Mac OS 10.4 "Tiger" on april 29th!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

its panasonic

Not necessarily.. Mat... also manufacture under the names Technics and Tascam. Technics tends to be for higher end hifi stuff (although I have had technics CD rom drives), and Tascam specialises in broadcast audio and studio level audio equipment (they do a very nice range of combo external USB sound cards and mixer desks for instance)

@punky: Yes, I did make an error. I genuinely thought there was a "su" in there.

[Semi On]

You really don't understand, do you?

Itâ₠¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s to do with economies of scale; as production increases, the cost of producing each additional unit falls.

Their suppliers are not selling 1 million units to Apple and another 9 million to all the other companies, they have to design and produce their products exclusively for Apple (in the case of motherboards, etc.). The only things that are interchangeable are RAM, optical drives, etc. Video cards are Mac-specific, Power supplies are Mac-specific.

Then thereââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s research and design. Apple has to fund the majority of their R&D in-house. There are no "competing" brands in that if you want a Mac-compatible machine, you buy a Mac, and Apple is the only one funding the OS to run on them. They have to pay the programmers, developers, marketing staff, etc. Michael Dell has been quoted before as boasting that Dell has an extremely low R&D budget - you just take the parts, slap them together into a pretty case, and sell as many as you can. And itââ‚ ¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s the same if you build your own †“ you are the R&D team.

Put simply, it costs Apple more to produce a Mac than it does for Dell to build a PC or for you to build your own.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Semi On

You really don't understand, do you?

<snip>

Err, could you please specify the post you are replying to, as it appears you are replying to mine, and I made no mention of Apple, R&D or anything you talk about.

BTW, I do understand Apple's prices.

[Semi On]

Sorry bud...wasn't aimed at you. Just at anyone who blindly whines about Apple's high prices without actually thinking about why they are high.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Semi On

Sorry bud...wasn't aimed at you. Just at anyone who blindly whines about Apple's high prices without actually thinking about why they are high.

I do know the rudiments of the business world, thank you for patronising me all the same.

Apple choose to have the situation like that, because Jobs wants it that way. They are a company and want to make as much money as possible. Exploiting their customers on the hardware is the best way to make money. Need I mention Ipod batteries?

Sadly, people unable to get into Apples, mainly because of the cost issue, is why Apple only has a fraction of the software it should have.

[Semi On]

Originally Posted by punky

I do know the rudiments of the business world, thank you for patronising me all the same.

It wasn't my intent to patronise. It's just that you seem quick to bash Apple based on assumptions that they "rip people off". But Apple aren't coining it in as much as you think.

In the last quarter they made $260m - definitely a lot of money. But this time last year they only made $46m. No doubt that has to do with iPod sales jumping from 700k units Q2 '04 to 5.5m units this quarter.

To put it into perspective, Dell made $749m in the last quarter. Microsoft made $2.36b.

Apple are no more money-grabbing than any other company out there, and to suggest otherwise is naive at best.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Semi On

It wasn't my intent to patronise.

Fair enough, I appologise for accusing you of doing such.

Don't get me wrong, I love my powerbook, I love Panther, but I do feel that quite a bit of Apple's ethics are wrong, and they seem to be anti-consumer. That is what gripes me most.

I am fair with Apple though. Like with everyone else, but I will compliment them when they deserve it and condemn them when they deserve it.

Going back on OT, I probably will upgrade to Tiger, eventually, but not while the price is so high. People are happy enough using Jaguar, let alone Panther.

Apple choose to have the situation like that, because Jobs wants it that way. They are a company and want to make as much money as possible. Exploiting their customers on the hardware is the best way to make money. Need I mention Ipod batteries?

Like he said though, its high because of apples unique hardware. If they were to try and make them cheaper they would have to follow dells system. The reason its more expensive is because of the high R&D and the OS. Its costs more to make a mac than a pc. They would have to slow the R&D down and the quality of hardware to make them cheaper

[Lew]

Originally Posted by punky

Going back on OT, I probably will upgrade to Tiger, eventually, but not while the price is so high. People are happy enough using Jaguar, let alone Panther.

You can get it for 75 quid at Amazon

[Stuart]

If you have a firewire external hard drive, bear in mind that it may not work properly with Tiger (see here for details). Apparently, the Lacie drives seem to be to worst affected.

[Lew]

I'm impressed. Tiger has done the unthinkable and made RealPlayer not suck

Under 10.3.x I was unable to watch mlb.tv on my iBook as there were too many dropped frames. Under 10.4 it's as smooth as silk.