[RC45]

Originally Posted by evoWALO To a lot of people having to buy Apple hardware isnt such an issue anymore. Sure there are some who must be able to upgrade to the latest processor, motherboard, memory, hard disc drive, optical drive, video card, sound card, etc after each release but that isnt Apple's market. Apple sells products & solutions to those who do not mind paying a premium for a stable & secure platform that looks aesthetically good. It may not have many games but that's what video consoles are made for.

Wrong - it is over priced and marketed to the same demographic that "has to have the cool new phone".

Folks who live on a budget and have less disposable income (mainly more people than not) find Apple expensive to buy, maintain and live with.

THAT's why sales are low. Sale have been low since the beginning - prices have been high since the beginning. Apple not allowing cloned hardware killed it. No volume sales - no volume prices, no volume market.

This was the land scape in 1990 - that is the landscape in 2005.

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft duplicating what Apple did would be equivalent to ditching the whole Win9x & WiNT kernel and starting anew based on a UNIX-based or UNIX-like kernel or write Windows from scratch. This would simply mean almost all backward compatibility for both hardware & software would have to be sacrificed. This will never ever fly with Microsoft's shareholders because it would remove the dependency of most people to Windows, Office & other apps.

Well - Apple just did this - they weren't always a Unix clone.

Originally Posted by evoWALO I really doubt Vista will ever be as secure or as stable as OS X. Then again most people are willing to compromise so long as they have the freedom to buy the cheapest & largest selection of hardware/software around. Sure you could use Linux/BSD but they aint as robust as OS X or even Windows in terms of GUI.

Damn straight - A PC is not a status symbol as some folks view their cell phones, Ipods and other stupid hip crap.

You do business, home entertainment or school work. We get back to budget again - if you come from a family that is able to afford Apples for their kids - more power to them - No doubt those parents buy their kids a $25,000 graduation car as well.

For them cost is no issue - this will never change. Pandering to these hip consumers will never Apple any real money either.

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft has always been a follower. Microsoft creates their own GUI-based OS after Apple proves the popularity of GUI-based OS.

Considering the GUI wasn't Apples idea either - who cares.

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates their own web browser after Netscape proves the popularity of web browsers.

Well - they licensed a browser to compete with Mosaic/Netscrape - but who cares... again - just because you are first, does not guarantee commercial success

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates their own video console after Nintendo/Sony proves the profitability of video consoles.

Again - who cares? I mean Porsche made an SUV - after Ford did... that makes Porsche losers?

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates a PDA OS after Palm proves the popularity of PDAs.

And competing products are now illegal?

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates their own digital media player software after Apple proves the popularity of digital media player.

Well - we can't let Apple be a monopoly now

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates digital music store infrastructures after Apple proves the profitability of their iTunes Music Store.

Ditto

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft creates a new OS that takes advantage of 3D accelerators found in most PCs after Apple creates a OS that takes advantage of the 3D accelerators found in all Macs.

Thankfully M$ haven't sold baby puke green colour PC's and accessories to go with the internals

Let's not forget Gates bailed Apple out - when he could have just let them wither up and die

Originally Posted by evoWALO Having a monopoly means innovation & prices remain stagnant. Thanks largely to Microsoft, Apple had to make a better product. In Apple's point of view it is them vs the World.

That is Steve Job 's personality showing through. Apple is no better than M$ - they simply took a closed proprietary approach.

In the real world commercially deployed Apple's sucked - they were slow, prone to crashing and really no better than a Windows system of the time.

The few "high end" Graphics or Video workstations are not the mainstream of what Apple sold to stay in business. For every video editing setup they sold, they sold 10,000's of crappy entry level pieces of junk. They were costly and mostly just bought because the school, municipality or government office was obligated to try the "other vendor" once in a while.

Originally Posted by evoWALO At one end they have Microsoft to contend with in the other they have to deal with Dell/Lenovo/Toshiba/HP/white box clones.

That is APples fault - 30 years ago Gates figured out that once IBM let the clones out of the bag, SOFTWARE was where the money wa, not HARDWARE -- Apple is a bad business model propped up by brainwashed fans

Originally Posted by evoWALO Microsoft has a lot of employees using iPods which management frowns upon. No outright bans yet but just wait.

Ford line worker drives Chevy...

Originally Posted by evoWALO If by "not having a lot of programs" you mean no more virii, worms, malware, adware, spyware, etc then by golly I am glad Macs have fewer apps. Windows can have all that crud. Yes I will pay more than $149 for a half-assed video card or processor just to play games while buying a PS2/Xbox/GCN would be a much better alternative. Perhaps if the OS didn't have as much badly written ancient code to contend with it wouldn't be such an easy target. The most popular & secure web server at the moment is Apache and yet Microsoft Internet Information Services is more prone to security holes. Being popular isnt always a bad thing so long as your priority is security and stability insted of marketability. OS X doesnt require those two simple pieces of software. That's why Symantec's publishing FUD to get sales up. It may be cheaper to assemble your own PC if you value your time as zero. People who buy Macs are willing to pay the $100-200 markup over their Windows counterpart for a simple and elegant solution. It is true Intel chips are more powerful & energy efficient than those used by current Macs now but Apple's making the jump to Intel for the next 2 years. The problem with current PCs is that they're using Windows. The hardware isn't rubbish but the OS is. Anyone can build a riced up Mitsu Evo to kill a Ferrari but at the end of the day you still own a riced up car and the other fellow is driving a Ferrari. OS X is actually based on OPENSTEP OS. Which in turn is based on the Mach microkernel. Which in turn is based on BSD. OS X has some tools/parts of FreeBSD. More and more companies are using Macs within their orgs. Granted Macs may be less prone to exploits because they arent popular but no software's perfect. Even Linux/BSD tend to have the occasional holes. The difference between Linux/BSD/OS X and Windows is that solutions/patches to these holes are offered within hours or even days after its discovery instead of weeks or months. Maybe because it helps they're open source (OS X's Darwin is open source) or maybe they have less apps to contend with and avoid breaking. But then again if being obscure makes computing less of a hassle then so be it. I'd rather be in the fringe, not enjoying computer games and not having the option to easily upgrade on the fly but at least I have a personal computer that actually works. At the end of the day all our arguements are for not if the platform cannot do what makes you happy. If spending hundreds of dollars in upgrades to play games gets you off then Windows is your OS. Then again I find it funny that someone would bad mouth the company & OS that they're supporting.

Whew - too much there

Apples cost way more than $200 more than PC equals. Having fewer applications is a big deal - especially when you want to have a large choice.

Malware, virii and spyware are a byproduct of user habit - not a weakness of the OS.

7 computers at home, seldom any issues - we make a habit of not surfing porn sites, warez sites and such.

A Mac is not a "ferrari" of Personal Computers - unless you imply that ferraris are just hip fashion accessories?

You make money supporting M$ because that is where the money is to be made - commercial success is all that counts - these are computers not religions.

Remember all those car brands that failed over the years? Neither does anyone else..

That being said, I hate Apple almost as much as the E60 M5...