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Apple's Retail Strategy
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Move Gateway Users To Apple
Here's a plan that I am going to use at my local, soon to be closed Gateway store:
1) Create a sign with the following text:
"For world-class quality personal computers, visit your local Apple Computer store at: [Insert address of the nearest Apple store]"
2) Print three or four copies
3) Go to your local Gateway store and tape the signs to the front windows and doors!
For the really ambitious or those with a lot of free time, stand at the front of the Gateway store and hand these to people that come up to the store and wonder why it is closed!
Here's a plan that I am going to use at my local, soon to be closed Gateway store:
1) Create a sign with the following text:
"For world-class quality personal computers, visit your local Apple Computer store at: [Insert address of the nearest Apple store]"
2) Print three or four copies
3) Go to your local Gateway store and tape the signs to the front windows and doors!
For the really ambitious or those with a lot of free time, stand at the front of the Gateway store and hand these to people that come up to the store and wonder why it is closed!
Some_Big_Spoon said:
I notice you casually ignored the photo from Ginza...
Visit the photo galleries at www.ifoapplestore.com and you'll see an eMac at every store he's been to in his photo galleries. The eMac clearly isn't your desired computer, and, as such, haven't noticed them in the stores you've been to.
Apple Advertising
At any rate, Apple's advertising is not horrible. In fact, their iPod advertising is incredible for the product. Look at the hype surrounding the iPod, the ridiculous number of iPods Apple sells, and the VAST demand for non-existant iPod minis. It works for the iPod because they're selling an image, a lifestyle; it's how brands like Nike work.
You may say that people ask "is Apple still around?" or things like that, but the Apple brand is one of the most recognized in the world. It's not that most people have never heard of Apple, they just have a preconceived notion of the company. Apple's re-establishing themselves as a stylish, hip company right now, and I think that's a great thing for the long-term prospects.
Apple Quality Remains Strong
Yes! Apple products are expensive. And unfortunately the US culture dictates that we live in a disposable society where it's better to buy cheap, crappier products that will likely fail on us, rather than to buy a product that costs more but will keep on ticking. I still have every Mac I've bought since the 80s, and all of them still work. One had a monitor turn yellow, but the computer is fine. They're slow, yes, so I don't use the old ones much, but they're a testament to the quality. And when you look at every little tiny detail on a mac -- the placement of a screw (or lack thereof!), the center-alignment of ports on your iBook, they all add cost to the product, but also value. It's one of those things where even 5 years later you can look and see the time that was put into the design of each product.
Apple on Pricing
Apple doesn't sell a $500 computer because they're not willing to compromise on quality in order to get a computer at that price. If you went out and bought a $500 Mac that was nothing but problems, had a loud fan, was made from cheap plastic, made weird noises, had a tendency to kind of fall apart, crashed a decent amount... your impression of Apple would be low, and it could be the last Apple product you ever bought. See why Apple wouldn't do that? They've managed to get a 17" CRT eMac with 1Ghz G4 down to $799 without sacrificing much as far as quality, and I think that's darn impressive.
Think about it: why do you feel so passionately about your Macs? Because of the way Apple makes all of its products. And if Apple made cheap computers, they wouldn't be the Apple that you like.
I don't know. It just seems like common sense to me. I know how much you guys want Apple to do everything for you or your specific situation, but it seems to me that Apple more than meets my needs, and I love my Macs. I'll do my part to keep that enthusiasm and spread it to others.
Price....ah then explain this.....
I agree. SOME Macs are priced higher then the equivalent model of PC. But back in January when I purchased my 12 inch Powerbook, here's what I was looking for (and f the PC had what I wanted, I would have bought it instead):
SMALL form factor
a DVD-R drive
40 GB or better HD
Firewire
GOOD video editing software
UNIX Command line
Those were the basics. The 12 inch Powerbook, even before my discount as a Employee of a School was much less then the equivalent PC laptop with Firewire and a DVD burner. Mine was 1899 (1799 after my discount) and it came with the iApps that make the Mac so great. I did not need Adobe Primere to make movies of my son. iMovie and iDVD do just fine there. The cheap video/dvd creation software on the PC just sucks. It's terrible and I have never gotten it to work.
The command line thing wasn't a deal breaker, but I am SOOOO glad I have it. I can test some scripting for work on it and I can also load Fink and Darwinports. For graphics, there's the Gimp. Oh sure, the Gimp does not bury Photoshop, but it does a good enough job for me.
All in all, Apple's marketshare doesn't mean diddly so long as they keep making a profit. This is why the Apple store works. Now all they need for me to linger (and spend money) there is a good espresso machine!
