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July 17, 2002
6:09 AM Subscribe

Steve Jobs Begins Macworld Keynote.Macworld keynotes often bring with them innovative products that mac fans generally go crazy for. Today's keynote is rumored to bring with it 17" iMacs. On the other hand, it is also rumored that Apple will discontinue it's free and widely used iTools service in favor of a paid service. Is this right for a company that only has 5% of the market?
posted by devo (88 comments total)

MacNN is reporting that .Mac will replace iTools. $100/year ($50 for the first year if you're an iTools user).
posted by tommasz at 6:14 AM on July 17, 2002

Can we stop this "only 5% of the market" nonsense? In almost every other industry, a company would be thrilled to have 5% of the market. BMW has less than 1% of the market.

I can see why they'd lose the free iTools -- it's a money sink for them. The question is did they price it correctly? (I never used iTools, so I don't know how useful it is.)

I wonder if they intend to run .mac as a real TLD -- so your site would be at "www.foo.mac", where foo is your .mac username.
posted by eriko at 6:25 AM on July 17, 2002

Can we stop this "only 5% of the market" nonsense? . . . BMW has less than 1% of the market.

Only if we start comparing apples to apples.
posted by yerfatma at 6:27 AM on July 17, 2002

I find that apples don't have the processing power that computers have.

Sorry.
posted by websavvy at 6:32 AM on July 17, 2002

Sherlock 3 is gonna be sooo cool. (and by cool I mean just like Watson, a great program in itself). My heart swells with love for my Mac right now.

Oh, and websavvy, Macs are computers, too. I can see how you would forget this though since they aren't clunky and are pretty. :)
posted by untuckedshirts at 6:38 AM on July 17, 2002

Free stuff always goes away eventually... so this is no surprise. But the only iTool I have used more than once or twice is iCards, which are quite nice. There's no way I'd pay $100 a year just for that though. The price point seems way too high to me. Why not price it somewhere around what it actually costs? Pass the expense off to the user and it still remains a great deal and a selling point for the platform. Try to make it into a profit center, I expect it will just become an under-used service which will then stagnate and die. eWorld anyone?
posted by spilon at 6:41 AM on July 17, 2002

I find iTools marginally useful, bot not at all worth $50 a year. Definitely not worth $100/year.
posted by jennyb at 6:41 AM on July 17, 2002

i apologize for that, but i swear i only clicked post once.
posted by untuckedshirts at 6:42 AM on July 17, 2002

Its not just itools its, supposedly mac.com webhosting and mac.com's email addresses. I'm surprised there isn't more outraged, perhaps its too early, but imagine if MS did this with hotmail. Not just charging for a pro-account like they do now, but shutting down the service unless you pay a year in advance. Or if geocities did the same thing.
posted by skallas at 6:49 AM on July 17, 2002

Steve Jobs is veggie?! Cool...
posted by i_cola at 6:54 AM on July 17, 2002

I find that apples don't have the processing power that computers [PC's?] have.

I've often heard this arguement, with PC proponents pointing to the higher processing speeds on the amd and intel chips (1.7+ghz) compaired to the g4 (1 ghz). I'm not an expert, but i think that it's only half the story; the g4 has a 128 bit processor, which allows it to throw bigger chunks of data around than a comarable 64 bit PC chip (information here, under "Velocity Engine") , making a mac every bit as fast or a faster than a pc. Can anybody clear this up?
posted by astirling at 6:55 AM on July 17, 2002

The details on the speed of the G4 can be found here. Basically, it's the shorter data pipeline that makes the chip fatser.

"The performance advantage of the PowerPC G4 starts with its data pipeline. The term "processor pipeline" refers to the number of processing steps, or stages, it takes to accomplish a task. The fewer the steps, the shorter -- and more efficient -- the pipeline. Thanks to its efficient 7-stage design (versus 20 stages for the Pentium 4 processor) the G4 processor can accomplish a task with 13 fewer steps than the PC. You do the math."
posted by devo at 6:59 AM on July 17, 2002

only $49 dollars for the first year of .mac, for previous subscribers.
posted by corpse at 7:02 AM on July 17, 2002

From: http://www.macnn.com/keynote.html

* Mac OS 10.2 will cost $129 ("less than a dollar per new feature." It will be delivered in stores on August 24th. Apple will be offering an "Up-to-Date" program for all Macs sold in future, offering it for $20 on CD. No upgrade pricing announced.

iTools is worth $50/year, easily, very easily. However, I want a free upgrade to 10.2
posted by djacobs at 7:03 AM on July 17, 2002

Can we stop this "only 5% of the market" nonsense? In almost every other industry, a company would be thrilled to have 5% of the market. BMW has less than 1% of the market.

