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Desktops (Apple) Businesses Hardware Apple

400,000 Windows Users Switch To Mac 181

Posted by timothy from the numbers-are-hard-to-trust dept.
bonch writes "Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. wrote that 400,000 Windows users have moved to Macintosh, citing factors like the fabled iPod halo effect and the desire to escape the Windows virus epidemic. Mac shipments rose 35 percent, three times the rate of the PC market, with sales expected to surpass 45 percent in the current quarter. Quote: 'Assuming that Mac shipments would have been flat year-over-year, these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users purchased Macs in both the second and third fiscal quarters.'"
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400,000 Windows Users Switch To Mac More

400,000 Windows Users Switch To Mac

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  • this is surprisingly good news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VolciMaster ( 821873 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:23PM (#13116145) Homepage
    and not because I'm an Apple fan (though I am). It means that people are starting to decide on the machine they are going to buy, not merely on price, but on capability (or incapability when it comes to virii). I presume that the majority aren't the so-called media pros that Apple normally markets to, but rather 'typical Joe' computer buyers who have decided that the benefits of a less-attacked platform far outweigh the higher cost. They're also not being put off by the lack of applications often cited for the Mac platform, which makes sense considering most people only want to send and receive email, chat online, surf the web, and do homework (papers etc).

    The real test of this switching will, of course, have to be seen to continue over the next couple quarters, which would also show that most people are not caring about the processor used in the machines, so long as they work well.

    • I would love to go to the Apple if I could build my own machine instead of being locked into what they want me to have.

      But that's just me...not everyone builds their computers. I do it cause it's cheaper and I just don't have the disposable income that others have. But I'll always crave a Mac.

      No, the MacMini doesn't cut it for me.

      • I don't see how you can't build oyur own mac. You can pick the amount of memory you want and the hard drive size, etc. What is it you want that you can't get from Build-To-Order?

        As for price, you're not really saving anything-- if you're comparing using first tier products. Apple's machines are competitive with dells on price. And while you can go use random cheap parts to build a PC, you're not getting the same quality you get with a first tier manufacturer.

        Now, if building your own machine is someth
        • What is it you want that you can't get from Build-To-Order?

          Cheaper parts :)

          Seriously though, as much as I love Macs, i would love even more to build my own from scratch, using the parts I want. As much as you can 'configure' your Mac, it's not at all the same.

          Not that we're going to have wait much longer though. I'm hoping to be able to put one together within the next 18 months.

        • You apparently don't follow PC parts prices- you can get equivalent or better quality parts than Dell uses for lower prices than Dell charges. Especially for high end and gaming systems. To the tune of saving several hundred dollars, usually.

          A PC built yourself also allows you to engineer in upgradability. Need more memory on an existing system? Buy more and plug it in. Can you do that on a Mac? Without being forced to buy the parts from Apple? I do not believe you can. Buying a Mac forces you int
          • Need more memory on an existing system? Buy more and plug it in. Can you do that on a Mac? Without being forced to buy the parts from Apple? I do not believe you can.
            Well, dispite your beliefs, you can.
          • Realistically, the only thing that's PC only for expansion is the video card.

            Everything else is just stock stuff. Sure, there are mac suppliers that focus on mac compatibility, such as making sure their PCI cards conform to the PCI-X standard that powermacs use.

            Harddrives are standard drives, RAM is standard (although you have to, as with any computer, make sure you buy the appropriate kind)... Heck, most "everything else" is already built into the mainboard -- the stock soundcard in macs already sup

      • Re:this is surprisingly good news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gulthek ( 12570 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:45PM (#13116376) Homepage Journal
        I would love to go to the Apple if I could build my own machine instead of being locked into what they want me to have.

        But that's just me...not everyone builds their computers. I do it cause it's cheaper and I just don't have the disposable income that others have. But I'll always crave a Mac.

        So "they" want you to have it, but you crave it also. What is it you want out of a Mac? Why won't a cheap tower G4 work? Go to Low End Mac [lowendmac.com] and browse their articles and found sales. You can get macs from less than $100 to over $10000; and you can't find something that matches your ideal?

        If you only crave a mac, then you don't need it, and in that case you don't need a dual processer G5 to edit video in realtime with (or whatever). Sure you may want and crave the latest and greatest from Apple; but their older and now cheaper machines are great deals!

        I have an 800 Mhz G3 iBook, and a dual 1.8Ghz G5. For day-to-day stuff (iTunes, email, web browsing, movie watching) the iBook holds up extremely well to the G5. It certainly doesn't feel limiting.

