, running X11 apps, or just running Windows 2000 in a Virtual PC window. From there I just kind of answer questions. :D

Although this wasn't why I -first- bought a Mac, to me owning a Mac means I don't actually have to choose one single platform and stick with it. I can have Mac, Windows -and- UNIX apps running on my TiBook, all at the same time. You can't get a solution that complete anywhere else.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Personally, I'm ecstatic about the switch to X. I had a few iMovie files that were virtually unwatchable in 9.1 - nasty skip-frames and scroll lines in playback on screen (but not, strangely, when I dumped them back onto tape). Now, iMovie X is back to giving me smooth, flicker-free pics. All I need now is FCP X, and I'll be Mr. Happy.

Even so, I still used to get a kick out of showing off my Cube with an LCD display sitting in the corner - churning out a video effortlessly, or watching a DVD, or TV, ejecting a disc (sad, huh?), or even running Win 98 in a window.

And now I have more reason to brag; my Cube now takes centre stage once again - with a top-notch stable operating system that doesn't look a bit like it came from "The Teletubbies".

[Edited by kiwi_the_iwik on 11-06-2001 at 08:34 AM]

[dantec]

Converting Pc Pageans isn't so hard. When they say Macs suck you say why? Most of them usually stop dead in their tracks there or they continue... "They just suck"! Then you give them a techie explanation which they will never forget. "Macs don't crash, have a modern operating system, to calculate the G4's real speed in Pentium comparison you must multiply by 4 (Pentium is 32bit, G4 can do "some" operations at 128bits), also tell them that they have style, and if they own a dell say that we don't have to have our computers recalled every 2 months. On top of it discuss the detail of pricerange. Say one 867mhz powermac = a 2.2ghz pentium 4, with DVD burner, cool style, nVidia GeForce 2mx, allows you to upgrade to 3 hard drives, up to 1.5 gigs of ram...

I think the rest of you get the idea...

Dante

[jefhatfield]

when i first joined macrumors almost a year and a half ago, there were still a lot of NEW users entering the mac world via iMac

but then something happened and as i looked at pcdata.com, the interest in new users and the iMac lost a lot of mementum and compaq, of all companies, had a good run and so did dell (especially in the education sector)

the funny thing is, at the time of compaq's sale to hp, compaq had just eclipsed dell in desktop computer sales nationwide, so go figure

do any poeple out there know what it will take for apple to once again reach the amazing 10% of users mark?

do you think OS 10.1 will do it now that it is faster or will it take something more obvious like an LCD iMac?

2001 brought great strides in hardware and software for apple, but why the less than expected sales and why isn't the stock at least to fifty dollars a share? it puzzles me because apple is so cool these days and in some ways just as revolutionary as when they kicked the butt of the computing world with the top-selling iMac (in my opinion, the computer of that decade)

[akuma]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
do any poeple out there know what it will take for apple to once again reach the amazing 10% of users mark?

I think that Apple needs to start advertising more. Every 30 minutes or so I see a commercial for Dell, or Microsoft.

In order to get past the "apple computers are for idiots" thinking of the majority of computer users out there, apple needs to step up its advertising campaign.
Just the other day, my grandmother asked me a computer question (i've tried to steer her towards macintosh, but she tends to believe the salespeople in CompUSA store, "No ma'am, you don't want an apple, you won't be able to get on the internet with that computer") I told her that she should get a mac, and her response was, "Is that a windows program".
*sigh*
Until apple get's the word out that it is usually easier for non-computer savvy people to get things done on a mac, their market share will probably remain stagnant.

just my $0.02

[spikey]

agreed.
And it should come with the G5, then there will be some REAL specs to kick PCs ass.We dont get much advertising at all over here in the uk, i do remember an advert about burning CDs with ******* muse playing their prog rock. But yeah, marketing isnt apples strong side.
also should see price drops.

advertising can do alot but alot of the frustration i have is seeing average pc consumers try to get to grips with a mac. Because they are not intelligent computer-wise, and because the only way to use a computer that they know of is the windows way, they automatically assume the mac is inferior. So some heavy advertising is needed.

[eXistenZ_ng]

Apple also have to make better ads, like those they made for the first G3 powermacs.

im gonna post the urls later for those who haven't seen these ads

[fragiledreams]

......and more software

[Gelfin]

Say, maybe the myth about Macs being computers for dummies will finally work in Apple's favor, since XP seems especially designed to make its users feel like idiots.

