Apple vs. PC

[JoeDogInKC]

I don't think thats true. If Apple has a new phone for pre-order and they only give minor details, I and people will buy it because they love Apple and trust Apple will deliver a good product.

This scenario will never happen. Why? Because Apple loves to tell us about every single detail of their product well ahead of launch, unless it's a surprise "Launching Today" deal, in which case they still tell you everything the same day it goes on sale.

The obvious correlations are that Apple tells us about how much more powerful the latest version of a device is compared to the previous. Oh, and it's also thinner, LIGHTER, has more features, less moving parts, more "green", etc.

You know why Apple is dominating the PC industry? Because they "get it". They make some mistakes, for sure, but overall they tell you everything they can about a new product and you know EXACTLY what you're going to get.

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[Rampant]

You know why Apple is dominating the PC industry? Because they "get it". They make some mistakes, for sure, but overall they tell you everything they can about a new product and you know EXACTLY what you're going to get.

Sorry for the unrelated tangent, but Apple isn't dominating anything but reputation. They have roughly 14% of the PC market and 18% of the smartphone market.

They got to where they are by design, marketing and innovation. Admittedly, they ushered in a new industry and enjoyed not having any serious competition for awhile. Now they they have it, they are dropping market share left and right. Exactly what happened with their PCs.

I only bring this up to say Apple in no way should be used as an example of Ford releasing specs. It has nothing to do with specs. Ask 90% of any apple user anywhere to come up with 1 detailed spec about their phone/computer and you will be hard-pressed to get an answer.

 

[JoeDogInKC]

You're looking at total market penetration since inception. Look at year over year figures and Apple is whooping the collective asses of any PC maker.

Laptop/PC sales as a whole are dropping because people are getting more used to doing things on phones and tablets that they used to require a laptop or PC for.

I am an IT/Network Engineer and up until a few years ago I HATED Apple. I was a diehard Windows guy, through and through. Apple releases plenty of specs. They have pushed Intel to produce and release things specifically for their devices that put them ahead of the game. Intel Iris Pro graphics in Macbook Pro's, ULV CPU's in Macbook Airs, etc.

If you don't think that Apple doesn't sell "specs", then why does every single new product launch tout the performance improvements over both their competitors and their own previous products?

They even had exclusivity on the ULV stuff which Intel is finally being able to now provide to other manufacturers (Surface 3, for instance).

Admittedly, their design, marketing and innovation are at the top of their releases, but specs play a very important role and they make sure to include those things well before launch.

EDIT: And how a dual-core iPhone 5s can keep up speedwise with the latest Android phones for the most part. I'll concede that the latest Android phones are faster, but now we're talking Octocore versus dual-core and without that much improvement in raw power. They've also had quite a bit of time since the 5s release to play catch up.

 

[Rampant]

You're looking at total market penetration since inception. Look at year over year figures and Apple is whooping the collective asses of any PC maker.
...
If you don't think that Apple doesn't sell "specs", then why does every single new product launch tout the performance improvements over both their competitors and their own previous products?
...

I apologize for hijacking this thread to continue this tangent discussion, but you are misguided in your computer figures because Apple purposefully tries to make itself seem greater than it is. In this case, they grouped iPad sales in with personal computer sales, but don't include other companies tablet sales in the same studies. If you look at JUST computer sales, it is a different picture and Apple is well below HP, Acer, Dell and Lenovo.

(admittedly old info, but I am not about to go wasting hours looking for updated info).

More stats: In 2013, " Windows-based desktop sales increased by about 10 percent and Windows notebooks stayed flat, while sales of Apple notebooks and desktops combined fell by 7 percent, NPD said."

Anyway.. all I was trying to say is releasing specs for a car should never be compared to releasing specs for a phone/computer because the products are so different.

Heck, Ford probably doesn't even HAVE the final specs yet as (I hope) they are beating up their suppliers to drop weight and shift things around so they can offer the best specs in the price point they have already committed to.

And that is probably why they are waiting on the final weights/etc. to produce final engine tunes. So, if the weight does go up, they can say the HP went up as well to try to mitigate that.

