I see you like statistics and numbers a lot - 17% here, 90% there... well, then; how come 17% of students turn into 8% or less of general population? Does that mean that more than 50% of bellow-25 Mac users will give up on Macs and turn to PC once they grow up?
Well, no actually. The reason why Macs currently have 8% (actually last I heard it was 10% for the US) market share is because those college students haven't had the time to really influence the general spending of the public. Macs went from, what, 5% to 10% of the market in about 4 years.. that is pretty astonishing, especially with the recession. And I imagine this is only just the beginning, since those college graduates will soon buy Macs down the line as well.. we just have to wait for that 17% market share to show up a bit later. But of course, roughly 20% of the US population goes to college, so I'd wager that's about right...
It's not so simple. You can sample a very small proportion of a given population and be able to compute a confidence as for how well it reflects the entire population. It might actually be adequate, though they don't give a confidence figure.
A sample of 300 out of 30 million appears to give a plus or minus 4.25% error at 95% confidence. A sample of 3000 out of 30M would be 1.34% margin of error. It would cost 10 times more to reduce the margin of error by 3 points.
Unfortunately, that math only holds if your samples are taken randomly from the population. In this case, the 300 person sample came from a subset of the population (those who used the site in question and who chose to participate in the survey). We have no idea if that subset represents the population as a whole or if it's skewed one way or another. It doesn't invalidate the survey, but the margin of error would be higher than if the sample was truly random.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
That is a problem, I don't know of an inexpensive program that offers adequate and easy sketching within a text document. If I did when I was in college, I might have bought a notebook computer.
Apple's Newton could...sooo far ahead of its time. (Ok, so it's text input was a little weak, but you could mix text and sketches in the same note.)
My feeling is taking notes in class on a computer is stupid unless you're in training to become a secretary. Learning how to operate your brain, a tape recorder for confirming the outline of your notes with a pencil and paper is more than enough. Computers don't do the thinking. Students need to be able to process and question the information they are given, since most "information" is opinion and a lot of it is just arrived at by consensus. When you consider a generation that came before us without laptops managed to give us Einstein, Edison and other geniuses, and then consider we live in a supposedly miraculous, connected era that can only manage to give us Twitter... well, I just don't see the value to people who actually need to think as well as learn.
You need to explain how note taking by pencil and paper is less secretarial than taking notes by typing sometime. The nice thing about typed notes is search. The bad thing about typed notes is diagrams...as in lack of.
A convertible tablet would be the best of both worlds.
Recording is nice and something that laptops can do although an external mic is likely a good idea.
Besides, you sound like a gumpy old man...the reason that there are fewer recognized geniuses today is that you have to specialize a lot in most sciences as compared to the golden era of geniuses from 1850-1950. Riemann, Gauss, Poincare, Cauchy, etc set the stage for a massive explosion of scientific paradigm shifts.
People of equivalent intellect are well known in their own fields but are sometimes so esoteric that you look at their Nobel and go WTF is that about even when you consider yourself moderately well learned.
netbooks? to have office open up in 10 mins? and oh those lovely ant screens.
These dumb kids are going to need thick glassed by the age of 19...
I got me my beloved 12" pbook a couple of months ago for around £250 of ebay and it beats every netbook in every perspective except size where it doesn't fall short there either... and how couldn't it, it's the best laptop, to me, ever built.
Netbooks are a crappy fad that will fade and we ll go back to dekstop, thin and light lappies and various pods, iphones and the apple table then onwards, and ebook readers...
This is not really news about the popularity of netbooks. Price matters a lot for consumers but so does value for others. What is more interesting about the market growth of students with netbooks, smart phones and other internet-enabled devices is that Apple is still going to benefit. How?
iTunes on Windows.
It probably now enjoys the second largest applications footprint on Windows next to Microsoft itself. That alone is a huge advantage for Apple in connecting with new customers that don't own or use OS X.
I don't use Office, but, OO.o seems to work nicely enough on a 500MHz computer, I don't see why it can't work well enough on a 1GHz netbook.
There are people that say the iPhone's screens are big enough to use, I see no reason why an 8" screen is necessarily too small.
