Another boring money post

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I still remain mystified that they don't separately market the operating system. Everyone (even besides apple fanboi's in general) rave about it. Why not market it? To me, this is where the whole "closed system" marketing ideas fail. Get folks interested in your hardware, by using your software...

I'm sure they've done the math. They're a hardware company. Not a software company. The OS is amazing. I'm glad you admitted it. The OS is clearly superior to Windows in terms of user friendliness and security.

Everyone hates Windows. Linux wouldn't have a "cult following" if Windows didn't suck. Folks just don't want to "pay the premium" for Apple hardware. Honestly, I get what you're saying about Dell, and I agree, but it's what folks are willing to pay, so it sells. And sells well.

So, you hate Windows, but you don't want to pay a little bit more money to enjoy what you use for 8-12 hours a day? Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb (south park style). That's really god damn cheap if I do say so myself. BTW, how is your geo metro.... Oh wait... You drive a Mercedes.

The hatred of Windows would lead to the purchase of a suitable alternative for many. I just don't get it.

Hardware company. Apple has addressed this in the past.

I can't believe how horrible it is. My old, old creative MP3 player uses almost any method to transfer files that I want. I don't need to use the creative software (not that it probably even works anymore with windows 7).

The company selling you the iPod wants you to use the product that it uses to sell music. Shocker. How is this not the ideal solution if you're not pirating music? Buy music from industry leading music store, put on device. Boom. Simple. iTunes problem is it's bloated so software. They're gutting it for iTunes 11 and making it just a jukebox/store again and I cannot wait.

Like I said, I'm all for changing the market. I have no problem with flash disappearing. That being said, if I choose to watch a flash video with my tablet, then I also choose to plug the damn thing in shortly. My choice. I don't need "big brother" making that decision for me. I'll certainly not feel sorry for adobe when flash's demise hits. In the meantime? I want to watch the video occasionally and live with the results.

Most Flash videos are H264 anyway. Youtube and Vimeo, for example. I can't say that I have found a situation where I've wished I had flash on an iPad beyond when I was reading Flex documentation and examples (so the flash player example wouldn't load). That happened once in probably 50 hours. It's a non-issue that people try to turn into something that matters. How the hell is this a marketing point for other tablets is beyond me. So dumb and playing to the morons.

Understand what you are saying about Dell. This is a systemic problem with American business. Dell has paid for repairs to a bunch of machines. Sadly, it seems to be a more profitable model than building things the right way. I did recommend the purchase of 6 HP laptops for one of my clients. Seemed to be the best buy out there on the market. He did ask me if I'd buy them, and I said I wouldn't as I'd buy the equivalent Lenovo, but I did admit the specs were better and with the sale price he could get, they were also cheaper. Good buy for him.

There is absolutely no way that it is cheaper to have one in 3 people out of comission (not able to work) for weeks at a time when their machines are being repaired, then restored, then set-up then just buying quality to begin with and not having these issues.

Well, I used the term "niche" to mean insignificant. On the PC front, their market share is definitely that. On the other products, they're really not a necessary part of the business world. The IPHONE might be becoming necessary (smart phones in general) in a small segment of the market, but most of us would continue to exist and be successful without them. The IPOD and IPAD? Unquestioned successes, but again, not critical pieces of equipment for most people. I use my mp3 player and enjoy my tablet, but I've not needed the "apple specific" ones, nor needed to spend the premium to get one.

Market share, sure. So is Mercedes and BMW. They're extremely profitable. Their market share is growing and soon won't be insigificant. People that use Macs use computers more, so people are going to start catering to them as their market share increases.

Too long.. Have to slice in two.

[Partial]

I dunno. I've used Photoshop on a PC and on a Mac. I don't really see a difference, but would it kill Mac to put a scroll wheel on the damn mouse?

Why? You can drag two fingers and scroll. Inertial scrolling is incredible and has been a game changer in computing. It has led to Windows Phone 7 and likely Windows 8 to copy it. Android has as well. Scroll wheels are dead.

Has nothing to do with Big Brother, RG. It's called pushing technology forward. Someone needs to move on from the status quo. I'll give you that it's easier for Apple with it's smaller market share and smaller enterprise footsteps. If Apple didn't move on from legacy tech.... Android would look and function like a blackberry, multitouch wouldn't exist, trackpads would still suck balls and be un-useable, keyboards would be garbage, backlit keyboards wouldn't exist, music would sitll be bought on CDs, etc.

Apple leaves legacy technology behind. Someone has to do it for the betterment of society. Not a huge deal. Scroll wheels still work. Plug in a different mouse if you want a scroll wheel. I'd much rather have the inertial scrolling.

