Another boring money post

[Partial]

Don't less than half of cell phone users have smartphones? How are they essential to the average consumer? This Apple lovefest is predictably disconnected with the realities of the company, the economy, and the fundamentals of the stock market.

I believe they finally passed 50%. It's GROWING. Read quotes from CEOs like Motorola Mobility, Google, Apple, etc. This is a post PC era. Within 5 years people won't have notebooks at work, they'll have smart phones with a dock for a keyboard and external display. This is happening now. Who's leading the charge?? Apple.

Realities of the company? What does this even mean?

The economy? Apple has blown up as much as anyone in a down economy. People need computers, and in the post-PC era, people "need" smart phones. This isn't going to change. It's naive to expect the explosive growth of smart phones to stop or even slow. Simply ridiculous, in my opinion. This train isn't stopping anytime soon.

Fundamentals of the stock market?? What does this even mean? I can only assume that you don't expect AAPL to continue to blow up. I would bet my bottom dollars Apple hits 1000 soon. It's price is ridiculously out of sync with what it should be for a company of it's size, profitability, growth, revenue, etc. It is crazy under-valued.

You're only going to be able to get a smart phone soon. Perhaps the smart phones of today will be the dumb phones of tomorrow. I don't see how using an iPhone is any more challenging than using a dumb phone. I can absolutely see how using an Android phone is like using linux on a computer aka a horrible experience for the user.

[SkinBasket]

There isn't a better device for a toddler than an iPad.

Oh lord.

[SkinBasket]

An essential part of life? For someone without a job, or with reduced income? For someone who has to take a lower paying job while putting food on the table for a family?

To be honest, I can't think of anyone for whom a smartphone really is essential.

Haven't you seen the masses of dead poor people in the street? Sad, really. They had plenty of food, free health care, shelter... hell even free cable TV converter boxes. But alas, they had no smartphones.

[Freak Out]

FUCK YEA!

[mraynrand]

I think I am going to kill myself for buying a smart phone. Just because I feel like a total asshole for getting duped into paying outrageous surcharges and federal taxes.

[MJZiggy]

Don't less than half of cell phone users have smartphones? How are they essential to the average consumer? This Apple lovefest is predictably disconnected with the realities of the company, the economy, and the fundamentals of the stock market.

P is forgetting that I AM the average consumer. And I just bought an Android...I will never buy an iPad and will use my laptop (non-Mac) until the day it dies. Oh, and P? About your price articles? There's this thing. It's called the store. If you go in one and look, you'll find out that I didn't buy an Apple because that number on the thing called the price tag was way bigger than the one below my current laptop. Like by a lot. I am average. I don't have money to toss away on more expensive products. And, quite frankly, I trust my source of pricing information more than yours.

An iPad for a toddler? Ya wanna know what the best devices are for toddlers? A book read in while cuddled up in Mama's lap and a set of building blocks. And maybe a baby gate or some cabinet locks or something. Jesus.

[SkinBasket]

A book read in while cuddled up in Mama's lap and a set of building blocks.

Excuse me?

[MJZiggy]

Excuse me?

My apologies. Edit to: "loving caregiver's"

[Partial]

P is forgetting that I AM the average consumer. And I just bought an Android...I will never buy an iPad and will use my laptop (non-Mac) until the day it dies. Oh, and P? About your price articles? There's this thing. It's called the store. If you go in one and look, you'll find out that I didn't buy an Apple because that number on the thing called the price tag was way bigger than the one below my current laptop. Like by a lot. I am average. I don't have money to toss away on more expensive products. And, quite frankly, I trust my source of pricing information more than yours.

An iPad for a toddler? Ya wanna know what the best devices are for toddlers? A book read in while cuddled up in Mama's lap and a set of building blocks. And maybe a baby gate or some cabinet locks or something. Jesus.

Ziggy, why do you try to argue about F'in everything. You have no idea what you are talking about. Tits or wheels, I guess.

You are an average consumer. Sure. That doesn't mean you're every consumer. You're one of almost seven billion consumers. This is evidence by millions of people buying iPads and millions more buying iPhones. At one point, the iPad was the fastest adopted consumer electronics product ever. EVER.

