iBox Episode 2 441
coolgeek writes "According to this article on Wired, the iBox (original SlashDot post), later renamed to the CoreBox, has run into some trouble. Their strategy is to clone Mac computers using spare parts from repair centers. Evidently, the supplier of the repair parts was reminded by Apple Computer's Legal Department that supplying to a computer manufacturer was a breach of contract. Consequently, the supplier has chosen to stop supplying parts. More information on at the CoreComputing website, and they say the game isn't over yet..."
Big surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Big surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Big surprise (Score:3, Funny)
"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember that one of the CPU upgrade makers had a deal where they'd send you a new CPU and daughtercard, and give you a major discount if you sent in your old daughtercard (so they could swap CPUs and resell it, since they had no other way to obtain the daughtercards the CPUs were soldered to). I don't think that strategy would really work in this case.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is it acceptable that Apple can bully companies into oblivion? Just because it's not Microsoft? Or is it because their PCs are prettier and BSD-based? I thought the whole point of capitalism was that through competition among large numbers of companies, consumers would get better and cheaper products with the passing of time.
Mod me down if you must, I reali
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Underhanded? (Score:2)
Re:Underhanded? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Underhanded? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they bought them as replacement parts (for which they have an agreement with Apple) and then sold them as new machines, they would be trading under false pretenses and in violation of their agreement with Apple. Apple can therefore do exactly what they have done.
We can debate the "niceness" of the agreement, or of Apple and we can debate the naievity (or stupidity...) of the company but they have broken an agreement with Apple and that's all there is to it.
It's like obtaining software "for non-commercial use" at a reduced cost and then using it for commercial reasons, or buying something in place X and taking it to place Y when you signed an agreement not to... you are breaking that agreement whether you like it or not.
hohum
Troc
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you 5 years old? First off, your comparison is flawed because torture is illegal you can't make a contract based on it. Apple has a contract with a provider to supply spare parts. They expect the bad ones back. The contract is not to resell and deplete Apple's parts stock. If the provider is in breach of contract they are liable. There is nothing illegal or immoral here.
Every hardware company does the same thing. If an IBM/Sun/HP/etc. computer went down they want the defective parts back. Apple wants it's parts back, it doesn't want someone reselling them as a new gear.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:2)
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:2)
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Define "monopolistic practices", please. Monopolies are perfectly legal in the US, and certainly should be in any free market nation. In fact, that's the extreme towards which free markets strive (rarely getting there because the market doesn't allow it -- if a firm does attain monopoly status and follows suit with standard monopoly pricing and there are no major ba
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:5, Informative)
But this isn't accurate, either. You're right that monopolies are legal in the U.S. -- natural monopolies, that is. But any time a company tries to acquire a monopoly or maintain a natural monopoly using unreasonable methods, the company is in trouble with the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act. Thus, even if a company attained a natural monopoly legally and didn't try to enter new markets (and attempt to leverage its existing monopoly to attain one in the new market, like you suggest), they will still be liable under Sherman/Clayton if they do things like erect artificial barriers to entry or kill or suppress in various ways new entrants to their market.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:3, Informative)
My understanding is that a "natural monopoly" is an industry where it "seems natural" that one company should have a monopoly, because for multiple companies to compete would be an inefficient and wasteful use of resources - for example, the telephone network. One company has a monopoly on the telephone lines in your area. For a second company to provide you phone service, they would have to run their own physical telephon
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't stopping you from NOT buying a Mac.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"? (Score:2, Interesting)
iBox (Score:3, Funny)
Stop tingling, dammit.
Availibilty (Score:2, Insightful)
Great business strategy, buy broken, or unusable parts, build computer out of them, and sell to Joe Smoe who can't afford an Apple, so he'll buy an Apple?
Parts laying around (Score:2, Funny)
They aren't lying around. They are in those cardboard boxes in the basement, tossed in with pieces of Apple II shells that have gone a rich brown with age, 60 pin ribbon cables, the occasional Sinclair TS-1000 taken in on trade, and that Apple
Re:Availibilty (Score:2, Informative)
'Home Repair' (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if it's okay to supply parts to a (non-business) individual, for 'DIY home repair'? Could be a good way to put together an OS X box on the cheap.
