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HERETIC · Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:39 pm

"Glorious wrote:
You don't understand Apple's business model. At all."

It's quite a simple 1-2-3........................
1. K.I.S.S.
2. Make it pretty.
3. Con everyone into believing the high price they paid is because they're getting the best..........................

whm1974 · Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:48 pm

I guess vargis14 and I won't be buying a Mac anytime soon... We prefer to Build It Ourselves anyway.

Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:03 pm

whm1974 wrote:
I guess vargis14 and I won't be buying a Mac anytime soon... We prefer to Build It Ourselves anyway.

So why are you even opining in a Mac thread?

I'm a self-builder but over the past 40 years or so I've learned that once the Apple bites deep, it's a lifetime sentence. No point in arguing something that has moved beyond facts/figures and is now quite clearly epistemology.

whm1974 · Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:17 pm

Apple might be able to convince me to buy a MBP, and I wouldn't mind trying MacOS X to see what it is like. But there is no way in Hell anyone is going to persuade me to buy an AIO.

End User · Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:41 pm

whm1974 wrote:
I guess vargis14 and I won't be buying a Mac anytime soon... We prefer to Build It Ourselves anyway.

What is your current build?

whm1974 · Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:48 pm

i5-4670 3400Mhz CPU
GeForce GTX 970 Video card
16 GB DRR3-1600 memory
2x Crucial 960GB M500 SSDs
SeaSonic 550W PSU
30" Dell 3014 Display
DVD-RW drive

HERETIC · Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:27 am

whm1974 wrote:
i5-4670 3400Mhz CPU
GeForce GTX 970 Video card
16 GB DRR3-1600 memory
2x Crucial 960GB M500 SSDs
SeaSonic 550W PSU
30" Dell 3014 Display
DVD-RW drive

SWEET-Rarely do you see such a well balanced quality system.........(Novices take note)
The 2 Crucials are a little overboard for me thro.........

whm1974 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:35 am

HERETIC wrote:
SWEET-Rarely do you see such a well balanced quality system.........(Novices take note)
The 2 Crucials are a little overboard for me thro.........

I had quite a bit of money at the time I built the system and I got carried away with the SSDs and display. On other hand this system will last me a long time and it is quick.

hkuspc40 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:56 am

I sell Macs... Don't buy one.

whm1974 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:03 am

Any reason why? My only beef with Apple's hardware is that they don't offer a mainstream tower. Well that and their hardware is overpriced but that is different subject.

Topinio · Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:29 am

Well, they did when you put together your machine, for about the same price -- though I think you got a better system than the Mac Pro with the W3565, 6 GB, 1TB mechanical drive, and HD 5770 1GB

whm1974 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:40 am

Yep sure did. Mine is much better...

vargis14 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:57 am

Glorious wrote:
vargis14 wrote:
I would like to note that the OP bought a iMac because he had no other choice besides a round overpriced Mac Pro tower that cannot be upgraded in any real way.

Which, before the round one, was still entry-level 2.5K, another thousand over what he paid *WITHOUT* the classy 27" high-res panel.

So that overpriced thing is kind of a given, right?

And upgraded? You mean the graphics card?

He can still add memory up to 32GiB, he can still use external harddrives, he could never upgrade the motherboard (it's still a Mac), and why upgrade the CPU (Intel is 3:5 for sockets:architectures, so do you think Kaby Lake will be a worthy upgrade from a Skylake )?

So, unless he cares about serious gaming, which makes this entire argument a farce anyway, what exactly is he missing?

vargis14 wrote:
I know Apple uses their practices to make upgrading a PITA ands repair almost impossible "ifixit can show you that" and forces anyone needing a new Apple machine to get a AIO system that cannot be upgraded unless you pay for the upgrades ahead of time at exorbitant prices.

Desktops are so cheap that people routinely replace them outright when the software breaks, forget the hardware. Every year or so I recycle the handful of relatively obsolete (but usually still functional!) desktops that I've acquired this way from friends & family.

I even got a i5 sandy-bridge this way a little under 2 years ago, the motherboard of broke and the guy at work literally just gave me the whole machine.

vargis14 wrote:
But I know every School, be it a college or High school and the general public would prefer a standard tower design they can upgrade at least once for their Apple desktop.

