Riddle me this

[amalthea5]

Ok, so I know that the majority of these sales are in things such as ipods and iphones. But, when Apple is posting it's second best quarter ever, in such a severe economic downturn...I have to wonder (aside from sheer preference in OS) how are they any better than Microsoft? And yes I know it's not an entirely fair comparison since Apple is making

Comments

[lotuslion]

There's actually a lot of discussion about this in the Mac world, about how Apple has gotten away from its open-source, "little guy" roots. (I was looking for a link, but apparently it's not online, but I was reading Mac World at Best Buy the other day and there was a lot of letters in there about it.) Apple is also not the greenest of corporations, although they try to posture on that, and a lot of their components are made in China - just like every other large company. The main difference, from a corporate and not OS preference perspective, between Apple and MS in my opinion is that Apple is still aggressive about competing - they want to make a good product that people will buy - while I think MS has gotten to this bloated Gargantua-state where they just don't give a flying fuck anymore and don't even feel like they should HAVE to compete, because hey, they're Microsoft, and if you don't like it, what are you going to do, buy an Apple? Apple innovates; Microsoft doesn't. I think they're being slow on the realization that buying an Apple IS exactly what people are doing (or switching to Linux), and if they don't want to watch their market share continue to dwindle, they need to spend a little less time and money on marketing and a little more on product development. That's another reason why I am so resistant to going back to Windows - it's a philosophical opposition, because I don't want to give my money to company that thinks it doesn't have to earn it.

Edited to fix a typo.

[lotuslion]

Also, don't blame Apple for posting high profits - that just means people are buying their stuff. They haven't raised prices or anything to gouge the consumer, and despite the economic downturn, there are still people out there buying things. I'm a little surprised at their profits this quarter, but they're not even in a position to manipulate the market into achieving those results from any sort of untoward or unethical practices.

[amalthea5]

Oh yeah I agree. I don't blame them for making profits--they are in business to do so. I was just thinking about how Mac is not the little guy any more and is becoming a megacorp. That doesn't mean that it's a bad company, in fact, quite the opposite. I'm really commenting on the stupid twits on most college campuses who think they are 'fighting the man' by buying a macbook.

[lotuslion]

I'm really commenting on the stupid twits on most college campuses who think they are 'fighting the man' by buying a macbook.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Apple is a large company and very much a part of corporate America - you're not indie or subversive or anything by buying Apple products. You're more indie or "fighting the man" by using a Linux distro, but that requires -shock- some amount of EFFORT. It's sort of like the people who think they're being "green" by buying Apple - yes, Apple does make efforts to be environmentally conscious and have redesigned their notebooks to be more green, but be realistic - no electronic device is really green, especially not computers which use all sorts of fun components that are manufactured in far away places.

Buy Apple for a real reason, not some imaginary one. =P

ETA: I was kind of impressed to see that Apple's profit margin is about 12%, which I think is pretty reasonable and fair (a 10-15% profit margin is cool with me.) I'd be interested to see what Microsoft's is - and that's an honest question, not a snark, because I really have no idea.

[choperena]

Some one sent me this a few years ago. It's a listing (unfortunately done by greenpeace) of the major electronics companies and their ecofriendlyness
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up

I think one of the major reasons their sales are increasing (other than iPods) is that they do a great deal to sell to schools and students, mainly by doing quirky advertisements and such, but also by JUST BEING THERE.

On the "sheer OS" thing, yeah, it pains me to use windows. I've noticed that my main peeve is it's search function. Macs are very friendly in that respect, in that I can type in just a word and get back "real time" results of which files contain it in any aspect of the file. I don't know if they have finally incorporated that function into Vista, since none of the computers I have any access to have it.

[ghostfaceposta]

I totally agree with you!

Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that not only are Apple's computers made in China just like Gateway or Dell or whomever, Macs are often made by the very same manufacturing subcontractors like Quanta. American computer companies don't own factories in China; they pay other companies to make their stuff.

Having said all that, though, yeah, I find that Apple just generally makes better software. It doesn't shower me with magical pixie dust or make my penis bigger or anything, but they have a committment to humane user interfaces, integration, and unlike Microsoft they aren't afraid to use open source software when it makes sense.