I'm not going to reply to all of these posts individually, but for those people going on about price, yes I understand that apple makes damned near everything, develops it, etc. But will a normal consumer really care? Or even know/realise? I highly doubt it. I remember back in 1990 when me and my parents went shopping for a first computer. We basically found the cheapest place and changed some specs, like we needed a cd drive.
As a first computer buyer, I'd say that we were relatively intelligent. In all honesty I know that the last thing we were thinking about was a mac. At the time we knew they were just too expensive. Many people still think this today. The bottom end iMac isn't too bad, the iBook is very good, but I know that I would have a hard time recommending anything else in the apple range.
As far as firewire gigabit goes in the PB G4, the laptop hdd can barely keep up with the 100 mbit normally, so I can't see why anyone is too excited about gigabit.
I think apple needs to have competitive entry level lines, iMac and iBook, while making their money on upgrades, and the Pro line. I think if most people get one mac, they are likely to buy another one, a bit further up the line next time. Why would a first time buyer look at an iMac now, unless they were RDF'd by a friend. On the other hand, I would recommend the iBook to many people, but lots of people think that $1200 is just too much.
About the ram ceiling, I have installed 1.5gb into many powermac's, but nothing more. Obviously the school thinks it doesn't work too. Apple should say somewhere only 1.5gb recommended or something, with a max of 3gb.
Cpu speed related, yes I know moto has been hurting apple, I remember the 500mhz for 1.5 years. When we got to 733mhz everyone was just so damned happy at progress. As it is now, the PB G4 is woefully under powered, so is the iBook. I know IBM has faster G3's, so why not let the iBook have it, and put some of the high yeild G4's into the PB G4, charge a lot for it. Just like top end PM G4's, there is someone out there who will pay for an incredibly expensive machine to get the best in graphical design, whatever.
The iBooks screen is a nice resolution at 1024 x 768, it does look nice in person, I have seen about 130 of them. But I still think it is too small.
64bit pci slots are handy, there are scsi raid cards, gigabit nic's available for them. However, 64bit 66mhz would be much more welcome, many sound cards and ide raid cards support this, so do high speed modems.
About the user experience and the OS. The only m$ OS that I like is win2k. I have it on all of my computers at home. On two it is dual booted with win98, this is because win2k won't play all games I want it to.
I have been using win2k for a year now, and I have only ever had one crash in it, for no reason what so ever the entire GUI screwed itself over, bits of the start bar went everywhere. It needed a reinstall to fix, but you must realise that I use this OS 8-14 hours a day everyday. It is very fast, I am typing this on a 600mhz laptop with 256mb ram, and I know that for normal browsing, icq, irc, that sort of thing I am never wanting more power. In games however the graphics card lets it down something shocking, if I want to play games I go and sit on my Dual P3 system with a gf2.
I hate win98, winme for their stability, or complete lack of it. I hate winxp for it's looks, and that registration stuff.
On the apple side I just hate OS 9.x because of it's instability. With more than one app open it is just a complete dog. my iBook had 288mb ram, I have since downgraded it to 160mb, but it never felt overly fast to me when doing more than one thing at a time.
I don't think that OS X is a suitable solution for the masses until all app's are properly ported over. A lot of games will never make it into OS X, hopefully most new games will. The other thing I don't like about OS X is it's looks. I much prefer the look of OS 9 or win2k over OS X and OS 9. I know many people will disagree, but just my opinion here.
And yes, the iMac screen is crap, it is curved all over the place, only does 1024, and is 13.8" viewable. I seriously want this fixed.
I feel apple does need a larger case than the PM G4, firewire and usb are sort of ok for a usual user, even though many would want an internal drive. The corporate sector doesn't. can you imagine a rackmount server with a couple of firewire drives hanging off the side.
it would be perfectly possible to have a push button faceplate to reveal 5x hot swappable scsi drives. If apple did it cleverly they would make it look completely normal from the front.
[quote]Gigabit on the otherhand may well be very handy in the future. (Also a 5400RPM HD will saturate 100Mbit, it's mbit, not mbyte, remember? not even talking about the fact that HDs never go through Ethernet directly, adn I'm damn sure RAM can saturate it about 10 times)
The point why Apple is building Gigabit and 64bit PCI into its Macs is, that most certainly the price difference between gigabit and 100mbit and 64bit and 32bit is absolutely marginal these days for a big company.<hr></blockquote>
Actually limit on a 100Mbit ~= 12.5 MB/sec. A 5400 RPM drive in real tests with OS9 will do about 7-14 MB/sec depending of file sizes. Have you priced 1000mbit hubs, routers and switches?
