Apple Marketing/Manufacturing Woes
Frederick Goff
manufacturing/marketing policies. Flame throwers and religious fanatics are
advised to go to the religion and senseless violence newsgroups.
It is a fact that since it's introduction over 10 years ago, the Apple
Macintosh has only gained a 10% market share worldwide. Furthermore, over
90% of that market is in the graphic arts and publishing industries.
(Source: MacWeek.)
It is a fact that despite brisk Power Mac sales, well over 90% are to
current Mac houses and owners upgrading their systems. There has been
practically no move from the PC platform to the Mac platform in corporate
America (source: MacWeek).
If Apple has the friendliest, easiest-to-use, most wonderful computer
system ever created by man, why don't they command a much larger (say a
Microsoftish) portion of the market?
The typical implication both by Apple and its more fanatic adeherents is
that: "well, everyone who doesn't buy a Mac is just, like man, too stupid
to know it's a better machine." This is nothing more than making excuses
not to mention being insulting and condescending (one of Apple's serious
faults--more about that later).
You can take it as a fact that the majority of human beings are, insults
aside, intelligent enough to make competent decisions and the obvious
conclusion is that 90% of the people who purchase computers do not think
the Macintosh is the better choice. Note I said better choice, not better
computer. Many factors go into the purchase of a computer, particularly a
large purchase, other than the quality of the machine.
Why is this so? The Macintosh is arguably easier to use, more
cost-effective in the long run and people using it are more productive.
Although none of these conclusions is cast in stone, you can find good
arguments to support them.
In my opinion Apple itself is the problem, not their machines. In fact,
when you look at the way Apple conducts business, it's a testament to the
wondrousness of the Mac that it has any market share at all, and it is no
surprise that corporate America isn't interested in Macintosh.
1. Apple marketing. "It costs more...it does less," or is that "It does
more...it costs less...gee, let's go out and buy a Macintesh." I have never
seen such a lackluster, unimaginative, boring, uninspiring and unconvincing
set of ads as those put out by Apple. But then, you'll only see Apple
advertise in MacWeek and like publications. Where's the advertising that
makes you want to go out and buy a Macintosh? And where's the ads that will
hit the PC market and corporate America?
I saw an ad a while ago on television that showed several people expressing
frustration with their PC boxes. They would hit the keyboard and say things
like "I am hitting the enter key," or "I'm doing what you said," or
(holding up a disk) "you better give this back to me when you're done with
it." The narrator then went on to explain how wonderful it would be if you
could talk to your computer and it would understand you. The scene then
pans to an executive ordering his computer to open a spreadsheet.
I thought to myself, now this is an ad. Although I'm not a huge fan of the
Macintosh (I work on it every day and find it a competent machine), this
impressed the bejeebers out of me as to the power of a Mac. Imagine my
surprise when the camera zoomed onto a COMPAQ OPENING A WINDOWS
APPLICATION!!!
This was an ad that Apple should have done. Unlike current Apple
advertisement, it didn't bash the competition, it didn't pass itself off as
arrogant or condescending. It didn't put you to sleep, and it got you
excited about what a computer could do for you. The whole feel of the ad
was "You're not a stupid person, you just want the computer to do what you
want it to do. Ours does." Apple should hire Compaq's marketing staff and
fire their own.
2. Proprietary: There have been many arguments in the newgroups about the
Mac being proprietary. All of those to the side, the simple fact is, you
can only buy a computer that will run Macintosh software from Apple. It
doesn't matter who makes what or what other peripherals are available and
from whom. If you want to run Adobe Photoshop for the Mac, then you buy the
machine from Apple. Period. End of discussion.
What's wrong with proprietary? It makes corporations nervous. Once you buy
from a proprietary source, you're stuck with them no matter how they treat
you.
I'm sure many people will make the claim that MS Windows is also
proprietary in that only Microsoft (the company we love to hate) provides
it. This is a misleading statement. To make a valid comparison, you would
have to say that you could not run any software without Windows and
although there are a tremendous number of titles written for Windows, you
can find titles for OS/2, UNIX, and System 7.x.
There have been several letters to MacWeek expressing this concern from
corporate purchasers. Even though the Mac might be a better computer, once
you buy from them, you're stuck with them. Why is this bad?
A. Customer support from hell. Ever tried to get through to Apple's
customer support? Get ready for a 2-hour wait. Then if you do get through,
try and get a meaningful answer. When we called about the new 630, they
didn't even know the product existed! On the flip side, PC World did a
comparison of customer service in various mail order companies. If you had
to hold the line for more than 15 minutes, the company was bumped to dead
last.
Of course, you can usually get a better response from Applelink, except
that Apple charges you for the "privilege" of subsribing to their company
BBS (imagine the screams if Microsoft tried that).
B. Focus group(ies). Def. a bunch of ex-hippie Apple executives who
sense the karmic auras of what their customers want and base multi-million
dollar manufacturing decisions on them. To whit: Duo 230s, millions of
dollars in excess inventory--no one wants them. LC III, so popular that
Apple only made a few thousand and everyone had to wait weeks or months for
one. Power Mac 8100: same story. Heck, Power Macs in general: same story.
C. Larry, Mo and Curly's quality control department. To whit: the
Newton. Hey, we've got a modem, but we didn't write a driver for it. The
Newton: hey, it recognizes handwriting, sort of. Well, okay, it recognizes
handwriting if you write the way we programmed it to recognize your
handwriting. Well, @$%#, alright, just pretend it recognizes handwriting
you stupid Windows user! PowerMac: hey, we've changed the Nubus
configuration and now some Nubus cards break when you put them in (yuk,
yuk). Power Mac upgrade: (wop, wop) you can't install PowerTalk once you
install the upgrade card. That's because we didn't let the PowerTalk script
recognize the upgrade card system software (whou, whou, whou).
D. Backward compatibility. Def. you look great in a tight pair of
jeans. Buy an AV and flip a coin. Will your software work? Buy a Power Mac
and take a cut in performance as the joke of an emulator tries to figure it
all out.
E. An unstable system. How many times have you heard the phrase: "hold
down the shift key while restarting." Or how about an entire chapter in the
Mac Bible devoted to system crashes, bombs, errors, what they mean and how
to deal with them. Add an extension and take a chance, even commercially
produced extensions can hang your system.
F. Memory Hog. System 7.5 takes nearly 5 megs of RAM with QuickDraw GX
installed. You need at least 8 Megs on your Mac to run effectively.
Conversely, a Windows system with ony 4 Megs can open twice as many
comparable applications performing comparable tasks (try it).
3. Arrogance, arrogance, arrogance (oh, and did I say arrogance?). The
whole company reeks with arrogance and condescension, as do many MacFiends.
You use Windows? Man, are you one stupid @#%$. You like DOS machines? Geez,
what a stupid @^#%. You don't think God wrote the ten commandments on a
Power Mac using QuarkXpress? You #*$&%), $%*&^%, $&O*, etc.
You want to be part of the Open Doc collaborative team? Fork over $10,000 a
year and .001% of your profits and maybe we'll send you some pre-release
software.
We call it the "Finder" because people are too stupid to understand
anything more complicated like desktop or workplace or (heaven forbid) file
manager. We call them "documents" regardless of their file type because we
don't want people to get their little heads confused by differentiating
between an actual document, a graphics file, a binary file, etc.
Industry Standards? Hey, we don't need no industry standards. We ARE the
industry standard and if you don't want to do it our way, then you're just
a stupid *&%^& "Windoze" user anyway and we don't want you.
I've intentionally been sarcastic in criticizing Apple's business sense.
