Yes a Mac is more expensive so what, buy what ever you can afford and works for you. If you want an Apple and can afford one then buy one, If you can't afford a Mac or don't want one then buy a PC.
Case in point: the exploding popularity of netbooks.
Case in point: the sales explosion of the iPhone when the price was lowered to 199.
Sure many Apple customers do not buy on price alone and that is why they are Apple customers. But ads are not aimed at those who already are sold; you don't preach to the choir. Ads are aimed at the many persuadable people in the middle who will just go to whichever product they perceive to be the best at the time.
Again, I hate to say it, but MSFT may have a winning marketing campaign in all of this. Apple needs to watch out so that it doesn't become marginalized as some some high end niche product if it wants to grow its business.
I'm sure MSFT is all to willing to allow Apple to assume the identity of a BMW or Mercedes in the computing world as long as they can be the Toyota.
Apple has unbelievable products, and the people on this forum are right: if you analyze it, the Apple computer lineup is price competitive. But that's the problem: you have to analyze it, and most consumers will not do that.
Apple needs to compete on price perception as well. They certainly know that with the iPhone and the iPod product line. It's time they adjusted some of the prices of their iMacs and MacBooks.
Case in point: the exploding popularity of netbooks.
Case in point: the sales explosion of the iPhone when the price was lowered to 199.
....
Apple has unbelievable products, and the people on this forum are right: if you analyze it, the Apple computer lineup is price competitive. But that's the problem: you have to analyze it, and most consumers will not do that.
Apple needs to compete on price perception as well. They certainly know that with the iPhone and the iPod product line. It's time they adjusted some of the prices of their iMacs and MacBooks.
I don't think anyone is saying price doesn't sell. Low price will always have a good sized market. The difference here is that Apple can always lower their prices if they feel they need to, but they are in it for the long run, they can ride out this dip without having to make drastic changes if they don't make long term sense. If you try to make yourself known for low prices, you end up boxing yourself in such that raising them again gets to be difficult. Walmart and McDonalds has gotten a kind of reputation or vibe such that going there sometimes feels like defeat.
Oh, the quality time I spent fixing WIN Me, I can't even describe.
Office v.X crashed occasionally (it was the only thing that crashed on my Powerbook, save for the rare Safari crash).
Nod.
One thing however I'd like Apple to fix in Mac OS X is the inverse color scheme (I like setting my fonts white and background black). On Windows it works mostly but on Mac OS X even the graphics are negative-inversed.
Honestly, I think the Mac's are a bit over priced, that said, I get mine from my Apple friends and always pay 25-35% less.
Now, with that in mind, I remember using my Macbook Pro (bought 2 in 1 year) and having it freeze on me, maybe once and I had to reboot. I was in bed and I remember saying to myself, oh yeah, I forgot about all the reboots - it had become a daily thing with the PC. Man how I don't miss those days.
Now can ANYONE, ANYONE AT ALL, please tell me why Microsoft with their DEEP pockets confirms the ad agency by allowing them to say in one of the newest commercials that the BUYER IS NOT COOL ENOUGH TO OWN A MAC? Why say that? Anyone? WHAT AM I MISSING?
Plus if MSFT does WIN 7 right and IT upgrades like they say they might combined with how well Mobile 7 looks as good and makes it to WIN 7, I say MSFT will be in excellent shape.http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/...nshots-emerge/
One can only hope that the squeeze from PALM, PRE, this new advert campaign stings APPLE as APPLE has moved away from COMPUTERS, offers no MID RANGE, no FIREWIRE on MACBOOK, no dedicated GPU on Macbook, Mini UNDER POWERED, MBP to pricey for what you get, (heck it's cheaper to make now and the 15/17 cost the same to make), and hope that Apple releases some MID range and powers up the MINIS, add's firewire to MACBOOK and stops worrying about the .0000001 percent of the PRO user using the low end machines.
Most of what I said is pretty much a given when it comes to Windows.
Not true. I know far more Windows users than Mac users (obviously), but percentage wise, the Mac users have more problems than the PC users.
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AIM is most popular in the US (Apple's primary market), where it outnumbers Windows/MSN Messenger easily. Messenger, Skype and all other chat programs are FREE, so that doesn't matter.
I live in the US, and most of the people I know who used AIM in the past have moved on to MSN or Yahoo because they offer better features.
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DVD Player plays DVDs, that's it's sole purpose. What else to you want it to do? And a "Movie buff" would be watching their movies on a big ass HDTV and they probably wouldn't be watching a DVD, they'd be watching a Blu-ray on a PS3 or a Blu-ray Player.
I want DVD Player to do what DVD players in Windows, including the built-in decoder in Vista, have been doing for years: offer full bitstream decoding if the hardware allows it for a substantial increase in quality and FINALLY (WinDVD and PowerDVD have been doing this since the 90s) offer LFE decoding for 2 channel downmixing. Basically, if you're not sending the digital signal out or using a 5.1 system with a 5.1 analog out, mix the LFE (.1, subwoofer) channel into the stereo mix like WinDVD/PowerDVD/everyone else so we don't lose the bass if we're listening on headphones or standard computer speakers!
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Preview can:
* View and Edit Images (to a greater level than Windows Preview).
One picture at a time. Unless I highlight/select all of the pictures I want to open and have them all open at once. Windows preview app lets you scroll through the entire folder from one picture, and it creates slideshows on the fly.
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# View and Modify PDF files.
# Mark up and Annotate PDFs.
So? PDF files are awful and they need to die. I'm glad Windows doesn't support PDF.
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Use Geo-Location Services.
Because I really want people knowing where I'm at. Oh and Flickr does this too.
