The configurations could be replaced by 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 GHz 970fx CPUs and it'll be about the same performance. It'll justify the price tag, maybe even $100 more, and assuming Apple could get a 1 GHz 7447 for $75 or a 1.6 GHz 970fx for $150.
Still the big problem is that they cost $1100 to $1800 even if it is competitive. That is an expensive range for "consumers". Apple needs to offer a competitive, read "attractive", product in a $900-to-$1300 range to really hit the sweet spot for consumers. So as of right now, they need to offer about 2.8 GHz P4 performance with an LCD monitor in the range of $900 to $1300.
Sort of depressing that Apple is totally ceding the sub-$1000 computer market with the exception of the eMac, which has a rather poor reputation, deserved or not.
Faelyn, take a screenshot and post it, will you? I just spent 10 minutes configuring at Dell, and I got down to $637. i honestly can't figure out what else I was supposed to strip out to get the price lower.
The mix-up usually occurs after one clicks on "customize it" for the Dimension 2400 system. After that is the "Select Base Components" page. Don't customize from there. There is a "Featured Systems" box on the right of the page for a "Value Priced" system. Clicking on "customize and price" from there will get you the $449 system.
I think all of you give way to much credit to most computer users. Most people will buy a computer of whatever price. Than when they run into problems they will say "my computer is so slow", "my computer is messed up", "my computer is old", "I need a new one". They don't understand that something is wrong, they think that is just how computers are. I don't think it's necessarily Apple's fault that people don't know that isn't how it has to be, but that is how people think.
You know what you've learned, so if you never learned that is how computers are than you will accept that and just buy another computer when yours gets really bad. And probably since you know your computer will get messed up and you'll need another one in 3-7 years you'll get a cheap one. PC companies advertise cheap even if they don't pull through. Well cheap draws you in, once your in you buy, simple as that.
It hurts Apple, but I don't have a problem with them being honest about their prices.
And all the above confusion further reiterates how simple it really is now to buy a Mac!! (just thinking of the days less than 8 years ago when you could hardly find anything Apple in a retail circuit that wasn't 6 months out-of-date.....'ve come a long way!)
. . . Sort of depressing that Apple is totally ceding the sub-$1000 computer market with the exception of the eMac, which has a rather poor reputation, deserved or not.
How true. It's my real hope that Apple will change their tune about really low cost Macs, meaning something under $500 without monitor. Such a model has several marketing strengths:
1) It establishes an attractive price starting point. If a sign on an Apple store said "The Macintosh, starting at $499," it would surely get more attention and more folks in the store looking at Macs. My neighbor only had one question when he was in the market, "What's the lowest priced Mac I can get?" Anything I said after $799 didn't register, I am sure. He never took the time to even look at a new Mac, but ended up paying almost that much for a Dell. Many folks who start off wanting the low priced model end up get something better. If Apple had a low priced model, it would be no different. Many folks who consider the low price Mac would end up buying a better Mac.
2) It is competitive for institutional purchases, for schools and businesses. Many require nothing more than a simple client for many of their stations. No need for FireWire, a modem or even an optical drive in some cases. Just Ethernet and couple USB ports. Graphics good enough for the internet and an office suite are sufficient, and could be on the motherboard. Such chips are available now for $10 from what I understand. For this market, a 1.0 GHz IBM 750GX would be good enough and really cheap.
3) A low priced Mac without a display lets buyers get by cheaper, when they already have a monitor. It also needs a low cost way to offer options for items like a modem, FireWire and better optical drive. An entry level Mac like this would get more people to switch, and get current Mac users to replace some of their old Macs now in service. I have three Macs. The G5 is in another room for the serious work, like playing Halo! The other two are Beige G3 desktops. I'm in the office on a 300 MHz G3, which we use just for email, internet and word processing. The other Beige G3 is dedicated to a music keyboard. Files get transfered to the G5 for burning a CD. The work these Beige G3s do is not demanding, and I would be tempted to replace them with a small, inexpensive Mac, if Apple had one for sale. I don't believe many current Mac users would buy a low end Mac as their only Mac.
Back to the original point about what can be done to differentiate the Mac from el cheapo PCs. What is the Mac that took off because it was different? The iMac of course. It was different in two big ways: it was an all in one design and it had color, then colors.
