Apple unveils Intel-based MacBook notebooks - Page 6

You haven't been on the board that long. When someone points out something that is obviously correct, I will always admit my error.

But, despite what you might think, your information isn't exactly correct either. I don't have as much time to look all of these things up, as you seem to, but, I remember then quite well.

I've been investing for several decades, and have done quite well, thank you. I bought Apple at $16.93. now, after the split, I've done pretty well. But, Cramer, and others have been the ones who brought up the short selling. He said in one of his columns that he's never seen as much short selling as he's seen recently in Apple stock. and, it is continuing.

no

Heh, like Apple not inventing windowing as you stated?

Vinea

What are you talking about? I didn't say that Apple invented windowing. I said that they invented the form we use today.

See other thread for rebuttal but this is clearly wrong as can be seen in the myriad Xerox PARC screen shots from the 70s.

Vinea

To people that are against the price of the black macbook (the ones that want black for all configs, or black to not cost anymore):

The black one cost more because apple obviously doesn't make as many as the white one, so it cost a little more to make. They don't make as many for 3 reasons:
1. It is the highest of 3 configs so why would as many black cases be built as white cases?
2. They don't want to make equal colours of everything to find half sitting in a warehouse. That's what happened with the gold ipod mini, it was a waste of money, time and space.
3. It becomes a status symbol. An Infiniti G35 body is not a body option for a Nissan Sentra.

I can live with that because it's better than having a warehouse full of unsold white or black machines because everyone opts for only model. That's what had happened to the white nanos at first until the craze for the black one calmed down, for something as big and as expensive as a notebook it makes no sense for a smaller volume company like apple.

lmao.. If you think this computer cannot play the sims u must be a dumbass. reading out of date system requirements for 2d games means absolutely nothing.. If this thing can get 80 fps out of quake 3, just like the intel mac mini, then it can obviously play any of the games you mentioned.. That doesn't mean it rocks for gaming, but this chip is WAY better than a radeon 9000 or 7500

I'm not sure everyone sees 'Market Share' as important.

Apple is selling more Macs recently than it ever has. Their market share has only been dipping because the market has got a lot larger and they've not expanded into those markets. Those markets being cheap low profit computers and office computers - also low profit.

As long as Apple keep expanding sales of Macs, I don't think market share is that important to them. It's more important to them that they have market share in specific markets than overall perhaps - eg. in Video or Design or the tech edge. When was the last time you came across a leading Web 2.0 developer that didn't have a Mac ?

I'd be very, very, very surprised if a Core Duo 1.8 with Intel GMA950 couldn't outrun a G4 with Radeon 7500. Really, if that's the minimum requirement on a game, it's probably going to be fine.

Which is what form ?

Actually, market share is on the rise.

US market share bottomed out at 1.8% a few years back, and it has risen to 5% now.

I'd like to see stats on home PC ownership to see how much higher that might be.

61 million computers sold in 4th quarter of 2005.

Here is a graph showing apple sales. I guess that market share growth did slow a bit in the 4th quarter (probably due to the intel transition). You can see the large change in mac sales before that in the graph, and hopefully it will widen out further due to the new Macbooks and dual booting:

Hey, I just got an email from Apple saying the MacBooks were starting at $1049. Oh wait, never mind, that's the educational price.

So I thought I would weigh in, since everyone seems to have an opinion. I think that the specs of the new MacBook are impressive for the price, especially the low-end one. For all but a few things, it equals the $1999 MBP I bought back in Feb. Differences: No Al. case, no DVD burning, no seperate graphics card, and a smaller screen. But for an $800 discount, that's a pretty sweet deal on the new low end MB.

My big beef is that the new keyboard design is hideously ugly and very un-apple-like. It just doesn't have style, period. Also, I think that the white MB would look a lot better if the whole thing were white, instead of the grayish color on the inner surface--but maybe it hides dirt better.

Finally, I think they were foolish not to come out with a model under $1000. You might as well give people an option. I think there are going to be a lot of students who are turned away because there's nothing under that psychological price break.

Have you seen it in person? I find the keyboard to be really nice, and it works very well too.

I think it's silly to look at market share back to 1995, that's a totally different era for the company. And I also think it's silly to call Apple's market share just a blip, they've made big improvements and I'm impressed how well sales have held up after the transition. I think as the transition finishes up and the remaining apps become universal, we'll see the rise continue, probably at an even faster pace.