The fact that they're not bankrupt right now is a testament to how good
their "core" machine and system is. The Mac withstands despite Apple's
total asininity (is that a real word?). But, unless they get their act
together and perform like a business and not a bunch of "feel-good,
arrogant, blue jeans and t-shirt elitists," they'll never break the PC
market domination and they'll eat Microsoft's dust forever.
Replies are welcome provided they're informed opinions (to the best of your
ability--no one knows everything). Caustic humor is particularly
appreciated, personal attacks and insults are not.
Fred Goff
"The right machine for the right job."
"I think, therefore I'm Republican."
Jon Bodner
(Frederick Goff) wrote:
I really should know better than to go along with this thread, but hey,
what else do I have to do with my time? :)
> This is a serious question and debate regarding Apple's
> manufacturing/marketing policies. Flame throwers and religious fanatics are
> advised to go to the religion and senseless violence newsgroups.
Amen.
>
> It is a fact that since it's introduction over 10 years ago, the Apple
> Macintosh has only gained a 10% market share worldwide. Furthermore, over
> 90% of that market is in the graphic arts and publishing industries.
> (Source: MacWeek.)
>
> It is a fact that despite brisk Power Mac sales, well over 90% are to
> current Mac houses and owners upgrading their systems. There has been
> practically no move from the PC platform to the Mac platform in corporate
> America (source: MacWeek).
>
> If Apple has the friendliest, easiest-to-use, most wonderful computer
> system ever created by man, why don't they command a much larger (say a
> Microsoftish) portion of the market?
>
The only reason I ever give for Apple not really needing to worry about
its current market share is the simple fact that Apple is #1 or #2 in
shipping units. The backlogs you site later on in your article are signs
of this (as well as the fact that Apple suffers from a serious case of
cranial-rectal inverstion when it comes to preparing for demand when a new
product is released.)
IBM has a smaller market share of the computers it _invented_! Think
about that major flub for a bit...
> The typical implication both by Apple and its more fanatic adeherents is
> that: "well, everyone who doesn't buy a Mac is just, like man, too stupid
> to know it's a better machine." This is nothing more than making excuses
> not to mention being insulting and condescending (one of Apple's serious
> faults--more about that later).
>
> You can take it as a fact that the majority of human beings are, insults
> aside, intelligent enough to make competent decisions and the obvious
> conclusion is that 90% of the people who purchase computers do not think
> the Macintosh is the better choice. Note I said better choice, not better
> computer. Many factors go into the purchase of a computer, particularly a
> large purchase, other than the quality of the machine.
>
> Why is this so? The Macintosh is arguably easier to use, more
> cost-effective in the long run and people using it are more productive.
> Although none of these conclusions is cast in stone, you can find good
> arguments to support them.
>
People used to say "No one has ever been fired for buying IBM." When
1-2-3 came out for the original IBM PC, people ran from their Apple IIs
running Visicalc to the PC. Things became entrenched. Just as Apple was
able to acquire market share by placing computers in school, IBM acquired
market share through businesses using 1-2-3...and then the clones came
along (send in the clones?)...once you reach a certain installed base,
compatibility becomes more important than quality. See the VHS/BetaMax
for historical reference.
The fact that Apple has its market share (and shows no signs of going away
any time soon) is proof that they created something pretty good...just
about every other alternative has gone to Computer Heaven...
> In my opinion Apple itself is the problem, not their machines. In fact,
> when you look at the way Apple conducts business, it's a testament to the
> wondrousness of the Mac that it has any market share at all, and it is no
> surprise that corporate America isn't interested in Macintosh.
>
> 1. Apple marketing. "It costs more...it does less," or is that "It does
> more...it costs less...gee, let's go out and buy a Macintesh." I have never
> seen such a lackluster, unimaginative, boring, uninspiring and unconvincing
> set of ads as those put out by Apple. But then, you'll only see Apple
> advertise in MacWeek and like publications. Where's the advertising that
> makes you want to go out and buy a Macintosh? And where's the ads that will
> hit the PC market and corporate America?
Apple's marketing blows donkey. Despite the fact that there is great
product placement in the popular media ("Seinfeld" has a Duo on his desk
in the background, the current cover of "Time" has the guy holding a
PB500, the "status symbol" in Hollywood of using a PowerBook, etc.), Apple
has fumbled often.
There SHOULD have been a PowerMac commerical during the SuperBowl. (My
idea was that the PowerMac should have been showing the original "1984"
commercial as a QuickTime movie while a voice-over says "10 years ago,
Apple changed the world with Macintosh. March 14th, Apple does it
again.", then pan away, and the computer should speak (using PlainTalk) to
say something along the lines of "Power Macintosh. Coming Soon. From
Apple." But what do I know, right?)
Apple should be rubbing it in Intel's face that their "Flying Pentium" ads
were done on an 840av, perhaps getting the people at ElectricImage (who
wrote the software which was used) to say why they wrote for the Mac.
Perhaps a quick cut of the Pentium ad being designed as well.
Apple should have done SOMETHING to advertise PlainTalk. You are
completly right about Compaq stealing a march from Apple on that one.
[deleted]
> B. Focus group(ies). Def. a bunch of ex-hippie Apple executives who
> sense the karmic auras of what their customers want and base multi-million
> dollar manufacturing decisions on them. To whit: Duo 230s, millions of
> dollars in excess inventory--no one wants them. LC III, so popular that
> Apple only made a few thousand and everyone had to wait weeks or months for
> one. Power Mac 8100: same story. Heck, Power Macs in general: same story.
>
I think the Duo is a rather awesome computer (My next Mac might be a Duo,
IF there is a TrackPad and PPC). Since the Duo is the #1 selling
subnotebook computer, there are plenty of people who agree with me...I
don't know how the 230 did, however...
And Apple has reduced its inventory by a lot...it is one of the signs
which is encouraging Wall Street Analysists.
> C. Larry, Mo and Curly's quality control department. To whit: the
> Newton. Hey, we've got a modem, but we didn't write a driver for it. The
> Newton: hey, it recognizes handwriting, sort of. Well, okay, it recognizes
> handwriting if you write the way we programmed it to recognize your
> handwriting. Well, @$%#, alright, just pretend it recognizes handwriting
> you stupid Windows user! PowerMac: hey, we've changed the Nubus
> configuration and now some Nubus cards break when you put them in (yuk,
> yuk). Power Mac upgrade: (wop, wop) you can't install PowerTalk once you
> install the upgrade card. That's because we didn't let the PowerTalk script
> recognize the upgrade card system software (whou, whou, whou).
>
The problem is with handwriting recognition in general. Do you have any
idea how hard it is? I've done a TINY bit of work on it, and it is a
bitch. The Newton is generally recognized as one of the best, if not the
best. The problem is that the best is still not good enough...
As for quality control.. "You use that word. I do not think it means what
you think it means."
Quality control is making sure that when you ship a computer, it does
not fall apart when you take it home. What you are talking about is
"compatibility." If newer machines are slightly (sometimes maddingly)
incompatible with older stuff, it happens. A friend of mine bought an
Ambra PC last year. He wanted to run OS/2, but he couldn't for a while,
because the IBM hardware did not work with the IBM software (Ambra was a
division of IBM until IBM killed it a few days ago). He needed to get a
new controller card for his CD-ROM. He still doesn't use OS/2 much, since
he can't find enough software which will work with his machine...talk
about compatibility problems.
> D. Backward compatibility. Def. you look great in a tight pair of
> jeans. Buy an AV and flip a coin. Will your software work? Buy a Power Mac
> and take a cut in performance as the joke of an emulator tries to figure it
> all out.
>
The PowerMac is emulating a whole different chip. It isn't so bad,
considering. Furthermore, it is a speed INCREASE for everything except
for the currently shipping desktop machines and the Quadra 800. Not so
bad for millions of Mac owners whose machines are discontinued.
