Over 1 Million Windows to Mac Converts in 2005?

[GorillaPaws]

Growth. I stand by my yes. iPod halo effect anyone?

Look, I'm not trying to be a prick or anything but I understand the meaning of the word growth. I thought the examples of non-switcher growth demonstrated that fact. Take the first example, If a kid grows up in a Mac-home, then there's a good chance that he/she will be a Mac user when they get thier first computer. They're not switchers, but they do count as growth. The second example I gave may not have been clear enough, but what I meant was with the release of the mini, many users are buying a second Mac (not a replacement for their primary unit, that wouldn't count), but the current userbase increasing the number of useable units is also considered growth, and they are also not considered switchers.

Lastly, growth year over year has a lot to do with what was available from one year to the next. 2004 was moderately anemic as far as product offerings go-- remember how Apple missed the back-to-school rush for iMacs, whereas 2005 had a lot of great machines for a solid value. It seems that some of the numbers may be attributed to people holding off on Mac purchases in 2004 and going for it in 2005.

Now I'm not saying there weren't swithchers this year (and maybe quite a few haloers-- how did that term come about anyways?), and I stated that a very healthy percent probably were, but noone can assume that 100% of the growth year to year was due soley to switchers-- that is just crazy (and VERY bad statistics-- on par with the kind of stuff our government tries to pull).

 

[Jonx]

its been a year for me, never had a single problem that effects any productivity in any way 😀 maybe some annoying glitches on 10.4 beside that nothing else and CONGRATS APPLE!! 🙂

 

[50548]

It's really amazing...here in Switzerland I ONLY see iPods on the street...market share must be above 90%, really...

I've met 2 girls recently, who BOTH have Macs, and ONLY use Macs...mindshare is at its highest point, and I am sure Macs will get to 10% in no time...trust me, the number of switchers in this forum is just statistical evidence for something much higher.

Or as Bill Gates said in a recent memo, the switch to a "services" trend is a HUGE threat to Microsoft's dominance...Apple dominating one side, Google and Yahoo another...no wonder Microsoft is firing all cylinders on the release of XBox 360...it's their sole "firm" revenue source now, along with SQL Server 2005 and MS Office...not Winblows anymore.

Quoting Dvorak in a different way, "folks, the Windows platform is through". SUCK IT UP, PCloids!

 

[bugfaceuk]

oh my gosh, if you guys are even beginning to think that these numbers are based on anything other than speculation - you really need to get a grip on reality

I think you need to read the other posts more carefully, I think everyone is taking the "news" in the correct context. It's speculation, it's interesting speculation, what if it's true (or even somewhere near true)?

People get so excited around here about speculation and theory...

I know! Isn't it cool! It's great to actually be part of something so exciting and interesting that we all get fired up about it.

I'm an 05'Switcher (i.e. late, but making good time)... I picked up a Mini when they were released to "try" Macs. No intention of actually switching (i.e. using a Mac as my main machine).

Week 1: Fiddled with Mac, USED PC.
Week 2: Discovered Expose, minor revolution that such a tiny tiny feature could make such a huge difference to working with multiple applications concurrently.
Week 3: Realized that when working on my Mini, I ran far far more apps concurrently than Windows. Realized my Mini cost £329, and my PC £2000, and the mini threw more applications around at the same time.
Week 4: Took credit card in hand, replaced all my core software with Mac versions (MS Office, Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Eclipse), go to grips with X-Code. Upgraded Mini memory and hard-drive.

That's about 6 months ago now, and I now only use my PC for one thing. Counter-Strike: Source.

Here's a newsflash...even if this were true it wouldnt matter

And your point is? I think you may be right, it probably doesn't. However, I remember similar analysis with the K7-K8. Now AMD are finally _beginning_ to look like they can move from the home market and start to focus on the business sector.

Windows does not care what is happening in the home user market, if anything, this really helps them as it gets people off of "sitting" on windows 2000 or 98...they have a hard time convincing people to use XP and Media Center, and Vista is going to be a hard sell as well...however, once people come "off" of a platform, it is actually quite easy to get them to switch back. Think of it in reverse...i was once a Mac OS 8,9 user, was forced to go to Windows, then once I saw some innovation in the OS X space, I couldnt wait to try it out...part of it was nostalgia, part was marketing genius of S. Jobs...

I'm not sure that's true, I'm a pretty pragmatic guy, especially when I work with the machine at least 10 hours a day. When I do have to go back to a PC (I haven't "switched" my laptop yet and do visit customers) I hate it. Literally, life-time Windows user, I hate it.

the same principle will Apply for Vista. There are features and capabilities in this OS that I am already drooling over. Forget flashy UI, thier media experience is truly elegant...I am already planning my purchase of both an xbox 360 (dont even get me started on the inferiority of mac gaming) and a Media center PC to manage my HD programming...And PLEASE dont get into it with me over front row...this is just a peice of UI on top of quicktime, iphoto and itunes...and I really dont care...media center is a true multimedia experience...Radio and TV timeshifting; movie, photo, music management, excellent remote control, slick UI...the works...

Genuine question... what on earth are you drooling over? I agree WMC didn't get it right straight away, and in my opinion it's not right now. I also agree FrontRow isn't there yet either. At least, not in the "whole nine yards" sense of "there". Actually, what it does, it does much better than WMC. It's typical Apple really, it may not do everything, but what it does, it does reeeeaaaallly well.

Slick UI? Discuss.

X-Box 360? I'm not against it, still don't see it doing anything my now-gaming-rig doesn't do.

front row has potential, but I think people underestimate the hardware requirements of a true media center...this has taken years to pull of with MS and it will take years for apple to meet feature parity

Yup. It's a personal thing however, I would rather a partial solution that does what it does perfectly, than a complete solution with mediocraty across the application.

