Must be why there are so many Macs and iPads being used to take notes in my classes...
Or another possibility, you hang out with stupid kids. Actually, the xbox comment makes that statement redundant.
Agreed. The dude who posted that kids just want to play games and blast music.... Um "they" want to do those things on the item that has the HIGHEST cool factor. And what company consistently receives research numbers in the stratosphere?????????????Apple. Nuff said. Kids here in Los Angeles would give away their parents, their right nut, their skateboards, surfboards, and more in order to get their hands on a iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and soon Apple TV. Apple products are at the TOP of kids "WANT" list.
The nit wit ANAL-yst cited in this story is way off base. He claims he contacted 4 University stores.. Which ones? BS, funny here is where he FAILS.
EVERY APPLE STORE in America now gives STUDENT discounts with VALID i.d.'s. Where are students shopping these days? Apple Stores. So by what measure can the analyst say with conviction that Mac sales fell off a cliff?? Epic Fail.
I will say that the Microsoft ads in the LA market are saturated and of course will gain PARENTS attention more but.... Kid tantrums usually prevail. One last important note - it's a CREDIT to Apple's power in the market that MICROSOFT is FORCED and DESPERATE to get customers focused on it's uncool platform by BRIBING them with a free xbox promotion In the end -- any kids that do buy into the Windows Xbox promo will ultimately buy into one of the top Apple products soon after anyway - I say that with certainty.
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."-- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996 (or about a year before he became CEO)
Quote:
"The Mac has outlived its usefulness."
--Steve Jobs, circa 1996 (or about a year before he became CEO)
When Apple stopped advertising the Mac (in the way it does the iPhone and iPad, now), it took a little time for the Mac marketing message to wear off. (It was an attention-grabbing and hard-to-forget campaign and was cited about as an American cultural icon.)
Well, it's worn off and starting to be reflected in Mac sales -- exactly according to Steve Jobs' plan.
He hates the Mac and wants it gone.
The day in 2009 that it was announced that Apple was killing the "Hi. I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" television ad campaign I participated in some Apple forums and suggested that we would not see another Mac television ad campaign to follow in its wake.
The Awards Committee said, "The 'Get a Mac' campaign personified each and the result was magic. A simple, charming metaphor with all the reasons to get a Mac. Market share grew by 42%, Apple had record sales and the campaign was culturally influential."
Back then, I was unmercifully flamed to death for predicting that there would be no Mac ad campaign to follow and was assured by other posters that Apple was just switching and retiring the television ad campaign and that a fresh one would follow in its wake.
'It was time that campaign was ended; it has exhausted every possible scenario and Apple has simply run out of ideas for new editions of those ads,' posters told me.
(I said at the time they weren't giving the most innovative company on the planet enough credit; that of all companies, Apple was not one to run out of new ideas and that there were limitless unique scenarios Apple could use to continue the very effective television ad campaign indefinitely -- limited, I should say, only by the imagination.)
Though they were in various forums, I would like to ask my "flamers," "How now brown cow?"
I hate to say "I hate to say I told you so," but...
If anyone has seen any recent television or print ads for the Mac that I missed, please let me know. (And, yes, I've seen the sparse Web banner ads.)
Sometimes (though rarely) Steve Jobs changes his mind or acquiesces (like he did with the name "iMac," which he did not like.)
More often, he is so intransigent in his positions that it would be easier to invent a time travel machine than to change his mind -- even using indisputable facts and clear evidence in your attempt. (Facts have no place in Steve's Reality Distortion Zone.)
Steve's long-term goal is to send the Mac out to pasture. However, he is smart enough to know that, as much as he'd like to, he cannot write his signature on a document that grinds Mac production to a halt this minute. (Again, as much as he'd like to.) Until then, we all owe him praise for his tolerance and patience.
He has contracts with other companies to consider; he must convince upper-echelon management (e.g. COO, Tim Cook; CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, et al). He has a board of directors to convince. He has large shareholders with proportionate voting rights to convince, he has the rest of Wall Street to convince, and last AND least, he has loyal Mac customers to convince.
After the switch to Intel processors, Apple continued to support PowerPC Mac users for approximately four years. After the switch to higher-powered Intel processors, Apple continued to support early Intel Mac owners for a period of approximately four years. I would expect that the phasing out of the Mac will occur over a similar time period -- unless Steve Jobs can accelerate it somehow.
Between now and then (and below the radar), Steve Jobs will take inconspicuous steps to gradually drain the life out of the Mac. He will leave no fingerprints behind, but will eventually have in hand the evidence necessary to convince his top management, the board of directors, large shareholders, small shareholders, "The Street" overall, ISVs, customers and channel partners that the Mac has had a good run, but it is in the best interest of this company to retire it.
As I predicted at the time it was said, the 2008 "bag of hurt" alibi had far greater implications than appeared on its face. (Of course I was flamed to death for identifying those implications.)
Jobs has shown amazing patience and tolerance since then, but is finally getting his wish. Soon all optical media and devices will not be supported on any Apple products. (But Blu-ray and backwards-compatible optical discs WILL on Windows PCs and laptops, perhaps putting the Mac at a serious competitive disadvantage -- but that may not be a bad thing, right, Steve?)
Wishful thinkers will dismiss that the "Mac" has been removed from OS X's name as inconsequential, and my suggestions that, instead, it is far more foreboding than it initially appears, will naturally go unheeded. (Grab the flamethrower!)
That, released in 2010, (Mac) OS X Lion is bereft of MAJOR changes in its underlying technology (as compared to Tiger (2004) and Leopard (2006)), and that the major changes were all user-visible GUI changes -- essentially performing a face transplant of iOS's interface over (what is still called) Aqua.
In the 7 years since Tiger introduced monumental software technology innovations to the underlying (non-user-visible) OS (e.g. Core APIs), and *5 years ago, Leopard topped Tiger with still more huge improvements to the underlying OS, added Core APIs, and doubled the power and functionality of the Core APIs introduced in Tiger, how monumental are the non-GUI changes to Lion, 7 years after Tiger? In the interstitial 7 years have the Core APIs seen spectacular improvements? Core Image (which made Adobe upset because it was like building Photoshop into the OS -- but who cares; Apple has shown an indifference to upsetting Adobe, who, BTW, is too lazy to improve Photoshop to take advantage of dual-chip, multi-core processor technology or Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL) has not seen milestone changes over the last 7 years. The same is true of other APIs.
Steve Jobs talked on stage about how touch doesn't translate to desktops or laptops because your choices are limited in how you can orient the machine, and one's arm gets tired after constantly lifting it up to touch the screen of a more desktop or laptop display.
But then he overlays iOS's GUI over OS X. (Has anyone else noticed the recent tidal wave of "How To" articles and Mac utilities designed to restore "The Mac As We've Known It" to Lion, and to go around the iOS infected features?")
This is an ingredient in the strategy: get Mac users acclimated to "The iOS way," and they'll forget all about using machines "The Mac Way."
This will lay the ground for when when the Mac finally vaporizes, and every Mac user will be like, "Meh," hardly noticing as they play Angry Birds 19. (BTW, if birds can fly, why the slingshot?)
The Mac will go out with a whimper, not a bang.
MAC OS X gave birth to iPhone OS/iOS, and now iOS is systematically swallowing MAC OS X. (Kind of like how Gilbert Amelio created Steve Jobs v. 2.0, and Jobs promptly swallowed Gilbert Amelio and "eliminated" him (ahem...as with food). Oh -- but Steve was never the least bit interested in becoming Apple CEO, anyway. He was dragged kicking and screaming into it and did so only with the most reluctance. This, despite what occurred only a year earlier.
That perfunctory "straw man" CEO search committee never got very far. Could it be because "interim" CEO Jobs had the final say and shot down each and every candidate put forth by the committee? (Refer to last link and "There's only*only one person...")