I agree. SOME Macs are priced higher then the equivalent model of PC. But back in January when I purchased my 12 inch Powerbook, here's what I was looking for (and f the PC had what I wanted, I would have bought it instead):
SMALL form factor
a DVD-R drive
40 GB or better HD
Firewire
GOOD video editing software
UNIX Command line
Those were the basics. The 12 inch Powerbook, even before my discount as a Employee of a School was much less then the equivalent PC laptop with Firewire and a DVD burner. Mine was 1899 (1799 after my discount) and it came with the iApps that make the Mac so great. I did not need Adobe Primere to make movies of my son. iMovie and iDVD do just fine there. The cheap video/dvd creation software on the PC just sucks. It's terrible and I have never gotten it to work.
The command line thing wasn't a deal breaker, but I am SOOOO glad I have it. I can test some scripting for work on it and I can also load Fink and Darwinports. For graphics, there's the Gimp. Oh sure, the Gimp does not bury Photoshop, but it does a good enough job for me.
All in all, Apple's marketshare doesn't mean diddly so long as they keep making a profit. This is why the Apple store works. Now all they need for me to linger (and spend money) there is a good espresso machine!
Crisis of Faith
I am having a crisis of faith of sorts. I switched to Mac when the OS X Public Beta came out. I loved the promise behind it. I love the Apple OS, but I am thinking that I might switch back now. I play with XP every time I am in a CompUSA or Best Buy. Been reading the forums at XvsXp.com more too. My view is changing to an OS is an OS. Does it have the software I need to get done what I want? Is it reliable? Firefox and Thunderbird are impressive and help me avoid IE and OE (they also help me avoid Safari and Mail). Winamp is awesome and if you don't like it then there is always iTunes for Windows. Don't know about Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, but it looks like it could give iPhoto a run for it's money (iPhoto 04's bluriness is still a sore point with me).
Anyone here ever switch back? Or flip-flopped back-and-forth? Just curious.
=pa= said:
I am having a crisis of faith of sorts. I switched to Mac when the OS X Public Beta came out. I loved the promise behind it. I love the Apple OS, but I am thinking that I might switch back now. I play with XP every time I am in a CompUSA or Best Buy. Been reading the forums at XvsXp.com more too. My view is changing to an OS is an OS. Does it have the software I need to get done what I want? Is it reliable? Firefox and Thunderbird are impressive and help me avoid IE and OE (they also help me avoid Safari and Mail). Winamp is awesome and if you don't like it then there is always iTunes for Windows. Don't know about Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, but it looks like it could give iPhoto a run for it's money (iPhoto 04's bluriness is still a sore point with me).
Anyone here ever switch back? Or flip-flopped back-and-forth? Just curious.
Outdated Hardware?
Anybody who thinks the G5 is outdated hardware needs to be smacked.
G5 FSB = 1Ghz per processor (double pumped)
Intel FSB = 800Mhz (probably quad-pumped as well)
AMD FSB = I believe they use Hypertransport, since the memory controller is built into their new chips.
G5 = 64bit with 32bit compatibility
Intel = Go buy an Itanium for major $$$
AMD = 64bit with 32bit compatibility. Every new Wintel bought should have a AMD chip in it.
G5 Interconnects = Hypertransport
Intel Interconnects = some proprietary bull****
AMD Interconnects = Hypertransport
All of them use DDR PC-3200 dual channel 400Mhz memory.
It looks to me like Apple is right in line with the technology AND embracing open standards as well.
All I can end with is yes, I shelled out $3000 for a Dual 2ghz G5 and yes, it is faster than ****. It even holds its own against a dual 2.4 Ghz Xeon. And the simple fact is that if I had the money back, I'd still buy the G5. It is one kick ass machine, and nothing you say can change that. Some of you wintel freaks should actually take the time to look at the specs, instead of just dissing it because it has an Apple logo on the side.
I've done the comparison and buying a dual Xeon from Dell would have actually cost me more money, and certainly more headaches.
-mark
Anybody who thinks the G5 is outdated hardware needs to be smacked.
G5 FSB = 1Ghz per processor (double pumped)
Intel FSB = 800Mhz (probably quad-pumped as well)
AMD FSB = I believe they use Hypertransport, since the memory controller is built into their new chips.
G5 = 64bit with 32bit compatibility
Intel = Go buy an Itanium for major $$$
AMD = 64bit with 32bit compatibility. Every new Wintel bought should have a AMD chip in it.
G5 Interconnects = Hypertransport
Intel Interconnects = some proprietary bull****
AMD Interconnects = Hypertransport
All of them use DDR PC-3200 dual channel 400Mhz memory.