My opinion is that Apple's biggest mistake with the current iMac (besides being overpriced) is that there is no choice of color. If you read people's opinion of the new iPod mini they always mention the colors as being something that makes it cool. All white is just as boring as all beige. If people didn't like frivolous things like color we would all be dressed in Mao jackets. I think the problem is that if you look at the top at Apple it is all MEN! It may sound sexist, but women really do look at things they buy in a different way. When the original iMac came out I was finally able to talk my sister into buying a Mac and a big big reason was because she could choose her favorite color. Of course Apple needs to update the iMac to a G5 and lower the price, but they also need to bring it back in colors.
As far as marketing goes I also feel Apple needs a new shtick. The ads they run never give people an impression of just how easy Macs are to use compared to Windows. Look at the current iMac. As far as I know they only had one commercial for it...that guy looking in the window. I know Apple likes to be cool, but just show a family sitting around looking at iPhoto while they adjust the screen for each one to get a better view. Then people will understand why the iMac comes with a screen on an arm. Or show someone using all the iApps to make a polished DVD.
Many people I know used Macs years ago and still have in their mind that the OS still works like system 7! Show them all what OSX has to offer. Hype the lack of viruses, spyware, adware, etc.
I spend a lot of time on the Mac forum at dpreview.com (digital photo site) and I have been really amazed at how many switchers keep showing up there. Also a lot of potential switchers who are asking about Macs and almost everyone I can think of lately has ended up ordering a new Mac. So Apple is making an impression with people who take the time to find out what sort of computer works best for them. The people they are loosing are the ones who keep hearing about this internet thing and wander into compusa or bestbuy having no idea that Macs are any different than a PC. They just buy what some know nothing salesman tells them to buy.
the iApps(including things like mail.app, stickies, address book, preview and graphic converter) and the OS are worth at least $400 in my book, and they are free with a new computer.
Also, the whole seamlessness/efficiency of the system is worth more than $$
I am sorry, but Apple does not care about Grandma.
The point is that Apple is not going after the cheap, PC market for a number of reasons. One, it is very low margin business (hard to make money) and two it is already ruled by some big players. Lastly, it shows no amount of creativity or ingenuity, just pumping out machine after machine.
So, Grandma can go to CompUSA and buy her $500 PC and in a year when it breaks or can't do the next thing she wants to do, she will have to buy another.
I think what people forget about first time users buying PCs is that they don't really know what they can do, so the buy a computer based on what they think they will want to do like "surf the web" and "send email" and "write documents'. These users usually come back within 6 months saying, "I heard that I can do X on my computer... is that true?" or "Sally down the street has these, photos, on her computer, can I do that?". The great thing about selling someone a Mac (or helping them buy one) is that when they come back to ask you that question, you can say, "Yes, you have iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, etc.."
The sub $500 market is saturated and boring. Apple will never dominate the computer industry, they will always be under 10%, but at roughly a 100,000,000 users that is not bad (figures based on 25,000,000 for 3%).
sort of, but not entirely, if you buy a powerbook and it comes with jaguar it'll cost you $2500, then let's say panther is released 2 months later, and you're friend buys a powerbook, it will cost him $2500 and will include panther. You will have to spend $129 to get panther.
ya know?
They are included free if you ask me, I'm sure that the MSRP is affected by including all the software, but either way, you get a major discount.
Wha Wha Wha What!!! Apple "Bad" at advertising? I would think that if someone were to make a Top Ten list of things that Apple is great at... advertising would be pretty close to the top of the list... ever hear of the iPod?
i........pod? never heard of it, i also heard something last summer about 'the worlds fastest personl computer' i think it was a...um...dell? NO WAIT, it was the dell dude being launched through a house and into a tree because of the sheer speed of the....um...power...OH yea, power mac G5
How true. It's my real hope that Apple will change their tune about really low cost Macs, meaning something under $500 without monitor. Such a model has several marketing strengths:
1) It establishes an attractive price starting point. If a sign on an Apple store said "The Macintosh, starting at $499," it would surely get more attention and more folks in the store looking at Macs. My neighbor only had one question when he was in the market, "What's the lowest priced Mac I can get?" Anything I said after $799 didn't register, I am sure. He never took the time to even look at a new Mac, but ended up paying almost that much for a Dell. Many folks who start off wanting the low priced model end up get something better. If Apple had a low priced model, it would be no different. Many folks who consider the low price Mac would end up buying a better Mac.
