Apple passes Lenovo (IBM) in U.S. computer sales

Ever wonder why so many more people prefer the PC, foibles and all?

Because that's what their neighbor has. Because that's what's on the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City. But where Apples are available, they're selling fast. Ever see a Best Buy around Christmas? Apple stores are often like that throughout the year.

What will he do when they go to the Intel platform ? Will the older Mac software run on OS X running on Intel ?

If the author is using XCode, most likely all he has to do is recompile with the "PPC" and "Intel" buttons checked. This will create a fat binary that will run on both platforms.

lets Apple put out: A dual OS APPLE box.

When pigs fly....(though it would be a hoot to have Apple pay Microsoft licensing fees for Windows)

How about letting OSX be ported to a PC instead? Oh yeah, Jobs wants you to have to buy HIS hardware, I forgot. "Thou shalt not run OSX on anything but OUR stuff...". Perhaps MS would counter by saying Windows can only be run on a PC - no...that would be a "monopoly".

If it was truly as good as they claim, it would be commanding 90% of the market. It isn't, and it doesn't.

The Lotus Elise has been easily the best sports car for the money since it came out in 1996. It's more expensive now, yet it still outperforms cars costing far more. But it's no good because it doesn't have a 90% marketshare in its market?

All this for at least 20% and as much as 50% less than what a comparable Mac would cost.

You're comparing home-built with OEM, never a fair comparison. OEM to OEM, Apple is competitively priced, and in some areas far underpriced. Compare a Dell 1U server with a comparable XServe. Go dual processor, pick the fastest from Apple, but don't pick the fastest Xeons for the Dell, maybe middle to low. Get them both with minimum memory so you can add your own later from Crucial cheaper than what either charge for their memory. Give the Dell W2K3 with a 25-seat license and the Mac OS X with the unlimited license.

See how much you save with the Mac?

the Mac Mini costs $499 and includes a much better operating system and bundle of software than comparably priced Wintel systems.

Unfortunatly the $499 doesn't include a monitor, keyboard or mouse - has only 256mb RAM and 40 GB HD and a 1.25 GHz processor - no DVD recorder....factor what's there and what's missing and spec it up against a Dell and see where you are. The fact that the software is "much better" is a subjective opinion, of course.

I like the usual BMW analogy much better than "Hey, we're competitively priced".

guess we will see WHEN hackers find a way to run the Intel OS ? on any regular Intel PC. If a groundswell starts for official licensed versions of the new Mac OS, Apple will dump being a box manufacturer so fast it will make your head spin.

The OSX EULA expressly forbids running it on anything but genu-wine Apple hardware. Perhaps Apple could begin a new profit center by sueing hackers. Heh.

>> You're comparing home-built with OEM, never a fair comparison.<<

This shows an ignorance of what Dell actually puts in their machines. In the lower end, it is pure junk. In the mid-range end, a lot of it is still junk. I've always conceeded Apple's hardware inclusions are, at the very least, fairly decent. Apple's OEM doesn't translate well to the OEM on the PC side. The problem Apple has is their OEM machines are still more expensive than custom built PCs that have top notch components in there. That's a very fair comparision.

You picked a very obscure area of the market (one in which I'm not very familiar with, incidentally) to "prove" Apple is cost competitive. You are also assuming the Dell is going to use Windows Server as an OS, when they might (and in some cases probably more likely will) use a Linux or BSD in there. Almost no consumers buy server systems, and the ones that do buy Dell do so for their (apparant) service. If Dell charges a premium for that in their systems, that's the market at work. I would be willing to bet that these buyers, even if they were neutral in their choices of hardware/software would still value Dell's business service over Apple's any day. But, that's getting into a slightly different issue.

You pick the most cost competitive desktop unit Apple sells and I will spec you out a much better system for anywhere from 15-25% (or more) less. Except maybe the mini, and the only reason for that is the hardware folks I'm talking to are pushing the 64 so hard, its hard to find 2 year old Intel or AMD chips that would be the basis for a system that was comparable to the Mac mini. A current quality system probably couldn't be built for less than about $750 or so.

