Is the iMac a mistake - Page 2

Actually, I don't support that view. ShawnJ and midwinter argued from that side -- I argued the opposite.

Anyway, the reason why it comes across as trolling is because it's repetitive, factually erroneous, and the illustration of the position has been developed in a very childish fashion. There is no PC much like the iMac, Mac market share is growing, and there's no evidence that very many PC users care much about upgrades. To argue that there are more PC users who intend on upgrading then there are mac users in total is beside the point, since there are many times more people who don't care about upgrading. If Apple can assume a 10% penetration rate (or whatever) among iPod users with PCs, 10% of 90% is a lot better than 10% of 5%.

We have heard enough times from high school kids who want Apple to make them a computer the way they want, and cheap, because mom doesn't give them enough allowance.


Other evidence of trolling:

Bait-

Inconsistency, more bait -

There's no reason to assume anything because someone works for IBM. IBM makes the PowerPCs, which are in no personal computers anymore, but is also such a large company that it does thousands of things, most of which have little to do with anything regarding Apple or the mac. They sold off their PC division to Lenovo a while ago. Furthermore, why even mention it? It's like you're trying to prove that you're not in high school.

Lastly, why all the sudden these new members, all supporting each other on the same thread? It's been a long time since kids from ars technica used to come over en masse to cause trouble, but it would always follow a pattern just like this. If you're wondering why we think it's trolling, that's it right there.

OK. Great. Just because it's small doesn't mean it isn't growing. No one's ever said that Apple's going to be the dominant manufacturer anytime soon, but yes, their market is growing.

If you really are 39, then you're a pretty dumb 39.

Hey, you were close, right?

Actually, I bought it after the Intel Macs were available. I have some legacy software that will never be ported to Intel, and doesn't run well under Rosetta. I'll probably by a MacBook Pro when they go 64bit. I also never brought up IBM except when questioning one of your cronies.

As I said, a dumb 39 or an average 16.

Honestly, for what they are, they are great. one stop. plug 'n play and it is easy to setup, like a TV with a built in cable tuner VS having a box, but there is a hole: they need that "education" modle to go mainstream at a price of $899, people could easily justify $200 more than a Dell or whatever for asthetics (folks pay asthetic premeums all the time with appliances, like Black or white plastic V steel or aluminium) but the current system is just too pricy for the average consumer under ~30 to look at, even with iLife and OSX.

Is that supposed to be an insult?

I think you're dumb because all you do is bait, and also because you seem to have trouble forming readable sentences. Several posts ago I finished "debating" you, which I wrapped up by dismissing all of your false claims. As we've seen they're all backed up with evidence and fairly basic logic.

The personalization and libel are mostly for my own enjoyment, I'll admit, but no-one likes trolls so I may as well have my fun.

extremeskater and the other dude who was pulling for os x to be available on general pc's:

You just don't get it do you? The whole point of Apple business plan is the integrated system. Itunes + iPod. OS X + hardware. The stuff just works together. That's what makes Apple different. You think if Apple was trying to accomodate hundreds of different OEM systems they wouldn't be (almost) as screwed up as the Windows colluge is? The idea of a mac is that you just plug it in and it works. Everything... The plan you have doesn't allow that.

Just a side point: mr. Skater has mentioned several times that marketshare is on a decline. Any proof? a decline does not mean a low market share, it means a decreasing marketshare. I was under the impression that the opposite was taking place.

Another thing-- beyond the OS there are other things that differentiate a Mac and a PC even now.. BIOS, special motherboard designs, other components, etc. Otherwise, why would bootcamp be necessary?

AS for the point of the post (which is titled incorrectly, by the way: it should be "should apple have a cheaper tower?") I agree to a point. Even from the point of being able to get a bigger monitor it makes sense.

But apple's had such offerings before. Perhaps we will see something at WWDC?

There's no reason to assume anything because someone works for IBM. IBM makes the PowerPCs, which are in no personal computers anymore, but is also such a large company that it does thousands of things, most of which have little to do with anything regarding Apple or the mac. They sold off their PC division to Lenovo a while ago. Furthermore, why even mention it? It's like you're trying to prove that you're not in high school.

