Apple in 2004 and Partnerships?

[trilogic]

I want 2004 to be the Year of the new Cinema Display

 

[chriscorcoran]

The Phones and PDA markets should be dropped like a stone, there is no money there and they would add nothing to Apple's profile. For Jobs to go on record saying that phones and PDAs are not where it's at, but secretly harbouring desires and ambitions contrary to those remarks, would make him look like a bit of a lemon.

I love what Apple does, but presence in every technology product line would turn the company into a very ordinary and unprofitable business

No Money in Phones or PDAs? Are you sure? What are you smoking? Compaines like Motorola, Nokia, Kyocera and LG all seem to be doing pretty good in mobile phones. Heck they even made there own little bussiness around it. And no money in PDAs? I dont know if you have head of this little company called Palm? They make a nice little living on making PDAs. I checked they took in about 271 million in Revenue last quater. Oh not to metion companies like Hp? Hp...hmmm that name sounds fimilar? Oh yeah dont for get about Sony, Dell, Toshiba and Sharp.

Its not there there is no money in phones and pdas its that Jobs doesnt like the way the industry is set up right now. Right now there are cell phone makers and there are pda makers. Jobs vision is not opposed to entering the mobile device market its that he is waiting for the two devices to converge into a smartphone or blackberry devices. And even when this hybrid roll over is complete he will still wait for the market to be ripe for the picking. And even then he will wait untill his smartphone is perfect. Then and only then will he release a smartphone that will bitch slap micrsoft and dell. Much like he did with the iPod. He will wait until no one is watching that attack like a panther.
(pun intended)

Now on the point of it not fitting into Apples portfolio. Now I see it fitting quite nicely. Apple is applying its digital hub stragety in which apple is the hib of you digital life. The Powerbook being the mobile leg of that approach. Now just in the partical sence there are placed were the powerbook just dont work. So a smartphone device would exten the hub even father into ones life.

OK to sum up....
1) There is money in PDAs and Cell Phones.
2) Jobs didnt say he was opposed to PDA and Cell phones he was just for
Smartphones.
3) The Smartphone is just not ready in Jobs eyes.
4) Apple will have to release some sort of device for there digital hub
stragety to continue to grow.
5) A PDA or Smartphone runing some form of MacOS X would kick ass!

-Chris

 

[vollspacken]

Would that be a laptop with a CRT? Mac SX64!

wow, someone remembers the portable Commodore C=64 prototype...

way cool!!!

vSpacken

 

[windowsblowsass]

i dont know if people know this but remember how iphone.com used to mirror apple .com well now it doesnt. seems strange if the release of a phone happened
edit oops its iphone.org and its still an apple mirror

 

[windowsblowsass]

they can become the Gateway of trinkety sh** but they better not REPLACE development and constant upgrades !

hey dont diss trinkits we bought entire states from indians for teinkets maybe we can buy market share from microsoft with them

 

[Dave the Great]

I want 2004 to be the Year of the new Cinema Display

Oh, yeah!!

What ever happened to the updates on the LCD?

I remember reading a couple of rumours on them a long time ago.

Will they ever be updated?

Or does anyone know what the hold up is?

 

[Dave the Great]

wow, someone remembers the portable Commodore C=64 prototype...

way cool!!!

vSpacken

Is that true?

Did Commodore have a portable computer?

Who had the first portable computer?

 

[vollspacken]

Is that true?

Did Commodore have a portable computer?

Who had the first portable computer?

here's a pic:

and here are two links:
one
two


vSpacken

 

[eSnow]

And computers use the same electricity and TCP/IP protocols. Programs are more like parts and accessories whcih are also proprietary and not available to all vehicles. The car analogy, although imperfect as all analogies are, is a good one.

The car analogy stinks
Well at least in the way you propose it here.

Maybe you are late in the game, but if you did own a Mac in the early 90s, it was a radically different beast:
- It did not use TCP/IP (you could install a TCP stack, though), but Apple had invented their own networking protocols - much more user friendly in a LAN than TCP/IP, I might add.

- It did use only proprietary connectors (monitor plug, ADB, NuBus, PDS) or high-end stuff (SCSI)

- The OS underpinnings were different from both the Windows and Unix world

- it was a truely different system.

Now we have:
- all networking based on TCP. Apple-specific solutions all culled and reinvented on a TCP base (Rendezvous)

- Cheap standard components with a platform-specific dongle (CPU). Gone are the days of crazy powerhouses like the IIfx and Quadra 840.

- They tapped the BSD world for their OS

While I don't deny this is mostly good news for Mac-users working in a colaboratory environment, it clearly shows how much of their R&D they have stopped over time.

