The headline is common knowledge for many, but for the doubters of "the true path" there is now proof that some people get off in the same way as religious people do - scary but true.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13416272

Some people pray to "a God", others pray to "iGod", damned funny, needs to be watched


Andy

What does that make Bill Gates?

People buy PC's in spite of Bill Gates, not because of him.

When was the last time you saw people worshipping Bill Gates or Microsoft........ Never as far as I know, for Apple this is the norm in recent years.

Watch the video, its scary (if you cant it might turn up tonight or tomorrow on TPB).


Andy

Steve Jobs 7 Principles for meeting success (from a display ad on SPCR)

http://learn.gotomeeting.com/forms/NA-G ... 0000005cTk

No thanks, I dont belive in any religion


Andy

I use an iMac and I like it a lot. But, it isn't perfect. Why is it necessary to belittle others because of perceived attitudes?

I dont need to belittle them they do a very good job themselves.

You however Neil ar very far from from being an Apple Fanatic, after all you just said that the iMac that you use is NOT perfect.

I personally have no problem with anyone using an Apple, or Apple phones and toys, I do however dislike the obvious fact that many of the users are hardcore snobs that give the rest a bad name and will not accept any fault with their products especially if Apple tell them "that there is no fault" you must be holding the phone wrong.

There are "fanboys" (fanbois if you cant spell) and there are Apple fanboys which take things to the extreme, my brother works for a large Apple reseller - most of his colleagues try to use PC's at work and most use PC's at home, very few of them are "fanboys" because they see the reality of Apple products and just how nuts their "fanatic" followers go when a new product comes out.

Simply put, its as close to religion as followers of a company that produces computers and toys can get, amazing marketting and generally good although overpriced products, but many of the "fanatics" are simply pathetic for just one reason - they cannot see anything from anyone elses perspective.

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Winston Churchill

Before anyone else uses Sir Winston's quote against me, note the description of "fanatic", and note what I have said above. Fanatic - "a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics." Without trying to patronise people I would like to manipulate that description a little "a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, e.g. common in religion, politics or sport - often tribal in nature."


Andy

Some examples that I see commonly.

1,) Mac's dont get viruses.
2,) Mac's dont crash.
3,) Mac's are more reliable than PC's.
4,) Mac's are faster than PC's.

etc

1,)We know for a fact that Mac's DO get viruses, although I have actually had someone argue with me over that point - they are fanatical.

2,) Mac's as we all know DO crash, although I am happy to concede that Mac's crash less than PC's because there is no real way of proving it one way or the other.

3,) Like the regularity of crashing it is not possible to say, however I know for a fact that last year brand new iMAC's had double the DOA rate of the industry average. Secondly it is simply not fair to compare Apples with Oranges (or even PC's) that cost a vastly different amount - one of the reasons why Apple keep their products expensive is to increase the quality and the reliability and longevity.

4,) This is pretty much the same as answer 3, a £1,000 Mac better be better than a £500 PC, however if the same amount is spent on both products the difference depends obviously on what programs are being run, but as a general rule they either tie or the PC wins.

I am sure that Neil will either agree with my points as they are, or will agree in general terms because Neil is NOT an Apple "fanatic", however show this to the stereotypical Apple "fanatic" and my point will be proven.


Andy

Exactly whose attitudes are you referring to? The attitude of the Apple cult members, or the attitude of those who correctly point out that Apple is a religious cult. I would not categorize the latter as an "attitude' as much as an astute observation.

Such an observation does not necessarily mean that anyone who owns an Apple product is a member of the Apple religious cult (I own an iPod myself and have used the Lisa and Mac previously) but an alarmingly large number of people are (and perceive themselves to be) members of a such a cult. My favorite recollection was a guy who interviewed on TV while waiting all night in line to purchase the iPad when it first came out. He said it was worth camping out in front of the store all night, even though he had no idea what he would do with the iPad when he got it (he said he would figure that out later).

Regarding Steve Jobs, as with all cult leaders, he is a ruthless tyrant (as those who have worked for him know).

Just had a shock comparing a £999 iMac with a much, much faster PC that costs £832.60 although you would have to build it yourself - feel free to add on £50 and some cash for a keyboard and mouse that I didnt add on, lets call it a £950 PC for the sake of argument that would wipe the floor with the iMac in terms of performance, the iMac is a nice sleek all-in-one design but simply cant compete with the performance of the PC.

