It's an interesting era we are moving into. Like the PC makers who release a new computer when Intel releases a new chip, Apple will probably be releasing computers with new chips on the same day - not the usual wait for a Keynote from Steve J. It will probably mean that computers are refreshed far faster than we are used to seeing in the past, making a buying decision (buy now or wait?) more difficult.
I don't know. They will be refreshed so often the difference between revisions will not matter as much.
Where did this belief come from that Apple embraces new tech sooner or something. Apple is always so far behind the curve lately its ridiculous. Sure, everyone brings up "Hey, they brought USB to the mainstream!" like no other PC manufacturer carried it before Apple (they did). But for every USB there's a PCI, PCI-Express, CD-RW, USB 2.0, DDR RAM, etc, etc, etc that shows they're very slow to incorporate new tech into their computers.
This is a good point. In general, Apple's "innovations" have been in removing old technology rather than adding new technology. USB existed on several machines before the iMac, but the iMac was the first without anything ELSE. The floppy disappeared from Macs long before PCs. With the latest G5's, Apple completely dumped old PCI cards for PCIe.
While such moves drive implementation of the new spec, they don't exactly forge ahead on new technologies. In the cases where Apple has been first to implement a technology (NuBus, external SCSI, AAUI, Firewire, etc., etc) they almost always somehow end up picking the long-term losing technology-- it's almost uncanny.
Anyway, in reply to another poster, there are EFI machines today, and Microsoft Windows 64-bit uses them, but it's not very widespread... I expect this will be another area where Apple dumps old BIOS technology and pushes EFI adoption.
How many PC apps actually use SSE3, or for that matter SSE at all? That's been around for years.
Who was the first with WiFi?
Who was the first with DVD Burners?
Who seems to be one of the only with DDR2?
Who was early to the HyperTransport bandwagon?
Who was early to encapsulate system LSI in general?
Sometimes technologies go straight to commodity status -- these are the times when the generic PC industry picks up quickly. For higher end technologies, though, the PC industry is rarely first, since it's so motivated by component cost. The only cases I can think of where Apple is not leaping for the latest and greatest are when they are bound by unfortunate hardware dependencies. The partnership with Intel should end this problem pretty easily, and I'm sure it's why they have it in the first place.
How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.
They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.
They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.
It's a good thing.
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.
And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.
Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation.
We weren't discussing that. We were discussing whether Apple was adopting industry innovations early or late, regardless of whether Apple or somone else developed them.
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.
And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.
Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.
You're right in that, basically. But it's also true that except in a few cases, with very small vendors, Apple was the first to use these technologies. That does count. Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.
What matters is that they recognize the usefullness of these before any other major competitor does.
Even with USB. Intel and Ms had introduced that way back when the ISA bus was still king, and Win 3.1 was still in effect.
They never got it working. It took Apple, with the first iMacs, to come up with a computer that had it working. MS was then embarrassed to the point that finally, in Win 98 2nd Edition, it became functional. Lucent even gave Apple credit for co-developing the first WiFi technologies.
In the mid '90's, Apple was the first to put cd players in their machines as standard in some of the lines, and then all of them. Other companies said that they were crazy. But that was important to the industry as a whole, once they realized the potential. My last install of Wordperfect was on 10 Hi density floppies. That just had to stop. The cd was considered to be one of the main reasons that home computer purchases led sales of business computers.
Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.
That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.
Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.
That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.
Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.
Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.
It's not a pissing contest Gene, it's just a discussion. The pissing comtest starts on Ars, with guys like T2k and others.
My feeling is that Intel won't release chips with Mac only technology. But what they may do is to release technology that only Apple supports. There is a difference. with the first, only Apple would have the chips, a semi-custom design. The second, everyone would get the chips, but only Apple would be using the new tech. This would give Apple an advantage. Other computer companies would then have to turn to MS and demand that they support it as well.
It will indeed be interesting what Apple and Intel will do. Steve Jobs is a maverick and I still don't see him following the computer industry at large.
And Intel will need a maverick alley in Apple to push its own technology and improve its instruction sets as AMD is on the move.