But what about the "Mac App Store?" you ask?
"What about the (Mac) OS X Lion promotion prominently displayed on Apple's website?"
All window dressing and alibis no different than "the bag of hurt" that, as I predicted, would translate to the elimination of optical media entirely on Apple products. With the MacBook Air and the Mac mini, the process is underway.
Remember, the plan is to drain the life out of the Mac below the radar and leave no fingerprints.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model. I hope I am wrong on this one. For decades, I have bought the top-of-the-line model of every newly released tower Mac model Apple has put out. But I've stopped holding my breath for a 16-core model.
Even as skillful as Apple has been lately at printing leaks, I've read too many times -- often from key members of the (Mac) OS X team -- that there has been a "brain drain" of talent from the (Mac) OS X software engineering team who were reappointed to work on iOS. Very key talent was raided and not replaced. All part of the plan.
The plan with Lion is less about the Mac and more about iOS.
There was an outcry when the earliest versions of (Mac) OS X decidedly lacked "Mac-ness." Before violence erupted, Apple restored some of the Mac HUI elements to OS X that made a Mac a Mac.
Oh, Steve Jobs DOES respond to loyal customer demand once a decade or so. When the din is so loud that he feels vulnerable to hearing loss, Jobs relents to the demands of his "loyal subjects," like he (only VERY eventually) did with the Bondi iMac's round "hockey puck" mouse.
So even if none of what I've written is true, but the Mac's sales are declining, posing an existential threat, is there nothing we can do?
Well, if you're on the fence, you could make a decision and buy a new Mac (preferably one with an optical drive). You could patronize the Mac App Store. You could be an unofficial salesman and convince people you know who are in the market for a computer to buy a Mac. (Mentioning, as Apple does NOT, that Macs run the latest version of Windows, but Windows machines do not run the Mac's operating system, so they're getting the "best" of both worlds (not really). Don't worry, everyone I know who has used Windows on their Macs via Boot Camp, Parallels or Fusion, briefly uses Windows, but find they much prefer the Mac environment.)
You could contact everyone you can think of at Apple expressing your concern for the Mac's future and your desire to see them to continue investing in the Mac and (Mac) OS X and your intent to continue buying Macs well into the future. (And stop the internal "brain drain already! I accept recently departed (Mac) OS X's lead engineer, Bertrand Serlet's dignified, amicable "official, on-the-record" statement for why he was leaving Apple, but I can't help but wonder if there's more to the story.
You could protest.*Put a link to google.com on your bookmarks bar, and stop using Safari's upper-right corner search field.
Stop using Safari and use instead Firefox, Chrome or Opera.
Never click on a web ad with "iAd" in the lower right corner.
I've never owned a Windows machine and hope never to have to. But if Steve Jobs expects that Pro users will eventually be using iOS devices to run Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite 5, or Final Cut (whatever), or AutoCAD or Maya or Shade 12 or Logic Studio or Cinema 4D or KeyShot or Blender or Pixar's Tractor or ZBrush or LightWave 10 or Avid Media Composer on anything but a screaming fast, dual-processor, multi-core, 64-bit (probably 128-bit by the time ARM gets to 64-bit), Hyperthreading, Grand Central Dispatch optimized, expandable Tower Mac with 48GB RAM, 6TB internal storage*and far more external storage, an internal Blu-ray burner (or HVD burner) on multiple 30" or bigger displays with the widest gamut color possible with 13 or 18-bit CLUTs, and a GPU card running at petaflops/s and taking full advantage of OpenCL, he IS one of "the crazy ones."
I own iPods and three iOS devices including an iPad 2 AND LOVE them all! They do what they do GREAT!
But the Mac does different things from iOS devices and it does those GREAT!
I need both. I should think Apple would approve of the idea of a person needing (and buying) iOS devices AND Macs (in my case, $12,000+ Macs).
As described in The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protest or airing grievances may be the most loyal and caring things you can do.
Taking issue with Apple or Steve Jobs is not disloyalty. Au contraire, it may be the most loyal, caring thing you can do.
Blind faith, always agreeing, sitting ildey by and doing nothing, sometimes proves to be disloyal.
P.S. For the record, I LOVE Apple I love my iPod, my iOS devices (especially my iPad 2) and I LOVE my Mac -- and I worship and love the genius, Steve Jobs.......and hate him. It's a love/hate thing.
Look, I respect your opinion. I just find your opinion completely wrong. You sound like the opposite of what I believe about the Mac, but you say it just how I'd say it. Gotta respect that.
P.S. For the record, I LOVE Apple I love my iPod, my iOS devices (especially my iPad 2) and I LOVE my Mac -- and I worship and love the genius, Steve Jobs.......and hate him. It's a love/hate thing.
But then he overlays iOS's GUI over OS X. (Has anyone else noticed the recent tidal wave of "How To" articles and Mac utilities designed to restore "The Mac As We've Known It" to Lion, and to go around the iOS infected features?")
This is an ingredient in the strategy: get Mac users acclimated to "The iOS way," and they'll forget all about using machines "The Mac Way."
This will lay the ground for when when the Mac finally vaporizes, and every Mac user will be like, "Meh," hardly noticing as they play Angry Birds 19. (BTW, if birds can fly, why the slingshot?)
The Mac will go out with a whimper, not a bang.
MAC OS X gave birth to iPhone OS/iOS, and now iOS is systematically swallowing MAC OS X. (Kind of like how Gilbert Amelio created Steve Jobs v. 2.0, and Jobs promptly swallowed Gilbert Amelio and "eliminated" him (ahem...as with food). Oh -- but Steve was never the least bit interested in becoming Apple CEO, anyway. He was dragged kicking and screaming into it and did so only with the most reluctance. This, despite what occurred only a year earlier.
That perfunctory "straw man" CEO search committee never got very far. Could it be because "interim" CEO Jobs had the final say and shot down each and every candidate put forth by the committee? (Refer to last link and "There's only*only one person...")
But what about the "Mac App Store?" you ask?
"What about the (Mac) OS X Lion promotion prominently displayed on Apple's website?"
All window dressing and alibis no different than "the bag of hurt" that, as I predicted, would translate to the elimination of optical media entirely on Apple products. With the MacBook Air and the Mac mini, the process is underway.
Remember, the plan is to drain the life out of the Mac below the radar and leave no fingerprints.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model. I hope I am wrong on this one. For decades, I have bought the top-of-the-line model of every newly released tower Mac model Apple has put out. But I've stopped holding my breath for a 16-core model.
I've never owned a Windows machine and hope never to have to. But if Steve Jobs expects that Pro users will eventually be using iOS devices to run Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite 5, or Final Cut (whatever), or AutoCAD or Maya or Shade 12 or Logic Studio or Cinema 4D or KeyShot or Blender or Pixar's Tractor or ZBrush or LightWave 10 or Avid Media Composer on anything but a screaming fast, dual-processor, multi-core, 64-bit (probably 128-bit by the time ARM gets to 64-bit), Hyperthreading, Grand Central Dispatch optimized, expandable Tower Mac with 48GB RAM, 6TB internal storage*and far more external storage, an internal Blu-ray burner (or HVD burner) on multiple 30" or bigger displays with the widest gamut color possible with 13 or 18-bit CLUTs, and a GPU card running at petaflops/s and taking full advantage of OpenCL, he IS one of "the crazy ones."
But the Mac does different things from iOS devices and it does those GREAT!
I need both. I should think Apple would approve of the idea of a person needing (and buying) iOS devices AND Macs (in my case, $12,000+ Macs).
Blind faith, always agreeing, sitting ildey by and doing nothing, sometimes proves to be disloyal.
