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Carl Icahn Presses for Apple Shareholder Vote on Increased Stock Buyback
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Certainly not the way it became.
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of niche hardware applications Apple does not cater to, some it does not come close to. Yes, limited markets, but the goal is acceptance by other customers.
Clone licensing was an ill-conceived concept from the very start, as any idea born of desperation is likely to be. Success was also highly dependent on Apple's partners in the AIM alliance, but they were never sufficiently cooperative. Today Apple might be in a better position to license on the more limited basis you suggest, but now they really don't have any good reason to do it.
They should have a very good reason and that is to maintain their professional market, a market that in recent years has been continually declining as people jump ship for smoother, more predictable waters. Apple has either been unable or unwilling to maintain their professional level products themselves in recent years. Releasing a new Mac Pro every 5 years with almost no updates in-between is beyond sad. It's unacceptable and I'm not even talking about the question of expansion. What they've done with Final Cut Pro cost them dearly and they won't ever recover since people that depend on tools for a living don't want to wonder if they're going to be screwed by Apple again and again as has been usual. The best thing Apple could do at this point is license that market off to someone that actually gives a damn.
The same thing could be said for gaming. They have NEVER given a damn about that market and it's a shame for those of us that hate using Windows or playing games on consoles as it forces our hand anyway. I don't mind a smaller selection to some extent, but I do mind when only games from 3 years ago have a chance in hell of running at a decent frame rate and that's almost entirely Apple's fault and no one else's as they've done jack squat to address it over the years (from lightweight GPUs to inefficient drivers and a lack of OpenGL updates). You can't expect people to develop for a platform when you do almost nothing to make that platform attractive to third party developers. The usual Mac "fan" response is that Macs aren't for gaming. Yeah, no kidding. That's not because people who buy Macs don't like to play games. It's because the platform doesn't support gaming. Those people either buy a console or a Windows computer or get by by booting into Windows on a high-end Mac that has at lest medium gaming specs and then replace the thing often. Apple could address this, but they don't care. To make matter worse, instead of criticizing Apple and letting them know they would like the situation changed, they actually have Apple's back and give lectures on how it's just fine and dandy that Apple doesn't bother and look how much money Apple makes selling phones and that proves they know what they're doing in everything in the Universe, apparently. Wait until the phone market craps out one day (clones like viruses eventually win out by sheer numbers, not quality) and then what will Apple fall back on? A few Mac sales by fanatics? It will be 1998 all over again. Oh yeah, the iWatch is coming! Do people even wear watches that much these days? The younger generation surely doesn't, not when you can just grab your phone that's probably already in your hand tweeting anyway.
It's always sadly amusing when someone seems to feel that their best argument is made by attacking a nameless "them" (to which any convenient opinion can be attributed), and then goes on to critique a product that hasn't even seen the light of day.
On the first point, I suspect the thinking at Apple about licensing might be that they would be in the economically unviable position of having to support third-party hardware. Back in the '90s this issue was intended to be addressed at least in part with the PREP/CHRP hardware platform. But it never actually became a standard that Apple, Motorola and IBM could agree upon, so it was deep-sixed, along with cloning itself (not a coincidence). I also suspect that Apple is well aware of the complaints from pro users regarding high-end hardware. I also suspect that Apple has walked through the licensing scenario and decided that it isn't in their best interests.
Gamers tend to think that they are terribly important. I've been through that exercise many times, and don't care to again. As above, Apple has never been in the business of trying to please everyone -- like it or not.
On the second point, also see above. It seems to me that Apple is routinely criticized before any given product release, well ahead of anyone's actual knowledge of what it will be. After that the crow eating should start in earnest, but it rarely does.
Finally, predicting Apple's imminent demise is an old game. No sale. The reasons why I think should be hugely obvious.
No, what is sad is when someone feels the need to argue a pointless meritless argument about "they've never been about gaming" when it is doing little more than parroting Apple's marketing strategy. It has no merit as to whether ignoring that market has ever been a good thing for Apple. It certainly doesn't help gain converts from Windows that expect games to be available. Telling them to put Windows on their Mac is like saying just go buy a Windows machine to me. I've always thought that to be a very poor strategy. The fact Apple is helping make VMWare and Microsoft all those additional sales looks bad on Apple. They should be able to stand on their own two feet by now. It's sad they cannot.
You act as if Macs aren't just more or less standard PC motherboards (with EFI) because they are. The whole reason Hackintoshes work so well is that they do use standard hardware from Intel and AMD.
You don't get it at all. It's not about gamers. It's about supporting a general purpose computer in a general sense. Gaming is part of general computing and is big money on Windows machines. A better question is why Apple doesn't want any part of that market, especially given it would be ZERO trouble to support that market by simply offering a better GPU option on one or more models than the crap they offer now.
Hard to argue with any of this. Especially the gaming issues. Why or why are they sooooooo stingy with hardware in such high cost machines? One of the main reasons I still have and will always have a windows based system is for the games. I'm sure I'm not alone in this either.
Yeah, Magnus gets it.
The only thing I might add, though, is that computer gaming is dying across the board -- not just on the Mac side of things.
Since Microsoft sells the XBox console, it has no real concern if games keep getting released for Windows first, in a timely manner, or at all anymore.
I've never been much of a fan of console games, but every time I look at the store shelves, I see rows and rows of game titles for Playstation, XBox or even Wii that don't exist at all for a personal computer.
The last time I bought a new video card for a Windows PC a few months ago (for the kids' machine), it was bundled with my choice of 3 download promo codes for new game releases. The selection included Bioshock Unlimited, (a title we actually DID get for Mac OS X), and several mostly underwhelming titles like FarCry 3 and a remake of the old Tomb Raider game I already played in the 90's. If that's what ATI/AMD has to showcase the latest graphics cards for Windows -- that's kind of a sad commentary on PC gaming in general.