Re:'Home Repair' (Score:5, Informative)
And Apple is far from the only company that does something like that. You think service parts purchased legitimately from a Chevrolet dealer will let you assemble your own Corvette for less than the normal price of a factory-built one? Hell, no!
~Philly
Re:'Home Repair' (Score:2)
Re:'Home Repair' (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone in my highschool autoshop class priced out how much it would cost for him to build a complete new Mustang from scratch, down to every last part, from the Ford dealership. I think it ended up comming out to well over $100k
Re:'Home Repair' (Score:5, Informative)
So the cost of the replacement motherboard and a Sonnet Duet card far exceeded the purchase price of a new Mac when offset with selling the old one on eBay.
Re:'Home Repair' (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, but these machines aren't cheezy "witeboxes". They were reworking the Apple parts into some really snazzy looking low-profile brushed metal cases. These machines would have filled a similar niche to the failed Cube...probably had better QC on them too.
So that's why (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, I wonder why when I booted up my Mac it said:
APPLE ][
]_
Now I've heard everything The JunkMac (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks to their hard work, you can buy an iBox, no two the same. Today they are offering a special on an iMac hybrid that has a modern flat-screen stuck on the front of an old bulbous blue first-gen iMac that has an orange mouse.
Tomorrow, they expect to have a "PowerBox" PowerBook made from notebook guts obtained during a particularly successful dumpster-dive installed into the toilet-seat discarged by the plumbing place next door. The local wildlife was restless that night: this machine has a live mouse.
Re:Now I've heard everything The JunkMac (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, for reminding me why people really stay loyal to Apple.
Not because of better hardware (since even their "new" machines will fall woefully short of a PC with a mid-end AMD)...
Not because of price (since those same new machines will cost more than a fully decked out dual Opteron)...
But because of color coordination.
"Mauve... I think I'll paint the ceiling Mauve. It'll match this season's iMac".
Welcome to the world of Stetford Users.
(Karma hell, here I come).
MID-end? (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, I didn't even know there was a mid-end. I knew about the high end, and I knew about the low end. but this mid-end concept is totally blowing my mind. Is it anything like the 'mid-range'?
Re:MID-end? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still not true though.
A high-end mac most certainly will keep up with a mid-range AMD machine. More than keep up. I have a single processor G4-660 laptop and an AMD 1800+ with the same video cards and guess which one handles graphics better? What percentage of CPU cycles on a modern PC in a desktop role are used on graphics? It's really high.
And there's more to 'hardware' than raw performance anyway also. Apple hardware is really nice. Not performance kings, but not nearly as bad as you're making i
Re:MID-end? (Score:4, Informative)
Yawn.
Return to Wolfenstein. Descent 3. Heretic 2. Hexxen 2. UT 2003. The whole Doom set. Probably everything from ID in fact, and lots more.
'Episode 2 - Attack ON the Clones' (Score:4, Funny)
Noooo.... (Score:3, Funny)
What is going on!!??
Re:Noooo.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is saying you aren't going to be using their spare parts to undersell them. Nothing more. How are they restricting anyones rights in this case? By not letting them build and sell what are in essence Apple computers? Boo-Fucking-Hoo. Next you'll say that BMW is stifling competition because they won't let someone put together 5 series cars out of spare parts and sell them at half the price of a new BMW made 5.
Now if Apple was trying to jump on someone for using a generic board that Appl
Except (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Except (Score:3, Interesting)
BMW will find out where you got enough parts to do this, shut the flow of parts to you off, and probably send the legal boys to sue you back to the stone age. I am surprised that the Core people haven't heard from the Apple legal team yet. It'
Re:Except (Score:3, Insightful)
Great idea... Hey Apple, Mindstrm just suggested the solution. Charge 10x the price for each part. Give a 9x credit on returns of damaged parts*.
Fair, right? Enjoy your $20,000 iBox. :)
(That is what you suggested, right?)
-T
*Incidentally, Apple does this now - but not with such a huge markup.