I think you are being a bit too negative. Both Apple and Microsoft are preparing for the post-PC era. Look at the early designs for Windows 8, and it looks just like a Windows Phone shell placed on top of Windows 7. Apple took a different approach with Lion, but the concept is the same (merging the tablet and desktop OS). Consider that the iPad is as powerful as the desktop PCs we used to use just about 10 years ago, and I think what you'll find is that the vast majority of us will be able to tap enough power from a single device in 10 years time. It's not that Steve Jobs "hates Macs," it's just that he sees the future in iOS. The key word here is future. Don't compare the iPad of today to your computing needs and declare that it can never work.
Regarding optical drives, how is this any different to the 1998 iMac? Lack of BluRay isn't much of a disadvantage since it hasn't gotten much traction. Jobs' disdain for optical is driven by iTunes. With the Cloud becoming more prevalent, we'll have less media stored on our devices, and thus less need for physical media (which degrades over time).
In the meantime, we'll still see a lot of decent Macs. Consider the significant upgrade the MacBook Air got. Intel has even defined a new class of PCs to copy it. The Mac Pro hasn't been upgraded since the suitable Sandy Bridge processors aren't out yet, and the top-end iMac is more than capable for most users in the meantime. Apple is definitely a consumer-oriented company, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac Pro is dropped eventually, but I don't think it will be in 2011.
indicated that this year's back-to-school promotion, offering a $100 App Store gift card, is not adequate. He said most parents would rather receive $100 cash back on education pricing.
"This same analyst, however, did not bother researching the educational promotion, which saves you a minimum of $100 on a MacBook Pro, and $66 on AppleCare in addition to the meager $100 gift card."
Yep
We'll see when the quarter numbers come out how well sales were
Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesTheLesser
This.
I'm no investor, but I've heard it said quite a few times that Apple stock is one of the easiest to manipulate.
Yep. Start a rumor that Steve Jobs died. Thanks to all the folks that still think that Jobs is the only brain at Apple, the stock price will go down to pennies. You buy a bunch of shares. Wait for word to get out that Jobs is not dead and within 48 hours the price is back up. You just made a pile of money
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zandros
Although it does that all-year round. Ostensibly, the back-to school promotions are intended to strengthen sales in what would otherwise be a less profitable quarter.
the BTS gives sites like AI an excuse to get page hits and remind folks that Apple does a student discount, at no cost to Apple. That's half the reason they do it.
Quote:
If the promotion is not as valuable to the consumer compared to previous years, it could very well lead to a relatively worse quarter than last year.
In the age of 12 year olds with iphones, the ipod deal isn't really as awesome as it was. Free software etc is something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by martimus3060
Shaw Wu is another analyst who seems to get things wrong quite a bit,
I have a friend that actually uses the phrase 'you totally Shaw Wu'd that one'
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
The first problem I have with this is that most Mac Back To Scools sales happen well before August. Depending upon the school some students are probably already back to school or in a mad rush to get ready. The whole point with the early summer start of these sales programs is to capture customers before their minds turn to otherthings.
They also do it as one last buy for the college grads. Try to get them to spend their gift money on a new computer rather than clothes or whatever
Quote:
One is the assumption that people are happy with the non discount.
What about the assumption that they aren't happy. Remember that there are few discounts by Apple. If anything, parents are unhappy that only the college kids get the discount cause their precious middle school kids are expected to have laptops
Quote:
The second issue is that the dropping of the Mac Book and pushing of the AIRs is extremely stupid.
1. The new Airs are way more powerful than before.
2. They likely have sales numbers that show that the Airs and the Pro were selling great. The Macbook, little to nada. Why waste resources on something that is not selling.
Thus would seems stupid to you could be a well researched and thought out very smart business decision
Quote:
In the end many customers will walk away from Apple and the AIRs simply because they have to think about the machines suitability for their needs.
Or they will buy what is there that suits their needs and not really think twice about the notion that there should be a slightly cheaper slightly lesser notebook in the mix
Quote:
People will look at the AIR and see that it comes up short in a number of ways.
And grab a Macbook Pro. Done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BUSHMAN4
If sales are actually slowing perhaps it can be attributed to the 'yellow screen problem that some of the 21 & 27 inch IMacs are having.
In any case this can't beva plus for Apple and needs to be fixed
yeah that was a 'problem' like a year ago that was talked about a lot but turned out to be only in like 1% of units that were custom config'd and maybe 1/10% of store units. For a period of 2 months. And then it was fixed and now it happens perhaps 0.0001% of the time.
You can't say this and use quotes from before the iMac existed to back it up. That was a completely different Steve.
I like your endearing optimism. It isn't just I who have noticed sometimes stark (positive) changes in Steve 2.0, but at the same time, some of his habits and behaviors have not changed. Steve 2.0 is not a "completely different" person.
Read the books. He has a history of treating an Apple product as his favorite child, the apple of his eye (pun not initially intended), only to suddenly turn on it and get out "The long knives." This pattern of behavior has occurred repeatedly.
Don't take my word for this pattern of behavior, ask people like Owen Linzmayer and Leander Kahney.
I didn't make the statement ad hominem; there's some history there.
I'm telling you, he wants to sunset the Mac when it has a bright history before it of indefinite length.
His incessant talk of the "Post PC Era" cannot simply be ignored if you are a loyal Mac user. Plus, it refers to ALL personal computers; the Mac is no exception. His only problem is impatience. Not advertising the Mac and raiding the Mac hardware engineering team and the (Mac) OS X software engineering team are steps to hasten the end of the Mac as a "blight" in his field of vision.
If your business philosophy is that it's "The Post PC Era," do you spend advertising dollars on a product whose time has passed? Do you invest more R&D dollars on hardware and software engineering of a product that's in its "post" era? Or do you loot the project of resources and talent and reallocate them to the current apple of your eye? At best, you keep the product on life support and afford it only minimal resources.
The obvious lack of motivation to ever-improve (Mac) OS X by making major changes to the technologies that underlie the User Interface is evidence that is hard to ignore. Did you read John Siracusa's review of Lion? He seemed to struggle in his attempts to cover innovative changes to the non-user-visible technicals.
Why HFS+ still? Why do I need to run DiskWarrior? Why do I need to regularly run Disk Utility to repair any one of my disks?
In the 7 years since Tiger, by what percentage did the Core APIs (e.g. Core Image) change in 7 years with Lion?
If a product becomes a "black sheep" (from the top management down), motivation to re-revolutionize (Mac) OS X as Apple has done with major milestone releases like Tiger and Leopard is weak at best. No will? No way.
If the Mac IS to fade as a product, let it happen organically, naturally. Let the marketplace and the consumer decide, don't proactively hasten its demise, disdainful of what loyal Apple customers want. Is that a request that's unreasonable?
I've been a loyal Apple customer since I got an Apple //e as a kid. I was a little late coming to the Mac, waiting for color and expansion slots. I think my first Mac was a Mac IIcx. Since, I can't count the number of Macs I've bought. I know I've spent close to 200,000 on Apple products. I have never owned a non-Apple computer. I am lost when a friend asks me to fix a software issue on a Windows PC -- I don't know how to use one.
Quote:
There will always be larger-than-mobile computers. And Apple will always be selling at least one of them.
You are 100% correct: Apple will sell one laptop with a separate screen and keyboard, the AirBook (not "Mac" anything) and it will run iOS. (BTW, Steve Jobs' hatred of buttons include the keys on your keyboard. Apple is researching a flat keyboard (like on the iPad screen) that gives haptic feedback to replace the satisfying tactile confirmation of pressing down on a key on a "full travel" keyboard (I insist on owning a Matias tactilepro -- now the tactilepro 2. I type faster on it (probably because I'm positive when I've pressed a key -- and it's just plain NICE!) )
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And why the frick would I voluntarily stop using the best browser out there? That's nonsense.
I have agreed with you for years and years and years, and Safari was the only browser I ever used. But I can no longer say that since some very recent releases of Chrome and Firefox -- and even Opera! I'd love to use Safari exclusively, and am not happy about my need to turn to any other browser. But if you spend enough time on the web, seconds add up to minutes, and minutes ad up to hours. I do admire Apple's leadership on HTML5 (for the benefit of iOS devices of course).