Lastly, why all the sudden these new members, all supporting each other on the same thread? It's been a long time since kids from ars technica used to come over en masse to cause trouble, but it would always follow a pattern just like this. If you're wondering why we think it's trolling, that's it right there. [/B][/QUOTE]

I apologize. Sarcasm is my second language. Using analogies is obviously not the best thing to do. Listen, I'd love to show off my "uncroniness" by talking about the Performa 575's or challenge you to Hypercard showdown, however my bangin' days on Hotline were over a long time ago. Ones age nor the amount of posts one presents determines the status as a mac guru.

The only support I gave was the fact the man gave valid points and presented an arguement, and the best thing you can tell him is that he's a troll.

Why all the hate? Even if you're wrong that doesn't mean you're a troll, does it?

Well, I think the pretty obvious one is that Apple pretty much barely makes money on OS X due to it's steep development costs, opening it up to the entire market would cost them more in support costs than profits, they make a decent amount of money from they're hardware, and they're market cap is in line with companies like Dell that move a lot more computers.

Which points of yours were valid, again?

Then why were there all those hacker competitions to get windows running on intel macs. After weeks they got a half-a**ed way of running it. Then apple released bootcamp. I can make a FAT partition myself in 30 min or less with no problem if that's all that was involved in getting Window's running.

In fact if that's all BootCamp does, you can go ahead and make a FAT partition using diskutility yourself and try installing Win without using BootCamp.

BootCamp also supplies the drivers necessary to make Windows work.

Ah, how I love correcting.

Boot Camp includes/entails/provides/requires:

1) a replacement firmware supporting BIOS emulation
2) a setup assistant for dynamically resizing partitions (using a new DiskArbitration framework feature)
3) a Windows driver disc for sound, graphics (including 3D acceleration), wired and wireless networking, Bluetooth and other extras.

Exactly!! and number 1) is most important and what is relevant to this discussion.

No, it is because they are using all sorts of pixel shaders to draw insainly detailed CG renderings 30+ times per second at 1280.1024 or more resolution...and they use every ounce that they can squeeze out of DX or OGL to drive it. Any moddern game is playable on a 3 year old rig if you turn off anti-aliasing and a few less notable textures...I can play doom3 on a 1.5GHZ proc using an nvidia 5200 and 512 MB ram and it doesnt look half bad.

To the first point, two names: SGI / CRAY.

Apple did the whole "different architecture", and look where it led them: being nailed in the ass by motorola, then IBM.
Proprietary SCSI, VGA, and serial connectors (not to mention NuBus), and video cards that (still) cost $100-200 more than everybody else.

Look what it did for them: they paid the price, (translated to the end-user, of course), and once the iMac had USB, rational apple users everywhere shared in a collective sigh of relief. PCI was a earlier no-brainer, and firewire is still going (fairly) strong.

The era for custom hardware is over. It's been over for a long, long time. Hardware manufacturers develop standards, and they build equipment that follow those standards. A computer company that wants to do "special" things is going to end up paying "special" prices, and eventually end up with sub-par gear because the massive R&D of many other cooperating corporations is going to pass them up.

To the second point:

Good night. This whole prospect of OSX becoming a commodity OS is crazy.
Apple's made it clear that they're selling a whole package. The moment you start writing an OS for every damn whitebox PC that johnny idiot cobbles together out of dodgy online shops, you end up where microsoft is (without the advantage of having a near-monopoly). No thanks. The software is solid, not in spite of, but because of the hardware.

That and oh, about a dozen other reasons posted in this thread and elsewhere would convince any reasonable user that the idea of OSX on beigeboxes is not going to happen.
Unlike microsoft who is almost exclusively software, Apple would like to sell you a $2000 computer with your $100 OS. If they convert more and more users to their side, they can stand to make a great deal more money at it, all the while controlling both ends of the technology.

How about your asinine "Has nothing to do with hardware or motherboards." assertion? Firmware has nothing to do with hardware or motherboards?


You should get your mind out of the MBR system, because APM and GPT have no such distinction as "logical partitions".

Alright, let's put it this way. Say there's 1,000 programmers on OS X. And seeing as how Apple's in Silicon Valley, they all get paid an average of $80,000 a year, which is about right for good programmers at a large company in that area.

