Pipelines vs. Megahertz new strategy
Much has been written by Apple about the megahertz myth and how shorter pipelines are more important in determining the true speed of a machine.
Perhaps Apple might consider marketing future Mac with that information up front. For example:
PowerMac w/933mhz / short pipeline G4 processor
etc...
It sounds corny and there might be a better technical way of indicating pipelines.
I just bring this up because even with the possibility of 1.6 GHz chips arriving soon, Apple's offerings will still "appear " slower than 2.0+ GHz Intel chips.
That said, when I checked Apple's website to read up on their Megahertz Myth article, it had been removed. (Hmm, what does Apple have up their sleeves?)
Perhaps Apple might consider marketing future Mac with that information up front. For example:
PowerMac w/933mhz / short pipeline G4 processor
etc...
It sounds corny and there might be a better technical way of indicating pipelines.
I just bring this up because even with the possibility of 1.6 GHz chips arriving soon, Apple's offerings will still "appear " slower than 2.0+ GHz Intel chips.
That said, when I checked Apple's website to read up on their Megahertz Myth article, it had been removed. (Hmm, what does Apple have up their sleeves?)
Comments
Get to the juice, render fiels quick and easy, burn your cd in x amount of minutes, crop and resize in seconds, etc.
Either that or they should relese a G5
However, today's consumer is very educated and will eventually compare the specs. Afterall it is a major purchase and I assume one wouldn't plop down $2K or so without doing their homework and reading the fine print.
It's great getting people motivated and excited about Apple products through hip commercials, but we still need to throw in some techno jargon to back it up.
But....
When Apple is saying "Our laptop can do realtime video editing". Those average joes will wonder how fast they are. When they see the Mhz is 667. They may think "Hey, a 667Mhz machine can do realtime video. Look at that 1Ghz P4 laptop, it should be even better!"
Get my idea? Sometime (not sometimes, but ALWAYS) those average joes still look at numbers
People who don't do their homework, ask the salesman.
The salesman is the one that does the, "It can do realtime editing" while this XX PC here needs to render at 1.7X speed...
~Kuku
<strong>Good points Amorph. Apple seems to be headed that way in their advertising already focussing on solutions, usability and productivity.
However, today's consumer is very educated and will eventually compare the specs. Afterall it is a major purchase and I assume one wouldn't plop down $2K or so without doing their homework and reading the fine print.
It's great getting people motivated and excited about Apple products through hip commercials, but we still need to throw in some techno jargon to back it up.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry, some people may compare specs but the avergae consumer is DUMB. Really ****ing dumb. I know this from a little sales experience. The majority of the market is not made up people like us. It is soccer moms and dads going to circuit city and saying "oh and ahhh" over the latest wintels and what the sales person tells them. Although, they do look at the MHZ...I'll give you that. They hear Pentium 1.8GHZ and think it is fast. They don't even know about RAM. Most only look at chip speed and screen size. They don't know that an "emachines" comp is a POS. They don't even know the damn difference between a DURON and an ATHALON or a CELERON and PENTIUM. I just was explaining this to my father-in-law the other day....people are just that uninformed about the whole thing.
Apple should perhaps do what AMD is doing right now...naming their chips/comps based on performance....like Athalon 1800XP (which is a 1.5 GHZ chip I think). I'm not suggesting actual names but it might work if they can't keep up with MHZ anymore.
[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: SDW2001 ]</p>
Yeah, the 1800+ is 1.53GHz, 1900+ is a 1.6GHz etc. AMD is actually kind of humble with it's ratings...most tests indicate that even an 1800+ will beat out a 2.0GHz P4 rather easily.
<strong>Amorph's idea is cool
But....
When Apple is saying "Our laptop can do realtime video editing". Those average joes will wonder how fast they are. When they see the Mhz is 667. They may think "Hey, a 667Mhz machine can do realtime video. Look at that 1Ghz P4 laptop, it should be even better!"
Get my idea? Sometime (not sometimes, but ALWAYS) those average joes still look at numbers
EXACTLY! They will se 667 and say, "cool a 1ghz will be better!" or "As usual, Apple is a bullshit computer brand lying as they always do."
<strong>That's why Apple opened up their own chain of stores.
People who don't do their homework, ask the salesman.
The salesman is the one that does the, "It can do realtime editing" while this XX PC here needs to render at 1.7X speed...
~Kuku</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, but if the consumer doesn't definately want a Mac why would they go to an Apple Store if they could go to a place like CompUSA since they don't know better?
But if Apple could show a few of the most popular apps in a bar graph that illustrated a Powermac performing faster than a Pentium, then that would be a solid piece of advertising.
Perhaps Apple will do this with the G5s...problem is that by the time the 1.8 GHz G5 comes out Intel will be at 4 GHz.
Apple is doomed.
<strong>Amorph's idea is cool
But....
When Apple is saying "Our laptop can do realtime video editing". Those average joes will wonder how fast they are. When they see the Mhz is 667. They may think "Hey, a 667Mhz machine can do realtime video. Look at that 1Ghz P4 laptop, it should be even better!"