        Rethink your "Mac Mini" doesn't cut it for me statement and try one out in the Apple store. Or pick up a cheap G4 if you really want customizability. But don't imply that Macs are only for the wealthy.

        • Yeah, the mini is pretty amazing... part of it could be Tiger, but its snappy and capable and cheap.
        • Exactly. I'm tired of all the people who have no trouble taking hours of their time building their own white-box PC whining about the cost of Macs when they refuse to look at the price of any Mac that isn't listed on the store.apple.com web site. I've got six Macs in regular use, and still feel no need to get a G5. (I'll probably get one when the dual-core version comes out.)

          A six-year-old Blue & White G3 will run the latest version of OS X quite well if you give it sufficient RAM (generally conside

        • I didn't mean to imply that Macs are only for the wealthy. I'm just talking about my situation.

          When I start building a computer, I start off with the case...usually bought on a sale from Newegg. Then the motherboard when another sale comes along a few weeks later. I keep doing this, getting stuff that's on sale or a good bargain. This way I save money and build a really nice machine that actually would be the equivalent of a high end Mac.

          Yes, I suppose I could just wait the 5 or 6 months it usually takes
          • While your situation isn't the norm, it certainly isn't unusual.

            But you didn't answer my question, on Low End Mac you can find perfectly useful Macs that will run 10.4 and run it well for less than $200. An entire computer sans monitor for the price of a decent video card! Or one third the price of Photoshop itself.

            So what's the problem? A need to have the latest and greatest preventing you from getting an older system?

            If you really and truly want to build your mac, then surf Low End Mac, eBay, and such
      • Um, I'm confused. How was the above post a troll? Cause I wished I could build my own hardware to save a few dollars?

        I didn't even say anything negative about Apple. I suppose if someone kind of glanced at it they may take away something that seemed like a slight jab at their prices. But a troll? I'm an Apple supporter, but have the other fanboys out there totally taken things out of proportion?

        This wasn't a troll.
    • You know what this means right? 400,000 less spam zombies out there!

      Okay, okay, maybe 399,995 less spam zombies because I know some people must run Windows update ...

    • I just got my first mac sunday. (I am a PC user, and have been since christmas 1984 - PC Jr.) It's a G4 400mhz that a friend gave me because I've really had a surge in mac interest since first, I was given an ipod (christmas 2003) but more so I've really been interested recently because of the intel switch - I've really been excited about the possiblity of OS X into real mainstream.

      The G4 is obviously slow, compared to my other PCs, which are newer. This Mac crashes a bit. The guts are all fairly stan

  • Switched? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:25PM (#13116173) Homepage
    I suppose there should be an important distinction made here between people who buy a Mac and have both Windows PCs and Macs, versus people who throw their Windows machine out the window (irony!) and purchase a Mac to replace it.
    • I suppose there should be an important distinction made here between people who buy a Mac and have both Windows PCs and Macs, versus people who throw their Windows machine out the window (irony!) and purchase a Mac to replace it.

      Why? Or really, how important is the distinction?

      I think the former number includes mostly people that have no intention of ever buying a new Windows PC, but have one or more old machines that continue to have some useful life in them. I don't think there are that many people a
    • Apple would count me as a switcher but I bought a Mac mini to (1) Have a higher degree of safety when dealing with email and the web and (2) to replace a Linux box for the occasional general Unix task. My Windows box is still my main machine and I will be buying another Windows box in the future, probably much much sooner than I buy my next Mac. Given my Mac's relatively lightweight use it will have a much longer useful lifespan. Well, with respect to email/web/unix tasks, I already have it's second life pl
  • What is this number based on? Looks like they are just pulling numbers out of thin air.

  • Mac Market share has always been higher (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:27PM (#13116206) Homepage

    This has been a long time coming, and is less dramatic than I think people will realize.

    The numbers of mac users have long been under-reported for a number of reasons:
    1- The "independant" research agencies don't reports sales apple makes directly or thru apple specific retailers.
    2- The sales market share is reported, rather than the Total Addressable Market (TAM)
    3- Macs last a lot longer than PCs and are useful a lot longer
    4- Windows is counted twice- once when the PC is sold and once when an upgrade is bought, meaning that many of the "new PC sales" are actually windows upgrades.

