"Do You Think Mac Will Survive the Intel Change?"

[xsedrinam]

I received this question across the table tonight enjoying my medium cut 12 oz. Outback Special. The question came from a hard nose Dellard who taunts his bells and whistles on XP, flaunts his PDA, all the classic, corporate posterizing which comes along with the breed. "Survive?", I asked. " I think they'll thrive." I've been so tired of the same banter over and over, as even threads like this may make it to the wasteland before sundown; but what can we say without being obnoxious?
X

 

[solvs]

Did he say "Mac" instead of Apple, or are you saying that? Cuz if he said it, there's proof right there that you should just smile and nod. Then when he's not looking. Or ask him how excited he is about Longhorn/Vista. Some people you just can't talk to and it's not worth the aggrevation.

Feel free to chuckle a little when they start moaning about spyware/viruses/random Windows suckiness.

 

[savar]

I received this question across the table tonight enjoying my medium cut 12 oz. Outback Special. The question came from a hard nose Dellard who taunts his bells and whistles on XP, flaunts his PDA, all the classic, corporate posterizing which comes along with the breed. "Survive?", I asked. " I think they'll thrive." I've been so tired of the same banter over and over, as even threads like this may make it to the wasteland before sundown; but what can we say without being obnoxious?
X

The only response I can think of is, why wouldnt Apple survive? They've got the tech to do the transition right, and they nailed the 68k->PPC transition. And now with access to the same hardware that XP and 2000 run on, it should actually make buying decisions clearer.

 

[weg]

I received this question across the table tonight enjoying my medium cut 12 oz. Outback Special. The question came from a hard nose Dellard who taunts his bells and whistles on XP, flaunts his PDA, all the classic, corporate posterizing which comes along with the breed. "Survive?", I asked. " I think they'll thrive." I've been so tired of the same banter over and over, as even threads like this may make it to the wasteland before sundown; but what can we say without being obnoxious?
X

Of course they'll survive, as always. But the time until the x86 Macs are available will be pretty hard for them.. since we've now seen what kind of "great PPC products" Apple has in the queue, I doubt that notebook sales will soar. Well, perhaps it's a really good idea to focus on iPods and phones at the moment.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Yes Mac will be just fine and as for the banter...I have said this for some time now. When someone has to make a "I don't like a Mac or something like that with, I use windows" I say great so you use windows and thats the brand of computer? Most say yeah then I must say no you use a Dell, Sony or whatever computer but windows is the system, glad to see you know the difference, when you learn hardware/software we can continue this
Subject always gets changed or they think about, really think about what they just said. So as for the Intel move sure since if people get what they want (power wise and we all know this to be true) sales will continue and then some.

 

[ReanimationLP]

I quite honestly... dont know anymore... those OSx86 guys are getting dangerously close to getting the beta to work. x_x' Whos to say that when it comes out for the x86 some clever hackers like that dumb DVD Jon guy wont figure out a way to trick the OS into thinking its running on real Mac hardware. x_x'

 

[Mr.Hostility]

Personally, and my opinion might not rest well with the majority here, in order for Apple to grab the market chunk they want, and ever dream of taking over the desktop market, they need to make OS X available for regular PC hardware.

Why not sell the operating system stand alone, and continue to sell their own hardware under the Apple name. If Dell succeeds selling someone elses OS, and their own hardware, wouldn't Apple succeed because not only would they get money for selling their own branded hardware, but also from stand alone OS sales. I have a feeling if they opened it up, most of you guys here and the rest of the hardcore apple loyals would still buy hardware from them. They are known as a company that makes solid computers that are reliable and dependable, and I doubt sales on their systems would slip that much. Think about the buzz it could generate, with people knowning they don't have to buy a new machine, to get a more secure operating system. Then when it's time to buy again, they will likely go back to the source of their pleasure.

Also it's easier a lot of the time to convince a company to try new software, than to replace physical hardware because that becomes expensive. And the corporate market is a strong road Apple should try to follow. I saw the stats about the amount of people using Mac's at work, but who knows what criteria those surveys were done on. At most places I had worked, only 2 people in creative had Mac's.

