“For everyone who knows me now this may come as a shock, but I was a bit of a nerd when I was in high school,” Ryan Vass writes for The Chicago Maroon (University of Chicago). “For some reason, in the winter of ninth grade, I decided that I wanted my boring PC to look like a Mac and I just became obsessed with fooling myself into thinking had a Mac. This was long before the Steve Jobs renaissance, the iPod, or even OS X. In fact, I suspect that this was some sort of rebellious urge to control and create my personal space.”
“I downloaded some program that changed the appearance of all of my desktop windows, and I configured them so that they would look and act like a Mac’s. I somehow changed my startup and signoff screen to look like the Apple ones, and I even configured the sounds so that I could hear that odd little ‘dripping’ sound that used to be on the old Macs. To a large extent, I succeeded, until the brilliant gray facade of the fake Macintosh began to crack, choking my sluggish Windows 98 machine with the sheer amount of crap I had loaded to hide the truth. The computer ended up completely shriveling to a slow death, until I had to format and reload everything. As I said, I was a bit of a nerd in high school,” Vass writes.
“That inexplicable urge I felt in high school to have an Apple seems to have spread virulently to pop culture in an entirely quantifiable way, to which Apple’s explosive fourth quarter profit reports attest,” Vass writes. “According to BusinessWeek, Macintosh computers currently trail the PC–based Gateway computers by 38,000 units. Gateway itself is the third-leading seller of PCs, trailing only HP and Dell… Macs experienced a 12 percent growth in sales during the third quarter (after its Intel release), a number which shot up to 56 percent growth in the fourth. Something must have happened before the fourth quarter.”
Vass writes, “In fact, shortly before the fourth quarter, which began July 1 and ended September 30, Apple released a piece of software that allows users to dual-boot Windows on their machines and run Windows programs. Thus, while the new Intel Macs had been released in February, the real gains weren’t seen until summer—after software was released allowing Mac users to run Windows programs. The significance of this piece of software cannot be underestimated. Previously, Apple computer sales were frustrated by Macs’ lack of compatibility with the rest of the world. Now, it seems, the final barrier to Apple world domination has been broken. Continued growth in computer sales, which comprise 45 percent of the company’s total revenue, will mean a steady stream of ridiculous quarterly reports like this one.”
Vass writes, “Apple’s brilliant campaign to convert PC–users by simply removing reasons not to buy their irresistibly well designed Macs will likely drive Apple to become the third-largest computer maker in the U.S. Couple that with another new video iPod release, and Jobs will only continue to shit in Bill Gates’s proverbial soup.”
Vass writes, “All of this goes to show that I wasn’t that far off during my excessively nerdy fall into Apple-lust in high school. Few companies operate by the same raw creativity and intelligence that Apple does—compare Apple’s recent history with Microsoft’s or Dell’s, and the contrast between wild growth and total stagnation is telling.”
More in the full article here.
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6 years ago no one would have thought any of this possible.
NOW THIS GUY GETS IT!
I love how he ended his article…
And yeah, I think Apple is gonna blow their own iPhone estimates out of the water..
“I should have seen this coming with the title of this article”
coming and coming and coming and coming and coming
As far as the soup goes, bon appétit Mr. Ballmer.
Does not compute… Warning Will Robinson, danger! Danger!
theloniousMac wrote “Like YOU idiots who think there will be an Apple phone. Well there won’t be.” and “Apple will never build a phone because they can’t make a better phone. They might create an attractive phone with a great user interface but guess what… people will still be walking around with it going “can you hear me now?” That’s not the Apple way. Unless they can control the user experience, as they do with OS X, they aren’t going to get into a market.”
I respectfully disagree (see you can disagree with someone without having to debase yourself by insulting the intelligence of everyone else). Apple may very well develop a phone because the rest of the industry is building poorly thought out and badly operating products. Between my wife and myself we have had quite a number of phones over the last few years and I haven’t liked one of them. They have a gazillion features they can list on the box but none work well or, in some cases, at all. I currently have a Palm Treo 700W. After 2 months I had to send the first one back because it was so unreliable. The one I have now is not much better. And this is the best phone I could find for what I needed (full synchronization with iCal, address book, email, a readable screen etc.). I am not impressed. If Apple came out with a competitor I would probably dump this for it (assuming it had these features) even if it cost me several hundred dollars. My time and frustration are well worth it.
When Apple feels it has a product with superior design (especially in the user interface category) and is reliable I fully expect they will announce an iPhone.
Oh, and I can fully respect the intelligence of all who may politely disagree with me.
Sorry, I meant to say I have a Palm 700P. It has the Palm OS not the Windows OS.
What??
