“As Apple Computer Inc.’s eye-catching iMac G5 PC began appearing in late September, Mac lovers were buzzing about how much the machine resembles a certain portable music player. A canny move by the folks at Apple, no doubt,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek. “But the question remains: Will the new iMac duplicate the iPod’s megahit success and revive Apple’s waning fortunes in the cutthroat PC business?”
“Why the sudden bullishness about the Mac? Part of it is the iPod halo effect. Many of the iPod’s 3.7 million buyers had never before owned an Apple product. Ever attuned to tech fashions, Jobs is doing his best to turn that familiarity into PC sales. The tag line for the new iMac is ‘From the makers of iPod,’ and insiders hint that a new ad campaign may focus on the products’ similar aesthetics. ‘It may be a stretch to get the iPod generation to embrace the Mac,’ says Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst John Roy. ‘But they might consider it,'” Burrows reports.
“That might bring more shoppers into one of Apple’s 86 stores, where business is already brisk. Piper Jaffray says fourth-quarter retail sales could hit $420 million — up 54% from last year,” Burrows reports. “Apple has other advantages that could come into play in the next few years. So far, its operating system has proved relatively immune to the hacker attacks plaguing Windows. What’s more, Microsoft Corp. has delayed the debut of the next Windows upgrade until 2006 — handing Apple a golden opportunity to extend its innovation lead. Apple will roll out a new version of its OS early next year that will include point-and-click videoconferencing and a search feature called Spotlight that makes it easier to find data on a PC… Apple’s future looks surprisingly bright.”
Full article here.
Er, where’s the MDN take saying that there’s nothing surprising about it at all ?
MDN’s take is that there is nothing more to add… When MDN is speechless.. you know Apple is getting good press..
Actually check out Internet Nexus.. Thurrott has really softened on the Mac these days.. I guess he tried out a G5 (after a RAM upgrade) and really liked it
“So far, its operating system has proved relatively immune to the hacker attacks plaguing Windows.”
Forgive me for my ignorance–or just plain old good luck–but what hacker attackers is he talking about? My OS X Macs are online 24/7 with only native firewall protection (in 10.3.5), and I’ve never been “hacked.” In fact, I know of no one who HAS!
Perhaps you all can enlighten me.
Oh my God Kerry destroyed Bush last night in the debates! and yeah, Apple’s future is bright!
Kerry didn’t destroy Bush, but Bush didn’t wipe out Kerry either. At best, we’re looking at a draw, and a disappointing one at that. The Debate was boring and didn’t clear up anything, in my opinion. I believe the next debate will be better, but I won’t call it yet.
AS for Apple’s future, yes, it is looking much brighter. My co-worker was originally picking on me for being such a Mac-head, but then came over and told me he’s looking at getting a Dual G5. All this after he had a chance to mess around with a 4G iPod. I wasn’t 100% sure about the iPod Halo Effect until then. After a discussion with some more of my fellow employees, several of them admitted that their next computer could or world be a Mac. A couple said it was solely for the Security reason, but one of them said it was because I seemed happy with mine.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> Almost all of them wanted either a Powerbook or iBook.
Yeah…”relatively immune”? That’s like saying the Atlantic Ocean is “damp”.
In reply to DakRoland;
Kerry didn’t have to destroy Bush, your stupid president did it himself, babbling, bobling, blinking fool. His body reaction was terrible and he couldn’t answer any of the questions. He was on the defensive the whole night. Anyway that’s for another forum.
To melanie;
I almost choked on ur comment thx for the laugh!! lol, lol
Well I hope the future does get even brighter for Apple, I’m happie it looks this good
So many weasel words.
…Apple’s waning fortunes…
…could help the company find modest market share gains that could have an outsize impact…
…”It may be a stretch to get the iPod generation to embrace the Mac,” says Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER ) analyst John Roy. “But they might consider it.”…
…its operating system has proved relatively immune…
…high-priced strategy…
…future looks surprisingly bright…
Waning. May. Might. Relatively (relatively? how about ‘absolutely’). High-Priced. Surprisingly.
A negative article, no holds barred, as bad as any from the “beleaguered” era. No doubt written by the Advanced Propaganda Department at Microsoft, and given to Mr. Burrows so that he could have a well-deserved long weekend. No Macs for readers of Business Week. Mission accomplished.
Mike
Funny. I was just learning about subjective and objective writing (biased and neutral) in Freshman Comp. This is definintely a subjective article, any way you look at it.
Apple needs to deliver. Hey Steve, do you hear that ? DELIVER, SHIP, SEND, you name it. I have an iPod ordered in July and a Powerbook ordered in August, through the Swiss apple store, and there are no news about them. No deliver dates, no mails apologizing or promising a deliver date, nothing at all.
Mike, unfortunately that’s how people make their decisions. They listen to the slanders in between the phrases and base their decisions on it. Just look at Fox news. It’s sad.
BTW, I’m not saying that there _should_ be an MDN take, just that oversensetivity sometimes latches on to some innocuous phrase like ‘Apple’s future looks surprisingly bright’.
G-Spank:
Yes, I know. Therefore the sentence “Mission accomplished.”
Hywel:
I guess I stood in for the MDN take. I don’t think it is over-sensitivity. I think it is brilliant propaganda. Works every time, too.
Mike
Bush is a terrible speaker. They guy always looks like a deer in the headlights.
Repeats himself to much.
And really needs to get some sun- jeese. Did you see Kerry’s nice even tan? wow. Makes Bush look like he idoors working all day long.