[quote]And if you want more MHz, because that is better for penis comparisons, wait or get a PC.<hr></blockquote>
Typical maclot response. Apple's core market is design and digital content, not to mention a resurgence in 3D. More MHZ == more happy customers in core market. So cut the tiny peepee, buy a PC crap--we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.
Sadly MS did it's homework with XP and MacOS X is said to be default from January on. As someone who used X11, KDE/Gnome(Linux), Win 3.11-XP and MacOS 8.5-X (X only a little) I can only say that though MacOS X looks nice the interface itself is inconsistent and unusable, plus the dock takes away more space than needed. And OS X is a resource hog, which doesn't help Apple if the new iMac is using a G3 still..</strong><hr></blockquote>
X only a little is right. The dock is resizable and hideble. So that point about the dock being too big is off base. As far as being a resource hog, yes it is. The interface however is far from unusable. I still prefer it to XP which I use at work. Plus I can, and do run X11 and Gnome under OS X while running all of my carbon/cocoa/classic apps, and while running virtual PC with 9x and 2K. Covers all my bases quite well. The mac has more to offer, period. And it only gets better with every new OS release.
<strong>-we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has no control over chip speed and you know it. If Apple had the chips they would use them. With that said here are some thoughts that occur to me. I think you need to keep these in mind when you compare Apple to other box makers.
*Mhz are out of Apple's hands. Just the way it is.
*We have no idea how much Apple pays for parts, but given their low volume, and use of special materials, it must be more than most box makers.
*high margins vs. low volumes
Apple pushes for high margin and not high volume Why?
* R&D we all admit that they spend more than any other box maker. How does that effect the bottom line?
*OS Development (a drag other box makers lack)
*If Apple lowered margins to PC levels what would be the cost to them and would a gain in volume be enough to offset a loss from low margins?
*Apple has limited revenue streams unlike Dell, Sony, and HP who have enterprise systems or other products. This hurts them.
*Why doesn't Apple offer consumer hardware upgrade paths (e.g. internal hard drive, vid card, and CPU upgrade) beyond buying a new model? Are there reasons not to do this?
What's my point? You can't say what Apple should charge or produce without access to the same data they have. Saying Apple should charge X just because Gateway or Dell does is not logical. That doesn't mean that Apple should not lower prices or offer a midrange computer, but it won't happen just because you think Apple can or should do it.
[quote]*Mhz are out of Apple's hands. Just the way it is.<hr></blockquote>
Sorry, but it IS partially Apple's fault. They chose to move to the G4 without doing homework on scaling issues, which appeared immediately or have you forgotten the move from 500mhz to 450mhz. Sorry, but 2+ years of "not managing" the performance issue doesn't cut it. And if you think that mHZ don't count, repeat after me:
"What is Apple's core market?"
"Graphics is Apple's core market."
repeat until it sinks in.
of course everything could change Jan 7, but I remain very sceptical.
Typical maclot response. Apple's core market is design and digital content, not to mention a resurgence in 3D. More MHZ == more happy customers in core market. So cut the tiny peepee, buy a PC crap--we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.</strong><hr></blockquote>
"Maclot"? could it be another arsetech ****n in the house?
[quote]"Maclot"? could it be another arsetech ****n in the house?<hr></blockquote>
Did you think that up yourself or did your mother help you? Try participating in this thread, which is a reasonably intelligent discussion, considering the subject matter.
<strong>Dell doesn't develop their own OS, instead they pay M$ for copies.
How much did OS X cost to develop? How much does dell spend on buying windows licenses each year?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have no idea what Dell is charged, it would be interesting to know, but I assume the cost is passed on to the consumer when you buy your computer.
Likewise, part of the price of a Mac must be the OS. I'm not sure how much the OS X development cost, but the better part of it would have been the programmer salaries. Apple must spend a lot on that.
Sorry, but it IS partially Apple's fault. They chose to move to the G4 without doing homework on scaling issues, which appeared immediately or have you forgotten the move from 500mhz to 450mhz. Sorry, but 2+ years of "not managing" the performance issue doesn't cut it. </strong><hr></blockquote>
So what was their other option? Wait? Use G3s? Hope IBM bails them out? Do you know for a fact that Apple did not, as you put it, do their homework? It's just as likely that Moto sold them a bill of goods and Apple trusted them when they should not have. The point is, you don't know.
