Apple has done it again!!

[Zech Marquis]

Not only are they making money like there's no tomorrow--the FIRST BILLION dollar quarter every for them--they have also released the new iLife 06 bundle--a really good iPhoto update (which I use all the time, and I need a new digital camera anyway), and iWeb and Garageband 3 makes both blogging and podcasting that much easier :bounce: I'm going to get iLife06 for sure! The podcast of Zech Marquis :evilgrin: I can d a blog and podcast on soccer, the Xbox 360, and hey, DU!

and yep, the first Intel Macs are here--for the iMac--whoa, I didn't see that coming so soon :wow:, and the all new MacBook Pro :wow:

http://www.apple.com/


Man I nearly thoguht about buing a new iMac,except my current one is only a year old :evilgrin: I think the next Mac mini would be better--that one can have the Superdrive and wireless stuff installed :-)

To that lucky DUer whose husband works at Apple, tell him that Zech has the Visa warmed up and ready for the people at Cupertino!

[Tikki]

1. So last week this guy walks into an....

Apple store to get the 'cradle and remote set' for the iPod he recieved as a Xmas present and he says...
"Wow this place is really, really crowded".



Tikki
...a quote from our PC son who always laughs at me because I buy Apple and brag up the quality, often...

[Initech]

2. Cool, I'm definately getting iLife 06.

I didnt think I would have a use for iLife 05 until I got my digital camera, and the version that came with my Mac is absolutely horrible! So now next time I head to the Apple store, it's mine!

As for the Intel Mac, I'll stick with my G4 until it completely burns out.

[Dukkha]

3. that's great and all but

The G5s are still WAY too overpriced!
They've been out for 2 freaking years now too! c'mon!
No reason they cant mae a $1200.00 workstation for the aspiring pros who don't want an iMac

[Zech Marquis]

4. give them time

i'm sure Apple is going to have a very nice Intel based workstation real soon...

[Dukkha]

12. I hope so

I've been wanking on this same G4 workstation for 4 years now. I guess that in itself is a testament to their design. Still handles everything I throw at it flawlessly and never have any problems. Though I think I'm due for a clean install of 10.4. It's pretty bloated now from all these years of use and could use some spring cleaning.

[Taverner]

7. Everything Apple makes is overpriced

They put too much into their Ads and Marketing....in essence when you buy a Mac that's what you are paying for...

[kick-ass-bob]

9. That's utter crap and you know it.

If anything the "higher prices" are because they do all the development for the entire thing themselves.

What does Dell innovate? Nothing. They piece together some boxes.
What does MS do? Only software.

What does Apple do? Design an entire system from top to bottom.

And you don't think MS does more advertising when they have a new product?

[Taverner]

10. MS makes most of their money from monopolies

Dell is their lover so theyre along for that ride...

Thing is I could build a box at home that could rival anything put out by any desktop company. And it would be cheaper than a mac.

Don't get me wrong, I own a mac and like the company, but it bugs me how freakin expensive they are and how they pass their marketing bills along to the customer.

[kick-ass-bob]

15. Of course it would. You are putting all the pieces together yourself.

That is a big part of price: labor.

It ain't advertising, it's R&D. Do you know how expensive it is to be the first to use technologies?

Also what you get is something that lasts longer than your average PC, something that people often overlook in this throw-away economy.

[gmoney]

37. Advertising is a drop in the bucket...

I think Apple just manages to make memorable ads and does smart media buying targeted to the correct demographics, so it just SEEMS to you like they're spending a ton more on advertising than Dell or MicroShaft or whoever.

Frankly, I think it's like Mercedes or Hasselblad or Rolex... a certain amount of the additional price is quality, and a LOT of it is reputation and cachet (not cache). Like the iPod... someone actually THOUGHT about it and came up with a line of MP3 players that really works, great FREE software and a super convenient music store. (I love being able to buy one or two songs from an album, especially in the case of an earworm. I just wish they had Grace Jones "I'm not Perfect (but I'm perfect for you)" but I digress.) By the way, the PC talking point that iPods will ONLY play music purchased from the Apple music store is a bunch of CRAP... it's painlessly easy to rip your CDs to MP3 files which the iPod plays perfectly, you can download Audible format books, and it will even play AIFF files (Uncompressed CD audio) right off your favorite CD if you're a true audiophile.

