A new platform will surely create increased sales, but this does not mean there will be increased profits. The R&D and additional support for a new platform can be a financial drain. Just take a look at MS' hardware platforms for an example.
I can see some cool advantages, but it just seems to me that an ultra-small MBP would be a niche item.
That's a good part of what I've been trying to say, there will always be a group of certain people who want this or that, or that this would appeal to, but after all the R&D costs, are there really enough people who will buy it to make a considerable profit? Not for a MBP with any smaller display size.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign
It's not that small a niche. Very few people buy computers for games. The type of person who is looking for a small laptop isn't a gamer - the two are mutually exclusive. Gamers are a smaller niche IMHO, they're just more vocal online than normal people that have work to do.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Oveer the past few years I've had engineering friends who bought the 12" Powerbook.
Also, a guy I know who does Java development bought one.
They all bought them for the small size, and for the time, the power.
But how many people are in these professions compared to the rest of the spectra that all the other Apple machines cover? Not many... at least a 3:1 ratio. After all the costs to redevelop a case and hardware arrangement in the case, and so on with the R&D, it just wouldn't make a good enough profit.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Please give me some numbers then. The one search showed WoW subscribers at 8 million. Last I heard, the installed base of personal computers is somewhere between 200-300 million.
I would suggest that making a judgment on whether a general-purpose product would be popular based on whether gamers want it is quite hasty to say the least. Gamers aren't the only market for computers, I don't think they are nearly as influential as they like to think, that influence seems to have faded significantly. Most product models from most computer companies aren't targeted at gamers at all. If one goes to a big box store, it looks as if none of the notebooks target games as a significant use. Heck, about half of computers sold only have the Intel integrated chips, and I would imagine that a lot of the non-Intel chips is also made up of the integrated variety from other companies.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Gamers who buy a special machine, dolled up to play games, are a small percentage. People who just buy a newer, but average, computer to play games on, are in a bigger catagory. People who play games on their regular machine, are the biggest gamer catagory.
But they are all dwarfed by the people who never buy what a gamer would consider to be a gamers game, or who buy one rarely, "just to try it".
Quote:
But how many people are in these professions compared to the rest of the spectra that all the other Apple machines cover? Not many... at least a 3:1 ratio. After all the costs to redevelop a case and hardware arrangement in the case, and so on with the R&D, it just wouldn't make a good enough profit.
I don't know, and neither do you.
But, they are just another bunch of people who want a smaller, lighter machine. It was just an example of some professionals who do opt for the 12".
The Mac has become the premier Java developement machine, even in Sun! So I would imagine that a lot of Java people might buy one.
Gamers who buy a special machine, dolled up to play games, are a small percentage. People who just buy a newer, but average, computer to play games on, are in a bigger catagory. People who play games on their regular machine, are the biggest gamer catagory.
But they are all dwarfed by the people who never buy what a gamer would consider to be a gamers game, or who buy one rarely, "just to try it".
QuotedForTruth
Also, there are those who are into just one or two games but they are REALLY into those one or two games. Enough so that their next purchase will be heavily influenced by how well it plays the game. Take WoW for instance. A lot of people that play WoW just play WoW but adore it. I fall under that category.
Yep. I've watched a few of the talks already. Watch Chris Lattner's talk about LLVM in the OpenGL stack. About 14min 20sec in he's asked a question about if Apple are using LLVM in Tiger or Leopard and answers that it'll be in Tiger 'very soon' not just Leopard.
They're also building a new C compiler to replace gcc. This is being done by Steve Naroff who was the developer responsible for Objective C at Next originally. There's a nice rant about how it's taken 12 years from when Steve suggested a feature to Richard Stallman to implementation in gcc and how Apple can't wait that long for open source politics to affect their development.
Yep. I've watched a few of the talks already. Watch Chris Lattner's talk about LLVM in the OpenGL stack. About 14min 20sec in he's asked a question about if Apple are using LLVM in Tiger or Leopard and answers that it'll be in Tiger 'very soon' not just Leopard.
They're also building a new C compiler to replace gcc. This is being done by Steve Naroff who was the developer responsible for Objective C at Next originally. There's a nice rant about how it's taken 12 years from when Steve suggested a feature to Richard Stallman to implementation in gcc and how Apple can't wait that long for open source politics to affect their development.
