Apple Computers: How do I Love Thee!

[3113]

Behold, the Macbook Air.

Announced a few days ago, it will be, when it arrives in stores in two weeks, the thinnest laptop on the market. 3lbs and 13.3 inches, and that's with an 80g harddrive, built in camera, full keyboard and screen! Keyboard lights up in the dark and the trackpad does all kinds of tricks thanks to what Apple learned from it's iPhone (i.e., you can draw thumb and finger apart on the trackpad and you'll get a closeup of whatever you're viewing on the screen).

Priced at $1800. I'm lusting for it, but I'm gonna need to wait, not only for money, but for the reviews. I'm guessing that the first generation will need time in the field to discover any undiscovered bugs or weaknesses. The 2nd or 3rd generation will likely be more on target. But oh, my. What a sweet, sweet laptop.

It's going to be the darling of business folk, I think, especially those who have to travel a lot.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yanno why I love it?

Because, for the first time, used G3 ibooks have dropped below $300, so I can maybe afford one...

*grumblegrumble*

 

[Liar]

I'll give it 3 months before LG has a PC with the same measurelemts, performance and similar slick design out. Almost a good as the real thing, and of course no Mac OS, but for half the price.

That's what they did then the Apple Powerbook hit the market.

 

[rgraham666]

This is why I like Apple Computers and Steve Jobs.

The bottom line is not their major goal. Their major goal is products. Really cool, really useful products.

It's why everyone steals from them. Why waste your time on R&D when Apple does it for you?

Not that it matters to people who use Apple products. We're far too in love with our Macs, iPhones and iPods. People in love don't give a rat's ass how much love costs, it's worth every penny.

 

[DesertPirate]

Behold, the Macbook Air.

Announced a few days ago, it will be, when it arrives in stores in two weeks, the thinnest laptop on the market. 3lbs and 13.3 inches, and that's with an 80g harddrive, built in camera, full keyboard and screen! Keyboard lights up in the dark and the trackpad does all kinds of tricks thanks to what Apple learned from it's iPhone (i.e., you can draw thumb and finger apart on the trackpad and you'll get a closeup of whatever you're viewing on the screen).

Priced at $1800. I'm lusting for it, but I'm gonna need to wait, not only for money, but for the reviews. I'm guessing that the first generation will need time in the field to discover any undiscovered bugs or weaknesses. The 2nd or 3rd generation will likely be more on target. But oh, my. What a sweet, sweet laptop.

It's going to be the darling of business folk, I think, especially those who have to travel a lot.

Everytime I get on a plane half the business types are still carrying ThinkPads
Lenovo has not screwed them up and you can still get new ones without "Vista"

 

[Katyusha]

Priced at $1800. I'm lusting for it, but I'm gonna need to wait, not only for money, but for the reviews. I'm guessing that the first generation will need time in the field to discover any undiscovered bugs or weaknesses. The 2nd or 3rd generation will likely be more on target. But oh, my. What a sweet, sweet laptop.

It's going to be the darling of business folk, I think, especially those who have to travel a lot.

I want one myself, but I'm like you. I need to save up some money for it and I would like to see what the initial reviews are before I drop $1800 on a new computer when my current Mac works just fine.

In the meantime...do you go to Apple's site and watch the ads?

 

[3113]

In the meantime...do you go to Apple's site and watch the ads?

LOL! I'm an unapologetic Mac Cultist. Love the ads.

 

[Katyusha]

This is why I like Apple Computers and Steve Jobs.

The bottom line is not their major goal. Their major goal is products. Really cool, really useful products.

It's why everyone steals from them. Why waste your time on R&D when Apple does it for you?

Not that it matters to people who use Apple products. We're far too in love with our Macs, iPhones and iPods. People in love don't give a rat's ass how much love costs, it's worth every penny.

Amen brotha!!

I'm a loyal Mac user...have stuck with Apple through thick and thin. My family's first computer was an Apple IIC and I think my dad still has his IIGS in the back of a closet somewhere. Ah yes...the lovely days of having to boot from a floppy, and screens that were so pixelated that they look blurry compared to today's monitors. I even had Macs during the dark ages of the nineties when PC's were the way to go.