But lets drag this back to "reality" as you say. WMC sales are tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny proportion of the picture. The market is adopting these solutions fully yet (and I mean compared to say sales of DVD players). This is not yet "a big issue" for any OS.

Back to the point...1 million users switching is a serious stretch, and nearly impossible to prove...whats more, Windows completely dominates corporate america through enterprise sales agreements and Apple has nothing to offer to compete with Windows in corporate environments...When corporations go to purchase an email solution - Apple cant hold a candle to Windows 2003 + Exchange + Outlook 2003...I wish they could, but they cant. This is why Microsoft laughs at all of this press, hype, stock inflation...Sales of ipods vs. sales of windows license agreements is like comparing worldwide car sales to north america snowboard sales...one may be cooler than the other, but corporate market share dominance makes the latter irrelevant...no matter how much hype you stir into it

Agreed, but you know what, I don't think anyone was waving the "end of windows" flag. OS-X is zero miles along the true corp. penetration road. May never even get there. Much bigger market is the corp. infrastructure, and THAT is open for Mac invasion, *NIX does it better, and Linux will help the penetration.

I guess I can't really see how we get from where we are, to iBook's on corporate desks. Just not sure I care that much.

What do I want? To see Apple capture a significant share of the domestic market, and force people to see they have choices. What they chose is up to them. I know I've chosen OS-X right now. I want to be certain I can make a new decision in the future.

I don't really care to see apple with 90% of that market, 40% would be enough to demonstrate credible alternative. I also expect that we will see the same slow erotion of the domestic windows market that we have seen with the domestic Intel market. It's not going to be quick, and I think Apple are going to have some REALLY tough decisions to make over the next 5-7 years.

However, since the demise of the Amiga and Atari ST and the extreemly exciting emergence of Windows 95, at long last, thank god, for the first time in years, I'm actually transfixed by the progress of computing. I have a list of 10 tiny features that OS-X has that make it a pleasure to use. None of them big, all of them I feel like a small stroke of genius.

I hope Windows Vista is f***ing FANTASTIC, I hope it drives Apple to try harder and harder, and the Linux distro developers.

Competition is good. Speculation is fun. Reality? I don't see what bearing that has on this thread 😎

 

[bugfaceuk]

Osbourne effect is when you know of a definite time frame! And if you read through the forms (i have since atleast may 03) there are atleast people who have waited since last 2 years to get a powerbook and i am sure there are lot of people who are loosing patience and just buying the current powerbooks. And there is a large community that thinks that PPC is still some how "cool" if not better than x86!!!

Somebody just found a linux hack and an exploit ( and are actively using on webservers). May be you want to be that sure about Mac OS X being virus free for eternity... Common people i am tired of listening to your windows has viruses crap, have some common sense and you will be fine! There are lots of other merits please find another ffffing reason! (well as the saying goes common sense is the rarest sense!). 🙄

I pretty much agree with this, that Apple are currently in a sweet spot, showing growth, but not a big enough target yet. Viruses are not a reason to switch, neither is spyware.

Fully integrated *NIX security is an advantage over Windows. It is a better system, fully integrated within the OS. Understanding why is complex, and most people don't care.

More stable? It feels more stable, but I guess I don't run quite as many "I came across this on the net and thought I'd try it out" apps as I did on Windows. Not sure most will care.

Looks better, well YES. But again, I'm not sure that really counts either.

So what really causes people to switch? It's tiny input from all of these, and that mythical Apple factor that is growing and growing. For me, I feel like I've bought into a vision for how things should be, from a company that believes in achieving that (and makes shed loads of cash while they do it).

I dig.

 

[bugfaceuk]

Seal the deal for what?! 😕

Growing from 4% market share to 4.7%?

You are ALL displaying not only your dimwitted approach to a blind belief in the rediculous, as well as your pitiful complaints to the political system...

typical

Hey, news flash:

I hear some random person in North Dakota took a ***** and it came out looking like an imac...This must mean that Apple is about to overthrow Window's dominance in the home PC market as well as in the corporate environment...

this does more for me than this rediculous speculation

I agree, the best rebutal of a weak argument is a pointless rant.

 

[-hh]

This is generic ****

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Why are you so afraid of it?

THe assumption is that all the additional (46%) increase in mac sales are from windows!!!

Sales growth simply cannot come from a void. It must come from somewhere. Looking at the available possibilities, we have:

a) Increase in consumer base
b) Increase in consumer's replacement rate of existing hardware
c) Market Share Shift between current product suppliers.

That's it. Do note that Space Aliens fall under (a) 🙂


Looking at (a), the population growth in the USA has been roughly flat (~1%) for the past two decades, even when including immegration. Afterall, people don't just grow on trees.

The marketplace has been saturated for a decade, so the odds of some measurably large pocket of "never had a computer" luddites is quite small. But if we nevertheless assume that they exist...say, 1% of the adult population (300M*0.50*0.01 = 1.5M)...then Apple's 1M additional units sold means that they gathered 1M/1.5M = ~66% of that new market!

And since the total marketshare of Apple is now reportedly roughly 6.6% (it was also reportedly ~3.6% two years ago), this 66% adoption rate would suggest a tenfold change in consumer product preferences within this 'newly discovered' consumer segment. Yeah, that's a bit too much to believe. So this means that Possibiliy (a) strikes out as a likely significant contributing factor.

Looking at (b), the classical rationale for upgrading hardware has been because of growth in CPU clock speeds. The general rule of thumb is that most people who upgrade for this reason will to so when the new system has 2x the clock speed of their current hardware. Has this happened over the past two years? Nope. Not IBM, Motorola, Intel or AMD has doubled their clocks. With the hardware rate-of-change slowing down, so too are the motivations for upgrades. Do keep in mind that Mac's have been available with 2GHz CPU's for the past two years, so anyone with a mac slower than half of that (less than 1GHz) has had two years to upgrade - - a credible and logical reason for why they all waited until last Fiscal Quarter does not exist, so this means that Possibiliy (b) strikes out as a likely significant contributing factor too.