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Use Face Detection and Facial Recognition.
Face detection in iPhoto 09 is very hit and miss. I know from experience. I wouldn't count it as a feature until it actually works.
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# Order professionally printed photo books.
# Order professionally printed cards from your photos.
# Order professionally printed calendars from your photos.
Now why would I want to pay Apple's prices when I could use the photo printers I already own and print them out myself at less than half the cost per page compared to Apple? And thats even before shipping and handling is brought up. Now if I did want professional printing, I could use Photosmart Essentials and have HP do it for me. I would trust HP a bit more than Apple on this front, considering their prices are much more realistic and they do specialize in printing after all.
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Produce very professional looking slideshows with a couple of clicks and have them added to a DVD.
Professional looking? Seriously? I've yet to meet anyone who actually likes viewing slideshows at all. I don't like them. The ones in iPhoto '09 are gimmicks at best. Plus my blu-ray player can read the original files off a memory card, CD, or DVD. Why would I want to create a low quality DVD slideshow when I can show people the original picture as taken at full resolution on my HDTV using my blu-ray player and remote?
Every DVD player I've owned since the year 2000 has read JPG files and created on the fly slideshows. So why would I want to bother with low quality MPEG-2 recompressed slideshows when I can show the original files on just about anything?
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Easily share your photos on the internet to Facebook/Flickr/MobileMe.
Flickr is good. MobileMe is paid and not worth it. Facebook sharing is annoying because it means you have to keep all of your albums synced up.
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Have your photos easily organised for you into logical and useful categories.
Windows Photo Gallery lets you organize. As does Picassa and every other photo organizing app.
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Photo still has vastly superior editing capabilities to Photo Gallery too. Don't underestimate the power of "skimming" either in iPhoto, it's quite useful.
iPhoto doesn't really do anything other than image leveling that digital cameras don't already do on camera.
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The file type isn't really the problem, most of the time it's codecs (of which Windows is also missing a ton [otherwise why would the Klite codec packs exist]).
So what about using iTunes, it's better than WMP still. Don't forget for the "player" part there is also Quicktime, which is infinitely more capable than WMP (as long as you have the codecs).
Both Windows Media Player and Quicktime need additional codecs out of the box.
The difference is that Windows Media Player (like Quicktime) is a system component. However, unlike OS X, Windows software developers take advantage of that system component. So if Windows Media Player has that codec, then anything can use it. Quicktime, in theory, can work this way. But in reality it really only affects Quicktime and Frontrow.
Oh and you think Quicktime is more capable than WMP? Maybe in terms of editing, yes. But in terms of video and audio playback? Don't even try to go there. With CCCP installed, WMP can handle anything and everything thrown at it. It can pass Dolby Digital and DTS signals, play MPEG-2 files (not a paid upgrade like certain other players.....), play your DVDs using full bitstream decoding and it will download the media info for the movie, so you'll get chapter names and everything. When it comes to playback, WMP is far more capable than iTunes or Quicktime. Let me know when iTunes finally can watch folders and automatically add media to the library, okay? WMP has been doing that for what? 8 years now?
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Windows doesn't have any all-in-one solution either. And besides once you've installed Perian you only really need to use Quicktime, you don't need to interact with anything else.
You still need Flip4Mac. And its been my experience that there are plenty of files that Quicktime + Perian won't play that VLC will, and vice versa.
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I've got an HDTV for watching TV on. It's more fit for the job than any computer will ever be.
So do I. The best part is my PC is my HD DVR that connects right to my HDTV. No need to pay those outrageous monthly DVR fees And it all connects to the TV with one cable. Not 2 cables with 2 different adapters each like the Mac. Oh and Windows actually has proper external display support, unlike OS X. If I plug the HDMI cable into a new display for the first time, Windows will ask me if I want to extend, clone, or only use the external display. I can click only use external and it will auto detect the proper resolution or I can set the proper custom resolution and refresh rate. With OS X you have no option to disable the built-in display without first sleeping the machine and waking it, while closed, with an external keyboard and mouse. On top of that, OS X has extremely limited resolution support.
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No it doesn't, for the average user (i.e. not nerdy/geeky types like us) it can be as simple as visiting a trusted site that uses legitimate advertising banners but has some nefarious adverts served to it (as was the case with MySpace) and you can be carpet bombed with a vast number of viruses/malware.
The last time Myspace was the cause of a virus being spread, it was through a Quicktime exploit Funny you bring that up. And in the instance you do visit a malicious site, IE7/8 or Firefox will give you all kinds of warnings. IE won't even allow you to download it without jumping through hoops. Firefox will automatically scan anything downloaded for viruses. If by some miracle you get passed that, Windows itself will throw up multiple warnings.
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Obviously a clean install will have updates. It's not the size of the updates, but the quantity that's the problem. The 1GB of OS X updates requires 1 reboot due to it being a "Combined Update". Vista require god knows how many reboots as there are about 300 incremental updates which require reboots and won't let you do the rest until you have rebooted and then you get offered even more updates.
Windows Update mechanism is a joke.
Then why is it that I've had multiple restarts upon reinstalling OS X while doing updates?
On to other replies:
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USB 3.0 PCMCIA or Express Card slot... THAT'S A LAUGH! Your still stuck to the 66mhz bus, Which (drumroll please) is SLOWER than USB 2.0! Also, USB 3.0 is backwards compatible to 1.1 and 2.0.
ExpressCard is based on the PCI Express spec. Plenty fast enough for USB 3.0 and eSATA add-ins.
However, I do think this ad campaign may be effective for Microsoft in today's times. Most people don't analyze all the details...they just look at the product and the price, and these days price is looming very important.