> E. An unstable system. How many times have you heard the phrase: "hold
[deleted]
Name ONE system which doesn't crash. Don't say Un*x, since I have hung
SunOS so bad that the machine needed a hard reboot. It only took a 2-line
program, too...(It was a project for an OS class. I goofed on some socket
stuff. Goofed pretty badly, don't you think?)
> F. Memory Hog. System 7.5 takes nearly 5 megs of RAM with QuickDraw GX
> installed. You need at least 8 Megs on your Mac to run effectively.
> Conversely, a Windows system with ony 4 Megs can open twice as many
> comparable applications performing comparable tasks (try it).
>
That Windows system with 4 MB RAM will be so slow, it is painful. The
difference is the way Windows handles VM. It will just use a swap file
instead. So, you can do the same on your Mac. Run VM or RAMDoubler. I
do.
[deleted]
> You want to be part of the Open Doc collaborative team? Fork over $10,000 a
> year and .001% of your profits and maybe we'll send you some pre-release
> software.
>
This I had not heard about. I thought that developing for OpenDoc was free...
> We call it the "Finder" because people are too stupid to understand
> anything more complicated like desktop or workplace or (heaven forbid) file
> manager. We call them "documents" regardless of their file type because we
> don't want people to get their little heads confused by differentiating
> between an actual document, a graphics file, a binary file, etc.
>
"What is a name? Would a rose by any other name smell less sweet?"
Apple could call it the Flying Wolinda if it made them feel better. And
if you use Easy Open, the Flying Wolinda (or Finder, if you prefer) tells
you what type of your document is.
> Industry Standards? Hey, we don't need no industry standards. We ARE the
> industry standard and if you don't want to do it our way, then you're just
> a stupid *&%^& "Windoze" user anyway and we don't want you.
>
Apple supports: SCSI, PCI, OpenDoc, VGA, SVGA, DAL, TCP/IP, 80486
Compatibility (with the DOS Compatibility Card), Apple II (with the IIe
Card), FireWire, Ethernet, MIDI, DOS disk formats, Photo-CD, NTSC, PAL,
soon ATM, and more which I am probably forgetting. Which of these are not
"Industry Standards?" With the exception of the Apple II, none of these
are from Apple.
[deleted]
> Fred Goff
-jon
behe...@revolution.com
>This is a serious question and debate regarding Apple's
>manufacturing/marketing policies. Flame throwers and religious fanatics
> are
>advised to go to the religion and senseless violence newsgroups.
>
>It is a fact that since it's introduction over 10 years ago, the Apple
>Macintosh has only gained a 10% market share worldwide. Furthermore,
> over
>90% of that market is in the graphic arts and publishing industries.
>
Everything you have said is quite valid. But as a System Administrator
running an internet site- I know why I use Macintosh! Nuff said......
Marcus Mullins
[incredibly large post deleted]
Do you really expect many people to read all of this?
I read it until I got to the part about the flying camels and I gave up. ;-)
--
Marcus Mullins
Mead Data Central
/* All opinions expressed are my own */
Shawn V. Hernan
bod...@rpi.edu (Jon Bodner) writes:
> Quality control is making sure that when you ship a computer, it does
> not fall apart when you take it home.
Well, not really.
"Quality Control" is ensuring that all your products are of uniform or
nearly uniform quality, not necessarily of high quality. It is the job
of a QC Engineer to find ways to cut costs while mainting quality, and
to raise quality while not increasing costs, and to ensure uniform
quality.
Of course, as the American Car industry discovered, it is better in the
long run to strive to improve quality.
Shawn
Shawn Valentine Hernan |
The University of Pittsburgh | Dump the RICO Laws
vale...@pitt.edu |
412-624-6425 |
William M. Eldridge
I do a lot of work on Motorola Nexts, and the only time
I've had to reboot was from a game that had a memory leak.
Other than that, the machine does not crash. I'm sure
someone can make it crash, but in doing the same types of
operations on Macs and PCs, I'm continually getting lockups.
Second, is that Macintosh may have a 10% share, but it's
all theirs. PCs are everybody's game, so it's not surprising
that there are a lot of players, and that the price is often
lower (oh oh, flame button alert - better go now). For that
matter, it's not surprising there are more compatibility
problems with PCs.
--
Bill Eldridge
bi...@lifesci.ucla.edu Still confused about bitrates and nitrates.
310-206-3960
310-206-3987 (fax)
sergey_solyanik
>I fail to understand why so many people are obsessed with market share.
>As long as the software I need continues to be available at a price I',m
>willing to pay, I could care less about Apple's market share.
Well, you might reconsider when software ceases to be available. AutoCAD had
discontinued its Macintosh line. I don't know if MicroSoft is porting its
apps, at least I don't see them...
Sergey....@Bentley.Com
#include <disclaimer.h>
kar...@news.delphi.com
>It is a fact that despite brisk Power Mac sales, well over 90% are to
>current Mac houses and owners upgrading their systems. There has been
>practically no move from the PC platform to the Mac platform in corporate
>America (source: MacWeek).
No matter what Apple or anyone else tells you, the first generation of
Macs were designed for current Mac users. If its Apple's strategy to
build up an install base of users and therefore application support by
first enticing Mac owners to upgrade, it's a very good one. Right now,
the PwerMacs have little to offer most PC users to get them to switch.
It won't be until the second generation of Macs that this will change.
>If Apple has the friendliest, easiest-to-use, most wonderful computer
>system ever created by man, why don't they command a much larger (say a
>Microsoftish) portion of the market?
What most people fail to realize is that Apple is a hardware company.
Apple makes most of its money off hardware just like Compaq, Dell, etc.
Every hardware company needs to differentiate themselves in some way.
Apple does it by the Mac OS. No single hardware manufacturere can hope
to sell 40% of the world's CPU's. The computer market is just to big.
>The typical implication both by Apple and its more fanatic adeherents is
>that: "well, everyone who doesn't buy a Mac is just, like man, too stupid
>to know it's a better machine." This is nothing more than making excuses
>not to mention being insulting and condescending (one of Apple's serious
>faults--more about that later).
People didn't by Macs because they were overpriced compared to PC's until
'92 and they were underpowered until the introduction of the PowerMacs.
People buy PC's or Macs because of compatibility and/or the software they
need or want is only available for one type o machine or the other, now
that most of the best selling software is available for both platforms,
people buy their computer based on the OS(s). X86 compatibilty is too
important to too many people to switch over to Macs.
>You can take it as a fact that the majority of human beings are, insults
>aside, intelligent enough to make competent decisions and the obvious
>conclusion is that 90% of the people who purchase computers do not think
>the Macintosh is the better choice. Note I said better choice, not better
>computer. Many factors go into the purchase of a computer, particularly a
>large purchase, other than the quality of the machine.
>In my opinion Apple itself is the problem, not their machines. In fact,
>when you look at the way Apple conducts business, it's a testament to the
>wondrousness of the Mac that it has any market share at all, and it is no
>surprise that corporate America isn't interested in Macintosh.
I fail to understand why so many people are obsessed with market share.
As long as the software I need continues to be available at a price I',m
willing to pay, I could care less about Apple's market share.
>1. Apple marketing. "It costs more...it does less," or is that "It does
>more...it costs less...gee, let's go out and buy a Macintesh." I have never
>seen such a lackluster, unimaginative, boring, uninspiring and unconvincing
>set of ads as those put out by Apple. But then, you'll only see Apple
>advertise in MacWeek and like publications. Where's the advertising that
>makes you want to go out and buy a Macintosh? And where's the ads that will
>hit the PC market and corporate America?
good question.