Finally, possibility (c). It is simply "what's left" as a possible explanation.

Then where did the 17% growth of PCs come from?

Well, it certainly didn't come from Apple, for the Mac unit growth was 26% last quarter despite any "Osbourn Effect" from Steve's Intel announcement.

Overall, this all could be a transient bubble - both the PC's and the Mac's current upswing in sales. Afterall, if we look back around 5 years (the typical upgrade cycle these days), we hearken back to the days that all of the PC users in the world were terrified by the Y2K problem and buying new hardware. But gosh, that would be just only PC users again, wouldn't it?? 😱


-hh

 

[ack_mac]

I think you need to read the other posts more carefully, I think everyone is taking the "news" in the correct context. It's speculation, it's interesting speculation, what if it's true (or even somewhere near true)?



I know! Isn't it cool! It's great to actually be part of something so exciting and interesting that we all get fired up about it.

I'm an 05'Switcher (i.e. late, but making good time)... I picked up a Mini when they were released to "try" Macs. No intention of actually switching (i.e. using a Mac as my main machine).

Week 1: Fiddled with Mac, USED PC.
Week 2: Discovered Expose, minor revolution that such a tiny tiny feature could make such a huge difference to working with multiple applications concurrently.
Week 3: Realized that when working on my Mini, I ran far far more apps concurrently than Windows. Realized my Mini cost £329, and my PC £2000, and the mini threw more applications around at the same time.
Week 4: Took credit card in hand, replaced all my core software with Mac versions (MS Office, Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Eclipse), go to grips with X-Code. Upgraded Mini memory and hard-drive.

That's about 6 months ago now, and I now only use my PC for one thing. Counter-Strike: Source.



And your point is? I think you may be right, it probably doesn't. However, I remember similar analysis with the K7-K8. Now AMD are finally _beginning_ to look like they can move from the home market and start to focus on the business sector.



I'm not sure that's true, I'm a pretty pragmatic guy, especially when I work with the machine at least 10 hours a day. When I do have to go back to a PC (I haven't "switched" my laptop yet and do visit customers) I hate it. Literally, life-time Windows user, I hate it.



Genuine question... what on earth are you drooling over? I agree WMC didn't get it right straight away, and in my opinion it's not right now. I also agree FrontRow isn't there yet either. At least, not in the "whole nine yards" sense of "there". Actually, what it does, it does much better than WMC. It's typical Apple really, it may not do everything, but what it does, it does reeeeaaaallly well.

Slick UI? Discuss.

X-Box 360? I'm not against it, still don't see it doing anything my now-gaming-rig doesn't do.



Yup. It's a personal thing however, I would rather a partial solution that does what it does perfectly, than a complete solution with mediocraty across the application.

But lets drag this back to "reality" as you say. WMC sales are tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny proportion of the picture. The market is adopting these solutions fully yet (and I mean compared to say sales of DVD players). This is not yet "a big issue" for any OS.



Agreed, but you know what, I don't think anyone was waving the "end of windows" flag. OS-X is zero miles along the true corp. penetration road. May never even get there. Much bigger market is the corp. infrastructure, and THAT is open for Mac invasion, *NIX does it better, and Linux will help the penetration.

I guess I can't really see how we get from where we are, to iBook's on corporate desks. Just not sure I care that much.

What do I want? To see Apple capture a significant share of the domestic market, and force people to see they have choices. What they chose is up to them. I know I've chosen OS-X right now. I want to be certain I can make a new decision in the future.

I don't really care to see apple with 90% of that market, 40% would be enough to demonstrate credible alternative. I also expect that we will see the same slow erotion of the domestic windows market that we have seen with the domestic Intel market. It's not going to be quick, and I think Apple are going to have some REALLY tough decisions to make over the next 5-7 years.

However, since the demise of the Amiga and Atari ST and the extreemly exciting emergence of Windows 95, at long last, thank god, for the first time in years, I'm actually transfixed by the progress of computing. I have a list of 10 tiny features that OS-X has that make it a pleasure to use. None of them big, all of them I feel like a small stroke of genius.

I hope Windows Vista is f***ing FANTASTIC, I hope it drives Apple to try harder and harder, and the Linux distro developers.

Competition is good. Speculation is fun. Reality? I don't see what bearing that has on this thread 😎

Really good post, and I agree with you on nearly every point. I too, do not believe that Apple will capture (or even wants to have) 90%+ market share. Look what it has done for Microsoft. It has promoted mediocrity. Microsoft has struggled with regards to innovation and releasing significant updates in a timely manner.

From what I have read and seen, Vista is a significant update, but in many ways it is a blatant ripoff of Tiger. The real question is how will Vista stack-up against Leopard since this will be the real comparison, not Tiger.

There is something to the iPod-halo effect. I am one of those iPod users who finally had enough of Windows and made the switch to Apple and OS X. The only problem that I find with the switch is wondering what took me so long 🙂

 

[artifex]

I'm one of them! Glad I did it too. 😀

Me, too. Just wish I had waited a month for a Rev B. mini, instead of my Rev. A. 🙂
I just use my XP box for fileserving, now. Since I was already using Firefox and Thunderbird, I had no real translation or conversion involved in setting up web browsing or email, either. Mozilla helps me be platform agnostic, as do open document formats and standard filetypes.

 

[solvs]

I stated that a very healthy percent probably were, but noone can assume that 100% of the growth year to year was due soley to switchers-- that is just crazy (and VERY bad statistics-- on par with the kind of stuff our government tries to pull).