Let's face it: people like cheap. ...
So I really do think that MSFT may have finally hit upon a good ad campaign for them, much as I might hate to admit it.
This ad by MS will only connect with the buyers at the low end. But these people were not going to contemplate buying a Mac anyway; they cannot see the value in spending a little more for a superior product and, for them, cheap PCs are probably their best bet anyway.
Current Mac users are obviously not going to jump ship on Apple in order to save a few bucks on their next purchase. These people will just delay and upgrade later if money's tight.
High-end, tech savvy PC users will probably split somewhere near the middle. Those fed up with the continuing degradation of the NT OS might migrate to OS X or some other flavor of "nix".
Microsoft's only direction is to the bottom in this market. However, as has been mentioned, there is not much room left for either MS or the PC OEMs to remain profitable in a market like this that is on a downward trajectory. As the price of Microsoft's software becomes an increasingly significant component of the total cost of a PC, we may see the PC OEMs trying to recover profitability by doing things like offering something like Ubuntu and Open Office as alternatives.
So, this ad by MS seems pointless, in that it really can't do what MS would like, namely retain higher-end PC users and lure new Apple users.
Congrats, Lauren. You just bought a P(iece of) C(rap). Oh, and by the way, you are definitely not cool enough to own a Mac, especially with those geeky glasses and that scarf. Enjoy your crappy HP...
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
I have two notebooks, a MacBook Pro that is 22 months old and a Dell XPS that is 25 months old. The Dell I use for work and the MBP for home. The MBP is not my first Apple Computer, I bought a MacMini four years ago to be my HTPC and my wife also has a MacBook.
I will be very honest here and tell you that after two years my Dell is by far the better laptop.
* My MBP's battery is shot, I do not even get 2 hours from it and yet my Dell still gives me well over 4 hours.
* My Dell has never had a problem, not even a virus (you guys and your virus talk!). But my MBP has been back to Apple twice - both occasions this great genius bar you talk off could not do anything and both times my MBP was shipped to a service center to have something replaced.
* It really needs to go back again I think, I am having the same issues. The case gets so hot I could cook bacon on it, the fans sound like a jet taking off and then everything just freezes up.
* I never get the blue screen of death on my Dell (you guys and your blue screens of death!) but I see plenty of that little beachball.
My Dell is well designed and works well, I love having a screen that opens all the way back, something I cannot do with my MBP.
Okay, OSX is great, really great. But at the end of the day I have a windows machine because I work in the real world where I need a windows machine. I have tried running my work desktop in VMWare but even after putting 4GB of RAM into it I was still struggling and so have given up on that experiment (that is a 2.4 core duo too). So while yes OSX is a better OS than windows XP it does not justify the extra expense and hassle of my MBP. And Windows 7 does look much better.
Magsafe, yes of course it is good, but again it is not really a buying consideration.
People here are denying it so much but the truth is that Mac's are no different to PC's now, they do have the same components and many of them are exactly the same bits that go into PC;s.
The only difference is that Apple design these lovely, tiny, cool, overheating, lovely to look at but pain in the ass to use cases to put all those PC bits in. Form over function is an Apple mantra and it does seem to be getting worse.
I honestly will tell you that I have not been impressed with my first Apple laptop and I do not see anything in the current line-up that would make me want to buy another. I think my next purchase is going to be a Dell Mini 10 and then I think my MBP might just well be resigned to life on my desk. After all I could buy a new netbook for the price of a MBP replacement Battery.
I hope for their sakes that anyone that falls for this con and 'saves' money buying a cheap PC keeps it and doesn't buy anything else. They will need the 'savings' to pay the geek to get it going several times before they ditch it and buy another 'cheap' PC ... and so the cycle goes for the average PC user ... over and over and over again.
Of course the trolls out in force in defense of the ads are not really buying into the concept as such, they simply don't want to see an end to the gravy train. Their endless supply of easy money charging hundreds of dollars to get a PC going that froze up due to a lock up in the anti-virus software or an M$ update done twice over etc. makes M$ the Golden Goose to them.
I hope for their sakes that anyone that falls for this con and 'saves' money buying a cheap PC keeps it and doesn't buy anything else. They will need the 'savings' to pay the geek to get it going several times before they ditch it and buy another 'cheap' PC ... and so the cycle goes for the average PC user ... over and over and over again.
Of course the trolls out in force in defense of the ads are not really buying into the concept as such, they simply don't want to see an end to the gravy train. Their endless supply of easy money charging hundreds of dollars to get a PC going that froze up due to a lock up in the anti-virus software or an M$ update done twice over etc. makes M$ the Golden Goose to them.
Your post reminded me of something.
Almost the entire computer repair/IT industry has been set up and built around Windows' problems. It's in the IT industry's best interests to have what is, without third party software, an essentially crippled OS - whether due to a virus, slowdowns, registry issues, or stability issues regarding hardware. IT departments and repair shops across the country (and around the world) are essentially privatized arms or divisions of Microsoft.
If Windows performed like OS X, was as reliable and worry-free as OS X, a major part of the IT industry would fall apart, or would never have existed to begin with. Then again, you could also say goodbye to a good chunk of third party hardware manufacturers, too, and millions of small computer shops. There is a whole economy out there that relies on Windows' flaws in order to survive and thrive. All to keep The OS from falling over and dying.
Among other things, what's keeping Windows insecure, unstable, and unreliable? Millions and millions of jobs. It's neither in Microsoft's interest to fix Windows, nor in the IT/repair industry's interest.
Given a choice, why the hell would anyone buy into this mess?