Another 3dfx, etc, etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess it doesn't fit into their ultimate scheme of things. They don't really seem to care about overwhelmingly taking a huge chunk of the market (only enough to be "profitable")...err, only enough at their pace.
Re:Another 3dfx, etc, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only really worked once, and many others have tried. I don't see that as a very strong business case.
- Scott
Re:Another 3dfx, etc, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
Should've marketed differently (Score:2)
You guys are in a dream world (Score:2, Insightful)
So you get a nice cheap box, but at what real cost? The degradation of OS X? The death of Apple? Wake up, the iBox would be bad for everyone
Re:Clones would kill the PPC platform! (Score:3, Insightful)
Mac clones now only serve to take market share from Apple. That's easy enough and obvious enough to understand I would think.
Re:You guys are in a dream world (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You guys are in a dream world (Score:3, Informative)
Hardware vs Software (Score:4, Insightful)
imagine what would happen if Ford only allows its "rolling" tyres to be fitted on its cars...
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a horrible comparason, MacOS X can be uninstalled from your mac, and you can install somthing different, you can't uninstall internet explorer and put in Mozilla though, you have to keep IE.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Well, you have to 'keep' it, but you don't ever need to use it to surf the web.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like Ford allowing its replacement engines only to be put in Ford vehicles requiring repair, and disallowing them to be used to build a new, third-party vehicle.
Perfectly reasonable and legitimate.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:3, Interesting)
However car companies understand what an asshole that would make them look like, and instead they just make their engines expensive to build from parts ordered from the shop. Not only that the automotive industry makes a ton of money on parts; The more cars that carry their engines, the more money they make on parts.
Once again; Anal
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:3, Funny)
No. The bastards take the parts, assemble them, call it a "Sable," and then charge even more!
Spare parts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spare parts (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, there is. Usually they call them 'wave-flow machines' though. And it's not like they're stealing the motherboards.
Re: (Score:2)
Really People (Score:2)
Spry Flashback! (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid vendor (Score:2)
Rock and a hard place? (Score:2)
But, it's a shame that a young guy's business is being affected. Based on the press I've seen, he just wanted to do something cool and really wasn't just in it for the money.
But, let's face it, I'm sure BMW or Mercedes would be a little perturbed if you started building cars based on their parts and not exactly hiding
I sold and repaired Macs for 5 years (Score:2, Interesting)
When Apple makes a move to shut someone down, they are doing it because they have to in order to survive. After all, they have less than 10% market share. They need to be a lot more defensive of the position that they have.
Namely killing off PPC Mac clones, Purchasing NeXT instead of Be, Refusing to give Be the engineering specs that they needed to support the Be OS on post 9600 Macs, Killing off the iBox, whatever it happens to be.
Steve Jobs understands tha
homepage is down, but the rest is not (Score:2)
Buy one now [2khappyware.com].
Forums [2khappyware.com].
The word from a service provider (Score:5, Informative)
In a nutshell, here's how it works:
There are two ways you can order parts from Apple, essentially:
1. You can "service stock" the part. With this method, you buy it at the highest price. Apple doesn't expect anything back, since it's an order for something you want to stock, generally. It has other uses, but this is the main use.
2. You can order an "exchange part", where you send back the defective or failed part upon completion of the repair. Using this method, the part's cost to you is cheaper, and thus cheaper to your customers (ideally). Exchange orders are typically the most popular types of orders.
When I say cheaper via the exchange method, I mean it. Contractually, I can't disclose the difference(s)--it's essentially NDA information--but it's enough to warrant ordering exchange parts when you can.
However, if you don't return the failed or defective part within a certain time window, you get invoiced for the full price of the part you ordered. This acts as a pretty decent fraud deterrent, since if you wanted to pay full price, knowing about the return date ahead of time, you would have stocked the part to begin with. (And you wouldn't have taken a hit on your service provider rating because you failed to return something to Apple.)
Service providers are NOT allowed to buy most parts from Apple and resell them directly to others; non-CIPs (so-called "customer-installable parts", such as RAM and rechargeable batteries) must be installed by a service provider or returned to Apple.
