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Originally posted by gopher
Apple is the Mercedes of the computer industry.

I've seen this analogy more times than i can count, but i just thought of something...Daimler-Benz and Chrylser merged. Ford and Land Rover are now one. If this is the trend, does that mean Microsoft will merge with Apple someday? There's something to give one nightmares! 😉
 
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No, they are not. Again, evidence of rose-colored glasses. Most people want a Mercedes. Most people do not want a Mac. In order to change that, Apple has to begin by making their performance value proposition attractive to switchers. [/B]

That just isn't true. Why else would Dell and Intel and Microsoft immitate the Mac so frequently? Immitation is the sincerist form of flattery. Most people want a Mac, because they go buy the immitators who bring it down to what they consider their pricerange. Unfortunately what they fail to realize is they end up spending more trying to make their PC look like a Mac, and act like a Mac than if they had purchased a Mac. Sure you can put tail fins on a Yugo and call it a fast car, but it is not a Porsche! That's the mentality of the PC users. They feel they can put tail fins on any PC and it will be a Mac. Instead they go on and on purchasing PCs every year, when if they had just purchased a Mac in the first place they might not purchase another new computer in 8 years! The flaw is in the reasoning of PC people. How do you convey the correct reasoning in 30 seconds? If you know how, apply for a job at Apple marketing.
 
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if they had just purchased a Mac in the first place they might not purchase another new computer in 8 years!


Apparently you are not familiar with Moore's law or the implications thereof.

You show me a competitive 8 year old personal computer and I will show you how cold fusion works. 🙄
 
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Originally posted by soggywulf
Please give us a couple examples of said "stupidity", other than the obvious overpricing of products.

The PowerBook 5300 debacle, where they stopped selling them because of, among other things, the fire hazard, yet they still got high-profile product placements for it in the film Mission Impossible, without having any actual product to sell.

The premature release of the Newton.

Having a glut of overpaid engineers who were never really accountable for doing any work.

The Star Trek debacle.

The ill-fated attempts at futile engineering projects, such as Apple designing its own processor (in the 68k era)

Pink

Copland

Poor treatment of developers

That stupid contract that gave Microsoft unlimited permission to copy the Macintosh "look and feel".

Originally posted by soggywulf
How do you know that? All we can see is output, and extrapolate from that. Based on that, there is no reason to think that Apple's costs are greater than the Wintel world. Other than per-unit costs, which can only be solved through higher marketshare. They have the 970 now--they can and should starting competing on price/performance.

Apple's done a lot of work on the iApps, on Mac OS X, on designing chipsets and motherboard architectures. Dell only has to buy large quantities of parts made by other vendors and put them together.

Originally posted by soggywulf
You didn't answer my question. I take it, then, that the answer is "No, I haven't used Windows much." How can you make such confident blanket statements about these companies and products, when you don't even use Windows? How can you say that Mac price/performance is better, or even that the Mac is better in any way? And you are also making claims about Apple's supposed "innovation costs", as if no one else in the PC world innovates? I am starting to get the sense that a lot of your facts and opinions come from expo keynotes--and there's a reason it's called the reality distortion field.

I chose to ignore your snide insult. If you must know, I have used Windows quite a bit. Including XP. Windows is not innovative.

Originally posted by soggywulf
Do you have any idea what it takes to make an OS that has to be able to run on an enormous variety of 3rd party hardware?

That much, I will admit, is difficult.

Originally posted by soggywulf
Back to this again. No, price/performance is not the only factor, but it is a big factor for anyone who might switch.

Price/performance is not a factor, price/quality is a factor. Performance is simply one of the factors that determines overall quality. Referring to price/performance is like referring to price/UI or price/design. It is an incomplete measurement.

Originally posted by soggywulf
You seem to be suggesting that games are the only purpose of performance.

No, I used what is commonly known as an "example".

Originally posted by soggywulf
And wintel laptops are portable too. Use one before making such a comparison.

