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IMO, they're not close to the best computers on the market. There's little consumer choice in models, and not close to enough BTO options. The hardware prices are also 50% higher than PC's with identical hardware. And there isn't enough power available in their Macbook "Pro" line, and what is available is at insane prices. And all that is ignoring the latest releases, with no MB firewire and no MBP Matte screens, as well as almost identical hardware as the previous lineup, and a higher-priced Macbook with a less powerful processor.

Well where do you start? You could mention the fact there's no mention of software at all in your screed and in software, Apple is untouchable. You could also mention that Mac sales growth have outpaced industry growth in fourteen of the last fifteen quarters, so the market seems to be making their mind up on what are, "the best computers in the market".

The lack of power in the Pro comment is so silly, it's hard to know where to start, particularly considering the shift of emphasis to graphic processors in architecture that Snow Leopard will take full advantage of, which leaves us with the usual matt screen and Firewire whine, which, when considering mobile hand set computing is experiencing explosive growth (check those iPhone sales figures again) is as petty as it is irrelevant.

You may want cheap and nasty laptops that are just barely good enough but I don't and nor does Apple.
 
pretty huge % Revenue for just the iPhone no?

kind of reminds me of Balmer when he was saying it was going to be a failure
 
Have you ever used an HP touchscreen PC, I have, they're horrendous, vista is not a touch based UI, neither is OS X, hence no touch screen.

When full OS X gets Cocoa touch and Apple develops a gesture and touch based UI (i'm thinking 10.7, but maybe it will be such a jump they'll call it OS XI) then you'll see touchscreen macs.

yeah heard that about the HP... here is another thing though. Touch screens (in my opinion) work well when your hand is in the downward position, like with the iPhone. I can see it working for the much wished for Mac Tablet too. ..but for an upright screen? after a few mins lifting your hand, it's gonna be hurting like hell. who can keep touching that screen for EVERY little thing at that angle! imagine a day at work with that thing! maybe you can use a mouse in addition to it I don't know? but that defeats the purpose.
 
You may want cheap and nasty laptops that are just barely good enough but I don't and nor does Apple.

On the just announced products you either pay $999 or $2800 for a laptop with firewire, there is no in between. We don't necessarily have to have cheap, but for the money you are dropping, they certainly should have a more complete feature set. A touch irony in the fact that Firewire that was pushed so much by Apple is bordering non existance in their portable range but is available now in so many portables running windows.

yeah heard that about the HP... here is another thing though. Touch screens (in my opinion) work well when your hand is in the downward position, like with the iPhone. I can see it working for the much wished for Mac Tablet too. ..but for an upright screen? after a few mins lifting your hand, it's gonna be hurting like hell. who can keep touching that screen for EVERY little thing at that angle! imagine a day at work with that thing! maybe you can use a mouse in addition to it I don't know? but that defeats the purpose.

Well, something that seems to be forgotten in all this talk is the simple fact that a touch screen LCD as an external monitor doesnt necessarily mean it would be limited in orientation to what we have today, I can rotate my Dell LCD from landscape to portrait as need be. So, potentially, a touch screen could be designed to slide down to a more horizontal orientation than vertical. Even using a swing arm for the LCD can achieve this. People forget to think outside the box, the vertical orientation is ideal for non touch use, it isn't hard to change this for touch usage.

This is already shown in many laptops where you can rotate the screen in the horizontal axis and fold it back down so the back of the screen is resting against the keyboard and you have a tablet pc.

The challenge for touch screen in regular use, is having OS level support so integration can be across all applications and then having the hardware & software vendors follow along with the products to take advantage of it. Right now it is limited more to the portable market but as people get more and more used to the touch environment ie cell phones, kiosks (Microsoft table pc), they can see benefits to this technology and it will work its way into more normal use. Might be a few years yet, but you only need one or two killer apps sometimes to make change happen quicker.
 
this accounting method seems correct considering that the iPhone sales are likely to come in droves. A ton when the new models are released, a bunch at Christmas and less the rest of the year. This should smooth the revenue stream evenly over the course of the year do the first quarter doesn't look drastically lower.
 
