Apple the new MS?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/157545

 

Apple is the MS of MP3 players, and that's about it.

 

I look at Apple as the rice rocket company of the electronics industry. All show and no go. All that separates it from its competitors is its pretty shell

 

You're just jealous of my 8-core Mac Pro

Even my Mac hating roomie can't say anything bad about it. He tried a few times, then I told him all the features... he hasn't said a thing about it since

Personally, I think the only thing they are screwing up with is releasing a new laptop in a timely fashion, and I still want a 24" Apple monitor.

But to say that Apple products are "All show and no go" is pretty tough to say. They do what they need to do, and they do it well, and there are hundreds of reasons that anybody doing any video, audio or image work professionally will use a Mac and nothing else.

 

No, because I can build an 8-core PC that's even better, for less

Video/graphics people choose Macs because Macs used to differ from PCs. Now all that's different is the OS.

 

Anandtech suggests otherwise. They've done the price comparing for the Mac Pro's, and they couldn't build a complete system that matched the specs for less than a Mac Pro retails for. For what you get in the system, it is priced very well.

I'm not trying to make this a flame fest or sound like I support every last thing that Steve Jobs does, but so many people on this board spread mis-information about Apple products, and give too many other people the wrong idea.

 

I've got to play with my cousin's MacBook Pro for about two weeks and I wasn't impressed as I though I would be. Not that the Macbook Pro or OSX Tiger isn't nice as I do like it, but Windows Vista & Ubuntu are doing a great job for me and I can't really find a justifiable reason to switch for the high difference in price. And that goes for most of Apple's products.

Can you link to that specific page on there site? Cause I know I've done my research cause I planed on buying a Macbook(pro) and I have came up with the opposite.

 

I'm talking about the Mac Pro (Desktop). The MacBook Pro is a different story, but mostly because it hasn't been updated in so long, so the price for the specs are pretty crappy.

But I did just price out some items on Newegg, and each processor (4-core 2.8GHz) is $715, and the cheapest comparable motherboard is $400, the RAM is $155, and you've still got to factor in a case, video card, and a power supply that can run all of that.

 

Comparing Apple to Microsoft in terms of size and success is really embarrassing. Even the impressive statistics in the article were misleading.

 

I think Apple products are ridiculously overpriced. I honestly wanted to get a Macbook Pro as my next laptop but even with the student discount I get it's still insanely overpriced. So I bought a MUCH faster laptop (and newer for that matter) for about $1000 less. I'm not gonna pay $1000 more just for the Apple brand, which isn't all that special anyway if you ask me. They need to be smarter with their pricing.

 

Apple's site is showing the 8 core, 2.8GHz version at $2799 with minimal options. They're charging $500 just to double the RAM!

 

You can leave RAM out of the question for any OEM company. Even Dell/HP/etc all overcharge for it.

Keep in mind, the RAM that they use in the Mac Pro towers is still expensive. It cost me $300 back in March to buy 4GB.

 

Apple/Mac vs Everybody Else and their PC's - again . . . in the Political Forum no less. LOL

Ok, folks, standing with me now, in this corner, out of Sunnyvale, CA is the up and coming Number 1 contender, a ****y veteran of many Internet squabbles - Apple and it's line of Macs.

Now entering the ring in the opposite corner, ladies and gents, is the current Champion of Cyberspace, from Redmond, Washington, we have . . . MicroSoft.

Ref: Ok, guys, I wanna clean fight, ya hear me? No low blows, *****-slapping, cursing, name-calling, or fanboyism. No sarcasm, "Yo momma jokes," or biting your oppenent's ears. May the better man win tonight.

Ding, ding . . .

 

the point is though, you can get a case, video card and psu for well under 1k......

 

Actual computers aside, Apple's business practices are similar to MS. Rather than taking industry standards, they try and force their own through. They don't play nice at all with community projects, and only want you to use their products the way they want you to. Apple are just like MS, perhaps worse, only not as successful.