>I saw an ad a while ago on television that showed several people expressing
>frustration with their PC boxes. They would hit the keyboard and say things
>like "I am hitting the enter key," or "I'm doing what you said," or
>(holding up a disk) "you better give this back to me when you're done with
>it." The narrator then went on to explain how wonderful it would be if you
>could talk to your computer and it would understand you. The scene then
>pans to an executive ordering his computer to open a spreadsheet.
I had the same feeling when I saw the commercial.
>2. Proprietary: There have been many arguments in the newgroups about the
>Mac being proprietary. All of those to the side, the simple fact is, you
>can only buy a computer that will run Macintosh software from Apple. It
>doesn't matter who makes what or what other peripherals are available and
>from whom. If you want to run Adobe Photoshop for the Mac, then you buy the
>machine from Apple. Period. End of discussion.
Whether you or anyone else likes it, it keeps Apple in business and to
some degree isolates it from the competition. I bet right now, IBM wish
it could migrate completely to the PowerPS and be sure that 10 - 15% of
the market would eventually follow. Apple is the only pc manufacturer
that has any sort of loyal base. A Compaq or IBM owner wouldn't hesitate for
one minute to buy a competing product from another PC manufacturer.
>What's wrong with proprietary? It makes corporations nervous. Once you buy
>from a proprietary source, you're stuck with them no matter how they treat
>you.
But it also seems to have helped Apple to consistently make a profit. We
all see where being non-proprietary got IBM (in the red)/
> A. Customer support from hell. Ever tried to get through to Apple's
>customer support? Get ready for a 2-hour wait. Then if you do get through,
>try and get a meaningful answer. When we called about the new 630, they
>didn't even know the product existed! On the flip side, PC World did a
>comparison of customer service in various mail order companies. If you had
>to hold the line for more than 15 minutes, the company was bumped to dead
>last.
I've never had a problem with customer suport the few times I've needed
it. But most of the time you can just call your local Apple reseller
(like ComputerLand not Sears).
> D. Backward compatibility. Def. you look great in a tight pair of
>jeans. Buy an AV and flip a coin. Will your software work? Buy a Power Mac
>and take a cut in performance as the joke of an emulator tries to figure it
>all out.
The emulation is a transistional tool. What would you have suggested
Apple do, stick with the dead end 68K line? While CISC may still be
alive, Motorola has shown over the years that its too incompetent to
compete with Intel.
> E. An unstable system. How many times have you heard the phrase: "hold
>down the shift key while restarting." Or how about an entire chapter in the
>Mac Bible devoted to system crashes, bombs, errors, what they mean and how
>to deal with them. Add an extension and take a chance, even commercially
>produced extensions can hang your system.
How is it Apple's fault that an extension -- something that changes the
OS-- crashes? Most extensions that people use are unneccessary risks.
> F. Memory Hog. System 7.5 takes nearly 5 megs of RAM with QuickDraw GX
>installed. You need at least 8 Megs on your Mac to run effectively.
>Conversely, a Windows system with ony 4 Megs can open twice as many
>comparable applications performing comparable tasks (try it).
As long as you don't run out of System resources. Does Windows have
anything like QuickDraw GX? System 7 takes up less memory than a
comparable Windows-based PC.
>3. Arrogance, arrogance, arrogance (oh, and did I say arrogance?). The
>whole company reeks with arrogance and condescension, as do many MacFiends.
>You use Windows? Man, are you one stupid @#%$. You like DOS machines? Geez,
>what a stupid @^#%. You don't think God wrote the ten commandments on a
>Power Mac using QuarkXpress? You #*$&%), $%*&^%, $&O*, etc.
Maybe because we know that we don't have to worry about the idiocy of
DOS/Windows. I couldn't help but laugh when PC Magazines raved about
long filenames like it was the second coming.
>We call it the "Finder" because people are too stupid to understand
>anything more complicated like desktop or workplace or (heaven forbid) file
>manager. We call them "documents" regardless of their file type because we
>don't want people to get their little heads confused by differentiating
>between an actual document, a graphics file, a binary file, etc.
They are still all documents. How is File Manager, or WorkPlace any
better name than Finder? Besides the Finder does a lot more than manage
Files.
>Industry Standards? Hey, we don't need no industry standards. We ARE the
>industry standard and if you don't want to do it our way, then you're just
>a stupid *&%^& "Windoze" user anyway and we don't want you.
Let's see, Apple uses standard (more or less) SCSI, 72-pin simms, VGA
monitors, etc. Where Apple is non-standard its because the standard is
not up to par. IDE is much less a standard than SCSI, which is used in
workstations, Macs, and PC's.
>I've intentionally been sarcastic in criticizing Apple's business sense.
>The fact that they're not bankrupt right now is a testament to how good
>their "core" machine and system is. The Mac withstands despite Apple's
>total asininity (is that a real word?). But, unless they get their act
>together and perform like a business and not a bunch of "feel-good,
>arrogant, blue jeans and t-shirt elitists," they'll never break the PC
>market domination and they'll eat Microsoft's dust forever.
With the transistion to the PPC, few analysts think that Apple will loose
market share.
kar...@news.delphi.com
Microsoft is very busy porting their apps. Most of Office as well as
FoxPro is in late beta.
>Sergey....@Bentley.Com
>#include <disclaimer.h>
Frederick Goff
(KAR...@DELPHI.COM) wrote:
> fr...@dtint.dtint.com (Frederick Goff) writes:
>
> > What most people fail to realize is that Apple is a hardware company.
> Apple makes most of its money off hardware just like Compaq, Dell, etc.
> Every hardware company needs to differentiate themselves in some way.
> Apple does it by the Mac OS. No single hardware manufacturere can hope
> to sell 40% of the world's CPU's. The computer market is just to big.
If people fail to realize Apple is a hardware company, that's Apple's
fault, not ours. And why should total market size have anything to do with
how much of it you can capture? This is not a rhetorical question. I'm
curious because I just don't see it has any relevance.
>>
> People didn't by Macs because they were overpriced compared to PC's until
> '92 and they were underpowered until the introduction of the PowerMacs.
> People buy PC's or Macs because of compatibility and/or the software they
> need or want is only available for one type o machine or the other, now
> that most of the best selling software is available for both platforms,
> people buy their computer based on the OS(s). X86 compatibilty is too
> important to too many people to switch over to Macs.
A good point
> I fail to understand why so many people are obsessed with market share.
> As long as the software I need continues to be available at a price I',m
> willing to pay, I could care less about Apple's market share.
Because that's the responsibility Apple has to its shareholders, to
increase their investment in the company.
> Whether you or anyone else likes it, it keeps Apple in business and to
> some degree isolates it from the competition. I bet right now, IBM wish
> it could migrate completely to the PowerPS and be sure that 10 - 15% of
> the market would eventually follow. Apple is the only pc manufacturer
> that has any sort of loyal base. A Compaq or IBM owner wouldn't hesitate for
> one minute to buy a competing product from another PC manufacturer.
Exactly. That's called competition and it insures the customer wins. Do you
think it is merely coincidence that Apple prices came down after Windows
began to swell in the marketplace?
> But it also seems to have helped Apple to consistently make a profit. We
> all see where being non-proprietary got IBM (in the red)/
Bad management got IBM in the red, not the lack of proprietary. Compaq
deals with the same problems and is tremendously profitable.
>
> I've never had a problem with customer suport the few times I've needed
> it. But most of the time you can just call your local Apple reseller
> (like ComputerLand not Sears).
And you pay for it in the increased cost of the machine.
> The emulation is a transistional tool. What would you have suggested
> Apple do, stick with the dead end 68K line? While CISC may still be
> alive, Motorola has shown over the years that its too incompetent to
> compete with Intel.
No. Emulation was needed, the emulator designed was a piece of crap. They
should have tried hardware emulation.
