Intel’s soon-to-be-released Pentium-powered computers with new ‘Grantsdale’ innards will boast updated capabilities. Along with more powerful video, audio and data-storage features, the next-generation PCs will be more Wi-Fi capable,” Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes for The St. Paul Pioneer Press.
“In essence, such PCs will double as Wi-Fi transceivers, potentially eliminating the need for standalone ‘access points’ that now serve as typical hubs of wireless-network activity in a home. Though a wave of Grantsdale-capable PCs is expected in coming weeks, Intel says the wireless feature won’t take hold until later this year because a required add-on component won’t be widely deployed until then. ‘This delay is another major stumble for Intel, which came late to the Wi-Fi party with Centrino,’ said Glenn Fleishman on the Wi-Fi Networking News weblog,” Ojeda-Zapata writes.
“Still, the implications for home Wi-Fi use are profound. Macintosh users already are able to turn their computers into ‘soft’ access points with a few mouse clicks, allowing any other Wi-Fi capable Mac or Windows computer within range to get on the Internet or swap files at high speeds. Standalone access points won’t go away. In fact, Apple Computer is getting attention for its soon-to-be-released AirPort Express device, a miniaturized access point that plugs directly into an electrical outlet instead of taking up space on a desk or shelf,” Ojeda-Zapata writes.
“In addition to linking up Macs and PCs, the AirPort Express device will add a home stereo to a Wi-Fi network. Digital music stored on a computer can then be transmitted over the wireless network and played on the stereo’s speakers,” Ojeda-Zapata writes. “‘The Apple product is phenomenally useful,’ said said Chris Shipley, organizer of the influential DEMO technology conferences.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve been using Wi-Fi since July 1999, thanks to Apple’s Airport. Or for just about five years now. Today, we still meet Windows users who are utterly amazed at the technology that we have grown so used to that we don’t even think about it. As we’ve been known to write, “Apple leads. Wintel follows. As usual.
Great article. yea i can relate to winbloze users who are are amazed each time i pop open my Ibook (1GhZ!!) and just hop on a wireless network. I guess i take this feauture for granted sometimes as well…Thanks apple
still you have to ask why the great unwashed don’t “get” apple… and why apple don’t get a new marketing department
The leadership and cutting edge technology will allow Intel and Microsoft the tools to bring wireless networking to the masses.
This is a awesome and amazing; life in the year 2004…
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The leadership and cutting edge technology…
Provided for by the inspiration of the creative minds at Apple Computer!
I can’t wait til the WWDC later this month. It will be like a time machine for windozers. They will be able to see what things will be like for them in 2009.
>to see what things will be like for them in 2009
LOL
Sorry there were a couple of typos in the earlier post. It should read:
“The leadership and cutting edge technology will allow Apple the tools to bring wireless networking to the forward-thinking.
This is a awesome and amazing; life in the year 2002…”
This will set off a whole new round of security concerns. While home users love WiFi, many businesses are leery about it, and US Govt won’t use it all. Potentially the largest spenders in the PC market (buisiness) won’t even touch this technology for quite some time. With all of the lovely holes in Windows security, I’m not sure if I’d want this in my home or not either….
Security concerns for PC users, yeah, but more free access points for Mac users with Airport cards! I have yet to find an un-protected Airport Base Station access point – but hoo-boy – the number of linksys and other routers out there just begging to be jumped on will only increase now. Hopefully Intel will FORCE the user to set a WEP password upon installation, but it doesn’t seem all that likely at this point.
I just read the article, and it ends with a comment from Enderle – argh, I hate the way he has his fingers in the pie! It made an otherwise good article, rather ordinary.
quote “This will set off a whole new round of security concerns. While home users love WiFi, many businesses are leery about it, and US Govt won’t use it all. Potentially the largest spenders in the PC market (buisiness) won’t even touch this technology for quite some time. With all of the lovely holes in Windows security, I’m not sure if I’d want this in my home or not either….
Well ‘BAGGSS’ – If you used a mac this wouldn’t concern you!!
As Macs come with a built-in firewall and if you use an airport extreme basestation that comes with a firewall too – also if you use DEMON for broadband access, like me, then that comes with a firewall and is wireless broadband with a fixed IP address – so now one can access your wireless broadband connection!!
God I love MACS – SO SECURE, VIRUS FREE, EASY TO USE, CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY, MARKET LEADERS IN NEW IDEAS AND THEY NEVER CRASH!!
I you use windows your one hell of a sucker and i feel sorry for you!
If you want to lead buy a mac – if you want to follow buy a crap windows pc.
I know which OS I will never use again!
To give you an example of the time machine, the newspaper I work on in Long Beach has some old PC’s that reporters use to write stories at their desk. We’ve had internet on our local network for a couple of years but can’t hook it up to the older windows PC’s. We in the photo department have not only had internet for a couple of years, it’s wireless!
When the owner of the newspaper was in town a few months ago the reporters hung signs on their PC stating “we want internet” (true story)
They are slowly replacing the PC’s now. Yes the new ones work on the internet but so did the Mac’s that were purchased before the old PC’s.
No matter how advanced wi-fi PC’s get, it won’t work flawlessly like on Apples unless Windows improves… and that’s the truth and the reason behind sluggish PC wireless performance.
Yes, Macs have had wireless much longer than Wintel machines (either built in or at least the capability to add an internal card built in).