    They don't go into their methodology for a reason-- because the goal is to market windows as the dominant platform. (How many linux boxes were shipped with windows and count as "windows marketshare"? A large percentage.)

    Recently I heard that an independant survey had been done to find the TAM, and that this survey found that %16 of the household machines currently in use were Macintoshes.

    I'm glad to see Apple has been growing Mac shipments. I hope that software developers will realize that the Mac market is much larger, and vastly under-served compared to windows. But then, again, I think maybe I should shut up and go write some software to sell, and hope nobody shows up to compete with me. :-)

    I wonder if the intel switch will affect sales for Apple... but I don't think so. Most people don't realize that Macs don't already use Intel chips (believe it or not!) and it seems amazing to believe, but I think mainstream america thinks that Apple makes windows boxes and doesn't really see what the difference is.

    This would explain teh failure of the switch campaign-- people think Apples are just another form of PC like Dell, and why would you care? They just buy what the salesman at the local store tells them to buy.

    This brings up the third factor for Apple. The halo effect helps, and the ipod store brings people in.... but these average, mainstream amercians, then end up asking the salesman what computer to buy, and since they are in an Apple store, he sells them a Mac.

    So, while I think computer retailing is on the decline, Apple's stores strategy will prove to be brilliant. When the others won't carry your product or market it, do it yourself.

    And I'm glad to see Apple showing the haters to be wrong-- when given a chance to know about them, people will buy Macintoshes.

    • Word Choice (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *
      Market Share refers to the sales cycle. You're talking about Installed Base. They're not the same and Mac haters have good reason for choosing to frame the argument in their terms.

      • Re:Word Choice (Score:2, Informative)

        by BitGeek ( 19506 )

        When making a decision as to whether to write an application for a given platform, you want the market share of that platform, or the Total Addressable Market. These are correct uses of the term. Installed Base is another figure, which is not a percentage, but a quantity.

        When the "analysts" talk about "market share" and go off of the last years sales data, they are using it incorrectly. Don't let their consistent use of it in this way convince you that they are right.

        As an aside, its amazing how pathe

      • Re:Word Choice (Score:4, Informative)

        by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <(sg_public) (at) (mac.com)> on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @07:31PM (#13119372)
        >>The sales market share is reported, rather than the Total
        >>Addressable Market (TAM)

        >Market Share refers to the sales cycle. You're talking about
        > Installed Base. They're not the same and Mac haters have good
        > reason for choosing to frame the argument in their terms.

        Actually the grandparent is more correct than the parent, although the terminology is a little off.

        Although I haven't seen good universal definitions for it, Total Adressable Market (TAM) indicates how large the total market of people that could purchase a product is. For a software developer this is a very important number and is often the same as the fraction of the installed base that can run the software. So if there are 100 Macintosh users, 75 on Panther and 25 on Tiger, and your software application requires Tiger, your TAM is 25. It can get confusing when you start talking about Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), in which case, the definition of TAM could be 100 and the SAM is 25. However, those definitions are a bit fuzzy.

        Market share is different, but it's a generic term. A good business person does not take the statement "Apple has 4% market share" at face value because frankly it has no meaning. Market share must be defined in terms of what the market segment is, what the time period is, and other factors. You can therefore have installed base market share for a particularly defined segment. And defining the base market can be complex because you can do it based on unit sales or revenue (revenue is easier to come by than unit sales)

        Market share can easily be defined as the grandparent said:

        > %16 of the household machines currently in use were
        > Macintoshes

        That's more useful because we know the time frame (installed base, so it's cumulative), and what the market segment is (all U.S. households). And unit sales versus revenue is irrelevant. We still need to know more about the segmentation of the households for this to be useful, but it's a good starting place.

        That's why when various people quote that Apple has 4% worldwide market share, the figure is so meaningless. Are we talking installed base? Quarterly sales? Quarterly shipments? Share based on unit sales or revenue? What about market segments -- U.S. households, every PC (including those for specialized purposes, like factories or POS units?), etc. What about specifically people that want to purpose my application, what's the share there (getting into SAM here)?

        But just like the press can screw up statistics during any election year, the business press can grossly oversimplify market share rendering it useless.

        All that said, it's great that Apple's unit shipments are up and growing faster than the industry. What's interesting is the iPod has helped Apple's Macintosh sales better than any ad campaign they've run.
        • All that said, it's great that Apple's unit shipments are up and growing faster than the industry. What's interesting is the iPod has helped Apple's Macintosh sales better than any ad campaign they've run.

