Apple's iPhone and iPod products are examples of hardware with excellant softare. However, the PC motherboard is just a standared Intel reference design. Apple's computer hardware, especially their hardware designs have nothing really great to brag about. They have been well behind the industry in their bus speeds for decades. Their software and hardware INNOVATION is first rate. The MacBook Air with the solid Aluminum case is a great example of innovation in design. But, under the pretty facade is a simple motherboard, not unlike what you would find in any low cost PC or laptop.
Well, Apple is a hardware company that specializes in synergy and supports it all with excellent software and good customer service...
“Synergy” is the keyword for the hardware aspect of Apple. No one has it beat there. And no one exhibits *any clue* as to “getting it” any time soon (to be able to compete effectively against Apple).
“The whole widget” was mantra at Apple until the bad old days of dull product and clones, and it’s mantra again. I bought a Mac clone from Power Computing, headquartered in Round Rock, TX, back in the day. Still have it, somewhere, gathering dust in the attic probably. Ran Mac OS 7.3, if I’m not mistaken, and I saw that cute little bomb more often than I cared to see it.
If Apple is to get entangled in supporting every hardware manufacturer, they’ll be on their way to becoming Microsoft. They’re not a software company though, nice as their OS may be.
I’m not particularly enamored of the idea, of Apple becoming Microsoft. I’m not sure why you are, either. If you want the Mac OS experience, get a Mac. You don’t even have to ditch the old software, it’s bootable in either Win or Mac.
And, it’s not as if they’re all that much more expensive anymore. Much better conception, design, materials and ergonomics than any Windows PC I can think of, too. IBM occasionally came sort of close, maybe Compaq, in the past. Not a one holds a candle now.
Apple's iPhone and iPod products are examples of hardware with excellant softare. However, the PC motherboard is just a standared Intel reference design. Apple's computer hardware, especially their hardware designs have nothing really great to brag about. They have been well behind the industry in their bus speeds for decades. Their software and hardware INNOVATION is first rate. The MacBook Air with the solid Aluminum case is a great example of innovation in design. But, under the pretty facade is a simple motherboard, not unlike what you would find in any low cost PC or laptop.You said — Now that they use the same hardware as Dell, Gateway, HP and everyone else - I think Apple is making a huge mistake by not competing directly with Windows in the OS market.—
That’s where all the analysts and pundits and so-called experts all make their mistake. Apple is not a software company, but a hardware company that uses software to support its hardware. That’s pretty much the way Steve Jobs has made it clear to everyone, too. But, still others “don’t get it”...
So, no..., Apple does not need to compete with Windows in the OS market. it needs to continue to exclusively make their excellent hardware, giving excellent support and providing their excellent software that backs up everything that they make.
If someone else wants to take their software and refuse to abide by Apple’s stated requirements for use of it — then they deserve to be sued “out of existence”... which doesn’t seem to be too far away for Psycho-star... (as they are already mentally unstable at this point in time, by what they’ve just said... LOL...).
6 posted on July 6, 2009 12:23:54 AM EDT by Star Traveler
You have stated the truth, and don't know it. Apple's products are examples of excellence in system design. They make some good hardware (well, they contract out the fabrication to China, like most companies do) and they make some excellent software with which to add value to the hardware. Apple is a systems design house which makes Microsoft type money on a modest market share. They couldn't make the same money just selling software, and their CEO is a visionary for systems. He sees the big picture, and produces synergies among hardware - not only electronic but physical - and software. A system which even includes the store not just to sell the products but to add value by connecting the potential/actual customer to the capabilities of Apple's products.Part of the excellence in systems design consists in restricting the hardware configurations to control the scope of the task of assuring compatibility of the software with the hardware. Microsoft attempts to be a Jack-of-all-hardware, and the result has been less success in assuring compatibility. That's part of what Snow Leopard is about - pruning off the old PowerPC hardware base in order to simplify software-hardware integration. Painful if you're the prunee, of course . . . but an incentive to customers to upgrade to Intel hardware to participate going forward. Which is what I did to get Leopard, since my G4 wasn't up to spec for Leopard.
One big difference is that they use EFI instead of the outdated BIOS on almost all Windows PCs. The system's quite a bit more intelligent before the OS is loaded. Windows x86 just recently got support for EFI.