I hope what I meant to say came out right, but I think that's Apple's greatest chance of success.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Simply put, I trust Apple. I trust Steve Jobs, and if he says this is the way to go, then I would bet my money on it. Has he been wrong? Yes, but not in any drastic way.

As for selling OS X for PC, they don't want to do that. What is Apple's real goals here? Are they going for the biggest market share? Sure they are, but they are doing it there way. Getting too big too fast would not be good for the company. But I'm sure by 2010 they will have a much bigger share of the market than today. Right now though, they are experiencing fast growth.
The hardware race is slowing down, the OS and software (or features) race is ramping up.

EDIT: The OS X transition was a much tougher transition than the Intel transition will be. We will all be fine.

 

[wdlove]

I would just ignore your friend. Like others, I trust the decision by Steve Jobs. His priors decisions have been golden. The Mac will be better, with increased sales. Then you will be able to taunt your friend.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

PowerPC has held Apple down, not up folks. Imagine a Powerbook with Pentium M! vs stale G4. Pentium Ms are matching top desktop performance in the PC world. G4s&5s are slaughtered by this chip and Apple knows it.

 

[applebum]

I received this question across the table tonight enjoying my medium cut 12 oz. Outback Special. The question came from a hard nose Dellard ...
X

You should have reminded him that even Michael Dell wants the Apple OS to run on his computers.

 

[Mal]

Quite frankly, Apple is doing better now than when they announced the transition, and I think that says a lot about the survival factor. There has been no indication of a drop in sales yet, and with only a year or so until the first Intel Macs arrive, I doubt much of a drop will occur. Jobs promised us that there would be great new products before then, and with new iBooks and Mac Minis, I think he's showing the first cards, and I think the interest in Apple will only continue to rise.

Heck, some people will buy G4's and G5's just because they won't be able to later, even if they plan on buying an Intel Mac as well.

jW

 

[acedickson]

Chalk me up for THRIVE! I don't think there's any reason NOT to. I guess we'll see in about 2 years time where we're at.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Intel CPUs will only help Apple.

Apple's current strengths (OS X, iLife, hardware design, and the excellent integration of the three) will only be bolstered by using the Pentium. In fact, the use of the Pentium really brings Apple in direct conflict with Dell. When you compare the products Apple has a much more comprehensive package than Dell, and the Pentium will level the performance between the two.

The G4 and G5 were excellent CPUs but getting software written and optomized for them was an uphill battle. It's just one less thing Apple user have to argue about with PC users. If we both have Pentiums, its down to Tiger v.s. XP. And Tiger wins that one.

 

[makeme]

Personally, and my opinion might not rest well with the majority here, in order for Apple to grab the market chunk they want, and ever dream of taking over the desktop market, they need to make OS X available for regular PC hardware.

Apple tried this back when they almost went out of business and it was not a pretty picture. You obviously don't understand how Apple makes their money. Do you recall that Apple makes little to no money off of the iTunes Music Store, but makes a small fortune off of the iPods. This is why they won't open it up to other devices, because it is just a way to sell more iPods. Would you imagine that Apple also makes little to no money off of their consumer software, but makes good money off of the Macs. This is why they won't open it up to other devices, because it is just a way to sell more Macs. Not to mention, that Mac OS X runs so damn well because of that hardware control. That's the price of those Dashboard ripples, Desktop cube rotations and all the other fancy effects that enrich the computing experience. My mother put it perfectly when I switched her to a Mac: It's like an appliance instead of a computer! She said this because it just works, is made and supported by one company and lets her just do what she needs to do without getting in the way. If we threw Dell in this picture, I think that everything would just come crashing down.

 

[xsedrinam]

Personally, and my opinion might not rest well with the majority here, in order for Apple to grab the market chunk they want, and ever dream of taking over the desktop market, they need to make OS X available for regular PC hardware.

Rogue developers excluded, I don't ever see this as happening.
X

 

[milozauckerman]

Why not sell the operating system stand alone, and continue to sell their own hardware under the Apple name.