Never said 100%. 😉 But even when we factor in people replacing their machines, adding new ones, and other family members, I'm looking at the simple fact that they sold more this year than the last. And last year, they sold more than the year before that. Someone is buying these new machines, and somehow I doubt it's just a bunch of Mac users. Some of them have to be former Windows users, and I would hazard a guess that they would be a majority of the growth.

Overall, I'm sure it's lower than that, but still high.

 

[GorillaPaws]

Never said 100%. 😉 But even when we factor in people replacing their machines, adding new ones, and other family members, I'm looking at the simple fact that they sold more this year than the last. And last year, they sold more than the year before that. Someone is buying these new machines, and somehow I doubt it's just a bunch of Mac users. Some of them have to be former Windows users, and I would hazard a guess that they would be a majority of the growth.

Overall, I'm sure it's lower than that, but still high.

I can live w/ that 🙂 and I definetly think it's a majority percentage of growth too. I was just peeved w/ the methods the dude in the article used for calculating switchers, that's all (sloppy analysis - did you read the article joking this guy about it from Apple Matters?- it made me laugh). I thought you were backing the 99%-100% switcher thing that's why I kinda got on your case.... Sorry for that 😱 . Anyways, no hard feelings?

 

[qtip919]

Really good post, and I agree with you on nearly every point. I too, do not believe that Apple will capture (or even wants to have) 90%+ market share. Look what it has done for Microsoft. It has promoted mediocrity. Microsoft has struggled with regards to innovation and releasing significant updates in a timely manner.

From what I have read and seen, Vista is a significant update, but in many ways it is a blatant ripoff of Tiger. The real question is how will Vista stack-up against Leopard since this will be the real comparison, not Tiger.

There is something to the iPod-halo effect. I am one of those iPod users who finally had enough of Windows and made the switch to Apple and OS X. The only problem that I find with the switch is wondering what took me so long 🙂

wow, you really walked right into that one genius...

lets see...what haaas microsoft achieved through 90% marketshare?...hmmmm....well, how about a company that has revolutionized the economy...how bout a multiBILLION dollar industry. How about total dominance in the enterprise email space, office solution space, etc. etc.

but wait! we have ipod and itunes...yipeeeeee!!!

Wow, that just great...why dont you go check the numbers on what microsoft made last year on enterprise license agreements for Outlook. Then go look at total revenue for Apple and tell what you think about the health of this company.

Hype is sometimes more dangerous than you think...and this is a company thriving on hype and speculation. In the long run, its not healthy for the company.

you may not realize this because your Apple OS home computer is the beginning and end of your knowledge of what the computer world has given you, but Microsoft has stimulated the economy in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

Oh, but the UI sucks and Windows crashes all the time!

big deal, that's not what makes money...in fact, the OS is rapidly becoming abstracted from the entire equation. Microsoft provides a PLATFORM FOR DEVELOPMENT...they could care less, and we all realize this, about your user experience. THAT is in the hand of the mryraid of people who are to develop and application for your various needs. Its always been a blank slate, and now its becoming evident that nothing else matters outside of stability. Imagine this, Microsoft releases an OS with less than 1,000,000 lines of code, done ENTIRELY in managed code. Guess what, it would be impossible to crash such an OS...why? you wouldnt understand...

Is this on the way, bet your life...is Apple busy developing something like this? No. The reason: Apple does not have the capability. They are now tied directly to an outdated OS which is managed outside of their direct influence. The move to get off of OS X is inevitable, and it will be interesting to see if it can actually get pulled off.....believe me, difficult times are ahead for the Mac OS, we are just enjoying a small space of time where the OS is still meaningful...hardware and software developer toolsets will always define what really matters in the end. And by the way, if you didnt realize this, Apple just jumped on the same train that Windows is on...get ready to experience the same exact hardware available on windows...wow...now we can all revel in the external case of the computer, windows computers will be made of cheap plastic and Apple computers will be made with Aluminum or some other fancy thing...thats about where the differences will begin and end

Like it or not, software development is moving towards a thin client world. Everything hinges on pulling it off, even Apple will make this transition and is further ahead on this than you would realize.

The Sun Google partnership is changing things, and Windows Live has alot more behind it than you know

The OS is never going to generate the $$ that wallstreet or apple really needs...if Apple wants to move to the next level, they need to compete with something more meaningful than a handfull of windows 98 users who can barely survive email and web surfing in the first place.

Apple did a great job with iTunes, now they will need to do something equally revolutionary to some other part of the as-of-yet-to-be defined part of our economy.

 

[qtip919]

Competition is good. Speculation is fun. Reality? I don't see what bearing that has on this thread

wow, so lets talk about the smell of the color blue as well, eh?

Oh, and Im not sure how clear I can make this: MICROSOFT DOES NOT CONSIDER APPLE TO BE ITS COMPETITION

Microsoft copies Apple in order to save the money on:

1. Experimenting to see if a market may actually have some money to be made in it
2. Giving users some moderately improved user experience without having design, usability test, etc.

I think you need to read the other posts more carefully, I think everyone is taking the "news" in the correct context. It's speculation, it's interesting speculation, what if it's true (or even somewhere near true)?



I know! Isn't it cool! It's great to actually be part of something so exciting and interesting that we all get fired up about it.

I'm an 05'Switcher (i.e. late, but making good time)... I picked up a Mini when they were released to "try" Macs. No intention of actually switching (i.e. using a Mac as my main machine).

Week 1: Fiddled with Mac, USED PC.
Week 2: Discovered Expose, minor revolution that such a tiny tiny feature could make such a huge difference to working with multiple applications concurrently.
Week 3: Realized that when working on my Mini, I ran far far more apps concurrently than Windows. Realized my Mini cost £329, and my PC £2000, and the mini threw more applications around at the same time.
Week 4: Took credit card in hand, replaced all my core software with Mac versions (MS Office, Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Eclipse), go to grips with X-Code. Upgraded Mini memory and hard-drive.

