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[perkiset]

What great Monday reading! In contrast to my post on Apple's marketing prowess, check this fecal-focacia out:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Expensive-Apps-Will-Ruin-Microsofts-Windows-Marketplace-382562/

"I know, 99 cents is interesting—yes, consumers like to pay 99 cents for applications.

"But 99 cents, come on, I think your app is worth more than that."

I agree with the author: Ah no, they're not. Clearly, some will be and the market will provide for that. But I struggle to see how a groundswell of fart-sound apps are worth more than 99c each ... or even that. Is it just me, or does it seem that Windows just shoots themselves in the foot at any possible opportunity...? Could it really be that they are successful simply because of their well-planned ubiquity, and not because of their offering? 

[isthisthingon]

Could it really be that they are successful simply because of their well-planned ubiquity, and not because of their offering?

Waxing rhetorical? Monoposoft is the gas company of software and Apple leverages image.  Based on both histories, they will ruthlessly loot our wallets until stopped (MS) or lose public favor (Apple).  Microsoft needs the DOJ to keep them in check and Apple could use less grassroots ra-ra since all that does is put more cash in their pockets.
Certainly Apple's marketing deserves    But their relentless attempts to lock you into their world and then soak you for all you're worth deserves 

I think Apple's "monopoly on cool" will eventually backfire since that approach is better suited as an alternative to IBM.  These days people are far more interested in defining cool for themselves and even the suggestion that someone else can provide it for you turns lots of people off.  At least it's a put-off for me and many others I know 

[perkiset]

I agree the cool thing is a short lived trick ... it worked well to get the iPod off the ground, but now they need to focus on, "It Just Works." People are smart enough now to decide what they actually want to accomplish, as opposed to just being told they Need A Computer.

The Apple stores, IMO, have been excellent for Apple because people can have a visceral and in depth presentation of the Apple offering and then judge for themselves. Most people are slammed with Windows machines all day at work and don't even know the difference, so in that way the stores have been excellent. And would explain a lot about the sales increases as well, as people decide that the machines do, in fact, accomplish what they are looking for. I think this is happening. I think there may be some people that are fooled by the marketing (or drawn in, however you want to look at it) but there is a larger majority of people that see the value of the machine rather than price and see it as good bang-for-buck.

It would be an interesting thing, IMO, to have a *nix store that was as hip as any Apple store and not populated with Birkenstock wearing Patchouli smelling long beards, but hot young people that know their stuff and understand that Grandma just wants to easily and reliably get her email. Put all 3 stores next to each other and let people wander all of them. That'd be pretty damn interesting.

[isthisthingon]

Put all 3 stores next to each other and let people wander all of them. That'd be pretty damn interesting.

A nix store would totally rock.  But I don't think an MS store would be very interesting, at least on the same level.  MS could have a game section with upcoming hardware/software to try out but otherwise it would be pretty pointless IMO since for the most part, every piece of "runs on a PC" software implies at least XP if not Vista nowadays.  So Mac (and perhaps nix) benefits nicely since everything under the sun that's written for them can be displayed in one small store.

It's probably a key factor in keeping public interest in Apple.  I think it causes people to feel secure about buying into the less traveled path where MS doesn't have to worry about being less traveled - at lease today.  I have great hopes for the eventual open source OS domination and open hardware as well.  I know you disagree and feel a closed box is more reliable with a closed, perfect fit OS to compliment it.  But I believe hardware standards and conforming to specifications should rule the day, making components work well together rather than having all PC eggs in one basket   

Having open hardware is good for competition and especially price competitiveness.  I'd have a Mac OSx install on a PC I built just for that purpose - as of many years ago.  Apple could still build their flagship products and allow clones to compete.  If the clones sucked so be it.  But what have they got to lose?  It appears the only thing they would lose is their justification for charging more if others can provide a reasonable alternative for less $.

[perkiset]

I know you disagree and feel a closed box is more reliable with a closed, perfect fit OS to compliment it.

That's not true. I believe that it makes for a very compelling offering, and is often the best tool for the job, but not always.

But I believe hardware standards and conforming to specifications should rule the day, making components work well together rather than having all PC eggs in one basket   

The shafties tried it... they can't make software run within their own specs reliably. And in the *nix world, there are many, many times that things conform but STILL need a whole bunch of tweaking to actually get going. And as open source projects, sometimes you need service RIGHT NOW and it just can't be given.

I think you misunderestistand me. I am a huge fan of both open source and *nix platform stuff. Almost all my servers are *nix (2 Mac Minis and 1 Solaris box left). There are many, many times that this is the best tool for the job. My argument is that you would take the open-source piece and apply it as dogmatically as the shafties or apple fanbois would to their offerings. I am, from a macro standpoint, OS/platform ambivalent. I am very determined, however, when I know what the best tool for the job is - especially for me and my clients.