The automobile market is, of course, radically different than the OS market. Assuming that BMW is actually "happy" with one percent of the U.S. market, that also assumes significant market differentiation. The other 99% of the market is divided among numerous other manufacturers.

In the OS market, on the other hand, Microsoft retains control of approximately 85% of the market. When there are essentially two mainstream commercial operating systems to choose from, and one has approximately 15 times the market share of the other, the smaller manufacturer should be worried.

Now, perhaps we will begin to see more differentiation in the OS market and more specialization from Apple in the future. They have already developed a significant hold on the niche market they cater too. If they're happy with that, they can probably remain successful. Clearly, however, the "switch" campaign indicates that they are not happy with the status quo.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:06 AM on July 17, 2002

astirling, it's called the megahertz myth. You can watch a stream about it here

And I know that this makes Macs seem like they are perfect compared to PC's which is not true, but I have used both and my 867MHz G4 is faster than my ex-roomates 1.7GHz PC. He's now purchasing a Mac after having his PC (Dell) for less than a year.

Why do PC users think that Mac users are so rabidly in love with their machines, and their company? Do you think we do it just because? No, it's because Apple makes GREAT products that improve workflow and are a delight to use. It's fun to use a Mac, not just bearable.
posted by untuckedshirts at 7:06 AM on July 17, 2002

eriko: certainly "only 5% of the market" is no small feat. The comparison to the auto market is a little tenuous, though. To complete the picture, you'd have to peg BMW at 5% of the market, and give most of the other 95% to Ford. Then bring Ford's product quality down, and give them relationships with parts suppliers and gasoline merchants that ensure they can build a world that only works with Ford cars. Then have Ford build a PR machine that convinces all but those with a command of the intricacies of automotive engineering that Ford builds the best cars that have ever even been concieved by the mind of man, much less built, and that Ford invented not only the automobile, but the car stereo, the windshield wiper, and oh yeah, the wheel. BMW would deliver automobiles of exceptional quality and pretty good value, but would occasionally get a profitability bug up its ass and do something stupid to alienate their users. Like this.

Apple has a lot of forces to blame for its sideline status in the industry. Most of the important ones can be attributed to Apple itself.... not opening the Mac architecture to allow a meaningful clone market to arise (I personally think this was a good idea, but was undeniably bad for market share), keeping their prices so high for so long (in the 1980s), occasionally (especially without Jobs) losing focus on its product lines so completely that it appeared that marketing interns were designing the machines out of spare parts. And this odd cycle they go through, because they can't seem to build cool stuff and think about profits at the same time, which leads to pissing a lot of people off for what is, in the end, very little money.

Hopefully in the iTools case, they'll do what you say, spilon, and make the price cover expenses. iTools at, say, $10 looks like a bargain; at $100 I can't imagine anyone who actually knew what it was paying for it.

(That all having been said, I'll probably be picking up an iBook soon, my first Mac since 1993, especially if the prices go down)
posted by Vetinari at 7:10 AM on July 17, 2002

The point of "Only 5% of the market" is "You can't survive in the world if you only own 5% of the market." You can, and you can make bunches of money doing so.

The risk for Apple, of course, is that Microsoft ends up owning the Internet, and won't let Apple play. In which case, 5% of the market isn't enough. Then again, in that case, 49% isn't enough, if the 51% of the other guy means he can make all the rules.
posted by eriko at 7:14 AM on July 17, 2002

iCal. Apple-branded weightloss system? No, calendar app/net service (part of .mac).

Point being, they're still announcing the .Mac features. May be worth the cash yet - although I doubt it.

Anyone else having trouble getting on the goddamned stream? grumble...
posted by D at 7:14 AM on July 17, 2002

D, it's been streaming perfectly for me going on 60 minutes.
posted by untuckedshirts at 7:19 AM on July 17, 2002

Is it right? What does "right" mean? They are offering a service and can charge whatever they want for it.