> How is it Apple's fault that an extension -- something that changes the
> OS-- crashes? Most extensions that people use are unneccessary risks.
If Apple allows it, they are responsible for how their systems handles it.
> As long as you don't run out of System resources. Does Windows have
> anything like QuickDraw GX? System 7 takes up less memory than a
> comparable Windows-based PC.
Disk space, yes, RAM, no. I'm not claiming Windows a superior product. It
has better memory management, and yes the resources is a major pain, but
that is only a problem when you run multiple hi-level graphics
applications. Before you run out of system resources on Windows, you'll run
out of RAM on a Mac.
> Maybe because we know that we don't have to worry about the idiocy of
> DOS/Windows. I couldn't help but laugh when PC Magazines raved about
> long filenames like it was the second coming.
I rest my case on the arrogance issue.
> They are still all documents. How is File Manager, or WorkPlace any
> better name than Finder? Besides the Finder does a lot more than manage
> Files.
It does a lot more than "Find" them, too. Either way it's a bad name.
> Let's see, Apple uses standard (more or less) SCSI, 72-pin simms, VGA
> monitors, etc. Where Apple is non-standard its because the standard is
> not up to par. IDE is much less a standard than SCSI, which is used in
> workstations, Macs, and PC's.
Up to par with what? What Apple wants or what the customer wants.
> With the transistion to the PPC, few analysts think that Apple will loose
> market share.
No, probably not, but they won't gain much, either. Again, despite this
fantastic new technology that's supposed to revolutionize computing.
Frederick Goff
behe...@revolution.com wrote:
> Everything you have said is quite valid. But as a System Administrator
> running an internet site- I know why I use Macintosh! Nuff said......
Granted. That Apple exists is a testament to the Mac machine and the
concept behind their OS.
>
> behe...@revolution.com
Frederick Goff
bod...@rpi.edu (Jon Bodner) wrote:
> The only reason I ever give for Apple not really needing to worry about
> its current market share is the simple fact that Apple is #1 or #2 in
> shipping units. The backlogs you site later on in your article are signs
> of this (as well as the fact that Apple suffers from a serious case of
> cranial-rectal inverstion when it comes to preparing for demand when a new
> product is released.)
>
> IBM has a smaller market share of the computers it _invented_! Think
> about that major flub for a bit...
I disagree. Granted IBM flubbed it too. But it is not valid to cite Apple
vs. Compaq or any other specific PC maker. Apple is a different platform
completely. If there were 15 companies making Macs, we would compare Macs
vs. PCs, not Compaq vs. Apple. Why should it be different when only one
company makes the product? There is no reason why Apple cannot grab a 40%+
of the market share (like Microsoft--the company we love to hate--has done
in software) despite the fact they are a single vendor.
>
> People used to say "No one has ever been fired for buying IBM." When
> 1-2-3 came out for the original IBM PC, people ran from their Apple IIs
> running Visicalc to the PC. Things became entrenched. Just as Apple was
> able to acquire market share by placing computers in school, IBM acquired
> market share through businesses using 1-2-3...and then the clones came
> along (send in the clones?)...once you reach a certain installed base,
> compatibility becomes more important than quality. See the VHS/BetaMax
> for historical reference.
>
> The fact that Apple has its market share (and shows no signs of going away
> any time soon) is proof that they created something pretty good...just
> about every other alternative has gone to Computer Heaven...
>
No dispute there. The fact is though, that corporate America is a bigger
fish than schools. It was smart for Apple to go with schools because it got
people thinking about and using the Mac. However, they did not follow it up
in corporate America. Where did they think these people would go when they
got out of school? Or did they assume they would be eternal students like
the ex-hippie focus group(ies) :). Apple laid great seeds by marketing to
schools. They then needed to hit Corporate America so that those students,
weaned on the Mac would have an ally when they tried to convince their
bosses. A great 1-2 punch that Apple (as usual) screwed up on.
>
> Apple's marketing blows donkey. Despite the fact that there is great
> product placement in the popular media ("Seinfeld" has a Duo on his desk
> in the background, the current cover of "Time" has the guy holding a
> PB500, the "status symbol" in Hollywood of using a PowerBook, etc.), Apple
> has fumbled often.
>
> There SHOULD have been a PowerMac commerical during the SuperBowl. (My
> idea was that the PowerMac should have been showing the original "1984"
> commercial as a QuickTime movie while a voice-over says "10 years ago,
> Apple changed the world with Macintosh. March 14th, Apple does it
> again.", then pan away, and the computer should speak (using PlainTalk) to
> say something along the lines of "Power Macintosh. Coming Soon. From
> Apple." But what do I know, right?)
>
> Apple should be rubbing it in Intel's face that their "Flying Pentium" ads
> were done on an 840av, perhaps getting the people at ElectricImage (who
> wrote the software which was used) to say why they wrote for the Mac.
> Perhaps a quick cut of the Pentium ad being designed as well.
>
> Apple should have done SOMETHING to advertise PlainTalk. You are
> completly right about Compaq stealing a march from Apple on that one.
You are a much kinder person than I :).
> I think the Duo is a rather awesome computer (My next Mac might be a Duo,
> IF there is a TrackPad and PPC). Since the Duo is the #1 selling
> subnotebook computer, there are plenty of people who agree with me...I
> don't know how the 230 did, however...
>
> And Apple has reduced its inventory by a lot...it is one of the signs
> which is encouraging Wall Street Analysists.
Granted that Apple is doing a little better, but you've got to admit
they've really blown it when it comes to figuring out what the customer
wants.
> The problem is with handwriting recognition in general. Do you have any
> idea how hard it is? I've done a TINY bit of work on it, and it is a
> bitch. The Newton is generally recognized as one of the best, if not the
> best. The problem is that the best is still not good enough...
Agreed. However, if the technology is not capable of doing what you want it
to, don't try to force it to and sell the result.
>
> As for quality control.. "You use that word. I do not think it means what
> you think it means."
> Quality control is making sure that when you ship a computer, it does
> not fall apart when you take it home. What you are talking about is
> "compatibility." If newer machines are slightly (sometimes maddingly)
> incompatible with older stuff, it happens. A friend of mine bought an
> Ambra PC last year. He wanted to run OS/2, but he couldn't for a while,
> because the IBM hardware did not work with the IBM software (Ambra was a
> division of IBM until IBM killed it a few days ago). He needed to get a
> new controller card for his CD-ROM. He still doesn't use OS/2 much, since
> he can't find enough software which will work with his machine...talk
> about compatibility problems.
I beg to differ. My father (an older, very wizened firebrand) has been
working quality control in the computer industry for close to 30 years. In
lectures he's given and his doctoral thesis, he makes the case (and
brilliantly so in my biased opinion) that quality control is making sure
your product WORKS, not just that it doesn't break. Work means it will do
what the customer expects it to do. That means if you write software for
which hardware does not exist, you fail quality control. If you design
hardware that is incompatible with other hardware or cannot execute
previously acceptable code, you have failed quality control.
Apple is not unique in it's quality control problems, but Apple is the one
who preaches plug and play and shamelessly attacks the PC world's rather
nightmarish expansion architecture. If they preach a higher standard, they
should expect to be held to a higher standard.
> The PowerMac is emulating a whole different chip. It isn't so bad,
> considering. Furthermore, it is a speed INCREASE for everything except
> for the currently shipping desktop machines and the Quadra 800. Not so
> bad for millions of Mac owners whose machines are discontinued.
What's your point? Why take any performance cut at all? It's a poorly
designed emulator and even Apple has admitted it (source: MacWeek). And why
didn't Apple push Motorola for a hardware emulation? Intel will have
Pentium speed hardware emulation in their P6 and P7 chips and sources at
Motorola said this was technically feasible (with what appeared to be a bit
of sheepish "gee, we should have done that" attitude in the MacWeek
article).