PC spec as follows, Coolermaster mATX case, 500W Corsair PSU, Gigabyte mobo with solid caps all round and USB 3, i5 2500 3.3GHz, 8GB DDR3-1600, 64GB Crucial M4, Samsung 2TB, DVD-RW, Windows 7 64-bit, Samsung 22" HDMI monitor 1920x1080, the 1GB version of the same graphics card.

Point proven that they are way over priced for the spec - only a fanatic would disagree as this PC would not be much faster than the same iMac in the link below - FYI if you look at the Mac Pro's it doesnt get any better - paying for design more than anything else - nope, paying for the name more than anything else.

http://store.apple.com/uk/configure/MC3 ... jIwNTQ1MDA

Spec that exactly matches the Mac - £601.77, no keyboard and mouse and not built, lets add £100, still making it a full £300 cheaper.


Andy

The best parts of a Mac are the OS and the integration/testing. You should put some value on that.

Why all the obsession (and anger) over what other people do, think or say?

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=61998&hilit=+censors

I thought I would leave that to someone else, but as yet no-one has stood up and given the answer.

The answer is to my points above, numbers 2 and 3.

Apple has an amazingly tight hold on their own products and to a large degree their grip on 3rd party software manufacturers and even 3rd party resellers and upgraders.

This tight grip is the single largest reason why they have far fewer problems in some respects, but that tight grip is also highly restrictive, you cant for example upgrade the graphics card in your Mac Pro using a PC Graphics card as they have different coding in the VGA BIOS. HDD and RAM upgrades are about it for the average Mac, and obviously the choice of software is very restrictive - this is entirely deliberate and covers all Mac products right down to replacing batteries in phones and laptops - something that do not last forever.

Some will argue that this is a good thing, some will argue the other point of view, I (not a PC fanatic) can simply point out these reasons and appreciate the benefits and problems alike.

To add to this a little, if you wanted to build an ultra reliable PC its very easy, spend a little more on better quality hardware and be very very careful what software and drivers you install (that includes automatic updates) - suddenly you will be on-par with Apple but without the restrictions. FYI my personal server has been running for 122 days without fault, My own personal PC has not crashed once in the last 12-months (or so) although games have (thats 3rd party software for you - remember that console games are much more reliable than PC games because they are thoroughly tested on a single product).


Andy

If you only use free software, yes: Mac OS is worthless. But if you use commercial software, it has a value even if only because it can run some popular Adobe products. You'd have to pay for Windows to run them on a PC.

I dont follow your point, or was it not pointed towards me.? My quoted prices included Windows 7 64-bit, and it also can run some popular Apple products.

My point was specifically the same as yours, the tight controls over Apple Hardware and their OS's, wheras the same cannot be as good with PC hardware simply because it is manufactured by hundereds of manufacturers to general standards that are all designed to work together with multiple OS's and then hundereds of software manufactures use those hardware and software platforms to build their software to work with - this is a much broader field than Apple has, which is the main reason why software problems are far more common with PC's than Apple products, in the world of PC's you have to look at servers to find the tight controls for both software and hardware that is common in the Apple world.


Andy

A legal, uncrippled Windows 7 (Pro, not Ultimate) will set you back over 300$ here.

I was quoting for "Home Premium" not Pro, crippled or not its legal and actually very reliable and more "ressilient" than other MS OS's.

Out of interest in which way do you consider "HP" crippled.? I have my own thoughts but dont want to mention them as that mayskew your perspective.


Andy

Lots of people who aren't OEMs buy and/or use OEM licences in a way that doesn't comply with the license. Yeah, that's cheap but so are 20$ versions of Windows from Russia...
Not being able to choose between 32 and 64 bits is also an issue.

Don't get me wrong: I like the corporate OEM versions you never need to activate and which you can move around and clone freely. But the OEM versions available to the public? No thanks.

I'm not knowledgable about Windows so I only know some of the ways in which HP is crippled. The most annoying for me is the lack of RDP server and the management stuff which means you've got to hack obscure registry keys to make the simplest of changes to the braindead defaults.

There is OEM that big manufacturers use, and again there is OEM that you can buy and use, I included the price of the latter ~ £70. You type in your included serial code (on the sticker) and even get a 10p DVD to install it with, as far as whether it is 32 or 64 bit depends on the version you buy, they are different products - which shouldnt be a real problem as most CPU's have been 64-bit for years, but specifically the OEM that you buy with the components to DIY a PC is only supposed to be installed on the PC components that you buy it with - thats the general rules and regs of the licence.



