Forbes : If you ask those that invest in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) what’s so great about the company, you will get a host of different responses. They all might be right and they all might be wrong. However, the one thing that remains constant with Apple is that the company doesn’t care a heck of a whole lot about what you think.
its not gonna take long. they haven't innovated in the last 3 years. it's just more of the same. theres only so many lawsuits you can make on outdated tech.
1. They become open source, or at least less of a tyrant.
and
2. Cut the prices of most of their products by 30% - 50%.
Artists use Macs because they're not computer literate. While you look at programmers and IT guys and most run Linux. There is a reason.
Apple hardware has its place in business, however to run an entire office on Apple products alone is just asking for trouble unless you like paying outta the ass for EVERYTHING.
Just thinking back to an iMac we had in my old office, power supply was a bit flaky so needed replacing. Cost of replacing the PSU was a few quid less than buying a new iMac, in a word...ridiculous.
"No, it's because any company that makes people hostile at the mere mention of its name is okay in my book."
its not the mere mention thats making people reply the way they are. its the fact that this author is claiming Apple are something they not. if this author were to say "Apple revolutionized the mobile phone with the first iphone" i would agree with that statement. but to claim no other company is not even close, is pure bull. if samsung weren't even close, why do Apple feel so threatened by them to the point of banning their products? they afraid to lose market share, thats why.
your comments holds no weight in my books. the only reason you like apple is coz they make people cringe? could you not think of features that Apple have thats exclusive to Macs that cant be done elsewhere? almost everyone here stated examples to an extent of why they prefer PCs over Macs or vice versa. you have nothing.
thats an OS issue not a PC issue, but if you wanna go down that road, explain to me why would i wanna use OS X instead of linux 12.04LTS or Windows 7?
Its the Call of Duty of Hardware, people mistakenly buy the same product only to ask, why? what are the changes? where are the vast improvements? did i really drop ~%50 more than similar products?
I leave apple to the casual market, its for them, they dont know any better. Apple makes safe devices, albeit viruses have not yet gotten a strong foothold, but soon will. We will see how strong the sheep are when that happens.
For instance, look at what happened when other companies tried to build Ultrabooks to compete with the Macbook Airs.. the prices went sky-high.
From what you've said, hardware specs is what determines the money you spent. For me, it is the productivity that I gain with a machine that determines the value I get from it.
Plus, macs stay solid and functional for several years.. I have a 2007 mac that I still use happily. The aluminium body is still solid, unlike my creaky plastic win laptop.
i had the ipod 5th generation so its not like ive never had apple products in my life. and i looked after that like i do everything else i own, weird thing is, the sound suddenly stopped working. however when i press the lower left hand corner, it works again. i googled it, i wasn't the only one with that issue. can Apple fix it, probably, will they, no. i was told to buy a new ipod.
Like Skeptical said, if your a casual tech person, a macbook from 2007 will do just fine for you. For those of us who have more experience with technology, and want some freedom with our machines, We'll stick with PCs and pay less.
Build quality is one thing, but really, what are you doing with a laptop every day that necessitates such a premium? I've had several "creaky and plasticky" Windows laptops, used them everyday as you would use a laptop - moved it around from place to place etc - and have never had a single problem with any of them.
Is the premium cost and locked down nature of Apple products really worth it? Is the OS really that much better than Windows or Linux?
The only advantage I see with Apple products is that they hold their price well if you wish to sell them on. But frankly, that only comes as a consequence of the premium price in the first place and a dedicated fanbase that continually trot out the same old excuses for why a used machine is worth so much money.
It's a vicious circle of paying too much for relatively weaker tech in a slightly more durable and flashy case that doesn't really offer any benefit to the average laptop user.
Now, I'm no fan of Apple products, but one can't disregard every Apple fan for liking what they like and are willing to pay the premium to get it. Millions of consumers can't be purchasing Apple products blindly without a reason, he might not be able to see why, it is the same for Apple fans, they can't see why we prefer PCs either.
Apart from the processor and GPU which are embedded, you can upgrade the other parts like RAM, HDD, or even swap the optical drive for yet another hard or solid-state drive. And it's as easy as upgrading any other normal laptop (not Ultrabooks). So, what's the difference on that front?
And what is this "lockdown" on Macs? I have been able to install any software I want, even open source stuff like OpenOffice.org and GIMP. Haven't faced any issues in the past 5 years on this machine.
Finally, the "pay less" part -- if windows laptops are cheaper, how come the similarly built macbook airs and ultrabooks are head-to-head on price?
I feel windows and macs are kind of the same difference as american muscle cars and italian supercars. The latter are priced heavily, but they've got a different style element and ergonomics. At the end of the race, you can either have a higher specced muscle car win, or win through sheer aerodynamics and efficiency. (my speech bubble's out)
"a good artist steals and a great artist steals others ideas patents it and litigates the hell out of everyone" steve jobs
As someone in IT and desktop publishing, I know that my business would fail if I were to run it on Windows PC based systems. Purely from a stability side of things.
Macs maybe over priced but your paying for a quality system that have full driver support and are as stable a rock.
In the 2 years since the last Mac pros went in I cant remember a single day were we were down or crashed.
In fact I think our IT guy spends most of his time at the reception desktop which is running windows.
Now let me just stop everybody before they jump on the bandwagon with hate towards me, I love PC's, I have my mac book and a windows desktop and a windows laptop at home. I game on my windows pc and I love it. But i know the trouble I had getting everything to work and all the drivers in with my custom built pc, and even now I get random errors and crashes, which after spending close to 2000 I don't want. With a Mac these problems don't arise as everything is normally supported from the offset and runs as its should out of the box, I have been putting my mac book to sleep for 286 days and that's my up time, not bad for a 2 year old laptop that's used 4 - 6 hours a day, in fact the only reason its not more that 286 days is because I upgraded the ram..
Oh and don't even get me started on running linux with cutting edge hardware, your waiting a we while for drivers. and some of my stuff will just never see a fully functioning linux driver.
What a bog down. >_>
I'm going back to enjoying my iPhone and Nexus 7.