Because word or oo was horrid with a 1.6 pentium m in other lappie, and the atom is far worse. I mean you can deal with it...but that's about it. If your 500 mhz is an apple that's different. Also these are very underclocked for netboork battery work. Of coure multitasking is out of the question. Most of the netbook also slow down with crap hdd and even worse ssd's I know I have an asus, and boy is it slow, like waiting on a bus almost to do a basic task..the "security cneter" in windoze doesnt help much either.
I phone is great because you dont do office work on it, plus it lacks the keyboard so you can bring as close to your eyes as you want and it functions as small book....my I cant wait for this tablet, this will be the next revolution in computing. I wish I had some stakes in it to make some money because I am seeing this coming years and miles ago, while most it people are either far asleep or too shortsighted to realize that the book format, without the keys, is the greatest thing by far that will happen next.
Apple has never been interested in appealing to consumers who shop for computers based primarily on price. It is very doubtful that most of these netbook buyers are smart enough to appreciate a Mac anyway. They got exactly what they deserve, so everybody's happy.
Right and everbody that's buying a NetBook now will simply go out and buy in addition an Apple tablet when it becomes available. Wrong.
Sigh, once again you just never seem to get things...
Apple is in markets where it can make money, that is why it's doing better than all the other computer companies out there profit-wise.
Apple will go into the netbook market when/if it thinks it has a strong product that will make money. They are not going to be pressured into going into a market because some clueless people think they should.
The typical person buying a netbook is looking for something inexpensive so they are most probably not a typical Apple buyer to begin with.
I love all the posters posing as Mac owners just to praise the Netbooks.
They are POS computers, end of story. Whether you have XP or Linux on them they are just crap.
Your exactly right, they are.
Some people need a crappy little device as a disposable extension of a regular full featured laptop or desktop.
Using a netbook as one's only computer, under the delusion that emailing, web surfing and saving a text file every now and then is the only thing a computer is good for, is terribly misleading.
Once these people realize that they want to organize and edit their photo's, torrent, run office software, run itunes and update their iPods, rip songs off of cds and so on and so on. They are going to be looking to get another computer and pay more with the combined amount of two computers (and two anti-malware for Windows) than if they just bought one good computer to begin with.
A Mac empowers people, it provides a stable and reliable operating system and everything one could need if they should ever need it. Perfect for a student who is at school to better and learn about themselves, because without the tools one can't learn or try anything.
With a MacBook Pro, one can even run other operating systems at the same time as others (I got 4 going once, but it slowed down quite a bit) so one can even play around with the other OS's as to be even more educated and employable.
If your investing tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in your education to better yourself, why stop with a sub-par netbook as a main computer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy
Hardware is so powerful and cheap today that unless you want to play recent games on a computer then any computer under $1000 is more than enough. My mom has a 5 year old Dell laptop that I put vista on and with ram maxed out it's good enough for a few more years
unless you need a mac pro, there is no need to pay the price premium of a mac
Well perhaps for your "mom" a old and tired PC with a bloat laden operating system like Vista is good enough, but for someone who raised me from birth and dealt with all that deserves something a heck of a lot better. Less headaches for you and more happiness for her, unless you want it otherwise. I'm of the mindset that I rather not want to be "fixing" all my friends and families computers and being blamed for Windows inferiority and issues.
Concerning Mac's supposed premium prices. If one compares specifications of a Mac with a similar quality PC, they are nearly the same in hardware, the OS and bundled software is considerably better quality.
It's when the hardware quality of the PC drops and that is compared to a quality Mac, the price difference is obvious.
And concerning the MacPro (and XServer), now that Apple switched to Intel processors, the PowerPC processor advantage that caused a lot of enterprise types to buy these computers in volume have disappeared.
After all one can shop around for any Intel box, and enterprise usually has their own OS plans and IT staff to make a better hardware value decision.
3D games have moved to console devices mostly and away from complicated PC's and Mac's, so that's less of a reason to buy a MacPro.
Software for video, which Apple has some of the best, is the chief reason to buy their heavy duty hardware and perhaps soon even that will go in favor of using XGrid and Apple's NC server farm perhaps.
Processing power is going to be shifted away from on the computer itself to another location.
