Technology The Unofficial Mac thread

[masta247]

LOL at paying for a Navigation app when Android phones have it for free

Lol at paying for any software Not really but I seriously can't remember the last time I used paid software. Open software and freeware ftw.

 

[S. Fourteen]

After roughly two years of declines, growth in worldwide market for desktop PC sales is poised to rebound into the black during the 2010 calendar year, thanks largely to Apple's latest iMac offerings, according to a published report.

In a research note issued Wednesday by Caris & Company, analyst Robert Cihra said growth in the overall PC market for 2010 is trending upwards of 15 to 20%, fueled by greater than 90% growth in combined sales of netbooks and notebooks.

At the same time, however, he said desktop sales are showing signs of life for the first time in 24 months, given strong performance of Apple's iMac line that could boost year-over-year shipments by approximately 3%, compared to last year's 12% slippage.

"We continue to model note/netbook accounting for greater than 90% of PC unit growth in 2010, but with desktops at least now looking like they’ve stopped eroding and can resume at least some low single-digit recovery after 2 years of decline, driven by emerging markets, corporate workhorse use and power gamers," Cihra wrote. "But believe it or not, we estimate Apple’s iMac accounting for a full 1/4 of ALL desktop market growth in calendar year 2010."

Regionally, the analyst estimates that while US corporate demand for PCs is finally gaining some steam, the majority of overall growth in the sector is likely to come from emerging markets like Western Europe and Japan, which he sees accounting for some 70% of the market's growth. This would represent the first time international sales contributed to more than 50% of the market, he added.

The iMac's contributions to global desktop growth shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise. Following the October introduction of new 21- and 27-inch models, Apple in November saw its combined Mac sales rise by 21%, driven by a staggering 74% growth rate in sales of desktop Macs.

During its most recent quarter ended December, the Cupertino-based company continued to ride on the new iMacs' momentum, reporting a 57% rise in desktop sales sequentially, which translated into a 70% jump year-over-year. Revenues for the segment were also up 55% and 62%, respectively.

AppleInsider | Apple's iMac to account for 25% of global desktop growth in 2010

Are they flocking away? I don't think so.

 

[Casey]

Let's see them move above that 10% market share.

Then we'll talk.

 

[S. Fourteen]

I do like to see them grow so I can see you log off in shame. But I think it would be better for us Apple consumers if Apple remained a niche market.

Whatever though, I'm willing to adapt.

 

[Casey]

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

"Remaining niche" is only something that companies with low market share say.

Apple computers are not niche products, they have low market share because they are overpriced and underpowered.

 

[S. Fourteen]

Mainstream versus non mainstream, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

With larger market share comes compromises.

 

[S. Fourteen]

Apple refreshes MacBook Pro family with Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors... at long last! -- Engadget

The MacBook Pros are finally updated.

 

[masta247]

Mainstream versus non mainstream, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

With larger market share comes compromises.

Well, from my observations Apple became mainstream long ago. They are somehow able to hold their "niche" opinion.

 

[3en]

Apple refreshes MacBook Pro family with Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors... at long last! -- Engadget

The MacBook Pros are finally updated.

Finally they update them! took wayyyy to long

Got my eyes set on one of the 15"'s glad theirs an option with a higher res screen and matte option. I wonder how much faster it will be with the i5/i7 quad core processors.

Cool to see the automatic graphic switching and mini display that supports audio now.

Will have to get saving as just bought an iPad!

 

[S. Fourteen]

A brief history lesson of Macintosh

Compute! David D. Thornburg, June 1984

This refreshing one-step-forward is the Apple Macintosh—a computer designed for anyone to use. Macintosh is reasonably priced ($2500 including display and disk drive and operating system software—IBM, please note). But more important than Macintosh’s system price is the almost intuitively simple manner in which it is used. Macintosh is, quite simply, a civilized machine. After working with it for a while, I found myself quite intolerant of my other computers.