2) It is competitive for institutional purchases, for schools and businesses. Many require nothing more than a simple client for many of their stations. No need for FireWire, a modem or even an optical drive in some cases. Just Ethernet and couple USB ports. Graphics good enough for the internet and an office suite are sufficient, and could be on the motherboard. Such chips are available now for $10 from what I understand. For this market, a 1.0 GHz IBM 750GX would be good enough and really cheap.
3) A low priced Mac without a display lets buyers get by cheaper, when they already have a monitor. It also needs a low cost way to offer options for items like a modem, FireWire and better optical drive. An entry level Mac like this would get more people to switch, and get current Mac users to replace some of their old Macs now in service. I have three Macs. The G5 is in another room for the serious work, like playing Halo! The other two are Beige G3 desktops. I'm in the office on a 300 MHz G3, which we use just for email, internet and word processing. The other Beige G3 is dedicated to a music keyboard. Files get transfered to the G5 for burning a CD. The work these Beige G3s do is not demanding, and I would be tempted to replace them with a small, inexpensive Mac, if Apple had one for sale. I don't believe many current Mac users would buy a low end Mac as their only Mac.
sorry snoop, but you might want to take some business classes. you seem to understand that other manufacturers don't really offer sub-$500 computers, just a bait-and-switch. what you fail to recognize in suggesting that apple follow suit is that the "Apple Experience" on a sub-$500 Mac would suck. the iApps really require a G4 or powerful G3 to be at all effective. the OS also has pretty high requirements in order to feel powerful. you've really gotta have quartz extreme, which means no low-end integrated GFX or anything (like all of the cheap PC's). basically, you'd end up with the kind of Mac that we'd all be ashamed of, and new users would find at least as unimpressive as the cheap PC's.
the big difference is that Apple survives on the experience it provides to users. Apple's "brand image" would be destroyed. you think PC zealots give us a hard time know? can you imagine what they would say if Apple offered a cheap (sh!tty) Mac that couldn't really provide the "Macintosh Experience" cuz some of the iApps wouldn't run on it, and it's audio and video performance were sub-par? Apple has already had it's once glorious reputation of being "way ahead in all things audio and video" fade away. Remember how Mac zealots always hated when PC guys would say "yeah, Macs are good for graphics and audio stuff, but not real work"? Well, those days are gone, and aside from the iPod, and the less pervasive understanding that Macs offer the best DV editing, PC people don't have anything left to "give us" credit for.
that said, the reality of the Mac platform today is much better. Almost any task can be done better, and more efficiently on a Mac. Sure a TOTL P4 w/HT might compress divx faster, but that's not a real-world task for more than 1% of people, 1% of the time.
what Apple really needs to do is find a way to show people that specs are one thing, but accomplishing tasks in an easy and efficient way is what computing is (should be) really about. They haven't done that at all.
Just wanted to share an experience. I belong to a parenting board, and a lady on the board asked about new laptops, so I did the usual and gave her links to the iBook and PowerBook. She never made comments about the Mac one way or another.
The reason she wants to get a second machine is that the burner in her tower doesn't work right. They reinstalled widows? and it got worse. So the tower would be for kids games and internet for her mother. She would have the laptop with a wireless network all to herself.
She came back and asked me what I thought of a Dell and gave me the specs she was looking at. I didn't like the specs, so I told her so. She asked me if I would take a look at their site and see what I would think was a good configuration for the $$$. Every time I did this it was at least $2100.
I could not get a good $$$ to feature ratio. I tried like hell and it just didn't work.
Everytime I got to the end there was always something additional they had thown in that I missed unchecking. The two biggest ones where a totebag and a surge suppressor. $60.00 in extra crap that I didn't want in the equation.
I have never liked Dell's web site. But I have had good experiences with calling them on the phone. The people I have talked to have always been very good at helping with putting a system together for my clients.
It was an emachine with a 2.6 Celeron, CD-RW drive, 256 RAM, 17" flat CRT monitor and 40gb hardrinve, all in one box. It was advertised as internet ready and included about 5 USB ports. There is also a Compaq with similar pricing and specs.
For $700 you can get an HP with a 2.6 Pentium 4, 40gb hard drive, combo drive and a 15" LCD screen. The $799 emac doesn't look like such a great deal anymore.
And check out the laptop side of things!
For $1000 at my local Walmart I can get an HP notebook with an all-in-one printer Celeron/Combo drive/15" screen/256/40gb
This is why apple's seem extremely expensive.