This shows an ignorance of what Dell actually puts in their machines.

No I'm not. You can build a quality box for less than an Apple quality box. You can buy a quality Dell box, but you'll pay just as much as you do for an Apple. Home-built at equivalent quality is always cheaper than OEM, depending on the license you got for the OS.

You picked a very obscure area of the market (one in which I'm not very familiar with, incidentally) to "prove" Apple is cost competitive. You are also assuming the Dell is going to use Windows Server as an OS

Dell still mostly sells Windows. But the XServe is just an easy one. Depending on your priorities (speed/features/software/build and OS quality, etc.), any Mac can compete with PC OEMs.

Let's go slim, and quality. Sony does quality. Sony 20" TV PC against a 20" iMac. $2,699 for the Sony with 3.4 GHz P4, XP Home, 1 GB RAM, dual layer DVD writer, 250 GB Ultra ATA HDD, wireless keyboard and mouse, 10/100 Ethernet, and an nVidia Go5700 with 128MB. Now the iMac at $1,984, same but 2 GHZ G5, ATI Radeon 9600 (not notebook graphics), SATA HDD, gigabit Ethernet. So it's a bit slower (although remember PPC gets more done per clock over a P4), but has better graphics, hard drive and networking. It also has the better OS (vs. the kneecapped XP Home) and comes with a crapload more software. The only thing you're missing on the Mac is the DVR stuff, which will cost you less than the $715 price difference.

The quality-built Mac mini also stacks up well against Dell's $500 range.

You pick the most cost competitive desktop unit Apple sells and I will spec you out a much better system for anywhere from 15-25% (or more) less. Except maybe the mini,

The problem with the mini is that building yourself you couldn't duplicate its greatest assets: tiny package, no noise and extremely low power consumption.

I've said it before, I'd love to have some stacked minis as the basis for a small, cheap business server farm. If you're like me and like putting services on separate machines if you can afford it, distribute them among a short stack of six or seven that barely sucks 200 watts of power and doesn't add any noise or noticeable heat to a small, cramped office. All from between $3,500 and $5,000, depending on the performance and memory you want.

The only problem is getting OS X Xerver. You could turn those computers into a network, but it would be better done with at least one copy of OS X server. It would be nice if they sold a server-oriented mini with OS X Server on it. Just dump the home software, give it gigabit Ethernet and put Server on it.

Nice try with your Sony comparison, but you picked an overpriced piece of junk.

Here's the real comparison:

Apple: # Dual 2.7GHz PowerPC G5
# • 1GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x512
# • 250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
# • ATI Radeon 9650 w/256MB DDR SDRAM
# • 16x SuperDrive

Price $3099

AMD Custom Build:

ATX Computer Cases
1 Antec Life Style SONATA Piano Black 0.8mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 380W Power Supply - Retail
$98.99 $98.99
CD/DVD Burners (RW Drives)

2 PLEXTOR Beige IDE DVD Burner Model PX-716A/SW - Retail
Model #:PX-716A/SW
$112.99 $225.98

1 Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$116.00 $116.00

Memory - System
1 CORSAIR XMS2 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered System Memory Model CM2X1024-5400C4 - Retail
$182.00 $182.00

Operating Systems
1 Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 Edition 1 package - OEM
$149.95 $149.95

Processors
2 AMD Opteron 248 Troy 400MHz FSB Socket 940 Processor Model OSA248FAA5BL - OEM
$469.00 $938.00

Server Motherboards
2 (mis) MSI MS-9130 Dual Socket 940 VIA K8T800 ATX Server Motherboard - Retail
$209.99 $419.98

Sound Cards
1 M-AUDIO US41077 PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
$202.00 $202.00

Video Cards & Related Devices
1 ATI 100-435317 Radeon X800XT 256MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail
$449.00 $449.00

SubTotal: $2,781.90
minus 209.99
total: $2571.91

The total on the AMD is wrong, as I accidentally added 2 mobos. For simplicity, I had the cart emailed and I didn't want to bother correcting it.

Keep in mind 4 very important things:

1. Both the Sound Card and the Video card on the custom build blow the Apple's inclusions out of the water. It isn't even close.

