If you have paid any attenttion to Apple and what they have been doing lately, you might know that they have again today some sort of event behind closed doors in New York.
They are going to introduce new PowerBooks and PowerMacs at this event but sneaking suspicion grows when the invitaion also says that they are going to have some "photography-related announcement" and the pitch black invitation also boasts a large camera lens.
Also what is interesting is that Apple has also booked the biggest booth at PhotoPlus Expo held this Thursday and Friday.
What is Apple up to? Are they going to build Apple camera? It was largely suspicious how much attenttion Steve Jobs gave to the built in iSight in the new iMac. And how much he touted the photograph viewing function in the new iPod.
Well, we will be smarter later today or tomorrow, that is the only thing I'm sure at the moment. Go Apple I wuw uuu!
Well, after long talk with other Macheads (believe me, Finland is jam packed full of them for some reason) we came to conclusion that it might be a) New Pro iPhoto b) Completely new photomanipulation package not just a editor/viewer c) They learned something new jerking around with the iSight (rumor says that they put them in to PowerBooks too and IF they update the ACD they put it there too) that they came up with a completely new camera.
Personally I see options b) and c) not so likely since Apple has close relations to Adobe and Canon. But one forum member tossed up a hilarius comment where he said that Apple might buy Photoshop from Adobe, kill the winnie support like they did with Logic and make it work better with other software and especially with their hardware. And they will name the new photoshop "Pixarina Pro" due to their close relations with Pixar :D Macheads wet dream but not going to happen.
They used to have a camera. I don't remeber it, but my father had one.
Yeah it was called Apple Quicktake and it resebled a binocular. Actually, scratch my previous comment on Apple having too good relations with Canon for them to make a camera.
It might actually be true, since Apple hasn't been too shabby producing things in the past, like the Newton, so their new found fanbase due to their gadgetty iPod, they might just be "crazy" enough to bring a digital pocket camera/web camera since if they are going to put built in iSight to the PowerBooks and the new ACDs they could scratch the iSight and bring the new digital camera to replace/enhance it.
This is the third in mere six weeks. But the first one was the announcing of iPod Nano which was targetted the iPod market, second one was the new iPod and new iMac which was targetted the iPod/Mac consumer market and this one is targetted towards Pro market.
Yeah it is actually pretty good planning, since this pro event is held just before the start of PhotoPlus Expo and they have some sort of photography announcement, so it makes sense. And if they would have announced the iPods and iMac now it wouldn't fit in the pro segment and the pro macs wouldn't have that much attenttion since everyone would be covering the iPods, not to mention that all the press at the event are from photography or graphics magazines.
Ok, so the Apple Store updates are here and basically it is new lineup for Power Macs which are dual-core 2GHz, dual-core 2.3GHz and dual-core 2.5GHz. They all have slightly larger HDDs and all are updated with GeForce 6600 series GPUs. So updates there is minimal.
No new displays. And PowerBook series seems unchanged and unattractive as before.
The camera lens seems to be new post-production program for photographers.
This announcement seems bit of a let down after the iPod video and new iMac, but I'm almost confident that there is more than meets the eye so I'll repost back later with more info.
People spend hundreds of dollars for new goodies just for them to become "obsolete" in mere months, I mean, if you buy a Lamborghini Diablo in the year 1990 when it was introduced, it continued to be the top of the line for ten years before 2000 it was replaced by Murciélago. I bought my GeForce 7800 GTX when it launched and month and a half passes by and even faster GPU has been made by ATI and around 6 months or so, nVidia will bring new and even faster card to the market and my card is not the fastest anymore, and I paid almost 600 euros for my card.
But you paid for that specific product, you know these things move quickly. I paid £1300 for an iMac five months ago, fully expecting an update by now. Thing is, I'm happy with it, and that matters more than whether it is the 'latest model'.
Im with Mark. They bring out new stuff (only slightly newer with slight improvements) so quick. Its money money money they want. As if $2.5k for a computer wasnt enough, they release one every month.
I was irritated a little about the iPod minis then the nano a few months after I got mine, but I dont care anymore. I'd rather have the flash version vs the hdd but I can do without the color screen. Dont thing I want one actually. And the iPod video? I think thats stupid.
Still, Im not an Apple fan. Never have, never will be. The iPod is as far as I go down that path. And it is outdated already.
