Apple Now Selling Better Than One Laptop In Six 767
Lucas123 writes "Apple's share of the laptop market has grown over the past few years and the company is now beating Gateway in sales, according research firm NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, NY. 'Their sales are continuing to grow faster than the rest of the marketplace,' the firm stated. In June Apple was responsible for 17.6% of laptops sold (at retail) in the US and is now in third place behind HP and Toshiba."
College kids (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess Apple's strategy of marketing to younger people is finally paying off. Also, does this prove the iPod's halo effect is Real?
Re:College kids (Score:5, Funny)
That's not the iPod's halo effect. That's the Vista Black Hole of Suck effect.
Re:College kids (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista just made things worse.
The simple truth is that at least for IBM (now Levno) laptops and HP... and probably others... the build quality is just not there compared to Apple.
Plus, the risky gamble of allowing people to run Windows on their MacBooks really did work out. People can talk their employer into buying them a MacBook, instead of being issued a winblows machine.
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I've bought a couple of HPs (most recent one was the "Lance Armstrong special") and I've not had any issues with either of them.
That said, if I were in the market for a notebook today, it'd most likely be a Mac. HP still offers XP on its BTO notebooks, but there's less and less stuff for which I need Windows...both of my machines boot Linux (the older one
Re:College kids (Score:4, Informative)
Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:College kids (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall, the quality on these laptops is outstanding and they are very durable and very stable. I'm not comparing them to any other current companies offerings because I can not (other then the HP/Compaq models we had years ago maybe).
So overall, we have not seen any reduction in quality over the past few years, no increase in maintenance costs, and they are very reliable units.
YMMV.
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I admit that it is an acquired taste, rather than a cult. It takes practice and some getting used to (perhaps even building a small callous on your index finger), but the efficiency of the TrackPoint is just orders of magnitude better than a touchpad. You can get the cursor to anywhere on the screen in a fraction of a second, and you don't have to move your hands from t
Re: scrolling (Score:3, Funny)
Outgrowing the nipple (Score:3, Insightful)
Have used a Nipple. Outgrew the nipple (no matter how intuitive the use of it might seem). Can't do two finger scrolling with a nipple, a feature which makes a number of operations on a laptop even easier than a desktop. No thanks.
b) only have 1 mouse button.
Real OS's make using a single mouse button easy, and thus make the vegistal extra mouse button PC laptops struggle to include in a place that is not an ergonomic disaster unneeded.
If PC laptops with an extra mouse button are so g
Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, not exactly. Sort of. For instance, I run Windows XP sandboxed on my dual core MacBook Pro laptop, and that's the only place I run Windows at all. Windows isn't allowed to get to the net where it can get hurt, I just use it to host a few desktop applications that don't have Mac equivalents. With Parallels [parallels.com] "coherence" mode, I'm in the OSX filesystem for the images and other files I use under Windows, but I have the Mac right there doing the right things for everything else.
I also run a linux install pretty much the same way (though no coherence, unfortunately.) The linux install is allowed on the net because it considerably more secure "out there" than Windows is. I can run all three OS's at once without any problem and get realistic performance from all of them.
Hence, no need for a Windows machine, and no need to be an "idiot", either. ;-)
As for Vista... No need to go there. We won't be writing any applications using Vista specific capabilities, either. As far as I'm concerned, Vista was dead at the starting line.
Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
As for writing code for Vista. Well I'd say give it time; people didn't write for XP the moment it came out either, it took a while for apps to stop supporting Win98, but as people update their computers and get Vista by default there'll be a transition, whether it's worthwhile or not.
Re:Computers should last for more than a year. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a post that sums up a lot about twitter--posting it so that perhaps a few more people might be alerted to twitter's activities! http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=198321&cid=16
And just FWIW, I agree with you about XP. I use OSX almost exclusively now, but I've had some very solid XP installations, and at work our Win2003 server regularly matches our FreeBSD server for uptime (poor power being the main limiting factor)
Re:Mac + Parallels == best Windows system. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mac + Parallels == best Windows system. (Score:4, Informative)
People really need to stop using Win9x arguments against WinNT.
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That is very different to how it works on Macs (or on some Linux flavours).