          Unless, of course, you consider the iPod itself to be nothing but the most brilliant ad campaign in history. Getting users to buy your ad for the Mac (some of them paying hundreds of dollars), and show it to friends, who will also go out and pay money for that same Mac ad...amazing. And it's working..
    • Macs last a lot longer than PCs and are useful a lot longer

      Oh, bullshit. Macs are _kept_ longer than PCs on average, true - but this is because they cost more, not because they "last longer" or "are useful for longer". An older PC runs Windows NT4, 2000 or XP a hell of a lot better than an old Mac runs OS X.

      And I'm glad to see Apple showing the haters to be wrong-- when given a chance to know about them, people will buy Macintoshes.

      The problem with Macs has always been that you don't get as much com

  • "Assuming an 11 per cent switching rate, our model has these users purchasing over 1.2 million Macs in calendar 2006, about 700,000 more than in 2005."

    Some year, it seems, we'll have 121% of the population using Macs. The analysis fails to take bulk business and academic purchases into account. In addition, the numbers are artificially inflated by Apple devotees' propensity for buying several machines each generation. Purchases may increase linearly, but users do not!
    • And it also doesn't take into account those who hold onto macs long after the same aged PC has gone to 'puter hell.

      Face it, any speculation like "Apple devotees' propensity for buying several machines each generation" is just pure garbage.
    • In addition, the numbers are artificially inflated by Apple devotees' propensity for buying several machines each generation. Purchases may increase linearly, but users do not!

      What the heck? That's the exact opposite to nearly every Mac user I know. In my experience, Mac users try to get the maximum possible lifespan out their old Macs, and get by on the minimum possible number (so they can afford other stuff.)

      Rather than buying several machines of each generation, the most common Mac ownership pattern is

      • In my experience, Mac users try to get the maximum possible lifespan out their old Macs, and get by on the minimum possible number (so they can afford other stuff.)

        Immediately after a new model has been released, the resale value of the previous generation remains fairly close to the price of the new one (which is the reason I bought a new Mac, rather than one off eBay). Some Mac users exploit this by upgrading every generation and selling their old machine.

        • Yeah, that's why my 900$, band new Mac Mini was only getting offers of 600$. Losing 1/3 the value in a month isn't "Fairly close".

          Maybe Macs didn't lose their value back when their cpu speeds barely budged, but it's not the case these days.

  • Article makes a lot of assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:31PM (#13116244) Homepage
    " Wolf wrote: "The iPod continued to lure Windows users into the Macintosh fold (in the third quarter). Mac unit shipments rose 35 per cent, three times the PC market growth rate." Mac unit shipment surged 43 per cent in Apple's second quarter. Wolf believes it's "reasonable to conclude" that this was "driven chiefly by Windows users buying Macs". "Assuming that Mac shipments would have been flat year-over-year, these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users purchased Macs in both the second and third fiscal quarters," he added. "
    The article makes a lot of assumptions without using any real data on Windows users switching.

    Could the surge in the second quarter have been caused by people who already own Macs upgrading or buying a Mac Mini as second system? Or even Windows users buying a Mini as a secondary machine? I know several Windows users who bought a Mini but still use a Windows machine.

    Further more what is the plural for a Mac Mini?

  • Reason why... (Score:4, Funny)

    by zygote ( 134175 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:32PM (#13116264)
    Wired: "Fabled iPod halo effect"
    Tired: "Steve Jobs reality distortion field."

  • Quality of the OS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by guildsolutions ( 707603 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:35PM (#13116288)
    I much, much preffer using OS X versus windows. OS X is so much more mature of an operating system than windows even attempts to be. The old addage of 'it just works' very much so applies. If Apple can come down in price a bit more, and bring in more software development, and market there machines a bit more agressivly, then Apple has a great chance to take over some market share.

    Add to the fact with the rumors of all the DRM lockup of longhorn, OS X has none of that expect with iTunes, who wants to use an OS that is crippled for media?

    I have purchased a Mac Mini, and a 17" top of the line Powerbook within the past 3 months. I was praying that OS X would at some point run on all intel/x86 hardware, but I doubt I ever see that.

    Mac has OS X going for it, and Its a very good thing indeed, no wonder people are switching over and dumping spyware, adware, drm crippled, and virus infested PC's that, never ever come close to having a realitivly bug free, secure operating system.
  • I recently switched to Mac because of the upcoming Intel switch. MacOS has been a pretty attractive platform since OS X 10.1 or so, but for all the ranting and raving about the PowerPC, it just doesn't stack up against P4 for general purpose computing. (Altivec is nice, but only helps in "broad brush" operations. It's pointless outside of graphic processing tasks.) Going Intel will be a huge boost for general purpose computing.

