Anyone else impressed with Apple's direction?

[Almighty Colin]

I haven't used a Mac since I was in the computer cluster in college in 1993.

The iPod, the Mac mini, the iMac G5. They are coming up with some cool stuff.

[Cleo]

The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.

[spazlabz]

no, not really


spaz

[grimm]

cutting edge shit. Jobs coming back was the best thing to happen to the hardware/software market since mIchael Dell opened up shop.


Apple has great marketing, great timing and superior products, top to bottom.

[Nickatilynx]

I saw some in the puter store with my daughter , she thought they looked cool. I poo pooed it.

One thing I've noticed.They must have spent a fortune on product placement in movies.

A disproportionate number of charcters in movies seem to use Macs

[grimm]

a disproportionate number of characters also drink pepsi;)

[pushpills]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 30 2005, 08:55 PM
I saw some in the puter store with my daughter , she thought they looked cool. I poo pooed it.

One thing I've noticed.They must have spent a fortune on product placement in movies.

A disproportionate number of charcters in movies seem to use Macs
They are pleasing to the eye too though, better to film a mac than a dell.

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 30 2005, 09:55 PM
A disproportionate number of charcters in movies seem to use Macs
its always a Mac, cant remember last time i've seen anything else.

same with IPod, name a movie that had a non Ipod mp3 player

[Biggy]

ipod is a fluke. i have one, i think its overrated. thats me though.. however, I highly doubt ipod will increase its marketshare in the mp3 player market, it seems close to the peak, or will peak out soon. Other companies offer the same product, for a cheaper price, that does the same job.

however, their PCs are supposed to be phenomenal. Although I dont know too much, I do know some very intelligent people who definitely know their stuff reverting back to using MAC again and loving every second of it. I believe they love the open-ended linux base it has....

it will be interesting thats for sure.

[grimm]

Originally posted by slavdogg+Jan 31 2005, 12:39 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (slavdogg @ Jan 31 2005, 12:39 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Nickatilynx@Jan 30 2005, 09:55 PM
A disproportionate number of charcters in movies seem to use Macs
its always a Mac, cant remember last time i've seen anything else.

same with IPod, name a movie that had a non Ipod mp3 player [/b][/quote]
Deliverance

:rolleyes:

[grimm]

Originally posted by Biggy@Jan 31 2005, 12:50 AM
ipod is a fluke. i have one, i think its overrated. thats me though.. however, I highly doubt ipod will increase its marketshare in the mp3 player market, it seems close to the peak, or will peak out soon. Other companies offer the same product, for a cheaper price, that does the same job.

however, their PCs are supposed to be phenomenal. Although I dont know too much, I do know some very intelligent people who definitely know their stuff reverting back to using MAC again and loving every second of it. I believe they love the open-ended linux base it has....

it will be interesting thats for sure.
the ipod works not because of its looks.

but because of

A) it is a 40-80GB firewire hard drive. My uncle runs an ER and has partitioned his ipod to carry his powerpoint presentations for when he has to speak around the world. and has a partition for music, pictures, etc. video is not far off. the upside is amazing.

B) Apple has successfully negotiated a much better deal with the RIAA. Many more songs, many more artists than its main competitor napster.

This being said, the lack of cross compatibility of playing formats is maddening sometimes..but this from ipods website

Keep It All in iTunes
If you’re excited about using iTunes, but have already have a music collection built up in other programs, you’re in luck. iTunes can import music from Windows Media Player, MusicMatch and any other app that uses MP3, AAC or WMA (unprotected). iTunes 4.5 will now convert files digitized by Windows Media Player in unprotected format to AAC, so you can use them in iTunes or on iPod. When you import your MusicMatch library or other MP3 collection, you can choose to let iTunes make a copy of the library, or point to the old files. If you want to gather up all your music later, iTunes lets you consolidate your library anytime.



and you can actually "share" itunes music with friends. under napster, musicmatch and such, it just tries to upsell them on premium services.

i use itunes and napster, but i am going to cancel my napster service and import my music into itunes.