Creative Computing, John Anderson, July 1984

In its current form, the Macintosh is the distilled embodiment of a promise: the software can be intuitively easy to use, while remaining just as powerful as anything else around. It is now to lay out the “bads”:
• The Macintosh does not have enough RAM.
• Single microfloppy is slow and inadequate.
• There are no internal expansion slots or external expansion buses.
• MacWrite has some severe limitations.
• The system is monochrome only.
• MS-DOS compatibility is ruled out.
• The Macintosh will not multitask.
• You can’t use a Mac away from a desk.
• MacPaint has an easel size limitation.
• Forget about external video.
• Macintosh software developmennt is an involved process.

The Seybold Report on Professional Computing, Vol. 2, No. 6

Apple got a lot of things right with Macintosh. In many ways Mac represents the direction that desktop computers are (or at least should be) going:
• The computer is an appliance. No electronic skills required.
• A system that is truly easy to use. It is a pleasure for everyone from the computerphobe to the computer-jock.
• A compact, transportable package.
• A beautiful screen display and very quick graphics.
• An inexpensive communications bus for use as a work-area network and as a means of tying additional peripherals to the machine.
• Attractive pricing.
• A great deal of personality and user appeal.

Los Angeles Times, Lawrence J. Magid, 29 January 1984

Available software is critical to the success of any new computer system and Apple is counting on broad support since the machine can’t run software written for MS-DOS or any other standard operating system. The machine’s inability to run MS-DOS could be its salvation or its downfall.

New York Times, Erik Sandberg-Diment, 24 January 1984

The Mac display makes all the other personal computer screens look like distorted rejects from a Cubist art school. If you can live with the small screen, and the lack of color does not bother you, there is simply no personal computer that comes close to the Mac in display quality.

San Francisco Examiner, John C. Dvorak, 19 February 1984

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation - as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.

25 Years of Macintosh : AAPLinvestors

 

[S. Fourteen]

The newly approved Opera app (Steve playing nice for the oncoming Adobe lawsuit? I think he's just happy that the iPad is a huge success and it ain't done yet) is the number one download worldwide at the moment - but its not perfect (not that Safari mobile is) and some are questioning security issue as well.

AppleInsider | Opera Mini for iPhone fails Acid3 test

I'll stick with Safari mobile , thanks

 

[S. Fourteen]

Another interesting piece brought to my attention by Mr. Gruber

The howls of protest coming from iPhone and iPad developers are loud and shrill, and are sure to grow louder and shriller as their Golden Cage grows smaller and smaller, as I’m certain it will.

The Golden Cage is indeed a cage, and a strong one. Yet it has no door. Still the poor imprisoned wretches continue, on their own free will and in battalion strength, to pack subway-rush-hour-tightly into their curious prison. I suggest that the jailbirds’ grievances should lie not with their jailers, but with the outside world, which offers them so little.
It appears that no one (not PG, either) has a grasp of the real problem behind Apple’s tyranny. At any rate, no one is talking about it. It is quite true that Apple’s new App Store policies are exactly the kind of behavior one might expect from a tyrannical monopoly. But, having cornered no markets, Apple is not a monopoly. Or is it?

I argue that Apple now has not one but two monopolies:

I) A nearly-total monopoly on computer (and pocket computer) systems designed with good taste.

II) A total monopoly on the Microsoft-free, hassle-free personal computer. [1]

Mr. Jobs is indeed starting to behave like that other convicted monopolist we know and love. Yet unlike the latter, Jobs did not engage in underhanded business practices to create his monopolies. They were handed to him on a silver platter by the rest of the market, which insists on peddling either outright crap [2] or cheap imitations [3] of Apple’s aesthetic. In order to resist the temptation this worldwide herd of mindless junk-peddlers and imitators have placed before him, it would not be enough for Jobs to merely “not be evil.” He would have to be a saint (and a traitor to his shareholders.)