Can We Please Fix the iPhone First

It's a month behind on background App delivery.

Safari is still extremely unstable.

I don't get my mail unless I check it.

My apps crash and I have to reset my iPhone like it's Vista.

Fix the phone first before releasing Antoher Product.

Everytime I say this I get blasted with people saying they have 100's of developers and they all work on their own products.

Move them to the iPhone to make it Work as a phone that doesn't reset or require a restart 3 times a day.

Give me the basic phone functionallity
 
Can We Please Fix the iPhone First

It's a month behind on background App delivery.

Safari is still extremely unstable.

I don't get my mail unless I check it.

My apps crash and I have to reset my iPhone like it's Vista.

Fix the phone first before releasing Antoher Product.

Everytime I say this I get blasted with people saying they have 100's of developers and they all work on their own products.

Move them to the iPhone to make it Work as a phone that doesn't reset or require a restart 3 times a day.

Give me the basic phone functions that my Motorla V551 had 6 years ago.

Apple has great phones coming out and they continue to cash in on the iPhone without fixing the problems. Sounds like Freddie Mac.

Yo, Freddie Steve. Fix my iPhone.

This will get deleted because I spoke out against Steve but for those that read it I hope you jump on board.
 
fear

the iphone is the new ipod. next, is gaming.


I'm actually afraid (for gamers) that Apple may consider a game console. I wonder if it will hurt us by segregating the market too much? does the market have room for another console? (I know my wallet doesn't) :eek: & we know it's unlikely they will use Blu-Ray anytime soon judging by this latest refresh. ..so they won't compete with Sony's graphics. Apple is known for innovation but if there's one company that will give em a run for their money is Nintendo :D so they will only have quality & quantity of games to compete with. (& with that, they will have to start from scratch)

Granted.. by the time they come out with a Console (maybe 1.5 years - just guessing) blu-ray may be an option then. ...but I swear that will be a much harder market to break into. However if they pull another 'iPhone' & take over the market there is really NOTHING that Apple can't do :D
 
while the mac platform is doing good (and better as the market) at the current weak state of Microsoft it should be _soaring_ high up into the skies
if Windows 7 turns out to be moderately OK like XP was it will be enough to bring them an awful lot of customers
it's all about using the window of opportunity

why is apple doing price reductions on their phones desperately trying to catch more marketshare while on the mac side they actually increase prices ?

world wide Apple is still not in the Top 5 vendors
 
In the long run, I'm really curious to see how this will play out. While there have been phones this popular before, I don't know that there have been many times like this when a single phone held one of the top three company market shares in the phone industry. That's the astonishing part. Just the one iPhone, that only comes in a couple of capacity and color variants, is going toe-to-toe with the entire lineups of Samsung and S-E. I bet that's going to generate even more pressure for Apple to expand the iPhone into a range of mobile devices... or else defend why they believe they can sustain such a large fraction of the market on just one form factor. I wonder what will happen with that.

I think Apple will see at least three more growth phases for iPhone. First, the AT&T deal will continue to grow Apple's market share for at least another year. Second, Apple will expand the iPhone to other U.S. carriers in 2010 or 2011, which will broaden the market to consumers who will not change carriers. Third, Apple will eventually introduce a smaller, more limited, and cheaper iPhone, which will broaden the market to consumers who want a plain old mobile phone with Apple ease of use.
 
To me, all that stuff seems like a novelty. Cool to use for the first time, but brings no real value to the computing world, and certainly won't change the way we use computers.

I have never understood this outcry for a Mac Tablet. Sure it would be "cool" to have a giant touchscreen, but when it comes to day to day use, I feel like it would get old fast. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows...


I am one of those that has a "dream" tablet/netbook from apple.

Basicially being a college student, it would be great to organize all of my notes I take with a tablet.