Oh . . . that's right. Running Crysis at higher FPS than the guy next door. Since Windows is essentially DirectX with an OS bolted onto it, it's a perfect match.
Almost the entire computer repair/IT industry has been set up and built around Windows' problems. It's in the IT industry's best interests to have what is, without third party software, an essentially crippled OS - whether due to a virus, slowdowns, registry issues, or stability issues regarding hardware. IT departments and repair shops across the country (and around the world) are essentially privatized arms or divisions of Microsoft.
If Windows performed like OS X, was as reliable and worry-free as OS X, a major part of the IT industry would fall apart, or would never have existed to begin with. Then again, you could also say goodbye to a good chunk of third party hardware manufacturers, too, and millions of small computer shops. There is a whole economy out there that relies on Windows' flaws in order to survive and thrive. All to keep The OS from falling over and dying.
Among other things, what's keeping Windows insecure, unstable, and unreliable? Millions and millions of jobs. It's neither in Microsoft's interest to fix Windows, nor in the IT/repair industry's interest.
Given a choice, why the hell would anyone buy into this mess?
Oh . . . that's right. Running Crysis at higher FPS than the guy next door. Since Windows is essentially DirectX with an OS bolted onto it, it's a perfect match.
Yep, my whole point exactly. The Windows Geek squads et al are the direct descendants of Main Frame support personnel of the 1970's those that tried desperately to keep out Apple ][s. Only when IMB came out with a PC and an OS that played into their hands did they embrace the concept. Today no Geek would have a job if Windoze goes the way of the dodo.
I guess your just a troll or an astroturfer, but I have to point out that everything you say here is 100% wrong. Almost any study on the matter ever done comes to the conclusion that Macs have a *lower* TCO.
To be specific, your argument is "full of it" in that:
your upgrade parts also have a cost that needs to be factored in
Macs last typically far longer than a regular PC.
most support and repair costs are built into the price on a Mac
no antivirus or "repair" programs needed to purchase
Virgil, you saved me a post..... er..... well maybe not. LOL :-)
These MS trolls (paid or not) are having a tougher time of it these days. LOL
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
I know far more Windows users than Mac users (obviously), but percentage wise, the Mac users have more problems than the PC users.
Well it looks like you and your statistically irrelevant friends have found that every piece of Mac hardware, software and service is shit compared to the Windows world. Got anything else to say?
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
It took me forever to get through your post, it was so poorly constructed.
You deserve Windows. Stick with it. You're getting a bargain-basement brand that treats you the same way.
Micro$oft is starting to make more attacks at Apple...
Could this be a sign they are feeling threatened? x)
To be honest, some Macs could be cheaper...I say some Macs because the iMac isn't expensive.
And before you start bashing my comment, compare the iMac with identical products, and by this I mean, compare the iMac with All-In-Ones from HP and Dell, and you'll see what I mean.
And since I got an iMac (two weeks ago btw =D ), I don't feel I bought an overpriced machine.
Plus I used MS products for nearly 17 years, and to be honest, I would pay the 1077? I paid for my iMac over a PC everday But hey, that's me...
Why has the Mac been growing faster with it's higher "price perception"?
It's not because there isn't a higher price perception. There obviously is a higher cost perception. Whether one chooses to believe it or not is another question. But the perception exists regardless, and it is prominent.
I believe it to some degree because the profit margins are the profit margins. If Apple's margins are twice the industry average, they're obviously taking in more. That doesn't mean I'm not going to pick up a MacBook should I need one again, but it's still there.
That being said, personally I would like Apple to make a concerted effort to prove otherwise with some real data. The Mac community in general get so muddied up in anecdotal evidence, drama queens claiming PCs self-combust every 3rd Wednesday, and what not. I'd like to see Apple pull up some new data I can chop my teeth into to prove it wrong.
BTW, for all the talk about the Mac's growth, Jobs claimed there were roughly 25 million active users when he first came back. Phil Schiller repeated that number in 2002/2003. And sometime within the last year they claimed roughly the same number again. So has the Mac really grown? Only if you look at quarterly snapshots designed to look rosey and take that as gospel. Over the long run they've mostly only replaced defections and monetized the existing base.
Doesn't AI already have a front-page article on MS's new ads?
Macs have a higher TCO as well. When components in a PC become outdated or you need a new feature like USB 3.0 or eSATA or something else that didn't come with the machine, you can upgrade it for the price of a cheap PCI or ExpressCard add-on. With Macs, you have to throw the computer away and get a brand new one at full price, unless the Mac is one of the extremely overpriced "Pro" models.
They cost more up front, and they don't last as long. It's unfortunate that OS X can't legally run on anything else.
Really? Our small business switched to mac 5 years ago, and in the process we saved tremendously. We had an initial outlay to transition the 23 machines in our company. But we saved as everyone except accounting switched to iWork. We also cut out IT department from 1.5 FTE to .5 FTE. That nearly covered the cost of the hardware right there. In that time we've had five apple care repairs. When we were a Dell shop for all our machines we were constantly having to repair or replace parts, and our IT team spent their entire week keeping things clean and running smoothly. Now days pretty much all they do is teach people how to use the software.
Here's the really fun part. When we wanted to upgrade hardware, we sold our old hardware and covered nearly half the cost of the new hardware upgrades. I have NEVER been able to sell a windows PC at the end of its life cycle. By that time they are worth essentially nothing. But all our macs still held considerable value.
It may not work this way for every business, but on our bottom line it has been a net savings to be a mac shop.
Comments
Case in point: Walmart.
Case in point: McDonalds.
Case in point: the exploding popularity of netbooks.