Re:College kids (Score:5, Informative)
There are also a lot of tools available in the command-line environment, as well as open source software that can be compiled for Mac OS X. I'll leave it to the user to hunt them down because I haven't used any of them for monitoring.
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Re:College kids (Score:5, Informative)
Let me counter with another anecdote: With the next patch release, the intel mac build of World of Warcraft will be able to record in-game video, filter out the UI, and encode to a variety of codecs and compression levels in the background. The PC version of the game will not be able to do so. Obviously, OSX offers something that Windows does not, correct?
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OS X really sucks for kids as my boss has just discovered. He wanted to run some spyware software to monitor his 13 year old daughter.
I'm confused. First you say that OS X sucks for kids and then you go one to prove this my talking about how your bosses paranoia is not supported by OS X. I know many kids, as young as 18 months that use OS X all the time. To say OS X sucks for kids is just down right stupid (regardless of the other posts that show how you can feed you paranoia on OS X just as well as on Windows). I think what you may have meant to say is that OS X is not as good at being a replacement for good parenting as Windows is.
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Honestly only an idiot would buy a MacBook and run Windows instead of OS X.
Gaming?
Windows in general is all over the place and working just fine.
That's a matter of opinion. It doesn't have ports of most of the stuff I like to use (FreeNX, Amarok, Kuake, Beryl, Kate) and the Windows alternatives seem klunky and annoying to me.
That's the reason you see Apple gaining ground.
Cool points never entered into it for me. I've never bought a mac product before I bought a mac mini. I bought it because it was small, silent, and had all the power necessary to be the server I need it to be. I found nothing as small and silent with anywhere near the power in the PC market, especially with buil
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Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
As soon as my company moves from the red to the black, I'm investing in MacBooks for my entire staff. I'm no zealot, I'm a business man. I want my people to be productive and I want my people to enjoy their work. After spending a few weeks getting used to the interface, I honestly believe that my people will enjoy using their computers. The really amusing thing is that I really like MS Office on the Mac a hundred times better than on Windows. Entourage is actually pretty cool (when compared to Outlook or dEvolution) and after learning it I love it.
When choosing whether to move the company from XP to Vista or just to a Mac, if I can pull it off financially, Mac it will be and Vista will never make it in the door.
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You do know that Apple sells family packs of the OS, right? For $120 or so you can load 5 computers with the latest and greatest.
... wow. Maybe you don't care about a system getting faster, being more stable, and having lots more features, but the typical computer user considers those things to be, well, the
And, no offense, calling each release of OS X a service pack is just
Re:Don't forget. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quartz Extreme, FileVault, Spotlight, Dashboard, Smart Folders, Core Image, Core Video, Automator, Time Machine, Spaces, Boot Camp, Resolution Independance... And Last but not least:
1 Install DVD For PPC 32 bit, PPC 64 bit, Intel 32 bit & Intel 64 bit with complete binary compatibility between all versions.
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Also you should realize after a new version of the OS is released of OS X they still support the old ones and you still get upgrades and update to the OS. Every dot release is actually a major upgrade Like from Windows 3.1 - 95, 95 - 98, 98 - ME (That may not be a good example), ME - XP, XP - Vista (perhaps an other bad exam
Re Apple OS License (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has Mac OS license support subscription options for companies of all sizes.
You shouldn't complain on what you clearly don't know anything about.
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Cat Confusion... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:College kids (Score:5, Insightful)
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This version of the Flame War requires win2k or better, or OSX. There is a linux port, but it needs 2.6.x, and is still in beta.
Sorry 1995, you can't have this one.
T
Re:College kids (Score:4, Interesting)
First iPods are rather cheap and can be considered an impulse buy for Middle Middle class-Wealthy people for Poor- Lower Middle Class an iPod Shuffle would be at christmas gift.
Being that they are in these price ranges a lot of people are using these and realize they like they way that Apple does things.
Being happy with apple products using iTunes and checking the Apple Web site every once in a while to see what is new or going to the Apple store or to the Apple section of the stores they will see other Apples Product
Seeing their products knowing you are happy with the brand you are more likely to get that brand.