No one would buy their hardware. I just (not quite gladly, but c'est la vie) paid a good $500-600 premium for a dual 2GHz machine (over a comparable desktop). If I could get the same reliability and exact same OS in another machine for the price of a Dell? I can live without my big-ass easily-scratched aluminum case for $600.

When I took my computer in, I was looking around at the Genius Bar price list - $600 for 2GB of RAM. That's just criminal. Apple gets to charge crazy markups on their hardware because their software is so good and people are willing to pay it.

 

[leekohler]

Personally, and my opinion might not rest well with the majority here, in order for Apple to grab the market chunk they want, and ever dream of taking over the desktop market, they need to make OS X available for regular PC hardware.

Why not sell the operating system stand alone, and continue to sell their own hardware under the Apple name. If Dell succeeds selling someone elses OS, and their own hardware, wouldn't Apple succeed because not only would they get money for selling their own branded hardware, but also from stand alone OS sales. I have a feeling if they opened it up, most of you guys here and the rest of the hardcore apple loyals would still buy hardware from them. They are known as a company that makes solid computers that are reliable and dependable, and I doubt sales on their systems would slip that much. Think about the buzz it could generate, with people knowning they don't have to buy a new machine, to get a more secure operating system. Then when it's time to buy again, they will likely go back to the source of their pleasure.

Also it's easier a lot of the time to convince a company to try new software, than to replace physical hardware because that becomes expensive. And the corporate market is a strong road Apple should try to follow. I saw the stats about the amount of people using Mac's at work, but who knows what criteria those surveys were done on. At most places I had worked, only 2 people in creative had Mac's.

I hope what I meant to say came out right, but I think that's Apple's greatest chance of success.

They tried it once before and it nearly put them out of business in the mid 90's. It isn't the way to go.

 

[cubist]

And don't forget to add: "Just how many processor architecture transitions has the Windows world been through - successfully?"

(Answer: None! Tho NT was running on Alpha and MIPS, those efforts were later abandoned.)

 

[pubwvj]

Apple will come through the transition with flying colors. They've made two huge transitions before and done an excellent job in both cases (OS9->OSX and 680xx->PPC).

My one complaint is that Rosetta is supposively not supporting legacy applications and data from Classic. That is a mistake. There are old applications that people and businesses need that will never be updated but have gigabytes of data tied to them that people need access to on a regular basis. Abandoning them is a bad move. That will hurt Apple's MacIntel sales.

 

[XNine]

Intel CPUs will only help Apple.

Apple's current strengths (OS X, iLife, hardware design, and the excellent integration of the three) will only be bolstered by using the Pentium. In fact, the use of the Pentium really brings Apple in direct conflict with Dell. When you compare the products Apple has a much more comprehensive package than Dell, and the Pentium will level the performance between the two.

The G4 and G5 were excellent CPUs but getting software written and optomized for them was an uphill battle. It's just one less thing Apple user have to argue about with PC users. If we both have Pentiums, its down to Tiger v.s. XP. And Tiger wins that one.

They won't be running on Pentiums. They'll be running on something else because of the need of fast and efficient processing. The Pentium is a slow chip compared to other Intel chips.

And, the Mac OS runs circles around XP, let alone Vista or Longhorn or whatever they're going to call the piece of ****. If you look at screenshots of Vista, you'll see how much of the OS is stolen from OS X. Magnifying glass in the search fields, rating systems for pictures using stars, "virtual folders" which are a complete rip off of Smart folders, just with a stupid name. This whole thing will be Windows Tigger by the time its done.

Tell your self-righteous doofus of a friend that Winblows is going down and he can sit and spin on the fact.

 

[solvs]

When I took my computer in, I was looking around at the Genius Bar price list - $600 for 2GB of RAM. That's just criminal.

Have you seen Dell's price for RAM (specials not included)? It isn't that high, but all those OEMs overcharge for RAM. Apple is one of the worst though. But remember, you aren't paying for the RAM so much as the installation fee.