With the adoption of of its x64, AMD will advance its own proprietary instruction set that will only work on AMD processors and backward compatible with Intel's IA-32. AMD will have certification for applications "optimized for AMD64".
Apple is always going to be the poster child for new tech. It's their thing. And if Intel has cool technology, Apple will be there to put a cool wrapper on it and sell it to the public.
It's a shame that Intel stopped their CMOS High definition TV set on a chip work. I'd have loved to see them part of an Apple home theatre set up.
Oh well maybe Apple can hook up with Canon or Toshiba and get a SED HDTV in the lineup. Those screens look to be hot and it's something Apple would do.
yes, yes. SED definitely has the technology and aesthetic elements that are very synergistic and attractive to apple.
Cool. Go Intel. I would hope that this means that, somehow, we'll get some of the newer developments that will take much longer to hit PC mainstream given the much more cautious business model of that industry/market.
yeah, it's looking much better now. at least its a better partnership overall, than with IBM that wanted to sell apple more niche and more expensive high-end chip design, and freescale that was targeting entirely different markets/platforms than apple. the match was unlikely, but overall much better, with apple-intel than apple-freescale or apple-ibm. enough's enough with the moto/freescale/ibm foofarahh, let's see the true silicon valley mainstays get back to doing what they do best. and say hi to SGI as you pass them by
Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.
Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.
And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").
They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!
And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").
They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.
Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).
Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.
And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").
They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!
And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").
They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.
Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).
They're not so small now, thankfully. But they were hovering around the $6 billion mark for a while. In this industry, that small for a leading company.
Inso far as cutting their models down, that was almost forced upon them. Apple had a lot more models than they have now. It was said publicly by many in the industry that one of Apple's biggest problems was that they had too many models, thus confusing customers. S, they cut it down.
Every time they come out with another model, Apple is criticized as going back to the bad old days of too many models. You should learn about this issue.
The all in one units are the biggest sellers that Apple makes. You complain about that? Obviously, people want an all in one unit. Of course, if you are a PC user, then the idea of this is upsetting. But as almost no PC users ever upgrade their machines, it's a ridiculous attitude to have.
And it's dumb to also complain about Apple going to Express without adding a second PCI bus as well. Only some PC makers who have gone to Express are doing that. Not letting go of ISA is what screwed plug n play for PC's. When they finally dropped it, everything started to work.
Yes, I would prefer to have a couple of extra slots on my towers, but it's not as big a deal as you are making it out to be.
I can't imagine why you are even here if you hate Apple and Mac's that much. Just stick to PC's. They obviously have everything you want.
I'm sure I'll be accused of drinking the Apple Kool-Aid or something like that or equally trite but All-in-One computers aren't the big problem for most people. You'll find most Mac users buy a new Mac every 3-4 years and guess what - that's about how long display technology lasts before you want a better one too.
When you want a new iMac you sell the old one as a whole and since it's a Mac it holds value well as it's rarely out of date if you bought a reasonably high end one at the start. So you're upgrade difference in price is often no more than if you'd bought a new card or new display.
Since it's one box, it's convenient, does almost everything you'd want in one box and you're guaranteed to get no compatibility hassles and future updates from Apple are a known quantity. That's a feature people are increasingly willing to pay for. There's still the cheap and the geek who think they know better or have the time to fiddle but the rest of us increasingly don't.
That's difficult to grasp by PC users used to building up PCs out of bits and constantly upgrading parts.
I also question whether the ability to constantly upgrade parts is actually that cost effective. I've never had a PC that in 2 years after release wasn't significantly obsolete because of changes in RAM technology or CPU sockets such that it's resale value wasn't in the toilet or superseded by a Dell for £149.
Comments
How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.
Originally posted by kenaustus
It's an interesting era we are moving into. Like the PC makers who release a new computer when Intel releases a new chip, Apple will probably be releasing computers with new chips on the same day - not the usual wait for a Keynote from Steve J. It will probably mean that computers are refreshed far faster than we are used to seeing in the past, making a buying decision (buy now or wait?) more difficult.