That's about 6 months ago now, and I now only use my PC for one thing. Counter-Strike: Source.



And your point is? I think you may be right, it probably doesn't. However, I remember similar analysis with the K7-K8. Now AMD are finally _beginning_ to look like they can move from the home market and start to focus on the business sector.



I'm not sure that's true, I'm a pretty pragmatic guy, especially when I work with the machine at least 10 hours a day. When I do have to go back to a PC (I haven't "switched" my laptop yet and do visit customers) I hate it. Literally, life-time Windows user, I hate it.



Genuine question... what on earth are you drooling over? I agree WMC didn't get it right straight away, and in my opinion it's not right now. I also agree FrontRow isn't there yet either. At least, not in the "whole nine yards" sense of "there". Actually, what it does, it does much better than WMC. It's typical Apple really, it may not do everything, but what it does, it does reeeeaaaallly well.

Slick UI? Discuss.

X-Box 360? I'm not against it, still don't see it doing anything my now-gaming-rig doesn't do.



Yup. It's a personal thing however, I would rather a partial solution that does what it does perfectly, than a complete solution with mediocraty across the application.

But lets drag this back to "reality" as you say. WMC sales are tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny proportion of the picture. The market is adopting these solutions fully yet (and I mean compared to say sales of DVD players). This is not yet "a big issue" for any OS.



Agreed, but you know what, I don't think anyone was waving the "end of windows" flag. OS-X is zero miles along the true corp. penetration road. May never even get there. Much bigger market is the corp. infrastructure, and THAT is open for Mac invasion, *NIX does it better, and Linux will help the penetration.

I guess I can't really see how we get from where we are, to iBook's on corporate desks. Just not sure I care that much.

What do I want? To see Apple capture a significant share of the domestic market, and force people to see they have choices. What they chose is up to them. I know I've chosen OS-X right now. I want to be certain I can make a new decision in the future.

I don't really care to see apple with 90% of that market, 40% would be enough to demonstrate credible alternative. I also expect that we will see the same slow erotion of the domestic windows market that we have seen with the domestic Intel market. It's not going to be quick, and I think Apple are going to have some REALLY tough decisions to make over the next 5-7 years.

However, since the demise of the Amiga and Atari ST and the extreemly exciting emergence of Windows 95, at long last, thank god, for the first time in years, I'm actually transfixed by the progress of computing. I have a list of 10 tiny features that OS-X has that make it a pleasure to use. None of them big, all of them I feel like a small stroke of genius.

I hope Windows Vista is f***ing FANTASTIC, I hope it drives Apple to try harder and harder, and the Linux distro developers.

Competition is good. Speculation is fun. Reality? I don't see what bearing that has on this thread 😎

oh my goodness, I hope your gaming rig is not a PC!!!

because if you want to play any of the best games, it most likley is...

by the way, how much did that cost you?

A nice gaming rig should weigh in right around 1200 dollars...wow, that great...I'll just save my 500-600 dollars and get myself an xbox 360, with the latest hardware, online gaming service built in, great games, etc etc.

the last time I checked, the gaming industry for PCs was rapidly becoming a blip on the radar screen and console gaming is basically becoming a bigger industry that the Motion Picture industry...

hmmm, lets seee, what else....oh!...hey, have you heard of a little thing called Halo? no? how bout Halo 2? no? How bout Peter Jackson's Halo movie? No? Get a life 😉


On to Windows media center?

Well, last time I checked, It does exactly what I need to perfection...oh! and Im a dedicated Apple OS X user!!! oh no! what does that mean? Well, for starters, it means that Microsoft did a great job and I am impressed.

For you, you likley do not own a brand new iMac, and therefor are not using front-row so unless you do, I would be careful to say that everything Apple does, including this app, it does reeeeeaaaaalllyyyy well...as far as Im concerned there are a TON of ways in which apple does as many bad things in their user experience as Windows...

example: right now I have 3 seperate apple designed themes or left over elements on my APPLE applications.

1. new iTunes interface
2. brushed metal
3. blue scroll bubbles left over from OS 10.1

it looks like crap, and its pitiful. It seems like laziness to me

 

[GorillaPaws]

wow, so lets talk about the smell of the color blue as well, eh?

Oh, and Im not sure how clear I can make this: MICROSOFT DOES NOT CONSIDER APPLE TO BE ITS COMPETITION...

hmmm, lets seee, what else....oh!...hey, have you heard of a little thing called Halo? no? how bout Halo 2? no? How bout Peter Jackson's Halo movie? No? Get a life 😉

Dude, what's with the hostillity/negativity/rage? You make some great/interesting points in your posts, but it's kinda hard to read them cause they're so mean. It seems like your verbal thrashings are overshadowing the content of what would otherwise be some great posts.

 

[solvs]

Anyways, no hard feelings?

Nope. 😛

(perhaps next time I should expand upon my one word answers)

 

[qtip919]

Dude, what's with the hostillity/negativity/rage? You make some great/interesting points in your posts, but it's kinda hard to read them cause they're so mean. It seems like your verbal thrashings are overshadowing the content of what would otherwise be some great posts.

Sorry, having fun...

I always like a good debate, especially with a hint of sarcasm

oh, and I guess I was getting pretty sick of the Microsoft/Bush bashing...

Really though, we come off as a bunch of brain dead cult worshippers of Steve Jobs with our constant milking of theory and speculation as to how often the Apple company farts out a new product. So many people on the Macforums would gladly eat Steve Jobs vomit if he told them it was the most reliable vomit known to mankind.

