Philoking.com

Read this article before you read mine, the spin cycle is out of control! Leigh McMullen has hit the fanboy All-Star team. My points of contention? I will never understand why the Mac die hards continue to fight against the notion that Macs are more expensive, they are. It’s just a fact. You can’t argue value this way. Let me break them down:

“In short utterly failing to recognize that premium brands don’t suffer the same wild swings as commodity players. Don’t believe me? 2008 was Ferrari’s best sales year ever. Don’t trust me on that –Google it.”

Excuse the pun, but this isn’t exactly an Apples to Apples comparison, the contention is that a premium brand will suffer in a poor economy. Less than 1% of the US population could afford a Ferrari, it’s not exactly a brand that has customers that are extremely sensitive to the economy. We are talking a $200,000-$500,000 car. That means a Ferrari starts just short of the price of the median price of a house in the US. Is Cult of Mac seriously so Apple blind that they would compare Macs to Ferraris? Ok, next point…

Does Dell offer in store support, migration assistance and training? Not just in a few big cities but even in places like Des Moines? They don’t, not at any price.

Apple has 211 retail stores in the US. If you figure out what cities they are in, and the populations, it’s all of the sudden a much less impressive number.

I will be completely nice and forget the fact that these “geniuses”, which are pretty much smug versions of the same idiots you get at Best Buy, are busy talking about iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs too.

If you are a computer buyer in the US, how much help are the Apple Stores to you? If you live in Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia or Wyoming you are out of luck. That’s 10 million people in case you are wondering.

So people in lesser populated states are stuck with phone support and mail order purchases, I get that financially, but all of those states have plenty of places to buy PCs, even Mom and Pop shops that support them too. (And yes, I know Best Buy sells and supports Apple computers too. But if they were good enough for you cultists, we wouldn’t be having this argument about why the Apple Store is the linchpin of the Apple value proposition.)

Think about these Apple Store statistics for a moment:

• 20% of all Apple Store are in California
• 50% of all Apple Stores are in 5 States (CA, FL, NJ, NY, and TX)
• For states with stores, the average population per store is 1,371,261. That’s right, 1.3 million people per store.

Contrast that to the likes of Best Buy, which operates 1,400 stores in every state in the US, even Alaska. I will take on anyone who contends that the Apple Genius Bar guys are really anything more than glorified Geek Squad.

Now let’s say that you do live in an Apple Store area, how much help are they then? Here are a few experiences I have had in an Apple Store:

• It took almost two hours to buy two iPhones. Only to have the Apple Store clerk argue about which phone number I had to use since the account is in my wife’s name. Obviously Dawn has to use the phone on the primary number? Why may I ask? (We didn’t of course)
• On a current generation (at the time) Mac Pro Dual Quad Xeon, I was told I had to go home and get the serial number of the computer for them to be able to tell me what kind of Airport Extreme card I needed. Even though it’s the exact model on the showroom floor AND you would think since all of my Apple products are registered, they could look it up. Not to mention then having to carry an 80lbs computer 2 miles to get into the mall to get it installed, they wouldn’t sell me the part either.
• As soon as the new models come out the showroom is purged of all accessories for your model, I wanted a hardshell case for my Macbook Pro, less than a month after the unibodies shipped, all cases in the store are for the new one, that goes for iPhones too.

OK, enough about Apple Stores, let’s move to my next point.

His big argument in favor of the Dell: It has HDMI. Which would be awesome, except I watch streaming TV on my laptop, I don’t watch laptop on my TV.

Ah, so since Leigh doesn’t use it, nobody does. I disable the ambient light display on my Macbook Pro, does that mean that it’s as pointless? In an earlier part of the story Leigh lists backlit keys, ambient light sensor and accelerometer as reasons the Macbook Pro is superior, then chides PCs for offering something as “useless” as HDMI? I love my backlit keys on this Macbook Pro, but I could care less about the other two.

The HP in question isn’t even a particularly good video gaming machine. Lets see what an HP made of similar components would cost shall we?

All Macs are notoriously terrible gaming machines, even when you install Windows on them because they all come with pitiful video cards, and the entry price for one with upgradable video? $2799. Meanwhile great PC gaming rigs can be had under $800.

