Why Apple can afford to rock

well it's true we pat 47% cost of apple product for design but apple is only company who dear to charge so high for that because they made great product and other companies know that they cannot make that great design, how much money they spend on that, dude it's all about confidence not how much money you can spend.

So according to your theory, no other company except Apple is capable of designing amazing products?

I don't agree, really. There are lots of companies with design heads as skilled or even more skilled than Apple.

^^ agree with ring_wraith.

Take Creative Zen, for example. This new flash based player is gorgeous, fast, loads of features, Credit card sized, ultra thin, can play avi, mpeg videos, loads of audio format support, looks sexy

Still you get a 32Gb flash based player for 299$. If Apple had such product, they will charge atleast a hundred dollars more.

FYI, the apple's menu layout for ipod's is taken from Creative and we all know how Apple struck a deal with Creative when creative filed a case against Apple for using their menu layout.

Well that is news to me! I had no idea Apple's revolutionary interface was ripped off.

^^yes. Apple paid $100 million to use the interface and also gave license to creative to manufacture accessories for ipod's.

*www.news.com/Apple-settles-with-Creative-for-100-million/2100-1047_3-6108901.html

quite an obvious logic. Indeed, you might as well add the cost Rs. 3800/- for the iLife that comes bundled in.

And as you might know, there are lits of guys intrested in emulating MacOSX to run iLife. So it won't be long before people may start using eMac(emulator du macintosh - the name I would like to give concidering windows emulator is called wine, and also to make fun of iMac) as much as they use Wine.

Not just Mac, take ipod's, iphones. There has been lot of reports that say that apple sells it's products 3-4 times the cost it takes for production.

and one more thing is brand value.

Take for example, in India, go to any store Apple products are sold for the price on the box (a.k.a. MRP) but for other electronics, the selling price is way lower than what's on the box.

End of the day.... apple still wins majority of design awards.... meaning that even if other companies design well... they do not do it the best.

And apple wins...

atlease read the first post before commenting...

aditya.shevade said:

End of the day.... apple still wins majority of design awards.... meaning that even if other companies design well... they do not do it the best.

And apple wins...

Click to expand...

apple doesn't really win
other companies do really well too. It's not like Sony or HP doesn't do good. In fact, every company can afford to rock. I think Apple only got the looks. What you really need to say whether it is good or bad is the specs

^^ Agreed. I was talking about the style only. If you want specks and cheap... go and assemble one yourself....

Aditya

If people are willing to give 47%more money to Apple for their products, then why shouldn't they sell them? They aren't here for charity..
BTW the components used in iMacs are not standard desktop components, they are a mix of lappy+desktop components..
Great article tho.

ring_wraith said:

What sets Apple apart from everyone else? What makes it the most admired company in America, if not the world. Once you look past the fanboyism that Apple manages to incite in their customers, the entire hype boils down to two simple reasons.

Design and Ease of Use.

Every Apple product, be it the seemingly infallible iPod or the mighty iMac, oozes these two in a degree unforeseen ever before. Take away these two factors and what you have is a relatively ordinary company.

But why? Surely, Apple is not hoarding a secret bunch of devs who they kidnapped from MIT and Harvard, and every other company hires smart monkeys. It's really simple actually, it's because they can afford to. Allow me to elaborate.

First off, why can Apple afford to have the most amazing Design? There are two kinds of "afford" really, technically and monetarily. Design of course thrives on the latter. Let's dig deeper.

The iMac 20" 2.0Ghz C2d costs 64,600 on the Apple store. Now, we're going to find out how much an ordinary PC of a similar config would cost.

CPU 2.33 Ghz E6550 - Rs. 7050
Display Samsung 19" - Rs. 10,100 [So it's one inch less. So sue me]
RAM 1 GB - Rs. 1075
HDD 250 GB SATA 2 - Rs. 2800
Optical Drive 20x SATA - Rs. 1400
GPU HD 2400XT 256 MB - Rs. 5100
Mobo Any half-decent mobo - Rs. 4000
MS Kb+mouse Rs. 750
Webcam You choose - Rs. 1000

Now this totals up to around Rs. 33,000. Let's not forget Apple is getting all this at really low direct from manufacturer rates. While the above are retail prices. So I can comfortably deduct ~Rs. 5000 from the price, bringing it down to just Rs. 28000. Let's throw in Vista Home Premium. This bring the price back to 33,000. Adding for the cabinet and what not, you get a system with Vista and a config that is actually better than the iMac for Rs. 35,000.

So where is the remaining ~30,000 going?

You guessed it. Design.

Click to expand...

But you guessed it wrong. As unbelievable as it may sound to you, the cost of selling a product to a customer is not equal to the sum total of the cost of all the parts it is made up of. Can you, for instance, show me a pre-assembled computer from any other company with the specifications you have posted above for the price you've reached?

No, you cannot. That's because bringing that computer to the company has involved a lot of other things (not in the same order) – marketing, packaging, R&D, employee salaries, shipping, profits of the middlemen, taxes and duties, the list goes on...

Apple's computers are better designed because they focus on that. Design is one of the most important parts of the product for them, unlike other companies which regard it as an afterthought.

You're making the same mistake that iFixit does. You cannot compare a pre-assembled computer to a custom built one. The custom built one will always be significantly cheaper. That's no secret.

ring_wraith said:

Now let's move on to their ease of use and stability. Why is a Mac simple to use? Let's assume a different scenario. Let's say that Mac is what Windows is and vice versa. So a very large % of the world is running Mac. So an insane number of programs are written for it, and there is a good number that aren't all that well designed. The ease of use of any piece of technology is mainly Dependant on the software. Chuck in several pieces of badly written software into OSX and see what happens. Don't forget the viruses that in the back of our heads we all know would have eventually been written. Usability and "rock-solid" stability suddenly seem like far off dreams.

Click to expand...

The "What if" scenario is easy to write (because you can assume anything you want to) and sounds convincing on paper, but that does not reflect the truth in any way. Sure, if Apple has this and Microsoft had this, that would have resulted due to the combination of this and that factor... blah blah blah – what matters is what is the present scenario.

Today, it's a fact (no matter how you spin it) that Mac OS X has zero viruses out in the wild and unaccounted for compared to Windows, which has an innumerable number of them. Crashes and driver issues are common on Windows compared to Mac OS X which almost never crashes and connects to almost anything you plug in instantly.

I don't agree with your opinion that were the roles reversed, Mac OS X would have been in the same pickle that Windows is in now. But I won't argue on it because it is baseless and does not have any relation to reality. What is unfortunate, however, is that you realise how much better Mac OS X is to Windows and are yet insistent on sticking to the latter because, in your opinion, it's flaws are justified. What sort of logic is that!

"I won't buy the Bajaj even though I know it is better than Hero Honda because I know that if Hero Honda wasn't prevented from using that modern assembling machine by the government, their bikes would have been of the same standard too."

I know that's not the perfect comparison but I hope you get the point. Why do you, as a consumer, care about the logistics behind the "suckiness" of the product in question? What should matter to you is that there is a product A and product B and you want to have the better one.

If you're on a tight budget, of course, you'll have to keep that in mind when making your decision so you can't always opt for the best one. I'm not disputing that. If you can't afford Apple products, by all means, don't buy them. Even if you can and don't want to for idealistic reasons, that's up to you. But badmouthing them just because they're expensive (for you), that's what results in all these flame wars (and not only on this forum).

ring_wraith said:

This is exactly what Windows has been dealing with for so, so long. Give MS some credit...

Click to expand...

Credit for what? Not being able to deal with it? They made the decision to sell their software and run their ecosystem in such a way that has resulted in them raking in a huge market share and becoming the richest and largest software company in the world.

If that has resulted in their product becoming bulleted with problems to the point of being unusable, it's their fault. They should have had this foresight. People here are criticising Jobs' decision to make the App Store the exclusive place to get applications for the iPhone. He's doing that because he expects the iPhone to become the next great platform and he wants to ensure that users of his platform don't have to deal with malicious applications.

It's obvious that restricting the potential market for the device by making it a controlled infrastructure will lose him a lot of customers but he's still doing it. Microsoft chose not to. At the time when they could have made the decision to think of the customer first, they chose to think of themselves. They just thoughts of ways to sell as many copies as possible.

Now when that has resulted in all this mess, you want us to give them credit for not being able to handle it?

ring_wraith said:

Some people might argue that OSX itself is more intuitive and easy to navigate. This is just a point of view. To me, Windows is more natural than OSX, but that's only because my entire life i have been living on Windows. Similarly, someone who spent most of their time on Mac will find Windows a bizzare and unnecessary concept.

Click to expand...

I spent a good part of my life with Windows too but as soon as I switched, the different was as clear to me as day and night. You don't have to take my word for it. Look around – the whole Internet is rife with stories of scores of switchers, from small time bloggers to respected authors in leading publications, who've found the Mac to be a much better platform than Windows based computers.

It's a fact that "once you go Mac, you never go back". Why is it so? Is everyone who is switching to Mac OS X, giving up most of their entire life's experience, and acclimatising themselves to the new platform a stupid person? Why aren't there people on the Internet posting accounts of their having regretted the decision and switched back? I think you must know that dissatisfied customers are a lot more vocal than satisfied ones. You're more likely to write a blog post complaining about your horrible experience than giving credit to some company for a wonderful one. That's just the way it works.

And yet, you hardly find anyone complaining about their Mac (or their iPhone or iPod, for that matter). Doesn't that mean only one thing? Doesn't it indicate that Apple enjoys an extremely high level of customer satisfaction? And since we've paid more for a quality product, compared to competing vendors' products, don't you think we'd be much more pissed off if the product wasn't actually better?

If you paid for the 2-tier AC compartment in a train, wouldn't you complain to the authorities if the experience isn't better than sleeper class? Wouldn't you warn your friends to stay away from that train?

Think about it.

ring_wraith said:

So, post away pointing out what I myself hope are several errors I have made, for to me Apple was an ideal company, and I curse this stream of logic that flowed through my mind.

Click to expand...

So, there are your several errors. I hope you read this objectively, twice if need be, and really give it some thought. If you don't agree with me on any point, feel free to peacefully question them? I love nothing quite as much as a healthy debate with someone who has a good grasp on English (like you do – keep it up).


I'm sorry for the lengthy monologue but what can I do – when you're an author, it comes with the territory.

(I know that some points are repetitive while I've missed some other more compelling ones. I'm actually experiencing a severe headache right now, so pardon any mistakes.)

An addendum: One mistake everyone here makes is regarding the definition of good design. Good design does not just refer to a pleasant exterior. That is called decoration and is just one aspect of good design.

More importantly, design refers to how a product works overall. Here are just four small examples of good design from Apple products:

1. The MagSafe Connecter: I read on Low End Mac that when Jobs came up with the idea of the MagSafe adapter, the marketing department (they did not name any specific individual) advised him not to have that implemented in the notebooks because it would severely restrict the income from after sales support of notebooks with voided warranties. Jobs overruled that saying that Apple's first intention should be to design the product well and then think of ways to maximise profits by selling it. He didn't want the company compromising on design for the sake of more income. That's how important good design is to Apple.

It is such a simple thing and yet it has saved my notebook on so many occasions. Apple does not even gain a significant amount of sales due to it. Who buys a notebook because it has a more advanced power connecter? But it's still there because it is good design.

2. The Caps Lock and Eject keys: These two keys on Apple notebooks only get activated when you want them to be. In other words, if you're typing fast and accidentally hit the Caps Lock or Eject keys, they don't work. However, if you want them to work when you hit them, they never fail. There's a precisely measured amount of delay built into these keys that prevents them from being activated when hit unintentionally and it works brilliantly. My notebook does not have the Caps Lock key with this feature (it first appeared on the new aluminium keyboards and is now standard on all Mac notebooks) but I do have the Eject key and I can testify that it works as advertised (this isn't advertised, actually, but you get the point).