I had an opportunity to play with MacOS 10.2 last week and found it notably less obnoxious than previous editions in the series. Who knows, it might even convince me to leave 9.1 behind... but it's really CodeWarrior I'm waiting on more than anything else.

Sherlock makes me nervous for the same reasons iTools did. It's just weird to base software and features of an operating system on services provided by a web site. An OS is sort of permanent - people will be using it for *years* to come - but a web site isn't necessarily even going to exist next year.

The idea of a customized browser for specific tasks is a good one; the generic web browser isn't the best tool for looking up addresses, looking up movie showtimes, etc. It'd be nice to have specific tools for those jobs, and that seems to be what Apple has done with Sherlock. I guess it seems to me that the actual data should be based on some open, decentralized Usenet-like system so that you aren't dependent on some single remote corporate entity to keep supplying you with data.
posted by Mars Saxman at 7:23 AM on July 17, 2002

Ahhh.... "smart playlists" in iTunes 3- another example of Apple creating something so cool and obvious that you can't believe you didn't think of it before. Rules-based playlists, so you can, for example, have a playlist that automatically updates with your most-listened-to music (or, conversely, songs you have but have [b]never[/b] listened to), or 70's soul songs.

Marketshare Shmarketshare, my Mac is still cooler than your PC.
posted by mkultra at 7:24 AM on July 17, 2002

i'm thinking the "only 5% of the market thing" is way more important in a developing industry where you depend heavily on other companies developing tools and applications for your platform to attract customers than it is in a mature industry like automobiles.
posted by zoopraxiscope at 7:28 AM on July 17, 2002

I lost the stream too. I went back to the page and the links are gone. Overload bummer.
posted by cowboy at 7:33 AM on July 17, 2002

I'm a PC user, and I have to say a lot of these things he's introducing look very useful. iSync, or whatever it was called, looks awesome, and I hope .net will develop in a similar direction. I was surprised of the GPRS/mobile-thinking, though; are you Americans catching up on the cellphone front now? Great!
posted by dagny at 7:35 AM on July 17, 2002

Dude. iPod for PC.
posted by Marquis at 7:38 AM on July 17, 2002

Marketshare Shmarketshare, my Mac is still cooler than your PC.

i highly doubt that. it's not that i don't like macs (i use one just as much as my pc), but i love my pc (rabidly, even.). works smoothly, efficiently, and without a problem. it's got that nice custom-fit, too. wouldn't trade it for the world... well, i'd trade it for a decent amount of money, but not for a mac.

and i know i'm an asshole for it, but i couldn't resist leaving a window with this open, at the apple store i stopped by the other day.
posted by lotsofno at 7:52 AM on July 17, 2002

i like how the new iPod's larger size went unmentioned. gloss it over, steve.
posted by patricking at 7:54 AM on July 17, 2002

when discussing market share, please remember that the market is segmented into smaller markets.
As an art director (in advertising land), I see 98% macs on colleagues desks, in their homes, in the printhouses, at the post house, at the photographers studio, at the illustrators studio and so on and so on. The accountmen use PC's. It's more common for me to see a "non mac" is a SGI than a pc at work.
posted by dabitch at 7:55 AM on July 17, 2002

Personally I'm pretty bummed out about the $129 upgrade cost for 10.2. I feel like I've been beta testing OS X for them and asking me to pony up for the right to the new OS pisses me off. I retired my trusty 7500 for an ibook about a year ago and the laptop, while it has its virtues, is actually slower at many things than my beefed up 7500 was. Supposedly 10.2 will address this, but I'm not sure I'm willing to pay them for it.
posted by Tempus67 at 7:55 AM on July 17, 2002

I agree - that upgrade cost is ridiculous. Apple always does this to us. It's like an abusive relationship that way.
posted by djacobs at 7:56 AM on July 17, 2002

What does "right" mean?

Uh, some people might suggest that it means "not wrong".

Or at least "not evil". How about "not shooting itself in the foot"? (Or as I like to put it, 'poisoning the well').

If you exploit your userbase too much, you lose your userbase. If you seem too much like a greedy asshole company, then you lose the "cool factor" that makes people willing to pay a premium for your beautiful, well-designed products.

They are offering a service and can charge whatever they want for it.

Well, if they charge too much (thus offering a poor value), then they leave a vacuum for other companies to fill. And fill it they will...

And just imagine what it would do to Apple should someone figure out a way to provide what they intend to provide not just better and cheaper, but free or nearly free.