Cowerd posted saying that graphics were apples core market, and likewise mhz matter
then why are all the sgi workstations around 300mhz ???(last I checked at least)
and sgis are the most used graphics workstations, and have the best reputation on graphics. when it comes to graphics(unless its quake 3 rendering) you need a lot of ram, a good motherboard, a good processor, good system bus...etc. mhz is not priority there.
on another note Cowerd posted saying that graphics were apples core market, and likewise mhz matter
then why are all the sgi workstations around 300mhz ???(last I checked at least)
and sgis are the most used graphics workstations, and have the best reputation on graphics. </strong><hr></blockquote>
In case you haven't noticed SGI's market share is dropping at an amazing rate troughout the last 4 years and SGI as a company is only selling supercomputers by now - the workstation market share they had was eaten up by Wintel. The only gfx workstation they sell is maybe to Square to make Final Fantasy, but they are moving to Intel/Linux at a fast pace already. SGI is dying, bleeding engineers to NVidia and customers to the Windows world.
<strong>Compared to PC companies yes they do have low volume.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe compared to all manufacturers together, but I doubt there's much difference to, say, Gateway or HP or even Compaq on a monthly basis. All three together of course outshine Apple - but I guess the difference can never be more than a few dollars for each part.
<strong>yea, the profit margins of PC manufacturers are about 5% whereas Apples profit margin is around 30%. this is all nice because it makes Apple live longer (they are rumored to have ~ $3 billion in cash right now) but I think that maybe a 20 or 25% profit margin would be acceptable as well. and 10% off $3500 is around $349.99 - which makes up for a nice difference. )</strong><hr></blockquote>
no they wouldn't be able to drop their margins 5-10%. they would be bleeding money if they did. they lose money selling computers as it is. Apple hasn't turned a profitable operating expense quarter in over a year now I believe. their profits come from the interest on their 4 billion dollar cash reserve and constantly selling off their never ending ARM supply
sgi stuff is completely differant. Saying G4 867mhz is faster than SGI 350mhz is just as bad as P4 2ghz is faster than the Athlon 1600mhz.
SGI cpu's have much more cache and run on a completely differant set of operations.
As a general rule though, there is very little reason to buy an apple now over a pc, think of a Dual Athlon 1600mhz system. Much cheaper, and faster. Apple could and should make a high end expensive system again. Even if it uses the top 5% of G4's, the price would exclude a wide range of people from buying it, apart from people who want to stay with macs and need the performance.
100,000 iMac's aren't low volume, but I can't see too many large companies wanting to mass produce something custom for 100,000 orders, unless there was an almost definate order for some more
[quote]What the heck are you talking about? powermacs have been able to take 4GB of RAM for the longest time.<hr></blockquote>
not even close. The highest capacity PowerMac for RAM is the Sawtooth G4 motherboard which will take 2 GBs (4X 512MB) and that will only show up in OS X. 1 GB DIMMS are not compatible at all.
[quote]It's designed for someone who wants a basic computer. That's the entire idea around the imac. You can pick up an older G4 model that's only slightly slower for around the price of an iMac.<hr></blockquote>
1.) if that's the entire idea around the iMac than it shouldn't be topped out at a "prosumer" price of 1499 and there should be something between it and the powermac.
2.) Pick up an older G4 model? is that a joke. I want to spend 1600 dollars on a new mac that I get to have expansion for in the future and that includes a display of my size and choice. Not a discontinued tower that still goes for way more than its worth.
[quote]Have you seen the screen before? Once people see it, they tend to stop complaining about the screen.<hr></blockquote>
lowend iBook at 1299 is fine with 12.1 inch
for 1700 bucks you should be getting a 13.3 inch display not a 12.1.
[quote]Have you tried using OSX on an iBook? Not enough screen for the OS.
<hr></blockquote>
there sure is enough. how is there not enough when the majority of mac users are running 1024 x 768? it fits perfectly.
[quote]Do you understand the point he was making? A HD on a laptop [5400rpm to be charitable] CANNOT saturate a 100bit ethernet connection. Not enough throughput. Gigabit on a laptop = marketing, or something Apple hasn't given us yet.
<hr></blockquote>
1.) the drive can saturate 100mb/sec. 100mb/sec also is lower than its theoretical peak do to overhead. 1000mb/sec will raise that capacity even with the overhead increasing transfer speeds.
2.) the main advantage of gigabit ethernet on the Powerbook is that the network disk is FASTER to use and access than the internal drive. So you could be using and storing all your media for a FCP project on a server with a RAID and be editing it through gigabit on your Powerbook. the internal hard drive doesn't slow that down and that is exactly what Apple has been advertising gigabit for.