I have seen and held many Wintel laptops. Not even the Vaio is that attractive. Yes, I may theoretically be able to carry it around with me, but would I want to?

Originally posted by soggywulf
Once again, the point is this. Apple needs switchers, if it is to become anything more than irrelevant. More switchers and more marketshare would be better for Apple, and better for Mac users. In order to accomplish that, they need to compete on price/performance. Based on what Apple is doing, there is no reason to think that they are unable to compete. Finally, we as consumers can collectively affect their decision to compete--using our purchasing power.

Fine. Go buy your Dell already and stop bothering us.
 
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Originally posted by whitehbr
Apparently you are not familiar with Moore's law or the implications thereof.

You show me a competitive 8 year old personal computer and I will show you how cold fusion works. 🙄

Hey! My 6100's still kicking!
 
Do you have any idea what it takes to make an OS that has to be able to run on an enormous variety of 3rd party hardware?

I think this what make the pc great and this is what will make pc crash.There is too much hardware. Everyone can build low quality component, cheap hardware...


And for all Dell lover, I'm sorry but if i was able to build laptop in my basement it would look just like Dell Computer. They are so Huge , i'm sure i can take every components in standart desktop computer and fix them in one of those giant Dell case.
 
Originally posted by nalfein
I think this what make the pc great and this is what will make pc crash.There is too much hardware. Everyone can build low quality component, cheap hardware...
Ah, so you really haven't bothered to check the specs on Dell vs. Apple lately, I see.

Check out this post comparing the 15" PB to the Dell 600M (as an example). Guess what? They have the same hard drive, same graphics card, et cetera. Of course, the Apple does have the Moto CPU, but most people seem a little dissatisfied with that these days. I fail to see how you can bash them on hardware since most of it is from the same vendors, and much of it is identical parts!
And for all Dell lover, I'm sorry but if i was able to build laptop in my basement it would look just like Dell Computer. They are so Huge , i'm sure i can take every components in standart desktop computer and fix them in one of those giant Dell case.
Like I said, please don't just spread FUD like this without researching facts first -- you just end up looking misinformed. For one example, the Dell 600M is 1.2" thick ( 12.4 X 10.1 ) and weighs 5.3 lbs. The Apple Powerbook 15 is 1" thick ( 13.4 X 9.5 ) and weighs 5.4 lbs. Or you could compare it to the iBook, its closest competitor in price, and you'd get 1.35" thick ( 12.7 X 10.2 ) at 5.9 lbs., heavier and bigger in every dimension.

-Richard, still waiting for the time when you don't have to lie to say that Apple's notebooks beat the competition in any respect other than OSX.
 
Originally posted by gopher
Apple is the Mercedes of the computer industry. Would you really expect Mercedes to start selling cars at Yugo prices?
Just beware this kind of thinking a little -- its exactly what caused the domestic automakers (in the US) to lose their control and much of the market to Honda, Toyota, et al. Just because your product was superior at one point, doesn't mean that your rivals can't out innovate or underprice you.

Heck, think about the Acura NSX. When this car came out in 1992, it was amazing. Truly amazing. Its still a very impressive car, taken in a vacuum. Not literally of course, the engine wouldn't run very well in a vacuum, and the passenger compartment would get somewhat uncomfortable. The trouble is, its basically the same car it was 12 years ago with minor enhancements. During that time, the rest of the industry moved on. For the same amount money you can get a new AWD 911, its superior in almost every regard; save some cash and you can still get a 2WD 911, or you can save a ton and get a Corvette Z06 with about $35,000 in the glove compartment.