It bugs me when people dump a platform out of hand, because they don't like it or one of it's practices or it simply irks them. I really dislike working with Windows. But I am compelled to do so when it's the right tool for the job - and for many of my clients, that is so. In each case (Windows, Apple & *nix), the systems have been born from a methodology and philosophy and their placement in the world reflects that.

Windows is where it is in the business world because it is the Mac & Cheese of business computing. Several different varieties, none of them very good but all of them pretty cheap. Easy to find in any store, you'd be hard pressed to find someone that can't cook them. Long on box coloring and additives to make them appealing, but short on real sustenance or food value. *Nix is more like going to Harbor Freight Tools. Every single tool known to man, laid out in a very pragmatic way. Not very attractive, but not ugly. Conveniently located but hard to get what you need if you don't understand what each tool is for and how it works. Apple is like going to see Yo Yo Ma in concert. Eclectic, a bit snooty and definitely the trendy thing to do. Incredible quality, you'll get what you pay for - but most folks neither care for or even want to know about an Asian cellist. Certainly an elite crowd that knows it and wants YOU to know it as well.

There's room in the world for all 3 - especially since, as we can see, you could visit Harbor Freight in the afternoon, and eat Mac & Cheese before you go out to the concert. There's a real place for all of them.

Having open hardware is good for competition and especially price competitiveness.  I'd have a Mac OSx install on a PC I built just for that purpose - as of many years ago.  Apple could still build their flagship products and allow clones to compete.  If the clones sucked so be it.  But what have they got to lose?  It appears the only thing they would lose is their justification for charging more if others can provide a reasonable alternative for less $.

Hmm. The Toyota/Lexis/Scion model. May happen, dunno. I think they've got there hands full just doing what they're doing, and they are wonderfully profitable ... why increase their potential exposure to crappiness simply to satisfy the I'm Entitled To Have It My Way crowd?

Side note: Take their prices compare them apples to apples (no pun intended) to other offerings. The cost bump for what comes with the machine is NOT large at all. It's largely a fallacy. And by that, I mean factor in some cost for engineering, software development, the whole deal: I believe if you pencil it out, you would see that it is not expensive at all.

[isthisthingon]

Actually I said "I have great hopes for the eventual open source OS domination and open hardware as well."  Obviously we're not there yet and companies such as Apple can still get away with closing and proprietarizing everything.  Certainly best tool for the job, especially when it comes to advising non-tech people such as clients, friends, etc. 

But the question I pose to Apple has zilch to do with putting any more work on their plate.  It's strictly legal and nothing else.  Heck they could distribute their OS installs/upgrades and if they didn't even work on clones it would be up to the clone manufacturers to figure out the problem.  Now if they've done specific things that demand pings from proprietary components simply to ensure clone hardware is an impossibility, well that's another story.

[perkiset]

But the question I pose to Apple has zilch to do with putting any more work on their plate.  It's strictly legal and nothing else.  Heck they could distribute their OS installs/upgrades and if they didn't even work on clones it would be up to the clone manufacturers to figure out the problem.  Now if they've done specific things that demand pings from proprietary components simply to ensure clone hardware is an impossibility, well that's another story.

But again, why open up their crown jewel to being put on crappy/dodgy hardware and therefore degrading the experience that people will have of it? I absolutely disagree that the utter normalization of everything is the right way to go. De-normalization has it's place - particularly when you're looking for more performance or a special application. There is a *very real* business case for controlling the experience that people have when using your hardware/service. Ask Disney. Or BMW. You may not like their products, but that doesn't mean that they'd be better, or better off, if they were just opened up so that potential competitors could do anything they wanted with the brand image.

Open source is great. But it is not a replacement for what Apple offers. It can't be, simply because it's open source.

[isthisthingon]

Ask Disney. Or BMW.

Er, Disney    BMW is another story.  Perfect example, since tires, spark plugs, breaks, wiper blades, batteries, oil filters, stereo's, engines, etc., etc. are all conforming to the type of standards I'm describing.  Even the notion of watts, volts and amps are arbitrary definitions we standardized on, to our benefit.  But a BMW is vastly more complex than a Mac, since they contain so many moving parts, conditional variables, and even powerful on-board computers.  Now here's a logical place for proprietary hardware and OS since human safety is at stake and it's just one small aspect of a much larger offering composed of many replaceable, non-BMW parts.  Most probably stick with BMW parts since they want quality but if BMW get's too Apple crazy about certain price points consumers can go elsewhere.