Thing is, I'm happy with it, and that matters more than whether it is the 'latest model'.
Yeah you are right about that, me and my roommate occupied the two macks at the school where we studied and even if they were "outdated" they ran the programe we used completely fine, and that was the main goal. Besides, there are dudes coding mad software on some p3 Linux machines with 128mb memory and so on. I have done few of my best works on 1.5Megapixel camera and old quark.
Still, Im not an Apple fan. Never have, never will be. The iPod is as far as I go down that path. And it is outdated already.
Using Apple machinery is not Apple fanatics, I myself am a major PC boi because of the simple thing. Most of my toold of trade has been made for PC for so long and most of my gear works perfectly on PC. But I love Mac because it just makes my job so much easier not to worry about something hogging up my memory or someone trying to hack through my firewall OR maybe PAYING for some of those essential software in this internet heavy society. I mean, use IE on a non firewalled computer without the latest security patch and virus guard for one day and your windos is bye bye. That is the thing I love about Mac. Everything works, silk smooth.
I see your argument. I've had to use Macs before when I was in Video Production and I hated it. I just don't care for the things. As for the memory hogging, hacking, viruses, etc.. again, lol, I must have the magical setup. I personally just don't like em.
I like their monitors, real slick, but my 20" Trinitron looks just as nice, not widescreen but eh, its a monitor not a TV. And LCD is no good for me, I play games a lot (dont care for them either).
Umm... I don't know if you have tried the 20" wide screen Dell LCD Monitor that is basically the same as current 20" ACD, but it rocks in gaming, you are fooling yourself if you are thingking that CRT monitorcan beat that *chuckles*
Nope never seen/heard of those, not a big fan on the LCDs so I never look em up, and last time I checked you cant change the refresh rates, and you have to use the native resolution or it looks like shit.
there isnt a refresh rate on lcd's. It doesnt refresh it just changes what's necessary. It's the response time that's important.
i guess the resolution thing could be an issue but anything at what's not its normal resolution looks a bit stupid anyway. The trinitrons are nice, but the dell lcd's are damn sexy. I want a pair of the new 24" ones.
The next question for me is: when the hell is jobs going to drop the announcement that osx will run on all pentiums? that would be the best announcement I could ever hear come directly from apple and I would be the happiest mofo ever.
I know, but it would be nice if I could just order "apple certified" intel parts to build up my own mac cheaply based on the next intel cpu's and have it rival any pc I have here. If Jobs fueled that kind of market switch, you would see a ton of people abandoning the windows platform for a mac system. I would estimate that at least half the people on a windows machine would do it. I would.
But the core idea behind Macs is just that the whole package is done by Apple designed and tested to work like a clock. If they made Mac OS for PC or would make Macs DIY it would destroy the whole founding idea rendering the whole universe obsolete.
For half of user population to switch, you're including business. Businesses running on PCs with special in house software developed to only work with PCs will never switch. They can't afford to have the software rebuilt. Along with that, there are simply too many people who don't want to change. They will upgrade their windows, but to learn a whole new operating system is not something they want to put their time or money into doing.
You're also grouping gamers in there, and as of right now, the apple gamers are far and few in between.
I think a good number of people would get a second system, one apple and still retain their PC for other stuff.
I think the overall percentage of people who would actually completely drop windows for a mac is more like 5-10% of the population and that may be an overestimate.
Most people who don't want to use windows... don't. they install *nix.
But the core idea behind Macs is just that the whole package is done by Apple designed and tested to work like a clock. If they made Mac OS for PC or would make Macs DIY it would destroy the whole founding idea rendering the whole universe obsolete.
But I like rendering the universe obsolete...
Anyway, you would be suprised at how many woes I have heard from people stuck with upgrading from previous windows to XP... All pretty much complaining that they would probably switch to Macs if things weren't so retarded with MS. And you would also be suprised at how many gamers these days actually run under macs.
To be quite honest, as much as I like apples design sense, the fact that the only god damn color is white or chrome really limits any choice you have. Which is why I would LOVE it if they just shipped the hardware to mount in a case of my own. Apple, I'm sure is seeing the whole 5-10% thing as well, but I'm sure if they tried, tons of people would buy up their hardware if it were super-cheap. The mac mini caused their revenue to spike for 2 months. Dropping some DIY hardware packages into the market could prove another spike if it was cheap and freely available.