As an analogy, imagine what would happen if all females of the world united and demanded that males must devote themselves slavishly to women until the end of time or else the women will all refuse to have sex with them (and that the females have the power to refuse with deadly force).

You'd find that male homosexuality and masturbation would suddenly become vastly more popular options. :)

Yes, you *can* squeeze a market for all it's worth. Yes, this will get you more money in the short term.

But you will be vastly richer if you build your company's reputation for value for the dollar for the _long_ term.

Plus, the harder you squeeze people, the more you piss them off. The more you piss them off, the more they are motivated to go to your competitors to spite you, or even to forego your services entirely.

Just think: how do most people feel about telemarketers? Distinctly wrathful.
posted by beth at 7:57 AM on July 17, 2002

I was rather surprised about the upgrade cost. But honestly, if you watched the webcast, it's not a great price to pay for the amount of new services and features it's providing. I know that I will definitely pony up. And even if you don't, what are you left with? A great operating system, that's what.

And patricking, was the 20 GB iPod larger than the current iPod or just larger than the now smaller 5 GB?
posted by untuckedshirts at 7:58 AM on July 17, 2002

I'm getting a G4 tower soon, but the 5% market share is important and comparisons to the auto industry aren't useful. A BMW works fine on the same roads as a Chevy or Ford product. It even uses the same gas and oil.

A computer is different. PC software won't run on a Macintosh, Macintosh software won't run on a PC. Even the internet has been corrupted from its original platform agnostic appearance. Sites may require plug-ins, those plug-ins may not be available for the Mac.

If the market share between Microsoft and Apple was closer to parity, or even if there was a three-way split between Microsoft, Apple and Linux then there would be a good chance that applications would be ported to the less dominant, but still significant market segments.

With the current marketshare distribution a company only has the potential of selling into an additional 5% of the market by porting to Apple. In reality not all of those 5% will purchase the product so the fiscally responsible thing to do is usually not to port.
posted by substrate at 8:01 AM on July 17, 2002

Ok, I just figured out what is going on with my double posts. It seems that if I make a post and then without closing the browser window and reopening a new one, when I refresh to see new comments, it sends my comment again. Is this a problem with the new server, or has Mefi always done this? I guess I dont' comment enough to know.

Sorry, just the same.
posted by untuckedshirts at 8:02 AM on July 17, 2002

Untucked: The 20G iPod is 21mm. The original was 20, and the slimmed down 10G is 18. Tiny difference, yes, but very obviously glossed.

Regarding speed(way up there): My PII400 renders in Cinema4D just as fast, and possibly faster than PK's G4-700. The numbers are meaningless.

I found several of the Mac-is-better claims he made to be questionable.
posted by Su at 8:03 AM on July 17, 2002

"Is it right? What does "right" mean? They are offering a service and can charge whatever they want for it."

What I think is "wrong" is spending three years prompting new Apple users to get their own custom free me@mac.com email address, then telling them now that if they don't pony up $100 a year they'll lose it. You can't even have the mail forward to another service. All your contacts, everyone you gave that business card to, will lose touch unless you pay the Jobs piper, on 60 days notice. That's wrong.

"i like how the new iPod's larger size went unmentioned. gloss it over, steve."

I was wondering about that. They made a point of the solid-state wheel and thinner 10gig, but I know that the 20gig drive is 3mm thicker (8mm vs 5mm for the 5 and 10 gig toshiba drives) and I figure the solid state wheel, like the Powerbook touchpad, was designed as a spacesaver. so, is the 20gig iPod the same width as the current (old) 5 and 10 gig iPods, or a few mm thicker?

My beef with Apple today is that even though I upgraded to Quicktime Pro (I needed one feature that only Pro offered, converting mov to DV format), now that 6 is out I have to do it again, even if I'm only going to use the 5 Pro features...
posted by kfury at 8:03 AM on July 17, 2002

Apple Earnings Slide, Outlook Cautious: "People are willing to pay a premium for design, but they are only willing to pay so much"

lotsofno: loved that toon.
posted by owillis at 8:05 AM on July 17, 2002

beth: And just imagine what it would do to Apple should someone figure out a way to provide what they intend to provide not just better and cheaper, but free or nearly free.