Substitute months for years, and you're getting close to the situation that Apple has been finding themselves in lately. Hopefully, the move to the 970 will address a lot of that, but only time will tell.
Because that's where the PC industry has gone. Apple has more marketshare in the computer industry than Mercedes does in the auto industry. Anyone who thinks Apple's marketshare is not enough, look at it this way, Apple's usage share is much higher than its marketshare. Of all computers in use, somewhere between 10 to 15% are Macs. The reason is because Macs last 2 to 5 times longer than the average PC before a replacement is purchased. There are still people running off the oldest Macs!
Well... that's sort of true. Of course, I still have some old PII-300s around as low-volume fileservers. But I'd guess that its more to the point to say that today's PC is significantly better and cheaper than one from, oh, one or two years ago. You can't always say that about Apple, certainly not to the same degree that you can about the PC. The Powerbook 15 is, what, 10 months without a single change now? And everyone's getting excited and annoucing intentions to buy if they could, please, just have about a 25% performance boost and a backlit keyboard? This is innovation?

Let me put it another way. Due to its increased development rate, people will go through 2..3 versions of OSX while the PC users wait to go from XP to Longhorn. Heck, many PC users are still on Windows 2000. Not very many Apple users are staying on the old code. By your own argument, does this mean that Windows must be superior to OSX?

-Richard
 
Public Beta

Comparing computers to cars (despite the fact that I started a thread aimed at doing exactly that) is not really appropriate. It's almost like there are 2 standards- Mac OSX and Windows- where one is superior but holds less market share.

What would be the most appropriate comparison?

*shudder*

VHS and...gulp...Beta?

Squire

P.S. Can someone please post something positive now?
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
For one example, the Dell 600M is 1.2" thick ( 12.4 X 10.1 ) and weighs 5.3 lbs. The Apple Powerbook 15 is 1" thick ( 13.4 X 9.5 ) and weighs 5.4 lbs.

But is it sleek and metallic?
 
Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
But is it sleek and metallic?
Nah, just faster and half the price. Not everyone can buy purely based on sex appeal...

Ya know what's kinda sad? I reckon I'd be willing to pay $1,000 for the benefit of using OSX, all other things equal. Wow. A thousand dollars. That should be making Apple very happy, right? Maybe on the desktop front, but the sad thing is that even for a $1,000 premium (talking street prices here), I can't get equivalent hardware.

Bummer, eh?

For those of you playing along at home, that'd be $2,300 for a 125dpi 14-15" laptop (1400x1050ish), 64mb graphics card, 512mb RAM, 30gb+ HD, wireless (prefer a/b/g), bluetooth, CD-R/DVD, a ~1.4ghz processor, and a 3 year warranty (prefer next-day on-site). Come on, Apple... surely you can get within $1,000 of the competition...

Oh, and those specs go up the longer it takes, of course.

-Richard

ps: $1,000. Should be enough for at least a little shiny aluminum, no?
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
... Ya know what's kinda sad? I reckon I'd be willing to pay $1,000 for the benefit of using OSX, all other things equal. ...
For those of you playing along at home, that'd be $2,300 for a 125dpi 14-15" laptop (1400x1050ish), 64mb graphics card, 512mb RAM, 30gb+ HD, wireless (prefer a/b/g), bluetooth, CD-R/DVD, a ~1.4ghz processor, and a 3 year warranty (prefer next-day on-site). Come on, Apple... surely you can get within $1,000 of the competition...

Wow.

And that $2300 powerbook doesn't even seem to be a gleam in anyone's eye anymore.

rjstanford gets my vote for the most depressing post of the day.
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
Nah, just faster and half the price. Not everyone can buy purely based on sex appeal...

You miss the point. Yes, the Dell may be just as thin and just as light as the PowerBook, but unless it's actually sleek (not necessarily metallic, but it helps), it's not going to *feel* as thin and light.
 
So...

rjstanford.