Ask yourself this: what geek out there wouldn't drop cold cash for cheap hardware they could run an alternate OS on? Even if it was just to mess around with, I don't know anyone out there personally that goes all out and grabs the tech support and extended warranty and pays to have a prebuilt computer. Half the cost of PC's from OEM's are mostly due to bullshit install/setup + assembly cost. If you break the parts down to how much they cost individually at retail cost and assemble it yourself, you'll laugh. This is why PC's sell, So if Apple dropped DIY kits for the masses, everyone could help advance the mac further instead of them catering to just those people who can afford one :P
2 x 2.5GHz dual-core PPC G5 1024MB 533MHz DDR2 250G HDD nVidia Quadro FX 4500 512MB Pci-E 2 x 20" Apple Cinema Display
cost. $7,006.00
Dell Precision WorkStation 670
2 x 2.8GHz Intel Xeon dual-core cpu 1024MB 400MHz DDR2 250G HDD nVidia Quadro FX 4400512MB Pci-E 2 x Dell 2005FPW 20" widescreen display, uses the same panel as the ACD 20"
cost. $9,354.96
Dells price is insane and that is with cheaper displays and cheaper GPU, just to make a point that Apple hardware isn't always more expensive. I used the Xenon processors because I tought Dell was having an advantage with the cheaper parts.
The iMac is harder to compare since it's not actually a normal computer, but I made a slightly similar system from Dell with the Dimension system and they actually come pretty close on price except the Dell had a normal 20" screen where as the iMac has a 20" widescreen and a dual layer Superdrive and Dell has a normal DVD burner.
My brother got that Acer Ferrari laptop some time ago, and it cost about 2000€ about as much as the 15" PB.
So all that alk about Apple being expensive is bullshit, it's just talk, maybe it was true some time ago, but you can't get pre-built system cheaper from a coumputer vendor, maybe then you could go cheaper if you bought that pieces separately and built the computer yourself cutting corners everywhere like ordering parts from cheaper countries like Finnish order parts usually from Germany.
Apple's offerings just start high, they don't have those cheap-ass systems other vendors pack, but come on who the fuck would like to buy a 500 dollar computer anyway? Besides, Apple offers the Mini that sucks like all the computers in that price range.
So the conclusion is that it's not the price that keeps people from buying Apple computers, it's just the fact that they don't want to (or rather, they don't NEED to buy Apple computers because they are mainly targetted at professionals, not home users).
'who the fuck would like to buy a 500 dollar computer anyway?' - how about pretty much any business which needs an utter shit load of dumb terminals? Hardware goes out of date. Fast. You can buy hardware which is 6 months old much cheaper than the brand new stuff and in most cases you're really not missing out on much. On all pc parts there is a pricebreak where the value for money kicks in - e.g. hard drives reach a point where the cost per gig is cheapest and then it gets more expensive as you move onto the new bigger platters which havent had the benefit of enormous mass production yet. When i build pc's for myself or for money i pretty much always spec to the current price-breaks. Most people dont want shit hot systems - they have a budget in mind and perhaps a few ideas ('ooh i want one of those flat screen jobbies') and if you point out to them that buy buying at the pricebreak (either saving or costing them £50) they'll usually agree that it is a good move. If i suggested they spend an extra £X to buy themselves a mac they'd want a good reason - and lets be honest, most people dont even *realise* that windows pc's fill themselves with shit - and turn the idea down. If i could spec them up one for a similar cost to the pc they might start to consider it a viable alternative.
Whether macs are aimed at the high end market or not, theyre still missing out on a huge market by doing so.
And as for businesses, i'd say that theyre aimed at *design* businesses which benefit from their advantages. For the majority of businesses out there pc's are still the way to go and i dont see apple doing jack shit about that.
To be honest, i believe apple *could* take over the market if they really put their minds to it. But they dont want to.
I agree and disagree with something you said, naturally.
I myself am an animal most might consider the best target, I'm a gaming enthusiast which means that I spend hundreds of euros in bleeding edge technology, I usually upgrade my computer one a year with major upgrade and memory/hdd ugrades sprinkled across a year. AND I'm working and my hobbies are on the design industry so everything that makes my computer faster is easy sell for me.