You're factually incorrect about the notion of Apple products being more expensive. Look at any computer that pays a lick of attention to build quality, having quality graphics, latest processors, etc, and you'll find that Apple computers are priced modestly. Furthermore, iPad and iPhone are both extremely competitively priced. Note that the Samsung Epic is 250 dollars on contract when it came out, where as the iPhone 4, a better, faster phone, was 200. Also note that the Motorola XOOM was originally priced more than the iPad. Pretty much every tablet company has had to cut their margins to near nothing to match the iPad. This is why HP got out of this industry. So, please explain to me again how these things were overpriced.

See some links putting the moronic price claims you're making to bed.

http://macdailynews.com/2011/07/29/pc-makers-struggle-to-match-macbook-air-pricing-with-ultrabooks/

http://www.isuppli.com/teardowns/news/pages/comparativetablet-teardowns-reveal-ipad-design-advantages.aspx

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/22/motorola-xoom-launching-february-17th-at-best-buy/

http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news-hp-touchpad-wi-fi-16gb-launch-price-revised-s599

http://hothardware.com/News/Samsungs-Galaxy-S-Comes-To-Sprint-As-Epic-4G-250-On-Contract/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/apple-mac-leopard-windows-vista,1985.html

"The biggest complaints about Apple are its lock down of Mac OS X to Apple hardware, and its prices. We put the price myth about its systems to rest, but Apple needs to take a long hard look at its upgrade options for customers — upgrades that are priced outside the realm of common sense."

So, Tom's hardware, a nonpartisan third party who is far more informed than you, says the only thing that Apple gouges people on is BTO upgrades. Most people either A) do these themselves, or B) pay a lot. I don't have a problem with this because it interferes with Apple's streamlined supply chain. Having said that, as an extremely demanding user, I have never once had to use a BTO option for a Mac or a PC that I've purchased from the vendor of the computer.

In the latest Tom's hardware post, about halfway down the page, there is an excellent cost comparison between Dell and Apple. When you don't get the POS Dell's, the Dell's are actually more expensive then the Macs, despite being slower, less feature rich machines that are 2x as thick and weigh 2x as much. What say you about this, Ziggy? There is also a comparison of Voodoo PC, a hardware company that HP bought and pretty much ruined.

It's not fair to compare a 10 lbs, 3" thick plastic inspiron with a celeron processor, loads of bloatware, crappy keyboards/trackpads/power cords/no resale value/etc to a 2 lbs, .5" anodized aluminum MBA with a bleeding edge process, no bloat ware, backlit keyboards, glass trackpads, magnetic power cords, high resale value, etc. It's comparing a 1995 Chevy Cavalier to a 2011 Ferrari. Stop. Doing. It.

Just because it's more expensive than your current computer, doesn't mean it's more expensive than similarly spec'd systems. The last american companies in the computer hardware industry are going to be Apple and Dell within the next year. There isn't money to be made on consumers like you who like buying POS systems, that's why HP is getting out of that game. Consumers who want something to last, take college students and engineers, buy Apple. Apple is by far and away the most popular consumer electronics company with college students.

I'm done debating with you. You're too uninformed for it to be worth it. You're absolutely naive if you don't think the iPad is the learning device of the future. Interactive content, baby!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.fastcompany.com/1733662/how-the-ipad-2-will-revolutionize-classroom-education

http://blog.stratepedia.org/2010/01/29/5-ways-the-ipad-and-education-could-go-together/

http://www.parentdish.com/2010/04/20/the-ipad-and-education-its-not-the-size-of-the-screen-its-w/

http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/blog/2010/01/how-will-the-ipad-change-education/

http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/01/27/measuring-the-ipads-potential-for-education.aspx

[MJZiggy]

It was more expensive than almost all of them. Try closing the blog and look in a STORE. You know where you BUY stuff. For, like PRICES. Preferably, make it a store that sells both and compare. I did that. I walked into the STORE and I looked at the PRICES. Trust me, if the Apples were cheaper, they might have had a chance. I consider the STORE to be a really good source of information on PRICES. As a matter of fact, I think stores are the best pricing sources available. I don't compare computers by weight. I compare them by what they do. Apple is way expensive for what it can do. My laptop does everything that the Apple could have for several hundred dollars less. SEVERAL HUNDRED. On the PRICE TAG in the STORE. That's all the information I need, thanks.

Remember, at one point IBM ruled the computing world. They were untouchable...

Oh, and if you'd ever paid ANY attention to educational learning besides what the Apple PR team tells you, you'd realize that the best educational toy bar none is a set of basic Lego blocks. An iPad will never develop fine motor skills in toddlers and that will never change despite what software you load it with. Stand up son and remove that Apple branded dildo from your ass. It's quite unattractive.

