And nevertheless, the six year old "legacy" system that I'm typing this on is still being supported.
Yes, they still support G5 computers from 2006 (yay!), but you know what I mean. I remember when they removed serial ports with no notice so users of expensive bigass 8x8 MIDI interfaces had to drill holes in their G3:s to fit them with a "stealth port". Or how about when they threw out the
entire system OS9, made a half-arsed effort to create a "classic mode" where only half the software worked, and the whole thing was removed a couple of years down the line. When I talk about legacy support in the Microsoft sense of the word I mean stuff like being able to run software that was made for effing Windows 3.11.
Sure, Snow Leopard will be the beginning of the end, but realistically, it will easily go another 1-2 more years...the equivalent of 5 Moore's Law lifespans from a product lifecycle perspective. In general, its a more wise question to ask ones self how many total years of product support is realistic and reasonable?
I personally like Apple's way better, even if it gets overly harsh against legacy users on occasion. All manufacturers can ditch all 9-pin, 25-pin, PS/2 and VGA ports for all I care. But this isn't about personal tastes, it was about the work that goes into development of the OS.
The reality is that MS isn't really doing any better with Vista's minimum hardware requirements...nor will Windows 7 not result in some legacy PC hardware similarly being orphaned. But if its an old 800MHz Pentium, that's its okay, because that's not Apple's fault...even though that's called a double standard.
OK, we're on different definitions of "legacy" here. You're right, legacy support insofar as Vista supporting old machines is concerned is abysmal, but I was talking about legacy support for software no matter how old, peripherals no matter how old, etc.
But you did explicitly say "Have we filled the $500-$2,000 discrepancy", which unambiguously refers to a price difference.
It wasn't an exact reference to any given comparison, just ballpark numbers. $2000 was not about MBP vs. "Lauren's HP" at all, but the difference between what a customer will have to pay for a high-end desktop PC with consumer-grade Nehalem (like the Dell Studio XPS) and a Mac Pro (admittedly with server-grade Nehalem, but they don't offer anything less so that's what we have to go with, and Dell has no Xeon Nehalem machine yet).
Let's see...
Mac Pro quad 2.66
6 GB DDR3 RAM
2x1 TB HD
ATI Radeon HD4870 512 MB
One Superdrive
No AppleCare, everything else default config
35,095 SEK ($4,285)
Dell Studio XPS core i7 quad 2.66
6 GB DDR3 RAM
2x1 TB HD
ATI Radeon HD4850 512 MB
One 16x DVD+/-RW
1 year "premium" support, whatever that is (on-site repairs, probably)
14,779 SEK ($1,804)
$2,481 difference.
Now let's adjust for the difference between Xeon and Core i7...
i7: 3,120 SEK
Xeon: 6,095 SEK
That's an additional $363, so subtract that from $2,481 = $2,118.
As for ATI 4870 vs 4850 I really don't know the difference there, but at least they're on the same planet.
This is no MBP 17" vs bargain-basement PC with AMD CPU. The only difference here is Vista vs OS X and Aluminium bucket vs. plastic bucket. Is the enclosure worth $2,118? No. Let's be generous and say that it's worth 500 bucks more than the plastic one ($50 is closer to mark, but I'm feeling generous today so let's multiply that by 10x), that still leaves a $1,618 Apple supergreed booster margin (TM), aka Arbitrary Apple Tax.
With the Dell at $1,804 + 363 = $2,167, I'd be willing to up to as much as $2,800-3,000 for the Apple, considering the added value of the nicer enclosure, the cable-free interior, OS X and a bit of brand tax thrown in. But $4,285? Not worth it, nothing to show for it. I'd gladly buy a BMW though.