Oh please, that's nonsense. I've never worked for an institution (or heard of one) that's EVER upgraded a machine like that after deployment, and I've worked for several big ones (educational and otherwise).

vargis14 wrote:
Even if they charge 400-600$ just for a fancy machined all aluminum custom Apple ATX tower the lines would go around several blocks once people saw it and apple used some of their unlimited resources on advertizing.

That's known as diluting the brand, and it's universally a bad idea.

What you are saying is fundamentally no different than Apple selling Apple branded soap, or pillows. They're not in the business of selling cosmetics anymore than they are in the business of selling empty computer cases.

Hey. Here's a better idea: why don't they sell a complete computer, that way they can additionally sell layered software, cloud services and create synergies with that "other" computing market where the REAL money (and FUTURE) is.

Oh. right. that's what Apple is doing...

vargis14 wrote:
Introducing the Apple Pro Tower!!!!

That would be "Re-Introducing," did you miss that part?

You guys seem to think you've got all these novel and brilliant ideas, not realizing that there are several (likely former) executives at Apple who had them too...

vargis14 wrote:
Here at apple we understand that people want to be able to upgrade and add components

They don't. You do.

Apple understands this, you do not.

vargis14 wrote:
Cable card tuners

Get an external one, that's what most of them are anyway (I don't even know of an internal one). It's a better idea anyway, and much more flexible.

vargis14 wrote:
much wider choice of graphics cards for our growing gaming ability on the Mac OS

Seriously?

Not to mention that quality control for video cards and video drivers is an outright nightmare.

vargis14 wrote:
along with your choice of apple certified board from ASUS, Gigabyte etc, be it a Apple approved Intel Z series motherboards be it a dual channel quad core CPU board or a quad channel board with your choice of 6-18 cores.

Did you even read my initial response to your stupid idea? This isn't new. It was tried, it almost killed Apple, and it was the first thing Jobs axed when he was put back in charge and turned the company into what it is today.

vargis14 wrote:
custom water cooling system

vargis14 wrote:
Also If you have a problem our geniuses can fix most anything in our stores on the spot in a short amount of time right in front of you.

Yeah, ok, no.

vargis14 wrote:
the choice is totally up to you.

You don't understand Apple's business model. At all.

It is not that I do not understand Apples practices, it is the fact that I do not agree with them. Sure it made them tons of money and it is their practices that keep me from buying a apple PC and stick to regular windows PC's that I can actually fix and work on myself. The only money apple has gotten from me has been for 4 Iphone 5's and 2 iPad 2's.
I just don't get why you have to be so nasty about it. But whatever floats your boat and speech is free.
Have a nice day.

Theresa N · Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:04 am

Apple's business model with the iMac's is what's wrong with the PC market. I made the mistake of buying an iMac about a decade ago. Less than two years after buying it the video failed making it a worthless piece of junk, since video is soldered onto the mainboard. I'll never buy an apple product again. This is after years of building my own pcs. If it wasn't for this "business model" I would be using OSX now since I hate what Windows has become. Instead I am dual booting Linux and windows.

Glorious · Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:02 am

vargis14 wrote:
It is not that I do not understand Apples practices, it is the fact that I do not agree with them.

Sorry, but you started out by saying this:

vargis14 wrote:
Apple is missing out on a lot of sales

...and then you continued in that vein for the entire post, arguing that Apple was just turning its back on piles of money.

You can change the argument all you like, but I would have never waded into this thread if all you had to say was that you didn't agree with the Apple Model.

Why? Because, personally, I don't either. That's why I've never spent money on an Apple product for my own use in my entire life. I've had various apple machines, sure, but they've never gotten a dime from me for anything I was going to use myself.

But you were actually saying? About Apple "missing out on a market?" Sorry, that's just plainly wrong. They're not "missing" anything, they're deliberately avoiding it entirely and with extremely good reason.

vargis14 wrote:
I just don't get why you have to be so nasty about it.

You think this is me being nasty?

Look, I'm just utterly incredulous at how someone could seriously think that "The choice is yours" should be Apple's marketing strategy, much less that they'd make MORE money with it. Like, seriously, are you delirious? If that's what you think, WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT THE APPLE BRAND?

whm1974 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:43 am

Glorious wrote:
But you were actually saying? About Apple "missing out on a market?" Sorry, that's just plainly wrong. They're not "missing" anything, they're deliberately avoiding it entirely and with extremely good reason.

