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from the have-you-tried-programming-on-a-tablet? dept.
Christopher Mims writes at the WSJ that Apple like all ambitious companies occasionally strays from its focus. According to Mims the iPhone is just coming into its prime, the iPad is an immature platform and the iWatch is in its infancy, yet Apple continues to invest in one-of-a-kind feats of engineering like the Mac Pro, which ships in volumes that are a rounding error on pretty much everything else Apple makes. "Something's got to give," writes Mims. "Showpieces like iMacs with screens that have more pixels than any PC ever (and four times the average selling price of a PC) are impressive, but what is Apple trying to prove? Is it really a good idea for Apple to continue to put resources against being king of a last-century technology?"
According to Mims the world's best tech companies can be the best at two things at once, maybe three and even a company as mighty as Apple gets to be the best at only a handful of things. "In a world in which the cloud is increasingly the hub of everything individuals and businesses do, and our mobile devices its primary avatar, what on Earth is Apple doing running victory laps around a dying PC industry? Personally, I'd rather see Apple push the envelope on what's next."
takyon: Paywall buster.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @03:37PM
I had my first experience with a Mac in college in 1987, got my own PC in 1990 but went DOS (DR-DOS) because I wanted a color screen for games. I actually liked GEO-Works for its word processor. During grad school I used Windows 3.1 on an early-ish laptop (486-sx with 16 shades of gray and a clip on trackball which I actually liked a lot). My first job after grad school was at a place which used Macs -- they sucked, were slow, crashed all the freakin time (late 90s, pre-OSX). At home I was still using 3.1 but was also struggling with Linux. By 2000 I was in a new job and using Windows there, not sure what (95, 98?), at home I got a new computer with Windows ME (!) but I was also getting proficient enough on Linux (Red Hat at the time) to be a dual booter. By 2003, I was 100% Linux. Then I got married in about 2005, and my wife wanted to be able to do a lot of the stuff Linux didn't do well, and I didn't really want Windows on my home network, so I got her an iBook. When I saw how awesome OSX was, I got myself a macbook. Then I switched over my whole small business to using macs on the frontend of things.
As for the quality of Apple hardware, I'm a cheapskate so I usually buy from the Apple's refurb store. I'm typing this out on a refurb machine I bought in 2009 for $1600ish. I have a new one I just bought (also refurb) for $1600 sitting here waiting for me to do a manual migration. The only reason I got the new computer was because Snow Leopard is end-of-lifed and Yosemite will murder this perfectly good but older laptop. Even so, this machine has only cost me $22.25 per month and I could sell it for $300 to 400 (which would bring that down to about $17.50/mo), and it has helped me earn tons of money. It is one the absolute least expensive things about my business, and at the same time, one of the most valuable tools. It is true that I could do my work on $300 windows laptop, but I'd probably have to replace that every two to three years -- roughly $10/mo. Doing that would save $7.50/mo over the cost of my mac. That's 1.5 lattes or one meal at McDonalds. It's such a small amount of money, it's irrelevant, and when compared to the hit or miss nature of cheap crappy laptops, which might be reliable or might not, going with a craptop is penny wise and pound foolish.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:37PM
Oh, yes! You have reminded me. I did use its word processor. It worked quite well. However, at that time I was out of school and therefore when I needed to write something I generally did it by hand or in a text editor. Incidentally, I still prefer to write things in longhand 25 years since that time.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:08PM
For whatever reason, I grip my pens or pencils like I'm trying to choke them to death. If couldn't have used a keyboard most my entire life, I'd have a totally useless writing hand by now.