>
> > E. An unstable system. How many times have you heard the phrase: "hold
> [deleted]
>
> Name ONE system which doesn't crash. Don't say Un*x, since I have hung
> SunOS so bad that the machine needed a hard reboot. It only took a 2-line
> program, too...(It was a project for an OS class. I goofed on some socket
> stuff. Goofed pretty badly, don't you think?)
All systems crash. Apple systems crash more and worse.
> That Windows system with 4 MB RAM will be so slow, it is painful. The
> difference is the way Windows handles VM. It will just use a swap file
> instead. So, you can do the same on your Mac. Run VM or RAMDoubler. I
> do.
Wrong. You don't hit virtual memory that soon and you don't swap. I've done
the tests on a 386 sx16 and a IIcx. Windows machine showed no significant
slowdowns (other than the fact that the main CPU was slower).
If you run the right diagnostics on a Windows machine, you'll find that
apps can reduce the amount of memory they require to run by as much as 85%
when you inactivate them. This extra memory is released to the system and
picked up by the active app.
Granted, there are extensions you can pay extra for to do something similar
on the Mac, but these patch the system and are not compatible with every
program. Further, when you run a patch like that, you're taking a serious
risk of crashing your system more frequently.
> This I had not heard about. I thought that developing for OpenDoc was free...
I believe development is free, but if you want to be part of the
collaboration team, you have to fork over the money. That was my
information as of a few weeks ago, the policy might have changed (there was
a fair outcry over it).
>
> "What is a name? Would a rose by any other name smell less sweet?"
>
> Apple could call it the Flying Wolinda if it made them feel better. And
> if you use Easy Open, the Flying Wolinda (or Finder, if you prefer) tells
> you what type of your document is.
Names are everything. Words are how we communicate. Guage your emotional
response to the following words:
doo-doo
ca-ca
manure
crap
shit
> > Industry Standards? Hey, we don't need no industry standards. We ARE the
> > industry standard and if you don't want to do it our way, then you're just
> > a stupid *&%^& "Windoze" user anyway and we don't want you.
> >
>
> Apple supports: SCSI, PCI, OpenDoc, VGA, SVGA, DAL, TCP/IP, 80486
> Compatibility (with the DOS Compatibility Card), Apple II (with the IIe
> Card), FireWire, Ethernet, MIDI, DOS disk formats, Photo-CD, NTSC, PAL,
> soon ATM, and more which I am probably forgetting. Which of these are not
> "Industry Standards?" With the exception of the Apple II, none of these
> are from Apple.
>
I'm specifically referring to IBM's PreP standards for the PowerPC. Sorry,
should have been clearer. You'll note however that Apple only adopted these
other standards when they were forced to my market conditions. They NEVER
jumped on any first save perhaps SCSI and FireWire. MIDI is still not
really supported. You have to purchase expensive cards to use the
capability.
Fred Goff
Frederick Goff
bi...@alamut.lifesci.ucla.edu (William M. Eldridge) wrote:
> Two comments:
>
> I do a lot of work on Motorola Nexts, and the only time
> I've had to reboot was from a game that had a memory leak.
> Other than that, the machine does not crash. I'm sure
> someone can make it crash, but in doing the same types of
> operations on Macs and PCs, I'm continually getting lockups.
I've never used a Next machine, but I hear they're dang good.
> Second, is that Macintosh may have a 10% share, but it's
> all theirs. PCs are everybody's game, so it's not surprising
> that there are a lot of players, and that the price is often
> lower (oh oh, flame button alert - better go now). For that
> matter, it's not surprising there are more compatibility
> problems with PCs.
No argument that PCs have compatibility problems, but they don't preach
plug and play like Apple does. Apple should have 40% share that is all
theirs if they're machine is as good as they say it is (flame button right
back at you :)).
Frederick Goff
Mullins) wrote:
> In article <fred-030...@unused164.dtint.com>, fr...@dtint.dtint.com (Frederick Goff) writes:
>
> [incredibly large post deleted]
>
> Do you really expect many people to read all of this?
>
> I read it until I got to the part about the flying camels and I gave up. ;-)
Ah, you obviously do not appreciate the fine art of verbosity. Sad, so sad.
I'll bet your thoughts are so concise and organized you make other people
sick. :).
Fred "rambling (raving?) is an art" Goff
Wade E. Masshardt
(Frederick Goff) wrote:
> In article <31skie$i...@news.delphi.com>, kar...@news.delphi.com
> (KAR...@DELPHI.COM) wrote:
[munch]
> > How is it Apple's fault that an extension -- something that changes the
> > OS-- crashes? Most extensions that people use are unneccessary risks.
>
> If Apple allows it, they are responsible for how their systems handles it.
Pardon me, but how is Apple supposed to prevent someone from writing an
extension that causes the System to crash? Hunt them down & kill them?
If Apple didn't allow extensions that modify the OS, people would be
screaming about how closed the system is. You can't have your cake & eat
it, too.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Shop smart...shop at S-Mart" |
| Ash, 'Army of Darkness' |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| wa...@macc.wisc.edu |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
babb...@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
>If Apple has the friendliest, easiest-to-use, most wonderful computer
>system ever created by man
<175 lines clipped>
Now, here the author clearly displays his/her lack of knowledge, for as all Mac
users, and particularly those of comp.sys.mac.advocacy know, the Mac _wasn't_
created by man at all... why do you think it is so gosh darn good?
(If you don't believe me, you need to re-read your Mac Bible!)
Duncan Babbage
[Compliments in e-mail, flames to my mother...
after all, she brought me into this world, so in some way this may all
be her fault :-) ]
Bill Coleman
>
>> The PowerMac is emulating a whole different chip. It isn't so bad,
>> considering. Furthermore, it is a speed INCREASE for everything except
>> for the currently shipping desktop machines and the Quadra 800. Not so
>> bad for millions of Mac owners whose machines are discontinued.
>
> What's your point? Why take any performance cut at all? It's a poorly
> designed emulator and even Apple has admitted it (source: MacWeek).
That's not what Apple said. They indicated they are working on a better
emulator offering higher performance.
For someone who seems to know a lot about Quality control, you have missed
the first rule of quality software development: Make it work, then make it
fast. The current emulator works extremely well. A higher-tech emulator would
have much better performance, but is much, much harder to develop and
debug correctly.
> And why didn't Apple push Motorola for a hardware emulation?
That would have made the PowerPC a 68k chip. You don't seem to grasp the
tremendous difference between the PowerPC RISC architecture and the 68K.
If Motorola had included 68K hardware, then the PowerPC would have a) been
much more expensive and b) not offered as good a yeild. This means that
PowerPC would have been tremendously more expensive, and still would not
have broken ties to the 68K. The emulator allows much greater flexibility,
and gives impetus to developers to make their applications native.
> Intel will have Pentium speed hardware emulation in their P6 and P7 chips
Yea, and I have a bridge to sell you in a nice New York city....
Wait until they have it shipping. Then make that claim. Intel was also
suppose to have a plug-upgradable CPU from 486 to Pentium. I wonder what
happened to that....
>...and sources at Motorola said this was technically feasible
Feasible does not mean it isn't more expensive.
>> This I had not heard about. I thought that developing for OpenDoc was free...
>
> I believe development is free, but if you want to be part of the
> collaboration team, you have to fork over the money. That was my
> information as of a few weeks ago, the policy might have changed (there was
> a fair outcry over it).
If you want to join CILabs, you have to fork over money. And your voting
rights and influence depend on how much money you fork over.
But if you just want to write OpenDoc applications, you aren't required to
fork over any money.
