Great article from USA Today
- Thread starter Randman
- Start date
applewhore
Registered
neat!
"Also helping to lure students: an Apple promotion that gives a $200 iPod rebate to students who purchase a new Apple laptop. At Apple's discounted education price, that effectively makes an entry-level iPod just $69."
"Also helping to lure students: an Apple promotion that gives a $200 iPod rebate to students who purchase a new Apple laptop. At Apple's discounted education price, that effectively makes an entry-level iPod just $69."
Satcomer
In Geostationary Orbit
I quote bad journalism:
"Now that Microsoft Office is available for Macs, Guba says, students can work with many Windows programs, such as Outlook for e-mail and Word for documents. "That made a big difference," he says."
Did this reporter do his homework? I think not.
"Now that Microsoft Office is available for Macs, Guba says, students can work with many Windows programs, such as Outlook for e-mail and Word for documents. "That made a big difference," he says."
Did this reporter do his homework? I think not.
Satcomer
In Geostationary Orbit
Randman said:
Randman please don't get me wrong. I am just tired of the FUD people have been giving up on OS X over the years. This reporter must HAVE been a part of this because of the way he wrote the sentence. Put on top of that he is a journalist and it now re-enforces an opinion of mine. Todays journalists are lazy and rarely include the actual fact in the articles. They just inject their opinion on the facts and not the fact themselves.
If he did his homework and contacted any right mind Mac user or Microsoft he would have known Office for Mac has been out for over 20 YEARS!
Randman
HA! HA! HA!
You are seeing the trees but not the forest.
OK, so it should have been fact-checked some and the writing wasn't going to win a Pulitzer. For most people, ie Windows users, the article would been effective because it paints Apple in a very positive light and just might get someone thinking of buying a Mac over a pc.
For most people, they're not going to care one whit WHEN an application came out. They are going to care if it does what they want. And in that aspect, I thought it was a very effective article.
OK, so it should have been fact-checked some and the writing wasn't going to win a Pulitzer. For most people, ie Windows users, the article would been effective because it paints Apple in a very positive light and just might get someone thinking of buying a Mac over a pc.
For most people, they're not going to care one whit WHEN an application came out. They are going to care if it does what they want. And in that aspect, I thought it was a very effective article.
mi5moav
Registered
It's actually good journalism when someone reports exactly what has been said. If he were to have corrected the student and not put that quote in there we would not have know what a horrible job Apple and Microsoft have done in promoting Windows compatibility on the mac. That is still the number one reason people don't even think about the mac, price is a deciding factor but if the world thinks that the mac is a truly closed system they won't even think twice about it. The ipod is the only product that Apple has touted in recent memory that works both with Windows and Mac, its right there at the end of every add. Now, that the ipod right out of the box works with either and you don't have to purchase a separate box it's a no brain and both sales have spiked.
What if from day one Microsoft released Office for the mac/pc in the same box with the same features, this time I would bet my right testicle, making that four now, that we would be at about 25% market penetration. It's sad that the big boys just can't seem to promote their products to those that need promoting to. Every day of my life it's Oh, you can't send me a file or even and email because you have a mac and I have a pc. When was the last time you've seen a imac or mac powermac commercial on tv??? Lots of ipod commercials no mac commercials.
If they were just to play a simple commercial focused on the monitor with a someone typing away and seeming uber productive, with things such as internet explorer, excel, word, outlook, then he closes that and starts playing with solitaire or mine sweep(ala vpc) and then plays a popular game like doom, then switches to itunes, heck I don't know... but focus on software that viewers think are only available on a pc, maybe then pan to and hp printer or a Microsoft mouse, then back and you see this uber geek working away at an Apple Store, pans further out and and you see the world, then similar to Sony's tag line "work in your world, play in ours" or something like that. getting the point across to be productive you do not need to be on a pc. Of course you need to throw something in about viruses since that is such a hot topic. Of course this wouldn't be prudent right now since "we aint got no product to ship to you anyway!!"
What if from day one Microsoft released Office for the mac/pc in the same box with the same features, this time I would bet my right testicle, making that four now, that we would be at about 25% market penetration. It's sad that the big boys just can't seem to promote their products to those that need promoting to. Every day of my life it's Oh, you can't send me a file or even and email because you have a mac and I have a pc. When was the last time you've seen a imac or mac powermac commercial on tv??? Lots of ipod commercials no mac commercials.
If they were just to play a simple commercial focused on the monitor with a someone typing away and seeming uber productive, with things such as internet explorer, excel, word, outlook, then he closes that and starts playing with solitaire or mine sweep(ala vpc) and then plays a popular game like doom, then switches to itunes, heck I don't know... but focus on software that viewers think are only available on a pc, maybe then pan to and hp printer or a Microsoft mouse, then back and you see this uber geek working away at an Apple Store, pans further out and and you see the world, then similar to Sony's tag line "work in your world, play in ours" or something like that. getting the point across to be productive you do not need to be on a pc. Of course you need to throw something in about viruses since that is such a hot topic. Of course this wouldn't be prudent right now since "we aint got no product to ship to you anyway!!"
mi5moav: Office has been out on the Mac even BEFORE there was a Windows version AFAIK. Or at least Word and Excel have. Sadly, we just don't _have_ that 25% market share. But back then, Microsoft wasn't the big player it is today. Also: Back then Macs cost a _real_ fortune compared to cheap PC clones...