Imagine that every car maker save for Toyota insisted on using the infamous East German Trabant as a standard of quality – yet blindly imitated random elements of Toyota’s visual design. How long would it take for the whiners to appear on the scene and start making noises about monopolistic tyranny? How long would it take for Toyota to start living up to these accusations in earnest? And why should it not do so? What is to be gained from corporate sainthood? From a refusal to fleece eagerly willing suckers for all they’re worth? Idle threats of defection by outraged iPhone developers [4] are laughable nonsense simply because – in the two categories listed – Apple has no competition. Every commercial product which competes directly with an Apple product (particularly the iPhone) gives me (and many others) the distinct impression that “where it is original, it is not good, and where it is good, it is not original.”

Of course, Apple’s competitors cannot actually copy the secret of its greatness, because Apple is a fundamentally different type of organism. Rather than a brainless government-by-committee, it is an extension of one man’s will, projected with the aid of a small group of trusted lieutenants: no focus groups in sight. For the Apple-imitators to turn into genuine “Apples” would be as fantastic and unlikely as it would be for a slime mold to spontaneously become a true multicellular animal, equipped with a central nervous system. It is also unclear that, from their own perspective, they should want to grow brains – for a creature with that kind of centralized point of failure is decidedly no longer immortal. [5] There is every reason to believe that when Jobs dies, Apple will also die [6] – or at the very least, “diminish, and go into the West,” becoming a pale imitation of itself – like the post-Edison zombie of General Electric, or Hughes Aircraft after Hughes. Yet we, the consumers and developers, could certainly use more products from corporations endowed with an actual mind and will.

You want a non-tyrannical Apple? Rather than striving to weaken Apple so that it can be devoured by its brawny-yet-mindless competitors, do something constructive. Experiment with GUIs which don’t trace their descent to Xerox PARC. Forever renounce the idiotic practice of copying Microsoft, that cheap imitation of a cheap imitation. If you are creative, create. Otherwise, strive to find a strong-willed Jobs figure gifted with good taste, and become his loyal servant. This is how we get quality products, everywhere from architecture to operating systems. There is no other way. Creativity requires a mind, and a herd has none.

Edit:
A number of people linking here seem to think that I like Apple or forgive its sins (as if Apple needs my forgiveness.) This is a mistake. I loathe Apple products, and chafe under the straightjacket of their aesthetic whenever I use one. I simply happen to despise their competition that much more. At least Apple has an aesthetic. Its works, however flawed, are the works of a person, rather than an amorphous blob.

[1] For a variety of reasons, Apple’s OS is not my choice on the desktop. Yet my only laptop is a Macbook Air. No one else makes a portable where every hardware component simply works, including suspend mode, while entirely freeing me from Microsoft. (In an important sense, Apple’s dominance stems partly from an unholy “good cop, bad cop” symbiosis with the Redmond Tyrant.) I should also note that no one else makes a laptop whose metallic chassis enables it to pass the “Creak Test” – hold a device by two opposite corners and flex gently. Do you hear a noise of any kind? If so, you are holding a mechanically-unsound piece of garbage.

[2] The still-ubiquitous non-touchscreen phones, for instance.

[3] What else would you call this? And were it not for trademark and patent laws, I imagine that Apple’s mobile phone competitors would pull out all the stops and make outright copies without shame, just as Microsoft continues to shamelessly ape the Apple GUI – as it has continuously done since Windows 1.0.

[4] The fabled Google Android? It is entirely the piece of junk one ought to expect from a development process driven by committees and steered by non-creative minds. And it appears that many would-be buyers know it.

[5] In addition to the likely loss of immortality, such a transformation would also make a company far less hospitable to the time-servers, sycophants, and sociopaths who presently dominate American corporate culture. It would be vigorously resisted by almost everyone who is in any kind of position to resist it.

[6] Stock-holders who are outraged over Mr. Jobs’ failure to report on his failing health certainly seem to think so.

