“The iPod family of digital music players has become seminal icons of consumer electronics, a status that Wall Street analysts believe has finally given Apple the means to preach beyond its small but fanatic customer base of Macintosh computer loyalists,” Benny Evangelista reports for The San Francisco Chronicle. “‘What’s interesting here is that the phenomenon of the iPod has really brought a lot of people into the Apple world,’ said Darcy Travlos, a senior vice president and mobile multimedia technology analyst for Caris & Co. of New York. ‘With people having experience using Apple (iTunes) software and going out into the retail stores and seeing the iMacs and PowerBooks, more people are becoming aware of the capabilities of Apple products. The iPod was really the item that got people to notice Apple again.'”
“When adjusted for stock splits and dividends over the 20 years the company has been publicly traded, Apple’s stock hit an all-time high of $72.10 in March 2000, just before the Internet bubble burst. With Apple approaching that all-time high, how much higher can it go? The run-up in the past two weeks was triggered by a bullish report by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who projected Apple’s stock would hit $100 per share sometime in the next 12 months… ‘There’s something different going on here,’ said Munster, who does not own any Apple shares. ‘What’s going on at Apple is based on reality,'” Evangelista reports.
“Apple hasn’t quantified the halo effect the iPod and the iTunes Music Store have on computer sales. However, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, has said between 40 and 50 percent of Macintosh computers sold in the stores are to first-time PC buyers or customers who are switching from Windows-based computers,” Evangelista reports. “A Piper Jaffray survey of 200 iPod users found that 7 percent were PC users who planned to buy a Mac within 12 months, while an additional 6 percent had already made the switch. Another 7 percent said they owned a Mac but planned to buy another.”
“Analysts who have been following the company say the halo effect should show up in Apple’s earnings for the current first quarter and into 2005…,” Evangelista reports. “Apple executives and the company’s ardent core of users have been able to preach only to the choir about how suitable Macintosh computers are as a digital entertainment hub, but the iPod is bringing in new customers who may not have even considered buying a Mac before, said Travlos of Caris & Co…. Apple has been hampered in the past by competitors that have sold computers that cost far less. Travlos said she believes the strong iPod sales are an indication that the consumer pendulum is swinging from cheap tech products to more high-quality technology… Nobody’s expecting Apple to suddenly displace giants like Dell at the top of the computer sales charts, but ‘if they can get up to 3 percent (market share), that would be huge,’ Travlos said.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Needham & Co reiterate ‘buy’ on Apple Computer, raise target price from $43 to $62 – November 24, 2004
Analyst: iPod ‘should spur sales of iMac, this is just the beginning of a ramp for Apple’ – November 23, 2004
Survey: 13% of iPod owners have switched, plan to switch to Mac from Windows within 12 months – November 22, 2004
PiperJaffray raises price target from $52 to $100 on Apple shares – November 22, 2004
Holy Halo Effect! Analyst predicts 100 million iPod sales by 2008 – Windows to Mac switchers coming? – November 24, 2004
“Apple iPod introducing Macintosh to new potential customers, may help Apple grow Mac market share”
Yawn… wake me up when this headline has changed the ‘may help’ to ‘has helped’.
DBS
“You missed doPi’s point dude, they know that the iPod does not record in stereo – that is why why they want a version that does GET IT? so that can record concerts in Stereo. It was a poll and the poll asked what would you like to see a new iPod do. Geeesh!”
I’ll admit that I did not read the poll, but I’ll reiterate what I said, you can no more record stereo with a single mic than you can built a time machine or a flying saucer out of popcycle sticks.
Recording in stereo requires at minimum 2 mics, and they have to be placed far enough appart to record sound differently.
Regardless, no handheld device the size of an iPod is going to have a mic worth beans. Good quality mics take power to drive them and they are not small. However, if you want to record a concert in mediocre quality right onto your iPod there are devices in the $25 – $30 range that you attach to it. Maybe that’s not ideal for some, but they do work rather decently. At least one of them even lets you plug in a higher quality external mic, too.
satori
“wake me up when this headline has changed the ‘may help’ to ‘has helped’.”
There’s evidence that it already has. At least we can point to the fact that unit sales year over year have grown at least 10%, and keep in mind the explosion in iPod sales is less than a year old, and most people take 2-3 years minimum to purchase new computers. So more on the way I’d say, but the real effect is maybe 1-3 years off. Until then, you can watch Mac sales numbers and any surveys done of iPod and new Mac customers.
Jack-O
As a matter of fact yes…Your problem is, you most likely bought (or know someone who bought) a POS from Dull and therefore had a bad user experience. Next time you need a PC, Come to me.