It's good to see Apple leveraging the success of the iPod to boost Mac sales. I think this has been part of their plan for a while, but now it's starting to actually happen.
mi5moav
Registered
I think Mac Office came out in 1989. I know Word came out first for the IBM PC because I remeber my father getting ticked off that they didn't have a version for the Apple IIGS and he got so upset with the salesman trying to sell him an IBM computer to run it that he ran his car through the little computer shop. Though we had bought an intellivision and a couple of Tandy Heath robots from them so, they didn't even sue him. Those were the good old days. But it all has to do with marketing. Heck, Walmart can crush [***] but finding the right product and the right marketing and some common sense and they can't touch you. It's so funny watching Walmart people come intot the store scratching their heads as to how we got our products prices so low and why they don't buy them from them. We're still human sam.
Randman
HA! HA! HA!
mi5moav, what's your obsession with body parts? Almost every thread has something about your buttock or your family jewels or something else?
Also, I think you've said you use voice recognition when writing posts? A word of friendly advice. Your posts contain some good stuff but one really has to wade through a bunch of stuff to find the good parts.
A little editing before you post would be wonderful.
Paragraph marks also help on some of the longer posts.
Also, in reference to your last proof, what exactly does that have to do with an article on iPods pushing iBook and PowerBook sales?
Also, I think you've said you use voice recognition when writing posts? A word of friendly advice. Your posts contain some good stuff but one really has to wade through a bunch of stuff to find the good parts.
A little editing before you post would be wonderful.
Paragraph marks also help on some of the longer posts.
Also, in reference to your last proof, what exactly does that have to do with an article on iPods pushing iBook and PowerBook sales?
diablojota
Doctoral Student
Well, it is most definitely good news. Things seem to be improving for Apple in the Education market. However, the people that we need to get to switch are not the English majors or chemistry peeps, but those studying business or Computer science. Not many of these folks switch, and many of the CS folk use Linux.
Then you would see more companies starting to switch.
Then you would see more companies starting to switch.
Viro
Registered
diablojota said:
They should start a marketing campaign, "OS X Tiger: UNIX done right." I'm a CS major and I switched to OS X mainly because I disliked the Windows way of doing things, and liked UNIX but wanted a UNIX that ran on laptops nicely. That's where OS X fits the bill perfectly.
texanpenguin
Registered Penguin
I'm doing Computer Science at Uni, and I've been very pleasantly surprised by the seeming proliferation of Macs in the course.
Where I had expected to be the only one on a PowerBook, I've seen two other PowerBook users, two iBook users and a general lift in the reputation of Apple in a computer science crowd.
Yesterday I was told by one cocky Dell user (using the bottom-of-the-line laptop), "What? You use a MAC, HA!" to which the three PC-using people around him said "Uh, dude, Macs rock".
I've been very impressed.
I'm also doing Creative Arts majoring in Graphic Design and New Media, so yeah, Macs are used almost exclusively there.
The Apple University Consortium runs out of my University though, so it's naturally more centred on Macs than other Unis.
I impressed a friend in my C.S. lecture by needing to send an email to our tutor, and simply switching on my AirPort card, opening Mail and typing the first three or four letters of the tutor's name, which got dynamically searched in the University LDAP staff database. It's something that you can do on a PC, but it's just never so easy, so intuitive.
He's now a Mac fan and looking seriously at the 12" PowerBook.
Having the Unix core available to me is very, very good in C.S., where everyone on their Windows notebooks are opening Cygwin (a Linux emulator), converting carriage-return and linefeed statements for Unix submission, etc, etc.
Macs are being very seriously regarded by most people I've seen.
Where I had expected to be the only one on a PowerBook, I've seen two other PowerBook users, two iBook users and a general lift in the reputation of Apple in a computer science crowd.
Yesterday I was told by one cocky Dell user (using the bottom-of-the-line laptop), "What? You use a MAC, HA!" to which the three PC-using people around him said "Uh, dude, Macs rock".
I've been very impressed.
I'm also doing Creative Arts majoring in Graphic Design and New Media, so yeah, Macs are used almost exclusively there.
The Apple University Consortium runs out of my University though, so it's naturally more centred on Macs than other Unis.
I impressed a friend in my C.S. lecture by needing to send an email to our tutor, and simply switching on my AirPort card, opening Mail and typing the first three or four letters of the tutor's name, which got dynamically searched in the University LDAP staff database. It's something that you can do on a PC, but it's just never so easy, so intuitive.
He's now a Mac fan and looking seriously at the 12" PowerBook.
Having the Unix core available to me is very, very good in C.S., where everyone on their Windows notebooks are opening Cygwin (a Linux emulator), converting carriage-return and linefeed statements for Unix submission, etc, etc.
Macs are being very seriously regarded by most people I've seen.