    Meanwhile, I'm looking ahead at Longhorn. I'm not seeing Windows maturing in the way we'd all expected -- .NET was supposed to help unify the branching 64 bit architectures and foster finer-grained security controls, but MS are backing away from .NET for Longhorn. Instead of eating their own dog food and telling us it's good, they're telling third party developers "you go first" and apparently waiting to see if it's safe for THEM first. Why is skipping out on .NET so bad? Things are bad enough with wildly different Windows configurations, thanks to MS' lack of library/DLL versioning and much larger range of hardware platforms. It's impossible for a developer to test or even forsee every target configuration. And now instead of migrating to .NET with versioning and a narrowed virtual target platform, we're just going to add random combinations of DLLs from 3-4 slightly different CPU architectures in the mix.

    MS' operating system lifecycle is 3 years and growing, and we're preparing to see more of the same. The current model is too fragile to do new and exciting things reliably, and so unless MS are working on a new OS in secret, Windows is going to be a pretty boring place for the next 3-5 years.

    • (Altivec is nice, but only helps in "broad brush" operations. It's pointless outside of graphic processing tasks.)

      It's nice in my pro tools setup, and several other windows ported audio apps too :)

    • So you're willing to buy PPC hardware, now, in lieu of 18 months from now you'll be able to run OS X on Intel? What sort of pointless logic are you leveraging and how the hell did this get modded up as 5[I know how since more than likely you gave yourself massive karma bonus, but I hope not].

      Such logic begs the question, "If you're willing to purchase PPC now, what stopped you from purchasing it beforehand? After all, it's the Operating System and OO Design Paradigm for developers to produce Cocoa App

  • Where's the tipping poing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by intmainvoid ( 109559 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:47PM (#13116398)
    In the last year Apple has gone from 3.7% to 4.5% [reuters.com] marketshare. Impressive, but even at that pace there's a long way to go to even 10% marketshare.

    What'll be interesting is if at some point network effects kick in and Apple's marketshare really takes off. What marketshare do you need to get to before people stop worrying that "no one else has a mac"? Once Apple is past that things will get interesting!

  • x86 advantages (Score:3, Insightful)

    by michokest ( 893732 ) <michokest@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @02:58PM (#13116533)
    The true advantage of the x86 switch for Apple is being able to capture sales from windows users in two ways: 1) Dual-booting, or just selling it to the user with OS X knowing that he can fall back to windows if anything goes wrong. I bet most average joes would just keep OS X -I did. 2) VIRTUALIZATION. Being able to run Windows inside OS X at almost-native speeds would be the greatest thing that could happen to us people needing some vertical windows apps. With only an alt+tab get into a virtual-pc (or whatever), get it done and go back to OS X. I'd go for that. As for *nix, everythings working pretty nice. Wish they'd make X11 a bit more transparent, duh. OS X could be in some years THE operating system...
    • With only an alt+tab get into a virtual-pc (or whatever)

      That's Apple Key+Tab you insensitive clod!

      (unless you have regular PC keyboard on your Mac then it's still Alt+Tab. On an Apple Keyboard(tm) there is also a button that says Alt on it, but it's not the same as the Apple Key or which is also known as the Control key.)
    • If that were true, then Linux + Wine would be more popular than it is.

      Then again, you may be right. There are probably lots of people that tried Linux and went back simply because Linux was much more difficult to use than Windows. The Mac would present less of a reason to go back because the learning curve would be less severe.

      But then again, my mom, who just got an iMac G5 after years of Windows 98, is cursing it. She approaches it as if she had never seen a computer before so in her case, the Mac is

  • What a spin! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by spitefowl ( 786321 )
    Just because sales raise does not mean that a Windows/PC user has 'switched'. Even if a PC user did buy a Mac, it doesn't mean he's abandoned his PC for OSX land. I, myself, am considering purchasing a Mac just to work with the otherside. That in no way means I will never use my Windows/Linux boxen again.