3. The trackpad: Apple does not advertise it much but they have simply the best trackpad in the business and I'm talking about the non-Multi-Touch enabled one here. Single finger tap for clicking and double finger tap for a right click. Put two fingers on the trackpad and drag them around to pan anywhere you want (full 360º support). Double tap and drag to drag and drop stuff with built-in click lock that is difficult to explain but works wonderfully well. You have to use it to experience it. I can say with hundred percent confidence that, except for gamers and graphic designers, this trackpad works better than the best mice out there. I actually bought one for myself but have never used it even once.

4. Exterior design: Here are two examples of design that improves the looks without compromising the functionality in any way at all. There's a tiny green light next to the iSight camera on Macs but it is designed in such a way that it is clearly visible when on but completely disappears when turned off. No one in the world can tell that there is a light there unless it is turned on. Similarly, my MacBook Pro has two latches that hold the lid in place when you shut it but, here's the genius of it, they don't hang out like ugly little eyesores all the time. Only when the lid is almost fully closed do they pop out and click into place. And they never fail. Never ever.

Neither of the above things requires a lot of money to implement and yet they are all there, along with several other little features of both Apple's hardware and software that exude class. One look at them and you know that these have been designed by a company that takes their work seriously. If design hadn't been central to Apple's product philosophy, no amount of money could have made it so evident in their products.

First off, the only thing I agree with you on is that a healthy debate is far more preferable to a reckless fanboy discussion. And please don't ask me "keep it up" on my English skills, I feel like a 12 year old. The only reason my fluency over English appears weak on the forums is because I am drawn and in fact, quite enjoy the casual nature everyone [but you] chooses to post in.

First off, yes I can find a pre-assembled PC that surpasses the config by quite a bit actually, for around the same cost. And it's by dell. Here you go:

*www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/featured_desktop1?c=in&cs=indhs1&l=en&s=dhs

That happens to be a Quad-core, by the way. And I'm sure you'd find several more if you look.

Moving on, the sole reason I used the what if situation is because I admit that I have no other means to give anyone an idea of what would happen. But now I'm going to try anyway.

Everyday, several people spend several hours doing nothing other than looking for explots in Windows. How are exploits created? Programming error. And of course because the programmer cannot account for every possible situation.

Now tell me, how many people do you think are doing this to OSX? Don't give me the "that's because it's too difficult to crack" bulls***. Every OS can be exploited, whether you choose to accept it or not.

And Windows has handled it admirably. Unusable??? I really do not think so. Take a look at MS's stock quote and then please explain as to how they became the world's largest software company with a product that no one can use.

Just to prove myself further, I give you this:
*www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Mac-OS-X-hacked-under-30-minutes/0,130061744,139241748,00.htm

Apple foolishly put forth an OSX hacking challenge. It took the winner under half an hour to gain root control of an OSX system. Some choice quotes :

"This sucks. Six hours later this poor little Mac was owned and this page got defaced".

Click to expand...

"It probably took about 20 or 30 minutes to get root on the box. Initially I tried looking around the box for certain mis-configurations and other obvious things but then I decided to use some unpublished exploits -- of which there are a lot for Mac OS X,"

Click to expand...

"Mac OS X is easy pickings for bug finders. That said, it doesn't have the market share to really interest most serious bug finders," added gwerdna.

Click to expand...

"The only thing which has kept Mac OS X relatively safe up until now is the fact that the market share is significantly lower than that of Microsoft Windows or the more common UNIX platforms.… If this situation was to change, in my opinion, things could be a lot worse on Mac OS X than they currently are on other operating systems," said Archibald at the time.

Click to expand...

Read the last two several times. This is the hard and real truth.

Turns out my "What if" is a lot more real than any Mac fanboy will choose to accept.

You claim that it's fantastic that Jobs has locked up the iPhone, and only App centre can be used to download stuff. I really don't feel the need to even argue on how annoyingly stupid this sounds. It's like tying up a kid in a strafe jacket and locking him in a room and saying that it's best for him, as he will be safe.

You say I'm badmouthing Apple products for being expensive. Please re-read the title of the thread. The only reason I went all out to make a side by side comparision was to prove that Apple products only have amazing design because they are charging you so darn much, and not because they are the all-exalted design geniuses some people call them to be.

No one complaining about the Mac? People hate the mac so much that it's lead to almost a fond hatred towards Apple itself. Convenient how you choose to surf only one side of the internet.

Finally, don't apologize for the lengthy post. I enjoy them and appreciate you taking the time to put them together.

About R&D

Apple has ZERO R&D in The Computer* they sell as MAC That run Intel ! Maybe its some percent in the architecture they used previously !
Design ! agreed, its excellent !

The Design is not Mind blowing like an AlienWare or Something
But its aesthetic and suitable for desktop PC !! For office and home !

Of course given a theme any creative guy can design something better then the apple ..!

Apple high price because BRAND NAME ! Hope you get this fact right ! High brand valued stuff always cost high !

* Any device that works by manipulating numbers, is a Computer, MAC is a computer anyday !
Another Fact ! Any DAMN Processor basic operations are MOV, ADD, SUB etc ! All operations are complicated steps of these simple instructions !


*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_instruction_listings

Comparing R&D is not really fair. Existing architecture is used by most manafactureres.

Brand name? Dell not good enough for you?

I think we all realize that a Mac is still a computer... this are the Digit Forums, not Noobs Unlimited.

aryayush said:

An addendum: One mistake everyone here makes is regarding the definition of good design. Good design does not just refer to a pleasant exterior. That is called decoration and is just one aspect of good design.

More importantly, design refers to how a product works overall. Here are just four small examples of good design from Apple products:

1. The MagSafe Connecter: I read on Low End Mac that when Jobs came up with the idea of the MagSafe adapter, the marketing department (they did not name any specific individual) advised him not to have that implemented in the notebooks because it would severely restrict the income from after sales support of notebooks with voided warranties. Jobs overruled that saying that Apple's first intention should be to design the product well and then think of ways to maximise profits by selling it. He didn't want the company compromising on design for the sake of more income. That's how important good design is to Apple.

It is such a simple thing and yet it has saved my notebook on so many occasions. Apple does not even gain a significant amount of sales due to it. Who buys a notebook because it has a more advanced power connecter? But it's still there because it is good design.

2. The Caps Lock and Eject keys: These two keys on Apple notebooks only get activated when you want them to be. In other words, if you're typing fast and accidentally hit the Caps Lock or Eject keys, they don't work. However, if you want them to work when you hit them, they never fail. There's a precisely measured amount of delay built into these keys that prevents them from being activated when hit unintentionally and it works brilliantly. My notebook does not have the Caps Lock key with this feature (it first appeared on the new aluminium keyboards and is now standard on all Mac notebooks) but I do have the Eject key and I can testify that it works as advertised (this isn't advertised, actually, but you get the point).

3. The trackpad: Apple does not advertise it much but they have simply the best trackpad in the business and I'm talking about the non-Multi-Touch enabled one here. Single finger tap for clicking and double finger tap for a right click. Put two fingers on the trackpad and drag them around to pan anywhere you want (full 360º support). Double tap and drag to drag and drop stuff with built-in click lock that is difficult to explain but works wonderfully well. You have to use it to experience it. I can say with hundred percent confidence that, except for gamers and graphic designers, this trackpad works better than the best mice out there. I actually bought one for myself but have never used it even once.

4. Exterior design: Here are two examples of design that improves the looks without compromising the functionality in any way at all. There's a tiny green light next to the iSight camera on Macs but it is designed in such a way that it is clearly visible when on but completely disappears when turned off. No one in the world can tell that there is a light there unless it is turned on. Similarly, my MacBook Pro has two latches that hold the lid in place when you shut it but, here's the genius of it, they don't hang out like ugly little eyesores all the time. Only when the lid is almost fully closed do they pop out and click into place. And they never fail. Never ever.

Neither of the above things requires a lot of money to implement and yet they are all there, along with several other little features of both Apple's hardware and software that exude class. One look at them and you know that these have been designed by a company that takes their work seriously. If design hadn't been central to Apple's product philosophy, no amount of money could have made it so evident in their products.

Click to expand...

I almost completely agree with you on this. Sadly, not on the Steve Jobs' quote thing. Come on Aayush, we live in the real world. That's probably a Marketing gimmick from the one-man marketing army that is Steve Jobs.

Also, as I've said earlier, just about any company could have come up with these "innovations" If they would have been earning so much to be able to put a large amount on R&D.

I am an Apple user myself and own a MacBook and an iPhone, but interface is what Apple is all about, although they're not always the do-gooders of this world.

You may be knowing Bang & Olufsen, these guys created the clickwheel before Apple, if you dont believe me go look at one of their 1990s catalogues, but since they were such a niche company, they didnt bother to patent it. Along came Apple and the rest is history, Steve Jobs keep blaring about how "revolutionary" the clickwheel was!

0 posts and an actual contribution to a discussion??! You have a bright future here young skywalker.

Thank you God!

hey Steve Jobs is a Genius !
If you can't understand that, then forget it no problem, just your point of view !

you actually don't know much about the actual Steve jobs, apart from his being apple CEO !

Are you kidding? I idolize Steve Jobs. He practically made Apple and is the single most gifted marketing and design head to set foot on this planet. I'm just not afraid to call a spade a spade. The decision to not allow users to set their own MP3s as ringtones was a bad one, and that is the end of that.

^^ Agreed....

i never said idolize him like fanboys

but you should certainly read how he recovered !
i love the marketing genius in him !

ring_wraith said:

Are you kidding? I idolize Steve Jobs. He practically made Apple and is the single most gifted marketing and design head to set foot on this planet. I'm just not afraid to call a spade a spade. The decision to not allow users to set their own MP3s as ringtones was a bad one, and that is the end of that.

Click to expand...

Agree. Without him, Apple would've been history.

But I would also hail Jonathan Ive, SVP of Industrial design at Apple, man behind ipods and iphone and also Phil Schiller, SVP Marketing.

No other team can beat this team.

Actually its not just Apple who overcharge their products. Sony does that too. And Sony's designs usually aren't even as good as those of Apple's. Mostly Sony just charge for their brand name. You get products that cost half of the price of an equivalent Sony product but which still perform the same.

Having said that there is something about these over priced products that people don't notice when you first see the price tags. This is something that one only learns when one actually spends some time with these products. The Sony products might be more expensive, but these things have a reputation for being bullet proof. You could buy an Akai LCD tv thinking that it is half the price of a similarly sized Sony tv, but spend a couple of years with it and then you discover how Akai managed to make the display so cheap and where exactly they cut the cost. Similarly your neighbour who might've bought a Sony would still be satisfied with his purchase and he would still be for many more years.

Quality always comes at a price. You just can't deny it. This is what I used think earlier. Than after listening to a few friends i started thinking that cheaper products are good as well and it doesn't have to be expensive to be good. I was proved wrong. I realised I was right all along.

Compare a Honda with a Merc. Both make great cars. Both are luxurious, have great performance and accomplish the basic task of taking you from point A to B. Then why should one choose Merc over the Honda? Because of the way they take you from point A to B. The Merc would've have automatic climate control which changes the cabin temperature according to the position of the sun. The seats would allow you to adjust it everyway possible and then save it in the memory so that if someone else sits on it and changes the settings you can get back those settings of yours at a push of a button. The cabin would be quieter so that after a hard days work you don't have to be annoyed with the honking of the truck or the sound of your own cars tires. Little fans in the seats which cool your back so that you don't sweat or massage you if you are really stressed. Plus the fact that you're probably in the safest place on four wheels and then you realise that the telephone number sized amount that you wrote on the check, which is probably equivalent to the GDP of a small country, for this car was after all, worth it. Same applies here.

^+100. Great Post.

^^ Yeah.... true.... I have experiences about quality and prise....

a_k_s_h_a_y said:

hey Steve Jobs is a Genius !
If you can't understand that, then forget it no problem, just your point of view !

you actually don't know much about the actual Steve jobs, apart from his being apple CEO !

Click to expand...

actually, at the end of the day, this is what turns out:

1. Steve Jobs rocks. He is an inspiration for all industrialists, innovators and marketers alike. He had a dream and a will to work for it.

