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Apple Maintains Third Place Ranking with 11.6% of U.S. PC Shipments in 4Q 2011
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Its always a sign that a Mac-related discussion is heading for irrelevance and/or inanity when you see Xerox Parc mentioned.
At some point people just need to let it go. Nobody cares any more. 99% of the time the point you are trying to make is completely different from the facts of that case.
If you think it makes you look smart or informed about the history of computers, it doesn't.
From now on, as far as I'm concerned anyone mentioning Xerox Parc automatically loses whatever argument (either pro- or anti- Apple) they are trying to make. We'll all be a lot better for it.
ps: This goes double for people quoting Steve Jobs "Great Artists Steal" line. Those people deserve to be ground into terrine and smeared over a Damien Hirst installation, just so they'll finally learn something about what the words "artist" and "steal" actually mean.
At some point people just need to let it go. Nobody cares any more. 99% of the time the point you are trying to make is completely different from the facts of that case.
If you think it makes you look smart or informed about the history of computers, it doesn't.
From now on, as far as I'm concerned anyone mentioning Xerox Parc automatically loses whatever argument (either pro- or anti- Apple) they are trying to make. We'll all be a lot better for it.
ps: This goes double for people quoting Steve Jobs "Great Artists Steal" line. Those people deserve to be ground into terrine and smeared over a Damien Hirst installation, just so they'll finally learn something about what the words "artist" and "steal" actually mean.
You have things reversed Jobs didn't care much for the Lisa..he wasn't head of the Lisa team..he was head of the mac team..
PARC is an abreviation d stands for Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in caps not Parc..
Actually, you got it wrong. He was in Project Lisa, but was kicked out, then he went on to project Macintosh.
Actually Steve wouldn't let it go to project Lisa since it was his "discovery"
He was in project Lisa like Woz was in name only...cripes..please read history beyond his bio...Jobs thought Lisa was a failure...
Why would he name the computer after his first daughter if he thought it was a failure then?
Why would he name the computer after his first daughter if he thought it was a failure then?
Again read more history than the bio..jeeez read Wiki even..he never cared because it was a: competition to the Mac, and didn't provide the UI he was interested in along with the price...
You also have to remember or read that he didn't accept responsibility for his first daughter until long after
I never read his biography. Only read the wiki. The Mac came out one year later after Lisa came out. The Lisa 2 is probably the one that you were talking about, since it came out the same year the Macintosh came out.
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He didn't accept responsibility because he thought he was infertile. But, that was for 2 years.
I completely agree with you. It's just that some of these people will find the most asinine little detail to nitpick just so they can strengthen their "X copied Apple" arguments, that sometimes you have no other choice but to go that far back to prove your point. Like "no laptops had black keyboards before the unibody Mac Pro showed up. I wish these people would just innovate for once". It's stupid. It's dumb. It's people being WRONG on the internet! Or hell, like BernardSG basically saying that the Air was the first super thin laptop. Someone shows him the Vaio from 2004, and his only response is "LOL WHATEVER! The Air was the first super thin laptop". Or even better, that one guy who claimed that the reason why companies buy up other companies is because they're not as creative as Apple, and can't come up with cool stuff on their own. Nevermind the fact that Apple bought the company responsible for all their touchscreen tech, and other cool features we all love on our iPhones. It's a neverending parade of double standards, lame excuses, and circular logic.
If I were to really go out on a stretch, I'd almost say that they're not really Apple fans, they're Steve Job fans. Like the company has been built around this weird cult of personality. The fact that Apple releases great products is justification of their adoration. Because Steve Jobs made it so, and Steve Jobs dont' release no crap.
Oh man. Steve would so totally laugh at me and roll his eyes if he ever heard me suggest something like that. BLAARRRGGG.
Actually, the best brands in terms of the PC market would be a toss up between Dell, IBM and Asus (and by IBM, I mean an actual IBM branded laptop, not a POS Lenovo). In every experience I've had with them, HP/Compaq and Toshiba laptops have been demonstrably crap.
If I were in the market for a laptop other than a MacBook Pro, I'd personally either go for a Dell, Asus or MSI laptop.