  • I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dangitman ( 862676 )
    I think they are interpreting the figures wrong. There may have been 400,000 sales, but that does not necessarily mean that there are 400,000 new users. It could have been just one really big Windows user who switched.
    • You've got to laugh at the moderation system once in a while. I found this post positively funny, hilarious even. But insightful?
  • ...as one of the 400k. I bought a 1.25ghz mac mini when Tiger came out, overclocked it to 1.5ghz, added 1 gig of ram, and now it's my daily use internet, email, etc machine.

    Mac OS X is extremely nice compared to Windows/Linux (gentoo, ubuntu, debian, etc). I just wish the thing had a little better video chipset. A Radeon 9200 will play WoW, just not as well as the 9800 Pro on my PC.

    Now to look for a good KVM, anyone know of a good one that supports USB kb/mice and dsub/dvi monitors?

  • My Parents New Machine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @03:21PM (#13116745)
    My brother and I just bought our parents a Mac Mini to replace their aging PC. They love it. I had been anti-Mac for a long time, for what I consider to be good reasons. My reasons for our decision of Mac over PC (Windows) in this case were:

    1) My positive experience with my iPod,
    2) The security and virus issues associated with Windows and the lack of said issues on Mac,
    3) The Mac Mini is now in the range of price I am willing to pay for a desktop computer, especially one that will mainly be chacking email and surfing the web,
    4) Positive reviews of Mac's OS X from programmers and IT geeks.

    Mac has done a lot of things right lately to start winning over former Mac haters such as myself.

    • I just gave my parents my old graphite iMac G3 @400MHz. They had a very old PC with windows 98. They had bought a digital camera and couldn't connect it. buying a USB card and installing the drivers was a nightmare. The hard disk finally failed... they called me and I told them I would temporarily let them borrow the iMac. My mother just loves it! she can plug the camera now and up comes iPhoto automatically; Mail is so much better than the old Outlook they had, connecting to the internet (they still use di
      • The only downside to my parents was that both their printer and their scanner were unsuppored under Mac OS X. Now, this is really more of an issue of old hardware and driver support from the vender, but a new PC would not have had these problems. What was cool is that both printer and scanner prices and tech have changed so much in 3 years that they got a great combo scanner/printer for $100, each part much better than the original. Since I bought them a mac compat. keyboard and new 17" LCD (vs their old
        • Same here. The parallel port printer is basically useless along with the old PC (which was useless already anyway, they just didn't know it yet). And my mom uses floppies a lot to carry info between her office and home, but a USB key took care of that and it's a lot better than a floppy.
  • Seems like every day we hear conflicting reports about Mac sales figures, especially when compared to sales of computers in general. Then where was that article a few days back [arstechnica.com] about how Apple itself doesn't care about Mac sales, and of course the Cringley reply to that [pbs.org]... And there's the distortion of the "Mac fan base", which may or may not be living inside its own insulated bubble of filtered opinion...

    How about if we all just relax, take a stress pill, and buy the computer we personally prefer?

    Even t

    • Because poor quality computer systems cost very real time/money etc.? Computers aren't some abstract thing apart from reality like wrestling, businesses all over the world use millions of them every day, all day long. What an awful analogy.

  • I got my friend a Mac.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by kisielk ( 467327 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @03:41PM (#13116901)
    While I'm a PC user who uses primarily XP and Linux myself (I'd like to purchase a Mac in the future) when it came time to help my friend buy a new computer, I recommended she get a Mac mini.

    Traditional her and her family had always bought PC's, mostly because they were the default option. They owned several old Compaqs and a white-box store built machine. The primary reason I got her to buy a Mac is because she's a totally non-techie, and hasn't the slightest clue about computers (nor should she have to, IMO). Mostly she just wanted to be able to type stuff up for college, browse the web, IM, email, and play music.

    Initially she was very hesitant about going through with the purchase (she had been set on a Dell previously..) since it was something totally new and she was concerned she wouldn't be able to use it. But I eventually convinced her to buy the Mini.

    I was supposed to go over there and help her set it up once it arrived but when I called her to confirm, she gleefully told me that she had managed to set the whole thing up by herself and was already using. No help from me required, and this was someone who was a complete techno-phobe.

    She's had her mini for several months now and uses it way more than she ever used her PC, which was full of crashing software, crawling with spyware, and in generally a bad state. Last I checked, the mini was running good as new. She's now recommending it to all her friends.

    I think this experience highlights what I think is the best part of Apple's whole initiative.. they have simplified the computing process for the average user. Most people have no need nor desire to be computer experts, they just want the damn thing to work properly and stay out of their way. This is the way it should be. I really hope Apple keeps up the good work, because if someone like my friend can set up, use, and maintain their computers with so little trouble, then Apple is doing things right.