No totally crude comments yet from Monkeybo… I mean, Misha Bawa??
Color me shocked!
In fact, I don’t recall seeing anything from that ‘tard since Apple announced their ‘make-the-Wall-Street-analysts-eyes-roll-into-the-back-of-their-heads’ earnings statement.
Come on, Misha… no pithy comments for us ‘fanboys’ about how we wanna ‘do’ Steve?
Where art thou now???
MW, ‘data’. As in: The data revealed in Apple’s most recent earnings report has put the smack-down on all Apple nay-sayers and sent them into secluded isolation. We can only hope that Apple moves firmly into the #3 spot so that the smarmy nay-sayers will stay in thiers.
Thelonius Mac: Typical American
I am an American… Though maybe not typical. =P
Then you admit to being a right-wing bigoted fascist? ‘Bout time someone in the US admitted it.
OH Heavens, Its friday and I just can not resist this .
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TheloniousMac wrote what could be the preface to his article and everyone just missed it. You’all thought he was refering to the article at the top of the page, but maybe he was not.
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He prefaces his article with the following:
“This is stupid writing. Period. End of story. It’s more crap from another idiot that doesn’t understand anything.”
Then he begins his actual writing piece. LOL
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Hey, sounds good to me.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I love it. LOL
Have a great weekend.
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N.
NY Times is a legitimate reporting institution? What have you been smoking? I consider that very funny.
You know what’s really funny, opie? Some retard nobody like yourself on a troll board trying to posture as if they know what a legitimate reporting institution is.
“Right Wing”.
In your country, this means “Right Breast”, no?
Like YOU idiots who don’t get the Gartner thing. You think it’s soooo stupid. Well it’s not.
Yes it is. Idiot.
Thelonius Mac-
What’s with the Rio Linda ref? This is a global forum not a Sacramento Ca. forum.
U need to pick a more global ref, like- France.
(haha kidding Frenchie)
I Assume Sac Ca. USA because Rio Linda is the butt of many jokes in that area. Unless every city named Rio Linda has a bad rap.
MDN- town
The town of Rio Linda has lower property values compared to the surrounding region.
To Johann and your “typical American’ crap: I bet you are a German, a desendent of the real Facists, and the National Socialist Party. The Nazis were leftist, read the Nobel prize winner F. Hayek and find out. America makes the world a much better place. Crawl back into your envious Europien shit hole.
We alwess knew he play too much with goat.
“Johann’s” command of American colloquial English is suspiciously impressive, i.e. “‘Bout.”
I’m callin BS. Can we not have this turn political, please?
MAMA!
I be big star, soon!
And, Mr. Thelonius, why do you think it’s better to make a few bucks on an install of OSX over the hundreds on a Mac? How do you suppose Apple make up their profit margins doing such an idiotic thing?
Johann, let’s use a little bit of our brain today, ok? Fascists make death camps. Americans do not. Fascists use syndicates to control free enterprise. Americans do not. Fascists persecute Jews. Americans do not. In fact, one of the big reasons America is disliked throughout the world is her support of Israel, where many countries spend their time at the U.N. spreading lies about Israel, or threatening to annihilate her citizenry.
There is no admitting what is not true, and serves only to highlight your rabid hate-America Leninist viewpoint. Be very careful whom you accuse of being a fascist, as leftists are reknown for depriving people of the ability to defend themselves (Washington, D.C, NYC, Chicago), putting cameras everywhere (Chicago), and putting more “police on the streets” (Clinton). If anything, those policies are much closer to fascism, or other forms of totalitarianism than the “typical American”.
Now go back to your World Worker’s Weekly, child.
@ Typical American:
1. There’s people out here in Germany who are no fascists. You just have to get it that this is a fact.
2. It has no style to blame anybody for the fact where she or he might come from. That’s just poor.
3. It’s called the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. Next time you should either be right about what you write or do research.
4. One more mistake: I know European with e like it should be.
Your name fits nicely to most of the prejudices about Americans:
Arrogant, a lack of knowledge about things outside the US,
having loads of prejudices yourselves about others, intolarent
and not very well educated, say smart…
The bad thing is, I am living in a shared house and of the guys is
from Texas and is proof of the opposite basically…
@ Typical American:
1. There’s people out here in Germany who are no fascists. You just have to get it that this is a fact.
2. It has no style to blame anybody for the fact where she or he might come from. That’s just poor.
3. One more mistake: I know European with e like it should be.
Your name fits nicely to most of the prejudices about Americans:
Arrogant, a lack of knowledge about things outside the US,
having loads of prejudices yourselves about others, intolarent
and not very well educated, say smart…
The bad thing is, I am living in a shared house and one of the guys is
from Texas and is proof of the opposite basically…