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j/c
I find it interesting how so many people want a Mac but won't pull the trigger because of the price (me included in there).
I know Apple profits off of hardware sales but they could be looking at market dominance if they just caved in to the mass market and took more advantage of iPod, iPhone, Apple TV and other products. They could literally overtake Microsoft with that philosophy.
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Hall of Famer
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Quote:
I find it interesting how so many people want a Mac but won't pull the trigger because of the price (me included in there).
In my case it's not wanting to spend the money period. Mac or PC. But, if I'm going to buy a new computer, it will be a Mac, no doubt.
#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Legend
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I know Apple profits off of hardware sales but they could be looking at market dominance if they just caved in to the mass market and took more advantage of iPod, iPhone, Apple TV and other products. They could literally overtake Microsoft with that philosophy.
Uh ... no.
Apple makes profits on hardware, because that's where it has to make it. Because it's such a robust system, it's not quite as easy to crank out all kinds of software for it. Microsoft makes all their money from software ... heck they don't even sell hardware. For the most part Apple is a hardware company and Microsoft is a software company. They'll make their profits according to that.
And even if the Mac lowered their price to PC prices, they still wouldn't dominate PCs. A good number of PC buyers get PC's for gaming, and Apple doesn't hold a candle to Windows in that aspect. While they would attract many more computer users, they wouldn't be making any profit, and Microsoft would still be making plenty just from gamers alone.
Also the vast majority of PC's are bought by the corporate sector. Since most IT guys know how to upgrade and maintain a PC, it's still much more cost effective to run PC's at the workplace, because you can steadily upgrade them without having to run out and buy a whole new system every year. Plus a good deal of companies make parts for PC's that they can use in their own PC's for free. Rather than having to buy 100% of their parts from Apple.
And I'm not knocking Apple's at all. They've found a great niche market in home users that use the computer for typical "home user" things. They've got an excellent product for that. Just don't expect them to obsolete Windows anytime soon.
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Quote:
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I know Apple profits off of hardware sales but they could be looking at market dominance if they just caved in to the mass market and took more advantage of iPod, iPhone, Apple TV and other products. They could literally overtake Microsoft with that philosophy.
Uh ... no.
Apple makes profits on hardware, because that's where it has to make it. Because it's such a robust system, it's not quite as easy to crank out all kinds of software for it. Microsoft makes all their money from software ... heck they don't even sell hardware. For the most part Apple is a hardware company and Microsoft is a software company. They'll make their profits according to that.
And even if the Mac lowered their price to PC prices, they still wouldn't dominate PCs. A good number of PC buyers get PC's for gaming, and Apple doesn't hold a candle to Windows in that aspect. While they would attract many more computer users, they wouldn't be making any profit, and Microsoft would still be making plenty just from gamers alone.
Also the vast majority of PC's are bought by the corporate sector. Since most IT guys know how to upgrade and maintain a PC, it's still much more cost effective to run PC's at the workplace, because you can steadily upgrade them without having to run out and buy a whole new system every year. Plus a good deal of companies make parts for PC's that they can use in their own PC's for free. Rather than having to buy 100% of their parts from Apple.
And I'm not knocking Apple's at all. They've found a great niche market in home users that use the computer for typical "home user" things. They've got an excellent product for that. Just don't expect them to obsolete Windows anytime soon.
Ahh but I counter argue with...
A good number of PC buyers buy PC's for gaming? Ehhh...not so much. I'll admit I get a decent card for my PC with gaming in mind in case there's a game I'd like to play, but I hardly use my PC for gaming and neither does mainstream America. That's what consoles are for. (check out game sales figures on PC vs. consoles...it's not even close...the PC is to gaming like the comic book is to mass media).
As far as corporations go and IT guys...every IT guy I've ever met wishes they would switch to Macs cuz everything just "works" with a Mac. Why don't they buy Macs? Cost.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the money made on new iGadgets would offset the lower hardware profits from Macs. And the Apple business would grow because of it.
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and the we will be using it to surf the web and also storing our pics. My girlfriend is also in college and will use the computer for her some of her homework.
With such limited usage, you're not going to notice any difference between the machines.
Exactly... for such limited use, anything above the cheapest you can find would be a waste of money.
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... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Dawg Talker
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CompUSA before they tanked, and Best Buy are two off the top of my head.
Fry's Electronics has them too..  but well the closest out there you'll find them is indiana and chicago..
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I find it interesting how so many people want a Mac but won't pull the trigger because of the price (me included in there).
I pulled the trigger....and I've been very happy. And the price wasn't that bad. You forget, as a Mac buyer you get a lot more software than you do with a standard PC.
Look what you get with the purchase:
iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes, iWeb, GarageBand, Time Machine (backup tool), Mail, Safari and an Operating System that doesn't have the problems like Vista has.
...and I realise, iTunes is free.
