Apple Recent Events: Mistake Central
First, let me say that this really isn't supposed to be a rant. I love my Mac, and I doubt I'll ever go back to M$. However, recent events at Apple really trouble me. I understand Apple is a business, and that the reason businesses exist is to make money. But, having said that, let us look at some of their decisions lately:
1) $100 price increase. Understandable, but Apple is widely known to have the highest margins in the industry. Bad PR move, Apple. Fine, you rescinded it yesterday.....fair enough.
2) Insider Trading. Four executives sell off millions of dollars worth of stock just weeks before a quarterly warning. The stock goes from $23 to $15 in 30 days.
3) iTools and .Mac. At least let us keep the email address. Granted, they never promised it would remain free. Granted it costs money to operate iTools and overall it is a great service. But, here is thing, Apple: YOU SOLD MACS BASED ON THE AVAILABILITY OF FREE ITOOLS (SO DID YOUR DISTRIBUTORS). IT WAS A MAJOR ADVANTAGE TO OWNING A MAC, WHICH IS NOW GONE. Your customers talked up the platform, defending the processor and bus speeds, as well as the price, with superb styling and great included software (including iTools). You even built the iDisk into the operating system. This is really a stab in the back, as far as I'm concerned.
4) Jaguar Pricing. This is also outrageous. Those that paid $129 have to pay it again to get an OS that finally runs close to as fast as OS 9 (even on hardware that is less than one year old). **** that.
5) Quicktime 6. Of course, Apple will be pushing MPEG 4. Of course, we will need QT 6 to view it. And those who are like me, that paid $30 to get QT 5 so that I could save movies, will have to pay it again, then pony up another $20 for standard MPEG 2 content. **** that too.
Let me do the math here.....
$129 for Jaguar
$ 59 for .Mac (one 49.95 license plus $10 email only account)
$ 30 for QT 6 Pro
$ 20 for above MPEG 2 playback
Hmmm....sounds like $238 to me. I can't afford it, how about you?
I think these decisions, combined with Apple's already small market share and high prices really present a huge problem. I won't buy .Mac. I might consider Jaguar, perhaps. But, FULL PRICE for someone that already bought the full license? Come on! I also won't pay another $30 for QT 6. I paid once, and that's enough.
I have always been bullish on the Mac, but now I wonder. I really think Apple may screw itself after all. I think the problem is Apple's arrogance (particularly Jobs). You can't pull shit like this with a 3.5% global marketshare.
WORST MACWORLD EVER.
1) $100 price increase. Understandable, but Apple is widely known to have the highest margins in the industry. Bad PR move, Apple. Fine, you rescinded it yesterday.....fair enough.
2) Insider Trading. Four executives sell off millions of dollars worth of stock just weeks before a quarterly warning. The stock goes from $23 to $15 in 30 days.
3) iTools and .Mac. At least let us keep the email address. Granted, they never promised it would remain free. Granted it costs money to operate iTools and overall it is a great service. But, here is thing, Apple: YOU SOLD MACS BASED ON THE AVAILABILITY OF FREE ITOOLS (SO DID YOUR DISTRIBUTORS). IT WAS A MAJOR ADVANTAGE TO OWNING A MAC, WHICH IS NOW GONE. Your customers talked up the platform, defending the processor and bus speeds, as well as the price, with superb styling and great included software (including iTools). You even built the iDisk into the operating system. This is really a stab in the back, as far as I'm concerned.
4) Jaguar Pricing. This is also outrageous. Those that paid $129 have to pay it again to get an OS that finally runs close to as fast as OS 9 (even on hardware that is less than one year old). **** that.
5) Quicktime 6. Of course, Apple will be pushing MPEG 4. Of course, we will need QT 6 to view it. And those who are like me, that paid $30 to get QT 5 so that I could save movies, will have to pay it again, then pony up another $20 for standard MPEG 2 content. **** that too.
Let me do the math here.....
$129 for Jaguar
$ 59 for .Mac (one 49.95 license plus $10 email only account)
$ 30 for QT 6 Pro
$ 20 for above MPEG 2 playback
Hmmm....sounds like $238 to me. I can't afford it, how about you?
I think these decisions, combined with Apple's already small market share and high prices really present a huge problem. I won't buy .Mac. I might consider Jaguar, perhaps. But, FULL PRICE for someone that already bought the full license? Come on! I also won't pay another $30 for QT 6. I paid once, and that's enough.
I have always been bullish on the Mac, but now I wonder. I really think Apple may screw itself after all. I think the problem is Apple's arrogance (particularly Jobs). You can't pull shit like this with a 3.5% global marketshare.
WORST MACWORLD EVER.
Comments
Think of it this way: Apple is running a rebate on certain models with a particular SKU; at the time, however, all the models that are out have the rebate. They then release new models (say new PM's). Would you complain that they bait-and-switched you? No. What about if they chose to end the promotion early? That's the way it's done. I know that it sucks to have this stuff pulled out from under us, but iTools went out of business because it was losing money.