People will have a device or devices that are simply input/command and control, basically just dumb terminals with storage and a lot more power at their disposal that can be had with normal computing as we know it. This will allow for thin, light portable devices with a lot longer battery life and drastic amounts of performance.
Want to render your ray tracing sketched out on your iTablet? Boom, it's done in seconds instead of days, weeks or months.
That's the future, the only future it can be when processors can't be made to go any faster or cooler.
I love my iPhone and I gave my nephew an iTouch for graduation. But I think apple goofed by not moving the MacBook line into netbook territory. Would have been a great distinguisher between MacBook and the Pro line. They certainly have the miniaturization down considering how small the minis are.
What a great upgrade path to offer future converts, Mac iBook to MacBook Pro. Offer great integration with your desktop like only Apple could do and there you go.
And I'm not a poser. I do see the value in the small format and I'd rather have a Mac Netbook with a full OS than a 10 inch iTouch. I think it would be more durable (cover), more flexible, and more portable than a MacBook in a case.
Besides, I'd love to see Apple bury all those POS netbooks out there with a winner. They are here to stay - technology gets smaller.
we remember: according to apple netbooks are not good, you can't do anything with it etc. well, this statistic speaks another language. apple is abviously VERY wrong. apples real problem with netbooks is, that they are cheap computers. it's obvious that the people don't want to spend so much money on a computer anymore. and it is also very nice to have a machine that is not as heavy as a large computer!
however, if apple would make a netbook (for example a mac book 10") they'd charge 799 dollar and that would again be way to expensive. unless apple is pricing such a machine at 399 dollar, they'd still not be able to compete with oder netbooks.
Sigh, once again you just never seem to get things...
Apple is in markets where it can make money, that is why it's doing better than all the other computer companies out there profit-wise.
Apple will go into the netbook market when/if it thinks it has a strong product that will make money. They are not going to be pressured into going into a market because some clueless people think they should.
The typical person buying a netbook is looking for something inexpensive so they are most probably not a typical Apple buyer to begin with.
...however, if apple would make a netbook (for example a mac book 10") they'd charge 799 dollar and that would again be way to expensive. unless apple is pricing such a machine at 399 dollar, they'd still not be able to compete with oder netbooks.
I'm with you part way. You don't need the best screen and an aluminum case to be good design. And Apple doesn't have to make the best computer in netbook form, just the best netbook which should not be difficult to do. People would go $450 to $550 easy.
They've built the computer for everyone. Now they should build the computer for everywhere.
Isn't the MacMini supposed to be the "affordable" Mac?
Excuses , excuses- Netbooks are penetrating deeper and deeper into the public's consciousness- Apple missed the boat.
Instead Apple gave us - the Air????
There goes Teckstud again. Deciding to once again take out that ego-powered lifting pedestal from the basement and preach to the world your fabricated gospels.
We all know and remember your criticisms of products you never even owned. Sell that iPhone you supposedly love because it still doesn't do MMS and it doesn't have a removable battery.
The MBA is selling well since Apple has refreshed the system to more current specs. Whatever the MBA's volume is, they feel it's getting the word out. My friends and colleagues think my MBA is the most versatile MOBILE laptop around. Several are contemplating a purchase. Many I personally know have bought one with no complaints. I see MBA's being used everywhere. Not by starving students since as you conveniently and continuously fail to notice, is not the MBA's target market.
The MBA is a fantastic machine for the market it was intended. But of course, you would not know anything about it since you never actually used one for more than the few minutes at an Apple store. Same thing about your criticisms of the Shuffle and your lack of knowing even how to use a gym where I see everyone using one.
What actual facts do you know? Very few I'm sure since it would require actual work and comprehensive reading skills to gather and disseminate information instead of pulling it out of your a**.
Apple's sales / revenues are breaking records. Even in this recession! Yet you get high-up on that milk-crate and tell us how Apple is doing all the wrong things.
You just proved to us that the Teckstud of the past few weeks was in fact a stand-in while you figured out how to pick the lock to the basement your parents locked you in.
Comments
I see you like statistics and numbers a lot - 17% here, 90% there... well, then; how come 17% of students turn into 8% or less of general population? Does that mean that more than 50% of bellow-25 Mac users will give up on Macs and turn to PC once they grow up?
