Macworld NY 2002 Round-Up

[dhdave]

I'm not complaining about the price. I'm questioning the logic of it. I'm buying a new PM in September so I'll have 10.2. It doesn't matter to me from an economic standpoint. What I'm saying is it doesn't make much sense to alienate all those who bought a Mac, ummm.... YESTERDAY and before. Why not an $89.95 price point? Or a $69.95 price point? That would not only soften the blow, but it would help ensure that MORE people were adopting the latest OS while keeping a revenue stream for Apple. Again, am I missing something here? Anybody buy a Mac yesterday or last week, or last month? How do you feel about this?

dh

 

[drastik]

Re: .mac

Originally posted by michaelyoung
\
. The industry is littered with failed companies who could not make this sort of thing work. You must be smart enough to recognize that. Aren't you?
Thank you

Umm, actually, this industry is filled with companies that do quite nicely doing just this. Tey are offering you web space, a fair amount for the price even. Frree email and a little sapcce is one thing, this is web hosting, and I think you'll find a lot of companies do that for money,.\\.

 

[backspinner]

Originally posted by SPG how about the fact that an iPod is now a very viable substitute for a PDA? I'm impressed.

and even though it is missing input functionality, it still looks terribly complete and functional to me. I never store things right away in the computer, but always want to look things up after I stored it in batches at a time at the office. Scribbling notes on paper gives way better experience.

 

[richard5mith]

Re: mac.com

Originally posted by elgruga
I would venture to say that the US corporate culture has its head up its ass.
We have seen dumb moves from M$, from eBay, and others, and now Apple.

Yea, they're actually charging money for the services they provide.

Stone the crows! You mean they actually want to stay in business? Say it ain't so?

Yes Apple should be making a cheap, email only version of .mac, to label them stupid, clueless idiots or to think that things are going to be better over on the PC side of the fence is just plain stupid.

 

[dhdave]

Originally posted by richard5mith:

Hotmail is not free. I wish people would stop saying it is.

But it IS free. I access it from both my email client and a browser, just like iTools. Or did you mean another device other than my computer?
I totally agree with you that it is spam laden. That's even understating it a bit. Hotmail is almost worthless, but the fact remains that it IS free.

dh

 

[rainman::|:|]

Once again, we hear Apple talking about how they're going to improve their marketshare, get bigger, more sales, take over the free world, yadda yadda. Then they go and do something so STUPID as reneging on their word-- wonderful way to PISS OFF THE LOYAL. I'm quite upset, and i don't even use my mac.com email or idisk-- i had a feeling apple would eventually pull something like this.

i'm so sick of hearing people say 'oh, charge me money, it's good for business'... Apple *DID* say that your mac.com address was yours for life, implying freeness forever. and now they want to charge a rediculous fee for their free service...

And again, we're left wanting in speed- while the rest of the world gets further ahead. I don't even know if apple can play catch-up anymore-- MHz myth be damned, they passed us in speed a LONG time ago...

I think i'll start shopping around for my next computer system elsewhere. Apple claims they're doing well and preparing for growth; it's obvious they're sliding closer and closer to oblivion-- While i do wish they would move things along... you can wish in one hand and **** in the other, see which one fills up first...

just my ranting
pnw

 

[gunb0y]

ipod

anyone whos upgrading their ipod's wanna sell me their old 5 gig version?

 

[digitalbiker]

Apple is in Trouble!

Apple is in trouble! Their stock is down almost 20% today. Their 2nd quarter profits were way off from last year. IMac sales are in the toilet. And today they pissed off a huge portion of their user base.

I'm pissed that they didn't offer an upgrade path for the loyal OSX users who have been trying to make this transition fly since the OSX PB days!

I'm also pissed that they didn't offer at least some sort of free minimal .mac service. Even if it was a 5mb email address space only. At least then I would feel somewhat better about my choice to support Apple by paying inflated hardware costs and suffering through the incompatiblity issues of being in the 5% marketshare crowd rather than the 95% crowd. Actually after today, Microsoft is looking fairer, and fairer for all the free services they still support.

Apples switch campaign is working! I think I will switch. Switch to Linux, which is OpenSource, supported by it's users, and runs fine on the ppc archtecture. So Long APPLE! You SUCK!!!

 

[moJoMR]

Re: ipod

Originally posted by gunb0y
anyone whos upgrading their ipod's wanna sell me their old 5 gig version?