Case in point: the sales explosion of the iPhone when the price was lowered to 199.
Sure many Apple customers do not buy on price alone and that is why they are Apple customers. But ads are not aimed at those who already are sold; you don't preach to the choir. Ads are aimed at the many persuadable people in the middle who will just go to whichever product they perceive to be the best at the time.
Again, I hate to say it, but MSFT may have a winning marketing campaign in all of this. Apple needs to watch out so that it doesn't become marginalized as some some high end niche product if it wants to grow its business.
I'm sure MSFT is all to willing to allow Apple to assume the identity of a BMW or Mercedes in the computing world as long as they can be the Toyota.
Apple has unbelievable products, and the people on this forum are right: if you analyze it, the Apple computer lineup is price competitive. But that's the problem: you have to analyze it, and most consumers will not do that.
Apple needs to compete on price perception as well. They certainly know that with the iPhone and the iPod product line. It's time they adjusted some of the prices of their iMacs and MacBooks.
Price sells.
Case in point: Walmart.
Case in point: McDonalds.
Case in point: the exploding popularity of netbooks.
Case in point: the sales explosion of the iPhone when the price was lowered to 199.
....
Apple has unbelievable products, and the people on this forum are right: if you analyze it, the Apple computer lineup is price competitive. But that's the problem: you have to analyze it, and most consumers will not do that.
Apple needs to compete on price perception as well. They certainly know that with the iPhone and the iPod product line. It's time they adjusted some of the prices of their iMacs and MacBooks.
I don't think anyone is saying price doesn't sell. Low price will always have a good sized market. The difference here is that Apple can always lower their prices if they feel they need to, but they are in it for the long run, they can ride out this dip without having to make drastic changes if they don't make long term sense. If you try to make yourself known for low prices, you end up boxing yourself in such that raising them again gets to be difficult. Walmart and McDonalds has gotten a kind of reputation or vibe such that going there sometimes feels like defeat.
Apple needs to compete on price perception as well. ....... It's time they adjusted some of the prices of their iMacs and MacBooks.
Why?
The wider selection of cheap and even cheaper PC hardware has been around for years.
Why has the Mac been growing faster with it's higher "price perception"?
What kind of PC user has been switching to the Mac?
Do you really think that they didn't see the price differential and limited choice?
Oh, the quality time I spent fixing WIN Me, I can't even describe.
Office v.X crashed occasionally (it was the only thing that crashed on my Powerbook, save for the rare Safari crash).
Nod.
One thing however I'd like Apple to fix in Mac OS X is the inverse color scheme (I like setting my fonts white and background black). On Windows it works mostly but on Mac OS X even the graphics are negative-inversed.
Honestly, I think the Mac's are a bit over priced, that said, I get mine from my Apple friends and always pay 25-35% less.
Now, with that in mind, I remember using my Macbook Pro (bought 2 in 1 year) and having it freeze on me, maybe once and I had to reboot. I was in bed and I remember saying to myself, oh yeah, I forgot about all the reboots - it had become a daily thing with the PC. Man how I don't miss those days.
Now can ANYONE, ANYONE AT ALL, please tell me why Microsoft with their DEEP pockets confirms the ad agency by allowing them to say in one of the newest commercials that the BUYER IS NOT COOL ENOUGH TO OWN A MAC? Why say that? Anyone? WHAT AM I MISSING?
Plus if MSFT does WIN 7 right and IT upgrades like they say they might combined with how well Mobile 7 looks as good and makes it to WIN 7, I say MSFT will be in excellent shape.http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/...nshots-emerge/
One can only hope that the squeeze from PALM, PRE, this new advert campaign stings APPLE as APPLE has moved away from COMPUTERS, offers no MID RANGE, no FIREWIRE on MACBOOK, no dedicated GPU on Macbook, Mini UNDER POWERED, MBP to pricey for what you get, (heck it's cheaper to make now and the 15/17 cost the same to make), and hope that Apple releases some MID range and powers up the MINIS, add's firewire to MACBOOK and stops worrying about the .0000001 percent of the PRO user using the low end machines.
Most of what I said is pretty much a given when it comes to Windows.
Not true. I know far more Windows users than Mac users (obviously), but percentage wise, the Mac users have more problems than the PC users.
AIM is most popular in the US (Apple's primary market), where it outnumbers Windows/MSN Messenger easily. Messenger, Skype and all other chat programs are FREE, so that doesn't matter.
I live in the US, and most of the people I know who used AIM in the past have moved on to MSN or Yahoo because they offer better features.
DVD Player plays DVDs, that's it's sole purpose. What else to you want it to do? And a "Movie buff" would be watching their movies on a big ass HDTV and they probably wouldn't be watching a DVD, they'd be watching a Blu-ray on a PS3 or a Blu-ray Player.
I want DVD Player to do what DVD players in Windows, including the built-in decoder in Vista, have been doing for years: offer full bitstream decoding if the hardware allows it for a substantial increase in quality and FINALLY (WinDVD and PowerDVD have been doing this since the 90s) offer LFE decoding for 2 channel downmixing. Basically, if you're not sending the digital signal out or using a 5.1 system with a 5.1 analog out, mix the LFE (.1, subwoofer) channel into the stereo mix like WinDVD/PowerDVD/everyone else so we don't lose the bass if we're listening on headphones or standard computer speakers!
Preview can:
* View and Edit Images (to a greater level than Windows Preview).
One picture at a time. Unless I highlight/select all of the pictures I want to open and have them all open at once. Windows preview app lets you scroll through the entire folder from one picture, and it creates slideshows on the fly.