It looks to me like Apple is right in line with the technology AND embracing open standards as well.
All I can end with is yes, I shelled out $3000 for a Dual 2ghz G5 and yes, it is faster than ****. It even holds its own against a dual 2.4 Ghz Xeon. And the simple fact is that if I had the money back, I'd still buy the G5. It is one kick ass machine, and nothing you say can change that. Some of you wintel freaks should actually take the time to look at the specs, instead of just dissing it because it has an Apple logo on the side.
I've done the comparison and buying a dual Xeon from Dell would have actually cost me more money, and certainly more headaches.
-mark
Nny said:
Have both. There is no reason to be mutually exclusive. And then you can't gain the fundamental insight that so many miss: all OS's suck in their own special way.
Cheers,
Prat
why would anyone care about HyperTransport?
AMD: 1 to 1 ( up to 2.2 GHz) (Opteron/Athlon64 only)
AMD has the FSB inside the chip, running at the clock frequency.
HyperTransport (HT) is an I/O connector bus, not the memory bus (just like Apple). HT is also used as the MP glue bus in the Opteron (unlike Apple).
No, it's:
Intel = 64-bit with 32-bit at full performance (Prescott/Nocoma)
Intel = Higher performance 64-bit with 32-bit at lower performance (Itanium).
And:
Apple = 32-bit O/S, no 64-bit addressing
Intel = 64-bit Windows (Itanium), 64-bit Windows Public Preview (Prescott/Nocoma), 64-bit Linux
AMD = 64-bit Windows Public Preview, 64-bit Linux
So, if you actually want to use your 64-bit chip, you'd better go with an Intel or compatible!
G5 I/O support - PCI-X
Intel I/O support - PCI-X (and soon PCI Express)
AMD I/O support - PCI-X
HT is the bridge between the chips on the mobo. You can't buy an "HT Card".
It's really not relevant (other than for willy-waving) what technology is used between the chips on the motherboard - what's more important is the feature set, the price, and the set of user accessible I/O ports.
HT is good, in that it can offer high performance at a lower price point than some other technologies - but one would be a fool to choose a system based on the presence of HT rather than the feature set, price and ports.
That's nice, but the current top Xeon is 3.2 GHz with a 2 MB L2 cache. And what about those HT-equiped Opterons?
avkills said:
AMD: 1 to 1 ( up to 2.2 GHz) (Opteron/Athlon64 only)
AMD has the FSB inside the chip, running at the clock frequency.
HyperTransport (HT) is an I/O connector bus, not the memory bus (just like Apple). HT is also used as the MP glue bus in the Opteron (unlike Apple).
avkills said:
No, it's:
Intel = 64-bit with 32-bit at full performance (Prescott/Nocoma)
Intel = Higher performance 64-bit with 32-bit at lower performance (Itanium).
And:
Apple = 32-bit O/S, no 64-bit addressing
Intel = 64-bit Windows (Itanium), 64-bit Windows Public Preview (Prescott/Nocoma), 64-bit Linux
AMD = 64-bit Windows Public Preview, 64-bit Linux
So, if you actually want to use your 64-bit chip, you'd better go with an Intel or compatible!
avkills said:
G5 I/O support - PCI-X
Intel I/O support - PCI-X (and soon PCI Express)
AMD I/O support - PCI-X
HT is the bridge between the chips on the mobo. You can't buy an "HT Card".
It's really not relevant (other than for willy-waving) what technology is used between the chips on the motherboard - what's more important is the feature set, the price, and the set of user accessible I/O ports.
HT is good, in that it can offer high performance at a lower price point than some other technologies - but one would be a fool to choose a system based on the presence of HT rather than the feature set, price and ports.
avkills said:
That's nice, but the current top Xeon is 3.2 GHz with a 2 MB L2 cache. And what about those HT-equiped Opterons?
AidenShaw said:
Bull -- you're talking about a public preview of an OS that won't ship until '07. They might add 64-bit support earlier than longhorn, but don't think for a second Apple has no plans to add 64-bit...
AidenShaw said:
What about the 1GHz front-side bus of the G5? The G5 has a lot of power, and it only stands to get much stronger. The point is basically this: with the G4 you could argue, and mac folks would, that the G4 still could keep its own, but that was definitely in question.
With the G5, that question is gone. We can only argue tiny differences in architecture / speed, but the fact is, the G5 can definitely hold its own against AMD, and most certainly against Intel. Now we argue which is the *fastest*.
dcranston said:
Sorry, but you're the one speaking bull. 64-bit Windows is already here!