I disagree that apple should worry about niche models at this point. There are big monolithic segments of the market where apple can potentially make huge gains. These need to be the highest priority, not machines that don't even sell well on the PC side. Later on, I think they should look at some of these niches, but it doesn't make sense now.

More models adds to testing and tech support, with a whole new architecture, I'd prefer Apple to keep things relatively simple until the bugs are worked out.

I do agree that they should offer a MB model with lower specs at a lower price point. But demand is pent up enough that they will have huge sales with this new release. There's nothing stopping them from releasing an additional model later on when supply has caught up with demand. At this point, a cheaper model would just create a bigger backlog and longer waits for these machines.

Apple certainly could offer more options, but you and I have no idea how well these would sell. You didn't address my question - if apple offers a model and it is a poor seller, why would it make sense to continue selling it?


I think the main reason is that demand is high enough right now that they don't have to. If they had a cheaper model, people would buy it instead of the more expensive ones. They can add the cheaper model once the initial frenzy of buying has settled down and they need to be more competitive.


I think it became OK when those chips could play HD video. As long as the chips are good enough for what you are doing, who cares if they're "the worst in the industry"? Not everyone is playing first person shooters.


Just because it's not listed doesn't mean it won't work. There are a number of 3d games that run fine on the 950. I wouldn't make assumptions about any games until you've seen a benchmark from someone who's tried it.

It seems like most of the complaining about integrated graphics comes from people who've never used it on a mini or macbook.

I've just noticed if you go to buy a Black MacBook, and you try and up the HD. It's $50 cheaper than the White ones to upgrade the HD on both 100GB & 120GB, so it's not all bad news on the Black MacBook price

Yes...but it's STILL cheaper to buy a white MacBook and upgrade the HD, idiot!

Yeah, I went and saw them last night. Not my style. I really like the beveled look a LOT more. It's true what everyone's saying, it looks like something from the 80's. Bad form Apple, bad form.

WIMP - Window Icon Menu Pointing device.

Sometimes Mouse vs Menu.

This is an interesting history of these developments from Bruce Horn, and Jeff Raskin.

Sadly, there are no pictures. But both, while the disagree in some detail, do agree that the Mac is much more than what Xerox had at PARC. Some of those ideas seen to have been had by Raskin back in 1967, when he did his thesis, though I haven't read it.

Apple innovated a great deal, and I'm not saying that they owed nothing to PARC. While my rememberances are not 100% either (whose is?), the concept I gave is correct.

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gui_raskin2

I just posted it above, but, I'll give it to you here.

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gui_raskin2

Marketshare is important for some things, and not for others.

If you can plug into some standard device, then it doesn't matter. But when a company is deciding whether to come out with a program for Windows and Mac, it can be very important.

If development costs are about the same, then the 20 times larger Windows market becomes much more attractive.

Even if we do get the program, it may lack features, come out late, lack a good manual, etc.

Look at magazines. PC mags are much larger because there are far more advertisers. That's because there is a larger audiance. I just looked at a MacUser from Oct 1992, and it has 378 pages. The MacWorlds were similar.

And those were the days when the computer industry was much smaller, with far less machines sold.

I wish marketshare didn't matter.

But if you want a Black one, you might ruin the screen with that spray can

Melgross, you're right, you said this:


Which was wrong, raising the price of the mini HAS NOT hurt sales. You also went on in following posts "implying" and listing reasons why you thought the $999 price point would remain, but it's true, you never said $1099 won't happen. I'm not arguing that. I am arguing this:


I wasn't wrong, in any sense. In fact, I was right, IN EVERY SENSE! You were the one who was wrong on two counts:

1. For saying price increase hurt the mini.

2. For saying that I was wrong, because "no one expected a 1.83 ghz on the base model." And I also strongly dis-agree with your statement that a $1099 price point will impact the MBP.

Your "rememberances" about this are not 100% but 0% accurate but you seemed more than willing to category state them as fact anyway:


The "concept" you gave that prior to Apple no one did movable windows is completely absurd and incorrect. The Raskin article talks about none of your assertions. The most relevant section was that something he thought Apple invented had already been done at PARC and that selection via click and drag (bounding box) was invented by Apple.


Clearly incorrect from looking at any Smalltalk, Alto or Star screen shot which you still refuse to look at. These aren't some vague generalities describing some "concept" that Apple made as many major contributions to the development of the modern UI as PARC (an arguably true statement) but specific assertions of things that are clearly untrue.