# View and Modify PDF files.
# Mark up and Annotate PDFs.
So? PDF files are awful and they need to die. I'm glad Windows doesn't support PDF.
Use Geo-Location Services.
Because I really want people knowing where I'm at. Oh and Flickr does this too.
Use Face Detection and Facial Recognition.
Face detection in iPhoto 09 is very hit and miss. I know from experience. I wouldn't count it as a feature until it actually works.
# Order professionally printed photo books.
# Order professionally printed cards from your photos.
# Order professionally printed calendars from your photos.
Now why would I want to pay Apple's prices when I could use the photo printers I already own and print them out myself at less than half the cost per page compared to Apple? And thats even before shipping and handling is brought up. Now if I did want professional printing, I could use Photosmart Essentials and have HP do it for me. I would trust HP a bit more than Apple on this front, considering their prices are much more realistic and they do specialize in printing after all.
Produce very professional looking slideshows with a couple of clicks and have them added to a DVD.
Professional looking? Seriously? I've yet to meet anyone who actually likes viewing slideshows at all. I don't like them. The ones in iPhoto '09 are gimmicks at best. Plus my blu-ray player can read the original files off a memory card, CD, or DVD. Why would I want to create a low quality DVD slideshow when I can show people the original picture as taken at full resolution on my HDTV using my blu-ray player and remote?
Every DVD player I've owned since the year 2000 has read JPG files and created on the fly slideshows. So why would I want to bother with low quality MPEG-2 recompressed slideshows when I can show the original files on just about anything?
Easily share your photos on the internet to Facebook/Flickr/MobileMe.
Flickr is good. MobileMe is paid and not worth it. Facebook sharing is annoying because it means you have to keep all of your albums synced up.
Have your photos easily organised for you into logical and useful categories.
Windows Photo Gallery lets you organize. As does Picassa and every other photo organizing app.
Photo still has vastly superior editing capabilities to Photo Gallery too. Don't underestimate the power of "skimming" either in iPhoto, it's quite useful.
iPhoto doesn't really do anything other than image leveling that digital cameras don't already do on camera.
The file type isn't really the problem, most of the time it's codecs (of which Windows is also missing a ton [otherwise why would the Klite codec packs exist]).
So what about using iTunes, it's better than WMP still. Don't forget for the "player" part there is also Quicktime, which is infinitely more capable than WMP (as long as you have the codecs).
Both Windows Media Player and Quicktime need additional codecs out of the box.
The difference is that Windows Media Player (like Quicktime) is a system component. However, unlike OS X, Windows software developers take advantage of that system component. So if Windows Media Player has that codec, then anything can use it. Quicktime, in theory, can work this way. But in reality it really only affects Quicktime and Frontrow.
Oh and you think Quicktime is more capable than WMP? Maybe in terms of editing, yes. But in terms of video and audio playback? Don't even try to go there. With CCCP installed, WMP can handle anything and everything thrown at it. It can pass Dolby Digital and DTS signals, play MPEG-2 files (not a paid upgrade like certain other players.....), play your DVDs using full bitstream decoding and it will download the media info for the movie, so you'll get chapter names and everything. When it comes to playback, WMP is far more capable than iTunes or Quicktime. Let me know when iTunes finally can watch folders and automatically add media to the library, okay? WMP has been doing that for what? 8 years now?
Windows doesn't have any all-in-one solution either. And besides once you've installed Perian you only really need to use Quicktime, you don't need to interact with anything else.
You still need Flip4Mac. And its been my experience that there are plenty of files that Quicktime + Perian won't play that VLC will, and vice versa.
I've got an HDTV for watching TV on. It's more fit for the job than any computer will ever be.
So do I. The best part is my PC is my HD DVR that connects right to my HDTV. No need to pay those outrageous monthly DVR fees
No it doesn't, for the average user (i.e. not nerdy/geeky types like us) it can be as simple as visiting a trusted site that uses legitimate advertising banners but has some nefarious adverts served to it (as was the case with MySpace) and you can be carpet bombed with a vast number of viruses/malware.
The last time Myspace was the cause of a virus being spread, it was through a Quicktime exploit
Obviously a clean install will have updates. It's not the size of the updates, but the quantity that's the problem. The 1GB of OS X updates requires 1 reboot due to it being a "Combined Update". Vista require god knows how many reboots as there are about 300 incremental updates which require reboots and won't let you do the rest until you have rebooted and then you get offered even more updates.
Windows Update mechanism is a joke.
Then why is it that I've had multiple restarts upon reinstalling OS X while doing updates?
On to other replies:
USB 3.0 PCMCIA or Express Card slot... THAT'S A LAUGH! Your still stuck to the 66mhz bus, Which (drumroll please) is SLOWER than USB 2.0! Also, USB 3.0 is backwards compatible to 1.1 and 2.0.
ExpressCard is based on the PCI Express spec. Plenty fast enough for USB 3.0 and eSATA add-ins.
My God, with an argument like that and all the proof you've given to back you up, you must be right.
My God, with a rebuttal like that and al,l of the proof you've given to back you up, you must be right.
yawn
I guess all of the evidence of people saying "apple is bmw" is a magical pile of evidence?
at least some people had the intellegence to liken apple to Lexus to PC's toyota which still is not perfect.
all in all, same old tired worthless analogy. But seeing as you provided all of that great proof, it must be good.
However, I do think this ad campaign may be effective for Microsoft in today's times. Most people don't analyze all the details...they just look at the product and the price, and these days price is looming very important.
Let's face it: people like cheap. ...
So I really do think that MSFT may have finally hit upon a good ad campaign for them, much as I might hate to admit it.