I don't know. They will be refreshed so often the difference between revisions will not matter as much.
Originally posted by Louzer
Where did this belief come from that Apple embraces new tech sooner or something. Apple is always so far behind the curve lately its ridiculous. Sure, everyone brings up "Hey, they brought USB to the mainstream!" like no other PC manufacturer carried it before Apple (they did). But for every USB there's a PCI, PCI-Express, CD-RW, USB 2.0, DDR RAM, etc, etc, etc that shows they're very slow to incorporate new tech into their computers.
This is a good point. In general, Apple's "innovations" have been in removing old technology rather than adding new technology. USB existed on several machines before the iMac, but the iMac was the first without anything ELSE. The floppy disappeared from Macs long before PCs. With the latest G5's, Apple completely dumped old PCI cards for PCIe.
While such moves drive implementation of the new spec, they don't exactly forge ahead on new technologies. In the cases where Apple has been first to implement a technology (NuBus, external SCSI, AAUI, Firewire, etc., etc) they almost always somehow end up picking the long-term losing technology-- it's almost uncanny.
Anyway, in reply to another poster, there are EFI machines today, and Microsoft Windows 64-bit uses them, but it's not very widespread... I expect this will be another area where Apple dumps old BIOS technology and pushes EFI adoption.
Originally posted by Booga
Anyway, in reply to another poster, there are EFI machines today, and Microsoft Windows 64-bit uses them, but it's not very widespread...
Well, okay, but I was talking about the commodity market.
Who was the first with WiFi?
Who was the first with DVD Burners?
Who seems to be one of the only with DDR2?
Who was early to the HyperTransport bandwagon?
Who was early to encapsulate system LSI in general?
Sometimes technologies go straight to commodity status -- these are the times when the generic PC industry picks up quickly. For higher end technologies, though, the PC industry is rarely first, since it's so motivated by component cost. The only cases I can think of where Apple is not leaping for the latest and greatest are when they are bound by unfortunate hardware dependencies. The partnership with Intel should end this problem pretty easily, and I'm sure it's why they have it in the first place.
Originally posted by Chucker
How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.
They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.
It's a good thing.
Originally posted by Outsider
They must be working with Apple on custom chipsets that only Apple would use.
There is no evidence of this. Remember that any product from any vendor that only Apple uses is by definition expensive because of the lack of volume.
How about working with Apple on developing a cross between SSE and VMX?
SSE and VMX are already 90% the same. If they got any more similar I wonder if anyone would notice.
Originally posted by Henriok
They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.
It's a good thing.
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.
And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.
Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation.
We weren't discussing that. We were discussing whether Apple was adopting industry innovations early or late, regardless of whether Apple or somone else developed them.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.
And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.
Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.
You're right in that, basically. But it's also true that except in a few cases, with very small vendors, Apple was the first to use these technologies. That does count. Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.
What matters is that they recognize the usefullness of these before any other major competitor does.
Even with USB. Intel and Ms had introduced that way back when the ISA bus was still king, and Win 3.1 was still in effect.
They never got it working. It took Apple, with the first iMacs, to come up with a computer that had it working. MS was then embarrassed to the point that finally, in Win 98 2nd Edition, it became functional. Lucent even gave Apple credit for co-developing the first WiFi technologies.
In the mid '90's, Apple was the first to put cd players in their machines as standard in some of the lines, and then all of them. Other companies said that they were crazy. But that was important to the industry as a whole, once they realized the potential. My last install of Wordperfect was on 10 Hi density floppies. That just had to stop. The cd was considered to be one of the main reasons that home computer purchases led sales of business computers.
Originally posted by Chucker
We weren't discussing that.
I wasn't referring to your discussion - I was referring to what Henriok equated to Apple's innovations.
Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.
That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.
Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.
Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.
Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.
It's not a pissing contest Gene, it's just a discussion. The pissing comtest starts on Ars, with guys like T2k and others.
