I don't think Apple could see cheaper computers and still keep their brand identity. If Apple wants to expand into the consumer and business arenas, they need another brand with its own identity.
Not sure I agree. This assumes that Apple's "brand identity" is tied up in higher prices (which is a bit of a myth as has been illustrated many times).
Currently I think what Apple wants their "brand identity" to be is "cool"/"hip". Cool doesn't always have to have a high price (though sometimes it will). But there is more to it than that though.
Apple has meant a number of overlapping things:
- ease of use
- style
- "cool"/"hip"
- creative
- "it just works"
- "plug and play"
- (slightly more wonkish term) "integration solutions" (think iPod as the best example of this)
They know the Mac, they're interested in the OSX, they just don't want the same type of computers that you guys want.
You have no idea what kind of a computer I want. I want a Quad Opteron with 16GB of RAM. That's irrelevant to this discussion. If you notice, I'm neither against, nor for these computers. I'm just arguing that the average consumer that needs to do trivial things that any OS does, is not going to buy a $1,099 MacBook when he can buy a perfectly capable (and no less durable, or well-built) Acer/Asus for $799 just because it runs OS X. To him/her, the OS part is irrelevant.
Not sure I agree. This assumes that Apple's "brand identity" is tied up in higher prices (which is a bit of a myth as has been illustrated many times).[/B]
It's not all about the reality of things; sometimes perception counts too.
The Celeron is nowhere near as castrated a chip as it used to be. The Celeron 4xx series is exactly the same as Core Solo (Yonah), except for these differences:
1.) 1 MB cache instead of 2. (you will note this is still twice the G4's 512 k cache)
2.) 533 MHz front side bus, instead of 667 (still, much higher than the G4's 167)
3.) Marginally less sophisticated power management.
A Celeron 4xx based MacBook would still outperform the G4 iBook that it has replaced.
OK...but two issues in your scenario:
1. OS X Intel also has Rosetta. This may demand a bit more "juice".
2. The power management and smaller battery might end up being enough of a "loss" to eliminate this solution from Apple's matrix.
I think Apple really does want to sell lower cost machines. I really do. But I think there are number of trade-offs that they seem unwilling to make to do it at this time.
I don't think Apple could see cheaper computers and still keep their brand identity.
Why's that?
The cheaper machine I outlined above (no matter how much you think it can be made for, you have to concede that it would be less than $899 and therefore at least $200 cheaper than the current cheapest MacBook) would have the same elegant form-factor, and have these advantages over the most recent G4 iBook (which no-one complains of as being "un-Apple"):
DVI out
MagSafe
13" Widescreen
Higher performance
Quote:
Originally posted by BenRoethig
I don't think Apple can. Steve Jobs won't let anything out the door that isn't innovative and flashy. People would rather have something that does what they need to do. 90% want the ATX boxes and Apple proper can't do that without losing what makes them different.
I disagree. I think that OS X, iLife, and boxes with tasteful appearance make Apple different. People often make the mistake of assuming that boxes with tasteful appearance must cost a lot more than ones with boring and/or ugly appearance. This is simply not true. No way the Mac Mini casework, for example, costs that much.
2. The power management and smaller battery might end up being enough of a "loss" to eliminate this solution from Apple's matrix.
I did say "marginally". The Celeron-M lacks "enhanced deep sleep", so presumably this means power consumption when the MacBook is asleep would be higher.
The Celeron-M has one core instead of two, 1 MB cache instead of 2, and the 420 is 1.6 GHz, rather than 1.83. All of these contribute to lower power consumption than the Core Duo. Granted, even with these mitigating factors, a battery with a couple fewer cells will not last as long. But then I was talking about a $699/$749 laptop. Users could choose a bigger battery* for $50 more if they wanted.
* I thought I should make it clear when I was talking about a "smaller battery", I was talking about lower capacity in the same form-factor.
I disagree. I think that OS X, iLife, and boxes with tasteful appearance make Apple different. People often make the mistake of assuming that boxes with tasteful appearance must cost a lot more than ones with boring and/or ugly appearance. This is simply not true. No way the Mac Mini casework, for example, costs that much.
