In what passes for hip these days, un'cool' suits me just fine.
Posted on 09/25/2012 6:20:40 AM PDT by markomalley
The concept of “cool” is, appropriately, like a snowball. Just when you think you’ve got a grasp of it, it melts away. Still, cool is the most resilient of slang words. While other terms have become cringeworthy from overuse, cool has stayed firmly within the lexicon. Cool is put in service to describe a galaxy of objects and incidents – from fleeting moments to multi-billion-pound brands. It's the beatnik's curse.
Whole industries exist to tell us what's cool now, what will be cool next and when the cool evaporates. The annual CoolBrands survey, published this week, is just one small outcrop of the cool industry, a pseudoscientific barometer of the brands the British public considers desirable.
(snip)
The problem with apportioning cool rankings according to the whims of a panel of 39 experts and a 200-strong sample from the general public is clear when you dig into social networking data. Figures supplied by the social media monitoring agency Brandwatch reveal Apple's "cool" is a more complicated concept than you might think.
On average, 10,000 people a week tweet about Apple and its products being cool, compared to just 4,000 saying the same for Samsung. But closer inspection reveals that the percentage of positive tweets about both brands is roughly the same, while more negative sentiments are expressed about Apple’s products. Cool can only get you so far.
Similarly, Virgin Atlantic – which came in at number eight in the top 20 –is at the heart of a disconnect between its apparent cool and the public’s response. Brandwatch’s analysis suggests Twitter users are more likely to discuss it in negative terms than rival carriers British Airways and Emirates.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Just wondering how long we will have to endure marketing efforts based on Twitter until some genius discovers a segment of the population that avoids Twitter like the plague.
Agreed, Ubuntu, Redhat and many other flavors of Linux are remarkably stable, and very well supported.
Having been given the ‘opportunity’ to use Win8, I think we are going to see an explosion of Linux and Apple marketshare. MSFT seems intent on committing suicide, and Win8 appears to be the means by which they intend to self-destruct. Somewhere on my Laptop, I have some intensive PCB design software - you would never know it was there with Win8.
Just be sure to hang on up until the drama begins. You KNOW that this Administration is going to allocate billions, if not trillions, to make it look like the Dow Jones is improving steadily in the 30 day run-up to the election.
It's only 30 stocks... not too many prices to manipulate through false demand, favorable temporary rule changes, lucrative (and unexpected) government contracts, etc etc etc.
I had an IPod because and only because it was a gift. Rarely used it and gave it to my daughter. I have an Iphone 3G. I needed a smart phone for work and when the came out with the 4G, AT&T was giving the 3G away for free. I keep meaning to tape over the stupid Apple logo on the back.
1. They are COOL! In his social circle that is important.
2. The work well enough that he likes them.
And that is the best way to do it.
I don’t like current Apple products. I use PC at work, and love to tinker with things (curse of being an engineer). I can build my system much more powerful than an off the shelf Mac.
My parents should get a Mac. It will do everything they want, and it is “locked in” so you can’t do much you don’t want. The only issue is they love Windows and don’t want to use a different OS
You can go buy an overloaded i7 Apple 15” laptop @1799 (only 4gb ram) but 90% of computer buyers will do perfectly fine with a Dell @$500 laptop that has just as good build quality has more modest CPU but has the same 4gb memory. You can blow your $$$ if you want
When this female relative visits and uses my new HP, she admits that she can’t see that it is slower than her Mac. Her 13 year old, the real computer expert, says that both work very well, and she prefers my HP keyboard over her mother’s Mac. This 13 year old IT, say that my old HPw2216h monitor works great. Hi Grandpa Dave
The good thing about America, is if the 53% of us who pay taxes and keep the county going, can afford a Mac they have that option or my option to buy another HP and spend the difference on nice vacations or another Hobie Kayak!
What the Apple fanboy guys here don't realize is that other computer manufacturers have caught up to Apple as far build quality just to be able to compete. The fan boys are stuck in the past when Apple was better than Compaq, HP etc. Laptops and desktops have been around for a long time by now and many/all the kinks have been worked out by the major manufacturers.
Japanese automobiles used to be miserable but the caught up with us and surpassed us in some ways. Same thing has happened in the computer business which is always evolving and always competitive. HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Asus, Toshiba have caught up with Apple and in some ways surpassed it.
BTW perfectly good HP laptops go for $400-450. Good for internet and Office and youtube etc. While least expensive Apple 15" laptop is $1799 which has a souped up processor the average computer user does not need
Do you really expect someone who uses a laptop for e-mail, surfing, youtube, light Office to plunk down $1799 for a 15” Apple laptop? I have just described 80%-90% of computer buyers.