Well, no actually. The reason why Macs currently have 8% (actually last I heard it was 10% for the US) market share is because those college students haven't had the time to really influence the general spending of the public. Macs went from, what, 5% to 10% of the market in about 4 years.. that is pretty astonishing, especially with the recession. And I imagine this is only just the beginning, since those college graduates will soon buy Macs down the line as well.. we just have to wait for that 17% market share to show up a bit later. But of course, roughly 20% of the US population goes to college, so I'd wager that's about right...
It's not so simple. You can sample a very small proportion of a given population and be able to compute a confidence as for how well it reflects the entire population. It might actually be adequate, though they don't give a confidence figure.
Here is a good site to try:
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
A sample of 300 out of 30 million appears to give a plus or minus 4.25% error at 95% confidence. A sample of 3000 out of 30M would be 1.34% margin of error. It would cost 10 times more to reduce the margin of error by 3 points.
Unfortunately, that math only holds if your samples are taken randomly from the population. In this case, the 300 person sample came from a subset of the population (those who used the site in question and who chose to participate in the survey). We have no idea if that subset represents the population as a whole or if it's skewed one way or another. It doesn't invalidate the survey, but the margin of error would be higher than if the sample was truly random.
That is a problem, I don't know of an inexpensive program that offers adequate and easy sketching within a text document. If I did when I was in college, I might have bought a notebook computer.
Apple's Newton could...sooo far ahead of its time. (Ok, so it's text input was a little weak, but you could mix text and sketches in the same note.)
My feeling is taking notes in class on a computer is stupid unless you're in training to become a secretary. Learning how to operate your brain, a tape recorder for confirming the outline of your notes with a pencil and paper is more than enough. Computers don't do the thinking. Students need to be able to process and question the information they are given, since most "information" is opinion and a lot of it is just arrived at by consensus. When you consider a generation that came before us without laptops managed to give us Einstein, Edison and other geniuses, and then consider we live in a supposedly miraculous, connected era that can only manage to give us Twitter... well, I just don't see the value to people who actually need to think as well as learn.
You need to explain how note taking by pencil and paper is less secretarial than taking notes by typing sometime. The nice thing about typed notes is search. The bad thing about typed notes is diagrams...as in lack of.
A convertible tablet would be the best of both worlds.
Recording is nice and something that laptops can do although an external mic is likely a good idea.
Besides, you sound like a gumpy old man...the reason that there are fewer recognized geniuses today is that you have to specialize a lot in most sciences as compared to the golden era of geniuses from 1850-1950. Riemann, Gauss, Poincare, Cauchy, etc set the stage for a massive explosion of scientific paradigm shifts.
People of equivalent intellect are well known in their own fields but are sometimes so esoteric that you look at their Nobel and go WTF is that about even when you consider yourself moderately well learned.
And twitter is pretty awesome.
These dumb kids are going to need thick glassed by the age of 19...
I got me my beloved 12" pbook a couple of months ago for around £250 of ebay and it beats every netbook in every perspective except size where it doesn't fall short there either... and how couldn't it, it's the best laptop, to me, ever built.
Netbooks are a crappy fad that will fade and we ll go back to dekstop, thin and light lappies and various pods, iphones and the apple table then onwards, and ebook readers...
netbooks? to have office open up in 10 mins?
I don't use Office, but, OO.o seems to work nicely enough on a 500MHz computer, I don't see why it can't work well enough on a 1GHz netbook.
and oh those lovely ant screens. These dumb kids are going to need thick glassed by the age of 19...
There are people that say the iPhone's screens are big enough to use, I see no reason why an 8" screen is necessarily too small.
iTunes on Windows.
It probably now enjoys the second largest applications footprint on Windows next to Microsoft itself. That alone is a huge advantage for Apple in connecting with new customers that don't own or use OS X.
This will be until they realize they cant fricken type papers on the damn things without cramping up.
Being unaware of the existence of USB/Bluetooth keyboards -- that's hot!
I don't use Office, but, OO.o seems to work nicely enough on a 500MHz computer, I don't see why it can't work well enough on a 1GHz netbook.
There are people that say the iPhone's screens are big enough to use, I see no reason why an 8" screen is necessarily too small.