[RyanLanane]

Apple needs to do a couple small things to ensure their success - Offer running Dual OS's on their computers and yes one would be Windows. Don't worry Mac Boys your primary OS would still be MAC, you would just have an option without running an emulator to run in a pure windows environment.

The second thing they need to do is allow other companies to copy their hardware components such as buses, expansion cards, etc... without any licensing fees. If they do this they STILL could possibly have a chance especially in today's competitve market. They could team up with a company such as AMD and make a go at AMD=Apple and Pentium=PC in a sense if you follow what I am getting at?

There is still alot apple can do but since an Industry Standard has already pretty much been incorporated I think they are going to have to accept they fact they blew it when they wouldn't let companies copy their hardware without royalty fees abd blew their chance to be the industry standard.

As they say "If you can't beat 'em than join them"

Those of you worried about losing your current expansion cards etc etc etc - Think of this as a TRUE MONSTER machine. A combination of PC/MAC. Truth of the matter is more PC enthusiasts might try the MAC OS for the first time and it would become a standard option to run both OS's on both PC/MAC alike leading to more sales of both Microsoft's OS and MAC's OS

A Perfect world for everyone.... As I wouldn't mind trying a MAC os sometime, never used one in my LIFE.

[chodadog]

Originally posted by Biggy@Jan 31 2005, 12:50 AM
I highly doubt ipod will increase its marketshare in the mp3 player market, it seems close to the peak, or will peak out soon. Other companies offer the same product, for a cheaper price, that does the same job.
I think they will increase their share of the mp3 player market. I remember reading just a few months ago that they couldn't keep up with the demands for the product. May have changed by now, but this is how long after the iPod was initially released? Add to that the fact that they're releasing one of those low end mp3 players (i think it's called the shuffle or something) and i think their market share is only going to increase further. People love the look and feel of iPod's. Friends of mine will fully acknowledge that other players are better, but they still want the iPod just because it's so chic.

That right there is the keyword. Right now, and for the forseeable future, the apple brand is chic.

But anyways. Apple is heading in a good direction, but i think it's tentative. Their huge growth in the last few years has been the the dividends of a huge gamble they took with the original iMac. Consumers don't just want something that is functional, they want something that is chic and cute. It obviously paid off big time. I think their main problem is going to be continuing to impress people. There are only so many cool ass lookin' PC designs you can come up with. I think people will eventually get bored of it. But not yet, i was super impressed with the iMac G5 design.

But then again, consumer loyalty seems to be a pretty huge thing apple have developed lately. I know guys that have been so taken with the iPod that they've gone mac crazy. I think, worst case scenario, the public at large will get bored of all the new funky designs over the next few years, but they'll continue to keep a share of the market because of consumer loyalty for quite some time. Best case, things continue heading in this direction and they keep amazing people with kickass product design!

[Eddie]

Originally posted by Cleo@Jan 30 2005, 06:22 AM
The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.
Execpt for the fucking windows media problems... I have more people bitching about not being able to play downloaded Windows media, Encoded in version 8, than even ALL of them are OSX users, older OS seemed to work fine. I don't uses macs, or have any use for them for that matter, but feel if your going to try to market a computer OS in this world you should at least be able to play some of the basic things out there.

[Cleo]

Originally posted by Eddie+Jan 31 2005, 04:28 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Eddie @ Jan 31 2005, 04:28 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Cleo@Jan 30 2005, 06:22 AM
The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.
Execpt for the fucking windows media problems... I have more people bitching about not being able to play downloaded Windows media, Encoded in version 8, than even ALL of them are OSX users, older OS seemed to work fine. I don't uses macs, or have any use for them for that matter, but feel if your going to try to market a computer OS in this world you should at least be able to play some of the basic things out there. [/b][/quote]
Microsoft make WMP not Apple. WMV is their format not Apple's format.

Mpegs work just fine on everyone's computer.