>> Apple supports: SCSI, PCI, OpenDoc, VGA, SVGA, DAL, TCP/IP, 80486
>> Compatibility (with the DOS Compatibility Card), Apple II (with the IIe
>> Card), FireWire, Ethernet, MIDI, DOS disk formats, Photo-CD, NTSC, PAL,
>> soon ATM, and more which I am probably forgetting. Which of these are not
>> "Industry Standards?" With the exception of the Apple II, none of these
>> are from Apple.
>>
> I'm specifically referring to IBM's PreP standards for the PowerPC.
And how many machines today support IBMs PReP standard? I think you can count
them on no hands at all....
> Sorry,
> should have been clearer. You'll note however that Apple only adopted these
> other standards when they were forced to my market conditions.
Not true. Apple pioneered the use of SCSI. Apple started OpenDoc. Apple
embraced Photo-CD (indeed, CD-ROM itself).
> They NEVER
> jumped on any first save perhaps SCSI and FireWire. MIDI is still not
> really supported. You have to purchase expensive cards to use the
> capability.
QuickTime 2.0. 'nuff said.
--
Bill Coleman, AA4LR ! Internet: bcol...@hayes.com
Principal Software Engineer ! AppleLink: D1958
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! CIS: 76067,2327
POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA !
Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.
Marcus Mullins
|> In article <31r3dl$p...@meaddata.meaddata.com>, mar...@meaddata.com (Marcus
|> Mullins) wrote:
|>
|> > In article <fred-030...@unused164.dtint.com>, fr...@dtint.dtint.com (Frederick Goff) writes:
|> >
|> > [incredibly large post deleted]
|> >
|> > Do you really expect many people to read all of this?
|> >
|> > I read it until I got to the part about the flying camels and I gave up. ;-)
|>
|> Ah, you obviously do not appreciate the fine art of verbosity. Sad, so sad.
I think you reached maximum-verbosity in that last post. ;-)
|> I'll bet your thoughts are so concise and organized you make other people
|> sick. :).
|>
|> Fred "rambling (raving?) is an art" Goff
--
Marcus Mullins
|> plug and play like Apple does. Apple should have 40% share that is all
|> theirs if they're machine is as good as they say it is (flame button right
|> back at you :)).
|>
There are two reason's I see that account for Apple not having a 40%
market share:
1) Mac's used to be priced at a premium.
2) Media hype, etc. can influence a lot of buying decisions. When the
business world chose PC-Compatibles (they were here first), it created
a certain amount of compatibility inertia down the road.
MatterWave
writes:
> That's not what Apple said. They indicated they are working on a better
> emulator offering higher performance.
This is a tacit admission that their original emulator was inferior.
> For someone who seems to know a lot about Quality control, you have
missed
> the first rule of quality software development: Make it work, then make
it
> fast. The current emulator works extremely well. A higher-tech emulator
would
> have much better performance, but is much, much harder to develop and
> debug correctly.
I may have a different view of quality control than you, but then most of
my experience is with manufacturing durable goods, not software
engineering. In that arena, quality control is making sure the product
functions as designed. The actual design is determined in the labs.
Quality in design and research means make it the best that you can. The
fact that Apple is working on a better version now, months after the Power
Mac was released and customers began to complain about the performance hit
shows Apple's typical disregard for the customer. Apple had access to
Power Macs many, many months before they were released to the general
public, they had plenty of time to make the emulator they're working on
now.
>> And why didn't Apple push Motorola for a hardware emulation?
>That would have made the PowerPC a 68k chip. You don't seem to grasp the
>tremendous difference between the PowerPC RISC architecture and the 68K.
You're right, I'm not an electrical engineer, so I have to rely on what
the experts tell me, so I'll grant your point on the chips.
>If Motorola had included 68K hardware, then the PowerPC would have a)
been
>much more expensive and b) not offered as good a yeild. This means that
>PowerPC would have been tremendously more expensive, and still would not
>have broken ties to the 68K. The emulator allows much greater
flexibility,
>and gives impetus to developers to make their applications native.
This is exactly my point. Consider the arrogance in Apple deciding what is
best for it's customers. Why should customers be forced to break their
ties to the 68K? Just because Big Brother Apple says they should and it
will be better for them in the long run? Apple knows best, Apple is wise,
Apple is good, we should follow Apple. That's arrogant, patronizing and
steams the ---- out of me.
>> Intel will have Pentium speed hardware emulation in their P6 and P7
chips
>Yea, and I have a bridge to sell you in a nice New York city....
>Wait until they have it shipping. Then make that claim. Intel was also
>suppose to have a plug-upgradable CPU from 486 to Pentium. I wonder what
>happened to that....
Don't dismiss Intel so easily. There's a reason they're number one.
>> I believe development is free, but if you want to be part of the
>> collaboration team, you have to fork over the money. That was my
>> information as of a few weeks ago, the policy might have changed (there
was
>> a fair outcry over it).
>If you want to join CILabs, you have to fork over money. And your voting
>rights and influence depend on how much money you fork over.
Thanks for the clarification
>And how many machines today support IBMs PReP standard? I think you can
count
>them on no hands at all....
Good point.
>> Sorry,
>> should have been clearer. You'll note however that Apple only adopted
these
>> other standards when they were forced to my market conditions.
>Not true. Apple pioneered the use of SCSI. Apple started OpenDoc. Apple
>embraced Photo-CD (indeed, CD-ROM itself).
I stand corrected. However, I think CD-ROM was more widespread on the PC
platform first. Seems I remember some articles claiming how well Apple has
done in playing catch-up.
>> They NEVER
>> jumped on any first save perhaps SCSI and FireWire. MIDI is still not
>> really supported. You have to purchase expensive cards to use the
>> capability.
>QuickTime 2.0. 'nuff said.
Let's just hope it's not the nightmare Quickdraw GX is turning out to be.
Frederick Goff
wa...@macc.wisc.edu (Wade E. Masshardt) wrote:
> In article <fred-050...@unused164.dtint.com>, fr...@dtint.dtint.com
> (Frederick Goff) wrote:
>
> > In article <31skie$i...@news.delphi.com>, kar...@news.delphi.com
> > (KAR...@DELPHI.COM) wrote:
>
> [munch]
>
> > > How is it Apple's fault that an extension -- something that changes the
> > > OS-- crashes? Most extensions that people use are unneccessary risks.
> >
> > If Apple allows it, they are responsible for how their systems handles it.
>
> Pardon me, but how is Apple supposed to prevent someone from writing an
> extension that causes the System to crash? Hunt them down & kill them?
Does Apple have safeguards built into the OS to try and resolve conflicts
and system crashes? They allowed the extension concept, did they take steps
to minimize the damage a bad extension can do? How about commercial
extensions? Does Apple produce an extension guideline that lists potential
conflicts and recommends procedures for writing safe, stable extensions? If
they do, then I'll say that they've met their responsibility regarding
extensions.
> If Apple didn't allow extensions that modify the OS, people would be
> screaming about how closed the system is. You can't have your cake & eat
> it, too.
Correct me on this, but I don't think DOS or Windows has extensions. I
believe they're all just little programs that run TSR or the like to
perform the same tasks. No one is screaming about these *closed* systems.
Besides, I never claimed it was bad for System 7 to be proprietary, I'm
stating it scares corporations for Apple boxes to be proprietary. Even
Apple admits that people buy their boxes because of their System, otherwise
they'd port the Finder to Intel-based machines and make a killing. But they
know if they do that, everyone will buy an Intel box running System 7 and
Apple will be out of the hardware business.
Fred Goff
Nevin Liber
MatterWave <matte...@aol.com> wrote:
>Quality in design and research means make it the best that you can.