It costs some speed, being able to upgrade the RAM, and the card reader. What you think of as tasteful, others consider impractical.
You have no idea what kind of a computer I want. I want a Quad Opteron with 16GB of RAM. That's irrelevant to this discussion. If you notice, I'm neither against, nor for these computers. I'm just arguing that the average consumer that needs to do trivial things that any OS does, is not going to buy a $1,099 MacBook when he can buy a perfectly capable (and no less durable, or well-built) Acer/Asus for $799 just because it runs OS X. To him/her, the OS part is irrelevant.
The OS part is irrelevant because users don't chance a choice. If you want traditional hardware, you have to use windows. If you want Mac OS X, you have to agree to what Apple thinks a computer should be.
I still caution anyone who asks me to never buy a laptop for (too far) under $1000. I've seen too many flimsy $600-$800 bricks last somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 months to ever recommend one. Should Apple target this market? Well, if they can find a way to make something recognizable as a Mac that doesn't fall apart, they'll own the market. I'm skeptical enough that if they did, I'd probably still point anyone curious toward the MacBook.
ATX cases are the standard because... they're a standard. If you want to build PCs, you can either choose from an entire industry's worth of ATX-spec'd parts or you can roll up your sleeves and design your own from scratch. Guess which way nearly every PC builder goes? Once they're there they sell the strong points of the design, as you'd expect them to. But I have a very strong hunch that the overwhelming appeal of the ATX case family is the commodity market built around it. I'd wager that the vast bulk of the PCI slots ever let out into the wild have cobwebs in them, and they [edit: the people who bought them] were convinced of their machine's "expandability" in generic terms as a solution to some undefined "problem." If there is any consumer bias toward (mini-)towers, it's based on familiarity: They look the way computers have looked for decades. That doesn't really mean anything, though.
As far as Apple is concerned, they can't build a super-cheap PC because they don't have access to that commodity market to the same extent that Dell does, nor on the same scale that Dell does (i.e., about 10x Apple's current size). They build clean-sheet designs, which automatically puts them above the lowest price threshold. But if they don't do that, then how are they differentiated from e.g. Dell?
If you want to see why Apple has about 3% market share consistently, look no farther than the Windows network effect set in place by Windows 95. Right now the Mac is not considered an option because "it's a Windows world," or they even think there isn't a word processor, or can't browse the web, etc., ad nauseam. Some of the people who see my PowerBook get all excited by the design and lose all interest when they see it's a Mac, because Macs are these weird specialized things and they'd have to learn everything all over again (with the unstated assumption that it would be just as hard as learning Windows the first time). If you sell a cheap Mac, so what? "I'm used to Windows, and all my documents, and all my emails, and and and..." Apple has to play a long game here. They have to sell to the people who are willing to make the jump, and get the word out there that you can actually use a Mac in a Windows world (and using them as real-world beta testers so that they can improve the extent to which they actually do work with Windows). First a small core of people convince a larger number of people to take the plunge, then the larger group convinces a still larger number of people to take the plunge, and on and on until Apple has some real momentum. There is no silver bullet machine that will accomplish this. If there is, it's not a plain box. A plain box that doesn't run Windows is still an alien thing, except that it doesn't even have the appeal of an alien thing.
When will Apple hit critical mass? Who knows? I'd measure it in years, frankly. Apple would be foolish to act like they could have Dell's market share just by turning into a Dell clone. They can't. Network effects are against them. They can only sell to the "low hanging fruit," for now. Those are people who want something that is Not Windows. A computer that doesn't look like their Windows PC is, if anything, an easier sell to that crowd...
I've seen too many flimsy $600-$800 bricks last somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 months to ever recommend one. Should Apple target this market? Well, if they can find a way to make something recognizable as a Mac that doesn't fall apart, they'll own the market.
See my earlier posts. I've suggested a laptop that could be sold for $799 or under. It would outperform the outgoing G4 iBook, and have the same chassis as the MacBook, so presumably we agree that it is "recognizable as a Mac" and won't "fall apart".