Quote:
Look, I respect your opinion. I just find your opinion completely wrong. You sound like the opposite of what I believe about the Mac, but you say it just how I'd say it. Gotta respect that.
And I respect yours. But -- this is not bravado -- I found not one person who agreed with me about what the "bag of hurt" alibi was to portend. And what I predicted in the post came to pass.
I found not one person who agreed with my prediction, the day Apple announced the "Get a Mac" television ad campaign had ended, that a new television ad campaign for the Mac would NOT follow -- and the predictions in that post came to pass. People guaranteed me a brand new Mac television ad campaign was forthcoming and would flood the airwaves forthwith. I must have missed them.
I don't shoot from the hip when I write in these posts. Behind what I say is a lot of thinking, analysis, close observation of history and some knowledge about how Steve Jobs operates.
Believe me: a multifaceted scheme is underway to undermine the Mac, make it a liability for Apple and justify its discontinuation to all concerned. The personal destruction and ouster of Gil Amelio is a handy allegory for what's in store for the future of the Mac.
I repeat what I believe to be true: Steve Jobs hates the Mac and wants it gone.
Analysts are not legally permitted to own or trade stock that they cover.
What are you trying to do here, ruin a perfectly good conspiracy theory? I mean, it's obvious that this guy was responsible for the $0.04 drop in AAPL today and he made a total killing by shorting the stock.
When Apple stopped advertising the Mac (in the way it does the iPhone and iPad, now), it took a little time for the Mac marketing message to wear off. (It was an attention-grabbing and hard-to-forget campaign and was cited about as an American cultural icon.)
Well, it's worn off and starting to be reflected in Mac sales -- exactly according to Steve Jobs' plan.
I think you are being a bit too negative. Both Apple and Microsoft are preparing for the post-PC era. Look at the early designs for Windows 8, and it looks just like a Windows Phone shell placed on top of Windows 7. Apple took a different approach with Lion, but the concept is the same (merging the tablet and desktop OS). Consider that the iPad is as powerful as the desktop PCs we used to use just about 10 years ago, and I think what you'll find is that the vast majority of us will be able to tap enough power from a single device in 10 years time. It's not that Steve Jobs "hates Macs," it's just that he sees the future in iOS. The key word here is future. Don't compare the iPad of today to your computing needs and declare that it can never work.
Regarding optical drives, how is this any different to the 1998 iMac? Lack of BluRay isn't much of a disadvantage since it hasn't gotten much traction. Jobs' disdain for optical is driven by iTunes. With the Cloud becoming more prevalent, we'll have less media stored on our devices, and thus less need for physical media (which degrades over time).
In the meantime, we'll still see a lot of decent Macs. Consider the significant upgrade the MacBook Air got. Intel has even defined a new class of PCs to copy it. The Mac Pro hasn't been upgraded since the suitable Sandy Bridge processors aren't out yet, and the top-end iMac is more than capable for most users in the meantime. Apple is definitely a consumer-oriented company, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac Pro is dropped eventually, but I don't think it will be in 2011.
I agree with you, he was being way too negative. At any stage of the history of the new Steve's Apple he made changes that were considered the death of something dearly loved only to be proved totally correct. I think he simply pops back from the future to be honest
The one thing I want rid of that's new (please tell me there is an off switch I missed) is Lion's auto correction. People can figure out what i meant even with a typo most times ... this new thing of totally new but incorrect words spelled correctly being substituted is orangutans blossom.
If AAPL takes a hit for this BS report, they need to haul up this Chowdhury dude for lying maliciously about the company.
Not going to happen. The guy posted his results and told how he got them. The rest is his interpretation - and is clearly labeled as such.
Stupidity is completely legal in the U.S.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ameldrum1
Analysts are not legally permitted to own or trade stock that they cover.
Not universally true. It depends on the analyst and their role. Some analysts (think talking heads) do own stocks. They are required to report their ownership of a company they talk about (and often simply refrain from talking about companies they own), but it's not illegal.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model.
You posted an enormous amount of drivel that all points to the same argument - that you think the Mac is dead. What a waste of readers' time. Are you truly incapable of forming a concise argument?
The argument that Apple is abandoning the Mac is insanely stupid. The Mac is a key part of Apple's strategy and there is absolutely no sign that it's dead. In fact, Apple continues to develop it. Will they take iOS features and migrate them to the Mac? Sure. Just as they'll do the opposite.
Now, that doesn't mean that it won't change. Is it possible that there won't be a new Mac Pro? Yes, just not very likely. Apple understands that they need to offer a range of products.
Besides, this is the same nonsense that we've been hearing for 20 years.
Apple still has a full performance low end notebook, in fact it has the best one you can buy for the money. It's just that instead of being made of plastic and costing roughly 800 it's made of aluminium and costs 1,000.
Your statement about "shoring up the sales of Airs," makes no sense at all. Macbook Airs practically fly off the shelves now. It's one of the most popular products they make and doesn't need any "shoring up" at all.
No, he's right. That $200 really, really matters. Not having a "real" notebook at the sub-$1000 price (less edu discounts) is going to hurt sales to students. There's no way around it. Some of them will buy airs instead, a few will cough up the extra cash for a pro, but some will look elsewhere.
How hard is it to understand that people were waiting for the new MacBook Air that everyone knew was coming..... Also everyone knew that Apple often throws in a little surprise like the updated Mac Mini at the same time....
No, he's right. That $200 really, really matters. Not having a "real" notebook at the sub-$1000 price (less edu discounts) is going to hurt sales to students. There's no way around it. Some of them will buy airs instead, a few will cough up the extra cash for a pro, but some will look elsewhere.
Since when is the MacBook Air not a 'real' notebook? It does everything a notebook would be expected to do.
It really bugs me the way people somehow start with "I want feature xyz" and immediately translate that to "unless a computer has feature xyz, it's not a REAL computer".
While more RAM would be nice and help to future-proof the system, it is a perfectly capable system for its target audience. For the average student taking notes, searching the web, sending email, etc, it's more than powerful enough (heck, my 3 year old MBP with 2.33 GHz Core2Duo is fine for all those things).
I have to laugh at the person who said that the SSD's limited storage makes it useless for a student who will have to keep 4 years worth of information on the computer. This logic is grossly flawed for several reasons:
1. Student work is tiny compared to the storage available. If you get the 256 GB (or even the 128 GB), it will have plenty of space unless you're studying videography (in which case you're not buying the Air, anyway). A reasonable sized Word document is a couple MB at most. Let's say you have to store 100 major reports - that's under a GB. Maybe one power point per semester? A couple more GB.
2. With Thunderbolt, transferring data to a storage drive is trivial-and fast. The student can take 5 minutes to copy their work to the backup drive at the end of the semester - and delete it from the MBA is storage space is that tight (hint: it won't be - see above).
3. A lot of students have both a desktop and laptop. The laptop is used solely for notes, etc. If so, there's no problem.
4. Even the low end MBA is vastly more powerful than a computer that's even a couple of years old - and people are still using them. I'm still using the 3 year old MBP mentioned above for all my day to day business work - and the computer is not limiting me in any way.
Of course, not everyone can get by with that. A few people need the power of an MBP (or even a Mac Pro), but they're not the target audience for the Air.
Comments
Must be why there are so many Macs and iPads being used to take notes in my classes...
Or another possibility, you hang out with stupid kids. Actually, the xbox comment makes that statement redundant.
Agreed. The dude who posted that kids just want to play games and blast music.... Um "they" want to do those things on the item that has the HIGHEST cool factor. And what company consistently receives research numbers in the stratosphere?????????????Apple. Nuff said. Kids here in Los Angeles would give away their parents, their right nut, their skateboards, surfboards, and more in order to get their hands on a iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and soon Apple TV. Apple products are at the TOP of kids "WANT" list.