The release version of Windows XP 64-bit has been shipping for over a year for IA64 processors. (Windows Server 64-bit is also shipping.) The IA32e preview (for 32/64 bit chips) is the currently shipping Windows XP 64-bit recompiled for the extended IA32 instruction set.
It is scheduled to go to final release this summer (NH). For more info, and to download the Windows 64-bit preview, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/downloads/upgrade.asp . Don't confuse this with the Longhorn preview.
Other Windows 64-bit links:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/techinfo/planning/techoverview/default.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/default.mspx
dcranston said:
Maybe it's time for Apple to disclose those plans to its developers, I'll be watching for announcements from WWDC.
dcranston said:
What about the fact that the 1 GHz bus is 32-bits wide for reading memory, and is connected to the same 400 MHz dual channel DIMMs that the P4 800MHz bus is connected to? Doesn't seem to be much of a real advantage, now does it?
What about the 2 MiB on-chip cache on the Xeons and P4EE, compared to the 0.5 MiB cache on the PPC970?
But you're right, the systems are more-or-less in the same ballpark. Though it's far from being a "Pentium killer", the PPC970 has put Apple back in the game.
Hardware
Yes the FSB is 32bit on the PowerPC 970 but it is bi-directional. It can read and write both directions at the same time if I am not mistaken. Apple uses what it calls something gay like Apple Processor Interconnect, which is probably some form of HyperTransport. ? Needless to say, each processor can read and write from memory independently full speed, which in my opinion, kicks ass.
Is Intel's FSB still quad-pumped like the early 533 FSB? Does a dual Xeon system have a dedicated FSB for each processor like the G5? I tried finding out on Intel's site, but did not find anything.
From a technical standpoint, I personally feel the G5 is ahead of what Intel has from a pure "whole picture" point of view. AMD, on the other hand, I feel is the clear leader as far as CPUs are concerned. It is unfortunate that more people do not support AMDs efforts. If I ever need to buy a Wintel box, there is a 99% chance it will have a AMD chip inside.
As far as Level 2 and 3 cache is concerned, is that not what Apple was doing with the G4 to make it compete. I really do not think level 3 cache is needed for the PowerPC 970 because the memory subsystem is already fast enough.
Interconnects are not the same as I/O! What I meant is the bus bridging the I/O ports to the System controller is HyperTransport.
Off Apple's site:
The HyperTransport protocol integrates the Power Mac G5s I/O subsystems and connects them to the system controller. Serial ATA, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB 2.0 and optical digital and analog audio are all integrated through two bidirectional 16-bit, 800MHz HyperTransport interconnects for a maximum throughput of 3.2GB per second.
-mark
Yes the FSB is 32bit on the PowerPC 970 but it is bi-directional. It can read and write both directions at the same time if I am not mistaken. Apple uses what it calls something gay like Apple Processor Interconnect, which is probably some form of HyperTransport. ? Needless to say, each processor can read and write from memory independently full speed, which in my opinion, kicks ass.
Is Intel's FSB still quad-pumped like the early 533 FSB? Does a dual Xeon system have a dedicated FSB for each processor like the G5? I tried finding out on Intel's site, but did not find anything.
From a technical standpoint, I personally feel the G5 is ahead of what Intel has from a pure "whole picture" point of view. AMD, on the other hand, I feel is the clear leader as far as CPUs are concerned. It is unfortunate that more people do not support AMDs efforts. If I ever need to buy a Wintel box, there is a 99% chance it will have a AMD chip inside.
As far as Level 2 and 3 cache is concerned, is that not what Apple was doing with the G4 to make it compete.
I really do not think level 3 cache is needed for the PowerPC 970 because the memory subsystem is already fast enough.Interconnects are not the same as I/O! What I meant is the bus bridging the I/O ports to the System controller is HyperTransport.
Off Apple's site:
The HyperTransport protocol integrates the Power Mac G5s I/O subsystems and connects them to the system controller. Serial ATA, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB 2.0 and optical digital and analog audio are all integrated through two bidirectional 16-bit, 800MHz HyperTransport interconnects for a maximum throughput of 3.2GB per second.
-mark
SiliconAddict said:
it doesn't matter what you believe or think is "off." market research companies measure marketshare as a job. and marketshare is defined as the percentage of sale relative to the entire market for a given period. and numbers quoted are usually from recent periods, it's not "old system" number. i'd be inclined to believe a number from research companies than just your "gut" feeling.
according to the article cited in the original post of this thread, apple's marketshare is around 3% - meaning for every 100 computers sold, 3 of them are Macs. and as far as i can tell, the error bar on the marketshare is not as large as +/- 3% such that apple's actual marketshare could be 0.1% as you seem to think.
it might be hard for you to believe, but it's a very commonly accepted number. many people go nuts over apple's miniscule marketshare at 3% but when put into context, people don't even believe that number. if you are curious, gateway and emachines combined is 7%. this was also another number cited when gateway acquired emachines. (Reuters )
the static number you are talking about is installed base - how many Macs are there relative to all the computers being used. (not sold) installed base for Macs is generally higher than the marketshare - partially because Macs tend to last longer.
believe what you want, but these are about as factual as we can get.
edit: here's one thing we need to remember: when apple's marketshare declines, it does NOT mean people switched from using Macs to Windows.