This ad by MS will only connect with the buyers at the low end. But these people were not going to contemplate buying a Mac anyway; they cannot see the value in spending a little more for a superior product and, for them, cheap PCs are probably their best bet anyway.
Current Mac users are obviously not going to jump ship on Apple in order to save a few bucks on their next purchase. These people will just delay and upgrade later if money's tight.
High-end, tech savvy PC users will probably split somewhere near the middle. Those fed up with the continuing degradation of the NT OS might migrate to OS X or some other flavor of "nix".
Microsoft's only direction is to the bottom in this market. However, as has been mentioned, there is not much room left for either MS or the PC OEMs to remain profitable in a market like this that is on a downward trajectory. As the price of Microsoft's software becomes an increasingly significant component of the total cost of a PC, we may see the PC OEMs trying to recover profitability by doing things like offering something like Ubuntu and Open Office as alternatives.
So, this ad by MS seems pointless, in that it really can't do what MS would like, namely retain higher-end PC users and lure new Apple users.
Congrats, Lauren. You just bought a P(iece of) C(rap). Oh, and by the way, you are definitely not cool enough to own a Mac, especially with those geeky glasses and that scarf. Enjoy your crappy HP...
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
I will be very honest here and tell you that after two years my Dell is by far the better laptop.
* My MBP's battery is shot, I do not even get 2 hours from it and yet my Dell still gives me well over 4 hours.
* My Dell has never had a problem, not even a virus (you guys and your virus talk!). But my MBP has been back to Apple twice - both occasions this great genius bar you talk off could not do anything and both times my MBP was shipped to a service center to have something replaced.
* It really needs to go back again I think, I am having the same issues. The case gets so hot I could cook bacon on it, the fans sound like a jet taking off and then everything just freezes up.
* I never get the blue screen of death on my Dell (you guys and your blue screens of death!) but I see plenty of that little beachball.
My Dell is well designed and works well, I love having a screen that opens all the way back, something I cannot do with my MBP.
Okay, OSX is great, really great. But at the end of the day I have a windows machine because I work in the real world where I need a windows machine. I have tried running my work desktop in VMWare but even after putting 4GB of RAM into it I was still struggling and so have given up on that experiment (that is a 2.4 core duo too). So while yes OSX is a better OS than windows XP it does not justify the extra expense and hassle of my MBP. And Windows 7 does look much better.
Magsafe, yes of course it is good, but again it is not really a buying consideration.
People here are denying it so much but the truth is that Mac's are no different to PC's now, they do have the same components and many of them are exactly the same bits that go into PC;s.
The only difference is that Apple design these lovely, tiny, cool, overheating, lovely to look at but pain in the ass to use cases to put all those PC bits in. Form over function is an Apple mantra and it does seem to be getting worse.
I honestly will tell you that I have not been impressed with my first Apple laptop and I do not see anything in the current line-up that would make me want to buy another. I think my next purchase is going to be a Dell Mini 10 and then I think my MBP might just well be resigned to life on my desk. After all I could buy a new netbook for the price of a MBP replacement Battery.
Of course the trolls out in force in defense of the ads are not really buying into the concept as such, they simply don't want to see an end to the gravy train. Their endless supply of easy money charging hundreds of dollars to get a PC going that froze up due to a lock up in the anti-virus software or an M$ update done twice over etc. makes M$ the Golden Goose to them.
I hope for their sakes that anyone that falls for this con and 'saves' money buying a cheap PC keeps it and doesn't buy anything else. They will need the 'savings' to pay the geek to get it going several times before they ditch it and buy another 'cheap' PC ... and so the cycle goes for the average PC user ... over and over and over again.
Of course the trolls out in force in defense of the ads are not really buying into the concept as such, they simply don't want to see an end to the gravy train. Their endless supply of easy money charging hundreds of dollars to get a PC going that froze up due to a lock up in the anti-virus software or an M$ update done twice over etc. makes M$ the Golden Goose to them.
Your post reminded me of something.
Almost the entire computer repair/IT industry has been set up and built around Windows' problems. It's in the IT industry's best interests to have what is, without third party software, an essentially crippled OS - whether due to a virus, slowdowns, registry issues, or stability issues regarding hardware. IT departments and repair shops across the country (and around the world) are essentially privatized arms or divisions of Microsoft.
If Windows performed like OS X, was as reliable and worry-free as OS X, a major part of the IT industry would fall apart, or would never have existed to begin with. Then again, you could also say goodbye to a good chunk of third party hardware manufacturers, too, and millions of small computer shops. There is a whole economy out there that relies on Windows' flaws in order to survive and thrive. All to keep The OS from falling over and dying.
Among other things, what's keeping Windows insecure, unstable, and unreliable? Millions and millions of jobs. It's neither in Microsoft's interest to fix Windows, nor in the IT/repair industry's interest.
Given a choice, why the hell would anyone buy into this mess?
Oh . . . that's right. Running Crysis at higher FPS than the guy next door. Since Windows is essentially DirectX with an OS bolted onto it, it's a perfect match.
Your post reminded me of something.
Almost the entire computer repair/IT industry has been set up and built around Windows' problems. It's in the IT industry's best interests to have what is, without third party software, an essentially crippled OS - whether due to a virus, slowdowns, registry issues, or stability issues regarding hardware. IT departments and repair shops across the country (and around the world) are essentially privatized arms or divisions of Microsoft.
If Windows performed like OS X, was as reliable and worry-free as OS X, a major part of the IT industry would fall apart, or would never have existed to begin with. Then again, you could also say goodbye to a good chunk of third party hardware manufacturers, too, and millions of small computer shops. There is a whole economy out there that relies on Windows' flaws in order to survive and thrive. All to keep The OS from falling over and dying.