These new machines are looking great... I may grab onto the "bleeding edge" and get one of these here Intel Macs right away!

On edit... by the way, Dell sens me 17 pieces of junk mail, catalogs etc. every month, and I throw them all away, and have never bought from them. So, multiply that by a few dozen millions, a few months a year, printing, postage, etc. Maybe Apple just spends their money in ways that don't end up in landfills 99.98% of the time.

[Deja Q]

16. Oh please. That is so 1989, if ever...

Apple saw Xerox's GUI and mouse and marketed them. Biiiiiiig development there. :sarcasm: Unless you count the number of Xerox employees they bought... pity Xerox lost their suit yet Apple won theirs against Microsoft...

Apple ditched the superior SCSI architecture. But did prices drop accordingly? Hardly.

Apple saw FreeBSD; used that as the base for OS X and never bothered (until recently) to contribute back (too many people whine?)

Apple saw that Intel was cheaper (not AMD?!) and they went that route too. Did prices drop? Of course not.

MS also sells hardware; mice and keyboards and things too.

But MS is no better than Apple when it comes to business. Gates was just better at finding target markets than Apple. (not that Apple hasn't found its own with mind-draining pretty-colored imacs and increasingly bizarre adaptations of their iPod; an oversized undersized jukebox with a been-there-done-that menu structure that nobody will even use half the potential of... it's just pricey, "convenient" storage for all your music...)

And that's the problem. Business over creativity. No company is immune. Not when the almighty bottom dollar means more than anything else. The concept of 'ethics' does not exist.

[kick-ass-bob]

21. Dude. I'm not living in the 80s.

iTunes, Firewire, 1st to use USB, design without fans, etc etc etc.

Why do you think the whole industry copies Apple? Do you think it's cheap to stay ahead of the industry so they WILL keep copying them?

I don't have time to talk anymore about this, and I would have left this, but it is so full of ancient times it was ridiculous.

[targetpractice]

33. With all due respect, HT

As long as I've been a member of DU, I've noticed your vigorous participation in on almost every Apple-related thread. It seems that your primary computer buying concern is price, and that you take issue with the fact that Apple has transformed FreeBSD from open-source into a great proprietary operating system.

Hopefully, you therefore understand that you are a price conscious buyer who doesn't see much value in the Mac user experience. So, it should be no surprise that you are not in Apple's target market. Then, why do you get so worked up? Not everyone spends their money like you do.

I buy Macs because...
- They don't crash
- The UI is simple and fantastic
- There are mission-critical apps with no Window equivalent
- My PowerMac G5 with 30" display looks faboo in my NYC studio
- My PowerBook G4 always impresses my clients when I use it in a meeting
- I feel icky when I use Windows

What is wrong with that? You could build me a Windows laptop for under $1200, but I'd hate it.

One other point... I have recommended Macs to clients, friends and family. And, every single person that switched has thanked me profusely. They have all said that they "love" their Mac. Who loves a computer? Answer: A Mac user.

[Awsi Dooger]

41. HypnoToad is like a maiden claiming horse with blinders-on

His Apple bashing is only as pathetic as predictable. It's like a robotic paste job every time a pro-Apple thread appears, desperation in every hysterical syllable.

Word today is Apple is making a big push toward video via the new Intel chips, downloading and watching movies the same as songs with the iPod. Huh, I remember predicting that exact course of events here when the move to Intel was announced many months ago. Jobs started Pixar, so via competent handicapping you might think movies would be high on his list, but somehow a few DUers scoffed mightily at my claim. I won't announce any names; cough *HypnoToad*, cough, *HypnoToad* cough.

Yeah, I'm suffering as Jobs tries to keep up with the creative PC lemmings. BTW, when I heralded Apple's video plans and the short term future of the company when the Intel chips were announced, my Apple stock was in the low 50s. Since then I've posted many times here about the climb of the stock. Handicapping is my game. As of today it's at $84, a tidy 60+% profit with almost zero risk. What, was an avalanche of iPod sales going to drop the price? Carry on HypnoToad. You can flail while I await the next stock split. Last time it happened at about $110.

