tsezKEIK:
>second of all im sorry i found ur comment about microsoft
>products THAT funny, but it just is.
You know what, though, what he said is true. MS is giving the world just as much as anyone else, however, zealotry won't let you see these sorts of things. However, let's not fixate just on MS, but the entire PC world of things, which is what makes it different than Apple...more people care. More marketshare means more production, more support, more everything. More production, more support means more competition. More competition means more features.
>third of all, i didnt know that the world hated Apple & its users
>that much!!! . when i talk to ppl (whove never used an Apple
They do. Mac users are, for the most part, universally reviled among geeks for being the most obnoxious, stuckup, and egotistical types around. Take a look around at the snotty attitudes thrown out here about how MS, or as the perpetually whiny need to refer to them: M$, Microsuck,Microsloth, etc, is a horrible company.
FOr better or for worse, MS gave Apple money to continue. MS continues to give you software products that you need in order to complete. MS provides a reason to not stagnate and fail completely.
People also need to stop obsessing over how MS steals from the Apple asthetic. First off, MS seems to be a convienent scapegoat for so many, however, is everything REALLY their fault? They're not the end-all be-all of the x86 world, in fact, they're just another cog in the machine (althogh, referring to them as a little cog is a bit of a gross understatement).
Apple theives as much from others, too. The nature of business is to provide a better product than your competitors, so if Apple gives out an easy to use OS, of course their biggest OS competitor will do the same. If they make it pretty, and people care, of course others will respond, too.
The problem is I don't see much of this miracle innovation that Apple is continually praised for. I see some, I see pretty little fruit coloured plastic cases that people seem to like. I see nifty all-in-ones which people also, inexplicably, seem to want. I don't see much else. Heck, even those fruity colours can trace lineage to workstations like the Silicon Graphics units which came it pretty blues and purples and the all-in-ones are nothing more than updated original R2D2 Macintosh computers which were nothing more than wee versions of the original microcomputers and dumb terminals.
MacOS 10? Looks a whole lot like NeXTSTeP to me. Debatable on the innovation front, because while it is a Jobs product, its certainly not an Apple product, its a refined NeXT product. Firewire? Smells like fancy pants USB, everything USB wanted to be, and wasn't, everything SCSI should've been but couldn't (was SCSI an Apple innovation, or something they glommed on early?). The cube was no differant than the SunSparc IPC/IPX, which was just a slab in a smaller footprint.
No one is really innovating, as I see it. They just remake things in a shinier case, woo woo etc.
>computer) about any Mac, i always get very pleasent comments,
>and i can reassure you that they dont hate me for using a mac
>(theyre just Jealous)!
People don't know any better, and its easy to be blindsided by propaganda. OS 10 is what finally convinced me it was time to try a Mac, and only because I loved my old NeXT. The older style MacOS is a hideous atrocity that's completely annoying to work with for anyone who wasn't raised on it. I read things now about it that make me wonder why on earth anyone would've bothered with it so long. Now, however, it seems like its come lightyears ahead of the <9.x series...although, s'funny, that dock seems like its kind of like the W95 taskbar, which I don't quite remember in older versions of MacOS. Are we calling the dock "innovation" now, or are we just going to pretend its not a bite from that other company everyone loves to hate...
>who eat it up like french fries. and microsoft is the one serving
>them to you.
Y'know, every person out there will take what they get, however, I believe Apple has a tendency to hand out more breadcrumbs and proclaim them cakes than even the much loathed MS.
Sure, MS puts out dogs, and lots of them. However, I was downright appalled when I first installed OS10 on my new mac. It completely lacks just about any useful apps. Stickies is about it. It provides a single timekiller (chess). It lacks little apps like Paint. It has no newsreader (this kills me). It has a CD player that uses up 25% of my CPU. I may have what's considered a slow machine, now (280mhz), however, there's no reason a CD player should pull down that much.
I suppose its unfair to use your post as teh launch pad for this, however it just happened to be the final straw.
So, the long story short.. Apple starts selling machines that look remarkably like a Sparc from sometime in the 80s (I honestly don't know when the IPC was first produced) with a flat screen monitor. People think that's pretty fab. So, HP and MS come together and show one of their own. Big deal, and tough luck. If Apple are such innovators, then they better pull something pretty spiffy out to compete with products that cost a fraction of what they cost.
Hey, here's an innovation someone aught to consider over at Apple? How about REASONABLE PRICING?
What Apple should truly produce is something dirt cheap, clever looking, and aimed at making people migrate. I'd have gone for it, new. I know lots of people who would.
I can't justify $1500 for a G4 desktop, $1000 for an eMac is too much for a machine that's too fixed for me, not to mention, I have a pile of PC and other things laying around, and if possible I should be able to use them, at least the monitor, the biggest single expense to a new computer except the actual chassis.
Where's your middle ground, Apple? Where's the NeXTstation 2003? Take a pizza box, put a CD drive in it (in a way I can mount most others in, like the beige power macs). Put your USB and firewire ports on the back. Put your audio on the back. Put a video board with either VGA and DVI ports or at least include DVI->VGA adapter (ps, ditch DVI, if you haven't already) in the box. Hey, if you want to be supernice, use a risercard to an AGP board so we can change it out. Include one other PCI card on a riser board. That gives us some ability to expand. Put a single 3.5" IDE drive sled inside. Now, price it at $700 and watch them come. You've made a perfect machien for people who want some upgradability, who want to use their very expensive PC monitors. Who don't want an all-in-one. Its even stylish, just a little pizzabox style chassis. You can even make it in fruity plastic.
Where is that machine? Why doesn't that machine exist? You cannot compete with $500 Dell and eMachine x86 PCs with $1000 all-in-ones and $1500 desktops.
)... And the computer history says that Wintel should thank again and again Apple for saving their USB bottoms