ATX cases are the standard because... they're a standard. If you want to build PCs, you can either choose from an entire industry's worth of ATX-spec'd parts or you can roll up your sleeves and design your own from scratch. Guess which way nearly every PC builder goes? Once they're there they sell the strong points of the design, as you'd expect them to. But I have a very strong hunch that the overwhelming appeal of the ATX case family is the commodity market built around it. I'd wager that the vast bulk of the PCI slots ever let out into the wild have cobwebs in them, and they [edit: the people who bought them] were convinced of their machine's "expandability" in generic terms as a solution to some undefined "problem." If there is any consumer bias toward (mini-)towers, it's based on familiarity: They look the way computers have looked for decades. That doesn't really mean anything, though.
It might also have something to do with the fact that if you want a machine with two full size optical drives, a card reader, and a PVR you're SOL when it comes to Apple unless you want to pay another $400 and have a stack of external devices about a foot tall.
Plus, would running OSX on something that didn't look like Apple be alien to you guys or everyone else?
I don't think it has to do with being equipped to do so. You just can't sell a $399 desktop or $699 laptop that will do what it needs to do well. For that price you are selling a crippled product. That's just plain trickery designed to fool the buyer. Bluntly, if you expect a $399 computer to do anything well you are stupid.
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps. They don't want someone to get home and not be able to use stuff because they have a crippled machine. That would kill the user experience and the point of not selling bottom end machines is to protect the Apple experience. Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
.... Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
The challenge develops because of the evolution of iLife. More and more features, albeit easy to use, means that you increasingly need more computing power. iLife '04 would do fine on a Celeron-anything with 256mb of ram. The thing is while OS X continues to run faster on the same hardware, iLife feature creep requires increasingly better hardware for the full "Apple experience". Throw in Rosetta and that's the reason for Core Duos across the line. Except for the Mac mini Core Solo of course, which, does okay probably except when it comes to Office and AdobeMedia. \
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps.
Exactly!
People in this discussion seem to believe that Apple is still chasing the beige box market. Not so. Apple abandonned office machines with the return of Steve Jobs, and that was a good decision. Their sights are now firmly fixed on the computer in the living room. The computer comes pre-installed with all the bits and pieces necessary to manage your digital lifestyle, not to do spreadsheets.
If the computer can't do iMovie, if it can't do high-resolution video, if it doesn't have a decent sound system, if it can't handle GarageBand, then it isn't a Mac. These things demand a computer that has good performance. Even with today's Macs, some of these activities can really push the computer beyond it's limits (my partner for example gets really annoyed when my iMac takes 30mins to compress a 15min film in iMovie). Until computers are powerful enough to do this stuff in seconds, Apple will continue to use components that are as highly-specced as possible.
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps. They don't want someone to get home and not be able to use stuff because they have a crippled machine. That would kill the user experience and the point of not selling bottom end machines is to protect the Apple experience. Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
The ironcic part is that none of Apple's machines are able to take full advantage of those apps. The "beige boxes" are.
I'm poor these days and while I would love to have a basic, bare-bones $399 Mac, I understand it makes no business sense for Apple.
First of all, why would Apple want to jump in the pig sh*t and duke it out for the $399 PC market with it's glorious $3/per computer profit margins when they have no need to?
Second of all, why would Apple want to cannibalize sales from it's pricier, feature-filled machines with crappy compromises based on obsolete processors?
Third, Apple has only to gain by not compromising what will carry their logo. By having some standards, they protect their reputation as an innovative and cutting edge company.
I will say though, that I think the built-in iSight camera is a mostly worthless feature that I'd prefer not to pay for personally. Aside from that, I'm all for faster processors and better build quality etc.
Comments
Originally posted by BenRoethig
I don't think Apple could see cheaper computers and still keep their brand identity. If Apple wants to expand into the consumer and business arenas, they need another brand with its own identity.
Not sure I agree. This assumes that Apple's "brand identity" is tied up in higher prices (which is a bit of a myth as has been illustrated many times).
Currently I think what Apple wants their "brand identity" to be is "cool"/"hip". Cool doesn't always have to have a high price (though sometimes it will). But there is more to it than that though.