[quote]Sadly MS did it's homework with XP and MacOS X is said to be default from January on. As someone who used X11, KDE/Gnome(Linux), Win 3.11-XP and MacOS 8.5-X (X only a little) I can only say that though MacOS X looks nice the interface itself is inconsistent and unusable, plus the dock takes away more space than needed. And OS X is a resource hog, which doesn't help Apple if the new iMac is using a G3 still..<hr></blockquote>
1.) what are you trying to say by making a point that OS X will only become default January?
2.) How is the interface "unusuable". Certainly is more than usuable here and elsewhere. I think its great to tell you the truth. XP's looks like crap. it really does. what a poor design.
3.) the dock takes up as much space as you want it to. it scales to any size and can be hidden as well.
4.) any proof of OS X being a resource hog other than the interface being unresponsive on computers that don't have 2d acceleration enabled?
[quote]You must be kidding - low volume? 100.000 iMacs a month is low volume? wow.<hr></blockquote>
1.) the rates are lower than that now
2.) yes 100,000 is very low for the iMac. that's 300,000 a quarter. that is pathetic. Apple use to sell 500,000.
I get annoyed myself at having to compare Macs to PC's, but we have to and Apple has to at every point.
Being the developer of the software and hardware is not an excuse or banner to be waved, it is a business model. A business model that has advantages and disadvantages in a business where only the very high-end companies can run both soft and hardware development.
Apple has to use its advantages and compensate for its disadvantages.
The question is what is the goal. To remain at 5% of the market or to be a serious alternative on an industry-wide basis. In this time of economic recession world-wide, it may not be a bad thing to make a play for the bigger market share.
So here are my thoughts:
Apple already lost the 95% of the market that doesn't use Altivec or understand the quality of pdf integration within the OS. And nothing we think of as Mac users makes any difference. As Apple pushes its standards, and pushes the codecs in QuickTime and finds ways of leveraging its unix core, it also has to come up with a $500 machine that surfs the net, writes email and also happens to use OS X on the side.
I think this can be done and has been done with the iMac. An all-in-one with the minimum requirements and the ability to be upgraded with USB and Firewire connectivity. There is nothing wrong with that model. The only problems are, now, a small screen and slow processor speeds that couldn't be upgraded easily. But those weren't big deals and the iMac sold very well and won over some PC folks. The design didn't hurt either.
The real problem to me is that the iMac has not gotten down to the $500 level that Steve Jobs claimed strive for. If there is a new iMac with LCD screen and stuff, I hope it is so different that they change the name and keep the current iMac (with upgraded mobo and processors) around for the $500 crowd and education.
The percieved problem with the PowerMac G4's, are legitimate when you talk about limited drive bays and they are a little pricey, but lets be honest. A $1000 difference in a workstation is not significant for a big design firm. If it is a Mac place, it will stay a Mac place. If it is PC based, it will remain PC based until something significant happens. $1000 IS significant for the individual developer or designer and that is much of Apple's traditional core and so Apple needs to be proactive in making its products accessible for those folks with special deals or bundles or whatever.
The Megahurts thing is only a temporary problem in the long-term so I think it is really premature to think that the last year or so or REAL and last 2 years or so of PERCIEVED slow processors is a real problem. The landscape will be far different in 8 months. The only ones who are pissed off are the ones that have needed to buy this year....not a big market share...so stop whining.
The iBooks and PowerBooks are pretty much on the mark, but I agree Apple has to loosen up and let things become more expandible and work on returning to the things they pioneered, like drive bays that can also house extra batteries.
I am optimistic for a couple of reasons:
1. There is no big new thing and no company is making money getting new customers so Apple is not losing ground now.
2. The PC makers will knock each other around and the industry will continue to consolidate, but that like everything else will be temporary. Someone (hopefully Apple) will get things churned up again and new startups will come on-line to make more computers. The industry could not sustain having just Dell and Compag/HP as the only big manufacturers.
3. Apple has only scratched the surface with its Unix foundation.
4. Apple has only scratched the surface with its software/hardware interoperablility.
5. iPod is a first step.
6. At some point even Microsoft will have to break up, either by the market forces or by an administration that DOESN'T bends over for big business.
So have cheer and start hacking emulators for XBox!
Comments
Personally I have not seen ONE PCI card that actually supported ie used the 64bit's extra pins. <hr></blockquote>
Look no further then the adaptec 29160 scsi card. Its a 64bit pci card, but works ok on 'regular' 32-bit slots.