I've seen new PC machines out of the box. You get an operating system and an internet browser. And maybe some DVD playing software. Most everything else is up to you to purchase. Yeah, you can download some shareware programs for music but they're the lowest version with almost no support.
The software that comes along supports the higher cost in my opinion. And if you haven't noticed, the Macs aren't that much higher than the average PC (yes, they're still higher). And don't show me some beige box from Bob's CPU Outlet as proof. I've seen them and the Best Buy sales too. Again, those are essentially hardware only + operating system.
To each his own.
And after being a PC user forever....and now a Mac owner, I am starting to see why people buy Macs for the home. They have all the stuff people need to do. Yeah a PC can do more at the home+business+games....but most people just use their home machines for internet, pictures, music, email and some movie/web/DVD work. That's it. And that's Apple market.
And as far as Mac's taking over the workplace, I don't see price of the individual machines being the problem. Heck, Apple already cuts a 10-15% discount to all students and bigger ones to schools. You'd imagine they'd do the same for the business world if that were their goal. Thing is, the cost to convert and entire company over to Mac would be crazy high if you've already been using PC's for decades. I'm sure my big corporation would jump at the chance if it wasn't the extreme overhead to drop all the working units and existing support material. It's just not cost effective.
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Practice Squad
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Wow I never thought this would become this big of a debate. There are a lot of good points from both sides. Thank you everyone for your comments. After reading them I was dead set on a mac. Then I went to work last night and this guy I work with downloads movies and burns them to discs. This was another reason I wanted a new comp. Anyways, I sometimes get movies from him and asked him if I could do it myself if I got a mac. He made it sound like it was impossible because you have to convert a lot of the movies to different formats.
He said every program he has will not run on a mac. Has any mac users on here had to convert movies to different formats? I am totally illiterate when it comes to these kind of things. I am just wondering if this guy just hates macs so much that he does not want anyone to buy one.
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There's some truth to that. Most likely what he is using is free software to do the converts, mostly written by people who just enjoy the challenge of coding. Problem is that there are not alot of people doing this same free coding for Macs, there's just a huge number of windows programmers out there that make it possible. I'm sure Mac has programs that can do the conversions, but you will have to purchase them. PS - Downloading and copying movies is illegal.  Not to mention that unless you plan to watch the movie over and over again, it's not worth the time.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Tiffin...apple isn't all that great..i had a MAC and IMO they sucked Im currently running 2 Vista Boxes and 1 XP Pro box, that being said Vista is a fine OP system as long as you get a PC with 2 gigs of RAM, a dual Core Processor, and a dedicated Graphics card... Besides, if you want a different OP system than Windows, why not go the free route? Linux Mint is a free open source operating system based on DEbian Linux and molded after Ubuntu Linux Mint will play all propreitary formats right out the box mp3, wma, wmv, dvd, cd, etc..all of em. you can burn and create movies, music and the like...everything is free Virus do not exist for Linux..only in a test lab, it is more secure, than any other operating system. Virus protection will "never" be needed for Linux due to its architecture....the root requires a password, the root is only used to install packages, any other wise, the user runs as a desk user....even if the desk user gets messed up or cirrupt, the OP system itself remains unharmed, just delete the old desk and create a new one advantage of Linux 1. the ext3 filesystem it uses "never" get fragmented and will always stay "below" 1% file fragmentation. 2. Only reguires 512mb of ram to run, OpenGL is better than Directx10 and there are consumer quality high definition 3d games availabe for it. 3.Will not have to install any drivers(most of the time) all drivers are included inside the linux kernel. 4. Every 3 months, you will get a new version of the operating system viz automatic updates(a new kernel) not just a patched on like Windows and MAC 5. The open source community is very helpful and plentiful in helping nix users learn the ropes. 6. You are not bound to any EULA(end User License Agreement) you can instlal and run it on as many pcs as you want, and modifiy the source as you see fit, even sell it I have Linux Mint on a notebook of mine, and it is solid, the most solid OP system i have ever used It is near "impossible" to crash a Linux box barring a diaster...i have never seen a single blue screen of death on any linux box i have ever seen oh and a side note...i fix PC's, of the 15 users i switched to linux last year, "None" of them have any problems with their PC, it just works, no viruses, no garbage, no bloat it also comes with a complete offfice suite, phota editing, video editing, games, the whole 9 yards..and anything else your heart desires is only a Synaptic Package Manager download away enjoy
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Dawg Talker
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I'm a cheap old SOB and I've found Dell outlet hard to beat. I just looked and there is a AMD athlon 64 dual core 1900 with 2G memory, 320G HD and a DVD/RW DVD ROM for 339 bucks plus go to coupon mountain and they'll give you a 15% off outlet coupon.
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Alright this will be the last question I ask, I promise.  I just found out that you can run windows xp or vista on your mac by using a program called "boot camp." What I am wondering if anyone knows is how much space on my computer I would need to have both os on my comp. and if anyone on here has done this and it worked well or had problems.
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