    From my experiences with Microsoft, I still don't think they "get it". People should just be able to USE their computers, and from what I've seen of Longhorn, it doesn't look like the situation will be improving..
    • I think this experience highlights what I think is the best part of Apple's whole initiative.. they have simplified the computing process for the average user.

      Just FYI, Apple (or at least Macintosh) products have *always* been that way. You make it sound as if Apple changed their focus or something... the entire point of the Macintosh line of computer, even in 1984, was to make a computer that anybody can use easily.
      • Yeah but the point is that now they're competitively priced versus the $399 or $499 (Candian dollars here) Dell boxes you can buy. There's no way my friend would have paid the $1200+ for a mac previously. Sure there is still a small premium with buying a mini, but it's a much better value all things considered.
    • I agree with you halfway. I think the best part of OS X is that it combines what you have described (ease of use for the non-techie) with the potential to satisfy the hard-core techie with UNIX underneath. Your friend can get her computer up and running in no time, and when you come over you can pull up the terminal and work your magic...

      In a lot of ways it would be easy to build a totally simple computer that was just easy to use; it seems to me the real beauty of OS X is how the complexity and power i
  • ...and the desire to escape the Windows virus epidemic.

    If enough people switch, the viruses will come. I'm a firm believer that this is primarily a result of market share (yes, also helped by poor security...but not security is never any better than a user's clue level and vigilence). Does that mean that once viruses hit the Apples, that people will switch to Linux? What will be the next thing after that, a FreeBSD migration?

    • I don't have the link, but that myth was shot down recently.

      The quick way to prove it is to point out that Apple doesn't have 0% market share, but they do have 0% of the viruses.

      • I don't have the link, but that myth was shot down recently.

        The quick way to prove it is to point out that Apple doesn't have 0% market share, but they do have 0% of the viruses.

        It's not a myth. And there is likely no direct proportion between market share and virus percentage. I hadn't seen that claim made before -- it does sound a little silly. Taking the above into account, I think that your proof has some holes in its logic.

        Viruses don't just create themselves. Do you believe that it is im

        • The point is that even if Macs hit 100% market share, the number of viruses for the platform would still be considerably lower.

          OS X isn't perfect. Nothing is. But it's a hell of a lot closer than Windows.
      • And the much higher rate of infection for Win64 - even when that was still in beta.

    • If enough people switch, the viruses will come. I'm a firm believer that this is primarily a result of market share (yes, also helped by poor security...but not security is never any better than a user's clue level and vigilence). Does that mean that once viruses hit the Apples, that people will switch to Linux? What will be the next thing after that, a FreeBSD migration?

      This will only ever be an issue if we ever reach a Mac-dominated monoculture, and I don't forsee that occuring. When some 90% of Int

      • This will only ever be an issue if we ever reach a Mac-dominated monoculture, and I don't forsee that occuring.

        Indeed, and in this case, perhaps my point was a moot one. I don't believe that Windows will be a dominant platform forever. I believe that the market will, however, tend to choose a platform. Also remember that before Windows was decisively dominant, there were viruses for most commercially availably desktop platforms (Apple, DOS, Amiga, Windows).

        You make a very interesting point about

    • "I'm a firm believer that this is primarily a result of market share"

      Well, belief is something we all need once in a while, but it shouldn't deter you from some facts...
      I hope you evaluated the inbuilt mac security and updating mechanism before you came into your belief, since those two things alone account for about 99% of the mac's very real security.

      In case you haven't noticed, there are more than enough potential security risks plugged all the time, and the reason it doesn't pay to try and exploit the
      • This is not about updates and exploits, it's about tricking users into running code that they otherwise wouldn't want to. It's not about code running in kernel space with the evil bit set. You can use a machine for a spam or DDoS zombie without ever touching kernel space. You can also destroy all user data in user space. I'll say it again, security is no better than your weakest link. In this case, its the user.
        • Yes, agreed, but that's not the same as an independently propagating virus. That's something between a troyan and a phishing attempt . No platform is excempt from that (or naive users), but that's already a far more elaborate argument than 'if the mac becomes dominant the viruses will come'.

          Cheers

  • Nice Timing (Score:2, Informative)

    by jay95 ( 139426 )
    I just bought my first Mac (iMac 20") yesterday. Over the years, I've had a 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Athlon, and now a G5. I was a heavy Windows user until around Win98, after that I mostly have used Linux.