Yes, Macs have had 801.11g much longer than Wintel machines (either built in or at least the capability to add an internal card built in).
Yes, Macs work seemlessly with Airport and Airport Extreme base stations.
Yes, it is much easier to secure a Mac and Airport based wireless system (ever notice how easy it is to restrict access based upon the Media Access Controller [MAC] address of a particular computer so that only specific computers have any chance at all to access your WiFi network? It is much more difficult to do this on a Wintel/non-Apple system.)
All these things, and more, are true.
However, walk through any major airport terminal, watch TV or read major magazines today. What do you see? Adds by Intel (and to a lesser extent, Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc.) all loudly proclaiming their wireless capabilities.
Thus who does 90+% of the world think of when they think of wireless and wireless innovations?
Definitely not Macintosh and definitely not Apple.
This is just one more case out of literally thousands of such cases over the past 20+ years that Apple has blown it in marketing.
Yes, the lack Apple of advertisments in public, media (tabloids) or TV is a mayor drawback. You see advertisments in magazines for the professional, but the mayority is unaware of the qualities of a Macintosh computer. Sad thing this is. Wake up Apple!!!
I get kind of sick of reading about how Apple has blown it in the marketing department. Is anyone on this board a marketer? I have a degree in advertising, marketing’s little brother, and I can tell you that both are extremely scientific fields. This is not a case of someone saying “We need name recognition” and then popping up an ad that says “Mac and WiFi: We got it!” You determine your audience, or the audience you’d like to draw in. You determine where they are, what they do, what they are like. You develop a message based on something, whether that is a peice of exceptional software (iLife) or a product (iPod) or a service (.Mac). Now, in an ideal world, no one that visits this board would ever see an Apple commercial. Why? Y’all already love them, and it is a wasted spot. Sure, you might like to know about their new products, but the people on this board know about them well before they are out. An ad on TV or at the airport is probably not going to affect your decision to buy (marketing), and it definitely isn’t going to raise your brand awareness (advertising).
Not to mention that neither makreting nor advertising is a magic bullet. Trust me, Apple has market research to back up all of their decisions to run or not run advertisments. And while that market research may be slightly off-base (nothing is 100%), it is leaps and bounds better than someone saying “We need airport ads in an Airport” without knowing if anyone there cares or how successful those ads are.
So, in conclusion, stop with the Apple sucks at marketing BS. Unserstand that the feild is complicated and expensive and completely worthless if it isn’t done right.
nz, I completely disagree with your bottom line that all of us need to “stop with the Apple sucks at marketing BS”.
I agree that marketing is much more than carelessly throwing up billboards, TV ads or magazine ads.
However, I can talk to 1,000 business travelers in any major airport on any given day and the vast majority of them will know that the Wintel world has wireless. A larger majority will not know that Apple has wireless standard on its business portables while Wintel does not. I would even wager a hefty sum that a majority of those same business travelers would not even know (though many might guess) that Apple even has wireless at all.
This is called “Mind Share”. Apple’s marketing/advertising appears to have given up on mind share. The average business person out there today has no idea what Macintosh can do. Apple’s marketing/advertising departments appear not to care that in the minds of over 50% of the business people out there Apple is technologically a step (or two or three) behind the Wintel world.
There are even senior business travelers out there who work for “technology companies” who believe Intel invented wireless because of the pervasiveness of the Centrino and Intel wireless ads. I’ve spoken with several of them.
And don’t say the business world is not Apple’s market. Who controls the budgets for “creative groups” in these companies? The business people. The creative people have to continuously fight to keep their Macs and to get new Macs. Why? Because the business people don’t know of the advantages. Thus the continuous internal struggle to keep Macs.
While I wish it were not true, Apple’s quartely market share (share of personal computers sold worldwide each quarter) has been either flat or dwindling over the last 5 years. I place at least 75% of the blame for this squarely on the marketing/advertising departments at Apple.
shadowself –
that becomes my bottom line because everything you’ve just said is 100% known by Apple’s marketing department. And when I say known, it is the random statistics that you made up. “Average Business Person” “50% of the Business People” – These numbers may be what you believe and what you see, but that does not mean they are right. There is market research to back up whatever the actual figures are, and you can bet your last pair of undies that Apple knows them and Steve can rattle them off.
As far as the rest of your post, I don’t disagree, except to say that you cannot claim to have the perfect clarity to understand Apple’s marketing strategy. It is entirely possible that Steve hates advertising and has decided that all extra money should go to the iPod, in which case I agree with you all that they need a new advertising direction. But, as you say, there are often markets that must be targetted even as non-users. Think Jello – typically a kid snack, but something that needs to be targetted at the person that does the shopping (Mom or Dad). That is not arguable. What is arguable is if an ad for WiFi equipped PowerBooks in an airport is going to convince a CEO to let their graphics department buy a new G5. There are ways to know this, and I am sure that Apple understands the cost / benefit ratio of every ad they run (and don’t).
As for market share, I hav eyet to find anyone that can explain it to me. Is that PC in use? What is use and hour a day, once a week. Or is it PCs sold, regardless of their current use?
Anyway, I just think people have this impression not only of advertising as a magic bullet that will instantly sway people towards a particular cause, but also as something that you just do, not something technical and scientific. Calling for a new ad becuase you think it would be cool almost means that Apple shouldn’t run it. You are at this site. You love this company. Showing you and ad is waste.
Feel free to continue this if you’d like. It isn’t often I get to argue advertising
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nate