How hard is it for you admit that you were completely wrong about Apple inventing windowing layout as you asserted?

Alto pics:

http://media.arstechnica.com/images/gui/7-AltoST.jpg

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars/3

Star pics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:...tar_desktop.jpg

Apple pics:

http://www.pegasus3d.com/apple_screens.html


Something also apparently incorrect that you've asserted recently.

Vinea

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...0&pagenumber=2

You took the time to bother reading back. Thanks for that.

It's too bad that Apple no longer breaks out the sales numbers of individual lines, instead just giving laptop and desktop sales, so actual *known* numbers are almost impossible to get. Estimates we see, for whatever they are worth.

I'm just going by what I read about store surveys dome by those companies that get paid to do such things, and that Apple itself quotes, when the numbers suit it to do so, as Jobs did at MacWorld when he quoted NPD about the iPod numbers.

You might also remember all of the rancor here about that price rise. People were really angry, and upset over it.

I'm not angry about the MB's lowest price, but I am upset!

I think the machines they are offering are excellent, and worth every penny. I think they will sell very well. But, I do think that they need a machine in that psychologically important "under one thousand dollar" category as well.

Thinking nine hundred and ninety nine dollars, is different from thinking one thousand and ninety nine dollars. That's why companies don't sell one thousand dollar products.

I mentioned that I was concerned about sales to school districts. Apple must compete there with Dell. Apple wins some, and loses some. A big reason is price. Apple sometimes comes a few bucks below Dell. But, if a district is going to order 10,000 machines, a fair average of those numbers, then that extra $100 comes out to $1,000,000. That's a lot of money for a school contract. That's why I'm concerned.

Remember all of the excitement on the boards about the possibility of $799 and $8999 Intel Macs? I said that it probably wouldn't happen. I was yelled at for that as well.

I don't remember your saying that the bottom MB would be a dual core 1.83GHz model. But, ok, I missed that, and I'm sorry about it.

But, my argument still stands. Apple should have a $999 model. I read this last night, and I agree with what he says:

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/edit...book/index.php

If a district orders 10,000 machines they certainly don't pay the retail price.

People are angry and upset every time apple releases *anything*. With this release, people whine about the price increase, even though specs went way up. When they drop prices, people whine that the specs are too low. Whining on message boards is evidence of nothing beyond the fact that people are annoying prats.

Not to mention that much of the whining comes from people who would never buy a particular model anyway. "Why doesn't apple have model XYZ? Of course, I wouldn't buy one...but that model should exist!!!"

None of us know if mini sales dropped. It's meaningless to argue that they have without any evidence. I'm sure the macbook detractors will insist that nobody is buying these either (especially the black!), even though there's no facts to back it up.

Look, I'm not interested in having a fight with you.

But, I did go back and look at the article. Actually I remember reading it when it was first published.

Ok, You are correct.

I forgot about the earlier work. The reason is that I had used the Star for a small bit of time, and forgot that they had actually removed features when they introduced it. They had one in Brooklyn College when I took computer courses there in the mid '80's. The Star was mostly the public face of the OS at the time. I even have some of the ads in magazines I've kept for historical reasons.

But Apple invented much more than drag and drop documents. The articles I posted show that. One of those things was the Finder, not something minor (though some wish it would go away )

It's not really fair to say that people "whine". Apple, like many companies, does some wonderful things, but they also make mistakes. slavishly adhering to the company line when they do something is certainly no better than "whining".

I suppose you thought the Cube, and its price was perfectly good as well, when it came out. Many of us thought that the price was too high, and that Apple should have come out with a G3 model instead. While we will never know what would have happened if the Cube was cheaper, we do know what did happen.

I'm certainly not saying that will happen here. But, Apple is cutting a portion of the market out by this move. Even though they will likely sell a good number of these, they probably could have sold even more if they had included a less expensive model as well.

I really don't see what the big deal is about those of us who have said this. It's an opinion, just like yours.

And the most recent survey showed stronger than expected sales of the mini. Therefore the argument that the $100 price increase of the mini hurting its sales no longer supports the position that the $1099 price will hurt MacBook sales because it has been shown to be false.


This is a nice change in position and one few folks will actively argue against.


