Apple: The cheaper alternative?
I can't believe what I'm reading. All across the Web, reporters are saying that at Apple's press event next week, the company will unveil an $800 Mac to appeal to those looking to spend less on an Apple computer.
Anyone who has followed Apple since its inception knows that the very idea that Apple could actually compete on the same level as its competitors on price is a shocker. For years, the company has wanted to be considered a boutique vendor that doesn't submit to price leadership to sell units.
Steve Jobs went out of his way to create good-looking devices with a unique experience so he wouldn't have to charge less for his computers and it worked like a charm.
Mac sales have never been higher, and it's quickly becoming apparent that people are more than willing to spend the additional cash to own a Mac. And yet, the rumors that Apple will sell an $800 Mac simply won't go away.
Now, I'm a firm believer that Apple should start lowering its prices to appeal to more consumers and take the fight to Hewlett-Packard and Dell, but if Apple's plan next week is to offer cheaper Macs, I can't help but wonder if this is Apple's new strategy going forward.
I think it is.
Remember when we all made a fuss over how high the price of the original iPhone was? Do you remember when we all rejoiced as Apple announced that the lower-end iPhone would retail for $199?
And if you look at the iPod, now you can spend as little as $49 for the iPod Shuffle, $149 for an iPod Nano, and $229 for the iPod Touch. And just in case you want an Apple TV, the entry-level price of $229 isn't too bad for a set-top box with that kind of functionality.
Do you see what I'm getting at here? Apple is quickly becoming a company that offers high-quality products at a relatively affordable price. And if it decides to sell a Mac for $800, I don't think there's any debating the fact that Jobs has decided to change his company's business model.
And what a change that would be. As I mentioned, Apple is a boutique vendor on a number of levels and has decided that it would rather offer products for a higher price than play the pricing game. But as economic conditions change and people need to think more about their wallets than they may have over the past few years, Apple feels it needs to change its course and compete more effectively against HP and Dell.
Will it work? I can guarantee that it will. But what will it do to Apple's image? As long as the company continues providing high-quality products that easily eclipse the competition, I don't think it will have anything to worry about on that front either.
Apple's decision to offer a cheaper Mac is a smart one. But it goes beyond a cheaper product. In reality, Apple is now a changed company that will compete on price. And it's because of that that its competitors should be scared.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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While I think what you did for your brother is very nice, non-technical people would have a tough time picking out all of the individual components. If they don't have someone as kind as you to setup their computer for free, then they'd have to hire someone like Geek Squad. Apple will help you with most of the issues that arise at a Genius bar. If you build a computer for your brother, you also become the defacto 24/7 technical support hot line. If the typical WinTel PC computer user needed help, they again would have to call Geek Squad for help. Check out these prices:
PC Setup - $129.99
Operating system install - $229.99
Software Suite Install - $149.99
Software Install - $129.99
Computer Optimization - 129.99
Source:
http://www.geeksquad.com/services/computer/category.aspx?id=455
An Apple store has a Genius bar that will move over all of your windows info to a Mac for free. If you had to re-install the OS, they would also do this for free. These are all very real costs that come with a computer, but that isn't reflected in the price of components that are required to build a PC.
Quite right. I actually do this for a living part time -- computer consulting for home office and small business. And to be honest, the bill would be about $250 higher after throwing in scavenging-time & labor. Add in the operating system for $120, and a 24" display, and you're already up to the price of a 3 GHz iMac anyway -- minus the convenience factor of having all your hardware (including the display) covered under a single warranty.
So, yeah, this post is sort of self defeating. :-)
Furthermore, in a year, when apple is halfway between model updates for your model, the guy who "built" his computer has a lot of "cheap" options for boosting performance without buying a whole new system. The one who purchased the Apple product doesn't have this option. Which leads to point 2: Apple product cycles are longer than their competitors.
Now, Apple has many positive points and I don't mean to malign them. (I don't own a macintosh, but I do appreciate certain features of their OS.) But these are two negatives about Apple's current product lines and development cycles that I think most objective people would agree with. And, furthermore, I think there is a large portion of the market interested in a mid-range tower (which makes Apple's lack of such a product... interesting).
My 2 cents...
The mini isn't very popular, but it's no slacker in terms of the CPU and ports it offers. And it's FAR less OS limited than your generic PC, which can't run OS X. That is a huge advantage on it's own, but it also comes with the best software you can find for photo, movie, music, web, etc... all included. There is no keyboard and mouse, but I think their idea there was to use the ones from your PC--which it was designed to replace.
That limitation is due to a marketing decision by Apple. There is no technical reason why OS X can't run on regular PC hardware.
And you obviously haven't looked around much lately, because there are FAR more operating systems that will run on a generic PC than on a Mac.
who gives a crap? i mean, really now. we're NOT all fanboys, you know...
I hope you're not charging your clients too much.
So you are saying as a software engineer you can't figure out how to use a Mac. Ok first off you are quite ambiguous. You are using the term "Mac" as representing what? Is it the computer hardware or the operating system. The hardware is designed such that a toddler could remove it from a box and connect the cables. You power a new one up and it prompts you in a few questions the information it needs to self configure. So that part is a no-brainer.
The operating system is seamless, you hardly know its there and little requirements to use it. In general OS X manages your files, allows you easy access, and using common sense to integration into everyday life. Just like the trash can, it doesn't ask you over and over, are you sure you want to delete the files. The system it self handles security quietly and behind the scenes. Writing HTML based documentation, my gawd IE ask you over and over and are you sure over and over just to open a file. It is pure craziness.
As far as naming the Mini as the cheaper alternative people are not looking for desktops that much any more. The desktop computer has become the laptop and smart phones are replacing the old laptop for on the go personal use.
