News Vista's impact Mac sales will be minimal

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/15/vista_impact_on_mac_sales_will_be_minimal/

 

Let me see the only advert I've ever seen for Vista just promotes the new Windows+Tab function...

Sloppy.

 

yea apart from alot of hype on some of the shopping channels the days before the launch there isnt much publisity going into vista

 

Really, it's everywhere I look, even game has a big Vista banner.

TBH I don't see how it would reduce the Mac share of the market at all, people who like macs stay with macs.

So people would prefer to buy a computer they can't upgrade instead of a computer they can upgrade if they want to/need to? Hey not only are our computers so much more expensive than PCs, if you find it's too slow and crap and want to upgrade it, you'll have to buy a new one! Fantastic marketing ploy.

 

so what if it doesn't eat into mac share? what is it anyway? 3%? ooo! MS must be so upset they can not get that 3% of the market, or that 2% for Linux..

Plus, nearly every new PC you will buy now comes with Vista so it be in every "noob" home that goes to PC world/walmart and the like and just buys an off the shelf PC

 

People aren't upgrading to Vista because they either don't know about it or there's no particular reason for them too. I know I'm not getting Vista until I get a DirectX10 card because better gaming is gonna be the only thing that I'm gonna do different on it.

Also, it's not affecting Mac sales because if somebody's using a Mac they're usually to busy watching those pathetic switch adverts and thinking "OMG I PWN THOSE WINDOWS N00BS WIV MY UBER MACHINE" whilst touching themselves to pictures of the iPhone.

 

ahh but the key to the mac concept is that even the newest version of the OS, will run perfectly fine on ancient hardware...

OS X supports and powerPC G3 or better machine, which goes back to 1997. Will 10 year old PC kit run Vista?

fat chance in hell

Also, the only non-upgradeable parts to macs are the laptop processors/video cards (can you upgrade your windows based laptop's processor or video card? probably not)... Memory and hard drives are considered user upgradeable parts on the macbooks, and just memory on the macbook pros.

as for desktop systems:

mac mini is designed to be the entry to the computer world, similar to a $300 dell, has no user upgradeable bits... but then again, it can be fairly well customized from the start

iMac, has user upgradeable memory, but being an all in one solution, there's little else to upgrade, there really isn't a windows based equivalent to an iMac

now the powermac.... ahh yes the powermac.... not user upgradeable? well maybe not for cheap, but every part in the powermac is user upgradeable, from video, to hard drives, optical drives, processors (if you need more than dual 3.0ghz xeons), and memory... so in short, it's a full computer

not to mention apple offers free training for switching users in store.

in addition to that, the new operating system and office suite, which is always professional grade (i mean honestly, why not support full networking capacity on a home pc? most people have more than one computer at home now anyway along with high speed internet and home networks) will run you slightly more than the cost of an upgrade version of just windows (to a premium level), and a lot less than a full version... we're not even counting MS office into there, because there's really no contest between OS X/iWork and Windows/Office when it comes to cost...

and before you say "but iWork doesn't have all the features of office".... Keynote is above and beyond powerpoint and publisher for useability... and Pages has every feature of word and excel I've ever seen/used.... so any home user can do whatever they want with 2 programs rather than 4... seems wise to me

i know from personal experience that an older mac (G4 500) will run OS X fine, all be it a bit slow, but what would you expect from hardware that's over 7 years old?

in short, just because you've never used, or don't own or use a mac, don't take a superior attitude.

all of this comes from a former windows/ms based pc fanboy who made the switch and will never go back

 

one of the main things that bugs me with windows is networking
Networking becomes reasonably complicated once you get past the plug in the cable stage, and windows is an utter pain in the ass beyond that

Networking in windows just seems to be bolted on, it is often unstable, slow, and just generally unfriendly

But windows is going to dominate the market until a good alternative that is compatible with most things and offers some incentive to switch is made, were gonna be stuck with it

 

The fact that you can't upgrade it at all is a major issue, you can upgrade damn near any PC's CPU, RAM and Hard Drive (Even laptops if you can find the right CPU) but you can't upgrade the low end Mac, so if you do want 1GB of ram you have to pay Apple's stupidly high upgrade prices instead of buying it somewhere else.

