"Year of the Portable" defined!
In January, Steve proclaimed 2003 is Apple's "Year of the Portable" and proceeded to introduce the delectable 12" and 17" portables, but is that enough for year of the portable?
Let's hope not.
How about portables which benchmark as fast as Intel's finest? Perhaps the year of the portable will culminate in IBM 970 portables benchmarking against Intel towers. I think Steve would relish the opportunity to pit "mere" portables against Wintel towers, beating them in imitable Steve benchmark fashion, and then rolling out Apple PowerMacs which run more than twice (dual processor) as fast as the portables.
That would make for a nice "Year of the Portable" and then some.
Yummy?
Let's hope not.
How about portables which benchmark as fast as Intel's finest? Perhaps the year of the portable will culminate in IBM 970 portables benchmarking against Intel towers. I think Steve would relish the opportunity to pit "mere" portables against Wintel towers, beating them in imitable Steve benchmark fashion, and then rolling out Apple PowerMacs which run more than twice (dual processor) as fast as the portables.
That would make for a nice "Year of the Portable" and then some.
Yummy?
Comments
that way when the new towers ship in fall, it will be a new year. (depending on how they do their books)
I created the thread to share my brainstorm that "Year of the Portable" could be well defined by Steve demoing PowerBook's which beat (or compare favorably) with Wintel towers. I used the work "benchmark" to define the comparison since, if they're performance comparable, I'm sure Steve can choose benchmarks which show that they blow away Wintel boxes (in certain cases). Steve would have a field day with that, and that would definitely successfully define "Year of the Portable". I also wanted to see if anyone else had any insights to add.
Other than Alcimedes "fiscal year of the portable" meta comment, I haven't seen anything (unfortunately).
Bigc, pragmatically, I agree with you. However, think of the post more as a foreshadowing brainstorm of a really cool Keynote by Steve to introduce 970 based PowerBook portables. How would Steve do it? He would show how even the Apple portables kick the best Wintel has to offer... and then introduces the Apple towers as twice as fast as the speedy portables. The Wintel issue is part and parcel of Steve's typical keynote whoopa** to boost Apple's underdog market share and get the word out that Apple (would then) have no compromise computing systems (i.e., full package of hardware, OS, and essential software (MS Office, and all Unix/Linux)). Can you blame him? :-)
Heh. Wankers, all of us.
Screed
Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch
Why did you create this thread...?
People are nervous that "Year of the Laptop" means no PPC 970 in the desktops this year, so they're trying to convince themselves otherwise. Simple, really.
If you watched the keynote, this quote came after SJ compared Apple's powerbook and powermac sales, and said the powerbook sales were way up in comparison to the year before.
If you knew what was really going on, though, portable sales were "way up" percentage-wise because they were compared relative to the powermac, which was (as we all know) "way down". SJ was trying to justify that more people prefer powerbooks because they're better (portable, fast enough, etc.) than powermacs. In truth, they are better than powermacs because portables are still worth their money when compared to powermacs in today's market.
SJ was trying to say with marketing that "who likes desktop machines anyway, when these portables are so super sexy", in an attempt to pacify those dying to get their hands on a competitive tower.
this was my reading, anyway.
Steve just saw it coming months ago.
Originally posted by yomofo
If you knew what was really going on, though, portable sales were "way up" percentage-wise because they were compared relative to the powermac, which was (as we all know) "way down".
That's true, but it's also true that 'Book sales have spiked up in real terms. I remember mention of a 74% increase in PB sales from Apple's last quarterly report.
I think it represents the simple fact that notebooks - Mac and PC alike - have crossed a threshold that had previously relegated them to a "second computer" niche, and a pricey one. They now have the features and prices to appeal to people as primary machines, and their sales figures reflect that.
Really, the idea that you have to get something as immobile and cumbersome as a tower + monitor in order to check email, chat, surf the web, fire up a word processor every so often, and play the odd Sims game is absurd. A notebook is much more obviously suited to the task.
I think that Steve sees notebooks claiming 50% of the market despite the planned innovations for the towers, simply because the notebooks have more of what a majority of Apple's customers are looking for in a computer. You don't need a 970 to run Quark, or InDesign, or Illustrator, or Project Builder/Interface Builder, or...
You don't need a 970 to run Quark, or InDesign, or Illustrator, or Project Builder/Interface Builder, or...
the heck with you
gimme gimme
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