2. I added a second DVD burner.

3. If you don't like on board 10/100, etc., you still have over $500 to put in a PCI-X Lan card.

4. For simplicity sake, this was all "purchased" at Newegg. They've got good prices and great service, but I'm sure I can find some of this stuff cheaper. This price list also ignores some rebates that cheapen things about $150 or so.

The home built machine will blow the doors off the Mac. I could have built a comperable machine to the mac for as little as $1500, though that would have been pushing it.

Again, you picked home built vs. OEM. How many times do I have to tell you that is not a good comparison? Home built is always cheaper, but it's not an option for 99% of consumers.

BTW, you also made the mistake of wasting money by getting your memory upgrade through the OEM. Always get minimum memory and upgrade yourself. And although Antec cases are nice, they're nowhere near the G5 case with well-designed airflow and liquid cooling.

And, of course, in the end you're still using Windows.

Home built is NOT cheaper. If it were, nobody would buy from Dell, but would either build themselves or buy from guys building them in their garage. I can't match Dell's prices since they buy a lot in bulk and use the same parts. I don't get wholesale prices on Intel and AMD chips like Dell and other OEMs. Even those that build premium machines, similar to the ones I speced out, can build them for a lower cost, its just that the market sometimes allows them to sell them.

Even if your memory and case arguments are accurate (and I'm looking at the Antec case I used (because I have one), and it has sufficient airflow), I had $500 extra that I could add to get another case or knock off of to get cheaper memory for the Mac.

Windows is sufficient as a tool, which is all a computer is supposed to be. On the desktop, it is every bit as good (and in some cases better) than OSX. What specific TASKS can you do in OSX that you can't in Windows? I'm not asking what YOU like better about either one, but what limits you ultimately face in Windows.

Home built is NOT cheaper. If it were, nobody would buy from Dell, but would either build themselves or buy from guys building them in their garage.

People who barely know what a computer is can't build one for themselves. Home built plus paying a guy to put it together can be more expensive than OEM.

I can't match Dell's prices since they buy a lot in bulk and use the same parts

Judging from your previous list, you and Dell don't use many of the same parts. Your machine was much higher quality than any sub-$3,000 Dell, probably even better than their $3,000+ machines. You did describe a sweet system that I'd take over a $3,000 Dell workstation any day.

BTW, do you know the old joke "I've had the same axe for 40 years, it's had six heads and seven handles." That's how an old 486 of mine went. After about 20 upgrades over 12 years, it's a pretty spiffy box.

Even if your memory and case arguments are accurate (and I'm looking at the Antec case I used (because I have one), and it has sufficient airflow)

It's not just a matter of sufficient airflow. The PowerMac has four distinct and separated thermal zones (processor, PCI, storage, power) and 21 temperature and power consumption sensors. Input from these sensors lets the OS control the nine low-speed, quiet fans to individually keep each zone's temperature with acceptable range. With that and liquid cooling, it's the quietest SMP machine on the market.

If you could buy it, how much would you pay for a setup like that?

What specific TASKS can you do in OSX that you can't in Windows? I'm not asking what YOU like better about either one, but what limits you ultimately face in Windows.

Tasks aren't all there is to it. There's uptime and stability, which OS X wins on (can you say lost productivity?). There's a superior GUI that works more like people work, letting you get your work done faster (I should know, I design GUIs). There's the reduced maintenance of the OS.

But if you want tasks, they pretty much in general do everything the other does. Although using the Mac's Core Video to apply real-time filters using your nVidia GPU is cheaper than buying a dedicated $400 real-time video card.