[Rolo]

I love the metallic surface and blue/green lights on their xserve servers and raids :wankit:

http://mediazone.tcp-net.ad.jp/danbo/Expofrance2003/image/xserve.jpg

[Cleo]

Here build your own cluster
http://www.apple.com/science/awc/awcproposal/

[Eddie]

Originally posted by Cleo+Jan 31 2005, 04:53 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cleo @ Jan 31 2005, 04:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Originally posted by Eddie@Jan 31 2005, 04:28 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Cleo@Jan 30 2005, 06:22 AM
The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.
Execpt for the fucking windows media problems... I have more people bitching about not being able to play downloaded Windows media, Encoded in version 8, than even ALL of them are OSX users, older OS seemed to work fine. I don't uses macs, or have any use for them for that matter, but feel if your going to try to market a computer OS in this world you should at least be able to play some of the basic things out there.
Microsoft make WMP not Apple. WMV is their format not Apple's format.

Mpegs work just fine on everyone's computer. [/b][/quote]
Duh, you don't think I know that? LOL! BUT why serve a 300+meg mpg file to a surfer when you can get the same or better quality from a 50 meg wmv file? Surfers happy cause it streams while it download, which mpg does not do in the latest versions of windows media encoder, plus it take a lot less time for them to download and it saves me bandwidth, With 300 Hours of video online and 2-3 thousand members using it, it does become an issue. But I always hear that same old crappy argument... use mpg. THen I take a look at my stats, and out of all my members 1% are using macs. hardly worth even uploading all the video again in a format that a mac can play.

[grimm]

Originally posted by RyanLanane@Jan 31 2005, 07:39 AM
Apple needs to do a couple small things to ensure their success - Offer running Dual OS's on their computers and yes one would be Windows. Don't worry Mac Boys your primary OS would still be MAC, you would just have an option without running an emulator to run in a pure windows environment.



Try Virtual PC... you can run windows and OSX simultaneously.

[grimm]

Originally posted by Eddie+Jan 31 2005, 06:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Eddie @ Jan 31 2005, 06:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Originally posted by Cleo@Jan 31 2005, 04:53 PM
Originally posted by Eddie@Jan 31 2005, 04:28 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Cleo@Jan 30 2005, 06:22 AM
The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.
Execpt for the fucking windows media problems... I have more people bitching about not being able to play downloaded Windows media, Encoded in version 8, than even ALL of them are OSX users, older OS seemed to work fine. I don't uses macs, or have any use for them for that matter, but feel if your going to try to market a computer OS in this world you should at least be able to play some of the basic things out there.
Microsoft make WMP not Apple. WMV is their format not Apple's format.

Mpegs work just fine on everyone's computer.
Duh, you don't think I know that? LOL! BUT why serve a 300+meg mpg file to a surfer when you can get the same or better quality from a 50 meg wmv file? Surfers happy cause it streams while it download, which mpg does not do in the latest versions of windows media encoder, plus it take a lot less time for them to download and it saves me bandwidth, With 300 Hours of video online and 2-3 thousand members using it, it does become an issue. But I always hear that same old crappy argument... use mpg. THen I take a look at my stats, and out of all my members 1% are using macs. hardly worth even uploading all the video again in a format that a mac can play. [/b][/quote]
there is windows media 9 for Mac OSX.. WMV and WMA files play just fine.

[Eddie]

Originally posted by grimm+Jan 31 2005, 06:23 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (grimm @ Jan 31 2005, 06:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Originally posted by Eddie@Jan 31 2005, 06:00 PM
Originally posted by Cleo@Jan 31 2005, 04:53 PM
Originally posted by Eddie@Jan 31 2005, 04:28 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Cleo@Jan 30 2005, 06:22 AM
The best part of using a Mac is their OS. Mac OS X simply rocks.
Execpt for the fucking windows media problems... I have more people bitching about not being able to play downloaded Windows media, Encoded in version 8, than even ALL of them are OSX users, older OS seemed to work fine. I don't uses macs, or have any use for them for that matter, but feel if your going to try to market a computer OS in this world you should at least be able to play some of the basic things out there.
Microsoft make WMP not Apple. WMV is their format not Apple's format.

