rogueprof's Profile

This article could have been interesting, instead it is puerile. I would take the windows machine because I want to communicate. If I had my choice I would take the mac because it's OS is far superior and transparent with respects to the net, as well as more secure. IE: it allows me to communicate better. The OS is the main user interface to the web... it's far from dead, in fact the net is one of the main reasons that the mac is finally seeing a rise in its market share. The notion that the internet is going to change the nature of operating systems has been around for quite some time... from futurist predictions, to thin client computing, to web-based apps that run over / through browsers and other forms of ip clients. What hasn't been thought through in any way is the business model that will replace the current model found in the IT industry. It would have been interesting for you to actually discuss how this magical transition to an ip-based global thin-client system is going to occur, and how it is going to be funded. Simply saying that something is on the horizon and is inevitably going to occur doesn't make it so.

Frankly, I am sick and tired of hearing the Dell vs. Apple concerning costs comparison. It's true; Dell's are typically less expensive than Macs. In the past there were a number of reasons tied to the Mac specific hardware in the box that were partially responsible for this, along with the fact that, as a closed system, Apple can charge a little bit more simply becuase their are no other direct competitors in the OS X / Apple OS -compatible hardware market. Macs more than likely will never be as cheap as Dell's cheapest machine. And there isn't any problem with this fact. This is because to achieve the lowest price possible Dell works as many cheats into their hardware as they can. The result is that very few professionals who use, for instance, multimedia software, on a regular basis use Dells. A better comparison in terms of price/performance would be the Sony multimedia computers; the Vaio laptop line, for instance. When one compares a Vaio with a similarly equipped PowerBook / MacBook Pro the prices are very very similar, and no longer a hinderance to switching. Comparing Dells to Macs is like comparing Volkswagens to Audis: If you want to be a cheap and efficient car that gets you from one place to another reasonably well, then buy a Volkswagen. If you want to buy a car equipped with all-wheel drive, a screamer of an engine, and a great chassis/body/interior, then you buy an Audi, or one of its competitors, like BMW, etc..... You don't buy a Volkswagen.

One more thing: anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal evidence. Consider: Between a good friend and I we have 10 000 songs on our iPods. None of it has been purchased through iTMS. When discussing consumer trends and experience it's always better to use aggregate data,w hich in fact is the only data that allows us a clear interpretation of what people in general are doing, and frees us from the blindness that can be caused by the quirky friends that we all have.

This was a very interesting article, but it is predicated on one particular assumption; that Apple produces iPods to promote iTMS, or rather that people buy the iPod so that they can acess iTMS. Given the relatively low number of songs that are purchased in relation to the huge number of iPods that have been purchased, it would appear to me that something else has happened. What happened, in fact, is that Apple played the classic "second player entry to market" strategy. Apple looked at the market carefully, examined all the product available, did their consumer research, and produced a vastly superior MP3 player at a price that consumers determined was desirable given the product in hand. Once the original iPods took off, Apple continued to play this strategy by filling in all the channels possible. More importantly, however, Apple presented two things to the MP3 world that have become factors in the iPod's success, although not the reason behind it. The first was iTMS, which drives secondary consumption to Apple (buying songs, etc....) and furthermore helps perpetuate the sucess to the iPod. The second thing that Apple did was produce a series of products that employed a standard hardware and software interface. This allowed 3rd party manufacturers to produce all forms of product that rely upon a proprietary interface which supplies to these manufacturers some (to date) 40 million consumers or so. This second factor does not get enough play in the press, but in my opinion is a strong factor behind the continuing success of the iPod. First-time consumers of any consumer electronics product tend to look at the available accessories that can be purchased alongside that product. The fewer movies that were available in Beta, for instance, the fewer Beta players that people were going to buy. Similarly, when someone is going to consider spending $400 on what is essentially a digital toy that plays music, that person may indeed want to know what else he or she may buy that can enhance the use of the product. It doesn't take much imagination to picture a first-time buyer at the store, standing in front of a bizillion accessories, and thinking, "Wow, there's so much cool stuff out there that's available for the iPod. I think that I'll buy one of those cool nanos, and that cool widget that attaches to it's connector." Here Apple finds itself in what as known as a beneficent cycle, where every choice in the cycle leads to further positive choices at other points in the cycle. So; consumers buy iPods in part because of the accessories; buying more iPods leads to more manufacturers providing more accessories, which leads to more people buying iPods. One personal example will suffice: I was in a store last year that sells and supports Apple products. While I was in the store a group of six late middle-aged people walked in and told that salesman that they each wanted a 60GB 4G iPod. From the conversation that I overheard they were each interested in the iPod because they were all long-term owners of BMWs and they were each upgrading their lease, and wanted to purchase a car with an iPod dock built in--hence they purchase an iPod. What Microsoft needs to do is not prodcue its own player--even though I would be very amused to see what kind hideous piece of overheating hardware the boys and girls in Redmond would manage to mis-design. What Microsoft needs to do is propose a single specification for software and hardware/docking system that would be adhered to buy a group of large manufacturers. this would give these manufactuers the two things that Apple has at the present: A strong, common operating system amongst a diverse group of products, and a common hardware interface that, along with the common software interface, allows accessory manufacturers to produce secondary products for this standard. Don't get me wrong, this is not a simple process. Microsoft would actually have to produce a well-designed piece of software that is nice to look at, easy/intuitive to use/virus free, and robust. Given that Microsoft has never managed to do this in its corporate history, it remains to be seen whether MSFT could do this now. The manufacturers would be left to see if they could actually produce a physical product that people would want to use over an iPod--i.e.; something that is more elegant and more beautiful. This is a challenge, but it's not impossible to believe that some company out there could come up with a product that is as elegant and beautiful to use as an iPod. So, in the end I think that what Steve did was try to bait and switch MSFT away from the correct strategy and lead them to the vertical integration model--which is almost assuredly a path to short/medium term frustration on the part of MSFT, and continuted success to Apple. And, given Apple's huge dominance over the MP3 palyer/tunes market, by the time that MSFT achieved dominance in that market, the market would have become like a commodities market, and Apple would be looking to exit--much like IBM did when they realized that the marginal returns on PCs did not justify the company's ongoing investment in resources.

Since when has anyone seriously thought that the Powerbook isn't a Mac? That is just plain ridiculous.

This frantic hysteria over the demise of Firewire just doesn't seem to go away. Yesterday's Keynote was somewhat anticlimactic, but one thing that seemed apparent is the fact that Firewire is here to stay for a while. Indeed, Apple wishes to continue its lead in home video, no? USB as a transfer protocol is just fine, but in and of itself has no timing protocols built in, and so is quite unsuitable for use in video editing. So, no firewire, no iMovie, no FinalCut, etc.... I don't think that Apple would spend so much time on iLife if it were preparing to delist the one feature that it's most noteworthy iLife product (iMovie) relies upon. FireWire 800 took a walk because there are still precious few products out there that support this protocol. Perhaps Apple will reintroduce FireWire when there are some products out there that actually support it. Until then, delisting this feature harms very few consumers, and keeps the product at a mroe manageable price point.

I bought a Black 60GB two weeks ago. I love it. This is my first iPod and it works fabulously. The video experience is quite immersive, and I've missed the bus stop on my commute several times. Exporting videos through Quicktime can be a pain, but it's well worth it. The sound quality is amazing--even with the white earbuds, although I have a nice pair of noise cancellation headphones. I heartily recommend buying one.