They can still serve both markets and make money doing so. It will also increase their market share.

Glorious · Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:58 am

whm1974 wrote:
They can still serve both markets and make money doing so. It will also increase their market share.

Well, I disagree and I made several arguments as to why. So I guess that's that?

I do wonder, however, why it is that either of you so desperately want a brand that doesn't want you? Why do you want Apple-branded cases? Why is a the hackintosh avenue unsuitable? What exactly is it about "Apple" that you so ardently desire, and why do you desire it anyway?

cphite · Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:35 am

whm1974 wrote:
My biggest problem with the iMac is that they are All In Ones, meaning that they are very costly to repair or upgrade if you upgrade them at all. I don'y why Apple won't make a standard tower.

You answered your own question.

cphite · Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:58 am

whm1974 wrote:
Do you seriously not understand why Apple doesn't even want you as a customer?

And this is why Apple will stay at 5% or less of the market.

We tried to reach an executive at Apple for a response to this, but they were all too busy swimming in piles of money.

Apple's entire business model revolves around creating devices, and convincing people that those devices are awesome because they're devices. They're not supposed to be customized. They're supposed to be exactly what they are. Your computer is their computer; it works the way they want it to work, and if you don't like it, go buy something else. You can replace "computer" with "phone" or "media player" or practically any other device they sell.

So yes, they're losing out on sales to people who like to tinker, or build; but they don't care... we aren't their target audience. Their target audience is the consumer, who believes that a phone, a computer, a pad, or whatever is nothing more than a device with a purpose. And they sell TONS of those devices, at a seriously high premium.

You say they have 5% of the market as though it's some mark against them... but you have to look at it another way.. they hold 5% of a market they care nothing about, and where they make no real effort.

Topinio · Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:19 pm

And in the market segment Apple cares about, non-modifiable machines for non-poor people, it has a much higher market share.

windwalker · Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:20 pm

Glorious wrote:
I do wonder, however, why it is that either of you so desperately want a brand that doesn't want you? Why do you want Apple-branded cases? Why is a the hackintosh avenue unsuitable? What exactly is it about "Apple" that you so ardently desire, and why do you desire it anyway?

Those are some excellent questions.
If the complaints came from someone unfamiliar with technology it would be fair to assume they liked the product but had difficulty coming to terms with the design decisions, trade-offs and compromises Apple made.

Coming from an enthusiast though, I think there is actually no material desire for the product itself but a psychological desire to be right, to have their own preferences validated. The fact that their preferences are not only rejected but that a market player has massive success by emphatically choosing to go in the exact opposite direction is threatening.

Glorious · Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:26 pm

cphite wrote:
Apple's entire business model revolves around creating devices, and convincing people that those devices are awesome because they're devices. They're not supposed to be customized. They're supposed to be exactly what they are. Your computer is their computer; it works the way they want it to work, and if you don't like it, go buy something else. You can replace "computer" with "phone" or "media player" or practically any other device they sell.

It's incredible to me that people don't get that, when that concept is literally part of Apple's foundational myth.

Did anyone see the newest Steve Jobs Biopic, I haven't, but I know they have a certain character in it: Joanna Hoffman. She wrote the original Macintosh User Interface Guidelines, a document that listed fundamental principles of design like "Perceived Stability" "Aesthetic Integrity" "Visual consistency" etc...

And she was hired by another guy who is (or should be) in the movie: Jef "Hold-the-F" Raskin. Why? Because she confronted him after a lecture at PARC and got into a huge argument with him about how computers should improve people's lives. The conversation was so brilliant that he asked her to interview to join the team for this new computer they were inventing over at Apple...

cphite wrote:
Their target audience is the consumer, who believes that a phone, a computer, a pad, or whatever is nothing more than a device with a purpose.

And what was Jef Raskin's view? Oh, right, he invented the concept of an Information Appliance IN 1979.

So, over THREE-AND-A-HALF DECADES into the execution of that very concept, we have people who still don't get it?

Who also think Apple would benefit from their amazing computing insight, at a time where Apple is probably heating their buildings by burning benjamins, just so they can make room for more?

---

You know, how I use a computer wouldn't improve or enrich the vast majority of other people's lives. Just a few things on the Apple platform, like Facetime (which is incredibly more intuitive and less painful than even skype), have *PROFOUNDLY* changed the lives of millions of grandmothers in ways their grandmothers could never have dreamed of.