Mpegs work just fine on everyone's computer.
Duh, you don't think I know that? LOL! BUT why serve a 300+meg mpg file to a surfer when you can get the same or better quality from a 50 meg wmv file? Surfers happy cause it streams while it download, which mpg does not do in the latest versions of windows media encoder, plus it take a lot less time for them to download and it saves me bandwidth, With 300 Hours of video online and 2-3 thousand members using it, it does become an issue. But I always hear that same old crappy argument... use mpg. THen I take a look at my stats, and out of all my members 1% are using macs. hardly worth even uploading all the video again in a format that a mac can play.
there is windows media 9 for Mac OSX.. WMV and WMA files play just fine. [/b][/quote]
REally? can it play windows media 8? here's the issue, Windows media 9 is still locked, so the programers can not create scripts that auto thumbnail it, BUT they can with 8. So I have to encode everything in 8 (I'm talking MAS here) Anyway. if there is a solution for people with OSX so they can play windows media 8, I would love it and post it to my sites tonight. Anyone?:

[eze]

I was curious enough to go to the apple store to buy a mac mini. They were sold out. Couldn't tell me when one was coming in, they just get them when Apple sends them. I asked if there was a waiting/contact list, they told me they didn't keep one because they wouldn't be able to keep up with it. Good or bad it sure is popular. I think it is an interesting move on Apples part. Maybe they will gain back some market share.

[Cleo]

Originally posted by Eddie@Feb 1 2005, 12:35 AM
REally? can it play windows media 8? here's the issue, Windows media 9 is still locked, so the programers can not create scripts that auto thumbnail it, BUT they can with 8. So I have to encode everything in 8 (I'm talking MAS here) Anyway. if there is a solution for people with OSX so they can play windows media 8, I would love it and post it to my sites tonight. Anyone?:
On the paysite that I manage we switched to Mpeg-1 as a result of installing Strongbox password management (http://webmastersguide.com/?htaccess-cgi/strongbox/).

It wasn't that Macs couldn't play WMV files it was that WMP on the Mac is a POS that doesn't have anyway to send referral information so Strongbox would not serve up the files.

We have had almost zero issues since switching to mpeg-1 but are always looking at our options.

WMP 9 for the Mac
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...sx/default.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx)

I have been looking at Mpeg-4 files but it seems that some Windows users have issues with them. I've even looked at Real Player not that I have any love for Real Player either.

Now DVD are supposing switching to H.264 format and dropping mpeg-2 but Microsoft wants them to adopt WM instead. Microsoft owns parts of both so I guess H.264 is their second choice.

Apple has a page on H.264
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/h264.html

[Eddie]

Originally posted by Cleo+Feb 1 2005, 05:52 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cleo @ Feb 1 2005, 05:52 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Eddie@Feb 1 2005, 12:35 AM
REally? can it play windows media 8? here's the issue, Windows media 9 is still locked, so the programers can not create scripts that auto thumbnail it, BUT they can with 8. So I have to encode everything in 8 (I'm talking MAS here) Anyway. if there is a solution for people with OSX so they can play windows media 8, I would love it and post it to my sites tonight. Anyone?:
On the paysite that I manage we switched to Mpeg-1 as a result of installing Strongbox password management (http://webmastersguide.com/?htaccess-cgi/strongbox/).

It wasn't that Macs couldn't play WMV files it was that WMP on the Mac is a POS that doesn't have anyway to send referral information so Strongbox would not serve up the files.

We have had almost zero issues since switching to mpeg-1 but are always looking at our options.

WMP 9 for the Mac
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...sx/default.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx)

I have been looking at Mpeg-4 files but it seems that some Windows users have issues with them. I've even looked at Real Player not that I have any love for Real Player either.

Now DVD are supposing switching to H.264 format and dropping mpeg-2 but Microsoft wants them to adopt WM instead. Microsoft owns parts of both so I guess H.264 is their second choice.

Apple has a page on H.264
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/h264.html [/b][/quote]
Now, see this is great information. I also use strongbox, (which I highley recomend) And it would expain this issue. Interesting. Well lets locate a solution that works then, maybe Ray could write something into strongbox that can tell a system is a mac on login and serve them differently, who knows.

[Cleo]

Strongbox rocks.

The password traders and hackers have pretty much just given up after having it on Angel's site for almost a year now.

Now if the issue of WMV files and Macs could be solved then it would be even better but I don't see it unless Microsoft fixes their Mac player.