For the cost of an entry level emac you can buy a PC with a photo printer and 2mega pixel digital camera. Shopping wisely and not includng mail-in rebates.
emachine/compaq in a box $500
HP 7200 photosmart $100
Printer cable $20
Samsung 240 digital camera $140
Photoshop Album $50 (to aproximate iphoto)
For my $800 I got a printer, computer, camera, and photo orginaizing software. Or I could have one emac. It is a tough call for consumers to make.
For $700 you can get an HP with a 2.6 Pentium 4, 40gb hard drive, combo drive and a 15" LCD screen. The $799 emac doesn't look like such a great deal anymore.
Neither does this deal. Sure I'm supposed to be enticed by the 2.6Ghz P4 but crappy LCDs are worse that decent CRTs. That's not all that hot when you consider the eMac is already long in the tooth and ready for an update whilst this machine is fairly new.
Quote:
This is why apple's seem extremely expensive.
Apples seem expensive because consumers still don't know the salient features of a computer hence they can only compare Megahertz, Megabytes etc and try and make sense of it all.
Quote:
For my $800 I got a printer, computer, camera, and photo orginaizing software. Or I could have one emac. It is a tough call for consumers to make.
Indeed it is but from Apples perspective they must be thinking along the lines of "If a consumer is on the fence over a couple of hundred dollars then odds are they're not a profitable consumer"
In a perfect world $500 computers would generate ample profits but the reality is that person that purchased the $500 loss leader is just as much a Tech support drag as the person that purchased the $1500 profitable computer. Apple is smart to avoid this.
Unless the cost of manufacturing goes way down I don't think we will see a $500 Mac anytime soon. And I really don't think that the lack of a $500 Mac is hurting Apple's sales right now. The problem is their current low end offerings.
Right now Apples low end computer is the $799 eMac, and it is pretty much a bad joke of a machine. It comes with 128 megs of RAM (that's the joke part), and 1 GHz G4 on a slow bus. Top it off with a slow video card, and what you get is kind of pathetic by todays standards. The current eMac is at the end of it's life cycle folks, we all know it, and it is really starting to show.
Shortly we will see the next version of the eMac/iMac line, and if Apple aggressively ups the specs, the market share will follow. Would any of us really be complaining about Apple's pricing if the $799 eMac came with a 2GHz G5 on a fast bus, and a Radeon 8600XT?
Unless the cost of manufacturing goes way down I don't think we will see a $500 Mac anytime soon. And I really don't think that the lack of a $500 Mac is hurting Apple's sales right now. The problem is their current low end offerings.
I'm wondering why Apple doesn't offer a "Switcher Mac": Switchers already do have a monitor, so an all-in-one Mac is not really cost effective for them. Currently, barebone PCs in cube format are very popular. If Apple could offer a Cube II (a bit bigger than the old one to make cooling etc. more easy and the keep production costs down) that costs less than an iMac, this might be a machine that could be attracive to potential switchers.
I'm wondering why Apple doesn't offer a "Switcher Mac": Switchers already do have a monitor, so an all-in-one Mac is not really cost effective for them. Currently, barebone PCs in cube format are very popular. If Apple could offer a Cube II (a bit bigger than the old one to make cooling etc. more easy and the keep production costs down) that costs less than an iMac, this might be a machine that could be attracive to potential switchers.
The concept of the Cube was surely cool, and developing an "iCube" as its cheaper successor seems possible. But still, there is quite a small market waiting for such a machine. Forget switchers, they are used to installing PCI cards, adding RAM, DVD-RWs, fans, etc. They want a real size tower that is expandable. Beginners want an easy machine -- and might be better off with an all-in-one eMac or iMac. Pro users want a full-size PowerMac anyway. So who is buying such an "iCube" anyway? Maybe it just has to be Apple's answer to all those crappy sub-500$ PCs...
Comments
2x1.0 GHz 7447 G4
64 MB video
40 GB drive
256 MB memory
combo optical
$1099
17" iMac LCD
2x1.25 GHz 7447 G4
128 MB video
40 GB drive
256 MB memory
combo optical
$1399
20" iMac LCD
2x1.25 GHz 7447 G4
128 MB video
80 GB drive
512 MB memory
combo drive
$1799
The configurations could be replaced by 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 GHz 970fx CPUs and it'll be about the same performance. It'll justify the price tag, maybe even $100 more, and assuming Apple could get a 1 GHz 7447 for $75 or a 1.6 GHz 970fx for $150.