Again I have to go back to your statement, "nobody knowing how to use a Mac." That is just pure nonsense, OS X is the easiest yet most powerful operating system to use.
I thing you say that because you probably had work for decades only with MSWindows. So when a person see something different just get scared. But the situation here, is if that person take the time to adapt it self, I bet anything that that person most probably will choose on the future an Apple computer.
I'm sorry you find it so difficult. What kind of software do you engineer? I'd like to know so I can avoid it.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html
Again, Mac OS is based off of Unix, and Apple makes much of the source for the OS available to developers.
"Also, some people are used to being able to (or needing to) locate and manipulate every system and program file on their computer."
*nix Geeks are among the most computer savvy users in the world. Just open up a console window in Mac OS X and login as 'root' and have at it. Head on over to SourceForge.net and check out a few open source projects
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html
The customization options on the Unix based Mac OS are limitless...
That means even a $800 Apple laptop is still TWICE the price of a PC laptop that's probably overkill for most people already.
It's no wonder why Apple is forced to lower their price points, and yet still have their shares downgraded...
Try to configure a laptop with software and hardware similar to what Apple offers and you will find Apple is cheaper in some instances.
If you want a Dell or an HP with the exact same specs as, say, a MacBookPro, you'll end up paying HP and/or Dell anywhere from tens to hundreds of dollars more.
If you want a Dell or HP with the same specs as, say, an 8-core PowerMac, be prepared to pay a rather obscene amount of excess cash to Dell or HP for the privilege.
The author was a bit off - it isn;t that Apple is a 'boutique' seller, it's that they are a primarily high-end seller.
Your $399 laptop is more often than not loaded with grey-market parts ("house-brand" RAM that carries a slower speed or has no error-checking, a slower and usually narrower FSB, a screen that has a slower refresh rate and almost always gains its first dead pixel before the first year is up, slower RPM HDD's with smaller buffers, etc). Oftentimes the cheap rigs don't have components that match well with each other, causing an untold number of internal errors that slow things down considerably. The only quality component you're likely to find in a cheap laptop is the CPU, but even then it's quite likely a process generation behind (e.g. 90nm instead of 45nm, etc).
You can keep the cheap stuff. At least w/ an Apple, you know up-front that all the parts are matched, that the quality is going to hold up, and that the system (and OS) will perform exactly as described (unlike the "Vista Capable" debacle)... you can even test them in the store if you like.
/P
/P
For most that bother to try it, OS-X makes a computer worth twice the price of that Windoze powered machine.
I can say this with confidence because:
1) I can count on one hand (and have four fingers left over) the number of credible viruses that have come out for Linux since 2001... and that last once required that you had a system that was unpatched for the previous 12 months or more before it came out.
2) Ditto for OSX - outside of the lab, all that has come down the pike are at most a handful of trojans that required one to surf to some rather shady websites in the first place.
So - given all of this, why in the unholy Hell should anyone be forced to pay $50+ per year AND waste system CPU cycles on something that is about as common as a hurricane in North Dakota?
Now if you have Windows, yeah - get an A/V solution and keep your defs current - all the botnets zombies out there are 99.99% Windows-based for a reason...
/P
Probably can't engineer software "to save [your] life," either. Windows must be way beyond your ability to comprehend, too. What kind of computers do you use? Leapfrog?
by bmelendy October 10, 2008 9:46 AM PDT
"But how will they address the problem of nobody knowing how to use a Mac? I'm a software engineer and I can't use a mac to save my life. They do look cool though."
Please let me know, ASAHumanlyP, for which company you are a "software engineer," or consultant, as I want to make certain that I do not engage their services going forward -- especially when one of their engineers, you, is so un-smart as to not be able to "use a mac to save their life [sic]." Pathetic!
Let me say that most of intelligent Engineers people that I know prefer a Mac than a PC with Windows. I prefer a Mac or a PC with Linux for Desktop. For servers I prefer Linux or Unix. So by your words I must be retarded... because I try not to use MS Windows and I prefer use a Apple computer or Linux than a Windows PC. :-))))
The ones that can't use a MAC is because they just are to much pro-Microsoft and too much limited to change. So your theory of "MAC is designed for retards" is just bad language. Mac is designed with intelligence for humans and that is why some people, like you, will never understand why people like Mac.
Mac OS has a learning curve of a few hours, having an experienced user showing you what to push and where to drag. One of the least intuitive things at first is the concept of installing by dragging to the Application folder.
Another thing about engineers - most of them work for large corporations, and corporations are locked into some sort of convoluted love affair with Microsoft. This is simply because the systems IT has in place are so large they would be difficult to migrate to any other platform other than Windows XP SP3.
The whole system is just resistant to change.
Where I live, a cheap two wheel drive pickup will "work," somehow or another. However, if you wish to really accomplish something, easily and effectively, a four wheel drive works much better. Does that mean that the auto manufacturers should try to compete by trying to make a four wheel drive pickup at the same price point as a two wheel drive? Yes, if the Windows Whiners were to have their way.
If you buy computers on the cheap, you get what they pay for - a cheap system with a questionable operating system. If you chose to do so, have at it. Apple makes a decent computer, at a decent price that, above all, WORKS, first time, every time.
I would prefer that Apple continue to make machines that work. Leave the cheap market to PCs and buyers that believe they should be able to get a Porsche for the price of a Daewoo and, actually, like Windows...
A lot of opinion, not much substance and too many insults.
You are correct that windows and OSX are not the only alternatives. You seem, however, to omit Apple's position on value added. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but to not mention their point of view at all suggests you don't know, don't properly understand or don't care.... any of which really disqualifies you from having an objective knowledgeable conversation on the topic.
An $800 Apple laptop would be quite welcome!