Now that you see and know the specs for say an Apple Notebook you go out and compare prices of PCs vs Apples based on Apples Specs and you find they are competitive price (If you Compare Apples to PC Specs they are Apples are expensive) So you go with Apple.
Also Apple has good word of mouth advertising and a loyal fan base. Most people I known once they switch to Mac and allow themselves to get use to it are actually very happy with their Mac, and they repeat buy. Heck I am on my second Mac that is the first time I purchased the same brand after the old model went obsolete (and it is not about fear of switching OS's, I went From a TI-99 (1984-1988), DOS 2 Box (1988-1992), * Windows 3.1 (1992-1997), Linux (1997-2001), Solaris (2001-2002), Mac OS X (2002-2006), Mac OS X intel (2006 - Present) so I am use to swiching primary OS's)
* I switched to Linux back in 1994
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However as horrible as it is, I'm still looking into buying a MacBook Pro, simply because it seems like a well made piece of hardware that will run what I want on it, in addition to letting
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Who in his/her right mind does that?
Go to your favorite torrent side and download it, if it's only for playing games, who gives a shit?
Djeez.
Disclaimer: I only pay for decent software after testing it.
Most decent software is free anyway.
I just quit smoking
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Or, anything at this point is just conjecture and this is nothing more than a small market fluctuation, the meaning of which we won't know for years to come.
I have no affilliation with either of the companies I mentioned, nor do I own any of their products. This post was typed on a Compaq notebook.
and, as I have karma to spare...
IMPEACH BUS
Re:College kids (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
This is as close to my case as could be expected.
I wanted a T61p. With Linux. Or FreeDOS. Or empty. Whatever; I just didn't want to pay for Windows. I'm not using it, I'm not paying for it. Period.
In the time it took me to collect the money, it was out of stock - mostly everywhere (in Croatia). Except for a more expensive version with Vista, and I'm not that stupid.
Then someone told me I could buy a MacBook Pro for that kind of money anyway. Oh, really?
Turned out, oh, yes, really. Comparable hardware, comparable price, available, polished, and with an OS I actually would and do use.
I'm only having some trouble installing Linux on it, but I'll get there, too.
And if I only found a way to stop my gf from trying to steal it... (I think it's because of the remote.)
Re:College kids (Score:5, Interesting)
I looked around in a large lecture hall class of 100+ at University of Florida and 4/5 of the laptops were macs of some sort, and most of those were the new macbooks. They are at the price point parents can afford to get their kids (I mean seriously.... a crap dell of for a few hundred more something that won't burn down the dorm room), small enough to put in a backpack (there is a lot of wasted screen real-estate compared to the powerbook, but alas they still get the job done), and are powerful enough to do almost anything a college class could require (except maybe some 3d graphics work - FCP works fine).
When I got my powerbook a few years back it was almost a grand more than many other laptops (sony vaios and some upper end thinkpads aside), but the difference is I am still using it, and despite having it get pulled off a desk by my dog twice and being dropped, bumped, and lugged around to 3 jobs, clients houses, and college classes it is still working great. The screen was starting to degrade so I replaced it for $210, but that was ENTIRELY my fault. If it were most other machines it would be in the garbage.
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Laptop as status symbol (Score:5, Insightful)
Three years ago I helped my parents find a great deal on a Dell laptop for my sister, who was just heading off to college at NYU. I was rather pleased with myself too; we used one of those 50% off coupons I found and got a great-spec machine for the price.
When the family got together for the holidays I asked her how the computer was working out; she complained to me that all the cool kids had MacBooks and she was "embarrassed to be seen in public with the ugly Dell next to all the sleek Macs."
So I can honestly say the Apple's success here is unsurprising to me; the laptop market is one that is well-suited to Apple's core strengths. Though a desktop is largely perceived as an appliance - it's an utilitarian box that you use to do stuff with - a laptop has the additional function of being a status symbol and expression of personal taste. Your desktop stays at home, but you can carry your laptop around with you. An iMac may look great, but its usefulness as a signifier of taste is constrained by the simply fact that it stays in your room. Now that the laptop market has become so important, Apple is in a great position to capitalize on their previously under-exploited brand identity.