This brings to mind the exchange between Paul and Reverend Mother Mohiam in Dune (a bit on the paraphrasing side):
"Many have tried."
"They tried and failed?"
"They tried and died."

Offering these services for free/super cheap just doesn't work. As the old-new economy (and common sense) showed us, business models that offer a product but don't collect revenue don't work.

Look at all the companies who did and either started charging or went out of business. Providing hosted application services is incredibly expensive (I know, I used to be the product manager for a hosted enterprise app). Yahoo is going to start charging for their services soon, which pretty much leaves Microsoft as the only sizeable player left, and their free Hotmail service is incredibly limited.
posted by mkultra at 8:09 AM on July 17, 2002

All your contacts, everyone you gave that business card to, will lose touch unless you pay the Jobs piper, on 60 days notice. That's wrong.

What's even more wrong is being dumb enough to use a free(as in going to go away someday) service for business purposes. Shell out the money for a real address. Frankly, I don't trust a business that gives me a Yahoo/Hotmail/etc e-mail address.

But other than that, yes, they're screwing people over.
posted by Su at 8:10 AM on July 17, 2002

Su:
"I found several of the Mac-is-better claims he made to be questionable."

That's OK, Untucked is smarter and makes more money that you.
posted by DragonBoy at 8:10 AM on July 17, 2002

I'm excited about the software updates, but the dearth of hardware announcements is really dissapointing.

Come on. Not even a mention of upcoming PowerMacs? It's unfortunately become evident that Apple is just not capable of keeping up with hardware trends. They really needed DDR ram to stay competitive among your run of the mill power users. I tried to wait it out, but they forced me to buy a PC before I head back to school. :(
posted by catatonic at 8:16 AM on July 17, 2002

Dragonboy, is anyone denying the PC isn't the everyman's computer? A much, much larger sample size means you're getting closer to the lowest common denominator. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
posted by skallas at 8:20 AM on July 17, 2002

I was joking! I meant the fruit...
posted by websavvy at 8:20 AM on July 17, 2002

DragonBoy, god I wish that was true. The fact of the matter is that I bought my Mac with money I was awarded from an art scholarship. I plan to buy an iBook next year with the new scholarship money.

I never would have been able to buy the computer I have now if it weren't for that scholarship. God am I glad I was able too though. Tough luck for the rest of yez'.
posted by untuckedshirts at 8:21 AM on July 17, 2002

I am currently thinking about buying a new computer. While Mac seems tempting, it's going to end up costing me a lot more to switch from PC to Mac, whereas a PC to PC upgrade would probably end up costing me at most $300. Plus I am reasonably happy with Windows XP (using a non Microsoft GUI theme), I haven't had it crash to due an OS error, only crashed it because my Voodoo 3 is obsolete and 3DFX is no longer supporting it (mostly because it got bought by another company).

Also I don't see why you guys are complaining about the price of the OS, XP Pro upgrade cost $199, so atleast OSX 10.2 is cheaper than that.
posted by riffola at 8:25 AM on July 17, 2002

In the OS market, on the other hand, Microsoft retains control of approximately 85% of the market. When there are essentially two mainstream commercial operating systems to choose from, and one has approximately 15 times the market share of the other, the smaller manufacturer should be worried.

the truth is that apple isn't in the OS market. it never really was. apple is in the business of selling computers. 5% of the computer market sounds pretty good to me. apple makes a lot more money for a single unit of their 5% than microsoft would for a single unit of their 95%; that's for sure.

as to the megahertz myth: the reason that the clockspeed of a macintosh is not comparable to an x86 chip (intel and athlon) has to do with how the two turn their gears. x86 chips can go real fast, lining up things to do on a few structures called pipelines (if you're not a computer person, imagine them as conveyor belts on an assembly line). apple's PowerPC chips don't move at the same clockspeed, but they have many more pipelines than do the x86 chips. this allows apples to perform more instructions at the same time than an x86 computer could without moving things along its pipelines. (apple's processor chips are an example of parallel computing within a single processor chip, and in that sense is a microcosm of the traditionally held notion of parallel computing as the concurrent utilization of more than one processor chip.)

my impression of apples is that they're faster for operations that involve copying data from place to place than are apples. (this is bolstered by the AltiVec technology used by apple in their chips.) in particular, being able to copy data efficiently allows apple to do well in the graphics and sound industry (and it does do well, by all accounts).
posted by moz at 8:28 AM on July 17, 2002

"than are apples" should be "than are PCs."
posted by moz at 8:30 AM on July 17, 2002

It's too bad they're applying a blanket price for the .Mac service. The only part of iTools I used regularly was the homepage thingy, to quickly toss up snapshots for friends and family to see. It would be nice to only have to pay for the features used, since I barely touched the rest of it.