Apple has meant a number of overlapping things:
- ease of use
- style
- "cool"/"hip"
- creative
- "it just works"
- "plug and play"
- (slightly more wonkish term) "integration solutions" (think iPod as the best example of this)
Originally posted by BenRoethig
They know the Mac, they're interested in the OSX, they just don't want the same type of computers that you guys want.
You have no idea what kind of a computer I want. I want a Quad Opteron with 16GB of RAM. That's irrelevant to this discussion. If you notice, I'm neither against, nor for these computers. I'm just arguing that the average consumer that needs to do trivial things that any OS does, is not going to buy a $1,099 MacBook when he can buy a perfectly capable (and no less durable, or well-built) Acer/Asus for $799 just because it runs OS X. To him/her, the OS part is irrelevant.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
Not sure I agree. This assumes that Apple's "brand identity" is tied up in higher prices (which is a bit of a myth as has been illustrated many times).[/B]
It's not all about the reality of things; sometimes perception counts too.
Originally posted by Mr. H
The Celeron is nowhere near as castrated a chip as it used to be. The Celeron 4xx series is exactly the same as Core Solo (Yonah), except for these differences:
1.) 1 MB cache instead of 2. (you will note this is still twice the G4's 512 k cache)
2.) 533 MHz front side bus, instead of 667 (still, much higher than the G4's 167)
3.) Marginally less sophisticated power management.
A Celeron 4xx based MacBook would still outperform the G4 iBook that it has replaced.
OK...but two issues in your scenario:
1. OS X Intel also has Rosetta. This may demand a bit more "juice".
2. The power management and smaller battery might end up being enough of a "loss" to eliminate this solution from Apple's matrix.
I think Apple really does want to sell lower cost machines. I really do. But I think there are number of trade-offs that they seem unwilling to make to do it at this time.
Originally posted by BenRoethig
I don't think Apple could see cheaper computers and still keep their brand identity.
Why's that?
The cheaper machine I outlined above (no matter how much you think it can be made for, you have to concede that it would be less than $899 and therefore at least $200 cheaper than the current cheapest MacBook) would have the same elegant form-factor, and have these advantages over the most recent G4 iBook (which no-one complains of as being "un-Apple"):
DVI out
MagSafe
13" Widescreen
Higher performance
Originally posted by BenRoethig
I don't think Apple can. Steve Jobs won't let anything out the door that isn't innovative and flashy. People would rather have something that does what they need to do. 90% want the ATX boxes and Apple proper can't do that without losing what makes them different.
I disagree. I think that OS X, iLife, and boxes with tasteful appearance make Apple different. People often make the mistake of assuming that boxes with tasteful appearance must cost a lot more than ones with boring and/or ugly appearance. This is simply not true. No way the Mac Mini casework, for example, costs that much.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
2. The power management and smaller battery might end up being enough of a "loss" to eliminate this solution from Apple's matrix.
I did say "marginally". The Celeron-M lacks "enhanced deep sleep", so presumably this means power consumption when the MacBook is asleep would be higher.
The Celeron-M has one core instead of two, 1 MB cache instead of 2, and the 420 is 1.6 GHz, rather than 1.83. All of these contribute to lower power consumption than the Core Duo. Granted, even with these mitigating factors, a battery with a couple fewer cells will not last as long. But then I was talking about a $699/$749 laptop. Users could choose a bigger battery* for $50 more if they wanted.
* I thought I should make it clear when I was talking about a "smaller battery", I was talking about lower capacity in the same form-factor.
Originally posted by Mr. H
I disagree. I think that OS X, iLife, and boxes with tasteful appearance make Apple different. People often make the mistake of assuming that boxes with tasteful appearance must cost a lot more than ones with boring and/or ugly appearance. This is simply not true. No way the Mac Mini casework, for example, costs that much.
It costs some speed, being able to upgrade the RAM, and the card reader. What you think of as tasteful, others consider impractical.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
You have no idea what kind of a computer I want. I want a Quad Opteron with 16GB of RAM. That's irrelevant to this discussion. If you notice, I'm neither against, nor for these computers. I'm just arguing that the average consumer that needs to do trivial things that any OS does, is not going to buy a $1,099 MacBook when he can buy a perfectly capable (and no less durable, or well-built) Acer/Asus for $799 just because it runs OS X. To him/her, the OS part is irrelevant.