The nit wit ANAL-yst cited in this story is way off base. He claims he contacted 4 University stores.. Which ones? BS, funny here is where he FAILS.
EVERY APPLE STORE in America now gives STUDENT discounts with VALID i.d.'s. Where are students shopping these days? Apple Stores. So by what measure can the analyst say with conviction that Mac sales fell off a cliff?? Epic Fail.
I will say that the Microsoft ads in the LA market are saturated and of course will gain PARENTS attention more but.... Kid tantrums usually prevail. One last important note - it's a CREDIT to Apple's power in the market that MICROSOFT is FORCED and DESPERATE to get customers focused on it's uncool platform by BRIBING them with a free xbox promotion
Well, it's worn off and starting to be reflected in Mac sales -- exactly according to Steve Jobs' plan.
He hates the Mac and wants it gone.
The day in 2009 that it was announced that Apple was killing the "Hi. I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" television ad campaign I participated in some Apple forums and suggested that we would not see another Mac television ad campaign to follow in its wake.
This ad campaign.
The Awards Committee said, "The 'Get a Mac' campaign personified each and the result was magic. A simple, charming metaphor with all the reasons to get a Mac. Market share grew by 42%, Apple had record sales and the campaign was culturally influential."
Back then, I was unmercifully flamed to death for predicting that there would be no Mac ad campaign to follow and was assured by other posters that Apple was just switching and retiring the television ad campaign and that a fresh one would follow in its wake.
'It was time that campaign was ended; it has exhausted every possible scenario and Apple has simply run out of ideas for new editions of those ads,' posters told me.
(I said at the time they weren't giving the most innovative company on the planet enough credit; that of all companies, Apple was not one to run out of new ideas and that there were limitless unique scenarios Apple could use to continue the very effective television ad campaign indefinitely -- limited, I should say, only by the imagination.)
Though they were in various forums, I would like to ask my "flamers," "How now brown cow?"
I hate to say "I hate to say I told you so," but...
If anyone has seen any recent television or print ads for the Mac that I missed, please let me know. (And, yes, I've seen the sparse Web banner ads.)
Sometimes (though rarely) Steve Jobs changes his mind or acquiesces (like he did with the name "iMac," which he did not like.)
More often, he is so intransigent in his positions that it would be easier to invent a time travel machine than to change his mind -- even using indisputable facts and clear evidence in your attempt. (Facts have no place in Steve's Reality Distortion Zone.)
Steve's long-term goal is to send the Mac out to pasture. However, he is smart enough to know that, as much as he'd like to, he cannot write his signature on a document that grinds Mac production to a halt this minute. (Again, as much as he'd like to.) Until then, we all owe him praise for his tolerance and patience.
He has contracts with other companies to consider; he must convince upper-echelon management (e.g. COO, Tim Cook; CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, et al). He has a board of directors to convince. He has large shareholders with proportionate voting rights to convince, he has the rest of Wall Street to convince, and last AND least, he has loyal Mac customers to convince.
After the switch to Intel processors, Apple continued to support PowerPC Mac users for approximately four years. After the switch to higher-powered Intel processors, Apple continued to support early Intel Mac owners for a period of approximately four years. I would expect that the phasing out of the Mac will occur over a similar time period -- unless Steve Jobs can accelerate it somehow.
Between now and then (and below the radar), Steve Jobs will take inconspicuous steps to gradually drain the life out of the Mac. He will leave no fingerprints behind, but will eventually have in hand the evidence necessary to convince his top management, the board of directors, large shareholders, small shareholders, "The Street" overall, ISVs, customers and channel partners that the Mac has had a good run, but it is in the best interest of this company to retire it.
As I predicted at the time it was said, the 2008 "bag of hurt" alibi had far greater implications than appeared on its face. (Of course I was flamed to death for identifying those implications.)
Jobs has shown amazing patience and tolerance since then, but is finally getting his wish. Soon all optical media and devices will not be supported on any Apple products. (But Blu-ray and backwards-compatible optical discs WILL on Windows PCs and laptops, perhaps putting the Mac at a serious competitive disadvantage -- but that may not be a bad thing, right, Steve?)
Wishful thinkers will dismiss that the "Mac" has been removed from OS X's name as inconsequential, and my suggestions that, instead, it is far more foreboding than it initially appears, will naturally go unheeded. (Grab the flamethrower!)
That, released in 2010, (Mac) OS X Lion is bereft of MAJOR changes in its underlying technology (as compared to Tiger (2004) and Leopard (2006)), and that the major changes were all user-visible GUI changes -- essentially performing a face transplant of iOS's interface over (what is still called) Aqua.
In the 7 years since Tiger introduced monumental software technology innovations to the underlying (non-user-visible) OS (e.g. Core APIs), and *5 years ago, Leopard topped Tiger with still more huge improvements to the underlying OS, added Core APIs, and doubled the power and functionality of the Core APIs introduced in Tiger, how monumental are the non-GUI changes to Lion, 7 years after Tiger? In the interstitial 7 years have the Core APIs seen spectacular improvements? Core Image (which made Adobe upset because it was like building Photoshop into the OS -- but who cares; Apple has shown an indifference to upsetting Adobe, who, BTW, is too lazy to improve Photoshop to take advantage of dual-chip, multi-core processor technology or Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL) has not seen milestone changes over the last 7 years. The same is true of other APIs.
Steve Jobs talked on stage about how touch doesn't translate to desktops or laptops because your choices are limited in how you can orient the machine, and one's arm gets tired after constantly lifting it up to touch the screen of a more desktop or laptop display.
But then he overlays iOS's GUI over OS X. (Has anyone else noticed the recent tidal wave of "How To" articles and Mac utilities designed to restore "The Mac As We've Known It" to Lion, and to go around the iOS infected features?")
This is an ingredient in the strategy: get Mac users acclimated to "The iOS way," and they'll forget all about using machines "The Mac Way."
This will lay the ground for when when the Mac finally vaporizes, and every Mac user will be like, "Meh," hardly noticing as they play Angry Birds 19. (BTW, if birds can fly, why the slingshot?)
The Mac will go out with a whimper, not a bang.
MAC OS X gave birth to iPhone OS/iOS, and now iOS is systematically swallowing MAC OS X. (Kind of like how Gilbert Amelio created Steve Jobs v. 2.0, and Jobs promptly swallowed Gilbert Amelio and "eliminated" him (ahem...as with food). Oh -- but Steve was never the least bit interested in becoming Apple CEO, anyway. He was dragged kicking and screaming into it and did so only with the most reluctance. This, despite what occurred only a year earlier.
That perfunctory "straw man" CEO search committee never got very far. Could it be because "interim" CEO Jobs had the final say and shot down each and every candidate put forth by the committee? (Refer to last link and "There's only*only one person...")
But what about the "Mac App Store?" you ask?
"What about the (Mac) OS X Lion promotion prominently displayed on Apple's website?"
All window dressing and alibis no different than "the bag of hurt" that, as I predicted, would translate to the elimination of optical media entirely on Apple products. With the MacBook Air and the Mac mini, the process is underway.
Remember, the plan is to drain the life out of the Mac below the radar and leave no fingerprints.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model. I hope I am wrong on this one. For decades, I have bought the top-of-the-line model of every newly released tower Mac model Apple has put out. But I've stopped holding my breath for a 16-core model.
Even as skillful as Apple has been lately at printing leaks, I've read too many times -- often from key members of the (Mac) OS X team -- that there has been a "brain drain" of talent from the (Mac) OS X software engineering team who were reappointed to work on iOS. Very key talent was raided and not replaced. All part of the plan.
The plan with Lion is less about the Mac and more about iOS.
