I've been an Apple hater since the lat 80's. I was in the Navy back then, not making much money. I saved up and went computer shopping, I think PC's were 286's back then. I stopped at the Apple store and was wowed by Jennifer ( she could have sold my anything) Really liked the Apple II gs (graphics special) was suppose to be a step up from the monochrome mac. cost me around $3000 for this machine, came with 256k mem, 5 1/4 drive monitor, keyboard mouse, Apple os something on a floppy. Over the next year I bought some add ons, 3.5 floppy $300, printer (dot matrix color) $300, added 768k mem about $300, was looking for hard drive very expensive, never got one. All this stuff was all Apple because no one was allowed to make Apple stuff. Then in the late 80's Apple announces they are going Mac only. Not on more piece of software was written for my $4000 machine.:mad: It was a dead end. I have not purchased an Apple product since and never will. Wife and kids have ipods against my advice but, I will never have one.

So you bought a computer that expensive and then was eventually phased out?

Imagine that...

in other words, same thing happened to me only it was a DELL(actually I did it twice), hence I went to Apple, go figure

It is good business for Apple, they get to sell you expensive razors and expensive razor blades.

BTW, my 2 son's itouches crashes and white screens often. Apple stuff is not as trouble free as they like people to believe.

Nostatic

So you bought a computer that expensive and then was eventually phased out?

Imagine that...


The Apple ii line was big for Apple. The Mac showed up later and was considered a business (office) machine. Apple II was big in schools and homes. It was not just phased out, it was a cutoff. I believe it was a smart business move, you don't announce that you are phasing out a product, this would stop sales before you clear inventory. It was an all out brick wall. Millions of users where left at a deadened. At the time Apple had no plans or emulation software to allow you to port over to the Mac. At least with a PC there has always been upgrade paths, allowing you to keep your data bases and favorite software in most cases. Just shows how much big business really cares about customers, just like Toyota, what they say and do are not the same. I still don't understand customer loyalty, believe it or not, Apple and Toyota do not care about you, only your money.

yea, my wifes 3gs crashed called apple, they sent us a new one and box to ship old 1 back... damn the new 1 did the same thing, all apprehensive about calling and telling them , no problem send another 1 and box... no charge

Yeah I never see this on our PowerMac...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1272693952.jpg

I really dislike the way that Apple controls their platforms and ENDs them period. I had a few Apples II computers in my youth and then they ended it for the Mac and cut off everything about them completely - well it was tragic but I bought and AST instead of another Mac.

That AST 486 lasted a Looooong time and is basically the reason I am in IT now.


DAMMIT! DAMN THAT AST!!!

Seriously I wanted to play video games but for the games to work they needed as much of that first 640k of RAM for the game as possible. I got very good at optimizing DOS/Windows Systems and started making money off of it.

Back to Apple. I hate their closed platform control. Steve is - in my opinion a compulsive nut job. The products are VERY good but I can't trust him. One day he can simply say again - that platform is 'old' and we're moving on to something else. He's done it before, he'll do it again.

I have an iPhone and I do love it. It is not jail broken - I think that when the time comes to upgrade I will really consider another brand. Unfortunately it will be very hard to beat the iphone.

Mikester,

Thats funny, I replaced that Apple with an ast 486 from costco. Back somewhere in the mid 90's.

@ closed systems
How is Apple a closed system?

Isn't Windows a closed system?
Aren't all the game consoles closed systems?

Compared to *nix the above are closed.

What do you all consider is open?

@ Price
I still haven't found any hardware that maintains resell price as high as Apple products.
Buy-in might be higher but you should really be comparing to higher quality hardware like something from Sony.

Dell, HP are super cheap ... so are their resell values and at times their machines.

@ stability
hmmm, I can't say much since it all depends on what kind of applications are on any system. Garbage code in = crash

Apple's OS and overall software is closed to their platform while windows is designed to run on anything.

Apple has a history of cutting off support to products that still have plenty of life in them.

We bought our Apple IIgs right before Apple killed the Apple II line with no indication that when they came out with their new product the old would be mercilessly killed.

On the other side of the coin though, Microsoft has been 'stuck' supporting their immencly successful Windows XP to the detriment of their new OS. Vista was a bomb, even Windows 7 is a struggle for some XP users (me).

If Microsoft were Apple they would just kill XP - period - regardless of the impact.

Apple has become everything that their users supposedly hate about Micro$oft. They just can't admit it.

I don't care how well-made Apple's electronics are (and they are). They still suffer from the BIGGEST problem in electronics - obsolescence. Electronics is perhaps THE single stupidest place someone can spend their money - anything bought today will depreciate faster than even a new car. That nice shiny new iPhone/iPad/iWhatever? It'll be obsolete in six months, hopelessly obsolete to the point it probably can't even be used or supported anymore in a matter of three or four years.

Sheer stupid.

And don't even get me started on how they're nothing more than a bigger pipeline to funnel U.S. dollars to China. I'd bet that the total % of electronics components manufactured here in the USA is probably 5% or thereabouts. It's overwhelmingly Chinese - including Apple products.

Yes, a lot of stuff out there is "cool" but it collectively makes us more stupid/vapid/unable to think for ourselves, more broke, more dependent on (expensive) electricity/energy and (expensive) distribution networks to carry data/bandwith/porn/spam/Viagra commercials, etc.

I'm not saying there aren't good applications for technology, but 99% of so-called "consumer electronics" is stupid pablum.