I find it maddening to no end that apple mandates ITUNES. There is no reason for it, other than control. It's a crappy program, with subpar features. It has kept me from buying any IPOD devices, and is one of the major reasons that the IPAD 1's that my girls have are so frustrating for me to use. I simply despise ITUNES.

Have you ever used it? What is sub par? What is so bad about it? I agree that it is very un-apple to manage videos, music and even some docs (for synching to iDevices) in iTunes. This is soon changing so this argument is pretty much moot.

Next, the proprietary cables necessary to use additional functionality on the IPAD's my girls have is also frustrating. Yes, I realize that this is not exclusively Apple related, other companies have proprietary cabling as well, but it goes hand in hand with Apple's business model, a model that I don't like and do my damndest not to support.

You really think finding a mini-hdmi or micro-usb cable is more common than a generic iPod cable? You say you like to shop on monoprice... I do too... I can easily buy an iPod cable for pretty much the same price as a micro-usb.

Finally, there is no reason not to support flash. I understand that technology is changing, but there are a multitude of sites using flash today, and to not support it? Stupid. Move technology, change the direction, that's fine, but support the standard while it's the standard.... To do anything else is indefensible.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. I got hired at my current job for my ability to write Flex code, which is a framework built in flash. It's a garbage product that runs like shit. It doesn't support multi-touch. It's so much slower than an equivalent HTML application it's not even funny. The technology is there today, GWT, Sproutcore, etc. Flash is completely unnecessary and since it doesn't have any hardware acceleration on anything but Windows, it is slow as shit.

A Youtube video should not spike a CPU to 100%. That's absolutely ridiculous.

The ultimate legacy friendly product, Internet Explorer, is not going to allow for flash in Windows 8. Read that one more time.

FLASH WILL NOT WORK IN INTERNET EXPLORER IN WINDOWS 8. FLASH WILL NOT WORK IN INTERNET EXPLORER IN WINDOWS 8.

Flash is basically dead. The day Windows 8 hits is the day it officially dies. Thank Apple for that one.

I have no direct experience with a mac, or a macbook, or a macbook air. I haven't used a mac since college in the late 80's.

So, you really think you're in a position to discuss whether they're superior or inferior? This is such a joke dude. You're clearly judging a book by it's cover. THERE IS A REASON APPLE IS THE ONE OF THE MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES IN THE WORLD. THEY MAKE INCREDIBLE PRODUCTS WITH THE USER IN MIND.

Seriously. I have no interest in their computers, and no need to own one or want one. I only buy thinkpads.

Funny. Thinkpads are garbage since they went to Lenovo. I've had one at work for awhile. They're huge, bulky, heavy, shitty displays, shitty keyboards, shitty trackpads, no multitouch, no backlight on the keyboards, crap battery life, and the CLITORIS my god the CLITORIS! This was my experience with a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad w/ 4 GB of ram, etc. A beast of a machine a few years back when I was given it. It had the extended battery and could maybe get 3 hrs... What a fricking joke.

It's been that way since my first one, a 486-20.... That gives you an idea on how long it has been. We bought my wife a Sony Vaio once, that'll never happen again.... My work computer is one of those "disposable Dell's" that apple fanboi keeps ranting about how "bad" they are. Funny thing though, it does everything I need it to do, and as a shareholder, I appreciate the fact that it wasn't expensive, since we have 37k of them in the US. My $100 blackberry fills its role quite nicely and it was cheap too. (It's 3 years old now, I think).... We do allow use of the IPHONE, but the security features that are employed here don't work very well with the IPHONE. A common occurence is having your IPHONE reset to factory settings accidentally. It's become so common, one of our techs has become an expert at rebuilding them... We don't have this problem with the blackberrys, I'm not tech savvy so I have no idea why. The techs hate the IPHONE though. Makes too much extra, unnecessary work for them, I guess.

As a share holder shouldn't you want your company to have the tools that allow people to most productive instead of how cheap they are? Your 100$ blackberry wasn't 100 dollars when it was new. It may do email and bbm well... but that's it. No multitouch, no webkit browser, etc. Your companies IT clearly sucks. I've worked for a fortune 100 company that is phasing in the iPhone and they never have these problems. iPhone has excellent enterprise support since iOs 2 (iOs 5 is coming out early October).

So, yes, I'm biased against Apple products. I have no interest in them and don't share the hype about them. They fill a niche market, and do it quite nicely, but the "perception" that there aren't viable alternatives out there is simply ridiculous.