 

[Moderator]

These off-topic posts have been moved to this new thread. Have at it.

 

[Wildcat]

I can't believe how many people still buy consumer grade HP laptops. I ordered one to replace my workhorse Dell XPS (which I kept alive by swapping in an SSD until the motherboard finally shorted out). I couldn't believe what absolute garbage it was. I returned it immediately and bought a business line Think pad from Lenovo.

Business line is a different story. HP makes decent business grade products, but there consumer PCs suck.

Apple makes great music players and tablets, but their laptops and phones are a case study in charging premium prices for lesser hardware.

I haven't used ITunes in forever since I started using Spotify and listening to FLAC files via other players.

 

[FATTBoss]

I recently replaced my iPhone4s, with an iPhone 4s. Old one was put through the wash so I needed a replacement. I wish all the makers would realize hat a number of people only want a few things from a phone:

1. Make/receive reliable phone calls
2. text
3. email
4 play games on the pooper
5. make/receive reliable phone calls

All the added crap my phone can do I rarely use. I appreciate them when I do use them, like googling a way out of NoWhere, WV, but don't rely on my phone for it. More than anything else, I just wish the makers and the phone companies would just invest in coast to coast reliable cell coverage.

As for my laptop, its a MacBook. I am not a tech guy, I get baffled easily. The Mac does what I want without fail 99.9% of the time, unlike my previous PC based laptop and my PC at work. I check message boards, email, and social media. So my opinions on what is better for anyone else really ain't important.

 

[GTsquid]

I can't believe how many people still buy consumer grade HP laptops. I ordered one to replace my workhorse Dell XPS (which I kept alive by swapping in an SSD until the motherboard finally shorted out). I couldn't believe what absolute garbage it was. I returned it immediately and bought a business line Think pad from Lenovo.

Business line is a different story. HP makes decent business grade products, but there consumer PCs suck.

Apple makes great music players and tablets, but their laptops and phones are a case study in charging premium prices for lesser hardware.

I haven't used ITunes in forever since I started using Spotify and listening to FLAC files via other players.

I would disagree that Apple laptops and phones are lesser hardware. Their feature set might be inferior (on paper at least) but the hardware build, quality and construction are the best in the industry. HTC is running a close second these days with their latest phones that are built like tanks.

I also own a Macbook after decades of PC's and the construction is night and day. You definitely pay more for less in some ways, but some of that "less" also translates to less creaking, cracking and other hardware failures i've experienced with PC's.

 

[Trackaholic]

I'm a PC guy historically, and my wife has been using Apple products for maybe the last 5 years.

I'm also a mechanical engineer, so one thing I really appreciate is high quality mechanical and industrial design. That is one thing Apple has really nailed with their products. Wife's first Apple product was one of the white MacBooks from a generation or two ago. That thing has been bullet proof. We have since passed it on to the kids for their own use. Now the wife has a MacBookPro (non-retina). It is also a beautiful machine. It does cost more than an "equivalent" windows based machine, but in some ways there just isn't an equivalent available from the traditional PC world. If you want high quality hardware (not just fast specifications), you'll end up paying a similar amount for a PC, and you'll still have a crappy trackpad.

Seriously, the trackpad on those Apple laptops is really good.

I now have an iphone and really like it. I don't really care about Apple vs. Android, but wife had an older iPhone so it made sense for me to get one because we can integrate calendars and junk like that (plus free texts, and I'm too cheap to buy an unlimited text/data plan).

Anyway, Apple will continue to lose market share in the phone/tablet space, but that's only because they basically totally redefined the market and had essentially 100% market share after the first year. Only way to go from there is down. It's different than the early computer days though because Apple has plenty of users to drive the software, and that's really all that market share is useful for. Even though the share may be dropping, Apple still sells a boatload of phones and tablets every quarter.

I do not see much changing in that market space for a while. I think it will be similar to the PC industry, where there will be a few makers competing at the lower end with Android and possibly Windows Phone, and Apple will work at milking the "expensive" end of the market. The one game changer from a price standpoint would be if the telecoms stop subsidizing phones.



-T

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