Apple Discussion

[adam1991]

It has Intel hardware, but it took Apple making MacBooks and MacBook Airs (which I own) to push the PC world into Ultrabook territory

Lenovo strongly disagrees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad# ... 300.2FX301

http://www.amazon.com/The-Race-Perfect- ... or+perfect

[foxwood]

The average household income of Apple customers is greater than the average household income of the population in general. I don't think you can put that down to limited intelligence (though there's always the adage about a fool and his money.....).

The point isn't that Apple made interfaces that people could use. They made interfaces that people wanted to use.

[adam1991]

Apple didn't make game changing products....
they made pretty ones that people with limited intelligence could use

In a market where "cheap cheap cheap" is the mantra, Apple chose to use more expensive hardware and then throw a world-class support system behind them.

And you know what? The market responded. People who want the results of the technology without caring a thing about the nuts and bolts, buy Apple stuff like crazy.

And people who want the results and have had their fill of twiddling and fiddling and building their own, responded. Are they of limited intelligence? Nope. They just have BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES than twiddle and fiddle.*

Those who live to twiddle and fiddle, cannot grasp it when others don't. I leave the reader to his own conclusions.

*I see similar things on Jalopnik and the like, where people who love to twiddle and fiddle with cars simply refuse to acknowledge the HUGE market of people who are happy that cars have become appliances that just work. For some reason, the existence of that market somehow invalidates their own existence. It's almost as if for the twiddlers to "win", the appliance people must *not*. Must not exist. Must not be allowed to have appliances, must be forced to twiddle and fiddle on cars. Similarly for computer people. Somehow, the existence of appliance-level computers that just work and allow ordinary people to do amazing things, and for which there is an utterly astounding worldwide support organization in place, is a complete and total threat to the existence of those who want to fiddle and twiddle and do it on their own.

Go on out there and find anything remotely close to the Apple Store and the Genius Bar. A closely-held ecosystem can be *tremendously* profitable.

[milli260876]

Expensive hardware? Pffft

[vert18]

I've owned dell, micron, IBM, Alienware, samsung & a bunch of other personal computers and all of them have failed & died ugly deaths.

not one of my apples has ever bitten the dust
oh, one of my pcs is running strong a NW falcon fragbox.

don't get me wrong I've built my own before...

apple products are great
its when people either want to tinker with them or want to jump on the hate band wagon do you get negativity

tinkering not so much, aside from the appleTV 3 & the newest iphone iOS release; you can basically run what you want on apple products from win7, Linux or a bsd on macs to jail breaking an iPhone and installing what you want, to jail breaking the older apple TVs

to me right now the ceton echo seems to be in the cheap windows pc category that will die an ugly flaming(if posts didnt get modded... lol) death.

[slowbiscuit]

That is a ridiculous statement. Would you preferred to be locked into whatever Microsoft thinks is best or what Ceton thinks is best? Microsoft evidently thinks that the best thing is for Media Center to slowly die away. Is that what you want to be locked into? While I have been attached to Media Center from the beginning and can be accused of being a Media Center fanboy, I go with the best-of-breed products in actual usage, and that is why I have DirecTV/AppleTV combination in my primary viewing areas. This combination provides the best ease-of-use, the most HD/1080P content, and the widest variety of capabilities, IMO. The only think left out of this equation is Amazon Prime Streaming, which I hope will be rectified shortly.

When you buy Apple you are getting what they want you to have, whether it is their apps or apps that they approve. I'm talking mostly about Apple TV here but is also applies to other iProducts. This is a good thing for many because they like the ease of use and consistency that comes with that.

This has nothing to do with why some of us are locked into WMC (or Tivo), which is entirely caused by external DRM and patent issues and not because MS is forcing us to use it. Anyone could have licensed PlayReady and the other DRM components to create their own protected content DVR on Windows or whatever, but more importantly for Windows, Linux, Android etc. we can choose the apps ecosystem we want to use, we're not subject to the whims of MS. That is also a good/thing bad thing deal. For WMC specifically, if it were to die off I guarantee something else will step in its place because the need won't go away. And we won't have to have MS' blessing for that to happen.

Nothing I'm saying here is new, but the point is that you are much more locked into the Apple way of doing things when you buy Apple products. Maybe not in your particular situation, but generally speaking this is true. Everyone knows this and as others have said there are good points and bad about both ways in tech. I choose not to do things their way, that's all.

[kingwr]

Apple didn't make game changing products....they made pretty ones that people with limited intelligence could use

See this is what I am talking about. That's purely anti-Apple biased but shows no grasp whatsoever on reality. Everyone likes to try and explain away Apple's success and put a different spin on it. But I don't see how any unbiased observer could deny that after the iPod, everybody was playing catch-up in the MP3 player world, after iPhone, just about every phone released afterwards looked like iPhone (look at the slide they used in the Samsung v. Apple case), after iPad, all the big players were scrambling to come out with tablets. Those are, by definition, game changing products. I haven't "bought in" to Apple's storyline -- I was there; I lived it; I saw it all happen. You can spin all you want to show how smart you are or how ahead of Apple you think your products were, but no thinking person will take it seriously.