>>There's uptime and stability, which OS X wins on (can you say lost productivity?). There's a superior GUI that works more like people work, letting you get your work done faster (I should know, I design GUIs). There's the reduced maintenance of the OS.<<

These are all conclusory statements based upon YOUR experience, not mine. People were saying the same things about the Mac pre-OSX, and that OS was absolute trash in terms of memory management, stability, and even GUI effectiveness as far as I'm concerned. Maybe you liked it. Fine. Perhaps you like OSX better than Windows. Again, fine. But that doesn't mean its better. Yes, I'm familiar with the so-called usability studies, as I participated in them in the early to mid-90s for a company called Usability Sciences in the Dallas area. All they did was videotape my gestures in response to things and possibly key-record the output. The study results, to say the least, was terribly subjective and when I advised a major consulting company (won't say which, but hint, it used to be tied to a major accounting unit that had Enron issues) in the late '90s, I told them not to use that company or in any way pay attention to their results. As far as I know, they didn't -- at least not the office I worked with. So, I won't conceed that the OSX interface lends itself to being more productive, especially with users trained in the Windows world for 15 years. I, for one thing, don't like the fact that you can't maximize a "window" in any of the Mac OSs. Unless they've added it, you can't alt-tab to move around, which I still use quite a bit. Those are two what I would consider big, if not major, functions that OSX won't do that Windows will.

If you are talking server side uptime, I might tend to agree. I don't like Windows on the server side. But remember, the system I "built" for you doesn't have to run Windows. There are AMD 64 builds of Unix and all the BSD variations. I am building a BSD server system at my house as we speak with old hardware and will soon duplicate that at my office with newer hardware (probably all 64 bit). Why would I need OSX as a server solution when I can get the core functionality of it for free AND use older hardware and get very similar results? If I had a major database and lots of users to serve, yes, the old hardware wouldn't work very well, but the new hardware would be literally thousands less than what Apple offers.

So, that leaves the desktop. Even though I do a lot of photo editing and some video work, there's no reason to use a Mac, unless I wanted to use a mac only app like FCP. I would probably buy the similarly priced Avid editor before I did that, however. I don't have a problem with Windows desktop stability, and I know of issues with Mac OSX kernal panics and the like.

Apple could shoot up their market share if they would drop their prices 20-25%, about where they belong based on the value of the hardware.

These are all conclusory statements based upon YOUR experience, not mine.

Personal experience plus professional opinion and professional experience aided by usability laws and studies.

People were saying the same things about the Mac pre-OSX, and that OS was absolute trash in terms of memory management, stability, and even GUI effectiveness as far as I'm concerned.

Pre - OS X Mac OS was definitely horrible for memory management and other things. But its UI was still better than Windows. One problem Windows users have is that they have learned to do things the wrong way, and have to unlearn bad habits.

I, for one thing, don't like the fact that you can't maximize a "window" in any of the Mac OSs. Unless they've added it, you can't alt-tab to move around, which I still use quite a bit. Those are two what I would consider big, if not major, functions that OSX won't do that Windows will.

First, you can maximize in OS X. Second, it's CMD-Tab to switch between applications. But as a usability plus, OS X is tuned towards your documents or work you're doing as it should be, not applications.

Or instead of that old, outdated method, throw your mouse into a corner (or hit F9) and Expose will pull everything back so you can go directly to what you wanted to work on instead of Alt-tabbing 15 times. You can also use it to do the same thing with, say, the 20 Photoshop documents you have open, with other applications' documents in the background.

Why would I need OSX as a server solution when I can get the core functionality of it for free AND use older hardware and get very similar results? If I had a major database and lots of users to serve, yes, the old hardware wouldn't work very well, but the new hardware would be literally thousands less than what Apple offers.

You know how to use BSD at the command line. What Apple offers is mainly an integrated set of server management tools that are brain-dead easy to use, even on a very large network, and includes caching of OS updates to reduce your outside network traffic. And, remember, their 1U hardware is not that expensive in comparison.

But I personally appreciate uptime on a client. I tend to have 10 or more things going at the same time, and want to reboot as rarely as possible. Unfortunately, it's necessary on my Windows box.

Apple could shoot up their market share if they would drop their prices 20-25%, about where they belong based on the value of the hardware.

Value is subjective. You seem to think only of processor speed. I find them under priced in cases.

>>But I personally appreciate uptime on a client. I tend to have 10 or more things going at the same time, and want to reboot as rarely as possible. Unfortunately, it's necessary on my Windows box.<<

You make the mistake of assuming your experience is universal.