That is the primary reason I have stayed with PCs, I can just open up the computer, jack in a new HDD or GPU when ever I need something and be done with it, and the customisation (I don't mean case modding, but hardware/software optimization) options on hardware and software side are a big plus.
I use as much money to my computer and gear as my brothers use for their car in a year.
And for your comment on Apple not doing jack shit about major businesses I heavity disagree, if you look the low end lineup like iBooks and MacMini they are doing more than enough, it's not often when you can buy as good laptop for $1000. The only minus I'm seeing in Apple is that they don't offer smaller more affordable monitors.
And like you said, Windows PCs filesystem is from hell, they fill them with crap, are security hazards and virus magnets, plus piracy is just out of control and so on. Many reasons why people should use Macs if they don't know their way around computers OR don't have the time to screw around with them.
Macs ARE a valid choise when it comes to PC vs. Macs, people just don't realize it, and I don't see how the price could be an issue, they are not one bit too expensive compared to PCs.
I buy $500 computers. Well $500 in parts anyways. Bleeding tech is useless unless it makes think your better than everyone else and you like to spends lots of $$$ on soon to be obsolete hardware.
New mobo/chip, new HDD, maybe some more RAM. Thats it, all that is required for an upgrade. Its not bleeding edge, and it doesnt have to be. Can be done with $500 or less and you will get a decent system that will last for at least 2 years.
Most people don't have the cash to shell out $1k every 6 months on new shit. And...they shouldnt have too.
---
Why are half the posts made in the past week turning into a Mac vs Windows vs Linux flamefest (be it the nicest flamefest I've ever seen, but a flamefest none the less)?
I wouldn't call this a flamefest, more like debates, people in Vanilla are way too smart to attack eachother over something like this.
But buying 500€/$ worth of parts and actually buying a working computer with 500€/$ are two completely different things. And when you buy a computer using less money, that lasts for 2 years, my computer will still kick ass after 2 years, it's a lesson I learned long time ago, if you are buying a computer, you shouldn't be cheap, you are only hurting yourself with that.
But one more thing I could say to Apples advantage is just that many still use the second generation iMacs with the weird stand and the LCD display on the neck, and they still are quite good, Macs tend to get older slower thatn PCs, it's either because the OS is built better, the compouters are build future in mind or they just have less upgrades. Sure they update the OS around every year, but that is the most essential part and should be updated maybe even more frequently (tho Apple makes you pay for the OS which is something I don't like one bit at all, OS imho should be free).
I'd definedly go for iMac, PowerMacs are targetted heavily to the heavy duty designers that can shell around 2,500€ minimum for a workstation. Mini is bit short on resource heavy software.
Apologies if parts of my post wernt thoroughly thought through but i was dashing out to work. I will admit the mac mini was a fantastic addition to their product line for a cheap starter and if i were to invest in a mac that would probably be the one but it'd still be a big decision. If i could buy parts to my liking (or even install the os on my pc) i know the decision would be a lot easier.
And when i bitched about their business department, i was talking more about the OS than the hardware. I will admit i havent looked into apples OS's much but i certainly havent seen anyone shout about the use of macs as servers or network terminals?
I dont have luxury to shell out hundreds of dollars every six months on hardware. Bills, rent, cars, and a kid come first.
I only get to upgrade one or two items like every other year. Last time it was my video card, before that sound card. Now its the motherboard/cpu, and Im gonna squeeze in a HDD if I can.
And RAM if I push it.
And one of the main reasons Macs have better stability..etc.. that is what you get when you pay a few grand for it, and the OS and hardware are made by the same people.
If MS made their own computers, I am sure there would be far less problems there as well. Ok maybe not, lol, but I'd like to think that way.
@mini: Macs make excellent servers, truely remarkable, they actually rival Linux servers, and network terminals? I really don't know what you mean by that, but all the same aspects safe the software, Macs can do as good if not better than Winnie machines, and because they have the added feature of *nix anvironment they do most parts of working that much easier, and adding them to a network is a snap, a snap I tells you.
If MS made their own computers and laid back from game software and console hardware/software they might rival Apple easily, very easily I would think. The MS handicap comes from their jack of all trades attitude, you know, "jack of all trades, master of none" and that what Microsoft is doing right now it, they master absolutely nothing at all.
I made a solid decision and didn't get me a car, instead, I spend all the money I'd be spending on something as absurd and actually useless as car. That is why I can afford to spend that much on my puter.