How much is Dell paying you for this again? 😉
I've never seen a Mac user so gun-ho to bad mouth Apple.
I don't think Apple wants to go the route of "more for cheap" as market share and sales are infact growing. Those results are being obtained from many innovative ways.
Here is a true story: A coworker of mine just purchased an iBook 700 256MB. He simply cannot believe how much a pleasure it is to use compared to his 2.5 GHz Petium 4 Tower with an nVidia 4600Ti and 512MB RAM. His exact words were: "I should have done this long before. I regret having bought a PC." No joke.
The fact is that the VAST majority of users have no need for the performance that is sold to them, but would love to have the pleasures of using a Mac and it's OS.
Now if you need the absolute "fastest, greatest thing for the least amount of money"- then get it.
But Apple knows very well that cut throat prices are not the key.
Have you seen how Gateway has been on the edge for God knows how long, closing stores and laying off people. They follow that mind set. Give alot, sell it cheap. That's just not good business.
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
Nah, just faster and half the price. Not everyone can buy purely based on sex appeal...


APPLE: 15" PB 60 Gig HD, 512 MB memory, Combo Drive $2149

Dell: 600m Pent 1.6 and the rest of the specs are the same... $2339

Right... half the price! C'mon... and the speed ain't there, either mate! This is a Pentium at a paltry 1.6 GHz.

Stop the FUD!
 
Originally posted by rjwill246
APPLE: 15" PB 60 Gig HD, 512 MB memory, Combo Drive $2149

Dell: 600m Pent 1.6 and the rest of the specs are the same... $2339

Right... half the price! C'mon... and the speed ain't there, either mate! This is a Pentium at a paltry 1.6 GHz.

Stop the FUD!
First, as I explained in my post HERE, the Pentium M performs clock-for-clock with the G5, possibly a little faster. So the Dell you quoted (MSRP) would be about 60% faster than the Powerbook. This isn't the ol'fashioned P4M guys. Even Intel admits how much better a chip this is, pointing out that the 1.7ghz Pentium M chip resoundly beats a 2.6ghz P4.

Second, the 1.3ghz Dell street price, meaning with coupons, rebates, etc available to anyone, was $1300. How do I know? I bought one, and I'm typing on it right now. You can find people who pay MSRP for Dells, but you can find people who pay MSRP for their cars, too.

Third, this is how I'm getting the Apple price:

Store -> Powerbooks -> 15" 1ghz Superdrive: $2599
40gb Hard Drive: subtract $50
Combo Drive: subtract $200
Bluetooth: add $50 (not internal, but closest offered)
Applecare: add $349

Ignoring the fact that this is missing the internal bluetooth, the faster processor, the high resolution screen, etc, it prices out at $2,747.95. How are you getting $2150? If you know a legitimate way for Joe A. Consumer to get the Mac $600 cheaper, feel free to rebut.

-Richard
 
Re: So...

Originally posted by neonart
rjstanford.

How much is Dell paying you for this again? 😉
I've never seen a Mac user so gun-ho to bad mouth Apple.
Nothing, they get it for free 🙂 Seriously, as I said before, I do like Apples. I hope that they can revitalize their powerbook lines like they did their towers. I haven't once disputed the fact that OSX was nice, that the powerbooks were sexy, or even that they were cooler than the Dells.

I have disputed those (like the person I responded to in my last message) who continue to spread the Gospel of Apple without question -- trying to claim that the current crop of Dells, et cetera, are slow (far from it), expensive (hardly), or huge (less volume than a powerbook, much less than the iBook). That's all. Heck, someone was recently claiming that the components (video card, etc) in the powerbooks was first class, while (somehow) the components of the Dells was crap -- odd, considering that many of them are identical pieces from the identical manufacturers.

Believe me, I want a new powerbook. I'd also like this to remain an "informed" discussion forum, rather than just devolving into yet another one of those "Whoa, PCs crash all the time and bluescreen and stuff, macs rule d00d..." places.

-Richard
 
Well, d00d, I think many of us, myself included, find the Apple form, integration, OS, and overall quality of product to be worth the slightly higher price for comparable specs and less performance.
 
Re: So...