The OS part is irrelevant because users don't chance a choice. If you want traditional hardware, you have to use windows. If you want Mac OS X, you have to agree to what Apple thinks a computer should be.
Originally posted by BenRoethig
[B]The OS part is irrelevant because users don't chance a choice.
Users want choice. At least when it comes to hardware.
If you want traditional hardware, you have to use windows.
No, you can run Windows. You can also run Linux, *BSD, Solaris, and if you have some time and patience, you can also run OS X.
If you want Mac OS X, you have to agree to what Apple thinks a computer should be.
What Apple thinks a computer should be is not necessarily what the majority of the market thinks a computer should be.
ATX cases are the standard because... they're a standard. If you want to build PCs, you can either choose from an entire industry's worth of ATX-spec'd parts or you can roll up your sleeves and design your own from scratch. Guess which way nearly every PC builder goes? Once they're there they sell the strong points of the design, as you'd expect them to. But I have a very strong hunch that the overwhelming appeal of the ATX case family is the commodity market built around it. I'd wager that the vast bulk of the PCI slots ever let out into the wild have cobwebs in them, and they [edit: the people who bought them] were convinced of their machine's "expandability" in generic terms as a solution to some undefined "problem." If there is any consumer bias toward (mini-)towers, it's based on familiarity: They look the way computers have looked for decades. That doesn't really mean anything, though.
As far as Apple is concerned, they can't build a super-cheap PC because they don't have access to that commodity market to the same extent that Dell does, nor on the same scale that Dell does (i.e., about 10x Apple's current size). They build clean-sheet designs, which automatically puts them above the lowest price threshold. But if they don't do that, then how are they differentiated from e.g. Dell?
If you want to see why Apple has about 3% market share consistently, look no farther than the Windows network effect set in place by Windows 95. Right now the Mac is not considered an option because "it's a Windows world," or they even think there isn't a word processor, or can't browse the web, etc., ad nauseam. Some of the people who see my PowerBook get all excited by the design and lose all interest when they see it's a Mac, because Macs are these weird specialized things and they'd have to learn everything all over again (with the unstated assumption that it would be just as hard as learning Windows the first time). If you sell a cheap Mac, so what? "I'm used to Windows, and all my documents, and all my emails, and and and..." Apple has to play a long game here. They have to sell to the people who are willing to make the jump, and get the word out there that you can actually use a Mac in a Windows world (and using them as real-world beta testers so that they can improve the extent to which they actually do work with Windows). First a small core of people convince a larger number of people to take the plunge, then the larger group convinces a still larger number of people to take the plunge, and on and on until Apple has some real momentum. There is no silver bullet machine that will accomplish this. If there is, it's not a plain box. A plain box that doesn't run Windows is still an alien thing, except that it doesn't even have the appeal of an alien thing.
When will Apple hit critical mass? Who knows? I'd measure it in years, frankly. Apple would be foolish to act like they could have Dell's market share just by turning into a Dell clone. They can't. Network effects are against them. They can only sell to the "low hanging fruit," for now. Those are people who want something that is Not Windows. A computer that doesn't look like their Windows PC is, if anything, an easier sell to that crowd...
Originally posted by Gene Clean
What Apple thinks a computer should be is not necessarily what the majority of the market thinks a computer should be.
That's my point.
Originally posted by Amorph
I've seen too many flimsy $600-$800 bricks last somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 months to ever recommend one. Should Apple target this market? Well, if they can find a way to make something recognizable as a Mac that doesn't fall apart, they'll own the market.
See my earlier posts. I've suggested a laptop that could be sold for $799 or under. It would outperform the outgoing G4 iBook, and have the same chassis as the MacBook, so presumably we agree that it is "recognizable as a Mac" and won't "fall apart".
Originally posted by Performa636CD
Yeah, and Aston Martin should sell a $15,000 sedan so they can increase their market share, right?
Now there is an idea I can get excited about.
Hey, the Baby Aston IS a rip-off! It should be $399!