Among other things, what's keeping Windows insecure, unstable, and unreliable? Millions and millions of jobs. It's neither in Microsoft's interest to fix Windows, nor in the IT/repair industry's interest.
Given a choice, why the hell would anyone buy into this mess?
Oh . . . that's right. Running Crysis at higher FPS than the guy next door. Since Windows is essentially DirectX with an OS bolted onto it, it's a perfect match.
Yep, my whole point exactly. The Windows Geek squads et al are the direct descendants of Main Frame support personnel of the 1970's those that tried desperately to keep out Apple ][s. Only when IMB came out with a PC and an OS that played into their hands did they embrace the concept. Today no Geek would have a job if Windoze goes the way of the dodo.
I guess your just a troll or an astroturfer, but I have to point out that everything you say here is 100% wrong. Almost any study on the matter ever done comes to the conclusion that Macs have a *lower* TCO.
To be specific, your argument is "full of it" in that:
Virgil, you saved me a post..... er..... well maybe not. LOL :-)
These MS trolls (paid or not) are having a tougher time of it these days. LOL
Well, the economy is tight... after all. :-)
Just a thought,
en
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
Well done! Worst post you ever made.
I know far more Windows users than Mac users (obviously), but percentage wise, the Mac users have more problems than the PC users.
Well it looks like you and your statistically irrelevant friends have found that every piece of Mac hardware, software and service is shit compared to the Windows world. Got anything else to say?
Mean, crullel uncalled for. Obvious, the advert strikes a chord.
apple tv is a joke, the iPhone won't play flash ( it's about apple fearing adobes flash apps, take off the rainbow sean Penn milk glasses and google it), they font make memory, hard drives, CPUs, graphic chips, though a majority if macs use crappy mobile chips and gpu, they don't make motherboards except add EFI to cripple Bios and keep users from installing, go team osx86, they don't make displays so, is the machine worth the price? Don't break down? I worked at Apple and ask you to tell that to the thousands that come to apple care each day. Fair priced? Let me log in to gsx and tell you how outrageous replacement parts are. Standard motherboard? $900 dollars. As much as I love apple I hope jobs is gone for good and that the computer felt become mainstream gaing marketshare but also offering more power for the dollar and not crippled machines that cost $2000 simply due to the need you want graphics. What a joke.
I have macs but they are way over priced and use many of the same parts, only the shell is different and before intel, apple lied out their asses about performance.
It took me forever to get through your post, it was so poorly constructed.
You deserve Windows. Stick with it. You're getting a bargain-basement brand that treats you the same way.
And yeah, we ALL conveniently worked at Apple.
Could this be a sign they are feeling threatened? x)
To be honest, some Macs could be cheaper...I say some Macs because the iMac isn't expensive.
And before you start bashing my comment, compare the iMac with identical products, and by this I mean, compare the iMac with All-In-Ones from HP and Dell, and you'll see what I mean.
And since I got an iMac (two weeks ago btw =D ), I don't feel I bought an overpriced machine.
Plus I used MS products for nearly 17 years, and to be honest, I would pay the 1077? I paid for my iMac over a PC everday
Why has the Mac been growing faster with it's higher "price perception"?
It's not because there isn't a higher price perception. There obviously is a higher cost perception. Whether one chooses to believe it or not is another question. But the perception exists regardless, and it is prominent.
I believe it to some degree because the profit margins are the profit margins. If Apple's margins are twice the industry average, they're obviously taking in more. That doesn't mean I'm not going to pick up a MacBook should I need one again, but it's still there.
That being said, personally I would like Apple to make a concerted effort to prove otherwise with some real data. The Mac community in general get so muddied up in anecdotal evidence, drama queens claiming PCs self-combust every 3rd Wednesday, and what not. I'd like to see Apple pull up some new data I can chop my teeth into to prove it wrong.
BTW, for all the talk about the Mac's growth, Jobs claimed there were roughly 25 million active users when he first came back. Phil Schiller repeated that number in 2002/2003. And sometime within the last year they claimed roughly the same number again. So has the Mac really grown? Only if you look at quarterly snapshots designed to look rosey and take that as gospel. Over the long run they've mostly only replaced defections and monetized the existing base.
Doesn't AI already have a front-page article on MS's new ads?
Macs have a higher TCO as well. When components in a PC become outdated or you need a new feature like USB 3.0 or eSATA or something else that didn't come with the machine, you can upgrade it for the price of a cheap PCI or ExpressCard add-on. With Macs, you have to throw the computer away and get a brand new one at full price, unless the Mac is one of the extremely overpriced "Pro" models.
They cost more up front, and they don't last as long. It's unfortunate that OS X can't legally run on anything else.
Really? Our small business switched to mac 5 years ago, and in the process we saved tremendously. We had an initial outlay to transition the 23 machines in our company. But we saved as everyone except accounting switched to iWork. We also cut out IT department from 1.5 FTE to .5 FTE. That nearly covered the cost of the hardware right there. In that time we've had five apple care repairs. When we were a Dell shop for all our machines we were constantly having to repair or replace parts, and our IT team spent their entire week keeping things clean and running smoothly. Now days pretty much all they do is teach people how to use the software.
Here's the really fun part. When we wanted to upgrade hardware, we sold our old hardware and covered nearly half the cost of the new hardware upgrades. I have NEVER been able to sell a windows PC at the end of its life cycle. By that time they are worth essentially nothing. But all our macs still held considerable value.
It may not work this way for every business, but on our bottom line it has been a net savings to be a mac shop.