Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
are you serious? you have to be joking

Yes I am serious. They make software but that doesn't make them a software company. They used their software to sell hardware which is where their bread and butter is.
 
and my point was any success Windows 7 has is unrelated to a PC maker since they have nothing to do with the OS

and to be fair the market for Windows 7 is also a lot higher since you have to take into account the entire Business sector which is primarily MS. i'm sure these numbers included Enterprise Agreements/OEM/etc. and that diistribution channel is much bigger than anything Apple has, so it really isn't fair to makke that comparison to OSX which is a consumer OS

And mac sales are primarily driven by iPhone development. So far I haven't met a single person who is planning to switch from windows to mac.
 
Yes I am serious. They make software but that doesn't make them a software company. They used their software to sell hardware which is where their bread and butter is.

keeping believing that if you want but Apple is a software company, the same as Microsoft

the difference is Microsoft choose to license out its software and Apple choose to sell their software with hardware

neither one is a hardware company, although Apple is trying to move in that direction with the aquisition of PA Semi, but that is such a recent development that the company culture is still software

Intel, Cisco, TI, SIIG, Asus, Micron, Samsung, Seimens, etc. those are hardward companies
 
The iPad is really going to kill the under $1,000 computer market.

I've spoke to several non Apple Fans who have told me that they will buy one just to play with.

Also I've notice that women like the design and concept of the iPad too. A computer with out a clunky keyboard or a ton of wires....

No, it won't. The iPad is not a computer in the way we all think and use computers...applications, multitasking, printing, saving/creating files, authoring/rendering video, music production (my big usage), web development tools, and generally using the CPU and underlying hardware for WHATEVER the developer wants to use it for....that's what computers are generally used for today.

I think iPad will certainly have it's place...and will likely sell well for those who simply want a web surfing device and an ebook reader. The rest of the world that wants/needs to run applications like MS Office, Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop, chat clients, vpn clients, etc. and wish to burn cds/dvds and other computer examples I listed earlier cannot use the iPad for these uses. Not to mention its <10" size. Sure, someone here will reply about how well netbooks sell, but people who use netbooks don't stare at them for 3+ hours at a time like I/we do while we're at work....and even if we could, the screen is just too small for a lot of applications.
 
And mac sales are primarily driven by iPhone development. So far I haven't met a single person who is planning to switch from windows to mac.

that may be true, i was just pointing out that it isn't a completely fair comparison, it isn't an apples to apples comparison (pardon the pun) since windows is both in the home and business markets and mac is primarily home and a niche in business
 
I was just talking yesterday with my boyfriend about our first Macs we bought over two years ago. I asked him how many times his Macbook Pro broke down... he said none. My iMac never broke either, nothing that a restart would not take care of.

Amazing, huh? I wonder if we bought PC's, we may have to be looking for new computers by now.

I've been running Vista/Windows 7 since I got my Mac in 2007, and not one problem, except boot camp drivers that doesn't give me sound on Windows 7. I bought a USB sound card for that, which is great and actually prefer due to convenience of it's location. But other than that with the OS itself, not one problem.
 
So while PC users are buying laptops with i3/i5/i7 processors, USB3, Intel WiDi (Wireless Display), finger-print readers, HDMI output etc. Mac fans use outdated hardware and enjoy Apple profits. How perverted is this?

A new restaurant opened up just down the street from me. You could tell that the owners were new to the restaurant business, but were real foodies who cared about the quality of their food and their menu. That took special care to point out how much of the menu items were sourced from local farms. Everyone around me commented especially on how reasonable the prices were for such great food.

Turns out, I WANT companies that I buy from to make profits, because this great restaurant went out of business in six months. Making profits means they stay in business and continue to give me what I want. Is this perverted?

Apple has customers that value user experience over having the latest hardware. They have different values than you. Is this perverted?

People who are different than you choose to spend their money differently than you would. Is this perverted?

Kindly stay out of my wallet, and I will do the same for you.
 
And mac sales are primarily driven by iPhone development. So far I haven't met a single person who is planning to switch from windows to mac.