HT is not relevant (but it's good)
Actually, there are two 32-bit busses, one for reading and one for writing. It can read and write simultaneously.
This is good if the read/write ratio is 50%. If the read/write ratio is far from that, the 64-bit 800MHz bus on the Pentium can dedicate the full bandwidth to the needs of the processor - the PPC970 will have one bus busy and the other less so.
Obviously IBM must have decided that lop-sided read/write ratios aren't common.
HT connects the system/memory controller to the I/O busses. Memory is not on HT. (Memory is not on HT on the Opteron, either.)
I couldn't find any references to the gay "Apple Processor Interconnect" on the Apple website....
Intel is quad-pumped, yes. The PPC970 is double-pumped.
Intel has a shared FSB, but remember that the real bottleneck is the 400MHz memory that both systems use. It doesn't matter as much how many lanes the two freeways have, because they both have the same two-lane exit ramps.
Would you rather have 512 KiB or 2048 KiB of cache in front of your 400MHz DIMMs ???
I understand, and I like HT. My point, however, is that as a practical matter it is not relevant.
What is relevant is the I/O ports. Do I care if the embedded GigE is on PCI-X or HT or directly on the north bridge? No, I care that it runs at a full Gigabit and that the system has plenty of bandwidth.
I care about having four 133 MHz PCI-X slots on four PCI-X busses - I don't care what glue logic is on the motherboard. I care if the 4 busses don't have enough bandwidth to run simultaneously, but if they have enough bandwidth I don't care if HT or smoke signals connect the busses to the northbridge.
So, HT is good, but it's invisible. Buy a system for its usable I/O capabilities, not because of the glue logic used to provide those capabilities.
avkills said:
Actually, there are two 32-bit busses, one for reading and one for writing. It can read and write simultaneously.
This is good if the read/write ratio is 50%. If the read/write ratio is far from that, the 64-bit 800MHz bus on the Pentium can dedicate the full bandwidth to the needs of the processor - the PPC970 will have one bus busy and the other less so.
Obviously IBM must have decided that lop-sided read/write ratios aren't common.
avkills said:
HT connects the system/memory controller to the I/O busses. Memory is not on HT. (Memory is not on HT on the Opteron, either.)
I couldn't find any references to the gay "Apple Processor Interconnect" on the Apple website....
avkills said:
Intel is quad-pumped, yes. The PPC970 is double-pumped.
Intel has a shared FSB, but remember that the real bottleneck is the 400MHz memory that both systems use. It doesn't matter as much how many lanes the two freeways have, because they both have the same two-lane exit ramps.
avkills said:
Would you rather have 512 KiB or 2048 KiB of cache in front of your 400MHz DIMMs ???
avkills said:
I understand, and I like HT. My point, however, is that as a practical matter it is not relevant.
What is relevant is the I/O ports. Do I care if the embedded GigE is on PCI-X or HT or directly on the north bridge? No, I care that it runs at a full Gigabit and that the system has plenty of bandwidth.
I care about having four 133 MHz PCI-X slots on four PCI-X busses - I don't care what glue logic is on the motherboard. I care if the 4 busses don't have enough bandwidth to run simultaneously, but if they have enough bandwidth I don't care if HT or smoke signals connect the busses to the northbridge.
So, HT is good, but it's invisible. Buy a system for its usable I/O capabilities, not because of the glue logic used to provide those capabilities.
Hardware
Thanks for the info on Intel's current 800Mhz Bus. Yes I see your point about using the full bandwidth for either reading or writing, but I seriously doubt that would be the case in the real world. I imagine the processor is getting data and feeding data back constantly, so I agree with IBMs design choice. Although I would have made them 64bit+ with error correction. Oh well, maybe the 980.
From eWeek:
Apple and IBM are also tailoring the chip for a new high-frequency, point-to-point Mac bus dubbed ApplePI, short for Apple Processor Interconnect. According to sources, the companies describe ApplePI as "a replacement for the MaxBus used on current Apple systems. ApplePI is used to connect high-performance PowerPC processors to memory and high-speed I/O devices."