This entry was written by Stanislav , posted on Friday April 16 2010

Loper OS » Non-Apple’s Mistake

Don't shoot the messenger heh

 

[S. Fourteen]

Mercury-News: Apple tops the Valley for valuation

With the total market value of AAPL at about US$220 billion, over the past year Apple has managed to de-throne Google as Silicon Valley's most valuable company. By comparison, the search and cellphone-centric Big G has a market capitalization of about $174B as of today's prices.

In a retrospective piece, the Silicon Valley Mercury News points out that Apple's market cap is up 107 percent from one year ago. There are only two companies in the United States with a market capitalization greater than Apple's: Exxon Mobil and Microsoft.

Earlier this month, Apple's market cap passed that of Wal-Mart; the margin was $2.84 billion as of April 2nd, 2010 and is about $18B today.

Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf notes Apple's success at riding out the USA's economic recession. "It's just mind-boggling. Thanks to the iPhone, it just sailed through the recession. It was just an incredible engine." For the latest on Apple's financial health, follow our live blog of its 2nd quarter analysts call, tomorrow at 2 pm PDT/5 pm EDT.

*waits for casey to start spewing*

 

[S. Fourteen]

If you didn't follow the link to Stanislav Datskovskiy piece, you missed an interesting read about GUI

The Anti-Mac User Interface (Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen)

the article is outdated but interesting nonetheless

 

[Synful*Luv]

is new, first time owner of macbook. So far... very pleased. But still learnding.

 

[Flipmo]

I thought some would be interested to see this video, for the sake of discussion or whatever. Since the big news is that press conference showing off the new Apple 4G.

Discuss away.

 

[masta247]

That marketing guy is hilarous mentioning how "revolutionary" that phone is. WOW IN 2009 IPHONE BROUGHT THE VIDEOH RECORDING!!1 And we're bringing video calling to the world now!"

Not like most 3g phones had it since 2003 or so. But yeah I won't be surprised if people will feel the need to video call because of this. The video is hilarous "Oh I can't believe this is happening!!1 I see people on my screen!!!1".
And then they talk about its "amazing" screen which is LCD TFT lmao.

But to be fair is not as terrible as previous Iphones (though it looks shittier) but it's already outdated compared to its competition. I expected a bigger screen (amoled which already became a standard) and a faster CPU at the very least.

If this video was for real it should be like "for the very first time we have a usable camera in our Iphone. Oh and we improved screen resolution but the phone looks shittier and is heavier. We hope you don't mind"

 

[Flipmo]

lol.

I don't have anything against APPLE persay - I think when it comes to digital design and such their computers are great for it. This being said, I'm a PC AMD kind of guy.

I can see the appeal the phone has though, just like they say in the video - it's simple. They keep refering to simplicity, etc ... lets be honest here, the average everyday user doesn't care about AMOLED screens, and the technicalities we here for the most part love. Apple has found a way to get to those simple folks who just want a phone, that looks decent and had cool features. I don't think most of their phone users are fan boys either, they just can't be bothered with the detail many of us drool over.

It comes down to what you're really looking for in the end.

 

[masta247]

Yes I know this but it is silly that it comes at ridiculous price considering what it offers. And it's silly that people are still willing to pay that much for it.
Except of that it's their marketing that I find funny. It's brainwashing and success propaganda based on lies I wanted to point out

It comes down to what you're really looking for in the end.

I think it's more about making people think it's what they're looking for/need.
Because other modern and cheaper phones would fit their genuine needs just as well if not better.
Most Apple devices would fail dramatically if they weren't backed by Apple but by any other company.

I sent this video to a very techy guy I know and he was literally crying with laughter. He's very anti-Apple He usually says that Steve Jobs is a modern Adolf Hitler. Well, actually his manipulation techniques sort of resemble Hitler.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

How simple do people want a phone to be? Its not rocket science how to use and navigate within a mobile phone if you've used one before. All the smartphones have menus, apps, features etc. from where you can navigate. icons have been used to improve user-friendliness.