 

That did not belong in the Political forum, it belongs here in the Apple forum. Please continue discussion, but respectfully guys!

 

It really belongs in a Religion forum...

 

Personally I think it belongs in the deleted forum.

 

We only need to make up for $800, and I forgot the hard drive.

Hard drive; $60, Video card; $100, power supply; $250-300, decent case; $150, DVD burner; $30.

I guess now the processor prices dropped $200 a piece so it's a bit harder to make that happen, but it's still very close.

 

hardly, you can't get close to the same system for the same amount of money.

that said, this thread is going to go nowhere, "delete me! delete me! I don't want to go on living!" - this thread

 

Right, you can get close to the same system for less.


Really, this argument gets old fast. Mac, linux, windows, is what gives us all choice. Not one single one is best for everyone.

 

Why the heck do you need 8 cores anyway?

I mean, how many of you are in a situation where quad-core just doesn't cut it?

 

Because I can!!!


lol

I want my octacore to surf the net. Do you have a problem with that?

 

I think too many people are expecting the Mac Pro to be Apple's version of a gaming PC, but it's not. The FB-DIMM's latency kills gaming performance. This is true for Intel's 8-core Skulltrail desktop platform too, which is usually outperformed by a single 3.2GHz quad-core on a X48.

The Mac Pro is supposed to be a workstation designed for stability and reliability which is where the FB-DIMMs fit in. And in the workstation class, I'm pretty sure the stock Mac Pro is a good value as long as you buy upgrades from third-parties since I don't believe Dell or other OEMs offer dual socket workstations with 1600MHz FSBs and DDR2-800 FB-DIMMs. Dell workstations usually use dual socket 1333MHz FSB chips coupled with DDR2-667 FB-DIMMs. Maybe you can build your own dual socket Xeon workstation for less, but Apple's target competition are major OEMs rather than individuals building their own systems. For media creation, I'm pretty sure the Mac Pros 8 cores and 32GB RAM support is very useful. Admittedly it isn't a huge market, although probably very profitable.

 

I agree. For people who really need dual-socket workstations for especially CPU-intensive stuff, the Mac Pro is a good value.

For everyone buying it for other uses, like email, it's unnecessary overkill.

I wonder what percentage of Mac Pro users are regularly doing tasks where they'd take a big real-world performance hit if they went down to a single quad-core CPU. Like, if I took out one of the Mac Pro's CPUs... how many would actually notice? I realize there are some Mac Pro users who would, but... most? I'm not sure.

 

You should see my dock... almost everything is open 24/7, and there is no waiting when I want to switch apps. There is 20 open apps in my dock right now, using 5.5GB of RAM, and before I switched over to Firefox to browse a few forums, I had 6 cores at 90% usage.

Granted my brother could get more use out of this box than I could (He does ProTools editing on a semi-professional level), but it sure is nice having extra power when I need it.

Besides, this machine will last me 6-7 years just like my G4 did. It's top of the line badass right now, which means it'll still be good for me for a few years down the road.

 

I agree that an octocore is a waste - of money and electricity. It is also an ineffective means of getting more processing power, considering that many applications are not multi-threaded.

You wouldn't need an octocore CPU for anything related to personal use, save perhaps highly specialized applications for scientific calculations or engineering (CAD apps that cost $15000 per license, perhaps).

In other words, buying an octocore for today's (and the next few years) personal computing purposes is border-line stupid.

 

hahahaha nice

 

" Apple owns popular hardware platforms (iPod, iPhone) and operates the only store that can sell music, movies and software programs for those platforms. "

Fake! I would never use Itunes to buy my songs. Application for iphone yes, but never songs/music, since I can find all at cheaper and with no restrictions of use. I like to keep my music free and on a Windows file system, the rating is in the file so when I send songs to any other laptop or device in the house I don't need anything but the file. Also, when reinstalling windows you don't have to worry about backing up the itunes database or losing your ratings. Same goes of pictures and videos not just music. Until Macs do all that windows does it won't be as succesful, not in my opinion.