My feeling is that Intel won't release chips with Mac only technology. But what they may do is to release technology that only Apple supports. There is a difference. with the first, only Apple would have the chips, a semi-custom design. The second, everyone would get the chips, but only Apple would be using the new tech. This would give Apple an advantage. Other computer companies would then have to turn to MS and demand that they support it as well.
It will indeed be interesting what Apple and Intel will do. Steve Jobs is a maverick and I still don't see him following the computer industry at large.
And Intel will need a maverick alley in Apple to push its own technology and improve its instruction sets as AMD is on the move.
With the adoption of of its x64, AMD will advance its own proprietary instruction set that will only work on AMD processors and backward compatible with Intel's IA-32. AMD will have certification for applications "optimized for AMD64".
Originally posted by Chucker
Oh yeah? How fast were PC manufacturers with implementing EFI? They still haven't.
How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.
Someone's grasping at straws...
Originally posted by mcloki
Apple is always going to be the poster child for new tech. It's their thing. And if Intel has cool technology, Apple will be there to put a cool wrapper on it and sell it to the public.
It's a shame that Intel stopped their CMOS High definition TV set on a chip work. I'd have loved to see them part of an Apple home theatre set up.
Oh well maybe Apple can hook up with Canon or Toshiba and get a SED HDTV in the lineup. Those screens look to be hot and it's something Apple would do.
yes, yes. SED definitely has the technology and aesthetic elements that are very synergistic and attractive to apple.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
Cool. Go Intel. I would hope that this means that, somehow, we'll get some of the newer developments that will take much longer to hit PC mainstream given the much more cautious business model of that industry/market.
yeah, it's looking much better now. at least its a better partnership overall, than with IBM that wanted to sell apple more niche and more expensive high-end chip design, and freescale that was targeting entirely different markets/platforms than apple. the match was unlikely, but overall much better, with apple-intel than apple-freescale or apple-ibm. enough's enough with the moto/freescale/ibm foofarahh, let's see the true silicon valley mainstays get back to doing what they do best. and say hi to SGI as you pass them by
Originally posted by melgross
Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.
Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.
And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").
They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!
And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").
They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.
Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).
Originally posted by Louzer
Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.
And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").
They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!
And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").
They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.
Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).
They're not so small now, thankfully. But they were hovering around the $6 billion mark for a while. In this industry, that small for a leading company.
Inso far as cutting their models down, that was almost forced upon them. Apple had a lot more models than they have now. It was said publicly by many in the industry that one of Apple's biggest problems was that they had too many models, thus confusing customers. S, they cut it down.
Every time they come out with another model, Apple is criticized as going back to the bad old days of too many models. You should learn about this issue.
The all in one units are the biggest sellers that Apple makes. You complain about that? Obviously, people want an all in one unit. Of course, if you are a PC user, then the idea of this is upsetting. But as almost no PC users ever upgrade their machines, it's a ridiculous attitude to have.
And it's dumb to also complain about Apple going to Express without adding a second PCI bus as well. Only some PC makers who have gone to Express are doing that. Not letting go of ISA is what screwed plug n play for PC's. When they finally dropped it, everything started to work.
Yes, I would prefer to have a couple of extra slots on my towers, but it's not as big a deal as you are making it out to be.
I can't imagine why you are even here if you hate Apple and Mac's that much. Just stick to PC's. They obviously have everything you want.
When you want a new iMac you sell the old one as a whole and since it's a Mac it holds value well as it's rarely out of date if you bought a reasonably high end one at the start. So you're upgrade difference in price is often no more than if you'd bought a new card or new display.
Since it's one box, it's convenient, does almost everything you'd want in one box and you're guaranteed to get no compatibility hassles and future updates from Apple are a known quantity. That's a feature people are increasingly willing to pay for. There's still the cheap and the geek who think they know better or have the time to fiddle but the rest of us increasingly don't.
That's difficult to grasp by PC users used to building up PCs out of bits and constantly upgrading parts.
I also question whether the ability to constantly upgrade parts is actually that cost effective. I've never had a PC that in 2 years after release wasn't significantly obsolete because of changes in RAM technology or CPU sockets such that it's resale value wasn't in the toilet or superseded by a Dell for £149.