We should really support this company with the attitude of "is that the best you can give us?" instead of "oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you... Apple for everything you do! you're perfect in every way!" while forking over thousands of dollars for an OS you can only obtain with the purchase of some pretty fantastic hardware...

There are some areas in which Apple is in DIRE need of improvement, and before we claim victory, I would hope most of us would instead be clamoring for even more improvement!

 

[50548]

Sorry, having fun...

I always like a good debate, especially with a hint of sarcasm

oh, and I guess I was getting pretty sick of the Microsoft/Bush bashing...

Really though, we come off as a bunch of brain dead cult worshippers of Steve Jobs with our constant milking of theory and speculation as to how often the Apple company farts out a new product. So many people on the Macforums would gladly eat Steve Jobs vomit if he told them it was the most reliable vomit known to mankind.

We should really support this company with the attitude of "is that the best you can give us?" instead of "oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you... Apple for everything you do! you're perfect in every way!" while forking over thousands of dollars for an OS you can only obtain with the purchase of some pretty fantastic hardware...

There are some areas in which Apple is in DIRE need of improvement, and before we claim victory, I would hope most of us would instead be clamoring for even more improvement!

So you'd prefer NOT to bash Bush and Microsoft? That's funny.

The fact of the matter is that Apple, in the personal computing arena, has NO contestants, simple and true.

The best design: Apple.
The best OS: Apple.
The most reliable products and customer support: Apple.
The easiest to use UI: Apple.

Not to mention the excellent price/performance ratio of today's products...nobody here thinks that Apple is perfect; it's just that Apple is, BY FAR, the best personal computing/media convergence company in the world...and we appreciate that.

And no, the rest of the world (yes, there is one) does NOT enjoy Bush's intelligent quotes.

 

[bugfaceuk]

wow, you really walked right into that one genius...

lets see...what haaas microsoft achieved through 90% marketshare?...hmmmm....well, how about a company that has revolutionized the economy...how bout a multiBILLION dollar industry. How about total dominance in the enterprise email space, office solution space, etc. etc.

Right, but I don't think he was bashing MS, however there is no doubt that over the last 10 years the pace of change in the OS market did slow, and has only recently started picking up.

I've been working in the industry for over 20 years now, and 1999-2003 showed real signs of terminal stagnation. That's changed now, and it would a very difficult argument to win if your position was "Apple has had no effect".

but wait! we have ipod and itunes...yipeeeeee!!!

Wow, that just great...why dont you go check the numbers on what microsoft made last year on enterprise license agreements for Outlook. Then go look at total revenue for Apple and tell what you think about the health of this company.

Um, the total revenue is not a reflection of the health of a company. Apple is currently a very healthy company. Apple is not in the same league as MS. I'm really not sure what your point is.

Hype is sometimes more dangerous than you think...and this is a company thriving on hype and speculation. In the long run, its not healthy for the company.

As much as I am struggling to try and respect your understanding of corporate finance, I'm not sure Apple is "thriving on hype and speculation". Apple has been identified as a growth company, which they clearly are. There are (as there are for most) significant risk factors, as a CEO you spend your time half-way between the gutter and stars most of the time.

Basically I think you are confusing the excitement of the users, with expectations from the market place.

you may not realize this because your Apple OS home computer is the beginning and end of your knowledge of what the computer world has given you, but Microsoft has stimulated the economy in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

I won't post my CV here, and I don't expect others will post theirs. However, suffice to say... you have no idea what the experience of the other posters actually is, so don't comment on it.

No-one has said Microsoft hasn't stimulated the economy. I in particular said the level of innovation had dropped, and I feel it has picked up again recently. I attribute this to Apple, and the point at which you highlight other causal factors, we have something to have an intelligent discussion about.

Oh, but the UI sucks and Windows crashes all the time!

big deal, that's not what makes money...in fact, the OS is rapidly becoming abstracted from the entire equation. Microsoft provides a PLATFORM FOR DEVELOPMENT...they could care less, and we all realize this, about your user experience. THAT is in the hand of the mryraid of people who are to develop and application for your various needs. Its always been a blank slate, and now its becoming evident that nothing else matters outside of stability. Imagine this, Microsoft releases an OS with less than 1,000,000 lines of code, done ENTIRELY in managed code. Guess what, it would be impossible to crash such an OS...why? you wouldnt understand...

Wow. Impossible to crash? Shall I start with a halting theory mathematical proof of why that's not actually possible?

Look, what's your point? To be quite honest, you seem to be opposed to anybody getting excited over anything. Probably the wrong forum mate, try http://www.doomdoomdoom.com/weareallgoingtodie.

Is this on the way, bet your life...is Apple busy developing something like this? No. The reason: Apple does not have the capability. They are now tied directly to an outdated OS which is managed outside of their direct influence. The move to get off of OS X is inevitable, and it will be interesting to see if it can actually get pulled off.....believe me, difficult times are ahead for the Mac OS, we are just enjoying a small space of time where the OS is still meaningful...hardware and software developer toolsets will always define what really matters in the end. And by the way, if you didnt realize this, Apple just jumped on the same train that Windows is on...get ready to experience the same exact hardware available on windows...wow...now we can all revel in the external case of the computer, windows computers will be made of cheap plastic and Apple computers will be made with Aluminum or some other fancy thing...thats about where the differences will begin and end

Ah, OK, here's the point. After the wind-up I might have expected a little more. Could argue with you, not sure there is a point. I've been knocking around this industry long enough to spot a) a fan-boy, b) poorly informed fan-boys, and c)morons.

Look, partly you're right, Apple is frequently more about style than functionality. There are times when that's not appropriate and Apple's corporate philosphy does place them in difficult postions.

You seem to assume everyone here is looking to Apple to over-throw Microsoft, you're wrong. I believe they want to see Apple be a market catalyst and to survive, and to push a different philosphy. Something it's doing rather well at the moment.

