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Apple Soars to Third Place in U.S. PC Market With 10.7% Share
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Not necessarily a cash grab but a perception change.
More than possible, it's a fact. There's very little.
Yet the majority use Windows in this arena (medical)*. The Scientific community uses a range of hardware and OS choices. Right tool for the job.
As for lack of software, you seem to be arguing from the point of view that the claim is that there is almost no software for Mac. No one is saying that. It's a simple, natural and obvious fact that there is more software available for Windows than for Apple OS. After all, the installed base of Windows PCs is significantly larger. So that is to be expected.
I could itemize what precisely is missing but the effort to do so is just not efficient. Those who use more than one OS can more easily appreciate not only the range of software available to each respective OS, but the quality, customization, and feature sets available across the various OSs.
While there are alternatives to Windows software for Apple OS, the range of different approaches to a particular software type mostly favors the PC.
*As a sidebar NSLIJ (North Shore Long Island Jewish) Health System has begun a pilot program to use the iPad for medical charts and imaging studies. I had a look at the system in March. It's very exciting actually. You can see MRI, X-Ray and Ultrasound imagery on the device. It's great for both doctors and patients when reviewing imaging studies. Nurses can enter in vitals and patient presentation on intake and the information is instantly available to the entire staff on their iPads. They were previously (actually still are) using IBM laptops on rolling carts for this sort of thing. But only for admitting.
I believe VAIO Z is more expensive than MBP but then of course it's in a totally different league.
Are they sending all nurses to stay in line overnight when new iPad model comes out?
WTF does that even mean?
In any professional setting, the general purpose machines will be PCs.
Specific use machines are often running alternative OSs to Windows especially in research settings where open source software is also popular.
Open source software is much easier and much cheaper to tailor to the specific research. Generally, open source software from other OSs, such as Linux, is much easier to port to OS X so OS X has an advantage in this domain.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_open_source_healthcare_software
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/BioLinux
http://www.ebioinformatics.org/
As explained already that Apple's OS is not just for the "creative types." That would be the perception change. That stigma still exists in the minds of the majority of Windows and business users. Worse still, that Apple OS is for consumers and not for "serious" work. By making a "pro" version, not unlike windows Pro or Enterprise versions, it would serve to promote a more well rounded perception of Apple's OS.
Not for nothing, iOS has helped this perception change since the iPad's adoption in many business settings.
For those not in industries that predominately use Windows OS or even Linux/Unix, it might be difficult to be appreciative of the impact such a perception change would have for Mac OS.
Personally, I think it is only a matter of time before Apple makes a strong push into the aforementioned segments of the market with such a perception change in mind. No doubt they have been carefully plotting out their plan of attack.
Making multiple versions of an OS, as done with Windows, is a blatant cash grab.
Macs are popular at universities and colleges. Users will eventually bring this preference into all employment sectors.
iOS is much more of a consumer OS than OS X. So, it is funny that iOS is being adopted more rapidly than OS X. This is most likely due to the hardware being a new segment in the computing market.
Marijuana is also popular at universities and colleges however it does not mean that businesses will allow students to bring it to them. OS/X lacks basic enterprise features and support (including proper hardware options).
Where Windows is concerned, indeed it is to some degree. And you will get no argument from me on that matter.
But for Apple to do it, it would be more of a perception change. It wasn't mentioned that a "pro" version would necessarily cost all that much more, but that it would cater more to segments of the market that wouldn't consider it.
Not really. Well, not to a significant degree. Without Apple specifically targeting segments that it doesn't currently target, you will not get developers aboard. A college grad upstart in an IT department will not be able to convince the change over to Mac if the software and support isn't there, among other logistical concerns.
It certainly won't happen any time soon in that fashion in the finance industry I am involved in. While there are a few firms that have switched to Mac hardware, they are running Windows on it. Naturally, considering.
The stigma Macs have here is, "Macs are for midtownies." A remark meaning Macs are for ad agencies and media types.
Indeed it likely is. But it gets those users interested in Apple's other products. Something which is a good thing.
Anyway, time will tell. I sincerely hope Apple makes the push into other segments. More competition is a good thing.
Apple is in a completely different situation than Microsoft. Microsoft makes money selling the OS. And price differentiation maximizes profits, so Microsoft sells cheaper versions, and more expensive versions. Apple makes money with the hardware. So they differentiate prices there: There are MacBooks, 13" MacBook Pros, 17" quad core MacBook Pros, MacMinis, Mac Pros and so on at different prices. There was even a white MacBook and a black MacBook at some point with different prices! But Apple has no reason not to give every customer the best possible operating system, because it doesn't cost Apple anything, and it maximizes the product value.
As someone that cut his teeth using an Apple IIe and a Kaypro, I think Apple computers are on the rise due to a combination of the halo effect from Apple's iOS devices, implementation of a positive retail experience (i.e. the Apple Stores act as ambassadors to perspective switchers), and the fact that years of FUD spread by competitors has finally waned (not that some don't still try from time to time).
iOS got me interested in OS X! I was a die-hard Windows user from 1995, when I got out of college. In college, I was a die-hard Apple/Mac user. I switched to Windows because of the number of applications available and because it was the standard used in every office where I ever worked. I needed to ability to do work from the office at home, and in 1995 it was difficult to use documents across platforms.