    So yes, I am a win for Apple. But Windows pretty much lost me years ago. I'll still continue to use Linux, but will have no need to dual boot to Windows anymore.

  • I switched. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ashp ( 2042 )
    I'm one of those switchers.

    I got a mini-mac just to play with, a new gadget, figured if I didn't like it then it was only the minimal specced model.

    Within two days I removed my PC completely, and gave it away to someone. I was using XP, because I'm too lazy and I don't really have the time to mess with things. I used to use Linux exclusively, but (personal opinion) the font handling was so bad I gave in.

    It's funny, this mini-mac is drastically underpowered and when I do things like unzip stuff I notice

  • I switched too (Score:3, Insightful)

    by failedlogic ( 627314 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @09:12PM (#13120111)
    I was a user who switched not more than a month ago. I had a fairly high-end PC (Athlon 64, 1 GIG RAM, Radeon 9700, etc). My computer was more equipped, I discovered, for playing games. The main reason I switched to the Mac wasn't the hardware (the 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 w/ 1 GIG RAM I have is nice, true, and the LCD is nice for documents tho the CPU is 20% slower). Its been for the software and not for OS X itself.

    Spotlight, some apps included with the OS and some others I've bought as shareware really make my academic work so much easier. OS X is nice otherwise for the Unix stuff (shell scripts especially). I don't use Automator or Applescript since for what I need to do, the shell scripts are easier.

    The difference I see is this: all Mac OS X apps are user-centric whereas Windows apps are too task-oriented. They don't overwhelm with Menu options or buttons. There's greater empahis on tabbed-interfaces.

    Allow me to illustrate the difference as I now refuse to use Word for my Academic work for the following reason. I've found a program called "Copywrite" which lets you easily flip between different documents and add notes to the project or each document easily. This program alone shows the difference, to me, between Windows and Mac apps. Pages is another great app. I was trying earlier to stop using Word and move to an app that doesn't lock my work in as much as Word does. I've changed my workflow to use a plain-text editor (Copywrite) to write the text, biblio, etc and then use Pages to format the text. Brilliant. I save all the headaches of Word-atuo-formatting-clippy crap. These two programs are really the killer-apps for me.

  • First question: 400.000 users in what timeframe?

    Sure, more and more "users" are switching to a more modern operating system. The development of Windows has stalled since years - in the customers perception. So what do you expect?

    Apple seems to put much more effort in the OS development than Microsoft, because MS is focused on so many other target groups/products, like the new XBox360 and so on.

    It takes another year until the next version of Windows comes out and I don't know, but it'll take at lea
  • I still discount the halo effect as I know of no iPod users who have switched. Now I know a few who have said they will buy a Mac next but no one has made the jump.

    From the geek perspective, why would I switch NOW? We know that the MacTel machines are coming which makes purchasing any PowerPC based Mac less reassuring.

    Now once the MacTels are out and someone can show how easy it is to dual-boot XP/LH I expect a lot more people to buy a Mac.

    Here is one thought, if Apple goes to an Intel Platform what is
    • From the geek perspective, why would I switch NOW? We know that the MacTel machines are coming which makes purchasing any PowerPC based Mac less reassuring.

      Try looking at things from a perspective other than that of a geek. As a geek, you probably know how to secure and maintain a Windows box. I've got news for you: for every person like you using Windows, there's ten or more who aren't like you and who feel powerless to keep their machine from getting owned and/or having their personal information/identity stolen. We've got enough people just throwing out their malware-infested PCs and buying new ones that the practice merited an article in the New York Times.

      As far as the non-geek public is concerned Windows malware is an unchecked epidemic, right now-- a Mac is a solution to that, right now. Non-geek types don't look at development roadmaps to determine when they purchase a new computer. They usually buy something current when they need it, and use it until it dies-- they will most likely never crack it open to upgrade components, and probably won't even upgrade the OS over the lifetime of the machine (a habit developed when the major Windows PC makers refused to support any OS other than what shipped with the machine). They have no reason to care about what's down the road, because everything they're buying today will cover their needs for a long time to come. When they're ready to buy another brand new machine, the Apple x86 transition will be complete.

      ~Philly
  • Is this another one of those dumb analysis where they count every non-Windows user as a Mac user?

  • I sold my Mac Mini yesterday to a Mac user. I wasn't impressed by it at all.

    I plan on putting the money towards a really nice dishwasher.

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