Still the big problem is that they cost $1100 to $1800 even if it is competitive. That is an expensive range for "consumers". Apple needs to offer a competitive, read "attractive", product in a $900-to-$1300 range to really hit the sweet spot for consumers. So as of right now, they need to offer about 2.8 GHz P4 performance with an LCD monitor in the range of $900 to $1300.
Sort of depressing that Apple is totally ceding the sub-$1000 computer market with the exception of the eMac, which has a rather poor reputation, deserved or not.
Originally posted by mrmister
Faelyn, take a screenshot and post it, will you? I just spent 10 minutes configuring at Dell, and I got down to $637. i honestly can't figure out what else I was supposed to strip out to get the price lower.
The mix-up usually occurs after one clicks on "customize it" for the Dimension 2400 system. After that is the "Select Base Components" page. Don't customize from there. There is a "Featured Systems" box on the right of the page for a "Value Priced" system. Clicking on "customize and price" from there will get you the $449 system.
You know what you've learned, so if you never learned that is how computers are than you will accept that and just buy another computer when yours gets really bad. And probably since you know your computer will get messed up and you'll need another one in 3-7 years you'll get a cheap one. PC companies advertise cheap even if they don't pull through. Well cheap draws you in, once your in you buy, simple as that.
It hurts Apple, but I don't have a problem with them being honest about their prices.
Originally posted by THT
. . . Sort of depressing that Apple is totally ceding the sub-$1000 computer market with the exception of the eMac, which has a rather poor reputation, deserved or not.
How true. It's my real hope that Apple will change their tune about really low cost Macs, meaning something under $500 without monitor. Such a model has several marketing strengths:
1) It establishes an attractive price starting point. If a sign on an Apple store said "The Macintosh, starting at $499," it would surely get more attention and more folks in the store looking at Macs. My neighbor only had one question when he was in the market, "What's the lowest priced Mac I can get?" Anything I said after $799 didn't register, I am sure. He never took the time to even look at a new Mac, but ended up paying almost that much for a Dell. Many folks who start off wanting the low priced model end up get something better. If Apple had a low priced model, it would be no different. Many folks who consider the low price Mac would end up buying a better Mac.
2) It is competitive for institutional purchases, for schools and businesses. Many require nothing more than a simple client for many of their stations. No need for FireWire, a modem or even an optical drive in some cases. Just Ethernet and couple USB ports. Graphics good enough for the internet and an office suite are sufficient, and could be on the motherboard. Such chips are available now for $10 from what I understand. For this market, a 1.0 GHz IBM 750GX would be good enough and really cheap.
3) A low priced Mac without a display lets buyers get by cheaper, when they already have a monitor. It also needs a low cost way to offer options for items like a modem, FireWire and better optical drive. An entry level Mac like this would get more people to switch, and get current Mac users to replace some of their old Macs now in service. I have three Macs. The G5 is in another room for the serious work, like playing Halo! The other two are Beige G3 desktops. I'm in the office on a 300 MHz G3, which we use just for email, internet and word processing. The other Beige G3 is dedicated to a music keyboard. Files get transfered to the G5 for burning a CD. The work these Beige G3s do is not demanding, and I would be tempted to replace them with a small, inexpensive Mac, if Apple had one for sale. I don't believe many current Mac users would buy a low end Mac as their only Mac.
My opinion is that Apple's biggest mistake with the current iMac (besides being overpriced) is that there is no choice of color. If you read people's opinion of the new iPod mini they always mention the colors as being something that makes it cool. All white is just as boring as all beige. If people didn't like frivolous things like color we would all be dressed in Mao jackets. I think the problem is that if you look at the top at Apple it is all MEN! It may sound sexist, but women really do look at things they buy in a different way. When the original iMac came out I was finally able to talk my sister into buying a Mac and a big big reason was because she could choose her favorite color. Of course Apple needs to update the iMac to a G5 and lower the price, but they also need to bring it back in colors.
As far as marketing goes I also feel Apple needs a new shtick. The ads they run never give people an impression of just how easy Macs are to use compared to Windows. Look at the current iMac. As far as I know they only had one commercial for it...that guy looking in the window. I know Apple likes to be cool, but just show a family sitting around looking at iPhoto while they adjust the screen for each one to get a better view. Then people will understand why the iMac comes with a screen on an arm. Or show someone using all the iApps to make a polished DVD.