No docking station and no fingerprint scanner on laptops? I mean, how can you even compete at a business level with Windows if your hardware do not have a docking station or decent security features?? Also integration in a business network is tough for me and for my company, still hard to use or incomplete at some levels.

I still own and plan on buying the new/next MBP as soon as they MAKE IT but I still don't find Leopard any better than Vista. Hopefully the next Snow thing will get things done better. Apple is way back and need NEW hardware and new software. Please wake up and do something more than just a nice shell (which I love, but's not enough). And make it compatible with the world, Mac OS is so small it has to open up. People talk about MS but Apple is much worse at keeping everything under control >> see Itunes and Iphone control/monopol. If they would be as successful as MS the MAC OS would be a death trap for anyone falling in. I already see music, video, pics and docs only working on a MAC/iphone.

 

in 6-7 years people won't be thinking about cores, there will be a whole nother level.

 

Technology moves fast, but only so fast: 16 GB of RAM may be common by then but it doesn't mean the OSes and software won't run well on current computers a few years down the road.

 

I'm just trying to think what we had 6 years ago, and comparing it today.

AMD Athlon XP 1900+
p4
mac?

Ok that was before the IPOD made it big and gave people interest towarsd buying Macs.

but still, I couldn't imagine one of those versus a PC today, and for what is paid for a super computer today, I could buy 3 better computers than that in 7 years.

 

Six years ago was after Windows XP was first launched. Today, the majority of users are still on Windows XP .

 

^ I wouldn't count on that happening again. I think that Microsoft is well aware of the problems that come with allowing an operating system to remain mainstream for so long; its what gave Vista so much grief during its introduction.

 

I agree, I do expect they will fix things up with Windows Seven...Microsoft isn't a dumb company, they have lots of smart people there (marketing could be better though).

Like honestly...where's Mojave now? (Yes, its physically there, but makes no news) Did they dump that too for the new Seinfeld ads?

 

Really, Vista caused problems? That's too bad.

/Returns to OSX

 

Notice how popular Apple was before the year 2001 when the Ipod was released. and since the Ipod became an Icon, Sales for macs followed suit, not because their better, but because they are popular. All trends die sooner or later. When mac users find out their really not getting a good PC, they will switch back.

Image pulled from: http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/Income10.aspx?symbol=AAPL

 

That's the difference between our point of views, steveinspokane. Macs aren't just a gimmick to me. Maybe they are to you, but I honestly think Mac OS X is better than Windows. By design, by logical workflow, by graphics.

No doubt the iPod and iPhone brought more brand awareness to other Apple products. That's the same for every corporation, Microsoft no different either. Car companies come up with flagship cars that they know won't sell so great, but because it is widely praised it helps bring notice to the rest of their car lineup. Microsoft used its large Windows base to make Internet Explorer the most widely used internet browser out there. It happens all the time.

And I think you've forgotten one thing: Apple actually made better products starting in the early 2000s. The Apple business was in complete ruins when Steve Jobs became CEO again. After a year or two of restructuring and designing new products, since then, the general public perception and media perception is that Apple hasn't really had much "miss" products since (maybe the Cube Mac).

 

I think the iPod is a significant factor in the Mac's increasing popularity, but I think there are other factors too:
- A better OS (OS X)
- The switch to Intel
--- More price-competitive than before
--- Better able to run Windows than before (Boot Camp/Parallels/VMWare)
- Market trends:
--- The shift from desktops to laptops
--- The shift from corporate buyers to consumers
- Years of stagnation from Windows, followed by problems/dissatisfaction with Vista.
- Perhaps better-designed products than before, as Sam says.

Well... Apple TV has yet to take the world by storm. Although, who knows... maybe it's just a little bit ahead of its time.