And yet, the software issue is not really solved. Programs are nothing like accessories - I know more people buying Computers for the software they run than the hardware they run on. Just look around here: OS X is the #1 reason to buy a mac. For developers, things are different. You don't support a platform because you like its style, you do so because you like the business case you can make supporting it.
A lot of shareware applications are indeed like auto parts in the sense that every platform has a similar application targeted at a certain task. They are somewhat interchangeable. This is not, however, true for the big-boy apps like Word, Excel, Photoshop.

I have seen two technically superior platforms (Atari, Commodore Amiga) sink to their graves both because of management incompetence and neglect by thirdparty developers. Linux, the free juggernaut does not really catch on outside of geek circles not least because people don't regard it a serious OS as it cannot run business apps.

If you need car analogies to feel good, think about alternative designs that are constantly not catching on because of network effects:
Pressurized gas can drive a car and it is much more eco-friendly and could be cheaper. Almost no-one uses it because you have a hard time refilling outside of all but the larges cities. Biodiesel (harvested and processed from oil-generating plants) is not catching on because it requires a modification to the motor. Car companies could easily modify the motors from the start, but they don't because so few people would have the chance to use biodiesel.
To compare different brands on the fuel-gas platform (BMW, Porsche) is like comparing Dell and HP.

 

[spinko]

Apple, with their 'lunatic fringe' who'll pre-order hundreds of thousands of anything they put on the market, has the oomph to be a big player in this emerging market.

Exactly, and that may just get the snowball rolling..

PS.: why not put a subversion of OSX into a phone ?

 

[whooleytoo]

dont make fun of the apple lunitics many here are members of that so called lunatic fringe

"Here's to the crazy ones. The people who buy v1.0 of software. The people who fork out hundreds of dollars for a product that isn't even out yet..

Bling Different.."

 

[allpar]

Biodiesel doesn't require any modifications to the engine - if you have a diesel engine to begin with. That's according to long-term tests.

http://www.allpar.com/ed/biodiesel.html

More to the point, I agree with what you say. Ask me why I have a PC. Well, is there ANY survey software for the Mac? NO. Now let's look at the PC. we have EZsurvey (OK, so I never got it to work), Perseus SurveySolutions (I use it), Snap! (probably the best but I can't afford it and it's hard to use), and a dozen more.

My old company and now my client requires me to use an Access database. I could probably manage that in SoftPC but not the Perseus - far, far too slow in emulation. (Not a speed demon without it, either). The Access database actually gets to be too slow, too. So I need a real PC.

Let's go to the Internet. This bank, that bank, the other bank don't allow Macs. hmmm. Chrysler TechConnect doesn't allow Macs. Lotus Notes doesn't allow Macs. Well, that means my mechanic had to buy a PC - and if I want to read my corporate e-mail, i do too.

THAT is where the car analogy fails. Nobody cares if I drive a Peugeot 504 (I do not), even though hardly anyone supports it or makes parts for it any more. If I can keep it running, I can use it on any road. If I have a Mac (I do), well, my options suddenly become limited. I can't even use the military's electronic voting system!

THAT is why we need more market share - and that means $700 Macs.

And yes, I would gladly give up my cute shiny case for a beige box if it meant $100 off the price. I frankly don't like the G4 case much. Damage a ribbon cable and you're looking at hours of repairs. You have to take off the end of the optical drives to make 'em fit, you can't use the manual eject buttons, you can't shove a third drive into the front (e.g. for up-front USB ports), etc., etc. Yes, it's pretty. Guess what - that's not what I need. I need function, not form. (I might make an exception for the Cube.)

iMac or eMac? No thanks, I keep my monitor for a LONG time. My Sony monitor that I got in 1994 is still in use. My ViewSonic (that I am using now) should last me far past this computer - and I bought it two or three years ago when I had a beige G3 (that replaced my Quadra 605, which, incidentally, was probably the best of the pizza-box machines).

 

[Dave the Great]

here's a pic:

and here are two links:
one
two


vSpacken

That is so cool!

Thanks for the links!!

Did you actually own one?

 

[wdlove]

here's a pic:

and here are two links:
one
two


vSpacken

That is very interesting vollspacken. I remember those Commodore computers. Using those portables would certainly give you some exercise.

 

[vollspacken]

Did you actually own one?

That is very interesting vollspacken. I remember those Commodore computers. Using those portables would certainly give you some exercise.

I had two C=64 but not a portable one - they were too damn expensive, and how would anyone play Last Ninja or Winter Games on that tiny screen..?

I really like the 80s style industrial design of that machine... that and the features make it a very attractive computer

vSpacken

 

[Scottgfx]

You almost had me

I have seen two technically superior platforms (Atari, Commodore Amiga) sink to their graves both because of management incompetence and neglect by thirdparty developers.

Here's the OS war all over again... The Atari was built from off-the-shelf parts and it's OS came from Digital Research. The ST's OS was CP/M 68K with the GEM windowing interface. Nothing about it was superior.