I'm clearing my stuff off of iTools as we speak since I doubt I can justify the cost of it when I have my own webspace to use for my little snapshot albums.
posted by stefnet at 8:45 AM on July 17, 2002

All in all, not a great Macworld. I'm excited about 10.2, but most of those features had already been announced. I never got on the stream at all. The QT6 player crashed repeatedly, and the QT link from Apple's site even went dead towards the end.

It's also quite annoying that any Apple-related thread here turns into an argument about Macs vs. PCs. Hasn't this been argued to death yet? I suppose the post did mention market share, but still...
posted by D at 8:48 AM on July 17, 2002

catatonic -- ThinkSecret predicts faster G4s to be announced August 13.
posted by Marquis at 8:49 AM on July 17, 2002

luckily, it appears that the $129 for Mac OSX 10.2 is only if you bought it at full price. upgrading from 10.1.x to 10.2 should only cost $20. (i was NOT going to pay over $100 for an upgrade.)
posted by moz at 8:51 AM on July 17, 2002

Does anyone else find it even slightly hypocritical that the tight integration of new, supplemental features into an operating system is exactly what Apple testified was a bad thing when they took the stand for the DOJ?
posted by goto11 at 9:02 AM on July 17, 2002

Moz, where are you finding that? I only see the $20 upgrade for people who buy Macs between now and when 10.2 ships.
posted by furiousthought at 9:06 AM on July 17, 2002

. . . when I refresh to see new comments, it sends my comment again. Is this a problem with the new server, or has Mefi always done this?

It's a problem with Mac IE5 not MeFi. If I do the same thing on my PC, I just get the new comments.
posted by yerfatma at 9:10 AM on July 17, 2002

furious:

i'd seen that on slashdot. don't tell me it's not true, now. that'd suck.
posted by moz at 9:16 AM on July 17, 2002

I just checked, moz, and it's not true.

Unless you buy a Mac today, you'll be shelling out 120 dollars for their fucking tacky leopard skin.

Totally sucks. My loyalty is rewarded with a slap in the face, especially since I've used the flawed previous iterations of OS X since it was released, basically did beta-testing, as mentioned above.

Someone prove me wrong about the price. Please.
posted by evanizer at 9:20 AM on July 17, 2002

To everyone complaining about the $129 upgrade price, the slashdot people said that there are three cards in the box your mac came that entitle you to $20 upgrades (Called "Up-to-date Coupons" or something). So you don't get that $20 one on the webpage, but you still can get it for $20 if you have a card left from your last mac purchase. This is my first mac, could someone who's been around longer confirm or deny this? I bought this one new last fall.
posted by jeb at 9:21 AM on July 17, 2002

The upgrade thing is a problem. I just bought their innovative new freaking imac with 10.1.5 and now, six months from the damned thing's birth and I have an outdated operating system?

It's only 69 with the education discount, so it will hurt less if I decide to get it, but this is an abuse.
posted by mblandi at 9:21 AM on July 17, 2002

Oh yeah, that's true. Hell yeah. Thanks, Jeb. *rummages*
posted by mblandi at 9:22 AM on July 17, 2002

scottkramer -- Apple is giving their users tons of free applications. MS got into trouble by forcing/enforcing the use of Explorer instead of another free application and forcing distributers to sign deals supporting an IE only platform... these behaviors seem pretty different to me.
posted by n9 at 9:24 AM on July 17, 2002

imagine what would happen if all females of the world united and demanded that males must devote themselves slavishly to women until the end of time or else the women will all refuse to have sex with them...

Wouldn't that be kind of like now?
posted by timeistight at 9:52 AM on July 17, 2002

Also I don't see why you guys are complaining about the price of the OS, XP Pro upgrade cost $199, so atleast OSX 10.2 is cheaper than that.

Yeah, but it's a lot easier to find pirate copies of XP.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:48 AM on July 17, 2002

Wouldn't that be kind of like now?