Just some info for the
f-king idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Apple isn't evil because of "going after" this parts supplier. The supplier is in obvious breech of contract. Duh. There's plenty to criticise in the Apple company and in the Mac platform; pick a reason, just make it a valid one, okay?
2. Clones are bad for the Macintosh platform. Bad, bad, bad. Any strategy which erodes their ability to leverage OS/iApps/Hardware into a seamless, second-to-none user experience will be death to the platform. It is not good. It is bad. It will kill the one, single unique thing about this company and they will be swallowed up into the sea of mediocrity that is the rest of the PC industry. Nobody should want that, as even PC users benefit from Apple's R&D.
Re:f-king idiots (Score:3, Informative)
(I wish I could save myself the time and trouble of formulating and typing out this argument every time it comes up. In fact last time I recall I just linked to my previous comment from another discussion - it had been modded up to 5 with comments like "that's the best explanation I'v
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:2, Troll)
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is acting like a company that wants to stick with a business model of making most of its profits from hardware sales. These profits subsidize many interesting applications, which Apple gives away to its customers freely because they've already paid.
Now, should Apple not count on hardware profits and charge $500 for a copy of MacOS X? What difference would that really make in your opinion? How about if they raised the prices of their replacement parts,
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:2)
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:2)
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very simple, really.
Apple sells hardware at a premium price. The profits go on to fund interesting software like the iLife apps, iCal, iSync, Safari, Quicktime, a full development suite, and even an accelerated X11 Server. These software are made available for free to Mac users, because they already paid for it. In fact, if you use many of these applications, you'll realize that the original hardware price tag isn't that much steeper when you consider software costs.
Now, allowing people to buy parts and build cheaper Apple clones messes this up somewhat. Who will pay for the free software? The alternative for Apple must then be either to charge for the software, or to charge so much for replacement parts that it's impossible to build a cheaper clone. Realize that both alternatives are bad for loyal customers who actually buy from Apple. Additionally, it keeps the resale value of Macs high, which is also good for the Apple customer.
Apple's involvement in open source is among the best, but it is very carefully limited to areas that Apple isn't competing in. For example, Apple doesn't feel that there is any competition in the OS kernel space, so Darwin is open source. Safari is a capable browser, but Apple is not planning to win any browser wars, so Apple's chose to participate in KHTML development. However, Apple is holding back core technologies so that nobody can build a OS X clone for x86, which would put Apple customers back in the same situation of paying for people who would rather not pay Apple.
You may disagree with their business plan, but all in all, Apple's strategy is internally coherent, and appears to still work.
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Go see if you can find someone to sell you some Coca Cola syrup so you can sell Coke and undercut their prices. Or try to find someone willing to sell you authentic Chevrolet parts for a Corvette that they have assembled themselves and are advertising at 1/3 the price of a Corvette's sticker price.
Now if you find someone willing to do either of those things whip out your stop
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps because Apple is a "business" trying to make a "profit"?
Seriously, where do you get off with this religious conviction that everyone should open their source to the world and think that they could still afford to stay in business?
Re:It really amazes me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, where do you get off with this religious conviction that everyone should open their source to the world and think that they could still afford to stay in business?
Gee, I dunno... maybe from the fact that they are making money on open source code?
Re:Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare Apple make a great OS, then put it on machines only they make. How dare they try to make a little cash and stay afloat. They should just give away their hardware and software for free!
Ok, a little drastic, so they should just licence their OS to anyone and forget about hardware? Well, they're in a great position now. If you want to use their OS, you have to buy their hardware. Simple enough and tons of people are doing it. No where near as many people as on Intel computers, but still a good chunk of people who enjoy using OSX.
Someone comes along and tries to get around this and of course, Apple tries to protect itself. But with Slashdot of course the main theme is "How DARE you try to protect yourself! You just sit there and take it!"
Maybe if Apple were to build in protection to their hardware that would blow itself up if someone tries to build it from scratch!
Hang on, gotta go call Sen. Hatch.