I disagree Jeff. My 6.5 yr old iPod is still alive and kicking and fully supported. I'll grant you that it is basically worthless, but it is only obsolete in the sense that my friends can't I believe that I still have it. I have many friends with 5-6 yr old Mac laptops that are still fully functional and with simple ram upgrades would be right back on par with an average consumer laptop today.

Nail hitting head.

Ian

b'but Apple has the young cool 'mac' guy whereas PC has Robert Gibbs.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1272731801.jpg



Seriously, Ian is right, "Nail hitting head."

Can agree to some extent that Apple s becoming what they set out to NOT to be, however, their approach is still no where near what M$ needed to do to do to get to the top.

@ closed system
??? a system is closed if you can not inter-marriage it with other goods ?
Interesting concept, I was thinking from code stand points not hardware.

NEC computers from the late 90's and early 2000's had their own version of Windows and every basically everything else was none transferable to other wintel machines. Apple during that time was using lots of Sony parts ;)

However, I do believe that Apple OS's have been on greater range of CPU manufacturers than M$ has.

M$ basically Intel, AMD
Apple IBM, Motorola, Intel and now own

For Apple closed = good ;)
For M$ open = good ;)
Now what were to happen if the opposite where true?

Being a hobbist and being able to hack your own system is lots of fun but should this always be the case?

@ useable even though outdated
+1 on outdate items
my ipod is about 5-6 years old too ... battery is finally down to about 1-2 hours of usage.
my friends powerook is still in action after 6 years of traveling the world.

I would imagine that any company is so. Many products never make it to the market after waiting for them forever -- vapor-hypeware M$ is a great example!!!

For the second time in the past 5 years I thought M$ was going to woop Apple's butt real good but .... vapor!!!!
LongHorn was extremely expressive and I thought that M$ was going to have a winner finally and what did you boys get ???? --- lolo, VISTA, fail :(
Courier -- OK, I admit, I really wanted this more than a iPad, it just looked awesome, OS looked great and I thought that maybe project Natal was coming around in some form --- what did the masses get???? vapor!!!! ... let's thow in the towel for the HP slate too ... they needed to buy Palm just to be cool and to be able to compete.

hmmm, I guess rising your expectations and having you delay your purchases long enough to ward off some pesky competitors only to realize that what you are now getting is not really what was being hyped or just hyped is way better than having your products EOL cycle end abruptly but yet still work and have "plenty of life in them".



@ Sudden death Apple products
various Performa series ... thank god! They really weren't that good!
Pippin -- failed game console
Cube Mac
Newton
QuickTake (did I get the name right??) digital camera
AppleTV (errrr, still going but seems like it's dead ;) )

So, are things really that different in the Wintel world?
Do all manufactures continue their lines for years and years and will inform customers that they are EOL certain lines in X months or X weeks?
I don't pay attention to Wintel hardware but it just seems that something is always new and their is always a new flavor of the day going on ... I have never seen any news about when a product is going to discontinued....


@ Real, true evil
Ok IT folks, let's do some math for how much the darkforce does actually cost you
wintel machines are priceless!

* basics -- compared to Apple about $50-$600 cheaper (I'm just really throwing some numbers out here, but I am gong to say that yes, apple costs you more for hardware)

* OS -- sort of hard to really compare since M$ windows has so many bullets and comparisons that I get overwhelmed and just pay for the Super-size me pack. Which probably looks like OSX + iLife + iWork - Virus software. Winner goes to M$ for more bullet points ;)

OK, here is where some of the basic hidden costs come into play --
* Installation - M$ is getting better but ... OSX wins
* Usage -- tie -- this is a personality matter and depends really on the person
* Maintenance -- M$ wins for having the best support network available to mankind! There is always a shop waiting to charge you for a few hours of work on your registry, removing malware or virus.

Ready for the big time yet?
Security !!!
How much money has been lost to the script kiddies? phishing scams? Key logging?
How much is spent on virus software? and the damage caused by viruses?
How much money has been paid out because your personal information was released to the world wide web?
How much money is being used to fight cyber attacks?

Come on people, M$ windows is used across the world !!! The market share is like wayyyyyy huge !!!! But let's put this to perspective, Windows costs the USA companies huge amounts of money in security alone.

You all trying to tell me Apple is Evil but spending Billions of dollars yearly to combat what Windows has leashed on the world is heavenly?

I don't know ... letting Windows run our government seems like telling some kids in a toy shop to not to touch, a little ridiculous if you ask me :(

The solution? Buy Apple AND Intel...

The reality is that while the iPhone is made in China most of the parts come from Japanese companies. There have been a few articles about this. Notably when they started offering the phone for sale in China recently the fact that by selling it in china they were really only benefiting from the labor.

What do you guys thing about RIM Blackberrys? Apparently there will be 2 new BBs this summer, one for sure will be designed to compete directly with the IPhone.

Hopefully they will be better than the Storm...

If you think just the fact that OS X does not appear to be susceptible to virus infection is all there is to 'security' then you are sadly mistaken. The facts as I see them are that most shops that base their network on apple products as rule don't even pay lip service to security because Apple products simply do not work well in a secure environment without serious user lock downs. Lock downs that make 'creative types' who use them go look for other jobs.

In my own professional experience owning an apple based network is usually far easier than a modern windows based network. While apple products may be more secure they community that uses them on average HATE security protocols. I work with a lot of creative types who are 'creating' things. Those things are the company's intellectual property but when I talk to them about keeping those 'things' secure they tell me to go take a hike.

It's ludicrous how many times these creative types try to circumvent security protocols because they think having a Mac makes it okay.