And this is before we even consider Apple's incredibly devious "buy a Macbook, get an iPod" promotion. If Mom and Dad offer to buy you a computer for college, are you going to choose the PC or the Mac that comes with a great MP3 player? Unless you're a gamer, you're going to opt for the latter (and even if you are a gamer, you may just decide to get your fix by playing networked games with the roommates on an 360 anyway),
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But all lap tops are overpriced, can't play games and can't be upgraded, so the mac disadvantage disappears.
Old and busted (Score:3, Informative)
Equivilent WIndows desktops cost more, even when (or especially when) they make some with the same useful form factor.
they don't play games
Except of course for all the Windows games, via bootcamp. Or the fair and growing number of native games. Or the fact that you can just buy a console and play all the same games people are playing anyway.
and to upgrade, you throw them in the bin and buy a new one.
I suppose that might happen with my s
Re:College NON-kids, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is this the case? It's not about iPods and it's not about Vista. It's about UNIX, X, and Boot Camp/Parallels/VMWare. The professor who used to have a Sparc, a PC and a PPC Mac in his office now just does his number-crunching and scientific visualization on an 8-core Mac Pro with dual 30" displays, and takes a MacBook Pro places with him. (I'm low on the totem pole, so I have a plain black MacBook.)
What's really amazed me lately is that this isn't just a US thing. I work near a major Japanese facility, so there are always Japanese scientists around. For years, they've always had these cute little Panasonic/Toshiba/Sony/Sanrio/whoever laptops that we never see at stores in the US (except at Shirokiya in Honolulu, I guess). Earlier this month, I actually worked with three of them one night, and they brought 2 laptops with them - both Macs. I never thought I'd ever see any "American" brand become that popular with the Japanese scientists.
Re:College kids (Score:5, Informative)
Screwed? Hardly. Haven't you heard, mac's run on intel now. For a measly $100 bucks you can add an OEM Windows in a separate boot partition and run all your windows directx games. For another few bucks you can get Parallels or VMware Fusion and run most applications from inside windows on top of OSX, including some directx stuff.
You are hardly screwed.
I would have bought one myself if they didnt cost twice as much as they should.
Now, apple upgrade pricing is a scam, but you don't have to buy your 2nd stick of ram or hard drive upgrade from Apple.
Most of the price difference between Apple and PC is actually represented in the 2ndary specs, and build quality. If you were to spec a dell or asus that matches on all the 2ndary features, the price premium for apple is a pittance. (Now whether you want or care about those features is a separate issue.)
Instead I bought a ASUS laptop with 2GB of RAM, a 7200RPM HD, a Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz and a Nvidia Geforce 8600M GPU.
Good on you, for finding what you need. Is it a better deal than an apple? Hard to say.
You paid 1500 for it, and the 15-inch apple MBPro is 1999, or 30% more (hardly the twice you were moaning about). That gets you an 8600M GPU, 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, and 5400 rpm drive. Sounds about even for 499 more, right? Slight bump up on the cpu, but a hit on HD speed.
So... does the asus have firewire? (firewire 800 no less?) gigabit or just 10/100? a camera? bluetooth? a remote control? microphone? is it heavier or lighter? is it thinner or thicker? Does it have a remote? DVI out or only VGA? 802.11n or just a/b/g? is the keyboard backlit? Does it have a magnetic release on the power-cord? express-card slot?
Im sure the asus has at least some of those. But I doubt it has most of them. And if you add it all up, there is a good chunk of value in there, easily enough to justify the extra 400-500 for a lot of people.
And that's before we get into the ease of use, virus situation, unix under the hood, and other soft advantages of the Mac OS platform.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a mac fanboy, and I'm not saying a Mac is right for everyone. My last purchase was a 4GB RAM 3.1GHz (2.5GHz overclocked) Core2 Quad PC with Vista U x64 / Ubuntu Feisty x64 on separate 500GB drives, and an 8600GTS; I have no regrets; the iMac was worlds away from what I needed (hello PCI slots for testing medical video capture equipment). And a Mac Pro simply wasn't a good value for this unit. (That said, my next purchase is likely to be a Mac Book Pro 15".)
But I am defending Apples product and pricing as good value, because for what you get, it is. (upgrade pricing aside!) It might not be what YOU or I need, from a given system, but that's a separate issue.