Please provide some evidence to back up your statement.
 
keeping believing that if you want but Apple is a software company, the same as Microsoft

the difference is Microsoft choose to license out its software and Apple choose to sell their software with hardware

neither one is a hardware company, although Apple is trying to move in that direction with the aquisition of PA Semi, but that is such a recent development that the company culture is still software

Intel, Cisco, TI, SIIG, Asus, Micron, Samsung, Seimens, etc. those are hardward companies

Microsoft doesn't always license their software. They never licensed Zune software or Xbox.
 
keeping believing that if you want but Apple is a software company, the same as Microsoft

the difference is Microsoft choose to license out its software and Apple choose to sell their software with hardware

neither one is a hardware company, although Apple is trying to move in that direction with the aquisition of PA Semi, but that is such a recent development that the company culture is still software

Intel, Cisco, TI, SIIG, Asus, Micron, Samsung, Seimens, etc. those are hardward companies

Apple invests time in software with the purpose to sell their hardware. Apple's margins are made on hardware, not software, and the margins are high. They operate on a completely different business model than Microsoft.

This shows they are a hardware company.
apple-revenue-by-segment.jpg
 
Not really. They just wouldn't sell that many. And when one looks at market share it's clear they aren't selling that many.

It is easy to make the case that lowering the price would mean higher unit sales. That isn't exactly what I would call insightful.

Can you make the case that this would be something Apple would want to do in order to increase profits?

With enough information widely known, an efficient market will determine the "price" or value of a product. If Apple tries to charge more than that, there sales would drop to zero. Since that is not happening, it cannot be said that their price is over what the market will bear.

Selling many of anything is not the end goal. Having a profitable business by selling things is.
 
I honestly can't understand why these PC fanboys spend all their time on an Apple-oriented site pissing in everybody's cornflakes. (I also don't know what kind of masochist it would take to be a PC fanboy, but oh well....)

I would quite simply stop using a computer at all if Windows were the only solution. Never mind the malware problem (and some idiot upthread was rehashing the old "smaller target" argument! Dear God!) Never mind the pain and suffering of trying to get Windows to work at all. Never mind having to reinstall it monthly, and being told you're trying to pirate it. Never mind any of that—I simply refuse to use an OS that crashes every five minutes. Any of you who claim Windows never crashes for you are quite simply lying. Hitting "control-alt-delete" 100 times a day and starting your work over from scratch is unacceptable. Maybe the kind of hobbyists who build their own computers are willing to put up with it, but most people aren't.

Yes, Macs start at the high end of the price range, but probably most PC users are unaware that there is a thriving market in used Macs to service the lower-price arena. They're unaware of that because most PCs don't last long enough to be resold, most older PCs can't run Vista or Windows 7 (6.1, actually), and most importantly, it is quite literally illegal to sell a used PC with the OS still installed. Private parties do it anyway, and wait until Microsoft's spiders come along and determine you're using an unregistered OS and brick your computer, but the people who sell refurbished PCs legally have to wipe the hard drive and sell you a new OS license—usually for more than the computer itself.

I moved into the Mac camp by that route—progressively better used Macs until I could afford a new one. Car analogies meet with scorn, but that's how the automobile market works. If people had to buy only new cars, a lot fewer people would own them. (Never mind if new cars had to start at $125 like my first one!)

Netbooks are trying to meet the cheap entry-level need, but they also self-destruct in a year or so. The ones that don't are no cheaper than real laptops. That being said, even though I'm not crazy about Google lately, I'll be willing to look at a netbook running Chrome OS when it's available—at least it's based on a real OS instead of the mishmash of archaic crud that Windows is.
 
A new restaurant opened up just down the street from me. You could tell that the owners were new to the restaurant business, but were real foodies who cared about the quality of their food and their menu. That took special care to point out how much of the menu items were sourced from local farms. Everyone around me commented especially on how reasonable the prices were for such great food.

Turns out, I WANT companies that I buy from to make profits, because this great restaurant went out of business in six months. Making profits means they stay in business and continue to give me what I want. Is this perverted?

Apple has customers that value user experience over having the latest hardware. They have different values than you. Is this perverted?

People who are different than you choose to spend their money differently than you would. Is this perverted?

Kindly stay out of my wallet, and I will do the same for you.

Your analogy is as flawed as any other. In case of the restaurant you enjoyed great food. I get it why you would want the restaurant to stick around. And in case of Macs, you enjoy what exactly? Outdated hardware? The right analogy would be that you wanted the restaurant with lousy food to have profits. Your reference to "user experience" is difficult to understand. Your experience directly depends on quality of your hardware. And if you, say, have to wait 3x times longer than the owner of HP laptop with USB3 to backup your drive how can your experience be better?
 