There are viable alternatives. They're equally expensive, and typically lower quality. You're clearly biased because you're too afraid you might like a luxury good -- like your delta bravo mercedes -- and become hooked on the experience.

[mraynrand]

I have a MacBook Pro as my laptop and built my own home "PC" from an Asus board, etc. etc for the family. The thing I like best about the Mac is it almost never freezes, it never crashes, it never gets infected (I've had a Mac laptop for 10 years and never had to install antivirus software), and it does almost everything the other computer can do - some video codecs don't translate well between the two platforms - that's annoying. The Mac cost well over a thousand more though. Damn expensive.

[Partial]

I have a MacBook Pro as my laptop and built my own home "PC" from an Asus board, etc. etc for the family. The thing I like best about the Mac is it almost never freezes, it never crashes, it never gets infected (I've had a Mac laptop for 10 years and never had to install antivirus software), and it does almost everything the other computer can do - some video codecs don't translate well between the two platforms - that's annoying. The Mac cost well over a thousand more though. Damn expensive.

Expensive, yes, but not any more than an equivalent Dell, HP, etc. Yes, it's more expensive than the cheapest Dell, HP, etc. It's expensive, but it's worth it, it never crashes, it never freezes, it never gets infected, as you said! It has a multitouch trackpad, a backlit keyboard, a beautiful display, etc. Keep fighting the good fight man!

[Scott Campbell]

The best thing about Macs is how they effortlessly make julienne fries. It also kicks the crap out of my George Foreman grill.

[Freak Out]

This have turned into a extremely boring money post.

[retailguy]

Thanks for the good discussion Zool & Freak. I enjoyed it.

Madtown, you're a complete jackass for allowing this imbecile to ruin your forum.

[mraynrand]

Thanks for the good discussion Zool & Freak. I enjoyed it.

Madtown, you're a complete jackass for allowing this imbecile to ruin your forum.

I'm sorry

[mraynrand]

I dunno. I've used Photoshop on a PC and on a Mac. I don't really see a difference, but would it kill Mac to put a scroll wheel on the damn mouse?

I routinely use photoshop on both platforms. There really is no difference - you have to have comparable RAM and processing speed though, and my experience is that the Mac is gonna cost you more - at least $500.

[MJZiggy]

Windows 7 on a new pc? Hassle free or darn close. Upgraded on an older pc? Still has problems.

Never used snow kitty or Ubuntu.... Had an eee pc a while back that had linux. It worked. Wasn't flashy but it worked.

Ziggy - scroll wheels are like Flash. Big brother has determined that they're unnecessary.

Good to know that Windows 7 is iffy as an upgrade. I need to get a new copy of the Adobe Suite and I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 7 while I'm spending money I can't spend yet.

[retailguy]

I'm sorry

You should be sorry. What were you thinking? You should have built your laptop from spare parts discarded behind a non-descript building in Cupertino.

[retailguy]

Good to know that Windows 7 is iffy as an upgrade. I need to get a new copy of the Adobe Suite and I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 7 while I'm spending money I can't spend yet.

Ziggy, you should get your computer concerns answered by appleinsider.com.

[mraynrand]

Funny. Thinkpads are garbage since they went to Lenovo. I've had one at work for awhile. They're huge, bulky, heavy, shitty displays, shitty keyboards, shitty trackpads, no multitouch, no backlight on the keyboards, crap battery life, and the CLITORIS my god the CLITORIS! This was my experience with a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad w/ 4 GB of ram, etc. A beast of a machine a few years back when I was given it. It had the extended battery and could maybe get 3 hrs... What a fricking joke.

That's pretty much what I bought for the wife and my kid. For the money, you can't beat it. You just have to expect it to have maybe a 70% lifespan of a Mac, but for the cost savings (about 1/3 to 1/2 of the equivalent Mac) it's not a bad deal

[mraynrand]

Zig, I just did a clean install of windows7 on an older computer - no upgrade. I bought someone's disk for a reduced price, rather than a new copy. I still use photoshop 7 or CS3 for most stuff - what do you need the new suite for?

[MJZiggy]

Because I upgraded to a very nice Toshiba for the sole purpose of upgrading from CS2. I never installed CS2 on the new machine and the very old computer (that I gave to my son) was having trouble so I uninstalled it. Since I still don't know for sure whether the new client will hire me, I need it in case they don't. If they do hire me, then I just want it because it's easier to toss a file onto a flash drive and bring it home to work on. When they brought me in, they got me a new HP with Windows 7 and CS5. I thought it would be nice to be compatible and it might be nice to do something with my website that I haven't touched in 3 years.