I did some more checking and basically the ApplePI is the FSB, whatever. They still should have made it 64bit. Maybe they held back because OS X is only 32bit? Who knows. Hopefully the 980 will have a 64bit wide bus.
Regardless, the G5s are fast machines and quite nice.
-mark
Thanks for the info on Intel's current 800Mhz Bus. Yes I see your point about using the full bandwidth for either reading or writing, but I seriously doubt that would be the case in the real world. I imagine the processor is getting data and feeding data back constantly, so I agree with IBMs design choice. Although I would have made them 64bit+ with error correction.
Oh well, maybe the 980. From eWeek:
Apple and IBM are also tailoring the chip for a new high-frequency, point-to-point Mac bus dubbed ApplePI, short for Apple Processor Interconnect. According to sources, the companies describe ApplePI as "a replacement for the MaxBus used on current Apple systems. ApplePI is used to connect high-performance PowerPC processors to memory and high-speed I/O devices."
I did some more checking and basically the ApplePI is the FSB, whatever. They still should have made it 64bit. Maybe they held back because OS X is only 32bit? Who knows. Hopefully the 980 will have a 64bit wide bus.
Regardless, the G5s are fast machines and quite nice.
-mark
pre-G5 rumours?
That article (and the other ApplePI references I checked) talk about the "future" GPUL or 970. They were written before the G5 announcement....
Wonder if it's a reference to the FSB on the G5 ????
avkills said:
That article (and the other ApplePI references I checked) talk about the "future" GPUL or 970. They were written before the G5 announcement....
Wonder if it's a reference to the FSB on the G5 ????
I'm a recent Mac purchaser. I've always used Dell. I have to say that I'm impressed with the fact that all apps load in 1/20th of the time it took my P4 2.4GHz 512MB RAM Dell. The standard video is leaps and bounds better in the Mac than what came with my Dell. Even AOL loads and runs faster on my Mac. Logging into Windows XP would take upwards of 3 minutes while the system tray filled up. Putting a Windows machine to sleep is like playing Russian roulette with cheap heroin at bedtime. Will it wake to see the next day? My mac goes to sleep and wakes up right where I left it every single time. Everything in XP took so much longer than in OS-X. Application crashes - ie in particular were very common on my Dell. I've only ever had one app crash since I've had my Mac - AOL got hung up and it may not have even crashed. I may have just lost patience with it but the Force Quit option is quick, clean and painless. I also like the fact that uninstalling apps is as simple as dragging them to the trash can. Windows XP doesn't have anything nearly as cool as Expose'.
I could go on and on and on but I'm sure that's all been done already. The fact of the matter is I wanted a machine that just worked for me without all of the clunkiness and convelution that has become Windows. I'm a musician and very much into all things A/V. The Mac is built for this...I'm making music right out of the box and I can instantly meld that music with my photos or my home movies if I so choose. While I'll definitely never be an Apple apologist, as I'm sure that there are going to be issue with it at some point, I will say that I wish I had purchased this machine a long time ago. For what I spent on my last Dell, with my upgrades being RAM, CD/RW and speakers, I have an eMac with a superdrive (my Dell only had a CD/RW), a nice USB music keyboard, very cool "Creature" speakers, 1GB of RAM, a Monster cable for direct instrument recording and every app I need for working with music, photos and movies. Even the keyboard and mouse are way nicer than what came with my DELL and I SPENT THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY!
I bought everything from an Apple store and was very happy with my experience. I could try it all out and leave the store completely satisfied. My Dell purchases have always been by phone or online and I hated waiting for my order to arrive only to find something missing. I like the fact that if something breaks I can just drive out to the Apple store and get it fixed. I really am shocked that Apple hasn't made any effort to market this. People are stunned when I tell them that I bought a mac until I show them what I can do right out of the box. Why isn't Apple making an effort to make iLife a household word?
I could go on and on and on but I'm sure that's all been done already. The fact of the matter is I wanted a machine that just worked for me without all of the clunkiness and convelution that has become Windows. I'm a musician and very much into all things A/V. The Mac is built for this...I'm making music right out of the box and I can instantly meld that music with my photos or my home movies if I so choose. While I'll definitely never be an Apple apologist, as I'm sure that there are going to be issue with it at some point, I will say that I wish I had purchased this machine a long time ago. For what I spent on my last Dell, with my upgrades being RAM, CD/RW and speakers, I have an eMac with a superdrive (my Dell only had a CD/RW), a nice USB music keyboard, very cool "Creature" speakers, 1GB of RAM, a Monster cable for direct instrument recording and every app I need for working with music, photos and movies. Even the keyboard and mouse are way nicer than what came with my DELL and I SPENT THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY!