Re:String.Replace("Apple","Microsoft") (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Imagine my shock! (Score:2)
When/if apple has more market share, it won't be as bad since they won't be at a cut-throat position (vs microsoft), they don't want to loose what little they have against a clone that is 3x less the price of this, if they did however have more market share, they could afford to build a cheap box like this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Imagine my shock! (Score:2)
Dear Sir, (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
Apple Computer
Re:damnit apple! (Score:2)
Re:damnit apple! (Score:2)
No they arnt. You said so yourself!
> Screw the G5; I'm buying a dual opteron!
See? You are not a customer.
Besides, if you believe its perfectly ok for you to make demands of apple such as "I want you to do things with your stuff that *I* want even if you dont want to" then its only fair they do the same in return to you. So while you think apple should be forced to hand over cheap hardware, what if they felt you should be jus
Re:damnit apple! (Score:2, Insightful)
How?
Apple has a contract with a supplier of their parts. The supplier was selling these parts unauthorized to other parties, and this was against a pre-arranged agreement with apple. They didn't sue any end-users, they didn't hurt anyone, they merely told a supplier they have violated a contract clause and thus the supplier pulled itself into line.
Im confused why everyone's angry at apple, what did they do wrong?
(Yes i realized you
What in the world are you talking about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we can consider that not every platform benefits from being cloned.
- Scott
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
a monopoly of their own product? freaking duh. what do you expect? for them to throw their company out the window by allowing someone to intrude on their copyrights? okay, sure. they're monopolistic. whatever.
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
While I know that you could use Camino (or your flavor of Gecko) much of the time to access IE-only sites, and I believe there are open-source workarounds for Exchang
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
That's MicroCenter's price, not Apple's (Score:5, Insightful)
When you buy an Apple machine you're not buying the box, you're buying the overall product. Apple thinks of the computer as a whole, not processor, firmware, software. If you don't care about any of this and just want a cheap generic DIY box, then why are you interested in Macs at all? Just for the transparent windows?
Much of Mac OS X's value comes as result of Apple's approach to product design. The ease of use, peripheral connectivity that "just works", seamless integration and low maintenace don't come for free -- they come as a result of looking the computer as a whole product, not various disperate pieces slammed into a box ala Dell. You can't have both.
- Scott
I'd love to know (Score:4, Insightful)
Please enlighten us as to how allowing a third party to distribute a cheap knockoff of a design that Apple spent years creating will bolster Apple's image of quality and help them increase revenue.
- Scott
Re:I'd love to know (Score:3, Informative)
IBM was essentially done in by their own greed. They threw together a computer with all off-the-shelf parts in a single year, solely because they wanted a piece of the consumer market that was then essentially owned by the Apple II.
The only proprietary thing in the original PC was the BIOS. Once the BIOS was reverse engineered, that was it for IBM. In 1987, they tried to wrest control of the hardware market back fr
Re:I bought one (Score:2)
I remember when a 200Mhz Mac was a thing to tell of, whilst 200Mhz PC's were getting to be crapboxes by that time. I don't think that Mhz corresponds quite well between Macs/PC's, and even nowadays 800Mhz isn't that bad on a PC anyhow.
Re:I bought one (Score:2, Informative)
Ergo, an 800MHz PPC-Mac-OSX runs similar to a 1.6 GHz Pentium-WindowsXP machine.
This, of course, is a very rough rule of thumb based on general user experience. Efficiencies in the OSs and other parts of the architectures and configurations make a big deal here. This is not a reflection of comparitative FLOPS or any CPU benchmark.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:I see we failed history again.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Apple We All Know and Love (Score:4, Insightful)
1) This argument is kinda silly at this point. Originally, it was brought up to point out that just because a company has small market share, it doesn't mean the company is succesful. In essence, the initial logical argument has been distorted by opponents and proponents to the point where it doesn't make sense. And you're completely wrong about the PowerMac case. Two optical drives, 4 hard drives, built-in Firewire, bluetooth, USB, modem, ethernet, WiFi plus 4 PCI slots and an AGP card with dual monitor support. What do you want to put in your computer?