Many people I know used Macs years ago and still have in their mind that the OS still works like system 7! Show them all what OSX has to offer. Hype the lack of viruses, spyware, adware, etc.
I spend a lot of time on the Mac forum at dpreview.com (digital photo site) and I have been really amazed at how many switchers keep showing up there. Also a lot of potential switchers who are asking about Macs and almost everyone I can think of lately has ended up ordering a new Mac. So Apple is making an impression with people who take the time to find out what sort of computer works best for them. The people they are loosing are the ones who keep hearing about this internet thing and wander into compusa or bestbuy having no idea that Macs are any different than a PC. They just buy what some know nothing salesman tells them to buy.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
the iApps(including things like mail.app, stickies, address book, preview and graphic converter) and the OS are worth at least $400 in my book, and they are free with a new computer.
Also, the whole seamlessness/efficiency of the system is worth more than $$
NoT free, INCLUDED in the price.
The point is that Apple is not going after the cheap, PC market for a number of reasons. One, it is very low margin business (hard to make money) and two it is already ruled by some big players. Lastly, it shows no amount of creativity or ingenuity, just pumping out machine after machine.
So, Grandma can go to CompUSA and buy her $500 PC and in a year when it breaks or can't do the next thing she wants to do, she will have to buy another.
I think what people forget about first time users buying PCs is that they don't really know what they can do, so the buy a computer based on what they think they will want to do like "surf the web" and "send email" and "write documents'. These users usually come back within 6 months saying, "I heard that I can do X on my computer... is that true?" or "Sally down the street has these, photos, on her computer, can I do that?". The great thing about selling someone a Mac (or helping them buy one) is that when they come back to ask you that question, you can say, "Yes, you have iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, etc.."
The sub $500 market is saturated and boring. Apple will never dominate the computer industry, they will always be under 10%, but at roughly a 100,000,000 users that is not bad (figures based on 25,000,000 for 3%).
BZ
Originally posted by a_greer
NoT free, INCLUDED in the price.
sort of, but not entirely, if you buy a powerbook and it comes with jaguar it'll cost you $2500, then let's say panther is released 2 months later, and you're friend buys a powerbook, it will cost him $2500 and will include panther. You will have to spend $129 to get panther.
ya know?
They are included free if you ask me, I'm sure that the MSRP is affected by including all the software, but either way, you get a major discount.
Originally posted by Joey
Wha Wha Wha What!!! Apple "Bad" at advertising? I would think that if someone were to make a Top Ten list of things that Apple is great at... advertising would be pretty close to the top of the list... ever hear of the iPod?
i........pod? never heard of it, i also heard something last summer about 'the worlds fastest personl computer' i think it was a...um...dell? NO WAIT, it was the dell dude being launched through a house and into a tree because of the sheer speed of the....um...power...OH yea, power mac G5
All their other ads, while clever, or cute, or well produced, don't do anything.
Not only that, but I friggin see Dell computer ads all the time, I rarely see apple ads(except on MTV and that's for iTunes)
Apple needs a good ad campaign, that basically says "if you want a toy, get a PC, if you want a REAL computer, get an apple...here's why: X,Y,Z"
and they need to actually get Ad time and play these ads so that people actually SEE them, what good is an ad no one sees?
[/pscates]
Here's a thought... why not include a promotional
DVD with every iPod that showcases the cool features
of Panther?
Apple could produce some slick 1 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute promo showing people what they could do with a Mac.
Because most iPod buyers are Windows users they may not realize what they could do with a new Mac.
Sure not everybody would watch these, but even if 20% of the people who bought an iPod put it in there
DVD player and watched it they might get some more switchers.
Apple owners who don't need the DVD could give them to
their Windows using friends and open up their eyes to what they're missing.
Originally posted by snoopy
How true. It's my real hope that Apple will change their tune about really low cost Macs, meaning something under $500 without monitor. Such a model has several marketing strengths:
1) It establishes an attractive price starting point. If a sign on an Apple store said "The Macintosh, starting at $499," it would surely get more attention and more folks in the store looking at Macs. My neighbor only had one question when he was in the market, "What's the lowest priced Mac I can get?" Anything I said after $799 didn't register, I am sure. He never took the time to even look at a new Mac, but ended up paying almost that much for a Dell. Many folks who start off wanting the low priced model end up get something better. If Apple had a low priced model, it would be no different. Many folks who consider the low price Mac would end up buying a better Mac.
