I think we're missing the point here
Where to begin... (you can read that as "This may be a very long post")
How about I begin by trying to respond to Mcrain. First off, Welcome to the party. I can see how you get the impression that even the mac enthusiasts think apple is playing catch up, I almost got that impression too reading this thread, but I honestly believe that is not the case. And here's why...
1) I apologize for the overused analogy, but I do think it works. Why do people buy BMWs? It's not because they go 150 mph, my POS Ford Contour goes 150 mph (don't ask
) but it can't handle turns...or attract beautiful women
... nearly as well. I noticed you said you were waiting for a PC laptop maker to make one that LOOKS as good as the Apple ones. That's just it, this is not about just looks. Take for example the bottom of the line of Apple's incredible laptop offerings, the iBook with it's 12 inch screen. My PC using friends on campus must carry around 2 fragile PC cards in order to connect to our school's network. 1 for the wired ethernet and 1 (which sticks out about an inch) to use the wireless networking. That little ibook, which you can get (the 500 mhz version) for not much more than $1k has the ethernet port built into it and the airport card (which is compatible) fits neatly under the keyboard, so they are both always there and always safe. It's little things like this that make Apple products so amazing. I honestly can't even think of too many uses for a PC slot on the Tibooks when you already have 2 usb and 2 firewire ports.
2) Today's personal computers are very fast. Why is everyone here concerned about Apple dissappearing if it doesn't release a 2GHz G5 Tomorrow? And this is completely separate from the Mhz myth, that's irrelevant. For I'd say 50% or so, or even if it's as low as 25% or even 10% of people who just want a home pc so they can pay their bills online and let little johnny use the internet for school and type his papers, just about any computer that exists today is fast enough, and the new iMac is plenty fast to do just aobut anything. I know a lot of you, use, and even require every last clock cycle to do your daily work, but why don't you give the brand @#$@# new dual 1Ghz a chance and let Apple concentrate on other things. I use apple products because of a lot more aspects than speed. Let Apple spend the next 3 months even concentrating on convince my grandparents that even they can burn DVDs of their home videos and that my mom can organize her 1000s of photos with a new iMac OUT OF THE BOX. These are the people who can benefit greatly from Apple's ability to integrate seamlessly it's hardware and software. And there are enough of them that Apple's precious market share could increase noticably (at this point, even a 1% increase is reason to celebrate) if Apple just puts in the effort to show them the light
.
3) Greydecember makes an excellent point. apple has consistently released new systems every 6 months or so, why on earth would they start doing it every 6 weeks now? The stellar economy? R&D has all of a sudden become free? If you read the article that sparked this thread, it says the every one of Apple's lines has been updated in the past 56 days. That's less than 2 months, the new G4s have been out for only a few weeks. Apple is doing an excellent job doing their job which is being the best at what they're good at, not being everything to everyone. And Apple is good at producing products that get the job done. For most people, the speed in any PC being sold today is pretty much irrelevant. It will more than be able to handle anythign they'll throw at it. I konw people have been saying this for years, but I think it's true now.
....and I'm spent.