2. Apple is still not good enough to be steve jobs' baby. He deserves better.

krazyfrog. said:

Actually its not just Apple who overcharge their products. Sony does that too. And Sony's designs usually aren't even as good as those of Apple's. Mostly Sony just charge for their brand name. You get products that cost half of the price of an equivalent Sony product but which still perform the same.

Having said that there is something about these over priced products that people don't notice when you first see the price tags. This is something that one only learns when one actually spends some time with these products. The Sony products might be more expensive, but these things have a reputation for being bullet proof. You could buy an Akai LCD tv thinking that it is half the price of a similarly sized Sony tv, but spend a couple of years with it and then you discover how Akai managed to make the display so cheap and where exactly they cut the cost. Similarly your neighbour who might've bought a Sony would still be satisfied with his purchase and he would still be for many more years.

Quality always comes at a price. You just can't deny it. This is what I used think earlier. Than after listening to a few friends i started thinking that cheaper products are good as well and it doesn't have to be expensive to be good. I was proved wrong. I realised I was right all along.

Compare a Honda with a Merc. Both make great cars. Both are luxurious, have great performance and accomplish the basic task of taking you from point A to B. Then why should one choose Merc over the Honda? Because of the way they take you from point A to B. The Merc would've have automatic climate control which changes the cabin temperature according to the position of the sun. The seats would allow you to adjust it everyway possible and then save it in the memory so that if someone else sits on it and changes the settings you can get back those settings of yours at a push of a button. The cabin would be quieter so that after a hard days work you don't have to be annoyed with the honking of the truck or the sound of your own cars tires. Little fans in the seats which cool your back so that you don't sweat or massage you if you are really stressed. Plus the fact that you're probably in the safest place on four wheels and then you realise that the telephone number sized amount that you wrote on the check, which is probably equivalent to the GDP of a small country, for this car was after all, worth it. Same applies here.

Click to expand...

You're missing the whole point of the thread. I am trying to say that Apple only rocks because you are paying it to do so. Just about any company could do the same if they charged so much for products. The only reason a Mac has fantastic design is because you are paying for it.

Coming to a different point of your arguement, you are completely wrong when you say the Price is directly proportionate to performance. Take the iRiver Clix for instance. It costs as much as the iPod Nano 3G, but has a larger screen, the best sound quality currently available on a flash player, an interface that's just as simple, if not simpler, while being more feature loaded, and even other features like flash games and a radio. And it looks downright sexy while being slightly thicker than the nano.

Now, how is the iPod nano better? Despite being the same cost? According to afforementioned rule, the nano must be significantly cheaper. Quality quite certainly not at a price. The only reason I don't own a clix is because they [iRiver] don't operate in India and finding one would have been difficult, leave alone support.

The only products for which the rule holds is the WYSIWYG type of products.

And Gautham, I agree with you. Steve Jobs is just too good to be wasted on Apple. He should take control of MS. Steve and Gates at the head of the largest software company in the world would lead to nothing short of a revolution.

^^ OK... I don't want to argue on the quality issue, but can someone please post the research where it ways that iRiver sounds better than the iPod for all genres/frequencies.

AND.. dude, are you really saying that Steve Jobs will be better off in MS? MS sucks more than apple (if you say apple sucks that is... MS sucks anyways....)

krazyfrog. said:

Plus the fact that you're probably in the safest place on four wheels and then you realise that the telephone number sized amount that you wrote on the check, which is probably equivalent to the GDP of a small country, for this car was after all, worth it. Same applies here.

Click to expand...

Ye kuch jyada ho gaya yaar

^^ Might be true.... for all we know...

CNET reviews the iRiver Clix 2 and writes;

I need to point out, a micro debate is unnecessary. Start a new thread if you want to argue it.

And I don't really know if you know, but it is generally accepted that the iPod's sound quality is not all that good.....

Apple is better than MS?

hmmm... stock quote time? Funny how so many people invest money in MS when Apple is around.
Face it. MS has revolutionized computing more times than you can count.

@ring_wraith

You're focusing on two points which you mentioned in the first post – (1) any company could design products as great as Apple's if they charged as much; and (2) if Mac OS X were in the position that Windows is today, Windows would be just as good as Mac OS X and vice versa.

I don't want to debate with you on the second point. It's a an old argument that's been around since forever and there have been countless number of well written articles by experts on both sides of the fence, each one just as convincing as the previous one. You posted links to people saying that if Apple were in the position that Microsoft is in today, their software would be just as unusable (yes, Windows is unusable for me). I could post several links to articles from several authors who don't agree with that, if I was so inclined.

The fact remains that what you're trying to base your argument on is a hypothetical situation which no one has witnessed. How are you supposed to assume anything about it definitively? Can you say, with the same conviction you seem to have about this issue, that if India hadn't gained freedom in 1947, we would still be under British rule? Can you say yes or no with absolute certainty?

No, you cannot. You cannot make a rule which is based on the unforeseen outcome of a hypothetical situation.

What you can do is look at the facts and base your purchase decision on it. And the fact remains, no matter how many arguments you may put forth and how may scenarios you may try to draw our attention to, that Mac OS X does not have a single virus or spyware or adware or malicious application out in the wild that can harm unsuspecting users. Not even a single one. The one or two that have cropped in the seven years of its existence have been squashed faster than the time it takes to type the word "virus".

You can visit pornographic and other websites which are known to be repositories of malicious content (not that I'm advising you to) on a Mac without even the firewall turned on (though it is recommended that you do, from a security perspective) and absolutely no security related software installed and you'll remain unscathed. My Windows using friends have now made it a habit to bring potentially infected CDs (purchased from illegal hawkers) to me so that I can verify it for them.

I don't know about you but I quite enjoy this inherent freedom my Mac powers me with. Trying to cautiously sidestep the innumerable potholes and booby traps laid out for Windows users on the Internet and in the real world is now a thing of the past. No need to install and update several resource hungry security applications anymore (which aren't 100% effective anyway). I can fire up any P2P application I want and download any file I want. If it doesn't play, re-download another one and try that out. If it were a Windows PC, that second chance wouldn't have been there for the taking.

I could go on and on but I hope that, finally, you get the point. I give you your point for the sake of argument. Yes, Mac OS X would have been in the same pickle as Windows if the roles were reversed. But what's stopping you from using it now when it's not? Do you have some sort of pity for Windows? Oh, poor Windows, it is unfairly targeted by some many hackers. Let me use it to express solidarity with the platform, while I constantly try to evade all the threats that are associated with it and reinstall it every few months.

I don't get this logic. I don't understand it at all.


--------------------------------


As for point number two: You are point blank wrong.

Yes, quality comes at a price.

No, given the freedom of flexible pricing, not everyone can come up with good quality.

It just does not work that way.

As an example: Give me Adobe Photoshop, a Rs. 40,000 DSLR, take me to the most scenic place on Earth and ask me to come up with a good photograph. Now, give someone like Milind (goobimama) a Rs. 10,000 digicam, some crappy photo editing software and leave him in Goa. I can bet you anything he'll come up with a much decent picture than mine.

That's because he gets the concept of good photography and image editing and I don't – and no amount of money or resources can make me get it. Similarly, no amount of money can make an IBM come up with an iMac or an iPhone. It needs a visionary like Steve Jobs and an industrial designer like Jonathan Ive to come up with that. It needs a company that has good design ingrained in its culture.

For instance, look at Apple's website and compare it to any other company's. Be it Sony, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Toshiba – any at all. See which one is the best. The website is not a product the company is charging for. How do they manage to come up with the best one then? You can gift someone an iPhone complete with two years of service from AT&T and wrapped in a beautiful origami style gift package with a custom message faster than you can buy a single, bare bones handset from Nokia or Sony Ericsson or Motorola or Samsung.

All these companies sell their products online. Why does Apple have the most streamlined buying experience? Why are they the only company with a highly successful chain of retail stores which are all excellently designed and make money by the truckloads? Why are they the fastest growing company in the tech industry?

Because they are different from the rest and they have perfected this art of differentiation by good design and tight integration between software and hardware. Linux is free and yet the rate of adoption is so slow. Apple's software (if you consider just the software) is the most expensive in the industry because you have to buy the whole computer and yet they are selling them faster than their factories can churn them out.

All of this is because they pay attention to the tiniest of details and make sure that they get the design just right. In the entire industry, whenever they release a new product, reviewers almost always add this line, as cliché as it is, "they've designed it like only Apple can". That's the essence of my whole argument – only Apple can.

If it were just about the money, dude, every company in the industry would have had a range of premium priced products along with their low end products. This range would have had exquisite design and would be a direct competitor to Apple's products. No company likes to see Apple known as the king of good design and everyone of them would like to have a piece of that pie.

And they would... if they could.

1. Steve Jobs has created a illusion in people's mind (may be after the phenomenal success of iPod)
2. Its design will sure attract a teenager and some fashion addicts. But I'll will never attract someone who seeks for pro looking and high performance products.
3. Steve Jobs is in race to replace Bill's Dominance.
4. Apple is backed by fanboys, Microsoft is backed my large enterprieses and Linux is backed by OSS communities.
Zzz. . Peace plz

@ Aayush, Finally. That took a while. As they say, nature will progress like it's supposed to you, just as ring_wraith will disagree with aryayush.

First off, when you mentioned that the only reason I stand by Windows is because I pity it [hypothetically, of course] I realized that you are, in all factuality, missing the whole point of the thread. The whole point of the thread is not my personal preference, but the exact inverse of your [nicely italicized] statement, only Apple can. I stand by what I said, and maintain that not just Apple can. Allow me to mention that I am glad I made you see the light on what would happen if Windows and Apple swapped places. But I will be kind enough not to rub it in your face, and I leave it at that.

Moving on to point number two, [where you dismissed my argument as "point blank wrong"] I once again stand by what I said. Apple has magnificent design only because they can afford to. I am sure you generally agree with me that the design of a product is to be credited to the team that designed it, which boils down to a bunch of individuals.

So, when you say that Apple is the only company in the world capable of designing products like they do.... you are in effect saying that Apple somehow manages to capture every design brain every university in the world has to offer.

Read that again. Once more for effect.

Can you honestly still stand by that now? Do you still live under the impression that every other company picks up employees whom Apple deems unfit? This, my friend, is quite simply, absurd. Steve Jobs is an absolute Genius, as is Jonathan Ive. I will not even make an attempt to deny that. But honestly think about it, if Apple was sans these two great individuals, would it really matter? Sounds incredulous, but do you really think that the design for the iPod and the iMac were conceived by aforementioned Geniuses sitting around a table and sketching? No, it was in fact, conceived by a team of dedicated designers, who choose to live behind the lime-light. Of course, having a very capable Design head made the process a lot simpler, but you cannot possibly think that Steve Jobs is the only person who has ever conceived a good design?

Talent is in abundance, it's just the availability of funds that allows it to run free. Some where, at this very moment, sitting somewhere in the back bench of a class he doesn't care about, is a student who is casually sketching on the back of his notepad a design that makes the iPod seem like a barbaric tool. And there are dozens more.

So your claim that only Apple has the talent to design good products is by no means justified.

Why don't other companies design amazing products? It's because of what you yourself posted earlier. There is a very small segment of people who value design over cost. A narrow margin for a better looking and easier to use product is great, but 47%? They realize that it quite unpractical to make products for a niche group, especially considering the presence of an already established company in the sector.

What these companies in effect do, is say, "Make it as cheap as possible, without making it look ghastly", while Apple says, "Make it look better than anything out there, don't bother about the production costs! ". The only example I've seen of Sony allowing their team of designers some room to maneuverer is the PS3. And we all know how pretty that looks.

I'm sure the heads of the companies you've mentioned have nightmares of iMacs laughing at their products, jeering and poking. But a quick check of their stock quote [i do seem to be using that phrase a lot] undoubtedly dispels those.