There was an outcry when the earliest versions of (Mac) OS X decidedly lacked "Mac-ness." Before violence erupted, Apple restored some of the Mac HUI elements to OS X that made a Mac a Mac.
Oh, Steve Jobs DOES respond to loyal customer demand once a decade or so. When the din is so loud that he feels vulnerable to hearing loss, Jobs relents to the demands of his "loyal subjects," like he (only VERY eventually) did with the Bondi iMac's round "hockey puck" mouse.
So even if none of what I've written is true, but the Mac's sales are declining, posing an existential threat, is there nothing we can do?
Well, if you're on the fence, you could make a decision and buy a new Mac (preferably one with an optical drive). You could patronize the Mac App Store. You could be an unofficial salesman and convince people you know who are in the market for a computer to buy a Mac. (Mentioning, as Apple does NOT, that Macs run the latest version of Windows, but Windows machines do not run the Mac's operating system, so they're getting the "best" of both worlds (not really). Don't worry, everyone I know who has used Windows on their Macs via Boot Camp, Parallels or Fusion, briefly uses Windows, but find they much prefer the Mac environment.)
You could contact everyone you can think of at Apple expressing your concern for the Mac's future and your desire to see them to continue investing in the Mac and (Mac) OS X and your intent to continue buying Macs well into the future. (And stop the internal "brain drain already! I accept recently departed (Mac) OS X's lead engineer, Bertrand Serlet's dignified, amicable "official, on-the-record" statement for why he was leaving Apple, but I can't help but wonder if there's more to the story.
You could protest.*Put a link to google.com on your bookmarks bar, and stop using Safari's upper-right corner search field.
Stop using Safari and use instead Firefox, Chrome or Opera.
Never click on a web ad with "iAd" in the lower right corner.
I've never owned a Windows machine and hope never to have to. But if Steve Jobs expects that Pro users will eventually be using iOS devices to run Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite 5, or Final Cut (whatever), or AutoCAD or Maya or Shade 12 or Logic Studio or Cinema 4D or KeyShot or Blender or Pixar's Tractor or ZBrush or LightWave 10 or Avid Media Composer on anything but a screaming fast, dual-processor, multi-core, 64-bit (probably 128-bit by the time ARM gets to 64-bit), Hyperthreading, Grand Central Dispatch optimized, expandable Tower Mac with 48GB RAM, 6TB internal storage*and far more external storage, an internal Blu-ray burner (or HVD burner) on multiple 30" or bigger displays with the widest gamut color possible with 13 or 18-bit CLUTs, and a GPU card running at petaflops/s and taking full advantage of OpenCL, he IS one of "the crazy ones."
I own iPods and three iOS devices including an iPad 2 AND LOVE them all! They do what they do GREAT!
But the Mac does different things from iOS devices and it does those GREAT!
I need both. I should think Apple would approve of the idea of a person needing (and buying) iOS devices AND Macs (in my case, $12,000+ Macs).
As described in The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protest or airing grievances may be the most loyal and caring things you can do.
Taking issue with Apple or Steve Jobs is not disloyalty. Au contraire, it may be the most loyal, caring thing you can do.
Blind faith, always agreeing, sitting ildey by and doing nothing, sometimes proves to be disloyal.
P.S. For the record, I LOVE Apple I love my iPod, my iOS devices (especially my iPad 2) and I LOVE my Mac -- and I worship and love the genius, Steve Jobs.......and hate him. It's a love/hate thing.
FLAMERS: START YOUR FLAMETHROWERS!
He hates the Mac and wants it gone.
You can't say this and use quotes from before the iMac existed to back it up. That was a completely different Steve.
There will always be larger-than-mobile computers. And Apple will always be selling at least one of them.
Stop using Safari and use instead Firefox, Chrome or Opera.
And why the frick would I voluntarily stop using the best browser out there? That's nonsense.
as Apple does NOT
Ninth square. First question. Fourth square. Second movie.
Look, I respect your opinion. I just find your opinion completely wrong. You sound like the opposite of what I believe about the Mac, but you say it just how I'd say it. Gotta respect that.
P.S. For the record, I LOVE Apple I love my iPod, my iOS devices (especially my iPad 2) and I LOVE my Mac -- and I worship and love the genius, Steve Jobs.......and hate him. It's a love/hate thing.
[B]FLAMERS: START YOUR FLAMETHROWERS!doomed.
Is this a certain Pixar person?
Our university bookstore is slow because THERE ARE NO STUDENTS ON CAMPUS.
College starts in 2 weeks.
This analyst is a moron.
Oh, yeah? Well I can confirm that I walked by my local Apple Store at 3:00 am Sunday morning and there was NOT A SINGLE PERSON IN THE STORE.
Apple is doomed.
If AAPL takes a hit for this BS report, they need to haul up this Chowdhury dude for lying maliciously about the company.
He hates the Mac and wants it gone....
But then he overlays iOS's GUI over OS X. (Has anyone else noticed the recent tidal wave of "How To" articles and Mac utilities designed to restore "The Mac As We've Known It" to Lion, and to go around the iOS infected features?")
This is an ingredient in the strategy: get Mac users acclimated to "The iOS way," and they'll forget all about using machines "The Mac Way."
This will lay the ground for when when the Mac finally vaporizes, and every Mac user will be like, "Meh," hardly noticing as they play Angry Birds 19. (BTW, if birds can fly, why the slingshot?)
The Mac will go out with a whimper, not a bang.
MAC OS X gave birth to iPhone OS/iOS, and now iOS is systematically swallowing MAC OS X. (Kind of like how Gilbert Amelio created Steve Jobs v. 2.0, and Jobs promptly swallowed Gilbert Amelio and "eliminated" him (ahem...as with food). Oh -- but Steve was never the least bit interested in becoming Apple CEO, anyway. He was dragged kicking and screaming into it and did so only with the most reluctance. This, despite what occurred only a year earlier.
That perfunctory "straw man" CEO search committee never got very far. Could it be because "interim" CEO Jobs had the final say and shot down each and every candidate put forth by the committee? (Refer to last link and "There's only*only one person...")
But what about the "Mac App Store?" you ask?
"What about the (Mac) OS X Lion promotion prominently displayed on Apple's website?"
All window dressing and alibis no different than "the bag of hurt" that, as I predicted, would translate to the elimination of optical media entirely on Apple products. With the MacBook Air and the Mac mini, the process is underway.
Remember, the plan is to drain the life out of the Mac below the radar and leave no fingerprints.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model. I hope I am wrong on this one. For decades, I have bought the top-of-the-line model of every newly released tower Mac model Apple has put out. But I've stopped holding my breath for a 16-core model.
I've never owned a Windows machine and hope never to have to. But if Steve Jobs expects that Pro users will eventually be using iOS devices to run Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite 5, or Final Cut (whatever), or AutoCAD or Maya or Shade 12 or Logic Studio or Cinema 4D or KeyShot or Blender or Pixar's Tractor or ZBrush or LightWave 10 or Avid Media Composer on anything but a screaming fast, dual-processor, multi-core, 64-bit (probably 128-bit by the time ARM gets to 64-bit), Hyperthreading, Grand Central Dispatch optimized, expandable Tower Mac with 48GB RAM, 6TB internal storage*and far more external storage, an internal Blu-ray burner (or HVD burner) on multiple 30" or bigger displays with the widest gamut color possible with 13 or 18-bit CLUTs, and a GPU card running at petaflops/s and taking full advantage of OpenCL, he IS one of "the crazy ones."
But the Mac does different things from iOS devices and it does those GREAT!
I need both. I should think Apple would approve of the idea of a person needing (and buying) iOS devices AND Macs (in my case, $12,000+ Macs).
Blind faith, always agreeing, sitting ildey by and doing nothing, sometimes proves to be disloyal.