But this argument that the Intel boards inside Macs are just to perfectly tuned and aligned with their proprietary OS to legally allow clones to take a shot at using OSx as well seems terribly thin to me.  Nobody has to give up any of the things you mention.  The only thing that may suffer is market share, unless costs are brought in alignment with competitive value as determined by the market.  Think about it.  If Apple kept their prices competitive nobody would ever even consider a clone, or another vendor's RAM for that matter.

Besides, OSx is held hostage from a PC builder like myself.  After years of doing it I seriously prefer building a PC from scratch over buying one pre-built.  It's an acquired taste I guess but definitely my preferred route.  Perhaps Apple could consider the additional software sales to PC builders as compensation for hardware losses to clone manufacturers

[perkiset]

Er, Disney    BMW is another story.  Perfect example, since tires, spark plugs, breaks, wiper blades, batteries, oil filters, stereo's, engines, etc., etc. are all conforming to the type of standards I'm describing.  Even the notion of watts, volts and amps are arbitrary definitions we standardized on, to our benefit.  But a BMW is vastly more complex than a Mac, since they contain so many moving parts, conditional variables, and even powerful on-board computers.  Now here's a logical place for proprietary hardware and OS since human safety is at stake and it's just one small aspect of a much larger offering composed of many replaceable, non-BMW parts.  Most probably stick with BMW parts since they want quality but if BMW get's too Apple crazy about certain price points consumers can go elsewhere.

Consider the spark plugs, wiper blades et al applications and you have my example. BMW makes it clear: use genuine BMW parts and get work done at a genuine BMW dealer or your warranty is off. They can't stop you from putting a Fram oil filter on it, but they can disown you. You can argue that BMW wants to do this strictly as a revenue component - and I'd not disagree that it is that for them - but I'd assert equally that this is done to maintain absolute control over your experience of a BMW and the brand image. Equally, you can go hack out a BMW engine and put it in a Chevy, but BMW will neither stop you or assist you. But try to sell it as anything with the BMW letters on it and they'll have your ass right quick. Similarly, you can do anything you want to your Mac in the comfort of your own home. And like the fact that BMW will not have made standardized motor brackets for you to easily drop the engine into said Chevy, Apple will not have made it easy for you to drop OS-X into a PC. But if you want to do it, have at. Endeavor to sell it and you're in a completely different world.

And regarding Disney, they are ABSOLUTE in their control of their image and customer experience - so rigidly disciplinarian about it that their lawsuits and employee claims are things of legend. You may not like it, you may wish to go to a park that is less doctrinaire or even to a different theme park because you don't want to get Moused, but WGAF? Just try to do a dance remix of "Under The Sea" and sell it.

But this argument that the Intel boards inside Macs are just to perfectly tuned and aligned with their proprietary OS to legally allow clones to take a shot at using OSx as well seems terribly thin to me.  Nobody has to give up any of the things you mention.  The only thing that may suffer is market share, unless costs are brought in alignment with competitive value as determined by the market.  Think about it.  If Apple kept their prices competitive nobody would ever even consider a clone, or another vendor's RAM for that matter.

@ perfectly tuned: my Solaris boxes (only have one left now) were perfectly tuned machines for web services. I mean, wonderfully so. My one remaining box keeps up with todays computers, and in fact is a Peterbuilt of a machine - and it has 4 300MHz processors. Yes, you read that right: it keeps up with my new web servers with 300MHz processors. Now, put them head to head on a purely computational effort and they lose dramatically. Breathtakingly. But head to head Apache / stock site distribution they are incredible. They don't stop - they just slow down under galactic load. If the architecture of a Power Mac is any indication of the tuning inside, then I have no doubt that they are highly tuned, although I'm not a hardware geek enough to know so.

But to that point, I had to install another 4G of ram into 3 different Power Macs Thursday. I opened one up, added the Ram (it's a beautiful thing in the latest boxes) and turned it on. Fired right up. But moments after it was up, a window came up that said "The new ram in the machine is not in it's optimal position for performance. Move it to Slot 2 for optimal performance." I was stunned. Reopened the box, moved a 1G stick from slot 2 and dropped the 2G stick in it's place, moving the 1G to slot 4. Turned it back on, same window: "Your new RAM is installed correctly for optimal performance." Now I've seen some slick stuff on a PC, but I've never seen THAT. Not that it's that tough. But there's engineering, forethought and execution in there that cost them money. And it has value for me - I was able to get the most out of the machine without having to be a friggin jeenias on the hardware. Therein lay the value that I speak of.

Besides, OSx is held hostage from a PC builder like myself.  After years of doing it I seriously prefer building a PC from scratch over buying one pre-built.  It's an acquired taste I guess but definitely my preferred route.  Perhaps Apple could consider the additional software sales to PC builders as compensation for hardware losses to clone manufacturers

But I fail to see how your desire to have a freely-retasked OS-X makes it a better business plan or deployment plan for them. If you wanted to build a Corvette with a BMW engine you'd have no less hassle. I'd assert that if they normalized it so that you could do such, the possibility for it going to a Windows level of stability is higher and would ruin my experience with the box, or the reason that I want to buy it.