A ton of people do; most of the consumer market can't go out and build themselves a computer. So someone that has a computer that seems to be slowing down, looks at the Sunday ads and sees PC computers all over the place from $299 up and that's with a 15" LCD. Never do you see Apple computers in the ads - you just don't, and if by chance you do, no where near $299 or even $500 for one.
I market Apple and PC computers all day long, I know the prices, I know how much Apple sells their computers for and I know retailers markups. Apple just doesn't have a budget computer that does everything people want. And Apples can do just about everything someone wants, but they don't come bundled with Microsoft Office packs and such like the PCs do.
Kosmo, you do realize though, that if you did cut a couple of corners on that Dell WorkStation, and ordered the parts and monitors seperately, that you could have gotten the same thing for about $4000 less, right? This is the main point I'm trying to make which makes those $500 computers in most cases just as good as the $5000 ones. If you shop around and know exactly where to look, you could pick yourself up some of the top notch pc equipment for a fraction of the cost and build the same thing any OEM is offering for 8x the price. If you quickly take each part of that Dell, and do a lookup on the price for it as if you were to purchase it individually + shipping costs, you might end up slapping yourself for dropping 9K on it in the first place :D When I build systems, sure I want them to be the best on the market, I'm just not going to go out of my way and go through some OEM who wants to sell me the exact same thing at their prices. This is where the market shifts greatly, you're paying all that extra money for some bench monkey to slap the parts together for you which would take you under an hour to do yourself. Frankly, I don't mind that extra work if it's saving me a ton of money on the system at the end.
This is where apple could step in and do the same is simply all I was saying, just cause you "build" a computer by ordering it from Apple or Dell doesn't exactly mean you "built" that computer :) you simply picked out the pieces for it. I'm speaking in terms of actually reading the manuals, setting the jumpers, slapping the cables together and mounting all the hardware :D
There are alot of DIY Laptops, but they don't get that much attenttion since they are heavy and usually drain battery in 3 hours. You can't build your own vaio computer because they are very well designed and everything is taken in consideration and usually the parts are custom made for the computer.
But Lech I hope you fully understand that it is not fair to compare Macs to PCs that you build your self, IF you were able to build your own Apple then it would be totally fair to compare the prices. But now we should compare them only to other computer retailers PCs like HP, Dell and even Sony. Because all those computers are also designed and everything put inside the PC has been taken in consideration, and my personal opinion is that Sony Vaio series coumputers are dream machines if it weren't for the OS.
In the price there is more than just the extra that comes from "some bench monkey slapping everything on" the extra comes from the R&D they make.
Well, since there is no stand-alone hardware for Apple to offer, then no, I suppose I can't compare it to PC hardware, yet. However, A TON of R&D has been put into pc hardware, and as a result it's only become cheaper, no doubt another reason apple switched to intel. Most of Apple's R&D goes into marketing and design, where you get a pretty little box holding all your hardware, the only color options are white, or white with chrome/brushed metal... which to me seems a bit bland.
Without knowing first-hand, I would have to guess that when apple begins shipping it's intel line of macs, the generic chips on the motherboard (give or take the specially customized ones) won't be too different from any other setups beyond the CPU itself. I'll also bet that as a result, those macs will run under the same memory and other system busses like most other systems today. If by then there's not much difference between the Windows/Linux hardware, I don't see why Apple shouldn't start selling it's hardware as stand-alone DIY kits at a discount. That way, everyone could build one for shits and giggles and REALLy make a switch.
From the press I've been reading there's only a handful of special chips ones hardware should have in order to currently run OSX under an x86 architecture, and if that's the case, comparing your avg PC to a MAC won't be too difficult then. So it's only logical that Apple in the foreseeable future breaks out of their little white shelled box and goes into whole-sale hardware vending. I'd rather have my own custom case branded with an Apple logo than a Windows flag any day. Because the last thing I need is to be sold some $2000 designer computer case that's not much different from a standard $200 off the shelf one when you look inside it.
I do agree 99% with lech (i never like to commit to anything), but while it'd also be nice to be able to build your own macs at cut price etc, i have to say there would also be a certain temptation to be able to package pc's in mac's expensive R&D cases aswell for those people with the spare cash so perhaps that wouldnt be such a bad idea in itself.