Like it or not, software development is moving towards a thin client world. Everything hinges on pulling it off, even Apple will make this transition and is further ahead on this than you would realize.

The Sun Google partnership is changing things, and Windows Live has alot more behind it than you know

The OS is never going to generate the $$ that wallstreet or apple really needs...if Apple wants to move to the next level, they need to compete with something more meaningful than a handfull of windows 98 users who can barely survive email and web surfing in the first place.

Apple did a great job with iTunes, now they will need to do something equally revolutionary to some other part of the as-of-yet-to-be defined part of our economy.

Ah we are once again on the verge of a thin-client world. Speed of light be damned. The thin-client message is massively attractive, it's almost a spiritual nervana. It's a good thing. It needs time to deliver. As someone who started out programming PDP's through very thin-client terminals, I've lived the thin-client, watched them fatten up, are seeing them bloating and thrashing around, and expect the next 20 years to see them thin down again.

Will they have be as slim as a tele-type again (and I don't mean little more than a remote keyboard, I mean that generic zero smarts on the client side)? I don't _think_ so. Of course I don't know, and something you could do with accepting is, neither do you.

If you've just gotten to the end of this post and are about to fire off a ranting reply... go back and read it again. I'm not disagreeing with you in all areas, you may well be right about many things. Hopefully you feel you've made your point, if not when you reply it would be great if it was a little less fan-boy rant, and a little more "the way I see it".

 

[bugfaceuk]

Dude, what's with the hostillity/negativity/rage? You make some great/interesting points in your posts, but it's kinda hard to read them cause they're so mean. It seems like your verbal thrashings are overshadowing the content of what would otherwise be some great posts.

Hum, should have read your post first, take the last paragraph of my previous post and replace it with this.

I don't see people arguing with your points, your delivery bites!

 

[bugfaceuk]

So you'd prefer NOT to bash Bush and Microsoft? That's funny.

The fact of the matter is that Apple, in the personal computing arena, has NO contestants, simple and true.

The best design: Apple.
The best OS: Apple.
The most reliable products and customer support: Apple.
The easiest to use UI: Apple.

Not to mention the excellent price/performance ratio of today's products...nobody here thinks that Apple is perfect; it's just that Apple is, BY FAR, the best personal computing/media convergence company in the world...and we appreciate that.

And no, the rest of the world (yes, there is one) does NOT enjoy Bush's intelligent quotes.

So maybe that's how you chose your home computer, I would argue that there are some different measures that some people use that are equally as important:

- The OS their friends are most likely to use - Microsoft
- The OS that the free download is likely to work on - Microsoft
- The OS that that runs the game my kids want - Microsoft
- The OS that has the browser that this one site only works with - Microsoft

I actuallly made my decisions based on YOUR criteria, but I know my aging father doesn't, my "uses computer for work" sister doesn't, and my kids certainly don't!

The fact that they are all wrong and deluded will not change the criteria they use no matter how much I plead with them. What will change it is gradual (and it will never be anything other than that) growth in market share for Apple. It is the only thing that can start to slide Apple in.

I do agree with our ranter, it's not coming as quick as we'd all like to think here. But if Apple manage to stear a path through these tricky waters, it will.

 

[bugfaceuk]

wow, so lets talk about the smell of the color blue as well, eh?

Oh, and Im not sure how clear I can make this: MICROSOFT DOES NOT CONSIDER APPLE TO BE ITS COMPETITION

Um, if by Microsoft you mean Bill & Steve, they absolutely do. Do they think they will have any problems swatting them away... nope.

Microsoft copies Apple in order to save the money on:

1. Experimenting to see if a market may actually have some money to be made in it
2. Giving users some moderately improved user experience without having design, usability test, etc.

I think that's partially true, Apple have just gotten a little too big for their boots in Microsoft's persepctive right now. MS believe they can slap them down again, only time will tell.

oh my goodness, I hope your gaming rig is not a PC!!!

because if you want to play any of the best games, it most likley is...

by the way, how much did that cost you?

A nice gaming rig should weigh in right around 1200 dollars...wow, that great...I'll just save my 500-600 dollars and get myself an xbox 360, with the latest hardware, online gaming service built in, great games, etc etc.

We do XBox 360 development, and it's not really a match for my rig but there we go. FYI, we haven't started on any PS3 projects yet, but the 3rd generation look like they will struggle to match the PC over the next 5 years. Of course the PS3 architecture is likely to have the most hidden optimizations that are learned from the fixed hardware over time and it's possible it will suprize us. XBox 360 is a much more straight forward system to code for, but fewer hidden gems.

So my rig is a PC, because I play the latest games. Mac games market is non-existant (and I'm sorry, my kids will tell you that porting one or two titles across is NOT enough).

Look around our house, we have PS2, PSP, GameCube, XBox, couple of PC gaming rigs (kids and me) and an ever increasing collection of gameboys (well they keep bringing new ones out OK???). So I'll guess I'll be getting the set again rather than choosing just one. Main point for me though, is I have a choice.

the last time I checked, the gaming industry for PCs was rapidly becoming a blip on the radar screen and console gaming is basically becoming a bigger industry that the Motion Picture industry...

hmmm, lets seee, what else....oh!...hey, have you heard of a little thing called Halo? no? how bout Halo 2? no? How bout Peter Jackson's Halo movie? No? Get a life 😉

I can see you are just having fun here! The market will ebb-and-flow between PC and Consoles, I have listened to others talk about the end of both of those gaming solutions for years and years. They haven't been right yet, and I see no sign of that changing.

On to Windows media center?

Well, last time I checked, It does exactly what I need to perfection...oh! and Im a dedicated Apple OS X user!!! oh no! what does that mean? Well, for starters, it means that Microsoft did a great job and I am impressed.