I agree completely that Apple missed the boat with its failure to put more cutting edge graphics cards in its machines, but as I look at the state of things today? I'm not sure it would have made a huge difference.
The only thing I might add, though, is that computer gaming is dying across the board -- not just on the Mac side of things.
Since Microsoft sells the XBox console, it has no real concern if games keep getting released for Windows first, in a timely manner, or at all anymore.
I've never been much of a fan of console games, but every time I look at the store shelves, I see rows and rows of game titles for Playstation, XBox or even Wii that don't exist at all for a personal computer.
The last time I bought a new video card for a Windows PC a few months ago (for the kids' machine), it was bundled with my choice of 3 download promo codes for new game releases. The selection included Bioshock Unlimited, (a title we actually DID get for Mac OS X), and several mostly underwhelming titles like FarCry 3 and a remake of the old Tomb Raider game I already played in the 90's. If that's what ATI/AMD has to showcase the latest graphics cards for Windows -- that's kind of a sad commentary on PC gaming in general.
I agree completely that Apple missed the boat with its failure to put more cutting edge graphics cards in its machines, but as I look at the state of things today? I'm not sure it would have made a huge difference.
I can't really argue there, although I still think PCs and Macs are better for certain types of games. Yes, you could have a mouse and/or keyboard on a console these days (they're really just glorified computers anyway), but you don't really see it. I still prefer playing first person shooters with a keyboard mouse combination. It's just more precise to control for aiming, I think and RPG games benefit from having a LOT of keys to shortcut things. A PS3 controller, for example, has what, 15 button combinations maximum (counting the analog controller press as a button). That's quite a few, but I'd still prefer a keyboard/mouse combo for some games. Now platformers are a different story, but you can use a PS3/PS4 or XBox controller on a Mac or PC too so I don't know why there need be a difference. I never understood why PCs don't have an XBox "app" to play Xbox games on them. They run on a modified Windows/DirextX system anyway.
The other downside to consoles are they are out of date the day the system comes out. They use yesterday's technology to keep the price down (what high end PC gaming rig sells for $400-500?) and their lifespan is now like 4-5 years. How much further along is a PC in 4 years? The advantage is that games tend to be less buggy since your rig is more or less the same as everyone else's rig, but then the Mac has a lot more standard hardware than a typical Windows machine so the same should be a lot more true there than with a given Windows PC these days (which might need to support XP, Vista, 7 and 8 for a game to maximize sales PLUS all the variations of hardware (AMD, Intel plus a couple dozen GPU variations). At least consoles are using HD resolutions these day. I couldn't understand the attraction of the original XBox and Playstation much at all.
The other thing killing Windows PC type game sales is not only the popularity of consoles, but the popularity of tablets (including the iPad). They're just massively underpowered for gaming (makes a Mac look good even) and yet they are selling like hotcakes while PC/Mac sales are largely flat or going down. On the other hand, I've always maintained that a game's playability has very little to do with the graphics quality. In fact, I've often seen quite the opposite over the years. There are quite a few good looking games that I would gladly play an Intellivision game from 1981 over (I still play AD&D on an Intellivision emulator once in awhile or even drag my real one out to play head-to-head Sea Battle or Utopia on). I play my C64 and Amiga emulators quite often to play older games that are still loads of fun today. I can't say I found Call of Duty 4 to be vastly more fun than Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 or even No One Lives Forever on the PC/Mac despite it having much better graphics. Graphics aren't everything and I don't think gaming companies seem to often get that. Gameplay is vastly more important. Replayability even more so for long term sales. There are few things I hate more than buying a game and finishing it with one day and never having a reason to play it again. It better be a $5 game....
Oh yeah, no question.
I've always preferred playing games on a computer to a console. Even for the 3D shooters, I never got used to trying to control things with a console controller stick. The keyboard/mouse combo just feels much more accurate and appropriate to me. (And yes, some console titles let you plug a USB keyboard and mouse in and use them. Unreal Tournament for PS3 does, for example. But unless you actually set up your console on a standard size computer desk and you're sitting there in a computer chair, with that keyboard and mouse at the appropriate height? Half of the experience is lost. Console gamers tend to sit on the floor, or on a couch, in front of a big screen TV, where a mouse is almost unworkable.)
I will say, I think some of the games where you really need a full keyboard to control everything tend to be the simulators and real-time strategy titles which are more commonly found on the Mac (Civilization, etc.). Those types of games aren't so graphically demanding, so they lend themselves to porting to OS X better, without having to have hardware requirements so high, only high-end Mac Pro users can play them.
But apparently, people like us are quickly becoming the minority? I guess most gamers prefer the ease of use and lower up-front costs of the consoles.
I've always preferred playing games on a computer to a console. Even for the 3D shooters, I never got used to trying to control things with a console controller stick. The keyboard/mouse combo just feels much more accurate and appropriate to me. (And yes, some console titles let you plug a USB keyboard and mouse in and use them. Unreal Tournament for PS3 does, for example. But unless you actually set up your console on a standard size computer desk and you're sitting there in a computer chair, with that keyboard and mouse at the appropriate height? Half of the experience is lost. Console gamers tend to sit on the floor, or on a couch, in front of a big screen TV, where a mouse is almost unworkable.)
I will say, I think some of the games where you really need a full keyboard to control everything tend to be the simulators and real-time strategy titles which are more commonly found on the Mac (Civilization, etc.). Those types of games aren't so graphically demanding, so they lend themselves to porting to OS X better, without having to have hardware requirements so high, only high-end Mac Pro users can play them.
But apparently, people like us are quickly becoming the minority? I guess most gamers prefer the ease of use and lower up-front costs of the consoles.