The fact is all of the manufactures dont test the machines they make thoroughly enough. There are a ton of configuration changes you can make to the OS, IE/OE in order to make it a stable and reliable/secure experience. The problem is and has been that MS and all of the manufacturers are so interested in your money that they havent given any thought what so ever to a age old problem. And thats Education. Most people just buy a machine and dont get educated. You have to take a driving course before you get a license right? The same principle applies here. I sell PC’s and administer networks for a living, along with those PC’s and the occasional Mac I provide at least an hour or two of the do’s and the dont’s of computing. If manufactutures would grasp this concept we would have a lot less people mangled with spyware and malware, etc… Have you noticed the change in the amount of virus infections over the past 1 1/2yr (it has dropped significantly)? The Malware, Spyware thing grew, but again that comes down to user interaction. I havent had a virus since 1995. The last time I got spyware was because my nefew was surfing the web and forgot to “Read before he clicked”. The problem still lyes within people…If you too lazy to read then dont buy a system at all. It applies to every OS.
Nomacforyou-O,
While I think there is much that is true in what you said I still find it very very hard to believe that not even one person you have set up with a computer has been adversely affected by malware.
You speak of education but if you read my posts I made it very clear I was talking about older non-technical users. Are you seriously trying to say that they don’t have a greater chance of making a mistake like your nephew on a windoze machine than on a Mac? Come on, get real!! There are tons and tons of nasty stuff out there specifically designed for Windows but zero for the Mac.
You are a power user and what seems simple and obvious to you will not (believe me) seem simple and obvious to an OLDER, NON-TECHNICAL user. They are going to make mistakes and get into trouble. They will click when they should not (just like your nephew). If they were on a Mac there would be no harm done. Not so with Windoze.
This is not even going into how Macs very often take fewer steps to do the same thing than windows and are more intuitive and easier to understand for a beginner.
There are some positive points about windoze machines. Especially if you make your own (which you have to be a power user or at least pretty technically savvy to do usually) they can be a bit cheaper. Also there are more games for them.
Usually OLDER, NON-TECHNICAL users do not care about either of the above points. If you really are recommending and selling windoze computers to this category of user then I am certainly glad it is you and not me because I don’t think even extra strength, twenty mule team borax would help get your karma back to a reasonable shade.
Quit picking on old people, man. There is a much better computing solution for them that will be easier for them to use and guaranteed to not cause them grief with malware. It is called a Mac.
“It is called a Mac”
Older people cant afford Macs, Its that simple. And most of the “Older Crowd” dont make the mistakes you mentioned above as long as I spell it out and put it on paper for there reference later..
“This is not even going into how Macs very often take fewer steps to do the same thing than windows and are more intuitive and easier to understand for a beginner.”
How So..I use Macs And PC’s Extensively..I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY THIS. That is the biggest line of shit I hear among macheads. How about giving an example….Please, Id love to hear it…Both My Mac and my PC have good and bad qualities. But when it comes down to it…They do the same thing in the same amount of time…
OK. I am not going to spend much more time feeding the troll so I will just cut and paste a few things for you.
http://corourke.customer.netspace.net.au/Mac/ease_examples.html
Real everyday examples showing how
Macs are easier to use than Windows PCs
Contents of this page
Checking your modem’s performance
Connecting a digital video camera
File sharing
Quickly activating a screen saver.
Connecting an ISDN box from Telstra.
Adding an external hard disk
Changing the resolution of your monitor
Rename a Windows XP System Folder / Rename Your Computer
Networking between Windows 2000 and Windows95/98 and between MacOSX and Classic Mac OS8.6+
Getting a home network to work
Preventing items from opening when logging in
Burning a DVD
Unmounting a 1394 / Firewire external drive
Add a shortcut / alias to the task bar / dock
One step backup
One step backup AGAIN
change IP address
For OS X vs XP check out:
http://www.xvsxp.com/home.shtml
Unweighted Totals:
(out of a possible 1070 points, with 2 topics w/unfinished scores)
OS X: 751
Windows XP Pro: 696
Window XP Home: 656
0) not natively supported, solutions may be purchasable
1) not natively supported, but freeware/open source solutions are available
2) exceptionally poor support
3) poor support
4) below average support
5) average/acceptable support
6) slightly above average support
7) good support
8) very good support
9) exceptionally good support
10) Perfection – improvement is not possible
“This scoring method sucks!