This was of course the most egregious example of machine comparisons. Most of the time El Jeffe chose to just slightly spin the story. For example in evaluating the iMac versus the Dell, he equated the 2 machines as being “comparable” –in spite of the Mac being 33% faster!

Come on now Cult of Mac, don’t play the numbers game you always accuse other people off. a 33% faster CPU clock speed does NOT equate to a 33% faster computer. Especially when the iMac mentioned comes out of the box with half the RAM. Load up Photoshop on both and show me how that clock speed difference results in identical performance gains.

eSata – All Macs are all SATA all the time, eSata is just a card away

That’s interesting, and how exactly do I put this card in a Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook or Macbook Pro? The only computer with expandability starts at $2799. I would hardly make a blanket statement like that.

TV Tuners – Seriously? I only mention this because it’s the second time he’s brought it up, apparently it’s a big deal to the His Honor, but I’ve gotten my TV over cable since the 1980’s and since the 1990’s even that’s being supplanted by this thing called the Internet. Check it out Rog. One thing is for sure, I am absolutely not walking around the friggin airport with a set of rabbit ear antenna on my laptop.

Hmm, I have four in my computer, My dad has one, in team at work over half of us have them in our home PCs. Why? Windows Media Center, my home is filled with Xbox 360s that deliver DVR’d content around the house from my computer’s tuners. Again, apparently if Leigh doesn’t use them, nobody should.

All of this is forgetting for a moment that Apple was the first to bring you a Graphical User Interface, Firewire, Wireless networking, and continues to innovate things like multi touch, face recognition, streaming media – LOOK ROGER—NO RABBIT EARS!

So the key here is first to sell? Firewire, yea, Apple worked it out with Sony and co, but WiFi was available as an add in card for PCs before it was ever in a Mac. And Streaming Media? Really? Apple did that first? You might want to let Real Media and some of those guys know that, I am sure they would disagree.

Yes, lets. I’ll start now, with my working copy of OS X, and you can start whenever your vaporware Windows 7 ships. Let’s measure who has the highest productivity.

HAHA! Vaporware? I am running it on three computers right now, you might want to look up the definition of vaporware. Might I also mention that it’s rock solid, but then again so was Vista SP2 despite the media reputation…

Let me clue you into a secret “Jack”, we here in the cult, don’t really want you on our side. The proliferation of iPhones into the hands of Toothless Appalachian Hillbillies has reaffirmed to me at least that if anything we need to make these goddamned computers even more expensive. We need to get Jon Ive to design a Mac made out of virgin tears, and first kisses, for the explicit purposes of keeping it out the hands of the unwashed masses.

Ah, yes, that is the bullshit Apple Cult smugness I have grown to know and love. It doesn’t take long for the Mac to end up being deified and lifted to a place beyond the reach of us poor average computer users. Where does that leave me? I love both.

If you read the likes of Gizmodo, EnGadget, MacRumors, etc., the new Microsoft commercial is leaving a serious wake. People on both sides are in a tizzy and it’s pretty entertaining.

Laptop Hunters #1 – Lauren

I thought I would put out the flames for a minute and look at this in a very pragmatic way. I am in an interesting place because I actually think for the most part, Apple laptops are a pretty fair price for what you get. The problem comes in when you evaluate what you get against what you need. If we were to build a scenario for this particular young woman, her usage needs might look something like this:

• Use Microsoft Office for Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Browse the Web
• Use an IM Client
• iTunes/Zune to manage a MP3 player
• Manage some photos

Wow, when you take out gaming, editing video and high end graphics work, the needs of your average computer user look pretty pathetic. So based on this particular user, let’s do a reasonable comparison of the PC that Lauren chose against the standard $999 Macbook.

*90% of users do not have gigabit Ethernet or N capable wireless networks.
**The display is really scenario dependant, I called the 17” a win because the user was wanting that, but I wouldn’t consider the 13” a disadvantage to most users.

Now for a second, let’s compare the MacOS/Vista debate. The fact is that more than 90% of the world runs Windows. It’s pretty hard to make a reasonable no fan boy argument that it doesn’t work or isn’t usable. The world runs on Windows, it’s just a reality. Vista SP1 is perfectly stable and reliable, I run it on several machines every day (along with 3 Macs so don’t go there.) So taking that at face value, in this case you are paying $300 more for a machine that is likely slower giving the anemic RAM and can hold half as much data.