The websites? You really leave no aspect out do you? This is just an extension of them having so much money to toss around. Let's say Leela Galleria is posting an advertisement in the newspaper. Would you expect a half page ad designed keeping aesthetic value and presentability in mind, or a 4x4" spot screaming "10% off" ? Why do they bother? After all, you're not paying for it [quite the opposite, actually]. Apart from that, it just fits into their image better. I hope you get the point.

So, that concludes my retort. I do expect a reply from you, as I quite enjoy our verbal jousting, which is [thankfully] relatively free of "u suxore, apple is sh**"

and @ Giga, lol... but where's the war?

Thats my random thought about sh1tty apple.

And finally at the end of the day .. steve is the winner!

Now guys common lets get out of this !

If some one brags about apple and buys them, i will tell you, let them buy

If you are jealous and envious then am sorry, you are fueling apple customers pride and also apple's success !

If you are feeling sorry for those apple customers, then let me tell there are other important things to feel sorry about rater then those rich guys !

ring_wraith said:

I quite enjoy our verbal jousting, which is [thankfully] relatively free of "u suxore, apple is sh**"

Click to expand...

So do I, which is why I take the effort to type those lengthy replies and read yours and of the likes of krazyfrog. (good post, BTW).

I might post a reply tomorrow, though at this point I'm unsure if this discussion is headed anywhere. We're at a deadlock of sorts.

the reason why apple can rock is because it has managed to get itself a place where it commands the loyalty of customers like aayush (no offense), its like theres yamaha, theres honda, theres Triumph and then there is Harley or Hummer .... steve jobs though in the worst possible ditches back when the coke guy almost ousted him stuck to his policy of making something thats premium not many would take the risk and once that worked he did not change policy and still kept his products in the premium range at this point i would also like to point out that releasing iPods for Windows based machines was the single most influential desicion that any CEO has taken and was the sole reason (the iPod itself being secondary) why iPod succeeded

its like in midst of the low cost airline race in india vijay malaya said no im gonna make a premium product and make no mistake about it thers a huge market for premium products, people look to buy premium products as they are a symbol of status and then offcourse u have the elite or rich who will buy the premium product because they can

and thats why no matter how irrational decisions apple takes such as a crippled bluetooth or no vid rec or no optical drive it can still rock

PS: iv been asked many times why i hate apple and my answer always has been that i dont hate apple as a matter of fact i love their hardware but what i hate is that it fools people by illusions such as having no optical drive means ur cooler and the thing i hate most is its fanboys they think that people using windows are "children of a lesser God"

aryayush said:

So do I, which is why I take the effort to type those lengthy replies and read yours and of the likes of krazyfrog. (good post, BTW).

Click to expand...

I'm honoured. Really I am. You see, its not really fun typing out these long replies on the tiny keypads of cell phones (no net on pc right now). But when you realise somebody out there actually reads, likes and appreciates your posts, it makes it worth the trouble.

BTW even I'm a bit confused as to what exactly we are supposed to 'fight' on. I guess all that needed to be said has been said already.

@Pathik, it was a just jokee .

Oh well, I guess we are at a deadlock of sorts. At least the mighty Aayush is rendered unable to make Mac appear significantly better than PC.
The final word: Mac and PC will co-exist until the end of time, simply because they are targeted at different segments of society.

Let's leave it at that. Mods, please lock this thread as an example of a rare, civil discussion in the Fight Club.

MAC will exist with PC untill the end of time, but not their fanboys

Locked on thread starter's request

Opened on thread starter's request

^^ Thanks Kalpik.

A quick explanation, Aayush had a retort, and wanted to post it. Okay Aayush, fire away.

Here are a few links that you should definitely read thoroughly.

Who Is Jonathan Ive?

Steve Jobs in a Box

Apple's design process


After you're done, read the book iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon.


I won't have to tell you anything after that. You'll change your opinion yourself. Talent can be bought, agreed. But you need to have a penchant for finding talent and inciting apparently non-talented people to perform beyond their capabilities. And you need to want to have that talent onboard.

Not every company has a Steve Jobs at its helm and therefore, not every company has a design sense like Apple's. Yes, as crazy as that sounds, Steve Jobs is the sole reason Apple excels at design. Read iCon and you'll know what I'm talking about.

In the ten years when Steve was kicked out of Apple (due to mistakes of his own), Apple did not produce a single product that has been honoured with a place in the museum of technology (or whatever it is called). And from the years when Steve Jobs was at Apple, there have been several products that are today enshrined on pedestals in that museum.

It's common knowledge that, for the most part, Apple is a one man army. Steve Jobs is aware of his importance. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the type that almost surely kills its victim, he hid it for nine months until the penultimate moment when surgery was the only option left. Do you know why? Because he knew that if shareholders came to know that he might leave the company (in other words, die), they would all flee and all the hard work he'd put into restoring the company to glorious heights would go to waste.

That's how important he is to the company. And he is the only reason the company has a great sense of design. Jonathan Ive had been at the company for three years before Steve Jobs returned and in those years, he did not come up with a single innovative design. Once Steve Jobs was back, that same Ive gave us the iPod, the iMac, the Cube and the iPhone.

Money can buy you a Jonathan Ive, sure, but no amount of money in the world can buy you a Steve Jobs.

Read those links and that book. Enjoy.

Ok, I'm not going to argue with that simply because I haven't read iCon. If anyone has, feel free.

The total cost of owning a computer isn't just about what you pay for in the beginning. The efficiency, maintenance and other things all come into play.

1: From the word "go", the iMac is ready to be used. Takes less than a minute to set it up (it even enables the iSight camera while setting up a user account) and you are all ready to work. Compare that with either installing Windows on an assembled computer, or removing all of the crapware that comes with a branded machine and you know what I'm talking about.

2: Maintenance: Don't say there is no maintenance for a Windows system. First thing you have to maintain that Antivirus software. Then the defrags. Then clear out those system error report files. Clean out spyware.

3: Repairs: Poorly designed computers always have problems with them. Not to say that Macs don't. But when I'm reassured that I will get a standby machine while my mac is being repaired (maximum 1 week), I have peace of mind that my work won't suffer.

4: Silence: Macs are totally silent unlike those whiny beeches.

5: Efficiency of work: While things like interface are subjective, I can say with certainty that the mac has an edge with it's interface. Almost a fact. Things like drag and drop, the dock, spotlight, quicksilver, quick look just go with the workflow. I personally cannot work with Windows anymore (other than typing this thing out in Safari-Windows).

Could Apple reduce their prices and be a little bit more reasonable (12k for 2GB RAM!)? Yes. Certainly. But do we have any other choice if they don't? Most certainly not.

goobimama said:

5: Efficiency of work: While things like interface are subjective, I can say with certainty that the mac has an edge with it's interface. Almost a fact. Things like drag and drop, the dock, spotlight, quicksilver, quick look just go with the workflow. I personally cannot work with Windows anymore (other than typing this thing out in Safari-Windows).

Could Apple reduce their prices and be a little bit more reasonable (12k for 2GB RAM!)? Yes. Certainly. But do we have any other choice if they don't? Most certainly not.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. These points are spot on.

If you're a Mac user, it is hard to imagine how life would be if you switched back to Windows. The user interface is just light years ahead.

And you, ring_wraith, or anyone else on this forum can never post any knowledgeable retort against the Mac's user interface (you earlier said that it's just a matter of getting used to, but you were wrong) unless you've actually used a Mac as your main machine for a couple of months.

Only then will you be in a position to compare Windows' UI to Mac OS X's from an equal standpoint. Of course, by then you'll have switched and anything you'll say will be disregarded by other ignorant people as the blinded opinion of a fanboy.

All said and done though, what Milind pointed out rings absolutely true, and is a universal sentiment that you'll find is shared by Mac users across the world. Once you've used a Mac, it's impossible to not look at the comparatively primitive Windows user interface with scorn.

As long as Mac OS X is the only operating system that allows me to drag the file I'm currently working on in Photoshop out of the title bar, onto a corner of the screen to activate Dashboard and drop it onto the ImageShack widget to have it uploaded and the BBCode copied to your clipboard–nothing in the world can change my opinion that it is the operating system with the most superior user interface on the planet.

^^ Oh I didn't know about this widget. Anyway, I just use Skitch

Sigh, my bones grow weary. This debate is not a task for one man. But despite all this, I realize my folly about what I said about OSX's interface.

I had no right to make a statement like the one I made earlier and take it back. Only after I have used OSX for a decent amount of time should I judge it.

For example, what you said in the last paragraph is news to me. But I've got to admit, that sounds bloody amazing.

That said,

goobimama said:

The total cost of owning a computer isn't just about what you pay for in the beginning. The efficiency, maintenance and other things all come into play.

1: From the word "go", the iMac is ready to be used. Takes less than a minute to set it up (it even enables the iSight camera while setting up a user account) and you are all ready to work. Compare that with either installing Windows on an assembled computer, or removing all of the crapware that comes with a branded machine and you know what I'm talking about.

2: Maintenance: Don't say there is no maintenance for a Windows system. First thing you have to maintain that Antivirus software. Then the defrags. Then clear out those system error report files. Clean out spyware.

3: Repairs: Poorly designed computers always have problems with them. Not to say that Macs don't. But when I'm reassured that I will get a standby machine while my mac is being repaired (maximum 1 week), I have peace of mind that my work won't suffer.

4: Silence: Macs are totally silent unlike those whiny beeches.

5: Efficiency of work: While things like interface are subjective, I can say with certainty that the mac has an edge with it's interface. Almost a fact. Things like drag and drop, the dock, spotlight, quicksilver, quick look just go with the workflow. I personally cannot work with Windows anymore (other than typing this thing out in Safari-Windows).

Could Apple reduce their prices and be a little bit more reasonable (12k for 2GB RAM!)? Yes. Certainly. But do we have any other choice if they don't? Most certainly not.

Click to expand...

1. I'll give you that. But is saving a couple of hours of your time worth 30,000?
2. With freeware just about everything can be automated.
3. Repairs? now we're nit picking, but yes I agree, purely because it is centralized.
4. That is so wrong. Replace the stupid stock cooler with any half-decent one, and case fans with stealths. Total Cost= <4k.
5. Can't comment.

Point no. 4 actually directed my attention to a point that is ironically in Mac's favour. Macs do use high quality components. I'd shoot myself in the head before I began comparing A mac keyboard to any other 200 buck keyboard.

Believe me, mate, that's just one example.

Unless you absolutely use Mac OS X with a mind set on hating it (some people do), I don't think it is possible for a normal human being (assuming that all normal human beings prefer better things when faced with a choice) to not see the light.

I can agree with you that Apple's machines are expensive (yes, they are), specially in India. I can agree that Apple tends to screw their customers sometimes. But is there any question that Apple's operating system is the king when it comes to the user interface (and most other areas, actually)? No, none to the aforementioned normal human being.

1. Time is money my friend. And point 2 takes a lot of time in my opinion.
3. No. Not nit picking. The only nit picking I do, is with Apple. I nit picked about my keyboard keys getting a little hard for me - replaced it. There's more examples of nitpicking.
4. Well, for most users that is like rocket science.
5. Hmm...

And btw, that thing about the imageshack is just but one of the many examples I could throw at you.

Why debate on something we all have already debated????

BTW, I dont go by looks

Here's what Bill Gates had to say about Steve Jobs at the D5 conference last year:

Steve gave a speech once, which is one of my favorites, where he talked about, in a certain sense, we build the products that we want to use ourselves. And so he’s really pursued that with incredible taste and elegance that has had a huge impact on the industry. And his ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal. Apple literally was failing when Steve went back and re-infused the innovation and risk-taking that have been phenomenal. So the industry’s benefited immensely from his work. We’ve both been lucky to be part of it, but I’d say he’s contributed as much as anyone.

Click to expand...

I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. He has natural–it’s not a joke at all. I think in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products, you know, we sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done that I viewed as an engineering question, you know, and that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is even hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different and, you know, I think it’s magical. And in that case, wow.

Click to expand...

This says as much about Jobs' aesthetic sense as it does about Bill Gates' modesty.

Wow. What those two could achieve together is beyond me.