Because word or oo was horrid with a 1.6 pentium m in other lappie, and the atom is far worse. I mean you can deal with it...but that's about it. If your 500 mhz is an apple that's different. Also these are very underclocked for netboork battery work. Of coure multitasking is out of the question. Most of the netbook also slow down with crap hdd and even worse ssd's I know I have an asus, and boy is it slow, like waiting on a bus almost to do a basic task..the "security cneter" in windoze doesnt help much either.
I phone is great because you dont do office work on it, plus it lacks the keyboard so you can bring as close to your eyes as you want and it functions as small book....my I cant wait for this tablet, this will be the next revolution in computing. I wish I had some stakes in it to make some money because I am seeing this coming years and miles ago, while most it people are either far asleep or too shortsighted to realize that the book format, without the keys, is the greatest thing by far that will happen next.
They are POS computers, end of story. Whether you have XP or Linux on them they are just crap.
Right and everbody that's buying a NetBook now will simply go out and buy in addition an Apple tablet when it becomes available. Wrong.
Sigh, once again you just never seem to get things...
Apple is in markets where it can make money, that is why it's doing better than all the other computer companies out there profit-wise.
Apple will go into the netbook market when/if it thinks it has a strong product that will make money. They are not going to be pressured into going into a market because some clueless people think they should.
The typical person buying a netbook is looking for something inexpensive so they are most probably not a typical Apple buyer to begin with.
True, true- Apple will be making up for a lost segment. Wasted all that D&D on the Air which totally blows in relation to its cost.
You still don't get the concept behind the Air, which sells very well by the way.
Is the MacBook Air selling well? Do we actually know that for a fact?
Haven't seen a commercial for it since last year with that stupid interoffice envelope commercial hyping its thinness.
Yes we do, though you refuse to believe it because you don't want it to be true.
I think you mean that "genius" commercial.
In case you didn't know, there is no correlation between the success of a product and how many commercials you see of it on TV.
I love all the posters posing as Mac owners just to praise the Netbooks.
They are POS computers, end of story. Whether you have XP or Linux on them they are just crap.
Your exactly right, they are.
Some people need a crappy little device as a disposable extension of a regular full featured laptop or desktop.
Using a netbook as one's only computer, under the delusion that emailing, web surfing and saving a text file every now and then is the only thing a computer is good for, is terribly misleading.
Once these people realize that they want to organize and edit their photo's, torrent, run office software, run itunes and update their iPods, rip songs off of cds and so on and so on. They are going to be looking to get another computer and pay more with the combined amount of two computers (and two anti-malware for Windows) than if they just bought one good computer to begin with.
A Mac empowers people, it provides a stable and reliable operating system and everything one could need if they should ever need it. Perfect for a student who is at school to better and learn about themselves, because without the tools one can't learn or try anything.
With a MacBook Pro, one can even run other operating systems at the same time as others (I got 4 going once, but it slowed down quite a bit) so one can even play around with the other OS's as to be even more educated and employable.
If your investing tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in your education to better yourself, why stop with a sub-par netbook as a main computer?
Hardware is so powerful and cheap today that unless you want to play recent games on a computer then any computer under $1000 is more than enough. My mom has a 5 year old Dell laptop that I put vista on and with ram maxed out it's good enough for a few more years
unless you need a mac pro, there is no need to pay the price premium of a mac
Well perhaps for your "mom" a old and tired PC with a bloat laden operating system like Vista is good enough, but for someone who raised me from birth and dealt with all that deserves something a heck of a lot better. Less headaches for you and more happiness for her, unless you want it otherwise. I'm of the mindset that I rather not want to be "fixing" all my friends and families computers and being blamed for Windows inferiority and issues.
Concerning Mac's supposed premium prices. If one compares specifications of a Mac with a similar quality PC, they are nearly the same in hardware, the OS and bundled software is considerably better quality.
It's when the hardware quality of the PC drops and that is compared to a quality Mac, the price difference is obvious.
And concerning the MacPro (and XServer), now that Apple switched to Intel processors, the PowerPC processor advantage that caused a lot of enterprise types to buy these computers in volume have disappeared.
After all one can shop around for any Intel box, and enterprise usually has their own OS plans and IT staff to make a better hardware value decision.