2) It is competitive for institutional purchases, for schools and businesses. Many require nothing more than a simple client for many of their stations. No need for FireWire, a modem or even an optical drive in some cases. Just Ethernet and couple USB ports. Graphics good enough for the internet and an office suite are sufficient, and could be on the motherboard. Such chips are available now for $10 from what I understand. For this market, a 1.0 GHz IBM 750GX would be good enough and really cheap.
3) A low priced Mac without a display lets buyers get by cheaper, when they already have a monitor. It also needs a low cost way to offer options for items like a modem, FireWire and better optical drive. An entry level Mac like this would get more people to switch, and get current Mac users to replace some of their old Macs now in service. I have three Macs. The G5 is in another room for the serious work, like playing Halo! The other two are Beige G3 desktops. I'm in the office on a 300 MHz G3, which we use just for email, internet and word processing. The other Beige G3 is dedicated to a music keyboard. Files get transfered to the G5 for burning a CD. The work these Beige G3s do is not demanding, and I would be tempted to replace them with a small, inexpensive Mac, if Apple had one for sale. I don't believe many current Mac users would buy a low end Mac as their only Mac.
sorry snoop, but you might want to take some business classes. you seem to understand that other manufacturers don't really offer sub-$500 computers, just a bait-and-switch. what you fail to recognize in suggesting that apple follow suit is that the "Apple Experience" on a sub-$500 Mac would suck. the iApps really require a G4 or powerful G3 to be at all effective. the OS also has pretty high requirements in order to feel powerful. you've really gotta have quartz extreme, which means no low-end integrated GFX or anything (like all of the cheap PC's). basically, you'd end up with the kind of Mac that we'd all be ashamed of, and new users would find at least as unimpressive as the cheap PC's.
the big difference is that Apple survives on the experience it provides to users. Apple's "brand image" would be destroyed. you think PC zealots give us a hard time know? can you imagine what they would say if Apple offered a cheap (sh!tty) Mac that couldn't really provide the "Macintosh Experience" cuz some of the iApps wouldn't run on it, and it's audio and video performance were sub-par? Apple has already had it's once glorious reputation of being "way ahead in all things audio and video" fade away. Remember how Mac zealots always hated when PC guys would say "yeah, Macs are good for graphics and audio stuff, but not real work"? Well, those days are gone, and aside from the iPod, and the less pervasive understanding that Macs offer the best DV editing, PC people don't have anything left to "give us" credit for.
that said, the reality of the Mac platform today is much better. Almost any task can be done better, and more efficiently on a Mac. Sure a TOTL P4 w/HT might compress divx faster, but that's not a real-world task for more than 1% of people, 1% of the time.
what Apple really needs to do is find a way to show people that specs are one thing, but accomplishing tasks in an easy and efficient way is what computing is (should be) really about. They haven't done that at all.
The reason she wants to get a second machine is that the burner in her tower doesn't work right. They reinstalled widows? and it got worse. So the tower would be for kids games and internet for her mother. She would have the laptop with a wireless network all to herself.
She came back and asked me what I thought of a Dell and gave me the specs she was looking at. I didn't like the specs, so I told her so. She asked me if I would take a look at their site and see what I would think was a good configuration for the $$$. Every time I did this it was at least $2100.
I could not get a good $$$ to feature ratio. I tried like hell and it just didn't work.
Everytime I got to the end there was always something additional they had thown in that I missed unchecking. The two biggest ones where a totebag and a surge suppressor. $60.00 in extra crap that I didn't want in the equation.
I have never liked Dell's web site. But I have had good experiences with calling them on the phone. The people I have talked to have always been very good at helping with putting a system together for my clients.
It was an emachine with a 2.6 Celeron, CD-RW drive, 256 RAM, 17" flat CRT monitor and 40gb hardrinve, all in one box. It was advertised as internet ready and included about 5 USB ports. There is also a Compaq with similar pricing and specs.
here is a link:
$500 pcs
compaq equivalent
For $700 you can get an HP with a 2.6 Pentium 4, 40gb hard drive, combo drive and a 15" LCD screen. The $799 emac doesn't look like such a great deal anymore.
And check out the laptop side of things!