Microsoft doesn't always license their software. They never licensed Zune software or Xbox.

the Zune is modified Windows CE

the X-Box is modified Windows 2000

both of which are licensed

and before that they licensed CE to Sega for Dreamcast

try again
 
I honestly can't understand why these PC fanboys spend all their time on an Apple-oriented site pissing in everybody's cornflakes. (I also don't know what kind of masochist it would take to be a PC fanboy, but oh well....)

I would quite simply stop using a computer at all if Windows were the only solution. Never mind the malware problem (and some idiot upthread was rehashing the old "smaller target" argument! Dear God!) Never mind the pain and suffering of trying to get Windows to work at all. Never mind having to reinstall it monthly, and being told you're trying to pirate it. Never mind any of that—I simply refuse to use an OS that crashes every five minutes. Any of you who claim Windows never crashes for you are quite simply lying. Hitting "control-alt-delete" 100 times a day and starting your work over from scratch is unacceptable. Maybe the kind of hobbyists who build their own computers are willing to put up with it, but most people aren't.

Yes, Macs start at the high end of the price range, but probably most PC users are unaware that there is a thriving market in used Macs to service the lower-price arena. They're unaware of that because most PCs don't last long enough to be resold, most older PCs can't run Vista or Windows 7 (6.1, actually), and most importantly, it is quite literally illegal to sell a used PC with the OS still installed. Private parties do it anyway, and wait until Microsoft's spiders come along and determine you're using an unregistered OS and brick your computer, but the people who sell refurbished PCs legally have to wipe the hard drive and sell you a new OS license—usually for more than the computer itself.

I moved into the Mac camp by that route—progressively better used Macs until I could afford a new one. Car analogies meet with scorn, but that's how the automobile market works. If people had to buy only new cars, a lot fewer people would own them. (Never mind if new cars had to start at $125 like my first one!)

Netbooks are trying to meet the cheap entry-level need, but they also self-destruct in a year or so. The ones that don't are no cheaper than real laptops. That being said, even though I'm not crazy about Google lately, I'll be willing to look at a netbook running Chrome OS when it's available—at least it's based on a real OS instead of the mishmash of archaic crud that Windows is.

talk about the pot calling the kettle black, the propoganda is so thick you can touch it
 
No, it won't. The iPad is not a computer in the way we all think and use computers...applications, multitasking, printing, saving/creating files, authoring/rendering video, music production (my big usage), web development tools, and generally using the CPU and underlying hardware for WHATEVER the developer wants to use it for....that's what computers are generally used for today..

Be careful when asserting what "we all think." Before about 1984, no one would have defined a "computer" with those tasks. Before machines were involved, a "computer" was a profession like "accountant" or "lawyer".

This just points out that the definition for what a computer is and how it should be used changes over time based on the needs of the users.

The iPad, to me, represents a further evolution of how "computing devices" are being used in our lives. And even this too will further evolve. (Although apparently not by much because they're still using this form factor on the Enterprise. Only then the "computer" will be the ships' main computer. I digress.)
 
I honestly can't understand why these PC fanboys spend all their time on an Apple-oriented site pissing in everybody's cornflakes. (I also don't know what kind of masochist it would take to be a PC fanboy, but oh well....)

I would quite simply stop using a computer at all if Windows were the only solution. Never mind the malware problem (and some idiot upthread was rehashing the old "smaller target" argument! Dear God!) Never mind the pain and suffering of trying to get Windows to work at all. Never mind having to reinstall it monthly, and being told you're trying to pirate it. Never mind any of that—I simply refuse to use an OS that crashes every five minutes. Any of you who claim Windows never crashes for you are quite simply lying. Hitting "control-alt-delete" 100 times a day and starting your work over from scratch is unacceptable. Maybe the kind of hobbyists who build their own computers are willing to put up with it, but most people aren't.

Yes, Macs start at the high end of the price range, but probably most PC users are unaware that there is a thriving market in used Macs to service the lower-price arena. They're unaware of that because most PCs don't last long enough to be resold, most older PCs can't run Vista or Windows 7 (6.1, actually), and most importantly, it is quite literally illegal to sell a used PC with the OS still installed. Private parties do it anyway, and wait until Microsoft's spiders come along and determine you're using an unregistered OS and brick your computer, but the people who sell refurbished PCs legally have to wipe the hard drive and sell you a new OS license—usually for more than the computer itself.

I moved into the Mac camp by that route—progressively better used Macs until I could afford a new one. Car analogies meet with scorn, but that's how the automobile market works. If people had to buy only new cars, a lot fewer people would own them. (Never mind if new cars had to start at $125 like my first one!)