[jefhatfield]

right on, gelfin

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I bought my first Mac (a 512KE) in '85, and before that I had an Apple 2e. I bought my next Mac (an LCII) in '92.

It must've had SOME impact - my father bought his first Mac (a Performa 5400) in '94. He's now getting an iMac, to get more "oomph" to produce his movies.

Odd thing, though - only a couple of years before, we never even gave him the remote control for the TV...

[Timbuktu]

My best friend at school hates Macs. 'Crappy Macs' he calls them, he always winding me up with this. To tell the truth, I've given up converting him from the 'dark side' long ago. There is no way you can convince a PC user who hasn't touched a Mac before how good it actually is. The only way is to lock them in a room with a Mac for two hours, then they will love it. My friend doesn't even know the OS X exists, I think the majority of people don't. That's a problem for Apple, but that's exactly what the Apple stores are for. Me? I don't really care. I'd rather Macs stay as a niche. Maybe a larger niche, but it would be a nightmare for everyone to convert to a Mac. I can't imagine, if everyone in my school turn up tomorrow with an iBook...

[SPG]

For us it is obviously ignorance on the PC side, but when I look throught the flood of catalogs that come here, I see 1ghz IBM PC systems for $499. Now I know and you know that when you add software, a monitor, keyboard, etc, that it costs more than an iMac and is a lesser machine, but the average Joe doesn't know this.
The Apple stores will help, but things like the iPod will do more. These digital devices will remind people that Apple is there, and then when a new iMac comes out, people will consider it again. The new iMac better be damn good and better come out soon. Who really wants an iMac now? "They're old."

[SPG]

Here is an interesting thing I noticed this summer, I was in the company of about ten professional snowboarders and eight of them had G4 laptops, one had an iBook, and one was going to get one soon. These guys all travel and some have their own websites or their own little businesses on the side and every single one of them decided more or less independently that Apple is the only way to go for what they do.
The stuff works, and it's way cooler. The G4 laptop has become the must have in the last year for the mobile set, and the iMac was that for the home set a couple years ago. A new iMac, if good enough, will be that again, and then more people will see the light.

[jefhatfield]

it may be what we need to "save" apple again (in wall street terms, at least)

[ThlayliTheFierce]

It seems Apple is building up to a few things to 'save' it. We all know that an LCD iMac is coming (Jobs even said it was). We also all know that the G5 is coming. Perhaps Apple is waiting to release both of these and possibly an iPod upgrade (just my own idea there) at the same time. Now that would really make people stand up and take notice.

[Buggy]

I don't think that newer and cooler products are going to win over the PC users. THey may take in a very few, but mostly they will be able to shore up any loss from Mac to PC.

With the downturn in economics coming people are going to be looking even closer at the bottom line. PCs are cheaper. I realize in the long run they are much more expensive but when Ma or Pa go to buy a computer they are not going to see that.

Most computer users already know that Apple makes the cooler products, but that has not swayed them yet. I can't see it happening in the future.

G5 will be matched on the PC side in terms of increases.

iPod will be matched

LCD iMacs will be matched

etc.

all these matchings will be inferior. The Wallmart shoppers will not care.


my 2 cents

[spikey]

macs wont be matched in the future.
Because people are content with the speed of their machines right now they will not be looking for faster components in a PC, they will start looking for a better package. PCs offer great components, none of which want to work with each other. Macs offer a package of components designed for each other.

Soon speed will not be the issue, design, ease of use, stability and style will be.

[akuma]

Originally posted by spikey
Soon speed will not be the issue, design, ease of use, stability and style will be.


In which case the Mac will win, hands down.

Unless, of course, you are a c|net reporter..:D

[jefhatfield]

pc components do not work as well as mac components do with each other...that is obvious because apple could oversee everything the way that a pc vendor doesn't have the ability to (except for toshiba laptops which are the only pcs i know of built from "scratch")

but since windows 98, and even the later versions of windows 95, pc manufacturers got their "drivers" together and a few really good pc hardware component comapnies rose to the top and dominated the market...it was at that point pcs started getting better than the days of pc past

in reality, many pcs are good enough for the average consumer even though they do not give that flawless feel a mac seems to give its users

i mean, i have an ibook and i never have to worry about that thing since i bought in in 1999 but with my two pcs, i have to always defrag, scandisk, toss temp files, and be worrying about viruses from my lonely retired friends who seem to pick them up like a bad habit

[akuma]

I think that's the selling point (for me anyway) as far as macs go. I bought my B&W G3, in the winter of 99, and have never once defragged the hard drive, nor have I had the need to. However with the PC's I have to do it about once a month, at least.
I've since added ram, a two button optical mouse, usb-cd recorder, and a new hard drive, without ever having a problem. I didn't even have to restart my mac when I added the cd-recorder or the new mouse, and the OS recognized them both (no more control-click after that :))
I'm not necessarily a "window's hater" but I've never had things that easy on the windows side of the fence.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by jefhatfield

do any poeple out there know what it will take for apple to once again reach the amazing 10% of users mark?