Apple, OSX and Macs are not for everyone - and I think Apple is just fine with that. They don't want to be ubiquitous, they want to be insanely great. Whether you think they are or not, I support their vision and am in favor of them having the right to do it Their Way. The world has *nix for what you need. And it was good, and there was much rejoicing. The world has Apple for a different mission.

[nop_90]

http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/efi-boot-process.html
How Apple makes even Microsoft seem well-behaved and conformant

Again if u look at
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Articles/BootProcess.html
Apple themselves calls it EFI.
Again EFI is supposed to be an open standard.
Well apple should not call what ever POS they have on thier machines EFI.
Call it "Apples lock other OS out boot system"
Thier hacked version of EFI serves 2 purposes,
1) Stop people from installing OSX on other intel machines
2) Stop people from installing other OS on thier machines.
I just found that out because of my booting off a flash disk fiasco.

Heya I am all cool with apple doing what ever they can to lock their users into what ever crap OS they want to use.
Just don't false advertise it as an "open standard".

Basically apple is the same as Microsoft and AT&T 20+ years ago.
Except they managed to brainwash millions

I think Apple's "monopoly on cool" will eventually backfire since that approach is better suited as an alternative to IBM.  These days people are far more interested in defining cool for themselves and even the suggestion that someone else can provide it for you turns lots of people off.  At least it's a put-off for me and many others I know 

Nah I 100% disagree Most people are not interested in defining cool for themselves. They just want some one else to define cool for them, but have it appear they made the choice themselves.
Silly Bill Gates should have just attempted to make MS Windoze into a religion like Steve Jobs did
I mean look how good apple is, they even managed to brainwash perks into an apple fundy 

In fairness to apple, their hardware is good quality.
My 2 year old MacBook Pro is still up and running. (Despite me managing to kill the motherboard which apple replaced free of charge, repair guys where shocked I think I am the only one in PH who managed to destroy the MB thru just use ). And they do know how to keep users happy.

Also I get a kik out it when people who might have a brand new laptop a leveno,compaq etc, which are good machines.
Then I whip out my macbook and they go all gaga because it has a picture of an apple on it.
The power of good advertising/brainwashing
Steve Jobs could probably make apple turds, and then sell them for big money
And people would be saying why Apple shit is much better then M$ shit
Bottom line is apple keeps majority of thier users fanatics happy.
I love it

[perkiset]

I reject that Apple's sales growth are from brainwashing.
I submit that the shit works really well, and people love it.

The average Apple user is more educated than the average PC user, has a higher net worth and income and is more often Liberal.

These people cannot all be simply stupid sheeple. And I'd submit that, although I am a big fan, I am NOT one to brook crappy hardware or software. I use the Mac because it is, quite simply, the best tool for my job.

Oh, and it gets me chicks.

[isthisthingon]

Nah I 100% disagree  Most people are not interested in defining cool for themselves.

On one level I agree since this seems to be the norm in many ways.  Spoon feed the sheeple their McIdentities and they'll become loyal customers.  The problem however, is when the sheeple catch wind that their McIdentities are at risk of being outed as unoriginal.  That's when they scatter like roaches in sunlight (not referring to perks here, but the cosmic sheeple collective Earth has been blessed with.)

Using another example, remember when the whole world seemed to agree that Brittany Spears was the sexiest most talented performer ever?  Like not too long ago???... that is until Chris Crocker looks like as ass on Comedy Central supporting her: "leave Brittney ALONE!!!" (along with other negative media that turned the tides on her career almost instantaneously).  At that point the castle built on sand collapses since there's nothing sheeple hate worse than being on the wrong side of popular opinion 

Having a "monopoly on cool" is a thin ice situation IMO since public opinion is fickle and often will change for the sake of any new hype.  You need to have the other factors such as competitive pricing, features, reliability, etc. to withstand the changes in what's publicly accepted as "cool."

[perkiset]

Totally agree, natch my thought that cool is on the way out ... but at the same time, if hipsters keep purchasing the stuff then whether Apple promotes it or not, it will retain a certain cache´ (and sheeple will want it) that MacroShaft just can't seem to put together.

My ultimate point is that regardless of cool, the illuminati purchase Mac because it rocks. Not because it's cool. And then others, in a mad, cockroach like scramble (hmmm, sounds like something I've had at the Good Egg) will go try to be like them, and fork over the cash.

[ehlo]

The average Apple user is more educated than the average PC user

Most of the Mac users I've met like them because they make the "duuuuung" noise when they switch on