Consider the following, all from recent internet postings:

"My G5 wont start up. I just get the white screen with the gray Apple logo. No spinning icon, just the logo. Then after a minute or so the fans start whining loudly. What should I do?"

"I’ve been a loyal Mac user for over 10 years and have never run in to a problem like this… My 15” Powerbook G4 titanium has been crashing A LOT lately. Now, when it does crash, the drive is still running (I can hear it) and the computer can still work, however… The screen goes dark. It’s weird, it goes dark, but not completely dark. It’s like the luminosity is turned down to about 1%. When this happens, I can turn off the lights in the room and can barely make out that the windows that were open before are still open. If I aim the mouse just right, I can still use the pull-down menus and work the commands. The only way I can get out of this (yes, I’ve tried to turn up the brightness) is do a re-start. "

"Please Help!!!! Over the last month, at random times, some of the macs and the one pc I have hooked up to my network all of a sudden stop receiving the internet connection. It took a while to figure out, but I finally noticed that the internet sharing was off in the system preferences, so I would turn it back on, thinking it must have been my neighbor who frequently uses my computers. But it kept doing it and more frequently and when the neighbor was at work"

"I bought the 1.8g dual proc G5 last year and it keeps crashing. the screen all of a sudden goes dark and it shuts off. no warning or anything, i am even using a battery backup."

"It Chimes, the Apple Symbol comes up, spinning wheel (looks like spokes) comes up. Fans seem to wind themselves up to a great speed and make a lot of noise. That's all I get. Any ideas?"

" Since 2 days ago, my PowerMac G5 1.8GHz shut down itself a few times a day. "

The clips I pulled from Apple's forum only went halfway down 1 forum. I could go on and list problems that I've never had in 20+ years of PC use. There is no stability advantage with Macs.

You make the mistake of assuming your experience is universal.

That's not a mistake. I'm a consumer, and OS X fits my uptime needs where Windows doesn't.

I could go on and list problems that I've never had in 20+ years of PC use

So could I, and the list would be FAR longer. Actually, neither of us should go back that far, since OS X has no relation OS 9 and earler, and is more comparable to the NT-based Microsoft OSs. Let's leave out the first versions, both of which were released a little too early, and go with 10.1 vs. NT 4.0/2K/XP/2K3. In that comparison, there are still far fewer OS X problems.

If we go farther, I get to talk about when I was doing design work on Windows 98 and having to reboot at least five times a day due to Windows becoming unstable because it couldn't handle the combination of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign running at the same time with large documents. I lost a lot of work before I learned to notice the coming signs of a crash and reboot preemptively.

By the way:

I, for one thing, don't like the fact that you can't maximize a "window" in any of the Mac OSs. Unless they've added it, you can't alt-tab to move around,

You still haven't addressed the fact that you didn't know you can maximize Mac windows and that the equivalent of Alt-Tab has been there for a very long time. You also didn't know about a widely publicized, 18-month-old Mac feature that relegates "Alt-Tab" to the dustbin. This shows you do not have much Mac experience, if any. Why are you commenting on it?

>> You still haven't addressed the fact that you didn't know you can maximize Mac windows<<

The maximization is not the same, and whatever you can do is not what I was referring to. When iTunes for Windows first came out in October 2003, you couldn't fully maximize that, even though it was a Windows application. I was told that since Mac OS apps aren't maximizable, Windows users shouldn't expect Windows applications written by Apple to have Windows specific functions that aren't in OSX. I replied that that was the biggest bunch of horsecrap I've ever heard.

Later versions of iTunes are able to maximize, so I doubt the person telling me that spoke for Apple, but like way too many macheads, they are so overbearing in their zeal to tell me how big of an idiot I am for preferring not to buy Apple computers.

So when did OSX gain the ability to maximize like Windows apps, since I've never used one that could. I will admit I haven't played with OSX in a month or more.

Thank you for that. Our new G-5 has cut our magazine production time by one third. That means 4 to 5 more free days per month for my wife and I. We're hoping that's just the beginning of a trend and will actually do better as time goes on. :o)