And I am not an Apple fanboy by any means. I was late to the whole Apple ecosystem. I have always been a Microsoft person, both professionally and personally. My phones before the iPhone were Microsoft SmartPhones (later Windows Mobile) and my next phone will probably be a Microsoft phone. I beta tested Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Office 2003, and SQL Server versions. I am running Windows 8 now, even though I hate it (you think I would have learned after Vista). In my professional IT career, I always recommended Microsoft-based servers and platforms over Oracle or Sun. But I know game changing products when I see them, and Apple has been on a tear over the last few years, no doubt.

[richard1980]

I'd like to start by making it very clear that I am not anti-Apple. While I don't use any iProducts, I have said time and again that Microsoft should take lessons from Apple. Apple has the clear advantage when it comes to understanding and delivering the things that consumers want, whereas Microsoft only knows how to deliver what Microsoft wants, and they don't even do that very well.

That said, I agree with milli260876, and I think some of you may be misinterpreting what was stated. Apple has in fact made products that people with limited intelligence could use. That's the whole beauty of it. Apple didn't set out to make products that only geeks could use. Apple set out to make products that everybody could use, and that's exactly what they did. The end result of their efforts has continuously been an easy-to-use product that just plain works. And that's why Apple has such a large market share. The intelligence level of the actual users is irrelevant. What matters is the fact that Apple has made products that are so easy to use, even people with limited intelligence can use them.

I'd also like to point out that while everyone else has been playing catch-up after Apple releases a product, Apple plays catch-up as well. Personal media players existed long before Apple released the iPod, smartphones existed long before Apple released the iPhone, and tablets existed long before Apple released the iPad. But that's not really what I'd like to focus on. Instead, I'd like to focus on the market changes after Apple released their products. Prior to Apple getting involved, there really was no consumer demand for those products, and after Apple released their products, the market exploded. Apple pretty much single-handedly created the consumer demand for all three of those products. If that's not a game-changer, I don't know what is.

[STC]

Being somewhat of a mini-Apple fanboi, all I can say is I just love the build quality. Nothing comes close.

I have a 2012 Mac Air that I run Windows 99% and Mac OS 1%. It's the best lappy I have owned hands down, and a pleasure to use every day.
My wife and I both have iphone 4's, she has an iPad mini, all jailbroken and running some jb apps that make functionality much better.
We simply 'want' a dumbed down iOS interface, it fits our needs.
When I want to be Professor STC, I can be on my PC, or SBS2011 Exchange Server, or on my Windows Storage Server box, perhaps with the fiber link I have between two buildings, or maybe with our telephone system.
Whether or not I use a 'dumb' OS phone to make calls on or answer the odd email, doesn't factor in to my intelligence level.

The key is the 'ease' with which Apple makes their tech interact with mortals. They got it right.

*For the record we do not use any unpaid apps. The jailbreaks allow us to utilize the products to their full potential, and if the product is not free, we purchase every one.

[STC]

The Netflix App.- Quick and easy to use. Move around and press a button a couple of times to watch a show.

A huge amount of users, and really not many complaining about its' basic-ness, yet isn't it very similar in it's function?

[edit]
Shouldn't we say therefore that all Netflix users are of limited intelligence?

[richard1980]

Shouldn't we say therefore that all Netflix users are of limited intelligence?

I don't think so. Just because something is simple enough to be used by someone of limited intelligence doesn't mean that someone that uses it is of limited intelligence. How many people do you know that prefer to do things the hard way instead of the easy way?

[STC]

^+1

[Scallica]

Apple has the clear advantage when it comes to understanding and delivering the things that consumers want, whereas Microsoft only knows how to deliver what Microsoft wants, and they don't even do that very well.

Apple has in fact made products that people with limited intelligence could use. Apple didn't set out to make products that only geeks could use. Apple set out to make products that everybody could use, and that's exactly what they did. The end result of their efforts has continuously been an easy-to-use product that just plain works. And that's why Apple has such a large market share. The intelligence level of the actual users is irrelevant. What matters is the fact that Apple has made products that are so easy to use, even people with limited intelligence can use them.

^^^This!

[milli260876]

I'd just like to thank Richard for pointing out that i didn't mean if you had an iphone you had limited intelligence...
just that if you had limited intelligence you could use it....
A LOT of people just want an easy life, things that just work and look nice. Which is all well and good but much like Sky the price for such things is effin ridiculous!

[milli260876]

I'd also like to add @kingwr
if you had windows mobile you know exactly what i mean, i loved it tbh but NOTHING on it was easy...

[adam1991]

Shouldn't we say therefore that all Netflix users are of limited intelligence?

I don't think so. Just because something is simple enough to be used by someone of limited intelligence doesn't mean that someone that uses it is of limited intelligence. How many people do you know that prefer to do things the hard way instead of the easy way?

Are you kidding?

Plenty of people.

[STC]

It depends what. How's everyone's MediaCenter?

[milli260876]

Boring.... Not much new going on is there???

[adam1991]

re: M$--absolutely.

Google and Apple, anyone?

[Moderator note: post moved from the Xbox 360 Slim vs. Xbox 360 E vs. Echo thread]

[staknhalo]

Crapple and Scroogle - there ya go