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PC makers are pushing ultrabooks because intel is pushing them
I have one, and it really like it. Cords are hidden (you don't see them) so it doesn't look ugly with all these cables coming out of the side. Personally, the worst place to put ports is close to the user on the sides because you have all these cords everywhere where you would normally put your mouse (such as lower right hand side where mouse is). The ports are SPACED properly too.
Don't be taking it personal. You likely haven't read the long thread relating to whether a grammar error was MacRumor's or the source they were quoting because there was no indication in the text.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, nor your lack of punctuation. I was just indicating that I was quoting you directly.
That said, breathe deeply.... now, again....
That's beating a straw man. The argument isn't finding little detail but looking at the overall trend and style of the market and the products in it. Of course, Apple wasn't first to a thin laptop, a chicklet keyboard, a large trackpad(or were they?), a teardrop shape, minimalistic metal-based design, etc. But why are there suddenly so many competing products that combine all of that just like Apple did?
The fact is that there wasn't many, if any, product that ripped off the Vaio from 2004 in terms of design and many of the Ultrabooks and recent laptops (Hello HP Envy and Samsungs) do not look much like the Vaios from 2004 but they definitely do have a lot of styling cues of competing Apple products. It's ridiculous to claim Apple invented much, if any, of it, but it's also ridiculous to assert others are not copying, or at least "paying homage" to Apple and mimicking Apple's products.
I never said they didn't. Companies copy each other all the time. It's the way of the world. Hell, I'll be the first to admit that the current trend in consumer electronics has very much been inspired by Apple. We wouldn't be riding this wave of awesome Tablets if it weren't for the iPad. Smartphones wouldn't be nearly as slick if the iPhone didn't force other companies to try harder. And yes, the Asus Zenbook does look quite a bit like the Air.
What I take issue with are people who claim that only Apple innovates, while other companies are only capable of copying. People who applaud Apple's overly jealous and, frankly, rather petty IP attacks over technology that has so much prior art it's not even funny. It's plain and simple ignorance and stupidity, and I'm amazed at the lengths otherwise intelligent sounding people will go through to justify their stance.
I vowed not to come back to this thread but as I'm being cited with some blatant distortion of what my point was...
1. As far as I remember, I have NEVER wrote anything like "the Air was the first super thin laptop". If you have evidence to the contrary, please go ahead and link.
2. My question asking who used such a design before (Tapered bottom) was a genuine one. And indeed, the VAIO had it.
3. However, the point being hotly debated here is whether some PC-makers are downright imitating the MBA, for example:
as compared to:
and the latter as compared to:
My view is that there's a case of "inspiration" (or "influence") and cases of "imitation" (not to say "copying" that has legal connotation in such context).
I leave it to each person to objectively decide which is which.
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I wouldnt be seen dead using a notebook that didnt run on Intel or even x86 technology.
Exactly how do you expect them to make a laptop that thin anyway else. Its simply physics that dictates that design.
Lookup Raymond Loewy, in his time as famous or more famous than Jony Ives. He was asked for help in a court case where a design was copied and the company doing the copying used exactly this as defense. He appeared one week later in court with _three_ completely different designs that all worked just fine
So ask yourself: If Jony Ives suddenly didn't like his design anymore, do you think he would say "I don't like it anymore but we're stuck with it; it's simply physics that dictates the design", or would he say "I don't like it anymore, so I'll make a different design"?
Lookup Raymond Loewy, in his time as famous or more famous than Jony Ives. He was asked for help in a court case where a design was copied and the company doing the copying used exactly this as defense. He appeared one week later in court with _three_ completely different designs that all worked just fine
So ask yourself: If Jony Ives suddenly didn't like his design anymore, do you think he would say "I don't like it anymore but we're stuck with it; it's simply physics that dictates the design", or would he say "I don't like it anymore, so I'll make a different design"?
I've seen you post this before without much more info, what company? Could be an interesting read.
This thread:
So what if everyone is copying one another? All I care is that I get my new iPhone and MacBook Pro upgrade every year. Does HP or Acer ripping off Apple or vice versa make your device less usable or cool?
So what if everyone is copying one another? All I care is that I get my new iPhone and MacBook Pro upgrade every year. Does HP or Acer ripping off Apple or vice versa make your device less usable or cool?
I don't get it. You buy a new iPhone and MBP every year? I thought Apple products were built like tanks and were meant to be owned for 4-5 years at least.