Netbooks are trying to meet the cheap entry-level need, but they also self-destruct in a year or so. The ones that don't are no cheaper than real laptops. That being said, even though I'm not crazy about Google lately, I'll be willing to look at a netbook running Chrome OS when it's available—at least it's based on a real OS instead of the mishmash of archaic crud that Windows is.

Exactly some of these dudes want Windows to have 100 percent marketshare. Apart from Mac OSX, there is no other alternative to Windows for the average dude. Linux is mostly irrelevant. I can't go into Best Buy and buy a computer loaded with Linux. I mean that would make the world a better place. I cannot think of one company that controls so much of a market. I mean so many different companies and systems around the world are depedent on one company in Washington.
 
Exactly some of these dudes want Windows to have 100 percent marketshare. Apart from Mac OSX, there is no other alternative to Windows for the average dude. Linux is mostly irrelevant. I can't go into Best Buy and buy a computer loaded with Linux. I mean that would make the world a better place. I cannot think of one company that controls so much of a market. I mean so many different companies and systems around the world are depedent on one company in Washington.

you actually can go and get something with linux loaded.

and i don't think anyone in their right mind wants anyone to have 100% marketshare of anything, the cost would be too high,
 
Your analogy is as flawed as any other. In case of the restaurant you enjoyed great food. I get it why you would want the restaurant to stick around. And in case of Macs, you enjoy what exactly? Outdated hardware? The right analogy would be that you wanted the restaurant with lousy food to have profits. Your reference to "user experience" is difficult to understand. Your experience directly depends on quality of your hardware. And if you, say, have to wait 3x times longer than the owner of HP laptop with USB3 to backup your drive how can your experience be better?

The thing about analogies is that they don't have to be perfect to illustrate the point. They just have to be suggestive.

So you don't believe that Apple product users enjoy using their products? Claiming that "your experience directly depends on quality of your hardware" is a pretty broad assertion. Nothing else matters? Really?

Something can be better without being perfect. It might be "better" to use a Mac and have to wait for USB3 than to use an Acer and get USB3 sooner. This is what makes it a nuanced world in the grey area of "value". Rarely is it so black and white.

It would be perfect (for me) to be able to use a Mac and get USB3 sooner. I never claimed that the Mac experience was perfect. I did claim that enough Mac users find their imperfect experience better than the imperfect experience they would get from somewhere. At least enough of them do that would want to keep Apple in business.
 
This is why people think macs are too expensive, because apple has killed the high end laptop market.

Oh and by the way, the truth is out about windows 7, that little bump MS had is over. Most of the bump was probably just us geeks who bought the OS just to try it anyway. Being completely honest, i heavily prefer vista over windows 7, at this stage vista is much more mature and stable.
 
The legacy PC manufacturers must be having heart attacks. Apple has driven them almost entirely out of the high end and is currently gobbling up all the profit there and forcing them to take the low margin $400-$700 market.

Since Apple enjoys only about 8% of the computer market, it seems to me that the other 92% is commodity computers where brand and features are less important than price.

While 8% may seem low, it is still a larger segment of prestige products such as is enjoyed by say, Jaguar cars, Rolex watches, and Bang & Olufsen sound systems.

Now that the legacy manufacturers have gotten caught in that commodity niche and have no money to innovate their way out of it, Apple drops into the market with iPad. It is enough of a computer for a majority of users and has a compelling design none of the legacy manufacturers can compete with.

I think the computer manufacturing industry has plenty of money; just no way of differentiating themselves from the commodity pack. Anything they can do, the others can do also... so it becomes a matter of a flock of chickens chasing after each other looking for a morsel market.

It is going to be a blood bath over the next few years as Apple takes that market too. Innovate or die, the legacy PC manufacturers forgot that!

I think you could be right. Apple has a history of taking a longer term look at markets and silently moving a lot of pieces into place before tipping their hand. This gives them "first mover advantage" in garnering media attention and market leadership before the competitors can react.

Whether there really is a market segment unique to the iPad or whether it is really a Netbook segment Apple is addressing with a unique product, if Apple can win the "perception" of the public that it offers a better and more enjoyable product, then that's what it's all about.

If I worked all day at a computer, the last thing I'd find enjoyable would be to come home and nestle up to another computer. However if the form factor and IU were different enough to allow me to stretch out on the sofa and relax, then it would be a totally different experience, and enjoyable. This may be why Apple is not calling the iPad a computer.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.