Ideally I am looking for:

A big iphone, same basic design, with mac os x, about the size of a spiral notebook, a good stylus, as well as iphone finger recognition, something I can take to all of my classes, take notes, check email, whatever, no keyboard, basicially an iphone the size of a piece of paper, maybe a little smaller.


Then after taking this device with me to all of my classes, and having all of my notes/homework organized I would take it home, putting it on the awesome Docking station that apple designed that turns my big iphone netbook into my computer monitor/desktop with a imac vibe, you could dock it into this stylish focking station that will hold the device sideways, making it a widescreen desktop, along with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse as standard. This was I have an ultra portable for all my notetaking, then once home, I have a nice little desktop. Then when I leave in the morning, unplug the device from its desktop docking station, and its back to being my all in one school device.


So I dont really think of it being a novelty, I actually think there is a good market for this type of device for students.

thoughts?
 
And THIS makes up for the rest of it (profits):

From Apple, a Luxury Laptop in Lean Times
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203178.html

Is the MacBook Overpriced?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333116,00.asp

Review: New MacBook puts style over affordability
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_Vy5BFjDMEnpR1T4zG4dTlkYtFAD93VNFJO1

I could find 5 or 6 more articles echoing this [from Google News: Science/Technology].

:rolleyes:
So bloody what, the company is growing faster than the market, I would rather listen to people who have managed to accumulate 25 billion in the bank than some random dudes. I'm guessing Apple will be dead in a 5 years. :rolleyes:

while the mac platform is doing good (and better as the market) at the current weak state of Microsoft it should be _soaring_ high up into the skies
if Windows 7 turns out to be moderately OK like XP was it will be enough to bring them an awful lot of customers
it's all about using the window of opportunity

why is apple doing price reductions on their phones desperately trying to catch more marketshare while on the mac side they actually increase prices ?

world wide Apple is still not in the Top 5 vendors
Their market is growing, if they try and chase marketshare by dropping prices like crazy, they'll end up losing in the long run, just watch, they will never catch up to Microsoft in terms of marketshare, it's nearly impossible, compared to where Apple was a few years ago, they have come a long way.
 
Has Apple made a mistake with their marketing of the new MacBook? Possibly. I will confess I don't really know if this was the right direction to go in a bad economy. But what I do know is that Apple hasn't made a wrong marketing move in many years -- so for the time being, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
 
Has Apple made a mistake with their marketing of the new MacBook? Possibly. I will confess I don't really know if this was the right direction to go in a bad economy. But what I do know is that Apple hasn't made a wrong marketing move in many years -- so for the time being, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.


I mean they have been planning these updates for a while, they did not know 2 years ago that the economy was going to be like this today. In addition they are still keeping around the old macbook and its their cheapest model, who knows maybe they originally didnt plan on doing that but did considering the economy. idk just a thought
 
Apple is not about being first at doing something it's about being the first to do it right.

Have you ever used an HP touchscreen PC, I have, they're horrendous, vista is not a touch based UI, neither is OS X, hence no touch screen.

When full OS X gets Cocoa touch and Apple develops a gesture and touch based UI (i'm thinking 10.7, but maybe it will be such a jump they'll call it OS XI) then you'll see touchscreen macs.

I believe Samsung was the 1st company to come up with the idea and execution of mp3 player I think? I maybe wrong. But I agree, apple gets it right before others do...
 
I mean they have been planning these updates for a while, they did not know 2 years ago that the economy was going to be like this today. In addition they are still keeping around the old macbook and its their cheapest model, who knows maybe they originally didnt plan on doing that but did considering the economy. idk just a thought

Nah. IMO, always intended to have a $1K computer around for now both to satisfy that price point, as well as to get people in to look at macs. I'll bet that a very large percentage of those who come in for the white macbook end up buying up to the aluminum--bigger HD, more RAM, better graphics, glass trackpad (which probably will be more important when new OS arrives), and very cool pro-looking, functional case. Eventually they'll end up dropping the white ones, and dropping the price on the aluminum ones a bit, but I seriously doubt that will occur in the next 6 months.
 
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