3D games have moved to console devices mostly and away from complicated PC's and Mac's, so that's less of a reason to buy a MacPro.
Software for video, which Apple has some of the best, is the chief reason to buy their heavy duty hardware and perhaps soon even that will go in favor of using XGrid and Apple's NC server farm perhaps.
Processing power is going to be shifted away from on the computer itself to another location.
People will have a device or devices that are simply input/command and control, basically just dumb terminals with storage and a lot more power at their disposal that can be had with normal computing as we know it. This will allow for thin, light portable devices with a lot longer battery life and drastic amounts of performance.
Want to render your ray tracing sketched out on your iTablet? Boom, it's done in seconds instead of days, weeks or months.
That's the future, the only future it can be when processors can't be made to go any faster or cooler.
What a great upgrade path to offer future converts, Mac iBook to MacBook Pro. Offer great integration with your desktop like only Apple could do and there you go.
And I'm not a poser. I do see the value in the small format and I'd rather have a Mac Netbook with a full OS than a 10 inch iTouch. I think it would be more durable (cover), more flexible, and more portable than a MacBook in a case.
Besides, I'd love to see Apple bury all those POS netbooks out there with a winner. They are here to stay - technology gets smaller.
Really- what's an iPod Shuffle then?
Isn't the MacMini supposed to be the "affordable" Mac?
Excuses , excuses- Netbooks are penetrating deeper and deeper into the public's consciousness- Apple missed the boat.
Instead Apple gave us - the Air????
where is the margin though? Any evidence for the deeper and deeper? I could also speculate they have peaked...
however, if apple would make a netbook (for example a mac book 10") they'd charge 799 dollar and that would again be way to expensive. unless apple is pricing such a machine at 399 dollar, they'd still not be able to compete with oder netbooks.
Sigh, once again you just never seem to get things...
Apple is in markets where it can make money, that is why it's doing better than all the other computer companies out there profit-wise.
Apple will go into the netbook market when/if it thinks it has a strong product that will make money. They are not going to be pressured into going into a market because some clueless people think they should.
The typical person buying a netbook is looking for something inexpensive so they are most probably not a typical Apple buyer to begin with.
hear hear
...however, if apple would make a netbook (for example a mac book 10") they'd charge 799 dollar and that would again be way to expensive. unless apple is pricing such a machine at 399 dollar, they'd still not be able to compete with oder netbooks.
I'm with you part way. You don't need the best screen and an aluminum case to be good design. And Apple doesn't have to make the best computer in netbook form, just the best netbook which should not be difficult to do. People would go $450 to $550 easy.
They've built the computer for everyone. Now they should build the computer for everywhere.
Really- what's an iPod Shuffle then?
Isn't the MacMini supposed to be the "affordable" Mac?
Excuses , excuses- Netbooks are penetrating deeper and deeper into the public's consciousness- Apple missed the boat.
Instead Apple gave us - the Air????
There goes Teckstud again. Deciding to once again take out that ego-powered lifting pedestal from the basement and preach to the world your fabricated gospels.
We all know and remember your criticisms of products you never even owned. Sell that iPhone you supposedly love because it still doesn't do MMS and it doesn't have a removable battery.
The MBA is selling well since Apple has refreshed the system to more current specs. Whatever the MBA's volume is, they feel it's getting the word out. My friends and colleagues think my MBA is the most versatile MOBILE laptop around. Several are contemplating a purchase. Many I personally know have bought one with no complaints. I see MBA's being used everywhere. Not by starving students since as you conveniently and continuously fail to notice, is not the MBA's target market.
The MBA is a fantastic machine for the market it was intended. But of course, you would not know anything about it since you never actually used one for more than the few minutes at an Apple store. Same thing about your criticisms of the Shuffle and your lack of knowing even how to use a gym where I see everyone using one.
What actual facts do you know? Very few I'm sure since it would require actual work and comprehensive reading skills to gather and disseminate information instead of pulling it out of your a**.
Apple's sales / revenues are breaking records. Even in this recession! Yet you get high-up on that milk-crate and tell us how Apple is doing all the wrong things.
You just proved to us that the Teckstud of the past few weeks was in fact a stand-in while you figured out how to pick the lock to the basement your parents locked you in.