This is a good thing, the iMac is essentially a glorified laptop, you can't upgrade anything apart from the memory, so you need to once again pay Apple's outrageous upgrade prices.

The only real computer that Apple offers, I hand that one to you, but I would still not run OSX on it.

Ok, so you've got the basics there, like documents, spreadsheets(Though how good pages is for spreadsheets is arguable at best) and presentations. How about throwing in a flow chart program like Visio, or maybe project management, or even simple note support like OneNote?

That comment annoyed me the most, because being an Interactive Media Production student I'm forced to use Macs and OSX every day to produce all sorts of different internet applications, it's an extremely inefficient operating system and I can't see why it's so over hyped, it's just a fashion accessory for people who like to pretend they know how to use a computer.

 

its amused me, the last 2 universities Ive visited have actually mainly be running Linux, and they also have some macs
Windows barley even features, usually on peoples laptops (but the unis offer Linux if you want to switch) i think this is pretty good, once support for games gets good enough in Linux, i would switch in a nano second

So it seems the humble old PC is still most popular, and macs aren't that uncommon, its just windows that kills the PC atm

 

I'm not taking a superior attitude, I know OSX is a very good operating system, but I prefer the hardware flexibility windows gives me.

I just though it was a little odd that they'd think people would move to macs simply because of the "requirement" to upgrade.

People arn't required to upgrade to vista, neither are they required to upgrade their computer (my dad is a good example of this ). You could use Vista on a 10 year old PC, but it wouldn't run very smoothly, and I'm guessing neither would a 10 year old mac be able to run it's latest OS very smoothly. I realise that they are upgradeable, but in terms of hardware flexibility they're inferior to Linux and Windows.

Yeah, just like the iPod, I know quite a few people who own macs because they are fashionable. Those kind of people get right on my nerves, the kind of ones who think they're superior because they use them and are "sticking it to the man". They're also usually from London, and are "artsy".

I'd be right behind you I had a daydream once when I was falling asleep that I should switch to linux, I woke up horrified

 

you CAN upgrade the mac mini.

the RAM, hard drive, and CPU (it's a socket but it takes the mobile version of chips... i think) are all replaceable just fine. you just have to get the top off which requires a little work with a spudger (plastic knife, or a metal one if you don't mind damaging it a little)

also, the iMac has a user replaceable hard drive. its listed as such on the apple website with full instructions, and upgrading it is fully sanctioned by apple.

 

I don't like the selection of computer components they give you. They are too monopolized with their hardware.

 

uh, right, yeah cos Dell give you SO MUCH MORE CHOICE?

 

No, but the hardware freedom does.

Honestly, I doubt too many people here use a Dell as their main machine.

 

Indeed comparing macs to dell isn't exactly fair.
And hardware choice i mean, I have loads of choice of hardware i could use in my machine, or could use to build one from scratch. Not what a specific pc company offers like dell.

I could have a pc with almost any hardware that exists, could'nt from apple. I very much like that freedom.

 

no, comparing macs to dell is perfectly fair.

remember we're talking about average joes here. you know - most people - who buy computers. we, the geeks _are the minority_ most people don;t care about building their own machine, about tweaking it to get max perfornance, about modding. they just want something that ****ing works, and most of them dont give a flying rat's arse if they can't swap out the GPU for a faster one (although as we already covered this, macs are fairly upgradeable). and both dell and apple provide solutions that allow that.

 

basically, macs are great if you want a PC that will just work, unlike windows which has so many problems 1/2 the time

But macs are on a closed architecture, and upgrading them isn't easy, and its not cheap

Dells are great PCs for n00bs, dell support is reasonably good, you can configure dells allot, they generally work pretty well, you can upgrade them

The only proprietary bit in a dell is the motherboard and mounting system for it

 

Because macs users are the majority average joe? Nope, they're just as in the minority as people like us. I also don't know anyone who owns a Dell, sure Dells sell a lot of units, but so do other companies, who have computers that are much easier to upgrade.

In fact, wasn't there something about a lawsuit about Dells practice of poor hardware compatibility?