I dont know what RDP is, as I am sure most people dont, therefore it cant be popular and most people would never miss - out of interest does the Mac OS come with that.?

As far as hacking registry keys and so on, you are probably talking about "permissions", this is my bug-bear with non-pro versions of windows, although you can do-so freely in safe-mode. This is not to say that MS "crippling" Windows in any way at all is not moronic and almost certainly helps people choose to use a free illegal copy of windows vs a paid for "crippled" copy. MS are idiots to continue to do this, the features that they "disable" or in MS's point of view "sell" with a more expensive product are usually worthless anyway, but still piss-off the end user with no gain to anyone but sellers of "illegal software" (not to be confused with pirates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy).

In any case, although this is interesting to talk about we are way off-topic, please PM me and we can discuss this issue further in private, or create your own post about this subject and I am happy to continue.


Andy

I will say that, for my ex's completely computer illiterate parents, a mac mini is wonderfully intuitive. And not the M$ where-did-we-put-your-file-menu-oh-now-its-a-non-linear-picture-bar-that-changes-layout-with-your-resolution-and-window-size "intuitive".

And while theoretical Mac OS viruses exist, in the wild they are effectively non-existent (obviously due to OS market share and not any work on Apple's part).
Edit: and for reference, although I know it is a little old:
http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/16/1322 ... OS-X-Virus
In which a comment by "Overly Critical Guy (663429)" pointed out:

Also, because of the general lack of malware (and service packs, forced upon the tech-illiterate, which decimate older hardware), their five-year-old mac mini still works great. I admit I cannot speak to Windows 7, but I find the majority Windows installations (regardless of user literacy) tend to get bogged down as they age.

Finally, there is the good old my-machine-has-been-on-for-N-years argument. Again, I cannot speak to Windows 7, so maybe this is moot, but the mac mini mentioned above is only off when the electric grid goes down. They never have to restart for performance reasons, ever.

I will never pay the Apple premium myself, but I do see the value in a machine "just working" for those who can't format a disk to save their lives (or those who have been around long enough that they no longer want to bother).

I grant that there are insanos out there, but I believe you will find them in any demographic. Edit: not necessarily in the same proportions.

I dont disagree with anyone who says that the Mac OS is intuitive and MS have often cocked things up, or simply changed them enough to screw with the minds of the users of older OS's.



That point, although it is true does not in anyway state that Viruses and Malware do not exist, I always say the same thing about software of any form, would YOU write it for ~ 5% of the market or for 95%, if you want to piss off a lot of people you dont do it the Apple way, if the tables were turned in terms of market share the tables would also be turned in terms of the share of Viruses/Malware. Simply put, if YOU write software or viruses or Malware then its much "better" to hit the big markets than the small markets, go for MS rather than Apple or Linux. Remember that Linux has a small market share, take its virues/Malware into account as well when you consider MS/Apple and viruses.



My parents PC has worked perfectly for a similar time with no problems, again it should be noted that it is very difficult to show who wins and by how much, there are simply to many variables - so I suggest that we all agree to ignore this point as no-one will ever "win" a point here, so lets not bother trying. FYI just for a laugh, I once saw a PC that was running "Windows (dog-shit) 98" that had been running for over 2-years non-stop I went out of my way to see it with my own eyes.



As per my last answer it is impossible to even say if that is normal (and true e.g. not a harmless exagaration).



Yet I know someone who blew loads of cash on an Apple because "they are so intuitive and so much easier to use than a PC", he cant use his very expensive Mac either, and he only has his Mac recommender to show him, rather than "everyone". Where would you rather be.? screwed but can ask 95% of people for help, or screwed and only able to ask 5% of people for help - mass market share DOES have real benefits sometimes - like having a Nokia phone 10-years ago, someone WILL have a charger that you can use.

EDIT: Added in.



FUD is the answer there, no sane person claims that IE is competent, let alone perfect - personally I have considered its use as "a security risk" for a few years, FF + AdBlockPlus is much better if at least for the security questions its asks you, and the fact that it is much more difficult to "click" on a link in an otherwise harmless porn-site that will take you to a malicious one - seriously if you use FF and dont us ABP, do so.

Andy

Back on topic.

I missed the start to the program about "superbrands", so I will be watching the repeat online at 23:50 and will be adding what I saw here to my original point or Apple being tantamount to a religion.