As a first computer buyer, I'd say that we were relatively intelligent. In all honesty I know that the last thing we were thinking about was a mac. At the time we knew they were just too expensive. Many people still think this today. The bottom end iMac isn't too bad, the iBook is very good, but I know that I would have a hard time recommending anything else in the apple range.
As far as firewire gigabit goes in the PB G4, the laptop hdd can barely keep up with the 100 mbit normally, so I can't see why anyone is too excited about gigabit.
I think apple needs to have competitive entry level lines, iMac and iBook, while making their money on upgrades, and the Pro line. I think if most people get one mac, they are likely to buy another one, a bit further up the line next time. Why would a first time buyer look at an iMac now, unless they were RDF'd by a friend. On the other hand, I would recommend the iBook to many people, but lots of people think that $1200 is just too much.
About the ram ceiling, I have installed 1.5gb into many powermac's, but nothing more. Obviously the school thinks it doesn't work too. Apple should say somewhere only 1.5gb recommended or something, with a max of 3gb.
Cpu speed related, yes I know moto has been hurting apple, I remember the 500mhz for 1.5 years. When we got to 733mhz everyone was just so damned happy at progress. As it is now, the PB G4 is woefully under powered, so is the iBook. I know IBM has faster G3's, so why not let the iBook have it, and put some of the high yeild G4's into the PB G4, charge a lot for it. Just like top end PM G4's, there is someone out there who will pay for an incredibly expensive machine to get the best in graphical design, whatever.
The iBooks screen is a nice resolution at 1024 x 768, it does look nice in person, I have seen about 130 of them. But I still think it is too small.
64bit pci slots are handy, there are scsi raid cards, gigabit nic's available for them. However, 64bit 66mhz would be much more welcome, many sound cards and ide raid cards support this, so do high speed modems.
About the user experience and the OS. The only m$ OS that I like is win2k. I have it on all of my computers at home. On two it is dual booted with win98, this is because win2k won't play all games I want it to.
I have been using win2k for a year now, and I have only ever had one crash in it, for no reason what so ever the entire GUI screwed itself over, bits of the start bar went everywhere. It needed a reinstall to fix, but you must realise that I use this OS 8-14 hours a day everyday. It is very fast, I am typing this on a 600mhz laptop with 256mb ram, and I know that for normal browsing, icq, irc, that sort of thing I am never wanting more power. In games however the graphics card lets it down something shocking, if I want to play games I go and sit on my Dual P3 system with a gf2.
I hate win98, winme for their stability, or complete lack of it. I hate winxp for it's looks, and that registration stuff.
On the apple side I just hate OS 9.x because of it's instability. With more than one app open it is just a complete dog. my iBook had 288mb ram, I have since downgraded it to 160mb, but it never felt overly fast to me when doing more than one thing at a time.
I don't think that OS X is a suitable solution for the masses until all app's are properly ported over. A lot of games will never make it into OS X, hopefully most new games will. The other thing I don't like about OS X is it's looks. I much prefer the look of OS 9 or win2k over OS X and OS 9. I know many people will disagree, but just my opinion here.
And yes, the iMac screen is crap, it is curved all over the place, only does 1024, and is 13.8" viewable. I seriously want this fixed.
I feel apple does need a larger case than the PM G4, firewire and usb are sort of ok for a usual user, even though many would want an internal drive. The corporate sector doesn't. can you imagine a rackmount server with a couple of firewire drives hanging off the side.
it would be perfectly possible to have a push button faceplate to reveal 5x hot swappable scsi drives. If apple did it cleverly they would make it look completely normal from the front.
<a href="http://www.lian-li.com.tw/new-pc/PC626ENG.htm"; target="_blank">http://www.lian-li.com.tw/new-pc/PC626ENG.htm</a>;
look at that. Yes the grill at the front is damned ugly, but that case easily shows just what apple could do without much of a problem.
<a href="http://www.lian-li.com.tw/new-pc/PC78SCA.htm"; target="_blank">http://www.lian-li.com.tw/new-pc/PC78SCA.htm</a>;
what about that case, look at the number of drive bays. Yes it is big, but a lot of people would want it.
Anyway, I await your comments
The point why Apple is building Gigabit and 64bit PCI into its Macs is, that most certainly the price difference between gigabit and 100mbit and 64bit and 32bit is absolutely marginal these days for a big company.<hr></blockquote>
Actually limit on a 100Mbit ~= 12.5 MB/sec. A 5400 RPM drive in real tests with OS9 will do about 7-14 MB/sec depending of file sizes. Have you priced 1000mbit hubs, routers and switches?