More to Come (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More to Come (Score:4, Funny)
If you want titties and beer, buy a macbook.
Got that? Titties (.Y.) and BEER!
If you want to join the chess club, buy a PC.
Re:More to Come (Score:5, Funny)
If you want titties and beer, buy a macbook.
We *are* talking IT.
There is already plenty of man-boob and drinking to go around.
Re:More to Come (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More to Come (Score:5, Funny)
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From what I saw at Best Buy this weekend, I think the sales may go up even more. I hadn't realized that they were selling them now, but I saw a crowd ganged around a table where they had the laptops and iMacs sitting out for people to play around with. There was a steady stream of people and you could feel a sense of excitement about it.
Macs have always been considered as overpriced.
From what I've seen in the last few weeks, they are still regarded as such, but to a much lesser extent - a year ago, there was not a single topic about Macs on the largest Croatian forum; now there are quite a few, and most are about MacBooks.
I think their desktop sales will go up as well - for one, when I finish college and start earning real money, I'm switching my desktop to Mac, too. But I know people enough who want a Mac as well.
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Macs have always been considered as overpriced.
Well now that depends. I just checked the dell and apple websites and here is what I found: (canadian $)
dell xps 1330: $1729
# 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
# 160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# intel gma 3100
black macbook (std build): $1649
# 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
# 160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# intel gma 950
So for slightly less money, you get a machine with a slig
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dell Inspiron 1420: $1,159
# 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
# 160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# intel gma 3100
black macbook (std build): $1649
# 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
# 160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# intel gma 950
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A co-worker and I recently both purchased laptops of almost identical performance. His is a Dell XPS of some sort, mine's a Macbook Pro. His was about $500 more, but it's a 17", and the price difference would be neligable had I bought a 17". They're almost identically specced, although mine's a slightly less powerful DX10 video card, his has slightly more balls but is DX9. Mine's al
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Quite funny, actually
And, though I only got the machine in June, already one person has boug
Brand Synergy (Score:4, Insightful)
With Vista firmly planted on the rocks, Apple are in a strongest position they have been in since the original Mac.
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Re:Brand Synergy (Score:5, Interesting)
When I started a new job in January, they issued me a MacBook Pro. The first time I brought it home and pulled it out of my bag, my four year old daughter - who is used to various desktops, LCD and CRT monitors, my and my wife's Thinkpads, and the Toshiba Tecra I had at my previous employer - immediately popped it with "Wow, that's a cool computer!" as soon as she saw it.
She'd never seen a Mac before, has no clear idea about brands and stuff, yet immediately recognized that it looked cooler than the other computers she's seen. Couple that level of cool with OS X and you have a winner, so Apple's surging laptop market share doesn't surprise me.
Re:Brand Synergy (Score:4, Informative)
Lies, damned lies, and statistics (Score:5, Informative)
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The also exclude online stores like Amazon and Apple, and direct marketers like Dell.
However, that means Apple's outside retail sales have jumped by nearly double. That would suggest that Apple's own sales are also doing "well."
Apple set a new record of 1.7 million Macs last quarter, which is commonly its slowest quarter. This quarter is back to school, and next is Ch
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Research firm IDC also has Apple in the third spot; data it released last month put Apple's share of U.S. sales at 5.6%, far behind leaders HP (28.4%) and Dell (23.6%) but tied with Gateway.
In other words, 1 laptop out of every 18, not out of every 5.
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I puzzled over that too since the article itself says Apple is selling more than 1 in every 6 laptops. I think the 5.6% figure is referring to all computer sal
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"NPD, which collects its data primarily from retail sources and excludes most online and all direct sales, said Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops accounted for 17.6% of June's unit sales"
In other news, market research firm SJB, which collects its data primarily from Apple stores and excludes all other sources, said Apple'
At retail... (Score:2)
That's not to say that this isn't impressive, but how about keeping the sensationalism down a bit?
In any event, this doesn't really get me excited, as I'm even less inclined to buy into Apple's expensive machines when I can run FreeBSD or Linux on the cheapest of the cheap laptops and be very happy.
It's too bad that more market share for Apple doesn't translate into more open hardware specs instead of "we support Windows and Mac OS."