Depends what your willing to pay

 

[trodel_post]

Re: Bluetooth?

Originally posted by robinfly
Hihi, I'm delurking *wave*

Didn't it strike you all as odd that Steve and Phil conducted that Address Book demonstration with the Bluetooth-enabled phones, a feature that no currently available mac will be able to use? I was certain that we'd see some sort of huge Bluetooth announcement, but it never came.

I hope they offer something like a Bluetooth / AirPort combo card instead of just that sloppy USB wart for Bluetooth connectivity. Grrrr, I was soooo hoping for something like a 2 button, Bluetooth wireless scrollwheel mouse! Guess I need to get my head out of the clouds.

I don't know if this is any consolation or not, but Microsoft is very definitely planning to announce bluetooth mice and keyboards before the end of the year. I would never be caught dead with the single-button retard mouse that Macs come with anyway, so a MS mouse has always been on my desk.

By the end of the year, you'll have your Bluetooth peripherals, they just won't have the Apple brandname.

 

[mcrain]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
I think i'll start shopping around for my next computer system elsewhere.

I'd be happy to sell you my system. I spent an hour and a half this morning downloading quicktime twice, installing it, crashing my computer, restarting three times, one blue screen, and guess what, after all that, it still wouldn't work, and I didn't get to see the keynote.

You are more than welcome to buy my piece of crap PC. I can tell you right now, I have no need for .mac, and I already have an email address. But, for the OS, this morning I would have paid three times what they are asking for it.

Believe me, upgrade from Windows 98 to 2000 to XP once or twice, and $129 isn't so bad (especially considering a computer that originally ran 98 probably can't run xp for sh*t.

 

[boobers]

ok IF..

if the idisk supported php and DNS comes with the .mac account then i would be a little bit interested..however i get te feeling that idisk is not that intelligent.
A very crappy day..can't believe i got up at 6am to hear this crappyassed news...

 

[job]

Re: Re: Bluetooth?

Originally posted by trodel_post
By the end of the year, you'll have your Bluetooth peripherals, they just won't have the Apple brandname.

And you know that how?

 

[coolocity]

Alright, so it's $20 to upgrade to Jag, big deal. I understand why you would be upset if you already have OSX though.. paying $129, and then $100 for .MAC

As for me, I'm getting the new iMac, paying $120 that includes both the Jag upgrade and .MAC

Keep writing e-mails though, you never know if it'll help till ya try.

-John

 

[dhdave]

Originally posted by paulwhannel:

I think i'll start shopping around for my next computer system elsewhere.

Yeah, but where are you going to go? In the wintel world your left with an inferior OS (XP, 95, Me, 2000 take your pick, I've used them all) and an inferior architecture: X86. I've built many wintel boxes including the one I use for school and while it's fun to build and you're proud when you are done you have still built just a wintel machine and not a Mac and you're still left with all the headaches that come with wintel and X86. I truly hope the rumors of Apple slowly adopting AMD X86 architecture are NOT true. It's the RISC architecture that keeps me here. OS X is not enough by itself.

dh

 

[trodel_post]

Re: Re: a little flat

Originally posted by bretm


I'm sorry, you're not getting away with that. I've got a G4 400 and a G4 350 and OSX just plain rocks on both of them. I also work on a G4 Quicksilver dual-gig with FCP and other than rendering graphics or filters, the rest of the interface is baically the same, graphics cards aside. So if there's something you don't like on your 533s it's something you don't like about the interface. Not the speed of your machines. A 533 should rock along just great. What exactly do you find slow?

No offence, but these types of posts really annoy me. Speed is subjective. One person's rocking fast machine is another's dog. Don't go bashing someone because they want modern hardware from Apple. Is it really too much to ask for?

 

[gelbin]

re re re re a little flat

what do i find slow?


office, for one and only really.
explorer.

but office. and running macros is slow as hell on a office x. this is all compared to pIV ~1.4's.

it is not me i am worried about. it is the pc users that work on my journal that will find that their pc's are still much faster at basic office stuff.

it is embarrassing.

i thought jaguar would fix it, which it might, but ****, it is 300+$ if i am going to be legit.

 

[trodel_post]

Re: Re: Re: mail bombs

Originally posted by Rocketman


Replying to myself

If they had a feature that downloaded all messages and addresses into a free mail program such as Free Eudora or whatever, alot of the noise would subside because whatever the outcome of pay/nopay the data would be retained erffortlessly.