BTW... does anyone realize how un-cool we all are right now? I mean fawning over Gates and Jobs? Not that I mind... I just hope my girlfriend doesn't chance upon this thread.

That's why some of our best friends are online, man.

ur girlfrenz a member of this forum

whatever, what i feel is MAC is just for a Home use or a personal use. But where as Win and Lin it is used from editing a porn to launching a shuttle Now thats what makes lin and win a pro OS and MAC as just a personal OS.

I don't know much about Steve Jobs, but recently I saw his keynotes and I noticed that, unlike others he didn't show any fake modesty, and after announcing some feature he'd go "Isn't that awesome?" or "How cool is that?" with the enthusiasm of an 8 year old asking his mom about her opinion on a picture he'd drawn. LOL. It was kinda funny. He didn't seem like a CEO. Infact more like a really big mac fan himself.

Gigacore said:

whatever, what i feel is MAC is just for a Home use or a personal use. But where as Win and Lin it is used from editing a porn to launching a shuttle Now thats what makes lin and win a pro OS and MAC as just a personal OS.

Click to expand...

Yeah. The World Cup 2006 was after all a personal affair...

@ arya, let me finish off few things

Whatever you may argue, well I agree it . But keep in mind that if you select MCA after ur BCA, i bet you will never learn anything regarding Mac in detail. And even after ur MCA, ur platform will be C or whatever and ur workstation will be running win
So, keep in mind that, being humans (we all, including me) must adore each and every OS and their blah blahs.

well, some fun in the middle

Gigacore said:

e But where as Win and Lin it is used from editing a porn to launching a shuttle Now thats what makes lin and win a pro OS and MAC as just a personal OS.

Click to expand...

You must be kidding, lives of people and billions of $$ and country's respect are at stake !
They all use Real Time Operating System ! And own designed OS at workstation !

@ akshay, well man, i used those words to compare in a funny way

yeah.. lol !! funny really !! win and lin both crash a 100 times a day at my old system

@ akshay, thats obvious

Gigacore said:

@ arya, let me finish off few things

Whatever you may argue, well I agree it . But keep in mind that if you select MCA after ur BCA

Click to expand...

I won't.

Gigacore said:

i bet you will never learn anything regarding Mac in detail.

Click to expand...

LOL! I'm going to become an independent Apple developer (which is the collective term used for anyone developing for any of Apple's platforms) one day.

Gigacore said:

And even after ur MCA, ur platform will be C or whatever

Click to expand...

No, it will be Xcode and all the other related tools, based on Objective-C.

Gigacore said:

and ur workstation will be running win

Click to expand...

No, it won't.

You really don't get how serious this is, do you? Sure, I'm going to have to suffer through three years of using Windows in college, but even that will be on Parallels on, hopefully, a MacBook Air.

And as soon as I've gotten reacquainted with the basics of programming, I'll contact some well known Mac developer (which shouldn't be much of a problem now) and ask him to help me out with Xcode and stuff. It's all planned out.

I'm never going back to Windows, mate. Don't worry.

aryayush said:

And as soon as I've gotten reacquainted with the basics of programming

Click to expand...

Zero
One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Your best Bet !

@Aayush,

Can you please explain what you mean when you say that apple tends to screw their customers sometimes?

krazyfrog. said:

I don't know much about Steve Jobs, but recently I saw his keynotes and I noticed that, unlike others he didn't show any fake modesty, and after announcing some feature he'd go "Isn't that awesome?" or "How cool is that?" with the enthusiasm of an 8 year old asking his mom about her opinion on a picture he'd drawn. LOL. It was kinda funny. He didn't seem like a CEO. Infact more like a really big mac fan himself.

Click to expand...

Course he is a fan... he is the CEO of the company for god's sake....

lol ok arya, dont forget to pack macbook air, iPod and its accessories and ur iPhone while you are in trip to hell or heaven after ur death.

On being Over Priced & Expensive
Check this out: Where to buy Apple Products and Get Discounts from Apple Store

And krazyfrog. has posted abt this in his first post in this thread.


On Maintenance
Not just the need for Firewall, AV, Anti Spywares, defrags; Mac needs a lot less work from our side to keep it going.

On an average my PC used to crash once in every 4 days and a BSOD every 3-4 months. My Mac hardly has crashed more than 3-4 times in the last 6 months.


On Productivity
Read this: Why I’m More Productive on a Mac

Note that he wrote that on 10.4 Tiger and we've Leopard with Spaces and all.

Gigacore said:

whatever, what i feel is MAC is just for a Home use or a personal use. But where as Win and Lin it is used from editing a porn to launching a shuttle Now thats what makes lin and win a pro OS and MAC as just a personal OS.

Click to expand...

Home and Personal use? Dude, are you out of your mind? Hollywood studios, Writiers, Photographers, TV/FM studios, all use a Mac. They buy a Mac only for running a single App.

Gigacore said:

BTW, I dont go by looks

Click to expand...

You don't? Half of the posts in the Desktop Screenshot is yours.

iMav said:

ur girlfrenz a member of this forum

Click to expand...

Okay, so she's a figment of my imagination.....

@ grudgy, yeah yeah. . . half of the posts in screenshot thread is mine, coz I have lots of themes on machine, which is actually downloaded for my website, so i just try them once which ever i feel is good. and will post a snap

And they all buy MAC, coz its a style statement for them. And can I know that app please?

drgrudge said:

On being Over Priced & Expensive
Check this out: Where to buy Apple Products and Get Discounts from Apple Store

And krazyfrog. has posted abt this in his first post in this thread.

On Maintenance
Not just the need for Firewall, AV, Anti Spywares, defrags; Mac needs a lot less work from our side to keep it going.

On an average my PC used to crash once in every 4 days and a BSOD every 3-4 months. My Mac hardly has crashed more than 3-4 times in the last 6 months.

On Productivity
Read this: Why I’m More Productive on a Mac

Note that he wrote that on 10.4 Tiger and we've Leopard with Spaces and all.

Home and Personal use? Dude, are you out of your mind? Hollywood studios, Writiers, Photographers, TV/FM studios, all use a Mac. They buy a Mac only for running a single App.

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1) That's really an invalid argument. If I took into account US prices for an equivalent PC, that would turn out to be a lot cheaper as well. The MBP would still cost 80,000 + which is quite a bomb.

2) With reference to putting more work in, as I've said, everything can be automated.

3) Can't comment here. [I refuse to comment on OSX till I actually have some experience of it, to avoid invalid points from my side.]

4) Windows is undoubtedly used in professional scenarios far more than OSX. How can you honestly argue against this?

^^ You are wrong there dude. It is a fact that most movie editing/mixing/graphics related work is done on Macs.

And I think one app means, one app per mac... not a particular S/W.

^^ and a very small % of all professional work done using computers is editing/mixing/graphics.

And honestly, if you think that games[graphics] are developed on mac, you're wrong.

^^ Apps

Final Cut Express Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio, Shake - Hollywood Studios, TV/FM studios

Garageband - Podcasters, FM Studios

Aperture - Photographers

Coda, CSSEdit, TextMate - Coders


For designers, writers and home users (GTD apps, iLife); Mac has the best apps around.

^^ aren't those Apps available for Windows as well? [that's an actual question. Not too sure myself]

I have a confession to make, today I felt the strongest urge I have ever felt to whip out the trusty shotgun and put a few rounds through the cabinet. Purely because of Vista's incompetence, which for some reason that is absolutely beyond me "broke" my internet connection and "wiped off" the clock from the taskbar. I know I could fix these things, but I really shouldn't have to.

Then I began to wonder, Do Mac users ever have this primitive urge?

Well, do you?

Shall i list the counter apps which runs on win ? well i wont

drgrudge said:

My Mac hardly has crashed more than 3-4 times in the last 6 months.

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What! My Mac hasn't crashed even once in the one and a half year I've had it. I'd actually started longing for it to crash at least once so that I could see the famed kernel panic screen.

I did get to see it once though when the beta version of Leopard crashed as soon as I'd gotten it installed, but that does not count. Kernel panic does look sexy, by the way.

aditya.shevade said:

Course he is a fan... he is the CEO of the company for god's sake....

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Yeah I know he's a CEO. But on stage while giving the keynotes, he's more Apple fan than a CEO. This is what I liked about him. His attitude is refreshing. This is what makes watching his keynotes exciting.

anyway, i think its time to say good bye for you guys. will catch you guys back in april. And before leaving, i would say that i'm not really impressed by Mac's UI, but i really love the body works of all the apple products. I just love them. But when it comes to OS, i'm sorry And i'm not a linboy or a winboy, i use all the three. . though i wont use apple products much, but i just GAZE at its beauty. Not the UI

ring_wraith said:

^^ aren't those Apps available for Windows as well? [that's an actual question. Not too sure myself]

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No, the ones he listed are all applications exclusive to Mac OS X. They're the reason why Mac OS X is so highly regarded in the creative field.

ring_wraith said:

[/I]I have a confession to make, today I felt the strongest urge I have ever felt to whip out the trusty shotgun and put a few rounds through the cabinet. Purely because of Vista's incompetence, which for some reason that is absolutely beyond me "broke" my internet connection and "wiped off" the clock from the taskbar. I know I could fix these things, but I really shouldn't have to.

Click to expand...

You know what sort of things frustrate Mac users? If the machine takes more than twenty seconds to boot up. Or if you drag an application off the Dock and the poof animation does not happen.

On Windows, these are not even regarded as minute annoyances. And Mac users raise Hell on Apple's official discussion forums if they can't find a word in the included dictionary.

That's how perfect the operating system is supposed to be.

Do you really think that some Mac user would ever get the urge to put a bullet through it?


I do know this though that when I'm forced to use Windows based PCs in cyber cafes sometimes, those are the times when I wish I could put my shooting skills to use. When you switch to Windows from Mac OS X, it's like you've suddenly jumped from 2008 to 1998. Trust me, I'm not exaggerating.

When I'd initially bought my Mac, I was using it like I'd used it forever within one day of switching to it. And that was after having suddenly let go five years of using Windows. After that, I left my Mac in New Delhi and returned to Siliguri (the latch seemed to be defective so the vendor kept it and would return it to me with the whole screen replaced).

The fortnight I had to spend with Windows in Siliguri, after having spent only one day with my Mac, was like being tied to a lamppost and told to run. Only I know how I spent those two weeks, and this was a time when I wasn't a fan of Apple or anything. I was a guy who'd advocated Windows for five years to all my friends.

When my Mac was shipped back to me, it was like coming home. I've never looked back ever since. And never will.


In a nutshell, it runs Mac OS X (the best OS on planet Earth) and also Windows and Linux if you want it to (and better than PCs do), has a sexy, high quality design, oozes class and is extremely silent. The company provides excellent customer support and the machine is maintenance free. Come have a look at my MacBook Pro. There is no difference between a MacBook Pro purchased yesterday and mine. It's very clean (credit goes to me), has no scratches or anything (anodized aluminium FTW) and works like a charm.

What possible reason could there be for not loving my Mac!

krazyfrog. said:

Yeah I know he's a CEO. But on stage while giving the keynotes, he's more Apple fan than a CEO. This is what I liked about him. His attitude is refreshing. This is what makes watching his keynotes exciting.

Click to expand...

Exactly. It's fun watching him being surprised and excited by the work of his own engineers. I've never seen better presentations from anyone.

He really means it when he keeps insisting that they make stuff that they want to use themselves. Part of me thinks that Bill Gates and the ilk don't actually use the operating system they push out to the masses.

Gives you a nice fuzzy warm feeling inside. And Allow me to say that if a Windows user ever told me that he hadn't crashed in 1.5 years, I would be ROFLing.... literally. Still a bit skeptic about the 1.5 years thing.

Too bad they cost so darn much.

^^ ring_wraith, I was talking movie graphics... (ex, TLOR... your favorite it seems from your ID). I don't even know what game graphics are, cause I don't play games...

@Arya... please, tell me what you meant when you said that apple tends to screw customers?