[quote]And if you want more MHz, because that is better for penis comparisons, wait or get a PC.<hr></blockquote>
Typical maclot response. Apple's core market is design and digital content, not to mention a resurgence in 3D. More MHZ == more happy customers in core market. So cut the tiny peepee, buy a PC crap--we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.
<strong>
Sadly MS did it's homework with XP and MacOS X is said to be default from January on. As someone who used X11, KDE/Gnome(Linux), Win 3.11-XP and MacOS 8.5-X (X only a little) I can only say that though MacOS X looks nice the interface itself is inconsistent and unusable, plus the dock takes away more space than needed. And OS X is a resource hog, which doesn't help Apple if the new iMac is using a G3 still..</strong><hr></blockquote>
X only a little is right. The dock is resizable and hideble. So that point about the dock being too big is off base. As far as being a resource hog, yes it is. The interface however is far from unusable. I still prefer it to XP which I use at work. Plus I can, and do run X11 and Gnome under OS X while running all of my carbon/cocoa/classic apps, and while running virtual PC with 9x and 2K. Covers all my bases quite well. The mac has more to offer, period. And it only gets better with every new OS release.
<strong>-we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has no control over chip speed and you know it. If Apple had the chips they would use them. With that said here are some thoughts that occur to me. I think you need to keep these in mind when you compare Apple to other box makers.
*Mhz are out of Apple's hands. Just the way it is.
*We have no idea how much Apple pays for parts, but given their low volume, and use of special materials, it must be more than most box makers.
*high margins vs. low volumes
Apple pushes for high margin and not high volume Why?
* R&D we all admit that they spend more than any other box maker. How does that effect the bottom line?
*OS Development (a drag other box makers lack)
*If Apple lowered margins to PC levels what would be the cost to them and would a gain in volume be enough to offset a loss from low margins?
*Apple has limited revenue streams unlike Dell, Sony, and HP who have enterprise systems or other products. This hurts them.
*Why doesn't Apple offer consumer hardware upgrade paths (e.g. internal hard drive, vid card, and CPU upgrade) beyond buying a new model? Are there reasons not to do this?
What's my point? You can't say what Apple should charge or produce without access to the same data they have. Saying Apple should charge X just because Gateway or Dell does is not logical. That doesn't mean that Apple should not lower prices or offer a midrange computer, but it won't happen just because you think Apple can or should do it.
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: imacSE ]</p>
How much did OS X cost to develop? How much does dell spend on buying windows licenses each year?
the lack of mhz isn't apples fault, but it is still a problem that detracts from apples, there is no doubt about that
Sorry, but it IS partially Apple's fault. They chose to move to the G4 without doing homework on scaling issues, which appeared immediately or have you forgotten the move from 500mhz to 450mhz. Sorry, but 2+ years of "not managing" the performance issue doesn't cut it. And if you think that mHZ don't count, repeat after me:
"What is Apple's core market?"
"Graphics is Apple's core market."
repeat until it sinks in.
of course everything could change Jan 7, but I remain very sceptical.
<strong>
Typical maclot response. Apple's core market is design and digital content, not to mention a resurgence in 3D. More MHZ == more happy customers in core market. So cut the tiny peepee, buy a PC crap--we're talking about core market customers dying for some power after 2+ years of moving from 500--867 mhz.</strong><hr></blockquote>
"Maclot"? could it be another arsetech ****n in the house?
Did you think that up yourself or did your mother help you? Try participating in this thread, which is a reasonably intelligent discussion, considering the subject matter.
<strong>Dell doesn't develop their own OS, instead they pay M$ for copies.
How much did OS X cost to develop? How much does dell spend on buying windows licenses each year?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have no idea what Dell is charged, it would be interesting to know, but I assume the cost is passed on to the consumer when you buy your computer.
Likewise, part of the price of a Mac must be the OS. I'm not sure how much the OS X development cost, but the better part of it would have been the programmer salaries. Apple must spend a lot on that.
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: imacSE ]
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: imacSE ]</p>
<strong>
Sorry, but it IS partially Apple's fault. They chose to move to the G4 without doing homework on scaling issues, which appeared immediately or have you forgotten the move from 500mhz to 450mhz. Sorry, but 2+ years of "not managing" the performance issue doesn't cut it. </strong><hr></blockquote>
So what was their other option? Wait? Use G3s? Hope IBM bails them out? Do you know for a fact that Apple did not, as you put it, do their homework? It's just as likely that Moto sold them a bill of goods and Apple trusted them when they should not have. The point is, you don't know.