That means that continuing OS X development costs $80,000,000. How many licenses, at $130, are needed to cover that? Lots. More than copies of OS X sold.

OS X is very likely made at a loss, which is subsidized because of Apple's hardware profits. This is because, at it's core, Apple is a HARDWARE COMPANY. I know, what a shock.

If Dell licensed OS X, they wouldn't do it for all their customers. They couldn't-lots of people don't want OS X. It would still be a small percentage that ordered their computers with Macs. Most of those people would already be Mac users, who switched to cheaper Dells, because they really just wanted OS X. They can hide they're ugly noisy computer under their desk.

So all the sudden, Apple is in a position where it can only selling products it makes at a loss, and has to depend on the iPod to stay profitable.

Not a good outcome.

buy your math they would only need to sell 616 000 Copies of OS to cover costs. which i think they could not pull off if they tried.

macs are the sum off their parts not the OS or the Hardwear

Hrm. I beg to differ, based upon Job's very statements that OSX has been running on intel hardware since its inception. It's only a very small leap of logic to think about dual booting windows.

I, as well as many other posters in this forum have debated OSX on x86 hardware for a long time.

You must not get out much.

I'm not sure what more I can say; this is just wrong. First of all, the first two sentences are contradicted with the third sentence (quoted here).

I agree the windows drivers and setup assistant are not a big deal at least relevant to this discussion. But as Chucker already mentioned the FIRMWARE.

Again, I reiterate. If all you need is a separate partition to run windows, make a partition using DiskUtility and try it yourself.

Again, many people have been discussing this for many years, especially since in the early years, Mac os did run on different hardware (clones). The possibility has always existed. The only reason against it has been that the PowerPC architecture was better (or so us Apple guys argued--but I think it was pretty well accepted, too). That and the risk/cost involved in switching over to x86. But remember, this is not the first Apple has shown themselves willing to switch when better hardware becomes available.

Secondly, the OS won't become available to all users, unless the CEO of Apple wants it too. Right now and in the near future that would be senseless. Is it possible the situation might change drastically so it would make sense to do this? Maybe...

I can think of one such theoretical scenario--if they were forced to by the gov.

Ooh, you're right, you'd think I'd follow my calculations through all the way

My point still holds: they'd lose the majority of their hardware sales.

Why are folks arguing with a IBM mainframe programmer about the direction of Apple's lineup? He doesn't get the iMac and believes that there is no difference between supporting a controlled hardware architecture (even if Intel based) and supporting random white boxes...

The iMac is a general purpose computing console vs a game console. At some point the game console...at least the MS ones, might cross over. Likewise, at some point Macs will cross over at least as a media center console.

The replacement cycle for an intel iMac destined for email, web surfing, MS Office (or equivalent) and iLife is pretty long. 64 bit computing for these purposes is an almost pointless improvement except for a small subset of activities in iLife. The current machines are more than suitable for many if not most users.

Sure, future machines will be better...but that's almost always true. Sure, now is not the optimal time to buy and you are a little less future proof than say a year from now. But heck, the lifecycle difference between a Pentum 60 (stop gap) and a Pentium 90 was pretty much minimal. Likewise between the stopgap P4s and the first of the regular P4s.

The difference between a Yonah and Merom will likewise be minimal in the long run. Neither will be "blazing fast" a couple years from now and in 3 years you'll want to replace either whether you actually do so or not. Both will become "useless" within a year or so of each other despite one being 32 bit and one 64 bit.

The issue that OS/X has been hacked to run on non-Apple hardware misses the point of OS/X. While there are some aspects of the UI that are superior if you are going to have to tweak crap to get your OS to boot at all you might as well just run FreeBSD or Linux. And Vista will likely provide a better overall user experience than trying to keep a hacked OS/X up to date in a whitebox PC...

OS/X just works. A large part of that stability and ease of use is that limited hardware set. Just as game consoles are inherently more stable and easier to use than their PC game machine counterparts.

OS/X as a standalone commodity OS isn't a hands down winner. Solaris has better scalability. Windows is more widespread and has a wider selection of software. Linux is free and has a fanatic following (yeah, even more fanatic than Mac users).

Vinea