Trust me, I've been forced to admit much worse things in life and have been ridiculed for them just because I believe that an Arya Samaaji shouldn't lie. The last thing I would do is lie over such a trivial issue.

In fact, I think that even if a Mac crashes every once in a while, it would be fine. No computer is perfect. I'm sure that, like drgrudge said, some people's Macs do crash sometimes.

But there's a different between sometimes and once every week or two. I have a Windows based PC right next to me that we don't boot even if we have something damn important to do and the Mac is busy being used for something else. We'd rather wait that press that dreaded button on that PC.

Here's what happens if we do:
1. It takes over a minute to show the desktop.
2. Several programs start up after that, which takes well over five minutes.
3. Almost every time I use that machine, my patience given way within those five minutes and I move the mouse or hit a key on the keyboard and BAM! It gets stuck. Now there is no option but to do a cold restart.
4. If it's my brother using the computer, who's used to it, he'll wait out those five minutes and then double click Internet Explorer or Opera. Another thirty-forty seconds later, some part of the window shows up, followed by the whole thing in bits and pieces over the course of the next minute.

... You can probably see where this is headed. I know we have to reinstall Windows and everything will be fine, for the next two months. But it will be back to this same stage after that. Rinse and repeat. I'm so freaking frustrated of this whole routine that I've decided not to touch that computer.

We're waiting for the iMac line to be refreshed with the Penryn processors so that we can replace this stupid thing.

Compared to that, a crash once every month sounds like heaven to me. Thankfully enough, I don't even have to suffer through that.


FWIW, it should be quite obvious but, apart from updating to Leopard and trying the two beta releases in between, I've never had to do a reinstall of the OS either. When I used Tiger, I would sometimes get stuck when the machine resumed from sleep and would have to put it back to sleep and resume it again for it to work. That's the only harassment I used to have with my Mac and even that has been put to rest with Leopard.

aditya.shevade said:

@Arya... please, tell me what you meant when you said that apple tends to screw customers?

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot to address your question. I'm going to have dinner now. I'll post a reply as soon as I return.

ring_wraith said:

^^ aren't those Apps available for Windows as well? [that's an actual question. Not too sure myself]

Click to expand...

No, they aren't. They're exclusive to Mac.

@giga,
I've been to Raj TV, and seen M TV office. Those guys use a Mac. Sure you've apps for Windows, but you're mistaken when you say Mac is Home/Personal use only.

aryayush said:

What! My Mac hasn't crashed even once in the one and a half year I've had it. I'd actually started longing for it to crash at least once so that I could see the famed kernel panic screen.

I did get to see it once though when the beta version of Leopard crashed as soon as I'd gotten it installed, but that does not count. Kernel panic does look sexy, by the way.

Click to expand...

I meant apps has crashed, not OS X. VLC and Firefox to blame. Aperture also crashed once. Leopard didn't crash for 3-4 times, only once if I can remember.

^^ your apps crashed a few times? That sounds like a different planet! We have to get used to an App [just one if we're lucky] crashing al least once every time we switch on the PC.....

@ Aayush, come on, it can't be that bad!

Does a mac really take 20 seconds flat to have the desktop, with all bg apps fully loaded, up and running?????

I don't quite agree with you Aayush on Windows usability. I'm using Windows XP since the last two years, and I'm being quite honest here, the number of crashes I've had in these two years can be counted on the fingers of one hand. No. Kidding. I have a old Compaq laptop with now-completely outdated hardware, but it still starts up by around half a minute. The time taken by my pc to be completely usable is around 45-50 seconds which is not bad for my two year old hardware. I try to keep my pc neat and trim and avoid installing unnecessary softwares. And in return it rewards me with pretty good performance.

I do most of the stuff that a regular Windows user does like browsing the net, emails, movies, music, ebooks, etc. except gaming (the hardware does not permit that). Still my pc hardly ever crashes. Infact I don't even remember the last time it crashed. I don't know what exactly I do (or don't) that makes my Windows pc stay crash-free. I'm surprised sometimes when people who understand computers much more than me and have computers much better than mine complain about crashes. I guess I'm just too darn lucky!

^^ that makes a lot of sense. The reason your PC refuses to crash is because you are keeping more than the metaphorical toe in the lone. Those things you mentioned are things no PC has a right of crashing whilst doing.

i installed XP way back in early 2007, when i bought a new hdd. Till now my XP SP2 has never showed a BSOD. My bad, my hardware is down now, coz its outdated! And it takes less then a minute for me too, which is not something to wonder about. I use some resource hungry apps, it runs ASS (As Smooth as Silk)

ring_wraith said:

@ Aayush, come on, it can't be that bad!

Click to expand...

Are you really that surprised? Seriously?

My computer is not just one example. Almost every Windows based PC I've ever seen has been in situation just slightly better than mine. I once went to a Tata Indicom office on Park Street and had to sit there for sixteen minutes (I timed it on my stopwatch because I wanted to rub it in gx_saurav's face at that time ) while the guy booted his PC, it crashed, he rebooted, it didn't even reach the welcome screen, he rebooted, everything loaded up taking its own sweet time and then their own Internet connection refused to connect for several minutes. As soon as it did, the PC crashed again. He finally asked me to jot down my registration data on a paper.

And the kicker was when I was leaving and he said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you were a bit late and we'd turned off the PC today. If it had been on, this would've been a two minute job." I couldn't believe my ears. Does turning off a Windows PC mean permanently bidding goodbye to it?

ring_wraith said:

Does a mac really take 20 seconds flat to have the desktop, with all bg apps fully loaded, up and running?????

Click to expand...

Yes, which is partly due to the fact that applications never ever set themselves to start up at login on their own accord. And if you set any of them to do so and want to remove them, you just right click on the Dock icon and select 'Remove from Login". No running msconfig nonsense.

And partly due to the fact that, well, it just is fast. Tiger did take around 25-30 seconds though.

Once, when I was in Arena Multimedia, a student had purchased a brand new Compaq notebook and was going on and on about how it had Vista, this awesome OS that none of us had supposedly even dreamt of ever being able to use. "It's so fast that it feels like there is butter on the processor chip RAM it has." I'm not kidding, he actually did say that.

I challenged him that I would restart my machine, while all he had to do was boot it up and we would see who'd get done first. Frankly, that was one moment when I wasn't all that confident on my Mac and instantly regretted having challenged the guy to that. But you know what, not only did I win, his machine didn't move a step beyond that Vista logo thing. Ha!

Ah, good times.

krazyfrog. said:

I don't quite agree with you Aayush on Windows usability. I'm using Windows XP since the last two years, and I'm being quite honest here, the number of crashes I've had in these two years can be counted on the fingers of one hand. No. Kidding. I have a old Compaq laptop with now-completely outdated hardware, but it still starts up by around half a minute. The time taken by my pc to be completely usable is around 45-50 seconds which is not bad for my two year old hardware. I try to keep my pc neat and trim and avoid installing unnecessary softwares. And in return it rewards me with pretty good performance.

I do most of the stuff that a regular Windows user does like browsing the net, emails, movies, music, ebooks, etc. except gaming (the hardware does not permit that). Still my pc hardly ever crashes. Infact I don't even remember the last time it crashed. I don't know what exactly I do (or don't) that makes my Windows pc stay crash-free. I'm surprised sometimes when people who understand computers much more than me and have computers much better than mine complain about crashes. I guess I'm just too darn lucky!

Click to expand...

Well, I certainly am glad you have such a trouble free experience with your computer. Good for you.

But you have to realise that it's far removed from the general user experience with Windows. Eight people till date have switched to Mac OS X on my recommendation (directly or indirectly) and the first two things they say when they report back to me, almost universally, are that the crash-free experience is an unexpected and welcome change and that they still cannot believe they don't have any anti-virus software installed and the machine hasn't been compromised.

whats fun using a computer without troubles? My bad XP hasn't crashed from past 1 year.

Oh, trust me, it is a lot of fun.

ARYA.... answer my question....

but when it comes down to it, a mac isn't really a mac. Its just a pretty PC.
And using the Eee PC and the XO-1 Book along with the Moto Rokr E6 as proofs, a perfect PC/Mobile needn't use only Macintosh or Windows.

Us "Third World" country guys prefer to live in the third world

and the way ayyush talks about a Mac, it sounds like he has never ever seen a customised Laptop/Desktop before(In my dictionary, computer customisation and linux are interchangable).

a_k_s_h_a_y said:

You must be kidding, lives of people and billions of $$ and country's respect are at stake !
They all use Real Time Operating System ! And own designed OS at workstation !

Click to expand...

*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTLinux

aryayush said:

I'm never going back to Windows, mate. Don't worry.

Click to expand...

join the club

How Apple screws you over? That iPod touch upgrade for one. $20 for an upgrade that should have been a part of it in the first place. There was also a Wifi-N upgrade where they charged $2. Then there was the fiasco of bricking all those jailbroken phones.

Apple also charges you heavily for:
Memory and other upgrades. Repair costs, if out of warranty are really inexcusable. I've hard that to replace the Powerbook display it costs $800 which is absurd.

As for apps for macs. I can with surety say that there is nothing on windows like there is for the Mac.

Coda. That is a whole reason by itself. Inspite of Dreamweaver having all it's 'features' and such, I have just gone used to the ease of use with Coda. The beauty of the interface just makes sense. And all those animations are not only for 'wow', they are a helpful cue as to what exactly is happening.

iTunes. Nothing, absolutely nothing like on Windows. With iTunes helpers, iLife media browser, integration throughout, it is like a system. You can't help but use iTunes on a mac.

Pages. Of course there will be Office:Word whiners, but I Pages has been growing into an exceptionally handsome app which has completely replaced Word.

And all of this is possible only due to OS X. The way windows work, multi tasking, memory management, animations. They are all OS X. And I will pay much more than 64k for the iMac (well, actually, I paid 92k for my "old" iMac so 64k seems cheap to me).

@goobimama: you talk as if PC only means Windows Vista.

It's a well established fact that PC refers to Wintel world. It's not "Personal Computer" anymore.

@ring_wraith: I have absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion at hand because I don't hate my Windows XP and never had a chance to really use a Mac.

All I wanted to say when I decided to drop down in this thread was that I absolutely loved your style of writing here. It has been ages since I have come across a level headed and clear thinker here, at Digit forums. I really enjoyed reading your posts here and I thank you for the same.

goobimama said:

It's a well established fact that PC refers to Wintel world. It's not "Personal Computer" anymore.

Click to expand...

but luckily, its changing fast.

I for example, run a DarkHorse2000 Workstation instead of a PC

ctrl_alt_del said:

@ring_wraith: I have absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion at hand because I don't hate my Windows XP and never had a chance to really use a Mac.

All I wanted to say when I decided to drop down in this thread was that I absolutely loved your style of writing here. It has been ages since I have come across a level headed and clear thinker here, at Digit forums. I really enjoyed reading your posts here and I thank you for the same.

Click to expand...

Why.... thank you so very much!

A compliment is something you rarely get around these parts! It is much appreciated....

Now, back to the topic at hand...

@everyone who is against Mac.... I honestly don't think it's right for us to comment on the usability [or non-usability] of OSX, unless we have actually owned Macs before. So please refrain from doing so, or this is most likely going to turn into another flame war.

We've got a nice discussion going. Let's keep it that way.

Yes, which is partly due to the fact that applications never ever set themselves to start up at login on their own accord. And if you set any of them to do so and want to remove them, you just right click on the Dock icon and select 'Remove from Login". No running msconfig nonsense.

Click to expand...

Okay, this really finally makes sense to me. Even a windows XP [probably not Vista] PC can boot up in 20 seconds flat, provided there are no extra programs loaded at startup.

Trust me, I actually went through this phase where I had to have everything instantly, and as a result began optimizing my boot times and unloaded all unnecessary applications. Finally, I got it down to 17 seconds from power-switch-press to desktop.

^^ Ummm.... I dunno much about this thing. But I have a question here. Unline OS-X and Linux, windows (at least XP) has many of it's components integrated with the OS. (As explained in digit mag article about security).

