floppies have been dead for years as soon as apple did this the controvery started and the answer was obvious--floppies dead only apple had the guts. but who has a loyal following that can lead the industry. how many wintel customer base would change to a completely new operating system. APPLE CUSTOMERS are ahead of the curve. I've been wondering when laptop makers say hey we try to shave 1-2$$ at every oportunity and what about weight savings and "thinner" I tell people to drop the zips, floppies and get into cdrw and usb keys. some are even making a unit that can interchange a compact flash or the new tiny xd card. news and olympus says they will be able some day to get 8 (can you imagine 8) GB on an xd card. that's two -3 dvd worth. can you imagine carriying 2-3 dvd's on a key fob and loading it on your laptop.
Wintel laptops are commodities anyway they are all the same and not at all inovative. most into tech keep asking how come. then they see apple. does anyone else have a self lighting keyboad?
Let's just say a lot of things are dead or dying but you won't see it in wintel machines till well after the body mummifies, this helps apple mucho.
speed now is not innovative, people can't use the speed they had a year ago. computers must innovate, that won't happen with wintel.
Gee let's make the darn thing intuitive, simple, reliable and make sense. innovate please. that's apple in spades. i'm proud to be with apple since 84
let's see: plug and play=apple 12 years before wintel and did it right.
You know what's funny about this....2 years ago I either A) borrowed a friend's portable USB floppy drive or not had reports and such in on time becuase of printer errors and lack of floppy drive
I've always wanted a floppy drive for my iMac...but for the past year or so, I have had NO NEED whatsoever for a floppy drive, and I actually agree with Dell that now is as good a time as ever, and that there are enough alternatives out there to justify dropping the floppy.
Let's not be foolish, floppies are essential -- CD-r/w is the new floppy -- it hasn't gone away, it's just changed format! When Apple did ditch the floppy it was way too soon, no reasonably priced CDrw yet, by no means a wide spread use of fast internet connection/e-mail etc etc... Every other mac in some university offices I see has a USB floppy attached to it, even PM's! They still get used by people shuttling little documents around.
Personally I think the thumb-drive is a great idea, much better in principle than the flash memory cards, which would be great except that there are more formats emerging every second (for no good purpose whatsoever I might add) The thumb drive is neat because all you need is a USB port (which everybody has!) and you can have as much capacity as you want/need/can afford. Just can't give 'em away like floppies, or CDrw's. At $0.75 each, CDRW is the new floppy. So only now can you really eliminate it. Dell's a little late, but it never cost you anything, at least on a desktop system: better than being WAY TOO EARLY, such as Apple was, which needlessly complicated file sharing and inter-platform connectivity for a good 2 years before reality started catching up to Apple's "vision"
I bought my wife a "thumb" drive. It's two months old and already broken <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
I can't use on at work. WinNT4 <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> But new 2000 Pro P4 POSes are on the way <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
<strong>...Dell's a little late, but it never cost you anything, at least on a desktop system: better than being WAY TOO EARLY, such as Apple was, which needlessly complicated file sharing and inter-platform connectivity for a good 2 years before reality started catching up to Apple's "vision"</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not sure about this...first, anyone could have bought an external USB floppy drive if it was really needed, second, problems with "file sharing and inter-platform connectivity" go much deeper than 3.5", and third, in relation to cost, while small, a FDD is about 2-3% of system cost ($20-30 in a $1,000 system) - this is reasonably significant in an industry where gross margins are 10-15% (excepting Apple of course.)
I saw this on CNN.com and it really pissed me off until I read at the bottom of the article where they mentioned that Apple stopped using floppies first...
<strong>Dell has no credibility as far as driving innovation in the industry is concerned - he was first to criticise Apple for dropping the floppy drive only to subsequently turn 180 degrees and follow Apple's lead. Apple's strategy in this regard has been totally vindicated.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And their pockets are so heavy with cash it took them 5 years to turn 180° and vindicate Apple's decision.
Comments
Wintel laptops are commodities anyway they are all the same and not at all inovative. most into tech keep asking how come. then they see apple. does anyone else have a self lighting keyboad?
Let's just say a lot of things are dead or dying but you won't see it in wintel machines till well after the body mummifies, this helps apple mucho.
speed now is not innovative, people can't use the speed they had a year ago. computers must innovate, that won't happen with wintel.
Gee let's make the darn thing intuitive, simple, reliable and make sense. innovate please. that's apple in spades. i'm proud to be with apple since 84
let's see: plug and play=apple 12 years before wintel and did it right.
floppies
airport wireless network--apple
usb-apple
osX-apple
long battery life--apple
actual look attractive, light and cool = apple
loyalty--apple
APPLE MAKES TECH RELEVENT
I've always wanted a floppy drive for my iMac...but for the past year or so, I have had NO NEED whatsoever for a floppy drive, and I actually agree with Dell that now is as good a time as ever, and that there are enough alternatives out there to justify dropping the floppy.
USB keychain harddrives are coooool.
Personally I think the thumb-drive is a great idea, much better in principle than the flash memory cards, which would be great except that there are more formats emerging every second (for no good purpose whatsoever I might add) The thumb drive is neat because all you need is a USB port (which everybody has!) and you can have as much capacity as you want/need/can afford. Just can't give 'em away like floppies, or CDrw's. At $0.75 each, CDRW is the new floppy. So only now can you really eliminate it. Dell's a little late, but it never cost you anything, at least on a desktop system: better than being WAY TOO EARLY, such as Apple was, which needlessly complicated file sharing and inter-platform connectivity for a good 2 years before reality started catching up to Apple's "vision"
I can't use on at work. WinNT4 <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> But new 2000 Pro P4 POSes are on the way <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
<strong>...Dell's a little late, but it never cost you anything, at least on a desktop system: better than being WAY TOO EARLY, such as Apple was, which needlessly complicated file sharing and inter-platform connectivity for a good 2 years before reality started catching up to Apple's "vision"</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not sure about this...first, anyone could have bought an external USB floppy drive if it was really needed, second, problems with "file sharing and inter-platform connectivity" go much deeper than 3.5", and third, in relation to cost, while small, a FDD is about 2-3% of system cost ($20-30 in a $1,000 system) - this is reasonably significant in an industry where gross margins are 10-15% (excepting Apple of course.)
<strong>Dell has no credibility as far as driving innovation in the industry is concerned - he was first to criticise Apple for dropping the floppy drive only to subsequently turn 180 degrees and follow Apple's lead. Apple's strategy in this regard has been totally vindicated.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And their pockets are so heavy with cash it took them 5 years to turn 180° and vindicate Apple's decision.