They were very interesting. 12 people from Apple, almost 20%. Too bad some of the sound was so poor.
it may seem a long time ago, but remeber when you bought your first ipod. (me 1st gen 5GB) and spent hours nay days loading up all your own CDs before you started downloading tunes. well surely an optical drive is still required for those people buying their first mac, first itunes first ipod? otherwise would you really be expected to download every CD you ever bought?
it may seem a long time ago, but remeber when you bought your first ipod. (me 1st gen 5GB) and spent hours nay days loading up all your own CDs before you started downloading tunes. well surely an optical drive is still required for those people buying their first mac, first itunes first ipod? otherwise would you really be expected to download every CD you ever bought?
The point is not that an optical drive would not be included, it would be an external one that would be left at home. You don't import iTunes on the road, do you?
What can be lost from increased sales from a new population? Do you have to be hardcore gamer to play games? No. People are fooling themselves if they think the market is too small to matter.Increased profits are increased profits. Do you know how many people play WoW? Look it up. Blizzard also makes an effort in that they make the code universal. And it's not available for console. Go to the Mac part of the WoW technical forum and look at all the posts coming from people who want to get a mac for gaming cause they are sick of Windows. And that's just one game.
The casual and online gaming market are going to be huge...going forwards...
As games? Niche? Mac? Erhm. 2 million iPhones, iPod touches, Macs reaching 2 million per quarter? That's alot of sales. Alot of gaming possibilities. Gaming is not a small market. Weren't even Alien Ware worth Dell buying them? Hardly niche. Compared to the entire pc market? Meh. By that def' so is Apple 'niche'.
Tart machines selling in hundreds of thousands? Apple can take a chunk of that if they sort out their mid-tower and open gl and gpu options problems...
Not at least offering a choice of Nvidia alternatives in the iMac...or still, STILL having the aged 7300 in the Mac Pro? Apple and lame GPU choices...how does that work again?
Not at least offering a choice of Nvidia alternatives in the iMac...or still, STILL having the aged 7300 in the Mac Pro? Apple and lame GPU choices...how does that work again?
Comments
Increased profits are increased profits.
A new platform will surely create increased sales, but this does not mean there will be increased profits. The R&D and additional support for a new platform can be a financial drain. Just take a look at MS' hardware platforms for an example.
I can see some cool advantages, but it just seems to me that an ultra-small MBP would be a niche item.
That's a good part of what I've been trying to say, there will always be a group of certain people who want this or that, or that this would appeal to, but after all the R&D costs, are there really enough people who will buy it to make a considerable profit? Not for a MBP with any smaller display size.
It's not that small a niche. Very few people buy computers for games. The type of person who is looking for a small laptop isn't a gamer - the two are mutually exclusive. Gamers are a smaller niche IMHO, they're just more vocal online than normal people that have work to do.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Oveer the past few years I've had engineering friends who bought the 12" Powerbook.
Also, a guy I know who does Java development bought one.
They all bought them for the small size, and for the time, the power.
But how many people are in these professions compared to the rest of the spectra that all the other Apple machines cover? Not many... at least a 3:1 ratio. After all the costs to redevelop a case and hardware arrangement in the case, and so on with the R&D, it just wouldn't make a good enough profit.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Please give me some numbers then. The one search showed WoW subscribers at 8 million. Last I heard, the installed base of personal computers is somewhere between 200-300 million.
I would suggest that making a judgment on whether a general-purpose product would be popular based on whether gamers want it is quite hasty to say the least. Gamers aren't the only market for computers, I don't think they are nearly as influential as they like to think, that influence seems to have faded significantly. Most product models from most computer companies aren't targeted at gamers at all. If one goes to a big box store, it looks as if none of the notebooks target games as a significant use. Heck, about half of computers sold only have the Intel integrated chips, and I would imagine that a lot of the non-Intel chips is also made up of the integrated variety from other companies.
Are you kidding me? Gamers make up a surprisingly large market when it comes to buying machines. I never thought I'd make a reference in my defense to this game :P, but see the post about WoW.
Gamers who buy a special machine, dolled up to play games, are a small percentage. People who just buy a newer, but average, computer to play games on, are in a bigger catagory. People who play games on their regular machine, are the biggest gamer catagory.
But they are all dwarfed by the people who never buy what a gamer would consider to be a gamers game, or who buy one rarely, "just to try it".
But how many people are in these professions compared to the rest of the spectra that all the other Apple machines cover? Not many... at least a 3:1 ratio. After all the costs to redevelop a case and hardware arrangement in the case, and so on with the R&D, it just wouldn't make a good enough profit.
I don't know, and neither do you.