For our core user, it breaks down like this:

• She can use Office on both although the Windows version is much more feature rich. To be fair Office is more expensive than iWork, but you get much more and it’s an industry standard. Big win for PC here.
• On either platform she has the option of Safari or Firefox, but IE is Windows only. Odds are she isn’t using anything that requires IE. Wash in most cases.
• IM client wise it’s a wash, with the exception if iChat, all the clients are cross platform. Keep in mind that it’s an 90% Windows world so most of your friends aren’t using iChat anyway. Wash in most cases.
• If you are using an iPod (which you probably are but should really check out the Zune, I just traded my 160GB iPod Classic for my second Zune!) then it really doesn’t matter. If you want subscription based music you better go PC. Wash in most cases.
• Managing photos has lots of options, lots of people will use Photoshop elements, Google Picasa, etc. Windows Live Gallery is a fantastic product and iPhoto is amazing. I would give the technical win in this category to Mac because iPhoto is so good, but in reality the scenario is just as valid on Windows Live Gallery. Wash in most cases.

So what does this all mean? It sounds like it all hinges on how important her Office needs are. If she is your average user making some simple spreadsheets and Word documents, then you can’t go wrong either way. If you need advanced Office work you might want to go PC. I am betting for Lauren it’s a Wash there too. Given that, we still have $300 bucks sitting out there.

Now I will recap a conversation I had with my dad this week. He is considering getting a laptop to replace his aging PC. Want to know what his budget is? He wants to spend around $500. That’s where things get more complicated. $1,000 is NOT the average personal computer budget anymore. Wal Mart sells perfectly “capable” laptops for $389. You can get net books for a few hundred dollars. I hate to bring up the word recession, but if there was a time where price mattered it’s now. It’s time the Apple Fan boys quit saying “but it has an aluminum case!” because nobody really cares.

UPDATE: My dad did buy a new PC, he decided to go with a desktop. He got an LX series Gateway desktop, 2.66Ghz Quad Core Intel, 8GB Ram, 640GB HD, Vista Premium 64, 1GB GT120 nVidia video, TV Tuner, 15-n-1 card reader, Remote..$779. That’s $179 more than the cheapest Mac you can buy.

The whole argument is silly. We bloggers, blog commenters, and flamers are all pretty tech savvy users. Of course we are going to want more from our computer than a $500 machine offers. We all pitched in to get my mother a $500 Dell for Christmas a couple years ago. She still loves it, uses it every day and it works just fine. Interesting…

(FYI, I wrote this on a PC sitting right beside an equally powerful iMac that I use most of the time. Why? Because I would die without Windows Live Writer. I would consider that proof that it’s the scenario that matters, not the machine.)

The following article is directly reprinted from Cult of Mac and I have to say…wow. (Commentary included)

After a decade of being the clear leader driving market trends in computing, Apple’s influence could wane in the post-Steve Jobs era, according to a thoughtful piece posted Tuesday at TG Daily.

Industry analyst Rob Enderle describes Apple’s amazingly diverse impact on wider market trends:

* The iPhone immediately became the gold standard for mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an explosion of new devices and innovation across every mobile software platform;

It takes longer than you think to bring a phone to Market. Touch screen isn’t actually a new an innovative technology. Sure the Apple iPhone is a gorgeous product, I actually own one, but it’s ridiculous to speculate that without the iPhone no other manufacturer would have produced any of the products they have on the market now. Do you think a company can conceptualize a phone, develop all the software and have it to market in under a year? I don’t think so.

* Apple created integration between power and graphics in computer processors that would not have been possible without the company’s commitment to OpenCL, a framework for writing programs that execute across CPUs and GPUs;

Which integration are we talking about here? I must be missing some dramatic technology that doesn’t exist on my Windows PC. And while we are on the subject, if it’s so awesome, why does the Core Graphics powered Aperture run like garbage on every Mac I own where Lightroom is fast and smooth? Maybe it’s NOT such a good idea to try and force so much to the GPU.

* Apple’s focus on design and higher margins resulted in the introduction of products such as the recently released Dell Adamo, a PC notebook designed and marketed to emulate Apple’s attention to every detail from the packaging inward, down to the absence of stickers promoting Microsoft Windows and Intel;

I’ll give you the Adamo, that one is obviously meant to compete with the Macbook Air set, but at least it isn’t as underpowered as a hamster powered Yugo.