Rocketman

Get high. And fast.

Set up your .mac account as an IMAP account in your favorite mail client, then drag and drop the messages into your local folders. Come on people, this is not that difficult.

 

[MattB]

What are you talking about?!

Originally posted by richard5mith
Hotmail is not free. I wish people would stop saying it is.

Not only is it laden down with ads, and laden down with spam. But if you want to access it from anything other than your browser, you'll have to pay them for the privilege. I believe Yahoo! mail is now the same.

Hotmail is compeletly FREE!!! Unless you want to purchase the extra storage offered by MSN. Yahoo is the same way. AND Windows user can connect to their Hotmail account(s) through Outlook.

Also, Hotmail contains many filtering options to rid you of SPAM. I rarely get more than 2-3 pieces of SPAM a week and they are quickly blocked and deleted.

 

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by mcrain
Believe me, upgrade from Windows 98 to 2000 to XP once or twice, and $129 isn't so bad (especially considering a computer that originally ran 98 probably can't run xp for sh*t.

Oh, I'm quite familiar with the (huge) downsides to windows... i'm forced to use 'em often... but at this point, they're much faster, and it's not like my iMac running X never crashes-- It keeps getting buggier and slower... and the hardware isn't gaining any speed. It all comes down to what you're willing to sacrifice, since neither platform currently offers a decent solution... Myself, i'm getting to the point where i'll take a little more instability for a LOT more speed...

I suppose switching platforms is an idle threat on my part, because i'm HUGELY loyal to apple, but the simple fact that i'm questioning that loyalty says a great deal about the state of Apple right now...


pnw

 

[backspinner]

Hotmail is _still_ free. As soon as everybody else starts asking money for email services (well at least in my country free email has completely vanished), Microsoft soon will pull the plug as well. And nobody will fill the gap since if even Microsoft isn't able to run Hotmail-like services profitable, nobody will.

 

[JINX]

20 GB iPod is bigger, not smaller

While the 10GB iPod is 6mm smaller in the depth dimension, the 20 GB is larger than the 5GB model in the depth dimension and weighs more. The 5GB and 10GB versions weigh the same. Check the specs at apple.com.

-JINX

 

[JINX]

Backup

I just plunked down my $49 for .mac and already used Backup. Its really nice and works in the background letting everything else work pretty much as it should. It lets you backup some stuff to your iDisk and other stuff to CD-R or DVD-R, which is pretty cool. Once you've done your first big backup, later scheduled backups only take a minute to update the few files that have changed.

 

[bretm]

Originally posted by el_aarono
Especially 10.2 - the fact that there is no upgrade path is sand in the face of everyone that has supported the OS from the beginning, even though it sucked rocks up until 10.1...



I recall S. Jobs saying to upgrade is only $19.99. Also, if this upgrade is like the 10.1 upgrade, you can walk down to your nearest Apple dealer and pick up a copy for free.

I could swear I heard Jobs say something like "And it only works with the upcoming Jaguar OS... which will be a free download from apple's website." I was jumping up and down. Whatever I heard was crystal clear in my mind. Plus, 2 months ago a rep from Apple (one that works AT apple - not a salesperson) told me that she was of the complete understand it would be FREE. So I doubted her and figured it would at least have a $20 shipping tag. Of course I could mail a CD for 37 cents, but I guess I've got some incredible connections with the post office or something.

But alas, the apple web site has the NERVE to actually list the price as... "Upgrade ONLY $129" Jeez. I won't be upping until my software requires it. And at that point I'll be wondering if I require those software upgrades.

 

[richard5mith]

Originally posted by backspinner
Hotmail is _still_ free. As soon as everybody else starts asking money for email services (well at least in my country free email has completely vanished), Microsoft soon will pull the plug as well. And nobody will fill the gap since if even Microsoft isn't able to run Hotmail-like services profitable, nobody will.

Advert laden sites and email do not qualify as free. Giving up some of your personal information for an MS Passport isn't good either.

http://www.evolt.org/article/Say_Goodbye_to_Free_Email/1/22939/?format=print

Both MS and Yahoo already offer subscription versions. It won't be long before they become subscription only. Giving stuff away for free is not good business practice, it does not work (especially in Apple's case where they're giving away over 2 million email accounts for nothing).