I suspect the following link is only for those in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/livearena/


Andy

Yeah, the other day I bought a Big Mac for 3 bucks and then found out that I could've made a bigger sandwhich myself for half of that...

At the very least you have to compare Mac Prices to other vendors. They are still usually more expensive, although the prettier the PCs get, the more expensive they get too. Sony offers an iMac-like VAIO for 1999$, it you compare it to the 1999$ iMac you find that they have pretty much the same hardware, but the iMac has a 27" 2560x1440 display to the VAIO's 24" HD screen. Somebody at Sony must hope they have religious followers as well.

Apple is not overpriced. If they were, they wouldn't sell so much. That's simple economics.
They are not aiming at people with a 500-dollar-purchase-budget looking to make a steal. There's a surprising amount of people, who don't really care if their new notebook is 999$ or 1499$. And once you've held one of them unibody Macbooks in your hands, you realize, that this is something very different than your run-of-the-mill Acer or Toshiba plastic thing. Is that worth any upmark? Maybe not to you or me, but that's a market economy for you.

I could wear 2$ unicolored T-Shirts and they would do their job of clothing my body adequately. I still prefer to wear Shirts that cost upwards of 20$ because they have nice prints on them. A print probably adds 30 cents to the manufacturing cost.

There's just too many people in the IT industry who use Macs to try and smear it as a cult. Anand La Shimpi of anandtech seems to be one. That guy is more knowledgable than most people here and he's probably not an infected fanboy. So it seems to be possible to make a (somewhat) objective and informed purchase decision and still end up with a Mac.

I recently made a (somewhat) objective and informed purchase decision and ended up with a Macbook Air 11". 940 Euros.
That was 4 years after I last owned a Mac. I went Windows in 2007 because at that time, no Mac offered any appealing qualities.
The German market of cheap 11" laptops that do not have a frickin' Atom is dominated by entry level Thinkpads and Acer Timelines. The cheapest one started at ~340 Euros. It was mostly combinations of bad screens and keyboards, and/or their noise levels that ruled them out. Were they 600 Euros worse? No, but a minimum threshold must be crossed for something to be viable.
The closest competition were showroom Thinkpad X200's starting at ~700 Euro. Better CPU, worse GPU. Stalemate. Slighty better keyboard on the X200s, though surprisingly slight. Inferior screen. Waaaaaay inferior touchpad. And of course they lost on looks. Was that all worth about 200 Euros higher price? To me it was.

Sure people come along and say "For 940 Euros, you could have gotten some laptop with a 17" full hd screen and gaming graphics". But that's not what I want. I wanted something small and portable, with work-grade screen, keyboard and touchpad. Didn't mind it looking sexy either.

Mac's are neither superior nor inferior to Windows machines. Working with both, I find it more and more difficult to get involved in any conflict. They're both PCs. Most of the day I'm looking at Firefox, VLC or Flash/Photoshop windows, which look the same on either platform. OSX does a few things better than Windows, but not nearly as many with 7 than it did with XP. Windows 7 does a few things better than OSX.

There is less software for OSX, but most of the time you'll find real good alternatives. That is one thing about the Mac-platform, that really amazes me. The polish of free-/shareware apps seems to be generally higher.

I was deliberately NOT comparing Apples with.... Other products for the very real observation that the iMac is an all-in-one design that is popular (again) .... well at least compared to other all-in-one designs. To continue; I was comparing a machine of xxx cost with another of a similar cost but much greater performance, and also a machine of xxx performance to another of much reduced cost, on both of those comparisons the iMac looked bad.

I am very glad to hear someone stick up with Apple and their large costs for xxx hardware, and you have got it spot on, the elegance, the name tag, the noise (lack of) are what makes the machine more expensive, but does that really make it that much better, a small tower PC can be hidden, are you suggesting that it is really worth £300 NOT to bother hiding it.? OK, that is a loaded question, I would find somewhere to put it and save £300, that small space compared to that much hard cash is a no-brainer for all but the richest of us and I envy anyone who can easily forget about £300.



A simple but generally pointless counter argument would be along the lines of, HD/Compaq, Dell and Acer all sell low-cost PC's...... if they sold rubbish PC's they wouldnt sell so many....... I know you are itching to answer this but I will save you from bothering - some people buy a Ferrari and never break the speed limit.... what can I say about those people and many Apple buyers apart from the obvious answer that they blew a load of cash for a badge and the looks, others buy a dirt cheap car and thrash the hell out of it - who had the most fun, the poser or the speed-freak.? only the poser and the speed-freak can answer, and they will argue all day...... hence this is a moot point of topic so I suggest that we ignore it.