* The elegance of the user experience in Mac OS X virtually doomed OEMs’ embrace of Linux to a competition not with Apple but with Windows, an outcome which will affect the introduction of Google’s Android when it comes to market next year as well.

This is an awesome angle. Linux doomed Linux, I wouldn’t go around taking credit for that. That’s like bragging that you beat up a 3rd grader. Oh, and Android is on the market, just nobody noticed.

In short, Enderle writes, “Apple is at the core” of all recent change in the computer industry, that “as a result Apple’s efforts, the products we will see from a variety of vendors will be vastly more amazing than they otherwise would have been.”

Ok, Apple is making some awesome products. But they are also doing some insanely stupid things. I hope that some of the changes don’t make it to mainstream manufacturers: Button less devices, dropping connectivity that everyone uses, no options, overpriced upgrades, software that up sells itself when a new version is out, trying to force you to install other products you don’t want, requiring Apple to install certain upgrades lest you void your warranty, tyranny…oops, that’s just implied.

None of the above is really subject to debate. Enderle goes on to question whether Apple can keep it up in the post-Jobs era, however, and this writer disagrees. Follow the jump to find out why.

Oh it’s up for debate

Enderle sees the general lack of excitement from Apple’s last couple of release events, produced without Jobs, as indicative of waning leadership skills. He believes the introduction of Windows 7 may drive Apple — in the absence of Jobs — back to the position the company was in in the mid-90s. Now that other major vendors understand Apple’s approach, he writes, without Jobs or an apprentice who can continue his work, the changes we have seen in the past decade may stop coming.

General lack of excitement? Of course. They have released an iPod nobody wants. They have released software that you can’t get yet. They have released a Mac Pro that costs more but provides less. They have released a top end consumer computer that doesn’t offer a quad core chip. They have released a bargain computer that costs $600 with no monitor, keyboard or mouse. They have decided that we don’t want numeric keypads anymore. They have decided that Firewire is out dated. They have decided that you should use DisplayPort to connect your monitor then only offer one that costs $800. If you ask me, Steve Jobs must be dead, I just can’t imagine him calling a press conference to release the ridiculous Mac lineup that they offer now.

It’s a given that no major corporation, in recent history, anyway, has been associated with a single individual the way Apple has been with Steve Jobs. And Apple will evolve into something different than it is today when Jobs’ influence becomes the stuff of legend rather than live and in person on a daily basis.

You have that one right.

But even in the period of Steve Job’s greatest influence, Apple’s impact has come from the products themselves. If the products — the hardware and the software — as well as the business model of innovations such as iTunes and the AppStore, had not been transformative, the rest of the computer industry would not have been forced to innovate to stay competitive — no matter how brightly Steve Jobs’ personal aura shined in a keynote presentation.

Again, you can’t honestly take credit for everyone else’s innovations too, seriously. I know you are smug but damn.

And while no one waiting in the wings at Apple has the personal magnetism or child-like enthusiasm of Jobs on the presentation stage, as long as the company continues to innovate in the design studio and on the product front, because it is so far ahead of the competition today it should be able to continue driving innovation among the rest of the industry.

Apparently Personal Magnetism + Child-like Enthusiasm = Big Dick.

It says here that iPhone 3.0 and the inevitable iPhone hardware refresh are going to leave everyone scratching their heads, wondering how in the world to meet the new standard.

I have the iPhone 3.0 software. So I get push email and copy paste along with a few other trivialities and app store apps can use my iTunes library, GPS and talk to my speakers. I am going to need a bit more to make me sit and scratch my head.

Enderle believes Windows 7 is going to be more like Win95 and less like Vista, but if Snow Leopard delivers a new user experience that continues to differentiate the Mac OS and helps increase the perceived value of Apple’s offering, Apple’s rich margins can be preserved and the company will retain the financial position it needs to perpetuate the cycle of design excellence and feature innovation that Steve Jobs put into motion.

Didn’t Apple already say that Snow Leopard is NOT a new user experience but a 64-bit update of the Foundation? I find it hard to believe that the difference between 10.5 and 10.6 are going to be so substantial visually that they are equivalent to 4 version jumps of Windows, get real.

