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U.S. Mac Sales Flat in April as iPod Sales Continue to Slide
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Use of aluminium.
Also it's the one brand that has the greatest sense of smug satisfaction per dollar spent ratio.
When I bought my ipod touch 4th gen, it was very close to the specs of the current iphone at the time. Yes, it lacked GPS and a vibration alert, but it had almost all the specs of the iphone, including the brand new "retina" screen, same processor, and was a cool thin device. Since then, the ipod touch has been minimally updated. Still no GPS. Better/decent camera. Siri. But none of this is worth upgrading for me. I'll probably be buying the 2nd gen ipad mini, and if there was an ipod touch that was really WORTH me spending $200+ then I'd get it, but honestly the new model does very little more than my current model does.
But people keep in mind that although 99% of the readers on macrumors may have smartphones, they are the minority of cell devices and only THIS YEAR began to cross the line and outsell "feature phones", which still comprise the majority of phones used by the public. So there are LOTS of people out there without smartphones and lots of people you could market an ipod to, if you kept innovating it. I don't fully blame apple--sadly my 4th gen "outdated" ipod touch is still the best portable device out there besides the 5th gen--there is just no competition in this market.
And I should add I see people all the time saying "I don't need a phone.. I just want a cheap fast data plan"--Apple could have made an ipod touch with cellular radio option, as they did ipad and ipad mini.. That would be pretty cool.
But people keep in mind that although 99% of the readers on macrumors may have smartphones, they are the minority of cell devices and only THIS YEAR began to cross the line and outsell "feature phones", which still comprise the majority of phones used by the public. So there are LOTS of people out there without smartphones and lots of people you could market an ipod to, if you kept innovating it. I don't fully blame apple--sadly my 4th gen "outdated" ipod touch is still the best portable device out there besides the 5th gen--there is just no competition in this market.
And I should add I see people all the time saying "I don't need a phone.. I just want a cheap fast data plan"--Apple could have made an ipod touch with cellular radio option, as they did ipad and ipad mini.. That would be pretty cool.
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Dunno - I'm not sure that it beats the smugness of a Prius....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!
Yep, but thats not the point. Plenty of quad core notebooks exist out there that are cheaper than the rmbp (that claim as is is completely untrue). Hell, compare it to the cmbp if you want.
Agreed, and precisely why I said "the 'stigma' of being perceived as overpriced." Like I said, nice things cost money and you get what you pay for.
Exactly! Most other computers, tablets, smartphones, and media players can't begin to compete with Apple when it comes to design, materials, fit and finish, performance, ease of use, and overall positive user experience.
Yes and no, while anyone with an iPhone doesn't really need an iPod touch there are those who will find them useful but also if you have an iPad do you need an iPod. Maybe the mini one if you jog but maybe that's were the iWatch comes in?
Les's be fair and compare a sager from xotic pc to apple. HP's and dells are pretty much the worst. Excellent service and powerful laptops. I still like mac, but no comparison in hardware/price to these gamers and they are easily upgraded. I7 quad, GeForce GTX 670MX (user upgradable), starting at 1230. and lots of options.
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np9150-clevo-p150em-p-4341.html?wconfigure=yes
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np9150-clevo-p150em-p-4341.html
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A fresh install is the only way to go with windows. Of the windows machines I have owned All of the desktops have been my builds with a fresh install since the "clone" days and dos. I think windows 98 was the last bsod I had.
With laptops a sager from xoticpc is the way to go, without os pre installed.
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Agree for the cheaper systems, and some that aren't so cheap. I just got a new Lenovo high end laptop today, and Lenovo had installed some spyware named "Chrome" on it - and set it as the default.
Gross.
Wiped and installed Windows 7 Enterprise after the first login.
Far as I am concerned it's the way to go with ANY laptop. That's the by far the main reason for instability with windows boxes.
You have brought up a very good point. Some people will wait, others will buy a competing product. The loss in sales may slip through the cracks while Apples fat & happy, but at some point the impact may take its toll.
Benchmarks aren't things that are faster than the rest. They're units of measurement. Ironically, Macs usually don't do well in benchmarks. They do well in overall usefulness.
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Gee, I wonder why the guy with no Apple products and one intention of being here got a time-out.
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Great, now where the HECK is my PowerBook G5?!
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My dad rented one of those. It got <20MPG and humiliated the driver by being uglier than a 90s Nissan. Total BS. Please don't compare it to a Mac
Ours gets 50mpg even with my wife's lead foot.Benchmarks aren't things that are faster than the rest. They're units of measurement. Ironically, Macs usually don't do well in benchmarks. They do well in overall usefulness.
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Gee, I wonder why the guy with no Apple products and one intention of being here got a time-out.
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Great, now where the HECK is my PowerBook G5?!
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My dad rented one of those. It got <20MPG and humiliated the driver by being uglier than a 90s Nissan. Total BS. Please don't compare it to a Mac
Sure it did. RAM and SSD prices plummeted throughout 2012, and Apple was still charging full chop for CTO May 2011 iMacs with underspecced, overpriced options on either. The correct move, ESPECIALLY given Apple's severe production constraints on the redesigned iMac, was to refresh in March or April of 2012 while still on the Sandy Bridge architecture. Then, when a redesign doesn't land until February 2013 (when they are good and ready to ship to order) the demand cycle behaves normally and sales growth is maintained.
