Can't These Other Computer Manufacturers Step Up?

[Jase]

yea, my wife's iphone kinda freaked out with 4 as well.

would a second gen itouch be same gen as iphone 3g?

i'd think so.

seems right?

all the internet and app stuff that comes with ios4 seems to work pretty well. but dang if the music playback isn't buggy now.

[mmmbeans]

see, hers plays music fine it just has a hell of a time running smoothly and god forbid you try to open a map.

to be fair our daughter steals it and slams it around daily sooooo.... that might have something to do with it.

thank goodness for solid state.

[The Saltman]

I can sum up this thread

techy dorks don't like apple products.

Ground breaking.

Wrong.

I am a hairy dork. Big Difference!!

[blackcatgrowl]

There is not a single smart phone on the market today that I would trade you my iPhone for. I work with some bleeding edge geeks so Ive seen all of what Android has to offer and I say meh...

As for the iPad, while I don't own one and can see no use for one in my life, to dismiss them as a fad or to say that their all hype is myopic at best and just full of poo at worst.

Yes. I'm being nearsighted... :rolleyes:

Or maybe it's more like HINDSIGHT. Apple is known for popular gimmick products.

Wanna see another computing fad they made?

It's called the iMac. They still make them. They look like this now:

They were wildly popular in the 90s. Not so much anymore, even as a competing platform to other micro-footprint PCs. Wanna know why?

1. Apple products are expensive

2. Apple products are not compatible with a large majority of personal computer software out there, and a HUGE majority of corporate software.

3. Did I mention Apple products are expensive?

Fad. Nothing more.

[mmmbeans]

Yes. I'm being nearsighted... :rolleyes:

Or maybe it's more like HINDSIGHT. Apple is known for popular gimmick products.

Wanna see another computing fad they made?

It's called the iMac. They still make them. They look like this now:

They were wildly popular in the 90s. Not so much anymore, even as a competing platform to other micro-footprint PCs. Wanna know why?

1. Apple products are expensive

2. Apple products are not compatible with a large majority of personal computer software out there, and a HUGE majority of corporate software.

3. Did I mention Apple products are expensive?

Fad. Nothing more.

a 20 year fad in the tech industry?

they sold a record number of imacs in 2010. do you have any idea what you're talking about?

[natty]

Rep for mentioning MS Bob. :lol:

[blackcatgrowl]

If your going to judge a current product from a manufacturer by their previous missteps then I guess we need to judge the current/future offerings of of Ford, Sony, and Microsoft by the Edsel, Betamax, and MS Bob respectively. No one is saying the Apple of the 90s was in any way superior to anything in their market segment. But claiming their products today are just trendy trash smacks of a PC bias that borders on ill informed hate.

And while Macs still lag behind PCs turning your back on numbers like this is in fact nearsighted.

Numbers from last June

• At 35%, Mac shipment growth in June easily exceeded the market’s growth rate of 20.9%.
  
• Mac shipments grew 31.4% in the home market, topping the market’s growth rate of 25.2%.
  
• At 49.8%, the Mac’s growth in business was three times higher than the market’s 15.7%.
  
• Mac shipments in government grew 200%, sixteen times faster than the market’s 12.1%.
  

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/23/mac-enterprise-sales-surged-in-june/

They are not taking over the market (yet) but neither are they the niche product that they spent the majority of their product life being.

I am and always have been a PC guy. Ive never owned a Mac and cant see that ever changing. However my professional experience tells me that the Macbooks that have been showing up in our boardroom and the Macs that have been showing up on my networks are not just because some slackjawed mouthbreather thought a commercial was nifty keen.

All that's fine... except for the fact they ARE a niche product. Aside from graphic artists, teachers, and some media outlets, they will not ever have a majority marketshare in computer tech. They have an O/S which is foreign to 95% of corporate business software, and a large chunk if not majority of personal software, they are expensive, and the GUI is foreign to the majority of computer users.

"Record" Mac sales ARE a result of trendy marketing. Our company is going to buy about 50 machines in the next couple months to restock our spare pool. Think any MACS are going to be included in that?

Have I seen more Macs coming into our building? Sure. I've had to deal with a couple more I wouldn't have normally. But do I see many more PCs? Heck ya.

"Record" Mac sales are simply an increase on an already thin marketshare. Eventually, their hipster marketing will grow passe, and people will realize "Hey, these damn things are expensive!" and they'll slip. They've gone through this cycle before in the 90s (They were incredibly popular back then, then dropped off the map, and have since resurged)

Just to be straight up here... I'm not a "PC" guy. I'm not a "Mac" guy. I'm not a "Linux" guy. I profess no brand loyalty to any tech. I leverage whatever is efficient, cost-effective, and compatible with what I need to do in our tech environment and at home.

What I do see here is silly brand loyalty. Apple does make good products, but they are not without some negatives. You talk to a Mac apologist, and everything they make is super duper great.

Nope, no hipster trendy advertising here:

[tight lines]

Lol

Look back at the last decade. Here is the business plan of most consumer tech...

Wait to see what apple does. Rip it off, only less intuitive.

Apple is not for you computer nerds who want to tinker with everything. It's for the 90% of us adults who just want something easy and functional.

Name one major consumer electronic item that apple introduced to the marketplace that everyone else copied.

By the way, for those that dont know the smart phone, the tablet, and the mp3 player were not invented by apple and apple was beaten to the marketplace by several years on all of these items.

Ill wait.

Apples strength is marketing NOT innovation.

[mmmbeans]

apple's strength is design. most importantly, interface design and their designs are being copied as fast as freaking possible.

[tight lines]

apple's strength is design. most importantly, interface design and their designs are being copied as fast as freaking possible.

If by design you mean aesthetics and packaging I would agree that that is one of their strengths, but I would still say its eclipsed by their marketing.

none of their products are all that innovative in the scheme of things though. They primarily take ideas others have developed, and market them as innovative.

[mmmbeans]

If by design you mean aesthetics and packaging I would agree that that is one of their strengths, but I would still say its eclipsed by their marketing.

none of their products are all that innovative in the scheme of things though. They primarily take ideas others have developed, and market them as innovative.

i mean quality software interfaces and general build quality. both are FAR superior in apple products. their advertising has always been good.

[tight lines]

Id say the Newton probably was innovative enough to stand as a starting point for PDAs which are the predecessors of smart phones.

The Newton was about 3 years behind the psion Organiser, although Apple did come up with the nifty marketing term PDA.:ihih:

[tight lines]

i mean quality software interfaces and general build quality. both are FAR superior in apple products. their advertising has always been good.

Their guis are usualy pretty, and simple. Their software is often lacking in features in my opinion. The quality of a interface is very subjective though so Im not going to go to far in that direction.

As build quality being far superior, you would have to be specific on what you are comparing it to. There are a wide variety of competitors with apples products, in a wide range of price points, and thus varying quality. Apple however does source the majority of their parts from the same factories in china as many of their competitors, although they often sell these assembled commodity items for double the price or more.