You’re right, it does suck. The scores aren’t weighted (web server vulnerabilities have the same weight as icons), and the scores don’t take into account the fact that different people with different computing objectives will care more about different topics”
And:
From: http://www.applelinks.com/pm/more.php?id=1055_0_1_0_M
Check out virtually any installation and instruction manual for a product or software that supports both the Mac and Windows PCs, and you will invariably find that the Windows sections are longer and vastly more complex. And a concrete example, the manual for the Concord Eye-Q 3040 AF digital camera I reviewed for Applelinks a few weeks ago contains 12 pages (out of a total 52) on installing and using Windows support software that the Mac user can blithely skip over. The correspondent Mac instructions are essentially just to plug in a USB cable, connect the camera, and the Mac OS will download your pictures. It works perfectly too — in both OS 9 and OS X.
From: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-23642.html
Just to make one simple comparison. What key combination do you use to find something in the applications you run on your PC? Alt-e f? control-f, F4, oops- gotta use the mouse? On the Mac, all applications use the same keystrokes to implement the find function. Once you’ve learned it once, you know it everywhere. This standardization applies over and over on the Mac. It does not exist in the PC world.
Install a scanner? Great. On my Mac, I plug it in and go. On my PC, I have to find the correct rev of the driver software on some website that works with my combination of hardware, drivers, SP revision, and hope that I don’t overwrite someone elses DLL or driver and disable my wireless ethernet card…
Thats a pretty old comparison. And you might want to look again..Even I wouldn’t compare ME or 98 to OSX, thats really not a fair comparison as OS X Smokes these in all areas..And as far as the OS X vs XP comparison. Its a little old as well.
—it sayes—-
“Furthermore, this shootout only considers components that either come with the OS or are supplied for free by the OS manufacturer. I think it’s fair to say that everybody loads up his or her computer with commercial, shareware, and freeware apps that extend the computer’s basic functionality. I wouldn’t be so bold as to try to compare X vs. XP in terms of every possible combination of software on the market. So take this shootout with a heavy grain of salt”
When was the last time you used a PC Jack?
“On the Mac, all applications use the same keystrokes to implement the find function. Once you’ve learned it once, you know it everywhere. This standardization applies over and over on the Mac. It does not exist in the PC world.”
It does exist on the PC..Infact that very function Win+F Finds anything in any app or doc.
And actually if you look at apps made by any major vendor. The shortcut keys are all made the same..Some such as Adobe CS…The shortcuts are the same cross platform.
Im not telling you that OSX is a POS, Im just saying that comparing my windows boxes to the FUD that is spewed out of the mouths of trolls doesn’t translate to the way I’ve seen Windows behave. Lockups, Viruses, Adware and so on are all by-products of users who are just plain lazy. You dont get these if your just surfing the web. You even have to maintain OSX to some degree.
I do find your points interesting and I respect your opinion but jeez man, you need to use Windows before you dog it.
“Install a scanner? Great. On my Mac, I plug it in and go. On my PC, I have to find the correct rev of the driver software on some website that works with my combination of hardware, drivers, SP revision, and hope that I don’t overwrite someone elses DLL or driver and disable my wireless ethernet card…”
Please, are you still on 98 or something?
Nuff Said…Prost!
Those were cut and pastes. Some of it was a bit dated, some not. I had to use a windows laptop for work for a while until I could get my Tibook. Windows has come a long way in trying to be more Mac-like but still doesn’t make it. I have not had to use windows for a couple of years now though so please tell me if the following is current. It addresses XP so should be pretty up to date
You tell me which of these you think a 78 year old user would have an easier time remembering how to do:
(again this is a cut an paste from http://corourke.customer.netspace.net.au/Mac/ease_examples.html#1394 )
“Unmounting a 1394 / Firewire external drive
on Windows Me/2000/XP
Right click the green arrow icon on the system tray
Select Remove/Reject devices
Highlight the drive in the dialogue box
Click on Stop
Choose the 1394 external drive that you want to disconnect,
Click on Stop again on the next screen
Wait for the prompt “You may safely remove this device” and unplug the drive
7 steps on Windows
On a Mac:
Drag the drive’s icon to the trash
(or Cmd-Y in Classic, or Cmd-E in OSX)
Unplug the drive
2 steps on a Mac”
ALSO:
“Add a shortcut / alias to the task bar / dock
on Windows Me/2000/XP
1) Right-click on Taskbar
2) Choose New Toolbar…
3) Select drive or folder (or Network volume, Internet Address, etc., etc.)
4) Click OK
4 steps on Windows
On a Mac
1) Locate the icon / folder you want
2) Drag it to the�right side of the dock
2 steps on a Mac”
You dont have to use this “safety feature” in XP to remove a device. The only reason it is there is to keep you from loosing the data while its being written. I always just plug it in, use it, then unplug…No dragging to trash, Its actually easier than the mac. You can also make a simple change to the registry so it doesnt even show safely remove hardware.