I think you are being a bit too negative. Both Apple and Microsoft are preparing for the post-PC era. Look at the early designs for Windows 8, and it looks just like a Windows Phone shell placed on top of Windows 7. Apple took a different approach with Lion, but the concept is the same (merging the tablet and desktop OS). Consider that the iPad is as powerful as the desktop PCs we used to use just about 10 years ago, and I think what you'll find is that the vast majority of us will be able to tap enough power from a single device in 10 years time. It's not that Steve Jobs "hates Macs," it's just that he sees the future in iOS. The key word here is future. Don't compare the iPad of today to your computing needs and declare that it can never work.
Regarding optical drives, how is this any different to the 1998 iMac? Lack of BluRay isn't much of a disadvantage since it hasn't gotten much traction. Jobs' disdain for optical is driven by iTunes. With the Cloud becoming more prevalent, we'll have less media stored on our devices, and thus less need for physical media (which degrades over time).
In the meantime, we'll still see a lot of decent Macs. Consider the significant upgrade the MacBook Air got. Intel has even defined a new class of PCs to copy it. The Mac Pro hasn't been upgraded since the suitable Sandy Bridge processors aren't out yet, and the top-end iMac is more than capable for most users in the meantime. Apple is definitely a consumer-oriented company, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac Pro is dropped eventually, but I don't think it will be in 2011.
indicated that this year's back-to-school promotion, offering a $100 App Store gift card, is not adequate. He said most parents would rather receive $100 cash back on education pricing.
"This same analyst, however, did not bother researching the educational promotion, which saves you a minimum of $100 on a MacBook Pro, and $66 on AppleCare in addition to the meager $100 gift card."
Yep
We'll see when the quarter numbers come out how well sales were
This.
I'm no investor, but I've heard it said quite a few times that Apple stock is one of the easiest to manipulate.
Yep. Start a rumor that Steve Jobs died. Thanks to all the folks that still think that Jobs is the only brain at Apple, the stock price will go down to pennies. You buy a bunch of shares. Wait for word to get out that Jobs is not dead and within 48 hours the price is back up. You just made a pile of money
Although it does that all-year round. Ostensibly, the back-to school promotions are intended to strengthen sales in what would otherwise be a less profitable quarter.
the BTS gives sites like AI an excuse to get page hits and remind folks that Apple does a student discount, at no cost to Apple. That's half the reason they do it.
If the promotion is not as valuable to the consumer compared to previous years, it could very well lead to a relatively worse quarter than last year.
In the age of 12 year olds with iphones, the ipod deal isn't really as awesome as it was. Free software etc is something.
Shaw Wu is another analyst who seems to get things wrong quite a bit,
I have a friend that actually uses the phrase 'you totally Shaw Wu'd that one'
The first problem I have with this is that most Mac Back To Scools sales happen well before August. Depending upon the school some students are probably already back to school or in a mad rush to get ready. The whole point with the early summer start of these sales programs is to capture customers before their minds turn to otherthings.
They also do it as one last buy for the college grads. Try to get them to spend their gift money on a new computer rather than clothes or whatever
One is the assumption that people are happy with the non discount.
What about the assumption that they aren't happy. Remember that there are few discounts by Apple. If anything, parents are unhappy that only the college kids get the discount cause their precious middle school kids are expected to have laptops
The second issue is that the dropping of the Mac Book and pushing of the AIRs is extremely stupid.
1. The new Airs are way more powerful than before.
2. They likely have sales numbers that show that the Airs and the Pro were selling great. The Macbook, little to nada. Why waste resources on something that is not selling.
Thus would seems stupid to you could be a well researched and thought out very smart business decision
In the end many customers will walk away from Apple and the AIRs simply because they have to think about the machines suitability for their needs.
Or they will buy what is there that suits their needs and not really think twice about the notion that there should be a slightly cheaper slightly lesser notebook in the mix
People will look at the AIR and see that it comes up short in a number of ways.
And grab a Macbook Pro. Done.
If sales are actually slowing perhaps it can be attributed to the 'yellow screen problem that some of the 21 & 27 inch IMacs are having.
In any case this can't beva plus for Apple and needs to be fixed
yeah that was a 'problem' like a year ago that was talked about a lot but turned out to be only in like 1% of units that were custom config'd and maybe 1/10% of store units. For a period of 2 months. And then it was fixed and now it happens perhaps 0.0001% of the time.
You can't say this and use quotes from before the iMac existed to back it up. That was a completely different Steve.
I like your endearing optimism. It isn't just I who have noticed sometimes stark (positive) changes in Steve 2.0, but at the same time, some of his habits and behaviors have not changed. Steve 2.0 is not a "completely different" person.
Read the books. He has a history of treating an Apple product as his favorite child, the apple of his eye (pun not initially intended), only to suddenly turn on it and get out "The long knives." This pattern of behavior has occurred repeatedly.
Don't take my word for this pattern of behavior, ask people like Owen Linzmayer and Leander Kahney.
I didn't make the statement ad hominem; there's some history there.
I'm telling you, he wants to sunset the Mac when it has a bright history before it of indefinite length.
His incessant talk of the "Post PC Era" cannot simply be ignored if you are a loyal Mac user. Plus, it refers to ALL personal computers; the Mac is no exception. His only problem is impatience. Not advertising the Mac and raiding the Mac hardware engineering team and the (Mac) OS X software engineering team are steps to hasten the end of the Mac as a "blight" in his field of vision.
If your business philosophy is that it's "The Post PC Era," do you spend advertising dollars on a product whose time has passed? Do you invest more R&D dollars on hardware and software engineering of a product that's in its "post" era? Or do you loot the project of resources and talent and reallocate them to the current apple of your eye? At best, you keep the product on life support and afford it only minimal resources.
The obvious lack of motivation to ever-improve (Mac) OS X by making major changes to the technologies that underlie the User Interface is evidence that is hard to ignore. Did you read John Siracusa's review of Lion? He seemed to struggle in his attempts to cover innovative changes to the non-user-visible technicals.
Why HFS+ still? Why do I need to run DiskWarrior? Why do I need to regularly run Disk Utility to repair any one of my disks?
In the 7 years since Tiger, by what percentage did the Core APIs (e.g. Core Image) change in 7 years with Lion?
If a product becomes a "black sheep" (from the top management down), motivation to re-revolutionize (Mac) OS X as Apple has done with major milestone releases like Tiger and Leopard is weak at best. No will? No way.
If the Mac IS to fade as a product, let it happen organically, naturally. Let the marketplace and the consumer decide, don't proactively hasten its demise, disdainful of what loyal Apple customers want. Is that a request that's unreasonable?
I've been a loyal Apple customer since I got an Apple //e as a kid. I was a little late coming to the Mac, waiting for color and expansion slots. I think my first Mac was a Mac IIcx. Since, I can't count the number of Macs I've bought. I know I've spent close to 200,000 on Apple products. I have never owned a non-Apple computer. I am lost when a friend asks me to fix a software issue on a Windows PC -- I don't know how to use one.
There will always be larger-than-mobile computers. And Apple will always be selling at least one of them.
You are 100% correct: Apple will sell one laptop with a separate screen and keyboard, the AirBook (not "Mac" anything) and it will run iOS. (BTW, Steve Jobs' hatred of buttons include the keys on your keyboard. Apple is researching a flat keyboard (like on the iPad screen) that gives haptic feedback to replace the satisfying tactile confirmation of pressing down on a key on a "full travel" keyboard (I insist on owning a Matias tactilepro -- now the tactilepro 2. I type faster on it (probably because I'm positive when I've pressed a key -- and it's just plain NICE!) )
And why the frick would I voluntarily stop using the best browser out there? That's nonsense.
I have agreed with you for years and years and years, and Safari was the only browser I ever used. But I can no longer say that since some very recent releases of Chrome and Firefox -- and even Opera! I'd love to use Safari exclusively, and am not happy about my need to turn to any other browser. But if you spend enough time on the web, seconds add up to minutes, and minutes ad up to hours. I do admire Apple's leadership on HTML5 (for the benefit of iOS devices of course).