A lot of folks got to late summer 2012 and were like, screw it, I'll go with Windows while I can still get a box that comes with Windows 7 on it. You can like Apple and OS X all you want, but when you don't have an economically sensible buy option, you bail. The numbers in the article back this up.
I don't want a phone to be my MP3 player, and I don't want a tablet to be my computer.
But from all these reports, I guess pretty much everyone else disagrees.
But from all these reports, I guess pretty much everyone else disagrees.
Smug per dollar is still much higher for Apple products. With a Prius, you have to spend 5 digits before you can start looking down your nose at everyone.
Apple products? Spend $350 for an iPad Mini, and the next thing you know, you're scoffing around on a message board, talking about how much more class you have than the herd ignorant Wal-Mart shopping masses.
Plus you feel the need to add one of these to the end of every post...
Sugar britches, I've been saying the same thing about these so-called analysts who said that Itanium was the future, that it would be worth billions, that almost ever server shipped would use it, that the old UNIX RISC companies would either be gone or using it? guess what, here we are after these morons made such claims and it never actually eventuated. Btw, my criticisms were across the board and not just directed at those who comment on Apple - but hey, you keep ignoring what I'm posting and I'll keep pointing out the lies you keep spreading about what I'm saying.
The numbers in the article back that up to a point, and I think Tim Cook's confession about wishing they'd released the late-2012 iMac as an early-2013 refresh instead also supports your argument. Consumers' increasing interest in laptops and tablets over desktops is also a contributing factor. Plus, Apple was still finding its legs again during that period after Steve Jobs' death.
Ultimately though, I think it really depends on individual users' needs when they upgrade. My late-2006, bottom-of-the-line iMac worked as best as it could, but really struggled with Mac OS X Lion (and was too old to support Mountain Lion). If I hadn't already committed to iCloud, I'd have downgraded back to Snow Leopard, which that machine handled beautifully.
Knowing as I did, however, that an iMac refresh was around the corner, an admittedly long corner as it turned out, I chose to wait. In the end, the timing of the late-2012 iMac refresh was not only perfect for me, but the specs of the new iMac were better than I'd hoped.
Well, I bought an iPod last month...but just an iPod Shuffle for workout and running purposes.
Tactile buttons are still pretty useful when exercising, plus I wouldn't want to lug an expensive iPhone/iPod Touch for fear of dropping it.
And touch controls are not the best with sweaty fingers (although some headphones provide some controls).
Tactile buttons are still pretty useful when exercising, plus I wouldn't want to lug an expensive iPhone/iPod Touch for fear of dropping it.
And touch controls are not the best with sweaty fingers (although some headphones provide some controls).
Just to remind people: There is a huge difference between US mpg (miles per US gallon) and UK mpg (miles per UK gallon), because the UK gallon is about 20% more. So please mention which one you mean.
RAM is the only concession Apple have allowed end users to upgrade on their systems but the move to these closed designs like the 21" iMac, Macbook Air etc... isn't a good move.
The superior performance bit is over-exagerated. A lot of their systems use integrated graphics and don't use the fastest drives available. For the price difference of £15-25 depending on if it's a 2.5" or 3.5" drive, this shouldn't be the case if they're being presented as "superior" to their competitors when they're still using the same Intel hardware as other companies but combining it with 5400rpm drives or very low capacity and even lower cost SSDs for prices that don't reflect the hardware used.
I can attest that both my G4 from 2002 and the Desktop G3 from 1997 lasted a long time. The hard drives are a different story.
The 6Gb Quantum Fireball that came with my G3 still works flawlessly to this day. I even zeroed the drive to mark out any bad sectors and after 15 years it just keeps on (NOT) ticking.
The 40Gb IBM Deskstar that came with the G4 was one of those infamous "Deathstar" drives that fail eventually. I lost some data off it at the time and it locked up when I zeroed out the bad sectors reformating it and died completely.
Both of those drives were 3rd party manufacturers but labelled as Apple because they were the drives they chose to include in their systems. Hard drives can fail, Apple can't provide a superior experience when that happens and the Seagate drive recall on certain iMac models over the past few years confirms that
The partyline I was refering to is denying the price gouging and claiming reliability and superiority in their hardware that simply isn't true in all circumstances. After the fiasco with the Deskstar, I have a much more organised back up strategy than burning off CDs/DVDs. I can't comment on comparing the relability of Macs with the reliability of PCs, I refuse to deal with any of that nasty Monopoly$oft nonsense unless I'm forced to use a PC in a work situation
Really? My first computer I bought back in '99 had that exact same drive in it (or one really close to it). I went through 4 drives in as many months. It'd run fine about 2-3 weeks, then I'd hear...
*chik**chik**chik**chik*
...and I'd have to call up Gateway to get them to RMA me a new one. I thought they lived up to their namesake, personally. They crashed and burned on me pretty regularly.
It was the start of my terrible luck with harddrives. I bet I've gone through two dozen at least over the last decade.