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: imacSE ]</p>
I wish I had 4.3 Billion dollars
on another note
Cowerd posted saying that graphics were apples core market, and likewise mhz matter
then why are all the sgi workstations around 300mhz ???(last I checked at least)
and sgis are the most used graphics workstations, and have the best reputation on graphics. when it comes to graphics(unless its quake 3 rendering) you need a lot of ram, a good motherboard, a good processor, good system bus...etc. mhz is not priority there.
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: Wrong Robot ]</p>
[QB]
*We have no idea how much Apple pays for parts, but given their low volume, and use of special materials, it must be more than most box makers.
[QB]<hr></blockquote>
You must be kidding - low volume? 100.000 iMacs a month is low volume? wow.
<strong>
on another note Cowerd posted saying that graphics were apples core market, and likewise mhz matter
then why are all the sgi workstations around 300mhz ???(last I checked at least)
and sgis are the most used graphics workstations, and have the best reputation on graphics. </strong><hr></blockquote>
In case you haven't noticed SGI's market share is dropping at an amazing rate troughout the last 4 years and SGI as a company is only selling supercomputers by now - the workstation market share they had was eaten up by Wintel. The only gfx workstation they sell is maybe to Square to make Final Fantasy, but they are moving to Intel/Linux at a fast pace already. SGI is dying, bleeding engineers to NVidia and customers to the Windows world.
<strong>
You must be kidding - low volume? 100.000 iMacs a month is low volume? wow.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Compared to PC companies yes they do have low volume and due to this fact I'm sure they don't get as big a price break on parts.
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: imacSE ]</p>
<strong>Compared to PC companies yes they do have low volume.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe compared to all manufacturers together, but I doubt there's much difference to, say, Gateway or HP or even Compaq on a monthly basis. All three together of course outshine Apple - but I guess the difference can never be more than a few dollars for each part.
<strong>yea, the profit margins of PC manufacturers are about 5% whereas Apples profit margin is around 30%. this is all nice because it makes Apple live longer (they are rumored to have ~ $3 billion in cash right now) but I think that maybe a 20 or 25% profit margin would be acceptable as well. and 10% off $3500 is around $349.99 - which makes up for a nice difference.
no they wouldn't be able to drop their margins 5-10%. they would be bleeding money if they did. they lose money selling computers as it is. Apple hasn't turned a profitable operating expense quarter in over a year now I believe. their profits come from the interest on their 4 billion dollar cash reserve and constantly selling off their never ending ARM supply
SGI cpu's have much more cache and run on a completely differant set of operations.
As a general rule though, there is very little reason to buy an apple now over a pc, think of a Dual Athlon 1600mhz system. Much cheaper, and faster. Apple could and should make a high end expensive system again. Even if it uses the top 5% of G4's, the price would exclude a wide range of people from buying it, apart from people who want to stay with macs and need the performance.
100,000 iMac's aren't low volume, but I can't see too many large companies wanting to mass produce something custom for 100,000 orders, unless there was an almost definate order for some more
not even close. The highest capacity PowerMac for RAM is the Sawtooth G4 motherboard which will take 2 GBs (4X 512MB) and that will only show up in OS X. 1 GB DIMMS are not compatible at all.
[quote]It's designed for someone who wants a basic computer. That's the entire idea around the imac. You can pick up an older G4 model that's only slightly slower for around the price of an iMac.<hr></blockquote>
1.) if that's the entire idea around the iMac than it shouldn't be topped out at a "prosumer" price of 1499 and there should be something between it and the powermac.
2.) Pick up an older G4 model? is that a joke. I want to spend 1600 dollars on a new mac that I get to have expansion for in the future and that includes a display of my size and choice. Not a discontinued tower that still goes for way more than its worth.
[quote]Have you seen the screen before? Once people see it, they tend to stop complaining about the screen.<hr></blockquote>
lowend iBook at 1299 is fine with 12.1 inch
for 1700 bucks you should be getting a 13.3 inch display not a 12.1.
[quote]Have you tried using OSX on an iBook? Not enough screen for the OS.
<hr></blockquote>
there sure is enough. how is there not enough when the majority of mac users are running 1024 x 768? it fits perfectly.
[quote]Do you understand the point he was making? A HD on a laptop [5400rpm to be charitable] CANNOT saturate a 100bit ethernet connection. Not enough throughput. Gigabit on a laptop = marketing, or something Apple hasn't given us yet.
<hr></blockquote>
1.) the drive can saturate 100mb/sec. 100mb/sec also is lower than its theoretical peak do to overhead. 1000mb/sec will raise that capacity even with the overhead increasing transfer speeds.