Re:At retail... (Score:5, Insightful)
The cheapest of the cheap laptops are generally sucktastic, big, and heavy (And generally come pre-installed with Vista). My MacBook Pro is far more stylish and compact than almost every other equivalently priced Windows notebooks. OS X is a joy to use, and coupled with an AG-HVX200, Final Cut Studio, and a couple of big external drives... and I am a production unit on the go. It just works best for what I do. Which is why I "drank the koolaid" in 2003 and bought a Mac to start with. After 17 years of using MS-DOS and then Windows... I am loving being an "Apple Fanboi" and I cant see going back to Windows for anything other than the occasional game.
I think a lot of people are discovering that OS X just works, and doesnt need the sort of tinkering and maintenance that Windows rigs generally do to stay in top running shape.
I cant remember the last time I did a virus scan or a defrag...
Oh...
Last week...
On my roomies computer, so the damn XP rig would actually work again.
Re:At retail... (Score:5, Interesting)
So crash free, virus free, and great performance, it's a dream come true for me. External displays work as expected. Everything just works, in general. (A few gotchas, but *very* few as compared to XP.)
The funny thing is, I don't consider myself a Fanboy. But when I talk about the Mac, I get excited about how well it works, and people accuse me of it! Well dammit, I *am* excited about how well it works for me! And want to share it with others. At the end of the day, I don't care if people convert, as long as it's there for me.
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You most likely will not have any luck here. There are many chipsets out there without (or only partial) Mac/Unix/Linux support. I'm guessing that you have an older G4 or G5 based Mac, because, if you were to purchase a new Mac, it would have wireless and bluetooth built-in ($79 option on the Mac Pro, standard on everything else), so in your
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I'll try to address these 1 by 1 and see if I can come up with some solutions for you.
1. I have some cheap usb hardware (wireless network dongle, bluetooth, etc). No drivers for mac. (I've spent hours searching mailing lists)
Unfortunately, you are pretty well screwed on USB unless the peripheral is of some standard device class that Apple supports (e.g. keyboard, mouse, hard drive, most cameras) or Apple has provided support for it. As far as I know, most Bluetooth adapters do work, particularly the Dlink ones. Look for an OS X logo on it, although what Mac did you buy recently that didn't have bluetooth built in? The networking situatio
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Well, then you're not in Apple's target market. Personally, I'd buy an expensive laptop and run Linux or FreeBSD on it, since I value things like light weight, long battery life and fans that don't sound like a turbojet. If you factor in the hardware and include things like noise level, size, weight, build qu
Re:At retail... (Score:5, Funny)
In all seriousness, what do you guys actually do with your Macs that justifies the expense? I completely understand if it's just that it's aesthetically pleasing, too, I have an impractical car that runs fast and looks cool.
That one's easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Work. (As opposed to "fiddle with a computer.")
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Get my work done without having to spend time periodically running spyware scanners, disk defragmenters, and not periodically wiping the hard drive and reinstalling the OS because some software didn't uninstall correctly and left a messed-up registry or some other lingering problem that required the aforementioned wipe and reinstall. I have to admit that System Restore saved my can on more than one occasion, but it b
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Photoshop. Fortran. Run simulations while on the road without having to perform yoga contortions to get the machine to act like a proper UNIX box.
Just get work done quietly and unobtrusively, without the computer/OS having to announce its presence every minute, lest I forget the blessings that Redmond hath bestowed upon me.
My dream laptop would be an IBM X31 running OS-X, but since those were neve
not a complete picture (Score:2)
> NPD, which collects its data primarily from retail sources and excludes
> most online and all direct sales
Given what a large (and qualitatively different) chunk of the market has been excluded from the stats, it doesn't seem like their 1/6 number is necessarily representative of the full state of the laptop market.
It's not the iPod effect, it's the *Vista* effect (Score:2)
My $0.02 armchair guesstimate is that Vista's resounding belly flop is helping Apple's sales figures. For most of those who yearn to escape Microsoft's bumbling clutches, the Orchard is definitely more inviting than the herring-scented wilds of Linuxland. I've got at least one family member of my own who has looked out through the broken window and found the air under the apple trees to be a very welcome change (and two others are seriously considering it).