[dpbrown]

43. Jobs only gives to Democrats, MS is adjudicated monopoly

Microsoft is the tool of the oppressors. Apple is the tool of the revolution.


The least you could do is to get your urban myth right surrounding Apple and the Palo Alto Research Center:

http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html


When fear, uncertainty, and doubt cloud our ability to see what's happening, then we all run the risk of becoming victims of criminal monopolists like Microsoft.

[AlCzervik]

18. you're so mistaken about their ad budgets.

[Yollam]

38. Feel free not to buy one, then.

I have been a mac user for 15 years, and have never lamented the extra cost a bit. It has been so worth it. The quality is better. When I get a new Mac, it's really something special, as opposed to getting some cut-rate Dell job from Wal-Mart for $500.

It's like comparing a Honda to a Saturn. There is a reason for the difference in price and brand loyalty, even though the two may look similar on the surface.

[jmowreader]

40. They did. It was the Cube. No one bought it.

[targetpractice]

5. Al Gore was there

I am watching Steve's keynote now (www.apple.com) and there is a shot of Al Gore sitting in the audience about 1 hour into the presentation as Steve intros the CEO of Intel.

[Taverner]

8. He's on the board

[alfredo]

6. Last quarter they sold 100 iPods a minute. They have sold nearly

1 billion songs from their site.

Even Dell is seeing their market share fall.

40% of new cars come iPod ready.

Jobs didn't want to take on MS head on, he did an end run.

Look at their charts over the past five years. Which one would you want to invest in?

http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=5y&q=l&l=on&z=m&c=MSFT&a=v&p=s

[Deja Q]

11. $2000 for an INTEL-BASED LAPTOP that would be $1200 anywhere else?

Go waste your money. Don't expect any pity from me. I like suckers, but not that kind of sucker who keeps brand loyalty on a brand that does not care about them...

512MB RAM, 80GB HD, Intel CPU... $2000 is entry-level server specs. Not for consumer stuff.

It's freakin' FreeBSD on an Intel processor. So what? It is not worth the $2000 they're asking. It's closer to $1200. Give or take. $2000 is highway robbery.

Apple also said it would lower costs. So why haven't costs dropped? :think:

[Taverner]

13. I could probably build a similar laptop for even less than $1200

I love Apple but their stuff is VERY OVERPRICED

Oh well, I think someone has to pay their huge marketing and advertising departments (I worked there and know marketing takes up an entire building on Infinite Loop.)

[targetpractice]

25. No way

You could not build a laptop with the speed, bus throughput, graphics performance, and drive capacity that would satisfy photo/video professionals (Apple's target market) for less than Apple.

Nice try.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

29. THANK YOU

I use my Mac for photography and video and graphics - when I had a Windows based machine, it sucked. Poor quality. And I paid 1300 bucks for it. :shrug: The extra money pays itself off with the better quality images I'm able to reproduce.

[Taverner]

34. Betchya I could...

and it would be superior...

Oh, and it wouldn't run MacOSX OR windows...

[targetpractice]

30. Apple is a premier brand. So what?

Did you really work there?

If so, did your job involve using Mac OS X or any Apple product?

[Taverner]

35. I did - and I used MacOSX extensively

Don't get me wrong - I think the MacOS is superior to Windows. I think they design and make great machines.

HOWEVER, they charge a hefty price for them....and a lot of that is because they have to pay enormous marketing bills. thing is, Apple is a marketing departments paradise. They recruit the best, give them carte blanche and as a result their marketing team drives in revenue.

It's an art form over there - and if I had a product I wanted to be a must have, I'd hire their team in a quick minute.

[Jack_Dawson]

14. Yeah but it LOOKS cool

You're obviously over 25. :beer:

[Deja Q]

17. I am over 25...

but I think that certain parts of my body look cooler than a shiny light-up box too.

Of course, these days I prefer having a life than a piece of pliant plastic... so that shouldn't come across as being a shock. :7

[Medium Baby Jesus]

20. You're on a roll tonight HT

You the man now dog.