This is insane for them to buy Apple in this case
That IS cool! :)
Do you even bother to read the posts you're replying to? It's a strawman argument, because top-end machines are, by definition, not pitched to the mass market. A high end noteboomk like a MacBook Pro (note the "Pro" in there?) or Dell XPS is there for power users who need powerful machines.
If I were in the market for a laptop, I wouldn't get the MacBook Pro, because it'd be overkill for my portable needs. But the MacBook Air would certainly be on my list, and those start at a much more modest price ($999) with significantly better weight and battery life -- two extremely important features in a "travel" computer -- than other makes in its category.
That that 80-90% of users who just want to use email and a web surfing, they may want to consider a tablet over a low-end notebook. They're generally better made and more portable, for about the same price, depending on make or model. The big difference is generally lower internal storage and in most cases, lack of a physical keyboard. It's a matter of tradeoffs.
(I sometimes do use other operating systems to ssh into real computers - but the workstation is relatively irrelevant)
You mind has been brainwashed in apple juice
Your opinion is, of course, valid but to call anyone with an iPhone a fag is pretty lame and devalues your post.
Had the opposite experience. My first Apple computer, a 27” iMac lasted less than 6 months on my desk. Gave it to my daughter, and bought a more robust Windows machine for less money. The horsepower just wasn’t there. It had a criminally under powered video subsystem in a $3k machine, and I had upgraded to the best available. Now I have a machine that can actually run my software at native 2560 by 1440 with acceptable frame rates. The more expensive iMac could not, and that’s a bottom line you just can’t cheat.
Is that an admission that you can’t defend your strawman argument?
And chances are that many users will replace that $500 Dell a couple times, before the $1800 Apple is obsolete (they don't tend to wear out). After the $1800 Apple laptop is obsolete, chances are pretty good you can sell it for $800. Meanwhile, your Dell's are pretty much worthless. I won't even bother to go into the fact that your Dell has ~45 minutes of battery life on a charge, compared to ~10 hours on the Mac.
Now, if you look at the facts that the Apple laptop can run Windows or OSX, just as well (and often faster) than your Dell; plus the fact that many things a person will want to do, can be EASILY done on a Mac.
For example, if you look at the beauty and simplicty of iMovie; then compare it to the boatload of turds that cost more, and offer a fraction of the capabilities of iMovie - it's kind of a no-brainer. How often have you wanted to put together a 90 second or 5 minute movie highlight of a family get-together, or a vacation? Have you ever tried to do this with the assorted mish-mash of Windows offerings? Give it a try; then take in a quick demo of what iMovie offers - you'll wind up screaming bloody murder at the HOURS/DAYS of frustration you wasted fighting to make a simple presentation - when iMovie can offer a much more professional solution, in a matter of minutes.
Where to start ...
If your iMac died - take it to Apple and walk out of the store with another one. Apple is probably one of the top end stores in the Customer Support arena
$3,000? Really? iMacs in the 27 inch range start at $2,000. Upgrading to a 2 Gig AMD HD6970M takes you to $2,299 (including the upgraded i9 Intel Chipset). It would be foolish to buy the additional memory from Apple, as they are 2-3x more expensive for the same DIMMs from Amazon.
At the $3,000 pricetag, you would want/need to hit the Mac Pro with the Xeon Processor, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Hard drive and then run two of the AMD HD5770's each with 1 GB of RAM. That would set you back to $2,749. You can get a very good Dell Ultrasharp 27 inch monitor in the $250 price range.
And, if this isn't enough - you can bump from the 4 Core Xeon processor, to the 6 Core Xeon.
I think you will admit that is a pretty powerful workhorse.
Apple or anyone else - pretty much everyone in this league uses the same Intel chipsets.
In what passes for hip these days, un'cool' suits me just fine.
In America, one should be able to buy anything, they want that is legal and paid for by them.
We don’t fly much anymore due to TSA. If we did, and Southwest had flights going where we wanted to go, we would fly SW.
The planes would take off on time and you luggage would be at your destination without an extra $50/bag and on time. Last but not least, you usually save a lot of money.
Having said this, the I Phones for small business people may be all the computer power they need.
The Iphone apps can handle the expenses and income of the business without a big computer. We have friends with small wine businesses from planting the grapes to the harvest with the extra labor for crushing/bottling/shipping costs kept track of by their I phones. Then, they process orders on their I phones, deposit checks and pay bills and payroll. One family had a few Macs in their home/office crash with data loss. Now, they apparently use the cloud to store their data from their Macs and I phones.
One friend is a consultant lobbyist for MDs, and he uses his IPad to get data at Sacramento and sends data either from the IPad or his I phone. He gave his Mac to a grandkid and portable Mac to a nephew. The bad news for Apple is his I phone 4 doesn’t need to be replaced by the I 5.
However, I have no need for I phones, I Pads or Macs. The younger female relative with all of the new Apple gear really has no need for any of her Apple stuff, and she admits it.
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