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant on _Earth_.
posted by beth at 11:02 AM on July 17, 2002

Also I don't see why you guys are complaining about the price of the OS, XP Pro upgrade cost $199, so at least OS X 10.2 is cheaper than that.

Unlike Windows 2000 (or 98) to XP, 10.15 to 10.2 is an incremental upgrade. That is, unless Apple starts arguing that a decimal upgrade on the Mac is equal to a full version upgrade on Windows.
posted by timeistight at 11:10 AM on July 17, 2002

Unlike Windows 2000 (or 98) to XP, 10.15 to 10.2 is an incremental upgrade. That is, unless Apple starts arguing that a decimal upgrade on the Mac is equal to a full version upgrade on Windows.
Actually Win 2K is NT 5.0 and XP is NT 5.5, but yeah from the look of it, the jump from 2K to XP appears to larger than from OSX 10.15 to 10.2
posted by riffola at 11:15 AM on July 17, 2002

MS got into trouble by forcing/enforcing the use of Explorer instead of another free application

You're right. No one can touch Microsoft in the strongarm department. Still, if I made my living by selling my nifty Mac calendar application, I'd be shaking right about now at the prospect of a free one shipping with the OS.
posted by goto11 at 11:18 AM on July 17, 2002

Did anyone else notice that the .Mac site appears to be totally inaccessible for users with images turned off or using screen readers?

If the "new" Apple includes a lapse in what always appeared to be a commitment to user-centered design, I'm extremely disappointed.
posted by michellew at 11:41 AM on July 17, 2002

In reality not all of those 5% will purchase the product so the fiscally responsible thing to do is usually not to port.

There are over 20 million Mac users. Selling a product to 5% of that market (i.e., one fourth of one percent of computer users) would mean 1 million sales. The problem most software vendors have in attempting to sell in the Mac market is their software is too poor. They may have sold 1 million copies to Wintel users, but -- given the size of the Wintel market -- that number could almost be chalked up to accidental purchases.

It's been shown time and again by vendors like Adobe, Macromedia, Filemaker, etc.: make good software and people will buy it, regardless of the platform.

the jump from 2K to XP appears to larger than from OSX 10.15 to 10.2
When 2000 came out, it gave me the impression of an interim or end-of-life release. It was like MS was putting it out because XP wasn't quite ready yet and they had to do something. To me, 2000 to XP is more like (but considerably less than) MacOS 9 to X.

Apple has a problem with the OS X/10 thing. With all the goodies in 10.2, it might have merited more than a decimal release, but they may not have wanted to move off the OS X thing yet. (OS XI just doesn't have the same punch.
posted by joaquim at 11:42 AM on July 17, 2002

You know, I don't think these coupons apply. Seems kind of dumb to alienate all the people Apple brought in with the new imac. I'm more or less satisfied with the way it works now, but I can see how the new OS fixes a few necessary things.

I especially like the idea of Rendezvous. Of course, having a network requires that you own more than just the one machine itself.

Did anyone else notice that the .Mac site appears to be totally inaccessible for users with images turned off or using screen readers?

Yeah, I had to allow cookies from mac.com to see it without seizing 98.
posted by mblandi at 11:46 AM on July 17, 2002

XP is 5.1 (type "ver" in a cmd window and you should see 5.1.2600).

n9, no one forces you to use explorer. If you want, you can change your shell to cmd/bash/notepad/whatever. I assume you meant IE. No one forces you to use that, either, though it will be on your machine as a convenience. Can I get a mac w/o sherlock? What's the difference?
posted by JasonSch at 11:58 AM on July 17, 2002

In my opinion, and from the general feel around here it seems that i'm wrong, anyone who saw all the things that Apple is rolling out with 10.2 would realize that this is a sizable upgrade. It's not a Microsoft Service Pack (*snicker*) that's just meant to fix problems left by Apple. I know that I have no problem paying for this.
posted by untuckedshirts at 12:09 PM on July 17, 2002

The problem is, many of only a few months ago paid the same price to upgrade from 10.0.3 to 10.1, and now we are unable to upgrade to 10.2 without spending another 120.00 (those coupons DO NOT apply)

Also, they're cramming more and more junk into OSX, bloating file sizes, and making running the OS on slower processors unbearable. My unquestionable respect and loyalty is beginning to falter. But hey, they're a company, not a religion or a charitable organization, something many of us decades-long devotees sometimes forget.
posted by evanizer at 12:18 PM on July 17, 2002

The problem is, many of only a few months ago paid the same price to upgrade from 10.0.3 to 10.1

The 10.1 update was only $19 (or free from retailers) last fall. (After $129 for 10.0 and $29 for the public beta.) I think there's enough added value in 10.2 for the (edu price) $69 upgrade between rendezvous, ichat, mail,

Also, they're cramming more and more junk into OSX, bloating file sizes, and making running the OS on slower processors unbearable.