I bought everything from an Apple store and was very happy with my experience. I could try it all out and leave the store completely satisfied. My Dell purchases have always been by phone or online and I hated waiting for my order to arrive only to find something missing. I like the fact that if something breaks I can just drive out to the Apple store and get it fixed. I really am shocked that Apple hasn't made any effort to market this. People are stunned when I tell them that I bought a mac until I show them what I can do right out of the box. Why isn't Apple making an effort to make iLife a household word?
cyclonus5150 said:
Whitey's keepin' 'em down?
I share your bafflement. Maybe they've just grown skeptical that advertising the Mac ever works. Their marketshare has not improved despite aggressive advertising in past years (certainly not in the last 9 months or so).
As a switcher, I can honestly say that the only ads that ever influenced meand were in the back of my mind when I switchedwere the ones maybe 2 or 3 (4? could it be that long?) years ago that showed what you could actually do with a Mac. I think I remember Jeff Goldblum was in some of them. And I remember one of those photo albums printed from iPhoto. Anyway, it showed iLife apps in action. It showed the results. I was impressed, and my interest began developing.
Umm....
Take a second and look at the upper-left corner of this Internet Window.....It reads "Apple's Retail Strategy".....A bit off topic, would you say?
Take a second and look at the upper-left corner of this Internet Window.....It reads "Apple's Retail Strategy".....A bit off topic, would you say?
AppleJustWorks said:Take a second and look at the upper-left corner of this Internet Window.....It reads "Apple's Retail Strategy".....A bit off topic, would you say?
Pretty related to me, Apple's retail strategy is a big part of the marketing strategy.
Have you guys seen the print ilife ads? They look like an electronics catalog...it isn't clear what apple is selling in the ads. It has pictures of people with cameras, ipods, and isights...and a mini blurb of each ilife application. Not to helpful.
I wish Apple would use more of the approach in the sony DVD video camera...You know the family, shooting the video of the son on his first date or something, and them popping it in the VCR in a few minutes.
That got all of the arm chair home movie makers talking (even those cameras suck) And that is the kind of advertising Apple needs. Clear concise messaging the relays the benefits of ilife.
AppleJustWorks said:Take a second and look at the upper-left corner of this Internet Window.....It reads "Apple's Retail Strategy".....A bit off topic, would you say?
Yeah we hijacked it for a minute...
Back on topic. I think what Apple needs to do is what most people have been saying, and that is actually show what the products are capable of doing. They need to ditch the artsy bull**** adds they usually make.
-mark
You know, I never get tired of reading posts involving speed debates - they always make me shake my head and chuckle. There are so many people who all they care about is speed, and if someone's system isn't the fastest, it's crap. "Oooh, my 'AMD FX whatever' benchmarked faster than your G5 on a Photoshop test - take that!" Listen, if you're a pro user and speed is what you make your living on, I completely appreciate that. But if you're not a pro user, and either want to play your precious little UT2004 faster, or if you simply want to have bragging rights by having the fastest machine, have fun with that.
But please, carry on debating your 2 GHz G5s, your AMD Opterons, your Xeon and Prescott chips - if you play the speed game, you'll never be happy, and processor speed is only one small part of what makes an excellent system. When the 14 GHz G7s come out in a few years won't you be the ones feeling silly and stupid? Or are you the same people who were saying 5 years ago, "My Pentium 450 MHz kicks the crap out of your Pentium 400 MHz!"
I am all for intelligent technological debates, which I see a lot of in this thread - don't misunderstand me. But there always seems to be the people who narrowly focus on speed and nothing else...
Listen, if you're a pro user and speed is what you make your living on, I completely appreciate that. But if you're not a pro user, and either want to play your precious little UT2004 faster, or if you simply want to have bragging rights by having the fastest machine, have fun with that.But please, carry on debating your 2 GHz G5s, your AMD Opterons, your Xeon and Prescott chips - if you play the speed game, you'll never be happy, and processor speed is only one small part of what makes an excellent system. When the 14 GHz G7s come out in a few years won't you be the ones feeling silly and stupid? Or are you the same people who were saying 5 years ago, "My Pentium 450 MHz kicks the crap out of your Pentium 400 MHz!"
I am all for intelligent technological debates, which I see a lot of in this thread - don't misunderstand me. But there always seems to be the people who narrowly focus on speed and nothing else...
a flawed retail strategy...
The problem with Apple's retail strategy is this:
Almost every Apple Store is located within reasonable distance to an Authorized Apple Reseller (Like Micro Center)
So Apple is selling a product to the reseller to sell to customers, and just down the street, selling it straight to the customers!