2.) the main advantage of gigabit ethernet on the Powerbook is that the network disk is FASTER to use and access than the internal drive. So you could be using and storing all your media for a FCP project on a server with a RAID and be editing it through gigabit on your Powerbook. the internal hard drive doesn't slow that down and that is exactly what Apple has been advertising gigabit for.
[quote]Sadly MS did it's homework with XP and MacOS X is said to be default from January on. As someone who used X11, KDE/Gnome(Linux), Win 3.11-XP and MacOS 8.5-X (X only a little) I can only say that though MacOS X looks nice the interface itself is inconsistent and unusable, plus the dock takes away more space than needed. And OS X is a resource hog, which doesn't help Apple if the new iMac is using a G3 still..<hr></blockquote>
1.) what are you trying to say by making a point that OS X will only become default January?
2.) How is the interface "unusuable". Certainly is more than usuable here and elsewhere. I think its great to tell you the truth. XP's looks like crap. it really does. what a poor design.
3.) the dock takes up as much space as you want it to. it scales to any size and can be hidden as well.
4.) any proof of OS X being a resource hog other than the interface being unresponsive on computers that don't have 2d acceleration enabled?
[quote]You must be kidding - low volume? 100.000 iMacs a month is low volume? wow.<hr></blockquote>
1.) the rates are lower than that now
2.) yes 100,000 is very low for the iMac. that's 300,000 a quarter. that is pathetic. Apple use to sell 500,000.
Being the developer of the software and hardware is not an excuse or banner to be waved, it is a business model. A business model that has advantages and disadvantages in a business where only the very high-end companies can run both soft and hardware development.
Apple has to use its advantages and compensate for its disadvantages.
The question is what is the goal. To remain at 5% of the market or to be a serious alternative on an industry-wide basis. In this time of economic recession world-wide, it may not be a bad thing to make a play for the bigger market share.
So here are my thoughts:
Apple already lost the 95% of the market that doesn't use Altivec or understand the quality of pdf integration within the OS. And nothing we think of as Mac users makes any difference. As Apple pushes its standards, and pushes the codecs in QuickTime and finds ways of leveraging its unix core, it also has to come up with a $500 machine that surfs the net, writes email and also happens to use OS X on the side.
I think this can be done and has been done with the iMac. An all-in-one with the minimum requirements and the ability to be upgraded with USB and Firewire connectivity. There is nothing wrong with that model. The only problems are, now, a small screen and slow processor speeds that couldn't be upgraded easily. But those weren't big deals and the iMac sold very well and won over some PC folks. The design didn't hurt either.
The real problem to me is that the iMac has not gotten down to the $500 level that Steve Jobs claimed strive for. If there is a new iMac with LCD screen and stuff, I hope it is so different that they change the name and keep the current iMac (with upgraded mobo and processors) around for the $500 crowd and education.
The percieved problem with the PowerMac G4's, are legitimate when you talk about limited drive bays and they are a little pricey, but lets be honest. A $1000 difference in a workstation is not significant for a big design firm. If it is a Mac place, it will stay a Mac place. If it is PC based, it will remain PC based until something significant happens. $1000 IS significant for the individual developer or designer and that is much of Apple's traditional core and so Apple needs to be proactive in making its products accessible for those folks with special deals or bundles or whatever.
The Megahurts thing is only a temporary problem in the long-term so I think it is really premature to think that the last year or so or REAL and last 2 years or so of PERCIEVED slow processors is a real problem. The landscape will be far different in 8 months. The only ones who are pissed off are the ones that have needed to buy this year....not a big market share...so stop whining.
The iBooks and PowerBooks are pretty much on the mark, but I agree Apple has to loosen up and let things become more expandible and work on returning to the things they pioneered, like drive bays that can also house extra batteries.
I am optimistic for a couple of reasons:
1. There is no big new thing and no company is making money getting new customers so Apple is not losing ground now.
2. The PC makers will knock each other around and the industry will continue to consolidate, but that like everything else will be temporary. Someone (hopefully Apple) will get things churned up again and new startups will come on-line to make more computers. The industry could not sustain having just Dell and Compag/HP as the only big manufacturers.
3. Apple has only scratched the surface with its Unix foundation.
4. Apple has only scratched the surface with its software/hardware interoperablility.
5. iPod is a first step.
6. At some point even Microsoft will have to break up, either by the market forces or by an administration that DOESN'T bends over for big business.
So have cheer and start hacking emulators for XBox!
[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: MacGregor ]</p>