True. However, if you are a commercial company, you are constrained by
something called time to market. At some point, you stop writing all
your code in assembler, you stop rewriting hundreds to thousands of lines
of code because you thought of a slightly better way of doing things, or
even a much better way of doing things. You can keep on tweaking software
until your heart's content, but that doesn't mean you'll get it out the
door. Whether or not you like it, people in industry have to make
compromises.
Look at Taligent. They've been working on it for something like seven
years now (the project was at Apple for a long while). For a long time,
they were spinning their wheels redesigning and reimplementing. I'm
still waiting to see a shipping OS.
>The
>fact that Apple is working on a better version now,
Allegedly. Apple has not commented on this. Even so, I would expect
them to be looking at ways to improve their products.
>This is a tacit admission that their original emulator was inferior.
In your utopia, nobody would ever make enhancements because that is
always a tacit admission that the original is inferior. Do you ever
actually purchase anything? After all, the new improved models always
come out in the next year. Be it a Mac, Tide detergent, or an
automobile.
>months after the Power
>Mac was released and customers began to complain about the performance hit
>shows Apple's typical disregard for the customer. Apple
The performance is exactly where Apple said it would be.
>had access to
>Power Macs many, many months before they were released to the general
>public, they had plenty of time to make the emulator they're working on
>now.
If you think the current emulator is slow, why don't you spend some
time disassembling it (it was written in 601 assembler) and suggest
some improvements? Everyone that I know of who has looked at the code
thinks that "Mr. Gary" did a really good job of writing it. It's
somewhere on the order of 5-10 PPC instructions per 68K instruction; I
really doubt you'll be able to improve without going to significantly
different (and unproven) technologies.
>This is exactly my point. Consider the arrogance in Apple deciding what is
>best for it's customers. Why should customers be forced to break their
>ties to the 68K? Just because Big Brother Apple says they should and it
>will be better for them in the long run? Apple knows best, Apple is wise,
>Apple is good, we should follow Apple. That's arrogant, patronizing and
>steams the ---- out of me.
Welcome to the world of consumer goods. If you are willing to throw
sufficient amounts of money at Apple, I'm sure they'll build you a
system to your heart's content. The rest of us compromise on
everything we buy. I can't get Sony or any other company to put all
the features I want in a stereo in one box and sell it to the mass
market so I can afford it. Nor do I expect it. If they put enough of
the right features in for me, I buy their product. Apple does, as far
as I am concerned. If you don't like the compromises and tradeoffs
that they made, then don't buy the product.
--
Nevin ":-)" Liber ne...@cs.arizona.edu (602) 293-2799
+++ (520) after 3/95
summer office: (602) 621-8112
Only 4 more shopping days 'til my birthday (August 12th)!!
kar...@news.delphi.com
>In article <wade-06089...@f181-212.net.wisc.edu>,
>wa...@macc.wisc.edu (Wade E. Masshardt) wrote:
>> In article <fred-050...@unused164.dtint.com>, fr...@dtint.dtint.com
>> (Frederick Goff) wrote:
>> extension that causes the System to crash? Hunt them down & kill them?
>Does Apple have safeguards built into the OS to try and resolve conflicts
>and system crashes? They allowed the extension concept, did they take steps
>to minimize the damage a bad extension can do? How about commercial
>extensions? Does Apple produce an extension guideline that lists potential
>conflicts and recommends procedures for writing safe, stable extensions? If
>they do, then I'll say that they've met their responsibility regarding
>extensions.
If Apple built in safeguards to limit the damage that extensions can do, it
would also limit the abilities of extensions. But there are well-documented
ways to patch the system.
>> If Apple didn't allow extensions that modify the OS, people would be
>> screaming about how closed the system is. You can't have your cake & eat
>> it, too.
>Correct me on this, but I don't think DOS or Windows has extensions. I
>believe they're all just little programs that run TSR or the like to
>perform the same tasks. No one is screaming about these *closed* systems.
>Besides, I never claimed it was bad for System 7 to be proprietary, I'm
>stating it scares corporations for Apple boxes to be proprietary. Even
>Apple admits that people buy their boxes because of their System, otherwise
>they'd port the Finder to Intel-based machines and make a killing. But they
>know if they do that, everyone will buy an Intel box running System 7 and
>Apple will be out of the hardware business.
Up until the PowerMacs shipped, the OS was the only compelling reason to
buy a Mac in my opinion. Well I guess the integration of the
hardware/software would also be a reason.
BEERS_JCP
Oh ho ho! Every blind pig finds an acorn someday.
That Intel triumphed because of technical innovation is a rather
"far"-out notion.
-- Chan
Frederick Goff
Liber) wrote:
> In article <326vh2$r...@search01.news.aol.com>,
> MatterWave <matte...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >Quality in design and research means make it the best that you can.
>
> True. However, if you are a commercial company, you are constrained by
> something called time to market. At some point, you stop writing all
> your code in assembler, you stop rewriting hundreds to thousands of lines
> of code because you thought of a slightly better way of doing things, or
> even a much better way of doing things. You can keep on tweaking software
> until your heart's content, but that doesn't mean you'll get it out the
> door. Whether or not you like it, people in industry have to make
> compromises.
Good point. The question then becomes could Apple have done better than
they did in the time they had?
>
> Look at Taligent. They've been working on it for something like seven
> years now (the project was at Apple for a long while). For a long time,
> they were spinning their wheels redesigning and reimplementing. I'm
> still waiting to see a shipping OS.
>
> >The
> >fact that Apple is working on a better version now,
>
> Allegedly. Apple has not commented on this. Even so, I would expect
> them to be looking at ways to improve their products.
>
> >This is a tacit admission that their original emulator was inferior.
>
> In your utopia, nobody would ever make enhancements because that is
> always a tacit admission that the original is inferior. Do you ever
> actually purchase anything? After all, the new improved models always
> come out in the next year. Be it a Mac, Tide detergent, or an
> automobile.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. I give, uncle, uncle ;-)
>
> >months after the Power
> >Mac was released and customers began to complain about the performance hit
> >shows Apple's typical disregard for the customer. Apple
>
> The performance is exactly where Apple said it would be.
Ouch, stab, stab, eegh, you're twisting the knife ;-)
> [remainder deleted to protect me from deadly assault by logic]
Fred Goff
I hereby formally concede that superior logic has convinced me of my errors
in this regard. Can I have that cookie now, mommy ;-)?
Frederick Goff
wrote:
> In Article <fred-030...@unused164.dtint.com> was written:
> >If Apple has the friendliest, easiest-to-use, most wonderful computer
> >system ever created by man
>
> <175 lines clipped>
>
> Now, here the author clearly displays his/her lack of knowledge, for as all Mac
> users, and particularly those of comp.sys.mac.advocacy know, the Mac _wasn't_
> created by man at all... why do you think it is so gosh darn good?
>
> (If you don't believe me, you need to re-read your Mac Bible!)
>
Whoah! Does Apple still burn heretics? ;-)
Fred Goff
Frederick Goff
(BEERS_JCP) wrote:
Please engage your brain before you open your mouth. Thank you
Fred Goff
ba...@rock.enet.dec.com
>>> They NEVER
>>> jumped on any first save perhaps SCSI and FireWire. MIDI is still not
>>> really supported. You have to purchase expensive cards to use the
>>> capability.
>>QuickTime 2.0. 'nuff said.
>Let's just hope it's not the nightmare Quickdraw GX is turning out to be.
Honestly, what do you mean by that? By the time applications are written to
use QDGX,(i.e. next year some time) computers will be very common with 16MB
of RAM. I assume that is what you are referring to. Quicktime 2.0 is great!
It does full screen 30fps on a fast 68030! It has support for MPEG, MIDI,
and can use other codecs. Even windows users will get to use it.
QuickDraw GX can only be found on a Mac.
-SB