But, they are just another bunch of people who want a smaller, lighter machine. It was just an example of some professionals who do opt for the 12".
The Mac has become the premier Java developement machine, even in Sun! So I would imagine that a lot of Java people might buy one.
Video Converter
http://www.allvideotools.com
I know this is not the right venue for this, but I don't remember which one was, so I'm linking to it for you here.
Remember we discussed LLVM?
Apple gave several presentations at the latest LLVM dev con. May 25+ Look at the listings, and access some of the info.
http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/index.html
"DFC Intelligence predicts that income from MMOGs and digitally distributed content will rise dramatically in the coming years."
Gamers who buy a special machine, dolled up to play games, are a small percentage. People who just buy a newer, but average, computer to play games on, are in a bigger catagory. People who play games on their regular machine, are the biggest gamer catagory.
But they are all dwarfed by the people who never buy what a gamer would consider to be a gamers game, or who buy one rarely, "just to try it".
QuotedForTruth
Also, there are those who are into just one or two games but they are REALLY into those one or two games. Enough so that their next purchase will be heavily influenced by how well it plays the game. Take WoW for instance. A lot of people that play WoW just play WoW but adore it. I fall under that category.
aegisdesign
I know this is not the right venue for this, but I don't remember which one was, so I'm linking to it for you here.
Remember we discussed LLVM?
Apple gave several presentations at the latest LLVM dev con. May 25+ Look at the listings, and access some of the info.
http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/index.html
Yep. I've watched a few of the talks already. Watch Chris Lattner's talk about LLVM in the OpenGL stack. About 14min 20sec in he's asked a question about if Apple are using LLVM in Tiger or Leopard and answers that it'll be in Tiger 'very soon' not just Leopard.
They're also building a new C compiler to replace gcc. This is being done by Steve Naroff who was the developer responsible for Objective C at Next originally. There's a nice rant about how it's taken 12 years from when Steve suggested a feature to Richard Stallman to implementation in gcc and how Apple can't wait that long for open source politics to affect their development.
Yep. I've watched a few of the talks already. Watch Chris Lattner's talk about LLVM in the OpenGL stack. About 14min 20sec in he's asked a question about if Apple are using LLVM in Tiger or Leopard and answers that it'll be in Tiger 'very soon' not just Leopard.
They're also building a new C compiler to replace gcc. This is being done by Steve Naroff who was the developer responsible for Objective C at Next originally. There's a nice rant about how it's taken 12 years from when Steve suggested a feature to Richard Stallman to implementation in gcc and how Apple can't wait that long for open source politics to affect their development.
They were very interesting. 12 people from Apple, almost 20%. Too bad some of the sound was so poor.
it may seem a long time ago, but remeber when you bought your first ipod. (me 1st gen 5GB) and spent hours nay days loading up all your own CDs before you started downloading tunes. well surely an optical drive is still required for those people buying their first mac, first itunes first ipod? otherwise would you really be expected to download every CD you ever bought?
The point is not that an optical drive would not be included, it would be an external one that would be left at home. You don't import iTunes on the road, do you?
How weak are some of you people? I take my 15" Powermac everywhere.
Welcome and join me on the 25% slope back home from work on your bicycle!
What can be lost from increased sales from a new population? Do you have to be hardcore gamer to play games? No. People are fooling themselves if they think the market is too small to matter.Increased profits are increased profits. Do you know how many people play WoW? Look it up. Blizzard also makes an effort in that they make the code universal. And it's not available for console. Go to the Mac part of the WoW technical forum and look at all the posts coming from people who want to get a mac for gaming cause they are sick of Windows. And that's just one game.
The casual and online gaming market are going to be huge...going forwards...
As games? Niche? Mac? Erhm. 2 million iPhones, iPod touches, Macs reaching 2 million per quarter? That's alot of sales. Alot of gaming possibilities. Gaming is not a small market. Weren't even Alien Ware worth Dell buying them? Hardly niche. Compared to the entire pc market? Meh. By that def' so is Apple 'niche'.
Tart machines selling in hundreds of thousands? Apple can take a chunk of that if they sort out their mid-tower and open gl and gpu options problems...
Lemon BOn BOn
It's embarrassing, Apple. Sort it out.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Not at least offering a choice of Nvidia alternatives in the iMac...or still, STILL having the aged 7300 in the Mac Pro? Apple and lame GPU choices...how does that work again?
It's embarrassing, Apple. Sort it out.
Lemon Bon Bon.
true !