2) Hmmm, I don't think sliced bread is an operating system, but here goes. OS X is an excellent OS. It's not the be-all end-all, and it has advantages & disadvantages compared to PCs or Linux. Let's point out a couple things. iBooks start at $1000, eMacs sell for less. Quicktime nag screens suck, no doubt there. Then again, Quicktime Pro is one of the best software values on any platform, it's easy, it's powerful and it works. Macs suck for games (so I here), crush Linux for ease of use, are far easier than PCs to network (I've spent 10x more time getting my Mom's Windows network to work than it I've collectively spent on mine), and have a much higher proportion of good software than either Linux or Windows. Ya, the hardware costs more upfront. But the OS is rock-solid, easy to use, and quite powerful.
3) Apple's friendly? Well, they have a nice image, no doubt. But really, I've never heard any defend Apple by calling them friendly.
4) Where's the myth?
5) Not really a myth. Some stuff doesn't work. Every digital camera, flash card reader, mouse, trackball, tablet, monitor and drive I've plugged in has just worked. I had to install the driver for my printer, and for the USB-serial adapter I needed for some legacy devices that I used on my PowerMac 7200 in 1999 & earlier. Webcam support supposedly sucks, and well-intentioned webmasters who think they are clever (effectively) go out of their way to break non-WinExplorer browsers. Other than that, I rarely have problems. In fact, at one point I had my well-upgraded (new hard drive, upgraded RAM, WiFi card, Zip Drive) Lombard Powerbook G3, circa 1998, running for 5 weeks straight. Not a world's record, but pretty good.
Your last point is your best. Why do we support Apple? Well, because they make very good products that work, and a certain segment of the population thinks it's the best value out there. We're all different, and make judgements based on other criteria. No one's right, no one's wrong, we're all free to do as we wish.
Quality (Score:4, Insightful)
The components in a Mac may be the same stuff other PCs are made of, and therefore the quality isn't in those components: but it is in their integration that quality is visible, and in their use.
Let me explain, from my quality background:
A high quality software product is not one with zero bugs or defects. Zero bugs or defects is a low *error* product.
A high quality software product is one that the user enjoys using, or in situations where pleasure isn't a good indicator, the user can do their task effectively, efficiently, and with a minimum of hassle, problems, mistakes, and errors.
So to rephrase those in terms of a Mac, a piece of hardware:
A Mac is not high quality because it has no errors or defects.
A Mac is high quality because the user gets pleasure from it's use, or alternatively they can do the tasks they want, with a Mac, with a minimum of hassle, problems, errors, and setbacks.
So to bring it closer to home, I use a Mac, and I see it as high quality, and I agree with the BMW statement on multiple levels:
Small niche
Affluent niche
Image conscious niche
Quality conscious niche
I enjoy using my Mac. Already one of my metrics for quality is satisfied.
My PowerBook *feels* good to hold. My PowerMac *sounds* good, because it is so quiet. The case on the PowerMac is a pleasure to open, because it is so simple. I like opening it to just look at everything and how well laid out it is, because I like machines and technology. I put together PCs for 8 years, and after owning a PowerMac for 8 months, I wonder *why* no PC case is designed like this.
Hard drives are mounted on the floor on trays, instead of a freestanding cage in the middle of the case. This cuts down on vibration by directing it into the floor, and minimizes cable clutter because all the IDE connectors are at the edge of the motherboard, parallel to the connector on the hard drive. This also increases airflow because the cables and drives run left to right, instead of front to back on every PC case I've seen; so by design the drives are positioned to reduce vibration and increase circulation.
The case is covered in a thick swathe of plastic, and there's a plastic motherboard tray (probably all acrylic), both of which reduce vibration noise a lot. This *also* doubles as an aesthetic device, making the PowerMac more attractive than most PC cases, as well as providing handles to make the PowerMac easier to handle than most PC cases.
The main cooling fan is 120mm, for low RPM and high cooling efficiency.
So as a technofetishist, I enjoy the design of my PowerMac and PowerBook. Elegant and efficient. Pleasure. All metrics for quality, in my book.
So then there's the other bit, about getting the job done; the Mac platform is the most efficient and effective platform right now for me to do what I want to do. Having access to a terminal suits me perfectly fine, because I can work from it. It beats Windows in some areas, and matches Linux. Then there's the applications, which beats Linux in most areas, and Windows in just about all areas. This is purely subjective because people have different needs.