Spy reports have pegged 10.2 as being noticably faster than 10.1.
posted by andrewraff at 12:49 PM on July 17, 2002

Digging around: the Mac OS 8.5 upgrade price was $99 back in the day. I'd say 10.1.5 to 10.2 is about as much of an upgrade as 8.1 to 8.5 was then. Maybe a bit more with the extra apps. That $129 hurts though. I wonder if Jaguar's TWAIN support will allow me to use my old SCSI scanner through a Photoshop plug-in in X. Then it would definitely be worth the price.
posted by furiousthought at 1:17 PM on July 17, 2002

If the "new" Apple includes a lapse in what always appeared to be a commitment to user-centered design, I'm extremely disappointed.

I thought that already happened with the circular mouse and lack of a 'delete' key in the blue-and-whites... oh, and the "Error -2"-type messages.

Before I get flamed too much, may I say that OS X is doing a good job of making me think about making the Switch!
posted by cogat at 2:02 PM on July 17, 2002

What happens if I don't upgrade? No more updates? Having looked at the feature list, I'm not sure that I will "switch" to 10.2. 10.1 works so do I need the junk that they added? Not sure but it makes it hard to think of it as something that I would want. Question is what pricepoint to pay? From my standpoint, a .x upgrade should be no more than $50 tops... That would bring the whole OS upgrade to about $170 ($120 for OSX and then another $50 for the upgrade). How much would YOU pay?
posted by TNLNYC at 3:13 PM on July 17, 2002

TNLNYC: There were a few of the new applications which Steve mentioned work only under Jaguar. Seems like they're eventually going to squeeze out users with older versions of the OS.
One of the many times during his speech during which I muttered, "How very Microsoft."
posted by Su at 4:23 PM on July 17, 2002

Just what I was thinking, Su.

I was on the crosstown bus on 42nd Street today, and it was full of Macworld attendees heading back to their hotels and such for the day. Everyone was buzzing and griping about all the bad decisions they thought Apple made and how much they hated Jobs. They spotted my iPod and pulled me into the conversation, asking me what I thought about my 5 gig iPod being "obsolete". It was hilarious. Funnier since most of them had big, red Iomega buttons pinned to them that read "I'm Ready to Party!"
posted by evanizer at 5:00 PM on July 17, 2002

this confuses me: the new search bar in finder windows. has apple finally gotten a clue and decided to integrate search outside sherlock, or does the searching invoke sherlock? c'ause sherlock blows. slow, clunky, and ugly.

also, i can't find anything anywhere that says that my up-to-date coupons from my last os upgrade can't be used, so i'm gonna try it. but if they do try and charge full price on an OS whose biggest selling point is fixes to the current OS, which was marketed as a work in progress...you can bet i'll be hitting the newsgroups for a full version. there's no way i'll be punished for being an early adopter.
posted by patricking at 5:29 PM on July 17, 2002

i don't think that search invokes sherlock, i's my impression that the normal searches will be in the window now, and sherlock will be for big searches on the internet, or for watson-like services
posted by rhyax at 6:30 PM on July 17, 2002

I'm counting on the Up-To-Date coupons myself. I had forgotten I even had them. They ought to be good for something.

If that doesn't work, I'll pay the edu price. $69 actually seems like a reasonable price. $129 sounds too high.

And the .mac thing -- don't get me started. I *have* e-mail and web space here on our own server. I am not willing to pay $100/year (which is less than $10/month -- maybe he should have put it that way since it would sound better) for the other features, at this point. I barely use iTools, but it was sure nice having them available on occasion. *sigh*
posted by litlnemo at 7:07 PM on July 17, 2002

Are all you folks who are planning on picking up the upgrade at the education price students or do you have some retailer that takes your word on it?
posted by timeistight at 9:18 AM on July 18, 2002

They also give it to you if you are employed in education.
posted by mblandi at 10:36 PM on July 24, 2002

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