I've been far too in love with Apple for far too long...I'll never stray. Hehehe

 

[Katyusha]

LOL! I'm an unapologetic Mac Cultist. Love the ads.

My husband has a PC and used to be an avid Mac hater. So he married me and now he swears his next computer will be a Mac.

Busily recruiting for the cause here, you know.

 

[Liar]

It's going to be the darling of business folk, I think, especially those who have to travel a lot.

People who really travel a lot, is going to be afraid of breaking it.

Justified fear or not, it looks as fragile as a Faberge egg.

Everytime I get on a plane half the business types are still carrying ThinkPads
Lenovo has not screwed them up and you can still get new ones without "Vista"

You know why? Because a Thinkpad can take anything. Sit on it, stomp on it, shoot at it, beat up hi-jackers with it, pour a can of Cherry Coke into it, call it Sheila and hump wildly it in the airport restroom... it will still start and work perfectly. I've had one that survived being run over by a minivan. After being deep frozen. The screen looked a little funky, but it was still readable. Even the dvd player worked perfectly.

 

[DesertPirate]

People who really travel a lot, is going to be afraid of breaking it.

Justified fear or not, it looks as fragile as a Faberge egg.
You know why? Because a Thinkpad can take anything. Sit on it, stomp on it, shoot at it, beat up hi-jackers with it, pour a can of Cherry Coke into it, call it Sheila and hump wildly it in the airport restroom... it will still start and work perfectly. I've had one that survived being run over by a minivan. After being deep frozen. The screen looked a little funky, but it was still readable. Even the dvd player worked perfectly.

I repaired one last year
It had been opened and closed so many times in 7 years it needed a new cable to the screen
They are, damn near bullitproof
Wake Forrest gave my daughter one last year as a frosh (T61)

 

[3113]

People who really travel a lot, is going to be afraid of breaking it.

Justified fear or not, it looks as fragile as a Faberge egg.

Which is why, I'm sure, a lot of them will wait to see if it's as fragile as it looks. I guarantee you there will be plenty of people who buy it as soon as it hits the shelves and they will "test" it and report on just how sturdy it is. And looks aside, it might not be that fragile...please do give Apple some credit. It would be stupid to make a laptop that is, indeed, fragile as a Faberge egg.

And if they aren't so fragile and the word gets out...? I know that the one thing I wish for when I travel is a way to keep my carry-on luggage as light and minimal as possible. I'd leap at a laptop that I could slip into a large purse or briefcase. Less for me to haul around and I get a backlit, full sized keyboard to boot

 

[DesertPirate]

I must stat that I am not knocking Apple in any way. They have better software than anything M$ has ever come up with
If Jobs was half the marketeer that Gates is we would never have heard of Windows

 

[Liar]

By the way, for an example of lightweight design gone horribly wrong, here's what I'm using at the moment.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e394/mi_liar/lifep.jpg

Not mine, just something I borrowed from work while I figure out what's wrong w my own 'puter.

It weighs 1 kg. It fits in my coat pocket. So far so good.

But sitting and working in front of it feels like a surreal joke. It's so small it went from cool to ridiculous.

 

[DesertPirate]

It would be stupid to make a laptop that is, indeed, fragile as a Faberge egg.

A shame Sony didn't read that before they did the Vaio
I'm afraid to touch one since they flex when picking them up
I swear you could squeeze one to hard and break it

 

[Stella_Omega]

This is why I like Apple Computers and Steve Jobs.

The bottom line is not their major goal. Their major goal is products. Really cool, really useful products.

It's why everyone steals from them. Why waste your time on R&D when Apple does it for you?

Not that it matters to people who use Apple products. We're far too in love with our Macs, iPhones and iPods. People in love don't give a rat's ass how much love costs, it's worth every penny.

Sony was the same way in the eighties. I brought Sony gear home from Japan in '84-- like nothing anyone had ever seen before; Pioneer, Mitsubishi, and everyone else were scrambling to keep up...

 

[SavannahMann]

I bought a Mac Mini to test it and see what it's about

I have since retired the laptop I was using. I even went and bought an iPod for me. The wife's iPhone was the first thing we got and I was impressed with this simple fact. It just worked. Nothing more than that really, it just freaking worked. Apparently I've been using PC type stuff for so long that I expect things NOT to work half the time.