Don't be too concerned. MSRP has very little to do with bulk pricing. Nobody buying 10K units will have much difficulty negotiating $100. In any case for comparable machines the Apple is cheaper than Dell (with edu discount) and it is difficult to argue that Apple can compete with Dell with a $999 notebook vs $1099 notebook when Dell has $399 notebooks for those very very budget constrained (who aren't looking at Core duo machines anyway).

Vinea

We're just going to see what happens here. Hardware costs can be difficult to throw away. Part of the cost of the contract comes from service, software, etc. But, every $100 added to the cost of the machine has to be accounted for, unless Apple is willing to lower their margins.

Well we don't have hard data, but the most recent anlayst checks indicate that mini demand is "stronger than expected."

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1727

I believe there are legitimate complaints and there are whines. When someone complains about a machine they've never used (like the integrated graphics), that's a whine. When people complain about missing features like pc card slots and FW800 when they've never used them and never will, that's a whine. When people complain that apple should have a $399 machine, when they would never buy one, mac OR pc, that's a whine.

Apple certainly does make mistakes. The cube was certainly one of them. I agree that it was a good box, but at a price two or three times higher than what it should have been. I don't think the current MB remotely compares to the pricing situation of the cube. The MB isn't dirt cheap, but it's a very fair price for what you get, they just don't have a model stripped of performance and features.

Sure, apple is cutting out some of the market. But we don't know how big that portion is, and how small the profit margins are. Let's not forget that Dell's stock took a big hit because they cut their profit margins to the point where there wasn't much profit left.

The current model will probably sell as fast as they can build them in the short term. I think there's a good chance apple may introduce a cheaper model down the road when sales cool off a bit. For now, if demand is huge, doesn't it make sense for apple to offer the pricier configs to early adopters and take that profit in the short term?

Sure, it's an opinion. I just don't buy "look at all the complaining" as evidence that sales will suffer.

Let's just be careful about how we ascribe opinions, then. I have only towers. does that mean that I am whining because I see a reason as to why I think that Apple should do something particular to a line that I don't buy? I work with the schools here in NYC. does that mean that I should have an opinion, or does it still mean that I shouldn't, because I don't by laptops for myself?

I'm just saying, that it seems that with no lower machine, Apple is missing out.

It has yet to be seen how school systems will react to a built-in video camera. Right now, cell phones, mp3 players, and anything with cameras that are not required for a class are banned in the NYC school system. I'm very interested in how these cameras will be looked at. I suspect that when we have our next computer technology meeting later this month, it will be discussed.

For a bulk buyer, I assume Apple would be willing to find a solution, whether that's via hardware or software.

It also should be noted that apple still has the ibook available for educational buyers. (in addition to the fact that apple can negotiate whatever price they want on bulk orders)

Raskin's thesis is purely about graphical interfaces, not the windowing concepts that Xerox and Apple would later develop.

We had Xerox Stars in the company I worked at in the 80s and they were a lot more functional than the Macs, mostly because of the huge 19" portrait screens as opposed to the weeny Mac screens. All our manuals were produced on Stars up until about 1989 or so when we switched to Ventura on GEM and our own in-house text based word processor on DOS (which I co-wrote).

Claiming Apple invented menus and overlapping windows just isn't true.

It's not always 20 times larger though.

If your application is a general application that the whole market uses then that's true but there's niches where the Mac isn't up against a 20 times larger market and vice versa.

From a developers point of view, the Windows market may also be 20 times larger but there's also 100 times as many competitors too. All trying to beat you and all trying to grab the attention of the users above the din. Sometimes it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in an ocean.



That's also because their are more companies trying to shout over their competitors and so they HAVE to advertise. Plus, if you look at the adverts, it's mostly hardware companies trying to sell their beige boxes v someone elses beige boxes, or endless component build-your-own lists. That's something you just don't get in Mac mags.

Back in 2001 when I launched a bike magazine we made the aesthetic call of not including any mail order advertising. The mag ended up thinner (and so did I!) but it ended up a nice looking mag. The bike mags before us were a bit like PC mags. Ours was a Mac mag. We had crap market share, but that's not what we were after. We were after the quality end of the market, not the general market. Advertisers didn't get us at the start but slowly they came around.




It doesn't, if your product is right and your company is set up right. Ferrari has crap market share. I'm sure they aren't complaining though. Apple aren't Ferrari but a drive for overall market share would be misguided.

comparing the car industry to the computer industry is a bad comparison