[Patler]

...
You're factually incorrect about the notion of Apple products being more expensive.
...

I didn't want to quote the whole post, but what your post really says is that Apples are not more expensive than other really expensive computers. It misses the point. Apples are way more expensive than what most people really need to spend on their computers. They don't need the other really expensive computers either.

Kind of like cars. One really expensive car is not more expensive than other really expensive cars, but they are more expensive than what people really require to satisfy their transportation needs.

[Upnorth]

For myself, I am all about the Blackberry. Its all I will use due to security in the industry I am in. Price is the same as Apple ipad. It has less app's than the ipud, but I don't use apps.
Apple is trendy, but so were bellbottoms. Apple is cyclical, the question is where are they on the cycle?

[Partial]

I didn't want to quote the whole post, but what your post really says is that Apples are not more expensive than other really expensive computers. It misses the point. Apples are way more expensive than what most people really need to spend on their computers. They don't need the other really expensive computers either.

Kind of like cars. One really expensive car is not more expensive than other really expensive cars, but they are more expensive than what people really require to satisfy their transportation needs.

Apple computers aren't more expensive than other high end computers. They're more expensive than a 10 lbs crap dell inspiron, sure. I wouldn't buy a Chevy Cavalier, and I wouldn't buy a Dell Inspiron either. The Mac isn't the BMW that people so often use in the comparison, it's the Honda Civic. It costs a little more, but is by far and away better than the Chevy. It's the little things like the dashboard layout, the engine, the design, the attention to detail, and the overall quality of the machine.

American companies are getting out of the low end PC business because there isn't money to be made. Nobody wins on 2% profit margin.

Apple recognized that with wicked fast flash memory getting cheaper and mobile chips getting faster, we don't need these big computers. By strategically investing years ago, Apple has huge supply chain cost advantages in the ~500 dollar computing device range. They're making an iPad that is faster to the end user (albeit less powerful) that is a much better user experience than the ~500 dollar 10x heavier, 10x slower booting, 10x less focused device. They also found a way to make 40% profit on it where as Dell is making 2-3%. They're making 20x more money on these machines then Dell, and the consumer likes them infinitely more as the user experience is king. That's pretty amazing, isn't it?

I don't necessarily agree that computers are fast enough in general. People want 1080P video today, and soon that'll be 4k video. People want to push 3d graphics to the limit, something that Macs can do that Ziggy's crap 500 dollar laptop won't do (cheap integrated graphics). They have bleeding edge processors for cpu intensive tasks like editing photos, editing video, etc.

Honestly, every single day, I find myself longing for a faster computer. My MBP isn't fast enough for what I do. No laptop is yet. I'm very anxiously awaiting an 8 core system with 8GB ram. I'll pair that with an SSD and finally will be able to fly in my work flow. Then again, I'm a software developer so I'm constantly pushing my system to the limit.

[Partial]

For myself, I am all about the Blackberry. Its all I will use due to security in the industry I am in. Price is the same as Apple ipad. It has less app's than the ipud, but I don't use apps.
Apple is trendy, but so were bellbottoms. Apple is cyclical, the question is where are they on the cycle?

You bought a Playbook? I think it's you and about 19 other people Boy oh boy did that thing ever not sell well. I'm actually shocked it hasn't gotten the same treatment as the HP Touchpad yet. I really like the user experience of the UI with QNX. I think it has a lot of potential. Having said that, having it developer in Adobe Air (slow as heck) is a poor decision in my opinion.

[MJZiggy]

I don't necessarily agree that computers are fast enough in general. People want 1080P video today, and soon that'll be 4k video. People want to push 3d graphics to the limit, something that Macs can do that Ziggy's crap 500 dollar laptop won't do (cheap integrated graphics). They have bleeding edge processors for cpu intensive tasks like editing photos, editing video, etc.

Honestly, every single day, I find myself longing for a faster computer. My MBP isn't fast enough for what I do. No laptop is yet. I'm very anxiously awaiting an 8 core system with 8GB ram. I'll pair that with an SSD and finally will be able to fly in my work flow. Then again, I'm a software developer so I'm constantly pushing my system to the limit.

Again you fail to understand the perspective of others when it doesn't match your own. First, you don't know what kind of computer I own or how much it's worth. That said, it doesn't matter when you look at the predictions of Apple's future performance. Upnorth is right. Apple is a trend. How many other trends have there been? Palm. Any others?