On the Taskbar, Quicklaunch or the startmenu, you drag and drop the icon you want. You can also right click an executable and select “Pin to Start Menu”.. Its that simple.
Here is one. If you right click on the task bar, then go to toolbars > Address Bar, It will put the run (instead of using command) textbox right there on the taskbar.
That way, you can type a url, launch an App, file, or run any command. That I think is one of the most valuable features in XP/2k.
Need to launch photoshop? just type photoshop, want to veiw a folder, just type the folder name in…need the command prompt type “cmd”.
Another feature I enjoy is Compatability Mode. This allows you to run your older 95/98/DOS apps out of the box. Unlike running Classic under X where it taxes the system.
There is also one thing thing hardly knowone knows about, probably because most are afraid of the registry and MS doesnt turn this on by default. But it allows for verbose loggin on unsecured communication, untrusted applications and buffer overflow/underun attacks (DoS Attacks) it can also stop most viruses in their tracks and alert an admin or the user of malicious behavior in any App.
Its called IOCTL_HAL_GETREGSECUREKEYS. Here is an example of a script to make this happen. I know the average user wouldn’t do this, but when I build a machine this is just one of the many hacks we make to increase security on XP.
case IOCTL_HAL_GETREGSECUREKEYS: {
RegSecureKey OEMSecNames[] = {
// Protect HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Name and all of its values/subkeys
{ REGSEC_HKLM, 4, L”Name” },
// Protect HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\OtherName and
// Protect HKEY_CURRENT_USER\OtherName and all of their values/subkeys
{ REGSEC_HKLM | REGSEC_HKCU, 9, L”OtherName” },
};
RegSecureKeyList OEMSecList = {
sizeof(OEMSecNames) / sizeof(RegSecureKey),
OEMSecNames,
};
DWORD dwName;
// First call: return the required buffer size
// lpInBuf unused, should be NULL
// nInBufSize unused, should be 0
// lpOutBuf pointer to a DWORD buffer size
// nOutBufSize sizeof(DWORD)
if (!lpInBuf && !nInBufSize && lpOutBuf && (nOutBufSize == sizeof(DWORD))) {
DWORD dwBufSize;
dwBufSize = sizeof(OEMSecList) + sizeof(OEMSecNames);
// size of structs without names
for (dwName = 0; dwName < OEMSecList.dwNumKeys; dwName++) {
dwBufSize += OEMSecNames[dwName].wLen * sizeof(WCHAR);
// no nulls
}
*((DWORD*)lpOutBuf) = dwBufSize;
retval = TRUE;
// Second call: fill the provided buffer
// lpInBuf unused, should be NULL
// nInBufSize unused, should be 0
// lpOutBuf pointer to the buffer to be filled
// nOutBufSize buffer size, should be the same as returned on first call
} else if (!lpInBuf && !nInBufSize && lpOutBuf
&& (nOutBufSize > sizeof(OEMSecList) + sizeof(OEMSecNames))) {
RegSecureKeyList *pKeys = (RegSecureKeyList*)lpOutBuf;
// pStr moves through the buffer as strings are written
LPBYTE pStr = (LPBYTE)lpOutBuf + sizeof(OEMSecList) + sizeof(OEMSecNames);
pKeys->dwNumKeys = OEMSecList.dwNumKeys;
pKeys->pList = (RegSecureKey*) ((LPBYTE)lpOutBuf + sizeof(OEMSecList));
for (dwName = 0; dwName < OEMSecList.dwNumKeys; dwName++) {
pKeys->pList[dwName].wRoots = OEMSecNames[dwName].wRoots;
pKeys->pList[dwName].wLen = OEMSecNames[dwName].wLen;
pKeys->pList[dwName].pName = (LPWSTR)pStr;
memcpy(pStr, (LPBYTE)OEMSecNames[dwName].pName,
OEMSecNames[dwName].wLen * sizeof(WCHAR));
pStr += OEMSecNames[dwName].wLen * sizeof(WCHAR);
}
retval = TRUE;
} else {
// Invalid args
DEBUGCHK(0);
}
This is primaryly why these users dont have issues, IF MS would actually turn these values on by default, we would have a safer world of windows boxes.
Peace.
OK, maybe if every 78 year old who buys a computer had you there looking out for them it would be OK for them to have a windows machine a save a few bucks. The fact is that they don’t and the Mac is easier to use and has less problems with malware (read zero at this point) right out of the box. It is more than worth it for them to get a machine that will be easier for them to use and understand and cause them less grief. So I guess we can pardon you from being summarily shot. Only 99% of the people who recommend older users buy a windows machine should be summarily shot.
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Thanks