That's great! I'm really pleased. I still don't want to buy one (or FrontRow for that matter). Maybe it will start doing something I want in the future, but right now I only watch the news on TV once an evening, and everything else I buy on DVD, rip to our home movie server and we watch them on which-ever computer is in the room we are across our currently wired high-speed network. What works for me may not work for you. Just because a solution is perfect for you, doesn't make it perfect for everyone.

For you, you likley do not own a brand new iMac, and therefor are not using front-row so unless you do, I would be careful to say that everything Apple does, including this app, it does reeeeeaaaaalllyyyy well...as far as Im concerned there are a TON of ways in which apple does as many bad things in their user experience as Windows...

I don't own one, doesn't mean I haven't used it. I like it, nice clear iPod like interface. Simple and to the point. Could it be better? Hell yes!

example: right now I have 3 seperate apple designed themes or left over elements on my APPLE applications.

1. new iTunes interface
2. brushed metal
3. blue scroll bubbles left over from OS 10.1

it looks like crap, and its pitiful. It seems like laziness to me

100% agree, I like the new iTunes interface, always hated the brushed metal... but it JUST WON'T DIE GODDAMMIT!

Blue scroll bubbles don't cause me any trauma.

Apple do not get it right all the time BY A LONG CHALK. No-one is saying they do (or if they are, they haven't used iChat).

Anyway, we're having fun right?

 

[bugfaceuk]

You know I've just realised how much I missed this! I haven't had good a good rant for YEARS. I couldn't wait to get on to read your replies (well I could wait, I had three budget approval meetings with our COF that I did first AND THEN I couldn't wait).

This whole thing makes my point, Apple are stimulating the market. It's little more than that right now, but I'd like that wrapped so I can take it home please, I like it.

 

[steve_hill4]

Everybody, relax, take a deep breath and realise that this topic is about switchers. I for one would like to get back onto that particular subject rather than the merits of MS vs Apple.

I know a lot of older people for one that would switch, if they only held more basics/help classes for the Mac. They don't care about compatibility with their friends computers, they don't care about the latest games or gadgets, (but since most new printers, cameras etc are Mac ready, should be fine if they did), they don't care about free downloads and such. They merely want a safe, easy system that will allow them to write letters, browse the internet, send email and not much else. When you point to the iMAc, they say they would, if there were tutorial classes available.

Difficult to set up with less than 5% of computers sold are Macs. Hopefully this will rise enough to warrant classes in Mac OS being available and this could lead toa snowball effect. I really think the system is better for these people than Windows.

 

[50548]

So maybe that's how you chose your home computer, I would argue that there are some different measures that some people use that are equally as important:

- The OS their friends are most likely to use - Microsoft
- The OS that the free download is likely to work on - Microsoft
- The OS that that runs the game my kids want - Microsoft
- The OS that has the browser that this one site only works with - Microsoft

I actuallly made my decisions based on YOUR criteria, but I know my aging father doesn't, my "uses computer for work" sister doesn't, and my kids certainly don't!

The fact that they are all wrong and deluded will not change the criteria they use no matter how much I plead with them. What will change it is gradual (and it will never be anything other than that) growth in market share for Apple. It is the only thing that can start to slide Apple in.

I do agree with our ranter, it's not coming as quick as we'd all like to think here. But if Apple manage to stear a path through these tricky waters, it will.

Sorry, you don't get my point, then...

1 - "Their friends" are increasingly using MacOS, and Apple's mindshare is at its highest point nowadays; everyone knows now how bug-ridden and malware-infested Windows has always been, and how streamlined OS X has become...what we call in Economy as "information asymmetry" is being fixed in the personal computing arena, and fixed fast.

2 - If by "free download" you mean "pirated software", it's obvious that Windows has a bigger market...but with growing IPR enforcement in many countries, fewer people are willing to take that risky road.

Besides, if you look at most people's directories (even mine), you'll see that the only commercial programs that were NOT included with Macs are MS Office and a couple of games. OS X, bundled apps and iLife more than cover most users' needs.

3 - Kids want games, but not all users are kids; in addition, the PC game market is shrinking to almost microscopical levels now. The game market is represented by the console business, not desktop PCs, either Windows or Mac OS. Even then, almost all blockbuster titles are already ported to Macs, with very good performance in newer machines such as the iMac G5. Call of Duty plays perfectly fine on mine, by the way.

4 - Safari/Camino have been perfect in at least 99% of the sites I visit...Internet Explorer is just dead meat by now, and no user would ever need it apart from a tiny number of badly written pages; this is no excuse anymore to any prospective user.

5 - My "aging father" got a Mac Mini from me, and he is simply thrilled by how things work well on a Mac...he was able to print on his old HP without any special drivers, his dial-up connection never fails, he doesn't care about viruses or malware, and he has a handful of nice freeware games to play with...in other words, he cannot even remember his PC anymore. It just WORKS, and most PC users have just started to discover this, instead of suffering forever in Gates' inferno...

 

[steve_hill4]

5 - My "aging father" got a Mac Mini from me, and he is simply thrilled by how things work well on a Mac...he was able to print on his old HP without any special drivers, his dial-up connection never fails, he doesn't care about viruses or malware, and he has a handful of nice freeware games to play with...in other words, he cannot even remember his PC anymore. It just WORKS, and most PC users have just started to discover this, instead of suffering forever in Gates' inferno...

My point exactly, but Apple are missing out on a big slice of the older pie with limited to no Mac Classes around. If there were as many as PC based computer courses, the sales within the grey community would soar. They want something easy, relaible and good value for money. You can explain your way around the cost, as they work out great value for money compared to an equivalent PC, you can explain how easy and logical they are, you can also explain the reliability and security of them. If they however mention computer classes, you know you won't win because they will be taught Windows and won't want to detract from what they are taught.