So, just disabling the S/W at boot/login for windows will not be able to speed up things as much as it would do in case of Linux and/or OS-X, will it? Correct me if I am wrong here. But you cannot turn off IE at login, but in Linux you can remove a browser from login programs and I don't have any idea about OS-X.

Aditya

goobimama said:

There was also a Wifi-N upgrade where they charged $2.

Click to expand...

I agree with you on everything else but dude, they had a pretty darn solid reason for that.

They basically upgraded your computer to 802.11n for just $2 (and, in most cases, even free). Generally, that would've required you to buy a whole new computer. If I had a Core 2 Duo notebook at that time, I would've been bowing to Apple for giving me 802.11n on my six-month-old notebook for $2.

C'mon, man!


But yeah, they do some pretty cheap stuff sometimes that makes your jaws drop, and not in a good way. When Steve was asked whether Apple wasn't the rebel anymore, the company that took care of its customers above all else, the company that introduced the one-year standard warranty on all its computers before anyone else in the industry, he said something along the lines of, "We still strive to be that same Apple but you have to understand that we are growing pretty fast and we do drop the ball sometimes."

I'd still say that they are no worse than any other company out there. If anything, they're better because, regardless of some of their policies, they do have the best products in the industry.

aditya.shevade said:

So, just disabling the S/W at boot/login for windows will not be able to speed up things as much as it would do in case of Linux and/or OS-X, will it? Correct me if I am wrong here. But you cannot turn off IE at login, but in Linux you can remove a browser from login programs and I don't have any idea about OS-X.

Click to expand...

Umm... I, for one, didn't say that you have to do any optimisation at all for OS X to boot in twenty seconds. A freshly installed copy of OS X and a two-year-old installation boot in almost exactly the same time (though Tiger had slowed down just a bit towards the end of last year).

And even if you set several applications to start up at login, it's different from Windows because you can use your Mac even while those applications are launching. On Windows, if you double click on something on the desktop as soon as the PC boots up (and something is set to launch at login), the computer generally freezes for a while as it tries to process what just happened (blink... blink... duh?).

aryayush said:

They basically upgraded your computer to 802.11n for just $2 (and, in most cases, even free). Generally, that would've required you to buy a whole new computer.

Click to expand...

Ya, problem with Mac. They gave the hardware already installed but charged to enable the functionality via driver/firmware

And now Ipod touch users have to pay for the firmware 2 upgrade...that sux...This is the second time they are doing that...

@ring_wraith, krazyfrog, aditya.shevade (i.e. the people I'm interested in having this discussion with),

Do you guys know how the 802.11n incident played out? Or do you want me to explain it?

^^ Go ahead... I am collecting facts for future buying. I hate HP cause HP has given me enough headache and I am looking for a company that provides the best customer support. I don't give a **** if it is apple or not. I just want the best support and reasonable people on the job.

So, bring as many good/bad things as you can.

I forgot to add one thing... by support, I mean only hardware support.

yawn, paying for a firmware upgrade sucks. Apple is a good reducing agent of Vitamin M

Go ahead. I have no idea about any 802.11n incident.

Giga, almost every major site accepts that the features added to the iPod touch are worth the upgrade cost. Cnet actually raised the Touch's score from 8.3 to 8.7, brining it on par with their highest rated player, the iRiver Clix. But there is no doubt that it kind of sucks that they made you pay for something that should have been there in the first place.

And don't the touches made post the 51st(?) week already have the new features included?

@aditya, cannot comment on how it affects a Linux system, but I did get my PC to start up in 17 seconds.

Also, Apple has brilliant customer service, and i speak from experience. My friend had received an iPod 4gig [2g] as a gift, but something went wrong, so I accompanied him to the Apple imagine store. Despite the non-availability of the Bill, we were out of the store in five minutes flat, with the assurance that it would be ready by tomorrow.

Also, in the states they have this concept of a Genius Bar, which is basically a group of Mac pros who really have an idea of what they are doing. Don't know if they are available in India.

Wait for Aayush's inevitable comment on Apple service.

and finally, @ aayush, that would be great. I've never really heard about it.

Computer startup is irrelevant. It can take five minutes for all I care. I never really shut it down. It uses so little power in sleep mode, that if the UPS goes in battery mode, it thinks that there is no power being drawn and auto shuts down.

As for customer service, I have to say it has been top class. So far they replaced my DVD writer twice. Once cause it wasn't writing to Sony blanks. The other time cause I got a DVD stuck in there. Both took not more than a week to complete, that is, from the day I filed the complaint till the day they called me over. The guys even offer to do the replacement onsite.

Startup is majorly relevant to me, primarily because I need to switch it off and on a lot.

ring_wraith said:

Also, Apple has brilliant customer service, and i speak from experience. My friend had received an iPod 4gig [2g] as a gift, but something went wrong, so I accompanied him to the Apple imagine store. Despite the non-availability of the Bill, we were out of the store in five minutes flat, with the assurance that it would be ready by tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Apple's customer service is outstanding. I've heard so many accounts of it that it's a fact for me now. I haven't had much experience with it myself because I only own this MacBook Pro and this thing is just too darned solid. But I did have to go to them once when the battery swelled up (it's a known problem; the battery swells up but never bursts) after it was out of warranty. I took just the battery to them and they immediately took it in and gave me a new battery after five days. No paperwork required; no mess at all.

ring_wraith said:

Also, in the states they have this concept of a Genius Bar, which is basically a group of Mac pros who really have an idea of what they are doing. Don't know if they are available in India.

Click to expand...

The Reliance iStores have the Genius Bar. They call it ResQ, but it's the same thing.

ring_wraith said:

and finally, @ aayush, that would be great. I've never really heard about it.

Click to expand...

OK. I'll repeat the incident as is without making any judgements. You guys are free to form your own opinion about it.

Apple, as you must know, is a very secretive company. They never talk about upcoming products and stuff that they are working on. Only when it's time to launch it do they announce it and they like to do that with a big Jobsian bang.

You might not know this but among the several other technologies that have gained mass acceptance due, in large part, to a firm push by Apple are optical drives, LCD screens and 802.11 WiFi. They've always been the first to incorporate the latest WiFi standard in their products and almost every product Apple makes is WiFi enabled.

So they were working on the next generation of 802.11, the 'n' standard. While the work was nearing completion, they had to release their upgraded MacBook Pros equipped with Core 2 Duo processors. The notebooks couldn't be delayed, of course, because it's a race to get to the market first with the best processors. The 802.11n base station was still in development.

What would any company have done? They would have equipped the notebooks with 802.11g receivers, reserving 'n' for the generation to follow. Apple, on the other hand, equipped these notebooks with 802.11n capable receivers that were restricted to 802.11g on a software level and advertised them as being 802.11g capable only.

Now there are two reasons behind this:
1. They simply couldn't have let the word out that they were working on 802.11n in advance, before they were ready to sell the product; and
2. It made no sense to have advertised 802.11n capable notebooks when there weren't any 802.11n capable base stations or networks in the world to use them with.

People bought those notebooks happily, knowing full well that it was capable of 802.11g which, at that time, was the latest standard in the market. They happily used it for six months (maybe three or four, I'm not quite sure), lauded its capabilities, enjoyed the fact that they had the best Mac notebook on the market.

Then, when Apple finally got AirPort Extreme ready and was all set to introduce 802.11n to the world, they announced that all MacBook Pros with Core 2 Duo chips were already capable of 802.11n and there was no need to upgrade. All you had to do was buy an AirPort Extreme and you'll get the license to use a small software free with the base station that would allow you to activate 802.11n in your notebook. All MacBook Pros from then on would, of course, ship with the chip activated for no extra charge.

But people who did not want to buy an AirPort Extreme but wanted to have 802.11n activated on their notebooks would have to pay $2, the minimum amount you can charge to a U.S. credit card. On the purchase page on their website, they made it extremely clear that you didn't need to buy it if you intended to buy an AirPort Extreme in the near future. Also, you could use one copy of the software to activate up to five Macs (and, like Mac OS X family pack, that wasn't enforced by Apple in any way – it was just up to your conscience).

Also note that if you did not intend to buy an 802.11n capable AirPort Extreme, your Mac's capability to use that standard would be virtually useless because the AirPort Extreme, at that point of time, was the only base station capable of 802.11n.

In other words, there was very little reason for you to spend $2 on that piece of software.

As for why couldn't Apple just give it for free – that's because it's illegal according to Californian law. There's a Sarbanes Oakley Act that publicly held companies have to comply with which states that you cannot give users unadvertised features free of cost after purchase because that would mean you're cheating the shareholders (if you're not making any money, you're losing it and that's not something your shareholders would want you to do).

So Apple charged the minimum it was possible to charge the customers and, for all intents and purposes, tried to make sure that you didn't have to pay it if you didn't need it.

I'm not sure what they did wrong here. AFAIK, they upgraded your notebook to the latest WiFi standard for, practically, free after a few months of your having bought it – and they took the flak for it. I'm surprised that Milind does not approve of this.


Of course, they are citing the same reason for charging for the iPod touch upgrades but that's just bullshit. They know a workaround for the Sarbanes Oakley Act and use it for the iPhone and Apple TV. Why not use the same accounting method for the iPod touch? And why charge $20 when $2 is enough to comply with that act? This is just bullshit.

Let me know what you guys think...

ring_wraith said:

Startup is majorly relevant to me, primarily because I need to switch it off and on a lot.

Click to expand...

You wouldn't if you had a Mac. My current uptime: 53 days. I only shut it down when some major update requires me to. The sleep mode is pure blessing, combined with the fact that the operating system works like a charm no matter how long you go without restarting.

ring_wraith said:

Startup is majorly relevant to me, primarily because I need to switch it off and on a lot.

Click to expand...

if thats the case, then you might be intrested in my PC.
I have the crappiest bundle of hardware with the world's worst HDD.
256 mb ddr400 ram, P4 2.66GHz, Onboard GMA900 graphics, 80 gig samskunk HDD
even then, I get a solid 20 second boot into my desktop.

offtopic: hey gautham, do you have spare gfx card?

@aayush, thank you once again for taking the time out to post a long, detailed post. They're always a pleasure to read.

In case of the 802.11n thing, in my opinion, Apple is still wrong in charging customers 2$. Not because of the 2$, but because it really wouldn't have hurt to delay the MBPs by a week and release them with 802.11n. Even though there were no base stations at that time, they were definetly going to spring up, and knowing that your laptop was ready to deal with them even before they launched would have been great.

This would have saved customers a trip to the Apple store, and in today's world, where time is money, I'm sure a lot of people would have appreciated the move.

^^ It was an online purchase in most cases. Everyone had a credit card out there...

Also, this n upgrade was done a couple of months after the macbooks were out. So holding back was not an option...

1. Dude, that's not the way it works. How can you sell a product with support for a technology that isn't even there in the market yet? As soon as they would have launched it, the entire Internet would have been abuzz with people complaining about the lack of 802.11n base stations. They would have charged Apple for the AirPort Extreme's incapability, at that time, to support 802.11n.

2. The software was readily available on Apple's online store. No one would have made a trip to the store for a $2 software. Come on, this was a non-issue, specially in the States.

3. Delaying them wouldn't have meant just a week. The AirPort Extremes were released months later. Delaying was not an option at all. Those same customers would have been a lot louder if Apple was last to the market with Core 2 Duo based notebooks, specially after they'd just switched to the Intel platform. Apple couldn't have done anything to jeopardize the switch. It's now known as the most successful and smooth transition in the history of the industry.


IMHO, Apple wasn't wrong in any way in the 802.11n incident. It's just the Apple customers are a bit too spoiled for their own good. Ask one of us to jump ship if we don't like Apple's policies and then see us stammer and choke.

@ aayush and goobi,

thanks for the additional information. A lack of information clouded my decision. That really did not seem like Apple after what you've told me. Now, its perfectly clear that they really had no other option.

In fact, the only reason i thought it was a problem was that they might have had to travel to the store and stuff... nice to know that it's a really quick process. And 2$ is undobutedly a nominal fee.