Plainly and simply any and all informend purchase descisions should be down to the software first and anything else is a minor point - including the extra cash, then decide if the sleek slimline design is really worth £300 or an extra 1/3rd of the cost.



I thank you for being objective and honest.



I shall take your good word for that as you spend as much time in both environments.

As a question out of pure interest, how much if anything extra would would you have paid for that 11" Apple laptop running Mac OS over an identical laptop running W7 64-bit.? I only ask because you often use both Windows and OS, but as I understand the actual quality of the product is important to you as well, but given that everything was identical but the OS what would be your value difference.?


Andy

Apple enraged me back in the '90s when they ran an ad wherein they equated themselves with Gandhi and various other brave social reformers and free-thinking types. Yeah. like Gandhi would have admired this epitome of capitalism. Well, it's only an ad, but it shows how they try to appeal to people's self-delusions. I can't imagine anyone making themselves so dependent on the products and services of a single corporation (as Apple users do.)

That being said, their products tend to be fabulous, but at one and a half times the cost of anyone else's similar hardware and functionality I would feel like an absolute fool to buy any. Steve Jobs, although undeniably a brilliant CEO, is universally described as being a p**ck. I wouldn't want to enrich him further (although I do feel sad at his sickly appearance and health.)

That being said, Apple's products have become so popular lately that they can't appeal to elitism anymore.

That is different from religion because..........



Maybe they are, mostly the toys - but their domain of intuative interfaces is being ruthlessly attacked on all sides.



That is my belief.



That is the most amazing thing, somehow they still manage to do so - at least a bit. Its like all of those people in the 1980's that always wanted a BMW, now they are not so interested because they are as common as muck - those who still want one likely still cant afford one.


Andy

One of the points being made is that even if Apple makes very good products ("fabulous" is an overstatement), the reason they cost so much is that a large percentage of the buyers are Apple cult members and that drives up the price to higher than what other companies are able to charge for comparable products. Apple owners tend to be either cultists or those who are more rational, but willing to pay the much higher prices for only slightly better products. Even among those who are not hard core Apple cult members, an Apple product is a prestige item, beyond what the value actually is compared to the competition. So market acceptance of Apple products is not an indication of their actual value, unless one is selling status, etc (which they obviously are).

The cultists can be easily recognized as those who think Steve Jobs is genius. He may be a tyrant and a clever thief (stealing most of his ideas from Xerox PARC and others), but he is no genius.

That was a very interesting program, and covered many of the "technological superbrands" Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, Facebook and Google.

It slowly turned throughout the program towards how exactly those companies make money (or dont), the answer is the cash cow, the money that keeps on flowing.

Some of the points of interest that were covered, Apple makes 30% on every "app" that is sold, many youngsters dont even realise that MS make the "X-Box" therefore not destroying its "coolness" (it is in small print on the box), Sony sell the PS3 at a loss (I knew that) but stand to make lots of money over time on Blu-Ray (maybe enough to pay back the $3billion it has cost them), Nokia are screwed because they make nothing out of their phones and have no cash cow, Facebook make their money out of Adverts (what adverts I use ABP ), and so do Google (what adverts I use ABP ).

Interesting watch, and a little amusing as well.


Andy

Do you see any value in Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX then? What about Shuttle Cubes. In your world, they all wouldn't exist, would they?


HP/Compaq, Dell and Acer COMBINED haven't had the net profit what Apple did last year.

If Apple was overpriced, you could say: If they would reduce their prices by 20% they would sell 30% more goods and end up making more profit. But seeing as Apple is probably the most profitable non-oil company in the world right now, you couldn't.

They are not overpriced, they are too expensive for you. Two different things.


Yes. And this is a free market economy. People can pay extra for anything they like. Good thing too, otherwise we'd all drive the same car, wear the same thing and eat the same food.
If you paid 1000$ for your business suit, why should you let a cheap plasticy Toshiba laptop spoil the "ensemble".

I just love how buying a computer has to be the most rational decision in the world.


As I stated before, I don't have a preference of OSX over Windows or the other way around. I wouldn't mind the Macbook Air running Windows 7. Had I been looking for a 15 or 17 inch laptop I would most likely not have gotten a Macbook. It's just that the ultra-portable market is not very competitive below 1000$.