gopher- yes, there are a lot of places that you and I, and everyone else here knows about. But does the average joe know where to shop? Does it even occur to him to shop around for a mac in the first place? I doubt apple's TV commercials, although they are cool (to us), will cause many people to give the mac even a small amount of passing notice. I guess my point is that all those places you mentioned, although reputable and large, successful entities, are niche sellers, except fry's and compusa. I think macs would sell really well in low brow, blow-out or discount places. In fact, Costco and sam warehouse wholesale sell macs sometimes, I think (kaff..kaff gray market blowouts)
It would be interesting if there were some way to get sell through volumes and inventory figures for all the the mac sellers to see who was makinf money selling macs. Probably not everyone *can* make a profit selling macs... why else would bestbuy and circuit city be so goofy? (I think they don't care for apple's fascistic price controls, actually.)
I would like to know what has been the fate of all the little mac shops which have been faithful to apple for year, now that apple is double-dipping big time with the apple stores...?
Apple, since the '70s, has relentlessly targeted a very specific little market- artists, writers, musicians, schools, designers, publishers, and printers- and within that mileau (duh..sp?) apple has gotten *almost everybody*, probably ~85-90%- but outside of that group, no one gives a flip about macs.
Apple is run by imperious creative elites (like me and the rest f us here, for the most part, probably) who don't give a flip about anyone outside of that group!
When apple takes *everyone* seriously, *everyone* will take apple seriously!