For $1000 at my local Walmart I can get an HP notebook with an all-in-one printer Celeron/Combo drive/15" screen/256/40gb
This is why apple's seem extremely expensive.
For the cost of an entry level emac you can buy a PC with a photo printer and 2mega pixel digital camera. Shopping wisely and not includng mail-in rebates.
emachine/compaq in a box $500
HP 7200 photosmart $100
Printer cable $20
Samsung 240 digital camera $140
Photoshop Album $50 (to aproximate iphoto)
For my $800 I got a printer, computer, camera, and photo orginaizing software. Or I could have one emac. It is a tough call for consumers to make.
For $700 you can get an HP with a 2.6 Pentium 4, 40gb hard drive, combo drive and a 15" LCD screen. The $799 emac doesn't look like such a great deal anymore.
Neither does this deal. Sure I'm supposed to be enticed by the 2.6Ghz P4 but crappy LCDs are worse that decent CRTs. That's not all that hot when you consider the eMac is already long in the tooth and ready for an update whilst this machine is fairly new.
This is why apple's seem extremely expensive.
Apples seem expensive because consumers still don't know the salient features of a computer hence they can only compare Megahertz, Megabytes etc and try and make sense of it all.
For my $800 I got a printer, computer, camera, and photo orginaizing software. Or I could have one emac. It is a tough call for consumers to make.
Indeed it is but from Apples perspective they must be thinking along the lines of "If a consumer is on the fence over a couple of hundred dollars then odds are they're not a profitable consumer"
In a perfect world $500 computers would generate ample profits but the reality is that person that purchased the $500 loss leader is just as much a Tech support drag as the person that purchased the $1500 profitable computer. Apple is smart to avoid this.
Right now Apples low end computer is the $799 eMac, and it is pretty much a bad joke of a machine. It comes with 128 megs of RAM (that's the joke part), and 1 GHz G4 on a slow bus. Top it off with a slow video card, and what you get is kind of pathetic by todays standards. The current eMac is at the end of it's life cycle folks, we all know it, and it is really starting to show.
Shortly we will see the next version of the eMac/iMac line, and if Apple aggressively ups the specs, the market share will follow. Would any of us really be complaining about Apple's pricing if the $799 eMac came with a 2GHz G5 on a fast bus, and a Radeon 8600XT?
Originally posted by Res
Unless the cost of manufacturing goes way down I don't think we will see a $500 Mac anytime soon. And I really don't think that the lack of a $500 Mac is hurting Apple's sales right now. The problem is their current low end offerings.
I'm wondering why Apple doesn't offer a "Switcher Mac": Switchers already do have a monitor, so an all-in-one Mac is not really cost effective for them. Currently, barebone PCs in cube format are very popular. If Apple could offer a Cube II (a bit bigger than the old one to make cooling etc. more easy and the keep production costs down) that costs less than an iMac, this might be a machine that could be attracive to potential switchers.
Originally posted by GSpotter
I'm wondering why Apple doesn't offer a "Switcher Mac": Switchers already do have a monitor, so an all-in-one Mac is not really cost effective for them. Currently, barebone PCs in cube format are very popular. If Apple could offer a Cube II (a bit bigger than the old one to make cooling etc. more easy and the keep production costs down) that costs less than an iMac, this might be a machine that could be attracive to potential switchers.
The concept of the Cube was surely cool, and developing an "iCube" as its cheaper successor seems possible. But still, there is quite a small market waiting for such a machine. Forget switchers, they are used to installing PCI cards, adding RAM, DVD-RWs, fans, etc. They want a real size tower that is expandable. Beginners want an easy machine -- and might be better off with an all-in-one eMac or iMac. Pro users want a full-size PowerMac anyway. So who is buying such an "iCube" anyway? Maybe it just has to be Apple's answer to all those crappy sub-500$ PCs...
Originally posted by briang5000
Several post have commented on how well Apple has done marketing iPod, iTunes, and let's not forget about Quicktime.
Here's a thought... why not include a promotional
DVD with every iPod that showcases the cool features
of Panther?
Apple could produce some slick 1 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute promo showing people what they could do with a Mac.
Because most iPod buyers are Windows users they may not realize what they could do with a new Mac.
Sure not everybody would watch these, but even if 20% of the people who bought an iPod put it in there
DVD player and watched it they might get some more switchers.
Apple owners who don't need the DVD could give them to
their Windows using friends and open up their eyes to what they're missing.
Awesome idea!