So I'm a Mac guy now.

 

[rgraham666]

Actually I regard Gates success not a matter of marketing, but of blind luck.

I've still got the motherboard for my Apple II, #1871 off the production line. Got it just after Easter of 1977.

At that time, the attitude of professionals, both business and computer science, could best be summed up by what one computer science PhD said to me just before I got my computer. And I quote. "Eh. They're just toys. They'll never amount to anything."

When IBM released its PC, that attitude changed. "These must be real computers because IBM produces them," was the attitude now.

IBM PCs and their clones started selling wildly.

Gates just happened to create MS-DOS for PCs. It was marginally better than PC-DOS and quickly became the 'standard'.

Microsoft has been coasting on this bit f luck ever since.

But like the Big Three Automakers, their dominance is coming to an end. And for the same reasons.

 

[Liar]

I must stat that I am not knocking Apple in any way. They have better software than anything M$ has ever come up with
If Jobs was half the marketeer that Gates is we would never have heard of Windows

Thought for a moment you said 'marketer' there. Then I noticed the extra e.

Damn straight. If Gates hadn't tied a totally ninja deal with first IBM and then Compaq, and licensed instead of sold his software, nobody today would have known who he was. That's the two most genious moves in modern business. Made by the same man.

That's marketeering, and not marketing.

Windows is a not-sucky-but-mediocre system, with marketing that has done nothing to erase the blue-screen bad image it has gotten. In fact, that might be part of it's success over Mac. It's image is that of something that's flawed, a bit slow, and a bit silly at times. The village idiot of computing. Just like us. Whereas Apple producs are so superhumanly perfect and so cool you almost don't deserve them. I wonder if some people arean't a little bit intimidated by that. They're a fashion statement.

 

[TxRad]

Bill Gates didn't write DOS, he stole it like every other thing that he's needed.

Gates wasn't the first choice for writing DOS by the way. A guy that owned a company called Digital Research was the first choice but he was on vacation at the time. He later came out with his own version of DOS called DRDOS. Half the size of Gate's junk and had twice the features. Gates later made it so Windows wouldn't work with any version but his.

Just some trivial history.

 

[DesertPirate]

Bill Gates didn't write DOS, he stole it like every other thing that he's needed.

Gates wasn't the first choice for writing DOS by the way. A guy that owned a company called Digital Research was the first choice but he was on vacation at the time. He later came out with his own version of DOS called DRDOS. Half the size of Gate's junk and had twice the features. Gates later made it so Windows wouldn't work with any version but his.

Just some trivial history.

The biggest problem was the IBM attitude
The Hardware is important, the software is just an add on
Since it was under an IBM contract that Gates bought and added a few lines of code to DOS, the copyright should have belonged to IBM
They let Gates have it and the rest is ugly history
The whole M$ monopoly of mediocrity is IBMs fault

 

[Katyusha]

But like the Big Three Automakers, their dominance is coming to an end. And for the same reasons.

Yeah, they got good, they got cocky, and then they got stupid.

AOL's dominance experienced it's final death knell in early 2002 for those reasons as well.

 

[Katyusha]

Bill Gates didn't write DOS, he stole it like every other thing that he's needed.

Gates wasn't the first choice for writing DOS by the way. A guy that owned a company called Digital Research was the first choice but he was on vacation at the time. He later came out with his own version of DOS called DRDOS. Half the size of Gate's junk and had twice the features. Gates later made it so Windows wouldn't work with any version but his.

Just some trivial history.

Oh well there's a shock. Bill Gates made something that wouldn't work with anything but his own product. I'm totally bewildered here.

 

[sophia jane]

I'm still lusting after an Itouch. It's just not fair to add another Apple product to my lust list!

(I recently had a great experience with a repair at my local Apple store. I don't think I could ever switch back to pc after my last year with Apple. Great product, great support, and soo sooo much easier to use. I've had to use Vista lately and god, it's awful)

 

[The_Fool]

Fixed battery, external DVD, external ethernet, fixed memory. It is going to push the limits for commercial use, but is signalling the future for personal use.