Get my idea? Sometime (not sometimes, but ALWAYS) those average joes still look at numbers
yep....
any ideas to get away from MHz just won't work. the public has been brainwashed by Mhz. it's quite sad. even AMD's attempt to beat the Mhz misconception is failing.
<strong>
Yeah, but if the consumer doesn't definately want a Mac why would they go to an Apple Store if they could go to a place like CompUSA since they don't know better?</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's why they are going in high-traffic malls. An average joe might be walking around the mall sometime and see the very eye-catching Apple displays. He might go in, check out some of the comps, even talk to a sales person. He probably won't by a mac that day., but he'll know they exist.
PowerMac w/933mhz / short pipeline G4 processor
etc...
<hr></blockquote>
shortness of pipelines has no more to do with performance than MHz.
That's just spitting hairs here. IF people go to Sears and didn't do their homework, giving benchmark wouldn't matter much because they will ask the salesman to claifly which defeats the purpose.
Either way, people are going to get suckered if they don't do their homework.
The only difference is that with Opening of Apple chain, it's not as one sided as it used to be.
~Kuku
Regardless, what we are trying to do (in terms of philisophical reasoning) is redefine a universal standard. The standard for the average consumer for measuring speed is MHz, there is no denying that. What we are attempting to do in this thread is to create an alternative, yet equally reliable, definition that makes Apple look better.
Some of the methods for this are to talk about Apple's stregths, such as real time editing. Others have proposed introducing benchmark data. These both serve the purpose of keeping a universal standard (ie, not skewing the facts in favor of the Mac), while using a more valid test of performance.
However, what you ask is ultimately impossible. Apple does not have the cognitive weight in the consumer's mind to overcome the "facts" PC companies put out there. What we say is measured against them, and if we differ, then we are wrong. We are the kids in the spelling bee, they are the dictionary.
As with most philisophical debates, there is no answer. But the debate itself has merit!
- Pook :cool:
The best way to get people to use Apple computers is to make Apple computers the most cost effective method of doing a specific/important task.
Sorry to say, but if a Mac can do video editing at 1 tenth the cost of a PC, businesses will buy Macs. They don't care about specs, they care about practicality. The advantage of selling to business is simple. To sell 100 machines to an uninformed public, you need to educate 100 buyers. (as most people purchase a single computer at a time) In a business envionment, to sell 100 machines you often time would need to only educate 1-5 buyers.
Every company has limited resources, Apple would be better off going after the businesses rather than the individual.
That being said, the major purchasing factor in a majority of end-user computer buyers is what kind of machine they have a work. This is due to two main reasons.
1. They are familiar with the machines, and are not intimidated by them. In my opinion, this is the major reason people buy machines at home like their machines at work.
2. They can justify the purchase by telling themselves they can work at home and/or become more familiar with their work related software. This is often the touted reason, but usually not the underlying cause. (IMO)
That being said, the other market Apple needs to chase after is the gaming market. That's the other big reason people buy computers, whether they admit it or not. Get games, and get them first on the Mac and you'll see sales take off. If a few big titles play better on Macs than on PC's, I am positive you would see a huge upswing in Mac sales to home users.
Chip speeds and all that are nice, but not really the underlying cause for purchasing. People buy what they know, and they buy what they secretly want.
-Alcimedes
<strong>
Apple does not have the cognitive weight in the consumer's mind to overcome the "facts" PC companies put out there. What we say is measured against them, and if we differ, then we are wrong. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Very perceptive Pook. I run into this daily with my PC friends.
For instance, the other day I tried to explain that one of the advantages an iPod has over other MP3 players was it's highspeed Firewire port. Most were dumbfounded and didn't even know what Firewire was. They just passed it off as just another Apple only expansion port.
Producing Apple only products like the iPod
may bring a few consumers who don't already have a computer, but unlikely to sway the majority of PC users.
And unfortunately, any new breakthroughs (like the iPod and iMac) will eventually be copies by the Wintel companies.
So how do we get Mac to the masses. Or at least in their faces to demonstrate some of the benefits and misconceptions. Does Apple run a series of infomercials comparing the two platforms?
While it seems like an uphill battle, I think Apple is starting to make some progress, albeit very slowly. More and more press has been written over the past year about looking at Apple and OSX as an alternative to XP.
However, me thinks Apple needs to attain 15-20% of the market, before it can really start becoming a serious threat.
Introducing the XX.X Gigaflop PowerMac G4
As bad as the whole MHz fiasco has been, Apple has not been losing many of its customers to Wintel. In fact, just the opposite. We're gaining a little bit every year -- because bottom line...Apple's products are just more functional, more elegantly designed and more desirable than the crap other companies mass-produce.
What we need is not to get all those "idiots" who don't understand pipeline stage theory over to our side...all we need to to keep US happy. And honesly...some of you guys have spent the last two years bitching up a storm about 500Mhz this, G5 that and all the rest. And yet where do your allegiances lie - still, to this day? Apple. What if we don't see a G5 for another year...where will your allegiance lie? Apple.
Wake up guys. You're arguing about semantics, about next to nothing really. We were all here when the fiasco started, we're all still here now, and we'll all be here when the next fiasco happens (whatever that is). Unless Apple stops producing elegantly designed products (and I don't mean just the encasements), we're not going anywhere, and neither is Apple.
Duh.