What's wrong with this? Well, they control the pricing, so the resellers can't compete on price. For example, Apple's educational discounts aren't available to resellers, but are available at the Apple Store.
The Apple Stores will ALWAYS get stock first, if there's a shortage of product (eg: iPod Minis) the resellers will lose customers to the Apple stores, who will have the product in stock.
Warranty repairs: The Apple Store is allowed to stock service replacement parts (Main boards, RAM, etc) while the resellers aren't authorized or set up to do so. Would you prefer your iMac fixed same day, or within a week?
So why isn't Apple's market share going up? Because they're competing with themselves & their loyal resellers! They're not gaining new customers, just taking their customers away from the stores who have been selling their product for years.
Not good business practice. A pretty dangerous game.
The problem with Apple's retail strategy is this:
Almost every Apple Store is located within reasonable distance to an Authorized Apple Reseller (Like Micro Center)
So Apple is selling a product to the reseller to sell to customers, and just down the street, selling it straight to the customers!
What's wrong with this? Well, they control the pricing, so the resellers can't compete on price. For example, Apple's educational discounts aren't available to resellers, but are available at the Apple Store.
The Apple Stores will ALWAYS get stock first, if there's a shortage of product (eg: iPod Minis) the resellers will lose customers to the Apple stores, who will have the product in stock.
Warranty repairs: The Apple Store is allowed to stock service replacement parts (Main boards, RAM, etc) while the resellers aren't authorized or set up to do so. Would you prefer your iMac fixed same day, or within a week?
So why isn't Apple's market share going up? Because they're competing with themselves & their loyal resellers! They're not gaining new customers, just taking their customers away from the stores who have been selling their product for years.
Not good business practice. A pretty dangerous game.
Apple - the iPod maker
Retail strategy? (That's to pretend that this post is firmly on-topic ;-) )
http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/08/markets/earningsmatter/?cnn=yes
"shares of the iPod maker are up 27 percent so far in 2004."
"Investors clearly have fallen in love with Steve Jobs and Apple once again thanks to the success of the iPod and its younger sibling, the iPod mini."
"Apple's iTunes online music store remains the top source for downloads"
Hmmmm. Apple computers don't even get a mention on the plus side....
Apple's now "the iPod maker"....
Retail strategy? (That's to pretend that this post is firmly on-topic ;-) )
http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/08/markets/earningsmatter/?cnn=yes
"shares of the iPod maker are up 27 percent so far in 2004."
"Investors clearly have fallen in love with Steve Jobs and Apple once again thanks to the success of the iPod and its younger sibling, the iPod mini."
"Apple's iTunes online music store remains the top source for downloads"
Hmmmm. Apple computers don't even get a mention on the plus side....
Apple's now "the iPod maker"....
schatten said:
You make some excellent points but Apple's retail problem is the fact that they are not in places where people buy computers. If a user wanted to consider a Mac, where would they go to see one, try one and speak to someone about it? Apple has only 75 stores and CompUSA and MicroCenter are the only other options. (maybe a few other smaller chains and resellers) Far too narrow distribution.
Not seeing a Mac in popular shopping places like Circuit City, Best Buy or the big regional electronics chains furthers the myths about Macs.
I'd like to see Apple take the CompUSA store within a store concept to other big retailers. The concept obviously works or CompUSA would have booted them out long ago and free up the space to sell other products. It would augment their retail stores and give them shelf space in markets that they are not present in and would not likely open an Apple Store. Lease the damn space in these stores and stock them with Apple employees and product.
The only way for Apple to grow their business (above their loyal base) is to let potential buyers see Macs, OS X, iLife, Office etc. in action. I'd also take it a step further and create a nice database of available Apple software and accessories for people to browse through on the display units. Have software demo versions where available. Stock popular, high volume titles and make it easy and fast to get other software.
People can't buy what they don't see on the shelves.
~Shard~ said:But please, carry on debating your 2 GHz G5s, your AMD Opterons, your Xeon and Prescott chips - if you play the speed game, you'll never be happy, and processor speed is only one small part of what makes an excellent system. When the 14 GHz G7s come out in a few years won't you be the ones feeling silly and stupid? Or are you the same people who were saying 5 years ago, "My Pentium 450 MHz kicks the crap out of your Pentium 400 MHz!"
I am all for intelligent technological debates, which I see a lot of in this thread - don't misunderstand me. But there always seems to be the people who narrowly focus on speed and nothing else...
That will be amazing to quadruple speed in 3 "few years" and 2nd upgrade processor.
My main interest is to have a Rev. B PM without all the defects previously mentioned. I do look forward to a speed boost from my dual 450.