Too bad for Kerry that despite winning the debate, he gained nothing in the polls. He was just preaching to the choir as those who supported Kerry before hand still do and the same goes for Bush. Plus the post debate polls still show Kerry losing to Bush on all the major issues including Iraq.
As for Apple, they got some nice pub thanks to FOX News.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
http://www.foxnews.com/photo_essay/0,3927,168:8,00.html
I’m sorry but CBS News is the only one I see slinging slander all over the place. Did you happen to miss out on the Rather scandal or something? I haven’t seen FOX basing stories on phony docs, whereas CBS has done it twice in the last month.
OK I got my G5. Love it. But I’d like to See BASIC come with every computer. I’d also like to see Apple come back out with a box. I can get a gamecube for $69 used. $99 new. And what about the new systems? Xbox2 gamecube2, and playstation3 ? If Nintendo had a G5 in the cube then what? Mostly, what I want to do is: edit DV, and program in BASIC. Now of course, that could be done for less money. Are there people out there that remember Atari and Commodore? For $200 you used to be able to buy a computer that would hook-up to a TV, monitor optional- Where’s the HOME COMPUTER AT? And what will Apple Do? Ya can’t really do much more all in one thing. The computer is the screen! I think (hope) Apple will come out with a box, and use airport to transmit to a screen hung on the wall.
As a complete outsider, I don’t know these things. Apart from Kerry’s obvious talent for marrying rich women, what else is he good at?
Is he just the lesser of 2 evils or does he have some talent? At least you know where Bush will stand on any given subject. Kerry seems to say anything it takes to get into power. He scares me a lot more than Bush does.
This should sober up our Libbie friends that think Kerry gets any kind of a bounce from last night. Kerry may have narrowly won the battle, but he’s badly losing the war.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-09-30-debate-poll.htm
The Bush supporters are calling the debate a draw…. Did they see the same debate everyone else did ?
Republican Ron Reagan said afterwards… “Bush had 35 minutes worth of material, for a 90 minute debate !”…
After he went through his material… Bush stumbled, bumbled… and generally looked dumbfounded….
Yeah… Bush is a real leader, isnt he ?
Too bad more republicans cant see that…
Oh yeah…. on the subj of Apple… we all knew the future is bright…. wheres my sunglasses ?
Like him, hate him, or go into psychopathic spitting hysterics over him, Bush is a leader. He’s just not a talker. If you don’t think that’s possible, you should look into Jean Chretien, who ruled Canada with an unbreakable grip for 10 years (until his retirement last fall). He couldn’t string four words together in either of our official languages, but anyone who thought he was stupid quickly found his gonads nailed to the wall.
Bush is an intelligent man, a dangerous opponent, and a truly horrible public speaker. And yes, it is perfectly possible for those attributes to be combined in one person. Nobody knows it better than us Canadians.
Now, then: The BusinessWeek article is a mildly positive puff piece, just what I would expect from that publication, not noticeably more or less biased than usual. It does point out that Apple remains profitable by staying aloof from the price wars everyone else is trying to fight (and only Dell can win). That’s good news for investors, whatever it may mean for Apple’s customer base and market share. Since investors, not users, are supposed to be BusinessWeek’s target audience, that’s a significant piece of reporting, and an angle that doesn’t get nearly enough coverage.
I do wish that when Burrows talked about ‘a $1300 Cadillac in a world dominated by $700 Chevys’, he had made some mention of how much money you have to spend upgrading those Chevys to make them decently usable. Wintel’s biggest advantage is with the PC gaming crowd, but you know, I know, and the birds in the trees know that those gamers aren’t buying their machines for any $700. And everywhere that Apple competes head to head against Wintel PCs, they come out at least even on price/performance ratio.
I can’t wait until Bush wins this election and over the next four years the US loses more jobs, more wars are waged, more terrorist strikes occur, more civil liberties are trashed, the USA gets even more divisive, (feelings of civil war begin to occur), and everything goes pretty much to shit. Why? Because I want to watch these die hard idiots and sheep who are in denial continue to stick with a sinking ship and a lousy captain. It is my assessment that they would rather shoot a fellow American than admit a mistake.
As for the Pro Bushies who think, they are being patriotic. How patriotic is it to have an off shore account to avoid paying taxes? I’d say not very. Not only does Haliburton do this, but they also shit on every soldier in Iraq. How? They don’t hire Iraqi’s to do the menial labour, they bring in Philipinos becasue they are cheaper! Not only does this go against every reason we are there, but in a country where there’s an approximately 30% unemployment rate. What do people without jobs do? They become insurgents, that’s what they do. If you defend this (and you do if you support Bush) then you also support making the job much harder for our troops, and you support making Iraq a more dangerous place than it has to be. That is something you have to sleep with.
Dakroland,
You are blind, deaf and dumb.
And I don’t mean mute!
Anyone would could look at that debate and say it’s a draw has worse than a Republican reality distortion field. You are in serious need of a brain transplant!
Regardless of who you are going to vote for, or even agree with. If you can’t see Kerry soundly trounced Bush, then you have serious truth issues.
Wow, the republicans have found a place where they think only idiots who can’t think for themselves hang out. How else could they seriously say such ludicrous, completelty contrary to reality, things?
It boggles the mind they can admire that smarmy, fould-mouthed, draft-dodging, loser of a president and denigrate a war hero who has flaws, but at least he’s willing to admit it. Kerry has more brains in his little finger than Bush has in his whole body! The only reason brains can be attributed to him is because when you marry two become one.