Look, I respect your opinion. I just find your opinion completely wrong. You sound like the opposite of what I believe about the Mac, but you say it just how I'd say it. Gotta respect that.
And I respect yours. But -- this is not bravado -- I found not one person who agreed with me about what the "bag of hurt" alibi was to portend. And what I predicted in the post came to pass.
I found not one person who agreed with my prediction, the day Apple announced the "Get a Mac" television ad campaign had ended, that a new television ad campaign for the Mac would NOT follow -- and the predictions in that post came to pass. People guaranteed me a brand new Mac television ad campaign was forthcoming and would flood the airwaves forthwith. I must have missed them.
I don't shoot from the hip when I write in these posts. Behind what I say is a lot of thinking, analysis, close observation of history and some knowledge about how Steve Jobs operates.
Believe me: a multifaceted scheme is underway to undermine the Mac, make it a liability for Apple and justify its discontinuation to all concerned. The personal destruction and ouster of Gil Amelio is a handy allegory for what's in store for the future of the Mac.
I repeat what I believe to be true: Steve Jobs hates the Mac and wants it gone.
Analysts are not legally permitted to own or trade stock that they cover.
What are you trying to do here, ruin a perfectly good conspiracy theory? I mean, it's obvious that this guy was responsible for the $0.04 drop in AAPL today and he made a total killing by shorting the stock.
Chowdhry said that Mac sales at the University of Katmandu were particularly disappointing...
... though, a contributing factor may be that the U of K doesn't sell Macs...
Dick, the first rule of the U of K is that you do not talk about the U of K. The second rule of the U of K is that YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT the U of K.
When Apple stopped advertising the Mac (in the way it does the iPhone and iPad, now), it took a little time for the Mac marketing message to wear off. (It was an attention-grabbing and hard-to-forget campaign and was cited about as an American cultural icon.)
Well, it's worn off and starting to be reflected in Mac sales -- exactly according to Steve Jobs' plan.
He hates the Mac and wants it gone....
Man, that post when on for Infinity and Beyond!
I think you are being a bit too negative. Both Apple and Microsoft are preparing for the post-PC era. Look at the early designs for Windows 8, and it looks just like a Windows Phone shell placed on top of Windows 7. Apple took a different approach with Lion, but the concept is the same (merging the tablet and desktop OS). Consider that the iPad is as powerful as the desktop PCs we used to use just about 10 years ago, and I think what you'll find is that the vast majority of us will be able to tap enough power from a single device in 10 years time. It's not that Steve Jobs "hates Macs," it's just that he sees the future in iOS. The key word here is future. Don't compare the iPad of today to your computing needs and declare that it can never work.
Regarding optical drives, how is this any different to the 1998 iMac? Lack of BluRay isn't much of a disadvantage since it hasn't gotten much traction. Jobs' disdain for optical is driven by iTunes. With the Cloud becoming more prevalent, we'll have less media stored on our devices, and thus less need for physical media (which degrades over time).
In the meantime, we'll still see a lot of decent Macs. Consider the significant upgrade the MacBook Air got. Intel has even defined a new class of PCs to copy it. The Mac Pro hasn't been upgraded since the suitable Sandy Bridge processors aren't out yet, and the top-end iMac is more than capable for most users in the meantime. Apple is definitely a consumer-oriented company, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac Pro is dropped eventually, but I don't think it will be in 2011.
I agree with you, he was being way too negative. At any stage of the history of the new Steve's Apple he made changes that were considered the death of something dearly loved only to be proved totally correct. I think he simply pops back from the future to be honest
The one thing I want rid of that's new (please tell me there is an off switch I missed) is Lion's auto correction. People can figure out what i meant even with a typo most times ... this new thing of totally new but incorrect words spelled correctly being substituted is orangutans blossom.
Man, that post when on for Infinity and Beyond!
Lasiter or Newman maybe?
Libel.
If AAPL takes a hit for this BS report, they need to haul up this Chowdhury dude for lying maliciously about the company.
Not going to happen. The guy posted his results and told how he got them. The rest is his interpretation - and is clearly labeled as such.
Stupidity is completely legal in the U.S.
Analysts are not legally permitted to own or trade stock that they cover.
Not universally true. It depends on the analyst and their role. Some analysts (think talking heads) do own stocks. They are required to report their ownership of a company they talk about (and often simply refrain from talking about companies they own), but it's not illegal.
And to the question "Where is a new Mac Pro model?" I'm not sure there WILL be a new Mac Pro model.
You posted an enormous amount of drivel that all points to the same argument - that you think the Mac is dead. What a waste of readers' time. Are you truly incapable of forming a concise argument?
The argument that Apple is abandoning the Mac is insanely stupid. The Mac is a key part of Apple's strategy and there is absolutely no sign that it's dead. In fact, Apple continues to develop it. Will they take iOS features and migrate them to the Mac? Sure. Just as they'll do the opposite.
Now, that doesn't mean that it won't change. Is it possible that there won't be a new Mac Pro? Yes, just not very likely. Apple understands that they need to offer a range of products.
Besides, this is the same nonsense that we've been hearing for 20 years.
I disagree.
Apple still has a full performance low end notebook, in fact it has the best one you can buy for the money. It's just that instead of being made of plastic and costing roughly 800 it's made of aluminium and costs 1,000.
Your statement about "shoring up the sales of Airs," makes no sense at all. Macbook Airs practically fly off the shelves now. It's one of the most popular products they make and doesn't need any "shoring up" at all.
No, he's right. That $200 really, really matters. Not having a "real" notebook at the sub-$1000 price (less edu discounts) is going to hurt sales to students. There's no way around it. Some of them will buy airs instead, a few will cough up the extra cash for a pro, but some will look elsewhere.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/af5db...#axzz1VOHupiYC
The world is a lot bigger place than just the US.
No, he's right. That $200 really, really matters. Not having a "real" notebook at the sub-$1000 price (less edu discounts) is going to hurt sales to students. There's no way around it. Some of them will buy airs instead, a few will cough up the extra cash for a pro, but some will look elsewhere.
Since when is the MacBook Air not a 'real' notebook? It does everything a notebook would be expected to do.
It really bugs me the way people somehow start with "I want feature xyz" and immediately translate that to "unless a computer has feature xyz, it's not a REAL computer".
While more RAM would be nice and help to future-proof the system, it is a perfectly capable system for its target audience. For the average student taking notes, searching the web, sending email, etc, it's more than powerful enough (heck, my 3 year old MBP with 2.33 GHz Core2Duo is fine for all those things).
I have to laugh at the person who said that the SSD's limited storage makes it useless for a student who will have to keep 4 years worth of information on the computer. This logic is grossly flawed for several reasons:
1. Student work is tiny compared to the storage available. If you get the 256 GB (or even the 128 GB), it will have plenty of space unless you're studying videography (in which case you're not buying the Air, anyway). A reasonable sized Word document is a couple MB at most. Let's say you have to store 100 major reports - that's under a GB. Maybe one power point per semester? A couple more GB.
2. With Thunderbolt, transferring data to a storage drive is trivial-and fast. The student can take 5 minutes to copy their work to the backup drive at the end of the semester - and delete it from the MBA is storage space is that tight (hint: it won't be - see above).
3. A lot of students have both a desktop and laptop. The laptop is used solely for notes, etc. If so, there's no problem.
4. Even the low end MBA is vastly more powerful than a computer that's even a couple of years old - and people are still using them. I'm still using the 3 year old MBP mentioned above for all my day to day business work - and the computer is not limiting me in any way.
Of course, not everyone can get by with that. A few people need the power of an MBP (or even a Mac Pro), but they're not the target audience for the Air.