Fast forward to 2011 and I have now been using Windows for way too close to 20 years (damn I'm old!). I hate it, have always hated it. Hate IE. Hate how long it takes to boot the computer. Hate how often it crashes. Hate how often I have to install updates that inevitably made my computer even slower. I got to thinking about it and what do I primarily do on my home laptop? I browse the internet, no longer using IE but switching back and forth between Safari and Chrome, one of which is an Apple program and one is readily available for OS X. I create and edit Word and Excel documents, which can easily be done in Office for Mac. I have a large digital music and movie collection, all of which has been managed in iTunes since I bought my first iPod, the first generation Nano. I have a lot of digital photographs. I don't do any editing with them, I just like to take pictures and I have always arranged them on my PC in folders, never even really finding a program that I particularly cared for to do this in so I just did it manually. Then I got my iPhone a right at a year ago and that sealed the deal, I knew that the next computer I purchased was going to be a Mac. I have wanted to switch back to Mac for years, but the ease of using iOS pretty much sealed the deal for me. I went to our local City Mac (we unfortunately don't have an Apple Store) and played around with a MacBook for a few hours, doing different things and remembering how easy it actually is to use the OS. Then I opened iPhoto and was sold! Wow, how easy this is when I have spent years doing all this tagging and labeling manually? I might have eventually found my way back to Mac without iOS, but I doubt it. Using my iPhone was what pushed me back toward Mac, and now other than the fact that I will NEVER convince my employer to switch to Macs, all I will use is a Mac! Hey, like the ads say, it just works!
Fast forward to 2011 and I have now been using Windows for way too close to 20 years (damn I'm old!). I hate it, have always hated it. Hate IE. Hate how long it takes to boot the computer. Hate how often it crashes. Hate how often I have to install updates that inevitably made my computer even slower. I got to thinking about it and what do I primarily do on my home laptop? I browse the internet, no longer using IE but switching back and forth between Safari and Chrome, one of which is an Apple program and one is readily available for OS X. I create and edit Word and Excel documents, which can easily be done in Office for Mac. I have a large digital music and movie collection, all of which has been managed in iTunes since I bought my first iPod, the first generation Nano. I have a lot of digital photographs. I don't do any editing with them, I just like to take pictures and I have always arranged them on my PC in folders, never even really finding a program that I particularly cared for to do this in so I just did it manually. Then I got my iPhone a right at a year ago and that sealed the deal, I knew that the next computer I purchased was going to be a Mac. I have wanted to switch back to Mac for years, but the ease of using iOS pretty much sealed the deal for me. I went to our local City Mac (we unfortunately don't have an Apple Store) and played around with a MacBook for a few hours, doing different things and remembering how easy it actually is to use the OS. Then I opened iPhoto and was sold! Wow, how easy this is when I have spent years doing all this tagging and labeling manually? I might have eventually found my way back to Mac without iOS, but I doubt it. Using my iPhone was what pushed me back toward Mac, and now other than the fact that I will NEVER convince my employer to switch to Macs, all I will use is a Mac! Hey, like the ads say, it just works!
Why exactly did you tag your pictures manually on PC? There are plenty of tools (including the free ones) to do it on PC. With Window 7, OS updates are automatic, hassle free and overall a much better experience than OS/X updates (this includes free antivirus updates from MS). Boot time on my PC equipped with 6-core Westmere Extreme Edition CPU and SDD is about 20 seconds - and this is on a motherboard that has two RAID controllers. Chrome is extremely fast on Windows (as is the latest version of Internet Explorer which in addition provides the best protection against malware among all available browsers according to the latest reports). In general, you sound like it was OK for you to switch to Mac now that your computer needs diminished significantly. I see your point.
There may be tools out there for digital photography but I found every one I tried to be cumbersome and finally gave up, it was just easier to tag my pictures manually because I had been doing it for so long. iPhoto is still MUCH easier than anything I had ever found for Windows photo management.
Every single time Windows would update, it would take FOREVER for my laptop to shut down. Sometimes as long as 20 minutes! It was a royal PITA when I needed to get somewhere fast. When I clicked shutdown and it started installing update 1 of 10 or whatever it was, it was always just so cumbersome! In OS X, all I have to do is click update software and so far it has never taken more than a minute to download and install. Nothing on my PC laptop took only a minute!
I will admit that Windows 7 is MUCH better than XP or Vista.....
I have no clue what a 6-core Westmere Extreme Edition CPU is and really don't care, if I don't know what it means then I probably don't need it. I had a basic model PC and now have a basic model Mac.
I do use Chrome on my laptop exclusively now as it blew IE and Safari out of the water. I know in one of the multitude of updates that Windows has done recently, IE was updated but honestly I've never opened it as I just use Chrome.
No, my computer needs did not diminish. Actually, if anything else they increased especially since I can now do more on my Mac than I could ever do on my PC, at least that I could do easily.
This could be accomplished with Lion due to the inclusion of support for the Xsan file system by default with the merger between the base and server versions; aside from requiring a $50 utility to provide a GUI to manage the server features.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/apple_passes_dell_marketshare_higher_education
It is so funny that people here say "they are sick of windows crashing". I am a die hard mac user, but come on, Win 7 is very stable, and i get more frozen beachballs on my mac than on my win machine.
There are a lot of great reasons to get a mac, but crashing is not one of them. The mac freezes just as much.
And for professional pursuits (corporate work), a PC is essential. I have both.
There are a lot of great reasons to get a mac, but crashing is not one of them. The mac freezes just as much.
And for professional pursuits (corporate work), a PC is essential. I have both.