[targetpractice]

27. It's not plastic.

So you can't afford or don't want a Mac. Why do you berate those who can/do?

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

28. Sorry HT, I agree with targetpractice.

What's the deal with criticising people who choose to spend their money on Macs? :shrug:

[realisticphish]

36. I'm under 25

and I use Apple because it never crashes, I love the GUI, and I can play with unix in terminal.

Oh, wait, no, it's because it's pretty :eyes:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

39. I don't understand this whole "Macs never crash" thing

I've strictly owned PCs my entire adult life -- and have very rarely had any problems with them.

A lot of my friends have Macs -- and it seems like they crash almost 50% of the time I use them for something.

I got a new PC back in April: in October, I was doing a fair amount of video editing, some on my system, some on my friend's Mac. My Sony PC never crashed, the Mac crashed out 3 different times. And that's just one example -- throughout college, I saw my friends' Macs crash frequently.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying PCs never crash. But mine does very, very rarely. Much less so than any Mac I've ever used.

[CarpeDiebold]

42. there are fewer WTF moments with my mac

i've had my mac for ~6 mo's and it's yet to freeze when a program acts up, nevermind that there's no BSOD or anything similar. macs just. work.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

45. All I'm saying is that that hasn't been my experience over the last

15 years or so.

I'm certainly not going to bash anyone for their choice of platform (to each his/her own, and all that) -- but it seems to me that Macs crash just as much as PCs.

Perhaps my experience would be different if I actually owned a Mac -- but I don't really have any reason to switch over.

[targetpractice]

46. 15 years? You must be thinking OS 9.

OS 9 crashed all the time. It was easy to use, but not a modern operating system by any means.

However, OS X is a completely different operating system with UNIX underpinnings.

[realisticphish]

44. I've never had a straight crash with OSX

i've had kernel panics (a standard unix thing) but was due to bad RAM, not the software.

[Redstone]

19. Unfortunately, all that "iCrap" does nothing for those of us who use

a Mac to work.

It's nice that Apple's making bags of bucks and all that, but the dirty little secret that they don't tell anyone is that hundereds of thoursands (no exaggeration) of people are still hanging on to System 9, because that's the OS that you can actually USE to get work done with.

Don't believe me? Go to any used-Mac website, and see how prominently they note particular computers as being able to "dual-boot." OS9-bootable Macs go for big bucks, compared to other contemporary used computers.

I have two G4s and a TiBook, still in their boxes, in the corner of my office. when I wear my current computers and then those ones out, I quit.

Redstone

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. That's odd

I went through a period of adjustment during the transition from OS9 to OS X, but now I'm completely comfortable with it, and other than posting on the Internet, I use my iBook entirely for work, mainly with Word and Excel.

[Redstone]

23. Ah, but you're not in the publishing business, are you?

That's where the holdouts are. We need reliable printing, reliable PostScript output, reliable font handling, reliable color calibration, and simple backup ability.

All these, we have with system 9.

None of them do we have with System X.

Redstone

[targetpractice]

24. Really?

I've been using Macs professionally for electronic publishing purposes since 1988. Today, I am a publishing technology consultant and somewhat of a pre-press and digital printing subject matter expert in New York City. In past lives, I was a graphic designer and art director for magazines and newspapers.

I seriously can't imagine what you are trying to do in OS 9 that you can't do with Tiger and modern software. What applications or workflow do you use that is not replicable in OS X? Are you using some old PS RIPs or something?

To address your points specifically, OS X is fully PDF compliant, uses ColorSync throughout the OS, and has a bunch of robust backup and sync solutions.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

26. I have OSX and get plenty of work done.

:shrug:

It's a clean system.

ON EDIT: I should probably specify what type of work - mainly graphic design + photographic publishing. OSX has ColorSync which seems to work just fine with printing and all that jazz.

[maveric]

31. I just wish that their iPod worked like its supposed to.

Mine is video capable. They dont tell you that you can only load iTune videos that you buy. All others have to be converted using software that you must BUY.
Fuck them! I'll never buy another Apple product again!

[targetpractice]

32. Fine, don't buy another Apple product.

Stew in your own juices or maybe try searching.

Google is your friend.

There are dozens of FREE converters out there.