@ Aryayush, Thanks. That was a very informative article. 2$ thing.... Well, I cannot really comment on that. But 20$ touch this sucks.

@ring_wraith, congrats for booting up that PC and windows within 17 seconds. I wish my computer hardware was good enough to do that.

@Milind and Aayush, One question and I want a really honest answer. How is apple's hardware? I mentioned about HP cheating and being bad. I had another thing in mind with that customer support and that was hardware quality.

About my HP laptop. Since I bought it, in 1.75 years there has been a motherboard, a bluetooth dongle, 4 HDD and 4 DVD drive replacements. All due to manufacturing defects. I know it for a fact that HP India, even though they are good at service, cheat the customers by replacing the H/W with refurbished and/or older versions.

A friend of mine lives in US now. He had come here in India and his HP laptop which he bought in US had some display problems. So, he got the display replaced from HP Benglore office. And he just thought that the screen was not the same. So when he went back to US, he took the laptop to the service center there. And they told him that the replaced display was vga. Originally he had a qxga display before the replacement.

Even I have seen this. When HP replaced the DVD drives of my laptop, they replaced them with less functional drives. Originally I had a DVD-RAM drive. One that could write DVD-RAMs and the replaced ones cannot write them.

Another friend of mine just had a problem of broken DVD drive and silent speakers with his HP laptop.

Now, again, my question is. What is the report about Apple? Do they do these cheap things like replacing with refurbished H/W and stuff? Replacing with an older H/W? I have been asking for a replacement of the entire piece since the first problem (Which arose after 2 months of purchasing... DVD drive and HDD replaced), but they did not heed it. I mean, the laptop spent 6 months of those 1.75 years in the service centers around India. Not to mention that people in service centers and online chat support are of no use whatsoever.

Based on these things, I want to know what is the truth behind Apple regarding this issue?
Aditya

Apple does not scoff on hardware. If there's one thing I know about Apple, it's that.

Repairs are not cheap, but they are top quality. Just try typing away on a Mac's keyboard and all your doubts will fly out the window.

Well, I'm not much help in this department given that I've not had much interaction with the customer service department but from the minimal experience I do have, these are my conclusions:

1. The hardware and the engineering is top notch. Unless you are really unlucky, you won't have to get into all that customer servicing anyway.

2. Till date, my notebook has had three problems: the SuperDrive started making noise, the batter swelled up and, very recently, the buttom casing loosed up a little in certain places. The SuperDrive was replaced within a week, I got a new battery in five days (after it was out of warranty) and it is performing much better than the previous one. As for the bottom casing issue, they've told me that Apple is not shipping parts for some reason right now if the issue is non-critical and they have several backorders. They've returned my notebook to me and have asked me to return whenever I want after one month and they'll replace the whole case.

3. The SuperDrive and battery I got were brand new. No doubt about that.

4. The reps are helpful and patient.

5. The phone support is friggin' mind-blowing. They're very gentle and don't treat you like a newbie. I hated it when I called HP customer support once for Yash bhaiya's notebook and he was asking me questions like, "Are you sure you have Windows XP, sir?" "Yes, I am." "Sir, it might be Windows 98. They look the same." No, they don't and dude, I'm using the computer – I know which OS it is running. Sheesh!

6. Did I mention that the hardware is awesome in the first place?

7. In my 1.5 years of owning this notebook, I've been apart from it for ten days. That's all. And all the problems I've had have been after the one year warranty ran out (but I do have AppleCare Protection Plan).

Personally, I think they have top notch customer service.

An important addendum: Since Apple takes care of the whole monty, the hardware, software and all that comes in between, their toll free number is a one stop solution for all your problems. You just can't beat that when compared to all the other vendors. There is no red-tapism and no throwing the blame around. If your machine has a problem of any kind, it's Apple's fault and they take full responsibility for it. Kudos to them.

Fine... it looks like they do have better hardware....

What about the battery life?

Gigacore said:

offtopic: hey gautham, do you have spare gfx card?

Click to expand...

no. I only got PCI slot and PCIe 1x slot. So I can't get meself a card

Apple lover's will never like windows i guess....or for that matter microsoft.

Hardware wise even my two year old Compaq Presario has almost zero problems (except for a slightly loose left display hinge). Still in two years of usage, I think its really a small problem and Aayush's Macbook problems like noisy SuperDrive and swelling battery (scary!) seem to be much more serious.

About the $2 for the wi-fi, I think they had no choice but to charge it because the law demanded that they do so. But still, you yourself said that they know a workaround for the Sarbanes Oakley Act which they used for iPhone and Apple TV. Then why didn't they use it for the wi-fi? $2 is not a big amount, but still if it can be given for free, then why not?

The iPhone and AppleTV have a steady income by themselves. The iphone in the form of the AT&T subscription and the AppleTV because people rent movies from it. So stockholders have no problem. The iTouch investment on the other hand is a dead end. No more can come out of it after it has been sold that's why the upgrades are charged for.

As for Apple hardware quality, I can certainly say it is top notch. Two years in my dusty house and I still can't hear a thing unlike my noisy WD MyBook HDD (actually any external HDD makes more noise than the iMac).

The macbook comes with magnetic latch so there's no hinge problems ever. I remember the problems we had with that Compaq notebook and it's hinges. Finally the display was separate from the body and one had to mount the display on a stack of books to use it

krazyfrog. said:

About the $2 for the wi-fi, I think they had no choice but to charge it because the law demanded that they do so. But still, you yourself said that they know a workaround for the Sarbanes Oakley Act which they used for iPhone and Apple TV. Then why didn't they use it for the wi-fi? $2 is not a big amount, but still if it can be given for free, then why not?

Click to expand...

Generally, all companies use the standard form of accounting, and do does Apple. For the iPhone, they knew that they'll be making the hardware more powerful as time goes by and for free. So they changed the accounting method to subscription based. Same for the AppleTV.

However, this has to be done before the product is introduced. You can't do it any time you want on a whim or fancy. I don't think Apple can change the accounting method for Macs to subscription based just like that. And, in any case, this was a one time thing. It's not like they're going to keep doing this sort of stuff every now and then.

I know I've no clue about U.S. accounting methods (or even Indian, for that matter) but I hope you see the point. They really had no way out of that and by charging only $2 (and all the other measures they took that I mentioned in the other post), I think they did the right thing. I don't think they had any intention to profit from this.

It's actually pretty unfair to them they they got handed the rough end of the stick on this issue. (But then again, they do some pretty unfair stuff too, so I guess that evens out.)

aditya.shevade said:

Fine... it looks like they do have better hardware....

What about the battery life?

Click to expand...

I get around three hours on mine ever since upgrading to Leopard. Ashwin's is a generation ahead of mine and he gets around four. The latest ones are supposed to give around 4.5 hours.

^^ Leopard improves battery life? I know it makes no difference to me.... but still.

BTW, whats the profit in debating this stuff We fight, they earn. In fact we are the actually loosers by spending thousands of dollars to their products. All they want is MONEY, so they can create any kinda illusion in people's mind. Seeing all this stuff, it makes me to switch to Linux permanently. But unfortunately, most of my daily rituals demands windows!

I'm fed up of this OS wars. . . . . Keep fighting.

aditya.shevade said:

Fine... it looks like they do have better hardware....

What about the battery life?

Click to expand...

On moderate PC usage, BT/AirPort switched off, 20% brightness, Crossover and 2/3 other apps running, I get 4 hours. With no usage, just with the Mac running, I should be getting over 4.5 hours. Mine is 'Santa Rosa' gen of MBP.

The newer Penryn gen MBP will easily last 4.5 on moderate usage. With some optimum settings, should get over 5 hours.

ring_wraith said:

^^ Leopard improves battery life? I know it makes no difference to me.... but still.

Click to expand...

It does for sure. Maybe because of the fact that the next setting after the minimum brightness (where it's blackout) is comfortable for me.

Penryn gen MBP should get good mileage as Proccy is power efficient and generates less heat. Till the 'Santa Rosa' gen MBP, the heat is an issue and that's the only thing I'm not happy with my Mac.

^^ Thanks people. What about the degradation in battery wrt time? My laptop battery doesn't even last 40 minutes now. Even if I just jut it on, no use, lowest possible brightness and no wifi/BT...

Ok I didn't know about the accounting thingy. Now talking about what gooby said about Apple charging iTouch owners for the firmware, because after selling the Touch to customers there is no profit to Apple, I think this is being seriously money-hungry by Apple. I mean thats the case with all the mp3 players on the market including Apple's own Nano and Classic. Once these devices are sold, the company can't make any profit from them. So that means they start charging for the firmware? Imagine what would happen if all manufacturers would start doing that. Sometimes I think, for all the good things Apple does, it sometimes stoops too low to get money.

aditya.shevade said:

^^ Thanks people. What about the degradation in battery wrt time? My laptop battery doesn't even last 40 minutes now. Even if I just jut it on, no use, lowest possible brightness and no wifi/BT...

Click to expand...

A normal 6 cell battery will not last for more than 2 - 2.5 hours. With no BT/Wifi, 50% brightness; I used to get 2.5 hours and after 8 months of usage I used to get 2 hours. I had Dell Inspiron 6400.

See, you should never keep the lappy charged always. With my Dell and MBP; I switch off the power once it reaches 100%. And I switch it on after 3-4%.

How old is your lappy?

ring_wraith said:

^^ Leopard improves battery life?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does, and the performance too. It was quite the surprise for me as well, given that I'm also used to the reverse with Windows.

aditya.shevade said:

^^ Thanks people. What about the degradation in battery wrt time?

Click to expand...

The performance of all batteries degrade with time. That's no secret.

krazyfrog. said:

Ok I didn't know about the accounting thingy. Now talking about what gooby said about Apple charging iTouch owners for the firmware, because after selling the Touch to customers there is no profit to Apple, I think this is being seriously money-hungry by Apple. I mean thats the case with all the mp3 players on the market including Apple's own Nano and Classic. Once these devices are sold, the company can't make any profit from them. So that means they start charging for the firmware? Imagine what would happen if all manufacturers would start doing that. Sometimes I think, for all the good things Apple does, it sometimes stoops too low to get money.

Click to expand...

Well, FWIW, I haven't heard of any company providing a firmware update for free that supercharged the device with previously unavailable features. Microsoft did this with the Zune but that's just because they don't really have any customers yet and will do anything to gain some ground.

But that said, I still would've liked to see Apple set an example here, specially because all those features were already available for iPhone users and were withdrawn from the iPod touch because Apple wanted to differentiate the two product lines, or so they claimed.

I get over 4 hours on my 2 and half year old iBook. Used to get 6 hours

drgrudge said:

A normal 6 cell battery will not last for more than 2 - 2.5 hours. With no BT/Wifi, 50% brightness; I used to get 2.5 hours and after 8 months of usage I used to get 2 hours. I had Dell Inspiron 6400.

See, you should never keep the lappy charged always. With my Dell and MBP; I switch off the power once it reaches 100%. And I switch it on after 3-4%.

How old is your lappy?

Click to expand...

It is 1.75 years old... the problem with battery started after 1 year....

^^
It's quite old naa. Use your battery till it doesn't gives any sufficient backup. Get a new one and charge like the way I suggested.


I don't know if MBP comes in 6 cell or 9 cell; whatever it might be; the battery mileage is good wrt other lappies. Gotta see how long I can sustain this 4 hour run. Been just 5 months since I'm using it (shut down for 2 weeks only).

aryayush said:

Well, FWIW, I haven't heard of any company providing a firmware update for free that supercharged the device with previously unavailable features. Microsoft did this with the Zune but that's just because they don't really have any customers yet and will do anything to gain some ground.

Click to expand...

I've seen Nokia add some important features to its phone through firmware upgrades. Sony also added some major features to its PS3 through firmware upgrades. And they were all free. And even if Microsoft did give a free upgrade to its Zune to gain some customers, it doesn't mean Apple, who already have many customers for its iPod, take advantage of the situation and rob people of their money.