As for email-only .mac access: <a href="http://help.apple.com/mac/1/help/mail/pgs/mac43.htm"; target="_blank">http://help.apple.com/mac/1/help/mail/pgs/mac43.htm</a>; . I'm checking to see what it means.
<hr></blockquote>
Yes you can. It's about offering a Servive to someone. Computer users will naturally want things as cheaply as possible but in todays market there's simply not enough margin to allow free Webmail access for users. Yahoo, Hotmail and even individual sites are all going to a paid system. That $200 is alot but you haven't had to purchase a Mp3 app or a photo app, you can burn DVD's for free if you have a Superdrive. I think Apple has done an excellent job of turning OSX into a World Class OS and i'm not going to fret over what amounts to be a small charge per month.
Value is a subjective thing but I thing Apples .Mac service should be funded and ehanced.
If someone decides not to puchase a Mac because of it..sobeit it's not like Microsoft isn't going to do the same damn thing..except you'll get less.
<strong>1) $100 price increase. Understandable, but Apple is widely known to have the highest margins in the industry. Bad PR move, Apple. Fine, you rescinded it yesterday.....fair enough. </strong><hr></blockquote>I agree. Horrible move. They either should have known in advance or just sucked it up for the time being. Guess when sales of the new iMac plummeted? Right after the increase. People felt they were getting ripped off. If it had started at that price, I bet that sales drop-off wouldn't have happened.
And they didn't rescind it - they lowered the price just on one model. [quote]2) Insider Trading. Four executives sell off millions of dollars worth of stock just weeks before a quarterly warning. The stock goes from $23 to $15 in 30 days. <hr></blockquote>I don't know what to make of it. They've been selling off for many months, before indications were that the iMac wasn't doing as well as they hoped. I doubt there's anything there. [quote]3) iTools and .Mac. At least let us keep the email address. Granted, they never promised it would remain free. Granted it costs money to operate iTools and overall it is a great service. But, here is thing, Apple: YOU SOLD MACS BASED ON THE AVAILABILITY OF FREE ITOOLS (SO DID YOUR DISTRIBUTORS). IT WAS A MAJOR ADVANTAGE TO OWNING A MAC, WHICH IS NOW GONE. <hr></blockquote>I agree. They should have thrown the old iTools users a better bone than half-off the first year, like the free e-mail account. We'll see if that's true - I don't think so, or he would have mentioned it in the keynote.
Apple used the analogy to the "new economy" dot-bombs, but that analogy doesn't hold. The dot-bomb's entire business model was based on vapor. Apple's business is selling hardware, and iTools was a value-added service to make buying the hardware more attractive, like an extended warranty or free DVD drive.
At this point, I'm not buying. And I'm really waiting to see how they treat this - will they cripple their products so that people are steered into signing up? I expect they will. [quote]4) Jaguar Pricing. This is also outrageous. Those that paid $129 have to pay it again to get an OS that finally runs close to as fast as OS 9 (even on hardware that is less than one year old). **** that. <hr></blockquote>This doesn't bother me as much. It will have been 18 months since the initial release, 10.1 was free (or very cheap), and there are a lot of improvements in 10.2. [quote]5) Quicktime 6. Of course, Apple will be pushing MPEG 4. Of course, we will need QT 6 to view it. And those who are like me, that paid $30 to get QT 5 so that I could save movies, will have to pay it again, then pony up another $20 for standard MPEG 2 content. **** that too. <hr></blockquote>I'm concerned about QT 6, because of all the licensing fees from this MPEG LA, which I'm guessing are at least partially behind the extra charges.
Because of the licensing, I really doubt that it'll be widely adopted. Are any of the big content providers really going to pay $1 million a year to switch? Are smaller services going to want to send in audits to this group? I doubt it. They'll just stick with what they're using now - Real and/or Windows Media.
<strong>I'm over it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm over it too.
<strong>
I'm over it too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Me too. Get a grip. Get a job. Spend the money for the services you need. If Apple's new service doesn't appeal to you anymore then find another!
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Mac+Hosting"; target="_blank">Start here...</a> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
"I WANT EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING!"
<strong>Add to that the focus of MacWorld. Everyone is saying that they are focusing on the Switch campaign. This should be pulled out for Comdex, not MacWorld. MacWorld should be to take advantage of the Mac press for as much coverage of MacCentric hardware and software releases as possible. I do understand that Apple is trying to get away from making all of their hardware releases at MacWorlds, but if New York was an indication of the future then Apple is not taking advantage of the stage that the event gives them. They NEED at least one BIG anouncement at every MacWorld, this is after all their event, and without it the press, and consumers will concentrate more on the disapointment than satisfaction.</strong><hr></blockquote>
YES. YOU'RE RIGHT !
<strong>AI's new theme:
"I WANT EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING!"</strong><hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Doesn't everybody, though? I think AIers are just more vocal in bitching about it.
I really think Steve Jobs should retract that statement or clarify it. I myself was in the market for a new Powermac and after hearing this, have decided not to spend ~$3000.00 on a new powermac if its going to be rendered obsolete by Apple moving to Intel.