Oh, and 80% of computer users agree with me.
Originally posted by Amorph
ATX cases are the standard because... they're a standard. If you want to build PCs, you can either choose from an entire industry's worth of ATX-spec'd parts or you can roll up your sleeves and design your own from scratch. Guess which way nearly every PC builder goes? Once they're there they sell the strong points of the design, as you'd expect them to. But I have a very strong hunch that the overwhelming appeal of the ATX case family is the commodity market built around it. I'd wager that the vast bulk of the PCI slots ever let out into the wild have cobwebs in them, and they [edit: the people who bought them] were convinced of their machine's "expandability" in generic terms as a solution to some undefined "problem." If there is any consumer bias toward (mini-)towers, it's based on familiarity: They look the way computers have looked for decades. That doesn't really mean anything, though.
It might also have something to do with the fact that if you want a machine with two full size optical drives, a card reader, and a PVR you're SOL when it comes to Apple unless you want to pay another $400 and have a stack of external devices about a foot tall.
Plus, would running OSX on something that didn't look like Apple be alien to you guys or everyone else?
Originally posted by iPeon
I don't think it has to do with being equipped to do so. You just can't sell a $399 desktop or $699 laptop that will do what it needs to do well. For that price you are selling a crippled product. That's just plain trickery designed to fool the buyer. Bluntly, if you expect a $399 computer to do anything well you are stupid.
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps. They don't want someone to get home and not be able to use stuff because they have a crippled machine. That would kill the user experience and the point of not selling bottom end machines is to protect the Apple experience. Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
.... Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
The challenge develops because of the evolution of iLife. More and more features, albeit easy to use, means that you increasingly need more computing power. iLife '04 would do fine on a Celeron-anything with 256mb of ram. The thing is while OS X continues to run faster on the same hardware, iLife feature creep requires increasingly better hardware for the full "Apple experience". Throw in Rosetta and that's the reason for Core Duos across the line. Except for the Mac mini Core Solo of course, which, does okay probably except when it comes to Office and AdobeMedia.
Originally posted by jasonbogen
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps.
Exactly!
People in this discussion seem to believe that Apple is still chasing the beige box market. Not so. Apple abandonned office machines with the return of Steve Jobs, and that was a good decision. Their sights are now firmly fixed on the computer in the living room. The computer comes pre-installed with all the bits and pieces necessary to manage your digital lifestyle, not to do spreadsheets.
If the computer can't do iMovie, if it can't do high-resolution video, if it doesn't have a decent sound system, if it can't handle GarageBand, then it isn't a Mac. These things demand a computer that has good performance. Even with today's Macs, some of these activities can really push the computer beyond it's limits (my partner for example gets really annoyed when my iMac takes 30mins to compress a 15min film in iMovie). Until computers are powerful enough to do this stuff in seconds, Apple will continue to use components that are as highly-specced as possible.
Originally posted by jasonbogen
That is the most important point. You hear it in every Jobs keynote. The point of the Mac experience is that everyone can do these things with their macs. They are selling the capability of their OS and built in apps. They don't want someone to get home and not be able to use stuff because they have a crippled machine. That would kill the user experience and the point of not selling bottom end machines is to protect the Apple experience. Personally I would love to see them come out with a lower price entry machine, but not at that big an expense of the user experience.
The ironcic part is that none of Apple's machines are able to take full advantage of those apps. The "beige boxes" are.
First of all, why would Apple want to jump in the pig sh*t and duke it out for the $399 PC market with it's glorious $3/per computer profit margins when they have no need to?
Second of all, why would Apple want to cannibalize sales from it's pricier, feature-filled machines with crappy compromises based on obsolete processors?
Third, Apple has only to gain by not compromising what will carry their logo. By having some standards, they protect their reputation as an innovative and cutting edge company.
I will say though, that I think the built-in iSight camera is a mostly worthless feature that I'd prefer not to pay for personally. Aside from that, I'm all for faster processors and better build quality etc.
The ironcic part is that none of Apple's machines are able to take full advantage of those apps. The "beige boxes" are.
My friends beige Dell from 2000 with parallel ports can run Mac's apps better than any Mac can?