Apple puts out fix for MacBook shutdowns

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Haha "Poppycock..."

I just love the fact that I have finally seen the word on these forums.

But seriously, who wants to increase market share with bargain bin, throwaway PCs that have teeny tiny profit margins? Leave that to Dell and HP (I guess you could include Lenovo and Gateway to a lesser extent).

I don't think the accusations against MS of IP theft are justified in every case, but I will say that Microsoft has consistently been behind its competitors when it comes to innovation; this is no doubt due to the weight of its own installed base and an obsession with backward-compatibility. I think the two most often-cited examples are the fact that nearly every "innovation" in IE7 was taken from other browsers (read Opera and Firefox) and that all of the touted features of Vista have been in OS X for a while now (OS X Widgets = Vista Gadgets, OS X Aqua GUI = Vista Aero Glass, Vista Desktop Search/Fast Index = OS X Spotlight... the list goes on).

Finally, too many people look at the base prices on the machines and decide that Macs are more expensive; nobody bothers to look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective. It's true that the average Mac comes out a few bucks more expensive than a similarly-configured PC (and by a few I mean usually $100-$200; In the case of the highest-end Mac Pro, they are actually about $300 cheaper out of the box! I have to grudgingly admit that Apple monitors are not the best deal, though....). If you start thinking about all of the stuff you have to add to that bargain PC to get the same functionality though, the costs start adding up. For example:

Antivirus software and subscription services;
Firewire and Wi-Fi cards to add support for devices and connectivity;
A set of software that can reasonably hope to duplicate the functionality and power of the iLife suite (best damn introductory multimedia suite ever);
Any other number of little features on Macs that add genuine value and functionality (even as simple as the "eject" button on the keyboard, the backlighting on the laptop's keys, native PDF creation, etc.).

No, Macs aren't for office drones who just need to churn out spreadsheets and documents; if all you need is Office, a Mac isn't for you, which is why there will always be a market in business for those bargain-basement PCs. Honestly, you don't even need MS Office for most of that work - you can use Open Office for free, and if all you do is word processing then screw that, Windows comes with Word Pad (everyone seems to forget this)! If you need a powerful, functional, and secure machine loaded with quality software out of the box though, it's hard to beat a Mac.

Posted by: multanihl   Posted on: 10/29/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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