1) .Mac
2) QT 6
3) Insider Trading
4) Jaguar Pricing
5) Banning of rumor press
6) iMac price increase/decrease fiasco
2) QT 6
3) Insider Trading
4) Jaguar Pricing
5) Banning of rumor press
6) iMac price increase/decrease fiasco <hr></blockquote>
MPEG 4 is just another Codec. Quicktime is fine and extensible so it's fortunes are not tied to one codec.
Insider trading sucks as does the lack of confidence shown by Apple bigwigs.
. Jaguar Pricing is a little harsh to me as well I'd like to see a $60-70 upgrade for users of recent versions or offer .mac for free.
This is typical Apple. I'm not really suprised. SJ is a control freak.
Price increases happened in other companies to so I know Apple as being malicious here.
Apple needs to wrap up some of this controversy. Offer free .mac for a year with the purchase of Jaguar. Freeze new free email accounts and ship new Hardware.
<strong>I think Steve Jobs made a BIG mistake when he answered the question about OS X going on Intel. Seems to me that developers are going to question whether they should be writing new apps for PPC OS X. I also think that poteintial new buyers may now have enought of a reason not buy so that they don't end up with obsolete hardware.
I really think Steve Jobs should retract that statement or clarify it. I myself was in the market for a new Powermac and after hearing this, have decided not to spend ~$3000.00 on a new powermac if its going to be rendered obsolete by Apple moving to Intel.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As I understand the original goal of multi-platform OS from back in the Rapsody days, this should effect developers very little. If they are writing code in Carbon or Cocoa all they need to do is recompile the same code base for the new platform. The only thing Apple would loose with this move would be the Legacy Clasic applications.
Most of the neccessary programs for Mac customers have been updated to Carbon, and a few moved to Cocoa, so when the straggelers like Quark are updated then there is very little holding Apple from a move like this, and it would greatly improve their options.
This could be a very deliberate statement from Jobs. Power PC development is behind the Intel and AMD processors. Motorolla has made some good advances in the G4 line, but a year of stagnation has really hurt Apple. I have heard little from IBM that could replace the consumer level processor. Steve could be lighting a fire under Moto's and IBM's feet with this statement. I dont think that it is a move that they would like to make, but to stay competative they might have to make a move to a new processor (especially if they really do want to move into the AV development arena)
<strong>I was promised flying cars. Where are the flying cars?</strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.moller.com/skycar/"; target="_blank">http://www.moller.com/skycar/</A>;
<strong>I think Steve Jobs made a BIG mistake when he answered the question about OS X going on Intel. Seems to me that developers are going to question whether they should be writing new apps for PPC OS X. I also think that poteintial new buyers may now have enought of a reason not buy so that they don't end up with obsolete hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
In the time frame it would take to have an Intel version of OS X out there, any current hardware, Intel or PowerPC, will be considered obsolete. The vague possibility of Apple switching to Intel chips some time in the unspecified future is no more of a reason to hold off buying a new Mac than is worrying that your computer will be obsoleted when 2.5 Terahertz artificially-intelligent quantum flux processors come out.
[MWNY 03, and no 2.5 THz AI-QFP Power Macs!? Apple is doomed!
As for software developers worrying about wasting effort on PowerPC code: Except for assembly language, often not used at all (and when used, typically sparingly in small performance-critical routines), most software would port just by recompiling for a different target processor. I'm not claiming it's snap-your-fingers easy, but for most software it won't be a huge effort. Linux users currently depend a great deal on using the same apps on different platforms, simply by recompiling open source code.
Apple could do what they did when switching to PowerPC too... let the OS run PowerPC code in an emulation mode. Or, if it's cheap enough, through in a PowerPC for backward compatibility. One way or another, Apple would never make the switch to Intel if they didn't have a way to support old software during a long transition period.
Also, if OS X/Intel ever happens, the switch isn't going to happen overnight. There'd still be a good sized OS X/PowerPC market to sell to for some time. Creating Intel versions of Mac software could be put off by software makers until the market share for those versions was worth the effort.
[quote]<strong>I really think Steve Jobs should retract that statement or clarify it. I myself was in the market for a new Powermac and after hearing this, have decided not to spend ~$3000.00 on a new powermac if its going to be rendered obsolete by Apple moving to Intel.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Like I said above, Intel or not, your computer will be considered obsolete anyway by time anything happens on this front. You could get a lot of good use out of a new Mac in the meantime, and that Mac won't simply shut down and stop working for you just because it's no longer the hottest new toy on the block.
Now, waiting a few weeks for a new Power Mac... that's a different story!
<strong>
<a href="http://www.moller.com/skycar/"; target="_blank">http://www.moller.com/skycar/</a>;
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Dang, now I've got to find a new sig.
Regarding .Mac, I checked with a friend, and he pays $30 a year just for the McAfee antivirus service on the internet. That keeps him current all the time. I still think .Mac is a little steep, since we were getting much of it free now. Yet I'm hoping that Apple will add a few more things to sweeten the deal. I'll try it for the first year at least, and see how I feel later. I believe that backing up a few things all the time, automatically onto iDisk, could be good. Big backups can be made less frequently.