To me, jef, there are a few issues that need to be addressed as far as Apple's recovery is concerned -

1. The price of their product.

I truly believe what killed the Cube was its inaccessability to the general public, because of poor foresight. Apple were convinced by the powers-that-be, that such a trendy machine could go with an equally trendy price tag. There was no way that machine was worth the price they put on it when you only got 64Mb of ram, and no software package to accompany it. On top of that, you needed to buy a monitor to complete the set(In saying that, I couldn't sleep at night until I bought one, but waited 'til the price cuts - by then, it was too late to save the poor Cube.). Long may they learn from their mistakes.

2. The education market.

Attractive deals should be made to the education sector - possibly dealing directly with Government Departments in their respective countries. Once you teach the young ones how much a Mac is superior, half the battle will be won.

3. After-sales service.

Time and again, I've read in various Mac publications as to how arrogant Apple can be when dealing with customers' problems. Start to "bend over backwards" for your clients - don't subscribe to the "treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen" mythology. We love the products but don't want the palm-off when we need help. If Apple became more friendly to its patrons, news will filter through very quickly to the "great unwashed" pc world.

4. The sales pitch.

How many of you have gone to a Computer Store, only to find the lack of Mac hardware is only matched by the ignorance of the sales staff? Here's an idea - Apple salesmen trained by Apple. And I'm not talking about the Apple chain of stores now opening up across the US, which (although a very nice idea) doesn't reach every prospective Apple user around the world. What I mean is properly trained staff, each supplied by Apple, and leased out to the various computer stores. Apple could supply equipment and staff, only asking in return (perhaps) for an area in the store for them to display their stock - and the PC stores would benefit from having customers return time and again for supplies and software...

I dunno - it's just my view...

[Edited by kiwi_the_iwik on 11-07-2001 at 06:12 PM]

[ThlayliTheFierce]

You do know that that is what they are doing by putting Apple staff in Comp USA stores? From what I've heard it's been going well.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

That's great - it'll be even better if it could happen over here in the UK.

You just can't get anything out of a PC World salesman other than:

"...you don't want a MAC. Don't you know? They're history. Now what YOU want is a nice Packard Bell with a Pentium 4..."

AAARRRGGGHH!!!!

I hope Apple can wake up in time to see the damage these PLEBS are causing to their sales figures.

[jefhatfield]

it happened at office depot too

...they only carried a few mac software titles

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Since we seem to have a lot of UK Mac users posting here, maybe one of you knows about what portion of Apples sales come from the UK? Maybe it's not a huge percentage, so for right now they are concentrating on the US and they'll be putting employees in the UK later.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

The majority of macs are purchased via mail order, or online. The positive side to that is prices are relatively low (although more expensive than our US counterparts), because of low overheads. The negative side is that we occasionally have a hell of a time when trying to deal with them re. repairs or warranty help.

It's a shame; because when you do go to a department store, the poor Mac corner looks positively dire. I feel an obligation to go and tidy it up, straightening up the desktops, starting the demo videos, and even playing around with iMovie - especially when someone's looking over my shoulder. The assistants even learn a thing or two. I think that I must've sold a few computers on their behalf.

[Conspiracy theory]

Apple actually is getting the idea that sales people at most computer stores don't really know much, if anything at all about there products, and have started to put there own apple trained people at different locations.
The one thing that Apple still has to compete against, and we all know this is how to convince an average user that a 500mhz Imac at 799, is a better than a 1.4ghz P4 for a hundred or so more. Maybe apple should try a new scheme like AMD and name there chips in a different format not just in mhz, or ghz as the case maybe the case in a few months.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I like that - don't subscribe to the clock cycle battle - name a chip. Call it "Daphne", or "Rupert". Make it appeal to the wider audience.