Originally posted by neonart
The fact is that the VAST majority of users have no need for the performance that is sold to them, but would love to have the pleasures of using a Mac and it's OS.
Now if you need the absolute fastest, greatest thing for the least amount of money- then get it.

Most of us don't need cars that can do 120mph, so why does every car have that ability? While we might not need gigahertz machines to surf the web, read mail, use office, listen to mp3s, watch dvds, etc. It's not always our choice. It's the software manufacturers' fault. We are literally forced into hardware upgrades in order to run the newer bloated software (mostly filled with features we'll never use) releases simply because the vendors decided that they don't want to support backward compatibility, etc. Ever try opening an Office Word XP document in Word 97? Actually the decision to not provide backwards compat, is just a money grab.

I would challenge that more than 80% of office app users would be just as well served with the previous version of whatever is current. And yet, we blindly upgrade simply because MSFT tells us to. So, while we don't really need all those cpu cycles, if we want vendor support and compatibility with the rest of the world...we have to upgrade and thus need more powerful hardware.

PLEASE re-read your 2nd point.

*ponder*

Who DOESN'T want the fastest, greatest thing for the least amount of money? That's rediculous to even fathom that someone would prefer an inferior product that costed more.
 
Dells vs Apples

I like the fact that you purchased a Dell and are happy using it and XP. That leaves the intelligent, informed minority to purchase Apples and OS X.
See any Dell "rumour sites" lately? Besides the Dell manufacturers site, just how many Dell sites (or HP, Sony, etc...) sites are there? What does that tell you? Price a 3 year old Dell- what's it worth? What does that tell you? The fact that you keep loitering on this site talkin' about your Dell- what does that tell you!
 
Re: Dells vs Apples

Originally posted by idoru1135
I like the fact that you purchased a Dell and are happy using it and XP. That leaves the intelligent, informed minority to purchase Apples and OS X.
See any Dell "rumour sites" lately? Besides the Dell manufacturers site, just how many Dell sites (or HP, Sony, etc...) sites are there? What does that tell you? Price a 3 year old Dell- what's it worth? What does that tell you? The fact that you keep loitering on this site talkin' about your Dell- what does that tell you!
That I'm frustrated? That I buy Macs (two 12" powerbooks, first for my fiancee, second more recently for my future in-laws) but can't justify the expense for my business, where "sexy" just doens't cut it? That I refuse to buy into the hype that professionals (ie: the pro users, ie: the official target market for the powerbook) don't need all that speed? That I'm interested in staying informed about rumors and I'd really like to buy a powerbook, if and when gets its act together?

That I'm honest about the kind of computer that I use, and that Macs aren't currently king of the hill (or any hill) when it comes to laptops?

That I can't stand it when people aren't willing to see the truth and have to make up lies/FUD to defend themselves?

Why, does it tell you something else?

-Richard
 
Sorry to beat the automotive analogy to death but it keeps coming up in my head...

Dell Laptop = TransAm
Apple PB = 5 series BMW

Yea, the TransAm is faster, but I'd pick the BMW any day... I hope I do not have to explain why...
 
Re: Re: Dells vs Apples

Originally posted by rjstanford
That I'm honest about the kind of computer that I use, and that Macs aren't currently king of the hill (or any hill) when it comes to laptops?

That I can't stand it when people aren't willing to see the truth and have to make up lies/FUD to defend themselves?

Why, does it tell you something else?

It tells me that you're getting a little worked up about this whole thing 🙂
 
Re: Re: So...

Originally posted by zeebee
Most of us don't need cars that can do 120mph, so why does every car have that ability?...

Who DOESN'T want the fastest, greatest thing for the least amount of money? That's rediculous to even fathom that someone would prefer an inferior product that costed more.

I never said inferior. Where I made a mistake was not putting quotes on the terms "fastest, greatest, thing for the least amount". No one can state that an Apple product is inferior.

The car thing goes this way: You can do 120MPH in an Audi with 180HP or in a WRX with 227HP. It depends on your preference.
 
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