Cheers,
Gateway is the company to beat (like a dead horse) (Score:5, Interesting)
Then this article triumphs being tied with Gateway as an achievement.
Re:Gateway is the company to beat (like a dead hor (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is further hampered by their policy of selling their own OS on their own hardware, while Gateway piggybacked on the success of Windows. Apple still beat them out. So, yes, I'd say that's an achievement -- if only an achievement until Gateway is bought by Acer, but an achiev
But What of the Long Term? (Score:2, Interesting)
I expect that lot of these new Apple buyers are people who, like me, just grew weary of Microsoft,their attitude, and the endless virus and other problems.
The problem for Apple is that they, and the fanboys, are selling the product as perfection, as complete out of the box, as seamless and needing no attention beyond plugging in the power supply once a day.
The reality of course is much different. Macs have some
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I won't mod you as flamebait (no mod points today), but I will respond to this bit:
Macs crash just like a Windows computer. Macs experience hardware issues. Macs, if you use them heavily, need regular maintenance to keep them running smoothly.
You're one for three, in my experience. Hardware issues: yeah, I've had a few. But my Mac just never crashes. And I have no idea what you're talking about when you say that "heavy usage" implies "regular maintenance". My Mac runs smoothly all the time, and t
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I think the implications is the other way. Windows got better not Macs crashing a lot. My windows box has yet to crash. Haven't needed to reboot except for patches (adobe and windows update). Windows
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Classic. For the last time: Mac OS X is (thankfully) NOT Windows. Just because you can't figure it out and just because it isn't Windows doesn't mean it sucks. We Mac users complain that Windows sucks, not because we can't figure anything out, or it doesn't look like a Mac. No, we complain about Windows, just like Windows users complain about Windows, because Windows just sucks. All PC users can come up with is that Macs are slow, they cr
Linux on MacBook pro's (Score:2)
I guess I could try to run Linux on the Mac hardware, but I'm worried so few people probably do that, I would be in relatively uncharted waters and have lots of problems. So what's the scoop? Does Linux on MacBook Pros work, including driving the 30" screen at f
Intel runs windows too, but macs are UNIX too ... (Score:4, Insightful)
".... and it can also run Windows if I really need it for something
I think the Intel switch and the option to run Windows is a huge selling point for many.
For me on the other hand is that it is the only laptop that actually runs UNIX out of the box with a functional desktop, without constant headaches for drivers and all.
I respect, love and use Linux every day, but when you face all the little quirks of a laptop when trying to put Linux on it (especially a new one) you know what I am talking about. And when you think you solved it all, you realize that your battery dies a lot faster, or your backlight just does not go out when the screen saver starts.
I myself own a Macbook, and while I have seen many OSes, touched and owned many hardware devices, I have to say that this was my best ever computer/OS selection. I admin servers and develop mostly for LAMP web, if you wondered, and yes I also enjoy having a decent DVD player program with a remote under UNIX (yes mplayer + lirc + whatever - but i mean out of the box, not after 3 days of hacking)
RTFA, Lying with statistics... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's share of U.S. [laptop] sales [is] 5.6%, far behind leaders HP (28.4%) and Dell (23.6%) but tied with Gateway.
In other words, Apple sells 1 laptop in 20 (in the USA; it's closer to 1 in 50 if you look at global numbers), not 1 in 6. Not quite as impressive as the summary or title make it appear, eh?
In Boston more like 50-70% (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it's just the huge number of 'creatives' in the city, but it seems that around NYC and Boston, that Apple's pretty well taken over. Hell, my office has 70% of the people carrying iPhones (and that was true the first week they were out). I have yet to actually see anyone with a Zune. Period.
What's odd is that I lived in North Carolina for about 8 months, and most of the computers there were Windows-based PCs. My 4 macs were seen as oddities down there. Here it's par for the course.
A Little Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't mean that in a fevered, evangelical way because, really, I don't care what the rest of the world uses but for me, personally, switching has made a big difference to my productivity and enjoyment of computers - I'd kind of forgotten the excitement I used to feel back in the day.