I don't like it, I don't want it for myself, but I can't hate it. And I certainly don't want to selfishly change it towards my own ill-defined and poorly-understood prejudices. Just because. :roll:

cphite · Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:19 pm

Glorious wrote:
You know, how I use a computer wouldn't improve or enrich the vast majority of other people's lives. Just a few things on the Apple platform, like Facetime (which is incredibly more intuitive and less painful than even skype), have *PROFOUNDLY* changed the lives of millions of grandmothers in ways their grandmothers could never have dreamed of.

Exactly.

Apple makes devices that are designed to be used by anyone and everyone; the caveat is that you use them how Apple wants you to use them. So if you're looking to get grandma on video chat, a device made by Apple is ideal. If you need a phone and don't care how it works as long as it does, an iPhone is an excellent choice.

And if you need/want it to do stuff that Apple didn't intend, or you want to make it work a different way... there are better options.

I don't like it, I don't want it for myself, but I can't hate it. And I certainly don't want to selfishly change it towards my own ill-defined and poorly-understood prejudices. Just because.

I honestly don't get "hate" for a company based on their product design. I could see if it were a case of unfair business practices, or making stuff that legitimately didn't work, or something along those lines... but I just can't see "hate" because I'd prefer they do X instead of Y... it makes no friggin' sense to me.

The only Apple product I own is an iPod Classic... Purely as a device it's awesome - great size, shape, the manufacturing is almost flawless. The controls don't work the way I'd like them to work, but they work. The software definitely doesn't work the way I'd like it to work, but it works - usually.

Atradeimos · Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:20 pm

Glorious wrote:
I don't like it, I don't want it for myself, but I can't hate it.

+1. Original iPad is the only Apple product I've ever paid real money for, but it's not like I hope Infinite Loop catches fire.

Also this article may be relevant.

Kretschmer · Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:21 pm

whm1974 wrote:
Glorious wrote:
But you were actually saying? About Apple "missing out on a market?" Sorry, that's just plainly wrong. They're not "missing" anything, they're deliberately avoiding it entirely and with extremely good reason.

They can still serve both markets and make money doing so. It will also increase their market share.

Apple could also open a line of iCurry Indian restaurants to increase their market share of the restaurant business, but you won't see that as part of their strategic plan.

Apple provides carefully curated experiences that users clamor for; there's no good reason for them to compromise that experience so you can save a buck. I don't want their products, but there's no reason for them to stop what they're doing now. We're more likely to see the death of OSX and Macs (to focus on devices) than an opening of the platform.

Buub · Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:47 pm

HERETIC wrote:
"Glorious wrote:
You don't understand Apple's business model. At all."

It's quite a simple 1-2-3........................
1. K.I.S.S.
2. Make it pretty.
3. Con everyone into believing the high price they paid is because they're getting the best..........................

There is no con involved. People are getting exactly what they are paying for, or they wouldn't be paying for it.

And in many cases, it is top-tier, if not the best. It's certainly hard to find a better made notebook than the MacBook Pro.

You can argue with the amount they charge as a premium, for sure, but you cannot argue that that many people are being conned. Apple made what they wanted and they bought it. Win-win for both sides.

Topinio · Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:53 pm

Atradeimos wrote:
Also this article may be relevant.

Nice, OS X machines account for 50% of revenue from laptops sold in the US, from approaching 14% of client-side computer unit sales (8% worldwide).

Also, 94% of smartphone profits on 15% units

derFunkenstein · Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:00 pm

Glorious wrote:
You know, how I use a computer wouldn't improve or enrich the vast majority of other people's lives. Just a few things on the Apple platform, like Facetime (which is incredibly more intuitive and less painful than even skype), have *PROFOUNDLY* changed the lives of millions of grandmothers in ways their grandmothers could never have dreamed of.

It's not like I live far away from my parents, but when my daughter wants to see Grandma and Grandpa 20 minutes before bedtime, I can give her my phone and call my mom so she can. It just plain makes everybody happy.

whm1974 · Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:55 pm

OK you guys win again. I'm now aware that Apple doesn't want people like me as customers and don't market to folks such as us in any case. Which is a shame because from what I hear from those who have used it, MacOS X is better then Windows. Oh well it's Apple's loss not mine.

derFunkenstein · Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:22 pm

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