[aft_lizard]

I realize this post will open up a massive can of worms and as usual a small firefight will occur between Applebots and the MicrosoftBorg(yeah I know, I am one), but if the info is true then it's very interesting to say the least.

[aft_lizard]

Another story for you to ping your list on.

[Porterville]

Mac sux, 92% of the world agrees.

[sigSEGV]

Meh... I’m sitting here posting from my full Beryl KDE desktop with all the fancy zooming and special effects of both MacOS and Vista. First time I’ve played with it and I must say I’m impressed. One more reason not to want a MAC or Vista.

[Swordmaker]

Mac Ping...

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

Mac users are in a holding pattern for a period... we’re waiting for OS X.5 Leopard. It is due in “Spring ‘07”... March 21 - June 21... In addition, it was announced that several announcements were due from Apple in April.

The first has already occurred: the introduction of the 3 GHz Octo-core MacPro on Tuesday.

[quidnunc]

I'm looking to upgrade to a Mac Pro, but I'm going to wait until OS 10.5 comes out.

Mac is holding a big conference in Frisco on April 11-15 and I suspect they'll introduce Leopard and probably some other stuff too at that time.

[coconutt2000]

'The share of PowerPC-based Macs fell ... from 4.29% in February to 3.94% in March. That dip was not fully offset by an increase in Intel-based Mac hardware, leading to a overall net decline in Mac share of 0.3%, to 6.08% in March.'

Hmm... Sales of a line of products that are no longer manufactured or sold in the Apple retail stores or on the Apple web site fell? How utterly shocking and counter intuitive. /sarc

The lack of reliable and accurate facts makes the entirety of the conclusions drawn by the article suspect.

This is also the current slow season as savvy buyers hold for new product announcements that are due in the April, May, June product cycle. There will be a significant pickup in May as the graduation season buying season picks up, and the momentum will carry through the summer, ending in early Fall, only to pick up again December.

In my experience, Apple has a new product cycle that occurs three times a year. January-February, April-June, and October-November. Product updates and new product releases are staggered. Apple will sometimes skip updating some models of their products for entire extra cycle and plan for a larger, more serious update for the next cycle, or an out of cycle update and release. It happens.

I'd like to see the sales report on how Vista PC sales are affecting XP PC sales. /sarc

[TheBattman]

The figures are from a company called Net Applications, which collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of 40,000+ Web sites"

One major problem - Safari (Apple's own browser) and Firefox (the other of the top two in browsers for the Macintosh) both can (and often are) set up to report themselves as Microsoft IE for Windows simply for compatibility. Yes, there are web sites - that will not function correctly if your browser reports itself as an Apple or other non-MS browser. 99,9% there is no actual compatibility issue - the developer is just lazy.

And I posted something on another board last week that fits here - so here it goes:

____

Just this afternoon, I stopped in the CompUSA in Little Rock to pick up a SD card reader. I always make a quick loop through the Apple area. HOLY COW! I have never seen it so busy. Most looking seriously at Macbooks and Macbook Pros in particular. I have never seen 5 redshirts (CompUSA employees), and the Apple guy all working just the Apple area. There was one lonely redshirt in the Windows laptop section - and he had no customers - and was "busy" sending someone a text message...

The only incentive being offered was on the 20" iMac - and that was a $100 eRebate. I saw several machines go to the front to check out.

Even the normally non-Mac redshirts were mostly making sense and telling the truth to the customers. The fellow at the front check-out said it has blown him away how many Macbooks and Macbook pros they have sold in the last couple of weeks. he said they were completely sold out of the MacPro towers.

[Old_Mil]

'The share of PowerPC-based Macs fell ... from 4.29% in February to 3.94% in March. That dip was not fully offset by an increase in Intel-based Mac hardware,

Just looking at the way this is phrased, and the numbers involved, I'm guessing that far too much massaging of the statistics had to be engaged in to come with this result. Sales figures are far more accurate than market share as there's less work to be done to arrive at them, and Mac sales growth is 5x that of PC sales growth. Given the change in processors, one would expect a continuing decline in PPC market share as these machines age.