I don't play games.
I make DVD-Rs using iMovie and iDVD, and I haven't seen anything on the Linux or Windows side that matches this combo in ease of use, elegance, and simplicity. 1 day to make a 1 hour iMovie, and 1 day to design the accompanying DVD, and that's because I'm a picky perfectionist bugger. If I wanted to slap something together, it would be 2 hour for the movie (the time it takes to import, plus minor titling and transitions), and 1 hour for the DVD (using stock layouts). These are professionaly looking layouts too, things I am *happy* to use, overjoyed, because when I use them, the people I will be giving thes
Re:The Apple We All Know and Love (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, everything about a computer is what makes it a Mac. It's not that it's just another piece of hardware, it's one that's very well designed, lasts absoultely forever, and performs well for years to come. I'm not a mac fan at all, but I have used the machines, and I'm amazed at how they stand-up to the test of time. I wasn't a fan of Mac OS pre-10, and I've not yet used OS X (no shops in the area stock macs, and I'm not about
Re:The Apple We All Know and Love (Score:5, Informative)
Their cases are also too small to put much more then another harddrive.
There's easily space for four extra hard drives and several PCI cards in a typical pro Mac box. In general, Macs have more expansion capability than PCs owing to integrated functionality (no need for a PCI card or a FireWire card etc.)
Or are you talking about iMacs? I can go buy a firewire hard disc and just plug it into my iMac and it...just works.
The overall quality of Apple computers isn't even up to snuff with the x86 world. Read some forums about dented and pain peeling of Powerbooks, noise issues of Powermacs, keys falling off cheeply made iBooks, and you get the picture. The myth of "Apple quality" is greater then their "mhz myth"
You'll find bad stories about every product from every major company. Apple consistently does well in large scale surveys of reliability and customer satisfaction (usually the top or near the top score across the board).
2) OSX is the greatest OS since sliced bread. This comes from the fast that it's a "UNIX-based" OS that's "for a consumer". Well, if you want to compare feature for feature of the OS, Windows XP beats it hand down.
This depends on whether you count features or look at the implementation and usability of features. XP does many, many things badly.
Simple example: Mac OS X clients can find and mount windows file servers faster than XP.
Joysticks are an interesting example of "useful". (Mine work but maybe that's just me.) I have a devil of a time with my Dell laptop requesting I reinstall my Microsoft mouse drivers over and over again (they're already installed, the mouse generally works, it's a Microsoft product, and Dell is as close to Microsoft's favorite vendor as possible).
Every PC I've owned is or was plagued by driver issues, no matter how infrequently their hardware is played with.
3) Apple is a "friendly" company. Apple will sue anyone and everything.
Have they sued you for defamation yet? I think Apple is pretty restrained in its lawsuits. Coming up with a rant like this in response for Apple pointing out that one of the companies it deals with is clearly violating the spirit and letter of a perfectly common and straightforward contract requirement is hardly justification for this. Apple hasn't sued them or anything.
You have a theme that remotely has circular buttons? Apply legal will be on you like flies on manure.
You think that the sudden interest in rounded glass-like buttons is purely coincidental? You think that PC manufacturers got thrilled by translucent plastics just coincidentally with the success of the iMac? Apple is no different from a company like Nike that spends a lot of money building up brand recognition for a new shoe design and then finds its own suppliers selling products they designed to their competition.
If Joe Bag O'Donuts can make Macs for 1/2 price using Apple parts, how much is Apple REALLY overcharging for their systems?
How much does it cost Joe Bag O'Donuts to make copies of Windows install CDs? The cost of assembling a Mac out of parts Apple designed is hardly the same as the total cost. It's not like Apple runs at huge profit margins (unlike Microsoft...). It's quite clear that Microsoft locks in customers to maintain unreasonable margins on its software; Apple is doing just enough to stay afloat.
4)Apple for years hasn't been able to offer workstation level proformance on systems, so they decide "consumers" don't need to do things like upgrade. And to make matters worse, they intentionally cripple their low end o