I'm bamboozled by the whole "gigahertz war" thingy. I know that a G4 887Mhz is as fast as a 2.2Ghz Pentium 4 because I've seen the spec sheets. I know that a RISC chip uses different and less complicated pipelines to that of its competitor, the CISC chip. I don't get the comparison between G3 or G4 chips, though. In general, the whole thing just annoys the hell out of me.

People don't need to know the speeds of the chips - the focus should be on its speed in programs, like Photoshop, or 3D rendering - or even games (usually a big selling point).

[jefhatfield]

i learned a lot working at office depot and was working my way to being a "competant" salesman until a microsoft guy recruited me out of the store, the guy who replaced me in sales also went into high tech teaching A+ theory and then became a WAN tech, and the guy after that is working on his redhat RHCE certification and might enter the IT field...and all this in 2 years

so this is the continuing problem with high tech salespeople because they see other people who are techs who make a lot more money and they get hungry for a piece of the pie

the sales field will never retain the best if they pay so low compared to actual technicians in the IT field...it may cost the store more in the short run but good knowledgeable salespeople could eventually boost sales to the point of more than covering their higher salary

in silicon valley, i say pay the salespeople $35,000/USD a year and leave out commission to avoid selling the wrong stuff to uneducated customers...the average first year network engineer makes over 40K a year starting salary with 2 years experience (visual basic magazine) and an experienced A+ tech could garner as much as 59K

this 10-12k a year business of paying high tech salespeople is a joke!

in my other business, landscaping, i pay my people top dollar, let them run themselves and not worry about them, and guess what...they do a great job!

[oldMac]

So what will it take to get Apple back to a 10% market share?

The answer is simple, they need to sell 2-3 times as many machines as they currently do, for at least 2 years.

Let's face facts, folks. This is only going to happen if Apple can do the following.

1) Increase the professional customer base.

- This means selling more machines to professional users including graphic artists, publishers, photo professionals and other creative folks.

This is unique market in that they tend to care less about the price of a machine and more about the value / performance it can provide.

Keys to making this happen:

a) Offer more powerful machines (quad G4's w/DDR)
b) Make Mac/Windows networking seamless
c) Bundle high-end applications w/ high-end machines (Final Cut Pro, Quicktime Pro, DVD Studio)
d) Offer more professional software (aggressively purchase strategic software companies)

2) Increase the home-user customer base.

- These folks want to browse the web, play games, hook up all their digital toys, send email to grandma and communicate better with their roomate/significant other's PC.

- AND - They WANT IT CHEAP!

Here are the keys to winning these customers.

a) Make the iMac cheaper.
b) Make Mac/Windows networking seamless
c) Bundle more applications and games.
d) Improve AppleWorks Word doc compatibility and advertise that feature.
e) Advertise the iMac (a lot more)

3) Create new markets

- There are some very solid markets out there that Apple needs to aggressively pursue.

a) Serious Servers
b) Professional Film production
c) CAD

---------------------------------------------
Long term strategies...

It's the software, stupid.

The PC market is much more about software than it is about hardware! With each passing year, hardware is more and more of a commodity.

Apple should be creating software to do 3 things...

1) Increase the inherent value of the Macintosh.
- Executing well with consumer titles (iMovie, iTunes)
- Executing poorly with professional titles (FCP,QT)

2) Provide smooth transitions to future hardware changes and increase platform compatibility.
- Mac OS X / Darwin helps here
- Altivec does not help here
- Apple should be building PPC emulators in R&D
- Apple should be building x86 emulators in R&D
- Apple should be forking the WINE project
- Apple should be working on compilers that take advantage of Altivec without burdening the programmer

3) Make the Mac platform the easiest platform to program for professionals and amateurs.
- It's better with Mac OS X than it was before
- It still needs lots of improvement
- Hardware catching up with Java will help a lot
- The entire industry is doing a crappy job, imho
- Need a modern replacement for hypercard
- Apple should create "port kits" for Unix apps
- Apple should support X-Windows
- Apple should participate more in open source projects where it obviously benefits them (or hurts competitors :))






[Edited by oldMac on 11-09-2001 at 06:38 PM]

[jefhatfield]

...but how is a 4 billion dollar cash reserve going to fund all these changes for a major silicon valley company like apple when the stock is down?