Over the past couple of years, Apple seem to be have been slowly but steadily getting it right in a sustained manner that I suspect will come more clearly to fruition when Leopard is released in October. I was kind of slow to notice this build-up, kind of resistant to the idea of buying into the cult of Apple and probably should have made the switch sooner, could have used this productivity boost a year ago, but, whatever, I'm glad that I eventually cottoned on.
Again, I don't much care what the rest of the world does as long as my experience and working environment keep improving. Some enjoy treating this as a spectator sport, like a never-ending baseball match between Apple and Microsoft, enjoying each play that seems to bring victory that little bit nearer. Bollox.
Sure, Apple probably will see quite a jump by the holiday season but Microsoft have simply dominated the market for too long to be pushed aside - the vast majority of people don't know and don't care to know much about computers and will happily "upgrade" to Vista when their existing machines die. What we will see, however, is a fairly fast and comprehensive migration towards Mac by programmers and other people who need to be creative and productive with computers. That probably represents just 15% of the market but it's an important 15% and giving those people better tools to do what they do is going to be beneficial for everyone.
In the meantime, I certainly recommend giving the whole Mac proposition a closer look, you might find yourself as surprised as I have been.
Quality and Intel (Score:3, Interesting)
I just bought my first Mac. A Santa Rosa macbook pro. And I use it almost exclusively now.
Here's what I don't like.
Ok, so why do I LIKE it (a lot)?
There's nothing not to like about this hardware.
Pair that up with the fact that their design team is solid and is producing exceptional quality designs such as the iPod line and the iPhone. (I don't own one and won't based on cost and that I have a good PDA phone but my colleague has one and I've tried it out and it's a good design.)
Apple made three pivotal moves:
Re:Quality and Intel (Score:5, Insightful)
Said applications should be designed to show whatever information might be useful in some other location than a menu bar. And the extra mouse travel distance is not a problem because it's easier to hit a target always at the top of the screen than one that might be mixed around other menus (In Windows I've found myself accidentally raising windows I did not mean to when I mistook which menu bar was for the active window).
A single mouse button was NEVER a good idea.
You say that now but when you realize how much more manageable a single large button is that you can chord into two, vs. two mouse buttons on a laptop where at least one is awkward to hit... on top of that applications are designed to work with one mouse button instead of requiring two,
The single button design aspect across all Mac platforms is what allows the laptops to be especially usable.
The iPod. A product that outclassed the competition by a mile. This made them profitable and restored people's trust in apple producing a reliable, desirable product.
Apple was quite profitable, and had a huge cash reserve, well before the iPod when they were just selling iMacs and OS X. The iPod did vault them into a new straosphere of awareness and is obviously having an effect though.
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The Vostro I ordered was a 2.2Ghz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM (667Mhz), 160GB 7200RPM HDD, 15.4" 1440x900 screen
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I'm writing this on a four year old G4 Tibook that continues to run and run and run...
They're probably selling them to people with 6 or 7 year old Macs. Getting 6-7 years of useful life out of a Mac is quite common. This is a testament to how well OS X has supported older hardware. (Let's see Vista on a 7 year old machine.) I'm much in the same boat as you; I've got a 4 year old PowerMac G5 and a 3 year old AlBook. As much as the geek in me would love to find an excuse to get a s
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Yeah. Jessica Tandy.
Re:Please educate & inform me... (Score:5, Informative)
A question for you: What is it about OS X that makes it good for audio/video/graphic work? That's your assertion, so I assume you have at least of some reason to believe it.
If you're confused as to why some choose OS X then I would suggest doing some research into the features that made NEXTSTEP a compelling Unix Desktop and workstation in the 90s [google.ca]. For instance:
That's NEXTSTEP.
Now, say you chose NEXTSTEP as the basis for your perfect operating system and desktop environment. You get to keep all of the good design decisions, throw away or refactor all of the bad design decisions, and do it without any backward compatibility restrictions. What you end up with is OS X.
But why an Apple laptop? Here's why: I can open up a bunch of SSH and X11 sessions to a remote server over wi-fi, close the lid and throw it in my back-pack, go eat lunch, come back and open the lid, and all of my remote X11 apps and sessions are still alive. OS X just works damn well on Apple's laptop hardware.
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