People may one day grow tired of look-alike drones imitating the Steve Jobs dog and pony show, but they will never grow tired of using beautiful products that work the way they are supposed to work and that let people do cool things they never thought they might be able to do, or do so easily.

There is much less imitation than you think going on buddy. Just because Apple gets something to market first doesn’t mean they thought of it. Contrary to common thought, Apple did not invent touch screen phones, online music sales, mp3 players, GUI computers, etc. Just because you make one really nice doesn’t mean you get to claim you invented it.

Apple, and the computer industry itself, ought to be less concerned with who may one day replace Steve Jobs and more with how to keep delivering ever more amazing products. And it doesn’t have to be three or four amazing new things a year, either. One or two every couple of years ought to do just fine.

Well tell them they are un a slump since iPhone, I haven’t been amazed since.

Are you tired of Psystar? Pearc? All of these fly by night rigs trying to steal your software. Are you frustrated with your lack of market share? Lucky for you I have the answer. I’ll give it to you for a million dollars, or I’ll just blog about it and you can steal it, whatever works man.

The Toyota vs. Lexus Theory

We all know Lexus cars are made by Toyota. We all know Acuras are just over priced Hondas. It’s no secret. So what is wrong with Apple themselves coming out with a budget line of computers that run OS X. They they can still control every aspect of it, but cram them into less pretty boxes with cheaper parts and sell them like gangbusters. The Apple faithful will still buy iMacs and Mac Pros like crazy. If you want to keep your brand image, license it to a single company. I would suggest a new company, I wouldn’t get in bed with the likes of Dell or HP, something new and rambunctious with a rep, maybe someone LIKE Psystar. It’s a novel idea, right?

They tried something similar with OS 9 and it failed, but what if they end up with a Brand X, a division of Apple. That way they keep it in the family and don’t end up having to actually license the operating system.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s brilliant. Call them Oranges I am going to go wait by the mailbox for my check.

There is a funny phenomenon on blogs and sites like Digg.com. People lose their damned minds. I don’t know about you, but I have pretty good manners when it comes to dealing with people.

Today I received a comment on an old post of mine that convinced me to write this post. Thank you Mr. Bryan Blevins for his lovely comment, it goes something like this:

I had a hard time installing OS X Leopard. Turns out there was a bug with an app called Clear Dock that totally hosed my install. After two failed attempts, I had to do an archive install, reinstall all of my applications, copy over all of my data and re-create all of my personal settings. I don’t know about you but I call that a pain in the ass. I blogged my experience with the title “My day of hell installing OS X Leopard” and I thought it was. I spent 8 hours getting my laptop back to usable.

http://www.philoking.com/2007/10/26/my-day-of-hell-installing-os-x-leopard/

So today, Mr. Blevins spoke up to tell me what he thought of the difficulty I had:

“Oh Jesus H. Christ! Are you kidding me? You had a DAY of HELL installing Leopard? Box up your computer and send it back to Apple, ’cause you’re too stupid to own a computer.

My install of Leopard took 20 minutes tops, on a system nearly the same as yours.

You had to endure a boring screen for an hour. Oh the horror, how did you ever survive?”

So what I take from this is that:

1. 8 hours of getting your computer back to working is a walk in the park and should be not only accepted but embraced as part of the Apple experience.
2. Since his install too 20 minutes on similar hardware, any issues I encounter are no longer valid.
3. Even though the bug was caused by another program and later recognized by Apple as a bug that affected thousands of users, I should give up all of my computers because not being able to overcome the bug on install day is obviously a leading indicator of my knowledge with computers.

Now I don’t think that’s quite fair, but that’s another issue. The question I have is if I had met Mr. Blevins in public, would he have spoke to me with such disdain and animosity? Reading through a few comments on Digg.com and you would think that the internet is inhabited with sociopaths. If you want to read more you should check out some of my articles where I dared to say I didn’t like a particular game or said something bad about Linux. You would think I was the anti-christ blogging about burning newborn babies.

In this rarest of cases, Brian was nice enough to supply me with his email address. Since I am betting that he did not subscribe to my feed (who wants to hear what such an idiot has to say) I will email him a link to this post and maybe he’ll come back to attack me again.

Chill out dude, so I didn’t like my experience installing OS X, I love Macs so you don’t have to hit me with your fanboy hate.