4 bil is great for a giant bill gates style house in the woods, but how do you turn around an entire coporation where the coporate culture has been legendarily unbusinesslike ( i bought my last mac from an apple accountant)

the unflattering comments made against apple by almost every business publication in the 1990s only sounded like history put behind it when apple gave the market a top selling imac follwed by a top selling ibook in '98 and '99, but the so called "curse" of apple dropping the ball came true the following two years in a way that even the book "infinite loop" would not dare predict

i believe steve jobs is better for apple than gil emilio was but maybe no one could bring apple back to 10 percent with the likes of dell ravaging the market, especially in the education sector where they quadrupled their market share!

but you are so right in assessing that the home user market wants their machines cheap and your outline is the most intelligent thing i have seen on these posts in a long time

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-09-2001 at 07:15 PM]

[oldMac]

Having to pay salaries and such always puts a damper on things, doesn't it? :)

First, I would argue (and many people will disagree with me here), that NOW is NOT the time to attempt to increase Apple's consumer marketshare by doing anything that would hurt short-term revenues.

All the strategic thinking in the world won't help Apple if they can't pay their bills in the short-term.

The key to the transition is (re) focusing resources. Apple has had a lot of very talented programmers working on OS X during the past year. While much work will continue to go into OS X, they probably don't need *all* of those folks on the project right now.

Obviously, there aren't going to be enough resources to do *everything* right now. But you can probably pick a couple from the list. And a couple of those will probably put you in a financial position to do a couple more later.

Steve Jobs has got one thing really right -- It's all about focus. You can't do something right if you're not dedicated and committed to finishing it. And when you've made a mistake, dump it (Cube) and start over (?).

For as many *cool* things that Apple did during the Sculley/Spindler/Amelio years, they typically tried to do too many at one time and generally never finished what they started.

As a result we ended up with a lot of potentially cool stuff (opendoc, Copland, prep, chrp, newton, quickdraw 3-d, quicktime VR, dylan, pippin, geoport, firewire, etc. ) that was never finished, half-assed or simply missed the mark.

Credit where credit is due...

Yeah, yeah... so they finally finished firewire. But think of how nice it would have been if they'd brought it to market when they invented it... in 1987.

There is one thing we really do need to give Apple's old guard credit for: The 68K to PowerPC transition was one of the most well-executed, remarkable projects in Apple's history.

That was NOT an easy thing to do, but they made it look easy. Had they figured out a way to emulate the math coprocessor, I think they could have shipped the PPC boxes and a new compiler (thank Metrowerks, ironically now part of Motorola) without 99% of users knowing the difference.

[jefhatfield]

oldmac,

let's say if bill gates owns between 15 to 30 percent of apple, the actual figure is not known, why can't he pitch in to apple's development since he gets to sell all those office:mac softwares to us...unless he is already investing in apple (i guess we will never know)

any companies' highest expense 2 to 1 over anything else is the wages and salaries, which apple could definitely boost -especially compared to the other IT companies in the silicon valley

the fact that apple is even around at all is an amazing thing so "breakthroughs" that we expect will come at a slower pace in this now sluggish economy and many of us will probably be asking apple why things are moving so slow

the conservative approach now seen in IT is due to the uncertain times and the 9-11 tragedy probably had little to do with it since the slowdown started more than a year ago with the drop of the dot.coms which brought an amazing amount of money to high tech as much as i hate to admit it

i have been seeing more cautious predictions of a short necked CRT flat screen iMac as a product over a full on LCD iMac...maybe the LCD thing isn't slated for another year and maybe apple will give us speed bumped G4s for another year before releasing the rumored G5

r and d costs big money and the progress of apple has to fit their budget because faster computers no longer seem to woo the masses like it once did...i noticed this at the advent of the 1 GHz more than a year ago

[sparkleytone]

from what i understand bill g not only has a mac at his house, but its his favorite machine. i thought the person who told me this was kidding but apparently its true. i mean dammit who wouldnt love it?

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Bill gates is the most evil mac user. Things he stole recetly:

Visual GUI: Hey this looks cool, I want it.
Desktop Video Editing
Pippin: Xbox (haha, it's a stretch)
MacOS X: XP

The problem w/MS's new campaign, is that to better "understand" the consumer. But they market the wrong ppl, for XP they probably looked toward ppl w/o computers. What they NEEDED to do was look at ppl who hate their WinBox. With XBox MS found the cords were too shart, Nintendo saw the saeme thing. Bottom line: XBox has a 10' wire. Gamecube has an optional wireless controler. XBox is a PC, Gamecube is a more succesfull G4 Cube (both are Risc, have a DVD drive, run a UNIX-based OS, and have ATi Graphics GPUs)